Thursday 13 January: There’s no way back for a PM seen to have flouted his own perverse rules

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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742 thoughts on “Thursday 13 January: There’s no way back for a PM seen to have flouted his own perverse rules”

    1. He forgot to put masks on the waiting staff.

      Still, it’s not a cartoon if it’s too realistic.

      1. My first thought, but he must have wanted to portray the expression of Joe Public’s disapproval I presume.

  4. Morning, all Y’all!
    🙂
    Dark as the inside of a Cabinet Minister. Up to +11C forecast until the end of the weekend, when it’ll go to below freezing again. Apparently.

    2. Sadly all too true – many of the comments on Twatter criticising Boris and SAGE attract hordes of brainwashed trolls of the “so where’s your medical degree” type [or in some cases “where’s you’re medical degree”].

  13. BTL@DTletters

    John Kirby

    Could this be the end of “Carrie on Westminster”?
    Let;s hope so.

  15. No let up for PM as new poll reveals massive Labour lead. 13 January 2022.

    And a new opinion poll showing a massive slump in Tory support and a ten-point lead for Labour – the party’s biggest lead since December 2013 – will spread terror through Conservative ranks.

    As well as confirming recent polls suggesting six in 10 voters think Mr Johnson should resign, the poll by YouGov for The Times – conducted before the PM’s apology – suggests Labour support is 38% (+1), Conservatives 28% (-5) and Lib Dems 13% (+3)

    Cheers of despair all round!

    https://news.sky.com/story/boris-johnson-chancellor-fails-to-back-the-pm-as-new-poll-reveals-massive-labour-lead-12514672

    2. The Government is now facing a much bigger comeuppance for sucking up to followers of the Green Planet with its overambitious targets of Net Zero policies exemplified by the opposition by both farmers and businesses to Greater Manchester’s Clean Air Zone:

      https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-bosses-plan-pause-22719457

      Post pandemic, the UK now needs to have a break from punitive green charges to start recovering its GDP.

    3. Johnson & Co’s dismissive behaviour of the “pandemic” throws a light on the fraud that it has been from the start. If Johnson is forced out how hard will his successor’s job be to lie in an attempt to convince the people that it really isn’t a fraud and that restrictions will be re-imposed?

      For many, the last two years of blatant lying, incompetence, U-turns and incomprehensible rules e.g. the ban on sitting on a park bench, have been more than enough. A new Tory leader will have to build trust, be seen to be telling the truth and get the Country back on its feet and the people back to work. Any attempt at clamping down will mean lying and will fail with many people. Does such a Tory exist? If the answer is a likely no then the Tory party is doomed and the Country may well follow.

      Starmer and his party’s stance of even harsher measures, even as the truth about the “pandemic” and the failure of all of the “vaccines” appears, will not be welcome. He and his party’s pathetic performance as an Opposition casts severe doubt on its ability to govern.
      Summary: we’re deep in the brown smelly stuff.

      1. “Starmer and his party’s stance of even harsher measures” – the Holier than Thou principle. It might well work, since most of the world, the unthinking part, seems to be so terrified of the virus that they welcome the risk of death or imprisonment to possibly avoid it. Crazed teacher friend is a god example, stating the billions of Brits have died of it without considering “where are all the bodies?”

        1. Good morning Norway.

          As the plague progressed across Spain, the newspapers published daily figures showing the number of people in UCI (intensive care), the fatalities and also the recoveries; IIRC the British press did not list the recoveries.

      2. It is easier to fool people than to persuade them that they have been fooled.
        The rage of those who were taken in by two years of lies and incessant propaganda will far outstrip that of cynics who disbelieved the government’s message right from the start.

      3. It is easier to fool people than to persuade them that they have been fooled.
        The rage of those who were taken in by two years of lies and incessant propaganda will far outstrip that of cynics who disbelieved the government’s message right from the start.

  17. Morning all

    There’s no way back for a PM seen to have flouted his own perverse rules

    SIR – That a group of people who work together every day under severe stress should want to gather outside their place of work on a warm spring evening to enjoy a glass of wine or two together is nothing to remark on.

    The problem is that they did so at Downing Street when the lockdown fanatics and misguided modellers had persuaded the Government to make such gatherings – as well as a host of other perfectly normal activities – criminal offences. The police had been unleashed at their most bullying to enforce these laws with heavy fines.

    The Prime Minister needs to accept that the buck stops with him. If he cannot understand the sense of hurt and betrayal that these revelations engender in so many people forced to surrender their most basic liberties for almost two years, then he must resign.

    Brian Gedalla

    London N3

    SIR – At Prime Minister’s Questions, Boris Johnson justified his attendance at the Downing Street gathering by asserting that he’d considered it to be a “work event”. Has there ever been a Prime Minister quite so shameless?

    Tim Coles

    Carlton, Bedfordshire

    SIR – The constant cry from the Prime Minister and his team is to “wait for the outcome of the inquiry”.

    They are clearly pure metropolitans, as the rest of us know that the grass is far too short at this time of year to cover anything kicked into it. The anger over the arrogance at the heart of this Government will not subside.

    Tim Hadland

    Northampton

    SIR – Though I didn’t attend any parties, I certainly didn’t obey the letter of the law during the various lockdowns. Nor, I’m sure, did millions of others.

    I detect more than a whiff of hypocrisy in the current witch hunt of the Prime Minister.

    David Tomlinson

    Diss, Norfolk

    SIR – In May 2020, I also attended an outdoor event, with many people from other households, where we remained socially distant and brought our own bottles. It was the 75th Anniversary of VE Day and most people on our road took part.

    Unlike the Downing Street event, however, we hadn’t all been working together indoors for the rest of the day.

    The thing to which most people object was the ban on people being with loved ones when they were dying. That was a terrible mistake but, I would suggest, a separate issue – though I can understand why those affected link the two.

    Tim Potten

    Poole, Dorset

    SIR – As a former civil servant I have to say that, at any time until the year of my retirement in 1997, had I had an alcoholic drink while working at my desk it is likely that I would have been dismissed on the spot.

    D S Sykes

    Stockport, Cheshire

    1. Brian Gedalla: “ The Prime Minister needs to accept that the buck stops with him. If he cannot understand the sense of hurt and betrayal that these revelations engender in so many people forced to surrender their most basic liberties for almost two years, then he must resign.”

      No, Mr Gedalla, the Prime Minister must simply resign.

  19. Triumphant rescue

    SIR – I owned a Triumph Herald convertible (Letters, January 12) in the 1960s and it was the envy of the villagers, including the local shop owner who was always begging me to take him for a ride in it. “One day, one day, Mr Smith,” I said.

    Some months later I visited the shop, only to find his wife in shock and despair because he had cut his hand severely on the bacon slicer. “Get in,” I said to him, indicating my Triumph outside. “I’ll take you for your ride.”

    I drove at top speed to the casualty department at the local hospital, while pressuring his wound with one hand.

    He never asked me for a ride again.

    Joan Gurney

    Colchester, Essex

    SIR – My first car, in 1965, was a 1958 Ford Anglia 100E. It never seemed to go at more than 55 mph, but had one unnerving characteristic.

    The windscreen wipers were powered by vacuum from the engine, which diminished as more power was applied. This meant that the harder the engine worked, the slower the wipers went. Driving uphill, against the wind, in the rain, they tended to stop completely.

    Mike Westmorland

    Penrith , Cumbria

    SIR – When I bought my first car (a 1200 Beetle) the salesman told me it had a heater that would boil an egg.

    Soon after, I undertook a long journey from Yorkshire to see David Bowie at the Empire Pool. The car didn’t have a fitted radio so I took a transistor radio, which had a plastic case, and put it in the passenger footwell, close to the heater vent.

    Sure enough, after 250 miles with the heater on, the radio had formed a gooey plastic mess on the mat.

    Tony Tudor

    Southport, Lancashire

    1. Dear oh dear Mr Westmorland, my first car was a 1957 Ford Anglia 100E which I bought from a friend of my father. It had electric wipers and a 4 speed synchro gearbox. I suppose the fact the friend was a car mechanic who worked in the local Jaguar dealer may have had a small part in that. Sad to say my Ford Anglia did not perform any better than yours though.
      Edited. The model was a 100E not a 105E. That pleasure was my second car.

        1. Apologies, I have now corrected my original post, it was a 100E Ford Prefect Side Valve vehicle. The Anglia 105E was its replacement.

      2. I shared my mother’s Morris Minor with a divided windscreen – the predecessor of the Minor 1,000. The first car that I actually bought with my own money was a 1948 Triumph Roadster 1800 which looked fantastic but had a pretty poor performance.

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9ccaff013e635bcc2422c05b923e9d263b984eb7d93834e1c56b605449d34876.jpg

        The car with which I replaced it was a 1958 MGA 1500 which was my favourite ever car. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/10407819ac9e63b4ede30a31cf5aab3f1f4ecc8363c4da7941d3d6a28e2879b4.jpg

        (These photos are not of my actual cars but of the identical models as mine)

    2. Moh had an old Ford Anglia 100E when he was accepted into Dartmouth BRNC , he commenced there in 1964, and drove all the way from Southampton . The journey took him forever, and had no heater and the windscreen wipers were useless. Thank goodness for travel warrants and the train !

      The car survived and by the time we met each other in 1968 , the radiator was full of porridge and the car was almost glued together , it creaked and groaned and was very uncomfortable .

    3. My brother had a Ford “sit up and beg” that had the same arrangement for the wipers. We lived on a hill, so frequently the wipers were at a standstill.

  20. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Interesting DT article on electric vehicles charging but, as usual, the BTL comments are rather more revealing. Needless to say, my efficient diesel-powered car will remain with me for some considerable time yet – and the prospect of doing so is improving daily with the imminent disappearance of Mrs Johnson! Anyone thinking of purchasing an EV, read on…

    The hidden costs of charging an electric car at home

    It’s cheaper and more convenient to charge an EV at your property using a wallbox – but it’s not always as easy as you think

    By
    James Foxall
    12 January 2022 • 12:30pm

    One of the major appeals of electric-only driving is the ability to “refuel” at home. But in the pursuit of this, some car owners will need to have their property dug up to fit charging points. Others might have to pay a hefty price to upgrade their electricity supply to cope with the demands of chargers.

    Meanwhile car dealers are receiving financial incentives to sell charging points that may not be the best. They’re not telling electric vehicle (EV) buyers about cheaper smart energy tariffs either. And if you can’t charge at home, don’t expect local authorities to help.

    Here are half a dozen home charging hitches hitting EV buyers.

    Home charging points to get more expensive
    The Electric Vehicle Homecharging Scheme (EVHS) is designed to cut the cost of installing a charging point by up to 75 per cent of the installation cost, to a maximum of £350. Up to October 2021, it had been responsible for 189,815 domestic charging points. However, the EVHS comes to an end on 31 March 2022.

    Not only will installing EV home chargers become more expensive, charge point installer Bedson said: “It will result in unsafe installations. People will just get their normal electricians, who don’t have specialist knowledge, to install them.

    “We still need the grant. By the time they’re fitted, most charging points cost between £1,000 and £1,100. Most people can’t afford that on top of a new car. I’ve had at least one customer say they’ll use an extension lead rather than have a charging point installed.”

    There may be some digging

    Telegraph reader John Ball from Bradley Stoke, Bristol, knew his neighbour was installing a home charging point for his electric Mini. Ball didn’t bank on his own drive being dug up to accommodate someone else’s new EV.

    The reason he couldn’t use his own drive for 10 days was that his house is on a “loop”. This means a single mains cable connects one house to the grid. Up to six other properties then branch off this one. To accommodate an electric car charging point, each property must have its own mains grid access.

    Randolph Brazier is director of electricity systems for the Energy Networks Association (ENA), which is responsible for the National Grid. He told us: “This was a way of costcutting when the electricity supply was nationalised. If we came across a looped supply, we would unloop them for free. We then reinstate any garden, path or drive that’s been disrupted.”

    The tab for this work, usually needed on terraced or rural properties, is picked up by all of us, using the 23 per cent of our electricity bill that goes towards network costs.

    Your existing electricity system might not cope

    Before you have a home charging unit installed, your property’s electrics may need upgrading to cope. Consumer organisation Citizens’ Advice said: “Sometimes consumers need additional unforeseen actions. Some will be free to the individual; others will be directly charged to the consumer and could be relatively expensive (thousands of pounds).”

    Charge point installer Simon Bedson from government-accredited contractor Sussex Charge Points added: “I’ve heard of people saying they’ve had their whole consumer unit replaced, which will cost £650 to £700.”

    Car dealers have incentives to sell certain chargers

    When you buy a new EV, there’s every chance the dealer will also try to sell you a home charging point.

    In an extensive report, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said: “We have seen internal documents showing that EV manufacturers and dealerships are entering into preferred partnership agreements with charge point operators. This means that the preferred operators’ charge points are recommended over other options, and sales staff can be financially incentivised to sell charge points from certain operators. Therefore, there is a risk that people are not adequately informed of the full range of options.”

    Installer Bedson confirmed: “As long as it’s got the right connector, you can choose any charge point you want. But I’ve heard stories of car dealers saying whatever it takes about home charging points to get a sale through.”

    Smart tariffs not mentioned

    To prepare for the future, the government insisted that charging points, part-paid for by the Electric Vehicle Homecharging Scheme (EVHS), had to be smart. This enables consumers to take advantage of special EV tariffs by charging when electricity prices are low, at night for example.

    But they can only benefit from these tariffs if they know about them. Charlie Cook, founder of comparison site RightCharge, said: “We recently asked 91 EV drivers the following question: ‘Did whoever you bought your car from introduce you to the concept of off-peak/smart tariffs?’ Of those 91 drivers, every respondent said ‘No’.”

    Local authorities don’t want to know

    The ENA says 40 per cent of UK drivers don’t have off-street parking. And the latest English Housing Survey states just over a third (36 per cent) of housing in the UK is rented. How many tenants will want to pay for a charging point?

    They will mainly rely on local authority-supplied charging points. The CMA said: “Local authorities play a crucial role in this segment to drive forward immediate roll-out and maximise competition.” To smooth their path, the government is providing charging point subsidies in the form of grant funding that local authorities can apply for.

    But no one seems to have told the local authorities about this. Councillor Martin Tett from the Local Government Association said: “We do not anticipate that councils either want, or need, to become the long-term default provider for electric vehicle charge points.” According to the CMA, a third of available charging point funding has gone unspent.

    It could be a bumpy ride

    A wholesale change of something as fundamental as how we fuel our cars was never going to be easy. Randolph Brazier from the ENA reassured us that the grid has capacity to cope. But he stressed that, unlike some of the examples above, the switch needs to be done in a connected and smart way.

    “If we don’t, we could be in for a bumpy ride,” he said.

    * * *

    And now for some of the BTLs:

    William Tell
    17 HRS AGO
    The evidence for NOT buying an EV is stacking up.
    Technology will in the relatively short term ensure emissions from petrol and diesel fuelled vehicles will be very close to if not actually zero. The massive reserves this planet has of coal, oil and gas will continue to ensure that the price of these consumer fuels will remain very competitive. So the question that has to be asked is why the Government plus the other main political parties are hell-bent on outlawing the use fossil fuelled vehicles and fossil fuelled sources of energy in this country. You can be certain this will not be the case in the USA, China, Brazil , Russia and India, who will be our main economic competitors..

    Geoff Be
    16 HRS AGO
    We may be able to generate enough electricity, but not distribute at street level. The existing local infrastructure supports about 10kWh of electricity per house per day, a large diversity factor is assumed(not everyone is boiling the kettle or tumble drying at the same time). Now with electric vehicles, as people arrive home in the evening plug in and start charging . NOT POSSIBLE. not enough capacity both generation and local distribution. Hence the The Electric Vehicle Smart Charge Regulations coming into force June 2022, The plan is to only allow vehicle charging when power is available, which will be generally after midnight, It seems you can override this in an emergency, but It would be at a very high price, and additionally this electricity can be taxed at a high rate to make up for the loss of fuel duty. Of course you could bypass all this and just plug an extension lead into a 13Amp socket. Another unworkable scheme from the government!!! If you are thinking of buying an electric vehicle, I would wait another year and see how the new regulations go.

    Grey Sky
    15 HRS AGO
    40+ million vehicles on the UK roads (RAC).
    Looking forward to finding out how solar & wind will keep these 40+ million vehicles moving once we are all forced to switch over to EVs and fossil fuels are banished?
    Renewables can’t even consistently keep the lights on or homes in heat, as fossil fuels are the primary power contributor to the National Grid, with nuclear, imports, then renewables following presently.
    With the UK abandoning decades of cheap energy from shale gas, natural gas, oil & coal for Net Zero whilst importing these fossil fuels at massive expense, the eco-loons have destroyed our energy security.
    Madness.

    Bob Pugh
    13 HRS AGO
    Yup. Today the grid was 50% fossil 30% renewables and the ballance largely nuclear. When you consider how awfull the efficiency of electricity is at point of use, an ev using electricity produced by burning gas in a powerstation is as poor or worse than a well designed ic car. Gas fired powerstations dump about 50% of thier energy to cooling systems and the electricity grid chews up between 8 and 15% so the electricity at the socket accounts for 35 – 42% of the fuel burn in the power station. The ev is then 80-90% efficient from the charging socket so the ev is 28-38% fuel efficient power-station to road. This is only slightly better than a good diesel engine and a diesel car will literally weigh a ton less so the real benefits are negligable to non existant.

    (Edited. Apologies, somehow most of the BTLs were pasted, now removed.)

    1. Firstborn had a company car on loan to use to drive to a training course. It’s a plug-in hybrid, and apart from being filled with useless gimmicky gadgets, had the most appalling MPG, at least 3 times worse than his Brother’s Golf Diesel, and twice as bad as my Tiguan automatic diesel. Something to do with a suboptimal engine solution and carting around a shedload of batteries. LIkely also that there isn’t a direct mechanical connection between diesel engine and the road wheels, but that the diesel drives an alternator taht boh charges the battery as well as driving the traction motor.

    2. Morning HJ, people are really thick if they purchase an expensive item without first doing some homework on it.
      I have already something in mind when the car is renewed by an EV. Below is what I have in mind, perfect for Mrs VVOF, she can supply a vehicle recharge whilst still sat down peeling potatoes or whilst doing the ironing to keep the shirts crease free.
      I will now take cover from certain lady Nottlers.
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/13cc2a48303cf776bd49dc69192e555f0459317f877ee51d313a18dae525c38c.jpg

    3. You can be certain this will not be the case in Malawi, Paraguay, Tuvalu, or Tajikistan, who will be our main economic competitors.
      There you go, Mr Tell, a reality check.

    4. The whole point of electric cars has absolutely nothing to do with the environment; it is simply about controlling the plebs by pricing them off the roads and keeping them immobile.

  21. Good morning all from a chilly Derbyshire. -2½°C on the yard thermometer and very grey as it gets lighter.

    1. Good morning, BoB. How did you get on with your retaining wall building yesterday? Today will also be dry so I reckon you could continue the work.

      1. Had to go into Matlock and by the time I got back there was not enough time to do anything, so did some much needed bramble pulling instead.

        Today I had to do a ciggie run to the Hospital for Stepson, so also did a couple of hours cleaning his flat.

        1. Any chance of you doing the same for me? (Cleaning the house, that is, I don’t smoke so don’t need any ciggies.) Lol.

          2. Good morning, BoB. You are Bruce Forsyth on “Beat The Clock” and I claim my five bob postal order. Lol.

    2. Cold here too. 1.6C at 9.50am… And Feb is usually our coldest month so we aren’t there yet… Down to 1.3C at 8am.

  22. 344132+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Thursday 13 January: There’s no way back for a PM seen to have flouted his own perverse rules

    Kettle,pot,black, the majority of the herd are guilty of the same, every opportunity to vote, they break into a stampede and head for the cliff edge, at the gallop to vote in to keep out, NO heed of consequences,party first.

    The lab/lib/con are a same,same, COALITION.

    ALL in the name of phony party’s, replacement of the genuine one’s that has been DEFUNCT for nigh on four decades.

    These odious political carpetbaggers are once again IMO playing a blinder the fat turk is in burnout mode but is still a deflection unit ALL eyes on the party goers whilst the DOVER campaign and I believe an air armada are continuing unabated.

    I am really beginning to believe that the English peoples in the majority do NOT want a Country but have a need more for the solace of an all found asylum,( an institution for the care of people who are mentally ill)

    1. Good morning, ogga

      I see that Robert Stapleford is still down voting you. I wonder if indeed RS is actually our champion down voter, Jennifer SP, who has transed.

      As I said in another post, the MSM is speculating about other members of the existing government replacing Johnson but in my view they should be looking at the back benchers.

      1. 344132+ up ticks,

        R,
        In my book they do not get to be back benchers in waiting to move up,
        unless they are of the same ilk as the hierarchy.

          1. 344132+ up ticks,

            R,
            NO, NO,& NO,
            An opened eyed view of the Country’s deterioration over the last three plus decades confirms for me my eyesight is 20/20.

      2. Please don’t knock our Jen, who is a tough, petite Glaswegian who clearly has a deep understanding of agricultural matters.
        Often I am almost tempted to down-vote those comments which casually advocate violence or cross some line about prejudices.
        Not everyone understands that ‘downvoting’ messes up the total of ‘upvotes’.

        2. Some of her information was made up though. I saw that on at least two occasions. I just didn’t want to get into an argument about it.

      4. A down vote without justification is to be ignored, as they clearly couldn’t present a rational argument.

  25. Steerpike
    Full list: the Tories calling for Boris to go
    13 January 2022, 8:10am

    Boris Johnson is now facing the gravest peril of his premiership. Public anger over his decision to attend a garden party in May 2020 shows no sign of abating, with Labour leader Keir Starmer calling for his resignation. Conservative MPs have started to break cover to publicly join those calls, amid rising concern about what Johnson’s survival means for their electoral prospects. Mr S will be keeping tabs on the number of MPs and MSPs below…

    1. Sir Roger Gale MP: ‘Enough is enough, a red line has been crossed’

    2. Will Wragg MP: ‘A series of unforced errors are deeply damaging to the perception of the party. The Prime Minister’s position is untenable.’

    3. Douglas Ross MP: ‘I don’t want to be in this position, but I am in this position now, where I don’t think he can continue as leader of the Conservatives.’

    4. Caroline Nokes MP: ‘He’s damaging us now, he’s damaging the entire Conservative brand’

    5. Jackson Carlaw MSP

    6. Liz Smith MSP

    7. Murdo Fraser MSP

    8. Craig Hoy MSP

    9. Douglas Lumsden MSP

    10. Tess White MSP

    11. Finlay Carson MSP

    12. Sharon Dowey MSP

    13. Meghan Gallacher MSP

    14. Stephen Kerr MSP

    15. Jeremy Balfour MSP

    16. Miles Briggs MSP

    17. Alex Burnett MSP

    18. Donald Cameron MSP

    19. Russell Findlay MSP

    20. Maurice Golden MSP

    21. Rachael Hamilton MSP

    22. Liam Kerr MSP

    23. Douglas Lumsden MSP

    24. Sue Webber MSP

    25. Annie Wells MSP

    26. Brian Whittle MSP

    27. Jamie Johnston MSP

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

    An0nymousBosch • 14 hours ago
    His job is not to wield power but to draw attention away from it. On those criteria Zaphod Beeblebrox is one of the most successful Presidents the Galaxy has ever had
    The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

    While journalists are obsessed by Boris Johnson’s garden, it’s transpired today that Sir Jeremy Farrar, a member of SAGE, colluded with Dr Anthony Fauci, the US Chief Medical Advisor, to cover up the fact that COVID-19 leaked from a Chinese laboratory.

    That London’s journalists consider one of these two events to be a “scandal”, but not the other, suggests we need to scrap the UK media and start re-recruiting journalists from scratch.

    Vindice • 14 hours ago • edited
    In which case I might keep tabs of my own. I’ll make a start here:

    1. Roger Gale – Remain
    2. Will Wragg – Brexit
    3. Douglas Ross – Remain
    4. Jackson Carlaw – Remain
    5. Liz Smith – Remain
    6. Murdo Fraser – Remain
    7. Craig Hoy – ?
    8. Douglas Lumsden – ?
    9. Tess White – ?
    10. Finlay Carson – Remain
    11. Sharon Dowey – ?
    12. Meghan Gallacher –
    13. Stephen Kerr MSP – Remain
    14. Jeremy Balfour MSP – Remain
    15. Miles Briggs MSP – Remain
    16. Alex Burnett MSP – Remain
    17. Donald Cameron MSP – Remain
    18. Russell Findlay MSP
    19. Maurice Golden MSP – Remain
    20. Rachael Hamilton MSP – Remain
    21. Liam Kerr MSP – Remain
    22. Douglas Lumsden MSP *** 2nd appearance on the list? ***
    23. Sue Webber MSP
    24. Annie Wells MSP – Remain
    25. Brian Whittle MSP – Remain
    26. Jamie Johnston MSP
    27. Caroline Nokes MP – Extreme Remain

    1. Good morning, Citroën

      One can see from your list how very naive Nigel Farage was in deciding not to have Brexit Party candidates up against sitting remainer Conservative MPs in the 2019 general election. Farage did not receive any sort of quid pro quo from Johnson and, to be frank, Farage’s failure to stand up to Johnson allowed Johnson to get away with a very watered down and feeble Brexit

      The Conservative Party is is still packed with remainers who have no desire for Brexit to work and will try treacherously to scupper it if they can.

      In tragic life, God wot,
      No villain need be! Passions spin the plot:
      We are betrayed by what is false within.

      [George Meredith]

    2. So many MSPs. One would have thought they would have appreciated the way BJ is showing up Sturgeon as the control freak that she is.

      1. He is no longer an MP. We have the gobby LibDem in his place. She’s always in the newspaper, spouting off, but I don’t notice anything useful happening.

    4. Good work! Russell Findlay is a journalist who investigated & exposed organised crime in Scotland and apparently his wife is a serving police officer, so it’s not surprising that he takes a tough stance.

    1. About the same here – at least I’ve put the washing on – I missed an opportunity yesterday.

  28. Yo All

    How many men does it take to open a beer?

    None. It should be opened by the time she brings it. Runs away

      1. And he’s still not back. Perhaps he got fed up with us. He must have got his internet fixed by now.

        1. He said his phone was on the blink as well… I did wonder if the lockdowns had got to him, he was frequently off into Cambridge to his language groups and lunch.

  30. Johnson: a dead man walking’, says senior Tory
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/01/13/boris-johnson-news-downing-street-party-rishi-sunak-brexit/

    We now know that deliberate lies about the origins of Covid were told. Indeed, Trump was the only senior politician who dared to call it the Chinese disease.

    The whole government is rotten to the core but the MSM is only speculating about existing members of this disgraceful cabinet replacing Johnson. There are several better candidates on the back benches and those on the back benches should be promoting a new leader from their own ranks.

    A BTL comment with which I agree:

    There are two main things to which Boris Johnson’s successor must commit him/herself :

    i) Completing Brexit – sorting out Northern Ireland by invoking Article 16 – even to the extent of scrapping the deal and going for WTO terms if that is the only option;

    ii) Promising (and keeping the promise) no mandatory vaccines, no persecution of the unvaxed and stopping anti-Libertarian Covid regulations so that we can learn to live with Covid.

    1. If the Green Agenda is followed there won’t be an England, let alone a United Kingdom, to call our country.

      1. 344132+ up ticks,
        Morning M,
        It surprises me after three plus decades of anti English battering meted out via the polling booth
        there still is an England.

        I see it as the old axe saying the head has been replaced many times we are at the moment halfway up /down the haft when that is fully replaced, ( shortly) who’s Country will it be then ?

      3. But if the article in yesterday’s TCW is correct, the planet should start cooling substantially in another ten years or so. Electric cars and the rest of the nonsense will be toast. Mind you, so will we if the fracking fields are buried under ten metres of ice….

    2. 344132+ up ticks,

      Morning R,
      Many of the electorate are still saying the tory (ino) party is still a goer when in reality they are flogging an old counterfeit nag that has had a succession of treacherous counterfeit head dons.

      They are famed throughout the world, top of the league table for NOT keeping any vows,promises,& pledges
      they are gullible herd fodder and used as such,never kept,always broken.

  31. I extracted a snippet of a comment I made yesterday evening and used it on the comments section of the DT letters this morning .

    I thought the comment was harmless, but to the point with some truth .

    ” Boris has messed up, I blame his wife for distracting him from one of the most important jobs in the world , you cannot have a man worrying about divorce , older children, new wife , new job , sprog on the way and a major disaster like a virus and an half hearted Brexit .
    The idiot is similar to one of those circus plate jugglers , trying to spin them all at the same time !
    Hey ho .. I do not want to be dictated to and told my car is not green enough, don’t want any interference in how we heat our home , when we can’t afford any extra bills at our time of life .”

    The DT cancelled me and said that this comment breaches community guidlines !!!

    2. The Telegraph is thoroughly ‘Woke’ now. I paid £29 for the year, and I rather regret it.

    4. Good morning Belle and all
      You know you’ve hit the bullseye with the truth when they have to censor you.

        1. Then the Left wouldn’t be able to claim they are heroic champions of decency.

          Much like ‘nationalism’ is used to derogate patriotism the nutcase Left delight in twisting words to hide their agenda.

    6. It seems anything that might contradict the government on Covid, or green lunacy “breaches community guidelines”

    7. Personal blaming of the wife.
      To be fair, I do not think it is her fault, he was just as useless before he met her. As Jilly Cooper said, he walked into the situation with his flies open.

    9. They don’t like the truth. I noticed today that four parking spaces have been turned into electric car charging points. I am furious that my council tax has been wasted on a virtue signalling initiative (not to mention the reduction in spaces) that panders to the chosen few. If they want it, they should pay a surcharge on their tax!

  33. Just been chatting with a RN pal who sheds an interesting light on this story.

    “Milestone for Royal Navy as HMS Montrose spends 1,000 days at sea. Warship has been on operations continuously since April 2019, as tensions in the Gulf require ‘persistent presence’ .”

    This is total spin, the real reason for the 1000 days at sea is because there aren’t any serviceable ships available to take the place of HMS Montrose. It’s a cover up for failure.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/01/05/milestone-royal-navy-hms-montrose-spends-1000-days-sea/

  34. Picked up the link for this study from The Stew Peters Show. I’ve pasted in only the final paragraphs as information above this section is rather technical and I’m sure many Nottlers, including me, would not be interested in wading through the technicalities. 145 countries’ data used in the study.

    I’ve added breaks to make it an easier read and highlighting is mine.

    The statistically significant and overwhelmingly positive causal impact after vaccine deployment on the dependent variables total deaths and
    total cases per million should be highly worrisome for policy makers.

    They indicate a marked increase in both COVID-19 related cases and death due directly to a vaccine deployment that was originally sold to the public as the “key to gain back our freedoms.”

    The effect of vaccines on total cases per million and its low positive association with total vaccinations per hundred signifies a limited impact of vaccines on
    lowering COVID-19 associated cases. These results should encourage local policy makers to make policy decisions based on data, not narrative, and based on local conditions, not global or national mandates. These results should also encourage policy makers to begin looking for other avenues out of the pandemic aside from mass vaccination campaigns.

    Some variables that could be included in future analyses might include vaccine lot by country, the degree of prevalence of previous antibodies against SARS-CoV or SARS-CoV-2 in the population before vaccine administration begins, and the Causal Impact of ivermectin on the same variables used in this study.

    http://www.researchgate.net. Causal Impact Analysis of Vaccine Administration on Deaths and Case Associated with CV-19

  35. Headline in the DT at 10am:

    Boris Johnson latest news: PM pulls out of planned visit due to family Covid case amid Downing Street party backlash

    That would be the new variant called ‘avoidem’ then?

  36. Headline in the DT at 10am:

    Boris Johnson latest news: PM pulls out of planned visit due to family Covid case amid Downing Street party backlash

    That would be the new variant called ‘avoidem’ then?

  37. I’m liking Lord Frost more and more………..he’d make a great PM.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/01/13/lord-frost-covid-lockdowns-serious-mistake-government-needs/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

    Lord Frost has accused the Government of “Covid theatre”, as he
    called on Boris Johnson to scrap mask mandates and warned that the
    country will look back on lockdowns as a “serious public policy
    mistake”.

    Instead of pursuing “stuff that works” such as antiviral drugs and
    effective ventilation, Mr Johnson has locked down the country and
    restricted freedoms unnecessarily, the peer argued, as he called on
    ministers to rule out any prospect of a new lockdown and to consider a
    more diverse range of advice when making public health decisions.

    Speaking to this week’s episode of The Telegraph’s Planet Normal
    podcast, which you can listen to using the audio player above, Lord
    Frost also said that the Government’s controversial net zero agenda had been “rushed”, and that technology receiving taxpayers’ money “may not be the best way forward” but is “increasing costs on individuals”.

  38. Sweden to launch ‘exceptional’ measures amid 300% rise in electricity price

    The Swedish government will allocate some $670 million to compensate households for skyrocketing electricity prices, Finance Minister Mikkel Damberg said at a press conference on Wednesday.

    “This is an exceptional measure in an exceptional situation, it is unusual to go in with support when prices fluctuate in markets,” Damberg stated in an interview with broadcaster SVT.

    The electricity bill for an average apartment in the most populous southern regions of Sweden jumped by 266% in December, Sputnik reported, citing the country’s energy market regulator.

    Sweden’s electricity comes mostly from Nuclear and Hydro, so how can these costs change so dramatically in a year?
    There is an interesting story here, as the 266% rise does not make sense as Nuclear and Hydro are mostly fixed costs, not variable.

    Calling Sweden,calling Sweden…what’s this about. Seems odd.

    2. They always want to help when they can’t acknowledge the underlying problem.

      So wedded are these gormless fools to the problem that they have to keep punishing then robbing the earner, only forced to give it back in the next breath.

      It is truly, monumentally absurd. We don’t want to help people with the energy bills we have intentionally forced up because that might help people we don’t want to. Clucking twankers, the lot of them.

    3. The problem is that the electricity is produced by private companies and they can sell it at the going rate elsewhere. Electricity is electricity regardless of source.

      We have a similar problem in the UK with gas prices (66% comes from the North Sea). The suppliers still have to buy it on the open market which means paying the going rate.

  39. In my view, the second part of Coulter’s piece is nowhere near as compelling as the first, but it still raises questions.

    https://www.takimag.com/article/the-great-epstein-cover-up-part-2/

    As an aside, Andrew is clearly being hung out to dry. I wonder how many names he could supply.
    At one point I had a little sympathy for Virginia G/R being groomed, my assessment now is that she’s a money-grubbing whore who found her metier at a young age.

    For those who missed it, here’s the first part:
    https://www.takimag.com/article/the-great-epstein-cover-up-part-1/

    1. One bit stood out:

      The feds not only did not move Epstein to a super-maximum security prison as some observers recommended, but they also did this:

      — The day before Epstein died, he was taken off suicide watch.

      — Against orders, his cellmate transferred elsewhere, leaving Epstein completely alone in his cell.

      — All the cameras on Epstein’s floor were mysteriously broken.

      — Even the footage of his earlier suicide attempt had been mistakenly erased and the backup footage destroyed “as a result of technical errors,” according to assistant U.S. attorneys Jason Swergold and Maurene Comey.

      How many times can they use the “we’re completely incompetent” defense? (Hey, does anybody know if this case implicates rich people?)

    2. I read something earlier regarding Epstein and him being taken to hospital after his alleged attempted suicide, there has never been any further comments on this how he was supposed to have tried it and only speculation that he actually died.
      https://steadfastclash.com/the-latest/epstein-lives-does-this-drone-footage-prove-jeffrey-epstein-is-still-alive/
      This seems to support my theory that he’s too rich and knows too many influential people to take his own life.

    3. I wonder if Prince Andrew is afraid of meeting the same fate as Epstein did when he was murdered for what he knew?

      Fear is very much the weapon of choice for gangsters, politicians and other members of the PTB. We must be terrified of Covid in the same way that Andrew and Ghislaine must be made aware of the fact that they will suffer the same fate as Epstein if they ever spill the beans.

        1. If things were done normally, wouldn’t she have been able to plea-bargain herself out of a long sentence by dobbing the patrons of Epstein in?

          1. Dead if she does, dead if she doesn’t.
            I suspect the non-disclosure agreements cover most of the patrons, and that’s why they are going for Andrew so vigorously.

          2. I suspect she is perfectly well aware that the people she would be dobbing in are more powerful than the US justice system.

      2. Epstein was running a very extensive blackmail racket using young women in order to compromise important people. His apparent predilection for the odd handjob is almost irrelevant in the wider scheme of things.

        Bob Maxwell was a Mossad agent and tutored his three daughters in this subterfuge. We likely have a constructed plot to compromise many western leaders involving the Israeli secret services and a diverse section of influential others.

    4. How very strange this filthy case is … a randy minded prince being accused of whatever , yet here in Britain the age of consent is 16 years, his brother married a 19 year old , and we have Asians screwing underage British children by the thousand ..

      What in God’s name are the media playing around with .

      A little tart purportedly allowed her body to be accessed by rich famous men ..and a worldly wise woman befriended impressionable greedy young women for the American sex mad maniac, so what is going on ..

      2. And a mother who would be delighted with a photo showing her 17 year old daughter snuggling up to an old man in London.

      3. Epstein was a blackmailer. Ghislaine Maxwell was likely working as a Mossad agent as were her sisters and as was her father Bob Maxwell.

        This case has little to do with Epstein’s predilections for young masseurs but everything about the compromise of western politicians and other important and influential types.

        Prince Andrew is an oddity in the grand scheme of things hence a useful target for the cover up.

  40. Morning all, any one else with Virgin Media ? Three days my email has been down when you go on line to make a i enquiry it just says come back in an hour ………..

    I thought i’d been hacked because my last email was to the woodland trust and about the continuation of corporate greed and the wanton destruction of woodland and wild life to build 1500 new properties in the Welwyn and Hatfield council district known as Symondshyde. A lovely spot in the countryside. But owned by a family of gentry. That clearly has no respect for anything except profit. Bungs galore to the local councilors must have been taking place.

      1. But surely the depopulation game has been ongoing since, ooh, March 2020. We mustn’t be impatient.

        1. On the current covid version, the Chinese still haven’t got the gene detection 100% sorted so some white fatties keep popping off as well as the ones it was designed for. But next time, the Myanmars had better watch out.

      2. The rubber boat people the Syrians flown in by Cameron and all those on benefits will never have enough money to pay for any single one of those properties, if built.

      1. Apprentice politicians.
        I know of a similar case that is happening right at this moment.

        1. I’ve just tried to check the service status and their general website is very slow. My connection is okay and so is e-mail. I may be using a different server for e-mail though. My e-mail is one of the old @blueyonder.co.uk set. Have you tried ringing 150 if you have telephone service in your package?

    2. Remember when there was that study to understand why Germans fell so quickly to the Nazi party? Well, it’s not just Germans. Seems that all humans love power over others.

    1. Clintons Memo actually read ‘Hold my calls and sack the cook’. What happened there ?

    1. Perhaps they will wait and, if he is to meet an Australian opponent, instantly deport him. Oz player gets walkover…

      Edit typo: “deport” not “sport”, and certainly not “support”

  44. Last two ‘jokes’ of the day (well from me)

    1. Women are like roads.

    The more curves they have, the more dangerous they are.

    2.Men have two emotions, hungry and horny.

    If you see him without an erection, make him a sandwich.

  45. 344132+ up ticks,
    The electorate will be once again hard pressed in making their choice, what is now down to ” what class of active paedophile would suit their needs as a party winner”.

    Is it not in the party manifesto ? ALL are importers of active paedophilia units, but then again many of the electorate know that, doncha.

    https://twitter.com/UnityNewsNet/status/1481581738245730308

    1. It’s evidence that people are thick.

      Massive inflation comes from incredible state spending. That spending comes from Brown’s malicious waste of public money.

      It comes from Blair’s monumental expansion of the public sector.

      The debt wasn’t tackled by Cameron because he offered exactly the same as Blair and had a wafer thin majority. Labour promised ot fight Brexit. The Lib Dems just to ignore it. Boris hasn’t learned the reason he got his job and what people wanted.

      They ignore that Labour have voted for everything Boris has presented, without quibble or complaint.

      The entire shower of the 3 parties is idiotic. If the public continually forget recent history and where the problem started and the responsibility for not resolving it then they deserve this mess, and the rest of us should be paid ‘stupidity money’ for tolerating their gormless idiocy.

      1. Shropshire County Council can only provide a managed budget for this year. After that, they are in severe financial difficulties. It will never occur to them that buying the Pride Hill Shopping Centre and making a whacking loss on it was a contributory factor, nor will they consider getting rid of diversity managers, slimming down the number of people working at Shire Hall and giving everybody a wage cut and no expenses.

  46. Back from busy market. No masks. No barriers or 6 ft apart. Just like normal.

    Cheeseman back – he had been away “with Covid”. I asked him how it went. Well, he said, I test myself every morning and was positive – so I stayed away for two weeks – to be safe. Were you ill, I asked? Good Lord, no. If I hadn’t “tested” I would have been at work…..

    Morrisons = everyone masked (apart from me)

    Than to the surgery for the MR to have a test. She waited 45 minutes. No one in the waiting room. She could hear the half dozens nurses chatting away… It took five minutes.

    Clap? Like hell..

    Lovely sunny day – will attack the Blenheim Orange after lunch.

    2. Poppiesdad waited fifteen minutes at the surgery beyond his appt time for a blood test. The surgery was empty of patients. During that time no-one left the surgery. Eventually a nurse sauntered from her room. We can only assume the nurse had an emergency and the patient scrambled out of the window. Employees of the nhs think that it is run for them.

      1. We didn’t do Christmas presents this year , simply because what was the point ?

        We bought instead from Amazon an oximeter ( thing you put on your finger for sats levels) magical wand for taking temps , and a B/P machine all for under £40. We are keeping an eye on each other because the NHS don’t mind that we don’t matter .

        We will treat ourselves in other ways when we feel like it , but vet bills, car maintainance, insurances , utility bills etc have bitten hard so far , eye wateringly so .

          5. I love them , positive colours and they look warm ..

            Dog proof? Where did Santa Claus find those ?

            I would love to buy a pair .

            Are they easy to put on / remove ?

        2. I bought an oximeter fairly early on in the covid fandango and we bought a blood pressure machine after poppiesdad phoned for an appt regarding getting a reading and was asked ‘can’t you do it yourself? don’t you have a machine at home? ours is broken…’ we were pretty disgusted by this but, like yourselves, decided that policing our own health is the only way to survive all this. In future we intend to look outside the nhs if we need health assistance, we no longer trust the organisation, neither do we trust many of its employees, that has gone forever.

          1. When I was sick I tried phoning the Harley Street Clinic and a guy there phoned all the suitable contacts he had listed for private hospitals and clinics in London. He drew a complete blank and advised me to go to A&E. The problem is that there are not two lots of doctors. It’s the same doctors.

          2. My doctor wanted me to read my own blood pressure. I said I didn’t have a machine. There must have been something in my voice because he asked, “do you object to buying one?” “Yes, I’ve paid enough into the system for it to be able to provide a BP reading occasionally.”

          3. Pre-covid we could walk into the surgery and stick our arm into a machine which grasped it above the elbow and printed out pulse rate and blood pressure reading, but of course that facility was not available after ‘covid’. So in the end we bought one, we have decided now that the longer we can keep out of the clutches of the nhs and the less information they have on us, the better. Although we did object to being put in the position of having to buy one of these things.

          4. Pre Covid I could call to the surgery on my way into town and either make an appointment or request a prescription, then all that stopped, so I’m reduced to ordering repeats online and waiting for ages to book a telephone “consultation”. I’m like you; the longer I can keep out of the clutches of the NHS the happier I’ll be.

      2. From our big health centre, November figures posted today.
        Telephone ‘consultations’ : 4,035.
        Face-to-face consultations: 3,512.
        That suggests nearly half are face-to-face BUT NOT all are proper GP appointments – that number includes jab appointments at the surgery (flu and convid) and with other assorted ‘medical’ staff.
        In most cases, the GPs are still refusing to see patients.
        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c39e358da7f334954c6464b95ba015fc0eb8139034402cba2bdd9e8808db38df.png

        1. I had a telephone conversation with the pain clinic this arvo. The woman was completely flummoxed when I told her what happened with my bouts of pain (didn’t fit in to any of the boxes, obviously) so she switched to my sleep patterns. Not a lot new there, either!

          1. Good morning Conway.
            You awkward so-and-so. Can’t you show more consideration for our overworked ‘health workers’ and get your symptoms organised to fit the tickboxes?

          2. If they weren’t charging me £2k a jab (twice a year) to sort it, I wouldn’t be in pain in the first place! I told them I couldn’t afford it (I might for one year, but it’s the principle of the thing; I have paid in oodles of dosh when I was working, I’m damned if I’m going to pay again now I’m on a pension – I should just go to Calais, black up and rock up in a RIB, then it would all be provided FOC).

          3. You’d also get a free hotel stay, all the free health care you could want – including access to GPs and NHS dentist – meals and pocket money thrown in for good measure.

    4. Good afternoon.
      I bet most of the people off work after testing ‘positive’ are not in the least bit unwell. It is leading to so many avoidable staffing problems in so many workplaces (though not the self-employed who aren’t paid when not working). This pointless, damaging, daily testing fiasco needs to be stopped. Maybe when the tests stop being free, some sanity might return.

  49. I see the latest rat to leave the sinking ship of state is the Vietnamese One. Well, he got his knighthood and so can return to money spinning projects.

      1. Van Tam has left the covid stable. Sinking ships, rats and sensing a change in the wind comes to mind, as does going to ground, although they may try to spin it as ‘come to the end of his contract’.

    3. The Vietnamese One is being lauded on the BBC and dubbed a National Treasure.

      Hopefully his many pronouncements and support of Whitty and Johnson will come back to haunt him. Someone has to answer to the crimes against the English people perpetrated during the past two years and blindly continuing.

  50. In view of the uncertainties surrounding Virginia’s sexual assault allegations I think that, before any questioning of suspects takes place, the prosecutors should require her to identify the offending member of society:

    Prince Andrew is certain to be questioned about the size and shape of his manhood if he fails to settle with Virginia Roberts Giuffre, eminent US lawyers said today.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10397929/Prince-Andrew-faces-quizzed-private-parts.html

    2. Perhaps there should be an identity parade, after which Giuffre would be asked if she had spotted dick.

      1. Agreed, but because her activities at the age of 17 were most likely under the bedclothes and her now challenged visual acuity, I guess it’s now just a question of sucking it and see.

    3. Can any award be enforced if Andrew merely stated “enough is enough, and I’m not having anything further to do with this” and then withdrew from public life? If he never left the UK and refused to pay a cent, what could the Americans do.

      1. He might officially. But a great many people are very upset with him. He won’t be able to come back from all the sleaze.

      2. Well, as I read that it seems a catch all for everything.

        As anyone could argue they’re at a business do.

  56. had a go at putting a lighter to one of my farts the other day to see
    what effect it would have…it made no difference to the flame but
    everybody else in the lift went blooming crazy.

  57. One of the largest newspapers in Denmark is apologizing for its journalistic failure during COVID-19 by only publishing official government messages without questioning them. Via @Niemandsknecht

    “We Failed”

  58. Thought for the day…

    Boris attending a bring-a-bottle party….really ?
    He would have needed to find a bottle donor first

    1. Not if it was a sperm donor, he could have his choice from all of Westminster, after all, they are all a bunch of W⚓️s

  59. My Darling Wife told me about her last boyfriend earlier who died.
    She said I was by his bedside when he said in a weak voice “that there’s something I must confess”

    She said don’t worry about it there’s nothing you need to confess.

    But he insisted “No I must die in peace, I’m so sorry but I’ve had sex with your sister on multiple occasions and last week she informed me that she is having my kid”

    “I know” she whispered. “That’s why I poisoned you, now close your eyes”

  60. Chinese spy suspect infiltrates Parliament. 13 january 2022.

    MI5 has now released a security threat warning of a specific spying threat targeted by Labour donor Christine Lee. She has been a long-time funder of Labour MP Barry Gardiner’s office through her law firm Christine Lee & Co, which also works for the Chinese Embassy in London. Donations began in September 2015, soon after Gardiner joined Jeremy Corbyn’s frontbench. They included £182,284 to pay the wages of two of Mr Gardiner’s Westminster aides — one of whom is Christine Lee’s son, Daniel Wilkes. Whoops!

    This is just a distraction from Boris’s travails. This woman is doing nothing that Foreign Agents don’t carry out in the normal run of things.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/chinese-spy-suspect-infiltrates-parliament

      1. Afternoon Stephen. It’s the sort of thing that would appeal to one of the Tory Whips. Boris Bad. Labour Worse. I would imagine that pretty well everyone in Westminster knew already!

    2. Barry Strachan Gardiner is a British politician who served as Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change and Shadow Secretary of State for International Trade from 2016 to 2020. A member of the Labour Party, he has been Member of Parliament for Brent North since 1997.

      I can’t imagine the Chinese would be interested in his portfolio…..

    3. Let’s carry on building Chinese power stations, carry on using Chinese phones, Chinese laptops, nd Chinese’s household articles. We can trust them, can’t we?

    1. An encouragingly big turnout. I read elsewhere that Sturgeon is planning to extend the use of jab passports. If the jabs actually prevented people from catching and spreading convid, then we would be able to live more normal lives without all the sinister controlling rules and disruptions.
      Edit. I doubt the story, with the telling photos, will widely appear in any main papers, tv channels or radio news.

    3. “...the latter being a record of how many jags they have received to prove they have been fully vaccinated.” What if I don’t have a Jag – will a Toyota do?

  62. 344132+ up ticks,

    NOoooooooo the cry from current hard core member / voters one must ask oneself will this hinder in any way the inflow of replacement potential
    troop / tory (ino) party members via DOVER, we need all the help we can get, just look at lab and their paedo count, we are doing our best in that department but they are showing superiority in cover ups.

    Boris Johnson’s Conservatives Drop Ten Points Behind Labour in Opinion Poll

      1. That would mean the government would
        a) have to admit it was wrong
        b) compensate those killed or maimed; the one time governments are not keen to splash the taxpayer cash is when they have to accept responsibility for their actions.

    2. Return the Hard Shoulder, well to a being a Hard Shoulder

      Retain the ability on the other lanes to set Maximum Speed Limils when conditions warrant them

      1. Hello, Bill, I know that your Mr Rashid often helps out with votes when needed. Does he have a friend (Ms. Lee, perhaps?) who could help me out with a £50,000 back-hander? I need one for when my gas and electricity bills rise astronomically in April.

        Lol.

  64. Times are hard (or not as the case may be….) A report from the US:

    “Condom Sales Plunge 40% As World Tosses Rubbers Aside”

    “makers didn’t expect the drop in demand to hit this hard”.

    Perhaps it is just a transitory case of Butch Flaccidly & The Bumdance Kid?

  67. Phase two?
    Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Thursday that he will not confirm or deny anything regarding the possibility of the deployment of Russian military infrastructure in Cuba and Venezuela.
    “I don’t want to confirm anything, I won’t rule anything out either”, Ryabkov told RTVI.
    He noted that the possibility of such options depends on Washington’s response to Russia’s security guarantees. The deputy minister stressed that President Putin had already described what the Russian Navy can do if the US continues to provoke Moscow, but also stated that a diplomatic solution would be preferable.

    1. Harry, for you it may just be a hobby supporting Mr Putin, but FYI the death toll so far in Kazakhstan is said to be in excess of a thousand, in Almaty.

      1. On a close inspection I believe there’s a maximum of two girls there and perhaps only one, in different poses. It’s a trick the Sirens pull.

  73. As I walked Spartie, it was the end of the school day. A depressing number of conformist teenagers (if you aren’t revolting in your teens, when will you be?) were streaming along the pavements. Top was the girl wearing a mask and also smoking at the same time. Does she count as conformist or rebel?

  75. It’s a bit too early and I’ve been saving this from before Christmas but I just need something to take my mind off this bewildering poostorm of current affairs . I can only describe it as liquid Soreen and even after the first mouthful I feel a Zen like calm gently washing over me (11% abv helps a bit). It’s possibly the best thing that’s come out of Scotland for many a year.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b50926d5732f0f18bcd6b2371ff5243aa727b41a687aaf10968c6314edf31a8e.jpg

    1. At £15 a bottle I’d expect an entire monastery of Zen like calm! Does sound good though.

        1. The original is still my firm favourite and I have a little loyalty as I was involved in a small way in the original crowdfunding . My name is on the warehouse door along with a few 1000 others. I don’t usually indulge in risky investments but I so believed in the product I couldn’t resist it.

      2. Our strongest used to be Hardy’s Ale brewed in Dorchester by Eldridge Pope.

        A strong beer was mentioned in Hardy’s novel The Trumpet Major, hence the name.

        1. I thought that Far from the Maddening Julie Christie was the Strumpet Major….

          I never cared for Hardy…

          1. I had to do ‘Far from the madding crowd’ as my fourth year mock exam. The only thing i remember from that is the wife auction. About time they brought those back.

  77. Job done…

    Russian-led troops leaving Kazakhstan

    Soldiers from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) are leaving Kazakhstan having achieved their objectives, now that the region has been stabilized, the head of the six-member military alliance announced on Thursday.

    At a ceremony in Almaty, CSTO Secretary General Stanislav Zas said that Kazakh leaders had decided that unrest had subsided to a level that would allow the peacekeepers to withdraw.

      1. That kind of operation is expensive. They don’t have money to waste. Need it all for Ukraine.

        2. Operations like that over here are cheaper. A bit heavy on the Tea and Vegan biscuit kitty though.

  78. 344132+ up ticks,

    TORIES TEN POINTS BEHIND LABOUR AMID LOCKDOWN-BUSTING PARTY SCANDAL

    Currently ALL it means is one “party” has a better type of paedophile
    under their protective party umbrella.

    1. Faced with a choice between Johnson on one hand and Starmer and his MPs on the other, I’ll go for the privileged liar over the Tossers who demanded even more lockdown, didn’t give a shit about anyone not being able to see their dying mother and then cynically discovered the sob stories.

      1. What an opportunity not being seized by the likes of Fox and the leaders of the small parties to position themselves as not-fascists and guardians of individual freedom and choice. Where are they? Why are they not in the TV news and press, giving it to the MSM and Cons / Labour for all their lies and dissembling. They clearly don’t really want to be in government, as they aren’t trying.

        1. Poor little mite. He’s obviously had another exhausting day protecting the Thomas estate from invasive mice, dragons, and goblins

          1. He really loves that brass grate. It is about ten inches from the red hot stove! When kittens, they each used to walk through the gap on the left (as you look at it) between the stove and the wall. They never singed!

    2. I used to dog sit a beagle; she would sit in front of the convection heater and shiver until I switched it on!

  80. None too soon…

    Prince Andrew stripped of military titles and patronages, Queen announces

    Duke of York will also no longer use his HRH title and will defend his sexual abuse case as a ‘private citizen’

    By Victoria Ward 13 January 2022 • 5:11pm

    2. As I have said before, I have no high opinion of Andrew but I admire and respect HM- this must have broken her heart. What a rotten lot some of them have turned out to be.

      1. HM has been in heavy weather this last year or so. I synpathise with her.
        Harrry & meagain, Andrew, and the loss of Phillip. That’s tough, but then, she’s tough as well.

        2. At times like this she must miss Phillip dreadfully. Poor lady.
          Also, I do not want to see the monarchy brought down because of the antics of these sods. A constitutional monarchy seems to me to be a good form of government; however a decent and trustworthy government would help too.
          Years ago I read a biography about the last Tsar Nicholas II. The author, whose name escapes me, opined that Nicholas would have been an ideal constitutional monarch but because of how Russia was then he was an autocratic ruler.

      2. I think High Society and their Royals are full of rotters , cads and wastrels .

        Don’t forget the genes must be faulty, a rotten uncle who abdicated , a randy great great grandfather who had mistresses everywhere..

        A manly father like Prince Phillip who the junior princes couldn’t aspire to, and so it carries on via William and Harry , wokery personified .

    3. The poor woman. This must have broken her heart. What a ghastly bunch of boys she produced. Thank goodness for Anne!
      Woosy Charles, Randy Andy and the very dubious Edward.
      Bless you ma’am.

      2. Makes you wonder if their boarding school experiences, and being largely brought up by nannies had a negative effect.

          3. As I frequently remark; “the only way to make a small fortune out of owning racehorses is to start with a large one.”

    1. I was hoping one would get blown out to my ship as we sailed south down the Mozambique Channel. No such luck, but I captured an Atlas moth offshore Borneo.

      1. 344132++ up ticks.

        Evening M.
        I was up the Ivory coast ( sugar refinery) sitting outside having a beer,
        similar I would say, a full spread hand span alighted on me knee. we gave each other a nod and parted friends.

        1. I have to confess to having spent most of a 12 hour nightshift chasing this moth around the decks before trapping it.
          It accompanied me home.

        2. I have to confess to having spent most of a 12 hour nightshift chasing this moth around the decks before trapping it.
          It accompanied me home.

    2. I was hoping one would get blown out to my ship as we sailed south down the Mozambique Channel. No such luck, but I captured an Atlas moth offshore Borneo.

    3. Strange time to bring it out.It’s been known about for years.
      A Chinese squirrel methinks.

      1. ” Questions were first asked about her funding five years ago but no action was taken. ”
        Well I never.

  84. That’s me gone. A lovely day – AND the parcel arrived only two days late. Tree pruned. Tomorrow = fog all day. Yuk.

    I was SOOOOOOO pleased to hear that fatuous Dorries woman say that BPAPM had made a “heartfelt apology”. None of these scum (Rayner was right) have a clue, do they?

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

    1. Would you mind moving your Birthday from Sunday to Monday? I only have a used second class stamp. :@(

      1. I’d rather forget all about it. The speed with which these things come round is frightening.

  88. Well, after yesterdays failure to do much up the “garden”, I did even less up there today!
    With eldest daughter (from 1st marriage) coming up from Basingstoke and Step-son wanting more cancer sticks, I decided to do a bit on his flat. pick up daughter, then drop off the fags. Also had to take the Dearly Tolerant up to work as her car had a flat tyre.

    First job was to clean out his “Henry” vacuum cleaner. He’d been using it without a filter-bag and it was REVOLTING! I took my dust respirator to wear as I did the job, then I vacuumed his living room before picking ED up.

    Went to the hospital and dropped the fags off, allowing ED to see her brother for the first time in well over a year, then home to put on the dinner I’d prepared last night, sausages in gravy with skinny chips and up to Crich to pick the DT up.

    So, the Labour Party has swapped the influence of the CPSU to that of the CCP? Whoever could have foreseen that happening?

          10. Best chips I ever had were cut by hand using a knife from potato by a bloke at an outside bar in Fremantle, back in November 2000. Utterly fantastic, for a humble chip.
            Fries are only a way to convey sauce to your mouth in a polite manner.

          11. I have had “chips” in Engerland. Invariably great thick things, only partially cook and inadequately fried. They need to be thin and dipped three times.

          13. Best chips I ever had were cut by hand using a knife from potato by a bloke at an outside bar in Fremantle, back in November 2000. Utterly fantastic, for a humble chip.
            Fries are only a way to convey sauce to your mouth in a polite manner.

        2. If you want to see them made,head to McCaines,Scarborough.
          All McDonald’s fries are made there.

    1. A loon took in a refugee. When he saw how the refugee was pleased, he took in another.
      The refugees each found two more refugees.
      Before the loon knew where he was, he wasn’t.

      That’s an allegorical tale.

      1. 344132+ up ticks,

        S,

        As a nation we are half way up / down the haft of grandfathers axe the head
        ( London) is long gone, not long now, all issues will be sorted via the imam/ mullah.

        Someone really ought to inform these politico’s there ain’t no pockets in a shroud.

        1. “No pockets in a shroud.”
          My F-i-L’s favourite expression regarding death.
          He left his daughter nothing, so I suppose he was correct.

          As to the man, he was a racist’s racist.

          An arsonist set fire to a refugee hostel. At the trial he claimed that the shout: “burn you bastards burn”, was a mitigating factor, warning the refugees to get out.

    2. Mongo has Junior. The two are inseparable.

      Makes me rather jealous, to be honest! The warqueen wants to get a puppy. However, she’s not really got this ‘dog’ thing so…

      This weekend she’s looking after Mongo. Entirely on her own. Poor fellow.

          1. I organised Italian last night, so it’s SWMBOs turn to cook tonight. She called a “grabbit” – get it yerself from the fridge.

          2. Reminds me of something my mother used to say when we had guests for tea etc. FHB she would say loudly. “Family Hold Back.” My brother was the equivalent of a plague of locusts when he was young;-)

          5. That, and “Through the teeth and round the gums.
            Look out stomach, here it comes!”
            AAAARGH!

      1. Hah!
        Christmas cake for pudding, and a big glass Cap’n Morgan spiced rum!
        Now you’re talking!

          1. I prefer the dark spiced, it’s a bit sweet, but the golden spiced is excellent!
            Thanks for the development!
            :-D)

  94. 344132+ up ticks,

    What with Chinese and muslims in there is there any English political wallahs ?

    breitbart,
    MI5 Claims Chinese ‘Spy’ Successfully Managed to Infiltrate UK Parliament

    mi5 was probably busy with street party’s etc,etc.

  95. January 2082- Latest Breaking News.

    60 years after Covid ends, two survivors emerge from deepest suburbia.
    Mystery surrounds the pair of plonkers, both in their 80s, who say they have been in hiding since covid 19 arrived in 2020

    The two old men apparently declared they were unaware the virus had mutated to the common cold, and the story they told when they emerged from their semi in Ruislip.

    According to reports, the two men, who are both in their 80s, said they had been hiding under lockdown and masked up since 2022.

    1. The look on their faces when they were told Joe Biden was still POTUS was an absolute picture…

  96. Yer Weegie government have just decided that Omicron isn’t so severe after all, and now we can have a beer or wine with our restaurant meal, or in a pub.
    But – the virus will kill you if the booze isn’t served at your table.
    Such is political logic.
    I’m out to the local tomorrow evening for some beers (they have London Pride and ESB!) with Second Son, the world’s kindest young man.

    1. Bravo pet! Have a good one, and a big hug for the wonderful boy you brung up!👏🏻

          1. All the posts I have done today, just about, I have had to edit because of missing capital letters. Lazy fingers.

        1. I think i told youms the story of the whinging ozzie who came to London and his mates took him to a pub in Chiswick for a few pints of pommie Piss as he called it. They poured a Fullers barley wine into his pint glass and topped it up with ESB. He managed two pints before he succumbed.

          2. I did similarly with an Aussie at college.
            To be fair, it took three pints!! of barley wine to make him even slightly wobbly.

          3. When i lived in SA, myself and three mates brewed our own ale, we had to water it down a tad in the summer.

          4. “…three pints!! of barley wine…”

            Roughly six pints of Wadworth’s 6X. That was around tipping point in my student days.

          6. “They poured a Fullers barley wine into his pint glass and topped it up with ESB.”

            That makes a pint of around 6.5% ABV. Two would equal four pints of mild. Not much of a drinker, was he?

          8. I didn’t meet him, but remembe he’d only been use to Ozzie beer, Alka-Seltzer with a tea bag dipped in.

        2. Nasty, but to be honest, that’s not as much as I thought it would be when I think of the differential in perhaps the ’90s.

          2. Less than 3 X the price these days. Depending where in the UK you’re drinking I suppose.

          4. We never liked that Jacques Cousteau, always thought he knew what we were doing. Do you know he started out as a spearfishing expert in the Med, specialising in the largest predatory fish. He decimated the groupers all on his own.

          5. I didn’t but it’s often the way.
            On the plus side, those who did harm often convert to do a lot of good.

            Muslims excepted

    4. I have picked up what I would normally refer to as a cold this week, lots of coughing a bit of sneezing mild head aches and a runny nose.
      I have been more than encouraged by the family to use a Tester we have at home, but what I say is, why ? How will it help any one. Perhaps if i’d used one a these kits a few years ago with a the same symptoms it might have been recorded as a Corona virus. I have not seen any one at close quarters apart from our family for about three weeks any of them that have had it they have been clear for at least two weeks but that’s it. It makes no sense and really only proves that none of the Jabs work any way. Perhaps I caught the cold from the BBC news.

    1. HA! HA! HA!
      UK do something like that, upsetting the Chinese? Not in my lifetime.
      (Sorry, shouldn’t bellow with laughter like that, but they don’t actually do sensible things in the UK).

      1. I was trying to refute your comment, but I couldn’t think of anything sensible that the UK does.
        {:-((.

          1. I am a huge admirer of someone I could not name.

            The man/woman who used their North Sea oil revenues to create Norway’s sovereign wealth fund.

            If the bastards in charge of the UK’s share (yes, you, Margaret Thatcher, your greatest single mistake) had done similarly the UK would be far better placed than it is now.

          4. Thing is, Norway never had an industrial revolution. Went from a farming (trees & fish) economy straight to oil exploitation.
            Until Ekofisk was discoverd mid 60’s and exploited, Norway was a poor country in Europe. Many here still have that memory and attitude – it’s one reason why most people don’t eat out unless it’s a birthday. It was never expected that there could be so much money under the North Sea, so it was decided with nearly unanimous approval that the profits should be saved for a rainy day that would for sure be here in a few years. The UK chose to use the windfall as revenue support.
            Have to say, the attitude of not spraying money about appeals to my Yorkshire/Scots soul 🙂
            Have a look at this:
            https://youtu.be/zu8ClwrTpbA

          5. Norway never really had an upper class, either. They were either swedish or Danish, depending on what part of what century we are talking about. So, with no overclass to tell them what to do and how to think, and to collect up all the riches, it was easy to be egaliterian, and save the windfall for a rainy day.
            To this day, Noregians don’t like folk putting on airs and graces. They like and respect the King (he’s a great bloke, BTW), but just as long as he doesn’t get above himself. Which is why the famous pictore of Kong Olav in 1970s oil crisis and rationing, paying his fare on the metro to go skiing resonated so powerfully. Queen Elizabeth is of the same mould, which is why I respect her highly.
            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7d338d6a227a747ab13204a87f5ca9da740046983ae57666d22bc6e44482aec0.jpg

            Incidentally, a little-known factoid is that, although the King tried to pay, an aide had already paid for him, so there was some confusion.
            The young lass in the benny hat was interviewed last year about it, too. Apparently, she had sat down in a crowded waggon, and suddenly found she was sitting next to the King! What to say??

          6. He looked a bit like Arthur Scargill.
            On our Fjord trips a few ago, some one explained that the reason why the Norwegians re elected their government time after time, is because the government did what they promised and the people trusted and liked them.

          7. Be about right. Also, tey elect Labour & Conservative one after the other, as it’s only fair that way.
            Trust is eroding, though – there’s a scandal in progress over government-funded accommodation for MPs being taken advantage of… (where did we hear of that before?), and politicians cosying up to their mates.
            Sigh…

          8. What to say?
            “Hello, my name’s Virginia, virgin to you but not for long.
            If you don’t enjoy me I can always sue you”

          10. Probably the most famous photo in Norway. Very powerful image.
            Kong Olav was raised in the UK during the War, and was the first significant person back in Oslo at the end of hostilities – with his borrowed British scratchy uniform and Webley revolver. They knew about symbolism and leadership back then. Big sorrow when he died in 1992.
            The other thing is, his Father, Haakon, was Danish, invited by the Norwegians, to be King at independence in 1905. Olav was the first Norwegian King since Christ-knows when. Powerful emotion.

          11. The great pity is that all the symbolism and everything it stood for has been reduced to nothing by the likes of Andrew.

          14. Charles is a far bigger disaster. The fact that he is next in line is very depressing.

          15. I’m not sure.
            Part of me thinks he’s a disaster, part of me thinks he actually appreciates the role he’s taking on and will back off from the wokery.
            I hope the back off side is correct.

          17. Charles has to say what he wants now- once he is King he has to keep his opinions to himself. I think he will be fine. He has waited so long- ain’t going to blow it when he’s in the hot seat.

    2. Nope, she’s been hired as a consultant on £1,000,000 a year.
      Plus performance related bonuses.

  99. Labour are still borrowing from the ‘Block Brexit’ rulebook

    An Opposition motion to scrap VAT was really an attempt to stop the government from governing

    TOM HARRIS • 13 January 2022 • 5:19pm

    In other news, evil Tory MPs voted to freeze the poorest families in the country to death by opposing Labour’s plans to scrap VAT on energy bills.

    In fact, so bereft of a moral compass are the Conservative Party that when one lone, valiant MP on the government benches dared to abandon her party’s crusade against decency and niceness, and voted with the Labour opposition, she had the party whip withdrawn.

    Are there no lows to which this government will not stoop?

    Well, so much for the spin following Tuesday’s decisive 90-seat margin of defeat for Labour’s opposition day motion. On hearing that Anne Marie Morris, the Conservative MP for Newton Abbot, had lost her party’s whip, it could have been understandably assumed that the government chief whip was pursuing a new, rigorous disciplinary policy under which no dissent would be tolerated. Such an illiberal departure from parliamentary tradition would not reflect well on the governing party, however many defeats it might avoid in the chamber.

    But Ms Morris was not suspended for voting for a cut in VAT. The rest of her Conservative colleagues did not vote against lower energy bills, and to describe last night’s vote in such terms is a perversion of the truth.

    Labour’s opposition day motion, in fact, guaranteed its own defeat and effectively closed off any opportunity of attracting rebel Conservative MPs’ support. For its central proposition was not just to scrap VAT but to remove from the government the right to set the agenda of House of Commons business.

    This little trick has been tried before, with the same spin and nonsense attached to those Tory MPs who supported it. As the Tantrum Parliament drew to a close in 2019 and opposition MPs, enraged about the government’s determination to honour the result of the 2016 EU referendum, spewed their phlegm-infused insults across the chamber at Boris Johnson, a clever (too clever by half, it might be said) tactic was born.

    With the connivance of the then Remain-supporting Speaker, pro-EU procerduralists contrived a vote on a motion that would remove the government’s right to dictate the Commons agenda. Now, to many, this might give the appearance of democracy: if a majority of MPs want to change the rule that says that government business must have precedence at every sitting, then what’s wrong with that?

    The word “existential” is used far too frequently and too hyperbolically, but in this case it is apt: if a government loses control of the parliamentary agenda, it cannot hope to govern. It’s as simple as that.

    Those voting for the measure agreed with this; it is why they supported it. 21 Conservative MPs who (entirely coincidentally, of course) also opposed Brexit, voted with the massed ranks of Labour, Lib Dem and SNP MPs to remove the ability of the Conservative minority administration to legislate. When those 21 were suspended from the party whip, it was widely reported that they had been punished for “voting against Brexit”. This was only a small part of the true story; they were in fact suspending for voting for a measure that would have utterly neutered their own government.

    Such motions – which, judging by last night’s debate will now become a regular part of the opposition’s armoury – are indeed existential to any government. Knowing this, Labour must have used it deliberately to minimise the number of government rebel MPs who might otherwise have been tempted to support the VAT cut. This plays into their preferred narrative that (almost) every Tory MP voted against the interests of hard-pressed constituents.

    Put another way, there are no circumstances in which the whips office under a Labour government would not have behaved in exactly the same way, whatever the ostensible subject which the temporary abolition of the government’s right to command the Commons is aimed at promoting.

    By using this tactic, Labour is admitting that it never intended to win the vote and is settling for a public relations win instead. If it really wanted to attract cross-party support it would never have invoked a tactic that brought the House into disrepute in 2019 and which led directly to Boris Johnson’s 80-seat majority a few weeks later.

    Anne Marie Morris may – unlike her unfortunate predecessors whose rebellion landed them outside the Commons – have the whip returned to her in time. But no party can tolerate their MPs voting to hobble their own government, however virtuous that vote makes them feel. If MPs unhappy with the chancellor’s reluctance to scrap VAT on energy bills want to avoid the judgment of their constituents, they should make greater efforts to expose Labour’s cynicism. A vote against the motion was not a vote against scrapping VAT, just as a vote for it was only tangentially about doing so.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/01/13/labour-still-borrowing-block-brexit-rulebook/

    1. Both Houses are in disrepute. They stink of corruption filth and greed. The whole lot needs burning, with the dross inside.

      1. Heh he!

        Do the tall ones pick on the proper stunty second in from the right? Is that bloke on the very rightmost mocking the fellow beside him?

    3. Hitler and Stalin are going for a picnic and they hop in the motor.
      Stalin demands to drive, and Hitler being a decent bloke does directions.
      After a while, Stalin says “Which way now?”
      Hitler replies “Take the third Reich!”

    1. Oops, looks like the wrong item got copied, I’ll see if I can find it again. This may take sometime, Twitter can be a nightmare.

    1. Sorry, banished.
      She’s too grasping for you, anyway. Look at the trouble Andy is in for that kind of thing…

      2. Wot a twit. Imagine paying that bint $thousands just to shag her. I mean, she wasn’t a cracker to look at, personality doubtful and I doubt if Andy could have been bothered with conversation. Stupid twit could have had much better for free.
        This woman who was molested against her will, is the one who then got one of her friends in on the carousel, isn’t she. What a set!

      3. Wot a twit. Imagine paying that bint $thousands just to shag her. I mean, she wasn’t a cracker to look at, personality doubtful and I doubt if Andy could have been bothered with conversation. Stupid twit could have had much better for free.
        This woman who was molested against her will, is the one who then got one of her friends in on the carousel, isn’t she. What a set!

      1. Gawd, and you admit to that?
        Disgraceful!!
        What kind of debauchery is now allowed on Nottle.

        1. Don’t tell me he’s interviewing the new lady on the scene Emily Brown
          …………… allegedly.

          1. Sucks teeth…
            How are you getting on LotL? I read about your dear friend and could have wept for you both. Thinking of you and hope all goes better.

          2. Haven’t heard any more today but will follow up in a couple of days. To be honest, I have enough to cope with and cannot take on too much more. It’s also a distance and we are on a limited income.

    2. I want him to stay and take the responsibility for this when the SHTF, I don’t want him slithering off and worming his way out of it.

      1. He won’t. By the time there are consequences he’ll be long gone creaming in sack loads of cash blithering on about the harm he did to this country.

        1. Like them all. This rubbish about giving knighthoods s a matter of course to outgoing PMs is completely misconceived – they should be made to pay for the damage they cause the country. They might alter their policies if that were the case.

        2. Johnson can run but he cannot hide. His nonsensical multiple assaults on our civil liberties is unfathomably wicked.

          He is exposed as an ignoramus and hypocrite. His character is about as far apart as you could get from that of Churchill. He is a alcoholic retard, selfish, disorganised and clumsy to boot.

          He will be brought to account for his misdeeds, malfeasance in public office and crimes against humanity in due course.

    1. I got that as a Christmas present. Please tell me if it’s worth reading, or if I’m better off dead.

      1. Well,………. I have read all of his books so far, this is typical of the more recent, there’s a bit too much descriptive unnecessary information. What I find helps is, as in this book it’s set in the south of Arizona. Look on Google Earth and find a town that is close to the description he gives. Have a ‘drive around’ I find it often helps with most Fiction I read.
        I just love the way Reacher beats the crap out of the baddies. As Liam Neeson does in the Taken stories.

    2. The first and third musicians from the left could certainly do with a haircut, IMHO.

      1. Not all of them are still alive. The eagles are my all time favourite band we saw them live at Wembley years ago. Erin and I had leave before the last number was completed, to collect our three boys from my mothers. And as we walked through the old Wembley car park they drove passed us in two limos. We waved, they waved back. It was one of those nights.

  107. Sod it!
    Excellent performance of Shostakovich 4 on R3, but now ready for bed.
    Night all.

      1. Try his Violin Concerto No.1 in A Minor op 99.

        The Victoria Mullova recording with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Andre Previn is my choice.

  109. Well, that’s the last Special Victim’s Unit I’ll ever watch. ‘Woke’ doesn’t even begin to describe it.

    1. I’ll tell you what was very good…the Martin Clunes programme on channel 3 this evening. Beautiful scenery and wildlife. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

      1. We’ve been watching the Shetland series that was on a few weeks ago. One more episode to go. Quite tense and great scenery. Subtitles helps.

  110. Well it is 50 years to the day when I first met the to be Mrs VVOF. To celebrate we went to the theatre to see “The Play What I Wrote”, a take on Morecambe &Wise show, followed by a meal.
    She tells me I have never been so happy, she’s right but I don’t need to tell her that, she knows me like a book. Where the hell did those 50 years go?

    1. Many congratulations to you both. To still be together after 50 years is an achievement. Hope you had a wonderful day together!

  111. Good Night All

    Teacher: “Kids, what does the chicken give you?”
    Student: “Meat!”
    Teacher: “Very good! Now what does the pig give you?”
    Student: “Bacon!”
    Teacher: “Great! And what does the fat cow give you?”
    Student: “Homework!”

  116. I tried to post the following BTL comment under a DT article about negotiations with the EU over N Ireland but it was banned for not conforming to the DT’s code!

    How long will it be before Article 16 is invoked and the Protocol is no longer in place? It took 4 years from the referendum until Britain actually left the EU – will it take our limp-wristed politicians just as long to pluck up the courage to invoke it?
    If Truss does not resolve this issue then her career and ambitions are finished.

    Was it the term ‘limp-wristed’ that they found so offensive, and if so why?

    3. The DT are employing younger people not of our generation who do not understand the use of our language, probably also people for whom English is not their mother-tongue and read something differently into what you have said. They do not understand the term, and also because sexual terms are bandied about so freely in this age the association is different for them.

      1. None of the newspapers write correct English anymore. I would, actually, be surprised if it is always foreigners making the errors…usually, if one learns a foreign language, one is more precise than a native speaker. Not always, of course.

    4. They admitted to me when I complained t’other day that their automod algorithm is overly sensitive. Of course they didn’t actually tell me what word or phrase triggered it.

    1. Randolph Scott and Cary Grant once shared a house on the beach in CA. The number of parties and the boozing was such that the house was nicknamed Cirrhosis by the Sea.

      1. Indeed, M’Lady, and that nickname suggests that the boozy parties were heterosexual and that the two male actors were sharing a house because they were pals. This is often the case with actors, especially early in their careers when it meant that the rent was halved. However, ever anxious to sell more newspapers, journalists of the day suggested that Scott and Grant were closet homosexuals. I don’t think that anything was ever proved, but it is now a common belief that the suggestion/rumour was true. I have no idea either way.

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