Friday 5 March: Rishi Sunak has murdered the principles of Conservative success

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/03/05/lettersrishi-sunak-has-murdered-principles-conservative-success/

700 thoughts on “Friday 5 March: Rishi Sunak has murdered the principles of Conservative success”

  1. Biden called off second Syria strike after reconnaissance spotted civilians. 5 March 2021.

    Joe Biden called off an airstrike on a second target in Syria at the last minute after intelligence reported the presence of a woman and children at the site, it has been reported.

    The president received an urgent warning from an aide just 30 minutes before the strike that civilians were in the area.

    The intention of the strike was to signal to leadership in Iran that the new administration would respond to provocation in the Middle East but is not seeking to escalate tensions.

    Morning everyone. Did he really? This supposed act of clemency emerges seven days after the original strike; which let’s face it, has not been received with unalloyed joy. It’s also not been endorsed by the military, instead we have the ambiguous “Aide” which suggests they were reluctant to become involved in it. There is also the point that Congress is acting to curtail Joe’s War Powers which probably encouraged him along the road to an appearance of Peace and Goodwill to all Women and Children.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/03/05/biden-called-second-syria-strike-reconnaissance-spotted-civilians/

    1. “The intention of the strike was to signal to leadership in Iran that the new administration would respond to provocation in the Middle East”. And, of course, by cancelling the strike it signals to Iran that they (Iran) can do anything they like as long as they hide behind civilians.

      1. Morning Elsie. Well if they haven’t thought of it before they will do now!

    2. A clear case of evil political transparency. They believe people will not see through their machinations.

    3. A woman such as Begum no doubt.

      Every such gathering will be allocated some sacrificial lambs to act as protection.

        1. Both sides in the Iran Iraq war had terrible form on that one. Even using young boys as stormtroopers.

      1. Morning Phil. Yes. I think the hostility to the strike took them by surprise. The American People have become used under Trump to not bombing everything in sight. They are on the whole much like us and see no advantage to them in Endless Wars!

    5. Can we be sure that this is real? Or is it something that President Biden remembers seeing in a film?

      1. I’ve remembered the film. “Eye In the Sky” starring Helen Mirren as an officer in charge of a drone strike.

    6. They shouldn’t call off a strike because of the presence of women and children. Women have been known to be terrorists and so have children, especially in sandy places. Equally, not all men are terrorists but they wouldn’t call off an airstrike because there were men in the area.

      Unless they carry out the raid as planned, the targets will use women and children as human shields, thus probably leading to even more being killed that would have been.

  4. 1,500,000 NHS workers with secure employment want a pay rise, while tens of millions are thrown on scrap heap with no job prospects whatsoever, I think Labour are backing another loser here again.

    1. And their union complains that this is a terrible way to treat NHS workers when they have worked so hard treating the public during the pandemic. What? They have totally ignored the general public’s ailments in order to close hospitals to almost all whose health problems were not Covid-19 connected.

      1. TBF, the Band 2 receptionists and cleaners on £16,000 haven’t had much choice in the matter.

    1. Korky, you have reminded me that I was very remiss in not wishing Sue MacFarlane a Happy Birthday today. Have a great day, Sue!

      1. Thank you Elsie! That’s not remiss…your glasses are probably in the fridge…💕

      2. Kisses? May I join in. Many happy returns….you are but young, but soon you will discover than birthdays seems to come round every six months!

  7. ‘Morning All

    #CovidClownWorld

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9d56a83e2065cbac8b6ff0f8e35d75b3cc89060743846d6659fdfad8af435eff.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a1651ea96ad51c405169939dbdee1db330183082df9cc3398d33b79cfff46960.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8294d3f496bf509ca4b4c1f4488feb382941556b82186be263cc451b2f29f734.jpg

    Aaaand

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5q7HkxNhnXA
    Edit
    Forgot the Al-Beeb contribution
    https://twitter.com/Northernmanv2/status/1367526631586291718

    1. Terry Pratchett’s Goddess Anoia.

      Anoia

      The minor goddess of Things That Stick in Drawers, Anoia is praised by rattling a
      drawer and crying “How can it close on the damned thing but not open
      with it? Who bought this? Do we ever use it?”

      She also eats corkscrews and is responsible for Things Down The Backs of Sofas, and is considering moving into stuck zips.

  11. Good morning and I see it’s Happy Birthday to Sue day! Hope you have a good’un!
    Another chilly start at 0°C in the yard, but it’s getting a lot lighter in the mornings and it’s a dry start, of somewhat dull.

          2. Make my own cake, old man and his mechanic pal fixing the door lock mechanism on the LR, and I have to make lunch for them! Whinge whinge…

          4. So yer gettin’ a snicket on yer watery door – that’s a great birthday present.

            Have a great day, Sue

          5. NtN he bought me a salad spinner one year!! It’s a vast improvement! Thanks for your good wishes!💕

  12. Morning all. Budget……..

    SIR – Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, gave a masterly Commons performance on Budget day. In contrast, Sir Keir Starmer, the Leader of the Opposition, delivered an exceptionally poor response.

    However, one had to sympathise with Sir Keir’s dilemma. He had to choose between trashing policies that embraced Labour’s traditional economic approach, and giving support to a government that his own members hate with a vengeance.

    Thus the “Conservatives” got away with murder. Murder of the economic and fiscal principles at the foundation of their political success during the last two decades of the 20th century. I fear that Thatcherism is, finally, dead. This is bad news for Britain’s future (which, following Brexit, ought to have been among the rosiest on the planet).

    How tragic that Boris Johnson should have done so much to free us from the dead hand of EU bureaucracy, only to throw it all away with his timidity in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic. Now millions of us on the moderate Right are faced with a choice between two versions of social democracy.

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    John Waine

    Nuneaton, Warwickshire

    SIR – Those who feel we have never had it so bad since the Sixties might remember that, under Labour in the Seventies, with Denis Healey as Chancellor, inflation was so high that prices in the supermarket rose weekly.

    Catherine Castree

    Fetcham, Surrey

    SIR – It seems that everyone wants the Government to spend more on things like Covid, the NHS, or transport. However, everyone wants someone else to pay for it.

    John Agnew

    Willerby, East Yorkshire

    SIR – “The young face life-altering carnage,” writes Sherelle Jacobs (Comment, March 4).

    I started paying income tax in 1968, and until 2015 was helping the country to repay its First World War debt. I did not complain that I had to contribute to the cost of a war fought decades before I was born. My generation also had to pay off Second World War debt.

    That those now alive have to expect that the cost of fighting Covid to fall on our shoulders, spread over the years ahead, is natural, fair and sensible.

    Ralph Godley

    Lincoln

    SIR – The financial consequences of the pandemic seem to be similar to about 10 years of a Labour government.

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    John Dupont

    Clevedon, Somerset

    SIR – I had assumed that on Budget day the Chancellor would be carrying important documents from Downing Street to Parliament in his little red dispatch box. I am irritated to see that, like most actors with on-screen luggage, he decided to carry an obviously empty case. It’s impossible to act as if it is full; it just looks silly.

    Jo O’Grady

    Bristol

      1. Well, you should have moved to Ireland and claimed Irish citizenship. If you had you would then have been eligible to vote in the UK. Just like the Irish have been for decade. If you were an EU citizen, the same would apply?
        However, you were born English and British. Some might say that was pretty good whatever the consequences.

        1. I did consider moving to the Republic at one time because of the pension situation. Unfortunately, MOH was dead against it.

      2. Just wait until Sunak or some Labour Government decides that automatic Pension increases will no longer be given to any ex-pats, in the same way that UK pensioner’s pensions in Australia are “fixed” when they move.

    2. “How tragic that Boris Johnson should have done so much to free us from the dead hand of EU bureaucracy …” You’re right, John. He should have done so much to free us from the dead hand of EU bureaucracy. Shame he didn’t. Give it time, Catherine, give it time. I agree with John Dupont. As for Ralph Godley, we didn’t have to wreck the economy to “fight Covid”, unlike staving off the Kaiser and Herr H.

  13. Pounds and Pontins

    SIR – I am surprised to discover that I am barred from staying at any Pontins establishment due to my “undesirable” surname (report, March 4).

    The name O’Brien was on all English banknotes when Sir Leslie O’Brien was Chief Cashier, and later Governor, of the Bank of England. Would Pontins refuse such banknotes, I wonder?

    Next time I complete a form on ethnic origins, I shall be tempted to tick “Irish Traveller”, just for the craic.

    Ann O’Brien

    Leeds, West Yorkshire

    1. Racial Cray-Cray explained. (don’t blame me for the spellin’)

      Emo-Cognitive Explorations of White Neurosis and Racial Cray-Cray

      Interaction with White people is at times so overwhelming, draining, and incomprehensible that it causes
      serious anguish for People of Color. Take for example
      when a White colleague abruptly links arms with a colleague of Color and declares, “It’s not about race but
      I have something to tell you” (signaling it is definitely
      about race).The colleague of Color—whose arm is still
      being held—is left wondering why in the world a White
      person would start an interaction in such a manner. How
      about a hello? Does she begin conversations with White
      people like this? And why does she feel entitled to grab
      me before telling me what is not about race? In this
      seemingly simple interaction is a plethora of emotional
      and mental racial dynamics, which in this article we
      term emo-cognitions. We use this term to capture the
      simultaneous interplay between cognitions and emotions.
      While these emo-cognitions and the behaviors they inform are generated from Whites, they implicate people
      of color who must navigate them. Thus, a specific racial
      co-production is formed. We term this co-production racial cray-cray (cray-cray=an
      African-American euphemism for utter craziness); the crazy making that results
      from White denial of racial saliency. (and there’s more – much more.)

      1. I suppose the answer is to live separately.
        Apart …. aparthides? …. no …..um …. don’t tell me …. the word will come to me in a moment.

      2. What an absolute, incoherent load of tosh. I can only wish that my remarks (and judgement) of this Eejit could somehow get transmitted back it to her/it, whatever.

        1. Thank you Belle! The comfort comes from all the wonderful kind wishes from the Nottlers, and from my lovely family and friends, spread far and wide. Bless you all 💕😘

    2. Good morning Delboy.
      Has your club received more grants from the Council?
      We’ve received just over £8k so far.

    2. My father, an engineer would have been 98 last weekend. He died twelve years ago – I was flown back from Afghanistan just in time to see him before he died.
      He was fascinated by machines and human ingenuity in design. I wish he had lived long enough, (or had been born twenty years later) to see the wonder of the t’internet and programmable machinery.

      A programme I enjoyed a couple of years ago was ‘The Reassembler’ with James MAy, wher ehe took apart old machines e.g. a food mixer, a bakelite telephone, a lawn mower and put them back together.

      My father would have loooved that programme.

  20. U.S. Accuses Russia of Blocking ‘Accountability’ Over Syria’s Chemical Weapons. 5 March 2021.

    The new U.S. envoy to the United Nations on Thursday accused Russia of seeking to stymie efforts to hold the government of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad accountable for its use of chemical weapons during its long civil war.

    “We all know the Assad regime has repeatedly used chemical weapons. So why hasn’t the Syrian government been held accountable?” the ambassador, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told a Security Council meeting via videoconference.

    Well we know that they were faked with the help of Mi6 and the White Helmets.

    https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/03/04/us-accuses-russia-of-blocking-accountability-over-syrias-chemical-weapons-a73153

  21. U.S. Accuses Russia of Blocking ‘Accountability’ Over Syria’s Chemical Weapons. 5 March 2021.

    The new U.S. envoy to the United Nations on Thursday accused Russia of seeking to stymie efforts to hold the government of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad accountable for its use of chemical weapons during its long civil war.

    “We all know the Assad regime has repeatedly used chemical weapons. So why hasn’t the Syrian government been held accountable?” the ambassador, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told a Security Council meeting via videoconference.

    Well we know that they were faked with the help of Mi6 and the White Helmets.

    https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/03/04/us-accuses-russia-of-blocking-accountability-over-syrias-chemical-weapons-a73153

  22. 329884+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    Tis a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma

    Friday 5 March: Rishi Sunak has murdered the principles of Conservative success,

    May one ask,
    Over the last three decades especially, what success
    would that be exactly then ?

        2. That looks like a pair of drawers. I’ve just realised it’s two champagne glasses chinking.

      3. Many Happy returns Sue! I can remember when you were just an upvoter with no voice. Sent my paranoia into overdrive. Lol!

        1. Thank you Minty! Did I really do that to you? Memo to self – stop with the stalking!! 💕

      4. Grattis på födelsedagen, Sue.

        Wishing you a wonderful 21st, the key-of-the-door, and lots of parties, cakes, champers and all that goes with it. 🎂🍰🥂🍸😊😘🐻

        [It is also my dear paternal grandmother’s 128th birthday today. She was also a lovely fellow Piscean. ♓️🐟🐟]

        1. Thanks Grizz! The twins and younger daughter are coming today and we saw elder daughter and her two on Wednesday, down on the farm! No lambs yet but they’ve just got a beautiful new Charolais bull called Popeye! He really is gorgeous! My Dad would have been 92 on Sunday! Isn’t it odd what a day can mean? 💕😍

          1. Oi met ‘im once. I was working for free at a Tina Turner gig at Wembley arena back in about ooh, 988-90ish and went wandering back stage. RC was her support act.

  24. Reposted from Midnight

    5th March, 2021

    Sue MacFarlane

    A Magnificent Birthday

    and

    Many Gloriously Happy Returns

    With very best wishes from

    Caroline and Rastus

    My very dear niece, Susie, is one day older than you are. I sent her an e-mail attaching The Beatles song: When I’m 64.

    But for you, here is Django:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPulEz0gVj8

  27. OT – I meant to mention that we watched a BBC4 prog on Welsh Art the other evening. It as very good. The unobtrusive presenter did have a propensity to saw “Wow” rather a lot, but there was minimal background music – and the prog showed artefacts of which I – of Welsh descent – had never heard. Will certainly watch the next one – though I fear the third (and final) will reveal inexplicable work by shoddy “artists” and bames (of course).

    1. I watched it too, Bilty. It was rather un-glossy and understated. A good watch.

  28. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5a3c1a171e33b880720d1cbfb9c154ad73d3d9aef1b647a040a1ff79842b0bf9.png Utter hogwash! Here in Skåne, which is prime farming country (not at all dissimilar to Norfolk) as well as a haven for all manner of birdlife (Falsterbo is one of the world’s most famous migration watchpoints); we have a healthy breeding population of White-tailed Eagles Haliaeetus albicilla (to give it its proper name) and they exist in perfect harmony with the natural and farmed fauna of the county.

    Hysterical hyperbole, such as the crap that you are spouting, only stirs up the locals into illegal shooting and killing off of an endemic species that was once wiped out by your ignorant ilk in the first instance.

    1. Any predations on farms by eagles can be compensated. In Scotland landowners have illegally wiped out a lot of wild life, and continue to do so, in order to rear pet* birds for fat German businessmen to shoot.
      * At any rate pheasants are too tame or too stupid not to stand in the road to be run over by cars. I’ve had to get out on a a couple of occasions and shoo them away.

  29. It appears that when they said we needed to be vaccinated for protection, it was from their global protection racket and nothing to do with health.

    1. Thank you Horace, for those kind words! Amazing how another 24 hours makes you a year older! 💕

        1. Thank you Anne! I feel a bit better now! just spoken to my sister and she’s going to be 69 this year!

      2. Think of it as a being timelessly wiser. Browning said it a little better:

        “Grow old along with me!
        The best is yet to be,
        The last of life, for which the first was made:
        Our times are in His hand
        Who saith “A whole I planned,
        Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!”

  31. I have just had a covid test, and my nose feels raw. Test centre was full of people in white suits and face masks, normalising a dystopian future.

    As all the vaccinated people kill the non-vaccinated people by harbouring and passing on mutations with worse and worse symptoms ( from which the vaccinated will be protected), they will be crying “Should have had your vaccination!” completely unaware of their own role in the carnage.

    1. I have had four Lateral flow Tests in the last 30 days. (to enable safe access to the ward). I had to put a bristly stick up my nose and turn it around. No pain and no discomfort except it made my eyes water a bit.

      Did they use those big swabs on you?

      Sorry to hear of your discomfort.

      1. Someone else was sticking the swab up my nose, and they seemed determined to scrape as hard as they could, while scolding the victim for feeling pain.
        It was the other test.
        I am in a very bad mood so I will go to work now and spread a bit of misery among my colleagues. 🙁

      2. You’re lucky you are not in China Phizz where they would have stuck it up your rear! Your reactions to this are your own affair!

        1. I’ve already had a camera up there so a swab is easy peasy.

          I didn’t shake hands with the crew afterwards though. :@(

          5. Reminds me of the 2 old ladies who were having their photo taken. One says “What’s he doing now?” Other one says “He’s going to focus” First one replies “Not if I can help it!”

  32. I see that the racism industry is going from strength to strength.

    For example, a news item reports: Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) slammed Joe Biden for releasing over a hundred migrants infected with the COVID-19 China coronavirus in south Texas in recent weeks, noting that many of the migrants are then leaving Texas for other states, spreading the highly contagious virus as they move about the country.

    Right on cue, a TV broadcaster called Joy Reid (a lady of hue) said that it’s “anti-immigrant xenophobia” and “absurdly racist” for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) to claim that the Biden administration’s immigration policies are helping spread coronavirus.

    And yesterday it was reported that The Arizona Department of Education has created an “equity” toolkit claiming that babies show the first signs of racism at three months old and that white children “remain strongly biased in favor of whiteness” by age five. “White parents should begin addressing issues of race and racism early, even before their children can speak”.

    Personally, I think the weather is racist. After all, there are far more white clouds than black clouds. And black clouds are signs of impending bad weather. (Sorry, I really ought not to put ideas into the empty heads of the wokes – they would probably take it seriously).

    1. I wonder whether the “research” also shows similar traits in black babies and whether their parents should begin addressing….err…. stop there…. parents?….single parent more like.

      From my own observations, young children tend to be colour blind as far as other children are concerned. Any change in attitudes tends to come about from adverse experiences on both sides.

      1. I can say that I only became racist after working in London. Other than on sports fields I’ve only been threatened with physical violence a couple of times as an adult. On both occasions it was in London by a nigger.

      2. We had some mixed race neighbours when my boys were growing up – they played happily together without any problems.

        I don’t think children are bothered by skin tones – these attitudes come from the parents and the influences which are being forced on them these days.

        1. I’m not sure that it’s the parents nowadays.

          Even the least observant and intelligent child must hear the constant stream from the commentariat and draw their own conclusions. If the internet/social media did not exist do you think there would be quite so much organised division across society? I don’t.

    2. It would all be simpler if people with darker skin tones relocated/located to those latitudes to which their skin tones are most geographically suited. They are flying in the face of nature. Otherwise, I see no end to this racist stuff – it will be with us forever, or until whites are removed from the face of the Earth. Perhaps that is when they will pack their bags and return to their ancestral, natural homelands.

      1. How could we have missed the exodus of black merkins eastward across the Atlantic as they return to the paradise from which their forbears were so cruelly snatched?

      2. This country was the least racist in the world, once people had got over the shock of the arrival of the Windrush people. They were strange and different – and landords treated the Irish in exactly the same way.

        I have no problem with people of other races – I have many African friends – why should anyone judge soneone else by the colour of their skin?

        These woke people are stirring up trouble where none existed for two generations. It’s just as racist to hate people for being white.

        1. It is indeed Ndovu but we are always being beaten by this racist stick ever harder and we are collectively made to feel guilty for something we are not and never have been; because we are white, by those who wish to signal their virtue. They are exploiting our whiteness for an agenda and their self-righteousness. Only this morning I saw a small headline in the dm which announced that GCHQ were advertising posts for which only ethnic minorities need apply. Europe has travelled this path before in its recent history with a different category if people. Well, I support the anglo-saxon white male who is becoming increasingly forgotten, victimised and downtrodden. All my traceable ancestors were white; my father was white, my husband is white, my two sons also and my grandchild and forthcoming grandchild. And if that makes me racist, so be it.

          1. Might it be that GCHQ is looking for cleaning staff and tea ladies?

            (I’ll get my tea cosy)

          3. As a family history addict I’ve traced my paternal line back to the 1500s – they didn’t travel far in those days – the others not so far as there were a few brick walls.

            I’m an indigenous Englishwoman and proud of my heritage. It’s just as good as anyone else’s. I wish we could just ignore all this woke nonsense that keeps getting forced on us.

          4. It is getting worse, N. I am sure they are trying to foment racial war with all this support for blm and the rest. We just won’t take the bait so the PTB beat us some more.

          5. Ethnic minorities are fairly thin on the ground in Cheltenham so GCHQ will be fishing in a small pool there.

          6. ‘Afternoon, Mum, “…by those who wish to signal their virtue.”

            I wish we could get in the habit of putting their ‘virtue’ in apostrophes because virtue is emphatically what it is NOT. It is pure self aggrandisement, “Look at me, what a superior person I am.” In fact they are just desperate for some sort of recognition.

            As for the genealogy, I can trace my English paternity straight down from 1580 but on my Mother’s side, at the moment in starts in 530 in Sweden and descends through 8 Kings and one Queen (Matilda) to the present day, taking in Norwegian, Danish, Norman, French, Spanish and Greek all allied to white English.

            Like you, Mum, I’m just an old unreconstituted, white, Englishman. The sex is the only area where we have differences and neither one needs any signalling.

      3. The issues with darker-skinned people suffering worse from COVID could’ve been resolved through a better diet (mostly a cultural thing) and public aweareness campaigns for them to take vitamin D (and possibly zinc) supplements when the sun is less strong from mid-autumn round to mid spring. The same would apply to OAPs who get outside less and have lower immune systems due to their age and ailments anyway.

        There’s a different argument to be made about people who won’t assymilate into British culture and deliberately cut themselves off, just coming here for the money and nothing else. In very small numbers, that would never have been an issue, but in much larger numbers, that’s obviously been a huge problem.

        And frankly, it also applies to people who are not dark skinned. I’d say that most Indians and Sri Lankans (especially Sihks) have integrated well into UK society, whereas Pakistanis and Bangladeshis haven’t. Both are abviously of very similar geographic/ethnic origins, but culturally and religiously are very different to one another.

        Similarly with Eastern Europeans – Poles and Czechs/Slovaks, for example have integrated quite well, whereas Romanians, Bulgarians and Armenians have not, with the latter grouping being heavily involved in criminal gangs in the UK.

    3. They are having a go at babies, now, babies who cannot speak or defend themselves in any way. How disgusting is that. Taking the long view, you can see where this is going to end up. King Herod had similar ideas. Be you Christian or not, the Bible contains warnings for us all.

    4. Such thinking must inevitably lead to apartheid as it is clear that people of different races cannot co-exist peacefully.

      Would it really help if all white people left Africa and all non white people left Europe?

  33. The problems of trying to deal with the dishonest and treacherous EU rumble on and on and will probably never stop rumbling on.


    Our lawful steps are consistent with a good faith implementation of the Northern Ireland Protocol
    It was clear that decisions needed to be taken now to avoid significant immediate-term disruption to the region’s everyday life

    BRANDON LEWIS

    A BTL comment with which I agree:

    It was a very grave error for Boris Johnson and Michael Gove to have caved in at the last minute on Northern Ireland, fishing, the financial sector and officious border controls.

    Even if standing firm had brought about no deal it would have been a far better outcome than the shabby deal they agreed to.

  34. Welcome to the Free Speech Union’s weekly newsletter. This newsletter is a brief round-up of the free speech news of the week.

    ECHR

    Professor Andrew Tettenborn, member of the FSU’s legal advisory council, writes of a little-publicised but worrying decision that was made recently in the European Court of Human Rights with serious implications for free speech in the UK. Volen Siderov, leader of the Bulgarian political party Ataka, has been publicly critical of the Roma people in his speeches and writings throughout his career, which prompted an assembly of liberal and pro-Roma groups to undertake legal proceedings against him under Bulgarian anti-discrimination law. A Bulgarian court found that “Siderov, if intemperate, was not calling for discrimination against Roma people”, but the litigants appealed to the ECHR which upheld their appeal.

    However abhorrent one finds Siderov’s views, this decision is concerning for a number of reasons, which Prof Tettenborn explores, including a reference to a new right to be weighed against the right to free speech, which the Court described as “a full human right to have someone else’s speech abridged”. Tettenborn continues: “The judges saw it as entirely unacceptable that Bulgarian courts had given ‘considerable weight to Mr Siderov’s right to freedom of expression’, and ‘play[ed] down the effect of those statements on the applicants as ethnic Roma living in Bulgaria’. Wow. Any free-speech traditionalist, who believes that the remedy for bad speech is more speech, should see this as a warning: as far as human-rights lawyers are concerned, you are on the wrong side of history.”

    Why free speech matters

    Accompanying the release of his new book Free Speech and Why it Matters, Andrew Doyle made the case for free speech in a piece for Spiked, in which he echoed John Milton’s contention in Areopagitica that “the freedom ‘to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience’ is the ultimate liberty”. Doyle’s launch event with Alastair Donald of the Academy of Ideas took place earlier this week and can be viewed on YouTube. His book can be purchased here.

    Why it’s OK to Speak Your Mind, a new book by Hrishikesh Joshi, an assistant professor at Bowling Green State University, will be released on the 9th of March. Drawing on Aristotle, John Stuart Mill, Friedrich Nietzsche, Bertrand Russell and others, Joshi argues that “by bringing our unique perspectives to bear upon public discourse, we enhance our collective ability to reach the truth”.

    Scottish Hate Crime Bill

    According to an analysis by Free to Disagree, a Scottish free speech organisation, almost 85 per cent of published responses to a consultation by the Justice Committee of the Scottish Parliament supported stronger free speech protections in the Scottish Hate Crime Bill. Jamie Gillies, of Free to Disagree, said: “It’s vital that strong, clear and specific free speech protections are written into the bill.”

    Prospect magazine has published a comprehensive analysis of the background to Scotland’s Hate Crime Bill and its free speech implications. Chaminda Jayanetti looks at the origins of hate crime law in the Public Order Act 1986 and addresses questions surrounding the stirring up of hatred, the likelihood that hatred will be stirred up, the proposed extension of protected characteristics in the Bill, as well as the expansion of hate speech law into private dwellings and the theatre. “Scotland’s Hate Crime Bill was meant to be a tidying up exercise that consolidated existing laws,” Jayanetti writes, but “despite the stated intentions, the Scottish government actually is extending the law’s reach.”

    Policy analysis group Murray Blackburn Mackenzie have warned that the proposed legislation would make it criminal for individuals to assert that sex is binary. One of the group’s members, Lucy Hunter Blackburn, claims that the “government has frozen out the people most concerned about chilling effects in relation to sex and gender identity, consulting only with stakeholders that it heavily funds”, such as the Scottish Trans Alliance.

    National Director of charity Care for Scotland Scott Weir examines the consequences of abandoning the dwelling defence, which protects speech in private homes. “We stand at the brink,” he says. “The Scottish Parliament dangles over the cliff edge freedom of thought and freedom of speech, to supplant it with a crushing law that will hem Scotland in.”

    Universities

    The FSU has written to the Vice Chancellor of the University of Law, Andrea Nollent, to express its concern about a section that was recently added to the University’s disciplinary policy which “will have the effect of encouraging, what is commonly called ‘sousveillance’ – the practice of one student informing on other students”. This is at odds with recent guidance issued by the Department for Education which stipulated that universities “should not encourage students to inform upon other students for lawful free speech”.

    Writing in UnHerd, FSU Director Douglas Murray comments on the University of Glasgow’s cancellation of a seminar by Professor Gregory Clark of the University of California, Davis, in part because over 100 academics at the University objected to its title: “For Whom the Bell Curve Tolls: A Lineage of 400,000 Individuals 1750-2020 Shows Genetics Determines Most Social Outcomes.” According to Douglas, one of the familiar aspects of no-platforming is that the speaker’s critics claim “to know not only the content of his undelivered talk but also his intentions”. Douglas goes on to identify the “prevailing ethos” common to cancel culture: “It goes something like this: human beings are born with equal abilities, and any sub-optimal outcomes in their lives are caused by societal factors beyond their control but which can be adapted with enough collective effort.” Those who believe in this credo don’t stop to ask whether it’s true, but take it for granted that anyone challenging it must be a Social Darwinist or a eugenicist. Douglas thinks academics ought to be able to challenge that credo without being cancelled.

    According to a recently established “anonymous testimonials website” called GC Academia Network – where GC stands for “gender critical” – some academics in UK universities “are self-censoring for fear of reprisals”, while others report being censured or investigated for transphobia merely for failing to announce gender pronouns or for liking or sharing tweets. Set up several weeks ago by two academics concerned about “a ‘no debate’ culture in academia”, the online forum has already received 120 submissions from academics who hold “gender critical” views.

    Michelle Donelan, the universities minister, has asked the Office for Students to investigate a new policy at Durham University requiring the students union to vet all external speakers deemed “high risk” (a euphemism for speakers with conservative or gender critical views). She said: “If it has been accurately reported in the press, the decision by Durham University is gravely disappointing and not in line with our high expectations for universities in this area. To give a student union this power over external speakers is wholly inappropriate: no university should ever grant a student union any authority or role in vetting, limiting or otherwise overseeing which external speakers may be invited to speak on campus, or under what circumstances they may do so.”

    A new online newspaper has been founded at the University of Chicago by students Audrey Unverferth and Evita Duffy. The Chicago Thinker will bring some balance to what the two students see as a one-sided political culture at the University by presenting views from a conservative or libertarian perspective. Unverferth said: “We deserve a voice and it is really important that we do partake in the battle of ideas on campus.” The newspaper’s mission is to challenge “the mob’s crusade against free speech”.

    Pregnant persons are mothers

    “Pregnant persons” will now be referred to as “mothers” in a bill making its way through the House of Lords. The change was urged by Lord Lucas, who submitted 15 amendments, commenting: “The use of the word ‘person’ in the Bill as it is now erases the reality that, overwhelmingly, maternity is undertaken by women and not by men. To leave ‘person’ in place would be a step backwards in women’s equality.”

    Iceland

    After his sacking from Iceland for what were intended to be humorous comments about Wales and the Welsh language, former Director of Corporate Affairs Keith Hann has responded with an article entitled “How trying to be funny cost me my job” in which he argues that the “cancel culture that is sadly becoming the norm in the UK is plain wrong”. Along with the complaints made to Iceland that led to his sacking, he has received abusive messages and death threats for offences such as calling the Welsh language “incomprehensible” and referring to it as “a dead language that sounds uncannily like someone with bad catarrh clearing his throat”.

    Next generation of writers

    In response to a question about authors dropped by their publishers for wrongthink, writer and Nobel laureate Sir Kazuo Ishiguro said he was concerned for the next generation of writers who self-censor for fear that an “anonymous lynch mob will turn up online and make their lives a misery”. He added: “Novelists should feel free to write from whichever viewpoint they wish, or represent all kinds of views.”

    Taboo to boo

    FSU Deputy Research Director Emma Webb appeared on Talk Radio to defend the right of football fans to boo players taking the knee. She said: “Our argument is that if the footballers are allowed to take the knee and to express themselves in that way then the fans should also be allowed to express themselves – it has to be one or the other – and that the football association needs to issue guidance before fans come back into the stadiums to avoid people’s free speech being limited.” You can read our letter to the Football Association about this here.

    Woke bar

    The Bar Standards Board does not defend the freedom of barristers to criticise woke culture because it would be “likely to diminish the trust and confidence which the public places in… the profession”, writes Jon Holbrook in The Critic. The barrister was recently expelled from his Chambers for tweeting: “The Equality Act undermines school discipline by empowering the stroppy teenager of colour.” He explains that “the reference to the pupil as being ‘of colour’ was unobjectionable and central to my criticism of the EHRC tweet. Moreover, a teenager who was sent home repeatedly for defying a school uniform policy that merely required her hair to be ‘of reasonable size and length’ can hardly grumble at being described as ‘stroppy’”. Holbrook argues that the leadership of the bar has revealed itself to be “infused with a wokeness that cannot tolerate its outspoken critics”.

    Cancellations

    The BBC is intending to air episodes of Fawlty Towers in next week’s Festival of Funny, but the racist lines of the character known as “the Major” will be edited out. When the BBC removed an episode from BBC iPlayer for the same reason last year, John Cleese commented: “The Major was an old fossil left over from decades before. We were not supporting his views, we were making fun of them. If they can’t see that, if people are too stupid to see that, what can one say?”

    Channel 4 has dropped Ant Middleton, host of SAS: Who Dares Wins, for a tweet from last June that read: “The extreme left against the extreme right. When did two wrongs make a right … BLM and EDL are not welcome on our streets, absolute scum.” The ex-soldier subsequently deleted the tweet and apologised, but that wasn’t good enough for Channel 4. The broadcaster issued a statement saying it had “become clear that our views and values are not aligned”.

    President Biden removed some of the books of Theodore Seuss Geisel, the children’s author better known as Dr Seuss, from the recommended list for Read Across America Day, which falls on Geisel’s birthday, the 2nd of March, because of their allegedly racist content. According to some critics, Horton Hears a Who! “reinforces themes of White supremacy, Orientalism, and White saviorism”.

    Encyclosphere

    Citing Wikipedia’s left-wing bias, a former co-founder of the website, Larry Sanger, is planning to launch a free speech-friendly alternative called “Encyclosphere”, which he describes as “an old-fashioned, leaderless, ownerless network, like the blogosphere”. At first, Wikipedia was “truly committed to neutrality” but has now become “propaganda” according to Sanger, whose goal is “to create a protocol that very loosely ties all the encyclopaedias online together”.

    Sharing the newsletter

    We’ve received several requests to make it possible to share these newsletters on social media, so we’ve added the option to post them on several platforms, including Twitter and Facebook. Just click on the buttons below.

    If someone has shared this newsletter with you and you’d like to join the FSU, you can find our website here.

    Kind regards,

    1. What a thoroughly depressing newsletter.

      We are being attacked on all sides by people who cry if their own beliefs are challenged.

    2. The Scottish Hate Law will shut down everything. From being rude to referees to denouncing child rape by migrants you can expect to see the inside of a prison cell. In my biased racist view this law steered through the Scottish Parliament by a muslim is intended to prevent any criticism of muslims.
      Everything else is an obfuscation, and a smoke screen as well as a bonus to generate fines.

    1. And there was me thinking the NHS needed more money.

      Any idea when they’ll be seeing patients again?

    4. Picking which childish scribble to hang on the corridor walls – cue ‘competition in nearby junior schools; subject – rainbows. Give a ‘prestigious’ art installation job to your brother-in-law who makes statement sculptures out of old baking tins?

        2. Advertised only in The Guardian…

          And it would have to be Bristol, the new home of reparations for slavery.

      2. Our local general hospital has framed pictures on the walls. I have it on my list to point out to them that these things collect dirt.

      3. I remember working on a boiler project at Chelsea & Westminster hospital several years ago (during the Blair spend, spend, spend era). I remakred when entering at a bronze scupture in the lobby and asked the Facilities Manager about it. He said it cost them £150k. How many nurses could’ve been employed instead of having that piece of rubbish?

  37. Disco Dancing

    Husband took the wife to a disco at the weekend.

    There was a guy on the dance floor giving it large – breakdancing, moonwalking, back flips, the works.

    The wife turned to husband and said: “See that guy? 25 years ago, he proposed to me and I turned him down.”

    Husband says: “Looks like he’s still celebrating!!!”

    1. When you score with a chick in a disco bar,
      Take her home in your hairy little car,
      And you find you went to school with her ma and pa:
      You’re the oldest swinger in town!

      [Fred Wedlock]

  38. 329884+ up ticks,
    The governance lab/lib/con coalition group do not stop at not training up indigenous nurses that can also be applied to
    Brickies, Chippies, sparkies, plumbers, the backbone of the construction trade.

    The coalition close shop are using imported labour to build homes for imported labour, educate ( brainwash) imported labour, medicate imported labour & occasionally incarcerate
    imported labour, with the consent, as the polling booth shows
    time after time of the electorate.

    The polling booth also informs me that the electorate are seemingly content with their taxes funding these issues does
    anyone disagree ?

    breitbart,
    British Nursing Candidates Rejected as the Govt Prioritised Cheap Migrants, Think Tank Claims

    1. Morning Per.

      Charlie considers himself to be a few ranks higher up the ecclesiastical ladder than … anyone!

    2. He’s too old for the job – dammit, he’s only two years younger than I am and considerably more senile.

    3. I think he will take it if it arises, then either Abdicate or go for Regency at 80. As his mother should have done.

      1. If his mother had done as you suggested I very much doubt that the Monarchy would be in nearly as good condition as it is.
        Were it not for the Queen, I strongly suspect that the antics of the minor Royals: Andrew and his tribe, Harry and his troublemaker and Charles’s wokery would have destroyed it, with the potential for a President Blair.

  40. I was pestered a couple of weeks ago to have the jab which I refused.

    Today’s BBC news tells of people suffering from asthma should not have the jab.

    Guess what…I suffer from asthma!

    1. Guess what? I’m in the same position and the information re asthma sufferers has been about for some time. That being the case why did my surgery ring me and ask me to make an appointment for the jab? To be fair, the surgery have not pestered me since but the NHS has sent me two letters. Is the government taking any heed of what the manufacturers stipulate re their potions, or is it jabby, jabby for jabby’s sake.

      I have a preventer i.e. brown inhaler containing a corticosteroid, that I take daily and a blue inhaler for when I feel an attack starting. There is a report doing the rounds that asthma sufferers form a very low percentage of those infected with CV-19 and testing indicates that the preventer is the reason for the low figures.

      2. It just shows that nothing has been properly thought through…

        Why are they so keen to jab people with an untested for long term effects vaccine?

        Strange how the elite want a world population of just 1/2 billion people while their controlled politicians seem keen to prevent deaths!!!

    2. Me too. Unfortunately, after reading the report, it’s only some docs who mistakely believe that the guidance is that only patients with asthma who’ve been hospitalised (with an asthma-related ailment) within the last 12 months get bumped up the queue, rather than sufferers who’ve been hospitalised at any point in their life.

      I at least use me suffering from asthma (legitamately – my house dust mite allergy means I would start to wheeze within short order using re-usable masks) to avoid having to wear a face mask. There’s a couple of nice downloadable images on the Asthma UK website that, like I did, print out and put in a badge holder (about £1 or so from most stationers or online) and can be used as an ‘exemption’. It’s worked for me thus far.

      https://www.asthma.org.uk/advice/triggers/coronavirus-covid-19/what-should-people-with-asthma-do-now/should-i-wear-a-face-mask-or-face-covering/#Card

  41. I was wondering. Do the beeboids put a warning when they are showing a Shakespeare play?

    “This performance contains language, characters and situations that viewers may find offensive.”

    2. I love Shakespeare’s poetry and his perceptive insights into the human condition.

      This is why I hate many of the recent TV productions of his plays.

  42. Navalny Turns Up in Quarantine at Russia Detention Center. 5 February 2021

    Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny said he’s being held in quarantine in a detention center 150 kilometers (90 miles) from Moscow, resurfacing for the first time since being taken from his cell in the capital last week to serve a 2 and 1/2-year prison term.

    “Everything’s fine with me and there’s even a pull-up bar in the jail yard,” Navalny wrote in an Instagram post from the Kolchugino pre-trial detention center in the Vladimir region.

    Obviously a truly dreadful place! What was it? Sleep deprivation. Beatings. Harshest Jail. Unbearable. Give me a break!

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-03/navalny-turns-up-in-quarantine-at-russia-detention-center

    2. Come on! He has quite rightly complained that his favourite brand of caviar is only served once a month.

  43. The Budget lays the ground for an early election the Tories may regret
    The Chancellor’s timing hints at a snap poll but, as Theresa May knows, this would be a mighty gamble.

    FRASER NELSON : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/03/04/budget-lays-ground-early-election-tories-may-regret/

    A warning from a BTL commentator:

    An early election which delivers a victory for Labour will take the UK straight back into the EU.

    It would be ironic if Britain rejoined the EU just as Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain finally decided to leave it!

    2. Morning Rastus According to the BBC a snap election in 2023 is being discussed. They need to get rid of Johnson very soon.

      1. 329884+ up ticks,
        Afternoon Cs,
        They need to get rid of the lab/lib/con coalition group in total.

    2. Thank you so much,Duncan! I have been spoiled with so many birthday wishes from lovely people! XX

  45. I see that the DT have a large picture of a self-centred, self-pitying, tiresome face front and centre again, with a drip standing next to it. I have an ad-blocker, is it possible to get a Meeeagain blocker? Or do I have to stop looking at the DT for a while. Thank heavens I don’t have a sub.

  47. There was a snippet on the BBC this morning about the need for further action against racism in football.
    The Association of Black Footballers have complained against further action as it “might well deprive their members of their supply of free bananas”.

    2. 329884+ up ticks,
      Morning Rik,
      You can rest assured you are going down the swannee in style with a lab/lib/con coalition vote.

      Who’s writing the cons bryne type note ?
      “There is NO real money left.

  52. 329884+ up ticks,
    breitbart,

    Children Without Masks Will Be Segregated, Use Separate Entrances: Report

    Initially they will not be tagged “unclean” but with a
    lab/lib/con vote at every opportunity this can be achieved,
    tattoos are to be considered for persistent anti maskers.

    Courtesy of the conning con group in league with the lab/libs.

    1. I find those figures somewhat surprising.
      Unless I’ve misplaced a decimal point, that equates to roughly 250 lbs of food per head; and that’s for the total population of the world.
      Given that the very poor will waste very little, the figures for the developed world must be absolutely horrendous.

      1. Sos, sorry but I don’t agree with your figure!
        What number did you use for the world population?

          1. I didn’t get that far because the
            weight was not enough!
            I assumed that 931 tons was 17%,
            making ……….., 5876 tons….. 100%
            5876 tons=13,162,210 pounds
            divided by 7,800,000=1.68lbs, approx.
            What have I done wrong?

          2. I think you have over-complicated.

            I read it that 931 million tons was wasted.

            (931,000,000/7,800,000,000) x 2240 ~= 267lbs per head, rounded down to 250

      2. The report doesn’t suggest that every human on the planet is wasting around 250lbs of food, every year, each. It suggests that a lot of it is wasted in the processing and storing of it.

        Take bread for example. How many loaves of bread are baked daily and what percentage of them are sold and eaten? As we know, bread has a shelf life (for sale) of less than one day. This means that vast prairies of wheat are being grown, and harvested, to supply the grain for millions of loaves that are baked and then not sold (or consumed) every single day! Those unsold loaves are then simply thrown away.

        Stupidity on a universal scale.

        1. There are 100’s of recipes that use stale bread. Panzanella salad for a start. Perfect to thicken soups without using flour which makes a gloopy soup. Then you can make breadcrumbs which you can freeze.

          2. I think most of the waste occurs before it enters someone’s kitchen. I always have a sliced loaf in the freezer for emergency toast !

          3. I know. I know. I know. I do so me-sen!

            But there aren’t billions of panzanellas being made daily worldwide. Most unsold bread goes to the landfill.

          4. It’s annoying that supermarkets say their customers won’t buy knobbly veg ( which is left rotting in the fields).

            People would buy it if they could see it and the price was right.

          5. When I go to an independent greengrocer’s shop I seek out the veg with odd shapes and knobbly bits. They generally taste much better than the bland and anodyne ‘nicely’-shaped stuff.

        2. Well, I suppose a clever system would bring forward the grain from storage only when required. The quantity withdrawn from storage would be sufficient for predicted sales orders. Waste thereafter would be down to local variation in sales against forecast and the actions of individual consumers.
          Supermarket in-store bakeries may have quite good control over quantities being baked as unsold excess represents costs without income.

        3. Neither did I. I was pointing out that if the amount really is 931 million tons of food then the wastage in the developed world must be very high. Likely to be far above 250 lbs a head

    2. The biggest loss of food is between the ground and the point of sale – in India. Due to lack of refrideration, proper protective packaging and poor handling practices.

      1. I find that poor supermakret management plays a big role. Becasue many supermarkets – especially the smaller shops, don’t have sufficiently large ‘back of house’ storage areas for rapidly perishable fresh foods (as well as some chilled/frozen ones – well-publicised problems at certain Iceland and Aldi stores), the staff often just put everything they get from the delivery lorry straight onto the shelves, lumping newly-arrived items with those near the ‘display until’ or even ‘use-by’ dates.

        Most people will take the items with the longest display until/use-by date, leaving those nearer their date unsold and thus the shop has to sell them at a big loss (last summer, I was buying boxes of fruit [about 3-4 portions] for 5p – 10p instead of the normal £1.75+), if they can at all. Poor stock control often means that a shortage makes people shop elsewhere for that item, and when stock eventually does arrive, no-one needs to buy them and they get chucked.

        I’ve seen this poor management result in the closure of stores.

    5. I don’t waste a crumb. The only ‘food’ that gets thrown out is fat and gristle (the birds eat that) and spud peelings etc which are composted. I cook just enough to eat and eat what I cook. I suspect most of the wasted food in this country is from fussy kids whose parents can’t be bothered to exercise some control.

      1. One of my favourite meals is when we have left-overs.

        There’s bit of magret de canard in the fridge which I am looking forward to having tomorrow because Caroline’s excellent duck dish was served up last night for supper and it was greatly enjoyed.

      2. Normal people don’t, Spikey. Most waste is created by the consortiums that produce it.

      3. Supermarkets don’t help by offering items only as multi packs and BOGOFs.

  54. Another piece of rubbish from the DT: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/should-housework-have-salary-5-women-calculate-unpaid-income/

    Should housework have a salary? 5 women calculate their ‘unpaid’ income
    Ever wondered how much you’d earn if those hours of domestic labour came with a wage? We asked three women to submit their invoices

    This reminds me of that excruciatingly mawkish but accurate song about a child who wants to be paid for performing normal household chores:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5njhtHDZ67A

    3. I read that whilst having my breakfast this morning. Absolutely laughed my head off reading the BTL reader comments. Given who the author of the ‘report’ is, how long until the comments section gets deleted?

    4. So, who will be paying?
      What’s the going rate for fixing the car, mowing the grass, painting the outside of the house, pollarding the trees (working at height special allowance?), rodding the drains, booking the plumber…?
      Bah!

  55. Not bad, eh? Clearly the government does not have the guts to face a tribunal. I suppose his future career may involve placement in sinecures lined up by the government?

    “Sir Philip Rutnam the former top civil servant in the Home Office has settled his employment tribunal claim against Priti Patel for a six-figure sum.
    Sir Philip Rutnam, who served as the department’s ex-permanent secretary, began proceedings against the Home Secretary last year after quitting his post in February.
    He accused the Tory minister of a “vicious and orchestrated briefing campaign” against him.
    Patel rejected all claims of bullying made against her.
    The tribunal was due to take place in September, with all the allegations made public.
    However, in a statement via the FDA Union on Thursday, Rutnam said the Government had decided to settle.
    He said: “I am pleased to say that the Government has today settled the claims that I brought against them and which were due to be heard in an employment tribunal in September.
    “I have received excellent support during this process and I would like to express warm thanks to the FDA and to my legal team, Slater and Gordon and Gavin Mansfield QC.
    “I also want to record my appreciation and thanks to the many individuals, known and unknown to me, who have expressed their support throughout.
    “This settlement resolves my own case. The FDA is continuing to pursue in separate proceedings the wider issues that have been raised.
    “I now look forward to the next stages of my career.”
    The UK Government said it “regrets the circumstances surrounding Sir Philip’s resignation”.
    In a statement, it said: “Sir Philip Rutnam resigned from his post as permanent secretary of the Home Office on February 29, 2020, and subsequently began legal proceedings against the Home Office.
    “Joining the civil service in 1987, Sir Philip is a distinguished public servant. During this period he held some of the most senior positions in the Civil Service including as permanent secretary of the Department for Transport and the Home Office.
    “The then cabinet secretary wrote to Sir Philip when he resigned. This letter recognises his devoted public service and excellent contribution; the commitment and dedication with which he approached his senior leadership roles; and the way in which his conduct upheld the values inherent in public service.
    “The Government regrets the circumstances surrounding Sir Philip’s resignation. The Government and Sir Philip are now pleased that a settlement has been reached to these proceedings.”
    A Home Office spokesman said: “The Government and Sir Philip’s representatives have jointly concluded that it is in both parties’ best interests to reach a settlement at this stage rather than continuing to prepare for an employment tribunal.
    “The Government does not accept liability in this matter and it was right that the Government defended the case.”
    The wider issues referred to by Rutnam includes the FDA’s judicial review of Boris Johnson’s decision to overrule his own ethics adviser.
    Sir Alex Allan resigned in November after the Prime Minister rejected the findings of his investigation into the allegations around Patel.
    His report found that the Home Secretary’s frustration with staff “has manifested itself in forceful expression, including some occasions of shouting and swearing”, adding: “This may not be done intentionally to cause upset, but that has been the effect on some individuals.”
    He said she may have unintentionally breached the ministerial code.”

    https://www.thenational.scot/news/19136677.uk-government-settles-home-office-boss-accused-priti-patel-bullying/

  56. BJ’s partner needs £300000 to refurbish 10 Downing Street. They are looking at sympathetic companies to provide the cash. It beggars belief.
    edited to remove an incorrect apostrophe

    1. Perhaps some of the people who have made so much money from the contracts the government have been dishing out without any real concern for whether those so honoured have any background in providing such goods/services, and apparently no quality control, could chip in a few thou for such a noble cause??

        1. Who will replace him? None of them seems to be fiscally prudent or have any connection to the real world.

    2. All so the mutt can pee and poo all over the carpets and eat the furniture it can reach. Never mind Meagain and Harried, Boritis and Carrieless are running a close second.

    3. All together now 🎵 We are all in this together 🎵

      Just don’t mention the Nursing staff pay rise of 1%

    4. Presumably she’ll have to pay for all the mess her dog made of the furniture and carpets? Not a small amount either.

  57. Nursing Union sets up £35 million fund for industrial action as anger increases in the ranks. More lives will be lost if a strike goes ahead.

    3. Now that the winter flu season is over, and given that the NHS is for the most part still not treating anything they can’t call Covid, will many people notice?

    4. That equates, Clyde, to a one-time payment of £233 for each and everyone of the 150,000 NHS staff.

  58. Good Afternoon all and especially to the Birthday Girl –

    I though I might mention that in the last two months I have ordered from foreign parts the following:-

    2 Botts of fizz from Sweden
    2 Botts of rather scrummy apple balsamic from Germany
    and a Nixie tube from Bulgaria.
    All turned up within a week with no delay or customs nonsense.

    also:-
    This morning I took SWMBO to the hospital for a minor procedure ( small benign thingy removed from arm ), the car parking was a dream, the procedure was booked for 08:30 and all done and dusted by 09:00 and back home for 10:00.

    Am I alone in this good fortune?

    2. The sun shines on the righteous Datz! Many thanks for your good wishes! 💕

    3. ‘Afternoon, Datz, I think the problem only arises when it’s the other way round. Ex pats in Spain are finding it difficult ordering anything from the UK.

      It’s time I think for us all to boycott anything from Europe, until either the EU comes to its senses or it collapses and dies.

        1. Hmmm, Nothing wrong with Colman’s. Far superior to anything Pseudo French, French, German, American or Swedish – and I’ve tried ’em all.

      2. ‘Afternoon, Tom.

        I think the Spanish ex-pats are having a rough time due to the Spanish practices authorities being peevish over the Gibraltar question. How else can you justify having food parcels sent back to point of origin or being asked to pay twice the retail price in taxes and import duties?

        I’ve paid import duties on certain electronic goods I’ve bought from the UK since January but they are not extortionate. I buy clothing items from Marks & Sparks and pay nothing extra. The same goes for food items that I buy from the UK.

        You cannot account for national peevishness.

        1. The Spanish need to be forcibly made aware of the Conditions of the Treaty of Utrecht – when they got their arses whipped in 1713 and agreed to cede Gibraltar to British rule “In perpetuity“. That means for ever, in case you don’t understand.

          So shut up about your peevishness and recognise that, even with our depleted forces, we could still whip your arses if you try anything.

          I just wish that the Foreign Offfice (and the Home Office) could shew some balls to these jumped up dagoes.

    4. SWMBO & I still looking at the world from the sunny side of the grass. Couldn’t get much better than that!

    5. Pardon my ignorance, but what’s a Bulgarian “Nixie tube”? I suspect you may be alone in your good fortune, but then, I don’t order things from abroad and I can’t get any help for MOH at all.

      1. Sorry for the late reply, I’ve only just been notified – the Nixie tube is a pre-led character/number display. I was given a Nixie Clock kit for my 70th, it’s a strange mix of digital electronics and 1950 display tech. One of the tubes was faulty and the only place to get replacements is Eastern Europe . The kit was an absolute bu**er to build as my eyesight is not what it was. Only 3 tubes appear to be active in the pic but they do all work now.

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b3f73e0826e3d6e9b093a65e54b457a2d8c2d2c4e4f1142d44be76645a16757d.png

  59. Very late on parade, been very busy.
    Happy birthday to Sue. 😍🤩

    Got to get on now.

  60. To cheer my self up (2 hospital appointments and the Dentist this week) for lunch i am having picked Devon crab, diced avocado, vine tomatoes and a lemon vinaigrette. I know it’s early but when i looked at what i had created i could hear a wine bottle calling out to me.

  61. World’s most dangerous jobs 2021
    – Security contractor, Iraq
    – Miner, China
    – Gamekeeper, Republic of Congo
    – Harry & Meghan’s chauffeur, California

        1. They can be a an absolute pain in the arse eh 😉
          My B i L is ex public school ex royal navy and was high up in city insurance. Generally a decent chap, but thinks he knows it all. He use to compile rather obscure quizzes for New years eve dinner parties and frankly only he would know all the answers. But he’s not so good for instance when your on a table of 6 at a general knowledge quiz night.

    3. :-D)
      Opinions are like arseholes.
      Everybody’s got one, and most of them stink.

    1. I do find his words ironic, given he was fiddling with his face nappy throughout his comments, against all the advice from the CDC. Presumably he either cannot read properly, remember anything (likely) for more than a few minutes or ignores this advice because he knows it’s all fake anyway (as most leftist journos do when they go off camera).

    2. It is interesting that all modern humans, except Africans, have around 2-4% Neanderthal DNA. These are the most technically advanced humans!

  66. Married teacher, 35, who had outdoor sex with her 15-year-old pupil is jailed for over six years as victim says ordeal ruined his GCSE results Daily Fail

    Jailing her today Recorder Bal Dhaliwal said: ‘You acted in gross breach of trust. You took advantage of a child in your care and groomed him for your own sexual gratification.’

    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2021/03/05/11/40080724-9329729-image-a-1_1614945589323.jpg

    Not the right colour. How many of his tribe has Bal Dhaliwal dealt with so harshly? Probably somewhere between none and zero. The county’s gone mad.

    1. His GCSE results were probably bollox because he spent too much time enjoying the extra-curricular teaching, followed by mass-masturbation. Little w⚓.

    2. When I was 15 and priapic, I’d have been over the moon if such a teacher shagged my brains out. Might have taken, ooh, 10 seconds at most.

      1. 329884+ up ticks,
        Afternoon AS,
        Any governance employees been brought to book for aiding & abetting the rotherham long tern cover-up yet ?

    4. 329884+ up ticks,
      Afternoon P,
      15 I was well into the work routine after having a gap week.

    5. What a cruel and inappropriate sentence. All sense of proportion lost. I hope the boy feels some guilt.

      1. Possibly.
        But put the boot on the other foot and ask yourself how many fathers would be happy if a 35 year old male teacher had seduced their 15 year old daughter?

          1. Indeed, but I still suspect that most male Nottlers, had it been their daughter or granddaughter involved, would have been calling for the teacher’s balls, not sniggering about the boy’s good fortune.

            And if that 35 year old teacher had become pregnant and kept going after the boy for child support for the next 18 years how would you feel about that?

      2. He’s 15. That it might not have been the smartest thing to do, jump Teacher’s bones (however tempting) would not have crossed his mind.
        It’s an entirely inappropriate sentence. She’s destroyed her career, that would be bad enough.

        1. That is one ungrateful little sh*t. Having said that, if the daft teacher had waited until the (sh) it was 16, she would simply have lost her job.
          I know of someone who married an ex-pupil, with about a 25 year age difference, and they have several children and when last heard of were happily married.

        2. It’s against the law.
          If it had been a male teacher a tough sentence would have bee expected.

    7. Blast, apart from the fact that none of my teachers was interested in me, why didn’t I think of that excuse for my first stab at Latin ‘O’ level?

  68. Police investigating ‘number of casualties’ in serious and ‘disturbing’ incident in South Wales. 5 March 2021.

    Police in the borough of Rhondda Cynon Taf in South Wales are currently investigating a “serious incident” which occurred in Baglan Street, Treorchy at midday on Friday.

    In a statement released by South Wales Police, the force said that “the incident involves a number of casualties” and that ambulance crews are in attendance.

    Sounds like “Stabby! Stabby!” to me!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/03/05/police-investigating-number-casualties-serious-disturbing-incident/

    1. Covid lockdown held the numbers down a bit. Time to make them up !

      2018 to 2019 46,000 stabbings in England and Wales.

      The joys of multiculturalism.

    3. “Chris Bryant the local MP took to Twitter to expressed his sympathies with those involved.”

      Doubt if this will help those who were stabbed very much. Bryant bathes daily in odium and greases himself with toad’s venom.

      1. The BBC News seems to be waiting to get its story straight so that it doesn’t alarm the natives.

          1. But, but, but, “The public has been urged by police to “refrain from speculation” about the incident.”

    5. Neighbour Mavis Wakeford, 79, added: “I’ve lived here all my life and nothing like this has ever happened before.”

        1. No, she just had to put up with blackface miners and the Treorchy Male Voice Choir.

      1. 329884+ up ticks,
        Afternoon Kp,
        The indigenous peoples must be in agreement otherwise it would surely have been reflected in the polling booth these last four decades, would it not ?

          1. Only once every five years with our vote, assuming there is someone different to vote for.

          3. Let’s face it, most of what we get was never in the manifesto. Where was Cameron’s gay marriage legislation touted in the election literature?

          4. 329884+ up ticks,
            Evening N,
            In the nicest possible way, that I do not believe they have always had a say in matters since the The Great Charter, it is the way they choose to use their “say” in the polling booth.

            The peoples are no longer united in a common cause they are fighting an anti nation fight via supporting the three close shop toxic parties vying for the seat of power whilst a greater power is working covertly.

            Think on it, 48% of the peoples wanted to be ruled by foreign
            overseers 5 years ago many of the 52 % went back to supporting / voting for the party name, be it lab/lib/con, all the while voicing
            discontentment with the parties actions, again & again.

            This state of affairs regarding the polling booth & the vote pattern has been for the last three decades deteriorating year on year.

            An indigenous people power force united, would be unbeatable.

          5. Too many people have been brainwashed, ogga. The opium of endless propaganda and the braindead have lost the power to think for themselves.

          6. 329884+ up ticks,
            N,
            Then the legacy will be long term suffering, the brainwashing
            was / is the people’s choice.

            One will get a pointer on the 6th May.

      1. Afternoon sos, they can’t even ascertain that can they. Hence welcome one, welcome all ( but only in a never ending trickle).

  70. According to the Dreary Express the average wage for a nurse is about £650 a week. That should easily keep them in pies and burgers and not jeopardise their silhouettes. Not exactly scraping a living!

      2. £82 per week. The full basic State Pension is £134.25 per week. All things are relative.

  72. There is an anthology on BBC TWO HD at 9 o’clock tomorrow night of Dave Allen’s best work. Set your recorders now!

    2. I was totally and utterly surprised when the lunchtime news on Radio 3 had a nurse on who said she was privileged to have a job and thought that the 1% was in effect reward enough. FFS what’s going on – that’s not normally in the script?

  74. I wish to abolish the word “bullying”. I am fed up with a playground word being bandied about by people earning six figure salaries.

    All those in favour….

    2. Oh I don’t know, I am entirely happy for Meeeagain to be called out for bullying, because that’s how she is. Although she imagines she is all sweetness and light with employees, but sometimes she has to be ‘fair’.

    2. That might depend if you were a virgin, and a pile of blood, flesh and bone appeared and slithered all over you.

    5. Then why did the Church of England close down during the pandemic?
      Surely, it would want all the worshippers to go to their eternal bliss.

    1. Yo All

      For Paeddy

      paedophile, not pedophile

      Two Nations, divided by one language

    2. 329884+ up ticks,
      Afternoon Rik,
      Still a multitude support & vote for mass uncontrolled immigration, ongoing / paedophile importer, ongoing coalition, via the three monkey mode.

      Party before ALL else.

  78. That’s me for the day. Bonfire till smouldering nicely. A cold night in prospect.

    Enjoy your evening.

    A demain.

      1. They don’t even know I am having one. I wait until the wind if from the north-east . The nearest habitation in that direction is over five miles away.

        I am the very opposite of the disagreeable neighbour who lives 100 yards away and waits until the wind is in the opposite direction – and so annoys (infuriates) ten houses.

  81. A former Army officer has waded into the ongoing feud being waged between Mr. & Mrs Hewitt and the Royal Family.

    “I can confirm that Harry has a poor sense of humour and a worse taste in women.” said the officer, speaking under conditions of strict anonymity.

    “I recall a conversation with him when his engagement to Migraine was first announced.” he continued, “I told him, ‘Harry, you’ve got to be having a giraffe, mate! My dad’s got a auld hen back on his croft with better legs than that!’ He got quite incensed and then later on, I found out that the snakey bastard had complained about me at Regimental level. Harry told the CO that unless he took action, he wouldn’t be seeing his name featuring in the Honours List any time soon. I believe Harry’s vindictiveness cost me promotion – after fifteen years service, I was still only a 2nd Lieutenant – so I resigned my commission.

    I intend to sue Harry for conspiracy to effect my constructive dismissal from the Army and my lawyers will certainly demand that his wife’s legs be produced in court as exhibits A and B. The auld hen in question will be produced as exhibit C to establish veracity of my claim.”

    A Royal spokesman said that since the time of Queen Anne, the Palace has never commented on deeply personal matters such as legs.

    3. St John’s Smith Square designed by Thomas Archer, a baroque architect and contemporary of Sir Christopher Wren, was given the name Queen Anne’s Footstool on account of its four towers.

      Folklore has it that Queen Anne on seeing the design kicked her footstool over.

  82. Evening all – following on from yesterday’s conversation about fish – I have to report after today’s foray into Morrisons that their fish counter now proudly promotes ‘fish caught in British waters by British fishermen’ and a picture of the actual boats they were caught – so I bought a couple of sea bass fillets caught by the “William”.

    1. For those of us less expert, what do you think may be happening and what might happen soon?

      I’m assuming this is with respect to the recent New Zealand Quake.

          1. If he is right then, joining the dots, major earthquakes might take the focus away from the Covid nonsense, especially if Tokyo and San Francisco experience the effects.

          2. Yellowstone, Siberia, California, Japan, Biden’s in the White House.
            The world’s definitely ending…

          3. Earthquakes disturb bubonic plague carrying marmots.
            (That’s your weekend kiboshed.)

          9. The two big ones when they arrive are the San Andreas and the Anatolian faults…..

      2. “Terraemotus magni erunt per loca et pestilentiae et fames terroresque de caelo et signa magna erunt”
        — Luc. 21:11
        :¬(

          4. Yeah, I think calamari is tasty too, but eating the poor creatures makes me miserable..

        3. Unus scripsit: fortius est vinum. Alius scripsit: fortior est rex. Tertius autem scripsit: fortiores sunt mulieres, super omnia autem vincit veritas.
          Sed vacuus fit in conspectu Domini terrae

          1. Geoff – There’s a problem with Disqus. It seems to be translating a number of posts into Latin – can you sort it please?

          8. I had never seen her/them before, that was entertaining.
            I’ll look out for more.

          10. I went to see them at the theatre many years ago. The trio signed autographs and had a chat with anyone and everyone in the foyer.

            Part of the appeal besides it being satirical comedy cabaret was the fact that they were posh girls being naughty.

            My favourite…

            Of Dutch descent, Baroness Isabelle van Randwyck grew up in Kent and was educated at West Heath Girls’ School
            and Queensgate, London. She appeared as the only “real” girl in the
            drag cabaret at Madame Jojo’s from 1989 to 1991. She was vocalist
            alongside Hugh Lindsay (equerry to HM The Queen) in the Sweatband. In
            1990 she was a featured vocalist, along with Robin Wright, on a dance
            version of “California Dreamin'” by the studio group The Midnight Shift, reaching no 1 in the Hi Energy charts. She sang with the jazz harmonica player Larry Adler from 1991, touring worldwide with him. She can be heard on his tribute album The Glory of Gershwin, produced by George Martin. As an actress she has appeared at the Royal National, the West End and Regents Park Open Air theatres (nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Supporting Performance for the latter’s production of Kiss Me, Kate). She was cast in many television series including Waiting for God, Spooks, Trial & Retribution, Numbertime, and in the films The Danish Girl,Blithe Spirit and Christopher and His Kind. She is the curator of The Festival at Hampstead Theatre, a drama and literary festival started in 2015.

            She was also a part of Fascinating Aïda for five years from 1994 to 1999, and was nominated for two Olivier Awards for Best Entertainment.

          12. The line up has changed over the years but the format hasn’t. Lots of YouTube vids.

          13. Cave Canem (beware of the dog) – mosaic in Pompei. There was also the cast of a dog who was chained up and couldn’t escape the pyroclastic cloud. Made a big impression on me as a pupil studying Latin when I went there.

          14. I still haven’t been there – but that image of the dog was in The Book of Knowledge and made a big impression on me when I was a child. I still have that set on the shelf.

          15. It’s well worth a visit, especially now as they have uncovered more of it than when I went (in 1963). I found it fascinating to walk across the streets on the stepping stones and see the ruts made by chariot wheels. It really brought it home and made me connect with the Romans.

          18. Speaking of which, I seem to remember hearing of an eminent professor of archaeology who said that the Romans didn’t use under floor heating at all. He insisted it was just a rumor urbanus.

            He was de-platformed by Twitter after he was accused of being a hypocaust denier.

          19. Brilliant!

            From my bedroom window I can see, across the valley, a quarry that Romans quarried for building stone for Bath.

          21. The other thing which impressed me (well, it would at that age, wouldn’t it?) was the communal loos.

          23. The Pompeii ones were at least six-seaters – possibly more. I can’t find the photos and memory is fading.

        4. Since I moved, i no longer have to live with a built-in microwave which proclaims “end time” every time it’s finished…

          Perhaps Siemens know more than we do?

        2. Pass, but I’m starting to think Gaia might be a better theory than Darwin’s

  84. Evening, all. I don’t know about the principles of Conservative success, but Sunak has definitely killed off any last traces of the Conservatives’ former reputation for fiscal responsibility.

    2. Today’s Spectator newsletter has a cartoon showing a fiscal conservative as an exhibit in a museum.

      Only too true I am afraid, the parties all seem intent on bribing people with their own money (cue ogga).

    3. The conservatives lost any credibility after disposing of Margaret Thatcher and she was by no means perfect.

      Sunak is the son in law of an Indian computing billionaire and a former merchant banker. As such he has no idea whatsoever of the suffering he and Johnson, Gove and Hancock are inflicting on the SMEs and self employed.

      May they be prosecuted for corruption and malfeasance in public office and given lengthy prison sentences. May they go on to rot in putrid hell.

  85. Late on parade but I hope not too late to say

    Happy Birthday Sue_E

    Many happy returns 🙂 🙂

    1. As long as you were standing to attention when giving the salute, I’m sure she’ll forgive your lateness.

      1. wotever… My mother used to say that “I answer to anything but blows!”

        1. Sorree………. just can’r resist – especially now the pedant in chief has retired…….

      1. Thank you Geoff! I’ve had a wonderful day being 64! You’re going to love it!!

          4. Sadly, no longer. Leaving aside anything er.. organic, the two churches where I’m still organist are closed apart from Wednesday afternoons. I’ve lost my key for Seale Church, so for the first time in 50 years, I’m not allowed to practice.

            The CofE hierarchy seem determined to stamp out small village churches.

          8. Now, that’s correct. Wanborough Station isn’t in Wanborough. It’s in Flexford, which is part of Normandy (not the French one). Lord W’boro used to have massive house parties, and when the North Downs line was planned, he paid for a station, named after him, but a couple of miles from his manor.

    2. She is determined, but she won’t. We, the people of the United Kingdom, are united in our determination that she will not succeed.

    6. I don’t think badly of her for working as a suitcase girl.
      I do think badly of her for how she treats other people.

  87. So, this ‘serious and ‘disturbing’ incident in South Wales’ reported by the DT at 3.05 this afternoon…
    I assume it was some sort of attack by a lone Norwegian Methodist minister with some sort of mental health issues?
    Ah, good. So that’s all right then.

      1. Yeah, I saw it was centred around a Chinese takeaway. Just wondering why it has all gone quiet…

          2. Did you know that there is NO law with regard to eating Dog meat in the UK?

            I am very difficult re stuff that is offered in restaurants , and I have also heard that chorizo is donkey meat!

          6. Probably years ago, have eaten at the golf club , not impressed with pub food which is served in a quirky fashion.

            Moh isn’t a keen eater outer … We had a disaster when invited by friends to a top chinese eaterie in Weymouth, we were shocked to eat communally from a a huge dish filled full of huge hairy crabs, I didn’t know what to do.

          7. Pet food sold in GB has to be fit for human consumtion, but it is not recomended.

        1. Do you mean the departed? If so will his relatives need an Uighur Board to get in touch?….

    3. A 16-year-old girl has died and two men have been arrested after suffering serious injuries in the Rhondda.

      The teenager’s death in Treorchy was “sudden and unexplained” and a post-mortem examination is due, South Wales Police said.

      Emergency crews were called at about midday to reports of a stabbing in Baglan Street, which is sealed off.

      1. Witnesses said the Chinese takeaway was ‘covered in blood’ and more than 30 emergency vehicles were at the scene around midday in the village of Ynyswen, 30 emergency vehicles? Something odd going on.

    4. A 16-year-old girl has died and two men have been arrested after suffering serious injuries in the Rhondda.

      The teenager’s death in Treorchy was “sudden and unexplained” and a post-mortem examination is due, South Wales Police said.

      Emergency crews were called at about midday to reports of a stabbing in Baglan Street, which is sealed off.

    2. Apparently, track & trace has run up another £12 bn in costs. Obviously worth every million.

    1. I have a clip somewhere of James Cagney dancing brilliantly with Bob Hope on a polished conference room table in what appears to be a gentleman’s club.

      When I first watched it I thought what great and talented entertainers they were. All we have nowadays are Ant and Dec, a couple of wankers, one by of which is a drink driver.

  92. Goodnight, everyone. I’m off to stoke the Rayburn, have a bath (to soak the ash and coal dust away) and try to get a decent night’s sleep for once.

  93. ‘Night All

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/97eff4956fac3d0ecc4251578a04bdb4ba985c290af356616bbf51583138644d.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c61811b5f812aeb0ad6c369d9c909e9d6006d8d6dd08a243b912324d6bea5498.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9c4bbe7caa8ac7cb4855534cc786d3584a6464f82387ac92107d20f313e14c7f.png

    What a cock-up it all is

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6bef2b273f74b41f653ddc1ae1a89f476b6c191cb7b86b1c533cdbf9bcbdff91.gif

  94. The nasty, ignorant SNP has been unmasked

    For too long the Nats have been allowed to get away with telling people like me that we are not true Scots

    DOUGLAS MURRAY

    In the Western world today, “nationalists” tend to be viewed in a dim light. The term is used damningly of politicians in America, and with deep concern about anyone on the Continent (how much do we love French or German nationalists?). To be an “English nationalist” is to be very nearly accused of football hooliganism. Only two types of nationalist – the Irish and Scots varieties – are widely, mistakenly, regarded as “nice”.

    Whatever the causes of this, it finally seems possible that the free ride given to the Scottish nationalists at least might finally be coming to an end. Historically, the bar for their outrages has always been remarkably high. After all, when the Luftwaffe were bombing London the Scottish nationalists of the day cheered the Nazis on. And neither that nor anything else ever seemed to put much of a dent in the political project of Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon.

    Happily, in a denouement both unexpected and pleasing for Unionists like me, it seems to have needed Alex Salmond to hole Nicola Sturgeon below the water-line. In recent weeks the self-regarding Queen of Scotland has teetered. Her grip on her one-party state has faltered. And a cronyistic political settlement has finally been displayed fully on public view: embarrassing, reeking, putrid.

    The First Minister currently clings to power by hoping that she will not be found to have broken the ministerial code of conduct. But even if she is found to have broken the ministerial code we should expect her to find some excuse to stay. Because demagogues like Sturgeon always believe that the rules are there to catch out other people, with bad intentions, not great historical liberationist figures like Nicola with all her wonderful, good, bonny intentions.

    In the past, before they were in control, the Scots Nats made great play of the importance of ministerial good conduct. When the then Labour first minister, Henry McLeish, ran into trouble over the subletting of part of his Westminster constituency office, the SNP were in the highest imaginable dudgeon. The first minister’s behaviour must be beyond reproach, they roared.

    How different when it is their own gal in charge. In recent weeks almost every branch of the Scottish legislature has fought to protect the Queen Bee. All the while proving nothing but their own deep corruption. As a number of observers have commented, Scotland emerges from the Salmond-Sturgeon wars looking like a banana republic without the bananas. Throughout the recent hearings the behaviour of the Nationalists has been consistently wretched. This week for instance, while the First Minister was giving her evidence, one of those giving a running commentary was Hamza Yousaf, the SNP’s “Justice Minister”. Railing about the whole “house of cards conspiracy” and much more, it presented a conflict of interests that would have been a resigning matter in Westminster. But in the people’s republic of Scotland all such decencies must take a back seat.

    Indeed every decency must take a back seat in order to protect the grand political project of ripping Scotland from one of the most successful political unions in history. It is extraordinary what depths the Nationalists are willing to go to as they pursue this project, with its follow-on aim of immediately taking an independent Scotland to Brussels and begging to be allowed into the EU and the Eurozone.

    Take Michael Russell, the SNP MSP for Argyll and Bute. This week he could be found on social media berating British journalists who dared to question the Sturgeon government. Russell attacked Scottish-born journalists who now happen to live and work in London as “Scottish exiles”. What a putrid and petty little heart a man must have to speak like that. What is this talk of exiles? Of premium-rated Scots, and the sell-out sort who dare ever to go south of Berwick-upon-Tweed and refuse to take the knee before the throne of Sturgeon?

    Some of us mind this sort of talk very deeply. We mind the rank, wretched tone that the Scottish Nationalists have managed to introduce into this nation ever since the disastrous project of devolution first began. I was living in Scotland the year that devolution started and I saw and felt then first-hand the way in which the Scottish Nationalists were grinding into gear some of the worst, lowest weapons in the political armoury.

    They rejoiced in stoking anti-English sentiment. They rejoiced in their historically ignorant accounts of our island’s history. They rejoiced in stoking up half-baked grievances. Most of all they rejoiced in sowing division. Of pitting Scottish against English and Scot against Scot. Suddenly people like me who happen to be Scottish and English, and fully British, were told that we were not Scots. You might be Scottish and have a Scottish accent, but if you moved to London you became a not-Scot. Unless you moved to London to take an MP’s salary and work to split up the United Kingdom, of course. Then you were a good Scot.

    For over two decades the Scottish Nationalists have curdled politics in Scotland. They have turned families against each other, turned neighbour against neighbour and done all of this in pursuit of a lamentable, ignorant political goal. As they have gained control over the levers of education they have sought to indoctrinate a new generation in their putrid nationalistic ideology. And as education standards, health standards and every other standard in public life in Scotland has plummeted under their control, still the Nationalists have the gall to suggest that all of this would be better if only they were given even more power and even more independence.

    Many people in the rest of the United Kingdom look at the Scots Nats and are prey to the temptation to let them just sail away: enough of them, they think. Be off with you. But the instinct is an ignoble one. The United Kingdom needs saving in its entirety. And Scotland has a deep need to be liberated from the Nationalists who claim to want to save it and have managed over two decades to do nothing but demean it.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/03/05/nasty-ignorant-snp-has-unmasked/

    2. All in all, it makes a grand case for dissolving this wee pretendy parliament and bringing accountability and responsibility back to Westminster.

      While we are at it, let’s also dissolve the Welsh and Northern Ireland costly talking shops and bring those responsibilities and accountabilities back to Westminster.

      That is the only way we can be a truly United Kingdom rather than an assortment of very broken biscuits.

  95. From last w/e…

    So Eddie came to Cardiff with his giant pack,
    But Pivac had a better plan, to send the English back!
    It involved some flowing rugby and more than a little flair,
    But the ace in the pack was a referee, born in Aberdare!

    Pascal Gauzere was born in Aberdare,
    Bonjour mon ami, je m’appelle Gauzere!
    Owen didn’t know it, when he was sent back to his team,
    Biggar kicked it to Adams the award was quite extreme!

    Oh, how Owen argued and his bottom lip did quiver,
    But Pascal said “non” and Biggar, the conversion did deliver!
    Eddie was fuming, Martin Johnson was appalled,
    Rugby supporters across the world cheered that Adams had scored!

    The next try was disputed, “Rees lightening knocked on” cried Farrell
    But Gauzere said “non, I’ve seen it on the TMO”, there is no need to quarrel
    Jerry and Johnno didn’t believe it but the score was true!
    The English hadn’t hated a Frenchman this much, since they were at Waterloo!

    Super Mario kept infringing, and cheesing Pascal off,
    The chariot somehow got back on track, but Pascal wouldn’t let them off!
    For his father from Brittany, had sold onions in South Wales,
    He got a girl from Aberdare up the duff, we’ve heard his drunken tales!

    You must believe it’s true, that the referee was born in Aberdare,
    Bonjour mon ami, je m’appelle Pascal Gauzere,!
    Eddie, Owen and Mario saw things go from bad to worse,
    They got themselves back in gear, only to fall back in reverse!

    Pascal was quiet in the second half, I think he missed his mam,
    His thoughts went back to Aberdare and another Welsh grand slam!
    With the scores at 24 all, and 20 minutes left,
    Callum ran the show, the dragon had awoken it was time to feel it’s breath!

    Eddie, Owen, Jerry and Johnny , hoped they could reply,
    But Sheedy, Hardy and Hill wouldn’t let their Triple Crown dream die!
    England’s ill discipline soon came back to the fore!
    Who would have believed it, a 40-24 final score!

    So all of us Welsh folk, when we revel in the Triple Crown,
    Remember that the referee was born in a small Welsh town!
    Pascal Gauzere is his name and he’s made his Welsh mam proud!
    For he’s a son of Aberdare, sing his name out loud!

    Pascal Gauzere, he was born in Aberdare,
    Bonjour mon ami, je m’appelle Gauzere!
    So as the dust settles on another victory!
    Remember our french friend he will go down in Welsh Rugby history!

    1. I said to my wife before the Kick off, with a French Ref England are playing against 16. I was right!

      1. Er.. Seventeen actually since there were two invalid tries. Most of the penalties against England were given for minuscule infringements.

        1. Yeah right. The ‘knock on’ where the ball went backwards – but that’s deffo a knock-on against England. The referee telling the England huddle ‘Get ready’ which they ignored because they knew Farrell was in charge of the game really, and then shock horror, the ref called ‘Time on’ after a decent pause. What did he think was he doing ? Didn’t he know that England muscle blobs are entitled to a time out and a rest when they get over-heated?

          1. The ball was with the runner going forwards when it hit the leg and went backwards. The runner had lost control of the ball so it was a knock on.

            You are entirely mistaken about the time out given for Farrell to ‘talk to his team’ as was evidenced by the TV footage. The England team were given no time to reset.

            It is evident to me that you know little about English Rugby. I appreciate your desire to construct arguments however and accordingly bid you goodnight.

          2. You clearly know little of the rules of rugby, as is shown by your ‘English rugby’. Such arrogance.

            You can download it from youtube and watch it slo-mo. His right hand was in contact with the ball, then in an effort to gain control he brings his left hand across and inadvertently whacks it backwards, and it continued backwards after it touched his leg. But as you say, ball going backwards is a knock on against England.

            The ref told Farrell to talk to his team. He did not suggest a seminar on two chapters of “War and Peace” as Farrell loves to do to let his muscle blobs cool down. The ref had told him (twice) to speed things up. How long does it take say ‘Stop fouling in the ruck guys”? Four minutes if you are Farrell. The ref walked halfway to the huddle and told them to Get ready, but they didn’t bother because they were sure Wales would kick for goal. Mis-calculation by Saint Farrell so that’s got to be the ref’s fault, can’t be anything else.

            They were given plenty of time to reset after the ref walked halfway to the huddle and called ‘Get ready’ as you can see from the TV footage if you look. They just didn’t bother. They were mostly still in the huddle when the ref had got back to the ball and called ‘Time on’. They got twonked because they didn’t play the whistle.

        2. Yeah right. The ‘knock on’ where the ball went backwards – but that’s deffo a knock-on against England. The referee telling the England huddle ‘Get ready’ which they ignored because they knew Farrell was in charge of the game really, and then shock horror, the ref called ‘Time on’ after a decent pause. What did he think was he doing ? Didn’t he know that England muscle blobs are entitled to a time out and a rest when they get over-heated?

  97. The Thirdworldisation of the USA continues apace:

    “This may come as a shock to Joe Biden supporters.

    Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), whose Congressional district lies near the U.S.-Mexico border, warned that more than 10,000 illegal immigrants have been apprehended in a single border sector in Texas in about a week, with Reuters adding that a stunning 100,000 migrants were detained at the border in February, the highest arrest total for the month of February since 2006.

    “We are weeks, maybe even days, away from a crisis on the southern border. Inaction is simply not an option,” the Texas Democrat said in a news release on Thursday.

    “Our country is currently unprepared to handle a surge in migrants in the middle of the pandemic.”

    1. This from Seuss’ wikipedia page

      “Geisel supported the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. On the issue of the Japanese, he is quoted as saying:

      But right now, when the Japs are planting their hatchets in our skulls, it seems like a hell of a time for us to smile and warble: “Brothers!” It is a rather flabby battle cry. If we want to win, we’ve got to kill Japs, whether it depresses John Haynes Holmes or not. We can get palsy-walsy afterward with those that are left.”

      Funny. I don’t see many Japanese people demanding the world kneels in apology for words sid about them. Can you imagine the furore if it said black rather than Jap?

  100. Queen’s planes will be axed as part of defence cuts in move that could force Royals to borrow Boris Johnson’s Union Jack jet
    The Queen’s fleet, used since the 1980s, includes four BAE-146 passenger jets
    They will be withdrawn next year, Royals will have to share Boris Johnson’s plane
    Move echoes the decommissioning of her personal yacht, HMS Britannia in 1997

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9331931/Queens-planes-axed-force-Royals-borrow-Boris-Johnsons-jet.html?ito=push-notification&ci=91302&si=26738248

    2. The 146 was an excellent aircraft in it’s day, but it is past the end of it’s service life now and very expensive to keep flying, plus
      1. Four engines which makes maintenance very expensive.
      2. Persistent leakage of vapourized lubricant into the cabin – very un-healthy, but they never solved it.
      A good aircraft but it’s day has come and gone.

    3. The 146 was an excellent aircraft in it’s day, but it is past the end of it’s service life now and very expensive to keep flying, plus
      1. Four engines which makes maintenance very expensive.
      2. Persistent leakage of vapourized lubricant into the cabin – very un-healthy, but they never solved it.
      A good aircraft but it’s day has come and gone.

    4. I used to collect sick bags. (Empty ones 🙂 ) I had about 110 all from different airlines.
      Pride of my collection was one from the Queen’s Flight which I got when attending a Mess do at RAF Benson where QF was (still is?) stationed. One of the serjeants let me have a look around one of the aeroplanes and I pinched one of the bags (NATO standard – the same as on a jobbing Herc – but still… it was Brenda’s 🙂

      1. I just knew there was something weird about you the moment i met you. sick bags !

        I pinched some coasters from the American Embassy. They haven’t caught up with me yet !

        1. People used to bring them back for me whenever they flew anywhere. I was very strict – they would only be added to the collection if they had written on them the flight number, the aeroplane type, date and where they flew to and from.
          I had a lot more duplicates but never found anyone to do swaps with. 😊
          Need it, need it, got it, need it

      2. Good heavens , what did you do with them . What a great idea . It is a bit like collecting the tally bands from RN ratings round caps .. all the warship names which are now history !

      3. I used to collect sick bags too. But not any more – I’ve moved on to airline teaspoons and hotel coat hangers.

    5. Margaret Trudeau used the Canadian Government’s Citation II aircraft for her weekly shopping trips to NYC …

    6. Tony Blair’s decommissioning of her personal yacht, HMS Britannia in 1997, was a (vindictive?) different matter, Maggie.

      ‘Sharing’ an aircraft for matters of State is acceptable …

      1. I think the problem was that Britannia was well past its sell by date with a single skin hull and unlikely to maintain a certificate of seaworthiness.

        That is not to say that a new Royal Yacht might have been commissioned to replace the old one. Blair put paid to that possibility.

        1. Norway bought the King a yacht by donations from the public. Don’t approve – don’t cough up; approve lots, cough up lots. Get donations by holding fetes and so on – good for community cohesion. Good ‘n democratic. What’s not to like?

      2. The only time I saw her on film with a tear in her eye…..
        I hate Tony Blair.

    7. Boris Johnson does not have a plane. It is our plane not his. I would make the bugger walk or else pay his own airfare for what he is worth.

    8. Boris Johnson does not have a plane. It is our plane not his. I would make the bugger walk or else pay his own airfare for what he is worth.

  101. Goodnight, Gentlefolk, we shall meet again in the morning’s light and continue to exchange our (all) very valid points of view.

    I can only hope that Cabinet Ministers might glance towards us to get the really true feelings of the great unwashed, British Public.

    Pay Attention you toss-pots.

    1. If you want ministers and MPs to read your posts, then head to the Spectator.

      You don’t have to pay as access is free via Disqus.

    2. If you want ministers and MPs to read your posts, then head to the Spectator.

      You don’t have to pay as access is free via Disqus.

    3. Unwashed yerself, Tom! Cheeky bugger! I had me annual bath at Christmas, as I do every year!

  102. Preview of Saturday’s letters –
    The EU and trade bans
    SIR – The EU has “strong concerns” over Britain unilaterally extending the grace period before checks come in on British supplies of Northern Ireland supermarkets (report, March 4). Simon Coveney, Ireland’s foreign minister, has said the EU is “negotiating with a partner it simply can’t trust”.
    This is bit rich in view of the fact the EU unilaterally imposed a hard border on theisland of Ireland to prevent the Covid-19 vaccine being imported into Northern Ireland, a move that was roundly condemned internationally by countries including Ireland.
    Keith Taylor

    Can’t we come up with a better name than having to say ‘the island of Ireland’ every time we refer to Ireland.

    Why not call Ireland ‘Eire’, Norn Iron, ‘Norn Iron’ and the the whole thing just ‘Ireland’.

    1. There is Ireland, the RoI (‘The Republic’ for short), and Norniron. That’s the three things. BTW, it’s most definitely Norniron. You will get shot for calling the RoI ‘Eire’, even though that is what is on their passports; you are straying into contentious Gaelic issues that everyone not a citizen of the RoI should stay out of.

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