Thursday 3 March: The British people will not accept Ukrainians being shelled and starved into submission

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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892 thoughts on “Thursday 3 March: The British people will not accept Ukrainians being shelled and starved into submission”

  2. Good morning, one and all.

    I’ve been a bit distracted with computer problems over the last week or so.

    Hopefully they will be alleviated with the advent of a new Dell machine, expected tomorrow.

    1. Morning NTN, technology is such a pain when it is not behaving itself. Our old laptop used to run so hot with the fan forever going, despite making sure there was nothing causing an obstruction, we eventually scrapped it.
      We took the plunge and bought a MacBook and our computing problems seemed to have faded away. I hope your new computer works out as well for you as ours did.

      2. The fan was probably running all the time as the machine was filled with dust – you could have tried using a vacuum cleaner nozzle to clear some of the dust. Worked for me 10 years ago.

        1. I did check there was no obstruction and took the back off removed the fan and vacuumed it.
          It was an HP and they are well known for running hot I was told. Like me it was old and had seen better days, it had to go.

  4. The British people will not accept Ukrainians being shelled and starved into submission

    A bit ironic really after we will be slowly starved and frozen into submission after accepting all the climate change net zero nonsense.

  5. The British government should have acted a long time ago to Russia and China. As warned by the people.

  9. 351192+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Thursday 3 March: The British people will not accept Ukrainians being shelled and starved into submission

    Will we have a choice owing to decades of mass uncontrolled immigration via the political overseers and hard core lab/lib/con supporter
    voters.

    Where will we stack them ?

  10. The British people will not accept Ukrainians being shelled and starved into submission. 3 March 2022.

    If we fail to act in practical ways, I fear that we will be looking at a repeat of the siege of Aleppo in 2017, with multiple Ukrainian cities being shelled and starved into submission over a period of months, with humanitarian assistance being completely dependent on Russia’s consent, which inevitably it will abuse and delay for its own advantage.

    The human suffering will be on a vast scale, with Britain and others, effectively, standing by and watching. I do not believe that the people of this country are prepared to accept that.

    Aleppo is an unhappy comparison. Mr Parkman probably chose it for its Russian connotations but it was of course occupied by the Jihadists. As to what the British People will accept, I don’t think that the PTB are going to ask them. We are long past that stage. Thirty years or more. They are simply told what is to be.

    What the General Public actually think about it all I have no real idea, though I would like to know. Of course an Avalanche of Propaganda has descended to instruct them. Last week Vladimir Putin was the President of Russia now he’s a War Criminal, though whether a country that houses Blair and Cameron should be pointing the finger seems doubtful.

    Apart from one woman in my Bus Stop Focus Group not one other person has offered an opinion to me. It might as well not be happening. She of course told me that she doesn’t follow politics. A rather bizarre admission on the Edge of the Apocalypse. Still it’s not unusual.

    The threads still show some considerable scepticism but efforts are being made; witness our own “Geoffrey Woolard” with his fake pictures, to convert them. This is probably a lost cause and they will be shut down.

    We are living in momentous and not improbably the end times. Whatever the outcome with the present situation, that land that I was born into; England, is now long gone and its people like so many others before them will soon be following it into History and Legend.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2022/03/03/letters-british-people-will-not-accept-ukrainians-shelled-starved/

      1. 351192+ up ticks,

        JN,

        If it comes to trench warfare just make sure they ARE NOT to the rear of you.

      3. Quite so, JN. Their standing in the H of C and applauding the Ukrainians like circus sealions is far more important to them than taking such an unthinkable step!

          1. You are far too modest…..it’s £2,200… the extra £200 being for a yummy luncheon at taxpayers’ expense….silly you!

    2. The British people stood by while millions of Ukrainians died in the 1920s, and we really were British then. Despite the hysteria in the media, I doubt we will do anything that isn’t in the WEF playbook now.
      People should be ashamed of the emotional lengths to which they have descended. I just cast my eye over the headlines in the Daily Fail, and the idea that millions of sheep will take them seriously frankly makes my blood run cold. It’s our own government that scares me far more than Putin does.

  11. Now we can all see the price to be paid for the massive reduction in armed forces. The politicians fail yet again.

    1. 351192+ up ticks,

      Morning JN,
      But courtesy of the lab/lib/con coalition we have a very,very large standing army being added to daily via DOVER

    1. If you look at the world, only the Europeans, white Commonwealth countries, US and Japan are against Putin. That cartoon is wishful thinking.

      1. What are you prattling on about at this ungodly hour of the morning? Shouldn’t you be at work by now? You’re young and able bodied and should be making yourself useful to contribute to the Nation’s GDP whilst other full-time NoTTlers worry about the important things. Go away and grow up.

          1. So does Citroen, obviously.

            I don’t understand how any NoTTLer can want to cancel those with whom he/she disagrees.

          3. Yo sweetie. I do not play in the same swish Hi-tech area of the spectrum as you do but me an’ my pard’ner are currently trying to upload suffink new.

  13. Plane with 5 passengers – Joe Biden, the Pope, Nicola Sturgeon, Boris & a 10 year old schoolboy..
    The plane was about to crash and there were only 4 parachutes.
    Biden said he had to sort out the USA and took a parachute.
    The Pope demanded one as he had the Catholic Church to look after.
    Nicola Sturgeon said she was the smartest woman in Scotland, grabbed the straps and jumps.

    Boris said to the schoolboy that he had had a good life and a 10 year old has his full life ahead of him and should use the last one.
    The schoolboys said
    “There are still 2 parachutes left”
    “The smartest woman in Scotland took my schoolbag”

      1. Ironically,one of the reasons he went into Ukraine was to stop it…..in Donbass.

        1. In the name of unholy God, Do EFFING shut up Meneely, which isn’t your real name. Bizarre as it may sound, I used to work for an arm of the Finnish Government.

          1. I assume Citroen is your real name…
            An arm of the Finnish Government…that’s exciting.

    2. Putin is a creature created by the West. That is not an apology for him, but had the West treated Russia as a friend when the USSR broke up and not as a conquered enemy Putin might well not have gained power. Instead the West allowed and facilitated the asset stripping by the oligarchs of Russian wealth. Not satisfied with this NATO and the EU marched steady East treating Russia as a potential enemy and exercising troops and airpower closer and closer to Russian borders.

      1. Exactly.
        Recognising the reasons why Putin distrusts the West and being aware of the shelling of the Donbass Region by the paramilitary Azov Brigade as Putin’s primary casus belli does not equate to supporting his actions.
        This lady’s opening statement sums it up for me.

    3. A few of us are emotionally involved in one way or another.
      But the above scene is NOT happening and that cartoon is a disgrace, going on the information we have.

        1. You don’t know what your’re talking about , BoB. you don’t have first hand knowledge.

          1. Perhaps I don’t.
            But I do have an awareness of how, since the collapse of the USSR, the West has betrayed Russia on several fronts.
            First by allowing our financial institutions to cosy up to former apparatchiks and nomenklatura an facilitating their asset stripping of the country.
            Second by going back on earlier assurances that Western influence, NATO in particular, would not extend its reach Eastwards.
            Then we come to the CIA instigated Maidan Coup where an elected Premier was ousted.

            Throw in the revelations from the Hunter Biden laptop, which SHOULD have killed Dementia Joe’s presidential hopes stone dead, and one might understand my concerns that much of this crisis has been exacerbated by Western adventurism and two faced hypocrisy.

            As for the hysteric anti-Putin rhetoric, one wonders why the silence over the incessant Saudi assaults on Yemen that have deliberately targeted civilian areas?

      2. I have family in that neck of the woods. Eff off BB2 – it is happening, you sanctimonious ignorant superior twat

        1. Ouch, truth hurting, Citroen?

          Rather than lambasting those who are more pro-Putin, or at least are not anti-Putin, why not just block them? Mind you, you may not have too much left to read here.

        2. Invasion is happening.
          The most hysterial Western media have not reported that Russians are shooting women and children against a wall.
          And the Americans who have been stirring up trouble in Ukraine and carrying out their dirty financial deals for years are getting off scot free.

  15. Morning all

    Share

    The British people will not accept Ukrainian cities being shelled and starved into submission

    SIR – As a matter of urgency, Britain needs to do more to help the people of Ukraine.

    Could not we and our Nato allies make immediate airlifts of food, water and medicines into the soon-to-be besieged Ukrainian cities, and could we not be informing the Russian government that we would be providing military escorts for the planes to engage any Russian aircraft or air defences attempting to interfere with the mission?

    This would fall short of a no-fly zone, would be purely defensive and humanitarian in posture, but would provide the kind of assistance that the Ukrainians are going to need imminently. Although fraught with operational difficulties, it would surely be better than simply hoping that sanctions will eventually work.

    If we fail to act in practical ways, I fear that we will be looking at a repeat of the siege of Aleppo in 2017, with multiple Ukrainian cities being shelled and starved into submission over a period of months, with humanitarian assistance being completely dependent on Russia’s consent, which inevitably it will abuse and delay for its own advantage.

    The human suffering will be on a vast scale, with Britain and others, effectively, standing by and watching. I do not believe that the people of this country are prepared to accept that.

    T J Parkman

    Ledbury, Herefordshire

    SIR – Western politicians who argue that our support for Ukraine must be limited because it is not part of Nato are reinforcing Vladimir Putin’s outdated world view: a division of Europe into Nato and Russian territories, with a few guardedly neutral countries in between.

    But this war is about a more fundamental issue: the right of people and states to freedom and independence. If we do not stand up for this now, then when?

    We spent much blood and treasure in Iraq and Afghanistan trying to establish democracies that were neither welcomed nor successful. We should make a much greater effort for the Ukrainians, who are desperately fighting to keep what democracy they have established over the past 30 years.

    Mr Putin has brought war to Nato’s doorstep. If guerrilla war follows the Russian capture of Ukrainian cities, will we deny Ukrainians safety and support from neighbouring Nato countries? I hope not – but then Nato is involved.

    Mr Putin has already indicated that he wants other countries to “return” to Russia. Who’s next: Moldova, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia? It would be better to intervene now and take targeted action against Russian forces in Ukraine’s waters, airspace and on land.

    Colonel Ronnie Bradford (retd)

    Vienna, Austria

    SIR – I was three years old when Neville Chamberlain came on the wireless to say that, because Hitler’s government had not undertaken to withdraw from Poland, we were at war. I’d been aware of my dad’s nervous restlessness before he’d switched on the wireless: now he was sitting with his head in his hands and weeping.

    It was then I’d asked the question: “What’s war?” And my dad replied: “War is hell.”

    He was an elderly parent who had fought in the First World War. He had promised to look after the (then unborn) child of a friend, if “something” happened to him. Something had, and I had gained a stepsister, 20 years older than me.

    As I write, I recall sitting in a shelter awaiting the bombs about to fall all around us, as is now happening in Ukraine. My head is in my hands, just as my dad’s was. War is hell.

    Audrey Yeardley

    Anstruther, Fife

    SIR – Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but it will not help Ukraine.

    Simply, do we call Mr Putin’s bluff and risk limited or total nuclear war, or do we allow Ukraine to be sacrificed, as Chamberlain did with Czechoslovakia? History tells us that surrendering Czechoslovakia was not enough.

    Mr Putin can use the same tactic to recover Russia’s former conquests and more, with the risk of nuclear war held at our head in each case.

    It may be time to say enough is enough and, as a world alliance, call Mr Putin’s bluff on behalf of peace in Europe.

    Philip Congdon

    Poyntington, Dorset

    SIR – I wonder how the mothers of Russian soldiers feel about their sons pulling the triggers that kill their neighbour’s children. What insanity has been unleashed by one man.

    Someone, please, put a stop to this.

    Mike Bedford

    Hayling Island, Hampshire

    SIR – What three words locate the headquarters of the UN? Hopeless, useless, toothless?

    Jeremy J Beeton

    Staindrop, Co Durham

    SIR – Mr Putin’s motto appears to be that of the Roman emperor Caligula: “Let them hate, provided that they fear!”

    After four years the emperor was assassinated by a conspiracy of Praetorian Guards, senators and courtiers.

    Derek Cheeseman

    Broadstone, Dorset

    SIR – Whatever Mr Putin’s legacy, there should be at least be one outcome to show that some progress has been made in the 77 years since the death of Hitler.

    Mr Putin and his gang (including the president of Belarus) should be indicted as war criminals to be pursued for the rest of their lives, to be brought to justice and appear before the International Criminal Court.

    Colin Robertson

    Bramhope, West Yorkshire

    SIR – If the Government is not going to enter battle, due to the threat of Mr Putin’s nuclear weapons, then can we purchase Mr Putin’s soldiers from him?

    Collectively, a fund could be set up by the United States, the EU and Britain to offer every Russian soldier $50,000 to down his weapon and emigrate to the United States, the EU or Britain.

    Two hundred thousand soldiers at $50,000 would cost $10 billion.

    Taidgh Wilson

    London SW9

  16. A union at sea

    SIR – Whenever the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers goes on strike (Leading Article, March 2) it is only in support of its rail workers.

    The RMT has represented our seafarers ever since the Seamen’s Union’s assets were sequestrated by Margaret Thatcher in retaliation for the 1966 seamen’s strike, and yet it has done nothing to help them since.

    Under the RMT’s tenure, almost all British ratings in the Merchant Navy have been replaced by cheap labour from low-wage countries. Members of the RMT should hang their heads in shame.

    Captain Peter J Newton

    Chellaston, Derbyshire

  17. Good morning, all. Early sunshine has disappeared. No frost. Kiev still there?

  18. Boots, boots, boots

    SIR – The report “Vegan soldiers mobilise to give leather uniforms the boot” (February 28) puzzles me. Soldiers are taught to kill humans. How does this relate to killing animals for food or clothing ?

    Susan A Smith

    Ashburnham, East Sussex

    2. It’s just more clear evidence of the decline of the species as an intellectual entity.

    1. Ah, but did you see how many people it took to shoe horn them into the correct gear?

  26. Following a legal warning from British Gas that arrived in inbox yesterday, I reproduce it in full. Please note I made no such agreement, and I never signed up with British Gas – they took my account over when Zebra Power went bust:

    Hello Jeremy
    You’re on one of our energy plans that needs smart meters, it was part of the agreement when you signed up. We’ve noticed you’ve still not upgraded yours. Installation is free and our Smart Energy Experts are upgrading meters in homes near you, so book yours today. If you’ve decided you don’t want a smart meter, contact us and we’ll talk to you about our other energy plans.

    Why upgrade to smart meters?

    See your energy as you use it

    Accurate bills – no need for estimates

    Forget about meter readings – your smart meters send them to us automatically

    Our interactive tool shows you how much energy you’re using, so you can make savings by switching things off or turning them down
    Find out more

    The sooner you get in touch, the quicker you’ll be upgraded to your new smart meters.

    Our company
    About us
    Centrica
    Privacy policy

    Contact us
    My Account
    Emergencies
    Help & Support

    Our products
    Smart Home
    Home Services
    Energy

    British Gas is a signatory to the Smart Metering Installation Code of Practice (SMICoP) which has been approved by OFGEM.

    You’re getting this email as it relates to one of the conditions you agreed to as part of your tariff. It isn’t part of any marketing campaign from us.

    British Gas is a trading name of British Gas Trading Limited. Registered in England and Wales (No. 03078711). Registered office: Millstream, Maidenhead Road, Windsor, Berkshire SL4 5GD. British Gas is a mandatory FIT Licensee. britishgas.co.uk

    This email and any attachments are only for the individual or entity to which they are addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, or a person responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient, you are not authorised to and must not disclose, copy, distribute, or retain this email or any part of it. It may contain information which is confidential and/or covered by legal, professional or other privilege (or other rules or laws with similar effect in jurisdictions outside England and Wales).

      1. They might claim it was deemed by Ofgem.

        I am holding back contacting BG for as long as their website doesn’t work and they don’t answer phone calls. All I got was an Indian bot that wanted me to send it my bank details.

        This email did not even state the supply address.

    2. I would say that requires an immediate letter/email to BG, copied to OFGEM and your MP.

    3. Dear British Gas

      “Of the Big 6 energy companies, only British Gas remains under British ownership. EDF is predominantly owned by the French government, German company E. ON Energie AG own E. On and Npower, and Scottish Power is owned by Spanish based Iberdrola.

      Thank you for your kind letter

      I am arranging for a Chartered Surveyor to inspect my property to identify your gas pipes.passing through it
      I will then charge you ‘A Right of Way’ rent.
      I know this was not agreed when I took out the contract with Zebra Power, but as you are altering things , so will I

      Yours insincerely etc

      1. Thanks for the support.

        Unfortunately that strategy will not work with me, since I am not on mains gas, and I laid the pipe between the tank and my cottage myself. BG took over my electricity account from Zebra Power. The wires were installed by Western Power Distribution, and they pay a small fee each year for the poles they have on my land.

        As regards my mother’s flat (which BG also took over from Zebra), electricity and gas are fed through the communal cupboard, so it is the management company that has to claim rent from the distribution companies.

        I have approached Octopus and So Energy to see if I can get on their variable tariff for now. Octopus is largely British, and I have to hold my nose as regards some of their woke antics, but they are almost certainly better than BG. So Energy is Irish-owned.

      2. As an aside, the French government owns 84 percent of EdF, which made it all the more embarrassing for Micron when he recently hit them with a 6.5M Euro ‘fine’ on their profits.
        EdF lost so much when their share value plummeted that they’ve had to hit shareholders for 2.5M Euros to allow them to continue running the business.
        So Micron’s tariff has cost the French taxpayers 2M Euros.

  27. Brigadier Geoffrey Curtis, decorated for his coolness and courage during the Battle of Salerno – obituary

    In a forward position when the Germans attacked, he and his depleted force put up a determined defence of their ground

    By
    Telegraph Obituaries
    2 March 2022 • 2:00pm

    Brigadier Geoffrey Curtis, who has died aged 99, was awarded an MC in 1943 at the Battle of Salerno.

    The landings near the port of Salerno on the west coast of Italy began on September 9 1943, the day after an armistice was declared between the Allies and Italy. German forces moved quickly to disarm Italian units and occupy important strategic positions.

    On September 13, Curtis was commanding a platoon of the 2nd/6th Battalion The Queen’s Royal Regiment. They were in a forward position when the Germans launched a strong attack at dusk.

    The platoon bore the brunt of this and was overrun. Curtis, moving about in the open, regardless of relentless machine gun and mortar fire, rallied his depleted force and they put up a determined defence of the ground that they still held.

    He was awarded an Immediate MC. The citation stated that he had shown the greatest coolness and courage throughout the action and that he and his men prevented the loss to the enemy of a position which dominated a large area of the Divisional front.

    Geoffrey Basil Curtis was born in London on June 7 1922. His father had served with the Dorset Regiment in the First World War. Young Geoffrey was educated at St Paul’s School before going up to Merton College, Oxford, to read History.

    He left after five terms to join the Army, and after a 14-week course at Sandhurst, in July 1942 he was commissioned into the Queen’s Royal Regiment. In August, he embarked with the 2nd/6th Battalion, part of 56th London Division.

    They spent the winter in Iraq and first saw action with the 8th Army in Tunisia in April 1943. His unit was transferred to the Anzio bridgehead in February 1944, and the winter of 1944-1945 was spent in battles on the Gothic Line.

    Curtis, in command of a company, was wounded twice. On the second occasion, he escaped from the hospital by persuading the chaplain to distract the medical staff. He got away in the chaplain’s jeep but when he rejoined his unit he had so much bandaging on his head that he could not wear his steel helmet.

    He was evacuated to England early in 1945 as unfit for front-line service.

    He became an instructor at OCTU and then undertook a variety of regimental and staff duties in Germany and Malaya. In Aden, during the Emergency, for 18 months from January 1966, he held a most exacting appointment as General Staff Officer Grade 1 (Operations).

    He was primarily responsible for the final rundown of Middle East Land Forces, the transfer of responsibilities to the newly formed HQ in the Gulf and the staff duties involved in organising a Force which stretched from Kuwait in the north to Botswana in the south, a distance of some 5,000 miles.

    During this period, there was a major escalation in terrorist activity. Curtis’s contribution to the planning and execution of operations against the terrorists was of outstanding value. He was appointed OBE at the end of his tour.

    After a move to the Ministry of Defence, he was Deputy Adjutant-General BAOR from 1972 to 1974 and Director of Army Management Services from 1975 to 1977, when he retired from the Army.

    For the next seven years, based at No 10 Downing Street, he was the Lord Chancellor’s Ecclesiastical Secretary. He published, in 1988, Salerno Remembered.

    Geoffrey Curtis married, in 1946, Mary Youdell. She predeceased him and he is survived by their son and daughter. Another son also predeceased him.

    Geoffrey Curtis, born June 7 1922, died January 31 2022

  29. Good Moaning.
    And it’s not persisting down – so far.
    Landline problems are nowt to do with us; an ageing system is playing up again.

    3. They should be digging out their coal and making steel …. er ….. um ……

    5. They probably still think they are dealing with the USSR and were keeping the Red Flag flying.

  31. Anyway, after getting distracted earlier, good morning to all. A dull but dry Derbyshire with 2°C outside.
    The Met Office page say’s it is raining however, with a 2nd lot of rain due in a couple of hours!

    1. 6.3C here, and again it’s been virtually the same temp all night. But it’s raining and there is very little wind.

  32. Its getting a bit silly now…

    The International Feline Federation (FIFe) has weighed in on the Ukraine crisis, banning Russian-owned cats from competing in its shows as a sanction for Moscow’s military attack on the former Soviet republic.

    “The FIFe executive board is shocked and horrified that the army of the Russian Federation invaded the Republic of Ukraine and started a war,” the Paris-based federation said on Tuesday. The group added that it “cannot just witness these atrocities and do nothing.”

    As a result, cats belonging to Russian residents will be banned from entry at FIFe shows. In addition, no cats bred in Russia can be imported and registered in a FIFe pedigree book, the group said.

      1. Well, they’ll stone you when you’re trying to be so good
        They’ll stone you just like they said they would
        They’ll stone you when you’re trying to go home
        And they’ll stone you when you’re there all alone
        But I would not feel so all alone
        Everybody must get stoned

        Well, they’ll stone you when you’re walking on the street
        They’ll stone you when you’re tryin’ to keep your seat
        They’ll stone you when you’re walkin’ on the floor
        They’ll stone you when you’re walkin’ to the door
        But I would not feel so all alone
        Everybody must get stoned

        They’ll stone you when you’re at the breakfast table
        They’ll stone you when you are young and able
        They’ll stone you when you’re tryin’ to make a buck
        Then they’ll stone you and then they’ll say “good luck”
        Tell ya what, I would not feel so all alone
        Everybody must get stoned

        Well, they’ll stone you and say that it’s the end
        Then they’ll stone you and then they’ll come back again
        They’ll stone you when you’re riding in your car
        They’ll stone you when you’re playing your guitar
        Yes, but I would not feel so all alone
        Everybody must get stoned alright

        Well, they’ll stone you when you walk all alone
        They’ll stone you when you are walking home
        They’ll stone you and then say you are brave
        They’ll stone you when you are set down in your grave
        But I would not feel so all alone
        Everybody must get stoned

        Like … er … WOW, Nursey! You must be one of them Rainy Day Women, but are you No 12 or No 35?

          1. Good afternoon, Rastus.

            What a wonderful find that clip is. I recognised, straight away, the singers (in order): Roger “Jim” McGuinn [The Byrds]; Tom Petty [The Heartbreakers]; Neil Young [Buffalo Springfield]; Eric Clapton; Bob Dylan; and George Harrison. The huge pony-tailed guitarist is Steve “The Colonel” Cropper [from Booker T and the MGs and who was also Stax Records’ resident session guitarist (along with the late Donald “Duck” Dunn on bass).]. As for the chap in the pale green suit, I haven’t got the foggiest clue who he might be.

          2. Edit: The late, great bassist, “Duck” Dunn is actually on stage at the back (curly hair, shades and wearing white trousers). Jim Keltner is the drummer.

          3. Your man is the excellent GE Smith and I’ve always assumed his demeanour is to do with the fact that he was the musical director of this concert, having to suggest who would be playing a solo and who was singing which verse with minimal rehearsals. I’m a lurker but had to break cover to stick up for him.

            You might enjoy this brilliantly titled video:

            https://youtu.be/-B4yavD9AEY

        1. Ms Hamilton, who if elected will become the constituency’s first black MP, told the event: “So you talk about the bullet or the vote. I’m not sure, although I believe in the vote and I believe in our right to use that vote or destroy that vote.

          “I’m not sure that we will get what we really deserve in this country using the vote but I don’t know if we are a strong enough group to get what we want to get if we have an uprising.

          “I think we will be quashed in such a way we would lose a generation of our young people. So I am very torn.”

          The panel discussion was one in a series of events organised by OBU to commemorate 50 years since the death of Malcolm X in 1965.

    2. Forgive me for being an out of date old fogey – but what is it that this woman has said/done wrong?

      2. Well, for a start she sounds sane, rational, and well-balanced. Her comments sound factual and she seems to have made a good assessment of the position. It is obvious from that that she has no business being in Parliament.

    3. Good morning LD.

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/03/02/torn-bullet-vote-fury-labour-candidates-view-racial-progress/

      Labour’s by-election candidate has said that votes may not be enough to achieve racial progress as footage emerged of her discussing the merits of an “uprising”.

      Paulette Hamilton, who is seeking election in Birmingham Erdington on Thursday, said that Britain’s black community may not get what they “really deserve” by using democratic means alone.

      On Wednesday night, Sir Kier Starmer, the Labour leader faced calls to suspend Ms Hamilton as Tory MPs questioned whether she represented “democratic values”.

      She made the remarks at a panel event in 2015 called “The Ballot or the Bullet: Does Your Vote Count?” hosted by the Organisation of Black Unity (OBU).

      Audience members were shown clips of Malcolm X’s famous 1964 speech in which he warned that African-Americans may need to defend themselves if the US government continued to prevent them from achieving full equality.

      ‘I am very torn’
      Ms Hamilton, who if elected will become the constituency’s first black MP, told the event: “So you talk about the bullet or the vote. I’m not sure, although I believe in the vote and I believe in our right to use that vote or destroy that vote.

      “I’m not sure that we will get what we really deserve in this country using the vote but I don’t know if we are a strong enough group to get what we want to get if we have an uprising.

      “I think we will be quashed in such a way we would lose a generation of our young people. So I am very torn.”

      The panel discussion was one in a series of events organised by OBU to commemorate 50 years since the death of Malcolm X in 1965.

      ‘Disturbing’ views raise ire
      Gary Sambrook, the Conservative MP for Birmingham Northfield, said that Sir Keir Starmer should “disavow any support for her or her campaign, and commit to removing the whip from her if she is elected”.

      In a letter to Sir Keir, he said Ms Hamilton’s comments were “entirely out of step with the Labour Party’s principles and mainstream politics”.

      Tom Hunt, the Tory MP for Ipswich, raised a point of order in the Commons asking for the Labour leader to explain the behaviour of their by-election candidate.

      Nadine Dorries MP, the culture minister, said it was “disturbing” to think someone with such views might be “elected as an MP tomorrow and sitting on the Labour benches by next week”.

      A swing away from Labour in by-election?
      The Birmingham Erdington by-election was triggered by the death of veteran Labour MP Jack Dromey, the husband of Harriet Harman, who has been the constituency’s MP since 2010.

      The seat has been held by Labour for almost 80 years, although they had a slim majority at the last general election of 3,601 votes.

      James Johnson, a former Downing Street pollster, said that Birmingham Erdington is the kind of seat that six to nine months ago the Tories would have seen as a possible target.

      “If we were talking about the Conservatives gaining any more of these Red Wall-style seats, then this is exactly the kind of seat you would expect to see them doing very well in,” he said.

      “We would be talking about it in the same way as we were talking about Batley and Spen,” he said, referring to a seat which opinion polls had suggested Labour was on track to lose at the by-election last summer, although they went on to hold it by 323 votes.

      “But the situation with the national polls is now very different. I think a lot more people would be looking at the swing away from Labour.”

      But Ms Hamilton, a mother-of-five and retired nurse, told The Telegraph that Labour has to “fight for every vote” to get re-elected.

      “At this moment in time, if I win by one vote, I will be happy,” she said, adding that Erdington was a “notoriously” low voter turnout area, with just 53 per cent of constituents turning up at polling booths at the last general election.

      She said the biggest concern that comes up on the doorstep is the cost of living crisis, with voters more concerned about this than they are about Downing Street parties.

      ‘Labour has let down community’
      Meanwhile, the Conservative candidate Robert Alden said voters are telling him that they feel “let down” by Birmingham’s Labour-run council which has “not invested in communities”.

      “Time and again we take motions to the council calling on them to invest in Erdington, to provide match funding on bids to the Government,” he said. “When we tried to make a Levelling Up bid, they refused to put a single penny match funding in the Erdington bid. The residents are really fed up.”

      Mr Alden added that many voters will find Ms Hamilton’s comments at the 2015 event “shocking and concerning”.

      A Labour Party spokesperson said: “Paulette Hamilton is arguing for better representation for the black community in public life and as she is campaigning to become Birmingham’s first black MP she has a point.”

      It is a bit difficult accessing the comments .

      1. She appapparently mentioned the ‘trojan horse” affair in the schools and how the Muslims took over – but that’s OK ‘cos they’s Muslims.

      2. That looks like a proper debate, where both sides of an argument are being considered and discussed. Little different from a debate about the merits or otherwise of the death penalty.

        This attempt to cancel her, essentially for political advantage, is an excellent example of why the Twitter mob and all those who trawl through people’s history should be ignored.

        Freedom of speech? Only if you say it my way.

        And just as a matter of interest, what real difference is there between what she was considering and the desire to see Putin over-turned and executed in a national uprising or attempts to overthrow Assad or Gadhafi or remove Trudeau and Ardern?

  34. Good morning my friends

    We got Mary Whitehouse wrong: in many ways she was a force for good
    We have sneered at the campaigner for too long. She was often right – just never when it came to the arts
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/got-mary-whitehouse-wrong-many-ways-force-good/

    BTL

    At least Mary Whitehouse was not a hypocrite – she practised what she preached. You could argue that Boris Johnson never pretended to be other than a serial fornicator. The person for whom I have total contempt is John Major who pretended to want to go ‘back to basics’ and appeared to be all in favour of marital fidelity while having a sexual affair for three years with a prominent colleague in his office – a woman who was not his wife.

    I am astonished that so much of the MSM give this odious man, John Major, a platform to air his views.

          1. Goo goo ca choo! Didn’t John Lennon’s Walrus have the double role of being the egg man as well?

  35. Are our spies keeping watch on the Hermitage in St Petersburg? If Russia is contemplating the possibility of a nuclear exchange they will certainly move the contents of the museum to a safe place east of the Urals.
    If a fleet of removal vans and big men turn up, then it’s bad news.

    1. Good point. Surely there are satellites beaming down the pictures as we speak.

  36. Russia’s long-term future is now blighted by its pariah status, the legacy – whether he lives or dies in the near future – of Vladimir Putin. He has acquired a similar reputation to that of an earlier Soviet Russian ruler, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili), who also caused suffering, famine and death in Ukraine in 1932/1933. Millions died then. Putin is causing thousands of deaths now. Stalin and Putin have done untold damage to Russia.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c7fb47cb348ea773cf529e9fc3c21b8b99d23aaefdc044b8bc75a4251e80acc2.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a9f0235e7745eb1771179738320520b8d464a5b2dddb77c205ce752ffd3d23d1.jpg

    2. Good morning, Geoffrey

      I agree that Putin lost all credibility when he invaded Iraq the Ukraine and he must be condemned for it and effective action must be taken. However we need to try and understand why he has done what he has done and to assess whether the EU’s and NATO’s insensitive expansionism Eastwards is a contributing cause of his paranoia. Would you, for example say that Kennedy’s reaction to the prospect of a USSR missile base in Cuba was paranoiac or sensible? I use the word ‘insensitive’ because it so aptly describes the way the EU behaves – look at the EU’s treatment of David Cameron before the referendum when he presented reasonable suggestions, and look at the contempt the EU showed toward justifiable British concerns since the referendum and its insensitivity to Britain’s territorial integrity in Northern Ireland.

      Do you watch GB News? I recommend it to you because it does try to present both sides of an argument. Mark Dolan made much of the problem we have with the mono narrative in the MSM and on outlets such as Twitter and Facebook which present the same line on so many issues actually supressing all debate. I suggest that you find this monologue of Mark Dolan’s (the text of which I have posted below) on the internet and I suggest you try GB News.

      It’s all about opinions isn’t it? In my view, Vladimir Putin is a twisted, evil and dangerous man, whose invasion of a free democratic European country must fail.

      But are you seriously telling me, that the deeply confused Joe Biden, is the right man to handle this situation?

      Someone who masterminded the devastating and botched allied departure from Afghanistan, and someone who can’t tell the difference between Ukraine and Iran?

      This is a man who probably needs to be reminded at the start of every briefing, that he’s actually president. It’s all about opinions. And in spite of Putin being an awful human being.

      Full credit must go to old Vladimir for ending the pandemic.

      Have you heard a squeak about the virus since the invasion happened? Proof if you needed it, that so much of the hysteria around Covid has been fuelled by the media.

      No media, no pandemic. It made money and it filled column inches, to pretend that Covid was ebola or the bubonic plague. It wasn’t.

      Because notwithstanding that Covid has been a nasty virus that has taken too many from us, it has been mild and non fatal to most.

      A third, famously, had no symptoms. Act like you’ve got it, remember that? But you wouldn’t know any of that that, given we spent two years living under a narrative based around fear.

      And to be precise, it was a mono-narrative, where only one view could prevail. It terms of the pandemic, the mono-narrative, was that we must have lockdowns, stay at home orders, masks, arrows in supermarkets, you name it.

      Even though lockdowns, for example, had never been tried before.

      All of these extraordinarily damaging measures, which Johns Hopkins University, say may have prevented 0.2% of deaths – were pushed by the government, the opposition and most of my colleagues in the media. It was a mono-narrative. Don’t take my word for it.

      Dr Angelique Coetzee, the medic who discovered Omicron in South Africa, recently said the following. Quote: “there has been a lot of pressure from European scientists who have said ‘please don’t say it is a mild illness’. In South Africa it is a lighter disease, but in Europe it has been a serious, serious illness which is what the politicians want me to say”.

      She was attacked for calling Omicron mild.

      Why? Because it didn’t fit, you guessed it, the narrative.

      As it turns out Omicron was milder than Delia Smith’s recipe for Chicken Tikka Masala. Something I pointed out, in November of last year.

      And Coetzee was baffled by our reaction to Omicron at the time.

      Turns out it was a massive Omi-con, and a load of Omi-crap. We are seeing the same mono-narrative with the Net Zero agenda – Britain will basically be under water a week next Tuesday apparently.

      And we should all start eating bugs, rice cakes and Linda McCartney vegetarian sausages as a matter of urgency. And pay for a twenty grand boiler and sell both our kidneys to buy a Tesla.

      The mono-narrative is everywhere, a bit like Omicron ironically.

      There is a mono-narrative that the NHS cannot be criticised and that the only solution for the health service is more money.

      God forbid that there should ever be a mono-narrative saying a man can become an actual biological woman, but with attacks on our greatest living author JK Rowling, you could argue it’s already heading that way.

      The truth can always withstand scrutiny, challenge and debate. Lies and exaggeration cannot.

      Welcome to 2022.

      It’s all about opinions, but the scary thing about the mono-narrative is it often means having an opinion foisted upon you, as with the South African Dr Koetzee. But here’s another example.

      the star conductor of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, Valerie Gergiev, has been sacked for not condemning Russia.

      He hasn’t defended Russia, he hasn’t waved the Russian flag at a concert or had a tattoo of Vladimir Putin inked onto his left buttock.

      He simply hasn’t said anything. It’s one thing to get in trouble for what you HAVE said – you know my views on cancel culture – I’m all about free speech, bring it on – the good the bad and the ugly.

      But to lose your job for not saying something. That is compelled speech and takes us to a very dark place.

      A mono narrative, a single view on any issue is never a good thing and we are in danger of having it in relation to this conflict too.

      It doesn’t take an expert in geopolitics to view Russia as the bad guy, for invading a free country.

      Absolutely. And the scenes are horrific and war crimes are playing out on our TV screens.

      But would it be so wrong to try to understand why this happened, so that it can be resolved and not happen again? Just as we perhaps should’ve done a bit more due diligence about old Saddam Hussein.

      when we were searching for those imaginary weapons of mass destruction and when we killed thousands of people and sowed the seeds of ISIS? The mono-narrative about Donald Trump is that he was all bad.

      His behaviour on January 6th inciting trouble in the US Capitol was a disgrace, and I’ve always doubted his fitness for office, but he boosted the US economy, had a balanced attitude to Covid, he battled extreme political correctness, and he didn’t start a single war.

      But it doesn’t suit the mono-narrative, does it?

      It was Donald Trump, of whom I’m no big fan, although we both enjoy orange make up, engaged with people like Putin

      And Kim Jong-un –

      Trump was the first American president to meet with a North Korean leader. Jaw jaw, not war war as Churchill put it.

      The mono-narrative now allows no criticism of Joe Biden, who couldn’t run a bath for himself, let alone the free world.

      That the Democratic party foisted this confused pensioner onto the free world is unforgivable. Trump bad, Biden good? Pull the other one.

      Meanwhile the armchair generals on Twitter have been calling for the enforcement of a no-fly zone over Ukraine.

      This has mainly been called for by virtue-signalling types, who were previously asking for lockdowns, which has cost the west trillions and diminished its power to now tackle this crisis.

      You need money to win wars and to defeat bad people I’m afraid.

      The way that you defeat your enemy is by understanding them.

      And that can’t be done with the mono-narrative. Let me help you with the no fly zone idea.

      If the allies stop aircraft flying over Ukraine, any Russian aircraft would be shot out of the sky.

      Which would spark the biggest international conflict since 1945. Not a great idea.

      If this snowflake generation can’t handle a largely mild respiratory virus, I think they’ll struggle with nuclear war. But hey, it’s all about opinions. And let’s hear all of them, shall we?

      1. Well, most of Tsarist Russia was divided into big estates held by noble families. They ruled the estates as unanswerable autocrats. The workers were serfs and needed permission to leave the estate, for a holiday on the Costa del Sol for example, but they mostly had nowhere else to go.
        As you say, the sheer size rendered it incoherent and the local toffs just got on with it. The Revolution held out hope, but that was all. There was really no democratic model*, and the Bolsheviks became like unto Tsars. Like the front of your book.

        * I cannot think of any democracy in the world in 1900 except maybe the USA and the Communists would not take that as an example!

    4. He has only achieved that status by morons who haven’t a clue about what reality is but are brainless enough to think propaganda is fact.

        1. He’s been planning his moves for years while the West has been disarming and worrying about covid.

      2. I agree; but given his prolonged seclusion with yesmen, we may at least wonder about the facts and advice he’s being given.

      3. I used to have some respect for him – not any more
        At least this crisis has given me the incentive to donate some of my late wifes clothes to a worthy cause – I’ve been putting off going through them and it’s what she would have wanted.

    2. A quote from the article which, for a change is a sober account rather than hysterical propaganda: “The world has underestimated Putin before and those mistakes have led, in part, to this tragedy in Ukraine.” Perhaps it is a quibble but I don’t think it is a matter of underestimating Putin but misreading him. By that I mean the constant nonsense about he wants to rebuild the USSR. This absurdity colours the behaviour of the West toward Putin and Russia.
      I am, by the way, listening, right now, to Russia’s foreign minister. He says that the claim that Russia is threatening to use Nuclear weapons is nonsense. That the propaganda for that allegation comes from NATO and the EU. He says that Putin has never said that but the words have been put in his mouth by people in NATO and the EU using their own speculation as fact.
      Finally he pointed out that what precipitated this situation is that the West has consistently refused to give Russia guarantees of security and that the threat of Ukraine becoming a member of the EU or talk that they be given nuclear weapons is what precipitated this present situation.

      I pointed out the other day. That guarantees given to Russia after the collapse of the USSR were violated by the West. Those who want to do their own research will find that is completely true, We violated every promise we made to Russia. And our interference in Ukraine, especially by the EU was a step to far.

        1. Good morning Spikey

          You could say the same about Covid and global warming!

  40. OK. You can tell me to don my tinfoil hat.

    1. A war was necessary because the Green Wokes/Climate Change Adherents cannot be budged from their position (literally in the case of ER). A few months or years of being cold, grubby and out of basics like bog rolls and baked beans might shake their belief in the wonders of Stone Age living; it should shake the confidence of their fellow travellers.
    2. Covid hysteria was losing its bite and western governments needed a new threat to keep people onside.

    Therefore:
    Putin was bribed to invade Ukraine a few weeks before the decision seemed logical. A necessary distraction that united all ‘good’ people against a common enemy.

    Yes, I realise I may be getting radio messages via moonbeams – but looked at such ‘free’ countries like Canada, Australia and New Zealand …. and at least ponder for moment.

    1. We here in these dull dark corners of Dorset thought quite wrongly that Putin MIGHT have thought we would ALL be in mourning by now .. so he had the opportunity to strike and do his thing whilst the free world lowered their flags in united grief .

        1. Yes, look at the Saudi bombing of Yemen that’s been so prominent in our news reports lately.
          {/sarc}

          1. But who cares? We are selling the bombs to the Saudis. We don’t buy anything from the Yemen, (No one knows where it is.). We do suck up to the Saudis. We buy their oil (other oil suppliers are available). We never mention words like “democracy”, “fair trial”, “equal rights”, fair pay”, “health and safety at work”, “religious freedom” or any of that stuff.

          2. The UK sold the cluster bombs to the Sauds in the first place. They use them in Yemen and barely a word said. Putin has supposedly used the same munitions and the whole world condemns him.

            Personally i think Yemen should be carpet bombed. That’s where they all went when released from Guantanamo.

    2. Good morning Anne and Nottlers.

      Your point 1. You would think that the MPs would realise the consequences, though, wouldn’t you?
      2. The Covid psychological warfare has been so successful that, even though the pandemic has petered out, people are still wearing face nappies in public and alone in the car. And now all publicity is against evil Russia when we all know that western governments/EU have gone back on previous undertakings not to encroach in Russian territories/allies.

      But it suits the Great Reset agenda.

  41. I have just heard on the news that the Paralympics Committee has banned Russian and Belorussian athletes from their games. There was a proposal they compete as neutrals which has been overturned.

    Please can someone explain why that is necessary? For goodness sake these poor sods have nothing whatsoever to do with Putin’s invasion and life has already dealt them a pretty shitty hand.

    1. The decision was reversed because of threats from the others. Very sad for the individuals who have nothing to do with the war. Unfortunately, we have allowed sport and politics to mix with inevitable results. That is precisely why the rules in sport specifically prohibited dragging politics into sport.

    2. The trial has been held ‘in camera’, verdict GUILTY, and the western world is continuing its descent into insanity.

      It used to be said that via sport enmities could be overcome. Or even, heaven forbid, actually talking between the antagonists/protagonists. It seems the western governments just can’t wait to tip the situation into WW111.

      1. I remember football matches with the ‘Moscow Dynamos’ at the height of the cold war. When the Munich air disaster occurred, the Manchester United team were returning from a game with ‘Red Star Belgrade’…

    3. Isn’t the way that everyone is turning on the ordinary, un-politically-motivated Russians rather reminiscent of everyone turning on the Jews in Hitler’s Germany?

      1. Indeed. In this country a Russian orchestral conductor has been sacked as has a Russian soprano. Why?

        1. Well, these disgusting people refused to denounce their own country.

          It’s just as bad as having the howling mob denounce during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. And no one on the side of the Western howling mob seems to realize that this sort of behaviour and approves of it, means that Democracy is firmly dead.

      3. An ironic comment considering the pogroms that took place in Tsarist Russia, including the Ukraine and it got even worse during the war that followed the Revolution.
        Sadly, the Ukraine’s Jewish population had a long history of not being able to trust anyone and ended up being the targets of antisemitic genocide from all sides from 1917 to 1920 or so.
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_Ukraine

        During the German occupation native antisemitic sentiments were given full free reign sadly with many Ukrainians cooperating with the Einsatsgruppen.

        Fast forward to the problems of 2013 and again we see the ugly head of antisemitism rearing it’s head, this time in the Russian enclave of Donbass.
        https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/putins-war

  42. A NATO member’s Attorney General this morning wants people who support the Russian position on social media to get 3 years jail. I would be in the slammer for publishing Putins words of 24th February and his speech to the Davos shysters last year on Blue Tara let alone for ridiculing the Cold War Cowboy NATO narrative being pushed by the Virus Liars. The direction of travel of these criminals is clear. Free speech is in the crosshairs. To hell with them!

    https://greatgameindia.com/support-russia-nato-jail/

    2. Actually, one of the things that the Russian Foreign Minister mentioned in his press conference this morning is that the West in its behaviour toward Russia want it to accept its politically correct view of the world. Toe the Party Line, as it were. He said that, I’m paraphrasing, Russia has its own values and does not want The Wests view of the world imposed on it. He didn’t actually say it, but it was obvious he thought the West decedent. I wonder what gave him that idea?

  43. Supermarkets of Britain: we need you to rename the chicken Kiev
    In Putin’s homeland they call it ‘Kiev’, in Ukraine ‘Kyiv’. Let’s take matters into our own hands by rebranding this symbolic dish

    AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH

    and lets
    push some statues in the river,

    rip out stained glass windows,

    tear up books,

    hop on one leg at the start of Rugby games, etc

    Total Bunkum

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-drink/features/supermarkets-britain-need-rename-chicken-kiev/

    1. “…hop on one leg at the start of Rugby games…”

      C’mon, Mr Effort: you’ll be wanting straight put-ins [no pun intended] at every scrum next!

    2. “…hop on one leg at the start of Rugby games…”

      C’mon, Mr Effort: you’ll be wanting straight put-ins [no pun intended] at every scrum next!

        1. You could at least have chosen a rugby player from the Penzance Pirates!

          (I was rather surprised to hear that Owen Farrell’s parents were respectively only 15 and 16 when he was conceived.)

        2. You could at least have chosen a rugby player from the Penzance Pirates!

          (I was rather surprised to hear that Owen Farrell’s parents were respectively only 15 and 16 when he was conceived.)

      4. ‘Morning, Maggie.
        For me you cannot beat a low-slow-cooked lamb shank in thick wine gravy.

    4. That’s a bit misleading, i.e. “Kyiv”. Phonetically it is Keev as in English Grieve.

  46. European prices for natural gas spiked to nearly $2,280 per 1,000 cubic meters on Thursday for the first time in market history, as Russia’s military offensive in Ukraine continues.

    Russia provides about 40% of the continent’s gas supplies, while Ukraine is a major transit country for Russian gas. With the conflict now in its eighth day, supply shortage concerns are pushing prices ever higher.

    The April futures at the TTF hub in the Netherlands soared to around $2,279 per 1,000 cubic meters, or over €200 per megawatt-hour in household terms, hitting a record high, according to data from London’s ICE exchange.

    The latest spike comes a day after prices surpassed the previous record, increasing from around $1,500 to $2,226 per 1,000 cubic meters on Wednesday.

    It would be cruel to ask if Europe is feeling the heat yet.

  47. It gets worse…

    Global prices for wheat reached new multi-year highs on Thursday, as warring tensions between major exporters Russia and Ukraine continued to raise concerns about the global supply of the commodity.

    Wheat futures were up 7.62%, at $10.59 per bushel – the highest since 2008. Corn and soybean oil futures prices also surged. May corn futures were up 0.7%, at $.7.31 a bushel, after touching levels not seen since 2013.

      1. A lot of the bulk carriers (ships) won’t venture into the Black Sea thus making it a much sought-after commodity.

        1. After the sinking of a cargo ship reported today, frankly I don’t blame them.

        2. Turkey has closed the Bosphorus to Russian ships. Will they forbid other ships from trading?

  48. How racist and xenophobic it was for ignorant British people who supported Brexit to express any patriotic sentiments about Britain remaining Britain and not just a colony of the EU!

    How very strange that I have yet to hear a remainer declare that Ukrainian patriotism and desire not to be overwhelmed by Russia is a similar deplorable, patriotic sentiment.

    1. This morning on the BBC news prog they spent quite a long time showing a speech by the Russian Foreign minister with running English interpretation. Explaining things he sounded sane and quite reasonable.
      As soon as it had finished they brought in a female jorno based in Moscow and she pulled it to pieces. I wonder how the rest of her day will be going over there, if things are as bad as she intimated.

  49. Morning all!

    The headline ignores the fact that the British people have been perfectly happy to see others bombed into submission, including the ethnic Russians of Donbas and Crimea. Surely blocking bank accounts in Canada is also an attempt to starve people into submission. Idiocy is even more widespread than we once suspected, isn’t it?

    1. Afternoon Sue.

      It has us all in its tentacle-like killer grip. Common sense and decency have been lost in the annals of time. Time for the chaffinches to emerge as the next great civilisation, methinks.

      1. It’ll be the cockroaches, George, after the West set of a Nuclear War with a few tactical nukes. Cockroaches will be the only survivors – unless they feed off irradiated bodies.

          1. Tom Lehrer (yes, he’s still alive)
            In 1958 (aged 17) I took my then girlfriend to see Tom Lehrer at the Colson Hall, Bristol (a fine concert hall now renamed Bristol Beacon because its philanthropist “slave trader, merchant and philanthropist Edward Colston, who founded Colston’s School on this site in the early 18th century” is now persona non grata whose nearby statue was thrown into the harbour on 17th June 2020. Funny how they always put his great philanthropy last.

            I was so impressed that I bought his song book and learned almost all the songs by heart, before giving the book to the girlfriend as a present. Much later I bought my own copy.

            In 2007 I belonged to the local Rotary Club, of which George Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, was a Member. He normally attended our Christmas Dinners as ‘Rotarian George’ and a couple of us who were amateur singers decided to entertain him (and the other members) with a song or two.

            I sang Tom Lehrer’s celebrated ‘Hunting Song’
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQyoSLOlglw, then later two of us sang ‘Joyce the Librarian’ by Richard Stilgoe and the late Peter Skellern: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qe3Y9zLEPBQ , in which straight laced Librarian Joyce falls madly in love with “George, a Rotarian, handsome Lotharian” and is left in the family way.

            This carefully targeted song hit the mark and caused a good laugh, especially with Lord Carey.

    1. Try home bake Plum you’ll never have to buy the plastic mass produced crap again.

      2. Can’t be arsed Eddy, life is too short! Tesco make a a perfect wholemeal seeded bread.
        I received top marks in cooking at school…. yeah you’d better believe it!

        1. I just made four medium wholemeal seeded.
          Not sure if i can post a picture here.

        2. I believe you 😃
          He’s a good one, I came top in woodwork with a broken arm. My mums brother was a builder his two sons went into print and commerce. My fathers side of the family were in printing and stationary. I hated it, the noise was unbearable. My (mothers brother) uncles two sons became millionaires. Fathers brothers and family two were Mayors, lord high sheriff of London, civil engineers, lived in Canada and ran successful (Universal Stationers in Harrow) shops etc. And I became a joiner/chippy and later a contracts manager. No money in that.

          1. Strange how our dreams as teenagers turn into something quite different in later life…….not always for the best!

  51. Well, that was a first. The MR spotted that Gus was alive with fleas (despite him having had a monthly treatment less than 2 weeks ago).

    Vet advised flea shampoo. WHAT fun, I wore full protective and gloves to hold him – while the MR applied the treatment. He still managed to claw my arm and bite my hand – and I don’t blame him a bit!

    Just clearing up after 1½ hours of sheer joy…..

  53. Huge explosion ‘like a small nuke’ hits Kyiv as series of blasts rock Ukrainian capital – with train station rocked where desperate locals are fleeing from Putin’s bombs in latest night-time attacks

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10570679/Huge-blast-rocks-Kyiv-train-station-desperate-locals-battling-flee-Putins-bombs.html

    Tighter and tighter moves the ratchet, up and up goes the hyperbole.
    One might wonder whether the Western media are hoping for a nuclear exchange.
    Idiots

      2. As believeable a scenario as any
        When the BBC rubbish, we will know that it is the Truth

      2. I thought that was just a Scottish thing, but it seems to have spread! It reelly annoys me!

        2. You might also add ‘transportation’, ‘envision’, ‘acclimated’ and scores more that get on my tits Sue!

        3. Bus station – train station. Logical.
          Railway station – highway station…. not so.

          3. Well, I don’t often use ‘highway’ but why would you say road station instead of roadhouse?

    1. Please would a more up-to-date teacher than I please inform me about the grammatical rules for the new pronouns? If an individual says that from the list of he/she/it/they that person has chosen they then is it grammatically correct to say they is or they are?

      1. Loads of antibiotics .. and stoppage of pay I think .

        Thus becoming a messdeck pariah.. and fury from the Medical staff.

        All sailors were issued with Red letters .. I never ever knew why they were called that .

        2. To stop pay, in the RN, you needed to punished ‘at the Captains’Table” ie a summary punishment

          The RAF informed wive of airman with VD, so ‘Crabs did not easily report sick with it: it spread

          Vietnam Rose became a war weapon for the Viet Cong: They infected prostitutes, who infected servicemen,
          again it was a punishable offence and families told: Silence and it spread to the US, this time by GIs

        3. It was accepted on the Messdeck
          Tot was stopped so as not to interfere with medication

        4. A red letter day denotes a significant event. Though normally it refers to a happy event.

          3. A red letter day referred to Saint’s Days in the liturgical calendar; they were printed in red ink.

      3. I thought ‘clap’ was something nasty that could be caught from unsanitary toilet seats.

        1. That was ‘crabs’

          It is no use standing on the toilet seat
          The crabs in here can jump Six Feet

    1. The EU’s armed forces are a joke and I suspect that that’s the real reason behind this.

    2. Cus the they want UK servicefolk killed by the Russians becuase of their decisions, in preference to their own ones

  59. All mouth and no trousers………….

    The UK Department for Transport said on Wednesday that oil and gas from Russia could still be imported into Britain despite Russian ships being banned from entering British ports.

    On Tuesday, Britain passed a law prohibiting access to its ports for all ships having any connection to Russia, following the Russian offensive in the Ukraine. The ban applies to all Russian-owned, operated, controlled, chartered, registered, or flagged vessels.
    However, the Department for Transport has since clarified that these new regulations target only vessels, and not their cargo. Moreover, the sanctions won’t block ships registered in other countries from transporting oil or natural gas from Russia.

    According to the British i newspaper, the UK relies on Russia for around 4% of its gas supplies and a larger proportion of its oil. MPs are currently actively seeking alternative sources. The Department of Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (Beis) is conducting talks with UK companies on excluding Russian oil and gas from Britain’s energy networks.

    1. Yes, GW2 was waged to get rid of a leader and political system some Western leaders did not like. A society destroyed, millions killed and refugees still washing up in boats on our shores today.

      1. Maybe you’re too young.Your government doesn’t want your fragile mind corrupted!!!

  61. In the centre of Earlston, around six miles from where I live, there is a statuette of Mikhail Lermontov. Lermontov, one of the most celebrated of Russian literary figures, was descended from Thomas the Rhymer (Thomas Learmonth).
    The women of Scotland sent the Leningrad album to the women of Leningrad when that city was under siege by the Germans. The women of Leningrad sent an album in return.
    Our politicians, our people, even our socialists, have forgotten our solidarity with the people of Russia. I have not.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05131xd
    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/the-leningrad-album-a-story-of-support-courage-and-friendship
    https://www.scotiana.com/the-leningrad-album-a-token-of-scottish-russian-friendship-in-war/

    1. It will come as a shock to some that there were more lives lost during the siege of Leningrad than the total lives lost of the British and US armed forces during the entirety of WW2.

      1. Even so. The sacrifices of the Russians and their allies in the Soviet Union allowed us to overcome Germany.

        1. If Hitler had managed to get to the Russian oilfields i don’t think anything would have stopped him.

    2. Catherine the Great’s personal physician was a Scot.
      He checked her potential toyboys for communicable diseases.

  62. I’ve just been watching Sky News. They’ve been showing refugees from Ukraine arriving by train at Przemysl in Poland. Seeing little kids among fleeing adults is absolutely heartbreaking even though all are being welcomed and treated well by the Polish people on duty at the station. It is wholly wrong and exceptionally wicked for any families in modern-day Europe to be uprooted from their homes and split up like this. One man is responsible. That man should be shot out of hand.

    And as Citroen1 said earlier, ‘My God I loathe all you Putin apologists

    Go f*ck yourselves.’

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/56f5f1b6d9a5da9254c4e198d8c13e852acbb08d931ce8960a6a9a6943407624.png

    1. A typically measured, and ill informed response, but then facts don’t ever seem to bother you! What about the shelling of the enclaves, for 8 years – no concern from you then? Two wrongs never make a right but ignoring facts isn’t right either!

      1. We must bear in mind that he has already told us that he comes here with the express intention of pissing us off. If one tries to embark on a sensible debate he has nothing to say. A lot of what he says is such arrant nonsense that I think it is unlikely that he is quite as stupid as his stated opinions suggest he is!

          1. A poorly informed and very naive person at best – if he really does come here just to wind people up he’s probably ill too!

          2. I wouldn’t wish ill on Geoffrey, or anyone else for that matter but he’s always come here just to wind people up.

          3. He doesn’t wind me up, I ignore him.
            In fairness there are a few on here I rarely disagree with, some I disagree with more and just occasionally I disagree with one or two Nottlers more than that.
            In all cases I try to remind myself that everybody is entitled to their opinion, however stupid I may think it to be, what do I know after all?

          4. Most just give their opinions and I either agree with them or not. In Geoffrey’s case it is always with the intent of causing arguments to erupt. He’s always unfailingly polite, however.

          5. Thank you for your last sentence, Ndovu. Having said that I can’t help continuing to believe that Putin should be shot. He’s no good for Russia and no good for the rest of us either.

          6. We will just have to wait and see what the outcome will be, Geoffrey. I’m sure a prolonged and bloody war would be in nobody’s interests, once Putin has achieved his objectives. We’ll see if the peace talks lead anywhere.

          9. I had a manager like that, unfailingly polite and charming. He always smiled whilst he was trying to plunge the knife in.

          10. Spot on, we either have freedom of speech or we have censorship. Of course there is no need to agree with anyone’s point of view.

          1. Does that mean, Geoffrey, that you’re crying ‘Chicken’?

            You know that you’ve lost the debate?

      3. What I remember is children being used several times over to attempt emphasis on the wrongs of war fare in Syria, the same survived child was photographed three times being ‘rescued’ and carried out of a building. Like wise in Israel where after Hamas had been firing rockets into Israel from school playgrounds and supposed buildings bombed hours before by Israel, where heaps of well settled rubble with well advanced weeds growing out of the surface and a few children’s toys and books had been strewn around for effect. And obviously Completely set up.
        It’s so morally wrong to bring and feature young children into the acts of war.

          2. Is that from the treatment? Is he having chemo? Lets hope he recovers and it grows back.

    2. Thanks for that, Geoff. I’m not a ‘Putin apologist’ but I’ll happily say go f*ck yourself to you regardless.

      2. Yes, it was. I don’t understand why the downvotes.

        No one wants war. It’s dreadful.

        2. To show its support, Bradford has pledged to swap 1000 Pakistanis for every Ukrainian refugee they accept.
          Carlsberg don’t do refugee deals, but if they did.

          P.S. Ukraine has said fuck off.

    5. Why is it that you are not bothered at all by the children killed in Donbass by Ukrainian shelling and rockets. Are they less than human to you? As for me, I care about the children on both sides because decent human beings care about all lives lost.

        1. Then why have you not sympathised with them when it has been made clear to you that the Ukrainians were engaged in indiscriminate bombing of the people of Donbass for 8 years. Do you honestly think this situation came out of thin air? Are you even aware that the Ukrainians banned Russian in Ukraine even though 30% of the people of Ukraine speak it as their first language and that 80% understand it. Where do you think the provocation came from? What is the irrational origin of your hatred for Russians when you know nothing about them or Ukrainians, foe that matter, until now. I am at least trying to inform people of facts. All you are doing is throwing fuel on the fire. And that makes it very clear, Geoffrey, that you are not bothered one hoot about the dead on either side. Quite honestly, I think people like you are evil, you have no sensitivity to human beings and no interest in facts, but regard both facts and people as abstractions in your twisted game.

          1. I suppose that the Ukrainian view of Russia is somewhat coloured by the events of 1932/1933. My views are coloured by a hatred of ‘Uncle Joe’ Stalin – who hoodwinked Churchill and Roosevelt at Yalta – and those who still admire the monster.

          2. If that is your answer, then you are sick and need to see someone. Neither Putin or the modern Russians have any connection with that and want that sort of thing like they want the Bubonic Plague. So what you have actually told me here is that your view is based on a profound ignorance of modern Russia, its people and its leader. My family are for the most part White Russians. They have far more reason than you to be outraged. But when it comes to modern Russia, they support it. Some people grow up and are not retarded by ancient history. Evidently you are and allow that ignorance to fester and inflict damage on others that you neither know or care about. If you did care you would not have the sick attitude that you do. Ignorance breeds evil Geoffrey and you suffer from it and you encourage it for irrational and therefore malicious reasons. Putin’s popularity has never gone below 70% approval rating in Russia. Do you honestly think that the majority of Russian approve of a monster? If you do then you are a fool.

          4. Dozens of people on here rarely vote that much for one post so don’t delude yourself.

          5. Check your own upvotes – v – downvotes Geoffrey and you may find you’re on a website where your views are considered abhorrent. But we’ll still talk to you.

    7. Yo Geoffrey

      Seeing little kids among fleeing adults is absolutely heartbreaking

      You would rather that they were left behind?

  63. With everybody changing their Facebook profile pics to the Ukrainian
    flag, and having received strong condemnation from Keir Starmer, surely Putin must be considering pulling out of this conflict?

    1. That won’t make him pull out; especially as he’s now been given the utmost succour from Geoff Waldorf.

          3. My apologies – I intended the reply to be to Phizzee, but it ended up to Grizzly.

    2. Well I haven’t changed mine but then I’m not there much. Half an hour of virtue signalling is plenty for me and I avoid anything political.

      1. It was supposed to be a joke about how important virtue signallers think they are…

    3. Oh, God, Philip , the bloody virtue signallers – many of my erstwhile ‘friends’ are there.

      1. Not that i have visited recently but the majority of Nottlers aren’t. Perhaps you should take a closer look at your friends. The Military people i know seem oblivious. Too many new training courses i imagine.

      1. It took a while. Pantomime season is over. No helpful shouts of “It’s behind you!”

  65. The acid test will be when Russia has crushed the Ukrainian military. If Russia the withdraws from everywhere except the Donbass then all may be well.

    1. Russia will want written guarantees placed with the UN.guaranteeing Ukraine’s future neutrality.
      They will withdraw to the OLD boundaries of Donetsk and Luhansk (2014)

  66. Katie Meyer: Stanford women’s soccer star found dead on campus aged 22. 3 March 2022.

    Stanford women’s soccer star Katie Meyer has been found dead on the California university’s campus at the age of 22.

    Meyer, the goalkeeper and captain of her team, passed away at an on-campus residence hall the university confirmed, but a cause of death has not been provided.

    Coincidence?

    https://metro.co.uk/2022/03/03/katie-meyer-stanford-womens-soccer-star-found-dead-on-campus-16207652/?ITO=msn

  67. 1 hour ago
    Zelensky’s Office: Ukraine’s Delegation on Its Way For Talks With Russia
    Ukrainian delegation is on its way to negotiations with Russia in Belarus, an adviser to the Ukrainian presidential office, Mikhail Podolyak, said on Thursday.

    “On our way to negotiations with the Russian Federation. Already in helicopters,” Podolyak tweeted.

  68. 2 hours ago
    London Asks Russian MoD to Evacuate 10 British Citizens From Kiev and Mariupol
    The United Kingdom has asked the Russian Defence Ministry to evacuate 10 of its citizens from Kiev and Mariupol, the head of the National Defence Control Center, Col. Gen. Mikhail Mizintsev, said on Thursday.

    “In addition, representatives of the UK asked the Russian Ministry of Defence to evacuate ten of their citizens. Seven of them are in Kiev and three in Mariupol and cannot leave the blockaded cities,” Mizintsev said.

    According to Mizintsev, in total, more than 142,500 people have already been evacuated from the zones of the special military operation, including 39,661 children.

    Now who would they be i wonder?

      2. It was said that scientists working at the US bioresearch labs in Ukraine had diplomatic status.

  69. 3 hours ago
    Kremlin: Russian Delegation Waiting for Ukrainian Negotiators, They Clearly in No Hurry
    The Russian delegation in Belarus is still waiting for the Ukrainian negotiators, who are clearly in no hurry, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

    “As you know, our delegation was already there last night. It was expecting the Ukrainian negotiators last night … it was expecting them in the morning, and, to be honest, it is still waiting. As you know, negotiations have not started. Ukrainian negotiators are clearly in no hurry. Let us hope they get there today,” Peskov told reporters.

    Moscow has a reason to believe that the Ukrainian delegation is dragging out the negotiations on purpose, he added, without giving any details.

      2. Is Keef the name now? I would name it Klive.
        It’s like Bombay, that has a different name now.For me it will always be Bombay.

        2. RT still call it Kiev. Apparently like everything to do with that region, it doesn’t have any historical consistency therefore any claim to authenticity is a somewhat moot point.

        4. Bombay is from the Portuguese for a Good Bay (bom bai). Lord knows what Mumbai is from.

  70. You’ll be glad to know that I have a deadly weapon to hand.
    I took a chum for his radioactive injection, prior to a bone scan this afternoon.
    Once that’s over, I will drive in an easterly direction to Moscow. Then I can drop chum on the Kremlin doorstep.
    War over.

    You can thank me later.

      1. Been there. Red Square was much smaller than I expected.
        Russian film makers have learnt from English estate agents; film from a low level.

    2. You must be loaded to be able to afford all that petrol/diesel. Or if you have an electric car, it will take some time, with all those charging stops.

      1. Cancer was not always a death sentence.
        Back in 2005 ish, I had a few feet of my innards removed and fitted with a bag for a year, as I had bowel cancer

        Internal tubing then reconnected , fed Barium emema , put on a stand just like knife throwers use,
        X ray taken when stood on head no leaks apparent, assesssed serviceable
        Now, have a scar and a dread of colonpscopies, but have lived on for nearly 20 years.

        Signs of Bowel Cancer: Blood in ‘stool” or loo paper so just remember

        The job is not finished ’til the paperwork is done: check no bright red smears about

        Crude post I know, but reminders do not go amiss

        1. I know where you are coming from. I’m still undergoing treatment for prostate cancer. And I’m still having all sorts of problems, lots of discomfort. And I feel like I have pills coming out of every orifice, it’s so hard to keep track and I hate pill taking. But I was lucky because I was at 8 on the Gleason scale, which usually means it has escaped out of the prostate. Got lots of solemn talks from doctors which, by their tone was, you’re well and truly forked. But I got away with it. Now I really harp at men about their health with regard to that. You become a bit of a crusader, don’t you? And it is amazing what sort of a subculture there is for cancer victims. It’s hidden from most people and you don’t have a clue that it is their until it happens.

        2. I understood, OLT that black poo was also an indicator of blood in the bowel (large/small intestine) and should be treated with caution.

  71. The Independent reports that a cargo ship has sunk in the Black Sea off the port of Odesa. The Estonian ship Helt sank after an explosion. Two crew were on a raft but 4 others are missing.

    1. Liz (Mis)Truss(t) said it was in the Baltic

      Our frigate was parked in Constanta,back in the ’80’s

  72. Interesting documentary on RT right now. It’s about the forced annexation of Hawaii by the USA. I wonder why RT would bring that up?

    1. I can’t watch it.Finland has banned everything from RT.
      What are they afraid of i wonder?

        1. Yessss..i’ve just found a workaround to watch RT News.
          Obviously i won’t discuss it here.

    2. They could also discuss Panama Colombia and Roosevelt and then Carter returning the canal to Panama.

      1. Just now, they listed the countries where the USA has interfered in domestic politics or annexed a country. I think we tend to forget about Porto Rico, Thailand, Cambodia etc. The list is impressive. I should have written it down.

    3. Afternoon Johnathan.The whole of the Southern United States were “annexed” from Mexico in the war of 1848.

        1. But, but, but, wouldn’t the vote be rigged (as is the Democrat way) to ensure that privileged whitey prevailed?

  73. The prickly truth: hedgehogs face a struggle to survive. 3 March 2022.

    Over recent decades, however, we have not been treating them with great respect. An animal that was once ubiquitous seems on the brink of extinction. The most recent survey of hedgehog numbers in Britain, issued last month, was widely reported as good news. This was on the basis that populations in towns and cities seem to have stabilised, or perhaps even to be recovering. But beyond built-up areas hedgehog numbers continue to plummet. In certain parts of the country – East Anglia most notably – the population decline since 2000 has been 75 per cent. Since the second world war, Warwick estimates, it has been 90-95 per cent. Children are growing up who may never see a hedgehog in their entire lives.

    One might almost say the same about their human counterparts!

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-prickly-truth-hedgehogs-face-a-struggle-to-survive

    1. Around here we are infested by hungry badgers.

      Hedgehogs have been eliminated.

      Hungry badgers go after ground nesting birds, rabbits and new born lambs.

      Time for a sensible reduction in numbers.

      1. Afternoon Janet. I like both! They seem to be somehow quintessentially English.

        1. Yes, I agree Araminta.

          However when any predators’ numbers become completely unbalanced, something has to be done.

          1. Yo Janet

            when any predators’ numbers become completely unbalanced, something has to be done.

            This obviously includes Wokists

          2. “However when any predators’ numbers become completely unbalanced, something has to be done.”

            African and Middle-East insurgents?

      2. The only way that a badger ‘may expire his mortal coil’ without it leading to prosecution of the ‘Murderer’,
        apart from dying of old age that is, is by Roadkill

        Badgers are more protected than BLM, LGBT etc are

        1. But how many BLM supporters are exterminated by roadkill?

          Do you remember the game where as you were driving along you gave yourself points for hypothetical people you might run down? This is based on the Pub Names Legs Game where The King’s Arms scored negative points because the legs are not mentioned but The Long John Silver scored one, The Green Man scored two as did the Duke of Wellington and The Queen Victoria. The Bear scored four points but The Horse and Hounds (depending on the number of hounds in the pack) was a likely winner on most journeys as a pack of fifty + the horse would come to 204.

          1. For years I had a list of people I disliked as passengers on a crashing plane. The one I disliked the most would be the sole victim on the ground as the plane nosedived on to him/her.

            Also, have you seen the comedy: “Death Race 2000” with David Carradine? It centres around a lethal Transcontinental Car Race, where you get points for the people you kill. The more vulnerable your victims, the more points. Nuns, babies and people in wheelchairs give the highest points. Sounds gruesome but it is quite amusing.

          2. At school we used to have balloon debates. The idea was that the balloon had been holed and was falling out of the sky and each of the four passengers had to argue his case – under his assumed identity – for not being chucked out of the balloon.

            A master was often invited to take part and I decided to be Bob Dylan and, dressed in denim, wearing a scruffy cap and armed with my guitar, I became Mr Zeppelin Man and my speech was written around Bob Dylan’s songs’ tunes. My main competition came from a very well developed boy (who went on to win a rowing blue at Oxford) who put on his swimming trunks and covered himself in green paint and appeared as the Incredible Hulk.

          3. You had some fun at school. You were lucky. The schools I went to were run by the military. No fun for the use of there. In fact one that I went to we all ended up hiding under the stage and refused to come out. This was in Africa.

          4. Did you get extra points for getting a black man on the black stripe of a zebra crossing?

          7. We used to reckon that in the version played [virtual only, I hasten to add] in HM Dockyards, the most points would be for a one legged dockie on a bike, carrying a mug of tea but with the bicycle wheel stuck in a train track – bonus at night and if on a caisson.

        2. Many badgers are left by the side of the road to make it appear they are roadkill.

      3. Us too – we have a badger trail right through our garden, although we don’t actually see them very often – never seen a hedgehog here in over 20 years!

      4. Abso bloody lutely, Janet. We have them digging under one of the three single-track roads to/from the village and the daft Highways Agency tell us we cannot do anything about it until after August, rather than going in, gassing the sett and concreting the whole thing, as well as the mining under the road.

      5. They have lived side by side for millenia – but the lack of hedgerows makes the hedgehogs more visible to predators, and the poinsoning of their food makes them hungry for anything they can find.

    2. As I have said before, hedgehog charities are the only ones I support. Have even been thinking of having a large hut or something in the back garden to turn into a hedgehog refuge. If I could get training about what to do with distressed hedgehogs. Healthwise I’m not up to it yet but I would love to do it when I’m fitter.

        1. So Phizzee says. And good afternoon Araminta. I found when I tried to bookmark helpahedgehog that I already had it in favourites.

          1. I think that was my fault. Ndovu never suggests donations to her charity on here or provide links so i do it for her. Because i’m self identifying as brazen. :@)

      1. Yes. In the area I grew up in, there were always hedgehogs, now there is more woodland, deer, badgers, birds of prey, but no hedgehogs any more.

      2. Thanks mainly to the Wildlife Act 1972. Once people start interfering in the balance of nature, things go to pieces.

    4. We used to have several families of hedgehog in the garden. Haven’t see one for years – ever since the badger thugs took over.

    5. Pesticides have killed off their food source; eradication of hedgerows has reduced their habitat; the increase in the badger population has coincided with the reduction of numbers of hedgehogs – they are prey to badgers, who also compete for the same foods.

    1. The seizure of yachts and other assets is brazen theft. They are privately owned. They are not the property of the Russian State. Even if they were it would not be legal. The countries prominently involved, France and Germany, are not at war with Russia.

      1. As Rastus (I think) pointed out, it reminds one of the treatment of Jews in the 30’s and 40’s.

      2. The seizure of yachts and other assets is brazen theft.

        Indeed it is Horace. It reminds me of the sequestrations during the Roman Civil Wars where just to be rich was a crime. It shows you if anything the true nature of the “West” with its fake protestations of Virtue!

      3. The seizure of yachts and other assets is brazen theft.

        Indeed it is Horace. It reminds me of the sequestrations during the Roman Civil Wars where just to be rich was a crime. It shows you if anything the true nature of the “West” with its fake protestations of Virtue!

      4. This worries me a lot, because if our governments don’t respect the private property of individuals, they will steal ours next.

        1. Oh yes! Why not.? They are in the process of entirely depriving us of free speech and uncontrolled communication. Take our money and our bondage is complete.

  75. Here is the list that I mentioned before.

    Countries that have been subject to US invasion or intrusion into domestic politics (so far).

    Hawaii (1893). Puerto Rico (1898). The Philippines (1898). Cuba (1898). Nicaragua (1909). Honduras (1912 & 1963). Iran (1953). Guatemala (1954). Thailand ((1957). Laos (1960). Congo (1960). Turkey (1960 & 1980). Ecuador (1961). South Vietnam ((1963). Dominican Republic (1963). Brazil (1964). Bolivia (1964 & 1971). Indonesia (1965). Grenada (1983). Haiti (1994). Afghanistan (2001). Iraq (2003). Libya (2011) Ukraine (2013-14).

      1. Northern Ireland should really be on the list. It was the American threat to send in “peacekeepers” that forced the Good Friday Agreement.

      2. The list is from RT Richard. So not mine, I didn’t think I should doctor it. But, yes, people should add their contribution. Because, as I say below, I wondered why Panama wasn’t on the list.

    1. Thank you Johnny and thank you Godfrey. It is always nice to have one’s point of view corroborated. It helps when you know you are telling the truth and 80%( to pluck a percentage out of thin air) of people think you are lying or are some sort of fanatic who supports a latter day Ivan the Terrible. It boosts one’s moral.

        1. Nigel Farage was making the point about NATO’s and the EU’s constant desire to extend their influence Eastwards. Putin has certainly been goaded and his invasion of the Ukraine has been a disaster but we must not close our minds to rational arguments.

          I always find Godfrey Bloom lucid and interesting but he was cancelled long before the concept of being cancelled became part of the current parlance.

          It woz his mention of Bongo Bongo land wot dunnit for ‘im.

  78. Fuel £1.70 a litre up here – someone is making a fortune out of this crisis

    1. Well the UK government cut increases with the basic price, as they get Duty and then VAT on everything.

    4. What a surprise – mind you the poor petrol companies have a lot of ground to make up on Big Pharma!

  79. DM Story:

    Putin-linked oligarchs could see UK properties seized by government PERMANENTLY and used to house Ukrainian refugees under tough new sanctions being drawn up by Michael Gove
    Michael Gove is drawing up extra measures to target sanctioned oligarchs
    Properties could be seized for good without government paying compensation
    Cabinet ‘enthusiastic’ about the idea but lawyers have warned of challenges

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10572757/Putin-linked-oligarchs-UK-properties-seized-permanently.html

    Michael Gove is exceptionally gauche, crass, clumsy and insensitive and surely the very last person to be involved in any delicate business.

    1. Properties could be seized for good without government paying compensation.

      More commonly known as stealing. Is it only a week that they couldn’t get enough of these people or their money for political donations?

      1. Probably used for Ukrainian refugees for about five minutes before being used to house Channel dinghy invaders too.

    2. If true this proposal demonstrates just how far our government have descended from normal diplomatic measures to gross violations of international law.

      Following their Covid obscenities, coerced experimental jabs, administration of killer drugs to the elderly, mind warfare, lockdowns and vaccine mandates plus the ever present threat of vaccine passports etc., nothing much surprises me.

      Gove is a scoundrel as is Johnson and the rest of the present cabinet. They are unfit to govern.

      1. It is also the thin end of the wedge. Once the government has set the precedent they can seize anyone’s house or assets for any made up reason.

        1. When they changed the law so HMRC could extract money from people’s bank accounts, over alleged tax shortfalls, that barrier was already removed.

        2. When they changed the law so HMRC could extract money from people’s bank accounts, over alleged tax shortfalls, that barrier was already removed.

    3. What angers me about this, apart from the little matter of due process, is that our version of the oligarchs, the people in Silicone Valley and people like Soros etc. are doing far more damage to our society than all the Russian oligarchs put together. The Oligarchs may be corrupt but at least they are not trying to destroy our society, censor us, rewrite history, and impose a revolting new world order on us where we will be happy to own nothing as they decide what we can have as they jet around ruling the roost for themselves.

    4. Do these cretins not think things through? (silly question)

      No wealthy individual is ever going to settle in the UK or invest in the UK if there is any chance of their assets being arbitrarily seized.

    5. Gove’s blackmailing developers into paying for rectification of cladding that met the then building standards just proves what a t*t he is.

    6. How will that get past the courts? The rule of law seems have disappeared.

    7. So, is this legal? If so, then anybody’s house could be seized for whatever trumped-up reason the government wants.

        1. Which generals, NATO or the Russians. The Russians are probably hanging around a samovar. The NATO generals are probably trying to figure out how to keep the truth from the Western public with yet more bombast from Baron Munchausen.

      2. Reuben sandwich: salted beef slices with emmenthal cheese, sauerkraut, and Russian dressing on rye.

  81. Am I alone in thinking that the Legacy MSM have transferred from completely OTT CovidHysteria to completely OTT Russophobia? No-one in the MSM (I do not include Farage or Peter Hitchens in this category) seems to take time to outline Putin’s (valid) grievances re. the West’s aggression, interference, and broken promises (re. NATO and EU expansion) …. or worry about the fact that there may be some very dodgy goings-on in the UKraine, like their BioLabs …

    2. Afternoon Lewis. The MSM are simply the attack dogs of the Globalists. It is futile to look for truth or balance in their products. They have poisoned the entire realm of Political Discourse and Democratic Representation.

    4. I had a load of “how awful is this nasty Putin and a sniper should take him out” from someone at lunch today. I pointed out you couldn’t believe a word the MSM wrote/spouted and filled her in with the history of the region and the events leading up to it. I also pointed out that when we got rid of Gaddafi and Saddam, it made things much worse.

    4. So true. Were Trump still President none of the current posturing would have occurred. NATO would have been constrained and the EU countries sheltering beneath its umbrella forced to pay for their membership and protection.

      Trump would have ensured a demilitarised zone in the present Ukraine and ensured that NATO stepped back from attempting to place nuclear weapons on Ukrainian soil.

      As it is the US election was blatantly stolen and an Obama finger puppet declared POTUS despite being both mad and demented. The election steal involved about 12 million votes either partly switched from Trump to Biden by elicit means or else by means of false mail in ballots and unsecured drop boxes. The scale of the fraud was so massive as to strike many with disbelief that such a fraud could be perpetrated in this day and age. But it was.

    2. Wordle Squared

      Answer
      Antidisestablishmentarianism

      Question
      What group does Justin Welby NOT belong to

      ” Those in opposition to the disestablishment of the Church of England.”

    2. Europeans to increase defence spending to bolster NATO forces. Gosh, I’m sure someone was saying that a while back.

  89. Ukrainian Refugees

    I have a simple solution to the ‘should we take in refugees’ problem

    A referendum is held for each catastrophe which may results in homelessness of non Brit refugees

    The identities of those who vote “Yes” to them entering UK is noted, as is that of those unwilling for them to come here

    It the “YES” voters win, refugees are sent to live with them : details obtained from Referendum data.

    No-one will be sent to the “NO’ voters and their taxes will be reduced to support their views

    With a little polish, we have a system

          1. “Fairly” was understatement.
            He does play well.
            Every aspect of his game is top notch, especially the thuggery.

          4. Depressingly, spot on, but the game misses him. The rules are going barmy anyway.

          5. There needs to be a complete overhaul.
            Safety, carding, body armour etc etc.
            But it won’t happen.

    3. Ooh! A bit of rough. Mr Farrell is a thug, in my humble opinion, but you likes what you likes…

      1. His Dad – Andy Farrell OBE – is proving to be a highly effective Head Coach for Ireland’s Rugby team.

        1. England missed a trick, they should have got shot of Jones at the earliest opportunity.

  91. Well I just popped next door to have a quick chat with our neighbour’s and when I came home our kitchen was full of steam and the smell of bread baking, good job I left when I did,…………… but it’s nice and crusty.

  93. Hooray, on a more cheerful note about refugees.
    We’ve just had wing after wing after wing of cranes flying over.
    I would guess they numbered in thousands and the noise was quite extraordinary.

      1. Not only that, they fly over coming and going but tend not to stop. Double plus good.

      1. Sufficiently so that one can hear them from inside the house, with the TV on.

        It’s why I went out to look.

  94. Shock. Just ordered some CH oil.

    Aug 2021 – 1,700 litres = £738
    Mar 2022 – 1,500 litres = £1,338

    YIKES…………………………….

    3. Why didn’t you insulate yourself from the carpetbaggers? My Bitcoin is going strastospheric.

    4. OUCH
      I bought ours a while ago and thought I had been stung!
      HG isn’t impressed, I’ve turned off the central heating.

      1. Fortunately – thanks to global warming (!!) – we have not had the CH on this year. Just the stove and the AGA.

    5. Caroline has just checked the price we would currently have to pay for 1,500 litres of CH fuel in France – €2563. At today’s exchange rate (1.20 to the £) = £2,135.

      It is very substantially more expensive in France.

      The great fuel rip-off is not unique to the UK.

      1. We grow our own. Best decision I made in 1984. Planted 70 beech saplings. And a dozen oaks. Now huge trees. We fell two or three each year, now. We have logs till 2024 – even though, not being in France half the year, we burn the stove twice as much as we used.

  95. Just came back from my first look at the Daily Mail today. I was shocked to see this because I listened to what Lavrov had to say. But this is the caption on the article concerning the news conference. “Putin’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov likens the US to Nazi Germany and repeats warning that WW3 ‘can only be nuclear’ in latest TV rant”. Apart from the fact that it certainly was no “rant” he did not imply that the US was like Nazi Germany nor did he imply that the Russians were ready to use Nuclear Weapons as this headline tries to suggest. This is deliberate whipping up and an appeal to peoples baser instincts. In fact it is lies carefully manipulated to have a semblance of truth. Cathy Newman, BBC, asked Lavrov a question and it was so incendiary that it was totally unworthy of a reporter but deliberately designed to put on TV as an emotive denouncement of Russia. She actually accused him of being personally responsible for the murder of a child by putting a bullet through the child’s head. It was a truly disgusting performance by a propagandist and morally derelict human being. But, I think most people here know that anyone that works for the BBC is lacking in ethics.

    1. If it’s the same Cathy Newman (“So, what you’re saying is…” to Jordan Peterson), she works for Channel 4, not the BBC.

      2. The same. Don’t watch TV, aren’t they the same anyway? Sorry, I mean the BBC and 4.

        1. They are both left-wing, but Channel 4 has adverts, so at least we don’t have to pay for it.

          1. Ah – but we DO pay (in part) for Ch 4 – they get dosh from HMG when things don’t work right.

          4. Channel 4 receives nothing from the licence fee. Channel 4 news used to get a grant for the Welsh S4C channel. This funding has now ceased (in 2021, I think).

      1. What’s in for them? How well stocked are their nuclear bunkers and how long will they have to stay inside them before it is safe to emerge.

        1. You credit them with looking that far ahead? They seem to want to provoke Russia so they can claim “he started it”!

    3. That’s why they have banned RT and Sputnik.
      People would get a chance to make their own conclusions about the conflict.

    5. Remember the Daily Mail was gung-ho for every covid restriction – with knobs on.
      It was in the DM that I first read the word ‘covidiot’.

  96. Dark gloomy afternoon here .

    I filled up the bird feeders nearly 2 hours ago . 2 fighter jets flew over , at height , my neighbour heard them as well , and the sound of armed practise on the army ranges continues as well as the rumble of tanks and tracked vehicles training the young lads ..

    Neighbour fretted about the past week , and he commented about Covid and now this .

    We all have the same anxieties .

    1. Well let us hope those young men don’t get sent to the front. If they do they will be slaughtered just like when Southampton plays Pompey.

      1. At 16, Firstborn was working for my project as a junior inspection planner. We were horrified to find out that was more per hour than a British Army Sergeant, a difficult and responsible position.

      2. Southampton is never beaten by Pompey. We let them win to lull them into a false sense of security.

    2. Not to worry TB.They are part of NATO.They only take on little countries who can’t fight back.
      There is no chance of them going up against Russia.

    3. I recently commented to my daughter that I feel that I have aged a lot over the last couple of years. She said she feels exactly the same, and her friend (24 years old) says she feels ten years older too.
      We agreed it was to do with losing all the fun from life as well as the strain of being threatened with mandatory injections, mask, petty rules etc.

        1. It’s our idiot leaders with their big mouths that scare me, but all the signs are that the US will stop short of provoking full conflict with Russia.
          They stopped Poland from lending aircraft to Ukraine and they refused to declare a no fly zone over Ukraine. Both of these would have led to direct conflict between NATO and Russia.

          3. How could the British people have elected that second hand car salesman three times?

          4. “Well Vlad, follow my approach and you will change your country….. forever”
            “Thanks Tone, I thought that that was the case, but I wanted to check up with you, so that I could do the opposite”

          5. 🙂
            Don’t look at me. I could see Blair was a wrong ‘un right from the start.
            Funnily enough, although Brown was deluded and dour, I never received the impression that he was actually a bad man.

          7. He sold our gold at about 350 dollars an ounce!! His soul clearly belongs to the Devil!

          9. No, just a stupid one.

            His assault on pensions was simple spite. His fuel taxes an abomination that put me out of a job. His council tax hikes forced me out of my first rented home. His refusal to move the tax allowance for nearly 12 years kept the £13K a year earning me struggling.

            The bastard was a nasty, bitter, grasping waster who gave money away like water, ruined my home town and filled it with foreigners, weirdos and single mothers who were taking home more than me, working a struggling, unhappy job.

            Then, having caused the banks to collapse from fiddling the banking code, he had the just qualified Warqueen lose her job – from his intentional malice. Incompetence that he blamed the banks for, in a fantastic marketing coup.

            He left us with 12 trillion of debt, a n offensively large public sector and to top it off, called Gillian Duffy a bigot for pointing out the truth. 8 thousand people imported into a small town, with no skills, barely able to speak English, given a free house – yeah. Sodding bigotry, you spiteful Labour bastard. You had councils give them homes at the expense of people who wanted to buy themselves, but now couldn’t.

            Brown oversaw council managers getting six figure salaries – the same people so bent and corrupt they screwed over every effort my Dad made to try to help his home town.

            The Left can [beeeep] right off. Brown first. They should all be posted to the moon.

          12. The USA might not mind too much if there were to be a limited nuclear exchange in Europe. Half the continent devastated might be a price worth paying. Only China would be left…

        1. Same here, and our family is still under enormous pressure due to hospital care, job vaccine mandates/lockouts and country vaccine mandates that various family members are living under.
          I feel as though I have become old in the last two years.

          2. Of course none of us knows how long we have left – but two years in a younger person’s life is but a blip.

      3. Yes. It’s the lack of fun and spontaneity that is so demoralising. We seem to spend our time justifying our wish to merely be left alone and to make our own decisions.

    4. Absolutely nothing unusual here and we are only twenty miles from the main transport base.

      Of course it may mean that the big jets are already over in Europe somewhere, our deputy PM appears to be using her Ukrainian background to drive government policy.

  97. Bill Gates’ friendship with ‘evil’ Jeffrey Epstein a factor in $105bn divorce, says ex-wife Melinda
    In her first interview since their split, Melinda French Gates describes having had ‘nightmares’ after meeting the paedophile financier

    Jamie Johnson: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/03/03/bill-gates-met-epstein-warned-evil-abhorrent-financier-says/

    It seems pretty clear to me that there are many prominent Americans who were clients of Epstein’s island brothel. Whether or not Prince Andrew is guilty of anything other than stupidity we do not know but it is surprising that Sailor Bob’s daughter, Ghislaine, trafficked many young girls to many of these clients but we do not know any of their names – only that Epstein was probably murdered in prison to stop him spilling the beans.

    This article was originally open for comments but this facility was quickly taken down – I wonder why?

    1. If you are ever imprisoned or arrested ask for political asylum in Russia. They tend to leave prisoners to rot rather than bother killing them.

      1. They don’t bother with arrest, they just kill the people while they are going about their normal lives.

          1. I’m talking about various assassinations that have taken place over the last twenty years or so.

          4. Well it is one way of dealing with criminals, but innocent people occasionally get caught up in these activities too. See the Phelim and Ann podcast that someone linked earlier today.

    2. It all stinks. They’re just deceitful scum. It was obvious he was killed to order. The entire state edifice is corrupt to the core.

  98. Now – at last some good news…..{:¬))))

    Fury as former education secretary Gavin Williamson is handed a KNIGHTHOOD after overseeing catastrophic Covid exams bungle and twice being sacked from the Government

      1. In days of old when knights were bold
        And ladies weren’t particular,
        They put ’em up against the wall
        And did it perpendicular.

    5. Being offered a title or gong is now an insult; it implies you are a sleaze bag or a failure.

    2. I remember that, Sellers was brilliant .

      “Age has not withered that final queasy nightmare of the mushroom clouds, set to Vera Lynn’s hopeful We’ll Meet Again – underscoring how the certainties of the second world war ceased to hold their meaning in the nuclear age.”

        1. Being There also, great movie. I think that Sellers got a posthumous Oscar nomination for that.

          2. Being a bit of a Peter Sellers buff (I’ll name all fifty seven of his films for you if you give me a minute) I have to agree. Being There was the film he should have bowed out on. Unfortunately, he made the dreadful Fu Manchuu film shortly after and so that ended up being his swansong.

            He was a fascinating individual, a brilliant but at times ugly character. I would love to have met him.

          3. I agree. Didn’t see the Fu Manchu one but so many of his other films were superb. And I love The Goons!

          4. I like the Fu Manchu films. Sure they are nothing special but they are watchable. I certainly wouldn’t call them dreadful.

  100. Time for me to sign off. A day of drama with Gus. Pickles knew that something was up and kept out of sight!

    Lovely in the garden – all the crocuses are now in full flower.

    Have a jolly evening making sure there is no snow on your boots.

    A demain.

      1. We have combed him and there is no sign. Yet.

        I think Gus is more resistant to the monthly flea treatment than his brother.

          1. Do you think we were born yesterday…?? {:¬))

            Everything they touch has been boiled, sterilised and sprayed.

          2. Sorry!
            One of our cats used to like to sit in a sunny spot next to a pile of magazines (temporary).
            Cat got fleas. Flea powder, all bedding changed etc. Cat still infected with fleas! Renewed powdering, laundering efforts.
            A few days later, dusting the magazines, we discovered a merrily flourishing colony of fleas waiting for the cat to dock again…

          3. I am just wondering whether you have hedgehogs in the garden or foxes or even a badger..
            I reckon Pickles is probably snoozing in a warm spot in the garden where other animals have been.

          4. Little Cat likes to lie where the deer do, just up the hill – and has regular problems with ticks as a result, to the extent that we have a de-ticking kit handy in the sitting room, with tick spanners of different sizes and a jar to drop the horrible little buggers in.

        3. Do you use FrontLine? If you don’t buy from a legitimate source like Moderna your cats could suffer heart attacks.

  101. During the second round of talks in Belarus on Thursday, Moscow and Kiev agreed on mechanisms to establish routes via which to evacuate civilians from combat zones in Ukraine.

    “The parties have reached an understanding on the joint establishment of humanitarian corridors with a temporary ceasefire. Russia and Ukraine will soon create channels of communication and cooperation to organize these corridors,” Ukrainian presidential aide Mikhail Podolyak said.

    The head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky confirmed the development, stating that the two sides had solved the “main issue” of saving the lives of civilians. The negotiators also found common ground on other outstanding matters, namely military and humanitarian issues, and future political reconciliation, he added.

    I wonder who’s going to tell the Azov battalion at Mariupol.The civilians being used as human shields is the only thing keeping them alive.

      1. There may be a range of options, srb; however, there are ever only two alternatives …

    3. That was excellent and we do tend to forget that others are resisting the decadence that he speaks of. The resistance of the Poles and Hungarians to EU dictates spring to mind. The imposition of sick and perverse doctrines where we are supposed to pretend that men are women. That children should be indoctrinated in lies instead of given a genuine education. And where we are supposed to pretend that if we are white we are inferior and that black lives matter when it is obvious from the behaviour of the black community to its own people that is simply untrue. But we also forget that the non Western world looks upon our drift into corruption and destruction and really does not want to be contaminated by this sickness of the soul. We are not the centre of the world and our values are not supreme and it would do well for us to acknowledge that.

    4. This article ends with a prediction that the Resetters will orchastrate an attack on the internet, to be blamed on the dastardly Russians, which will be “resolved” by only letting people online via the production of a digital ID, which is due to be rolled out in the EU in the autumn.
      This would require cooperation of the ISPs, I am guessing.

      What would be the best way around it?
      (It’s too late to start thinking of solutions after they’ve implemented it!)

        1. You’ll notice that I didn’t even bother with the formality of distinguishing EU policy from UK policy…

      2. Given that the EU is not a benevolent organisation, I do often wonder what the ultimate end of GDPR is.

        As for preventing such nonsense, all governments would love to know who goes where and does what. Comically, the web traffic for one person to only a small number of websites for an hour can run to thousands of pages of log.

        To avoid it, use a browser that disguises where your traffic originates.

        1. I was hoping you would reply!
          Which browser – Brave?
          How is that different from using a VPN?
          And if the government forces ISPs to make us all log on to broadband with our digital ids, how can we bypass that?

        1. I’m not sure if that would be enough, or how they would try to get round that.

      4. Those of us who already struggle with digital things will be further confounded by modern developments.

        While preparing for my trip I was forced to download the NHS app and also upload stuff to a Global Health surveillance site. It’s already happening.

  103. I’ve seen it all now. Rewarding people for failure has never been clearer – today the utterly useless Williamson, sacked twice fro government jobs, is to be knighted.

    Any further words from me here would probably have me barred for life!

    5. Boris is turning out to be even more odious than Camoron ever was. I knew he was a complete buffoon but I didn’t realise he was this bad.

  104. I’ve seen it all now. Rewarding people for failure has never been clearer – today the utterly useless Williamson, sacked twice fro government jobs, is to be knighted.

    Any further words from me here would probably have me barred for life!

  105. I’ve seen it all now. Rewarding people for failure has never been clearer – today the utterly useless Williamson, sacked twice fro government jobs, is to be knighted.

    Any further words from me here would probably have me barred for life!

  110. The headline doesn’t quite match the opinions of the author, who looks a bit young to have been a teenager when Mary Whitehouse was active.

    We got Mary Whitehouse wrong: in many ways she was a force for good

    We have sneered at the campaigner for too long. She was often right – just never when it came to the arts

    BEN LAWRENCE

    As a nation, we still like to snigger at Mary Whitehouse, head of the Clean Up TV campaign and scourge of many a liberal thinker. A bible-bashing harpie in a pussycat bow, safeguarding the nation’s morals like a latter-day witchfinder general. How ghastly, how lower middle-class, how provincial.

    I was one of the snobs who laughed at her; as a right-on teenager, I found she represented everything I hated – a busybody buzzing around the gates of artistic freedom, a gay-basher, an unimaginative twin set-and-pearls type who had unwillingly survived a cultural apocalypse. She even lived in my corner of north Essex, a place I longed to escape from. Oh, and she hated my favourite programme, ‘Doctor Who’. A Christian? To me, she was the devil incarnate.

    But over the years I have found myself becoming more sympathetic to Whitehouse – in some ways I admire her. Certainly, I admire her courage. Within the arrogant boys club of the BBC in the mid-1960s, she was often in conflict with director-general Hugh Carleton Greene, who was not merely dismissive; he actually blocked her from BBC broadcasts, a high-handed move in a corporation that was founded by the state, and thus meant to give a platform to a multitude of voices.

    Yet Whitehouse, who is the subject of an Archive on 4 documentary this Saturday, ploughed on regardless, seemingly undaunted by the metropolitan elite who sneered at her, and grabbing headlines (as well as supporters) even though she knew she was swimming against the tide as the Permissive Society took hold.

    Today, there is a parallel between Whitehouse’s kneejerk outrage and those tweeters who take offence so easily. And yet there was often a rigour and a cohesion to her protest that stemmed from her Christian ideology. There is no doubt she genuinely believed she was the nation’s guardian, no matter how cranky her views.

    And the thing is she was often right. The lunacy of the Paedophile Information Exchange, something that could only have been dreamt up in the 1970s and which petitioned for the abolition of the age of consent, led to the Protection of Children Act 1978. In the following decade, her concern at the growing trend for “video nasties” (her phrase) meant that she lobbied for tighter restrictions on the video industry which had become a porny, ultraviolent Wild West. Indeed, her concern proved horribly prophetic as cases such as the murder of James Bulger highlighted the influence of certain films on dangerously disturbed young minds.

    Yet Whitehouse was also a malign force, usually when her extreme Christianity could not concede to a more humane approach to society. Her views on gay sex make for uncomfortable reading, once giving advice on how mothers should inhibit homosexuality in their sons.

    But most of all, I think she often got arts and TV wrong, taking everything at face value and unable to consider notions of nuance or irony. Mostly her ire was directed at the gogglebox, a burgeoning, democratising force in British society in the 1960s, and in Whitehouse’s mind, a corrupting influence within the home. One of her early victims was ‘Till Death Us Do Part’, Johnny Speight’s sitcom about working-class bigot Alf Garnett, played by Warren Mitchell.

    Whitehouse’s objections against the profanities uttered in each episode and which, in truth, were no more serious than a few uses of “bloody” or “bleedin'” per episode, rather overlooked the more serious points that Speight was making, such as the fact that Garnett was a racist and that we should be laughing AT him rather than with him.

    Similarly, her objections to violence in Doctor Who during the Tom Baker era were overstated (the series was never THAT horrific) and ignored the fact that a bit of horror is healthy for kids who like to be scared, and whose imagination can be unleashed as a result.

    Time and again, she was scornful of important works of great erudition, her sledgehammer criticisms aimed at such works as Alan Clarke’s ‘Scum’ and Dennis Potter’s ‘The Singing Detective’ (though she admired his earlier ‘Where Adam Stood’, about the relationship between the naturalist Philip Henry Gosse, a member of the Plymouth Brethren, and his young son, the future writer Edmund). Michael Grade, at one point the controller of BBC One, got it right when he said “she never sees things in context. She will see something in an exploitation video and condemn it in the same breath as she will condemn a Dennis Potter classic”.

    Forty years ago, Whitehouse mounted a private prosecution against Michael Bogdanov, the director of David Hare and Howard Brenton’s ‘The Romans in Britain’ at the National. Her counsel claimed section 13 of the Sexual Offences Act, which meant that the play could not be defended on the grounds of artistic merit.

    Yet the case crumbled when it turned out that Whitehouse had not actually seen the play, and that her solicitor’s view in the auditorium was unreliable (he had probably seen a thumb rather than an erect penis). Her criticism of something she knew little about feels resonant of the ignorant quick-to-condemn culture of today.

    Clearly, Whitehouse was someone with a great deal of moral clarity, and that made her a force for good in a rapidly changing Britain still navigating the boundaries of permissiveness. Yet moral clarity can also be dangerous, particularly when it comes to assessing the arts, which so often thrive on ambiguity. We must not disregard her legacy, but we should also breathe a sigh of relief that her Clean Up TV campaign did not have a lasting effect.

    ‘Disgusted, Mary Whitehouse’ is on Radio 4 on Saturday at 8pm. A new BBC TV documentary will air later this month

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/got-mary-whitehouse-wrong-many-ways-force-good/

    BTL:
    Stephen Sylus
    How are those rose-tinted glasses working out for you Ben?

    Whitehouse was just one of many who insisted their opinion was correct, that cancelling and censorship should be firmly endorsed by ‘those that knew better’ and that ordinary people could not be trusted to make good decisions about right and wrong.

    It is the very worst zeal we see consistently from the left wing and the seemingly never-ending supply of the ‘religious righteous’

    Whitehouse was a scourge on freedom of speech and expression – let’s not dilute how her actions look simply through nostalgic lenses

    AJM Hopgood @ Stephen Sylus
    ‘Whitehouse was just one of many who insisted their opinion was correct, that cancelling and censorship should be firmly endorsed by ‘those that knew better’ and that ordinary people could not be trusted to make good decisions about right and wrong.’

    You’ve basically just described the ‘progressive’ left. The spirit of MW lives on strong with the wokesters.

    Joe Green
    ‘Till Death Do Us Part’ and Dennis Potter, both fantastically overrated by the BBC and its acolytes in their efforts to “educate” the nation they hated.

    1. “...he actually blocked her from BBC broadcasts, a high-handed move in a corporation that was founded by the state, and thus meant to give a platform to a multitude of voices…”
      Ben, sweetheart, I’m sure you think you are well-balanced and objective, but you do realise that th BBC only ever portrays one viewpoint, that of the “woke”? You do know that the Question Time audience is selected to keep out any old-fashioned decent conservative Christian?

    2. I always thought it odd that Johnny Speight thought we the public were laughing at Alf Garnett when many of us were laughing With him…

      1. That programme is always referred to as a classic favourite, but the couple of episodes I’ve seen look like clunky progaganda. Another case of the know-alls telling us what we like?

      2. The warqueen calls me Victor – Victor Meldrew. I sat down to watch it the other day and rather than chortling I began to empathise and think ‘yep’, that’s my entire world.

      1. Just what I was thinking. I didn’t snigger at her. She, at least, had standards and the dropping of those has led us to where we are now.

    4. The action of the zealot: I believe this is right, so I’m going to force you to accept it regardless of what you want.

      It’s the basis of all tyranny, from the fervent Nazi to Mao to the green agenda.

  111. This woman, Ms Dorries must be completely lacking in self awareness. My highlights.

    UK media regulator Ofcom is currently investigating RT for 27 potential breaches of its broadcasting code. The watchdog has the power to revoke a broadcast licence, but any action is likely to take weeks.
    Ms Dorries added: “I am hoping that they expedite those investigations and that those investigations result in the removal of Russia Today’s licence so that they’re never again able or have the platform to broadcast their propaganda into the UK.”
    She also said: “Of course, politicians have absolutely no influence over the free press and nor should they. That is the responsibility of the regulator Ofcom. And the very first thing I did was wrote to Ofcom to urge them to review the output of Russia Today.”
    The culture secretary became emotional as she offered her “heartfelt thanks and admiration” to journalists working for the BBC, ITV and other news outlets “who are risking their lives to bring us unbiased and accurate news from a live war zone”.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-60584092

    3. TBF, Nads can hold two conflicting ideas at the same time.
      Whether she is aware that the ideas conflict is a different matter.

    4. Never mind what you highlighted, what about this: “The culture secretary became emotional as she offered her “heartfelt thanks and admiration” to journalists working for the BBC, ITV and other news outlets “who are risking their lives to bring us unbiased and accurate news from a live war zone”.? Unbiased and accurate news and the Bbc in the same sentence?

      1. From the government censoring Russia Today. Good grief. These hypocrites are tedious.

    5. Never mind what you highlighted, what about this: “The culture secretary became emotional as she offered her “heartfelt thanks and admiration” to journalists working for the BBC, ITV and other news outlets “who are risking their lives to bring us unbiased and accurate news from a live war zone”.? Unbiased and accurate news and the Bbc in the same sentence?

    6. I think that with that outburst, Dorries has identified herself as a brainless doxy, who should be kicked out of office and maybe get a job as a junior – very junior – reporter for the BBC, ITV or another news outlet. Maybe Russia Today.

      1. Well as for RT, I’d like to see Dorries interviewed by Oksana Boyko.

  112. I’ve just seen a plea on TV for money to be donated to the people of the Ukraine.
    WTF I think there are more people in the UK who are far worse off then these. Especially some of our pensioners

  113. Why would anyone want to take over a country that has been flattened by bombs – the Ruskies will have to do all the clearing up and re-building

  114. STOP PRESS

    SHOCKING SOLECISM BY BBC

    Beeboid Radio 3 has just played music by Tchaikovsky.

    I am right now righting to the Director General…..

    TTFN

    1. The fact that he was homosexual cancels out the disadvantage of his Russian nationality, so he is perfectly acceptable to the Beeb.

        1. Degrees of wokeness. Being gay trumps being white and male. Being transsexual trumps being gay. Being BAME trumps everything else.

          1. “Being BAME trumps everything else.”

            There’s something even higher than that…

        1. It was kept quiet in those days, unlike today where it is endlessly proclaimed ad nauseam.

      3. In matters literary, presumably Pushkin is safe since his grandfather was black.

    2. Send him a package with 3 metres of strong rope and a map of a forest. He might get the point.

      1. I would have thought The Nutcracker would have got him into more trouble…

          1. I do know from reading a couple of biographies about him that he seemed to be a deeply troubled man.

    4. Never mind; a club in Shrewsbury has taken Russian vodka off the menu. That will have to make up for it.

      2. The Co-op has also removed Russian vodka from the shelves- Vlad must be shaking in his booties.

          7. There is no way he could have done all that work on his own. He’d weigh around 11 stone if he had.
            He does have other people helping out and carrying out a lot of the work. But you don’t see much of them on camera.
            When they replaced most of the roof tiles they had an English company do the job.

    3. Norovirus has been a yearly event for years. I’ve had it a few times, it’s most unpleasant.

      1. Agreed, it appears this one may be a “stronger” version.
        Difficult to imagine, as the bog standard (ho ho) version is extremely virulent.

  116. According to Aftenposten, Putin’s press briefing has, by a mistake, told people of the Russian’s aims.
    Seems unlikely – Putin seems to have iron control.
    My take is that he is telling the world how far he will go, and no further – in case someone was hysterical enough to start to make with nuclear weapons.

    2. According to RT, Putin said that Russians and Ukrainians are one people and that will never change.
      This is not inconsistent with him saying that Russia doesn’t want to occupy Ukraine, neither is what he is alleged to have said to Napoleon.
      The likeliest thing still appears to be surely, that he will install a pro-Russian puppet government and leave, having kicked out the Hunter Bidens and their research labs (or coopted them for Russian use).

  117. I’ve had a busy day, I think i’ll turn in………….to something more respectable.

  118. It is said one should take the News with a pinch of salt. I’m currently taking it with a 15 yo Glen Livet (French Oak Reserve) [A Christmas Present] ( I’d hate to think it had gone to waste if Mr P gets really, really testy!)

    1. NEVER PUT WATER (OR ICE) INTO ANY GOOD SPIRIT,
      Unless, you can name the bottled water that you want
      Ther are 10,00 + different tasting, soft/hard waters at least in UK: they will corrupt it

      1. I disagree; a couple of drops of water in whisky seems to release the aromatics. Each to their own, though!

    2. There is a scene in the movie On the Beach which features an old chap in his Gentlemen’s Club slowly drinking his way through all the port. He’s outraged when he hears that rabbits will live longer than humans. *
      Now get this, when I googled the book- no problem but when I did the same with the movie, it wasn’t available.
      * Same thing is in the book also but it’s been some years since I read it.
      Censorship is the new world order.

  119. In the light of President Joe Biden’s State of the Union Address – and the inarticulate and incoherent remarks therein – perhaps Dopey Joe should be removed from his 24/7 authority over nuclear weapons deployment …?

  120. Could it be possible, that kicking Russia out of the SWIFT system will precipitate the launch of a CBDC in Russia that will by-pass traditional banking systems (i.e. SWIFT)?

  121. Evening, all. Apologies for going AWOL yesterday. I had a bad night Tuesday-Wednesday followed by a busy day so I went to bed very early to catch up. I’m sure you managed well without me (if you even noticed I wasn’t here!). As for the headline, the British people seem to accept everything that’s being thrown at them (unlimited and often illegal immigration, total control of their movements and speech, indigenous Brits not having any rights, etc) so why would they do something about Ukrainians? Yes, I know the media are going full-on anti-Vlad and pro the “plucky Belgians Ukrainians”.

    1. Actually Conners, you missed a good party. We had cheesy nibbles and wine while all sitting outside in the garden- oh wait- it was raining so we adjourned indoors and had cake to celebrate a couple of birthdays.
      Nice to see you- to see you nice;-)

          3. Haven’t been there in years but it was a bloody good pub. Some bloke tried to unzip my halter neck dress there one evening- he didn’t succeed.

          4. What, is a halter neck?
            Does it have inborne resistance to The Wrong Attempters

          5. Google it Tryers- I don’t want to over excite some people.
            Or ask Mrs. Tryers.

  123. Sometimes I feel as though I’m standing on my head…

    We were supposed to rein in Big Tech – now we’re making them Britain’s woke police

    Now is not the time for a Censors’ Charter, but to redouble our commitment to the liberal values British democracy is built on

    SILKIE CARLO

    Four years in the making, the Government’s long-awaited Bill to ‘rein in’ the tech companies looks set to do precisely the opposite. The Bill, due within weeks, will create new rules for online speech in the image of Silicon Valley, and in doing so, rewrite the rules for free speech in Britain.

    Earlier this week, several respected Conservative ex-ministers – Lord Frost, Sir John Hayes, David Davis and Steve Baker – all urged caution about the Online Safety Bill, signalling a growing revolt. Their concerns are echoed by human rights and civil liberties groups. As Lord Frost put it, aspects of the Bill “present a real risk to freedom of expression in this country” and the Government should “pause, have further discussion, and get things right”.

    More discussion is indeed needed. But more discussion is precisely what we’ll have much less of under this Bill.

    Calls for online regulation have been driven by genuine internet-based harms that concern all of us. Paedophilia, sex crimes, digital stalking, racist abuse, violent threats, and fraud are all rife on the internet and there is a clear need for criminal offences offline to be more effectively dealt with online.

    However, the long promise of the Bill has opened an opportunity for it to become the dustbin for unpopular speech. Discussions on anything from self harm and mental health to pandemic policies and vaccines are set to be strictly limited under the Bill, backed by state regulators. Faced with growing zealotry for censorship over recent years, including from the Labour benches and (strangely) from within our free press, ministers have relied on the prospects of online regulation to banish speech from the internet dangled before them in interviews that are too uncomfortable to defend.

    The social media companies have been doing this for years. PR and branding concerns have overtaken free speech values at high speed, and we are fast exchanging our long-fought-for right to free expression for Americanised terms and conditions dreamt up by techbros in Silicon Valley.

    There are few clearer examples of PR-driven censorship than the gender debates. In my own research of social media censorship for Big Brother Watch’s report, The State of Free Speech Online, I found scores of feminist campaigners, journalists and lawyers suspended and banned from sites like Twitter for posting statements as unremarkable as “men aren’t women”, and scores of trans people censored for using terms like “cis” to describe gender-critical feminists who don’t like the term. People’s careers have been stunted and reputations damaged by this Big Tech silencing, and the debate on sex and gender rights was not cleansed but rather toxified by the added aggravation of foreign companies’ constant censorship – which seemed to be wielded for whichever side of the argument was perceived to have more power at any given time.

    And yet, whilst Twitter was censoring and punishing people for their views on sex and gender-based rights, I easily found extreme porn videos depicting rape and kidnap fantasies with women gagged, bound, and drenched in fake blood on the social media platform.

    This was not a case of Twitter failing to act on its own policies – it is a correct implementation of Twitter’s policies, which are liberal about extreme porn and illiberal about women’s rights.

    The Online Safety Bill would, absurdly, make Ofcom responsible for ensuring tech companies uphold the policies in their terms and conditions. But these are rules that are totally out of step with British law and free speech principles.

    The British public want the law upheld online – not the rules of Silicon Valley speech police. We want freedom of expression preserved, not subdued for the brand-driven politics of foreign companies. That’s why Lord Frost is quite right that this Bill must be reviewed. As a starting point, powers which target so-called “legal but harmful” speech, formerly known to you and me as lawful or “free” speech, must be removed from the Bill.

    Harm has no serious definition in the Bill and we must recognise the harm of censorship, too. As competing world powers grow ever more draconian, we must walk the walk when it comes to democracy. Now is not the time for a Censors’ Charter, but the time to redouble our commitment to the liberal values British democracy is built on.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2022/03/03/supposed-rein-big-tech-now-making-britains-woke-police/

    BTL:
    Jem Barnett
    As someone posted earlier:

    The Azov Battalion (the Ukrainian “neo-Nazi” military unit) is on Facebook’s Dangerous Individuals and Organizations list, which means that posting praise, representing them, or supporting them, is a violation of the terms of service, but starting today Facebook has “temporarily” lifted the ban.

    I fact checked that, and shockingly it’s true:
    https://theintercept.com/2022/02/24/ukraine-facebook-azov-battalion-russia/

    Interesting how we’ve spent the last decade hysterically looking for N*zis and accusing everyone who even disagree of being one… now some actual N*zis have turned up. But they’re on the team we’re rooting for, so that should be fine…

    These tech oligarchs and leaders have no morality whatsoever. I do not trust them to be the arbiters of what is truth, or what we should be allowed to see or say, as they have no fixed principles whatsoever. With that in mind, let me see and hear everything – I shall make up my own mind, thank you.

    1. “Sometimes I feel as though I’m standing on my head”

      If your nose runs and your feet smell you must be upside down.

  124. Boing, “Time for bed”, said Zebedee. Good night and God bless, one and all.

  125. I heard some wonk on the radio earlier saying about something that “the government listens but it doesn’t hear”.

    I would have thought he meant “hears but doesn’t listen”.

    I hear loads of things that I have no intention of listening to, but it would be nigh on impossible to do the opposite.

    1. There is nothing this govt says that I either want to hear or listen to- they all talk BS.

    2. NATO has an open door policy and will allow any European country to join if they can meet the commitments. These countries chose to apply to NATO. They weren’t forced to. NATO is a defensive alliance and never aggressive. Russia has nothing to fear from NATO unless they decide to invade a NATO country and if that happens then WW3 will definitely be on!

      1. If one of the commitments is to spend a % of GDP on defence then most wouldn’t qualify including Germany I think.

        1. Nope some particularly fine weed.

          Can you name a single conflict where NATO was the aggressor? NATO is a defensive alliance. NATO has very little military equipment. It owns one fleet of jets, 3 bases and 5 drones. It’s based on collective defence and is never the aggressor. Perhaps you see enlargement as aggressive? It isn’t. NATO has an open door policy and will accept new members if they meet the commitments asked, have democracy, follow the rule of law and support human rights. Entry is by a vote of all existing members. It’s an organisation set up to prevent conflict and maintain peace not the opposite. Only madmen like Putin believe NATO is aggressive.

  129. How very sad it was to see Martin Bell on GB News this evening. He has gone into a complete decline and his diction was slurred and his ideas were very poorly organised.

  130. She is not a Nottler but my eldest niece, a lovely girl who got blues in both rowing and gymnastics when she was at Oxford, is now 65 years old.

    Happy Birthday Susie!

    (My two sisters provided me with ten nephews and nieces.)

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