Sunday 14 November: The Conservative Party has become unrecognisable to its core voters

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

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

781 thoughts on “Sunday 14 November: The Conservative Party has become unrecognisable to its core voters”

    1. Morning Peddy. I think I should revisit Smith. I haven’t read any of his books for many years but I enjoyed them when I did.

    2. Morning Peddy. I think I should revisit Smith. I haven’t read any of his books for many years but I enjoyed them when I did.

    3. Morning Peddy. I think I should revisit Smith. I haven’t read any of his books for many years but I enjoyed them when I did.

    4. I read most of his books during Exercises in RAFG in the early/mid 80s. The Sean Courtney books told me more about the Boer War than I ever learned at school.

    1. He’d change the label.

      Got the bath mats in the wash, bed linen next. Kit in tumbler for putting away. It just clears a bit of space.

  6. PETER HITCHENS: I’ve lived in a truly corrupt country – that’s why I know Britain isn’t one

    A broad selection of grumpiness

    2. Quelle sur-fecin-prise from Hitchens.

      Britain IS corrupt. It’s bent beyond measure. The difference between third world corruption and ours is that ours is done in the open, blatantly with two fingers shoved up to the public.

      2. As I posted t’other day,

        On the Global Corruption Scale, the UK is probably one of the lesser corrupt countries in the world and, I suspect, we come out better than a several in the West, but that should not be a cause for complacency. Corruption, whether for Financial or Political Motives, seriously damages the country’s trust in its elected leaders.

  7. We must stand together for freedom and democracy. Liz Truss 14 November 2021.

    We believe in freedom and democracy. Freedom-loving societies are not just the best places to live, they are the most successful. When the Berlin Wall fell and the Iron Curtain came crashing down three decades ago, renewed democracies were established across eastern Europe. People have become freer, living better lives and their children have better futures. But these hard-won gains are now at risk with malign, autocratic regimes seeking to take away people’s freedom.

    Anyone who has reached my age and whose hackles do not rise at the mention of Freedom and Democracy by any politician has never read a North Korean or Soviet Union Communique. It is the rallying slogan of every Marxist Revolutionary and Party Apparatchik since modern politics began!

    In fairness to Truss I don’t believe that she wrote this article herself; it reads more like The Globalist Manifesto than a personal view, but she’s signed off on it, so she owns it. Unfortunately it reveals her to be yet another disappointment in the search for someone of integrity and who actually believes the words attributed to her. In it there is the denial of its own headline. The call to shut down Nord Stream 2; an agreement freely negotiated by two independent states and which would precipitate an Energy Crisis in Europe were it to be adopted. Way beyond this however is the smug satisfaction at sending reinforcements to Poland to prevent the “Migrant Crisis” but the complete absence of any mention of the UK’s much larger problem, crossing the Channel unhindered by any government action. This staggering piece of hypocrisy, preventing the one while encouraging the other, is actually a pretty good example of the sickness that ails the West in general and the UK in particular. It professes all these noble ideals and does none of them. It talks of Freedom and Democracy while practicing neither. The UK is the example par excellence, of a Globalist Police State administered by a corrupt oligarchy who demand that the Demos pay for the privilege of being ruled by them while denying both their rights and lately their very existence.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/11/13/must-stand-together-freedom-democracy/

    1. The malign, autocratic regimes to which the article refers are to be found in Westminster and the capitals of Europe.
      She’s been photographed twice recently at events attended by globalist billionaires. I know it’s part of her job to attend such things, but it’s not a good look.
      So another fake Tory leadership race between two horses from the same owner and the same trainer!

    2. There are different concepts of what democracy is though. Few understand it. Many refuse to take responsibility for the cost of true democracy. The remaining few would find themselves stymied by the weaknesses, ego and stupidity of the masses.

      1. Morning Wibbles. Yes Democracy is not some Magical Nostrum. It has serious problems, but as Winnie himself observed, it’s better than all the rest!

    3. They are all cut from the same cloth. Last evening I had the opportunity to read the letters page of my local rag, The Essex County Standard, and the first letter was a complete excoriation of our local MP, Will Quince, for his unstinting support of Johnson’s cabal. I tried this morning to find an online version but it appears not to be available in digital format.

  8. SIR – The Prime Minister likes to make reference to the ancient world, and a few weeks ago was quoting Sophocles’s Antigone to the UN.

    In the play, the newly appointed king Creon makes grand speeches about respecting law and order but then reveals himself to be a despotic ruler. The audience lose sympathy for him because of his high moral tone and willingness to condemn others.

    At the end of the play, he has an epiphany as he realises – too late, alas – that he has lost his sophrosyne, his sense of judgment. Wisdom and humility have deserted him, and so too have the citizens of Thebes.

    David Huggon
    Wivenhoe, Essex

  9. Watch: Alok Sharma in tears as COP concludes. 14 November 2021.

    Well that’s the end of COP26. After a fortnight of selfies, speeches, pledges and promises, the eco-jamboree has tonight wrapped up, with Western nations expressing their ‘profound disappointment’ after China and India secured a last minute watering-down of the commitments on coal. British negotiators wanted a ‘phase out’ of unabated coal; instead the two Asian powers succeeded in substituting it for the term ‘phase down.’

    The Tory MP – who earlier in the conference dubbed himself ‘no drama Sharma’ – became emotional as he delivered his closing remarks. Holding back tears, he told attendees: ‘I apologise for the way this process has unfolded, I am deeply sorry. I understand the deep disappointment but it is also vital that we protect this package.’

    I wish a volcano had opened up à la Palma and swallowed the lot !

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/watch-alok-sharma-in-tears-as-cop-concludes

      1. No we have to pay for it now! Pâté de foie gras and Lobster Thermidor for them. Beans on toast for us!

        1. Won’t be too bad if they’re Branston beans, I wouldn’t want any of that Heinz muck. Oh, and lots of British butter on thick doorsteps.

        2. It was a virtue signalling menu. Mostly plant based except for the Salmon, Chicken and Burgers.

          Then, when Boris thought no one was looking he took a private non-electric jet to the Garrick Club where he troughed on pheasant and claret. Burp ! Got pissed and agreed with his mate Charlie that Owen Patterson was a decent fellow trougher and was in need of a big bucket of whitewash.

          1. At least we’ll be able to heat tins of beans up on top of the woodburner whilst we toast the bread in front of it.

          2. I have heard ashes sing. Up close and personal. O mio babbino caro. Never, ever to be forgotten. I can still hear it. Sublime.

          4. Ah, thank you! I’m not thin, though, and am the variety of opera singer who dons horns and rides the waves of the brass, so I rather fit the bill. And if a fat lady singing is required to end this, then I shall gladly self-identify as that fat lady!

          6. I prefer the former, but will admit gladly to the lattee when, as at present, I am sleeping on the floor!

    2. I took only a passing interest in the World Virtue Signalling Games recently held in Glasgow. I was convinced of the outcome before the Games opened and the favourites always winning becomes boring. Rather like Scottish Football being dominated by either Rangers or Celtic. Except for the supporters of those two clubs the league championship is really a non-event. Johnson’s UK as a comparison, despite all the bluster, sits around mid way in the Highland League.

        1. How come China was able to “water down” on commitments regarding coal, I thought they weren’t there? Not sure about India. Just shows what a load of old bo..ocks it all is

    3. I doubt other more significant reasons for climate change were discussed at COP26 – Sun activity, volcanoes, world population growth out of control etc.
      BJ has still to get permission from his fellow citizens to go ahead with his disastrous climate policies and should not go ahead with them until he finds out the cost benefit of these policies. He will get a shock when he gets the figures. It is not a decision to be left in the hands of the politicians.
      One bright spot for Scotland and Glasgow was the popularity of the drink, Irn Bru, with the participants at the Cop26.

      1. Morning Scotty. The BBC no longer allows debate about Global Warming! It is settled. No alternate view is permissible!

        1. This last week I watched a couple of excellent documentaries on the Eden channel. Both were Horizon productions from Al-Beeb when it was a serious broadcaster.

        2. GB News might take up the challenge. There is a lot to be considered and plenty of professionals to debate the pros and cons of Zero Carbon. From Dominic Cummings’s paper on Johnson’s intelligence reported on this site yesterday BJ has no wish to make decisions unless persuaded by others and he seems to regularly back the wrong decisions. BJ is not fit to be our PM.

      2. Those are things big government cannot affect and thus are irrelevant to them. The entire purpose of the climate change scam is to rob the earner of their income and forcibly transfer it to the state machine to waste.

        Quangos trough from that, soaking up disgusting pensions and salaries from the tax payer, the big business wants a massive chunk of the eco cash governments will steal from the tax payer.

    4. Fire and brimstone to purge the evil from the World, eh Araminta? Very Old Testament but nonetheless a satisfying hope.

    5. Is he in tears because his shell company set up isn’t going to get the millions he’d been promised from the public purse?

      The lot of them need a punch to the face.

      2. Just another Bame inserted into high office to make sure the U.K becomes Sharia/Caliphate compliant.

      4. Con26 president- has emitted more fumes and hot air flying around the world than all of us put together.

  10. You, lovers of the English language, might enjoy this
    (and some Americanisms).

    There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is ‘UP.’
    It’s easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP?
    At a meeting, why does a topic come UP?
    Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report?
    We call UP our friends.
    And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver; we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen.
    We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car.
    At other times the little word has real special meaning.
    People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses.
    To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special.
    A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP.
    We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.
    We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP!
    To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary.
    In a desk-sized dictionary, it can take UP almost ¼ of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions.
    If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used.
    It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don’t give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more.
    When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP.
    When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP.
    When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP.
    When it doesn’t rain for a while, things dry UP.
    One could go on and on, but I’ll wrap it UP,
    for now my time is UP,
    so…
    …it is time to shut UP!
    Now it’s UP to you what you do with this comment.

    But, since it’s Sunday, a text for the day might not come amiss:

    A Dying Wish

    In a London Nursing home an old priest lay dying.
    For years he had faithfully served the people of the nation’s capital.
    He motioned for his nurse to come near. “Yes, Father?”, said the nurse.

    “I would really like to see Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer before I die”, whispered the priest.

    “I’ll see what I can do, Father”, replied the nurse.

    The nurse sent the request to No 10 and waited for a response. Soon the word arrived; Boris and Sir Keir would be delighted to visit the priest. As they went to the hospital, Boris commented to Sir Keir, “I don’t know why the old priest wants to see us, but it certainly will help our images”.

    Keir agreed that it was the right thing to do at this time. When they arrived at the priest’s room, the priest took Boris’ hand in his right hand and Keir’s hand in his left. There was silence and a look of serenity on the old priest’s face.

    The old priest slowly said: “I have always tried to pattern my life after our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ”.

    “Amen”, said Boris

    “Amen”, said Sir Keir

    The old priest continued, “Jesus died between two lying thieving bastards; and I would like to do the same…”

  12. Kamala Harris says she ‘remains very concerned’ about potential Russian invasion of Ukraine. 14 November 2021.

    As the Biden administration warned of an imminent threat in Eastern Europe over fears of a Ukraine invasion amid an escalating crisis at the Belarus-Poland border, Harris strolled through Paris with her husband Doug Emhoff.

    When asked about the Russia-Ukraine conflict the vice president said: ‘I cannot talk to you about classified information’ and went on to express her concerns on the crisis.

    You think Biden is bad? Wait till this airhead is sitting in the Oval Office! We will be at war before she can say, “Where is Russia by the way?”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10199441/Kamala-Harris-remains-concerned-Russia-buying-pots-day-Paris.html

    1. Putin, putting the USSR back into Russia and sexy into dyslexia.

      At least he is a leader who wants his place in history through expanding his country, of course at the expense of people in other countries and enriching himself in the process, rather than a PM who wants his place in history through being world leaders in Green suicide, at the expense of people in his own country and enriching himself in the process (albeit splurging it away). Furthermore, Putin shows a commitment to the main issue facing the world, that of over-population (world population now 5 times what it was 100 years ago and still rising fast), reportedly having 1 offspring whereas our PM is up to 7 already.

        1. Go to any Orphange in London, talk to the kids about being paraentless and some will put theit hand up and say

          My Dad is the PM

  13. Kamala Harris says she ‘remains very concerned’ about potential Russian invasion of Ukraine. 14 November 2021.

    As the Biden administration warned of an imminent threat in Eastern Europe over fears of a Ukraine invasion amid an escalating crisis at the Belarus-Poland border, Harris strolled through Paris with her husband Doug Emhoff.

    When asked about the Russia-Ukraine conflict the vice president said: ‘I cannot talk to you about classified information’ and went on to express her concerns on the crisis.

    You think Biden is bad? Wait till this airhead is sitting in the Oval Office! We will be at war before she can say, “Where is Russia by the way?”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10199441/Kamala-Harris-remains-concerned-Russia-buying-pots-day-Paris.html

  14. Good morning from a dry but overcast Derbyshire. Still fairly mild with 5°C in the yard.

      1. Sunny here – after light snow yesterday. About -5C. Gorgeous day. Watched the sun rise as orange & pink light on the hill across the valley.
        Good to be alive.

    2. Just stuck my head out through the Bathroom Window Bob. Cold, Damp and Miserable. No sign of Global Warming!

  16. Take Two

    One Last Try • a few seconds ago

    Yo and Good Morning

    A bad start to the day

    Migrant arrivals ‘will top 100,000 unless France agrees to take them back’

    Numbers crossing the Channel could hit ‘epidemic’ levels last seen at height of the Sangatte crisis, says former head of Border Force

    Action Stations etc

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk…

      1. Yes, we should. Much safer pathways. I agree entirely.

        Away from the UK and blocking them getting here. After all, apparently some are dying. We must prevent this by stopping them trying to come here at all, ever again. Any methods should be deployed, including live ammunition.

    2. Migrant arrivals ‘will top 100,000 unless France agrees to take them back’

      Why should this be France’s responsibility? It is the British government’s responsibility to control Britain’s borders with or without the help of France.

      Boris Johnson cannot be allowed to pass the buck on this one.

      1. Why are we even bothering to ask France to take them back? They’re criminals illegally entering this country. We shouldn’t ask what France thinks. We should simply tow them back to France, destroy the boat and have them swim for it.

  17. https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/462d37a4773165bb4b6f6b15c0304a6942b71cfc/0_0_4000_2667/master/4000.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=86a43c421864e5da6739d1e9515128ab
    A kea at Fox Glacier township, South Island. New Zealand plans to reduce lead poisoning among keas, the world’s only alpine parrot and a native species endemic in New Zealand. Lead fixtures on old buildings such as huts and mines are causing dangerous levels of lead in the birds. The government is allocating money to remove lead from private dwellings and replacing it with non-toxic alternatives.

  20. Good morning, all. A fine day – for Remembrance Sunday. It may be that I am getting more forgetful than usual, but it seems to me that Remembrance Sunday is more often than not – fine.

    1. A far better class than the immigrant scum crossing the Channel, as willing conscripts to the Caliphate Army.

      The then Labour government did ‘not a lot’ for the returning heroes and, like Johnson today, signed up for importing Caribbean immigrants.

    2. I have never felt the same about Remembrance Sunday since that snake Blair. I don’t forget, but I don’t want to see the line-up of hypocrites either.

  22. 341578+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Sunday 14 November: The Conservative Party has become unrecognisable to its core voters

    This has been the case, clearly seen, out in the open, in your face, since
    the may thing introduced the nine month delay.

    The political ruling sh!te was down on their uppers, knocked on their pin clad arses, so may thing introduced the split glove syndrome and the treachery gained strength with the members via the three monkeys collusion, running protection for the in name only,ersatz TORY party.

    Treachery, within treachery with a very credible party being taken down
    through it’s OWN Nec & political manoeuvres marching up & down hills,
    ALL so a treacherous cartel could retain power, and it worked via the polling booth.

    The sheep are completely innocent, this is solely the work of humanoids.

    1. ‘morning Citroen1, the diary was just an excuse to raid O’Keefe and his Veritas organisation. He had handed the diary over to law enforcement 12 months previously because Veritas could not verify that the diary belonged to Biden’s daughter.
      I would really like to know what projects Veritas are investigating at the moment – you can almost guarantee it will be something that scares the hell out of Biden and the Democrats or even those at the top of the FBI.

  24. Might have another Sunday morning leaf sweeping workout.
    Doing it all in stages this year instead of letting them build up and up.

    1. I will leave them until the end of the month in the hope that the wind will do the job for me…
      Actually the real reason is in case the hedgehogs want to make a leaf nest in a patch of dry earth under the overhanging roof, as one did last year.

    1. It’s not really a vaccine – a more accurate description of it would be ‘gene therapy’.

      Of course the government and the MSM are very keen to use terror tactics to get us to take the vaccine gene therapy. Those who think we should not take it have another terror tactic – they say that it has the same effect as AIDS and will destroy people’s natural immune systems completely.

      I suppose that those of us who are still alive in ten years time will know for certain which of the two terrors should have terrified us the more!

  29. 341578+ up ticks,

    Could we be seeing the lab/lib/con party membership card holders being the well deserved butt of much of it.

    Woke cannot survive being exposed as a bad joke
    Risible over-reach has turned a once-dominant ideology into a target of widespread mockery

  30. ‘Trigger warning’ alarm set off by non-PC language.

    TRIGGER warnings have been built into a device for classrooms and social gatherings that sounds an alarm when it detects offensive language and jokes.

    The lamp-sized gadget is an attempt to “manifest political correctness as an ideology into a product”, developers have said, and is being trialled for use as a tool to moderate debate in settings like schools and universities.

    The device, Themis, is placed in the middle of a setting and emits a warning when triggered by the sound of preprogrammed banned language, from racial terms to comments about body image. Dinner parties and family gatherings could be policed by Themis as it could speak up for those at the table offended by certain topics and encourage “self-critique” in others. Zinah Issa unveiled it at Dubai Design Week.

    She said: “Through the use of speech recognition and sound sensors we were able to program Themis to detect offensive terms – racial slurs, offensive jokes – through the microphone.”

    She added that “extremely bothersome alarms last approximately two minutes, after which Themis turns off, allowing an open, understanding discussion among people on the possible trigger matter and the potential reasons behind Themis’s activation”.

    Themis, which shares its name with a Greek goddess of justice and social order, has been designed to pick up on offensive terms and shifts in surrounding sound frequencies, and research is ongoing to see what terminology buyers would wish to have trigger it.

    I would certainly ‘trigger’ the bloody thing off. I would simply direct a prolonged and sustained attack of pure Anglo-Saxon, politically “uncorrect”, vitriol at the f*cking thing (and the cretinous twats who installed it!)

    1. I am amazed by how many people put an internet-connected listening device in their homes.

      1. They only ‘listen’ when activated. This is why saying please before your command is handy. It gives the device time to respond.

      2. Agree, it won’t be long before the PTB can order you about through these things, I’m sure they’re part of the plan – who on earth would need one of these things is beyond me

    2. What may be offensive to Zinah Issa, will mostly be observed as ‘banter’ in most indigenous English circles

    3. I would want it to come pre-programmed to beep at any of the following offensive terms: cis, trans, diversity, equality, Hope Not Hate, Antifa, LBGTQ, Stonewall, BLM, Net Zero, came together, reach out, TERF, community

    4. I would want it to come pre-programmed to beep at any of the following offensive terms: cis, trans, diversity, equality, Hope Not Hate, Antifa, LBGTQ, Stonewall, BLM, Net Zero, came together, reach out, TERF, community

    5. What’s funny is AI experimenters in the USA complained the device turned racist after a few weeks!

    1. I doubt Britain is behind them. A little more than twenty years ago, we lived in one of the poorest parts of England. Half the street was on benefits, and most of them were fiddling one way or another.
      When you’ve got two very poor people who want to move in together, and the government says that if they live together, their benefits will be reduced, it’s not exactly a recipe for honesty, is it.
      Likewise, most people aren’t going to put themselves through all the paperwork needed to declare the casual work that they get from time to time.
      In London the problem was far worse. Foreign criminals arriving with five fake passports, having an identity with a flat and benefits in each borough.

  33. Queen pulls out of Cenotaph Remembrance Sunday service after spraining back
    The 95-year-old monarch has been under doctors’ orders to rest for almost a month, and was scheduled to be in central London on Sunday

    I’ve just seen this DT headline

    How very sad for her and for us all. She wears a brave face but she must miss her husband more than we can say.

  34. Just back from the Co-op. They’re dismantling a crane in Redhill; are things ever mantled? It brings to mind the description of Johnny Dankworth as “couth, kempt and shevelled”.

      1. Having just read the rant posted by you, George, particularly on the lack of possessive apostrophes, I wonder that you don’t grace Sandhill Crane with one in reference to his Latin piece.

          1. One doesn’t need a classical education to understand that Sandhill Crane‘s Antigone canadensis deserves a possessive apostrophe.

            I too, rest my case.

          2. It is sometimes hard to know where to draw the line between accuracy and pedantry.

            For example: some prefer to write five years’ time – others think the apostrophe is unnecessary; some like to use an apostrophe when mixing numerals and letters – e.g. the music of the 60’s – others think that the apostrophe is unnecessary and wrong here.

          6. “60’s” is wrong. There is no possession or omission that needs an apostrophe. If anything, it should be written as ” ’60s”

          8. Italicising a species’ latin name, directly after its common name, is a standard procedure in all erudite natural history journals. That is why I, as a naturalist, know that and you don’t.

          9. …and you speculate that I have a lack of a classical Education while mistaking being a naturalist for classical education.

            Admittedly, I last studied Latin some 62 years ago – and hated it but… I’ve found it useful in understanding much English, most French, some Spanish and a smattering of Italian. My German and Swedish were learned the hard way – in country, without benefit of species naming.

          10. Where have I mistaken “being a naturalist for a classical education”? My speculation about you not having a classical education was mere TOMfoolery; i.e. a humorous jape. For the record: I am largely self-taught. I enjoyed not any classical education nor was I availed of tuition in languages. Notwithstanding that I endeavoured to improve my eduction by reading copious amounts of literature throughout my life. I think: ergo I seek knowledge.

    2. “I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled.”

      [P.G. Wodehouse The Code of the Woosters]

        1. By contrast I find I have to be careful not to allow my flabber to be gasted – very painful if that happens!

  35. Apostrophes on way out as English become less formal.

    Study of 100million words reveals the influence of social media on language

    FEW grammatical constructs stir as much passion as the apostrophe. But traditionalists will be sad to learn that the punctuation mark could soon be a thing of the past.

    Over three decades its use has noticeably declined, according to the biggest ever study of how spoken and written language has evolved since the 1990s.

    Researchers from Lancaster University looked at 100million words to analyse trends. “The most striking thing is how informal language has become,” said Dr Vaclav Brezina, who led the study. “There has been a systematic shift towards more informal vocabulary [and] grammar.”

    Dr Brezina, an expert in linguistics, added that “there has been a very noticeable drop in the use of apostrophes”, a change he said was prompted by social media platforms which often dispense with them for brevity.

    “The question is how much more time will it take for this to extend to elsewhere?”

    Academics analysed how many times per million a word was used in the early 1990s compared with now.

    They found that there has been an 8 per cent decrease in the uses of the apostrophe after a plural noun – such as birds’ beaks – from 308.47 uses per million in the 1990s to 282.88 uses per million now.

    Compared with the early 1990s, today’s formal research reports include almost twice as many informal expressions such as “it’s” instead of “it is”.

    Dr Brezina said that modal verbs such as “shall”, “must” and “may” have decreased by 60 per cent, 40 per cent and 41 per cent respectively, while “whom” has decreased by 52 per cent.

    Another example of the trend towards informal language is the decreasing use of formal terms such as Mr and Mrs – down 35 per cent and 57 per cent respectively.

    “We might be more likely to use first names now in official letters,” Dr Brezina said.

    There has also been a “significant increase” in use of exclamation marks. Although this does not break any rules, traditionalists may see it as an “overuse”, Dr Brezina said.

    There has also been a significant increase in the use of formerly frowned upon linguistic features such as the split infinitive.

    New words and expressions related to technology – such as vlog, fitbit and bitcoin – have come into existence, while shorthands such as “omg” (oh my God), “tbh” (to be honest) and “defo” (definitely) are now common parlance.

    The word “amazing” has increased in use five-fold from 16.6 times per million to 88.6 times per million, while the use of “maybe” has almost tripled from 89.3 to 236.1 parts per million.

    As each successive generation of teachers become incrementally more stupid, it follows that their pupils follow suit. The level in stupidity in the human species is rising at an accelerating rate and is inversely proportional to the decline in its intelligence and common sense.

      1. …and a lack of love and appreciation of their language.

        Not many of the younger generations bother to read books but rely upon TV and their ‘phones to be ‘informed’.

    2. Most apostrophes arent actually necessary, except as a way of proving ones superior education. You can still tell whats being said. The only exception is were. Were the apostrophe to be left out, it might cause some confusion.

        1. Not good enough. Theyre not needed. If the sentence looks odd, its because youre not used to seeing it without the apostrophes, and you have to get used to new words like “youre”.
          German does not have an apostrophe for the genitive case, for example, and theres no reason why we need one either.

          1. Sorry, BB2 “German does not have an apostrophe for the genitive case, for example, and theres no reason why we need one either.”

            We need it because we speak, read and write English, not German.

          4. No, its just “we want to do things this way because we always have done and it marks out our tribe and makes us feel superior.”
            Thats not a logical argument for why apostrophes add anything to a sentence.

          7. You are most welcome to your “brave new world” without apostrophes; I’ll have no part in it. I shall continue to speak and write in the standard English I was taught. Every modern change simply shows how more and more idiotic we are becoming as a species. No one will ever tell me to stop using apostrophes any more than they will prevent me from using free speech.

          8. The world did not end when the French allowed “de le” to become “du”…
            We shall just have to agree to disagree.

          9. In German, the possessive is indicated by the definite/indefinite article &/or an ‘s’ after the noun without an apostrophe, because, except in the case of a few foreign nouns, an ‘s’ is not used to form a plural. Hence no confusion.
            The apostrophe is still used to indicate missing letters ,e.g. wie geht’s?,

      2. Apostrophes properly manage sentence construction. When they are lacking the text, while understandable, loses meaning.

        1. My Great Aunt used to write with no capitals, paragraphs or punctuation. You had to read several times to understand what she was meaning.

          1. Nobodys suggesting leaving out capitals, paragraphs or punctuation. Just unnecessary apostrophes.

          2. Proving a posessive isn’t unnecessary. Norwegian, with cases and genders, gives absolute precision.

          3. The “s” proves the possessive. The number of sentences where there is genuine confusion between possessive and the word “is” are not as high as youd think.

            When youre writing with a pen on paper, its effectively “free” to use apostrophes, because it doesnt cause any extra effort. This is not the case for typing on a QWERTY keyboard, let alone entering things on those horrid little pads on a smartphone touchscreen.
            So now the “cost” of using apostrophes is higher than the benefit they provide, so people are very sensibly dropping them.

          4. The apostrophe on my keyboard doesn’t require the shift key. How does that make it extra effort?

          5. Mine does, and its also two keys to the right of my little finger, which is very uncomfortable. I use a European keyboard, which has some useful keys that I use from time to time. I have to use touchscreen phones for software testing, and their keyboards are a nightmare. You have to pause what youre typing to switch to a punctuation keyboard.

          6. When I use a French keyboard I find that more of an effort (for one thing, I have to remember that the punctuation is in the “wrong” place!). As I touch type, I frequently find I’ve got wrong characters in the script.

          8. When they abolished apostrophes, I said nothing.
            I wasn’t an apostrophe.

            When they came for the paragraphs, I said nothing.
            I wasn’t a paragraph.

            When they came for punctuation, I said nothing…

        2. Similarly, Wibbles, the lack of commas in many sentences, makes for difficult (and misread) understanding.

        1. In most sentences it doesnt matter because its obvious from the context.
          As with “were” the apostrophe could be reserved only for those cases where its necessary to define the meaning, which would be a very small number of cases.

    5. The lack of grammar and proper spelling is not a new informality. It’s because people are thick and cannot write.

      Such people should be shot.

      Getting things wrong and making typos I don’t mind as much as those who wilfully refuse to even bother. Worse still than such people are those who become angry and aggressive at being corrected. Instead of showing shame and contrition at their stupidity they reinforce it.

    1. If we’re not careful that’ll be gimmigrants in a few months. Then we’ll need a troopship to force them back.

    2. Many of them would have been dreading getting home as they would have been Pacific bound very quickly.

  38. I see the great apostrophe war has broken out below decks…

    Im off to make some bacon sarnie’s.

    1. Ah, Philip, the famous ‘Greengrocer’s apostrophe.

      The irony has been noted – as sarcasm.

  39. Last week I was cancelled – by a doctor who puts politics above the dying.
    NIGEL FARAGE:
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10199639/NIGEL-FARAGE-week-cancelled-doctor-puts-politics-dying.html

    Last week, I was cancelled. Over the years, I have developed a thick skin after receiving abuse and facing physical threats. But the vindictiveness of the cancel culture mob knows no limits.

    This latest case not only proves how a sickness is increasingly infecting a large part of British culture and shows no sign of abating, but how it is damaging society’s most vulnerable.

  40. Was this the bravest VC of them all?

    Owner of the world’s largest Victoria Cross collection, Lord Ashcroft pays tribute to the RAF hero most deserving of the gallantry medal

    By Lord Ashcroft 13 November 2021 • 5:00pm

    In a quiet corner of Twickenham Cemetery, south-west London, beneath the outstretched branches of a gnarled cherry tree, there is a black marble tombstone. “Cherished memories of a dearly loved husband, father and grandfather,” reads the inscription.

    However, it is two letters after the name of the individual that makes this grave so different from the others: “V.C.”, standing for Victoria Cross, Britain and the Commonwealth’s most prestigious decoration for gallantry in the presence of the enemy.

    This is the grave of Warrant Officer Norman Jackson VC; as someone with a lifelong interest in bravery, I am the privileged custodian of the Jackson medal group. It is part of my VC collection – more than 200 strong and the largest in the world – that is on public display in the Imperial War Museum, London.

    Yet there is no single VC action that I admire more than the one carried out by Jackson during a bombing mission in the spring of 1944. Nearly 80 years on, the selfless act of valour that Jackson performed still seems impossible to comprehend.

    Placeholder image for youtube video: KL446ZqGNas
    Norman Cyril Jackson was born in Ealing, west London, on April 8, 1919 and within months he had been adopted. After attending schools in Twickenham, he became a fitter and turner.

    On October 20, 1939, less than two months after the outbreak of the Second World War, he joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve, initially working as ground crew, then becoming a flight engineer.

    In July 1943, and by then a sergeant, he joined 106 Squadron at Syerston, Nottinghamshire, and completed around a dozen sorties before the squadron moved to RAF Metheringham, Lincolnshire, in early November.

    By April 24, 1944, Jackson had completed his scheduled tour of 30 operations, mostly over heavily-defended German targets. However, before taking some time off, he volunteered for one more sortie on the night of April 26/7 because the rest of the crew were one mission behind him.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2021/11/12/TELEMMGLPICT000277179541_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqqVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwdIS7olAcasOynxtiAJGd-8.jpeg?imwidth=680
    Norman Jackson as a young airman

    As the full story of Norman Jackson’s courage emerged, he was recommended for the Victoria Cross CREDIT: David Jackson
    The target that night for the Lancaster crew was Schweinfurt, which was at the centre of the German ball-bearing industry.

    The Lancaster’s bombs were dropped successfully and the aircraft was climbing out of the target area when, suddenly, it was attacked by a night fighter at nearly 20,000 feet.

    The captain took evading action at once, but the enemy Focke-Wulfe 190 secured several hits. A fire started near a petrol tank on the upper surface of the aircraft’s starboard wing.

    Sergeant Jackson had been thrown to the floor during the attack and he was also wounded by shell splinters in his right leg and shoulder. Recovering his composure, he obtained his captain’s permission to try to put out the flames.

    Pushing a small fire extinguisher into the top of his flying jacket and grabbing small axe, he jettisoned the escape hatch.

    He then started to climb out in order to reach the burning wing.

    With the Lancaster travelling at 200 mph, he released his parachute inside the aircraft. This enabled other crew to hold on to the rigging lines, paying them out as Jackson crawled into the unknown. As he inched his way towards the fire, he slipped and grasped on to the leading edge of the starboard wing.

    Using the axe to secure a grip, he fought the blaze with the extinguisher. Despite his best efforts, the fire spread and soon his face, hands and clothing were severely burnt. Even worse, the enemy fighter came back and strafed the Lancaster a second time, forcing Jackson to drop the fire extinguisher. Unable to keep his hold on, Jackson was swept through the flames and into the night.

    When last seen falling towards the ground, his parachute was only partly inflated and was burning in a number of places. Jackson, with his parachute ablaze, was unable to control his descent and landed heavily. He suffered a broken ankle, his right eye was closed and his hands were burnt so badly as to render them useless.

    At daybreak, he crawled to the nearest village on his knees and elbows because his hands were such a mess. Once the German authorities were alerted to his presence, he was taken as a Prisoner of War and transported to Dulag Luft, a prison camp that acted as collection and interrogation centre for newly-captured Allied aircrew before they were transferred to more permanent camps.

    However, due to his 17 separate injuries, Jackson spent his first ten months in hospital before being imprisoned with other POWs. During his captivity, he made two escape attempts, the second, close to the end of the war in Europe, was successful. He met up with troops from General Patton’s Third Army near Munich.

    Jackson eventually learned that four others from the seven Lancaster crew had survived the attack. After the war he was reunited with his wife Alma, whom he had married in London on Boxing Day 1942. They eventually had seven children, four sons and three daughters.

    As the full story of Jackson’s courage emerged, he was recommended for the VC. His decoration was announced in The London Gazette on October 26, 1945 when his citation ended, “By his ready willingness to face these dangers he set an example of self-sacrifice which will ever be remembered.”

    Jackson returned to Britain on VE Day and received his VC at Buckingham Palace from George VI on November 13, 1945. He retired in the rank of warrant officer with a disability pension and was always modest about his wartime role, once saying of his VC action: “I was the most experienced member of the crew, and they all looked to me to do something.”

    He worked as a travelling salesman for Haig whisky after the war, and died at Hampton Hill, Middlesex, on March 26, 1994, aged 74.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2021/11/12/TELEMMGLPICT000277179374_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqgsaO8O78rhmZrDxTlQBjdLdu0TL-Cg_AMOUqySXmFgU.jpeg?imwidth=680
    Norman Jackson survived being shot down and held in a PoW camp to live a long life CREDIT: David Jackson

    Jackson’s VC was auctioned in London in 2004 at the request of his family. The medal group fetched a hammer price of £200,000, plus auctioneer’s commission. At the time, this was the highest auction price ever paid for a VC but one that reflected the incredible story behind the award.

    Furthermore, it was because of brave men like Norman Jackson that, more than a decade ago, I pledged £1million towards a £6.7million fund to build a permanent Bomber Command Memorial in London’s Green Park. This was built and unveiled by the Queen in the summer of 2012.

    Earlier this week, I visited Twickenham Cemetery to pay my respects to Jackson at his graveside and to meet one of his five surviving children. David Jackson, 68, a semi-retired businessman, told me: “Dad was a wonderful man with a great sense of humour. He was humble and rarely discussed his VC action but there is no doubt that the bravery he showed was simply incredible.”

    This week, as we commemorate our war dead, my thoughts have turned again and again to Norman Jackson VC, a man whose courage and self-sacrifice must never be forgotten and who, arguably, carried out the greatest VC action of all time.

    *******************************************************************************

    J A Carter
    13 Nov 2021 6:23PM
    All through my life I have admired the life of Leonard Cheshire VC. But Cheahire’s Wikipedia entry makes interesting reading: “ After the completion of his fourth tour of duty in July 1944 Cheshire was awarded the Victoria Cross. The Victoria Cross is usually bestowed for a particularly marked event of bravery. In Cheshire’s case, the award was given for his behaviour over the course of his entire operational career. At the investiture ceremony at Buckingham Palace, both Cheshire and warrant officer Norman Jackson were to receive the VC from King George VI on that day. Despite the disparity in rank, Cheshire insisted they approach the King together. Upon reaching the King, Jackson recalled Cheshire offering “This chap stuck his neck out more than I did – he should get his VC first.” The King kept to protocol and awarded the Group Captain first, but Jackson noted he would “never forget what Cheshire said.” Respect to both men.

    1. To think these men performed such acts in the service of their country! It is beyond the comprehension let alone experience of those who now live in that land that they saved!

      1. It begs the question how many would volunteer today now that we no longer have a homogenous country?

        A day or two ago someone posted a picture showing the current makeup of the Cabinet. I wonder how much longer it will be before the native British wake up on day and find they are being ruled entirely by politicians and civil servants, with lineage from the Indian Sub-continent and other parts of the world in a sort of reversal of the history of the British ruling India?

    2. As it happens Abingdon’s War Memorial has inscribed on it the names of seven Carters and seven Kings.

    3. Many men in Bomber Command committed great acts of exceptional bravery (they were all brave to volunteer and carry on as they did) and sacrifice that went unseen or unrewarded. Jackson’s VC belongs to them too.

      The most remarkable thing about Cheshire’s VC is not so much his long list of effort and achievement but that he survived to receive it.

  41. Try, try and try again: why did modern humans take so long to settle in Europe?. 14 November 2021.

    The discovery of these lost outposts of modern human expansion suggests that Homo sapiens dispersed into Europe in pulses, and raises critical questions for scientists. In particular, why did modern humans’ later forays into Europe succeed when earlier ones failed? The impact of this success on our world has been significant, after all. Some scientists argue that environmental factors played a key role in the Neanderthals’ demise. Possible triggers include the reversal in Earth’s magnetic poles that occurred around 42,000 years ago. Known as the Laschamps event, it could have increased cosmic radiation levels across the planet for several centuries.

    There was also a cooling of the climate that affected the North Atlantic at this time, as well as a major volcanic eruption of the Campanian ignimbrite caldera in central Italy. All of these would have put stress on populations.

    Shame on them! It was all those diesel Landrover’s they were running when they were hunting!

    https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/nov/14/try-try-and-try-again-why-did-modern-humans-take-so-long-to-settle-in-europe

    1. 341578+ up ticks,
      Morning P,

      “sadly, we no longer feel allowed to celebrate”

      “WE” are
      allowing this feeling to take over, WHY ?

      1. No, we are not. No more than you [we] choose to be robbed, mugged or insulted. What we are not doing is fighting back and restricting the size and scale of the state, but, again, quite deliberately those powers have been taken from us.

        1. 341578+ up ticks,
          Morning W,
          Which again begs the question why are “we” allowing it.

          There are many worrying about lab,being ahead in the idiots poll, maybe lab are seen as having a better class of paedophile / illegal immigrant as in a more superior type of sh!te, that has surely got to be it.

        2. 341578+ up ticks,
          W,
          So if our butlers or scullery maid tells us we are to receive no more apple crumble
          “we” must accept that as a given, or in this case a NOT given.

  44. 341578+ up ticks,

    Surely a better way would be for ALL school leavers (15) to choose from a mandatory list of trades, then commence on a chosen one for a five year
    apprenticeship, THEN apply for further education.

    Everybody wins.

    Dt,
    Why do we send so many idiots to university?

    1. Indentured debt slaves. See Rastas’s previous comments on the usurious rates of interest on student loans

      1. If we’re going to charge student loans, set the interest rate at 5% or so and front loaded, not cumulative.

    2. It was Blair and as per usual, the Conservatives have continued to go along with it in their relentless drift to the left.

      1. 342578+ up ticks,
        Afternoon JR,
        The bog man, a good role model for the rest of them, by the by did you see the Batten link ?

        1. Yes, to the link. I guess you didn’t see my reply. I said I had written it down. Haven’t put it on the computer yet because I have a new computer that I have to set up. The link will go on there.

  45. Racism in cricket

    When the unfriendly settlers in our country go round murdering ethnic citizens and shout Ali’s Snack Bar, should we not
    be investigating Islam as a religion and its’ attitude to us Brits

    The call should go out on the MSM, asking Brits to come forward, if they have been abused, harmed, threatend, etc by Moslems, however tenuous
    the link may be

    Perhaps then, we can have some normanility in our lives

  46. Five lessons from Cop26 (that it didn’t mean to teach us)
    With the climate summit coming to an end after two weeks, its aim of saving the planet might not have gone as well as hoped
    DT Article: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/11/14/five-lessons-cop26-didnt-mean-teach-us/

    Two things that have very much been brought to our attentiion:

    Man made climate change is a theory – NOT a fact.
    The motorcades and private jets confirm to us that the hypocrites at the summit do not really believe in it themselves – they just want to boss the proles about.

  47. Bonjour tous.
    I’ve been away for a while (too boring to explain) but all’s well chez Cup and I’m back. 😃

  48. It is with a terrible sadness that I explain to Junior the sacrifices made by those soldiers to give us the freedoms we have today while also knowing full well the way they have been eroded, suppressed and silenced by a disgusting, systematic engine of abuse masquerading as righteous and ‘good’ by the very same forces opposed so long ago.

    The Left never change. I feel rather depressed now. So much, so hard earned; infiltrated, twisted and debased by the same poisons. That said, it was good to see Junior understood the importance of remembrance – even if he will grow into a world where such sacrifice is so derided.

    Wherever you are, best wishes.

  49. Just warching the Cenotaph

    Blackford, The Bastard, laying a wreath forSNP and Plaid Cymru, could not bend to place ‘his’ wreath, he just dropped it one-handed!

    1. Does he have genuine back problems? He’s been an awful person for Wales but I know myself if my back spasms I sort of lean and drop.

    3. Black poppy: Remembering African, black and Caribbean communities’ contribution.
      The black poppy has two different meanings attached to it. It is most
      commonly associated with the commemoration of black, African and
      Caribbean communities’ contribution to the war effort – as servicemen
      and servicewomen, and as civilians …

    1. He needs to use his 80 seat majority to improve the country. There’s no publicity or recognition in that though yet he would go down in history as having done the most for the UK of any PM in my lifetime.

    2. Isn’t the premise here that Boris answers to the electorate? I fear that is a little out of date.

      2. I think the problem is he is weak, he has got in with the wrong crowd. They have befriended him and he is grateful.

          1. His ‘e(spouse)d to me was a problem

            Brood Mare
            Wrong Person (Camilla was the one)
            As Dim as Toch H Lamp

          2. Hmm! Not sure that Diana wasn’t a lot smarter than ‘talk-to-the-begonias’ Charlie boy! At least she was aware she’d been set up! The Toc H candle was deffo Charles!

      1. If all those young men that died in the first world war were alive today our mob of politicians would be triple jabbing them and giving them vaccine passes.

      3. I agree Plum. Looking at that lot laying wreaths was insulting to the dead. I wonder if any of them have the wit to realize what those brave men would say to them if they could speak. I grew up in the army, was born in it with men that fought the Second World War and I have no difficulty knowing with certainty what they would say to the likes of Blackford, Starmer, and Johnson. Non of what they would have to say would be complementary and two words that would figure prominently would be ‘betrayal’ and ‘traitorous’.

          1. My father sometimes went up with his local RAF to march past.
            He carried the ensign at his local branch march in Hendon.

      4. At least your politicians turned up.

        The Canadian idiot was late to the ceremony in Ottawa, apparently they found a suspicious package that delayed his arrival.

        As a sign of their disrespect, the Governor General was still being shown to her seat when the minutes silence began. No stopping where they were and observing the silence, they just carried on.

      5. I had to leave the room, but i was back In time to take a pop shot at them all with my imagined index finger and thumb pistol, I managed 7 of them.

    4. The absence of his mother on such an occasion, so soon after the death of his father, must be hard on him. I am not surprised that he looked so distressed.

      1. He’s 73! A bit old to be missing his mother!

        Worse, I fear that HM might be seriously ill if she is missing this particular event.

        1. I am the same age and I still miss my mother. Perhaps you didn’t have a good relationship with yours to have such a sentiment.

          1. You are right, I didn’t. I am sorry for your loss.
            The royal family is notoriously not close, and Charles famously looks forward to becoming King. Still, I fear that if he looked upset, it may be because his mother is more ill than they want to let on.

          3. Yes and no. He has one job, and that is to maintain neutrality and a poker face in public while carrying out ceremonial duties. They like to pretend they are so different from us “useless eaters” – well let them show it. HM didn’t preach, she set an example and doesn’t wear her heart on her sleeve to this day.

          4. He is not supposed to “maintain neutrality”. God knows where that myth came from. As I pointed out before, the Duke of Windsor, before he became king and then abdicated, made no secret of his political attitudes. He was far less discrete than Charles and far less diplomatic. Charles according to the constitution is free to say as he pleases. It is only when he ascends the throne that he must be silent because, at that point, he represents the entire country, not himself. As Prince of Wales he is not obliged to silence, nor forbidden to have opinions. As I have also pointed out before. Well within my life time, he was entitled to a seat in the House of Lords which is hardly to be “neutral” is it? His seat disappeared with the abolition of the Hereditary Lords. Another disastrous attempt at reform.

          5. I think you’re loading the phrase “maintain neutrality” with too much that I didn’t mean.
            I think he can and should be allowed to have opinions and discuss them – I’ve never been against that.
            However, at public occasions – of which none is more significant than Remembrance Sunday – he should be a waxwork, allowing none of his own emotions to seep through. He is not there as himself – he is there as Head of State, representing every member of our country.

          6. I’m sorry but that is nonsense. The Queen may behave like that but that is no reason to expect her son to do the same. For all you know his face might have reflected how he felt about all the war dead. If so, entirely appropriate. He certainly should not be a “waxwork” and I don’t believe the Queen has ever behaved like one either. You are obviously one of those people determi9ned to find fault with Prince Charles no matter what he does and frankly, it is a reprehensible and unjust attitude.

          7. Well, we know we don’t agree on this one. I expect him not to snivel at state occasions, no matter how he feels. Up to a couple of years ago, I was completely in the same camp as you, but his allegiance to his WEF and Vanguard buddies and their dystopian agenda has completely changed my mind.

          8. The Duke of Windsor’s expressed political attitudes caused great concern at the time. They may well have been a factor in pushing him to abdicate. Bertie was a much safer pair of hands.

          12. If he puts his support behind the worst infringement onto people’s rights since King John, then he will lose people’s support for a monarchy.
            Actually, he has already done so, the only uncertainty left is whether they will succeed in imposing a central bank digital currency.
            It was reported yesterday on Breitbart that a leading Democrat is openly calling for an end to private bank accounts in the US. You would only be able to have a “bank account” with the government, to use their CBDC.

        2. She – apparently – put her back out last evening. If so – I know exactly how she is feeling.

        3. At 77, BB2, I still miss my Mama or ‘The Mother’ as my siblings and I called her.

          RIP (1903 – 1980).

          1. Especially when as just happened, I hear Louis Armstrong singing Wonderful World.
            Bummer, shouldn’t have chosen to have it played at my mother’s funeral.

        5. I didn’t get on well with my mother, but her death hit me hard – harder than I expected, to be honest – and I was in my sixties.

          1. I’m still waiting for my mother’s death to hit me. I feel sorrier for her not being mourned, than I do for her death.

          2. It will probably hit you when you least expect it. Try to concentrate on any positive aspects of your life together.

          3. She died eight years ago. It sounds awful, but I had already done the grieving during her lifetime. There were a lot of complications. She couldn’t help who she was – there’s no point blaming her.
            There are far worse mothers out there.

          4. Sorry to hear that. I dealt with my mother by going to the far end of the country and never living back at home when I started work. She was much more bearable at the end of a telephone line than when she was meddling in my life.

      2. Weve been told of several minor health concerns for Brenda in recent months. For her not to even be on the balcony for RS makes me think she must be ill. I wonder if she will see out 2021 🙁

        1. I sincerely hope the queen lives to be at least 100, like her mother. I was born in the reign of her father but I don’t remember him, the queen is the only monarch I have known just like the majority of people in the world, Her death is going to be hard. It will represent so much more than the end of a life. It is an event I do not look forward to at all. But, at least, unlike many, I believe that Charles will be an excellent King.

          1. The Queen embodies everything great about Britain. Our stoicism, discipline, sense of humour, dignity, pride, politeness, reserve.

            If Britain were a person, she would emulate Her Majesty.

      3. Maybe The Event has happened, and they are waiting for tomorrow to release the news.
        Hope not.

  55. Bitcoin experts….
    Has anyone bought and sold things with bitcoin?
    Is the Coinbase wallet flexible enough to do this, or are there better alternatives?
    Does anyone know a gold seller that accepts bitcoin? (there is one in Switzerland, but guess what, they only sell you a bit of paper saying that you own some gold in some Swiss bank vault).

    1. I don’t, but find it hard to believe that a gold dealer would take bitcoin in exchange for gold.

      1. There is a US dealer that does. I laughed when I saw the Swiss one, offering you a certificate that your gold is stored in a Swiss bank. Sure, let anyone try to remove it!

      1. Blackrock is buying them now. I think the thing is not to buy more than one can afford to lose.

        1. I have Crypto. It is a gamble but it has paid off so far. 100% increase over 5 currencies in a year. I have withdrawn my initial stake. Now whatever happens i can’t lose. Just the sort of gambling i like.

          1. But you have bought, and then converted your bitcoin into fiat currency?
            My question was about whether anyone has bought stuff with bitcoin?

            PS agree with you about gambles!

          2. There appear to be quite a few retailers on the Net. Cars, yachts, real estate. More prosaic things like designer clothes and of all things…..socks.

            I haven’t though. It’s part of my investment portfolio. 95% in Bonds and 5% in risky.

          3. The only exit from Coinbase seems to be to convert it to fiat currency. But that’s too risky – I need a wallet with which I can buy and sell using BTC, and I just don’t see that option.

    3. A chum of mine is paid in bitcoin. On paper, he’s worth a few million. He cashes in a bit every so often to spend.

      Despite his ‘great wealth’ he’s not convinced it’s worth anything either but while he can bob around Borneo doing what he loves he’s happy.

    1. You say that though, but we’ve a young kiddie work experience person with us at the moment. On the 11th she asked to be excused for a while and said it was ‘to remember’.

      She reminded the rest of us.

  57. Just when you thought you couldn’t despise politicians more….

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8fa92ce476a78bd65116330feee2bb330a0aae07039d2d21ea60636b1ecb061b.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/11821661efccce6db3e5428382ffd6bc8dc397c80233a061c4bc5f76f91a2f97.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b8963356c0054c1779f2235ebc5bd2d60e2739fb2ebb330f6938f0a168e007ab.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/974cdd9368d6144272669ee32afb31d7f142fd33b289047ca8213c97f8745668.png

    1. Too true and too grim to be funny!

      The priority is to castrate Johnson and give him a penectomy so he can be stopped from what he is doing to the country.

    1. Careful now. I’ll save a full blown pedant rant for other times, but! Petrol is cheap. The taxes on fuel make it expensive.

      Someone whinged that if taxes were not high then the petrol companies or the stations would just profit.When did we reach a point where economic illiteracy were so high?

      1. Funny that. The world is awash with the stuff From Norway to Venezuela via Brazil and Texas. From Libya to Angola. Across the Indonesian archipelago. Oh, and I nearly forgot the Middle East.

  59. Good turnout. About 30 – in the open air. Our three retired soldiers did their bit. Local traffic stopped – others dashed past. Dry and sunny. Lest we forget…

    1. On Thursday we had a good turn out; roughly 40 aged between ~ 10 to 80+.
      Even so, fewer attendees than names on the memorial.
      Lots of people driving past throughout the 30 minutes.

    2. We had sufficient numbers that the church was packed when we went indoors. I think Marcus lost the plot a little with his sermon though he recited Flanders Fields very nicely and we did get to sing Jerusalem, O valiant hearts and I vow to thee my country.

    1. Keep paying France to send them?

      We simply cannot take them. These are violent, cunning, criminals who have proved they’ll do anything to get what they want. It’s time to deport them – violently.

  61. I bet he was tearful when he was arrested…

    Cocaine with a street value of £33m has been discovered in a lorry load of frozen onion rings bound for the UK.
    Border Force officials found the 418kg haul at the Channel Tunnel’s UK inbound zone in Coquelles, France, on Thursday evening.
    Lorry driver Piotr Perzenowski, 30, from Mazowieckie in Poland, has been charged with smuggling Class A drugs.
    He appeared at Folkestone Magistrates’ Court on Saturday, and was remanded in custody until 13 December.

    2. I have just received the DT e-mail with this – I copied it ready to paste here only to find you had got there first!

  64. We must prepare for triggering Article 16

    It is vital to send a message that Britain will not back down

    ROSS CLARK
    14 November 2021 • 11:00am

    After Covid restrictions, petrol crises and climate change extremists blocking roads and letting down tyres, the last thing anyone wants is to upend our trade relations with the EU. Unfortunately, that is what triggering Article 16 would entail (the EU side has even threatened a trade war) and it is an eventuality for which the Prime Minister must prepare. If Boris Johnson fails to do so, he will utterly undermine his own position in trying to renegotiate the Northern Ireland Protocol.

    That lesson was surely learned during Theresa May’s failed Brexit negotiations. She started out well, declaring that “no deal is better than a bad deal”. But then she went on to make no preparations for a “no deal” exit, making it plain to Michel Barnier and his team that under no circumstances would she ever allow it to happen. Barnier calculated, correctly, that this would allow him to treat May with contempt and lined up Britain for what the then-foreign secretary Boris Johnson called “punishment beatings”.

    In his own Brexit negotiations as Prime Minister in the autumn of 2019, Johnson was more serious about preparing for no deal, though the fact that he agreed to erect an internal border between Britain and Northern Ireland is the reason we are in such a mess now.

    He should not make the same error of allowing the EU to dictate terms again. Rather he should prepare for the economic dislocation and likely trade war that would be precipitated by triggering Article 16 by getting ready to do everything that the EU would least want us to do.

    This would involve an emergency Budget to slash taxes and deregulate – we have hardly varied from any EU laws yet, which raises the question of why Johnson was so keen to leave in the first place. He should also target EU companies specifically with tax breaks to encourage them to relocate, and offer fast-track visas to any EU citizen who has a wealth-creating, job-creating business. In short, he should be prepared to turn Britain into what the EU feared most: a Singapore moored 20 miles off Calais.

    Britain should be laying the diplomatic groundwork, too. The idea that we would be somehow breaking international law by dumping the Protocol is bunk. Article 16 was written into the withdrawal agreement so that either side could unilaterally suspend the agreement in whole or in part if it was found to be causing “economic, societal or environmental difficulties”.

    This is clearly the case in Northern Ireland – and the Government, including our ambassadors around the world, should not be afraid to say so.

    As for Joe Biden, who would be sure to kick up a stink, Johnson needs to ask the US President every time he opens his mouth on the subject: how would he feel if some other country had the power to force him to put up a hard border between Delaware and the rest of the US?

    No one should want a trade war with the EU to happen. But to prepare for that outcome now is the only way we are going to dig Northern Ireland out of the deep hole into which it has been dumped.

    *****************************************************

    erry Byron
    14 Nov 2021 1:22PM
    ‘Biden would kick up a stink’.

    You’re right. Ask the Pope and Camilla.

    Carolyn Bates
    14 Nov 2021 11:26AM
    Well said Ross, but if you think Johnson has the courage or the inclination to do this after all this time, I think you will be disappointed. His shocking lack of conviction is bad enough but the fact he has now hung Lord Frost out to dry as well, is, quite frankly, unforgivable.

    That a British Prime Minister has allowed a foreign entity to interfere in a region of our country is something I never thought I would write, but sadly, this is precisely where we are. The EU are treating Northern Ireland as a separate country, not an integral region of our nation. They know this would not be acceptable to any country in the world, but the weakness of this leadership has urged them on in this endeavour.

    Unless we stand against this and soon, on top of all the other disasters and crises we are now facing because of the failings of this Prime Minister, all will be lost, and come next Spring, this country will be unrecognisable.

    Machiavelli My Hero
    14 Nov 2021 11:49AM
    I fear the author is seriously deluded if he believes the poltroon we have pretending to be a prime minister will stand up to anything.

    To consider the last week he failed to appear in the HOC for the debate on sleaze, claiming he was unable to attend owing to scheduling, yet he was seen at a London train station at 1617 that day, obviously with plenty of time to attend- something that any one with a drop of courage would have done.

    He fled a press conference after 22minutes, obviously again unable to face criticism.

    Taken together with his failure to bite the bullet on immigration, the appalling way the eu treat us and his cowardly desertion of armed forces veterans along with many other examples there is absolutely no chance of any spine being shown.

    To my eternal shame, as a life long Conservative, I voted for this man who I now consider to be beneath contempt.

    1. Trigger article 16 and simultaneously offer free trade agreements to all commonwealth countries.

  65. We must prepare for triggering Article 16

    It is vital to send a message that Britain will not back down

    ROSS CLARK
    14 November 2021 • 11:00am

    After Covid restrictions, petrol crises and climate change extremists blocking roads and letting down tyres, the last thing anyone wants is to upend our trade relations with the EU. Unfortunately, that is what triggering Article 16 would entail (the EU side has even threatened a trade war) and it is an eventuality for which the Prime Minister must prepare. If Boris Johnson fails to do so, he will utterly undermine his own position in trying to renegotiate the Northern Ireland Protocol.

    That lesson was surely learned during Theresa May’s failed Brexit negotiations. She started out well, declaring that “no deal is better than a bad deal”. But then she went on to make no preparations for a “no deal” exit, making it plain to Michel Barnier and his team that under no circumstances would she ever allow it to happen. Barnier calculated, correctly, that this would allow him to treat May with contempt and lined up Britain for what the then-foreign secretary Boris Johnson called “punishment beatings”.

    In his own Brexit negotiations as Prime Minister in the autumn of 2019, Johnson was more serious about preparing for no deal, though the fact that he agreed to erect an internal border between Britain and Northern Ireland is the reason we are in such a mess now.

    He should not make the same error of allowing the EU to dictate terms again. Rather he should prepare for the economic dislocation and likely trade war that would be precipitated by triggering Article 16 by getting ready to do everything that the EU would least want us to do.

    This would involve an emergency Budget to slash taxes and deregulate – we have hardly varied from any EU laws yet, which raises the question of why Johnson was so keen to leave in the first place. He should also target EU companies specifically with tax breaks to encourage them to relocate, and offer fast-track visas to any EU citizen who has a wealth-creating, job-creating business. In short, he should be prepared to turn Britain into what the EU feared most: a Singapore moored 20 miles off Calais.

    Britain should be laying the diplomatic groundwork, too. The idea that we would be somehow breaking international law by dumping the Protocol is bunk. Article 16 was written into the withdrawal agreement so that either side could unilaterally suspend the agreement in whole or in part if it was found to be causing “economic, societal or environmental difficulties”.

    This is clearly the case in Northern Ireland – and the Government, including our ambassadors around the world, should not be afraid to say so.

    As for Joe Biden, who would be sure to kick up a stink, Johnson needs to ask the US President every time he opens his mouth on the subject: how would he feel if some other country had the power to force him to put up a hard border between Delaware and the rest of the US?

    No one should want a trade war with the EU to happen. But to prepare for that outcome now is the only way we are going to dig Northern Ireland out of the deep hole into which it has been dumped.

    *****************************************************

    erry Byron
    14 Nov 2021 1:22PM
    ‘Biden would kick up a stink’.

    You’re right. Ask the Pope and Camilla.

    Carolyn Bates
    14 Nov 2021 11:26AM
    Well said Ross, but if you think Johnson has the courage or the inclination to do this after all this time, I think you will be disappointed. His shocking lack of conviction is bad enough but the fact he has now hung Lord Frost out to dry as well, is, quite frankly, unforgivable.

    That a British Prime Minister has allowed a foreign entity to interfere in a region of our country is something I never thought I would write, but sadly, this is precisely where we are. The EU are treating Northern Ireland as a separate country, not an integral region of our nation. They know this would not be acceptable to any country in the world, but the weakness of this leadership has urged them on in this endeavour.

    Unless we stand against this and soon, on top of all the other disasters and crises we are now facing because of the failings of this Prime Minister, all will be lost, and come next Spring, this country will be unrecognisable.

    Machiavelli My Hero
    14 Nov 2021 11:49AM
    I fear the author is seriously deluded if he believes the poltroon we have pretending to be a prime minister will stand up to anything.

    To consider the last week he failed to appear in the HOC for the debate on sleaze, claiming he was unable to attend owing to scheduling, yet he was seen at a London train station at 1617 that day, obviously with plenty of time to attend- something that any one with a drop of courage would have done.

    He fled a press conference after 22minutes, obviously again unable to face criticism.

    Taken together with his failure to bite the bullet on immigration, the appalling way the eu treat us and his cowardly desertion of armed forces veterans along with many other examples there is absolutely no chance of any spine being shown.

    To my eternal shame, as a life long Conservative, I voted for this man who I now consider to be beneath contempt.

  66. Given that the COP26 agreement has sanctioned the use of coal until 2050 for those communities that just have to use fossil fuels to exist, I wondered if the idea of a coal fired aeroplane had ever been conceived.

    Well it had and it was the Lippisch P.13a.

    It was designed to be a supersonic coal fired ramjet so there’s hope yet for our grandchildren to enjoy international air travel.

  68. The Austrian government has stated that no one who has not been vaccinated may leave home, except to go the messages, for sport, or for medical reasons (these do not include cafes and konditorei). The law will apply from next week to all persons over 12.

    3. I think it is in some parts, not others. My daughter said she thought going to work will be a valid excuse to leave the house.

      1. That’s not even funny. The desperation, the terror to force a medical procedure on people that’s proven lacking – it really should be challenged in court – but of course, the courts would be in on it.

        1. Yes if bodies were piling up in the street then one could understand what is happening, but if one didn’t own a tv or radio or read a paper one could go about one’s business all year and not realise anything untoward was occurring.

          1. That’s what the masks were for. Not to stop a virus but to be an outward show to intimidate and keep the fear factor high.

          2. We were packed in cheek by jowl in church and hardly anybody was wearing a mask. We’ll have our own Covid surge and thousands will be dead before Christmas (according to “medical experts”).

  69. We must prepare for triggering Article 16
    It is vital to send a message that Britain will not back down

    ROSS CLARK : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/11/14/must-prepare-triggering-article-16/

    BTL Comment with which I find hard to disagree.

    The future of the NI Protocol and Article 16 does not lie in Boris Johnson’s hands. He will meekly do what his wife tells him to do because he has been every bit as emasculated as Prince Harry has been.

    After seeing the very graphic cartoon Rik showed us of Johnson shafting Britain I would add that the only employment his testicles now have is to screw Britain completely.

    1. Mr Clarke ignores that Boris seems intent on creating Cuba on Sea. He hasn’t the courage and fortitude to see down the EU. He hasn’t the necessary to realise the significant and deep cuts needed to the mess that is the public sector. He won’t encourage trade because he doens’t really get it.

    2. 341578+ up ticks,
      Afternoon R,
      It has been done in the form of a gang rape & abuse
      major, clegg, the wretch cameron, strap on may & now the turk.

      The real UKIP under Batten tried to point this out but the majority voters thought the old party’s were the best and we all know “thought” come unstuck / stuck when taking a sh!te forgetting to lower his underpants.

      Both thoughts underwear & the United Kingdom have landed up in the same odious state.

  70. O/T Just found something weird. Stuffed into a neighbours hedge i found a stainless steel cream whipper gun. They could at least left some nitro cartridges with it.

    3. She is supposed to be very close to the Queen, it adds fuel to the theory the Queen may be worse than is being announced.

          6. I’m going to keep an eye on the US papers. My dad and his father first heard about Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson on a train. An American GI got into their carriage and said something like, “Well guys, your king is gonna marry Wally.” Of course, the press here had maintained a gentlemen’s agreement so it hadn’t leaked out.
            If something is amiss, which I hope to god it isn’t, there’s a chance it will leak in the US first.

          7. Have not seen or heard anything over here, other than a mention of the non appearance of HM at the Cenotaph due to a sprained back. It all seems rather last minute, I wonder if she had a fall?

    2. Alf has just said “it would be nice to think he was going to resign”. I laughed my head off. (Irony meters).

    4. Why on earth would he want to wallow in that particular failure?
      I’m getting really worried about HM now.

    5. A Happy Ear Worm to you…≥

      ConCopulations
      And celebrations
      When I tell everyone that you’re not above me
      ConCopulations
      And jubilations
      I want the world to know I’m happy as can be
      Who would believe that I could be happy and contented?
      I used to think that happiness hadn’t been invented
      But that was in the bad old days before Net Zero
      Then I let Greta walk into my heart
      ConCopulations
      And celebrations
      When I tell everyone that I’m in love with me
      ConCopulations
      And jubilations
      I want the world to know I’m happy as can be.

  73. Fine BTL Comment from The Slog (Especially for Minty!)

    Bobby47 on November 13, 2021 at 6:50 pm
    Well, I for one ain’t having it. I know what I’ll have, what I won’t have and what I’ll have to have if some twat threatens to nail my head to a wooden door if I refuse to have it.
    For starters, I’ll be damned if I get myself all worked up until my fat face glows red because I’m supposed to become all affeared that Putin is going to annexe me and incorporate me and my three bedroom semi detached house into Russia.
    Putin has absolutely no interest in me or my dwelling. Why on earth would he ever want to invade me and inherit the problems that are a burden to those around me. It makes no strategic sense.
    That said, if he ever tips up here banging on my front door threatening me with some hand held tactical thermo nuclear missile, I’ll tell him to piss off and direct him to go bother somebody else. Somebody who perhaps is more likely to cave in to his threats of world domination.
    Don’t get me wrong. I’m not against being dominated. I welcome the idea of domination. It’s just that I object to being threatened into being dominated. Any man, woman or gender fluid/ neutral pansexual has the inalienable right to choose whether or not they want it. And as I have said in my first paragraph, I ain’t having it.
    And another thing, I’ll be damned if I start buying up Hunter Biden art or his Ukrainian Gas from Burisma. I’d sooner invest my diminishing pile in our own fossil fuels or some young aspiring British artistes who can produce art work without the need of an ounce of Cocaine and half a litre tub of Bostik glue.
    That said, I’m not fully against being dominated. By and large, it depends on who it is who’s trying to do the dominating. If say Biden, Boris, Trudeau or wee tiny Macron tipped up here saying, ‘we’re here to dominate you’, I’ll tell them to piss off. On the other hand, if Putin was to cease his threats with a tactical thermo nuclear missile or even a tiny butter knife and he said, ‘I want to dominate you Bob’, I’d probable take him seriously and give the matter my full consideration.

  74. And another:

    “The most bizarre thing of all is, the global cabal running the ‘vaccines’ scam have admitted that the vaxxed are just as likely as the unvaxxed to infect other people with Covid.

    So since they admit this, what possible justification is there for forcing people to be injected with their supposed ‘vaccines’ – or for having ‘vaccine passports’, or for restricting airline flights and public locations to the vaxxed?

    There is no possible logic in any of these measures – and if we had even the tiniest ‘free press’ left in mainstream media, simply pointing out this total disconnect of logic to the politicians in interviews would destroy this whole tyranny overnight.

    But no one does point this out, do they, on any mainstream media?

    Nowhere, anywhere across the world, does even one single journalist confront a politician with this elephant in the room, which destroys at a stroke any possible justification for any restrictions at all on the unvaxxed.”

    1. The strange thing is that the vaxxed think they are free at the moment – but they are not. Control will be gradually tightened on those who have been jabbed, we already are being told to have the third one or the booster, with threats of Christmas being cancelled again because of “rising cases”. It doesn’t occur to them that the whole thing is about control and tightening the net.

    2. So that the media get all the flak when it all comes out in the wash. “Well, we told them often enough but they would insist on having this injection…!”

  75. Good afternoon.
    Surprisingly warm for Divisions (thank goodness). The wind can really rip across the Stour.
    Oh, and the school were not checking people’s injection status. I know Sonny Boy let them know he was not impressed – and I doubt he was the only parent stating his views.
    p.s. Judging by how much I’ve been left behind, I think my grandchildren have had manure secreted in their boots.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ccf278694f6df799a6aa7fcfc5569036aceec7abd24b82e8448c53df159ae0a0.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/88bd9f838f5149c1cc533a0e493eb5e273b7d5d7701ade297dfc93234c5042f5.jpg

      1. Both parents are 6 foot +, so their height was pretty inevitable.
        (I still don’t know how I managed to produce a couple of tall chaps.)

          1. Funnily enough, MB’s father was only about 5’4″. We thought it might crop up in our offspring, but they seem to have taken after their father and a v. tall cousin on his side.

      2. Shiny shoes (and boots) are the first things I look for (and no, I’m not Spanish!) when I meet people. So many people don’t wear proper shoes at all, but trainers. Who could think that white trainers with fluorescent markings were suitable footwear to accompany a Guide uniform?

      1. It’s a coat that I bought from Monsoon several years ago.
        It is somewhat fitting, and when I tried it on yesterday, I prayed I’d not overdone the comfort food now that the dark nights have set in.

    5. Lovely photos.

      And I see that the Royal Hospital School is having a very good rugby season – unbeaten so far with some notable victories.

      My old school went down to Millfield at the beginning of the season but has subsequently recorded victories over most of their opponents such as Cheltenham, Canford and Taunton.

        1. Bernard de Neumann notes the school’s significance and impact in British history: “Just as, according to the Duke of Wellington, the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton, it may justifiably be claimed, that the establishment of… the British Empire, was charted and plotted in the classroom of… the Royal Hospital School.”[citation needed]

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Hospital_School

    1. Liz Truss isn’t a loose cannon; she’s a tightly controlled over-ambitious nitwit who has only harmless plastic sabres to rattle. She is doing what American hegemonists want her to do – despite the fact that this will not be of any advantage to the country of her birth. Equally, of course, Putin is no saint. He is a devious man engaged in the defence of the country of his birth. The difference is, he is not a NWO puppet. Make of that what you will.

      This man is extraordinarily perceptive. He could be a Nottler in his spare time!

  78. Picked what will almost certainly be the very last of the raspberries. Potted on the winter mixed lettuces. Disappointing – virtually no roots – they’ll just have to take their chance.

    Th MR snapped one of the Cotinus shrubs in the garden – spectacular colour (especially for today!)

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/094a403f8b60647e5d1925148d06a938493715a1508d71517353581ea7c82119.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d9cd59430bf3e8b70aff0eef36a5c2a4d7f8eb561b022e2991704de9d737a5c0.jpg

    2. Very nice. I lost my smoke tree and am looking to replace it. That picture has spurred on my efforts.

  79. Biden isn’t FDR. 14 November 2021.

    I agree with Penn and Stein about a likely Republican takeover of Congress next year, but it will be driven by disgust that Biden didn’t deliver something FDR or Sanders-like for the have-nots or the middle class, among them the same eight to ten million people who voted for Obama and later swung to Trump. Even so, the New York Times’s Maureen Dowd thinks that Biden still ‘pines to be FDR’ and reshape the country. She doesn’t understand the President’s deep satisfaction in restoring order by destroying his political rivals. For a career hack like Biden, running the ruling party is a great job, even when you’re in the minority.

    This man is barely conscious! He couldn’t deliver the milk never mind run a Political Party!

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/biden-isn-t-fdr

  80. Just watching a video from last year by Dr Shiva Ayyadurai from the USA.
    It’s much too long, but it makes a couple of interesting points.

    Firstly, according to him, Robert Kenedy Jr is controlled opposition who ultimately always comes down on the side of GAVI and the vaccination industry.

    Secondly, that big pharma has been failing since the 80s, and their only growth industry is vaccines. He showed two graphs indicating that their research costs have increased every year, but the number of new drugs that they patent decreases every year.
    This means, of course, that they are under increasing pressure to get the failing drugs to market to pay for all the research.

    Thirdly, he claims that Fauci and Gates agreed in 2000 to a plan for mandatory vaccinations within 20 years.

    Oh how I wish to be back in 2019 when I thought that vaccinations were offered by responsible health professionals because they are safe and reduce disease.

    https://www.bitchute.com/video/sj6J7lfkNUdA/

    1. Oh how I wish to be back in 2019 when I thought that vaccinations were offered by responsible health professionals because they are safe and reduce disease.

      Afternoon BB. Can you remember when such pronouncements were made by sober white men in grey suits? When everything wasn’t run by Government decree? Where Politicians were not Climate Scientists, Doctors, Teachers, Policemen but Lawmakers? Happy days!

      1. And when vaccine programmes were run by people with medical qualifications!
        Another interesting comparison he makes is the human immune system to a computer operating system. Gates, says Dr Ayyadurai (whom I couldn’t help liking) wants to control the operating system of every human being on the planet, in the same way that Microsoft has more or less a monopoly on PC operating systems. This, he says, is a concept that Gates understands.

        1. Thing is, Windows might be predominant on the desktop, but not on servers. Some places are heavy Windows users but certainly when we talk about web – not just www but infrastructure routers, mail and many database servers and scientific data processing they use linux.

          2. In view of my advanced age, I have decided to identify as an IMPORTANT PERSON (© John Effingdale MP) and so avoid all restrictions, regulations, form-filling.

            Should work wonders….

      2. I understand the sentiment, but “sober white men”? Are you anti women and other ethnicities?
        Incidentally, I wonder what Frances Kelsey would have thought about covid vaccines?

  81. Just watching a video from last year by Dr Shiva Ayyadurai from the USA.
    It’s much too long, but it makes a couple of interesting points.

    Firstly, according to him, Robert Kenedy Jr is controlled opposition who ultimately always comes down on the side of GAVI and the vaccination industry.

    Secondly, that big pharma has been failing since the 80s, and their only growth industry is vaccines. He showed two graphs indicating that their research costs have increased every year, but the number of new drugs that they patent decreases every year.
    This means, of course, that they are under increasing pressure to get the failing drugs to market to pay for all the research.

    Thirdly, he claims that Fauci and Gates agreed in 2000 to a plan for mandatory vaccinations within 20 years.

    Oh how I wish to be back in 2019 when I thought that vaccinations were offered by responsible health professionals because they are safe and reduce disease.

    https://www.bitchute.com/video/sj6J7lfkNUdA/

  82. Car explodes at Liverpool Hospital for Women. One woman killed, An earlier report said the bomb squad had been called.

    1. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10200811/Bomb-squad-called-hospital-sounds-explosion-heard-outside-entrance.html

      Car EXPLODES outside Liverpool hospital leaving one dead and another hurt as terror police open probe and bomb squad attend

      Police said a second person is being treated for ‘not life threatening’ injuries

      The car involved was a taxi and pulled up at the hospital shortly before exploding

      Counter Terrorism Police are leading the investigation, supported by Merseyside

      Merseyside Police urged members of the public to remain calm but vigilant

        1. With a bit of luck – my thoughts exactly – but then we have brought the Middle East here, with all their tribal warfare.

          2. I use a local firm with a very good image. The drivers are mostly E. European, careful & good conversationalists. I book my trips by phone.

          3. A couple of years ago we had a Romanian taxi pick us up from the hotel to get to the depot to start work and I was chatting to him about George Enescu, much to the bewilderment of the couple of lads I was working with!

      1. As they were so quick to mention terrorism, that’s a credible theory…
        An electric car exploding is the one thing that trumps islamic terror as a candidate for the censors – particularly on the same day that Boris is allegedly going to address the nation on the importance of Doing One’s Bit (and sacrificing the car and the boiler).

        2. I was watching electric buses explode the other day, two of them, can’t remember where but somewhere in Europe.

          4. Heh heh! I think one of the buses (single decker) was an Influencer, and the second alongside followed suit because it was getting rather too hot.

          5. Always the same isn’t it? You wait for a bus to explode and then two of them go off at the same time..

        3. Would an electric car explode? Don’t they just burn?

          Is it a coincidence that it’s at the Women’s Hospital? A far-right anti-abortionist, perhaps…

          1. I think batteries can explode. Or perhaps they just burst into flame.
            Why I never leave my phone charging in the night or unattended.

  84. I’ve put Boris on record at 5 O’Clock so I can watch it later with a few glasses inside me and sneer at it and shout vile racist abuse. Lol!

    1. I do hope he doesn’t start attacking India for their common sense. The oaf will probably declare war on China.

        1. Some years ago, the government in Gujarat offered loans to autorickshaw owners to convert to CNG. It was both cleaner & cheaper than gasoline. Result: much cleaner air & reduced costs for the autodrivers. What’s not to like?

  85. 248 comments to catch up with I see.
    I’ve done a mix of cement and laid some bits of stone on the latest project.
    Then I’ve pulled another load of brambles and managed to get a fire going in the ex-oil drum I use as an incinerator.

    1. Slow down Bob,

      Some of us come on here to get their daily exercise, two fingered typing.

      You need a day off. Go to the Gate in Tansley immediately

  87. 451578 + up ticks,

    What do the Cop26 deals mean for you?

    It shows as in a shop window the benefits of being a mafia soldier.

    1. Germany has effectively implemented the same. All indoor venues are now vaccinated only, so if you’re unvaxxed, there’s nowhere to go except work, supermarkets or chemists! They just don’t call it a lockdown, that’s all.
      Am relieved to see that Austrians are allowed to go to work, as one of my children is there at the moment.

    3. Never mind clapping on the doorstep, I should think there’s a coordinated chorus of “F O Boris you unspeakable little tosser” up and down the country.

    4. We’ve been told that Carrie Antoinette took a place amongst the Prime Ministers at the Cenotaph.

      Anybody confirm or deny that?

      1. She was at the head of the procession of PMs accompanying Boris. Very, very inappropriate.

        Off with her head!!

      2. There was a women leading them out who looked very like her, but she seemed to disappear behind the scenes so I assume it was a licky, oops, lackey

      1. Synonyms for gruesome

        Sorry if I have missed any

        appalling, atrocious, awful,dreadful, frightful, ghastly, grisly (not our one) hideous,

        horrendous, horrible, horrid, horrific, horrifying, llurid, macabre, monstrous, nightmare,

        nightmarish, shocking, terrible, terrific

        Words Related to gruesome

        alarming, bloodcurdling, dire, direful, fearful, fearsome, forbidding, formidable, frightening,

        gut-wrenching, hair-raising, heart-stopping, intimidating, redoubtable, scary, terrifying

        abhorrent, deplorable, disagreeable, disgusting, istasteful, loathsome, nauseating,

        noisome, obnoxious, obscene, offensive, repugnant, repulsive, revolting,

        sickening abominable, evil, foul, heinous, noxious, odious, unspeakable,

        vile grotesque, ugly, unsightly

  92. Shamima Begum has come under attack in the camp she resides in for wearing western clothes and make-up. Her attackers are women who consider Begums behaviour to be un-Islamic.

    Ha bloody ha. Hope they lop her head off.

      1. When the three young minxes waltzed through Gatwick Airport security, they were a few months older than your grandaughter. If the ever-so-professional and well trained security staff had done their job, three British citizens would by now be at Uni or similar. All three teenagers were (allegedly) victims of statutory rape, two were killed, and several babies died.
        Meanwhile, the Home Office is failing to deport quantities of Jamaican convicted criminals back to their homeland.

        1. The fact that the Home Office is failing in its duty to our citizens is no reason to import yet another security risk. They could have been in bomb factories rather than University, of course. Who in a civilised world displays severed heads with glee?

      1. yes, I can’t help suspecting the same. Oh the poor little creature is being bullied because she’s not a fanatic any more.

    3. She is thinking of entering the Truth or Lie Competition – an offshoot of the TV game currently hosted by Rob Brydon. In the first round she will be matched against the Duchess of Sussex and the winner will be the first person to convince a single person in the studio audience that she is actually telling the truth.

      It looks very much like a put up job so that she can claim that her life is in danger and so Britain must take her back.

    5. I am not a yuman rights lawyer, but since you are about to admit that you had never heard of the Tuskegee Experiment, give Shamima a chance; depriving a British citizen of the right to a fair trial is “A most disgusting way to treat a human being.”

      Who is doing (or potentially doing) more harm to the UK at the moment, Shamima Begum or Priti Patel Sawyer?

      1. Sounds like you are accusing me of hypocrisy.

        The Tuskegee experiment was on poor black men who could have been treated with penicillin.

        Shamima Begum was in full support of a terrorist group.

        Please don’t conflate Begums crimes with an ineffectual Home Secretary.

      2. ‘At the moment’ is the crucial phrase. Should she be allowed here (she did, after all, run off to aid and abet the enemy) she will revert to her old ways. Leopards don’t change their spots.

    1. “The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male was an observational study on African-American males in Tuskegee, Alabama between 1932 and 1972. The U. S. Public Health Service ran this study on more than 300 people without notifying the participants about their disease nor treating them even after the introduction of penicillin. The study included recording the progress of disease and performing an autopsy on the deaths.”

      But NOW you can trust them. NOW they wouldn’t lie to you. (eyeroll)

          1. Mostly under Democrat Presidencies and even Dwight was more Dem than Rep in outlook in my view.
            Yet they generally vote Dem.

          4. Blacks vote for Democrats. Democrats hate blacks.

            Tuskegee has been known about for decades yet ordinary folk still place their faith in ‘medical science’ and the politicians promoting it.

            This entire Covid saga is a scam. As with Tuskegee we have corrupt politicians acquiescing in the inhuman advocacy of supposed medical experts. More societal health damage has been caused by lockdowns and school closures than a cold or flu season ever caused. There is a lot of evidence that the injectates are causing serious harm and death.

            Our government cannot possibly be unaware of the immense harm caused by Gates’ vaccine promotions in Africa and India.

            The icing on the Nuremberg 2 Trials will be corrupt and opinionated Hancock’s forthcoming book describing his ‘heroic’ actions in confronting the Covid (scam) pandemic.

        2. What is so disgusting about that for me is the number of innocent people who will have been infected as a result of a crude experiment..

        3. Me neither. It ranks right up there with the 2003 big pharma AIDS drugs force fed to orphans scandal.

  97. Is it just me?? or does it feel deeply disrespectful to have the Fataturk waffling on about Climate Change on Remembrance Sunday

    1. Climate change is war dont’cha know.

      It could have waited until Monday.
      Actually it could have waited forever, for all the good it does.

  98. Quote from Jordan Peterson’s Instagram account:

    jordan.b.peterson A harmless man is not a good man.⁣
    ⁣
    “It’s better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war.”

    He is saying that people should recognise their own violence and learn to control it, not deny it.

        1. Are you a member of his club? I know you are all heart. Mr Trump is…

          I’ll get me green baize cloth…

          2. Now look here, Grizzly (and all you lot who are arguing) – stop it! I want you all to play “Happy Families”

          1. I suspect the photo image was accidentally reversed – and by the time a million posters had been printed – it was too late…

          2. From the angle of the spade’s blade I don’t think that’s likely, it’s definitely a Catholic..

          3. I was brought up on the leaflet with that image on the front. I still use it for reference.

    1. Asked??
      They should be bl**y told, and sacked if they don’t! Who do they think they are working for?

        1. I was only making the point about apostrophes on that thread. I do prefer typing without them, but I am mindful of the blood pressure of some readers…

    2. Okay, daft idea , but can’t we ship them off to America , Biden will welcome them with open arms , won’t he.

      He and Obama and the rest need a damned good guilt trip.

    3. The outgoing border force chief said that borders are a pain in the arse.

      Perhaps the little shit was in the wrong job.

          3. You would need quite a bit of patience if you tried to drill a tooth that wasn’t there, Peter!

            :-))

    4. Soldiers are considering applying for a judicial review to stop their officers from asking them to fire their weapons at the enemy.

      1. Especially at weekends.

        We jest about this – but remember that the European Court of Justice has said that military personnel should only work a 35 hour week. And that tanks and armoured vehicles engaged in a NATO exercise, where cross-Channel ferries had been requisitioned – was stopped from travelling on Belgian roads on a Sunday….

          1. Never got on with that, despite having a French brother in law who tried to get me hooked on it!

          2. According to Goscinny and Uderzo, the reason the Romans were able to invade Britain was that they figured out that the Ancient Britons downed tools for tea and never worked at the weekend, so they only attacked at tea time and weekends.

          4. When a sister in law came to stay in CT, the town was repaving the main drag through town- route 4. When we drove up to the shop, one lane was done already; next day that whole section of road was finished. She was amazed. Heck, she said, if this was the UK they’d still be brewing their first pot of tea.

          6. “Don’t dig there, dig it elsewhere; you’re digging it round when it ought to be square…”

          7. in Lindesberg, the town where I lived in Sweden, it took 6 months for a junction to be converted into a roundabout.

          8. I love them! Have read them in several.European languages – and the jokes work every time.

        3. I’m sure that the Blitzkreig Panzers/Army obeyed the no travel on Belgian roads on a Sunday.

    2. Please tell me thats his grandson…if it is, no problems.

      Incest is bad enough, but with your grandchildren?

  102. I know some of you plant autumn garlic so can anyone advise me as it’s my first try. I have 2 varieties, Kingsland Wight and Provence Wight, and both planted about mid-October. The Provence has sprouted and is showing 2 inches of green shoots while the Kingsland is still beneath the soil. I was assuming the winter period for the cloves was a state of dormancy and they wouldn’t sprout until spring. Anyone have an idea?

    1. Sounds absolutely spot on. It is doing exactly as I would expect. Might be worth putting cloches or a Haxnicks tunnel over – mice (and other undesirables) can dig them up.

      We have two varieties (Cook could tell you – but I am just the labourer) and they are already just showing. Brilliant idea – if you planted 15 or 20 cloves – you’ll have enough to last oyu half next year.

          5. https://www.google.com/maps/uv?pb=!1s0x487300427a0ea079%3A0xfe1080ae3ff4a93b!3m1!7e115!4s%2Fmaps%2Fplace%2Fthe%2Bweld%2Barms%2F%4050.6370351%2C-2.2020842%2C3a%2C75y%2C131.85h%2C90t%2Fdata%3D*213m4*211e1*213m2*211s4HpBfJPh3CcRZ8Nx29E3_g*212e0*214m2*213m1*211s0x487300427a0ea079%3A0xfe1080ae3ff4a93b%3Fsa%3DX!5sthe%20weld%20arms%20-%20Google%20Search!15sCgIgAQ&imagekey=!1e2!2s4HpBfJPh3CcRZ8Nx29E3_g&hl=en&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=2ahUKEwjniYy6v5j0AhVPQd4KHbXNBPAQpx96BAhwEAg

  106. As I potted on the winter salads, I was thinking about the way things morph from one viewpoint to another.

    Years ago – (say three) – there were “refugees” who were people fleeing from deadly danger – and “economic migrants” who are benefit scoungers.
    At the start, the press made the distinction. Now ALL the fluckers who come here are “refugees”. I almost feel sorry for genuine refugees. Almost – but not that much, given that they have passed through two or three perfectly safe countries to get to the UK. and a lifetime of benefits and no work.

    Last year, when Floyd died – the “kneeling” malarkey started – even though it was ONLY a sign of solidarity with the sickening black looters, rapists and murderers.

    Then “sportspeople” (mustn’t say men – or women in case a trans is slighted) said it was a “gesture against racism” – though to anyone with half a brain cell it clearly wasn’t. Now it is accepted as ONLY the latter and the original meaning has disappeared…

    Funny old world.

    And on that philosophical note, I’ll leave you for this Remembrance Sunday.

    A demain.

      2. Six weeks to go! I spoke to a friend today who’d just come back from Liverpool (thankfully not involved in the terrorism) who said that there were lots of people who had put Christmas trees up already. Perhaps they feel the need for a bit of cheer (or they are anticipating lockdown and are getting the celebration in early).

        1. I’ve seen some lights up. Way too early! I haven’t put my garden to bed for the winter yet.

          1. I have lights around my seating areas all year. I particularly like them at this time of year – a light to lighten the darkness.

    2. Indeed; we had to pray for forgiveness for being indifferent to the imprisoned and refugees. I am not indifferent to genuine refugees at all. They should seek sanctuary in the first safe country and good luck to them. If people are imprisoned there is usually (apart from in totalitarian regimes, in which I include ours with their treatment of Tommy Robinson) a reason for it.

  107. From the USA:

    CDC response to a FOI request in essence asking if there were any recorded cases of a person having acquired immunity from covid 19 subsequently transmitted the virus to another person:

    “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (CDC/ATSDR) received your September 02, 2021, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on September 02, 2021, seeking:
    “Documents reflecting any documented case of an individual who: (1) never received a COVID-19 vaccine; (2) was infected with COVID-19 once, recovered, and then later became infected
    again; and (3) transmitted SARS-CoV-2 to another person when reinfected.”
    A search of our records failed to reveal any documents pertaining to your request. The CDC Emergency Operations Center (EOC) conveyed that this information is not collected”……

    …I wonder why?

  109. It will take more than the retreat of Covid to cure our society’s lockdown obsession

    The numbers are hugely positive. So why is there still so much doom and gloom?

    DANIEL HANNAN

    What will it take to convince you that the Covid epidemic is finished? We have now been out of lockdown for four months. When the final restrictions were lifted on July 19, the seven-day average rate of new infections in the UK was 45,462, according to figures compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The most recent statistics show that number having fallen to 35,055, even in spite of a slight uptick in recent days.

    Nor is it just the raw figures that show a decline. King’s College London runs a project where people self-report symptoms on an app. It shows an 18 per cent reduction from last week. The ONS tests a random cross-section of the public. It, too, reports a significant drop on the previous figures.

    While there are some variations caused by differing methodologies, the overall picture is clear enough. The lifting of restrictions did not lead to a surge in cases. Yes, there was an increase among children and young people – almost all of whom, thankfully, experienced the symptoms either mildly or not at all. But this localised increase did not in any meaningful sense spill over into the older, and largely vaccinated, population. Now, even the increase among the young has been reversed.

    The coronavirus itself is still with us, of course, as is the 1918 Spanish ‘flu virus. But the coronavirus crisis – in the sense of a disease that might overwhelm our hospitals unless checked – has been over since at least April. And the coronavirus epidemic, in the sense of an infection tearing through the population, is now over, too.

    That statement might surprise you. After all, we keep being told by the BBC that new restrictions are bound to be brought in because of “spiralling” cases. Nor, in fairness, is it only the BBC. Sky News tells us that “the UK’s coronavirus epidemic is escalating by the day”. CNN’s Christiane Amanpour thinks that “case numbers are spiking”. Labour says it is time for “Plan B” – in other words, more restrictions.

    On Monday, no less a personage than the Chief Executive of NHS England, Amanda Pritchard, solemnly assured us that “we have had 14 times the number of people in hospital with Covid than we saw this time last year”.

    These claims are incredible in every sense – unbelievable in themselves and astonishing in what they tell us about the people who make them. The infection rates are easy to check. Google “daily Covid cases” and the first thing you will see is a user-friendly graph that shows a steep decline since October 23 – from 47,209 cases (again, seven-day average) to 35,055. “Spiking”, Ms Amanpour? Seriously?

    As for the assertion that there were 14 times as many people in hospital as the previous year, it would, in less serious circumstances, be hilarious. Far from being 14 times higher, the number had in fact fallen by around a third when Ms Pritchard made that claim.

    The head of the country’s largest bureaucracy later explained that she had been counting from August 2020 to August 2021. Hmmm. Imagine any other public figure trotting out an excuse like that. “When I said that there were 171 commissioned vessels in the Royal Navy, Mr Speaker, I was of course quoting the 1990 figure. Technically, as some nit-picking pedants on the benches opposite have pointed out, the number is now 75 …”

    What is going on? Why are so many people – including journalists, politicians and, not least, health officials – determined to cling to their pessimism? I have been cudgelling by brains for an explanation, and I have managed to come up with six possibilities.

    First, human beings are drawn to ugly and frightening stories. They stick in our minds in a way that happy stories do not. For example, if someone is scrupulously truthful for many years, and then tells us a lie, it is the lie that we remember. Psychologists call the phenomenon “negativity bias”, and it explains why, when infection rates fluctuate, we tend to dwell on the upswings and ignore the downswings.

    Second, this tendency has always been recognised by news editors. As the old Fleet Street adage goes, “if it bleeds, it leads”. You’ll never hear a news anchor announce that there have been a couple of weeks of steadily falling infections; but a couple of days the other way and it’s a big story. The casual viewer, hearing only the rising numbers, naturally assumes that they must by now have added up to a tsunami of cases.

    Third, people are slow to change their minds. When “freedom day” was decreed, public health officials predicted disaster. Modellers at Warwick University forecast at least 1,000 deaths a day (in the event, the highest daily toll was 188). Sage told us that daily hospital admissions would be between 2,000 and 7,000 (the highest daily total was 1,086). Neil Ferguson predicted 100,000 infections a day (they peaked at 56,688). Scientists, like the rest of us, are subject to confirmation bias. When new facts challenge their beliefs, they question the facts before their beliefs.

    This bias is especially strong when people have extra reasons to cling to their prejudices, which brings us to the fourth explanation.

    Plenty of commentators desperately want Boris Johnson to be wrong. Various Labour types feebly tried to get #JohnsonVariant trending. As with Brexit, they couldn’t bring themselves to believe good news, and kept insisting that disaster was around the corner. Like every doomsday cult, they were adept at postponing the date of the supposed apocalypse.

    Fifth, there is an element of special pleading. When the BMA or the NHS Confederation warn against being overwhelmed by an imagined surge, they are not disinterested observers. Even they dimly sense that, following the record sums dedicated to healthcare in recent budgets, they can’t make a general claim of poverty. So they demand more money as a supposed one-off.

    Finally, and most depressingly, there is a chunk of the population that likes being told what to do. Lockdown nostalgia is about much more than wanting to be paid to stay home. Many people also miss the sense of common national purpose and solidarity. Levels of stress and anxiety have soared since the end of the lockdown as office workers struggle to readjust to normal life. We are a tribal species, and personal freedom has always tended to be a minority obsession.

    When the epidemic hit, there was a brief argument about whether Covid was “just ‘flu”. The “just” always made me wonder whether the people using that phrase had ever had ‘flu. But, be that as it may, a combination of acquired immunity and vaccination have now reduced the infection fatality rate of the coronavirus to a level not far from that of seasonal influenza.

    Covid, in short, has become one more endemic disease, sometimes nasty, and very occasionally lethal. Infection rates will rise and fall just as with any other cold or ‘flu virus. But will we, after the past two years, be able to treat it as we do them? After all, we don’t require people to test for ‘flu before entering crowded events or arriving from overseas. We don’t oblige them to wear masks. We don’t worry about rising or falling rates. We offer a vaccine, and we try to make sure it is up to date with the latest strains. But, other than that, we assume that people will catch seasonal bugs and, unless they are frail or unlucky, recover.

    My concern is that, for all six reasons I gave above, we won’t be able to assess public health risks in the way we did before 2020. Our tolerance of risk has been permanently and irrationally altered. Far from treating Covid like ‘flu, I fear we shall start treating ‘flu like Covid, with demands for lockdowns when cases rise. Listen to the way NHS spokesmen demand restrictive measures, not just because of a putative Covid surge, but because they are expecting a severe ‘flu season. How long before “Protect the NHS” is trotted out as a catch-all reason for closing schools and businesses?

    And if we’re going to consider lockdowns in a bad ‘flu year, why not lockdowns to combat, say, climate change? Two years ago, government advisers believed that the public would not accept house arrest for more than three weeks. Now, we know that people’s appetite for authoritarianism is almost unlimited.

    That may turn out to be the lasting legacy of Covid. The virus itself is on its way to becoming just another bug, one of the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to. But the scar tissue where our civil liberties used to be may never fully heal.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/11/13/will-take-retreat-covid-cure-societys-lockdown-obsession/

  110. Following on from Ross Clark: same theme, different subject.

    The radical green movement exposes the worst aspects of modern society

    A hyperbolic, moralising narrative is crushing democracy and making a solution harder

    INAYA FOLARIN IMAN

    The modern environmental movement is built on a doom-laden, apocalyptic vision of the future; a resentment of the past; a fetishisation of youth; and an anti-democratic contempt for anyone who dares to question the favoured projects of the political, cultural and scientific elites. None of this is coincidence, or particularly special to the green agenda.

    Pessimism has become our default position. Whether it is climate change, Covid-19, racism, or many of the other challenges we face, the public conversation has become absurdly hyperbolic. From “one minute to midnight” to “we are living in a racism pandemic”, these extreme narratives reveal more about our own sense of existential angst than they do the real scale of these problems.

    Climate change has now been designated a “climate emergency”, language which helps to justify the view that we must take urgent, drastic action to reduce our carbon emissions, with renewable energy sources, wind and solar, positioned as the only responsible solution.

    Of course, we all know that this is an imperfect answer. Many of the sources are intermittent; when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing, they are not producing energy. When it comes to storage, the process involved in mining lithium hardly deserves to be called renewable, carbon neutral or cheap.

    Technological developments may resolve these challenges in time, but to suggest they are the only possible solution just isn’t true. However, in the face of an all-consuming “emergency”, anything other than total capitulation is seen as immoral. Technologies such as fracking for gas are simply beyond the pale, for they fail to conform to the absolutist standards the emergency demands.

    Fracking has been effectively quashed in England by local interest groups. Yet it could, if it was allowed, help the situation. It emits half the CO2 of coal and has helped reduce emissions in the US. For the most extreme environmentalists, even nuclear is beyond the pale, even though it is reliable, has a small land footprint and does not contribute to climate change or air pollution. For an “emergency”, we seem awfully reluctant to find genuine solutions.

    The problem is that the climate discourse is embedded in a wider cultural disorientation. The collapse of confidence in the West and its foundations has led to an inability to defend the gains of the past and to individuals, institutions and elites scrambling for a sense of purpose.

    The past is increasingly seen as something form which we must radically distance ourselves. In the context of climate change, that means disavowing the Industrial Revolution. This period of advancement is framed as a form of original sin for which Britain – a nation of “climate villains”, in the words of Greta Thunberg – bears a special responsibility to atone.

    The obvious parallel is with the increasingly popular self-flagellating view of the British Empire which, rather than a historical fact entailing both some good things and some terrible things, is now seen as the source of all social evil in the present. In both cases, total social transformation – helped by the elevation of youth as “the innocent” – is the only route to progress. Ushering in a new era has become the moral mission of political and cultural elites.

    Presenting things in such stark terms allows the advocates of alarmist thinking to argue that some problems are too big for public involvement; to suggest that climate policy is not a realm for political contestation but rather an area where only those across “The Science” may have their say.

    The shutting out of dissenting voices builds a manufactured momentum towards action as even mild, healthy scepticism is treated as an unacceptable barrier to progress. In an emergency, as we saw with Covid-19 management, democracy is seen as an obstacle to urgent and necessary action, rather than a guarantor of good policy and social renewal.

    One of the tragedies is that the West’s cultural dominance means that our view of the world is increasingly projected onto the developing world, too. Thus, rather than prioritising rapid economic and political development for their citizens, they are caught up in the West’s own psychodrama even if they cannot afford the luxury of such indulgence.

    History shows that finding the best solutions to problems is done through democratic engagement, a free and open conversation, an honest approach and a rejection of self-defeating pessimism.

    At present, on climate change as on so much else, we are embracing the polar opposite.

    Inaya Folarin Iman is a presenter at GBNews and the founder of The Equiano Project

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/11/13/radical-green-movement-exposes-worst-aspects-modern-society/

    1. I sympathised with him when so many of the “pan-off” pictures focused on minorities as if a point was being made to show that the UK only played a relatively minor part in the great scheme of things in both world wars and subsequent conflicts.

      1. Nicked

        “It seems we have had an attempted mass murder at a maternity hopsital
        today. On Rememberance Sunday. If it had happened the outrage would have
        been huge, and then followed by the usual pattern of don’t look back in
        anger, diversity is our strength, and beware of the right wing
        backlash. All served up with a side dish of faux grief from the
        political scum.

        It has been said more than once but the rage I
        feel for every politician who is allowing hundreds of possible
        terrorists, or at least benefit scroungers, in every single day is white
        hot.

        I used to think that the politicans et al hate the ordinary
        people of the UK, but I now believe it is worse, they simply don’t care
        whether we live or die.

  117. Boris Johnson refers to a taxi exploding AT 11am on Remembrance Sunday outside Liverpool Women’s Hospital, killing a passenger, and followed by three “counter terrorism” arrests as “an awful incident”. Anyone else feel that Johnson isn’t awfully up to the job of dealing with terror threats?

  119. Evening, all. This morning I attended possibly the worst organised Remembrance Service I have ever been to (and I’ve been to a few). It was a free-for-all laying the wreaths, the Para who normally drills the parade was absent and replaced by a newbie Flt Sgt RAFAC woman. I was due to pick up a wreath before the ceremony and it wasn’t there (I had to have an emergency spare). There was no band to keep us in step marching to church and when we got there, we hung around wondering if we were to be dismissed, then all milled around at the back of the aisle wondering where we were going to sit. In the end, a lot of people sat in pews which had been allocated (by notice) to other organisations. The hymns were modern (one of which was such an inappropriately worded dirge I wondered why it was on the list) and to cap it all they had the modern version of the Lord’s Prayer. Then at the end, there was no parade back to the square so we all milled around outside the church wondering if we could go and then drifted off in dribs and drabs. Worse, a lot of the army cadets had boots that were dull to say the least and the youth organisations looked really scruffy. I am getting old and crabby and annoyed that standards are slipping.

      1. I think Oscar could have made a better job. The irony of it was, one of the speakers (of course, we had “climate change” mentioned in the sermon address) said how the vicarette wanted everything to run smoothly!

    3. How disappointing.
      Our church sticks to the old version of the Lord’s Prayer even when the service is a modern one. I thought they had given up on the modern version altogether. People just say the old version anyway.

      1. Indeed. The church I normally attend has the old version of the Lord’s Prayer, even when the rest of it is modern (and we have a BCP service on Wednesdays). The third verse of the National Anthem as printed struck me as a bit strange as well – it was for all humanity to unite. The verse I remember had words about confounding HM’s enemies.

          1. Book of Common Prayer. We is hideously white most of the time (we have had a few black couples come to look over the church because they want to get married there).

  121. Premature to say this, but IMHO if David the taxi driver prevented an attack by locking the bomber inside his own cab at great risk to himself, he deserves the George Cross.

  125. Good night all.

    Pan-fried fillet of Scottish loch trout & prawns, Hollandaise sauce, boiled baby potatoes, steamed broccoli spears & quick-pickled fennel. White Rioja.
    A custard tart with plenty of sweet, juicy blueberries.

    2. Yum, we had spinach salad and leftovers. Minced beef pie tomorrow- if I get around to making it;-)

  127. NHS Digital Data shows around 9,255 London hospital stab wound admissions between April 2012 and March 2021
    London police recorded 10,362 serious knife crimes from June 2020 to June 2021
    Data emerged after latest victim, Ali Abucar Ali, 20, was stabbed to death
    Mr Abucar Ali died on Friday in Brentford when he came to aid of elderly woman, Betty Walsh, who was also stabbed .

    London police recorded 10,362 serious knife crimes from June 2020 to June 2021.

    Across England and Wales, separate Home Office crime figures show 47,000 serious knife crimes happened in the year to June.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10201339/Almost-10-000-hospitalised-stab-wounds-London-just-nine-years.html

  129. 341578+ up ticks,

    May one ask,
    Britain and the EU stand on the brink of a trade war,
    who exactly is their opposition ?

  130. ‘How can I be the thrust … to your career?’ Johnson’s plea in Arcuri diary
    Handwritten notes by PM’s ex-lover that were previously unpublished appear to show his disregard for ethical standards

    The diaries appear to be a contemporaneous record of Johnson’s obsession with having sex with Arcuri while appearing to offer help with her business as an inducement: “How can I be the thrust – the throttle – your mere footstep as you make your career? Tell me: how I can help you?” he told her in October 2012. In January 2014 he also compliments her “most amazing body”.

    He appeared to finally succeed in his ambition in September 2012 when he stopped by at Arcuri’s east London flat en route to attending the 2012 Paralympics

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/13/how-can-i-be-the-thrust-to-your-career-johnsons-plea-in-arcuri-diary

  131. I have just read on Twitter that Klaus Schwab (WEF) was arrested November 13 in Switzerland. I have no idea if this is true or not. The thing with Twitter is that it is difficult to find an item if you let it pass by, you have to grab it while you can. I am too tired now to search for it… not feeling 100%. Goodnight everyone. Thank you all for your company.

    1. Regrettably probably a spoof. Much the same as the rumour that Bill Gates was assassinated in India (he deserved to be shot) or that Fauci had been arrested (he should have been incarcerated by now for crimes against humanity) or reports that the Pope is a Catholic (he is not, he is a Marxist stooge).

  133. Austria is discriminating against the unvaccinated. Have these idiots learned nothing from their favourite son Adolf Hitler?

    Drunk on Strauss waltzes and oblivious to the realities. The place must still be run by descendants of the Third Reich. Satanists all.

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