Monday 28 December: You don’t have to wear plum chinos to see a bright future for Britain

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/2020/12/28/letters-dont-have-wear-plum-chinos-see-bright-future-britain/

638 thoughts on “Monday 28 December: You don’t have to wear plum chinos to see a bright future for Britain”

  1. The day Joe Biden won the election and I breathed a sigh of relief for America. 28 December 2020.

    Yeah, Trump claimed the election was rigged – still more evidence he was unfit, as if we needed any. But it’s now clear that Biden will be our 46th. I watched his victory speech – which was pretty good! – poured myself a giant glass of red, and eased into the cushions.

    Morning everyone. So many errors in so few words! Trump was of course accused of rigging the election through the entirety of his presidency. Was he really more unfit than the paedopile and fraudster that has replaced him? As to the victory speech did Shriver not notice the pauses when he lost the thread and had to be prompted and the venue being in darkness and the applause dubbed to hide the paucity of the support?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/politics/day-joe-biden-won-election-breathed-sigh-relief-america/

      1. USA politics will become more interesting when the enormity of what a corrupt Biden/Harris/ administration in power means to that country.

        1. The US is so big though, it’s like in Britain, if you don’t live in Luton or Bradford, you can turn a blind eye to the changes.

    3. Did you see my comment on this article yesterday?

      It is heart-warming and encouraging to see that the Telegraph is not following the rest of the MSM herd but is determined to take an firm, independent and impartial line on Trump and Biden.

    4. Those few words rather come down to ‘I didn’t like him, so I am right’.

      It’s the action of a child.

  2. The Benefits Scrounger

    A young man with his jeans hanging half off, two gold front teeth, and a half inch thick gold chain around his neck; walked into the local Jobcentre office to pick up his cheque.

    He walked up to the counter and said, “Hi. You know, I just HATE drawing benefits. I’d really rather have a job. I don’t like taking advantage of the System, getting something for nothing.”

    The social worker behind the counter said, “Your timing is excellent. We’ve just got a job opening from a very wealthy old man who wants a chauffeur and bodyguard for his daughter.

    “You’ll have to drive his 2019 Mercedes-Benz CL, and he will supply your clothes. Because of the long hours, meals will be provided.

    “You’ll also be expected to escort the daughter on her overseas holiday trips. This is rather awkward to say, but you will also have, as part of your job, the assignment to satisfy her sexual urges as the daughter is in her mid-20’s and has a rather uninhibited sex drive.”

    The guy, just plain wide-eyed, said, “You’re bullshittin’ me!”

    The social worker said, “Yeah, well… You started it.”

  4. We must work harder to separate fact from fiction, says Tim Davie. 28 December 2020.

    “News sources such as the BBC need to work harder than ever to expose fake news and separate fact from fiction,” he said. “We need to take care that trusted news is not blown off course by claims that are unfounded, however widespread they become.

    Davie said he was proud of the BBC’s effort to “stand up for integrity in news and fight disinformation on the frontline”.

    Shutting the BBC down would be a major step forward!

    https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/dec/28/we-must-work-harder-to-separate-fact-from-fiction-says-tim-davie

    2. If they stick to reporting facts rather than spinning them, we’ll start believing them in, ooh, fifty years from now.

    3. “News sources such as the BBC need to work harder than ever to expose fake news and separate fact from fiction,”

      If Tim Davie was serious he would attempt to find a couple of genuine journalists and unleash them on to the Government’s cynically corrupt PCR testing scheme. Expose that and Johnson’s and Hancock’s rotten scheme founders. Then the trials could commence.

    4. BBC currently on air flogging the story of pressure on ambulance services in London & the South East since Boxing Day (due to Covid) – no analysis to reveal that these pressures occur at Christmas every year as folk who are poorly try to avoid being admitted on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day so Bingo demand for ambulances increase dramatically on Boxing Day and the day after. So much for “Integrity in news”….

    5. Anyone who relies on the BBC for information is ill-informed because of its lack of impartiality, contrary to its charter. That alone ought to be sufficient reason to close it down.

    6. Why when Lefties demand an end to ‘fake news’ do they always mean ‘only our view gets a say’?

      They never change. The guardian, the BBC are the epitome of dishonest, biased, lying by omission reporting.

    1. Morning, Peddy (and all NoTTLers). Just four days left of 2020 and I intend to use them profitably – updating my birthday list and personal contact details.

  6. Tony Blair ‘will be given a knighthood’ to ‘unblock’ the honours system for politicians who came later and are still waiting for a gong because of Queen’s ‘dislike of him’, sources say

    The Queen’s dislike for Tony Blair is ‘bed-blocking’ the honours system as gongs cannot be given to politicians who succeeded him without him getting them too, sources have said.

    The former Labour PM is likely to be offered a knighthood in a bid to solve the problem, it was reported this morning.

    Almost all former Prime Ministers before Blair were afforded the Order of the Garter by the Queen however he is still waiting for that honour 13 years after leaving Downing Street.

    My good opinion of HM’s acumen rises. This is almost certainly an excuse for the reality becoming manifest in the New Year Honours! One is tempted to say that as a War Criminal and Traitor he should never receive any accolade from the state but then what is the “Honours” system but a fraud itself?

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9091145/Queens-dislike-Tony-Blair-bed-blocking-honours-system.html

  7. ‘Morning, Peeps. A crisp 2° here, with the promise of snow later today…

    SIR – Like many readers, I am delighted that the United Kingdom has formally and finally left the EU. But as a member of the House of Lords since the debates on the Maastricht Treaty in 1993, I am disappointed that no Conservative politician has admitted that without Nigel Farage’s persistence we would never have left the EU.

    His leadership of Ukip forced David Cameron into granting a referendum. His formation of the Brexit Party and its crushing victory in the 2019 European Parliament elections forced Theresa May out of Downing Street.

    For 23 years I sat on the red benches in the Lords listening to Conservative ministers repeat platitudes in debates on the EU: “Europe is coming our way”; “We will reform Europe from within”. No Conservative minister ever suggested that leaving the EU might be in Britain’s best interests.

    I realise that gratitude is not the currency of politics, but it would none the less have been gracious of the Prime Minister to acknowledge the central role of Nigel Farage.

    Lord Willoughby de Broke
    London SW1

    You make a good point, yer Lordship. Compare his record with that of the odious Grinning Chimp, for whom they are scuttling round trying to find some sort of gong so that all the rest can get one! Personally I hope Her Maj holds fast…none of his successors should be in line for a gong anyway, so what’s not to like??

    1. Is a knighthood not considered a “gong”? I thought the Grey Man was now called Sir John Major. (I stand to be corrected about knighthoods.)

    2. 327856+ up ticks,
      Morning HJ,
      Lordy, lordy, I do agree he should be in the house miscreants he is of the right material.
      As with many, you give NO credit to the membership that for twenty five plus years
      fought against the eu & the pro eu governance parties of the UK.

      The farage take on the membership that gave him loyalty and a platform for years.

      The very undeserved treacherous rant.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fc7iuUHk3Yk&ab_channel=QueenStreetSystems

        1. 327856+ up ticks,
          Morning W,
          You & old dw want to suppress the truth as seen in the link, the chap condemns himself.

          1. Good morning, ogga,

            I agree with you up to a point but we move on.

            My great worry about Farage is that he has, once again, thrown in the towel too soon. He left UKIP too soon after the referendum; he withdrew his Brexit Party candidates in Conservative held seats too soon in the general election; and now he has expressed approval for ‘the deal’ too soon before he can possibly have read it thoroughly.

          2. 327856+ up ticks,
            Morning R,
            We move on granted but only after having learnt via history of our mistakes, also cataloging treacherous actions for future reference.

            I believe him to have been a tory coxswain from the outset steering UKIP on a pro tory course, this on reflection of his past actions.

            Many will cast him in a heroic light because it suits their purpose as in keep the party in power.

            Hence the castigation of Batten / UKIP party &
            the membership.

          3. No, I’m simply tired of that video being posted.

            Present a cogent response. You’re a clever chap ogga, don’t fall back on such tedium.

          4. 327856+ up ticks,
            W,
            I return to the farage rant in a manner of “Lest we forget” which many lab/lib/con coalition do on entering a polling booth & employing the three monkey mode of voting.

            ALL I am hearing is praise for “nige” who on reflection has been a covert tory from the outset &
            not a dicky bird ( word ) for the membership he
            castigated so roundly nationwide on LBC.

            Learn from recent history, we as a Nation would never got into such a high state of political sh!te
            without the input of the lab/lib/con coalition party & assoc.

            Tell me who did help johnson to an 80 seater win ?

          6. 327856+up ticks,
            Afternoon W,
            In doing so I am only relaying his rant sorry, message & it did aid & abet a tory win.

  8. Today’s DT Leader…I think we need an early reshuffle to rid us of duds like the self-promoting Shapps and the utterly hopeless Williamson (to name but two, other duds are available) if we are to take full advantage of our departure from the EUSSR. No longer can they hide behind blaming our former masters for their own shortcomings:

    When Boris Johnson declared his support for Brexit, in a column for this newspaper nearly five years ago, he invoked Winston Churchill to call for a new relationship with the EU based on friendship and trade. We should be “interested, associated, but not absorbed; with Europe – but not comprised”, Mr Johnson said. In its relentless drive for ever-closer union, it was Brussels that had changed, not us. We had to leave.

    The years since 2016 have tested both Mr Johnson and the British public. Remainers, unreconciled to the referendum result, tried to overturn it. The EU, desperate to avoid a chain-reaction of referendums across Europe, wished to humiliate us. Theresa May sought compromises that would have secured only a shadow of sovereignty. At times, faith in democracy itself was imperilled by the inability of the political class to enact the popular will. It is a testament to the courage of the British people that we defied the odds and left the EU earlier in the year. It is a personal triumph for the Prime Minister that we now have a free-trade agreement with Brussels that many said was impossible.

    It is also, in the round, a good deal. Short-term disruption to businesses, which have suffered so much thanks to the calamitous impact of lockdown, will be minimised. Outside the customs union, the International Trade Department can continue its fine work signing agreements with non-European markets, tailored to the interests of British firms and consumers, rather than held up by endless EU horse-trading. A sovereign UK will be able to diverge from Brussels’s regulations, albeit at the potential cost of some EU market access in the future.

    Crucially, the European Court of Justice, an imperial court that serves the interests of EU federalism, has been dethroned. The laws that we live under will be decided by the people we elect, and the Government will be free to set an immigration policy that has democratic legitimacy and meets the needs of the British economy. This is Brexit, by any sensible definition of the term.

    The agreement is obviously not perfect. Groups representing fishermen are disappointed at the limited gains in restoring control over British waters. Financial services have arguably been overlooked, although matters were not helped by Emmanuel Macron’s hubristic attempt to divert business from the City to Paris. Whatever future deliberations might be necessary with the EU, on fish and much else, are bound to be fraught given how closely interwoven our economies have become. It is also almost inevitable that Brussels will find some reason to attempt to suck the UK back into its orbit, a plight that must be resisted by all British governments, now and in the future.

    But much of the criticism of the agreement – often from Remainer “experts”, who have been wrong about nearly everything since 2016 – rests on a false premise. A good deal was never about retaining as many of the pillars of EU membership as possible. It was about permitting trade to continue and placing our relations with Europe on a friendly footing, while allowing the UK to chart an independent course. On that basis, the Prime Minister’s agreement is surely a success. We would encourage MPs to support it when it is placed before the Commons this week: a large cross-party majority will do much to lay the matter of Brexit to rest.

    After January 1, however, a new challenge will begin. Political leaders in Westminster and in the devolved administrations will be solely accountable for the decisions they make. But EU membership has infantilised the UK’s political class, discouraging creative policymaking, with every bright idea liable to being neutered by the diktats of EU law. It also led to complacency about the UK’s competitive position, with membership of the EU single market and customs union becoming a protective blanket, rather than a spur to greater economic dynamism.

    It is a misconception that Brexit was only ever a means to an end: as the past four and a half years have proven, escaping the clutches of Brussels was an achievement in itself and a lesson to those who thought democratic mandates could be quashed so easily. But the great test of our political leaders is whether they will use our newfound freedoms to reform the UK’s institutions, hand power back to the people, and revive our stumbling economy. The situation is all the more pressing given the destruction wrought by the Government’s handling of the Covid pandemic.

    It is to Mr Johnson’s credit that he knows this. In that same column in 2016, in which he announced his support for Leave, he said Brexit had to be a moment to be brave. Once his deal has secured Parliament’s support, therefore, he needs to set out an inspiring and radical vision for the UK’s future beyond the EU. As the Prime Minister said at the weekend: “Freedom is what you make of it.”

  9. And now for something uplifting…how he made it to his 100th year is quite remarkable:

    Major Henry McKenzie Johnston, served in North Africa and Italy – obituary

    He attacked a German Spandau post in Tunisia, was wounded at Monte Cassino and later joined the Foreign Office

    By
    Telegraph Obituaries
    27 December 2020 • 10:26am

    Major Henry McKenzie Johnston, who has died aged 99, saw action in the Second World War with the Black Watch in the North Africa Campaign and in Italy before joining the Foreign Service.

    In April 1943 6th Bn The Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) took part in fierce fighting in Tunisia, where the Germans were holding up the advance of the allied forces. McKenzie Johnston was signals officer, and many nights were spent mending telephone lines which had been broken by enemy shelling, a task that was frequently interrupted by enemy patrols.

    On one occasion, when his position came under enemy shell fire, he and a fellow officer made for the same trench. His comrade was closer and reached the trench first, only to be killed by a shell going straight into it. McKenzie Johnston flattened himself on the ground, and during the next half-hour two shells landed at his feet but failed to explode. This experience persuaded him that he would not be killed in the war, but it was only the first of several narrow escapes.

    Henry Butler McKenzie Johnston was born in Edinburgh on July 10 1921 and educated at Rugby before going up to Oxford. He left the university after two terms, and although he was selected for officer training he became seriously ill, and it was not until April 1941 that he started his training. In August he was commissioned into the Black Watch and joined the 6th Bn in Hampshire where he shared a tent with the actor, Stewart Granger.

    During the campaign in Tunisia, he and a brother officer, Michael Keogh, armed only with pistols, attacked a German Spandau post. Keogh fell and, for a nasty moment, McKenzie Johnston feared that he had shot him. In the darkness, Keogh had tripped on a stone.

    The machine gun jammed and the enemy crew fled, pursued by wild pistol shots. McKenzie Johnston listened in to the radio that had been abandoned in the trench and was able to warn his commanding officer of an impending counter-attack. Forewarned, the battalion drove it off.

    In March 1944 the battalion landed by ship at Naples and, in May, he was wounded at Monte Cassino during the final big offensive to break through the German defences. He rejoined the battalion in August and was adjutant for the rest of the campaign.

    In December, the battalion was in action against Elas, irregular Greek communist forces who were attempting to seize power in their recently liberated country. It was a dangerous business clearing houses along the road to Athens against an enemy which fought in small numbers, wore no recognisable uniform, infiltrated back into areas at night and whose snipers were a persistent problem.

    On his demobilisation, he worked for the British Embassy in Athens in an administrative post before joining the Foreign Service in 1947. Having served in diplomatic posts in France, Germany, Uruguay, Mexico and Trinidad, he became Consul General in Munich during the 1972 Olympic Games. His wife, Marian, accompanied him on all his postings and was a great support to him.

    The following year, he left the Foreign Service and became Deputy to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration. On his compulsory retirement, aged 60, he was appointed CB. He was re-employed as one of three Local Government Ombudsmen for England before becoming a part-time member of the Broadcasting Complaints Commission.

    McKenzie Johnston was a philanthropist, and established a Trust to benefit young people in the Cromarty area, as well as contributing to the cost of securing the future of the cottage at Cromarty, Ross-shire, that was Hugh Miller’s birthplace, together with the interactive museum.

    Miller, an antecedent of McKenzie Johnston’s wife, was born in 1802 and was a geologist, folklorist, stonemason, newspaper editor and a campaigner for social justice.

    McKenzie Johnston published Missions to Mexico: A Tale of British Diplomacy in the 1820s (1992) and Ottoman and Persian Odysseys: James Morier, Creator of “Hajji Baba of Ispahan”, and His Brothers (1998).

    Henry McKenzie Johnston married, in 1949, Marian (Merrie) Allardyce Middleton, daughter of Brigadier A A Middleton. She died in 2009, and he is survived by their son and two daughters.

    Henry McKenzie Johnston, born July 10 1921, died October 29 2020

    A leading BTL comment:

    Keith Webster
    27 Dec 2020 1:51PM

    It is inevitable, but melancholy, that we see now a constant parade of such obituaries. We owe them so much but can only say Thank You to them. So let’s do just that with the utmost sincerity and appreciation. May rest and peace eternal be granted to all of them.

  11. ‘Morning again,

    This development in the Eton Mess nonsense would seem to challenge Trendy Hendy’s motivation for sacking Knowland:

    Eton College attempted to refer dismissed Master under Prevent duty for advocating male superiority

    Eton College has been engulfed in a free speech row following Mr Knowland’s dismissal earlier this year for gross misconduct

    By
    Camilla Turner,
    EDUCATION EDITOR
    27 December 2020 • 9:30pm

    Will Knowland was dismissed from Eton College earlier this year

    Eton College attempted to refer a dismissed Master under the Prevent duty for advocating male superiority and the glorification of violence, The Telegraph can reveal.

    The £42,500-a-year school contacted the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead’s Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) to report their concerns about Will Knowland’s controversial lecture.

    The school is understood to have told the LADO, who is responsible for managing child protection allegations in the borough, that the lecture advocated male superiority and female subservience, glorified violence and promoted far right and alt right extremism.

    Eton College has been engulfed in a free speech row following Mr Knowland’s dismissal earlier this year for gross misconduct.

    Titled the “Patriarchy Paradox”, the video lecture questioned “current radical feminist orthodoxy” and was part of the Perspectives course taken by sixth form students to encourage them to think critically about subjects of public debate.

    But he was banned from giving the lecture to students, and then was sacked after a dispute regarding his refusing to remove it from his personal YouTube channel.

    Eton has maintained that the dismissal was “not a matter of free speech” but one of “internal discipline” and that the video fell foul of equality laws.

    Simon Henderson, Head Master at the 580-year-old boarding school, said that the school makes “no apology” for teaching pupils to respect each other’s differences.

    But it has now emerged that Eton also tried to argue that the lecture posed a safeguarding threat to pupils since it risked drawing them into extremist ideologies.

    Since 2015, when the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act was passed, schools have had a statutory duty to prevent children from being drawn into terrorist acts, known as the “Prevent duty”.

    Schools need to report any concerns they have about pupils who are at risk of radicalisation, which can include Islamic terrorism, far-right terrorism, Northern Ireland-related terrorism.

    However, the LADO found that the lecture did not meet the threshold for the Prevent duty so she referred it back to the school to deal with internally.

    Mr Knowland told The Telegraph that the school’s attempted Prevent referral was “laughable”, adding: “So something many colleagues and parents considered an excellent stimulus for debate is also terrorism?

    “The video has over 40 academic references, including work published by Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and Yale. Are these the kind of ideas considered akin to terrorism in Henderson’s safe-space Eton?”

    In the lecture, Mr Knowland explores the biological differences between men and women, stating that as well as being physically stronger men are also “more violent by temperament”.

    But he denies that the lecture argues for male superiority or glorifies violence, adding that the lecture in fact points out that men can “afford to treat their lives more cheaply” since they are less necessary to society when it comes to reproducing and nursing infants.

    Eton’s director of safeguarding was understood to be concerned that the lecture downplayed the seriousness of rape with its claims that “rape is not a unique claim for male oppression of women” since male on male rape in jail “dwarfs male on female rape outside them”.

    Mr Knowland said this is a “wilful misinterpretation” of the lecture which argues against sending women to war. “It also says it is far worse for a man to beat up a woman than to beat up a weaker man,” he said.

    “Toxic masculinity or machismo is defined as forgetting that male strength is to be put in the service of women and children rather than turned against them.”

    While reviewing Eton’s referral, the LADO pointed out that students on the Perspectives course are aged 16 and a short clip from the mafia film Goodfellas is shown in the lecture, which is an 18 certified film.

    An Eton College spokesman said: “Following discussion, the LADO agreed with the school’s view that the matter should be investigated by Eton under our own procedures.”

    Some leading BTL comments:

    Yalla Imshi
    27 Dec 2020 9:54PM
    This is a game changer. The Head has lost his head. Parents and alumni need to step in now or we lose a national asset

    Jonathan Karmi
    27 Dec 2020 9:53PM
    This whole episode is becoming more absurd with every passing week. Eton College seems to be disappearing down the dark hole of wokery under its current headmaster.

    Damian OConnor
    27 Dec 2020 9:45PM
    Terrorism? That Henderson fellow needs sacking.

    Gordon Alexander
    27 Dec 2020 9:59PM
    Just incredible that our premier public school, the Alma Mater of kings, princes and PMs takes its own trousers down, bends over and asks Slough Borough Council to give it a caning.

    2. It’s quite clear that Henderson is a Woke zealot and took personal offence at Knowland’s views and sought to get rid of him. He should be sacked and Knowland appointed as headmaster!

    3. Sneaking to the Local Authority is not the thing a gentleman should do – it is not cricket.

      Eton’s headmaster should be expelled from the Headmasters’ Conference.

      Over the years several boys from Winchester, where Henderson was a schoolboy, have been on courses with us and Henderson was born in 1976 so he would probably have taken his “A” levels in in 1993 or 1994. As as we started running our courses in 1990 we undoubtedly would have had some of his contemporaries with us. At that time Winchester had the reputation for ‘oddballs’ according to most of our students from other schools. Henderson must have been un ballon bizarre as a schoolboy and it looks as if he hasn’t changed much since then.

    5. Is Left wingery sanctioned? After all, throughout history that’s where all the horror, war and bloodshed has come from.

      If it is, who has reported the black looting mob to whatever their lado nonsense is? No doubt even if they were reported, due to Lefty hypocrisy the local idiots would no doubt ignore it.

    1. Windows is insecure because it was created in an environment where usability took precedence over security.

      The world changed with the internet – Microsoft were still looking at monolithic internal networks and missed it. However they kept bolting stuff to the same insecure platform. Don’t believe me? Open windows 10, type control userpasswords2. It’s hidden, but it’s exactly the same dialog as exists in windows 98, just 10 hides it under ten layers of pointless mis-mash of useless faux web settings pages.

      Microsoft have the resources to create a ground up operating system. A completely new one with a whole new kernel and core. Heck, they could even borrow the linux kernel and write an abstraction layer. Hell, Apple did it.

      Yet they won’t. Chucking outcrappy releases has taken precedence over engineering. It’s about sales and marketing now. That’s why their software is tripe.

      1. Based on my experiences of the product from the mid 1990s until a couple of decades ago I refer to it as Microsod.

        1. The blue screen of death? Rather than properly contain and capture the errors through re-working it, they made it prettier.

          Laziness. Sacking the QA team showed their attitude to software. While they can’t cover everything (or even a tiny fraction of it) they can’t be bothered with even the basics.

        2. I shall never forgive Bill Gates for killing off the Locoscript word-processing facility which was, in every way, better than Microsoft Word.

      2. Sounds a bit like the Coca Cola Marketing Director many years ago who, reportedly, said people buy the advertising. The brown fizzy stuff in the bottle is just the way to collect the revenue.

      3. Linux, Apple IoS are based on unix – they have a “millenium date problem” in 2037.

        I know it is 16 years away but many of today’s Unix systems will still be around in 2037 – aircraft, ships, cars, Government IT systems

          3. Simple explanation -1970 Unix decisions on limitations of time the system would not cope with dates after 2037.
            However,the people making decisions in 1970 will not be around in 2037 so did not worry about the problem.
            I am 74 and will probably not be around then OR will be around but oblivious to any of the problems.

  14. ‘Morning All
    Blissful few days at my sisters avoiding all news, feeling mentally refreshed,visit to be extended I wont be around much so
    Belated Happy Christmas All
    and
    Early Happy New Year!!

      1. You look back at a year of injuries, annoyances, costs and frustrations and realise that life is just a bit crap and mostly stumbles. It’s the getting up that gets harder.

      2. I went to write the time and day for my weekend ride in my diary and was a bit surprised that it will be next year. That’s sneaked up on me 🙂

    2. Morning Rik

      Good cheer to you , enjoy your rest.

      Your funnies will be missed during these dank dark days of winter ..
      A smile a day is good for us all.

  15. Are the NHS/Boris & Co going to issue a weekly ‘league table’ of the effectiveness of the various Vaccines now coming onto the market

    compared to those not yet ‘lucky enough to be jabbed

    Oxford Vaccine
    AstraZeneca Vaccine
    Moderna Vaccine
    Pfizer Vaccine
    and the one from Widdecombe…….

    A placebo perhaps

    1. Morning OLT

      The media seem to take great pleasure in showing closeups of the moment of impact of Vaccine needle insertion into flesh .
      I think that might give an adverse knee jerk to many needle phobics .

      I do hope they are using the correct needles , because one needle seemed incredibly long , more like an intramuscular needle .. Perhaps I am wrong .

      2. Moning T-B – The needle looked too long to me as well and some are going in almost at right angles. It could be an intra- muscular vaccine.

        1. Morning Clydesider,
          I wondered the same , some of the media pics have shown a variety of needle techniques.

          What on earth could go wrong in the hands of young amateurs?

          1. The worst things they can do is…

            make som stupid comment hich puts the patient off
            hit an artery
            hit a vein
            hit a nerve
            hit a ligament (ouch)
            use a short needle plunged it up to the hub, where it snaps off.

          2. You should try giving injections where the patient is a) trying to escape and/or b) trying to kick, bite or otherwise maim you. Vets always put the needle in up to the hub for an intramuscular injection (and I was taught to do likewise), but the needle is often inserted first and the syringe attached to the inserted needle which reduces breakages in large animal work.

            Fortunately, having to pierce thicker skins, most veterinary needles are a little sturdier (or much sturdier, depending on the type of animal and the purpose). Broken needles are surprisingly infrequent (I never had one in the years that I was doing injections) but they do happen. All farms are obliged to keep records of any broken needle nowadays – and that record has to follow the animal to slaughter if it is going into the food chain.

      3. Morning Belle. There seems to be an element of fakery to all these photogrphs of people being injected!

      5. No doubt Bill Gates will be getting the same ‘vaccine jab’ as that Aussie minister the other day.

      6. The injection of a vaccine is usually into the muscle, Belle. How many tetanus shots have you given into the deltoid? I’ve done a fair number in A&E.

    3. How are we to rely on such data as accurate? It would be produced and collated by civil servants and, of course they don’t mind turning a blind eye to issues with jabs – short or long term side effects (especially those relating to fertility).

  16. I see on the news this morning that the keeper of the snake house in Edinburgh zoo has been sacked for feeding the snakes Viagra and selling them as walking sticks

      1. Ayup, Maggie.

        I picked up an antique cabbage stalk walking-stick from a shop on Exmoor a number of years ago. It’s a wonderfully sturdy bit of equipment and feels just right.

          2. No problem, Spikey. Mine is sturdy but very bendy (a bit like me) and extremely comfortable to use.

    4. MB has just come up with another little earner; feed Viagra to pythons and you have a customised pole vault.

      1. Possibly, Annie. At first I misread the word “Messy” and thought it was Peddy off to shop at Waitrose dragging Missy with him.

        :-))

          3. Please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, no fish puns otherwise I’ll have to mullet it over any maybe plaice you on the block list……..

  18. I notice that the Daily Telegraph is putting out mixed messages on its front page today. One headline reports a refill ban on sugary drinks, ostensibly to promote better health. The main headline promotes the use of the euthanasia covid vaccine.

    Do they want us in better health, or do they just wish to despatch us? Make your mind up, DT.

    1. Because of the acquiescence of the population during the scamdemic the government will continue to humiliate us with ridiculous laws because the ‘majority’ will obey without a second thought.

      As you often say stupidity is spreading like wildfire.

  19. Delingpole: Lockdowns Were Inspired by the CCP, admits Professor Pantsdown

    Professor Neil Ferguson, the discredited Imperial College computer modeller behind Britain’s draconian lockdown policies, has come clean about his inspiration: none of it would have been possible without the shining example of the Chinese Communist Party.

    In an extraordinary interview with the Times (of London), Ferguson admits that if it hadn’t been for China’s example, no Western country would ever have dreamed of putting its populace under house arrest.

    Back in 2019, about the time someone was getting infected by a bat, no European country’s pandemic plans seriously entertained the prospect of putting a country on pause.

    Then, that’s what China did. “I think people’s sense of what is possible in terms of control changed quite dramatically between January and March,” Professor Ferguson says.

    Ferguson appears to find the idea of emulating a totalitarian state exciting rather than embarrassing or shaming because he boasts about it again later in the interview.

    In January, members of Sage, the government’s scientific advisory group, had watched as China enacted this innovative intervention in pandemic control that was also a medieval intervention.

    “They claimed to have flattened the curve. I was sceptical at first. I thought it was a massive cover-up by the Chinese. But as the data accrued it became clear it was an effective policy.”

    Then, as infections seeded across the world, springing up like angry boils on the map, Sage debated whether, nevertheless, it would be effective here. “It’s a communist one party state, we said. We couldn’t get away with it in Europe, we thought.” In February one of those boils raged just below the Alps. “And then Italy did it. And we realised we could.”

    That phrase ‘get away with it’ is instructive. It implies that, at least on a subconscious level, Ferguson is aware that copying Communist China’s lockdown policy was not a morally acceptable act, merely one that peculiar circumstances made possible.
    *
    *
    *
    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/12/27/lockdowns-were-inspired-by-the-ccp-admits-professor-pantsdown/

    1. 327856+ up ticks,
      Morning C,
      Now there’s a funny thing, I had just copied the same comment to ask was there a trouser problem in the tory party ie
      major, zipper johnson, & the wretch cameron & his approach to animal husbandry & a certain pigs head.

      Delingpole: Lockdowns Were Inspired by the CCP, admits Professor Pantsdown

    3. “Ferguson appears to find the idea of emulating a totalitarian state exciting ….”
      He would. Under totalitarianism, apparatchiks have special privileges, whether it be access to GUM store goodies or access to your own personal super spreader travelling across town for a shag. (Other sea birds are available.)

    4. “Ferguson appears to find the idea of emulating a totalitarian state exciting ….”
      He would. Under totalitarianism, apparatchiks have special privileges, whether it be access to GUM store goodies or access to your own personal super spreader travelling across town for a shag. (Other sea birds are available.)

    5. I find it hard to believe anything written or spoken by the Bonking Boffin, such is his terrible record of predictions. I think he must be from the ancient Chinese province of Wan King…

  20. Worst article of the past day on the DT (as usual for the last few years, lots to choose from) in my view:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/politics/day-joe-biden-won-election-breathed-sigh-relief-america

    At least the author is getting royally roasted (and deservedly too) in the Comments below it. You have to wonder if The Barclay Bros have a tie-up with the NYT or CNN as regards their US coverage; similarly with The Graun in the UK for everywhere else these days.

    1. That is a very disappointing article by Lionel Shriver.
      She normally writes clearly and abjures any ‘woke’ gestures.

      1. I have yet to read this article but in general I find her writing style rather difficult to read.

        1. I find her style difficult when she is thinking/writing in Merkin. When she is thinking/writing in English English, she is much easier to follow and has a good turn of phrase. I once attended ‘An Evening with LS’ in London where she was very effective. The principal problem was the ruddy Scotsman interviewing her, Fraser Nelson.

      2. Sadly, quite a lot of DT ‘journalists’ have gone over to the Dark Side, whether because they’ve been threatened with the sack/industry blacklisting, virtue-signalling to the New Wordl Order (Great Reset bunch) for a few crumbs, bribed or most likely, are now revealing their true self.

        This has been coming gradually for 10 years at the DT (and the Times I am told, who are a couple of years ahead in the changes), and speeding up since 2016, especially over the past two years. Ntoice how most of the ‘Old Guard’ have either been sidelined to writing the odd article here and there, pensioned off or forced out. Only the spineless remain (or should that be Remain?).

        IMHO, even Guido Fawkes newbies (as well as their website generally) like Tom Harwood seem to be ‘going mainstream’ (possibly to keep his DT spot?)in their views and questioning less. None, in my view, appear to want to look into the pandemic generally or any questions surrounding vaccines or the shadowy forces behind it all and the Great Reset, etc.

      3. What I find funny is posters such as ‘Daniel Hibson’ proclaiming that there’s no evidence and it’s all nonsense and that this is what alt right do.

        All the buzz words.

        Yet… he is exactly the sort who refuses to consider the evidence because it doesn’t suit his narrative. The ones who shouts loudest when he loses simply because he wants to win. He’s a crow. A petulant child.

        1. Well why has the evidence not shown up in court? There have been enough law suits started (over 50 apparently) but not one has presented any evidence of this mass fraud. Oh I get it, every republican politician, judge and election official has received death threats and worse to go along with the plot.

          Just look at Trumps handling of their covid relief bill, is that a leader?

          1. The evidence has been presented but it’s likely insufficient. That doesn’t mean it isn’t valid, though.

            We all know Blair is a corrupt lying crook, but he is not in prison – doesn’t mean he’s not guilty.

            Yes, in that instance it is. Apart from his weird body language. The bill is truly awful for Americans lumping incredible costs on them that benefit other nationalities more than the US. Where Trump went wrong is in making it partisan rather than financial.

          2. Has any court actually examined the evidence?
            All I’ve read about is courts not accepting cases.

          3. A few cases have reached the point of preliminary arguments, they have been thrown out as lacking any factual basis.
            It is a pity that at least one case didn’t get down to the proof being presented in court where everyone could see what the facts really are. Refusing to hear a case because of some loophole does noone any good.

            A week ago, Giuliani promised overwhelming new evidence within a few days. I am underwhelmed, such empty promises do trumps case no good, they just help fill Giulianis bank account.

          4. Your middle paragraph more or less sums up how I feel about it. Those vertical steps on the graphs for Biden for one thing, ought to be explained, plus a few more surprising aspects. Just repeating “Biden won, get used to it” in the face of what LOOKS clearly like cheating, is not constructive. The fact that no convincing explanations have been produced, tends to lead one to believe that there aren’t any, and that the obvious explanation is the true one.

          5. as has been said by many, where is the overwhelming proof? He didn’t win, that must be wrong is not enough.

            The difference between winning and losing those key states is many thousand votes, someone somewhere would be holding the evidence if it existed. A few bad apples is one thing but to claim that the whole political machine rotten the core is not viable.

            Biden becoming president is probably not a good move but that is who they chose. Let them get on with it and do their worst, a presentable republican candidate should walk the next election.

          6. There I disagree. The evidence that is publicly available is overwhelming, unless there is some factor that an outside viewer is unaware of. But the Democrats have not produced any such factors.

            Also, where you have computers involved, you have the possibility for software manipulation – I believe that elections are too important to give to a software company. They should be done manually, in person and with voter ID.

            I think a good few someones somewhere are holding evidence, but they are either rewarded like that British man who has just been given a directorship of a Soros group, or else they did it out of an almost religious fanaticism. It’s very likely that a few years into the future when they think it doesn’t matter any more, they will start talking about it as though everyone knew all along that it was a fraud.
            It has often been observed that the climate change movement is essentially a revival of a pagan style religion, and “Trump Derangement Syndrome”, while it is a joke, is also very real. There are thousands of people in the US whose hatred of Trump is stronger than their love of fairness and democracy.
            I think what people are essentially being asked to believe, is that the lie is so big that it can’t possibly be a lie.

          7. So again I ask for the evidence. There is none being presented, just hearsay, statements like it is obvious that there was fraud and a never ending stream of false accusations on social media.

            If in doubt blame the computer! I suppose if the count had all been manual there would be complaints that it was possible that the democrats dog ate some Trump ballots.

            It’s now well over a week since Giuliani promised election altering proof of fraud in Michigan,. Gone quiet hasn’t he.

            Fairness? Is that the Republican state legislators already moving to tighten voting rules in a way that will disenfranchise many poorer democrat voters?

          8. I’ve already mentioned some, but you ignored it. Can you explain the vertical steps in the vote graphs for Biden candidates, and why the bellweather counties were overwhelmingly wrong?

            This is solid evidence that something happened that does not normally happen in elections. All I’m saying is, let’s hear convincing reasons why these things happened. I expected to hear this after the election, but all I heard was “there’s no evidence.”

    2. Earlier today I had thought about posting it, but decided that it would probably induce apoplexy in some quarters, shortly followed by my lynching. So I chickened out.

  21. I notice (from the obituary) that “George Blake” the “British spy” was neither a Blake nor British!

    He was a half Turkish jew and half Dutch protestant called Behar. In other words just another insurgent.

      1. 327856+ up ticks,
        Morning M,
        I can only put it down as them being of the 48%
        & that is inclusive of the governance party’s.

        Even after suffered / suffering mass uncontrolled immigration, mass uncontrolled paedophile actions, ongoing, long term cover up of those actions, ongoing, assorted knife / acid attacks, etc,etc, the ovis STILL trust these political creatures with their & their kids lives, unbelievable
        is to mild a description of their dangerous elk.

        Could be fallout from the 24/6/2016 result & them showing a form of martyrdom for the benefit of brussels.

  25. Giant Volcano Behind ‘Ancient Apocalypse‘ Found. 5 NOV 2020,

    The ices of Greenland and Antarctica bear the fingerprints of a monster: a gigantic volcanic eruption in 539 or 540 A.D. that killed tens of thousands and helped trigger one of the worst periods of global cooling in the last 2,000 years. Now, after years of searching, a team of scientists has finally tracked down the source of the eruption.

    The team’s work, published in Quaternary Science Reviews, lays out new evidence that ties the natural disaster to Ilopango, a now-dormant volcano in El Salvador. Researchers estimate that in its sixth-century eruption, Ilopango expelled the equivalent of 10.5 cubic miles of dense rock, making it one of the biggest volcanic events on Earth in the last 7,000 years. The blast was more than a hundred times bigger than the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption and several times larger than the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo. It dealt the local Maya settlements a blow that forever altered their trajectory.

    The effects of one of these (they are not historically rare and we are overdue) on the modern world scarcely bears thinking about. For a society that cannot contain a minor infection even less so. It would be truly cataclysmic!

    https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/environment-and-conservation/2019/08/colossal-volcano-behind-ancient-apocalypse-found

    1. No problem, carbon neutral cars and aircraft, windmills and solar panels, plus no gas based household energy will cope.

    2. Ardent warmists tell us the Little Ice Age was caused by volcanic activity, not by solar variation.

    3. There. And I was blaming Alfred the Great for burning those cakes. Think of those carbon emissions.

      2. Did you see my comment on there ..

        What about the Norman conquest and how the British were turned into Serfs .. the Baronial system still exists , think tenant farmers and tithes and tied properties. Happens around here !

        Especially at Poundbury .

        9.2 (in the case of a residential dwelling) the existing house number and if required the name of the
        Property on a plate of a size and a position first approved by His Royal Highness
        9.3 (in the case of an office/shop/commercial building) if required the name of the Property and the
        Tenant’s/Owner’s name and business or profession on a plate or board of a size and in a position
        first approved by His Royal Highness
        10. Not to keep or permit to be kept any bird dog or other animal on or in the Property (other than
        the usual domestic pets) and not in any event to keep any bird dog or other animal which may cause
        a nuisance or annoyance to any owner or occupier of any other Property comprised in the Estate or
        to the general public
        11. Not to obstruct or permit to be obstructed any common areas or roads or accessways or
        footpaths on the Estate
        12. To use the allocated parking space or garage as the primary parking area for the Property and
        not to park or permit to be parked on the Property or any parking space any vehicle other than a
        private motor vehicle and not to carry out any works of repair to such motor vehicle
        13. Not to allow any trailer caravan motorised caravan or boat or other similar chattel to be brought
        onto the Property or to be parked in any such parking space without the consent of His Royal
        Highness.
        14. Not to erect or permit to be erected any television wireless or other aerials or satellite dish on
        the exterior of the Property
        15. Not to use or permit any parking space designated by His Royal Highness as a visitors’ parking
        space to be used otherwise than for occasional visitors’ parking
        16. Not to keep or leave any rubbish or refuse in front beside or to the rear of the building erected
        on the Property other than in a proper receptacle and then only on the day stipulated for the
        collection of the same by the local authority and to store such receptacles in the designated areas
        other than on the day of collection
        17. To perform and observe all conditions contained in any planning permission or Building
        Regulations approval or consent issued by His Royal Highness affecting the Property.

        4. The Anglo-Saxons kept slaves. The Normans turned them into serfs.
          I doubt the slaves/serfs noticed any difference.

        5. However, nobody is forced to buy a house in Poundbury.
          As we have seen with all the mask wearing nincompoops leaping out onto the road to avoid their fellow human beings, many enjoy being told what to do. It saves on thinking for yourself.

        6. Not that far from a typical rental agreement over here, especially for the big apartment buildings.

          You can live here but don’t be visible!

          1. Lots of it applies in lots of places here too.

            Item 10 applies to council houses almost everywhere, and ex-council in most places. My house is ex-council and not only am I restricted to “animals and birds normally kept as pets” but I must not erect permanent boundary fences above 1 metre at front and back (higher is permitted between properties) nor may I alter the external (brick and part render) finish of the building. Render may be removed to facilitate repairs if necessary, but must be reinstated when those repairs are complete. Animals which cause noise or nuisance are unacceptable everywhere, and can be removed if they are reported.

            Item 11 is universal… I don’t know of anywhere where the obstruction of roads and accessways is permitted. The neighbours are as likely to police that, as the councils are. We generally notify neighbours about things like removal vans which cause problems in our very narrow 1950s street.

            Item 12 is very welcome, it prevents the neighbours from being disturbed and inconvenienced by someone who does motor repairs for all his friends without proper insurance or space to do it. Clutter of derelict and semi-derelict vehicles invariably results. It also applies in a lot of places other than Poundbury

            Item 13 applies in lots of places; except that it is the local authority which governs the matter, not HRH.

            Item 14 is OTT in this day and age – I only have freesat, but it needs a dish and freeview coverage (no dish) is virtually non-existent here because of the topography and the positions of masts.

            Items 15 and 16 apply in lots of towns and cities.

            Item 17 applies everywhere – unless you want to run the risk of being told to demolish.

        7. Just looked it up on Google Maps. Didn’t know it was attached to the west side of Dorchester – like a suburb preserved in time.

    2. Will there be similar ones listing those involved in modern slave trading and the names of African tribes who sold their captives to Whitey?

      2. And continue to do so.
        Is slavery legal in Mauritania?
        In 1981, Mauritania became the last country in the world to abolish slavery, when a presidential decree abolished the practice. However, no criminal laws were passed to enforce the ban. In 2007, “under international pressure”, the government passed a law allowing slaveholders to be prosecuted.

      1. The American families benefiting from slavery would be a good addition to the list of past wrongdoers.

      1. Some of them will be companies and family estates that are still in existence. In any case it is virtue-signalling hypocrisy.

  27. Tony Blair ‘will be given a knighthood’ to ‘unblock’ the honours system for politicians who came later and are still waiting for a gong because of Queen’s ‘dislike of him’, sources say

    The Queen’s dislike for Tony Blair is ‘bed-blocking’ the honours system as gongs cannot be given to politicians who succeeded him without him getting them too, sources have said.

    The former Labour PM is likely to be offered a knighthood in a bid to solve the problem, it was reported this morning.

    Almost all former Prime Ministers before Blair were afforded the Order of the Garter by the Queen however he is still waiting for that honour 13 years after leaving Downing Street.

    My good opinion of HM’s acumen rises. This is almost certainly an excuse for the reality becoming manifest in the New Year Honours! One is tempted to say that as a War Criminal and Traitor he should never receive any accolade from the state but then what is the “Honours” system but a fraud itself?

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9091145/Queens-dislike-Tony-Blair-bed-blocking-honours-system.html

    2. Blair, Brown, Cameron and May…NONE of them deserve any honour whatsoever.
      Blair is a war criminal who dismantled the British constitution – he would have got rid of the monarchy too if he had felt able to do so.
      Brown sold off our gold.
      Cameron is an arrogant incompetent, clueless prat.
      May signed the UN Migration pact and was ready to hand us over to the EU lock, stock and barrel.

      2. He probably would have tried to get rid of the RF had it not been for the PoW’s accident in a French underpass. Too good an opportunity to seize the limelight to pass up.

    3. Yer Labour cronies shouldn’t accept gongs even if offered. It’s rank hypocrisy if you ask me.

      Good on yer Brenda for not gilding TB. I see no reason why his successors should not progress with their recognition, if deserved.

      Perhaps Brenda could immortalise Tone by instigating a new gong in his honour instead: a TBE.
      (The B*stard Enemy; Total Bl**dy Emetic; Tainted By Europe; Trans Bias Everywhere; Teachers B*ggerup Educution)

    4. I was under the impression that the Warmonger Bliar had previously been mooted as a Knight of the Thistle, as per many Scots before him, but he was holding out for the greater honour of Knight of the Garter.

    5. There’s a simpler solution.

      When Her Majesty is knighting him, instead of lifting the sword off his shoulders, simply hack through his neck. If the blade is blunt.. oh well. Just needs more whacks.

      Failing that, stab him through the eye or the heart – or where his heart would be in a human being.

      The idea of Blair getting an honour is laughable. He should be chained by the neck in a sewer.

    2. ‘Morning, Bill, better than a heavy dew on the grass…

      …he was thrown out of the Synagogue for eating pork scratchings during the sermon. © The Goon Show (sometime in the 1950s).

  29. SIR – Here in central Canterbury, I have seen e-scooters (Letters, December 26) with two people on being driven along the street. Another was driven one-handed, with the other hand holding a mobile on which the owner was holding a conversation, all while crossing a busy junction. Several scooters at once whizzed round the corner of a busy underpass just as local schools were finishing for the day.

    Scooter riders no longer get a second glance. Streets, lanes and pavements are all fair game – and games they are.

    So far I haven’t seen a crash helmet or protective clothing being used, or anyone over the age of 25 on one. I fear only serious accidents will put an end to this silly tolerated experiment.

    Sue Hillyard
    Canterbury, Kent

    SIR – It is blindingly obvious, and should be to our legislators, that nothing mechanical going faster than walking pace should be allowed on pavements. The speed at which human beings have been designed to proceed for a million years is also the speed at which the outcome of a collision is likely to be “Oops, sorry”, rather than a visit to hospital.

    Those who ride stand-up scooters or cycles on pavements are antisocial and the law should make that clear.

    Victor Launert
    Matlock Bath, Derbyshire

    Fear not, Sue Hillyard; if some are riding in the manner you describe then their self-removal from the gene pool will only be a matter of time.

    1. ‘… self-removal from the gene pool …’. Think the concern, though, is who they will take with them when they exit.

  30. SIR – We had to throw our fish at the Common Market in order to join and now we’ve had to throw our fish at the European Union in order to leave.

    Lyn Hopkins
    Dereham, Norfolk

    SIR – By my reading of the text of the fishing agreement, we are stuck with our maximum catch as determined by the formula at the end of the five-and-a-half year “transition”.

    If we seek to take more, we have to terminate the fishing agreement. Under Article FISH. 17: Termination, this automatically triggers the right of the EU to terminate the whole trade agreement, as well as other sections such as aviation agreements.

    In reality, we have nothing like control of our fishing. After five and half years we will be in a straitjacket from which there is no realistic escape.

    Tim Pope
    Weybridge, Surrey

    SIR – It is a bit rich of Nicola Sturgeon to suggest that the deal has sold out Scottish fisherman.

    They now have increasing quotas. Scottish independence and rejoining the European Union, which is her ultimate aim, would inevitably hand control of Scottish waters back to the EU with less access once again.

    Christopher Hunt
    Swanley, Kent

    SIR – In 1984, when we policed our exclusive economic zone with the consent of our EU colleagues, we had 16 dedicated Royal Navy fishery protection vessels for the purpose, commanded by British Sea Fishery qualified officers.

    Could the Government explain how this can now be achieved alone with four?

    Lt Cdr Philip Barber RN (retd)
    Havant, Hampshire

    I shall make no comment on the truth or otherwise that fishermen are worse off now, for fear of triggering a tidal wave of fish puns.

    4. Some quarter of the document details the fish types than can be caught.

      As usual, this is Euro waffle for control systems. As if Spanish trawlers will bother. They’ll haul whatever they want, maybe discard some – which will likely be dead – and stuff the treaty. What can we do about that? Where will the proof be?

      As it is, the comical number of pointless quangos the Eu demands is absurd.

  32. A sensible piece, in my view, from the instigator of Brexit:

    Boris has betrayed our fishermen but he still deserves credit for bringing the Brexit wars to an end
    There is no going back. The grassroots campaign to win back Britain’s independence has triumphed against the Westminster establishment

    NIGEL FARAGE
    27 December 2020 • 5:51pm
    Nigel Farage

    In my quest to free Britain from the European Union over the last 30 years, I’ve been called many names, some of them deserved. Particular favourites are “crank”, “gadfly” and “fruitcake”. For daring to challenge the status quo, my life has also been made very difficult. I never wavered or compromised, however, even refusing the offer of a safe Conservative seat. There comes a point in an endless war, though, when a settlement must be reached. I believe that the moment for political pragmatism is now. We have taken our cause as far as we can.

    I would have preferred a no-deal Brexit – a clean break. Whatever short-term disruption this brought, it would have been the best path to prosperity. Yet despite tough talk from Downing Street recently, this was never going to happen. No deal was just a negotiating position. Had Boris Johnson gone for no deal, he would have reopened the EU fault line in his own party and the business establishment would have cried foul. The Brexit wars would have dragged on.

    So what of the 1,246 pages which MPs will debate this week? As with all moments of political drama, many people have appeared on television as “experts” to discuss this deal without knowing exactly what they are talking about. Frankly, it will be many weeks before we fully understand its implications and MPs should not be bounced into backing it in its entirety this week. A vote on the principle of it makes more sense at this stage.

    One area of the document that my friends have truly analysed relates to fishing. This element of the deal is even worse than I had feared, notwithstanding No 10 briefings that the number of new fish available for Britain to catch would stretch to the South Pole and back.

    Michel Barnier claimed that Britain will become an independent coastal state, but the truth is our nation still won’t own the fish that swim in its waters. The current terms of the UK common fisheries policy will continue and just 25 per cent of EU boats’ fishing rights in UK waters will be transferred to Britain’s fishing fleet up to 2026. Originally, it was expected that the EU’s rights would be cut by 80 per cent.

    Nobody should underestimate the sense of betrayal in our coastal communities this has inspired. Even if after 2026 Britain wants to increase further its own quota allocation, it will have to pay compensation to the EU to do so. This is an outrageous humiliation. The EU should be paying Britain to fish up to six miles from our shores. Raw quota figures aside, Britain’s coastal communities deserve recompense for what has been done to them once again.

    Northern Ireland’s future status within the UK is a further compromise. At the same time, importers and exporters will have breathed a sigh of relief, especially German car makers and French wine producers.

    The UK’s biggest problem seems to be that its largest industry – financial services – is barely mentioned. With that said, the benefit of Brexit is that we will continue trading with EU countries while opening our markets up to the rest of the world. I’m certain that our pattern of trade will shift substantially and become more global over the course of the next few years.

    Britain must beware the level playing field provisions but, in time, I think threats from Brussels will worry us less. Everybody must be positive about what we can achieve and becoming the first country in the world to approve the Covid vaccine while EU states argued among themselves rather proves the point.

    No peace is perfect and Britain must be vigilant in the coming weeks and months. We must also be prepared when necessary to deviate from the terms of this deal. As an independent nation, the world will have more respect for us if we stick up for ourselves. Our politicians should not be ashamed to put our interests first.

    Lord Frost and Boris Johnson have paid a heavy price to get this deal over the line, but they have done far better than their predecessors and they do deserve some credit.

    The most important point about this deal is that it will end the anti-Brexit hysteria that has defined our nation since 2016. There is no going back. The grassroots campaign to win back Britain’s independence has triumphed against the Westminster establishment. That, surely, is worth celebrating.

    BTL comments:

    Richard Free
    27 Dec 2020 6:03PM
    Nigel Farage has never wavered. If he says it’s good enough….that’s good enough for me. Not perfect….but good enough.

    We will make it work….. because we can.

    Ron Wigley
    27 Dec 2020 6:02PM
    Thank you Nigel, I and many believe a knighthood is the least you deserve.

    Trevor Hughes
    27 Dec 2020 6:06PM
    Without your efforts Nigel, Brexit would never have been possible. You deserve the country’s gratitude. It was a near run thing. This is probably the best deal possible without reopening all the wounds of the past five years which might have been destabilising for any other arrangement, including “no deal”. I hope from 2026 the UK will be very hard-nosed with the EU on fishing rights and assert its prerogative under the Law of the Sea to its Exclusive Economic Management Zone.

      1. I tend to base my judgement on who the arrangement has royally p!ssed off.
        I will be interested to hear the opinions of people like John Redwood and Bill Cash.

      2. Well, no. We still have the same people in charge here, who just gave most of it away. Deadbeats who simply cannot conceive of going out into the world and bringing trade and prosperity to the UK.
        As of now we should be talking to countries about producing for us substitutes for EU products, especially food, wine, olive oil and so on. So that in five years, we can kick this one-sided “deal” into the Atlantic, and sneer at their currently threatened consequences.
        Nobody seems to be asking why a “successful” trade deal comes with major threat attached as part of it.

    2. 327838+ up ticks,
      Wigley ron,
      I do agree emphatically he deserves a K
      no doubt of that, right material for the current Lords.
      Something nautical say
      ( in the coxswain dept.)

    3. I’ve just caught Gove on the BBC stating that “the fishing “deal” is the best we could possibly get”. I read elsewhere that the financial services industries are not overly happy. NI is effectively under EU law. On the other hand the German car makers are heaving a sigh of relief.
      What useless, mealie-mouthed incompetents our politicians and “negotiators” all are.
      What householder would enter into negotiations with a burglar as to how much of his own property he might retain? (If you get to keep the TV, I get the Hi-Fi, if you keep the Persian carpet, I get your daughter. Oh, and if you get to keep the laptop, I can come back in five years and help myself to more.”)
      We agreed to all that and more.

      1. Most of the financial services industry tried everything possible to frustrate the democratic vote, so I’m not sympathetic to them.

    4. 327838+ up ticks,
      Hughse listen up,
      He really deserves a double K as towering above the current inmates & their true mindset.
      Check out his take on UKIP membership, after once again leaving the party in 2016, the membership that worked bloody hard over the years to give him a platform.

    5. It could have been worse, but it also doesn’t quite sound like sovereignty. Gutted about the fishing.

      1. And, according to the BBC, our service industries, which account for 80% of our economic activity, have not been helped at all by the ‘deal’ and this will cost our financial industry very dear.

        I do not trust Johnson. All the women with whom he has been involved made a great mistake in trusting him or having anything to do with him. And his ‘brilliant, oven-ready’ WA turned out to be rotten to the very core.

        I shall certainly eat humble pie and admit that I am wrong iff (iff = if and only if) the hidden detail within the deal does not prove that it is a bad deal for Britain and, as Ursula von der Leyen, claims, a good deal for the EU.

        1. The fact that all 27 EU member states have accepted it immediately tells me it won’t be good for the UK.

  34. Snow in Stoke-on-Trent causes problems for drivers. 28 December 2020.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/37e6a5d90495efc1a1eeee226015b019c98c7a6a34a82adc73036275dd1a399e.jpg

    Heavy snowfall has led to gridlock on some roads in Stoke-on-Trent and caused problems for motorists.

    Two lanes of the M6 are shut near the city due to a collision and the A500 has been closed at its junction with the A34, with reports of cars being abandoned in Hanley.

    A yellow warning for snow in the West Midlands until 18:00 GMT has been issued by the Met Office.

    Staffordshire Police is advising people to only drive if essential.

    If only we had something like Global Warming to put an end to this! Sigh!

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-stoke-staffordshire-55465164

      1. But it still stops traffic, dead. Local Councils don’t understand Winter, only box-ticking and raising Council Tax.

        1. When I was a student in Bristol, we had a heavy snow storm & it took the council 3 days to get the ploughs up & running.

    4. Can we have some snow further south? I’d like to test out my car’s all season tyres. Rather parky about these parts today though.

    8. That’s why they changed it to climate change. The lie was falling apart, so they needed to change the marketing.

      1. 327856+ up ticks,
        Afternoon AS,
        Incarceration is on the cards especially if the “someone” is an active paedophile, now take one
        Tommy Robinson for instance… they did.

  36. I wonder how many people here have heard of Professor William Pettigrew, of the University of Lancaster. He is a left-wing scruff obsessed with British guilt over slavery, and, according to the Times, he wants the present descendants of those involved in slavery of to be responsible for the wrongs of the past.

    He has started a project to prepare a dictionary of British Slave Traders that will provide detailed biographies of investors across its 250-year history, including shareholders in slave-trading companies and those investing through syndicates in independent slave-trading voyages.

    He doesn’t seem to care about Britain’s role in banning the slave trade or the involvement of other countries, especially in Africa and along the east coast of Africa to Arabia.

    This is bad enough but what, in my opinion, is so outrageous is that the so-called Conservative government is funding this project to the tune of one million pounds of your money!

    1. Not very diverse and inclusive if it doesn’t include the African slave traders from whom the slaves were bought, or the Arab slave traders who operated around the British Isles! Is he trying to say that dark skinned people in small boats off the British coast do not count as British? What a bigot!

        1. You obviously watched the Birmingham University professor being interviewed on Al Jazeera this morning.

          So bigoted he appeared unbalanced.

          2. I didn’t but the type is easily recognised. They always seem to be angry about something or other.

    2. Well, Mr Pettigrew can pay for them himself if he feels that strongly. I imagine though that he’d far and away prefer other people paid.

      Funny that. Such people never seem to want to pay for their own opinions.

    3. Yo Sguest

      My first question, in all these ‘witch/wizard/magician/wokweism hunts is

      How did the ‘slaves’ get to the ports from whence they were dispatched worldwide (We have discounted The Routemaster buses)

      Who took them there and who protected them as they moved through continental Africa,

      Who is ‘collecting the slaves taken in Africa NOW

      What about the white slaves taken by the Barbary Pirates, the ones taken by the Vikings

    4. Virtue-signalling don’t come cheap, yer know!

      I hope that some of those included in this publication will consider themselves defamed and therefore seek recompense via the courts from this leftie goon.

      ‘Morning, Sg.

    1. The President has reluctantly signed the Congress’s support Bill which will allow the printing of $$$$ to enable Americans to receive $600 each. The President was reluctant to sign the Bill into law because he wanted to give every American $2000 a move opposed by Congress. I suspect there will be many citizens regretting they voted for the other guy……

    1. 327856+ up ticks,
      Afternoon TB,
      It’s on the parliamentary canteen menu and will be the full menu in two shakes of a lambs tail, courtesy of these governance party’s.
      Even with the blood being drained along with their self respect the voting pattern of
      the ovis will not change.

    3. Good afternoon Bill

      Are you certain they are not an exotic breed of puss..

      A friend of mine adopted a pair of cats , one was a Bengal cross and the other pure Bengal .
      The cats had to be rehomed from their original home on a housing estate because they killed pet rabbits , guinnea pigs and exotic aviary birds belonging to neighbours .

      They are now living in luxury in a wonderful house in the countryside , except now they bring back snakes, lizards and baby rabbits !

        1. Loved the pear drop and aniseed; tolerated the liquorice; gave away the treacle and mint humbug.

    1. I missed out on the perrenial tradition in my family of having fish & chips on Christmas eve – none the decent local chippies were open, despite being allowed to, even in Tier 4 areas. Very strange.

  42. Parosmia or anosmia seems to a recognised aftereffect of covid infections.
    MB and I have found that if coffee tastes wrong – usually a tinny flavour – it is a sign that we are brewing up a bug.

    1. “it is a sign that we are brewing up a bug.” Anne, use coffee instead.
      (Actually, my tea and coffee tasted very odd for a couple of days some weeks back.)

      1. The cold kitchen tap must be turned on for a few minutes before I fill the kettle up . The water here is so hard and tastes horrid if the tap isn’t run for a while . could be old pipes , dunno, but the taste is quite chemical like.

        We used to have an old fashioned water softener , but eventually got rid of it , too much of a pfaff!

        1. We use a water-softener and a filter-jug for any water we’re going to consume in tea of coffee. The tap water here is foul.

        2. Dolly won’t drink water from the kitchen tap. I fill her water bowl from the bathroom sink. The kitchen tap is still fed by an old lead pipe.

          1. How was Christmas at Knoll House , Phizzee.

            Some one lost their beautiful Saluki dog there yesterday , bolted off into the heathland from the beach , it is wearing a blue coat .

            Notification on F/B , everyone is looking for it , hope it hasn’t been stolen .

          2. I left after lunch on Christmas day. The staff were charming and friendly and made a big fuss of Dolly. There was hardly anyone there. No atmosphere. Couldn’t even stand at the bar and gossip with the staff because of regulations.

            Food was excellent and plentiful but i was getting bored and i thought i could just as easily be bored at home.

            Christmas Eve and day had excellent weather so Dolly got her walkies on the beach.

            All a bit sad really.

          4. Hope they find the doggie. I know how they must be feeling. I don’t think Dolly would run off unless she was spooked.

            When goes galloping off across the Park she keeps stopping and looking back at me.

        3. Same here in North Essex Suffolk border. We have an RO (Reverse Osmosis) filter which makes the water more potable.

          Cat and dog will not drink tap water preferring RO filtered or rainwater.

        4. We are blighted with what is known in the trade as Colchester water.
          We filter water for tea and coffee.

    2. Have nasal polyps. Nothing tastes of anything but wet cardboard. Need nostrils reamed out, I guess.

  43. Another contender for worst DT article of the day:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/politics/2020-taught-us-women-power

    Did most of the MSM and DT staff in particular catch some pre-COVID woke disease that collectively fried their brains? Rosa used to come up with some sense in the past, yet since 2016 she (IMHO) has increasingly gone all third wave intersectional feminist. As per usual, she’s also getting a LOT of pushback from readers, who make very intelligent and telling ripostes.

    How long until the DT mods delete the comments section when Rosa sees it?

    2. No comments allowed her her other article about MPs getting the jab before the elderly…

    3. I just let my cursor rest on the link long enough to read the gist. That is the kind of article that drove me away from the Telegraph!

      1. Same here as one of the many reasons why I unsubbed after nearly 20 years (including before you had to pay to read the online version!).

    1. 327856+ up ticks,
      O2O
      Why not an orchestrated effort of nottlers
      on an agreed date give a report back on their local hospital countrywide if not inside then at least the car park content can also tell a story.

        1. 327856+ up ticks,
          Afternoon W,
          On a given date as I suggested do a drive by, surely
          the car park alone would tell a tale.

          2. Hospitals charge for car parking to both raise revenue and to stop commuters/ shoppers using their car parks for free.

          4. True and my sources in NHS estates tell me that they now struggle with commuters and shoppers parking ‘illegally’.

    3. Of course not. It’s a Bank Holiday or weekend, when Outpatient Departments are closed as normal. Try filming during the week instead, or in A&E.

      1. 327856+ up ticks,
        Evening AA.
        I am having a bit of a problem with the
        ” as normal”section of your post.
        Are you telling me that this overstretched, swamped with covid patients is on
        a five day week ?
        I did suggest get a local to Gloucester hospital nottler of good standing there has to be one surely, to check it out preferably not a lab/lib/con coalition current member.

        Dave agrees with you, as I say ask locals to check out their local hospitals on a given day, would settle the issue in many respects.

      1. 327856+ up ticks,
        Evening M.
        There will be rest assured on that if this farcical
        campaign continues, lack of treatment, mental anguish, loneliness, will account for more that this malady ever could.

    1. That woman is too much of an invert to write anything of interest to real people. I expect she will make $200,000,000 out of it.

        1. Oh. Sorry. Speed reading !

          How about. I’m a NigNog Duchess.

          I expect she will make $200,000,000 out of it.

          3. So that makes the viking an apostrophysician. I knew that pedant wasn’t the only way to describe him.

        4. Shakespeare put it very succinctly in ‘King Lear’:

          Behold yond simpering dame,
          Whose face between her forks presages snow;
          That minces virtue, and does shake the head.
          To hear of pleasure’s name;.
          The fitchew, nor the soiled horse, goes to ‘t.
          With a more riotous appetite.
          Down from the waist they are Centaurs,
          But to the girdle do the gods inherit,
          Beneath is all the fiends’: there’s hell, there’s darkness,
          There is the sulphurous pit, burning, scalding,
          Stench, consumption. Fie, fie, fie! pah, pah!
          Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary,
          To sweeten my imagination.

          I defy anyone to give a good and accurate paraphrase of this to a mixed group of Sixth Formers with sweet, innocent sixteen year old maidens in the class!

      1. The Old Man of Lochnagar if I remember rightly. I believe he also illustrated it (he’s a dab hand with watercolours).

      2. Actually, I studied one of Charles’s books when I was an art student. He published a book of watercolour paintings. He’s not bad actually – a bit unadventurous that’s all.

  48. From ZH:

    EU Nations Unanimously Approve Brexit Deal As UK Warns Businesses To “Prepare For A Bumpy Ride”

    Tyler Durden’s Photo
    BY TYLER DURDEN
    MONDAY, DEC 28, 2020 – 6:43
    It has been two days since Brussels and London finally released the text of the draft trade deal struck between UK and the EU negotiators last week, and on Monday morning, EU leaders officially signed off on the deal, clearing one of the last major hurdles for what is expected to be a historic trade deal.

    Germany, which presently holds the EU presidency, announced the decision came during a meeting of EU ambassadors on Monday, which was called to assess the 1,200+ page deal.

        1. I wonder which language is the one that the new court of arbitration, or whatever they call it, will accept as the definitive one in case of dispute.

      1. The charlatan, Johnson, is on record as saying it was, “Oven ready”. It’s been in and out of the freezer for months: that’s probably why it’s going to turn out rotten.

          3. Well as an ex RAF Chappie said on here the other day: The Six Pees….

            Proper Posting Prevents Piss Poor Photos

    4. An alternative perspective from John Ward:

      “If you want the full strength on the incontinent lending policies and continual whiffs of corrupt Franco-German favouritism that surround the European Investment Bank , I recommend very highly the site Bankwatch which gives you a grown-up view of just how much we can trust them to either stick to a deal, or to last the full term before going up the pictures.

      An EIB collapse alone would be enough to drag us down with the SS Eutanic. This is one reason why it matters: the UK’s callable capital disappeared from the balance sheet after the Withdrawal Agreement. The new funding is coming from….hold your breath…..Poland and Romania. Good luck with that one

      However, the really big UXB is in when UK responsibility for EIB losses ends, how long it takes to get our money back, what interest we’re paid on the money EIB owes us, and why on Earth the eurozone might rein in the EIB’s previous policies…as opposed to handing us ever larger bills in an insouciant manner.

      The answers are, respectively, twelve years, twelve years, nothing, and ‘they won’t’.

      If you think that is a win for the UK, you need to spend more time in specsavers”.

      1. We understand that a re-negotiation is allowed to happen in 2024.

        The hyenas coming back for another bite of the cherry!

    1. Will they make it a ‘reality tv show’? What would they call it, ‘Last One Standing’ or ‘Til Death Us Do Part’?

      2. 327856+ up ticks,
        Afternoon M,
        ” Journey into the unknown”
        Our journey starts with the inner sanctum of a rampant trouser wormer, namely one ferguson & concerning his echo chamber type head……..

        1. I chose a baked potato once. Forgot to tick the box for butter or a filling. Half a baked potato duly arrived face down. All the flesh was black. As i turned it over the Doctor arrived at my bedside. He glanced at it but said nothing. Hagley Road Hospital Birmingham. I did wonder on my arrival why the ward smelled like a fish&chip shop.

          1. When SWMBO was in Crawleey hospital after caesarean, a sandwich was delivered with two scoops of smash (with a skin on it, and dry mash powder inside).
            I suggested that she telephone for pizza, but she wasn’t up to the row it would provoke.

          2. That is appalling. Doctors go on and on about food in Hospitals being beneficial to the patient and then this sort of crud is served.

            None of this shit would be served in the managers dining rooms.

  51. Hearing loads of emergency vehicles rushing hither and thither, with the Police helicopter hovering overhead searching the flooded river bank to the North of us. There’s always at least one silly beggar who thinks they can walk along the bank and avoid stepping into the fast flowing Thames.

    1. Sadly, there are often people who set off for a walk along a flooded riverbank with the intention of stepping into the fast flowing waters.

    1. I suppose with a million monkeys tapping away, once or twice a century they’ll get something right!

        1. What a sad day when what is essentially a blindling obvious article that could write itself gets praise whereas 90% of DT articles (many of whom could easily grace the pages of the Graun) are a pile of leftist/woke/feminist/crony Establishment/US Dems’ doo-doo. Rather like when we see a decent (but not great) TV programme and it gets praise to the high heavens because it’s not the usual post 2016 woke rubbish.

          I suspect that Graun journo will be in for a lot of criticism from his own side.

        2. My wonderful Grandmother used that expression. Her name was Elisabeth and shortened to Bessie by her friends.

          I don’t use it myself because for a man to say it would be a bit camp. Oooh, get me !

    2. Larry Elliott has always been a Leaver. You’ll note comments are not open – he would be eviscerated by the commentariat!

    3. Doing a Tw@ter search on the headline,

      “Why Boris Johnson is perfectly happy to own his Brexit trade deal”

      Brings up a lot of supportive comments.

      1. Robert – I have a quantity of OS maps – quite old – pre-War some of them. Interested? I can’t bear to take them to the Tip.

      1. Without wishing to seem more than usually gaga – when Gus has been playing with one of their toys for five minutes – he passes it to Pickles…

        Makes one go all gooey….!!

        1. Our two big cats are very close emotionally to each other.
          When Little went missing in the summer, Big was completely out of it, pining and so on. That’s what convinced us that Little was really missing after all, as opposed to AWOL.

        2. Our two big cats are very close emotionally to each other.
          When Little went missing in the summer, Big was completely out of it, pining and so on. That’s what convinced us that Little was really missing after all, as opposed to AWOL.

    3. A delightful load of trouble there!
      Regarding OS Maps, yes please.
      Will make arrangements to pick up when the weather is warmer.

  55. Firstborn making cheese in the kitchen. Judging by the language, it’s not going well :-((

  56. Just seen the title for today:
    Monday 28 December: You don’t have to wear plum chinos to see a bright future for Britain
    Happen, I’m wearing brand-new plum chinos! Omen, or…?

    2. A couple of years ago I picked up a superbly made pair of Gieves and Hawkes, bright red Corduroy trousers which were reduced from £140 to £20. I take great delight in wearing them at Christmas and when carol singing for charity Along with my ‘Elf sweater’!

  58. 327856+ up ticks,

    Nightingale hospitals stand empty despite surging Covid cases as medics warn of staff shortages
    The seven Nightingale facilities have yet to start treating virus patients despite number of people in hospital passing April peak.

    Thinking slightly outside the box could this also mean that there is not enough patients to go round, I am only asking because there have been retired volunteers offering their services only to be turned down so I have heard.

  59. Is this clip from ZH verifiable?

    “In other news, the WHO just revealed that new data analysis suggests the “mutant” COVID strain causing all this trouble for the UK isn’t any more deadly than any other strain. They also reiterated their guidance that being vaccinated doesn’t mean somebody should stop wearing masks or social distancing. Why? Because there is “no evidence yet” that vaccines will prevent infections.

    If you feel stupid, or like you’re somehow missing something here, just remember: it’s because you don’t have a PhD.”

  60. In the event that I, an over 75-year-old with medical complications, may be forced to have a vaccination, I wonder if this would subsequently stand up in court?

    Advice/modification, please:

    Covid Vaccination

    Sir or Madam,
    You are proposing to vaccinate me with a vaccine that has not undergone an approved test regime and is made by a company that has been granted immunity from prosecution, in the event of unexpected ill/side-effects.

    In the light of these facts, will you, as the vaccinator, please sign this document, accepting full responsibility for any subsequent ill-effects to the full effect of what the law will allow in terms of compensation, either to me, the recipient, or, in the event of my death, to my next of kin and family?

    Signed……………………………. Full Name (Block Capitals)…………………………………………………..Date……………….

    1. Afternoon NtN. I think this will not stand up in court as a defence because the government has given the same immunity to the vaccinators. You should be able to find it on the Government website but I’ll have a look too.

    2. The vaccination is not compulsory (yet), so such a document is not necessary, and the vaccinator would not need to sign it, just say ‘next’.

      1. That is what gets me. Why cannot they just say next and turn their back on the dissenter.
        Forget the programs to persuade and ‘educate’ the doubters, you have had your chance just move to the back of the queue and you will be eligible again once the easy pickings are done.

    3. … full personal responsibility …in terms of compensation and confirm this is fully covered by my liability insurance,
      An improvement?

    4. … full personal responsibility …in terms of compensation and confirm this is fully covered by my liability insurance,
      An improvement?

    5. How about an alternative?
      “I consider that you sticking me with a needle to be an assault with a potentially deadly weapon, and will defend myself through the use of extreme violence if necessary.
      Now, f**k right off, get in a car and f**k off some more.”

      1. Interesting – when I click on the link I see an almost blank page – just the banner [TCW] and title – no text!

        1. I clicked on the link 20 minutes or so ago and it was still there – I looked a little while later a few mins ago and the text had gone! However – I have a copy which I will paste in a mo, I thought it might well be a useful document for the future and that it may well disappear.

          1. Here it is:

            THE Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted on December 10, 1948, in response to the atrocities of the Second World War. The preamble states that ‘recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world’. Later, the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) was formed and imported human rights into member states (including the UK).
            This month the UK started rolling out its Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer, and this raises questions of informed consent and human rights.
            Vaccines are generally safe and often the only caveat is that they may not work for some individuals. However side-effects and adverse incidents following vaccinations are known and serious questions have already been raised about the new Covid vaccine, for example here and here.
            In the 39 years up to April 2017, the Department for Work and Pensions made payments from the Vaccine Damage Fund of just over £74million to 936 claimants. Pfizer has been given liability protection for the new vaccine and Covid-19 has been added to the list of eligible diseases under the Vaccine Damages Payments Act 1979. Those disabled ‘to the extent of 60 per cent’ by the new vaccine will be entitled to a single one-off payment of £120,000.
            Since vaccines are not entirely risk-free, it is important that recipients consent to them. This protects our human rights and the principle of ‘informed consent’. The criteria for informed consent were affirmed in the Supreme Court case of Montgomery v Lanarkshire Health Board in 2015, when it upheld that patients should be given as much information as they would wish to weigh up the potential benefits, risks and burdens of treatments. Informed consent not only enables an individual to accept treatment but also, critically, to refuse. Article 8 of the ECHR protects our physical, moral and psychological integrity, and thus a person’s competent refusal of medical treatment is protected. Treatment against a competent person’s will would be an infringement of that person’s human right.
            In order to consent to a vaccine, an individual must be able to assess the risk to their person of the virus and measure it against that of the vaccine. To exercise that assessment, we must understand:
            • to what extent the virus is still circulating;
            • the places where we are at most risk of acquiring infection;
            • the mortality and morbidity risks

            We have seen that Covid-19 is apparently in significant decline (based on PCR testing) in Scotland and, at the time of writing, infection numbers sit at 55 per cent of the peak of the ‘second wave’ on 23 October (see Figure 1 below). We do not know how many cases have been acquired in the community compared with healthcare settings because the Scottish Government has not published this information.
            The age group by far the most affected by Covid-19 is the over-75s. The risk of death to the under-15 age group is as close to zero as it gets; not one in this age group has died of Covid-19 in Scotland, and very few worldwide (see Figure 2 below). For comparison, since the first Covid-19 death was reported in Scotland, 156 children under the age of 15 have died of other causes.
            To assess the extent to which population immunity has been responsible for the decline observed in positive tests, we must know to what extent other factors might have been responsible. Have social distancing and other restrictions impacted spread? Evidence from around the world implying that these measures have not suppressed the virus grows all the time.
            The knowledge of the extent of spread is currently almost entirely formed from the results of the PCR mass testing programme, which has now become a somewhat discredited measuring method and there are concerns among experts we may be creating an artificially inflated count of the number of people suffering Covid-19. This may well have arisen due to testing artefacts, which must always be mitigated against in any screening programme. To date, as far as we are aware the Scottish Government has produced neither evidence of an investigation, nor a report about the outcome of such an investigation, into the rate of false positives in its Covid-19 screening tests.
            Answers to these critical questions must surely be acquired to determine whether mass vaccination is necessary for the general population, or indeed appropriate.
            The vaccination programme is being rolled out to the over-80s, care home staff and NHS staff. It is intended that care home residents’ vaccinations will commence before Christmas; these are the people most vulnerable to COVID-19 but also the most likely to lack legal capacity to give informed consent.
            The Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2001 provides various conditions for consent to be given on behalf of someone without capacity by a medical professional, welfare power of attorney or welfare guardian.
            Anyone in the position lawfully to consent on behalf of an adult without capacity is required by the 2001 Act to give consideration to:
            • the present and past wishes and feelings of the adult so far as they can be ascertained;
            • the views of the nearest relative;
            • any named person in terms of the mental health act;
            • the primary carer of the adult.
            This means that a blanket policy to vaccinate adults with incapacity should not be made. To consent on behalf of an adult who lacks capacity is not an enviable task. When risks and unknown long-term effects have to be weighed up on behalf of someone else, it can only be considered a moral burden for the decision-maker.
            Stories are rife that the NHS and travel companies are considering a change to their terms and conditions of employment or of carriage to require persons to have the vaccination. To do so is not informed consent but ‘consent obtained by coercion’. In the 1920s case Hodges v Webb it was established that ‘coercion’ is a ‘negation of choice’. This is not acceptable in society and is a fundamental breach of Article 8 human rights and yet it seems possible, even likely at times, that there will be a coercive element to Covid-19 vaccination in Scotland.
            The decision as to whether to take vaccine is entirely personal. If satisfied on the balance of risks that you would wish to give informed consent to a Covid-19 vaccine, you should be free to take it if offered. However, it must follow that if you are not satisfied, then you are entitled to refuse. Truth, quality data and education are always to be preferred to coercion when it comes to medical consent.
            Given that this is a new vaccine, it is critical that recipients report any adverse reactions, however small. This can be done as an individual online to the Yellow Card Scheme run by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

            This article was first in The Scottish Review.

            A comment ftom BTL:

            I’m not taking the risk. After all, Pfizer aren’t.

        2. Click on the writers’ names then click on the the title that appears ‘Your right to refuse the covid jab.’

    8. They would simply tell you to eff orf – or threaten you with a hate crime. Or racism if the vaccinator was not white.

        1. According to the latest edition of Radio Time, there will be a Sherlock Holmes series soon with, you’ll never ever guess, a black Watson. At least it is on Netflix so, for once, the BBC can’t be blamed.

    2. Judging by the still photos, Bridgerton is an utterly nonsensical re-writing of English social history – and that’s before you get onto the plot!

      1. I wont’s watch anything like that. I will not be contributing to the viewing figures . The writers who are distorting our history are absolute traitors .

        1. I agree. Truth is important and should be respected. It’s wrong to lie just to make people feel good about themselves. The claims being made now that they are only bringing out the truth (about slavery etc) are risible, when you consider the whole picture.

          2. Oddly enough these diversity posters never seem to include a blonde man with a muslim woman. Funny, that!
            Don’t get me started on the level of propaganda around nowadays!

          4. She is less than half black, as her mother is clearly mixed race, if we are to be pedantic. But her skin colour has nothing to do with her behaviour – the rest of her family on her mother’s side seem quite normal, nice people!

    2. Did you hear that the piece of the Giza Pyramid found in Scotland turned out to be a deep fried battered Toblerone?

  67. Good night all.

    I received 1/2 dozen small presents, individually wrapped, in a carrier bag. I unwrapped a bar of chocolate, put it to one side, then unwrapped a couple of books. I’ve been searching frantically for the chocolate ever since. Tonight I found it in the first place I should have looked. The fridge.

          1. Neither should dogs, but both are guilty of stealing it on occasions – especially if you have put it down in a silly place when you were not paying enough attention 😉

          2. My ex-wife once made chocolate sponge cake, filled it with choco cream, left it on a plate pushed to the back of the work surface. When she came back to it there was just a thin crescent of cake left at the back of the plate, which was the part that Kalu’s tongue couldn’t reach.
            Kalu was the black Lab.

          3. My fox red girl could be left with a week’s shopping – or half cooked chops (left on the grill tray whilst I answered the doorbell, and gave directions to a lost trucker) and she wouldn’t touch a thing. None of the spaniels have been 100% reliable although the present one has never stolen anything it’s largely because I make sure that she doesn’t get the chance. Few dogs can resist sponge-cake.

  68. 327856+ up ticks,
    May one ask will there be a halal celebratory dinner in regards to the bloody near exit, prior to the strengthening of the pilot deal tie campaign commencing ?

      1. 327901+ up ticks,
        Morning l,
        You come across as a fully fledged madcret,do you mean I should take a leaf from your book
        when YOU requested PP to FOAD as for your
        “up-markers revealed” now that tells a story.

  69. Michael Gove appearing on 18.00 News with swollen lower left face. Dental abscess? You saw it here first.

      1. I don’t think so. A blow on the left side of the face would have come from a right fist. Basic forensics.

  71. Article about Michael Jackson in the DT:-

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/artists/perfect-situation-paedophile-michael-jackson-built-neverland/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

    Probably all true, who knows. But the final two paragraphs typify the fingers-in-the-ears, I don’t-like-you-so-you-never-existed attitude of the latest generation (No comments allowed. Obviously):-

    ‘Now, finally, Neverland has sold – to Ronald Burkle, the billionaire co-founder of the investment firm Yucaipa Companies. It sold for $22 million – $78 million below its original asking price. A spokesperson for Burkle said the investment will be a land banking opportunity.

    One can’t help but wonder what will become of Neverland, this lasting legacy of the now-disgraced King of Pop, souring in the sun. Many believe his music should no longer be heard. Perhaps this, Jackson’s final, twisted creation, will soon be erased, too.’

    They’ll be burning books next. Then start wearing brown shirts…

      1. I didn’t like him or his music, but once he was dead, all the ghouls in his family came outt of the shadows, wanting a bit of him. Didn’t care until there was money involved. No wonder the poor bastard grew up warped.

      2. I think he was a very minor performer, whose music deserves to die of mediocrity. I was a completely unmusical teenager in the eighties, and didn’t follow any bands or singers. But some produced such wonderful music you couldn’t ignore it – it was played everywhere, and even I noticed it without paying attention. Not Michael Jackson though – when he died, I couldn’t recall any of his songs, just an ugly album cover.

        1. If Meghan is black, Jackson was black – admittedly, he did dye himself a whiter shade.

          2. This colour thing is confusing me.
            “Black is black, I want my baby back.
            It’s grey, it’s grey, since she went away, oh oh
            What can I do, ’cause I, I’m feelin’ blue”

          3. Poème à mon frère blanc (Poem to my white brother) Léopold Sédar SENGHOR
            Dear White brother,

            When I was born, I was black,
            When I grew up, I was black,
            When I’m in the sun, I’m black,
            When I’m sick, I’m black,
            When I die, I’ll be black.
            While you white man,

            When you were born, you were pink,
            When you grew up, you were white,
            When you go to the sun, you are red,
            When you’re cold, you’re blue,
            When you’re scared, you’re green,
            When you’re sick, you’re yellow,
            When you die, you will be grey.

            So, of us two,
            Who is the coloured man?

          4. Hm, wouldn’t,
            “When you’re scared, you’re yellow,
            When you’re sick, you’re green,”
            be more appropriate?
            Oh, perhaps ‘Yellow Jack’ was prevalent at this time.

          6. As one famous black actor (can’t remember who) once said about him, “Why would a good looking young black boy want to turn himself into an ugly old white woman?”

      2. He clearly identified as white (I’m being serious), which is what the woke establishment will never admit. No black person is allowed to identify as white.

    3. Certainly he was an oddball but he could sing and made some very acceptable records with Quincy Jones as producer.

      Bubbles the chimp now lives happily in a sanctuary in Florida, where he apparently had to be taught normal chimp behaviour, having been dressed up and fed on ice cream by Jackson.

      1. Every lad in Britain practised that wonderful moonwalk, it was slick and very entertaining , and a smooth floor was necessary , I even managed to do it , of course that was years and years ago , I was a little more supple then .

    4. At the end of a interview on our local radio station, I was asked to introduce the next song. They started playing a Jackson tune and all my mind could think was “No, don’t say kiddie fiddler”. There went my DJ carer.

  72. Ivan Illich wrote a pamphlet ‘Medical Nemesis: The Expropriation of Health’ in the seventies. In that publication he argued, correctly in my view, that advances in longevity were attributable principally to improvements in sanitation, clean water supply and nutrition. By contrast the widespread reliance on pharmaceutical products was having a deleterious effect on public health.

    Here we are decades later where people suppose that a Gates’ vaccine is the magic bullet to the problems of disease and deprivation in the poorest countries and communities.

    Public health advocates around the world now accuse Gates of steering WHO’s agenda away from projects proven to curb infectious diseases: clean water, hygiene, nutrition and economic development and that this serves Gates’ philosophy that good health only comes in a syringe.

    In anticipation of yet another downvote from Jennifer SP I am now taking my leave.

  73. Excellent comment on George Blake with a good swipe at John le Carre too:-

    COMMENT
    The death of George Blake reveals how little we now respect Western values
    If we had a robustly self-confident country, we would not find moral equivalence in the betrayals carried out by this evil traitor

    ANDREW ROBERTS
    HISTORIAN
    28 December 2020 • 9:30pm
    Andrew Roberts

    Aprofoundly evil man died on Boxing Day, though one would hardly have known it from the entirely judgement-free tone of his obituaries. George Blake started spying for Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union in 1953, and by the time of his arrest in 1960 he had copied no fewer than 4,720 pages of secret intelligence for the Russians, and betrayed the identities of over 350 MI6 agents to the KGB. For seven years Blake systematically destroyed the network of agents who were working to bring democracy to Eastern Europe and an unknown number – thought to be around 10 – paid with their lives, sometimes after torture.

    If Blake had worked for Stalin’s totalitarian twin Adolf Hitler, his activities would rightly have been greeted with a barrage of contumely on his death, but instead there was hardly a single word of criticism. “Blake was an idealist disillusioned with British Intelligence”, stated The Guardian, “who sought in his naive fashion a Communist revolution”.

    Yet in fact there was nothing naive in Blake’s cold-blooded betrayal of his country over a period of several years to the vicious Soviet regime. The moral equivalence that so much of today’s media draws between MI6 and the CIA on one hand, and the Russian (and now also the Chinese) intelligence services on the other, tells us much more about our tragic ambivalence towards Western values than it does about those agencies. Part of that is down to the work of someone else who has died recently, John Le Carré, whose novels all too often – especially in The Russia House and his later works – portray Western espionage agencies as precisely (im)morally equivalent to the KGB and its successor agency, the FSB.

    For all that Le Carré was a superb writer, and by all accounts a charming man, his books stank of moral equivalism, concentrating entirely on the process of espionage and almost never on the fact that for decades the democratic West was involved in an existential struggle against a truly despotic ideology that was trying to “bury” it, as the Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev helpfully put it.

    When President Obama’s deputy national security advisor, Ben Rhodes, said that Le Carré was “constantly engaged with moral questions from the individual experience to the canvas of geopolitics” it showed how far this refusal to promote Western values has gone. When Obama refused to lift a finger for the Iranian dissidents during their Green Revolution in 2016 or even to declare – as Kennedy, Reagan and almost every other American president undoubtedly would have – his support for their aspirations of liberty, the totalitarians took note that the United States no longer believed in its own central founding principle.

    Yet it is simply not the case that the vital work done by the intelligence service of the democratic West is on a moral par with the undermining of democracy daily undertaken by the agencies of the totalitarian powers. Countries that enjoy representative institutions, the rule of law, free and fair elections, freedom of speech, freedom of association and of the press are indeed morally superior to those countries that hate and fear such things, and try remorselessly to undermine them. People like George Blake, who dedicated their lives to trying to replace democracy with Communist tyranny, thus ought to be identified when they die with the crimes against humanity that they perpetrated, instead of being presented as the moral equivalent of our own espionage agents in the West.

    Blake’s obituarists wrote of the intelligence “game”, yet it was not a game in the First Cold War, any more than it is in the Second Cold War that we are presently fighting against Russia and China. When asked how many agents he had betrayed to the Soviets, Blake answered he had “never added them up. These people were not innocent, they were agents working willingly and knowingly against their own governments.” Yet just because Blake was unable to tell the difference between the heroic Russian double agents – the Oleg Gordievskys and Sergei Skripals who put democracy before their allegiance to a failed state – and despicable traitors like Kim Philby, Donald Maclean and himself, that does not mean that our media should fall into the same trap.

    Blake’s autobiography was entitled No Other Choice, but of course he always had another choice – that of doing the honourable thing. Nor is it the case that, as The Guardian put it, Philby and the Cambridge Five “were in essence anti-fascists and saw the Soviet Union as the best means of defeating the Nazis”. Were that true, then in August 1939, when the Soviet Union signed the Nazi-Soviet Pact and started helping Nazi Germany materially, Philby and the others would have stopped spying for Hitler’s ally, the USSR. They did not, because they were dyed-in-the-wool Marxist-Leninists who loathed their own countries.

    “I think is it never wrong to give your life to a noble idea”, Blake said of himself after the fall of the Berlin Wall, “even if it doesn’t succeed”. That is of course true, though by the time he started working for Stalin, he knew perfectly well that Marxism-Leninism was not a noble idea, but a profoundly flawed one that was antithetical to human nature and human decency. The Great Terror, show trials, Katyn Massacre, Siberian concentration camps and extinguishing of Russian liberty were all known to Blake before he started doing Stalin’s murderous work; he was no naïve “idealist”. By the time he died, he knew that communism had killed a hundred million people, yet still he supported it.

    In 2006, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg ordained that British taxpayers’ money should be paid to Blake because Britain had breached his human rights over the royalties from his autobiography, even though he was a convicted traitor and a fugitive from British justice. Today, even a man whom Vladimir Putin honoured with the Order of Friendship on his 85th birthday, praising his “enormous contribution to strategic parity”, is treated with some kind of awed respect on his death. If we had a robustly self-confident country that was proud of its own superior values, we would not react so pathetically to the death of this evil traitor.

    Andrew Roberts’s Churchill: Walking with Destiny is published by Penguin

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