Thursday 29 April: What to investigate next – who pays to feed the Downing Street cat?

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/2021/04/28/letterswhat-investigate-next-pays-feed-downing-street-cat/

535 thoughts on “Thursday 29 April: What to investigate next – who pays to feed the Downing Street cat?”

  5. Fear, loathing and the French police. 29 April 2021.

    I will admit, I have been on demonstrations where I was attacked by French riot police – the infamous CRS. And I have interviewed immigrants who have been subjected to police harassment. So I am certainly not indifferent to the problems that exist for ordinary people in France when confronted by the forces of law and order. But something has gone very wrong when it has become impossible for local officers to patrol certain areas that are rife with drug-dealing and other criminal behaviour to the despair of law-abiding residents. Or when police are lured into traps by emergency calls before being set alight in their patrol cars.

    An insider’s view of France; well worth a read. There seems to be the beginnings of a formal Islamic Insurgency against the State. The French State of course, much like the UK, denies this reality and tries to stuff most of the evidence (Batley Man etc.) under the carpet. That this will work in the long run seems unlikely. To quote Churchill. “When one side fights and the other doesn’t, things are not likely to go well”.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/04/29/fear-loathing-and-the-french-police/

    1. Yo Minty

      The French are happy for the dinghy people to venture forth to Dover!

      We have nowhere to get rid of our illegals and if we tried the Blair Witch et al would stop us

      1. we do, but no politican would advocate it. All taken to Porton Down, take the next jab wave [a premium Zyklon B]. The closing point in Araminta’s post viz Churchill’s quote summarises it. And the French are happy as they know we have no navy

  7. Mng all. Seems Lady Thomas has been on a mission

    SIR – The Electoral Commission (notoriously pro-Remain and Boris Johnson loathing) has announced, with fanfare and the support of the BBC, an investigation of the Downing Street redecoration farrago, even though it is not yet sure whether it has a locus or if the works “fall within the regime regulated by the Commission”.

    If it might damage the Prime Minister’s standing with the pet-loving public, I am confident the Commission would investigate who is paying for feeding the Downing Street cat.

    Terry Smith
    London NW11

    SIR – The threat of Covid is still with us. The country is trillions in debt, and a rapid and sustainable recovery is essential to our future.

    The Leader of the Opposition doesn’t see it that way. Who paid a few thousand pounds to refurbish the Prime Minister’s flat is to him the major issue now facing us.

    If this is reflective of his response to the challenges that lie ahead, then heaven help us if he is ever elected to power.

    Nicholas Westall
    London SE26

    SIR – The President of the United States has the White House and Emmanuel Macron has a palace while our Prime Minister has a modest flat.

    Tony Blair spent in excess of £285,000 (around £400,000 today), yet not a word was uttered.

    Raising this to an election-defining issue reflects the lack of real policies and real opposition by other parties. Hence their reversion to mud-slinging.

    David Hutchinson
    Uckfield, East Sussex

    SIR – Twenty-three years ago Derry Irving ordered wallpaper that cost more than the £58,000 mentioned with relation to Boris Johnson’s flat. His redecoration burnt through £650,000, paid by the taxpayer. My weary eyes cannot stay focused on this confected outrage.

    Linda Beskeen
    Redruth, Cornwall

    SIR – Will the “inquiry” cost more than the refurbishment? Almost certainly.

    Dr Michael Blackmore
    Midhurst, West Sussex

    SIR – Having voluntarily donated £20 million of its resources to the fight against coronavirus, it is sad to see Dyson receiving such inaccurate reporting. Shame on Laura Kuenssberg and her employers, the BBC.

    David Gutsell
    Maidstone, Kent

    SIR – Sources unwilling to be named should keep their mouths shut. I think Laura Kuenssberg’s reporting on Sir James Dyson was a disgrace.

    Sally Goymer
    Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

    SIR – Please, please, please, can we go back to talking about Brexit, or Covid, or statues, anything but who paid to decorate the PM’s flat. Quite frankly I couldn’t give a flattened sombrero.

    Philip Collison
    Terrington St Clement, Norfolk

    Cost of Test to Release

    SIR – Covid-19 Day 2 and Day 8 PCR tests and the Test to Release scheme on Day 5, for international arrivals, seem like a money-making scheme penalising those trying to get back to work.

    I received an email informing me that, because my Day 8 falls on the Bank Holiday this weekend, I must spend longer in quarantine or self-isolation, as the results will be delayed.

    Imagine my surprise when, at the end of the email telling me that I had been affected, I was offered a 30 per cent reduction on the Day 5 Test to Release, by which I could be released from isolation earlier, as an alternative to spending longer in quarantine.

    Why I can’t be sent the Day 8 Test on Day 5 (they are the same tests) is beyond my comprehension.

    It is about time the Government stepped up and put a stop to this flagrant abuse of those visiting and living in Britain.

    Andrew Clarke
    Wylye, Wiltshire

    EU vs AstraZeneca

    SIR – The EU has apparently taken legal action against AstraZeneca (report, April 23). The contract no doubt specifies the law applicable.

    What remedy can the EU be seeking? Damages? What loss has it suffered? I have not heard that there is provision for agreed liquidated damages. Punitive damages cannot be ordered for breach of contract under English or Belgian law.

    Specific performance? The best endeavours clause must be open to interpretation, but the manufacturer can only make the vaccine that it is able to make. The claimants can only demand that they should jump the queue of other legitimate purchasers.

    This action appears to have been brought out of pique as a short-term, political face-saving exercise, in the hope that, by the time it comes to court, the issue will be long forgotten.

    Henry Speer
    Lincoln

    Air in aircraft

    SIR – I don’t know what aircraft Huw Baumgartner flew (Letters, April 27), but as an aircraft engineer of 40 years’ experience, I can tell you that Airbus aircraft (for example) recirculate about 50 per cent of cabin air.

    It is passed through very large Hepa filters, and cabin air in modern airliners is as clean as an operating theatre.

    Alan Crerar
    Swindon, Wiltshire

    Scotland alone

    SIR – Amusingly, it has taken a fellow Scot (Andrew Marr) to show that Nicola Sturgeon’s independence cupboard is bare (report, April 26).

    Life could pleasingly imitate art if England and Scotland could have a trial separation, as in Passport to Pimlico. Perhaps then the Scots would see that Ms Sturgeon simply cannot afford to go her own way.

    J S F Cash
    Swinford, Leicestershire

    CofE minorities

    SIR – Calvin Robinson (Comment, April 23) says that 15 per cent of Church of England worshippers are from an ethnic minority, which is slightly more than the percentage in the whole country.

    However, surely a large proportion of this minority are Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and other religions – so the Church is actually doing rather well.

    Richard Kellaway
    Cookham Dean, Berkshire

    Subtitled Shakespeare

    SIR – In her article on The Winter’s Tale (Arts, April 23), Emma Smith did not go into the production by Royal Shakespeare Company, broadcast on April 25 on BBC Four.

    This was packed with gimmicks, such as colour-blind casting: Mamillius was acted by an Indian boy, though his likeness to his father is frequently mentioned. Men’s parts were given to women; the Old Shepherd became an Old Shepherd Woman.

    The oddest feature was the use of actors whose spoken English was so difficult to understand that subtitles appeared on the screen. What was the director’s point? I never discovered, as that was when I turned the television off.

    Mary Lanch
    Harrow, Middlesex

    Energy assessments

    SIR – Assessors for Energy Performance Certificates (Letters, April 24) do have to pass examinations to be qualified and must belong to accreditation bodies who regularly audit each assessor for quality control.

    The Energy Performance Certificate can be used to accompany applications for improvements to listed buildings and is often included when applying for improvement grants.

    At present a property needs to attain Band E (not Band C) to be let. Many properties achieve this with modern heating and loft insulation, regardless of whether they have solid walls.

    Where the cost of improvements to achieve the required EPC grade is above a certain level, it is possible to apply for an exemption certificate.

    Joanna Knops
    Neston, Wiltshire

    A serving of mud

    SIR – If this dry spell continues, and the soil is dry in our gardens, we can help swallows and house martins on their return to Britain by putting out small trays or pots of wet mud from which to build their nests.

    Just remember to keep it moist.

    Elizabeth Ashton
    Salisbury, Wiltshire

    Honest labelling

    SIR – Looking through my late grandmother’s photographs (Letters, April 28), I found one neatly labelled: 
“I have no idea who any of these people are.”

    Sara Ellis
    Wimborne, Dorset

    The blue glass bottle of Parisian memories

    SIR – Never mind garlic (Letters, April 27), I wonder how many people remember, from the 1950s, the perfume Soir de Paris in its distinctive dark blue glass bottle.

    I’d love to smell it again to see how my sensory memory’s holding up.

    Lady Thomas
    London NW7

    SIR – While readers bleat on about the disappearance of Johnny Frenchman’s whiff of garlic and Gauloises, no one (until now, that is) has reflected on the absence of signature smells from the high street in Britain. Who does not recall with fondness the smell that would greet you when you entered the shop of a chemist, a grocer, an ironmonger or a butcher?

    That so many goods are now prepackaged has played its role in the demise of one of the great pleasures of a trip to the shops. How I miss the combination of freshly ground coffee and newly sliced bacon in a decent grocer’s, or the marriage of cheese, milk and stone in a good old, cold cheesemonger’s.

    Graeme W I Davidson
    Edinburgh

    Vaccination success invites swifter unlocking

    SIR – We are more than two weeks into the latest phase of lockdown easing, and, despite the opening of outdoor hospitality and non-essential retail, the rates of infection, hospitalisation and mortality from Covid-19 continue to decline. This demonstrates the remarkable efficacy of the 
UK vaccination programme.

    Surely it is time for those within government to review the dates for the next phases of easing and bring forward the return to normal.

    Remember – data not dates.

    Phil Jennings
    Bristol

    1. I am confident the Commission would investigate who is paying for feeding the Downing Street cat.

      Larry, unlike the Government, is a Conservative and shifts for himself!

    2. SIR – The President of the United States has the White House and
      Emmanuel Macron has a palace while our Prime Minister has a modest flat.

      Aren’t you forgetting Chequers?

      1. that wouldn’t be mentioned, that’s where XR clowns hope to be invited for “high tea” and a “re-decoration exercise”

    3. ‘Morning, AWK, Lady Thomas is not only after the Tories and Johnson about flat decoration but she is in reflective mood, longing for a perfume that older ladies will remember as ‘Evening in Paris’. This I know as my Mama (1903 – 1980) used to use it.

    4. ‘Morning, AWK, Lady Thomas is not only after the Tories and Johnson about flat decoration but she is in reflective mood, longing for a perfume that older ladies will remember as ‘Evening in Paris’. This I know as my Mama (1903 – 1980) used to use it.

  8. 332124+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,

    What to investigate next – who pays to feed the Downing Street cat?

    Deflective chaff, aka fodder for fools, no surprise next to see a highly polished M/S carrot hove into sight owing to the 6th May is near upon us.

      1. 332124+ up ticks,
        Morning SiadC,
        I believe that was mentioned but as with a great many issues, never got past the rhetorical stage.

    2. Araminta mng. Given the waffle’s from the IOM [known in aid circles, obviously as Isle of Man], who’s reputation of being unable to locate or support any legal or illegal “migrants”, anywhere, another one for File 13

    3. Araminta mng. Given the waffle’s from the IOM [known in aid circles, obviously as Isle of Man], who’s reputation of being unable to locate or support any legal or illegal “migrants”, anywhere, another one for File 13

    8. They could arrive legally. No risk then. Just land on a plane like all the others.

      Sadly, the media just says ‘child died trying to escape persecution’ – I know France is rough, but really? The cheese isn’t that bad.

      They shouldn’t be getting here at all. Drag them back to French coastlines, hole the boat. Let them swim home. Stop the tide of unwelcome gimmigrants getting here.

    1. Just had a walk to Cromford & back for the paper & a bit of shopping. The chill start had turned into a pleasantly warm afternoon, but it began raining as I got home, so after dropping the shopping off it was straight up the garden to get the 2 loads of washing in I’d hung out this morning.

      Wish I’d not bothered now, 15min. later, it’s stopped raining & turned back to beautiful sunshine!

    1. This is why the Left seek to erase history. With no knowledge of history, their past crimes are wiped away. That they are the fascists, that they are simply following the brutal intolerance of the obviously Left wing Nazi’s, that Mao’s attitudes and policies are wholely those of the disgusting antifa.

      By pretending the past does not exist, you escape the shame and can re-brand yourself as the hero – despite being the most vicious of villains.

      1. 332124+ up ticks,
        Afternoon W,
        I believe that a great many, on entry to the polling booth and going into three monkey mode.
        Without their continuing input we would, as a Nation be
        ahead of any competitors and running free, instead we are
        seemingly driving in the ” deal” wedge, the tie rope regarding brussels which guarantees more odious issues in the future.

        1. Aye, sadly it is evident that this country suffers from a few major issues:

          * An uninterested and lazy civil service. I am sure many civil servants work very hard, but the ethos is one of inertia over service (no matter how many times they repeat ‘customer’).
          * A shocking lack of education. Very few people understand the basics of history and even fewer economics. A bloke on linkedin was whinging about how he couldn’t live on £21K a year in London. A first job, few skills and seemed to expect a 3 bedroom flat with all the trimmings.
          * Universal franchise. It’s time to remove it. The right to vote must be earned by contributing to society and fundamental awareness of your duty as a citizen.

          1. About time the system envisage in Nevil Shute in his novel, “In The Wet” was dusted off and implemented.

            Multiple vote
            Perhaps the most interesting (and enduring) feature of the book is the “multiple vote”, seen as a necessary reform of democracy. A person can have up to seven votes. Everyone gets a basic vote. Other votes can be earned for education (including a commission in the armed forces), earning one’s living overseas for two years, raising two children to the age of 14 without divorcing, being an official of a Christian church, or having a high earned income. The seventh vote, which in the book is awarded to David Anderson for his heroism, is only given at the Queen’s discretion by Royal Charter.

            Plural voting was possible in Britain in the past. Until the late 1940s, the graduates of all British universities sent representatives to Parliament, and property owners could vote both where they lived and where they owned property; a university-educated property owner could therefore have three votes. The graduates of the National University of Ireland and of Trinity College are still represented in the upper house of Ireland’s parliament. Mark Twain had used the idea of multiple votes for merit in his short story “The Curious Republic of Gondour”.
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Wet#Multiple_vote

    1. They’re rather alike though, the CS and EU bureaucracies. Both self interested, neither aware of reality, uncaring of the damage their policies have and totally self absorbed.

  15. 332124+ up ticks,
    Old goebbellys would be proud to put his name to this high class chaff material.

    Dt,
    Show me your evidence, Boris Johnson demands as he fights back over ‘bodies piled high’
    Prime Minister tells Labour and SNP to substantiate claims before repeating allegations about lockdown and flat refurbishment

    1. Morning from here ,
      Blue sky , chilly and no sign of rain.

      We had about an hours worth of rain yesterday afternoon.

      Sky was black surrounding us , so like a weather vortex, nothing much happened though!

    1. To the ladies on here – I once went out – unaccounced, no notice given, no destination – while the wife was working, so door closed, no view of the driveway.

      I get back having bought some screws we were short of. Nowt else. They went into the screw box in the garage.

      A couple of hours later wife comes downstairs for tea and asks ‘How was B&Q?’

      How did she know?!

      1. She is omniscient, and don’t you forget it!

        Based on my own experience, a friend of hers probably called her and said “oh, I’ve just seen wibbling in B+Q”
        My ex was freaked out too.

  20. War fears as Russia shows ‘readiness to stand up against the West’ after Ukraine tensions. 29 April 2021.

    Glenn Diesen, professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway and editor at Russia in Global Affairs, explained that Mr Putin’s “red line” comment was a new move from Moscow.

    He told Express.co.uk: “The explicit reference to red lines is somewhat new for Moscow, which suggests a readiness to stand up against the West.

    “Red lines and deterrence rely on the three C’s: capability, credibility and communication.

    “Moscow has clearly demonstrated its military capabilities and credibility that they will be used to uphold red lines, and now the red lines have also been communicated.”

    The Express may (for once) be onto something. A strange silence seems to have descended on the anti- Putin/Russia propaganda. All the usual CIA/Mi6 shills seem to have been struck dumb. There has been nothing since last week in the Western MSM about Navalny or Ukraine or indeed Putin himself. Now this could simply be that the Borg are cancelling a failing strategy and initiating something new, or it could indeed be that Vlad has given them the Gypsy’s Warning and that dire consequences will follow from any further provocations! We shall have to wait to see!

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1429466/Russia-news-Ukraine-Vladimir-Putin-Ukraine-border-war-conflict-army-red-lines-latest-ont

  21. War fears as Russia shows ‘readiness to stand up against the West’ after Ukraine tensions. 29 April 2021.

    Glenn Diesen, professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway and editor at Russia in Global Affairs, explained that Mr Putin’s “red line” comment was a new move from Moscow.

    He told Express.co.uk: “The explicit reference to red lines is somewhat new for Moscow, which suggests a readiness to stand up against the West.

    “Red lines and deterrence rely on the three C’s: capability, credibility and communication.

    “Moscow has clearly demonstrated its military capabilities and credibility that they will be used to uphold red lines, and now the red lines have also been communicated.”

    The Express may (for once) be onto something. A strange silence seems to have descended on the anti- Putin/Russia propaganda. All the usual CIA/Mi6 shills seem to have been struck dumb. There has been nothing since last week in the Western MSM about Navalny or Ukraine or indeed Putin himself. Now this could simply be that the Borg are cancelling a failing strategy and initiating something new, or it could indeed be that Vlad has given them the Gypsy’s Warning and that dire consequences will follow from any further provocations! We shall have to wait to see!

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1429466/Russia-news-Ukraine-Vladimir-Putin-Ukraine-border-war-conflict-army-red-lines-latest-ont

  22. The EU’s abominable behaviour is about to spark a new Brexit war

    Now that the trade deal has finally been ratified, Britain is free to start the fightback against Brussels

    ALLISTER HEATH
    28 April 2021 • 9:30pm

    For months now, Britain has been strangely subdued, if not borderline submissive, in its dealings with Brussels. The provocations from Ursula von der Leyen and the French have been especially egregious, and yet No 10 has refused to take the bait, to the bafflement of many of its supporters.

    There was the outrageous threat by Brussels to confiscate contracted vaccine shipments to the UK, the despicable, counterproductive demonisation of AstraZeneca, the ban on the exports of shellfish, the threats to disrupt the City and, of course, the intransigent, tone-deaf approach to Northern Ireland. Frustratingly, the Government’s only real action to date has been to unilaterally extend grace periods on Irish Sea border checks, a palliative move insufficient to avoid a full-scale crisis in the province.

    Arlene Foster, the DUP chief and First Minister, has joined a long list of senior British politicians destroyed by our entanglement with the EU. Her departure, nominally triggered by a row over conversion therapy, is in reality due to the chaos wreaked by the protocol.

    The fallout could prove hugely consequential not just for the future of Northern Ireland but, if it bolsters Sinn Fein’s position, of the United Kingdom.

    Given all of this, why has our supposedly fearless Government stood by so uselessly? The answer is that Lord Frost was biding his time, a necessary and disciplined strategy. The Government was privately desperate to see the Trade and Cooperation Agreement ratified and didn’t want to trigger a major row until then; the deal had been operating provisionally since January and the EU was taking its time. Now that European parliamentarians have signed it off, Britain’s fightback is set to safely commence.

    The Government knows full well that the Northern Irish Protocol is flawed and the current situation untenable. As one senior figure told me: “we would never have started from here”. The blame, quite rightly, is pinned on Theresa May, whose astoundingly weak negotiating strategy meant that Europe’s power-grab over Northern Ireland was soon locked in. When he took over, Boris Johnson’s combination of treaty and protocol ended up being the least bad deal possible.

    The crucial, as yet unresolved, question is what Britain’s post-ratification gambit will be. Will it simply seek to disregard or delay certain border checks, ending up in court? Will it attempt to take the EU to the arbitrators?

    DUP dissidents and many Tory MPs want to go further and invoke Article 16 of the protocol, which allows either side to act unilaterally in the event of “economic, societal or environmental difficulties”. In practice, this would either terminate the protocol de facto, or force its renegotiation; either way, the Government needs to have a proper alternative ready if it decides to pull the trigger.

    The EU itself threatened to trigger Article 16 during its row with AstraZeneca. But the Biden administration may seek to intervene if the protocol breaks down, and the repercussions would need to be very carefully controlled. Longer term, Stormont will vote on the continuation of the protocol in 2024: what will the British government’s view on it be by then? What will any detailed, realistic alternative look like?

    More generally, the UK will now seek to defend its interests openly across the board and be more explicit about diverging from EU rules. The sad but inevitable reality is that tensions are bound to rise as we fight back; it will, at times, be fraught.

    It isn’t even clear how long the trade deal itself will survive: a decade, perhaps, or two at most, but hardly for ever. Nobody today remembers the wonderful Cobden–Chevalier Treaty of 1860, a pioneering Anglo-French free trade agreement. It was genuinely liberal, unlike the Brexit treaty. It slashed duties on British goods and French brandy and wine. Yet protectionism proved too alluring for the continent, and Cobden-Chevalier was ended by France in 1892 in favour of the Méline tariff.

    This will surely happen again. We need to diversify our economy away from Europe as quickly as possible, and trade more with the rest of the world. We must set taxes and regulations to maximise our global competitiveness, regardless of whether this triggers protectionist retaliation from Brussels.

    History can again serve as a partial guide. Elizabeth I was an original Eurosceptic: she helped Scotland rebel against the French, refused to marry a French or Spanish prince and rejected the Dutch crown. Unlike Mary Queen of Scots, Mary Tudor and so many other monarchs before and after, she had no interest in building a pan-European empire. Starting during her reign and until we joined the EU, Britain never again tolerated for long attempts at reimposing a “permanent organic Continental link”, as Robert Tombs notes in his wonderful This Sovereign Isle.

    Brexit is a reversion to this 450-year norm. It means that we must now re-embrace a role as a peripheral European power with global interests. Lord Castlereagh, the 19th-century foreign secretary, laid out a policy of European non-intervention in his seminal state paper of 1820. The UK would step in “when actual danger menaces the system of Europe”, but otherwise would not seek to meddle in the self-government of others. We need a new version of the Castlereagh doctrine today, emphasising the freest possible trade between politically and regulatory independent entities, together with military cooperation, bilaterally and through Nato.

    Crucially, this doctrine needs to be internalised across government: several Cabinet ministers have told me how frustrated they are that in department after department, civil servants’ instincts continue to be to shadow EU rules or to interpret them the way the European Court of Justice would have done. The machinery and culture of government still requires much reprogramming.

    Many Eurosceptics hoped Brexit would usher in a new era of friendly cooperation with Europe. We would no longer be seeking to block federalising treaties, or arguing about money, so tensions ought to have been removed. Yet this has already proved hopelessly utopian. The ideologues in Brussels don’t do friendship: you are either under their control, or their rivals, to be undermined pitilessly.

    Britain should never be petty, but it is now time for the Government to fight just as ruthlessly for our own national interest.

    1. The crucial, as yet unresolved, question is what Britain’s post-ratification gambit will be.

      We should Nuke Brussels! They are our enemies!

    2. We should not be such cowards. We should never have signed any Brexit Agreement or succumbed to a “trade deal”. suppose we just tore up both of these? What could happen that has not already happened? Let’s do it, and accept the consequences with a shrug.

    3. Quite clearly we can see from recent budgets that the state continues to insist it is the centre of the world. It hikes taxes to ‘recover the money spent’ rather than thinking that perhaps it should do without. It continues to legislate against contractors with IR35 – something all MPs should be put in to immediately so they can see the greed of the treasury hammer their incomes down.

      There is no interest or understanding of trade, or even basic economics. It continues to pursue a Left wing, big state, high tax agenda regardless of the damage to the economy.

    1. Apart from mind blowing in bed and fixing things around the house the war queen says I am all those things.

      As yesterday she threw a sandwich at me as I wouldn’t leave her alone. In my defence, Mongo was clawing at her door to get in her office – a thing we do not do while she’s working. Moving him away – twice had her throw open the door, lob the sandwich out and slam it back again.

          1. Dolly has steak trimmings, chicken, cheese, doggy slimming biscuits and anything that gets dropped on the floor.

          2. I avoid giving him cheese as it rather repeats on him. He occassionally has cheese mash, but only in small amounts.

          3. If i am making a cheese sandwich and don’t give Dolly a little bit she tries to trip me up.

          4. It’s having no furry companion to finish off the leavings that gets to me. That and having no helping paw when I mowed the lawn and weeded today.

  24. Nut-nut Carrion is thick, green and ugly. She must go…taking Johnson with her.

    Douglas Murray
    Carrie Symonds and the First Girlfriend problem
    From magazine issue: 1 May 2021

    https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltf04078f3cf7a9c30/bltcf81eb735e35da06/608978295907c910150f833c/Douglas-Murray—Getty.jpg?format=jpg&width=1920&height=1080&fit=bounds

    One of the least attractive aspects of American politics is epitomised in the ‘Office of the First Lady’. The office in the East Wing of the White House has grown under consecutive presidents and, depending on the incumbent’s ambitions, can include policy and legislative initiatives. All emanate from a person solely in place because some years earlier they were lucky enough — or otherwise — to marry a person who became president. It all makes America less like a democracy, more like a court, with the inevitable overspill of ‘First Children’ and more.

    By convention this country has been spared that problem. Prime-ministerial spouses can be strong figures in their own right, but all have sought to play down any hint that they are attempting to influence government. Yet in the position of First Girlfriend we are now suffering precisely America’s problem and more. There is no getting around the fact that there is a problem with Carrie Symonds, which it is probably best to have out now.

    In 2019 our Prime Minister came in with a significant and clear mandate. Covid has added significantly to his workload. But for many of us he seemed the perfect — even the only — man for the hour. Yet as that hour has gone on, problems of his own creation keep appearing. Too many of them originate from the sway — even terror — his younger companion seems to exert over him.

    Carrie Symonds herself is a perfectly nice, intelligent person who successfully worked her way through Conservative campaign headquarters. But she is having too great an impact on the course of government. There are issues the Prime Minister avoids because she does not favour them. And there are others — principally green issues — which he appears to adopt to satisfy her. The feeling is growing that the First Girlfriend wants political power without the trouble of having to run for office, and to wield it without any resulting criticism. This is not a sustainable state of affairs.

    One early example came last year when Symonds persuaded the PM to stop a badger cull. The resulting halt went against more expert advice and, incidentally, had a deeply negative repercussion on the hedgehog community. Yet while a politician would pay a price for such a misstep, the First Girlfriend is accountable to no one. Instead, with a personal media adviser on a six-figure salary working for her directly from No. 10, even the most modest criticism is responded to with a furious slew of accusations against the critics.

    It is not just policy she seeks to influence. The First Girlfriend seems to have a desire to be involved in all personnel issues. Her principal ambition seems to be for her friends to make up all the central control flanks around the Prime Minister. This was one of the main causes of Dominic Cummings’s exit from Downing Street last year.

    The consequences of that decision alone keep being felt. Last week’s exchange of barbs between the Prime Minister and his former chief adviser once again shone a light on the Carrie problem. For Cummings claimed that the PM last year attempted to stop an official leak inquiry because the person Cummings identified as the leak was a close friend of Carrie’s. ‘This will cause me very serious problems with Carrie,’ the PM is reported to have said, before trying to quash the inquiry.

    This is not in itself surprising. It seems no Carrie-related issue is ever too minor to distract the PM. Last year she made him stop a Cobra meeting at the height of the Covid crisis. The urgent cause was her demand that the PM make an official complaint to the Times newspaper over a story claiming that Carrie’s affections for the couple’s Jack Russell, Dilyn, had cooled in the year since the couple adopted him.

    This exhibited a crazy set of priorities, as the PM finally realised. But anyone who even identifies this should expect one of Carrie’s court defenders to come for them. Earlier this year, Katie Hind performed this role in the Mail on Sunday. There Hind incorrectly asserted that Carrie’s critics were not only all male but also ‘old-school’ and ‘white’. They are also apparently ‘sexist old Tory dinosaurs’ who are ‘afraid of intelligent women’. Similar claims have been made by the former sport minister Tracey Crouch and Conservative MP Caroline Nokes, who has claimed that the problem is that ‘jealous little men feel threatened by intelligent women’. What none of these defenders ever takes into account is the possibility that any concerns might rather be prompted by the fact of a person with no mandate to make policy and personnel decisions constantly being permitted to make them.

    Whenever they battle for Carrie, her friends inadvertently give this away. Hind berated Carrie’s male critics for knowing ‘only too well that she doesn’t have a voice to respond. Nor does her beloved dog Dilyn’. The second part of this is undoubtedly true. Dilyn does not have a voice because he is a dog, and not even sexist old Tory dinosaurs can be blamed for that. But the giveaway came here: ‘Carrie’s crime is quite clear — she got in the way of the Brexit Boys who thought they could have it all their way.’

    Now you may applaud the success of Carrie getting Cummings and co out of her way or you may deprecate it. But it hardly refutes the charge that Carrie is meddling where she should not. It actually celebrates the fact.

    Still, the trap laid by Carrie and her defenders is clear. Say that Carrie has gained political influence only because of who her boyfriend is, and you will be accused of being envious of powerful, successful women who have made it in their own right. ‘Carrie is an expert in politics,’ one well-briefed source recently told the media. And she may well be. But that is not why she is sleeping in No. 10.

    In the UK anyone who wishes to have political power should run for elected office. The emergent Office of First Lady is clearly a source of tension in Downing Street, and is already responsible for an unprecedented number of interventions in policy areas that affect our country. We hear nothing from the Prime Minister on issues he was elected on, and far too much on ones that Carrie happens to favour. The Prime Minister may have need of a First Girlfriend, but the country does not.

      1. Yes, that galls.

        What does she do to have such a need? This is why taxes must be cut.

      2. Like all good wives and girlfriends she should only take advice from her husband/boyfriend.

    3. My thoughts exactly .
      Is she the type to kiss and tell, can he TRUST her?

      I have always had a few doubts about Boris , although in his favour he has a Teflon exterior , and doesn’t suffer from timidity .
      Perhaps the Covid he went down with has affected him , and we really don’t know whether his squeeze is really a shrew or a harridan , do we .

      She interferes in matters of state far too much . Funny that she has come from nowhere , yet she caught his eye!

      1. I have wondered about this, the coming from nowhere on to the scene, and so green with it too, fitting in so nicely with all the agenda! Just as Cameron, Macron and a few others came from nowhere, as did Boris’s new persona. Not to mention the emergence of the weasel Hancock on the scene.

        Good morning, Belle. Waking to a new day is waking to the emergence of the living nightmare that is upon us.

        1. Morning PM

          I think I am done with politics , interested since the age of 18 , and especially involved for the past 40 years , bollocks to the lot of them .

          Politicians have taken us down a very rocky road .

          Current concerns are , why has April been so dry , farmers are pulling their hair out .

          The idiotic HS2 rail project should stopped , and more reservoirs and pipelines from rainy areas should be the priority.

          The National Grid are busy creating great slashes across our Dorset countryside , the idea is to take down electricity pylons and bury cables underground .

          1. Here in south East Anglia we have another vanity project to worry about, the west-east Oxford to Cambridge rail route which will pass north of our village by a mile, houses in the next village over the hill have already been approached regarding compulsory purchase. The protest signs are puzzling “why not tell the truth about freight” and “take the right approach” – we are not sure who they are informing, it looks as though they are aimed at the s. cambs county council. We don’t understand the freight aspect and the protests sound so timid! There is a northern route the rail could take into Cambridge which would be more appropriate and less intrusive, I expect it’s more expensive. The rail will cross beautiful and ancient water meadows in the area and as well as cuttings there will be the opposite, like huge hillocks – I can’t remember the name! – to support the rail. There does not seem to be much of a requirement for this rail but who knows when diesel and petrol are banned. Will there be an economy left and a need to travel?

            Regarding the rainfall, it was so wet in the early part of the year I am sure we will find that the yearly average is about the same, it just doesn’t fall as expected.

            As well as destroying our culture, they are destroying our rural way of life which plays such a large part in the indigenous British psyche. It breaks my heart.

          2. So true PM, they are breaking our hearts , we react with horror, but we are helpless.

            Even listening to the idiotic rhetoric of the party pleadings for the coming elections next month , the Green thing had five minutes yesterday , and I thought WHAAAAAAAT?

          3. The Greens are useless, they don’t think things through. Watermelons the lot of them, green on the outside and then red, red, red, through and through. The green waffle is just to disguise the utter redness of their commie hearts.

          4. I’ve just spent half an hour on the phone to my electricity supplier because my current tariff expires next month. Before I could get to talk to anyone, I had to listen to loads of guff about “green energy” and “100% renewables”. When I did get through, the tariff suggested in the letter I received this morning was no longer available! Their “cheapest” available was more expensive than the default “standard”. After all that time, I might as well not have bothered as “standard” would have been provided regardless.

          6. Thank you! I had forgotten embankment…. of course. I think my brain had decided that that word was not needed on my life’s journey any more and that it was taking up unnecessary disc space. I am finding that occurs more frequently these days….😕

          7. We all have our moments. I’ve had to totally re-jig a killer tweet/email because the word I wanted had ‘disappeared’…only to pop up later trying to look innocent.

          9. I’d hesitate to call East-West Rail a vanity project. Reinstating the Oxford-Cambridge route is the kind of project that the railways need – radial routes avoiding major centres of population. The Oxford to Bedford bit is easy but restoring the original Bedford to Cambridge section is impossible because large parts of it have been lost to building; a big section near Cambridge is occupied by the university’s radio telescope station.

            It’s this part that’s caused all the controversy, especially in Bedford where up to 90 homes are under threat of demolition if the favoured northern route is chosen. There are alternatives but all appear to have been rejected.

          10. Good Afternoon m’Dear!
            The Varsity Line was one of those routes that should never have been closed and it’s closure was, allegedly, an act of spite against the two Universities it linked.
            Of the route, large parts of the trackbed are not only still in existence, but two sections are still in use.
            Oxford to Bicester is open for passengers and from there to Claydon Jn for Freight.
            The line from Claydon Jn. to Bletchley is being reinstated after years of lying disused, with the VERY overgrown track left in situ.
            The Bletchley to Bedford section was never closed, though the Bedford end was diverted to the Midland station.

            The trackbed from Bedford to Sandy is more or less still there, as is most of the last bit to Cambridge, but some new trackbed will be required, rerouted to avoid the radio telescope that took over the last bit of the line east of Toft!

            Regarding the “Northern Route”, I presume that is either the Peterborough-Ely line which is VERY heavily used as a freight route from Felixstowe & Harwich or the Ely line, now occupied by the Cambridge Guided Busway.

          11. Good evening, Bob! We live five minutes or so (by car) from the radio telescope section. Rail from all points of the compass into Cambridge are heavily used, it sees the southern route will cross the A10 and join the existing network east of Harston – the Cambridge-Foxton-Melbourn-Royston-London route. The southern route will pass just a mile, if that, north of where we live.

          16. Burying electrical cables. Is that because the pylons will clutter up the next batch of windmill farms?

        2. I’m sure I’ve warned you before about slandering weasels! Please desist or it’ll be red card!!

        3. I share your view. This Carrie tart was put in place as was Boris and Hancock. They are finger puppets being operated by the Davos elite.

      2. merely a deflection mirror / trojan horse which MSM can build their “perception image around” to take the glare off Johnson and his inner cabal’s attempt “socially / economically re-engineering UK”. From limited coverage here last year, I didn’t buy into any rhetoric re Johnson and Covid, he disappeared quickly to Chequers and coverage went mute, presumably planning the next phase. Compare that to Trump mid / late last year, when allegedly contracted covid. He refused anything from Govt instruments, used his own Dr, who cited rest for 48 hours and was then immediately back on his feet in front of cameras, meeting people in public.

        Johnson’s canine companion nothing much more than “front of house window dressing” and when it goes pear shaped, and it will, she’ll slither off quietly out of the limelight, MSM will do all they can to avoid much focus on her as they’ll be too busy trying to cover Johnson and all those involved in the whole racket

      3. There are dozens of privileged bints milling around Central Office.
        I suspect she just had sharper elbows.

    4. Boris was elected to enact Brexit. If Carrie didn’t like that, tough. She is not an elected official.

      In fact, she is nothing to this country. If she cannot get her head around that simple fact, and cannot behave as little more than a sounding board, she must grow up and accept that you don’t talk about work after work.

      Frankly, the idea that a spoiled, rich, unelected little girl is influencing policy solely because of where the minister puts his privates is absurd. They’re adults, not children.

      1. if she wants the Oxygen [of publicity] she’s welcome to visit India. A non entity, but it fits well with MSM and she’ll finish Johnson as in emptying his wallet. Similar vein of ego as Markle

    5. Boris has always been swayed by the current wind direction. Now he can just wet his finger with Carrie and hold it up to find the direction the wind is blowing.

    6. The problem of so-called ‘First Wives’ started – as did so much else that’s wrong in British politics – with T. Bliar’s premiership. As soon as the Blair Witch got her feet under the table at No. 10, she began to run the country through her wimpish husband who had the glib qualities of a second-hand car salesman but little else. The hubristic Cherie’s obvious seeking to place herself front and centre was breathtaking in its arrogance, from her over-familiarity with the Royal Family to her deliberate breaking of Vatican protocol by attending a papal audience dressed all in white, a privilege reserved to reigning monarchs or their wives. Her husband was not even the UK’s head-of-state, let alone its monarch. Fortunately for us, that position is already filled.

      And it’s not about the sex of the Prime Minister’s spouse – can anyone imagine Denis Thatcher throwing hissy-fits and stamping his foot to get his own way with Margaret, ordering her to act in this way or that, or personally hiring and firing government employees? I don’t recall his having a ‘media advisor’ on a six-figure salary either. Now we’re stuck with Johnson’s over-ambitious strumpet, Carrie Symonds, pursuing her personal agenda, lavishly handing out jobs to her intimate friends and dictating Government policy, while her pussy-whipped boyfriend hangs on her every word as if it were divine revelation.

      In his article, Douglas Murray describes Carrie as an ” intelligent person who successfully worked her way through Conservative campaign headquarters”. I just bet she did.

      1. That woman is by far and away the best reason to get shot of Johnson. Almost anyone would be a better bet than keeping her running the country.

      2. Compare & contrast:
        Margaret Thatcher, HM The Queen. Spouses male, who knew their place and supported their wife.
        Boris J and Tony B: Spouses female, who tink they run the country and are, frankly remarkably bossy and unpleasant.

        1. I believe that Douglas & Boris were King’s Scholars at Eton, but one went up to Magdalen and the other became a Balliol man.

    7. Why do they call her fiancée or girlfriend when there are so many other more appropriate terms – both monosyllabic and polysyllabic – available?

    8. I’m sure she and Bozza spend many a happy hour discussing dialectic materialism. That does mean the colour and quality of the curtains, doesn’t it?

    11. “Carrie Symonds herself is a perfectly nice, intelligent person who successfully worked her way through Conservative campaign headquarters.”
      Miaaauow!

      But I agree with this article. She should put up (for election) or shut up. And I am an intelligent successful woman blah blah, but I am not wielding power because of shagging the Prime Minister. That “male Tory dinosaurs” story was one of the most dishonest things I have ever seen.

    12. “Carrie Symonds herself is a perfectly nice, intelligent person who successfully worked her way through Conservative campaign headquarters.”

      Does that include the other women as well as the men?

  25. Good morning, everyone. The heavy rain missed us yesterday and now we have sunshine and blue sky.

    1. Good morning, Delboy. The rain missed us too yesterday, here in the southwestern portion of East Anglia. Sunshine and blue sky here too, although with a fair amount of cumulus strolling across the blue.

      1. The wind is very chilly though, Mum. That lazy East Anglian wind that doesn’t go round but rather, straight through you.

        1. Tell us about it. So much for kicking off lunch with drinks and bits in the garden.

      2. The wind is very chilly though, Mum. That lazy East Anglian wind that doesn’t go round but rather, straight through you.

      3. Rained all day here – just gentle stuff, no downpours, so it’s soaked into the garden nicely. Sunny this morning – did two loads of washing & hung it out before going round to see my N-d-n who has had a few days in hospital.

        Sat outside with her for a coffee, and it started raining. Fetched the half-dry washing in. Rain didn’t come to much so put the bedding back out……..
        Hey – Ho – that’s what an exciting life I lead hese days.

  26. Dilyn the dog

    Dilyn the dog’s Downing Street diary (as told to Rod Liddle)
    From magazine issue: 1 May 2021

    https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltf04078f3cf7a9c30/blt589e73ca43cfb08a/60897186f6a831100b5dd688/Dilyn_Rod-Liddle—Getty.png?format=jpg&width=1920&height=1080&fit=bounds

    Iheard them rowing again this morning, look you. I had just completed my first dump of the day in Allegra Stratton’s handbag when I heard their voices spiralling upwards, the Man and the Woman. They’re not in a good place right now, which is fine by me. A plague on both their houses. Mimsy, woke Carrie, who purchased me under the mistaken impression I was a Peke who would lie gently across her bloody lap all day. And that shambling albino wreck, kind of half-dog half-man, who apparently runs the country, when his wife lets him. Money seemed to be at the heart of their disagreement — it often is. She likes spending it, he is somewhat averse, especially on stuff like furnishings: she complains, in a shrill manner, about the taste of the previous occupier who appears to have been a man named John Lewis. Carrie bought an opulent rug recently for some humongous sum, a ghastly emerald and gold creation handwoven by impecunious navvies from the Maghreb. It has been much improved by the rich brown streaks I have added by shuffling my arse across it on a daily basis. Iechyd da, etc.

    The lies, the many lies. The first is that I was ‘rescued’ by these highborn and kindly benefactors from a dog refuge in Wales because I was about to be put down on account of a gammy jaw. Balls. My jaw was just fine until I entered Downing Street. Then, early on, Carrie had some of her friends round for a ‘girly kitchen supper’, which turned out to be a noisome vegetarian meze prepared by a mincing halfwit. I was dozing on the sofa when a haggard and porcine ex-deb weighing 200lb called ‘Pippa’ deposited her entire gargantuan torso on my head. Everyone in the room heard the crack as my jawbone snapped in half and I woke up with a tongue lolling out at 90 degrees to my mouth, despite Sting’s Greatest Hits playing on the deck. That cost a bit to put right, according to the albino wreck. And it hurt.

    Lie number two regards the Yoda who used to live next door — Javid or something. He claimed I had displayed amorous intentions towards his own dog, a cavapoo named Bailey. No, Mr Javid, no. Bailey is male — and while I may be a dog I am not that way inclined (we dogs tend to be rightish on gender politics). What I actually wanted to do to that simpering, slobbering idiot was kill it, rip its stupid ears off. And I would have done, too, if the albino hadn’t got there first and sacked his ass. Bailey used to run up to me, tail wagging, an expression on his silly face of affectless incomprehension. I would respond each time by biting him in the throat. I can’t stand spaniels, even half-breed spaniels. They are so gullible.

    In the room, the journos come and go, but not talking of Michelangelo. Just carping, flinging barbs at the wretched albino. I slink around their ankles and am occasionally rewarded with an embarrassed pat, a scrunch of the fur beneath my ears. Any port in a storm, Laura and Robert. Fling what you like at the madman, I think. Nothing ever sticks to him. He is like the creature in Bulgakov’s Heart of a Dog — Sharik, reputedly the product of a bizarre lab experiment which backfires. Impervious to everything and kind of blind. He almost died, you know, on a respirator. Ironically it woke him up a bit. But not for long. Then the baffling, obliterating ‘bants’ returned and truth once again lost all meaning.

    Another misapprehension. I actually really liked that weirdo Cummings. That’s why I tried to hump his leg. Not a sexual thing, but an excitement thing. I got bad press — but hell, you should see what the albino gets up to on that score when nobody’s looking. I divined in Cummings a seriousness of intent, a disdain and a penetrating intelligence at least on a par with a German Shepherd — high praise from a dog. But he has gone. I think they had him put down. Maybe there was something wrong with his jaw, too.

    Out in the Downing Street garden for my morning walk with the albino, snuffling among the shrubs for the scent of a rat. Entirely untrained, through laziness, I am on a leash. The albino is ranting about how we should let the bodies pile up, how all this Covid business has gone on for too long. He is a little distrait. One of the Downing Street coppers, with whom I converse from time to time, told me he’s ‘up to his neck’ in sleaze. Maybe they’ll put him down next then. Once, at Chequers, I disgraced myself somehow — I forget the details. The albino said: ‘Someone shoot that bloody dog.’ Such are the narrow confines of my world — a rug, a handbag to dump in, a bush to sniff — that part of me was tempted to concur.

    We’re at Chequers. Spads, ministers and Carrie’s loud friends. They have bought me a ball from Conran. It is pastel blue with a tiny BLM motif. A young well-groomed woman picks it up and says: ‘Here, doggie — ball! Ball!’ I’m like, WTF. ‘Here, Dilyn, ball,’ she says again, bouncing the ball around in her nice hands. I look at her levelly. ‘Do you want to chase the ball?’ she asks. I stand there. She throws the ball, looking around her for approval. She retrieves the ball. I still stand there. ‘Get the ball!’ she shouts in a falsetto of desperation, preparing to throw it again. No, I won’t. Screw you. I walk up to her. ‘Why don’t you want to play ball?’ she asks, mussing the hair on my head. I don’t really know, I think, and wee on her leg.

    As told to Rod Liddle

    1. Diyln is a verbose fellow with a wide vocabulary.

      Mongo’s diary I imagine goes a bit more like this:

      Woke up. Farted. Got in the moving box. Farted. Fuffy got out, then small got out. Had a drink. Put most of it on the floor. Farted. Had a sleep. Farted. Went outside with the big lump and small. Got bored so sat down. Farted. Did a poo on the nice white linen – not the poo blanket, something else. Made lump and small take me home. Where I thought about Dad and wagged my tail. Not because I’m happy, just to move the fart about a bit.

    3. There thou mightst behold the great image of authority: a dog’s obeyed in office.

      [Shakespeare: King Lear]

      But a bitch also knows how to wag the tail!

      [Rastus C Tastey]

    4. Superb. Copied and distributed.
      Every dog I’ve ever possessed refused to run after a ball – let alone return it to me.
      Obviously, I should be running the country.

  27. Good morning all.
    3°C on a cloudy & dull Derbyshire morning. At least it isn’t raining.
    Yet.

  29. Good morning, my friends

    The important news yesterday was not just about the soft furnishing and decor of Boris and his strumpet’s refurbished apartment and whether it was funded fraudulently.

    It was about the triumph of the EU which so delights the MSM that they must try to divert our attention from it by concentrating on gaudy fabrics..

    Arlene Foster, a staunch unionist, had to stand down because of the fact that Boris Johnson betrayed her completely in his surrender deal with the EU and her party blamed her for Johnson’s treacherous complicity with the EU. This capitulation by our lust-enfeebled, cowardly prime minister left Mrs Foster with no option but to resign.

    And who will succeed her?

    Whoever it is it looks as if the Troubles are going to return and we shall have yet more deaths. And if Johnson cannot cope with illegal immigration and Islamic terrorism then who seriously would believe that he will be able to cope with the re-emergence of terrorism from Northern Ireland?

    A destabilised Northern Ireland which breaks away from the United Kingdom is just what the EU planned and Boris Johnson cravenly helped bring this about .

    Who gives a toss about the tasteless tackiness of his repulsive living quarters?

    2. Good morning Richard

      SIR – The President of the United States has the White House and Emmanuel Macron has a palace while our Prime Minister has a modest flat.

      Tony Blair spent in excess of £285,000 (around £400,000 today), yet not a word was uttered.

      Raising this to an election-defining issue reflects the lack of real policies and real opposition by other parties. Hence their reversion to mud-slinging.

      David Hutchinson
      Uckfield, East Sussex

      1. That the electoral commission is swinging into action – while it happily ignore Brexit challenges, postal voting fraud and such like shows how statist and partisan it is.

        1. the legacy of having a one eyed / Gordon Brown view on involving the Electoral Commission and the bureaucracy involved to ensure the wrong decision is reached in an attempt to cover their tracks

        2. I am no admirer of the EC, and I accept it’s a viper’s nest of Leftie quangocrats, however ….
          I would imagine that it is investigating the suggestion that CCHQ advanced a loan to buy off the First Doxy’s expensive tastes. It may be no coincidence that Central Office is centralising subscription collections so that the local constituency offices are even less relevant. Can’t have the peasants out in the boondocks knowing what’s going on.
          This is money that members work hard to raise and often finance out of their limited resources. There does appear to be a whiff of Billingsgate about the ‘temporary’ arrangement.

    3. Rastus, would you be able to explain how Boris has mucked up the EU withdrawal?

      I’ll accept his failure, but knowing the extent would be helpful.

      1. I would suggest that complete lack of grit, common sense and his complete naivete blinded him to the fact that any concession to the EU would be taken as weakness and exploited. The Brexit referendum vote was in 2016. Did Johnson learn nothing about the EU’s tactics in the five years since then? Only a total moron would allow himself to be outmanoeuvred as Boris Johnson was.

      2. 2016 Referendum decision – leave / no deal. Leave then negotiate and conclude trade deal. Now ratified trade deal and NI sell out. That reverts back to “Call me Dave” doing a runner back to his shed to write his life story [1 parapgraph with lots of pics], May & former Cabinet Sec Mark Sedwill / Olly Robins with Gove in the wings. Now Johnson following same prepared path to ensure everything’s rubber stamped with, again Gove in the wings in case C-19 goes belly up on Johnson. They laid their cards on the table once “Call me Dave” found the key to the padlock on his shed

    4. If Boris Johnson thought that his problems would be eased by giving in then he was spectacularly self-deluded. His yielding to the EU was seen as complete weakness rather than of trying to be reasonable

      Just look at his two key surrenders – fishing and Northern Ireland.

      Fishing – nothing but problems over the import of British fish to the EU with absurd form filling and claims that British fish was not up to standard;
      Northern Ireland – complete determination of the EU to undermine the UK using Northern Ireland as the lever. The EU clearly wants terrorism to return to the province.

      So why didn’t Johnson see that any concession to the EU would lead to far more rather than far less trouble? Is the man a total ass?

      The EU cannot and must not be trusted again. God save Britain from nincompoops like Boris Johnson.

      1. 332124+ up ticks,
        Morning R,
        There WAS genuine patriots
        trying via the real UKIP party to warn party before Country patriots of their dangerous voting mode in supporting “their” INO party.

        The party agenda via the “deal”
        was always a no no.
        The nine month delay was in your face treachery, what did the “blame it on the sheep” brigade do,voted for more of the same, whilst still castigating the REAL UKIP.
        Current uKiP while still entertaining their nEc is treacherously on par with the lab/lib/con/greens.coalition.

    5. That iswhy he will go down as the worst PM we have ever had.He can join Blair.

      1. Not much to choose between Blair and all the ones who have come after him, who have all perpetuated the same agenda.
        I do not want to see any of them receive any honours. They’ve had the brown envelopes from abroad, that should be enough.

        Charles will cave in, and honour them, I’m pretty sure. After all, it’s beginning to look as though he works for the same masters.

    6. There aren’t that many forums where one comes across the word strumpet … congratulations Rastus.

    7. As Martin Selmayr stated many years ago:

      The price of Brexit is the loss of Northern Ireland.

        1. I would imagine that some of these are well beyond the reach of our flabby prime minister!

    4. I expect there will be lots of Brides Heading that way…

      I’ll Put Out More Flags, to greet them.

      1. I am beginning to think I’ll need a gardener; I cut the front lawn this afternoon, but couldn’t manage to cut the back as well, and found great difficulty in neatening the edges and weeding the borders. Arthritic hip and hands are making gardening very difficult now 🙁

    1. My heart bleeds for them…what have they done to deserve this.
      In other news..they think Vietnam will allow them to install missiles pointing at China!!!

      1. Every day I become slightly more convinced that the NWO actually exists and that its madsters are determined to create the circumstances for a total breakdown of society and removal of any non-socialist white influence.

          1. One knows he’s on the right track when one sees how hard the PTB try to close him down.

  32. Apologies for the derailing on to a very serious topic: I am in need of a new food processor – one that can chop up onions and carrots and what not.

    My current one must be 30 years old and has done very well, but the spindle plastic has cracked and the blades no longer get to the bottom of the pot.

    This isn’t the only fault – the plastic wire has melted in a couple of places, the plastic tub itself is cracked at the bottom, it won’t sit level etc etc…

    It is my Mother’s old Braun. In fact I think it’s from the 70’s. If the spindle were not cracked and the blades reached the bottom I would keep it, as it is a bit of a rhino. However if one slops carrots in there as soon as they get beneath the blades they’re no longer choppable.

    Does anyone have any recommendations vis reliability, robustness? These things are bally expensive so want to get a decent one that’ll last.

    2. The MR has instructed me to send the following:

      Those Brauns from the late 70s/80s were wonderful workhorses. Ours only just gave up the ghost (completely burnt out after seriously loyal service) about 5 months ago. We replaced it with a Magimix Compact 3200 auto and it’s very good: makes the best whipped egg white for meringue I’ve ever seen. It’s a slightly fussier machine than the Braun but does a very good job.

      It may be that your Braun could simply need some new spares, if it’s not a motor or body thing. Have a look on ebay: we got some brilliant spares eg for the thing which supports the grater blades a few years ago – and put all the decent spare parts of our recently deceased one on ebay ourselves to an almost instant sale.

      1. Much obliged Bill and other half.

        I’ll contact them for repairs as I really don’t want to put it out. I’ll investigate the 3200 as well!

      1. There’s a reason I’m not allowed near knives.

        And yes, I get it, but when chopping carrots for a Shepherds pie I can’t get them to small enough chunks.

  33. Yo All

    I need to book an eyetest

    I went shopping in with the car and on the wayI back I observed a young mother, pushing a baby buggy/push chair
    and she;:

    Was Not Smoking
    Not on her Phone
    Did not have any more children .’In Tow’
    and
    Did not have a dog on a lead

    This must be a very unusual sighting

        1. I have been to quite a few Ralph McTell concerts over the years. Most recently, six years ago, we went to his 70th Birthday concert in the Theatre Royal in London with our elder son whose 21st birthday (3rd December) was on the same day as Ralph’s 70th and my sister’s 79th.

          I attempt to play several of his songs on the guitar.

      2. That’s an oldie……my point was, Boris is being taken for a well known possibly fictional boat ride and he’s going to pay for it.

  36. First hair cut for a little over 6 months, i was almost back to the mid 70s with volume. First customer of the day at 9am.
    What a lightening experience and happy relief it has been there was as much hair on the floor as was left on my head, 14.00 quid, good old Michael.
    Now i’m off into the garden and to make a planter trough from a couple of wooden pallets, for all the spare tomato plants i have.

    1. Up is down..black is white.
      If you want the truth about what is happening in the West….
      Visit a Russian website.

  38. From a Reader’s Letter in today’s Telegraph . . .
    “Laura Kuenssberg always seems to have a giant chip on her shoulder and a frown that suggests that her feet are killing her.
    I suppose if I had to go through life with a lopsided gob and an accent that no-one can understand I might be a bit grumpy too.
    I can only wonder what passes for a screen test at the BBC these day”

    1. They don’t do a screen test, only a sneer test followed by a smear test to ensure maximum bias.

    1. not yet, “we’re fighting them on the beaches while maintaining social distancing and due to a shortage of hand sanitizer, we’re having to use Mace”. BBC were invited but they were busy interviewing a lesbian carrier pigeon from France

  40. Breaking news (not). Yesterday 29 people died of covid. In the same 24 hours, 1,460 people died of, er, death, old age, lack of breath etc etc.

    Where are the campaigns, marches, protests (and looting) about that toll?

    Just asking.

      2. Hancock was right to silence the stupid whelp. The constant obsession the BBC have with attacking the Conservatives – regardless of the relevance was idiotic.

  42. An article in the DT with which some will agree and some will disagree.

    Flat-faced dogs the best at making loving eye contact with humans
    Scientists were curious to know why boxers, bulldogs and pugs were better at gazing at their owners than their long-nosed counterparts
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/04/29/flat-faced-dogs-best-making-loving-eye-contact-humans/

    My beard was not a success so it had to go but the puppy who grew into a lovely dog, Rumpole, was:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cc457e9888d76a927ad6d10687510b2b63c71f43ffad594decb19b35a8d8fecb.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9d0de24ffaff974e6315dc881b3d56146e7bf21b5c68be48163c360de2c410d9.jpg

      1. I know. No surprise it’s a “Closed door event” [a mini, closet Davos}. And the full list of those involved shows they simply pressing on regardless

      2. just mailed Tice and Fox entities recommending a full on march in Carbis Bay, Cornwall on either 12 or 13 June. And for Tice and Fox to request invitation given they’ll get refused. If any other Nottlers on here have similar links, grateful if they could do likewise

    2. Looks like we are going to need a few more globally co-ordinated pandemics in order to make all that expenditure worthwhile.

      1. that’s the intent and crash economies / existing political structures at the same time while pushing the Green Agenda [aka Rare Earth Metals]

  45. Just watched ‘Remarkable places to eat’ on BBC Iplayer.

    It featured ‘The Pig’ at Brockenhurst. A Georgian hunting lodge now a hotel and restaurant in the New Forest.

    One of the dishes was Pannage Pork. This is where the fat little piggies get to wander around the forest hoovering up all the acorns. I went straight onto this website and ordered the Piggy Meat Box.

    If you like roast pork and crackling you will love this. Didn’t seem particularly expensive either given the quality.

    https://www.newforeststores.com/pannage-pork-promo

  46. FOR PLUM

    You too can get rich…

    Take a deep breath: how ‘Cornish’ air sells for £60 a bottle (even if it’s from Devon)

    A firm selling air from ‘unspoiled places’ has caused a row by marketing air from Devon as being from the ‘Cornish heritage coast’. But who is selling air?

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/f97706c1d7d10e25e8b37b96a5fa4975ae700621/0_360_5349_3211/master/5349.jpg?width=620&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=8a2a511254eeedc852b096d06cd281e3
    Air apparent? Consumers are snapping up bottled air as an aid to healthy living

    https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2021/mar/01/take-a-deep-breath-how-cornish-air-sells-for-60-a-bottle-even-if-its-from-devon

  47. Interesting, the retired French military men who want a coup d’état. Last year, a lot of elderly Spanish military men issued threats to the Spanish government.

    Come on, British generals – were is your demand for military rule?

  48. Kier Starmer could not answer this simple question from a pub landlord:

    Why did you not oppose the Government policy of letting older people die earlier than young people?

    The government had damaged the economy “because old people are dying” and Starmer had not opposed the measures, a furious, finger-jabbing Humphris told him.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/apr/19/pub-landlord-shouts-at-starmer-for-backing-covid-rules

    Good question – because so many old people are dying that younger people are starting to die when they reach that age.

    Nature is a farce!🤔

        1. he’ll be even less happy when he realises it was deducted from his own political expenses where he entered a claim for
          four days of polishing. At the time he thought it was for polishing a turd on both knees! When he eventually realises, as usual, he’ll “keep mum”

  49. Roger Kimball
    Is Joe Biden trying to make America poor again?
    29 April 2021, 7:46am

    als to reduce the tax burden for both businesses and individuals while also strengthening America’s military: in these and other initiatives has he not taken bold steps to fulfil his campaign promises to return power from Washington to the People and ‘make America great again’.

    Oops: I was talking about the wrong speech! That was about Donald Trump’s 2018 State of the Union address, in which he called upon Americans to put aside the partisan passions that divide us in order to go forward as one people united in the goal of making a better America. It was his next State of the Union address, in 2020, when speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, sitting directly behind president Trump, capped the evening picking up a copy of the speech and tearing it in two

    She didn’t do that tonight. The speech was in the same chamber. But somehow it was not the same chamber. Watching Joe Biden tonight was like visiting a theatre after hours. Lots of ghosts.

    One ghost was St Anthony Fauci, who was responsible for Joe Biden’s doddering entrance to the depopulated room. No handshakes, just fist or elbow bumps to the bemasked denizens of that melodrama.

    What Biden called ‘the worst pandemic in a century’ was at centre stage. On taking office, he said, he promised 100 million vaccine shots in 100 days. To date, he said, 220 million shots have been delivered.

    Who or what accomplished that? If you look at the Biden press pool — also known as CNN — the Biden administration is responsible for America’s robust response to this latest respiratory virus. But in fact, it was Donald Trump’s ‘Operation Warp Speed’ that should get the credit — and it was Trump’s scheme that provided the entire plan for distributing the vaccines.

    Joe then went on to describe what he called, without cracking a smile, the ‘American Rescue Plan’. In essence, it is the same plan that was outlined, but in more modest terms, by a certain Italian politician in the 1920s. ‘All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.’

    The word ‘jobs’ occurred nearly 50 times in tonight’s address. But here’s an embarrassing fact. Donald Trump’s economic policies led to the lowest general unemployment in decades. They led to the lowest minority unemployment in our history. They also led to a robust rise in wages at the lower end of the scale.

    Joe did not mention any of that. Instead it was all Bernie Sanders-esque class warfare: raise taxes, eat the rich, take control of — well, everything.

    But along the way there were some strange echoes. Biden said his mantra was ‘Buy American’. ‘American tax dollars are going to be used to buy American products made in America that create American jobs.’ Where have we heard that before?

    MAGA? Nope. Biden is here to bring us MAPA: ‘Make America Poor Again.’

    Here’s how we do it. First, spend more money than anyone thought possible. Promise free stuff for everyone (except Republicans). Second, destroy the engines of prosperity. Start with the energy industry. Tax it, regulate, mount a huge ‘green- new-deal PR campaign against cheap, abundant energy. It’s working! Hundreds of thousands are out of work and gas prices are up some nine per cent in just 100 days! Good going, Joe!

    I think my favourite part of this dog’s breakfast was the part where he asked, how are we going to pay for all this. ‘I’ve made clear that we can do it without increasing deficits.’

    Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Who knew that Joe Biden, like Hamlet, had an antic disposition.

    The deficit is already skyrocketing. But Joe is going after the ‘millionaires and billionaires who cheat on their taxes’. Did you know that the top one per cent of earners already pay more than 40 per cent of all income taxes? Think about that. The top 10 per cent pay more than 71 per cent, while the top 25 per cent pay nearly 90 per cent of all income taxes. So what is Joe talking about?

    Of course, it would not have been a Democratic talk if there were not some invocation of the melée at the Capitol on January 6.

    ‘As we gather here tonight, the images of a violent mob assaulting this Capitol — desecrating our democracy — remain vivid in our minds.

    ‘Lives were put at risk. Lives were lost. Extraordinary courage was summoned.

    ‘The insurrection was an existential crisis — a test of whether our democracy could survive.’

    But it wasn’t an insurrection It wasn’t an ‘existential crisis’. And it wasn’t a test of ‘our democracy’ (i.e., not your democracy).

    I thought it was a horrible speech — cliché-ridden, yes, but also deeply mendacious. The latest import from China is not ‘one of the worst pandemics ever’. We were not ‘staring into an abyss of insurrection and autocracy’ on 6 January. There were a small number of bad hats and many who were exercising their constitutional right to dissent. This, of course, was in sharp contrast to the hundreds of thugs who rampaged through dozens of cities setting fires and destroying property over the summer — and even now. But forget all that. Here was the geriatric specimen blinking into the cameras:

    ‘We came together.

    ‘United.

    ‘With light and hope, we summoned new strength and new resolve.

    ‘To position us to win the competition for the 21st century.

    ‘On our way forward to a Union more perfect. More prosperous. More just.

    ‘As one people. One nation. One America.’

    I thought at first that the few dozen people in the Capitol were wearing face masks. I didn’t consider the possibility that they were air-sickness bags.

  50. Hipster East London cafe called F***offee is slammed over ‘racist’ Covid joke on shop sign saying ‘this is the longest something made in China has ever lasted’
    F***offee shared an Instagram post of sign dubbed ‘racist’ by social media users
    Cafe also condemned as fatphobic after a note reading ‘Sorry, no fatties’ posted
    Coffee shop in east London described as ‘provocative’ with ‘cheeky atmosphere’

    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2021/04/29/13/42368692-9525215-image-m-21_1619699467695.jpg

    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2021/04/29/13/42366652-9525215-image-m-8_1619699257761.jpg

    1. Not particularly funny but the permanently offended lefties moan about anything and everything.

      Time to start annoying them more.

  51. So, given that the Troubles are about to break out again in NI (maybe as a precursor to NI leaving the UK, maybe not) and given that young Mercer felt the need to resign in protest at the Government’s failure to protect veterans from vexatious legal proceedings for incidents that took place many years ago, and given that the Government believes that we need fewer soldiers anyway, what youngster in his/her right mind is going to volunteer to join the Army and which existing soldier, sent to NI, is going to do anything in the line of duty that might get him/her dragged through the courts in 50 years time?

    1. the answer to your question is volunteer work for illegal immigrants. The system can’t be seen to be providing a permanent busman’s holiday

  53. Joe Biden watching Boris Johnson carefully and ‘may seek to intervene’ on Brexit changes

    Meet the new boss..same as the old boss..and the one before..and the one before that.
    They do like a bit of intervention.

    1. If the US wish to intervene in Ireland do they send reinforcements to the South or the North?
      And surely you can’t have a confrontation if there isn’t a border.

      1. That’s a question even Demented Joe can easily answer, he’s a long time supporter / funder of the IRA and he doesn’t like the English

        1. There is scant evidence however that he has proper control of his North and South.

          2. I would like to point out that there is scant evidence that the so called “President” Sleepy Joe has a brain!

      2. The quote is from an article in the Express.This is the last line;
        “The Good Friday Agreement ended three decades of violence in Northern Ireland.”
        My arse(excuse my French).
        It ended “the reporting” of violence in N Ireland.
        It still goes on,on a daily basis.

    2. Blimey. I would say FOAD, but given his condition, he might oblige me and then I’d feel guilty.

    3. With enemies in Europe and the USA, the UK urgently needs to re-evaluate its alliances. The septics, under Democrat rule, are no friends to us, nor will they ever be.

      Biden needs to be put on notice that any interference in NI will result in the UK’s withdrawal from NATO, the cancellation of the F35 order and the closure of all US military bases on British soil. What’s Creepy Joe going to do? He’s already got the Russians drawing red lines in Europe and threatening Ukraine while the Chinese are itching to invade Taiwan, so he won’t want to commit his military on three fronts. And while we’re at it, let’s refuse him entry to Britain this summer, send him back to Jerkwater, PA, or whatever hellhole he comes from, with his tail between his legs.

      I”m sure Vlad would be more than happy to cut us a deal on some Sukhoi Su-57s, which can out-fly and out-gun anything the USAF can put up, and is ‘carrier capable’, which will make Darth Brown a happy man. Together with the S400 Surface to Air Missile System this would give the UK a formidable air defence system. He’d probably throw in a few RS-28 MIRV-equipped ICBMs for good measure, maybe some Poseidon nuclear torpedoes too!

      The days of American world-dominance are fast drawing to a close – time to get out from under methinks.
      ;¬)

      1. We could cut off diplomatic relations and direct all enquiries via the Mexican embassy…

      2. The US is turning inward, ignoring trade treaties to buy American.

        Michigan is threatening to shut off the main east west oil pipeline next month, never mind the damage that it will do to the ontario economy or even to new York. Not a word from Biden demanding that they hold off on this very unfriendly move.

        With friends like that, enemies would be quite welcome.

      3. An alliance between Great Britain and Russia would be enough to knock back all those Johnny come latelys.

        It would give China pause for thought. (they normally take 500 years anyway).

        It was the Lefties that murdered members of our Monarchs family in Russia.

        It was the Americans that rebelled against their lawful King.

        It would make the E.U implode.

        It would bring that deluded dog bitch Sturgeon to heel.

        Like Putin stuffed the oligarchs, there would be no money for the troughers in Westminster.

        What’s not to like tovarishch?

        Then i woke up.

      4. Nice thought, Duncan, but we all know that Boris No-Balls has been chemically castrated by his in-house slut.

    2. I have had to hide this from G & P. It would give them ideas. They are bad enough already…!

  55. Alexei Navalny looks gaunt as he appears in court after hunger strike. 29 April 2021.

    A photograph released by the court showed Navalny, appearing by video link, with a shaved head and wearing a prison jacket. “I am a creepy skeleton,” said Navalny, who appeared in the courtroom on a video feed. “I weighed this much in 7th grade.”

    Man on hunger strike loses weight! Who would ever have guessed?

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/29/alexei-navalny-looks-gaunt-as-he-appears-in-court-after-hunger-strike

    1. The political network of imprisoned Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny has been disbanded ahead of a potential court ruling that could declare his nationwide organization ‘extremist’ and completely prohibit its existence.
      Writing on Telegram, Navalny’s aide Leonid Volkov, who is based outside Russia but serves as the coordinator of the activist’s regional branches in the country, explained that the network must be disbanded to protect its workers. He added that many of them could face criminal charges if the activist group is branded as extremist.

    2. Am sure this would stick in the throat of the Grauniad: Navalny went to the US on a Soros / US NGO funded course for young leaders! But join the dots?

    3. Thought at the time Navalny’s attempts to lose weight were a bit OTT. He’d have done better following a ‘keto’ diet…

    1. Hi poppiesmum. 1) Things are never normal in Israel. 2) This Gal Gur is an egomaniac Left wing Lawyer & anti-Netanyahu agitator and an anti-Vaxxer which is Five strikes against her. She is out of step with reality & and she and her kind can take a Flying Leap off a cliff with the other troublemakers!

      1. “6/We live under increasing coercion, discrimination, marking and division into two civil societies-according to the “green mark (pass)”.
        Basic activities such as work, education, health and recreation – have become a luxury for only vaccinated people. ”

        We have heard that 16 year olds were told they could not take their exams unless vaccinated. Is this true?
        Is healthcare restricted if you are not vaccinated?
        Recreation – we were told that entry to venues, bars, hotels, theatres, swimming pools etc is prohibited if you are not vaccinated – is this true?
        Are workplaces sacking people if they are not vaccinated? If yes, then what kind of workplaces?

        I believe you when you say she’s a lefty, but we need to know facts, and the mainstream media doesn’t seem interested in reporting them.

        1. There are still some restrictions in place as there should be!
          Read the full article in todays Jerusalem Post https://www.jpost.com/health-science/all-covid-19-restrictions-could-end-in-3-weeks-deputy-health-minister-666589

          COVID-19 restrictions may end in 3 weeks, Health Ministry officials say
          Some 86 new cases were identified on Tuesday, with less than 0.3% of the 34,000 tests performed returning a positive result.
          In about three weeks Israel will be almost free of coronavirus restrictions if the epidemiological situation continues to improve, Health Ministry officials said Wednesday, as the country registered fewer than 100 new cases for the fourth day in a row.

          “A week from Thursday, the green pass outline will not include any additional limits,” Deputy Health Minister Yoav Kish said while addressing the Knesset plenary that had convened to approve the new regulations and to extend the existing ones. “In my estimation, if the disease continues to decline, in three weeks from today we will remove the restrictions completely… and that is an amazing achievement,” he added.
          Some 86 new cases were identified on Tuesday, with less than 0.3% of the 34,000 tests performed returning a positive result. The figures are in line with those from previous days. The number of serious patients and active virus carriers in the country also continued to drop, standing at 132 and 1,651 respectively. At the peak of the pandemic in January there were 1,200 serious patients and tens of thousands of active cases.
          Head of Public Health Services Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis told The Jerusalem Post that she is not sure Israel will lift “all restrictions,” but removing the majority of the rules in Israel is part of a holistic plan being prepared by the Health Ministry.

          1. Thank you for the link. “lift all restrictions” – does that include the restriction of showing the vaccine pass?
            We are just trying to work out how things are going to go in other countries – for example, I have a 17 year old who is due to take school exams next year, so reports of exams being denied to those who are not vaccinated are a little alarming. The article does not confirm or deny this report.

          2. I have not been asked to show the vaccination certificate anywhere I’ve been recently such as a shopping mall & health clinic but I believe they check it at hotels . Our kids are back at school & only wear a mask in class & the under 16’s are not vaccinated & as far as I know unvaccinated teachers are allowed to work as we now have de facto herd immunity .

  58. Paris mayor says she AGREES with military chiefs who threatened to seize control of the country and warned of the ‘disintegration’ of France – as 18 of the officers are fired
    Eighteen serving officers who signed letter to Macron are to be fired, it emerged
    But despite anger, right-wing politicians like Rachida Dati are backing the troops
    Dati said that the concerns of the soldiers reflected a very real terror threat

    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2021/04/29/13/42369042-9525485-image-m-41_1619700038315.jpg
    Rachida Dati, mayor of Paris’ 7th arrondissement, said that the concerns expressed in the letter to Emmanuel Macron were valid. Ms Dati told France Info radio today: ‘When you have a country plagued by urban guerrilla warfare, when you have a very regular and very high terrorist threat, when you have increasingly glaring and flagrant inequalities … we cannot say that the country is doing well’

    1. Has the Leftie Mayor of Paris been dumped? If so there might be a chance to get rid of the khant in London

      1. I’m afraid not.

        There is an overall Mayor of Paris and 20 arrondissements, each of which also has its own mayor.

    2. “Paris mayor” is a bit deceptive. When I saw the headline, I thought that the ultra-leftie Hidalgo had spoken up for the military chaps – and was astonished.

      The permanently irritating and self-obsessed Dati is merely mayor of an arrondissement, albeit a genteel and wealthy one.

          2. Typical that she should demand press silence about the father of her (unfortunate) child – “I will do this on my own”…sort of thing – then sues the putative father for child support.

          7. That was because the Americans trained them how to fly. A coincidence i’m sure.

            Not that i believe in coincidences.

    1. Neither the thicko plod or gendarmes can work out or put a stop to where all the boats are coming from or are they just returning them to Calais for the next batch of illegals?

      1. Usual BBC BS, air as much crap as possible and frequently, and hope that some sticks. If others here don’t post links, I wouldn’t even consider checking anything on BBC

          3. mng Phizzee, don’t blame you. Similar here unles nothing else on then perhaps 10 mins of either Uganda or Tanzania. Sky, BBC, Al Jazz not watched for well over a year

    2. By the same point in 2020, fewer than 1,000 people had made the
      crossing, but numbers rose dramatically later in the year as the
      pandemic reduced the number of cross-Channel ferries.

      An admission that many were getting in that way.

      At least with the boats there is a small/miniscule chance that one can corral them, having caught them, and then deport them, whereas via ferries they quickly vanish into their communities.

      1. If we wanted to solve the problem we would tow them in their dinghies to within a mile of France and leave them there.

        The fact that we do not do this tells them very clearly that Boris Johnson, Priti Patel and the rest of the government want them to come and will pamper them when they do.

        No border in the Irish Sea
        Protection from legal action for N. Ireland veterans
        Reform of BBC licence
        Control of illegal immigration
        Brexit *

        Is there anything that Johnson promised that he has actually done?

        * Some may call it Brexit – the fishermen and the Northern Irish loyalists may have another term for the total mess that the Fat Fornicator has created.

        2. If the French wished to, they could stop it overnight.

          Let them get 200 metres off-shore and hole the boats, and let them swim back.

    1. The Spectator is suspect, in my book. All its main writers form an inter-related political and personal coterie. They behave like hormonal teenagers.

      Mary Wakefield is married to Dominic Cummings; Allegra Stratton is married to James Forsyth; several others lurk around No 10. They all know (and love) Carrion – and won’t say a word against her.

      All a bit farmyardy – as my Grandmother would have said.

  64. 332124+up ticks,
    Your vote will definitely count on the 6th May in showing trust and confidence in your lab/lib/con coalition candidate,as we approach brussels in a submissive manner regarding reset / reentry.
    breitbart,
    UK to Grant EU Ambassador Full Diplomatic Status of Sovereign Nation: Report

    2. No problem with that.
      Just tell ALL the other EU members that they have to close their embassies and send all the staff home.

      1. 332124+ up ticks,
        S,
        I do believe the lab/lib/con/green coalitions true intentions are eventually, reentry.

        Look at the treacherous lackadaisical way the border issues are handled … they ain’t.

    2. How many non whites discovered the elements? I declare the periodic table institutionally racist.

      1. Dey done discover dem all.

        Efricans dey kno’s dem am earth, wind, air and fire

        Yo is a waycist.

      2. In other news: the Periodic Table will no longer be taught in school Chemistry lessons, in order to promote diversity and take the focus away from “the achievements of dead white males.”

  66. Latest Breaking News
    – 5pm- Military chiefs seize control of France,
    – 5.30pm – up came the white flag
    – 6pm – French navy scuttled,

  67. Headline in the Daily Wail:

    “Frontrunner in race to replace Arlene Foster as DUP leader is a ‘creationist who believes the world was created 6,000 years ago'”

    Sounds an ideal choice. Not a Prod; not a Left-footer. Just mad.

  68. That’s me for this miserable day. Some sunshine – but a bitter wind all day long.

    A demain (when it will be much the same). Grrr

    2. Joe Biden agrees that if he was a Democrat that Donald’s head should be there.

      On a spike.

      Just like ALL Democrat Presidents should be.

    2. My dog helped me cope with depression, but I’m not sure he made me “more benign” – probably more Bentine.

        1. So am I. I am trying to arrange a meeting with the people who run a rescue centre with a view to adopting a terrierist.

          2. The worst four months of my life were when I was forced to be dogless (MOH was having a strop about getting a replacement). In the end, we had another and life became bearable again. The new dog will never be a replacement, but I hope the one I’m seeing tomorrow will be a successor.

    1. Watch out for viral shedding from SWMBO, for 40 days after the injection. It is the ‘unvaccinated’ who have to beware the ‘vaccinated’. It is a Pfizer link. I’ll see if I can find it later. They know about it and haven’t made this public. As in all things, buyer beware. It beats me how this can happen when there is no pathogen within the ‘vaccine’, allegedly, but our acceptance of it is all based on trust and they could really put anything in it. Viral shedding could explain the problem in India, their experimental injection programme started mid January.

      2. I haven’t caught anything from MOH, who has had both jabs – but then, when I was ill with the dreaded plague in Feb 2020, MOH didn’t go down with that, either.

        1. My DT has only had the one job, but it’s had no side effects on her or on me.

          Yet.

    5. “Maisie?”
      “Yes,Daisy?”
      “Do you know that expression: couldn’t hit a cow’s arse with a banjo?”
      “Yes Maisie, and looking at the size of those banjos it’s time we left…”

    10. Beethoven wrote “Fur Elsie” to keep me happy, but I reckon he ought to have written “Fur Daisy und Buttercup” to keep the straw munchers happy.

      :-))

  74. US agency in charge of nukes approves multibillion-dollar project as Washington urges Iran to curtail its own nuclear program

    The US has approved a multibillion-dollar project to beef up its plutonium production at the same time Washington is calling on Iran to return to an international agreement designed to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear bombs.
    The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the federal agency responsible for nuclear research and weapons manufacturing in the US, has approved the first design phase for the new project.

    At least 30 plutonium pits per year will be built to “meet national security needs,” the NNSA said in a statement on Wednesday.

    The project at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, will cost an estimated $2.7–$3.9 billion and could be finished between 2027 and 2028, the agency said.

    Says it all really.

    5. So he is going to insure women over fifty years of age are secure in their jobs , and air conditioning in all offices and work places will make life comfortable?

      I am amazed that this small headed Pakistani Muslim man is sympathetic to a hot flush!

          1. I have to declare a conflict of interest here.

            I’ve never had a problem with looking at attractive naked women.

          1. I’m not usually a great fan of street beggar/musicians but the didgeridoo players around the station at circular quay, near Sydney Opera house can be amazing.

        4. That young woman is entirely typical of her ilk – who will go out in bra and pants and then shriek that they feel “unsafe” because horrible, vile, heterosexual men are LOOKING AT HER.

          I spit on her.

          2. She does what she does for money.
            It’s her choice.
            I don’t spit on her, I accept her choice, but I don’t listen to her later complaints.

  79. This will be the cause of the next nasty row. It’s a delicate subject but it’s notable that the author seeks to lecture us the horrors of racism and genocide as though we need reminding. And he might ask himself why anti-semitism is on the rise…

    A Holocaust Memorial belongs in Westminster

    Objections to the plan are wrong, and I hope the Government will give it the go ahead

    MICK DAVIS

    __________________________________________________________

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0171c34317b640fe62d0124892b4bbf7983350705042d7f8e63d356aeddb3092.jpg
    How the Holocaust Memorial in Victoria Tower Gardens would look
    __________________________________________________________

    In 2015, I chaired the Prime Minister’s Holocaust Commission that recommended the building of a national Holocaust Memorial and learning centre in a prominent central London location. The cross-party support was overwhelming.

    This week, Her Majesty’s Planning Inspectorate will submit its report to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, following a lengthy inquiry into the proposed memorial late last year. The vast majority of British Holocaust survivors and educators will be hoping the memorial gets the go ahead.

    As the number of Holocaust survivors who can provide first-hand accounts of the unique evils they endured dwindles, and with anti-Semitism and racism on the rise, a fitting Holocaust memorial is as necessary as ever. Every year on Holocaust Memorial Day we pledge “never again.” But with subsequent genocides taking place as the world stood by – in Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur and the atrocities currently being perpetrated against Uyghur Muslims in China, not to mention ongoing violent hatred against Jews – those words risk ringing hollow.

    Through Holocaust education – and the memorial will be foremost an educational resource – we can empower future British generations to give the words “never again” the power they deserve. This will happen when we all understand that none of us can stand by when evil is wrought in our midst.

    The site next to Parliament, therefore, would provide a constant reminder to both the public and parliamentarians of the need to vigilantly defend the values of parliamentary democracy and the rights and freedoms they guarantee. The Holocaust, after all, is history’s most chilling example of where bigotry, hatred and attacks on democracy can lead.

    The well-known Holocaust survivor, Sir Ben Helfgott, has publicly backed the proposed memorial as did the overwhelming majority of the Holocaust survivors and educators in the UK who were consulted by the commission. “In an era of unprecedented reports of anti-Semitism, it is more important than ever that Britain remembers the victims of the Holocaust, long after I and other survivors are gone,” said Sir Ben. “I cannot think of a more appropriate location for this memorial than next to the heart of the UK’s democracy, where it will be visited by millions for generations to come.”

    The proposals breathe life into the phrase “never again” but have been met in some quarters by a less inspiring rallying cry of “not in my back yard”. But these objections – most of which had precious little to do with planning issues per se – mix up issues. The choice of location is not a planning issue: it is a matter of vision. Planning procedures must of course be followed, overseen by the local authority, and objections heard, as they have been. But if the memorial is to have real impact it needs a prominent location which begs the question: if not here, where?

    Some suggest the Imperial War Museum, already home to an impressive Holocaust exhibition. This miscasts the Holocaust’s victims as combatants or participants in war. They were not, unless one regards men, women and children, forced to strip, shot into mass graves, gassed or sent on death marches, as such. The Holocaust was not a product of war, even if war enabled it, but of a process of dehumanisation of Jews, centuries in the making and also the horrific conclusion of the evil people are capable of when democratic norms and processes break down. A site alongside the mother of all parliaments – a symbol of democracy, rights and freedoms – is the right location far more than a site associated with the study of war.

    Some have argued that the memorial location should be more discreetly tucked away so as not to inflame the passions of anti-Semites. We should have a less prominent memorial to the victims of anti-Semitism, this logic dictates, lest we upset people who don’t like Jews. Of all the objections, this is the most ironic.

    But consider also the notion that the Holocaust Commission, which led to the memorial proposals, was too top-down. Poorly expressed, it gives undue credence to damaging stereotypes regarding the proximity of Jews to power. It also overlooks the rigorous bottom-up consultation process carried out by the Holocaust Commission in arriving at its proposals.

    The memorial was not the brainchild of the powerful. If its critics read the Commission’s report, they would see it was based on evidence from a staggering array of universities, schools (so many we couldn’t list them), survivors’ groups and scholars, from the Holocaust Research Centre at the Royal Holloway to Yad Vashem, from the Association of Jewish Refugees to the Holocaust Educational Trust.

    One idea recurred more than any other: to memorialise the Holocaust and educate about it more effectively, we need a prominent national memorial and learning centre. A small number of survivors have spoken out against the proposal but their numbers are dwarfed by those who back it. I recall being at events with survivors who spontaneously broke into rapturous applause when the idea of a London memorial was mentioned.

    The Baronesses, Lords and newspaper columnists driving the campaign against the Holocaust Memorial are not so powerless themselves, which explains why their combination of nimbyism and fear of rocking the boat has generated some noise. But if we are to inspire our country to learn the history of the Holocaust, challenge antisemitism and understand where hatred, bigotry and assaults on democracy can lead, the cry of “never again” cannot be drowned out by the grumble of “not in my backyard.”

    Sir Mick Davis is a former chief executive of the Conservative Party

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/04/29/holocaust-memorial-belongs-westminster/

    1. How many British Jews were victims of the Holocaust? A few, who were captured as members of the Armed forces, and a few who volunteered to join missions to Europe as members of SOE and similar.
      The British did not export Jews to death camps, in fact, quite the opposite. I worked years ago with two Professors who came to the UK as part of the Kindertransport, and could support a memorial that made clear the role the UK and friends did what they could to stop the Holocaust, and provided sanctuary to those trying to flee. If the memorial is intended to instil guilt, then I won’t have anything to do with it – there’s plenty of those in Germany, and rightly so.

      1. Here’s what Charles Moore wrote about it earlier this year.

        Commemorating the Holocaust is too important for us to risk getting it wrong

        The proposed memorial near Parliament is poorly situated and will be used for empty gesture politics

        CHARLES MOORE

        Brought up in a strongly philo-Semitic household, I learnt about the Holocaust young. My parents wanted their children to know, and never forget, what had happened. Yet my strongest childhood memory of this home schooling is the occasion when I was not allowed to see something.

        When I was seven or eight, my father sat me down to watch a television documentary about the Holocaust. But when archive footage of the liberation of the concentration camps in 1945 was shown, he jumped up and held a newspaper in front of the screen. He thought I was too young to see the horrors which the Allied troops found. He could have switched off, but he did not want to impair my knowledge.

        I was impressed by the way he handled his dilemma. It is essential to learn about the Holocaust; but this must be done in the right way. The rise of anti-Semitism in the 21st century suggests we have not found the right way.

        In January 2014, the then prime minister, David Cameron, announced that more should be done to preserve the memory. He set up a Holocaust Commission. It recommended “a striking and prominent new national memorial” and “a world-class learning centre … co-located” with it.

        A government-backed UK Holocaust Memorial Commission (UKHMC) was consequently established. It worked (and works still) to claim a site not mentioned in the original report – Victoria Tower Gardens, the attractive sliver of grass and plane trees right by the Thames and by Parliament. UKHMC approves because “the view of Parliament from the memorial will serve as a permanent reminder that political decisions have far-reaching consequences”. It will set “history’s worst example of the disintegration of democratic values against the greatest emblem of Britain’s aspirations for democracy”, thus making us remember “the responsibilities of citizens in a democracy to be vigilant and responsive whenever and wherever those values are threatened”.

        I shall return to this vision, but the first thing to say is that the process has been “top-down” throughout. It came from Mr Cameron and was pushed forward by the leading businessman, Sir Michael Davis, whose huge donations and work as party treasurer pretty much saved the finances of the Conservative Party in the middle of the last decade. It was actively supported by Lord Feldman, Mr Cameron’s old university friend and chairman of the party until 2016.

        Some see this as corrupt. I don’t think so, and it is worth saying that the project involves leading figures (Ed Balls, for example) from the other political parties. But it certainly was and is high-handed. There was little consultation with local residents and oddly little input from Holocaust scholars, Jewish or otherwise. It was an idea backed by big people. As is often the way with big people in a hurry, it offered more quantity than quality. The government pledged at least £75 million without quite working out why.

        If you start right with memorial projects, popular support snowballs. Start wrong and it melts away. The latter has happened here. Local Westminster residents and office workers (remember them?) love the quiet, green open space in a very built-up area. In an age when Parliament Square and its surroundings constantly pullulate with people exercising their “right to protest”, the Victoria Tower Gardens are uniquely peaceful.

        Since the Holocaust memorial is to be “striking and prominent” and the learning centre “world-class”, that will change. The gardens will become a site of pilgrimage, tourism, contemplation, study and visits from delegations of political dignitaries. Thousands of people would queue and buses would choke the narrow roads, a situation made worse by the inevitable security measures. The structure would overshadow the attractive Buxton Memorial to the abolition of slavery in the British Empire and obscure the long view down the strip of grass to Parliament.

        The proposed building itself is arguably ugly – some compare it to a toast-rack – and unarguably complicated. It derives from a rejected plan for a Holocaust memorial in Ottawa and fits uneasily in the tight London space. No one seems to have considered that the digging needed to build the learning centre underground creates problems of flooding and might kill the noble trees. When this was discovered, the planned space had to be cut back, so the centre cannot be “world-class”.

        The planning inquiry, whose hearings have now ended, attracted hundreds of objections, including some from prominent Jews, such as Baroness Deech and Lord Carlile. The 97-year-old cellist and Holocaust survivor, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, is an eloquent critic. Westminster city council rejected the plan, but by then Robert Jenrick, Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, had intervened by “calling in” the project. Under legal pressure, he has recused himself, but everyone expects his junior minister, Christopher Pincher, now in charge of the decision, to give Mr Jenrick what he wants and impose the Victoria Tower Gardens site. This despite the fact that there is more room and expertise on offer from the Imperial War Museum, which will soon be opening its improved Holocaust exhibition galleries. It has space for a memorial, too.

        This whole story has caused resentment: powerful people have ignored local people. That is not a good position for any national site to be in, especially not for one that honours the Jewish people. I am afraid we have learnt from the Jeremy Corbyn/Islamist mindset that excuses to criticise Jews are easily seized.

        But although sustained local planning objections should always be taken seriously, they should not automatically prevail. If this Holocaust memorial and learning centre really were the right way to remember then there would be a strong national case for it. I fear it is not the right way.

        At bottom, the problem is political. The stuff from the Commission quoted above is somehow false, as is talk from the plan’s supporters about upholding “British values”. The relation of Britain to the Holocaust is a side issue. On the one hand, we won the war against the killers of the Jews and helped liberate the camps. Many British people (including my father’s parents) took in Jewish refugees. On the other, we discouraged Jewish immigration both here and to Palestine, and declined to bomb the railway lines to the concentration camps. As a nation, we are not centre-stage, nor do we have special “values” here that differ from those of decent people everywhere.

        The memorial’s proposed proximity to Parliament – and its lack of focus or space for scholarship – will surely set the stage for the gesture-politics that modern leaders love. Prime ministers will take other prime ministers to be photographed looking serious, say “Never again” and head off for lunch. The Holocaust, as projected from the memorial, will become a reputational instrument instead of an object of study and reflection on the unique history of the Jews and how others have persecuted them.

        In the modern culture of victimhood, I foresee a procession of people making their way to the memorial and learning centre (one of whose four rooms will be devoted to other genocides), trying to claim for their cause the status of the wrong that deliberately killed six million. Present and future successive home secretaries who oppose “open border” policies will be condemned against this backdrop. People with grievances, great or small, will use it to grab the microphone of history. The Holocaust should not be used “to point a moral or adorn a tale”. It is much too serious for that.

        https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/05/commemorating-holocaust-important-us-risk-getting-wrong/

        1. “The rise of anti-Semitism in the 21st century suggests we have not found the right way.” The rise of anti-Semitism has nothing to do with our commemoration of the Holocaust. It’s to do with importing hundreds of thousands of foreign anti-Semites.

        2. Is it a memorial, or something that “…one that honours the Jewish people“?
          Moore concludes correctly, in my opinion:
          “The Holocaust should not be used “to point a moral or adorn a tale”. It is much too serious for that.“

    2. It’s hideous; couldn’t they come up with anything better than that? The shoes by the river are more poignant and fitting.

      1. Norway has two chairs at the quayside where the Jews were packed into ships and exported to Germany, mostly never to return. It’s simple, and very moving.

    4. From the picture, the proposed memorial will be an eyesore and anyway it’s a stupid idea, the UK played no part in the Holocaust. Unlike their unfortunate fellows in the occupied countries of Europe, no Jews were sent to their deaths from Britain. In World War II, we were firmly on the side of the angels. Britain gave refuge to many Jews fleeing the horrors of Nazi Germany and many thousands of British men and women gave their lives to help defeat the evil regime responsible and bring the men who orchestrated those monstrous crimes to justice.

      Where does this senseless virtue signalling end? Should we erect monuments to the Ukrainian Holodomor, the Armenian Genocide, the more recent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia …. when will enough be enough?

      And sadly but realistically, we must consider – how long before this Jewish memorial is vandalised by the Muslims who seem to have taken over London?

      2. Vandalised – How much does It weigh? It will be stolen and sold as scrap before it can be vandalised.

        The US and Canada have holacoust memorials, why should you miss out on the self flagellation?

    5. Sir Mick Davis is a former chief executive of the Conservative Party.

      Another good reason not to vote Tory

        1. And mine, I have been following comments on another forum which seems heavily populated with Tory fan boys.
          Their line of reasoning appears to be that because the normal choice of alternative is so bad (and he is, along with all his party) that is reason enough to defend Johnson and his piece of fluff for their actions. They tell us we should have no interest in such trifling matters, nothing should be allowed to place the buffoon in peril.
          Well, I am interested, this is just another example that shows the country deserve better than what we got,
          HS2, BBC license, Brexit sell out, NI, our fishing industry, just some of the failures and broken promises that should be attributed to our clown of a PM.
          Is there no politician worthy of our support these days?

    6. Remind me about democracy; it’s something I’ve heard of. Would brutal blocks of recycled steel dumped on a London greensward jog my memory?

    7. Can’t we just make sure that WWII history, German and Japanese atrocities, holocaust and all, are part of schoolchildren’s history lessons.

    9. What a load of shite.

      We might more appropriately erect a Covid 19 memorial to the millions about to be eradicated by the effing ‘vaccines’.

      The supposed Holocaust Memorial would occupy a vital public open space. One of a few green spaces left in the vicinity of Westminster.

      The design is an abomination, as were previous attempts. We do not need monuments designed by politically motivated Ghanaian charlatans and lefty Marxist ‘educators’.

  80. Evening, all. No need to investigate who pays for the Downing St cat’s feed; we, the taxpayers, do.

  81. Shock horror!
    “Bafta suspends Noel Clarke over harassment claims”
    Unfortunately, I don’t know him or WTF he does.

  83. 332124+ up ticks,
    May one ask,
    Now that the daily incoming replacement units are hitting the high numbers regular at DOVER and the campaign is running smoothly do the tories, (ino) being the governance party, get the higher % in the replacement, reset, divvy up ?

      1. mng Oberst.V bright am here, the live stream safari around Kruger, Kalahari’s on and strong coffee sorted. All well your end of parish?

        1. Beautiful, sunny day, thanks. Just hope the temperature gets over +10 – fed up with being chilly, time for t-shirts and shorts!

          1. can imagine. It’s supposed to be mid rainy season here and we’ve had the few odd showers overnight, but daytime, as am sure you know, temps are invariably high

          2. can imagine. It’s supposed to be mid rainy season here and we’ve had the few odd showers overnight, but daytime, as am sure you know, temps are invariably high

  86. Another, this time from today’s upload on CW https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/biden-darent-stand-up-to-the-genocidal-dragon/ the irony Demented Joe’s unable to grasp is when citing “contrary to basic human rights, it’s going to be hard” – it is, for the US as they use it merely as a sound bite to mask their own true intent of screw everyone else that won’t subscribe to the US view.

    And new Head of USAID – Samantha Power starts in post on Monday, officially https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/28/us/politics/Power-USAID.html Power being the protégé of Madelaine Albright, having written while at Harvard a woke novel “A Problem from Hell”: America and the Age of Genocide” and literary handwringing of US’ inability, reluctance to act, when having created the genocides in Cambodia, Iraq, Rwanda, Balkans, Srebrenica, and Kosovo in the first place.

      1. RR mng. Given fragmented access to many sites here and Guido Fawkes / order order doesn’t open this end of parish. But I don’t doubt it for 1 second. As posted late yday, given they’re planning their own mini Davos bun fest in Cornwall in June, they’ll merely crack on with their own agenda

      2. RR mng. Given fragmented access to many sites here and Guido Fawkes / order order doesn’t open this end of parish. But I don’t doubt it for 1 second. As posted late yday, given they’re planning their own mini Davos bun fest in Cornwall in June, they’ll merely crack on with their own agenda

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