1,056 thoughts on “Friday 25 October: Conditions are perfect for the Tories to win big in a general election”

        1. Ollie 😉
          It was the anniversary of the battle of Edge hill for you
          two days ago and Newbury on the 27th of this month,
          October a busy period then 🙂

          1. Agincourt and Trafalgar this week too. October is a month for major battles, eg the Brexit conflict coming to the boil. It may well spill on to the streets such is the violence of the Left.

          2. Indeed, the battle of Zuma leading to the end of the Punic War.
            Hastings too, so yes a month for major battles.
            Someone said we should be celebrating Naseby not Hastings
            ” The English groaned for their loss of liberty and plotted
            ceasessely to find some way of shaking off a yolk
            was intolerable and unaccustomed ” Orderic Vitalis ”
            Certainly inspired revolutionary Roundheads and everyone with
            fire in there Belly for England ever since.

          4. Indeed about Naseby. The idea of the “Norman Yoke” was important to the Levellers.
            Zama 🙂

          5. Yes indeed ” shaking off the Norman Yolk ” inspired those
            men who spoke of ” struggling against Williams Lieutenants ”
            English meant subjugation. Our overlords rampaged across
            Saxon England taking possession building castles with Englishmen
            as servants. Those Norman invaders btw only gained advantage
            by tricking the the Saxons and feigning retreat. The Saxons
            broke from behind their shields and the Normans attacked.

            Those Normans 🙂

            Æthelfled is to have a more battling and military feel under the
            circumstances soon .. Æđelflæd beadu Angelcynn .

            Zama 😉

          7. Aha ! Saxon Queens struggling with Norman Yoke
            could end up scrambled 😉 nice castles and jousting ..

          9. Our farmers gave you cow and pig and you turned that
            Into beef and pork- the language of food was a major folk in the mud.

          13. Harold might have won if Æthelfled was chasing Norman
            knights with an Axe 🙂
            Also , whilst wandering about in Claudius temple ( below Colchester
            castle ) two days ago. Boudica was far more feral then Æthelfled 😉

          15. Agreed. Ethul plus you and I could have made it three. Add Korky and we would have been four.

          17. I would be speaking Dutch and living just here with
            my fellow Saxons to comfort me. But there us always
            the wine or maybe the mead 😉

          19. Well anyway the good people here are always pleased to
            see you My Lord, greetings as always;)

          20. It’d be nice if you popped by and wished them good evening
            My Lord, it’s not like you to be so forgetful with manners
            and your presence is delightful and respected and appreciated 🙂

          22. Well maybe after you have finished dinner,
            they’d appreciate your gracious company as always,
            and it’s always a pleasure to see you .

          28. And the anniversary of Quisling’s death yesterday.

            Just in case you wondered where your MP had been yesterday

          29. Death… not so comfortable, Janet. He was shot at Akershus Festning in Oslo, by firing squad.

          30. Death… not so comfortable, Janet. He was shot at Akershus Festning in Oslo, by firing squad.

    2. ‘Morning, Squire.

      No troll today? I’ve got one & last night I had 2 childish little Fotzen to say goodnight.

      1. Morning Mr Viking. As my friend Sally from ConHome
        once said ” they are little mischievous creatures under bridges
        in Norway”.

  2. David Miliband: Brexit is wrecking British democracy. Thu 24 Oct 2019.

    In the Martin Gilbert lecture, Miliband said: “It cannot be more democratic to plough on with a version of Brexit that was never presented to the public in 2016 than to consult them on whether they want to go ahead with this plan.

    Morning everyone. Well it’s not wrecking; wrong tense, it’s wrecked! It’s kaput. It’s dead. And the reason can be seen in just this single paragraph by Miliband with its distortions of reality and perversions of truth. No version of Brexit was offered in 2016, the question was simply do you wish to leave the EU? As to more Democracy being offered by a second consultation that is actually a disguised rebuttal of the first referendum. In other words a denial of the result. I’m not certain that all this clever wording and twisting of reality actually works the way Miliband thinks it does. People tend to hold to basics. They voted and the vote has been blocked by those who promised to implement it. What it does do is allow the opposition to conceal their actual intention to end Brexit behind a screen of obscurantism and half-truths.

    There is a larger reality behind all this. We have a Political Class, of whom Miliband is simply an example, that has no respect for the People of the UK and its institutions or indeed Democracy. They pursue personal visions or private profit and think these more important than the commonwealth. With such a band of Moral and Political Degenerates no system can be made to work. Darker days lie ahead of us.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/oct/24/david-miliband-brexit-is-wrecking-british-democracy

    1. They lie constantly, enrich themselves at public expense, refuse to be held accountable, and seek to overturn the popular will.

    3. In words of one syllable, which hopefully he would understand, it is the lack of leave which kills off trust in votes.

    4. “We have a Political Class, of whom Miliband is simply an example, that has no respect for the People of the UK and its institutions or indeed Democracy. They pursue personal visions or private profit and think these more important than the commonwealth.”

      And that’s being going on for decades….a shining example of that was a PM who shouted that all that was needed to be successful was hard work….the PM then involved one their children in a UK arms deal that netted that child millions…and the papers are still so sensitive that HMG refuses to release them….

      And before that we had PMs handing out gongs for cash, contracts being placed with chums and so on and on…

      ….of course back in the day, the Establishment kept rotten boroughs and thought nothing of it….arguably that way was more open and honest….MPs did the bidding of their owners but at least every one knew who the owners were…

  3. Justice department opens criminal inquiry into origins of Russia investigation – source. Fri 25 Oct 2019.

    Democrats and some former law enforcement officials say Barr is using the justice department to chase unsubstantiated conspiracy theories that could benefit the Republican president politically and undermine the former special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.

    When people start accusing you of spouting Conspiracy Theories you know that you are onto something! The Steele Dossier is not a Theory it actually exists! Along with Hillary’s commission of it! That this enquiry has now become a criminal investigation tells you that Barr has found something worth pursuing.

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/oct/24/justice-department-opens-criminal-inquiry-into-origins-of-russia-investigation-source

  4. Morning all

    SIR – There has never been a greater opportunity to achieve a stonking Conservative majority.

    The Prime Minister has strained every sinew to get Brexit done and is rightly popular because of it. Add to that the people’s desire to rid those green benches of MPs who have done everything in their power to undermine democracy, and the fact that Jeremy Corbyn is unelectable, and conditions are surely conducive to success.

    David Craggs
    Dockenfield, Surrey

    SIR – Labour only needs to win a general election and it can implement whatever workers’ rights (Business, October 24) and environmental protections it feels appropriate.

    It is quite pathetic to see Labour MPs using these to wreck the Brexit deal, thereby acknowledging that the British electorate would never trust them to run the country.

    Simon Malcolm
    Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire

    1. SIR – Many question the wisdom of a winter election, arguing that bad weather and darkness in the mornings and evenings would put off older voters.

      Our Prime Minister should ignore such warnings: older voters vote. Brexit is so important that most would get out to do so one way or another, even if it meant braving snow.

      We are not millennial snowflakes, who talk a lot but fail to vote in any substantial numbers.

      An election in these months would also ensure that the student vote is dispersed in constituencies such as Canterbury, and cannot sway the results against the wishes of the actual residents.

      Michael Edwards
      Haslemere, Surrey

      1. Term end for most Universities is 13th December, but I’m sure most students will be too indolent to go and vote. However, this doesn’t address the postal vote issue. As the majority of students have 2 addresses they will probably apply for postal votes in both constituencies, which I’m sure happened in the last election. Until something is done to address the issue of postal vote fraud I think all election results will be skewed.

        1. Postal voting should be ended. Only members of HM Forces should get a postal vote….everyone else either votes in person under NI voter registration rules or doesn’t vote….

          …if that means Grandma can’t vote because she can’t get to the Polling Station….tough [insert word of choice]….

          …I’d rather see a few people not being able to vote than postal voting being continued.

          The question is, has the PM the stones to outlaw postal voting….

      2. Err….so the gerrymanderer Edwards wants to try and swizz the results by making sure people who he thinks will vote the wrong way….have their votes diluted so as to be worthless….I bet Edwards is the sort that screams blue murder about ‘postal vote fraud’…..

        1. Everyone is so divided and the Remainers just won’t
          give up until Brèxit is cancelled in its entirety.
          Labour wants a people’s vote as do the Lib Dems,
          sabotaging traitors. Blair, Cable and Mandleson are
          plotting in Brussels and it’ll never end.
          The deal ( unless the deal was just a card in a game of poker
          to trick the enemy). Wasn’t perfect but progress in the right
          direction. Deals can evolve, we can change things at our leasure
          But we cannot otherwise. We must shoot the remained fox.

          Anyway I do believe we still will leave on the 31/ 10/ 19
          without a deal. My favourite option and that of JRM

          1. Morning A,
            Total severance should have been hammered home on completion of the count on the 24/6/2016.
            Celebratory gap month, three month
            express rectification period ( repealing all eu rulings) then answer the phone calls from brussels.
            Major rule number one,
            Accept no threats / sh!te from the eu by
            replacing the receiver.

          2. You can’t repeal all the EU rulings and case law without putting something in its place to keep the show on the road and business trading…that is why the Great Repeal (Keep Everything The Same) Bill was enacted….. 🙂

          3. Afternoon G,
            Been on holiday or doing a stretch ?
            Total severance they deserve no less.
            Replace each eu ruling / law say 650 of them, with a UK current lab/lib/con politico because neither will be required
            post Brexit.

          4. Once we’re locked into the WA (MKIV) and the PD…that’s it….game over….BRINO….and don’t forget Boris J. loves globalism and immigration so much that he wants to give criminal illegal immigrants an amnesty…

      3. If the fools at Westminster are suckered into accepting this BrINO Treaty, the ECJ will have pretty much complete supremacy over our judiciary. Anything we try to implement as an independent nation can then be judged by the ECJ, getting out will be more difficult than at any time since the 1975 Referendum.

      4. The majority think that here and elsewhere but not the Saxon Queen
        who stands alone with her thoughts.
        It’s about progress not perfection .

      5. I could have sworn you were warming to it on GP the other day.
        The lists at Ashby, 22nd June 2016 the noble Johnson jousting with young Will Taylor. Johnson got a thrashing because he had no conviction nor passion for the fight. The clip below only shows a few seconds of what they showed on the news. The three MPs in the studio are not convincing either, all against a brainwashed snowflake.
        May was a far more convincing liar.
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6mMP1HYJDc

    3. “There has never been a greater opportunity to achieve a stonking Conservative majority” – no way. Who will vote for those lying, mendacious bastards? Labour – same. LibDums – well, they are anti-Lib and anti-Dem, so screw them. Brexit party are AWOL, UKIP have imploded. Who is left? The EDL? That’s why this undemocratic partliament vs the people is so dangerous – the nutters will get in, and then there will be much violence.
      I’m transferring my investments out of GBP to USD this afternoon.

      1. The whole system is fragmenting Oberst hence my warning this morning about darker days ahead. Time to stock up the larder and lay in a supply of Foreign currency! A bolt hole abroad would also be desirable if you could afford it!

          1. If I wrote an economics textbook, I would refer to Bog Rolls and Beans as complEments.

        2. I, and more significantly, SWMBO, agree. She even said today that a parliament against the people usually ends in extreme violence. So, expect revolution… Today, I am rebalancing my pension away from GBP, in case.

      2. Morning O,
        Seriously are you following what is taking place within UKIP or just following the usual mantra ?
        There is a faction in the UKIP NEC that is shown quite clearly to be anti Party one instance being
        making Gerard Batten “not of good standing”.
        This issue in its entirety is being rectified as we type.
        Peoples should really focus on the governing parties that for years have been servient to an
        alien power, and seemingly with many of the
        peoples political blessings.
        Ask yourself instead why UKIP is always suppressed post success ?

      3. Ah but we have the hocky pocky Labour party. WE want a General Election. No we have changed our mind wee want a Referendum. No we have changed our mind again we we want a General Election. No we have changed our mind again we will go back to sitting on the fence for now

        1. Labour have a real problem.
          If elected and they stay in the EU, then Corby won’t be allowed to renationalise all those industries he wants to. It will also pee off the last few working folk who vote Labour, and are feeling the cold wind of wage competition from cheapo imported labour.
          Conundrum, or what?

    4. Simon Malcolm

      “Labour only needs to win a general election and it can implement whatever workers’ rights and environmental protections it feels appropriate.”

      On spot!

      Why is it necessary to have a foreign power setting the framework of our laws?

  5. Morning again

    SIR – Does the Royal College of General Practitioners really think that making patients stand for consultations (report, October 24) is going to affect the way they act outside the surgery?

    As a retired GP, I think the interaction between patient and doctor when both are sitting has an intimacy that is essential to getting the best out of a consultation. And as for spending £2,000 on doctors’ desks that go up and down – surely the cash would be better used to shorten waiting times by paying for more GPs or practice nurses.

    Dr Richard Soper
    Great Saxham, Suffolk

    SIR – Having been a GP for 30 years, I believe that standing up when patients enter is simply good manners.

    Walking to the waiting room to collect patients, or even just into the corridor to meet them, gives me exercise and also some invaluable information about a patient’s condition. Carefully watching how a person rises from their chair or the way they walk can be more useful than a raft of blood tests and scans.

    Dr Nick Summerton
    Welton, East Yorkshire

    2. It’s normal here for the doctor to shake the patient by the hand, too, on meeting and leaving.
      It’s also normal for doctors to wear working “pyjamas” in their office, and wash their hands between patients.

  6. SIR – Some 70 years ago, my father walked a mile or so into town (Belper), where he bought and posted a card for my mother’s birthday the next day.

    After a swift half, he walked home – only to find the postman at the door with the selfsame card. He grabbed both card and postman, and expostulated: “Tek that bugger back.”

    Speed is not always appreciated.

    Allan Sims
    West Chiltington, West Sussex

    1. I always had a birthday card from one set of relations with my birth date written on the envelope – which I assumed was for the benefit of the postie.

      Only in the years before she died, my relation – ultra efficient – told me that she wrote all her birthday cards out in January and that the date on the envelopes was for her benefit, not the postie’s.

  7. SIR – According to the “Happiness Index” from the Office for National Statistics, three of the most miserable areas in Britain are Islington, Camden and Hackney – where the MPs are Jeremy Corbyn, Keir Starmer and Diane Abbott.

    Guy Hockley
    Salisbury, Wiltshire

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

        “Why David Lammy should join the Brexit camp | Coffee House

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  8. US to deploy more troops to eastern Syria to secure oilfields. Aljazeerah. an hour ago.

    The new deployment could mean US forces would be like “sitting ducks” being stationed in an area, in which the borders are guarded by Russian and Syrian troops, he added.

    “Who is going to safeguard them? The Kurds will have nothing to do with America. They have now made a deal with the Assad government. The whole thing makes no sense.”

    Sadly this is true. This is simply Trump trying to row back on his disastrous decision of a week ago to abandon the Kurds. It also makes nonsense of his excuses offered then that he was taking the US out of the Middle East! Even the reason given here that it is to keep the oilfields away from ISIS is false; the real intention is to deny them to Assad who needs the revenue to rebuild Syria.

    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/10/deploy-troops-eastern-syrian-secure-oil-fields-191025022517393.html

    2. Our PMs lie to us because otherwise we won’t elect them. Some back in the day might remember that Mrs T. was wholly for keeping the UK in Europe….and she rammed through the Single Europe Act..the baseplate the modern EU is built on…

      ….some might suggest she only came to dislike the EU when she realised she wouldn’t be running it…..

      1. Over what timeperiod is the historical average? Since Biggin became an airfield, I would expect. An idea of standard deviation / variance would be good, too, to get an idea of variability-

        1. Don’t know – locally according to the Almanac October is our Wettest month so to have twice the ‘average’ is notable especially as we may end up close on three times the average by month end.

      3. There’s an amber warning out here (North Shropshire) due to the amount of rainfall. I was at Biggin Hill in June this year – I flew out in MJ772.

        1. One of my Wife’s god parents is a retired Wing Commander. His son followed him into the RAF and has achieved the rank of Air Commodore. His son has also flown the spitfire in the BoB Commemoration Flight

          2. (“Our Head of Training, Wing Commander Ray Watson, has kept the props turning and students learning at Biggin for nearly six decades.)

  11. A devout Arab Muslim entered a black cab in London.

    As they pulled away he curtly asked the cabbie to turn off the radio because, as decreed by his religious teaching, he must not listen to music because in the time of the prophet there was no music, especially Western music which is the music of the infidel.

    The cab driver politely switched off the radio, stopped the cab and opened the door.

    The Arab Muslim asked him, “What are you doing?”

    The cabbie answered, “In the time of the prophet there were no taxis, so f%#k off and wait for a camel!”

  12. Extension or No Extension? What will the EU do?

    Initially I thought it was a foregone conclusion that they would offer a 3 month extension but now I am mot so sure. The reason is the recent antics of Labour and the Lib-Dems

    It is clear the EU do not want this to continually drag out , It is also clear the EU do not want a know deal. Now yesterday JRM stated to the commons that No deal is now off of the table. My gut feeling now is the EU will offer a short extension to allow the WAB to get through the commons. What short is , is now defined as Boris is calling for a General Election. on the 12th December. The shortest notice for a General Election is 25 days( I need to check but I think that’s working days)

    My gut feeling is that the EU may now offer a short extension to rnable that fdate to be meet. I am sure Boris will have been in touch with the EU and would be pushing for that. Whether it happens who knows every time we thing it is nearer a conclusion another twist turns up

    1. My gut feeling is that the EU will offer a short extension at a price.

      What the price is…?

        1. They will not do that they will not want to be seen as to interfering in UK politics. What the EU do want is an end to this but not a no deal end. It points towards a short extension

          1. If you think the EU do not want to be seen to try to affect UK politics you are even duller than I thought you were. And I previously regarded you as being on a similar level to Diane Abbott.

          2. 🙂 Such touching faith in Johnny Foreigner.
            Well, it would make a change from O’Bummer interfering.

          3. “They will not do that they will not want to be seen as to interfering in UK politics” – I think you are wrong there, Bill. They haven’t kept schtumm over what they think the UK should or should not do as regards Brexit – even just recently, Macron was dripping off at the mouth about it. Verhoftwat can’t shut up about it; Druncker neither.

        2. Last April the extension was granted only in exchange for an agreement from the British government that NO attempt to renegotiate

          May’s WA would ever be done, we can assume that there will be a similarly punitive condition next time.

          1. I do not trust them to do anything other than set out punishment beatings.
            It’s why I fear we might yet end up with May Mk2.

          2. Strangely enough Mr sosrabuc, the EU have been quite honest about this.

            Mrs May negotiated and signed the WA in Brussels.

            The extension agreement was agreed on condition that no attempt was made to renegotiate the conditions for leaving.

            Neither the British government or the Europeans tried to renegotiate May’s WA.

            I can’t see any reason for there to suddenly be a WA Mk2.

            …on the other hand, there are lots of vicious nasties that they can insist on in exchange for a further extension. Watch this space!

    2. How exactly do you think Boris can get an election on the 12th of December…it is not in the gift of the PM any more….

  13. Running scared?
    Baron Hayward (conservative), a psephologist and political analyst was discussing the current political scene with Nick Ferrari this morning. Hayward recounted that a Labour MP, who holds a 20,000 majority, recently asked if his majority was safe. Little wonder that Corbyn & Co are sitting on their hands on this issue. Hayward believes that the LibDums and SNP are keen on an election; so, is the Labour Party isolating itself on this issue?
    The LibDums are currently riding high in the polls, possibly at their peak, and want to make the most of their popularity. What price an anti Leave coalition if Labour maintains their stance of denying the other parties an election?

  14. Good morning all.

    Not stopping today a I have a cold & after breakfast I shall retire to bed with a hot toddy.

    I may look in later.

  15. Improved Electric Motors for Car’s

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

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

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/…

      1. Hydraulics can be problematic. The railways tried hydraulics mainly on the GWR they were a failure. Reliability being the biggest problem. I prefer the electric approach. hydraulics also introduces another unneeded step

  16. QuickQuid: UK’s biggest payday lender to close after thousands of complaints and regulatory uncertainty

    Another one of the payday loan type companies has folded

  18. ‘Morning All

    Firstly a link to a Tom Utley article about his travails with internet banking and accessing his own money

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-7611593/TOM-UTLEY-Call-old-technophobe-wish-bank-let-dosh.html
    It sets up my rant nicely,I am old enough to remember when customer service was actually a thing and a person could make a decision unhindered by a rule book longer than the bible
    I am currently trying to access a small??* forgotten pension the existence of which was revealed by the pension service,so far so good,
    Inevitably the company I dealt with no longer exists and I must prove both my existance and my identity to their replacement,three letters,including copy passport,bank statements untold phone calls and I still have no idea what delights await me,I even offered to turn up in person with said docs
    What do they want,a pint of blood and a DNA sample??
    Bloody jobsworths are driving me to distraction
    *They won’t tell me how much is involved either I could be suffering the agonies of the damned for thrupence!!

    1. To be fir they seem to be basic security measures other whys anyone could turn up and claim the pension. Until you prove who you are they will not tell you anything. If the reuitred documentation has been supplied it should not take long

        1. They usually need originals or Certified copies just copies are not normally acceptable nor are online print outs of bills etc

          1. They can always ask for certified copies at a later stage. Anyone sending an original to HMRC (or any other emanation of the State) needs at least to send it by registered post.

        2. When I was working for Shell in the late 1970s (when inflation reached 28%), I had a wrangle with the Inland Revenue, to whom I had sent two copies of required Life Assurance Policy Certificate documents, yet they wrote, claiming not to have received them. I replied in rhyming couplets (below) which had the desired effect and may even have ended up pinned on a noticeboard somewhere at the tax office.

          Dear Sir/Madam,

          With a sense of deep depression I undid your envelope,
          For my name had been mis-spelt again by some illiterate dope.
          Three more mistakes of spelling and a wrongly-cast address,
          Then I found you’d lost my documents – Oh, what a jolly mess!

          It does not make me happy when I see my Taxes spent
          On some Civil Servant chappie’s rise of twenty-five percent.
          I quiver at the mention of a Tax-Clerk who can’t spell,
          Yet who has an indexed pension that surpasses mine at Shell.

          Extract thy digit, Tax Inspector, search your files once more !
          The L.A.P. Certificates are in there, I’m quite sure !
          Two photostats I sent you on March the 15th, fine !
          And also the originals I mailed on April 9.

          I don’t expect to hear from you until you send the money.
          Please spell my name right on the cheque, or else it won’t be funny.
          My Form P.60 is enclosed, and just before I go,
          The lines that head L.A.P.C’s are reproduced below:

          “This Certificate should be carefully preserved until it is required by the Inland Revenue Authorities”.

          Yours in despair,

    2. I hope you are more successful than my wife was. After similar problems proving who she is we discovered that:

      Initial “frozen pot” ~10k. 10 years of active management, pot worth ~5k. amount taken in fees for the management ~2k.
      Ombudsman couldn’t give a damn.

    3. Callers that ring you at home and ask you to confirm the number they have just called you on. Jeepers. ‘Fraid the conversation does not progress much.

      1. ‘Morning, KP, Best Beloved insists they tell her, her name, if they can’t she hangs up ‘cos it’s either a ‘you’ve had an accident‘ scam or they’re trying to sell you something.

        1. There are a lot of ‘do you want to prevent nuisance calls’ offers at the moment. I reply that I am a lonely old soul and love speaking on the phone. It goes dead soon after.

    4. Reminds me of the tiny Nortel pension I was eventually found to have, resulting from my first few months post graduating employment. I took it as a one off £150 in cash as I recall…

    5. I blame it on computers (and the EU, of course ). I tried to make a change to a Standing Order because it had been wrongly set up (I should have had 15 months’ membership before renewal, whereas it was set up to renew after 3 months). Could I change it? “It’s too far in the future” was their excuse. I’d need to cancel the SO, then wait until after the New Year to set up another one. I told them to pay it and I’d donate it (and gift aid it as well). I’m sure things were easier in the days of vellum and quill pens!

  19. General Election

    When it come to the General Election Boris in my view needs to see sense and come to an arrangement with the Br exit Party. The polls have consistently given Boris a small lead but that may give him no overall majority or just a small majority. Polls vary and during campaigns things normally move against the incumbent party . The risk in my view is high for the Conservatives. An arrangement with the Brexit party would enable them to pick up seats where the Conservatives stand no chance this would ensure that the Conservatives would be able to form a working government

    1. BJ,
      The risk in my view for the country was very high when just post referendum I heard the cry “we won leave it
      to the tories”.
      Total severance.

      1. There is no such thing as total severance from the EU . WE will need agreements with them on a number of things

          2. BJ,
            I and many more want total severance then after we have sorted
            the rest of the world deal queue, we will answer the brussels
            calls.

          4. They need us more than we need them. We have to remember they are continentals, not British. They don’t think or negotiate the same way. It’s a cultural thing. We need to walk out, preferably with a strop, tell them they aren’t getting a penny unless they come to the negotiating table (in London) and remind them that they have a huge trade surplus with us that will suffer once we put high tariffs on EU goods.

          5. Garbage….we’re not going to ignore a market of about 400m relatively prosperous customers on our doorstep and the EU is not going to ignore a marketplace of about 70m relatively prosperous customers on its doorstep.

          6. G,
            The sane people of the UK are NOT going to submit either to more sh!te from the maifa dons.And after a months celebratory period we will replace the phone on the hook concerning brussels by then they will be climbing over each other to seek business.
            “400 million relatively prosperous customers” of whom a great many are over here on welfare………

        2. Very true Bill.

          And we can only get a fair deal when we have equal standing.

          Leave on WTO terms, then begin the negotiations.

          There’s not a moment to waste !

        3. Severance first, then agreements. Just like all other countries that don’t need to go through a severance process first.

    1. It would contribute towards the £50,000 pa that it costs us to keep them.
      Or shuffling taxpayers’ money around, as it’s better known.

      1. Send them to Eton where the fees are still less than £50,000 pa. Then they may emerge as worthy citizens like Rory Stewart, Oliver Letwin, Judas Grease-Smogg or David Cameron.

    2. Those on life sentences need never pay them off.

      Mind you, with usurious interest rates at ten times the BoE base rate, most students will be imprisoned by their debt for 30 years.

      Student loans should be interest free and students should be encouraged to pay off their debts as quickly as possible with tax incentives.

  21. South Ribble MP Seema Kennedy standing down at next election

    South Ribble MP Seema Kennedy has announced she will be standing down at the next general election.
    The Conservative MP, a mother of three, said she would be focussing on other priorities in her life.
    Mrs Kennedy, 45, has held the seat since 2015 and said it had been “a huge privilege” to serve as an MP “for the best place to live in the UK”.
    She said she was “most proud” of her work towards the appointment of a minister for loneliness.

    1. She said she was “most proud” of her work towards the appointment of a minister for loneliness.

      At first glance the departure of these dilettantes looks like a good thing, but it allows the party machines to install those with favoured views in their place!

      1. I love the way they keep inventing minsters “Minister for Loneliness” it is a bit like they keep inventing new laws for things we already have laws for. I guess the next one will be a Minister for Knife Crime”

        1. Which will mean that white grannies will be searched as they leave John Lewis with a set of fish knives.
          Meanwhile ….. a few roads away, black corpses will be filling the gutters with blood.

          1. Having a Minister that has knife crime as part of hi or her responsibilities ids fine. It would not justify having its own minstery though

          2. How about our government accepting the murdering and maiming people is wrong?
            And that we already have laws to deal with such crimes?

          3. Morning Anne,

            And also accepting that one set of people who are not indigenous to this country is responsible for most knife crime.

          5. 🙂 I like to think outside the box/envelope/run ideas up the flagpole/indulge in blue sky thinking …… yada, yada, yada.

        2. I’m looking forward to the appointment of a Minister for Wolf Whistling.

          Or should that be a Minister against Wolf Whistling?

          I get so confused with modern PC politics

      3. Any way, it’s proudest! I’m a Brexiteer. In Parliament I would be lonely (in the country I have more than 17.4m friends).

    2. The problem is they have done away with he schools these problem pupils can be sent to. The politicians approach is they should remain in normal schools. The trouble is that approach does not work and the only option for schools is to exclude them. Many of these problem pupils become violent sand the politician have made sure the schools can do nothing about it even just trying to restrain a violent child is seen by the politicians as unacceptable

      The school are in a catch 22 position. They can do nothing to control the violent disruptive child but equally they have a legal duty of care to the teachers and other pupils. The only real option they have is exclusion

      Most pupil disruption in schools comes from a small handful of problem pupils. IT is very probably that those pupils have problem parents as well

    3. A ‘friend’ of mine’s son’s was such a burden on his school he got transferred to a different school twenty miles away and was provided with a taxi to pick him up and take him home every day.

      I say ‘friend’ though I don’t see much of her these days. I got a little fed up with paying for her son’s taxi and her indulging her little darling instead teaching him some discipline.

  24. Well the Queens Speech sailed through the commons without problem yesterday so now the focus is on Br exit, WE are now awaiting the EU to play their card in this game of poker. The 3 current possibility seeming to be a 3 month extension. A flexible 3 month extension. A short extension

    The first option is the least likely. I think the EU may be moving toward the short extension as the EU want this sage finished

    1. The EU couldn’t care that the HoC is on self destruct.

      It is better for them as it makes more voters realise that Britain becoming a vassal state of the EU is the best way forward.

      ..Oh, and whilst the squabble continues, Britain still pays into the EU coffers every month.

  25. Surely the headline should be “lose big’ judging by this local election yesterday…….

    Britain Elects

    @britainelects

    Llandrindod North (Powys) result: LDEM: 47.2% (+47.2) CON: 34.2% (-19.6) LAB: 18.6% (-1.2) Liberal Democrat GAIN from Conservative. No Green (-26.5) as prev.

    1. You cannot read much into local elections the results are all over the place. If you look at all the ones for the year to date it may give an indication of a trend but that all. THe other thing is the turnouts are tiny

    2. That situation was not helped by the local Conservative association reselecting the just booted out MP as their candidate.
      There are times when even I recognise that the description of the Conservatives as the ‘Stupid Party’ fits like a glove.

      1. Local parties are cosy little clubs that have little connection to the electorate they are supposed to be representing. Not many people belong to the local party and the decisions at the local level are normally taken by a handful of committee members so there is a big disconnect

        1. P.S> I’ve just thought – MPs get a whopping great severance payment when they lose an election, don’t they? I wonder if they get that when they are just booted out without an election? Maybe that’s the answer – they get the ££ the one way but not the other? Does anyone here know?

          2. Why should they get any severance pay at all. Losing an election is akin to being sacked for incompetence. None of the rest of us has such a benefit.

          3. Quite. I wrote in the context that this is the current situation. They are all parasites, unfortunately their successive policies have succeeded in dumbing down a lot of the voting population to the extent that they get away with it.

            All part of their “look like you are doing something and get a shedload of money for nothing” plan.

  26. Morning, Campers:

    https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/10/labour-mp-turkeys-dont-vote-for-a-christmas-election/

    “Labour MP: turkeys don’t vote for a Christmas election | Coffee House

    Boris Johnson has announced that MPs in the House of Commons will vote next week on holding an election on 12 December, in an attempt to break the Brexit impasse. And as expected, plenty of Labour MPs are already lining up to think of reasons to avoid being accountable to the electorate.

    Mr S wonders though if Labour HQ will be less than pleased with one MP’s excuse for avoiding an election this Christmas. Speaking to Sky News in the Palace of Westminster, the veteran MP Barry Sheerman was asked whether his party should back an election next week, and what Jeremy Corbyn will recommend to his party. But in his reply the MP rather underplayed his own party’s chances of winning, when he noted that:

    ‘I think Jim Callaghan used to say, “Turkeys don’t vote Christmas”.

    Perhaps realising that saying Labour are a turkey destined for the oven wasn’t the best stance to take ahead of a potential election, Sheerman hurriedly clarified that:

    ‘Well, I think we aren’t Turkeys, but we are sensible. We know that you don’t run to an election when you don’t have to. Why do we want to ruin everyone’s Christmas?”

    1. Not ruin everybody’s Christmas – only the traitor MPs’. That would be a wonderful Christmas pressie for most of us (not, I hasten to say, that I want a load of miffed MPs in my stocking…).

    1. Devon and Cornwall police should realise young girls would see it
      as a crime if they weren’t wolf – whistled, what’s wrong with
      appreciating a beautiful young woman.
      Maybe the boys in blue should concentrate on Rotherham and the likes.

      1. At worst it could be regarded as a nuisance and not something the police should take much interest unless it becomes almost a form of stalking a woman

      4. What a racist thing to say. You should be ashamed.
        Plod have better things to do like paint rainbows on their finger nails and plodmobiles.

  28. (((Dan Hodges)))

    @DPJHodges

    There was no secret plan to get Brexit done by the 31st. And we were told there was.

    12:30 am – 25 Oct 2019

    1. Johnson’s wives and mistresses have found out – through bitter experience – that it was a great mistake to trust Boris. We would be mad to make the same mistake as they did. He is a snake who should not be trusted one inch.

      1. Yet, he did push out a radio ad campaign specifically for this date. It was obviously an intent.

    1. if “the deadline for the UK to leave the EU has been extended beyond the 31st of October 2019”:

      LAB: 27%
      CON: 26%
      BREX: 20%
      LDEM: 18%
      GRN: 4%

      via @ComRes, 16 – 17 Oct

    2. He is a revolting coward, refusing an election on any terms but his own knowing he won’t win unless it is rigged.

  31. Special greetings go to Sue E. today.

    Have a good time, Luv.

    I know she’s about because she has given me several up-votes.

  33. If Boris Johnson truly wants Brexit he will make an electoral pact with Nigel Farage, stand on a WTO Brexit and win the election; if he does not then he will lose it.

    Brexiters must wake up to the fact that a Conservative victory without Farage’s support would be the worst possible result as it would lead to the May/Johnson Surrender WA being enacted. This is by far the worst option: it is much worse than either Remain or a proper Brexit because it would keep us enslaved as a vassal state..

      1. Morning j,
        Many are power jockies, but in the main it is the siren call of the eu golden trough plus a coating of teflon.

    2. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

    3. Morning Rastus – I am not sure what Boris is up to but his promise to get us out on 31/10 was based on slight amendments to Theresa May’s deal. His threat of a No Deal has been exposed as a falsehood and now Boris is the problem as well as the Remainer’s determination to Stop Bexit. Boris needs to cooperate with the Brexit Party at the election but I think he is too stuborn to consider it.

      1. No it wasn’t. The terms were never defined, you are thinking of the games in parliament.

      2. Morning C,
        The tory promise,vow,pledge was kicked into
        touch long ago.
        I’m betting Harry would agree.

    5. Yet he’ll lose it because the remoaner parties will collude to ensure an electoral pact where they get their man in by not competing against one another, further denying the public representation for their own goals.

    6. The Tory MPs have voted for something that is totally the opposite of what TBP is aiming for. How can they now work together?

      1. The choice is simple.

        If Boris refuses to make a pact with Nigel Farage then a proper Brexit is dead. In the unlikely event that Boris wins without Farage’s support then the May/Johnson Surrender WA will become law. If he does not win then Remain parties may form a majority and we shall stay in the EU.

        Many Brexiters are beginning to think that a vote for Remain parties could get us cleanly out more quickly than the May/Johnson WA which will keep us almost permanently trapped and crippled.

        Mrs May lied when she said that she believed that ‘No deal was better than a bad deal’. The truth could be that:

        ‘A bad deal is even worse than staying in the odious EU’.

    7. So, where is Farage & Brexit party? Silent & invisible.
      Don’t bank your hopes on them, Rastus.

        1. The MSM is determined to give TBP no coverage at all.

          The whole concept of democracy and impartial journalism is being violated. This is hardly the fault of Nigel Farage and his party which – we must not forget – won more seats in the European parliament at the last European election than any other British political party.

          It is simple – with Nigel Farage on side Johnson will win the general election; without Farage on side Johnson will lose it. In either case a vote for the Brexit Party seems to be the only sensible choice as Johnson’s ‘deal’ is even worse then Remaining fully in the EU where we would have far more scope to be disruptive.

          The enemy of Brexit has been ‘the enemy within’ composed of traitors such as Grieve, Benn, Letwin and Hammond. We could take a leaf from their book and become the ‘enemy within’ the EU and place a cancerous nucleus which finally kills it off.

          .

      2. For the EU elections they had to get up running fast and focus on them but since then nothing has happened. There is no structure for the Brexit Party, There is no manifesto. It is pretty much the Nigel Farage Party

      3. I was at their rally in the QE2 centre in London last week, it was packed to the rafters.

    1. Remind me what was so bad about the old mental asylums?
      Nowadays, we merely wait until someone is killed and then incarcerate the perp. in a large old building.

      1. Or in certain cases , because they are not restrained in special hospitals , they can wander out and about at will , and throw themselves under trains , off cliffs , off bridges and wade out to sea .. and cause huge distress to the general public .

        I blame cannabis and other drugs for melting the minds of people.. It is similar to the 60’s when a lot of people enjoyed a “trip” or existed in a fog of skunk.. They have reaped what they have sown .

        1. TB,
          Many take to the pin stripe & ermine robes and do real damage to the integrity of a nation.

        2. The cannabis sold now is XXX times stronger than the stuff wafting around in the 60’s. It is now known that it particularly affects the wiring of teenage brains which are still developing.

          1. I have also heard that teenagers who use drugs are probably storing up trouble in their sperm levels .. if it is true that sperm can be badly affected and distorted by drugs .. and when eventually they find their way to fertilisation, the babies who are born inherit HUGE problems . This is why there are so many problems with small children, re development and behavioural problems .

            This country is on a downward slope ..

        3. I don’t believe skunk really existed in the 60s. Intensive selection and breeding of the cannabis plants has developed it during the period since then.

          1. Intensive over-breeding and no selection in the populations of the producing countries coming over here haven’t helped either.

      2. Fulbourn near Cambridge had extensive grounds now built over with offices by the sharks in the hospital Trust.

        The minders of the few inmates take them to Tesco’s where the poor souls can be seen staring vacantly or else head butting the walls. It is very disturbing and upsetting to have to witness this activity in a public space.

        1. Ditto Severalls in Colchester.
          The added irony is, the blocks of flats sprinkled amongst the houses, resemble the old villas (i.e. outside wards) and, I suspect, contain many of the same people. Above 35 (?) new dwellings, the builder has to provide some social housing.

      3. Morning Anne,

        We do ?

        I know that is the usual way for treachery & likes,
        the big old building being westminster palace.

      4. It was felt that mentally ill patients would do better being looked after in the community. I work in a psych hospital on weekends and am forever encountering patients who want to be admitted or readmitted to the wards.

        1. I know Islam has plagiarised both Judaism and Christianity, but both of those religions have reformed in the hundreds of years since they were both founded (apart from the fundamentalists).

          1. Unfortunately, islam is incapable of reform (rather like the EU) because the koran is literally the word of allah. It cannot be changed. The sooner people wake up to that and to the threat it poses to our way of life, the better.

    3. Blasted stupid. Wouldn’t wear a trilby playing, would you?

      All this ‘ohh, aren’t they nice is silly. The Muslim made a choice. The wrong one. They need to live with the consequences.

      1. Listen up. I retaliate NOT instigate, this ,others will confirm has been a targeted campaign against all ogga post, check first then get back to me.

        1. Yet… you don’t need to, so stop doing so.

          So? It’s hardly a vendetta. Reason with people. Enagage with them.

          2. Evening W,
            You have the the making of being a submitting remainer, does not the brexit farce teach you anything, you cannot engage with imbeciles.

      1. C’mon, our Plum wouldn’t be so small-minded as to be upset if we didn’t know her birthday!

        Incidentally, last year someone here wrote happy birthday to me on my birthday and I received loads of good wishes. This year nobody wrote anything on it. That’s the way the cookie crumbles…it’s nice when it happens but I don’t think anyone should be upset if nobody remembers on a particular occasion.

        Anyway, Plum is quite private on a lot of things so she might never have told anyone….

    1. I think that the axle is cracked and is about to break so the wheels on Boris’s chariot are about to come flying off.

      Remain is probably a better option than Boris’s bodged deal as it will give us a better chance of being completely out if the EU sooner.

      1. If you think remaining will give us a chance of ever being free, you don’t understand the EU mentality, rastus!

    2. Nigel needs to get that statement out for the election if it comes. Perhaps including a summary at the start to highlight the most damaging parts in the Boris Agreement

    1. Hippo Birdy Two Shrews
      Hippo Birdy Two Shrews
      Hippo Birdy Dear Sue
      Hippo Birdy Two Shrews!

  42. It is always a joy to observe a BT van parked next the “junction box?” at the end of the road. My internet connection has been up and down like a yo-yo in the past hour, so I’m off out to purchase some vittles while they play “re-arrange the wires.” I will take the chance to say happy birthday to Sue.

    One other thing that gives a warm glow, and which explains why political parties have “internal polls” for their eyes only, compared to the public polls that the media and they quote from. For a long time we have seen the Labour party falling apart in front of us, and the Liberals not co-operating with Jeremy and going after their Remain voters as well. Yet the public polls in the media have shown Labour support rising at times, going up to 27% at one point. How amusing.

    What we are seeing now in the reactions of so many Labour politicians at the prospect of an imminent election, is the reflection of the internal polls that they have seen. These are otherwise known as the “real numbers” and Labour know that they are going to lose badly, doing even worse than they are now. Those seats are flying away and they know it, so we can expect any number of excuses to delay an election now.

    The media will keep saying that Labour has a chance of course, because it is in their pro-EU interests to pretend that. But when one of Corbyn’s closest advisers resigns because Labour have “no chance with him as leader,” there comes a time when you see the public polls as the propaganda tools that they are.

    The more real Brexit MP’s that there are after the next election the better off our country will be.

    1. BT engineers have been working overtime in all weathers in this town lately as many people are cut off, some who rely on the phone for their security. My phone was on the blink this morning but is OK now but as I am typing this I have had a call saying £600 has been taken fron my account. I had better check. The junction boxes are a maze of wires.

      1. I had that £600 call three times last week and my wife had the same the week before. They’re all hokum.

    2. It is always a joy to observe a BT van parked next the “junction box?” at the end of the road. My internet connection has been up and down like a yo-yo in the past hour, so I’m off out to purchase some vittles while they play “re-arrange the wires.” I will take the chance to say happy birthday to Sue.

      That’s MI5 bugging you! Lol!

  43. ‘More than 3,000 bus routes cut in past decade’

    More than 3,000 local bus routes have been lost or reduced over the past decade, according to a new study.
    The Campaign for Better Transport said local authority funding had fallen by more than 40% while central government funding had fallen by 19% in that time.
    The group said the service cuts had led to “poverty and social exclusion”.

    But the Campaign for Better Transport said it had identified “a picture of incoherent and shrinking funding, resulting in degraded or lost services and increasing fares”.

    The group said national government spending on bus services had fallen by £234m, in real terms, over the past decade.
    Meanwhile, spending by local authorities was £163m lower.

      1. Yes, indeed, Happy Birthday Sue …. a birthday you share with Pablo Picasso, Johann Strauss II, and (cough, cough) Katy Perry.

  46. An Irish company has confirmed it owns the refrigerated trailer where 39 Chinese nationals were found dead in Essex.
    Family-run business Global Trailer Rentals Ltd (GTR) told RTE News that the vehicle was leased on October 15 from its yard in Co Monaghan, in the Republic of Ireland, for 275 euro per week.

    Essex Police have launched a murder investigation after they were called to Waterglade Industrial Park in Grays and found the bodies of 38 adults and one teenager in the trailer.

    GTR said it had contacted Essex Police and given them information about the person and company that leased the trailer.

      1. The company renting it out then charge over £1000.00 for the month – transport company using it have that cost to cover. Not so cheap then ?

        1. A refrigerated trailer can be bought for about £21,000. Assuming a life of 2 years, annual cost is £10,500. Looking for a gross return of 40%, rental would be £14,700. This would be around £282 per week, excluding VAT.
          This assumes very little “down time”, that is, ongoing continuous hire.

          1. The trailer units are probably written down in the accounts at 20% a year so a nominal 5 year live but that’s just for accountancy purposes in practice they will be used for longer

    2. 275 euros per week seems very cheap for a trailer that size. My brother was charged £200 per week for a skip in Lanarkshire earlier this month.

      1. With a Skip most of the cost is in delivering it and taking it away and the costs of disposing of the wast

        1. I would have thought a refridgerated trailer would have considerable standing costs as well as a skip. This particular trailer will probably be taken out of service.

        1. Those costs are not relevant. The Company just hired the trail not the tractor unit. THe company or person hiring the trailer providing the tractor unit

    2. I wonder why St Greta isn’t having a serious pop at the EU and their carbon footprint, especially the bits generated by moving the whole behemoth from Brussels to Strasbourg so regularly!?

      1. ‘cos she is in Vancouver spouting her views at the assembled kiddies.

        My she is fit, she only had a week to walk over the Rockies after her last appearance in Edmonton.

    5. Well, yes. The only people who don’t know this are remoaners but then ‘we didn’t know what we were votnig for’, did we?

          1. Enoch Powell warned of the end game, some of us listened..
            After two world wars my father said it was German domination of Europe through the back door.

          2. Your father was right. Germany has achieved by economic means through the EU what it failed to do by bombs and bullets.

  48. Good morning from a Saxon Queen with long bow and
    axe and sword . She is first for the first time .

    Yes I agree, Boris Johnson must all an election, he certainly has
    the gumption.

    Off out soon in the dark…

    2. The FTPA means it’s not in his gift to call an election. Why would the Red Mob support Blue Mob demands for a GE?

  51. Cast of new BBC Novichok drama revealed as filming starts. Salisbury Journal. Katy Griffin. 24th October.

    Laurence Bowen, the executive producer for Dancing Ledge Productions “This is a story we all think we know, but the truth of what people experienced and of the local response to the chemical attack, is shocking and humbling in equal measure.”

    The programme’s makers say Salisbury captures the “bravery, resilience and, in some cases, personal tragedy of the unsuspecting locals who faced a situation of unimaginable horror so close to home”.

    I suppose it would be possible to write a three hour epic on the Bombing of Coventry or the Rape of Nanking but the Novichocking of Salisbury doesn’t seem to be quite in the same league! Perhaps that’s because it is the most complete tosh! A perusal of the back issues of this very paper produce no accounts of public concern indeed this magazine published an overview a couple of months after the incident where the local Vicar was interviewed…

    From the moment the scale of the incident became clear, Inglis decided his key objective was to stop Salisbury from being seen as a town of victims. “That was the line the press wanted,” he says. “The question they kept asking everyone in the first couple of weeks was, ‘Are you frightened?’ Happily, almost universally, people would say, ‘No, what rubbish!’ One old boy was interviewed in the marketplace; they said, ‘Are you scared for your life?’ And he said, ‘Are you mad?’

    …So no panic there; no streams of refugees heading for the A303 and the safety of the Metropolis. The reason for this “factual drama” is to prop up this ridiculous story in the public mind with a booster shot of linked propaganda. The story of the attack cannot itself be told because the holes in the MSM narrative would enlarge into chasms that might swallow all those who ascribed to it, Mrs May, Boris etc. Instead of leaving this story alone and trying to bury it they keep doubling down hoping that it will eventually be absorbed into the unquestioning mainstream. They are wrong!

    https://www.salisburyjournal.co.uk/news/17988707.cast-new-bbc-novichok-drama-revealed-filming-starts-salisbury/

    1. Who plays the part of the top scientist from Porton Down, who just happened to be in the vicinity at the very moment of the “attack”

      1. And who plays the role of the policeman who is immune to the poison while his confreres are tricked out to land on Jupiter?

    3. How can you be brave if you are unsuspecting of a situation. Answers on the back of a postage stamp…

    4. “Dancing Ledge Productions.”
      Went fishing and picnicked at Dancing Ledge with friends many years ago.

    6. Tin Drum5 hrs ago
      Ah, so the two “tourists” captured on cctv and then appearing on Russian TV to explain they had wanted to visit the cathedral (spire 123m tall) but got lost or too much snow – that was all coincidence? And don’t forget many other countries ejected their Russian representatives, so they all got it wrong. Nah, enough of the ****.
      Last Updated: 1 hr ago

      Bob_of_Bonsall1 hr ago
      0One of the tin-hat theories is that they were not there to assassinate the pair, but to assist them in getting out of the UK having carried out their mission of feeding UK Intelligence with fake information and the attempted murder was an attempt to prevent this.

      True or total fantasy? I have no idea, but the whole affair stank of rotten fish from the outset.

  52. Thank you thank you for your birthday wishes!

    As promised I’ve stopped FB reminding that set of friends and instead post the St Crispins Day speech. One friend, bless him, always reads it and it always makes him cry.

    25 October was also the date of the October Revolution in the old Russian calendar. We should be so lucky.

  54. The Apprentice: Lottie Lion comments ‘unacceptable’, BBC says

    It seems you can say almost nothing now. Seriously is what she said in any way really offensive other than to snowflakes ?

    The BBC has told Apprentice candidate Lottie Lion that comments she made to a fellow candidate on a WhatsApp group were “unacceptable”.
    It follows reports that Lion said “shut up Gandhi” to Lubna Farhan.
    The production company reported back to the BBC after looking into the issue, which took place after filming had concluded.

  56. Brexit: EU agrees to Brexit delay,

    The EU at present cannot reach a consensus. They will offer a delay but have not agreed yet on for how long. They expect to make a decision on Monday
    This running it to the wire

    1. It’ll be months and months to give the remoaners time to fight the result and force us in.

      The intent is attrition as the public get angry and fed up.

  57. I’ve just realised that along with losing my avatar, I’ve lost all my previous comments on Disqus. I was closing in on ten thousand, now my account is showing a paltry hundred and twenty. 🙁

  58. Error found in UK public finances, official statistics body admits

    In the grand scheme of things the error is small. WE are though at least in my view still spending far to much

    The UK budget deficit is £1-£1.5bn less than what had been previously reported after a statistical error, the Office for National Statistics has said (ONS).
    Britain’s official statistics agency reported earlier this week a year-to-date budget deficit of £40.3bn, excluding public-sector banks.
    The ONS now says there was “an error in the measurement of local government social benefits”.
    A corrected version will be published early next week.
    The error meant the budget deficit for the month of September alone was about £250m too high. The ONS had said last month’s shortfall was £9.4bn.

  60. Russia about to TURN OFF its internet? 25 October 2019

    A 2006 Russian law, for example, restricted access to services like LinkedIn, encrypted texting app Telegram and ‘radio’ app Zello by mandating companies to open up their software to the nation’s security forces and law enforcement agencies.

    Furthermore, the passage of the federation’s sovereign internet law in April called upon Russian communications agency Roskomnadzor to create an internet monitoring and management centre.

    In June, the Russian government threatened to block nine major VPN providers who had decline to enforce state censorship polices.

    Change the names and you come up with a mirror image of the West!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7613205/Russia-start-testing-new-internal-version-web-amid-fears-widespread-censorship.html

    1. This is precisely what Amber Rudd has been pushing for. She thinks that breaking all encryption is ‘necessary’.

      Of course, it’s just a snoopers charter.

  61. The question a second referendum must ask. Matthew Parris. 26 October 2019

    So let me propose two alternative escapes from this dilemma. My first proposal is that voters would be given a single ballot paper which will say something like this:

    ‘Please answer both questions. You should answer the second question whatever answer you have given the first.

    (1) Should Britain (a) remain in or (b) leave the European Union?
    (2) If Britain were to leave the European Union, would it be better to leave (a) with the government’s proposed deal; or (b) without a deal?’
    Once polls had closed, an initial count should take place: a count only of answers to the first question. If there is a majority for Remain there would be no further count. Britain would remain. If, however, Leave wins at the first count, then a second count would take place. This would decide whether we leave without a deal, or with the gov-ernment’s proposed deal.

    There is another way of achieving what my first proposal seeks, and that is to ask voters to rank the three options — Remain, Deal, No Deal — in order of preference. At the count, if any of those three achieved an absolute majority, this would be the plebiscite’s answer, and final. But if none did, the least popular of the three would be eliminated, and the second preferences of those who had supported it would be added to one or the other of the two options left standing. The more popular would then be the plebiscite’s answer.

    I’ve put this up in its entirety to show the duplicitous nature of Parris’s thinking. Everyone will recognise his first offer, it is simply a rerun of the referendum except in that a leave majority, will instead of settling the matter, lead to the consideration of deal or no-deal which would return us to the present gridlock since Parliament will not pass no-deal.

    The second is course intended to split the Leave vote and thus allow Remain to pass by default.

    This basic dishonesty lies at the heart of all Remain arguments where the intention is not the implementation of the peoples will but to frustrate it!

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/2019/10/the-question-a-second-referendum-must-ask/

  63. Apparently Sky Newz this morning had a tale of woe from a Portugese woman claiming “Selling sex for £5 is the only way I can survive after Universal Credit chaos.”. As @KingofWrong so eloquently tweeted, “I you’re ‘selling sex for £5’, you’re not a prostitute, you’re a nymphomaniac who wants an excuse.”

    3. Perhaps she should go back to Portugal instead of whingeing here. She (and many like her) won’t be missed.

        1. As those £5 a throw probably don’t pay tax, they’ll just have to start exercising. Their right arm.

  64. It doesn’t seem to have been mentioned here before.
    Everywhere but everywhere there has been a massive amount of roadworks.You have come across them. Every time you go shopping you have to go round and round the mulberry bush to get home. Re-surfacing, new roads, gas works, you name it. And this only started fairly recently.
    The overall cost must be billions. The construction industry must be paying a fortune in brown envelopes to get the contracts.
    Why the sudden rush to get everything done before Brexit ? (Didn’t they know there isn’t going to be a Brexit, anyway ?). And why do they stll leave the potholes untouched ? I have a suspicious mind.

    1. You have seen nothing compared to the chaos round our way. Keep the roads clear during tourist season and then dig everything up in an effort to complete a years worth of repairs and upgrades before winter sets in.

      But fairly recently? When I visit the UK I drive along the M23, that has been being smartened up since who knows when. I suppose that they will soon be digging up the road to dumb it back down now that smart motorways are out of favour.

      1. Do not overlook the February/March panic mend, when the budget has been underspent and if any is left over, it is deducted from the next years payout

    2. What I want to know:

      When a pothole is formed, where does the ‘pot’ is stuff from the hole go to?

      3. This depends on whether the pothole is urban or rural. In an urban situation the stuff just rolls to the gutter and gets swept up by the road sweeper (mechanical or human). In a rural situation it will get washed to the sides or centre of the road, flicked into the hedgerows or get squished into the mud and moved around on the tyres of tractors and other vehicles. On little used gravel tracks the gravel builds up in a little (or big) halo around the pothole, thereby creating an even bigger hole with annoying lumpy bits around it, until the tractor comes along & redistributes some of it at the same creating an even bigger hole, taking some of the bits to a far off field in the mud on its wheels. I hope you are now feeling enlightened!

  65. Two people have been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter and conspiracy to traffic people over 39 bodies found in a lorry in Essex.
    A 38-year-old man and 38-year-old woman from Warrington, Cheshire, were arrested after warrants were carried out, Essex Police said.

      1. Afternoon HL,
        You could be infringing upon the unwritten but adhered to by many, of the PC / Appeasement rulings.

        1. If you don’t hear from me tomorrow, you’ll know that I received the knock on my door. Before they broke it down.

        1. “Joanna Maher, 38, from Warrington, was named as the keeper of the Scania truck that was registered in the Bulgarian Black Sea port of Varna in 2018.

          She said: ‘We did own it but sold it 13 months ago. ‘It’s the cab – my name was down as owning it.’ ”

          “Mr Maher said he sold it on 3 October last year. He said the couple owned it for just a year. Thomas said: ‘It’s disgusting what’s happened.”

          So, Mrs Maher sold the cab 13 [sic] months ago, on 3 October 2018. So they appear to have owned it from October 2017 to October 2018 It was registered in Bulgaria in 2018. When, in 2018?

          In addition the article claims that police “aren’t interested” in minibuses that come up to take illegals (I’ve seen pictures and films of that before) and Albanian passports thrown away. Now why am I not surprised? And why are the local police not under strict investigation?

      1. No, the leader in the press said that Britain should take responsibility.
        As a peace offering, I suggest that we should gather together all 640 Members of Parliament and their families and randomly select 40 persons.
        Put them in an HGV trailer and release them only when the Govt and the MoD have established a policy to ensure that the UK has secure borders.
        Repeat as necessary.

        The UK needs biometric identity cards, but Mrs May cancelled that scheme.

      2. That has to be the MRD award winner for today.

        Have their Chinese brains worked out how we could have looked after people who we didn’t know were here and who shouldn’t have been here anyway? Oh Mr. President of China, remind me what you do to illegal would-be immigrants – sit them down and give them some chop suey?

  66. The up-tick manipulation pruning is continuing unabated, I do believe that one should keep an eye on alterations in their post.
    I put nothing past any of the enemas when they are in desperation mode.

    3. An empty taxi arrived at Westminster and when the door opened Jeremy Corbyn got out.

    6. Smile though your party’s breakin’,
      Smile through the mess you’re makin’.
      When there’s no meat in your pie, you’ll get by,
      If you smile through your Brexit sorrow
      Smile and maybe tomorrow
      We’ll see the back of the EU – too true.

  68. Speaking of Abbott (mentioned below):

    https://www.englishdemocrats.party/abbott_calls_for_safe_routes_for_refugees_following_essex_deaths?utm_campaign=roundup2510&utm_medium=email&utm_source=englishdemocrats

    Safe routes for refugees? If she came in nowadays no doubt she would be a “refugee”. It’s a great pity that she was ever let into this country (or her parents or whoever – I can’t be bothered to take the time to google her). Of course she wants more like herself – maybe she’d stand out less as a stupid waste of (a lot of) space, who does not come from these islands.

  70. The tracking of the recent movements of the death trailer seems to suggest that it could have been carrying other consignments across the channel on a regular basis.

    1. She is stupid enough to broadcast her stupidity. Perhaps she only gets away with it nowadays because she was on the future casting couch sleeping bag? with the equally thick Corbyn

    2. Notable that Hoey’s response is mature, responsible and deals with the issues. Abbott’s attacks the person.

      Kate Hoey is the sort of MP we want and deserve.

    1. Seems like the old clog ( self confessed down voter) finds these anti paedophile post’s upsetting, maybe time he shipped out.

      1. What the bloody hell was that for? It added nothing and was just an insult.

        For pity’s sake. We’ve probably a combined age well over 2000. Grow up.

  74. Boris Brexit

    Boris Bikes

    Boris Airport

    Boris Bridges

    Boris Carbon Neutral

    Boris Marriages

    2. As long as we don’t get Boris Boxers, as that’s be quite scary for the other half and would really ruin our nightlife.

  75. Happy Birthday to Sue,
    Happy Birthday to Sue,
    Happy Birthday Ms Edison
    Happy Birthday to you…..

    1. Blackford is especially against it because he hates the idea of an election. He’s a liar and a cheat to his constituents.

    2. Blackford is especially against it because he hates the idea of an election. He’s a liar and a cheat to his constituents.

      1. Anne,
        In my book prior to any GE there is a nation wide “mockoffer”
        ie the manifesto.
        AKA in political circles the three Fs ( fodder for fools ) and many swallow it again,again,& again, then some.
        Then complain very strongly of political / politico dyspepsia
        again,again,& again, then some.

        1. None of us get what we vote for, the electorates of all westernised democracies are tricked into voting for Globalist controlled politicians, the cruellest part of the trick being that the elections are already heavily rigged in favour of the Globalist politicians, voting just gives the illusion of democracy. Your victim blaming of the electorates again & again & again is directly equivalent to Einstein’s definition for insanity
          Wake up to the fact that it is the Globalists who are doggedly enacting an agenda against 99% of humanity.

          2. How in hell have you worked out that fairytale? Please provide a detailed explanation, if you can.

      2. He should be advising those constituents of his who live in the dark to apply to their local council for a postal vote. I don’t think Mr Blackford is a fan of Boris Johnson – in fact I am absolutely certain he isn’t.

  77. Will we ever have an election again? Spiked 25th October 2019

    But more importantly, we need to remind the entire political class that we’re still here. That we haven’t gone away. That we know what is going on here.

    This farce we’ve all been living through these past three years must come to an end. An election is the first essential step in that direction.

    The answer to the headline is yes. We will have another election sometime. They are an essential for conferring legitimacy on Regimes which is why Soviet Russia and North Korea and even China both had and have them. Taking our pointers from these examples who have more experience in this form of Democracy than ourselves, this will be when the result can be forecast with reasonable accuracy. If it is inaccurate it will be cancelled and rerun until the result is acceptable.

    This is where we are!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/10/25/will-we-ever-have-an-election-again/

    1. Afternoon AS,
      On hearing the cry going up “leave it to the tories”
      It fooled many of the peoples who wanted to be fooled
      most of the time.
      It fooled all current supporter / voter / members of the lab/lib/con ALL of the time.
      It certainly NEVER fooled Mr Gerard Batten any of the time, proof being “Road to freedom ” brought out in 2014.
      Please include me along with GB.

  78. So Parliament has taken back control then has immediately given control back to the EU with the leaving date extension.

    1. Afternoon B,
      They took back control on the 25 / 6 / 2016.
      Check out those who call for extensions.

    1. Credit to the man and thank you for your service for this nation’s security. I worry that there will be some petty, miserable Lawyer who will now call him a mass murderer and attempt to destroy his life.

      I also find that while the army are sent to kill the Loo and a snack bar lunatics overseas on the other hand big state hard left crazies are trying to bring them in en masse through the front door and forcing us to feed and house those people (at the expense of their victims) who want to kill us.

    3. An excellent friend of my family is a young Army Sergeant nurse with the Royal Gurkha Rifles currently in Kent. She says they’re lovely but they’re so fit and healthy that she’s now working part time with the NHS to fill her duty hours.

  81. What has happened with the recent tragedy with the trafficked slaves dying on the lorry is exactly what Trump was trying to stop in the USA with the Mexican traffickers, but he got called racist for it,

    1. Yes, and he was also responsible for the recent tornado that ripped through Dallas and the large fire raging in California this week.

    2. Trump got reined in because of family separations – taking small children and babies away from their parents illegally. His problem is that he acts first and thinks afterwards – if at all. When it gets pointed out to him that was he is doing is in fact against the law, he goes off on a rampage and blames “liberals” for his own mistakes.

        1. They were. All those photos of “kids in cages” we’re taken during the Obama administration.

      2. But didn’t the liberals if you can call them that under Obama take children away from their parents?

      3. 30% of the children taken away from the adults with them are not related, i.e. are not family. Some are being trafficked. The adults have no papers to identify who they are, so separating them is a matter of safety.
        Plus it’s not a good idea to have small children in the same holding facility as the adults. Bear also in mind that some 80% of women crossing the border illegally claim to have been raped. Not a good idea to leave children in that environment.

    2. I very much doubt the 27% for Labour is correct. That.s way out of line with other polls

    3. Probably conducted before the most recent idiocies in courts and the Commons have forced his hand. It’s no longer in his control.

  83. A comment by Jimmy deserves a wider audience

    Reading
    about the Chinese migrants who died I find myself thinking of Theodore
    Dalrymple’s claim that sentimentality is “the progenitor, the godparent,
    the midwife of brutality”, especially when people say we must now throw
    open the borders and let anyone in – which clearly will only encourage
    more to make dangerous journeys.

    I had the same thought when it
    turned out that liberals and feminists had been happy to turn a blind
    eye to the mass rape of schoolgirls. I think of it whenever a 37 year
    old woman is crushed to discover that she left it too late to have
    children having followed femiist advice to live like a man. I think of
    it whenever people claim that we need yet more “humanitarian” wars in
    the middle east.

    The strange, almost passive aggressive, politics
    we have in the west now really unleashes a lot of cruelty. It does this
    by being weak in terms of order, morals, traditions and restraint at
    home – and in that weakness the brutal and violent thrive – and being
    far too aggressive abroad. In all cases it claims compassion but it is
    really sentimentality.

    1. I see they’ve been holding candlelight vigils in their memory.

      Sentimentality? Won’t someone think of the poor candle-makers who have to earn a crust?

      And the florists!

    2. They don’t care about that though. It’s all about having their own way. About ‘being nice’. Never taking responsibility.

      I don’t believe it is sentimentality, either. I think it’s just egotism. This utter lack of responsibility, discipline and thought to do what is right rather than what they want. It is mindless arrogance.

    3. It’s like that sh!t of a father (Swedish?) who didn’t want to make a complaint about his daughter being raped and killed when she was helping out at a hostel for immigrants because it would look bad on immigrants or some carp like that.

      Well if I lived there I would have knocked his lights out for putting my daughter in jeopardy. He might not care about his daughter but I care about mine.

  84. This weather is like the dark and wet autumns I remember when I were no-but a lad in the 1950s. Our weather seems to be reverting to the norm.

    1. Although I often jump in my legs on a fine day and go for a walk, it’s nice now and again to stay in on a soggy day with the kettle in a continuous-boil mode.

  85. Britain and Europe ‘must take responsibility’ over deaths

    Ah, it’s our fault. Of course, silly me. I’m glad someone has pointed this out to me. I must try harder.

    1. If anyone is to blame it is the do gooders, the globalists and the loony left elites that control our country.

      2. WE have in my view endless organisation and politicians encouraging this as if they make it to the UK there chances of being deported is less than 2%. A further encouragement is that within weeks they can start claiming UK benefits and can qualify for social housing

      2. BJ,
        Is that saying then that they should be condemned to death for being enterprising because I most certainly DO NOT think so.

        1. So should we send out more rescue boats and ships to pick up illegals from the sea? Extend our existing taxi service?

          1. HL,
            If that is your wish, tis not mine.
            Nobody deserves to die the way they did.

            Switch off the power to the magnet it is under the label
            Welfare.
            No need then of trains & boat’s & planes.

          2. My wish is that we do like Australia – turn them away. If they die trying to sneak in, that is very sad, but it is NOT our fault.

          3. HL,
            Surely Supporting / voting for mass uncontrolled immigration parties not once / twice but multiple times is a great part of the blame along with a good dose of PC / Appeasement.

          5. HL,
            You mean you can tell the difference ? yet I do find that very difficult who knows what goes on behind the green door or the polling booth curtain, ones sweet old granny could tell one one thing, and vote the complete opposite.

    3. Afternoon SIADC,
      In regards to establishment employees, lab/lib/con politico hierarchy, all had a hand in it one way or the other.
      The three monkey brigade has a great deal to answer for.

      1. The corporate Globalists, who are ensuring the UN Global Compact for Migration is enacted, thankyou for your efforts to deflect attention away from their nefarious activities.

          1. No slip, I have every intention of continuing to downvote a yellow bellied, whinging snowflake, coward with such a slope on its shoulders that it needs to blame a third party for its downvotes.

          2. Gotcha,
            “I have every intention of continuing to down-vote”
            A second self confessed down voter.

          3. As downvoting isn’t a cardinal sin that has any need to be confessed, the only person thing to which ‘gotcha’ can be applied is you. FYI – I would prefer to see the avatars of downvoters, but I don’t have any influence on Disqus’ policy.

    4. Didn’t you know? We forced them into that container and didn’t give them oxygen tanks to survive the trip so they could vanish into the system and claim welfare at our expense forever more!

    5. My mate went to do a big shop at Iceland, but for some reason they’d run out of frozen Chinese.

  86. I’m confused. I gave just logged in using my phone instead of my Samsung tablet and my old avatar is still there.

    1. You have two accounts – this one with 8470 comments and the one with the new avatar with only a few hundred. Did you put the new avatar on both?

      1. No. If I use my tablet, this one comes up. If I use my smartphone, the old one comes up. I’m v confused.

        1. You registered this account on 13th August 2019 and have made 144 comments. So at that time , for whatever reason, you started a new account. Your old account is still there and usable.

  87. The comment I posted three hrs ago is still on here further down but with my new avatar.
    Have I cloned myself?

    1. I believe that if you change the avatar it gets changed on all the posts you’ve ever made under the same “registration”. If you register on a different e-mail/s you can have multiple personalities.

      1. I didn’t change it. It disappeared so I had to upload a new one. That was before I realised my old comments had disappeared too. They’re still there along with the old avatar if I use my smartphone. I’m writing this on my tablet. I only use one email address (I think).

        1. That’s a different issue.

          You appear to have two personnas. If you changed the avatar to the same one on both personnas I suspect they would all be the same historically, even though the vote count would differ. Does your access go straight to the sites, either with a retained log-in or saved log-in so you just need to click in?

          Some sites recognise the computer/phone etc and will not automatically accept log-ins from different sources, particularly if your security settings are fairly strong and you close down entirely daily, rather than have the machine on standby.

          Are you sure that you are using the same e-mail? for example we use BT/Yahoo on the laptop but g-mail on the smart phone, but with saved log-ins and connected passwords so the e-mail doesn’t necessarily show up each time.

  88. Afternoon all. A lot of articles over at the Torygraph saying that we need an election. We certainly do, but I seem to remember only two years ago we had a snap general election which was supposed to give the Government the mandate to deliver a proper Brexit. Over 80% of the votes went to parties which promised to honour the referendum, but look where we are now. Until manifestos are made legally binding (and party-hoppers are made to face a by-election) then I really cannot see how we can vote with any confidence.

    1. We want an election at which NOBODY goes out to vote.
      All parties will then be equal, but they will get the message.

    2. Afternoon JK,
      I and many others knew the outcome it was a guaranteed failure the lab/lib/con manifesto’s used as @rse wipes would contaminate hemorrhoids many of us take this as a given.
      Hence my personal choice is & has been for many a year UKIP, two things guaranteed being your self respect & integrity.

  90. Are ‘energy vampires’ costing you money?

    They are really getting silly now. A Router will typically use less than 6W an hour. It can also cause problems turning them on and off and may cause you to lose incoming emails. It should not but it does happen

    Appliances such as wi-fi routers and televisions are known as “energy vampires” due to the fact they consume electricity even when not in use.
    Many people have been given personalised advice on how much those devices are costing them.
    But the university’s research shows that despite the incontrovertible figures, which show energy vampires account for as much as 10% of someone’s bill, people are still not switching the items off at the mains in order to save cash.

    1. Considering that a router almost needs to be on all the time and turning it off and on regularly isn’t healthy for it it’s a bit of a silly statement.

      Why do they never talk about the cost of smart meters on our bills? Or the massive cost of paying for green subsidy? Or the taxes on energy? These are the real costs yet the establishment never seems happy to raise them.

  91. What on earth is really going on ? ”

    “The BBC has spoken to the families of three Vietnamese people who are worried their relatives may have been in the trailer.

    The family of one woman say she sent a text saying she was suffocating.

    They
    say Pham Tra My, 26, sent the message on Tuesday night and they have
    not been able to contact her since. They said they had paid £30,000 for
    her to be smuggled to Britain.”

    1. Couldn’t she just get on a plane and come as a tourist then forget to go home. She’d be illegal, but no more illegal than arriving in the back of a lorry.

    2. Where the Hull did they get £30,000? And at what price?
      We’re not exactly on our uppers, but there is no way we could raise such a sum.

      2. I wonered exactly the same and if they had that much money why weren’t they staying in Vietnam or was the £30,000 a loan to be repaid as slave labour for the rest of her life by the woman sent to Britain.

        1. I suspect her life here would be nail bar/massage parlour/prostitution.
          She would be hooked on drugs and the debt would never be cleared.
          What disgusting people these traffickers are. May they rot in hell.

  92. Just seen this on Guido by Ruthy DE in the Belfast Telegraph Oct 21. Extracts

    “DUP must see sense or it risks spectre of Corbyn in No 10.

    “Having begun as a slightly reluctant Leaver, I have become very hardline over the last three years in reaction to the undermining by Establishment Remainers of attempts to implement the will of the people of the United Kingdom by getting out of the EU.

    In fact, when the Supreme Court, in what I regard as a power grab, made its unanimous judgment delegitimising the Prime Minister’s proroguing of Parliament, I was angrier than I have been in a very long time…”

    “Additionally, over the last few years I have been relieved the DUP were so influential in Parliament that they played an important role in resisting the enormous pressure to bring in a Brexit so soft and pointless it was nicknamed Brino (Brexit in name only).”

    “But now it looks as if they intend to vote against the deal Boris Johnson secured in Brussels. I think they are on the wrong side.”

    “I have no difficulty in understanding why unionists – although in many respects the most patriotic people in the British Isles – are deeply suspicious of the British Establishment.”

    “I know the DUP feel betrayed by Boris Johnson, but I wish they would think pragmatically.

    The demographic outlook for unionists is poor; they have few friends. The Prime Minister is genuinely a unionist; he got rid of the backstop though no one believed he could. Meanwhile, if Northern Ireland could remember its fine entrepreneurial traditions it could seize the unique opportunity offered by this Brexit deal, market itself as a gateway between the EU and the UK/world economy and provide exciting opportunities to the young people of both traditions who have been abandoning it.

    That is the way to self-reliance, prosperity and respect.”

    “My fear is that by opposing the Johnson deal, the DUP may unwittingly ease the path to power of Jeremy Corbyn, who would push Ulster Protestants right out of the window.”

    So much for blinkered N. Irish journalists who, like the SNP, see only their little part of the UK as mattering. If the WA/PD is bad for the UK as a whole, it will be a lot worse for you in NI. Can’t you get that?

    People in England don’t just think about England (although they pay for the rest of you) but many of those in NI think only about NI staying within the Union, many of those in Scotland only about Scotland leaving the Union. It’s about time you lot started to think about what is good or bad for the whole Union, not just about your little part of it. Some day England and Wales are going to get fed up, and will send you on your way. And you will have deserved it.

    1. “I know the DUP feel betrayed by Boris Johnson, but I wish they would think pragmatically.”

      The pragmatic reality is that if we stay under the control of the EU for years, then the next generations will feel the sword of a cultist resting on their necks. No short-term fix is worth that long-term certainty. Those who do not want a clean break for the United Kingdom, such as the Irish journalist writing that article, do not see what is coming.

  93. We should make the UK fairer and a part of that is to ensure migrants do not get immediate access to UK benefits

    For most benefits they will have to have lived and worked in the UK for a minimum of 3 years

    For the NHS they will have to take out Health Insurance for the first three years in the UK

    No access to any welfare benefits for the first 3 years in the UK

    No access to Council housing for the first 6 years in the UK

    For the first 3 years they will have to financially support themselves. If at any time they cannot they will be deported

    1. Yes, but the EU rules prevent us from doing any of that. So you really ought to be wanting us to get out completely, rather than blathering on about Boris’s “deal”. Because his deal doesn’t prevent it for the future.

  94. OfCom report:

    “The Ofcom report also revealed audiences viewed the BBC’s output as too “middle-class, white and London centric”.

    All comments to be suitable for reading in a family newspaper.

    1. When eventually you and all of us get to cast a vote remember you will be posting it in a Ballox Box…..

  100. Received this morning. A secret reader of Nottl?

    Dear Brexit Party Supporters.

    Firstly, my apologies to anybody who thought last night’s message about fly posting was directed at them as an individual. I have changed the salutation to “Supporters” rather than “Supporter” to avoid giving this impression again. I am grateful for this being brought to my attention. For interest, each of these “broadcast” e-mails goes to over 6,000 Supporters.

    I regularly receive e-mails asking for information about candidates, policy and strategy with regard to the next election campaign. My response has always been vague. This is necessary for a number of reasons, including the fact that I’m not yet privy to most of the information either. What I can assure you is that a lot of work has taken place to make sure we are ready to launch a campaign whether it be next week or soon thereafter.

    From the outset I promised not to over-communicate, but as the likelihood of a General Election increases I shall update you more regularly and let you know how you can most effectively contribute.

    Kind regards
    Nigel Wickens
    Campaign Manager
    The Brexit Party

  101. Jaguar Land Rover gets China sales boost

    Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has reported a quarterly profit after seeing a big boost to sales in China.
    The firm made a pre-tax profit of £156m in the three months to 30 September, with revenues up 8% to £6.1bn.
    Sales in China – a key market for car manufacturers – were up by nearly a quarter from a year earlier.
    JLR said the popularity of new models helped to lift the results, with global sales of the new Range Rover Evoque up by more than 50%.
    The strong performance from JLR helped its owner – India’s Tata Motors – to report a smaller than expected loss for the quarter.
    Tata’s loss for the quarter narrowed to 2.17bn rupees ($31m; £24m) from 10.49bn rupees a year earlier.

    1. Tata own JLR – the people who took over and ruined our steel, that Tata.

      “JLR currently build Land Rovers in Brazil, China, India, Slovakia, and the United Kingdom” – so does that really affect us much?

  102. Some of you might be interested in my correspondence with my MP

    Could you tell me if there is anything untrue in either of these links.
    https://youtu.be/vHt8GpGTORo     The other link was Tony Benn
    Reply
    I agree with the Benn quote.
    The best ‘fisks’ of the ‘new’ deal are to be found on the Brexit Central and the ConHome websites. Martin Howe QC is excellent on its shortcomings (and its huge improvements re. the May deal) but he concludes that we MUST now support it.

    I have just read Martin Howe’s article and can only conclude that he’s had a funny turn and got it wrong.
    How can our Parliament pass this WA and give away our country, still subject to the ECJ, and it be called a better agreement than May’s. Having read all the negatives I find it hard to see how he, or anyone else, could find anything positive about it. Even the NI backstop, which is/was a non problem, is the only movement. We still pay the ’£39 billion’ and continue to pay without any say in the matter.
    If that’s acceptable then my name is George Soros and I will laugh all the way to the bank, again.
    We have got to leave with no deal otherwise democracy (along with all political parties) will be consigned to the grave. Why is it 17.4 million votes in favour of Leave are being ignored. Why should we continue to vote if we are told we are leaving the EU but will be tied to it more than any other of the remaining 27.
    Trying to defend the indefensible has been turned into an art form by this Rogue Parliament. It proves that old saying that ‘IF VOTING EVER CHANGED ANYTHING IT WOULD HAVE BEEN ABOLISHED’. Why should we bother in future.
    I urge you and all patriotic MPs (very few) to vote this Wretched Deal down. There are ways to ignore the Benn Law, an Order in Council, I believe.

    Read and noted. Thanks. I appreciate your strength of feeling on this matter, but through the machinations of this Remainer Parliament the possibility of leaving on WTO terms seems increasingly unlikely.
    I agree that it is poor that we’re under EU and ECJ rules during the ‘transition’ period.
    But that’s what Mrs May signed up to.
    We are hoping to be fully out by the end of 2020. At that point we are properly out.

    I admire your optimism about about being fully out of the EU by the end of 2020. You do mean that we will not be paying any more money to the EU after that and that our own courts will have precedence over the ECJ don’t you. You also mean that we will take back full control of our armed forces and confirm our full participation in NATO and not the EU Defence Union.
    Boris/May’s Wretched Agreement, it’s a pile of poo. You can polish it, decorate it, put diamonds on it but, ultimately, it remains a pile of poo and is giving our country’s future to a foreign power. If the deal was bad before Boris took over and it’s only been polished and decorated then it is still bad.
    What we seem to have now is the lot who voted for it 3 times and lost are now the ones who are against the WA and the ones who mainly voted against are now for albeit the same dreadful ‘deal’.

    This better reflects my view and, probably, a large number of the 17.4 million voters in favour of Leave.
    Ignore it at your peril.
    https://www.thebrexitparty.org/read-this/#compare
    This is the reality IMHO.

    I have had no response to the last email.

    1. “…an Order in Council…” I suggested that three years ago. It would have avoided the Gina Miller case and all the subsequent wrangling.
      Strange, is it not, that a whole bunch of nobodies have achieved so much to stop Brexit, yet those charged with bringing it about, backed by 17.4 million votes, the largest in our history, have not only failed but have handed control to the nobodies?

      1. It’s not strange, it’s outrageous. Some severe questions should be asked of quite of lot of people in power.

    2. Well done for pointing out that: You can’t fool all of the people all of the time – keep at it!

      1. No but unfortunately you can fool some of the people all of the time. And when those some of the people have a vote, then all of the people are in trouble.

    2. “A policeman from near Clapham Junction
      Had a penis that just wouldn’t function.
      His entire married life,
      He deceived his poor wife,
      With some snot on the end of his truncheon”

        1. There once was a man from Koblenz
          Whose bollocks were simply immense
          It took several laymen,
          A priest and three draymen
          To carry them thither and thence          .

      2. There once was a fellow from Ghent
        Whose Prick was incredibly bent
        To save himself trouble
        He pushed it in double
        But instead of coming he went

        1. That must be the EU approved version – I thought the chap came from Kent rather than Ghent which was the place to which they took the good news from Aix.

          2. An erudite thinker from Deal
            Who said: ‘Though I know pain’s not real
            If I sit on a pin
            And it punctures my skin
            I dislike what I fancy I feel.’

    1. Congratulations Peston you arse, democracy has been destroyed. Well done. You utter bastard. I hope you’re happy.

  105. I have just been to the Tescos.

    Aside from the seething, incontinent mass of humanity four people [ractically walked in to me. Now, if I were easy to miss, I’d excuse this but I am *impossible* to do so. Thus we have four utter fools who, so oblivious are they that they ram trolleys, baskets and blundering around into a 6’4 man in a furious temper.

    One woman nearly went to rant and I admit I was in a fair old temper and a slight narrowing of the eyes and she stopped. Bloody right to, useless bint. She walked in to me because she wasn’t looking where she was going. Becaue she, like some sort of gormless fool was pushing her trolley from the side. Then there’s the old bloke who parked his trolley in front of the soups, oblivious that I stood beside him and wandered off. So I pushed it away. Now, there’s push, a controlled move a metre or so and a shove, where I could have sent it across the sodding shop – all 500 metres or so. He starts to respond and I simply say ‘you blocked the aisle off.’ and he still thinks he’s in the sodding right!

    Gah! At that point the war queen arrives and steers me away before I break his spine in seven places.

    Then as we leave, some bumbling silly woman is checking her receipt, one tiny step at a time in the middle of the aisle and I think Move. A. Sodding. Side. Instead I’m polite and edge past her. Edge in the same way a tank would.

    Cripes I detest humanity. It’s incompetence, it’s arrogance, it’s laziness, it’s lack of thought, it’s plain, brutal stupidity, it’s lack of planning, it’s inability to think more than a step ahead of it’s own blundering needs. Less said about the trip home the better as at the moment there are roadworks everywhere. Every single road around me is being dug up yet there’s never anyone working on them.

    I might be the angriest person at the moment but it takes no time to think of other people – if two blokes are walking toward one another, they naturally divert around. Why do women with trollies not do the same? Why do they not look where they’re going? It is only SWMBO who stops me going absolutely postal.

    1. I was like that in supermarkets at one time. Not good for the BP. Try and focus on your breathing. It has a calming effect.

      1. Even worse are the staff that bring a huge trolley out o the store and just dump it in the aisle and leave it there whilst they wander off to who knows where

    2. I am going to come up with a new supermarket concept for those that prefer to shop in stores. My concept will have no trolleys

      2. With service counters, and assistant, and chairs for you to sit on while waiting or being served.

        2. Like my grandmother.
          Every so often she would take her pony and trap and clip clop from Woodham Mortimer to Bolingbokes in Chelmsford to buy a hat.
          There she would sit on a chair, while the assistants ran hither, thither and yon with most of the hat department’s stock while she made her choice.
          She would then return home; the hat would be packed and delivered the next day.
          When she got home, my grandmother was so exhausted by the experience that she would recline on the sofa while the servants brought her tea and a lightly boiled egg.

        1. We tried that, but when they delivered oranges instead of apples and said ‘they’re both fruit?’ the war queen gave up. We get our vegetables from this organic farm place but that’s mainly because junior likes to see the animals.

      1. Normally I would, but recently last time I went late Saturday when Junior had gone to bed. It was still heaving. We’re heading toward it only being quiet early – 4am ish mornings.

    5. Is it possible that they did not see you because they were staring into their phones?

      My rule of progress (not approved of by her majesty) ask once politely, ask a second time loudly then shoulders square and go!

        1. I don’t seem to have your problems, darlings. I just say “excuse me please” and they move, usually with a “sorry”.

          1. On one wonderful occassion a little elderly chap wanted something from the top shelf, so I hoofed down the box for him.

            In return (as I’d borked my back) I asked if he could reach down a shelf for something fo rme and he did. It was a wonderful moment of reciprocity.

            Sadly, such are few and far between. Most of the time I find myself becoming angry and tense which does nothing for the blood pressure. Once I remember I walked from one side to the other on a packed day and just kept going. I forget who was bounced out of the way but maybe I wasn’t paying attention. It was like parting the red sea.

      2. One woman rounded a corner and while looking at the end aisle produce drove her trolley straight into me.

        Another just pushed straight forward after putting vegetables in it. I stopped that impacting my hip with my hand. That always surprises people. They keep assuming that them pushing will keep going.

        The difficulty is when the problem escalates the side is always with the little ratty woman rather than the brutish man.

    6. Last week whilst I was doing the supermarket run a female shopper abandoned her trolley, in the middle of the aisle, at the end of the aisle and that side of the supermarket where the check-outs are and queueing people, whilst she went off to scout for something she had forgotten.

    7. I feel your pain.
      For complicated reasons – mostly to do with too many s0dding people jammed into and around a provincial town – I ended up in the area of Colchester blighted by the Ipswich Road ‘improvements’.
      A quick nip out to the shops proved to be anything but.

      1. It’s normally 30 minutes – as we make a list, we go, we get what we want, we get out again. 5 mins there, 5 mins back.

        It took over 50. Most of that 20 minutes of traffic.

        I honestly do think that if the war master hadn’t been there I’d have actually lost it. The ability that woman has to calm me down is phenomenal. I rarely get actually physically angry but this one time every muscle tensed – and the last time that happened I pulled a trolley out as the blasted thing swallowed our pound coin.

    8. ‘- if two blokes are walking toward one another, they naturally divert around. Why do women with trolleies not do the same?’

      If it were only shopping trollies it wouldn’t be so bad, but they do the same with their bloody cars!

      You’re driving along a road, approaching a narrow stretch, either a natural narrowing of the road, or maybe a parked vehicle on the other side. You see a car approaching from the opposite direction, so realising that there is still room for two vehicles to pass, but not much, you ease over to the left to maximise the available space. In the meantime the approaching car is moving out into the middle of the road without any slackening of speed, loads of room between it and the grass verge (or parked car), but perilously little between its offside wing mirror and yours. You can’t go any further left without going off the road, why doesn’t the approaching car do the same on its side, rather than continuing on its originally chosen heading without any reduction in speed. Is the driver insane? Drunk?

      Then as it finally passes you, missing by inches as you feel your left side tyres touching the verge, but having about three feet or more between it and the parked car it all becomes clear.

      Behind the wheel of the other car, eyes fixed forwards in terror, hands twitching from side to side on the steering wheel as they wobble it without any effect on the steering wheel, is a female driver. The age is irrelevant. Once they’ve started on their course to overtake it’s as if they can’t then modify the manoeuvre, by moving left or slowing slightly. They freeze and hope that the driver approaching them doesn’t do the same.

      This isn’t just a male knocking women drivers in a sexist comment by the way. It drives my wife nuts too. She can’t understand the mentality.

      I’m off out now for the weekly shop. I usually get it in the morning before the zombies arrive and it’s quieter, but sleep wouldn’t come last night and I had a lie-in so that I had getting on for four hours.

      2. Sit in the middle of the road and get out. Some bloke in a 4×4 tried that and sometimes – sometimes – being a ‘bit scary’ can help solve the problem.

        Same happens at the cross roads to our ul de sac. Woman roared up to it ranting and screaming so I sat there (as exiting vehicles have priority) and she backed up, then ranted so I reminded her I had priority – after she screamed ‘learn to drive!’ and then no doubt her ego and pride were hurt. As were her tyres.

      3. The worst for me is when I, driving my 17.5ft campervan, meet a woman coming the opposite direction on a narrow road. Although she has already passed two or three stopping places where she could pull in, she thinks I should reverse half a mile or more to the one behind me. It is a case of the irresistible force meeting the immovable object. If necessary, I offer to reverse her car.

    9. Hear! Hear!
      Glad it’s not just me… last week, on a visit to Stockholm, lost it with some pr*ck who would not let us off the bus before crashing into us and barging his way onto the bus. Let’s just say that my comment was at operatic volume, and included the phrase “Shit-for-brains”.
      GRR!!

        1. This case – white Swede, in a pinkish suit… :-((
          But Scandis don’t do queueing or waiting, or polite sh*t like that.

          1. Queueing and waiting, and giving way in a car, holding doors open etc. are not part of the Scandinavian culture. It’s like apparently in Bulgarian there is no word for please or thank you. It’s “I want” or “I could do with”.

        2. Indeed – some ten years or so ago, I was getting on the tube to go to work, with a friend. A man of swarthy and definitely not English complexion pushed me roughly out of the seat I was just getting into.

          Well, even then, you can’t retaliate,can you? My inclination was to push him back – hard, with a kick in the nadgers just in case he didn’t get the point. I just said loudly what execrable lack of manners he had. He wouldn’t have understood, but kindly another man stood up and gave me his, for which I thanked him.

    10. Best time for shopping is after 10 on a Saturday evening. I’ll have to face Tescos this evening though, as our cupboard is now in Old Mother Hubbard mode.

    11. I nearly got wiped out walking back from town in the pouring rain with my shopping this arvo. A yoof, on his mobile phone, was almost nose to nose with me (I’d stopped) before he looked up.

  106. “Hey European Union. Pull yourself together,” warned the Turkish strongman, who used a failed coup against him in 2016 as an opportunity to hurl thousands of his political opponents and detractors into prison, over moves by the EU to condemn his recent incursion into Kurdish-controlled territory in northern Syria.
    I say it again. If you try to label this operation as an invasion, it’s very simple: we will open the gates and send 3.6 million refugees your way,” threatened the Islamist leader, prompting a round of applause from his audience.”

    What happened to the money (our money) he was given by the EU to stop immigrants coming to the EU – eh Drunker? Answer that please.

    And Boris wants an amnesty for Turks (for turks read anyone who comes from (or via) Turkey)? Over my his dead body…

    https://www.englishdemocrats.party/turkey_to_eu_we_will_send_3_6_million_refugees_your_way?utm_campaign=roundup2510&utm_medium=email&utm_source=englishdemocrats

  107. Mail to Mr R in reply to…….. ”The Cost of Greening”………………………….

    When did climate hysteria start ?

    Way back in the Bill Clinton era.

    Who funded Bill Clintom ?

    G S

    Who pushed climate hysteria ?

    Al Gore. Vice President to Bill Clinton

    Who was Al Gore’s best friend ?

    G S

    Tells you all you need to know about climate hysteria which is a mass movement designed to further enrich the rich at the expense of the poor, partly through currency collapse…. and to give G S control of the Western world via his influence over the United Nations and the European Union.

    Expose the conspiracy and drain the swamp.

    Eventually you’ll lose your country if you don’t.

    Polly

    1. I lived in the DC area through the Clinton/Gore era. The only hysteria was over Bill and Monica. Gore got started on his “save the world” project after his defeat by GW in 2000. He and his family were already extremely rich, so he did not have to work for a living. Besides it does not cost much to knock up a Power Point presentation.

    1. ‘Their’ mother?

      ‘His’, ‘hers’ or ‘its’.

      Stop this mangling of the language now.

      1. Oh look! Over there somebody else is being pedantic & they’re not getting their wrist slapped.

        2. I was going to say “If you can spot the sex of that baby carrot at that range, then you are a better horticulturalist than I.”

          But then I saw the “its” there and thought that all of the relevant options had been covered.

      2. It is the fault of feminism that pronouns have become weaponised.

        Before it became unacceptable to talk about a chairman because feminists said it was sexist we could use the pronoun ‘he’ to cover both sexes and ‘man’ to cover both the male and the female of the human species.

        So now we are lumbered with clumsy expressions such as: ‘each pupil must pick up his or her books’ (‘instead of each pupil musty pick up his books) or the grammatically incorrect ‘each student must pick up their books.’

        (Some time ago I tried to explain the grammatical difference between sex and gender to Bill Jackson but it was beyond him – I told him to look at the first line of John Milton’s Paradise Lost but he must have looked at James Hilton’s Lost Horizon about Shangro La instread as he was none the wiser.)

        1. You’re fortunate Rastus, in not having had to live your life being refered to in the opposite gender. I don’t like being referred to by male pronouns.

          1. My parents blessed me with the name of a French man – so I’m used to being addressed as a male when I’ve always been female.

  109. A person on BBC Radio 4 evening news saying these probable Vietnam victims are mainly economic migrants sent over here illegally in their thousands to support their families at home. Some Vietnamese boys are working in Cannabis farms in the UK. This person says they will always find a way to get here illegally. The person also says the problem is widespread in many other countries. Several Vietnamese people have contacted the BBC trying to find out if their family member is a victim. One woman said on Tuesday that her family member had phoned her on Tuesday to say she was suffocating and said her trip to the UK had failed.

    1. I’m not a “techie” but locked in a sealed, refrigerated container, would her relation get a mobile phone signal to make that call?

        1. Our mobile phone is virtually useless unless you go outside and even then the signal keeps breaking up We always use our landline.

          1. You can buy a gadget that sends and receives mobile phone calls via your internet box. Not so efficient for SMS. For example the Vodafone version is called Vodafone Sure Signal. I expect that SFr and Orange market their own versions. UK cost is from £100 upwards.

      2. I guess it gets stored on her phone and as soon as the phone gets a signal it goes out. But thus said, it appears that she contacted them from within the trallor. I suppose similar to the way a stanav or phone signal gets into a car.

        That in turn suggests that there could be a technical solution when monitoring lorries to see if any signals are coming from phones within.

      3. Was it Silent Witness that had the same plot line and when, after the van full of bodies had been discovered, their mobile phones were plugged in to charge up, the stored text messages started sending,

        1. Evening Bob – A Wallender episode had a load of bodies in an abandoned truck with a live baby amongst the dead bodies. They were destined for a Catholic Institution which was supporting Eastern European illegal migrants. . I wonder if the driver let them out at one point before setting off on the final fatal trip across to the UK..

      4. In general, an all metal trailer would blanket or at least severely attenuate any mobile phone signal. Some (here anyway) have fibreglass roofs which would allow a signal. I’ve been in stores and supermarkets here where there was no signal unless you stood right by the door – again too much metal around.

        If the phone still had battery power, any backed up texts would go out when there was a signal, i.e when the trailer was opened up.

    2. If these people are Vietnamese, what has China got to do with it? Unless (perish the thought) the people traffikers are Chinese…

      1. If they are mainly Vietnamese then that could lead to some very red-faced journalists on the BBC and Sky as they try to get out the words:

        “Um… Sorry… Well, reports on the scene said that they LOOKED Chinese…”

        That will be one police spokesman sent for cultural awareness training, with a new edition of “Jane’s Book of Foreign Appearances.”

        1. A guy I know called Gene was standing in a Vietnamese take-away near me, waiting to order.
          A mate of his was passing by, saw him, and waved, shouting ” Hi !! Gene !!”
          Quick as a flash, the entire workforce of the take-away scarpered as fast as they could.

      2. I think the person went to China as part of the process. There will probably be Chinese amongst the victims . Are the Vietnamese restricted by our immigration rules as I read on here that the Chinese can opt to enter the UK legally. £30000 would allow a few flights to the UK. Some of the familes have had monies returned to them which bodes badly for the families

  110. Completely off topic, unless you think it might be about politicians
    BBC2 8pm, Natural world on weasels.

    3. Cue the oldie:

      How do you tell the difference between a weasel and a stoat? A weasel is weasily distinguished whereas a stoat is stoatally different.

      1. How do you tell the difference between Martens?

        Stone martens are wobbly, pine martens are sad.

  111. I think I like fox terrors like that in a Poirot film I’ve just watched
    very clever dogs. I like Normandy too and nice wine .

          2. An Oirish man went for a job on a building site, but the English foreman didn’t want a Mick so he asked:

            “what’s the difference between a joist and a girder?

            Paddy replied:”Dat’s easy” Joyce wrote Ulysses, Geothe wrote Faust”

    1. You’ve missed off the htt at the front, and google doesn’t recognise the end number.
      These things happen.

    2. Annual Mop (or hiring fairs) will be held, during Martinmas week at the end of November, in market towns around the Country.

      Lords twill be allowed to create markets for a town or village in return for an annual fee.

      1. RP,
        Correction, market towns are no longer with us
        with the up-grading they are now market cities.

    1. Either give a link to what you are writing or don’t bother to write. But you ignore what anyone says don’t you? You don’t give links and, quite frankly, I now don’t believe what you write.

      1. Go’kvel min vän.

        Plus ca change…

        He was on that little game when I blocked him 2 years ago.

          1. Jag är sjuk, tyvär.
            Jag är förkyld så jag gick inte till Cambridge för min tyska timmer.

            Hur är laget för dig?

  115. According to interviews with residents near the Purfleet park, they regularly see people being let out of the lorries and picked up by mini-buses.
    Is this another practice to which our spineless authorities have been turning a blind eye?
    Essex’s version of Rotherham, maybe?

    3. No written directives from above but those lower down the food chain tacitly encouraged to ignore what’s going on and that to raise the issue would be a career ending move?

      1. That was the picture that they showed on the recent news. I was looking for a site with it, but I have found this very sad report of events which includes some of the final text messages that she sent to her parents:

        “Tra My had been attempting to get into the UK when she text her mum on Tuesday at the same time the doomed trailer was on its way to Essex from Zeebrugge in Belgium.

        She wrote: “I’m sorry Mum, my path to abroad didn’t succeed.

        “Mum, I love you and Dad so much! I’m dying because I can’t breathe.”

        Her family haven’t heard from her since. They are said to have paid £30,000 for her to be smuggled into Britain, the BBC reports.

        Hoa Nghiem of Human Rights Space in Hanoi posted a picture of Tra My on Twitter with a plea for information.

        Tra My had reportedly gone to China in early October in the hope of travelling to the UK via France for a better life.

        Her brother Pham Manh Cuong said she was stopped from going to Britain while in France, but reportedly made a second attempt.

        It was then she sent the chilling final messages to her family at around 10.30pm – just two hours before the refrigerated lorry arrived at Purfleet in Essex.

        Mimi Vu, a leading expert on trafficking of Vietnamese young people to Europe and the UK, said the texts appeared to be authentic

        She explained: “She writes her name and where she is from, which is very important, to tell people where she should be buried. It is important for the body to be returned to the place of birth.”

        The expert also said sometimes migrants are given fake Chinese passports if they are trafficked through the country, which can lead to confusion.”

        That might explain why they initially thought they were Chinese.

        https://theworldnews.net/gb-news/essex-deaths-vietnamese-lorry-victim-s-desperate-texts-to-mum-saying-i-can-t-breathe-revealed-by-family

          3. Sorry, I meant so not si, but the edit function seems to have disappeared. I thought that the Chinese had said that it was our fault

          4. Ahh – I have heard nothing about China blaming us for it. There were some Labour people who think all of us should allow 10 refugees into each of our houses, but that is an easy thing to say for those who have no houses. 🙂

        2. I’m very sympathetic and all that, but

          Mimi Vu, a leading expert on trafficking of Vietnamese young people to Europe and the UK, said the texts appeared to be authentic
          She explained: “She writes her name and where she is from, which is very important, to tell people where she should be buried. It is important for the body to be returned to the place of birth.”

          At whose expense?

    5. She looks about the age of our oldest granddaughter; obviously racially different, but her facial expression is the same.
      That has really brought home the sheer vileness of the traffickers.

        1. Bloody do-gooders.
          Obsessed with human rights and post colonial guilt. Too busy posturing on the world stage to gain applause from people who despise them.
          Christ, I bloody hate them.

        2. Too easy in UK to obtain casual employment without papers as the penalties are negligible. Nail bars, Turkish barbers, meal production, secks workers, garment industry, fruit picking, office cleaners, etc.

        3. The corruption of corporate Globalism, and it is extending its tentacles all the way down to those at the very bottom of society.
          Society as whole is not likely to see any vast improvements whilst it allows the megalomania of the 1% to rule over it.

        1. Family thinking they were giving her a better future?
          We have no idea of how this situation is sold to those living on the opposite side of the world.

      4. Anne,
        Bringing it into focus that is near a month london
        total, only that is ongoing 24/7 / 365.
        Who is guilty of creating this new great britain.

    3. A pleasure sir. Someone posted vile Dexy person ” poetry ”
      here a weeks ago. I hope you never saw it .
      it’d benight someone as you with its crude and senseless
      words of no beauty or imagination. It took me awhile to
      get over it’s vulgarity, needed to shower in the fountain of the muses.

        1. There are standards and those who stretch poetic licences.
          whilst they lick loo seats for inspiration my Lord,
          not for your eyes did such verbal excretion abuse.

          2. That I am loyal and love poets and have my own for all eternity,
            some who write like nectar to the Gods and tears
            of angels befall the such 😉

          4. The muses wander in the presence of sages, philosophers
            and poets who delight in our presence and of whom
            inspire. My poets have the creativity of Homer, the
            beauty of Wordsworth. The ability to make words dance across
            the page and enter hearts and souls.

          6. Poets are modest and wouldn’t think of themselves as
            such, words that come from the soul are not that which
            first breath life within a mind. Poetry is of a deeper level
            of consciousness. Yes I should imagine someone such as
            you My Lord .

          8. Well I shall have to let you kiss others hands twice
            whilst I remain loyal to those who inspire my devotion
            and more . Of course yes you my Lord, always .

          9. 🙂 I am sure that so wise a head as your’s would not be turned by so little a courtesy.

          10. Saxon Queens have rose petals dropped at their feet and
            noble men wishing to offer their lives to fight for their
            country in her regal name beneath the Yellow Dragon flag
            of which she also flies after her battle cry for the Saxon people.
            But there is that which glitters that isn’t gold, my Lord:)

          12. It’s the yellow Dragon flag the Saxon Queen also
            flies beneath when she is battling elsewhere,
            with fire in her blood and determination in her
            belly. She fights alongside the men and would sacrifice
            her life for the same cause as them but she is a woman
            and they appreciate that she fights like them even if
            physically weaker so they give her flowers just in case
            they’d be the last beautiful thing she sees, I should
            Imagine. She isn’t a spoilt little princess that dribbles
            she is a warrior Queen and a Saxon, my Lord, more graciously 😉

  118. Well what happens next who knows. On Monday at 14:30 the debate on calling a General election is scheduled, Labour though has said it will not decided until the EU has offered an extension.. The EU though will not decide on an extension until the decision is made on an election. Given all he timings it sounds unlikely we will no what the EU will do until Tuesday. What happens if Labour dodges the General Election decision who knows what the EU will do

    Monday i nothing else will be interesting. Will e get a definative outcome? Who knows

  119. Kate Hoey when asked if she might stand for another party has not ruled it out equally she did not say she wood

          4. Sack-cloth and Ashes will suffice, you’re sufficiently Poplar to get away with being a Hawthorn in our sides.

  120. “Explosions have become so normalised in Sweden that SVT, Sweden’s
    equivalent of the BBC, did not even mention the three explosions in the
    country’s capital on its national news programme that evening. Instead,
    the main domestic story was the purported censorship of ‘big female
    bodies’ on Instagram. Apparently, we mustn’t be referred to as ‘women’
    any more, but ‘female bodies’, lest anyone’s gender be assumed. The
    explosions were left to the local news.”

    https://app.spectator.co.uk/2019/10/bomb-attacks-are-now-a-normal-part-of-swedish-life/pugpig_index.html
    Remember that vid Civil War 2030 I put up??

    1. It’s not that they’ve become ‘normalised’, it’s more that ‘they’ don’t want to be reporting them too much, drawing attention to them and having the natives start wondering what on earth is going on and what are they going to do to stop it.

    2. There is something a bit unpleasant that occurred to me a few years ago, when I first became fully aware of the path that our MP’s – Conservative, Labour, Liberal and SNP – were taking us down. When you are sitting at home in the next few days and the fireworks start going off, imagine that they are gunshots and explosions from your local volunteer group who are resisting our invasion on the streets.

      It is not a happy, happy, joy, joy moment, but it will be our future, as it has happened already in so many countries in Africa and the Middle East. It is starting to happen in Sweden.

      But do not let it get you down. There is still time to stop it, and I believe that we will win anyway if it starts. But it is a chilling foretaste of things to come that can be experienced safely at this time of year. Our ancestors fought long and hard to keep this country safe and stop this type of thing happening. We must be aware that more than a few of our MP’s want this to happen.

      1. We don’t do revolutions and civil wars in this country. Just sullen silence and curses not long but deep.
        There is nobody to lead the forsaken leavers, or he would have appeared by now.
        We are so used to being kicked in the face by politicians, that we just gringe and bear it.

        1. Try walking up the path to my house with the intent of killing those I love. You’ll be dead before you reach the porch.

          (No offence. Just an observation of what happens when you see the threat. 🙂

          2. And I just said – It happens where I grew up, and it certainly will happen here. Once the threat is seen. People just do not grasp the scale of what is about to happen if we do not get control of our borders. They see the ruins of the Middle East and the realities of islam, but they do not translate that to what they see outside their windows.

            I grew up with a lot of “country boys” so they are very nice but will deck you without hesitation. One neighbour was out where the cars were parked and saw a guy lifting the door handles (this was 30 years ago, and he is sadly deceased now.) He said “What are you doing mate?” The reply was a swear word. So he slapped him with a pick-axe stave. He reported that he heard at least 2 ribs go, and the man staggered away. He did not come back ever again though.

            There are plenty of people in this country who will fight, and many who have had some weapons training in the forces. They will not go down quietly.

          4. Threaten me or mine(mine can be a broad spectrum) you’re going to hospital
            Threaten imminent harm to me or mine you die
            Been there done that in a land with no law,the subsequent mental issues were a price worth paying
            I never thought I would have to think the same way in this country but……………………

          5. There is still time to prevent it getting too bad. But even now some of our “new visitors” will absolutely not leave without resisting. So we really do not want another 5 years under EU control with open borders. That would be another 1.5 million more here, and then it will get far worse than it needs to be.

          7. MM,
            You sure ? defying the unwritten
            PC / Appeasement rulings can have harsh consequences.
            Only UKIP members are immune.

        2. T,
          Then you are in the wrong party.
          If you are currently in the lab/lib/con then
          you are in the wrong party & know it.

          1. I have for a long while withdrawn my support for Conservative Party. I did that around the time that May foolishly called an election. After inroducing or suggesting a host of unpopular measures, she called an election out of sheer arrogance and ignorance.The rest is on record. The Brexit party – forget it – Nigel missed his chance. I cannot vote SNP or DUP because I don’t live there and nobody knows where they are anyway.

          2. T,
            My belief is many did the same in regards to the tory party when cameron ( the wretch) said on taking office, we will / should drop our eu opposition.

          4. “she called an election out of sheer arrogance and ignorance.”
            I always thought it was a planned loss, those policies tossed in during the GE run up were childishly designed to lose votes.

          6. I think in the next GE the current party holding each constituency should be made to field two candidates – the incumbent and a new candidate.

      2. On a very sombre note.
        If I was a Jihadist organiser I would be doing just that, organising hit squads to kill and run under the noise of firework displays.
        By the time anyone woke up to what had happened and then reacted to it, my teams would be long gone ready for another day.

          2. Ahh – but our security forces are not trying THAT hard. They need an attack every now and then to justify their existence and as an excuse to put into place systems that can be used to monitor “the good guys.” It has even been rumoured that not all attacks from foreign countries that have happened in the UK were actually all that they were reported to be.

          4. Don’t worry. Some of the intelligence services are on the wrong side of a lost cause, but there are not that many of them. The majority jump ship and start being very nice when the tide turns against them.

            I would trust a man or woman in a military uniform 100x more than I would trust one of our current politicians. 🙂

          5. You’d be surprised how many plots are foiled. 99% of the work the spooks doesn’t make the news, just the 1% of plots that do succeed.

          6. That they are able to admit to. shame about all our citizens who were murdered or stuck into sports bags and suchlike. Probably deserved it i suppose. Massive shame they haven’t done the same to..(fill in names here).

          7. Looking at so many of the cases that come to court, the proponderence appear to be “wannabe” players rather than genuine cells that could cause considerable death and injury. I’m not convinced that the 1% accurately reflects their success.
            I’m afraid I do not regard the arrest of a teenager who looks for the anarchist’s cookbook on the internet and talks about it on facebook as a credible foiled plot.

    1. “Sweary words”? I listened to the entire 12 minutes and not once did he say “Silly Sausage!”.

  122. Evening, all. We are being washed away here; it has hardly stopped bucketing down since before 10 am! As for the Tories winning big – they have to deliver first.

    3. Johnson’s plan to sell out the UK with his shocking “deal” just to save the Tory Party should see the end of the Tories for decades. His strategy is unravelling before his eyes. He hasn’t learned from May’s failure of trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes by continually lying about what a great “deal” this betrayal actually is. It’s been revealed that the ERG only came on side because of promises about the ‘walk away’ clause in the PD. Trusting lot, the ERG.

      1. I did not know that was how the ERG was snared. I had hoped that there was some reason for their actions and they had not just turned against our country.

        The Political Declaration is meaningless and it is just aspiration. It is like choosing which colour balloons you want in your prison cell. The Withdrawal Agreement is a treaty and has the force of law. It is Theresa May’s EU-written W/A that will asset strip the United Kingdom and bind us under the EU’s control.

    4. Midnight – it is very, very blustery tonight coming up from the south-west – 15 C. This does not bode well, I am wondering what we are in for.

          3. I had a Muffin the Mule puppet (on strings) when I was a child. My mother threw it out. It would be worth a small fortune now, particularly if I’d kept the box!

          4. I had one too…! I think mine went the way of all things no longer used, thrown out by my mother. It had jointed legs, strings attached to all four of them and to the head, and wooden cross pieces above which held the whole thing together. I have a photograph of myself on Muffin the Mule (almost full size plastic or whatever it was then!) taken in Lewis’s in Leeds must have been 1954, or 1955. I was being urged to smile! smile! for heaven’s sake smile, child! (this last was unspoken). I did my best to oblige, I thought I was smiling but I was only smiling inside – a diffident child with a beret plonked upon her head.

          5. I share your pain. When i left home at sixteen my Mother threw out all of my things. Swimming certificates, Sunday school books, Letters from my Granny (not her mother) and many other things in an attempt to erase me. She also sold my books for A level.

  126. From BBC News –

    ”

    A Russian serviceman has shot dead
    eight fellow soldiers and seriously injured two more on a military base
    in the country’s Far East, officials say.

    Private Ramil Shamsutdinov – who has been detained – might have been suffering from mental health problems, they say.

    The shooting happened in the military unit No. 54160 in the village of Gorny, not far from the city of Chita, on Friday evening.

    A murder investigation is under way.”

    A bit difficult for the media to blame Trump when it happens in Russia.

          2. He does look like a usual suspect which does seem a little too obvious. Fits the narrative i suppose..

          4. Think i will emigrate to Australia then. It’s only the flora and fauna that wants to kill you. (quickly packs agent orange and sends ahead).

      1. I heard some woman wittering on about doing a global worm survey (I wonder if they had included Westminster?). She couldn’t help but bring climate change into it.

        1. This type of global worm?
          “Jormungand (pronounced “YOUR-mun-gand;” Old Norse Jörmungandr, “Great Beast”), also called the “Midgard Serpent,” is a snake or dragon who lives in the ocean that surrounds Midgard, the visible world. So enormous is he that his body forms a circle around the entirety of Midgard.”

      2. I heard some woman wittering on about doing a global worm survey (I wonder if they had included Westminster?). She couldn’t help but bring climate change into it.

      1. Russian privates ? Oh dear.
        The Russians have said the guy had a nervous breakdown.
        Maybe from litening to all that Brexit stuff.

    2. When they catch the guys, can they be put in charge of running our railways ? They see pretty competent at organising things and making a profit in the bargain.

  130. I lost a job because of my plummy voice

    The pronunciation of just seven words – in the plummiest accent possible – is all you need to land a job these days. Researchers at Yale
    University have found that hiring managers immediately make assumptionsabout candidates’ socio-economic status as soon as they open their
    mouths, deeming those from a higher class to be more competent,irrespective of ability.

    A BTL Comment

    My voice coach always asked me to practice the following mantra.

    WELL OIL BEEF HOCKED.

    Mind you he was just a country member .

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/work/people-plummy-voices-may-get-hired-quickly-mine-cost-job/

    1. That’s hardly news! When I was doing my MA in Applied Linguistics in the early ’80s that was well known!

    3. Billy Connelly, parliamo Glasgow, say the following phrases together, no pause between them:
      “Getifa”
      “Yabassa”

  131. “The Report says that 22 million homes will need to switch their

    current heating systems largely based on gas to electric powered heat

    pumps. This could cost £192 billion. Much of this cost will presumably

    fall on the consumer. ”

    “The UK has announced there will be no new

    gas boiler heating systems installed after 2025. There will be a

    substantial cost early in the next decade to retrain many heating

    engineers into the new technology. ”

    WTAF – who decided this, when was anyone consulted, where is the mandate.??

    http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2019/10/25/the-costs-of-greening/

      1. £8727 (if you accept that a billion is the now standard one thousand million instead of one million million, which it used to be when I was learning arithmetic).

    2. The key word is ‘new’. I can’t see how Gummint inspectors can force people into changing their heating systems on the say-so of a few Greenies.

      1. Boilers don’t last for ever though – so presumably those with gas heating will need to change when their boilers reach the end of their life.

      2. Ah, but Government has got control of the gas, and of people’s supplies. (Of course there will be exceptions – i.e. the ptb, who will continue to be able to use gas, because they are so important. Not like the plebs, who will be able to access Victory electricity for 5 hours in the 24 hour day.)

    4. What about oil-fired central heating boilers much used by the elite in their manor houses. The gas pipeline network is vast in the country. What will happen to it or will it be used to transport water supplies to London.

          1. Ah!
            I was being slightly tongue in cheek.

            I rather liked your water idea, and the leakage problem might improve too.

      2. We’re not elite and we don’t live in a manor house but we do have oil-fired heating – there’s no gas in this part of the world. We also have a wood-burning stove.

      1. Are those the ones that suck in thousands of illegal immigrants so they can huddle together to generate heat; or are they the ones that suck in illegal immigrants who riot and burn, to generate heat?

      1. Sadly true. Get an early headline to suit the bosses and the politicos seems to be the way these days.

        1. We have seen on multiple occasions the P.R. from the MET being as far from reality as it could be. Then they change the name of their Shitstink operation and hang others out to dry. Those that aren’t Lords and Dames obviously…

          Edited for a full stop. Wouldn’t want to send Peddy into conniptions.

    1. The Government accepted that the correct procedure hadn’t been carried out and just ignored the news and of course the EU turnrd a blind eye to the matter. Why didn’t the ERG group and/or Nigel Farage raise merry hell about it. Is it too late now to make the March departure legal?

  134. DT reporting that Rory Stewart is in trouble for an alleged racist remark . He approached 3 men in East London, two of whom were members of an Irish hip hop group, to discuss his ambition to be Prime minister. When they heard that they walked away. Now that he is campaigning to be London Mayor he described the incident on a Social Media site claiming to be able to approach “minor gangsters” in Brick Lane to be told he was an idiot [quite appropriate] The ever watchfull David Lammy and Dianne Abbott thought this remark to be racist. Poor Rory’s Mayoral ambition is therefore under threat.

    2. Rory Stewart approached 3 men in East London……………..It was never going to end well for him was it?

  136. Warning Remainers this may be harmful to your health

    UK has risen from 9th to 8th in the World Banks most friendly countries to do business

  139. Good Night All
    I am a little drunk
    In vino veritas
    Best I quit now,anything further may be either inflammatory or illegal

  140. Goodnight from a Saxon Queen with long bow and axe,
    my feather pillows call and tomorrow is another day.

  141. I had been trying to find out a comparison between the footprint for solar power production and equivalent to coal-fired power stations proded by the proposal for a solar power plant inout parish. I came across this video on YouTube, which doesn’t quite answer the question, but does show a comparison between nuclear, solar and wind. Thought others may find it of interest, as well.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viJ-Y4X-5zQ

    1. Not definitive, but I did a little bit of research on a pair of closely-placed solar farms that I came across in central Spain a few years ago. Bear in mind that a coal station such as Ferrybridge that they are busy demolishing at the moment had an installed capacity of 2,000 Megawatts, with an on-time of about 80 – 90% when it wasn’t being constrained and a land footprint of maybe a square mile (640 acres).

      Solar Farms, Extremadura
      Abertura 400 acres, 23.1 MW installed
      Campo Lugar, 55 acres, 4.8MW installed

      So you’ve got an area of 455 acres in sunny spain, (0.7 square miles) with an installed capacity of only 28MW, ie 39 MW per square mile installed as against Ferrybridge at 2,000 MW.

      Factor in to that the on-time of solar (maybe 25%) and the on-time of Ferrybridge,(say 85%) and you’ve got Spanish solar at 10 MW average output per square mile and Coal at 1,700 MW per square mile.

      And the sun doesn’t shine at night. You can burn coal 24 hours per day.
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cd74b7fb4f42cdecce311950249acc16b55396f2974790e471c9e9c18627ae89.jpg

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/87585e74dc4038d0b2a487136d40ff7139f91a6e6e005fad951bb31ffe2a3336.jpg

        2. The ones they are proposing in our parish have a life expectancy of 40 years. Well that’s what they told me – that’s the length of time they arrange to lease the land for and agree to remove everything at the end of that timespan.

          1. Thanks for the response.

            Meantime, due to storms, floods, hot summers and cold winter, unforseen circumstance, vandalism, general wear and tear and not forgetting incompetence and fraud. Inferior components and downright theft.

            Can i ask my question again? :o(

  143. I was just reading a very sad story about a body being found in a deserted warehouse yesterday during the search for a missing 16 year-old girl in Wales, who went missing on Wednesday. Underneath the story was a blurb for the website:

    “MSN UK is committed to Empowering the Planet and taking urgent action to protect our environment. We’re supporting Friends of the Earth to help solve the climate crisis.”

    How do you empower a planet? It is an object, without vice or remorse. It will bite your leg off if you do not respect it, but you can say that about lots of mothers. I assume they do not mean massive orbital arrays of solar panels, or networks of nuclear reactors, channelling energy to a thriving technologically advanced civilisation.

    They are speaking figuratively obviously. But even the fairly tolerant human being that inhabits this physical shell is starting to find this lazy use of language to be slightly annoying. This type of nonsense is why I took the very wise move to veer towards computing as a career instead of Business Management. You get far more sense out of a machine than you do out of these “newspeak” non-entities.

    3. Good night, Peddy. Strange that. I normally go to bed to catch up with my sleep, not my German!

      :-))

      1. I slept a lot during the day, Elsie, & had wonderfully erotic dreams.

        Must be the Lemsips.

  145. Real sulks and palaver here at home this evening .

    Leicester FC have just thrashed Southampton FC 9-0..

    Moh has been blusteringly bad .. I said why have you subjected the household to such nonsense this evening.. They played at home in pouring rain ,and the Saints fans all walked out virtually when the 3rd goal was scored by Leicester. That is when the laptop attached to the TV should have ended its broadcast.. but it didn’t .. another 6 goals were due to be scored … and the misery and anger increased!

    I feel quite stressed out by the atmosphere here!

    1. My next door neighbour who served on HMS Lusty is laughing his socks off. Lifetime Pompey fan. Don’t tell hubby. Wouldn’t want his head to explode !

    2. It’s only a game, Belle, only a game!

      I am likely to be flattened if I say that in this house. A night’s sleep will put a different perspective on things, if only to consign it further into the distance.

      Very blustery here tonight from the south-west, what are we in for?

      1. Only a game !

        “The thing about football – the important thing about football – is that it is not just about football.”

        ―

        Terry Pratchett,

        Unseen Academicals.

        The book explains at least from his perspective why they turn into savages. The beast gets it’s voice.

        1. Unseen Academicals is one of the 2 Discworld books that I have not read. I have them both on the shelf, but at the moment I am keeping them unread so that I still have “undiscovered Pratchett” in my future. Once they are read I will have no more new discoveries ahead from him.

          So I might read one, then savour the last. 🙂

    3. Good morning Belle
      I’m the other Fulham fan. I have low expectations that are normally far exceeded.
      Keep smiling and drink Champagne.

      1. Good morning GG

        Mild morning here , drizzly but not cold .

        Hand on my heart , I loathe football.. I had no idea that I would be subjected to over 51 years of sheer misery by Moh who has had a life time love affair with Saints.. why because he was born and bred there , and his father used to take him to matches at the Dell, and now if he gets the chance he will hop on the train to St Mary’s their new ground .

        He is attached by his umbilical cord to his team.. which results in huge displays of upsetness and anger when they frequently lose or draw or sometimes pleasure when they win!

    2. He’s only trying to keep our his friends and partners in the EU happy. His repetitive use of that phrase is as bad as May’s Brexit means Brexit: it’s meaningless and must make people who understand what the EU really is, very angry.👿
      Today, LBC exposed another example – tariffs and checks on goods re NI – of his lack of grasp of detail of HIS deal. He waffles on saying what he thinks people want to hear and quite a bit of his waffle is pure bullshit. Pitch him up against Farage to discuss the “deal” and Farage will eat him alive on the details and then explain clearly why it’s so bad for the UK. Corbyn and & Co are doing the right thing in holding Johnson to account on his “deal” but for the wrong reasons i.e. wanting to destroy Brexit.

  147. Another off topic,

    Winter is signalled.
    The first really decent sized flock of cranes we’ve seen this autumn has just flown over. A few hundred I would guess, they were very high up but one still hears the noise from a long way away.

    2. I saw a Red Kite dive bomb a small mammal not long ago
      against a orange sunset, it was very amazing .

      1. We’ve recently had a sparrowhawk sitting on the boiler house roof, watching the blue tits on the feeders.

        I never have my camera to hand at the opportune moments.

    1. The Times, The Telegraph and the Guardian were once serious News Papers. The younger generations are not going to buy print material. They might get their hands dirty.

  150. “US Budget Deificit Hits $984 Billion In Fiscal 2019, Up $205 Billion In One Year”

    It’s only money – pity QuickQuid weren’t a bit more nimble on their feet they may have made an additional buck or two…

  151. I hope England wins tomorrow. I’d much prefer Wales to play that team in the final than play NZ. I’m frit though that I will be disappointed.

    1. I’m sorry. Are we talking about Wendyball or Tennis? Speaking of which. I would just rejoice when a Trans woman wins at Rugby. Never going to happen is it….

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