1,069 thoughts on “Thursday 24 October: With the EU Withdrawal Bill ‘in purgatory’, Parliament is stagnating”

  2. Regarding the migrant tragedy:

    “Why were warnings ignored?”, the Daily Mail asks?

    Because they always are.

    Then, after the event, there are expensive public inquiries producing wads of recommendations and lists of ‘lessons to be learnt’, which also get ignored.

    Meanwhile, our elite can’t even organise a Brexit in a parliament, let alone the proverbial in a brewery.

    1. Look on the bright side, Eddy. At least as a nation we don’t now have to provide tax-payer funded housing, welfare, education and benefits for 39 illegal immigrants.

      1. Morning Elsie.

        I don’t blame anyone wanting to come to our country. I do though – and with a vengeance – blame those in power here who facilitate it.

      2. Even the Countryside Alliance were putting out the “tragedy” angle and expressing concern for the victims and their families. I’m afraid I have no sympathy at all. If they hadn’t tried to sneak in they would still be alive.

  3. Bomb attacks are now a normal part of Swedish life. Paulina Neuding. 26 October 2019.

    It’s tough for everyone to come to terms with the new reality. Gang violence is intimately tied to the issue of immigration and failed integration, so those who highlight the problem have often been smeared as bigots. Only a few years ago Sweden’s leading daily, liberal Dagens Nyheter, came up with the phrase ‘safety deniers’, which it compared to looney climate deniers. The government has invested in a PR campaign for the ‘image of Sweden’ — but every grenade attack makes it trickier.

    The Swedish elites are even more head in the sand than their British counterparts. They even use the same methods, control of the media and law enforcement to ensure against truthful reporting with plenty of propaganda for support and are in fact Cultural Marxist innovators in many aspects of denial. It’s quite obvious from the numbers that the indigenous Swedish population will be a minority within 30 years though this in itself is misleading since there will be a watershed before that where native political influence on their homeland will be erased and Sweden will become de facto the first European Islamic state. It will like its Middle Eastern counterparts be a chaotic polity devoid of many of the advantages of European Civilisation, Free Speech, Equality before the Law etc. but this transition will take place over a generation so it will pass almost unnoticed except by the old.

    We are probably 10 or 15 years behind them!

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/2019/10/bomb-attacks-are-now-a-normal-part-of-swedish-life/

    2. Monitoring the increase in mental health referrals will be an indicator of how far down the line we are.

    3. I read a while back that by 2030the Dutch too will be in a minority in Holland.

      PS I would have upvoted your post but every time my mouse pointer hovers over the up arrow it simply brings up the names of those already voted up

      1. So click with your mouse and your vote (and name) will be added. If the names on the list appear on top of the “up” arrowhead (/) simply scroll up or down the page until the list of up-voters does not cover the arrowhead and then click.

      3. I had that problem a few days ago. Every time I tried to upvote a post, I ended up clicking on one of the names and bringing up that poster’s profile!

        1. That’s exactly what happened to me. Given the anti establishment discussions taking place on this and many other forums I would not be at all surprised if Disqus and others suddenly go dark….

  4. Lots of speculation going on about the poor dead illegal immigrants on the lorry, but not much about how they got here across a continent, no wonder they have started softening us up with warnings about sharp rises in population.

    1. There’s one way to stop these tragedies and I’m surprised no one, especially the Abbotopotamus, has mentioned it. Totally open borders with all benefits, health, education, housing and spending money free at the point of landing here. I thought that was Labour’s policy or have they received feedback from private polls indicating that pushing that policy is the way to an even greater thrashing at a GE. Reticence at this time doesn’t indicate that the Labour party will not open the borders if they were to win an election.

        1. Indeed. How many thousands of people drowned in the Med when Merkel sent her siren call? There are probably a few billion people on this planet who would like to better themselves by moving to a wealthy Western country. It is highly irresponsible to encourage them to come, but the odds are good and once they arrive they will never be made to leave. If 39 died that is sad, but how many others make it and are in clover for life at our expense?

          1. Interviews with people around the industrial site suggest that this practice has been observed time out of number.
            Quelle surprise.

          2. Quite so. And this story will be spun to be sympathetic to the plight of ‘refugees.’ But how many more are just nodded through? Does the Government know, or even care?

        2. Time for good old Marcus Tullius to put in an appearance:

          “A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.”

          ― Marcus Tullius Cicero

    2. Usually of course they are very far from being financially poor with them typically paying Several thousand ound each to be smuggled in to the UK. In local terms in their home country that likely to be worth £15,000 to £30,000

      1. Possibly many end up as indentured labour.
        They either hand over their bennies and/or their meagre wages pot washing in an ethnic restaurant. The system is a well known source of prostitution.
        Big hand clap for the do-gooders that encourage such abuse.

        1. ‘Morning Anne
          Extortion backed up by threats against family still stuck in the “old country” is standard practice I understand

  5. Fatuous Remainer MPs have just become the useful idiots of the Leave cause. SHERELLE JACOBS. 24 October 2019.

    The Prime Minister has negotiated the best Brino that Britain could hope for in today’s wretched political circumstances. But the deal is still insanity wrapped in victory. It leaves Britain kowtowing to the rulings of a foreign judicial power, the ECJ, for years…

    Sounds good and Sherelle is usually worth reading if only for her verbal inventiveness. Can some Nottler of fabulous wealth put up the rest?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/10/24/fatuous-remainer-mps-have-just-become-useful-idiots-leave-cause/

    1. Fatuous Remainer MPs have just become the useful idiots of the Leave cause
      SHERELLE JACOBS
      DAILY TELEGRAPH COLUMNIST
      Follow
      24 OCTOBER 2019 • 6:00AM

      Clever incompetents in Parliament have catastrophically overplayed their hand
      The trouble with the Remainers is not their arrogant inability to grasp when they have lost, but their blindness to when they have won. So when Boris Johnson triumphantly returned from Brussels clutching the best bad deal possible, the eyes of MPs gunged up so quickly with spiteful, green anger that they failed to spot their finest chance to wreck Brexit.

      The Prime Minister has negotiated the best Brino that Britain could hope for in today’s wretched political circumstances. But the deal is still insanity wrapped in victory. It leaves Britain kowtowing to the rulings of a foreign judicial power, the ECJ, for years to come (a surrender of sovereignty unheard of in global relations). It also clumsily butchers the Union, sentences our fishing industry to almost certain death, and – as fiercely as Tories deny it – theoretically commits Britain to a future relationship on Brussels’ terms. This Tory deal, sadly, puts off everything and resolves very little.

      Kick the can too far down the road and you end up at the beginning. The Withdrawal Agreement paves the way for a Brexit so pointless and damaging, that, months from now, when Britain realises it is still trapped at amber with a Parliament that refuses to have an election, or break out of limbo on WTO rules, calls for a second referendum will become deafening.

      Perhaps paradoxically, the logical, long-term plan for Remainers who hate Brexit would be to let the Withdrawal Agreement pass and then deny an election and sabotage the second stage of negotiations. But, with victory in reach, the liberal snobs’ visceral hatred for populism and weakness for pedantry has prevailed.

      Some ex-Tory MPs are so trapped in the hyper-rational senselessness of their anti-Brexit resentment that they swapped strategy for invective long ago. Not least Dominic Grieve, whose bizarre outbursts this week included calling Dominic Cummings a “rat” and suggesting Boris Johnson is “like a dictator”. And for all the talk of Labour MPs in Leaver seats who back a deal, many are loathe to support anything that, even in the short-term, means a win for the Tories’ man of the people.

      Even the “tactical” Remainers are beyond hope. Rather than taking a step back and grasping the bigger picture, they have chosen to immerse their egos in the intellectual goo of a sticky parliamentary legalism. Take Rory Stewart – the kind of man who relishes telling those who disagree with his personal views to be objective. He both solemnly supports the PM’s Withdrawal Bill and vows to hack it to pieces, with provisions that would delegate the decision over our future relationship with Europe to Parliament, and give MPs an automatic vote for a transition extension in 2020.

      And, of course, the mind boggles at the gravity-defying anti-logic of Oliver Letwin. Here is a man so clever that his analytical mechanisms operate unconstricted by the basic laws of cause and effect. He says he backs the PM’s deal. Thus it follows that he should concoct a cack-handed amendment that scuppers any hope of passing it, via the crucial momentum gained from a “meaningful vote”.

      But the Remainers who are claiming to honour Brexit only so they can destroy it have overplayed their hand. Unlike them, Boris Johnson sees the potential to win in every “defeat”. With the Government poised to call for a general election rather than let Parliament mutilate their deal, and Jeremy Corbyn indicating yesterday that he will support going to the polls on the condition that there is an extension up to Jan 31, the chances of a national vote have surged.

      Given Johnson’s double-digit lead, a majority finally appears to be within the Tories’ grasp.

      A strong mandate to trade with the EU on WTO rules if we fail to agree a final deal by the end of transition might just give the PM enough political leverage to negotiate a free trade agreement, and wriggle out of the horrors that he has agreed to in the political declaration, from regulatory alignment to restricting UK taxation to a barely concealed freedom of movement arrangement.

      The irony is that an election to strengthen Mr Johnson’s hand in “Phase 2” would have proved near impossible if Remain MPs had shown the good sense to pass his deal by Oct 31. With the Tories boosted by getting some kind of Brexit “over the line”, Labour would most likely have tipped into full-scale civil war rendering them in no fit state to agree to go to the country. The Lib Dems would have pressed pause on campaign mode, as they recalibrated from the Remain party to the Rejoin party. And as Alex Salmond’s court proceedings start on Nov 21, any hopes of getting a “simple majority” for an election with SNP support after Hallowe’en, as some Brexiteers have suggested, would also have been for the birds. This leaving the Remainers free to blow up the PM’s best laid plans.

      Thus, the hapless Remainers may yet prove to be the handmaidens of a hard Brexit. The clever incompetents in Parliament don’t realise it yet, but they have just become the useful idiots of the Leave cause.

      3. Thanks – and Blimey!

        As for “Oh what a tangled web we weave…”, it makes landing a herd of elephants on Mars seem like a walk in the park.

      4. Another kick-ass piece from the mighty Sherelle! It evicerates the Remainers whilst also pointing out the terrible flaws in Johnson’s Surrender Treaty.

        I am quietly confident that we will see a snap election and hopefully a Brexit Party surge. We have to drive home to people that Johnson’s Treaty is not the Brexit we voted for. Rather than trying to get a ‘Deal’ which will appease the EU and this Remainer parliament, we need a thumping Leave majority so we can get a proper clean break.

        1. What a novel idea. Bringing about something that will satisfy the 17m who voted Leave. And not give a jot about what Remainers think. And take joy in the discomfiture of the EU and our own traitors who have aligned with the the EU.

          1. It’s a crazy idea, but it might just work!

            Remainers have had it all their own way for so long, it’s easy to forget that Leave actually won the referendum. I am sure that most ordinary people who voted Remain are decent enough to recognise that democracy means that you don’t always get the result you want, but you have to make the best of it and accept it. Sadly, there is a hard-core of Remainers who would never accept the result no matter how many Leave referendums we had. And they are the ones with the wealth and the power to overturn our vote. Only time will tell if they will win.

      5. I do hope so. Better yet if the EU finally decided it had lost patience and refused to extend the agony, but given we are pouring millions into their coffers all the while we are trapped I can’t see that happening, unfortunately.

          4. Thanks.

            As you know, coming on here can be very time consuming so I only breeze in and out. As such, I miss much of the action.

            Seems like a man of letters.

      2. ‘Morning, Squire.

        Your turn today, I often get a downvote morning & bedtime from one particularly nasty little cur.

          1. Yes. thank you.

            Off to yon Cambridge this fine morn to spout the German tongue.

            & with you, I trust?

        2. ‘Morning, Peddy, downvoting only affects the post’s position if you view by ‘Best’ which disqus seems to default to upon opening.

          I agree about the nastiness but must also consider it cowardice, since the down-voter obviously doesn’t like you (or me – my funnies regularly get a down-vote or two) and doesn’t have the guts – or the literacy – to face you down with a scathing comment. It knows full-well that its own comments will be verbally slaughtered.

        1. Thank you.
          One wonders what’s the point, especially here which is hardly a radical or aggressive site in tone?

          1. Little things please little minds, I suppose.
            Although I can’t see any downs just now.

          2. ‘Morning LP.stick around,the “tone” has changed a bit,a very British cold fury at the ongoing shenanigans

          3. Thanks Rik. Nothing wrong with a bit of righteous anger – think Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple!

          4. I beg to contradict you, Sir (or Ma’am). I often aggressively insult NoTTLers by calling them Silly Sausages!

            :-))

          6. Buemos días Guerra Civil Otra Vez!
            Misty outside, halfterm is on, I try not be grumpy in every comment.
            My bete noire is racialist comments, not because people are saints, but appearance is an accident of birth.

    3. It’s awfully kind of you to share a poem just now with Sikh Warrior about
      ‘ People were envious of him etc ” but do you think on a blog site such as
      that is appropriate.

    3. Guten Morgen, mein Freund. Jetzt gehe Ich “away”. (Or should that be Gehe Ich jetzt “away”?)

    1. We all know that the EU makes up the rules as it goes along. Anything to get their way (and our money).

  9. Good morning all. Not stopping – just to wish you all a very happy AGINCOURT DAY tomorrow.

    TTFN

  10. So our politicians answer to the referendum is to keep having elections, then most probably another referendum

  11. Morning all

    SIR – Again the Speaker has prevented the Government from having Parliament vote on the deal to leave the EU.

    He is determined, before he vacates the chair, to cause maximum disruption to this Government and prevent us leaving the EU.

    His bias and undemocratic 
actions have undermined the 
credibility of Parliament.

    Keith Austin
    Worthing, West Sussex

    SIR – Yesterday Mr Speaker Bercow yet again showed his Remain preference in the Commons. He is a partisan, undemocratic, pompous, self-serving, smug excuse for a Speaker.

    Patricia Griffiths
    Abergavenny, Monmouthshire

    SIR – Before deciding on an extension, the EU is waiting to see if the deal will pass through the Commons.

    With John Bercow blocking a vote on the deal, has he unwittingly made no-deal more likely?

    Christopher Mann
    Bristol

    1. I can only assume that, until now, the Speakers have been aware that they are merely there to keep order and act as impartial referees.
      The current Speaker is yet another symbol of how a political system built on trust and unspoken traditions has been ‘Europeanised’. Nowadays, everything has to be written down and every job given strict parameters.

  12. SIR – I am brexasperated, brexhausted and brexpiring over Brexit. Please, no Brejoin or I may brexplode.

    David Stolworthy
    Hornchurch, Essex

    SIR – I envisage that many effigies being consumed by fire on November 5 will be adorned with masks of John Bercow or Sir Oliver Letwin.

    David Gray
    Corfe Mullen, Dorset

  13. Nick Robinson opened his programme, BBC Radio 4 Today , with a comment calling our PM “Goldilocks” I took it that he was referring to Boris.

  14. Here’s one for True Belle:

    SIR – Prue Leith (report, October 19) says that many NHS trusts refuse to serve toast.

    As a nurse who trained in the Eighties, I found toast more than just a quick, simple form of nutrition, hot, delicious, thick with butter and available on every ward. We had it for 3am breakfasts on night duty and gave it to junior doctors to cheer them up during 70-hour stints. Distressed patients shared confidences over toast, it nourished weary relatives, and elderly patients enjoyed the cosy ritual of taking it with hot sweet tea.

    I fear that meddling health and safety experts have missed the point.

    Debbie Wesley
    Bude, Cornwall

    1. SIR – During an eight-day stay in Cambridge Military Hospital in 1956, each patient on the ward received a bottle of stout and an orange for supper (Letters, October 23).

      There was also a small room at the end of the ward with snack-making facilities that we could use.

      Gerry Masters
      Ilchester, Somerset

    2. Good morning Epi

      Wonderful letter,

      Buttered toast and Marmite or strawberry jam was always the best medicine at midnight with a comforting cup of tea .. Ward kitchens were a place of solace .. always a large water boiler simmering away ..

        1. Each to their own Peddy, personally I cannot drink tea, or coffee, without three sugars (now two sugars and a sweetener as prescribed by Best Beloved).

          1. Hi Tom.
            As you say, each to their own. Long ago I used to take 3 sugars in tea & sometimes that wasn’t enough, but I weened myself off it by abstaining having sugar in tea or coffee, or sprinkled on cereal for a fortnight when I was a student – over 50 years ago. Now I enjoy even black tea without. In fact I’m so sensitive to sweetness that I have to insist that my host does not stir my tea with the same spoon as used for his/her own.

    4. To this day, I’ve never had toast such as I had when an apprentice. Four rounds at 10am, absolutely soaked in butter. Deblinkinlicious.

      On a similar theme, one of the lads took a bacon sandwich back to the works canteen:

      “There’s a maggot on it.”

      “That’s not a maggot, it’s fat.”

      “It ought to be, it’s eaten all the bacon.”

      Morning Epi.

        1. That was how we made it at Nana’s in the late 1940s … I remember it well, as I do tea with 2-4 teaspoons of sugar** and puffed wheat.

          ** since the age of 19 I have consumed tea in near Wedgwood-Benn quantities without milk or sugar. Happily this (without milk) is regarded as normal in Poland.

          1. Puffed Wheat is my favourite breakfast cereal but it seems to have disappeared from the supermarket shelves :(. Tesco once sold it alongside the muesli and porridge but no longer.

          4. It’s in an Orange Pack at Sainsbury’s – probably buried among the Honey and Sugar Puffs.

          6. No. I really like my tea as it is, without even a slice of lemon (as is common in Poland).

        2. Morning Araminta.

          That was how we used to do it when I was a nipper.

          As with many things in those days, it was seasonal – chestnuts being one such.

          These days, toaster toast is an excuse for the real thing.

          P.S. I know when mine’s done – the smoke alarm goes off.

          1. The last time my smoke alarm went off was about 18 months ago because some stupid idiot stuffed a hot X bun into the toaster & it jammed.

          2. Always make sure you switch off at the socket or unplug your toaster before trying to fish anything out.

        3. I still occasionally make mine like that – with a Georgian toasting fork that is still going strong.

  15. B day -7, The clock is still ticking down . Have the Remainers shot themselves in the foot

  16. Received Yesterday.

    Dear Brexit Party Supporter.

    If your frustration levels are anything like mine you are now throwing objects at the TV and radio. I share your anger and desire to take matters into your own hands.

    It has been my view since the 2016 referendum that we will need to have a majority in Westminster before we can defeat the forces of darkness that are determined to surrender our independence and democracy.

    Despite these pressures it is important that we campaign in accordance with electoral law in all respects. I have received reports and complaints of Brexit Party literature being fly posted on highway infrastructure and other locations, e.g. bus shelters. Please refrain if you’re are responsible for doing this. Contact your County Campaign Organiser or refer to the Electoral Commission website https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/ for guidance.

    Nigel Wickens
    Campaign Manager
    The Brexit Party

  17. Morning again. Sorry about the old letters.

    SIR – The Fixed-Term Parliaments Act of 2011 is surely one of the finest examples of the law of unintended consequences. Designed by the coalition government to ensure time and space to pursue its strategies and policies, it is now effectively ensuring the opposite. The current Government is unable to govern and the Opposition thwarts the process to call a general election. Stagnation rules.

    Surely one of the first acts of any new administration should be to repeal this unfortunate legislation, as much in its own interest as in the interest of future workable democracy.

    John Bath
    Clevedon, Somerset

    SIR – I was amused to see Jacob Rees-Mogg’s comment on the Government’s Withdrawal Agreement Bill being “in purgatory” (report, October 23). The Democratic Unionist Party will now be able to rail against one more thing in which they do not believe.

    Philip J W Murphy
    Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    2. It was obvious at the time that the FTPA was designed to keep the LIb Undems in power with Cameron.

  18. SIR – Ever since Boris Johnson promised that the country would leave the EU by October 31, the Remainers in Parliament and outside have attempted to thwart this eventuality, often in the hope that voters will punish the Prime Minister for his failure come the next general election.

    However, when the election does come, the public will not blame Mr Johnson for the debacle of the past few weeks, but will rather pin the blame on those MPs who have deliberately obstructed the will of the electorate.

    While some who will only countenance a no-deal exit may vote for the Brexit Party, the majority will recognise that the Prime Minister has achieved a more advantageous deal with the EU, and will vote accordingly.

    An election will, therefore, see a Conservative government returned with a workable majority and able to vote down any wrecking amendments to the revised Withdrawal Agreement, thus seeing us leave before Christmas.

    The end of the tunnel is in sight.

    Steve Narancic
    Wantage, Oxfordshire

    1. For various reasons which I cannot reveal, I am inclined to vote for the Brexit Party in this “safe” conservative constituency. Boris has not delivered on his promise.

    2. A Johnson Government with a workable majority without heavy support from The Brexit Party will vote through his “Deal”.

      Much as I dislike them, it needs to be a coalition of Brexit MPs plus a large majority of Conservative Leave MPs. An electoral pact could see this happen. A splitting of the leave vote could see a remain coalition scrape into power and Brexit will never happen.

      1. Brexit will never properly happen anyway. We’ll only ever get Brexit in name only. We’re heading for the vassal state scenario.

        1. That’s my view too, but I live in hope that the idiots in charge might make a silly mistake and then that the law says we’re out; fait accompli.

    3. With parliament suffocated by lazy, arrogant MPs there’s no room to think rationally. The solutions are becoming start removing the scum by force to remind them of their duty or……no, I can’t think of anything else.

      I really do think remoaners fighting us are going to need to see Grieve, Gauke and Soubry turning purple before they realise what they have done and the rage we are feeling.

      At the moment, a general election should see them all sacked bar a tiny few. There’s scrutiny to say ‘this isn’t a good deal’ and being consistent on that and just fighting the public for your own personal gain.

      1. I reminded my MP that November 5th was approaching and people’s minds could well turn to the reason for the celebration.

    4. This deal is not at all advantageous to the UK, only to the EU. That needs to be publicised far and wide.

  19. Manufacturers are already withdrawing certain models in Europe, and hundreds of new battery and hybrid cars are coming to market. They will have to persuade us to buy them or pay the fines. Either course will destroy profitability in the automotive sector for years to come. It is small wonder that Dyson recently decided to “pull the plug” on the development of its own electric car.

    Mike Sturgeon
    Executive Director, Association of European Vehicle Logistics
    Brussels, Belgium

  20. John Redwood exposes the level of budget control the EU has exercised over the UK since 2008. Although not in the Euro Zone the UK had to comply with an EU requirement. JR’s reply to the comment exposes the cynical attitude of silence promoted by the pro EU parties and press.

    I know when I have mentioned in the past the importance of the Maastricht debt and deficit controls to UK policy some have written in to deny this. Let me remind you of the extent of the EU requirements on the UK since 2008.

    The UK was under EU budget control from 2008 when Decision 2008/713 stated the UK was running an excessive deficit and had to take action to reduce it. The deficit worsened thanks to the great recession, so they reinforced the requirement. They required us to make spending cuts and tax rises worth 1.75% of GDP a year (£38.5bn a year at current values) from 2010/11 to 2014/15. In 2015 they reviewed the position and renewed the requirement to cut spending or raise taxes as they remained concerned about the level of state debt to GDP. They set specific reducing deficit targets of 4.1% of GDP for 2015-165 and 2.7% of GDP for 2016/17. The UK government always filed the relevant figures and submitted to the discipline imposed, as it is required to do by Treaty .

    ========================================================================================================================

    BTL

    Ian Wragg
    Posted October 24, 2019 at 5:31 am | Permalink

    How come no one knows these requirements when we’re not in the Euro.
    Why do Liebor and the Limp Dumbs want to continue these policies when we have no money for social care, policing, armed forces etc.
    Why aren’t you shouting this from the rooftops.

    Reply I have tried to but the establishment media and pro EU parties find this an inconvenient truth.

    1. This is part of the problem and why when the remoaners wail about how Leavers didn’t know what they were voting for – a lie it is in fact they who didn’t know because the state and press kept lying to them.

      The EU makes us poorer and more indebted and the BBC doesn’t bother to report it.

      The Lib Dumps are just fighting for their own pensions. It’s long past time to pretend otherwise. They are liars, cowards and thieves looking out for their future careers in the eurotrough..

      1. The LibDums hide behind their ‘economic etc arguments’ but are clear about their desired direction of travel.
        Further down the chain of liars and insincere people are the Labour MPs: these frauds are as avid to stop Brexit as the LibDums but are too worried about the electoral fallout in their Midlands and Northern areas to come out straight and say so. Therefore, they hide behind a fudge of talking about a deal and at the same time do everything they possibly can to stop Brexit, even if it is only BRINO.

        1. First it is only in the Non Legal binding Political document and second each EU country already has different VAT rates. VAT also only really applies to the End user so impacts consumption of goods in a country. Third what is a level playing field. Te EU certainly does not practice a level playing field

          It is possible the EU might want to use it as leverage in negotiations but I doubt VAT will be of much concern to them

          1. Bill, how much confidence do you have in a current British politician, outside of a few Brexiteers e.g. Redwood, to negotiate the PDF with Barnier?
            IMHO the likes of Johnson will cave in and we will have all the level playing field, regulatory alignment with our, “friends and partners in the EU”(© Johnson), that will mean we haven’t left at all. This will be agreed to trade with a protectionist group of nations representing a shrinking share of World GDP. Way to go!
            To add to Johnson’s waffling record, again yesterday he made a similar statement in reply to a question on fishing that he gave to Owen Paterson a day or two ago. He is so determined to get his “deal” over the line he will say anything to hide the fact that unless we walk away we will never be free.

    2. Morning B,
      Easier to say the UK will have NO control over anything
      appertaining to the eu, ever, all the time the leg irons are on the 17.4 million and restrickting them from walking.

    3. No.

      From: https://www.politico.eu/article/the-brexit-deal-explained-2/

      The U.K. will also be able to apply VAT exemptions and reduced rates in Northern Ireland, as long as they apply in Ireland as well. Any concerns arising from VAT reductions and exemptions will be discussed at the Joint Committee which can review how the terms of this article are applied.

      The EU and U.K. also agreed to exchange information to combat customs and VAT fraud.

      Who moved in the talks? The deal agreed Thursday includes compromise on both sides. The Democratic Unionist Party had opposed Northern Ireland being treated any differently from the rest of the U.K. The terms of the Northern Ireland protocol allow the U.K. government to set VAT rates and exemptions in Northern Ireland that remain aligned with those of the rest of the U.K. as long as they are not lower than those in the Republic of Ireland.

      Which sounds as if we can change VAT rates as long as they are the same as those in Southern Ireland. Which means we can’t.

  23. Another great day for renewable s Wind 11% Solar 0%

    I love the way they claim Solar does not need sunshine to work and that it will generate power even on a cloudy day. Technically they can claim that as it will. What they dont say is it will be so little it would struggle to proper a 10W light bulb

    A figure I have found for 2019 claims we have a total of 21.9GW of wind turbine capacity at present it generating just 3.8Gw. That gives an indication of how inefficient wind turbines are . A 15% to 20$ load factor is pretty much the norm

    2. Green is not about how useful it is. It’s about sounding good. It’s about cretinous, arrogant politicians making themselves more important on the worldd stage for their next step up the troughy ladder and some cushy job ‘advising’ 2 hours a week influencing (buying) government policy at the expense of the tax payer.

  24. Does anyone what know what happened over a week ago to old active Disqus comment threads on other sites? It’s very odd but without warning they seem to have disappeared on the main site but you can still see them in your notifications box but not access them at all.

    1. The old Channel system was shut down and this site for example converted to a blog with the old comments disappearing!

      1. I understand that, but this was only last week and these were comment forums attached to self supporting websites.

    2. Well, well well if it’s not me old mate LP himself. Doffs me hat, tugs me forelock and bows and headbutts the floor, reverently, whatever that means. See you’re all going around and around in even faster ever decreasing circles at the other place.

      Did I see you say we should accept some dodgy Johnson deal? Dear me, you losing the faith? Told you two years ago that Johnson was a plant, May played a blinder and that they never had any intentions of letting us leave.
      Only one solution, Peasants Revolt II.

      How’s the drilling with the First Devonian Pitchfork Militia doing? Bagged any peasants on your morning constitutional? Do you want me to do a review of your book on Amazon having not read it?

      There are many mysteries on Disqus, I had a comment marked as Spam. Received 8-10 comment emails in my Spam folder. Only opened one while I was mobile. When I got back home all the emails had vanished.

      When it kicks off you need to march on Exeter as that’s the only problem in your area. When you get there employ Genghis Khan’s battle strategy. Good luck.

      1. RS,
        The multi staged political re-entry rocket first stage cameron ( the wretch), second stage may,
        final stage still in orbit.

        1. Well Cameron had to go because he said he would sign Article 50 straightaway. The DM had an insider’s views article on referendum day, they knew they’d lost around the time the polls closed.

        1. LP and I, and most of all who sail in the good ship GP are old… adversaries is the best word to describe it. I am of the peasantry, he of the landed gentry. He never responds, but I enjoy it.)))))

  25. ‘Right-wing’ hijacker armed with an UZI steals an ambulance and DELIBERATELY runs down twin babies in a pushchair after mounting pavement before he is rammed by hero paramedics amid gun battle with Oslo police. Mail. 22 October 2019.

    The 32-year-old suspect, reported to belong to a right-wing group, hit and injured five people, including seven-month-old twins in a double pushchair, as he raced through the streets of the Norwegian capital. Witnesses told police he ‘deliberately’ drove the vehicle up the pavement ‘to hit random victims’.
    Inside the stolen ambulance, police found a submachine gun, a shotgun and what they said were ‘large amounts’ of narcotics.

    So no “lone wolf” or “mental issues” but the “right-wing” are now transporting large quantities of narcotics on their terror raids? I think not. I smell another disinformation ploy!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7600293/Man-steals-ambulance-runs-pedestrians-Oslo.html

    1. I wonder if this ‘right wing group’ will actually turn out to be the national socialists? You know, that bunch of nationalising, big state, child brainwashing statist, high tax dictatorial fellows?

      Those ‘right wing’ Lefties?

  26. Would Boris have got the Brexit Bill through if he had agreed with a deal over which eats to contest ?

    It is hard to be certain but I think had a deal been in place a lot of Labour MP’s in seats that voted to Leave the EU might have decided to vote for the deal

  27. How can one identify illegal migrants .. they arrive from everywhere ..

    What is the difference with these deaths and and the deaths from capsized boats .. This is the nature of and risks that desperation creates .

    Why is this so different to the slaughter of Kurds in Syria by Turks?

    More expense and police time .. they will never find the culprits .. just similar to the burning tower block isn’t it .. a fruitless exercise

    1. THe UK police should only investigate what happened in the UK that should be th end of it. WE cannot be the police force for the rest of the world

      1. Okay Bill

        I was being harsh .. These people are dead .. they might not have died in the UK .. They might not have been trafficked .. they could have just hitched a lift , as they all try to do . Why does the tax payer have to foot the bill, and why all the bowing of heads .. For goodness sake , haven’t we all had enough of cultural terribleness , stabbings, rapes , bad behaviour , criminals , pick pocketers , terrorists and all the rest.

        We are too much of a soft touch .. I wish the authorities would get real … False shock is absolutely sickening .

        This country has to wise up .. WHY are these people heading for Britain ?

        1. My council has been forced to take 100s of Syrians. They all have kids, some obviously born in refugee camps. How many of the men will ever work while they are popping out 5-8 kids over the next 10 years? Absolutely no need to ever work. The people have woken except TPTB and their Useful Idiot supporters have other plans for us and we are surplus to their requirements.

          1. The council has not been forced to. It’s chosen to.

            Why should we? What possible relation to the UK do they have? international obligation? Where does that come from? First safe country. Heck, the funny bit is that could be Israel! Then we could have them housed all around you know, schools and hospitals and then when the Hamas loonies bomb them Israelis could say ‘look how awful those evil Hamas are!’

            Which would be a delicious irony.

          2. I’m pretty sure my council dragged their heels until they were forced to do so. Anyway I’m going to test if they were or not by raising a racial discrimination case against them.

            Ever heard of the 1995 Barcelona Declaration? Well your answer is in there. The Yanks bomb hell out of somewhere. That causes a refugee stream. Then voici. Nice map from the wiki page. Next up Iran.

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b8f41ac332467513b88b139c91ec364a6043d934b1aa13d6413e597341dc8f02.png

          3. Yet another reason to leave the EU and divest ourselves of this hapless organisation and refuse such characters.

          4. There never has been, nor ever will be a single reason to be in the Common Market or EU unless you can’t wash your own car or make your own poncy coffee. Gaddafi repeatedly told them that if you get rid of me you’ll have a tidal wave of refugees from sub-Saharan Africa.

        2. Morning TB,
          They are coming to make a better life, many have past through various countries that would give them that.
          The truth being the target is the best welfare system.

    3. Ah, but the burning tower is a combination of council incompetence, green fanaticism and immigration.

      The incompetence is not knowing who’s living there thus the endless subletting.
      The green to choose a cladding to make them green without understanding fully the consequences – comically because the EU prevents us from doing so but no one talks about that.

      The immigration is simple – the place was chock full of foreigners who just don’t share the same values and norms.

  28. Morning, Campers.
    Will a ‘hard border’ between NI and Eire stop tragedies like Purfleet?
    The cab/tractor is registered in Bulgaria, but hasn’t been there for two years.
    It seems to be buzzing around to and from Dublin, Holyhead and various points in mainland Blighty.

    1. How long were the bodies in the trailer? Three days? Three weeks? Three years?
      Suddenly, a squirrel?

    2. The tractor unit being registered in Bulgaria is nothing unusual and is, apparently, a common tax dodge.

      I’m becoming more convinced that the driver is either innocent and found the bodies after investigating tampered custom seals on the doors, or was part of the smuggling gang and opened the doors to release what he expected to be a live cargo.

      1. Yes, that is what I suspect.
        If the migrants are Chinese, their travel costs to Bulgaria would be high, before we take other charges into account.

    3. Depends on the level of checks decided upon by HMC&E. Only a minute number of loads are pulled for full examination, nowadays they go through big X-ray machines. They used to have to do full outturns or part outturns and remove all the cargo and then open packages. A slightly higher proportion of jobs are chosen for document checks but on EU shipments most go sailing through.

      Obviously consignments emanating from say Pakistan would get more checks than if it came from the US.

      Food and perishable shipments are usually prioritised as are dangerous goods.

      So it’s irrelevant if it’s a hard border or not it’s down to the capacity of customs officers, and there aren’t enough of them to do anything, so the odds are in favour of the smugglers.

      1. Apparently they aren’t allowed to use Xray machines any more. Helf ‘n saftey, in case there are any live humans inside the container.

        1. It was sometime ago that I did my last import so what you say sounds highly feasible and would show that the authorities are complicit in people trafficking.

          2. You’ve missed a treat. Back in ’99 when I worked a locumship for 2 months in Kirchheim Teck, I picked up a Dönor most evenings on the way back from work to the Gasthof.

        3. Isn’t it more that the French authorities got fed up with our exposing their deliberate malice and refusal to obey the law/process illegals/send them away at their expense and appealed to the EU to make us stop so we would have to do their job for them because they were lazy?

      2. There ouyt to be a 100% data ckeck’s plus number plate recognition. The data is read by simply swiping the bar code

        1. In an ideal world everything should be checked. Just imagine the amount of counterfeit products that come through. The computer is supposed to pick consignments at random for inspection unless they have suspicions. An invoice and customs entry can say one thing but the consignment could be totally different. It’s all in favour of the smugglers and terrorists.

          2. Possibly, some loads are well over the container and road maximum. Trouble is there is just too much freight moving around the world.

          3. It i the difference in wight that is of concern as it means something has been added to the load and that something coud be illegals

          4. See through containers.
            Plastics packaging companies are worried about their future after the rise in awareness of the problems their products create. They could divert their energies to developing strengthened transparent plastic crates to replace metal crates.

  29. ‘Morning All

    NHS,Housing ,Schools crisis??

    They’re all going to get worse,much much worse

    ConWoman explains why

    The population of the UK is

    projected to increase by 3million (4.5 per cent) in the next decade,

    from an estimated 66.4million in mid-2018 to 69.4million in mid-2028.

    This is official. It was revealed by the Office for National Statistics yesterday.

    It should be headline news, but at the time of writing it didn’t even

    feature as an item on the BBC’s News online home page, prompting the

    question of what exactly do we pay the licence fee for?

    Rest of an excellent piece here

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/bursting-at-the-seams-but-uks-population-explosion-continues/

    1. Perhaps to make it newsworthy all the supermarkets need to come out with their projections and estimates compared to current population based on sales

      1. ‘Afternoon, Mags, Switzerland with very little land-room, bury them upright and, 75 years after the last living relative dies, up they come and the bones are thrown into a charnel-house.

        As a Catholic Priest said to me, “There’s going to be an awful lot of noise and fighting in the charnel-house, come judgement day.

  32. Russians Trust Putin Less Than Army – Poll. Moscow Times. 2 Hours ago.

    The army emerged as Russia’s most trusted institution last year as a result of what sociologists called the Kremlin’s “saber-rattling.” This year’s institutional trust rating published by the independent Levada Center pollster placed Putin at 60% and the army at 63%.

    Any UK politician would kill for a 60% approval rating!

    https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/10/24/russians-trust-putin-less-army-poll-a67880

  34. I recall flying from Birmingham to Stavanger (Norway) in 2009. I think it was Ryanair. The plane was about 2/3rds full both ways. What was surprising is that both ways, 40-50% of the passengers were muslim …. burkas a-plenty.

    1. With the Tories voting, happily seemingly, for WA mkII, they have already sufficiently diverged from TBP’s aims for there to be no common ground for a voting alliance.

  36. Latest mail to Mr Redwood…………….

    Ding dong !

    G S coincidence alert !

    Anything the LibDems want has to be seen in the context of alleged links to G S and especially so as ”the establishment media” looks linked to G S too.

    After all, way back in early 2018 there was a whole variety of articles about how Uncle George was spending millions to stop Brexit.

    The media even named some of the MPs who were meeting with him !

    Since about mid 2018 there has been total media silence about George S, and not one single word has been published about his campaign.

    We know it’s happening though because of those $52,0000,000 2018 accounts !

    So that means the media has either been told to ”shut up” about George, or maybe other influences have been applied.

    Don’t you think this degree of influence is extremely worrying ?

    When is someone going to start uncovering the G S conspiracy instead of standing by, looking the other way, and watching the house fall down ?

    I don’t think G S is going to stop otherwise, do you ?

    Polly

  37. On the council estate in North Shields where I spent most of my youth, the standard terms for mother and father were ‘ma’ and ‘da’. In better districts of North Shields, it would be ‘mam’ and ‘dad’. I recall how shocked I was when in London in 1953 (queuing at Westminster Abbey), I heard a tall youth next to his mother calling her ‘mummy’. Even at my direct grant school in Newcastle, any boy who used the terms ‘mummy’ and ‘daddy’ was a ripe target for mockery or bullying – although, likely as not, on target for a place at Oxbridge.

      1. In the centre of the sink estate known as ‘The Ridges’ – we had a shop and money ….. Gee, thanks for that choice, mam and dad … it was grAte ..

        1. Yes, Meadow Well now. Do you ever visit? You’d be amazed what has happened to the Fish Quay, a hub of restaurants and bars.

          5. Yes, we still have a few “proper” fish shops on the quayside, selling some of the fish brought it that morning. I love a trip on the ferry, it’s great when you are the only person on the top deck, 15 minutes of splendid isolation, just you and the gale force winds.

          6. Yes, I visit occasionally, although now my mother’s gone it’ll be much less frequent. North Shields is so much cleaner, although it had far more trade/exports in the 1940s/60s and the fishing port is a shadow of what it was. Coal’s gone and shipbuilding/repairing died, perhaps speeded up by nationalization

    2. Man, I have long imagined that speech patterns in the North East have links to the Viking period.

        1. Off the top of my head – ‘quene’ is Danish for woman.
          I have a horrible feeling my spelling will be corrected!

          1. ‘Afternoon, Anne, as it is in the Doric, as spoken in North-East Scotland (Banff & Buchan) where ‘Quine’ is a girl and a boy is a ‘loon’.

            Married people consist of a ‘Mannie’ and a ‘Wifie’

            I don’t know how they manage with homosexual marriage – it wasn’t an issue when I lived there in the 1980s!

        2. Our mothers used to refer to their husbands as ‘me man’.

          They in turn were referred to as ‘wor lass’.

          2. Some of them lasses were whoppers and some of them smelt reet awful. They wore their big coats even on the hottest days …. necessary to leave the shop door open for half an hour after they’ve gone (‘Open All Hours’ never covered this aspect of poorer districts).

          1. ‘Afternoon, Paul, I thought for a moment that you’d morphed into Norwegian Blue but the squawking wasn’t right.

  38. I was told a couple of days ago by someone I would trust implicitly and who is extremely connected within Leave circles (family member worked for Cummings in Leave campaign HQ, husband’s speeches on Youtube to various international conferences etc have attracted huge numbers of views), that No 10 knows, allegedly, that the EU, Soros and similar have given Blair, Mandelson and ano a budget of £1 bn to destroy Brexit and that pretty much everything we see is co-ordinated. These is a war underway in the shadows and one can only wonder why Boris has not publicised it.

          1. Many a true word said in jest. They haven’t got enough places for us all. Back in around 2004-06 I heard that TPTB thought it was all going to kick off then. So they started issuing warrant cards to PCSOs, Traffic Wardens, Licenced bouncers and Street Wardens as they would take on the responsibility of policing us while fat plod would be dealing with the civil disturbances. They must be absolutely shatting themselves now.

    2. You been excommunicated? Well yoof, Miss Polly and I could have told you that ages ago and I’m pretty sure I must have mentioned it in despatches to you over the last three years. To me all 650 MPs are complicit in it as well.

    3. No surprise, Lord Protectus.
      I did mildly raise the question of Major’s source of riches.
      Add – how did Heath afford Morning Cloud and a des. res in Salisbury?
      Blair and Mandelson are not exactly on their uppers, either.

    4. Probably because most of our dumbed-down voters wouldn’t have a clue what he was talking about, and more money would be thrown at the globalist’s’ aim – no Brexit, no democracy and world domination by the few with much money. Who knows how much Boris might have been promised/

  39. An observation,
    The old clog has heard the clunk of the dropping penny.
    He condemns himself daily with down voting on issues that need
    condemning by peoples of decency.

          1. Good question, 1642again, I am equally baffled. Could it be Polly’s Uncle George? Or ogga1’s Foolish Voters? Or one of Peddy’s German students whose homework got marked by him as 1 out of 100? Maybe it was someone who tried unsuccessfully to grow some trombetti from seed.

          2. 1642,
            I am not being funny but ask him, he revealed himself on here
            not so long back, try word association that could work.

    1. Love that music ..

      One of our working cocker spaniels was named that .. she lived until she was over 16 years .. Her ears used to prick up when she heard FM sing .. such a happy song !

      1. Hi Belle,
        Good foot tapping stuff….on another gloomy day and I’m not talking weather! How is it all going to end…..

        Maud pricks up her ears to the sound of BISCUITS!

      2. She had a lovely voice. I have to say I was apprehensive when she replaced Christine Perfect in Fleetwood Mac but the FM Mk 2 was such a different band to Peter Green’s outfit, it was a matter of chalk and cheese.

  41. Russia has been playing a canny game in the Middle East, but can it continue? Wed 23 Oct 2019.

    Recent events in Syria suggest that Russia isn’t just taking Washington’s place as the Middle East’s power broker – it seems to be doing a more effective job of it, too.

    Morning everyone. Well since American Foreign Policy was based on idiocy; the overthrowing of the Assad Government and the installation of an ISIS Caliphate; a strategy which has already cost tens of thousands of lives, we must be thankful that Putin has taken over the negotiations.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/23/putin-middle-east-russia-turkey-syria

    1. Only the globalist cabal backed by the tacit support of the UN could have come up with a plan to install a murderous group of islamists as the ruling group in Syria. Further destabilising an already unstable area of the World for financial gain is evil personified. It appears that Putin hasn’t been tainted by the globalist disease: however, he does have his own targets of domination to achieve.

      1. Maybe Russia is intent on safeguarding its borders? It is very useful to have friendly foreign states on your borders.

    2. Russia and the Middle East.
      A match made in heaven.
      Though why the Russians should have to clear up the dog’s dinner created by western interference is a question for Ivan the Taxpayer.

    3. In the noughties I used to ask a Syrian exile about his old country; his standard reply was that they (the regime) were a bunch of crooks. Sounds like Russia.

  42. Howard Archer
    ‏
    @HowardArcherUK

    Flash #German #PMI indicates #economy’s struggles continued at start of third quarter. Joint #manufacturing & #services essentially unchanged from September’s 83-month low & contracting (index edged up to 48.6; 48.5 in September). Overall employment fell for first time in 6 years
    12:35 am – 24 Oct 2019

    Mayor of West Yorks
    ‏

    @Colin00007
    2h

    Replying to @HowardArcherUK
    It’s much worse that they are saying – some factories have no order book since UK started switching suppliers outside EU

    2. “thought to have sneaked”… Pull the other one. It’s an organised industry.

      Ref the truck:
      “But Bulgaria’s prime minister Boyko Borissov yesterday insisted it had simply been registered in the country by an Irish woman in 2017 and had not returned since then.
      The practice of setting up haulage companies in Bulgaria has become increasingly popular, with legal firms and online message boards filled with advice about how to do so.
      EU rules allow British and Irish firms to register there while operating across the bloc, with companies attracted by the country’s 10 per cent corporation tax.
      Haulage firms can also take advantage of a quick registration process with low administration fees, while costs to run a company are significantly cheaper.”

  44. Scrolling back through my profile, it jumps from this site back to the old Telegraph comments and all other threads in between from the old Disqus free channels seem to have disappeared. I’ve also just noticed for the first time how many down-votes I’ve had on Breitbart and Conservative Woman. LOL.

      1. Oh, I can’t find it now but it would have been related to the Moon God of Mecca. I haven’t attempted to comment on there for a long time. Too much of a bear pit.

        1. Strange, criticism of Ropers usually means up ticks. I love Yank and S(‘)r(‘)s bot baiting over there.

    2. Dissqus also has a new bug which someone has reported to
      Dissqus Discuss. Affecting comments on many sites from
      The Speccie, Conservative Woman and lots of the US sites –
      but not here. A report to them has been put into place.
      Many acknowledge the end of Dissqus but not all.

  45. I see that “Lord” Andrew Adonis has come out as a homosexual.
    I’m shocked I tell you.
    Said no one. Ever.

    2. He is the father to two children, which makes me wonder if there is any as yet unidentified hormonal process that causes middle-aged men to switch gradually.

          3. Hi Robert,
            BTW you made a comment about that towerblock BTL in Telegraph a day or two ago; earlier this year I met a council worker from the London area whose role was to discover unlawfully sub-let residential properties. She had some horror stories, and was able to recover substantial monies and to evict quite a few naughty people.

            Both social media and airbnb assist that sort of detective work.

    1. How does one deport this laughing scum? What sensible nation would accept them? The only solution is to… (no, I mustn’t incite murder).

    2. The phrase ‘biting the hand that feeds you’ springs to mind. I notice several of them had smartphones. Destitute refugees?

    3. Both LBC and Al-Beeb have been sucking dry the awful tragedy of yesterday. One after another illegal or refugee being interviewed to relate their stories. How does the success or otherwise of other incomers make up for what happened? It’s ghoulish.
      As well as just reporting the news they should be taking the politicians who, by their inaction and desire for massive immigration, are facilitating the traffickers and the desperate souls who want to come here.

      1. It’s a known tactic, i.e. personalise the illegals by interviewing one or two success stories, make people empathise with them, and pretend they represent all illegal migrants.
        They should be interviewing the gang members, the ones who have no intention of integrating, the convicted criminals, etc.
        The media will say they don’t represent all illegal migrants, but neither do the few individuals they give airtime to.
        Plus, with a billion Chinese, a billion Indians, a billion Africans, etc, etc, just how many of those desperate to leave those countries are we supposed to take in? 1%? 0.5? And how does that help the rest? Or us?

        1. Mmm. When was the last time that the BBC interviewed an Albanian drug dealer, people trafficker and procurer, without blurring the face, hiding the identity, or using an actor’s voice?

        2. And how does that help the rest? Or us?

          Or us?
          In the great globalist dream we do not count only in as much as those that are able, work and pay tax and those of us on pensions pay tax on long paid for personal benefits. And all to help fund the mass incursion planned. And that’s under those posing as Tories. When we look at the confiscatory and open door immigration plans of the Labour Party we should really worry.

    5. Of course the EU wants to send them around all of the countries in the EU. It’s part of Frankfurt 11 steps and Agenda 21. It was always going to come.

    1. One thought sprang to mind upon seeing those words:

      Boris
      or
      Farage

      The sands of time and dawning reality are pouring towards the latter. But will enough grains fall before the election to save the United Kingdom?

        1. It is getting harder to see how our MP’s are going to keep squirming to achieve their aim of having the EU control our lives, but one thing is a cast-iron certainty. No matter what is happening in the real world, even with Brexit Party flags hanging from every non-migrant household in the land, the media will keep reporting the same poll figures:

          Conservative: 28%
          Labour: 27%
          Liberal: 20%
          Others: 14%
          Brexit Party: 11%

          “Because” they will say in increasing desperation “You MUST vote Conservative or Labour will get in!” They will broadcast this fantasy 24 hours a day in an attempt to stop us leaving.

  48. SKY News

    EU ambassadors may not necessarily have to convene in Brussels to grant Boris’s unsolicited three month Article 50 extension however they do want to know if it will be for:

    A. a referendum
    B. an election or
    C. scrutinising and enacting the provisions of the latest conditionally agreed WA.

    EU responses will likely be sent on unsigned photocopied missives.

  49. I’m going to alight my bike, with the recently fitted bullet proof tyres and pedal off to the gym for a shower. But first I’ll do 1.2km on the cross-trainer on level 12 on a up hill down dale course. Then because I need to shed some aggression I’m going to batter hell out of a punch bag. Last time I was told by an instructor I was hitting it too hard, today I’m going to kill it.

      1. Mainly go for the shower but recently I’ve been putting a bit of effort in. I’ll die first.

    2. I feel pity for me and my foolishness.

      I allowed myself to be signed up for an exercise “class a thon” yesterday. Five back to back aerobics and weight training classes in a day.

      Off for a second breakfast to start building my strength for this ordeal. I must be totally mad.

      1. I have been walking the 2km to the gym but got my two bikes pathworthy. One of the bikes, the handlebars can’t be highered so the amount of muscle ache I’m getting over the last week is incredible. If you don’t have a heart attack you will hardly be able to move for two to three days. Madness indeed.

    3. Cripes. I’ve just about managed to pour granola into a bowl.
      After reading that I need another lie down! 🙂

      1. It is possible to be WAY too keen on fitness. Bruce Lee was superbly trained and at the peak of fitness when he dropped dead at 32. Your body only has so many miles in it, and you can wear it out in double-quick time if you go overboard on the exercise. 🙂

        1. Concur completely. The only exercise I get when I go anywhere near a Gym is to curl a lip…..

          1. That would have been a sight to see. What a way to go. Not Chinese water torture I hope.

          4. But didn’t his Post Mortem shew he had a longstanding heart condition which should have killed him a couple of decades earlier? The opinion being that his superb level of fitness kept him going for a lot longer.

  52. Bobby Naidoo from Durbs, applies for a job as a salesman in Vrede in the Vrystaat at a hyperstore.

    The Manager asks: “Do you have any sales experience?”

    Bobby says: “S’true my Larnie, I was a salesman back in Grey street Durban ‘n all.”

    Well, the boss liked the Indian boytjie so he gave him the job. “You start tomorrow. I’ll come down after we close and see how you did.”

    His first day on the job was rough but he got through it. After the store was locked up, the boss came down.

    “How many sales did you make today?”

    Bobby says: “Larnie, Just ONE sale ‘n all.”

    The boss says: “Just one? No! No! No! You see here our sales people average 20 or 30 sales a day. If you want to keep this job, you’d better be doing better than just one sale. By the way, how much was the sale for?”

    Bobby says: ” R1, 401,237.64″

    Boss says: “Bliksem…”R1, 401,237.64? F*kk*t man, what the hell did you sell?”

    Bobby stutters: “Sir Larnie Boss man, first I sell him the small fishhook. Then I sell him medium fishhook. Then I sell him large fishhook. Then I sell him new fishing rod and some fishing gear ‘n all. Then I ask him where he’s going fishing and he tunes down on the coast, so I’m tuning him he’ll be needing boats ‘n all in the Indian Ocean cause I’m Indian and I’m knowing this, so we trapped down to the boating department and I sell him twin engine Ocean going Craft.

    Then he said he didn’t think his Ford Bantam would pull it and I’m saying true ‘an all, so I took him down to our jammy automotive department and sell him that 4X4 Hilux double-cab with a canopy ‘n all my Larnie. I then get to ask him where he’ll be staying ‘n all, and since he had no possi to kip, I took him to camping department and sell him one of those new igloo 6 sleeper camper tents.

    Then the guy said, while we’re at it, I should throw in about a R1000 worth of groceries and two cases of beer and I’m scheming that’s lekka ‘n all and I gave him discount.”

    The boss said: “You’re not serious? A guy came in here to buy a fishhook and you sold him a boat, a 4X4 truck and a tent?”

    Bobby tunes: “Nooit meneer, actually he came in to buy a box of Tampons for his wife, and I’m tuning him: “Well, since your weekends stuffed ‘n all, you might just as well go fishing.

    Apologies for the South African dialect – I don’t know how accurate it is.

  54. ‘They died slowly in horrendous conditions’. Mail. 24 October 2019.

    The stowaways – 38 adults and one teenager – slowly froze to death in ‘absolutely horrendous’ conditions after they tried to reach the UK on a cargo ferry from Belgium, it is feared.

    Actually freezing to death once the initial hypothermia symptoms are passed is one of the easiest ways to die, since you simply go to sleep. Hence all those stories about mountaineers trapped at heights striving to stay awake until daylight!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7606715/How-39-desperate-stowaway-migrants-locked-metal-coffin-left-die.html

      1. WE have a system in my view that actively encourages it. The Eu encourages it. Our government encourages it our legal system encourages it as do most Charities

        The very strong message sent out is if you can get to the UK you will be allowed to stay whereas the message should be if you enter the UK Illegally you wil a 100% not be allowed to stay. It would soon stop then

        1. The BBC local news claimed that 98% of those migrants who crossed the Channel this year have been allowed to stay.

      2. If only, Johnny! There will be such a weeping and wailing, gnashing of teeth and beating of breasts that the message will be “if you can make it, you’ll be welcomed with open arms” and thus more will try. It will indeed be a land of milk and honey for which they will not have to work or offer anything in exchange.

    3. Perhaps these containers should be fitted with internal cameras which can allow port officials to randomly check their contents. Any with no or non working cameras should be opened up and searched. In addition border officials should periodically measure the internal dimensions of these containers, height, length and width when empty and prior to loading or after delivery of their contents. If found to contain false compartments all vehicle from the company should be checked.

      1. I’d rather see them filled with CO2, to be honest so they won’t support life in the first place.

    4. They would not all have ‘fallen asleep’ at the same time.
      They would have watched their companions fall; like Jews in the trucks going to Auschwitz.

      1. They may have succumbed to oxygen starvation. Once the O2 level drops below 18% by volume consciousness is lost very rapidly without warning.

  55. Greta Thunberg is calling for the closure of the U.K. parliament because of the danger to health from the Ree Smog.

  56. unstoppable rise in online shopping is bringing new delivery depots to central London — with flats built

    Who wants to live in flats built above busy depots and bus garages and supermarkets. There is also the little little of car parking space or will they adopt the approach of them pretending they will not need cars. and what about the schools and GP’s etc that will be needed where do they intend to put them

    The unstoppable rise in online shopping is driving a demand for more storage space and delivery hubs across central London, which is in turn creating a new homes model: warehouse sheds that come with beds — large industrial buildings with homes built above.

    Online shopping now accounts for 20 per cent of retail sales with deliveries tipped to grow by 64 per cent since 2016 by next year.

    Building depots close to customers’ homes helps speed deliveries and can cut vehicle emissions, with smaller electric vans travelling shorter distances.
    The 10 postcodes where demand for tight-deadline deliveries is strongest include Brent, Croydon, Hackney, Lambeth, Merton, Wandsworth, Enfield and Haringey, according to research from Knight Frank.

    https://www.homesandproperty.co.uk/property-news/homes-of-the-future-unstoppable-rise-in-online-shopping-is-bringing-new-delivery-depots-to-central-a134296.html

    2. BJ,
      The scrumping edibles gang I was in as a kid lived in the tree tops eating the spoils, a sort of daily survival course.
      Scrumping now is on par I believe with non payment of tv licence, sentence, devils island.
      Kids now only allowed to climb trees if the trees are horizontal and they are wearing a safety harness.

    3. Those who work at HMRC are violently opposed to taking risks.

      Children should be wrapped in cotton wool and not exposed to any dangers at all ever.

    4. It’s Ben Cruachan. The descent to the floor of the Corrie is quite easy and it contains the dam for the hydro plant buried inside the mountain!

      2. Apparently not in this case:

        “A 10-year-old boy climbed down a 328ft (100m) ravine to reach his mother who had fallen during a mountain climb.
        The family, which also included two girls, aged five and nine, ended up on very steep ground after taking a wrong turn on Ben Cruachan in Oban.
        The mother fell and landed on a ledge with a “large drop” below, resulting in her suffering serious injuries.”

  58. Self-important lawyers on Twitter are damaging the reputation of our justice system. 24 OCTOBER 2019

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/80c38de7addfea2b47d230225b76305d4002c9e42be54044f8bf1391f3e8efb4.jpg

    Parliamentary democracy and the rule of law are two things our nation can be proud of CREDIT: REX

    Can I point out that both of these things are extinct due to the actions of the people in the photograph!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/10/24/self-important-lawyers-twitter-damaging-reputation-justice-system/

    2. Were the fancy robes specially designed for the Supreme Court or are they standard Law Lord robes?

    3. Nary a BAME in sight.

      All the dirty deeds done to us, by homegrown Nasty Whities.

      I just pray that I find one burning to death by the side of the road.

      I would be the Good Samaritan and cross to the other side and pee in the gutter

        1. Well spotted. I suppose it’s because of him being vertically challenged that you can’t see Mr Bercow in the photo…..

  59. Illegal on phone in sobs as he describes how he was forced to leave the rest of his family behind
    In ravaged war-torn Denmark,that cauldron of atrocity
    He talks of the perils of reaching the French coast and boarding a lorry to the UK
    But there is a happy ending,Inshallah,he was welcomed to the land of milk and honey,fed clothed and housed and given right to remain and he is sooooooooo happy that means all his family have been able to escape hellhole Denmark to join him here.
    We are being mugged right off*
    “Just another dozen or so more cousins and my happiness will be complete”
    *Denmark recently cut migrant benefits in half

    1. “Denmark recently cut migrant benefits in half”

      We should do the same here and, while they are awaiting a ruling on their status, they should NOT be set free to wander into the population at large and disappear. We need secure camps, as happens in Australia, and preferably on a remote island with subsistance-level catering and compulsory lessons on our language and culture.

        2. Hang on – Lundy is nice – and has some epic rock climbing! I reckon Gruinard is a much better option!

    3. Denmark is relatively safe . T Here are thousands gathered at Calais trying to flee poverty tricked and war torn France

      1. Child: “If you do, the EU will think that all their Christmases have arrived at once.”

      1. Afternoon J,
        You ought to be, because if someone is tampering in that way what other ways are there
        to tamper ?
        Maybe with one’s post ?
        That would make GGs blog defunct along with many others.

    3. I have been counting up my negative ticks and I think it qualifies me as a Super Negative Influencer

    4. Afternoon OLT,
      Did post yesterday it continues to be manipulated so do we await maybe for ones post’s to be tampered with ?

    5. Same with my profile. I’ve received quite a few upticks today but my total is slowly decreasing.

    6. Mine too. Disqus claim it’s normal fluctuation due to deleted accounts but that’s nonsense. I raised the issue on Discuss Disqus and others have confirmed that it’s very widespread.

    7. Well you deserve a down tick for worrying about such trivialities, you need to man up, and… Only Miss PP is allowed to go haywire with ellipsis dots it’s dot dot dot…

    8. Well you deserve a down tick for worrying about such trivialities, you need to man up, and… Only Miss PP is allowed to go haywire with ellipsis dots it’s dot dot dot…

  62. Off-topic, but –
    ” After fifty years it’s time for us to part our ways “.
    No, not a domestic thing, but the A.A. Automobile Association. ( Some of you know the other A.A.)
    Nice piece of paper from them noting I had been a member for fifty years. Wow.
    So they bang up the premium from £340 to £423. I mentioned this a little while back, I think.
    Equivalent from RAC £250, but £179 after promotional discount.

    Very rarely need them, but they have always been good on the ground.
    Forty minutes on the phone to cancel.
    I don’t have a financial services licence, so I am not allowed to tell you to cut your losses and sell your shares.
    Blame it on Brexit.

    1. Standard practice with insurance companies move your business at least every 3 years or they will take you for a mug

        1. My car insurance is with “Aztec & Coffee Planters’ Mutual SA” of Panamá. I get fully comp. cover for a premium is just £1 pa.

          “¡Es una ganga!”, as my broker says..

    2. I have always used Green Flag. Cheap, but have only used them once in all the years so don’t know what they are like in a crisis. I pay about £70 a year for recovery.

      1. We only have one car now. We alternate our Green Flag cover to get lower introductory prices – all cover except European £61. The AA have huge debts and trying to get huge increases in premiums.

        Never GF used for decades, it’s peace of mind cover – I discovered Japanese car reliability 25 years ago – currently drive a Swindon built Honda (my 5th Honda) BUT with them Japexiting in 2021 it will probably be replaced by a Derby build Toyota.

        1. ‘Afternoon, Bairn, I used to drive Mercedes, Volkswagen and BMW for reliability but since I’m now boycotting as much as possible from the EU countries, I recently purchased a Toyota RAV4. 12 years old and it drives like a dream.

          Best Beloved’s 1997 Renault Megane, bought from new (and before I knew her) is getting tired. I shall persuade her to think of something non-EU for next wheels.

          1. My only new car was a 1990 Mazda 626 I had it for over 10 years and drove over 250.000 miles. The only non consumable replacement I had was the auto choke that even though i was well out of warrenty they did not charge.

      2. I was with Green Flag after 30 years with the AA. GF bumped up my policy by about 60% after one call out, so now I’m with Auto Aid for about £45 p.a.

  63. Awkward
    I read some Laba women has just said of the 39 chinks
    “It’s just the tip of the iceberg”
    Twitterstorm incoming

    1. How were they able to identify one of these unfortunates as a teenager? We have had cases of muslim men with beards who are clearly late 20’s attending secondary school.

      1. Yes, the Muslims were obviously adults. Everyone said so and made this public.

        The state wanted to force multi culti on us and put those Pakistani Muslims in with children so they could practice their culture freely.

  64. Donald Trump claims he is securing the oil in Syria for the US – here’s the reality. 24 OCTOBER 2019.

    Sitting at the mahogany table that dominates the White House’s Cabinet Room this week, Donald Trump made an unexpected pronouncement on Syria. “We’ve secured the oil,” he said. “We want to keep the oil.”

    This pathetic scrambling to regain some political traction after last weeks disastrous decision to abandon the Kurds is worse than the original offence. This has done for the “Donald” as no Dossier or accusation about Misogyny or whatever would ever have done! He’s finished. The next Potus will be Elizabeth Warren!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/24/donald-trump-claims-securing-oil-syria-us-reality/

      2. Ogga1,
        Hook baited and swallowed, sad affair when peoples of Gerard Battens calibre are castigated
        for truthfully highlighting these odious issues.
        The down voter in this instance is is combating
        decency & human dignity.
        No worries og, don’t mind if I call
        you og do you ? be my guest.

    2. But dear ogga1, the majority of the brain washed yoof of today voted for remaining in the EU. They are the first generation in the history of mankind to be not only cleverer than their elders but wiser too. So I would look forward to seeing them all march off to face the Russians or Chinese, in their trainers, obviously, only after they had been guaranteed Safe Spaces along the way.

      1. Unsurprisingly, recent research shows that for the first time in history, this generation is less well educated (in terms of literacy and numeracy I think) than their parents.

    3. This is insanity. It’s the mother wanting a girl, nothing more. This is just child abuse and mutilation. The mother should be subject to the same laws as those Islamists who perform genital mutilation.

      1. W,
        Agreed, but to achieve that then sanity must enter the polling booth along with the voter.
        I know that it will be hard for many but sacrifices must be made
        and many of the electorate must start putting family & country
        before party.
        Currently our local abusers / mutilators come under the
        PC / Appeasers umbrella and are highly likely to get a reward
        than real justice.

    1. “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”

      Barnier and Co may not be great men in the Churchill or Wellington sense, but they great men in the realm of the EU.

      We have been warned.

        1. I don’t know which song Bowie used it in, the quote has been in around various forms for a long time. Mine was Lord Acton’s.

          1. Oh I wasn’t suggesting he said it, rather that I consider him to have been a great man who wasn’t a bad man.

      2. The thing is, sos, that we Nottlers and British public know. The MPs also know but they don’t care . And we can do nothing about it, our fate is in the MPs’ hands.
        I’d like to leave on WTO terms but I don’t think there’s much chance of that.

    2. The only scrutiny the WAB requires is to make sure that it thrown entirely onto the scrap heap….

  67. Good morning, all.

    Still half-asleep, I carelessly clicked on a link which I thought would take me to the Daily Express website but instead it took me to the Express Tribune, where I found this interesting example of the criminal justice system as it works in Pakistab (sic):

    The prosecution told the court that accused Pervez and his accomplices had stabbed to death Kashif Saleem over an old enmity. The local police registered a case against the accused and presented the challan before the court.

    After hearing the arguments, the judge handed down death sentence to Pervez along with a fine of Rs0.1 million which would be paid to the legal heirs of the deceased. The convict will have to undergo an additional imprisonment of six months if he failed to pay fine amount

    .

    That’ll teach him! Paki judges certainly don’t mess about with miscreants who will not pay their fines.

    1. So they carry out the death sentence then keep the body for 6 months because he didn’t pay the fine?

    3. Go on, you must have made that up .. DM humour first thing in the morning?

      Good morning to you , I wonder whether tourism there will really take off … from Luton say?

      1. Didn’t make it up, Maggie. It’s a word-for-word quote from the English language edition of the Express Tribune of Pakistan (Punjab News).

        Good morning to you too!

        1. Dear me , and these sort of people are now filling our own Westminster seats and also becoming mayors ..

          My xenophobia is increasing at a bewildering rate!

      1. Bit of a cop out on the burden carrying. That cross doesn’t look like it would support a two year old.

  71. Cummings has said politics is like the Spartan wars and he has the
    Peloponnesian War as an example.

    Lift up your sword Boris Johnson like the greatest of warrior and
    fight like a Spartan with Saxon vigour .

    An Election.. fire with fire.

    1. A phalanx containing vast numbers of the Tory back benchers would collapse in seconds. Hoplites, they aren’t.😎

    2. He can’t force an election without risking gerrymandering amendments, e.g. votes to 16-17 year-olds, and Europeans who currently don’t have the right to vote in the UK.

    3. Leave with no “deal”. Then an election, to ratify his action as well as elect a Government. Heath did the ratification route – he went beyond authority.
      (Wonder where CP got their undemocratic motto from). Actually no, Wilson did it! First a Conservative PM lied, then a Labour PM lied.

      The public were not a clued up then as we are now.

      1. I have been thinking that, too. I am pleased to see that she is still posting, I was getting slightly concerned because she has mentioned that her health is not as it should be.

        1. She was driven away from this site by one or two nasty posters.

          Same as happened to Jennifer.

  73. Cystic fibrosis drug given green light in England

    A life-extending drug for cystic fibrosis will be available on the NHS in England, health bosses say.
    NHS England reached a deal with Orkambi manufacturers Vertex Pharmaceuticals after months of talks. Patients should be able to get the drug within 30 days.
    The drug improves lung function and reduces breathing difficulties and can be given to children as young as two.
    The firm wanted to charge £100,000 per patient per year but a compromise has been reached in a confidential deal.
    It is understood to involve significantly less than the sum originally asked for.

  74. What happened to the much trumpeted EU’s super-efficient tariffs-and-goods systems at Zeebrugge?


    2. Mount Teide24 Oct ’19 – 11:34 – 79352 of 79357
      0 3 0
      The EU’s so called super efficient tariffs and short sea roll on roll off freight trailer/container handling, inspection and administration systems are so easy to circumvent at ALL European short sea ports it is laughable.

      The illegal immigrant smuggling gangs that are based in these European ports quickly learned how to overcome the impact of the £500,000 heart beat sensor technology(paid for by the UK!) that is installed at the entrance gate to monitor the contents of the export containers and freight trailers arriving at the port for drop off in the export storage park, thereby rendering the technology almost obsolete overnight.

      Under the cover of darkness they gently loosen the securing bolts at the bottom of a number of security fence panels at strategic points around the huge perimeter of the storage park to thereby allow quick and easy future access through removal of the bolts/securings to enable the bottom of the panel to be lifted up.

      Then on a night when they have a ‘human cargo’ to load for export; with one of the gang keeping an eye on the roving security guard and CCTC camera system within the 100 acre(50 football pitches) storage park of containers and curtain sided trailers they remove the pre loosened bolts from one of their ‘adapted’ 8ft external security fence panels and take the immigrants into the storage park.

      The container seal on the door of the unit they have selected to use will be carefully cut through and removed, the doors opened and the immigrants loaded inside. The doors are then closed, the seal carefully replaced, and often superglued together, with the join carefully re-positioned so that it is very difficult to see that it has been tampered with from just a cursory glance.

      The gang then exits the terminal, replaces the securing bolts on the bottom of the fence panel into position ready for its next ‘cargo’s’ easy access.

      It is very important if you’re an illegal immigrant to only get inside a curtain sided trailer or standard container as this will have ventilation panels.

      Those illegal immigrants that tragically lost their lives yesterday were bizarrely put into a refrigerated unit that for an obvious reason has no exterior ventilation panels.

      If the 39 people had not been refrigerated they would almost certainly have been asphyxiated considering the number in the freight unit and time that will have elapsed before the doors, which have a rubber airtight seal, are next opened.

      https://uk.advfn.com/cmn/fbb/thread.php3?id=13974731&fast_access=1

      2. …. “The illegal immigrant smuggling gangs that are based in these European ports quickly learned how to overcome the impact of the £500,000 heart beat sensor technology(paid for by the UK!) that is installed at the entrance gate to monitor the contents “……..
        Well, being dead is a good way to avoid heart beat sensors.

      3. I have been away for the day, and I am really so shocked to hear that the migrants were Chinese .. People smugglers are absolutely wicked .. I would like to see them swing for their evil plotting and manoeuvring of trusting people ..

        My eldest son did wonder whether this was going on all over Europe and Asia for organ transplant and spare part market .

        We have read of such things and mankind has reached a point of depravity that is just a few feet away from HELL.

  75. New Weight Loss Break through

    I have come out with a new wonder weight loss drink. It costs £500 for 1 weeks supply. You lose weight as you have no money left for any other food

    One should consult a health professional before going on this diet

    2. As weird as it’ll sound, sometimes that’d be a fair trade.

      The confusion over weight loss as that – in rare cases – it’s not just about access to food. That doesn’t help, but the reasons people over eat are myriad.

      For some it’s to assuage fear, to have some measure of control in a universe out of. For others to smother pain as you can’t feel anything else.

      I piled on 80 -90 kilos when I stopped training and started working because my body wasn’t burning up the 5 meals a day and stored it all as fat and yes, you store vegetables and steak as happily as you do chocolate.

      Only 30 to go now.

      2. I guess you must have been Wobbling before the weight loss. Maybe just ‘Bling’ after you achieve your goal and award yourself a gold medal!

        1. Got Bored and watched some program about 600 pound Lard arses . In spite of the weight loss treatment most end up dying. It seems they still cannot stop eating I think the success rate is under 5%/ I assume the success rate is a lot better then for those of extreme weight

      3. I tend to overeat when I’m stressed. I wish it were the other way, as some friends of mine react, that I didn’t feel like eating.

  76. EU leaders are set to decide on Friday whether to grant the UK a three-month Brexit extension, the BBC’s Europe editor Katya Adler says.

    Seems the BBC do not proof red their articles. They say Friday and then further down they say they will meet on Monday to decide . Perhaps they mean Friday a week. I am fine with that

    Most EU nations back it but France “is digging its heels in”, she adds.
    So there could be an emergency summit in Brussels on Monday to allow leaders to reach agreement face-to-face.
    Boris Johnson insists the UK will leave the EU next week with or without a deal and he will seek a snap election if the EU grants an extension to January.

    1. I hope they grant three months. That way we get a snap election and finally get the chance to express our opinions of our actions of our ‘representatives.’

      1. I would sooner keep it down to no more than 2 weeks any longer gives them more time to plot and scheme

        1. If they get the WA through we are snookered, this would be our last chance to have a say before 2022.

      2. I would sooner keep it down to no more than 2 weeks any longer gives them more time to plot and scheme

        2. For Christ’s sake be on you guard against this woman!

          She’s the Criminal Synchronised Swimmer who wants to sink both the IMF and the ECB

    5. I do. So much action in both the sea and sky. Must be wonderful to have that level of skill. I’m envious.

    6. Nice ship, shame about the masts

      It was a sod getting them down, when we went to “Flying Stations” to launch the helo(um ballon)

    8. Have you come across the paintings of Marin Marie and Charles Pears: both excellent marine artists?

      The former was a Breton artist. His great grandchildren, who live near us in Brittany, are artistically and musically very gifted but they are not so good at academic school work so Caroline gives them extra help with their English, French and Spanish.

      Chas Pears lived in St Mawes where I was a boy. He was the first elected president of the Royal Society of Marine Artists. My father, who took to doing watercolours when he retired, was thrilled when, having submitted two paintings, they were both chosen for the Society’s annual exhibition. He was astounded when he went to the exhibition in London late on its first day to see that both had red stickers on them indicating that they had been sold.

      1. No, but I’ll look them up (bound to be stuff on the internet). But I’ve had my sister’s approval as well as a warm NoTTL response and tomorrow I’m ringing the gallery for the William Boyce ….

  78. Afternoon all. May I recommend an interesting article (happy to post full text) on why the Remainers vision of the EU as a socialist paradise is actually completely wrong. As with many on the Left, they seem to have a rosy-tinted view of the way they would like the world to be, rather than the way it is.

    Poor Corbyn must be so conflicted. A life-long Bennite Eurosceptic, he finds himself on the same side as the bankers, big businessmen and corporate cronies of the EU:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/10/23/mr-corbyn-way-safeguard-worker-rights-britain-total-escape-eu/

    1. Poor Corbyn ? Probably not a new question, but are really evil people actually aware that they are evil ?

      1. Probably not but they have an arrogance that makes them think other people are inherently weak if they do not display and share the same characteristics that they possess.

    2. They live in a world of perfection but that world does not exist . Labour are keen o totally open borders although they might not quite admit that. They belief they can solve every nd any problem just by throwing money at it. Sadly the real world is not like that

      A country is pretty much the same as a very large business in that it has to be managed. Don’t manage it and dont have a proper business pl;an and dont manage theft and losses then you go bust . With countries it takes longer as politicians can legally cook the books

  81. Channel 4 postpones Smuggled documentary

    Channel 4 has postponed the broadcast of a new documentary after 39 bodies were discovered in a lorry in Essex.
    Smuggled was set to follow eight members of the public as they tried to enter the UK from Europe by evading border checks.
    A spokeswoman said: “In light of the tragic events today we have postponed the transmission of the series.”

    1. BJ,
      Simply because it was pushing government pro eu issues, that particular one being called how to be a successful people smuggler.

  82. Another critical vote today

    With all the focus on Brexit not much attention has been given to the Queens Speech. The normal convention is the government reigns if they lose the vote but we are in uncharted waters now with no real rules

    1. ‘The normal convention is the government reigns if they lose the vote’

      Are you sure?

  83. Tesla shares surge after unexpected profit

    I suspect it is down to them catching up with the backlog of deliveries and are now able to book those revenues

    Tesla shares have surged to their highest levels since February, after it told investors that manufacturing at its Chinese factory and plans for its next model were ahead of schedule.
    The firm also reported an unexpected profit of $143m (£110.7m) for the three months to 30 September.
    That beat forecasts, but was down more than 50% from a year earlier.
    Shares in the electric carmaker jumped by more than 17% in after-hours trade to about $300 apiece.
    Tesla has struggled with years of losses, fuelling investor doubts and casting a shadow over the shares in recent years.
    The firm has yet to turn an annual profit, although it recorded positive results in the final two quarters of 2018.

  84. Sorry if it’s been mentioned further down, but I see the victims in the lorry case were Chinese nationals.apparently through a chink in the armour of border security.
    Anyone know why Chinese have to creep in like that ? Where exactly were they from.?
    It’s a strange story so far, probably more than meets the eye.

    1. But that’s impossible, the BBC keeps telling me that China is overtaking the US – why didn’t they just move to Shanghai ….

      1. One suggestion is that they were in fact Shanghaied to work as slaves in the kitchens of Chinese takeaways over here.

        1. Not so easy to work unlawfully on the Continent, where Mrs May failed to prevent ID with microchips.

        1. From Wiki, concerning that case. ” an organised people smuggling operation, coordinated by a Chinese snakehead gang.”

        2. The Chinese don’t have much luck in the UK. A number of them were drowned in Morecambe Bay many years ago.

    4. Clearly they travelled a considerable distance and crossed several borders but at not one border where they detected. It just goes to show just how lax border security is now

    6. Four or five of them are probably soldiers from the PLA come to learn the language and look the UK over!

    7. Apparently they may have been refused asylum in Germany. So Merkel gets her way after all – redistribution of migrants across Europe.

      Afternoon all BTW and a murky one it is too.

  85. An indictment of South Africa’: whites-only town Orania is booming. Thu 24 Oct 2019 15.17 BST.

    The town has faced numerous calls for it to be broken up over the years, with prominent author and advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi arguing its existence violates South Africa’s successful dismantling of racial segregation. “Orania,” he says, “represents downright hostility to the idea of a single, united, non-racial country.”

    Even worse it’s a success!

    https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/oct/24/an-indictment-of-south-africa-whites-only-town-orania-is-booming

  86. The Apprentice

    A program for the Unemployable. Would any real business employ any of the clowns on this program ?

  87. Smart motorways to be reviewed over driver safety fears

    You dont need to be brain of Britain to knows that Smart Motorways are inherently dangerous

    Smart motorways are to be reviewed following concerns over driver safety, the transport secretary has said.
    Grant Shapps told MPs: “We know people are dying on smart motorways”.
    He said recommendations are expected “in a matter of weeks” to ensure all motorways are “as safe as they possibly can be”.
    Earlier this week, Highways England boss Jim O’Sullivan warned “dynamic” smart motorways are “too complicated” for drivers.
    Mr O’Sullivan said he did not think he would build any more dynamic smart motorways because too many motorists do not understand them.

    1. As was driving in on the new no hard shoulder motorway the entire thing came to a halt. People fiddled to change lanes but still traffic stopped moving.

      Turned out some chap was changing a tyre on the inside lane and every car was then having to jam on the brakes then move over… and over.. and over as traffic routed around.

      Now, imagine if the first car hadn’t been able to stop fast enough?

      1. I once had to change a rear wheel on the hard shoulder of a Ruhrgebiet Autobahn. Not a pleasant experience, especially as it was dusk.

  88. Adrianne Peltz gets suspended sentence over Dogs Trust Fraud

    A high-profile campaigner, who admitted defrauding an animal charity of more than £5,000, has been given a suspended sentence.
    Adrianne Peltz, 34, of Beatrice Road in Bangor, pleaded guilty to using a Dogs Trust credit card for personal expenditure while working for the charity.
    The offences took place between 11 April and 10 October 2017.
    The amount of money involved in the fraud totalled £5,393.22.
    The court heard Peltz was issued with a credit card while working as campaigns manager for Dogs Trust NI.
    Ballymena Magistrates’ Court was told that after her contract was terminated, the charity made numerous requests for receipts to explain expenditure made on the card that was not related to the charity, but they were not forthcoming.

      1. This never seems to happen.
        Locally, a secretary cum accounts manager ripped off her employer for £thousands.
        18 months (if I remember rightly) and but no reimbursement.

  89. BREAKING NEWS

    PM says he will try for 12 December election

    PM says he will give MPs more time to debate Brexit deal but only if they agree to 12 December general election

    1. Unless the Conservatives make an electoral pact with the Brexit Party then we shall be in for a pretty bleak Christmas.

      1. Who knows what will happen. With the FTPA we are in uncharted waters, Normally the situation we have now would result in a General Election bu the FTPA is blocking that

      2. My worry is that Johnson is so consumed with his own opinion of his popularity that he will not approach Farage. He should factor in that many people were very unhappy with May’s deal and could well see through his spin on the “new deal”. Today he repeated the nonsense, “Our friends and partners in the EU.”
        The post I put up earlier with a tweet from Rupert Howe MEP shows that the EU are most certainly not our friends and the last thing they want is a partnership with us. They want domination and Johnson is a fraud to propose otherwise. This Brexit “deal” is his cynical device to save the Tories from political disaster.

        1. If I were Bozza, I would not be letting on about pacts or any other arrangements. All you do is alert the enemy and they know where to concentrate their fire power.
          I also refer to people in honeyed terms; it retains their ‘loyalty’, makes it more difficult for them to get stroppy later and those who really know you recognise veiled sarcasm. (Those who know me take cover when I’m oleaginously polite; a verbal version of ‘Mother going quiet’.)
          Machiavelli is alive and well and residing at Allan Towers.

          1. I’m not calling for him to openly embrace a pact with Farage but that I do not think he will for reasons stated.
            I do not ‘butter people up’ and they have to take me as they find me. I’ve been reminded many times by my wife and others that my body language is a clear indicator of my mood and feelings towards people. I was asked by a management course lecturer whether I played poker. She agreed with my negative reply and added that my body language was an open book.

    2. Does this mean that the Brexit can has been kicked along the gutter once more? That we will not leave at the end of October 2019?

      1. Who knows. We are in uncharted water’s. It could of course be to just distract the opposition

  90. God Help us. If there is to be an election, just watch as all the familiar ghastly remainiac Tories reappear as constituency approved candidates.

    There will be NO clearing out of the dross. They’ll just be there – waiting for your vote.

    That’s me till next week.

    Remember AGINCOURT tomorrow. Fly the Union Jack.

          1. I am far too civilised. I just say, “How are you celebrating the Battle of Azincourt (sic)?”…..

          5. To which they repy:
            “You were rescued by our great friends ze Germans”
            (their History confuses Prussians and Germans)

  91. Well, what an interesting afternoon. One that contained embuggeration but also restored my faith in human beings.
    Tootling back from aged chum’s house, complete with a couple of bags of rubbish – I had a flat tyre. Rain was sheeting down, mobile phone was doing unhelpful things that I didn’t understand except that neither MB nor the garage seemed to be hearing the ringing.
    I then remembered that the village had a garage, but I was unsure whether it only sold cars, rather than do repairs. Turned round, crept up the road to the garage, dripped my way into reception and explained that I hadn’t the strength or expertise to deal with the problem.
    Lovely chap took over. He didn’t know me from Adam, but he drove the car under cover, changed the wheel and refused to charge me for it!
    Next week, I will be popping over with a couple of bottles and a thank you note.

      2. I was quite chilled – but peeved – until the phone played up.
        I then had to discipline myself not to be a wuss; reminded myself that I was not in the Gobi desert but in an unremarkable village on the outskirts of Colchester.

          2. Outskirts, not Essex as a whole.

            A remarkable building or two does not a remarkable village make.

    2. A not dissimilar thing happened to me last year when I went to Ventimiglia market. Admittedly it was very warm and I was in shorts.

      I took the first two bags of shopping back to the car and saw that there was a flat tyre. Started to do the needful…uncertainly.

      Bloke walked by. “Got a flat, then?”

      And he took over and did the whole thing as I watched, gape mouthed.

      Took a great deal of effort to persuade him to take a ten euro note to “buy a beer”. “Nah,” he said, “You’d do the same for me.” In Italian.

  92. If any of you post on sites such as The Spectator / Conservative Woman etc
    You’ll find that there is a Dissqus problem.
    Many cannot access their comments to edit them or change them for
    any reason that function isn’t working on many sites and accounts
    atm. The issue has been reported to Disqus.
    It’s clearly okay here, thankfully .

  93. Queens Speech accepted

    MPs vote for Queen’s Speech
    Queen’s Speech debate

    House of Commons
    Parliament

    MPs have voted in favour of the Queen’s Speech motion.
    The motion sets out the government’s legislative agenda for the coming parliamentary session. It is highly unusual for a government to lose a Queen’s Speech vote; however, as the current government does not have a majority, the result was expected to be close.

    Ayes: 310
    Noes: 294
    Majority: 16
    However, if the prime minister succeeds in his bid, announced this afternoon, to hold an election in December, much of this Queen’s Speech will not be acted upon, unless the same plans are brought forward in the new Parliament.

  94. Debate in Commons for a General Election on Monday

    17:51
    MPs debate election
    Business statement

    House of Commons
    Parliament

    Leader of the House Jacob Rees-Mogg says the government will table the motion to call a general election on Monday.
    The shadow leader, Valerie Vaz, says Labour will back an election once a no-deal Brexit is completely ruled out.
    Mr Rees-Mogg says Labour will continue to make excuses to avoid an election but no deal is off the table.
    Article share tools

    Share
    View

    1. “…no deal is off the table.”

      Did Judas Grease Smogg really say this?

      If so, Goodbye. Judas, Goodbye Boris, Goodbye Conservative Party, Goodbye Brexit and Hello even Greater Shambles.

  95. LAST POST

    Local TV news. The brand new mega-million euro railway line between Sete and Narbonne has had to be closed for at least 10 days.

    The ballast has washed away……

    So it is NOT just in the UK that fluck ups happen.

    Good bye for ever. (ish)

  96. Reasons for not an election in December according to politicians
    ” dark evenings ” .
    Jacob Rees Mogg, go for it.. an election in December is what’s needed.

    2. No it isn’t.

      Boris said Brits are leaving on Oct 31.

      He obviously had a plan to overcome Remain… so where is it ?

      1. Yes Boris Johnson clearly is up to something .
        The key element to poker, Polly, never show the
        enemy your cards. Parliament is his enemy and that of
        democracy.

          1. You may well be right, but the state of play at the moment is to pretend that everything is fine.

          3. That’s a bit like what’s happening at the moment, isn’t it ?
            ” Brexit ” “What Brexit ” ” I see no Brexits “.

  97. “So, the way to get this done, the way to get Brexit done, is, I think,
    to be reasonable with Parliament and say if they genuinely want more
    time to study this excellent deal, they can have it but they have to
    agree to a general erection on 12 December.”
    Agreed unanimously by all members of parliament, except Jeremy Corbyn who had forgotten what the word meant.

    1. Well Boris has said the commons schedule will be cleared to debate the WAB 24/7 if they want

    2. Boris Johnson said on BBC Radio 4 evening News that the HoC didn’t need much time to approve his deal as it was similar to the previous WA. The Conservatives will not get my vote.

      1. At long last he admits what any intelligent being worked out as soon as he returned with it.

  98. QT tonight…

    Fiona Bruce presents the topical debate from South Shields, Tyne and Wear. The panellists are former Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont, Leader of the Scottish Labour Party Richard Leonard, Caroline Voaden MEP, Kate Andrews of the Institute of Economic Affairs and award-winning film director Ken Loach.

      1. Only since I mooted a collaboration with Marvel films. Kitchen sink dramas are very worthy, but Marvel hero films make millions and millions.

  99. I’m watching ‘ A Night to Remember’…the sinking of the Titanic. Film 4
    It’s less depressjng than the news….

          1. You must be proud to have him as a friend sweetie.
            We must never forget the bravery shown by our forbears. When I look at the shower in politics today
            I could weep..

  100. QT tonight…

    Fiona Bruce presents the topical debate from South Shields, Tyne and Wear. The panellists are former Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont, Leader of the Scottish Labour Party Richard Leonard, Caroline Voaden MEP, Kate Andrews of the Institute of Economic Affairs and award-winning film director Ken Loach.

        1. The one having indigestion was Disqus – 1 cllck to post again, 3 clicks & a long swipe to remove. Haven’t got all night!

    2. Can I bare it Mr Viking, for that is the question,
      to be or not to be utterly exhausted .

  101. Brexit Night

    This could become a rival to Gut Faukes Night. The night Mr Brexit plotted to blow up Brussels

    For the Snow flakes of this world no one is actually suggesting Brussels should be blown up

    1. Dont worry about the reported mass stabbing you are going to we have a high priority call to a serious hate crime incident where a builder wolf whistled at a woman

    3. Alison Hernandez. If it was legal I would say Police Commissioneress.
      Back in the olden days,women used to stay at home, have kids, and do the cooking, cleaning and washing up.
      Everybody was happy.
      Then along came ” emancipation ” they got the bit between the teeth and worked their way into top jobs because men have always been frightened of women, really.
      But the world is changing. Things have gone too far..
      (Apologies to lady NTTLers to whom the comment above does not refer).

    4. Trans woman has complained to the police about discrimination. The builder wolf whistled t a woman that went past but not the Transwoman

      1. Correct. I love the fact they are on offer at £100 per pop – I’ve got another three coming along nicely….

        1. At a restaurant i worked in in the 80’s we had Strelitzia as a cut flower display. The customers thought they were plastic. The boss boyfriend worked as a trolley dolly for BA and regularly brought them back from forn parts.

          1. It always amuses me that on the Singapore stop-over, flying back rom Oz, all the cabin crew arrive loaded with orchids and other exotic flowers. You may have answered my question:
            Why?

          3. Liked? Likes I suspect.

            What makes you think the leopard has changed his spots, apart from no longer having access to Epsteinia of course.

      2. Only if I flog it – they are on sale at £100 each if you check Peddy’s website reference below. £100 would buy a nice Hamper!

    4. Strelitzia… how lovely .. I have also grown one , and my younger son grew one from seed and it took about 10 years before it flowered .. Well done , make sure the roots stay fairly dry .

      1. Now you tell me – The pot stands in a saucer and has always got at least 1/2 inch of water in the bottom!!!

        1. Hang on..

          You keep it moist – blooms after 5 years.

          Belle’s son keeps it thirsry – blooms after 10 years.

          Do the Maths, as they say.

  105. Supercuts calls in administrators risking 1200 jobs

    Administrators giving Super cuts a trim

    Regis UK, the owner of the Supercuts hairdressing chain, has appointed administrators, putting 1,200 jobs at risk.
    Accountants Deloitte have been called in to look for options for the 220 salon chain.
    The Supercuts locations will remain open as it looks for a possible buyer.
    Regis UK’s collapse follows its attempt to cuts rents through a legal process known as a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA).
    CVAs allow companies to seek rent reductions and new debt repayment terms.
    CVAs haven been criticised by landlords as high street companies have used them to renegotiate their contracts in the face of the retail downturn.
    In December, a group of landlords challenged the arrangement for Supercuts.

  106. A person in Lycra cycled through the town today on a Penny Farthing cycle. An unusual sight these days.

  107. I cannot believe that fruit farmers are having difficulty with their apple crop harvest . Lack of casual workers I gather .. why can’t students earn some dosh doing it , or the unemployed ? It is half term , a few hundred snowflakes could have earned some pocket money.. Many students only work part time any way, don’t they .

    2. Abroad they use tree shakers and netting dont even really need the netting for cider apples but it saves picking them off the ground. It does need nice regimented orchrds but most modern ones are

      2. Except that in Spain they shake the olive trees at night and that causes the death of migrating birds. Noise, bright lights, then the little creatures fall on the conveyor belt and end up buried in a trailer.

    4. Farmers were complaining that those that did work wouldn’t work for more than 16 hours a week because it affected their benefits.

      1. And if there is any single thing that shows how unbelievably stupid our benefits system is, it has to be that.

        1. That was one of the reasons for introducing Universal Benefits, which would remove the ‘cliff-edge’ of losing all benefits if claimants work > 16 hours a week. No wonder there has so much whingeing about it.

    6. Before my teenage years I worked on farms picking potatoes and peas and later in the season strawberries and blackcurrants. I made a decent bit of pocket money and the older I became the more I earned.
      Later, my fiancee, now my wife, and I worked on farms to earn money to put towards our house etc. It was hard work but the reward, holding the keys to our first home at age 18 and 21 years, was well worth the effort. Back then if you wanted something you had to work for it as there wasn’t much spare money doing he rounds.

        1. When I was a teenager I weeded the Begonia beds at Blackmore and Langdon’s Nursery in Bath. This involved pushing a cylindrical bucket along the narrow aisles whilst kneeling on a rubber mat.

          That site is now built over with new housing.

          When it rained I filled seed packets with their Chelsea award winning Phlox.

          1. A number of the blackcurrant fields I worked on are now a housing estate. On one large field in the early ’60s the farmer planted new apple trees and filled in the space between the immature trees with blackcurrant bushes for a few years. That and other orchards were grubbed out in the ’70s after we’d joined the club we’re now trying to leave. IIRC the apples lost were Worcester Pearmain (picture), a delicious early eating apple, and Cox’s Orange Pippin. Cox are still available but I can’t say I’ve seen Worcesters available commercially for decades.

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/89e378f684f4114ec0e70c4848af6942d754dc6d260c79abe826c0fa283b298d.png

          2. My late in-laws had a Worcester Pearmain apple tree and an Early Rivers Plum tree in their garden in Coton near Cambridge.

            My late parents had a Charles Ross apple tree in our garden in Bath. We could use the Charles Ross apples for cooking but placed half the heavy crop in the dark attic on paper where in a few months they transformed into excellent eaters.

            There is a national apple tree collection at Helmingham Hall, moated home of the Tollemache family.

            As you say the EU directives have destroyed our orchards and crippled our market gardening industry in much the same way that the EU has destroyed our heavy industries and stolen our fishing industry.

          3. The site that Google threw up stated the the W Pearmain is a garden apple. We enjoyed the few apples our mother was allowed to bring home each day.
            The Cox were much larger than what one finds in the shops these days.
            We wrapped these large apples in paper and stored them in a dark wardrobe. By Christmas they were golden and juicy inside. If Carlsberg grew apples… (not really)

    7. Up North here it is not a good season for apples. Last year was fairly bumper, but not this year. It seems to be general. As regards workers, we do have school children available. The October week holiday was for tattie picking. We also have convicts, and the otherwise unemployed.
      One of the problems is that if the so-called problem of finding fruit pickers is solved “internally” it negates the Governments arguments for importing foreigners, immigrants and so on.

  109. “Ain’t that the truth files”

    “Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow
    insolent; selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early
    poisoned by importance; and the world they act in differs so materially
    from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of
    knowing its true interests, and when they succeed to the government are
    frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions.”

    Thomas Paine

        1. I don’t think that is a joking matter. After a certain age a stroke can hit anyone of us without warning, although some are more prone than others.

          3. But your “…would hopefully choke him.” is ok because it’s not stroke related, peddy?

    2. About time the BBC admitted they are not 100% perfect – twice in a few weeks, even! But what about Marr himself apologising to Priti?

          1. I’ve been local to Cambridge for only 14 years, since returning from Sweden, so I didn’t know about that.
            Thanks for the link.

            Blackburn certainly deserves debagging.

  111. A thought which occurred to me today regarding that an increasing number of Nottlers are haemorrhaging up-votes…

    If everybody who happens to be on-site up-voted every comment from everybody else, would the number of up-votes outweigh the losses?
    Would that defeat the Bot?

    1. No Peddy, I’m sorry to say it wouldn’t make a scrap of difference to the Bot/s program. That’s been tried elsewhere.
      Neither does ‘privating’ an account/ID make any difference to the bot/s activity.

      I really don’t understand why Ds don’t seem willing or able to solve the problem.

      Surely they would have the technical ‘know-how’ to deal with it. But, apparently not as this has been going on now since the end of April!
      It was named as a down-voting bot at the beginning, in reality it is an un upvoting bot. Because the thousands of so-called down-votes don’t show as such on any ‘victims’ (for want of a better word) profile, there simply wouldn’t be enough room or space to accommodate them all.

      1. Es war nur eine Schnapsidee.

        ‘Schuldigung daß ich auf Deutsch schreibe, aber das ärgert eine andere Fotze (nicht meine Troll-Fotze)

  113. If the Tories can rustle up 86 brave Labour Members, there will be a Labour Lib SNP coalition, sure as eggs are eggs, and MacCommie will revoke Article 50 as soon as Magic Grandpa is persuaded to
    retire on a handsome pension.

    2. I have always loved this song.

      Bobby Darin’s version ‘Beyond the Sea’ was a great disappointment and the translation had nothing to do with the original French lyrics.

      Talking of bad translations this rather sensitive song by Claude Francois was translated by Paul Anka into a vainglorious piece of self-congratulatory arrogance that Sinatra made popular. The French version is far better than the American.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJl2ICLpj00

        1. The girls adored him and he was known as Clo Clo. He died when he was using a hairdryer in the bathroom and it fell in the water.

          Do you not agree that the lyrics of Comme d’habitude are far superior to those of My Way?

  115. From the DT:
    “The Vagina Museum is due to open on November 16 at Camden Market in London” I thought there was one already open over in Westminster……

    3. We once viewed a property when we were house hunting .. the estate agents described the property as a striking village property with an attractive red vagina creeper adorning the entrance porch to the property .

          1. I remember failing a ‘swim test’ in the PH Shell Compound swimming pool and having to go to the Warri Shell pool to retake it a week later.
            An American missionary couple, who swam like fish, failed, while I floundered through the test and passed. Money talks, especially in Africa.

          4. When were you there?

            We loved the pool , some weird and wonderful crawly things accidentally fell in to it though.. I played golf very early in the mornings on RA golf course with the other wives .. I was 30 yrs old then, those were the days .

          5. First there about 1986 when I was in my early thirties. Replaced the regular manager for his annual 6 week break. Always a bit gruelling, especially the year he buggered off 2 weeks early and I flew in to a tribal war between the local employees. The ‘swim test’ I failed was 10 years later when I was in marine seismic offshore exploration. Nigeria, just glad I’m not there any more.

          7. A smallish firm (Core Laboratories) which was owned by Western Atlas. Had our own compound and living quarters. Favourite (respectable) hangout was the Presidential Hotel.

      2. Ah, they couldn’t have blamed auto-correct back then (I am assuming it was some time ago) – it’s strange how the fingers seem to get a mind of their own when presented with a keyboard!

          2. As it says, Imp – immperatrix –
            Presumably she was an imp and full of trix.
            Sound fun. Lucky Albert.

        2. There once was a harlot from Crewe
          Who filled her vagina with glue
          She said with a grin:
          “If they pay to get in
          They can pay to get out of it too,

    1. Insults are easy, taking offense is even easier.

      Wog’s the matter? Feeling browned off? Níggér mind, go black home and maybe you’ll feel all white.

          3. I remember my mum mentioning the phrase relating to any kind of clothing – a shoe – a dress –
            Remember back then nobody in our town had never seen a coloured man or woman, except in films.

    2. By the time my Dad was there in WWII, the popular definition was Westernized Oriental Gentleman. Incidentally, way back in the early ’60’s we had a couple of Rhodesian lads over for technical training. We got talking about the official (per the workshop manual) way of removing the engine from a certain model car. Their answer was, “We don’t do that. We get a couple of wogs to lift it out”. So the term was also in use describing a darker shade of brown (apologies to Procol Harum) on the African continent in that era.

  118. Evening, all. I’ve had a frustrating day today; everything I had planned had to be put on hold for various reasons. Still, tomorrow is another day.

      1. Frankly, my dear … 🙂 Actually, I do give a damn because it means that I have to re-arrange the postponed items and my schedule is already crowded.

    1. I no longer find that type of report amusing, I find it frightening.
      We’re walking along a knife-edge

    2. I have to confess that I experience flashes of violence when I read what some of the remainers are doing and saying. I wouldn’t act on these feelings, but I often mutter things like “should be swinging from a rope”. Mea culpa!

    3. When the fake smiles and false statements are stripped away, the goals of many MP’s to keep us tied to the EU with our borders open will lead to extreme violence and the deaths of many of our citizens. People are dying on the streets every week already. Their policies are literally killing us.

      They know which way the EU is going with their plans for ever closer integration, no borders, a single currency and taxation system, and integrating North Africa and its islamic countries into their empire. They know about the debt-sharing plans that will break this country. Do they really expect us to say:

      “Thank you sir for taking our great nation and trying to turn it into a 3rd world hell hole.”

  120. I’m currently watching How the Universe Works on Discovery Science. 2.4 billion years ago a polluting gas, along with a long term change in the Earth’s orbit, created a climate change calamity that turned the Earth from a warm wet world into an ice covered ball for millions of years. That polluting gas? Oxygen. Later, the current bogey man gas, Carbon Dioxide spewed out by volcanoes, helped the Earth to recover. This ice ball Earth scenario was probably played out on two more occasions. Funny old World, isn’t it?

    1. The present generation, who inhabit an ‘instant’ world where everything is available without delay, has little appreciation of anything but the present. It is arrogance IMHO that scientists have drawn long-term conclusions conclusions on short-term variations. Any temperature change that is observed in a century is merely noise on the graph. When they plot Temp on a scale of a Thousand years or more and make deductions, I could be persuaded. Because the world today is such an uncertain place, Millennials will only look as far as their outstanding mortgage.

    2. Hold your breath, Greta!
      “Inhaled air is by volume 78.08% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen and small amounts include argon, carbon dioxide, neon, helium, and hydrogen.[16]
      The gas exhaled is 4% to 5% by volume of carbon dioxide, about a 100 fold increase over the inhaled amount. The volume of oxygen is reduced by a small amount, 4% to 5%, compared to the oxygen inhaled. The typical composition is:[17]
      5.0–6.3% water vapor
      74.4% nitrogen
      13.6–16.0% oxygen
      4.0–5.3% carbon dioxide
      1% argon ”
      Edit; Sighs heavily.

  122. The gap between the number of foreign and British-trained doctors starting practice in the UK has more than doubled in the last year, new figures show.
    Around 9,100 medics who were trained abroad joined the medical register in the 12 months up to June 2019, compared to just over 8,100 in the preceding 12 months.
    By contrast, The number of new starters trained in Britain remains static at around 7,100 each year, the new General Medical Council (GMC) report reveals.
    The widening difference – now 28 per cent, up from 12 per cent the year before – has prompted calls to boost the number of home-grown doctors.

      1. There’s still a lot of youngsters willing and able to make the grade but the places on courses aren’t there for them to take up. I wouldn’t want to either, Bob.

        1. Several English universities have set up Medical schools overseas. I believe Bristol University has an offshoot in Malaysia and there are others.

          It is evidently an income generator for red bricks such as Bristol and others.

    2. Why can’t our elected ‘elite’ actually do something for the welfare of Britain and the British people? Degrees in hairdressing and media studies seem to be blooming while science and medicine are falling by the wayside.

    3. Our 16 year old grandson, who did very well in his GCSEs, has desires to be a surgeon. Another 10 years of study and practice?

        1. We do and he is a breath of fresh air when he explains things to us. He is like a sponge as far a sciences are concerned and is excellent at explaining and giving us an understanding. It’s like a new world to us.

        1. We do everything we can to encourage him. Ask questions about the latest things he’s been learning. He says that really helps as it reinforces it in his mind. We are also aware that at 16 things may change and we will, as we did with our two children, support and encourage him whatever he decides for his future.

  123. Diisqqus is being difficult again,
    Someone has reported a bug on the disqus discuss page.
    On many sites people cannot edit their comments,that function has
    disappeared. The same with view in discussion. If you press that
    it takes you to the main site webpage not the discussion you want
    to view. I pressed to see a discussion in my notification box and
    and it took me to the Speccie homepage but not the discussion.
    You cannot edit or change your comments on some sites or
    see others as you are directed to the homepages of whatever blog site.
    It’s not a problem here but is in many other places.
    A report has been submitted to Disssqus Discuss but I don’t think they
    are taking much notice. Disquuus seems to be falling apart at the
    seams. I do hope some have other hosting sites on the back burner
    for when or if Diisqqus goes to pot .

          1. Yep

            Group of east African children found in Belfast last week ‘had travelled to Northern Ireland in a shipping container with up to 50 other people’, they tell police
            The African children were discovered in different locations across Belfast
            Claimed they had arrived in the city in a shipping container with 50 others
            Comes as 39 migrants were found in a container in Essex on Wednesday

            https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7610983/African-children-Belfast-travelled-Northern-Ireland-shipping-container.html

    4. My wife’s late grandmother uttered the immortal words regarding the Jamaican influx “I knew if we let them in they would get the better of us!”

      She had lost two brothers in WWI.

    5. Radio 4 today interviewed a settled Syrian refugee who said the same. Most of the world appears to see the UK merely as a service to the world, access to which is to be determined only by the applicants. No objections are allowed.

    6. If they can afford 10 grand or whatever to be frozen to death in the back of a wagon they can afford a passport and a ticket and come in through customs the way everyone else does.

      1. Evening B,
        Will not work, to do it legally means numbers would be checkable, the lab/lib/con mass uncontrolled immigration coalition current members / voters would not wear it.
        Think of the potential party numbers, they do.

    7. Evening TB,
      I have a feeling the anger is building among the sane indigenous so any in her shoes should really be seeking a safe route out like a political Odessa line.
      Millions were found dead n Europe 39 / 45 what are her views on that ?

  126. Those people in that lorry. It might have been people trafficking for organs,
    It’s difficult to believe that can happen here .

    3. Evening A,
      Sorry me old mate but, it ain’t now, wonga rules.
      Anything goes now the enemas know the peoples are
      at very,very long last after much murder,rape and pillage
      beginning to wise up.
      The crap shortly is going to collide with the fan.

      Sad to say after a multitude of their kids are
      mentally / physically scarred and many will never recover maybe they will deem to put children’s welfare and country before party when next entering the ballot booth.

        1. A,
          The peoples really do not need 20/20 vision to see what their continuing voting pattern has achieved over the past few decades and to maybe rectify things in the future if not to late , vote accordingly.

  129. “Nation wide raids on peoples trafficking gangs” and all over the nation you could hear the slamming of doors on empty stables.

  130. QUEENS SPEECH VOTING

    The Scores so far are as below

    17:36
    MPs vote against SNP amendment
    Queen’s Speech debate

    House of Commons
    Parliament

    MPs have voted against the SNP’s amendment to the government’s Queen’s Speech.

    Ayes: 64
    Noes: 310
    Majority: 246

    The amendment called on the government to maintain freedom of movement between the UK and Europe. It also called on the UK government to match the Scottish government’s commitment to a net-zero greenhouse gas emissions target by 2045, and called for relaxing the freeze on benefits. It finished by calling for a pause on the ratification of the EU Withdrawal Agreement Bill until it has been approved by the Welsh Senedd and Scottish Parliament.
    Article share tools

    Posted at 17:23
    17:23
    MPs vote against Labour amendment

    Queen’s Speech debate

    House of Commons
    Parliament

    MPs have voted down the Labour amendment to the government’s Queen’s Speech.

    Ayes: 293
    Noes: 311
    Majority: 18
    The amendment said the Queen’s Speech did not address rebuilding the economy or tackle the housing crisis, and “further pushes public services into crisis”. It called on the government to introduce measures on these issues, as well as the “climate emergency”.

  131. MISERABLE HOUR — Just to add to the gloom….

    UK snow forecast map: Weather chart shows more than 20cm of snow to engulf UK this weekend
    BRITONS will be hit by a cold front this weekend in many parts of the country and for some, the cold weather could bring over 20cm of snow, a weather map has revealed.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a50d91d2e620abf67d8f4e2f9bfc95cc079407581dc0c621f500d8484303af28.jpg

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/weather/1195048/uk-weather-forecast-snow-this-weekend-bbc-weather-met-office

    2. Are Dr Zharkova’s observations re the consequences of the potential Modern Minimum beginning to make themselves felt? — only time will tell….

    6. I was saying t’other day that I would not be surprised if we had snow before the end of the month.

    7. A pity the snow will have missed Extinction Rebellion by a mere week (would have been ironic if a few of them had become extinct due to hypothermia).

    2. It’s the ones who cling to the undercarriage I have respect for. They just need to get better glue.

    3. TB,
      That is legal and checkable and open to scrutiny the establishment would have to be seen to do something
      as in deportation, no, illegals are far better with no come back concerning slave wages, if any, good for business.

      1. Millions of tourists just buy air tickets. No one checks if they ever return, do they?
        I’ve been saying for years that the tourist route is legal and cheap.

  136. Why David Lammy should join the Brexit camp

    BRENDAN O’NEILL

    For three-and-a-half years Brexiteers have been told that we didn’t know what we were voting for. I think that might be truer of hardcore Remainer MPs like David Lammy. Today Mr Lammy is bemoaning the fact that the French President has more say over the length of a Brexit extension than our own Prime Minister does. Yes, David, we know – and it’s because people like you voted for precisely this scenario!

    Does Mr Lammy even understand what he’s voting for? It seems not. He’s forgotten that he and the other 326 MPs who voted though the European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act – commonly known as the Benn Act – are responsible for this outrageous state of affairs. That Act forced the PM to seek an extension if a deal was not agreed in Parliament by 19 October. And it also says the PM must accept whatever length of extension the EU feels is right.

    The Act says the PM must ask the European Council for an extension to 31 January 2020. But if the EC proposes an alternative length to the extension, then within two days the PM must ‘notify the President of the European Council that the United Kingdom agrees to the proposed extension’. Got that? If the leaders of the EU decree that our extension should be longer, or shorter, than the one laid out in the Benn Act, then Boris has to nod along and say: ‘Yes boss, of course boss, thanks boss.’

    I know you aren’t meant to say the S-word anymore, but this is why Boris, and others too, call it the Surrender Act. Because it surrenders Britain’s political power to the EU. It gives EU leaders power over the Brexit process. It gives Macron and others more power over the immediate future of Brexit than our own Prime Minister. And Lammy voted for it. He voted for the very thing he expresses shock about in this tweet.

    Lammy says the fact that Macron has more say than Boris right now is proof that ‘Brexit is not taking back control, it’s giving it away’. Where to even begin with this? The people who gave away our control over the extension process – who surrendered it, one might say – are not Brexiteers; they’re Remainers. It isn’t Brexit that gave away our sovereign power in relation to the extension – it was our Remainer Parliament. Brexit is about taking back control, Remainerism is about surrendering it. David even ironically calls himself a ‘surrenderer’.

    But we Brexiteers, for all the rotten things that are said about us, are an open-minded bunch. So let us welcome Mr Lammy to our circle. If he’s genuinely concerned about the EU’s undemocratic power over the UK, then he is welcome to join the Brexit camp. Yes, he might have described Brexit as a ‘nightmare’. And he might have mocked the ‘wisdom’ – his scare quotes – of Brexit voters. He might have madly suggested that ERG members are even worse than Nazis. But perhaps he’s finally seen the light.

    So, David, we extend the hand of friendship. You’re horrified that foreign leaders we didn’t vote for get to decide Britain’s political future? Congrats, you’re a Brexiteer. Perhaps I’ll see you on the next Leave Means Leave march.

    https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/10/why-david-lammy-should-join-the-brexit-camp/

    1. The man – Lammy – is as thick as two short planks. Probably the main selection criterion for the Labour Party.

      1. You shouldn’t be disparaging towards short planks. They do have their uses unlike Lammy.

    3. The same sainted Nige who stabbed UKIP in the back to
      become a radio star and hold into Donald Trump’s
      coattails . He who hoped to make it big in the US
      only to return when that failed. I can feel a scene from
      Macbeth coming into my subconscious .
      Sainted Nige likes attention so much but he likes throwing
      stones without authority even more, does he who left the
      battlefield in the middle of a war.

      3. I have seen you type that before, and your hatred of Nigel Farage is clear to see, but I am forced to ask: How did Nigel Farage attempt to “make it big” in the US? As far as I was aware he went there to meet President Trump to forge a relationship together for the future prosperity of the United Kingdom. They appear to have really hit it off, which seems like a successful trip to me.

        Then Nigel came back to finish the task of getting us out of the EU. This is an honest question as I have no idea of what you are referring to. 🙂

          1. Sorry. 🙂 I think it is safe to say that you will not be voting for his party though – which I feel is a shame. Unless you have John Redwood as your MP of course.

            I would love to go back to being a Conservative voter, but only when the party stops being the Pro-EU Liberal wussies that they are now. Almost ALL of them voted for this terrible Withdrawal Agreement, so that makes the vast majority not fit for purpose anymore.

            Our country is straining to be free again, not bound under EU control for years to come with Boris’s deal.

        1. I am furious at your attitude to me, so I shall use my very strongest language: you, Sir, are a very Silly Sausage!!!

  139. A thought which occurred to me today regarding that an increasing number of Nottlers are haemorrhaging up-votes…

    If everybody who happens to be on-site up-voted every comment from everybody else, would the number of up-votes outweigh the losses?
    Would that defeat the Bot?

    Sorry abut the repeat – Disqus won’t have it any other way.

          2. One never misses what one never had.

            And that’s a platitudinous load of old bollox.
            I’ve never had lots of things, and I’m damned sure I’ve missed out.

      1. I cannot access many sites’ Comments sections at all, even in reply to comments made to my own. Only here and GP that I visit seem unaffected.

          1. Incidentally Cbeebies has a bedtime story called

            “The Hill and the Rock”, about a Mr and Mrs Quest.

          1. Just tell him he’s a silly little pudenda – people will soon catch on to the meaning.

      3. Disqus has another bug, many cannot edit comments
        or even respond to comments on many sites which leads
        People to homepages but not comments. It’s affecting,
        Spectator, Conservative Woman, Cranmer and many US
        sites and orhers. A report by someone has been placed into Disqus
        Discuss for them to sort it out.

          1. Apparently according to comments on disqus discuss complain
            section many people haven’t been able to edit or access their posts
            for awhile now. Disqus was messing around with its self last weekend
            and clearly got itself a bug.

          2. There was a way around the Dissqus problem on one of
            their sitees ( not the Spectator, I just tried there,send a post and
            couldn’t edit it ) .

  143. 4th episode of “The Met” I’ve watched all vicious violent crime,not a white face to be seen
    Edit first non-violent crime prolific white burglar,multiple convictions,why is he walking around??

      1. I know. My daughter scowled at me as I took the picture, but she’s not on their side, thank gawd.

      1. I’m as good as I get, Belle, thanks. It was MOH who was in for a follow up to a suspected dodgy lymphoma. She has recently had removed an enlarged lymph gland in her throat and the prognosis was not good. Went in with her today, daughter along to keep the peace. The RAF Wing-Commander surgeon was chuffed and burst out, even before we got into his office, that all was lovely and stuff. A good day that made me think a bit.

  146. Improved Electric Motors for Car’s

    An interesting article on developments going on with electric motors for cars/. One is looking at redesigning the electric motor to improve efficiency and another couple of companies are looking at integrating the electric motor into the wheels which improves efficiency , reduces weight and saves space. It can also do away with the need to parallel park. All you would need to do is position the car alongside the available space and turn the heels 90 degrees and just drive into the space

    These things appear to be still in the development/prototype stages at present though

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-49958457

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