Monday 15 February: Vaccination passports could help to boost Britain’s ailing travel industry

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/02/15/lettersvaccination-passports-could-help-boost-britains-ailing/

726 thoughts on “Monday 15 February: Vaccination passports could help to boost Britain’s ailing travel industry”

    2. Here too, and most of the snow has now melted. Forecast is for rain most of today and tomorrow, but dry from Wednesday. Temperatures in the region of 12 degrees Centigrade today, so not all bad.

      UPDATE: Just checked the forecast and it has changed completely. Today will now be dry with fairly strong winds, so I will change my plans and make today washing day. Current forecast is rain this week all of Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday!

  2. Dozens killed as Houthi rebels target last government stronghold in Yemen. 15 february 2021.

    Earlier this month, the Houthis resumed an offensive to seize oil-rich Marib, some 120 kilometres (75 miles) east of the capital Sanaa.

    The city’s loss would be disastrous for Yemen’s beleaguered leadership.

    Yemen has been embroiled in a bloody power struggle since 2014 between its government, supported by Saudi Arabia, and Houthi rebels, who control the capital Sanaa and most of the north.

    The rebels have also escalated attacks against Saudi Arabia, drawing condemnation from the international community.

    Morning everyone. This war doesn’t get much coverage in the MSM; this probably not to draw attention to our supplying arms to Saudi Arabia. It also has some lessons. The first one is that, despite the Saudi’s having limitless supplies of weaponry; planes, tanks, whatever, they couldn’t knock the skin off a rice pudding. This is primarily because the ranks of the Saudi army contingent are made up of Foreign Mercenaries who have no intention of being killed on behalf of a government and people they despise. They like the wages and that is it! The Houti’s on the other hand have no planes and no tanks but are incredibly tough, brave and resourceful. All our aid is doing, is perpetuating a tragedy on the Houti civilians. We should like the Americans cease supplying and helping the Saudi’s who are no friends to us!

    https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20210214-dozens-killed-as-houthi-rebels-target-last-government-stronghold-in-yemen

    1. Don’t believe anything on the left-wing France 24, especially its irrational dislike of Saudi Arabia and its appeasement of its beloved Iran, not to mention its non-stop hatred of President Trump!

      First of all, Saudi Arabia is one of a coalition of 9 countries, trying to stop the Houthis who themselves are trained, funded and supplied with arms by Iran.

      The Houthis were listed as a terrorist organisation by President Trump. They were delisted by Biden and immediately felt that they had the green light to seize Marib. They also sent a flood of drones into Riyadh, Abha and other places in Saudi Arabia. All the drones originated in Iran. Today, Saudi has announced that they will continue to regard the Houthis as a terrorist organisation which, by any normal standards, they certainly are.

      The faux outrage about supplying arms to Saudi Arabia is the usual leftist disinformation. Are the going to stop supplying arms to the other 8 countries in the coalition and, most importantly, to Iran? Anyway, there are plenty of other countries who would help Saudi against Iran!

      Unlike Mr. Biden and France24, I have actually been to Yemen and have friends there, even now, with whom I speak regularly by phone.

      By the way, this is the motto of the Houthis: “God is Greatest, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse on the Jews, Victory for Islam”. I rest my case!

      1. The Biden effect, coming to countries all over the Middle East.

        The after effects of the Biden effect, coming to Western Europe in their 100,000’s if not millions.

        1. Biden was in such a hurry to wipe out Trump’s successes that, when he delisted the Houthis as a terrorist organisation, he failed to obtain any concessions. For example, there is an oil tanker lying off Hodeida with over 1 million barrels of crude oil, presenting a serious danger to the whole of the southern Red Sea. The Houthis have refused to allow it to leave. This would have been an excellent opportunity to avert this danger.

          https://www.egypttoday.com/Article/1/90639/SAFER-oil-tanker-Ticking-bomb-as-dangerous-as-Beirut-explosion

          1. I doubt that Biden even thought about it for a split second. All that he and the Democrats (and the MSM) want to do, is to destroy anything and everything Trump did, and to discredit him further at every opportunity.

            If the press had spent even a tenth of the time investigating Democrat wrong-doing that they spent denigrating undermining and trying to stymie Trump, I suspect that the situation today would be markedly different.

      2. There’s nothing irrational about disliking Saudi Arabia! Its ruler is a psychopath and a murderer. The country itself is an Islamic tyranny where crucifixion and beheading are the State’s tools of repression.

        The Houtis only became a “Terrorist Organisation” toward the end of Trump’s Presidency to make difficulties for Biden’s incoming administration.

        There has been no “flood of drones” and if there had been it would still be dwarfed by the Saudi bombing of civilian targets in Yemen.

        The Houtis prior to the Saudi attack played no part in the War on the West, they have by force of circumstance been obliged to turn to Iran for help!

        1. I normally agree with all that you say but not on this occasion, I’m afraid!

          I know Saudi Arabia very well having maintained a residence there from 1977 to 2006. I also speak Arabic and met and befriended Saudis from all walks of life including the Royal Family, government officials, the richest and the poorest. I also know a lot about their judicial system, for example having spent two months in a Saudi jail (by mistake and leaving with an acknowledgement, signed by the KIng, that I had done nothing wrong)! Your description of Saudi Arabia is so far removed from reality that we might be talking about two different countries!

          It is true that they behead criminals, some of whom I have met, but I have never heard of a crucifixion nor do I agree that the King is a psychopath and murderer! If you were talking about Iran, that might be closer to reality.

          The other day I was talking on the phone with an American who worked with a Saudi law firm for the same period as when I was there. He said that they were the best years of his life!

          2. I met Khashoggi in the mid-1980s when he was working with a Saudi English language newspaper, the Saudi Gazette. I don’t for one minute condone what happened to him but there is another side to the story that is rarely mentioned, especially in the left-wing MSM in the west.

            Khashoggi was a senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood, a terrorist organisation which is banned in several countries. Khashoggi particularly supported the two principal proponents of the MB, Turkey and Qatar, against the best interests of his own country (where the MB is banned). He also supported nefarious activities in several other countries such as Lebanon, Egypt and Gaza (Hamas is an offshoot of the MB). His activities certainly don’t justify his murder but he certainly didn’t merit the sainthood that he suddenly acquired in the west!

            I have been following the antics of the MB since I first went to Egypt in 1969 when I was alerted to its history from the time it was founded in 1928. I have often been asked in various Middle East countries why the UK allows the MB to operate out of London with impunity. I don’t have a clear answer except to say that there are many naive people in positions of responsibility in the UK!

            There is so much I could say but I will confine myself to quoting the MB’s, motto having quoted the Houthi motto above.

            “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way. Death for the sake of Allah is our highest hope.”

    2. ‘Death to America…Death to Jews’ is one of their catchy slogans.

      They are Islamic Terrorists.

      Many of the people released from Guantanamo went to Yemen.

  3. Don’t do what I did and look at the headlines in the telegraph. What a load of fluff and bollox – just mindless airhead chatter in print form, even manages to bring back a memory of Diana… (vomits noisily).

    1. ‘Morning, Oberst. Couldn’t agree more…the mention of ‘Royal Baby’ from these two, accompanied by a sloppy photo of a woman who apparently dislikes publicity, stretched out on the grass to display her ‘baby bump’ (ugh) is indeed vomit-inducing. Equally so is the DT’s decision to make this the lead in their ‘News’ section.

      1. It might be my imagination but I think there has been a reduction in the amount of “News” in the MSM over the last few weeks!

        1. You may well be right, Minty. The DT is ‘News Website of the Year’ apparently – which year, I wonder?. Setting aside how they ever achieved such a position, the others must be pretty bad.

    2. ‘Morning, Oberst. Couldn’t agree more…the mention of ‘Royal Baby’ from these two, accompanied by a sloppy photo of a woman who apparently dislikes publicity, stretched out on the grass to display her ‘baby bump’ (ugh) is indeed vomit-inducing. Equally so is the DT’s decision to make this the lead in their ‘News’ section.

  4. Texas sees one of its coldest winters in decades as temperatures drop. 15 February 2021.

    Texas is experiencing one of its coldest winter in decades , with temperatures expected to drop to as low as 11F (-12C) in Houston and 9F (-13C) San Antonio under a winter storm warning.

    The governor, Greg Abbott, issued a disaster declaration for every county in the state on Friday, as conditions continued to get colder over the weekend. The White House also issued a federal emergency declaration for Texas, authorizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to provide additional support to the state.

    “Every part of the state of Texas will face freezing conditions. That includes all the way down to Brownsville, Texas, over the coming days,” Abbott said in a press conference. “In many of those locations across the state of Texas, the high temperature for the day will be in the single digits.”

    Thank God for Global Warming!

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/14/texas-weather-latest-freezing-ice-winter

    1. It’s a Public Holiday today in the US – Labour Day

      Houston is 100% closed on at least Monday as frost & snow possible – there are no gritters in Houston.

      Advice on TV & newspapers for the last few days on how to cope with cold if you go out – wrap up, several layers, hat, gloves 2 pairs of socks and heavier shoes,

      Dallas motorway crash a few days ago – 100 vehicles, 6 dead ……. they do not know how to drive when ice is about.

      I lived in Saudi Arabia 50 years ago – it rained once for almost 2 days in the 3 years. Chaos on the roads as the locals could not cope with very greasy roads – lots of rubber on the road+ water was a disaster..

      1. Labour day in US is 6th September this year. Are you still working on the Julian calendar? :-))

    2. When I spoke to my son in Houston last night he said the Gulf Stream equivalent from the Ocean west of Texas has moved its course and he thinks that is the reason for the cold weather which this morning has arrived with freezing rain, thunderstorms, lightning and power cuts.

  5. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    One can only admire such busy and talented people who posess great skill and energy to achieve so much in their lifetime:

    Captain John Bowen, naval engineer who designed new types of flight-deck catapult – obituary

    Bowen oversaw the French navy’s installation of a catapult system and some of his designs were sold to the US Navy

    By
    Telegraph Obituaries
    14 February 2021 • 8:26pm

    Captain John Bowen, who has died aged 88, was an expert in the steam catapult and a renowned nautical surveyor.   

    In 1957-59 Bowen gained his boiler-room watchkeeping ticket, a requirement for all engineers in the age of steam, in the carrier Ark Royal, the first ship to be constructed with an angled flight deck, hydraulic arrester gear, and steam-driven catapults.

    After some months in the heat of the engine room, he was delighted to become second engineer on the flightdeck, in charge of the catapults for launching aircraft. Next he undertook a two-year post graduate diploma course in advance marine engineering design at Greenwich, before service in 1961 in the newly recommissioned carrier Victorious.

    When the French navy adopted a catapult system similar to the British for their new carrier Foch, Bowen oversaw its installation in 1962-63. His crash course in French for engineers, and daily practice with his 30-strong Breton workforce, would stand him in good stead later in life.

    However, his decision to live in a semi-derelict chateau, with a huge parterre garden, a gardener, and a temperamental central heating stove, was considered eccentric by his hosts, who stayed in married quarters in the town.

    In 1963-65 Bowen began an appointment at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Bedford, home of the Royal Navy’s flightdeck machinery trials and development facility, where he developed designs of catapults and arrester gear for a new aircraft carrier, CVA01, a ship which was however cancelled.

    Bowen rued that his designs were sold to the US Navy, where they are still in use, and regretted that they were not fitted in the present generation of British carriers. But he was awarded the then enormous sum of £450 from the Herbert Lott Fund for his inventions.

    John Thomas Grenville Bowen was born at Havant on June 14 1932; his father was a tax inspector who had flown in the Royal Flying Corps in the First World War. Young Bowen was educated at Churcher’s College, Petersfield, and learnt to sail in Langstone Harbour.

    When his father took a retirement job as tax consultant on the Goodwood estate, and gained a paddock pass for all events, young Bowen was intoxicated with the smell of oil developed an appetite for fast cars.

    He joined Dartmouth in 1950 and the Royal Naval Engineering College, Keyham, a year later.

    While at Bedford, Bowen stumbled into house restorations, starting with a tumbledown cottage at Kimbolton and advancing to a run-down Georgian house in Bath. He was also introduced to sailing Thames spritsail trading barges at Pin Mill, which became a lifelong passion.

    Thereafter his naval career and moonlighting as a building and boat restorer developed in parallel. The business spread to London when Bowen became head of engineering design at RNEC in Plymouth and visiting professor of design innovation at Greenwich.

    In 1972-75, while overseeing naval shipbuilding at the strike-ridden Cammell-Laird’s yard on Merseyside, Bowen was introduced to the Cavern Club, to his second wife, and to canal boats – and when he could find no suitable boat, he built his own, Richard Trevithick, named after his Cornish engineering hero.

    Bowen was promoted to captain in the navy, but his love of boats, canals, sailing, restoring houses, furniture design, dogs, and his children, loomed larger. He turned an 18th century stables and drydock on the Grand Union Canal into his business centre, raised rare-breed pigs and Aberdeen Angus cattle, maintained and repaired barges, and also rebuilt some 20 Georgian houses in East London.

    In 1982-96 he was a director of the South Midland Water Transport, which carried coal by canal to London. In final strand to his career, Bowen enjoyed an international reputation as a surveyor of boats and barges.

    Bowen never retired and was working at his hospital bed, and recovering from an unrelated illness, when he caught covid and died.

    His private life was bohemian: he married Sally Stevens in 1957, and Susie “Wol’ Wallis in 1975, and is survived by his partner, Linda McIntrye and by five of his children, a daughter having predeceased him in 2013.

    Captain John Bowen, born June 14 1932, died January 10 2021

    3. A fine man, but this caught my eye:-

      “In 1972-75, while overseeing naval shipbuilding at the strike-ridden Cammell-Laird’s yard…”

      That was the era of the interunion demarcation disputes that saw such absurdities as “The String Twangers’ Dispute” that saw a shipyard closed for several weeks whilst several unions bickered over which union the man who “twanged” a chalk string to put a cutting line onto a sheet of steel should belong to.

  6. I see that Bill Gates wants Vaxx ID cards, his number one agent for the UK, Blair wants ID cards, everyone that Gates funds wants ID cards, follow the money.

          1. Morning, HJ.
            I spoke to him yesterday evening and he sounded chipper.
            I assume he is jogging along as both hospitals have been very good about keeping me informed. The mornings on the wards are pretty hectic, so I phone during the after-lunch lull. I will post a bulletin later.

  7. Good morning all.

    The first crop of letters in the Telegraph are enthusiastically lauding the creation of ‘Vaccine Passports’ (including, sadly the normally-sensible Frederick Forsyth). How quickly people rush to have their freedoms removed! Can they not see that there is a big difference between e.g. being required to show vaccination against yellow fever, cholera and smallpox to travel to Africa, and a coronavirus to travel on your hols to Spain? This is compulsion to have the vaccine, ‘no jab/no fly.’

    But why stop there? In other news, Dominic Raab casually mentions that vaccine passports to allow living our normal lives in the UK are “under consideration” and the stumbling block is not civil liberties, but simply the accuracy of the document:

    https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-domestic-vaccine-certificates-under-consideration-dominic-raab-admits-12217870

    Our freedoms and whole way of life are being dismantled before our eyes. None of us voted for this. I never thought that I would see the day that Britain would descend into totalitarianism, but here we are…

    1. Nobody is required to have a (normal) passport – indeed, I went a few years without one, and the state didn’t come knocking at my door. Likewise driving licences – I don’t have one (poor eyesight) and that’s just fine as long as I don’t drive on the public highway.

    3. Funnily enough every time someone suggests taking freedoms away ‘for the greater good’ it’s usually your generation that’s leading the assent particularly the females.
      You’ve been voting for this since the seventies, before many of the young were born let alone went near a ballot box.
      You thought you wouldn’t see that day? I’ve spent 40 years watching our freedoms being eroded.

  8. Moscow hit by ‘Snow apocalypse’: Frozen city is blanketed in TWO FOOT of the white stuff in -15C blast causing transport chaos and flight delays. 15 February 2021.

    Moscow has been buried underneath two foot of snow, causing massive snow piles, disrupting transport, delaying flights and making it tough for pedestrians to make their way through the city.

    Snowfall began late on Thursday and was expected to end later today, but Russia’s emergency service has warned people to stay away from trees.

    More Global Warming! It was never like this when the Third Reich was there!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9259103/Moscow-blanketed-TWO-FOOT-snow-15C-blast-causing-transport-chaos-flight-delays.html#comments

    1. Wow! Is “two foot” of snow anything like two feet of it?

      Maybe The Fail’s journalists are not required to know English anymore!

      [And NO. I’m not being ‘pedantic’. I simply (like most of you) abhor the routine use of slang, jargon, Americanese, sloppiness and laziness in journalism.]

    3. Good point. If the Third Reich had reached Moscow, I’m sure it would have prevented Climate Change bringing the city to a standstill. Another of Uncle Joe’s mistakes.
      Morning, Minty.

      1. They reached Moscow, came close to encircling it, got within 18Kms of the Kremlin. Met Zhukoz and discovered their weaknessess

        1. It’s interesting that recently there was a TV programme (yet another one!) on Operation Barbarossa, and a top Russian professor of history pointed out rather acidly that it wasn’t a secret that it rained in the Autumn, and snowed in the winter in Russia, making roads near impassable.
          He was very, very surprised that the German generals didn’t pay attention to that.

          2. The Russian Professor was being dis-ingenuous. The Germans had good up to date maps of western Russia that they used to plan their assault. They showed all the fine new metalled roads built under the 28-32, 33-37, 38-41 five years plans. Except most of those never got built, but they were in the plan, no one was admitting failure because it often had fatal consequences, so they went on the map.

            The pre-Luftwaffe flight school of Lipetsk operated from 1922, and the Wehrmacht had extensive training facilities in Russia from 1922 to 33 when Hitler discontinued the arrangement. That was where the Germans honed their tactics and decided that chemical weapons were incompatible with their philosophy of movement. Many many German commanders had experience of Russia and Russian conditions, but the Autumn of ’41 was exceptionally wet, and the Winter was exceptionally cold. That’s called luck.

            What did for the Wehrmacht in late ’41 was that their equipment did function very well. Never having met such cold temperatures their stuff wasn’t battle tested, and it by and large didn’t work very well in the first winter.

          3. Thank you; wet weather seems to have bugged WWII. D-Day was delayed for the same reason; but at least the Allies knew in advance.

          4. Actually, the storms that delayed D Day allowed Eisenhower to achieve some quite astonishing: complete tactical surprise with an offensive that his enemy had known was coming for two years. That is just astonishing, amazing, and he doesn’t get proper credit for it. The Allies had better weather information and saw a gap in the weather that the Germans had no inkling of, they thought that invasion was out of the question for at least 10 days, and they all went on Leave.

            It has never been clear to me whether the SHAEF meeting that decided they could ‘squeeze it in’ on June 6th realized they were actually doing something very clever indeed.

          6. There was the disinformation war as well to throw them off the scent and intimate the invasion would take place elsewhere.

          1. We actually have a naff little music box shaped like a Russian church which plays that tune.
            Bought in St. Petersburg.

          2. Podmoskovskaya vechera – they played it all the time (although not the Kenny Ball version) through loudspeakers in the parks when I was in Moscow (1968).

    5. 1941 was one of the hardest winters in Russian history. For once the Russians were pleased with it.

    7. In December 1969 I was living in Albany, the State Capital city of New York. We awoke to find that there had been nearly five FEET of snow, so our big cars were 2 inch bumps in the level snowfield that was the road. There was Alternate Side Parking in force (park one side of the road on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, the other side on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays). Sundays were free. And these parking arrangements were rigidly enforced with a parking ticket. If you parked the wrong side after heavy snow it was likely that your buried car would be shunted by the snowplow (sic).
      There were 18-foot icicles as thick as your thigh hanging from the roof. God help you if one fell on you.

  9. Good morning, all. Rained a bit – but still snow-covered AND foggy. So much for the famous thaw.

  10. Good morning from a Dull Dank & Dismal Derbyshire Dales. A cold and foggy 0°C on the yard thermometer.

  11. Good Moaning.
    Hurrah, the blasted snow is disappearing.
    I might dare to try the washing machine this afternoon.
    Golly Gosh; all this excitement is too much for me.

    1. I don’t bother with the washing line this time of year. I half tumble dry then put in on a rack in the conservatory with the dehumidifier on and forget about it.

      How is Bill today?

      1. Morning, Phil …. and (Sorry) Hallo, Dolly.
        He sounded fine last night. They are keeping him until at least Sunday, presumably to see how stents and blood pressure settle.
        I will ring him this afternoon when the ward is quieter.
        They had two emergency admission yesterday evening, so Bill was moved to another bed.

        3. Good morning Anne

          Relieved to hear your news , and I hope your Bill is comfortable , as best as possibly can be .

          The 12 months of Covid has given Cardiac surgeons plenty of practise .

      2. Tumble dryer? Your leccie bills must be through the roof Phizz. TDs are the worst things ever invented as far as energy consumption goes.

        I dry my clothes next to the radiator.

        1. I use them at this time of year but keep the time to a minimum; towels and bedding in particular tend to be a problem.

        3. It’s a condenser dryer so probably even more expensive but i don’t care. It’s all budgeted for.

        4. I only use the TD when the sun is shining and the solar panels meet the cost, the rest of the time they are dried on a ceiling rack or in front of radiator

        5. I dry mine on the sheila maid (like a Hills Hoist) above the Rayburn. They can be dry in a couple of hours.

    3. Just removed the washing that was put up on the dryer on Saturday and done a load of towels which have replaced them.
      With the DT away helping sort her Mum’s house out, it’s only the S@H & me here so washing will be at a minimum for the next 10 days.

  12. 329432+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    52% of the peoples were on the side of democracy on the 24/6/2016 that number will have been expanded now due to the eUs atrocious behaviour,
    that is a very strong force “IF” united.

    If the peoples on seeing quite clearly the three party’s, rotten to the core stance by now and continue the current voting pattern then they not only
    deserve the jab of unknown consequence but a left / right to the gut and a stretcher left hook to the chin.

    This coalition, origin Hades, will take us back to 39/53 under the counter
    black market, bent fuel coupons, etc,etc, forgers in FULL employment.

    A mind control war without armaments…. yet.

    Just heard digit dick saying there is no plans for the UK as of yet regarding internal passports which means in reality the passport issue is eminent and on the parliamentary menu along with halal nosh.

    Health Warning,

    In the main the current enemas can be ID by their choice of dress as in pin stripe / red robes, avoid at ALL cost especially in their breeding hot-spots
    the ballot booth.

  13. SIR – You report (Money, February 6) that it is likely the Chancellor will raise the level of National Insurance paid by the self-employed to that paid by the employed.
    This would be grotesquely unfair. The self-employed have to pay for benefits that others receive free from their employers, including pension contributions, holiday pay, sick pay and even redundancy pay.
    A pound of self-employed earnings is not comparable to a pound of an employed salary.
    Jeremy Thorn

    The self employed, if they had any sense, would include these costs when working out the tariff for a job.

    1. I agree with the observations, my wife was self-employed for many years.

      Sadly, they would price themselves out of employment because cash in hand merchants, also living on benefits, as well as the many residue EU workers and illegal immigrants would undercut them.

    2. It’s part of a Treasury drive to get as much tax as possible by whatever means they can. A colleague has a consulting contract with the Government and has been advised he must move to IR35, which in effect means he becomes a salaried employee and pay tax by PAYE. As he doesn’t draw down any funds from his company, he puts all earnings in the company account, then pays corpiration tax, moving to IR35 changes that. It is a stealth move to support government cash flow.

    3. None of which relate to National Insurance in any way.

      Other than public sector I don’t know any company in the private sector that routinely gives contracts promising sick pay. Most get SSP if they actually manage to qualify for it and they need be tapping the nails into your coffin almost to actually qualify for SSP which is about £13 per day. That’ll pay the bills.
      Pension contributions, sick pay, holiday pay are nothing to do with national insurance which pays only for welfare and a tiny contribution to the NHS budget.

      “The self employed, if they had any sense, would include these costs when working out the tariff for a job.”

      They’d be plain stupid if they didn’t. Sadly the world is rather cutthroat so if they actually do that they could be pricing themselves out of work.

      1. It may have changed since my day, but every company I worked for across the Financial Services sector offered generous sick pay. That also applied to every company in the Private sector that my friends worked for too, across a large number of sectors.

        1. SSP virtually everywhere now. 13 quid a day and several days with no pay at all. Private sector employers don’t need offer things like sick pay to get employees. There’s been mass unemployment since 1980. My dad also had full sick pay for something like 6 months even though he never used it. He’s never paid a penny in sick pay in the 32 years he’s had his own business though.

      2. Things must have changed since I retired, as all the companies I worked for (all private sector) offered full sick pay, with self-certification for the first three days of sickness. My last employer gave full sick pay for up to a year of illness/injury.
        Edit: I see sosraboc reports a similar experience.

          2. I have never had a job with more than 4 weeks leave plus bank holidays, the minimum. I never had a workplace pension until they were legislated. I’ve never had sick pay.
            I have had jobs at under the minimum wage though and I have had to take an employer to tribunal to get money owed which he paid late and screwed up the national insurance on it robbing me of about 50 quid.

          3. Both my daughters (in their 30s) work for a major British company, and they enjoy the same sort of benefits that I had when I was employed. The biggest difference is that the pension scheme is Money Purchase rather than Final Salary.

          4. Perhaps in large corporations with profits in the billions region things are like the old days but that only covers about 20% of all employment.

  14. Fifty years ago was D-Day. Not the Normandy landings, but the abolition of pounds, shillings and pence, with a rich vocabulary of tanners and bobs, half-crowns and farthings, florins and three ha’pence. Despite the BBC commemorating all sorts of anniversaries as if they were breaking news, we have heard nothing of this.

    What are your memories of this day?

      1. I was working in the Pricing department of a brewery. I was given the job of converting all the prices into the new decimal version. In order to avoid the possibility of external criticism I rounded down as many products as I rounded up. I rounded up the big volume sellers and rounded down the low volume items. In real terms the the difference in price of a barrel, keg or case of bottles rounded up or down was often a fraction of one percent. Only in the lower prices did it make much of difference, that is, for example the price of a beer in a pub went from 1/9 to 9 new pence, an increase of 2.9%* . So, of course it made a difference to the weekly shop, as the price of an individual item such as a bag of flour or tea would go up rather than down. Cumulatively it did make a difference. I seem to recall that the Retail Price Index was on the front page of the newspapers almost every day as the Governments of the time seemed to be more worried about inflation than nuclear war.

        *E&OE

    3. A pint of beer at the football social club costing 11p. Easy for the bar staff.

      Morning all.

    4. Should have gone for 100 old pence per main unit, name to be decided, but I’d have suggested Britannia. Water under the bridge now, just be thankful we aren’t using euros.

        1. Really? The UK and the Republic of Ireland were the joint second-to-last countries to decimalise (Malta was the last in 1972). So when Australia, NZ, SA etc. decimalised, that was something to do with the EU? And when the UK introduced a decimal currency to the West Indies in the nineteenth century, more Europe? And then there’s Canada…

          1. I still think it would be great fund to re-introduce £.S.D. as it would help to confuse all them furriners, either resident or visitors to our shores.

            “You will be allowed £37/3/6 per week. But £15/4/5 will be deducted for income and sustenance tax.”

            Sort that one out yer b**st*d.

          2. The UK introduced the florin (2/- or 1/10 of a pound) in Victoria’s reign. Even then they were thinking of decimalisation, but it never came to anything. The “common market” was the decider.

    9. Softening us up to be assimilated in the great EU superstate (only it hadn’t quite revealed itself then; it was still pretending to be a Common Market). My memory of the day was that I went to a lunchtime concert and it was easier to work out change.

  15. Poetry Competition

    An Australian Poetry Competition held in the Sydney Opera House had come
    down to two finalists;

    A) The university graduate.
    B) An old aboriginal man.

    They were given a word, and then allowed two minutes to study the word
    and come up with a short four line poem that contained a particular word.

    The word they were given on this occasion was ‘ TIMBUKTU ‘.

    First to recite his poem was the university graduate. He stepped to the
    microphone and said:

    Slowly across the desert sand,
    Trekked a lonely caravan
    Men on camels two by two
    Destination – Timbuktu …

    The crowd went crazy! No way could the old aboriginal top that, they
    thought.

    The old aboriginal calmly made his way to the microphone and
    recited;

    Me and Tim a huntin’ went
    Met three whores in a pop up tent
    They were three, and we was two
    So I bucked one, and Timbuktu ..

    The aboriginal won.

      1. ‘Morning, Plum, I don’t care from whom I nicked it, as Jethro probably nicked it from an Aussie.

      3. Jethro actually played for the Pirates rugby XV. The father* of one of my godsons, who now writes books about rugby and biographies of rugby players, used to prop alongside him.

        (* He has written a biography of Stack Stevens and John Pullin but has yet to write one for Jethro Rowe.)

  17. How amusing !

    Tony Blair, who sold off state assets cheap in sweetheart deals to George Soros and who copied Soros policies word for word, is now advising Hancock and the Johnson administration.

    Hancock has tweeted very favorably of his Uncle George so it’s pretty obvious Hancock is yet another political operative for Open Society !

    Should the Johnson administration now be proscribed as a criminal organization ?

    Definitely !

    1. 329432+ up ticks,
      Morning PP,
      The pin-stripe mafia would not be amiss as a working title,
      westminster branch.

  19. I see from the listings that tonight’s “University Challenge” is the SIXTH quarter-final…..

    Can someone explain to me the lunatic rules of what used to be a simple knock-out competition?

    At Wimbledon, you don’t have a player who loses in round two have three more goes to see if he can get through to the final….

    Bonkers.

    1. Hear hear.
      Doubly infuriating if one wins every game in the series and have already beaten the opponents in the earlier rounds that you lose to in the final.

      1. Morning Plum

        Yep , as they display their transgender contestants … for the dilectatation of the audience , and of course domestic discussions .. is he / she / why and how.

      2. The part of the programme that intensely dislike is the way Paxo seems to intimate that he knows or knew the answer’s as he exhales with his practiced sighs and chucks the questions aside, as panel members some times fail to proceed.

          3. O/T Have you noticed how calm and polite the threads have been since certain people were given the heave-ho, even after wine o’clock?

            Good afternoon Corri. :@)

          6. Good afternoon Phizzee. I had noticed but had resolved to ignore the worst of them and not engage.

            You and I identified and shared the same opinion of the agitators. Of course they might return at any time.

            I hope you are recovering from your sticky blood issues. It is no fun as I know from initially undiagnosed DVT and later self diagnosed bilateral pulmonary embolism and pneumonia requiring hospitalisation on both occasions.

            I keep receiving NHS-No reply messages inviting me to book a ‘free’ vaccination. No chance.

          7. I’m halfway through the first month of blood draining and testing. The Meds are helping. Just have to wait and see.

            I have a phone call arranged for Wednesday from the Consultant. I’m not expecting good news to begin with.

            CT scan should show up the rest of the problems.

            Thanks for asking.

            Yes, I expect they will be back at some point but ignoring and blocking is best i think.

          9. #MeToo, Cori, I just delete and ignore them. I have heard of many, who have had the jab, and I’m not one, still getting these text messages.

            There is nowhere where one might send any information to the NHS, asking them to quit this advertising.

          10. I told my surgery that I declined and they said they would put a code by my name to show I didn’t want the jab. Clearly they didn’t let the NHS know because I am still getting letters telling me to book an appointment. Multiply that by many hundreds (if not thousands) and it’s no wonder the NHS is short of cash; they could stop wasting money on postage.

        2. At least Paxo is a far better quizmaster than the utterly useless John Humphrys on Mastermind.

          If a contestant on UC starts his answer before Paxo has finished the question, Paxo immediately shuts up and the contestant either gets the answer correct or loses his team five points. Humphrys refuses to permit the contestant butt in to answer the question prematurely and sometimes the questions go on for an age, considerably reducing the allotted two minutes.

          1. Mr Humphries is about to be replaced.
            Anne Robinson is taking over the chair on Countdown.
            And suggesting even more ladies should be on the show.

    1. We saw this video yesterday. I have spent the night wracking my pore brane trying to decide how the woman voted…..

    2. Brilliant.
      That wont get an airing in the UK. All the bbc show us is a ranting idiot reporter standing out side the white house.
      No journalistic integrity, as he says.

      1. Those two words ‘journalistic’ and ‘integrity’ were divorced some time ago …. they never really got on.

  21. Hilarious news from the ever closer union:

    “Brussels has reprimanded Germany for largely closing its borders to travellers from the Czech Republic, Slovakia and parts of Austria to try to protect itself against mutant strains of coronavirus.

    Yesterday morning the German authorities set up checkpoints across much of the southern frontier to turn back all arrivals from these areas except lorry drivers, key workers and German residents and citizens. Rail, bus and air links have also been cut.”

    I bet yer Germans quaked in their jackboots.

    1. It takes great courage from the EU actually to criticise Germany and France. On the other hand they have never been remotely afraid of treating Britain with total contempt.

      1. I would call it, Richard, gross foolishness. If both France and Germany turned against Brussels that would be wonderful, as it would herald the total collapse of this totalitarian regime.

  22. Good morning, my friends

    On the one hand I can understand people being thoroughly pissed off by celebrities flouting the regulations; on the other hand I can understand a woman responding to a worrying call from her parents and driving across the country to go and see them. This is what happened to Amanda Holden – and she was reported by ‘responsible and upright’ members of the public who clearly had everyone’s best interests at heart. Tim Stanley’s article in the DT tells this story and wonders how and why so many people have been recruited as domestic spies. Here is a BTL comment:

    The horror of the Russian communist regime was painted very vividly for my generation who were children in the 1950’s.

    We were brought up to fear, mistrust and hold in contempt those who wanted people to spy on each other and children to betray their parents and wanted to control what we thought and what we said. As soon as we could read and were capable of understanding it we were given ‘Animal Farm’ and ‘Nineteen Eighty Four’ to read.

    1950’s Russia has morphed into 2020’s Britain.

    And here is the article:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/15/republicans-need-trumpism-without-trump/

    1. I wonder if, had it not been a celebrity, whether anyone would have reported the incident of an adult visiting a sick relative?

    2. “responsible and upright”- code for the sort of people who shopped their neighbours to the Gestapo, NKVD or Stasi in previous regimes!

      1. A program yesterday ( Abandoned Engineering) showed the Stasi building. It also showed a man who had been arrested and taken by them. When it all collapsed he managed to get his file to see who had reported him – only to find out it was his own brother.

    3. Amanda Holden travels to Cornwall to visit her mother….naughty girl!

      Visitors to fly into Heathrow every day from all over the world….

        2. 329432+ up ticks,
          Morning W,
          Elections coming, up by their past odious actions the lab/lib/con coalition in any decent, God fearing Country would need to find another electorate whether that applies to these Isles today is yet to be seen.
          This pretendee tory group is,
          via Dover & amnesties making sure of at least some votes, if their tribal’s turn sensible.

        2. When I read that Halfcock had “booked a cottage” in Cornwall – I did wonder whether his plan was to combine the family vacation with the G7 – and so get it paid for by you and me…

      3. And Harry hasn’t exactly been keeping two meters away has he ? Unless of course…………………well he’s not that royal.

      1. Or read any of Tom Rob Smith’s excellent novels about life in the Communist USSR. Child 44 and Agent 6, in particular, are recommended.

  23. Roman Abramovich: An apology. Independent. 15 February 2021.

    In an article we published on 6 February 2021 headed “Vladimir Putin is a ‘monkey with a grenade’: Navalny aide says it is time to get tough with Russian leader” we wrongly reported claims by Mr Leonid Volkov that Mr Abramovich is a bag carrier for President Putin’s illicit presidential wealth and named him as an individual who should be sanctioned.

    The Independent accepts that Mr Abramovich is not a “bag carrier” for President Putin and we did not mean to allege that he should be subjected to punitive sanction. We note that Mr Abramovich’s representatives have stated publicly that there is no foundation for such claims.

    We are happy to make this clear and apologise to Mr Abramovich for any misunderstanding. In view of these errors we have agreed to make a donation to a charity nominated by Mr Abramovich and to pay his legal costs.

    Whoops!

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/roman-abramovich-apology-navalny-putin-b1801670.html

    4. “We would also like to take this opportunity to thank Mr Abramovich’s representative for coming to our offices to explain this in some detail. We had tea together and the man kindly allowed us to admire his Makarov.”

    1. Morning Rix – A damming item criticising the lies and corruption of our PM and his stooges. The PCR results are meaningless after 35 amplifications but our medics are going well beyond that number which could be anything such as fruit or animal particles. Tests have also shown that masks are not halting the
      – spread of the virus.
      I have taken the vaccine and accept the threat to life of vulnerable people but I fear the Government’s lockdown, which is really to cover the failure of the NHS managers to prepare for pandemics, has caused the premature deaths of thousands of our people suffering from the normal life threatening conditions and being denied appropriate treatment. The PCR test is being used by Government to disguise the extent of these non covid deaths and to tighten the lockdown protocols..
      This government has severely damaged the economy with the multiple lockdowns.

  25. Anyway, it’s pretty obvious what is going on now in the Johnson administration………

    The fact that Tony Blair is now advising Johnson and Hancock is much the same as selling off state assets cheap to best friends and cronies as Tony used to do, and sharing the profits at the back door.

    Tony Blair’s advice is of no value.

    That doesn’t matter to the plan which is to liberate huge sums of public money to pay Tony’s multi million dollar bill which Tony then shares out with Johnson and Hancock.

    Not only that. Tony gets paid at the other end too by Gates and Soros to be the go between and to get them what they want from Johnson. That gets shared out as well, and Tony advises Johnson how the billionaires will further reward him in secret.. After all, Gates and Soros can hardly roll up in a taxi at Downing Street and hand over a cheque.

    The result is Tony Blair, Boros Johnson, Hancock and accomplices get rich and laugh all the way to the bank…. and everyone else gets Gates and Soros style global government… no car, no heating and windmills everywhere.

    The whole thing is pure Deep State !

    1. “Tony Blair’s advice is of no value.”
      It is to his bank manAger and posh estate agents.

  26. Libs Dems warn China over ‘international bullying’ after sanctions threat. 15 february 2021.

    The Liberal Democrats have warned China against “international bullying” after a call by UK MPs for countries to boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics was met by a warning of potential sanctions.

    Last week, Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, joined with the Labour MP and former Foreign Office minister Chris Bryant in demanding that the government and the British Olympic Association act over the mass repression of the Muslim Uighur population in the Chinese region of Xinjiang, which campaigners say constitutes genocide.

    Chinese terrorised by Lib/Dem threat! There’s no doubt that the world is going down the tube!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/15/libs-dems-warn-china-over-international-bullying-after-sanctions-threat-boycott-winter-olympics-uighurs

    1. Which organization directs the Liberal Democrats ?

      Open Society London !

      Warning China will be worth a million dollar one hour speech, just like Theresa May !

    3. Of course the Left would be against China’s treatment of Muslims. Never a peep from them when it is Christians being tortured and murdered around the world.

      Who are the Lib/Dems anyway? Nobodies.

    4. I demand that Ed Davey and Chris Bryant have their pensions, which they have worked for confiscated if China does not back down to their demands.

      If they can deprive young people who have strived for years of their brief and possibly only chance of the Olympics, they should also lose something they have set their hearts on.

    5. Could you mention the Muslim violence on the Buddhists – violence that went on for a decade. unreported by the media?

      Or doesn’t he even know the slightest thing about the history of that conflict? Does he not know that the Chinese simply got fed up with the Muslims throwing their weight around and stamped on them?

      1. I remember seeing a Buddhist whipping a Muslim with one of those thin sticks like a bamboo cane.

        I thought it clear that he had been driven to it.

    6. Mind you, all those contemplating putting Solar (Photo-Voltaic (V)) panels on their rooves or lauding the proliferation of so-called ‘Solar Farms’ might revise their thoughts after reading this article.

      Global solar industry faces up to its problems in Xinjiang
      The booming solar industry is facing up to the connection between human rights abuses in China and the panels sat on British roofs

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2021/02/14/global-solar-industry-faces-problems-xinjiang/

  27. Oh dear; I will go to Huell.
    Bill phoned me about bits and bobs; but he was mainly miffed at being woken at 06.00 to be weighed.
    I laughed and said “Well, now you really know you’re in hospital”.
    Currently waiting for a large finger to break through the clouds and bombard me with thunderbolts.

    1. Good morning Anne! Nothing like a little light relief first thing in the morning! It’s for his own good! I can’t see the sword of Damocles so I think you might have got away with it! Glad Bill is feeling well enough to be miffed!

      1. It is a positive; he was certainly not up to being miffed a couple of days ago.
        Maybe we could come up with a new index; The Miffed Index. 1 is v.v. ill; 10 is bugger, he’s recovered.

          1. 🙂
            12. Tie him to the roof rack and rock up at Basildon Cardio reception and refuse to no for an answer.

    3. Stay in side Anne 😉
      Last time I was in for a few days I was plugged into everything, sleep was very rare.

    4. Good morning Anne and everyone.
      Could I recommend an eye covering (like those they provide on long haul flights) ?
      Not much darkness on the average ward.
      Best wishes.

      1. I use one of those in the campervan. Even with the blinds and curtains drawn, there still seems to be enough light to keep me awake.

      1. I used to get woken up at 03.00 to have BP and oxygen read. Given the light, the general noise and being in a strange bed, I had barely managed to get to sleep.

    6. Well, that is appalling , hospitals expect patients to fit in with their routines , how insensitive , poor Bill needed his sleep , absolutely wrong to disturb him , I expect it was a night staff thing before the day staff arrived .

      1. Is that a play on World Health Organisation?

        It is Dr Tony Fauci medical advisor to the US government, anti-Trump, allegedly instrumental in taking the covid/coronavirus to Wuhan labs from the US for further development after being banned (distancing himself) by Obama. Allegedly and off the top of my head.

        1. I had to look at it on my Phone, no link shown on my PC screen. But see if you can watch the post by Lewis Duckworth below.
          Re the snake.

    2. 329432+up ticks,
      Morning Rik,
      If any missed the opportunity for infamy then how about
      totally ignoring the warnings in 2005 via Gerard Batten on
      the very real dangers of islamic ideology for future political mass murderers.

      Already come to pass.

      Collusion is to be witnessed NOW by the oath taking, permission to lie to non believers instruction manual in parliament, resting betwixt the dispatch boxes, plus the
      parliamentary canteen halal inclusive menu.

      And still many of the voting ovis are mutton jeff to what we
      could be about to receive.

    3. Feeds into the current narrative, as ably demonstrated by the You Tuber Black Pigeon Speaks (on his Felix Rex channel) in his satirical video:

      https://youtu.be/QZxo-QN76pI

      Just 3-4 mins long. Mad world indeed. Please view and share the video (link) as widely as you can, given the importance of the issues. The MSM has a LOT to answer for in their terrible, hypocritical reporting of the last decade, especially during the last year or two, culminating in their reporting of the pandemic.

      1. Put up on Ar5ebook, Andy, with the heading, “Here’s one for the fact-checkers to digest.”

  29. Morning to all.
    Earlier I just caught a quick glimpse of a story (hardly news) on the BBC TV news this morning. The BBC seem to be investigating the activities of the London Jewish communities as to their preferences when it comes to, or came to lock down and a certain wedding. And it went on to mention prayer meetings and similar gatherings. One of the reporters was seen talking to i suspect an investigator there was snow i on the ground and it was still snowing. But it hasn’t snowed for at least three days, even at a massive stretch of the imagination, it hardly comes a cross as news does it ? I look forward to the their investigations on other religious groups gatherings and activities. Or not.

  30. 320432+ up ticks,
    We really never do learn from history , do we,

    breitbart,

    Coronavirus Patients with Learning Disabilities Given ‘Do Not Resuscitate Orders’ in Britain

      1. 329432+ up ticks,
        Morning B3,
        Inclusive of ALL wanna be mengeles / goebbels etc,etc, they are still out there.

      1. 329432+ up ticks,
        Morning Db,
        Go to breitbart,

        Coronavirus Patients with Learning Disabilities Given ‘Do Not Resuscitate Orders’ in Britain
        KURT ZINDULKA14 Feb 2021, 1:11 PM PST

    2. I see Darren in church but of course there’s a ban on socialising at the mo so no opportunity to say hello.

  33. Mail to a Con MP………………

    How extraordinary !

    Tony Blair, who apparently sold off UK state assets cheap in low price sweetheart deals in very dubious circumstances to his new best friend George Soros whom he met at the New York Plaza Hotel in April 1996 and who copied Mr Soros’ policies virtually word for word, is now ”secretly” advising Mr Hancock and Mr Johnson !

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tony-blair-advising-matt-hancock-coronavirus-vaccine-b1785125.html

    Mr Hancock has tweeted very favorably of Mr Soros so it’s pretty obvious who knows who very well.

    What’s more, ”Conservative Woman” tells us today………..

    ”The Tories Have Turned Into Bill Gates’ Lapdogs” !

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-tories-have-turned-into-bill-gatess-lapdogs/

    ”SINCE the political elite gathered virtually for the 2021 Davos Summit last month, the Conservative Party have taken their climate change dogma to hysterical heights. They have morphed into an operational arm of the World Economic Forum (WEF), Bill Gates and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).”

    How interesting that ”Conservative Woman” agrees with me !

    Have a great day !

    Polly

    2. And a textbook response from the Alphabet People. Ye gods and little fishes , as my dear departed Dad use to say, these people deserve an early and painful euthanasia.

      “The pro-LGBTQ organization, Human Rights Campaign, condemned the bill as “attempting to sow fear and hate.
      “These bills are not addressing any real problem, and they’re not being requested by constituents,” Human Rights Campaign said in a statement.
      “Rather, this effort is being driven by national far-right organizations attempting to sow fear and hate,” the statement continued

      1. Well, speaking as a spokesman for the POMASUNVIWBDRH* community, I have to say that we deplore the notion of ‘Human Rights’ and fully support the implementation of a law enforcing Human Responsibilities‘.

        *Pissed Off, Messed About, Stood Upon, Normal, Virtuous, Incorruptible, Well-Behaved, Deferential, Respectful, Honest.

      2. 329432+ up ticks,
        Afternoon D,
        A missing element that is seriously damaging the fabric of society
        imo is tolerance, going back to the days of singing in pubs
        pay night through the week-end many a poof gave an entertaining turn behind a mike ( audio) and was applauded they were part & parcel of living and toleration being the key, worked.

        The lost world via the ballot booth.

    3. And a textbook response from the Alphabet People. Ye gods and little fishes , as my dear departed Dad use to say, these people deserve an early and painful euthanasia.

      “The pro-LGBTQ organization, Human Rights Campaign, condemned the bill as “attempting to sow fear and hate.
      “These bills are not addressing any real problem, and they’re not being requested by constituents,” Human Rights Campaign said in a statement.
      “Rather, this effort is being driven by national far-right organizations attempting to sow fear and hate,” the statement continued

    1. That looks probiotically healthy.

      Do you plait the pastry for your sausage rolls or are they score marks.

        1. In that case you get a score of 10/10.

          I do plait mine when making a dinner sized portion. I mix the sausage meat with fried onions and spices.

          1. Do you make your own sausage meat? I do. I buy the spice mixes, rusk and casings from Weschenfelder, suppliers to butchers in the UK, online.

            I then mince some shoulder and belly pork, mix in the rusk, water and spices, then place it into a food processor to get a smoother texture. I made some last week and replaced the water with a can of tomatoes to make some delicious pork and tomato sausage, a Midlands speciality.

          2. Sounds good.

            I do but not often as i don’t eat it that much. I have a mincing attachment on my machine which makes short work of it as long as you run it through twice.

  36. Boris Johnson: “Vaccine passports unlikely to be used domestically”.

    So that’s not a definitive ‘No’, then Boris…how convenient.

    2. In other words they will be imposed for International travel………
      Mealy-Mouthed bastards!!!!

      1. I wonder what percentage of Nottlers have confidence in Boris Johnson and trust him.

        I DO NOT

        Is anybody here prepared to say that they do have confidence in him?

          1. And he can’t even do that well. He’s one of the most unconvincing lying bastards you’ll ever see.

            (‘Afternoon BTW!)

      3. A number of airlines have already stated that they won’t carry people without a vaccination certificate..what’s the news?

    3. That from the man who said a second lockdown would be a disaster and that shutting down Christmas would be inhuman!!

    1. If there are any problems you have no come backs as all indemnity has been removed from the makers. glad you are OK.

    2. It is the second jab that causes the problems. Should you survive that, its meeting up with any old coronavirus you may encounter during the winter months. You will be written off as a covid victim, not a vaccine victim.

      1. That was what happened to the test animals in the first coronavirus vaccine trials. They were fine until they came up against the virus “in the wild”, then they all snuffed it.

  38. The Lord Of The Vaccines

    One vaccine to rule them all, one vaccine to find them, One vaccine to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them; In the Land of Mordor where the shadows lie.

  39. Family cat dies trying to protect young children from Australia’s most dangerous snake. 15 February 2021.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fca6d55d411a9e12a8de62eb657b04b9b2f24c933eb60861de064aa884cd6698.jpg

    Arthur, the shorthair pet cat, was not able to survive the snake bike and died the next day

    A pet cat in Australia’s Queensland has been dubbed as a “four-legged hero” after it died fighting a venomous snake to protect young children.

    The mischievous shorthair cat named Arthur was following the two children and playing in the backyard when the highly venomous eastern brown snake slithered right up to the children.

    According to a Facebook post by Animal Emergency Service, the brave cat immediately jumped into action and killed the snake to protect the children from danger.

    Good on Arthur!

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/cat-snake-bite-australia-save-children-b1802315.html

    1. Cat saw thing sliding and moving and killed it. That what cats do. He had no idea in his feline head of “saving” children.

      Sorry to put this otherwise heartwarming story in perspective.

      2. You wait until your kitties have you firmly in their power. You’ll be anphropormorphasizing all the time.

      4. No, no, Bill. I’m sure that as it leapt forward in its most timely intervention, the cat thought, “Dulce et decorum est pro parvuli mori.”

  41. This joke was sent me by an old friend:

    Paddy was on his death bed and knew the end was near.

    His nurse, his wife, his daughter and 2 sons are with him at his home in Belfast .

    He asks for 2 independent witnesses to be present and a camcorder be in place to record his last wishes.

    When all is ready he begins to speak:

    “My son Seamus, I want you to take the houses in Cultra.”

    “My daughter Geraldine , you take the apartments over in Malone Road.”

    “My son Patrick Junior, I want you to take the offices in the City centre.”

    “Bridget, my dear wife, please take all the residential properties on the Upper Lisburn Road .”

    The nurse and witnesses are blown away. They did not realize the extent of Paddy’s wealth. As he slips away, the nurse says to his wife, “Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, my deepest condolences. Your husband must have been such a hard-working and wonderful man to have accumulated all this property”..

    “Property?”, his wife replies. “The ****** had a window cleaning round.”

    1. “…somehow, you’re not allowed to die from coronavirus – ever.”

      Indeed. Nobody coughed before covid.

    3. Well said The member for Broxbourne. Appearing on Channel 4 news is akin putting your head into a the mouth of an alligator.
      The MP’s last observation was about human contact. No such thing on that news channel.

          1. Here it is:-

            Robert Spowart
            14 Feb 2021 2:55AM
            Brian Gedalla fails to realise that Matt Hancock had a point about the impossibility of a grown up conversation about the NHS for as soon as any political party make any noises suggestive of a much needed NHS Reform, the Usual Suspects comprising of The Labour Party, Trades Union Activists and the entrenched Self Interest REMFs within the Upper Reaches of NHS Bureaucracy immediately kick into overdrive mode with the hysteric kneejerk screams of “THEY WANT TO PRIVATISE THE NHS!!” and “SAVE OUR NHS!!”

            As a result of which, any thought of meaningful NHS Reform is either torpedoed at the start or, should proposals actually be made, implemented in such a desultory fashion as to be ineffective and very often counter productive.

  44. Memories of Decimal Day, 15/02/71.

    A girl from the wages dept came down to the works to try and explain it all to us (I was working in engineering at the time). A few years later, after I’d joined the police, an old copper told me a tale.

    He told me about going to a remote farm, way out in the Peak District, on a enquiry. He chatted to the old lady farmer who lived there and casually asked her what she thought about the new decimal coinage. “Oh, I don’t worry about it at all,” she replied, “it won’t catch on around here.”

    1. I used to receive small gifts from my relatives in Orkney. One Christmas I received a ten shilling note. That was two years after they had been withdrawn from circulation on the Scottish Mainland.

        1. I could have. I kept it as a souvenir because it amused me. I may have it still, between the pages of a book I haven’t read for a long while.

  45. Idiot BPAPM says that the manner of lifting restrictions will be: “Cautious but irreversible”.…

    So – BPAPM – when the next effing WAVE hits – there will be no more restrictions?

    You really are a useless plonker.

        1. While the noun prevarication is mostly just a fancy way to say “lie,” it can also mean skirting around the truth, being vague about the truth, or even delaying giving someone an answer, especially to avoid telling them the whole truth.

          2. You are absolutely correct, Nursey. The word is not, though, a synonym for procrastination; which is what a lot of people think it is.

  46. I’ve just bought (£10) the collected Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister Box Set. There seems something ineffably sad about my having to watch (I don’t think that I have seen most of them) a forty year old Television series. It seems to deny progress or says something about myself I would rather not know!

    Wikipedia does say something about them which rings true but not about modern BBC fare.

    Critics, such as Andrew Davies in the Times Educational Supplement and Armando Iannucci, have noted that the show had high expectations of its audience. Lynn posits that the public are more intelligent than most situation comedies, often patronizingly, give them credit for.

    Anyway it should last me well into the spring!

    2. I have the books, which follow the scripts exactly. They don’t date. Interestingly, my relatives ‘Stateside love them too.

    3. Currently watching Season 2 of Yes, Minister. Eagerly awaiting the famous season 3 episode of them in Qumran with the booze references…then onto Yes, Prime Minister and the episode called ‘The Key’…

    3. Not that I was alive back then, but I still have some pre-decimal coinage in my ‘money box’, including a thruppenny bit.

      1. I have read somewhere that TB is becoming rife in the UK – purely down to infected immigrants arriving here. Import the 3rd World etc.

    2. 329432+ up ticks,
      Afternoon Rik,
      Confirming my recent post when asking why NO lock-downs regarding TB that had been nigh on eradicated within these Isles until the lab/lib/con coalition party re-introduced it,

  49. DT Story

    Analysis: Will Prince Harry ever return to the UK or is he destined to be a Stateside royal?
    There has long been a growing sense that the American actress has turned her back on the Blighty she briefly called home

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2021/02/15/analysis-meghan-harrys-bid-privacy-terms-wont-wash-british/

    Few of here probably give much of a toss but it is rather sad. I wonder if the announcement of a new child on the way will bring forward or postpone the inevitable divorce?

    2. If you look carefully at the latest awful photograph, accompanied by the announcement, I do not think that is Harry. He has less hair than is shown, the bump on the right forehead has gone, and the nose is bigger. (I would agree the first two could be photoshopped, but who wants their nose to be enlarged?) When you see that, you also see that the face is not quite the same. I also do not think the woman is Markle, turn it so that she is upright and look closely, it is a different face. We are presented with an illusion.

      2. I didn’t look that closely………… but she seemed to be showing quite a bump. Gets her out of travelling here for the celebrations this summer, anyway.

          1. The Queen’s birthday…..Phil’s centenary, unveiling Diana’s memorial – Harry’s supposed to be coming over.

      4. He does seem to have a lot of hair, but I expect he’s been Hollywoodified by now. Probably could recognise him by his feet, if there’s another photo of them somewhere!

    3. In the picture, lying on her back, Meghan’s bump looks pretty well developed. I’m no expert, but 6 or 7 months? Which would make conception August or September 2020?
      She had a miscarriage in July. She must be very keen.

      2. Insurance Cover. Heir and Spare. Belt and Braces.
        Even in LaLa Land, life can still be a smidge uncertain.

    1. 329432+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      Could this very sad issue bring about a plague of partner killings Og ?
      Dunno but these lock-downs are going to have a great many nasty side effects going forward especially with peoples of expert twatologist b liar advising , what could go right.

    1. My Windies came yesterday. I thought about telling them not to bother in the winter months but thought better off it. They are cheerful chaps and always endeavour to make me laugh.

      1. “My Windies came yesterday.”

        Gordon Greenidge? Brian Lara? Sir Viv Richards? Come on, we must be told who!

  53. MMMmmmm.
    For Valentine’s Day I bought some macarons. A wonderful selection box of different flavours. Delivered quickly by post.
    Visit mademoisellemacaron.co.uk. This is not, unfortunately, a sponsored advertisement.
    Spoil yourself, or surprise someone. You know that you should, or shouldn’t…

    3. Looking at that photo of the street ( tree-lined avenue/not much traffic/no yellow lines ) is there any wonder they will do anything to get here, then kill or rape to ensure they stay here – courtesy of our taxes? Even the triple killer we are going to spend millions on for the rest of his life will be very happy in jail ( warm/dry/fed/fresh water/ toilet/ healthcare )

  55. Gorgeous sunny morning ,

    Cleaned my kitchen floor , which took some doing , and washed piles of laundry .

    Sun has vanished now, so no warmth left . Birds are on the feeders , sparrows starlings and great tits.

  56. Bill Gates deigns to give the BBC an audience.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/86b37262349f785c7246261124a30e61b043da13871a5ca9a356b244647b1c94.jpg

    A screenshot from today’s 1pm news in which Billy Boy tells us that dealing with Covid will be so much easier than, yes, CLIMATE CHANGE.

    There then follows scenes of forest fires and buildings falling into swollen rivers, the usual propaganda – millions more will die this way.

    Bill will save us!

    4. How to Avoid a Climate Disaster by Bill Gates
      Radio 4
      Book of the Week. Bill Gates sets out his plan for how the world can get to zero greenhouse gas emissions in time to avoid a climate catastrophe.

      I turned off after 5 minutes….

        1. This guy starts out as a computer nerd – not a particularly bright one – and then by chance finds a business opportunity to market his “nerdery”, becoming as rich as Croesus in the process.

          Almost overnight, he becomes an expert in all manner of science disciplines. He poses as an expert in virology, in epidemiology, in climatology (other ‘ologies are available) and folk hang on his every word as if they were handed down as Divine pronouncements.

          It’s un-bloody-believable!
          :¬(

          1. He claims to have given $3.4 million to the Daily Telegraph.

            For that money he’ll get great respect.

          2. Amazing, Duncan! The richer he got the cleverer he got! And the world leaders think he’s the Messiah!
            What a shower of shonets!

          3. If a 160 IQ is not particularly bright then what is? That’s the same IQ as Einstein.

            Bill Gates won a few coding competitions when he was young. He was an excellent coder. He was also finding and fixing bugs in professionally written source code at 13.

            Like many high IQ people formal education bored the pants off him. He scored 10 points short of a maximum SATs score and was accepted by Harvard. Even Harvard bored him.

            You massively underestimate him.

          4. So Gates and Einstein share the same IQ. Allegedly.

            But unlike Gates, at least Einstein had the commonsense and humility not to pose himself as an expert in fields for which he had received no scientific training whatsoever.

            Like all psychopathic megalomaniacs, Gates massively overestimates himself.

          5. And like all good business owners he has experts that work for him that feed him the knowledge he needs as a spokesperson.
            What makes you think Gates wants power and has psychopathic tendencies? He’s made a fortune and trying to do something philanthropic with some of it before he expires. I don’t subscribe to the Pollyitis fantasies about him, there’s little evidence of anything she goes on about. He has the money to buy the presidency of USA if he wants to. Power doesn’t seem to interest him at all. What he loves most is simply making money. He’s the ultimate capitalist. Why do you celebrate capitalist success stories until they reach stratospheric success levels then deride them. It seems very common here. Bezos, Gates, Musk, Branson and the suchlike don’t just get criticism from you they get hatred and revulsion, but you wouldn’t want capitalism replaced by anything else would you? Well where you have capitalism you’ll always have the capitalist super-success stories.

    7. The Northwest could see a year’s worth of snow this weekend. February 12 2021.

      The second in a series of three storms is forecast to hit the Pacific Northwest this weekend, putting 8 million people under winter weather alerts.

      The second storm is expected to arrive Friday night into Saturday and bring possible record-setting snowfall totals and icy conditions. Portland and Seattle could see more than a year’s worth of snow before Valentine’s Day.

      Those cities experienced the first round of the storm Thursday into Friday morning, with Portland getting 1 inch of snow.

      Bill lives in Seattle!

      https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/12/weather/snow-northwest-saturday-forecast-portland-seattle/index.html

  57. So if I identify as a pregnant woman (soon to be a chestfeeder) I wont have to have the vaccine to travel??
    (those that have met me will be issued mindbleach as necessary)
    If refused boarding I demand millions in compo for hurt feelings(snigger)

  59. Oxford and Cambridge universities should accept pupils from the top 8-10% of applications. If there is a sector where children aren’t attaining the standard necessary, then their schooling needs to be improved, not the entry standards lowered.

    By accepting fewer independent school students, is Oxbridge punishing middle-class parents?

    ANNABEL HESELTINE
    15 February 2021 • 1:35pm

    Under pressure from The Office for Students (OfS), Oxford and Cambridge have announced they are dramatically capping their intake of privately educated pupils in favour of state school educated students, admitting that this will adversely affect the number of places available to middle-class pupils educated in the independent sector.

    Over the next five years, Oxford have pledged to cut their ratio of students from the wealthiest areas of the country to those from the most deprived from around 15:1 to 8:1 and Cambridge have committed to cutting their ratio from around 14:1 to 6.7:1.

    The fairness, or unfairness, of so many wealthier students getting into Oxbridge, or indeed any other of the top universities, like UCL and Imperial in London or top Russell Group universities, is one of the thorniest issues taxing the heads of independent schools, as it strikes at the very heart of the reason why parents scrape together to pay school fees of up to £42,500 a year.

    Parents spend an eye-watering sum of money because they believe its the best way they can help their kids to get ahead. Translated, the thinking is: good school, good university, good job – ergo more money, more choice and a better life.

    But if the top universities aren’t playing ball then that throws a pretty weighty spanner into the independent educational works. Eton’s Oxbridge intake this year was so much lower that the deputy head actually felt compelled to write a letter to parents to explain why.

    Eton et al have a problem. While seven per cent of all students are educated in the independent sector, and 18 percent at A level, typically 30 to 40 per cent of all entrants to Oxbridge come from the private sector.

    Last year, however, the figure changed, with one Oxford college, Mansfield, offering 94 per cent of it places to state school pupils.

    The fallout of all this is nimby-ism at its most graphic. Objectively, no-one likes the idea that a bright, motivated pupil from a disadvantaged background should be deprived of a life-changing shot at one of the greatest intellectual establishments in the world because of a lack of education.

    Most would agree on the fairness of a cap on those being offered Oxbridge places because they have had the advantage of an independent school education. But when push comes to shove, none of those same parents would want their child to be the one that loses out. And with some good reason.

    It is far too simplistic to assume that all pupils attending independent schools are wealthy. So the policy ignores at best, and undermines at worst, the parents who work night and day to send their children to independent schools, including hardworking doctors, nurses and teachers.

    It undermines the excellence of many state schools. And it ignores the wealthy parents who send their children to state schools and then supplement their education with tutoring.

    I remember once attending an education conference at Wellington College, where one of the best-attended debates was a discussion about state education.

    At one point, a man beside me laughed cynically, and said, “Go and look in the car park of the local state school. Its full of Range Rovers and sports cars. Here the cars are all secondhand bangers, as parents put all their money into their children’s education.”

    Most significantly, the policy also ignores the work done by independent schools to actively seek out and support pupils from underprivileged and poor backgrounds. Four years ago, my magazine, School House, launched a separate Scholarships and Bursaries publication to highlight the amount of work being done by schools to support children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

    We found that schools are working hard, but still need organisations like the Sutton Trust and Royal SpringBoard, a network of organisations targeting pupils from the most deprived parts of the country including local authorities, charities and state schools, to seek out these pupils because of the limited ambitions of many parents of children from impoverished backgrounds. This year alone new bursaries have been announced by schools like Caterham and Reigate Grammar to support NHS keyworkers.

    I have interviewed pupils in schools all over the country who are only in independent schools because they are on a full bursary, from the poorest parts of Harrogate in Yorkshire to East Kent.

    Schools are already seeking out those bright and motivated pupils who would benefit from the additional support, so it seems counterintuitive that these same pupils, having been given a scholarship, could then be deprived of the fruit of their work simply because of a numbers game.

    Of course, the numbers of pupils given these opportunities through the independent sector are still tiny relative to the number of pupils being educated. The Independent Schools Council admits that in 2019 only 34 per cent of pupils received help with their fees, and of these 176,633 pupils, only 5,998 were receiving full funding, with just over 11,500 more students receiving 75 per cent funding, but this is where the work needs to be done.

    There is a reason why parents place the value of their child’s education over holidays, homes and cars, and why we receive so many pupils from all over the world, bringing with them potential for future collaborations, and that is because the education provided by an independent school is exceptional. This should not be undermined. On the contrary, these schools should be supported.

    So, just as the universities need to expand in order to allow all the brightest pupils access to their colleges, rather than undermining the work of so many teachers, educationalists and pupils, so, too, the focus should be on expanding the provision of funding for pupils from disadvantaged background so that they can access independent schools and then go onto some of the best universities in the country, alongside the children of the parents who have scrimped and saved to get their children there too.

    1. Those parents will then invest in housing to try to be in the catchment area of the best state schools.

      1. That happened very spectacularly in Edinburgh when the Royal High School moved from the City Centre to Barnton. Barnton was already a pretty well-heeled area (rich doctors etc) and house prices leapt upwards.

        1. One of the BTL comments suggested that people will send their children to private schools up to GCSE level and then move them into Sixth Form Colleges or Grammar Schools or Comps which offer “A” levels so that they can lose the terrible stigma of having gone to a public school.

    2. So an Oxbridge education is no longer about academic excellence – it is about social engineering.

      The trouble is that once it is well known that Oxbford and Cambridge have been prepared to adjust their academic standards to appease politically correct woke dogma their international standing will fall like a stone.

      1. This article was written by Michael Heseltine’s daughter. He stabbed Margaret Thatcher, the best prime minister in recent history, in the back and she too wants to stab our rapidly declining academic standards in the back.

      2. This article was written by Michael Heseltine’s daughter. He stabbed Margaret Thatcher, the best prime minister in recent history, in the back and she too wants to stab our rapidly declining academic standards in the back.

    3. Bright working class students used to reach Oxford and Cambridge via the Grammar Schools. At a Wigmore Hall social do years ago I met an Oxford Professor who told me that she took one student with a Comprehensive School background each year but they always struggled, while Grammar School students did as well as those from Public Schools.

      1. There is no reason why state schools should not educate all children to a high standard. Not all will wish to go to University. We should expect the state schools to work to achieve this, by ensuring that the teaching staff are up to the job. (Are teachers ever fired for not being good enough?)

      2. My Dad followed the grammar school route, Sue. Son of a mineworker in West Hartlepool, he got to university, had some war service, went back, rose to Ph.D, became a lecturer, then Professor, head of department (in Nigeria, two universities there) and Deputy Vice Chancellor.
        You just can’t keep a Northern lad down!

        1. Me too. I went to art school. My art portfolio was good enough but my two A levels were never going to get me a university place back then. Nor did I want one.

          1. My mum wouldn’t let me go to art school,Iasked why? she said I would become a Bohemian and grow my hair long…..

    4. Oxford and Cambridge will have to lower their standards if they let too many disadvantaged students in. The pace at Oxford or Cambridge is far higher than in a normal state school, and nearly double that of any other UK university. They are getting all smug about the numbers of private school kids getting places, but the simple fact is that these kids have covered twice the workload of state school kids.
      That’s the workload they will be expected to keep up with at university. Clearly many of the state school kids won’t make it, so the universities will have to lower their standards to keep producing the “same” results.

  60. We have today received a booklet from the NHS Scotland/Scottish government telling us that “the law on organ and tissue donation is changing”. I suppose that every household in Scotland has received the same booklet. We will now have to tell the Organ Donation Register that we wish to opt out.
    This led me to think about what NHS Scotland does in respect of organ transplants and also in a wider context.
    There are around 500 transplants of some kind every year in Scotland. I looked at the figures for kidney transplants of which there are around 400 per year. In summary, a transplant extends the recipients life by around 10 years on average. The cost of this for the operation and annual immune-suppression treatment for ten years is a total of £67,000. The cost of dialysis for 10 years would be £310,00 per patient. For 400 patients the transplant cost is £27million, compared to £124million for dialysis for 10 years. (Figures calculated from sources below.)
    The NHS state that the transplant route is more cost-effective than long term dialysis, as supported by the figures.
    However, the question is maybe not what is the cost-effective way of keeping alive persons with kidney failure, but why are we doing this at all? That is, if people have kidney failure should we not just accept that and focus NHS resources elsewhere? In addition to the financial cost which is an easy calculation regarding cost of theatre time and medic time, and ward time and so on, there is the opportunity cost of not being able to treat others.
    It is perhaps fair to say that when the NHS was envisaged it was not really expected to treat everything. Priorities may have been to ensure safe childbirth and healthy children growing up protected from polio, diphtheria and other diseases. Treatment of adults to ensure a healthy and fit working class was also required, I suppose.
    I do not think that cosmetic surgery for non-trauma patients, IVF treatment, and similar were ever envisaged as being provided.
    So any consideration of the NHS should take a hard line on the services it should provide and to whom. Why do we treat those who have arrived in our country and have no means to pay, now or ever, but arrived here simply to batten on our silly generosity? There should be no treatment for those from other countries unless the patient is entitled to treatment in their own country and also that UK visitors to that country are also treated in the same manner, i.e. that there is a fully reciprocal arrangement that costs the UK nothing?
    I think that this is a debate worth having.

    Oops, edit add-
    https://nhsbtmediaservices.blob.core.windows.net/organ-donation-assets/pdfs/Organ_Donation_Registry_Fact_Sheet_7_21337.pdf
    https://nhsbtdbe.blob.core.windows.net/umbraco-assets-corp/21644/nhsbt-scotland-summary-report-dec-20.pdf

        1. I understand there is a good medical reason for reducing large breasts; back strain being one of them, believe it or not.

      2. AFAIR, the cosmetic surgery on the NHS was explained by the effects on the patients mental health.

        1. That is so. Unless it is trauma related eg.. burns, the treatment should be related to fixing the mental problem – and that should be treated privately?

          1. Mental issues are often as serious as physical, although not as visible.
            Doesn’t mean that every tiny trauma should be expensively fixed.

          2. I’m not disagreeing. I am saying that we need to debate this and make decisions to draw hard lines.

      3. Yes indeed. That is all part of the required debate. We cannot go on providing ever more medical services for an ever widening range of reasons to an ever-increasing population.

    2. All depends where you put the cost-benefit line for a patient.
      You could say that fixing broken legs is beyond the NHS by using exactly the same argument as kidney transplants. Where do you stop? What is a life worth, and how does that vary with age and economic status (or even, does it vary with age & economic status?)

      2. Yes indeed. That is the debate required. If lines are not drawn around services the NHS will continue to expand its remit just as it has done up until now.
        (I have not even mentioned the impact of 5m Chinese arriving here in the next two years.)

    3. Health tourism is a really good question:
      Let’s suppose a young American women is diagnosed with a serious illness but doesn’t have anywhere near enough health insurance to cover her treatment in the US. However, she has enough cash to buy a return flight to the UK. On arrival she becomes ill and an ambulance is called and she is taken to A&E, whereupon she is diagnosed and:

      1) undergoes major surgery followed by a week or two in ITU. Eventually when she is well she is presented with a bill but doesn’t have any recoverable funds and the US Embassy by convention won’t meet the costs. What action would you take?
      Or
      2) Despite the Medics saying she must be operated on, enquiries establish she cannot pay for her treatment and the hospital management insist she is not taken to theatre and she dies as a consequence.

      What do you think the consequences would be for:

      a) The hospital manager
      b) The Media feeding frenzy
      c) The political fall out.

      Answers on a postcard:

      PS For the sake of this exercise let’s assume she is African American.

        1. That is practically the current situation. The question is can it be stopped and if yes by what means?

          1. One approach would be to charge the airline.

            If the blighters can refuse a flight on the grounds of no Covid certificate they can refuse on the grounds of no suitable medical travel insurance.

      2. That is the problem, is it not? Personally, I’d put her on a plane back to the USA immediately.
        The alternative is to accept that the UK NHS should treat everyone in the world for nothing, is it not?
        We seem to be going that way. I’d say that even those who arrive here and can pay, should be refused access to the NHS, on the grounds of opportunity cost. The more advanced technical treatments cannot be carried out in private hospitals as they cannot afford the expensive machines that the NHS has.

        1. I suppose the Airlines could be required to ensure that each foreign national entering the UK has a minimum level of health insurance for the duration of their stay and if the airline fails in this duty it will be required to cover treatment costs. Bureaucratic nightmare perhaps but at least costs will be recovered.

          1. Actually, no more difficult than having an ordinary passport (or even a Covid one). Businesses are good at this stuff. If you look at an airline ticket you will see reference to the Warsaw Convention? on air travel. Nobody ever reads it, I imagine, any more than they read the blah on downloading software. Lots of exclusions as to why it won’t be their fault if you don’t arrive alive.
            What is more worrying is that if you are dying, of a torn fingernail perhaps, the Doctor will look up the Organ Donation website to see if you have agreed or opted out. All of this assumes that the Register will be kept up to date very carefully. This would not be believable. Currently there are some government departments that have over a year’s backlog of work thanks to, yep, you’ve guessed it, Covid-19.

          1. My policy would be to harvest their organs immediately on arrival and then send them back without further delay.
            :¬)

    4. I’d rather people with kidney failure were treated than cosmetic surgery, transgender surgery, and people who just arrive here expecting treatments.

      1. Yes. We need to redefine the priorities. The NHS is on runaway course that requires ever increasing funding.
        However, I would not let Mayor Khan select the committee to review all this…

    5. I agree with you Horace.

      I have opted out. Probably means i go to the bottom of the transplant list regardless of what they say otherwise.

      As for people turning up and ships in dear old granny from India to have very expensive treatments it shouldn’t be allowed but it will be.

      When i travel to Malta i am asked at exit point the purpose of my journey. They should be too. And stopped.

  63. So one cold morning Angela goes out to her car to go to work and is distressed to find it will not start not a splutter! She calls out the local mechanic who tells her that there are a lot of problems in the bad weather and tries the starter no go, he lifts the bonnet and sitting on the engine is a bat shivering in the cold! To both their surprise the bat looks up and says “ my word you are looking particularly lovely this morning Angela” Ah says the mechanic that’s your problem bat flattery.

  64. It is reported that Johnson has said “…I think some of the stuff we’re now hearing from the new American administration and from the new White House is incredibly encouraging.” Plus: “And I’ve had some good conversations already with- with President Biden, fantastic conversations about the way he sees things. …and particularly on issues like climate change, on NATO, on Iran.

    Most reasonable people seem to regard the advance of socialism in the US, the appeasement of Iran, the opening of the borders to unfettered immigration and the vindictive undoing of some of Trumps’ most successful policies, as incredibly discouraging. How can one have a ‘fantastic’ conversation with someone who is so incoherent that he has to rely on telepromps and, reportedly, an earpiece to know what to say?

    Johnson will regret his words before long.

    Anyway, those of us who originally thought that Johnson is a Conservative have now been proved, once and for all, to be profoundly mistaken – and I confess that I am one of them!

    1. That’s ‘fantastic’ as is the original sense of the word:

      “imaginative or fanciful; remote from reality.”

    3. 328432+ up ticks
      Evening S,
      We in the REAL UKIP have been trying to point that so bloody obvious fact out for the last 25 years, they were pretendees the whole lot of them.

    1. The fact is Belle that if you look at the names of the Consultants in very large number of Acute Hospital Trusts you will find that there are a significant number of names of either first or second generation immigrants in a far greater proportion than in the general population.

      1. Agreed.

        I would say that half the medical staff at the NNUH were not native-born white (shhh) English. One African Dr in A&E had considerable difficulty in understanding English. Most of the nursing staff were white – though several from Eastern Europe. The bame nurses were less efficient and had less of a command of English.

        The excellent (and I fear temporary) GP who has been looking after me for six weeks is Nigerian. An exemplary doctor who inspires confidence.
        And has the knack of appearing to care for his patients.

        1. Nurses* (and domestic staff) at Frimley Park seem to be mostly Nepalese. Which is OK by me. Just saying. Thanks, Joanna Lumley. Even the buses around here display a message to use contactless payment in Nepali. Most of the drivers can read it.

          *Indigenous nurses around here are mostly landwhales. Sad but true.

        1. It needed literate people to write it down. So that’s 2 million years overlooked straightaway. (What were they doing all that time in the Rift Valley?)

    4. Ah – the half-caste (whose Nigerian ancestors were slavers) with an English mother who slags off everything British – especially the Empire – but was happy to accept an OBE.

      Tosser.

    5. Dear life, the racism and divisiveness of the Left never ends.

      We’ll stop racism when the Left stop labelling.

  66. 329432+ up ticks,
    If their forthcoming manifesto was inclusive of the pakistani paedophile
    perpetrators of rotherham are innocent & should receive compo, along with t blair supreme reichsfuhrer currently should be a humdinger of a vote winner.

    breitbart,
    Labour Report Proposes UK Pay Reparations for British Empire, Virtual Abolition of Monarchy

        1. Wring out the nappy and hang it on the bus shelter. No need to rinse and dry. It will only do it again.

          You can see i have no children can’t ya?……

  68. I am off. A very nice afternoon. In about three hours, the temp went up from 3º to 12º and we had a very enjoyable walk – apart from the wanqueurs who drive very fast through deep puddles…

    The thaw is progressing – but not too quickly – much snow is simply evaporating rather than filing the road with water.
    Tomorrow my visit will be short, The Electricity Board is replacing a rotten pole (name of Agnieszka) and the power will be off between 9 and 5.

    So – until another day.

    2. Yay … my washing machine is working again.
      As the pond had thawed, I assumed (rightly) that the ground ‘twixt house and shed had done the same.

        2. There is a water supply from the kitchen to the shed. In twenty years, this is the first time we’ve had problems.

    3. Walked into Cromford for paper & shopping this morning, dropping firewood off at the two concentration points in both directions, then got started cutting the load of wood I gathered at the weekend.
      The S@H is off work tomorrow, so I should be able to get him to help get the triple stack finished off.

      1. True, but Mum and Dad had it too and we all found it much less unpleasant than flu.

        They don’t want the vaccine either.

        2. The side effects are what often happens after any vaccination. My grandson (an extremely fit 14 year old) had the HPV vaccine a few weeks ago. For about 24 hours he was very tired and lethargic. I have always assumed that a strong reaction is a sign that if the patient had the actual disease they would be very ill or possibly dead. My husband was zonked the day after his AZ jab – I was fine, apart from being ‘ready for my bed’ the evening of the day after the injection.
          I have a friend with a couple of nasty allergies, and she is not having the vaccine.

          1. There are comments below the line from people who say the vaccine side effects were far worse than the virus.

            There are a lot of comments there, all very interesting and nothing like the soothing official words.

            So there’s a cover up, imho.

          2. We agreed to help put pressure on the government to open up our lives: more particularly, the lives of our grandchildren who are being deprived of the chance to be young.

          3. ”Yes it happened to me for a few hours about 8 hours after jab. Had 2 duvets over me, thermal pyjamas , thick socks and a hat on in bed. Would have worn gloves if I could gave found them. Was too weak to get hot water bottle. Heated myself up with a heat pad. This was my first jab. Don’t want the second now as it is supposed to have more of an effect. Cant imagine how that would pan out! Still feel weird 5 days later”.

            No Way No Thanks !

          4. #metoo. Very much so. I have had more than my fair share of winter viruses over the years that have made me feel absolutely awful. I would not willingly volunteer to go through that.

          5. I was fine, apart from being ‘ready for my bed’ the evening of the day after the injection.

            Blimey, is this the new, delayed action, Viagra?

            };-))

          7. My wife had the AZ vaccine. She was sick as a dog for a week. Strange as she’s had covid-19.

          11. They didn’t she wanted it. She’s a careworker so it was offered and she took it even though I told her having had confirmed covid-19 she didn’t need it, but she’s worried about no vaccine no job, or no vaccine no pub, or no vaccine no travel.

          12. That is indicative of how project fear followed up with project, “nojab” no job is winning.

          13. We are convinced that Bill had Covid in January 2020.
            All his symptoms tick the right boxes. I do wonder that, if a patient has had the bug, the vaccine merely stirs up the immune system and it thinks “Not again. Right, THIS time I will really boot you out”. And the result is a strong reaction by an immune system that has already had the practice.

          14. Hi, Anne, I was very ill for a few days in Jan, 2020. Paramedic arrived and a breathing machine [ of some sorrt ] ordered. I often wonder what caused it.

            My AZ jab passed with just the sniffles and a mild headache. KBO.

          15. Erm, when did your husband have the jab, Anne? Could this be related to his heart attack? It does seem to be a side effect….. it is with some reluctance I find myself asking this, I wouldn’t want to cause any distress.

          16. A fortnight to the day.
            The same thought had crossed my mind but – with our good friend hindsight – he had been pale and withdrawn for several weeks beforehand. Friends who had seen him before the jab, thought he seemed not himself. Of course, it is possible that the jab might have geed up things that were already going the wrong way.
            Nobody thought anything about it as, as we are all rather pale and subdued after year of capricious government. And he is not a spring chicken.

          4. No.

            I guess we could ask Cochrane or JSP, they rise up fairly often, so it can’t be too expensive

  82. Anyway……… I loved this from ”Conservative Woman”……………

    ”The Tories Have Turned Into Bill Gates’ Lapdogs”…… ”Tory MPs should resign from the Johnson Junta”

    ”The Conservative Party have taken their climate change dogma to hysterical heights. They have morphed into an operational arm of the World Economic Forum (WEF), Bill Gates and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).”

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-tories-have-turned-into-bill-gatess-lapdogs/

    The only way to stop this descent into a more ominous version of Brave New World is for concerned Tory MPs to stop putting party before country and resign from the Johnson junta”.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a7c8554770e7e8621689e2fe65a91d67a659f33aa630d5b20e87a3b127fdbff4.jpg

      1. Judging by Hancock’s ghastly smile, Bill just stuffed a few million dollars in his back pocket…

  83. Another walk this afternoon along the banks of the River Avon. A profusion of Catkins as well as a Kingfisher not in the photo (I really must buy a camera with a proper zoom lens the phone camera can’t do it justice). Earlier some Roe Dear in the field below the garden:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e88b7236c625e96371f0a1cafc7b25713ddfe746d0de4054a20a19d6cab19ec1.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/08e1b9c297f57dc7b8b68c3a9f4fcbb915e421bc57c851b156296d5f3cdefbed.jpg

    1. Another walk this afternoon along the bangs of the River Avon.

      And a very pleasant brothel it looks…

        1. ‘Evening, Stephen, as I said to Anne earlier, turn the bluddy thing orf – it only gets you stressed.

  86. Night All

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/806edd84bb7f333fc7f3e7cd2ee342a47e80dae54ddfdc2990df16749f95338d.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/949fb7b23d5292bbc6b71cbed159b607eb9dbce1c2736dfd109050f5133094cb.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/030a17d1b85cd1bab74300846301ef91c63143d7e2ed091c3442c6481b105994.png

    Finally for noTTLer’s everywhere

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8b7d966feae3b4fdd0dd2e94adc9a62f03896e284938fd57581bf9b2b98decdf.jpg

  87. A home’s faulty internal wiring led to several dogs getting an electric shock as they passed by.

    Wire-haired dachshund Charlie is thought to be one of seven dogs to have suffered a shock in Tonteg, Rhondda Cynon Taf.

  90. From the DT Obituaries:

    Don’t you just want to spit?

    “In 1963-65 Bowen began an appointment at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Bedford, home of the Royal Navy’s flightdeck machinery trials and development facility, where he developed designs of catapults and arrester gear for a new aircraft carrier, CVA01, a ship which was however cancelled.
    Bowen rued that his designs were sold to the US Navy, where they are still in use, and regretted that they were not fitted in the present generation of British carriers.

    1. Investment and sea trials usually end up as broken promises . We hear so many dreadful stories about cancelled contracts or sell outs .

      Think of Michael Heseltine and the Westland fiasco.

    1. Even with Boris Johnson’s defective deal we are essentially free of the EU. Should the EU present more hurdles we should simply dump them and (as may be necessary) give the EU one or two fingers and revert to WTO terms.

      1. I think that Boris Johnson must abandon the WA and the deal. The EU has given him more than enough reason and justification to do so.

        Churchill is, so he says, his idol. Does he have any of his idol’s integrity and strength? I very much doubt it but I would love to be proved wrong.

  92. Evening, all. Much milder today, thankfully. It isn’t vaccination passports that would boost our ailing travel industry; the government butting out and abandoning the green wokery would be the best solution.

      1. I know; literally and metaphorically 🙁 Doesn’t mean the solution isn’t the true one – just that short of a defenestration and complete change it isn’t going to happen.

    2. From my local rag: “Possibly because of the media’s obsession with vaccines going into arms, you may not be aware of other non-vaccine successes in the fight against Covid-19. Colchicine, a cheap drug normally used to treat gout, has been found to reduce hospital stays and the need for oxygen therapy. A common asthma inhaler, budesonide, cuts risk of hospitalisation by 90 per cent. An arthritis drug, tocilizumab , is said to be giving “tremendous” results against Covid. And in Israel a new drug, Allocetra, cured 90 per cent of patients with serious Covid symptoms amazingly quickly. One patient said he felt better in just two hours.

      Similar research is quietly going on around the world. With luck, Covid may soon be not a disease we try to eliminate with vaccines but one we cure, simply and cheaply, with no more drama than a nurse telling you: “Just inhale this.””

      The cynic in me feels it will never be allowed to happen because there isn’t enough money in it for those in power.

        1. I bought a rather tasty plum and cinnamon gin liqueur the other day. I’ve had to dig out the liqueur glass because it was definitely more-ish 🙂

      3. I refuse to be vaccinated. I will ask for Invermectin or Hydrochloroxine or whatever is cheap, tested and proven medications are available. If not available why not?

          1. And me. I refuse to be a pawn in a political game. If they wish to cull me to thin down the population they will have to take me by force, which will be met by force.

          2. Of ourselves covid may not be pretend, they might be trying to cull right wing voters by bluffing them into refusing vaccinations.

          5. I simply refuse to take part in their charade. If we all did this there would be no problem. All it takes is small acts of everyday courage. No mask, no tests, no vaccine.

          6. The promotion of untested and rushed vaccines and the coercion in evidence plus the abuses of our civil liberties and threats of vaccination passports is a crime against humanity.

            This government of Boris Johnson and his cretinous ministers should watch out. We are sufficiently educated and motivated to have the lot of them prosecuted for human rights abuses.

        2. Vitamin D3 is also recommended and very cheap. At hospital today the Doctor said everyone should be on that.

          We bought 1000 x 5000iu for £20. Last 15 months with both of us taking one a day.

      4. What about that drug they pumped into Trump?

        Apparently he had a much more serious bout of covid than they let on at the time so whatever he was given worked well.

      1. “Ring a ring of roses
        Covid shoots up your noses
        Cough, cough! – Gasp, wheeze!
        We all lockdown.”

        2. I’ll sneeze you Wu Han O
          Green grows the snotty, O
          What is your Wu Han, O?
          Wu Han is Wu Han and a Covid Zone
          and ever more shall be so

      2. There you go guys…..

        I only had a little prick
        said the sad old boy
        Until I had the vaccine
        Now my wife is full of joy,

    2. Looks like the children are trying to jump out of the windows in order to escape. Predators aboard?
      Anyway the Police should not be encouraging people to lean out of the windows.

    3. Jack and Jill went up the hill
      To try and fetch their daughter
      A pig said they had gone too far
      And they ended up in hot water.

  95. 329432+up ticks,
    6th May, party before Country, by your vote ye shall be judged.

    Best make it a successful trouble culling, prototype for the last chance biggy.

    Get it wrong then we are guaranteed wall to wall political sh!te going forward.

      1. 329432+ upticks,
        Evening S,
        Plus, after suffering the last three decades that will makes it a round half century, what an odious legacy that would be.

  96. Here are your Radio 4 listening assignments.

    Analysis: Flying Blind

    What do we really know about the policy choices confronting us? Covid-19 has been a brutal lesson in the extent of our ignorance. We face hard decisions, and argue about them ferociously, when in truth we’re often in the dark about their full consequences. But Covid is not unusual in this respect – and we could learn from it.

    Other areas of life and policy are similarly obscured. Not that we like to admit it. How well, for example, do we know what the economy is up to? Quite possibly not nearly as well as you might think – even to the extent that it’s recently been suggested the first estimates of GDP can’t be sure of telling the difference between boom and bust – the problem really can be that extreme. Some recessions have turned out to be illusions.

    In this programme Michael Blastland examines our collective ignorance and how it affects policy and debate, asking if public argument needs a lot more humility.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000s81m

    Recommended listening, if only because it echoes a theme regularly discussed on here but nowhere near often enough in the media: the limits of human knowledge and our ability to influence the world. Listen to Danny Finkelstein rubbish the idea that we can control a virus. It will cheer you up, although Alastair Darling’s dreary tones might bring you down a little.

    That was followed immediately by this:

    Black and Blue

    Hugh Muir has spent much of his journalistic career chronicling the working lives of Britain’s black and minority ethnic police officers. In this programme, he investigates claims that racism is on the rise within policing in the UK.

    In 1990, the Met acknowledged that it had a problem holding on to its black officers and decided to ask black and Asian staff why so many of them were leaving. Almost all the force’s black police officers attended a two-day meeting at the then Bristol Polytechnic that summer. They had no choice – it was mandatory. The officers all shared experiences of racist ‘banter’ and other mistreatment they had suffered on the job. Many found it therapeutic.

    However, 30 years on from the ‘Bristol meeting’, black officers say that despite some initial improvements, not much has changed. Some even contend that racism within policing got worse. And since the backlash that followed the killing of George Floyd last year, black officers now face growing hostility from outside as well as from within.

    For this programme, Hugh has spoken to several black and minority ethnic officers, both serving and retired. They include Andrew George, President of the National Black Police Association, and retired superintendent Leroy Logan, whose life story was recently adapted for the screen by the Oscar-winning director Steve McQueen in his film anthology Small Axe.

    “I think black cops deserve more internal and external support as the key to making the real progress we all say we want,” Hugh says.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000s18d

    This was an altogether less positive experience. Too many young BEMs are put off joining the police for reasons that require little further explanation yet whatever modest optimism might have been expressed by some of the contributors was quickly cancelled out by the use of familiar terms: institutional racism, cultural bias, lived experience. You could be forgiven for fearing that Britain is unlikely to become less divided.

    One of the UK’s most useless senior officers of recent times, Brian Paddick, was allowed to spout a few moments of LibDem inconsequentiality.

    1. I always thought “banter” went with the job in uniform. It certainly won’t become less divided if you allow things like the “National Black Police Association” and celebrate Black Lives Matter. If you’re looking for racism, start there.

  99. Possibly one of the best BTL comments ever

    Finknottle • 4 hours ago • edited
    How did an enigma like Theresa May become PM? How indeed? Given the numbers that try to climb the greasy pole of British politics, it is an enduring wonder that quite so many second-raters have managed to get to the top over the last 30 years.

    I can’t imagine history will be any kinder to them than I am about to be.

    (Posted this previously, almost a year ago, so apologies for repetition but little has changed)

    Theresa May – As rightly famous for her personal warmth, political flexibility and persuasiveness as she is for her lithe and lissom grace on a dance floor. Like Rosa Klebb without the naïve charm. She lied throughout her premiership; to the people, to Parliament and to her closest party “allies”. She made aggressive noises towards Brussels and then cravenly backed down. Similarly she made patriotic, pro-Brexit noises in her early pronouncements but secretly started backing away from all of her promises step by step as the process went on. She is a walking case-study in how NOT to be an effective PM, every facet of her premiership was a failure. Lacking any vision to see any opportunity in Brexit and thus lacking the ability to convince either side on her unpalatable compromises. Actively undermining the efforts of her own Minister in charge of Leaving the EU by secretly carrying on parallel negotiations in the shadows with a foreign power – all at the behest of her witch’s familiar, Olly Robbins.

    Tony Blair – The most shameless leader we’ve ever had and the sincerest man that money can buy. Would do and say absolutely anything in the pursuit of his ultimate goal – that of high office within the EU. He long felt that scuppering Brexit was his best hope of achieving his dream. To that end he actively colluded with M Macron, the leader of a foreign power, trying to undermine his own country’s position in negotiations in the hope that if the EU gave us nothing we could be bullied into a humiliating capitulation. He has spent the years since leaving office selling influence and connections to help central Asian dictators and amassing a fortune from his work with, and for, some deeply unsavoury characters, all whilst strutting the world stage as the (laughably titled) Middle East Peace Envoy.
    I’d no more trust his motives than I would trust Jean-Claude Juncker with the keys to the wine cellar.

    Gordon Brown – Still grimly continuing to try and distance himself from any culpability in the various messes he gifted the nation, even though it was he who signed the Lisbon treaty – knowing full well that it was essentially the same as the EU Constitution that he and Mr Blair had promised us a referendum on. Thought he’d get away with it by pushing the treaty through Parliament before it could be properly scrutinised. Though, even by his low standards, he could hardly have looked more shifty when, after all the other EU leaders had signed the Lisbon treaty in front of the cameras, he slunk in like a thief in the night – as though missing the ‘photo-op’ would absolve him of blame. Scottish devolution was another Brown inspired debacle. Has spent the years since office glowering with his one good eye and writing pieces for the left wing press highlighting all the problems we face as a nation yet never once stopping to consider his part in creating those problems. A socialist Ted Heath – all simmering resentment in public, no doubt boiling over when behind closed doors.

    Sir John Major – Weirdly, could have been a crowd favourite if he’d handled his own PR better – and grown a pair. His early life shows he was a rebel at heart. John Major’s father was a circus performer. It is a tired old cliché of rebellion, that of running away from home to join the circus – but imagine Sir John, running away from the circus to become an accountant, and then to become the elected leader of the establishment. A far, far greater act of rebellion. Surely that makes Major the greatest rebel we ever had in No 10. HOWEVER, his inner greyness, once established, completely captured him and he became timid and weak. Witness his behaviour over the last 4 years – endlessly sniping from the sidelines, making unhelpful suggestions despite pleading – when having been in a similar position (to both Mrs May and Boris) – “Whether you agree with me or disagree with me; like me or loathe me, don’t bind my hands when I am negotiating on behalf of the British nation” I’d be interested to know when, in his opinion – that stopped being good advice?
    He spent much of the last 2 years advocating for a 2nd referendum, despite earlier stating (when he assumed Remain would win the referendum) “If we vote out, we are out, that’s it. It is not politically credible to go back and say that we have reconsidered, let’s have another referendum. If we vote to get out, then we are out and we will have to get on with it”. He went one better (or worse) by going to court to fight prorogation despite having prorogued Parliament himself in order to avoid embarrassment over the “Cash for Questions” issue. He is a steaming, canting hypocrite.

    David Cameron – A PR man of unplumbed intellectual shallows who believed he was born to rule. Only agreed to hold the referendum because he was convinced he would win it and thus finally slay the Euro-dragon that had done for previous Tory leaders. Managed the unique trick (though since copied) of talking tough to his domestic audience then going to Brussels, asking for very little and getting far less, then trying to sell it as a victory for Britain. His plans didn’t work out quite as he intended, though. Despite throwing all the weight of the establishment behind the Remain cause, despite drafting in the support of foreign leaders and every international economic institution, despite spending £9million of taxpayer’s money on a propaganda leaflet, he failed to convince the country and lost the referendum. …. BUT, at least Cameron had the good grace to recognise that he could not, in all honesty, lead the country towards the Brexit that he didn’t believe in and so he resigned. It was the only commendable thing he did.

    The irrepressible “Sage of Canning Town”, Danny Dyer, maybe had it right when he described Mr Cameron as a Tw*t but, oddly, not for the reasons he gave. Though, when compared to these 4 other recent PMs, Cameron stands out as a beacon of probity, integrity and rectitude, ….. I guess all things are relative.

    In a dung heap even a plastic bead gleams like a sapphire.

    My critique of Boris, now made somewhat redundant by subsequent events, can wait. He achieved some sort of Brexit deal for which he is to be commended. His Covid policies have been haphazard and inconsistent. No doubt the vaccine roll-out stands as a triumph but much else could and should have been handled better (easy with the benefit of hindsight, I appreciate).

    But I do believe that even among such dreadful leaders as Blair and Brown, Mrs May will stand out as the worst, most inept and, frankly, most duplicitous PM of my lifetime. From the article above, the fact that she clearly was unaware of her own mind, except a vastly over inflated sense of her ability to govern, says it all.

    Now that we are outside the EU, politicians have no easy scapegoat for their failures. Maybe this will encourage some real leadership, because to be honest, when I look back on the leaders and front-benchers we have had since Mrs Thatcher was forced out of office, I wouldn’t trust most of them to be able to pour water out of a welly if you wrote instructions on the heel!

    1. 329432+ up ticks,
      Evening GG,
      They were collectively unsurpassed in the art of treachery since major, with a large % of the electorate
      giving support to an imitation tory party again & again.

      All of the toxic trio were / are counterfeit party’s using
      their namesakes past history of bygone days when politicians had integrity.

      Betwixt them the politico’s, and the input via the ballot booth the amount of damage done since the mid 70s
      tis hard to see how the Country can fully recover.

      I would say one more General Election along past lines
      will, without doubt, complete the take down of Great Britain.

      1. You give them too much credit.

        Why would those that pull the strings of the public facing puppets want those puppets to be independent?

        Far better to have someone inept in the public eye.

    2. Blair is the worst by a country mile, because he knew perfectly well what he was doing when he demolished the United Kingdom. The others were merely greedy, dishonest, inept and stupid.

    4. Collectively we all must have done something terrible in a previous life to deserve this shower of shit.

    5. Good morning Geoff,

      Please repost that wonderful comment by Finknottle .

      I love the forensic dissection of those useless idiots .

      They should be reclassified as “amoeba”.. Their status as ex this that and the other means nothing , none of them contributed ANYTHING to the well being of Britain .

      1. Is finknottle so named because s/he is a Nottler, or just ‘finks’ like a nottler.

        If you are here, reveal yourself Finky

Comments are closed.