Sunday 4 July: From Freedom Day we must get used to Covid as a fact of life in Britain

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/2021/07/03/letters-freedom-day-must-get-used-covid-fact-life-britain/

532 thoughts on “Sunday 4 July: From Freedom Day we must get used to Covid as a fact of life in Britain”

  2. The government is said to be preparing new legislation to arrest invaders coming to these shores illegally. There is legislation available but they have ignored it.

    1. Migrants face arrest on arrival after crossing the Channel. 4 July 2021.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57tK6aQS_H0

      Migrants intercepted in the English Channel could be arrested on arrival in the UK, under the Government’s Borders Bill, which will also make it harder for asylum seekers to prove they should remain in the country.

      The Nationality and Borders Bill, which will be laid in Parliament on Tuesday, will create new offences for arriving in the UK “without a valid entry clearance”, and target people traffickers with penalties for aiding illegal immigration.

      Blowing smoke!

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/03/migrants-face-arrest-arrival-crossing-channel/

      1. Are the Border Force and RNLI boats arresting or rescuing the illegal invaders when they invite them on board their boats?
        The answer could have a significant part in deciding the invaders fate in court.
        The government must clarify this matter in the forthcoming legislation.

        1. Morning Scotty. Neither! They are facilitating their arrival. It is a farce; there is no intention of preventing their arrival, rather the opposite, and there will be neither prosecutions nor deportations!

    1. Wow! Not something you are going to see on the BBC. Honorary Nottlership for Oliver!

    2. For those that may not have seen it, can recommend GB News’ ‘Free Speech Nation’ with Andrew Doyle. Again, many interesting topics covered that you won’t see on MSM.

    3. Storming speech from Neil Oliver. GB News gains a bit more credibility…

    1. Alternative: the one or the other.
      Traditionally, it doesn’t make sense as a plural.
      Modern usage is acceptable, God alone knows why.

    1. Very prescient. I remember my incredulity when people I knew started watching Beavis and Butthead – I found the title and the appalling artwork repulsive.

    2. Thanks, Rik.

      That was Sagan expounding on his philosophy a year before he died. I wonder what he would make of the truly abysmal state of the world today, had he remained alive?

  7. Singapore plans to stop counting daily Covid-19 cases and treat virus like flu. 4 July 2021.

    Singapore is making plans to stop counting its daily Covid-19 cases in a roadmap to resuming normal life by treating the virus like any other endemic disease.

    “We can’t eradicate it, but we can turn the pandemic into something much less threatening, like influenza, hand, foot and mouth disease, or chickenpox, and get on with our lives.”

    Let’s face it that’s all it ever was. Fatal to only a miniscule percentage of the population and distressing to a large minority. Blown out of all proportion by a gang of liars and grandstanders. Without the propaganda it would have passed largely unnoticed.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/07/03/singapore-plans-stop-counting-daily-covid-19-cases-treat-virus/

    1. The scam has been kept going here to cover the government’s face/@rse. Probably the most expensive – financially and socially – British government mistake of all time

      1. As bad as Merkel’s “Come one, come all” invitation to third world migrants, Annie.

  9. the weekend waffle:

    SIR – Covid-related deaths have accounted for less than 2 per cent of all deaths in Britain in recent weeks. Now Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, has indicated that July 19 will be Freedom Day (report, July 1).

    I hope that Sunday July 18 will be the last day of having depressing daily statistical updates thrust at us repeatedly on television channels. It is time they ceased and we all accepted that Covid is another facet of life in 21st-century Britain.

    Jeremy O’Byrne
    Haywards Heath, West Sussex

    SIR – Instead of concentrating on what bits of the syllabus children missed because of the pandemic, we should identify the knowledge and skills that will be needed in adult life, and ensure that these receive priority as programmes are designed to make up for lost opportunities.

    Some primary-school-aged children will require intensive coaching in the basic skills of numeracy and literacy. Children of all ages need to learn to interact with each other if they are to get on with others in adulthood. To this end, summer schools of outdoor activities should be organised and adequately funded.

    Youngsters are very resilient and will put the worst memories of the past year behind them if they are provided with a well-structured programme of meaningful activities. They won’t suffer from the loss of specific syllabus content, but there will be long-term consequences if they don’t rediscover how to live, play and work together.

    There is an army of potential volunteers, as we saw during the vaccination programme, as well as teachers (current and retired) and parents who would step forward to run activities in the summer and beyond.

    School grounds, sports clubs, and public open spaces should all be used to make this possible, and bureaucratic constraints be swept aside.

    Don Hamilton
    York

    SIR – As a deputy head teacher, I was intrigued to read David Helliwell’s letter (July 2) regarding schoolchildren missing education.

    He questions why children will have summer holidays when they need to make up for time missed in the classroom. But who would teach these students throughout August?

    Of course, it would be the teachers and support staff who have had to battle through the last 15 months of providing online lessons and in-school Covid testing, monitoring personal protective equipment, making innumerable calls to close contacts, and working every evening, weekend and holiday to keep schools and students safe (not to mention running an in-house GCSE exam process).

    Teachers are exhausted and frustrated in equal measure. The answer should not lie with school staff but with government ministers who have the power, should they so wish, to remove the shackles in which we are working.

    Anthony Lord
    Thornton-Cleveleys, Lancashire

    Traffic-light logic

    SIR – I am pleased to find that I am not alone in being baffled by the “maximum transparency approach” to travel – the description offered by Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary, of the Government’s traffic light system (“Traffic light failure (again)”, Travel, June 27).

    Mr Shapps obviously has a different understanding of the word green than I do, since the green list includes Australia and New Zealand, St Helena and Tristan da Cunha. The first two have closed their borders and even their own citizens need special permission to return. The latter two, being in the Atlantic, are many days’ sailing from South Africa, which is on the red list. St Helena’s new airport is almost unusable due to very strong crosswinds (another utter waste of taxpayers’ money).

    There is no logic to the traffic light system. Moreover, as Transport Secretary, Mr Shapps, along with the Prime Minister, allowed thousands of people to fly to this country when their points of departure were being rapidly infected by the original virus and the subsequent variants.

    If the first casualty of war is truth, then the first and enduring casualty of the pandemic has been logic.

    Alexander Simpson
    Market Drayton, Shropshire

    Green totalitarianism

    SIR – On April 21, Lord Sumption asked in these pages: “What is a totalitarian state?” His answer was: “It is a state in which citizens have no autonomy because they are mere tools of government policy.”

    Chris Skidmore (Comment, June 27), who signed net zero into law in 2019, said that to achieve it by 2050 would require “a massive transformation to every aspect of our lives. Gas boilers out, heat pumps in; goodbye to petrol, hello electric cars.” Have those who will foot the colossal bill of this dream been
    consulted? No. Has there been a referendum on the “transformation to every aspect of our lives”? No.

    According to Lord Sumption’s definition, this Government’s pursuit of its green agenda is truly totalitarian.

    Brian Clarke
    Canterbury, Kent

    SIR – Changing people’s behaviour is an important part of preventing disastrous climate change, but George Eustice, the Environment Secretary, is right that lecturing people is not the way to achieve this (report, June 27).

    It is far more effective to tax climate-damaging activities such as air travel, car use and eating meat and dairy products. The money raised from these necessary green taxes should be shared out between us all as a “green dividend”. As a minority of richer people have disproportionately carbon-emitting lifestyles, most people would end up better off.

    Richard Mountford
    Hildenborough, Kent

    Our sci-fi future?

    SIR – Jonathan Longstaff (Letters, June 28) refers to E M Forster’s The Machine Stops, written over 100 years ago. This is an excellent story, and its far-sightedness is astonishing.

    The Covid situation, in which human interaction has frequently been restricted to a computer screen or mobile phone, has brought us alarmingly close to what he envisaged, with people living in isolated cells and avoiding direct human contact.

    What will happen to us, I wonder, if and when the technology on which we have become so dependent breaks down? The end of Forster’s story offers only slender hope.

    Hilary Read
    Rothwell, West Yorkshire

    Anything but Leave

    SIR – I read with interest your interview with John Pullinger (June 27), the new chairman of the Electoral Commission. The Commission held repeated investigations into Darren Grimes and myself for two years before we were referred to the Metropolitan Police, resulting in a two-year criminal investigation. Both cases were eventually rightly dropped.

    Mr Pullinger apologised to Darren and claimed the Commission had also done so. But neither he nor I have had any such apology. At no time during the Commission’s investigation did it interview me or any of the other four senior Vote Leave officials, despite all of us having volunteered.

    All this is detailed in my and Jon Moynihan’s published evidence, and in my oral testimony to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee. Mr Pullinger appears to be unaware of this.

    The Commission found time, however, to interview various self-styled whistleblowers, and to collude with them on statements made to Channel 4 News, the Guardian and the New York Times. Getting to the truth was clearly of lower priority than subverting the referendum result.

    I suffered considerable personal anguish for nearly four years, and it cost me thousands of pounds in legal fees. It would be nice to receive some sort of apology for this.

    Alan Halsall
    Lytham, Lancashire

    Good old copper

    SIR – In June, BT switched my phone from the old copper connection to broadband via my computer modem. I have three phones about the house, one connected to an answering machine. This can’t now work. I can’t get incoming calls from the other two phones, but I can use them to dial out. This is causing a lot of problems.

    Big businesses these days push people into things they don’t need or want because it suits them, not their customers. I was very happy with the previous set up. Why change it?

    John Baker
    Crayford, Kent

    Army accent

    SIR – Raised in Army quarters, I was constantly moved from South to North and South again. What annoyed my family was how, after a week, I had accurately picked up the accent (Letters, June 27) of the local children.

    Barbara Chapman
    Rotherfield, East Sussex

    Schools aren’t to blame for more flawed exams

    SIR – This year the regulator and exam boards have again left schools dreadfully exposed, with last-minute decision making, goal-post shifting, and by failing to meet their own deadlines.

    They have done all this at the same time as charging full fees to schools, even though schools themselves have acted as exam writers, markers and moderators.

    In August, when results are announced, it would be all too easy to blame schools and colleges for any flawed outcomes. Perhaps it is wishful thinking to hope that we reflect on the fact that teachers and schools have operated pretty much unsupported, and that yet again they have been resourceful and resilient; or that planning for 2022 will start now; or even that we might celebrate the success of all GCSE and A-Level students, who have shown true perseverance in challenging times.

    Matthew Burke
    Headmaster, St Edward’s
    Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

    Business travellers have little to gain from HS2

    SIR – Before retiring I used to travel to London Euston from Stoke or Crewe regularly. Almost everyone was busy on laptops, using their time productively. On arriving at Euston, you either queued for a taxi or used the tube. Either way, the delays were huge.

    I cannot see that saving half an hour or more using HS2 would be of any benefit to productivity.

    Doug Varey
    Northleigh, Devon

    SIR – In answer to Professor Bernard T Golding (Letters, June 27), an advantage of HS2 is that faster journeys to London for Midlands commuters would reduce pressure on green land in the Home Counties, as the Midlands becomes a more attractive place to stay put.

    However, I certainly agree with Professor Golding that the North East needs help. This is why it is important to take HS2 to its logical conclusion, and complete extensions to places such as the North East.

    Extending HS2 to Scotland, and to Northern Ireland via a tunnel, would give the North East faster travel both northwards and southwards, and would help create a much more balanced and cohesive United Kingdom.

    John Barstow
    Pulborough, West Sussex

    SIR – What is the matter with this country? HS2 (Letters, June 27) is not a vanity project. It is a long-overdue investment in modern railway infrastructure and should not be used as a political football.

    In Europe all the major cities are connected to an efficient high-speed network, and it’s about time this country took a strategic approach to linking the spine of Britain, from the Midlands, North West and Scotland to London, HS1 and beyond.

    Neill Beasley
    Romsey, Hampshire

    1. According to Lord Sumption’s definition, this Government’s pursuit of its green agenda is truly totalitarian.

      Much as I respect Lord Sumption’s stand against Government Tyranny Brian, I don’ t think we need his input to recognise a Police State when we see it

      2. mng Araminta. While “Brian Clarke” penned his scribbles even if he doesn’t understand / grasp the true context of his words, it’s nice to note 77 Bde actually agreeing with what everyone on here is fully aware of and saying for ages.

    2. Neill Beasley might well answer if HS2 was not a vanity project with the express intention of transferring public assets to select private hands on an industrial scale, why is there a gap in the network between St Pancras and Euston, and between New Street and Curzon Street?

      1. The two letters supporting HS2 are written by people living well away from the area it’s disrupting.

    3. A BTL comment on the silly arse wanting green taxes for all.

      Richard Mountford of Hildenborough, Kent says
      It is far more effective to tax climate-damaging activities such as air travel, car use and eating meat and dairy products. The money raised from these necessary green taxes should be shared out between us all as a “green dividend”. As a minority of richer people have disproportionately carbon-emitting lifestyles, most people would end up better off.

      He obviously doesn’t know the difference between Carbon (C) and Carbon Dioxide (CO²).

      One cannot ‘emit carbon’ which is a solid and as for CO² causing climate change, here are a few facts concerning CO²:
      1) CO² is a trace gas.
      2) At 0.04% it is 1 part in 2,500 of the atmosphere.
      3) But 24/25ths of atmospheric CO² comes from nature,
      4) From rotting vegetation, volcanoes, wildfires and the oceans.
      5) So manmade CO²is 1 part in 2,500 x 25 of the atmosphere
      6) That is 1 part in 62,500 of the atmosphere.

      In terms of Statistical Thermodynamics and in terms of Common Sense, that is insignificant.
      I think any slight increase in CO² is CAUSED by global warming, warming up the oceans and driving out dissolved CO².

        1. If you’re talking about Mountford, I think he is/was misguidedly sincere, as for the rebuttal – no irony at all, just fact.

          1. For clarification. my comment was aimed at the misguided Mountford.

    4. Richard Mountford, the problem is too many people; stopping anybody who isn’t part of the “elite” travelling anywhere by aeroplane or car or making them vegans is no solution at all.

  10. I made my decision about which electricity company to sign up to after losing my Zero Standing Charge Ebico account after British Gas finally pulled the plug on it.

    I have an ongoing grudge against British Gas, since one of their managers killed a friend of mine back in 2004. A young C++ programmer on his first job after college. He was on a nine month contract, but did the job in six. So the manager sacked my friend and pocketed the saved salary as bonus. My friend, who was also a devout Christian and a very capable musician, was found dead on the sofa after his parents went away for a few days. At the funeral, it came out that if the behaviour of British Gas was what he could look forward to in his adult life, he wanted none of it. I was one of the last to see him alive. He was 21.

    Zebra Power seems to have reasonably reviews, refuse to have anything to do with the smart meter rollout, and charge 18.534p/unit plus 21p/day standing charge on a 24 month contract. They do have a fixed monthly direct debit, and like monthly meter readings submitted, but send a meter reader once a year.

    1. United Utlities Double Gold Tariff

      Night (after 6pm)and Weekend rate 7.2 pence per unit
      Day Rate 24.360 per unit
      Standing Charge £8 month
      No Smart Meter required,no end limit to contract no fees if you leave
      Works for me and my requirements easy to plan the heavy usage in my all electric studio like cooking,water heating and storage heaters at times on the cheap bit of the tariff

  11. A very happy fourth of July to our American friends.

    I hope Biden & co don’t stir up even more anti-America sentiment amongst the BAMEs.

  12. O’ Flynn is a journalist and ex-politician: is he being disingenuous or naive here? Johnson’s ruinous plans are little to do with climate, as O’ Flynn states, the UK’s output of carbon dioxide is negligible in World terms: that is the clue, right there. Johnson is following the globalist ideal to destroy the UK, first by his response to “the virus” and secondly by his longer term plan to deny people their right to travel, especially in their own vehicles, heat their homes satisfactorily, cook their food, buy and eat whatever they want: the list goes on and ends at total control by an authoritarian cabal. People such as O’ Flynn who cannot, or will not, make the connection are nothing more than useless scribblers and cowards.

    https://twitter.com/oflynnsocial/status/1411288854158528512

    1. On the contrary, I think Patrick O’Flynn makes the point rather well. He presents the facts and leaves us to draw our own conclusions. An improvement, I feel, to bombarding us with expert opinion and denying readers the right to think for themselves.

      1. He takes for granted that there is a “CO2 problem” though – a discredited and disproven theory which only has legs because of a massive political campaign.

      1. Morning, BoB.
        My beef with these people is that they ‘beat around the bush’ on this issue and either do not research what’s really driving Johnson et al, or if they have done their research, they keep quiet and repeat what we already know.

  13. https://www.worcesternews.co.uk/news/19415029.friar-street-memories-worcesters-carbuncle-car-park/?ref=ebln

    A story this morning in the ‘Worcester News’ about the demolition in 1965 of the medieval Old Deanery in Friar Street, in one of the few intact medieval streets that survived the Blitz and saw action in the Civil War in the 1640s. It was replaced by an exciting dynamic concrete multistorey car park with a policy of the time of “out with the old and in with the new”. Progress. Apparently, the councillor who passed this for planning retired to Bermuda on the proceeds. Friar Street was let off reasonably lightly, and most of it survived; other old streets were totally obliterated, including Elgar’s High Street shop and Lich Street, with the last medieval Cathedral lych gate in Europe. They got a shopping centre and high end hotel out of it, which today houses diners and a statue of Elgar near to where his dad’s shop once stood.

    I was nine years old when it happened and living in Dorking. Few, if any, of my “elders and betters” would have listened to me, even if I had been around there. The question now raised is how do we make it better?

    Surely the same can be asked about so much of what we loved in our nation taken from us by “Progress”?

    1. The centre and heart was ripped out of Gloucester at the same time. Probably happened all over this country.

  14. Rescuers search for survivors in Japanese town hit by deadly landslide. 4b July 2021.

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/6820f5c7023804253161be73615d440fa0978d7d/0_177_2048_1229/master/2048.jpg?width=700&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=25c8441deb814f7aaa54373ad0cd9aa1

    About 20 people are still missing after a huge landslide caused by days of heavy rain swept away homes in central Japan on Saturday morning.

    Television footage showed a torrent of mud crushing some buildings and burying others in Atami, a resort town south-west of Tokyo, while residents ran as it crashed over a hillside road.

    That’s not quite correct. Though the footage of the actual slide was widely available the BBC resolutely refused to show it giving us instead the aftermath. Why did they do this? Well it’s probably more Nannying, An attempt not to Upset the Children. We should keep our eyes open for more of this Woke Censorship.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/03/landslide-hits-popular-resort-town-in-japan-leaving-more-than-a-dozen-people-missing

        2. I know…Let’s expand the town up in to the hills. Chop down all the trees and build paper houses.

    2. Well, no. Two people have been killed and twenty are missing. Why was this item even shown on the BBC, let alone as a main news item last night?
      It is of little concern here, and there are surely many more important and relevant news happenings going unreported? Oh, wait. It is the result of global warming, the BBC explains ,(ignoring Japanese history).

  15. Good morning all.
    A misty & overcast start here with 12°C in the yard this morning.

    A quick glance through the paper exposes an outbreak of common sense:-
    “Degrees not a priority for breaking up fights, say police!”

    Can’t find it in the online Telegraph so can’t provide a link.

        1. from the pic, it looks like he tried. Was even more confused when she mentioned the win for the British & Irish Lions in opening warm up game. Gove had no idea either even as the nominated sub to jump on bones

      3. Looks as if (to borrow from Jethro’s vocabulary) Gove is giving a portion to Carrie and Boris has just given her one and is completely shagged out!

  18. 335074+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    NOT THE TELEGRAPH LETTERS

    Sunday 4 July: From Freedom Day we must get used to Covid as a fact of life in Britain
    IMO at best / worst a super flu but proving to be a powerful herd manipulation tool in the hands of the politico’s.
    It has certainly shown the true colours of the governance parties coalition instead of using a kid glove,common sense sympathetic approach regarding the herd,they used cattle prod.
    As batley – spen shows us clearly these politico types manipulate & prod into submission the herd and this is done with the herds consent.
    For a far superior lifestyle a cattle prod can be handled by the peoples in any future polling booth visitation, and introduced to any lab/lib/con candidates rear end, they “don’t like it up em” rings very true in this instance.

  22. A strange but impressive salute by the Ukraine team to their fans after their defeat. They lined up at attention in a formation of sorts with outstretched arms and slowly raised both arms above their heads in time. This went on for a considerable time. The fans appeared to be doing this as well. An unusual activity.

      1. No Bill. It was a dignified slow raising of the arms straight above the head up and down from and to the outstretched arm position in unison.
        It must have had some significance but certainly nothing like the Hitler salute.

    2. I think this was started by the Iceland supporters a few years ago, about the time of the 2016 Euros when they beat England.

      1. I had no idea why cars from Iceland were being phased out until I worked out what the acronym meant.

  23. Headlines on the Football last night . .

    UKRAINE STOOD UP TO THE ENGLISH . . .

    In the BLACK LIVES MATTER kneeling competion before the kick-off, the Ukraine team won
    Score.. Ukraine 0 – England 1

    1. BBC now seem unusually reluctant to show pictures of this particular kneeling, presumably because it wasn’t 100%.

      Well done Harry Maguire for showing some independent thinking.

      1. I missed the first goal because I make a point of not turning on the tele until a minute or two after the match starts so that I do not have to witness the grovelling and humiliating kneeling of an English team. I cannot afford a new TV just now and I do not wish to destroy the one we have by throwing hard objects at it.

        I did not know that Harry Maguire did not kneel. Well done him!

    2. They would have done better to turn their backs on England during the kneeling.

  24. Good morning my friends

    Good morning also to our friends across the pond and I hope that their flags today are flying high, they are feeling as corny as Kansas in August and as normal as blueberry pie even though the president who loved his country has been replaced with someone whose senility fills one with gloom,

    3. Why have the timbers rotted, and where? There must be a local technique for dealing with the matter. Perhaps you could needle (Acrow) the upper logs and cut out the rotten ones below?

      1. Apparently, someone used non-porous paint, and when the cabin was heated, condensation got into the logs from the inside and couldn’t escape – so, they rotted. Rot by the side of the fireplace and low down by the door.
        We’re engaging a firm who does this sort of a thing for a living, and will have the technique and the right gear.

        1. Ah – I just envisaged drink-crazed Weegies driving too fast and sliding on the corner into the building…

  26. I have reposted this from very late last night.

    I remember having a very deep premonition of doom – which I mentioned at the time on this forum – when I heard that Gove had arrived in Brussels just when it seemed that Britain was on the brink of truly breaking free of the EU. I was convinced that Gove was on a very sinister mission – probably inspired by the prime minister’s then mistress and now wife. I wondered why and how they were going to nobble Frost – but nobble him they did and now he is trying to sort out the mess.

    I do very much hope that Lord Frost will produce memoirs which give a very full account of the behaviour of Johnson and Gove which, at the very last minute, produced the disaster of the Northern Ireland Protocol.

    Sausage wars truce is just a sticking plaster, warns Lord Frost
    Northern Ireland Protocol is not working, and short-term fixes with EU fail to deal with the underlying problem, says Brexit minister
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/07/03/sausage-wars-truce-just-sticking-plaster-warns-lord-frost/

    When is Lord Frost going to spill the beans and say what really happened when, just before the deal was struck, Gove arrived in Belgium and Boris Johnson capitulated on Fishing, N Ireland, and the financial sector?

    I suspect that this BTL comment gets very near to the truth.

    BTL

    I am convinced that Lord Frost was determined not to agree to the N Ireland Protocol. Indeed he seemed resolute and it looked as if we were headed for WTO terms and no EU deal.

    And then, at the last moment, Gove arrived in Brussels, and with Cummings gone and ‘Carrie’ in charge Boris capitulated and Lord Frost had to cave in and we have the unholy mess that the EU wanted us to have and which they could exploit.

    I wonder if History will tell us that the prime minister’s wife is a traitor who has achieved complete dominance over her pathetically weak husband?

      1. A mischievous thought.

        The coming divorce of Michael Gove and Sarah Vine has been splashed in the MSM and Sarah Vine even gave us a preview in her article a couple of days before the announcement.

        The couple insist that “nobody else was involved” but I wonder if Gove and Symonds are having or have had an affair?

        Both are nasty, devious and treacherous enough to go behind the silly old Bumbler’s back and it would no doubt add spice to their couplings to think that they were cuckolding the Great Adipose Cuckolder himself and making him even more of a laughing stock than he is already.

        1. I think even Symonds has a modicum of taste! The thought of coupling with Gove, yuk!

  27. Generosity Comes At A Price

    A man goes into a cafe and sits down. A waitress comes to take his order, and he asks her, “What’s the special of the day?”

    “Chilli,” she says, “but the gentleman next to you got the last bowl.”

    The man says he’ll just have coffee, and the waitress goes to fetch it. As he waited, he noticed the man next to him was eating a full lunch and the bowl of chilli remained uneaten.

    “Are you going to eat your chilli?” he asked.

    “No, help yourself,” replied his neighbour.

    The man picked up a spoon and eagerly began devouring the chilli. When he got halfway through the bowl, he noticed the body of a dead mouse in the bottom of the bowl. Sickened, he puked the chilli he had just eaten back into the bowl.

    Then the man sitting next to him says, “Yeah, that’s as far as I got, too.”

  28. the next Arab Spring – Horn of Africa https://www.globalresearch.ca/horn-africa-washington-next-arab-spring/5749190 it’s in the pipeline. Puppets in vassal states: Ethiopia for sure, Somalia, Sudan, south Sudan, Tanzania with new Klaus Schwab puppet [Rias] in situ is all brewing. Demented Joe’s appointments follow same path as Obama: Susan Rice – White House Domestic Policy Council directr, Samantha Power Hd of USAID and now – Jeffrey Feltman – seriously toxic. Uhuru and M7 [Musaveni]’s already been bought off

    1. It is all predicted in Revelations.

      The Chinese are in the way. Emergency powers to hold onto Hong Kong was the signal. Bezos has seriously upset the Chinese who now hold sway with Russia’s nuclear arsenal.

      1. mng, chinese have the economic muscle and flexing it. Constructed / Operating ports across Africa https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4144c50e723e52859c1ef736113f4c016f9dbe51039f669a38d558511c61aedc.png add in 25,000km of new rail lines. Xi made his country’s position clear last week https://www.rt.com/op-ed/528102-xi-jinping-china-west/ the days of “West bullying China are gone”. In essence they’ve replaced the economic colonial model as the power base for emerging nations. All West have left is usual threats aka Horn of Africa intent as Arab spring. Vassal leaders know they’re in the end game

  29. To continue my anti-BBC rant which I started below re Japanese landslide. (if you think that the BBC is an unbiased, sensible, non-political, in-depth analyser and reporter of reality, then please read no further).

    Last night the BBC reported on football (well, of course), and on the Japanese landslip caused by global warming. Other main items included “tens of thousands protesting against Covid and the government in Sao Paulo, Brazil. (Quick reminder. Last week there was no mention of over a million demonstrators in London.)
    Dreadful fires in British Columbia – global warming, obviously. And a long segment on Ukrainian army girls to parade in high heels. Not sure what the point of that was? Noticeably the Brazilian and Ukrainian correspondents spoke English very incoherently. The Japanese bloke spoke excellent English. That was about it for main news.

  30. I once met Glove. In five minutes he managed to convey how extremely fortunate I was to have a word with him….

    1. He was like that at Oxford too, which is why I have loathed him for over thirty years.

  32. Theresa May zooms to the TOP of MPs’ pay list after earning a staggering £500,000 for ‘virtual’ speeches during the pandemic
    The former Prime Minister has earned more than £500,000 for ‘virtual’ speeches during the pandemic – making her the highest-earning MP last year.

    DM Story : https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9753247/Theresa-zooms-MPs-pay-list-earning-500k-virtual-speeches.html

    Doesn’t it warm the cockles of all Nottler hearts to know that our former beloved prime minister is not suffering any financial hardship?

    1. It’s her charisma that they’re paying for, obviously.

      PS look at the DM comments – they’re openly saying it’s payment for services rendered while in office!
      British politics has never sunk this low in my lifetime.

    2. 335074+ up ticks,
      Morning R,
      Treachery pays well,she was a crucial
      stage of the three tier semi reset, re – entry
      missile, the wretch cameron first stage triggered on the referendum result
      ( never be needed) may, the nine month delay stage,johnson the “deal” semi re-entered stage.

        1. I thought that she actually did sign it. Just that the secret came out. Ghastly woman.

        2. I thought that she actually did sign it. Just that the secret came out. Ghastly woman.

    5. Much as I despised her actions as Home Secretary and PM, I am really not concerned what she earns for speech-making. If some private-sector companies with more money than sense wish to pay to hear her drone on about running through a wheat-field, the more fool them. I am more concerned about the likes of Hancock using his Office to feather his and his friends nests. Let’s see if anything more comes out about the dodgy PPE and testing contracts that he awarded. I won’t be holding my breath.

      1. Maybe shareholders would like to know which companies are p!ssing their dividends up the wall.
        Also useful information for consumers who will then know whose products to avoid.

    6. Who on earth woul be stupid enough to pay her for anything , for goodness sake , words are just words ..

      If she did something useful and creative that would b a different matter.

      In my opinion the witch has sold the soul of our long gone Wartime parents to the very devil , as muslims flood into Britain with their Korans on rubber boats , aircraft and lorries .

  33. 335074+ up ticks,
    The governance minions were pushing
    child jabbing yesterday as if without the jab they will not reach an age to be
    paedophile bait, courtesy of the lab/lib/con coalition.
    The electorate know that things are going to change when labour a segment of the coalition have started to
    don the common sense,integrity cloak
    mentioned in batley – spen, mind only rhetorically.

    https://twitter.com/Elanders_Voice/status/1411610332540383241

    https://twitter.com/Elanders_Voice/status/1411610332540383241

      1. Full marks to Helen Joyce for not shying away from the PIE issue, which the Labour party has never confronted.

      2. Harridan Harpic – and Patricia Hewitt, she of the ghastly patronising voice.

  34. Starmer and his goons in the Labour party have no feel for the mood in the Country re lockdown. Johnson and his goons have inflicted misery and fear on the people and Starmer & Co went along with pretty much all of it. Wanted to know the science behind the calamitous decisions? Forget it. Opposition? Forget it.

    Now that Johnson is contemplating – nothing is certain with this capricious monster – to ease his current version of lockdown Starmer and his goons want to know the science behind the changes.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0df2ec5e9fef67ed9796dcb86a541f3675b42b3a403309cf1cedd1a84c8e372b.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b6eab2162154be9b1346d3e1fc9e6a0de634c7b4ce682080b6690bca4f65ec2c.png

    1. Wow, just wow. The Labour Party has reached a new low, which I did not think was possible. Clowns.

      1. Apparently we now have to make a ‘business case’ for returning to life as we knew it up until last March. Surely, it is for those who wish to maintain restrictions to provide evidence of their necessity?

        Lockdown is an aberration, a one-off event which must never be repeated.

    2. They are seeing their dreams of world communism drifting away from their grasp. So near, and yet so far.

    4. I hope I am detecting a power shift. 21st. June has been described as Johnson’s ‘Ratner moment’.

      1. I am beginning to think that his ‘share price’ has diminished somewhat. He’s caught between two stools, his commitment to his WEF/Build Back Better cronies and the electorate. With the data improvement being trumpeted followed by the cancellation of 21/06/2021, people who had been unquestioning started to question. Long my it continue.

  35. Went to a jolly large barbecue now that lokidown has ended. Great fun, children enjoying themselves, although everybody was careful not to sing. Most people moderately sober, good food, big mix of nationalities, and a television available for wendyball victims. Around 60 youngsters, similar to last year.

    1. I went out on Friday night, to a birthday party in a restaurant/bar. Singing, dancing and a good time was had by all.

    2. Lucky you.

      I simply do NOT understand why 60,000 people can sing at a wendyball match – but no one can sing in church (or elsewhere).

      1. You’d almost think the Church of England leadership and the government wanted to close the churches down!

        1. Their latest wheeze is to find 10,000 lay people to “run churches”.

          That’ll work well. It is hard enough to find someone to lend a hand with the cleaning…

          1. MOH cleaned the brasses in our church for nearly 20 years. She gave up when a new happy clappy vicar declared there was no need to clean the brass as it was “unnatural”, the final straw was when one of the self appointed elites (you know the type, sitting in the front pew, self important but actually contributing nothing) tore a strip off her for not supporting the church by stopping cleaning the brasses. We stopped going to church after that and haven’t been since.

          2. Heyup, Bill, we here at Flowton Parochial Church Committee, (PCC) virtually run the church, although our only responsibility is the fabric of this beautiful 13th century church. which we have re-roofed and added a kitchen and toilet to make us the TRUE hub of the village that is without, shop, pub, village hall or school and certainly no bus service.

            We are on National Cycle Route 48 and we do get lots of visitors though, since the Covid restrictions, we have lost the ability to let the children enjoy face-painting, cookie decorations and our ‘Coffee Mornings’ have to take place in socially-distanced parts of the church-yard. No Quiz evenings except via Zoom and they haven’t happened since January.

            Don’t knock the ‘lay people’s’ efforts.

          3. I don’t for a moment. What I knock is the effing paid bureaucracy and clergy opting out of their Christian duty.

          6. The idea is to dispense with both trained clergy and church buildings. House churches a la the Chinese model. Spot the trend?

          7. I was suspecting a scheme to infiltrate churches with left wing activists, and close them down in due course.

          8. Lay people are just people who go to church. Wardens have to be elected by the PCC – which has to be selected and voted on by any of the congregation who are on the electoral roll.

            Don’t even begin to think that the C of E is simple….

          9. Strictly speaking, Bill, lay people are just not ordained, surely. Our verger is a lay preacher.

  36. Frontline policing at risk from all graduate plans, warns top crime commissioner

    Plans to turn policing into an all-graduate profession risks denying experienced older recruits such as former soldiers from the job

    By Charles Hymas, HOME AFFAIRS EDITOR • 4 July 2021 • 8:26am

    Priti Patel has been urged to abandon all-graduate police plans as officers would rather serve alongside former soldiers when breaking up a night-time brawl than people with “expressive dance” degrees.

    Marc Jones, the incoming chair of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, said plans to make policing an all-graduate profession risked weakening the frontline by deterring older, experienced recruits like former soldiers.

    Under the plans, devised by the College of Policing but yet to be formally mandated by the Home Secretary, recruits will be required to have a degree or join as an apprentice for three years and study for one while on the job.

    Mr Jones urged the college and Home Secretary to keep open a third route for non-graduates as the plan “made no sense” when other professions and big companies like Google were moving in the opposite direction by opening up to school leavers and non-graduates

    “If you are on your second, third or fourth career, and haven’t got a degree and have got personal responsibilities, doing a three-year apprenticeship is just not viable. Being paid £19,000 a year to be a junior officer isn’t viable for people for a prolonged period of time,” he told The Telegraph.

    “It doesn’t make sense to tell a former soldier: ‘I know you served your country, but when you get home to your wife and two children, or your husband, we also want you to study for a degree to be a firearms officer even though you’ve been in Afghanistan for eight years.’ An officer said to me: ‘At 2.30am in the morning when it’s kicking off outside of a nightclub, and I’m about to get out of the car, I would rather the person next to me had done four years in the Army, than had got a 2:1 in expressive dance.’ It’s horses for courses. We need people with degrees, we need people who want to be chief constables. But we need a mix.”

    Mr Jones, Lincolnshire’s police and crime commissioner, said the all-graduate approach denied a career to people seeking to do a traditional “cracking” job as a PC for 20 years. “Policing should reflect the society it serves and two-thirds of people in our country are without with a degree,” said Mr Jones.

    His force calculated the extra time spent studying in the classroom will take 10 per cent of officers away from the frontline.

    Mr Jones said there was also an increased risk of police officers leaving the profession in five years after getting a degree paid for by the state that would otherwise cost them as much as £50,000.

    “Instead of running up costs of £50,000, the police will pay you and give you a degree. You can leave the service three, four or five years in with a degree, a great thing on your CV but all policing has done is incur a load of costs to train you and then they need to train another one,” he said.

    Lincolnshire police claim it will treble the proportion leaving after five years from 10 per cent to 35 per cent.

    The Home Office disclosed it is looking at ways to “better help” military veterans join the police but added: “You do not need a degree to join the police, and those who join as apprentices earn a starting salary of up to £24,780 and receive degree-level training fit for modern day policing.”

    Bernie O’Reilly, the College of Policing’s interim chief executive, said the new training had been created to “reflect the challenges officers face and recognise the complex nature of the job.”

    “The public deserves highly trained, highly skilled officers that can protect them from all crime types, from domestic violence and digital fraud, through to organised crime and modern slavery, as well as protecting vulnerable people,” he said.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/04/frontline-policing-risk-graduate-plans-warns-top-crime-commissioner

    1. Most of the Finnish police are ex-forces.
      They are not to be messed with.

      1. Hamilton has apparently renewed his contract for Mercedes – the suggestion [Telegaffe] is that he will be paid £40M a year for 2 years.

      2. Police in Canada get paid quite a bit more. RCMP constables can now earn over $100,000 as part of a recent pay deal. Our provincial police offer similar salaries, after four years service they are over $100,000. No need to be a graduate, just complete high school. Apparently it is not easy to be accepted into the force, the selection process is rigorous.

        1. say £60,000 a year.
          ~ 4 years working to get what the lowest paid of those footballers earns a week

          (That £19,000 is the probationer level equivalent I believe, fully qualified police get a bit more)

      3. Markets, dear boy, markets.

        Although – look at those names. Hardly whitey amongst them. Bunch of kneeling hypocrites.

      4. …and all good old English names on your list. Has anyone checked their immigration status, I wonder?

    3. I have written comprehensive letters to no fewer than two chief constables on this very topic (neither of which were acknowledged or replied to). I shall write further to the Home Secretary.

      Within those letters I added the personal viewpoint on police selection and training of Captain Sir Percy Sillitoe who was, perhaps, the most forward-thinking of any British police chief in its history. I wrote:

      My police hero was Captain Sir Percy Sillitoe, KBE, who was chief constable of my home town, Chesterfield, in the early 1920s. Sillitoe was a dynamic and pioneering police chief (the chequered bands on police caps are known as “Sillitoe Tartan” since it was he who initiated them). His breadth of knowledge and attributes caused him to be sought after by larger forces. He joined Sheffield Police and successfully smashed [an emotive term, I know, but the best way to describe his uncompromising methods] the razor gangs who ruled that city in the period following the first world war.

      Sir Percy’s success in that area led him to being recruited as chief constable of the city of Glasgow, where he emulated his success with their gangs as he had previously done in Sheffield. He later became head of MI5 before retiring. In his autobiography Cloak Without Dagger (1955), he explains precisely what, in his opinion, constitute the best attributes for a recruit to the police force.

      Sillitoe wrote: “It does not seem to me essential that a police constable should be a man of more than average intelligence or that he is necessarily going to be a better policeman if his standard of education is higher than the next man’s. My view was—and still is—that the police force needs not exceptionally high standards of education, but very great integrity and strength of character, combined with very great wisdom which comes to some—though not all—men when they have had wide and varied practical experience of human nature.”

      Sir Percy went on to dismiss claims that the concept of a graduate-entry scheme, way back in the 1920s, was a good idea: “To me it seemed absurd that these young men should be sent out as the superiors of superintendents twice their age who often had a great fund of real knowledge acquired through their years of service, and who were now, as a result of this scheme, debarred from any chance of promotion beyond that rank.”

      Modern-day detractors of the beliefs of you, me, and Sir Percy will eagerly explain that we are now living in a completely different era with non-identical demands on our time to what was current in the 1920s (and, indeed, the 1970s and 1980s of my service). This is very true; however, the ideals of what constitutes a police officer … a public servant … should not have changed, despite widespread political intervention and meddling.

      1. Well as regards the last paragraph it is obvious that violent crime is down, murders are down, stabbings are down, rapes are down, burglaries are down, riots are rare, armed criminals are the exception… I could go on. Are you convinced yet?

    4. I think we all know well the graduate entry scheme has worked for the NHS. we now have ward nurses who think it beneath them to take, empty and clean a bed pan or mop up a pile of sick – that’s work fit only for nursing assistants. The Super-nurse-graduate is intent on pushing her way up the promotion ladder in order to claim an office and a few slave assistants, while she makes like Hattie Jaques as if she was Matron re-incarnate.

      2. We should make travel arrangements for them to return. Any not taking up the offer is removed by force.

    1. Anyone can rock up? Anyone?

      Why am I paying for people who shouldn’t be in this country to have any form of health care?

      1. Because the government has decided it should be so. They have also decided that you will pay for it.

        1. It’s starting to look (Hah! Starting!) as if the government needs to be grabbed by the goonies and reminded who they serve.

      2. 334075+ up ticks,
        Afternoon SB,
        Many more results like batley- spen and we have every chance of walking with head in hand.

        If you wanna keep ahead
        don’t support & vote lab/lib/con.

    2. For goodness sake. Why do people blame the banks? Brown crashed the banks. This is known to anyone who isn’t stupid. Yes, Brown did a great bit of marketing to blame them, but he was at fault.

      Blaming the banks for ‘corona terrorism’ is just moronic.

    4. How old is this video, the weather in Vienna is in the 20’s this past week. They seem to be overdressed.

    5. Austria has been rocked this week by the case of a young 13 year old girl drugged, raped and murdered by four Afghan youths. One was arrested just after having eaten out in a pizzeria, according to the person who told me.

      I have not even seen any coverage in our media – perhaps it’s not significant enough to be worthy of comment.

      1. That is terrible. It’s that they don’t want us to know. We are angry enough as it is.

  40. Put on Songs of Praise … coming from Chatsworth House .. narrated by a black woman .

    Moh says the BBC aren’t employing white people any more … and those who are doing the employing aren’t even white anyway .

  41. The Daily Human Stupidity.

    “Hundreds of wise men cannot make the world a heaven, but one idiot is enough to turn it into a hell.”

    Raheel Farooq.

  42. 335075+ up ticks,

    https://twitter.com/BernieSpofforth/status/1411652047661944843

    The thought of putting children in the front line regarding the jab and it’s heaven forbid, tits up unknown qualities
    is horrendous, brain damage etc etc.
    Maybe clinically remove and deep store the child limbs until the odious political / pharmaceutical practitioners are removed, surely by combat as that is nearing the only option to be left.

    The electoral contingent are siding with the politico’s as seen by the polling booth.

    https://twitter.com/BernieSpofforth/status/1411652047661944843

  43. Sheesh …. am I going off small dogs or am I going off small dogs!
    Over an hour’s walking through leafy suburbs and local fields and woodland. Beautiful sun with a cooling breeze.
    When does aforesaid small dog decide to have a dump? On the way home, on the corner of our road as the heavens open.
    I am steaming – literally and metaphorically.

  44. Am I alone in getting pissed of with black faces in newspapers, in magazines, on adverts? Thank God I don’t watch telly.

    1. No TV here, and my magazines don’t really have adverts. However I’m sick of ‘that’s sexist, that’s racist, that’s homophobic. No, you’re a twonk. It’s not because you’re a victim, you’re just deflecting as an excuse for your appalling behaviour. Grow up, shut up.

        1. No… not at all? It’s the behaviour of those demanding the world rotate around the ‘I wasn’t listened to, that’s sexist’ folk.

          Add to that that nonsense of utterly unrepresentative TV.. . it’s silly. It is making this country out to something it isn’t.

    2. Afternoon Bill. If anyone were able to record my verbal abuse of the television adverts I would certainly be condemned to Woke Hell!

    3. I object to the outright racism of these ads. As well as insulting the majority white population of this country, the producers are overtly racist by generally ignoring the brown-skinned population despite their being vastly more than double the black population.

      My Black friends are fed up with being patronised.

      1. Odd that the White Lefties I know think there should be *more* black faces on TV. They don’t think about how patronising it is, they just want to force their view on others.

      2. Since advertising works by either people like you selling to you, or people you’d like to resemble, they are cleary advertising to Blacks, and not to me. So, I don’t buy their products, since they are not offering them to me.

        1. Exactly how I feel. I have kept a “black list” of advertisers who want to sell to bleks rather than me so I can avoid them.

    4. No you are not alone , we are nauseated by the sound of pidgin/ Afro Carib patois of a foreign kind .

      It seems there are so many more of them than us , it is as if all the BAME are dictating what goes in to advertising and news articles .

  46. Boris Johnson invites Putin and Xi to Cop26 talks. 4 July 2021.

    Vladimir Putin could come to Britain for the first time in eight years after being invited by Boris Johnson for the climate change summit.

    The presence of either leader would be a significant moment for the UK, given the tensions with Moscow and Beijing in recent years and the near-frozen diplomatic relationship with Putin since the Salisbury poisonings.

    Well if I were Vlad I wouldn’t come. The risks of assassination by the British State must be pretty high!

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/boris-johnson-invites-putin-and-xi-to-cop26-talks-z9sdwrxbh

  48. The tennis competitions at the All-England club are for Gentlemen and Ladies. As far as I can tell from th behaviour, demeanour and language of the competitors, there are very, very few gentlemen or ladies in evidence.

  49. Dated 26 November 2015 but still relevant:

    ·
    Muslim parents demanded removal of pork in all school canteen in Montreal and its suburbs. The mayor of Dorval, a suburb of Montreal, refused and sent a note to all parents to explain why.

    ′′ Muslims should be aware that they should adapt to Canada and Quebec their customs, traditions and their way of life.”
    ′′ Muslims must realize that they must integrate and learn to live in Quebec. They need to change their lifestyle, not Canadians who so generously welcomed them.”
    ′′ Like other peoples, Canadians are not ready to give up their identity and their culture.”
    ′′ Finally, they must understand that in Canada (Quebec), with its Judeo-Christian roots, Christmas trees, churches and religious holidays, religion should remain a personal matter. Dorval Municipality has the right to deny any discounts to Islam and Sharia.”
    ′′ For Muslims who disagree with secularism and don’t feel comfortable in Canada, there are 57 wonderful Muslim countries in the world, most of them are poorly populated and ready to accept them with open arms according to Sharia.
    ′′ If you left your country for Canada, not for other Muslim countries, it’s because you believed life in Canada was better than somewhere else. We will not allow you to bring Canada down to the level of those 57 countries.”
    ′′ Ask yourself this question – just once :” Why is it better here in Canada than where you came from? ′′
    ′′ The canteen with the pork in the menu is part of the answer.”
    If you came to Canada with the idea that you would displace us with your prolific spread and eventually take over the country, you would have to pack up and go back to where you came from. We don’t have room for you and your ideology.

    If you accept the situation, stay. If not then prepare to leave.”

    It is said to be a hoax – but it should be true.

    https://scontent-cdt1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.18169-9/12274441_944957325558491_7125171026572630958_n.jpg?_nc_cat=1&ccb=1-3&_nc_sid=730e14&_nc_ohc=zra53wt6HPgAX_mHl1f&_nc_ht=scontent-cdt1-1.xx&oh=c1b4d7d2e30f8b809cd003d8b8d6e76e&oe=60E78F24

    1. I cannot imagine an elected official saying such simple, straightforward and honest things.

    4. A friend of mine was arguing with a progressive in a Tel Aviv café a few years ago that there are no good Muslims & the progressive turd really got his knickers in a twist so I chipped in – Yes there are good Muslims – the cemeteries are full of them, its the live ones that are the danger! The progressive’s head exploded & so we finished our coffees & left whilst he was ranting on that we were right wing fascists !

      2. There are plenty of good people who are muslims, but they probably aren’t good muslims….

        1. Happy Sunday blackbox2. By definition a good Muslim is one who carries out Jihad, either directly or indirectly in support of those that do.

          2. Happy Monday blackbox2. the so called “good Muslim” is yet another left wing propaganda lie told to confuse the public as to the reality that Islam at its core is a violent ideology bent on world conquest by both open warfare when they have the numerical advantage & by stealth, deception, sabotage & subterfuge when they are still numerically inferior, as is the case in the UK, western Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia & New Zealand today. Once they have the numbers , 20-25% of the population & the political power that goes with it, they will move to the stage of armed conflict & the general population of so called good & peaceful Muslims will shed the mask & reveal the true barbaric nature of Islam.

  50. Weather’s broken, after a sunny morning now thunder, lightning and torrential rain

  51. Afternoon, all. Things are starting to be more normal – the pew cushions were back in church so no more numb bum for those who forgot to take their own. Oscar continues to progress; I nearly had a heart attack this morning when a woman who was walking her dog stroked his head before I could say, “don’t touch him!” – but he did nothing! Cue a quick, “good boy!” and a biscuit. He is also much more chilled as you can see (plus it’s raining sticks and thundering and he’s still asleep):
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4f5efb87cb5f19de9a3dfa9e1b2ff284b18a61d3004823afedd381713d60b3b6.jpg

      1. Thanks, Paul. It’s only the fourth time he’s done that – and three occasions came today and yesterday.

        1. A ray of delight in one’s life, Conners. To see that you and dog are making progress and getting joy out of it is very heartening!

          2. I certainly feel much better since I’ve had Oscar. He makes me laugh – much needed at times. He’s been bringing his tug to me and offering the handle so we can play, but he misjudged and caught my fingers with his teeth (it was just accidental and didn’t hurt) this afternoon, so I put my fingers to my mouth and whimpered. That will make him think (plus I wouldn’t play with him afterwards). I will make him a good dog one way or another! He is already on the way to becoming a fuss-budget (but he’s had a couple of forgetful moments and threatened me without making contact – he gets told off for that). Considering he’s only been with me four weeks today, I think we’ve come a long way.

    2. Oh, ye of little faith,why are you so afraid?” Then he arose and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.

      Matthew 8:26

    3. Oh, ye of little faith,why are you so afraid?” Then he arose and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.

      Matthew 8:26

    4. Grandpa had a terrier like Oscar , called Vicky!

      She never left Grandpa’s side .. when he used to say to my sister and I, come closer , I’ll will read you a story , we would bring the round padded footstools close to his arm chair .. Vicky the dog would growl and bare her teeth , Grandpa would tap the side of his chair with his news paper , and tell her to stop it , so she would move away to the back of his chair … My sister and I had to sit very still and stay quiet and listen to Grandpa.

      I remember him reading The Tale of Two Bad Mice, and my goodness , we were pretty good at reading , but it was always lovely to be read to .
      If any of you remember the story ….The tale is about two mice who vandalize a doll’s house, so you can imagine us shrieking with horror , and Vicky the dog would growl and snarl from behind the chair.

      I will always remember that dog, she never bit us , but her snarl was pretty terrifying , and Grandpa treated her as if she was a pussycat!

      Of course when Grandpa nodded off in his chair and we either attempted to move his newspaper or pick up his spectacles , we were greeted with ferocious growls !

      Funny how memories come flooding back .

      1. Two Bad Mice was the first story I ever read to No. 1 granddaughter – when she was only 3 months old.
        For years afterwards, it was the story she always requested. I wonder if it made a huge impact at such an early age?

        1. The illustrations were so beautiful , and the stories were just perfect ..my other favourite was The tale of Jeremy Fisher… my sons loved the stories , and the shiver and goosebumps the boys had as they entered the watery make believe of the amphibian world .. worms and the pike who nibbled Jeremy’s toes …

    5. Oscar really has you under control, he probably decided to play nice because he wanted a biscuit.

      1. “I blame Admiral Nelson, he should have left Emma much more money in his will.”

    4. The other Brit, Norris, was on the podium in third place. McLaren is becoming a competitive car again.

  54. Why doesn’t Britain make great comedy sketches any more? 4 July 2021.

    Four candles. A dead parrot. Ronnie Corbett knowing his place. Suits You. Numberwang. Vicky Pollard. You can chart the decades (as well as tell someone’s age) by the great comedy sketches. From Monty Python in the 1960s right through to Little Britain in the 2000s, the sketch show, that grab-bag of characters and ideas, catchphrases and pay-offs, whopping hits and clunking misses, has been a staple of British comedy since the beginnings of mass television.

    Is this a joke? Police States don’t do humour. The first task of Hitler’s Gestapo was to tour the Berlin cabaret scene and make sure that no one was making jokes about him. Same now; the Wokies absolutely depend on everyone whining and being miserable, laughing would destroy it! There is no list of the Soviet Union’s favourite comedians or the name of Mao’s Jester, he even banned the Opera because the deaths in it reminded everyone of the millions who’d been killed. Humour depends absolutely on Free Speech and the ability to say whatever you damn well please about anyone and anything you like. No Police State can allow that, they would be laughed out of existence!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/doesnt-britain-make-great-comedy-sketches/

      1. “it’s not funny – and they don’t understand why” sums them up perfectly.
        They think they can run a society too, and don’t understand why it’s failing.

  55. Happy Sunday all Nottlers. Sorry for the late arrival on here but as I was feeling a bit better this morning I went out shopping & to attend to some other business
    I’ve invited a man called Brian Edwin Jones to join us on here, he has a YouTube channel & among other things plays the guitar & sings & if he gives me permission I’ll post some of his music videos . In the mean time enjoy : The Scientist sung by The Petersens
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwqFUY4HcS8

      1. Afternoon Bill, I don’t know them personally so I haven’t a clue, but a smile is better than a frown, who on earth want’s to see some sourpuss singing !

          2. I think we saw him at an open air concert.

            Miserable git insisted that loudspeakers and video screens were turned off so that pirates could not record the show. We were about a hundred yards away from a stage where some midget was standing. Luckily our company was sponsoring the event so it was free tickets and free beer in the corporate tent.

            If you want happy music try some Louisiana Zydeco .

    6. (Gasp) He’s not wearing his mask. I thought it was compulsory outdoors in Spain.

    1. Classic quote in that article:

      Government was treating British taxpayers ‘like an ATM machine’.

      Yes, we can still feel your hands rummaging in our pockets. What are you doing to change it?

    2. Blowing £37Bn on Test & Trace ought to disqualify her from ever being given another job! We need an independent audit of that whole sorry saga, and Halfcock’s contracts, but I bet we won’t get one!

  58. Hundreds of Afghan troops flee across border to escape Taliban offensive. 4 July 2021.

    Hundreds of Afghan troops fled into neighbouring Tajikistan as the Taliban’s march through northern Afghanistan gained momentum with the fall of 10 districts in Badakhshan province.

    The militants on Sunday night appeared poised to move on the provincial capital, as well as the centre of neighbouring Takhar province, after demoralised and poorly equipped Afghan troops either surrendered or retreated.

    It’s falling apart faster than South Vietnam. It will be over in six weeks at this rate! So much for Nation Building and Democracy! It shows you the fragility of American ambitions.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/04/hundreds-afghan-troops-flee-across-border-escape-taliban-offensive/

    2. The country is a sh*thole. It always has been a sh*thole. It always will be a sh*thole. It has never been worth the expenditure of a single British life, and never will be.

      1. Afternoon A. You must inform the British Government. They have sent troops there three times and they got their asses kicked every time. Is it possible for politicians to learn anything?

        2. You say that,but what about all those times when Afghanistan attacked Britain!

        3. I read a recent report on ZH that the US spent $2.6 Trillion on ‘improving’ Afghanistan…….

    3. A takeover foretold, how long before all the elected officials & families flee Kabul? I blame Bill Clinton for failing to drop a small tactical nuke on Bin Laden & AQ when they were holed up in the remote Tora Bora caves, had the US done so 911 would never have taken place & the fear of the US would have kept the Taliban in check.

      1. Since they were underground, MOAB or similar might have been a better and less controvertial choice.

        1. They were a group of a few hundred to a few thousand hidden up in the remote caves, a mini-nuke with a low yield would have killed them by radiation rather then blast & left the rest of Afghanistan almost unaffected.

    1. Lovely garden, Plum! Slightly wild, not too regimented and lots of colour.

      1. Thanks. When i moved here I was told roses wouldn’t grow in Cornwall.
        So I took up the challenge. Don’t tell me I can’t do something ……

        1. I’ve heard that received wisdom too – you have certainly disproved it! I love the arch, and the contrast with the greenery.

    3. Brilliant, Plum. The new place has lots of roses – climbing and otherwise. My pruning efforts earlier in the year may have been OK, but I have more rose petals on the ground than on any roses. I did a load of dead-heading this week; perhaps there will be more blooms before the year’s out…

      1. Hi Conway,
        Rambling rose May Queen.
        Albertine on the left doesn’t do so well.
        Have fun with Oscar……

        1. Thank you. I might look out for May Queen to train over one of my arches. It makes a splendid show.

        2. Thank you. I might look out for May Queen to train over one of my arches. It makes a splendid show.

  60. Getting older is a lot harder than it looks!

    POOF, THE LIGHT GOES OFF !

    A 72-year-old man goes for a physical. All of his tests come back normal
    so the doctor says, “Harry, everything looks great. How are you doing
    mentally and emotionally? Are you at peace with God?”

    Harry replies, “God and I are tight. He knows I have poor eyesight, so he’s
    fixed it when I get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom,
    poof!, the light goes on. When I’m done, poof!, the light goes off.”

    “Wow, that’s incredible,” the doctor says.

    A little later in the day, the doctor calls Harry’s wife. “Mrs. White,”
    he says, “Harry is doing fine but I had to call you because I’m in awe
    of his relationship with God. Is it true that he gets up during the
    night and poof! the light goes on in the bathroom, and when he’s done,
    poof! the light goes off?”

    “OH GOOD GRIEF!” Mrs. white exclaims,
    “He’s pissing in the fridge again

      1. Given all the pleading via incessant prayers and the Cherubim and Seraphim continuously singing “Holy, Holy, Holy…ad infinitum, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he hasn’t bu@@ered off to the other side of the universe for a bit of P&Q….

        2. We had a strange service this morning; quite a few bits were left out (including the Sanctus, the Gloria and the Credo) because we had a baptism before communion.

      2. Earlier I was about to thank god for a good day.
        Pottering in the garden, popping into the tennis club to wish the team well. Then home to prepare a simple lunch of smoked haddock, poached egg and asparagus.
        …but I hesitate there are still a couple of hours for some b*stard to FK it up…..

        1. My day was OK. Actually got an Uber to get me to Church, without being cancelled. The Muzzie drivers like to play me along for fifteen minutes or so, then cancel the ride. The service was mercifully short. Then had a lift to Tongham, where I exchanged two empty 3.5 pint Hog’s Back “Snorters” for full ones, walked to the village convenience store, got to the bus stop with a minute to spare, and the same with the connecting train…

          Then on to Guildford, where there seem to be fewer mask wearers in the street. Missed the train home by two minutes, so Uber provided “Plan B”…

          1. You were lucky to make it home…!
            The more I sample the simple life the more I like it…..growing older is not all bad…

          2. “…growing older is not all bad…” – beats the alternative, Plum

          4. Agreed, Plum. Could have waited for the next train, but they’re hourly on Sundays, and I had an impending ASDA delivery. Must say that the new place is a game-changer. I’m three minutes’ walk from the station, also there are a few buses a week, though never when you need them.

            Sadly, none of the four churches in the parish are served by public transport. I can get to all of them by Uber, but there’s no chance of getting home, so I’m reliant on lifts to ‘civilisation’ from a few of the sensible regulars.

  61. Abandoning buccaneering Britain is a recipe for electoral disaster

    The Government’s embrace of big-state policies will not solve our country’s problems

    MARK LITTLEWOOD

    On the face of it, the Conservatives have much to be confident about. In the mid-term of the Parliament and the tail end of a pandemic, the party is somehow maintaining a decent lead in most opinion polls. By-elections are being seen more as a test of the credibility of the opposition than of the government. However, as Freedom Day approaches and normality returns, we can expect politics also to revert to its normal rules. Boris Johnson’s two-year long defiance of the laws of electoral gravity may, therefore, be coming to an end.

    In truth, the Government’s popularity has been based on just two card tricks and the magic of both is going to wane rapidly. First, the rallying cry of “Get Brexit Done” saw millions of Brexiteers flock to the Tory flag, alongside a good chunk of voters who simply wanted the interminable delay in our attempts to leave the EU to reach a resolution.

    Once Brexit had been accomplished – without the apocalyptic consequences Remainers seemed so certain of – we almost immediately found ourselves plunged into the coronavirus pandemic. After what might be described by a generous observer as an “uncertain start”, the Conservatives were able to play their joker. Thanks to the inspired procurement decisions of Kate Bingham, the chair of the Vaccine Taskforce, we beat virtually every other developed country when it came to getting jabs into people’s arms.

    Bingham and Brexit have carried the Government thus far. But neither is going to matter much in the months and years to come. The halo effects of speedy vaccinations and a smooth Brexit have burned brightly, but they won’t shine permanently.

    When it comes to the normal bread and butter issues, to which we are about to return, the Conservative cupboard is extraordinarily bare. The oft-repeated slogans of “levelling up” and “build back better” seem to be mere catchphrases, not serious strategies. In so far as it is possible to derive what these terms actually mean in concrete policy terms, they appear to be code for a return to old-fashioned regional development policy.

    The Government genuinely appears to believe that the woes of left-behind Britain have been due to the state being an insufficiently large part of people’s lives. Still more government spending, alongside swathes of strategies drawn up by Whitehall bureaucrats, is the medicine being prescribed. This ignores, of course, that success in the richer parts of the UK has been due to having a private sector which dwarfs the state sector and relatively low tax takes as a proportion of income – London is the standout example.

    Even the most militant of fiscal hawks will accept that government spending will rise at the time of a national emergency. However, you cannot simply ignore the dire state of the public finances when the crisis has passed. The Government hasn’t just been over-spending over the course of the pandemic but has now been running budget deficits for two full decades. Debt is about to surpass 100 per cent of GDP. The Conservatives’ only response to date has been a small and temporary trim to the foreign aid budget. This is the rough equivalent of calling a plumber to mend a dripping tap when your house is on fire.

    Maddeningly, when you point out to Conservative ministers that the current administration’s tax take is likely to be even higher than Clement Attlee’s post-war socialist government, you are typically met with a mere shrug of the shoulders.

    Even when radical, modernising policy appears to be on the verge of consideration – such as ending the preposterous BBC licence fee – the Government retreats at the first sound of gunfire from vested interests. In the field of media policy, the core Tory proposal seems to be to ban advertisements for jam and cake.

    In a year’s time, Brexit and vaccines will be memories, not policy positions. The Conservatives’ basic offer of a high tax, high spend, heavily regulated economy is what will remain. The millions of voters who wanted a buccaneering, enterprising and liberated post-pandemic, post-Brexit Britain will feel not just disappointed, but politically homeless.

    Mark Littlewood is director-general of the IEA

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/04/abandoning-buccaneering-britain-recipe-electoral-disaster/

    1. “… but politically homeless.”

      Unless there is a brand new, centre right party created.

  62. Hey ho. A couple of days ashore before I resume my trip along the K&A later in the week.

    Sadly Ash dieback seems to increasing mile after mile along the banks of the canal as the photos below show. There are literally thousands of trees infected. It seemed to me that their imminent demise echos the demise of traditional British society. Having abandoned our Norse Gods heritage (saving the days of the week) are we approaching the twilight of the Gods and the destruction of:
    “The sacred Norse Yggdrasil — says E. O. James in his classic archaeological study The Tree of Life (1966) — is perhaps “the Cosmic tree par excellence”. A giant ash tree described in both the Poetic Edda and Snorri Sturluson’s 13th-century Prose Edda, Yggdrasil stands at the absolute center of the Norse cosmos. Its roots connect it with the Nine Worlds, and it is tended by the three Norns Urðr, Verðandi, and Skuld (powerful female figures who roughly correspond to the three Fates of Greece), who water it from the magical Well of Urðr.”?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/92298a90f85c8778a28e1018d6670cc686bad2029254f385a2bfba667c594c74.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/706d37a7b2576437d425879447d12da11b7eaf8c8444068f414337dcb3bc04ea.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/de005b9574026c449340c182c5f6a79d5e59bfb738cc5c1ce10232e6537d04bf.jpg

      2. Thanks, TB. Though I suspect our own @ashesthandust would do a better job.

        Or my former humble village ‘chorister’, Sheila Armstrong…

  63. The Northern Ireland Protocol is undermining the Good Friday Agreement

    The EU’s behaviour is a perfect illustration of why the pragmatic UK was never a happy member.

    TELEGRAPH VIEW

    The EU has agreed to a three-month truce to allow the sale of chilled meats from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. It’s a welcome move but, as Lord Frost, one of the most effective members of the Government, tells this newspaper, this is only a tiny part of what’s wrong with the Protocol.

    The UK had to sign off on the Protocol if it wanted to get Brexit done properly while maintaining free trade for manufactured goods. It should not have been thus: the EU and UK Remainers should have accepted Brexit, and not used Northern Ireland as a means of trying to keep us de facto in the EU. Theresa May’s weakness meant that it wasn’t to be, and by the time Boris Johnson rescued Brexit it was too late for him to convince the EU to accept a rational means of policing the Irish border. He had to trust that Brussels would consider creative solutions to avoid trade disruption. The opposite has happened, a perfect illustration of why the UK, pragmatic and pro-trade, was never compatible as a member of the imperialistic EU.

    Northern Ireland is part of the UK, as recognised in the Good Friday Agreement, and treating it otherwise has stoked tensions: Brussels insists piously and ignorantly that the EU is essential to the historic peace process, but this Protocol is tearing it apart. Remainers who claim the EU is simply implementing what the UK agreed to ought to check their conscience. As Lord Frost warns, “If it isn’t supporting the…Good Friday Agreement and helping that work, then the Protocol itself isn’t working.” Many will conclude that it never will, and must be renegotiated, if not from scratch, then at the very least comprehensively.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/07/03/northern-ireland-protocol-undermining-good-friday-agreement/

    ‘Piously’ indeed, for the EU is another ideology supported religiously by its adherents.

    The ‘Remainers who claim the EU is simply implementing what the UK agreed to’ can be found BTL on the DT and the Mail: “Your mess, Brexiteers. You did this to the country. What will you do when the UK has to rejoin with its tails between its legs?” and so on.

    1. “The UK had to sign off on the Protocol if it wanted to get Brexit done properly.” No, we did not.

      2. Agreed but it is a line. There is only one rope on a boat and that is the bell rope!

        1. When I was one-and-twenty
          I heard a wise man say,
          “Give crowns and pounds and guineas
          But not your heart away;
          Give pearls away and rubies
          But keep your fancy free.”
          But I was one-and-twenty,
          No use to talk to me.

          When I was one-and-twenty
          I heard him say again,
          “The heart out of the bosom
          Was never given in vain;
          ’Tis paid with sighs a plenty
          And sold for endless rue.”
          And I am two-and-twenty,
          And oh, ’tis true, ’tis true.

          Housman again…..

          1. I quoted this poem from A Shropshire Lad only a week or so ago.

            I gave my heart away to Caroline at the age of 40 – and now that I am 5 and 70 I don’t really want it back again!

      1. Sadly no. I had to head straight for Reading and the Kennet River before the adverse weather forecasted closed the navigation due to strong currents…

    5. Where my father was born and bred. His father and uncle owned a large garage in the High Street.

      1. I have written them out of my will. It’s all going to the local Hospice instead.

        1. not necessarily a good idea to tell them in advance. They might offer you a bed for the night…

      2. This is very sad. I have been a Shoreline member of the RNLI for fifty years.

  66. That’s me gone. Funny day. Sudden ten minute heavy showers followed by two hours of very hot sun. I blame global warming.

    Have a smooth evening.

    A demain.

  67. Whod’a thunk it….

    Exports of Russian electricity have reached a record high since 2012, according to the country’s energy ministry, which projects that this year’s sales will nearly double compared to exports recorded in the first half of 2020.
    Russian sales of electricity in the first half of 2021 may amount to 10.2 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) against 5.2 billion kWh sold in the same period a year ago. In pre-pandemic 2019, the country exported 9.3 billion kWh.

    The growth was mostly boosted by the surging supplies to the Baltic States, which have more than doubled the year-on-year purchases of Russian electricity up to 3 billion kWh, while Finland has more than tripled imports to 3.9 billion kWh.
    According to the ministry, the increase in supplies this year is the result of the favorable pricing environment, which it attributed to the prolonged cold and dry weather in winter and an abnormally hot summer.

    Earlier this year, Russian power supplier Inter RAO said exports of electricity in 2021 may total 18 billion kWh.

      1. I’ll tell you a little story.
        Several months ago Estonia,Latvia and Lithuania who had been buying electricity from Belarus cancelled the contract.Now they still needed to replace the lost power so they asked their arch enemy,Russia,if they could supply it.
        “no problem” said Russia
        ” but you do realise it will come from Belarus…we share a common grid”
        So now they pay Russia who pays Belarus and everyone is happy.

      2. What would all those NATO troops do.They’d be sweltering in Summer and freezing in Winter!

      1. 335095+ up ticks,
        Evening E&S,
        I think they become pickled in a bar with 30 to choose from.

  69. 335075+ up ticks,
    This is news ???

    breitbart,
    UK: ISLAMIC STUDIES TEACHER CONVICTED OF SEXUALLY ASSAULTING TWO GIRLS AND A BOY

      1. Yup. Bezos has been behind every atrocity since the Twin Towers and his affiliation with Osama bin Laden and more recently the murderous Sheikh in Saudi.

        The other characters have been known for some years to have acted nefariously in support of the stated aims of Klaus Schwab and Davos.

        I hope they all hang.

  71. Masks will become personal choice, says Robert Jenrick

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57710527

    There are some that just can’t let go:
    When asked if the requirement to wear face masks in certain settings will definitely go, Mr Jenrick said: “I can’t make that commitment this morning because the prime minister will make an announcement in the coming days – it does look as if the data is in the right place.”

    And then:
    Prof Stephen Powis, NHS England’s medical director, said if some people continued to wear face masks in certain circumstances, such as crowded places, then “that’s not necessarily a bad thing”. “Those habits to reduce infections are a good thing to keep,” he added.

    There’ll be some punch-ups somewhere over this, with the frit shouting at the free.

    2. I was given that to read at school and it made a lasting impression. Educashun ain’t what it used to be.

      2. Sue, you work for BBC Production$; I wonder if your bosses have any idea about the enormous success of a programme called ‘Bluey’?

        1. Tim, yes, there is a very large “Bluey” poster occupying a wall just a few yards from where I sit in Television Centre. I believe it can be found on the CBeebies channel.

        1. Try clicking on the blue pjhlaw on the left above the tweet.

          Last time I clicked one of those I woke up with a hangover.

      3. Sorry, I have downvoted you accidentally and I cannot get rid of it however hard I try. It won’t budge.

        Edit: Done it.

          1. I’ll think about that one. This may take some time. I will have to be careful. I don’t want Plum extracting my toe nails one by one…..

    2. Trouble maker.

      Cur Simon Thingy’s people will tell the “bogus” law firm to eff orf.

      You read it here first (a lawyer writes…)

  75. Red squirrels and pine martens could lose protection in UK review, say experts
    Adders and slow worms also among species possibly affected by changes that could help property developers

    Legal protections for wildlife and plants in the UK are set for a review that could result in some important species losing their entitlement to sp ecial status, ecology experts have told the Guardian.

    Adders, slow worms, water voles, mountain hares, pine martens and red squirrels are among the species experts have warned could be affected, after unexpected changes to the government’s review process that will raise the bar on how rare and under threat an animal needs to be to gain legal safeguards.

    The changes, which have not been widely heralded by the government, could benefit property developers and infrastructure projects such as road-building, which currently have to take account of rare species found within the proposed development areas, and sometimes have to be changed or moved as a result.

    Angela Julian, coordinator of Amphibian and Reptile Groups of the UK (ARG UK), which represents 37 local groups and over 4,000 members, said: “We are shocked to discover these proposed changes, which will effectively remove any form of protection from many of our well-loved widespread species including slow worms, grass snakes and viviparous lizards. Our native wildlife deserves a fair hearing.”

    An adder.
    An adder. Photograph: pronature/Alamy
    Under the Wildlife and Countryside Act (WCA) of 1981, the government must review the status of protected species on a five-yearly basis, a process now under way. The WCA classifies the UK’s rare flora and fauna, with legal protections for those considered at risk.

    When species are protected, it becomes illegal to harm them, for instance through hunting or plant-collecting, or to sell or trade in them. Protections can also extend to their habitat, which can affect infrastructure and development schemes such as housebuilding or new roads.

    Last summer, announcing a push to “build, build, build”, the prime minister, Boris Johnson, attacked wildlife protections. “The newt-counting delays in our system are a massive drag on the productivity and prosperity of this country,” he said.

    In documents published on an obscure government website, the terms of this year’s review have been changed, to incorporate new standards that would mean an animal or plant species would only be protected if “in imminent danger of extinction”.

    Campaigners are worried that this sets the bar too high, and that dozens of species which are at risk would lose vital safeguards. More than 30 conservation groups have written to ministers of their concerns.

    In a letter seen by the Guardian, they argue that the government’s plan to move away from the UK’s own standards to use definitions of risk from the International Union for Conservation of Nature will result in many species losing protection.

    A pine marten.
    A pine marten. Photograph: Our Wild Life Photography/Alamy
    The IUCN draws up the global Red List by which species are classified in nine categories including vulnerable, endangered and critically endangered. However, the letter warns that the government’s proposals would mean dropping current safeguards for all species except those at the worst end of the scale, regarded as at imminent risk of extinction. That would leave in the lurch species which may still be under severe threat but whose populations have improved slightly, often owing to conservation efforts.

    “The changes [also] remove the opportunity to prevent species decline,” the organisations say. “Under the changes outlined, we will only be reacting to catastrophic species declines.”

    Richard Benwell, the chief executive of Wildlife and Countryside Link, said the species that would certainly have protection removed under the changes included stag beetles, purple emperor butterflies, pine martens, brown hares and mountain hares. Species that were likely to have protection removed included adders, smooth newts, grass snakes and basking sharks.

    Amphibians could also be at particular risk, because if it becomes legal to trade in certain species, wild samples could be bought and sold and mixed with captive collections around the country. That would risk spreading the deadly chytrid fungus and severe perkinsea infection, which have devastated amphibian populations around the world, and have been discovered in some captive populations in the UK.

    Jenny Tse-Leon, conservation manager at the charity Froglife, said: “Many amphibians and reptiles have faced serious declines in recent years but do not qualify as threatened enough under IUCN definitions. Our research has shown that common toad numbers have plummeted by 68% in the last 30 years, but these plans mean they [would] no longer qualify for protection.”

    The five-year review is being carried out by the UK Joint Nature Conservation Committee, with Natural England, Natural Resources Wales, NatureScot, and representatives of the non-governmental sector.

    A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: “The Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) is currently in the initial data-gathering phase of their quinquennial review of species protections. No changes to species protection have yet been recommended to us. Any proposed changes will be subject to consultation by JNCC in the autumn before recommendations are made to us and to the Scottish and Welsh governments.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/02/red-squirrels-and-pine-martens-could-lose-protection-in-uk-review-say-experts

    1. It sounds disgusting, Belle, but that’s the sort of governance we currently have and have had for quite a few years now.

    2. Boris Johnson attacked wildlife protections: “The newt-counting delays in our system are a massive drag on the productivity and prosperity of this country,” he said.

      Up to a point. Some developments have been delayed interminably by ‘Save The Newt’ and other campaigns. The restrictions on property owners with bats are a case in point. Today, we know so much more about the needs of endangered species that it shouldn’t be difficult to find existing or create new habitats for many of them.

      Nevertheless, this looks like another loss of protection to allow mass house building.

        3. Newton, apart from being a brilliant mathematician and scientist, was also a governor of the Royal Mint. As such he sent many miscreants to their deaths by hanging.

          I guess Newton would have seen many of our grafting politicians sentenced to death. That is you Johnson, Hancock, Gove etc.

      3. Johnson is a Philistine. He has no knowledge of nature, bio-diversity or of the intrinsic beauty of many man made creations, buildings, landscapes and Art.

        He is simply an ignorant leg over merchant who conjures a few Latin phrases in order to disguise his stupidity. He has elevated Lying to an Art form. Hell is awaiting him and his repulsive cohorts.

    3. For the first time since we came here there was a red squirrel on the peanut feeders today.
      I see them around the garden but never on the feeders. It looked like a young one.

    1. I know the feeling …. what particularly irks me is when the neighbours knock]ring doorbell during the football …. but what irks me most is when they fail to knock for 10 days …

      2. I had a mystery delivery left on my doorstep a few days ago – no name, no address, nothing. I tried the usual suspect (my neighbour who is at number 8 as I’m next to number 6 but have no number), but it wasn’t theirs, nor was it for number 6. I even tried the people whose name was on the bags, but they had no knowledge of a delivery in my area. In the end, I used the food up because it was getting near its sell-by date.

    1. If France had England’s density, its population be more than 260 million.

      Quelle horreur!

    2. Make Room Make Room! was the novel that the film Soylent Green was based on.

    3. In 1997 Tony Blair & New Labour came to power & began the Marxist policy known as Social Re-Engineering of the UK , ie the slow ethnic genocide of the native White Caucasian population & their replacement with the low IQ & violent unskilled dregs of the 3rd world, a mixture of Muslims & Africans who will never integrate & will force their savage ways on British society to turn the UK into just another failed 3rd world state. Labour is no longer in power but Marxists have successfully taken over the Conservative party & made it a clone of Blairs New Labour in all but name.

  78. My wife (who is a Covid frightened-hedgehog) could have written this (Note: she is in Poland now, so I’m more relaxed …. I have no wish to travel by air in a mask):

    Dear Richard

    As the pandemic eases I am starting to see my friends again and while it has basically been lovely, I feel like I’ve really struggled with all the half measures – the elbow touching and the nervousness about who is sitting where. I didn’t know what to say to them. And with a couple of people, when we said goodbye at the end of the night, I really wanted to hug them, as we would have done before.

    Instead we had a stiff little wave and turned our backs on each other, and I started crying on the way to the Tube. So I should be over the moon now “intimate contact with family and friends” is back on the menu, and I partly am. (Though I wish it hadn’t been Michael Gove spreading the message!)

    But I have noticed myself being a bit funny about accepting invitations to drinks and restaurants, especially indoor events, where common sense (and the existence of new variants etc) suggests we should still be distanced for another month or so – but try telling that to my friends! I also worry that if I avoid such events, my social skills will get even worse and my friendship group will have moved on.

    Please can you help?

    –Anon, via email

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/family/relationships/dear-richard-missed-hugging-friends-now-allowed-toim-afraid/

    2. Dear Anon,

      You and about half of the population have been sold a pup. Do a little research and question the government, its advisors and the global agenda, oft repeated by the morons in charge, to ‘build back better’. Before ‘building back’ it is necessary to demolish what you already have. Do you see a connection or are you simply stupid?

    3. Dear Anon,

      You and about half of the population have been sold a pup. Do a little research and question the government, its advisors and the global agenda, oft repeated by the morons in charge, to ‘build back better’. Before ‘building back’ it is necessary to demolish what you already have. Do you see a connection or are you simply stupid?

    6. “…I have noticed myself being a bit funny… – appalling English.

      1. They want to cremate us? 😮

        (As my house is a TV free zone, I never see these things)

  81. Not a figure ever discussed on Tim Hartford’s weekly programme on numbers and statistics on Radio 4 = ‘More or Less’:

    Only 12% of those ON REMAND aged under 18 is WHITE.

      1. “Figure 3.5: Proportion of children receiving a caution or sentence by ethnicity”
        Says that’s 12% black kids.

  85. On my way to bed, I spotted this – to help you all to sleep better:

    “SAGE versus Sajid: Doom-monger scientist lashes new Health Secretary’s ‘frightening’ plans to scrap lockdown by July 19 and treat Covid ‘like the flu’ – despite more than HALF Britons now being double-vaccinated
    SAGE psychologist Stephen Reicher lashed out at Sajid Javid’s ‘frightening’ plan to ditch lockdown by July 19
    St Andrews professor wrote on Twitter: ‘It is frightening to have a ‘Health’ Secretary who thinks Covid is flu'”

    1. Covid is not even the Flu but a nasty man-made cold virus.

      These SAGE fuckers need to be investigated. Who is funding these idiots? We already know that China is funding Imperial and other London University departments. Oxford appears to be similarly funded.

    1. I find it hard to believe this is true. Such a dramatic change in the law would have been debated extensively on the airwaves. However, there seems to be no end of surprises in what happens these days!

      1. It has certainly been kept very quiet. I have signed it anyway and sent it off to my mp. I have just read it has been passed (agreed) in Australia.

        1. The proposal does not sit well with the opposition in this country to assisted suicide. Its a different argument of course, but I would be surprised that if it has been proposed it gets much support.

          1. The problem is that Parliament isn’t sitting at the moment under the coronavirus rules so things seem to be getting pushed through which under normal circumstances would not see the light of day.

    2. That article made me feel physically sick .

      I wonder if that is for racial advantage , and is that why we see hordes of Muslim men rather than women ?

  88. OT
    This evening, I had a TESCO Chicken Roast Dinner; the small print was amusing:

    ‘Succulent chicken with pork and sage stuffing and roast potatoes’

    Ha!

    1. Was it tasty though, and did it fill a gap?

      Semantics again, some of the descriptions are nonsensical !

      Actually they do some quite tasty instants .

    2. SNAP! I had a roast chicken dinner yesterday (Simon Hopkinson’s recipe) with Paxo sage & onion stuffing. It was delicious.

      1. I’m surprised that you don’t make your own stuffing, Grizz. It’s quick, easy and much nicer than anything out of a box.

        1. Indeed I do make my own stuffing, frequently, Harry. I use a variety of fresh herbs, spices and breadcrumbs along with other ingredients like home-made sausage meat, chestnuts, bacon, dried apricots and whatever takes my fancy. I used Paxo on this occasion because I had come across a packet online (not had it for years) and it was reminiscent of my childhood.

  90. Furious neighbours were forced to called the police over a ‘four-day wedding’ party which turned their street into a ‘warzone’.

    A range of expensive cars, including Porsches and Lamborghinis, lined the streets in Telford, Shropshire, last weekend.

    Locals were outrages after loud music was reportedly played until 3am and fireworks and coloured smoke cannons were set off.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9754363/Furious-neighbours-call-police-four-day-wedding-party-turned-street-warzone.html

    Where do these young Indians/ Pakistani men get their money from, they must be well and truly loaded with cash and cars.

  93. Transferred to Monday’s Nottlers’ Forum

    JUST WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/07/04/completely-hopeless-brandon-lewis-delays-law-protecting-troubles/
    ‘Completely hopeless’: Brandon Lewis delays law protecting Troubles veterans
    NI Secretary criticised over decision to hold back legislation protecting British troops from killings prosecution until autumn

    By Robert Mendick and Christopher Hope,

    I thought this was promised at the time of the last election 18 months ago?

    Are we going to have the same sort of delay as we have had with Brexit? Our politicians are a shameful disgrace.

    “Conservative MPs were privately told that the new Legacy Bill would be brought forward before the summer break.

    However, a letter sent by Brandon Lewis, the Northern Ireland Secretary, to party leaders in the province reveals that legislation will not be introduced until the end of autumn at the earliest.

    The letter, written jointly by Mr Lewis and Simon Coveney, the Republic of Ireland’s foreign affairs and defence minister, calls for discussions on Northern Ireland “legacy issues“ with “their objective to find an agreed way forward that will allow implementing legislation to be introduced in both UK and Ireland by the end of the autumn”.

    1. It gives those opposing the measure time to build a case. They could have stamped on this persecution at the time of the GF agreement but failed to do so because Service Men do not have the resources to fight against the deep state.

    2. I’d thought that the granting of amnesties to IRA and INLA veterans as part of the Good Friday Agreement was a way of drawing a line over the Troubles and starting afresh with a clean slate. It seems logical that the same amnesty should be extended to British troops involved in the Troubles, and in the same spirit, and this current move is long overdue.

      Right now, there are far more pressing things to worry about, such as sausages.

  96. Morning all

    Just had a phone call from an Indian female sounding voice saying there was an issue with my internet connection.

    Seeing as I have separate routers at home, at a holday lodge, linked to a security camera and a portable one kept in the car,
    I replied:

    “Which one do you have an issue with?”

    – the caller immediately put the phone down.

Comments are closed.