Sunday 27 June: Public anger at different rules for the few meant that Matt Hancock had to resign

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/06/26/letters-public-anger-different-rules-meant-matt-hancock-had/

591 thoughts on “Sunday 27 June: Public anger at different rules for the few meant that Matt Hancock had to resign”

  3. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/40c1aa6e8c4fcbe9d877533f5e4a609779c700ce51345762dad02ed87d9aef2a.jpg

    Morning everyone. The picture above is of Vladimir Putin the President of the Russian Federation and the Leader of the Real Free World. I just thought you would all like to see what a real leader looks like! Though he is accused of much, unlike his equals in the West whose reputation for Decadence, Depravity and Corruption is a daily reality and none admitted, most of it is fabrication and the rest propaganda. Without descending into hagiography he is thankfully the smartest as well.

    Apart from the Hungarian Orbán, who is similarly besieged, Vlad is the only Patriotic White Christian ruler now in existence. It is no coincidence, that it is they personally and not the polities they represent who are the victim’s of opprobrium and vilification.

    Russia itself is the only advanced nation not to have succumbed to the Tsunami of Cultural Marxism that has swept over and conquered European Christendom and that is presently engaged in trampling its people into submission and utterly destroying its traditions of Individual Freedom and Democratic Rule. This is almost certainly because of its experiences as the centrepiece of the USSR where lies were as commonplace as they now are in the UK! The Russian people were fooled once and are not about to be a second time. The country like Elizabethan, Regency and Twentieth Century England stands alone against yet another monstrous tyranny. It is not necessary for them to defeat this Globalist Alliance, only to survive it and thus while the rest of the World sinks into a Marxist/Islamic barbarism; its people no more than slaves; a fragment of what was once the most advanced and cultured civilisation that has ever graced this planet may carry it into a future untainted by Repression and undaunted by Fear.

    1. Good Morning & happy Sunday Minty. I am not a fan of the neo-fascist Russian dictator Vladimir ” Novichok ” Putin but he does keep the LGBTQ in check & keeps the African invaders out of Russia and at least in Russia itself he keeps Islamic Jihadists like the Chechens down but sadly abroad he is busy along with Iran in running broken Syria as base of operations for out flanking NATO in the Mediterranean , the Ukraine & the Baltics / Scandinavia so I do not see him as a friend of the West but its foe just like the Chinese , the Iranians, the North Koreans & the numerous Arab terror groups that use Russian arms & have received in the past Russian training like the PLO & its various sub-groups.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1aefcc3c6e2eab7f18687f34979a5fd7e55a8f7f02b380e3954a6f345f9085c7.gif

        1. From any Western view point be it Israeli, American, British, Canadian, Australian , European & NATO in general, the Russian military threat to the West has simply not gone away with the fall of the USSR.

          1. This is untrue as is implicit in your post. The preponderance of power is with the formerly Democratic West!

          3. This is untrue as is implicit in your post. The preponderance of power is with the formerly Democratic West!

      2. We in the West made Russia our enemy. Actually it was mainly the US. Presumably they saw the power and determination of the Soviet people against Germany and their all-embracing ideology and decided to block them from everything?

        1. Sorry HP but Soviet Russia was Germany’s ally under the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement, they invaded & occupied Eastern Poland & would have remained a German ally had not Hitler invaded Russia in June 1941 & they never attacked Japan until the last days of the war August 1945 in order to occupy the Japanese puppet state in Mongolia . Without the allies supplying so much war material via the Murmansk convoys the Russians would not have defeated a renewed German summer offensive after Stalingrad. Most Russians who died during WW2 died of starvation caused by Stalins pre-war collectivization of farming or were sent into battle in suicide wave after suicide wave until the Germans were overwhelmed & out of ammo. Since the end of WW2 first the USSR & now Russia have remained the Wests most dangerous enemy until now with the rise of Communist China as an aggressive & expansionist military power. .

          1. Yes, you are quite right. I should have made it clear that my comment referred to the post-WW2 world.

          2. Post WW2 the USSR occupied Eastern Europe & now a long time after the fall of the USSR still acts aggressively in the Ukraine , Georgia , the Baltics & the Mid-East by occupying parts of Syria and is seeking to seize the mineral wealth of the Artic if left unchallenged

          3. I think it was mostly Ford trucks that gave the Russian Army mobility, otherwise they would have been immobilized.

          4. From Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease

            Much of the logistical assistance of the Soviet military was provided by hundreds of thousands of U.S.-made trucks and by 1945, nearly a third of the truck strength of the Red Army was U.S.-built. Trucks such as the Dodge 3⁄4-ton and Studebaker 2+1⁄2-ton were easily the best trucks available in their class on either side on the Eastern Front. American shipments of telephone cable, aluminum, canned rations and clothing were also critical.[40] Lend-Lease also supplied significant amounts of weapons and ammunition. The Soviet air force received 18,200 aircraft, which amounted to about 30 percent of Soviet wartime fighter and bomber production (mid 1941–45).[32] Most tank units were Soviet-built models but about 7,000 Lend-Lease tanks (plus more than 5,000 British tanks) were used by the Red Army, eight percent of war-time production.

            According to the Russian historian Boris Vadimovich Sokolov, Lend-Lease had a crucial role in winning the war:

            On the whole the following conclusion can be drawn: that without these Western shipments under Lend-Lease the Soviet Union not only would not have been able to win the Great Patriotic War, it would not have been able even to oppose the German invaders, since it could not itself produce sufficient quantities of arms and military equipment or adequate supplies of fuel and ammunition. The Soviet authorities were well aware of this dependency on Lend-Lease. Thus, Stalin told Harry Hopkins [FDR’s emissary to Moscow in July 1941] that the U.S.S.R. could not match Germany’s might as an occupier of Europe and its resources.[32]

    4. This is why the west’s dearth of real leaders is so dangerous.
      In the midst of chaos and corruption, people will yearn for what they view as a stern leader.

        1. ‘Morning, Minty, “Cometh the hour, cometh the man.”

          The hour was a long while back, where is the man?

          2. That’s about as close as we get, Anne.

            At least she had the balls to stand by her principles.

      2. I was thinking that earlier, reference the mislaid documents, the outgoing Health Minister, and my comment on the Prince of Wales. Where is El Cid when you need him?

        (Sorry, I didn’t mean you Mr James, please carry on.)

  4. 334848+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    My belief is that when the likes of the fat controller and co are giving credit to the peoples in some form then they are at their most dangerous.
    We could have received a major placement regarding the reset campaign, yet another to give credence to the halal
    parliamentary canteen menu.

    Sunday 27 June: Public anger at different rules for the few meant that Matt Hancock had to resign

    1. If only they could travel abroad for an all expenses paid holiday in sunny Portugal they would have at least 30 detectives on the Hancock case for at least a decade!

    2. Phew. Thank goodness. I can now confess why the rockery is so high and fertile.

    3. Err…. bloke broke quarantine. Police found out about it and bashed his door down.

  7. Remember, if you are able, to check GB News at 10 am which may be Nigel Farage’s first appearance on his new show.

    1. Good morning & happy Sunday Clydesider. In my case I can’t view it as the only UK channel we get here in Israel is that awful BBC clone called Sky News. We get an international version of Sky News UK shown exclusively abroad that is devoid of UK adverts ( IMO the best content they broadcast ! )

      1. Morning E&S, you can watch GB News live via the internet, but I guess you will need to use a VPN to access their web site from your location.

        1. GM & happy Sunday V V O F , I use a laptop & don’t have a internet capable smartphone ( I have an old 3.5G flipper phone ), my tech skills are limited & wouldn’t know how to install any VPN on it .

        2. I’m doing just that VVOF but it is very hesitant on the laptop. GB News needs to sort out the technical transmission side of the package.

          I’ve now given up and happily come back to NoTTLers.

    2. Thanks for that Scotty. I’ve put it on record so I can cut out the dross with the Fast Forward.

    1. Looking at that crowd full of pale skinned people they are not your typical dusky swarthy Londonistaners & since they are not breaking into stores along Oxford Street & looting them the rest of the media will simply ignore or downplay the size of the peaceful protest march!

  9. 334848+ up ticks,
    Did I hear right on the 7 o’clock news that peoples are being asked to open their homes to, in the main, ILLEGALS escaping from free nations.
    I do believe as in a prior post the mass uncontrolled immigration issue WILL be partially solved by compulsory boardering.

    1. That’s interesting Ogga.

      If you live on your own, and have a spare bedroom, then you can certainly accommodate “asylum seekers”.

      Councils will love it because they can then remove the 25% discount on Council Tax for sole occupancy.

      Lots more income for councils.

    2. Morning Oggy. This is just the thin end. The Compulsory Evictions will come later!

    3. This is Tony Blairs 1997 “Social Re-engineering” ( ie. White Genocide ) in action – the replacement of White Britons with the low IQ violent dregs of the 3rd world who will be given British citizenship & unlimited welfare benefits in return for voting for Labour in perpetuity, but with a twist that since nowadays the difference between Blairs pro-EU New Labour & todays Globalist Tory party is minimal, these migrant scum will be treated with preference over White Britons in order to get their votes ASAP.

  10. Belarus dictator floods EU with migrants in retaliation for sanctions. 27 June 2021.

    Local border guards, who used to catch a few dozen trespassers a year, started to stumble upon groups of several dozen people every day, who would surrender and say they were looking for refuge in the European Union.

    “We see that this flow of migrants is regulated by Belarusian authorities as a tool of political pressure, a means of hostile hybrid warfare,” Mantas Adomenas, Lithuania’s deputy foreign minister, told the Sunday Telegraph.

    “We’re dealing with a dictator who is increasingly on the edge of madness and is prepared to do absolutely unspeakable and unpredictable things.”

    Strange. No one says these things about the UK government who import far more of these people.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/27/belarus-dictator-floods-eu-migrants-retaliation-sanctions/

    1. What migrants and where do they come from? Is Belorus a transit point on a recognised route to Europe?

        1. My life’s too short to be faffing around with the Telegraph’s paywall sadly…

          1. Access the Article. Click on Refesh and then press ESC. A few tries should get you what you want!

      2. “Lithuania, an EU nation which shares a 700-kilometre border with Belarus, felt the pain days after Alexander Lukashenko issued the threat in late May.

        Local border guards, who used to catch a few dozen trespassers a year, started to stumble upon groups of several dozen people every day, who would surrender and say they were looking for refuge in the European Union.

        Lithuania this year received over 507 migrants, mostly Iraqi men, from Belarus, six times higher than last year’s number. Most of them arrived over the last three weeks.“

        1. Thank you! Honestly, the international politics of migration is truly disgusting.

  11. Good morning all.

    Perhaps with Hancock gone, could this be the chance for an, ahem, Great Reset of the government’s approach to Covid? Perhaps the focus could be on getting on with our lives, rather than coming up with reasons not to? There could be a ‘red team/blue team’ approach to the models of SAGE, with a second group established to mark their homework and challenge the assumptions behind their models? The NHS could build bed capacity over the summer so that we don’t have to protect it again in the winter? It could start to focus on the 5m+ people who are awaiting treatment from the National Covid Service? Most of all, could we have a cost/benefit analysis of lockdowns and ideally rule out in law ever doing this again?

    Or, we could just get another patsy to carry on in the same, wonderfully-successful mode as before. Let’s see, shall we?

    2. I think this has been brewing for some time – think of the 6 week time lapse between photo and publicity. Through stupidity, the government got itself into a bind and Handycock’s hands-on approach to his job has given them the ‘get-out-of-gaol’ card that they so desperately wanted.

        1. Yes. According to the Tellygraff, he had been presenting ‘facts’ to the Cabinet that chimed with his personal agenda, rather than what was really happening.
          (Yup, colour me surprised as well.)
          I fully realise that the DT is frantically back-pedalling since it unwisely joined in the Covid hysteria, but there may be a nugget of truth in that report. Apparently the June 21st unfreedom delay was influenced by Matty holding back helpful statistics.

        2. That’s a cracking article – thanks for posting! I note that Fataturk made some comment about the possibility of Halfcock returning to office at some stage – “his public service is not over” or some such. Perhaps Boros should read that article in full and reconsider! Now we need a full enquiry into Halfcock’s errors and the contracts he placed, including the one with the firm that employs his paramour’s brother! I’m sure all the rules were followed [sarc].

          3. Having had a further browse at the Telegaffe, the only thing more nauseating than Halfcock’s self congratulatory resignation letter is Fataturk’s reply – “you should leave office very proud of what you have achieved“; “[the Department] provided 11.7 billion items of PPE to the frontline at record speed [I’m not sure if this includes all the stuff that was not fit for purpose?]”; “you should be immensely proud of your service” – the man is a cretin.

          4. ‘Afternoon, Bleau, “Perhaps Boros should read that article in full …”

            …and also the BTL comments.

        3. That’s a cracking article – thanks for posting! I note that Fataturk made some comment about the possibility of Halfcock returning to office at some stage – “his public service is not over” or some such. Perhaps Boros should read that article in full and reconsider! Now we need a full enquiry into Halfcock’s errors and the contracts he placed, including the one with the firm that employs his paramour’s brother! I’m sure all the rules were followed [sarc].

    3. I think they will make a huge thing about “end of lockdowns forever” while trying to impose freedom conditional upon vaxx passports.

    4. If a different i.e. anti-Hancock style approach materialises then it’s probable that his departure was engineered. The question then is, who engineered it? Hancock could have been dispensed with many times over the last year, but he wasn’t. Now he falls from grace for being exposed as the hypocrite many of us knew he is. Being a hypocrite is the least of his sins.
      Hancock appeared to have free rein over his actions and with an indolent and all-round weak Prime Minister he held sway. Shaming him for his personal life choices and breaking the draconian rules he was so fond of seems small beer compared to, for instance, his blatant lying, but nevertheless this minor transgression did for him because it resonated with a growing restlessness within the people.

      1. I know I was chucked out of ‘O’ Level maffs, but I make that 9 years and 2 weeks.

        1. Nothing wrong with your maths. It is my typing. It should be 2021 and not 2012!
          I am suffering from late onset dyslexia. Or maybe whatever the Latin is for “all thumbs”. or maybe cack-handed…

      2. Since it’s Westminster City Council, maybe they’re looking for room for 650 bodies cut down from lamp-posts. Maybe even another 800 or so dressed in ermine.

        1. Please see below. My typing certificate has expired. Yes, I do have one.

  14. I assume that the slimeball spamhead slammer has rejoined the “government” because he can tell that the skids are under BPAPM – and because he can claim to be untainted by the covid nonsense.

      1. Quite, dear. But he could have maintained the position of “principle” upon which he resigned (because BPAPM is a useless idiot) and refused the invitation.

        I believe that he agreed to return because he thinks that BPAPM is on the way out, and that he, slammer, has a good chance to replace BPAPM.
        And he can claim not to have been involved with the plage debacle (except for voting for all th restrictions, of course – but then they all did).

        Do keep up…

          1. Ooooh! You are Ronnie Barker of Old London Town and I claim my five bob Postal Order.

        2. Boris Johnson is a disaster but so are most of his possible replacements.

      2. However much Boris Johnson did not want the Muslim back in government his new wife probably told him that she did want him and that was that.

        Talking of reprobates, even before Megsit in a rare moment of honesty Harry said: “What Meghan wants Meghan gets.” Will Johnson admit that he is just as uxorious as the sixth in line to the British trhrone?

  15. US to keep 650 troops in Afghanistan to protect diplomats from insurgent attacks. 27 June 2021.

    America will keep roughly 650 troops in Afghanistan to secure diplomats after the main US force completes its withdrawal in the coming days.

    This is just to get them to the airport safely à la Saigon 1975. Lol. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/25/us-keep-650-troops-afghanistan-protect-diplomats-insurgent-attacks/

  17. Good morning all,

    Poured with rain an hour ago , and drizzling now . Moh playing golf , second day of their club championship , wet weather gear , yesterday was a shorts day.

    The mole is having fun in the garden !!!

  18. Yo all

    I cannot resist posting this letter

    SIR – I feel sorry for Matt Hancock. Has no one heard the saying “He who is without sin, cast the first stone”?

    Roger Crudge Basingstoke, Hampshire

    I do not know whether Roger is ‘aving a laff, or is serious

    I do know that when the stoning of Bad Cock starts, i want to be there*

    I want it to be on Chesil Beach as we will never, ever, ever run out of stones to throw at him

    The timely death should cause a By-election

    *Social distancing, masks, crowds gathering do not apply to Hancock

    1. There is a much graver crime for which he must pay…..the failure to save lives when a remedy was at hand which he knew about and ignored.

      1. 334848+ up ticks,
        Morning E,
        Although deserved, that applies to the many not just the one.

    2. I am amazed that nobody seems remotely worried that neither the prime minster nor his former health secretary don’t give a toss about betraying their wives and children. There is a taboo about criticising adulterers and very few politicians are prepared to suggest that a person who can quite happily and without any signs of conscience break his or her promises to his or her spouse and children may be just as cavalier in keeping his or her word to the electorate.
      At a personal level many of us have seen in our own families the devastating effects that a parent’s adultery can have on children’s mental health.

      2. I wanted to make this point when they were choosing Boris as leader, but it would have been howled down as old fashioned.
        A psychopath can be an effective leader, but the fact is that someone with a messy private life is going to be distracted from their job.

  19. Morning all.

    SIR – Matt Hancock, the man who set the rules as Health Secretary, flouted them while the rest of us had to decide who could attend a funeral, who missed out on wedding celebrations, which friends and family we hugged (never mind kissed).

    We have had to wear masks and put up with steamed-up glasses, skin irritations and hot flushes. We have had to remain socially distanced and faff about with one-way systems.

    Unlike those at the G7 barbecue, football VIPs and F1 participants, we have had to quarantine if we travelled abroad. One rule for the many and another rule for the few.

    Victoria de Naeyer

    Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire

    SIR – We had been told it was a “private matter” when Matt Hancock was caught embracing his aide at work.

    I would like to think that it is a “private matter” when I want to hug my husband and hold his hand as he lies dying in a care home.

    ADVERTISING

    Unfortunately, due to Mr Hancock’s rules, I have to book a time slot and wait for 30 minutes in the car park for the result of the mandatory lateral flow test. If it is negative, I then have to wear a mask, gloves and apron before I am allowed into his room for any physical contact.

    Margaret Beagles

    Gloucester

    Placeholder image for youtube video: 6QQWER16J78

    SIR – Matt Hancock, we are able to see, engaged in activity that, at the time he indulged in it, was a criminal offence.

    He himself had a part in implementing laws which had the potential to criminalise natural and reasonable interactions between family members and close friends. We have read of prosecutions and fines.

    Surely Mr Hancock should now face the law and answer to it.

    John Macro

    Banstead, Surrey

    SIR – Betrayal of the public is a resigning matter and Matt Hancock has resigned, but an even more important issue lies at the heart of the affair – the security of the state has been jeopardised.

    Who installed covert surveillance equipment in the office of a Minister of the Crown? Why was it not detected? A huge effort must be made to ensure that no other government offices have been similarly violated.

    Advertisement

    ADVERTISING

    It may be calling for the impossible, but every effort must be made to detect whoever was responsible for this outrage.

    Neville Teller

    London N13

    SIR – It is unlikely that Matt Hancock was the only politician – of any party – to break the rules. However, his position in leading the country to save the NHS by practising safe interaction was completely compromised. The view in our socially distanced pub was that the man was not fit for office.

    Robert Barlow

    Little Bookham, Surrey

    Placeholder image for youtube video: KIiQvCNzU7s

    SIR – What a pity Boris Johnson decided to leave Mr Hancock in place and wait to see what public opinion said. Mr Johnson reduced the sanctioning of a minister to the level of a game show.

    Peter Wickison

    Driffield, East Yorkshire

    SIR – I feel sorry for Matt Hancock. Has no one heard the saying “He who is without sin, cast the first stone”?

    Roger Crudge

    Basingstoke, Hampshire

    SIR – The contrast could scarcely be greater between Allison Pearson’s attack on the Health Secretary and the two words – “Poor man” – used by the Queen to describe him during her audience with the Prime Minister this week.

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    To this I would add two Covid jabs delivered by the NHS into my arm and the arms of millions of others. To my mind Boris Johnson had been right to accept Mr Hancock’s apology and let him get on with the job.

    Lt-Col Nicholas Cooper (retd)

    Barford St Martin, Wiltshire

    The perks of HS2 are dwarfed by the damage

    SIR – About 50 years ago, when I was a young lecturer at Warwick University, I was invited to present a seminar at Imperial College London but got the date wrong.

    At lunchtime I received a call from my irate host already eating with colleagues, asking where I was. I immediately drove to Coventry station, caught the first train to Euston and took the Underground to South Kensington, arriving just in time to deliver my lecture at 5pm. If this journey were repeated with HS2 – assuming the train stopped at Coventry – the saving in time might allow me to have a cup of coffee before the lecture.

    Having adopted one Corbynite policy by nationalising the railways, the Government should now enact another by cancelling HS2, preventing further destruction of natural habitats and species, as well as colossal expenditure.

    Advertisement

    Moreover, the claim that HS2 would bolster the Northern Powerhouse is wrong. The North East needs investment now. HS2 will merely help a few Birmingham businesspeople get home 10 minutes sooner for dinner.

    Professor Bernard T Golding

    Whitley Bay, Northumberland

    SIR – HS2 is being built to provide extra capacity. It will allow most longer-distance services to be diverted away from the current West Coast Main Line and free up capacity for more freight services.

    The suggestion that it is being built for an elite few is wrong: almost all services between the London area, West Midlands, North West and Scotland will benefit from it.

    Infrastructure works cause some disruption during construction, but the finished products are normally worthwhile. Residents of west Kent will know that HS1 is almost invisible and allows local train services to operate more frequently, while almost all services to east Kent use that high-speed line to reach London.

    Stuart Hicks

    Reading, Berkshire

    SIR – It may be too late to cancel HS2 but it is not too late to change it.

    Advertisement

    The project was originally conceived to shorten journey times, meaning that intermediate stops were excluded. The development of rail as a comfortable mobile workstation has changed all that, and the new justification for it is increased capacity. The beneficiaries of more stops would include the people of Amersham and Chesham, who are presently having to endure the huge costs without any reward.

    A station just to the north of Aylesbury would enable a whole swathe of the country north of London to use the line. At this point it could connect to the new East West line between Oxford and Cambridge, increasing HS2’s benefit to the North.

    Michael Franklin

    Tring, Hertfordshire

    Placeholder image for youtube video: WQDGls3MrkA

    Pointless traveller tests

    SIR – It came as no surprise that, even with the slight relaxation of the Government’s travel restrictions, the nonsensical testing regime remained unchanged.

    We recently returned from Madeira (with negative Covid tests), submitted our day-two tests and got the results four days later. What on Earth is the point of this, other than to generate cash for the Government?

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    The whole thing has been a farce, from start to (almost) finish. We should all be making claims against the Government for misuse of public funds and the cost of these futile tests.

    Peter Murray

    Nottingham

    SIR – The US Food and Drug Administration has advised Americans not to use lateral flow tests, but to dispose of them on the grounds that they are unreliable.

    However, in the United Kingdom we are advised to self-test twice a week. Is this an attempt by the Government to use up the enormous number of tests purchased and hide a gargantuan waste of public money?

    Jane Collinson Brown

    Cowes, Isle of Wight

    SIR – Grant Shapps has said that he hopes to allow fully vaccinated people to visit amber-list countries without quarantining on their return “later in the summer”. Why not now?

    What does Mr Shapps think will change to make it possible? Or is this yet another case of kicking the can down the road in order to avoid taking decisions? He has also said that it will only apply initially to returning British holidaymakers. This means that, if I were to return from the US with my son and daughter-in-law (who live there and are both double-vaccinated, as I am), I would not need to quarantine but they would. Is the US vaccine of a different quality, or is there another reason?

    Advertisement

    Dr Martin Keech

    Guildford, Surrey

    Giveaway grammar

    SIR – It’s easier to change accent than grammatical constructions (Letters, June 20).

    A London-speaking friend was amazed when I identified him as Yorkshire-born. He’d just said while instead of until (as in: “Wait while Christmas and see what Santa brings you”). It’s as good a giveaway as whenever from someone brought up in Ulster (as in: “Whenever his right leg was amputated…”).

    Mike Wells

    Ickwell, Bedfordshire

    Perverse planning

    SIR – Our village had one truly rural, single-track lane left. It was a place where you could watch the deer in the adjoining meadow, hear birdsong and see how many plants you could identify.

    Next to it is the village cemetery, whose incumbents include the man responsible for raising the bells – including Big Ben – in the Elizabeth Tower.

    It was also a haven where, as our vicar explained to a planning inspector, those suffering from depression or anxiety could go to find peace in nature.

    No more. Aided by planning officials (but not the planning committee) and the inspector, more than 60 trees have been cut down, the deer scattered, and 40 homes of no merit are rising on the meadow which it was once such a pleasure to look at.

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    That is progress.

    June Green

    Bagshot, Surrey

    Obstructive banks

    SIR – Earlier this week I tried to subscribe to a new issue of shares that was expected to be fully taken up very quickly. Halifax initially blocked my application. By the time it was authenticated, the window of opportunity had passed.

    The prospective payment was to a broker I had made many payments to over the last four and a half years, most recently in April this year. There was no reason to query it. Halifax did not act in my best interests; it was merely protecting itself.

    Will banks ever again put the customer first?

    Peter Robinson

    Lichfield, Staffordshire

    Weighing pupils

    SIR – As a doctor who has specialised in treating children with anorexia, I am extremely concerned by the Government’s proposal to weigh primary schoolchildren.

    If they want to address the present epidemic of childhood eating disorders, I would urge staff not to tell these very young children how much they weigh.

    Without taking their exact ages and heights into account, the weights themselves are useless. A lot of children could be worried unnecessarily and decide to embark on stringent diets.

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    Dr Dee Dawson

    London N20

    1. Who installed covert surveillance equipment in the office of a Minister of the Crown?

      Why was it not detected? A huge effort must be made to ensure that no other government offices have been similarly violated.

      It may be calling for the impossible, but every effort must be made to detect whoever was responsible for this outrage.

      Get a life Neville. These people spy on us every day!

      1. I read somewhere that it had been installed to see whether Halfcock was making illegal or fraudulent deals for NHS kit with his chums – or, perhaps, the relatives of chums…

      2. Good morning, Minty

        The sheer rottenness of this government is now on open display but they should try to get to the bottom of how the interior spying equipment was installed. But of course Boris Johnson does not want to do so and I suspect that his wife arranged it.

        1. Morning Richard. Well it was in a Ministry Office so it is difficult to see it being his wife. It was probably MI5’s dirty tricks Department!

        2. Blighty has the highest concentration of CCTV cameras in the world.
          Westminster would be festooned with them.
          Nice to see our rulers getting a taste of their own blanket survelllance regime.

    2. Dr Dawson – when I was nobbut a lad, one as weighed and measured at the start of every school term. What on earth was wrong with that?

  20. 334848+up ticks,
    May one say,
    The twatologists are slow on the uptake, no crowd george floyd type fund set up for a statue of digit dick yet.

  21. Good morning all. An overcast & dull start this morning with 10°C in the yard.
    Surprising as it was a lovely evening last night. I did my circular walk and going over Middleton Moor was exquisite!

    1. Morning Ogga!

      GB News covered the march this morning. Apparently Richard Tice hired the helicopter from which those pictures were taken, to ensure there is an accurate record.

    2. The question is surely rhetorical. This is everything the BBC hates. A group of people seeking independence, liberty, and freedom from the state. That’s practically enemy number 1!

    3. I’m a bit confused – where does a march from Hyde Park to Oxford Street and Whitehall cross a major thoroughfare in woodland?

      1. 334848+ up ticks,
        Evening NtN,
        The mrs was watching it on Youtube that would give an idea of the route.

  23. Classified Ministry of Defence documents containing details about HMS Defender and the British military have been found at a bus stop in Kent.

    One set of documents discusses the likely Russian reaction to the ship’s passage through Ukrainian waters off the Crimea coast on Wednesday.

    Another details plans for a possible UK military presence in Afghanistan after the US-led Nato operation there ends.

    The government said an investigation had been launched.

    A Ministry of Defence spokesperson said an an employee had reported the loss of sensitive defence papers, adding: “It would be inappropriate to comment further.”

    The documents, almost 50 pages in all, were found in a soggy heap behind a bus stop in Kent early on Tuesday morning.

    A member of the public, who wishes to remain anonymous, contacted the BBC when he realised the sensitive nature of the contents.

    The BBC believes the documents, which include emails and PowerPoint presentations, originated in the office of a senior official at the Ministry of Defence (MoD).

    The documents relating to the Royal Navy’s Type 45 destroyer, HMS Defender, show that a mission described by the MoD as an “innocent passage through Ukrainian territorial waters”, with guns covered and the ship’s helicopter stowed in its hangar, was conducted in the expectation that Russia might respond aggressively.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57624942

    1. Good morning, Maggie.

      As Minty will confirm, it is a well know fact that Russian spies travel by bus. The chap must have read the material, realised it was rubbish and simply put it down when he got off the bus!!

      1. Well soaked with Novichok? Such public spirited chaps wouldn’t want to pass on covid.

    2. First Hancock and now this. Who is trying to bring Johnson and his cabal down?😎

      1. It all seems just a little too convenient. The single shot photograph and all the rest of this nonsense. And Mr Javid, surely this is designed to attract more votes. The civil service have had plenty of practice at this type of subterfuge.

      2. They’re doing that without our having to lift a finger.

        Tax hikes, the control freakery nonsense, the insane green fanaticism, the big state agenda, pensions savings limits, the continued assault on by to let. The refusal to halt and return the gimmigrants.

    3. Nice to know that MoD employees are using public transport rather than their evil, polluting cars.
      So very Green and will win Carrie Antoinette’s approval.

      1. I think that they were a bit under the weather and couldn’t get a taxi. Where does Ben Wallace live? ((Just asking.)

    4. Interestingly, all most exactly the same as my analysis after ten minutes with the Times Atlas map of the Crimea/Black Sea. It was “poking the bear”.
      What I would really like to know is why. Was it at the request of the US, to test the level of ownership that Russia feels for the Crimea? Is the US considering sneaking weapons to the Ukraine to give Russia problems?

    5. If it was an ‘innocent passage through Ukrainian territorial waters’ why was there a DM reporter and a bbc correspondent on board?

    6. “innocent passage”…”guns covered”…”helicopter in its hanger”…

      “was conducted in the expectation that Russia might respond aggressively.”

      Yep. That definitely sounds like our MOD.

      Sod the crew. Let’s tempt an international incident possibly leading to all out war.

    10. I’m surprised that the finder understood they were classified. The state uses such impenetrable gibberish that it’s practically in code.

      Rather raises the question of what were they doing being printed and out of the office?

  24. Section from DT article on Handycock’s … um … c0ck-ups.

    “Last weekend saw a further breakdown of trust between Mr Hancock and his colleagues in Government and on the backbenches when The Telegraph revealed that he failed to tell Mr Johnson about a major Public Health England (PHE) study showing the effectiveness of vaccines against the Indian or delta variant during a key meeting to decide whether to extend Covid restrictions.

    The Health Secretary had known about the PHE data three days before the “quad” of four senior ministers, led by the Prime Minister, met to decide whether to postpone the planned June 21 reopening until July 19.

    However, multiple sources familiar with the meeting said it was not raised by Mr Hancock or discussed at all during the course of the talks.”

    Once the country erupted over the delay of’Freedom Day’, the appearance of that photo was inevitable.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/06/26/hopeless-hancock-catalogue-errors-misjudgments-laid-bare/

  25. He’s not a quitter’: faithful out in force as Trump gets back to the campaign trail. 27 June 2021.

    There were raucous cheers and boos. There were Secret Service agents and metal detectors, food trailers in long grass and loudspeakers booming songs by Elton John and Dolly Parton. There were flags, hats, and T-shirts proclaiming Donald Trump the true winner of the 2020 election – or the man to beat in 2024. And flying overhead was a small plane trailing a banner that proclaimed: “Ohio is Trump country.”

    This strange carnival, unfolding on Saturday under the slogan Save America!, was the setting for Trump’s first post-presidential campaign rally and a noisy warning to Democrats – and democracy – that his cult of personality never went away. It was merely sleeping and, in hibernation, becoming ever more extreme.

    Although Trump has lost his hi-tech mouthpiece on social media, he still has the low-tech medium of standing in a field and ranting dangerous falsehoods to thousands of fans whose adulation and sense of grievance knows no bounds.

    One would hope that Trump is not a quitter since there is no one else on the horizon at present who stands for what America once was. One notes here the authors casual reference to his being expunged from Twitter. A sitting President of the United States. If it wasn’t a coup it was pretty close!

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/27/hes-not-a-quitter-faithful-out-in-force-as-trump-gets-back-to-the-campaign-trail

    1. Meanwhile only a broadcaster as skilled the BBC in fake news and misleading reporting could have achieved its ‘box ticked’ non-coverage of this massive rally. As I began writing this piece, its front news page’s specious report was on ‘thousands of demonstrators marching through London in a day of protests‘. There was no mention of the main one, and the only one of real news interest – the anti-lockdown, anti-vaccine pro-freedom march – instead collapsing this huge march with other far less notable ones. By the time of filing, even that story had disappeared off the main section of that page, thanks no doubt to Hancock’s resignation.

      This woman is a Nottler in spirit if not in fact!

      1. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-57623110
        These two sentences stand out for their misdirection:
        Whether it was austerity or Palestine, lockdown or the NHS, campaigners of all ages and backgrounds wanted to make their voices heard today.
        and
        Extinction Rebellion held a Kill the Bill protest alongside the anti-lockdown march.
        I was there fore a couple of hours – I did not see one Palestinian flag, nor NHS Campaigner, nor Kill the Bill. Just thousands of people of all ages, many with their kids, voicing their refusal of government policy. The BBC want to drown the British voices of dissent and to pretend they are just a motley of complainers.
        NOT true.
        https://photos.app.goo.gl/1BXxdhu5Dc8Xwi3H6

      1. Whereabouts? (I appreciate you are now off somewhere else – I’m just interested).

        1. We’ve used a CMC affiliated commercial site (Love2Stay) for the first time . I wasn’t too sure about it but it has serviced pitches and impeccable facilities.At just a few minutes from the town centre and surrounded by places of interest (NT and EH) and breathtaking scenery It has been a great centre to explore from. The site offers activities including Archery, I managed mostly to hit the butt. A lively site with lots of families but all well behaved.

          1. Shrewsbury town centre? Or Ludlow? Both have interesting architecture and NT and EH properties nearby (we is a rich county in terms of culture, history and breathtaking views).

  27. The Sunday Grimes is all over the “story”, of course. I think it is the first time I have seen Halfcock without that ghastly smirk – which he always wore when coshing us further.

    Shatts (sic) has the same one – and I look forward to his public auto-destruction.

  29. What’s this nonsense from the new Health Secretary? Age differential to kick start the economy? Maybe he’s not aware that people over 45 years of age are adults and would like to make their own decisions re freedoms that are their birthright. Why do politicians behave like simpletons and complicate matters?

    Ronald Reagan was right:
    “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.”

    https://twitter.com/RichardHilton1/status/1408908062606376961

  30. A Rose By Any Other Name

    A drunken blonde goes into a bar in America. The bartender asks her what she would like to drink. She replies,

    “Gimme a beer.”

    The bartender then asks her, “Anheuser Busch?”

    To which she replies, “Fine thanks, and how’s your pecker?”

    1. Good Morning & Happy Sunday NTN, I thought you were going to tell the one about the drunken blonde hooker who goes into a bar & orders a bourbon, downs it & then quickly another 4 & so the bartender asks her to pay up. She takes out a brand new $100 bill from her purse & gives it to the bartender who looks it over & says ” hey lady this a counterfeit $100 bill ” so she shouts out ” Quick call the cops a fellow just raped me in the alley behind the bar!”

        2. Is the chap who makes the holes in the ends of toothbrushes still doing his job? And is honey still off the menu?

          1. Happy Sunday Rastus, such things are closely guarded secrets that can not be revealed to the uninitiated in the sacred rites of the Grand Order of the White Knights of Balham. Its not widely known that King Richard set off on the Crusades from Balham after the monks of Balham Cathedral blessed the Holly hand grenade of Antioch that was entrusted to their safekeeping during the Crusades!

      2. Hello Maggie, it certainly is. OT . In your part of the county have you observed an explosion in the growth of everything green?

        In the forest, wide paths have been reduced to 2 ft wide with thick greenery towering above people. There are huge areas of ferns that are taller than me (6ft 4″), Nettles are 5ft tall. There is an abundance of Silver Birch saplings. Lupins and Foxgloves are growing majestically. Grasses are as tall as the nettles and brambles are everywhere.

        I haven’t seen anything like it before.

        1. I have had secondary growth on my Apple and Cherry. Seems to have ruined the fruit, though.

        2. Neither have I DB, everything has grown , and the heather on heathland is appearing in flower already.

          Seems to be an absence of insects, bees and butterflies and moths despite the countryside flourishing the way it is.

          Our uncut roadside verges haven’t attracted vast amounts of insects , Dorset Council was hoping the uncutness would be an asset for creepy crawlies.

  32. Breaking News
    Hancock – I’ve let myself down.
    I’ve let my wife down,
    I’ve let my family down.
    I’ve let the government down,
    I’ve let my party down,
    I’ve let the voters down,
    I’ve let the NHS down,
    I’ve let my pants down.

    1. If Peter Jones, who had an unbroken record of attendance at ‘Dragons’ Den’ since it started, can abide by rules and self-isolate, bringing in old chum Theo Paphetis, why can’t other BBC types?

  34. The Daily Human Stupidity.

    “It’s the fools that make all the trouble in the world, not the wicked.”

    L. M. Montgomery.

    1. And the politics of blatant Tom foolery.
      I wonder if Mr Cummings is the fool, our PM or Mr Hancock ? Or all.
      The public are certainly being taken as Fools. Again.

  35. This won’t be popular… but our Navy’s Black Sea antics were stupid. Peter Hitchens 27 June 2021.

    I don’t much like the term ‘white working class’, as I’m hostile to the use of skin colour as a way of describing people. And a new report, saying that this group have been failed by the education system, has got mixed up in a stupid row about ‘white privilege’, another term I dislike.

    This is not about skin. It is about a cultural revolution which just so happens to have knocked all the props away from the English people. We have closed down the great industries in which we were proud to work. We have broken up the communities in which we lived, with crude concrete housing projects. We have destroyed the grammar schools through which we could rise to the very top without any privilege or wealth.

    All these things are bad but, perhaps worst of all, we have destroyed the stable, married families in which we once grew up and we have more or less abolished fathers. And if anyone complains about this, they are called ‘racist’ or ‘misogynist’ and falsely accused of attacking single mothers.

    All part of the plan Peter!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-9728423/PETER-HITCHENS-wont-popular-Navys-Black-Sea-antics-stupid.html

    1. Since WSC we have never had a leader (possibly one) who was prepared to stand up for the beliefs and supported our advanced culture. We have blindly been patient and rather too helpful to so many people of other cultures and they have seen kindness as a weakness to be exploited. The people who have desecrated statues of past hero’s of revelation need to go to African countries where they had white rule and law and order and look at the absolute mess these countries once successful for all are in now. And don’t hold you breath statue and culture wreckers, you are making this happen through you ignorance of history. Not just weak kneed footballer but whole nations of well meaning and honest people will be on their knees as a result.

    2. Let’s just stand idly by whilst Russia hoovers up the Ukraine, Georgia, the Baltic states and the rest of Eastern Europe shall we? How did that work out for the inhabitants last century?

      1. Whoever in the EU or US thought that the Russians were going to risk losing their Western warm water military access was so stupid in buggered belief.
        As for embarrassing ourselves by provoking the Russians to see us off like this…

      2. I think that those days are gone. What do we have that Russia could possibly want?

          1. They have already got Mayfair. The gangsters have moved in, excuse me, the oligarchs have moved in. Maybe their fine houses could be nationalised by the Russian State. It would be a sensible first step, although they already now own the football clubs?

      3. Those countries are on the Marches. Buffer states, if you will. It is a perpetual diplomatic challenge.
        IMHO the cyrillic script is part of the problem, because it ties Russia culturally to Asia.

      4. Another way of looking at it is Russia is saving those countries from the invasion of muslim hordes.

      1. My thoughts too. I think the whole thing is a sham, the spouses leaving home, everything. Spouses don’t usually depart as quickly as that. I think it is all theatre.

          3. Wiki tells who she is and I have no complaints with that, J, as I’m sure she (Martha) hasn’t.

        2. His body language is wrong, IMHO.
          My only guess is that they are trying to bury some bad news. Here’s why: Mrs Hancock is from a political background and would have been fully aware of the likelihood of Uganda at Westminster.

          1. ‘Afternoon, Tim, Martha Hancock is an osteopath and the nearest to a political background is her Grandfather who was an Ambassador to Western Germany.

          2. Yes. Exactly that. And stuff is beginning to rise to the surface, the truth will out.

            It must have all seemed so easy in their common rooms, plotting and planning over canapés and Chablis with their mates, completely divorced from the realities of life.

            His body language is wrong, so is La Lollo’s and that of his wife the day after.

  37. Going boating shortly. Past week travelled from Guildford to Newbury – very few boats moving on the Thames between Shepperton and Reading but lots of fowls: One flock of swans numbering in excess of 100, two flocks of geese each in excess of 200 birds; a flight of 12 Cormorants and at least 15 Red Tailed Kites wheeling (and dealing?) over one field. Plus one plucky duck. Au revoir. S

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ef66238c99e4978396cdd0dd589be16f31fbe8824f511a405147e5b6e6a07b2d.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0ca73e2810235144f687b0c613cc575439ee15ebebc8b829ced89fdd96715710.jpg

    2. Did you see Caroline’s post yesterday about the risks of being attacked by a psychopathic waterfowl in your own home?

      1. No, but I saw her enlightening link to a scientific paper about Covid vaccination. Please could you pass on my thanks (quicker than searching for the original comment). A care worker acquaintance told me yesterday that all jabs carry a small risk, and that generally quite a few of the very old folk succumb to a flu jab.
        PS haven’t seen the psycho-fowl post, but many birds try to protect their young.

  38. We are off to church now, for our youngest grandson’s Christening. Masks must be worn. I expect the collection plate will be out as well.

    2. Ignore the mask – just tell them that you are “an important person” © Whittingdale MP.

    3. In our church (I was AWOL this morning) the collection plate is left at the back (we no longer have an offertory, although the choir sings a hymn). We also have a pay-station for those who don’t carry cash.

      1. After the delightful ceremony with many young children, the little fellas cousins, the collection plate must have had well above a hundred quid in cash. I hope the vicar or the church warden scooped it all up quickly after the last person left.

  39. BTL comments excoriating Johnson, Sunak and the rest of the wimps in government: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/06/26/rishi-sunak-must-confiscate-governments-credit-card-say-tory/

    I wonder if the majority seemingly happy for lockdown to continue were told that for that 4 weeks extension they’d have to work 2 weeks for the government for free, based on overspending per taxpayer running at half the average wage? Whilst some of that 2 weeks would be required even without lockdown, we should be comparing the cost vs the cost of 4 weeks when it’s long over, leaving most of it required.

    1. You can be sure we will be stung for higher taxes of one sort or another to pay for this pharma bonanza.

    2. I imagine if the lockup advocates were told they’d not be paid for the lock up period it suddenly wouldn’t be needed.

      As for government expenditure – these fools are talking about getting the money back through higher taxes to ‘make up the shortfall’.

      It’s our bluddy munny! All officials should be informed that for every month they have not made real terms cuts in their department’s spending they will face a pay cut of 10%. Oh, they’ll lie and dodge and fiddle in which case, 20%. Of course, the home office ill immediately cut police numbers out of spite, in which case, sack the entire senior management of that department.

      The state needs to learn it is a wasteful, expensive mess than needs to be brought in line.

  40. Andrew Marr reveals he suffered a ‘nasty’ bout of Covid LAST WEEK despite having BOTH jabs
    The 61-year-old made the stunning admission this morning on his TV show
    Described symptoms akin to ‘summer cold’ which were ‘really quite unpleasant’
    He missed the programme last week and was replaced by Nick Robinson

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9729785/Andrew-Marr-reveals-suffered-nasty-bout-Covid-despite-having-jabs.html

    I would not usually dream of believing anything Andrew Marr says but on this occasion he is probably telling the truth. I read a story a couple of days ago saying that a very high percentage of people in Israel who have had the injections are getting Covid and Caroline, who plays the organ at funerals says there has been a sharp rise in deaths in our rural area (where Covid rates are very low) of old people who have had the vaccines not, of course, that that is statistically relevant.

    Marr says he thinks he caught the virus in Cornwall where suddenly, after the G7 conference Cornwall soared from being one of the lowest areas of Covid to one of the highest. Of course the report on BBC SW TV News insisted that the rise has nothing to do with G7

    1. Nothing to do with G7, oh no.

      Just because the bigwigs arrived after the cases were already rising doesn’t mean that all the security people and technicians, press etc etc weren’t there for a significant time preparing the ground for those bigwigs and can’t have brought the virus in, of course not.
      Lying Hancocks.

    2. But he only missed one week’s programme – so it was hardly a serious illness, and summer colds are usually “quite unpleasant” – I’ve had some memorable corkers – 2013 and 2017 were “really quite unpleasant”.

      Anyway, it seems the vaccine doesn’t stop infection, maybe just lessens the effects.

      1. Or the test detected a common cold as covid-19 because it is not fit for the purpose.

  41. 334848+ up ticks,
    May one ask, is it not double standards being used as in
    digit dick kissing a female in an out of order manner and being awarded the DCM by the peoples, yet those same
    peoples in many cases ( lab/lib/con) member / voters
    continuing to kiss X L/L/ C candidates in the polling booth
    in selecting YET another sh!te governance overseeing group of political cretins, replicating the last three decades.

  42. As I was potting on the Swiss Chard* – I thought, at least Halfcock was a “hands on” politician.

    I’ll get me dibber.

    * Anyone living in Norfolk want some??

    1. It’s a great vegetable, cut and come again over a long season. I prefer it to most types of cabbage.

    2. There is an episode of The Simpsons (an animated television series) where the action takes place in the 18th century, and John Hancock (a politician) is a protagonist. The joke is that his original surname was Footpenis, which he decides to change.

    3. Thanks, but my Swiss Chard is about 6 feet tall and seedy. Perhaps I will catch it in time next year.

    4. Drat, I wish I were nearer. One of my favourite vegetables, and so beautiful (well, the rainbow versions at least).

  43. Anyone get the feeling that the Health Secretary show is a pantomime? At least one Nottler suggested so yesterday.

    1. It’s all theatre to hide something else, and/or to move on from one phase to the next in their plans, sweeping the debris from phase 1 under the carpet. A new broom sweeps clean, they are hoping.

      1. Slimeball slammer won’t. He’ll pretend to – but he won’t. You read it here first….{:¬((

          1. Oh yes, a happy band of Muslim brothers , as they slither closer with even more outrageous deals .

            Khan … and Javid and the other one … oh yes .. I must look at the tea leaves later!

    2. My view – for what little it’s worth:

      The Civil Service was increasingly suspicious that Halfcock was engaged in fraud with his pals – and his pals’ relations – over NHS kit. They knew that he – quite improperly – used a private e-mail account to do Govt business. They wanted to catch him out.

      They also knew that he was having it off with Mrs Lollobrigida.

      So they put a CCTV camera in a smoke alarm.

      Bingo.

  45. BBC broadcaster Andrew Marr has revealed he was struck down with a “nasty bout” of Covid-19 shortly after returning from a trip to cover the G7 summit in Cornwall earlier this month.

    The newsman had to miss last week’s edition of The Andrew Marr Show and he started this week’s programme by thanking fellow presenter Nick Robinson for standing in for him.

    Marr explained he’d been taken ill with coronavirus despite having had both his vaccinations.

    Opening today’s show, he told viewers: “A warm thank you to Nick Robinson for standing in for me last week. I had a bit of Covid last week, despite being double-jabbed, and very nasty it was too.”

    1. You know what Phizzee, Moh and I felt Hancock was doing a good job, but a few weeks ago he looked very slippery and too straight faced , yet sloppy, and I thought he had lost weight .

      I felt so sick in the stomach to think that he went home last Thursday and announced to his poor confused pretty wife that he was leaving her , and that he woke his 8 year old child up to say goodbye .

      That man should be slapped hard and no one should ever speak to him again .

      He had us all fooled .

      1. I always did think he was a shifty, squirmy little toad………his wife and children deserved better.

        1. It was the obvious pleasure that he showed when imposing more and more regulations and ludicrously enormous fines (plus 10 years in gaol).

          1. And the look of a puppy dog with two tails when he was photographed with Schwab and Gates at the WEF.

      4. I’m afraid ‘smarmy git’ came to my mind the first (and last) time I saw him make a television announcement.

      5. The eternal smirk permanently flickering around his features, the ‘duper’s delight’. And don’t get me started on the so-called crying episode when he could not contain his laughter.

    2. For some bastards their illegitimacy is an accident of birth and hardly their fault – but in Hancock’s case he is a self-made man.

  47. From a letter in the Telegraph . . .

    The George Floyd circus became even more absurd yesterday when members of
    his family were wheeled out to comment on the sentencing of Derek
    Chauvin.. According to his wiki entry and newspaper reports Floyd
    left Houston, Texas in 2014 shortly after he was released from prison
    having served a sentence for aggravated robbery, and moved to
    Minneapolis where he formed a relationship with the woman whose
    parter he was when he was killed.
    This would have been in the same year his daughter Gianna, now aged seven,
    was born and although she stayed with her mother in Huston when
    Floyd left she was one of those called on after Chauvin’s sentencing
    to give a tear-jerking performance saying how she missed her father
    and loved him, describing how he would carry her on his shoulders,
    how they they would have dinner together each night and he would help
    brush her teeth.
    Well as the distance between Huston and and Minneapolis is around 1,300
    miles he either owned a very fast car or racked up a fortune in air
    miles to perform these fatherly functions.. But then Floyd already
    had a record of leaving his children.
    He already had another family in Bryan, Texas before moving to Huston
    leaving a son , Quincy Mason Floyd who is in his 20s, and possibly a younger daughter Connie.
    Quincy is on record as saying he hadn’t seen George since he was four or
    five years old, and had to be told by his mother that Floyd was his father when Floyd’s death became news.
    So much for the “devoted father and family man” as Floyd has been described and one wonders who coached Gianna for yesterday’s little speech.

    What happened to Floyd was certainly dreadful but the way he is being promoted to secular sainthood including using a a seven-year-old child to polish his halo is quite obscene

    1. As Chauvin’s trial and sentence are both obscene. This was a lifelong criminal and drug-dealer who died at his own hand with an overdose of fentynal. What was his defence doing to fall asleep on the job?

      1. They had been bought, Tom. This is the wunnerful U S of A we are talking about.

        1. And remember the 2020 US election? The more concrete evidence of cheating and fraud was presented the more the MSM and especially the BBC said that there was absolutely no evidence to support it. It would be interesting to see if the view that election was ‘fair and square’ is as generally held now as it was then.

        2. Agreed, Bill, what sort of justice system is it that allows Judges to be elected rather than qualified?

    2. “Couple of dozen far right, foam-flecked trouble makers spotted in London” © BBC News.

  50. I’ve just read MH’s resignation letter. The guy cannot even resign with honesty!
    He says he failed to follow the “guidelines”. No-he broke the law.
    He says that that was the reason for him resigning. No- he resigned because he was found out.
    This pillock needs to be brought before a criminal Court on a charge of malfeasance in Public Office. He should also resign as an MP or face a recall.
    How did we end up with creatures like this telling us how to behave?

  51. https://twitter.com/euphrosene/status/1409121165331812352

    An 11-year-old girl has become Britain’s youngest mother after she gave birth earlier this month having fallen pregnant aged just 10 years old, according to reports.

    The mother and her baby, that was delivered after more than 30 weeks of pregnancy, are both healthy and being cared for. The girl has not been named.

    Her family had no idea she was pregnant, according to The Sun. The newspaper reported that social services and council chiefs are investigating the matter.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9729289/Girl-11-Britains-youngest-mother-falling-pregnant-aged-just-TEN.html

    1. I wonder if our Irish Finn has any comment to make – personally, I find it disgusting that Finland can endorse this calumny but maybe they have diktats from their EUSSR masters to comply with.

      1. I get utterly pissed off by the random use of the word ‘Culture’ to describe the lifestyles of these twats. However they conduct their lives, it is very much far removed from anything resembling a Culture.

  52. Making the news on our msm now (it was on rebel news months ago) is a story about how many US and Canadian soldiers were ill during the 2019 military games in Wuhan.

    The attendees were told that Wuhan was quiet because the city was in a lockdown to ensure that athletes could travel freely to the games venues.

    Naturally Trudeau and friends deny any chance that the competitors had caught covid.

  53. I had Yellow Fever and Cholera last week. 100% OK now. Just shows how good the covid-21 vaccine is in so many unexpected ways…{:¬))

  55. Marc Soler finished yesterday’s stage of the Tour De France around 28 minutes behind the leader. He had been in one of the crashes that occurred. He finished the stage, but could not continue the race today because he has two broken arms. Compare and contrast professional cyclists and big jessie wendyballers.

  56. ‘Carrie appoints Saj’: Dominic Cummings claims PM’s wife landed ex-boss Javid with new Health Secretary job in tweet blasting ‘bog-standard’ ex-chancellor who will be ‘awful’ for NHS
    PM’s former top aide said Mr Javid would be ‘awful’ new Health Secretary
    Accusing PM’s wife of having the ‘bog standard’ Sajid Javid appointed
    Matt Hancock quit last night after his affair with an aide was revealed

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9729665/Dominic-Cummings-accuses-Carrie-Johnson-having-bog-standard-Sajid-Javid-Health-Secretary.html

    Dare I say that perhaps Dominic Cummings has our best interests at heart?

    2. I never subscribed to the opinion that Cummings is a monster. I think he’s a good guy in the wrong job and the fact that Greeny Wifey doesn’t like him and got rid of him, speaks volumes. He also sent Squalid Javid into a tail-spin and that was a very good thing – I don’t trust the slap-head one inch!

      1. There’s a piece about Cummings in yesterday’s DT magazine (we get the print copy on Saturdays). My opinion on Cummings is that he’s a high-functioning autistic, probably Aspergers, and once he gets a bee in his bonnet he won’t let go. He’s absolutely out for revenge and he won’t care who falls in his quest to get Boris and Carrie out of no10.

          1. He tweeted a 99 part diatribe a couple of days ago. Everybody’s in the wrong except himself.

          4. Just because somebody like eecummings’s grandson is not good-looking and charming – as many of us here are – it does not mean that he cannot often be right.

        2. In this venture I wish him success.

          Of course the moment Boris Johnson loses power his latest wife will leave immediately.

        3. Some years ago, I was working for a company what was producing an app for a large UK PLC.
          One of the managers at the customer was a bit like Cummings. The guy had been promoted rapidly because he was said to get results.
          He was classless, graceless and didn’t care who he offended. He used to speak to the Chinese team as though they were his servants, while we sat by in appalled silence.
          One time, we were having a business meeting and he pulled out his phone and showed off his latest app, which he thought was marvellous.
          It was a person tracker, which showed the location of his girlfriend in real time, by tracking her phone.
          Yes, this idiot thought that a girlfriend-tracker was the bees knees.

          When I read Cummings’ blog last year, I couldn’t help being reminded.
          Cummings is undoubtedly a good political campaign manager, but he’s clueless on technology, and his big ideas never seem to crystallise. I think we’ve seen the best of what he can do. I’m not terribly impressed by the people that he thinks are tech gurus.

          2. True, Connors, as I’ve said earlier, “Cometh the hour, Cometh the man.”

            But where the fcuk is he and who is he – by God we need him.?

    3. I have thought that for some time, Belle. He wanted to go for herd immunity, not lockdown. He was overruled by Ferguson. When the press went for Cumming’s jugular, that confirmed it for me. He was on our side as much as a political aide can be on our side.

      1. I thought Cummings was pro-lockdowns and it was Boris who was initially against them.

        1. No, I remember that specifically for a reason at the time. Johnson sided with Cummings initially, and then when Ferguson moved in Johnson went with the so-called ‘science’. Cummings lost out to ‘the science.’. The press tried to lose that and then make out Cummings had broken his own guidelines. They were actually Ferguson’s and the rest of Sage. The press conveniently allowed Ferguson’s misdemeanours to slide under the rug, and Cummings became the scapegoat.

    4. Many people here (including myself) and elsewhere came to the immediate conclusion that Johnson’s latest wife told him to appoint Sajid Javid.

      Am I alone in finding it difficult to get his name right and end up Spoonerising and calling him Jajid Savid? The picture of him makes me think that he must be a fan of the actor Yul Brinner and that he copies his idol with his shaven head. It calls to mind that joke that the King of Siam actor was a Liverpool fan because Yul Never Wore Cologne.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7e5411a171e7775775647e1401a7e2087f34091c21e236392afa1a3a6d9f3582.jpg

      1. He may be a Muslim but at least he’s not a bearded one. Not that I like billiard ball bonces, either. He was right to strip Shamima Begum of citizenship, though.

        1. 334848+ up ticks,
          Afternoon N,
          Her cover was blown anyway so she was more use to the cause as seemingly a victim
          also gives javid more credibility.

        2. I disagree heartily about Shamima.
          15 year old child, en route with two school friends to be raped in Syria, managed to fool a bunch of highly trained security personnel & check in staff at London Gatwick Airport. If a teenager can waltz through several layers of security, visible and invisible, might that not indicate that any extremist thug could do likewise? The only reason that Gatwick & Heathrow are not covered in blood & guts & broken glass is that currently it is not in the interests of certain violent organised criminals.

      2. Call me ” hairist” if you like, but I have always been deeply suspicious of men who deliberately choose to shave their heads.

    5. I used to like Cummings a bit, but went off him bigly when he came out as a rabid locker downer.

    6. He really was unWoke, in having a liaison with ‘woman’ were there no ‘nice’ men there for him?

      If there were it would have been virtaslly impossible to sack him

      And, if the manperson were a BAME, Matt the Kn0b would be in Boros’ seat by now

    7. I agree, Mags, if nothing else he was hell-bent on sorting out the snivel serpents – something that Priti awful has failed miserably at.

  58. OWWWW! That hurts!
    Just done a mortar mix and got 17 blocks laid. I think I’ll leave the next lot of block laying until later on in the week.

    Water heater is on so I’ll be off for a bath when it is hot enough.

    2. Put Epsom Salts in the bath, Robert. Works a treat for aching limbs (and backs).

      1. Not got any.
        Feel a lot better though. A couple of paracetamol before bed might be in order!

        1. Well, I recommend you acquire some – it is as cheap as chips and, as I said, works wonders.

        2. The warqueen realised I had been taking codeine almost every day and told me off properly and has forbidden painkillers in the house.

          1. I use them when I need them, which is not often.
            A packet of paracetamol will usually last me a couple of months.

  59. The Chinese Communist party: 100 years that shook the world. 27 June 2021.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ac6cfb0185fa60868848b3d9e16d18ad167ac90692adaa650f155343d9c2dfa1.jpg

    As China marks the centenary of its ruling party, we examine key episodes in its tempestuous history, including the Long March, Mao’s purges and Xi Jinping’s rise to the top of an emerging superpower.

    It should be noted by those with a liking for Marxism that it is Mao that is riding the horse! This said the only good thing about the one hundred year history of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is that it has killed more Chinese during that period than any other people. Probably somewhere in excess of sixty million. Unfortunately there is no guarantee that this will continue!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/27/the-chinese-communist-party-100-years-that-shook-the-world

    1. Another plug…

      When China Rules The World: – Martin Jacques

      The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New
      Global Order.

      Wake up everyone….

    2. The Japanese invasion caused a lot of death and destruction, and indirectly helped Mao.
      The CCP was able to control rural areas, whereas Chiang’s party was a bunch of corrupt opportunists at the beck & call of the USA during WWII.

    3. The Left always imagine they’ll be the ones in charge, but to paraphrase a difficult man: when you win, when you’ve defeated your enemies, what do you do with the people like you? The troublemakers, the difficult, the awkward?

      This is a lesson the Left have never learned – nor wanted to.

  60. Nigel Farage’s programme on GB News featured Andrew Neil at one point, A Fire brigade Union person who was very good, a lady in red and various other people who were interviewed in the studio or from outside in the streets. It was still going at noon. Andrew Neil was his usual self but had an evil left eye which mesmerised me. When he lowered his head the left eye grew bigger due to his thick glasses. I think the programme has promise but it needs some improvement. The Hancock fiasco was the main subject in the first hour. I only saw the first hour and the end of the second.

        1. Afternoon Sos. The soundtrack is interesting as well. Much noise, much booing, much whistling. No signs of the people actually doing it though!

    2. The jury is out on GB News until they do an open and full discussion of the effects of climate change and carbon dioxide.

      The official position and the absurd slogan “The science is fixed” need to be challenged.

  61. Good afternoon all. It seems there are many mourning the departure of Hancock. This is a post from one brainwashed, deluded numpty sheep on the Boris Johnson Supporters facebook page:
    “Thank You Sir for all the hard work you have done to put us on a brilliant recovery from Covid, I’m sorry for the gutter reporting and pics we have been flooded with. Your private life is of no interest to us and should be left private. You are not alone in doing wrong we all do, I hope you will be ok ” 1,700 ‘likes’. Bless.
    Hook, line and sinker.

    2. Ha Ha! there are a lot of brainwashed idiots on Fb.
      I keep away from politics on there.

    3. Try BTL on The Grimes. Weird people. Covid-fanatics; anti-brexit; those who worship the ground Witless walks on…the end is listless. And amazingly rude and ad hominem.

    4. “You are not alone in doing wrong we all do…” Chance would be a fine thing!

    5. Deluded beyond belief! It’s not so much the affaire that I resent it’s the hypocrisy, the lies, the dodgy contracts, the care home scandal, the withholding of information – see the list in the Telegaffe article today which was posted earlier!

  63. Tehran Refuses to Give IAEA Images of Its Nuclear Facilities, Saying Deal Has Expired
    The agency previously said Iran had exceeded its enriched uranium stockpile limit by more than 16-fold, as the Islamic Republic has been gradually suspending its obligations under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (commonly known as the Iranian nuclear agreement) since 2019.

    The speaker of the Iranian parliament stated on Sunday that his country would never hand over images from inside its nuclear sites to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), noting that the monitoring deal with the watchdog had expired.

    “The agreement has expired…any of the information recorded will never be given to the International Atomic Energy Agency and the data and images will remain in the possession of Iran”, speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said.
    A three-month extension on monitoring practices was initially struck between Tehran and the International Atomic Energy Agency in February, when Iranian MPs suspended IAEA inspections of the nuclear facilities. In May, the sides managed to prolong the deal for a month during talks in Vienna – but the agreement finally came to its end earlier this week.

    The issue of the Iranian nuclear programme re-emerged in 2018, after Washington withdrew from the 2015 accord and reintroduced unilateral sanctions on Tehran in line with its “maximum pressure policy”. In response, the Islamic Republic began to roll back its commitments under the JCPOA.

    Your move Joe.

  64. Q: So who do you reckon planted the secret camera in Hancock’s office?

    A: It was “arranged” by the firm Grope, Ramsbottom, and Claw, Solicitors, Newmarket, Suffolk on behalf of their client, Mrs Hancock.

  65. Iran’s hardline regime is crumbling, as it pays the price for defying Donald Trump. 27 June 2021.

    In a country where any hint of anti-government sentiment is brutally repressed, the ability of Iranians to express their democratic preferences was always going to be circumspect. Even so, the extraordinary lengths to which Mr Khamenei and his supporters went to secure the election of his favoured candidate are indicative of a regime in crisis, desperate to cling to power by any means possible.

    Sounds like the Democrats in the US! Lol!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/27/irans-hardline-regime-crumbling-pays-price-defying-donald-trump/

    1. How will the FA determine who is singing the song? Wembley stadium already plays extremely loud music during the knee-bending to try to drown out the booing – this is just another pointless exercise to prevent fans doing what fans do – be very un-pc.

      1. My old man and I have been rehearsing all day and intend to teach the 4 grandchildren the words and actions! If I’m not around for a while you’ll know Nikeliars natsies have got me for hate speech! Please crowd fund me!

      2. Proudly with high endeavour, we, who are young forever,
        won the freedom of the sky, we shall never die!
        We who have made our story, Part of our country’s glory
        Know our hearts will still live on, While Britons fly
        We Know our hearts will still live on

        You who have seen us flying, hold to one hope undying
        Someday over all the world, ev’ry war shall cease
        Pray that a new generation, people of every nation
        Take the highways of the sky, on wings of peace
        They’ll Take the highways of the sky,

        Sing for the splendour of living, sing for the gladness of giving
        Thanks for all the happiness, any morning may bring
        Sing for the world of tomorrow, leaving the past and its sorrow
        Life belongs to those who lift their hearts and sing
        For those who lift their hearts and sing

        Songs of a new generation, brothers of every nation
        We salute you as you fly far up into the blue
        On the world of tomorrow, leaving the past and its sorrow
        Lifting up our joyful hearts, to fly with you
        And lifting up our joyful hearts.

        1. There is a hymn “God is our strength and refuge” (based on one of the psalms) that is sung to the tune of the Dambusters March.

  68. Sunday Poll* for you all.

    Will the Spamhead Slammer put one of those ridiculous “NHS” badges in his lapel button-hole?

    Yes/No

    * Run by YouWishYouGov…

    2. Hmm. I wonder if the Dover protesters would have got the same result.

      This is the weak point of democracy – the point where it meets mob rule.

    3. Raj Chada, a partner at Hodge Jones & Allen who represented the protestors, said: “We are delighted that the Supreme Court has recognised that protests which are deliberately obstructive are still protected under Article 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Disruptive protests can and do change things. From anti-apartheid campaigners stopping sports events to civil rights protestors conducting sit ins, disruption as a form of free speech can be the spark for radical change.”

      “Close down your operation. Do as we say.”

      1. And I wonder who funded the protesters – hiring that sort of lawyer probably doesn’t come cheap?

        1. Pro sodding bono. Margaret Hodge’s late husband was one of the founders of the firm.

      2. Once upon a time that could have been equated to secondary picketing.

        Where’s a Thatcher when one needs one?

    4. I often wonder if the people complaining about arms and the military generally realise just how the world works, or if they live in some Cotswold utopia that they think isn’t protected by rough men willing to use force to keep you safe.

      Such characters never, ever face the consequences of their facile arrogance.

    2. Compare the collective IQ of the world’s political leaders half a century ago with that of those in charge today. The depths it has plummeted to is quite astounding.

      If we replaced all the current world leaders with orang utans, the rise in their collective IQ would be off the scale.

    4. Not a surprise..some of the big Tory donors are Russian oligarchs(thieves) hiding out in London.

        1. I know, I know – I said I couldn’t do fancy work – I just copied and pasted…

  73. That’s me gone. Funny old day – some sunshine – lotsa strong northerly wind. Still, managed to make do in shorts.

    Supper is dedicated to Gina Lollobrigida (I don’t believe they’ll shack up, by the way – she has three children…quite inhibiting in a “love nest”…)
    TARTIFLETTE.

    I hope to see you tomorrow, DV.

    A demain.

    PS Hope they find that daft bint who caused the dreadful pileup (and injuries) in the French bike race.

    2. Tartiflette is a house favourite and I’m the cook. I’ve yet to find a large enough Reblochon though.

    1. Shrewsbury was the seat of the Temperance movement. The original Temperance Hall is situated behind the Carluccio’s restaurant in the centre.

      When working on the latter I was charged with researching the history of the site, then occupied by the clothiers Robert Dyas. The owner suggested after I emerged from the basement, covered in spider webs, that I should walk through Quarry Gardens take the Porthill suspension bridge over the river Severn and take a drink in a pub on the other side. It was magical.

      I remember that Percy Thrower was the Parks Superintendent at one stage in its long history.

      1. It’s always been a great shame that, like Cheshire and Staffordshire, Shropshire has never hosted first-class cricket.

      2. It’s always been a great shame that, like Cheshire and Staffordshire, Shropshire has never hosted first-class cricket.

          1. Roman slaves no doubt.

            Like a Rees Mogglet.

            Quintus Sextus Septicaemia Octavian Catomoggy

    3. Shrewsbury is built in the loop of the Severn; it’s mediaeval, rather than Roman (unlike the towns to the north) with a castle (now a military museum) on the heights. The Abbey is a fine building (and look across the road for the pulpit in what was once the refectory). It had a mill (near Coleham) and a leper colony (St Giles). The prison is going to be made into holiday lets, I believe!

    1. A dog has no concept that it is a small dog. Mongo is regularly attacked by a untrained, ill taught, spoiled, stupid pathetic Bischon frise.

      Thankfully Jerry barked and growled it into subservience and it backed down, but it still goes for him when it can.

      1. Thankfully, Oscar is fine with other dogs; he’s disappointed if he isn’t allowed to say hello.

    1. An enjoyable match.
      I thought the referee had a good game.

      It made me wonder whether the side offended against, in those circumstances, should be offered the choice of a red card or a goal.

      And following on from that whether a side potentially having a players sent off in the middle of the field should be offered the choice of losing the man or conceding a goal. I wonder whether it might actually make games more interesting.

      1. Dangerous ground..so you can break the opposing strikers leg and go one goal down.
        The culprit stays on the pitch.
        I don’t think so.

        1. I thought about that too.

          In the case of an offence that causes such an injury, double jeopardy, goal and red card.

          2. And your solution to wilful cheating would be to allow then to carry on, would it?.

            Something needs to be done about the professional foul.

          3. Send your ideas to FIFA.I’m sure they’ll give them careful consideration.

          5. There’s no point in engaging me about football…
            I’m a Liverpool supporter.
            YNWA.

          6. When Liverpool were the eternal power they were entertaining as well as winners.

            Things have looked up recently, but I fear the candle may have been snuffed out.

          7. Professional foul on an opponent = two matches in the front row of a lions game.
            Silly diving to gain a penalty, just one match on the front row.

            Only allow them back on the football pitch when the broken ribs heal.

          9. Fair point, just make them play Australian rules football then.

            I don’t suppose that you would accept five a side like we used to play in a drill hall? The walls were not your friend.

          11. I’m always amused by how the Aussie Rugby Union team is in the top four or five in the world almost every year.
            In Oz, the very best athletes played “Rules” those not good enough played “League”. The also-rans played Union.

  77. Its been a good day on the World motorsport front.
    A Yamaha one-two in MotoGP and a Toyota one-two in WRC.

        1. I have no idea..i just saw the result.
          I can go and watch cars parading round an arena any time i choose

      1. I’m all prepared..with a tin of paint,a brush and some tired garden furniture.

        1. I don’t give a 4X wot colour they are…
          I’m footied out…..I’m all to cock with
          Matt and totally pissed orf with the weather…………rain all day!
          Sweetie ……….my arse!……… x

  78. Am I the only person who is surprised that a flimsy cardboard sign brought a fast moving, adult cyclist down? (if that is what it was).

    I regularly walk down a pavement alongside a cycle lane, and the momentum of the fast travelling cyclists is huge. One of them clipped my bag hard when he was using the pavement as an overtaking lane, and it didn’t slow him down at all.

    Do normal road rules apply to Tour de France cyclists? i.e. are they required to avoid pedestrians, not ride too close together etc or do they get special race rules?

      1. I have had too many close calls to remember. It is annoying, because this particular main road is my shortest route to work, but I will use back streets now, even though they are longer, to avoid the cyclists. First day back at work this week was the final straw.

    2. The problem is that the TdF cyclists are moving at great speed and are very, very close together. Even a small deviation from the line will cause a crash. At that point they could easily have been moving at 40mph.

      Although “your” incident might have seemed fast, I doubt that the cyclist in question was even travelling at half the speed of the TdF peloton and certainly he/she would not have been nearly as close to any other cyclist involved, so a slight wobble wouldn’t have affected their progress.

      At the TdF the roads are closed. The cyclists take precedence over all other road users.

      1. He was travelling downhill and overtaking other cyclists. Generally, they use the cycle tracks like race tracks, which is very dangerous considering they are alongside a pavement.

        The faster they are going, the more momentum they have, so the greater the force needed to stop them, surely? The first one that fell appeared to be brought down purely by the cardboard, not by being too close to another rider – and to my eyes anyway, it didn’t make sense.

        1. It’s one of those sports that unless one has seen it “up close and personal” where one has no concept of how fast they are moving and how tightly packed they are. Television makes it look far more controlled than it is.

          Hitting any object is sufficient to move a cyclist a few inches, and when they are so close together that’s enough.

          I was once warned by a radar cop when cycling down a very steep hill, as fast as I could go, for breaking the speed limit. I was doing roughly 35-40. The peloton can do that on the flat. And there can be 100+ cyclists in the peloton, so a fool with a placard stepping out directly in front of a rider is a disaster waiting to happen.

          1. I don’t disagree with anything you have said, but still the footage shows a piece of cardboard initially bringing one rider down. The initial fall didn’t seem to involve another cyclist.
            It must have been a wobble caused by momentarily being distracted that caused him to fall over, as the impact with the cardboard cannot have been a great enough force.
            As far as I could see, the pedestrian didn’t go in the road, only the cardboard did (which was still a stupid piece of vanity).

          2. Think of it in terms of when something causes you to flinch, a cyclist going past unexpectedly for example, and you move into the path of the person next to you. They in turn move slightly further away as a reflex reaction. That in turn causes someone to stop to avoid hitting them and the crowd then piles into the back of that individual who might be several feet away from your initial flinch.

          4. The daft woman was holding the cardboard in front of the cyclists as she was looking at the camera to attract attention. ” Hello Granddad”. She has no excuse. The cyclist struck her arm and sign and the small impact at 40 mph was enough to deflect him and the result was a crash involving around a hundred cyclists. The good news is that the organisers are going to sue her.
            There is no question that she caused the crash. There was another major crash caused by cyclist losing concentration for a moment. Around fifty riders went down. Three riders were so badly hurt that they could not continue. Those with gravel rash, cuts, bruises and scrapes continued of course. Froome was one of the riders that went down and he spent some time in hospital yesterday evening . He continued racing today.

          5. I’m not talking about the blame and the whole case, just the actual cause of the initial fall, which didn’t seem accounted for by the force generated by a piece of cardboard.

          7. That’s what I concluded – a momentary lapse of concentration due to the cardboard, and a consequent wobble.
            It seems surprising that this kind of crash doesn’t happen more often (potholes, stones in the road etc).

          8. In the film, the woman was rotated by the impact on her extended arm which was holding the cardboard. The rider would certainly try to swerve aside as an initial reaction. In a crowded space there wasn’t an inch to spare. It would be interesting to see the whole thing in slow motion. Impact, reaction and results. However, it is simply art and parcel of the Tour each year.
            In a previous Tour a rider was struck by a”hand” held by a spectator. The “hand “was twice life size and was a one of the publicity give-aways that the Tour is famous for. I think it was polystyrene from memory. The rider’s upper arm was cut to the bone and he left the race.
            The riders are well used to the insane proximity of the crowds but expect spectators to get out of their way at the last moment. Spectators are high on the list of dangers being faced.

    4. Looked to me like he tried to lean to avoid it and lost his balance. The cyclist is concentrating on the wheel of the other cyclisfs. He wasn’t to know whether the sign was name of cardboard – it could have been wood.
      The spectator wasn’t even watching them approach, she was looking the opposite way at yhe cameras.

      1. That sounds likely. He couldn’t see what it was in that instant.
        The whole thing is so horrible…even not being involved, I am cringing at and for the spectator. That’s the kind of thing one might dream in one’s worst nightmares!

  79. And now for something completely different…

    Move over, Stonehenge – this unsung gem is my favourite building in Wiltshire

    Salisbury Cathedral and Stonehenge may be great, but this Wiltshire landmark also deserves to be celebrated

    SIMON HEFFER • 27 June 2021 • 5:00pm

    The new Wiltshire guide in the Buildings of England series (Yale, £45) leaves only five volumes to be revised into the large format adopted in the 1980s, which will complete one of the great scholarly projects of our civilisation. That civilisation is at the forefront of this handsome new volume, for no English county has prehistoric remains like Wiltshire’s, with Avebury and Stonehenge. Although Wiltshire is famed for its landscape, whether Salisbury Plain or the Marlborough Downs, its settlements have a richness of architectural history to match any in England and to command the interest of the aesthete. It is the county of Malmesbury Abbey and Salisbury Cathedral, of Longleat, Lacock Abbey and Wardour Castle, of endless small market towns and the Victorian delights of Swindon.

    In the original 1963 guide to Wiltshire, Nikolaus Pevsner, raised in the radical German architectural thinking of the Weimar Republic, tended to praise the poor imitations of it that emerged in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s: buildings so poorly constructed, and of such low-grade stuff, that they were under permanent repair and were pulled down before they fell down. They looked what they were: cheap and nasty. Julian Orbach, editor of this revised volume, notes with relief that, since Pevsner’s day, Wiltshire’s architectural losses have largely been limited to those post-war buildings.

    For all its famous sights, Wiltshire has some hidden gems. The guide praises the railway village of 300 cottages built by Brunel in Swindon, the only “industrial” town in the county, and one of the most remarkable surviving examples of early Victorian housing for the masses (one thinks, for comparison, of Titus Salt’s housing for his workers at Saltaire in West Yorkshire). Swindon also has some of the best surviving Victorian railway architecture, as befits the home of the old Great Western Railway, but its fine Grecian town hall of 1852 is described as “spectacularly derelict”. It would be an extreme irony, in this county of so much well-preserved architecture, if this building were not saved.

    The great Norman arcades of Malmesbury Abbey, and the spire (its pinnacle 404ft high) that tops the Early English treasure house that is Salisbury Cathedral, represent the majesty of the ecclesiastical architecture of the county. Yet one of my two favourite Wiltshire buildings is the tiny church of St Laurence at Bradford-on-Avon, which the guide dates to 1001 (immediately after Ethelred the Unready gave the land for Shaftesbury Abbey, to house the relics of his murdered and martyred half-brother). There are older examples of Saxon work in Wiltshire, for example at Britford, where a restoration in the 1870s by G E Street uncovered superbly carved porticus arches: these have been dated to the 9th century, and one scholar has suggested that the church may contain the tomb of King Egbert, who died in 839. But much of Britford is 14th century; St Laurence, in Bradford, is a complete Saxon gem, in a town rich in architectural delights and, after Salisbury, perhaps the most essential place to visit in Wiltshire.

    Its survival is remarkable. In the 18th century, the church was converted to a school and cottages; but in the late 19th century the vicar had it restored – not in the classic Victorian manner of imposing their own style on it and wrecking it, but using exhaustive scholarship to return it to its original form. The result is a Saxon church that compares, to my mind, only to those in Earls Barton, Northamptonshire, or Barton-upon-Humber in North Lincolnshire. It has the porticus and flat capitals, the perfect proportions, and the decorations of pilaster strips and blind arcading that are typical of church design a thousand years ago.

    My other favourite Wiltshire building? The magnificent red-brick, six-storey Wadworth brewery of 1885 in the generally handsome town of Devizes, its market square another jewel. Henry Wadworth, who owned the brewery, designed it with the help of a professional architect, and made it a real landmark. It may not be Stonehenge or Salisbury Cathedral, but to my mind it represents something just as significant.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b64cec4316711c920e90867364482b49dcb223ce009b356b4fede38b143008f0.jpg
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/art/architecture/move-stonehenge-unsung-gem-favourite-building-wiltshire/

    Northgate might not be a brewery for much longer:

    Wadworth Brewery coming to ‘end of useful life’ as 6X maker announces plans to move
    https://www.business-live.co.uk/manufacturing/wiltshires-wadworth-brewery-coming-end-17348684

    1. As a Non Exec director of a Devises engineering company in the ‘Eighties. I attended monthly board meetings – and many a late lunch in The Bear Hotel …

      Happy days 🙂

    2. My mother was born in Corsham and her family came from there. I remember photographing St Lawrence Bradford on Avon when I acquired my first SLR camera aged 18, a Pentax S1A wiith a Weston light meter, prior to moving up to a Spotmatic.

      I noticed that the dressed ashlar stonework had been built before the ‘arcade’ blind windows and decoration had been carved in-situ. A puzzle to this day.

      1. A beautiful, tiny, Saxon church. I knew it well when I too, lived in Corsham.

        I loved Bradford on Avon for all its architectural beauty, including the 1 person cell on the bridge.

        1. One of the more interesting visits I made in my career was to the Westwood Mine. We had hoped to use the Bath stone from there for a project in Pimlico.

          Regrettably the owners were unable or unwilling to win the stone in the sizes required. Eventually we sought alternative sources and found them in France.

          The mine had a very long concreted ramp from its entrance to the working area. Either side of the ramp were small but active engineering workshops, survivals from WW II.

          There was a map showing the complete charted workings. Those dating from Roman times left regularly spaced columns to support the roof. These galleries were closed off with metal doors and had been used in WW II to store artefacts from the V & A.

          Those workings from the C20 were irregular and haphazard with no obvious discipline. The mining company were using an old cold cutting machine, wider than the allowable gallery width with retained stone columns. The coal cutter wheel took a 6” wide cut which amounted to mountains of stone dust to be removed. The machine could not cut perpendicular to the gallery wall with the result that the stone won was akin to enormous wedges of cheese and useless for our purposes.

          The penny dropped and I realised that a distinct lack of investment was harming our stone industry. This was in 1978.

          1. Huge mining for the Bath Stone under and around Corsham. Silly people who cannot accommodate those who continue to need their stone.

    3. My mother was born in Corsham and her family came from there. I remember photographing St Lawrence Bradford on Avon when I acquired my first SLR camera aged 18, a Pentax S1A wiith a Weston light meter, prior to moving up to a Spotmatic.

      I noticed that the dressed ashlar stonework had been built before the ‘arcade’ blind windows and decoration had been carved in-situ. A puzzle to this day.

  80. Time for a real “roll about” fest.Belgium and Portugal.
    The arch exponent will be on display.

    2. Ronaldo is an appalling specimen. Cheats have always been in the game but while at Old Trafford he made popular one of the worst deceptions: the ‘accidental’ tripping over an opponent’s outstretched leg by hooking the foot deliberately underneath it, often when greater advantage might be had by simply hurdling it. Referees bought it then and still do now.

      Why is it that in sport some of the greatest players turn out to be the biggest cheats?

        1. Let me rephrase it:
          Why do some of the greatest players need to cheat?

          As I said, there’s always been some of it about. The feigning of injury, especially for a brush of the arm in the face, is a relatively recent phenomenon.

      3. ‘Evening, William, “Why is it that in sport Wendyball some of the greatest players turn out to be the biggest cheats?“

        1. I give you Australia’s cricket captain Steve Smith and some subcontinental bowlers…

    4. One thing I’ve noticed in this tournament is that almost every team has a player called Hublot – usually comes on at about 70 min. Must be very confusing for the commentators.

  81. It is ironic that a black woman has to speak up on a subject that affects more white people than black. Good luck to the the writer but I think our society is now too broken to be repaired…and even it weren’t, nothing will be done by this government.

    The term ‘white privilege’ is careless and divisive

    Normalising the phrase does not eliminate racism, it exacerbates feelings of difference in society

    KEMI BADENOCH

    Over the last year, terms such as “white privilege” have become part of our vocabulary. We hear celebrities talk about it, it is the subject of best-selling books and last week it was discussed in the news following the publication of a report from the Education Select Committee. But what exactly does the term mean?

    White privilege, as defined in the recent Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities (CRED), refers to the idea that “there is societal privilege that benefits white people over other ethnic groups in some societies, particularly if they are otherwise under the same social, political, or economic circumstances”. The independent report, whose authors were (with one exception) all ethnic minorities, recognised that racism is still something many ethnic minorities experience, but that the term “white privilege”, far from helping to combat racism, is actually stoking divisions and marginalising the most disadvantaged.

    However, in a BBC Bitesize video designed for children which has over 3 million views, it was claimed that white privilege “brings us closer to those that are different” and white children have a duty to understand their privilege so society is “fairer and more equal”.

    These contrasting understandings of the term played out across party lines on the Education Select Committee. Labour MPs dismissed the idea that the term is divisive and claimed there is a “wealth of evidence” that poor white children are “privileged” according to the meeting minutes.

    Labour’s problem is that there is a wealth of evidence showing how blind they are to the realities of life in their former heartlands. The Committee report stated that 47 per cent of white British pupils eligible for free school meals (FSM) – about 28,000 children – did not meet the expected standard of development at the end of the early years foundation stage in 2018/2019, compared with 37 per cent of black FSM pupils. And shockingly, in 2019, just 17.7 per cent of white British pupils eligible for FSM achieved at least a strong pass (grade 5 or above) in English and maths at GCSE level compared with 28 per cent for Black FSM pupils. Given these outcomes, we should not carelessly use skin colour as a proxy for disadvantage.

    The intense focus on race over the last year is leading to an increased racialisation of issues and incidents across society. As someone who grew up in Nigeria where there is only one skin colour but over 300 ethnic groups, the more ethnic identity is emphasised the weaker national identity becomes. This is a dangerous trend for a multi-racial society where we need to lean on what we have in common not emphasise differences.

    My outspoken views on this subject mean my postbag is filled with stories of the human impact of increasing racialisation from all over the country. Children sadly are not immune. A mixed-race Asian girl taken out of school in Birmingham, bullied for “being white”. A mother told me in horror that her 10-year-old son, the only black child at his Scottish school, was made to stand up at assembly and talk about his experience of racism to educate his peers, no doubt improving his teachers’ anti-racism credentials.

    The phrase “white privilege” is unnecessarily antagonistic. Much as some theorists think it is essential for tackling racism, there is an active and fairly toxic political debate around it. All the more reason why the phrase should not be taught in schools unless it is explained that it is also contentious.

    It is important to tackle racial discrimination. But these matters must be handled sensitively. Normalising the term “white privilege” does not eliminate racism, it reinforces the notion that everyone and everything around ethnic minorities is racist and makes the majority white population more conscious about their race and exacerbates feelings of difference, creating a less cohesive society.

    The only way to make an actual difference on people’s lives is to focus on and tackle the root causes of disadvantage, such as those identified by the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities; and more recently, the Education Select Committee. For instance, nearly 70 per cent of all the social mobility “hotspot” success stories are in London and the South East, while there are none in the North East, Yorkshire and the Humber, and the West Midlands. This indicates that more focus is needed on geographical disparities – an issue at the heart of our levelling up agenda.

    As equalities minister, I am responsible for promoting equality of opportunity for everyone. Tackling disparities, where they occur, will be at the forefront of the Government’s response to the CRED report later this year. We will aim to set out a new, positive agenda for change. Our approach will put belonging and fostering a shared sense of identity at its heart – focusing not on what divides us but on what unites us.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/26/term-white-privilege-careless-divisive/

    1. If a white person wrote a similar piece it wouldn’t be published.

  82. Hancock married Martha Hoyer Millar, an osteopath, in 2006.[5] She is a granddaughter of Frederick Millar, 1st Baron Inchyra.[88] They have a daughter and two sons; Hancock forbids his children to use social media.[10][89] The family lived in Little Thurlow in his West Suffolk parliamentary constituency.[90] In June 2021, following an affair with Gina Coladangelo,[91] sources reported that he had left his wife for Coladangelo.[92][93][94]

    Hancock trained as a jockey in 2012 and won a horse race in his constituency town of Newmarket.[7] Hancock supports Newcastle United, and auctioned his “pride and joy” signed team shirt to raise money for the NHS in May 2020.[95][96]

    Hancock told The Guardian in 2018 that he has dyslexia, something that he said first became apparent two decades earlier while he was studying at Oxford.[97]

    He was given 20% of shares in Topwood Limited, a firm based in Wrexham which is owned by his sister and other close family members. It specialises in secure storage, scanning and shredding of documents. The company won a place on a framework to provide services to NHS England in 2019, as well as contracts with NHS Wales. There has been no suggestion that Hancock intervened in the normal processes, and in April 2021 the company had not earned anything through the framework.[98] Lord Geidt produced a report on ministerial interests saying that the awarding of the contract to Topwood could be seen to “represent a conflict of interest” that should have been declared. Hancock responded by saying: “I did not know about the framework decision, and so I do not think I could reasonably have been expected to declare it.”

    Young Hancock was born in 1978 ..

    He would have been too young to remember Maggie Thatcher .. that is a crying shame , and I think very few of the others will remember her either.

    I am now just wondering whether any political party merits any praise , and why does politics spoil the soul?

    1. Or is it that those with black souls are attracted to politics to further their aims of control?

      1. Elderly chap we know is usually quite sensible , but he sometimes has some very strange and frightening ideas .

        He thinks that blacks souls who create chaos are not from this planet, that they arrive , and live amongst us then strike , and dislodge all the goodwill and pleasantry that enables us to get along .

        He watches sci fi stuff on the satellite channels .

    3. One of his buddies who has profited greatly from Hancock’s largesse is the jump jockey and NHS desk jockey Dido Harding.

      The whole malevolent influence of these thickos from Oxford University stinks to high heaven.

    4. One of Martha Hoyer Millar’s great grandparents was William Berry, part owner of The Daily Telegraph and a generous friend and supporter of Sir Winston Churchill.

        1. Apart from the possibility that the whole farago looks like a set up, I reckon that Mrs H’s life is going to improve, whereas the starry eyed lovers are doomed.

  84. Evening, all. It’s about time we showed the politicians that they work for us and that the rules apply to EVERYBODY.

  85. Why we must all resist the woke war on written English

    Good spelling, grammar and other basic rules of language are now under suspicion at British universities

    ZOE STRIMPEL

    My first essay for English A-level, back in 1998, was atrocious. I had come from a school in the US where I had been taught that my ‘voice’ was the most important aspect of any piece of writing. But my new, English school had different ideas. I got an E, the worst possible mark, because the essay was shoddy. It made no sense, each idea or paragraph failed to follow from another, and it lacked all hint of argument.

    Nettled by failure, I threw myself into writing better essays according to the new standards I found myself up against. Before long, I was raking in the As and decided to do English at university, where I was also routinely marked down for all manner of infractions. Again, getting bad marks stung, but being told to buck up my ideas (constructively) through those low marks always helped me to improve and learn.

    Students today can no longer take for granted the apparent luxury of being evaluated harshly and fairly, and with it, the potential for learning, improvement and excellence. This is because, with its genius for turning good things bad and true things false, woke ideology has decided that even basic standards of coherence and accuracy themselves are evidence of a white, male Euro-centric (and therefore bad) worldview. At a number of universities in Britain, good spelling, proper grammar and robust essay structure – not to mention concepts like facts, truth and argument – all now fall under suspicion. Continuing on in thrall to these devious non-ideas now risks turning us into a nation of woolly-headed illiterates.

    There’s hope for a U-turn. Last week, the Office for Students announced the launch of a review of the ‘inclusive’ assessment policies cooked up by some British universities in the name of ‘diversity’. At the University of Hull, a marking policy has been devised to combat “North European, white, male, elite mode of expression” which the university equates with an expectation of “technical proficiency” in English. The University of Worcester, meanwhile, says it’s unfair to mark down for spelling, punctuation and grammar, preferring to focus on ideas. What the university seems to miss is that while ideas are of course important, even they require the parcel of proper language.

    What’s sad is that in this race to the bottom, nobody wins, apart from – at a pinch – university administrators who can use their policies as proof of commitment to the cause.

    There is much that is seriously, morally wrong about woke ideology, even in its most trifling manifestations; the taking down of pictures of the Queen, say, or the renaming of buildings whose titles are found to have any connection to the empire or the slave trade. But of all its evil offspring, the social justice movement’s commitment to the desecration of standards – of the very idea of merit itself – might be the most malign.

    As usual, the American setting, and particularly American higher education, provides the starkest warning of where this kind of thinking can go. A friend who teaches at a university in New York forwarded some internal documents to me. It’s a criminal justice institution, focused on law enforcement. Given that the police are considered the reservoir of American racism, the university’s teaching revolves around the concept of ubiquitous ‘white supremacy’ to a terrifying degree.

    One set of recommendations circulated earlier this year advocated a radical overhaul of both teaching and curriculum. At the forefront of the guidance was the link, made with total confidence and impunity, between whiteness and the unfair assessment of minority students, who, according to faculty, have their own special ‘ways of knowing’, whatever that means. The guidance is set to be implemented in the autumn.

    ‘Educating for justice means breaking barriers to equity that stand between our students and their success, and this may mean breaking down our own biases, white privilege, and assumptions in order to include experiences and ways of knowing that do not accord with how we have been taught,’ it intoned in the garbled mode of people accustomed to replacing simple truths with canards about ‘assumptions’ and ‘privilege’.

    The document is full of cadences that would not be out of place in Stalin’s Russia. Thus under a section called ‘Central Elements of Anti-Racist Curriculum’, the authors drone that ‘established’ ideas are no match for ‘experience’, gloating that they ‘allow experiential knowledge to destabilise established scholarship’ and that ‘our students know things that may counter what we teach, and that can be productive from an anti-racist perspective’.

    The slippery vagueness (‘may’, ‘can’), and the potential for abuse of these ideas is obvious. After all, who will dare contradict that someone’s experience is ‘productive from an anti-racist perspective’, or even question what the latter is?

    We must make sure these ideas never gain the same supremacy in Britain. For by rejecting standards and objective criticism, their proponents want the politics of identity to triumph over the challenge of learning. But in rejecting the whole concept of merit as still more evidence of racism, they seem to want to put as high a barrier as possible in the way of minorities and those from less privileged backgrounds. We must ensure that, unlike America, we don’t fall into a morass of intellectual dishonesty where woke nonsense, rather than actual quality and potential, is king.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2021/06/27/must-resist-woke-war-written-english/

    BTL:
    Fred Clark
    27 Jun 2021 3:57 PM
    We’ve let the nutters take over. As the sporting expression goes, they wanted it more.

    Time to dislodge them.

    1. The idea that the idea is more important than writing coherent English is not new; in the early ’70s when I was doing my PGCE I was castigated for underlining spelling mistakes and grammatical errors (in English – the lunacy of not marking French grammar and spelling came later) when I was on teaching practice. Apparently, it “stifled their creativity”. As far as I was concerned it didn’t matter how creative they were if nobody could read and understand it.

      1. If they cannot put their ideas into coherent and grammatically correct English, Connors, how on earth are they going to get the idea across to all understanding?

    2. SIR — Nothing grates more than the universal adoption of banal Americanisms (Letters, June 25).

      The worst of many is the way that privacy is invariably pronounced as pryvacy.

  88. SARAH VINE: The problem with the wife who’s been with you for ever is that she knows you’re not the Master of the Universe you purport to be
    By SARAH VINE FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY

    PUBLISHED: 22:00, 26 June 2021 | UPDATED: 03:10, 27 June 2021

    View comments
    David Cameron’s judgment has not always been faultless, as we saw most recently from the Greensill affair.

    But one of the things I have always admired about him as a man was his unfailing respect for his wife, and my former friend, Samantha.

    It didn’t matter how powerful he was, how many sycophants or dignitaries surrounded him, how many crucial meetings were in his diary: he always made space for her, not just in his day-to-day routine but in his thoughts and decisions.

    Er, excuse my curiosity , but what is she on about, her former friend , what happened ?

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-9728749/SARAH-VINE-problem-wife-knows-youre-not-Master-Universe.html

    1. She doesn’t elaborate on that, does she? I wonder what they fell out over. Why put that word in even if they no longer have much to do with each other?

    3. The fall out was, if I remember correctly, over Brexit as Gove did not want to follow Cameron’s position as pro-Remain and Cameron thought this was a personal betrayal.

      The absurdity of this was that Cameron expected Gove to back his Brexit position because they were friends and that that friendship trumped what Gove might have thought about Brexit. In other words Gove could only remain Cameron’s friend if he suppressed his own views

      Some of my friends believed that Remain was the better solution and we agree to differ in our views on the subject and we are still friends. I certainly have never dropped a friend because he or she had different political views to mine. By contrast one or two former Remainer friends have dropped me because I am pro-Brexit.

      As we have seen, Brexit supporters are more decent, more rational and not, – as remainers try to claim – more stupid.

  89. Good night and God bless, although we’re here already, I’ll see you al again in the morn’s light.

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