Tuesday 1 February: A day to be ashamed that Boris Johnson represents Britain to the world

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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555 thoughts on “Tuesday 1 February: A day to be ashamed that Boris Johnson represents Britain to the world”

  4. Hang on to your blood pressure ‘cos you are not going to enjoy this from today’s DT:

    British Library gives staff ‘woke’ pronoun badges, so they’re not judged by their cover

    Labels displaying ‘he/him’, ‘she/her’ or ‘they/them’ have been rolled out on the advice of LGBT charity Stonewall

    By
    Craig Simpson
    1 February 2022 • 6:00am

    Pronoun badges have been introduced at the British Library on the advice of Stonewall, despite fears the move could appear “too woke”

    Labels displaying “he/him”, “she/her” or “they/them” have been rolled out for staff, with internal documents stating that making assumptions about gender can send a “harmful” message “even if correct”.

    The pronoun badges were brought in on the recommendation of the under-fire LGBT charity Stonewall, documents reveal, despite a British Library risk assessment anticipating the move might be seen as “too woke” by the public and its own staff.

    The assessment for the rollout of the voluntary badges stated that it could be perceived as “political” and that the £1,300 cost of the scheme could lead people to question “why is the BL (British Library) spending money on this in times of financial difficulties?”

    An internal email laying out the scheme states that the “aim of these badges is to encourage discussion and understanding of gender identity and the range of identities that people have”.

    ‘Assumptions aren’t always correct’
    They state: “Often people make assumptions about the gender of another person based on the person’s appearance or name.

    “These assumptions aren’t always correct and the act of making an assumption (even if correct) sends a potentially harmful message – that people have to look a certain way to demonstrate the gender they are not.”

    Documents state that the scheme was recommended by an outside transgender awareness consultant and Stonewall, which last year suffered a string of high-profile departures from its Diversity Champions Scheme amid controversy over the charity’s support of gender self-identification. The British Library is still part of the scheme.

    The library’s badges were introduced in September, with provisional budgets estimating a cost of £676 for the 400 badges themselves, £450 in “trans awareness training”, and £250 for the services of the same transgender awareness consultant who recommended the scheme. This may not have been the final budget.

    Badges are voluntary, and predicted responses from employees were factored into a risk assessment for the scheme, including the possibility that “staff members don’t understand why we are introducing these badges”.

    It was stated in plans to mitigate risks that an internal communications plan would address this and “explain the clear need and benefits of pronoun badges”.

    In regard to the possibility employees could refuse to call people by their preferred pronouns, it was stated that “the review of HR policies will reflect how staff members should respect their colleagues chosen, stated pronouns”.

    ‘A more inclusive environment’

    An internal message titled “Introducing Pronoun Badges” outlined the purpose of the scheme last year, stating: “By wearing a pronoun badge, even if your pronouns are rarely if ever used incorrectly, you are sending a message to colleagues, visitors and readers that you recognise the validity of pronouns other than what is immediately obvious.”

    It added that part of the aim was to “continue to make a more inclusive environment for trans and non-binary collgeaues and visitors at the British Library”.

    The rollout of pronoun badges follows criticism of the British Library, which receives more than £92 million in funding from the Government, in relation to its response to Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.

    These included the declaration of a racial “state of emergency” by some staff at the institution, and the promise from chief librarian Liz Jolly that there would be “major cultural change” at the organisation.

    MPs suggested at the time that funding could be cut in light of “divisive” internal activism.

    Plans for explaining the new badge scheme to staff stressed a measured approach, stating: “The tone of the communication will be focusing on allyship and encouraging staff to participate while highlighting that this will not be compulsory and colleagues should not feel stigmatised if they decide not to wear one.”

    The British Librarian has been contacted for comment. It is understood that badges are currently available and used by staff who wish to wear them in public facing and other roles.

    * * *

    And there you have it – the Stonewall Swindle continues to extract taxpayers’ money from gullible government departments. I find this thought even more depressing: that an organisation like the once-esteemed British Library can be duped by this bonkers organisation.

    3. I am highly offended by these badges, on behalf of the good folk of Northern Ireland. It is clear that they should also change their name from the British Library to the United Kingdom Library, although some members of staff might prefer to be known as English Library members (or Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish members). Also what about people like me, who would wish to be known as Black English Vegetarian Library members (I self-identify as black on the first of every month)? And why “Library” when “Reading Room Club members” might be more appropriate?

      It seems to me to be that the only way to deal with these morons is to use sarcasm, as shown above.

    5. I am sure that “staff members … understand why we are introducing these badges”.
      Any sensible staff member will tell the institution that the British Library cam stick its badges up its bahookie, which is as everyone knows is a common feature shared by all “genders”, male and female, and any others that are claimed to be available.

  5. Trudeau: Canadians disgusted by anti-vaxxers who desecrated monuments. 1 February 2022.

    Justin Trudeau has said that Canadians were disgusted by the behaviour of anti-vaccine protesters, and said he would not be intimidated by those who hurled abuse.

    The Canadian prime minister spoke as central Ottawa remained blockaded by dozens of trucks and other vehicles after thousands descended upon Parliament Hill on Saturday to protest against Covid-19 vaccine mandates.

    Police said they were investigating possible criminal charges after protesters urinated on the National War Memorial, danced on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and used the statue of Canadian hero Terry Fox to display an anti-vaccine statement. Some also harassed volunteers at a soup kitchen and flew Nazi flags.

    This is a wonderful example of the Globalist control of the MSM. If it tells you anything it is the complete uselessness of relying on the Media for the truth! No mention here of the political ramifications of the convoy but endless nit-picking amd defamatory complaints about its member’s behaviour, which even if true, would hardly constitute a threat.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/31/canada-anti-vaccine-protests-criminal-charges

    1. I loathe this tactic of nit-picking about small things that may or may not be true in order to try and turn people’s opinion against a person or a group.
      It is a tactic of controlling abusers in real life – what does that tell you about our press and media??

      1. In Germany no-one ever mentioned the camps, and in the UK no-one in the MSM ever spoke out about Savile.

    2. Yup, spot on.
      Not intimidated, eh? Just ran away, shitting himself and quaking in his boots.
      No evidence of nazi flags, that’s real made-up shit.

    3. … and said he would not be intimidated by those who hurled abuse. However it seems he is intimidated by the truckers, which is why he ran away! Ooops – sorry, or course not running away – it seems he’s isolating after getting Covid despite being vaccinated up the ying yang!

  8. A day to be ashamed that Boris Johnson represents Britain to the world

    But not as ashamed as Canada is of Trudeau, the USA of Biden, New Zealand of Ardern . Australia of Morrison, and most of the European is of their leaders

    1. Morning Bob. If anything tells you the truth about the West and its decline into decadence. It is the quality of its leadership. Biden a pedarast. Boris the Walter Mitty of Westminster. Trudeau a Globalist Puppet. Morrison a thug. Ardern an idiot crypto-marxist!

  9. SIR – Last year I volunteered at a vaccination clinic. During refreshment breaks the volunteers were invited to take tea or coffee and consume donated cakes with the medical staff inside in their rest room.

    Should I now expect a visit from the police as I attended a “party”?

    Eric White
    Bridport, Dorset

    Mrs HJ and I did the same, but at our former GP surgery, where a lack of space made separation impossible to achieve. The volunteers and the medical staff were showered with generous quantities of biscuits, cakes, sweets and boxes of fruit by grateful visitors, and the rest room was awash with such goodies. Despite many hours of exposure I’m pleased to report that we successfully avoided the Chinese Virus, as did the other volunteers, but our waistlines took a bit of a hit.

        1. Lock downs didn’t affect my waistline. Just the opposite. Given the fact i could barely walk let alone exercise i still seem to have lost over a stone in weight.

    2. I find it strange that this was allowed. Harvest festivals and cake sales have come under attack in the past because of fear being whipped up about how and where the items were prepared.

  11. Putin’s ‘pals’ facing the big freeze in Britain: From telecoms tycoon with £50m Surrey estate to energy magnate who owns £65m Highgate mansion. 1 February 2022.

    No oligarchs have been named by the Foreign Office, but there are scores with bases in London. These include many of Britain’s richest men including Alisher Usmanov, who has made more than £13.4billion from gas and telecoms and until recently owned 30 per cent of Arsenal FC. He splits his time between his Highgate home and Surrey mansion.

    Once Russia’s richest man, oil tycoon Oleg Deripaska, is reported to have two homes in Belgravia while father-of-five Mikhail Fridman calls Britain his home after buying Athlone House in North London for £65million in 2016.

    ‘Any company of interest to the Kremlin and the regime in Russia would be able to be targeted,’ Miss Truss told Sky News. ‘So there will be nowhere to hide for Putin’s oligarchs, for Russian companies involved in propping up the state.’

    Would it be too much to point out that these men are here to escape Vladimir Putin’s insistence that if they live in Russia they should stay out of politics and pay their taxes like every other citizen! Any threat to their wealth will see them legging it for either Cyprus or Israel like Roman Abramovich!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10459669/Putins-pals-facing-big-freeze-Britain.html

    1. Minty, you must be aware that Mr Putin’s wealth outside of Russia is in ‘trust’, as it were, rather than in his own name.

      1. There is no proof despite the strenuous efforts of the West that Putin has any accumulated wealth!

        1. Frankly he’d be a damned fool if he didn’t!!
          I read somewhere that the difference between Putin and the Oligarchs is he said “A billion is enough for any man any more is just greed”

  12. SIR – In a recent Sainsbury’s order, I received fresh large king prawns that were “farmed in Ecuador” and “responsibly sourced”.

    How is it responsible to transport them thousands of miles across the world, when we have so much fresh fish in our own waters?

    Julia Handley
    Taunton, Somerset

    This is rather like the proud boast of energy suppliers: ‘100% from renewables’ when such a claim is laughable.

      1. Buy local Buy in season. No foreign tasteless muck.

        New Forest Stores.
        Pipers Farm.
        Cornish food box company.

        All more expensive than supermarkets but the taste is superior by a long shot.

    2. I somewhat agree. Yes we have plenty of fish and the finest lobster and crab in the world but we don’t have large king prawns.

      If you want the best you have to source from other seas.

      The finest in the world are Crevettes Imperiale. About £100 a pound.

  13. How very offensive

    Sir Patrick Vallance to become chair of Natural History Museum

    Government adviser, who says museum ‘inspired me to pursue a career in science’, will take on role in 2023

    *
    *
    The appointment was made by the board of trustees of the Natural History Museum, and endorsed by Boris Johnson and the culture secretary, Nadine Dorries.

    Dorries said Vallance had been “an extraordinary, dedicated servant to the nation during the coronavirus pandemic”, adding that he would bring a wealth of experience to “help the museum take its important work forward and inspire more people from all backgrounds to pursue an interest in natural history”.

    Vallance was the chief scientific adviser to the Cop26 climate summit, and leads the Net Zero Innovation Board, which supports the drive to cut emissions to zero overall by 2050.

    He previously headed research and development at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and before that was a clinical academic, professor of medicine, and led the division of medicine at UCL. He has also been a consultant physician in the NHS.

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jan/31/sir-patrick-vallance-to-become-c

    2. He got the job by presenting forecasts of visitor numbers under his policies produced by Ferguson. Visiting will be so popular that unless drastic action is taken to lock down the entrance doors then within a month 500,000 people will be visiting every day.

    3. Reading that brief résumé of Vallance’s career it deepens the mystery of why he hasn’t spoken up about the seriously flawed “vaccines”. It’s clear that he is smart, especially in the medical field, so why has he kept quiet???🙄

        1. Bung’s as Dickens named it.
          As in Mr Bung the Beadle who provided more cakes during his election campaign.

      3. Good morning KK

        I had a face to face consultation with my doctor last week . She is clever kind and very perceptive .

        She suggested there was constant conflict between berween the NHS and politicians .

        Politicians do not inspire much confidence.

        1. Your fortunate you have a tuned in practitioner.
          It gets worse TB when the medical profession get political.
          About 5 months ago my GP said it was better that I didn’t have the booster. 3 months later he’s sitting on the fence as in “It’s up to you”.
          Not professional advice and at all helpful.

  14. You learn something every day, although I am not completely reassured:

    SIR – Harry de Quetteville says that Remote Operated Vehicles are “thought capable of cutting or tapping cables”.

    The first of these is true: one of Britain’s first acts in the Falklands conflict was to cut all cable links to Argentina, using a BT vessel.

    However, the main reason why optical fibres are used, rather than other waveguides, is that the light is contained in the 10-micron diameter core of the 250-micron glass filament by total internal reflection, and can therefore travel much further without amplification.

    The upside of this is that it is only possible to tap into the fibre by bending it almost to breaking, at which point light is emitted from the core. Russia’s Yantar “survey ship” mentioned in the article would have to cut into the cable to access the fibre before tapping it. However, as these cables are powered up to 10kV, this would induce a massive shunt fault, taking down the whole system.

    The other reassuring thing is that 60 cables link Britain (61 if you count the NO-UK cable that we have just installed), which gives us substantial network resilience.

    None of this is to suggest that we are not entering troubled times in our industry. The law of the sea is a mess, there is a lot more activity around all cables, the Chinese are building islands in the South China Sea and there is insufficient network resilience worldwide.

    Stuart Barnes
    Chair, Suboptic Programme Committee 2018
    Harold Wood, Essex

    1. I’m sure Mr Barnes is aware but is not allowed to say…official secrets act and all that…that all our cables have been spliced and every single item of data transmitted over them is shared directly with the Americans. I of course can say this because i am not a signatory to the Act.

    2. The photo with the letter shows

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/opinion/2022/01/31/TELEMMGLPICT000284044586_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqqVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwfSVWeZ_vEN7c6bHu2jJnT8.jpeg?imwidth=960

      A section of the 1873 Atlantic telegraph cable encrusted with marine life after 30 years

      British technology to the fore again

      In 1903 we had the ability to take photties of a cable resting on the seabed of the Atlantic that needed viz:

      The ability to precisely locate the cable

      Have a High Resolution Colour camera that could provide its’ own light source

      The ability to lower, take the piccy and raise the camera on completion

      The ability to print the piccies in colour
      etc

      All without the use of slaves

      Where did we lose our way

    2. Good grief, another Covid-19 virus, the Wave Variant. I must book an appointment for another four or five booster jabs. (Sarc)

    3. “Waves crash against the lighthouse in Seaham harbour, County Durham”
      So remove the lighthouse, problem solved.

      1. This chap on guitar with his fantastic 12 year old daughter on percussion certainly drums up a storm!

        I used to love this number which was recorded by the Safaris when I was at school and we all tried to master the pulse in the rhythm by drumming on our desks.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQeC_6bOFqs

    5. Johnson drowning, not waving.
      “There is a tide in the affairs of men.
      Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
      Omitted, all the voyage of their life
      Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
      On such a full sea are we now afloat,
      And we must take the current when it serves,
      Or lose our ventures.”

  16. Did Blackford lie to Parliament in his latest tirade against Boris?
    Blackford stated that he was representing his constituents, but his constituents covid pandemic regulations and laws were all decided in the Scottish parliament, as I understand it, so nothing that Boris did in number 10 had any affect on them whatsoever.

    1. Facts don’t bother him and the SNP in general. He will, of course, claim that Johnson affected Scots visiting England and therefore he has have a say in what happens in England, but turn that on him, that Parliament needs a say on devolved matters because non-Scots visit Scotland, and he’ll go ballistic. Then tell him that Parliament needs a say because English taxpayers are subsidising Scotland . . . .

  17. UK to deploy troops across Europe as fears grow Putin will choose ‘path of bloodshed and destruction’ by invading Ukraine. 1 February 2022.

    Prime Minister Boris Johnson says the armed forces deployment will “support our NATO allies on land, at sea and in the air” – while showing the UK will stand in the face of Russian “hostility” and not “tolerate their destabilising activity”.

    Aside from the old military axiom that he who defends everything defends nothing this is typically meaningless Johnson bluster. The UK has neither the numbers nor the force to engage with the Russians. The only destabilising activity going on is by the West which is actually increasing the chances of War!

    https://news.sky.com/story/russia-ukraine-tensions-uk-to-deploy-troops-across-europe-as-fears-grow-putin-will-choose-path-of-bloodshed-and-destruction-by-invading-ukraine-12528439

    1. Unintelligent sabre rattling from a PM whose future rests on the evidence of did he, or did he not, partake of a cooked confection with others when the hoi polloi were banned from doing so. Napoleon and Hitler took on Russia and both failed badly. Johnson should read some history and calm his rhetoric. Putin is a tough political operator whilst Johnson inhabits his own world of buffoonery, florid bullshit and U-turns.

      1. “Once more unto the breach”…….?
        Come on Bore-us grow up, its got nothing to do with you or us, you can’t even sort out our own problems as in the French invasion and the fishing rights.

        1. Morning, RE.

          Frankly, I do not think he wants to stop the Dover RIB-run. It must be policy or else Patel would have come up with a solution.some time ago. He has an agenda and deceiving the electorate whilst spreading bullshit covered stories about the wonderful future ahead is how he intends to proceed. He’s a liar and not a good liar, either.

      2. Morning! The Teutonic Knights of the 13th century likewise failed. They came up against Alexander Nevsky in the Battle of the Ice.

        1. Was that before or after he appeared in the opera?

          Good morning, Our Susan. In full fettle?

      1. My friend General Rashid tells me that Vlad is waiting for cold weather when the ground freezes and takes the weight of his tanks.

          3. My garden seems to think it’s spring; it’s waking up. I have a vibernum, primrose, white hellebores and snowdrops out, bergenia, hyacinths, purple hellebores, camellias and a magnolia stellata in bud, plus the clematis and roses are coming into leaf – I just hope we don’t get a really cold snap to damage them.

  18. Good morning and Happy 1st of February to all from a very mild Derbyshire. Some more overnight rain, but dry with a whole 5°C on the yard thermometer.

    1. Good morning, BoB. I am very concerned that every day you have to walk down the yard to read your thermometer. To save you from frostbite, why don’t you move your yard thermometer inside? If it’s too warm indoors, you could always keep it in the fridge. Lol.

        1. Bob of Bonsall: It was just a joke, there’s no need to insult me with such foul language!!! :-))

  19. In my parish magazine yesterday, I found a concerned missive from my Independent district councillor, anxious about proposals to redraw the ward boundaries of Malvern Hills District Council, and to reduce the number of councillors from 38 to 31. Cynics might well suggest Government disapproval of its Independent-led Coalition within an overwhelmingly Conservative county, which is determined to thwart initiatives coming out of Malvern to further their own conflicts of interest.

    For me, this represents just another example of many of the general institutional breakdown that is plaguing my nation.

    I submitted the following comment:

    “I see no merit whatsoever in these proposals, and they should be withdrawn forthwith.

    What is so very bad about them is that they bear no connection to population centres, nor with the character of wards, and seem intended maliciously to destroy representation at district level for Malvern Hills.

    In Leigh, which is a disparate collection of villages, for some inexplicable reason Bransford and parts of Leigh Sinton are to be taken from the ward. Both these villages are a core part of Alfrick & Leigh, and it is quite wrong to separate representation from within the parish.

    Linking Bransford with Rushwick, which is a suburb of Worcester, removes its connection with Leigh and Leigh Sinton, yet Bransford is on the main route between the two villages, and most parish activities in Leigh involve those in Bransford, including the petrol station, the Fold and the hotel. Was the intention to make Bransford a suburb of Worcester?

    Likewise, I cannot for the life of me understand the separation of the hamlet of Lulsley from the village of Alfrick. They are to all extents the same place (Lulsey has Alfrick’s pub), and should be represented together. Creating a giant ward around the expanding village of Martley, creates a conflict between the large village of Martley, with an industrial centre, with the many rural communities between Knightwick and Abberley.

    The situation in Malvern is baffling. Why abolish the ward of West, unless the intention is to remove two popular Green Party councillors without any public consent? It is a violation of democracy, and the Boundary Commisson should be ashamed of this blatant piece of party gerrymandering.

    I understand that the County, which is overwhelmingly Conservative is concerned about Malvern Hills being run by a coalition of Independents. Using a public office, which is supposed to be politically neutral to destroy the ward structure of Malvern Hills District Council, is a violation of its remit. It is not the job of the Boundary Commission to pervert the wishes of the electorate in this manner.

    If these proposals are carried through, then I demand a Public Inquiry.

    I shall be making my feelings known on social media.”

    The Boundary Commission website removed my paragraph formatting on the submission in a deliberate and hostile bid to render it unreadable and readily dismissed, further confirming this quango’s contempt for the public.

    Here are the links for the brave:
    https://consultation.lgbce.org.uk//
    https://s3-eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/lgbce/Council%20Size%20Submission-MALVERN-%20WEB%20VERSION.PDF

    Entering “Malvern Hills” in the search box should produce the relevant maps.

    1. There’s always someone in local politics who enjoys agitation and making changes.
      Can’t you just get rid.

    2. Hi Jeremy,

      Stick to geographical facts and avoid local politics. How about worse access to DC meetings because of increased distance and lack of local public transport?

  20. Does anyone know of a good rehabilitation/convalescent hospital in the south east? (private obv) Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Bucks, Berks?
    Suitable for someone recovering from a hip operation with other health complications, who needs proper care, not just issuing with a walking stick “because he can’t manage a walking frame” which is the NHS’s pathetic excuse.

    2. Good morning BB2, and the rest.
      It should be slightly easier to find a functioning Convalescent Facility or Residence now that the panicdemic has subsided. There must be a qualified nurse on duty. Ideally the patient will need to be able to have physiotherapy ON THE PREMISES, so there has to be a good physio practice nearby. That is vital after hip ops, imho.
      If the recovery period is more than a few weeks, and involves any change of prescriptions, the Facility may wish to transfer the new inmate to their local GP practice. Best to avoid that option. Naively, I would say to budget 1500 quid per week, plus physio. If the patient is very well off, just pay an agency to supply nursing care at home; that requires a bedroom and bathroom etc, and an adapted bathroom for the patient.
      Otherwise, it is simply a matter of making a list of possible destinations, and eliminating them one by one until you can make a decision. Probably you should look within a radius of x miles of the patient´s home, because the physiotherapist ought to continue the process after the patient is well enough to come home. In fact, now that I think of it, I suggest that you contact the physios first; they will have first hand experience of local ‘nursing homes’.
      Btw, in France you would expect the physiotherapist to attend you at your home.

      1. Thank you. From my research, all I can see is that they are talking about laundry, cooking, nursing etc. That can be done at home. What I’m looking for is the kind of post operative physiotherapy that you would get at a reha hospital in France or Germany. For example, they have special walkers for patients that can’t manage a normal rollator. None of this was provided by the NHS. It was standard rollator or walking stick, and the physio one hour a day, but not on weekends or bank holidays, of which there were many, as the patient fell just before Christmas!! Just after a hip operation, he went four days without ANY physiotherapy AT ALL on the NHS, and then sent home with a walking stick.

  21. Does anyone know of a good rehabilitation/convalescent hospital in the south east? (private obv) Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Bucks, Berks?
    Suitable for someone recovering from a hip operation with other health complications, who needs proper care, not just issuing with a walking stick “because he can’t manage a walking frame” which is the NHS’s pathetic excuse.

    1. Good morning, Bill. Surely everyone who is the least bit interested in sport would know the result by now, so could you reveal it for us non-sport lovers? Who won the match, was it Pinch or Punch? Lol.

        2. Weren’t you allowed to wear your pullover inside out without being punched if it was the first of the month?

          I thought of posting Don Maclean’s American Pie

          But February made me shiver
          With every paper I’d deliver
          Bad news on the doorstep
          I couldn’t take one more step

          But settled for Kneel Seduction instead because Bill would like the video with girls dancing in their underwear:

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cm35l1u4tFo

        1. I don’t sing there, I just drink and clap. Although I did sing along to ‘Comfortably Numb’ last night.

    3. We overslept.
      To be more precise, MB over-slept. Not being a morning person, I never do anything else.

  26. How is it responsible to transport them thousands of miles across the world, when we have so much fresh fish in our own waters?

    They have been poached by aquatic predators

    The FROGS

    1. Poached frogs legs. I’ve been fortunate enough to have avoided such ‘luxurious items’ along with fried heavily garlicked snails.

        1. The French only eat all that crap, stomach linings and gizzards because Napoleon and his troops stole all the food from towns and villages on their through marches.
          They don’t like to lose face on anything……….. Insouciance.

      3. I tried frogs’ legs once about 40 years ago – much like bits of chicken – that was before I knew they are hacked off while the frogs are still alive. Never could bring myself to eat snails.

  27. Morning all,
    Well that’s another of winter’s months out of the way. And my ‘little sister’ is 70 tomorrow.
    No celebration, it’s what she wants.

      1. Are the fire brigade on stand by ?
        She’s become a bit of a recluse.

        I suspect a few years ago quite a few teeth might have followed the efforts of blowing out the candles on cakes.
        But having said that people didn’t seem to celebrate as much as they do now.
        We have a family party for a two year old this coming weekend !!!

  28. We must not let the individual rights of a selfish minority trump the need for collective, professional responsibility.

    John Garnett Sutton-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire

    No doubt, one of the main reasons, that you can write your letter, would be that your grandmother/mother was not made to take Thalidomide

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21507989/

    1. Thalidomide was tested for a much longer period of time than the current gene therapy Covid injections.

      Thalidomide stayed available and was recommended by doctors for ten years before it was banned because it caused women to give birth to children with deformed limbs.

      1. Its awful side effects took place in a very short window of time; a fortnight out of the entire 40 weeks. I suspect that is why it took several years for the penny to drop.

    2. Thalidomide as tested for a much longer period of time than the current gene therapy Covid injections.

      Thalidomide stayed available and was recommended by doctors for ten years before it was banned because it caused women to give birth to children with deformed limbs.

  30. Maybe The Times are a’changing. Yesterday there was an article about some slammer women in France who are going to the top court to try to get a ban on wearing hijabs while playing foopball lifted.

    I commented: “The perpetually offended at it again”.

    To my surprise, 24 hours and 79 thumbs – later, the comment is still there.

    1. I think they should wear the full burqa when playing football. Then when the do the replay they should speed it up and accompany it with yakety sax.

      2. I think it is high time that the Olympic Games Committee issued the 100metres dash for women in full, ground length burqa, and for trans women, and women in the process of transing into men (but have not quite got there yet).

    1. 334878+ up ticks,

      Morning LD,
      He would never have got top ranker position if he couldn’t lie fluently in multiple tongues.

      You could have a 6′ turd leading the tory (ino) party it makes no odds, it is the party name that counts, no notice of party actions are ever considered.

  32. Good morning from a Saxon Queen with blooded axe and longbow .
    Woke up dreadfully late this morning. It’ll be one of those days I think.

  36. 334878+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,
    Tuesday 1 February: A day to be ashamed that Boris Johnson represents Britain to the world

    If only it was that easy, just change the top ranker, the whole tory party setup is a facade, an IN NAME ONLY replica, a name rustling collection of politico’s mainly pro eu.

    What is for sure is the fact that they ARE paedophile, among many other nasties, importers, DOVER points that out quite clearly.

    Can anyone enlighten me as to what the benefits are from the tory (ino)
    beating labour ( ino ) in a General Election ? both party’s form two thirds of a mass, party controlled illegal migrant invasion coalition, so just what is the benefit ?

    DO the electorate know ?

  37. One weeps at times. On Sunday, a the concert in our church, there were 70 people. We had hoped for at least 100. Our tediously full covidian churchwarden (masked throughout), however, said he was glad, because having any more, “Would have made social distancing very difficult and we would all have felt uncomfortable”.

    Wazzock.

    1. Presumably he would have been even happier if no-one had attended, as that would have been far safer.

    2. I think that everyone should be infected with omicron – nobody will get very ill, everyone will acquire better immunity and the plague will soon be over. People should then take daily supplements of zinc, vitamin C and vitamin D.

      The great difficulty, it seems to me, is that the PTB do not want the ‘pandemic’ to end – they want to go on milking it for as long as they can.

      1. In his view, God would be masked….and six feet away from the cross and the two thieves…

  38. Good morning my friends

    British Library gives staff ‘woke’ pronoun badges, so they’re not judged by their cover
    Labels displaying ‘he/him’, ‘she/her’ or ‘they/them’ have been rolled out on the advice of LGBT charity Stonewall
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/01/british-library-gives-staff-woke-pronoun-badges-not-judged-cover/

    The DT censors the language of those who post comments under articles but one BTliner seems to have made a satisfactory paraphrase:

    “Should not the people who make such decisions just be told to go and urinate elsewhere?”

    1. Dogs seem to have the problem solved. A quick sniff and you know who you are dealing with. Saves plastic too..

  39. SIR – The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, is yet again straying into politics with his
    for the Church of England to achieve net zero by 2030

    I think he wants ZERO Christians by then

    2. I had this conversation with a friend the other night; he no longer goes to church, but we both agreed that Welby was trying to destroy the CofE.

    1. Excellent. Yet again on my M&S trip I had to run the gauntlet of the latest beggar , a woman this time. Some idiot shopper behind me *apologised* to her for not having change!! They really have no idea…
      In Victorian times, I’m sure there were laws preventing begging. Now it’s bypassed by the pretence of selling ‘Big Issues.’ It’s time they were banned.

      1. When i visited Budapest i was impressed by the fact that begging was illegal and the Police took a very dim view.

        The streets were clean and safe. Unlike the shitholes of Paris, London and New York.

    2. Excellent. Yet again on my M&S trip I had to run the gauntlet of the latest beggar , a woman this time. Some idiot shopper behind me *apologised* to her for not having change!! They really have no idea…

    3. Not true. They can happily meet up with their criminal gimmigrant kin. We simply deport the criminal gimmigrants.

        1. Forgetting Partygate for a moment Boris Johnson must be aware that he was elected with a large majority for one reason and one reason only : he promised to get Brexit done.

          If (and it is a big if) he has any intelligence at all he will realise that the ECHR and the ECJ must have no more influence on our affairs, that the N Ireland Protocol must be scrapped, that fisherfolk should be given back their own waters and that much EU law must be removed from the statute book.

          People try to defend Johnson by saying that his hands were tied and he had to accept May’s surrender WA and he was not able to go for a ‘no deal’ Brexit.

          Fiddlesticks – with an 80 seat majority the first thing he should have done was to put no deal firmly back on the table. Why didn’t he do so?

          I shall never forgive Boris Johnson for dodging an interview with Andrew Neil before the general election.

          He had talked about a ‘fantastic’ oven-ready Withdrawal Agreement and the truth was that it was a disaster and just a rehash of May’s surrender WA – as the Northern Ireland Protocol and the loss of fisherfolk’s fishing waters has exposed.

          I had hoped that Andrew Neil Neil would have interviewed Johnson live; Johnson said he would be interviewed and then chickened out. I for one have not forgiven or forgotten Johnson for this and now we see that Andrew Neil himself has also got feet of clay.

  42. ‘Morning All

    #CovidClownWorld

    As politicians all over the world are goiing down like ninepins(how convenient) with the coof never never forget this!!

    https://twitter.com/MichaelPSenger/status/1488207493679366146?s=20&t=n18YuBXAsLAkyLp-d1k9EA

    Didn’t stop transmission then Liz….

    https://twitter.com/trussliz/status/1488243196509495299?s=20&t=6P1Zla_I7H9_CTvDy-D9Og

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/20b8f60d7b68c09c076d5b2a1b019467196177f681b0851037e97b27eab9976a.jpg

    Candace nails it

    https://media.patriots.win/post/wb6FHOtweCo9.jpeg

    2. There should be an anti-adultery vaccine for those in politics!

      The hyper-sanctimonious John Major could then tell us that he would never have strayed from the marital bed had it been available in the 1990s.

      I always find it interesting that while Labour Party members favour acquisition of money for themselves, adultery is practically de rigueur for Conservatives such as Adulterer Johnson and Adultera Truss.

    3. Maybe not truth, but certainly debate. The Left seem terrified of discussing these things.

  43. Convoy!!

    As the twisted lies are spread by the MSM we see why thing like “The Online Harms Bill” are needed,they’ve realised next time they have to control the internet as well,how they must hate it,the memes,the mockery the revealing of unfortunate truths……

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3f3ee26e849ea355ebbd5bb0b60eb3d08a8709152dda00eb5e085efa84cc2997.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5c3087d8fc020a86d93f4e08e463efcbfb8b7a55ee5345946513d4829ed186f7.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8808697743d1bee64a04f012797207c8e9a900a8b8625558ce0807959cb2a671.jpg

    https://twitter.com/ezralevant/status/1488230838290554885?s=20&t=Q-aPVtixwF3Ohn4UCkiTyg

    “Stealing from foodbanks” my arse

    https://twitter.com/rachisawake/status/1488252572318126080?s=21

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6e493fb1e871da2482224149d98a8dc913a52ee6cdced238859d1601cf528863.jpg

    1. Plod asking the Truckers to move isn’t against them, they’re ‘trying’ to enforce a law.

      Comically, the border people are told to stand down at the bottom but are desperately enforcing the one at the top – the one that doesn’t *want* to come in.

      The state is offensively over funded and it’s priorities abusive.

    1. Reminds me of Karl Marx’s collaborator, Friedrich Engels:

      ‘The family is the enemy of the state and the state cannot achieve its full potential until the family is destroyed completely.’

      1. Yep, but not an active enemy. The state chooses to make the family an enemy. The nuclear family needs nothing from the state. Its demands are minor. The state must destroy the family to expand and replace the family.

        That’s why we’re in a mess, after all. Massive state expansion and societal degradation.

    1. Presumably those 127,000 worked from the beginning when there were no vaccines and survived.
      Who carried on working on the front line despite the daily ratcheting of fear and half-truths
      Who worked on, treating both the vaccinated and unvaccinated who had succumbed.
      Who were catching covid from both the vaccinated and unvaccinated but returned.
      The man’s a bandwagon jumping fraud, so obviously in completely the right job, where he doesn’t give a damn what he reports as long as the clicks keep coming in.

    2. refused to have (no, chosen) a safe (not by reinfection rates) help protect [nonsense] vlunerable patients (no, as the vaccine only protects you, no one else).

      Mandate [that’s reoving the choice bit) in the wrong job (really? How do you know?)

      Care enough… no, they’ve made a choice not to have a vaccine of questionable efficacy. They can only care about themselves because that’s who the vaccine protects.

      It’s truly staggering how easily he lies, how manipulative the language. It’s Gobbellian, almost. The fundamental lie is that the vaccine you take protects other people. It does not.

      1. Most real vaccines protect the ones who have them – from smallpox, yellow fever and the like……….. but these new-fangled ones have been proven to protect nobody from catching or transmitting covid.

    3. Piers…do try not to piss off the very people who will do their hardest to save your life when you get what is coming to you. POS.

      1. “Nurse! Mr Morgan’s heart has stopped, go and bring the defib gear quick as you can, Oh, but get me some tea and toast from the canteen first.”

    4. Except the vaccine doesn’t stop infection or transmission, just lessens the symptoms.
      Moron is an arse.
      EDIT: The virus isn’t deadly. That’s why countries are removing restrictions.
      Arse again.

      1. They may possibly alleviate the symptoms, but that’s very hard to prove one way or the other.

    5. Except the vaccine doesn’t stop infection or transmission, just lessens the symptoms.
      Moron is an arse.
      EDIT: The virus isn’t deadly. That’s why countries are removing restrictions.
      Arse again.

    7. As in most scenarios there are usually two side to each individual story.
      I would guess that the NHS staff have witnessed and spoken to patients who suffered from devastating reactions and horrific side effects after being injected with the so called ‘vaccines’. Morgan just sits around stirs things up and complains, occasionally leaps onto a handy passing band wagon.
      It’s been brought to the attention of the public time and time again that even those ‘vaccinated’ can pass on the virus.

    9. Where is Jeremy Clarkson when you need him?

      Clarkson famously punched Morgan’s lights out.

    1. The bloody things must be breeding around Colchester, there’s so many appearing everywhere. Dumped on pavements. in lay-bys, country lanes: they’re a menace whether mobile or static.

    2. They’re a good reminder of Green issues’ being dogma over common sense. They don’t replace vehicles. They replace cycling and walking, activities far more beneficial to people and the environment.

  48. Good Moaning.
    Provided you stay out of a biting cold wind.
    Anyone would think it was winter.

  49. A classic example of feeding of the crocodile in the hope that it eats you last.

    https://www.takimag.com/article/hollywoods-jews-get-their-wandering-papers/

    The most ridiculous thing about the Hollywood caps and quotas is that they seem predicated on the notion that there’s a finite number of movies and TV shows that can be churned out per year, so nonwhite set-asides are needed. But that’s just not true. There’s no limit to the amount of content that can be produced in any given year. If you want to have more black-led content, the solution isn’t to ban whites; if you want more black joke writers, the solution isn’t to ban Jews. The solution is to make more content. A writers’ room can have any number of participants. Don’t fire; just hire more.

    Unless…unless the goal isn’t diversity but punishment. Retribution. Study any racial cap-and-quota system throughout history: Jim Crow South, Nazi Germany, apartheid South Africa, 20th-century Fiji. It’s always about keeping one group down. It’s never about “equity.” It’s about the empowered telling the disfavored, “I want to keep you stifled. I want to artificially inhibit your chances of success.”

    We should be honest about this: Hollywood’s caps and quotas are not about adding blacks but subtracting whites. And now Jews are finding out that for the purposes of this discussion, they’re as white as Grace Kelly. If “whiteness is a state of mind” (the ideology pushed by the Ibram X. Kendis and funded by the Shlomo Oyveygenbergs), then Ashkenazi Tay-Sachs DNA don’t count for shit.

    You white, kike. And you capped, sucka.

    1. Oy vie

      Southern states where millions of blacks paid to see “their people” in Hollywood films remade with a black cast.

      Sitting drinking my coffee this morning i witnessed a similar ploy by the BBC a programmes about fraud. I highlighted a family in black burn that had been stealing thousands from people on benefits and by various other means had also been lying to gather benefits for their own family.
      It was clear the family were muslim and Asian appearance. But at the review, all the clips of the police interrogations and other scenes where the crimes were mentioned and shown clips of other parts of the investigations, all the people featured were white ??
      And the sentences for them all were very menial indeed.

      The family.

      https://skywaveradiolancs.uk/index.php/2020/12/03/blackburn-family-sentenced-for-51k-benefit-fraud/

      1. I fear it’s becoming endemic, and nobody investigates properly because their career will be cancelled for the good of diversity.

        1. The mother had 12 months in jail but the sons had a slap on the wrist. Community service WTF does that mean ?
          They all drive BMWs and Mercs.

          Talking of crocodiles Sos, did you ever go to Hartley’s in QLD. There’s a real life size replica of a huge croc that once existed. It was about 15 feet long.

          http://www.crocodileadventures.com/

          1. Not been there, it looks interesting.
            15 foot isn’t particularly big for a croc.

            We were driving in QLD and left the main road for a picnic. We were sitting in the car when a huge lizard appeared. It placed its front legs on a picnic table and its head must have been 6-8 feet off the ground and its hind legs and tail were enormous. Positively primeval. It wandered back into the forest and had us wondering how big they can get. It was larger than anything we had ever seen before, more like a Komodo than a monitor.

          2. I don’t think there are Komodos’ there Sos, it could have been a very senior Goanna.
            I was driving the Great ocean road to Melbourne with the Wife and in-laws they were over for 6 weeks after our first son was born. I stopped and went for a pee in the ‘shrubbery’ and what I thought was a bird in the undergrowth turned out to be a Goanna 4 feet long it had huge claws as it climbed tree in front of me and staring. And when I went back to the car I found a stumpy tail lizard on the road I picked it up to show the MiL she wasn’t impressed.🙄🤩

          3. I don’t think there are either. I was making the comparison to indicate the size of it.

            We saw lots of large goannas up at Noosa Heads and none of them were anywhere near the size of the one in the forest, not even close.

          4. When my Aussie friend was driving me from the Little Desert, he insisted on stopping to make me get out and look at a stumpy tail lizard. At least it wasn’t a snake!

          5. They are slow and harmless.
            I ran over a 6ft brown snake riding my dirt bike. I didn’t stop to seeing it was okay.

      2. If we ended benefit fraud we could scrap the basic rate of tax. The solution is simple. End child benefit. End housing benefit.

        1. And the end of illegal immigrants. We already splash out 13 billion a year on foreign aid and half of them come here anyway.

        1. Threatened by rioting, I’m sure it’s been how they managed to get away with all the crimes they have committed.

          How you doing T ?

          1. Hi RE, Not too bad, thanks – stomach area/spleen/gallbladder things will be with me permanently. They are getting to be more of a painmost days, but most of us have something to live with, and it could be something a lot worse! How about you?

    2. Oy vie

      Southern states where millions of blacks paid to see “their people” in Hollywood films remade with a black cast.

      Sitting drinking my coffee this morning i witnessed a similar ploy by the BBC a programmes about fraud. I highlighted a family in black burn that had been stealing thousands from people on benefits and by various other means had also been lying to gather benefits for their own family.
      It was clear the family were muslim and Asian appearance. But at the review, all the clips of the police interrogations and other scenes where the crimes were mentioned and shown clips of other parts of the investigations, all the people featured were white ??
      And the sentences for them all were very menial indeed.

      The family.

      https://skywaveradiolancs.uk/index.php/2020/12/03/blackburn-family-sentenced-for-51k-benefit-fraud/

    3. People should just turn their backs on Hollywood and do independent movies. I bet the ones made by the despised outsiders would end up being better than the ones made with the die-versity.

          2. ” tightening their control over actor salaries and creative decisions,”

            Not dissimilar…

          3. The big difference is that they are banning them altogether, rather than tightening salaries and decision making

    4. Yes, but you’re forgetting that logic, reason and common sense are not in these people’s mind set.

      Their idea of equality is to take from you so someone else can have it. The levelling down agenda. There is no interest in fairness, no decency, no tolerance, no consideration of actual equality: it is sheer, unadulterated hatred of the host.

      Most parasites realize they cannot survive without the host. The left are not parasitic. They’re cancerous.

  50. I read that Truss and Zahawi have tested positive for covid.
    Gosh, that virus is just soooooooo accommodating.
    Will I be showing my age age if I compare it to a conveniently painful wisdom tooth in the Autumn of 1990?

        1. I think that initially people were doing so, until it became very apparent that they didn’t and that second, third and potentially more boosters were needed.

  52. A day to be ashamed that Boris Johnson represents Britain to the world
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2022/02/01/letters-day-ashamed-boris-johnson-represents-britain-world/

    BTL

    I think that the Conservatives need to take some lessons from the Democratic Party in the US.

    Boris Johnson may have become toxic to the British electorate but in the US Joe Biden, who has no charisma at all, is virtually senile, attracted nobody to his election rallies, had a very corrupt son, Hunter, who shared spoils with his father, and yet he still managed to poll more votes than any other candidate in history in the presidential elections of 2020.

    If Sleepy Joe can win against the odds then surely Johnson will be able to do so if the Conservative Party can do what the Democrats did.

    2. Biden won because his white, middle class, tax paying supporter base were scared of the mob calling them racists.

      Thus the problem Trump had was in not dealing with the bigoted, intolerant Left when he had the chance. The difficulty normal people have is that the Left are *not* normal. They don’t think rationally. You have to become them – vicious, spiteful, underhanded, intolerant, oppressive – to defeat them. Who wants to be a Nazi to fight Nazis?

    3. “If Sleepy Joe can win against the odds then surely Johnson will be able to do so if the Conservative Party can do what the democrats did.”

      ‘Cheat like gangbusters’, does he mean ?

      Please remind me of how Biden and his son’s crookedness and corruption were absolutely all over the press and television 24/7 in the run up to the 2020 election /sarc/.

    4. ‘Afternoon, Richard, “…the Conservative Party can do what the Democrats did.”

      What, fiddle the votes?

      That’s already happening and won’t stop until they stop the postal vote except for Overseas Brits, proven by attested copy of their passport.

    3. Done.
      I want this useless government to stop this invasion forthwith and send all the others back where they came from. This is costing this country billions already. And for what precisely ?

    4. “While this government acknowledges the request it is not in the public interest.” End of ‘debate’.

      The numbers are disgusting. Get rid of them. We don’t want the wretched freeloaders here. We already have a problem with grooming gangs. Perhaps they’ll take notice when an illegal criminal welfare migrant rapes their daughter?

  56. Where are the pro-Brexit entrepreneurs with enough support and money to launch an enormous poster and advertising campaign?

    Every billboard should carry a large sign saying:

    WHY HAS JOHNSON BODGED BREXIT
    or
    WHY HAS BREXIT NOT BEEN PROPERLY DONE?
    or
    WHY IS THE EU STILL IN OUR LAND IN NORTHERN IRELAND?
    or
    WHY ARE OUR RIVALS STILL FISHING IN OUR WATERS
    etc. etc

    You might even find such messages put on the sides of double decker buses as well as billboards!

    These very simple points should be made to Boris Johnson every day until he sorts the problem of Brexit out properly

    1. 334878+ up ticks,

      Afternoon R,

      Many of us knew on hearing post referendum “We won
      leave it to the tory’s” knowing it was the death knell of brexit.

  57. Where are the pro-Brexiter entrepreneurs with enough support and money to launch an enormous poster campaign?

    Every billboard should carry a large sign saying:

    WHY HAS JOHNSON BODGED BREXIT – WHY HAS BREXIT NOT BEEN PROPERLY DONE?

  59. Today’s Groaner

    There was an elderly couple who in their old age noticed that they were getting a lot more forgetful, so they decided to go to the doctor.
    The doctor told them that they should start writing things down so they don’t forget.
    They went home and the old lady told her husband to get her a bowl of ice cream.
    “You might want to write it down,” she said.
    The husband said, “No, I can remember that you want a bowl of ice cream.”
    She then told her husband she wanted a bowl of ice cream with whipped cream.
    “Write it down,” she told him, and again he said,
    “No, no, I can remember: you want a bowl of ice cream with whipped cream.”
    Then the old lady said she wants a bowl of ice cream with whipped cream and a cherry on top.
    “Write it down,” she told her husband and again he said,
    “No, I got it. You want a bowl of ice cream with whipped cream and a cherry on top.”
    So he goes to get the ice cream and spends an unusually long time in the kitchen, over 30 minutes.
    He comes out to his wife and hands her a plate of eggs and bacon.
    The old wife stares at the plate for a moment, then looks at her husband and asks,
    “Where’s the toast?”

  60. Today’s Groaner

    There was an elderly couple who in their old age noticed that they were getting a lot more forgetful, so they decided to go to the doctor.
    The doctor told them that they should start writing things down so they don’t forget.
    They went home and the old lady told her husband to get her a bowl of ice cream.
    “You might want to write it down,” she said.
    The husband said, “No, I can remember that you want a bowl of ice cream.”
    She then told her husband she wanted a bowl of ice cream with whipped cream.
    “Write it down,” she told him, and again he said,
    “No, no, I can remember: you want a bowl of ice cream with whipped cream.”
    Then the old lady said she wants a bowl of ice cream with whipped cream and a cherry on top.
    “Write it down,” she told her husband and again he said,
    “No, I got it. You want a bowl of ice cream with whipped cream and a cherry on top.”
    So he goes to get the ice cream and spends an unusually long time in the kitchen, over 30 minutes.
    He comes out to his wife and hands her a plate of eggs and bacon.
    The old wife stares at the plate for a moment, then looks at her husband and asks,
    “Where’s the toast?”

  61. Has the Buffoon declared war? Six sorties of Chinooks into 16th Air Landing Brigade’s barracks in an hour: two in, then out within minutes, on three occasions. Nothing slung underneath, possibly carrying troops?

  62. BoJo to shovel £90 million to the Ukraine to “prevent government corruption”
    Hahahaha
    Breathe
    hahahaha

  63. Dom Cummings refers to Johnson in an American magazine as a babbling fuckwit who hasn’t the balls to stand up to his ‘forceful’ wife Carrie.

    He also said of Johnson that he believed he was a king or Roman Emperor only interested in big projects as monuments to himself.

    Dom Cummings. The gift that keeps giving.

    1. The last bit seems a repetion of the strategy used by Blair. I recall reports saying that the cabinet office had instructions to provide at least one positive story about the Great Leader each day.

    1. Yes – but not until the next election, by which time the current emcumbents will have caused even more damage.

  66. Does the Labour Party have a problem with women?

    Rosie Duffield clearly feels that Starmer hasn’t done enough to constrain those who are targeting her in her marginal seat of Canterbury

    TOM HARRIS

    Under Jeremy Corbyn female MPs were subject to online bullying because of their opposition to Labour’s then leadership. Luciana Berger, the Jewish Liverpool MP, even had to resort to agreeing to be accompanied by a bodyguard so that she could attend Labour Party conference. She and Ellman eventually felt forced to resign their party membership because of the appalling levels of anti-Semitism they faced and which their leadership did precious little to prevent.

    Now it’s Rosie Duffield’s turn.

    In her case it’s not her heritage, religion or ethnic background that so angers Labour activists, but her mainstream views on how a woman is defined. Ever since the Canterbury MP aligned herself with the views of J.K. Rowling and dared to “like” a tweet that asserted that only women have cervixes, she has become the target for the trans ideologues.

    And, like Berger and Ellman before her, Duffield is reaching the end of her tether as far as the Labour Party is concerned. She announced yesterday that she is seriously considering her future in the party, after yet another series of smears and rumours were deliberately spread about her by her own party activists.

    It should be recognised at the start that for any MP publicly to speculate on their own future in their party is a very big deal. It’s a threat that either must be carried out or retreated from, and quickly. Starmer himself should be in no doubt that Duffield’s resignation of the Labour whip would undo all the good publicity he received when he welcomed Conservative defector Christian Wakeford into the party earlier this month.

    Wakeford’s arrival signalled that Starmer’s party is safe for ex-Tories to vote for once again; Duffield’s resignationwould signal that women, and those who support same-sex services and spaces for women, have no place or priority in the Labour Party.

    Too many people in the Labour Party has allowed itself to be entirely captured by the Stonewall way of thinking – trans women are women and no dissenting voices will be tolerated – and this raises serious questions for women who might otherwise be considering a vote for Labour at the next election. Put it this way: if a woman tries to insist that a nurse who attends her smear test must be biologically female, then that patient, in the eyes of many Labour members, is an intolerant transphobe and a bigot.

    Starmer himself doesn’t seem too distressed by this state of affairs; after Duffield (again, like Berger before her) felt unable to attend Labour conference because of fears for her personal safety, Starmer asserted that it would be wrong for anyone to claim, as Duffield had done, that “only women have cervixes”.

    Duffield’s latest shot across her leader’s bow stems from her perception that he has done nothing to constrain or discipline those who are targeting her in her marginal seat of Canterbury.

    Think about that for a moment: in an era of violence and intimidation towards MPs, when the issue of violence against women and bullying in the work place has rarely had a higher profile, Starmer is giving every appearance of caring more about Stonewall’s opinions than about one of his own MPs. Duffield is the only Labour representative in Kent; she held on to the seat with an increased majority in 2019 while many of her colleagues were losing their seats. If Labour genuinely believe they can hold that seat without her, they really haven’t been paying attention.

    But electoral politics don’t matter compared with the far more important issue of women’s rights, not just to their own spaces but their right to speak their mind. What does it say about Labour under Starmer – about his very fitness to lead the country – if all he can manage in response to Duffield’s charges is a spokesperson’s innocuous soundbite that “The party continues to be in touch with Rosie Duffield and has offered her advice and support”?

    It has shades of Corbyn’s infamous “I oppose racism in all its forms.”

    The reality is that Starmer could, with no measurable loss of public support, reject the ideologues’ demand that Duffield and every other Labour MP abide by their new and anti-scientific consensus that a woman is no longer an “adult human female” but can be defined however any man chooses. So the fact that Starmer has chosen publicly to stick by the Stonewall orthodoxy suggests he genuinely believes it. Perhaps he even thinks, as many in his party do, that Duffield (and anyone who shares her views) deserves to be treated like a bigot and exiled from the party.

    That would explain the paucity of action taken by the party hierarchy in Duffield’s defence, but it would be bad news indeed for Labour in the eyes of most of Britain’s voters.

    It should be pointed out that Duffield happens to be the chair of the Women’s Parliamentary Labour Party, so she obviously has considerable support from her views among female MPs (even if depressingly few of them wish to say so publicly).

    If Duffield goes, Starmer can no longer hope to avoid speaking about the trans issue and the threat to women’s rights that is posed if every one of the trans ideologues’ demands are conceded. He will have to take a side. He may even have to have a “Kinnock moment” when, like his predecessor taking action against the Trotskyists of Militant, he has to challenge and face down the gender extremists in favour of the moderate majority.

    The holding of one’s breath is not recommended.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/01/31/does-labour-party-have-problem-women/

    BTL:
    Ken Chesworth
    It’s not just with women. The Labour Party has problems with working class people and jews, with the North and with country-dwellers. It also has problems with a policy vacuum and an ideology which is built on the ruins of socialism. It’s now just a party run by chancers like Starmer.

    Rosemary Led
    Strange how completely the party for the working class, the ordinary people, has lost its roots. It has been taken over by the Liberals. No wonder it is unelectable.

    Logical Paradox
    This is a genuine scandal but the media’s bile is only reserved for Boris.

    Debbie Curley
    Labour doesn’t get it. Another example of identity politics and sixth form protesting. They should be banging the drum to oppose Woke rhetoric like “chest feeding not breast feeding” and take a stand clearly supporting safe spaces for females. They don’t. Starmer has done nothing for women and girls and same sex couples. What’s worse I don’t think he and others believe the Stonewall nonsense but is prepared to sell women down the river to avoid backlash from the Left supporting trans activists. Shameful.
    _______________________________

    It’s not just the Labour Party that’s becoming unelectable…

    1. Why don’t political parties realise that the vast majority of voters couldn’t care less about ‘LGBT’ issues?

      1. Why don’t people realise that the trans-carp is so violent because it is mostly led by men – those men who want to have their cake and eat it. Very few women trans people in comparison.

          1. To be honest, I don’t think that many women want to be “men” because you can do a lot of male things anyway as a female…

          2. And in pre-feminist days, I’m pretty sure that the number of men who wanted to be women was far smaller than it is today.

          3. I can only think of two – April Ashley and Jan Morris. Now they’re all at it.

            We had a few at the JobCentre – not surprisingly, they were out of work – chips on shoulderrs or just plain barmy.

    2. “Wakeford’s arrival signalled that Starmer’s party is safe for ex-Tories to vote for once again”. Er, nope!

      “Too many people in the Labour Party has allowed itself to be entirely captured by the Stonewall way of thinking”. Is this sentence available in English?

      Anyway, Labour becoming Liberal has mirrored the Conservatives becoming New Labour. The Lib Dems have become the Greens. A pity that there’s been no replacement for the Tories.

  67. BTL@Sherelle Jacobs article

    Twrade Basmsett
    15 HRS AGO

    But the red wall votes weren’t for the Conservatives they were for Brexit. Labour were stuffed because if they backed Brexit they would lose votes to the Libs so they had to stick with the remain vote. So they hoped that Farage would take a chunk of those votes, but he was too savvy and sold key seats to Boris in exchange for a confirmed Brexit. The Conservatives are not as strong as they thought and now have this oaf leading them they are sleep walking into the next GE.

    Boris is no leader and everyone can see it. When JRM has to actually write an article claiming that Boris is a leader you know he is only doing it because he isn’t! Cummings told Boris how to win the election and what policies to follow. Once he disappeared we could see Boris was like a ship without a rudder. He isn’t a leader. He doesn’t have an idea of his own as we saw at the CBI dinner, his frequent U turns and stuttering delivery on complex issues.

    In no particular order, lazy, incompetent, a brazen liar, badly dressed, slovenly, scruffy and carrying a whiff of corruption. The Conservatives are toast if they let this fool and his cabal lead them.

      1. Stig thinks the extract comes from H.G. Wells. But I am not convinced that Schwab is a person who can be trusted.

      1. It does, but the tyranny has been more forcefully visited upon the Canadians, and what we are seeing is action equalling reaction. It has also been stronger (the tyranny) upon continental Europe with national characteristics coming to the fore once again. It may be that the relatively light touch of the rules and regulations is part of the character of the governance of our nation, perhaps they know us too well – this may be why Britain has historically not suffered violent revolutions that other countries have, just the odd rebellion here and there.

    1. Thank you for posting Ndola. Totally agree with everything in this article. The only thing not addressed is the purpose behind the psychological warfare waged against the whole western world. The globalists are still in charge.
      ETA: Ndovu not Ndola. Spellcheck or summat!

    2. Her insurance should pay. She’s got it new, over £60,000, so has/had some money but she’s started a GoFundMe page and people are contributing, over £10,000 according to the latest report, far more than she’ll pay in excess and increased premia. She’s going to come out quids in.

      Range Rover drivers are the most selfish and self-entitled people I’ve ever met, and by the way they drive they’re all like that.

    2. The local Christian should crowd fund to raise money to purchase the land surrounding the .new build’ and start a

      Pig Farm
      Burger Bar
      Bacon Butty Shop
      Pub
      Off Licence
      Bandstand
      etc

    3. How long after the mosque is built will be the church be demolished as being “offensive” to the perpetually offended.

    4. “New St John the Baptist’s Church to be built opposite the main mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Hundreds more Christian churches to be built all over the Middle East.”

      Why shall we never see that headline?

      1. Apparently, it has not yet been passed. The planning meeting is on February 3rd at 10.00am.
        Just checked out the parish council news!

      2. Muslims are driving Christians and Jews out everywhere. Even in Jerusalem.

        They hired an open topped double decker bus and put a sound system on it. Drove through Jewish areas of London blaring out ‘Yids go home’.

        I really don’t see why we should be at all tolerant of Islam.

        The religion of murder, rape, drugs, mental illness and honour killings. They are vermin.

    5. How disgusting. Just another nail in the coffin of our culture and its social structure.
      And where did the funds come from and who in their right minds sanctioned the planning application.

        2. Using the money we spend on buy fuel. What an irony.
          My father was in parts of North Africa in WW2 one thing in particular he said to me when the opportunity arose. “Never trust an Arab son”.

  75. Suicide mission: Which one is Thelma….?

    Labour likens Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak to THELMA AND LOUISE ‘driving off the cliff’ with National Insurance rise for millions.
    Ministers were likened to the tragic female road movie characters by Labour
    Pat McFadden accused the PM of bringing in rise to set up tax cut before election

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10464123/Boris-Johnson-Rishi-Sunak-likened-THELMA-LOUISE-driving-cliff-NI-rise.html

      2. Thelma and Louise drive off into the sunset and get married…….
        Watch out for the remake ” Raising Woke Kids with Thelma and Louise”

  76. Boris Johnson scraps Brexit bonfire of EU red tape in favour of net-zero rules
    Exclusive: Government waters down Lord Frost’s plan to ditch Brussels regulations because it is ‘not consistent with’ hitting green targets
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/01/boris-johnson-scraps-brexit-bonfire-eu-red-tape-favour-net-zero/

    If this report is true then that genuinely is the end of Boris Johnson.

    In fact he and his latest wife should pack their bags and move out this evening.

    A BTL Comment sums up my view:

    Did Johnson ever want Brexit in the first place?
    We have been conned completely from the very beginning.
    The sooner he goes the better.

    1. Bear in mind one of the authors is a certain James Crisp, so it should be taken with a large pinch of salt, so to speak.

      1. Salt and vinegar should be added to crisps and chips. ‘When I were a nipper ‘the salt came in a little bit of twisted blue paper.

        As I said: ‘if this report is true’ and yes, James Crisp should have been sacked from the DT some time ago.

        1. You can’t simply ‘cancel’ people with whom you disagree. Crispy also writes for EU Observer, and he is not blind to faults within the EU edifice.

          2. I find that most people who write for (and thus inevitably support the institution) EU publications are rarely objective about the EU’s faults. One thing the EU insists on for those whose salary (or pensions) they pay is unconditional loyalty.

      2. Actually that’s “high” Phizzee, “low” Phizzee gets banned before it even appears!

        };-O

  87. Steerpike
    Did Keir Starmer fail to prosecute Jimmy Savile?
    1 February 2022, 1:20pm

    https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltf04078f3cf7a9c30/blt8dbe7e83bc835692/61f9372e67ae6d2f0a5a4e57/GettyImages-154763776.jpg?format=jpg&width=1920&height=1080&fit=crop

    One of the stranger moments of yesterday’s drama in the House of Commons, following the release of the Sue Gray ‘update’, was Boris Johnson’s decision to summon the ghost of Jimmy Savile to defend himself against the partygate allegations.

    After being lectured by the Labour leader about his alleged lockdown dos, the PM hit back by suggesting that Keir Starmer as a former director of public prosecutions (DPP) had spent the majority of his time ‘prosecuting journalists and failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile, as far as I can make out.’

    Boris may have had a point about Keir Starmer locking up journalists (he was DPP when dozens were first arrested as part of operation Elveden). Needless to say though, the invocation of a notorious paedophile to avoid answering questions about a political scandal went down like a cup of cold sick among Tory MPs, with one saying the remark was ‘totally outrageous’.

    Others have gone further, and suggested that Boris was guilty of spreading a ‘far-right’ smear about Keir Starmer, referencing claims online that Starmer had decided there was insufficient evidence to prosecute Savile. Starmer himself told Sky News this morning that the remarks were a ‘ridiculous slur peddled by right-wing trolls.’

    But putting aside the obvious crassness of bringing up Savile, is it true that the allegations are a complete smear?

    Media reports that mention the Savile row appear to be based on two ‘fact checks’ carried out by Reuters and Full Fact, in 2021 and 2020.

    Both note that, yes, Keir Starmer was director of public prosecutions when several allegations about Savile were referred to the CPS by Surrey and Sussex police and, yes, the CPS declined to charge Savile at the time because they believed there was insufficient evidence.

    But the fact checkers point out that Starmer was not the reviewing lawyer on the case and:

    “‘The CPS told Reuters in an email that there is no reference to any involvement from the DPP in the decision-making within a report (here) examining the case.’

    Full Fact added that:

    “‘A later investigation criticised the actions of both the CPS and the police in their handling of the situation. It did not suggest that Mr Starmer was personally involved in the decisions made.’

    Both are correct to say that the report, by Alison Levitt QC, Starmer’s principal legal advisor, did not suggest that Starmer was involved in the charging decision. But Mr S wonders if that isn’t exactly a helpful observation. As Levitt complained in her report, which was published in 2013, four years after the charging decision, all CPS records of the case had been deleted from the system and were impossible to retrieve:

    “‘The CPS appears to have no record at all of this case, because the original file was returned to the police following the decision that no prosecution would take place. There is nothing on CMS; the only reference says that the file was “destroyed” on 26th October 2010. I am told that what this means is that because the decision had been reached that no further action should be taken, for data protection reasons and in accordance with our normal policy, the CMS record was automatically deleted. It is not now possible to retrieve it.’

    She was therefore forced to rely on police records during her investigation, to piece together the information the CPS would have received about the case. It’s not clear whether the police records would include any internal CPS deliberations or whether or not the case was referred to the DPP before the charging decision was made, because of the high-profile nature of the case.

    Levitt did find though that the CPS had failed in its decision not to charge Savile, noting that the reviewing lawyer had failed to properly build a case with the police, failed to spot inconsistencies in their reports, and did not find out if witnesses could be encouraged to come forward. Several of the witnesses had chosen not to proceed with the case because they mistakenly believed they were the only ones coming forward. Levitt concluded that several of the allegations had a realistic prospect of conviction, based on what the police and CPS knew.

    At the time at least Starmer appeared to take responsibility for these failings. As well as criticising the police forces involved, he also apologised for the CPS’s ‘shortcomings’ and announced that child sex abuse cases would be handled better in future. In other words, he apologised for the CPS’s failure to prosecute Jimmy Savile, as Boris Johnson indicated yesterday.

    Keir Starmer has made much during the partygate and sleaze scandals of the fact that leaders are ultimately responsible for the failings of their organisations. As he told the House last year, ‘Leadership is about taking responsibility, and if there is an apology to be made, that apology should come from the top’. It seems though that when it comes to his own leadership, that responsibility is suddenly in short supply…

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

    An0nymousBosch • 4 hours ago
    Starmer’s defence is that he can’t be blamed for the Savile decision, because it was taken by more junior lawyers at the CPS – he was just their boss.

    Yet this is the same Keir Starmer who is insisting that Boris Johnson is responsible for the behaviour of all his underlings – and must therefore resign!

    An0nymousBosch Orson Cart • 38 minutes ago
    And who did Starmer appoint to lead the inquiry into his service’s Savile failures?

    Oh, that’s right – his own legal advisor, Alison Levitt QC! It’s as if Boris Johnson, instead of instructing Sue Gray to run the inquiry, had picked Jacob Rees-Mogg to do it.

    And even having rigged the inquiry, it still found that:

    On a number of occasions, Surrey Police consulted the Crown Prosecution Service for advice about the allegations that they were investigating. In October 2009, the CPS reviewing lawyer with responsibility for the cases advised that since none of the complainants was “prepared to support any police action”, no prosecutions could be brought.
    And yet, the BBC has now released a pompous “fact check” denouncing Boris Johnson for accusing Starmer of having responsibility – even though Starmer in 2013 publicly apologised for the failings of his prosecutors, thereby admitting his own culpability!

    Orson Cart • 3 hours ago
    Hey Fraser!!!!! Where is The Speccie and it’s ‘fearless’ journalists now that the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse has been published????

    It finds that the abuse is still widespread yet authorities hold the opinion that it’s ‘on the wane’. Not one of the authorities investigated kept a record of the ethnicity of the abusers or the abused even though there was substantial evidence that abusers were from one religious group (this report is lifted from the BBC so naturally they won’t say which, they only state they are Asian, so you have one guess which religious group they are referring to) and the abused from another (ditto).

    Children as young as 10 were found to have STD’s and observed being picked up and dropped off by Asian male adults yet only listed ‘at risk’. Children as young as 14 were having abortions yet still no action was taken against the abusers. On many occasions the abused children were arrested by the police for anti-social behaviour while their clearly identified abusers were left alone.

    The authorities investigated were: Tower Hamlets, St. Helens, Swansea, Durham, Bristol and Warwickshire. A charity in St. Helens reported that child protection professionals were describing child victims as ‘promiscuous’ and in Swansea they were aware that a child had ‘sexual partners’ from the age of 11 – yet no action was taken was taken against the abusers. Official documents were found to be ‘littered’ with inappropriate language describing child victims.

    As we know, the abusers are a protected species and I was pleasantly surprised the BBC published on it’s mobile app the finding of the report, but that is not enough. Instead of investigating garden parties there MUST be a full on police assault on these abusers and a clear out of the woke idiots that are yet again allowing this disgrace to continue in broad daylight. A nation that will not protect it’s children from violent predators is sick.
    Jump to it Fraser!!!!

    1. ‘all CPS records of the case had been deleted from the system and were impossible to retrieve’.

      They should not have access to the delete tools. Same goes for the Police.

    2. We all know who the majority of child abusers are.

      As usual feminists are silent.

      Feminists do suggest that all men given how they are endowed are potential rapists.

      I would like them to go one step further and say all Pakistani males are suspect and should be watched.

    3. Given the profile of Savile, I cannot believe that Starmer was not made aware by his staff.
      He’s being extremely economical with the truth.

    4. Did Keir Starmer fail to prosecute Jimmy Savile?
      1 February 2022, 1:20pm

      It appears that he failed to prosecute – and probably compromised any further investigation.

  89. Prevening, all. A pinch and a punch for the first of the month! The chaos at the top seems to go from bad to worse. They are all totally unfit to be anywhere near running the country.

    3. Just for you Plum…

      I forgot to get my girlfriend a Valentines day card last year but I made
      up for it on Pancake day, I even wrote her a poem.

      ‘Roses are red and I
      love you to bits.

      Here, have a pancake,

      now show us your tits.’

      :@)

          2. He was outrageous but funny.

            Rumour has it that he, Freddie Mercury and Princess Diana went out dressed in top to toe leather with peaked caps and mirror sunglasses to the Coleherne gay leather bar in Earls Court.

            I wouldn’t be at all surprised.

      2. Roses are red,
        Violets are blue
        You put up with me
        And I put up with you.

        The wife and I arranged a wonderful night in. We had this evening of passion all planned.
        Junior and Mongo with mother in law. We had a wonderful meal and a bottle of Chillean red.

        We sat down on the sofa for the planned rumpy pumpy

        And promptly fell asleep. I came too a bit later to a TV end credits and carried her upstairs, tucked her in and did same for me. It was, without question one of the most romantic evenings we’ve had.

        I love that woman.

        1. We know.

          You carried her upstairs? I hope you removed her armour first ! *concerned about the state of you back. :@(

  91. That’s me for today. Nice one. Lovely lunch with chums. Cats in fine fettle. Beautiful sunset.

    Time for a glass of medicine.

    Tomorrow to garden centre to stock up on potting compost (special offer…). Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

    1. Don’t buy compost or plants from B & M. It’s infested with weevil eggs. Took me ages to get rid of them. And the cost!

          2. Patrick O’Brian books were “made” for film adaptations, I don’t know of many others, it is a pity they weren’t taken up, but I understand he was a “difficult” man.

            Patrick Robinson is another sea-tale man who deserves to have his books to be made into films.

            It may be that tales at sea are difficult to film, but if Hunt for Red October, Clancy, can be done, Robinson’s should be. They are cracking tales and I believe they would make very exciting films..

    1. I have to have a covid test at the drive through at my local hospital prior to an operation.

      I have decided to hire a limousine for the round trip. Just to see the looks on their faces. :@)

          6. I do things like that for laughs.

            I have learned over the years that people do make snap judgements no matter how hard they try not to.

            Visiting a poshish Restaurant, Hotel or Club requires one to walk in as if you own it and people respond to that. Walk in like street trash and they will ignore you.

          8. 8am February 11th. My birthday ! :@(

            I will be in and out though. Local anaesthetic and routine angioplasty in the groin area. Hopefully then i can walk again properly.

          10. I haven’t been able to contact the vascular ward since last February but i did get a text the Consultant would be calling me recently. Just a waiting game.

          21. I did delete it. Garlands would have laughed though.

            I don’t wish to upset sensibilities. Especially Maggie and John.

    3. They need a snappy slogan for this new schools policy. How about “Education, Education, Education?”

    4. Educational tracking, more targets, defined outcomes, specific expectations, barely any money provided, what little will be will go to gimmigrants and wasters who already have too much. The cash will be carefully ring fenced, a lot will go to charities (fake ones), quangos and public sector thinktanks that have the time to fill in the forms. Nothing – not a thing – will change.

      The only thing that would help, if allowing schools to be funded by vouchers. Government cannot level anything. It’s just useless.

    5. Educational tracking, more targets, defined outcomes, specific expectations, barely any money provided, what little will be will go to gimmigrants and wasters who already have too much. The cash will be carefully ring fenced, a lot will go to charities (fake ones), quangos and public sector thinktanks that have the time to fill in the forms. Nothing – not a thing – will change.

      The only thing that would help, if allowing schools to be funded by vouchers. Government cannot level anything. It’s just useless.

  94. Lovely Jubbly. Souvenirs made for HM’s Platinum Jubilee have been produced in China… The mottoes read Platinum Jubbly. Surely, stuff like this for a real British occasion to commemorate our Queen, should be made in the UK?
    It’s on the BBC page…so, it may not be true either.

  95. A heads up for the mods.

    I’ve just received a vote from one “See bio”, I suspect it will be a spammer.

  97. Off Topic

    We applied for our passports to be renewed online. The whole process was straightforward and very efficient.
    10/10 for speed.
    I’ve just completed their equivalent of a customer satisfaction survey.
    Gawd, it went on and on and on, and eventually started asking about Gender, Sexuality, Religion, Ethnicity etc etc.

    What the Hell does any of that have to do with a service such as applying for a passport?

    How much money is being wasted on analysing and reacting to crap such as that?

    1. One reason I never bother with customer surveys. Even a job I applied for a few years ago wanted all sorts of info re gender etc etc. I guess the response MYOFB wasn’t what they wanted;-)

      1. I think/hope that the more people who tell them that, the more likely it is that it might eventually stop.

        I assume MYOFB is similar to FOAD.

          1. Moi?
            I’m far too prim and proper.
            I employ librarians to explain such things for me.
            I can only afford the cheaper ones,
            by the minute…

  99. Mitor Thebold
    22 HRS AGO
    Say what you like about Boris, but who else could have squandered the Brexit opportunity; presided over an Islamic invasion of Kent; imposed martial law on his own citizens; frittered away half a trillion pounds telling people to not work; and ensured we will all pay twice as much for half as much energy?
    Go Boris!

    REPLY
    5 REPLIES
    322

  100. Hear bloody hear and about time too.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10463833/Scathing-report-finds-extensive-failures-way-child-exploitation-tackled.html

    Ethnicity of child abusers MUST be recorded to tackle grooming gangs, says landmark report – after police and councils ‘failed, ignored and blamed’ victims as young as 12 because authorities ‘didn’t want to become another Rotherham’
    Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse finds ‘extensive failures’ in tackling of child sexual exploitation
    Police and authorities potentially downplay scale of abuse over fears about negative publicity, report says
    Victims reported being raped, abused, and in one case forced to perform sex acts on 23 men at gunpoint
    They were blamed and some were even slapped with criminal records for offences linked to their exploitation

    It will do several things, it will highlight the worst offenders, but also show it is far too prevalent everywhere and focus prevention on the worst areas..

    1. Is that good news, or will they desperately be trying to make the crime “diverse” by finding perpetrators from particular ethnic backgrounds?
      Sixteen year old black kid sleeps with fifteen year old girl = child sexual exploitation to try and blur the numbers?

      2. I’m sure that will happen and I’m sure that numbers will be manipulated:
        One effnik man rapes 8 women, one crime
        One white man rapes 1 woman, one crime

    1. Have just read that his solicitor is the husband of the solicitor who represents Shamina Begum!!

        1. My recollection of Begum’s statement – not necessarily verbatim – is:

          “Severed human heads in a barrel didn’t bother me; that’s what they believe …”

  102. Any Nottler that liked Upstairs Downstairs, the Duchess of Duke St and Downton Abbey i recommend the HBO series ‘The Gilded Age’.

    It’s Downton with gold knobs on !

      1. I quite liked Downton when in US mainly because of the lovely women’s dresses. The stories were rubbish.

          1. When in the US I watched anything British…made me feel sort of at home. Now I am home and it doesn’t feel like it.

      2. I am mostly into sci-fi and space opera but i do enjoy well made period drama. Two sides of the same coin.

  103. I am about to watch my first foreign language film (AMELIE – 2001) for the new month of February so I shall wish you all a Good Night. See you all tomorrow.

    1. If you are getting in to foreign films (much better than Hollowood) i recommend… ‘Babette’s Feast’.

      1. Phizzee, that is my scheduled film for tomorrow (Wednesday evening). Thursday = Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Friday = The Handmaiden, Saturday = Jean de Florette, Sunday = Manon des Sources, Sunday = Life is Beautiful. Then a pause on Monday when I go with the Wrinklies to watch The Souvenir: Part II. Next Tuesday is Life Os Beautiful, Wednesday = Il Postino, Thursday = La Vie En Rose. All of those are from my personal DVD collection. After that I will decide what else to watch for the rest of the Month, possibly some more foreign films if available on YouTube. At the cinema on Monday week (Jan 14) it will be Kenneth Branagh’s re-make of Death on the Nile. But thanks for the tip.

        2. I remember going to see Crouching Tiger, clearly advertised as “Chinese with English subtitles” – five minute into the film the entire row in front of me in the cinema left muttering the immortal phrase “it’s in fuckin Chinese”.

          1. In the library in CT we began the process leading to automating the library. First stage was weeding out all the old, dated books from the shelves and then finding all the cards in the card catalogue. We called the process, “Crouching librarian, hidden book.”

    2. With subtitles? Or is yer Furrinspeak good enough to listen in the original language?

      1. Me no speakee Chinee. I do, however, speak good Spanish, fairly decent French, a smattering of German and a smidgeon of Italian. Usually, I watch the English subtitles, whilst trying to listen to the European soundtrack and understand the originals with the help of the subtitles. What is more baffling is NoTTLers’ posts in Scandinavian, plus some abstruse acronyms.

  106. Bad News Coming:

    “Pfizer Expects Vaccines For Children 6 Months To 5 Years Within “Weeks” After Handing Data To FDA”

  107. White screened again!
    A productive day. Step-son’s 50th birthday, so I bought him a present of some small cakes to share with the other patients and staff on his ward and dropped them off with his cancer-stick replen.

    I’ve also bought a mattress and settee for him which I’m hoping I can get picked up tomorrow.

      2. It’s when Disqusting gives you a white page in response to clicking to either comment on a post of give an upvote.

        It usually happens when you’ve got a full page of 400 or more posts.

    2. Can’t Putin invade today, and hold Boris hostage? We’d raise the ransom, honest we would. I would donate one penny of my own money immediately, with further installments to follow at ten yearly intervals.

  111. UK history, 2016 – 2022: “lousy casting” …. (Allison Pearson)

    Sit down there, Toad,” said the Badger kindly. “My friends,” he went on, “I am pleased to inform you that Toad has at last seen the error of his ways. He is truly sorry for his misguided conduct in the past, and he has undertaken to give up motor-cars entirely and for ever. I have his solemn promise to that effect.”

    “That is very good news,” said Mole gravely.

    “Very good news indeed,” observed Rat dubiously, “if only – if only”

    He was looking very hard at Toad as he said this, and could not help thinking he perceived something vaguely resembling a twinkle in that animal’s still sorrowful eye.”

    The Wind in The Willows, Kenneth Grahame

    If only – if only – history had been inverted. Boris Johnson could have been Prime Minister for Brexit and Theresa May Prime Minister for Covid and this whole excruciating fiasco might have been averted. Instead, we got a thin-lipped Mother Superior taking us out of the EU with all the enthusiasm of a school matron coaxing a sanitary towel out of a blocked lavatory while the irrepressible Mr Toad (“Parp! Parp!”) was required to preside over one of the saddest, most solemn periods of self-abnegation in living memory. Apart from anything else, it’s such lousy casting.

    I don’t know whether you watched the Prime Minister on Monday afternoon responding to Sue Gray’s meagre “update” on Partygate – 500 further pages about 12 Downing Street “ gatherings” (including two in the PM’s own flat) and 300 photos are still under consideration by the Metropolitan Police. Congratulations to those who decided to stick with A Place in the Sun over on Channel 4. Halfway through this shameful spectacle, many viewers, among them loyal Brexiteers, will have felt like leaving the country for a place in the sun or, indeed, a place that was grey and overcast so long as it was miles away from the asylum formerly known as the House of Commons.

    I was a long-time champion of the PM, with the scars on my back to prove it, but I felt sickened. Not just by Boris, whose contrition had all the sincerity of Toad’s “sorrowful eye”, but by the whole damn lot of them. Why is Keir Starmer suddenly so moved by the casualties of brutal Covid restrictions which would still be in place today if he were Prime Minister?

    Not even his most ardent fan would claim that Boris Johnson has a monogamous relationship with the truth, but such flagrant infidelity is starting to become insulting. How stupid does he think the public is? The PM’s claims are so farcical you pity the colleagues who must try to defend them. “There were no parties at Number 10. If there were gatherings they were completely within the rules. It was work. I may have attended that gathering, but nobody told me it was against the rules. There was no birthday party. Nobody told me it was my birthday. There was no cake. There may have been a cake, but no one blew out the candles, which would have been against the stupid rules, which some of the people at the party (which never happened) put into law. We must wait for Sue Gray’s report to tell me if I was at a party. Now, we must wait for the Met to tell us whether the gatherings, which are clearly worthy of criminal investigation or Sue Gray would not have referred them to the police, took place. I am confident that I will be exonerated of any wrongdoing and I look forward to learning the date of my own birthday.”

    More flannel than a lumberjacks’ convention. It fell to a former prime minister to skewer the current one. Theresa May had swapped her kitten heels for stilettos and was not afraid to kick her successor in the Johnson. The public, she said with icy scorn and a Medusa glare to match, “had a right to expect their prime minister to… set an example…” What the Gray report shows “is that No 10 was not observing the regulations they had imposed on members of the public. So, either my right honourable friend had not read the rules, did not understand what they meant and nor did others around him, or they didn’t think the rules applied to No 10. Which was it?”

    Oooff! After that ball-shrivelling tirade, the PM, who had cancelled a phone call with Vladimir Putin, must have longed for the cuddly warmth of a Cold War chat with the would-be invader of Ukraine.

    In the very different personalities of the two leaders, we see the dilemma that now faces the Conservative party. Entertaining box office or moral seriousness? During the pandemic, you just know it would have been a mug of Horlick’s and early bed for Theresa and Philip. Not knocking back wine around a fire pit as Carrie and the haute-boho members of her court did. Mrs Johnson is even alleged to have held a Winner Takes It All party, complete with Abba soundtrack, on the night of November 13 2020 when her foe, Dominic Cummings, was booted out of Downing Street. A wiser wife would have tamped down her personal pique and cautioned her husband to keep the author of his greatest triumph inside the fortress, not banish Dom so he could fire vengeful missiles back in at his leisure. But Boris had divorced that wife.

    In the end, I reckon it will come down to fidelity. The parties, thoughtless as they were, may eventually be forgiven. But, if the man millions of us voted for with a full heart only two years ago has betrayed principles which Conservatives hold dear (apparently to appease a younger partner with modish, leftist views) then, sorry, up with that we will not put. In the Commons, he promised he us would look in the mirror and change. Against the odds, some of us would still like the old Boris back. He may be Mr Toad, but he is our Toad. Then, yesterday, almost on the anniversary of Brexit, this paper reported that the PM appears to have scrapped Lord Frost’s plan to free the UK from EU red tape in order to cut carbon emissions and hit the punishing and unrealistic net zero target by 2050.

    Has the Prime Minister completely lost his mind? Does some grandiose, green legacy matter more to him than keeping the solemn promise he made to the British people in 2019? Coming on top of a stubborn, kamikaze determination to keep the April increase in National Insurance amid a cost-of-living crisis that will see millions scared to open their gas bill, the prime minister could hardly do more to damage the party he leads.

    Despairing during the debate on the Sue Gray report, I found myself fantasising about an imaginary leader who doesn’t exist but who somehow combines Theresa’s serious attention to detail with Boris’s flair and fun. Where are they? We may need them sooner than we know.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2022/02/01/skewered-theresa-boriss-farcical-flannel-has-left-conflicted/

    1. There is nothing good to be said for the priggish and morally weak May. Like Boris, she is pretending to be a strong stereotype from the past that she is not.

  113. Ye gods, war averted. The Colin and Cuthbert Cake war is over. This is good. I used to make MH Battenburg cakes because he loves them, but right now it’s more cost effective to buy a small one…we call it Bert the Battenburg.

  114. This is an experiment, as I am trying to post a video of a song. Here goes:

    https://youtu.be/UYJBr0hZ118

    Well, that didn’t work. Let’s try it without the full stop after youtu

    https://youtube/UYJBr0hZ118

    Well that didn’t work either. Can any NoTTLer advise me how to do what HardcastleCraggs did with Claire de lune a couple of hours ago? I’m off to bed now.

        1. Go to youtube. Type in the song you want. Start playing the song. Right click on song. Select copy URL. Come back here. Open message box. Right click in box. Select paste.

        2. Phizzee is right, mainly because Youtube automatically plonk ‘adverts’ in before and after. What you end up linking to is those adverts.

          Although, ublock origin, folks.

  115. I haven’t been around much today, friends but I shall wish you Goodnight and God bless.

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