Sunday 8 November: Conservatives feel alienated by this heavy-handed Government

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/2020/11/08/letters-conservatives-feel-alienated-heavy-handed-government/

826 thoughts on “Sunday 8 November: Conservatives feel alienated by this heavy-handed Government”

      1. No Clyde,I am absolutely talentless at drawing,cartooning or memeing…….
        However I am a first class robber who attempts to only steal the best for NoTTL {:^))

  3. Nicked

    “As an aside, and fully aware of the problems we ourselves face, these
    islands sometimes seem like Hobbiton compared to most of the world.

    On this morning above all let’s just stop to thank the Colonial armies of
    the Empire whose courageous withdrawal from Dunkirk paved the way for
    mahouts from across the subcontinent to mount their elephants in June
    1944 and swim to France to free us from the grip of totalitarianism.”

    1. 326225+ up ticks,
      Morning Rik,
      Three year or so back I posted ” they will start to dismantle the war memorials next”
      and so it is coming to pass……

  5. Morning all

    SIR – Recent events have shown polls to be unreliable, so it is frustrating that polls indicating support for a second lockdown are given such credibility.

    Juliet Henderson

    Warnborough, Hampshire

    SIR – Nigel Farage brought us the Brexit referendum. Maybe his newly branded party, Reform UK, can bring the Government some common sense.

    I am over 75, but, with no known pre-existing conditions, I do not expect to die from Covid-19. I agree with the Great Barrington Declaration. Our Government does not, but refuses to explain why, and instead scorns its authors via surrogates.

    The new lockdown will irreparably damage our economy. This is no way to run the country.

    Peter Kleeman

    London W8

    SIR – Madeline Grant makes a compelling case in comparing the current pandemic with the Vietnam War.

    However, the comparison with the Second World War and Vietnam has a distinct relevance to today’s approach to controlling the crisis. In May 1940, Churchill formed a “National Government” with members from all the main parties, which lasted until the conflict in Europe was over. Party politics, while still apparent, were subordinated to the pursuit of victory.

    The withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam was so clearly necessary that it was considered by every president from Kennedy onwards. All failed because of pending elections and the reluctance to be the president who lost a war. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people died.

    As long as politicians place their careers above the health and welfare of their people, decisions will be made that cost more lives than they save.

    Dr Michael A Fopp

    Soulbury, Gloucestershire

  6. SIR – In the light of the four-year guerrilla war on Brexit, I was interested to see which of the Remain high command would be first above 
 ground attacking Mr Trump’s recourse to the law.

    Predictably, the winner was Alastair Campbell, with a tweet on November 4 berating Mr Trump’s call for a recount in Arizona.

    We already know that Mr Campbell has no sense of shame, but it seems he has no sense of irony either.

    Ian McVeigh

    London N1

  7. SIR – Churchgoing is not a “criminal offence”.

    Our village has three war memorials: one at the end of the lane leading to the church, the second inside the church; the third is the church clock itself. At the end of the Remembrance Sunday church service, veterans and members of the congregation march down the lane to lay further wreaths at the outdoor memorial.

    Today, our service will be held outdoors, with people socially distanced around the memorial and along the lane. Our church remains open for private prayer. Everyone – including veterans – is welcome.

    Mike Hames

    Cradley, Herefordshire

    SIR – Not only can we not attend church today, but the outside part of the service has also been cancelled, despite our understanding that it could take place.

    We live in an area that is full of serving and retired servicemen and women – including my husband 
and I, who between us have clocked up 68 years with the Royal Navy and its Reserve. It is galling that we are not trusted to remember our fallen in a safe and socially distanced manner.

    The young often complain that they are being penalised to protect the old, but this time it feels as though the boot is on the other foot.

    Susan Price

    Plymouth, Devon

    1. I know very well the church in Cradley in Herefordshire.

      I was last there in September, attending the memorial service for the life of their village schoolteacher Karen Robb at a moving ceremony, where many people gathered socially-distanced in the churchyard in brilliant sunshine, listening to the service relayed through two speakers on the door of the church. I provided a recording of Tom Wells’ anthem ‘Make Me Your Servant, Lord’ sang by the joint choirs of the Cradley Village School and Powick Community Choir, and conducted by Karen Robb at a concert at Stanbrook Abbey last year.

  8. This leading BTL made me smile, only briefly though:

    Stephen Jones
    8 Nov 2020 7:14AM

    “Ok I’ve had enough and it’s not even day one. Please tell me this is all just a bad dream. This Harris woman has me reaching [the appropriate word] for a brown paper bag.

    The media will wait with breaths held for every utterance she makes, every sentence will be mystical, utterly inspirational – the womens magazines have their new Lady Di.

    I actually think most of the media will literally bow at her feet and pick up little bits of fluff or hair as these drop of her clothes – and frame them over their beds and pray at night to these objects. Or have morning meetings in their offices staring unblinking at these things muttering words in prayer…..”she’s the true one, she’s the true one, she’s the true one”

    Good God I’m sick to death of it already – and people wonder why we drink.”

    Ditto, Stephen Jones!

      1. I remember many years ago a friend of ours said I was a racist for asking the question: ‘What percentage of black blood do you need to have to entitle you to call yourself black?’ Many fair skinned people now claim to be black when in South Africa during the Apartheid era people of black heritage with pale complexions wanted to be classified as white.

        The brilliant satirical singer Jeremy Taylor put it very clearly:

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DTFwNOEzIY

        2. I have a step child in yr 12 who is looking at the various courses to help get into uni. One was aimed at blacks. I messaged the organiser asking what percentage of black genes did we need to apply and what would they accept as proof. All you needed to do was ‘identify as black’.

      2. I keep trying to see her as black, but it just doesn’t compute. She has slightly darker than normal European skin, as have a small number of people in Britain, since even before mass migration started.

  9. This leading BTL made me smile, only briefly though:

    Stephen Jones
    8 Nov 2020 7:14AM

    “Ok I’ve had enough and it’s not even day one. Please tell me this is all just a bad dream. This Harris woman has me reaching [the appropriate word] for a brown paper bag.

    The media will wait with breaths held for every utterance she makes, every sentence will be mystical, utterly inspirational – the womens magazines have their new Lady Di.

    I actually think most of the media will literally bow at her feet and pick up little bits of fluff or hair as these drop of her clothes – and frame them over their beds and pray at night to these objects. Or have morning meetings in their offices staring unblinking at these things muttering words in prayer…..”she’s the true one, she’s the true one, she’s the true one”

    Good God I’m sick to death of it already – and people wonder why we drink.”

    Ditto, Stephen Jones!

  10. Good Morning Folks,

    Nice start here.

    Refusing to put the news on, it’s the only way to beat them.

  11. Good morning all NoTTLers, on this very special Remembrance Sunday. Although a majority of today’s Letters make serious points about the current lockdown, the Imperial War Museum reviewing Churchill’s reputation (vis-a-vis BLM) and the general direction of travel this country is currently embarked upon, I could not resist a laugh at one Below The Line comment from Brian Thorne: “What is happening to this country? Wake up people, please wake up before it is too late! I am off to bed now”. And so am I (off to bed now, that is).

  12. Good morning, all. A wet, foggy day – quite the opposite of what was advertised. As it is usually fine on Remembrance Sunday – I suspect God is showing his displeasure at Witless, Unbalanced and the BPAPM.

    And no newspaper delivered, either. Grrr.

    2. We had thick fog this evening. I was inching my way home. It didn’t help that I had never before had occasion to use the fog lights on my “new” car and so had no idea where to find them. Consequently I had to rely on dipped headlights. Memo to self – find the location of the switch (I know it isn’t anywhere prominent, obvious, convenient or easy to find) tomorrow.

      1. Gosh – been there, done that with our new (second hand) car. And the handbook is obviously translated from Czech by Mr Google!

  13. Joe Biden and the special relationship: What the election result means for the UK and Brexit. 8 November 2020.

    Donald Trump and Joe Biden have radically different views on many subjects. Each had the potential to enhance or weaken the special relationship in a variety of areas.

    Now the final votes are counted, here, we take a look at how President Biden will work with Britain.

    Morning everyone. Aghhhh! Scream! Horror! Foams at mouth. Gnaw’s knuckles. Sounds of hair being torn from skull in rage! Onomatopoeic mayhem. How can two words cause such distress! Can it be because they are essentially meaningless? That they are a cover for a grovelling Westminster? That even when they were created it was as a disguise for cringing gratitude? The United States is the world’s most powerful polity; dozens of countries manage to deal with it on a quid pro quo basis without indulging in impressions of Uriah Heep gone mental!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/11/07/what-us-election-result-mean-uk-trump-biden-win-brexit-special-relationship/

  15. You only have to think of what went on in Tower Hamlets to realise the sort of people that are trying to seize control in the USA

  16. IF Biden has won, his presidency will be for ever tainted by fraud, lies and outright dishonesty.

    But could there be a more damning indictment of his ‘win’ than this headline today?

    “Communist Dictator in Venezuela Cheers Comrade Sleepy Joe for Stunning Election Victory”

    1. I suppose you could argue that he is unlikely to serve the full term so, if he has won by foul means, he won’t have to live with the shame for very long.

      1. If I could send him a message it would say, “Enjoy your 15 minutes of infamy, Biden, I can guarantee that you’ll be dead within a year.”

          1. I’ll leave you to ponder, Richard. Could be a job for the SAS and take-out Harris and Pelosi at the same time but that’s just dreaming.

          2. Clintonicide.
            (A form of premature death only available in the United States of America, M’Lud.)

  18. Well …. let us hope that this weekend is Boris’s dodgy dossier moment.
    “45 minutes to save the NHS”.

      2. Maggie, Garlands, Joe, KP and VVOF,

        Ayup.

        Just looked out of the window and there is still weather out there. Funny thing is that it never goes away; it is omnipresent; all day and all of the night; week in, week out; year in, year out. It’s always with me, wherever I go. I never tend to take much notice in it.

        Funny that, eh?

        2. Small child asked to give the difference between weather and climate replied:

          Climate might be, weather is.

          It might not satisfy the meteorologists, but …

          1. Is that the same child who came home excitedly from a trip to the zoo and told her parents that she has seen some dangaroos? When her mother corrected her and said they were kangaroos, she replied, “No, they weren’t kangaroos. The sign on the cage said, Beware! These animals are dangaroos!“

          2. It might well have been. I can’t now remember where I first saw it, but it stuck in my mind.

            Living, as I do, very close to the River Severn, though above any level that the floodwater has ever reached (I did my homework before I bought the house), I can think of days when I wish the weather wasn’t… But as I have agreed with more than one of my farming clients over the years; it is probably just as well that we can’t order the weather, just think of the eternal quarrels which would ensue.

      1. Ayup, me duck.

        It’s been a lovely day here today. Sunny, in the main, but a tad cool at 9ºC.

    3. Perhaps, because as long as I remember,
      it is considered to be a polite way to open
      conversation?
      It is factual yet non-confrontational.

      Good morning, Grizzly.

      1. Talking about the weather in the west is phatic conversation. It helps to facilitate interaction. Just don’t do it in the Middle East.

      1. Don’t have a clue, lass. They don’t occupy my thoughts much, even less to tell everyone about them on social media. 🤣

  22. 326225+ up ticks,
    Win upon win for the treachery team,
    24/6/2016 Brexitexit = four plus years of treacherous work in progress,

    Currently, Trump V Biden commencing treacherous work in progress.

    To say we are being overseen by a ” blithering, heavy handed government” is to my mind omitting their true standing & that is one of treachery & hidden agendas.

    These current lab/lib/con political mobsters are totally different to the politicians granddad kissed X in the polling booth.

  26. Sunday Telegraph Letters page header:

    Conservatives feel alienated by this heavy
    -handed Government.

    Don’t you mean … cack-handed ST?

    1. It’s not a government.

      It’s a corrupt occupying force serving the interests of subversive foreign powers.

      Including China, the corrupt ”United Nations”, the corrupt ”World Economic Forum”, George Soros, Bill Gates and a group of other global government billionaires who wish to abolish nation states such as the United Kingdom..

    2. 326225+ up ticks,
      Morning G,
      Let us not confuse “blithering,heavy handed” with out & out treachery, as shown
      at an alarming accelerating rate since major had a curry & especially since the 24/6/2016.

    3. More like an administration (not a government – they have to govern to be called that) lead by the nose by / scared of so-called ‘experts’ in the not impartial Civil Service and the MSM. This is why I think COVID was a pre-planned job (not by the Tories) to either take back (the US) or stymie certain western governments who had gone populist conservative. They’ve even done the same to Australia, whose lockdown measures are amongst the strictest in the world, given their limited exposure to the pandemic because of their geograph isolation.

  27. Informative email from good chum:

    “Hi Anne.

    Having completed my first Sainsbury’s Saturday in weeks, I can honestly say nobody is paying any attention to the Covid restrictions. One person one trolly was not to be seen until business slowed up in the evening. Entire family’s, aged parents, dribbler outings and groups meeting up for a chat were the norm. For my sins I was working the Christmas aisle and must have caught the bug a dozen times. It was packed for hours with absolutely sign of any social distancing and face masks worn at a jaunty angle.

    Perhaps America has got it right, should Boris be replaced by a sleeper.”

    1. A bit off topic (sorry), but as you still appear to be a DT subscriber (I can still see the comments areas under articles [but only the first paprgraph of the articles]), I thought I would pass on my knowledge as to which ‘people’ still posting comments on articles are likely trolls working for foreign governments. The main one from our ‘Ruskie friends’ who has been posting on the Letters Page comments section and a few other articles is called ‘Father Jack Hackett’.

      They like to stir up trouble on both sides of an argument, often with one troll saying diametrically opposing things to a colleague on articles about contentious social and (home) political issues, but then working as a ‘tag-team’ on ones critical of their own governments/Presidents.

      They use many other pseudynumns, so if you do want me to post them here, including those pertaining to Chinese state trolls as well, please let me know. It’s certainly useful to know who they are (as a long-time subscriber, I noticed them posting very obvious pro-regime comments a lot on articles critical of the Russian government/Putin and similarly about China over a long period).

      I’d be grateful if you don’t mention my name if you do respond to them or comment about them on DT comments sections – I don’t particularly want them coming after me.

      1. What’s your opinion of Fagash? Although controversial, it seems to have an encyclopaedic knowledge. I’m not phased by their comments and just pass by, each to his own.

        1. Yves Binoche has disappeared. 9/10 he was a contrarian, but the tenth post would actually be sensible.

          1. Yves definitely isn’t Am F though – the former, whilst wrong a lot, didn’t deliberately inflame and bicker. There was another troll – possibly just a lefty or maybe a Ruskie – called “Stephen Putt” who was more like Am F.

            I don’t think they are the same person though, as Putty disappeared along with many a foreign state troll when the DT stopped the free access to 20 articles (and commenting on them) per week in favour of read-only access to just one.

        2. I’m beginning to think that he might work for the DT. The other theory is that ‘he’ is a connected political operative likely working for Labour – with possible job connections to Whitehall, hence why they have a lot of ‘insider information’ on many issues. They spout a lot of stuff, but a good proportion is revisionist leftist rubbish. Remember, the best lies are those sandwiched between two truths.

      2. They are easy to spot.
        I usually ignore. As I do on NOTTL when things get silly.
        Ask my sons about “Mother going quiet”. And watch them go v.v. pale.

    2. PS. I just saw another 100% Ruskie state troll operating on the DT pages – called ‘martin parsons’.

    1. 326225+ up ticks,
      Morning PP
      Done, every little helps said the old lady as she peed in the Medway

      1. Americans voting for Biden may have been like Turkeys voting for Christmas but if the vote was fair and square it must be accepted or it would be a disgrace in the same way that it was a disgrace that so many people in politics and the MSM tried to overturn the result of the Brexit referendum.

        I have absolutely no knowledge about the honesty of the vote. Is it a recent phenomenon that people do not trust the integrity of the voting system and the result it produces?

        1. 326225+ up ticks,
          Morning R,
          Since two out of three is the winning majority it has always been with us & considered fair.
          Tis when the manipulators take a hand there is a problem.
          Postal voting encourages fraud, fraud can and will change lifestyles, & can result in killing.
          Personal view, I would re-run the count NOW they have done all their talking, with a fast track amendment, any manipulator
          caught in the act does hard long time on found guilty of charge of attempted murder of, ( the nation or individual )

          1. Good Morning ogga,

            Be careful.

            You are keen on your upticks.

            I made the point yesterday that Postal Voting was a likely source of voter fraud and got a down vote from YKW.

          3. 326225+ up ticks,
            O2O,
            You should have informed R, that a down tick bit of jennifer shrapnel is worth, well, a bomb.

          4. 326225+ up ticks,
            R,
            The up tick tally came about at the time of the up tick manipulation / disappearance era, many just took it as said, I
            didn’t.
            Little things tend to multiply.
            Like little things in governance party actions fall under the spell of the three monkeys over the years, we can NOW see where that got the Country.

  30. Had some sad news this morning. After seven years of medical school a dear friend has been struck off for the simple mistake of having a relationship with one of his patients.

    Such a waste – a great Guy and a brilliant Vet.

  31. Paper finally arrived. They needn’t have bothered, really…..

    Must away to bull my shoes for the truncated church parade.

  32. I see that the DT is now gushing over Biden in its wall-to-wall ‘coverage’ of the US election. Barely anything about the obvious illegal acts on the Dem side and cover-up by the MSM. Claire Cohen getting slated by readers (presumably until the comments are is deleted for her snowflakeness) for her third-wave feminist, pro-Biden/Harris article – and the best comments come from women readers.

    1. LBC radio slowly letting it out that Biden supports the IRA and hates us and Brexit, can’t think why they never mentioned it before.

      1. The ‘pro-healing’ Biden. The same Biden (and Harris) that before the election, made their feeling about Trump supporters and non-never Trumper Republicans (not to be confused with those of the IRA kind) well known. The Chinese government are now rubbing their hands in glee…

        1. The Iranians will be pleased too.

          Just after announcing a new missiie that will make their enemies tremble.

  33. Where is M. Macron when we need him?

    Despite the UK’s security threat level being raised to ‘severe’, there is a headline in the Times: “Boy in beheading plot among 100 terrorists due for release”

    Others who could be back on the streets soon include two childhood friends who received weapons training in Syria, a Londoner who downloaded terrorist manuals with assassination instructions, and a man who sought to join Isis and marry a nine-year-old girl.

    UK police chiefs fear the increase in terrorist activity in Europe could embolden jihadists to strike here.

    A spokesman for the Parole Board said its members had received “rigorous training” in handling terrorism cases and prisoners deemed to pose a risk would not be released.

    The far left lawyers make a fortune out of this (paid for by taxpayers) and the parole board must be one of the most naive institutions in the country.

    1. The PTB have no desire to protect us from terrorism. They clearly think the threat of being beheaded will keep us alert and on our toes.

      2. The lawyers are simply greedy. The parole board idiotic and far too eager to ignore the danger of Muslim terrorists.

        1. Someone might remind the Parole ” Bored” (sic) that the chap who killed four people in Vienna last week had been released early from serving time for a terrorist offence..

        2. Or perhaps frit that muzzies will find out their addresses and go choppy choppy. They simply can’t be THAT naive/stupid/whatever in the face of all evidence.

          Hello wibs!

  35. Thoughts from the shower on Covid-19.
    Testing results in the detection of cases. Cases include those who have had Covid-19.
    More cases result in more lockdown and even more restrictions.
    The government is following the science.
    Things will be safer when there is herd immunity.
    Herd immunity will happen when everyone has had Covid-19.
    When there is herd immunity everyone will test positive for Covid-19.
    The government will then close everything down completely, and permanently.
    The government is following the science.

    Just a thought.

  37. A well attended minutes silence at the door of the Court,far more than ever clapped for the NHS
    Pity about the masks but well done everybody

  38. Oh the irony of it all.

    We have just returned from the village War Memorial where we were asked to wear masks, in the open air, and to stand on the other side of the road. We refused to do both as we upheld the reason for being there. We were paying respects to all those brave men and women who had given their lives that we may be able to live as free people. The irony was of the righteous who followed some arbitrary instructions from some faceless bureaucrat in exact defiance of why were all there.

    What a dreadful state the people of this country have allowed themselves to sink to and give up, so easily and compliantly, those liberties that were paid for with blood and honour.

  39. Dulce et decorum est pro Patria mori

    Not quite the same to die of Covid 19 though we must never forget those who died to give us a future they never had themselves.

    1. Without a close-up of the contents how do we know they are ballot papers, let alone ballots for Trump?

    2. If there is truth to any of these allegations, surely Trumps team will have been all over them.

      All he has done so far is claim fraud, but offered absolutely no evidence. The police collecting bags full of discarded ballots would surely have been highlighted by trumps lawyers as an example of what happened.

      The election count is not over, it’s just media deciding it is close enough. Trump had promised legal action on Monday, that’s when he needs to put up or shut up. He didn’t wage a war against postal votes or stack the Supreme Court in his favour for nothing.

    2. I noticed today (due to social distancing I was allocated a spot behind the cenotaph) that there is a bench dedicated to a KSLI soldier who lost his life in Normandy (Dunkirk, rather than D Day).

    3. 326225+ up ticks,
      Afternoon AtG,
      To my mind they have the remnants / participants of wars who could on Wednesday take a stand once more.
      What political tripe / employee would in all honesty interfere ?

  42. I have recorded the Whitehall “event”. So do not know how many people were there. I thought it was only going be the Royal family. If vile political people were able to be present – why not the rest of those who REALLY wanted to be there?

  43. OT – has anyone been able to access Sunday Times ‘Where Was I?’ today? Either it’s been moved or paywalled. Thanks.

  45. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Brief visit today, duty calls on Ashdown Forest, in the hope of persuading our usual 2,000-ish visitors that there is NO Service of Remembrance at the Airmans Grave this year, ‘cos it would be in breach of the rules. Sad, but there we are.

    Andy Brown speaks for many of us:

    SIR – I consider myself to be a conservative with a small “c”: a firm believer in the rule of law, and supportive of the police. However, I am feeling increasingly alienated by those who govern us.

    The imposition of a second lockdown, based on dodgy data, combined with increasingly aggressive policing, is making Britain feel like an authoritarian state ruled by an out-of-touch elite. And if that’s how I feel, just imagine how others might respond if this goes on much longer.

    Andy Brown
    Derby

    1. SIR – Janet Daley discusses the roots of the lockdown policy favoured across the world. She considers why lockdown has been the response to Covid-19 but not previous pandemics.

      She identifies two key causes: “the belief that the state is now morally responsible for all outcomes” and thus that “the notion of acceptable risk – and the individual’s right to choose it – has to go out of the window”. I found her analysis compelling.

      David Scouller

      Salisbury, Wiltshire

    2. Boris has given in to Rashford and will pay for “School meals” over Christmas. The Chancellor is wasting taxpayers money but still protecting his wealthy cronies by allowing massive tax avoidance by individuals including grossly overpaid footballers.

      1. Why doesn’t Brashford donate his vast “pay” – half a million quid a week or some bollox – to his fave chariddy?

        1. Morning Bill – he expects that it is the duty of the taxpayers to pay for his largesse.

          1. And the credit card is cheap for laid-off football-supporting workers to pay his earnings.

        2. He doesn’t get paid very much (just takes a very large loan from his tax avoiding company).

          1. Rashford signed a new contract with Manchester United in 2019 that is reportedly worth £200,000 a week.

            Not very much?!!!!!

          2. He is paid about £4,000 per annum. The rest of his income is an interest free ‘loan’ from the company that his accountants set up for him.

          5. The Rangers case is worth looking at. A lawyer called Thornhill* was involved in dreaming up the “loan” scheme. The “loan” has no repayment date. HMRC took this to court in Scotland and won.

            Here is an excellent summary and, below it, the HMRC latest on this.
            https://www.rossmartin.co.uk/sme-tax-news/2793-supreme-court-dismisses-rangers-ebt-appeal
            https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/loan-schemes-and-the-loan-charge-an-overview/tax-avoidance-loan-schemes-and-the-loan-charge

            *I worked for him, briefly, in another context.

          1. Thanks. What I’d really like to know is just how many impoverished starving children there really are.

        1. Which actually gets used to fund the gap between rent monies given and rent monies demanded by landlord.

          1. Unless the parents have other things they prefer to spend it on apart from food, which is probably the case for those whose children are going hungry.
            I was poor for most of my life – in modern Britain, feeding yourself is the easiest part of being poor.

          2. Housing costs are the real issue.

            Firstly housing benefit used to be based on a median property for the area, now it’s 30th percentile. The first 15% tend to be sheds and garages for rent. Then instead of being uprated in line with rents it was uprated in line with CPI which is lower than rent increases and if that wasn’t bad enough that only occurred in one year as every other year the increases were legislated at 1% or less. There’s been eight years of that. Add on the bedroom tax for those in social housing that literally can’t move to a smaller property as there aren’t any. Then the effect of local rent allowance caps and the overall welfare cap. Every spare penny goes into not getting evicted along with anything you can scrounge, borrow or crowdfund.

            In my area a 2 bed flat is at least £350 per week. The maximum amount of benefit available to pay towards that rent is £299.18. That means a shortfall of over fifty quid has to be found from one’s benefit payment. A couple get 116.80 per week currently. Utilities cost about 35 a month, and you need both phone and internet too as that’s how you find a job. You also need contribute between a fiver and a tenner per week towards council tax too although not every council charges this.

          3. Caught a bit of a programme on TV last night while working. It seemed to be a documentary type programme about young girls going on the game to deal with rent arrears. The girls were saying they literally had no choice, didn’t like doing it, but it was the only way.

            Such a nice country we’ve become.

    3. Britain has been an authoritarian state ruled by an out of touch elite for my entire life.

      1. We had stability though. And the Lords could be pretty much relied upon not to harm the country, as they owned half of it.
        Democracy is overrated anyway.
        The real tragedy was when our old, stable system was destroyed by Blair, and we went from an essentially benevolent dictatorship to a scary, globalist, definitely not benevolent one.

        1. It was Thatcher that destroyed the old system.

          Read that book I linked then look back on the fiscal system pre-thatcher and see what we did right and what we did wrong.

          I wouldn’t describe the UK as being a place of stability. It was once, then came the neoliberals with their short-termist ideas revolving around a total misunderstanding of the monetary system and that was all she wrote.

          If you worked in the city you did well. If you worked for a bank or financial company you did well, if you worked for a manufacturer then you probably watched many jobs go overseas. Scientists did exceptionally poorly as most of their jobs were linked to manufacturing and with the new vast amounts of free trade and the growing European community most of these jobs went abroad including every single job I did.

          When I was at school jobs were plentiful and varied but we had a protected economy. At the end of my road was about 20 different factories. Just a few roads over an industrial estate with over 100 more factories. By the time I left school that was all derelict buildings. I was stupid. I kept studying science subjects then left school to a terrible job market for those skills. It was only a couple of years before I had to switch to being a C++ programmer and less than ten years before most of those jobs went to India.

          1. I’m talking about politically. We had arguably the most stable political system in the West.

          2. Yeah sure. It never worked well but it was stable. It made it so new parties had no chance at all, and we’d be forever a two party state. Not my idea of stability.
            Without new ideas all we end up with is repeating the same dross over and over again.

  46. SIR – Nigel Farage brought us the Brexit referendum. Maybe his newly branded party, Reform UK, can bring the Government some common sense.

    I am over 75, but, with no known pre-existing conditions, I do not expect to die from Covid-19. I agree with the Great Barrington Declaration. Our Government does not, but refuses to explain why, and instead scorns its authors via surrogates.

    The new lockdown will irreparably damage our economy. This is no way to run the country.

    Peter Kleeman
    London W8

    Oh but it is, Peter Kleeman – if your aim is to subvert democracy and to remove our freedom.

    1. How is democracy being subverted?

      The idiots doing it are the idiots that the electorate damn well elected. We don’t get another dose of democracy until the next election in four years time.

      It’s quaint that you thought you had freedom in a country that captures everything that crosses the internet, has more CCTV than 98.5% of the world, collects movement data on you from GPS and your mobile phone, can hold your DNA record and can force you to give up encryption keys.

      1. The government took a lot of powers for making decisions, especially financial ones away from parliament and awarded them to themselves earlier this year, which I guess is what Hugh is referring to.
        Plus if the whole mandatory vaccine thing kicks off, I doubt we shall get a vote on it.

        1. A government with an 80 seat majority can get away with almost anything. Parliament can’t block a strong government, and a three-line whip would be used for anything the government wanted to press through.

          Vaccines will never be mandatory.

          There is no subversion of democracy as we don’t have democracy we only have an illusion of democracy on average about every five years then we go back to doing what we’re told to do by the powers that be. There’s only one country in the world with anything like a real democracy and that’s Switzerland.

          1. Depends what you define as democracy. We have a form of democracy (elected dictatorship). But the govt would be vulnerable to rebellion on the sensitive issue of lockdowns.

  47. 326225+ up ticks,
    May one ask will any of this political slap in the nations collective kissers, toe into line boot up the nations collective arses, plain to see in the nations collective face’s ( Dover) treachery, etc have any affect on the next General Election
    if one is granted that is ?

    Will the lab/lib/con mass uncontrolled immigration / paedophile umbrella coalition party still rule supreme.

    Or will “better forget” be an option ?

  48. My ‘last post’ for now:

    For the Fallen
    BY LAURENCE BINYON

    With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
    England mourns for her dead across the sea.
    Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
    Fallen in the cause of the free.

    Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
    Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
    There is music in the midst of desolation
    And a glory that shines upon our tears.

    They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
    Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
    They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
    They fell with their faces to the foe.

    They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
    Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
    At the going down of the sun and in the morning
    We will remember them.

    They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
    They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
    They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
    They sleep beyond England’s foam.

    But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
    Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
    To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
    As the stars are known to the Night;

    As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
    Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
    As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
    To the end, to the end, they remain.

    1. Do you know Elgar’s setting of this? He did two versions – one in 1916, and the other in 1920. One was stark and raw, and we could feel the dismal power of the shells and the trenches. The other was for the opening of the Cenotaph, and was looking back into history and remembrance, and was softer and somewhat soulful.

  49. Ave atque vale, amici. I am only popping in briefly before I go out for a meal with a friend. Just to let you know we had a socially distanced (and majority mask-wearing – outside!) Remembrance Day service. We had a professional singer to “lead us” in the first verse of the National Anthem (although it wasn’t on the order of service). I was probably the only other one who sang it (sotto voce). As usual the vicarette managed to be PC; we prayed for “humankind” rather than mankind and to be nice to refugees. Some of my responses were muttered and non-standard!

    1. Shame the vicarette didn’t tell the “refugees” to be nice to the people whose taxes provide their life here in the UK.

      2. Most of them are not refugees, for which this country has a long and honourable history of providing refuge, but economic migrants who are seeking a better life. The real trouble is that the better life they are seeking is not one that embraces British law, custom, culture and tradition but one that abuses British generosity and involves trying to impose the law, custom, culture and tradition of where they have come from on this country.

    2. one thing about wearing a mask is that no one can read your lips. Many agree word can be uttered in contempt of what is going on.

      1. People will though. Eventually the ceremony will be ignored as the Left continue to try to re-write history.

        Heaven forfend we should remember the horror they inflicted on Europe – and domination and subjugation the EU is pushing today.

    2. That’s nice. We had a good “discouraged” turnout at West Smithfield, including children and dogs. We were all allowed to sing “O God, our help in ages past” and the National Anthem but the choir wore masks. No idea whether that’s a government diktat, I’m past trying to make sense of these things – but really glad I went.

      1. People were not supposed to attend our service unless they were laying wreaths, but the populace lined the roads anyway. Normally the whole route of the march is packed, but we just dismissed “Officer on Parade” and left.

  51. Hello all!

    “Boris Johnson today tried to lay the groundwork for a strong relationship with Joe Biden as he insisted there is ‘far more that unites us than divides us’ amid fears the two men will not get along.

    Mr Biden previously described Mr Johnson as ‘a physical and emotional clone’ of Donald Trump and the President-elect is also vehemently opposed to Brexit.”

    Actually Bozo is not an emotional clone of Trump. Bozo has no beliefs, no spine, no cojones, no sense and no ability to do anything useful. And he is a total wimp. I would have said smug ar$ehole, but they do both share those traits.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8925975/Number-10-war-games-phone-call-PM-Joe-Biden.html?ito=push-notification&ci=49146&si=20287877

    2. 326225+up ticks,
      Afternoon HL,
      Up until now the goodies are losing big time.
      The ersatz tory (it name only) group leader
      & biden are both pro eu & on news at one a republican who voted for biden said, they had little liking for the turkish delight & the special relationship UK/USA will not be seen as very special via the eyes of biden.
      The johnson / biden team have had a good day.

    2. Rather makes you wonder – why such a huge over-reaction?

      If the piper was coming toward him, all the officer need do is point and steer him away. As for other content on that channel I really don’t understand why the gimmigrants keep getting here.

      1. Yes you do wibs – they keep coming here because our govt. and most in parliament want them to keep on coming here. As long as the gimmingrants don’t settle in their back yards, of course.

    5. I see in the 2nd row of cops a camera filming all these heinous villains for future door knocking.

    7. 326225+ up ticks.
      Afternoon Rik,
      Could very well be brought to a head on Wednesday if all vets turned up at the cenotaph.
      Then again is provocation the name of their game ?

  54. Test and trace needs radical reform in England, health experts say. 8 November 2020.

    The government faces renewed calls for the central NHS test and trace system to be scrapped in favour of handing responsibility for contact tracing to local public health teams.

    Like pretty well everything undertaken by the Government Test and Trace has proved to be utterly futile. Perhaps we ought to forget about the virus and try to find out how one of the planets most successful countries for almost 500 years has been reduced to a Police State Clownland?

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/07/test-and-trace-needs-radical-reform-in-england-health-experts-say

  55. Good moaning.
    “In early May 2020 I was initially amused, but then concerned to read the Reuters report about the Tanzanian government’s official samples submitted for PCR testing. It reported that pawpaw and tortoise swabs tested positive for Covid-19.”

    Snippet from an article I have just read. It is long so I will merely post the link. However, I have also kept a full fat copy in case it should be vaporised.

    https://thecritic.co.uk/the-covid-physicians-true-coronavirus-timeline/

      1. It is a chewy one. I sent it to those who I thought had sufficient powers of concentration.

    2. Very good. If the PTB ever discovered the author he’d be straight up for med students’ dissection class, as the corpse..

  56. On a higher note. This morning SkyArts on Freeview broadcast “Turandot” from Sydney Harbour. Fabulous, Too bad it started at 11:00am. So we missed most of it. It is repeated again on Friday at 7:00am. A tad early.

      1. Well, of course.
        “Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion, or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle, or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle. When the sun comes up, you better start running.” Thomas Friedman

        1. A gazelle does not need to run faster than the fastest lion. It only needs to run faster than the slowest gazelle.

          2. That’s bears and fat friend. (Always have a fat friend with you when you go into the woods where the bears live.)

        2. Gosh, that’s depressing. Could be paraphrased as “It’s 2020, so you’d better start running.”

        1. We used to take the children from Gresham’s there – and one was chosen to read the poem. They managed it magnificently.

          1. It is many years since I last went. At that time The CWG site was well kempt, as one would expect; the areas around the dressing station were more overgrown and very evocative.
            Presumably you will have taken them to Hiil62/Santuary wood.
            Again, when I went it was a weird museum, packed full of stuff, higgledy-piggledy but combined with the preserved trenches and using ones imagination one got a “feelng” for the conditions, even though in truth they are unimaginable.

            For those who don’t know it, here’s a link:
            https://www.ww1battlefields.co.uk/flanders/sanctuary-wood/

          2. All first year pupils were taken – in two groups – to Flanders and the Somme. Three day trip.

            They were intrigued in Belgium when I put a small cross on a grave. They asked why – and I explained it was that of the man whom my mother intended to marry. Then I added that if she had, I would not be there!

          3. I remember that. The ‘museum’ was just heaps of stuff piled up behind glass.
            And beside the door there was a big chap sitting behind the till.

          4. One chosen, but “they” managed it magnificently? Was he/she/it unsure of what to be called?

      2. Remembrance day is still very important over here. Every pupil in our local high school was given a red poppy on Friday, they would normally be at the war memorial for the service.
        How long this carries on I do not know, the woke are chipping away at our history.

        1. The Canadian and Newfoundland memorials suggest that it is still in the hearts of Canadian youngsters, who volunteer as guides.

          2. Poppies are not, and never have been, “sold”.

            They are given in return for a donation, however small. They may even simply be given to those who do not have any money (it is at the discretion of the collector). Those who give the largest donations may not even accept a poppy. When I was a small girl distributing poppies via our primary school we always had a £5 note (a lot of money in the mid 1960s) from the lady at the castle whose elder son had died in 1944 – she never took a poppy. She barely opened the door to us, simply putting her hand round it with the money. It was only in my last year at the school – at the age of nine – that I realised she was weeping and didn’t want us to see it.

          4. She was virtually a recluse and had something of a fondness for the gin bottle, but that didn’t change her feelings over the loss of her son.
            It might have been easier for her had the local poppy distributors not been primary school children, but we learned something by doing it.

            We did a Red Cross door to door in the late spring/early summer too. The community was small and divided up between the children of the school we knocked on all the doors and nobody had to knock on a very large number. As we lived on one of the outlying farms our doors were the neighbouring farms and the castle (old-fashioned Scottish tower house) which was at the bottom of our field and its cottages. They all knew us, and we knew them so no one worried about 6/7/8 year olds going the rounds on their own.

          8. The odd thing is that I was in Grenada last Remembrance Day and Barbados in the run up to 11th Nov some six years ago and on both trips, I saw poppies and all were of the red variety.

    2. I think it’s addressed to BT. There is something about one of his kittens – middle of fourth row from top.

      1. I think you may be correct, it starts top left:

        “Dear Mr Faller-off Ladders, pick yourself up rub yourself down and start all over again.”

    3. In recent news a letter posted in 1934 has just been delivered by our post office. At least the post office had the decency to stick a post it on the envelope “Sorry for the late delivery”. It was a job application, no she didn’t get the job.

      Wait breaking news. It was a postal ballot, Bennett can no longer be PM pending a recount.

  59. Mail to a Con MP…………

    I note, with amusement, that your sudden interest in immediate evidence (relating to the US election) is not matched by your interest in the large volume of evidence I have submitted demonstrating the strong likelihood of conspiracy involving senior Conservative and Labor politicians with George Soros and Open Society London since at least 1997, and probably 1990.

    In view of the huge sums of money spent by George Soros in London to ”leverage” the ”policy, legislation and political influence” he desires, please explain why John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron all omitted George Soros and Open Society London from their autobiographies.

    Your Bruges Group tweeted the Open Society accounts which revealed $60,000,000 spent in 2018 alone. So extrapolating that just to 1997, 23 years, looks likely to involve at least $250,000,000 as a conservative estimate.

    Yet an estimated $250,000,000 plus doesn’t deserve one word about George Soros in their books, despite almost all their major policies being the same as Soros policies.

    Why was Soros omitted?

    What did Soros discuss with Blair at the New York Plaza Hotel on April 20, 1996?

    Why won’t you discuss Soros in detail with your readers?

    Look forward to your answer.

    Polly

        1. Oh come, come rIchard, we all have our tolerance limits. A picture of that revolting woman would be more than flesh and fur could take!

      1. You have to wonder what they all do. What purpose have they? We need barely a half dozen people.

        Just remember beneath these wasters sit equal sized – and far more highly paid – councils, mayors, officialdom of all sorts. Doing what? Nothing useful, that’s for sure.

        1. When I was working in industry, it was a basic tenet that no Manager could manage more than six people who reported to him – under-managers, supervisors, foremen, etc.

          That ‘Cabinet’ with more than 30 under-managers, is likely to be a pit of dissention, treachery and Empire-building – as we well know.

        2. All in I’ll bet that lot costs the UK tax payers more than all the 10 thousand illegal migrants put together.

      2. The sort of people if you were in drifting life raft for a few weeks with any one of them, you might wake up with an arm missing.
        And they would deny any knowledge of how it happened.

    1. I imagine the following few steps will be that you can go back to normal as long as you can prove you are vaccinated – i.e. showing papers.

      Once you’ve shown papers and identified who you are, you are monitored and logged.

      If you refuse vaccination then not only will some services be refused you: such as using public transport, gyms, clubs. I imagine your employer would be notified as well if such is not automatically done by the state.

    2. I am Pilgrim ?

      “Pilgrim” is an American former intelligence agent known as the “Rider of the Blue” who later writes a book on forensic pathology. Pilgrim becomes involved in a case in New York City where a mysterious woman uses his book to commit untraceable murders in the aftermath of 9/11. The “Saracen” is a Saudi who becomes radicalised by watching his father’s beheading. He later trains as a doctor and fights in the Soviet–Afghan War. Pilgrim is recalled to the intelligence community who have detected a threat involving the Saracen, who has created a vaccine-resistant strain of the variola major virus.

    3. The authors’ remit was obvious “justify compulsory vaccination, and tell us how to go about achieving this”. I wonder who funded this report…

  65. 34 people attended our truncated Act of Remembrance. Both the soldiers – as well as the Brigadier. About an hour before, the sun same out.

    In the end we did all stand in the road – and, to my amazement (these days) cars stopped, turned off their engines and waited until we had finished.

    Pity about the stupid masks – but, as I said yesterday, at least we were able to do it. Our Priest-in-charge is the Rector of Fakenham. The jobsworths at the council banned ANY public event in Fakenham. So he came to us and did his stuff.

    1. Junior and I had talkeed about it before hand and he took along one of his toy soldiers and stood quietly while we all remembered a far more important event than NHS staff pratting about.

  66. How come the royals (and others) were allowed to sing at the Cenotaph ceremony but we were banned from singing – in the open air – at our little village do?

      1. But seriously – why were we banned?

        The whole control thing is beginning to get to me. And there is NO ONE to whom can protest. MPs = part of the conspiracy. MSM = ditto.

        1. I’m serious, they do it because they can.

          It’s that aspect of the whole thing that I find makes my blood boil. I’m very non-violent, but every time I see Hancock Whitty and Vallance I want to attack them physically.

          There is little if any science behind it and the risks are negligible.

          1. Yes, strange that. I am a mild-tempered peaceable person but the very sight of them makes me want to batter them. And if I feel like that, what do others feel like.

          3. According to Peter Hopkirk, the Kaiser was responsible for the mess which is the current Middle East. He stirred it up to stuff the British and their Empire and establish a German one in its place. It makes fascinating reading.

          4. …the Kaiser USA presidents are responsible for the mess which is the current Middle East. They stirred it up to stuff the British and their Empire.

            Much as I like the Yanks, their politicians and big businessmen have a lot to answer for.

          8. #me too. He reminds me of a know-nothing sixth former. They seem to be hiding him away at the moment, he is the face of Lockdown 2020. He needs to go. He is an insult to the office which he holds.

        2. It is going to need er, (GCHQ look away now – over there, a squirrel..) armed conflict – civil war. It will be ultimately the only way.

          2. There are still guns around, Hl, just not handguns. And who will care about gun laws when the time comes?

            Good evening and nice to see you here again!

          4. But who has most of the handguns? Police, criminals and the monied. (There is of course, overlap between the beforementioned.)

          6. Oh. A friend of mine, well, a slight acquaintance really, whose name I cannot remember, would be interested in knowing how to go about it?

          7. That is what I meant. Come the time, they will flood into the country. Demand will lead to supply.

        3. We were allowed two hymns, Bill. I think, though I’m not certain, that that instruction came from the Midwife (aka the Bishop of London). Seemed weird, given that we were all outdoors, that we were allowed to sing maskless but the choir were masked.

          2. So – two hymns OK, three hymns you all die? The virus can count….

            Lucky you, anyway, pet. I envy you. But that church has a vicar with balls.

        1. Very true – since becoming deaf I can no longer tell whether I am singing in tune. The faces of those around me gives it away.

          I spent many years in a choral society and miss it very much.

          1. I never could sing in tune. :-((
            Last time i REALLY sang, I was working a tractor really hard, so the noise was terrific. Nobody to hear me, either, and the tractor didn’t care!

      2. By dobbing you in the the narks – who then “issue” (the new way of saying “impose” a fine of several hundred pounds.

        1. With all due respect, the Police would issue a covid resister with a simple Fixed Penalty Notice. If you were to seriously object, you would eventually be entitled to appear before a jury composed of 12 of your peers, which would exclude any of them policemen.

  67. My daughter-in-law tells me that the open air Remembrance commemoration in their village (Gloucestershire) was marred by cyclists tearing through the small crowd assembled.

    What ghastly times we live in.

    4. Somehow a small flash mob appeared around the town memorial and an individual with medals came to attention at 11am. Two individuals stood in the road stopping traffic, plod did not appear, maybe someone put something on Twatter to distract them. Bravo!

      1. Fear not – the plod will study the ubiquitous CCTV and you’ll all be done for an illegal assembly.

    5. Our* village War Memorial is just across the road from my old place. There’s a scary road junction adjacent.

      No Church service this year. Over to the British Legion. I think we had a turnout of around forty. Far fewer than in a normal year, when the Church is packed (around 150). We’re on a cycle route, and can generally measure the passing Lycra by the tonne. I have to report that cyclists were coming to a halt from 10.40 am. All motor vehicles stopped. In the absence of a live bugler, I was poised nearby with a keyboard amplifier/speaker and my smartphone. The Last Post and Reveille went according to plan. Having been advised a few minutes earlier that we were singing the National Anthem, I paid Amazon £0.95 for a recorded accompaniment. Got to a screen which said “Play Now”. On cue, I hit said button, and was rewarded with an advert for Amazon Alexa. On hitting “not now”, another app opened, and I was invited to view a queue of downloaded songs. Too late. We sang unaccompanied.

      *I’ve now moved. There are still a few things to move (notably a f*** off organ console and two sets of Mercedes wheels), but I have a month left. THe rest will go with a house clearance charity.

  69. Just returned from Prestwick Cross after paying my respects to the fallen. There was no service but around three dozen attendees, a bugler and just the one wreath laid. #LestWeForget

      2. He wasn’t just an arsehole, he was a communist arsehole who used to help to fund IRA terrorism.

        I refuse to allow any of his ‘songs’ in my house. If I find such a CD or a tape it goes in the bin where it belongs!

          2. Thinking back, we girlies tended to fancy Macca and George, thought of Ringo as a funny brother …. and were always wary of Lennon. I think we sensed something rather nasty about him.

  71. Just arrived home with dogs after a very pleasant dog walk.

    The sweetest sound greeted us as we got the dogs out of the car , a thrush was singing his heart out .

    The Darkling Thrush
    Thomas Hardy – 1840-1928

    I leant upon a coppice gate
    When Frost was spectre-gray,
    And Winter’s dregs made desolate
    The weakening eye of day.
    The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
    Like strings of broken lyres,
    And all mankind that haunted nigh
    Had sought their household fires.

    The land’s sharp features seemed to be
    The Century’s corpse outleant,
    His crypt the cloudy canopy,
    The wind his death-lament.
    The ancient pulse of germ and birth
    Was shrunken hard and dry,
    And every spirit upon earth
    Seemed fervourless as I.

    At once a voice arose among
    The bleak twigs overhead
    In a full-hearted evensong
    Of joy illimited;
    An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
    In blast-beruffled plume,
    Had chosen thus to fling his soul
    Upon the growing gloom.

    So little cause for carolings
    Of such ecstatic sound
    Was written on terrestrial things
    Afar or nigh around,
    That I could think there trembled through
    His happy good-night air
    Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
    And I was unaware.

  72. A warning to all those cheering Joe Biden’s win… he’s no friend of Britain. Douglas Murray. 8 November 2020.

    Britain has never had any great love for Donald Trump. His approval ratings among the public here rarely went above 25 per cent.

    But one thing that everybody knew was that he was a great friend of the UK. Even if that feeling never was reciprocated.

    And although opinion polls suggest that the British public will feel more comfortable with the Democrat alternative (as they always do), they should know one thing above all: Joe Biden and his party are no friends of this country. We might yet rue the day that Donald Trump leaves the White House.

    Joe Biden and the Democrat high command loathe Brexit Britain. They believe that the Brexit movement had something to do with the election of Donald Trump – acting as some kind of forerunner. They instinctively connect the two

    The sheer madness of this country’s attitude needs to be spelt out – and now more than ever.

    Four years ago, the British people made a big and bold leap in voting to quit the European Union. Since then, this country has struggled to leave, but finally we are out.

    It is at exactly such a moment, when alliances are shifting and new trade deals are required, that older and closer friends need to step up.

    To a great extent they have. Our allies in Australia, for instance, have not only been pushing forward an improved trading relationship but even sent a former Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, to help us as an unpaid trade envoy.

    But the biggest prize is the trade deal we so badly need with the United States. America is this country’s largest export market and our second-largest import market. In the wake of our exit from the EU, it is no exaggeration to say that this relationship is crucial.
    And Donald Trump was on our side. He made it clear from day one that he favoured a huge trade deal with Britain that would enrich both parties. The goodwill was there, and from the moment negotiations could start, they did.

    Led by envoy Robert Lighthizer, Trump’s experienced trade team has been deeply friendly to the UK. They stressed from the beginning that the US would seek a generous deal with the UK.

    Of course certain public figures over here did everything they could to try to poison that relationship. Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, for instance, was so intent on insulting our most important trading partner that even while being Mayor of our capital city he tried to elevate himself on the international stage by repeatedly insulting the American President. The then Speaker of the House of Commons – John Bercow – did the same thing.

    This is not a normal state of affairs. Yet Trump’s negotiating team rose above such pettiness. Throughout this year they have been working constructively towards a rapid conclusion.

    As a party to the negotiations said to me recently, although a deal was never likely to be achieved before the election, it was certainly not due to any lack of goodwill, rather simply due to the number of formalities that have to be agreed before any deal of such a size can be completed.

    So the Americans were ready to go. This country would have benefited enormously – in jobs and much more.

    But unless President Trump can somehow push a deal through before he leaves office in January, there is something the British public should know. The situation with Trump’s successor will be very different.

    Joe Biden and the Democrat high command loathe Brexit Britain. They believe that the Brexit movement had something to do with the election of Donald Trump – acting as some kind of forerunner. They instinctively connect the two.

    And they also hold a contemptuous, furious and deeply anti-British attitude to everything to do with our future relationship.
    In their extraordinary ignorance, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Joe Biden seem to believe Britain’s exit from the EU risks unravelling the Good Friday Peace Agreement on the island of Ireland.

    In fact, it shows that they have spent zero time thinking about Northern Ireland or studying the detail of the EU withdrawal agreement.

    But pushed by partisans in their own party, Pelosi and Biden have been persuaded to embrace this nonsense, and the effect could be enormously destructive to both our friendship with America and our prosperity.

    The problem is summed up by a letter sent to Boris Johnson two months ago. It was signed by a number of US Congressmen, including some who had vocally supported the IRA during the heights of the Troubles. This included the appalling supporter of IRA terrorism, Congressman Peter King.

    The letter claimed that any Free Trade Agreement with America and the Good Friday Agreement are ‘inextricably linked’ and that a No Deal Brexit would put the Good Friday Agreement at risk.

    The Democrat Pelosi was eager to pick up this claim, however poisonous. At a news conference two months ago, she talked about Brexit Britain with such anger that you could see her trying to keep her teeth in her mouth.

    If Britain thought we would be able to leave the EU without a deal and put the Good Friday Agreement ‘at risk’, the United Kingdom could forget about a trade deal with the US, she spat.

    There was ‘absolutely no chance’ of a US-UK trade deal, she said, so long as Democrats had a say. For his part, Joe Biden – or whoever runs his Twitter account – was happy to repeat this claim, even retweeting the threatening letter from the pro-IRA Congressmen.

    Mr Biden is proud of his own Irish roots, and you get a picture of where his sympathies lie in a photograph that emerged yesterday.
    Taken three years ago, it shows Biden, beaming with pleasure, alongside former Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams and with his arm around former fugitive Rita O’Hare. She had been arrested in 1972 following the attempted murder of a British Army officer in Belfast, but she skipped bail and ended up in the US.

    So people in Britain should know that this country is now in a very serious situation. We have leapt from the EU by popular consent to face a clean-break No Deal exit. That is fine, and there is a logic to it. But it is not at all fine if as a consequence we are simultaneously punished by an unsympathetic and anti-British Democrat-run US.

    And I don’t mind saying that I am worried.

    Pro-EU campaigners in the UK such as Sadiq Khan will be delighted, of course.

    They have always wanted to punish the British people for voting the ‘wrong’ way in 2016 and are desperate that everyone learns the lesson ‘the hard way’ that they were right all along. Nothing could be more ignorant or wrong.

    The Trump administration had many faults. But it also had many virtues. Trump himself has been the only prominent politician in the world to challenge the Chinese Communist Party’s appalling corruption and undermining of world trade. In Trump’s absence, the rise of China will go unchecked.

    Just as Biden’s inevitable decision to take America back into the Iran nuclear deal will see Iran able to restart buying arms from Russia and China, unchallenged by anyone – including this country.

    It is a tradition that Republican presidents are disdained in the UK. It was the case with Ronald Reagan, George Bush and many others.

    Yes, Trump made it easier than most. But for all his flaws, the President has been a true supporter of this country.

    He wanted Brexit Britain and the United States to work well together and to prosper together.

    Much of the British public may be glad to see Trump leave the White House. But his exit will be a bad day. We will have lost a friend. At a time when we needed friends the most.

    Warning words from Douglas.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8924795/DOUGLAS-MURRAY-Warning-cheering-Joe-Bidens-win-hes-no-friend-Britain.html

    1. What’s sad is that the final bastian of Trumpism – The Daily Mail – has now meekly accept ‘the result’ (yeah, right) of the presidential election and is now, like the Telegraph, lauding it over Biden and Harris as if they were the proverbial second coming…

    2. Someone should point out to Biden that when the British people voted on leaving the EU the US President was a Democrat.

  73. Forgive me for showing some naivety here , but I assumed that Kamala Harris was indigenous American not native Asian Indian!

    It appears that the Asian Indians are jubilant that one of theirs may be president of the USA one day ..

    I can see this setting a precedent .. will Rich Suni become the first Asian UK PM when Boris has had enough ?

    I would rather see Raab in charge actually.

    1. …and, there’s me, Mags believing that the President of the US (unserviceable in service parlance) HAD to be born in America. Obama being (another fiddled) Democrat exception.

          1. Republicans spent 8 years trying to disprove Obama’s eligibility, Democrats spent 4 years trying to remove Trump. Now it looks as though there will be 4 years of Trump supporters claiming the election was fixed.

            Why don’t they all stop wasting their (and everyone else’s) time?

          2. I will stop as soon as I see that you have stopped. Said both sides.

            It needs leadership from the top. Even without Trumps combative style, dems and republicans in both houses have not set a good example. It needs the Republican Senate leader to openly work with the democrat house to show reconciliation but McConnell was not exactly supporting some of Trumps initiatives.

          4. That sort of proves the point about the US electorate being permanently divided doesn’t it? Invented stories gaining widespread coverage then never being dropped by the supposedly offended side.

            All of this weeks stories about van loads of Biden ballots being delivered or Republican count monitors being denied access will fuel the Trump was cheated mania for years to come.

    2. 326225+ up ticks,
      Afternoon TB,
      The instruction manual is in place between the two dispatch boxes, and the celebratory feast is currently on the parliamentary halal menu.

      You “see” the very near future in reality,
      courtesy of the lab/lib/con coalition party.

      We would NEVER have replaiced fish shops with mosques without their input.

  75. Market in London is PACKED with little social distancing or a mask in sight as visitors help themselves to takeaway beer and Britons flout new rules in their thousands. 8 November 2020.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bb161893cfdb41cb20f0e61152ae166dff4d685f7ada14cb26f494adeccd9e01.jpg

    Britons flouted lockdown in their hundreds of thousands in London today as a market was packed with visitors helping themselves to takeaway beer on the first weekend of new coronavirus lockdown restrictions.

    Londoners flocked to Broadway Market for drinks and food this afternoon, despite the new guidance to stay at home as much as possible.

    People were pictured queuing up for pints outside street food restaurants and packing the streets, with many not wearing face masks.

    I haven’t been to any large centres of population recently but I note that the customers at the Local Supermarket are largely indifferent to any Lockdown regulations. Perhaps this is the truth. Apart from a few neurotic believers nobody gives a rat’s ass about Lockdown !

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8924471/London-market-packed-visitors-buy-takeaway-beer-weekend-new-restrictions.html

    1. And meanwhile at the Cenotaph the usual remembrance day march past of thousands of veteran’s was cancelled, the parade is usually In memory of the people who gave their lives making this country safe for their many offspring to live in. As displayed in the photograph.

      1. Afternoon Phizzee. God knows how Baker arrives at the conclusion that he was murdered by the Russians. It was almost certainly an Mi6 operation!

        2. What is certain is that MI6 not only prevaricated but lied too.

          Similarly the lies told about Dr David Kelly. The early reports told of three men at the scene. Later reports told of only two. I expect the third man was an American intelligence operative.

          Good afternoon, Minty.

    2. Kate Hoey – one of the very few Labour MPs [or ex MPs] that I could have voted for had I lived in their constituencies!

      1. She was one of the very few MPs with integrity.

        I knew she was a sound and sensible person the moment she was sacked from being Minister of Sport by Tony Blair. By the same token I knew that Owen Paterson was a good egg when he was sacked from being Minister for the Environment by David Cameron.

    1. You’d think that veterans and current military personnel could easily march and keep 2m apart, so why haven’t they been allowed to? Probably because it would then encourage anti-lockdown etc protesters to do so as well. #1984IsHere

      1. Because they want our day of Remembrance to wither and dwindle away over the next few years. This has given them the perfect opportunity. So many oppprtunities one little virus has given the PTB for demolishing those days when we all (the indigenous) come together as a country, those days with which we all identify as a nation. Remembrance will disappear after the Queen has gone.

        1. No ‘they’ don’t. These claims really are nonsense. The ‘hated’ BBC for example make it pretty well compulsory for anyone appearing on TV to wear a poppy from late October.

          1. Even he contestants on “Strictly” have to wear them on their leotards when rehearsing.

          2. If the beeboids are wearing poppies – I wouldn’t know, I no longer watch any tv, the bbc disgusts me – they will be worn with gritted teeth (have to keep the plebs on message). At the same time they can polish their holier than thou halos whilst going about their daily business of destroying our country under the guise of our sacred symbol. It is not surprising the wearing of the same is compulsory.

          3. If you no longer watch the BBC, how do you know that ‘beeboids’ wear the poppy with gritted teeth?

    3. No one. The process has not been completed and the results in several states face legal challenges. Until these matters are settled any claims by Biden or Trump are premature. The MSM are projecting a Biden victory but they cannot in law call it.

      1. The Supreme Court is on a hiding to nothing over this one.

        They “elect” Trump through the electoral colleges which can be changed in the marginal/swing States due to frauds.

        However, the overall numbers at the USA level are Biden’s way, because of very heavy Democrat weightings in places like California and that will give the Democrats all the excuse they need to pack the SC next time they are in power.

        I suspect that they will also try to move Heaven and Earth to get the voting age down to 16, because the electoral colleges will then no longer be a problem and the Democrats will rule forever.

        1. The numbers for Biden are implausible and the statistical probability of some turnouts impossible to reconcile. The resolution will be a protracted process. Al Gore deemed himself President for a month before George W Bush was declared President.

          I suspect Trump has won with legitimate votes when the bogus and improper votes are deleted.

          1. I can’t argue with that except that there is no doubt that in large parts of America Biden will have “walked it” and the same applies to Trump in his strongholds.

            The problem for Trump is that the Bidenites are in bigger numbers and in the opinion formers, MSM and the like, they are anti-Trump off the scale.

        2. Until those 16 year olds become older and tax payers themselves. The facts of life are Conservative. This is inevitable.

        3. I suspect that they will also try to move Heaven and Earth to get the voting age down to 16, because the electoral colleges will then no longer be a problem and the Democrats will rule forever.

          No doubt but thats just tapping a foot on the accelerator. The main event is keep up that lovely black/brown immigration streaming in (same as here). In 20 years the majority of the US population will be non-white and not long after the majority of voters will be non-white.

          Then the Democrats will rule forever.

          As it is the Democrats have not won a majority of white votes for 50 years. But luckily there are still enough whites left in the US for the Republicans to win – for now.

  79. Well, I am off.

    At least there were ceremonies with REAL people instead of plastic politicians and (saving Her Majesty) woke woyals (sic). And it really pisses me off that they had singing and everywhere else it was banned. You can tell the sort of jobsworths who occupy Warden Hodges’ chair in council offices, and refuse “risk assessments,” can’t you?

    A glass in hand to drink to “absent friends” – in the broadest sense. Have to sit elsewhere as P and G have taken over my armchair!

    A demain.

      1. We had a professional singer to “lead us” in the first verse of the National Anthem, but nobody (other than I) seemed willing to sing – and as I haven’t sung since March, my voice has gone on holiday. It’s a case of use it or lose it 🙁

        1. I know. I was told that there would be a National Anthem, five minutes before it all kicked off. I’d set up a keyboard amp/speaker opposite the War Memorial, and had the Last Post and Reveille cued up on the phone. So I paid £0.99 to Amazon for an organ accompaniment, and got to a button which said “play now”. On cue, I hit said button, and was rewarded with an advert for Amazon bloody Alexa. Clearing this, another app opened. No sign of God save the Queen, though. So we did it unaccompanied. I gave them a note. It felt uncomfortably high, but then, I’m not a soprano. I actually think I was in the right ball park.

  80. There was a link to a letter yesterday saying that some school children in Liverpool were to be CV tested by the Army, no permission required. The letter was actually on the school’s website. Looking today, it has been replaced by a consent form. The state seems to have realised it has overstepped the mark but I’m sure it will try again, let’s see when the vaccine comes along. Today’s link: https://s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/jotter2.files/13241165?response-content-type=application%2Fpdf&response-content-disposition=attachment%3Bfilename%3Dcovid-19-test-consent-letter_.pdf&X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAIH4MJHC24RK4EHAA%2F20201108%2Feu-west-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20201108T174806Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=3000&X-Amz-Signature=e5a60fe07d707f9c8986605747553e1f3f8b33b2b7e733de917230900a3d8988

    1. The school’s message is a bit odd though:

      “Update 8.11.20
      1.30pm Please click here for a letter to parents from Liverpool City Council and a consent form regarding the planned testing for Covid-19 in Liverpool schools. All students will be receiving a paper copy tomorrow. Please note, this letter replaces the one that was published last Friday”

      Looks like someone took the p (compare the school’s name on the website with the one on the letter), but they don’t want to admit it.

    2. “You there! Get fell in! Preseeeeent – wait for it, wait for it – ARMS! Sorry – I meant noses.”

      1. Amusing, but inaccurate. The alcohol is not absorbed, it evaporates (in about 15 seconds).

        1. There was a tv programme some years ago where they showed someone with their feet in ethanol, and measured the blood alcohol – and it rose. Brainiac, I think it was.

      1. My brother and nephew are now resident emmets in Cornwall; they have told me about this local habit.

      2. I can’t see why you should.

        Don’t you find that the residual fibres of the lavatory paper are unpleasant?

        I suppose that as a fish you are used to all sorts of nasty stuff in the water…

  83. Joe Biden plans ‘shock and awe’ repudiation of Donald Trump’s key policies as soon as he enters office with executive orders to end ‘Muslim ban,’ re-start dreamers program and rejoin WHO and Paris Climate Accord
    Joe Biden plans to implement a series of executive orders immediately after taking office reversing several of the policies put forward by Donald Trump
    Orders will include repealing a travel ban from a handful of Muslim-majority countries and restoring the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program
    He also plans to reentering the Paris Climate Accords and World Health Organization through executive action
    There are limitations on what Biden will be able to accomplish if the Senate is held by Republicans, which will be decided by two runoff elections in January
    He likely won’t be able to get through a slew of legislation if the GOP-majority is maintained, including on healthcare and gun control
    Biden’s judicial and Cabinet appointments could also be held up in the Senate

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8926415/Biden-plans-repudiation-Trumps-policies-executive-orders-end-Muslim-ban-rejoin-WHO.html?ito=push-notification&ci=49158&si=7271111

    Perhaps the visitors to the Kent and Sussex coast might be encouraged to keep sailing in their semi rigids to America

    1. I don’t think the French Navy will be too keen on escorting them all the way across the Atlantic!

    2. He can change all he wants, the Canadian border is staying closed until theY sort out their covid response. said he hopefully

      Despite their abysmal record this year, isn’t being part of WHO a good idea?

    3. That just sums up C21st politics in a nutshell. Politicians (and now, sadly, ordinary folk) both sides of the pond spend too much time criticising the other person’s policies and beliefs than in promoting their own. It demonstrates a lack of belief in the power of persuasion of their own policies that they can’t let them speak for themselves.

    1. The lady with the microphone was taken away in handcuffs.
      Now, if you are an MP, maybe called Chris Huhne, who has conspired to pervert the course of justice, they invite you to call in at the police station when convenient.

    2. Far right extremists, clearly.

      Had they been bleck, of course, (or, better still, slammers) yer fuzz would have done absolutely nothing at all.

      1. Stroud is full of cranks and weirdos – but most are of the knitted armpit variety. It’s the birthplace of XR. Climate change is more their thing, so I was quite surprised to see that Piers Corbyn was invited to speak at this one but something prevented him from attending.

  85. Sidney Powell: There has been a massive and coordinated effort to steal this election from We The People of the United States of America to delegitimize and destroy votes for Donald Trump. To manufacture votes for Joe Biden. They’ve done it in every way imaginable, from having dead people vote in record numbers, to absolutely fraudulently creating ballots that exist only for voting for Biden. We’ve identified over 450,000 ballots that miraculously only have a vote for Joe Biden on them and no other candidate. If you look at Florida where things were done right you can see that that is how the rest of the country should have gone. But they also used an algorithm to calculate the number of votes they would need to flip. And they used computers to flip those votes from Trump to Biden and from other Republican candidates to their competitors also.

    We reported earlier on the missing down votes in the battleground states.

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/11/identified-450000-ballots-miraculously-vote-joe-biden-sidney-powell-drops-bomb-sunday-morning-futures-video/

  86. Bye for a while. I may be back later this evening, replete with good food. In the meantime, play nicely 🙂

  87. Royal courtiers refuse Prince Harry’s request to lay Remembrance Sunday wreath on his behalf
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/11/08/prince-harry-marks-remembrance-sunday-la/

    Prince Harry’s request for a wreath to be laid at the Cenotaph on his behalf was refused by royal courtiers, it has emerged.

    The Duke of Sussex had wanted to return to the UK for the event but would have had no official role, and was not invited, The Telegraph understands.

    He was said to have been devastated when he was told to give up his military titles, including his role as Captain General of the Royal Marines, after stepping back from official royal duties earlier this year.

    He is now prevented from wearing uniform at public events such Trooping the Colour and Remembrance Sunday.

    In his absence, he asked Buckingham Palace officials if a member of the family could lay a wreath on his behalf, but was told it was not permitted.

    He wants to have his cake and eat it.

    3. He wants to have his cake and eat it

      M’ghan – to use her formal ghetto name – wants to have his cake and eat it.

    1. I have totally boycotted the BBC so it is the first time I have seen that awful woman speak. What a sanctimonious, obnoxious, insulting, bossyboots she is! I will certainly continue my boycott!

  91. Good night all.

    The cold Welsh lamb made a fabulous sandwich with a little mango chutney.

    1. Amazing how the poor chilled thing sliced the bread with those darling little hoofs, and with relish.

  92. British charity worker ‘stoking division’ with call for boycott of French products
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/11/08/british-charity-worker-stoking-division-call-boycott-french/

    Aymen Gharred, who works for the Birmingham-based Hand in Hand for Syria charity, is one of a number of activists calling on British muslims to join the boycott of French goods and services following that country’s defence of the right to publish cartoons making fun of the Prophet Muhammed

    ‘British’ muslims should boycott French wine. Hang on…

    1. I’ve got an even better idea.
      British Muslims should send all channel hopping French ingrates back to France.

    2. Does that mean I should start buying French wine again (I have switched to non-EU wine in protest of their treatment of Brexit)? So confusing – what’s in and what’s out? 🙂

  93. I daily, receive a Bible quotation,
    I assume the intention is that I
    further investigate the content ,,,

    Today’s quotation needs no further
    investigation!! :

    ‘Behold, days are coming when
    I will send a famine on the land
    and, not a famine for bread or
    water, but, rather for hearing the
    Word of The Lord.’

    1. Hi Garlands the A of C has been remarkably conspicuous by his absence. I thought the Church was there to give hope and succour to people in times of trouble but he seems to have abrogated that responsibility.

      1. I wish he would just say one thing that encourages Christians to look to Jesus and is not just copied and pasted from Guardian editorials.

        1. He was a bigwig in the Oil Industry until his epiphany and called to the dark side. (Marxism)

        2. I never had Grauniad editorials down as providing material to encourage Christians to look to Jesus, personally 🙂

          2. Saint Ursula, legendary leader of 11,000 virgins reputedly martyred at Cologne by the Huns. 11,000? probably 11 – The same people who counted the virgins were recently employed as tallies in the US election.

          4. I met a Nun from St Ursula’s on Malta. She was speaking to a couple who were either adopting or giving up their child. (I was trying not to listen). This was on the terrace Bar of the Phoenicia Hotel. She was dressed in all white robes. She approached me and asked me for a light for her cigarette. Seeing the expression on my face she gave me a wry smile. Respect !

          6. I didn’t want to become involved in the business she was undertaking.

            My apartment was directly opposite the the monastery and every morning at 6am i woke to their singing. Magical memory.

            I was also in that apartment when there was a meeting of Cardinals. Quite a big event in Malta. I had a visit from the secret squirrels as my apartment was inside the security cordon. I also got a ride in one of the limousines that carried them hither and thither.

            Good evening, Herts. Hope things begin to improve for you and your loved ones.

          8. BTW. I was drinking Big Up Dry Martini’s at 25 euro a throw. Not going to spend that on a Nun. She probably would have said yes !

          9. It’s supposed to represent the 7 virgins with their oil-filled lamps, but the one in the middle looks about 3 months pregnant.

        1. Apologies if I’ve posted this before but I was really surprised to read the Pope now condones same sex civil partnerships. I truly thought I would never see the day. I always admired the Catholic Church for sticking to their guns regarding marriage. Just shows doesn’t it.

      4. Better than him taking the knee (or whatever) to Whitty, Vallance et al. Which, of course he would be perfectly capable of…

      5. Down our way, they are more concerned with Health and Safety and Risk Assessments, sadly.
        Female vicar, female lefty curate.

      6. I think he simply doesn’t know how, it is not part of him despite his wearing of the cloth. He is a charlatan and a hypocrite of the first order.

    2. Sadly i think it is here. Certainly where the Arch Bish is concerned.

      Good afternoon, Flower.

      1. Wise and foolish virgins: My comment and piccy were addressed to you. How it ended up there, I have no idea.

        1. Nor I, although my first thought was that you had extracted a bit of the Breughel picture.

    1. Very nice. The conductor reminds me of William Christie (although he’s considerably younger!) in his style of conducting. I can’t believe that somebody voted that down!

    2. That’s come together beautifully.

      It takes a lot of practise to be able to do that with each player effectively playing a solo. It also needs a bit of luck with the telecoms – no time lags or you’re all in trouble.

      1. Provided they all keep to the timing and are recorded on separate tracks the tune can be assembled later so they all appear to be playing at the same time – I do it all the time, see my Highland Cathedral above

        1. They are indeed. And have been for a long time. I expect that, like all such groups, they’ve had a few ups and downs… but they’ve kept their place at the top end of the field.

    3. Excellent music. Reminds me of when I sang with Yeadon Male Voice Choir, unfortunately disbanded now. Yorkshire and North of England has some superb Brass Bands.

    1. Great record – I only “found” it when it was the closing music to Channel 4 coverage of a stage of the Tour de France!

    2. Here’s my recording of Highland Cathedral played on the keyboard. I recorded the tune then copied that track twice, one detuned down slightly and one detuned up slightly (bagpipes are rarely all in tune) and copied those to another two tracks. I recorded the drone on a separate track and the drums and brass on further tracks. The whole lot was then assembled and recorded as an Mp3 – here’s the result https://app.box.com/s/uygskdak6kmi2k4mjxkb

      1. Have you tried WD40? It is very good at reducing high pitched squeaks and grinding noises.

        Very good though, You have a musical gift.

      2. Very good, Alec. Not my cup of tee, although I am impressed by what you achieved and how you did it.

      3. Pipe Majors and pipe tutors go to great efforts to make sure that they are all in tune at the beginning of any event. The ones I’ve known over the years would be a little vexed by your dismissal of their efforts.

        1. They are now tuned electronically and my intention in that tunes was to give some width to the bagpipes – they weren’t ‘out of tune’ in fact you wouldn’t notice the difference, it’s too subtle

  97. The bloke with the bagpipes had a confrontation with the police earlier. There is a video in Facebook but I can’t copy it Looks like he provoked the second incident.

    1. I think he did instigate the situation.

      However, he also showed us what our version of what was once our Police are now.

      The enemy of the people.

    2. He may have deliberately provoked the first incident too. Just the film conveniently started just before he decided to walk into the Police line.

          1. I was referring to a verse from the well-known alternative lyrics to the Eton Boating Song!

            The sexual life of the camel
            Is more than anyone thinks.
            At the height of the mating season
            He tries to bugger the sphinx.
            But the Sphinx’s anal passage
            Is choked by the sands of the Nile
            Which explains the hump on the came
            And the sphinx’s inscrutable smile.

    1. Thank goodness her husband has more sence than her brother in law when it comes to marriage.

      So what you are saying (© Cathy Newman) is that because Wills is older than his brother he has presence.

      1. That lass has strong Yorkshire roots. She will keep control of the Windsor household… and the country.

  101. I had a seven mile bike ride this arvo (after seeing the goats) and thought: “How do I join the Resistance?”

    On a lighter note, Pickles and Gus have discovered “upstairs” and how to get on to the kitchen table. Thank God for them – they help us to keep sane.

  106. BBC2 .. Now , They shall not grow old .. Frontline WW1 in colour , horrifying .. Thse poor soldiers, horses , conditions and mud and fat rats ..who fed on the dead.. and lice in their clothes … Terrible terrible , and gas attacks.

    1. Thing is, there’s ‘in the wrong’ and what the police will do. At the moment the police have huge powers to do as they want to – and they’re using them.

      Common sense would have said to redirect the piper away from the line. Sadly, common sense doesn’t seem to apply any more.

    2. I watched the video clip earlier – it now says “The media could not be played” – spooky!

    3. I am going to be howled down, I know.

      1. The police are almost certainly in the wrong here.
      2. The clip only starts just before the push so we don’t know the run up.

      BUT
      3. In the clip the piper looks to have deliberately turned left into the police line, I susect to try to provoke a confrontation.

      1. He did – I don’t see why that’s contentious? He was obviously provocative. The police officer just over reacted.

        1. Looking at threads away from here, Twitter and the like, plus the earlier one posted from Batten, (Ogga1) and the comments on the various posts the view is pretty much all pro the piper. I wasn’t convinced.

          2. Of course I would, I comment on what I see, not what I’m told I’m seeing.

            Look at how he turns sharp left.

            He was seeking a confrontation.

            As it happens I think he was right in this instance, but please don’t pretend that he was the innocent party.

      2. I have seen the earlier clip and yes the piper WAS trying to pass police lines to commemorate our war dead at the cenotaph just as any free citizen should be able to do at ANY time
        That in no way excuses the degree of police violence or the arrest
        Edit
        Useless politicians can virtue signal at the cenotaph but veterans can’t attend??
        That’s just wrong on every level

        1. Disqus is broken. You have one downvote on display, from the usual suspect, but hovering the mouse over the downvote arrow suggests that you have three: one from ndovu and one from yourself. Bizarre.

          2. If I downvoted Rik it would have been by mistake – I might have looked to see who downvoted and then cancelled it.

            Or maybe I didn’t cancel it properly. Sometimes youcan’t see who has downvoted until you look.

            I wish Disqus would fix the quirk with the times that has been weird since last Sunday.

          3. Still weird. On various sites, “new comments” are coming in, timestamped “an hour ago”. And many replies to comments were supposedly made before the post to which they are replying.

      3. Your are quite right – if the piper had been a BLM or Antifa protester, the overwhelming comment on this forum would be approval of the police. However, arresting the piper was not necessary and was bad PR, unless the piper did something silly after the video clip ends.

        Edit to delete duplicate words – brain self self isolating.

          2. There must be a smart-a#se response to that somewhere but I can’t think of it. I am rather fond of bagpipes having spent much of my youth marching to and from training, 4 times a day to a pipe band. A pipe-band is unquestionably the most martial music in the world.

          3. And yet… I still can hear, from back in 1980, the piper on the side of the loch at Oban, some distance from town, as the sun set and the world became purple. Unbelievably romantic, that was, the sound drifting over the hillside… Sigh…

          4. Solitary pipes have a very different effect, even groups of pipers without the drums sound different… and as the elder sister of a piper I can say from much experience that they are best heard out of doors and at a distance.

            One of the things that pipers are often requested to do is to play at a funeral, or at the scattering of ashes. I can remember my mother and brother working out an appropriate repertoire for this when he was only about 15 and about to do it for the first time. He also had a lot of requests to play at weddings, which he rather preferred though he never turned down a funeral if he was able to do it.

            The pipe-major playing the Flowers ‘o the Forest on Remembrance Sunday (or on Armistice Day) is something else again, which is one reason why I am so angry that an utter berk has treated the occasion to a disgusting and, almost undoubtedly, drunken display.

            When the band with which my brother played visited Ypres they were invite to play at the Menin Gate. Their “pipie” was the most phlegmatic of men but confessed afterwards to a small tremor in the fingers. He spent over 40 years teaching pipers, leading and supporting the band and running the local Boys Brigade – I’m very glad to say that he got a modest gong a couple of years ago which he (I’m told by those still in the locality) refuses to mention and blushes if anyone else brings it up.

          6. When a lovely Scots woman died in our village a few years ago a piper was commissioned by her family to play at the church gate. I actually love the sound of bagpipes played well.

            This is the reason we have pipers playing at our Remembrance Ceremonies at the Cenotaph. They make a fabulous contribution representing Scottish Regiments who fought so bravely for the Union as does the Elgar, Purcell and the rest. This is our history and we are proud of it.

            Edit: I was a Life Boy, Boy Scout and joined the Boys’ Brigade in Bath. I was glad to get away from our house and engage in these activities. I attended the Methodist church in Oldfield Park and was a chorister in the City of Bath Technical School and Bath Abbey Choir.

            I remain a Christian and despise the present Archbishop of Canterbury. My role model in that respect is Matthew Parker, Chaplain to Queen Anne Boleyn and Archbishop of Canterbury to Elizabeth I. He was also rector of the Parish of Ashen where I live opposite to the Church of St Augustine, the heart of a surviving mediaeval village.

          7. I imagine that the piper was playing a lament (to the fallen) or a nostalgic piece to remind soldiers far away from home of their families. I am sure that NOTLers of Scottish origins will be able to add to that.

        2. At the end of the video clip he was being forcefully restrained by this friends – I suspect that he broke free.

          Had he, in reality, wished to commemorate our war dead he would have stood still to play his pipes (as most pipers do at most Scottish War Memorials), and he certainly wouldn’t have had enough drink on board to make him fall over as the result of a wee push. The bloke was built like the proverbial brick outhouse, he’d never have gone over like a nine-pin if he’d been sober (as he should have been in that place at that time).

          1. I don’t read any of your posts because you not only lack humour you are also nihialstic. We don’t need your type of input. Seek treatment before it is too late for you..

          2. The push looked pretty robust to me! What evidence was there that he was under the influence?

          3. Robust, not violent, not nearly enough to put him on the floor sober. Simply intended to prevent him from making a fool of himself as he was clearly intent upon doing. He went down like a nine-pin and came up spoiling for a fight. Classic symptoms I’m afraid. And having, as a student, worked in a Scottish pub and visited a great many I’m afraid I’m speaking from experience. He was, without a shadow of a doubt, Brahms and Lizst.

          4. Unless new information has emerged, I saw nothing that would justify the sort of allegation you are making.

          5. Do you really think that a sober bloke would square up to a cordon of the Met – because I certainly don’t. Dutch courage.

        4. I think that if it had been a BLM or Antifa protester the police would not have acted as they did.

      4. Blowing a bagpipe in a public place is a criminal offence. He will be lucky to get away with 20 years – and the offending pipes ritually burnt.

        Trying to go between the police line was a silly thing to do. If he had just shouted ‘Allan’s Snackbar’ they would have taken the knee and formed a guard of honour.

        1. I will burn in Anglo-Hell, but I love bagpipe music.

          HG knows that I want Black Bear (back to barracks) played as the curtain closes and my coffn heads for the fires in the Crematorium.

          2. It’s both the music and the symbolism of Black Bear, “back to barracks” for me.

            Your link is slightly higher pitched than I would choose. It may be that the marches out from the Edinburgh Royal Tattoo, with the buildings, lower the pitch/tone

            Much as I would like it, I doubt that any mouners for me would be prepared to shout the “OI!”

          3. The highland bagpipe has just 9 notes and no harmonics – the pitch would be altered only fractionally by the reeds used. I suspect that background, which can reflect (solid walls) or deaden the sound (there’s always a big crowd at the Tattoo and bodies absorb sound) or simply let it float away into the air makes the biggest difference. The recording kit available nowadays makes a difference too.

            But that is a modern recording. There are very many available. If you really want it to be played at your going out – then take a little time to find a recording you like and make sure that your nearest and dearest have it to hand.

          5. All music dependant on a background drone is difficult to measure accurately in a recording. So I was told by a composer friend who was the composer for Warner and their predecessor.

          7. I realise that you hate my guts. No matter. I do appreciate your two bagpipe posts. I find their references to painful history sobering and comforting. Yup, I know that I am an English bastard despite my comparatively noble heritage.

          8. If some bagpipe-playing sweaty confronted me like that, I would probably push him away too.

          2. Although, of course, he “pointed out” nothing.

            The downvote represents, simply and clearly, the disagreement with (in this instance) an appallingly stupid comment. Far from being a “fit of the vapours” (the definite article is not normally omitted) it is measured and perfectly polite – just like an upvote.

            The wish to avoid confrontation is perfectly understandable in the light of prevailing abuse of this sort…

            I don’t read any of your posts because you not only lack humour you are also nihialstic. We don’t need your type of input. Seek treatment before it is too late for you..

  108. German police attacked with firecrackers at coronavirus restrictions protest. 8 November 2020.

    German police were attacked with firecrackers while trying to enforce lockdown measures at coronavirus sceptic protests in the city of Leipzig.

    The police were set upon while attempting to break up protests which attracted 20,000 people as participants failed to comply with social distancing rules or wear face masks.

    Video footage shows police being pelted with bottles, fireworks and other projectiles as they attempted to set up a security cordon near the city’s main train station.

    Is there anyone who believes the Elites Coronavirus narrative?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/11/08/german-police-attacked-firecrackers-coronavirus-restrictions/

    1. There are some people who have bought into the fear project. Perhaps they think it’s coincidence that almost every country has been following the same agenda.

    2. They have form for protests in Leipzig – the events that started the fall of the Berlin wall started there. Lovely city – we went to the Bachfest there some years ago.

      1. I once saw a painting of Dresden by Canaletto and imagine Leipzig to be similar. London too was a beautiful city when Canaletto painted his views of the Thames.

        The Germans have faithfully restored their bombed out cities. We have not, that is the difference.

          1. Yup. The yanks never liked us and wanted our Empire.

            Trump was different, he loves the UK.

            The latest information on the US election is that a statement is expected from the Department of Homeland Security. A sting was put in place in 2018 to understand the extent of foreign interference or other nefarious activity.

            Insiders are saying that most irregularities were confined to a few states including Michigan and Arizona. It is thought that 48% of the votes in these states were found to be invalid and almost all were for Biden.

            We might enjoy Christmas after all.

          2. In the very unlikely event that Trump gets it, I would love to see the reaction of all those who are sending the gloating memes.

            I suspect they will burst into flames and then put themselves out with their tears!

          1. Fantastic.

            I am watching the Whitehall ceremony. I was the project architect and designed much of Richmond House opposite the Cenotaph.

            I was inspired by its architect Sir Edwin Lutyens from an early age. The HD images of the Cenotaph from above reminded me of the subtlety of his design. I remain indebted.

            Had the Metropolitan Cathedral of Liverpool been realised above the level of the crypt before Sir Frederick Gibberd planted the Wigwam over it we would have had a building to rival St Peter’s in Rome. In the monument at Thiepval Lutyens made his plans for the cathedral, a fabulous plan generated by intersecting arches at increasing scale as in the monument.

            I am proud to be British. I hate the sight of clumping politicians pretending to remembrance. It is a pity a sniper could not take them out, one by one. They have betrayed us for decades and continue to strut around with their noses in the air.

            The sight of our noble Queen being obliged to wear a mask in an empty Westminster Abbey sums up the hatred I have for the clowns in politics.

          2. I must beg to differ over Thiepval.
            Of all of the various grand memorials to WW1, I have never liked it.

            I used to visit every couple of years and no matter how I looked at it, it never had the same effect on me that any of the others had.

            It’s probably just me, but it is out of place my taste, there is only one vista where I think it’s “right”.

          4. It was a tricky problem to accommodate so many names of the dead on a single monument. The architectural solution was brilliant in that the intersectional arches generated wall space.

            I suppose the cop out will have been to erect a mile long wall. As ever my point is that we depend upon Architecture in so many ways but often fail to recognise its importance. Spoken with feeling obviously because it is both my profession and trade.

          5. I forgot to say the pics are of the Nikolai Kirche in Leipzig – remodelled since Bach’s day but light and beautiful.

            Over dinner we listened to a cd of Bach’s organ music played on the organ at the Thomas Kirche which I bought when we were there in 2008.

          6. I was ‘chrism(ed) {anointed with holy oils} in the crypt, before the ‘wigwam’ was constructed above, by Cardinal John Heenan. I must surely go to Heaven, wherever that is.

            Edit: I like the wigwam design, in effect it is simply a roof on the cellar. If it had been finished it would have been enormous.

            https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2f/Liverpool_Metropolitan_Cathedral_at_dusk_%28reduced_grain%29%2C_corrected_perspective.jpg/1024px-Liverpool_Metropolitan_Cathedral_at_dusk_%28reduced_grain%29%2C_corrected_perspective.jpg

          7. Strange but Gibberd, for whom I worked briefly, claimed not to have been influenced by Niemeyer at Brasilia.

            Our preferred engineers Lowe & Rodin, when I worked for Sir William Whitfield, paid a heavy price when structural defects were discovered, mostly the consequence of salt contaminated concrete (use of unwashed sea aggregates) and poor detailing of cladding to the ribs.

    4. But, but, why do we not do the same? We outnumber them. The problem is less the oppression than the compliance with the oppression.

      2. It is the compliance at the moment that is the problem. If people no longer complied, the oppression would fall away. What would they do? If we all removed our masks tomorrow their plan would fall apart; they would scarcely shoot us at this early stage in their control-fest, that would give the game away.

        1. Not so sure about that. Kill a couple of hundred – the other 60 million would learn to “conform”

        2. There are many signs that folk can see this scam and lockdown for what it is. It is part of a global scam to destroy the nation state.

          Trump is their present target because he has told the globalists where to go. The frenzy in the Soros Gates’ fraternity occasioned by Trump’s repudiation of globalism and their climate change agenda sent shivers down their fragile spines.

          The globalists have invested billions in the WHO and the UN and created a pandemic crisis as part of their plan to control us all. The main players stand to profit greatly, Soros with his continuing exploitation of markets and Gates with his investments in global vaccines. Gates knows all about viruses, his rotten operating systems have been prone to viruses for decades.

  110. A BTL on a DT article I found amusing:

    How about calling the remainers Trumpsters? A Trumpster is someone who refuses to accept a democratic vote!

    So when we address the likes of Blair, Clarke, Major, Hammond, May and Grieve we must always address them accordingly!

      1. Not until Trump or one of his minions offers concrete proof of corruption.

        Oh but the democrats are all crooks doesn’t count, unconfirmed stories of trailorloads of pre printed Biden ballot papers don’t count.

        Innocent until proven guilty and all there is so far is hot air.

        1. Using the same argument one could argue that Biden should prove he won legitimately. 😉

          1. you mean reverse roles and claim guilty of election fraud until he proves otherwise? Hardly the way that acivilised country goes – not even the US.

            Trump has promised legal action tomorrow, probably just nitpicking legal definitions instead of showing evidence of fraud but its a start.

            Trump winning because he negated millions of democrat votes because of some outlandish interpretation of the constitution will blow the US apart.

      2. But the Brexit vote was never shown to be fraudulent as far as I know.

        The very high level of postal voting certainly raises doubts about the integrity of the US presidential votes and gives weight to the conspiracy theory that The New World Order has weaponised Covid to get postal voting accepted. I cannot remember the exact figures but the percentage of postal votes 4 years ago was about 3% – this time it has been over 60%. *

        [* Please let me know what the actual figures are if I am way out]

        1. To avoid risk of covid infection, the electoral commissions were telling people to use postal votes and the Biden camp were telling voters the same thing.
          Only Trump was blustering away about postal votes bad, vote in person.

          So is there really any reason to question a significant increase in postal votes?

          1. In the 2016 US Presidential election, approximately 33 million ballots were cast by postal vote, about a quarter of all ballots cast.

            So, by Trump’s way of thinking, he must have been elected illegally too… 😉

          2. Actually, he was just claiming that postal voting was more open to fraud, which UK experiences have shown to be the case (Tower Hamlets, for example). And yes, there is is no reason to question a significant increase in postal voting, given the circumstances.

          3. Funny how Tower Hamlets keeps being mentioned – and nothing else. Probably because Tower Hamlets is the only incident that’s ever been proven – or happened. No, postal voting isn’t actually more open to fraud or, necessarily, more fraudulent. Have you ever actually applied for, or completed, a postal vote?

          4. No, postal voting isn’t actually more open to fraud

            Of course it is!

            For a start it compromises a secret ballot because we can have no real guarantee of what was going on when and where the ballot was filled in.

            Or. . .

            Did someone in a household monopolise all the ballot papers?

            And . . .

            Did someone actually receive a ballot paper, how do we know if was diverted to someone else?

            All this is just minor quibbling of course, it won’t normally facilitate Biden-tier corruption.

            The real issue with postal voting is it opens the window to more broad-based, effective corruption where the ballot-issuing institutions are in collusion with political parties. How do we know how many papers were actually printed, who were they sent to and so on.

            We’re still OK in the UK on that front because our system is least run by local government who have to stay out of the political battle. This is already compromised in the US because partisan people are allowed to count votes. What could possibly go wrong?

            Well that might work with lots of nigh-trust Europeans involved but throw low-trust, partisan, low-IQ incompetent blacks or other groups* into the mix and all bets are off. Like Detroit for example.

            *You’ve mentioned Tower Hamlets. Essentially thats because Tower Hamlets has a large Bangladeshi population.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_Bangladesh

            Transparency International’s 2017 Corruption Perception Index ranks the country 143rd place out of 180 countries. The public sectors conducted by the Government are the most corrupted sectors of the country.

            Import the 3rd world, become the 3rd world.

          5. No, postal voting isn’t actually more open to fraud

            Of course it is!

            For a start it compromises a secret ballot because we can have no real guarantee of what was going on when and where the ballot was filled in.

            Or. . .

            Did someone in a household monopolise all the ballot papers?

            Or . . .

            Did someone actually receive a ballot paper, how do we know if was diverted to someone else?

            All this is just minor quibbling of course, it won’t normally facilitate Biden-tier corruption. When people are accusing Trump of pettiness they are implicitly assuming he’s complaining about this kind of low-level, ad hoc corruption. The real problem is that of the Big Lie. Which leads us to . . .

            The real issue with postal voting is it opens the window to more broad-based, effective corruption where the ballot-issuing institutions are in collusion with political parties. How do we know how many papers were actually printed, who were they sent to and so on.

            We’re still OK in the UK on that front because our system is least run by local government who have to stay out of the political battle. This is already compromised in the US because partisan people are allowed to count votes. What could possibly go wrong?

            Well that might work with lots of high-trust Europeans involved. But throw low-trust, partisan, low-IQ incompetent blacks or other groups* into the mix and all bets are off. Like Detroit for example.

            *You’ve mentioned Tower Hamlets. Essentially thats because Tower Hamlets has a large Bangladeshi population.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_Bangladesh

            Transparency International’s 2017 Corruption Perception Index ranks the country 143rd place out of 180 countries. The public sectors conducted by the Government are the most corrupted sectors of the country.

            Import the 3rd world, become the 3rd world.

          6. A hysterical, nonsensical, diatribe. And still no evidence of anything offered. As always.

          7. A hysterical, nonsensical, diatribe

            Really? Perhaps you would like to go through it step by step?

            still no evidence of anything offered

            Currently the evidence is circumstantial. That is what makes people look for harder evidence. If you can explain how I, a complete nobody, am supposed to uncover hard evidence please feel free to enlighten me. If I were to start citing evidence you would, of course, dismiss it out of hand.

          10. You really shouldn’t come here and talk about yourself in that way. It’s really rather pathetic. Like the hysteria and the nonsense.

        2. If anything the Remain side had an unfair edge because of Cameron’s £9.3m pro-Remain brochure – which the Electoral Commission later admitted should not have been published as it breached the Venice Commission’s guidelines on governmental interference in national elections and referenda.

        3. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that postal voting is a very bad idea! It only came about because of our age’s insane belief that everything can be done from the comfort of their own homes. But voting for the government in a democracy is an important duty – it deserves one’s time, and a face-to-face interaction.
          In rural Germany, there is none of this postal and online nonsense for ID cards and passports either – you have to turn up in person.

  111. I just looked at a report on CNN

    Arizona has 44,000 uncounted votes
    Georgia has 5% of votes outstanding
    Pennsylvania a mere 55,000 votes uncounted.

    Aren’t they being a bit premature with celebrations?

    1. Reports seem to vary as to how many votes remain and in how many states. Given the sheer numbers it would be remarkable if they had all been counted. If I’d been a candidate (heaven forbid) I would certainly want to be sure before I started the party. On the other hand this does seem to be the way the US does things.

      1. One story I saw said CNN predicts Biden will win, why doesn’t Trump admit defeat?

        That would be like Biden listening to one of those right of right rags like the western journal.

        1. I don’t pretend to understand the way the Americans do things – but I do find all the claims of corruption and cheating rather tiresome, in the absence of any evidence whatsoever. Surely if the Trump team actually had something they would be shouting it to the rooftops (after all, shouting to the rooftops is about the only thing he knows how to do).

    2. The reality is that the remaining votes are not enough to change anything. Trump lost – deservedly so.

  115. Just finished watching the Horizon programme about the 30th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope. Pretty good, but was spoiled for me and the OH – we both studied Astronomy – by the fake parallax effect of foreground objects when showing images of galaxies and nebula, as through the HST was actually moving backwards and forwards billions of light years. Why can’t these TV people with Media Studies degrees resist using special effects and just show 2D photographs as they were taken? Do they think their viewers are dumb? [Don’t answer that]

    1. They mess with all sorts of things. An aeroplane that changes type during the flight, for example, or a gun that wasn’t made by the time the movie was set in. Tiresome, and unnexessary.

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