Sunday 16 January: No 10 parties confirm voters’ worst fears about Britain’s ruling class

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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476 thoughts on “Sunday 16 January: No 10 parties confirm voters’ worst fears about Britain’s ruling class”

    1. Good morning, Minty. And a good morning to everyone on here. Today will be a busy day for me, as I am out later to treat an IT whizz and his wife to lunch as a “Thank You” for helping me out with my laptop when I thought that I had lost all of my contacts list. (He found it hidden elsewhere, and I don’t mean in the fridge. Nevertheless I am still struggling with getting to grips with both computers and my mobile phone. A continuing struggle I’m afraid, and I guess that today will not be the last day that I treat him and his wife to a free lunch on me.

  2. When I’m as old as 81
    I’m hoping it will be fun, fun, fun!
    Up half the night (but not partying you see)
    Just loads of visits to the WC 🙁

    Still, when all’s said and done:

    I can follow Bill’s example
    And keep buggering on!

    Happy Birthday Mr Thomas. Have a great Birthday

    Good morning folks.

  3. Good moaning Nottlers.

    We need to keep our eye on the ball and not be distracted by these breaches. The point is not so much that they happened – though that is very cheeky – the point is that the lockdowns were not necessary and crashing the economy was a crime.

  4. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    SIR – Allister Heath is right: the garden party at No 10 is simply the final straw. The real problem with Boris Johnson is that he has squandered the exciting opportunities that Brexit and a huge majority gave him.

    When he won the 2019 general election, he appeared to think that his work was done. In fact, that was when his work began.

    It seems to me now that Mr Johnson’s ambitions were all about personal glory: being Prime Minister was just one step towards becoming “World King”. He has forgotten (or more likely never cared) that being PM is about service over self – not the other way round.

    Anthony Singlehurst
    London SE11

    SIR – The parties at Downing Street are indicative of a more profound problem.

    At the start of the pandemic, the Behavioural Insights Team was concerned as to whether the British public would comply with strict regulations. In this, it showed its ignorance: Britain is a strongly law-abiding nation. However, we have a ruling class that has demonstrated, again and again, that it considers itself to be above the law.

    We must challenge this entire group, not just to learn some humility, but also to recognise that we, the public, will enforce consequences.

    Linda Hughes
    Newton Abbot, Devon

    SIR – I was quite prepared to support Boris Johnson in the brouhaha over drinks in the Downing Street garden. Let’s be honest: who hasn’t pushed the boundaries during lockdown?

    However, No 10 partying on the eve of the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral has crossed the line. I can no longer support this Government, and Mr Johnson must go. To disrespect the rules is one thing; to disrespect the Queen is quite another.

    Jonny Dart
    Norton-sub-Hamdon, Somerset

    Bunter’s school report, when he was 17 years of age, described him as “cavalier”. How perceptive! This one word neatly sums him up. To this perhaps we should add “casual with the truth”…

    2. Anthony Singlehurst is correct that Johnson has somewhat squandered the chances presented to him as PM due to personal failings. However, Mr Singlehurst has omitted the overarching reason: Johnson is working to an agenda not voted for by the people and it is no coincidence that so many other countries’ leaders are doing the same thing and using a virus as the cover for doing so. Forget what Johnson was actively doing and put our focus on his personal failings and we will likely fall into the hands of another would-be dictator. It’s rumoured that Gove is making soundings re the leadership.

      1. Nigel Farage has shown himself to be an excellent journalist on GB News and he is a very effective orator.

        BUT

        Farage lacked strength when it was most needed. He had Johnson by the short and curlies but to borrow from Chaucer, he also had his coillons (testicles) in his hand but omitted to give said coillons a squeeze and a twist when a squeeze and a twist of his testicles was what Johnson needed most to have. By removing his Brexit Party candidates from standing against sitting Tory MPs Farage gave the Bonker carte blanche to keep the Conservative Party full of remainers and to get away with the most pathetic concessions on fishing and N Ireland when it came to his Brexit arrangements.

        The real Brexit traitor was undoubtedly Gove. He mysteriously arrived in Brussels on the eve of the deal being struck just when it looked as if Frost would hold firm on both N Ireland and fishing, I wonder what Gove did? If that piece of excrement becomes PM then even the feeble Brexit we do have will be undone.

        (From The Prologue to the Pardoner’s Tale:

        I wolde I hadde thy coillons in myn hond
        In stide of relikes or of seintuarie.
        Lat kutte hem of, I wol thee helpe hem carie;
        They shul be shryned in an hogges toord.”         )

  5. Concern for UK security as anti-vaxxer groups evolve towards US-style militias. 16 January 2022.

    Counter-terrorism officials and police are increasingly concerned over the trajectory of the UK’s anti-vaxxer movement as it evolves towards violent extremism and the formation of US-style militias.

    Boris Johnson is among those receiving direct security updates on individuals prepared to “undermine national health security”.

    The movement’s more extreme elements are recruiting and strategising over the encrypted social media messaging app Telegram, with one UK anti-vaxxer channel asking for “men of integrity” to “fight for our children’s future”.

    This is a good example of what passes for a large part of government nowadays. The manufacture of libels against those opposed to State Policy. The article is lucid and fluent and one imagines most of its content was supplied by the intelligence services; probably one of those mentioned in the text and almost certainly at their behest. Anti-vaxxer was originally coined as a term for; on admittedly sketchy medical grounds, those opposed to the Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine. It was adopted by the PTB for Covid since it’s snappy and has a doubtful history. Here it’s been lumped in with the “Far-Right”; US Style militia’s no less. This alone qualifies it for fantasy. There is not the remotest possibility of such an “evolution” since the sine qua non of such groups is the possession of firearms; something impossible in the UK.

    It is difficult to underestimate the vast industry that exists to confuse and control the UK population. The MSM are the cutting edge but behind them lies multiple agencies, the Nudge Unit, 77 Brigade etc., but most are unknown, there are two mentioned here that I have never heard of before. This is certainly just the tip of the iceberg. In this environment Truth is the exception, not the Rule!

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jan/15/concern-for-uk-security-as-anti-vaxxer-groups-evolve-towards-us-style-militias

    2. Morning, Araminta.

      Your comment has reminded me of a Channel 4 news item that I saw when visiting a friend last Thursday. The focus of the report was on a group of men, IIRC the group was named Alpha Men, training in tactics to lead protests and defeat police tactics. A number of them had a military bearing and one spokesman was wearing his green beret and insignia. This is what happens when a government runs amok, flouts the law and attempts to become dictatorial. This current government under Johnson’s inept ‘leadership’ has lost its authority and has to be replaced. Never again must the people be afraid of its government, that way leads to tyranny.

      Via Twitter I see that Gove is on manoeuvres re the leadership. The very last thing we either want or need is that creep as PM. He’s been committed to the stupidity that Johnson has imposed on the Country and where his affiliations lie are at best unsure.

      1. I suspect he wants to take Britain back into the EU.

        We must not forget that he arrived in Brussels just before the deal with the EU was agreed. Before he arrived it looked as if Lord Frost would not budge on N Ireland or Fishing. One day the truth will come out – but I am pretty sure that Britain’s capitualtion on these two vital points was engineered by Gove.

    3. What utter rubbish and blatant propaganda.
      In Austria and Germany, they’re being smeared as “far right extremists”.
      Yet again, it seems that governments are moving in lockstep.

      1. Here, BB2, we ‘March in step’

        It’s Americans who tie their ankles together in order to lockstep.

      2. Authoritarian governments always create ‘the other’ as an internal enemy to keep the population cowed and onside.
        The non-vaccinated are the Jews de nos jours.

    4. I think the groups the Guardian describes are largely made up of former servicemen, many of them with a full 22ys of service under their belts, who are totally fed up with the way that the Country they served has been betrayed by the ruling classes.

    5. Morning, Minty. I will not allow the government to inject me with an experimental drug which has killed many people. No doubt I will be called an anti-vaxxer.
      However, at the age of 11 I was vaccinated with TABT (one of the Ts stands for Typhoid, can’t remember the others) prior to going to Germany with my Army father in 1947.
      Subsequently, I have been vaccinated against Yellow Fever and other diseases during my travels with the RAF.
      Clearly, I am not an anti-vaxxer. I am a person who can research things and make decisions for myself.

      1. Good morning, Delboy

        Caroline plays the organ in our local parish church. In the last 12 months she has played at more funerals than ever before and many of the deceased have been double or triple vaccinated and died younger than normal.

        The authorities are most reluctant to give autopsies because the PTB throughout Europe are very keen for the truth not to emerge.

      2. #MeToo, Delboy and I will not willingly allow the current gene therapy to invade my poor old decrepit body.

        I wish to live my life as it’s meant to be, until Him upstairs calls for me and not a deadly needle in the arm.

      3. I’m with you, Delboy. I’m not anti-vaccination as such (I’ve had loads in the course of my travels round the globe), but I am against being forcibly involved in an experiment.

    6. Guardian writers have been reading “Starship Troopers” again and are quaking in their boots
      “It began with the veterans”

    7. Wait until the anti-vaxxers are accused of sacrificing babies in the course of their religious services.
      Nowadays, for maximum impact, the babies would have to be black and non-Christian.

  6. Brexit and sovereignty

    SIR – Liz Truss says she will invoke Article 16 “if we can’t find a solution” to the Northern Ireland Protocol, implying that ECJ jurisdiction over Northern Ireland may be accepted in some circumstances.

    But no other sovereign nation has compromised its sovereignty in exchange for a trade deal with the EU, and nor should the UK. It would conflict directly with Article 36 of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, which upholds our sovereignty.

    The protocol is not fit for purpose. It also runs counter to the UN Charter on the sovereignty of nation states, as well as the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and the 1800 Act of Union.

    Conflating the protocol with international law is disingenuous. Since UK sovereignty is not negotiable, the protocol will need to be scrapped at some point, and now is surely as good a time as any to invoke Article 16.

    Roger J Arthur
    Pulborough, West Sussex

    SIR – Maroš Šefčovič, vice-president of the European Commission for Interinstitutional Relations, deserves to be ridiculed for his claim that “the Northern Ireland Protocol was the most complicated part of the Brexit negotiations, and it is the foundation of the entire deal. Without the protocol, the whole system will collapse”.

    So apparently our entire relationship with the EU revolves around how to manage a trickle of goods crossing the land border into the Irish Republic.

    How big is that trickle? About 0.2 per cent of goods imports into the EU single market, but enough for the EU to get into a stew about. How carefully would those goods be checked if they came into the Irish Republic from the United Kingdom by sea, rather than over the land border? About 3 per cent of the trucks would be inspected.

    This problem has always been a nonsense – just like the official position of the Irish government that “any checks or controls anywhere on the island would constitute a hard border”.

    Dr D R Cooper
    Maidenhead, Berkshire

    1. From Roger J. Arthur’s letter:

      Liz Truss says she will invoke Article 16 “if we can’t find a solution” to the Northern Ireland Protocol …….”

      There is no acceptable solution as the EU has already repeatedly shown. Truss must stop pretending there is, stop faffing about and invoke Article 16 straight away.

      1. Never mind article 16, Richard, since it’s seen by all and EU sundry as under-pinning the whole Withdrawal Agreement then it is time to negate the WA and trade under WTO rules – that will hurt the EU exports much more than ours.

        Oh that we had a PM and a Cabinet with the best interests of our Sovereign Nation at heart.

    2. From Roger J. Arthur’s letter:

      Liz Truss says she will invoke Article 16 “if we can’t find a solution” to the Northern Ireland Protocol …….”

      There is no acceptable solution as the EU has already shown. Truss must stop pretending there is, stop faffing about and invoke Article 16 straight away.

  7. Brexit and sovereignty

    SIR – Liz Truss says she will invoke Article 16 “if we can’t find a solution” to the Northern Ireland Protocol, implying that ECJ jurisdiction over Northern Ireland may be accepted in some circumstances.

    But no other sovereign nation has compromised its sovereignty in exchange for a trade deal with the EU, and nor should the UK. It would conflict directly with Article 36 of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, which upholds our sovereignty.

    The protocol is not fit for purpose. It also runs counter to the UN Charter on the sovereignty of nation states, as well as the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and the 1800 Act of Union.

    Conflating the protocol with international law is disingenuous. Since UK sovereignty is not negotiable, the protocol will need to be scrapped at some point, and now is surely as good a time as any to invoke Article 16.

    Roger J Arthur
    Pulborough, West Sussex

    SIR – Maroš Šefčovič, vice-president of the European Commission for Interinstitutional Relations, deserves to be ridiculed for his claim that “the Northern Ireland Protocol was the most complicated part of the Brexit negotiations, and it is the foundation of the entire deal. Without the protocol, the whole system will collapse”.

    So apparently our entire relationship with the EU revolves around how to manage a trickle of goods crossing the land border into the Irish Republic.

    How big is that trickle? About 0.2 per cent of goods imports into the EU single market, but enough for the EU to get into a stew about. How carefully would those goods be checked if they came into the Irish Republic from the United Kingdom by sea, rather than over the land border? About 3 per cent of the trucks would be inspected.

    This problem has always been a nonsense – just like the official position of the Irish government that “any checks or controls anywhere on the island would constitute a hard border”.

    Dr D R Cooper
    Maidenhead, Berkshire

  8. SIR – After boosting their profits by closing branches, restricting the number that take cash (Letters, January 2) and forcing us to use the internet, banks are now looking for ways to make even more money.

    I run a small community bank account to collect the proceeds of coffee mornings, along with book and jumble sales, totalling under £1,500 per annum. HSBC (and other banks) are starting to charge £5 a month, plus 40p per cheque, to administer such an account. This may not be much for a bank executive, but it hurts us.

    It is clear that, while they claim to support communities, these banks’ desire is to make profits at a distance, shielded by the telephone and the internet. I am closing our account.

    Tony Foot
    Beaminster, Dorset

    Come along now, Tony Foot; you should have realised by now that the banks exist only for the banks. Customers are merely fodder for their purpose.

  10. As you may have heard this morning, Ginge and Whinge are seeking a judicial review of their security arrangements when they visit this country.

    These BTLers probably speak for many of us:

    Caroline Morrell
    6 HRS AGO
    The Montecito pair have proved that not having them in the UK following their decision to leave provides benefits all round.
    Two fewer free loading Royals on the payroll and less TV coverage are win win for me.
    They disappear, don’t want to be Royals but then expect all the perks.
    Blaming the Gvt saying it is their fault they can’t come back, like the children they are.
    Try you aren’t welcome by the public or the RF.
    How about growing up and accepting responsibility for your lives.
    Pay your own way if you come to the UK it really is that simple as now you are private citizens not Royals like the Uncle.
    Recollections obviously vary with that pair of freeloaders who live to sue whenever they don’t get their way.
    Whinge and scweeeeam all you like you like we really don’t care now.

    Steve Jones
    5 HRS AGO
    I think I can say with little fear of contradiction that there are no two people on the planet more utterly worthless than these two…….and that IS saying something given the competition.

    Vyvyian Webb
    3 HRS AGO
    But Harry the U.K. is not your home. You never did want to return as you and your wife condemned us all as inherently racist. You stay where you are safe in the knowledge the USA is a super country which fulfils all your desires. It must be great riding round on a cycle all day followed by a tank full of security guards. I am struggling to remember a time when you were not liked by a large swathe of the British public. You had it all and threw it way for a female Svengali. Stay where you are the British public like it that way. It would be nice to receive the 32 million spent on that spectacle of a ‘wedding’. Just imagine how many Veterans we could bring in from the cold streets this winter.

    MARY LOUGHLIN
    4 HRS AGO
    MM and husband have now released a lengthy statement from their legal team claiming they launched a Judicial Review last September to obtain once again UK police protection whenever they chose to visit these shores.
    All the news outlets have been fed the story.
    Life must be getting hard in the uS when they now choose to release this information four months after the initial action.
    Judicial Reviews only usually take 3 to 4 months.
    Not long ago, he and his wife broadcast to the world that the UK was a racist country with a racist monarchy.
    All the bridges have been broken and burnt. There is no way back for those two.
    A cat charity in Wales and a small boy sleeping in a tent here raised seperately more money for charity then the £37,000 they raised in a year for good causes.
    Yet they bought an 11 million dollar home that they no longer like and secured mind boggling financial deals with the likes of Netflix.
    For one moment does he really think the Queen wants to see him and his wife? He has shamed the monarchy with his cheap, disloyal, opportunistic actions.
    Bye bye, so long, farewell.

    * * *

    Well said. Self-awareness never was in their make up. Shame that we can’t say the same about their sense of self-entitlement!

    1. Final sentence of last comment reads ‘Bye bye, so long, farewell’. I’d replace the last word with ‘B*gger off!’

    2. They should get proper jobs. “Charity” is anything but these days. Grubby money-laundering more like.

    3. They certainly aren’t self aware, are they? I wonder if they know that a good number of people here don’t care if they never visit the UK again. Given they wanted to “escape the press” perhaps they should just STFU and enjoy what they asked for .

  11. Boris has kept the economy open and the recovery on track – and that matters more than a drinks party. 16 January 2022.

    At the same time, the PM defied the Eeyores to lift restrictions. When he ended the lockdown in July, epidemiologists called it a dangerous and unethical experiment and the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) predicted that hospital admissions would rise to between 2,000 and 7,000 a day. In the event, they fell. When omicron hit in November, Neil Ferguson’s team warned of 5,000 deaths a day and Sage once again predicted thousands of hospitalisations. Again, the PM ignored them and, again, he was vindicated.

    That, in my book, matters vastly more than whether he wandered into his garden while officials were drinking alcohol.

    When making judgements about people; particularly politicians we are not required to give them a Free Pass on some activity because they have perfomed some unrelated charitable or admirable action. Adolf Hitler was kind to his personal chef, overlooking her Jewish links and ensuring her immunity from detention and a visit to the Extermination Camps, but this does not excuse him from the Holocaust.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/01/15/boris-has-kept-economy-open-recovery-track-matters-drinks/

    1. ‘Morning, Minty. Those who regard the infringements as minor and not worthy of all the attention are, in my view, missing the point – and that is that he has lied consistently when found out. All trust in this man is gone, and this situation is of his own making.

    2. Morning Minty, I read that by Hannan. The fact he wrote it speaks volumes to me about him and his character. That he wrote it in the first place tells me he will write anything to fill column inches, if he believes what he wrote that would tell me he lacks a sense of integrity, but then that is not surprising really, he was a politician.

      1. Morning VVOF. I used to like Hannan at one time (despite his faults) but over the last year or so he’s become something of an establishment lackey!

        1. I think he always was. The function of the Tory Eurosceptics was to soak up the people’s discontent and make them feel they were represented in the Government.
          They never actually envisaged Brexit.

        2. Charles Moore’s enoblement seems to have had the same effect if some of his recent columns are any guide.

        3. I used to think that Hannan was one of the few journalists who genuinely believed in Brexit – but once he supported May’s pathetic WA (as did Grease-Slime and B. Johnson) it was clear that he had, and still has, feet of clay.

          1. And I recall the article where he said he much preferred living in Brussels rather than the UK…

          2. After one EU election, Nigel Farage led a coalition of MEPs banded together under the title EFD (European party for Freedom and Democracy) which had a sufficient number of members to give them the rights to a substantial time to speak to the EU assembly. Daniel Hannan then went around the EDF members persuading a number of them to leave the EFD to the point where the numbers were not great enough for them to have a substantial speaking time.

            Nigel Farage manage to over-ride this by persuading a few MEP less-than-savoury “mavericks” to join a re-named EFDD (European party of Freedom and Direct Democracy) which defeated Hannan’s manoeuvres. At that point, Farage was accused of being a terrible person because of his accepting “less-than-savoury MEPs”.

    3. I agree with this, but I also think that he is being crucified now because he has not played ball by shutting us all down again.
      His problem is that he probably has a dossier of misbehaviour thicker than the Bible and so cannot govern according to his instincts, which though cynical are often correct.

  12. No 10 parties confirm voters’ worst fears about Britain’s ruling class

    Except the staff at number 10 aren’t really the ruling class

  13. No 10 parties confirm voters’ worst fears about Britain’s ruling class

    Except the staff at number 10 aren’t really the ruling class

  15. Oh dear, Jock O’Vitch has lost his appeal. Presumably the three judges were not amused at being asked to sit on a Sunday!

    What now, I wonder, apart from deportation and a 3-year ban on entering Australia?

      3. Happy birthday, Uncle Bill. The Master (Harry Lime) and I (Elsie Bloodaxe) send you our very best wishes.

    2. Apparently the reason given was that they were afraid he would become “an icon of free choice” to anti-vaxxers.
      If that doesn’t worry you, then it ought to!

      The comments BTL in the Mail reflect this:
      “Absolutely the right decision or it would have every single Australian citizen who had the vaccine and followed the rules look like idiots. ”
      This person, and the 342 people who upvoted the comment, appear to see the vaccine purely in terms of being a test of one’s obedience to government!

    3. Lots of people claiming that his absence devalues the tournament and demanding the Australian leg of “slam” be moved elsewhere; Belgrade probably or possibly somewhere in Africa.

    1. Happy birthday old chap.
      Another of the powerful people, squares, cubes and fourths a plenty. Should be a good year unless you tire.

    2. Happy birthday Mr T, hope that you’re celebrating in style and that those darned cats behave.

    12. Wishing you a very Happy Birthday, Bill! Have a wonderful day and watch out for the Blenheim when you’re up that ladder! Let the glorious cats look after you! 🍾🎂🎉

  17. ‘We’ll fight to the end.’ Ukraine defiant in face of Vladimir Putin’s phoney war. Luke Harding. 16 January 2022.

    But the Kyiv creatives know how to shoot. All are combat-hardened veterans of the 2014 war. Filimonov took part in the bloody battle for Ilovaysk, when the Russian army trapped Ukrainian forces, and was wounded by an enemy mortar strike. After an operation to remove shrapnel, he returned to the front, serving as a volunteer against Moscow with the Azov battalion.

    “We have registered weapons. We will defend our homes,” Filimonov said. “Putin wants to go back to the borders of the Russian empire. You can see this in Belarus, Kazakhstan. Here in Ukraine he wants to create a tsarstvo – a tsardom. This is a war of civilisations. It’s the west versus Eurasia, democracy against slavery and authoritarianism. We want democracy and freedom.”

    The Azov battalion is a notorious Neo-Nazi formation and would probably have little choice in its end. That it would be fighting for Democracy and Freedom sems unlikely. Is the general population similarly committed? One doubts it. Within living memory Ukraine was a part of Russia. The previous administration was overthrown by a CIA sponsored coup and is now ruled by a corrupt globalist conspiracy. It’s difficult to believe that the people do not know this which would surely limit their enthsiam for a Gotterdammerung! We saw in Afghanistan the expression of self-delusion that pervades the West. Ukraine is another example of it!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/15/well-fight-to-the-end-ukraine-defiant-in-face-of-vladimir-putins-phoney-war

  18. Good morning all, it’s 39F and clear. Time to release some golf balls back into the wild.

  19. Good morning all. A bright start to the day with the scattered clouds visible from the window tinged with red, but a still chilly -2°C outside.

  21. Good morning all.

    Overcast, dull, mild , but my word, you should hear the birds chattering in the garden , they were very noisy at first light .

    Moh was up early, pre golf breakfast, fresh ham I cooked last night , and poached eggs .

  22. Morning, all!
    Any news how Peter/Peddy is getting on with reconnecting to the WWWeb? It seems to be taking an age…{:-((

    4. Happy Birthday, dear Bill!! You’ll have to make do with a slightly croaky rendition, as I have had what I suspect may be tge lurgy for a couple of days, but I’m sure you’ll still hear it if I face in the right direction x

      1. At least we have no doubt about who his parents are.
        Two self-pitying whingers, though one did get the chance to grow up.

    3. Is he arguing that a British army captain, who has seen active service, cannot protect himself?

      2. I think what he is (not) saying is he would prefer a protect officer takes a bullet for him or his wife, rather than him having to take one.
        If he can afford a protect detail in the US he can afford to bring it over here, or does Sleepy Joe provide it?

    4. Does he really believe that droves of assassins are roaming the streets of the UK waiting to see him off?

      2. Who knows what goes round in that mind, I would have thought they would need protection more in the US.

      1. His Uncle Andrew is selling some of his property – he has put his skiing home on the market for £x millions. Harry must sell all his property in UK and apply for US citizenship forthwith.

  25. Oh dear God, how will I deal with this terrible news?

    As an overpaid actor once said, “Frankly my dear I don’t give a damm”

    Prince Harry claims it is not safe to return to Britain

    Duke of Sussex says he and his family are ‘unable to return to his home’ since they lost taxpayer-funded police protection https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2022/01/15/prince-harry-claims-not-safe-return-britain/

  27. Oh dear! I made a comment on the Carrie article and got a silly response from some idiot called Peter Findlay!!

    Robert Spowart
    15 MIN AGO
    Message Actions
    “Momentary lapse in judgement”??
    Bullshonet!
    More a demonstration of the “the rules, of course, don’t apply to me” arrogance we’ve come to expect from the current Guv’ment.

    REPLY2 REPLIES 11

    PFPeter Findlay
    11 MIN AGO
    Reply to Robert Spowart
    Sneaky little leftie getting your whingeing in aren’t you?

    REPLY 0FLAG

    RS Robert Spowart
    JUST NOW
    Reply to Robert Spowart – view message
    Message Actions
    Oh dear, Peter.
    If you disagree with my opinion, then please explain why. Otherwise your ad hominem attacks make you look even more stupid than I may seem.

    REPLY
    0

  28. 344248+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Sunday 16 January: No 10 parties confirm voters’ worst fears about Britain’s ruling class.

    Yes but unless they are double thick then some. the majority of voters
    have known this for decades, corruption / treachery has been / is rife.

    The main instigators of political treacherous shite of the lab/lib/con, act as a coalition encouraging the herd with fairy tale manifesto’s vows, promises, & pledges enough to make them blind to their children being used as comfort items for the foreign potential inhouse troop brigade, by the by, more arriving daily, ONGOING.

    Among the double thicko’s in the electorate are those that if the party
    leader / cabinet had HORNS protruding form the forehead would still very much be in the running as the mindset of fools is PARTY FIRST & FOREMOST.

    This is only outdone by the nose grippers / best of the worst brigade
    little wonder we as a nation are leading the field in odious political orchestrated disarrayment, the lab/lib/con/greens coalition political hierarchy count on it & for the last four decades the electorate have NEVER let them down.

  29. It must be reassuring for Johnson to know that he and his ‘party goings-on’ are not the “Headline Act” in the Sunday Telegraph

    Live: Novak Djokovic set to be deported after losing Australia visa case – latest updates

    Even the antics of Hari Cari and Ginge the Whinge rate higher spots on the page than him

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/#source=refresh

    2. A new do it anywhere sport, that you can do at anytime of the year

      Skating without Ice

    1. TBF – the Australian government is merely carrying on with a hallowed tradition.
      The original British settlers had no choice either.

      2. 344248+up ticks,

        Morning R,

        They have been available all the time the lab/lib/con coalition were voting in destruct
        mode, they were treated tactically,treacherously,
        despicably.

        NOW the shite has connected with the fan the
        realisation is dawning.

    1. This clip confuses me somewhat, Horace. Does the group consist of three or four singers? Yours sincerely, Confused of Colchester.

  34. Toofers Day

    One

    Two guys are walking through a game park & they come across a lion that has not eaten for days.
    The lion starts chasing the two men.
    They run as fast as they can and the one guy starts getting tired and decides to say a prayer,
    “Please turn this lion into a Christian, Lord.”
    He looks to see if the lion is still chasing and he sees the lion on its knees.
    Happy to see his prayer answered, he turns around and heads towards the lion.
    As he comes closer to the lion, he hears the it saying a prayer:
    “Thank you Lord for the food I am about to receive.”

    Two

    There was a Daddy mole, a Mummy mole, and a baby mole.
    They lived in a hole out in a field, near a farmhouse.
    Daddy mole poked his head out of the hole and said, “Mmmm, I smell sausage!”
    Mummy mole poked her head outside the hole and said, “Mmmm, I smell pancakes!”
    Baby mole tried to stick his head outside but couldn’t because of the two bigger moles.
    Baby mole said, “The only thing I smell is mol asses.”

  35. Greetings to all NoTTLers. Very many thanks for all your messages and good wishes. The day began well and has just got better and better. Cards, presents, zoom coming up. It is almost worth getting older!

    By chance, my French mate Henri (aged 70) sent me some snaps this morning from his trip last week to the Beaufortain – in the Savoie. Here is one of them – about 6,000 feet above sea level.. Henri is on the left in the cap. Good man. (Shocked to see no masks!!!)

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9053fd2398744cb485226dc9b3607d5d518aab43cff69d5214d5d36be2318917.png

    6. Happy Birthday, Bill; yer 6 months and 2 days ahead of me !

      A glass of vintage Port would probly go down well …

  36. Uff Da!!

    ♫Bought and sold for Big Pharma gold

    Such a parcel of rogues in a Uni♫

    It seems the true story of the demonisation of Ivermectin is now out there and can only be defined as a crime against humanity

    “There’s one more thing you should know: One

    week prior to Dr. Andrew Hill’s pre-print posting of his revised paper,

    the University of Liverpool, where Hill works, received a $40 million grant from Unitaid to study infectious diseases—Dr. Hill’s specialty.

    Fourty million reasons to silence the irrefutable evidence for ivermectin.

    Forty million reasons to let folks take their inevitable place on the

    train tracks with resolute adhesive on their shoes.

    Hill’s “six-weeks” has now turned into nearly one year—a year during which Hill

    threw out most of the studies in the original paper, and proclaimed

    that ivermectin offers no mortality benefit. “There is no longer

    evidence for clinical benefits after removal of trials at risk of bias

    or medical fraud,” Hill wrote recently.

    Killer Words

    https://bywords.substack.com/p/i-dont-know-how-you-sleep-at-night
    Forty million,cheap at double the price compared to the untold billions the Vaxx has made

    I commend the whole article to you all

      1. Sophie: ‘Were you in breach of the rules? Yes or No?”
        Sir Kier: “Let’s not argue about it!’

  38. Ahem

    “Once you have removed Boris’s popularity with the electorate, you have
    removed the entire point to the man — and there is nothing left.

    But this being said, it was not Boris Johnson who invited 100 civil
    servants to a nice garden party in 10 Downing Street at the very height
    of lockdown, free sausage rolls and crisps, bring a bird and a bottle —
    it was a civil servant. More specifically a civil servant called Martin
    Reynolds, the PM’s principal private secretary, whose background I had
    entirely accurately guessed before I bothered to look it up: public
    school followed by Oxbridge.
    Johnson’s sense of entitlement may
    grate, but it is the sense of entitlement within the public sector — and
    especially the higher echelons of the civil service — which is the real
    problem for this country. Martin thought a garden party would be a nice
    idea (and so, presumably did the 40 or so colleagues who turned up) at a
    time when ordinary people were barred by law from visiting dying or
    elderly relatives. It was a perfect expression of the divide in our
    country, between an endlessly entitled public sector which considers
    itself above the fray and a beleaguered private sector which pays for
    its existence.
    A year or so ago I mentioned here the growing divide
    between these two sectors of our labour force — a divide which is
    economic, social and increasingly political (where the public sector has
    13 per cent more Labour voters than the private sector). The number of
    public sector jobs grew during the first year of the pandemic (and has
    continued to grow), and while wages in the private sector decreased,
    those in the public sector rose. I suggested back then that we would
    emerge from this pandemic with a very buoyant public sector which would
    be resistant to cede its enormous advantages. So it has been proven, I
    think. The one group of people who above all else do not wish this
    pandemic to end are those who are paid by the public purse and who
    continue to demand more and more restrictions on our behaviour — knowing
    that while this may ruin the education of a generation of children and
    put plenty of firms out of business, their jobs and their privileges
    will remain secure.
    The gap in wages between the two sectors persists
    every year and, depending on which measure you believe, the
    differential is either 13 per cent or 7 per cent. It used to be said
    that a career in the public sector was secure but comparatively low paid
    — not any more. Further, public sector workers enjoy both a shorter
    working week and an average of three more days of holiday per year than
    their counterparts in the private sector. They take many more days off
    sick than those in the private sector, too — 7.9 per year as against
    5.5. And of course there are those whopping pensions and that
    comparative job security.
    All of this is a consequence of a public
    sector which does not need to pay attention to those most vulgar of
    things, commerce and competition. Terms of employment can be
    extraordinarily generous because there is no commercial reason for them
    not to be. And so we have this section of the population — some 5.7
    million people — who do not subscribe to the notion that money needs to
    be made and believe instead that we as a country cannot merely exist,
    but continue to pay hugely inflated salaries to people who are deeply
    reluctant to do any form of work. It is the voices from this sector
    which have been most strident in demanding lockdowns and restrictions,
    presumably because they believe that we can exist like this forever.
    That garden party was the perfect expression of a sector which has lost
    its grasp on reality.’

    WRITTEN BY
    Rod Liddle

    1. You have to remember that Boris has an enormous network of friends and acquaintances, and Rod Liddle falls into that category.

  40. Who do you think you are kidding Mr Putin? 16 january 2022.

    Volunteers in the Kiev Territorial Defence Unit trained in an industrial area of the country’s capital as Foreign Secretary Liz Truss called for Russia to ‘halt its aggression’.

    BELOW THE LINE

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0421546e53f8bbe90a6a9dac7a649f16dec507f54b908b42fa44bcfa54ac3983.png

    The last comment courtesy of Gavin Williamson. Lol!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10406919/Ukraines-Dads-Army-train-fake-guns-Putins-100-000-strong-force-masses-border.html#comments

  41. I was delighted with the school report extract I have been sent said to be from Martin Hammond, Master in College at Eton:
    “Boris really has adopted a disgracefully cavalier attitude to his classical studies. It is a question of priorities, which most of his colleagues have no difficulty in sorting out. Boris sometimes seem affronted when criticised for what amounts to a gross failure of responsibility (and surprsied at the same time that he was not appointed Captain of the School for next half). I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception, one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.”

    A pithy observation that seems so very apt today and describing an attitude that would appear to be as infectious among his fellows as Moronic.

  42. I was delighted with the school report extract I have been sent said to be from Martin Hammond, Master in College at Eton:
    “Boris really has adopted a disgracefully cavalier attitude to his classical studies. It is a question of priorities, which most of his colleagues have no difficulty in sorting out. Boris sometimes seem affronted when criticised for what amounts to a gross failure of responsibility (and surprsied at the same time that he was not appointed Captain of the School for next half). I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception, one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.”

    A pithy observation that seems so very apt today and describing an attitude that would appear to be as infectious among his fellows as Moronic.

    1. Imagine a school teacher writing a report like that nowadays.
      He/She/It would lose their job and the delicate flower would need years of counselling.

    2. Good morning JWE

      There are some days when I truly believe Bors is okay , abit misguided but okay.

      Then there are many days when Billy Bunter, Mr Pickwick, Pigling Bland and the very worst reckless child I ever knew , who feared nothing , so very talented and very clever , but he didn’t know the meaning of NO No No .

      I knew a boy when I was about 8 years old when my parents lived overseas, he was also 8 years old , a proper lad , fearless, cheerful , a laugh , similar to his father who was a friend of my father. The lad prodded and poked large tunnel spider’ s lairs , he balanced scorpions on rulers , he shinned up trees like the banana collectors , his was great fun .. and showed off one hell of alot

      During that time abroad I ended up in hospital with pneumonia for about a week , I was quite poorly and confined to the children’s ward.

      One afternoon there was a commotion the sound of pulleys and yelling etc behind the curtains that separated the bed space.

      Nurse said to me , you have a friend in the next bed to you , so you can share books and chat !

      When the curtains were pulled , there was Will, BOTH legs in plaster …

      How on earth and what … He said he had been attempting to fly off his parents garage roof with some contraption he had put together .

      Boys will be boys, and there are many who take huge risks , have good judgement or bad judgement , but it is the trying that matters , isn’t it?

      1. Yes, it is trying that matters. We test ourselves and learn. It can hurt. Nobody ever said that being alive, being a human being, would be without pain, physical pain, mental pain, pain of failure, pain of loss. We rise above it.

        1. Well, we do if we are allowed to know that we will fail at some time and need to deal with it. I fear that those who have been subjected to the “all shall have prizes and none shall fail” treatment will grow up unable to cope with all that real life will throw at them.

          1. Good Point. My perspective is that of someone who seldom came first. My box of prizes only has one item. On the other hand I must say that my greatest prize is the Sultana.

          2. I’m afraid I was used to coming first (or very close up) academically, but I learned to deal with failure on the athletics field 🙂

          3. Well, I’m one up on you. I fell short academically* and athletically.
            *I got bored after five minutes.

      2. Not when he puts my and mine at risk with the likes of net zero, unaccountable XR to name just 2 examples of his poor judgement.

      4. “There are some days when I truly believe Boris is okay , a bit misguided but okay.”
        I just wish that was the case, Maggie, I think he’s dragging down our country to a level which will parallel some of the worst third world sh*tholes.

      5. Your good nature is projected on to Johnson, I feel, here! It’s the stock in trade of creatures of his sort to mimic empathy and fine feelings, to reassure those who actually have them.

    3. Some time back my mother dug out my old school reports. I said she should bin them, but cheerfully she read them out.

      I found one from a history teacher which said simply ‘Will never amount to anything, is distracted, lazy and spends all lesson day dreaming.’

      I photo copied it and send him my last invoice. I’ve not had a reply but when we billed a quarter of a million I felt that vindication.

      1. Perhaps he intended it as a motivation for you to prove him wrong. History teachers can be sneaky too. :@)

    1. I imagine the BBC has two choices – double down on the woke nonsense or change tack to a more centrist view.

      As it simply hasn’t the people to do the latter, it will double down.

      No doubt it believes this is all the fault of the ‘Far Right’ it’s been demonising (and doens’t exist) for the last decade but the reality is it’s done it to itself. If it could recognise this idiocy and look at itself criticall it might realise just how far it has fallen.

      Sadly I don’t think it can.

      2. BBC staff ‘need to put up with viewpoints they don’t like’, says boss

        A BBC executive rejects ‘cancel culture’, says identity should not trump impartiality and employees should ‘leave their prejudice at the door’

        BBC staff must put up with views they don’t like on issues such as transgender rights because the corporation does not subscribe to cancel culture, one of its senior executives has said.

        David Jordan, the BBC’s director of editorial policy and standards, was appearing before a House of Lords select committee where Lord Lipsey, the Labour peer, asked how the BBC would deal with the thorny issue of trans rights, when the two opposing sides “are not just not on speaking terms, they actually want the other lot silenced”.

        Mr Jordan replied: “We are very committed to making sure that viewpoints are heard from all different sorts of perspectives and that we don’t subscribe to the cancel culture that some groups would put forward.”

        He said that the BBC is “committed to freedom of expression, we’re committed to reflecting all viewpoints – that is our job. Whether or not some members of our staff like it is not the point. The point is that they have to adhere to that too, and they leave their prejudice at the door when they arrive and need to be prepared to hear viewpoints which personally they don’t agree with and might disagree with strongly.”

        Mr Jordan said that “identity is the hard edge of impartiality, in current circumstances, whether you’re talking about gender identity, racial identity, whatever identity you’re talking about. There is undoubtedly an issue about whether or not people regard impartiality as trumping identity, or the other way around”.

        Tim Davie, the director-general, appeared before the same committee and said that the BBC made “reasonable progress” last year in “culturally resetting the BBC”, including a renewed focus on impartiality.

        Mr Davie said he was confident that Deborah Turness, the incoming head of news and current affairs, will ensure that BBC journalism is strictly impartial.

        “If I had any doubt at all that a director of news candidate could not flawlessly and actively deploy with deep understanding our impartiality brief, I wouldn’t have hired them and I think Deborah Turness will be outstanding at delivering on this brief,” he said

        https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/01/11/bbc-staff-need-put-viewpoints-dont-like-not-subscribe-cancel/

  44. Hitchen’s been reading NoTTL again……….

    I won’t join in the Boris witchhunt until we know who’s engineering it.

    The PM “listened to the wrong experts and allowed the promotion of a
    terrible exaggerated fear, which has permanently ruined many lives and
    which he still has not managed to disperse. But I do wonder why he is
    now in such trouble, just after he had begun to show signs of regaining
    his reason.
    Finally, just before Christmas, he began to question the
    diet of panic and restriction pressed on him by his advisers. We were
    spared the shutdown they wanted and he turned out to be right. Omicron
    was not the horror that the fear factories of Whitehall said it would
    be.

    And it is at this point that the nation descends into a frenzy
    about some parties in Downing Street. Well, I have always been a great
    believer in coincidence theory. And this is quite a coincidence.”

        2. That’s the problem with a man of no principle, he is easily caused to disguard his instincs.

          1. Why do so many not see that and will continue to overlook that fact when a lack of principle is displayed in the future.

      3. Goodness, that really brings home what a dire situation we are in!
        When Boris is your best bet….!

    2. Johnson is on probation.
      The terms of that probation should be that he clears out the juvenile dross from Downing Street, puts Horseface back in her box and totally revamps the entire Cabinet – practically the whole thing consists of intellectual lightweights who won’t challenge the Dear Leader.
      Then sit back and watch the local elections.
      After that, if still in power, he cuts the civil service by at least 50%.

      1. ..and weed out all the Lords who hardly ever turn up and those who rarely vote on anything. Remove all the subsidised restaurants and bars and replace with a canteen where they have to pay full price.

    4. Just don’t expect me to have any sympathy for him, he was after all quick enough to throw us to the globalist wolves.

  46. If we had had the old House of Lords all these covid lock downs etc would never have happened like they did.

    8. I was distracted, and saw this.
      Polic appeal for information about a bloke on a bike. Mail publishes picture but blots out the face. Is it me?

    9. They’re all against lockdowns now, but it remains to be seen what “living with covid” actually means.
      I fear it will be vaccine mandates, and those who are against are clearly selfish people who want to send everyone back into lockdown.

    1. Ourselves, and those who have earned it. People you never, ever trust – because they’re serial liars – politicians, statists and Lefties.

    2. I have often wondered whether this would herald an end to policing by consent. The British public may turn.

      1. 344248+ up ticks,

        Afternoon Lim,

        Mr Ian Tomlinson’s death should have triggered alarm klaxons, ships
        sirens whistles, bells plus, we have without doubt forgot, ” Lest we forget”

    1. I often wonder what the police think of all this. The individual officers, not the giant bureaucracy.

      When the public so actively oppose them do they think ‘Yes, this is silly, these are adults’ or are they thinking ‘enforce the law’?

      The statist socialists ruining the country – have they the foggiest clue just how demented their bonkers attitudes are?

      1. It’s a broad church, so a bit of both.
        At the start of our “pandemic” when even exercise equipment in parks was proscribed there were zealots who tried to ticket even the squirrels and others who turned a blind eye because they knew the whole thing was bloody silly.

  51. How midlife tattoos and multiple piercings became the new normal
    They were once so very unrefined… until high-end jewellers and our nation’s respected dames started getting in on the act
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/beauty/body/midlife-tattoos-multiple-piercings-became-new-normal/

    I tried to paste this comment BTL but was banned by the DT as it breached their ‘community guidelines!

    People of my parents’ generation would say:

    “Those with tattoos other than sailors are as common as dirt as are men who wear earrings other than gypsies.”

    2. The word ‘gypsy’ is banned, because the moderators cannot risk any reference to travellers, nomads or indeed anyone who might upset their beliefs. The irony is that around the time of the Crusades, some people entered the Spanish peninsular with some form of passport whose message was along the lines of ‘please allow passage to John of Little Egypt’, hence said people became known as Egyptians (which led to the gypsy word). Which Catholic official would dare to admit to not knowing about a supposed region of the Holy Land?

    3. Yuck….having made it safely to mid-life without succumbing to a tattoo, why would one then deface one’s body?

  52. There is a report today in the DM about an increase in attacks on Medics and Ambulance crews.

    It is beyond my understanding why these attacks occur.

    Any suggestions?

    3. Frustration at waiting 14 hours for an ambulance when you’re 86 and just fallen down the stairs?

      1. But it isn’t the fault of the paramedics who do eventually turn up to help. They take the brunt of people’s frustration, and that isn’t right.

        1. I agree, Aeneas, but anger and worry are huge emotions and likely to hit the first target.

        2. They prop up a failing system, and are regularly lauded in the media, when in reality they often let people down.
          I hope and expect that I would manage to restrain myself from attacking them, but two of my close family have been killed by NHS medical errors, and I was left with chronic illness that was undiagnosed for years and wiped out my late teens and twenties, so I am not particularly well disposed to the “angels” in the health service.

    4. Drugs. Likely the attacks are by blacks after making a fake call out. The staff are called away and mugged, the ambulance ransacked.

      1. Which won’t happen but just with the rioting and looting plus the tragedy at Broadwater farm, we know who they are.

    1. I think it was because there was only one core.
      When there was the pear on the ground things really heated up largely because of the snake

      1. We hoped to book Instant Sunshine for our wedding – but they were already booked that day.

  55. If anyone here enjoyed Downton Abbey there is a new drama series written by Julian Fellowes. It is American based and is the story of two mega rich families in the 1870’s. Jan 25th Sky Atlantic. The gilded Age.

    1. Subscribe to Sky??!!!! Stopped that when I realised I never watched any of the paid for channels… Freesat is just as much fun.

        1. Is that an irregular verb?

          I torrent
          You torrent
          It torrents
          We torrent
          You torrent
          They torrent

          1. Firstborn, when small, declined the verb “toboggan” thus:
            I bog
            Thou boggest
            He/she/it bogs
            We bog
            You bog
            They bog
            as in “I’m a really good bogger, Daddy! I like bogging!”

          4. We had to learn long lists of the principal parts of verbs for Common Entrance. For example:

            First conjugation:
            boggo – boggare – boggavi – boggatum

            Not be be confused with the deceptively similar irregular 3rd conjugation verb:
            buggo – buggere – buggeri- buctum.

            (For a verb which conjugates in a similar way look at the supine form of rego)

  56. I’m shocked, shocked I tell yer..

    Smart meters to become obsolete and need replacing by 2030s

    • Putting smart energy meters in our homes has cost £11billion so far
    • This has been paid for by customers through higher bills
    • However, they rely on 2G and 3G signals, which mobile operators will cut off
    • Customers will still pay another £2billion for devices obsolete by 2033

    https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-10405685/ALL-smart-meters-need-replaced.html

    And no mention of the real reason for installing them.

    1. The battery goes out after about ten years. Plus they will want to install the next generation, which are internet connected – those are the ones you really don’t want to have (most household ones aren’t connected to the network, despite what it says above). But if the battery’s flat on the current ones, consumers will have no choice but to replace them.
      If it was just the 2G and 3G signals, they would replace the modem unit.

  57. BBC licence fee to be abolished in 2027 and funding frozen. 16 january 2022.

    The culture secretary, Nadine Dorries, is expected to confirm that the cost of an annual licence, required to watch live television and access iPlayer services, will remain at £159 until 2024 before rising slightly for the following three years.

    She said this would be the end of the current licence fee funding model for the BBC, raising doubts about the long-term financial future and editorial independence of the public service broadcaster under a Conservative government.

    Dorries said: “This licence fee announcement will be the last. The days of the elderly being threatened with prison sentences and bailiffs knocking on doors are over. Time now to discuss and debate new ways of funding, supporting and selling great British content.”

    But no actual talk about getting rid of this Woke Propaganda Outlet! They will probably finance just enough of it out of General Taxation to keep that side of it running!

    https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/jan/16/bbc-licence-fee-to-be-abolished-in-2027-and-funding-frozen

    1. Since when has the BBC been ‘editorially independent’? Possibly in the days of Raymond Baxter, Dan Maskell and John Snagge….

      1. For me, Blair and Campbell getting Greg Dyke out within 24 hours of Andrew Gilligan reporting that the Iraq document had been “sexed up” (which was true), blew any illusion of editorial independence.

  58. “Dorries tweeted a link to a Mail on Sunday article suggesting that, amid a cost of living crisis, the fee would be held at £159 for two years – amounting to a real terms cut of billions.”
    Erm, let’s do what the BBC call a “reality check”. Let’s say that the BBC needed a 10% increase in the fee to stand still, the fee would be £174.90. call it £175.
    The next year the fee would again rise by 10%, to £192.50, call it £193.
    Let’s say that there are 25m licences in the UK, Lost revenue in year 1 is (£175 – £159) = £16 X 25m = £400m.
    In year 2 the figure would be (£193 – £159) = £34 X 25m = £850m. Total over 2 years £1.25bn. Not billions but lots.
    However the actual permitted rise wouldn’t likely exceed 4%, so the “shortfall” over 2 years would be around £496.5m, just under half a billion.
    Keep in mind that the BBC is an organisation that takes our money to make programmes, then charges us for watching them. For details see Britbox.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-60014514

  60. Can Boris save himself? 17 January 2022.

    The ugly spectacle of Boris Johnson’s self-destruction will reach a new climax at the end of this week. Many think that only a miracle can save the great escapologist from the official Partygate inquiry. The Gambler himself is convinced that his determination will crush his enemies and once again he will survive to fight and win his next challenge – the local elections in May.

    Even Johnson’s closest admirers are baffled how an experienced politician could have orchestrated such an extraordinary succession of self-inflicted wounds. Just what went wrong in Johnson’s life since he won a stunning 80 seat majority just over two years ago?

    All the qualities which won that majority – his spontaneous humour, shrewd judgement and unique relationship with electors — have disappeared. Instead, haunched, wet-eyed and dull, he looks dishevelled and exhausted.

    Even worse, his political values have damagingly shifted to the Left. As London’s mayor, Boris was the low tax, pro-enterprise one-nation Tory who rebuilt the city after the 2008 crash into the world’s most booming, popular destination. Now, he has become a high tax, anti-business, manic environmentalist who has failed to deliver the Brexit bonus. Instead of optimistic Britain being a magnet for wealth creators, Boris’s Britain is gripped by sleazy paralysis.

    Of course, his embittered critics predicted in 2019 that Boris’s regime would end in chaos. Sceptical journalists who had worked closely with Boris screamed that the lying adulterer could not be trusted. They were contradicted by those who served in London’s City Hall. Defying his critics, Boris had worked hard, paid attention to detail, listened to shrewd advisors and delivered success. Now, his admirers are puzzled why he has failed to replicate his success as London’s mayor.

    As his biographer, I forewarned one year ago that he had sowed his own seeds of self-destruction. He had arrived in Downing Street surrounded by a few loyal City Hall advisors rather than experienced Whitehall Warriors. Overwhelmed by the enormity of governing Britain, Boris’s team struggled from the outset to pull the right levers and deliver their policies. Worse, they lost control of Boris.

    Among Boris’s weaknesses is that he doesn’t understand Britain’s political history and governance. Seeped in Ancient Greece and Rome, he sees politics through the role of dictatorial emperors and wise philosophers. Having read very few modern political biographies and history books, he failed from the outset to dominate and manage the Whitehall machine. Handicapped by weak personal advisors in Downing Street, he was thwarted by a depressing clIque of senior civil servants. Key departments, especially health, education, defence, the foreign office and home office, are staffed by incompetent, illiterate, woke antagonists.

    As a loner without intimate friends, Boris failed to hit the ground running with an army of ruthless, skilled loyalists. Two years later, Whitehall’s Wokes have suffocated Boris’s instincts and left him powerless.

    Those who still now urge Boris to recruit serious advisors ignore his lack of intellectual and emotional strength to appoint uncompromising critics. While he chose Dominic Cummings because the qualities of the unprincipled bombastic maverick compensated Boris’s weaknesses, he seems unable to cope with principled experts who would naturally challenge and not surrender to him.

    The question is why no one in Boris’s entourage warned that the Downing Street parties were utterly unacceptable? Why was Boris, a man who dislikes parties, so insensitive? Does he lack empathy as well as principle? The answer lies in his childhood.

    Boris is not a toff but the product of a broken, unhappy home. Although he appears jolly, Stanley Johnson was an abusive husband and often an absent father obsessed with securing fame. Boris witnessed his talented mother’s misery and his father’s self-aggrandising disloyalty. He owed his educational opportunities to his grandparents’ money and scholarships. Like father, like son, Boris inherited from Stanley disloyalty, ambition and breath-taking narcissism. And also Stanley’s lack of self-criticism, indiscipline and insensitivity to others.

    In May 2019, the Tory party recognised Boris’s flaws. As Theresa May’s government toppled, Boris was not even listed among her top ten successors. His fortunes changed after the European elections. The Tories won just 9.1 per cent of the votes, the party’s worst result in any election in 200 years. Fifth behind the Greens, the Tory Party faced oblivion. Boris was suddenly the MP’s favourite as the only man to save the party.

    Rivals could only enviously watch as electors, even Labour supporters, crossed the High Street, to take selfies with Boris. As he cycled through London, drivers hooted and shouted ‘Boris’. Audiences queued to hear his hilarious speeches, usually written on the back of an envelope 10 minutes after the meeting was meant to start. To many, it is hard to believe that all that magnetism has evaporated.

    Part of the reason is undoubtedly the sheer burden of office. Regardless of his intelligence, his chaotic character is unsuited to the necessary discipline to prioritise and pursue the delivery of crafted policies from resistant civil servants.

    But there is another reason which, until now been, has unmentioned as too delicate. Every strength and weakness in Boris’s life revolves around his relationship with women. Inappropriate as some many feel, it is impossible not to identify his divorce from Marina and his relationship with Carrie Symonds as a cause of his lurch into instability.

    When the definitive history of Boris Johnson comes to be written, I believe that examining his loss of Marina Wheeler in 2019 after 27 years of marriage, will be seen as the beginning of Boris’s personal downfall.

    The barrister and mother of his four children was Boris’s anchor and consigliere. Wise and steely, ‘Marina’s Magic’ provided the substance and emotional interpretation of his life. Fearlessly, she dispensed home truths to her disloyal husband. Marina tolerated so much but his secret affair with Carrie Symonds was one act of treachery too many. Once she filed for divorce, the unseen collapse of the Johnson dynasty was a metaphor for Johnson’s premiership.

    When Boris headed for a brief holiday to Mustique in January 2020 with Carrie Symonds, a 31 year old party-loving former Tory party publicist, Boris thought he could be pretty certain of ten years in Downing Street. Yet his careless reporting about the financing of that £15,000 Caribbean holiday signalled that the prime minister’s rule defying life-style would be the seeds of his downfall. While Marina corrected and compensated for Boris’s weaknesses, Carrie appears to have been oblivious to his fatal flaws.

    The first sign of Boris’s loss of a life-saving ‘mothering’ wife was when he caught Covid. Carrie moved out. Alone in the Downing Street flat without adequate food and critically, proper medical attention, Boris nearly died. After Carrie returned, Wilfred, his sixth child was born. As a modern mother, Carrie expected the prime minister to act as a modern father and to change the baby’s nappies. The result was an exhausted politician in need of home comforts and regular square meals.

    Then followed Carrie’s redecoration of their Downing Street flat. Astonishingly, she failed to check whether Boris personally could fund her extravagant taste. Asked to explain the financing, Boris’s answer was, to say the least, inaccurate. The Mustique ‘affair’ should have been his warning but Boris, like his father, has surprisingly shown an inability to learn from his mistakes. He dug his own grave then just as he would later by adopting Carrie’s unreasonable passion for animals and the environment.

    Fatally, Boris failed to realise that Carrie was politically unsophisticated. Her interference was provoking widespread resentment within Downing Street. Boris’s failure to stop her fatal fight with Dominic Cummings to impose Allegra Stratton as the prime minister’s spokeswoman exposed Boris’s own weaknesses. Allowing Carrie to participate in that decision, let alone win against Cummings who was proven to be right, has unleashed Cummings’s vengeance against a woman he calls ‘Princess Nut Nut’.

    My fear that Boris would become Carrie’s hostage was proven at his mother’s funeral last year. Not only did Carrie bring screaming Wilfred to the church, but worse, she gave the restless child to Boris to hold. He could not even mourn in peace.

    Now, Boris can mourn his lost opportunity. Instead of building a historic Johnson Era to rival Margaret Thatcher’s and Tony Blair’s decades, he faces humiliating oblivion. Some would say that if Blair could recover from the Iraq debacle and win the 2005 election, Boris can rebuild his fortunes before the 2024 election. The big difference is that Blair had fashioned a savvy political machine while Boris remains a loner with a wife and two babies, and little a chance to build a fortress to help him survive let alone flourish as his diminishing band of admirers hoped he would.

    Well worth the reading!

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/can-boris-save-himself-

    2. I have seen Tom Bower, the writer of this Spectator piece, on GB News a couple of times,. He is very lucid.

    1. When I was in Infant School, my best friend had an Alsatian called Rebel and I had a fox hound mix called Tramp. I wrote an essay about Rebel and Tramp which confused my teacher because I misspelt both names and failed to point out that they were dogs.

      2. Hi Sue, hope you are much better.
        A friend told me about a nephew who once had a Springer spaniel called ‘Guess’.
        When they were out for a walk, people would approach the man, compliment him on the dog and then ask its name. He would reply, ‘Guess’… and the fun would start.

  64. If Djokovic’s case didn’t end with the Australian judge shouting ‘OUT!’
    and sticking their arm out to the side, I think an opportunity has been
    missed.

    2. Reputed to have said…”I’m not Happy”

      The withering response was… “which one are you then?”

    3. We’ve missed him.
      The only person who could make Cummings look warm and cuddly in comparison.

  66. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7abc06aad427226ebbd9c75b56caf7e318ca39e4bb1338bc6a0f68d1b0a9cedc.jpg

    New World-wide security levels.
    Us Brits. are feeling the pinch in relation to recent terrorist threats and have raised our security level from “Miffed” to “Peeved.” Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to “Irritated” or even “A Bit Cross.” Brits have not been “A Bit Cross” since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies all but ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from “Tiresome” to a “Bloody Nuisance.” The last time the British issued a “Bloody Nuisance” warning level was during the great plague of 1666.
    The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from “Run” to “Hide.” The only two higher levels in France are “Collaborate” and “Surrender.” The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France’s white flag factory, effectively paralysing the country’s military capability. It’s not only the French who are on a heightened level of alert.
    Italy has increased the alert level from “Shout loudly and excitedly” to “Elaborate Military Posturing”. Two more levels remain: “Ineffective Combat Operations” and “Change Sides.”
    The Germans also increased their alert state from “Disdainful Arrogance” to “Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs”. They also have two higher levels: “Invade a Neighbour” and “Lose.”
    Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual, and the only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels.
    The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy. These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy.
    Americans meanwhile are carrying out pre-emptive strikes, on all of their allies, just in case.
    New Zealand has also raised its security levels from “baaa” to “BAAAA!”. Due to continuing defence cutbacks. New Zealand only has one more level of escalation, which is ‘Croikey, I hope Austrulia will come end rescue us.’ In the event of invasion, New Zealanders will be asked to gather together in a strategic defensive position called “Bondi”. The Moari HAKA, is also being reviewed to intensify its scaring ability
    Australia, meanwhile, has raised its security level from “No worries” to “She’ll be right, mate.” Three more escalation levels remain, “Crikey!”; “I think we’ll need to cancel the barbie this weekend” and “The barbie is cancelled.” There has never been a situation that has warranted the use of the final escalation level.

    1. Australia meanwhile has now gone full fascist, to the extent of deporting a fit, young tennis player on grounds of a “danger to public health” and the possibility that people may see him as a role model.

      2. BTL Comment:

        “Australian passports might get you into 185 countries “visa free”. Just that Australia isn’t one of those countries.”

      3. Yes, Ndovu! And we certainly don’t want Djokovic becoming ‘an icon of free choice’, do we? Gawdhelp them!

      4. 344248+ up ticks,

        Afternoon N,
        In the role model department as far as the United Kingdoms electorate are concerned he has NO chance against anthony charlie lynton
        AKA the bog man.

    2. Germans and Austrians have raised their state to “Find a minority group and blame them for everything.”
      See also Canada.

  67. 344248+ up ticks,

    bteitbart,

    This is found to be surprising, may one ask, to whom ?

    London Metropolitan Police’s Asian Hate Crime Group Connected to Alleged Chinese Spy: Report

    1. Nah – it is clearly the result of global warming. Can’t be anything else. Certainly NOT tectonic plates shifting.

  69. Funny Old world

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4ba67cb3c77baab9162f1f1c2c01a88fbdb5f646c366225c74b3704f071025da.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1b71cb3115b7e64ab2a11c57e9ad3501991cb4c807777679bc0391e6cfcf489f.jpg

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FJKuQqFWQAEcuQg?format=jpg&name=900×900

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2251e8ad142535e5e0a9bf9e6d9afabc5c32c84e1bff27a8194c02190147db51.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/baeaac9bc87d54717228f590389fc7462d1668affbd874a4fbf755bbbca28485.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8c5333dd6af6c7a5c98ae98cd8b0a3e6b6c65e95776a130f237b21899a53f522.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4af9782f17108f16e5c211023d9d7c3aeeb87fb9317ae60043b67ef3f9d0e1f4.jpg

  70. Well, folks, that is all from me today. I promise! A wonderful day. Cards, presents a great zoom with the children. Apple tree pruning completed – ladderwork successful..

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/caeceedd94ebce82a56a738f9a0b1620cf1e6de648f4d8bef34739f2e08ad820.jpg

    Now, for supper, steak, our own potatoes and a bottle of Chateau Pichon-Longuevile 1986. Bliss.

    So I hope to join you tomorrow in fine fettle.

    Thank you again for all your cards and messages. They are greatly appreciated.

    A demain.

    5. Late on parade. Happy birthday Bill.

      Great choice of wine. Never sampled Chateau Pichon Longueville. My closest to it was Pontet Canet years ago in Neckargemund near Heidelberg, from a friend’s extensive cellar.

      There was a 1973 Chateau Mouton-Rothschild in the Tate Gallery restaurant in 1980 courtesy of Harry Neal.

      2. Not just yet. I remarked when his brother Dickie succumbed that the wrong one died too soon.

        His carbon footprint is enormous. Another sadly deluded case of ‘do as I say not as I do’. I cannot abide the hypocrite.

        1. I really object to these celebrities jetting around the world to record sightseeing and nature programs for the peasantry to watch. Then they have the audacity to turn around and warn us that our tourism travels are bad for the planet, we should stay home instead. Oh and please send us a cash donation so that we can continue our essential work!

          Edit.
          Even before considering our lives under covid rule, the whole thing just reeks of Orwells novel where the masses are repressed.

          2. And not just celebrities….how about all those politicians and hangers-on in Cornwall and Glasgow last year? Hypocrites all of them.

          3. Even worse, the celebs just jump on the holier than thou bandwagon, but our political scum came back from Glasgow all refreshed and ready to save the planet.

            Climite Jesus, our ecoloon enviromnent minister is now threatening to start banning oil and gas in two years.

    2. What they really need is a fake pandemic to get everyone to comply with the necessary action required

      2. Fish out of tropical water! 11ft Ocean Sunfish is filmed in harbour of Kent seaside town… 8,000 miles from its home in the warmer seas off CHILE
        A giant Ocean Sunfish weighing about 2,000 kg was spotted in Ramsgate, Kent
        11ft long fish usually lives off the coast of Chile and migrated around 7,850 miles
        It may have got lost in the Atlantic Ocean before ending up in the seaside resort

        https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10407997/Fish-tropical-water-11ft-Ocean-Sunfish-filmed-harbour-Kent-seaside-town.html

        1. What a dreadful and inaccurate piece, Maggie. Sunfish live all around the world in tropical and temperate (in the summer) waters.
          We see them every summer, especially off the south coast, and Dorset for sure. The one videoed was certainly not 2,000kg.
          Thanks for posting it though.

      1. If only he’d stayed in touch with reality instead of falling for the eco-loon fairy tale!

          1. All of them! Melting ice caps, rising sea levels, dying polar bears, acid rain, ozone layer holes, warming planet, cooling planet…you name it …he’s fallen for it! A bit like old Charlie boy!

          2. And our stupid governments are still cutting down trees and destroying farm land and wild life habitat building new homes for people whose carbon footprints were close to zero before they turned up to live off and in the UK.

          5. That has always happened. You check sea levels by looking at old harbours and you will find little or no difference in the low and high water marks since they were built. Cromer sea defences are a good example and Wells Next the Sea.

    6. So ‘climate’ is to be the scapegoat, then. Our civilisation is collapsing without any assistance from ‘the climate’ and has been some time. It is now well over the horizon and galloping fast towards us, thanks to the west’s treasonous politicians.

    7. Oh sure, they can forecast the impact of a changing climate. The experts cannot even forecast today’s weather, we have a nice severe weather warning at the moment, two feet of snow at he very least, Armageddon. It had been brilliant sunshine and blue skies all day. Maybe tomorrow.

      P.S. did the climate models included a big pacific volcano going poof?

      1. Similar when I was in CT- dire warnings about Hurricane Hugo so we dutifully put away anything that could blow around, filled jugs with water & etc etc.
        Woke next day to blue skies and sun. Hugo had changed direction and gone out to sea. Mind you, it flattened Charleston SC.
        Nasty storm which, thankfully, missed us.

    8. Rubbish Planet:

      Not a single river in England has received a clean bill of health for chemical contamination.

      https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/62/environmental-audit-committee/news/160246/chemical-cocktail-of-sewage-slurry-and-plastic-polluting-english-rivers-puts-public-health-and-nature-at-risk/

      Yes, our planet is a tip.

      Our culpable activities are:

      1. Agriculture
      2. Plastics
      3. Tranport

      We can’t do without 1. because we need to eat food from farming to survive.
      We can’t do without 3. because we need to transport food from the farm to where we live.
      We can’t do without 2. because we need to vac pack it to ship and preserve it.

      Sir David is now screening his illustration of how plants are surving in this challenging Green Planet that we are quickly turning into a tip. Is Sir David giving us some tips on how we should adapt to living in our own rubbish?

          1. Good evening Lottie Ann
            We took your advice and watched Shadowlands this evening. What a beautiful film. Sad and joyful.
            Thank you.

    9. The thing is, he’s not wrong about what we’ve done, and are still doing, to the planet. It’s the increase in population, deforestation and pollution that he should be shouting about, not climate change which does what it does.

  73. A man who took four hostages at a synagogue in a suburb of Dallas, Texas, has been identified by the FBI as British ? citizen Malik Faisal Akram, 44.

    2. 344248+ up ticks,

      Evening S,
      His british family tree dia. goes right back to 2020, I believe.

  74. One would hope that a Chancellor worth his salt would impose a Windfall Profit tax on all those companies that have made squillions of profits as a result of the ‘pandemic’.

    1. Why on earth would he do that? It is not as if ordinary ‘hard working ‘ people would benefit. Besides…it was him and his ilk the awarded the multi million pound contracts to their chums. The bastards.

      1. For one reason only to pay back some of the squillions borrowed to pay for the foul jamboree!

  78. It’s getting worse- the word “Sprite” is being removed from the OED because it’s offensive to Wood Nymphs.

      1. The frog-eyed Sprite’s performance was comparable to the Morris Minor 1,000. It had a top speed of 82.9 mph.

        My 19 year old Fiat Scudo minibus has a top speed of 105 m.p.h.!

  80. I’ve had a nightmare today with the PC and virgin media have completely effed it up, this is the first time i have been able to get i on line and i still can’t open my Email.
    Slayders.

  81. Prince Andrew’s teddy bear tantrums revealed: Ex-Royal protection officer claims Duke of York would ‘shout and scream’ if palace maids knocked out of place his collection of 60 stuffed toys
    Prince Andrew alleged to ‘scream’ if maids messed up his teddy bear collection
    Former royalty protection officer made claims on upcoming ITV documentary
    Paul Page also claimed Ghislaine Maxwell entered and exited palace ‘at own will’
    It comes after the Duke of York, 61, was stripped of his Royal and military titles
    ITV’s Ghislaine, Prince Andrew and the Paedophile is on Tuesday night at 9pm

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10408383/Duke-York-shout-scream-maids-messed-collection-60-stuffed-toys.html

    He claimed that Andrew had a bed with ’50 or 60′ stuffed toys and maids were given a laminated picture so each bear could carefully be put back in its original position.

    Prince Andrew would ‘shout and scream’ if palace maids messed up his teddy bear collection on his bed, a former royalty protection officer has claimed
    Former bodyguard Paul Page claimed that Andrew had a bed carefully positioned with ’50 or 60′ stuffed toys and maids had a laminated picture so each one would carefully be placed back in their original position to avoid a tantrum

    He said: ‘It had about 50 or 60 stuffed toys positioned on the bed and basically there was a card the inspector showed us in a drawer and it was a picture of these bears all in situ.

    ‘The reason for the laminated picture was if those bears weren’t put back in the right order by the maids, he would shout and scream.’

    Writer Elizabeth Day was introduced to Andrew’s ‘strange’ teddy bear collection back in 2019 at Buckingham Palace.

    She wrote: ‘I was told to wait in a corridor where my only other companion was an oversized teddy bear squashed into a seat.

    ‘When I was ushered in to meet Prince Andrew, I asked him about it. He sniggered and told me it had been a wedding gift from his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson.

    It seemed rather strange to me that a grown man should be so amused by the presence of a stuffed toy, but I suppose the English upper classes have a long history with teddy bears used as transitional objects to express emotions they might feel uncomfortable with.

    ‘I wondered if this was someone who had never really grown up because he had never had to. Here he was, taking up space in his mother’s house, carrying out a made-up job to keep him entertained and still having a teddy bear his ex-wife had given him. It was weird.’

    The royalty protection officer – who was in the Royal Protection Command from 1998 to 2004 – also said that officers believed the Duke has a close relationship with Robert Maxwell’s daughter, The Sun Online reports.

    Page, who was jailed in 2009 for a £3million fraud scam, claimed Ghislaine Maxwell rarely signed in and entered the palace ‘at will’.

    1. I think Andrew is a twerp as has Harry become but all this backstairs gossip right now is nauseating. Who the hell cares that Prince Andrew had teddy bears? I had several teddy bears but only brought Teddy with me when I returned to the UK.
      Bandwagon jumping is going mad and I, personally, am sick of it.
      Didn’t Jesus say Let he who is without sin cast the first stone?

      1. I have several teddies as well, but I am not OCD about them , and not prone to temper tantrums either .

        The Windsor clan sound as if they are all in a tinderbox situation .

        1. Whether or not Prince Andrew is guilty or not of the things of which he is accused I do not know but he has been found guilty in the court of public opinion.

          What disgusts me is that his brother, Charles, and his nephew, William, are so eager to throw him to the wolves, Indeed the first two in line to the throne strike me as being rather nasty, vindictive people.

          1. Hmm- do you not think that Charles and William are trying to protect HM?
            I think the Queen has had a rotten time of it lately. Maybe they are trying to shield her, she is 95 after all.

          2. Thanks for the upvote, Stormy. I think HM needs our support. Boris and his useless oiks can go and – well – you get the drift.

          3. Yup. the Royal Family are a ‘Firm’ in much the same way as the Mafia or for that matter Al Capone had a ‘Firm’. Sad but true. They are all Masons sitting at the top table.

  83. Have just had an email and photo from my friend in GA, USA. Her back yard is covered in snow! Her yard is on an incline so she had grandsons sledding.
    Only saw snow flurries when I lived there and about 4 ins in NC. Now, in CT…how many feet;-)

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