Thursday 29 October: Why there’s still reason to hope for an effective Covid-19 vaccine

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its comments facility (now reinstated, but not as good as ours),
Intelligent, polite, good-humoured debate is welcome, whether on or off topic. Differing opinions are encouraged, but rudeness or personal attacks on other posters will not be tolerated. Posts which – in the opinion of the moderators – make this a less than cordial environment, are likely to be removed, without prior warning.  Persistent offenders will be banned.

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/10/29/letterswhy-still-reason-hope-effective-covid-19-vaccine/

689 thoughts on “Thursday 29 October: Why there’s still reason to hope for an effective Covid-19 vaccine”

  3. Just wondering if a family drowns in the Irish sea off the coast of Blackpool is it Ireland’s fault?

  4. ‘Morning All

    Violent plane hijacker??

    Dangerous ship pirate??

    Moslem Pakirapist convicted of the vilest of crimes against children??

    All still here,succoured endlessly by our benefit and legal aid system………

    But these chaps,oh no.no place for them…………

    https://twitter.com/LozzaFox/status/1321577936688943104
    One slip in your paperwork and out you go…………
    Always seems to be the same don’t it,TPTB pissing in our faces and telling us it’s raining

    1. Roman citizenship could be obtained by foreigners by serving as a member of the Auxiliary forces. Why not provide the same facility for overseas members of the UK armed forces?

      2. Naive, moi? I had always assumed that service in our military would automatically entitle one to citizenship, on the Roman model. Then the Ghurka case came up. I still cannot believe the those who risk their lives for us can be treated this way. (Especially as the trash of the Universe can receive all the benefits of a citizen, and much more, simply by arriving illegally.)

    3. Stout guys, the Fijiians. Fine soldiers, excellent fellow countrymen. A credit to their country.

  6. Nicked,same.same here

    “I would hazard a guess that most who post on GP are over 50 yrs old. We
    have the least to lose from globalism as our days here are limited. It
    is admirable , in many ways , that we see the danger however and feel
    the need to call it out in the hope of awakening as many as possible to
    the danger.

    It takes a few decades to be able to identify the
    patterns that the younger generations cannot see. It’s called
    experience. You can’t teach it, you can’t buy it, you have to get it by
    living it. It’s sometimes a thankless task. People don’t like to hear
    what they don’t want to hear. It’s easy to dismiss fears as groundless
    conspiracies…especially if the media tells them convincingly that this
    is so.

    But we do what we do. For our grandchildren. Because they are the ones who will be living through the horrors ahead.

    1. Sorry to do a Peddy on you, Rik, but I think that’s bizarre.

      I suppose she might have a cannabis bazaar in the basement.

  8. Good morning, all. Grey and rain impending.

    I see German and France have shut up shop. How long before BPAPM follows suit?

        1. I am most grateful to my learned friend for his exposition and hope he will allow me to copy him in future.

        1. A pity that Rashford and his footballer chums can’t put their own hands in their very deep pockets and fund this. It’s not as though they can’t spare the money.

      1. Remember this, Anne?

        A million Biafrans every day
        Pick up a can of beans and say,
        “One for you and one for you and…

  10. Covid has hit ‘critical’ stage in England, research finds. 29 October 2020.

    While cases remain highest in northern England, a dramatic increase in infections has been recorded across all areas, according to the latest interim findings from the React-1 study from Imperial College London.

    It triggered warnings from scientists that current measures – including bans for millions on households mixing and the closure of pubs – were not working and urgent action is needed to avoid a sharp rise in hospitalisations and deaths.

    Morning everyone. My guess here is that the reason that the measures are not working is because the population is quietly sabotaging it by ignoring it where they can. We are after all not Italians and riots by the native population are almost unknown. This explanation will not appear in the MSM for obvious reasons. There is also the point as to why they should they not do so? Despite all the scare stories the reality is that even if you catch this thing the chances of your suffering any serious symptoms, unless you are over seventy, are remote in the extreme. The present measures might be likened to all cars being banned because someone has been run over on a Zebra Crossing! Along with the cars we are stopping all Commercial Traffic as well. The cure will prove to be worse than the disease!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/29/covid-has-hit-critical-stage-in-england-research-finds

    1. The cure is impossible. You learn to live with a coronavirus not defeat it. We are dying not because of a virus but because of useless illiterate politicians, incompetent scientists and mendacious business. We have failed to fight back and will pay a price too dreadful to contemplate..

    2. Funny how, even though things are considered ‘critical’, no new ‘with COVID’ deaths have been reported in my borough since at least early July. Not ONE. Lots more ‘cases’ now. Funny, that.

      Odd how London, despite having the highest ethnic minority population in the UK by some margin, has infection and death rates far lower than Up North. Could that be because of immunity based on many people getting it earlier in the year? Highly likely. I suspect even those that are getting it are doing better because the viral load is lower due to people getting some kind of immune response second time around as well as better treatments.

      What a waste of time the Nightingale hospitals were (not the Army’s fault – they were brilliant – one of the very few bright spots throughout all this), given they are now no good for either non-critical cases or convalescing, and cannot be used for acute cases.

      All the while, the fit and healthy lose their jobs, livelihoods to help the multinationals, big pharm and tech billionairres get more power, along with China, their millions of ‘useful idiots in the UN/WHO, civil services, media and education systems.

      And what are most people doing about it all? Absolutely nothing. Most of my family have just accepted it all or naively think it’ll all ‘go away’ once a ‘vaccine is found’.

      Yeah, right. If Biden cheats his way to a win next week, we’re 100% doomed. If Trump wins and hopefully the Republicans win back a decent majority in the US lower house and more overall (not that I think he’s wonderful and the solution to all our problems [Boris has been cowered into submission for the most part]), at least we stand a chance.

    3. “…current measures – including bans for millions on households mixing and the closure of pubs – were not working and urgent action is needed …”
      Quote Einstein: To do the same thing over and over and expect a different result is the definition of insanity.

    4. “…current measures – including bans for millions on households mixing and the closure of pubs – were not working and urgent action is needed …”
      Quote Einstein: To do the same thing over and over and expect a different result is the definition of insanity.

  11. Morning all

    SIR – I believe I am immune to smallpox, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus and other diseases, as a result of vaccination.

    I do not expect to have antibodies in my blood, as I have not been exposed to any of these infectious organisms recently. However, if I am, my long-lived memory T cells, which preserve data on my immunity, will stimulate my B cells to produce specific antibodies. These will gradually disappear from my blood as they overcome the invader, but I will still be immune.

    In light of this, it seems to me that the falling levels of antibodies observed in the recent Covid-19 study reflect normal recovery from a viral illness – and do not necessarily mean that immunity has not been achieved. These results should be interpreted cautiously when considering the likely effectiveness of a vaccine.

    Dr Diana Macfarlane FRCP

    Tunbridge Wells, Kent

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    SIR – While the results of the study on which you report may raise doubts about the efficacy of a Covid-19 vaccine, many suspect that a T cell response would be a better marker of immunity. In any case, the study may have a more useful effect.

    The Government’s Plan A (repeated lockdowns until a vaccine arrives) is facing growing criticism. Now there is a plausible reason to switch to a Plan B. This would involve shielding the now well-known vulnerable groups, and allowing everyone else to return to a more normal existence.

    Coupled with rapid tests for the virus and local-authority input on tracing, it would allow us to address the appalling effects of current policy, which are arguably worse than those of the virus itself.

    Professor R A Risdon

    London SW13

    SIR – It has been suggested that many will ignore the “rule of six” over Christmas. This assumes that travel will remain relatively unrestricted.

    During the first lockdown, the very few cars on the road were immediately obvious to the authorities, and could easily be stopped. I will not be surprised if the Government delivers a nasty present before Christmas to ensure compliance with its strictures.

    Keith Whittaker

    Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire

    SIR – As a lifelong Tory, I hate to get involved in Government-bashing, but there is a problem with its approach.

    On several recent visits to France, we didn’t see one person without a mask where mandated. Now we are in Dubai where, at the entrance to every shop, restaurant and office, somebody will scan your temperature and ensure that you are wearing a mask. Unless the rules are properly enforced, there is no point in having them.

    Michael West

    Poole, Dorset

    SIR – I wonder if my “Freedom Pass” will ever live up to its name again.

    Gael-Anne Morgan

    Surbiton, Surrey

    1. Michael West: “Unless the rules are properly enforced, there is no point in having them.”

      Given that the rules are useless, there is no point in enforcing them.

      1. the rules are being partially followed at best, in that scenario it is obvious that they are a waste of time.

        However, if masks and distancing were mandatory, if meeting sizes were enforced rigorously would there be a benefit? So no “I’m exempt”, probably police road blocks to check travel intentions and so on! Well they claim that it worked in China.

        That seems to be where we are going even though it would run counter to any thoughts of freedom that might have.

    2. Lesson No1, make a copy of everything, keep the originals in a safe!
      Morning Minty.

  14. Morning again

    SIR – You report (October 28) that traffickers are paid up to £3,500 per place on a boat when migrants are put to sea. A record 7,500 migrants have reached British shores this year. This amounts to a revenue of more than 
£26 million for the traffickers.

    This is crime on a colossal scale, being tackled in a devastatingly amateur manner.

    Ann Charles

    Wedhampton, Wiltshire

    SIR – Priti Patel’s criticism of “Lefty” immigration lawyers (report, October 28) is entirely misconceived.

    It is the legislation that needs beefing up to close the loopholes used by lawyers – whose remit is to serve their clients’ best interests, not those of the Home Secretary.

    Sandy Pratt

    Storrington, West Sussex

    1. Morning, Epidermoid.
      I’m impressed that AC thinks trafficking is being tackled at all – whether professionally or in an amateur way.

      1. We amateurs find ways of doing things. Professionals frequently look for ways of not doing things…

        ‘Moaning, Annie.

    3. How about claims for Legal Aid in immigration and deportation cases being made conditional upon the case succeeding?
      Then any monies paid in advance should be reimbursed back to the public purse should the case fail.

        1. For 5 years I drove past that place as I commuted across the New Forest to my practice in So’ton.

          1. I visited it several years ago and it was very attractive. I think it trades on its name!

    5. As we seem to very good at keeping and not returning them perhaps the government should merely undercut the traffickers that way we would save on useless channel patrols and earn some funds towards their keep…..

  15. SIR – Richard Woodmore (Letters, October 28) wonders whether a British Legion poppy is an essential or non‑essential item.

    You do not buy poppies. You donate generously.

    Fiona Davies

    Tenterden, Kent

    2. It is an essential item which you do not, however buy. It is there to demonstrate a national solidarity to the cause, but should never be displayed to signal virtue. Our son, aged about eight years old at the time, observed of a woman in Waitrose wearing a veritable bouquet of poppies on her lapel, “I care more!”

    3. the Canadian legion is selling face masks for Remembrance day.

      Not that we will be allowed Remembrance day activities but at least we will have a way to show respect.

  16. SIR – Prue Leith’s 10 recommendations for hospital food were all standard practice when I was nursing in the Seventies.

    Patients could have sherry before their meal to stimulate their appetites; the ward doors were closed to ensure peace and quiet; meals were taken communally on a long table in the middle of the big Nightingale ward (with flowers); and the Sister herself, with her encyclopedic knowledge of her patients’ dietary needs, measured out hot food on to china plates from a trolley, which offered several options. Every ward had its own dietician.

    As for “healthy snacks”, we student nurses were trained to rustle up scrambled eggs and porridge in the ward kitchen (yes, they existed then), and to provide tea and toast whenever a patient asked. Fruit was delivered daily, and freshly made soup served as part of a three-course meal – never solus. Outsourced sandwiches were unheard of.

    Anthea Bain

    Ely, Cambridgeshire

    1. The golden days when doctors got out of bed for patients and nurses sat with them not behind a barrier. Maggie will remember.

      1. In 1943, the nurse who looked after me – aged 2 – when I spent three months in hospital WITHOUT parents being allowed to visit – trekked across London to Stanmore to see me. Can’t see that happening in 2020.

  19. I’m sure that we are all looking forward to the clarity that will be forthcoming in today’s publication of the enquiry into anti semitism in the Labour Party, as practised by Corbyn and his entourage.

      2. Too true, Anne, nothing to be seen…. and Good Moaning.

        I very much doubt if Her Ladyship Chackrabutty will be will be withdrawing any of her previous findings of purest innocence.

      1. Surely you mean an empty whitewash tanker, having dropped off it’s load at Labour HQ?

    1. It’s been chucking it down here, but nothing at the moment.
      Looking at the weather map, it’s not going to stay dry for long!

      1. “where it is always winter and never Christmas”…..The Lying, the Snitch, and the Closed roads……

        1. I wonder how Evila May, our own version of Narnia’s Wicked Witch, would have dealt with the current crisis?

        2. 325990+ up ticks,
          Morning S,
          The horrific predicament we find ourselves in currently has not just ” come about” it has been created over the last four decades via the polling booth & a succession of bent treacherous “leaders”.
          The actions taken by the peoples immediately post 24/6/2016 shows the sanity level of the electorate, it is not very re-assuring.

    2. Boros has been shovelling everything except snow.
      Perhaps he have time to clear some pathways.

      1. 325990+ up ticks,
        Morning RE,
        He is very reluctant in clearing the one leading to the Brexitexit.

  22. Woman decapitated after three die in ‘suspected terror attack’ in Nice. 29 October 2020.

    A woman has been decapitated in a suspected terror attack in Nice, French police say.

    French media is reporting a knife attack has taken place, which left three dead and several others injured.

    Nice’s mayor Christian Estrosi tweeted: “Everything suggests a terrorist attack.”

    Full marks to that man though one suspects he will be castigated for it later. We are involved in a war; a War of Civilisations. We are going to lose! Not because of any inadequacy on the part of the native inhabitants of Europe but because the Ruling Elites act as a Fifth Column for the invaders. Their adoption of Cultural Marxism has left them, and us, essentially defenceless. It is appeasement beyond reason. No horror perpetrated by these people moves them. You will see it here!

    https://news.sky.com/story/two-dead-in-suspected-terror-attack-in-nice-12117574

      1. Not yet, Belle. Taking a historical perspective these acts are the gauntlet throwing manoeuvres. I have a feeling the ruling ‘elites’ will be swept afore the revolution and will be getting their come uppances before not too long. The fires are being nicely stoked in peoples hearts, the furnaces are building a head of steam – read the comments in the DM about the lockdown restrictions and the assault on our freedoms. The comments here are mild in comparison.

        Good morning, a very wet one here in the first tier.

        1. Good morning pm

          Wet one here as well .

          There is something very bad happening , running through the country, and I am not talking about the virus ..

          We are being whipped!

      1. The Methodist missed a slight detail: he forgot to set fire to the cathedral.
        Honestly, you just cannot get the staff.

      2. The Methodist missed a slight detail: he forgot to set fire to the cathedral.
        Honestly, you just cannot get the staff.

    3. I watched the report from a journo in Paris, he didn’t hold back on the more than obvious identity of the perpetrator. It’s no good trying to hide the facts any more, this Islamic extremism needs to be dealt with in a far more robust way, other wise it’s never going to stop.

      1. It *won’t* ever stop. The state refuses to confront the issue because amongst the hundreds of thousands of decent folk there are utter nutters.

          1. We already are. The difference is we’re not allowed to fight back.

            Notice the difference in police response: the thugs and scum kick off, the police run away.

            The tax paying, middle class majority complain about being over taxed and their property destroyed and the blasted military are kicked into operation to prevent any possible disobedience.

          1. Obs……….There is no way our political classes will ever admit to their inherent mistakes. All they try to do is justify their errors and blame everyone else for the problems they have knowingly created.

      1. Me too, Bill. After all, Lest We Forget’ is from a poem by that filthy imperialist slave owner …Rudyard Kipling. Presumably the NT will ban its use as they ‘cancel’ one of our greatest writers.

      1. ‘Morning, Belle.

        I once met a small hen in Poland that used to curl up like a cat in people’s laps.

    1. I suppose we all wonder from time to time how our friends, foes, families or loved ones will react to our death because we won’t be there to see it unless we are looking down – or looking up – from another world!

      I remember when a particularly unattractive man died and a friend of mine said: “How terrible. I cannot believe there is a soul in this world who shed a tear or mourned for him.” And of course the Beatles’ song Eleanor Rigby about the unmourned spinster was unusually poignant.

    2. I think we should be offered an opium pill when we reach our three score years and ten. If we still have our marbles we can choose our end. Ending up in a nursing home etc?…..no thanks.

      1. Most of us here have already reached that score. I’m not ready to leave yet. Certainly not via a ‘care home’.

      2. Maybe an opium pill on every birthday so by the time we reach Bill’s age, we will have accumulated enough pills for a really good sleep.

    3. Hmm. That bloke had his head cut off though.

      Although – wreckless sex with strangers, annoying the religious, driving like a maniac… it appeals.

      That and waving about a four foot chopper!

    4. Was it Churchill who said that some go to the grave never having had the throttle fully open? Can’t find the exact quote now…

  26. A small cat anecdote to brighten your morning, In the kitchen, we have a cupboard without a door where we keep large oven utensils.

    The kittens found this and set up camp; they also used it to wee in.

    This morning, I shoved in a large piece of folded plastic netting to block off the hole. Took them ten minutes, working together, to circumvent my plan!

    1. Our ailurophile will probably claim that his trombetti soup has a wonderful flavor this year.

  28. Morning Laff (especially for the golfers)

    A couple were having dinner one evening when the husband reached across the table, took his wife’s hand in his and said;
    “Beth,
    soon we will be married 30 years, and there’s something I have to know.
    In all of these 30 years, have you ever been unfaithful to me?”
    Beth
    replied, “Well Charles, I have to be honest with you. Yes, I’ve been
    unfaithful to you three times during these 30 years, but always for a
    good reason.”
    Charles was obviously hurt by his wife’s confession but
    said, “I never suspected. Can you tell me what you mean by ‘good
    reasons’?”
    Beth said, “The very first time was shortly after we were
    married, and we were about to lose our little house because we couldn’t
    pay the mortgage.
    Do you remember that one evening I went to see the
    banker and the next day he notified you that the loan would be
    extended?, well I did what I had to do”
    Charles recalled the visit to
    the banker and said, “I can forgive you for that. You saved our home,
    but what about the second time?”
    Beth answered, “And do you remember when you were so sick, but we didn’t have the money to pay for the heart surgery you needed?
    Well, I went to see your doctor one night and, if you recall, he did the surgery at no charge, well I did what I had to do.”
    “I recall that,” says Chuck. “And you did it to save my life so of course I can forgive you for that.
    Now tell me about the third time.”
    “All right,” Beth said. “So do you remember when you ran for captain of the golf club, and you needed 73 more votes.?

      1. I cant take the credit Huge, but if i could those caps should and would have been loaded i can tell you.
        And I’m not a fan of Donny.

    1. Bothers me far more that Labour label the Conservatives the nasty party yet contain all the racists, abusers, hypocrites, liars, thieves and effluent.

      Admittedly, the others all contain the same bunch, but at least the Tories don’t bother lying about their corruption.

      2. “Accuse the other side of that which you are guilty.”
        Ascribed to but probably not actually said by Joseph Goebbels and just as likely to have been coined by Trotsky or Lenin.

  31. Well, one good thing about the new French lockdown. No illegal economic migrants will be able to walk 5 miles to the beach to board a rubber boat – because the Police will be out in their thousands checking everyone’s “attestation” authorising them to be away from their homes…. And as the illegals will have no lawful justification – they’ll be fined and/or banged up.

    Or not. Ah me, just wishful thinking.

    1. Don’t forget, according to those on the Left, migrants can’t bring COVID-19 into the UK. They can die of/with it, but only once they’ve been here for a while and being first infected by ‘our racism’.

  32. Here is an interview with Conrad Black- former owner of the DT. There are those that ridicule and besmirch him for his conviction by the Federal US judicial system- a system that gets a 98% conviction rate- better than most totalitarian states, no less. Once it has you in its grasp, you are finished- financially for one thing and once that is achieved then a plea bargain and a conviction will end the ordeal, where the “process is the punishment.” Anyway, this is an interesting discussion about the media and begins with the most egregious advertisement from the Lincoln Project, which unbelievably, and these people are supposed to be conservatives, compares President Trump to Fidel Catro!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwoUEchGz9k

    2. What I do when someone like that calls is to make an excuse whilst on the phone to look something up, they leave them hanging on (they are, after all, paying for the call) for ages. They normally ‘get the message’ and end the call. It’s either that, or, if you have the facility on an answering machine, to add the auto response from the ‘Lenny’ OAP. Hillarious!

    3. Afternoon, Plum-Tart. I had one yesterday and another this morning. I put the phone down on both recorded messages.

    4. I had one last week from a fake energy company who wanted to ‘pop in’ and asses how we might make savings.
      I answered with don’t ring this number again and a fur cough.

      1. I still get real calls from my gas and elec provider asking if I’d like a ‘smart’ meter fitted, despite me saying no several times before (including formally via email) and that I’d call them first, not the other way around. BTW – don’t get one, even the 1nd gen ones cannot be guaranteed to work at all (many are too big to fit or the mobile phone signal is too weak/intermittant) or STILL aren’t universally compatible with other utility firms’ online systems.

        I’m ashamed at how inept the engineers who designed these are. It’s bad enough that the sales people (and they are and have no technical knowledge of the units) who try and sell them to us – for NO benefit (no cheaper charges for me) to customers other than no having to read and upload/phone in the data a few times a year (5 mins work each time – woooo!).

        The other downside is that they can then start charging you different rates depending on the time of day and remotely cut you off without warning or reason.

        DON’T get one (for now). Especially in the current pandemic climate. The less internet-connected tech (other than essentials) you have, the better.

        1. I have resisted the call to get a smart metre for a few years, i think they have got the message at last.
          I take my own readings and submit them on line.

  35. Lockdown fanatics are cheering the news that Anders Tegnell, the Swedish state epidemiologist, has warned that chasing herd immunity is both ‘futile and immoral’. At least that is the headline. A quick search shows that most of the media outlets that are reporting this are using a broadly similar script, quoting that phrase but without reproducing the interview in full. There is no qualification at all.

    We need a German-speaking Nottler with a subscription to Die Zeit…

    2. Well they are close to chasing herd immunity in the US with limited or no controls in any states.

      The 100,000 new cases a day doesn’t look good until you take into account the population of the US compared to other countries.

      Trump is now apparently offering free vaccinations for all. That should really go down well with the right wing Republicans who despise any form of socialized medicine.

      1. We note how successful the lockdown states are in reducing deaths and economic activity (Note – Riots and Looting are exempt)

        1. I don’t think that I have seen a reasoned comparison of lock downs in the various states.

          Trump jumped all over the northern Democrat states and their lock downs abeling the state leadership inept , Biden might have managed to raise his voice over southern states and their slow response and called them Trump lapdogs. Any lessons that could be learnt from the disparity have been lost to political dogma.

          You cannot leave out riots and looting, they are the major industries in some areas nowadays

    1. And lo! The nutters excusing this idiocy get out.

      Here’s an idea. As white Christians are blatantly awful and deserve utter misery, wh not put them into a reservation, with nations only of their own where no one else goes to stop them affecting the rest of the world with their awful ideas?

  38. Yo All

    Having read the headlines of the articles intoday’s Daily Tellygaff, I have come
    to the conclusion that if you avoid being ‘infected’ with (or by) Covid-19, that you will live forever.

    It seem that there are now no (reported) deaths from any other cause ie Heart Disease, Cancer etc

    To the Sage, Boris, it is Covid or nothing.

    We, the oppressed, strongly disagree with this, but we cannot even go toour GP, who should know
    our Medical History, to dispute the cause of death

    Is now the right time to be an ambulance chasing lawyer, because they will soon be gathering

  39. ‘Morning, Peeps. Brief visit today, grandchildren on the rampage, bless ’em.

    Drip…Drip…

    SIR – There is a large rural estate, with dependent mansion and village, close to where I live. Not long ago, a number of the farm tenants were told that the National Trust (Letters, October 28) was going to “rewild” parts of its holdings. Presumably, rent was not to be charged on these areas. A number of houses on the 10,000-acre estate are empty while the Trust has been installing bicycle tracks and other inappropriate “visitor attractions”.

    I warned the local office that it forgot its core purpose and resident tenants at its peril, should anything happen to reduce gate money. Given the Trust’s current financial difficulties, one hopes that resident tenants and core supporters will again be treated with the respect they used to be accorded.

    Tim Stafford
    Morpeth, Northumberland

    SIR – Two years ago, you kindly published a letter of mine suggesting that the National Trust was losing its focus on its “day job” of looking after our heritage in favour of bending us towards its bien pensant world view.

    I suggest that history will judge the National Trust in its current form as totally arrogant, as it takes money from members and visitors while lecturing us on the error of our ways.

    Don Webber
    Bembridge, Isle of Wight

    SIR – Any forthcoming inquiry into the role of the National Trust might like to consider the fate of a bust of Rudyard Kipling that once adorned the art studio at Chartwell, Winston Churchill’s home in Kent. The bust was presented to Churchill in 1935 by the Royal Society of St George, but has now been removed.

    Urgent action needs to be taken to restore the Trust to a position of trust.

    Stuart Millson
    East Malling, Kent

    SIR – Shouldn’t the National Trust change its name?

    Simon McIlroy
    Croydon, Surrey

    1. I received an email invitation to join in a presentation of the NT’s future strategy. I replied that if they continued with their Wokery they wouldn’t need to send me emails in the future….

  40. The latest idea to be questioned is that Kary Mullis said the PCR test that he invented should not be used for diagnostic purposes. I’ve just spent 20 minutes browsing through a number of articles of the t’is, t’isn’t variety. Unfortunately, he’s dead so we only have the testimonies of those who interviewed him but it is another depressing turn in this saga which is less and less about public health policy and more a dark and dangerous political and ideological battle.

    1. Sky News: “It was not immediately clear what the motive was for the attack.”
      “In other news, an elephant appears to have wandered into the Sky News room”.

      1. When he was told that the murderer was continually chanting alis snackbar, the mayor of Nice apparently managed to make the tenuous link to islamic extremism so maybe there is a sliver of hope.

  42. ‘Morning again. Something uplifting for a change; a serviceman to whom we owe a huge debt of gratitude. I think his Mention in Despatches is pretty mean – these days it would be an immediate ‘K’, tea with Her Maj, and showered with valuable contracts to advertise everything from condoms to dog food:

    Vice-Admiral Sir James Jungius, who took part in an audacious raid on the Adriatic coast – obituary

    He led a landing craft in Operation Devon, during which the German commander was captured in his pyjamas and a valuable harbour was won

    By
    Telegraph Obituaries
    28 October 2020 • 4:49pm
    Vice-Admiral Sir James Jungius, who has died aged 96, took part in a daring raid behind enemy lines and later became Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic.

    Shortly before midnight on October 2 1943, east of Termoli on Italy’s Adriatic coast, the 20-year-old Jungius was in command of one of several Landing Craft (Assault), or LCAs, of the 59th Flotilla, under tow of a larger Landing Craft (Infantry), or LCI, when the towing ship grounded on an uncharted sandbank. Just then, a squall with strong winds and driving rain blotted out visibility.

    Casting off the LCAs so as not to foul the towing hawsers, the LCI ran on blind towards the intended release point, the night so dark that no land could be seen and the accompanying LCAs only dimly glimpsed. At the release point Jungius and six other LCAs each embarked 30 men of 3 Commando, before running in the last 1¾ miles to the beaches. Jungius’s LCA hit the beach at 0214, one minute before H-hour, and his passengers stepped ashore dry-shod.

    Operation Devon, the code word given to the amphibious landing by British commandos at Termoli, 30 miles behind the German lines, was an outstanding success. The German defences were pointed landwards and southwards, and the commandos reached the centre of the town before the Germans were alerted, capturing their commander in his pyjamas.

    German vehicles and motorcyclists were still driving unknowingly into commando ambushes at midday. Over the next two days, while the 16th Panzer Division launched vicious counter-attacks, the LCAs ferried reinforcements and stores ashore and took off prisoners of war. Despite repeated shelling and air attacks, the LCAs’ shallow draft saved them from all but direct hits by bombs.

    By the time the advancing British Eighth Army arrived on October 6, the commandos had won a valuable harbour in what the Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean called an outstanding operation: it turned the hinge-pin of the enemy line, was boldly conceived and executed, and was an excellent example of the effective deployment of sea forces.

    The report of proceedings referred to the splendid work of the highest order, and the cheerfulness and devotion to duty of the LCA crews; Jungius was Mentioned in Despatches.

    James George Jungius was born at Barnes in London on November 15 1923. He was educated at Dulwich Prep and learned to love the sea on holidays at Polperro and from reading The Wonder Book of the Navy.

    He entered the Navy in 1937 and benefited from the Admiralty’s belief in its own immortality: despite the outbreak of war, training for young career officers continued at a leisurely pace, and Jungius was given appointments at sea as a midshipman in the battleship Rodney, the cruiser London, and the destroyer Arrow. He saw action on Arctic convoys, spent Christmas under air attack in Malta, and hunted German surface raiders and blockade-runners in the Atlantic.

    On June 21 1941 Jungius was about to be ducked by King Neptune’s bears in the traditional crossing-the-line ceremony when London found the German supply ship Babitonga, who scuttled herself; her crew were surprised to be picked up by men in fancy dress – grass skirts and painted faces.

    Jungius returned to Britain for his sub-lieutenant’s course before being appointed to the 59th Flotilla LCA, and he completed his war in the destroyer Lauderdale. In 1945 Jungius became second-in-command of the captured German Elbing-class destroyer T28, with a mixed crew of British officers and German PoWs conducting trials in the Solent. He carried out his duties efficiently in the somewhat trying and unusual circumstances, and showed tact in dealing with the German personnel.

    Jungius specialised in navigation, and in 1946 became navigator of the brand-new sloop Sparrow on a two-year deployment based on Bermuda. After carnival in Trinidad, a 900-mile passage up the Amazon to Manaus, and the relief of Castries, St Lucia, after a disastrous fire, Sparrow visited Georgetown in British Guiana. There he met the 20-year old Rosemary “Bullet” Matthey, and on the sixth day of the visit he proposed and she accepted.

    Over the next few years, Jungius’s reports reflected that he was an outstandingly good navigator and a first-class ship handler. An unusual name and a court-martial are regarded as ways of getting ahead in the Navy, and Jungius was duly court-martialled in 1953 for smuggling cigarettes: the conviction was quashed (intent had not been proved), and, after commanding the anti-submarine frigate Wizard during the Suez Crisis, he was promoted early to captain in 1963.

    After two years in command of the frigate Lynx, the last ship on the old South Atlantic and South America station, Jungius was appointed assistant naval attaché in Washington, where he showed himself to be an outstanding officer who, with his wife, made a memorable contribution to the special relationship between the US Navy and the Royal Navy.

    Having commanded an LCA 30 years before, there was satisfaction that in 1971 he was appointed to the commando-carrier Albion, which carried her own landing craft and commando helicopters. Jungius was remembered as a born leader of a happy ship whose people liked and respected him, while Albion embarked a succession of air squadrons and commando units for exercises from the Arctic to the Mediterranean and the Far East.

    From 1972 to 1974 as a rear-admiral, Jungius was Assistant Chief of the Naval Staff (Operational Requirements), and on promotion to vice-admiral he was appointed Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic (1975-77) based in Norfolk, Virginia. Jungius struck up a good working relationship with his American boss, Admiral Isaac C Kidd Jr, believing strongly that the special relationship was important to both countries.

    Jungius was knighted in 1977 and served as the Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic’s Representative in Europe from 1978 to 1980.

    In retirement, he bought a smallholding in Cornwall where he raised beef for several years, and was deputy lieutenant of Cornwall.

    Jungius was dry, but was known for the wonderful smile which lit up his face, even after he had delivered a well-deserved reprimand to a junior officer. He was genuinely interested in others, regardless of their station in life, whether stoker or dignitary, grandchild or farming friend. Everyone enjoyed his company, and he wore his success in life lightly.

    He married Rosemary Matthey in 1949; she died in 2005. He is survived by two sons; another son predeceased him.

    Vice-Admiral Sir James Jungius, born November 15 1923, died October 14 2020

    BTL comment:

    Peter Jones
    29 Oct 2020 4:08AM
    Well done, that man!

    Never heard about Operation Devon, how is it we celebrate and nitpick our failures but never wallow in our successes?

    2. Thank you. An excellent read and an inspirational leader, like so many of his generation. Will we ever see their like again?

    3. “…how is it we celebrate and nitpick our failures but never wallow in our successes”
      It’s what we do.

  43. SIR – Priti Patel’s criticism of “Lefty” immigration lawyers (report, October 28) is entirely misconceived.

    It is the legislation that needs beefing up to close the loopholes used by lawyers – whose remit is to serve their clients’ best interests, not those of the Home Secretary.

    Sandy Pratt
    Storrington, West Sussex

    I agree that the legislation needs beefing up BUT the remit of left-wing law firms seems to be to enrich themselves out of legal aid by serving their ‘clients’, irrespective of the best interests of the nation. Many of such clients are terrorists, illegal immigrants and other unsavoury individuals.

    The remit of such law firms needs to be reined in to stop them from making a mockery of the intent of any legislation that is already in place.

  44. People infected with coronavirus may develop red and swollen feet that turn purple. 29 October 2020.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bab27166b3efefbb2143a769ad557da6328add2f9ddd330da28db06afd76e7e4.jpg

    People infected with coronavirus may end up developing a skin symptom known as Covid toes, scientists have said.

    Research by the International League of Dermatological Societies and the American Academy of Dermatology found some patients had chilblain-like inflammation on their feet, sometimes lasting for months at a time.

    The condition typically develops within a week to four weeks of being infected and can result in toes becoming swollen or changing colour.

    BELOW THE LINE

    Nicholas Halksworth. 29 Oct 2020 12:52PM.

    Basically, absolutely anything that’s wrong with you is a symptom of covid, and you’re added to the stats.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/10/29/covid-toes-people-infected-coronavirus-may-develop-red-swollen/

    5. The toes on my right foot are purple … it must be BorisToe … I’m doomed ….At least not CorbynToes … ie … amputation …

  45. Morning, Campers.
    A morning thunk.
    Yesterday I visited my brother in Bury St. Edmunds and stayed for the day while my grandson worked with his great-uncle in his forge.
    It was a fine, dry morning; normally I would have nipped into the town centre for a coffee and a bit of window shopping – possibly even bought something. Would also have treated everyone to a pub lunch.
    I did not bother to do any of these things as any spontaneous action is now such a joyless chore. I sat in the conservatory with my sis-in-law (who is working from home) and got on with my tapestry.
    How many other people are making similar decisions throughout the country?

      1. I find I get so wound up by the British sheep, that I find it easier to get on at home.
        I am now ashamed to be British.

    2. Good morning anne, et al.
      More than a few and one can only imagine the effect it is having on small businesses.

      1. I think ours is going to die unless we are able to run our February and Easter courses. And not only will we have no money coming in but the banks will probably be charging us for holding the money we do have in bank accounts

        1. Good luck.

          We had the Tourist information statistics request, today.
          14 weeks booked, 10 weeks cancelled. I wonder if we’re typical, I suspect we may even have done well as the four we got were last minute bookings.

          I commented that Covid restrictions had been bad for us.

          We’re now in two minds whether to even open up next year, the hassle of preparation and cleaning plus the costs of advertising make it too much like hard work for little return.

        2. I thought your Easter course went quite well as a dgital one? But of course you can hardly charge the same sort of fees as you would for a total live-in experience.

      2. I think that’s entirely intentional, to give significantly more business (effective monopolies) to big business. Don’t forget that the WHO and big pharma have form over fake pandemics, having tried this before with swine and avian flu 10 years of so ago. They initially got roasted by the media and politicians, but then it all died down once they realised THEY could also get more power if they went along with it.

        Just watch Dave Cullen’s videos on his Computing Forever YT (but preferably BitChute [not feeding the monster of Google]) channel on all this – many great videos about The Great Reset, The Pandemic and the agenda behind it and what we can expect next.

    3. You were lucky, when I were a lad ahem, right now, Wales is closed although I am occasionally allowed to forage for food courtesy of the welsh windbags.

    4. Morning Anne,

      If we don’t do ‘normal’ we will soon forget what normal is….a form of brainwashing.

      As for the tapestry we are being well and truly stitched up…..

      2. Yep – see my posts about what is to come next. It should scare the living daylights out of most people in normal times, but not any more.

    5. Good morning Anne

      I used to get out and about when Moh played golf.. Usually a visit to Dorchester or Blandford, I have only been to Dorchester twice since February ,
      sadly many shops have closed , and when I popped into Hotter shoe shop, I must have been in there five minutes, wearing my mask was unbearable and oppressive , I exited pretty quickly because the shop was too warm .

      It was always pleasant browsing around Waterstones , but wearing a mask was horrible.. the smell of new books and looking at the latest offerings used to be very pleasurable. I would also pop into one of the small department stores just to enjoy the spray /scent of new perfumes, what is the point when you are wearing a mask, a total non experience.

      1. I miss the street music and the colourful market stalls.

        …it’s so depressing everyone wearing masks and giving shoppers a wide birth. Everything is so grey….like Soviet Russia…

        1. Morning Plum ,

          At the beginning of the year , I was busy sorting out Moh’s late mothers pics and bits and pieces, I managed to take suitcases of old headscarves , table clothes , knitting needles to charity shops , and …. a suitcase full of old hats that belonged to his grandmother.. some lovely old hats the sort that would be worn with a hat pin, several had a net, those were the days when every woman wore a hat.

          The big tidy up came to a halt, and we have our own clutter to organise just in case.

          How do you sort old photos, family and ancient photos, what does one do with paper work, 1940’s sewing baskets complete with knicker elastic , suspender stuff , old darning for stockings gear , trinkets , books?

          Moh and I have haven’t done one useful thing apart from fiddling around in the garden during these Covid times , he has played golf 4 times a week , and I just shop for food and walk the dogs!

          2. We still have this spring’s charity shop / flea market supplies in boxes all over the house.
            I’m reluctant to throw it out, as there’s a lot of useful stuff there, but…

          4. I have acquired a great many photos, both print and digital, of long-dead family members in the 24 years or so since I started doing family history – I guess my sons will have to sort them out.

            I don’t have any hats though – I don’t remember my mother ever wearing any hat other than a woolly one if it was cold and one of those plastic ‘rainmates’ if it was wet.

          7. Regretfully, I left it too late with my mother. Now we have a load of photos of people I have no idea who are. Family history just lost. I deeply regret that.

          8. A friend of mine was left a photo album of her father’s but she had no idea who the people were. It’s sad but just enjoy them for what they are. When my mother died i had few photos of anyone prior to her generation, but since I took up FH I’ve made contacts with distant cousins all over the place and many more have surfaced. Then once you get used to what they looked like, you can begin to identify other photos of that person.

            But I will have to go through them and identify those I can for the next generation. Sadly, neither of my sons have children so they are the last.

      2. Hotter shoe shop in Colchester has closed.
        I wear a ‘mask exempt’ lanyard, but the sheer atmosphere of hysteria and paranoia means a quick food shop is all I can be @rsed to do

        2. I also wear an ‘exempt from wearing a mask’ badge (I do actually have asthma which gets set off after a few minutes of msak-wearing) – as yet, no shop has declined to let me in – they want my business and if you ask first,m rather than just walk in, they are far more friendly and amenable.

          My local doctor’s surgery, on the other hand, said mask or visor or you ain’t coming in (with an appointment). I always carry a mask, just in case. Needless to say, the place was practically deserted. Authoritarian indeed.

          If I can find a country that is reasonably run and self-sufficient food and power-wise that isn’t authoritarian and can undertsnad English enough for me to work there, then I’m off. With the way things are going, unless there’s a BIG backlash and soon, I can’t see things getting better (and enough) for me to want to continue to live here.

    6. What is the previous most often done thing we all don’t (cant) do anymore ?
      Meet with friends and relations, take a holiday, go for a pint, go shopping, go to the library, go to a show ?
      It’s a sad, sad state of affairs, restriction after restriction, but still there has been no positive or satisfactory explanation of how this ‘pandemic’ started or where it originated from. I very much doubt if this was a natural occurrence.

    7. Yep. Sometimes I can’t even remember what day it is, because nothing changes. A previously reasonably vital (for their age) elderly relative is now, due to ‘lockdown’ and the consequences of the general restrictions, going downhill fast mentally (the first signs of dimentia rapidly growing) because they can’t see friends, go out and do things, socialise – and only interract with a few close family members living nearby.

      Even that is bad, because, like most people, they have little to talk about of note. I think a LOT of all this is being done deliberately to soften us up for the next round of authoritarian measures – not just more lockdowns, but even more personal surveillance, dependency on the state through ‘free’ basic incomes paid to all and wiping out debts in return for turning over all property to the state and renting it back and having to take the vaccine (especially if you want to travel or get a job) – otherwise its lockdown at home for you and me.

    8. Its having a great effect on our bank balance. Long gone are the coffees at the coffee shop or the occasional lunch out just because.

      For the first time since March we went into the supermarket together this week, I have forgotten how to replace the shopping list by spontaneous buys.

      Is it any surprise that small businesses are struggling when discretionary spending has plummeted?

      1. Have you also noticed:

        1. How few offers there are in the shops, including food;
        2. How much of the electronics, tech/phones, computers are now ‘out of stock’ at most shops with actual stores, but not at Amazon in comparison.

        The death of the High Street is near. And using cash. Very bad.

        1. The lock downs don’t help.

          The welsh ban on selling basics such as clothes will only encourage people to shop online. I am sure that Amazon will capitalize on the opportunity.

          2. Especially as, IMHO, I think they and other big multinationals are in on the whole thing.

          3. Something which has been pointed out to them by the CC of the North Wales police.

            Of course Amazon are not the only organisation who sell things online. I recently placed an order with a lady in west Wales – I usually buy from her at the Royal Welsh Show in July but as we had no shows I hunted out her website and ordered my usual items online.

          4. The son of some friends is about to start a job in an Amazon warehouse. He’s a graduate, but in these curious times, he’s glad to get a job – any job.

        2. I haven’t used any cash since March. I haven’t been shopping either, apart from the weekly sprint round Morrisons for food.

          2. When I was using cash for small purchases, I never got more than £30 out of the machine and it lasted several weeks.
            I don’t know what will happen when things get more normal and we can start our normal fundraising activities with the hedgehog stall, because that relies on people having cash.

    1. Hmm, notable that the law was changed by the same people who followed it.

      Much like the hard Left so desperate to enact their ‘hate’ laws to control what people can and cannot say. Turns out Lefties haven’t changed much.

    2. And so it goes on. And now we seem to be in the midst of another era of unnecessary restrictions on the human race, but with far wider implications.

      1. or the Chinese/WHO/UN/Bill Gates (GAVI)? Take you pick. Wouldn’t trust any of them.

  48. In addition to the DT regularly censoring readers’ comments because of their criticism of the paper (including not printing letters from respected readers like Matthew Biddlecombe [who used to have them printed regularly up until Chris Evans and the Barclay Bros took over]) or commenting on articles where comments aren’t allowed, now we have their mods deleteing posts from readers asking how they can stop the plethora of ads on the website.

    Whilst this is a revenue source, they (IMHO) go way over the top and can slow down older computers/phones/tablets so much that the website is unusable. That they are relying so heavily on ad revenue from (IMHO) not-so-good firms and plastering them wall-to-wall on the site with heavy tracking cookies etc just shows the contempt for readers.

    I actually saw in the comments section under a review of the new Land Rover the author laying into readers for deigning to criticise him for making out the car was going to be a hit with farmers (not at that price and in auto form only) and would apparently be ‘reliable’, given all the evidence to the contrary from all the other LR lineup at the moment. A US reviewer (on YT) had a check engine light come on and stay on after being back at the dealer within the first 100 miles of getting it new.

    Sadly their journos arguing and having readers’ pertinent comments deleted/comments sections gone altogether is now a common occurance. I’m tempted to write a letter to the Mail describing these problems and to ask them to investigate – including if the DT is lying about subscriber numbers (given the large number of us who said they’d leave in the last year or so and now have done).

    Often now more comments here daily than on the Letters Page itself. That surely says a lot.

    1. It is the obvious aim of all “digital newspapers” to remove comments from their pages. They have never liked them and the forthcoming Online Harms Bill will complete the process of preventing any opinions being expressed that contradict those of the Elites!

    2. Hundreds of ads on some newspaper sites. They ask you to take out a paid subscription but they do not say if the ads will then disappear.

      1. Believe me – they don’t disappear. They do have your contact details to pass on, unless you tell them not to as you join. And for anyone reading an online newspaper, use a combo of ad blockers, pop-ups/unders and cookies management ad-on software (e.g. uBlock Origin, AdBlockPlus and Ghostery), all available and free on platforms like Firefox, some on Chrome (but that’s Google owned), not sure about others.

        Works the vast majority of the time (I use Firefox) on my 9yo PC and 4yo tablet, the latter means I can now view several websites (like the DT) I couldn’t when the ads were ramped up a few years ago (mainly video or ‘flash player’ type ads. Also helps stop inadvertantly clicking on ads with links to third party websites.

        1. I liked the idea of the Pi-Hole that appeared a few years ago, but am too lazy to try it out.

        1. The only way I find the Daily Fail readable is on my iPad using Safari with AdGuard as the blocker, and I never bother on any other platform such as my PC.
          If I stumble onto a site with an interesting article that demands disabling of my ad blocker I normally move on to something else.

  49. In addition to the DT regularly censoring readers’ comments because of their criticism of the paper (including not printing letters from respected readers like Matthew Biddlecombe [who used to have them printed regularly up until Chris Evans and the Barclay Bros took over]) or commenting on articles where comments aren’t allowed, now we have their mods deleteing posts from readers asking how they can stop the plethora of ads on the website.

    Whilst this is a revenue source, they (IMHO) go way over the top and can slow down older computers/phones/tablets so much that the website is unusable. That they are relying so heavily on ad revenue from (IMHO) not-so-good firms and plastering them wall-to-wall on the site with heavy tracking cookies etc just shows the contempt for readers.

    I actually saw in the comments section under a review of the new Land Rover the author laying into readers for deigning to criticise him for making out the car was going to be a hit with farmers (not at that price and in auto form only) and would apparently be ‘reliable’, given all the evidence to the contrary from all the other LR lineup at the moment. A US reviewer (on YT) had a check engine light come on and stay on after being back at the dealer within the first 100 miles of getting it new.

    Sadly their journos arguing and having readers’ pertinent comments deleted/comments sections gone altogether is now a common occurance. I’m tempted to write a letter to the Mail describing these problems and to ask them to investigate – including if the DT is lying about subscriber numbers (given the large number of us who said they’d leave in the last year or so and now have done).

    Often now more comments here daily than on the Letters Page itself. That surely says a lot.

  50. I see that the Caliph of Ankara is featured in the letters today.

    Erdogan has neutralized the opposition in Turkey and sits in the palace he built, 30 times larger than the White House, and presides over his interference in numerous countries throughout the Middle East including Libya, Egypt, Greece, Cyprus, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and now Azerbaijan. This interference includes Turkish troops on the ground, assorted mercenaries and members of terrorist organisations such as ISIS. He also harbours terrorists and allows radical Islamic TV stations to broadcast to countries that he is trying to undermine, such as Egypt.

    Erdogan is a principal proponent of that malevolent terrorist organisation, the Muslim Brotherhood. One of the things that terrifies me is that Biden might win the US presidency, in which case he might revert to Obama’s appeasement and cooperation with the MB. His Ambassadress in Cairo, Anne Patterson, was overtly collaborating with the MB in violation of her requirement to be impartial. She became the most hated woman in Egypt. Obama, Clinton and Biden used to entertain the MBs’ leaders at the White House.

    Erdogan is assisted, in particular financially, by that other malicious proponent of the MB, Qatar.

    We mustn’t let a distraction such as the ‘freedom of speech’ in France divert attention from the malevolent machinations of this dictatorial despot.

    As you can tell, I am not a fan of Erdogan!

  51. Just to add to ones fury – another slammer on the rampage in Avignon – was shot dead by the police.

  52. Here’s a very good discussion with Mark Steyn who identifies the crucial elements of where the West is right now- for better or worse- mostly the latter. It has been up for a couple of weeks, so many may have viewed it. The second half is a Q & A but the questions are sensible:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8AXgo9UdPY

    1. Every single decision the state is making is wrong. Energy prices are going up to force down demand rather than to meet it, yet the state is desperate to bring in ever more people consuming energy.

      Company taxes are increasing when unemployment is high. The individual is taxed heavily and demand slumps – the response is to give even more people welfare rather than create jobs. They want to build a new trainset when working from home has proven viable and our digital infrastructure utterly inadequate.

      It wants us to drive electric cars yet ignores how polluting the batteries are, nor how short lived the components. The confusion though is that people think cars are for transport. That’s how they use them, after all. The state wants everyone to have a battery on their doorstep to smooth out utterly inadequate and unreliable wind and solar.

      Both of which are polluting, short lived and inefficient. What disgusts me is Lefties and statists wail about how ‘green’ we are yet ignore that for their indulgence, China – and especially Mongolia – suffers with open cast mining of those rare earth materials.

      1. It is quite obvious, that the needs of the citizens are being ignored or subverted as the plans for the future are being implemented by those that have created a dynamic that demands that ordinary people’s rights be trampled upon if necessary. The future is now bleak- extremely bleak.

        1. What was it the idiot video said? You’ll eat meat far less often.

          What if I don’t want to? What if I want to eat meat all the time, for every meal? Where does my choice come in to it?

    2. Until August 1914 a sensible, law-abiding Englishman could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the state, beyond the post office and the policeman. He could live where he liked and as he liked. He had no official number or identity card. He could travel abroad or leave his country for ever without a passport or any sort of official permission. He could exchange his money for any other currency without restriction or limit. He could buy goods from any country in the world on the same terms as he bought goods at home. For that matter, a foreigner could spend his life in this country without permit and without informing the police. Unlike the countries of the European continent, the state did not require its citizens to perform military service. An Englishman could enlist, if he chose, in the regular army, the navy, or the territorials. He could also ignore, if he chose, the demands of national defence. Substantial householders were occasionally called on for jury service. Otherwise, only those helped the state who wished to do so. The Englishman paid taxes on a modest scale: nearly £200 million in 1913-14, or rather less than 8 per cent. of the national income. The state intervened to prevent the citizen from eating adulterated food or contracting certain infectious diseases. It imposed safety rules in factories, and prevented women, and adult males in some industries, from working excessive hours. The state saw to it that children received education up to the age of 13. Since 1 January 1909, it provided a meagre pension for the needy over the age of 70. Since 1911, it helped to insure certain classes of workers against sickness and unemployment. This tendency towards more state action was increasing. Expenditure on the social services had roughly doubled since the Liberals took office in 1905. Still, broadly speaking, the state acted only to help those who could not help themselves. It left the adult citizen alone.

      A. J. P. Taylor.

      This is the speech Steyn refers to in the clip! Ah happy days! Since then it’s been downhill all the way!

      1. It’s the endless expansion of taxation that’s allowed the state to grow to the size and scale it is. Cut off that funding and the state shrivels to obedience and serves, rather than ‘manages’.

  53. How the Government is moving towards total control. Very soon the move to electric cars will become compulsory. Electric cars need batteries and batteries need to be charged at home. This because the Government did not go for the more difficult and more expensive option of electrified roads. Electrified roads are more practical, like trams.
    However if you need to charge your car battery and your domestic electricity supply has been cut off you will need to go by public transport.
    You will not be able to pay for things, including bus and trains fares using cash. Cash will drop out of use in the next two years. Governments will then be able to electronically block your access to money, and therefore to to moving around, to transport, food, clothing, everything. It will be total control. Very soon.

  55. I know I am beginning to sound like Jill Backson – but

    Another knife-carrying slammer arrested in Lyon.

    2. Don’t want to worry you, but ‘Bill Jackson’, from the typos formerly of this parish, is still posting online.
      Albeit sporadically. He had a great sense of humour when he wanted.

    1. Shame the ‘powers that be’ could never organise a simple p*ss up in a beer garden.
      But they’ll all have bombproof pensions.

      1. Conners It makes you wonder how our parents and grand parents would feel, many having given and or risked their lives to save this country from german invasion, if they saw how easy it has become to to arrive here and become endowed with everything they had to work damn hard for. Our useless political classes. I’d like to be able repeat this quote “For give them lord for they know not what they do”. But that’s to the contrary, they know exactly what they are doing.

    1. From the article:-

      The Church in Pakistan has also protested the similar cases of Huma Younus and Maira Shahbaz, two other Catholic teenagers who were abducted by Muslim men and subject to forced conversion and marriage which the courts validated.

      Younus, now pregnant with her abductor’s child, was kidnapped aged 15 in October 2019 and, according to a petition by persecution.org, is currently “imprisoned in a single room in her captor’s home”

      Meanwhile, 14-year-old Maira Shahbaz was taken at gunpoint in April of this year but later managed to escape. Aid to the Church in Need have launched a campaign to grant her asylum in the UK because she is currently in “immediate danger” and is “hiding from extremists who accuse her of apostasy”

      There is no chance of her being granted asylum in the UK, because she is a Christian. Now, if she were Muslim…

      2. Why do we allow such filth to live in Britain?

        How many MPs need to have their own daughters raped by ropers before they say that enough is enough?

    2. And what is also disgusting is that our pathetic British courts would never find against the Muslim rapist

      1. Just read of more attacks, one in Avignon, another outside the French Embassy in Saudsi and there a dmos of Chechens outa
        ide French Embassy in Moscow.

      1. A time when Wales seemed to have a production line of superb players, in almost every position.

        I suspect that Wales could have beaten a combined English, Scottish and Irish side from best of the rest of the Lions.

        1. Indeed. In them days, I would always watch a game if Wales were playing. Graceful but hard rugby. Such a contrast to today’s thuggish slug-fest with fouls-a-minute.

        2. Part of my youth, and the time I supported Wales in the rugby. That’s really upsetting news, another icon gone.

          1. It was my playing era, and whilst I was never even remotely close to that level, I did play for teams who had people in them who did play against and with those greats.

            I was once lucky enough to play in a 7-a-side team where three ex-England players were in the side.

            One of their claims to fame was being smashed to the ground by JPR, scoring a try in an England Wales game.

          3. I can’t be absolutely certain, but I think it’s my friend who gets trampled.
            Twice.

            One poor sod carries the can for other people’s earlier misses.

          4. I only watched on TV, never even made a live game. I was young, Wales were definitely the world’s greatest Rugby Union side, life was good.

        3. It was once claimed that under a mountain the west of Wales was a factory making outside-halves. Including, of course, the legendary Barry John.

          1. John retired at the height of his prowess. I often wondered how many International points he might have scored had he carried on playing and how many fewer Phil Bennet et al would have scored.

            They said something similar about a mine in Yorkshire, where a whistle would call up a world class fast bowler.

          4. FST had the finest bowling action I can ever recall seeing.
            I also wonder how many wickets he would have taken had he played as many tests and against such relatively weak opposition as modern players do.

          5. There was an interesting piece in The Grimes the other day about the disappearance (almost) of the drop goal.

          6. I didn’t see the article but I can guess at possible reasons.

            The rules on rolling mauls have made a try plus conversion much more likely.

            If a score isn’t made that way, a more straightforward penalty becomes available and better still yellow cards for persistent and almost unavoidable offences present a potential huge advantage.

            Given also the speed that defenders leave the gain line to tackle and it becomes inevitable that that the drop goal is a less attractive proposition, if missed it relieves all the pressure on a defending side.

            (At three points it was always over-valued, in view.)

          9. Laws, not rules, please. Another factor to those you mention is that the defence is almost always offside at breakdowns, mauls and scrums. Also the change from unbound players having to be 10 yards back, behind the rear foot, to simply behind the rear foot has reduced the gap thereby cutting the time and space available to the attacking side and allowing the defence to get up on the attackers very quickly.

          10. If we’re going to be pedantic:

            “allowing the defence to get up on the very quickly.”

            The what very quickly?

          12. Always leave them wanting more. That’s the way to be remembered as a success!
            Ronnie Barker did the same.

          13. Indeed, but as JSP notes, he did it because he started to find all the “extras” too much

          15. He retired because of the off-pitch pressure. In his own words, largely because of his inability to say “no” to requests for his time and, of course, because as an amateur he was also holding down a full time job.

            It was fortunate for Phil Bennett that he was another very talented player. Otherwise the comparisons would have been terribly harsh.

          17. Yes, I know, (as Max himself would have said) I was there. Live at the Capitol Cinema in Aberdeen … please don’t ask which year but somewhere in the 1970s.

            Appropriate verse quoted below.

          18. We saw him at the Bedford Moat House (although he called it the Boat House. An excellent evening! 1986, according to SWMBO, the guardian of all things to be remembered.
            Sigh

          21. At that time we were building the
            first Cotton Valley extension works.
            One of my main duties was to, daily,
            ring Cranfield to tell them if the two
            tower cranes would be operating!!
            We took the Engineer … Sir W. Halcrow
            and Staff … out for an evening of jollification.

          24. Err… yes!
            A flat above Douglas the Butcher, on the High Street.
            Happy times. Only work, no money, very uncomplicated.

          25. Life feeds upon life, and time passes. It doesn’t really go faster as we get older – but it certainly seems that way.

            In the last couple of months I’ve been treated by a tiny Sri-Lankan opthalmologist who looked about 16, but was clearly considerably older and very good at her job (including the part where you reassure the patient who is about to have a laser fired into her eye) and a dentist who looked as if he still ought to be in short trousers. I think I must be getting old :-((

          27. Seem to recall he was at the Rosemount (?), Aberdeen, 1990. Couldn’t get a ticket.

          28. In 1990 I was arriving on the Shropshire/Montgomeryshire border – still trying to rebuild the shattered remains of my life.

          29. Oops again. I didn’t see your edit until I checked notifications.

            Probably time to refresh the page 😉

        1. Notice the absence of hugging and kissing after the score. I was taught the old ethos that a try was a team not an individual effort…

  59. Interesting address by Toy Boy – called a spade an islamic terrorist. Said that France was wholly united behind all Catholics.

    In his comments he used the word “islamist” several times adjectivally. But in the printed version – in the press release, that word does not appear. Funny that.

    2. ‘Funny that.’

      I tend to get quite cross at such skewing
      of such quotes, your restraint is admirable!

      Good afternoon, Bill.

      1. I am known for it – ask any of my wives!!

        The good news is that the vast majority of yer Franch (sic) will see the TV version; not many people take newspapers these days.

  61. Muslims ‘have the right to kill millions of French people’, Malaysia’s former PM says after church terror attack in Nice
    Mahathir Mohamad launched an extraordinary outburst after Nice attack today
    He said freedom of speech does not include ‘insulting other people’ amid row over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed which France has defended
    The ex-PM who lost power in February had his most provocative tweet removed

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8893671/Muslims-right-kill-millions-French-people-Malaysias-former-PM-says.html

    1. I think this is more evidence of the fact that it is almost impossible for Muslims to live peacefully with other people.

      Blair made the problem worse by encouraging mass Muslim immigration into Britain. Now that Starmer wants to sort out the anti-semitism in the Labour Party and has expelled Mr Corbyn perhaps he could now commit himself to getting rid of the threat to us all posed by Muslims?

      1. We discovered that Germany-based migrants were fleeing to the UK after meeting an Iraqi on a Kent beach who had just got off a boat from France. He spoke no European language apart from the German he had picked up over five years as a ‘refugee’ in Berlin.

        But in order to understand why this phenomenon has come about we must first go back to those euphoric days in 2015 when the frontiers of Europe cracked on the say-so of Mrs Merkel who, rightly, wanted to help those fleeing war-racked Syria.

        The problem was that Syrians were not alone in asking for sanctuary. Many migrants — including jihadists and economic opportunists — pretended to be Syrian refugees. They came in under the radar as the number queuing to get to Germany grew each day.

        I was in Berlin that year and met the first Syrians who had made the journey on trains from the border.

        They said only a third of the arrivals in Germany’s capital were from their country.

        One, 25-year-old Mohammed Al-Abaan, banged his hand loudly on the table as we had a coffee together.

        Three teenage girls were walking past in Islamic robes. ‘Look at them’, he shouted. ‘They pretend to be Syrian refugees like us. But their skin is blacker. They are Arab-speaking Muslims from Africa’s Sudan’.

        The civil engineering graduate from a middle-class family fled Syria to escape military service in President Bashar Al-Assad’s army as it waged a civil war against Islamic State terrorists.

        I thought he had got his figures wrong, but he drew a bar chart in my notebook showing that two-thirds of those he had travelled with into Germany were not his countrymen.

        He explained, as a group of his friends at the table — including a 17-year-old boy called Saleh — nodded in agreement: ‘I can even spot light-skinned Arab men from Morocco or Tunisia who are pretending they are Syrian by how they cut their beards. It is not like us.

        ‘I love Germany and Germany loves us refugees, but this is not right,’ he added as he prepared to spend his first night in Berlin’s multicultural district of Neukolln.

        ‘The Germans run an asylum system designed to break people because it nearly always ends in deportation, unless you are Syrian who are a protected nationality. Even though I have a job, I could be ordered to leave at any time.’

        Revealingly, Majed explained: ‘I know of plenty who go to Britain. It is so easy now to get from Germany to the French coast and take the boat or lorry across the Channel. Buying a ride from a trafficker is as simple as getting a train ticket.’

        In Leipzig, Majed introduced us to William Osaruyi, a 29-year-old Nigerian who fled Islamic terrorism and is in hiding from the German police.

        He entered Europe just after Mrs Merkel’s welcome speech five years ago and has been is now listed for deportation.

        The German authorities want to send him back to Italy, where he first entered Europe in a traffickers’ boat carrying 150 migrants from Libya to the Italian island of Sardinia. On the boat a woman gave birth to a baby boy and William held the child after it was born. ‘I think I saved a life,’ he says thoughtfully.

        He adds, forlornly, as we sit in a back-alley restaurant in Leipzig, ‘I was sent from Sardinia to the Italian mainland and lived on the streets. There an Italian man I met bought me a train ticket to Dusseldorf in Germany. He said: ‘Try it’. I thought it would be better.

        ‘I went straight to the German police to claim asylum and they put me in the Leipzig camp and left me there.’

        Then his options were shut down. ‘I was handed my deportation papers. I have been given nothing by Germany. All I do is hide. I left the camp so they couldn’t send me back and I sleep on a friend’s floor.’

        Some 200,000 failed asylum seekers, illegal entrants, and foreigners convicted of crimes in their own countries or Germany are estimated to be listed for deportation flights. Many entered in 2015 when Mrs Merkel sent out her welcome message to refugees.

        After a litany of terror attacks, sex assaults, and even murders by some who slipped in, the deportations are, unsurprisingly, popular with many Germans. The authorities operate with ruthless efficiency.

        The migrants on board deportation planes are outnumbered by hand-picked security officers, many drawn from the police, wearing protective gear to stop attacks.

        On a recent flight out of Leipzig carrying 45 Afghans back to their capital, Kabul, 70 officers were on guard throughout. Some of the Afghans were forced to wear ‘body cuffs’ restricting their upper body movement to lessen the threat of violence.

        A German police union chief, Jorg Radek, said recently that many of the deportees — who now number tens of thousands each year — are in an ‘exceptional state emotionally’.

        He added, giving a rare glimpse of the secretive process: ‘The returnees resist with any means: scratching, biting, spitting and kicking. Some police officers have been badly injured on the journeys.’

        Ali Tahmasbi, 43, who lives in a migrant camp of pre-fabricated houses on the outskirts of the picture postcard town of Xanten in western Germany, is one of many fearing deportation.

        Migrants from Syria and Iraq take selfies with Angela Merkel outside a refugee camp after their registration in Berlin in 2015 +15
        Migrants from Syria and Iraq take selfies with Angela Merkel outside a refugee camp after their registration in Berlin in 2015

        A former civil engineer at Iran’s premier nuclear power station, he stands accused by the Islamic regime of spying for the Israelis, of supporting opposition parties, and disrespecting the government. He has been sentenced in his absence to 130 lashes and 15 years imprisonment.

        It is a terrifying prospect, especially as he has a 16-year-old son, Aria, who travelled to Germany with him.

        Ali says he is innocent of trumped up charges against him. He invites us into his home in the camp, shared by two other migrants — one Iranian and the other Turkish — where he and Aria sleep on a bunk bed in one of the two bedrooms.

        He makes us an Iranian breakfast of eggs, flat bread and cream cheese as he chats.

        ‘I thought Germany would be peaceful, a good place for Aria to grow up,’ he says simply. ‘I was wrong. It is full of fake refugees who make the German authorities more hostile to those of us fleeing persecution. I cannot sleep as a thousand times a night, I wish I had never come here.’

        To add to his troubles, this well-mannered man, who stands as I enter the room, had a kidney tumour removed at a German hospital three months ago.

        Yet he travels to an Iranian restaurant two hours away on public transport six days a week to cook meals so he can raise money to flee Germany and pay a trafficker to cross the Channel to the UK.

        He does not seem to realise that he may be sent right back to Germany by the Home Office. In the past two months, deportation flights have returned 39 migrants who arrived from Mrs Merkel’s country, via France, on small boats across the Channel.

        For Ali, life in Germany is a far cry from Iran where he reluctantly left behind his wife, whom he won’t name because of the risk of reprisals.

        His good job at the nuclear power station meant he had a middle-class lifestyle with a large family house, several fast cars and five horses which son Aria was learning to ride. This ‘has all gone now,’ he says.

        He is in an impossible Catch-22 situation. He shows me a sheaf of his German immigration papers.

        One says sternly: ‘You and your son are obliged to leave the country and this is enforceable.’ Another instructs him to go to the Iranian embassy in Frankfurt to get a passport so he can be deported back to Iran with Aria.

        ‘If I go to the embassy, I will be arrested. The Iranians will handcuff me, probably beat me up, and send me home.

        The occupants of one of the hundreds of illegal boats crossing the Channel arrive in Dover +15
        The occupants of one of the hundreds of illegal boats crossing the Channel arrive in Dover

        ‘The Germans say that if I don’t go to the embassy, I will lose this little house as a punishment.’

        At his camp live Somalians, Bangladeshis, Ethiopians, Egyptians, Turks, Pakistanis, Russians and Iranians like himself.

        ‘Only a few are Syrians who Mrs Merkel offered to help,’ says Ali.

        Next door, the Bangladeshi family are about to be deported. The Pakistanis down the row of prefabs are on the list too. Since Ali arrived he has seen Chechens and Ukrainians also forcibly taken from the camp to the airport.

        He has been refused asylum twice and his permission to work has been removed as a result.

        ‘I work at the restaurant illegally to save money to get to France and reach England on the traffickers’ boats or lorries. I have two friends, a couple, who were refused asylum here and reached England a few weeks ago. I know others too.’

        One day soon, he will have saved enough to set off. And, not wanting to sound uncharitable to Mrs Merkel, it is very likely the Germans will turn a blind eye when he disappears with his handsome young son.

        Overwhelmed by the migrants whom they welcomed with such gusto, Germany may be relieved to see two Iranians leave for Britain, just like many others before them.

        Share or comment on this article: Five years ago, Angela Merkel threw open her borders to more than a million migrants

        https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8890545/Five-years-ago-Angela-Merkel-threw-open-borders-million-migrants.html

    2. Yes, it does. That’s why it’s called freedom. You, in turn can ignore it or respond to it.

      Frankly, the more Islam is laughed at, the better.

  64. I heard this, in the hair salon, this morning.

    A.N. Other customer was telling her ‘stylist’
    that she [A.O.C] had yesterday been to the
    funeral of her SiL.
    The SiL. had died of covid19 related
    symptoms!! … she had cancer and was being
    treated as an in-patient, in hospital, for her
    illness. In April when hospitals were dis-
    -charging patients willy-nilly this lady was
    sent home with nursing staff to be in attendance,
    this happened and there was no complaint about
    her care, …But the widower has received a bill,
    from the NHS, to cover the cost of her home care!

    1. “Sadiq Khan nominated Jeremy Corbyn to become party leader.”

      Countless Further/Far-Right happily handed over their £3 to the Labour Party so they could vote for Corbyn in the leadership election.
      Then bragged on Breitbart, NoTTL it was the best £3 they had ever spent.

      Still they wonder why British voters don’t take them seriously.

      1. Further down on the tweet…

        Pietro 🇮🇹
        @PietroOlma
        ·
        6h
        Replying to
        @Card_R_Sarah
        Mi pare che anche in Vaticano non comprendano. “Fratelli tutti”

    1. It screams fake. “I thought you’d be unfriendly and conservative. FFS. If they’re not even bohtering to hide their lies they really shouldn’t be bothering.

  71. I am of for the day – cats to cherish AND the new magazine, recommended by Our Susan, to read. “The Critic” Looks very good – like the Spectator was before it became a fa left, woke magazine.

    Have a jolly evening praying for SOMETHING positive to happen to our poor, benighted country – like a coup d’état.

    A demain.

    1. The only Western leader not in hock to the globalists or the E.U is Donald Trump.

      Dear Donald,

      Please send 30 warships and a teddy to invade us.

      PS Mummy said i have been a good boy this year.

      PPS Pork pie, carrot and sherry in the usual place.

    2. Good evening, Bill.

      I shall be interested to read your
      appraisal; my first issue will be
      the December edition.

  72. Le Figaro

    Yet another obscene Muslim terrorist murder of Christians in France. Is it not time for us to just accept that Muslims and Christians cannot live together in a mutually compatible way.

    For a start no more Muslim immigrants should be allowed to settle in either France or Britain.

    EN DIRECT

    Attentat islamiste à Nice : l’agresseur a crié «Allah Akbar» au moment de l’attaque
    Un homme a été interpellé après avoir fait au moins trois morts et plusieurs blessés dans la basilique Notre-Dame de Nice et ses alentours. Emmanuel Macron se rend sur place, tandis que le plan vigipirate est porté au niveau «urgence attentat» sur l’ensemble du territoire.

    1. You would have thought we would have learnt the lesson about many muslims years ago. They just do not mix with the rest of the world.

    2. I’m not so sure… things are finally moving.

      The official French Muslim council (CFCM) has asked Muslims to cancel all festivities today and tomorrow celebrating the Prophet’s birth.

      Abbé Grosjean, a priest author and founder of the Padreblog website has said that the Catholics will do the candles and the prayers, but that the state’s mission is to protect people from this enemy. Harsh words from this particular priest.

      At 3 pm today churches throughout France will be tolling their bells – I have received an email from our local parish telling me that this will be the case in our little rural villages too.

        1. You’re right, of course: this could bring things to a head. Something tells me that if it does, it might well be a good thing in the long run even though it is likely to be incredibly unpleasant in the meantime. But at least the more sensible Muslims (and we know plenty) are now at last speaking up – better late then never!; there was never any shilly-shallying about this being anything else than an Islamist terrorist attack; and the French Church is taking a firm stance. All very different from what is happening in the UK.

          3. Reminds me of the evil man who was once our Rector. He took to religion from driving for a living because he could see a reasonable livelihood, free housing and a pension without having to do anything. Apart from attacking his parishioners, who, needless to say, became fewer and fewer.

            During a funeral, the undertaker – an old-fashioned one, who was also a builder – said, “Rector? Hah! He’s just a bloody lorry driver”

          4. I do wonder about the ethnic ancestry of both. Wasn’t it Enoch Powell who said that one never could be certain when long suppressed ‘foreign blood’ would set to work in an individual?

          5. Caroline & Rastus

            Don’t confine your disgust to Welby. Vincent Nichols, current Archbish of Westminster, is worserer. As for the Marxist in the Vatican…[spit, spit, spit]

            Well done France

          6. Having learned a lot about islam, I came to the conclusion that it is not possible to be a good muslim and a good person.

      2. I don’t think the earnest intentions of candles and prayers ever come to fruition Caroline.

          3. I think Michelangelo’s patron, Pope Julius II was the last to actually lead troops into battle?

    3. It isn’t only Christians that muslims can’t live with in peace; all other religions and other forms of islam they also have problems with.

    4. For the mono-linguists (or non-francophones) Islamist attack in Nice; the aggressor cried “Allah akbar” at the moment of the attack. A man has been taken in for questioning after having caused at least three dead and several wounded in the basilica Notre Dame de Nice and its surrounding area. Emmanuel Macron has gone to the location, while the anti-terrorist plan has been raised to the “attack emergency” level over the whole of the territory.

    3. REPOST TB, you might want to give it a miss.

      “In an emphatic demonstration of British multiculturalism, a Muslim politician elected to Scottish parliament delivered his oath of allegiance in Urdu while wearing a kilt.

      Humza Yousaf, a member of the Scottish National Party who won a seat from the city of Glasgow, spoke first in English and then in the language linked to his Pakistani heritage…”

    2. Afternoon Rastus – you just beat me to it. I can add that the Party has been given 6 months to rectify the matter .BBC Radio 4 News.

    3. Perhaps Kahnt is next on the list, he’s been extremely anti Semitic. Due to a supposed ‘admin error’ a lot of Jewish people couldn’t vote at the election for the London Mayor.

      1. The arrangements for that election were, of course, made by the previous mayor – now Prime Minister.

          2. I have a better way of dealing with people like that,……….. click the magic button,……….. bye.
            Done.

          3. Just like Victoria passport office is now all Muslim and they have call to prayer several times a day. Khan also would have found room for them on his staff.

            It was clearly done on purpose by targeting a community least likely to vote for him and postal voting from Tower Hamlets ballot box stuffing.

            They were even paying poor people £10 to vote for Khan and bringing them in in minibuses.

          4. ‘ … Victoria passport office is now all Muslim …’

            The Peterborough Passport Office is the same.
            Have you ever arrived at Heathrow when, supposedly,
            it is closed, i.e. overnight? There is not a native
            in sight!

          5. Including (the last time I was there) a vast white woman behind the counter in full slammer garb.

          7. I saw many of that variety when working
            in Cardiff and that was twenty years ago.
            I can only think things have got worse!

          8. Including (the last time I was there) a vast white woman behind the counter in full slammer garb.

          9. They are inserting themselves into positions of control. Just like many Northern Councils. Then they employ their mates.

    4. I despair at the interference in our politics by powerful global interests, some of which foreign-based, with stranglehold over the media. Political suspensions should never be for expressing an opinion, and this is the case here. Corbyn was shouted down by the media metropolitan bullies, and those that cheer them on should be ashamed, not Corbyn himself. I have little but contempt for Labour’s current leader.

      Suspensions should be in cases of criminal charges, and over betrayal of the party or treason. I myself called for Neville Sandelson, former SDP MP, in 1987 for writing in the ‘Sunday Times’ that all Alliance supporters should vote Conservative in the 1987 General Election in a bit to make a final solution to the end of Labour’s aspirations. I said that fifty seats in the South of England and the prospect of holding the balance of power depended on the Alliance candidates unseating Conservatives. Voting for Thatcher’s third term was the last thing they should be being urged to do. In the end, the SDP Leadership backed Sandelson, and the party disintegrated within a year.

      I also argue that the expulsion of Godfrey Bloom and David Silvester led to the decline of UKIP, since they lost their libertarians in order to appease the metropolitan authoritarians.

      1. Has our friend ogga voiced an opinion about Godfrey Bloom? Does he like or dislike him?

        Was it not Godfrey Bloom who appeared in a 1959 film starring Cliff Richard and Laurence Harvey called Expresso Bongo?

  75. Amazing how Captain Hindsight’s car crash isn’t all over the news. Imagine if it had been Boris. Reminds me of ‘operation laptop’ from the MSM as regards The Biden Family dealings…

    Update: Contents (hopefully just copies) of the Biden laptop mysteriously ‘go missing’ when being transferred by courrier from the former business partner to Fox News. Coincidence? I think not.

    2. Ball made his last known public appearance at a read-through for ‘Not going out’

      on 27 September 2020. He died on 28 October 2020 at the age of 76, at a hospital in Blackpool
      after testing positive for COVID-19.

      R.I.P Bobby.

      1. What did he actually die of? Dying after testing positive means nothing; it’s post hoc, ergo propter hoc.

        1. It is likely that to got noticed he did the working men’s clubs circuit. Not the healthiest of enviroments in those days.

          76 isn’t bad for a Northern lad. He was probably in hospital for something else and caught it there. Unlikely he actually died from it.

          We will have to wait for the obituary.

  77. Oof,awkward………..

    “And when they behead your own people in the wars that are to come, then
    you will know what this was all about” Slobodan Milosevic.

  78. Leeds and West Yorkshire go into Tier 3: Ten million people under
    the strictest Covid restrictions as another 16 authorities join Tier 2
    and UK creeps toward full lockdown – with 23,065 cases and 280 deaths
    today, 40 per cent up in a week

    And remind me, how many people died of other causes today?
    ~ 1,300+
    And of those Covid deaths, how many had other equally life-threatening problems?

    I’m guessing that fewer than 30 didn’t.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8892463/Wheres-Tier-Three-6MILLION-West-Midlands-North-East-West-Yorkshire.html

    1. “Leeds and West Yorkshire go into Tier 3: Ten million people under the strictest Covid restrictions “

      How did Leeds and West Yorkshire vote in 2016? Leave or Remain.
      Cynic that I am.

    2. Sadly, the reality is that from the Labour party’s perspective, it is far, far better to offend Jews and please Muslims to get your people elected.
      Corbyn & his henchmen were correct.
      I don’t have figures but I would not be surprised if Muslims now out number Jews by at least 10 to 1.

      2. REPOST from Breitbart.

        “You one of those rock dwellers who down-vote facts?
        Nowt new there.

        ETA:”The proudly Jewish woman elected to lead Young Labour
        Miriam Mirwitch, 24, speaks to Jewish News about tackling anti-Semitism in the party, her views on Jeremy Corbyn and ambitions for the future.”

          5. Again, I can’t quite see what you are driving at.

            Spit it out if you are “having a go”, otherwise desist.

          6. Mirwitch was elected leader of Labour’s Young Labour.
            That’s proof of Antisemitism in the Labour Party?
            Something not right there.

          7. Labour as a party are anti semitic. That has been demonstrably proven. Does that mean everyone in the Labour party is? No. However their attitudes and perspectives as a collective have been found to be so.

            I appreciate you don’t like the evidence based on your own hypocrisy – you’d be the first to point the finger the other way, after all – but Labour rely upon the Muslim vote. Thus they promote inner cities, poor and welfare dependent (as Muslims fit the majority of those demographics, sadly.

            Corbyn himself set the tone with his ardent support for Palestine and visceral hatred of Israel.

          8. “I appreciate you don’t like the evidence based on your own hypocrisy …”

            Our media had 4 years to provide evidence of Corbyn’s antisemitism. and they couldn’t do it.
            How come? Asking as an ordinary British voter who doesn’t believe alleged antisemitism in the Labour Party is the greatest issue in the UK. Much as our media would have us believe otherwise,

          9. Anyone singing Corbyns praises long and loud in Young Labour at that time would be in with a chance.

          10. Obviously that doesn’t apply to Miriam Mirwitch,
            Unless you didn’t read the Jewish News interview.

          11. I must have missed something, unless you are referring to a different interview

            https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/the-proudly-jewish-woman-elected-to-lead-young-labour/

            “Jeremy has taken amazing steps forward with the Jewish community,” she
            says, presumably knowing that this is going to be a hard-sell. “Things
            like the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) motion on the way in which
            anti-Semitism and other forms of oppression are responded to by the
            Party, that went through at Conference and he supported it, very
            publicly backed it. That was really powerful.”

            A classic words and figures differ.
            As I noted, a useful idiot.

          12. I must have missed something, unless you are referring to a different interview

            https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/the-proudly-jewish-woman-elected-to-lead-young-labour/

            “Jeremy has taken amazing steps forward with the Jewish community,” she
            says, presumably knowing that this is going to be a hard-sell. “Things
            like the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) motion on the way in which
            anti-Semitism and other forms of oppression are responded to by the
            Party, that went through at Conference and he supported it, very
            publicly backed it. That was really powerful.”

            A classic words and figures differ.
            As I noted, a useful idiot.

      4. All too many Conservatives are pandering to the Moslem vote as well
        Foul appeasers for power

        2. Given the reality of how few votes can swing an election nowadays they are being pragmatic.

          The fac that it might well be their own death knell that they are ringing appears to escape them.

          3. Given the reality of multiple postal voting by a certain demographic (anything to bring about the caliphate), they know which side their MPs’ salaries come from. That they will be ditched and sacrificed (head – meet shoulders) is too far in the future for them to contemplate. Have you seen there is another stabbing in a French church? The PTB are starting to think it might be muslim terrorist related (although yet another lone wolf attack) following the showing of cartoons. Well, I never!

          4. The church attacker is a relatively skinny youngster; looks much younger than the “15 year old” schoolboy pictured recently.

    3. In the 4 years he was Labour Party leader our media etc couldn’t come up with the evidence to nail him. Strange.

    3. Sung to the tune of “Ye Jacobites by Name”

      van Gogh

      Oh my name it is Van Gogh,
      Lend an ear, lend an ear.
      Oh my name it is Van Gogh,
      Lend an ear.
      My name it is Van Gogh
      And all I did was cough
      and my ear it just fell off
      Lend an ear, lend an ear.

      Oh my right ear’s pale and wan
      On the floor, on the floor
      My right ear’s pale and wan on the floor.
      My right ear’s pale and wan
      It was ‘ere but now it gone
      And its just been trodden on
      And its sore, and its sore.

      But there’s no need to shout or
      for gloom or for gloom
      But there’s no need to shout or for gloom.
      But there’s no need to shout
      I’ll take my ear ‘ole out
      And I’ll pass my ear about
      Round the room, round the room.

      Drinking Watneys leads to tears
      I shall teach, I shall teach
      Drinking Watneys leads to tears
      I shall teach.
      Drinking Watneys leads to tears
      And the falling off of ears
      And the parts that other beers
      Cannot reach, cannot reach.

      1. The Corries did a good version of that, their “Flower of Scotland” on the other hand…

          2. Apart from Bill Bryson and true Englishmen and women is there anyone else who is not anti-England?

          5. I noticed a logo on the team shirts of Chennai Super Kings, one of the 8 teams in the Indian Premier League (cricket), currently playing in the UAE; “British Empire” turns out to be a brewery in Madras. Odd, I thought with the way the world is going. So I looked at a few sites to see if there was any fuss, and sure enough;
            https://www.sportsindiashow.com/uproar-social-media-fans-find-chennai-super-kings-sponsored-company-named-british-empire/

            About 20 years ago, while I was waiting outside a customs office on the Indian east coast with the rest of the ship’s crew for our passports to be checked and stamped, my name was called. No one had got their passport back yet. I thought ooer, maybe I’ve given in the wrong one, we always had 2 passports. Inside the office a plump smartly uniformed Indian of about 60 asked, “Mr M H?”, yes, I said. He leapt to his feet and gave a smart salute. “The sun never sets, Sah!”, he said loudly and handed me my stamped passport. Turned out I was the only Englishman getting off the vessel.

          7. Roy Williamson himself, who wrote it, never really regarded it as one of his best, nor was it written with the intention that it should be regarded as, or adopted as, an anthem.

            On the other hand it simply doesn’t mention England at all. Only one invading army led by an English king in 1314.

          9. Take an upvote for cheek.

            Edward II missed most things – as often happens the son of a hugely dominant (even for a king in his time) man never quite manages to put his own stamp on his own life.

      2. Watney’s? I seem to remember that name from the 1970s.

        Wasn’t it a type of fizzy effluent that was marketed as “beer”, which was bought and drunk by clueless halfwits in the south?

        1. Clueless halfwits all over the UK consumed mass-produced keg beers and ‘lagers’. The Scots had a particularly strong liking for the latter.

        2. didn’t red barrel come in big party cans? Something massive like four or five pints.

          At least bud lite doesn’t pretend to be beer.

          4. Be thankful for that little mercy, seven pints of red barrel would have been too much for me in my student days.

        4. Nope ………….the first Camra pub was near St Albans it was known as the Barley Mow at Tyttenhanger. Now long long closed.
          In the gents they supplied a white board and felt tip pens. Some one wrote. Why is drinking Watney’s red barrel like making love
          in a punt ?
          Answer ………’cos its effing close to water. True story.
          Fullers London brewed ESB was the pint to to savour. Or Youngs Special.

          1. I know all that, Eddy. I was a member of CAMRA for 30 years and I still miss reading their What’s Brewing magazine with Bill Tidy’s funny Kegbuster character.

            I must have sampled upwards of 200 different cask-conditioned ales in that time.

          2. Did you ever go to the St Albans beer festivals ? They had more ales than you could poke stick at. And usually a decent Blues band on stage.

    4. back in the day………I met him my local pub once, he was sitting alone at a table, i said would you like a drink Vincent ?
      Nah it’s okay he replied I’ve got one ‘ere.
      I’ll get me brushes………. easel does it.

  82. Having sleepless nights worrying about catching COVID and dying?

    Dr Moran guarantees the elderly will fall asleep watching the cats on his mantelpiece in this vid and then forget all about the dangers of COVID infection because 40% to 60% of us already had immunity even before the bat escaped from a Wuhan lab:

    https://youtu.be/ob4PIVk0Lpo

      1. Witches: We are the three witches – Yes we can.
        Macbeth: Can you foretell the future? Oh, I say, that’s clever!

  85. Here’s one for you. Outside of my experience.
    Spoke with Mother today. She’s asking what we’re doing about Christmas, will we be having visitors. “Only if they go into quarantine for 2 weeks”, according to Norway’s anti-covid rules. “Ah”, says Mother, “I’ll have to discuss that with your Father when he gets home” (about visiting us here, from Wales) – problem is, Father died in 1997. Mother is 92.
    1. How do I tell her he died ages ago, when I can’t be there to comfort her from the reality? (the same goes for her parents, who went to visit her great-aunt and haven’t come home yet)
    2. How often will she need told, with the repetition of (1) above?
    It would be good to get the experience of youse who have had some experience here, before I make a mess of it. So far, I dodged the issue.

    1. From advice I have received, it’s better to go along with it rather than confront her. It only makes matters worse, apparently. She will keep on living in the past (which is what it is). Say something like, “you know best” or “I see”.

        1. I have a booklet entitled “living with a person with dementia – a practical guide” and the advice comes from that. I got it from either Age UK or the Alzheimers’ Society. I don’t know if you could try looking them up on line – you may be able to download a .pdf version. I realised, after I’d read it, that I’d done just about everything wrong 🙁 Ah well, one lives and learns.

    2. Give your mother a warm hug next time you see her. From all of us.
      You may be some time.

        1. Evening, Paul, bugger Wales’ lockdown. If that’s what she needs, go and give her a big, big hug, let her know she’s loved and somebody cares. We all do for you and her. Well, I do!

    3. I don’t know the answer but I have every sympathy for any elderly relative currently incarcerated in a Nursing home. My MiL who is on two hourly pain killers can now have visitors. She and they are separated by a perspex floor to ceiling screen with microphones for communication. I gave up my visit this week to my daughter and her two children. The true shame is that they couldn’t hug…

    4. My oldest client is a lady of 94. When I started to work for her she had just lost her husband and her mother, 97 and more than slightly dotty, was in a local nursing home. One day as I was clearing up at the end of a visit she said that she was going to see her mother later in the day. Then she said… “She’ll ask how H (the husband) is. I’ve told her three times that he died, so now I just say he’s fine”. The old lady died 3 months later, still in blissful ignorance.

      There’s no point in pushing reality at her, especially when you’re an aeroplane journey away.

      1. That’s kind of what I was thinking. She isn’t much upset about it, just a bit worried now and again that my Father hasn’t come home, or her parents, either, from a visi to her aunt in Leicester. I mumbled something about heavy traffic, so se seemed content with that. I guess it’s only me getting ratty about it…

        1. Reassurance will help her more than a reality that she can’t get a grip on anyway. Which leaves you with the reality – and the knowledge of her frailty. So the load stays onyour shoulders – it’s hardly surprising that sometimes you feel bad.

    5. I don’t think you can blame yourself no matter what you decide to do.
      The last time I saw my mother alive was when I and my wife visited her in hospital in her final days. She never knew me from Adam but recognised my wife straight away. When I corrected her 2 years previously that it was my wife with me visiting her in her home not my daughter she was adamant that I was not married. Showing her my wedding photo hung up on her wall brought the response that the groom in the picture was dead! I guess she confused me with father who died some years previously. When she finally accepted I was married she complained I never invited her to the wedding. I just let it go and joked I would invite her to my next wedding without fail, it brought a smile to both our faces.
      The point I am trying to make is dementia is a bastard of an illness that neither you or your mother can overcome. You just try your best under whatever circumstances prevail at the time to let her have peace of mind in whatever world her mind has taken her too.
      I lost count of the number of times my gran and aunties came for lunch, and the number of meals mother cooked for them. The fact that they had all passed on was not important at least to me for my mother was happy to see them, if only in her mind.
      Did I make a mess of things, I don’t know, I only know I tried my best to ensure what remaining time she had left, she enjoyed as much of it as possible.

    6. So sorry you are having to travel this long, lonely road that I trod 20 years ago. Quite simply, you don’t tell her. If you do she will go through a form of bereavement all over again until the next time that she forgets….. again. And again. You have to play along, although you do feel as though you are going mad in the process, it really ‘does your head in’ so to speak as your every instinct is longing to burst forth with the truth. My husband was much better at this than I was as he wasn’t as emotionally involved, my mum and he would have some truly bizarre conversations.

      Edit: pronoun change: ‘they’ to ‘she’.

      1. Caroline’s parents were married for nearly 60 years. When Caroline’s mother developed Alzheimer’s she lost her mind progressively until she no longer recognised her husband. He was also ill but his mind remained sharp until he died – but we think he died of a broken heart rather than from illness. My mother-in-law went on living in a nursing home for two more years but Caroline and her sisters decided that there was little point in telling her that she had been widowed because she would not have understood and it would just give her an indefinable sadness beyond her comprehension. At least finally, they are finally together in the same grave in Holland,

        My own mother outlived my father by seventeen years. They are now both together again in the family grave by the waterside at the lovely church of St Just-in-Roseland.

  87. Looking at tomorrow’s weather forecast, I might get that concreting done.
    Fingers crossed.

    I did a little bit of work on the wall t’other day, made a couple of hand mixes in a bucket and got the fourth and fifth courses of the bit I’ve already done laid. Seven blocks in all.
    At the moment there’s another 60 blocks waiting to be carried up to the garden where they are needed.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bef44abf8d0822c1de9e1b2bfa9c71cf392abddef83411f33e9cb5e51299f9ad.jpg

  89. John Ward:

    “As expected, the Boy King Macronapoleon is to impose nationwide Lockdown here beginning next Tuesday. We’ll be back to how far citizens can travel from their homes without winding up on the Naughty Step with a fat fine to keep them company. This looks like being one trip a day to the shops and vital journeys only to workplaces.

    In an absolutely classic piece of top-down blamestorming, President Macron hinted that the measures were necessary because some people have been irresponsible, and also “we are at war”…..both of which are engorged fantasies.

    He omitted to mention the fact that France had one of the toughest lockdown régimes in Europe, but it failed. So his solution now is to order another one. At 550 deaths per million, France has almost exactly the same death rate as Sweden, which has never pursued lockdown.

    And so the madness continues. I’ve nothing further to say.”

      1. If people had listened to le Grand Charles (il avait raison, après tout), we would have been spared the Common Market/EU.

      2. Thanks, Jack but…
        … Hmmm ,”if only the old-timers had listened to you… and ignored the liar Heath’s advice.”

    2. If they are at war with islam that would be a good start. It seems, rather, they are at war with their own population.

    3. And:
      “Realising I would have to kill yet more time before lunch, I bought a copy of the New York Times, and settled down with a beer at a bar that was bohemian but in no way bourgeois. Both the ambience and the demi of Stella on draught were very much to my taste.

      I couldn’t say the same for the NYT. My God, but it continues to be a bloody awful newspaper in which any grain of Truth has been vapourised beneath a jack-hammer of dumbed-down liberal propaganda.

      ‘Dumbed-down’ I measure on the basis of sixteen pages that took me a mere twenty minutes to read…..’propaganda’ as a definition requiring nothing more than an examination of the nine articles therein that were obsessed with ‘Trump’.

      In NYTland, Trump earns no President or Mister or Donald. In NYTland, he earns only vitriolic condemnation. I offer you the headlines to seven articles as de jure evidence:

      ‘Thousands at Trump rallies, but little truth’

      ‘Trump campaign a font of misinformation’

      ‘Trump casts rivals as radicals’ ‘End Trump’s minority rule’

      ‘King Kong Trump losing his grip’

      ‘Trump talks big on jobs, but facts disappoint’

    2. That’s from the 2019 report. This year’s shows a downward revision for 15-18 but note the figure for 18-19. It was this very low number that prompted analysts to point out that many who survived such a mild flu winter were highly vulnerable when Covid19 came along. Had 18-19 been a bad winter, this year’s death toll would probably have been much lower. Other countries in Europe have demonstrated this correlation: mild flu winter 18-19, bad Covid death toll and vice versa.

      I assume the numbers were reduced after a subsequent and more rigorous analysis. Can we expect to see a reduction in the Covid19 numbers next year after a similar exercise?

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c10f5874d3779c3503689768e58f9ce0c4ffe2cde53fd546e378aec111c609f7.jpg

      https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/895233/Surveillance_Influenza_and_other_respiratory_viruses_in_the_UK_2019_to_2020_FINAL.pdf

      1. That’s what I said this afternoon when I visited a friend. I think they are becoming sceptics at last, although the husband initially believed everything.

      2. No, I think it’s more likely that the figures were too recent. The figures are updated months later.

        1. I’m not sure what you mean by too recent. I was musing that it was possible that flu figures were overcounted at first but reduced by better analysis for the following year. In the 2018 report, two years were reduced (34,300 to 28,330; 14,357 to 11,875) and one was increased (17,592 to 18,009).

          1. Sorry, it was a bit late for me last night, and the 2nd bottle. Didn’t see you’d posted more recent, very much changed, data. I’ve no idea how these drastic revisions have been made.

  91. UNHAPPY HOUR – Re. earlier visit to dentist.

    After much form filling, box ticking re. health/ medication/ etc and nationality… I was tempted to tick Chinese or South Korean but on a wing and a prayer plumped for white British….obviously a mistake.
    After lengthy conversation with dentist which I couldn’t understand…East European possibly, I asked the nurse to translate!
    Repair job done I was offered a mirror for my approval…………..!
    I know Halloween is upon us but I didn’t expect to look like Herman from the friggin’ Munsters …..!

    1. Don’t worry, dentists use special mirrors, instead of magnification they do uglification, you’ll be fine.

      If not you can always bite lacoste.

          7. Just a concerned about falling over and causing another injury that would stop you from playing tennis. 🙂

          9. I almost passed out at the dentist after getting up too fast. No alcohol involved that time but i also don’t eat prior to my appointment. They gave me some glucose.

          10. It’s easily done, particularly if you have also been tense and hold your head/neck in a position that might have restricted blood flow slightly.

          13. Indeed, but in Jerez the sherry is served in a proper wine glass, a decent measure you can get your tonsils around.
            Sweet sherry with a cube of ice; dry sherry from the fridge, and my fave, Manzanilla – dry as dust.

    4. At least you can see your dentist – mine is cowering under their bed, terrified of catching COVID from patients – but on full NHS pay. I can’t afford to go private at the moment.

        1. They are like GPs. They organise their own premises, staff etc but they can elect to do NHS work only, private work only, or a mix of NHS and private which is quite common – you are steered down the private route for things not offered by the NHS.

          1. Ah.
            Hmf. Always wondered why you could get your broken finger fixed on the NHS, but not your broken tooth.
            Same here, BTW.

          2. I’ve got a dentist who still does NHS work. On Monday 12th October I had a filling which collapsed and died – leaving a retaining pin lacerating the underside of my tongue. On Wednesday 14th October I had a replacement fitting installed – tongue has just about recovered. I’m so glad it happened then – and not this week. This week they are all closed again.

          3. Ouch, sounds painful. I could never persuade my tongue to stop testing the pin.

            No nhs style dentistry over here, you either pay for it or wait until the local dentists get together and offer no charge clinics.

          4. Because it was a lower jaw molar there was no way that the tongue – even keeping still – wasn’t in touch with the pin. It felt as though I had a mouthful of razor-blades – I could feel the blood trickling most of the time.

            Fortunately, when I phoned at opening time on Tuesday they were able to slot me in at 12:30 on Wednesday. I would have been struggling to last much longer – the dentist himself commented that it was as nasty a mess as he had seen.

          7. Thanks John.

            I was very miserable and coming, as it did, just after all the hassle with my eye I was feeling rather sorry for myself – so I was very glad too.

      2. I pay £30 a month on Denplan Insurance. Covers everything including 4 visits a year to the hygienist but not Lab work and implants. He has also been working 7 days a week to clear the backlog.

        NHS dentists and doctors should be ashamed of themselves.

      1. Royal Observer Corps – I failed the medical for the RAF. I am registered as a “veteran” with my GP – not that it does anything.

          1. There doesn’t seem to be much point, to be honest. I get all the blurb about the RAFBF, but I don’t need financial help or a telephone “befriender” and the “Finding it tough” and “Navigating dementia” schemes are for serving personnel. The things that might have been useful (the respite hotels) have closed down thanks to Covid. C’est la vie.

          2. I understand. Just a thought. I am out of touch. They were very helpful to a client of mine back in the 1970s. Times have changed, I guess.

          3. Nothing happens face to face any more anyway. You’re on your own apart from telephone calls 🙁

  94. Evening, all. I don’t know why there should be any reason (other than wishful thinking) to hope for an effective C19 vaccine. They haven’t yet found a vaccine for that other coronavirus, the common cold. In the late sixties I dogsat and housesat for a fellow student who took himself off to the Cold Research Centre over Christmas to get his dissertation written with no distractions. They are still looking for this elusive prevention in the next century!

    2. they don’t need an effective one just one that needs to be modified and offered year after y£ar after y£ar….

      1. Like the current ‘flu vaccine, you mean? It’s just that the headline specified “effective” and I was commenting on that.

        1. Effective would mean revenue from follow up vaccinations, where is the profit in one jab and you are done?

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