640 thoughts on “Sunday 15 September: There can be no place for Tory Remainers who betray the promises on which they were elected”

  1. SIR – The letter (September 8) from past chairmen of the Tory Reform Group provides an excellent insight into the ills that plague the Conservative Party.

    It extols the faction within the party that puts its commitment to the EU above the decision made by the nation – a commitment that also threatens to reduce the party to a rump and usher into government an extreme Left-wing group. The letter’s nod to that foolish remark about the Tory party being the “nasty party”, and its claim that the party needs to appeal far beyond its traditional support base, suggests disdain for that traditional base.

    To state that “the key issue is not Britain’s membership of the EU”, which “was settled in the 2016 referendum”, is quite extraordinary given that, three years after that referendum, proper governance has ceased as a Remainer Parliament continues to try to thwart the result.

    In short, in its tone and message, the letter bears all the hallmarks of a group that would sit comfortably in a Parliament increasingly divorced from those it purports to represent.

    Nicholas Southward
    Edinburgh

    Delighted as I may be in helping to see off the Remainer Devizes MP, Claire Perry, ’tis for naught.

  2. More of Cameron’s vitriolic attacks on Boris and Gove on BBC Radio 4 News this morning. He describes the Leavers as lying throughout the Leave campaign and only , in Boris’s case, to achieve their political ambitions. Was Cameron lying to us when he said if we voted yes to Leave we would leave the single market, the customs union and the jurisdiction of the ECJ. I think not but he is now backtracking. He obviously lied when he said if we voted Leave he would sign Article 50 the following day. He also said if we voted to Leave the people’s decision would be delivered. Instead he took the coward’s path and resigned and as far as I am aware he took no part in the background to assist with delivering Brexit. He is now recommending another Referendum. He should get back to his chicken coop and be quiet. He is a busted flush.

      1. The great mistake that people made about Cameron was in thinking he was a toff or a gent. He has no class at all – he is a nouveau riche, counter jumping arriviste who is as common as muck.

        .

    2. So if there is another referendum and another vote to leave the EU then we will still have a Parliament which is determined to thwart Brexit.

      We need a general election to make sure that we have a Parliament capable of enacting the decision of the voters. There should be clear electoral pacts between the Lib/Dems, Labour, Greens and others in favour of Remain and a clear pact between the Conservatives and TBP. That way either Remain will have democratic authority in Parliament or Leave will have it.

      Funny how few politicians understand or even want to envisage this very clear way out of the impasse.

      1. It’s time that Johnson pulled his head out of his ärse and recognises the reality of the current situation. The electorate is polarising around Leave and Remain with parties coming second. If he really wants to Leave – that means a clean break, not some rehashing of May’s “deal” – he will have to have a deal with Farage’s Brexit Party. That Johnson claims he will not do a deal is worrying, does he really want to have a clean break? His latest hyperbolic statement that the UK will break out of the EU’s manacles in the fashion of super hero The Hulk, will rebound on him if he serves up May’s WA v2.0.

        1. The best candidates for the Tory leadership would have been Owen Paterson, Steve Baker, Mark Francois and John Redwood.

          They all believe in a proper Brexit – all Boris is interested in is Boris.

          If Mssrs Paterson, Baker, Francois and Redwood joined TBP
          they could immediately present themselves for re-election in a by-election and show up the traitors who have changed party but shown no respect at all for the electorate who gave them their jobs only to be betrayed.

          1. You have just described why CCHQ will not be supporting any of the mentioned as Leader of the Party, and/or potential PM.

          1. Had a chat with my Leaver son – educated high earner, so there, Remainers -and it was interesting to hear his take on Brexit. His employer, a major multi-national, is much more concerned with what the Scots Nats are up to with regards to independence than Brexit.

      2. Yet if we have a general election the Left will rig it in their favour. They cannot conceive of honesty or decency. They just want to win. When whoever gets installed, they’ll form a coalition together to control parliament.

        Again, as usual, decent people think decently. We can’t any more. The anti democratic remainer Left are determined to sieze and keep power for themselves at any cost. They’ll stitch us up good and proper.

  3. Our democracy is being overthrown by the EU’s Hideous Strength
    DANIEL HANNAN – 14 SEPTEMBER 2019 • 6:00PM
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/politics/2019/07/04/TELEMMGLPICT000202780166_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqXEV_sfBtNwNi-kYoLncUqENe32rTNAQsERfsrlbfRW4.jpeg?imwidth=1240
    German Defense Minister von der Leyen poses with EU Commission President Juncker in Brussels

    It’s not about Brexit any more, at least not primarily. It’s about whether we remain a democracy in the fullest sense. Our system depends on unwritten conventions and precedents. We expect winners to show restraint and losers to show consent. We expect our officials – including judges, civil servants and, not least, the Commons Speaker – to be impartial. We expect the electorate to be the final umpire.

    All these norms are coming under pressure as the campaign to reverse Brexit intensifies. The EU, as well as being undemocratic in itself, tends to degrade the internal democracy of its member nations. Everyone knows that the Brussels institutions are oligarchic, combining executive and legislative power in the hands of commissars who are immune to public opinion. What is less widely appreciated is the extent to which the 28 member states are also required to alter their domestic constitutions so as to sustain the requirements of membership. Elections are rerun, coalitions broken, laws ignored, parties annihilated, referendums overturned, prime ministers toppled – all for the sake of deeper integration.

    I think of it as the EU’s “Hideous Strength” – the title of CS Lewis’s adult novel about a diabolical plot to take over Britain through a seemingly bland bureaucracy. Until now, the most shocking examples were the civilian juntas imposed on Italy and Greece in 2011 to keep them in the euro. But ponder the past three years here. Look at the way our most basic understandings and conventions have been torn up. Look at the policies now being put forward by the main Opposition parties. Labour is proposing to get a better deal from Brussels and then campaign against its own deal in a referendum. The Lib Dems, less entertainingly but more shockingly, want to annul the outcome of the referendum that they were the first party to propose.

    For as long as we have had party politics, we have expected the losers to respect the verdict of the ballot box. That is no longer happening. All of a sudden, politicians are making hysterical claims of Russian interference, insisting that elections don’t count because they consider opposing arguments dishonest, demanding that the people who didn’t vote be tallied. We have seen repeated attempts to overturn the referendum result in the courts. We have seen a Speaker brazenly promising to thwart the government even “if that demands additional procedural creativity”.

    How much more of this can we take? Our political discourse is angrier and more violent than I can remember. The legitimacy of our governing institutions is in the balance. We keep reading that this acrimony is “because of Brexit”. But, as you can hardly fail to have noticed, Brexit hasn’t happened. What we are seeing is not a “Brexit crisis” but the precise opposite: an un-Brexit crisis, a crisis caused by the refusal of our MPs to do what they repeatedly promised.

    Now those MPs are simultaneously paralysing Parliament and preventing a general election. First they said they were waiting for their anti-no deal Bill to be passed. Then, when it was approved, they said that they would wait until the European summit on 19 October. Now they are talking about sitting through to next summer, still in the EU, and still with a disabled Parliament. Do they truly not realise what is at stake? It is not just their careers that are in jeopardy; it is the authority of our entire parliamentary system. Marvel at the EU’s hideous strength.

    ************************************************************************

    James Robbins 15 Sep 2019 6:58AM
    All the Tories had to do was leave the day after Art 50 was signed and negotiate after. That is how a business minded person would have done it. Not rocket science but certainly beyond the intelligence of any parliamentarians.

    1. Hannan is right, it’s been clear for a while that it’s no longer to do with Brexit, but dictatorship and domination of the people by the elites. I’m afraid the resolution will be by violence as the only effective way.
      James Robbins btl has missed the point.

    2. The legitimacy of our governing institutions is in the balance.

      No they are not! They are already finished! Their legitimacy has been destroyed by the failure to implement Brexit as per the instructions of the electorate in the referendum. The future offers two alternatives, either the acceptance of Tyranny or Civil War!

    3. The remainers are absolutely correct that those who did not vote should be counted.

      Almost everyone who does not vote is making a definite statement:

      I will accept and abide by the majority decision,

      Otherwise they would have voted, even if they were “don’t knows”.

      By that token, the acceptance to leave is two to one.

    4. Notably it is the Left – because it is *ALWAYS* the Left – who are the vicious, violent ones.

      There are very few Leave marches, trampling about, shouting at Westminster. Probably because we have jobs to go to and families to support.

  4. Telegraph Sport Rugby Union
    Former Wales and Lions wing Gareth Thomas reveals he has HIV

    How very sad.

    A good friend of mine who was a promiscuous homosexual died of AIDS in 1986 before the medical profession had much idea of what to do about treatment. Gareth Thomas will probably be able to have a relatively normal life span with modern treatment.

  5. Senior Lib/Dum, Kishan Devani, who came here as a refugee interviewed by Andrew Castle on LBC. My goodness, how these people of the left try and take the moral high ground. Populism, nationalism, especially the English variety, freedom from the EU etc. all are evils of the right and everything of the left are nice, cuddly and so superior, Utopia even. Devani, who is the Lib/Dum prospective parliamentary candidate for Montgomeryshire is claiming that the people in his Leave voting constituency are changing or have changed their minds on Brexit. Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he.
    Cue second caller, Robert Rowland, Brexit Party MEP, whose opening statement was that the first caller’s intellect was ‘O’ Level standard. Rowland wasn’t wrong.

      1. No multiple choice questions/answers in my Cambridge O levels or my City and Guilds telecommunications exams.

  7. Yesterday I managed to get away from the faux mayhem by joining 450 Choristers in Sevenoaks being conducted by John Rutter. The piece he introduced for our warm up was “Amazing Grace” and despite my modest contribution it was indeed an amazing sound. John was absolutely brilliant at holding everyone’s attention throughout a fairly long but fantastic day.

    So Good Morning all.

  8. Doctors’ Dilemmas.

    1. A man dashed
    into the A&E dept. and yells . . . ‘My wife’s going to have her baby in the taxi’.
    I grabbed my stuff, rushed out to the taxi, lifted the lady’s dress and began to take off her underwear. Suddenly, after protests from the lady.I noticed that there were several taxis…
    …and I was in the wrong one.
    Submitted by Dr. Mark MacDonald, St. Andrews Hosp. Glasgow

    2. At the beginning of my shift, I placed a stethoscope on an elderly and slightly deaf female patient’s anterior chest wall. ‘Big breaths,’. I instructed. ‘Yes, they used to be,’. . . replied the patient.
    Submitted by Dr. Richard Barnes, St. Thomas’ Bath

    3 One day I had to be the bearer of bad news when I told a wife that her husband had died of a massive myocardial infarct. Not more than five minutes later, I heard her on her mobile phone reporting to the rest of the family that he had died of a ‘massive internal fart.’
    Submitted by Dr. Susan Steinberg Royal London Hosp.

    4. During a patient’s two-week follow-up appointment, he told me that he was having trouble with one of his medications. ‘Which one?’ I asked. ‘The patch; the Nurse told me to put on anew one every six hours and now I’m running out of places to put it!’
    I had him quickly undress and discovered what I hoped I wouldn’t see. Yes, the man had over fifty patches on his body! Now, the instructions include removal of the old patch before applying a new one.
    Submitted by Dr. Rebecca St. Clair, Norfolk General

    5. While acquainting myself with a new elderly patient, I asked ‘How long have you been bedridden?’ After a look of complete confusion, she answered. ‘Why, not for about twenty years – when my husband was still alive.’
    Submitted by Dr. Steven Swanson- Maidenhead Royal Kent

    6. I was performing rounds at the hospital one morning and while checking up on a man I asked, ‘So how wasyour breakfast this morning?’ ‘It’s very good except for the Kentucky Jelly. I can’t seem to get used to the taste.’ Bob replied. I then asked to see the jelly and Bob produced a foil packet labelled ‘KY Jelly.’
    Submitted by Dr. Leonard J. Brandon. Bristol Infirmary.

    7. A nurse was on duty in the A&E when a young woman with purple hair styled into a punk rocker Mohawk, sporting a variety of tattoos and wearing strange clothing, entered. It was quickly determined that the patient had acute appendicitis, so she was scheduled for an immediate operation.
    When she was completely disrobed on the operating table, the staff noticed that her pubic hair had been dyed green, and above it there was a tattoo that read, ‘Keep off the grass’
    Once the surgery was completed, the surgeon wrote a short note on the patient’s dressing, which read ‘Sorry . . . had to mow the lawn.’
    Submitted by Staff Nurse RN Elaine Fogerty, KGH London
    Dr. wouldn’t submit his name

  9. What makes someone who for years and years has supported A suddenly change their mind for no apparent reason and support B ?

    Is it something beginning with C ?

  10. Morning all

    SIR – The former chairmen of the Tory Reform Group suggest that the Government cannot focus on the single issue of Brexit. But how can it focus on anything else, given that this was the prime reason it was elected in 2017, based on its manifesto promises?

    The assertion that Ken Clarke and Rory Stewart are two of the most popular MPs further illustrates how out of touch this group is with voters.

    Denise Burningham
    Newton Abbot, Devon

    SIR – Those Tories who failed to vote with Boris Johnson’s Government performed an act of consummate treachery, and we are well rid of them.

    However, on a personal note, I find it sad that Rory Stewart has chosen to defy the will of the British people.

    Douglas Warren
    Poole, Dorset

    SIR – A democratically elected Parliament voted down the Withdrawal Agreement on three occasions. The EU was insistent that it could not be renegotiated. I don’t recall hearing howls of protest from MPs that the will of Parliament was being ignored.

    Jennifer Wagstaff
    Ellon, Aberdeenshire

  11. Morning again

    Useless speed cameras

    SIR – You report that the number of speed cameras has risen by 1,400 in seven years.

    In the same decade, road accident deaths have stayed at fairly static levels per car mile travelled, suggesting that neither the original nor the additional cameras have had much effect on safety. This is not really surprising, as the majority of accidents (over 35 per cent) are caused by drivers not paying proper attention.

    What is therefore surprising is the rise of “smart” motorways, which require a much higher degree of attention from drivers if they are to be safe. By concentrating on speed as a cause of accidents, and neglecting more common causes, the police and highways authorities have made a grave mistake.

    Peter Owen
    Woolpit, Suffolk

      1. ‘Morning, Minty, always have been and always will continue so to be.

        What is also worrying is the rise in the number of CCTV cameras throughout the land and, more particularly, the rise in the need for them. I even have dashcams fitted fore and aft in the car because of the general level of lawless and careless driving evidenced everywhere.

    2. I strongly suspect that frequently having to look down to check their speed is taking driver’s attention from the road ahead and surrounding road users and may well be causing more mior accidents than the speed limits are preventing.

      And when the overhead gantries speed limits are changing constantly where it is apparent that the road is clear for miles ahead also results in totally unwarranted fines being levied.

  12. SIR – As a 1950s child from a working-class background who was propelled through selective education into higher education, a doctorate and eventually a managing-director position at a multinational company, I am living proof of its benefits.

    The termination of the state grammar school system in the early 1970s was Labour’s single most destructive act, and disadvantaged young people have been the losers in this attempt to create “equality” in education.

    Many parents save and go without in order to fund an education that stretches their children, but now Mr Lavery wants to deprive them even of this – their right to pay for choice. Are there no pragmatists among the Labour socialists who can see that the only route to success for Britain, as well as for our young people, is to educate each and every citizen to the limit of their capacity?

    Shaun Bokor
    Loughborough, Leicestershire

    1. SIR – Mr Lavery berates private schools while a number of the party’s own politicians grace their steps (and those of selective state institutions) merrily.

      I wonder what parents such as Diane Abbott, Shami Chakrabarti, Emily Thornberry and Seumas Milne think.

      Harvey Ross
      Barnet, Hertfordshire

      1. Mr Ross
        Socialists like nothing better than to climb the ladder and then to pull it up after themselves so others cannot climb out of the swamp.

        Their motto is “I’m alright Jack, pull the ladder up let the alligators get the other blokes, we don’t want them sinking the boat.”

        1. Wonderful idea! Best thing for loggers, drug barons, slash-and-burn farmers, poison miners, gigacorrupt oligarchs and their political puppets, migrants exporting their own terror…

          Feeding them to the alligators is the best thing for them. Save the innocent frogs!

          When can I sign up to be a socialist?

        2. The removal of grants to students was a clear example. It was done by politicians who had been to University with all fees paid and a grant to live on.

          1. When Blair’s “reforms” were put in train that 50% or more children should go to University that became inevitable.

  13. i was having a quiet nottle when my son, Henry, came down to tell me that we were dragging anchor and were having gusts of wind of 40 knots.

    Unlike our useless politicians we managed to cope. We turned on the engine, pulled up the anchor chain, found another space in which to drop the hook and then put out four times our depth in chain and made sure the anchor was properly dug this time.

    I then came down below for a another quick nottle.

      1. ‘Morning TB, I have always supported the RNLI, believing that it was a ‘non-profit’ charity working solely in UK waters. Alas it now appears that it has been taken over by liberal lefty common purpose types. There is absolutely no reason that any of their donations should be spent abroad.

        “But the charity’s £189,000-a-year chief executive Mark Dowie warned last week that it is ‘facing some major challenges’ after making a loss of £6.3 million last year, and announcing 135 job cuts.”

        I would suggest that after making a loss of £6.3 million that no more monies get diverted abroad and that Mark Dowi should be at the top of the list for losing his job.

          1. If only we had an honest Government that would reform the Charity Commission and clamp down on all this nest feathering that goes on.

          2. the Charity sector, including the Charities regulator, are strongholds of the Common Purpose virus that has infected so much of public service.

      1. And how many people know that the main part of anchoring a craft is not the anchor, but the weight of the chain lying on the seabed?

        1. To ensure the anchor flukes are well dug in and the pull against the anchor is horizontal for maximum hold

  14. BREXIT

    The Remainers keep trying to claim it was not clear what we were voting for and people voted for Brexit for many reasons. They also try to falsely claim no deal was not an option

    Yes during the campaign various groups stated all sorts of things as happens during a General Election. Th ballot paper was though very Clear WE Voted to Leave or Remain. A binary decision. It was also clear that e would leave under article 50. This was also clear we, It gave us 2 year to prepare to Leave this could be with a deal or without a deal

    1. Bill, Article 50 allowed up to two years. We could have left in the week following the referendum result being announced. All this mess would have mostly been avoided.

      1. I voted to leave – amongst many other reasons – because our children’s vote has to mean something.

        Apparently the government disagrees.

        Other reasons were economic freedom, lower taxes, rational legislation, shredding of the ‘human wrongs act’ and reimposition of English law of freedom from the state rather than rights bestowed by, a removal of the ECHR, flooding, energy policy, ecology policy, immigration controls, global trade, the undoing of the hard Left establishment, a rejection of unaccountable, unelected leaders controlling our future and the avoidance of the obvious: the EU wants to become a communist, fascist empire run centrally. That always leads to poverty and mass slaughter.

        It seems that unaccountable, unelected treacherous, deceitful cowards are also ensuring that this country is abolished and continues to suffer under the communist yoke.

      1. Kada needs help but not from her mother…
        Her schooldays will be hell…….the butt of cruel jokes and name calling.

        1. Either that or she might be one of the bullies.
          From my short time at the chalkface I found that the worst girl bullies and troublemakers were, all too often, the most obese.

          1. It’s often retaliation because they are unhappy.
            Kids can be bloody cruel….Faceache, ideal breeding ground for bullies to attack one another sometimes sadly ending in tragedy.
            I hope Kada finds profesional help and becomes a normal happy/bolshie teenager….she has to help herself too.

          5. Methinks she is more of a pizza, chips and ice cream kind of person. After all, that is all her mother has probably ever fed her.

          6. Three of her five a day. I just don’t understand how she got so fat. Probably her glands or sumfin’

        2. Yes, they will be. She needs support from her parents and peers.

          Alas, she’s only going to get abuse which will likely drive her to eat more as solace from the pain.

          I was a fat kid. It was horrid. 20 years of bullying and abuse until I took up boxing, then Muay Thai. I’ll never be little – my lean weight is 110kg and I’m 20kg overweight but at least I know why I overate. It isn’t an illness, it’s a choice. A bad one but just as with drugs and drink it’s all to assuage pain.

      2. “If she stays as obese as she is she will suffer from a lot of problems, especially in her knees and ankles”.

        Now they tell me !

        My ankles are so swollen it looks like elephantiasis.

  16. Former Conservative MP Sam Gyimah joins Lib Dems

    No great loss. He was never really a Conservative in the fist place.

  17. Good morning thinkers,

    As you probably all know , the RNLI HQ is based in Poole , it is plush and and modern and employs many people on fat salaries , and of course relies on donations for new lifeboats and training for the crews who are volunteers!!!

    JUST look at this.. absolutely outrageous..

    The Royal National Lifeboat Institution came under fire yesterday for spending millions of pounds on projects in foreign countries –including buying burkinis for Muslim women in Africa – while slashing more than 100 jobs in the UK.

    Donations are being spent on swimsuits for devout Muslim women in Tanzania and on funding creches in Bangladesh which the RNLI claims helps to prevent drownings overseas.

    But the charity’s £189,000-a-year chief executive Mark Dowie warned last week that it is ‘facing some major challenges’ after making a loss of £6.3 million last year, and announcing 135 job cuts.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7464961/How-3-3million-donations-RNLI-spent-abroad.html

    1. I am afraid the RNLI like so many charities has lost its way which is why sadly I no longer support them

      There role is to save lifes at sea in the UK and Ireland it id not an overseas aid charity so should not be spending and wasting money oversea

    2. After they outrageously sacked lifelong volunteers i altered my Will. There would have been enough money to keep a lifeboat in service for a decade. Now they get eff all.

      Naomi House Hospice and The Rainbow Centre get the lot.

          1. If everyone who has done similarly wrote, they might, and yes I know that’s a big might, they just might change their policies.

            At least someone is benefiting from your generousity.

          2. Those sanctimonious bastards can’t be told anything.

            Not really generous on my part. I won’t have any use for it. To be truely generous would be to do it now.

    1. Yes, but it will end badly for us, the democratic Right who want freedom.

      The fascist Left will never stop.

  19. Liberal Democrat party to consider scrapping Brexit

    How very liberal of them. Fair enough to have such a policy AFTER we have left the EU but not before the referendum result has been implemented

  21. Well now the chancers are emerging from the woodpile !

    The nasty party lives up to it’s name .

    Cameron is still the snivelling licky lip facetious chap he always was?

  22. Marr…

    What does that Lib dem bint mean by a People’s vote.. why is she so stupid , Jo Swinson is deluded .. she does not believe in democracy ..Her party has the attractiveness of Flypaper… the bluebottles and midges and maggot making are flocking to the sticky weirdo gobby has beens !

    2. What she means is she wants Brexit cancelled, the votes of 17.4 million people ignored, the greatest act of democracy held this century dismissed.

      All because she wants to keep the eurotrough going. It’s where most of her lot end up, no doubt where she wants to go. If that referendum means nothing, then neither does the vote to elect her. Sack her, and anyone else denying the power of their masters.

  24. Morning all. After all the shenanigans last week, does anyone know when or if we are having an election? My understanding was that after their Surrender Bill was passed into law then Labour would back a GE. They appear to have done a ‘bait and switch’ and now refused to back a GE. So after all the talk of a ‘coup’ they have forced an extension to Article 50, taken No Deal off the table and refuse to allow an election.

    What on earth can ordinary people do about this?

    1. Find the disobedient bastards and hang them and have it published on the BBC. Defiance means punishment.

    1. If you want to be a major power-player in he UK, which Parliament do you choose to head for, Stormont, Holyrood, The Welsh assemby Cardiff or Westminster?

    3. The current impasse is down to Clegg who insisted on the Fixed Parliament Act as a condition for his coalition with Cameron. He knew that after his tuition fees betrayal that the Lib/Dems would be wiped out in a snap election and slimy, nasty, little fornicator Clegg had a lust for power just as he had had a lust for copulation with the 30 or so slakers of that lust which he was so happy to boast about.

      Apart from Bercow’s wife who used to love ‘one night stands’ very few women in the political spotlight are prepared to brag about the number of their sexual conquests.

      Was the fragrant Miriam Clegg really fragrant or was she sordidly libidinous like her husband with scores of notches on her bedpost?

      1. Nobody with even a trace of honour is prepared to brag about the number of their sexual conquests.

    3. Proof the Lib Dems are neither Liberal nor remotely Democratic.

      Here’s hoping their support base collapses entirely and they are obliterated.

      2. I’ve been watching ‘Rise of the Nazis’ BBC2 ……

        I wondered why the BBC chose to air it in the present political climate. Now i know!

          1. Wrong! His last name was always Hitler. He was never known as ‘Schicklgruber’.

            Hitler’s father Alois Hitler Sr. (1837–1903) was the illegitimate child of Maria Anna Schicklgruber. The baptismal register did not show the name of his father, and Alois initially bore his mother’s surname Schicklgruber.

            In 1842, Johann Georg Hiedler married Alois’s mother Maria Anna. Alois was brought up in the family of Hiedler’s brother, Johann Nepomuk Hiedler. In 1876, Alois was legitimated and the baptismal register changed by a priest to register Johann Georg Hiedler as Alois’s father (recorded as “Georg Hitler”).

            Alois then assumed the surname “Hitler”, also spelled Hiedler, Hüttler, or Huettler. The name is probably based on “one who lives in a hut” (German Hütte for “hut”).

  27. Good Morning, all

    As ever The Times are relentless in depicting Boris as a useless bumbling buffoon despite his being the current best last hope for a modicum of freedom from the EU..

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/methode%2Fsundaytimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2F92951924-d6dd-11e9-b098-ed106f659f8a.jpg?crop=1500%2C1000%2C0%2C0&resize=685

    That said, the depiction of Cameroon & May in the portrait gallery on the No10 staircase is worthy of a chuckle. What shysters.

    2. That piece feels as if it should be playing while you are looking out over an old battlefield with the fallen still lying there and not cleared away yet. A bit bleak for a Sunday morning. So here is another bleak one. 🙂 (It was used in a fictional TV show called “Warehouse 13.”)

      Although this one brings to mind standing next to the bed of a loved one who is fading away. Many of us would have been there by now. Some very nice piano though.

      “If I only could, I’d make a deal with God.
      And get Him to swap our places.”

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xGbi6lYFO8

      2. This is Blaze Away, but the CD picture is of Hear My Song Violetta ( hor’ mein lied Violetta ), which is a beautiful tango.
        What goes ?

        1. Who knows what goes? At a guess, I’d say the picture is of an album cover – The Emi Recordings 1947-1955.

          It probably highlights “Hear My Song, Violetta” because it’s one of Locke’s best known songs.

          Edit Just to be clear, the song I intended to post was the song that link leads to – “Blaze Away”

  29. Good morning. We had a marvellous sail from Marmaris to Bozburun yesterday with fresh winds and glorious sunshine.

    Back to Dystopia.

    Apparently Article 50 will be revoked.

    The obvious answer is for both the Houses of Parliament to be closed down immediately, made into museums and every single person employed in them in any capacity to be sacked forthwith without any severance pay or compensation at all.

    We should then hand over the running of everything to the EU – our British politicians have succeeded in proving beyond all doubt that they are completely incompetent and are not fit for any purpose whatsoever.

    1. Good Morning, Rastus

      We must be considerate to our non-Premium fellow posters so here is the article

      Remainer MPs ‘planning to revoke Article 50’ in bid to kill off Brexit

      Christopher Hope, chief political correspondent – 4 SEPTEMBER 2019 • 9:30PM

      Remainer MPs are secretly plotting to revoke Article 50 and stop the UK leaving the European Union at the end of next month, the Government warned on Saturday night.

      If no deal can be agreed with EU leaders by October, Downing Street sources say a “Remain alliance” of MPs in the Commons will try to force through new legislation to stop Brexit altogether.

      It came as another Tory rebel joined the Liberal Democrats on Saturday night, as Sam Gyimah, the former universities minister who had the whip removed after voting against the Government, joined Jo Swinson, the Lib Dem leader, on stage at the party’s conference.

      Boris Johnson prepares to fly to Luxembourg tomorrow to tell Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Union president, that he is “striving” to agree a Brexit deal before next month’s EU Council showdown on Oct 17-18.

      The Prime Minister will then return to Britain to try to head off a three-day legal challenge to his decision to prorogue Parliament, which starts in the Supreme Court on Tuesday.

      No 10 is also preparing for another legal challenge to prevent a no-deal exit from the EU, sources said.

      A source said: “The PM will not negotiate a delay at the Brussels council. We expect there to be a major court battle immediately after the 19th and attempts to pass legislation revoking Article 50, which the Prime Minister will refuse to consider in any circumstances.”

      A 
Supreme Court ruling – which if 
the Government loses could result in MPs being forced to return to work in the first week of October – is expected next week during the Labour party conference in Brighton.

      At the meeting on Monday, the first head-to-head between Mr Johnson and Mr Juncker, the Prime Minister will make clear that he wants to negotiate a new deal but he will reject another delay if one is offered.

      He will make clear that if no deal can be agreed by Oct 18, the UK will leave without a deal on Oct 31.

      Mr Johnson said: “We’re leaving on Oct 31 come what may – so let’s work hard to get a deal in the time remaining.

      “Some MPs have been peddling a myth that I am not serious about getting a deal. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am striving for a deal and I think we can achieve this.

      “I will commit UK officials and my lead negotiator to work flat out to come up with a new agreement without being trapped into EU laws and, equally, ask President Juncker to say the same to his own team so we can get this done.

      “I will not ask for an extension. I 
absolutely believe that our friends in Europe want an orderly exit so now is the time for serious talk.”

      Downing Street is now preparing for a battle to deliver on Mr Johnson’s “do or die” pledge.

      New concerns have also emerged about the conduct of John Bercow, the House of Commons speaker, who went further than before in criticising the Government’s Brexit policy.

      Mr Bercow suggested to a reception at a City law firm that Britons would much prefer “an arrangement that is orderly by comparison with an unsolicited and not desired sudden ejection” in a potential breach of House of Commons rules, which state the Speaker “must remain politically impartial at all times”.

      Mr Bercow has already said he will quit at the end of next month but a rival to replace him said he should now stand down as soon as MPs return to work in the middle of next month.

      And writing in The Telegraph, Joe Moor, who until July was director of legislative affairs at No 10, said Mr Johnson could suspend Parliament again after the Queen’s Speech.

      Mr Moor said Mr Johnson could suspend Parliament from Oct 14 “until at least Nov 6”. He said: “Should the Prime Minister decide to flout the law and resist the obligation to seek an extension [during a second prorogation] Parliament would be powerless without further – unprecedented – interventions from the Speaker.

      “Recall is at the behest of ministers and the courts would have to interfere, by which time it’s possible Brexit would have happened.”

      A Government insider confirmed that a “double prorogation” was a technical option, however, there was little indication it would happen given the undoubted controversy it would cause.

      1. “A Government insider confirmed that a “double prorogation” was a technical option, however, there was little indication it would happen given the undoubted controversy it would cause.”
        Well, of course! a civil war would be far less of an upset, wouldn’t it? Proles fighting in the streets, buildings burning. Military striving to keep order. Less trouble for politicians, perhaps.

      2. In which case there is NO – NONE AT ALL – excuse for Boris not to advise the Queen to refuse the give the legislation Royal Assent. If he does not so advise, he will have used HM as a tool against her own country. (Which arguably he already has, but that would be completely indefensible.)

      3. The idea that Mps fighting to revoke our instruction to them and that we cannot both sack them and revoke their pay and pensions for the last three years is offensive.

        If they leave us no option but to fight them, fight them we will. Dammit, these scum need to be beaten senseless then forcibly dragged through the Leave door and filmed while their petulance is clear for all to see.

  32. Relaxing with a mug of tea after an hours graft on the new shed.
    So far I’ve done the floor, 2 x sheets of ½” shuttering ply cut down to 8’x4′ to give an 8’x6′ floor plan, the front wall & Bonsall end panel frames and only have the top stringer for the Cromford end to go in place.
    Then it’s the back wall & roof panels, two sheets of 8’x4′ ¼” shuttering to cover the roof with wriggly tin over the top of that and to finish lots of tongue & groove to clad the walls and use for the doors..
    Once it’s completed, I’m thinking of dismantling the little garden shed and relocating it further up the hill.

  33. EU Army

    The remainers dont tell us if we remain in the EU we will have an EU army and we could do nothing about it

      1. Most people are intrinsically stupid—the most stupid life form to ever evolve—and they listen to any shite given to them.

  38. Sad “Ain’t that the truth files”

    “Men fight for liberty and
    win it with hard knocks. Their children, brought up easy, let it slip away
    again, poor fools. And their grandchildren are once more slaves.”

    D.H. Lawrence
    EU slaves or Islamic slaves??

  39. If I had a spare £million or two i would rescue this foundry.

    For whom the bell tolls!

    Desperate fight to save Britain’s last remaining bell foundry: 160-year-old building where 25,000 bells were cast is on the brink of closure without £1 million rescue fund
    The Loughborough Bellfoundry, in Leicestershire, has cast over 25,000 bells since it was built in 1859
    Bells were made for Washington National Cathedral in the US capital and the National Carillon in Australia
    Astonishing photographs men working under sweltering conditions to make 15-tonne bells from molten iron

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7463269/Desperate-fight-save-Britains-bell-foundry.html

    1. This is, presumably, outside the possible or approved range of Heritage causes which might attract either Heritage Lottery Funds or direct government funding. Churches? Christianity? OMG.

    3. There was a similar story about the Whitechapel foundry a couple of months ago. They cast Big Ben and much else. Any idea what happened?

      2. No idea..

        I fear the Muezzin appears to take precedence these days . The tradition of bells for all occasions in Great Britain appears to be lost on the push for diversity and modernity!

  40. As the Common Purpose infestation at yet another once great institution the RNLI produces policies that turn off the usual supporters in droves I am sure the CEO wont be worried at all
    As donations fall and losses mount they will no doubt go the usual route of these drones and finagle “Government Grants” (money stolen directly from the taxpayer) to continue their egregious and posturing policies
    See “Kid’s Company” for detals

    1. I read about that a few days ago, and was not in the least surprised that the people running the RNLI can’t see the reason for the dramatic fall in sponsorship.

  41. May one ask, who in hell’s name has been supporting / voting for these
    odious political cretins over the years, these R/soles have not just POPPED UP it has taken time, support, votes to amass this cream of the political cretinous crap.

    1. It’s called politics. You vote Conservative to keep Labour out; you vote Labour to get the Conservatives out. A recurring theme.

      1. Afternoon T,
        Agreed a recurring theme, who once said to
        repeat the same failure again & again is a sign of insanity, a different result playing with the
        political cards was never going to happen once the eu took a hand.
        Surely in politics you have an opposition party
        do you not ?
        Current UK politics gives the choice of guaranteed sh!te,sh!te or sh!te winning power
        mainly due to voting for the best of the worst.

  42. Schools forced to close in Albanian town emptied of young men recruited by UK drug gangs. 14 SEPTEMBER 2019

    Thousands of young men have deserted this town in Northern Albania in recent years for the UK, and now even school age children are joining them. Many of them are recruited to work in Britain’s drug trade increasingly captured by Albanian gangs.

    This is one of those statements that I have no personal doubt is absolutely true and yet I can produce not one article or piece of evidence to support it and worse cannot provide proof of why I think that any such information would never make it into the UK’s controlled MSM. Never mind. Some things we must accept on faith and instinct!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/09/14/schools-forced-close-albanian-town-emptied-young-men-recruited/

      2. A question I have asked (rhetorically, of course) is why have the police not rounded them all up and deported them without ceremony, so quickly even the ambulance chasers can’t get a writ in sideways?

          1. Thinking on that, I suspect that the police get pay-offs for telling certain legal firms about such cases. The lawyers can then intervene.
            After all, if the Albanians are collected from their gang huts and driven by the police immediately to an airfield where the plane is waiting, there would be no time for lawyers to do anything.
            Alternatively, the police could just shoot them all dead and drop an unmarked gun by the bodies.

      3. There is a large and growing group of people committed to the total destruction of the moral fabric of Britain. This group comprises a geat many of our most prominent politicians.

      5. ‘Why are they allowed in here?’

        Because our Swivel Servants have lost the will to work…….
        these have become so accustomed to ‘rubber stamping’
        EU regs [they have become totally dependent on the EU
        teat!!] they have completely lost their integrity.

      1. According to a 2002 census, 22.6% of the population of Northern Macedonia was ethnic Albanian. Whole areas are populated entirely by Albanians.

        Bulgaria accepted thousands of Albanian immigrants and granted them citizenship, which meant they were also EU citizens and therefore permitted to settle in any EU member state.

          2. That’s the solution for the Remainiacs then. They can all get Bulgarian passports and Bulgar orf to their beloved EUSSR.

      2. Macedonia is I believe both a country and a part of Albania. There was a big stink about it only a few months ago!

          2. Just looked it up. There are many Albanians in Northern Macedonia, which is a different country from Albania.

          3. Macedonia (/ˌmæsɪˈdoʊniə/ ( listen)) is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan Peninsula in Southeast Europe. Its boundaries have changed considerably over time; however, it came to be defined as the modern geographical region by the mid 19th century. Today the region is considered to include parts of six Balkan countries: Greece, North Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia, and Kosovo.[a] It covers approximately 67,000 square kilometres (25,869 sq mi) and has a population of 4.76 million. Wikipedia.

        2. It was part of Yugoslavia when in fell apart and became the Federal Republic of Macedonia. The official Macedonia (recognised by the UN) is the region of northern Greece which borders the FRM. All parties have agreed recently (amongst much grumbling from the locals), that they will be henceforth known as North Macedonia. Family feuds will no doubt already be fermenting in the region and last for decades.

  43. Why the surprise and upset about Dave ?

    I think he’s the fourth globalist manager since 1990, so surely it was predictable that the dummy would sing the song of the ventriloquist ?

  44. Has anyone asked the high profile Remain mouthpieces how they expect the EU to treat us if we do remain in the EU?
    They are surely not so deluded that they believe that the EU will continue to allow us a quota of fish, or farm subsidies, or payment rebates?

    2. Afternoon HP,
      Tell me, why would they care ? they are not the types that would care what a slave type eats or if it eats at all.

      1. Yes, but we should care. It will affect us. Yet no one asks the question. Perhaps we are wrong to trust the BBC.

        1. HP,
          I have learnt over the years with some reservations only to trust UKIP IMHO they are, and only ever been the hard core
          pro English / GB credible political party.
          They are consistently right and that does not sit well with those that have for years been consistently wrong on kissing a candidate in the polling booth.

          It is my belief that the BBc has a PIE department by the number of HM porridge eaters.

    3. I imagine they are stocking up on Agent Orange to apply to our green and pleasant land after their victory.

  46. Great Trolling

    Redwood on Cameron

    “I would also argue that we show ourselves

    to be good Europeans by voting to leave. The EU project today is to seek

    the full political union that the large currency, economic and

    monetary union requires to make it successful. As the UK under

    governments of all three main parties has refused to join the Euro, we

    need to get out of the way to let all those who do want a much fuller

    union to complete their construction. Out of the EU we can spend our own

    money, make our own laws and be truly global in our outlook and reach.

    The sooner we do so the better.

    David tells us he would like the

    country to pull together more. He can help it do so by using his book

    launch to urge all his friends to get behind Brexit and help us make it a

    success.“

    http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/

  47. PLANNED MASS DEFECTION BY BREXIT SUPPORTING MPS TO TBP.

    Oh dear; I fear I must have inhaled some of the smoke from the funny cigarettes the people at the table next to ours in the restaurant were smoking yesterday evening.

    1. Perhaps Boris is playing his card close to his chest. In my view it make no sense at all for the Conservatives not to deal with the Brexit Party over which seats to Contest. There would be very little if any overlap. . The Brexit Party would mainly be fighting Labour seats where the Conservatives stand no real chance

      If we take the recent bye elections if the Conservatives had stood aside in Peterborough we would have had a Brexit Part MP and if the Brexit Party had stood aside in Brecon a Conservative would have been elected

      Lets hope Boris sees sense

  48. Novichok victim Charlie Rowley says finding love again with mother-of-five has helped him ‘overcome’ trauma after nerve agent poisoning. Mail. 15 September 2019.

    Both he and his then 33-year-old daughter Yulia were rushed to hospital in critical condition after coming into contact with Novichok – a deadly nerve agent concocted by Soviet scientists during the Cold War.

    They survived the suspected attempted murder, but four months later, in the same county, Ms Sturgess was killed.

    She and Mr Rowley fell ill after handling the perfume bottle used by the Moscow hitmen in their initial botched assassination of the Skripals.

    Mr Rowley, who has battled psychological scars as well as fading eyesight, found the perfume bottle in a charity shop bin before giving it to his then girlfriend as a gift.

    I’m pleased that Charlie is recovering from his trauma but this had absolutely nothing to do with the Skripals. The perfume bottle that he supposedly recovered was sealed and could not therefore have been involved in whatever afflicted Sergei and his daughter. It’s amazing how this generally known fact is glossed over or ignored in all the accounts of the incident.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7464993/Novichok-victim-Charlie-Rowley-says-finding-love-helped-overcome-trauma.html#comments

    2. The bottle was found, I believe, in a rubbish bin in Victoria park, not in a charity shop. Seems like the nerve agent also causes memory loss.

    1. If only the Guardian would go broke and die but despite being well down the circulation tables, they seem to have benefactors.

      2. It’s the BBC, council, university and other civil service employment advertising and mass subscriptions that keeps them afloat I suspect.

        1. Our Sue would have made a good diplomat. Except that she’s too nice to go in for that kind of mullarky.

    2. Well, yes they should, otherwise why come here?

      You’re either British in thought, word and deed or you’re not. If you’re not, you shouldn’t be here.

    3. “No one in Britain should have to give up their heritage to fit in.”

      When that heritage includes arranged marriages to 12 year-old girls, mutilation of little girls bodies, casual mass-rape of “non-believers” and murder of infidels as a recognised path to heaven, then yes they certainly do need to give up those ideas. Even holding them in the first place should be an automatic ban from entering any civilised country.

  51. Cameron once called UKIP voters and Brexiters swivel eye’d knuckle dragging closet racists, never forget that.
    Now it is the Remainers like him that are swivel eye’d and falling off a cliff

    1. I never realised that i was a potential Klan member. I must say that now i’m in my 50’s it does have a certain appeal.

  52. The heretic John Ward observes:

    “The fact is that most people claim to provide something, but don’t appear to know what the blithering blazes they’re doing when it comes to delivering it.

    Nobody fits that description better than politicians themselves of course. They started up a State pension scheme 72 years ago, but never created (or invested) a fund to pay for it. They allowed mass immigration for decades and ignored every research study pointing out the dangers. They took the best State education system in the world and trashed it on the basis on insane ideas about “fairness”. They pissed away the biggest undersea oil find in our history, ravaged our manufacturing and energy output model, turned their backs on fiscal egality, swapped one bunch of wreckers (the Unions) for another (the bankers), took us into the EEC far too late, went hell-for-leather into wind power that every study showed was both unreliable and hugely expensive to maintain, sold all our best companies and industries, let the British economy turn into the humpbacked provision of nonsense services that destroyed all technical value equations, followed a US neocon foreign policy that cost us a fortune, allowed passing pc mores to remove any and all creativity from the mass of our children, took the multinational media shilling, passed the Fixed Term Parliament Act for purely political advantage, ignored the People’s will in 2016, and then started demolishing the constitution brick by brick in an attempt to wriggle out of something they didn’t like.

    But here’s the thing: they have had very little difficulty in persuading fully half the population that they’re only acting in our best interests. And that tells you rather more about the 48% than it does about the political class.”

    Edited to add: “They are clay in the hands of the 3%, and – once fired in the kiln of collective conformity – become hard, brittle objects that never change”

    A substantial proportion of Brits today cannot think for themselves, and are anything from ineffective to incompetent in what they do.

      1. …let alone becoming an MP. (Mind you exams and a dubious Cambridge degree – I wonder what Abbot’s A Level results were? – don’t seem to indicate any brains in Abbot’s head.)

      2. Yep. Clear understanding of the issues at hand are necessary. Three simple questions such as to show understanding of tax law, the effect of tax on the economy and how government is funded would be enough.

        That would show the Left as mendacious, arrogant idiots while guranteeing a Conservative MP across the north.

      1. Nobody particular but someone who expresses his educated views quite well and worth a read, a bit like some on here!

  53. Tories extend poll lead to 12%

    The Conservatives have pushed further ahead of Labour in the latest Opinium/Observer poll – despite yet another turbulent week for Boris Johnson.
    The latest poll shows the Tories on 37%, up two since last week, while Labour is unchanged on 25%. The Liberal Democrats whose conference opens this weekend in Bournemouth are on 16% (down one), and the Brexit party is also unchanged on 13%.

    1. Should Brexit be achieved before the next election, the Conservative share of the vote should drop to 0.000001 per cent.
      Memories are short but not that short.

  54. When I started work for a national brewery, decimalisation came fairly soon afterwards. I was given the job of converting the prices of all our products in all our UK markets from £sd to £p. I also had to “round up and down” as the Government had requested that businesses should not round everything up. Our computer programs for calculating prices also had to be changed, also by my department. No trouble at all. Retail businesses had either to convert their tills or buy new ones. Substantial costs were incurred across the country or, looked at another way, there was a boom in the sales of business machines.
    The UK then replaced Purchase Tax with VAT. I was again involved both in the computer systems and in providing customers with information. We produced a VAT “Ready Reckoner” that publicans and the like could use to look up the base price and see what the price with VAT was. (We issued 20,000 copies.). A bit more complex than going decimal as we had to ensure our computer pricing programs could cope with a range of VAT rates. It all went smoothly and quickly.
    Then we had the horrors of the Millenium Bug. Except that for most people it came and went without being noticed at all.
    Now we have Brexit. Most businesses will not notice the change. The man in the street will not notice anything at all. There will be price adjustments up, and down. All normal.

    1. As an aside-

      Purchase tax was replaced by VAT to bring the retailers into the net. It brought in more money and created an army of government spies to check on the traders.

      Move further to 2019 and VAT has become a system where detailed VAT returns show every individual transaction and can cross-check both sides of it.

      Spy cameras everywhere, these days.

    2. The reason most people didn’t notice the Millennium Bug was that the problem had been identified and corrected years before. For example, I spent about a week searching through millions of lines of code and rectifying anything that used the year in two-digit format.

      1. I seem to recall that there is a similar problem on the horizon, something to do with day counts since a certain date.
        My memory may be playing tricks.

        2. The linux time roll over? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem

          Again, software or hardware updates.

          The biggest problem is when you have massive monolithic systems that’ve been in place for decades and not upgraded or usually even touched for the same time. usually they’re held together by glue and tape. Connecting those up takes months of planning and roll over testing.

      2. Rather agree. Many of the very old routers and switches were replaced months before the event could cause a problem. It was routine maintenance for us.

      3. Mmmm. We do seem to have noticed some possible problems with Brexit over the last three years. Almost all entirely imaginary. The real practical issues are easily solved by the people who solve such issues on an ongoing basis. Trading world-wide is what we do, and logistics and rules and tariffs change often.
        However, information is available online, for example;
        https://www.bdo.co.uk/en-gb/insights/tax/corporate-international-tax/no-deal-brexit-government-releases-tariff-with-details-of-customs-duty-rates

    3. ‘Our computer programs for calculating prices also had to be changed’
      Decimalisation happened in 1971. What’s a ‘computer program’?

      1. Some of us were proud pioneers in the industry. In 1971 I was on my first trip to LA, paid for my UK company, as part of a development project I was running.

      2. IBM Mainframe 360 series, if I remember. A “computer program” was the instruction set by which it carried out the required tasks. These tasks were often quite simple, like multiplying quantities by price to create an invoice.
        I did suggest to the company that clerks could easily do the same job, making calculations and using ledgers with entries handwritten in ink.
        The company did not take up that idea. However our statistics department did invest in an electronic calculator after these became available. It cost around £3000. Present price for calculator with similar performance about £2.

    1. Mostly waffle but when they talk about modernising for the digital age, that suggests to me that they’ll open up the possibility of online as well as postal fraud.

      1. Considering their disinterest what I assume it really means is we’ll attack anything we disagree with and relentlessly defend the actions of the establishment and people we support.

  57. Strange the BBC did not mention this !

    Liberal Democrats fined £18,000 for breaches of campaign finance rules

    Details of £18,000 in fines for the Liberal Democrats have been published today by the Electoral Commission; this follows an investigation that found the party failed to deliver a complete and accurate spending return as a permitted participant at the EU Referendum.
    The total sum, which nears the Commission’s maximum individual fine of £20,000, is made up of two fines. The first fine, of £17,000, was imposed for failing to provide acceptable invoices or receipts for 80 payments with a total value of more than £80,000. In some cases no invoices or receipts were provided at all, and in others some were provided which were inadequate, such as credit card statements, or were incomplete. The second fine, of £1,000, was issued because some payments were reported in aggregate rather than as individual payments.
    Commenting on the fine, Bob Posner, Electoral Commission Director of Political Finance and Regulation & Legal Counsel, said:
    The reporting requirements for parties and campaigners at referendums and elections are clear, that’s why it is disappointing that the Liberal Democrats didn’t follow them correctly. The major political parties must ensure their internal governance is sufficiently invested in and resourced so they can be sure of meeting their legal obligations. Where the rules are not followed, transparency is lost which is not in the public interest or as parliament intended.

  60. A thought for Sunday

    Having now watched the first part of The Rise of the Nazis, it is fairly obvious that the BBC are trying to subtly identify the situation in Germany between 1930 and 1933, as a Right-Wing coup. It is noticeable that ALL the narrators refer to Hitler’s party as the Nazis, even in concert with The Communist Party, The Socialist Party etc., it’s always ‘The Nazis’ and never the National Socialist Party which was their true name.

    They wish to portray them as the Right-Wing, in order to identify that what happened in Germany is the same Right-Wing plot that they claim is being hatched by Brexiteers today.

    Or am I being paranoid?

          1. Yet I think it’s just as well to know what pap is being fed to the gullible and the snowflakes.

          4. Sadly no Tony. A couple of years ago they inveigled me into paying on line and I cannot get out of it!

    2. The BBC cannot accept that the National Socialists were Left wing.

      They have to portray the Nazi’s as Right wing, as then they can say that the Right are fascists. Of course, the truth is the opposite, but you won’t hear the truth from the BBC.

      1. The only reason why the Nazis became classed as Right Wing was because of their struggle with the Bolshevist inspired and USSR supported Spartakus Bund in the aftermath of The Great War.

    3. For me any party that wants total contol is from the far left. parties that want less government and more freedom for the people are from the right.

      That is what you should use if you want to judge what a party is about. Do not be lied to by the left.

      1. It’s funny the lengths they go to though.

        “we’re the good guys!” the say “Now shut up and obey us or we’ll silence you, destroy your job, arrest your neighbours then shoot you.”, they say.

  61. Just got Cottage pie out of the oven. It needs a bit more salt, to be honest.

    However. The war queen has spent the morning trying on the corsets she used to wear some time ago. On dishing up, there’s an almighty shouting match over why there is so much mashed spud (and yes, I’ll admit, I over did it by accident).

    Now, I assume this is a’bad food’ that will make her fat, thus I am horrible for that or something. How, without deliberately interpreting her thinking can I say ‘ I didn’t think of that, I love you, not what you look like?

    At this rate we’ll need to reinforce the door frames.

    1. Caroline here – can’t be bothered to log Rastus out and me in! What you need to remember is that she is upset because she no longer fits in her clothes; sadly, what you think of her is actually not particularly relevant at this stage. The upset is too personal. So just tell her you love her and give her a hug. You might apologise over the amount of mash and say that it needed more salt, but that you’ll do better next time. My advice to you is not to make any reference to her shape; you’ll be on a hiding to nothing. Dixit an ever plumper woman!

      1. ..give her a hug.

        Do not, on fear of ending up wearing the cottage pie, mention that your arms no longer encircle her body as they once did.😎

    2. Put the rest of the mash into the freezer. You can use it for topping in the future, or mix with tuna/salmon, spring onion, egg(s) and a little chilli (and salt!) to make fishcakes…

      A mash in time, saves…

    4. Have you asked that very important question…

      ARE YOU PREGNANT

      Her moods , as you have described to us seem rather contrary and hormonal..

      Just wondering , that’s all.

      I gather she is a lot younger than you are?

    2. Whether or not he is asking for a deal is immaterial, this response is typical of the EU game plan i.e. deny talks are happening, deny progress, belittle the negotiator, rubbish the negotiations, it never changes. Walk away and watch Eire struggle and the EU having to decide to, either support Eire financially or leave the country to wither.

      1. I wouldn’t wish this on Eire, but justice would have it wither after the stabbing in our back that that country has done to us for decades. The EU is merciless. We weren’t, when it came to bailing them out, not so long ago. For all the thanks we got they can get knotted.

        1. I wouldn’t want to see the Irish suffer but they have made their bed and they must learn to lie in it. Some very good people in Eire who have supported Britain in the past; be a pity to see EU political machinations destroy that country.

          1. They’ll blame the English. As usual.

            What is hardly ever mentioned is that, during the potato famine, there were not just absentee English landlords, but Irish landlords who let their own people starve.

            A bit like the one-sided stories regarding slavery. Talk to the Arabs and the Turks about slavery – it still occurs with them.

  63. I see the Dark State is creating the narrative that somehow a rigged second referendum is the answer to life and the meaning of the Universe.

    If the puppet government forces through a second referendum without a general election The Legitimate Government under Boris Johnson needs to remove its legitimacy.

    David Cameron and the Tories had a mandate from the people to hold a referendum in 2016.
    In the General Election of 2017 over 500 MPs were returned to Parliament with a mandate to honour the outcome.

    Don’t ever forget – the puppet government has no mandate for a referendum nor does it have a mandate to keep us in the EU.

    Boris and The legitimate Government should accordingly instruct the people not to partake in the referendum as it has no mandate and the people that are forcing it upon us have no constituency.

    1. That would be fatal, BA. Decent, law-abiding Leavers would abstain but Remainers would vote and get an almost 100% result in their favour.

        1. If Remain won by a single vote that would be the end of it for another two generations, by which time it would be too late anyway.

          Do not kid yourself; if the votes first time around had been 117mn out and 17mn 100 in, with 500 spoiled papers we would still be in and that would have been the end of it.

      2. The referendum would be rigged in any case, they will ensure EU nationals and two year olds get the vote – and lets not forgot the Electoral Commission at hand to ensure the ‘correct’ result gets returned this time.

        Best to remove any legitimacy from it at the outset.

        In any case, they have already said they wont accept the result if the lose again so there is no value to this charade so don’t play it.

    1. After the vote, their leader Jo Swinson, said: “We will do all we can to fight for our place in Europe, and to stop Brexit altogether.”

      There it is! Drop dead Democracy!

        1. Listening to them wittering on about their democratic stance is beyond satire. They really DO NOT get it.

    2. ‘I thought I’d hate it’: Bridget Christie. Sun 15 Sep 2019 .

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1b9548cbcde610fc13e71e202d5bae021394b835481e673231bb36a22c3ed0b1.jpg

      Laura Mvula was captivating, and I cried when opera star Jamie Barton took to the stage with a rainbow flag. Shame the conductor spent the entire night with his back to us.

      “How clever of the Proms director to think of doing this,” I said to my [7 year old] son. “In a time of such political uncertainty, and social division, they’ve really thought outside the box this year. This is about leaving our disagreements outside, I think, and coming together through a shared love of music. It’s about celebrating Britishness, and British music, and what it means to be British, and leaving politics out of it.”

      And I thought my Mother was a liar!

      https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/sep/15/bridget-christie-last-night-of-the-proms-jamie-barton-laura-mvula

      1. Er..the conductor usually faces the orchestra. Bit pointless him looking at the audience all night though he did of course turn around to make his speech.

    4. That stupid fat Yank can go home and stay there. Who on earth of either sex would want to shag her anyway?

      1. Whatever, she’s certainly built for comfort. I hope whoever gets their “chance” that he/she has a large ball of string and a piece of chalk for route marking.

  66. AS the RNLI has lost its way and is unlikely to change its way maybe we need to consider setting up a news service maybe “The British Lifeboat Service”

  67. Surprisingly, there isn’t yet a comment that asks “Yeah, but what about the British Empire?”

    80 years after the Soviet invasion of Poland, the Western Left is still playing apologist for Russia

    DANIEL HANNAN

    Eighty years ago today, Germany’s ambassador to Moscow formally requested that the USSR occupy the “sphere of interest” it had been allocated in Poland under the secret provisions of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. The German invasion, launched on September 1 1939, had gone well, the ambassador said. The Poles were in retreat. Now was the moment for the Soviets to “take a hand” and help their allies to “annihilate the remainder of the Polish Army”.

    Stalin needed no encouragement. On September 17, half a million Red Army troops, backed by 5,000 tanks and 2,000 combat aircraft, smashed their way into eastern Poland. Masters of dezinformatsiya, they initially spread the story that they were coming to help their brother Slavs. Some locals fell for it: the mayor of the little town of Złoczów welcomed a Soviet cavalry unit with the traditional gift of bread and salt. He was kicked to the ground and later executed. Other Poles – army officers, landowners, priests – were immediately marked for murder. In some villages, the Soviets lined men up and hauled away any whose hands they deemed too soft.

    These events, recalled in a wonderful new history called First to Fight by Roger Moorhouse, are keenly remembered in Poland. They are remembered, too, in the other nations divvied up under the Nazi-Soviet Pact: Finland, the Baltic States and Romania. But they are largely forgotten in the West, and are more or less repressed in Russia, where polls show that most people think the Second World War began in June 1941 with Hitler’s invasion of the USSR.

    That belief is not just encouraged; it is enforced. In 2016, Russia’s supreme court upheld the conviction of a blogger called Vladimir Luzgin for writing this sentence: “The communists and Germany jointly invaded Poland, sparking off the Second World War.”

    Luzgin was stating the obvious, but the modern Russian state is neuralgic about the Stalin-Hitler Pact. Two weeks ago, its Ministry of Foreign Affairs preposterously declared: “Thanks to London and Paris, Nazi Germany managed to defeat Poland in a flash and redeploy its main forces to the West without meeting any resistance.”

    What is shocking about that argument is not its dishonesty, but its sheer Stalinesque flagrancy. The USSR and Nazi Germany spent the first 22 months of the war as allies. Theirs was not some cold, perfunctory non-aggression pact. It was an enthusiastic partnership. The two tyrannies traded in all the necessary commodities of war: grain, vital chemicals, arms and ships. The Russian and German propaganda departments exhibited each other’s cultural achievements, performed each other’s music and films, stressed their joint hostility to Anglo-Saxon liberalism. The Luftwaffe bombers that blitzed London were fuelled by Soviet oil.

    When the two armies met at the Polish town of Brest, a joint military parade was staged, the Soviet conscripts looking slovenly in their olive uniforms next to the field grey of the goose-stepping Wehrmacht troopers. The commanders hosted a celebratory lunch, at which the Soviet general, Semyon Krivoshein, invited German journalists to join him for a drink in Moscow “after the defeat of capitalist Albion”.

    The extent to which the Kremlin denies these events is not just shocking but alarming. Today’s anti-communist Russian regime has no reason to make excuses for Stalin. It is deliberately opting to do so. Just as Lenin chose to take up the strategic goals of Imperial Russia, so Putin chooses to inherit those of USSR, whose dissolution he has always regretted. Behind the playing down of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, behind the bizarre propaganda about Polish aggression, behind the puerile claim that Stalin had been forced onto the defensive, lies a conviction that Poland, the Baltic States, Moldova and even Finland are all, somehow, renegade Tsarist provinces. Just as Stalin was within his rights to reoccupy them so, implicitly, Putin is within his rights to regard them as protectorates.

    The Russian line, though discreditable, is at least understandable. All peoples want to believe the best of their ancestors. What is utterly bewildering is the selective amnesia of the British Left. We are nowadays told that the Western front was a side-theatre, and that we owe our freedom to the Red Army. As a matter of fact, the historian Robert Tombs has completely debunked this argument, demonstrating the critical role of British air power in defeating the Nazis. But never mind that: the idea that Stalin deserves credit for defeating fascism ignores the fact that he and Hitler were on the same side for the first third of the war, and that he switched only after being attacked. Indeed, Stalin was so stunned by Operation Barbarossa that he initially ordered his soldiers not to shoot back.

    The moral emptiness of the USSR’s Western apologists is not new. Marxists at the time performed extraordinary somersaults. Do you remember the scene in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four when, during Hate Week, Oceania suddenly switches allies? “There was, of course, no admission that any change had taken place. Merely it became known, with extreme suddenness and everywhere at once, that Eastasia and not Eurasia was the enemy. The Hate continued exactly as before, except that the target had been changed.”

    Reading that passage for the first time as a 12-year-old, I found it implausible. Yet Orwell, writing in 1948, was recalling the real and recent behaviour of Communists in Western Europe, who so unhesitatingly backed the new party line that they ended up supporting Hitler against their own governments. The first Briton to be hanged for treason was a Newcastle Communist called George Armstrong who, obedient to Molotov’s appeals, tried to pass information about the Atlantic convoys to the Nazis. Pleasingly, he was executed in July 1941, living just long enough to see Operation Barbarossa.

    Like today’s British Leftists, Armstrong couldn’t bring himself to admit how much the two totalitarian systems had in common. Both ideologies were, essentially, a reaction against what they saw as excessive freedom. Both elevated the collective over the individual. Both scorned the the desire to be comfortable, prosperous and peaceful as bourgeois decadence. Both murdered people by category.

    Sure, the categories were different. The Nazis slaughtered people in the wrong racial groups, the Communists those in the wrong social groups. But the essential wickedness of both systems was the same. If you found yourself in the wrong group, no action of yours could save you. You were condemned by circumstances over which you had no control. The Jews of Poland and the Baltic states knew it better than anyone: being educated and prosperous, they often found themselves condemned by both sides.

    We like to tell ourselves that we won the war; but we didn’t, not really. We joined the fighting to defend the sovereignty of Poland, and we failed. The only real winners were the Communists, who ended up annexing half Europe and yet who, despite the abominations they carried out, are somehow regarded as being morally superior to their Nazi allies. That, in truth, is their greatest victory.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/09/15/80-years-soviet-invasion-poland-western-left-still-playing-apologist/

    1. We are nowadays told that the Western front was a side-theatre, and that we owe our freedom to the Red Army. As a matter of fact, the historian Robert Tombs has completely debunked this argument, demonstrating the critical role of British air power in defeating the Nazis.

      It was and we do and Robert Tombs has done nothing of the sort!

      1. Daniel Hannan is a nasty, slimy piece of work. A “Leaver” on the surface, hard-core Remainer underneath. He was very critical of the EU before the Referendum because he was sure that Remain would win and his salary and perks would continue. On the night of the result he looked like a bunny frozen in the car’s headlights. He could see that EU gravy-train he was on for his non-job slipping away from him. Since then he has been keen in “maintaining a relationship” with the EU as we have an orderly exit (which could take many years of course, by his timetable.)

        So there is no surprise that he produces an article that attacks Russia and digs up atrocities that happened 80 years ago. Instead of focusing on the genocidal policies being carried out by his EU employers of today, with the relocation of millions of violently dysfunctional young men into our countries.

        2. Hannan makes a perfectly valid point which is most definitely applicable today. Put very simply, ‘Left’ is good, ‘Right’ is bad. You can hear this every day in the MSM; any expression of national identity and responsibility, even though that is the basis of democracy and the rule of law, is dismissed as ‘hard right’ and ‘extremist’.

          1. Hmm, but a 10 year-old child knows that. The bias in the media is so strong that you would need to be blind not to have noticed it. That article above does not shout “freedom is okay!” to me, it appears to be an attack on modern Russia. Which are one of our big enemies these days because the EU and the Media says that it is. Statements such as this one from the article above reinforce who Hanna’s target really is:

            “That belief is not just encouraged; it is enforced. In 2016, Russia’s supreme court upheld the conviction of a blogger called Vladimir Luzgin for writing this sentence: “The communists and Germany jointly invaded Poland, sparking off the Second World War.””

            Hannan is not a nice man and wants to keep us tied to the EU for years. He does not work for the interests of our people and his motives for writing anything need to be looked at closely, if you are going to look at them at all. I have observed him weaselling around questions asked of him in interviews so many times that I pay no attention to his ramblings anymore. The man has no bottom, as we once said.

          2. “Hmm, but a 10 year old child knows that.”

            Don’t pick a fight on such a nice Sunday.

            There are too many quick to defend modern Russia. It is certainly true that the accusations of its interference in elections and its involvement in the Salisbury business are fanciful to say the least but Putin should be treated with great caution. As one commentator put it (and I can’t remember now who it was): “The good thing about Putin is that he defends Russia. The bad thing is the way he does it.”

            As for Hannan: he has presented himself as anti-EU. He’ll be judged on what happens from here.

          3. LOL – if you thought I was picking a fight then you misread that comment completely. 🙂

            I was stating how obvious the bias has now become on the media. Even one of my nephews who has no interest in politics said to me a couple of years ago “Uncle… Why is it always Trump, Russia, Trump, Russia?” In light of this it is hard to believe that Hannan was trying to make people aware that the media is less than fair.

            I was also not being too quick in “defending Russia” – I am fully aware of some of the darker problems with the way their state has become structured since the slight rejection of Communism and what has replaced it. If you look closely you can see that some people have actually lost power now. So there have been some changes. The reason why Russia is suddenly the enemy again on the media and in the eyes of the EU should be obvious. The words Oil and Islam will fit into that seminar.

            Hannan has always presented himself as anti-EU right up until the referendum result came in. His actions since then, which speak far louder than his words, have already shown him to be a Remainer. This is not difficult to see. In any case – I was not picking a fight as I have no time for such shallowness. If I do make a comment that is not neutral, then there tends to be no doubt about my motivations. Time for lunch now. 🙂

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/157b5f9e8ef48caa8f5c8e35171669ccf30ec8011d546b89ae252fbb0d664caa.jpg

    2. When the USSR collapsed, the Baltic states and Poland couldn’t wait to join the EU – exchanging one hegemony for another.

          1. I think there is still a residue there Ndovu. There were, at least only few years ago, meetings of old N@zi comrades in arms and they did try to remove a Soviet war memorial!

        2. With more than a modicum of justification. The saw the German forces as their liberators from Soviet Oppression.

      3. I was going to put up one that I took of the Moon by holding my normal camera up to the eyepiece of a telescope, but it is 1.6MB(!) It is good because it can be zoomed in, but I don’t know if that file size is too large.

        The Moon is a good target, even just with a good pair of binoculars. 🙂

        1. I’m still experimenting with handheld Sony alpha 16-50 zoom camera on various settings.
          Transfers to Andoid Zen Pad 3s via WiFi.
          Some pics come up with more detail than expected when post processed.

    2. Milky Way. That reminds me of something I heard this morning on LBC, Snicker bars are to be re-branded as Marathon bars. Not certain if it’s a permanent change – Morrison’s are running a 12 weeks trial according to Wiki. Déjà vu or what?

  69. Former Conservative MP Sam Gyimah joins Lib Dem’s

    Sam Gyiman is a good example of all that is wrong with modern politics. He stood for the Conservative leadership but did no win, he was a government minister, He votes against the Govrnment on a key vote. He losses the Conservative whip he then joins the Lib Dem’s

    He is one of man y though. None have been prepared to face their electorate and hold a bye election and what do the Lib-Dems say The people should be able to make the final decision but just no in the case of defecting MP’s

    I shall be asking any future candidates in my constituency to sign a legally binding document that says if the leave the party they are elected on or get thrown out of it they will resign as an MP and face a bye election

    I am expecting one of the following from them. They ignore my correspondence or they say they dont intend to leave the party or they come up with a load of waffle. I am not exiting any of them to sign it

  70. Tired dog triggers Lake District Rescue after refusing to walk any further. 15 SEPTEMBER 2019.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/94abab631292c6092e29c2b7f52b3606a93c241ebeffb82b1748d9459267bfcb.jpg

    The nine-year-old dog was said to have “refused to carry on” after a “long wet day”, leaving his exasperated owner to try and carry him the rest of the way.

    However, the weight of the dog soon became too heavy for the man to bear, forcing him to request help from the Keswick Mountain Rescue Team at 6.20pm.

    I remember once taking my dog on a training walk and after stopping to admire the view turned around and caught him leaning up against a post looking knackered. Lol!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/09/15/tired-dog-triggers-lake-district-rescue-refusing-walk/

    1. Is it not about time that these people and cyclist are required to have insurance to cover these events as well as cover any medical treatment

      The amount of time mountain rescue and air ambulances are called out to rescue idiots and in particular cyclists who race around country lanes like lunatics and frequently
      come a cropper purely because they are not riding sensibly

      1. Ideally probably. But the sort of people who get into difficulties are not the type noted for forward thinking. I once rescued a family just below Harrison Stickle in Great Langdale who had set out on a beautiful day in casual wear and were caught in a squall!

        1. The cyclist are the worst. There was on on one of these Air ambulance programs the other day , He told them he was not expecting anyone to come the other way. Another favorite is hurtling around corners to fast and loosing control. They usually blame the road rather then themselves. They are not A roads and they will have tractors and animals on them and frequently the road surface will be slippery at least if you ride like a lunatic which is what most do

      2. My town is hosting the start of the UCI Road World Championship Men Elite Individual Time Trial on Wednesday 25 September. The finish is at Harrogate. Start time at 1.10 pm and the competitors set off at 90 second intervals. Cycling is very popular in the North and the majority of cyclists are well behaved and aware of the dangers of riding on rural roads particularly at busy times when very large equipment is moving on the roads. The antics I see in London are not seen up here.

  71. Britain’s Bright Future Outside of the EU

    WE already do more trade outside of the EU and once we leave that trade outside of the EU is set to jump. We will also see the trade imbalance with the EU start to drop

    WE will no longer be bound to apply irreverent EU standard to trade we do with the rest of the world improving our competitiveness. WE will see food prices fall although there may be some short term increases. Our car industry will expand as we move into new export markets without the EU adding unnecessary costs. We will also see Productivity increase which is important as it is this that helps increase pay . In the EU companies have exploited cheap EU labor which has kept pay down and considerable contributed to the housing crisis

    Outside of the EU we can have full control of who comes into the UK, We can allow in those with scarce skill that we need for our economy but can exclude the low skilled and unskilled as we already have a surplus of those that fall into that category

    2. I sang two Christmas Carols yesterday – one a new composition by John Rutter to be given its formal premier in December at the Albert Hall.

      2. I went to our (postponed) Wrinklier AGM on Friday afternoon. After the AGM, speaker, coffee & biscuits I walked back to my car. At the adjacent small hall I heard my first Christmas carol – clearly an early rehearsal.

    4. The rule in the past tended to be the Run up to Christmas did not start until the first full week after Guy Fawkes Night

        1. Mind you Guy Fawkes night is now pretty much a non even and no longer the huge event it used to be

    5. Do Christmas cards for overseas count? Been around for a long time.

      You mean that mince pies go off sale? I thought that they are always on sale – just like hot cross buns

        1. Sorry, been americanized.
          The sad apologies for the real thing that we can buy look much less appetising.

    6. My mince pies are still waiting to be made (three jars of mincemeat in the pantry).

      I think I’ll make half with pâte sucrée and half with feuilletage.

  73. We have just come back from a quick trip to Weymouth.. .. Always a treat to see the stunning sea colours, calm sparkling sea, and in the distance a yacht regatta was scudding around like white clouds on the horizon. (Moh was listening to the cricket in the car and I was driving ) weather is very warm.

    We had a few tasks to do , the beach was busy , families were enjoying themselves .. we travelled along the seafront slowly, traffic was was searching for parking and coaches and buses were disgorging their passengers. .. The donkeys were on the beach patiently trotting along with wobbling youngsters clinging onto the saddles for grim death as their parents walked with them!

    Moh glanced across at the beach volley ball contestants hmmmm

    Punch and Judy and the crocodile drew screams from the children on the beach alongside the esplanade .. We were slowly creeping along in a traffic queue, and I actually wanted to linger longer and listen .

    No ferries run from Weymouth anymore , fishing boat charter and dive charter boats were chugging out of the harbour .. Lots of people down by the quayside pubs enjoying the sunshine and glugging their drinks back sitting on the harbour wall.

    Many shops have closed down in Weymouth, and despite the holiday ambience and apparent spend spend spend , there are lots of rough sleepers .

    On the way back home , farmers were still busy getting the maize in.. the lorry loads of crushed greenery and vegetable , the crop emits the sweetest smell .. sweeter than newly cut grass or silage.

    So noticeable now that the trees are turning colour quickly, horse chestnuts appear to be the first to change , then sycamore , and ash , and then oak .. the hedgerows are bursting with colourful berries .. crab apples are plentiful, but as sour as anything , even though many trees bear fruit that look like the size of eating apples .

    So if this is a boring comment , i apologise , because for a while , just a little while , we seemed worlds away from the political madness that seems to be consuming daily life .

    2. The UK coastal resorts seem to be experiencing a bit of a revival. They do need investment in tourist facilities though

    6. Don’t apologise Maggie, your post brought back happy memories of visits to Weymouth. My only sad thought is the Black Dog has shut down, I graduated from Punch and Judy on the beach to the Black Dog over the years. When my parents took a quick break for a week and picked Weymouth, I somehow knew where to find them if I wandered down for a days visit, it was a constant in my life.

      No mention of burning the stubble in the fields though, another sign of changing times.

      1. No stubble burning any longer, just muck spreading, quick turnover , then oil seed rape planted later , the cycles are so different from years ago .

    7. A smashing story of real life rather than the artificial one that takes precedence in the MSM. Don’t stop writing about life for us ordinary folk. It cheers the heart.

      I had two holidays in Weymouth when I was 14 and 15, 59 and 58 years ago. Seemed to be able to walk out miles into the bay and still only be up to your waist. That was when everyone had only 2 weeks holiday a year.

    8. You write so well, it is a pleasure to read your comments.
      When you mentioned ” The donkeys were on the beach ” I thought for a moment that the Conservative Party Conference must be in Weymouth.
      Sad that Leeds is so far from ” Down South “.

      1. Lots of resorts all over the UK have gone downhill. Blackpool has been in trouble for years. Great Yarmouth has now gone downhill as well and is no t what it was a few decades ago. There has been some revival in the smaller resorts

        1. Some places never change though. Lytham St. Annes is the same as it has been for a century. Utterly boring, overpriced hotels and restaurants and absolutely zero, nothing, to do. Except take your dog for a walk, if you have one.

        2. People holiday differently now, Bill. I blame Freddy Laker. Blackpool has suffered a lot from it’s heyday. Pretty much everyone from all over the Midlands took their two weeks there when the factory had it’s annual shutdown. It has not been helped at all by councils offloading their dregs into cheap boarding houses.

          Great Yarmouth on the other hand is looking a bit more promising. They have just refurbished and reopened the Venetian Waterways.

    9. Not at all boring Maggie. My childhood memories are from holidays in Weymouth. You have just recreated them for me. My Grandmother ran a guest house in Great George Street. One road back from the front. Meet at the clock at 1pm for orange squash and egg and cress sandwiches. Then my dear mother would say ‘Right you lot bugger off til teatime 5 o’clock sharp. If you’re late you’ll get a thick ear’.

      Wonder of wonders every thursday teatime there would be a large crystal bowl full of fresh picked crab. I had never had anything so sublime. Still….i was only eleven.

    10. A very early, Good Monday morning, Mags. Not boring at all and it’s these little stories that are needed, to let the youngsters of today at least have an idea of what life was like when we grew up.

      It’s precisely for this reason that I wrote my autobiography, dealing with a child’s life in the 40s and 50s leading onto a young man in The Royal Air Force, getting married and having children in the 60s and 70s and so on up until my 70th birthday in 2014. It is dedicated to my children, Grandchildren and Great Grandchildren for generations to come. It includes my Paternal Family Tree from 1580 and the Maternal one from 530.

      I want them to be aware of where they have come from, who we are, how we lived and they can figure out if life is better for them or not.

      I’m now writing the sequel and Oberstleutnant and Devonian in Kent are looking for copies. I shall keep going until I drop or go mad, whichever is first.

  74. The Li b-Dem party conference is coming out with ll sorts of daft ideas. The conference itself is hardly getting any media coverage

    They have decide to move the date the UK become carbon neutral by 5 years. Several problems there. There is no real definition of carbon neutral and they have no plan as how they will get there. It is just a slogan

    Lost of local council have joined in with that Slogan. We have declared a climate Emergency ”

    ASk them what it means an what they are dig they cannot answer. I asked one council why as they had declared a climate emergency where they building a multi story car park and why they were cutting public transport and not investing in it. All I got was a load of waffle that never answered those points. Lot of buck passing as well claim it not their responsibility

    1. Easy deflection though isn’t it? Make it racist and everyone backs off for fear of offending the snowflakes.

    3. It is just remainer lies most of the time. For starters over 90% of the EU population is white. It was not about race or religion just the totally uncontrolled numbers coming to the UK

      1. It is just England. WE are not even allowed to have our own parliament but have to put up with one pretending to be the English Parliament and the UK parliament at the same rime and that simply does not work a there has to be conflicts of interest

        The English Parliament could be part time as a lot of things couls be devolved to the English regions

          1. WE have a crazy situation where some cities etc have some devolved powers with an elected Mayor who seems to work in isolation from the existing political structures. Mind you that is a basic problem with out current setup each layer of politics works in total isolation from the other with not management structure which is why nothing ever gets done

        2. So could the Scottish Parliament – but then they would be paid part-time salary – that would never do!

          1. All the English Parliament need to do is to decide how to divide up the budget between the English region and look after England wide issues May be overseeing Railways in England and motorways ie things that are not really specific to a region

            Logical thing would be for a Regional Councillor to have a dual function and he or she would also sit at the English parliament. This creates a direct link between the two

      3. More than once online I have seen British or English identity dismissed as racist but Scottish independence called ‘civic’ nationalism…

  76. Been a scorcher here today, had a walk around Wimbledon Common, large parts of it are covered with trees so cooler in the shade, the grass areas looked very brown and parched.
    Nice pint in the Crooked Billet, shame I was driving, haven’t been in there for decades, doing a roaring trade in Sunday roasts nowadays, people were sitting on the bit of common land outside.
    I don’t think people were feeling very Christmassy.

    1. Often used to pop into the Crooked Billet with the rest of my team-mates on the way home from playing in football matches in the London Old Boys’ League back in the 1970s. Haven’t been there there for well over 30 years.

    3. I think this has been one of those years when London and the South East have had an unusually hot and dry summedr and the West and North an average to wet (Scotland) summer.

    4. Because the Crooked Billet had forgotten to put the Brussels Sprouts on to boil early enough?

      :-))

    5. It got as high as 14° here (I think) once the rain stopped in the early afternoon. It was no higher than 13° all morning.

      Scorchio.

      1. No idea what the temperatures were, but it’s been pleasantly cool and dry here today, though according to the Met Office rain radar, there’s been a steady stream of rain showers passing over Manchester & Sheffield just a bit to the North.

  77. Well apart from the blue and yellow uniforms, quite an exciting result for the European Solheim cup team.

      1. Europe won with the last shot by a Norwegian player.

        If the UK does manage to leave the EU, I wonder what team outfits will look like in future. Maybe add some UK red and white to the blue and yellow – after all Scotland wants to join the EU. Anything beats the US outfits though which were blue and white pyjamas with red booties.

        The American announcers were close to claiming victory half way through the day but had to back off as best they could when their favourites failed to overcome the home team.

    2. Ray Hanna helped found the Red Arrows too. I was just thinking about him a couple of days ago in that context.

  79. The Challenge of incomprehensible Instructions

    These must be the worst I have come across. Doing battle with trying to fit a an Integrated Fridge freezer into a cabinet. Trying to understand how to fit the sliding door kit is more down to trial and error than the so called instructions

      1. Yes they were usually understandable

        I wonder if these companies ever test the instruction on real people ?

    2. I had mine fitted and the old one taken away by a local electrical shop and I wasn’t charged anymore than the reasonable shop price. They advised me on which model to choose. Having looked at the job beforehand I realised that it was beyond me as it was a 2 man job. They completed the job in about 20 minutes.

    3. Today my next door neighbour helped me put together the Arbour I bought for my garden. The instructions were somewhat of a challenge, but at least there were words (in English) printed next to the diagrams. Words without diagrams can be very hard to understand; diagrams without words (as so many are these days) are almost incomprehensible.

    1. Wasn’t aware that they had started their conference season yet, don’t suppose they will get any coverage unless it is accusations of racism or something

      1. They are at least half way through it. Not surprised you have missed it though as about zero publicity

    2. Heh heh, they have had a few. 🙂 Although the media are trying to do their “information blackout” to create the impression that nothing is happening. We would be leaving the EU without question with them, so the media prefer to talk about the other parties instead. There are many clips with speeches etc. But they are quite long. Here is just a 30 second clip of Nigel Farage arriving at one just over 2 months ago. The people seem quite enthusiastic and motivated, which gives all of us hope. Each seat they win moves us a tiny bit closer to actually leaving the EU.

      (Warning to any snowflakes peering in – many of the audience are older white people.)

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTF3z3OUHCs

          1. If they get MP’s they need a bit more than that and without policies it will limit the number who will vote for them

        2. You mean that you don’t know they have candidates for almost all seats cleared and vetted, and are ready to go whenever our cowardly MP’s say so? They are prepared to only target non-Conservative seats unless Boris brings back that Withdrawal Agreement without the backstop next month. Then they will target most Conservative Remainer MP’s as well. To give the Conserative voters in those seats a choice of a non-Liberal to vote for.

          Obviously, there will be no serious challenge to the Redwoods and Raabs in the real world.

          2. If Boris is working for the United Kingdom then we will get free one way or another, sooner rather than later. An agreement with The Brexit Party would take vulnerable Labour seats away from them which can only be a good thing. Although, I suspect those Conservative voters in the “no hope” seats would vote for The Brexit Party anyway if it gave them a real chance to block Labour or the Lib Dems getting an MP.

            If Boris is another Theresa May, Tony Blair, David Cameron etc. and he is working for the EU, then we will still get free of them, but it will take up to 3 years longer. Our MP’s cannot delay a general election longer than that. So let us hope Boris cares more about this country than he does about the globalist agenda. We will know in 6 weeks when he comes back from that meeting in the EU.

          5. That has been the fear of many for a long time now. But even if it happens, we can tear the agreement up after the next election and Leave the EU anyway. Only crying Remainers will bleat “But it is a treaty! You cannot just end it! Think of what it will do to our international reputation!”

            To which the answer is: “It is not a treaty it is a suicide note. We now have a majority of Leave MP’s and we can do what you ought to have done the day after the Referendum result. The rest of the world will cheer when we tell the EU where to go and will be signing trade agreements as soon as they can. Now stop crying. Listen to your elders – you WILL thank us when you see what the EU is becoming.”

            Then we leave anyway. 🙂

          10. Exactly, MM. Let’s give him 6 weeks to prove (or disprove) himself. If he turns out to have betrayed us, then let’s give it to him with both barrels.

    1. We have not seen this level of attack on the existence of our way of life before. Not from our own Members of Parliament, the judges, the top rank civil servants, and the police force. Even foreign powers do not often sell out their own people and erase their own cultures. Not the way the enemy that we face today wants to.

      It will not be easy for us, but they do not have the numbers to make us all slaves yet. You can almost sense how “brittle” some of The Remainers are when you look in their eyes as they repeat the same old lies in interviews. They know that they are far from home and dry. The choice to be free of the EU will be ours, not theirs. The easier way or the harder way.

  82. After reading Fatherland by Robert Harris I was looking forward to his new book The Second Sleep.
    Twenty-first century civilisation has crashed to a catastrophic end, why? Was it technological failure, antibiotic resistance, nuclear war?
    Listening to a review earlier today it’s a wake up call for all of us…….we are doomed!
    I think I’ll give it a miss….

    1. Stop Plumming the depths PT. Carpe Diem – As the saying goes: “Even if the World was to end tomorrow I would still plant my apple tree today….”

  83. I have been watching or rather listening to the cricket but during an interval witnessed a snatch of Jo Swinson at the Liberal Democrat Conference.

    What substance are these Lib Dums on? The Swinson woman is one of the most scary persons of the present political scene. A screeching gap-toothed hag evidently with absolutely no self awareness whatsoever. This woman represents the worst of British politicians being neither liberal nor democratic.

    Who in their right minds would ever vote for these Liberal Democrat charlatans? I know that there are areas of the country entranced by the Lib Dem’s such as my birthplace of Bath and that of my wife Cambridge. I always assumed these mental defects were the result of ‘something in the water’.

    1. The ” general public ” who rarely listen to Lib-Dem rantings, are used to just ticking the Lib-Dem box as a protest vote against the other two.
      They should have learned a lesson last time round, but probably won’t.
      ( I avoided that trap myself last time by voting for a green woman, who must have been grateful because she only got 238 votes)

    3. They are outdoing Labour with making impossible to keep promises. We had Clegg promising no tuition fees which he had to abandoned now we have Swinson with her impossible promises

      Typical Liberal air head. No real life experience studied at LSE then into a PR job at a radio station and then into politics

    4. “…the result of ‘something in the water’…”
      Possibly. We have lived in places with private water supply for the last 20+ years. Maybe we have escaped. Maybe it is fluoride. Possibly the fact that many of these people have been to universities staffed with left wing loonies has turned them into fad grabbing nincompoops?

    5. S’funny cos both Verhofstwat and Swineton are gap toothed …. She’d make a good Lady MacBeth

  85. Lib-Dems Vote to Cancel Brexit

    That’s good news. It may gain them a few voters but will lose them a lot more

    1. Well at least you know where you stand with them, unlike with the rest of the hypocrites.

      If somehow they win an election, surely it shows that the electorate have changed their mind. The lib dems would therefore be right to cancel Brexit – right after they finish honoring the vote to leave.

  88. All we can do in the end is vote.If Boris lets us down or there is a snap election before the 31ST I will vote Brexit Party.

  89. SWMBO is smarter than me ( not difficult, I know:-(()
    She asks: Since WASPS like us are so awful, what with our taxpaying and such like, what would it be like living with the woke folk?
    Venezuela and Zimbabwe is the answer.
    Enjoy.

    1. You can imagine the “woke” people spending so much time sitting around in “non-judgemental group meetings” to plan how and what food to plant, that when they get around to putting the seeds in the ground they cannot work out why nothing is growing in Winter.

      Then will start the long discussions on how to get a tin opener to work, and would it be a sign of failure to call mummy and daddy for help.

    1. Cripes, I would have thought even the mention of “Empire” would have a modern day Liberal feeling queezie and a bit, well, green about the gills.

  91. BBC ” Pregnant Man Gives Birth. Realty. Pregnant Woman with Beard gives birth birthhttps://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a35b97d39ad8b8abdab5fa4aa97678cfc0eff611393c14451ec998a5a1e2fd2b.jpg Woman with a beard gives birth (and with her boobs removed)

      1. One has to feel sorry for them but they cannot change their gender that’s simply impossible at least with current medical science

        In my view they need mental health treatment

        1. I’m afraid I don’t feel at all sorry for them, when they take such trouble to draw so much attention to themselves.

      1. Boris has been bought off or blackmailed.

        I’m not saying it’s true, but that’s what Polly’s suggesting.

  93. Channel migrants: Border Force intercepts 41 on four boats
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-49707720
    Four green boats were sailing in the Channel
    Ten on the first boat came from Afghanistan
    Nine on the second boat came from Iran
    Eight on the third boat came from Turkey
    Seven on the fourth boat came from the Republic of Mali in Africa
    And nobody knew where the other seven came from, so the Afghans, the Iranians, the Turks and the Malians picked them all up and threw them into the sea where they all drowned.

  94. If we end up stuck in the EU ALL the regional parliaments should be shut down, ALL mayors and regional councils closed and ALL political sinecures scrapped.
    Scrap the command structure of the armed forces and remove ALL senior civil servants

    Get rid of the HoL, reduce Parliament to 1 representative for rubber stamping.
    Close the BBC entirely and hand control of the stock exchange and the banks to Franckfurt oops Frankfurt, thanks Tony.

    If Johnson threatened that that would be his next action as PM you can be damned sure minds would change rapidly

    2. Good morning Geoff
      We’re playing bowls at Tongham Saturday afternoon. Might we see you there in general 2/6’s?

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