669 thoughts on “Sunday 29 September: Parliament has abandoned reasoned, respectful debate for invective and ‘humbug’”

  2. “Trump and Barr have the establishment’s nuts in a vice” – not just SpyGate plotters, and not just our domestic establishment.”

    Who did Boris visit last week ?

  3. SIR – I was amazed to find, a mere four and a half hours after parliamentary business resumed, that the benches were half empty – given MPs’ vociferous demands for prorogation to end. A clear case, perhaps, of sound and fury signifying nothing.

    Janice Montgomery
    Aberdeen

    They can’t decide which comes first on the agenda. Is it Destroy Brexit or Destroy Boris? The fact that they are destroying democracy in their ardour for the cause is an irrelevancy to them.

  4. SIR – Amid the brouhaha of the past few days, Professor Danny Nicol, of the UK Constitutional Law Association, has been a voice of reason.

    He says: “We need to move towards a constitution in which power is exercised by those whom the people can remove. In its efforts to frustrate the will of the electorate the Supreme Court has taken the constitution away from the people: the people now need to find representatives who will legislate to take the constitution away from the court.”

    Paul Strong
    Claxby, Lincolnshire

    Not just take away the constitution from the court….”Blow the Bloody Doors off” and repeal the legislation establishing it.

    1. Tony Benn said that the key test as to whether a country is democratic or not is the question: “Can you get rid of the buggers through ballot box?”

      He saw that the EU was completely undemocratic and that Britain must leave it. He must be turning in his grave at the antics of his imbecile son.

      He would now see that the Supreme Court is not compatible with democracy and must be changed.

      1. Check out the Daily Mail story about “foreign collusion”.

        If you’re sailing, you might not have seen it.

  5. In Westminster, MPs felt Brexit fury. At home they see hate rising. Sat 28 Sep 2019.

    The two had clashed amid tumultuous scenes, with Sherriff making a reference to Jo Cox, her friend and fellow Labour MP, who was murdered by a far-right terrorist in 2016. Sherriff appealed for the prime minister to dial down his language. Johnson dismissed her concerns as “humbug”.

    Less than two days later, Sherriff’s anger has been replaced by sadness. During the intervening period her office has received hundreds of abusive messages via voicemail, Facebook and email.

    “Hundreds of messages are calling me names, all sorts. And there’s some awful voicemail messages: we’ve had some very shouty ones this morning, the height of unpleasantness,” she said, attempting a thin smile.

    What do they expect? Flowers and chocolates? They are attempting to overturn the result of a a democratic vote for their own selfish reasons and are destroying the Political System in the process. This is bound to raise feelings of hostility from almost any right thinking person!

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/sep/28/threat-hostility-rise-female-mps-paula-sherriff-tracy-brabin-boris-johnson-brexit

    1. These events remind me of Sir Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris’s prescient comment when he witnessed the East End going up in flames in 1940, “They are sowing the wind.”
      Harris was talking about war, a bloody war that threatened our nationhood, our culture and with a real threat of becoming slaves of a despotic and corrupt continental cabal. We are again in a war, thankfully a bloodless war, to preserve our nation and culture from another continental cabal: sadly many of our people want to surrender to this new group.
      The Remain politicians, judges, civil servants et al. appear not to realise the level of anger and disgust they are building by their undemocratic machinations to thwart our decision to Leave the EU.

      A reckoning is on the cards. The ballot box beckons.

      For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.

    2. ‘Morning Minty, they really like to lay it on thick don’t they. I am sure it is a real traumatic experience for them after the sheltered lives they have led.

      “Amid the hate, one theme emerged: many of the abusers were mimicking the language of the prime minister. “People are parroting his words in the emails we are getting: ‘you voted for the Surrender Act’, ‘capitulation’. People are so angry, and the fact that we have a prime minister who is deliberately stoking up this toxic atmosphere is beyond irresponsible.””

    3. Jo Cox’s murderer was scarcely “far-right”; he had sympathies with an infamous socialist regime that was supported by the British Left until June 1941.
      Edit: Dominic Lawson labels the killer as a “disturbed white supremacist”, and that is apt.

  6. David Higgins, a retred eminent judge has a very good letter in the DT today which is getting good support in the comments on the DT letters. Once again I would appreciate if someone were to post it on here.

    1. Yo clyde. Was just about to post it.

      SIR – As a retired member of the judiciary, I may speak freely.

      The Supreme Court judgment has brought us all into disrepute. It does so because it has presented as law that which is plainly ideology. This conclusion is ineluctable, given that the court has been forced to invent a “reasonableness” test against which it can appear legitimately to assess the Government’s behaviour and thereby arrogate to itself the royal prerogative.

      It needed to do so in order to achieve its objective, and also had to overcome the judgment of the Divisional Court, the members of which could not have been more distinguished. In my respectful view, the Divisional Court’s judgment is impeccable and remains a true statement of the law.

      His Hon David Higgins
      Richmond, Surrey

      1. The important question that needs to be answered with clarity is this: How did we allow ourselves to be placed in a position where the considered and professional judgment of the Lord Chief Justice and the Master of the Rolls (the two most senior and experienced judges in the country) is overruled by a gang of junior political appointees?

      2. Thanks zxcv3. It is a letter that needs publicity. Brenda Hale was the subject of BBC Radio 4 Profile this morning at 5.45 and was a fawning tribute to her mainly given by females. Her political inclinations and interventions were briefly mentioned at the end.

        1. Yup. Heard a bit of that – it was truly pukeworthy. Switched over to The NFL Today (BBC2) which shows how desperate I was.

        2. Yes, I heard it too, Clyde, and good morning.

          According to the BBC the wretched woman walks on water. Thankfully her term of two years will soon be up, but the damage she and her idiotic chums have done to our constitution is incalculable. High on the agenda of any future Conservative government with a reasonable majority (remember those?) must be a complete clear-out of the supreme court, to be replaced by something that is truly above politics.

          Incidentally, did you notice the passing reference to their unanimous decision, as if this was somewhat unexpected in the circumstances??

          1. Morning, Hugh.

            On your second para – it was known for hundreds of years as the Judicial Committee (and its predecessors) of the House of Lords.

            It worked a treat for at least 300 years.

          3. Yes I heard that, but more legal minds like David Higgins are beginning to speak out, in legal politeness, about the verdict.

  8. SIR – Currently the NHS loses huge amounts of money because people fail to turn up to their free appointments with doctors and nurses.

    Now Labour wants to roll out “free prescriptions for all”. I wonder what this will result in.

    Gerry Doyle
    Liverpool

    One might expect the rapid development of a ‘secondary market’ by Mr Rashid & Sons who would pool the excess prescribed medication for export to the less fortunate parts of the globe.

    1. ‘Morning, Citroen. I do wonder whether the ‘no show’ statistics are partly caused by the shambolic state of the appointments system? In my area just getting through to the relevant department can be a time-consuming struggle, and then yet another letter or three turn up (sometimes by the same post) with different appoinment dates from that agreed over the phone. I have even had an appointment cancelled by the system, and when I turned up as planned I was told that I had been discharged – which is not what I wanted to hear when undergoing regular blood tests and monitoring after a major op…

  10. SIR – A campaign to revive interest in Britain’s endangered languages (report, September 23) will see tens of thousands of children learn poetry in an attempt to save words and phrases at risk of becoming extinct.

    More than 200,000 postcards with six poems in Scots Gaelic, Scots, Cornish, Manx and Welsh are being circulated to school libraries for National Poetry Day’s 25th anniversary on October 3.

    The aim of the project, co-ordinated by the Forward Arts Foundation, is to inspire children to enjoy some of the tongues that have traditionally been sidelined within the curriculum. So why isn’t poetry in the language of the South and West, known to the poet Layamon as Saxisc (spelt Saxish in the OED) and to academics as Late West Saxon, not included? It is no more extinct than Cornish or Manx, as I know from having lived in rural Somerset.

    Robert Craig
    Weston-super-Mare, Somerset

    How about the Forward Arts Foundation providing a bit of guidance in how to speak The Queen’s English which has been in rapid decline these past fifty years.

      1. A living language changes and evolves. A language that does not change and evolve is a dying language. Words come into a language and words leave it Monger for example has almost gone from English. One has only to look at the bible and old books etc to see how much English has changed

        1. …and most of it is a change for the worse. I still insist on using the verb ‘to shew’ as against the noun ‘a show’. The difference is worth knowing.

          I’m saddened by the way that the word ‘gay’ has been traduced to encompass every homosexual and catomite around the world.

          There is a great tendency for mispronunciation of polysyllabic words, not least privacy with a long American ‘i’ and the ongoing battle (or controversy) as to which syllable in contraversy is emphasised (or should that be emphasized?).

          These are just a few examples, against what could be a catalogue of language disasters being perpetrated upon our beautiful, mongrel, English language.

  11. Houthi rebels claim mass capture of Saudi troops. BBC. 8 Hours ago.

    Houthi rebels in Yemen say they have captured a large number of Saudi troops after a major attack near the border between the two countries.
    A Houthi spokesman told the BBC that three Saudi brigades had surrendered near the Saudi town of Najran.

    He said thousands of soldiers had been captured and many others killed. Saudi officials have not confirmed the claim.

    This report would appear from other sources to be true and the Saudi Army has surrendered in large numbers. This does not of course mean that large numbers of Saudi’s have been killed or captured since most of them avoid military service; the ranks being filled with Pakistani or Somali boy mercenaries with their Saudi officers phoning in their orders from the rear. This illustrates an eternal military truth and that it is the Will to Battle and not weaponry that succeeds on the battlefield. That will is exemplified by either Religious Zeal or Patriotism and in any conflict that approximates to equality in numbers those forces that possess them will always emerge victorious over those motivated by mere payment.

    What does this mean in the long run? Well the Saudi’s will probably now withdraw from Yemen (their allies have already given up the ghost) after farcical and face saving negotiations about a cease fire.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-49866677

  14. Gloating liberals may soon regret the power now being wielded by Supreme Court judges, writes PETER HITCHENS

    PUBLISHED: 00:57, 29 September 2019 | UPDATED: 00:57, 29 September 2019

    We were warned from the start that the new ‘Supreme Court’ would be a menace, by people who well understood what was going on.

    But as usual nobody did anything to stop it. Britain’s slow-motion Left-wing revolution just carried on, rolling over old and trusted rules and institutions, and crushing them into dust.

    Last week the court made a swift and cat-like grab for power, its sharp claws flashing as it swiped at Downing Street.

    This, unlike so many of the things wrongly said to be ‘historic’, was a truly huge change in the way we are governed.

    Lord Hennessy, the liberals’ favourite liberal, exulted that Tuesday was the day when ‘the constitution really did shift’.

    He argued that ‘the architecture of the British constitution will never be the same again’ because ‘the Supreme Court’s reach… now penetrates the most intimate relationship in the British state, that between the head of government, the prime minister, and the head of state, Her Majesty the Queen.’

    Lord Sumption, perhaps the cleverest lawyer in the country, said the decision was ‘revolutionary’. He is right.

    This deep change has been brewing for a long time.

    As one very senior judge has admitted, this country’s grandest lawyers, ambitious to extend their reach, have recently developed methods that might be called the Baldrick Strategy – cunning and subtle ways of inventing laws out of nothing.

    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2019/09/29/00/19058700-7516449-image-a-11_1569714244799.jpg

    ://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2019/09/29/00/19058708-7516449-As_one_very_senior_judge_has_admitted_this_country_s_grandest_la-a-9_1569714061611.jpg
    If not swiftly and firmly curbed, the Court can now use equally vague and feeble pretexts to start striking down any government action it does not like, urged on by wealthy individuals or corporations who share its liberal world view.

    This was foolishly applauded by many on the Left.

    They did not grasp that, however much they might enjoy watching Al ‘Boris’ Johnson looking silly, this was a direct blow at Parliament and at accountable power, things some of them still believe in.

    I should note at this point that I am not a supporter of Mr Johnson. I disapproved of his suspension of Parliament.

    I also agreed with the High Court when it backed Gina Miller, on Parliament’s right to legislate on the activation of Article 50 of the EU treaty, back in 2016. I am not partisan on this issue. Anything but.

    Proper Leftists should be careful what they wish for. What a pity that great English radical, Tony Benn, was not there to remind them of the questions we need to ask of anyone who has power: ‘What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you use it? To whom are you accountable? And finally, how do we get rid of you?’

    They are excellent questions and, as we shall see, the ‘Supreme Court’ cannot answer the final three which are most crucial. Who do they serve? We do not know. Who is above them? It remains to be seen. How do we remove them? There is no obvious way.

    Just before this strange, unBritish chamber of sorrows was launched ten years ago, its future President, Lord Neuberger, spilled the beans in a BBC interview. He said there was a real risk of ‘judges arrogating to themselves greater power than they have at the moment’. This was a reasonable prophecy.

    The old court of final appeal, a committee of senior Law Lords, never called itself ‘Supreme’. It understood that the Crown in Parliament is the only supreme thing in our constitution.

    Unlike the Blairites who invented the new court, it did not think Britain was the same as the USA.

    It also did not sit in the grandiose white stone palace which the ‘Supreme Court ‘ now occupies, a lovely, ornate listed building controversially converted to suit the new court, at a cost to the taxpayer of almost £60 million.

    What did those who flattered and pampered this roomful of lawyers expect to happen?

    When a newly qualified policeman puts on his new uniform, perhaps with boots and baseball cap, and is given handcuffs and tasers and club, it changes his behaviour.

    If you call a group of confident, well-rewarded men and women ‘supreme’, when they are already used to wielding unquestioned power, and then give them a majestic headquarters just across the square from Parliament itself, you will change their behaviour. You will change it for the worse.

    Lord Neuberger correctly worried back in 2009 that there was no way of telling where this would end.

    He said then ‘the danger is that you muck around with a constitution like the British Constitution at your peril because you do not know what the consequences of any change will be.’

    To be fair to Lord Neuberger, he said at the time that he feared these developments. Lord Falconer, the Blairite crony and all-purpose radical lawyer who had pushed the changes through Parliament, was delighted by them.

    He happily predicted ‘the Supreme Court will be bolder in vindicating both the freedoms of individuals and, coupled with that, being willing to take on the executive.’

    By bolder, he meant, more aggressive, and of course more revolutionary, just as he was.

    And the sorts of ‘freedoms’ he had in mind would be the freedoms beloved by Blairites, the vague and flexible ‘human rights’ which have made it so very hard to enforce old-fashioned commonsense law in recent years.

    More recently, the same Lord Neuberger was talking to students at the Cambridge Union, and explained to them the huge powers of the United States Supreme Court to give orders to Congress and the President.

    He then told them: ‘We can’t do that.’ But he didn’t quite mean it, for he continued: ‘We get round that, the Judges get round that, by what Baldrick might call a ‘cunning and subtle plan’ of being able to ‘interpret’ statutes, and sometimes we interpret them quite, um, imaginatively, so as to, as we see it, ‘comply with the rule of law.’ ‘

    No better description has been given of the Baldrick-style verdict of Lady Hale’s court last Tuesday. It is full of ‘imaginative interpretation’.

    Less politely, you could say that it makes up a whole new law out of nothing. It claims to do this to defend Parliament from the Executive. But in fact it is only able to do it because it has scented just how weak the current Government is.

    It is interesting to compare it with the Baldrick-free judgment on exactly the same case given by the old-fashioned High Court on September 11.

    That court – three very clever English judges – said simply that the prorogation of Parliament was a political affair and none of their business. This is what any English court would have said at any time in the past two centuries of parliamentary democracy.

    John Finnis, Professor Emeritus of Law and Legal Philosophy at Oxford, is even more devastating. He says the judges dangerously evaded Britain’s most fundamental constitutional statute, the 1689 Bill of Rights.

    This declares: ‘Proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any Court or Place out of Parliament.’

    In other words, the courts are simply forbidden from interfering with Parliament.

    The court got round this by claiming the prorogation itself was somehow not a ‘proceeding in Parliament’.

    But the same ‘Supreme Court’ ruled in 2014 that the granting of Royal Assent to a Bill, a very similar action to prorogation, was a proceeding in Parliament, saying ‘the Queen in Parliament is sovereign and its procedures cannot be questioned in the courts of the United Kingdom.’

    The High Court gave a history of prorogation over the last century, which showed that the Johnson suspension was not hugely exceptional in modern times.

    It adds up to just ten working days, once you have subtracted from it the three weeks normally taken off by Parliament at this time of year.

    Parliament was prorogued for three whole months in the summer of 1930, from August 1 to 28 October. In 1901 it was prorogued for even longer, from August 17 until November 5.

    The now-sainted Clement Attlee, Labour’s post-war reforming Premier, suspended Parliament to make radical reforms of the constitution. John Major is accused of suspending it to avoid embarrassment over a possible scandal.

    No law or rule requires Parliament to sit in constant session, the judges rightly noted.

    But you would think from the squeals emitted by the ‘Supreme’ Court on Tuesday that Mr Johnson had surrounded Parliament with tanks, arrested the Speaker and declared that he would from now on rule in person.

    They showed a total loss of proportion when they airily dismissed as ‘scant’ the two giant obstacles to anyone who tries to rule this country without Parliament.

    These are the need to raise taxes, which cannot be done without Parliament, and the Armed Forces Act, which must be renewed every year to keep a standing Army in being.

    Far from being ‘scant’ they are a huge iron wall against tyranny which cannot be breached.

    There is more evidence of a collective rush of blood to the head in the judicial chamber. Towards the end of their judgment, they say Mr Johnson’s suspension of Parliament ‘had such an extreme effect upon the fundamentals of our democracy’.

    What are they on about? Ten days of vacation, during which Parliament in fact has little or nothing to do, does not have an ‘extreme effect upon the fundamentals of our democracy’.

    Any reader of the judgment who has taken it seriously up till paragraph 58 must surely realise at this point that it has jumped the rails of reality.

    The decision, absurdly, was unanimous. Unanimity is surely for sheep, not for independent minds.

    Given that the three judges of the High Court had taken the opposite view, could the ‘Supreme’ court not manage a single dissenter?

    By the time the ruling was given, it was obvious there was no threat to Parliament. It had already defended itself robustly, without any aid from Brenda Hale and her team of SuperJudges.

    The fundamentals are quite unthreatened. Look what happened. In the short time available, despite the Prime Minister’s supposedly despotic decision to extend their holidays, an uncowed Parliament gave Mr Johnson two big black eyes – stopping him from holding an Election and banning him from taking us out of the EU without a deal.

    When they eventually struggled back from their supposedly tyrannical suspension, bravely rescued by Judge Brenda from Mr Johnson’s non-existent Stormtroopers, MPs instantly punched the Premier on the nose by refusing him even a few days off for the Tory conference, an act of spite.

    It is not Mr Johnson who is doing the pushing around. If anyone needs rescuing by the courts, it is him.

    But the new legal elite see themselves as heroes against a wicked Government. If you think these politicised judges are not at all full of themselves and vain, you might be interested to know that Lady Hale’s interesting life, and supposed struggle against brutal misogynist discrimination, will shortly be celebrated in a children’s book, Judge Brenda, Equal To Everything.

    Advance publicity suggests that it will not be a critical study. It is, in fact, hard to find a critical study of this highly significant woman.

    We still know remarkably little about her and her fellow judges. The Hale Court is now at least as significant as the Cabinet, but its members are for the most part a mystery to us. Two things could reasonably happen now.

    A miracle could occur and we could get a serious patriotic Government with a big majority, which would disband the court and nullify this ruling, returning things to where they were before the Blairite vandalism created this dangerous tribunal.

    Or public and politicians alike could demand to know, before they are appointed, what sort of people will sit in this new almighty Star Chamber. The US Supreme Court’s Justices all undergo severe and searching hearings before Senators of both parties. If they are conservatives and male, they can nowadays pretty much expect to be accused of being sexual predators, or otherwise attacked.

    But these hearings do at least ensure that the elected part of the US government has some idea of the people who have such awesome power over them, and who will take huge decisions for years to come.

    If we cannot get rid of them, then we must know who they are and what they believe in. And if Parliament is not ready to curb this new overmighty subject, in one way or another, it can expect to be less and less powerful in the years to come.

    If they thought a few days of prorogation were bad, let us see what they think of the Rule of Lawyers which now faces us and them.

    2. The Supreme Court handed over control of Parliament to the Speaker.
      There’s talk this morning on BBC Radio4 of the Speaker asking the EU for an extension to Article 50.

      That would enable the PM to get on with Affairs of State without getting hounded by MSM.

      1. ‘Afternoon, Angie, what does surprise me, is that the real Brenda (HM) doesn’t use her right of prorogation (without reference to the PM or Parliament) because what is happening is unconstitutional.

        1. Afternoon NTN,

          Indeed, Helen Mirren made that very point on the Marr show this morning.

          Whilst Boris is reported today to have apologised to HM for aiding and abetting the Crown in performing an illegal act for which she cannot be held responsible, she would have done it in full knowledge that she also prorogued Parliament for three weeks for Sir John Major to save him him the ebarrassment of questions for cash being put under scrutiny in the House.

          Of course HM was probably not aware that Sir John had been misusing his office for the purpose of pursuing a relationship wifh a fellow cabinet member at that time.

          But as HM said to Diana’s butler after she cleared him of theft at the Old Bailey,
          https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-145634/Royal-butler-trial-thrown-intervention-Queen.html, there are things that can happen that are beyond our comprehension.

  15. The BBC4 docu about The Spitfire was excellent. Great, too, to see the three modern ones flying.

    1. ‘Afternoon, Bill, I guess one of those three is PS853, a Mk19 PR Spitfire that I worked on in the early 60s at Royal Air Force West Raynham, the then Central Fighter Establishment that PS853 belonged to.

      She is now the property of Rolls-Royce and, when I was working for Airbus at Filton, she would go up every Thursday lunchtime and do aerobatics over and around the airfield. I hope she still flies.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/78c1dfdf9c39a8b7a4a946a6ce997fc0fae29508c43de9a19990d4c50bd5ace9.jpg

    2. The Speaker, that appalling little git, must not be allowed to do any such thing – I cannot see me ever trusting a politician again!

  17. Morning, Campers; Janet Daly in the Sunday Tellygraff;

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/09/28/arrogant-political-class-holds-british-people-open-contempt/

    “Our arrogant political class holds the British people in open contempt

    A few weeks ago – even before the latest instalment of this saga at the Supreme Court – a member of our family in the North of England rang up to say, with heartbreaking resignation, “They don’t care about people like us.” There was no question about who she meant by “they”.

    The membership of the group she had in mind is presumably now a bit larger, bringing even the objective authority of the law into contention. I wonder if that smug Remain coalition in Westminster has any idea of the terrible thing it has brought into being and is now – with every triumphal move – determined to consolidate.

    With the help of the credulous (or colluding) broadcast media, confected rage about over-heated parliamentary language took over the news agenda last week. Can anybody seriously believe that this is the big story? Or, more importantly, the most damaging constitutional outrage that is being committed? In a week in which a foaming, shrieking opposition was denouncing the Government as unfit for office – but refusing to permit a general election that might replace it? And the legal commitment to accept the result of a referendum was being undermined with desperate, shameless dishonesty? (Message to Parliament: nobody in the real world believes that all those lawyers scrambling around were simply trying to prevent no deal, and not attempting to block Brexit altogether.)

    Mercifully, in the thick of this charade there were some delightful moments. I particularly enjoyed hearing that the shadow Commons leader, Valerie Vaz, had demanded that Geoffrey Cox come to the House to apologise for “calling us turkeys”. This being Britain, even in the midst of a tragic destruction of public faith in the nation’s institutions, there can be laughter.

    So no, I do not think there will be violence in the streets even when the people realise the full consequences of the contempt in which they are held by what they see, quite rightly, as a privileged, arrogant political class. They will not riot or attack the police who they will assume, again rightly, to be blameless. The outcome will be far worse than that because it will not blow itself out in civil disruption which is generally counterproductive (just as the noxious Remain protesters who drown out broadcast interviews are counterproductive). There will instead be despair, disillusionment and alienation between the social classes which will prevail for at least a generation.

    Where once a tolerably affectionate form of snobbery was accepted as a part of popular culture, there will now be nothing but ugly distrust and genuine hatred. This is peculiarly sad because it is such a dramatic shift from the view of working class people, which stood until three years ago, as the true heroes of the last world war. The virtually unanimous enthusiasm for the post-war welfare state and housing renewal programmes sprang from the sense that ordinary people had made such enormous sacrifices for the war effort.

    The belief that the country owed them a great debt ran through the political consciousness of the second half of the 20th century. But that’s all gone now. What replaces it is open disdain and malignant derision. The worst of this is that the party which was born to defend this class – which once carried the hereditary burden of being its official voice – has played an indispensable role in its betrayal.

    And that (broadcasters please note) was the real big story of the week. Labour and its absurd leader, reduced to a hopeless, incomprehensible puddle in the House, are so inadequate as an Opposition that they must prevent a general election at all cost. In their incoherence and opportunism they have made the country ungovernable, betrayed their own history and abandoned their natural constituency. That’s quite something for the news media to overlook.

    Even the endless reporting of that overblown farrago about nasty language got it (probably maliciously) wrong. The divisive bitterness that has become such a feature of public discourse, for which a Greek chorus of female MPs blamed the threats they receive, did not instantly materialise with Boris Johnson’s ascendancy to the Tory leadership. It grew and festered with great alacrity under the premiership of his predecessor.

    Please try to remember, through the blizzard of anti-Boris hysteria, that it was during Theresa May’s time in Downing Street, notable for its prissy decorousness and eagerness to compromise in negotiations with the European Union, that this toxic atmosphere took hold. And recall also, when you hear all those Labour MPs complaining about death threats, that the hate-mongering on their party’s side was so ferocious that the BBC’s political editor, Laura Kuenssberg, needed a bodyguard to accompany her at their last party conference.

    The stupendous irony of all this is that the people are being castigated for their anger by those very public figures who refuse to acknowledge the reasons for it. They are traduced, insulted and patronised when they might at least expect (given that their view was the majority one) to be addressed with courtesy. When their frustration grows and takes a vengeful form, that of course justifies even more righteous condemnation.

    So they conclude, not unreasonably, that they can’t win. Either they stay quiescent and accept the supercilious judgment of their governing class – which did, after all, ask them for their opinion. Or they refuse to accept it and cut up rough. Either they were fools to hold the view they did, or they are wicked for insisting that it be listened to. Any political figure who attempts to speak up on their behalf is a “populist” (or worse). A political leader who suggests that the only way to lance this hideous boil is to resolve the issue by doing what the country voted for is conspiring with evil.

    There could once have been a quite simple solution to this problem: let the people speak in the time-honoured way, by voting in an election. But maybe it’s too late for that. The bitterness has gone too deep. It is quite possible that the contempt and the resentment which have driven the country to the brink will not be forgotten in our lifetime.”

    3. After three years…..

      Why are we still fannying around with any EU agreed deal which will be disadvantageous to the United Kingdom?

    4. So no, I do not think there will be violence in the streets even when the people realise the full consequences of the contempt in which they are held by what they see, quite rightly, as a privileged, arrogant political class. They will not riot or attack the police who they will assume, again rightly, to be blameless. The outcome will be far worse than that because it will not blow itself out in civil disruption which is generally counterproductive (just as the noxious Remain protesters who drown out broadcast interviews are counterproductive). There will instead be despair, disillusionment and alienation between the social classes which will prevail for at least a generation.

      I wouldn’t bet my pension on this! There is a way to go yet and things will almost certainly get much worse!

    5. ‘Afternoon, Anne, could it be possible that the public, the electorate at large, might now consider MPs and Supreme Court Judges to be worse liars than Estate Agents?

  19. From yesterday’s The Conservative Woman:

    Labour’s whingeing wimmin reap what they’ve sown
    September 28, 2019

    “BORIS Johnson stands accused of inciting verbal violence against MPs with his language in the chamber of the House of Commons. Opposition MPs are going to absurd lengths to pin the murder of Jo Cox on him for some reason. It is curious that they do not see Jeremy Corbyn’s affinity for the murderers of MPs Ian Gow and Anthony Berry in the same light, not to mention the crippling of Margaret Tebbit. But this might be because the PM’s accusers are socialists.

    And as socialists, they should have a greater understanding of exactly why they are receiving online abuse and threats. And it has nothing to do with either Brexit or Boris Johnson.

    Readers familiar with my previous articles will know that I have referred from time to time to my secondary education in Dagenham and not in the most glowing terms. In fact the opposite. What has been of interest to me is how many of the readers have shared negative experiences of state secondary education of their own in the comments section.

    The primary catchment area of my school was an enclave of Dagenham that differed from the remainder in returning councillors not even from the Conservative Party, but from the ratepayers’ association. Dagenham was host to Europe’s largest council estate, but that was literally on the other side of the tracks. North of this enclave was a new council estate, separated by a fearsome arterial road crossable only by two pedestrian subways. This estate also had its own school. At some point, the local authority’s education inspectors must have concluded that the low standards of this school were even too low by their lax standards. So it was merged with my school at the same time as I started.

    Encountering the pupils from this school was a culture shock for me. Discipline in my junior school was generally good, with minimal classroom disruption. Even though I was in the grammar stream, as were some of the pupils from the other junior school, the contact I had with a definable set of pupils who came exclusively from the other school outside of my normal lessons was almost entirely negative. What was worse was the passive attitude of the teaching staff to the thuggish behaviour. It created an atmosphere of hopeless struggle where there should have been a culture of academic excellence. Worse still, it validated the yobbish culture of thuggery that drove some of the more vulnerable female teachers to tears.

    It is not unreasonable to believe that this culture of thuggery and the helpless response to it was more or less uniform across the country in what Alistair Campbell described as ‘Bog-Standard Comprehensives’. Indeed it persists to this day in academies captured by Left-wing staff. My son’s Spanish lessons were being repeatedly disrupted by two pupils, who drove the poor female teacher to threaten to quit the school or teaching, or both. When I wrote to the head teacher to tell him what was going on, and also to point out that their own literature allowed for pupils not to attend lessons for which it was demonstrably not academically appropriate, I was rebuffed. It was clear that the school was placing the interests of the disruptive pupils above those of the teacher and the pupils who were willing to be taught. There were other such incidents of ‘daylight yobbery’ that made me pull my son out of the school.

    Education should be character-forming, rather than character-moulding, but it should also act as a corrective to unruly behaviour. The Conservatives are set on increasing classroom discipline as a way to improve the quality of education, and to show to aggressive yobs the error of their ways or to stop them from disrupting learning. This is opposed at every single step by the education establishment and the Labour Party. When an academy whose discipline policy was reported to be one of the strictest reported major exam success, Angela Rayner was silent. But she was all guns blazing when the government suggested that increased classroom discipline was part of its education policy.

    And this is where I return to the start of my article. There has been a technological revolution in the last quarter century with the arrival and growth of the internet. The first domestic users were people who had computer expertise and could afford the relatively complex and expensive equipment. Over time the user-friendliness of the equipment has increased and prices have dropped. In the last decade or so there has been the consumerisation of IT, where the barrier between computing and consumer devices, such as mobile phones and video recorders, has disappeared. But as access to information technology has increased, so the final wave of user take-up has occurred: the ignorant yobs and thugs.

    It does seem, however, that these female Labour MPs who complain about the online abuse and threats have never seen the inside of a state comprehensive school. What did they think would happen to all the thugs whose behaviour is not modified by their educational experiences? Labour politicians at all levels seek to reduce or eliminate the number of exclusions schools make, meaning that the avoidably put-upon teachers and the normal, well-behaved children they try to teach both have to contend with permanently blighted classrooms. What do they think happens to these thugs after they leave school? Do Labour politicians seriously believe they suddenly become socialised productive model citizens? Newsflash: they don’t. And now they all have smartphones with social media apps that even a complete moron can operate. So they hurl abuse over the internet as they used to mindlessly fling it in the corridors and classrooms.

    I have less than zero sympathy for these hapless socialist MPs. Serves them right. They have reaped what they have sown. They are the victims of their party’s own education policies. They are just too dim or ideologically blinkered to realise this. I look forward to a Labour MP acknowledging that their opposition to school discipline has a consequence. I will not, however, be holding my breath.”

    2. Pinched from the Hitchens article put on here by Citroen an hour ago ..

      Proper Leftists should be careful what they wish for. What a pity that great English radical, Tony Benn, was not there to remind them of the questions we need to ask of anyone who has power: ‘What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you use it? To whom are you accountable? And finally, how do we get rid of you?

  21. Good morning thinkers

    Stormy weather here, but very mild , the wind just whistles over the top of our chimney , sounds similar to the sound of blowing over the top of empty milk bottles.

    Leaves on the trees have not coloured up enough to fall yet.

    Strange isn’t it , that the Sussex’s travel all the way to Southern Africa to dispense tea and sympathy to Women’s groups , yet have they dispensed sympathy in Britain to the young British female victims who have been raped by Muslims , or the black/brown boy’s families who are being maimed and murdered by the dozen in our big cities by each other … no ..it is so much easier to appeal to Africans in Africa,,, Will they meet up with Winnie Mandela , you bet they will.

    Funny how they have both switched from the extravagant trappings of Hollywood , to the demure dress down Township style .

    They don’t fool anyone .. but they seem to have fooled the Media .

        1. ‘Afternoon, Phizee, I can tell Meghan where to find her – roasting in Hell with a tyre filled with petrol, burning around her neck. I’m sure she’s happy.

  22. Government plans 40 hospital projects and a mental health services pilot

    This does seem to be a thought out plan rather than just throwing money at a problem and this is on top of existing funding

    There is still no sign though of them tackling the contentious issue of misuses of the NHS by tourist etc. Also when we leave the EU a qualification period of say 3 years needs to be introduced for anyone moving to the UK, THis ensures the NHS will have money to treat new arrivals to the UK. I am sure the Lib-Dems will hate idea though

    The government has pledged £13bn for 40 hospital projects across England in the next decade, at the start of the Conservative party conference.
    The plans include a £2.7bn investment for six hospitals over five years.
    A new approach to NHS mental health treatment is also to be trialled in 12 areas of England – with housing and job support alongside psychological help.
    The government says £70m is being invested and the NHS will build more ties with charities and local councils.
    About 1,000 extra specialist staff will be recruited in 12 pilot sites, with expertise in a range of mental health issues, the government says.

    The plans also include £200m for replacing MRI, CT scanners and breast cancer screening equipment.

    1. This does seem to be a thought out plan rather than just throwing money at a problem and this is on top of existing funding.

      They’ve abandoned Truth and Common Sense Bill. They just say the first thing that comes into their heads. The UK more resembles some Third World Cr@p Hole than a Western State!

    2. Once more where are the training places so we can staff the BLOODY things
      Sorry for shouting but this issue drives me batshit crazy

      1. One will have to see if a detailed plan evolves. I would have thought it should be jointly produced by the NHS & the Government but I suspect such a plan will not emerge. It get more complicated by the very fragmented nature off the NHS which seem to have no proper top down management structure. It is something that should be on a day to day basis be managed by NHS England. Thats another complication. I assume it is just for NHS England as Westminster only controls NHS England but I would not be a 100% sure

      2. Easy, Rik, they will employ student nurses who will learn on-the-job under the tuition of a Sister-Tutor, who is answerable to the Matron who runs the hospital under the supervision and guidance of a Board of Governers. Isn’t that how it works?

        Oh wait a minute, I have heard that they were going to upgrade the quality of nurses by putting them through degree courses and run the hospitals with modern management teams – much more efficient and any shortages of nurses on the wards can be made up by hiring ‘Bank’ nurses at exorbitant charges by the ‘Bank’.

        Another foetal experiment that needs aborting – now.

        1. I hate to keep banging the drum, but returning to learning on the wards with Ward Sisters and Matrons is UKIP policy. When I pointed this out to an ex-nurse she said it was sanity at last.

      3. As the head of a CQC remarked to me a while ago, “we don’t need more money, we need the service to be run efficiently”.

  23. Parliament is sick. Only an election will cure it
    Dominic Lawson

    Lady Hale and co’s ill-judged meddling is no remedy for a traumatised House

    Among the shouts heard from the Labour benches as the prime minister stood to address a parliament whose prorogation by the Queen had just been nullified by 11 judges was: “You should be in jail.” In so far as this was not mere abuse, it rested on the supposition that the Supreme Court had found the government guilty of a criminal act.

    Diane Abbott declared that Boris Johnson was in the same category as “a shoplifter”. The shadow home secretary was, however, unable to say what law the PM had broken, for the very good reason that there are no laws governing prorogation: this had always been a purely parliamentary matter.

    That is why a couple of weeks earlier a High Court bench consisting of the lord chief justice, Lord Burnett, the master of the rolls, Sir Terence Etherton, and Dame Victoria Sharp, president of the Queen’s Bench division, had rejected Gina Miller’s demand that it rule the prorogation unlawful. These most senior figures in the judiciary declared that to do so would be to “invite the judicial arm of the state to exercise hitherto unidentified power”. It was extraordinary that, with not a single dissenting voice, the 11 judges of the Supreme Court — a body that came into existence only 10 years ago — claimed powers over parliamentary process that such an illustrious gathering of the High Court had been entirely unable to discern, let alone justify.

    Even Amber Rudd, who had resigned from the government over the PM’s parliamentary tactics, declared herself “surprised” by the Supreme Court’s ruling, adding that its doing so unanimously was “a surprise to everybody”.

    It was, I am sorry to say, a fundamentally political decision by those judges, made clearer by its unanimity. Their unchallengeable judgment was that by proroguing parliament until the Queen’s speech in mid-October, the executive had “unlawfully” prevented the legislature from doing its job at a crucial stage in the Brexit debate. Of course they didn’t use the word Brexit, even though the case had been described as “Brexit-related” on the Supreme Court website.

    As this column observed last week, the entire hearing was “in any case otiose, as parliament passed a measure to block no-deal Brexit on October 31, ahead of prorogation”. It had already (through an unprecedented parliamentary manoeuvre facilitated by the Speaker, John “Bollocks to Brexit” Bercow) achieved its legislative purpose of ordering the government to ask the EU for yet another extension of our membership and to accept whatever conditions might be attached. What was left for it to do?

    The answer was clear to anyone who watched the ensuing proceedings: sound and fury, signifying nothing. Actually, that’s not quite right. It signified the continued futility of a parliament unable to deal with, let alone honour, the result of the referendum of June 2016. Geoffrey Cox, the attorney-general — whom the shadow Brexit secretary, Keir Starmer, ludicrously called upon to resign because of the Supreme Court ruling — was speaking truth to impotence when he told MPs: “This parliament has declined three times to pass a withdrawal act . . . This parliament is a dead parliament. It should no longer sit. It has no moral right to sit on these green benches.”

    These words produced an extraordinary reaction by Labour MPs. The hatred and anger in their faces made some of them look like figures let loose from a Hieronymus Bosch hellscape. None more so than Barry Sheerman, whose hysterical rant, his voice rising to a
    high-pitched shriek, made me wonder if there was a defibrillator in the House.

    In fact this parliament should be prorogued for medical reasons. It is “suffering from a form of post-traumatic Brexit stress disorder”, as one of its former Labour members told me last week: “The atmosphere is so unhealthy and poisonous, it can no longer do its job. There needs to be an election for that reason alone. Even if the result were another hung parliament, at least it would be a new one.”

    As that suggests, the venom and vitriol in the Commons is not Boris Johnson’s doing. It has been building up during what has been the longest parliamentary session in more than 400 years. The new PM’s manner across the floor of the house is knockabout — sometimes childish — in the Oxford Union style, rather than vicious. Perhaps that is why he reacted as he did when the Labour MP Paula Sherriff railed against him for using words such as “betrayal” and “surrender” in his criticism of those MPs attempting to stop Brexit — invoking the memory of her colleague Jo Cox, murdered by a disturbed white supremacist during the 2016 referendum campaign. Johnson’s response — “I’ve never heard so much humbug” — was insensitive. But given that Sheriff herself is fond of using the word “betrayal” when she feels the government has let down voters (for example, describing its school funding as an “appalling betrayal” of our children), the PM’s accusation of hypocrisy was also justified.

    The thing is, for all his many vices, Johnson is not a hypocrite. He completely fails to observe La Rochefoucauld’s maxim that “hypocrisy is the compliment vice pays to virtue”. So he can’t, or won’t, utter the mandatory pieties when Jo Cox’s name is introduced in the heat of parliamentary battle. And it is an unpalatable but unchallengeable fact that female politicians get much more abuse, on Twitter and to the level of posted death threats, than men.

    Actually John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, is perhaps the most notable example of this sort of misogyny in the House, laughingly invoking threats to “lynch” Esther McVey when she was work and pensions secretary, and joking — haha — about assassinating Margaret Thatcher.

    Conservative Party strategists are concerned that their own leader has a woman problem: not just because he may have “betrayed” them — that word again — in his private life but because this, and his manner as a whole, makes female voters much less likely than male ones to vote for a party led by him.

    In this context it is unsurprising that his opponents have celebrated the (otherwise irrelevant) fact that the president of the Supreme Court, Baroness Hale, is a woman. Her much-admired spider brooch has suddenly become an avatar for the stop Brexit campaign.

    That should worry Hale. It would certainly have worried that most distinguished jurist the late Lord Neill, who declared: “A court with a mission is a nuisance. A supreme court with a mission is a tyranny.” He was talking about the European Court of Justice: rather appropriate, in the circumstances.

    1. Contrary to what Corbyn and Labour and SNP are trying to claim there is no way they can form a so called Interim government. They seemed to have cobbled that together from convention of what happens if a vote of no confidence is lost and the fixed term parliament act but failed to read it

      The Fixed term parliament Act is quite clear on what happens if a vote of no confidence is lost and that is a General Election has to be held. The current government carries on until that election is held. I cannot see that there is anyway to spin that to say an interim government takes over in fact I dont think we have even any concept of an interim government in the legislation. It would be totally undemocratic. They seem to be trying to spin what happens after a General Election

      After a General election the convention i the Largest party attempts to form a Government if it has an overall majority it is simple and they just form a government. If the largest party does not have an overall majority than it has two options a) To form a minority government b) To form a coalition of some sort (Note this is a convention as I understand it and not law so in the case where there is no overall majority the second largest party could attempt to form a coalition. AS far as I know this has never happened though

      If the largest party cannot form a minority government or a coalition then by convention the second largest party can have a go

    2. I’m impressed by Rudd’s naivity.
      The Chicken Supreme Court’s ruling was exactly what I expected.

      1. Never in doubt from the moment they became involved. Unanimity was a surprise, I didn’t expect them to be quite so blatant in their bias.

        1. They are now so bloated with arrogance, that they no longer bother to hide their contempt for ‘the little people’.

      2. Good morning Anne y los otros Nottlers.
        I am impressed by the breadth and depth of journalistic commentary and analysis of the political situation.
        Particularly interesting is Dominic Lawson’s observation that women in the public arena receive more criticism and insults and threats than men; the phenomenon must have been studied by psychologists, so I wonder if it has a name (apart from misogyny)? Is it simply ‘projection’, or is it biological?

    4. Saint Jo was not murdered by a “disturbed white supremacist”, she was killed by a mentally ill man who had sought help and been refused. In short, a victim of don’t care in the community. They keep banging the “white supremacist” drum – and in one article referred to him as a “terrorist”. Never let the truth get in the way of propaganda.

  24. So are not the murders and rapes we read about in Britain .. Gender based violence … and why don’t the Sussex’s show the same solidarity they are showing in South Africa, here?

    1. Henry Ginge has inherited his vacuous mother’s intelligence levels. First he goes on a highly publicised walk though a minefield (a minefield, that is, which has never contained any land mines); then he spouts off about his support for the climate change “activists’.

      Not too bright then, our Henry Ginge.

    2. There has always been some rape amongst the British population. Generally the rapist is known to the woman. What we are seeing now in the UK is random rapes and the perpetrates are in very many cases non British. WE are seeing the same with knife crime. It used to be pretty rare in the UK but now it is quite common and frequently it involves the non British population

    3. If the victims are white, they don’t count.
      I doubt the Sussexes will be bothering themselves about any white South Effrican rape or murder victims.

    4. Henry Ginge has inherited his vacuous mother’s intelligence levels. First he goes on a highly publicised walk though a minefield (a minefield, that is, which has never contained any land mines); then he spouts off about his support for the climate change “activists’.

      Not too bright then, our Henry Ginge.

      1. We don’t expect Royals to Einsteins; let’s face it, most of the population aren’t Einsteins either.
        But we do expect the royals to STFU and just get on with being royal, not bloody social workers.

  26. With all of the strife and deliberate chaos being inflicted upon us by our corrupted establishment, here is a mellow relaxing song for a Sunday morning. “Roll On Mississippi” by the great Charlie Pride. He also caused some mental confusion for the left because he was black and the Country & Western fans loved his music. As we know, the left consider vast numbers of people to be automatically racist, especially if they are mainly Republican. Which says a great deal about their small world view.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10pZlRTRrg8

      1. From the position and shape of the magazine, it looks like a paintball type of “safe weapon” although I would imagine they fired rubber balls instead. I have never been paint-balling but I have heard that it can hurt if you get hit by one close up. I imagine being hit by 3 or 4 rubber ones at that range would sting a bit. 🙂

        A non-lethal way of encouraging empty-headed protesters to move along. They sound like the type who have never faced any real discipline in their lives before by the way that they are screeching. This will be a gentle introduction to them that you cannot just do what you want in this world without there being consequences.

        2. Are these the things that the French police used to blind people?
          The person firing seem to be very indiscriminate.

          1. I thought that the police were doing really well from 23 seconds to 33 seconds. They appeared to be aiming specifically for arms and legs rather than firing randomly. You can see “puffs of white” that are hitting them in those areas, and from them hitting the pavement by deliberately aiming low. I thought that was quite controlled.

            The things that the French are using are much worse and are far more indiscriminate. They have different makes / models but the ones that I have seen people say cause the most blindness are like tear gas grenades that are fired at protesters. They sail through the air and bounce around on the ground, ending up anywhere.

            When they go off they fire hard rubber balls in all directions, like a grenade, so if you happen to be facing one then you can be blinded if one hits your eye. They are not aimed with precision as in the clip above, they are “area effect” and it is just chance if you are seriously injured or not.

            There were also reports of riot police deliberately firing other “peaceful” weapons directly at protesters heads and faces which is obviously more dangerous than aiming at legs. But it is the EU and they are getting desperate. The welfare of their citizens is not a high priority.

          2. Thanks for the clarification
            I could not make out how it was being aimed. Still seems likely to endanger fellow officers as demonstrators.
            Crowd control used to be a bit of pushing and shoving. Now it requires 5,000 Judge Dredd lookalikes laying about with batons.

          3. That is the one advantage of these “soft weapons” for the authorities that the police are using in the clip above. They sting and could cause bruising on uncovered skin, but even wearing minimum body armour and you would barely notice that you had been hit by them. 🙂

            As for what the French are doing to their people, that is a different kettle of fish.

  28. From the Sunday Times, no less. A long time coming –

    ”

    Boris Johnson has been accused of squeezing a journalist’s thigh
    beneath the table at a private lunch — and doing the same to the woman
    sitting on his other side.

    Charlotte Edwardes reveals today howthe prime minister put his hand “high” up her leg and had “enough inner
    flesh beneath his fingers” to make her “sit suddenly upright”.

    Afterwardsshe confided in the young woman sitting on Johnson’s left, who replied:
    “Oh God, he did exactly the same to me.” Edwardes dubbed the prime
    minister “the double thigh-squeezer”.

    1. She cannot even give a year as to when this alleged incident took place it was just somewhere between 1990 and 2000

      If thi did happen any normal woman would have pushed his hand away and told him to get lost

  29. Corbyn critic Margaret Hodge faces Labour re-selection battle

    Labours hard left is falling out amongst itself. I think from memory he used to be an Islington councillor. She is pretty left wing but clearly not left enough

    Veteran Labour MP Dame Margaret Hodge is facing a re-selection battle after activists in her east London constituency voted for the chance to pick a new candidate.
    Dame Margaret – an outspoken critic of Jeremy Corbyn – said she was “disappointed” by the result but will fight to keep her Barking seat.
    She is the second Labour MP to be “triggered” through the party’s new ballot procedures which make it easier for local members to force a contest.

    2. Good, that’ll help our cod stocks to get back to normal, and then we can start enforcing our territorial water boundaries again. And they forget once more that there are ports other than Calais.

    3. In Bercows case it is a perfect example that having lots of finery on your Uniform is no measure of the quality of the man wearing it.

    6. Lavender blue, silly-billy
      Lavender green
      If I were king, silly-billy, I’d need a queen
      Whoa-oh, who told me so?, silly-billy
      Who told me so?
      I told myself, silly-billy
      I told me so
      If your silly-billy heart
      Feels a silly-billy way
      If you’ll answer yes
      In a pretty little church
      On a silly-billy day
      You’ll be wed in a silly-billy dress of
      Lavender blue, silly-billy
      Lavender green
      Then I’ll be king, silly-billy
      You’ll be my queen
      Then I’ll be king silly-billy
      You’ll be my queen

    1. I assume it’s his usual performance. Boris must have expected it. But then the audience for the Marr show is counted on fingers.

    1. Massive error: they mistake annualised quarterly growth for growth on previous quarter. You do the math.

  37. From paying reparations to backing our enemies, Labour’s anti-British credo is shameful
    DANIEL HANNAN – 28 SEPTEMBER 2019 • 6:00PM

    The single most shocking proposal to come out of the Labour conference was largely overlooked. Attention naturally focused on the blizzard of Bolshevist policies: expropriating private houses and schools; decreeing a four-day week; giving the vote to foreigners; opening our borders without restriction.

    Worse than any of these ideas, though – and, in a sense, the key to understanding them all – was the promise that, as John McDonnell put it, Britain would “begin making some reparations for our colonial past”.

    Here we see the animating spirit of Corbynism, huge and hateful, all disguise cast off. The essence of Labour’s credo, the starting point from which everything else flows, is anti-Britishness.

    In a week when politicians are taking theatrical offence at supposedly insulting language, that might strike you as an over-the-top claim. But, sadly, it is backed by the data.

    A YouGov poll of 1,100 Labour members published last week showed that 43 per cent were “ashamed” to be British, whereas just 15 per cent felt “proud”. By large majorities, Labour activists disliked the monarchy and the national anthem. They also blamed Britain, rather than the terrorists, for the violence in Northern Ireland. If those attitudes don’t qualify as “anti-British”, it is hard to see what does.

    Labour wasn’t always this way. The old Labour Party, the party of nonconformist churches and working men’s libraries, of temperance clubs and brass bands, was generally patriotic. In office, Labour was unvaryingly pro-Nato and pro-nuclear.

    That Labour Party, though, has been almost wholly buried under the Momentum mudslide.

    At the centre of Corbyn’s world-view is an irreducible conviction that Everything Is Our Fault. Never once has he sided with the United Kingdom in a quarrel, however abominable the other side. He can’t condemn Islamist terrorism without also condemning the West. Even when British citizens were attacked by Galtieri’s military junta – a fascist regime that tortured and murdered Left-wing activists – he couldn’t bring himself to back his own country.

    It is perfectly true that Britain, like every nation, has had its shameful moments. What is lacking from the Corbynite critique, though, is any sense of perspective.

    If you insist on sitting in judgment over our ancestors, at least hold them to the standards of their own age rather than ours. For example, it is unjust, from our modern vantage point, that British Catholics were not allowed to sit as MPs until 1829. But, by way of context, the Spanish Inquisition was not wound up until 1834, and had executed a schoolteacher for heresy as recently as 1826.

    The English-speaking nations led the way in establishing religious freedom, just as they led the way in promoting individual rights, parliamentary representation, impartial justice and the protection of vulnerable groups.

    Here is the question that the far Left never seems to want to ask. Where else, down the centuries, would you rather have been poor, female or from a religious minority? Seriously, where? Russia? Persia? Abyssinia?

    This utter lack of context explains the Corbynista obsession with slavery. Slavery was an almost universal phenomenon, practised by every civilisation on every continent. What was unusual about Britain was not that it engaged in the slave trade, but that it extirpated the foul business, pouring its resources into a relentless war against the traffickers and spending a fifth of its budget on manumission.

    If, like McDonnell, you want to assess the net contribution of entire nations, it is hard to think of many that have given more than Britain to the sum of human happiness. We repeatedly rescued Europe from tyranny. In 1914, and again in 1939, we joined devastating wars, not because we had been attacked, but because the sovereignty of a friendly country had been violated. During the Cold War, we again defended democracy against murderous despotism. We invented parliamentary government and steam engines and chocolate bars and golf and the World Wide Web. Not a bad record.

    But is it really sensible to think in these terms? I mean, I didn’t personally end the slave trade or fight in the Second World War or invent the chocolate bar. Why should I claim credit for the achievements of people who happen to share my nationality?

    I can’t imagine many Corbynistas arguing that I should. To define an individual by membership of a group is surely the essence of what we mean by racism. McDonnell himself has raged, in the context of the Israel-Palestine conflict against “the imposition of collective punishment”. But what else are reparations if not a form of collective punishment?

    The case for reparations doesn’t work even on the most practical level. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that we were to accept the absurd premise of inherited guilt. Who would owe what to whom?

    One commentator responded to McDonnell’s announcement by tweeting: “I’m certainly looking forward to the Danes paying up for what they did to my ancestors.” But she is, if you think about it, much likelier to have Viking ancestors than today’s Danes, who are on the whole descended from those who stayed in Denmark. By the same token, plantation-owners are likely to have more descendants, proportionately, in the Caribbean than in Britain. The deeper you get into detail, the more absurd the whole business becomes.

    All these arguments, though, are beside the point. The defining feature of modern civilisation is the elevation of the individual over the collective. We are no longer defined by birth, caste or race. We are, rather, answerable for our own deeds and misdeeds.

    Personal accountability is the basis of our criminal justice system and, for what it is worth, the essence of Christian morality. In going back to the notion of collective merit and collective guilt, Labour is harking back to an altogether colder and darker time. Let’s not go there.

  39. Brexit

    Given that we have had Theresa May, Remainer MPs and MEP’s undermining our negotiating position we are highly unlikely to be able to negotiate an acceptable trade deal from within the EU so in my view we will have to leave under WTO terms and negotiate a trade deal with the EU after we leave

    Contrary to claims by MP’s and some large companies we are well prepared to leave under WTO terms

    1. Let’s not forget that May’s surrender document is not a deal, despite desperate attempts to portray it as such. It only gives us a sniff at trying to negotiate a deal after we’ve capitulated.

    2. I’ve heard that before. I do have to do the barefoot standing on one leg exercise thanks to my physiotherapist, but I don’t have to brush my teeth at the same time.

    1. Amended

      Men’s Gynaecological Department ( Woman with boobs removed and dressed as a man)

      Woman’s Gynaecological Department

      1. Men’s Gynaecological Department ( Woman with boobs removed and dressed as a man)

        Nurse to patient/ I am just going to take your trousers down to see if your penis is fully dilated

  44. Austria’s far-Right Freedom Party battles for survival in test for new wave of European far-Right. 29 SEPTEMBER 2019.

    “Austria forever” thundered from the loudspeakers and the audience waved red and white flags as the far-Right Freedom Party (FPÖ) held its final election rally in Vienna this week.

    Morning everyone. Contrary to the paragraph above the Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ) is not the far-Right Freedom Party but the Freedom Party of Austria. It is sceptical of the EU and advocates a referendum on Austria’s membership if reforms are not forthcoming. It also wants immigration stopped and the deportation of foreign criminals. Neither does it support same sex marriage. In other words it’s the Austrian Conservative Party before Frau May and Herr Cameron got to work on the UK version. Nowhere does it advocate the philosophy of Nietzsche, eugenics or the rounding up of Jews!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/09/29/austrias-far-right-freedom-party-battles-survival-test-new-wave/

    1. As you can see from my above post, I have taken an interest in Austrian politics for a couple of years now.

      Actually, it is Sebastian Kurz’s Austrian People’s Party, the ÖVP, who are the mainstream Conservatives. The FPÖ are actually closer to UKIP in many ways, having been originally founded by ex-Gestapo officers after WW2 anxious to restore the Anschluss, but which has moderated their stance somewhat with fresh generations.

      You are right in that there is no anti-Jewish hostility of any sort in either party these days. Indeed, in 2018 Kurz arranged a Holocaust Remembrance Event, making a very firm speech that such a thing would never happen again in Austria is he had any say in the matter. Since he is only 33 years old today, he could be around in politics for quite a while. During the Coalition, he seems to have directed any patriotic xenophobia in the FPÖ towards Ottoman Revival Islamists, closing down a number of mosques, kicking out hostile imams, and insisting the Muslims are proficient in German and respect Austrian ways if they are to be tolerated.

      I looked at the opinion polls a few weeks ago. It seems that Kurz needs a Coalition in order to govern. Traditionally, it was with the Social Democrats, but Kurz stuck his neck out last time by taking in the FPÖ instead, who then let him down when they were involved with a fake-Russian sting operation. Of the minor parties, only the Greens stand any chance of giving him the Coalition he needs, but it’s touch and go. There is another party. the Liberal Democrats (NEOS) who are close to the Greens who could perhaps join in a Grand Coalition with Kurz and the Greens.

      Latest opinion polls (with nearest UK equivalents): ÖVP (Conservative) 34.4%, SPÖ (Labour) 22%, FPÖ (Brexit) 20.4%, Grüne (Green) 11.7%, NEOS (Lib Dem) 8.3%, JETZT (Change) 1.7%, Others 1.6%

      Likely though, Kurz is in the same position as Boris is – he is in a minority against an unholy Opposition hostile alliance of two parties who can stop Government functioning, but cannot unite to form a credible alternative.

      [edit- talking bollocks again, I’m afraid! Corrected this post after misreading the opinion polls about the standing of the minor parties. JETZT is actually more like Change UK in that they have very little support, and the Greens are pulling ahead of NEOS, perhaps in response to Greta Thunberg.]

      1. “The FPÖ are actually closer to UKIP in many ways, having been originally founded by ex-Gestapo officers after WW2…………”

        Didn’t know UKIP was founded by ex-Gestapo officers.

        I never cease to wonder at the things you learn on NoTTL

        1. I said in many ways, but not all ways.

          It’s stretching the imagination a bit to suggest that Tommy Robinson, founder of the English Defence League and pugnacious Irishman, is somehow the Brit equivalent of the Gestapo, but he’s had to suffer that label from his opponents on the Left, and even Nigel Farage has implied it.

          However, their position over uncontrolled migration, national identity and social conservatism is quite similar.

    1. At least when they were in power, we didn’t have Romanian drug, car thief and pickpocket gangs roaming our streets.

        3. If it keeps the people coming in droves from those countries, many of whom are criminals of the type we never used to have, away from our country I can tolerate it, in their country. It’s up to them to do something about it, just like it’s up to us to do something about what is happening in our country.
          .

  48. Good Morning, all

    This is the most obscene photograph that I have seen in years

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2019/09/28/TELEMMGLPICT000210633501_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqniLs_ck1w-iIu15kYzVq2d6IZZiXNIhc2shoXJuYYgE.jpeg?imwidth=1240

    The article isn’t worth reading but some of the BTL comments are, shall we say, not quite what one might expect on a Sunday

    Greta Thunberg is the first saint of our cruel new environmental religion
    MADELINE GRANT – 28 SEPTEMBER 2019 • 5:00PM
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/09/28/greta-thunberg-first-saint-cruel-new-environmental-religion/

  49. Nigel has confirmed he will be standing as a candidate in the next general election. He has not yet confirmed which seat he will contest

    1. He’ll probably go for a Labour seat held by a Remainer but which voted strongly for Leave in the referendum.

      1. So what we need is:

        i) No sell out deal before October 31st;
        ii) A general election where TBP with Nigel Farage holds the balance of power with obout 60 seats;
        iii) A proper Brexit;
        iv) Close scrutiny of the treason laws leading to the imprisonment of those who have betrayed their country.

        2. What I believe are current Treason Offences

          Killing the Queen

          If you kill the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh or Prince Charles, you are toast. Or behind bars, anyway. That’s pretty much the case for killing anyone though, to be fair. Accidentally killing them is not high treason, however.

          Counterfeiting the Great Seal of Scotland

          Scottish law forbids anyone from trying to forge the Queen’s wax seal, that she uses instead of a signature on official documents. This isn’t just forgery, it’s high treason.

          Helping out Britain’s enemies

          Essentially you are a traitor if you start helping out the enemy. And that can be in this country or abroad – either way it’s a big no-no.

          Sex with various Royals

          Sorry, but you also can’t have consensual sex with monarch’s wife, heir’s wife or his unmarried eldest daughter. No specifics on any daughters after that but basically the Royal women highest up in succession are out of bounds.

          Attempting to hinder the succession to the throne

          Whenever the time comes for a new King or Queen

  51. We have a very charming Irish friend, Harry, – a retired colonel in the Irish army – but like many of his nationality he has been brought up with the firm belief that all Irish woes can be laid at the door of the English.

    We enjoy each other’s company and enjoy ragging each other but my general rule when talking to my Irish friends is to steer clear of politics. Last night in the marina bar the subject of Brexit came up. He said that it was outrageous that British should think they could just walk away from the EU without having to pay a very heavy price and that he thought that Leo Varadkar, the Taoiseach, is a fine and upstanding man who is a great asset to Ireland.

    I reminded Harry that the EU has regularly ignored the democratic voice of the Irish in several referendums and that Tony Blair has already apologised for the Irish potato famine but it was clear that talking about sailing and music put us on far firmer ground

    1. Talking to the Irish about history is a somewhat surreal experience since actual and mythical events seem to run concurrently through their consciousness!

    2. ‘Morning Rastus, at my old ‘local’ we had a Scottish chap who could rant for hours about the ‘evil’ English and how we were responsible for every painful event in their history. To hear him you would think that the highland clearances were still happening.
      Apart from that he could be entertaining And enjoyable company.

    4. I was chased off the fansite ‘Fans of Alma Deutscher’ by an Irish friend and an American moderator for starting off a thread about the composer’s friends in high places in Austria, Russia, Israel and China, as well as her capacity to charm any major benefactor into patronage and sponsorship. Her career is going from strength to strength, I was wondering whether her standing in Vienna had taken a knock when Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (who has used her on at least two very prestigious state occasions) fell victims to a sting operation on his coalition partners, and lost power pending an election, which is to be held today.

      They said I was being political and that these sorts of discussions about the broader aspects of a successful composer’s career was “inappropriate”, forgetting that Handel was not above hiring a boat big enough to put an orchestra, and playing the Water Music continuously until he got the royal appointment from the arch-enemy of his old master, the former King.

      I can gush praise as well as any sugary American, but really there is more to celebrity than praise, and it’s a bit of an insult to treat her as if the limit to her talent is shallow celebrity worship. Indeed the title of her appearance at the Beijing Festival on 12th October is ‘Don’t Call Me Mozart’. For me, it’s terribly exciting to be involved with a major composer in real time, rather than reading books about it.

      Alma Deutscher, although born in Basingstoke and raised in Dorking, is half-Irish and half-Israeli. Last year, she made the decision to leave the UK and settle in Vienna, which she regards as the true Home of Music. She has not performed in England for some years. Although, she attended, upon the insistence of Sir Bryn Terfel, the Henley Festival in 2016, none of her major works have been premiered here, and England is yet to have a live performance of either of her operas ‘The Sweeper of Dreams’ and ‘Cinderella’. She has been commissioned to write a third by the Salzburg State Theatre, but her relationship with the London music establishment is frosty to say the least.

        1. The Connaught Tribune https://connachttribune.ie/exceptional-child-prodigy-galway-performance-788/ reported that both Janie’s parents were born in Ireland, and that her father had a particular liking for Irish ballads, but they both moved to England long ago.

          I found a John Steen, born in County Monaghan in 1790, which suggests that it may be an old Irish name, even though it sounds very like the Germanic Stein.

          Ancestry.co.uk has quite an interesting discussion on the Irish Steens: https://www.ancestry.co.uk/boards/thread.aspx?mv=flat&m=451&p=surnames.steen

      1. From the Benedictus:

        “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel;
        he has come to his people and set them free …
        that he would save us from our enemies,
        from the hands of all who hate us.”
        Obviously, we all need to participate in a National Day of Prayer for Brexit.

  53. BREXIT The Way Forward

    If we cannot reach an agreement and I don’t think it is possible now . We leave on WTO terms. the Withdrawal agreement does not in any case cover trade

    The key issues for withdrawing from the EU are already provisionally agreed ie Road Haulage , Rights of EU nationals living in the EU. Euro-pol, EHIC, Medicines agency etc

    The EU has s already stated as well that for a minimum of 6 months after we leave things will remain unchanged with regard to trade. This means we have 6 months to reach an initial framework agreement with the EU on trade

    4. My rule is simple: I never give money to any charity which employs staff who earn more than I do.

      1. My rule is simple: I never give money to any charity which employs staff who earn get paid more than I do. I doubt if banana boy earns anything like the amount he gets paid!

          2. I did. I stopped paying Save the Children because of the scandals and also I believe they have saved too many children. Ditto Oxfam.

            I still support Farm Africa, which enables people to help themselves by improving their techniques; and Against Breast Cancer, for personal reasons.

            Also I’m a trustee of our small hedgehog rescue.

          4. Never heard of them – must be well-funded to advertise in the Times.

            The Brooke does good work for horses and donkeys all over the world.

          5. You just know that the donations are being funneled off and the donkeys already turned into kebabs.

          9. We have just received our Christmas gift from the cancer society – a pair of winter gloves, notebook, pen and a begging letter.

            We used the provided prepaid envelope to send back a note telling them that do not feel that they obviously do not need our money.

      1. “He wakes at sunset to stalk the night.”

        Don’t lump him in with astronomers and those of us who enjoy the peaceful darkness. We don’t want him hanging around. 🙂

    8. People are brainwashed (it’s not hard) into believing that charities that benefit humans are “worthwhile” and should be paid into.

      Bollocks to that. Humans do not need any encouragement to continue breeding out of control. Why should I pay into any charity that encourages even more breeding? Humans have enough support. More than enough support.

      If I did pay into any charity—and I have done so in the past—it would only be to charities that benefit the environment and its endangered wildlife (and by wildlife I do not mean cats, dogs and horses).

    9. ‘International Rescue’, the ‘charity’ that Miliband works for is really just a quango stuffed full of ex politicians.

      None of them have any actual expertise, they’re just expensive ‘politicians’. No doubt Mliband soaks up a lot of foreign aid – after it’s gone to the EU, of course.

      It employs over 200 failed politicians and civil servants and 2 project managers and 1 actual rescue agent. It’s a trough. Just part of the swamp, same as the EU is.

    10. You have to move with the times. Working free for charities is so last century.
      Nowadays a charity solicits income, then finds something to spend it on. With management salaries upfront.
      The auditors received just short of $100,000 for the last accounts. Nice work if you can get it.

      2. Mission creep as I call it is another thing the norm with modern charities ie they get involved in thing way out of their remit.

  55. Just when you thought the stupidity couldn’t get any worse……………….

    Ministers will rush forward the deadline for outlawing central heating

    systems based on fossil fuels, previously set for 2025. The measure was

    announced last night in a wide-ranging package of proposals designed to

    signal Boris Johnson’s commitment to protecting the environment ahead of

    next week’s Tory conference in Manchester. It is designed to help the

    country reach the target of zero carbon emissions by the middle of the

    century.

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1183777/Gas-boiler-ban-boris-Johnson-green

    1. I wonder where all the electricity for heating homes and running electric cars will come from, especially on a cold, still Winter’s day.

      The problem for Boris is that he has to pander to the Environ-mentalists and other groups in view of an impeding GE. I can forgive him for ‘playing the game’ because if Corbyn gets into power the country will be destroyed.

      1. ” I wonder where all the electricity for heating homes and running
        electric cars will come from, especially on a cold, still Winter’s day.”
        Nothing will change. You just switch on as you always have done.
        Promises before elections are not binding. They never had been.

    3. On a busy road at the bottom of the hill from where I live, replacement Gas mains are being laid. This has been going on for a couple of months, causing traffic disruption especially at rush hours.

      Should someone tell the workmen they’re wasting their time?

    5. So what exactly are they suggesting as an alternative. Anything other than gas is prohibitively expensive

    6. So what will we use, if we cannot use coal, gas, oil, or electricity produced by these means ? Around 75% of the electricity supplied to us comes from fossil fuels. Another 10% from nuclear power. So around 15% comes from (so-called) renewables. I cannot see that being turned around in less than 20 years.

        1. As someone pointed out, it’s a good way of stopping further new builds if you don’t want to admit you want to stop further new builds.

    7. FFS, Express writer, it’s NET carbon emissions. To achieve ZERO carbon emissions would require culling all life on the planet.

        1. And the Beeb? Except your good self of course………. Though Humphreys seems to be speaking out now he’s free. Do they crack the whip to make sure people toe the party line?

          1. No need. Cultural Marxism is bulldozed through the corporation with so little subtlety that anyone who disagrees will lay (lie?) low and say little.

            I finally had the conversation with my boss the other day. Introduced him to the Barcelona Declaration. He read it and nodded in agreement. You can’t fight that. He says he’s an atheist but he’s really a true believer. Just a different faith.

            We agreed to disagree, without rancour.

    8. I read this last night. Some of the BTL comments were interesting, one especially, from someone who was living in an apartment with TRIPLE glazing and other heat retaining and recovering systems. How many new builds are providing these facilities and if so what effect will their provision have on the price?
      Does this mean that fracking is off the menu along with all the benefits that it could provide? The people claiming to run this country seem incapable of grasping advantages that fall into their hands.

      1. Moscow has triple glazed windows – they need it. I thought we were going to fry to a crisp with global warming.

        1. I think I saw triple glazing in Stockholm back in 1986 and the hotel’s exterior walls were mighty thick.

  57. Registry on the first day back at school in Birmingham,

    The teacher began calling out the names of the pupils:-
    “Mustafa Al Eih Zeri?”
    “Here”

    “Achmed El Kabul?”
    “Here”

    “Fatima Al Hayek? ”
    “Here”

    “Ali Abdul Olmi?”
    “Here”

    “Mohammed Bin Kadir?”
    “Here”

    “Ali Son al En” – silence in the classroom.
    “Ali Son al En” – continued silence as everyone looked around the room.

    The teacher repeated the call.

    A girl stood up and said,

    “Sorry teacher. I think that’s me. It’s pronounced Alison Allen.”

    1. It shouldn’t be a joke though. I grew up with a chap called Akshay. He was one of my best friends – we parted when I went to one school and he went to another.

      All I remember was that he had goofy teeth. I didn’t care that he was a Muslim – at 8 I didn’t know. I didn’t care he was brown. He was my friend. We put pants on our heads and socks on our hands and pretended we were divers.

      What happened? Is it that we were told we had to accept difference that suddenly we find we don’t want to? Has the literal invasion of a culture that refuses to integrate and is encouraged not to caused such unhappiness?

  58. A man was telling his neighbor, ‘I just bought a new hearing aid.

    It cost me four thousand dollars, but it’s state of the art. It’s perfect.’

    ‘Really,’ answered the neighbor. ‘What kind is it?’

    ‘Twelve thirty.’

    2. ” neighbour ” if you please.
      That one made me laugh. I wear one of those things myself. The ” off ” switch is sometimes invaluable.

    3. The road to church was flooded this morning; I had to make a detour on the way back because it had hammered down during the service. I reckoned it would have been about two foot deep by the time I reached it when returning home.

  60. SIR – A government adviser has proposed building 2.1 million homes in new commuter villages within 10 minutes’ walk of 1,035 “underdeveloped” railway stations (report, September 22).

    Before anyone does this, it would be a good idea to check whether the lines that these stations are on have the capacity to transport such vast numbers. Most do not, and would require upgrading. For example, the West Coast, Midland and East Coast Main Lines have a mix of commuter and long-distance intercity trains, which have different operating characteristics.

    The latter require a lot of space in front of them, which diminishes as they progress on their journey but leaves a similar amount of space behind, thus wasting capacity. These trains should be moved elsewhere so that more commuters can be carried on the existing lines. We could build a new railway for them. Perhaps we could call it HS2.

    John Brandon
    Tonbridge, Kent

    The country needs 2·1 million new homes as much as it needs an endemic outbreak of ebola. Yet again the clueless, idiotic imbeciles who are in charge of the UK are treating the result of the real problem (overpopulation) and not the cause.

    1. The indigenous birthrate keeps falling we are told,so who are these houses for??
      Oh that’s right for the incomers we pay to suck on our system and over inbreed and the endless gimmegrants to come

      1. Most of our railway lines are close to capacity and our railways in general have decrepit signalling systems that are no longer fit for purpose and constantly fail

        The idea that we even have the space for 1,035 Undeveloped stations whatever they mean by that is just daft and is not even accurate)

        WE have about 5,800 stations in Mainland UK about 700 of them are in London

          3. I have found a list for 2010/11 that gives it as 2534 but that does not include all Underground stations. It includes those that also have mainline trains but not those that are only Underground stations

    2. Morning dear G

      That letter could have been written from here .. Our village has a small station .. because we are near a military base , we are battling to avoid 470 new homes being built on good quality ag land .

      Where are these people coming from, and what sort of jobs will they have to support the mortgages they will require?

      1. M’dear, the only requirement is that they be on them there benefites, and that they do agree to support the socialists.

      2. Mortgages?? don’t make me laugh Belle,it will be the wealthy buying them and renting them out on housing benefit
        Now be quiet and pay your taxes serf

      4. And producing food is soooooo antisocial.
        All those wicked British farmers.
        So much better to import food produced by fine upstanding foreign farmers.

        1. The great hypocrisy of the Li-Dem & Greens and Labour

          They go on about the greatest challenge being Climate change and needing to deal with it urgently whilst wanting unlimited migration to the UK. What is the biggest cause of pollution and congestion in the UK? It’s people. They then compound the problem by building on farmland meaning we have to import more food causing more pollution

    3. Locally we are under threat of an additional 24,000 homes in ‘Garden Communities’ along the A120/A12 corridor. The largest, West Tey will destroy many acres of farmland and has been heavily criticised for the lack of infrastructure improvements required for it to be viable – not that the locals feel it ever should be considered a viable proposition.
      Positioned along the single carriageway undeveloped section of A120 road that links the A12 to the M11 there has not been any plan to upgrade the already overloaded A120 to carry the additional traffic. The smaller development to the east of Colchester is also seen as posing infrastructure problems that are not being fully addressed. It’s planning blight on a serious and unwanted scale.

      1. Surely the rail line out of Liverpool Street is already at pretty much capacity and without adding another two tracks there is not much can be done and as far as I know what goes for bus services in that part of Essex is basic in the extreme so there will be a lot more cars on the road and the roads are already close to capacity

        1. Bill, the station at Marks Tey is a typical village station and without a massive extension it couldn’t cope with any further passengers at peak times.
          The people coming to live at West Tey, should it ever be built, will be looking to London for employment. The A12 needs a third lane south from Colchester and the railways, as you say, will also need additional lines and I doubt either will be built.
          In addition, the train service at the moment isn’t very good: my son has recently invested in a car for his commute to Witham from his home just outside of Colchester. The unreliable train and bus services have forced him on to the road, something he has never before been keen on.

  61. Nice BTL comment on the DT letters page from Max Bonamy (replying to Ann Sceptic); What struck me about the Supreme Court judgement was the paucity and amateurishness of its rationale. Indeed, in reaching its judgement it first choose to ignore Article 9 of the 1689 Bill of Rights: `That the freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament’; and, second, the convention of ‘the Queen in Parliament’.

    Furthermore, it ignored the controversial prorogations of Blair and Major. Thus the SC jumped through convoluted hoops, climbed imaginary walls, squirmed in contortions, and finally invented something altogether new to arrive at the verdict “Unlawful”. 10 out of 11 justices voted Remain. Clearly its actions were partisan and Lady Hale is fooling nobody. The Court may be ‘Supreme’ in status but its output is very low calibre compared to the Divisional Court. Being
    very clever it is not the same as being wise. The justices join Oliver Leftwing in being, as Charles Moore put it, “educated beyond their wits”.

    As you say, Anne, the ramifications for the monarchy, the Constitution and our democracy are grave.

    2. At least he didn’t mention ‘hypocrite’, which is what he is, having done exactly the same as Boris by removing the whip from his own MPs and threatening to prorogue Parliament to force his Act through.

  64. #ClownWorld

    First it was battery powered main battle tanks now this

    “Officials have now admitted they are re-considering the ban so lads can put on some slap while on duty.

    An Army spokesperson said: “As an inclusive employer that recognises

    the diversity of its personnel, we are currently in the process of

    revising our guidance in this area to make it gender neutral.”

    But some said top brass were wasting their time discussing the ban.

    A source blasted: “It’s bonkers — there are people sat in a room

    talking about whether the Army should allow men and women to wear

    make-up.”

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EFliOlgXoAAKVbU.jpg

        1. Not true it is also used grammatically but its primary meaning is to define ones gender

          Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to, and differentiating between, masculinity and femininity. Depending on the context, these characteristics include biological sex (i.e., the state of being male, female, or an intersex variation)

          1. The sexes are Male and Female.
            The Genders are Masculine, Feminine and Neuter.
            I’ve no problem with a man wishing to live a feminine lifestyle so long as he does not scare the horses.
            What has me kicking in the traces is the pretence that he really has become a woman.
            Ditto in reverse for masculine ladies.

          3. Yes if a man wants to pretend to be a woman or a woman wants to pretend to be a man that’s down to them. What is nonsense is the media reporting that a man has given birth when it is a woman pretending to be a man that has given birth. It is a genetic impossibility for a man to give birth. Then there was the nonsense the other week of a woman that was pretending to be a man had given birth and tried to register herself as the father. What really bothers me is the children some may be able to cope with their strange parentage but many in my view will not

  65. Well I did comment last week that emasculating (and that includes you Brenda Hale) the Supreme Court should be a top priority for any majority Tory government – it has displaced the previous top priority – KILL THE BBC – which has slipped to Number 2, in this week’s charts:

    We were warned from the start that the new ‘Supreme Court’ would be a menace, by people who well understood what was going on.

    But as usual nobody did anything to stop it. Britain’s slow-motion Left-wing revolution just carried on, rolling over old and trusted rules and institutions, and crushing them into dust.

    Last week the court made a swift and cat-like grab for power, its sharp claws flashing as it swiped at Downing Street.

    This, unlike so many of the things wrongly said to be ‘historic’, was a truly huge change in the way we are governed.

    Lord Hennessy, the liberals’ favourite liberal, exulted that Tuesday was the day when ‘the constitution really did shift’.

    He argued that ‘the architecture of the British constitution will never be the same again’ because ‘the Supreme Court’s reach… now penetrates the most intimate relationship in the British state, that between the head of government, the prime minister, and the head of state, Her Majesty the Queen.’

    Lord Sumption, perhaps the cleverest lawyer in the country, said the decision was ‘revolutionary’. He is right.

    This deep change has been brewing for a long time. As one very senior judge has admitted, this country’s grandest lawyers, ambitious to extend their reach, have recently developed methods that might be called the Baldrick Strategy – cunning and subtle ways of inventing laws out of nothing.

    If not swiftly and firmly curbed, the Court can now use equally vague and feeble pretexts to start striking down any government action it does not like, urged on by wealthy individuals or corporations who share its liberal world view.

    This was foolishly applauded by many on the Left. They did not grasp that, however much they might enjoy watching Al ‘Boris’ Johnson looking silly, this was a direct blow at Parliament and at accountable power, things some of them still believe in.

    I should note at this point that I am not a supporter of Mr Johnson. I disapproved of his suspension of Parliament. I also agreed with the High Court when it backed Gina Miller, on Parliament’s right to legislate on the activation of Article 50 of the EU treaty, back in 2016. I am not partisan on this issue. Anything but.

    Proper Leftists should be careful what they wish for. What a pity that great English radical, Tony Benn, was not there to remind them of the questions we need to ask of anyone who has power: ‘What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you use it? To whom are you accountable? And finally, how do we get rid of you?’

    They are excellent questions and, as we shall see, the ‘Supreme Court’ cannot answer the final three which are most crucial. Who do they serve? We do not know. Who is above them? It remains to be seen. How do we remove them? There is no obvious way.

    Just before this strange, unBritish chamber of sorrows was launched ten years ago, its future President, Lord Neuberger, spilled the beans in a BBC interview. He said there was a real risk of ‘judges arrogating to themselves greater power than they have at the moment’. This was a reasonable prophecy.

    The old court of final appeal, a committee of senior Law Lords, never called itself ‘Supreme’. It understood that the Crown in Parliament is the only supreme thing in our constitution.

    Unlike the Blairites who invented the new court, it did not think Britain was the same as the USA. It also did not sit in the grandiose white stone palace which the ‘Supreme Court ‘ now occupies, a lovely, ornate listed building controversially converted to suit the new court, at a cost to the taxpayer of almost £60 million.

    What did those who flattered and pampered this roomful of lawyers expect to happen?

    When a newly qualified policeman puts on his new uniform, perhaps with boots and baseball cap, and is given handcuffs and tasers and club, it changes his behaviour.

    If you call a group of confident, well-rewarded men and women ‘supreme’, when they are already used to wielding unquestioned power, and then give them a majestic headquarters just across the square from Parliament itself, you will change their behaviour. You will change it for the worse.

    Lord Neuberger correctly worried back in 2009 that there was no way of telling where this would end.

    He said then ‘the danger is that you muck around with a constitution like the British Constitution at your peril because you do not know what the consequences of any change will be.’

    To be fair to Lord Neuberger, he said at the time that he feared these developments. Lord Falconer, the Blairite crony and all-purpose radical lawyer who had pushed the changes through Parliament, was delighted by them.

    He happily predicted ‘the Supreme Court will be bolder in vindicating both the freedoms of individuals and, coupled with that, being willing to take on the executive.’

    By bolder, he meant, more aggressive, and of course more revolutionary, just as he was. And the sorts of ‘freedoms’ he had in mind would be the freedoms beloved by Blairites, the vague and flexible ‘human rights’ which have made it so very hard to enforce old-fashioned commonsense law in recent years.

    More recently, the same Lord Neuberger was talking to students at the Cambridge Union, and explained to them the huge powers of the United States Supreme Court to give orders to Congress and the President.

    He then told them: ‘We can’t do that.’ But he didn’t quite mean it, for he continued: ‘We get round that, the Judges get round that, by what Baldrick might call a ‘cunning and subtle plan’ of being able to ‘interpret’ statutes, and sometimes we interpret them quite, um, imaginatively, so as to, as we see it, ‘comply with the rule of law.’ ‘

    No better description has been given of the Baldrick-style verdict of Lady Hale’s court last Tuesday. It is full of ‘imaginative interpretation’.

    Less politely, you could say that it makes up a whole new law out of nothing. It claims to do this to defend Parliament from the Executive. But in fact it is only able to do it because it has scented just how weak the current Government is.

    It is interesting to compare it with the Baldrick-free judgment on exactly the same case given by the old-fashioned High Court on September 11.

    That court – three very clever English judges – said simply that the prorogation of Parliament was a political affair and none of their business. This is what any English court would have said at any time in the past two centuries of parliamentary democracy.

    John Finnis, Professor Emeritus of Law and Legal Philosophy at Oxford, is even more devastating. He says the judges dangerously evaded Britain’s most fundamental constitutional statute, the 1689 Bill of Rights.

    This declares: ‘Proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any Court or Place out of Parliament.’

    In other words, the courts are simply forbidden from interfering with Parliament.

    The court got round this by claiming the prorogation itself was somehow not a ‘proceeding in Parliament’.

    But the same ‘Supreme Court’ ruled in 2014 that the granting of Royal Assent to a Bill, a very similar action to prorogation, was a proceeding in Parliament, saying ‘the Queen in Parliament is sovereign and its procedures cannot be questioned in the courts of the United Kingdom.’

    The High Court gave a history of prorogation over the last century, which showed that the Johnson suspension was not hugely exceptional in modern times. It adds up to just ten working days, once you have subtracted from it the three weeks normally taken off by Parliament at this time of year.

    Parliament was prorogued for three whole months in the summer of 1930, from August 1 to 28 October. In 1901 it was prorogued for even longer, from August 17 until November 5.

    The now-sainted Clement Attlee, Labour’s post-war reforming Premier, suspended Parliament to make radical reforms of the constitution. John Major is accused of suspending it to avoid embarrassment over a possible scandal.

    No law or rule requires Parliament to sit in constant session, the judges rightly noted. But you would think from the squeals emitted by the ‘Supreme’ Court on Tuesday that Mr Johnson had surrounded Parliament with tanks, arrested the Speaker and declared that he would from now on rule in person.

    They showed a total loss of proportion when they airily dismissed as ‘scant’ the two giant obstacles to anyone who tries to rule this country without Parliament. These are the need to raise taxes, which cannot be done without Parliament, and the Armed Forces Act, which must be renewed every year to keep a standing Army in being.

    Far from being ‘scant’ they are a huge iron wall against tyranny which cannot be breached.

    There is more evidence of a collective rush of blood to the head in the judicial chamber. Towards the end of their judgment, they say Mr Johnson’s suspension of Parliament ‘had such an extreme effect upon the fundamentals of our democracy’.

    What are they on about? Ten days of vacation, during which Parliament in fact has little or nothing to do, does not have an ‘extreme effect upon the fundamentals of our democracy’.

    Any reader of the judgment who has taken it seriously up till paragraph 58 must surely realise at this point that it has jumped the rails of reality. The decision, absurdly, was unanimous. Unanimity is surely for sheep, not for independent minds. Given that the three judges of the High Court had taken the opposite view, could the ‘Supreme’ court not manage a single dissenter?

    By the time the ruling was given, it was obvious there was no threat to Parliament. It had already defended itself robustly, without any aid from Brenda Hale and her team of SuperJudges.

    The fundamentals are quite unthreatened. Look what happened. In the short time available, despite the Prime Minister’s supposedly despotic decision to extend their holidays, an uncowed Parliament gave Mr Johnson two big black eyes – stopping him from holding an Election and banning him from taking us out of the EU without a deal.

    When they eventually struggled back from their supposedly tyrannical suspension, bravely rescued by Judge Brenda from Mr Johnson’s non-existent Stormtroopers, MPs instantly punched the Premier on the nose by refusing him even a few days off for the Tory conference, an act of spite. It is not Mr Johnson who is doing the pushing around. If anyone needs rescuing by the courts, it is him.

    But the new legal elite see themselves as heroes against a wicked Government. If you think these politicised judges are not at all full of themselves and vain, you might be interested to know that Lady Hale’s interesting life, and supposed struggle against brutal misogynist discrimination, will shortly be celebrated in a children’s book, Judge Brenda, Equal To Everything.

    Advance publicity suggests that it will not be a critical study. It is, in fact, hard to find a critical study of this highly significant woman.

    We still know remarkably little about her and her fellow judges. The Hale Court is now at least as significant as the Cabinet, but its members are for the most part a mystery to us. Two things could reasonably happen now.

    A miracle could occur and we could get a serious patriotic Government with a big majority, which would disband the court and nullify this ruling, returning things to where they were before the Blairite vandalism created this dangerous tribunal.

    Or public and politicians alike could demand to know, before they are appointed, what sort of people will sit in this new almighty Star Chamber. The US Supreme Court’s Justices all undergo severe and searching hearings before Senators of both parties. If they are conservatives and male, they can nowadays pretty much expect to be accused of being sexual predators, or otherwise attacked.

    But these hearings do at least ensure that the elected part of the US government has some idea of the people who have such awesome power over them, and who will take huge decisions for years to come.

    If we cannot get rid of them, then we must know who they are and what they believe in. And if Parliament is not ready to curb this new overmighty subject, in one way or another, it can expect to be less and less powerful in the years to come.

    If they thought a few days of prorogation were bad, let us see what they think of the Rule of Lawyers which now faces us and them.

    https://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2019/09/gloating-liberals-may-soon-regret-the-power-now-being-wielded-by-supreme-court-judges-writes-peter-h.html

    1. If we cannot get rid of them, then we must know who they are and what they believe in.

      Exactly. A clear case of quis custodiet ipsos custodes. Still, the SC was created by Parliament, so they can’t complain when Parliament destroys it. The obvious question is whether it should be replaced by its predecessor, the Law Lords.

    2. ‘Afternoon, Lewis, with all these hundreds of articles castigating the Supreme Court and calling for its abolition, is it just possible that her Brendy Haleness might consider that she’s made an error of judgement?

      2. A certain level of arrogance, not known to ordinary mortals, must be inherent in people such as Brendy Haleness (I like that). Unlikely that she would ever consider that she made a mistake in this case. I hope she’s around long enough to see ‘her’ court disbanded by a new government as one of its priorities.

        1. I wonder why quaint. I understand that she is one of those lefty harridans who, considering in her dreams that she is always right, cannot understand that many will challenge her supine ruling.

    3. It is not prorogation which has an ‘extreme effect upon the fundamentals of our democracy’, but the refusal of remainer MPs to implement the clearly expressed wish of the electorate.

    4. As long as MPs still get the same outrageous salaries and expenses, I doubt if many of them would worry “money for nothing…”

  66. According to gov.uk, the areas which are already at the highest risk of flooding as a result of rising river and sea levels are:

    Looks like a made up list. If anywhere would be at rik of flooding it would be Jaywick which is below sea level

    Sheerness
    Whitstable
    Sittingbourne
    Margate
    Hearne Bay
    Sandwich
    Deal
    Low Weald
    West Mersea
    Orford
    Mablethorpe
    Theedlethorpe
    Boston
    Sots Hole
    Brigg
    Wainfleet
    Friskney
    Scrane End

      1. There is a sea wall but BJ is correct that the village is at threat from another surge. I did hear an official many years ago suggest that the whole place should bulldozed but nothing has happened.
        The place is a real mess and horribly deprived but some of the residents actually told me that they enjoy living there and that there’s a good community spirit in the place. A decade or so ago the life expectancy there was 8 years less than another ward a mere 10 miles away. It’s that bad.

        1. That suggests to me that, like other town and villages along the coast, the seaward side of town has been built up to provide a barrier. Whether or not that is the case with Jaywick, my point was that the risk of flooding is determined by a number of different factors, not all of which might be known to lay persons.

          Edit to correct a typo

          2. Thanks, Tony, for spotting my typo (now corrected). However, it was clear that I was not talking about politicians otherwise I would have written “lie persons”.

    5. There are parts of north-east Norfolk, especially the Smallburgh and Stalham areas, that have been below sea level for years and have STILL not been flooded or found themselves under water.

  67. From the Sunday Times no less:-

    Jennifer Arcuri ‘told friends of affair with Boris Johnson’

    New bombshell for Tories as party conference begins”

    Not sure why it is a bombshell. What else did we think they were doing in the their spare time ?

      2. Journalist states a famous politician holding high office is alleged to have had hundreds of affair and may have fathered dozens of children

  68. Corbyn critic Margaret Hodge faces Labour re-selection battle

    Labours hard left is falling out amongst itself. I think from memory he used to be an Islington councillor. She is pretty left wing but clearly not left enough

    Veteran Labour MP Dame Margaret Hodge is facing a re-selection battle after activists in her east London constituency voted for the chance to pick a new candidate.
    Dame Margaret – an outspoken critic of Jeremy Corbyn – said she was “disappointed” by the result but will fight to keep her Barking seat.
    She is the second Labour MP to be “triggered” through the party’s new ballot procedures which make it easier for local members to force a contest.

    4. Perhaps if we cut off her head now we could change the future………………. ooh deep . Not that that idiot would know anything about philosophy.

  70. As it’s Sunday afternoon i’m now going to bore you all with my holiday pics. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/41e5f8bf77d7510930257f69c8a223e0724c22c7f1c30b750174820b81de4c06.jpg

    Jazz on the Bridge, Valletta. Free concert every Friday and the scene of my attempted murder.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/48ca363d6da88b4a0d55688382ecd3ad83f9fe1cc740277594a64280535a1c74.jpg

    Us dancing just prior to the dirty deed. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/76ec9b4eb92d01b0520392b436e47b835e6bf7cc51a7f297b437ce0041f00be7.jpg

    The suspect trying to look innocent. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/03bd20a79f1d13b6ee52c6932e5b88acbcf2d1459ecd4e5f4cb02d03bd191829.jpg

    Me on codeine and bloody mary.

      1. They make them bloody hot that’s for sure. The celery is inedible. It’s all stringy. Still, could be used as dental floss i suppose.

      2. Now you mention it……… However… no alcohol needs to be imbibed. The Jazz is Hot.

        I just like to get pissed out my head and go to Mater Dei so people pay attention to me.

        BTW. You have annoyed me.

          1. Better than your spelling… :o)

            Those stains on my shorts are where she was pouring her Prosecco over me. I didn’t pee myself…..this time.

            At the end of the Jazz night which was brilliant we got up. I put my hand out to her to get off her ‘arris and she pulled me over. Damage to the lower muscles in my back. Codeine and Narox prescribed. I threw the Narox in the bin. Too dangerous. Still hurts now. But i’m only taking neurofen for it.

          2. I corrected my spelling but had already pressed the button………

            I don’t look at stains on peoples’ shorts – what do you think I am?
            Still – at least you survived the attack. Was she very heavy?

          3. Not really but she yanked. Not really her fault. I had fed her 3 bottles of Prosecco thru the evening.

          7. Strange you should mention…. See my other posted pics. Both the people are and have been running Sea Cadets for the last 20 years in Pompey and Gospit.

  71. Afternoon, all. I’m making an early appearance today because it’s a Harvest Festival celebration tonight.

        1. I seldom manage “good morning”; it’s at least afternoon before I can get my act together, more usually it’s late at night!

  72. Interim Government

    I have no idea as to where Labour are claiming they can form an Interim Government

    The Fixed Term Parliament Act is very specific. If a vote of no confidence is held and the Government fails to win then the Government has 14 days to try to form a new government if it fails it does not result in an Interim government but a general election. I think the minimum period to call a General Election is 17 working days so just adding 14 & 17 gives you 31 days so October the 31st will have passed (Not sure if the 14 days is calendar days or working days the act is silent on this. I am assuming calander days)

    http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2011/14/section/2/enacted#section-2-3-b

    1. Don’t forget Boris still has the opportunity to Prorogue Parliament – he may need an extra few days to re-write the queen’s speech to take into account changing circumstances. For example: “My Government will bring forth legislation to abolish the UK’s Supreme court and revert back to the legal practice that have served us well for over 300 years etc etc etc….

      1. Even without that the it will go past the end of October. Boris might though prefer for the opposition parties to vote down the Queens Speech which by convention results in a General Election

    2. My understanding of the Act is that, if having lost a vote of no confidence, the government has 14 days in which to win a vote of confidence. However, if it does not win such a vote, it is possible that an attempt could be made to form a government by the Opposition and an attempt is made to pass a confidence vote in such a government, but that would require the incumbent Prime Minister to resign. This appears to be the reasoning behind a suggestion that Corbyn could form a government with alliances with the LibDems, SNP etc.

      If this is true, I can’t see Boris resigning, in which case a General Election would be triggered.

      1. The Act is very clear. A General Election has to be held. It would be similar to when May went. She carries on until the election is held. Should the PM decide to resign he still carries on until the election is held.

          1. No there is no ambiguity in the act it is very clear. A government always remain in place until the Queen is informed a new government is in place. The MP’s are no longer MP’d but the Ministers remain in post until the new government is formed

          2. What you are describing is the dissolution of Parliament. There are no MPS, but the government remains in place until after the General Election. This is not the case in a Vote of No Confidence. Parliament is not dissolved, so MPs remain in place. An attempt is then made by the government to win another Vote of Confidence, within 14 days. If it loses this Vote of Confidence then a General Election will be called unless another government can be formed by another means e.g. the Opposition attempting to win a Vote of Confidence in a government proposed by Corbyn or even Ken Clarke or Harriet Harman. However, in order for this to happen, the Prime Minister would have to resign first. He does not have to, but by convention the PM does resign after losing a Vote of No Confidence. Boris could stick to his guns, see out the 14-day period and then trigger a General Election.

          5. She is misunderstanding the position. What happens when a government fails to win a vote of confidence is covered by Constitutional practice not the FTPA. THe FTPA only coves under what conditions an early election can be called

          6. If that were the case, what would be the point of a Vote of No Confidence? A General Election would result in 14 days, which is what Boris wants. The Opposition wants to replace him with a ‘Government of National Unity’ without calling a General Election.

          7. That’s because in my view Labour have misunderstood the situation

            The FTPA make it quite clear it is one of the two situations in which an early general election can be called. Labour seem to be trying to read into the act that it means they can attempt to form a government put that is clearly not the case

      2. The SC will decide what they want to happen. I imagine they will just install Corbyn as life-long PM and pension off Her Majj as surplus to requirements.

  73. I just had a nice meal out, and bought The Times to read with it.
    What a shock !! It was like in ancient times, when you found that you had accidentally bought the Daily Worker instead of the Mirror.
    Scarcely a suare inch that was not devoted to an onslaught against Boris. A reporter must have spent a full ten years hidden beneath Boris’s bed ( except when he took time off for checking on Andrew ). Greta and Climate Change ? Iran’s nuclear threats ? LGBT and dolphins ? Not a word.
    The once-reputable magazine has been bought out.

    1. The Telegraph has gone down-market but is still relatively Tory. I’ve never been a Times reader but they used to boast it was for “Top people”. I guess all the top people are lefties now.

        1. I beg your pardon !! My main interest in The Times is in the Obituaries.
          I look at the ages. Sometimes I see one, and say to myself,oh well, he was old. Then I realise that he was ten years younger than me.

    2. I ended my sub the the Times about 2 years ago because of its far left slant on everything. The left has moved into everything over the years and control most things. We all have to fight back against it.

      2. It is owned by Murdoch who promoted one Anthony Blair. I have never knowingly subscribed to or purchased any product produced by his organisation since Blair became PM.

        The Times began in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register, adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times (founded in 1821) are published by Times Newspapers, since 1981 a subsidiary of News UK, in turn wholly owned by News Corp.

        1. It’s all a bit odd really since Murdoch is a very right wing guy. I guess he has worked out that Brits prefer leftist papers.

          Both The Times and the Guardian are a very long way from their roots of being the newspapers of their day.

          1. So too is Blair. Margaret Thatcher once said he was her greatest legacy – both Labour and Conservative parties following her policies. There is no alternative.

    3. Hello Tony

      The Times are a changing !

      I sometimes buy the broadsheet Sunday copy.. or the Sunday Telegraph ..Spread out , they fit my parrot cage niely .

  74. Just about to be collected by friends to go to a George Michael Tribute Concert over in MK, so I’ll say good night now.

    It’s a birthday treat.

    1. The plus is how shrivelled up and awful Blair looks like now…. his sins are catching up on him, like the Portrait of Dorian Gray.

  77. Britons warned over ‘macabre’ trips to kill turtle doves in Morocco

    Sunday Telegraph

    BRITISH holidaymakers have been warned off going on shooting holidays to kill rare turtle doves, which migrate from the UK across Europe.

    At least two British companies offer shooting holidays to Morocco, allowing parties to kill the endangered birds – which are protected in the UK – in a country where it is legal to do so.

    Shooters have been criticised as turtle doves are migratory and fly from the UK to Morocco, so the birds targeted are those that the Government is trying to protect in the UK.

    Turtle doves have suffered a 94 per cent UK population decline since 1995 and a 78 per cent decline across Europe since 1980. The RSPB, which works with Defra on Operation Turtle Dove, has warned that the species could soon “be lost forever”.

    Zac Goldsmith, the international environment minister, has condemned the practice and advised that holidaymakers should not go abroad to kill the animals.

    Mr Goldsmith said: “Turtle dove numbers have plummeted in recent years and it is appalling that anyone would want to fly to Morocco simply to shoot more of them. I would strongly urge people not to take part in this macabre activity.

    “For our part, we will continue to take firm action … to help ensure this special bird is protected for generations to come.”

    The RSPB and the Government have created and preserved habitats and started a countrywide turtle dove survey to track the population. However, once the birds leave this country on their annual migration, they are at the mercy of other governments, most of which have far more lax rules.

    Most of the UK’s turtle doves are already on their way back to West Africa, having spent the summer in the UK.

    However, this year BirdLife International organisations – including the RSPB and its counterparts in France and Spain – have said they are concerned by reports of tourists killing thousands of birds every week. Local estimates have reported that 100,000 to 150,000 birds are shot during the Moroccan hunting season.

    British company Wood Pigeon Hunting, based in Merseyside, takes travellers to Morocco to kill birds which are protected in the UK, including turtle doves.

    The website advertises trips to kill the turtle dove for €280 a day, a price which includes between 200 and 250 shotgun cartridges.

    Robert Glynn, 65, who runs the company, has been contacted for comment. Another UK-based company, Menara Travel, advertises turtle dove hunting trips from £1,539 per person.

    The Sunday Telegraph has contacted the company for comment.

    Carles Carboneras, the RSPB’s migrant birds expert, said: “We are concerned about reports of the scale of turtle dove hunting in Morocco this year, which in some cases was so large that it prompted action by the local authorities.

    “At a time when many groups and individuals are working hard to save the turtle dove in the UK and along the flyway, it is alarming that there might be people from the UK travelling to kill them elsewhere.”

    Two points here:

    1. Wouldn’t it be much more ‘fun’ to nuke Morocco (and wipe out its useless human population) instead?

    2. If I ever come face to face with any ‘Briton’ who has paid to slaughter turtle doves (or elephants, giraffes, bears or lions), they should be be genuinely scared for the future of their physiognomy.

    1. It’s disgraceful. There should be some way to stop British companies doing this.

      Trigger-happy morons all around the Med, as well as those who deploy mist nets and lime sticks, are decimating our migrant species.

      As for those who go further afield to shoot endangered animals………. nothing but comtempt for them all.

    2. I had one turtle dove in my garden about 4 years ago Grizz.

      They are so rare now..Why are trigger happy b######ds allowed to do this ..

      I suffer so much pain when the birds we used to see are no longer here .. Green finches and yellowhammers , siskins, bull finches etc etc are just an example and a memory . Very few kestrels , hobys, cuckoos, nightjars and the rest.. where are they all?

  79. Discurse starting to play up – the “Log In” malarkey. Can’t be arsed.

    Will go and warm some wine…

    A demain, DV

    1. Just hit F5. I frequently find I’m logged out when I load NOTTL but F5 restores my login.

          2. To get to put my post in (above) took 3 logins. First I had to log in when I went to the nottlers. Then when I hit “reply”, I got another login request, and another later on. Along with regular failures to post (red error message). Trying again usually works, but in general, something’s broke here.

          3. A couple of times when posting I have had a not-logged-in message upon hitting the Return key. I waited a few seconds and hit it again – message posted.

          4. Just re-post. It thinks you’re logged out, and it can take one or two tries of hitting the post button before it accepts it.
            I’ve had the same problem on and off today.

            Like just now. “Problems with your internet connection, blah, blah”

  80. Tory conference very subdued. JR-M got a good response and some laughs. Michael Gove had to work hard to get applause which was muted. Steve Barclay was speaking when I switched off..

  81. ‘Alarming’ rise in far-Right weapons seizures prompts Germany to beef up police powers. 29 SEPTEMBER 2019.

    The weapons listed as being seized during raids last year included hand guns, rifles and knives, as well as pepper spray, fireworks and “dangerous tools”.

    No detailed breakdown of the numbers of each type of weapon has yet been released. German police have in the past faced criticism for using a loose definition of what constitutes a weapon.

    Raids on the radical Left in recent years have led to confiscations of bricks and household implements as police sought to up political pressure on Berlin’s militant squatter scene.

    Well I’m surprised to read that though I suspected as much. Another fake story about the mythical far-right! No comments allowed either. Who would ever have guessed that might happen?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/09/29/alarming-rise-far-right-weapons-seizures-prompts-germany-beef/

    1. Ah well, the Kraut police do like to have wide-ranging powers and they use them so effectively.

      You only have to look at the Gestapo and the Stasi …………….

    2. They would have a field day if they raided my garage. All kinds of “weapons”, things like drills, hammers, crow bars, a couple of sickles, a machete, sets of chisels and power saws; every kind of hammer from lightweights to sledges; a bench with two vices – obviously used for “interrogation”. And the gas welding kit or the heavy duty chainsaw, if things get serious.

        1. Well, 50% of them probably have sensitive dangly bits, regardless of what gender they think they are.

  83. Five absolute priorities for the next government:

    i. Sort out parliamentary constituency boundaries. This would have been done during Cameron’s term in office had Clegg not gone back on his word as he did with the students’ tuition fees;

    ii) Pass legislation that an MP who changes party has to submit him/herself for a by-election;

    iii) Sort out postal voting fraud;

    iv) Undo that other Clegg outrage – the Fixed Term Parliament Act – which Clegg insisted on so that he could stay in a coalition without being voted out by the electorate;

    v) Cope with the democratic usurpation of the Supreme Court – a nasty trick designed by Blair, the Devil himself.

    1. The revised Constituency boundaries are all sorted but the MP’s are sitting on it and have not approved it yet. If you go to the English Boundary common site the final proposals are there

      For NI. Scotland and Wales you need to look at their Web Sites

    2. ‘Afternoon, Richard, I’ve said it before but I think it’s worth repeating, instead of your No i), immediately reduce the Commons to 400 members (which will require a new Boundary Commission Review) and revert the Lords back to the Heriditaries and the Law Lords only – toss out the rest of the sycophantic troughers. This last also remedies your No v).

        2. “When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders
          believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movements become headlong –
          faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thoughts of obstacles
          and forget the precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush
          until it’s too late.”

          ―

          Frank Herbert

      2. Why Heriditaries ? You need people with the skills to peer review the commons legislation and that means people with the right skills and that’s not likely to be Heriditaries

          1. Yes it is

            Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competences as the producers of the work (peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review methods are used to maintain quality standards, improve performance, and provide credibility. In academia, scholarly peer review is often used to determine an academic paper’s suitability for publication. Peer review can be categorized by the type of activity and by the field or profession in which the activity occurs, e.g., medical peer review.

    4. I agree with your points except No ii. We elect, in theory at least, an MP based on his/her willingness and ability to serve his constituency – all of his/her constituency and not just those who voted for him/her. Although it may irritate people if an MP changes party, it is fundamentally a healthy thing that an MP can act according to his/her conscience and not be dictated to by his/her party or a faction of their electorate. If, like some on this forum, you believe that ALL MPs are unprincipled, dishonest traitors etc then you are wasting you time bothering with points i, iii, iv and v.

      1. Nothing wrong with acting according to one’s conscience. Circumstances may have changed. However, an MP is elected on certain manifesto pledges. If he/she subsequently finds that he/she is unable to comply with these pledges, then instead of changing parties, he/she should ask the electorate to endorse his/her changed position by submitting himself/herself to a vote in a by election.

        1. As I’m sure that you know, manifestos are not and never have been legally binding and are almost always constructed with enough words to ensure wiggle room. For example, all the major parties at the last General Election had manifestos committing to an “orderly exit” of the EU. Many would argue that a No-deal exit was not an “orderly exit”, others would argue that it was. The situation becomes even more complicated when it involves MPs who didn’t change party allegiance but nevertheless voted against their party on a 3-line Whip or even had the Whip removed for this? Would you argue that such people should also submit themselves to a by-election because, if they did, the current Cabinet would be a bit thin on the ground? The time to submit themselves to their electorate is a General Election.

          There have been a number of party-jumping cases recently and it almost always creates jubilation by the gaining party and its members and contempt by the losing one and its members. I surmise that you are somewhat contemptuous of those Conservative MPs who have jumped party (actually, not that many at all) but could you honestly say that, if large numbers of Labour MPs jumped to whatever party you supported you would not be overjoyed?

          1. could you honestly say that, if large numbers of Labour MPs jumped to whatever party you supported you would not be overjoyed?

            No, I would not. A traitor is a traitor. The fact that they have changed allegiance makes them suspect. Let the people decide. Resign, and trigger a by election.

  84. LAST POST – LAST LARF

    Chirac lying in state – thousands pay tribute to great (corrupt monster) leader….

    Coming to a Bliar near you soon (one hopes).

    TTFN

  86. The Contradiction of the LGBTXYZ Brigade

    They will claim that being Gay is something they are born as and they cannot change yet at the sane time they are claiming that something as fundamental as the sex your are born as is something that can be changed work that out if you can

    There is in fact little if any evidence to support the claim people are born gay. We dont really no if that is true or not.

    2. I prefer to use the word homosexual – it is more honest.

      Paul Johnson, who used to write for the Spectator referred to homosexuals as glums as he found them lacking in genuine cheerfulness.

  88. So no comments at all on NTTL about today’s headline story in the Mail on Sunday ?

    I thought Leavers would have been pleased !

    1. This one ?

      ” British couple arrive at their £10,000-a-fortnight Ibiza Airbnb ‘VIP penthouse’
      only to discover the listing was fake and the property has NEVER
      existed ”

      Obvious FAKE NEWS. Who would pay ten grand for two weeks in Ibiza ?

          1. Aren’t you interested in the government investigation into “Remain MPs’ collusion” with “foreign powers” ?

          2. I think we all know that Remain MPs are either self interested and stupid or else bought by foreign money. It was ever thus.

            The Scots and Irish have a visceral hatred of the English which does not help. You have only to watch the antics of Sturgeon and her blithering stooge Blackford in Parliament to observe this antagonism.

            The Irish politicians are as ever mere EU stooges, sucking at the teat of the European largesse which comprises a large bite of our contributions to the EU with the gloss of preferable trade status, allowing exceptionally low business rates which attract international companies to headquarter there.

            We voted to leave the curse of the EU and expect our wish to be enacted. All other nuances are irrelevant. We simply need to
            get out of the hideous EU construct.

            International bankers and other currency manipulators such as Soros are a constant. There is nothing much to be seen here that is not to be expected.

          3. This is the first time the MSM has reported on alleged”collusion” and “string pulling”.

            It’s a huge development.

            “Classic Dom”.

          6. To prove the accusations you make would require a forensic examination of the bank accounts and offshore accounts of all of your suspects together with their alleged paymasters.

            Only government agencies under instruction could accomplish such investigations and somehow I doubt your abilities in this regard. I do however sympathise with your hypothesis, suspicions and conclusions.

          7. Promise of a mega paid non job a few years into the future is a favorite….

            …and I’d love to know what’s in that customs free high security storage facility in Luxembourg near the Brussels border that JCJ had constructed… and to whom it belongs.

      1. It’s a great paper and today the headline is…

        “No10 Probes Remain MP’s “Foreign Collusion”.

        “The government is working on extensive investigations into….. involvement with foreign powers and the funding of their activities…. nobody knows what organisations are pulling these strings”.

        Well, I know….

        Does this mean the Remain swamp is being drained at last ?

          1. Oh c’mon…..

            This is Yuge and is a breakthrough for the MSM to even begin reporting the subject.

            Have you read the article ?

          4. I think we are all worn out. We, like the masses in the country, have given up on the whole thing.

            The behaviour of the M.P. remainers has been so incredibly vile, that with their majority it is impossible to forecast a conclusion.
            Should there be an election (which democracies have but we don’t any more), I am reasonably certain that there would be the lowest turnout in recorderd history.
            For her deviousness, Theresa May should be hung, drawn and quartered ( invitation to violence ? That’s coming later).
            When Parliament re-opened I was not happy to see her sitting there and laughing. Some people feel no shame.

  89. Twenty nine, twenty nine, twenty five
    Twenty nine, twenty nine, twenty fi-ive
    Twenty nine, twenty nine, twenty five
    Twenty ni-ine, twenty nine, twenty five

  93. Night All

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4bfd253d72f73ccb3003c7f6ab71176e101b327f95a7e36619c53e630579fd31.gif

    https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/67876698_2300014883584799_6733956718046216192_n.jpg?_nc_cat=111&_nc_oc=AQl8-x-H0HPRTXiPdLPT3ZhpyzP-H3b-Rg9ufpjNuzhrmeoiZIyywhKjM2WZAH_Pb7Q&_nc_ht=scontent-iad3-1.xx&oh=11e47dfbf67d7659b8900cb56c6e4b0b&oe=5DF0441A

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5ec9e85cbfd6742e5b7faacd4feae05c7898876ac4b4100602e008cc2f6cea94.gif

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c337f4f422b3764d531b55966a5b8f53d379747075acca26a2a171119c610395.gif

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1e26a8186b06d87f2bcaddbcd710f4799fc6dfd92e9d554be482a8c7c8f45623.gif

  94. Seriously… am I the only one here to have read the Mail on Sunday ?

    Or doesn’t anyone care anymore ?

    “No10 Probes Remain MPs’ “Foreign Collusion”.

    “Nobody knows what organisations are pulling these strings”.

          1. Things are going too far. When neither our Parliament nor legal system command respect, the only way now is down.

          2. Parliamentary integrity no longer exists .

            They are behaving like a Moldovan rabble.

            So , what on earth do we do.. because everything we say is ignored.

          3. That is the big question isn’t it. What to do when the whole establishment goes rogue and ignores what the general population voted for.

            It would be easy in France, just borrow Bill’s yellow vest and start blockading roads, even easier in some lawless South American or far eastern state when guns and violence would start eliminating the opposition.

            But in the UK what can you do? Write to your MP, write a letter to the paper (not the Guardian)? You cannot even twit any more the left will try to drown your opinion out – just look at the trolls plaguing the Telegraph comments.

            Without resorting to some very un English civil disobedience, what can you do but hope for Boris to follow through with his promises (or at least not close off Brexit with bad agreements) then vocally call for sensible, not disorganized strategic voting at an election.

            Oh and pray that Steptoe isn’t parachuted into power when he would no doubt declare a state of emergency, suspend parliament and cling to power.

          5. That dear sir is the problem. UKIp. Brexit Party, Raving loonie will all get some votes, but they will split the vote for change.

            Some will vote lib/lab/con through belief, some as a protest vote or as what they see as a strategic vote.

            End result, nothing will change, Tory or labour will be top dogs, snp and lib dems might be king makers.

          6. R,
            UKIP designed & activated the referendum and make no mistake they also built farage’s image.
            I can still hear the echo’s of “job done leave it to the tories” whilst I was calling for a UKIP membership anti treachery build after cameron ( the wretch) had shown his true colours.
            The vote for change was taken and won on the 24/6/2016 what totally knackered the victory was the unwillingness to change the voting pattern, the electorate went back to supporting / voting for a lab/lib/con pro eu coalition.
            Total severance was the UKIP call from the outset.

      2. It’s the first time ever in the MSM that something like this has been published.

        I think this has Dominic’s fingerprints and might be intended as a warning shot not to get in the way of Brexit.

        1. Seems a bit late in the day – after all we knew that both former and current MPs had gone to Brussels independently to see Barnier/Juncker (can’t remember which).

          I was surprised that No. 10 hadn’t done something like that earlier. No, actually I wasn’t, as No. 10 has appeared at all times pretty toothless.

    1. Absolutely shocking. There were children present !… what is worse was there wasn’t much if at all diversity that could be SEEN.

  96. “Extensive investigations into (three names) and their involvement with foreign powers and the funding of their activities”. Mail on Sunday.

    The story sounds very similar to wot Polly told Mr R two weeks ago !

  99. BT’s plans to decommission 70 phone boxes in Dorset

    The company has started a public consultation which will end on December 23 . It says it has, or will, place notices on all of the phones to be affected.

    https://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/17933101.bts-plans-decommission-70-phone-boxes-dorset-adopted-just-1/

    What do you think about the removal of these iconic examples of a different telecommunication era.. they sit happily in communities .. Turn right at the phone box .. or if you have gone past it you have gone too far .

    Not everyone relies on mobile phones .. they are a damned nuisance . Moh has so much stuff on his he doesn’t know what he is doing half the the time..

    Red phone boxes are sentimental and romantic .. Why remove them from anywhere ?

    2. Sell them to Labour for holding their Post-Brexit Party conferences. No need to paint them.

    5. Some are listed. A few years ago I found six of the listed ones obstructing Promenade in Cheltenham. We were obliged to arrange outside seating to a Tea Room we had designed around them. None were used as far as I can recall.

    6. You might find if your village want keep the telephone box it can. W have ours still in our village, but no phone in it. I think the Village Hall Trust bought it for a£1 or something when BT was decomissioning the phones round here. So far no one has found a use for it.

    7. Some are made into mini libraries. Some have disappeared from round here but the one at the bottom of the lane is still there. I guess they need a bit of upkeep.

      My hubby bought a pay as you go mobile about 10 years ago but he stopped using it. He doesn’t have a modern one. I use mine more as a mini computer than a thing to make phone calls. In fact I dislike using the phone these days. I use very few apps on my mobile as most of them want intrusive access.

      1. There’s a red phone box a couple of miles from us, at Chobham, that is a mini library. Retains the iconic red box and is useful.

      2. My ancient Nokia is in the car .. just in case.. and if I remember to charge it up .. it is also PAYG..

        Moh takes his everywhere .. a Howareyou or what ever it is called .. he uses it to measure his golf distances or some such app.

  102. I just noticed in the Guardian report that the woman who said that Boris Johnson squeezed her thigh twenty years ago, is a Sunday Times journalist !!
    ‘Nuff said !!

    1. It could have been a Guardian journalist, at least we would have known then what an outright fabrication it was.

  103. Night, night, NoTTLers, God bless. Let’s all wake up to-morrow and continue to be determined NOT to fear, NOT to be cowed but to FIGHT back as hard as ever.

    See you in the morning.

  104. It is an important time of year for those of us in the Jewish community, worldwide, whether or not we are religiously observant.

    It is nice to see this Presidental statement from the White House –

    https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/presidential-message-rosh-hashanah-2019/

    Much of importance has happened since Donald Trump became President of the U.S.A.
    When he moved the American Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the world said that the Middle East.
    would be in flames. No such thing happened, and that country obtained much more internationally of the respect that it deserves.
    And the Arab States and Israel are at last beginning to co-operate with one another.

    Iranians are not Arabs, and alas are still threatening to destroy the State of Israel, and hopefully they think, the United States of America.
    Donald called their bluff and spoke of the Mullahs for what they are. As would be expected, the European Union doesn’t want to know.
    Such is life.

    Statement or not, should Jeremy Corbyn become Prime Minister, the Jewish community here will decimate, as it has in France. Which will be this country’s loss.

    I wish you all season’s greetings, and a happy life after Brexit.

    1. God bless Israel.

      I’m of Russian Ashkenazim stock on my father’s side. Yorkshire Anglican on my mother’s.

      1. Thanks. My maternal grandparents were Russian Ashkenazim-they escaped the pogroms in White Russia ( Byelorussia ) – I have my grandfather’s Russian passport from 1904. My father’s origins – I think perhaps Polish – have been traced back to Hull in I think 1872 – prior to that no record).

  105. According to Mail printed reports, a government investigation has started into Grieve, Letwin and Benn about alleged “foreign collusion”.

    Letwin has refused to comment.

    2. It may be all fake news.They all live in a world of their own. The mail has become a remainers paper .

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