961 thoughts on “Wednesday 23 October: Parliament complains of ill-treatment by the PM while ignoring voters”

  1. Morning, all. I don’t know why I am up so early, but I have had a very restless sleep worrying about Brexit.

    1. Does this help, Tony? “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change those I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” (Good morning to you and all on this site, btw.)

  3. Grenfell fraudsters stole £775,000 from victims’ fund with bogus claims, new figures reveal. 22 OCTOBER 2019.

    Sixteen criminals have been convicted of siphoning off funds by posing as people affected by the inferno which killed 72 people.
    They made claims to the victims’ fund totalling £775,000 in the wake of the tragedy in June 2017. Police have so far recovered £24,000, meaning £751,000 is still missing.

    As in pretty much everything you read in the MSM you have to do considerable brainwork to get even a glimmering of what actually happened. The money appears to have been doled out without even the most basic checks on the applicants being carried out. To apply was to succeed. This was probably due to several factors, the primary one being that the Council really has no idea who was actually living in the Tower since subletting is a plague and to refuse one that turned out to be genuine would be to open the door to accusations of Racism. Better to grant all; after all the money isn’t theirs! A shadow of this craven attitude can be seen in the article. While sixteen may have been convicted the only two mentioned here by name are the only whites on the list.

    There is a codicil to this tale of Cultural Marxist cowardice at the bottom of the page.

    Police are still investigating allegations of fraud connected with the disaster. It is possible that much more money could have been taken than is currently known.

    That is almost certainly true!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/22/grenfell-fraudsters-stole775000-victims-fund-bogus-claims-new/

    1. An apt comment from the small hours:-

      Robert Spowart 23 Oct 2019 4:12AM
      Hmmm. So out of the 16 fraudsters so far identified, the DT chose to publicise the only white pair.

    2. A further two comments:-

      Mary Reed 22 Oct 2019 9:42PM
      How come it was so easy for them to steal this money? Was the council so desperate to be seen as being compassionate and pc that they did not subjects claims to any scrutiny whatsoever?

      If so it did them no good as I am sure that the all knowing likes of Baroness Lawrence regards their exertions as inherently racist.
      Flag12LikeReply

      Robert Spowart 23 Oct 2019 7:34AM
      @Mary Reed It would be interesting to see how many of the illegal “landlords” had close relatives working in the Local Authority housing benefit or Housing Association offices.Edit ()

    3. I’m surprised that the other fourteen convicted thieves haven’t been diagnosed with mental health issues.

          1. With so much alliteration, does that mean that you are illiterate, Korky? (© Cathy Newman.) :-))

  4. Good morning all.
    After yesterdays farce in Parliament, I’m still trying to avoid the details of the news.
    I’ve a rather yummy smelling house at the moment. I did my 1st batch of chutney yesterday but was unable to finish it off as the ginger I was going to use turned out to be too old for use, so it’s still in the pan waiting for a trip to Matlock this morning.

          2. Apart from Greek/Turkish coffee where you have to sieve the grounds out with your teeth.
            Morning, Peddy.

  6. Good morning, all. Late on parade.

    Tremendous electric storm and torrential rain between 2.30 and 4.30 am. The sound was terrifying.

    Still raining but not pouring

    2. Good morning Bill

      Thick fog here , Moh has a tee off time shortly .. he disappeared half an hour ago , competition this morning . They are all so determined .

    3. Rain all night and now the wind is picking up too, so lots of leaves and small branches coming down. Too big to compost and too small for the woodburner. Lots of clearing once the weather improves although looking at the forecast not gardening weather until the W/E.

        1. Norfolk bound?

          We used part of that “cut” Tombetti yesterday as a courgette substitute in a ratatouille and no ill effects today, so far. It was a good alterntive as it stayed firmer than courgette.

          It must be at least a month since I cut it and I only had to remove about an inch at each end. It certainly bodes well, because a whole one is far too much to eat in a set of meals.

          1. Indeed. Arrive on Sunday afternoon.

            I am glad that you are finding trombetti useful. We are leaving three yard long ones here for Christmas; taking three young ones back to Norfolk for immediate consumption.

  7. Attaining Zero Carbon Economy by 2050
    Good morning all.
    Keith Anderson, CEO of Scottish Power, was on the radio just now, urging the immediate installation of 20 million car charging points to overcome public reluctance to buy electric cars. He also said we need to replace all our gas central heating boilers with 23 million heat pumps. Nowhere did he even mention the GENERATION capacity necessary to feed this infrastructure. Where is this to come from?

    1. Good morning. And why would this necessary in the first place? He must imagine that CO2 in minute amounts controls the climate but that’s too silly. Almost as silly as thinking attempts to reduce it in this country will have any measurable effect apart from wrecking our economy.

      1. SIR – The possibility of privileged road access for owners of energy- saving cars (report, October 22) reminds me of the Soviet Union’s “Zil lanes”. These allowed Moscow’s elite to race past their fellow citizens stuck in traffic, resulting in resentment.
        Considering the current high cost of hybrid and electric cars, identifying them through green plates will separate the “haves” from the “have-nots”. This will lead to bad feeling – or a deep key scratch along the car’s bodywork.

        Nick Rose

        Chichester, West Sussex

        1. SIR – I have no problem with benefits for so-called “eco-friendly” cars. However, I am being financially punished and have restrictions imposed on me for driving a low-mileage, well-maintained 10-year-old diesel car purchased at that time at the behest of Gordon Brown.

          The Government should offer a compensatory scrappage deal. If it does so, I will be the first into the car showrooms.

          John Tilsiter

          Radlett, Hertfordshire

    3. Well in spite of all the hype Heat pumps do nor work well . You need a super insulated home and whilst that may make sense in Scandinavia in the UK temperate climate it does not and even with all that you will still need supplementary heating unless yo like sitting i the cold

      Total cost of heat pump plus extra insulation such as triple glazing for an existing home about £50K and no one has really accesses the impact of large numbers of heat pumps sucking heat out of the ground

    4. ‘Morning, roughcommon, being CEO of an electricity generating company he certainly wins his MRD Award.

      In case you haven’t seen it before on this site, that’s the Mandy Rice-Davies award (He would say that, wouldn’t he?)

    5. https://www.thegwpf.com/decarbonisation-and-the-command-economy/

      Decarbonisation and the Command Economy
      Date: 08/05/19Professor Michael Kelly, University of Cambridge
      The costs of retrofitting existing domestic buildings to improve energy efficiency and reduce CO2 emissions, compared with the savings on energy bills, represent a wholly unsatisfactory return on investment from a family perspective. A command economy would be required to make any serious inroads on the challenge as proposed by the Committee on Climate Change.
      In its recent (February 2019) report, ‘UK Housing: Fit for the Future?’, the 29 million existing homes must be made low-carbon, low-energy and resilient to climate change. This note is an abbreviated update of a study[1] I prepared subsequent to a three-year appointment as Chief Scientific Adviser to the Department for Communities and Local Government during 2006–9. I also delivered an ‘amateur’ prospectus to the Council, University, Business and Entrepreneurial sectors of the City of Cambridge, with an estimated bill of £0.7–1 billion to retrofit the 49,000 houses and 5500 other buildings within the city boundaries to halve the net CO2 emissions.

      On the basis of a presentation I made to the then Science Minister, Lord Drayson, in 2008, the Government launched a pilot ‘Retrofit for the Future’ programme, with £150,000 devoted to over 100 houses in the housing association sector. This programme, and its outcomes[2], did not rate a mention in the recent CCC report. However, I have visited one of these, and seen a 60% (the target was 80%) reduction in CO2 emissions after the retrofit: full wall insulation, underfloor insulation, use of the newest appliances etc. At this rate of spend, the 29 million existing homes across the UK would cost £4.3 trillion to retrofit. If the typical energy bill of £2000 per year were to be halved, the saving would be £29 billion per year and the payback time would be 150 years! Who would lend/invest on that basis?

    6. Good Morning. This climate change thing is a complete social scam instituted by the UN. The aim is to move wealth from the First World to the Third World. The idea is to divert funds from wealth generation to unproductive activities. When you think of it, all of the investment in so called green technology is non productive, it is simply a recycling of existing wealth into the green industry, it doesn’t generate basic wealth in the first place. The premise upon which the climate emergency lobby is based is unproven assumptions, one is that the climate is changing beyond expected norms, and two, that man made CO2 is responsible. In my view and research neither of these assumptions are either verified or justified.

      1. You look at the data day inm and day out and Wind Energy is insignificant . Today is is meeting just 15% of our power needs and Solar is even more of a joke in the UK. Today it is producing the grand total of 0% and that’s pretty much the norm at best you might get 5% bit that’s not very often

        1. There are many factors involved, one I find interesting is the production cost of electricity per KWh. Fossil based generation is the lowest cost by far, around $0.03, solar is around $0.07 on the basis of 24 hour generation but when you factor in daylight hours and the fact that mass storage is required to provide 7×24 supply it works out to around $0.20. Wind is around $0.25 on a 100% load factor, and when you take into account reality (onshore wind at about 17% and offshore about 34%) plus the storage requirement for 7×24 supply the reality comes in about $0.40. Nuclear is about $0.15 on the figures I was able to obtain. None of these renewable energy operations could exist as commercially viable businesses without subsidy. There are also many technical reasons why renewables are fragile, way beyond my limited expertise, concerning synchronisation.

          The desire to move energy from fossil to renewables is crippling industry due to the cost of energy, and the manufacturing nations such as China and India continue to build fossil based energy supplies which is why they can manufacture so effectively.

          The politicians in this country are intellectually challenged when it comes to the basics of wealth generation and management on a national scale.

          1. At the ‘Community Information Event’ put on by lightsourceBP yesterday in my village their representatives claimed they no longer get any subsidy, which is their justification for proposing a solar instalataion in our parish of about 100ha. They claim it will produce 49.9MW per yr. I’m curious to know how that compares to Didcot power station, which stood on a similar sized area of land (slightly larger I think), as I’d like to know how much farmland has to be taken over to produce the same as a coal fired power station.

  8. I see that several papers are running a story that “their allies” reckon Harry and Meghan have “single handedly modernised the monarchy” – I have to say she is looking rather deranged in some of the accompanying photos!

    1. For modernising, read fighting with everyone about you until eventually end up with a breakdown of spectacular proportions.

    2. I suppose it is entirely subjective but, quite apart from her odious personality, her mawkish self-pity and vulgar extravagance, I cannot see that she is attractive at all and least of all she is not sexually attractive at all. I cannot understand what Harry saw in her. Was he not old enough to have acquired a sounder judgement?

      She was already well past her prime and I am reminded of Hamlet’s disgust at the lust his mother showed towards his fratricidal step-father who had murdered the former king:

      You cannot call it love, for at your age.
      The heyday in the blood is tame, it’s humble,
      And waits upon the judgment.

    3. They look and behave with the mentality of spoilt children and they are being badly advised.
      I wish the media would just ignore them, it would be better all round for everyone.

      1. Yes, to stand in the middle of a continent – where the lot of most of the population is to live in a mud hut, scratch a living from dry soil and women have their undercarriages ripped to pieces – in order to whinge about your awful life struck me as being a trifle self centred.

      2. But ignoring them wouldn’t sell newspapers, or attract people to news websites where advertisers obtain their revenue.

          1. Likewise, but there is a section of society who feed off this crap, MOH calls them “Hello Readers”.

          2. I think the media like a diversion, another form of fake news to distract people.
            That has got me wondering if Harry and Meghan are actually in on it.

  9. Well it looks as if most of us on here were correct in the assumption that Parliament has just been playing games since the referendum vote, they are not going to let us leave the EU no matter what, they pretend to build a brexit house of cards while there are EU guardian individuals waiting to jog the table, sneeze or blow on it at the appropriate time just before the last card goes on.

    1. Really? While everybody on GP with a few exceptions (BAPH) have been going around and around in ever decreasing circles for 3 1/2 years.
      Recommend you watch Baldrick’s documentaries on the Peasants’ Revolt, PRII being the only realistic option we have left.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kq9sbtFCR8
      They were very well organised and made only two mistakes as far as I could see.

        1. Ha ha ha you’re funny Bob3. The other night I saw Bob’s not my Swiss Uncle warning BAPH with banishment for calling them traitors. The first comment I ever made on GP was about May being a plant to delay and deny Brexit at all costs. I got told to Foxtrot Oscar and then I had all the bully boys piling in as well. Notice there is no Simon nor Midor over there now.

          1. Hmmm, I have never suffered that sort of banter on there to be fair.
            Trolls don’t seem to last very long though.

          3. No because they are bullied and driven off. I am currently having a battle royale with a Yank Soros bot, a British remainer and a dhimmi currently teaching in the ME on Breitbart, for me it’s about honing your line of argument. I could have told them to FO or ignored them but tying them down is much more fun.

            I had a concerted effort against me on GP and gave as good as I got but I was banned because I hinted at meeting a 6’8″ dude, but I got threatened with knee capping, but that was allowed. They pride themselves on how woke they are but they can’t handle anybody with a different opinion.

            It was Old Trout that told me to FO. My second comment from her about two years later was FO too. So I responded in a similar manner. Amazingly she then started commenting and up ticking me.

          5. Somebody on here said to me “Please go away.” to which I responded “Why don’t you make me?” My factory setting is to use foul and abusive language so I’ve got no problem with it. But I don’t see it as clever when directed at people who are in the main on the same side. But whenever I responded in a similar manner they all go cwying to Unker Bob.

  10. Morning, Campers.
    I have now reached the stage of cold contempt.
    In my view, if we lifted the roof off Parliament, we would be looking down at a seething tub of maggots.

      2. It was never fashionable amongst the pseudo-intellectual left wing so-called ‘intelligentsia’ to admire Rudyard Kipling.

        Most of us here have always admired his work.

        2. In that film they made of him they portray him as a warmonger but this poem is brilliant and the original version. In Germany, it is the Saxons there that are causing all the problems.

    2. They’re on the hook for denying the people their freedom from the EU. Cast them out, I say.

      Morning, Anne.

      1. But people won’t.

        Next election they’ll trail up to the polling station and vote the same lot in again.

        …………..then moan.

  11. PM to push for election if EU offers three-month delay It comes as Boris Johnson “pauses” his Brexit bill after MPs reject his fast-track Commons timetable.

    Probably the only thing Boris can do but getting a General Election will be difficult as Labour dont want one. The best hope is the EU just offer a short technical extension to allow time to get the legislation through say 2 weeks at once

    There is normally a half term recess of the commons in the 1st week of November so Boris needs to get that cancelled

      1. What choice is there though. Boris has no majority and with a 3 month delay Labour and the Lib-Dem’s will continue to obstruct Brexit

        Boris needs as well to see if he can find a way to get the DUP back on side how though I do not Know. If NI is out of the EU then there has to be a land border. Boris’s ide of keeping NI temporarily in the Customs union solves that but means we have a tax point at the NI Ports

        Noe i Think most goods being shipped from NI I think go via ports in Ireland so all goods could go via those ports but I doubt that will please the DUP

          1. Give Johnson a majority and he’ll rush his “deal” through. The Leave side needs a majority but that requires that TBP hold sufficient seats to keep Johnson in check. The problem of course is how to tell whether or not your preferred candidate is a patriot and a leaver. My MP posted his Leave credentials and after the first round of May’s “deal” he decided to support her capitulation in rounds two and three. As far as I’m aware he hasn’t shown the contrition that Richard Drax showed in the HoC.

          3. Mine did. I don’t know yet if he voted for Boris’ version. I’m looking to find out. I’ve emailed him to ask what the heck they think they’re playing at and tell him that people are getting angry.

      2. Thanks to 300+ traitors, we are where we are.
        We have to deal with the situation as it is, not as we would like it to be.

  12. Good morning all. Does anyone know what last night’s shenanigans mean? Are we now in the hands of the EU to decide if they ‘graciously’ grant us an extention? If so, will Labour be forced to face the music and concede to a general election?

    If we leave under the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement we will have signed a legally-binding EU Treaty which will shackle this country for years to come. This is not the Brexit I voted for. We can only hope we get a chance to express our opinion at a GE.

    1. I think the EU are just trying to break down the will of the people, just as has happened in other member countries that have crossed them by voting incorrectly.

      1. Agreed. And Boris is complicit in this. Even his slogan ‘get Brexit done’ speaks of weariness and and a willingness to accept anything that can loosely be called Brexit so we can just get it over with. ‘Just barely tolerable’ is not good enough for my country and I suspect that once the devil in the detail becomes apparent we will wish we had taken more time to get a proper clean break.

        1. Bu please remember that Boris’ Brexit is not the end.

          We are merely paying £39bill. for the right to enter negotiations with the Europeans on a trade deal.

          1. Indeed. And why is an FTA such a holy grail? The Europeans sell us £95bn more than we sell them. They should be begging us for an FTA!

          2. Something I have pointed out from the beginning. We are lions led by idiots. Even donkeys would be more intelligent.

      2. That sums it up.
        I can no longer get het up about it.
        Kipling expresses up my mood.

        The Beginnings.

        It was not part of their blood,
        It came to them very late
        With long arrears to make good,
        When the English began to hate.

        They were not easily moved,
        They were icy-willing to wait
        Till every count should be proved,
        Ere the English began to hate.

        Their voices were even and low,
        Their eyes were level and straight.
        There was neither sign nor show,
        When the English began to hate.

        It was not preached to the crowd,
        It was not taught by the State.
        No man spoke it aloud,
        When the English began to hate.

        It was not suddenly bred,
        It will not swiftly abate,
        Through the chill years ahead,
        When Time shall count from the date
        That the English began to hate.

        1. If you can wait, and not be tired by waiting … if you can dream, and not make dreams your master; if you can think, and not make thoughts your aim; if you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same; … yours is the earth and everything that’s in it…
          Rudyard Kipling

    2. A GE will only bring a Boris majority and more Borifudge.

      This means years of arguments and Britain ending up back at the starting point having negotiated away all her new freedoms for the holy grail of an FTA.

      That is the purpose of Boris’ stoopid WA.

        1. I think with a compliant media that Boris has a strong chance of getting his fudge, and it will take years for the public to realize what has happened.

          In any case, where is the money coming from for the BP ?

          Not apparently from Arron Banks who now supports Boris.

      2. You’re probably right. But I was hoping a big Brexit Party surge would encourage Boris to push for a clean break. Farage has been promoting how the WA is not Brexit. If only some of the MSM would do their jobs and analyse it as well, rather than bovinly pushing how wonderful it is that we have a deal, any deal.

        1. Morning JK,
          I still hear the echoes of
          we have won, leave it to the tory’s and I still still support UKIP all the more.
          As for the MsM, the print section I call the
          firelighters as that is the purpose of taking a free sun in the mornings, so it has it’s uses.

  13. The Scottish journalist Alec Cochrane teports in the DT that there is less support for Scottish Independence. A Poll commissioned by Angus Robertson shows this.They, like me prefer the Union. If this reflects the public view in Scotland it is some good news in these bleak times.

      1. It was Essex boys wot chucked out a foreign bishop inflicted on us by the Pope (another bloody foreigner).
        Not much has changed in 1,500 years.

    2. It is the same across the UK. The DUP in NI have a lot of seats but reflect the views of far fewer people. Labour & Conservatives have huge amounts of seat but do not reflect the views of many of the people. Much of it comes down to our FPTP system that almost forces people to vote for them as voting for other parties ends up as a wasted vote

        1. Morning M,
          The very same, was it you that mentioned him before if so I thought it was Clyde, which will leave him totally confused.

          2. M,
            Now you confuse me, so IT WAS clydeside, anyway I am pretty sure Harry would agree that Scotland would vote to stay in the
            union.

    4. Good. I always view the union as being greater than the sum of its parts.
      Although I joke about porridge, rays of sunshine – even North Berwick gets a pasting …. I am actually very upset at the dissension deliberately being fostered by the SNP.

      1. I often think that the SNP’s intention is to make people in the rest of the union (mostly the English) so fed up with their constant whining that they would be glad to see Scotland go. But that would be to ignore the wishes of a large number (perhaps 50% or more) of the Scottish people. It seems to be a deliberate ploy to foster discontent between Scots and English – a really bad idea for relations between the nations of the British Isles.

  15. WE desperately need a viable new party. IT could be the Brexit Party but unfortunately it is not doing a lot. It still has no manifesto. Its Web site still tells you nothing and it still has no organisation.

    Who knows for example who their Brexit Party Candidate is ? There is a small amount of information if you dig around on the Internet but not a lot as for Local election forget it.

    1. Given that 17.4 million people voted to leave the EU don’t you think it strange that no serious leaver outside of the mainstream parties has ever managed to get into Parliament

      1. FPTP is to blame in my view. IT makes it all but impossible to Break the two party cartel

        If the Brexit party ever gets its act together it could gain seats particularly if the Conservatives see sense and do a deal on seats. The Conservatives have little hope in much of Wales and the Midlands and North but they would vote Brexit Party. If the Conservatives were to stand aside in these eats where they have no hope of wining it would avoid splitting the vote

        I will be surprised if Labour the Lib-Dems, Plaid & the Greens do not come to some arrangments

      2. Morning B,
        Precisely the question I have been asking why is it that a party such as UKIP has successful runs that ALWAYS end in controversy ?
        I do believe that the party has always been allowed to go so far ,then is reigned in as if political elements know the true potential of UKIP.

          1. B,
            A defining move is being made commencing tonight in combating the latest & last alien agents in action issue’s.
            In the Braine / Batten duo the party has a brace of winners.

        2. Because if there isn’t a controversy around a party like UKIP, the media and the Left will manufacture one.

          1. Morning Im,
            To my mind the latest accusing Gerard Batten of “not being in good standing” within the party is beyond the pale.
            The “nige” wrote to the NEC before Gerard’s successful leadership stint saying Gerard Batten was not a fit person to take the leadership, why ?
            Why the farage rant, back knifing 30000 members who gave him
            support & a working platform, why?
            Seems to me to many people’s are afraid to ask.
            Defining moments approaching.

          2. Good news come through on E mail from Richard Braine

            Currently we do not have a Chairman. Last night Kirstan admitted that I was her
            “line manager”. I was therefore justified in suspending her from duty
            last week.
            Jeff Armstrong is the General Secretary since Kirstan did not have authority to suspend.
            Tony Sharp is my Deputy, and I am not suspended.
            Last night I sacked Kirstan for gross misconduct.”

            Hamilton and Walker need their p45s too, Ogga
            How about Gerard for Chairman?
            LOL
            But of course – once again a climb back as Gerard did before….

          5. I got an e mail at 2 30 this afternoon.
            Did you send an e mail to the Richard Braine team giving them your contact details as Heriot had denied then the UKIP membership list?
            Here is Gerard’s tweet on the matter giving you the link if you have not seen it.
            https://twitter.com/GerardBattenUK/status/1186005548426321921
            This tweet link is not going through so here is the tweet with the information and link to Richard.

            UKIP Leader Richard Braine is being prevented from communicating with his own members by the NEC. To get his messages email him at: richardbraineismyleader@outlook.com I ask all my followers who are UKIP members, & others interested, to do so.

          8. Pass it around Conway if you can.
            And follow Gerard’s twitter.
            You can read them without being on it.
            They are very good.
            Gerard Batten@Gerard Batten UK

          10. You don’t need to do twitter
            I don’t.
            Just put up the link I gave you Gerard Batten @ etc etc and it will link you to his twitter comments which are varied and sometimes a bit of fun.
            Very informative.
            Since the message from Richard yesterday another message has come through on Gerard’s Twitter today
            Take a look.
            I am trying to find out who to vote for.
            I had an e mail today giving me the code to vote… but for whom?
            Richard and Gerard are meant to be telling us…

      3. 2015 General Election and 3,881,099 votes for UKIP with no MPs, (except one by defection), did for them. Scared the shite out of the PTB and got us to where we are at present. If not for that we would still just be grumbling and not, as we are starting to be, very angry.

      4. People realise that elections are about more than a single issue. The mainstream parties all promised to honour the referendum – as well as do other stuff, therefore they got the votes.
        That they lied and have ignored those promises now means that people will be looking for someone else to vote for, but whom?
        – Brexit party effectively doesn’t exist, despite all the fawning on NTTL over how fabulous Farage is.
        – UKIP has imploded, and not worth future consideration.
        – CON / Boris is very wobbly at best
        – LibDum: Clear about that they will oppose Brexit right to the bitter end
        – Labour: Cancel Brexit and bring in Chavism.
        – The rest… well, who cares?
        Glad I left UK 21 years ago.

    2. BJ,
      You have had one for 27 plus years but many chose
      the toxic trio and the keep in / keep out mode of voting.

  16. Why Mexico is losing its war against a parallel state of drug cartels. 22 OCTOBER 2019.

    Even for Mexico, which has become synonymous with cartel violence and drug trafficking around the world, last week was unprecedented.
    A botched military operation by the government of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (Amlo) that briefly detained the son of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán, Ovidio – an alleged drug trafficker – was forced to release him and retreat.

    There’s not actually that much that is parallel! Mexico is a NarcoState in everything but name. The Government, the Opposition, are creatures of the Cartels. That is the reality. I do occasionally wonder if this is what is in store for us all. Democracy is being extinguished almost everywhere and being replaced by Forces that are sometimes obvious but mostly as here in the UK acting behind the scenes. One can envisage a future in which whole countries are owned by individuals!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/22/mexico-losing-war-against-parallel-state-drug-cartels/

    1. When Lefties get the taste for that they carry on trying to take more.
      Think Branson and Necker Island.

          1. He is, I suppose, mortal.

            Who is his heir and successor? Will he or she exercise the same malign influence on the world?

  17. Well the next move appears to be with the EU. I think in theory we could leave the EU on the 31st October . This think could happen if they did not offer us an extension. Even if they do offer an extension it would still need to be ratified by the commons. I am sure though they would want more than 21 day to properly review the document lets say 1 week

  18. Daily Brexit Betrayal

    That fact was obviously lost on the majority

    who voted to scupper the Programme Motion. They seemed to think that

    now Johnson must get an extension, oblivious to the fact that this

    extension is in the gift of the EU – just as they were oblivious to the

    fact that the deadline of the 31st of October is not an ‘artificial’ one

    manufactured by Johnson to thwart their dreams! Time and again it was

    made clear to them that this date was set by the EU, to no avail.

    What is it about the Remain lot that they are so eager to deliver our country to the EU? Are they happy that Donald Tusk can now say:

    “Mr Tusk said on

    Monday that EU leaders will not permit a no-deal Brexit whatever the

    circumstances over the coming days or weeks. “We should be ready for

    every scenario, but one thing must be clear, as I said to Prime Minister

    Johnson on Saturday, a no-deal Brexit will never be our decision,” he

    told MEPs.” (link, paywalled)

    Savour this: “The EU will not permit a No Deal” …

    While the MSM are now speculating about what this all means – will

    there be a GE? Will there be ‘No Deal’? Will Johnson now go and ‘die in a

    ditch’? – there were a few stray clues in remarks made by Johnson and

    later by Rees-Mogg. One had to listen very carefully though.

    https://independencedaily.co.uk/your-daily-brexit-betrayal-wednesday-23rd-october-2019/

    1. Apparently the EU are going to offer us an extension. Perhaps Boris had better bite the bullet and just leave on 31 October. The riots have to come at some time anyway – so at least he should be prepared.

      I’ve given up on HM using the powers that she has. She is there there partly to protect us from despots and foreign rule. Nul points.

  19. Katie Price, Lauren Goodger and Georgia Harrison Instagram posts banned

    A trio of influencers have had Instagram posts touting diet products banned by the UK’s ad regulator.
    TV stars Katie Price and Lauren Goodger promoted a BoomBod shot drink on their accounts, while Georgia Harrison showed off Protein Revolution’s weight loss gummies.

    The Advertising Standards Authority said the influencers’ posts were irresponsible. “The ads must not appear again in the same form,” it ruled.

  20. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/sold-denied-delayed-magna-carta-betrayed-tickets-77614203171

    For anyone living near Bury St. Edmunds:
    Mon, 11 November 2019
    19:00 – 21:00 GMT

    The Athenaeum
    Angel Hill
    Bury Saint Edmunds
    IP33 1LU

    Sold, Denied, Delayed – Magna Carta Betrayed
    About this Event
    In Conversation with Dr David Starkey, TV Historian, with Lucy Harris, Director of Leavers of Britain and Dr Edmund Fordham, Brexit Party Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Bury St Edmunds. An event produced by Julie Pierce, Leavers of Suffolk.

    Constitutional process has been side-stepped, twisted and ravaged. The last Parliamentary sitting cost the taxpayer upwards of £1.5bn, yet passed no significant legislation. All to delay, block and attempt to overturn, a decision to leave the EU of the largest electoral mandate in our history. Edmund Fordham and Lucy Harris will be asking David Starkey the significance of the damage to the constitution, and why questions of political power in the country, between the Monarch, Parliament, Government, the Judiciary and the People, that remained unanswered from over three centuries ago, have now resurfaced.

    Government wrestled with a Parliament hostile to the people’s wishes and that refused to face the voters in a General Election. Both have lost the trust of the majority of the electorate, but claim they know better and call on the ’national interest’ to justify authoritarian behaviour. The Supreme Court has become the highest political and legal power in the land. The role and existence of the House of Lords and Monarchy has come under serious scrutiny. The very notions of democracy and freedom, once central to our national politics have increasingly been cast aside, or redefined to apply to a narrow class of people.

    How can we mend the constitution and regain some national solidarity and belief in Government, Parliament and democracy? Come along, ask questions and get answers to these momentous issues from the leading constitutional historian of our time.

    2. How can we mend the constitution and regain some national solidarity and belief in Government, Parliament and democracy?

      It took around 250 years to introduce Democracy to the UK and 4(so far) to get rid of it. It is actually a quite delicate flower and needs tender loving care to grow and survive. It’s now dead and nothing is going to bring it back in its old form. What we have to watch for is what is going to replace it!

    3. Bury ‘SAINT’ Edmunds? – never ever call it that – it’s wrong. It’s Bury St Edmunds – I lived there for a while and have played in the Atheneum

    3. If Doc gets his/her way then the patients will no doubt be left with a womb feeling inside……

      1. Morning S,
        They could consider putting it in the head thereby creating “womb at the top.”

    5. It kinda makes sense. Match couples M&F who want to swap anatomy, dual transplants and Bob’s your aunty – the bonus being no clinical waste to be incinerated. Win Win Win!

    6. Dr. Ahmel Alghrani?

      This is high level Trolling, unfortunately too many will only see this as a scientific challenge leaving them blinded to the ethical and financial cost to society as a whole.

      1. That’s one of the Derbyshire Algranis, then? No doubt he will make a personal fortune if this ridiculous proposal is taken seriously. It’s bad enough our legal aid going to unwanteds like Begum without some other twit wanting to spend taxpayers’ hard-earned wages.

    7. As long as it guarantees them frequent heavy and painful periods, I have no problem with that. Actually that should be induced irrespective of whether it’s possible to implant a uterus. It’s an essential element of the feminine experience. (There goes my steadily reducing up-vote total!)

      1. Don’t forget to give them the equivalent of about 24 hours of intense labour pains, without pain relief, before starting any other surgery or treatment.

      2. Morning, Sue

        There is a lot of me me me about these people. I’m sure many people would like NHS money to be spent on various diseases and conditions, but this selfish whine of the trans-sexuals is not worthy of the money it costs.

      3. Hi Sue,
        I’ve just seen your thread on the only remaining D channel and decided to reply to you here on this site because one of the mods on that channel is inclined to remove any comments that go against the official response.
        The loss of upvotes, some say is caused by a downvoting bot or bots. I believe that to be true because a human couldn’t possibly be responsible for the scale of the problem. Obviously a human or humans is/are responsible for instigating the bot attacks though.
        It began at the end of April this year when at least 3 or 4 commenters that I know of lost all of their upvotes in one fell swoop. One commenter lost all his 350,000+ closely followed by another who lost 850,000+. The theory is that intense downvoting i.e. so many, (I forget the number quoted) per second, eventually causes upvotes to disappear or to become null and void. I think it’s pretty obvious that there are more, several more than the one bot in operation. Since the end of April more and more commenters have lost all of their upvotes, some quickly and others much more slowly.
        Quite a few commenters have also lost their entire commenting history on their profile pages, but I think their comments are still to be seen on the sites where they were posted. Not the comments on the now defunct channels of course.
        At the beginning it appeared that right-wing commenters were the ones most affected, but pretty soon some lefties too were also targeted.
        The bot/s don’t stop either, even when an account has been pushed into a minus upvotes situation. It goes on and on.
        About a dozen or so commenters that I know of abandoned but did not delete their damaged beyond repair accounts (they made new accounts with similar to the original names they were using) these abandoned accounts are now showing literally millions of minus downvotes. I believe in one case it’s now reached a billion.
        As I said, the bot/s don’t stop. D**c”” would appear after all this time, to be unwilling or unable to do a damn thing about it.
        I can’t help but to draw certain conclusions from their non-response. I suppose I should say non-effectual response.

        1. Thanks Elouise,
          I started that thread just by way of gauging the extent of the problem and immediately paid for my curiosity by getting my first downvote!
          I also got the stock response about deleted accounts. Nope, that doesn’t explain it.

          1. It is a huge and widespread problem Sue.
            However, you are the first Nottler to be affected by it, as far as I know?
            Regarding the deleted accounts stock response. I think that is now an out-dated response, because a couple of commenters that used to occasionally upvote a few of my comments, actually deleted their accounts about 6 weeks ago and much to my surprise I didn’t lose upvotes! The upvotes they gave me remained and show as ‘guest’ upvotes on my profile page. I haven’t seen that happen in many years.
            That did used to be the case, many years ago. Maybe D reinstated that particular feature as some sort of compensation or something.
            I remember also when it was possible to see who the downvoters were, by name I mean. I reckon that sooner rather than later they will reinstate that feature too. When they do that the sh!t is going to hit the fan big-time on some sites where it is not uncommon for posters to receive a dozen or more downvotes on any comment they make. I recently saw one poster get 50 plus downvotes on one of his comments. It’s par for the course on some sites, particularly the sites that used to be channels. I’ve never commented or participated in any way on those channels/sites, but it is amusing to observe the shenanigans that go on there sometimes. They make mountains out of molehills. At first I thought they must be young people, but they’re not, most are middle-aged and some are quite elderly. I guess some people never grow up or mature. Most children are better behaved than those weird people.
            D used to be a very good commenting system, but now with people and bots manipulating every feature of the system, I do wonder for how much longer it can continue. They really need to get a grip on so many things that have gone and are going wrong.
            I like the DM’s system of anonymous up and down voting, i.e. the red and green arrows. It’s simple and effective.

    9. There will soon be NHS funded

      Womb for Willy Exchange Centres

      A woman who thinks she is a man will be able to trade in her womb for a willy from a man who thinks he is a woman and no longer wants his willy.

      The problem seems to arise when a rapist with a willy who identifies as a woman in order to go to a woman’s prison wants to keep his/her/its fully functioning willy.

      .

  22. Someone is manipulating the data ongoing, if they can do this then what other manipulations can they bring into play ?

      1. Last night’s Beeb EU report was from Strasbourg: must the apparatchiks’ that week of the month.

        1. Sorry, but I like bears and take exception to them being used to depict that house of hypocrites, liars and trough feeders!

    4. When my brother was a tot, he preferred his Teddy bear called MargoPenny to all other toys.
      Otherwise, his path in life was stereotypically male. (Two wives – of the female kind, two daughter (ditto) and several very large motorbikes later.)
      I, on the other hand, enjoyed playing with his Meccano.

  27. Dominic Grieve has called for more polite discourse … Shame about last night’s interview on Iain Dale – but par for the course with arch-Remainers:

    Former Attorney General Dominic Grieve says Boris Johnson is “behaving like a dictator” and likens chief advisor Dominic Cummings to a scuttling rat.

    Former Tory MP Dominic Grieve said the government are “playing games” at the moment.

    “It’s partly blame games. It’s ‘if you don’t do what we want, you are obstructing the will of the people’, so it’s rather unpleasant. It’s stupid games because they’re trying to concertina the time for consideration of complex constitutional legislation to a ridiculous extent.”

    Grieve also said that Theresa May’s government anticipated her deal to get through in eight weeks and while it be advantageous in some way to the Prime Minister, “it’s also really corrosive to trust.”

    He said a lot of the MPs that voted for Boris Johnson’s deal and the Programme Motion did it “with gritted teeth and real anger at this game-playing keeps going on.”

    Iain said that listeners may consider him hypocritical because the Benn Act passed in one day and could be considered an example of game-playing.

    He said that the Benn Act was brought in because they knew “the government were plotting to prorogue Parliament” and “we also were being told in mid-August that the Prime Minister intended to crash us out with no deal, that was the impression he decided as a matter of propaganda to convey. So was it surprising the Benn Act came in in response to that?”

    He continued that they had to act quickly in order to pass it and manage the prorogation of Parliament.

    “I’m beginning to think he does this quite deliberately in order to point the accusatory finger at Parliament. But this is really childish, but this childish thing is continuing. To my mind, Ken Clarke is right: there is nothing to prevent him continuing steadily with this Bill.

    “He’s behaving like a dictator quite frankly.”

    Dominic Grieve then said a three month Brexit extension was longer than he’d anticipated.

    “It seems to be me that it needs at least a fortnight in the House of Commons and there’s got to be intervals,” he said, insisting that MPs shouldn’t be rushed into making decisions on amendments and need time to reflect.

    “I would’ve thought if the Prime Minister sets out to do this Bill now on a sensible timetable, I would expect the Bill would be through both Houses of Parliament by the end of November.”

    Iain asked whether the government ought to consider an extension offered by the EU which in theory would be until 31 January but rumours have circled could include a break clause in November. A break clause would enable the UK to leave the EU before the extension deadline if legislation has been approved.

    “Of course it should. It doesn’t even have to be a break clause on mid-November and early December, it can be a break clause whenever you get to the point and you say we’ve finished,” said Grieve.

    Iain challenged that the government will say there has to be a break clause otherwise “it gives you and your colleagues the incentive to drag this out a lot longer than they would want it to be dragged out for.”

    Grieve said he didn’t think that was right and if there was a sensible timetable, it couldn’t be dragged out.

    “At the moment there is no timetable which means it can be dragged out. That’s how stupid the government has been. I think they’re actually playing to a completely different audience and a completely different game.

    “I think it’s quite deliberately being done in order to raise anger by some sections of the public with MPs.

    “This is almost Cummings’ doing, he appears to be the guru. He was actually lurking outside the chamber this afternoon, it was rather odd. When someone pointed out that he was there, he sort of scuttled off like a rat.”

    Iain laughed and said: “So we’ve had Boris Johnson as a dictator and Dominic Cummings as a rat, and you’re calling for more polite discourse.”,

    https://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/iain-dale/dominic-grieve-johnson-is-behaving-like-a-dictator/

    2. Grieve is yet another hypocrite – and another rat of an MP who hasn’t understood (or chooses to ignore) that 17.4 million of us voted for something and now demand that our “elected representatives” get on with it! I didn’t want three lots of Blair but that was what I had to put up with – MPs need to put up with our decision and get on with implementing it!

    3. Wowsers.
      The utter loathing felt for the GBP has never been better expressed. Every word drips disdain.
      Iain’s body language is fascinating; he is so still you are reminded of a tiger preparing to pounce.

    4. This government is not used to strong leadership..

      I think Boris is being decisive in a take it or leave it way .

      Iain Dale is such a prat .. he sways with the wind .. abit like the twerp Matthew Paris .

      Anyway no matter what they (MP’s) are all squabbling like a cage full of unhappy rats.

      Bercow is King Rat.. fiercely demonic !

    5. Quite simply, I do not like Mr Grieve.

      He is very physically unattractive with an extremely gloomy face but if he had any warmth or humour this would not matter so much.

      I rather like the observation of one of Oscar Wilde’s characters who said that he always judged by appearances and only superficial people did not do so.

  28. The Irish Mirror is reporting that the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar is very keen to get Betty the Chihuahua Bitch (Brexit) done by 31 October because he has tickets to see Cher on 1 November.

    “He has tickets for the pop legend in Dublin’s 3Arena on November 1 and wants to enjoy it properly,” says the Mirror, “Mr Varadkar is a self-confessed Kylie Minogue fan who sent her a personal letter and got a selfie with the Aussie when she performed here last December. But he is also believed to love Cher and has been looking forward to the concert for months.”

    Allegedly, this report is true.

    We are all doomed. J Ward.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/16ed8322b1de9e23c30b787810ac88095a497e288b8fa3922254845ad8cee5e4.png

  30. Sorry if this has been posted before but it seems so relevant…….
    Oxford University researchers have discovered the densest element yet known to science.
    The new element, Governmentium (symbol=Gv), has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.
    These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called pillocks.
    Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact.
    A tiny amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction that would normally take less than a second, to take from 4 days to 4 years to complete.
    Governmentium has a normal half-life of 2 to 6 years.
    It does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganisation in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places.
    In fact, Governmentium’s mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganisation will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes.
    This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration.
    This hypothetical quantity is referred to as a critical morass.
    When catalysed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium (symbol=Ad), an element that radiates just as much energy as Governmentium, since it has half as many pillocks but twice as many morons.

    1. “Two main classes of leptons exist, charged leptons and neutral leptons (better known as neutrinos). Neutrinos rarely interact with anything, and are consequently rarely observed.”

      90% of our politicians are exhibiting characteristics of not interacting with the will of the people, and quite a few are trying hard to avoid having an election where many of them will disappear altogether. They like being on camera, but those “parachuted in” to take over seats from real people just buy a house in the area and are curiously absent.

      In some science fiction, “Lepton Radiation” can be a sign of alternate dimensions or limited time-travel. Our current MP’s are doing their best to keep us trapped in the past, so they might just be Neutrinos with ideas far above their station. The sooner that they disappear through the nearest wall at the speed of light, the better off our country will be.

  31. Rain continues – but we have been luckier than places a few miles east where they have had between 10 and 20 centimetres of rain in under 24 hours.

    It is supposed to stop late this afternoon. Supposed…

  33. May one ask if we are still under the eu jackboot on November the first in any shape or form other than total severance will the peoples still adhere to their same voting pattern ?
    Or will they finally admit that after years of proof the lab/lib/con/brussels coalition party are
    TAKING THE PISS regarding the people’s and their demands.

  34. Blair’s reckless population explosion sowed the seeds of Brexit, though few will now admit it. 23 OCTOBER 2019 .

    The greatest failure of modern British governance was to encourage mass immigration to the UK and fail to prepare for the impact it would have. It is at the root of much that afflicts the nation today, from the agony of Brexit to the near-terminal pressure on the NHS and the housing crisis with all its attendant consequences. As figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) confirmed this week, the last 20 years have seen the population rise faster than at any time in history.

    Morning everyone. Well it’s still a work in progress of course but it has almost certainly destroyed the UK not just demographically but morally and financially as well. All the Pillars of State; the political system, the fifth estate, the law, the military, are all poised on the edge of destruction, waiting for the coup that will bring the whole structure down in ruins.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/10/23/blairs-reckless-population-explosion-sowed-seeds-brexit-though/

    1. I’d say they started with immigration in 1948. But the real start was 1852 when somebody got a loan from a bank..

    2. And the greatest failure of modern German governance was to encourage mass migration to Germany by Angela Merkel, swiftly followed by a demand from her that other EU countries should take their “fair share”.

    3. It is not a failure, it was all planned and part of bringing down nation states and silencing and usurping native populations with stringent racism laws and changing cultures.

      1. Absolutely correct, Bob3. If such a move was a mistake, and what a mistake that would have been, then as soon as the effects became apparent the whole scheme would have been terminated, rather than continued. If it hadn’t been Blair it would have been another globalist infiltrator carefully placed into the Labour or Tory parties.

        1. And it is not as if the agenda was limited just to the UK, it has been copied all over Europe and the West.
          I think we have to look at countries that haven’t allowed this to happen in their countries for who is to blame.

    4. There has been a strong anti-EU groundswell in the UK long before Blair’s criminal stupidity.

    6. Demographically the indigenous white population has not been able to replace itself for the last 20 years. Already London is no longer majority white and many other places are following this.

      But is is not just a question of the colour of a person’s skin and the lack of infrastructure – it is a question of whether incomers can accept the Rule of British Law

    7. While immigration almost certainly had a lot to do with it, I’d say it wasn’t the originator of Brexit. We had seen over the years since we (I was guilty) were conned into voting to stay in 1975 how the “trading arrangement” we were happy with had morphed into the superstate it was always intended to be and which we wanted no part of.

      1. Are you telling us you have low testosterone levels? That’ll be because you hang around on GP for too long.

          1. That’s an impossibility for me. Can’t even keep one going, that’s why I need those little blue pills. Then the concentration goes.

  36. Five arrested after migrants found in cattle truck, Calais, says

    Five men have been arrested after migrants were found hidden in a cattle truck.
    The swoop was part of National Crime Agency investigation into a crime group suspected of hiding the migrants to smuggle them into the UK.

    A total 13 people, including a child, were found in a hay compartment of the lorry carrying livestock in the port of Calais on Saturday evening.
    Border Force officers had searched the vehicle acting on information from the NCA.

    After that the British lorry driver, was detained by the French authorities.
    Four more men, aged between 23 and 39, were then arrested by the NCA on suspicion of facilitating immigration.

    Four more men, aged between 23 and 39, were then arrested by the NCA on suspicion of facilitating immigration.
    This was done in a series of raids in Romford, north-east London, and Brentwood, Essex.

  37. Thoughts from the bath.
    How will we know that we have left, when we leave?
    We don’t need the permission of the EU, nor their acknowledgement, nor acceptance.
    We have given notice, and passed the notice date more than once. So how will we know when we pass the notice date again that we have really left?

    1. Will the EU send our MEP’s home and sack all Brits working in Berlaymont? Will our government stop paying the tribute/protection money? The more I think about that, the less likely it seems.

      1. The EU will send our MEP’s back home as they REALLY want to stop Farage and The Brexit Party standing up in their pretend parliament and saying how corrupt they all are. But the EU will keep controlling our laws and taking our money for years to come. You can see why they wrote this “transition period” in the way that they did.

        It gives the EU what they want for all of those countries that are under their boot in the future. No real representation at all and control over the country and its finances.

    2. HP,
      It will be confirmed by the demand call for our financial
      input from brussels, along with a fine.

    3. When the cheque has cleared and there is a massive party in Brussels to celebrate our vassalage.

  38. Yo All

    Here is something to ponder on

    On 7 December: The UK House of Commons voted 461 to 89 in favour of Theresa May’s plan to trigger Article 50 by the end of March 2017.

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

    I would like to see a list of how the then Brexit voting MPs have voted since that day and compare it to the Referendum Map of voting patterns

    From memory, Londonistan and Scotland were the Remainers

    The ‘working class heartland, mainly dominated by Labour voters were the patriotic Brexiteers.

    We need a list of turncoats available before the upcoming GE.

    Voters need to be able to trust (I know it is early and am only on my seconf coffee) MPs to carry out there wishes

    Perhaps, all voting slips could contain the additional boxes of Leave/Stay, so the elected MP MUST vote in accordance with his constituents wishes

    Mr Rashid to be barred from influencing any voting

    2. ‘Mr Rashid to be barred from influencing any voting”
      Ooooh …. you Wacist , you.
      Mr. R is merely introducing diversity and vibrant colourful practices into this staid grey little island.

    1. Our Government is partly to blame. By allowing illegal immigrants to remain they offer this bait to the entire world of illegal immigrants. They all know that if they just pay £5000 to a people smuggler to land them on British soil they will be housed fed and watered for the rest of their lives, and that they can bring in all their relatives to join them.

      1. HP,
        I know, I did not to link my sentiments in my initial post with the reason.
        The toxic trio are looking for voting units in any shape or form
        IMHO, these in their quest for support / votes will put this down as collateral damage.
        People’s will be upset but I very much doubt that will deter them from currently supporting / voting for mass uncontrolled immigration parties.

        1. Exactly, and if his warnings had been taken seriously tragedies like this would have been avoided. The very fact that these tragedies keep on recurring ought to be alerting people to the fact that an agenda is being doggedly adhered to … alas.

    3. I’m glad I’m a heartless bastard. As this is Pedant Central, what is a container truck?

        1. Well yes, I have no truck with your answer but I need specifics. Was it rigid, articulated, an ISO container, a reefer unit, tautliner, tilt trailer, a box van or whatever?

          2. Don’t worry about it, I don’t. If you took away one regular up ticker to my comments on here I’d be 200 upticks down. I came on here about a year ago with say 390 upticks to 420 comments which is good for me. Couple of weeks later, up to 900 comments and 600 upticks. The only place I worry about upticks and downticks is on DM comments.

            Eg. I posted this one earlier about Johnson.

            Amateur dramatics from Johnson. Must have taken lessons from MM. He never has had any intensions of taking us out of the EU.

            9/20

            Pleased with that as I was nailing two birds with one shot.

            As for the story of the 39 dead immigrants, I could not make any sense whatsoever with the DM’s 10 year old journalists. That’s probably insulting to 10 year olds..

        1. Yes, I had already jumped to that conclusion. But container truck to me infers they were all in the prime mover and not in the actual shipping container itself. If it was a driver accompanied Irish haulier it was probably a refrigerated trailer.

          1. RS,
            Your thought process is your concern not mine, plus there is only one steering wheel in the cab, putting the many peoples down as relief drivers is a tad OTT.
            Maybe the illegal smuggling agents offer courtesy overcoats, extra cost covered by mass uncontrolled immigration parties
            which in turn will be laid off by raising membership fees.

          2. My thought process is a tad more along the lines of Genghis Khan’s than yours. But you’ve seen how many people they can cram into a standard saloon car so 39 is easy in a tractor unit with a sleeper cab. Amazes me where they get the $€5,000 to $€15,000 fees they get charged. Probably from the EU or our wonderful government.

          10. The fridge mechanism can be seen in the photo at the front of the trailer, hence my “air conditioning”.

          11. o1 was remiss and didn’t include a link so I wasn’t going looking for it. Reefers are usually used to keep cargo cold and only very rarely used to keep cargo frost free. The outbound trip would have been no doubt carrying food products but inbound it would have probably been used as a standard dry trailer.

  40. morning all

    SIR – Labour, the Liberal Democrats and some Tory MPs have accused the Government of “treating Parliament with contempt” (report, October 22).
    What on earth have most of them been doing to their constituents and the rest of the country since the referendum?
    Tony Westlake
    Corston, Somerset

    SIR – We have had three years of largely unchallenged anti-Brexit propaganda, fed by vested interests. In those three years, a new, anti-Brexit generation has gained the vote. The case for enacting the referendum result may soon become untenable, simply on time grounds. (That will be the next Remain argument, anyway.)
    I congratulate the Remainers for destroying any faith in parliamentary democracy.

    Philip Congdon

    Poyntington, Do

    1. “Labour, the Liberal Democrats and some Tory MPs have accused the Government of “treating Parliament with contempt.”

      They’re just following the socialist rule: accuse others of the very thing that you are doing.

  41. Off topic
    My bank has been taken over by a French outfit that has changed my IBAN.
    I try to change the info on Paypal but to no avail.
    It seems new EU regulations make it impossible to link to a joint account. We only own a joint account.

    Every day, in every way, I get more and more angry with the politicians and regulators who set these things in motion.

      1. My account isn’t!

        I think I’ve worked out a way to bypass paypal altogether, so will close the account.
        It’s not a lot to them, I know, but if everyone in our boat does the same the amounts will be significant, they’ve just lost a few hundred a year in fees from us.

        1. Could you not get one of those pay up front credit cards and use it where you would normally pay by PayPal?

    2. Had a lot of problems with joint account in the UK this last few years.
      Single accounts only have been allowed in Norway since the last 20+ years, so when we closed joint account in UK and asked them to transfer the funds to Norway, they couldn’t – as it was joint account to single account, not possible, computer say no.

      It makes it easier to tax the individual on their assets, too.

      1. Not sur why it is a problem . UK joint accounts allow either person to access the account transfer money etc. For UK tax purposes the split is considered 50/50

          1. I’ve been with Barclays for over 50 years……..

            We each have our own accounts but use the joint account for household bills and sometimes the odd evening out.

    3. My Paypal account is linked to a joint account and no problem. I activate the withdrawal myself.
      Are you signed up to an automatic transfer to your personal account ?

      2. It used to work fine on the joint account, it only ceased to work when I tried to change the IBAN.

  42. More mails to Mr R…..

    ”Taking back control of our fish” does not mean it won’t be part of a bargain for a FTA…

    If you have control of a sum of money, you can exchange it for something else.

    Like Humpty Dumpty, Boris’ words mean absolutely anything !

    Polly

    Polly
    Posted October 23, 2019 at 9:03 am | Permalink
    Recall Boris Fudge due to it’s poisonous ingredients…..

    ….and walk out of the EU without risk of bellyache on Oct 31.

    Way to go !

    Polly

    1. In any trade talks there are negotiation and it may be we give the EU limited access to our fishing waters on a licence basis.

      1. I have already answered this nonsense. Our fish, our fishermen, our fish processors, our exports, our profits. Why do you insist repeatedly that we give away something which is ours so that foreigners can profit and we go on the dole?

        1. WE are not giving them away they get limited access in return for paying an annual license fee

          1. Why? Why? You are missing the point. If they get access, they get the jobs and the profits. Such is criminal madness! Putting fishermen from Peterhead, Cornwall and elsewhere out of job, destroying communities so that French fishermen can prosper even more!
            You do know that the French fishing industry is large, vibrant and prosperous?

          3. Don’t we? Then WTF have Parkol Marine Engineering in Whitby been doing for the past few decades?

          4. Merciful Heavens, Bill.
            We used to have “the fisherman or boat to make use of all our fishing grounds” until a UK Government gave away our fish and ordered our fishing boats to be cut up, and our fishermen to be put on the dole, resulting in our fish processors going out of business and the income and profits being lost to the UK economy. That was when we were in the EU, and the EU countries such as France and Spain benefited enormously.
            We can get that back, and allow fish stocks to thrive, but you insist that that must not happen.
            You insist on it without suggesting why. Why, Bill, do you want British fish and British jobs, and British exports, and British profits to be given to the members of the EU?
            Does that happen with Iceland? Or don’t they listen to you up there?

            https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-36587253
            http://www.fao.org/fi/oldsite/FCP/en/ISL/body.htm

          1. Exactly! To the suits from London it means using fisheries as a giveaway. Exactly as happened in the past and how we got to this terrible plaice.

            (Very sorry. I couldn’t help myself.)

          2. I think there should be an agreement on government. Give that away to someone else in return for two ice lollies. The whole shebang, the entire apparatus, MPs, Lords, civil service, the lot. Put all these wasters out of work, or just put their jobs out to tender for the lowest rate – then they’ll get a bit pissy.
            Contracted government couldn’t possibly be worse than the current “staff” version.

          3. Just as long as it is not outsourced to Serco, G4S, or the like. I would be confident that the Women’s Rural Institute could do the job.

          7. There are some problematic bits concerning quotas. If we can’t catch the Total Allowable Catch of all the different species of commercial fish in our EEZ, then it appears that EU boats will be able to pursue them in our waters to the limit of our EEZ’s quotas. Makes no sense to me as I’ve always assumed ‘under quota’ fishing has got to be better for the stocks.

  43. Turkey Syria offensive: Erdogan and Putin strike deal over Kurds. 13 minutes ago.

    Under the deal, Syrian and Russian forces will immediately oversee a withdrawal of Kurdish forces.

    Vlad’s probably got the best deal here he could for the Kurds. Their homeland seems to be protected from Erdogan, at least for the moment. The West’s meddling in Syria as in Iraq and Libya has brought no benefit to anyone.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-50138121

      1. It’s amazing how thw cartoonists can get such recognisable faces in such small figures.There is a lot of humour in this cartoon.

  45. SIR – I recently spent a week in Kettering General Hospital following an emergency admission, where I was offered a choice of white or brown toast with and Marmite for breakfast each morning. I am sure that it helped my recovery.

    Jill White

    Tavistock, Devon

  46. A wonderful theory relating to my stone age teenager picture: I pick my friends for their equally bilious view of life.

    Hi Anne,

    I don’t think it was the mobile her parents confiscated, they have just told her despite being carbon neutral, mostly vegan, always walking, no flying or driving, plastic free and composting all rubbish, she will still be dead by 35.

      1. The oven stops working once you touch that clock button, then you need a young person to fix it.

        3. For my oven I wait until 12 is imminent then switch oven off at the mains. Just as chimes are starting I switch on again and as 12 appears I press the little clock on the oven screen. and it sets off from 12. I cannot find another way and my Bosch oven instruction manual is no help for me on clock setting.

          2. I don’t bother with clocks – I have a watch. After all, for an oven, 1 hour is still 1 hour, whatever the actual time is… :o)

      2. And both of you got there before I could find my version in my “Funnies” folder!! Late on parade today.

    2. Wot abaht the house clocks – by the time I’ve changed them all it’s nearly time to change them back

    1. I see you’re still going haywire with your ellipses. Though you could have done with another “Please wait” in your intro.
      Haven’t seen you on Breitbart lately, there is some good sport to be had with the S(‘)r(‘)s bots.

  53. Expert on the 1pm BBC News blaming the 39 deaths on brexit for some reason, why they want to come here instead of the other 27 EU members with all that brexit uncertainty here, he didn’t say.

  54. The British Tribe Next Door,

    How lucky for the TV production company to find a plot of land in the jungle complete with a mains electricity supply. Mains Waster Supply and sewerage. Then again perhaps it was not in the jungle

    This program had fake written all over it

    1. ” Scarlett Moffatt and her Gogglebox clan have flown to Namibia to teach
      the Himba tribe to iron and climb stairs. How has this implicitly racist
      idea made it to our screens in 2019?”
      Condescending claptrap. Evene the Guardian got it right.
      Mind you, if it had been Megan and Harry, it would have been really really marvellous.

  55. How many deaths in total now has the siren call ( www ) of the
    lab / lib / con mass uncontrolled immigration coalition party been responsible for in total ?
    Surely there is nobody left that needs convincing that WWW is the magnet.
    What is odd to me is that these parties still find indigenous support could it be that political voter masochism is in vogue.

    WWW = World wide welfare.

  56. I am NOT making a political point but would these 39 premature deaths
    occurred if the welfare system was NOT OFFERED to the planet.
    A common sense point.
    These deaths will continue all the while we have governments spreading
    the brussels word.

  57. Modern Japan is a model of stability, thanks to its ancient imperial family. Michael Auslin
    23 October 2019

    While the ultimate success of Abe’s policies remain uncertain, Japan’s ongoing slow growth since the 1990s obscures its continuing top rankings in global health measures and educational achievement, as well as its high per capita GDP. Its politics are not poisoned by Twitter or cable television, and it remains astonishingly crime-free. Its populace also seems comfortable with what is largely a one-party democracy, giving the ruling Liberal Democratic Party a near-super majority in the national Diet. And, as the citizens’ response to super typhoon Hagibis showed, a powerful communal sense remains, as it did after the devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

    The truth is that Japan is still a country whose population is almost totally indigenous which leads to a high social cohesion and mutual respect for other people. It also adheres to social principles; patriotism, honesty and truthfulness, that were common to the West only twenty years ago and which have largely been discarded here in favour of Diversity, Equality and Cultural Marxism. Japan will probably survive the coming storm. We shall not!

    https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/10/modern-japan-is-a-model-of-stability-thanks-to-its-ancient-imperial-family/

      1. Why, because they want to live their lives, their own way in their own country

        If only we had as much freedom as they do

        1. They think the Chinese are dirty and usually wont eat their food. I got food poisoning twice going to the Far East, the third time I only met JP people in SIN, HKG and the TYO and so we only eat in Japanese restaurants, hence no problems. CN will win the imperialist race with them, Africa first then Europe.

          1. We collected our Japanese counterparts from Dulles one afternoon, took them to their hotel and then asked them what they would like to do for dinner – the DC area having some very nice Japanese restaurants, so we naturally thought that would be it. Not so. “Ah, **** san, we would like to go to an American Steak house”. Which they thoroughly enjoyed – best filet mignon being a real luxury at Japanese prices.

          2. Jack-san, while I worked with one JP colleague we had a season ticket at the football but with his successor I would have taken his head, as he would have done with me. But I took the p with my mate and called him Ishizaka-sama, thanks to Shogun’s anjim-san.

          3. It is anjiN san, surely. Japanese words end in a vowel normally. The only consonant they end in is N.

          5. The superiority thing is funny, especially with regard to the Koreans, since the “current” Japanese are descended from Korean “invaders”.

            The only place I ever got the runs on my travels was India and that was from one of the “poshest” (most expensive anyway) hotels in Mumbai. Ate local food in HK and Singapore with no issues.

          6. I went to a JP restaurant attached to an hotel in London and got food poisoning. Snails in MNL and eating in the biggest restaurant in the world in BKK did for me. The nearest I got to the Indian sub-continent was refuelling in Karachi, that was close enough.

    2. The communal sense, or acting for the common good is very strong – as is the aversion to “rocking the boat” – the old adage about the nail that sticks up gets hammered down definitely applies to corporate Japan. I always felt on my visits to NEC, they could not quite deal with the fact that as my company’s OS development manager, I could make decisions with a few of my guys when we were there – and that said decisions did not have to be referred up the chain. I think they thought we were a bit too anarchic! And they have a ferocious work ethic. Sometimes in our discussions, some quite obscure point on say hardware fault recovery,would arise, but first thing next morning they would start with a formal and detailed presentation on the issue – in perfect English of course.

      Being there over a weekend with a couple of tall Americans was funny. We would walk through a park and no-one would bat an eyelid – but if you happened to look behind you there were multiple Japanese turning round to study these strange people.

    3. “…a country whose population is almost totally indigenous which leads to a high social cohesion and mutual respect…”

      We used to live in a place like that.

    4. It’s all of that, Minty, but I wouldn’t want to live there. Their bars and ‘pubs’ are not my cup of tea. I don’t like the food and the politeness that one sees is very stiff and formal and comes from tradition and not the heart.

      1. I used to enjoy the yakitori bars.

        We talked right wing politics to our heart’s content.

  58. For T_B

    Motorists sent on 41-mile detour for while stretch of road 65ft long is closed for sewage works

    The diversion route will take motorists along the A352 to Charlton Down and Charminster before taking the A37 towards Grimstone.

    It then follows the A37, crossing the county border into Yeovil,Somerset before joining the A30 towards Sherborne and heading back into

    Dorset.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/23/motorists-sent-41-mile-detour-stretch-road-65ft-long-closed/

    2. If you drive after 10pm at night you are likely to come across many such diversions that defy logic. They just close motorways/dual carriages down for repair/resurfacing. I was once going to LBA and came across one such diversion, zig-zagging all over the place and I ended up being an hour late for the pick-up

      1. One reason why I always carry a road atlas and an OS map of my destination.
        Back in 2003, when the low loader and APC crossed the central reservation of the M1 and caused mayhem, the traffic was diverted up the A5 to join the M69 at Hinkley and it was DIRE.
        Using my atlas, I eyeballed a route up backroads to M1 J21 at Lutterworth and saved hours.

        1. My mistake was I went with the diversion, then went to my sat-nav on my mobile but reverted to my road atlas then followed some taxis. M42 J10 NB diversions can go to A444 or the M69.

        2. I was in a car wash recently and one of the guys opened the boot. There was an old AA atlas there.
          He asked me what it was, and when I told him he gave me a funny look and said he had never seen a paper map before.
          That’s when you realise that you are old and past it.

          1. No, that’s when you realise how many of the things we took for granted have been de-skilled to the point of stupidity.

          1. Lists every low bridge where you can create maximum inconvenience for those damned Brexiteers.

    3. Diversions have to be suitable for all vehicles, according to the Council. That is misleading, as diversions by law have to only include A and B roads in order to accommodate HGVs. Smaller vehicles can take any suitable lower category of road.

      2. We had a bridge closed for repair nearby. The official diversion took us miles out of the way, but locals used the back road, which in places was single track and had a hump back bridge.

    4. A bit like the council’s idea of a detour when the Via Gellia was shut between here & Cromford.
      My detour was an extra 4 miles.

    5. Thanks for that OLT

      How pathetic .. there are some stupid things happening at the moment

      We have a telegraph pole at the end of our garden .. electric wires which DO not run through our garden but over run our neighbour .

      A chap knocked on the door yesterday .. shock up on shock,, it needs changing and a new bare pole needs to be erected ! old one has to come down.. The trouble is , I have a 20 year old climbing rose , ivy and honeysuckle and numerous bird boxes and maybe a bat or two .. The birds love hiding in the ivy and the roses look lovely in the summer … yep, they want to demolish the lot .. how unfair and ridiculous .

      3. I’ll raise you the Ipswich Road roundabout.
        Two years to turn it back from two mini roundabouts to its original one.

        1. Which begs the question, who will they blame if (when?) it doesn’t work? Brexit? Trump? Global Warming? Boris?

      4. Oh no……. the poles near here have been changed fairly recently but fortunately they are not in the garden. One is by a neighbour’s wall and also has the street-lamp on it, and the other is in the corner of the field.

        If they give you some warning you could get the boxes down and replace them on the new one. The rose and honeysuckle would probably recover and ivy will always grow……. Just make sure they drop them down rather than hacking them to bits.

      5. Talk to the BT Wayleaves department and see if they will let you buy the old pole and locate the new one a couple of metres away.

      7. You should have got onto thr Conservstion people

        The Somerset levels only flooded because the drainage channels were not kepy clear, cus XR Silver Tongued Spotted Cnewnts lived there

        The would have said

        Put new pole in 2 ft away, leave wildlife, extend cables

      8. Why is the old pole not adequate, is it rotten, dangerous etc.? What reason have they given? I am sure that somewhere it will be stated that poles have to be erected with minimal inconvenience to the landowner. In which case, the authority could drill through the existing concrete foundations and raise a new pole behind the old (if they really have to), but taking care that your flora (and any fauna) are minimally disrupted.

        Ask them for the chapter and verse on the authority they have to replace the pole – you can then see what conditions (if any) are put on such actions.

        1. BT planning for their monopoly on short range high power 5G using all the Telegraph poles.

  59. Business News on BBC Afternoon yesterday and the reporter announces

    “the treat of Brexit resulted in a fall in the £ sterling from …. ”

    Quite a treat, eh …. should have gone to Specsavers and wear the bluddy glasses …

    1. Not sure what they treat sterling with, but the sterling/dollar rate yesterday and today are just short of the highest for the past 90 days.
      Fluctuations in the sterling rate seem to have nothing much to do with Brexit.

      1. Venezuela and Zimbabwe examples tell us that the £ has risen in last 90 days mainly due to reduced threat of Corbyn-McDonnell government.

      2. Venezuela and Zimbabwe examples tell us that the £ has risen in last 90 days mainly due to reduced threat of Corbyn-McDonnell government.

  60. I recall my first interaction with my snowflake neighbour. She got more than she bargained for. I was reading a book by Boris Johnson – recently elected London Mayor – sitting on the patio at the top of the garden. Suddenly, seeing my book, a smiling blonde woman pronounced over the fence some anti-Boris sentiment and I retorted “well, surely, he’s a sight better than that commie (Livingstone) he’s replaced”. It weren’t too long before she retreated back down the garden. I much preferred her dog (mollie), who was fiercely territorial and loved to spend her time munching on a large bone ….

    The snowflake quickly became very cautious in her conversation with me. It’s better when we discuss flowers and shrubs …

    1. My wife had a friend, with whom she had worked in South Africa, move over here shortly after we did in the late 90s. She was married to a very sensible down-to-earth sort of chap who kept her snowflakery under control and we were all jolly good friends. Since her husband died a few years ago, her now un-repressed flakiness has come to the fore, first of all embracing vegetarianism (possibly understandable as she’s a diabetic) but this moved swiftly on to being rabidly anti-brexit, vegan and taking part in XR demonstrations. Sad to say, our periodic braais have dwindled to nothing. GK Chesterton (I think) reckoned once people stop believing in God, they believe in anything and our old friend is a prime example.

  61. 39 people found dead in lorry container

    The bodies of 39 people have been found in a lorry container in Essex.
    Police were called by the ambulance service shortly before 01:40 BST after the discovery at Waterglade Industrial Park in Eastern Avenue, Grays.
    The lorry driver, a 25-year-old man from Northern Ireland, has been arrested on suspicion of murder.
    Essex Police said the vehicle travelled from Bulgaria and entered the UK via Holyhead, Anglesey, on Saturday.
    Early indications are that 38 adults and one teenager have died, the force said. Police would not say whether any survivors were found in the lorry.
    Essex lorry deaths: Latest updates
    Ch Supt Andrew Mariner said officers were trying to identify victims but anticipated a “lengthy process”.
    “We have arrested the lorry driver in connection with the incident, who remains in police custody as our inquiries continue,” he said.

        1. It’s a very nice lorry, with air conditioning. The van is very nice too. It is a Peugeot Partner and very economical to run.

    2. Our borders are being breached three fold .. Illegals are coming in from all directions .. it is unstoppable .. I expect there will be more tragedies as yet uncovered ..

      All aided and abetted probably by…….

      2. It is most certainly not unstoppable. All it takes is the will to stop it, then to get on with it.

        1. Given we are an Island it is pretty easy to control. One solution would be to require lorries to be weighed when first loaded and then weighed at Dover or whatever port they arrive at. Any significant weigh discrepancy can then be investigated. With modern equipment weighing is pretty quick and easy

          1. All trucks to go through x-ray on arrival, with a warning that all should exit or be fatally exposed. Decent coastguard patrols with permission to shoot at vessels refusing to stop for inspection. Use of coastal radar to detect these vessels. Reasonably strict and controlled ID. Anyone arriving without ID to be returned from whence they came. No access to State services of any kind without demonstrated proof of entitlement.

          2. We need to build or press into service around 100 patrol vessels. We could use trawlers and their crews, as we won’t have access to any fish under the new WA quota arrangements from next year.

      1. Dover would be the obvious route. Maybe Hollyhead as hey though security would not be as tight there

    4. … now the story has changed.

      Where’s Verhofstadt to explain Belgium’s Border failure or involvement?

      Were the bodies loaded in Bulgaria and travelled across 6/7/8 countries?

      And it’s not the first time Irish/Northern Irish have been jailed for Trafficking.

  62. I hope the virtue signalling wanquers who are crying over the 38 dead in a truck look in the mirror and realise they murdered them
    They and the weak politicians who have refused to act to stop rewarding illegal immigration with a life of endless benefits for life in the UK murdered these people as surely as if they put a pistol to their head and pulled the trigger.
    Such a tragedy was inevitable just as future tragedies are inevitable until we adopt the Australian system and say illegal immigration will NEVER be rewarded with citizenship and benefits
    It worked there and would swiftly work here if only we had politicians with balls……………
    Oh I may have spotted a problem

    2. They were probably deceased by the time they got to Southern Ireland, otherwise someone would have heard them banging on the insulated nearly-soundproof trailer sides.
      Still, at least the public now know that the Provos have found another way to make money out of human suffering.

  63. Ow! my back hurts!
    I now have 20 jars of Apple & Quince Chutney with Ginger with the lids on and busy cooling down.
    It tastes very nice, but I may have slightly overdone the ginger.
    I’ve still a load of apples still to deal with and could do with a couple of dozen jam jars!!

  64. Contemplating where to go later for lunch while we are out and about. Found a “possible”, so looked at their menu online and found that they sell something called a “Willy Burger”. Put me right off.

    1. Probably road kill, coyote shipped in from the west but the Yanks couldn’t spell wily nor knew it was Wile E.

  66. People power could work in a very positive manner if those that insist on supporting / voting for mass uncontrolled immigration parties also got put into law an escape hatch in container construction not as an entry point but as an exit point unless there is a more sinister plot afoot.
    Supporting / voting for these parties means you require these people here
    if that is so then give some regards to their safety.

  68. OT – just finished an interesting novel: “Soldiers of Salamis” by Javier Cercas. A view of the Spanish Civil War. Very good translation. There is a fascinating twist – which I won’t reveal because I only discovered it half way through, by chance!

    Highly commended. From £2.66 on Amazon.

  69. That’s me for today – and, prolly, until Monday when we’ll be back in Engerland (I hope and pray).

    Packing tomorrow. Setting off Friday – overnight in Bourges (no longer at the World’s best B&B – they sold it and, from all accounts, it ain’t the same…) Great supper at Le Beauvoir restaurant – worth a 500 mile detour. Sat night in Calais – then the Tunnel speeds us to what is left of the England I grew up in.

    Have a splendid weekend watch my upvotes being decimated…

    A bientôt

    3. Have a good trip, Bill!

      I raised the disappearing up-votes issue on “Discuss Disqus”. It appears to be a general problem and the admin peops at Disqus have apparently been promising for months that they’re working on it. I lost a 100 or so last night too. One guy says he knows of accounts going hundreds of thousands into the negative because of down-voting bots but most of us here don’t have down-votes and are still losing up-votes?

      1. Sue – I’m just off for a snack, but in case I read that comment the right way – when the bot strips the votes it just removes them, there is no sign of “downvotes” underneath your name. Disqus have known about it for a very long time and do not care because it is mainly “Conservatives” and “Patriots” who are targeted by the lefty trolls. Disqus do not like those two groups of people. I have read complaints about left wing bias and censorship for 2 years now.

        There are so many snowflakes in the Discus offices that it looks like a scene from the end of Ice Station Zebra.

        1. Humanitarian aid, and pays for the trip and as much plonk that you can fit in around the bodies.

          3. The MR said to me

            The main problem is to stop You drinking as You drive. {(:<)} Safe journey Mr T

    7. Watch the speedometer at the Dartford Crossing, Uncle Bill. I’ve just received a speeding ticket for October 11 when I drove from Essex to Kent. (drat and double drat!)

      1. I have the advantage of cruise control AND the MR sitting beside me watching the speedometer.

  70. Lorry containing bodies could have taken several routes to UK
    According to the MarineTraffic website, there were at least five ferries that docked at Holyhead from Dublin on October 19.

    Are our borders so insecure that they don’t have any records of what ferry that lorry arrived on ?

    1. We don’t need a border with Ireland at the moment, so records don’t need keeping.

      1. Surely the fare would have had to be paid in advance, with the lorry’s details i.e. number plate.

        1. Yes, but that has nothing to do with borders per se. It’s just keeping bean-counters in a job.

          1. The bean-counters make sure that they keep their jobs by counting the beans carefully and accurately.
            All ferry companies keep a note of all vehicle numbers and the drivers thereof. In case the ferry sinks.

        2. I would assume that ferry companys operating to Ireland would keep full details of vehicles and driver as they do on the cross-channel ferries.

      2. Although I can’t believe that there isn’t a non-governmental/customs record of ferry crossings

      2. Would a lorry driver normally open the container to see what is inside or just accept what is on the manifest?

        Surely any self respecting lorry driver would question the roundabout route for being expensive and taking too long when compared to a quick trip across to Dover.

        1. 1). How do you know that this guy is the driver who took it the whole way?
          2). If the lorry is “customs sealed” I don’t think he can open it, so has to rely on the manifest

  72. Diana Abbot claiming the 39 were fleeing catastrophic climate change. A good trick when we do not even know where they came from

    3. Clearly headed in the wrong direction if recent artic sea ice measurements are anything to go by (approx 10% more this year than the average for 2010-2018)

  73. What is the point of the government spokesman trotting out these platitudes –

    “My thoughts and my condolences are with the victims and their loved
    ones at this utterly terrible time and I’m sure the whole house will
    also convey their condolences at this sad time.”

    with regards to the 39 deaths in the lorry, when they have no idea who they are and any loved ones have no idea they are dead and anyhow if genuine refugees their loved ones could already be dead themselves.

    2. But, we will continue to prosecute Non Officer Class Servicemen, who when obeying orders, shot innocent members of the IRA,who were just carrying loaded guns to the local Amnesty Point

    3. What would you say?
      “They were all illegal w0gs trying to sneak into Blighty. Neh, neh di neh neh.”
      There are certain decencies that even in C21 Britain are still observed.

      1. Well no. I think politicians could think of something a little more approriate like – ‘this is a very sad or tragic incident which is much regretted. It is being being investigated by the police and all will be done to identify the individuals and inform the families as soon as possible.’ If and when they are identified the government might then want to send condolences to family/country. The point is what Priti Patel said is just a stanard response and doesn’t fit the circumstances so it doesn’t ring true.

    4. My sentiments exactly. Like the statements of sympathy in the House of Commons by politicians who never knew the deceased. “Thoughts and prayers and teddy bears”. Pointless platitudes.

      1. The Donkey looks authentic not sure about its foaling record…(sorry about the BJeezus mode)

      2. When I was grewing up in Coventry, in the 40’s/50’s, Hatton was the Local Lunatic Asylum

        PS Real donkey, fake man

  75. Spend the day on an Aldande travel history day tour
    ( they do archaeological/ history holidays but also day trips
    of historical interest with food and drink included in both).
    Went beneath the vaults in a castle, around the museum
    ( lots of small children there) a walk after lunch with them
    it was very nice and a good mix of people,
    one lady travelled down on the train from Sheffield for the day for
    it. A Roman professor lead the thing and an archaeologists lead us around a
    noisy town with a voice as quiet as a mouse, no one heard a thing he
    said but thought it rude to say anything.. He resembled one of
    those Time Team presenters and just what you’d imagine a archaeologist
    to look like. It was nice and we”‘ll do the such again.

    1. Mo wonder you couldn’t hear him, Ethul. My sources tell me that all Roman (including Professors) are long since dead.

      :-))

  76. There was a dusky maiden on Sky News this morning during one of their reviews of the papers. I have seen her before but cannot remember her name. She is head of, or works for, one of those organisations that have popped up who are very keen on keeping us under European Control. She was attacking the DUP over their principles:

    “They take all of this stuff seriously!”

    The interviewer had to clarify: “By “this stuff” do you mean staying as a part of the United Kingdom?”

    She replied with a look of incredulity on her face at the choices of the DUP: “Yes!”

    So wanting to continue to be a part of our great country is just “this stuff” to that mad bat. She is one of those who wants to ignore democracy and trap us in the EU. It was one of those moments that sums these people up.

      1. I know those two well by sight now, it was neither of them. This is one of the many “new faces” that are appearing, all telling us that we were stupid to want to be free of the EU. I have not deleted it yet, I will go and look.

        (Edit: I have found the clip. She is Ash Sakar “Contributing Editor to Novara Media.”

        She had the bobbing head with wild eyes darting all over the place, which is the sign of someone who does not know or believe the tripe that they are coming out with.

        “They really believe in this stuff and Boris Johnson dosen’t, and lots of his Conservative party base don’t either. They are quite happy to see Northern Ireland become part of the Republic if it means getting brexit through. They alienate Scotland as well.”

        The Conservative standing next to her had to constrain his words. 🙂

  77. Sadly, we in the west are now amazed at a display of common sense by the judiciary:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/23/canadian-transgender-woman-loses-case-against-beauticians-refused/

    “Canadian transgender woman loses case against beauticians who refused Brazilian wax

    A Canadian transgender woman has been accused of using human rights law for financial gain as she lost a landmark discrimination case over the refusal of several beauticians to provide her with waxing services.

    The British Columbia human rights tribunal also said Jessica Yaniv – who identifies as a woman but has male genitalia – has used the law to punish minorities she deemed hostile to LGBT rights.

    The court ordered Ms Yaniv to pay $2,000 in damages to each of the three respondents who testified at the hearings. All three are from minority backgrounds and work out of their own homes or in clients’ homes.

    Two were forced to shutter their businesses due to the complaints, according to their lawyers. Most of the respondents do not speak English as their first language.

    The court heard that in five cases, Ms Yaniv used Facebook messages to contact salons requesting a Brazilian wax, which are supposed to remove all pubic hair.

    Expert testimony claimed that waxing male genitalia could pose a serious risk of injury if the provider has not received specific training.
    Beauticians who appeared at the hearing, which took place over six days in July, claimed they declined to wax Ms Yaniv for a number of reasons, including religion and a lack of expertise.

    Ms Yaniv argued that the refusals amounted to discrimination, in violation of British Columbia’s human rights code, which forbids the denial of services based on gender identity or expression.

    “None of these providers had any issue with anything until I mentioned I was transgender,” Ms Yaniv told the court.

    In 10 of 13 complaints she sought an apology and $3,000, as well as a statement from the tribunal prohibiting the refusal of waxing services based on discrimination.

    Ultimately, the tribunal concluded that human rights legislation does not oblige a beautician to wax genitalia they have not consented or had training to wax.

    The conservative legal advocacy organisation Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, which represented three of the respondents, argued that its clients do not offer the services Ms Yaniv requested.

    “No woman should be compelled to touch male genitalia against her will,” irrespective of identification, Jay Cameron, Justice Centre litigation manager said in a statement.

    But the court also found that Ms Yaniv had misled the court as to her motives and specifically targeted minority providers.

    According to tribunal member Devyn Cousineau, Ms Yaniv was “partly motivated” by her desire to tackle the systemic discrimination transgender women face in the beauty industry.

    “However, I find that Ms Yaniv’s predominant motive in filing her waxing complaints is not to prevent or remedy alleged discrimination, but to target small businesses for personal financial gains,” Ms Cousineau wrote.

    In many of the complaints, Ms Cousineau added, Ms Yaniv was “also motivated to punish racialised and immigrant women based on her perception that certain ethnic groups, namely South Asian and Asian communities, are ‘taking over’ and advancing an agenda hostile to the interests of LGBTQ+ people,” in many of the complaints.

    The first major case of transgender discrimination in retail in Canada, the proceedings have sparked a fervent social media debate.

    Meanwhile, several right-wing outlets and media personalities, including Alex Jones, the antagonistic American conspiracy theorist, have used the case to rile their followers.”

    1. “None of these providers had any issue with anything until I mentioned I was transgender”

      Translation: “None of these providers had any issue with anything until I whipped out my genitalia”.

    3. I read that a Russian salon run by an Ivor Dickov has had to close down for giving too close a shave.

    4. “None of these providers had any issue with anything until I mentioned I was transgender, a man” Ms Yaniv might have told the court.

  79. How is ” we leave on the 31st ” standing up, has the political establishment submitted yet, been on the cards since 25/6/2016.
    Will the country shut down on the first if we are still in or carry on as abnormal.

    1. At least Jezza is making the right noises about agreeing to a GE. However, his Labour colleagues (and Remain MPs in general) might not be of the same opinion.

  80. I see the driver of the death lorry is described as a “25 year old man from Northern Ireland”.

    I wonder if he is a Bulgarian who happens to pass through Norn from time to time….

    1. I wonder how long before the ‘B’ word will be mentioned: and I don’t mean Bulgaria.

    2. Where and when did he take the wheel of this lorry?Are lorry drivers required to check their loads before taking the wheel? Did the lorry’s doors have Customs seals in place etc.?

    3. Bill Thomas – you mentioned yesterday about disappearing upvotes, and this lefty bot that was doing it was mentioned. I have not been paying close attention, but every now and then I check 4 peoples avatars just to see if they are dropping, and yours is one. It is falling but not in the same way.

      Yesterday evening you lost 850 votes in 4 hours, which is the fastest I’ve seen. But then I have just checked today’s number and it is only 5 different from yesterdays. So yours will take longer to spot any pattern. The other three’s “drain rates” over the past 2 days:

      Peddytheviking: losing 180 a day.
      zxcv3: losing 300 a day (but they get a lot of upvotes which lessens the apparent fall.)
      sosraboc: losing 1,200 a day.

      Bill if your rate remains the same you will hit 0 votes in 6 months. Sosraboc will hit it in 56 days. This is just for information, and to reassure any of you who sees their numbers falling – it happens to many of us on “the right” and shows you must have stung someone on “the left” for them to dislike you.

      I know several people from 2 years ago who are all “good guys and gals” who now have 0 votes. It is nothing to worry about and is a tangible sign of how weak and thin-skinned the left really are.

      1. Oddly enough I changed various parameters over the day and it stopped for a while but then started up again.
        It makes me wonder how it is attached and whether whoever it is is monitoring the accounts.

      2. Just looked at mine – I seem to have lost a couple of thousand since last time I looked. How are these things massaged?

        1. Ndovu – I will add you to the list of those that I look at once a day to give a number to it. I don’t care about these things, but it is interesting information to see how the “stripping program” works on different people and if they lose many or few votes.

          It only takes a couple of seconds to type in a 5 digit number once a day, so it is no difficulty. 🙂

          1. I don’t really understand how this is done – is it someone downvoting old posts that reduces the number of positive ones? Probably some autobot rather than a real person? I just had a quick look through old posts and didn’t notice any downvotes.

          2. Ndovu – It is a computer program that runs elsewhere on the internet. There are some who think that the left-wing Discus people run it themselves. There is nothing you can do about it. It just slowly whittles down your “upvotes” score until it reaches zero. It won’t stop you commenting here or on the other site I know you from. 🙂

            It is just some sad people on the left who want to hide how popular your comments are. Such things are important to people with nothing else in their lives. (You will not see any “downvotes” as it strips them away in the background.)

      3. How can you lose votes after the discussion is closed? Are NTTL discussions left permanently open? Can we go back to last month and downvote someone? Is that possible on other blogs. Sorry for the questions. I am more then usually baffled .

        1. Horace – it is a “bot” or a computer program that strips upvotes from you whether you are in discussion or not. It is just done by sad, powerless people on “the left” to annoy people that they cannot beat in discussion. It will not affect your ability to leave comments on this site, but it may stop you commenting on other sites that use Disqus if the score goes below zero.

          It is a sad sign of where some peoples lives are that they do this. But the Left are getting desperate and are running out of time. Their weakness is on display if they need to care about “popularity scores” instead of the worth of your words.

          1. Thank you. I am now double-baffled. I don’t try to follow the technobobbiny bits, and I certainly don’t understand why anyone would create bots to retrospectively remove votes. Ho-Hum… It’s the diversity that makes it interesting.

          2. In the minds of these people they are “hurting you” or showing you that they can damage your account. As if that matters. 🙂

            It is the only way that some of them can have any impact on the real world.

          3. How strange they are. I can hurt myself without help. I have a brick wall with an abraded patch at head height.

      4. Noticed I have gone from approaching 200K to back to 185k
        Good I must be irritating the right people

        1. People who have some meaning in their lives tend to care about things that matter. Those with nothing at all grasp at things to give themselves something to hold on to. For some of them “being popular” is the Holy Grail.

          I am glad I am not born in these days with so many teachers / activists tearing me in different directions to believe in their latest fad ideology.

      6. Not sure if this is relevant at all, but I have just found on my Profile that I am being “followed” by 11 people – several of these are called disqus followed by a series of numbers and letters. When I look at these accounts, it turns out they do no commenting at all but follow hundreds of people. Most of my other followers, who do have names, also have no comments to their names but are following hundreds. Could these be the bots that do the vote stripping? If so, maybe those of you who are suffering from this could delete all these so-called “followers” from their accounts. Worth a try.

        1. Caroline – what you have said about followers was certainly true a year ago when they targeted my account. I had three of those people who had only made 2 or 3 comments in the past 4 years, and it would have been those who made the 110 fake spam reports that triggered something called an “auto-block” on Disqus.

          This sends every comment that you make on any Disqus site straight to Pending. Which means it needs to be cleared by a site moderator before it appears. Small channels can do that but commercial channels do not have the time. These are just accounts to follow your comments though, they are not the program that strips your votes away. One other user here has none of these “fake followers” and he is still losing a 1,000 upvotes a day.

          It is still worth getting rid of those dud accounts by clicking the red X next to their names though, as it is very unlikely that they wish you well. I still pick up one a month who tries to follow me who has made no comments in years, so those on the left are still at it.

          2. I think that T-B is a safe one to have. 🙂

            Btw – Ndovu, I don’t think you have the bot running on your account. Your vote count is the same as it was 2 hours ago, whereas Bill Thomas has lost another 70 in the same period. Another 24 hours should reveal if there is one on yours.

          3. I don’t keep a check on it but I thought I had about 10,000 more upvotes than I had made comments. Strange that Bill’s are going down.

          5. I had two accounts following me last year. I checked out their profiles and their posts led to Russian pornography sites. I just assumed it was GCHQ.

          7. Flipping Heck,thanks for that,just checked and found 27 “followers”,one or two names I know the rest as described
            Bye bye

        2. On the strength of your post, I have just removed all unknown followers from my account. Let’s see if that makes a difference.

    1. Doesn’t the UK Parliament have to have a final final final vote on Bojo’s deal first?

      1. No, I think it’s George S who has the ”final final final vote” on pretty much everything, and I also think that might have been true way back to 1990………

    1. That was inevitable.
      The British – especially the English – are always in the wrong.
      The evil b’stards who rook these people for £000,000s (where does the money come from?) are, of course, purity personified and are merely trying to help the unfortunate.

        1. Boris Johson with an axe
          Gave the EU 40 whacks.
          When the dreadful deed was done
          Gave the UK 41?

    2. Only 43% for The Brexit Party? Still, that is better than the hysterical lies (ahem – polls) that the pro-EU media keep shovelling out, that pretend the Brexit Party has no support and that the Labour party, which is collapsing, still has a chance of winning.

      Those tricksy media outlets will say anything to stop you voting for someone who might actually get us out of the EU. Replace 90% of the Conservative MP’s with John Redwoods, and the party might get back the respect that it once deserved.

    3. Let’s look at the evidence:

      One is a communist, terrorist supporting hypocrite who has never lived without an expenses account.

      Another is a totalitarian dictator who actively spits on the very basis of democracy and is paid millions to be so.

      And Boris Johnson, who rehashed the withdrawal agreement

  87. “In their Nature paper, John Martinis of Google, in Mountain View, and
    colleagues set the processor a random sampling task – where it produces a
    set of numbers that has a truly random distribution.
    Sycamore was able to complete the task in three minutes and 20 seconds. By contrast,
    the researchers claim in their paper that Summit, the world’s best
    supercomputer, would take 10,000 years to complete the task.”

    Must be an EU Summit.

      1. That’s easy, if tedious. Programs to establish data distribution are freely available. On the other hand analyzing a zillion numbers is going to take the same sort of computer power used to generate them.

        True random number generators can be tricky little b’s. A lifetime ago I needed one for an advance multi pass encryption algorithm. Kept me amused for a few days sorting it out.

    3. “Season of Mists” takes me back to a series of graphic novels (comics to the lesser-blessed) that were published in that time of your life where new ideas are born and run. They were a bit dark, but highly enjoyable. The “Seasons of Mists” one won several awards and caused one organisation to change its rules because even though the writing and concept were excellent, some said they were not “real books.”

      Death was portrayed a very pretty gothic woman instead of the hooded figure with a scythe. She was often seen, as in many cultures, as the reliever of pain and suffering rather than a dark force to be feared. I must read them again.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/888e7610892775aa973e470f514a44b249bcbc963c41bbb9252a21b3dde83867.jpg

  89. From 2016

    Britain’s

    border guards can no long use X-rays to examine lorries they believe

    may contain illegal immigrants while exiting French ports, it has been

    claimed.

    Lucy Moreton from the Immigration Services Union said French

    authorities had banned the devices, which take around an hour to scan

    each vehicle, on health and safety grounds.

    She said: The French will not allow us to use them for looking for

    illegals. They only allow us to use scanners to search for contraband,

    not people.’

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/03/25/border-force-banned-from-using-x-rays-to-seek-out-migrant-stowaw/

      2. No, it was Global Warming. I imagine most of us would suffocate if trapped with 38 others in an enclosed space with body temperatures rising all the time.

    3. Makes you wonder why the French get to tell us what we can do.

      Of course, if the remoaners in parliament would stop their egotism we could do what we like. Frankly, we should tell the Frogs they we scan every florry because they’ve refused to sort out their own house.

          3. My parents took the DM.
            That’s why I read Rufus and Flook.
            I had to Google your suggestion.

          4. It was in one of the papers we had in the senior common room in the late ’50’s. The Express came to mind, though as we are talking 60 years ago, who knows?

            On Sundays, we bought the People and the News of the World – purely for educational reasons of course.

            My folks took the old News Chronicle until it went under, when they switched to the Mail. Interestingly, Wiki tells me that when it folded its circulation was around a million – not considered enough to keep it going in those days apparently. Bet the Graun would die for those kinds of numbers!

        3. Good job it was not inthe Daily Ty*ograph or the Garudian F L O O K could offend

          * missing ‘p’

  91. One feature of a day when 39 bodies are discovered in the back of a truck is that it sets off a complete avalanche of virtue-signalling and hand-wringing. How to stop this terrible trade? Well, make the incentives better. Anybody from the lorry-driver upwards who is found to be involved needs to face severe punishment – to have “slave trader” tatooed on their foreheads and long custodial sentences at the newly opened prison in the south Falklands.

    2. That’s not fair to the Falkland islanders.
      Send them to some small uninhabited island, preferably a very cold one.

    3. P.S.: send them back to France. They would have had to come from France. They didn’t paddle their way from north Africa or the Middle East. Anyone who comes here illegally will automatically be denied the right to stay, permanently.

    2. Now look here, our pitch is not made of reinforced concrete and there’s no chance we’d allow Ms Abbott to play …. besides, we haven’t got a strip which would fit her..

          1. Speaking of which, the pub in t’next village – the Good Intent – has changed hands. Despite being closed “for refurbishment” for several weeks, the only thing which had changed, upon re-opening, as far as I could tell, was they had taken down the fairy lights. Not doing food till January. They couldn’t profit from beer sales, so one wonders how it will survive as a business.

          3. We visited Clos Lucé recently and I was more than a little disconcerted to see a silver version of the “Madonna and Child”, that we own as a plaster, in the chapel.

            Nice if mine turns out to be the real thing.

            1/10,000 against I fear.

          8. Having seen it, it’s the size of a ruddy postage stamp.

            Hanging beside it (when i visited) was this 20ft Caravaggio which was astonishing in scale, scope, detail, story… You wonder what the flip everyone sees in the Mona Lisa.

          1. An acre of remote woodland on a hill overlooking a clear field of fire, with a fish bearing stream flowing through it, and with road access for the materials to build a complex underground structure might be an even better investment. 🙂

            Not that I’ve put any thought into it…

            (I almost found one, but it was too far away. 3 days on foot (you do not want to be relying on cars if it ever came down to needing it.))

        1. Miniatures then.

          Mine grew like Topsy.

          We’ve eaten several over the summer and left a few to grow to maturity.
          The third largest is the one we’ve been eating recently, before it ate us!

          We’ve been greedy and eaten a stem end, two feet of it at least over two attempts. It’s given us two meals and three meals so far (we batch cook) and two to go. It’s surprisingly tastey.

          Having teased BT about them for years I’m sold on them;

          Small, good raw in salads,

          Medium, cooked, very good as a vegetable in its own right,

          Large, it’s good in soup, rattatouille and winter roasted vegetables.

          The scrotum end, which we haven’t approached, because we don’t have the appropriate protective clothing is still about a foot long and the size of a crown green bowl.

          If we pluck up the courage to cut into it we’ll save the seeds for next year.

          5. Nothing like marrow. Firmer when cooked and not at all watery.

            I’d say the older ones taste like a cross between butternut squash and young courgette, the young ones like a mild courgette but seedless if you only eat the stem rather than the seed sac. ( I know courgette changes into marrow but the flavour changes too)

  95. Have any NoTTLers had the good fortune to meet some nice Albanians?

    Seems to me that most of the Albanians here in the UK, shouldn’t be here, and that the country would be a lot safer and better without any of them.

    DEALING IN DEATH The inside story of how brutal Albanian gangs rose from the UK’s premier sex traffickers to kingpin cocaine dealers
    Richard WheatstoneJake Ryan
    8 Jul 2019, 7:00Updated: 15 Jul 2019, 9:17

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9328852/albanian-gang-uk-sex-traffickers-cocaine-dealers/

    1. Enver Hoxha was doing the rest of the world a favour when he kept them cooped up in their tinpot country.

        1. 🙂

          Big fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite ’em,
          And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so, ad infinitum.

    3. Well, thanks to the EU and the remainer cabal fighting democracy they are encouraging this abuse of women.

      Just another reason to stretch a few necks.

      1. From what I remember, they were nominal Muslims until the Yugoslav Civil wars led to the region being targeted by the Wahhabi extremists and their doctrine spilling over the border into Albania.

  96. Disqus is telling me I ‘ cannot reach things ”

    PS…. my very quiet, scruffy , modest and unassuming Archaeologist of today
    turns out to have a PhD in archaeology and ancient history
    and has being involved in finding many treasures associated with
    Boudica and is a leading archaeologist and writer of many books.
    He really didn’t look that way, You’d not give him a second glance
    If you passed him in the street.. that’ll teach me.. very humbling indeed.

    1. There are some people so terrified and frightened of their own inferiority that they demand everyone called them Doctor to remind them they’ve a doctorate.

      The rest of us are adults and treat our academic achievements as well earned but not something those actually confident in their abilities need to wail about.

      2. Yo wibbling

        May I alter your second sentence a bit

        The rest of us are adults and treat our chosen* employment achievements as well
        earned but not something those actually confident in their abilitiesneed to wail about.

        Chosen
        Apprenticeships
        Artistic
        Academic
        Language
        Teaching
        Nursing
        Driving

        Cooking

        etc

      3. One teaching colleague actually signed her cheques with “BA(Hons)” after her name! The only place I have my qualifications listed is on my visiting card.

      4. I didn’t know he had a doctorate, he introduced himself as
        just Philip . I googled him when returning home and found
        out he was as such, a very humble man indeed.

        There are those who feel uncomfortable about the such which is
        why he is so very modest i suppose.
        Ignorance is infectious whereas intelligence is very isolating,
        As we can see all around in this world.

          3. You have to dig these things up with out knowing
            they are there, I suppose that’s the whole point of
            archaeology. So lazy otherwise Bob .

          5. We even build roads before the Romans and had a thriving
            agricultural industry and monetary infrastructure and
            weren’t ignorant savages civilised by Romans..
            we already were civilised, archaeology discovered that ,

      5. “Ahem, Speaker Bercow?”

        Milking the last of his notoriety while the cameras are still on him, before he becomes someone you pass in the street without acknowledgement. Aside from a swift kick to the knees as you get alongside.

      6. When in the Army Reserve, one of our Lance Jacks, who was a bit of a prat, was a PhD pharmacist in civvy life.On a night out, he called our platoon commander by his Christian name. The Colour Serjeant pulled him on this and instructed him to call the PC ‘Sir’, or ‘Boss’. “In that case” said the Lance Jack, “he can call me Dr Burton.”

        Like I said, a prat.

      7. I always thought the Manhattan project had the sanest rule – the only people to be called “doctor” were actual medical doctors.

        In the earlier days of computing, we had people with qualifications all over the place, as there were no “Computer Science” degrees back them. Two of the most creative software guys I got to work with back then were totally opposite on paper – one had left school young but, with a slew of A levels, and in the modern idiom had promptly “dropped out” – went to Oz, hitch hiked over half the world and never went to university. The other was a Chemistry PhD. Arguing logic and problem solutions with either of them was challenging to say the least.

    2. WRONG

      The last thing that BerkO is, is funny.

      The sad thing is, I spent my whole working life, in (or working for) our Forces: to protect pratts like him.

      When the Cold War was on, I was at sea, (with *MAD), whilst that slimy baaaturd would be hiding in a deep bunker, if a London bus took a wrong turning.

      He is the epitome of coward, he fits in well with his EU mates.

      Meerkat is Soviet (but Russia is not, so she is lost)

      Micron lives down to his name (and does as ‘Mummy’ says}
      The Dutch just seem compliant
      The Spanish, Greeks and Italy (as usual) would love to back out of the EU

      *Mad Mutually Assured Destruction

      I am just glad I will not see the destruction of all GB has worked for.

      1. What were the last 40 years if not the destruction of all GB has worked for?

        Inequality gone mad. Thirty plus year old children still living with parents because accommodation is so expensive. Wages floored. Services wrecked. Social housing wrecked. Industry wrecked. Extraction of natural resources wrecked. Transport systems wrecked. Varied economy wrecked. Massive malinvestment. Tax burden been pushed onto the less fortunate. Healthcare system wrecked. Social care system wrecked. Mental health services wrecked. Value of a degree wrecked. Middle classes wrecked. Massive influx without planned provision for newcomers. Unhealthy food. Entrenched unemployment. Family breakdown. Welfare system wrecked. And much higher amounts of homeless and rough sleepers.

        How have you missed this ‘progress’?

          1. Nope. Flat been on the market a while now, had a few viewers but no offers yet. Housing market is very very slow atm.

    1. I suddenly need to flee unexpectedly into the night now, so I will watch that tomorrow. Thank you for putting these videos up. They are highly informative and enjoyable. 🙂

    1. The other option (The Major one) is you cannot vote, if you are over 65

      We will then get Mr Bill Thomas to enter all our votes as Postal (well, allegedly he knows Mt R)

    2. Evening B,
      Maybe to be used to store unwanted units such as
      drug dealers, rapist, paedophiles etc,etc.
      Who exactly has been responsible over the decades for
      allowing the nation to get into this toxic, putrid state ?

        1. Evening OLT,
          I am guilty of typing with a limp sometimes, so please do not
          bare down on the afflicted even unintentionally.

        1. Evening JtL,
          Tribal, family tree supporter / voters, nose holders, best of the worst, party first regardless of consequences brigade.
          Mass apt description.

  101. I had a notice about my pension today.

    This said that the automatic inflation rises would not automatically continue for me in France three years after Britain has left the EU.

    When I came to live and work here I was assured that one of the great advantages of the EU was that it enabled ordinary people to work in other EU countries and not lose their pension entitlements if they paid into their host country’s schemes as arrangements between EU countries were reciprocal.

    After living in France for fifteen years Mr Blair decided that I should no longer have the right to vote in Britain even though he claimed to be all in favour of the flexibility the EU afforded people like me. However as I did not get a vote in France as I am British and not French I was disenfranchised. But in the EU/British idea of democratic rights and justice for individuals the ordinary chap deserves to be shafted and betrayed while the likes of Mandelson, the Kinnocks and Clegg’s pensions will doubtless be protected.

    The people with the greatest direct interest in the EU referendum were British people living in the EU outside Britain. Indeed, Cameron promised us that we would be able to vote in the referendum. Did he keep his promise – of course the foul little piece of muck did not. Of course Cameron is a lump of excrement who emerged at birth from the wrong orifice of his mother and has remained a rancid turd ever since.

    So if we leave the EU my pension may not be safeguarded after three years. The politicians’ hope that this will make me a remainer or that I shall die as soon as possible.

    1. An example of the way the EU idea of a World State with a World Army was never going to work.
      Assuming that because the sun shines on Wednesday it will always shine on Wednesdays is never a good idea.
      Life is full of uncertainties and the best advice ever given was ” Never Assume “.

      1. Rastus, like you, is erudite and polite.

        As you know, a piece of shít is the expression we proles would use.

    3. We also received notices about our UK pensions a few weeks ago.

      Are you dead? If not please sign the enclosed form and return it to ensure that your pension continues.

    2. The bint with the purple scarf has one of those “She’s right but I don’t want to hear this” looks on her face. The bloke is not a lot better.

    2. Other reports claim the driver who was arrested travelled from Ireland to pick up the trailer, so the chances are the occupants were already dead, so he could hardly be charged with murder.

    3. Good to know that such an accurate record of transport movements is being kept.
      I didn’t realise that Holyhead is now spelt Zeebrugge.

      1. The trailer could have been moved by a different tractor unit to the one the Irish chap drove over via Holyhead.

          1. But of course, Tony. If the trailer had all the details no-one would pay to watch the film!

        2. Possibly Zeebrugge is better at record keeping; or are the Belgians a mite too keen on freedom of movement?

        3. ITV News stated that that is the case – the tractor came over from NI. It would seem that a different tractor was used to bring the trailer over from Zeebrugge.
          Edit: it may have just been the container which came by ship from Zeebrugge.

  106. If by some miracle Brexit actually happens, do you really think that those Members of Parliament will suddenly forget past animosities, and join together to make the best of this new world, and create a moving body ( dissentions notwithstanding ) dedicated to MAKING BRITAIN GREAT AGAIN ( perhaps with an eccentric leader wearing a fancy hat )?
    No chance. That self-serving lot of bastards will carry on spouting venom with no interest whatever in anything but their self-serving interests.
    That’s when the fun will really start.

    2. If you look at the actual fact the EU accounts for a very small part of world trade the fall has been huge and on the other side the rest of the world trade has grown rapidly . We do over 55% of our trade with the rest of the world and have a positive balance of trade . With the £U we do less than 45% of our trade and have a huge negative balance of trade

      WE do not pay the rest of the world to trade with them. WE pay the EU to trade with them

      On any logical and sensible basis our trade focus should be on the rest of the world. IT does not mean the EU market is not significant it is but it should not be our priority

      1. To think back in 1973 88% of our export trade was with the other five EEC countries. With 21 additional countries today you would think it would be 450%, not 35% when you account for the Rotterdam Effect.

  107. Seems to be confusion offer this lorry. BBC report now says the trailer came over from Zeebrugge, to Purfleet at 00:30 BST . The tractor Unit came from Northern Ireland and picked the trailer up at Purfleet. The tractor and trailer then left the port shortly after 01:05 and officers were called around 30 minutes later when ambulance staff made the grim discovery.

    Who called the ambulance seem to be another mystery. I would assume the control room would have logged some details

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-50160564

    1. Perhaps they weren’t all dead after all. Maybe one of them recovered and hi-jacked the lorry, but drove the wrong way.

  109. It looks, according to the DT as if the driver under arrest may only just have picked up that container and that it had landed In the south East.

    1. But they have managed to associate a white British face with the atrocity, so good work for common purpose

      2. You should know, dating back to the time Noah stole the animals from Africa and put them on his boat to start a theme park in UK, that Whitey is to blame for everything

        With slave traders , Nosher, Big Boy, Queenie and Rupert (the Gang of Four) scoured the whole of Africa to capture slaves fot the US Market. They had to fight off numerous tribes of local BAME and Arabs (who wanted those slaves (to release them) and ensure that there was a steady supply of slaves to board the fleet of ships waiting to carry them off to a new benefit funded life

        All that has changed is Mr Rashid and his mates have cut out the Gang of Four

    2. That seems likely. The cab unit came in via Hollyhead whilst the reefer trailer was crossing the North Sea with another unit and they then swapped over.

          3. Particularly with frozen goods.
            The slightest variation in the temperature and the whole load will be rejected.

    1. I was his next door neighbour in the North Canonry. Five pounds a week whilst we both worked at the Infirmary.

        1. He did and the house is now a museum to him but not well attended when last I ventured into the Close.

  112. Evening, all. I feel in a state of almost constant rage at the moment. If I met one of the remain MPs I am not sure I could be responsible for my actions.

      2. I wonder which Remainer constituency has a recipient of ‘Don’t Care in The Community’ let loose with a knife?

  113. After 3/4 dry days, it’s sad to hear the rain plinking down on the skylight in the attic room tonight. I may well slope off to watch some footy ….

      2. Certainly a word long in my vocabulary. NOTE – no relation to Blinking, and this word was often used in the 1950s and usually didn’t refer to eyelids. “Blinking Albanians, I know what I’d do …. “.

      3. Very onomatopaeic…. and a word that rolls off the tongue so satisfyingly. A bit like pamplemousse, that has the same pleasing effect.

    2. It has been dry enough here for me finally to give my lawns what I hope will be the final cut.

  114. LOL Disqus is saying I have 9+ notifications to read. When I click on them it is listing replies that I received 21 days ago. Is anyone else getting that glitch, or am I just being punished for calling Disqus staff a bunch of snowflakes? We know that those on the left have no sense of humour. 🙂

    (Which is why they probably want to make everyone else as miserable as they are, because they do not understand the joy of laughter.)

    1. That happened to me very briefly earlier on this evening. I just refreshed and the notifications were displayed as normal.

      1. Thank you both. It is good to know others are getting the same glitch. It stops you thinking that your computer is banjaxed.

    4. I don’t like to name drop, but …. I’ve just received a post from Great ++++++++ Aunt Boadicea.
      Maybe Aethel woke her and she finally pressed ‘send’.

  115. A friend of mine drinks five bottles of brake fluid a day. I asked her if she’s addicted but she said she can stop at any time.

  117. t the moment it is looking as to the EU playing their hand. We then see where we go from there

    I suggest Boris may need to cancel the MP;s half term break as well. Clearly if they agree the WAB by the 31st the cancellation of their break will not be needed and they can all go off on holiday and technically Boris will have dome his bit. It would go past that date though as the EU would need to do their bit

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