Saturday 4 September: Instead of higher taxes, there is a Conservative way to pay for social care

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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772 thoughts on “Saturday 4 September: Instead of higher taxes, there is a Conservative way to pay for social care”

  3. Good morning all.
    Another dull, grey autumnal morning in Derbyshire with 9½°c in the yard.

      1. Morning Bob – I checked on the DT and I got the day before [12.01am 3/9] It must have appeared very soon after I checked. I must be more patient.

  5. What’s so bad about teaching British values to Afghan refugees? 4 September 2021.

    Politicians in particular regularly struggle when asked what British values are and how they should be disseminated among our new citizens on arrival on these shores. The always-impressive Jonathan Reynolds, the shadow work and pensions secretary, was this morning asked during a radio interview what British values should be taught to new arrivals, but he deftly side-stepped the question and talked instead about what practical support they should be given.

    Frequently, values are in the eye of the beholder. What might be considered “British” values might in fact be European or Western ones. They all boil down to the same thing: respect for the rule of law and democracy, tolerance of others’ beliefs and lifestyles, and an acceptance of equality of esteem for people of a different sex or sexuality.

    Morning everyone. I’ve never heard of Jonathan Reynolds but am not surprised that he sidestepped the question of British Values since like his fellow Parliamentarians he actively despises the real ones though I have no doubt that he would subscribe to those in the second paragraph. These are of course Woke Values The accepted beliefs of the entire British political class. There is no room in there for nasty things like Patriotism or Pride in the UK and its Achievements and History, no crevice through which Honour, Duty and Courage could enter. Qualities which oddly enough any Afghan would instantly recognise and respect.

    Teaching these Woke Values to the Afghans will present something of a problem since they are coming with their own beliefs; they haven’t left those behind with the Taliban. They are escaping Poverty not Islam! Unfortunately these are diametrically opposed to the tenets of Cultural Marxism. Here you will find no tolerance of others beliefs and lifestyles though they may endure it, nor any esteem for those of a different sex or sexuality, only contempt for its supporters and practitioners.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/09/03/bad-teaching-british-values-afghan-refugees/

    1. They are not woke values! They are the basis for what was an open and tolerant society! And because the list doesn’t include patriotism, doesn’t mean it’s not there. And why would a generic list of European values include “Pride in the UK”? IN any case, please list exhaustively what about the UK there is to be proud of?

    2. Help!!

      We have changed our computer, and the new one won’t read telegraph.co.uk articles.

      Could some kind person tell us the magic program for reading DT articles please.

      1. Did you have a login ID before? If so, you likely have to log in again. If not, make like me and hammer the ESC key as fast as you can just as the article starts to load.

      2. Morning Janet. Click on article. Then Refresh. Then ESCAPE. You may have to try several times!

  6. SIR – Jeremy Hunt recommends a health and care tax rather than higher NI contributions. He says that an NI increase would be unfair to young people, but does not mention that they will eventually benefit from the improved care the extra tax provides.

    Mr Hunt, as chairman of the Commons Health and Social Care Committee, often takes a swipe at government health policy, but does not come up with positive alternatives.

    Stephen Bartlett
    Kirk Ella, East Yorkshire

    Yorkshire has been producing a lot of gullible and stupid people recently. The additional £10bn+ dosh requested fort he NHS by the NHS may be labelled as being for ‘improved care’ but will end up in the pockets of all the NHS ‘angels’, including administrators who work for the monopoly as it has in previous years. UK healthcare will continue to lag behind other G20 nations.

    1. Britain’s Socialised National Health Service Pushing Woke ‘Whiteness’ Ideology

      https://media.breitbart.com/media/2021/09/GettyImages-1228271168-e1630680064880-640×480.jpg
      *
      *
      https://twitter.com/i/status/1276129667653591045
      *
      *
      Commenting on the material, broadcaster Calvin Robinson told Breitbart London people should not “shrug this off as woke nonsense” adding that “that is how they get away with this long march through the institutions” — a reference to Communist activist Rudi Dutschke’s call for left-wing activists to gradually take over institutional leadership positions in the West.

      “Suggesting white leaders cannot opt out of political conversations and must take a hard-Left neo-Marxist approach in support of the Critical Race Theory branch of identity politics is absolutely outrageous and the government must step in to crush this indoctrination,” Robinson added, asking: “why are they signalling out white leaders? That is a clear demonstration of how divisive this rhetoric is.”
      *
      *
      https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2021/09/03/britains-national-health-service-pushing-whiteness-ideology/

      1. ‘Morning, C1. This government isn’t stepping anywhere because it seems to be permanently adrift and totally out of touch. Mr Quinn seems to agree:

        SIR – Your Leading Article (September 2) on the Government’s lack of any coherently expressed Covid strategy was spot on. Equally depressing were the closing paragraphs of Allister Heath’s Comment piece, listing the many things that the Prime Minister is failing to tackle.

        I can remember governments back to Harold Wilson’s first administration. One or two have been poorly led – those of Heath and Callaghan. I cannot recall a government, however, in which I have less confidence than this one, led by Boris Johnson.

        Allister Heath is right to suggest that the Prime Minister has no underlying philosophy other than a desperate desire to be liked. Add his fondness for grand projects, blustering rhetoric and his lack of attention to detail, and it’s a lethal combination.

        Furthermore, he has surrounded himself with a senior ministerial team which, with one or two honourable exceptions, are not up to their jobs.

        Since I gained the right to vote, 50 years ago, I have voted Conservative at every election, though never a party member. In 2019, despite serious reservations about Mr Johnson, I did so again, as the Corbynite alternative was too awful to contemplate.

        At the next election I face a dilemma. I believe it’s my responsibility to vote but I have no confidence in the present Government and its leadership. The other parties hold no appeal for me.

        Consequently, it is very likely that I will not vote. I wonder how many other Conservative voters will feel the same. Quite a number, I suspect.

        The Prime Minster needs to raise his game fast. I doubt he can, in which case the Conservative Party must replace him with a convincing and able leader.

        John Quinn
        Gloucester

  8. SIR – I don’t know whether anyone else puts on perfume before a Zoom meeting (Letters, September 2), but I do know that my mother always powdered her nose before answering the telephone.

    Wendy Mellish
    Bradford Abbas, Dorset

    Literally or an euphemism?

  9. Good morning from Anglo Saxon Queen with blooded axe and pursed longbow
    A cloudy and dull morning but it’s at least very mild and the birds are singing.

    I’m about to put the oven on to heat some chocolate and almond croissants to have with tea, accompanied by yoghurt .

    1. Blimey, Æthelflæd, you have your tea early! Me, I’m just having breakfast after tidying the kitchen & feeding the pigs. Bacon butty, on proper bread.

      1. Good morning, i like my tea early. Sounds as if you have a busy start to the day and the bacon butty sounds lovely, don’t forget the HP fruity sauce.

        1. Noooooooooooo!!!!! No sauce on bacon butties – nor butter, either. And (as SWMBO does), there’s a special place reserved in Hull for those who squirt ketchup on their butties.
          Just good bacon and good, tasty bread!
          Morning, BTW.

          1. No butter! Surely the sensation of smoked bacon flavoured molten butter running down and off your chin to stain your shirt with greasy blobs is all part of the wonderful experience of feasting on bacon butties.😎

          3. Caroline is out garnering elderberries, blackberries, hawthorn, wild plums and windfall apples for a brown sauce which, I trust, will be superior to HP Sauce, Daddy’s Sauce and OK Sauce.

          5. As I am dangerously near Hull at the mo, and planning on indulging in a bacon butty for breakfast on what feels like another winter’s day, I shall squirt a bit of ketchup on it just for you 😉😈 hehe.

    3. ‘allo Ethel.

      I take my tea black, with milk, or with lemon, but I’ve never tried it with yoghurt.

      1. Hello Mr Viking, hmm , might I correct you.
        You take your tea black with lemon or white with milk 🙂

        1. B – b – but I take so little milk that the tea is dark brown. If it’s white with milk, it’s undrinkable.

          Sometimes I take my tea black with neither milk nor lemon. AND NEVER SUGAR!

  10. Hmmm. A well deserved 9 months inside.
    But hang on a moment. Wasn’t there a woman from a certain protected minority who recently received a suspended sentence for a £300,000 benefits fraud?

    Woman who said she was ‘too disabled to move’ jailed over £33k fraudulent benefit claims
    A 49-YEAR-OLD woman has been jailed for nine months, after being found guilty of fraudulently claiming disability benefits.

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1486187/Crime-news-Woman-jailed-disability-benefits-scam-fraud-Axminster-Devon-Exeter

      1. Forget the concept of equality before the law.

        But doesn’t the establishment see that treating ethnic minorities more leniently than white people is, in effect, saying: ” we do not expect ethnic minorities to be capable of behaving as well as white people.”

        This implies that ethnic minorities are, in the eyes of the PTB, inferior.

        What could be more racist than that?

    2. And women are far less likely to be jailed and even then, on average, receive half the sentence of men for similar crimes.

  11. JCVI decides to not recommend the “vaccine” for 12 – 15 yo children except for those with certain underlying conditions.

    Have the members of this committee taken note of the problems being thrown up in the USA from this madness and taken fright at being held responsible for the death and maiming of school age children? Sure as eggs are eggs this government would deflect the responsibility of any child death or maiming onto the “science” i.e. the JCVI members.

    The government’s reaction to this decision will be interesting; if it forges ahead against advice then we should expect resignations from any honourable members of the JCVI. Resignations of two top members from the FDA in the USA happened this week over policy decisions. We should expect no less from the JCVI members.

    Of course, this awful government could apply pressure to the JCVI or sack members and replace them with people who will do the government’s bidding: either of these actions should result in resignations, en masse would send a signal. The question therefore is: do we have honourable people in positions of authority who will make a statement by resigning when they see obvious wrongdoing?

    1. Government would probably be happy if they resigned though, as it would get rid of opposition. I must say, a bit of resistance was unexpected good news.

      1. I was pleasantly surprised when I heard the news.

        I’m following a couple of sites in the USA and it would appear that while things are hotting up e.g. “vaccine” mandates for jobs, flying etc. there is a rising tide of confusion within their agencies; the impact of administrator Biden; and states opposing Federal interference. In addition only 50% of the population has been jabbed and ‘hesitancy’ is seen by the Feds as a problem.

  13. SIR – Health chiefs are calling for an extra £10 billion. Would it be unkind to ask that it could be accompanied by a detailed business plan to justify this extraordinary amount of money?

    Simon Morpuss
    Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire

    Robert Spowart
    4 Sep 2021 7:42AM
    Well said Mr. Morpuss.

    2. They’d have to hire another ten diversity chiefs to recruit the 500 Business Managers that they would need to write the Business Plan…

  14. Edwin Pugh
    4 Sep 2021 7:43AM
    A consequence of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan I have not seen covered in the media is that China now sees Biden as a pushover when it comes to matters relating to climate.
    https://www.thegwpf.com/china-warns-us-back-off-or-well-sink-climate-cooperation/?mc_cid=1b895c5378&mc_eid=4961da7cb1

    This has encouaged China to follow its own agenda with regard to producing electricity from fossil fuels.
    https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/08/climate-policy-with-chinese-characteristics/?mc_cid=1b895c5378&mc_eid=4961da7cb1

    Flag4UnlikeReply

    Robert Spowart
    4 Sep 2021 7:46AM
    @Edwin Pugh Which, given the total scam that the Climate Change Campaign is, may not in its self be a bad thing.Edit ()

  15. Mail to Mr R…

    Instead of speculating about green tax, why not point out that the UK’s Legal Net Zero is virtually certain to be based on corruption? Because of the very strong George Soros connection.

    We know exactly what happened with Mr Soros’ money chasing Bright Blue and we know that serious questions need to be asked of Theresa May about her multi million dollar speeches and where the money really came from.

    It’s virtually inconceivable that those speeches are not Soros related.

    What’s more, it looks very likely this story involving Mr Soros is continuing because of meetings between his proxy, Frans Timmermans, and Alok Sharma.

    We know what happened with QinetiQ with Mr Soros. That was corruption, so therefore the UK’s Net Zero is virtually certain to be based on corruption too.

    On top of which you’ve chosen the wrong nuclear technology for Hinkley Point C. It’s extremely troublesome and depends totally on Chinese goodwill. How crazy, the UK can never afford to have a serious dispute with China now.

    Taishan is still closed because of broken fuel rods and other problems so that is sure to apply to HPC too.

    So continuing with HPC means long term power cuts and perhaps worse.

    Have a nice day,

    Polly

    1. I wonder if it will ever fully come to light that Mrs May was a thoroughly evil woman. She was not a virgin queen – she was a virgin she-devil.

      1. Johnson’s sister is a director.

        Gove is likely Blair’s ”Institute for Global Change” rep ”embedded” in the government.

        Please reply to Redwood’s blog and tell him about corruption. Every little helps!

  16. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    SIR – The best way to increase money going into government coffers to pay for social care and the National Health Service is the old Conservative way – to encourage businesses, by letting them get on with less regulation and less direct tax, thus increasing tax take from an invigorated private sector.

    Philip Hall
    Petersfield, Hampshire

    SIR – Health chiefs are calling for an extra £10 billion. Would it be unkind to ask that it could be accompanied by a detailed business plan to justify this extraordinary amount of money?

    Simon Morpuss
    Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire

    SIR – Given the huge challenges facing the NHS and social care, not least underfunding, staff shortages and the lack of integration between the two, it is remarkable how wise Jeremy Hunt (Commentary, September 3) has become in offering advice.

    Perhaps if he had done a better job during his six years as the Secretary of State (2012-18), the NHS and social care would not now be at crisis point.

    Rear Admiral Philip Mathias (retd)
    Southsea, Hampshire

    SIR – Jeremy Hunt recommends a health and care tax rather than higher NI contributions. He says that an NI increase would be unfair to young people, but does not mention that they will eventually benefit from the improved care the extra tax provides.

    Mr Hunt, as chairman of the Commons Health and Social Care Committee, often takes a swipe at government health policy, but does not come up with positive alternatives.

    Stephen Bartlett
    Kirk Ella, East Yorkshire

    SIR – I am retired, with a reasonable pension and adequate assets. I can see no reason why my social care, if I need it, should be paid for by those younger than me who are in work, by a hike in National Insurance. They already have financial challenges that the retired did not face in our working lives. National Insurance should be scrapped and the revenue recovered via income tax, spreading the burden more equitably.

    Jos Binns
    Camerton, Somerset

    SIR – It is lunacy to burden business and working people with higher taxes at this post-lockdown, post-Brexit point in the economic cycle, placing at risk private-sector investment and damaging Britain’s fragile growth.

    It is potentially suicidal for the Conservatives to force the under-60s to pay more tax to assist the wealthiest section of the population, the over-60s. Reducing the amount that the elderly pay for social care will turbo-charge demand – replicating the pattern of NHS spending.

    Any lingering perception that the Conservatives offer lower taxes than Labour will be squandered, perhaps permanently, handing Sir Keir Starmer a monumental opportunity at the next election on a plate.

    Philip Duly
    Haslemere, Surrey

    I suspect that this BTL comment is likely to find favour amongst many Nottlrs:

    Alan Measles
    4 Sep 2021 2:08AM
    If the government needs money for social care, wants to stay popular and avoid breaking a manifesto commitment they could do worse than declare a five year freeze on foreign aid payments. With an 80 seat majority it’s about time they started telling woolly liberals to take a hike, instead of constantly backing down and u-turning every time a footballer or luvvie cries foul. Having just let thousands of Afghans into the country at huge expense the optics of a tax rise at this particular moment are not good. Neither are the optics of continuing to lavish money on countries that harbour terrorists.

      2. Morning Bill,

        We have several pubs in our area 2 pubs called the Black Dog , and The Black Bear in our village ..

        I just cannot understand why sensible bods are cavilling into the Woke tribe .

        It is about time all this nonsense was sorted out and be done with.

        2. Once upon a time there was a pub in Hawkhurst called the Black Pig. Quite innocuous, you would think, but I can recall a campaign some 10-15 years ago by one or two local idiots to have it re-named. Seems they got their wish…it has been closed and converted to a house.

        3. Once upon a time there was a pub in Hawkhurst called the Black Pig. Quite innocuous, you would think, but I can recall a campaign some 10-15 years ago by one or two local idiots to have it re-named. Seems they got their wish…it has been closed and converted to a house.

        4. Greene King gave money to BLM. I have never used their pubs or bought their products since then.

        1. In the pines, in the pines, where the sun never shines – did you dedicate that one to Bill T? 🙂

    2. Why was it called the Black Boy? Maybe something to do with a local evil character, or chimneysweeps, for example. Or, with the silhouette of the horse, it was the name of a local stallion a while ago?
      Racist my left buttock!

    3. King Charles II {1660 – 1685) was tall with a dark complexion, dark hair and dark brown eyes, possibly due to an Italian grandmother. This meant he looked decidedly un-English at the time and was given the nickname “The Black Boy”

    4. 338501+ up ticks,
      Morning TB,
      All the time the peoples are kneeling, touching the forelock in appeasement to this type SH1TE it will
      continue unabated.

    6. They can name it what they want but I expect the locals will still call it the Black Boy. All this pandering to perceived racism is ridiculous. In Stroud they are trying to take down a small statue high up on an old building of a little black boy striking a bell.

  19. SIR – Hannah Betts (Features, September 3) regrets that Covid means that some people now avoid shaking hands. I am deeply relieved, and not just for reasons of health and hygiene.

    I have unpleasant memories of the bone-crushers, sweaty palms and an intrusive, possibly Masonic, version of the handshake. No wonder the Queen wears gloves. I have adopted the Buddhist greeting with palms together and a slight bow of the head. It conveys the message of pleasure at meeting and is cheaper than gloves.

    Dame Esther Rantzen
    Bramshaw, Hampshire

    I knew that woman. Nothing would persuade me to shake hands with her. Arrogant, self-obsessed bint.

    3. Has she adopted the Buddhist religion to go with it? If not, cancel her for cultural appropriation.

  20. 338501+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,

    Saturday 4 September: Instead of higher taxes, there is a Conservative way to pay for social care

    Start to stop adding to the ALL round cause of the reason for MORE milk
    yield from the herd by a very serious deportation campaign, and building an army of kapo’s via DOVER to eventually protect your well padded political @rses.

    I seriously believe there is something in the water for peoples to continue adhering to the same voting pattern, as for jabbing children, to me that comes across as an odious paedophile action, governance orchestrated.

    Hard pressed for lorry drivers how about using the services of those that have passed through this training, use on home turf.

    Defence School of Transport (DST) – The British Armyhttps://www.army.mod.uk › our-schools-and-colleges
    In addition to core training of military personnel, DST provides support to current ops worldwide. Driver training vehicles from the Defence School of Transport ..

    1. Around here, an expensive area in the South, advert for HGV drivers offering £28,000.

      Hardly a fortune!!

      1. 338501+ up ticks,
        Morning J,
        It is within reason a drivers market Jan, listen to an employer yesterday saying he raised the pay rate it was immediately topped.

        1. ogga, there’s a lot of wailing from die hard Remainers in the media.

          Reviewing the last few years, Remainers do not always speak the whole truth.

          1. 338501+ up ticks,
            J,
            This has been made quite clear post 24/6/2016 that a great many of the initial 48% still wanted to live under foreign dominance especially the political cartel.

            The “deal” was the alert warning for what was coming down the track futurewise.

    2. Many thanks! Born in the same year as the NHS, British Railways and the State of Israel. Mixed blessings.

      7. Jolly Happy Birthday, Joseph!
        Hope you have a wonderful day, and many more to come! 🎂🍾🎉

          1. I was also thinking of the hunt.
            ’twere a play Quorn, two things a Fox should avoid.
            Agree re oatmeal milk.

        1. Happy Birthday. JB!
          Have a great day! (and the rest until your next birthday, of course!)

    1. As the risk of covid to children is minimal, to force vaccines through for all is completely unethical.

      1. …but it would broaden the pool of people qualifying for Covid Passports and skew the apparent statistics for National Acceptance thereof….hence it is deemed to be desirable by the SAGEs of this world.

      2. 338501+ up ticks,
        Morning N,
        Then again would the welfare of the child top the welfare of the party it seems anything goes to get “the
        party” into number ten.

      2. Two or three photographs of you have been posted on NoTTLers over the years and if anything looks stuffed…….{:^))

    3. Which reminds me; cat loving NOTTLers may be able to help me.
      Yesterday, I saw a normal domestic sized cat with extremely pretty markings that reminded me of an ocelot. Is it a special breed of cat or sheer happenstance?

    6. I was out for a walk a few years ago in Spain and thought I could see what possibly appeared to be a dead Labrador at the bottom of steep slope. I threw a couple of sticks down and it turned out to be very much (sleeping) alive Black Lynx, but of course i didn’t have my phone or a camera with me.
      It did stare at me for quite a long time.

  28. https://twitter.com/TonyAngelUK/status/1434055773429055491

    The Coalition for Biological Reality – Australia & New Zealand condemns the hate campaign initiated by New Zealand’s Rainbow Midwives Alliance against respected UK author and birthing educator Milli Hill.

    Rainbow Midwives Alliance has called upon the New Zealand College of Midwives (NZCOM) to cancel Ms Hill from speaking at their event, despite her exceptional contribution to midwifery including nine years running the UK grassroots organisation, The Positive Birth Movement.

    Ms Hill is not ‘transphobic’ nor has she shared ‘hate speech toward gender minorities’ as claimed by Rainbow Midwives Alliance. On the contrary, Ms Hill merely shares the concerns of the majority of New Zealand women (and men) around the LGBTQIA+ lobby’s erasure of women and women’s language from the birthing world.

    Pregnancy, birthing and lactation are inherently female qualities determined by sex, not gender identity. In some cases trans ‘men’ and non-binary people get pregnant and give birth because they are female, not because they are men and not because they are sexless.

    In a democratic society such as New Zealand, Ms Hill, and indeed all women, are free to express and discuss their concerns about the attempts to make birthing and pregnancy a ‘gender neutral’ endeavour. This should not result in anyone’s ‘cancellation’ nor make them the object of defamatory and hateful accusations depicting them as ‘actively perpetuat[ing] harm within rainbow communities.’

    The Coalition for Biological Reality and our signatories stand with Milli Hill and we encourage respectful debate on these issues. We condemn the totalitarian stance taken by Rainbow Midwives Alliance and the outright bullying demonstrated by the organisation.

    We call upon the New Zealand College of Midwives to support Milli Hill, to continue centring women in birthing language whilst offering tailored support to trans and non-binary parents. Milli Hill has proved herself an expert in the birthing world and is an ideal woman to be NZCOM’s keynote speaker at their upcoming conference in November 2021.

    We also call upon New Zealand activist organisation, ActionStation to remove the petition started by Rainbow Midwives Alliance to have Ms Hill deplatformed. The petition breaches every core value that ActionStation purports to hold, in particular, ‘MANAAKITANGA: Hospitality, kindness, respect, generosity and care for others without expecting anything in return.’ There is nothing kind about deplatforming a woman for centring women in what is fundamentally women’s business: the business of birthing.

    Share for Success

      1. It’s not that they don’t know their orifices from their elbows but that they are very unsure about what orifices they are meant to have.

    3. “Centre for Biological Reality”
      What a marvellously down to earth name, but how appalling that we have got into a situation where people have to form pressure groups to defend reality.

      1. Same foe the free speech union. Hell, the EU wasted billions enforcing a law that was supposed to define free speech – with careful caveats to ensure that it was ‘this is what we deem acceptable. You may say this’ so not remotely free speech at all.

        We shouldn’t need these organisations. These people are ill. They should not be acknowledged or pandered to.

    4. Comments added:-

      Who are the real bigots and hate mongers?
      Are they those who refuse to accept the lies that a man can become a woman, simply because he says he is?
      Or are they those who insist that the impossible CAN happen and expect everyone else to accept their lie without argument?

    5. The trans lobby needs to be told: your mental illness does not affect reality. You’re a man in a dress. You are NOT a woman.

      Only a biological woman can give birth. Thus a woman who thinks she’s a man can give birth – because she is NOT a man. She’s mentally ill.

      Now, indulge your fantasies however you want but you’re nuts. You’re not well. You need help, not pandering.

      1. Thanks, Wibbles, that is to say, just check if you have XX or XY chromosomes – that will tell you of your legimacy to enter this argument.

    3. I believe the pilots that flew in the Gulf war were given gold sovereigns in case they were shot down and fell into the hands of goat herders. The locals were not as stupid as we thought, they took the sovereigns and whatever the Iraqi army gave them later.

    4. I want my payments backdated. I expect some reward for all the months when I haven’t shot anyone.

  30. ‘Morning again,

    I can’t remember seeing this article posted, so apologies if I missed it:

    Boris has totally lost touch with conservatism

    The plan to increase taxes is the latest Labour-lite lunacy of a Government that only cares about polls

    CAMILLA TOMINEY
    ASSOCIATE EDITOR
    3 September 2021 • 8:00pm

    People mistakenly think that Ed Miliband’s leadership of the Labour Party ended over a bacon sandwich. But it wasn’t that unedifying spectacle, or even the monumental folly of the “EdStone” that finished him off. It was a primetime TV encounter with Myleene Klass from the band Hear-Say.

    Discussing the lunacy of introducing a “mansion tax” to “save the NHS” on ITV’s The Agenda, the incredulous singer asked: “Is that your only option? You might as well just tax me on this glass of water. You can’t just point at things and tax them. You need to have a better strategy.”

    That was in November 2014 and Miliband was out the following May. Unbelievably, Boris Johnson is now planning to serve up an even bigger dog’s breakfast than Two Kitchens Ed with his tax rise to pay for the NHS and social care.

    The problem is not so much that the planned hike of national insurance contributions for 25 million people represents a total breach of the Conservative Party manifesto, which clearly stated in 2019: “We promise not to raise the rates of income tax, National Insurance or VAT.”

    The real dilemma for the Prime Minister is that it is yet another anti-Tory policy from a Labour-lite government so obsessed with polling that it no longer seems to have a feel for Conservative opinion.

    More than any other since Tony Blair, we have an administration that cannot seem to function without consulting a focus group first.

    You see it everywhere in its policy-making, from continually following the public during lockdown, seemingly afraid of getting ahead of what people would be comfortable doing, to refusing to tell everyone to go back to work for fear of it proving unpopular. And at the heart of this all things to all men cakeism, we have a Prime Minister who wants to be popular among every group, in every part of the country. Consequently, his is the Government that simply can’t say no.

    Having spent the last 18 months peddling the sort of nanny state policies that would not have looked out of place in 1970s Cuba, Mr Johnson has jumped to the false conclusion that a nation that clapped for the NHS and carers will be delighted to pay more for them.

    Certainly, if you believe the polls, the NHS is the most popular institution in the country. But the problem with the focus groups so beloved of No 10 is that they only represent a snapshot of opinion now – without telling you anything about the future. And depending on what you ask, they can mislead as well as enlighten.

    The NHS is a prime example. People can love it while at the same time believing it is failing them. Just look at the furore over half of the public being denied a face to face appointment with their GP. What happens if the Tories hike up their voters’ taxes (and it is Conservatives who will undoubtedly shoulder the burden) only to see money sloshed back into GPs’ salaries with no appreciable benefit to the public?

    This isn’t March 2020. We aren’t in lockdown any more and as the halo of the vaccine rollout slowly fades, the pull-together sentiment of last year is well and truly gone. Come Christmas, the full horror of an estimated 14 million on NHS waiting lists will come home to roost, along with the health service’s failure to properly diagnose and treat non-Covid conditions.

    Meanwhile, as Liam Halligan warned in this newspaper on Monday, Britain is hurtling towards a winter of discontent, with inflation rising and debt skyrocketing, threatening to squeeze household budgets even further. As furlough comes to an end on September 30, a surge in unemployment will inevitably follow, with younger workers likely to be most badly affected.

    So it frankly beggars belief that the Government thinks this is the right time to hit the very people who will be feeling most concerned about their personal finances with a National Insurance hike. With no suggestion that it will be extended to pensioners, this tax rise on employees will hit job creation at a time when taxpayers are already paying the highest bills in a generation.

    Thanks to Tory prime ministers implementing no less than 1,651 tax changes in the past decade – of which 63 per cent were hikes – the tax burden under Mr Johnson is now likely to be higher than any since post-war Prime Minister Clement Attlee.

    Some of the rises couldn’t be more un-Conservative. Take the corporation tax changes announced in the Spring Statement in March. Contrary to claims that our corporation tax rates will still be the lowest in the G7, in fact our effective marginal corporate tax rates are now going to be higher than those in France.

    The final fallacy is that this hike will suddenly “fix” a system that was broken long ago. The money is expected to be split between the NHS and social care, with a suggestion that it will go first towards clearing backlogs and then increasingly into care. But what guarantee is there that it won’t all be swallowed up by a health service that can never have enough funding?

    And let’s not forget that any Dilnot-style proposals to cap care costs at £80,000 will only result in increasing taxpayer burdens over time as the number of people requiring care inevitably rises.

    A Government that was in touch with its Thatcherite credentials would know that increasing taxes – with the chance of no obvious benefit for the public – is a disastrous policy. This, along with the effects of net zero, how to pay for the cost of lockdown and the sorry state of schools present colossal problems that, if not confronted, could easily destroy the Tories.

    Just look at the elections happening in Canada. Backward-looking Justin Trudeau thought he could capitalise on the strong support his government had gained during lockdown, only for it to unravel as voters’ minds turned to all the normal issues they were unhappy about, such as the economy. Now it looks like he will lose to the Conservatives.

    As a Churchill scholar, Mr Johnson should be wise to the phenomenon of being punished at the polls even if you manage a crisis well – let alone badly.

    Leading BTL comment:

    Ed Pentney
    3 Sep 2021 8:21PM
    Well said Camilla. As a former Tory party member who voted for him to become leader back in 2019, I can safely say I would never vote for his shower of a party ever again. What we have now is well to the left of Blair’s Labour and probably as bad as what Corbyn would have given us.

    At least Corbyn was honest with his intentions to destroy the country and implement a socialist utopia. Johnson and his outfit ran on the platform of Conservatism but instead we have descended into a dystopian hell with lockdowns, planned social credit scores, woke nonsense, net zero lunacy, out of control tax-and-spend policies and thousands of illegals arriving by the day.

    If that’s Conservatism, I’d hate to see what Socialism looks like!

    * * *

    Ed, those of us who have been round the block a few times have seen socialism in all its glory…if nothing else a spell under their wrecking ball will cure the younger voter for at least a decade, and probably more. Besides, will anyone really notice the difference after Johnson’s wasted period in office and his squandered 80-seat majority? Somehow I doubt it.

    1. That manifesto pledge was ridiculous and just one reason of many that I spoiled my ballot paper in 2019.

      I know as much as anyone else that nobody likes paying taxes and will get out of it if they have the talent and the expertise to do so. Pledging never to raise taxes is like handing round a bottomless jar of everlasting sweeties – it makes you popular in the playground until they see the jar of sweeties for what it is in real life.

      It is a hostage to fortune to any event or emergency that can force a serious demand on Government resources, such as a war, a climate crisis or a global pandemic. Nor did I ever believe that “getting Brexit done” could be done on the cheap. At the very least there were a lot of fruit pickers, lorry drivers, doctors and nurses, builders and much else that we need to train up, and we’d closed down the F.E. colleges to bail out the councils who were being shafted by Osborne’s Income Tax cuts. In addition, we cannot always rely on global financiers and oligarchs to finance the economy. Any hint of tax, and they’d be off to the Cayman Islands with the nation’s stripped assets.

      Quite apart from all those other demands on the taxpayer, there would have to be some relief on small businesses, so they would not burn out before they made any money.

      Income Tax should have been put up when the banks had to be bailed out in 2008. If that meant a peasant revolt descending on the bonus barons, then at least that would be better justice than letting them off with “it’s not within the remit of the Government to deal with financial malpractice that ruins a nation’s economy”.

      1. Yet the banks over lent specifically because Brown was creaming off billions in tax profits. He kept fiddling the banking code to encourage overlending. He was warned many, many times – even getting shot of Mervyn King and removing the BoE as regulator.

        What would happen was obvious. He continued anyway. Income tax shouldn’t have gone up. That would just have rewarded Brown for his own incompetence. He should have been strung up, beaten like a Pinjata and made personally culpable for the entire 12 trillion of debt he racked up.

      1. The deliberate deprivation of assets nonsense has to go. It is not the state’s property. The assumption of big state is that it owns everything you have by right and you are permitted to keep some. That must change.

        1. The state and therefore the nation, has only that bought with taxpayer’s money and that is ONLY held in trust.

          State (government) has NO rights with regard to ownership; they ALL belong to US!

    3. That’s the thing that angers. All government’s hie tax. It’s their reason for being.

      Yet Boris has a literal once in a lifetime opportunity to properly reform services. He could take onthe unions and reduce the state. He could publicly acknowledge that companies don’t pay tax, customers do and that he will be reducing corporation tax – a customer tax – to 5%.

      But no. Same old, same old.

      1. Johnson is a coaster, and a very shallow one at that. It is high time the 1922 tell him to shape up or ship out.

  32. BLM . . . Black Lives Matter – OK …??

    Today’s Telegraph –
    “Stop and search should not be targeted “equally” in London because 70 per cent of teenage homicide victims are black, a senior officer in the Metropolitan Police has said. The majority of London’s gun and knife crime victims are from the black community.”

    1. Oh what a tangle of knots they weave themselves into while trying to be politically correct.
      Since when was stop and search targeted at victims of crime?

      1. When it suited the authorities, because they couldn’t think of anything to say that made sense.

    3. And the other 25% are no doubt stabbed by blacks, or Bulgarians, Romanii, Turks or Muslims.

      In fact, left to it, the minority ethnic group – which used to be the majority – is probably the lowest crime rate of all and that likely by crimes of passion or accident.

    1. Would anyone else not be unduly surprised if a certain ginger whinger and his gobbedshite might have something to do with this, via a supporter?

    2. This is nothing new. London Bridge has Fallen” has been on You Tube for several months now. A complete documentary of this “secret report” on what will happen on the death of Her Majesty. So what is going on that they are now pretending that it has only just been leaked? Strike me that some odd diversion is being attempted here. Why I don’t know but it looks rather suspicious.

    3. I can leak my own funeral arrangements:

      1. Take money.
      2. Order skip.
      3. Party.

      I think she’ll outlive all of us.

  34. Russia’s agricultural exports soar as shipments to Europe & S. Korea see wild surge

    Foreign sales of Russian agricultural produce saw a substantial year-over-year growth of 18% from January to August of the current year, the AgroExport division of the country’s Ministry of Agriculture said in its latest report.
    In monetary terms, the growth reportedly amounted to nearly $20 billion. Exports of grains soared 15% to nearly $6 billion, while foreign sales of oil and fat produce surged by an enormous 44% and totalled some $4.5 billion.

    https://www.rt.com/business/533660-russia-agricultural-exports-growth/

  35. Politics And The Family

    A little boy goes to his dad and asks: “what is politics?”

    The dad says: “well son, let me try to explain it this way: I’m the breadwinner of the family, so let’s call me Capitalism. Your Mom, she’s the administrator of the money, so we’ll call her the Government. We’re here to take care of your needs, so we’ll call you the People. The nanny, we’ll consider her the Working Class. And your baby brother, we’ll call him the Future. Now, think about that and see if that makes sense.”

    So the little boy goes off to bed thinking about what Dad has said. Later that night, he hears his baby brother crying, so he gets up to check on him. He finds that the baby has severely soiled his diaper. So the little boy goes to his parents’ room and finds his mother sound asleep. Not wanting to wake her, he goes to the nanny’s room. Finding the door locked, he peeks in the keyhole and sees his father in bed with the nanny. He gives up and goes back to bed.

    The next morning, the little boy says to his father, “Dad, I think that I understand the concept of politics now.”

    The father says, “That’s good, son, tell me in your own words what you think politics is
    all about.”

    The little boy replies, “Well, while Capitalism is screwing the Working Class, the Government is sound asleep, the People are being ignored and the Future is in Deep Shit.”

    1. Spot on.
      I guy goes to his GP who he’s known for years.
      What can i do for you Charlie the docs says.
      Well Nick i was wonder if i was able to take Viagra, i mean would it be safe ?
      Oh i see you having a bit of trouble are you ? Yes it’s fine go ahead i expect Daphne will be pleased about that.
      How’s that new nanny you have these days, she’s a bit of a looker.
      Yes she’s fine and she loves the kids and……….Oh i see what you mean wink wink, I don’t need it for her as well Nick !!!

    2. Capitalism does not screw the working class. It’s the only thing that helps them.

      Government is what keeps people poor.

      1. Government only have the money they steal from the working people,…. not the rich,…. the working people.

    1. Who’s the wan looking girl with a broken neck? Another incomparable actress we have never heard of.

  38. The Tories are lying, this is not a tax to pay for social care is it? After all it all goes into the same general pot.

    It costs about £44k per annum to provide welfare for an ‘asylum seeker’, Boris has been shipping over about 800 per day. That works out at about £35 million per day, about £1billion per month.

    Let’s be clear about what this is – it is a Dinghy Tax.

    2. Politicians lie about everything. They couldn’t exist if they weren’t such habitual and pathological liars.
      I see Blair has been making suggestions that car owners should pay per mile for the use of their vehicles. That was the idea of road tax Mr Bliar, but that has long been absorbed to fund other meaningless worthless projects, that’s why our roads are in such a sorry state.

    3. But when questioned they can honestly answer it was used for social care, the social care of the invading forces.

    4. Why are our politicians and our England football manager wanting to increase diversity in this country? We cannot house these incomers and it is time we put an embargo on unlimited immigration.
      The global population needs to be reduced and should be a major political debate in Glasgow later this year.

        1. One might argue that the effective expulsion of Enoch Powell, followed by the election of Ted Heath, and that quickly followed by the joining of the EEC and the confirmatory referendum, sought and gave the mandate.

          Unfortunately it was hidden in the very small print.

          1. More like invisible ink – the sort that was used to tell the truth in Cameron’s propaganda leaflet. “This is your decision, the government will implement what you decide” (in invisible ink, it said, “but only if you vote the way we want”).

      2. It is rather telling that the one thing the Climate fanatics refuse to discuss is the most obvious problem – too many human beings competing for a finite resource.

        This silence troubles me – they know this too so something is afoot.

  39. 338501+ Up ticks,

    Well lookee here then ask what & who is behind it, could it be ” he marched them up to the top of the hill then he marched them down again” strikes again, the backstabber extraordinaire,

    Dt,
    Andrew Neil is expected to quit GB News amid a bitter rift with its senior management and board, dealing a blow to the channel as bosses battle to build an audience….

  40. Morning all.
    This extremely interesting but sadly happening.
    Read this while you still can and save it, for an “I Told You So”.
    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-delingpole-file-part-iii-evil-loses-but-we-have-to-keep-fighting/

    Miller: Bear in mind that being a really dedicated and extremely brilliant propagandist, he was also functioning in that way on his own behalf. And therefore cast himself as the sole possessor of the kind of nefarious wisdom we’re talking about. I guess I should recommend his classic Propaganda because, you know, my introduction to that edition is very helpful, putting the whole thing into context. I want to say, full disclosure here, you know, rereading that introduction recently, I was horrified to see that among the examples I adduced to make the point that propaganda need not be malevolent, you know, you wear your seatbelts, I included vaccination. This was 20 years ago or something, you know . . .

    Delingpole: We’re susceptible too. You know, this shit works. That is the whole point. There’s so many things I believed for most of my life that I now realise are wrong and probably evil.

  41. Morning all.
    This extremely interesting but sadly happening.
    Read this while you still can and save it, for an “I Told You So”.
    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-delingpole-file-part-iii-evil-loses-but-we-have-to-keep-fighting/

    Miller: Bear in mind that being a really dedicated and extremely brilliant propagandist, he was also functioning in that way on his own behalf. And therefore cast himself as the sole possessor of the kind of nefarious wisdom we’re talking about. I guess I should recommend his classic Propaganda because, you know, my introduction to that edition is very helpful, putting the whole thing into context. I want to say, full disclosure here, you know, rereading that introduction recently, I was horrified to see that among the examples I adduced to make the point that propaganda need not be malevolent, you know, you wear your seatbelts, I included vaccination. This was 20 years ago or something, you know . . .

    Delingpole: We’re susceptible too. You know, this shit works. That is the whole point. There’s so many things I believed for most of my life that I now realise are wrong and probably evil.

  42. Funny thing. Just skimmed the “Travel” section of the print DT.

    Lots of lovely places to visit etc etc. But NOT A WORD about the buggerment – the pointless and expensive tests before you go; when you arrive; risk of quarantine; masks – effing “passports” to get into restos and that the UK app thingy often isn’t recognised -and then the even worse stuff when you deign to return. NOT A WORD.

    Makes me sick. They ought to be banging on and on and on about how pointless and useless and, above all, needlessly expensive – it all is. NOT A WORD.

    I’ll work off my rage by doing useful ladder work – pruning yet again – one of the wysterias.

    1. Be careful up there – not a good idea when you are angry.

      I met someone yesterday for whom I used to work – totally fed up that they can’t visit their family in Australia or even drive to France without all the hassle.

    2. Friends have just returned from Estonia where they had to spend a few days for a family wedding.
      They spent an entire day grappling with the paperwork before they went, only to find some couldn’t be completed more than 48 hours before their flight.
      Vaccine passports everywhere in Estonia and complete embuggerment on the journeys.

      1. My good lady has suggested that we drive to the Dordogne for a couple of weeks in October………….I think Cornwall might be a better idea.

        1. Quite agree. Even if you do actually get abroad, you can never relax because the ‘traffic light’ grade is changed on governmental whim.

          1. Exactly Anne, I loved it when things were free and easy, we spent 4 days driving and stopping over to a base near Siena in Tuscany.
            But the car broke down, fortunately we were fully insured and hired a car and then flew home from Pizza after a night in a hotel, that was an unexpected pleasure.

          2. You need to consult the expert on being free. “My mother used to laugh when she told the story about a time I was fussing as a toddler: She leaned down to me and asked, ‘Kamala, what’s wrong? What do you want?’ And I wailed back, ‘Fweedom,'” Kamala Harris

            I would go to Cornwall if I were you!

          3. I have an old buddy who lives near Bude and he’s a member of the golf club, not sure if i’d get away with that though, if yer get my drift. 😉
            I’ve also another of our once magnificent 7 (now only 4) who lives in Somerset a good place to stay over night. Nice hotel/pub in his village. It’s got to be done I think.

        2. For what it’s worth. We had English guests at the end of August and the English Covid passes appear to work for restaurants and attractions and the testing station was efficient for the pre-return test; one day turnaround.

          1. Thanks Sos, I would much rather go to the south west or even Wales although we have spent many holidays in France when our three sons were younger, I just don’t fancy the drive. And my Sister and when B i L last visited Brittany around 18 months ago, they received three speeding tickets on the way home. And they never speed, i can assure any one of that.

          3. Well, we had to take a diversion last September as our family party of 6 adults after booking included a 6 month old baby boy. And the government made it illegal for us to go to Cornwall. Wales was then an option so we found a lovely holiday destination at Lydstep near Tenby. Celtic Haven it was great. We all loved it and it was easier to get to.

          5. Wales is nice.
            Broad Haven, Little Haven, Marloes. Very pleasant, and some good kite-flying beaches over there, too.

          6. Looks like Janet isn’t a fan of Wales 🤔
            I’ve been there several times.
            And low and behold we have today booked our birthday treat atCarbis Bay Cornwall for October.

          7. Mother & Brother live at opposite ends of Wales. Had an interesting contract down in the Milford Haven area – LNG terminal. Very nice, it is.

    3. What you need Bill is one of those long pruning poles ladders are always dodgy against trees and shrubs.

    4. Good morning everyone.

      Mr T, (blah blah I am sure you are safe & experienced etc)
      are you familiar with

      Henchman Hi-Step Platform Ladders or Niwaki tripod ladders? Youngman also have various products that might be suitable.

        1. In Spain, and probably in France, there are ordinary alloy ladders available which taper/splay outwards near the base. More stable than the average British ladder. (Secretly I enjoy offering advice to anyone who doesn’t want it)

          2. Here in Sweden we have lockable telescopic ladders. Some of which you can extend one leg longer than the other for working on stairs, slopes, etc. I borrowed one such from a painter-and-decorator friend, last year, when I painted the high wall at the side of my staircase.

    5. The intent is to make travel so impossibly difficult, expensive and frustrating that people don’t.

      1. Correction: “The intent is to make travel so impossibly difficult, expensive and frustrating that ordinary people don’t.

  43. More scare-mongering from the media doom merchants.
    ________________________________

    Boris warned ‘horrendous’ Brexit legal battle with EU looming – and UK will likely LOSE

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1486192/brexit-news-uk-eu-talks-latest-northern-ireland-protocol-trade-boris-johnson-lord-frost

    Prof Jones is the man who warned in 2018 that “Brexit supporters will do ‘almost anything’ to ensure a hard-Brexit is delivered, even if it means sacrificing Mrs May’s government”:

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1032822/Brexit-news-UK-EU-Theresa-May-European-Union-Conservative-Party-Brussels
    ________________________________

    Worker exodus after Brexit putting pig farms at threat

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-pigs-farming-pork-bacon-b1914205.html
    ________________________________

    Why has Poland declared a state of emergency? Border row triggers threat to ‘life of nation’

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1485966/Poland-state-of-emergency-Afghanistan-migrant-Belarus-border-evg

    Belarus is trying to force a small number of Afghan refugees onto Poland. Human rights johnnies are making a noise.
    ________________________________

    Here’s one to cheer to you up.

    Hilary Mantel: I am ashamed to live in nation that elected this government
    Double Booker prize winner tells La Repubblica she may take Irish citizenship to feel European again

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/sep/04/hilary-mantel-i-am-ashamed-to-live-in-nation-that-elected-this-government

    We’ll have a whip-round for your fare. Ta-ra, babs!
    ________________________________

    1. Good morning to all. Another gloomy day. But onward and upward, or down, whatever the case may be.

      The Express is a complete rag. As for Independent and Guardian. Would you honestly believe anything that those Socialist frauds have to say? As for “Hard Brexit”, I think that is simply what most people call Brexit and it is yet to be achieved.

      1. I get an MSN news feed every morning (can’t find a way to switch it off) and it features the DE, Guardian and Independent more than most.

        The EU scare stories will continue to pour out from all sources (and don’t forget the DE was in favour of Brexit). The EU has already threatened Poland over its annoyingly independent view of itself and the world (ditto Hungary…).

        1. Good morning, Williiam.
          In February 2018 Trinity Mirror acquired the Daily Express, and other publishing assets of Northern & Shell.
          So just another socialist rag, now.

          1. That’s for MS Edge, which I’m not using. It comes on in whatever default browser I use.

          3. Yep. I have Firefox as my default. Googling ways to turn off MSN hasn’t provided the answer.

      2. I get an MSN news feed every morning (can’t find a way to switch it off) and it features the DE, Guardian and Independent more than most.

        The EU scare stories will continue to pour out from all sources (and don’t forget the DE was in favour of Brexit). The EU has already threatened Poland over its annoyingly independent view of itself and the world (ditto Hungary…).

    2. Hilary Mantel: I am ashamed to live in nation that elected this government.
      Well off you go dear and take that useless Pratt with you………….
      Boris warned ‘horrendous’ Brexit legal battle with EU looming – and UK will likely LOSE

        1. They make it up to collect accreditations.
          Notice how all of them have the right answers in hindsight.
          They couldn’t run a bath between the lot of them.

        2. Of course that’s what he wants. He consulted the seaweed and felt that Leave would win, so he jumped on that bandwagon. Once he’d got the job he wanted, he could wreck Brexit with impunity (which is what, in my view, he has done).

    3. I have tried and failed to enjoy Hilary Mantel’s books. I certainly find her photograph on the cover is just as off-putting as her appearance on television. Yes, I know that only superficial people judge by appearances even though that bi-sexual Irish playwright chappie did not agree!

      2. I quite like her prose, but her plots are extremely weak. I guess that is why her greatest success came with historical novels. All the Guardianistas think that word-salad kind of writing is clever, but she is one of the few who does it well.

      3. Can’t stand her. She actually looks like some cartoon bird that has taken on human form. Have you ever seen “Labyrinth” David Bowie? She looks like one of the creatures from that film. She gives me the creeps. The fact that David Starkey despises her is sufficient recommendation that that she be avoided at all costs.

        1. I am not a fan of the woman – though her early novels were OK.

          As for her looks – she has some ghastly disease which makes her swell and causes pain – so I have a lot of sympathy for her. Constant pain is no fun, believe me.

          Her Cromwell books were far too long, and she has an infuriating way of not indicating when Cromwell was speaking. “He said…” when there was a group conversation, and it might have been any of them.

          1. She used so many pronouns in Wolf Hall that I found myself turning back pages to remind myself who was in the conversation.

      5. My sister has her latest it is an absolute weighty Tome, I didn’t ask if I might borrow it.

      6. #Me Too. I read Wolf Hall and wondered how it won a prize. I thought perhaps it was me, so I ploughed through Bring Up The Bodies. Nope, it ain’t me.

  44. More scare-mongering from the media doom merchants.
    ________________________________

    Boris warned ‘horrendous’ Brexit legal battle with EU looming – and UK will likely LOSE

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1486192/brexit-news-uk-eu-talks-latest-northern-ireland-protocol-trade-boris-johnson-lord-frost

    Prof Jones is the man who warned in 2018 that “Brexit supporters will do ‘almost anything’ to ensure a hard-Brexit is delivered, even if it means sacrificing Mrs May’s government”:

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1032822/Brexit-news-UK-EU-Theresa-May-European-Union-Conservative-Party-Brussels
    ________________________________

    Worker exodus after Brexit putting pig farms at threat

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-pigs-farming-pork-bacon-b1914205.html
    ________________________________

    Why has Poland declared a state of emergency? Border row triggers threat to ‘life of nation’

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1485966/Poland-state-of-emergency-Afghanistan-migrant-Belarus-border-evg

    Belarus is trying to force a small number of Afghan refugees onto Poland. Human rights johnnies are making a noise.
    ________________________________

    Here’s one to cheer to you up.

    Hilary Mantel: I am ashamed to live in nation that elected this government
    Double Booker prize winner tells La Repubblica she may take Irish citizenship to feel European again

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/sep/04/hilary-mantel-i-am-ashamed-to-live-in-nation-that-elected-this-government

    We’ll have a whip-round for your fare. Ta-ra, babs!
    ________________________________

  45. If there are not enough HGV drivers to go round, maybe more use could be made of ordinary vans and ordinary drivers. Vans up to 3.5 tonnes can carry big loads and can be driven on a ordinary car licence?

    1. Anyone who passed their UK driving test before January 1997 should be permitted to drive 7.5 tonners; basically a small lorry with a tachograph fitted. Problem is that there is no dusty airfield in the desert with a store of unused lorries fitted with suitable boxes.

      1. Yes. Looking at my licence I see that category has been removed without my noticing. When my licence was renewed they sent back to the wrong address…

        1. I expect you renewed your licence online. If it was done that way, a lot of entitlements were sneakily removed.

      1. Yes. however as a temporary measure it might help keep food etc moving. There must be quite few retired people who might like such a job for a couple of months or so. With a young chap along to do the heavy lifting, of course.

    3. It’s just more government and EU Bull Shite. any one who has been on a main road recently would not have noticed a lack of tucks.

      1. Brakes Group logo
        new
        HGV Class 2 Driver
        Brakes Group3.1
        London NW10
        £51,897 a year
        Easily apply to this job

        Where do I sign…..

          3. My father was born and bred there. Netley House Ranelagh Road,…………. he and his 5 bros inhit wood b pullin dare har art now hinit. Nah wot am sain !

  46. As we pottered into town yesterday, the truth hit me like a thunderclap. It is time I became all growed up.
    In September 1951, I started at my school in Colchester. I have been toddling up and down Lexden Road for 70 years!

    1. Yo anne

      Good job it was not Lexden STREET then, or for 70 years you would have been a str………..

    3. Yesterday I remembered that there were one or two things * I said I would keep for the rest of my life. Then I realised that I had done just that…

      * For, example, I bought a bone paperknife at a jumble sale when I was eleven.

  47. The letter that there is a “… Conservative way to pay for social care…” is far to radical for our government. Encouraging new businesses and entrepreneurship. It’s the obvious solution but not one that this ersatz Conservative government is going to take.

    California, still the wealthiest state in the USA despite the heroic efforts of the Democrats in trying to foul it up. 99% of California businesses are small and comprise the backbone of the states economy and are also the major employers. To start a small business there, when I did it, was a matter of filling in one sheet of information. You were also tax exempt for at least three years because the government, rightly, thought that it took at least that long to start making a profit. On coming back to the UK and with that mind set, I made enquires and was presented with a binder. On the first page of that binder was your obligation to pay taxes, it went on for at least 5 pages. I complained to the government official I was talking to that it was unreasonable. His reply. Don’t tell the government you are doing anything until you have to. So there you go, a government official agreeing that our system is unreasonable and not designed to make our encourage wealth production.

    1. Took Firstborn 15 minutes to register his business. Online. Tax payable quarterly, and VAT recoverable quarterly based on self-declaration. Annual accounts, of low complexity as he’s not a limited company. Easy as.

      1. Admit that I’m talking about the state of things 10 years ago. But it was enough to turn me off. But you are saying that your first born still has to pay taxes straight away, i.e from the first quarter?

        1. Yes.
          But it takes a while to get the admin in order, so you can hold on to the money for a while.

    2. Yep. Made that mistake once. never again. This time we just do our own thing and ignore the expense, incompetence and waste of the state machine.

      Sod their taxes. It’s my money. They’ve no right to it and won’t get it.

  49. A bit for the natural history buffs.
    At 1730 last evening I was sitting outside the local with six drinking companions. Where we were commands a magnificent view across the forested Tamar Valley to Morwell Rocks. I saw 3 birds across the valley moving at speed southwards. The rearmost one was larger and was flying differently to the other two. Suddenly realised it was a peregrine chasing two wood pigeons! The chase didn’t keep to a straight line and they veered west towards us, a large turn eastwards again and a few feathers puffed in the air as the peregrine got a talon to one of them. They moved south again out of sight but a minute later we saw the raptor returning northwards prey-less in a peeved looking fashion.
    I don’t know why the pigeons stayed together but I think it might have saved them. I also think it was a young peregrine to hunt in that energy wasteful fashion. We were left breathless though.

    1. We had one “deal with” a pigeon in the garden in Laure. It came out of nowhere at the speed of light – sounded like a jet aircraft – and left a few feathers but no pigeon!

  50. Ladder work completed. The ladder was at all times resting securely against the wall of the house. Very satisfying.

  51. Why is smirking Shatts not all over the screens telling us what he is going to do about the nightmare at Heathrow?

  52. STOP PRESS. Big strange yellow thing appeared in sky. People bringing children out to show them. Almost warm, suddenly. Must change into my shorts. Quickly, before it disappears until next September.

  53. New Zealand supermarket stabbings carried out by ‘IS-inspired’ extremist on terror watchlist. 4 September 2021

    Police shot dead a ‘violent extremist’ within a minute of the start of the attack, in which seven people were wounded.

    One assumes that “Violent Extremist” is now the euphemism of choice whatever the offenders allegiances? It should succeed to some extent in filling in those obvious spaces in articles and defraying “Unwarranted Speculation” by the Public. A Public Relations answer to Terror.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/09/03/new-zealand-prime-minister-jacinda-ardern-says-mall-stabbing/

      1. I think the kiwis will not be very impressed, nor will they believe a word of the blatant lies she has issued.

        1. They will not be impressed that the police waited outside the supermarket because they did not want to alert the extremist that he was being followed.

          What was wrong with harassing him every time he turned round. If he reached for a jar of vegetated (with peanut butter), he should have needed to ask for his unfriendly policeman to move aside..

        2. They seem to have gone along with her, Eddy. That’s the depressing thing. And voted for her, in the millions, of course.

          1. We can’t talk. People in the UK voted her mentor Blair in three times.
            I felt like the last sane person in Britain at one point.

        3. According to our relatives in NZ, the majority of Kiwis absorb media pronouncements without question.

  54. Might have known it. Big yellow thing gone for the rest of the day. Like HMG, it as just teasing us.

      1. What’s a whore net?

        I don’t know – I have never resorted to using such services!

  55. Just discovered something horrific!
    Apparently, Iceland sell marmite mixed with peanut butter!
    Urgh! :-((

      1. Yes, there are now a few Icelands here.
        Marmite, Branston, salad cream…
        and we proved to the boys that everything wasn’t better in the 70’s, by having 70’s supper night – Fray Bentos tinned chicken pie, tinned peas, and smash potato! They were horified!

        1. “Smash”? Whats wrong with peeling potatoes with your little peeler, boiling them for 20 of your minutes, then smashing them all to pieces? 🤣

          1. Then it wouldn’t be 70’s food night… the idea was to demonstrate how yucky food could be back then.
            We also showed them the “for mash get smash” ad with supposed aliens.

          6. You could have given them a Vesta “chow mein”, which contained a lot of ingredients but none of them food-based.

    2. I love them both but would never dream of combining them.

      Come to that, if I ever want any mixture of ingredients in the food I eat, I insist of doing the combining myself. I just don’t eat food concocted by others (especially factories).

        1. I gave grape jam and peanut butter sandwiches (a favourite of Elvis Presley) a go a few years back. I didn’t repeat the experiment. Presley deep-fried his: he was welcome to them.

          1. That’s probably why he gained so much weight.
            I’m not sure if i have a slight ‘Ally Gee’ to peanuts I seem to get rather itchy these days and never have had the problem before. I might give it a rest for a week to see.

    3. I know you don’t like brown sauce Obs, but it’s been difficult to get hold of recently. But this morning in my bacon and egg home made white bread sarnie ta dah.
      And crunchy peanut butter with a trail of marmite (impossible to spread on top) through it is delicious, on home made toasted granary whole meal.

      1. Put the Marmite on first. That works best with my Philadelphia cheese and Marmite combo on toast.

        1. Can I suggest you try ( if avaiable) HP Fruity sauce. (Cue all the jokes.) I was told once that “I wouldn’t buy that because of the name”. I bought him a bacon cob – on the basis it had that sauce on. He accepted, saying if he didn’t like it he would throw it away. It all went down his throat, with a large lip smack and a “That is REALLY nice” – and now that is the sauce used by his family. not just him.

        2. Whereas I love it on meat and cheese. Spuds just need salt and black pepper, and sometimes perhaps rosemary.

    6. Importers in Germany found that several sacks of grain imported from the USA had rats’ droppings in them.

      The Germans complained that der ratshidt and the grain were mixed and requested that the US suppliers should, in future, send the rat excrement and the grain in separate sacks so that they could mix them themselves.

      1. A bit like our visit to Church View winery near Margaret river in WA, at the tastings the English sommelier said to us, we don’t mind if when you taste of wine you swallow it and we don’t mind if you spit it out, but if you do we sell it on to the wineries in NZ.

    7. Importers in Germany found that several sacks of grain imported from the USA had rat’s droppings in them.

      The Germans complained that der ratshidt and the grain were mixed and requested that the US suppliers should, in future, send the rat excrement and the grain in separate sacks so they they could mix them themselves.

    1. I’m not certain that that is what the 2020 ruling stated, but it can certainly be used as a precedent to Biden’s disadvantage if fraud is proven.

      1. I think that the Democrats’ massive election fraud will be completely exposed but not for another twenty years by which time nothing will be able to be done about it and Biden will be dead.

        1. Let’s hope a lesson is learned in London with the fraudulent election of Kahnt………….. whoops spell chucker not working.

      1. It means that if a state decides that fraud took place, they can withdraw their vote for Biden as President. If a couple of them did so, then we have a problem. I assume that Trump would be declared to be the real President. That would be an interesting situation, to say the least.

    3. Try looking at the Chiafalo v. Washington Supreme Court ruling. If an electoral college voter is selected to vote for a specific candidate, that is who they must vote for. Did any voter cast their college vote for Biden even though they had been instructed to vote for Trump?

      No, thought not.

      1. You misunderstand the ruling. It has nothing to do with what you are on about. Do you honestly think the Supreme Court is not aware of the case you are talking about?

        This is about voter fraud, not ‘faithless’ electors. The point is that if Biden was elected in some states by voter fraud, then the state has every right to withdraw its initial vote for him in the Electoral College for the obvious reason they cast their vote under the impression they were voting for the correct candidate and not a fraud. Several States have now done recounts and found anomalies that do indeed suggest that dishonest means were used to get Biden into power. Why should the electors to the college not rescind their votes under those circumstances?

        1. Go ahead and read the ruling, stop clutching at straws.

          How is the Arizona recount doing? Oh look nothing found.

          1. I did read the ruling. And you are wrong. I suggest you go and Listen to “Facts Matter with Roman Balmakov.” On You Tube. He has been following the audits since they begun. Of course, if you are willing to just believe the MSM then you are willing to believe anything.

    1. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6a79c8fab12584753efc1df23c0eaf5c2ccbbb312083ceeb582332bbe23d5c59.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9d6a7e31b7401327982fdd55fafd358a5616ab3d0baab9fb236dbc76ccc2bb80.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cb849d4b7cff16fd238750973a643a9afafd082b080fbb1cb2ee16e55b6f7b00.jpg That is a wonderful study and a deserved winner. It looks like I have my work cut out if I wish to reach that high standard, judging by my efforts this past two weeks in the garden.
      1. Female pied flycatcher.
      2. Female common redstart
      3. First-winter spotted flycatcher.

    1. Votes in the political larder.
      Perhaps before the idiot Tories are kicked out, they might change the balance of things by making it law to have been a British tax payer for at least 5 years before a person qualifies to vote. No contribution no right to vote.

        1. Agreed. Why should people who have come here and contributed zero be allowed to have any say in what happens to the country they want,, built by the culture they hate..

    2. A good ‘Threat’ map. It identifies that their ‘armies’ will be centred on, the North, Birmingham and (surprise, surprise) Londonistan

      1. Once they reacha critical mass then, having infiltrated the government systems they begin remaking it in their image – at our expense.

      1. Afternoon Conway. They are per 100,000 of the population so assuming you have an idea how many people are living in the area you are interested in you can do a quick calculation as to how many immigrants are in the same area.

        1. Thanks for the laugh, Minty! You clearly don’t know how arithmetically challenged I am 🙂 All I know, even without getting the numbers wrong, is that there are far too many people who hate our guts being poured into this small island.

    4. Does the guardian then put two and two together to accept that Labour wanted a voting bloc at the expense of the unemployed White Brits though?

  59. That’s just adjusted the pigs electric fence. Smart buggers, they learned to shovel the turf up against the fence, which (with a little encouragement) falls down and earths itself, so they can trot over it without getting their trotters blown off by a billion volt charge.
    Next time, the main posts will be stout 6′ wooden jobbies, not plastic palings with a spike at one end, to tread in the ground.

      1. They don’t have names. Who could off a pet, then eat it?
        But they are rather cute, even if they are by now pretty big – their childish excitement as you approach with the feed bucket… one of them even jugs her front legs up & down with excitement. Sweet… I won’t be here when they go to that great Butcher’s in the Sky.

        1. My Mother did. Her father was a farmer. Each of the four daughters were given a piglet to cherish on the clear understanding that, in due course, the pig would be slaughtered and eaten. Mother’s piglet she called Rachel. When Rachel was served up, there was more fat than usual – Mother had spoiled the animal (more than she did me!). In our family, nice, juicy fat bacon was always called “Rachel Bacon”.

  60. Afternoon, all. Just popping in for a short while before I take Oscar walking with a neighbour and her three dogs. I took him to a car boot this morning – he was trying to pick himself out a teddy bear (which if he’d been allowed, he would have shredded in no time). He is not happy being told, “that’s not for you.” Rather like a child, really 🙂 On the way back home, he tried to go in the pub. I think he’s settling in 🙂 As for the lead letter; the problem is, nobody in the “Conservative” party is actually a Conservative.

    1. Good that Oscar knows what a pub is.

      My late hound was regularly spoiled by some neighbours (they would warm his breakfast milk for him, FGS!!) When we walked past their house, he’d peel off and try to get in!

      1. He does that if we walk by the cafe he likes (he’s a great fan of their flapjack and they always give him a small piece when I have my coffee there). Yesterday, I wasn’t going to go in (I’d been the day before), but Oscar dragged me through the door! He can be very strong when he wants to.

        1. I found out the wife was going for a quiet pastry of a morning as Mongo would suddenly turn down a different path to go near the bakers.

    2. Mongo has a teddy bear. He took one of Junior’s and it went practically everywhere with him.

      We worried he needed the comfort as he felt left out, but seems that dogs like toys as well.

      1. Dotty has two teddy bears, a monkey and a rag doll, which she’ll extract from the toy box and beat them to death – mainly the teddys, as they still have their squeakers.

      2. Oscar started off with a snake, but he started to rip it to pieces, so I bought him a duck. Mr Duck went the same way. Now he has to make do with a (so far) indestructible bone.

  61. ‘Afternoon All

    How things change………

    https://twitter.com/Batshitcrazy69/status/1413436231141167104

    To

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1eb6f82b770d6692f6b44966f05aea68a62c730bde5c4d61c56fd7dab1c4cae8.jpg

    Why???

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fa835f8565de84e1543a2e9e8ce106ae307969427c59c9c4716231f2ed01450f.jpg

    The we face reality…………..

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d3837add31fb0b69c3d536404e6924218b3613308223fad1f2539680e5ac9599.jpg

    2. 338501+ up ticks,
      Afternoon Rik,
      Many of us within the real UKIP under Batten were warning of these types on & on that, triggered the treachery that killed the real UKIP.

  62. Uff Da!! Australia…………..

    An Australian woman advocated freedom. Freedom from lockdowns and

    mandates. So she was criticized on social media? She was censored?

    She was ARRESTED.

    Her name is Monica Smit. She’s sitting in jail.

    The fascist authorities agreed to release her on bail, if she renounced everything she stood for.

    Does that sound familiar? The USSR. Show trials. The massive power of the State coming down on an individual.

    Monica Smit refused the deal.

    https://blog.nomorefakenews.com/2021/09/02/monica-smit-arrested-for-advocating-freedom-australia-is-ruled-by-crime-bosses/

    https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/083/977/419/original/6875401efb9f3aca.jpg

    1. Especially the government, I would have thought. The wildlife doesn’t normally kill you unless you provoke it.

    2. 338501+ up ticks,
      Afternoon TB,
      QUITE ROY,
      🎵,
      You ain’t nothing but a milch cow rocking all the while.

  64. 338501+ up ticks,
    Listening to question time whilst doing something constructive in the garage, the housing shortage arose there was NO MENTION of the treacherous DOVER invasion, NONE.

    It is so blindingly obvious that as long as homo sapiens retain a rear exit dump valve education,incarceration, medication
    , ACCOMMODATION issues will NEVER,EVER,EVER be solved.

    Stabbing the kids is also front & centre, seems without the jab/stab schooling could be disrupted,no mention of serious repercussions even death courtesy of the jab/stab that would also seriously disrupt
    schooling forever.

    1. It always makes me laugh when people claim that wanting to leave the EU is stopping us being European. Until the Africans have completely taken over (and not just on the adverts) we’ll still be Europeans.

      1. By simple virtue of the UK being part of ‘Europe’ the continent makes us european.

        I voted to leave the communist fascist oppression of the incompetent, pathetic EU.

        1. A bit like, Wibbles, the UK mainland and the island of Ireland are, collectively, known as Great Britain or The British Isles.

          2. No, Paul that’s the political term, I’m talking about the Geographic term as in the Contenent of Europe includes Great Britain.

          4. Great Britain is that odd-looking island off the coast of France, so named to avoid confusion with Bretagne/Brittany. It is the largest of the British Isles.

        2. Another ludicrous claim was that we were “leaving Europe”. No, nobody will be dragging the UK into the middle of the Atlantic. We won’t be leaving the continent, we’ll be leaving an anti-democratic, sclerotic organisation.

  66. Come fly Taliban Airways! Afghanistan’s new rulers restart domestic flights from Kabul airport but fed-up locals are still struggling to get cash out of city’s banks
    Taliban restarted domestic flights from Kabul airport in a bid to receive aid from international community

    Afghanistan’s impoverished economy has been thrown into disarray by the fall of the Ghani government
    Without aid that has sustained the country for years, the Islamists will find it hard to avert economic collapse
    One-third of the country is facing food insecurity and is in need of funds, the World Food Programme said
    Western powers have said that they are prepared to engage with the ruling Taliban and send aid
    But formal recognition of regime and broader assistance will depend on action to safeguard civil liberties

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9957597/Afghanistans-new-rulers-restart-domestic-flights-Kabul-airport-amid-cash-crisis.html?ito=push-notification&ci=C3v_C2gVTQ&cri=rsNQ37bxAG&si=26738248&ai=9957597

    1. Send Aid ???? – Why not buy the bluddy billions worth of weapons back ftom them too? Sending “Aid” – ie taxpayers cash – – means we’ve armed them – – and then financed the country as well????. They’ve been getting “Aid” for decades – – and now expect constant everything. How effin well off would we be living if trillions hadn’t been thrown down the drain for decades.???

    3. Don’t worry TB.

      At a recent Press conference Mr Raab stated that he was sending £285million of taxpayers’ money to Afghanistan.

      He didn’t say whether we would get back any of our military equipment that we left behind.

    4. Don’t worry TB.

      At a recent Press conference Mr Raab stated that he was sending £285million of taxpayers’ money to Afghanistan.

      He didn’t say whether we would get back any of our military equipment that we left behind.

  68. 338501+ up ticks,
    breitbart,

    39 Per Cent of French Believe Islam Will Become France’s Primary Religion

    A mere bagatelle, 101% of the governance overseers cartel in the United Kingdom are working to make it a reality in the UK.

    Lest we forget, halal dumplings on the parliamentary canteen menu.

  69. Half way through the fourth Test at The Oval and England seem to have lost interest and gone to sleep.

  70. 338501+ up ticks,

    They would, proven totally brainwashed, & totally addicted to the party NAME no matter that that is (ino).

    Dt,
    If Boris puts up taxes, why would any conservative vote Tory ever again?

  71. Something very fishy about this.

    “A man is being held by police in Scotland after a recently married woman fell 800 ft to her death from Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh during a holiday with her husband to celebrate her birthday.

    Fawziyah Javed, who would have celebrated her 32nd birthday on Saturday and was also believed to have been pregnant, plunged from the hill at about 9pm on Thursday.”

    Who would climb up to Arthur’s Seat in the dusk? In fact, Edinburgh is probably dark by 9.0 pm and the road has been closed since mid-afternoon.

      2. Another wife waiting to be brought in for her family to get here and put the hands out, while they chant to their new gods – Benny Fitz and Anne Doubts.

    2. A junior pedant writes – since the very highest point of Arthur’s Seat is just 251 metres above sea level, it seems she would have had difficulty falling 800 feet?

        1. Are those ‘251 meters’ gas meters by any chance, Tom?

          In any case 251metres = 823·4908135 feet. [divide metres by 0·3048 to get feet].

          1. Fine, I shall go along with the result to two decimal places.

            Like the author of the piece, I just went with the roughest measure to demonstrate the roughest push.

          4. Not at all, I said I’d go along with it.

            Just counting the number of angels on this pinhead but Dinner’s ready. S’later.

        3. Agreed, but the point is that the base of Arthur’s Seat is NOT at sea level! The most precipitous part of that area, Salisbury Crags, is just 170 meters above sea level. The article didn’t exactly say where the fall occurred but having run [and climbed] there a few years ago the crags would seem the most likely site – I suspect the DT just did the same bit of maths as you and added the height to their report without checking – it’s a long way north for them!

          1. Understood but when you said,”…the very highest point of Arthur’s Seat is just 251 metres above sea level.” that is obviously the measurement that you lay yourself open to be tested upon.

            Remember, Junior Pedant or not, there are many others here who might challenge your assertions.

          2. Which is why I put “above sea level” in bold! A quick look at the relevant OS map would have shown why I was sceptical!

      3. You make a valid point, Bleau. Although Arthur’s Seat is 251 metres [823 feet] above sea level; its prominence — i.e. its height relative to the lowest contour line encircling it — is just 186 metres [610 feet]. Therefore, as you rightly point out, a fall of 800 feet from the summit is impossible by a wide margin.

    3. Fawziyah Javed sounds as if he is probably a cousin of our health minister, Squalid Jawdrop.

    4. Funny, that. When I first read it (no names), I would have put money on it being a furriner of that persuasion.

    1. Last week, I doubled our aid to Afghanistan to £286m and today I am releasing £30m of life-saving humanitarian support to help those in need in the region.

      Oh that the 457 squaddies killed in Afghanistan at these peoples’ hands were here to see this squalid spectacle!

      1. What about life-saving humanitarian support to help those in need here in the UK – – course not – Foreigners get priority.

      2. Please edit, Minty, took me a while to figure out that that the last sentence should start with ‘oh’ rather than ‘on’

        I know that my sight sometimes confuses words so I checked, and checked again.

        …and I heartily agree with the sentiment!

    2. The sad truth is that this virtue signalling (at our expense) will be applauded by quite a large portion of our population.

  73. Man… just had 2 hrs kip in the sofa, and the buggers here have had tea & cake without keeping any for me!

      1. Didn’t intend to, just I suddenly woke up (v comfy sofa, this) and was told the glad news.
        :-((

          1. Nah, antibac & tonic.
            Tastes like the inside of a carburettor, last of the first batch of shine.

          2. I’m at a loss to understand how you know what the inside of a carburettor tastes like – and why you know.

          3. Bit of a petrolhead… sometimes putting your mouth on a tube and blowing solves a lot of problems.

    3. If they all had silly grins on their faces and wouldn’t tell you why – – – start wondering if you talk in your sleep.

  74. If Boris puts up taxes, why would any conservative vote Tory ever again?

    People might stomach a betrayal on tax, if this government was loyal to its core vote in other areas

    DOUGLAS MURRAY
    4 September 2021 • 1:00pm

    Back in March 2015, when the coronavirus was but a glint in the eye of a Wuhan bat, or lab technician (depending who you believe), Britain was debating National Insurance. To be precise, David Cameron’s Conservative Party was trying to box Ed Miliband’s Labour Party into looking like the usual crazed tax-and-spend socialists.

    With a general election coming up, the Tories were rolling out their favourite pre-election line: “Don’t trust Labour with the economy. They’re all socialist spendthrifts.” Jeremy Corbyn had not yet become Labour leader, and so the wider country didn’t realise how relatively lucky we had it with Miliband. Still, 2015 was his turn to be presented as the reddest leader in Labour history.

    Specifically, at one Prime Minister’s Questions, Cameron asked Miliband if Labour would rule out an increase in National Insurance. Miliband refused to do so. “Aha!” shouted the Tory benches. Here was socialism in action. Down with the reds! Ever capable of saying whatever he needed to say to get his party out of the firing line, Ed Balls soon stepped in and shut down this Conservative line of attack. He did so by promising that a Labour government would most certainly not be planning to raise National Insurance, under any circumstances.

    Why do I rehearse this bit of ancient history, filled as it is with a cast of people who seem as far away as Lloyd George given the pace of our politics since 2015? Only because a Conservative Government is contemplating doing precisely the thing they thought was so devilish just six years ago. That is, they are considering a rise in National Insurance contributions.

    If you believe the reports, the Health Secretary, Sajid Javid, is apparently pushing for a 2 per cent increase, claiming that 1 per cent will not be enough. Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, meanwhile, is reportedly insisting that there must be no rise above 1 per cent. At the same time the Conservative backbenches are starting to feel nervous about any rise at all, sweetly remembering that they went into the last election with a very specific promise on this matter. That promise, which was part of the 2019 Conservative manifesto, was that the party would rule out any rise in the rates of income tax, VAT or national insurance if returned to office.

    Of course they were returned to office, with quite a majority. So what is the present Government to do about this awkward fact? It could point out that the last couple of years have been unexpected. Unlike all other periods in history. They could say that we have been living through extraordinary times. As though any time ever feels ordinary while you are going through it. Or the Government could find some other way to explain why it should be breaking a promise that is less than two years old.

    Instead, it appears to be favouring an idea which clearly was not dreamed up by the finest minds in the Conservative Party. This plan is to rebrand the national insurance increase, calling it a national insurance “surcharge” or “health and social care levy” instead. No10 seem to imagine that this will get them out of this tight spot. After all, the Conservatives never said in their 2019 manifesto that they would not introduce a new “surcharge” or “levy” once in government, did they? Genius.

    Except that at such moments Conservative voters do not issue a “coo” of admiration. Rather, in my experience, they issue an all too familiar sigh. That is the sigh of the conservative voter who knows that once again the Conservative Party is going to do one of the things it arguably does best, and is going to let its voters down.

    Of course Boris Johnson will be able to find ways to sell it. He could say that the NHS has performed marvellously in the last 18 months and that we really do owe it to our brave doctors and nurses to fund an increase in social care and the NHS. He could argue that social care has been in a mess for decades, and that it is only this Government that has been brave enough to “fix it”. He could claim that the pandemic has changed everything, and at such moments it is necessary to adapt in turn. Even if it means breaking key manifesto promises.

    It would be just about possible to imagine this working if elsewhere this Conservative Government was busy doing very conservative things in a bold and efficient manner. For instance if our military capabilities hadn’t just been superseded by those of the Taliban. Or if our borders were not so porous that our Channel coastguards have become a very helpful arm of the people-smuggling networks. Or if our standing on the world stage had never looked better.

    Yet none of these things is the case. Look for any flagship policy that this Government is pushing and the most you will find is soggy, greenish soppiness about the environment and animal welfare. Some of that may be all very well, but it does not add up to a reward for Conservative voters.

    If there is one thing that might allow Conservative voters to retain some semblance of loyalty to the party then it would be for the party to demonstrate that it is loyal to them in turn. The part of that pact between voter and party that matters most is that a Conservative government should never, ever be in the business of raising taxes. Especially not when you are trying to revive an economy that was on life support for most of 2020-2021. And especially not when, as we have seen so many times before – most strikingly in the 1980s – much greater rewards will come from keeping taxes low and allowing the economy to try to boom again.

    So the threatened rise in National Insurance is more than a threat to break a manifesto pledge. It is a demonstration that this Conservative Government is willing to break with every totemic issue of conservatism even though it is still years away from another election. It is strange to base your economic policies on those of Ed Miliband. After all, Mr Miliband’s main job these days consists in presenting a podcast. Among their other deliberations, the Conservatives might mull on that.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/09/04/boris-puts-taxes-would-conservative-vote-tory-ever/

      1. All those things are unaffordable at the current level of spending. The first three are expected and they must come at the expense of the state machine.

    3. National Insurance is a complete farce anyway. It should die the death along with Our Beloved NHS, and be replaced with a social healthcare system along Continental lines.
      Everyone’s health insurance contributions should be linked to defined benefits, and healthcare should not be a black hole for public money.

      1. A start would be scrapping the relative definition of poverty.

        If Joe Soap doesn’t work then he can’t have the things that someone who does can. He has no right to a TV, to a holiday, to a new telephone. He is forcing someone else to pay for his life. He cannot have the luxuries that person enjoys.

        As a society we should rightly provide for those incapable of providing for themselves. However, no one on welfare should live better than someone working.

  78. ‘Dame Hilary Mantel has said she intends to take Irish citizenship to “become a European again” and that she is “ashamed” of Brexit Britain.

    The author of Wolf Hall said she was “baffled” by the popularity of the monarchy. “I don’t want to think that people are naturally slavish, and actually enjoy inequality,” she said, “I might breathe easier in a republic, and may be able to arrange it.” ‘

    I wonder if ‘Dame’ Hilary ever considered declining her dame hood, or does she just enjoy the inequality too much?

    Anyway, Hil luv, mind how you go, don’t let the door bang you in the ass on your way out.

    2. And she can leave her Damehood and passport at the departure lounge!
      What a nasty, hypocritical piece of work – and her books are tortuous!

        1. I’ve got to say, she’s not the bonniest thing on the planet! In fact, a face like a bag of spanners!
          And the rest of her looks like a ship in full sail!

        2. I’ve got to say, she’s not the bonniest thing on the planet! In fact, a face like a bag of spanners!
          And the rest of her looks like a ship in full sail!

    3. It is a great pity that the Booker Prize judges mistook flowery prose for great literature on at least two occasions, as it gave her intellectual pretensions way above her station.

  79. Tonight’s supper just arrived – a nice lemon sole from Pesky Fish. I shall fry it in butter & serve it with tiny shrimps, capers, parsley & a lemon-butter sauce.

      1. “Prime Minister, there is another lorry consignment of individually boxed turds outside, all addressed to you!”

  81. Just spent an hour with the MR pruning the Albertine rose.

    Gardeners will completely understand when I say that it is a rose that FIGHTS BACK.. Just off to wash the many wounds.

    1. Firstborn’s blackberry bushes are like that. It’s easier and less painful to get pills down a cat.

        1. We have these. Spines go right through the mesh. In the end, bare fingers are best, fewer squashed berries and same number of spines that need tweezed out of your hand.

    3. My Albertine is on the fence with my neighbour’s garden. It saw off a prowler a few years ago. He came 1/2way over the fence & got a handful of Albertine. He didn’t come any further.

        1. I have plenty of Berberis at the front of the house, along with nettles & thorny shrub & rambler roses.

      2. That’s because of all the damned sunshine and drought you get down Curnow…

        Roses can struggle in the south of France.

  82. Going to veg out in front of idiot’s lantern until dinner, probably fall asleep from boredom but it has to be done. slater!

      1. No chance – Best Beloved watching some Irish wind-farm saga – relegated to DT crosswords and other puzzles.

    2. So I should hope.
      Of course, children not having vaccine passports will hold up the great reset, as it relies on everyone having a digital id.

    3. By the time the girls are discovering fertility problems and the boys impotence – BPAPM and Witless and Unbalanced wlll be far, far away.

      cf Bliar…

    4. By the time the girls are discovering fertility problems and the boys impotence – BPAPM and Witless and Unbalanced wlll be far, far away.

      cf Bliar…

    5. When I was young families had measles/mumps parties so that the youngsters caught the disease when they were best able to cope with it in the family.
      I can’t help thinking that as far as children were concerned that might have been the best bet.

    1. If after a twenty minute job your bolt is getting very warm and your nuts are squeeking then you haven’t used enough lubricant to get your nuts off.

        1. It’s best to sparingly apply a few drops of lubricant and give sufficient time for it to penetrate before touching the nuts. 😉

          2. Yes, a high pressure grease gun is essential to get full coverage of the bearing surfaces.☺️

    4. When the young people start planning project work they put in 30 mins, 1 hour slot.

      I put in 2 days for a simple update. There was much deriding at the time, a lot of demand I reduce it. I held firm. In the end, once the blasted machine had been rebuilt, a new PSU sourced, box dusted, cleaned, new cabling found and routed and the update installed, box remounted, tested and soaked I came in under budget.

      The kids were panicking and faffing at having put in only an hour. At that point I said ‘don’t worry. I intercepted your work tickets and put in a full day (6 hours). I did remind them that they’d started too late and would be working into the evening to complete.

    1. Been here, done that – to death. Silly woman. She is no different from these effing wendyball players who tell us how hard done by they are.

      1. Yes, I see that a bit further down. She should team up with Emma Thompson- another total fruitcake.

          3. Blunt and pithy, I am sure. My great great grandmother was a Plimer, so I am hoping we are related although it will be a distant one.

    2. Hey, Dean. I wonder if that wacko old scribe-ess will go as far as to join the Fabian society as well, Dude. After all, old George Bernard Shaw was a pseudo-Hibernian Lefty with one moccasin in the old Emerald Isle. She might as well go the whole hog and walk around with a pig under her arm, Hombre!

      1. Hey, Beatnik she’s off to the Emerald Isle where Irish is now the number four language in Old Erin, lagging behind Polish and Chinese, Dude. Ireland, where the government is slavishly following the Brussels mantra and making Ireland less Irish by the day, Bro. She should feel well at home with all those other deluded Lefties who hate themselves Big Time but just love Bureaucratic Big Government from afar and genuflect to pseudo-democracy, Man.

      2. Shrug? At least she’s going, unlike the effluent chakrabaliti and that other egregious woman alibaba brown.

  93. I posted a month or so ago, the picture of the Mona Lisa collage jigsaw – that took the MR and me nearly six months to complete.

    We gave it to our next door neighbour, who is a very keen Dissectologist. He did it in a week. Bastard.

    He is also a very skilled bridge player and we wondered whether there is a connection. Being able to remember a piece you had half an hour ago but put down. A bit like knowing where all the cards are. Ponders..

    2. Give him a Monet next time. The Waterlilies took my daughter and me some months. Too many little flecks of green and brown paint – but it was a great painting tutorial, as one was forced to study the colours.

  94. Time for me to go. Very successful day – ladder work got round of applause from the MR. Attacked Albertine and survived, though with scars. An hour’s bike ride – during which we encountered one of the oldest inhabitants of Fulmodeston. Pushing 90. I asked about the house she lived in as a child and when it was built. I asked if that was after the War – “Oh yes,” she replied, “1922”. Bless her!

    Have a nice evening learning Pushtu (or the other one) so as to make the people billeted on you feel at home.

    A demain.

  96. 338501+ up ticks,

    breitbart,

    Re-settlement AKA is placement for future use,

    Charity Boss Helping Afghans Settle in UK Is Taliban Loyalist, Backed Killing U.S. Soldiers:

    1. The Americans are finding most of the supposed refugees arriving comprise men, many old men accompanied by child ‘brides’. Few speak English.

      It is evident that the strongest likely trampled over their women and children in the rush to get aboard the transport planes. The old fashioned European notion of ‘women and children first’ is anathema to these mediaeval butchers.

      Thanks to the idiot Biden and his advisors a whole new upsurge in terrorism is destined to be visited on the West.

      I now believe that Biden acceded to the CCP (working in cahoots with Pakistan) in order to avoid being exposed for his criminal graft. The CCP bought the Biden family long ago and are now calling the shots on US foreign policy. We should be very scared.

      Much the same is happening in the demonic push to vaccinate the world, likely to prove the most heinous act of global governments against their people comparable if not worse than Hitler’s genocide of the Jews.

      1. I find it hard to contemplate that so many elected leaders are all so inclined to harm their people. Certainly, many are weak, corruptible, useless, self serving but to be so evil as to outdo Hitler’s damage to the European Jews? There has to be something else that is controlling these people. I am not trying to excuse their actions or absolve them of responsibility, they wanted the positions they hold and therefore must be answerable for their actions. My question is: what hold does the group running this nightmare have over all the politicians that are performing to the same choreography?

        1. The ‘young world leaders’ have been coached and placed by Soros and his officers at Davos. This has been going on stealthily for decades.

          Two obvious examples of this coaching are Jacinda Ahern in New Zealand and the (late) Matt Hancock in the UK. Those governing Australia are even more fervent in realising the aims of their globalist masters.

          Many UK politicians have trodden the same path and expect to obtain great wealth by betraying their people. Lists are available on various websites, Soros Foundation(s) and Rockefeller being but two of the principal ones.

          The lists of Bilderberg attendees also confirms the depth of the rotten global corruption with which we are finally confronted.

        2. The ‘young world leaders’ have been coached and placed by Soros and his officers at Davos. This has been going on stealthily for decades.

          Two obvious examples of this coaching are Jacinda Ahern in New Zealand and the (late) Matt Hancock in the UK. Those governing Australia are even more fervent in realising the aims of their globalist masters.

          Many UK politicians have trodden the same path and expect to obtain great wealth by betraying their people. Lists are available on various websites, Soros Foundation(s) and Rockefeller being but two of the principal ones.

          The lists of Bilderberg attendees also confirms the depth of the rotten global corruption with which we are finally confronted.

  97. I opened a new box of Maldon salt flakes today (yes, we do get them in Sweden) and noticed on the box was printed a “best before date” of 31/12/2025! This beggars belief.

    Er … salt is a basic inorganic compound: a residue (i.e. a ‘salt’) caused by the fusion of a simple acidic element (calcium) with a rudimentary alkaline element (sodium). Both constituent elements and the fundamental compounds they form have been around since the Big Bang. WTF is going to happen to me if I consume this substance after 01/01/2026?

    1. Try buying a bag of gravel – and THAT will have a best before date. Even though the contents are many million years old.

          1. Hmmm…i think i prefer old salt better than old gravel sprinkled over my food. But you never can tell with Northerners… :@(

    2. Good news that you’re using a product from Essex. I’ve used it in the past but recently I purchased some Himalayan Pink salt. I presume that one of the 84 trace elements gives some crystals a pink colour.

      I seem to remember an advert for spring water that claimed the water took X thousands of years to percolate through the rock beds only to have a best before date on the bottle. Is my memory correct or was I deceived by a comedian who made a joke along these lines?
      The elements that combine to make salt are sodium and chlorine. On their own two very nasty chemicals: sodium, a metal, when dropped into water will react vigorously and emit a yellow flame: chlorine is a highly toxic gas. Combined they are essential to life and good cooks. Isn’t nature wonderful?

    5. What an amazing coincidence, Grizzly! I spent today in Maldon doing a recce for a trip there with a friend of mine next Saturday. I didn’t buy any Maldon salt flakes; instead I popped inside a tea shop and bought a slice of coffee and walnut cake to take home. I ate it with a cup of tea and it was delicious.

  98. Damn Blast & Buggeration!
    Went to respond to Oberst’s peanut butter & marmite post and got Disqussed.

    Doing toast for a snack for self & mate on the OLE test coach a few years back I asked what he wanted on his, mentioning that we had peanut butter and marmite amongst the offerings and then suggested we try them together.
    An instant hit for us both!

    1. OK… maybe I was too hasty in my Yukk! ing.
      I’ll maybe give it a try, in the name of science…

  99. 42-year-old Nigerian Yekemi Otaru appointed Scotland varsity chancellor
    https://punchng.com/42-year-old-nigerian-yekemi-otaru-appointed-scotland-varsity-chancellor/
    An inspirational entrepreneur renowned for her passionate commitment to equality, diversity, and inclusion has been named University of the West of Scotland’s Chancellor-elect.
    The university made this known via a statement on its website.
    Yekemi Otaru, a tireless passionate supporter of women in business and an active mentor of business owners in the world’s poorest countries, will formally take up the role of Chancellor at the University of the West of Scotland on 1 September 2021, succeeding Dame Elish Angiolini.
    Yekemi, 42, holds four degrees and has considerable industrial experience in engineering and marketing. She is Co-Founder and Executive Director at Doqaru Limited, a prominent Aberdeen-based sales and marketing consultancy.
    She is also a board member of Interface, which connects a wide range of organisations from national and international industries to Scotland’s universities, research institutes and colleges, matching them with world-leading academic expertise to help them grow. A bestselling author and social media expert, Yekemi is also known for her innovative use of platforms such as LinkedIn.
    As Chancellor, Yekemi will hold formal powers to confer degrees, diplomas and other academic distinctions, and will represent UWS at key events as an advocate and dignitary.
    Yekemi said, “I am honoured to have been appointed Chancellor-elect of University of the West of Scotland, following in the footsteps of a remarkable individual in Dame Elish Angiolini.
    “We are all living through challenging times, and higher education plays a vital role in society and for our economy. I eagerly look forward to being part of the University, as it continues to carry out world-class research and knowledge transfer initiatives such as in the areas of healthcare and sports science.
    “Now is the perfect time for me to be joining the University’s journey in inspiring and educating the next generation of graduates, equipped with the skills needed to help society recover from the pandemic.
    Professor Craig Mahoney, Principal and Vice-Chancellor at UWS, added: “I am delighted with Yekemi’s appointment as the University’s Chancellor-elect. Yekemi’s values very much align with those of UWS, from her passion for advancing equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) to her commitment to enterprise, and her appointment is reflective of our strategic mission to make a positive difference to wider society.
    Yekemi is a remarkable example of entrepreneurship and a tremendous role model for our students and wider University community. I am delighted to welcome her to the UWS family.

    2. Ah yes! That well known University with tech colleges-oops-campuses, all over the place!

    4. Frightening what the state has done to ordinary members of the population. Its been done before, of course, by our German friends and others. Shocking.

      1. The state has merely turned over a stone.
        These nasty wriggling things have always existed.
        We have no right to sneer at 1930s Germany.

    5. NOT surprised BoB. during 1st lockdown the ones on the late night phone ins were beyond belief. One screaming lady wanted everyone who goes outtside to be shot, then fined £1k – -“they are going to kill us all” – then started singing hymns at full volume down the phone – AT 3 AM !!!!!

      1. This may well be Johnson’s undoing at Nuremberg 2. If he lasts that long. He can scarcely hide behind his mantra of ‘following the science’ now. A variation of ‘just following orders’. It didn’t work last time, either.

        1. The similarity had never struck me before! But you’re quite right – it’s basically just “following orders”.

        2. There can be no doubt that the people forming the top echelon of this awful government are following an agenda set by people/bodies outside of the UK. The elected government being instructed by outside influences to initiate policies inimical to the good of the people that elected them in good faith. Does this amount to treason?
          How far down the pyramid the poison reaches is unknown. Too many Tory MPs are mere voting fodder and I doubt that they are bright enough to put two and two together where CV-19 and the WEF/NWO group is concerned. When reality strikes and the people wake up and turn upon their oppressors what possible defence will these party voting morons have to save themselves?

      1. When the first teenager dies, will Whitty be personally responsible, or does he have the same handy-dandy indemnity as the manufacturers?

        2. He will have a hard time supporting his decision against the recommendation of a committee set up specifically for this purpose. He is probably taking one for Johnson who has targets to meet re “vaccination”.

    1. Errmm.. has anyone said that they will? An electric car is incredibly environmentally damaging, won’t last nearly as long, produce a massive amount of waste in the batteries.

      There’s some measure of not relying on the middle east (but that’s idiotic unless we triple our energy production), elements of control in terms of where people can go. The idea was to reduce pollution on roads. All it’s done is move it somewhere else.

      By all means, encourage electric cars, but the state was moronic to outlaw them.

  103. Bournemouth airshow has been active over the last few days, aircraft have been seen over here.. yesterday late afternoon a Spitfire flew over here .

    Wonderful iconic sound . We were all so lucky to see it out of territory.

    We went over to Knoll beach , Studland , late this afternoon , the sea was as flat as a pancake , beach was full of happy families people swimming , vsibilitiy out to sea was reall murky , and the sun was out and it was warm!

    We thought we may have been able to have seen some aircraft displays in the distant flying above the bay.

    Everything aloft was quiet apart from a few motor cruisers showing off..on the water!

    Look what happened when we turned the radio on when we got back to the car after our brief visit .

    https://twitter.com/Echo_Maya/status/1434194694800560139

    https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/19559447.wingwalker-plane-crashes-poole-harbour-air-festival-display/

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9957977/Wing-walking-plane-crashes-sea-Bournemouth-Air-Festival-flights-suspended.html

    1. My daughter was in Austria recently, and she saw a TV interview. There has been another horrific murder committed by an Afghan refugee. The local BBC equivalent hauled an Afghan politics tutor from an Austrian university on the show so that they could have a cosy backslapping session where they could condemn racism.
      My daughter said it was comical how they reacted when the man didn’t go along with the agenda at all – he said there were problems that must be sorted out by Afghans so that they can integrate into the West.

      1. The 20000 over 5 yrs haven’t started arriving yet – these are the ones evacuated. There is going to be MASSIVE unrest soon.And Sunak has promised large multi bedroom homes for them – which no doubt similar sized African families will demand too. If BJ got a Caucescu ending would anyone care?

        2. No. And I think it’s coming. One sees what ‘social care’ means now. It’s nothing to do with the elderly. They are playing with semantics – and us – to achieve their agenda. So pensioners have to start paying NI, see their pensions lose value by the abolition of the triple lock to fund ‘social care’ for the immigrants. Johnson & co must be laughing their sock off at us.

    3. I personally object most to the ‘housed for free…’. It isn’t free. It’s costing the tax payer a fortune.

      Far better to say ‘housed at great cost at tax payers expense’

  106. Children of Afghan evacuees to be taught at ‘pop-up’ schools in refugee camps
    The Housing Secretary is appealing to landlords to help councils increase the number of homes available for Afghan familiesChildren of Afghan evacuees to be taught at ‘pop-up’ schools in refugee camps
    The Housing Secretary is appealing to landlords to help councils increase the number of homes available for Afghan families

    in Telegraph

    1. Reluctant??/ – – they WANT us removed – they WANT this country and all its ready built infrastructure.
      They urge Muslim community leaders to educate??? – – THEY are MUSLIMS – only ISLAM matters !!!!! How the hell did this idiot get to be in charge of MI6 ???

  109. Goodnight and God bless. I’m off, as I had a bad night last night and have some zeds to catch up on.

    2. Me too, NTN. A really bad night. Have felt awful today and the dull, gloomy weather doesn’t help.

  110. The skate wings were very nice and I’ve prepared the bread sauce etc for the roast guinea fowl Sunday lunch .

    Good night , or up the wooden hill ( as going to sleep used to be called, no idea why).
    God bless x

    2. Apples and Pears = Stairs, in Cockney Rhyming Slang, before it was bannned for excluding BAMES

  111. The skate wings were very nice and I’ve prepared the bread sauce etc for the roast guinea fowl Sunday lunch .

    Good night , or up the wooden hill ( as going to sleep used to be called, no idea why).
    God bless x

  112. Breaking news – Due to the current shortage of HGV drivers the country is witnessing a chronic deficit in bulshit supplies, the BBC have cancelled Marr on Sunday until further notice, the government has cancelled PMQ’s, SAGE has shut down COP 26 has been cancelled and remainers have run out of reasons why we should have stayed in the EU.

  113. Utterly off topic.
    Another very enjoyable evening at a local village event.

    Tree climbing with pulleys for children, 40+ feet up, water splash slides, archery, bouncy obstacle course and lots of food stalls. A rock and roll band and lots of families, (4 generations), dancing and just having a great time.

    The village volunteers handled the tables, the vaccine passes and organised the local equivalent of St John’s ambulance.

    Even the bar was manned/womanned by volunteers. Strangers sat next each other and chatted, enjoying a convivial evening.
    La France profonde takes a lot of beating for sheer simple pleasure.

  114. What sort of person would allegedly push his young pregnant wife off a cliff face in Edinburgh?
    Was it a selfie disaster, or a matter of ‘onna?

    2. I was amused by the article which h said she was visiting with her husband, 27 year old (Name, Name) and then in the next paragraph said a 27yo man was being questioned.
      Hmm, who dat den?

        1. They will be coming for us next.

          Just give the Afghans a year to settle in to their free executive housing and the time to inflame their brothers already dormant in the UK to take latent action against us Christians.

  115. I was just wondering how will they know what flu vaccine to use this Autumn / Winter season? I thought they used to base it on what was doing the rounds in Australia during their winter season , but there hasn’t been any flu for two years, only covid.

    1. I would not trust the buggers and in future will never take another flu jab. It will probably be laced with the Covid-19 killer spike protein concoction. The last flu jab left me with a severe skin rash which has taken months to clear (almost) with shadows of scarred skin tissue remaining.

      As you surmise, flu is purportedly a thing of the past and it is obvious they want us all, infants, teens and adults, either dead or else disabled.

      2. I was offered the flu jab by my pharmacist yesterday. I had already declined the offer from one of his assistants a month ago. I told him that I would not be taking it this year (most likely never again) as I did not trust what this government might be up to. Strangely, he did not seem surprised by what I said, in fact he told me he understood.

        I like to think that more people are waking up to what is going on: the offer of flu jabs for all this year certainly set my alarm bells ringing.

  116. Good night all. For supper…

    The lemon sole as described with a side of samphire. Chilean SB 2020.
    A ripe Brie
    Black cherries
    Bitter chocolate with Armagnac XO.

    2. Good night to all but me. (The men in white coats come to lock you up when you talk to yourself!)

      :-))

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