Tuesday 5 October: This Government’s tax rises offend against Conservative principle

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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649 thoughts on “Tuesday 5 October: This Government’s tax rises offend against Conservative principle”

    1. No rain here, either.
      Awaiting delivery of a large skip, lots of farm junk to be, well, junked. Old sacks of solid fertiliser, old furniture, all sorts of carp.
      Next spring, a skip for old iron that we will reveal when we remove the junk today.
      Anyone want to buy a Claas combine? Most certainly not in running order… and a seed drill in similar condition. A mower without cutters… buyer collects!

        1. Worse still, getting the combine to drive and then bring it home via Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Holland, Belgium and France and getting together enough rubber dinghys to float it across the channel.

          What fun

    2. Good morning Bob, it’s trying to be bright on the Costa Clyde. Should be good enough to get a round in before the deluge.

    1. Morning OLT. Indeed we do not thank Geoff enough. He goes to great trouble to maintain this blog and put it up every morning, something that I am pretty sure that I could not do. All this and his only thanks will be a shallow grave on the Rockall Gulag!

      1. Morning to Minty

        I will be down the Sally Army Charity Shop later today, to donate my bedding to someone with need of it,asI do not seem to

          1. Was awake 01:23 to 03 late, thinking over issues to do with Mother, her care and her house.
            Now awaiting a skip to be delivered, and utterly knackered.
            :-((

          3. Yes.
            The Occupational Therapist needs to survey her house to see if it’s OK for her to return, but won’t go there alone, and I can’t get anyone else to accompany her. Mothers friend won’t go, because she is still isolating, and the carers have been taken off the case and so won’t go, either. In discussion with Social Services about it now.

          4. Sounds like a good deal of buck passing. Are you able to get there yourself now that travel restrictions have eased a bit? All so much more difficult when you’re not nearby.

          5. Ain’t that the truth.
            Problem with travel is the going into quarantine for 10 days on arrival. That’s a real problem, being grounded for 10 days when I’d need to be out and about.

          7. Yes, at least, looking at the website I would. It might change, but as Wales doesn’t want to be like England, I doubt it.

          8. Yes – I’d forgotten Wales wants a permanent lockdown. I think they’ve voted for covid passes now too.

          10. It’s hard enough when you are nearby and can physically do the job or at least supervise others.
            How on earth you deal with it from several hundred miles away is beyond me. Especially during this last 18 months when even nipping onto a cheap flight has been impossible.

          11. Internet is a wonderful thing… and I have been surprised how many kind people are out there and willing to help out. That ncludes small tradesmen who will fix fences and plumbing issues, and more, trusting a voice on the phone to pay them, and whilst working unsupervised, doing a good job. It somewhat restores ones faith in humanity – at least, the working end of humanity.

      2. Morning to Minty

        I will be down the Sally Army Charity Shop later today, to donate my bedding to someone with need of it,asI do not seem to

  3. A very European coup. Spiked 5 October 2021.

    Even the European Parliament, which looks a bit like something you would find in a democracy is nothing of the sort. ‘It does not possess the rights to elect a government, to initiate legislation, to levy taxes, to shape welfare or determine a foeign policy’, writes Anderson. ‘In short, it is the semblance of a parliament, as ordinarily understood, that falls far short of the reality of one.’ And voters have long known this, hence turnout in European Parliament elections has fallen steadily across four decades.

    In Anderson’s telling, the European Union does not suffer a ‘democratic deficit’ – this is not a snag that can be fixed with a bit of bureaucratic fiddling. Developed through Middelaar’s so-called ‘coups’, the EU is intrinsically and structurally opposed to democracy. You can no more make the EU more democratic than you can make a tree less woody – it would go against its nature.

    Morning everyone. A short reminder of the reality of the EU and its apparatchiks.

    Though the author doesn’t specifically state that it is really a shadow Globalist Government he does list its shortcomings. The EU is the primary enemy of the Nation States and people of Europe in general and the UK in particular; its destruction would be a victory for Freedom and Democracy everywhere.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/10/05/a-very-european-coup/

    1. The EU is what looks to me a typical Continental construct – government by technocrats, but giving a nod towards “democracy” for appearances sake with pretend votes, and some whiffle ablout the appointees being democtratic because the democratically-elected national governments chose them.
      Yeah, right.

      1. What’s worse is people think that’s acceptable – yet don’t understand that the European parliament is utterly toothless.

      2. Even the nod towards democracy is little short of a sham – what kind of a parliament is it that prevents its elected members from raising the equivalent of our procedure for private members’ bills and only allows them to vote on matters placed before them by the executive?

    2. The EU is wonderful in theory but awful in practice, ending up as a Franco-German construct to dominate Europe and enrich themselves at the expense of a bullied and maltreated U.K.

  4. SIR – I’m all for small government and low taxes, but dealing with the pandemic came at enormous cost. Now the time has come to repay it. It’s
    inevitable that we will see higher taxes for a while.

    David Dunbar, of Broadway, Worcestershire

    Please Note:

    Income Tax was the first tax in British history to be levied directly on people’s earnings. It was introduced in 1799
    by the then Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger,as a temporary measure to cover the cost of the Napoleonic Wars.

    1. Now the time has come to repay it.

      This is nonsense as I am sure Thayric would say were he present. The increase is simply to further impoverish the general population and ensure their path to the most abject slavery!

    2. The government overspent by over £20,000 per taxpayer over the last 18 months. That excludes the delayed costs of its actions such as the NHS backlog, the cause of the recent 2.5% addition to payroll taxes. This government, a supposedly Conservative one, shows absolutely no sign of cutting that back to live within its means let alone repay any of it.

      In general, it’s hard to take back money once given, particularly as politicians lose if they do, so non-Covid spending is unlikely to decrease, even if we ignore the suicidal costs of Green policies.

      The government’s policy has been to print money, crossing their fingers in the hope that voters won’t notice their losses and that inflation doesn’t take off until the politicians responsible have moved on to lucrative sinecures.

      1. If the state wanted to ‘repay’ itself then it shouuld make a cut somewhere. It doesn’t seem to understand basic economics.

      2. This is a government that has to PLEAD with its employees to go back to work.
        * actually, the slackers are employed by you and me.

        1. The Sunday Times stated that the Government admitted that there were 54,000 HGV licences ready to be issued to British people.

          Why bother about 127 foreigners?

  5. ‘Chain gangs’ of criminals to clear canals and rivers of rubbish. 5 October 2021

    Offenders are to be put to work on Boris Johnson’s “chain gangs” to clear canals and rivers of trolleys, rubbish and graffiti under a £90 million expansion of community clean-up projects.

    The offenders in high-visibility fluorescent tabards will put in eight million hours of work a year – equivalent to 200,000 weeks – cleaning up streets, alleyways and other open spaces so that justice can be seen to be done.

    The move, to be announced on Tuesday by Dominic Raab, the Justice Secretary, will see up to 2,000 miles of rivers and canals cleared of debris, litter and graffiti in the first such agreement of its kind with the Canal and River Trust.

    This is as real as Patel’s promise last week to send asylum seekers to Albania for “processing” not only impossible because of human rights legislation but speedily denied by the Albanian Government itself. Like most liars their claims become ever more unbelievable as their credibility collapses.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/10/05/chain-gangs-criminals-clear-canals-rivers-rubbish/

    1. I have come to the conclusion, that when this pack of Arris o’ Souls, (that calls itself ‘our Government)’,
      inform us all of the way ahead for the country and that it will be good for us Effnick Brits, we know it will never happen

    2. For offenders read non-vaccinated people?

      Johnson really is beyond the pale. Instead of appealing to the electorate’s baser instincts he should be giving hope for a brighter future both socially and economically but we know that that is not on his globalist agenda. That’s not to say that offenders shouldn’t ‘pay’ for their bad conduct but the logistics of clearing rivers and canals needs more than just unwilling and untrained hands. Conference week unworkable hot air to garner headlines.

      1. Morning Korky. There will in my view be a short period of activity followed by a gradual disappearance as the “offenders” abscond or commit petty crime. I certainly wouldn’t want them “working” near me!

    3. When they’ve cleared all the rubbish and graffiti perhaps they would like to excavate those canals planned for restoration. Doing it the original way would I’m sure meet the approval of canal enthusiasts and the CRT who cherish their heritage…..

      Morning folks.

      1. Morning Stephen. You can lead an “offender” to the canals but you cannot make him dig. It is against the Law!

        1. This governmental shower are bending laws as they try to implement their agenda. Constant coercion to convince people to accept the “vaccine” is a major case in point along with the banning of viable anti-viral drugs e.g. Ivermectin so as to enable the emergency use of the various “vaccines” is another.

      1. Steve Bell/The Guardian always depict him as an arse with blond hair on top. Not wildly original.

  9. Nasty white privilege in Somerset

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/f58949231cd0e01d262be371e951447fdabc7d56/0_0_5730_3820/master/5730.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=08ab93be368d551d3b27b7c48361956f
    A rare 15th-century tapestry, the oldest owned by the National Trust, has returned to display at Montacute House after four years of conservation work, including nearly 1,300 hours of hand sewing. The tapestry was woven in 1480 in what is now Belgium, however more than 400 years of its history remains unknown

  10. Priti Patel: Middle-class drug users will be named and shamed

    In an interview with The Telegraph, the Home Secretary says police will be told to drug test every arrested person to cut violent crime

    Ms Patel also warned that recreational middle-class drug users faced being named and shamed as she attacked their refusal to accept their
    habit was fuelling the exploitation of children by county lines crime gangs.

    Still not much being said about hunting down and prosecuting the Child Grooming Gangs, prevalent in areas where the Rule of Law, more Sharia, than common

    One prosecution, though Tommy R, for pointing some guilty ones out: not very

    being named and shamed as she attacked their refusal to accept their habit was fuelling the exploitation of children by rapists

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/10/05/priti-patel-middle-class-drug-users-will-named-shamed/

    2. What about naming and shaming the thousands of illegals that cross the Channel each day, Priti Awful?

      1. Quite so, Bill. And when will we see Border Farce returning some of the boats and their passengers? I suspect that the answer to this is “Never”, unless the government stages something in an attempt to convince us – and they would probably mess that up, too.

      2. Quite so, Bill. And when will we see Border Farce returning some of the boats and their passengers? I suspect that the answer to this is “Never”, unless the government stages something in an attempt to convince us – and they would probably mess that up, too.

    3. YES! I’ve long said that! A comment from 2015:-

      So much for the so-called “War on Drugs” or rather, to give it a more accurate title, The Non-War on Drugs. To give the impression that something is being done, the police target those at the bottom of the Social and Drug Dealing food chains whilst the Celebrity Smack-heads like Tara Palmer Tomkinson and Nigella Lawson are allowed to rot their nasal passages in comparative ease. As an employee of Network Rail, I am liable to random Drug and Alcohol Testing at any time and Mandatory DAT in the case of a safety related incident. I see no reason why our, largely self appointed, Political Masters and their minions should not be subject to the same regime.

      http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3061869/Traces-cocaine-hospital-toilet-just-yards-ward-Kate-Middleton-birth.html

    2. Tonto is one of the riders, but not his ‘boss’ The Lone Ranger aka the Masked Avenger

  12. In 1979, I visited the Third Reich concentration camp in Majdanek in Eastern Poland, I was struck especially by the piles of shoes and the heaps of ponytails cut off the girls and women destined for the gas chambers. In the town, modern hairdressers were standing outside soliciting women on the street to cut off their hair, and sold false ponytails, since it takes a very long time to grow your own when it has been cut short by the professionals, who know very well how to make money.

    I read some of the diaries of the camp commandant. Not all of them were monsters. Many were honest administrators, anxious to make the best of a horrible situation and make life as bearable as possible for their inmates. They truly believed the Fatherland was the source of order and civilisation and were anxious to work hard to that cause.

    On the first day, the train would bring in 10,000 people. In a camp set up to accommodate 20,000 this was manageable. The next day, another 10,000. Still manageable, but a bit of work getting them all fed and the beds turned round. The next day, another 10,000. A bit of a squeeze now, with some bed-sharing and rationing, but it was possible to keep the camp going. The next day another 10,000… I think we can see the thought processes behind even the most humanitarian commandant.

    British pig farmers are now facing the very same situation, thanks to incompetence by Defra.

    I predict food shortages as most pork is wasted for want of a capable domestic food infrastructure, given up because of the “free market” obstructionism of our political dogmatists.

    1. Morning Jeremy. Both as an excuse and explanation for the Holocaust I suspect that your figures are wrong. Though I am unwilling to research it I think the number of one thousand a day over the entirety of the extermination program and for the period in question makes up the requisite total!

      1. I am sure they are. I cannot remember the exact figures I read from something I chanced upon 42 years ago, but I remember it was in the thousands. The important thing is not the exact numbers, but the principle of being overwhelmed by relentless demands.

      1. Thanks for letting me know. I will remember only to keep live piggies in the mosque.

  13. Pandora Papers: World leaders deny wrongdoing after leaks. 5 October 2021.

    Several world leaders have denied wrongdoing after featuring in a huge leak of financial documents from offshore companies.

    Dubbed the Pandora Papers, the 12 million files constitute the biggest such leak in history.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin and Jordan’s King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein are among some 35 current and former leaders linked to the files.

    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov meanwhile questioned the reliability of the “unsubstantiated” information, after it detailed hidden wealth linked to President Putin and members of his inner circle.

    “For now it is just not clear what this information is and what it is about,” he told reporters, adding that “we didn’t see any hidden wealth of Putin’s inner circle in there”.

    There is of course no “Leak” of any description just as there are no “secrets”. Everything here is already known. The information released has simply been collated and dished out to a compliant MSM. It is almost certainly a CIA operation to discredit anti-globalists like Putin or waverers like King Abdullah. That there are no Globalist Lackeys mentioned at all makes this for all practical purposes an absolute certainty.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-58791586

  15. Morning all

    SIR – Most Conservative supporters will have welcomed Jacob Rees-Mogg’s argument that the tax burden is far too high and must not go higher (Comment, October 1).

    Yet unlike them, Mr Rees-Mogg had the chance to vote against the recently announced tax rises on the working population and business. Sadly only five brave Tory MPs did so.

    Given his vocal opposition to higher taxes, is it not time for Mr Rees-Mogg to consider his position as I have mine? After 40 years of devoted campaigning for the Conservatives, I resigned my membership the day after the parliamentary vote approving these outrageously unfair tax rises.

    Of course, unlike Mr Rees-Mogg, I don’t have a ministerial car and my work for the party has always been voluntary, not salaried.

    Philip Duly

    Haslemere, Surrey

    SIR – I’m all for small government and low taxes, but dealing with the pandemic came at enormous cost. Now the time has come to repay it. It’s inevitable that we will see higher taxes for a while.

    We all benefited from high government expenditure over the past 18 months; now it’s payback time.

    David Dunbar

    Broadway, Worcestershire

    SIR – We are told that we are transitioning from a low-skill, low-wage, low-productivity economy to a high-wage, high-skill, high-productivity one.

    I am puzzled as to how increasing the wages of lorry drivers will increase productivity. Will they be driving faster?

    William Furness

    Glastonbury, Somerset

    SIR – I went to the autumn show in Malvern last week along with thousands of others. Arriving at Great Malvern station, I expected the shuttle bus for a 10-minute ride to the showground to be overrun, because of the fuel shortage and the push for more people to use public transport (in this case highly convenient).

    I was shocked to find surplus space on the shuttle bus and to see thousands of cars in the car parks. Boris Johnson thinks he is going to win votes by pushing ultra-green policies very hard. Perhaps he should think again.

    Hugh Cole

    Bidford-on-Avon, Warwickshire

    SIR – In his eagerness to pillory the Prime Minister, Andrew Marr, in his BBC television interview on Sunday, described the possible killing of 120,000 pigs as “the biggest single cull of healthy animals in the history of British agriculture”.

    In the 2001 foot and mouth outbreak the Blair government ordered the slaughter of over six million cattle and sheep in the “contiguous cull” policy. The vast majority were disease free.

    It is not just MPs who get carried away with dubious claims.

    Norman Cowling

    Widecombe-in-the-Moor, De

    1. Mr Dunbar, these taxes will never go away and they will only ever increase. The state knows no restraint.

      As for recovering the monies – we know – for a fact – that high taxes have the adverse effect. National insurance is an easy one because just about everyone pays it and those who do cannot avoid it. The double whammy of corporation tax hits the otherside.

      It is, perhaps, the worst thing this useless government could have done but also their default go to. We want money, we are going to take it from you. There is no interest or consideration for the economic damage it causes.

    2. Importing loads of illiterate goat herders will hardly aid the transition from a low-skill, low-wage, low-productivity economy to a high-wage, high-skill, high-productivity one. Just sayin’.

      Dealing with the pandemic need not have come at enormous cost. It was the government’s actions which made it so expensive.

  17. Rotten mail

    SIR – I fear that Jo Love (Letters, October 2) could be in for a long wait.

    Documents posted to me on November 27 2020 by Royal Mail special delivery (guaranteed next day) arrived on February 16 2021, without any explanation for the delay. The urgent documents in the envelope had to be replaced at considerable cost long before the original set eventually arrived, having been presumed lost.

    Advertisem

    On October 1, I received a letter sent first class on September 9. Another, posted first class by the same person on September 20, has yet to turn up.

    Something appears to be very wrong at Royal Mail.

    Michael Lightowler

    Ingatestone, Essex

    Toxic police culture

    SIR – A few years ago, I was sitting next to a group of prosperous-looking, well-groomed young people in a cafe.

    From what they were saying it was evident that they were police recruits. I was appalled by their conversation, which was macho, misogynistic, homophobic and racist. These were people paid to uphold the rule of law.

    I learnt some time ago that the next act for the man who exposes himself is to commit rape. Why was someone with a history of this kind allowed anywhere near the police? Why, after a more recent episode, was Wayne Couzens not instantly suspended? Did his colleagues simply close ranks?

    Dame Cressida Dick has presided over chaos. She should resign.

    Marion Buchan

    Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire

    SIR – Sarah Everard’s atrocious murder will not fade from women’s memories.

    Trust has gone. It is useless for Dame Cressida Dick to say this will never happen again, or for the PM to say that women should not fear future attacks. What is rotten in society is male access to violent pornography, and the unwillingness of social media or government to close it down.

    As long as the fraternity of men who are drawn to this vile imagery exists, there will be more murders of women.

    Anne Baring

    Honorary Member, Association of Jungian Analysts

    Alresford, Hampshire

    1. What are these women offering as an alternative? More hatred?

      Maybe they could be the first to show us how to love one another? I am sick of this constant preoccupation with abuse.

        1. I don’t care whether it’s open or closed. I want to believe that that there is more to human interaction than abuse.

    2. As long as the fraternity of men who are drawn to this vile imagery exists, there will be more murders of women.

      Women; and Men, were murdered long before the invention of Pornography in the Seventeenth Century!

      1. I agree, but the far easier access to it is desensitising many people, especially young men.

    3. I wonder what Marion Buchan actually heard. Was it nasty or just banter twisted out of context by a woke ultra-sensitive mind? I wonder what you’d say if you heard the hen party I listened to a few months ago.

      Yes, we have to hold them to high standards. But they’re not robots. They have to recruit from the population at large, and the people likely to do the often dirty and nasty job of police work will have warts, and some will be evil. But they’d still be evil even if they weren’t in uniform.

      Until crack squads of social justice warriors deal with violent Saturday night drunks, hardened criminals and the mentally ill we’re going to have to make the best of an imperfect world.

      1. It is likely she heard an example of the black humour than many in the emergency services and forces adopt as a means of coming to terms with the horrors that they have to cope with and, not being of that ilk herself, totally misread the comments.

      2. The mentally ill would be far less of a problem if the old hospitals had been kept open.
        Not ideal, but a better option than “Don’t Care in the Community” which merely transfers the financial cost from the NHS to Social Services.
        And that’s excluding the unnecessary suffering inflicted on the patient and their friends and relatives.

    4. My chums and I must be weird. We sit about and in one group it’d be a Beholder’s disintegration ray as being a fair weapon for a one save and you’re out or comp parts and pieces, and how good things were when we had the Pentium 2 and 3 slot package.

  19. ‘Morning again.

    I hope that Nadine Dorries really does get stuck in to the leftie wokeists at the BBC, but I can’t say I’m optimistic that she will finally wield the axe. Whittingdale had several years to do so but simply tinkered around before rolling over.

    * * *

    BBC may not exist in a decade, says Nadine Dorries as she hits out at ‘Left-wing bias’
    Culture Secretary tells Chopper’s Politics podcast corporation has to change, accusing it of failing on impartiality and ‘access’

    By
    Dominic Penna
    and
    Christopher Hope,
    CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT

    4 October 2021 • 6:03pm

    Nadine Dorries has questioned whether the BBC will still exist in 10 years and hit out at the broadcaster over its “impartiality problem”.

    The Culture Secretary said the corporation must do more to represent a wider range of views and reflect a wider demographic than just people “whose mum and dad work there”.

    Ms Dorries is due to conclude negotiations with the BBC over the licence fee, which is £159 a year, shortly. The talks will determine its cost over the next five years, and she suggested she was linking her demands for change at the BBC to the licence fee settlement, due to be announced imminently.

    Appearing at a recording of The Telegraph’s Chopper’s Politics podcast on the fringe of the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester, Ms Dorries was asked whether the licence fee would still be compulsory in 10 or 20 years. She replied: “I can’t look into the future. Will the BBC still be here in 10 years? I don’t know.

    “The BBC has to change. Where they fail is on impartiality – I think the BBC themselves have probably sat down and thought ‘oh yeah, we do have a bit of a problem’. It’s on access as well – how can it become more representative of the people who pay the licence fee?

    “There’s a lot for the BBC to address and we’re having those discussions at the moment, but the BBC has to change. How can it be more representative of the people who pay the licence fee and how can it be more accessible to people from all backgrounds, not just people whose mum and dad work there?

    “Even the BBC have admitted themselves they’ve got an impartiality problem.”

    Describing “an interesting meeting” with Tim Davie, the BBC director-general, and Richard Sharp, the chairman, she said: “The perspective of the BBC is that they will get a settlement fee and then we will talk about how they are going to change. My perspective is ‘tell me how you are going to change and then you get the settlement fee’.”

    The Culture Secretary, appointed in last month’s reshuffle, was also asked whether she would pay the £159 licence fee if it was made voluntary.

    She initially said she “could not remember” the last time she watched something shown on “a major channel”, before clarifying that she watches Strictly Come Dancing on Saturday nights.

    “I’ve got young adults in my household who watch Netflix and Amazon Prime, and the BBC is in a very competitive environment,” she said. “If not for any other reason, the BBC needs to change because the environment it’s operating in has changed. If I could just download Strictly, then yeah [I’d pay]. ”

    Ms Dorries, who is also a bestselling author and was born into a working-class family in Liverpool in the 1950s, claimed the pathway from backgrounds such as hers to the creative industry no longer exists.

    “If you’ve got a regional accent at the BBC, it doesn’t go down particularly well,” she said. “They talk about lots to do with diversity but they don’t talk about kids from working-class backgrounds and that’s got to change. People from my background wrote books, wrote theatre plays, and did really well.

    “There needs to be a pathway, because that pathway has completely disappeared, and to me that is what levelling up is about.”

    She added: “I keep using the word ‘groupthink’ and it is just the way I suppose where people have come up through the BBC, they all come from a similar background, they all think and talk the same and that’s what’s got to be changed.”

    Ms Dorries would not be drawn on whether the Government would press ahead with plans to privatise Channel 4 and said that, while it was “doing well” in its output, discussions about the future of the channel remain ongoing.

    The podcast marked her first public interview since her appointment as Culture Secretary. She described her press nickname “Mad Nad” as “very sexist” and said that, throughout her time as a mental health minister, she had come to realise it was “disparaging and trivialising mental health”.

    Her comments came as Brendan Clarke-Smith, the Conservative MP for Bassetlaw, was cheered after urging the Government to abolish the BBC licence fee at a fringe event.

    He told a Taxpayers’ Alliance panel: “All tax has a regressive element, but one tax I find particularly regressive is £159 a year and it’ not called a tax, it’s called the television licence. I think that would be a good one to get rid of.”

    In 2019, the BBC launched its first social mobility network and has recently committed to trebling its number of apprentices by 2025.

    When approached for comment, the corporation also pointed to its social mobility network, its redacted CV schemes and £112 million towards “diverse and inclusive” content over the next three years.

    * * *

    This pithy BTL comment caught my eye:

    Holly Willis
    4 Oct 2021 6:30PM
    I don’t like politicians who talk about problems I like politicians who do something about it. Just abolish the licence now, you got an 80 seat majority. Those who love the BBC can pay for it.

    Hear, hear!

    1. “one tax I find particularly regressive is £159 a year and it’ not called a tax, it’s called the television licence. I think that would be a good one to get rid of.” – just like they did in NOrway! No licence fee! What’s not to like? Except, they banged in on to income tax, so everybody now pays, not just those with a TV.
      Bad decision. We never watch NRK, it’s too talking-head and dull. But we pay anyway.
      Be careful what you wish for…

    3. I am much further below the X axis that could be considered rational – and much earlier!

  21. 339646+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,

    Tuesday 6 October: This Government’s tax rises offend against Conservative principle

    Gettaway, you don’r say,
    This has been the clear to see case since majors Y fronts were outside of his shirttail after polishing off a curry.

    It has been the party name CONSERVATIVE taken in vain (ino) along with lab/lib also dangerous nine bob note cartels that have brought these
    Isles to its knee.

    MUST vote con keep out lab, must vote lab keep out con REGARDLESS OF CONSEQUENCES is the root cause.

    By the by 127 foreign HGV drivers have applied so far they, according to the fat turks mindset, are more acceptable than the English / GB applicants and the British Army, keeping the “deal” operating.

    1. When both are eddicated to big state, high tax spendaholic waste, when both think the government is the centre of the economy then it makes no difference.

      If they’re both the worst option, then another choice must be made – to spoil the ballot.

  22. Good morning all from Derbyshire.
    A dull & damp 5°C start this morning.

    An excellent BLT comment I noted as I loaded up the page just now:-

    DAVID WHITESIDE
    5 Oct 2021 7:07AM
    @Bryn Riley @Peter Hollander @L T Billings @P Lamb

    My business, staff of 32, claimed no grants and put no staff on furlough. We where in the office every day and throughout travelled from Chesterfield to Newcastle, Derby, Bristol, Bournemouth to support our essential customers ..
    Only one member of the company or their extended families caught Covid..
    ME … Ill for 3 weeks then full recovery … (63, overweight, heart condition).
    We took not a penny, discharged our moral duties to the industries that depended on us ..and as a thank you …
    Have Been Taxed !

    I believe this is the Gentleman’s company:-
    https://www.abhoses.com/
    I remember their lads doing work on hydraulic hoses in the EDU in Derby.

    2. I had a phone appointment (after an hour trying to get through) and they prescribed me the antibiotics I’ve just taken.

      I wish it were always so blasted easy!

  26. Wanted: an assistant online editor for The Spectator. 5 October 2021.

    The Spectator is growing fast. In the last few years, our sales have doubled and are now over 100,000. Most of our readers now turn to our website regularly, some several times a day, for analysis of the day’s events. What started out as a blog has now become a seven-day live digital comment operation and we’re recruiting accordingly. We have come far with a three-person digital team. We’re now looking for a fourth, full-time assistant online editor (to work with us here in 22 Old Queen Street) and also experienced journalists who may be available for shift work, either in the office or remotely.

    This is the job for me! I can even read and write! Though my predilection for Free Speech might be a handicap on the threads!

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/wanted-an-assistant-online-editor-for-the-spectator

    2. Used to subscribe under the impression it was a Conservative magazine. But apart from the token article here and there by Douglas Murray and the like it is just another liberal socialist rag. In that sense I suppose it reflects the contemporary Conservative party.

      The Australian magazine is better, much more conservative, but not a help in terms of British politics although it does have articles about the UK.

      1. Agreed. I have read The Spectator since 1954. It is now, in some ways, worse than the – now dreadful – New Statesman.

        The only periodical I have found reasonably OK is “The Critic“.

        1. Haven’t read ‘The Critic’ so I will go and have a look. Thanks for pointing it out Bill.

          1. Very sound – most of it. The resto reviews are a bit OTT – why pay less than £200 for lunch? sort of thing.

      2. Agreed. I have read The Spectator since 1954. It is now, in some ways, worse than the – now dreadful – New Statesman.

        The only periodical I have found reasonably OK is “The Critic“.

  27. ‘Morning again.

    All the while Johnson is spouting the greenie gospel of garbage we are done for. Who will stop him? Not Tory MPs, it would seem. At this rate it will be Tory voters, and then we really will be in the mire:

    Green issues will be the end of this Government

    Boris is not merely winning the approval of the UK Green movement, he is becoming the embodiment of the UK Green movement

    PATRICK O’FLYNN
    4 October 2021 • 4:31pm

    Throughout his political career, Boris Johnson has faced attacks from opponents on grounds of being an opportunist – someone ready to hitch a ride on any passing bandwagon if he thought it would help him get to Downing Street.

    He is, for example, often accused of exploiting Brexit in such a manner after having prepared two columns for this newspaper – one in favour and one against – as an intellectual exercise to help him clarify his mind.

    But in relation to environmental policy and the fantastically expensive race to achieve “net zero” carbon emissions, I am afraid things are very much worse than that. Johnson has become a true believer, ready to follow the cause with the zeal of a convert.

    One of his big set piece announcements during this Tory conference week is reportedly going to be an improbable-sounding promise that all of Britain’s electricity will come from renewable sources by 2035 – just 14 years from now. The lot. Every last gigawatt.

    So radical-sounding is this policy that not only will it disable Labour from being able to accuse him of being unprepared to go fast enough to tackle the “climate emergency” (copyright all broadcasters), but it even pretty much disables the Green Party from pursuing the same charge.

    It is telling that one person cheering on the Prime Minister, quoted in today’s Times, is Joss Garman, the UK director of something called the European Climate Foundation, who said: “This will go a very long way to putting Britain on track to net zero.”

    Note that this is the very same Joss Garman who not long ago was a campaign leader for Greenpeace UK and also an official adviser to Lisa Nandy when she was shadow secretary of state for energy and climate change.

    There is now a case for saying that Boris Johnson is not merely winning the approval of the UK Green movement, but that he is becoming the embodiment of the UK Green movement. Our very own Greta Thunberg, minus the scowls.

    Reading between the lines of outline reports of his impending new energy policy yields one note of reassurance – that the Prime Minister has decided to define nuclear as a source of green, or “clean”, energy.

    So not only will he aim to increase offshore wind output from 10GW of electricity a year to 40GW by the end of the decade and to 60GW soon after, but he has also decided “to get back into nuclear…to increase our clean energy generation”.

    Thus, when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine, the splitting of atoms will keep the lights on instead of the burning of gas, oil and coal doing that job. It has been obvious to most sensible people for some time that an expanded nuclear capacity was necessary. But it is doubtful that the darkest Greens will ever be quite won round to the fuel source involved in the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters.

    A much bigger danger for Johnson and the Tories is how the British public as a whole will react once someone puts a price tag on this new double-quick abandonment of fossil fuels.

    In case the PM has forgotten, it was only on Friday that the energy price cap was relaxed, enabling suppliers to jack up domestic power bills by 12 per cent, or around £140 per year. Further relaxations are, as they say, in the pipeline and will have a similar depressing impact on living standards.

    Mr Johnson appears to think that dangling the prospect of being liberated from dependency on gas, coal and oil, will cheer people suffering right now from price spikes in fossil fuels, billing renewables as a way to “bring the cost of energy down and bring down the cost of transport”.

    But will that really wash? Isn’t there a danger that someone soon will remind families just how much the huge expenditure on green energy is costing them in terms of extra levies and charges on their power bills right now?

    After all, when we last saw acute public concern about domestic energy bills, back in 2013, David Cameron reacted in a very different way. As a leader who had come to power under the slogan “Vote Blue Go Green”, Cameron nonetheless immediately sensed danger in being seen as someone who prioritised being an eco-visionary over the more mundane reality of how much it was costing people to put the kettle on. So he reportedly stomped around Downing Street telling officials to “get rid of all this green crap” from domestic bills.

    It is notable that the Chancellor Rishi Sunak is far more cautious than is Mr Johnson in talking up the net zero policy. Back in the summer when interviewed by Andrew Neil on GB News he even drew short of explicitly endorsing a mass switchover of households from gas boilers to heat pumps. And he also stressed the importance of keeping a check on the overall cost of net zero, something he said the Treasury had in hand.

    The weather is getting more chilly, the nights are drawing in and even this Prime Minister’s warmest words are going to be no substitute for affordable central heating if we have a harsh winter. Somewhere in the chasm between the rampant opportunism of the past and the naïve idealism of right now lies a happy medium waiting to be located.

    * * *

    A couple of BTL comments, one of which is from our very own Annie (I hope she won’t mind my quoting her.)

    Alan Haile
    5 Oct 2021 7:54AM
    The ‘green crap’ has to stop. Net zero is really really stupid and unaffordable. People don’t really care about all this ridiculous ‘climate crisis’ nonsense but the MSM and politicians have all bought into it. STOP IT!!!!

    A Allan
    5 Oct 2021 7:52AM
    Having just readjusted the damp washing draped round the kitchen so that we don’t use the tumble drier, to say I have blood before my eyes is an understatement.

    My inner Mme Defarge is stirring into life.

    2. Net zero means the wealth we will have once it’s all gone green.

      This came up yesterday with some new construction our client is building. The greeniacs complained about our carbon footprint but then were asked ‘how did you think the new building would be built?

      Nuclear is no more green than coal or gas. If this madness continues we will have a cold, poorer – because there won’t be fuel for a week – life. Net zero. The amount of money left to you after the state robs you.

    3. I would like to remind Mr O’Flynn that the “Fukushima disaster” was actually caused by the malfunctioning of diesel powered cooling pumps.

      1. You are right, Janet. The pumps were overrun by seawater, and once they failed it was inevitable that the reactors would go bang.

          1. Unfortunately many of them are, for access to unlimited seawater for cooling. The majority of the nuclear stations in this country are on the coast for this reason.

          2. Also, you limit the complaints by neighbours. Nobody wants a nuclear station next door – big, 20+ years build time, and the world is shut-scared of even the word “nuclear”, let alone any real fission.

          4. “Only an idiot would situate a nuclear power station by the sea…”

            …in an earthquake zone.

    1. There is a home truth among anyone involved with training or living with people and dogs that for every piece of criticism there should be six pieces of praise. Only then is one not so discouraged and prone to giving up entirely.

      1. 339646+ up ticks,
        Morning JM,

        Maybe that old adage as with many issues of late needs seriously checking out.

      2. Entirely true! Mongo doesn’t know his wagging tail is knocking the teacup over so telling him off when from his view he’s just pleased to see you is silly.

        1. Your fault of course for putting the teacup where his wagging tail can knock it over! Anticipation is everything.

          1. There’s nowhere his tail can’t reach! It’s nearly 2 foot long and can comfortably bruise with it’s enthusiasm!

  29. I note with some admiration the way Fishi Rishi announced yesterday his massive tax raising – without the slightest hint that it was HE who has caused the bottomless pit of debt in the first place.

    He put it across that he was the great saviour dealing with the piles of ordure caused by SOMEONE ELSE.

    Astonishing.

    1. He didn’t cause the debt. Brown did. He added to it.

      Although every time i hear ‘we must raise taxes to recover the economy’ I want to scream and smack him about the face.

      Tax hikes will NOT help the economy at all, it will force it backward.

        1. Yes, but without the 12 trillion of off book debt Brown racked up we might have been able to soak it.

          From some few billions of debt to well over 12 trillion in 10 years was – and is – the biggest hinderance to our economy.

  30. Latest exchange on the dentist saga:

    On 4 Oct 2021, at 13:10, COMPLAINTS-WESTMIDLANDS, England (NHS ENGLAND & NHS IMPROVEMENT – X24) wrote:
    Dear Mr Morfey,

    Thank you for your email. I hope you are keeping well.

    The correspondence your MP sent us suggests your dental complaint is regarding the treatment you received in 1995 from County Hospital, and whether this was appropriate treatment – is this correct?

    Do you have an issue with your current dentist? If so, please can you provide the name of the dentist and what your issue is?

    With your concerns relating to 2018 and Trimipramine, is it that you are wanting to know why the GP stopped prescribing this?

    If you could please provide the additional information by 6 October it would be appreciated. I look forward to hearing from you.

    Kind regards,

    Sharlene

    Sharlene Derench
    Senior Complaints Officer
    NHS England Complaints Team – Midlands

    ————–

    Dear Sharlene Derench

    My complaint is not about the treatment I received in 1995 from County Hospital. I was satisfied then that this was the correct treatment, and vindicated by the bridge they fitted lasting 25 years and even being re-used by an attempt by my current dentist to modify it to create a modified cantilever bridge, which failed. My only criticism of the 1995 bridge was minor and cosmetic, which is not the NHS’s primary concern and never has been.

    My concerns are therefore about instruction that may have been given by your department to my current dentist (but not disclosed to me directly) that may have altered the correct prognosis arrived at in 1995. I am seeking a second opinion privately.

    Negotiations with my current dentist are ongoing. In the absence of any acceptable NHS alternative available to me, I must stay with him for as long as my teeth are in such a parlous state. His latest advice is to fit an immediate denture, and he assured me that this is a permanent solution, and must pay the Band 3 charge again if it fails or doesn’t fit well. I know that immediate dentures are not intended to be permanent, and suspect I am being deceived here. i shall divulge his name, qualifications and practice as soon as I have my temporary fitting, since I cannot support any more risk of my butchered old bridge rattling around if he gets the hump. I will contact you again then. I have emailed him implying that I believe that he is being instructed by the Dept. of Health to lie to his patients, putting cost-saving at a higher priority than clinical competence.

    I know why my GP stopped prescribing Trimipramine. Since it went generic in 2013, the cost of a 28-tablet course according to the NHS Drugs Tariff was raised from about £8 to £200, and understandably local surgeries could no longer support this cost. The same drug is available on prescription over the counter in Germany for about 17 euros for 100 tablets, and a German online supplier now offers it for 5 euros for 100 tablets.

    I was advised by my GP that Trimipramine was withdrawn over concerns over its safety. This was a lie. I have been successfully treated by this drug for twenty years, and all medical advice I have received in this time until 2018 was to keep taking it, since it was keeping my condition in remission with negligible side effects. Looking it up online, Trimipramine is generally regarded as one of the safest antidepressants on the market, and much less hazardous than some of the SSRIs, one of which killed a friend of mine in 2004, when she went psychotic and then committed suicide. The main clinical reservation about Trimipramine is that it does not induce the deep sleep of the other antidepressants, and the REM activity is a comparative light level of sleep. Therefore, it may well not be right for many patients with clinical depression, but it works well for me.

    I condemn the Department of Health and frankly have lost confidence in it, as a symptom of a general institutional breakdown that many people around me find very distressing. My complaint is primarily aimed at the Department, and I will not accept individual medics being scapegoated, nor do I seek a clarification of the present state of things.

    With best regards
    Jeremy Morfey

    copy to Harriett Baldwin, MP for information

    1. For 14 years I acted as an “ombudsman” for a government agency.

      Thoroughout that time, one of the glaring problems that I pointed out to successive CEOs was that staff simply did NOT read letters properly.

      So they responded in a useless way to something which had not been raised – causing the complainant to write again – and again.

      By the third letter, they were regarded as “nutters”.

      And should the complainant write more than a single side – the reverse was almost always completely ignored.

      It got a little better because I banged on about it. Judging by my current experience with the HMRC, nothing has changed at all.

      1. I found similar when I logged a complaint with a company about their wireless access points.

        They clearly hadn’t read the problem, and gave a stock answer – which was useless.

        I suggested they actually read the question and they gave another stock answer.

        It was exhausting and infurating. Comically you complain and they still don’t read the question. They read the reply to confirm it has met their response script.

        1. Indeed. The agency had “stock” paragraphs that staff would cut and paste into their rambling and ineffective “replies”.

          1. When Gus O’Donnell was in charge we were fed “lines to take” when dealing with awkward customer queries. I expect they still are.

          2. One to both yourself Richard and Bill – isn’t this the heart of modern frustrations? When I am asked a Q, I like to talk to the person asking it – as quickly as I can. Even – especially – if I consider it a silly Q as it may show I’ve missed something.

            I don’t think banks give a damn. They make money from the millions of clients and share dealing on the side (Brown’s worst failure). When you’re the one doing the work and providing the service you want to care.

          4. One of things I used to do in seminars in order to get people to open up was to state, “There is no such thing as a silly question – only silly answers.”

        2. We have recently had trouble with our UK banks and the greatest problems are often caused by the fact that they never answer the questions we ask.

          We communicate with many of our clients almost exclusively by e-mail and when we write replies we check and double check to ensure that we have answered each point fully and clearly. We also give our telephone numbers and say we shall be happy to discuss anything they wish to discuss about our courses.

          If we behaved like banks and civil servants our business would have failed. But we want the business – they don’t.

      2. “Misreading” the complaint, and answering a different issue, is quite deliberate. It means that they can disregard the complaint, as it isn’t a complaint after all, and then write you a letter saying that there was no error after all.

  31. 339646+ up ticks,

    Organised, orchestrated chaos, nobody but nobody could be this inept without it being planned.

    Finding great success is the tory (ino) cartels Sealion Mk2 openly taking place via DOVER assisted led,fed & unleashed by United Kingdom governance.employees.

    With crisis after crisis, is anybody actually in charge here?
    Mutiny on the trains, fights at the petrol pumps… Boris is losing his grip as the Disunited Kingdom unravels at an alarming rate

    1. What’s the phrase? We’re only three meals away from anarchy?

      Well, when the lights go out and people can’t get around….

  32. I e-mailed the CEO of my bank on Friday about the shocking failure to do something very simple. His “office” replied yesterday morning:

    Thank you for your email addressed to our Chief Executive.

    Please be assured your email is important to us and we will arrange for a Senior Complaints Manager, in our Executive Communications Team to contact you at their earliest opportunity.

    So important, that I have heard nothing! Funny old world, eh?

    2. I remember, and this was a good 50+ years ago, being overdrawn at Lloyds. I received a letter from the bank apologising for bothering me but would I please attend to the overdraft. Can you imagine receiving such a letter today? And Good Morning Bill!

        1. Yes, At my next pay day with an apology from me. This was still a civilized country in those days. A murder anywhere in the country was front page banner headlines, they were so rare.

  33. I note that a former female chief cunstable has been sounding off about how ghastly the police are.

    Sue Fish. Worth checking her own checkered past. Always was far too gobby. Shovel of salt needed when reading her drivel.

    1. Yet… what did she do to change things?

      Let me guess. She’ll list a lot of diversity and Left wing agenda. Does she not realise that this is where the problems stem from?

      1. No – she was too absorbed with the two occasions a more senior policeman (I assume, man) touched her arse.

  34. I knew the Telegraph had gone down the pan but really!

    TUESDAY 6 OCTOBER: THIS GOVERNMENT’S TAX RISES OFFEND AGAINST CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLE

  35. Priti Patel: Middle-class drug users will be named and shamed
    In an interview with The Telegraph, the Home Secretary says police will be told to drug test every arrested person to cut violent crime
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/10/05/priti-patel-middle-class-drug-users-will-named-shamed/

    BTL

    Maybe she should start with getting every MP in the H o C to declare whether or not he or she had used drugs in his or her youth or young adulthood and to state the drugs involved and when he or she ceased the practice. This would certainly provide interesting reading if everyone told the truth.

    Of course there would be a tumultuous outcry about the outrage to their privacy and human rights but surely it is time all the MPs suffered themselves the violations of freedom that they are happy to impose upon others.

    They might not, to borrow from Corporal Jones, “like it up ’em” but it is high time they had it up ’em!

    3. How will they separate middle class drug users from the rest? By their job? Their home address? The type of business they run or the schools their children attend? Do they buy theatre rather than cinema tickets?
      Will working class and upper crust drug users be given a mere slap on the wrist?

    4. Perhaps what’s needed is “stop and birch”, for thugs carrying knives and people high on illegal drugs.

    5. They should be subject to random drugs tests like jockeys. Nobody knows who is going to be called in.

    1. How can a member of the MSM be so blatantly a liar and get away with it? Does she think people don’t have ears? Isn’t this what is called “gaslighting”?

    1. For those who don’t know. Rand Paul is a physician as well as being a Senator. He is the son of Ron Paul, also a physician and politician. The point being that Rand Paul knows what he is talking about and Becerra is nothing more than a propagandizing parrot.

      1. #Me too. I was anticipating something like watching that repaired seal being snatched from its harness by a Great White.

  44. Good Moaning.
    The best laid plans of tumble drier dodgers gang oft agley.
    Bloody sunny when it was supposed to persisting down; tomorrow – when it was supposed to be dry …….. aarrrgghhhhh ……..

    1. Ran wash yesterday with a view to tumble dry this morning but out came the Sun and a nice breeze. Washing on line and Korky looking at the rain radar, just in case.

    5. Al Gore made that claim in his 2006 film “An Inconvenient Truth”. He stated that if we don’t do x, y and z now, within 10 years (always the same timeframe) London will be permanently freezing cold and submerged under water. Well, that’s 15 years ago and we didn’t do x, y and z and lo and behold, it hasn’t happened.

      There are claims floating about the internet that the Thames Barrier has been raised between 100 and 200 times to prevent flooding but the governemnt website appears to show that it’s actually just raised monthly in routine testing exercises. If the truth is somewhere inbetween then, well, it works.

    7. I don’t think flooding by the Thames would be the only thing to make the city uninhabitable.

      1. Aha! “Bernie’s Tweets”. I hadn’t made the connection but yes, I see now that it’s the same person.

    2. There will still be people who will claim it’s austerity that is the problem and that the world can carry on printing money.

      I fear that they are about to discover just how wrong they are.

    2. Excellent work BA! I believe it resulted in family members actually talking to each other! When’s your next shift?

  48. Bloomberg reporting that France is preparing not to supply the UK with Energy if it continues to restrict the number of French fishing boats in English waters. We have expected this but has our government? Another U-turn in the offing?

      1. Of course the French call them capotes anglaises

        And should we put a cap on the Dutch?

        I cannot conceive why they always ascribe such things to other nations!

          1. Yes, it’s in the Armagnac region. I was given great hospitality there in ’71.

          2. It’s a delightful small town.

            They cater for the Brits so well that there is a desk and chairs in the Post Office so that you can write your postcards.

        4. A man and his wife were on holiday in France, unfortunately his wife died there and he decided as she liked France so much he’d have her buried there. He arranged the funeral and he had his dark suit with him but he wanted a black hat. He went to this shop and asked for a black hat (un chapeau noir) but his French wasn’t that good and he asked for a ‘capote noir’. The somewhat surprised shopkeeper asked him why he wanted a ‘capote noir’. The guy replied “Ma femme est morte”. Shopkeeper replied “Ah les Anglaise – quel finesse”
          Sorry about the French

          1. I made the mistake, years ago, of telling that joke to a female French Warrant Officer – stony silence and then she remarked that actually “quelle delicatesse” would have been better and probably more likely! No sense of humour some people.

    3. It should be treated for what it is. An act of aggression against a sovereign power.

    2. That’s because you are not feeling well.

      How is your wife , I hope you have managed to see her now, or perhaps she is back with you now?

    3. That’s because you are not feeling well.

      How is your wife , I hope you have managed to see her now, or perhaps she is back with you now?

  51. https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/10/04/environmentalism-is-class-war-by-other-means/

    Modern politics starts to make a lot more sense when you realise that a
    lot of the mad movements that have sprung up of late are just waging a
    class war by other means. The woke middle classes demonise working-class
    people as unreconstructed bigots, Remoaners rail against the
    ‘uneducated’ throng, and bourgeois environmentalists block roads in an
    attempt to make the lives of the drivers they’re blocking tougher and
    more expensive.

    1. Add the current race and religious wars into that mix and we are drowning in a toxic soup.

  52. 339646+ up ticks,
    Check out jo-ane nadler who said regarding the teachers name being disclose by an islamic charity that even at the Batley & Spen by-election
    NO one was willing to talk about it all panel in agreement.

    Ann Marie Waters was quite willing to discuss the problem & the issue behind it, she approached GB news in regards to being interviewed, no response.

    GB news should give platform to peoples WHO DO want to talk about it.

    https://youtu.be/CvsSDV2HrXw

    1. This man’s life has been destroyed and all he gets is some anodyne drivel that would make a statue weep!

      2. It is very difficult to do so but can anyone imagine the outcry if a Muslim teacher had been threatened in the same way by a group of fanatical Christians?

    2. I agree – GB News has not got as much testicular dynamism as it should have.

      Am I alone in finding the hyperbole and grovelling sycophancy of Dan Wootton with his brilliant guests on his superstar panel is just too over the top?

      1. My local petrol station (West Sussex) ran out of fuel this weekend. It is now open again. So far they have been really on top of things.

  54. ‘Morning All

    One for Nanners

    A married man was having an affair

    with his secretary.

    One day they went to her place

    and made love all afternoon.

    Exhausted, they fell asleep

    and woke up at 8 PM.

    The man hurriedly dressed

    and told his lover to take his shoes

    outside and rub them in the grass and dirt.

    He put on his shoes and drove home.

    ‘Where have you been?’ his wife demanded.

    ‘I can’t lie to you,’ he replied,

    ‘I’m having an affair with my secretary.

    We had sex all afternoon.’

    She looked down at his shoes and said:

    ‘You lying bastard!

    You’ve been playing golf!

  56. The US must avoid war with China over Taiwan at all costs. 5 October 2021

    As I have previously detailed, there is no rational scenario in which the United States could end up in a better, more secure place after a war with China. The best that could be hoped for would be a pyrrhic victory in which we are saddled with becoming the permanent defense force for Taiwan (costing us hundreds of billions a year and the equally permanent requirement to be ready for the inevitable Chinese counter-attack).

    The most likely outcome would be a conventional defeat of our forces in which China ultimately succeeds, despite our intervention – at the cost of large numbers of our jets being shot down, ships being sunk, and thousands of our service personnel killed. But the worst case is a conventional war spirals out of control and escalates into a nuclear exchange.

    It would take Beijing decades to overcome the losses incurred from a war to take Taiwan, even if Beijing triumphs. The United States and our western allies, on the other hand, would remain at full military power, dominate the international business markets, and have the moral high ground to keep China hemmed in like nothing that presently exists. Xi would be seen as an unquestioned aggressor, even by other Asian regimes, and the fallout against China could knock them back decades. Our security would be vastly improved from what it is today – and incalculably higher than if we foolishly tried to fight a war with China.

    Much common sense here so I guess this is out! More likely is an all-out conventional war that costs the lives of millions and destroys the World Economy!

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/05/the-us-must-avoid-war-with-china-over-taiwan-at-all-costs

    1. Hi Minty. I struggled with your post, as the first couple of paragraphs of the article seemed to contradict the third. It was only when I read the full article that I realised you had omitted the main point of his argument:-

      ‘That leaves as the best option something most Americans find unsatisfying: refuse to engage in direct combat against China on behalf of Taiwan. Doing so will allow the United States to emerge on the other side of a China/Taiwan war with our global military and economic power intact.

      That’s not to suggest we stand passively aside and let China run over Taiwan with impunity. The most effective course of action for Washington would be to condemn China in the strongest possible terms, lead a global movement that will enact crippling sanctions against Beijing, and make them an international pariah. China’s pain wouldn’t be limited to economics, however.

      Publicly, Washington should continue to embrace strategic ambiguity but privately convey to Taiwanese leaders that we will not fight a war with China. That would greatly incentivize Taipei to make whatever political moves and engage in any negotiation necessary to ensure the perpetuation of the status quo. The blunt, hard reality is that a Taiwan maintaining the status quo is far better than a smouldering wreck of an island conquered by Beijing.’

      And much as I think that China should be confronted in any attempt to invade Taiwan, I suspect he is correct.

  58. Finally got some petrol at a local Shell garage, they were only selling E5 for some reason.

  59. Natural gas prices in Europe broke another record on Tuesday, reaching almost $1,250 per 1,000 cubic meters, according to data from the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE).
    The price of November futures on the Dutch TTF exchange was trading at $1,247.4 per 1,000 cubic meters (or €104 per MWh).

    Gas prices fell sharply earlier on Monday on news that the Danish Energy Agency approved the start of testing of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline’s first string. In less than an hour, the prices for November futures were down by almost $70 to $1,124 per thousand cubic meters.

    Some view Russia’s Nord Stream 2 as a means to stabilize the situation on the European energy market, with the pipeline capable of delivering the extra gas the continent needs. In September, the final section of pipe, numbered 200,858, had been lowered into the Baltic Sea and welded into place. The last stage of construction was carried out in Danish waters, through which the network runs.
    On Monday, Danish officials said all the necessary steps had been taken to certify the pipeline and now, as far as they were concerned, it was ready to begin operating. Gazprom also announced that the first segment of the now-completed Nord Stream 2 underwater pipeline is being filled with gas in advance of final authorization from German regulators to turn on the taps.

    Russian officials have said they hope this will be received within the coming days, and there will be no bureaucratic delays.

    I expect bureaucratic delays as the German infighting over a new Government continues.

    1. The hypocrisy of the importing of energy from overseas to proclaim our great and grand ‘green’ farce is facile.

        1. …and 300 years of coal directly under that wood-pellet fired power station. Weird isn’t the word – I’d say bloody dilatory incompetence.

    3. As always follow the money.

      Some sponsor must have threatened to pull out if the restrictions continued.

  61. A blonde, a redhead, and a brunette were all lost in the desert and found a lamp and rubbed it.

    A genie popped out and granted them each one wish.

    The redhead wished to be back home. Poof! She was back home.

    The brunette wished to be at home with her family. Poof! She was back home with her family.

    The blonde said, “Awwww, I wish my friends were here.”

    1. It’s interesting, as clever accountant today asked us if they’d be affected like that.

      I said probably, as each device is a single point of failure – BUT there ae many things you can do about it. At a core level I had him unplugging cables around his offices to see if anyone noticed. Only until 5 of the 8 interconnects were out did someone ask where the internet had gone.

      Won some brownie points there. I think I won more from being hoarse and a bit rubbish.

  63. Priti Patel’s speech had a lukewarm reception at the Conference at lunchtime. She boasted about matters she hasn’t achieved yet She had a remarkably white face as she stood at the podium in a long white dress. The applause was lacklustre

    2. I can’t see that any of them will be well applauded. Especially BoJo. After all, what do they have to show after 2 years that’s good? Sod all. And nothing to look forward to except tax rises and shortages.

    3. Is there any way of accessing the text of these speeches, do you know, please? I’m interested in what Douglas Ross had to say.

    1. Long one in The Times, too.

      I bet there was no mention of his ” excoriating verdict on the conduct of Blair and his government before the 2003 invasion and their failure to plan for its aftermath” in the Telly Docu about Bliar and Broon yesterday.

    3. I remember the telephone directory sized document he produced. I wonder if a single scrap of it was ever implemented.

      Heh –

      “…Anderton then gave a magazine interview saying criminals should be “flogged until they beg for mercy”. This was the final straw for his police authority, but Chilcot intervened and Anderton survived. …”

      How do we make this man justice secretary?

        1. Sadly I suspect true. The purpose of government inquiry is to put the state in the clear, not to change.

  65. 339646+ up ticks.

    In all honesty very well founded, these serious consequences in demonising them does NOT come even close to many of their treacherous, dangerous actions, the consequences of which we are suffering daily.

    Dt,
    Anti-Tory hysteria is getting out of hand
    There are serious consequences to demonising Conservative politicians. It has to stop before tragedy strikes

  69. Priti Patel announces inquiry into how ‘monster’ Wayne Couzens was able to work as police officer

    There should also be an Inquiry into why Cressida Dick can still work: be employed as the Police person in Chrarge(sarc) of the Met

    Not just being Gold Commander, when Mr Menendes was shot, she has allowed ‘certain’ interest groups,

    XR, Insulte Britain, Gay Pride, BLM etc to roam and marrch through London, ignoring Covid and Common Laws as they did/do so.

    If Couzens loses some of his pension, so should Dick. The Buck (or Pussy) stops with her

      1. No doubt the government will require one to carry one at all times as well as a mask and Covid vax pass.

    3. Well that’s not at all creepy is it.
      Is ithe breathalyser more reliable than the Drosten PCR Test?
      What will happen to people who breathalyse positive, will they be hauled off to concentration camps for safety?

      2. The unit will fire an expanding bullet into the head of the person who tests positive.

  72. Ms Sturgeon is to urge the Prime Minister to restart the night time bombing of German cities. She has said that we must ensure that the Germans are not in a position to attack us again.
    The First Minister went on to say that this request follows the same logic as the policy for masks to be worn by all pupils in all classrooms as is now compulsory throughout Scotland.
    “The risk, if they do relax the rules on things like masks in class, is that they could have to row back on them again if cases rise in winter.”.
    Clearly the same applies to Germany. If we relax on the Germans they may bounce back. – the danger is not yet over.

    (Some of this was made up by me, some is factual. Can you tell which is which?)

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-58801210

    1. The bit about night time bombing?

      She would have demanded day time bombing because that would ensure more Englishmen died.

        1. Indeed so.

          And I suspect that NS would happily have them all killed to further her agenda.

    1. It would seem to be coming out that the vaccination can make your own immune system lazy.
      Rather – thinking back to my nursing days – like those who constantly took laxatives developed digestive systems that could no longer function without them.

      2. From what I have read – and I may be wrong about this, in my interpretation – the ‘vaccine’ switches off your own immune system and replaces it with the vaccine’s inferior synthetic system. It switches off your immune system immediately, and then you have very low immunity it seems for the next 14 days or so before the synthetic version switches on. This explains why people come down with illness very shortly after being jabbed. I do not know if the natural immune system recovers over time, or whether the jabbed will be left reliant on further jabs. Several years ago I read a paragraph in the DT about the pharmaceuticals looking for ways to keep the population ‘hooked’ on their product(s) for a lifetime. Typical mind-set of drug pushers, and the legal avenues are no different. Do not think for one moment that they have our best interests at heart. The ‘vaccine’ is designed to enter all our cells and to cross the blood-brain barrier.

        1. OH had a phone call this morning to book his booster jab. He turned it down and mine as well.

          1. I’m certainly not having a booster. If the bloody 2 jabs don’t work as promised, what good will a third make? MOH hasn’t had any jabs at all, takes a small dose of Ivermectin daily.

          2. Can you get it in tablet form? We’ve used it as a medication for hedgehogs but I don’t think I want to use that. I’ve also laid in another supply of VitD3 to take during the winter.

        2. Usually a vaccine – the flu vaccine, for example – is just an inert, dormant virus.

          You get it, your body goes ‘Right ladss, there’s one of them foreign johnnies! Let’s go to work!’

          Cue lots of Dad’s army nonsense and it all going a bit wrong before it finally gets organised.

          Then you get flu, and those now nice organised ranks of antibodies pour out, get their kit in nice orderly fashion and go fight off the virus.

          1. That’s how I understood vaccines to work (Jenner and cowpox to fight smallpox springs to mind).

          2. Unfortunately the mrna vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna, AZ, J&J) are nothing like our traditional vaccines. There is no inert, dormant virus there except for AZ which contains a gm chimpanzee adenovirus. It is also mrna although they have tried to keep that pretty quiet and subvert questioning by saying “it is more like our traditional vaccines” simply because it contains the gm adenovirus. The population of this country has been offered up to the pharmaceuticals as lab rats for the third long-term phase of testing, pharma does not even have to pay for the keep of their ‘rats’. Moderna have never before brought a vaccine to the market. Previous attempts were abandoned at the 3rd stage of testing. Pfizer is corrupt as can be, it has had to pay out 9 billion dollars in criminal damage in the US. J&J has been found mixing asbestos with talc. AZ has also been taken to court in the past for criminal damage. It does not inspire one with confidence, and I wonder at myself for taking so much on trust in earlier years.

            I love your description, though. That is exactly how I see it, and how I wish it was with the co-vax.

      3. My father fell into that trap. He insisted on taking Alka Salza after every meal, although he didn’t need it. Ended up having an endoscopy – he sure enjoyed that.

        1. My mother had an endoscopy – it discovered she had a hiatus hernia, which she had probably had for many years. They would look no further until she was at death’s door and a pm showed she had cancer of the pancreas.

  74. This report of an outbreak of Covid in an Israeli hospital in July indicates to me that neither PPE use nor vaccination provides adequate protection against the virus, in vulnerable patients with comorbidities.
    96.2% of patients and staff involved had been vaccinated. The two who were unvaccinated (including one patient in their 80s) had mild disease and recovered. five of the most severely ill patients died.
    https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2021.26.39.2100822

    2. “If we’re going to pretty much take away people’s freedom, you’ve
      got to have a really good reason to do it and I don’t think we have that
      reason at this point.”

      2. “…..at this point.”

        He’s waiting for the Marburg virus to ‘show’ itself here.
        Gates earlier this year: “Well the next one will certainly make them sit up!”
        The symptoms of Marburg correlate strongly with those of
        the covid vaccine injured. They are, amongst others, haemorrhagic in nature.
        Last week I heard that the nhs had ordered two billion poundsworth of anticoagulants.
        It reminded me of the events up to, and surrounding, the use of Midazolam.

          4. Thank you – I have just registered. I hope it’s not a data-gathering site for sinister purposes! Still, one has to be brave and pop one’s head above the parapet sometimes.

          5. Oh well, I suppose we shall be named as domestic terrorists soon! I have to laugh, otherwise it’s too awful. At this point, small, public acts of resistance are most important I think, so that people know that not everyone’s going along with it. I’m actually heartened by how many footballers are apparently unjabbed! I suppose they will be given the third degree now to get them to comply.

          6. Or, it will be announced on their behalf that they have had it. They will be threatened if they open their mouths (no use bribing them!).

        2. Have you heard about this one , pm

          It is easy to see why it could be thrilling fiction for our times: it has a mysterious and fatal virus, an epidemiologist hero, a desperate search for a vaccine and murky political skullduggery. It also features a green monkey.

          But whether it is the moment for Stanley Johnson, the father of Boris Johnson, to be pushing his 40-year-old novel for a new release is another question.

          Nonetheless, British publishers have been invited to consider reissuing Johnson senior’s 1982 thriller The Marburg Virus, the Guardian has learned. His agent is so convinced of his ability to effectively publicise a reissue that his pitch describes him as “a tireless self-promoter”.

          Long out of print, the book is based on a real disease outbreak in Germany in the late 1960s.

          Johnson denied being opportunistic in wanting his novel to be made available again. “I’m a professional writer,” he said. “Is it opportunistic for journalists and newspapers to be writing about the coronavirus?”

          He pointed to his previous thrillers which have also tackled contemporary issues, including his latest book Kompromat, which tells a story of devious Russian influence on western politics.

          Johnson said his novel had a prescience, in that the plot was driven by the desperate need to find a vaccine. “I don’t think the novel is far fetched because look at what is happening now,” he said.

          The novel is a pacy environmental and medical adventure story involving illegal animal traders, corrupt pharmaceutical company bosses, the KGB and a US president desperate to come out on top.

          In Johnson’s story, the equivalent of Wuhan is New York, the virus breaks out at the Bronx zoo. Soon the rest of the world bans planes travelling from the US. The main characters are involved in a desperate attempt to track down a rare breed of green monkey, which was the source of the virus.

          Some subplots are more improbable than others. One involves the Brazilian head of the World Health Organization and his deputy, a sinister, monocle-wearing Russian with an upper-class English accent, travelling to the Congo to personally oversee the destruction of monkeys responsible for the virus … or so they thought.

          Johnson said there were lessons to be learned from his story because he thought more effort should be being made today to tracking down the source of the current pandemic.

          “Instead of focusing on the Wuhan ‘wet’ market, I think people should be looking for some release of the virus via an animal being used in the secretive Wuhan research laboratory,” he said, in remarks echoing Donald Trump’s so far unsubstantiated claim to have seen evidence that the virus originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

          “Then of course the race will begin to find where the animal or batch of animals came from so that a world-saving vaccine can be developed in record time.”

          The pitch to UK publishers by Johnson’s literary agent, Jonathan Lloyd of Curtis Brown, urges publishers to purchase what he describes as “an unnervingly prophetic, intelligent thriller”.

          It continues: “When a young woman in New York City dies mysteriously after a trip to Europe, top epidemiologist Lowell Kaplan identifies the cause of death as the Marburg virus – a fatal strain that has surfaced only once before in history.

          “Determined to trace the source of the disease, Kaplan follows a trail of intrigue from the labs of Germany to the jungles of central Africa.”

          Lloyd is “looking for a publisher who can capitalise on the wonderful opportunity Stanley’s profile presents and make this urgent, exhilarating novel quickly available to his wide audience, at a time when it feels eerily prescient”, he writes.

          The pitch describes Johnson as “an excellent, tireless self-promoter” and it hopes publishers “can agree that this is an exciting opportunity to have this book back in print again (firstly as an e book)”.

          The book was published in the US in 2015 with the title The Virus but it remains to be seen whether UK publishers will bite.

          Johnson said Amazon was charging £57 for the paperback edition. “All the more reason to produce a new version now,” he said. “I do hope it happens … I had such fun writing it.”

          1. Yes, I had read about that on Amazon shortly after we were assailed by the covid coronavirus, Belle. And Stanley Johnson’s interest and studies in population/depopulation in the 1980s. I read somewhere that Johnson had worked with Gates’s father in the 1960s at Planned Parenthod. I knew about Gates’s interest in vaccines for depopulation purposes, that he had been hounded out of Africa and India because his polio and tetanus vaccines had maimed, injured and sterilised 500,000 children. His ‘leaky’ vaccines have caused a fiercely treatment-resistant strain of polio to emerge in these countries. Also there is Johnson’s article in the DT in 2007, the subject of which is population, and how no-one was prepared to take depopulation by the horns and do something about it. So I put two and two together and decided to steer clear of the rushed ‘vaccine’ jobs.

          2. The more I think about those vaccines the more I worry.

            I definitely had a bad reaction to the 2nd jab, and ended up being monitored in A+E witha terrific headache and fever .

            I really feel as if I have succumbed to brain fog since then .

          3. Read/listen to Dr Mike Yeadon on the web, he is a former CEO of Pfizer. He feels his principles have been betrayed by this company. Many of his articles have been removed, he has written a couple for TCW, they may still be there. He advises definitely NOT TO GET the third booster jab of any of the vaccines – he advises though not to get any at all in the first place.

            You need to boost your immune system with Vit D3+K2, Vit C+zinc and Quercetin this winter. You will also need to detoxify your system with NAC (N-Acetyl Cysteine) – it boosts glutathione, children have high levels of this but it gets depleted as we age – it explains why children don’t suffer from the covid coronavirus. Also dandelion leaf tea, white pine needle tea (buy online, don’t go gathering it!) are advised on some sites. These are detoxicants. You may need to use them for several months. NAC has been around for decades as a supplement in health food shops. Also Flush Niacin and Melatonin (available online)

            https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/nac-benefits

            https://niacincurescovid.com/

            https://katrinah.com/nutrition-protocol-to-neutralize-graphene-oxide/

            and specifically for vaccine remorse
            https://katrinah.com/vaccine-remorse/

            There are other sites on the web as well. There is help out there. The US govt has wiped NAC from its shelves (presumably because it works! – this is what we are up against, our govts are working against us and are at war with its people. I really believe now we are being replaced. It is all about ideology, never mind that our replacements seem disinclined and don’t know how to work). NAC is still available freely in the UK.

            We will be upping our Vit D3+K2 from 2000 IU to 4000 IU over the winter months, starting November.

            Please do your own research on this, please know and understand what you might be taking. I hope all this helps…. if you want to email me at any time HL has my email address. xx

          4. Thanks everso for that info PM, why do we need all this anxiety at our age , so unfair.

            Moh and I actually feel doomed to an uncertain ending !

          5. I know… I am the same age as you and all I want is to live out my life peacefully and not, for example, having to think the unthinkably unbelievable is possible. I am riddled with anxiety but I refuse to comply, my heels are well dug in. I now believe that WW1 was a deliberate depopulation event. Who in their right mind could send so many off to their deaths because an arch-duke was shot in the distant (as they were then) Balkans? Of course, we don’t do wars as such, now. Artificial Intelligence means there won’t be jobs for people in the coming future, so……. I think Johnson is insane and totally divorced from reality. He seems to have the same opinion of the British people as Jack Straw “the British people as a race are not worth saving.” From memory I think Johnson referred to the working class as ‘vermin’ in the Spectator quite a few years ago, I don’t think he will have changed his views over the years. Psychopathic-narcissistic personality disorder is my diagnosis!

            Like you, I feel we are doomed to an uncertain ending – we have managed to evade them so far – but I fear they are coming for us all in the end. However, millions have seen through them, more and more are joining our ranks every day and complete non-compliance is the way to make this psy-op collapse peacefully. There are far more of us than there are of them.

          6. You took the words right out of my mouth PM.

            Moh and I have had a quite exciting life and he has had a job that entailed risk .. Last year , last Spring , we really felt doom laden , and as Peggy Lee sang … Is that all there is ?

            All the life style things we have done, like eating healthily, drinking in moderation , staying married for 53 years , not following fads and the crowd , briinging 2 sons up ( pitfalls there ) and enduring all sorts of real disasters .. we thought … OMG.. this is it..how long etc .

            We are still here , aren’t we , but , always the big but!

          7. We just have to keep ‘keeping on’, on a day-to-day basis. Everything comes to pass eventually, nothing lasts forever. There is a beginning and an end to everything, history shows us that. I really do feel that I am too old to get involved in the Great Government Game (GGG) – I just let them get on with their apps (what is an app?!) and anti-Social Distancing and masks and all the rest and let it wash around me. I will not comply, I will not give their game legitimacy. Like Bill, we would love to return to France, we long to do so, but we won’t compromise our health by having the injection. So be it.

    1. “Scientific evidence over the past 50 plus years has shown that sodium fluoride shortens our life span, promotes various cancers and mental disturbances, and most importantly, makes humans stupid, docile, and subservient, all in one neat little package.”

      1. Yo pm

        Obviously given to our MPs, when they were young.

        I could not say immature, cus they still is

      2. It’s quite an old piece, and refers mainly to the situation in the USA, but I thought it was relevant to share it here as Savage Jabbid seems determined to have it added to all water in the UK, where it was rejected many years ago, except in certain areas.

        I don’t agree with enforced medication.

          1. Vaccination, use of fluoride toothpaste, or any medical procedure, should be after an informed decision by the person involved.

          2. Talking of “informed decisions” I was told this afternoon on the telephone that when I allowed MOH to attend the local day centre, I was, in fact, entering into “a contract” based on 52 weeks and that even a medical appointment meaning an inability to attend (notified to the centre as soon as I received it) still needed to be paid for. As it had never been made clear to me how the system worked (I would most certainly have done things differently had I known) I am, as you can imagine, not best pleased.

          3. Are they demanding you pay for 52 weeks even though she died? That’s atrocious. I would think a high proportion of their attendees are likely to die before the end of the year.

          4. No, they are demanding I pay for the Bank Holiday (when the centre was closed) and the day missed through a hospital appointment (although I informed the centre as soon as I knew). She was talking about giving 10 days’ notice – I doubt I got ten days’ notice about the appointment, to be honest – but the centre itself was happy with the notice I gave. Why she kept on about a 52 week contract I had no idea, except possibly to justify the fact they charged over £2 more for the day care than the actual centre did (the main reason why I paid direct) and to make me feel that as it was a contract, I couldn’t back out of it. In my opinion the whole thing is totally lacking in transparency – not to mention being billed for four days when MOH only attended two (and then stopped going). I did get a credit note for that. It doesn’t inspire me with any confidence that they are right, to be honest, but I want them off my back.

        2. It’s just another pointer to how things are going.

          Organ transplants opt out rather than opt in.
          Mass medication of flour
          Mass medication of water.
          Euthanasia

          It all seems to be designed to get us used to the idea of giving up our personal responsibility and letting TPTB be responsible for our healthcare.

          1. Funnily enough, as I walked past Tescos this morning, I thought, while looking at their traffic light system (if it’s green, enter; if it’s red, stop), that there was no amber for you to make your own mind up!

      3. … “makes humans stupid, docile, and subservient …” – all fits in with globalists’ intentions.

  78. An update over my dentist situation.

    I have had just now a rather aggressive email from the NHS Complaints Officer:

    Dear Mr Morfey,

    Thank you for your email and confirming you do not wish to complain about the treatment you received in 1995.

    From your email, my interpretation is that you feel the Department of Health has instructed your dental provider to lie to patients and not provide appropriate treatment. You have explained at the current time you do not wish to disclose the name of your dentist. Due to this, we are unable to approach your dental practitioner for comment and cannot take your concerns forward. Would you like me to liaise with our Primary Care Team in relation to whether the Department of Health have instructed providers to lie to patients?
    If you could let me know by 7 October it would be appreciated.

    I look forward to hearing from you.

    Kind regards,

    Sharlene

    Sharlene Derench
    Senior Complaints Officer
    NHS England Complaints Team – Midlands
    ————
    I have drafted this response, which I will send in the morning:

    Dear Sharlene Derench

    Please explain the urgency by which you demand a response from me, under threat of closing down my complaint if I do not respond within 48 hours. This is quite unreasonable, as I explained in my last email, and I rather resent your endeavour to bully me. You have failed to appreciate that it would be quite inappropriate for my dentist to be approached at least until after he has completed emergency treatment, which I hope will be done within the next couple of weeks.

    If you insist on pressing me here, I insist that you arrange for me an immediate appointment with an an alternative dentist under the NHS, and within easy travelling distance of my home (i.e. in Malvern or Worcester) and covered under my ongoing Band 3 treatment plan.

    I will respond in due course, as I explained in my last email, and ask that my case be left open pending enquiries.

    If my complaint has substance, then my dentist is hardly likely to declare this to you, especially if he has been put under pressure by the department, in the same spirit that I have been, in order to let others off the hook. I suggest you carry on your investigation within the department itself, rather than pressing with scapegoating the medics and the patients.

    It may well be that the instruction, as indeed the instruction to withdraw Trimipramine, came from Whitehall, rather than the Primary Care Team. This has already been explored two years ago through my MP, where it was found that the Clinical Commissioners in Bromsgrove were blameless, and had no part in any decision emanating from Whitehall.

    Regards
    Jeremy Morfey

          1. He’s obviously pissed off with his dentist, but wants the work completed before he drops him in the sh!t.

    1. Your vessel has an awfully long bonnet.

      Nice snaps, though. Take the mind off the daily horror that is “the news”.

    3. Lots of contrails in the second photo, Stephen – I guess you are near the Heathrow flight path …

          1. My parents bought a house in Walton on Thames , and used to let it out when they were overseas . My brother ansd sister ( twins were born in that area )

        2. You are so lucky to have passed underneath all the wonderful historic bridges when you cruise along on your barge .

          When you think about the age of them , I wonder what the oldest bridge is that you have cruised under .

          Chertsey bridge is a seven-arch tied arch white stone bridge built 1783–85 and is a Grade II* listed building.[2] It has a weight restriction of 18 tonnes for LGVs.

          Around our way here in this part of Dorset our packhorse bridges have so much history, but of course they cross much smaller rivers .

    5. Good evening King Stephen

      Having you ever thought about crossing the channel and exploring some of the European waterways? Many sailing boats have their masts taken out and transported by lorry from the Med to the mouth of the Seine in the English Channel (or the other way round) to avoid the Bay of Biscay and the Atlantic coast of the Iberian Peninsular. This allows them to meander pleasantly through the European system of inland waterways.

      Maybe we should head for Venice from Turkey and then head north in Mianda and enjoy the canals. The trouble is that Mianda has a deep keel and draws 2 metres.

      1. My first visit to France was in 1980 – a boat on the Canal de Bourgogne. Wonderful to hear the Nightingale sing there and masses of insects arising from the water – it was late May.

        1. Gosh – mine was in February 1949 – in transit to Egypt. First “proper” visit was in 1961. And every year since then until March 2020. Planning on going in Jan 2022.

          1. No chance and no money before the 80s. I hope you get back there in January.

            I’ve rebooked the trip to Kenya for February. British Airways did give us a refund and this time I’ve booked flights with Kenya Airways.

          4. My first visit to France was to Paris in 1963. At one time, I knew Paris better than I knew London.

      2. Hi Richard,

        Yes I have. I’ve been boating (hire boat) on the River Yonne around Auxerre. I couldn’t get over how little used this beautiful waterway was at that time. If I wanted to use my boat in France I have to prove to the authorities I’ve completed a RYA course. If I hire a boat in France that isn’t required. French logic eh?! Holland looks fairly canal boat friendly; but the mighty German & Austrian rivers not so for a small narrowboat.

        A deep keel is a problem. Peter Nicholls builds steel yachts (The Huffler*) with a keel that can be raised for the European inland waterways .

        *Marks for anyone who knows what a Huffler was originally (No looking it up).

  80. I have been mulling over the statement from some big hat in the Met about the way to stop stabbings over drug territories in London.

    Telling the ‘middle classes’ to stop having it (coke) as an after dinner treat or a way to set off one of their parties.

    We know who these people are. Why doesn’t Cressida?

    Go and arrest them you silly cow !

      1. If no one was buying no one would be selling.

        The idiotic ‘war on drugs’…yet another slogan…is hogwash.

        The PTB turned a blind eye to all the opium coming out of Afghanistan while the West’s puppets were in place.

        1. Really this is boring stuff. Drug sales should be licensed like alcohol. The State has failed miserably, if the intention was to stop the use of narcotics, stimulants, hallucinogenics and the like. At some point one has to realise that the war is lost. Just give up. Resources can be reallocated to preventing and dealing with crime. Well, they could…
          Funny how the ecoloonie sjw anti-slavery Empire bashers have not cottoned on to the fact that we forced the Chinese to accept opium being sold by UK merchants.

          1. The CIA did when it was trying to overthrow the Nicaraguan Sandinista government. But then the CIA has always done highly questionable things in order to achieve its aims.

          2. With the US army having been shown guarding the opium crop in AFG no real surprise there… Hunter Biden probably has the franchise….

    2. As I posted earlier, I’ve been advocating D&A testing for politicians and senior Snivel Serpents for a long time.
      This is a more recent post in response to an American article:-

      Over here in the UK we’ve had a Non-War On Drugs for decades where the Authorities do just enough at the lower end of Society to claim they are actually doing something, whilst, generally speaking, they ignore those at a higher level including politicians and senior Civil Servants.
      What is needed is for our Government apparatus, and I would hazard a guess your’s too, to be subject to the same Drug & Alcohol restrictions I faced before retirement when I worked in the Railway Industry.
      Will it ever happen? Well, I don’t think I’ll bother holding my breath until it does.

      1. Politicians and Senior Snivel Serpents think they are a cut above the hoi polloi and any testing would not apply to them.

    2. Nobody seems to have faith left in Macron – there is a growing army of those who don’t believe a word he says. One could say that Macron would like to drain away the sceptic ranks as well as the septic tanks!

  82. Carrie Johnson, the prime minister’s wife, will be speaking at a reception hosted by LGBT Conservatives in partnership with Stonewall, the LGBT rights charity, this evening. Asked whether he would attend, Mr Johnson told the BBC: ‘I’m sure it’s gonna be great.’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10061625/Carrie-Johnson-arrives-Tory-party-conference-LGBT-rights-speech.html

    I think the more Boris Symonds-Johnson and his most recent wife go along with wokery the more they are going to lose support.

    But who am I to judge? I thought that tattoos were going to be a passing phase 25 years ago and I was completely wrong about that.

    3. “Carrie Johnson, ‘the prime minister’s wife’, will be speaking at a reception hosted by LGBT Conservatives …”

      One way are another, I’ll bet that Carrie will not hold that title for many more moons …

    2. No queues at the Morrison’s petrol station near me. Cars using it normally. So the meeja have got to find something else to cause a panic about.

    6. They are conflating two totally separate issues. The Fuel Panic engendered by the M25 Blockade and the HGV Driver shortage caused by a combination of the RHA becoming too reliant on cheap foreign labour, exacerbated by the DVLA’s work from home policy which has led to thousands of licence applications and driving tests being stockpiled.

      1. Not forgetting Priti Useless allowing thousands of illegal gimmegrants into the country who will work on the black market for a pittance.
        It’s politicians who drive down the earnings by either their actions or inactions.
        All MOs should have been put on furlough, this nonsense would have ended in a trice.

    3. Is this made up? The footage i viewed was the only thing that suffered would be the heels of their worn down shoes.

      1. Good question. Being dragged backwards does the shoes no good at all. When we see what else is going on, an attempt to demonise drivers who remove these human obstacles would be annoying but not surprising.

    5. I would love that to be true, but this is beaten down Blighty where justice never happens.

    6. I would love that to be true, but this is beaten down Blighty where justice never happens.

  87. BPAPM says that his government is not responsible for sorting out the country.

    “Furious business chiefs accuse PM of ‘buck-passing’ as he shrugs off supply chain chaos saying it is ‘not my job’ to fix problems – and DISMISSES inflation fears despite Cabinet alarm over ‘complacency’ about soaring prices”

    Sorry, Buffoon – if not you and your gang of wanqueurs, who?

    1. There was an article in my local rag where the idiot nominally in charge put the supply chain chaos down to post-Covid recovery! No, it’s down to failure to address problems that were in the pipeline.

    2. Boris puts on his libertarian hat when it suits him to do so. When covid is the subject under discussion, he’ll swap it for a Mao one.

  88. That’s me for the day. Weird. Brilliant sunshine – heavy clouds – sudden downpour – more sun… Hope it is better tomorrow.

    Have a jolly evening planning which main road to block

    A demain.

  89. Evening, all. Been dodging the showers today to get the last of the bulbs planted and the remainder of the cyclamen. Hopefully, the garden should be a bit more colourful from now until the end of spring. Otherwise it has been dull, dreary and COLD, even with the heating on.

      1. He thinks it’s dull, dreary and COLD, too – he doesn’t like getting his feet wet! 🙂

        1. G & P blame us for the rain. They cower under the hedge – or glower at us from the porch!

  91. I am not sure how widely the Telegraph and others are reporting this real slap for Mr Global’s corruption. I hardly think that this lady’s depredations are likely to be anything near what our own grubby buffoon and his sidekicks have already extracted. Why, you may ask do we not in UK have an Independent Commission against Corruption? It would perforce be a large employer….

    https://www.tarableu.com/new-south-wales-premier-resigns-over-corruption-allegations-involving-au-65m-vaccine-bribery/

      1. You mean apart from B Thomas? Well, there’s always the clitoris-licking frog one…..

    2. Well, it’s easy to hazard a guess as to why Blair, Cameron, Clegg, May and Johnson don’t want an Independent Commission against Corruption.

      Don’t think I have seen this news anywhere in the MSM, but I might have missed it.

    1. TBH, if I wanted to blag off school, I’d give a Covid-related reason, too. Nobody would question it.

      1. We used to nip off to the nearest coffee bar. We harboured the delusion that if we tucked under the school badge on the front of our berets, no-one would realise which school we were not attending.

        1. that if we tucked under the school badge

          I had to read that bit four times, before I realised the word was tucked

        2. Oh Gawd
          The cowardly lurked in alleyways for their fags,the bold made for the Diploma Cafe for nicotine, frothy coffee and the strains of Black Sabbath booming from the jukebox…
          All was well until the day BOTH games masters(the enforcers) walked through the door….
          Busted!!

      1. You jest.
        Our cleaner, who has a disabled ‘partner’ and a daughter who leeches off her and who is therefore constantly having to juggle her money – spent 6 hours last week having a tattoo done on her thigh.

        1. Looking in other people’s trolleys and being judgemental about the contents is half the fun of going to the supermarket!

          2. I used to shop at Lidl. Then they had a re-fit. Previously, my path round the supermarket resembled the letter M, as all the aisles were straight, and I raced up and down them.
            After the re-fit, they modelled it into little islands. If you wanted to pass everything, you had to pass some things twice.
            It was so annoying trying to work out an algorithm for maximum efficiency (i.e. minimal passing stuff twice, but making sure I saw everything), that I changed to another supermarket with straight aisles.

          3. That’s an interesting way to go about things; I have a shopping list and head directly for what I want with minimal deviation. I don’t need to see everything (better not, to avoid impulse buying!). What really infuriates me is when they shift stuff around so I head for where something used to be kept, only to find it’s been moved somewhere else.

          4. I never make lists, but I do know approximately what I need, so I pick it up as I go round. I do get caught out occasionally if they’ve moved stuff, but another thing I like about my current supermarket is that they don’t do that much!

          5. I am a compulsive list maker. Once upon a time I never needed a shopping list, but then I was ill and my memory was affected. If I don’t make a list now I come home without things I need.

          7. I used to make lists on a notepad, then leave the page on the dining table when I went out! Now, I make a list on my phone.

          10. They do it so that people have to go round the store looking for what they want and on their way, they spot something they didn’t have on their list and impulse buy. Kerching!

          15. I have a partial list written by OH , the rest is stuff I usually buy each week- meat veg etc.

          18. I have observed a distinct correlation between the weight of the trolley steerer and the range of highly processed foods in the steerer’s trolley…..

          21. Do you remember that programme called Ready Steady Cook .. people bring five choices of vegetable/ meat fish / fruit or carbs and have to put tgether a meal

            When I see stuff in other people’s baskets , I often wonder what they are going to be cooking .

            A lot of bods seem to be buying the meatless meat and vege stuff, I wouldn’t know how to put a meal together from ingredients like that .

          22. Never watched the TV show, but I do plan menus from people’s shopping!
            That over-processed vegan muck is another con courtesy of the You-will-own-nothing-Meat-will-be-a-rare-treat WEF. One could put a meal together from it, but whether it would be good for you or not would be another matter!

          23. We had none yellow smoked haddock last night , poached in milk , poached egg on top, mashed potato, spinach and sugar snap peas .

            Delicious , but oh dear the smell of fish lingered horribly , the odour clings . I can still smell it in the kitchen despite the extractor fan used and the window open .

          24. Fresh fish does not smell when it is cooked. A German housewife in Cuxhaven impressed that upon me. Her meals were fantastic.

          25. I don’t understand why they dye some of it yellow, who do they think they’re kidding?

          27. Not so much fun when my wife went through the till at Waitrose Sudbury Suffolk with our weekly wine purchase, only to be harangued by some impatient peasant waiting behind her who asked: “Are you an alcoholic”.

            Had I been there I would have struck the wretch down, heavily.

          2. It’s an absolute bugger when your only decent going out clothes are accidentally put through a 60 degree wash…..

      2. Frankly, Maggie, although I’ve never smoked, drinking booze is about the only thing that kept me going.

      5. In these parts the trolleys at Aldi and Lidl are overflowing with cans of continental lager and enormous bottles of Coke or its substitutes.

  96. 339646+ up ticks,

    Taliban asks Britain for help in first face-to-face talks
    Boris Johnson’s special representative met with the group’s leaders in Kabul to discuss aid and establishing formal relations…..
    Plus I believe the parliamentary canteen halal inclusive menu

    1. If we give those terrorists aid perhaps this should be in exchange for a few billions worth of American materiel, left behind by the dolt Biden, starting with the Black Hawk helicopters.

    2. If we give those terrorists aid perhaps this should be in exchange for a few billions worth of American materiel, left behind by the dolt Biden, starting with the Black Hawk helicopters.

    3. Yo ogga

      you’m got the words muddled up

      Britain asks Taliban for help in first face-to-face talks

        1. Nah, Cherie Blair.

          “Good evening Mr Taliban,
          tally me bananas
          You can have my Tony
          Plus all Brits in pyjamas”
          Day O, dayeee O…..

  101. Just come to the end of Sibelius 2 on R3. Excellent performance by BBC National Orchestra of Wales.
    And that is me for the night.
    Good night all.

    1. Oh Dear – this will wipe out decades of the environmentalists’ efforts to control man-made global warming and climate change.

    1. https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/uk-health-security-agency

      “The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), the nation’s new public health body focused on health protection and security, has today become fully operational.”

      https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-health-security-agency-launches-with-a-relentless-focus-on-keeping-the-nation-safe

      “The agency builds on the legacy of Public Health England, NHS Test and Trace and the Joint Biosecurity Centre to help keep the nation safe.”

      A legacy of failure – except in the squandering of public money!

    2. They are combining public health with biosecurity? That seems a little odd, unless they are expecting bioweapons to be deployed against us.

      1. A bioweapon, a synthesised virus, has already been deployed against us but we already knew how to deal with it:

        The WHO expert told The Telegraph that the process detailed in the application would create ‘a new virus sequence, not a 100 per cent match to anything.’

        This would result in a virus which had no clear ancestor in nature, a World Health Organization (WHO) expert told The Telegraph.

        The expert, who asked the paper not to publish their name, said that, if such a method had been carried out, it could explain why no close match has ever been found in nature for Sars-CoV-2.

        https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10062775/US-Chinese-scientists-planning-create-brand-new-coronavirus-leaked-proposals-show.html

        1. Yes, but the government’s in on that one!

          I suppose they are worried China might release one that’s outside their plan, but from the peasants’ perspective, who cares really? We’re being shat on from a great height, does it matter who is doing it.

      2. ‘They’ are deploying the bioweapons against us. And it is the unvaccinated whom they will deem to need securing – for the security of the vaxxed (you know how all logic is inside out and upside down these days). I suspect more vaxxes (not just boosters) will be coming down the road in the future.

  105. A world that has come to rely on the internet even more heavily since the pandemic began has discovered the alarming flipside of over-dependency on Big Tech.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10062593/TOM-LEONARD-survive-web-free-dark-age.html

    Yesterday (5th October 2021) the world came to an end for many people and businesses as three major social media platforms collapsed – but disqus was unaffected on Downdetector https://downdetector.co.uk/

    The disqus web site on Downdetector became the new home for people who were left in the dark and those of us here who were not subscribers to the big three didn’t notice any difference.

    Thanks to Geoff Graham for keeping your page going.

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