Tuesday 28 September: The M25 protesters were the last straw that broke the petrol supply and road infrastructure

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here.

669 thoughts on “Tuesday 28 September: The M25 protesters were the last straw that broke the petrol supply and road infrastructure”

    4. Why not just refer to the prisoners by their prison number? If they don’t like it it, tough shit.

      1. 339359+ up ticks,
        Afternoon Ftc,
        They would like being first name crime ID a lot less as in,
        hey pat paedo, bert grass,peter plod etc,etc.

      1. ‘Morning, Minty, Citroen (Oops) that is a deranged Norwegian Methodist. About time we had a look at one.

    4. Nope. One of the Albanian Selamajs.
      I ask my perennial question, “why are there any Albanians in the UK? “

  7. SIR – Why are train drivers paid more than lorry drivers?

    Steve Cattell
    Hougham, Lincolnshire

    Stop railing about it.

  9. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Brief visit today (“Hurrah!”) but some BTL comments about another broadcaster showing the London marathon next year caught my eye:

    Watkyn Bassett
    28 Sep 2021 3:56AM
    Yeah, but if they spent the licence fees on stuff like this, how could they afford teams of luvvies on quarter mil £ each to read some news, play some records & the jug-eared crisp botherer?

    John Hatch
    28 Sep 2021 4:00AM
    I thought the London Marathon was the event that causes massive inconvenience by closing roads so that Olympic athletes can compete against people dressed as chickens.

    Why on earth would anyone (except, perhaps, their relatives) want to watch it on TV?

    Sophia Oppenheimer
    28 Sep 2021 5:59AM
    Hate the way the BBC shows so little sport these days- HOWEVER, this is the most boring thing to watch, EVER.

    Thomas Mein
    28 Sep 2021 6:05AM
    £4 million a year, they could have 16 diversity champions each working 3 days a week for that money and we all know where their priorities lie.

  10. 339359+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    Orchestrated start to finish, the garage sell out was a segment of the Country sellout, and nothing changes the herd played their part.

    I do believe that if the political overseers & their tongue the MsM had linked toilet rolls to petrol shortage the herd would have gone into
    unstoppable stampede mode, the death toll being totally unacceptable.

    In prior post I did have the fat turk down as being the pilot of the eu semi re-entry missile that has been in open construct since 25/6/2016.

    Tuesday 28 September: The M25 protesters were the last straw that broke the petrol supply and road infrastructure

  11. While I think the Tweeter is correct about what a Labour government would achieve if in power, as it’s Inclusion Week he should not have omitted Johnson and the Tory’s efforts. They are in power and the Country is well down the road to a dystopian future (Australia, anyone?). What would it matter if the routes differ but the destination is the same?

    https://twitter.com/A_Liberty_Rebel/status/1442443708394213377

      1. That is a possibility as one globalist/green aim is to put a stop to travel for the masses – to save the World, of course. Johnson has already had a dabble with his ‘traffic light’ process but the ultimate aim is for an international travel ban.
        Also, it appears that Australia is a testing ground for globalist hegemony via brutal lockdowns and equally brutal enforcement of government diktat, including forced inoculation. This Winter will be ‘interesting’ as we see what Johnson has up his sleeve. Covid papers seem nailed on, no matter what the science says and what many businesses and people do not want. He is committed to the globalist/green cause and I cannot see him taking Norway’s line. We must be prepared to fight for our rights and freedom.

  12. The old bloke who fixes up my 2CV with his increasingly arthritic hands suggested to me that there is going to be a shortage of E10 at the pumps. Even with the Poles going home, they are not going to produce enough alcohol to meet the specification of this “upgraded” fuel.

    We are told that it comes primarily from home-grown sugar beet, but farmers cannot even find the labour to harvest food here, let alone biofuel.

    That leaves grubbing up more areas the size of Belgium from the Amazon in order to produce enough ethanol to adulterate the petrol with, but this takes time.

    Best then to blame it on the lorry drivers getting too old to go the extra mile.

    What effect is this policy having on global warming? I’d have thought, being a committed environmentalist (as opposed to those pseuds in think tanks in London) that cutting down a forest of trees the size of Belgium each year was not a good thing. Those That Know Better insist otherwise though.

    1. Those that Know Better think it’s a good thing to burn wood pellets made from trees grown in America.

  14. Labour evokes Blair’s ‘tough on crime’ slogan in bid to take on Tories. 28 September 2021.

    Labour is attempting to take on Boris Johnson’s government over law and order with a raft of community policing policies and a clampdown on antisocial behaviour.

    In an evocation of Tony Blair’s 1990s slogan, the shadow home secretary will tell delegates at Labour’s annual conference on Tuesday that Priti Patel’s department has been “soft on crime, soft on the causes of crime”.

    The more one listens to the utterances from the Labour Party Conference the more one is convinced that they are Socialist Dinosaurs from an age long vanished. This personal view is influenced by a run in I had last week with an old workmate from fifty years ago and who assured me solemnly that all our present problems were down to Mrs Thatcher. I didn’t contradict him. There was no point.

    This is not to say that the Tories are go ahead futurists. There is about the present, the aura of the 1900’s, where a Whole World that had outlived its time and the Lost Generation that inhabited it was about to be fed into the furnace of the Great War.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/sep/27/labour-evokes-blairs-tough-on-slogan-in-bid-to-take-on-tories

  15. Jumping To Conclusions
    A 60-year-old man went to the doctor for a check-up. The doctor told him, “You’re in terrific shape. There’s nothing wrong with you. Why, you might live forever. You have the body of a 35 year old. By the way, how old was your father when he died?”

    The 60 year old responded, “Did I say he was dead?”

    The doctor was surprised and asked, “How old is he and is he very active?”

    The 60 year old responded, “Well, he is 82 years old and he still goes skiing three times a season and surfing three times a week during the summer.”

    The doctor couldn’t believe it. “Well, how old was your grandfather when he died?”

    The 60 year old responded again, “Did I say he was dead?”

    The doctor was astonished. He said, “You mean to tell me you are 60 years old and both your father and your grandfather are alive? Is your grandfather very active?”

    The 60 year old said, “He goes skiing at least once a season and surfing once a week during the summer. Not only that,” said the patient, “my grandfather is

    106 years old, and next week he is getting married again.”

    The doctor said, “At 106 years, why on earth would your grandfather want to get married?”

    His patient looked up at the doctor and said, “Did I say he wanted to?“

  16. 339359+ up ticks,

    Dt,
    Priority at petrol pumps for key workers in plan to ease fuel crisis
    Some filling stations could be reserved for medics as Boris Johnson faces calls to take extra steps.

    Plus to & from parliament / garage chaika lanes will be inclusive for politico’s bearing in mind the importance of reset & eu interest.

    By the by an observation, if these tossers had fought as hard for a Country as they do for petrol many of our problems would be cut down to minimum.

    2. (I shall see if I can find a photo of my b-in-l’s actual skiff rather than this stock photo. His surname is Heal so they called their skiff Achilles!)

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a50a7166a54d13055909a5e9d3b2fd690a7726c061b021b66ef11408aab53ace.jpg

      My sister and her husband live in Teddington on the river between The Lensbury Club and Kingston Bridge. My brother-in-law has a traditional Thames rowing skiff and we used to row down to the Swan Inn at Twickenham passing through the special narrow section of Teddington Lock which caters specifically for skiffs. One was certainly in need of a few pints of best bitter when we arrived and we had to know what the tides were doing because too strong an adverse current presented too great a challenge when full of beer.

    3. (I shall see if I can find a photo of my b-in-l’s actual skiff rather than this stock photo. His surname is Heal so they called their skiff Achilles!)

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a50a7166a54d13055909a5e9d3b2fd690a7726c061b021b66ef11408aab53ace.jpg

      My sister and her husband live in Teddington on the river between The Lensbury Club and Kingston Bridge. My brother-in-law has a traditional Thames rowing skiff and we used to row down to the Swan Inn at Twickenham passing through the special narrow section of Teddington Lock which caters specifically for skiffs. One was certainly in need of a few pints of best bitter when we arrived and we had to know what the tides were doing because too strong an adverse current presented too great a challenge when full of beer.

  18. Morning all

    Here are the letters…..

    SIR – As the senior project manager who built a large proportion of Tesco’s distribution network, I have an explanation for this fuel crisis.

    First, ever since UK-resident HGV drivers’ wages were undercut by the influx of European drivers 18 years ago, a shortfall in their numbers has been a big challenge.

    Secondly, in that period, our nation became far too reliant on two pieces of infrastructure: the port of Dover and the M25. Too many imports are routed through these two choke-points.

    Thirdly, with a pandemic and Brexit to cope with, over the past 18 months all transport operators’ networks have been fully stretched.

    When a few protesters blocked this critical infrastructure for a fortnight, many HGVs were stuck in those very long traffic jams. This caused a few petrol stations in the South East to run dry. Panic buying has done the rest.

    Those protests were the straw that broke the camel’s back.

    Advertisement

    Peter Bryson

    Addingham, West Yorkshire

    SIR – Awaiting the arrival of my new HGV licence (application posted in July), prior to my 65th birthday, I began to reflect on the absurd situation of our being 100,000 drivers short – a shortage predicted 30 years ago.

    In 1977 I applied for a provisional HGV licence and took a two-week HGV Class 1 training course, with a driving test on the last Friday. I was then able to seek work driving any HGV vehicle.

    The Government had paid for the course in an initiative to encourage retraining to reduce the dole queue.

    All that successive governments have done since is to complicate the process, reduce our skill base and bring about dependency on others.

    Bob Clark

    Chalgrove, Oxfordshire

    SIR – Against strong competition for the most worrying component of the Government’s confused handling of the HGV crisis, the winner must be the proposal to relax the standards required to obtain a Class 1 licence.

    The training required to transport tens of thousands of litres of flammable material around these islands is not something that should be devalued on a whim, to get a minister and his department out of a rather big hole of their own making.

    Advertisement

    Alan James

    Shrewsbury

    Placeholder image for youtube video: Ut_PYftuBzo

    SIR – As the Government considers using the Army to save us by driving HGVs (report, September 27), might it be time to revisit plans to cut its already dangerously low numbers of 82,000 by a further 10,000?

    Improved cyber warfare capability is important but it doesn’t drive trucks.

    Major Nigel Price (retd)

    Wilmslow, Cheshire

    SIR – The imposition of a maximum purchase of £30 is only adding to the problem.

    Under normal circumstances most vehicles will be approximately half full with fuel. I tend to run my car until it is less than one quarter full and then fill up, usually costing me about £70. The £30 limit prevents this and encourages people to fill up while they still have considerable fuel in their tank. In fact I have seen motorists struggling to get £10 of fuel in.

    The answer is to reverse this and make a minimum purchase of £30, meaning that only people who need fuel will purchase it.

    John Whitehead

    Stanghow, North Yorkshire

    SIR – Why are train drivers paid more than lorry drivers?

    Advertisement

    Steve Cattell

    Hougham, Lincolnshire

    SIR – If this carries on we will be clapping for lorry drivers on Thursday nights at 8pm.

    Martin Howard

    Stockport, Cheshire

    SIR – A question for the future: does Boris Johnson have any idea how to charge electric cars in a power cut?

    Jonathan Moore

    Wimblington, Cambridgeshire

    Covid disservice

    SIR – I’d avoided public transport since the start of the pandemic until I took a Great Western train on Saturday from Charlbury to Paddington and back.

    Radio advertisements encourage people back on to trains, so I was bemused that both trains, which should have had nine carriages, only had five, all of which were packed, with many passengers standing.

    The advertisements suggested it might be an enjoyable experience, but it was just like the trains before the pandemic, with the added knowledge that I could be on the Covid Express.

    Mark S Davies FRCS

    Oxford

    SIR – I wanted to show my husband new spectacles I was toying with buying. We had to wait outside the optician’s to talk to an assistant, who said that I could not enter, nor indeed could she get the glasses for me to try on, without my phoning for an appointment. No one else was in the shop apart from staff.

    Advertisem

    When will this madness end?

    S J Smith

    Norwich

    SIR – For months it has been near impossible for me to contact my bank, building society or insurance company by telephone, despite using the contact numbers liberally given out in their correspondence and at their branches.

    The reason given is almost always: “Many of our people are working from home.” “Many of our people are at home,” would be more accurate.

    Howard Hampson

    Northwich, Cheshire

    Prison pronoun error

    SIR – HM Prison Isle of Wight has misunderstood personal pronouns (“Jail gives out gender pronoun badges”, report, September 27).

    The pronouns in question are those used when a person is the subject or object of a verb. For example, in “she loves her”, she is the subject and her is the object. But one of the badges to be handed out by the prison says “Her /they”, and it makes no sense to say, “her loves they”.

    Anna Sheehan

    Jersey

    Operation Babel

    SIR – Would an EU rapid reaction force (report, September 27) translate commands into 27 different languages, or choose one that is most understood?

    Advertisement

    Paul Dixon

    Ware, Hertfordshire

    Being called scum

    SIR – As someone who voted Conservative in the last election I take great offence at the remarks of Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader. To be described as “scum” is hardly likely to persuade me to vote Labour in the next election despite the failings of the present Government.

    Bill Mason

    Eccleston, Lancashire

    SIR – If Angela Rayner’s verbal abuse resulted from her “anger and frustration” (report, September 27), perhaps she should consider attending anger-management classes.

    Liz Ford

    Keyston, Huntingdonshire

    SIR – If today’s society rightly deems it unacceptable to use pejorative terms against others, why does Angela Rayner think she can? What does it show about her and her politics?

    Dr Christina Dykes

    Beaulieu, Hampshire

    SIR – In 1948 Aneurin Bevan used the phrase “lower than vermin” to describe Conservative MPs of the day.

    The Tory reaction was to found the Vermin Club, whose members wore a badge with the word “Vermin” on the figure of a rat. These badges are now much sought-after collector’s items, and I am glad to have one.

    Advertisement

    Richard Lyon

    Cambridge

    All at sea

    SIR – We watched the last episode of Vigil on Sunday and were thankful we did it our way.

    We’d watched the first episode and decided we weren’t interested. So we read the Telegraph’s Last Night on Television column every Monday to catch up on the storyline and laugh at Anita Singh’s comments.

    At the end of the last episode, we felt we hadn’t missed a thing.

    Joan Richardson

    Chandler’s Ford

    Crumpets!

    SIR – Any crumpet-fancier knows that they toast best when drier (“Drier crumpets on the menu if carbon dioxide supplies run low again,” report, September 27). A crispy crumpet is crying out for lashings of butter, whereas a soggy crumpet pleases no one.

    Tasty crumpets are what this country needs in an emergency.

    John May

    Arkesden, Essex

    A new tradition could take root at Chelsea

    Last-day bargains at Chelsea Flower Show, which normally takes place in May

    Last-day bargains at Chelsea Flower Show, which normally takes place in May CREDIT: PA

    SIR – I have been to the Chelsea Flower Show once in May, and have always enjoyed following it on the BBC.

    However, the decision to hold this year’s show in September has been a wonderful change. Seeing all the autumn flowers has been a revelation. Would the Royal Horticultural Society consider alternating between May and September from now on?

    Veronica Heywood

    Heathfield, East Sussex

    How are so many GPs seeing so few patients?

    SIR – J Meirion Thomas (Comment, September 25) discusses the problem of part-time GPs.

    On the letter-head of my surgery are the names of nine GPs. A direct consultation is virtually impossible to obtain, yet it is generally understood that doctors should see their patients. Surely administration does not occupy most of the day. Letting a receptionist decide who should be seen is dangerous, and could lead to litigation.

    As an ENT consultant I could not have practised without a consultation with each patient. In the distant past I was a locum in a single-handed practice with one receptionist and no appointment system. It was hard work but extremely rewarding.

    Roy Miller FRCS

    Glasgow

    SIR – For over five weeks, two GPs (to whom I spoke over the telephone) were convinced that the discomfort I was experiencing in my right upper arm was the result of a muscular strain.

    Eventually the pain became so great that I went to A&E and an X-ray confirmed that the bone in my right upper arm (humerus) was in fact broken.

    Later I had to have a section of the bone removed as the break was the result of bone cancer. I am yet to find out whether the cancer could have spread further during the month-long delay. But I’m afraid my faith in telephone diagnoses has taken a bit of a hammering.

    Brian Christley

    Abergele, C

    1. “SIR – A question for the future: does Boris Johnson have any idea how to charge electric cars in a power cut?” – Jonathan Moore

      You are assuming, Jonathan Moore, that Boris Johnson could give a flying f**k about charging EVs. He wants everybody off the roads.

      1. Some months ago, NtN, a senior politician pointed out that to comply with our obligations under Cop26 a considerable number of cars would

        have to be permanently removed from the roads.

        I’m quite sure that The Elite will show an example by getting rid of their cars first.

    2. Things started to fall apart when Heath lied shamelessly about the Common Market not having any political implications – but with the arrival of Blair the flood gates opened and people really began to see that mendacity and deceit are the common currency of politics.

      Caroline uses this song title when teaching tenses in translation to Sixth Formers:

      How could you believe me when I said I love you
      When you know I’ve been a liar all my life
      I’ve had that reputation since I was a youth
      You must have been insane to think I’d tell you the truth

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juHR4M7Rm20

  21. Jordan Peterson’s return to Cambridge is a critical test of our commitment to free speech

    That he has been re-invited goes some way to removing the stain on our institution

    ARIF AHMED
    27 September 2021 • 7:00pm

    In 2019, academics at Cambridge University’s Divinity Faculty invited Jordan Peterson to lecture on the book of Exodus. Was that a good idea? Not being an Old Testament scholar I can hardly comment; but some experts clearly thought so. He would have lectured and given seminars; his views would have been challenged and maybe refuted. Many young people would have learnt something, about him and about Exodus.

    Except none of that happened. Peterson had once been photographed next to someone in what was described as an anti-Islamic T-shirt. The university cited this “endorsement by association” as grounds for cancelling the whole visit.

    That argument is so bad that it must have been a pretext; the truth, I fear, is that Cambridge simply surrendered to the mob. That he has now been re-invited goes some way to removing that stain on our institution and restoring our reputation as a free and open-minded academy. We should be grateful to Dr James Orr from the Divinity Faculty for his courage and vision in extending it.

    Peterson’s views don’t seem unusual or extreme. Cicero’s complaint, that no view is so crazy that some philosopher has not defended it, is as true now as when he made it. I know, or know of, academics who have argued that infanticide is not wrong, that matter does not exist, or that being born is a serious harm. These propositions are all interesting and, true or not, deserve serious and often mind-expanding discussion.

    The point is not whether or not we agree (and I suspect I disagree with much of what Peterson says, particularly about the importance of religion). The point is that there is a difference between agreeing with someone’s views and defending his right to express them.

    This distinction has been understood since the Enlightenment by everyone who is not a fascist.

    Peterson’s belated visit is now a litmus test of whether recent changes at the alma mater of Hugh Latimer and John Milton are enough to protect this principle.

    In March 2020, the university proposed a “free speech” policy which would allow the authorities to prohibit speakers who might threaten student “welfare”. “Welfare” being so vague, the censors could easily have used this policy to block speakers such as Peterson.

    Thankfully, the idea didn’t go through. A few academics, including myself, staged a rebellion, eventually forcing a vote of all dons to decide between this policy and a more liberal amendment saying that the authorities cannot block an invited speaker unless permitting them would be illegal. The rebels won easily; and Peterson’s visit will test this new policy.

    It will also be a test of leadership. Clearly some elements within the university want to control our speech. This was evident in May, when Cambridge attempted to introduce a new system for anonymously reporting “micro-aggressions” which would have included “stereotyping” religion.

    The authorities were forced to abandon the plan and vice-chancellor Stephen Toope, who recently announced that he will soon be leaving Cambridge, disowned it, saying at the time: “I … want to bolster the university’s reputation for inquiry and vigorous debate. I want diversity of thought, not enforced conformity.”

    The reaction to Peterson’s arrival will tell us much about whether Cambridge is on the side of the Enlightenment or the mob.

    Arif Ahmed MBE is university reader in philosophy at the University of Cambridge

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/09/27/jordan-petersons-return-cambridge-offers-litmus-test-campus/

    1. “We should be grateful to Dr James Orr from the Divinity Faculty for his courage and vision in extending it.” (the invitation). Seriously, Mr Ahmed?
      We should be grateful for free speech at a famous university in a country where free speech has underpinned our civilisation, our entire society, since before our country come into being?

      1. In the current climate that would seem to be the case. And it also seems to be a Muslim writer expressing it.

        2. Presumably of muslim ancestry, but read maths at Oxford and Philosophy at Sussex and maths at Cambridge. “He has worked at the University of Birmingham and has held visiting positions at Sydney University and elsewhere, and is now a University Reader in the Faculty of Philosophy. He writes mainly on decision theory, but also has an interest in religion and has debated the subject against William Lane Craig, Rowan Williams and others. He is an atheist and a libertarian and his philosophical outlook is most closely allied with those of David Hume and Friedrich Hayek. ”
          Edit: my philosophy is that Islam is er, heavily flawed, but that its adherents are human and have a typical bell curve distribution.

      1. At least Newman allowed Peterson to speak and express his opinions. The Woke academics and students do not want him to be allowed to express his views at all.

        1. At least Peterson had the time and opportunity to clarify and correct Newman’s attempted editing of his comments.
          Unlike the time the ‘New Statesman’s’ George Eaton misquoted Roger Scruton by editing half a dozen words from a sentence which, unsurprisingly, gave a whole new slant to the point Scruton was actually making. Before accusing him of racialist leanings (as supported in the edited sentence).
          Eaton was removed from his post, yet Newman and co continue to misinform by the way they editorialise their interviewees.

  22. Good morning from a bright & sunny Derbyshire. A bit of a hazy sky with 6°C in the yard and a waning half moon high in the sky.

  23. DAY ONE OF CONFERENCE AND LABOUR’S MADE £165 BILLION OF UNFUNDED SPENDING PROMISES, SO FAR

    Today Labour’s new shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves announced the party would scrap business rates to try and boost the high street – a policy that would reduce HMRC’s revenue by £25 billion. Asked about the policy announcement on Politics Live, Emily Thornberry suggested the digital services tax would be increased from 2% to 12% to pay for it – a tax increase that, even if it avoided tech firms scarpering abroad – would raise just £2.5 billion. Did Diane help with the sums?

    Guido’s taken some time to look over Labour’s current tax and spend policies, and spots a rather large discrepancy between the two figures:

    Spending:

    Scrap business rates – £25 billion a year
    Green investment deal – £28 billion a year
    Reinstate Universal Credit £20 uplift – over £6 billion a year
    Supported Kevan Collins’s full schools catch up package – £15 billion
    Opposing the government’s tax rises/spending cuts:

    Opposed the health and social care levy – £12 billion a year
    Opposed corporation tax increase – £48 billion* by 2025
    Opposed maintaining income tax personal thresholds at the March Budget – raising £19.2 billion by 2025
    Opposed public sector pay freeze – saving £4.7 billion a year
    Opposed the temporary switch from a triple to a double pensions lock – saving £5 billion a year
    Opposed cutting foreign aid to 0.5% – saving £4.5 billion a year
    Opposed extending ability of councils to raise tax – saving £2 billion a year
    Total: £170 billion

    Labour’s proposed revenue raisers:

    Scrap charitable status for private schools – +£1.7 billion a year
    Increase tax on private equity firms – +£500 million a year
    Increase Digital Services Tax from existing 2% to 12% – +£2.5 billion
    Scrapping Boris’s trade yacht – £300 million one-off saving
    Office for Value for Money – Unknown
    Global 15% minimum rate of corporation tax – irrelevant as UK rate is higher anyway
    Total: £5 billion

    Maybe Labour in Communications was right – Starmer should stop announcing policy if he wants to get near No. 10…

    *If you believe the Treasury.

    2. Members of the IMF will be rubbing their hands will glee. The borrowing costs will probably include a requirement to rejoin the EU and adopt the Euro……

    3. Surely they can borrow as much as they like. All they need do is to keep interest rates at 0.1%, pump up the housing market with handouts, arrange a shortage of essentials to push up prices, drive all cheap alternatives out of business whilst lifting any price regulation on those who have cornered the market, whose companies were bought up cheap by foreign corporates with nil loyalty to the nation, and then let inflation cancel all the debts. Job done.

      Oh, wait – I think someone’s already tried that. It’s how they got elected, so might be worth doing it again though.

    4. Resolving the problems the economy has are not complicated, and they start with scrapping business rates and corporation tax. Then you start on local councils and impose a pay constraint on salaries. If they don’t like it, they can find work in the private sector.

      Then VAT, then all stealth taxes. Thet gets the poor out of real poverty.

      You reform the welfare system to prevent fraud and pay the NHS on results, not before. Encourage early retirement and don’t replace the posts. While the quango shredding wouldn’t save much, it is yet aother layer of waste and needs to go.

      I read a piece by Dominic Cummings and it was surprisingly focussed on the political situation, not the governmental one. This is half the problem. That lot play at this game. Their job is simple and straightforward.

    5. Resolving the problems the economy has are not complicated, and they start with scrapping business rates and corporation tax. Then you start on local councils and impose a pay constraint on salaries. If they don’t like it, they can find work in the private sector.

      Then VAT, then all stealth taxes. Thet gets the poor out of real poverty.

      You reform the welfare system to prevent fraud and pay the NHS on results, not before. Encourage early retirement and don’t replace the posts. While the quango shredding wouldn’t save much, it is yet aother layer of waste and needs to go.

      I read a piece by Dominic Cummings and it was surprisingly focussed on the political situation, not the governmental one. This is half the problem. That lot play at this game. Their job is simple and straightforward.

    6. Didn’t Labour pledge that every department would have another minister for something or other? More expenses, more salaries, more pension liabilities. They wouldn’t know a cut if it slashed them across the face.

  24. DAY ONE OF CONFERENCE AND LABOUR’S MADE £165 BILLION OF UNFUNDED SPENDING PROMISES, SO FAR

    Today Labour’s new shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves announced the party would scrap business rates to try and boost the high street – a policy that would reduce HMRC’s revenue by £25 billion. Asked about the policy announcement on Politics Live, Emily Thornberry suggested the digital services tax would be increased from 2% to 12% to pay for it – a tax increase that, even if it avoided tech firms scarpering abroad – would raise just £2.5 billion. Did Diane help with the sums?

    Guido’s taken some time to look over Labour’s current tax and spend policies, and spots a rather large discrepancy between the two figures:

    Spending:

    Scrap business rates – £25 billion a year
    Green investment deal – £28 billion a year
    Reinstate Universal Credit £20 uplift – over £6 billion a year
    Supported Kevan Collins’s full schools catch up package – £15 billion
    Opposing the government’s tax rises/spending cuts:

    Opposed the health and social care levy – £12 billion a year
    Opposed corporation tax increase – £48 billion* by 2025
    Opposed maintaining income tax personal thresholds at the March Budget – raising £19.2 billion by 2025
    Opposed public sector pay freeze – saving £4.7 billion a year
    Opposed the temporary switch from a triple to a double pensions lock – saving £5 billion a year
    Opposed cutting foreign aid to 0.5% – saving £4.5 billion a year
    Opposed extending ability of councils to raise tax – saving £2 billion a year
    Total: £170 billion

    Labour’s proposed revenue raisers:

    Scrap charitable status for private schools – +£1.7 billion a year
    Increase tax on private equity firms – +£500 million a year
    Increase Digital Services Tax from existing 2% to 12% – +£2.5 billion
    Scrapping Boris’s trade yacht – £300 million one-off saving
    Office for Value for Money – Unknown
    Global 15% minimum rate of corporation tax – irrelevant as UK rate is higher anyway
    Total: £5 billion

    Maybe Labour in Communications was right – Starmer should stop announcing policy if he wants to get near No. 10…

    *If you believe the Treasury.

  25. Good morning all. I do wonder who Kier Starmer thinks he is talking to when he bangs on about ‘not only women have cervixes.’ Does he really think that the kind of Woke SJWs who lap up this stuff are numerous enough to put him in power? Most traditional Labour supporters are more concerned about paying their bills and putting food on the table.

    The Labour Party was set up to be the voice of the working man and woman in Parliament. Now, they cannot even acknowledge that such a person as a woman actually exists!

    For the love of God, can the smaller parties not unite, and all good men and women of conscience fund, canvass and vote for them so we can sweep the old parties aside? They represent nobody but themselves.

    1. Hear, hear, JK, my rant for several weeks also, vis-a-vis the unity of the current vote-splitters that might otherwise allow Liebour in.

      1. People seem to accept that there no point voting for a smaller party. But if the likes of Tice, Fox and Kurten could put their egos aside and unite and ordinary people could put aside the habits of a lifetime and vote for them, well we could sweep them to power.

        We urgently need a reset of British politics. Johnson is just as Woke and Green as the rest of them. He is leading us to disaster.

        1. I wrote to all the minor parties about two months ago, asking them to compromise, unite and give us a manifesto that we could all vote for.

          1. Surely there would be enough roles for all of them in one party? They could form a kind of shadow cabinet. I hope that they are not just ‘controlled opposition.’

      1. 339359+ up ticks,
        Evening M,
        Been building for over three decades via lab/lib/con, their current supporters have great difficulty in letting go of the odious tiger they have created.

  27. I hope this succeeds for all our sakes:

    Texas Attorney General Paxton signed on behalf of Texas, an amicus brief with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in support of Florida’s law that attempts to regulate censorship on Big Tech social media platforms, joining the states of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, and South Carolina who have also filled an amicus brief in support of Florida’s law.

    “The regulation of big tech censorship will inevitably suppress the ideas and beliefs of millions of Americans,” Paxton said in a statement. “I will defend the First Amendment and ensure that conservative voices have the right to be heard. Big Tech does not have the authority to police the expressions of people whose political viewpoint they simply disagree with.”

    Florida’s SB 7072 law allows Floridians to take legal action against Big Tech platforms if they censor a user’s content without consistent standards.

    The new bill also prevents Big Tech from banning Floridian political candidates. Social media companies that deplatform candidates for statewide office will be fined $250,000 a day. The fine is $25,000 per day when deplatforming candidates for other offices.

    Big Tech companies that violate the law can be brought to trial for monetary damage, and the state’s attorney general can litigate companies that don’t comply with the law under Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.

  28. 339359+ up ticks,
    This coming General election really is going to be a battle, considering the
    rank & mank consistency of the jockeying politico’s then throw in the
    supporters / voters of such, they are of importance we would never have achieved what we have today without their input.

    The lab are using rhetoric from the bog man, the original latch lifter, the role model of the tory ( ino) party.

    As with the lab/lib/con coalition & their “con ferences” nothing seems to be mentioned about rotherham, rochdale, sheffield, etc,etc,etc, the ruined lives, the mental damage to CHILDREN, shielded by the three monkeys.

    If we are witnessing the best in regards to politico’s / party’s then we should really short cut to the near future and have audience with the nearest imam, mullah.

    1. It won’t be a battle at all, Ogga. The powers-that-be will just print enough postal votes and programme the counting machines.

      1. 339359+ up ticks,
        Morning SE,
        Then surely support must be given to some party in opposition to the lab/lib/con anti UK coalition.

        For me a build on FOR BRITAIN would be the answer, something along those lines for decent peoples is the only answer.

        Contacting ” my MP ” is to my mind consorting with the
        political enema’s in regards to the lab/lib/con cartel.

        A brief glimpse of the coalition history these past four decades is enough to bring on recurring daily puke.

  30. ‘Like the end of days’: Drivers stalk petrol tankers and fight at the pumps as fuel crisis deepens

    Panic buying leads to supplies running out at 90pc of forecourts in some areas, leaving thousands of frustrated people unable to get to work

    Covid
    Food shortage
    Working from Home
    Problems from DVLA
    Vaxx passports
    Fuel shortage
    Green Agenda
    Lack of CO2
    Gas/ Electricity Prices
    No Domestic Gas

    and so on

    What Conspiracy?

    Wake up Britain. The Great does not apply now, thanks to Boros Lemming and Co

    1. It appears that since the vote in 2016 there has been a consistent attempt to destroy all resilience in our economy, even going as far as selling

      Britain’s last micro chip factory to the Chinese.

      The paranoid will say that this is all part of punishing the British populace for voting the wrong way in 2016.

      Or could there be some other explanation?

      2. Any alternative, however earnest and public spirited, is antisemitic.

        We get what we are given.

      3. Well Janet, it seems to be happening everywhere in the Western world, especially the Anglosphere so I don’t think it has much to do with voting “…the wrong way in 2016.” Take a look at Australia, that is now a police state in a way that hasn’t happened here yet. There is something going on, that’s obvious. But I’m not sure what it is. I do think that Covid has been seen by the elite as an opportunity to deprive us of our rights, gain control over us and destroy Democracy. Basically it seems to be to do with power so the elite can use us to further its own agenda with us as mere fodder for their wants.

    2. It seems like there always has to be some crisis. The Covid thing seems to have receded a bit (for now), so the next panic is around fuel and energy. Are they trying to keep us in a permanent state of stress and fear?

      1. You have to admit that’s the best part. Clearly government didn’t understand how CO2 was used in other parts of the industry and it’s eagerness to have farmers stop farming – at a time when we urgently need crops… it’s just an utter shambles. A classic example of the uselessness of government ‘planning’.

        1. Actually it is an example of something much worse. The tendency to make policy about scientific matters when you are ignorant about science. If they were cognizant of science we would have no shortage of Co2 or fuel. We would be fracking, using coal and building nuclear.

          1. Yep, spot on. That would be forward thinking and rational.

            Government is just obsessed with an agenda – mainly because it’s a tax scam.

          2. Plenty of people seem to have been completely taken in by the green scam, just as they have by the covid hysteria. In many cases, I guess they are the same people.

          5. A car passed me when I was walking Oscar this morning. It was a 68 reg with an EU logo and a “ban fracking” sticker in the back window. My thought was, it is bad enough being away with the fairies, without advertising it to all and sundry.

  31. Do the reports on the murder of the Muslim teacher, Sabina Nessa, tell us whether she was previously known to Koci Selamaj and whether he is also a Muslim.

    Was this a completely random attack or was there some sort of religious motivation behind it? Apparently Selamaj is originally from Albania, a country where the majority of the population is Muslim.

    2. God morning Rastus and everyone.
      As a part resident snotty nosed swot on these shores, I recall senior common room executive Mr Bill Thomas mentioning tactfully that once some illegal immigrant has been charged with a crime, one can no longer discuss the alleged incident in public. And this nttl page is searchable via Gooogle.

        1. I find the whole thing insulting to our intelligence. First they won’t say who did it, then they try to pin it ona white fellow.

          Now it’s a fellow Muslim sudddenly they all go silent.

          1. They go “silent ” for a reason. So as not to prejudice any trial. Seems reasonable to me – but I know nothing.

  33. SIR – Why are train drivers paid more than lorry drivers?

    Steve Cattell Hougham, Lincolnshire

    The Unions and extortion/blackmail via the strike threat

    1. Trains were nationalised, lorry driving is a small or one-man business, with vicious competition.

  36. Bears are spotted near Putin’s tent during camping trip but his spokesman assures he was not in danger because they recognized him! 27 September 2021.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ee8940f847fa5bebbd781a606420a650e1500821dae0c85ed31a9331d54ce7c0.jpg

    Bears came close to a camp where Vladimir Putin was sleeping on a recent trip to Siberia – but stayed well clear when they realised it was the Russian president, his top aide has joked.

    Dmitry Peskov made the comment while being interviewed about Putin’s recent camping adventures in Russia’s vast eastern region which was designed to bolster his strongman image after the recent elections.

    In footage from the trip, Putin can be heard talking with his head of security who says ‘one or two’ bears got close to camp in the nigh.

    Here’s Vlad on holiday in Siberia when he should have been in Moscow dealing with the Gas and Petrol shortages as well as the Climate Demonstrators on Nevsky Prospekt! Oh! Wait a minute…

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10032959/Putins-spokesman-jokes-scared-bears-away-camping-trip.html

        1. Are you suggesting that convivial greeting be reserved for pussy, but not for trans-woman’s select appendage, nor for he who used to be known as Prince?

    4. My mum taught me “puddy, puddy, puddy” in a high soft voice as a way to speak to cats and it does usually get a purring head-butting response from the felines. Of course Gus and Pickles Thomas would probably look at me as if I’d gone mad, they being more used to more erudite conversation an’ all…

      1. “You have the right to remain silent but anything you say will be taken down and may be used in evidence against you.”

        “That’ll be 500 guineas.”

    5. I use normal English. It usually starts on my part with: “Now what, I’ve done everything you asked so what’s with the paw patting on my hand?” I am convinced apart from seeing me as his slave it is also his task to drive me into early dementia with his antics.

    7. Spit! Hiss! (I don’t want them crapping in my garden – I have enough cleaning up after Oscar who is a sh1t producer extraordinaire).

    1. Aliens, or more realistically the Chinese. The Ultra secret during WWII was maintained by many thousands of workers the hierarchy of the Armed Forces and a few politicians until about 1974. Similar situation with ‘Magic’ in the USA. Even when it was revealed, the methodology was not and has not been fully revealed. Although it must be difficult to keep secrets outwith the interweb, it should not be impossible. For example, Donald Rumsfeld talked about Black Swan Events, but what lies beyond a BSE?

      1. Up in the Team Valley beside Gateshead and I’ve still got 300 miles in the tank, so I ought to be ok until Thursday.

      1. Further North.
        In fact the Far North of England, the bit everyone wanting to rebuild Hadrian’s Wall keep forgetting about and want to present to the Scots.

          1. Like everyone else there’s still plenty I know close to nothing about. My daughter loves a cocktail though so often hearing about new ones she’s tried.

    3. What the hell is a Giant Tomahawk? 4 red bull are £11 each? Cola for £9!

      And they’ve the temerity to charge a 15% tip!

      1. A tomahawk is a steak with the rib attached. Single ones can be found in W/rose for upwards of £20.

          1. Yep, seen the prices in the butchers when getting Mongo’s food.

            Even accepting the chef’s pay, pension, rent, heat, light, what explains the £600 mark up?

    4. A restaurant for the rich and famous with a celebrity chef In one of the most prime locations in London. The sort of people that eat at places like these gamble thousands away in casinos and have 10k bar bills in nightclubs. It’s nothing unusual for that area.

        1. It always burned a hole in my pocket too albeit smaller pockets than those guys, but I did gamble a lot away, I must have smoked a Porsche or three by now too.

      1. I think it’s a beef chop; from what I’ve seen at the butchers they a bloody great things with a long rib bone and a chunk of meat at one end.
        Hence the name.

  41. Can adults be forced to take a Chinese virus test?
    I have some cold & ‘flu symptoms, and for various reasons I have boxes of lateral flow tests on the premises. But I am not a nurse, or pathologist, or invisible & almighty (GP), so why should I undertake a process for which I am totally unqualified and with no contractual obligation or monetary reward?
    The Daily Mail let slip that both PCR and LTF tests tend to be more accurate in the early stages, when many people present few clues.

    1. If you are able to stay at home and go to bed if you are poorly, then why bother with a test? Some people I know take tests every few days for work reasons, and one or two others are just paranoid.

    1. As regards the numbers, I can’t say. I do find it funny that the government blames everyone but itself. It could, very simply acknowledge that the legislation, taxation and cost of haulage has been added to deliberately to try to wipe it out in the name of green.

    2. Many depots treat drivers like shiite.
      A particular nightmare for them was loading up at our premises in Colchester to deliver to a depot in The Pinnacles Industrial Park in Harlow.
      They were given a strict time slot, and if they were even a few minutes late, they were turned away for hours or even rejected – with up to 24 pallets of frozen food. This was a journey that involved such delights as the A12.

    1. And so did Jacob Grease-Smogg.

      Among those who refused to vote for May’s sell out were Steve Baker, Mark Francois and John Redwood.

      It is not surprising that not one of them has been invited to join the government.

      Those who actually believed in a proper Brexit are persona non grata with the Bullshitting Bonker.

      1. The establishment and BBC have worked hard to keep John Redwood out of front line government. He is too good.

    2. Not at the moment.

      The current crop of politicians are rubbish. Most of them went into politics from university or very shortly after. Most of them are clueless about economics and just spout soundbites they are told to repeat.

      For my entire lifetime politicians have been getting progressively worse. They’ve gone from reasonably poor, to downright terrible to OMFG look what the hell we’ve been stuck with now.

      Without a clearout of about 80% of the current crop, and some good advice from a cabal of decent economists we’ve no chance of this. Too many go into politics for personal gain now.

      1. One needs to create the “None of the Above Party”. With entirely new, honest, clued up candidates.

        Some hope.

        1. God wouldn’t that be nice, and they could be advised by Bill Mitchell, Stephanie Kelton and Randall Wray.
          That would be a real change from self-serving bar stewards advised by the likes of Andrew Sentance.

        2. As we all really know it makes no difference which ‘party’ becomes the government, with a few minor tweaks it’s still the civil service that runs everything. Perhaps some of the establishment crud needs to be disengaged from the hull of the listing ship. That unfortunately is heading full steam ahead once more for the proverbial rocks.
          Man over board would be quite a delight.

          1. To bring the Snivel Serpents to heel, is one of things I would want to see in a manifesto.

            Let’s put them on notice that they deliver the manifesto impartially, or they’re out on their ear with no pension.

          3. After the headcount at all levels has been reduced by 50%.
            Then give the remainder defined contribution pension, like the rest of us.

          5. Well I weigh hey more than you do Bill. I use to be well under 11 stone when I ran, played football and squash twice a week.
            Now all my bloody joints are worn out.
            Perhaps the army might like the idea of a diversionary tactics and get on to moving other loads from Whitehall.

      2. it’s interesting that a lot of our present politicians read PPE at University.

        I had always assumed that the E stood for Economics, but it’s amazing how many PPE graduates can’t do simple sums.

  45. People who can’t fit into jeans they wore aged 21 ‘are more likely to get diabetes’ but it CAN be reversed
    DM story.

    Bill Thomas boasts that he has not put on an ounce in weight since he was 20 years old – but how many Nottlers can honestly make the same claim? I certainly can’t?

    At that age my waist measurement was 32″ – 34″, my height was 6’2½” and I weighed 13 stone. The only dimension that has gone down since then is my height – the other two have risen very substantially.

    1. When I was 21 and was teaching Muay Thai I was 102kg. I ballooned to over 198 when I stopped training. I’m now 110 lean and 140 ‘real’. I’m fat. I don’t like it and I’m trying to do something about it – the 60kg lost is evidence of that.

      Then we were locked up and I couldn’t train, so I’ve been 150kg for the last year and a bit.

          1. One of old mates’ father was held in a Japanese POW camp for 4 years and he never recovered.
            My F in L was held in Poland for nearly 4 years and according to family legend was never his former self again. He suffered severe dementia later in life.

          2. I think the after-effects must have been a combination of the physical ill treatment and starvation along with the mental stress and deprivation. Horrendous way to treat fellow human beings.

      3. What’s that in stones lol?

        At 21 I was about 12 stone and stayed roughly that until 35 then by the time I was 40 I had ballooned to 17 stone. I’d love to lose two or three stone but it just won’t budge.

    2. It’s luck of the draw, Richard. At 20 my waist was also 32″-34″. My height was 6′ 4″ and I weighed just over 12 stone. 65 years later my waist is 36″, I weigh just over 13 stone and my height is less than 6′ 4″.

      An advantage I have is that I am not really interested in food although I enjoy it. I see it as fuel for my ‘engine’.

    3. Was also a 32″ and thought that was my normal size. Ended up with COPD about 7 years ago (when was that winter recently when their was such severe frost that even the trees were covered in it and it “rained” frost? It was that year.) So had to stop cycling and now have a 42″ waist. It is humiliating, there is no other word for it.

      1. COPD is nasty – and the other self-inflicted illness caused by smoking. I’m glad I never started.

          2. It appears to be hereditary, “Weak lungs” for want of a way of putting it. Both my grandfathers suffered from severe breathing problems, neither smoked, and died as a result and I have inherited the trait. What acted as the trigger for me was a severe cold that ended up with me struggling to breath, literally hanging out of the window gasping for fresh air. My breathing was so bad I couldn’t even bend over to tie my shoelaces. As a child I frequently suffered from colds that turned into bronchitis and deafness.

            My hearing, especially my left ear , is poor. It is one of the reasons I really hate this mask wearing on the part of other people. I was not aware of how much I depend on lip reading, of a sort, to understand what people are saying. I say, not aware, because like so many things you just adjust unconsciously as things go along. It was only when people started wearing masks I realized that I was cut off from a great deal of communication because I could not understand what people were saying without being able to see their lips. I do not wear a mask and will not. They are a means of control, not health or safety.

            What really tees me off is that, as I have said, I have had it for around 7 years and despite requests, I am still waiting to see a specialist.

          3. That does sound like a hereditary weakness – but how come you have not been able to see a specialist? It’s a serious disease and we haven’t always been “because of covid you can’t see anyone”.

            On the subject of mask wearing – I agree – I hated wearing one, though I did comply until I decided not to. Like you, I didn’t realise how much I rely on lip reading to understand what people say – and when they are mumbling into a mask I miss most of it. I also hated the way my specs steamed up so I could neither hear nor see properly.

            As I really don’t believe they make any difference to disease transmission, they are purely a means of control and a symbol of compliance.

          4. Apropos mask effectiveness, someone highlighted it by saying that if you underwear cannot contain a fart, how is a mask going to stop a virus?

          11. I haven’t seen a specialist because, because??? It became most urgent to see one over 6months ago, it became essential to sort it out because then I was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer, fortunately it had not escaped from there but it was Gleason 8 on the scale and there was some concern if I would be able to cope with Radiotherapy due to my breathing and the possible complications, fatigue etc from Radio therapy. My doctor forgot to contact the pulmonary unit at the Royal Sussex and so I was put on the back burner, yet again. As it was there were complications, I had to be fitted with a catheter, that was literal agony, apparently they could hear me yelling in the hallway, two doors between the recipients of my noise, it took three attempts because of severe inflammation, eventually the chief consultant did it whilst I bruised her arm while I was digging into it, a very clever woman called Banan Walid, a black woman with a very British upper class accent and really one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen, you would assume she was a model, not a consultant! I honestly cannot praise her highly enough.

            I’m having all sorts of other side effects that I wont go into. But my life, at the moment is not exactly hunky dory! So now I’m still waiting for the pulmonary specialist. Even the Radiotherapy department has got on their case because of my condition. I am expecting a phone call today from them to see how they have progressed in trying to put a rocket up the Urology Dept, who seem to be taking the piss!

            I honestly can’t praise the Radiotherapy department of the Royal Surrey highly enough. They have been great. Phone at least once and often twice a week to see how I’m doing. Next step is the urologist to see if they can figure out what is going on and, hopefully, remove the catheter.

          12. Commiserations……..not good. My friend who has COPD, now has breast cancer, and won’t have treatment because she doesn’t think she’d survive a general anaesthetic.

            OH was diagnosed early this year with metastatic prostate cancer. He had a catheter for three months but the urologist did a TURP to open up the urinary tract. He’s on hormone injections which seem to be working – PSA down from 293 to 0.2.

          13. Yes, I’m on the injections too. Get that every three months. Causes me a lot of problems with “hot flushes”. I will be on them for several years apparently.

          15. Not the Radiologist, the Urologist. And yes Ethiopian women can be quite beautiful. She probably is because although she is quite dark she has very delicate features. I doubt that she is negro in origin.

          17. I was a right Goody Two Shoes at the GPs today.
            I was asked if I had a mask, and I virtuously replied “no, as I throw them away after one wearing”. In front of a queue wearing fancy masks that they rarely, if ever, wash. So I dented the surgery’s profits as they had to hand me one from its special sterile packet.
            Chalk that one up to me!

    4. My OH is small, thin and wiry – he’s never been more than 10 stone. In his dotage he’s now rather less than that as he’s lost a bit of muscle bulk, but he can still play tennis and run up and down ladders.

      1. So is mine , he sometimes looks skeletal , very slender limbs and wrists .

        He also has a real loss of muscle bulk , but he can still mow the garden sort the hedges out and run up stairs with out puffing and blowing , and still runs .. he is 75 years old

        I guess his brain compensates .. and his acid wit.

        1. He found an old photo from more than 30 years ago – quite a difference in the musculature. Still he’s pretty fit for 78. He’s gone to the tip this morning with a load of hedgetrimmings and then on to the dentist.

          3. ‘He’s gone to the tip this morning with a load of hedgetrimmings’
            You won’t get away with it, Ndovu, they’ll find and return him when they clear out the garden waste skip.

    5. I have a belt I was given when I was 21. It’s a German army belt date stamped 1914. I unstitched its securing adjuster and moved it inward so it would fit in my jeans belt loops- it should go around a tunic and a greatcoat when that is worn. It is still on that adjustment although as it is an antique, I don’t wear it very often.

      Here’s one on eBay: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/264259301763?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=710-134428-41853-0&mkcid=2&itemid=264259301763&targetid=1308954994004&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=1006742&poi=&campaignid=9437781569&mkgroupid=123206634672&rlsatarget=pla-1308954994004&abcId=578896&merchantid=6995734&gclid=CjwKCAjw-sqKBhBjEiwAVaQ9a8PJe1dIqqgSjwbQJqQ_Wz88mFA1wCnbyNm7IBLDLDdTxQ0aGo7SSxoCHqQQAvD_BwE

    6. The MAIL really doesn’t tell the whole truth .

      Moh developed Type 2 diabetes in his fifties , diabetes existed in his family , he has always been very slender and very active .
      Now 75 years old , and has always been abit of a picky eater, doesn’t drink , well only a glass on special occasions .

      He is the hare and I am the tortoise.

      1. An old friend of mine also developed diabetes in his 40s – slim, fit and active. Now 82 and rather frail.

      2. I have a friend in her seventies who still (despite having children) has the sort of girlish figure that many of us lost around the age of 15.
        She has diabetes because it runs in the family.

    7. It’s worth mentioning that weight can be deceptive. If you exercise and increase muscle mass you will get heavier as muscle weighs more and that’s a good thing. Dimensions are the best guide and the waist for men is the key measure.

    8. At 20 years old I was 6′ and had a 30″ waist but could squeeze into 28″ jeans at a push. Probably was a couple of lbs shy of 11st, but that increased to more like 12½st as I got older.
      A heart attack 11 years ago laid me low and I stopped smoking as well as working. After 5 years I was up to 15st and a 36″ waist. Started regular walking and got a dog and a rowing machine. Now back to 12½st with a 32″ waist 43″ chest. I drink like a fish but eat frugally. The trouble is that I look better than I feel and will make a lovely corpse.

      1. Do as I have, Mola, donate your lovely body to medical science.

        I have an address and details if you want to know – and give medic students a laugh.

    9. The one blessing of the lurgy (?) that has rather blighted this past fortnight for me was the loss of appetite.
      Still, I could get into the party frock I bought 2 years ago – and never used because the Rule of the Medical Statisticians forbade any fun.
      So at least I presumably haven’t gained any lockdown flab.

    1. Now our second attempt in 18 months to get to the lovely Kernow and back is becoming doubtful. Although we filled our car up out of practice before all this started our friend’s who we are meeting in Somerset over night on the way down to Carbis, they have no fuel. They live in NW7 and don’t have the confidence to go and look out side the M25 it seems a better option from where they live.
      It now seems that our useless government are afraid to do the obvious as in get the army involved to help out with deliveries, because they are afraid will not live it down. Not every one is panic buying, they are just going about their recognised business. Schapps has failed get rid of him Boros.

      1. Get your friends to catch the train to yours and all go on together. Unless you already have a carload of family.

        1. My family call me ‘Rain Man’ it makes no difference where i go on holiday it rains. I have a 100% record.

          1. I am only 20 minutes away by train. I have not gone there for years. The place literally disgusts me. It is a mindless rabbit warren of filth and noise with people living utterly pointless lives. It is a pathetic place and so are the people who live in such a hive of mindless soul destroying activity. I would always feel the need to shower after coming home, with a thundering headache, from that place feeling contaminated.

      2. The worst crash was between a milk lorry and one carrying Rice Krispies.

        The Police and Fire Brigades had to wear ear defenders!

  48. Good morning to all! I came across this guy yesterday, apparently he is a big deal in the contra-covid community. He has the rather unfortunate name for a truthy teller of John O’Looney, an undertaker from Milton Keynes. He seems to be telling the truth and more than willing to verify it.

    ‘The Delta Variant Is the Vaccine’

    https://thewhiterose.uk/the-delta-variant-is-the-vaccine/

      2. Just finished listening to the Stew Peters broadcast. One of the things that vexes me about this sort of thing is how do you tell if the person is authentic and not suffering from paranoia? I have dealt with real paranoids and it is very difficult, often, to tell, they can really suck you in. The only solution, it appears, is to wait and see how things unfold. But then you are stuck in a sort of ‘double bind’ wait and see, then it is to late. Urge people not to get vaccinated etc, and possibly be doing greater damage.

        I suppose I would err on the side of caution, resist and urge others to resist. I would do so on the grounds that, so called, Covid has a death rate so low it actually represents a minor danger to most people, if it exists! John is talking about all these people that he alleges know what is going on. So why aren’t they speaking up? I honestly don’t think that they are silent because of fear at losing jobs etc. This silence, if it is indeed real, bothers me.

        1. The first interview you put up wasn’t the first time O’Looney has spoken out. He opened up some months back but I can’t recall where I saw it.

          The ‘camps’ are worrying because there was a comment on, I’m certain it was the then Lockdown Sceptics site, that mentioned planning applications for 5 or 6 new Super Prisons. It’s all rather messy but many of the conspiracies that only appeared to have a grain of truth in them have turned out be be more fact than fiction.

          The “vaccines” are a case in point: independent experts forecast problems based on the scant evidence available at that time but they have been vindicated as more evidence has come to light. The German symposium put up here last week is a case in point: doctors, scientists etc with no conflicts of interest looking objectively at the evidence and coming to conclusions that are indeed worrying.

          1. Hmm, Korky, in my book, any camps or prisons should first be considered for illegal gimmegrunts, then convicted nasties, of whatever race, with NO access to legal shysters.

            Good God, am I considering an Islamic holocaust? Well yes, but without the killing and burning but just repatriation to their Muslim hell-holes.

          2. One should remember that the UN definition of “genocide” includes “mass deportation”, even if murder free. We are stuck with all sorts of rules, regulations, treaties and commitments as long as we remain members of the UN, NATO, European Court of Justice and the like

          4. Unfortunately our politicians grovel to them and cannot wait to carry out their wishes without thought.

          5. If we can get For Britain, Reclaim and Reform to get together and promote a manifesto that appeals to the electorate, we might well leave that bunch of charlatans behind to rot in their own putrid juices.

          6. I did a cursory look at the German symposium a week ago but didn’t watch the whole thing. I will go back and look.

    1. Given the Mail has been instrumental in fuelling (sic) the panic, it’s a bit of a cheek for them to write that nonsense.

      Incidentally, I’ve noticed in a few articles lately that ‘fuel gauges’ have become ‘fuel dials’. Perhaps they can’t spell ‘gauge’?

      2. ‘Gauge’ can be associated phonetically with green gage, and clearly no type of motorised transport carbon based fuel is acceptable to the Greens so the word has been excluded. As for ‘fuel dial’, that sounds like ‘feudal’, which is where we are all heading, towards military feudalism.

      3. Yet… is there no sense of responsibility? Is everything someone else’s fault? Have people not free will? Can they not act based on evidence and fact?

  51. ‘Morning and, if I have the day right, Many Happy Returns to our issyagain. Hope he’s well and has a good day.

          1. I missed a very important one once and was overcome with shame and apologised copiously and tried to make amends by celebrating his Alice in Wonderland Unbirthday the following day.

            I have now reached ¾ Century myself and it is possible that my feeble powers are getting even more feeble with the passing years.

      2. Nottlers – Please help!

        It is not on my list.

        I publish the list on this forum about once a month – please would people let me know of any errors and omissions. At the bottom of my list there is written E&OE – which means errors and omissions excepted.

        (A Sunset Stripper is coming up at the end of the month!)

          1. One of my fellow students had a Robin; I never heard him call it that.
            Another had a 2CV van, but he didn’t call it a chicken coop.

          2. My recollection was that the Ford Sierra was also nicknamed the jelly mould when it was launched. It was radically different from the boxy cars of the earlier Fords. Now it doesn’t look at all out of the ordinary.

          4. OH put his in a ditch during a snowstorm. It was a company car and they insisted on having it repaired, so he was forced to manage without it for several weeks.

          5. A friend has a Cosworth rs500. I suspect it’s worth quite a few bob as not many were made, let alone still survive.

          7. I’ve owned a few small Fords including one souped-up one over the years but none since the early 1980’s. I found them to be reliable and more than enough for my purposes. I’ve driven much worse cars.

          9. I was loaned one when my company car was in dock. The 2.8i version.

            Quite quick, but nowhere near as fast as my “special” Ford Escort estate. My wife was being cut up on the inside by a boy racer in a 2.8i when she was driving around a roundabout. She put her foot down and left a very bemused young man wondering why his car appeared to have lost acceleration.

          10. I had a ’69 2 ltr GT XLR which went pretty fast and 2 Lasers 1.6 Ltr. A pal had the 2.8i and yes it was fast!

  53. The Hungarian Foreign Ministry has summoned Ukraine’s ambassador over Kiev’s reaction to Budapest’s new deal with Russia’s Gazprom energy giant, Hungary’s top diplomat revealed in a statement published on Facebook on Tuesday.
    Peter Szijjarto wrote that “The Ukrainian government’s actions aimed against the deal, through the European Commission, are extremely outrageous,” adding “Ukraine has nothing to do with those we make deals with.” He stated that Budapest viewed such steps by Kiev as “a violation of [Hungary’s] sovereignty and national security interests.”

    Budapest has accused Ukraine of meddling in its sovereign political decisions after Kiev decried the arrangement as a decision made only to serve the interests of Moscow.

    It will see around half of the country’s annual gas supply transported via the Balkans and Austria. Effective from Friday, the new arrangement will cost Kiev millions in transit fees.

    Top Ukrainian gas executive Sergey Makogon labelled the deal as a further example of the Kremlin’s attitudes towards its neighbor. Meanwhile the country’s foreign minister claimed that taking business elsewhere “hurts Ukraine’s national interests” and is “not [an] economically justified decision” but one made to “purely please the Kremlin.”
    However, Hungary’s foreign minister retorted that Ukraine is simply interfering in his country’s domestic affairs. “For Hungary, energy safety is a matter of security, sovereignty and economy rather than a political matter,” Peter Szijjarto said after executives signed the deal. “You cannot heat homes with political statements.”

    Before very long Ukraine “won’t” be feeling the heat.

  54. John May discuses which are best – dry crumpets or soggy crumpets. It’s easy to make dry crumpet soggy and any crumpet would be welcome

        2. What is it with this modern jargon, Bill?

          Does that really mean, “Like a Mule.” or is there another, totally unexpected, meaning?

  55. 339359+ up ticks,

    My answer,

    Mass support for,
    For Britain, Anne Marie Waters.

    There is always an alternative to panic stations
    In modern parlance, the phrase “Don’t panic” means, in effect, “Panic”.

        1. My e-mail to her:

          Dear Anne-Marie,

          I’m sure that you have realised that, for your all your good work in in promoting ‘For Britain’, you are very much a minority party in the minds and appreciation of the British Electorate.

          As such, the best you can expect at any future General Election – which may be less than 20 months away – is to split the Conservative vote enough to let Labour rule the roost for another 4 years.

          Would that be a win?

          Have you considered the force to be generated if you joined Reclaim and Reform and jointly, put together a manifesto that, while being true to your values and those of your compatriots, might just produce a manifesto that will allow that same British Electorate to say, “Hold on, these guys think as I do – I could vote for that.”?

          As an ex-conservative voter, I urge you to quickly consult with the other minorities and produce a viable voting opposition to the current Lib/Lab/Con cartel. We are voices, crying in the wilderness, for a realistic way forward for our country that is free of the shackles of the EU and the technocrat big business that will allow us as a free and independent United Kingdom to stand alone against the ravages of Soros, Schwab and Gates and the evil they promulgate.

          I shall send this to those I see as your partners in Reclaim and Reform but I look to you to follow through.

          Reclaim makes it very difficult to contact Laurence Fox. I hope you have the means to overcome this.

          1. 339359+ up ticks,
            Evening NtN,
            Many peoples witnessed UKIP manifestos that were met with much approval,the addiction to the lab/lib/con still held the upper hand.

            UKIP designed & activated the referendum proving people power worked, post referendum the peoples reverted back to the very same parties that were eu rubber stamping assets, the addiction to the lab/lib/con
            still held the upper hand.

            lets get on thing straight, reform aka brexit split the vote
            knowingly under farage leadership in a very clear pro johnson manner costing many £25 a pop to be a NON member.

            What was soul destroying was while many of us were pounding the pavements as UKIP activist the lab/lib/con hard core were STILL putting party before Country and certainly in many cases before their children’s welfare.

            The only one I would trust is AM Waters I would seriously
            recommend following her en masse, no need to gather as ONE, be as ONE from the outset.

            First move, return lab/lib/con party membership cards
            in two halves,burn the membership bridges as the lab/lib/con coalition have done in regards to their members & their members welfare.

          2. Oh, dear, Ogga, you will continue to live in the past and dwell on the past, might have beens, don’t you.

            This is today and the threat posed by that same Lib/Lab/Con conspiracy you keep banging on about is real and, as such, it requires action today and not with what might have been under the now defunct UKIP.

            This is why I urge Anne Marie and the leaders of Reform and Reclaim to get together and present the electorate with a viable alternative to Lib/Lab/Con, instead of just hanging about the fringes and splitting the vote in order to let the, even worse, Labour Party take the reins and drive us all into extinction.

            Ogga, for Christ’s sake, get real for once, wake up to today and today’s needs.

          3. 339359 + up ticks,
            NtN,
            I am having to live through a blitzkrieg of political sh!te I had no hand in putting in place, quite the reverse.

            You said before I keep harping on the past you are definitely back heeling my reason is, as a warning, as to what has happened & WILL happen again.

            “Those Who Do Not Learn from odious recent history Are Doomed To Repeat It …”

    1. IMO not a stylish player but very effective at putting the ball in the net: better than 1 goal a game for both England and Liverpool. I still cannot understand why he didn’t try and follow up Hurst’s shot and make certain of the 3rd goal instead of celebrating. A German defender ran past the celebrating Hunt and headed the ball over the bar so there was a chance that Hunt could have reached the ball first. Caused me and millions of other fans palpitations until the goal was given.

      1. Wendyball has always been about business revenue and not the game – today they reap as they sow but, unfortunately, the tribal urge is strong enough to keep them in the black.

        Come tomorrow, who knows what they (fail) to reap?

        1. The goalscorers of the football world win teams games. Some do it with style and a flourish e.g. Matt le Tissier (have you seen le Tissier’s best 15 goals? Outrageous) and then there’s the Hunts of this World. All worth their weight in gold, in footballing terms.

      3. Just seen a bit of an interview with him, years after the game and he said he knew it had gone in! People always asked him if he’d known, and then why he hadn’t kicked it in again!

        1. It’s because in the 60+ years I’ve played and watched football I’ve seen many goals and near goals whacked back into the net by a team mate, either to make sure or in celebration, that makes this one stand out, and in such an important game. It certainly caused controversy and it was against the Germans, so not all bad.😎

    2. Daily fail, so much more interested in promoting the adverts that making a comment seems to be a non-starter.

      Very short-sighted of them, it’s the readers who respond to adverts – let them comment and f**k the advertisers. Without readers, the advertisers have no interest.

        1. I find, Sos, that even though I can get past the Fail’s adblocker, that it makes reading any article almost impossible.

          Hence my reasons for logging back out again.

    3. Nearly all of them are the final end of an all white England football team .

      When all our sport was attractive and meant something to many .

      Names that were pronouncable , men with out ear rings and tattoos , men who the majority of all football fans admired . Fine looking blokes who didn’t prance around.

      How sad .

      1. They also didn’t dive for effect and roll around when tackled like the poor little over paid luvs these days.

  57. All you good people in the Soton area need to be aware that the Poltzei are now acknowledging that they had a faulty camera.

    https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/news/driving-law/drivers-call-for-refunds-britains-busiest-speed-camera/?cid=eml-AC058_CHUB_MEMBERS_RE-CHUB_M_RE_W1_20210928_135334&utm_medium=email&utm_source=AC058_CHUB_MEMBERS_RE&utm_campaign=CHUB_M_RE_W1_20210928_135334&omhide=true&contactURN=40501005&hasBreakdown=true

    Go hit the bastards and demand recompense plus interest. Hit ’em where it hurts.

    1. or just leave home a few minutes earlier and drive within the speed limits.
      (except in really thick peasouper fog, when you might get away with it)

        1. Selfish, inconsiderate, arrogant and a toffeenosed twit. Right, that’s me to a T.
          And yet I have a friend who was caught by a camera three times in one (or two) days, on the school run.

    2. Problem is, it’s Soton, where speed limits are optional. Anyone found driving at them is tail gated until they’re regoing faster, or run off the road. Waiting to cross a roundabout is ignored, so those are blocked solid.

      However, there are so many traffic lights, road closures, hold ups and such that if you don’t do these things, you don’t get anywhere.

          1. Brash and Trash should be thrashed.

            Without being smug (!) I predicted this long before they got married- and was roundly castigated for being curmudgeonly by several NoTTlers.

          5. Neither. I have come across clients from Hell in the past… They are never satisfied – and often end up suing you

          7. But when people are ‘in love’ you tend to give them a chance, wish them well etc.
            Of course flashy weddings are usually a bad sign.

          8. Years ago I knew three different couples who had been “living in sin” for several years. Each pair decided to get married. Within six months they were separated for ever.

          9. But when people are ‘in love’ you tend to give them a chance, wish them well etc.
            Of course flashy weddings are usually a bad sign.

      1. The Conservative Party is a one legged army on the march. Left, left, left,
        Perhaps that Heseltine fellow could tell us where we’ve heard that before.

      2. More than that, it’s intentionally slowing us down!

        Brexit was an opportunity to cut taxes, remove the expensive, limiting red tape suffocating this country. Instead, our useless government grasps every opportunity going to hike taxes, add more lumpen suffocating waste to this nation and pursue a ruinous – in every way – green agenda that will leave us poor.

        I’ll bet there are no statistics, no weekly briefings on the deaths from cold this winter.

      1. My initial reaction was that this ‘shortage’ and predictable mayhem was deliberate in order to promote electric vehicles.
        Apparently with all new eclectic cars because of the limited distances, the new owners will get a free shovel. If they run out of energy, they can dig for ground source heat. Or keep some tins of baked beans in the boot.

    4. I see the transport secretary schnapps has blamed Brexit for this crisis. Nothing to do with the government or him in particular. As usual when the political classes eff everything thing up, it’s always everyone else’s fault.

      1. Easy to blame.

        They could have removed the legislation the EU dumped around truckers. It could have scrapped diesel taxes for haulage companies. It could have intentionally fast tracked driver training.

        There’s a lot this government could have done, even more it should have done but the only thing it is interested in is pointing fingers. They are, ultimately, the body responsible.

        2. Americans do now. Doesn’t seem to help much. Also, unlike Americans, we are not allowed to carry a form of pepper spray.

          If i have to go to an area which i feel is unsafe i carry Farb-gel-spray criminal identifier.

          1. When we lived abroad in the year dot , when we were children, mum had a dillinger which she carried in her handbag, and dad had a small revolver which was always ready in the car glove compartment , and he taught my sister and I to shoot with a small shotgun , we practised on cans and bottles , most children then learned how to shoot .

            I have nightmares / used to have night mares , more about pangas, knives and machetes and the cruel slashing damage weapons like that do . I am sure that is where the expression Chop Chop came from .

          3. When my mother went to stay with my father’s sister in Nairobi she was given a pistol to take to bed with her. She not did not want to take it but years later Aunt Vera was murdered by a burglar.

            And the wife of a farmer cousin of mine in Rhodesia Zimbabwe was murdered.

            Our politicians will not be happy until they have made Britain just as dangerous a place as Africa for ordinary people of all ethnicities.

          4. While talking to a lady in hospital last year, I asked why she had returned to UK after a wonderful hard working life in southern Africa; she calmly replied that her husband, a teacher & farmer, had been murdered.

          5. When my mother went to stay with my father’s sister in Nairobi she was given a pistol to take to bed with her. She not did not want to take it but years later Aunt Vera was murdered by a burglar.

            And the wife of a farmer cousin of mine in Rhodesia Zimbabwe was murdered.

            Our politicians will not be happy until they have made Britain just as dangerous a place as Africa for ordinary people of all ethnicities.

          6. ‘Evening, Philip, “Also, unlike Americans Australian Police, we are not allowed to carry a form of pepper spray.”

            That’s put it to rights.

    4. I would have to have been damned sure that those filming were not accomplices, and that the one being attacked was being robbed, but otherwise yes I probably would have.

      But I would not have messed around, a sucker punch to the side/back of the neck.

      1. I once had to wade in and help someone out, you turn sideways (smaller target) on, raise your foot ram the outside it down the shin hard onto their foot and when the person bends with pain to hold the shin your opposite knee lands in their face. Ouch and walk away.
        It was far away and long ago, but i’d do it again.

        1. My sucker punch has the disadvantage that it might kill them.

          Your approach, whilst extremely effective, relies on them bending. If they are high or drunk they might not feel it sufficiently badly.

        2. A Commando once told me to thrust my forearm into their throat, knee them in the groin and give them a Glasgow kiss. I doubt I’d be co-ordinated enough to do that these days! Apparently stamping on their instep with a stiletto heel is incapacitating, too, but I’ve never worn stilettos 🙂

      1. On FB in the states there are a lot of obviously fake incidents filmed, too obvious i would say. And one has to wonder why there are so many people filming this incident.

    6. Would I have stepped in? No! I’ve done something of the like and aside from the possibility of being hurt you would receive no thanks from the person you helped. All this and the police might very well arrest you! There is also the chance that you would receive subsequent threats and intimidation from the perpetrator to prevent you giving evidence! To someone who has never experienced the system it is impossible to describe its utter uselessness. You would do better to help the robber!

    7. That’d be the engineers, doctors, teachers and other sewage Labour imported in droves and Boris refuses to prevent getting here now.

  65. Phew!!!

    What a grey day: well, it is now, which is why things went a bit mammaries up around lunchtime. Went all eco and tight fisted and hung out lots of towels etc… on the line. Gloated as the sun shone and the wind blew.

    Took Spartie for a walk – the skies darkened, the raindrops started falling on our heads ….. then the heavens opened.
    Fortunately, MB shot out into the garden and rescued the linen.

    Before that, at what appeared to be sparrow fart, I stood in a muted, Soviet style queue at the GPs – ironically reading an article about Kim Philby. I think we can say he posthumously achieved his goal.

    Oh, and then I emptied jars of unset grape jelly back into the preserving pan and reboiled the purple glop. Now set, labelled and in store cupboard.
    Currently have tomato chutney on the go.

      1. It had been sunny here, so I went to fetch something from the car. Most surprised to feel raindrops.

    4. I just harvested my first bunch of grapes today. And when I write “first” it doesn’t just apply to this year! The #@$!! pigeons stripped the vines in previous years before I could get a look in.

  66. Jailed opposition figure Alexey Navalny is facing a slew of new criminal charges announced by Russian officials. He’s accused of founding a string of now-dissolved campaign groups that aimed to overturn the country’s constitution.
    In a statement issued on Tuesday, the country’s federal Investigative Committee confirmed that a case had been opened against Navalny, as well as key associates Leonid Volkov and Ivan Zhdanov, both of whom now live overseas.

    According to the authorities, “it has been established that no later than 2014, Navalny set up the Anti-Corruption Foundation,” which has since been recognized as an ‘extremist organization’ by a Russian court and barred from working in the country.

    1. Alexey Navalny is no Democrat. In fact he is a hair breadth from being a Nazi, a supporter of the skinhead gangs that terrorize people at Russian football matches and beat up foreigners. I’m really not exaggerating, despite the pretence in the West, he has practically no support from the Russian population. He is a corrupt ultra right wing stooge for the Americans and I have no doubt being paid handsomely for that. And don’t think the Americans would not put someone like that up and pretend he’s the face of democracy in Russia. These are the people, who we have learn in the last couple of days, were trying to assassinate Julian Assange for daring to blow the whistle on their corruption.

      1. You have it in one.No doubt you have read the CIA/Julian Assange story in the British press. No?..i thought they would be all over it!!!

    1. Currently being broadcast on Radio 4 – A homosexual BBC presenter, ex politician, celebrating the life of a black homosexual activist, James Baldwin with Rich Blint from the Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts in New York, director of the college’s race and ethnicity programme and is a contributing editor to the James Baldwin Review. How lucky we are to be gifted with such a broadcasting service.

      2. I’ve just got around to watching the recording of Friday’s racing. They were gushing on about how racing should be more diverse and mentioned George Floyd! He was a criminal, for heaven’s sake! Do they intend encouraging more black criminals to go racing? If so, I shan’t be going again.

  68. The news just gets better and better…

    Iran and Venezuela have struck a deal to swap heavy Venezuelan crude for Iranian condensate, Reuters has reported, citing unnamed sources familiar with the deal.
    According to these sources, the swaps are set to begin this week and last for six months, although they could be extended. The imports of Iranian superlight crude will help Venezuela revive its falling oil exports amid US sanctions that, among other problems, have cut off the country’s access to the light oil that is used to blend with its superheavy to make it exportable.

    For Iran, the deal will bring in heavy crude it could sell in Asia, the Reuters sources also said. The diluted Venezuela crude will also likely go to Asian buyers.
    Reuters also reported that, according to the US Treasury Department, the deal could constitute a breach of sanctions, to which both Venezuela and Iran are subjects.

    “Transactions with NIOC by non-US persons are generally subject to secondary sanctions,” the Treasury Department said in response to a Reuters request for comments on the deal. It added that it “retains authority to impose sanctions on any person that is determined to operate in the oil sector of the Venezuelan economy.”

    Despite the sanction noose, Venezuela has been ramping up its oil exports, generating vital revenue. According to a recent Reuters report, the country, which is home to the world’s largest oil reserves, exported more than 700,000 bpd of crude in July—the highest daily export rate since February.

    Most of the oil went to China and Malaysia, although the latter is usually only a stop along Venezuelan oil’s trip to China. The same report noted that three of the five crude oil blending facilities in the Orinoco Belt were operational, and another crude upgrader was preparing to restart operations after a year’s pause.

    1. …and NIOC is an acronym for “Not In Our Country”?

      Why can’t those using unusual acronyms define them for we ignorant bastards? It makes you as ignorant as us.

      1. National Iranian Oil Company.The statement was from the US Treasury Dept and the Yanks do love their acronyms.

  69. Arrived safely on Tyneside & waiting for the DT & Out-Laws to arrive.
    We traveled separately because they plan going back to Derbyshire tomorrow and I’ve kitted the van out so I can stop up here for a couple of days.

    Having a mean with Dr. Daughter & her boyfriend tonight.

    I’ve enough fuel for at least another 300 miles so I ought to be ok until Thursday by which time one would hope the fuel panic would have subsided.

    1. Subsided? You jest. The tossers who queued and filled will have half a tank and will queue and queue and top up….for ever.

        1. Spot on. Handyman told me this morning that there are people queuing and then putting £2.50 worth in…

  70. Funny isnt it how all governments have a knee jerk reaction re filling job vacancies .

    They invited the blinking Windrush generation into Britain to fill transport spaces and pad out the NHS etc

    Now they are reinviting Eastern Europeans , many dangerous drivers with scant regard for road manners , and many with edgy backgrounds , to take up the slack as HGV drivers once more .

    I jsut don’t get it , do you?

    1. The government cares about nothing for us and even less for the working conditions of HGV drivers. Contrast the facilities for truckers in France with that of the UK or those for motorway users.

      Here truckers have to park up in potholed earthen lay-bys often shared with some filthy trailer selling hotdogs or bacon rolls. The motorway service stations are overpriced and exploit the motorist with inflated fuel prices.

      Our membership of the EU encouraged the exploitation of Eastern Europeans and depressed rates of pay for our own people. Additionally the imported Labour was able to claim child benefit for their families back home at enormous expense to the British taxpayer.

      Our government hates us.

      2. It seems that way.

        This was one of the reasons we had ot leave the EU – of course, our government is also moronic and cannot plan 2 minutes ahead of the next crisis.

    1. 339359+ upticks,
      O2O,
      Surely Ogs that clearly shows these political overseeing
      merchants as brussels assets ?

      Have YOU not been pointing that out for years ?

      Yep.

    1. The Labour Party had a golden opportunity to say the above, and the best they could come up with was “Tories are racist scum.”

      1. No queue, Connors, arrive, no papers but a mobile and cigarettes, wait a minute and we’ll get you into a four star hotel, £37 per week and then you can disappear into the underclasses.

        1. Hi Sos. I did post the other day.

          Yes G has had trouble getting back on. Different tech problems. And also being very busy with other things. As far as i know the lady is ok though. Don’t expect a response if you email her.

          1. I thought you had, hence lobbying you! I was trying to send her some information by snail mail but I’ve lost her address.

          2. I have your address and Garlands address. Hertslass has email addresses. Don’t want to step on any toes.

          3. I emailed her the other day, no response, hence the question.
            It’s not time critical so I can wait.
            If in contact please give her my regards.

          4. I surely will but even I don’t always get a response…ME !

            Not trying to put you off but clearly G has other priorities of which we are not aware.

            I would give you her address but it really is against all policy as i’m sure you understand.

  83. That’s me gone. Funny day – sun = nice and warm; sun goes in = very cold. Still we had lunch outside.

    Have a jolly evening – could you keep my place in the petrol queue?

    A demain.

    1. Don’t know what all the fuss is about. Yesterday evening on the drive back from Bristol Airport I drove into a garage straight up to the pump and filled up with diesel for my forthcoming return tip of around 280 miles to London.

      3. The panic has mostly been confined to the inside of the M25. Make sure you have enough to get out again

    1. From Boros

      Breathing causes Covid

      So, all you nonentities just die and let us Elites live in safety

    1. Reading between the lines, and I agree with him: What he is actually saying is that the general public are complete morons and deserve all they get.

  87. Oh dear. How sad. Never mind.
    Bwahahahahahahahahah ……………………..

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/labour-in-terf-war-as-rayner-slaps-down-duffield

    “Labour in terf war as Rayner slaps down Duffield

    Whether it’s scum-gate, party democracy, membership expulsions or the minimum wage you’d think Labour had had enough splits this conference. But to add to that (growing) list of disputes is the issue of transgender rights in the wake of Rosie Duffield’s decision not to attend conference, as first reported by Mr S.

    Tensions have played out within the Parliamentary Labour Party and in the wider conference too, between those supporters of transgender rights and gender critics whom the former label TERFs – or trans-exclusionary radical feminists. A transgender woman was stopped on Sunday trying to enter a ladies’ toilet, leading to an ugly and distressing stand-off. On the conference floor this afternoon one Labour delegate received shouts of ‘shame!’ and boos after she told the hall that she stands with Duffield and the right to express her views.

    And tonight a planned event in Brighton by Labour Women’s Declaration featuring Tonia Antoniazzi – the Private Parliamentary Secretary to shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves – will not announce its location until the last moment for fear, they say, of aggressive picketing. Mr S understands that trans rights supporters have already begun trying to organise a counter-protest.

    But there were no signs of disagreements at today’s LGBT+ Labour panel where frontbenchers Angela Rayner and Anneliese Dodds threw their weight behind trans activists. In a warmly-received speech Rayner told attendees ‘I have always been your ally, I will always be your ally’ declaring ‘I stand with Stonewall’ and concluding that ‘women’s rights are not in conflict with trans rights – our struggle is your struggle.’

    Dodds backed up her deputy leader, attacking the government for ‘accusations that ministers were creating a hostile environment for LGBT+ people’ while senior backbencher Angela Eagle told attendees that ‘Stonewall need to be defended – they’re under massive attack’ adding ‘we’re not going back in the kitchen, we’re not going back in the closet.’ Duffield herself was not mentioned by name but Alex Beverley, the chair of LGBT+ Labour, said that:

    “I think it is important to remember that there is one very high profile person but there are many elected officials across the country who are behaving in a conduct that is not appropriate in the Labour party and it needs to be dealt with, with a clear code of conduct and a new complaints process which I hope will improve that for the entirety of the LGBT+ membership.

    Looks like this is one row which will not be going away for Labour MPs anytime soon.

    UPDATE: Mr S went along to Antoniazzi’s event tonight where two dozen trans rights activists were indeed protesting outside the venue. Inside the Gower MP told attendees: ‘I would not be here speaking to you tonight if I didn’t have 20 or more Labour MPs supporting me.’ Looks like it might not just be Duffield after all.”

        1. We need a nurse to check… rubber gloves, please. Oh, hang on, just let him be a useful tool for the Tories.

    2. Do they seriously think that the average Labour voter cares about ‘trans rights’? I hope Labour makes it one of their main policies. They will become even more unelectable.

      1. I think everyone does when they come across the trans political agenda. A lot of people are affected by it; teachers, school children, anyone dealing with the public, the health service, anyone involved in wedding planning etc. Sooner or later they are forced to say or do something that they believe to be untrue. That is a tyranny.

      2. I think everyone does when they come across the trans political agenda. A lot of people are affected by it; teachers, school children, anyone dealing with the public, the health service, anyone involved in wedding planning etc. Sooner or later they are forced to say or do something that they believe to be untrue. That is a tyranny.

    4. Those Labour politicians fight like rats in a sack. Nobody has any interest whatsoever in their pandering to trans this and trans that, nor the murderous women and child abusing Muslims upon whom they depend heavily for votes.

      Labour are a lost cause and have been since the death of Peter Shore or thereabouts.

      The worst of it is that Bullshitting Boris and his government of retrogrades (reprobates even) are no better and possibly even more callous.

      This country is well and truly fucked.

      1. Several friends have taken the opportunity to return to the UK.
        Without exception they couldn’t get back quickly enough. Two years away has been a real eye-opener. They are all staggered how much it has changed and how unpleasant it has become.
        Two years only, for goodness sake.

    5. It wasn’t a “transgender woman”, it was a MAN trying to access the women’s lavatory. That he might have been pretending to be a woman doesn’t make it so. I could call my dog a cat, he’d still be a canine.

      1. These demented fools would complain that you are imposing your opinion on your dog.

        Yes, we’ve reached this:

        But since in reality Big Brother is not omnipotent and the party is not infallible, there is need for an unwearying, moment-to-moment flexibility in the treatment of facts. The keyword here is blackwhite. Like so many Newspeak words, this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, itmeans a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this. But it means also the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary. This demands a continuous alteration of the past, made possible by the system of thought which really embraces all the rest, and which is known in Newspeak as doublethink.

        From:
        https://www.abhafoundation.org/assets/books/html/1984/139.htm

        They’re insane. Worse, they fervently believe in their madness. Sadly – perhaps frighteningly, they do not see that they are. Even more terrifying is that the state is indulging them. I assume for the same desperate control over thought it always seeks.

    6. Look, abuse your body how you wish. Live out a fantasy. But it’s always a fantasy. It’s not real. You are not a woman, you’re a man. I’ll respect your right to choose how you live, but you have no right to make reinforce your delusion.

      You also have no rights. You see, by being human, you have laws that apply to you. Wanting – forcing – others to endorse you using law is repugnant, as that’s just tyranny.

      Perhaps you don’t understand, but you’re simply conceited and you need to look at your responsibilities to society rather than demand from it.

    7. ‘women’s rights are not in conflict with trans rights’.

      The usual cognitive dissonance.

      Women and girls do not want trans anything in their toilets, changing rooms and refuges. Period.

  89. There is always an alternative to panic stations

    In modern parlance, the phrase “Don’t panic” means, in effect, “Panic”.

    CHARLES MOORE • 28 September 2021 • 7:00am

    In modern parlance, the phrase “Don’t panic” means, in effect, “Panic”. Last year, at the beginning of Covid, it was loo paper and pasta. Last week, no sooner did the authorities use those words about petrol supplies than queues formed at the filling stations.

    Is there anything to be done about this? It is hard to see what other words the Government could employ. We in the media would soon detect ministers if they pretended there was no shortage. Yet as soon as they admit there is one, we ask them how the public should react. They have to say “Don’t panic”, because that is the right advice. Unfortunately, it is also the trigger.

    I suppose ministers could lecture people for being so silly, but that is rarely a productive tactic. Perhaps there is nothing that can usefully be said: it is just a matter of the public calming down and getting the measure of the situation. This weekend, I found most country neighbours simply making fewer car journeys and trying to sit the mini-crisis out.

    It would help, though, if the authorities had some temporary remedies up their sleeves. In rural areas particularly, there is a lot of “red diesel” about, reserved for tractors and other vehicles that do not use public roads, and stored on farms. It is red because it is so dyed for identification: it needs identifying because it is untaxed. It works fine in normal diesel cars, so the red is supposed to detect tax evasion in the engine.

    How about emergency measures in times of shortage which removed the fines for using red diesel on roads and allowed its owners to sell it to customers running out of the normal stuff? It would be an additional attraction in farm shops.

    No doubt safety experts would protest noisily, but I say, “Don’t panic”.

    Party conferences amount to media opportunities

    It is now the party conference season but, like “The Season” in high society (Henley, the Eton/Harrow match, the Derby, debutantes etc), it is shadow of its former self. Commerce – in the form of lobbyists and PR – has taken over. The conferences of the main political parties are no longer the gatherings of great tribes. Instead they are media opportunities for the Westminster people who are already in charge anyway.

    Does this matter? It is not, after all, as if Tory or Labour conferences in the old days were hotbeds of intellectual vitality. It was not always fun to sit for a week (they were much longer drawn-out occasions 40 years ago) in Blackpool. But I think it does matter a bit, for the same reason that talk of the Red Wall, “levelling up” and “people from Somewhere” mean something.

    As a journalist in the 1980s, I attended both main party conferences every year. I did not exactly like either. Labour, threatened by the Bennite/Arthur Scargill Left, was extremely rancorous. The Tories, usually riding high, were smug. But one did feel that both, in their very different ways, were occasions in which metropolitan preoccupations did not dominate. You could see the workings of each party’s grass roots, discussing the things they cared about. You could witness one of the most important features of the first century of democracy – the power of a mass movement.

    In the 21st century, the masses hold enormous power, as interpreted by focus groups, but extremely little by means of direct political engagement. The unhappy paradox is that our age, though obsessed with equality, is run by elites much more cut off than in the past.

    We can’t rewild without re-peopling

    Rewilding is all the rage. It contains many interesting ideas and possibilities. But the name can be misleading. In a small, long-settled, quite heavily populated country like Britain, nothing can be truly wild. Almost all ecology needs to be stewarded by the human race.

    At present, most of the inhabitants of the areas targeted for rewilding feel uneasy. If they make a living by farming, shooting, fisheries or forestry, they tend to be disapproved of by rewilders. The two sets of people most keen on rewilding usually come from outside the districts they wish to change. Either they are committed ideologues or they are extremely rich people who, having made lots of money through modern industrial and commercial economies, have turned romantic.

    The recently announced Affric Highlands project (“Scotland’s wild east-west corridor”) is accompanied by an improbable painting of how the future rewilded scenery might look. It resembles an illustration in one of those children’s books that cram as many species as possible into one spot in order to identify them. Deer, otter, birds of prey, wild boar, wildcat, pine marten, red squirrels and lynx seem to flourish within a few feet of each other.

    In a rather obscure part of the picture, a stalker with a deer’s carcass slung over the back of a pony can be discerned. This last is a pleasing concession to reality: the culling of animals, by people, is essential to the balance of species.

    I hope a way forward can be found which links human prosperity to the flourishing of nature. If not, much of Scotland will be subjected to a re-run of the notorious Highland clearances in the early 19th century, with eco-lairds as the villains.

    Parallel with rewilding, there should be re-peopling. Human beings too have natural habitats, and these should be respected.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/09/28/always-alternative-panic-stations/

    1. Regarding red diesel, Charlie says there is a lot of it on farms.

      Not for long now you have informed the gypoes. Though they probably steal it already.

      1. I see them, there they go
        Fourteen Lorries in a row
        Them ain’t lorries
        They is trucks
        Filled with hens an geese an Ducks

  91. Evening, all. We’ve had all last month’s and this month’s rainfall today. Gutters flooded and no chance of getting anything done in the garden. I got soaked walking into town for my dental appointment (a filling) and walking back. Then I had to go back in because, in enticing Oscar out to wee before I left, I put the squeaky toy in my jacket (he won’t concentrate if he can see it) and forgot about it – cue the dentist ringing me and telling me I’d left a dog toy there!

  92. Good night all.

    Distinctly autumnal, so baked stuffed courgettes, followed by glorious golden nectarines baked with brandy.

    1. The problem is of course that these comical episodes are not really a joke but closer to the truth. The Germans care little for us except as a milk cow for the hitherto poor communistic Eastern Europeans.

      Much of our wealth has already been transferred to the EU whilst our own facilities and essential infrastructure, never fully restored after WWII, has aged and been allowed to be further degraded.

      The whole idea of detachment from the EU was really to rebuild our economy and to take control and direct our own destiny as a trading nation. Instead we have been betrayed by a Bullshitting Boris, a lame excuse for a Prime Minister, and a cabinet of Quislings.

  96. Goodnight and God bless to all my NoTTLer friends (or is that fiends).

    I don’t worry – the big push, as far as I can see it, is for the minority parties to get together, stop vote-splitting and prevent us, the great unwashed, with a manifesto, guaranteed to get us galloping to the ballot-box and voting to oust the Lib/Lab/Con cabal for good and all.

    Think on, I’ll talk again tomorrow.

  97. Just as Cuba dumped the contents of its jails on the USA in the seventies, Biden is allowing the dumping of criminals from all parts, much of South America especially the failed countries of Venezuela and Haiti on the USA in this year 2021.

    To this load of crooks you might add the Arab insurrectionists including the Taliban and Al Qaida operatives.

    Has nobody drawn a connection? Biden hates his own country just as much as he despises the UK. The man is a cretin and a misfit, unfit to tie his own shoelaces and incapable of making his own decisions. He is the puppet of Obama and Clinton, both of whom should be jailed.

    1. He is a demented old fool who is being used by puppet masters. I doubt if he hates his country but he’s certainly incompetent and unfit for his office.

      1. This is similar to that which we face over the coming months, in addition to those already arrived.

    1. Goodnight Ndovu. I look in later of an evening in order to avoid the crap about diets or what some non entity ate for supper. This has no interest to me.

      I am interested in politics and the extent to which I believe we are being mislead by the politicians and their cover, viz. Whitty, Vallance and Van Tam plus the other criminals funded by Pharma whose bonuses are paid for by us.

      I truly believe that we have been manipulated and many of us shocked into obedience by sham science and the purely evil connivance of our medicos and professional politicians.

        1. So what you are saying (© Cathy Newman) is that one fine day one of his buildings will fall on top of him.

  99. After two aborted admissions during COVID, DIL’s father finally got his heart op.
    He had four stents fitted but was still getting chest pain so they put two more in.

  100. The Department for Transport (DfT) said the government’s operator of last resort would take over the running of the service from Oct. 17, criticising the company for its conduct and threatening further action, including fines.

    https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-take-control-go-aheads-southeastern-rail-franchise-2021-09-28/

    Who is the Government’s operator of last resort soon to take over the Go-Ahead group?
    The GOLR has already been appointed to take over from failed energy companies but I haven’t yet heard it will running fuel deliveries.

Comments are closed.