Friday 11 March: The West is already at war but it is leaving Ukraine to do the fighting

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here.

633 thoughts on “Friday 11 March: The West is already at war but it is leaving Ukraine to do the fighting”

  3. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Good letter:

    SIR – Soon after the publication of his book The First World War, my late father, the historian Sir John Keegan (for many years defence editor of The Daily Telegraph), wrote: “It was a dreadful war, cruel in its conduct, destructive in its outcome. From it flow most of the ills of the 20th century: Bolshevism, Fascism, Nazism and the conflicts of narrow nationalism, which by espousing violence to achieve their ends, disturb the continent to this day.

    “How saddening it is to contemplate, in the last years of the 20th century, the outbreak of a war in the Balkans fomented by the same irreconcilable nationalists whose tribal instincts and anarchic politics set the massed ranks of Europe’s young manhood in march against each other at the century’s beginning. Has no one learned anything in 100 years?”

    How saddened he would be to witness another senseless tragedy within Europe. Russia’s attack on Ukraine is a reminder that those ills of the 20th century continue to drip into the 21st.

    Mr Putin is a truant from the lessons of history, a truant from responsible governance and a truant from humanity.

    Matthew Keegan
    Bruton, Somerset

    1. I wonder what his analysis would have been of the EU and NATO actions that eventually caused the present state of affairs.

    2. “Responsible governance” eh? Is that how Matthew Keegan regards the West’s meddling in other countries, including in Ukraine since 2014?

  6. Here’s one for you.
    Article in Aftenposten with a picture of Marine lePen shaking Putin by the hand a few years ago, with a story about how she will regret saying nice things about him now. Maybe.
    But, isn’t there an election coming in France? Looks like the MSM putting the boot in, associating LePen with Putin in this way. Like anyone would know the future… politicians shake every bugger by the hand, look at the unsavoury characters who get hosted in the West.

      1. Oh, and by the way Vlad, we’re about to overthrow the Ukrainien Government and install a puppet comedian.”

      3. Putin looks like a man who’s going to check that all his fingers are still there.

    2. Is it any wonder you just know the MSM do not report Ukraine with the truth. I do not believe any of it.

    3. Delighted to meet you in person, Mr Savile! May I call you Jimmy? My children just love you.” Kind of thing?

    4. Delighted to meet you in person, Mr Savile! May I call you Jimmy? My children just love you.” Kind of thing?

  7. Chemical weapons attack by Russia in Ukraine could force Nato to act, warns minister. 11 March 2022.

    Nato could intervene if Vladimir Putin crosses a red line on chemical weapons, a minister has suggested.

    James Heappey, the armed forces minister, implied that the alliance could consider a change to its approach if the Russian president was to deploy such weapons in his war on Ukraine.

    “I don’t think it’s helpful to get into any firm commitment right now about where that red line sits,” Mr Heappey told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

    I’m pretty sure that with all these primers, from both Politicians and the MSM, that the Government is considering if not actually planning a False Flag operation here. This would naturally fall to the UK, since after Syria, we are the acknowledged experts in such fakery. That Russia would have nothing to gain from such an act and much to lose is obvious. My guess is that it would be triggered by the perceived impending collapse of Ukraine. Due to the absolute blizzard of Lies and Disinformation in the MSM it is not even possible to make an appreciation of what is actually happening on the ground. I doubt that one truthful account has been posted in the media since it began. Nevertheless I shall attempt it. Russia is “winning” and its victory would be a political catastrophe for the West’s leaders who have invested massive amounts of prestige in preventing it and thus increases exponentially the chances of a direct confrontation with NATO.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/03/10/chemical-weapons-attack-russia-ukraine-could-force-nato-act/

    1. And still the UN thinks the only thing that may be amiss in Ukraine is casual anti-black racism, wife-beating and failure to provide the Equal Opportunity returns on time.

      1. Don’t forget the European Working Time Directive.
        After Sir Pouting Desk-Pilot has done his 35 hours, the Ukes can be blown to smithereens.

    2. Oh great, so the bar to NATO getting mixed up in this war is set as low as the Ukrainians claiming to have been attacked by chemical weapons.

  8. Chemical weapons attack by Russia in Ukraine could force Nato to act, warns minister. 11 March 2022.

    Nato could intervene if Vladimir Putin crosses a red line on chemical weapons, a minister has suggested.

    James Heappey, the armed forces minister, implied that the alliance could consider a change to its approach if the Russian president was to deploy such weapons in his war on Ukraine.

    “I don’t think it’s helpful to get into any firm commitment right now about where that red line sits,” Mr Heappey told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

    I’m pretty sure that with all these primers, from both Politicians and the MSM, that the Government is considering if not actually planning a False Flag operation here. This would naturally fall to the UK, since after Syria, we are the acknowledged experts in such fakery. That Russia would have nothing to gain from such an act and much to lose is obvious. My guess is that it would be triggered by the perceived impending collapse of Ukraine. Due to the absolute blizzard of Lies and Disinformation in the MSM it is not even possible to make an appreciation of what is actually happening on the ground. I doubt that one truthful account has been posted in the media since it began. Nevertheless I shall attempt it. Russia is “winning” and its victory would be a political catastrophe for the West’s leaders who have invested massive amounts of prestige in preventing it and thus increases exponentially the chances of a direct confrontation with NATO.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/03/10/chemical-weapons-attack-russia-ukraine-could-force-nato-act/

  9. SIR – A friend went to Poland to help bring his wife’s family to Britain. His wife is Ukrainian but a British citizen.

    At the British Embassy they were asked whether they had committed a motoring offence in the past 10 years. How is that relevant?

    Dr Trevor Masters
    Southend-on-Sea, Essex

    I’m all for weeding out the murderers and rejecting them, but this? We have effectively allowed anyone and everyone to enter after boating across the Channel!

    1. Does your friend’s wife have protected characteristics?

      According to the generally accepted sociology manuals on which our administrators are trained and must comply with in order to keep their jobs, being a bombed out victim of a calculated and opportunistic genocide is not a “protected characteristic”. They should accept their privilege and move on in life.

    2. Even insurance companies are usually only interested in motoring offences which are not spent (4 years for minor offences, 11 years for more serious offences e.g. drink-driving).

      1. Quite so, A. The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 sets out when various offences are ‘spent’ and therefore insurers have no right to seek details beyond the time limits specified.

    3. It is relevant because a lot of nasty crashes in the UK involve eastern european drivers.

    4. “Have you broken any laws in the last ten years, for example entering Britain illegally via a dinghy or the back of a lorry?”

  10. SIR – I have read and reread the letter from Chris Howe (February 28), the Customer Care Change Director at BT, and just cannot believe what he says.

    Last August my in-laws were converted to BT’s Digital Voice phone system. Their phone was cut off and so was their personal care alarm.

    After contacting BT to correct this error we discovered that their old phone number had been discontinued. They had no phone, no care line and a new number to use but no phone capable of using the system. BT’s answer? To close the case.

    Months later, after BT supplied two new handsets and sent an engineer to reconnect the care line – we are still waiting for the promised battery backup to keep this system working during power cuts.

    My in-laws are nearly 90 years old. They are very vulnerable people who want to be assured that when they call for help, they will be heard. This should not have happened to them.

    Andrew L Smith
    Chelmsford, Essex

    The letters ‘BT’ appear to stand for Big Trouble…

    1. My in-laws are nearly 90 years old.

      Old and White! I’m afraid that under the New World Order they are pretty well expendable Mr Smith.

    2. As BT is gradually switching off the old landline ‘phone network I thought I might set up my own lo-fi comms company. I thought I’d call it Tin and String Ltd

      1. Robust technology.

        Wasn’t a pencil the most reliable way to write notes in space?

        1. The story went that the Americans spent millions developing a pen, the Russians spent a few pence on a pencil.

      2. Our telephone line had to be replaced a few years ago. The overhead lines between the telephone poles in the road had corroded away.

    3. There was an historic documentary suggesting they built the M1 in about 18 months.

      They have been working on dualing the bridge over the Severn on the Worcester bypass for about ten years, and no indication that this money stream for the contractors out of my Council Tax is going to dry up any time soon.

    4. Cutting off personal care alarms is appalling. People have those because they need them.

  13. MoD delivery of Ajax armoured vehicles will be a challenge, says watchdog. 11 march 2022

    Meg Hillier MP, chair of the public accounts committee, said: “The NAO report reads like a checklist for major project failure where almost everything that can go wrong, did go wrong. It means Ajax has now joined the sorry pantheon of government projects which have gone off the tracks.

    “Despite more than £3bn having been spent so far, the in-service date is more than four years late and there is still no end in sight. The army is forced to continue using increasingly old and obsolete equipment which, aside from adding cost, reduces our capability at a time when dangers are only increasing.

    “The MoD has not paid the contractor for over a year and with both sides at loggerheads, there is real pressure building in the programme. Both parties must find a way out of the deadlock, work together to rescue the programme, and ensure the army gets the equipment it needs.”

    The very essence of a decadent polity that can no longer even control its own institutions!

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/mar/11/mod-delivery-of-ajax-armoured-vehicles-will-be-a-challenge-says-watchdog

    2. I’m sure they can spin out the pay cheques forever. National security be damned when there is money to be made out it!

      2. More people in the MoD than there are in the military. Folk argue that it takes a lot of people to provide arms and equipment but it really doesn’t. Besides, those roles exist – quartermasters. All government has to do is provide what is asked for.

        having one person in the state machine to personally supervise the equipment for every soldier is stinking inefficiency.

        1. There was a sitcom in the 1980s where they hit on the idea of having one Cabinet Minister responsible for the efficient running of every Government department, including the MoD. It was a device to give the scriptwriters plenty of material to work with, without running out of ideas. On hindsight though, even though is was a joke idea at the time, it seems a brilliant thought, although the difficulties in running such a ministry were well explored in the show.

          It was the Ministry for Administrative Affairs, and it was run by Jim Hacker (played by Paul Eddington), who went on to become PM.

    3. For some reason we have paid General Dynamics, the American contractor, several billions up front. We have received nothing in return except 26 vehicles that do not work as per spec.
      Our existing Warrior vehicles are intended to be in service until 2040, so saying, “The army is forced to continue using increasingly old and obsolete equipment…” is something of a stretch. The Warrior vehicles receive upgrades on a rolling basis, including improved night sights and armour.
      One has to seriously question why a foreign company is given contracts to produce weaponry for the UK. Any wonderful developments conceived in their UK factory will, of course be shared with their US operation, free of charge. Confidentiality in the UK only goes as far as keeping secret the misdemeanours of politicians and the police.
      Our army is equipped with German lorries. These contracts are sufficiently valuable to allow a UK company to start from scratch and build for us, not for US shareholders.

      1. There used to be an MOD department in Colchester – Defence Clothing and Textiles Agency (DCTA).
        It was, of course, closed and the offices developed into flats and any spare land smothered in ticky tacky housing.

    5. The problem is simple. The MoD wonks get paid regardless.

      Stop paying people who repeatedly fail you!

      Why not advance the Foxhound and Ocelot vehicles. We don’t necessarily need a heavy tank. What we need are tank kills. Mobile airborne units. The MoD is insistent on fighting the now – war before last, not the next way. Mobility and autonomy are the only things that matter.

  14. ‘Morning again. This takes virtue-signalling to new and dizzying heights:

    COMMENT
    Tchaikovsky is the antidote to Putin’s poison

    The Cardiff Philharmonic seems to think we can’t tell the difference between the good Russians and bad

    ALLISON PEARSON
    10 March 2022 • 5:28pm

    Talk about tone deaf. The Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra has cancelled its forthcoming Tchaikovsky Night because playing “music from the world’s best loved composer” would be “inappropriate” in light of “recent events”. I think we have a term in English for this kind of over-reaction: using a sledgehammer to crack a Nutcracker Suite.

    Does the management of the Cardiff Philharmonic think that Vladimir Putin, upon hearing the terrible news, will slap his eerily crease-free brow and say, “Nyet! Comrade Pyotr Ilyich has been cancelled in South Glamorgan. We must immediately desist from missile attacks on maternity hospitals in Mariupol”?

    Of course not. This silly move does nothing to help Ukraine. It is designed to suppress any possible offence to Welsh concert-goers or to the orchestra (one has a family member in Ukraine) but, most importantly, to let the world know that the Cardiff Philharmonic does not approve of the bad guys, those evil Russians who now include Tchaikovsky. Even though Tchaikovsky has been dead for almost 130 years and – this is awkward – clearly adored Ukraine when he was alive.

    Pyotr Tchaikovsky first visited Ukraine as a young man in 1864 and spent most summers there on his sister’s estate in Chyhyryn, south of Kyiv, and in Sumy, a charming place currently being razed to the ground by invader barbarians. At least thirty of Tchaikovsky’s works have Ukrainian themes, often incorporating the country’s folk songs which play the same stirring role in the national psyche as the Welsh male voice choir fulfils in my own homeland.

    As a teenager, I once found myself singing in a combined European choir, squashed between two magnificent Ukrainian altos, like a pair of Chesterfield sofas on either side. If song can be called the soul of a nation in flight then those women were piloting the most advanced jet fighters on the planet. I have never forgotten their thunderous Ukrainian passion, and neither have my ear-drums.

    How ignorant of what culture means, how deplorably wet and wimpy to cancel a Tchaikovsky concert or a Dostoevsky course, as a Milan university tried to do, “to avoid any controversy in a moment of high tension”. Seriously? A moment of “high tension” is a wounded Ukrainian woman on a stretcher trying to push a baby into the world amidst the rubble where a hospital stood a few minutes earlier. It is not fretting in your Western ivory tower that people are so stupid, or so easily offended, they can’t tell the difference between the Russians who cause death and the Russians who created things that make life worth living.

    Art should never be a casualty of war; at its best, it is the antidote to war’s poison. During the Blitz, Dame Myra Hess gave celebrated lunchtime piano recitals at the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. Hess made it clear to Kenneth Clark, the gallery’s director, that she would play her repertoire of German and Austrian composers – Beethoven, Bach, Schubert, Schumann – to prove that music was beyond politics. One day, the German singer Elena Gerhardt was in tears, begging Hess to cancel her lieder recital because Hitler’s forces had just occupied Holland and she feared an ugly backlash. The opposite happened. “Sensing her lack of ease, the audience gave her such an ovation that it was quite a few minutes before she could attempt to sing,” Hess recalled.

    If anyone ever asks you, “What is the point of culture?” tell them to watch the 1940 recording of Myra Hess playing her own arrangement of Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring. A Kilburn-born Jewish woman never stopped insisting that Bach’s sublime, sonorous, immortal sweetness belonged not to the Germany of the Nazis, but to all mankind.

    The same applies to the war today. Tchaikovsky will be loved long after Putin’s hatred is spent. We have to believe that. Ukraine’s incredible song will be sung again. When civilization is under attack, don’t stop the music.

    * * *

    Spot on, Allison! And Heaven help us if these bloody Philistines, these new puritans, consider it necessary to blackball the likes of Borodin, Shostakovich, Khachaturian, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov…

    The Cardiff Philharmonic is doing to the wonderful music of Tchaikovsky what Hitler did to Wagner’s stirring operas.

    1. Not only did we NOT ban German composers in WW2 – we used Beethoven’s Fifth symphony’s openeing bar as a sign for VICTORY. (Morse code, doncha know – dot dot dot dash).

    2. Not only did we NOT ban German composers in WW2 – we used Beethoven’s Fifth symphony’s openeing bar as a sign for VICTORY. (Morse code, doncha know – dot dot dot dash).

  17. Putin ‘deliberately targeting’ civilians and could even carry out limited nuclear strike on Ukraine, UK ambassador warns. 11 march 2022.

    Melinda Simmons said Russian forces are ramping up the level of violence they unleash every time the Ukrainian military successfully resists, calling the situation “incredibly worrying”.

    She told Sky News in an interview on Thursday it was possible that Moscow could escalate to using chemical weapons or even a limited nuclear strike as it has such potential.

    Scare mongering much? From an Ambassador? Is there no one left who can tell the truth?

    Putin ‘deliberately targeting’ civilians and could even carry out limited nuclear strike on Ukraine, UK ambassador warns (msn.com)

      1. Ukranian thugs kill Russian civilians in Donbass – Russia retaliates for their protection. The World’s MSM villifies Russia, saying Ukranian thugs are the poor, downtrodden good guys. That’s where there is no surprise.

        1. Proportionality?

          Ukrainian thug kills a Russian partisan; Russia wipes out Ukrainian city.

          There’s a thug in every playground, and from every nationality or identity group. It is part of the human condition. Is the answer apprehending the thug and stopping the bullying, or the total destruction of the school?

          2. So the man is a plonker and a corrupt oligarch. How many nations are not led by one of these?

            You are being a little disingenuous though, since there was already an uprising by pro-Russian “freedom fighters” objecting to the Maidan coup against Yanukovich, that turned violent before the Azov Batallion was formed in response. Both sides were at one another’s throats, but Zelenskyy only himself got involved after several years of this.

            It seems that his show was all about a history teacher, who campaigned against Government corruption as a wheeze to impress his class, only to find himself actually burdened with office. The Ukrainian electorate, joining in with the joke, then made it happen in real life. Zelenskyy’s greatest crime was perhaps not realising how useful the Azov Batallion would be to Russian propaganda as a bogeyman. In the UK, we realised early on that Tommy Robinson may be right about the Muslims, but he too was a gift to hostile propagandists.

            Zelenskyy got elected on a pledge to end corruption and graft. Do I hear a hollow laugh? Maybe, but I was in the Philippines in 2010 when Erap Estrada stood for the Presidency on an “anti-sleaze” ticket (protesting against Gloria’s corruption) after himself leaving prison after being caught emptying the national treasury and pocketing the money.

          3. It was not one individual. It was a well armed gang that killed 14,000 people over the course of 8 years. I do not believe that the Russians have wiped out a city.
            However, Russia offered the Ukraine a choice. Offer no resistance and we will peacefully disarm you. Also Russia would have destroyed the US funded biolabs making filthy diseases to use as weapons.

          4. I have commented elsewhere on where to draw the line in domestic violations of human rights.

            The Azov Batallion, who are by all accounts pretty unpleasant neo-Nazis, were formed as a vigilante posse in May 2014, several months after Russian supporters objecting to the Maidan coup went violent. It believe is was these, rather than the Azov gang of thugs, that shot down that airliner. It seems to me that this was a case of sectarian warfare going on in a province, and that there was nobody strong enough to maintain order until the Minsk Agreement calmed things down somewhat. It was really up for the Ukrainian government to invite the Russians in to impose order (as Assad did in Syria) if they felt it was necessary and would get the job done.

            Nobody has yet come up with anything refute the counter-suggestion that these biolabs are no more than the development of agricultural biotechnology in a country whose main industry is farming, or bona-fide defence against against an attack by anyone identified by military as a foe, such as Russia (obviously). It brings up the distinction between what is defensive and what is offensive, and this is very much a grey area up for discussion and diplomacy. However, projection of guilt and pre-emptive intention and false flag action are routine military tactics, and there is every reason to suspect the Russians of these here.

            Crossing a sovereign border with tanks and missile launchers stretching for forty miles and manned by 180,000 soldiers is, I would have thought, fairly convincing evidence that this was not a defensive operation.

            There is a good precedent in the West for supporting a foreign invasion in order to impose order. In the late 19th century, the United States of America, frustrated by their market opportunities being frustrated by a chaotic fracas between nationalist insurgents and a decaying colonial power, made the decision to invade the Philippines and impose order.

            It would be interesting to compare this with what Russia is currently doing in Ukraine.

          5. Interesting analysis. Important factors are the involvement of the USA, in biolabs and “elections” and the “official” support given to the Azovs and their like. If the biolabs are simply for agricultural development why not do it in the USA ?
            The most important fact is surely the complete unreliability of anything to do with the Ukraine? Any attempt at understanding what is going on in the Ukraine is confused prevented by the rubbish coming from the BBC whose”journalists”, brought out of retirement, seem to be standing on street corners.

          6. Would you trust an American corporation, complete with their lawyers and bent “America First” judges, with agricultural development?

            I might suggest that standing on a street corner in Kharkiv or a Kyiv suburb might give someone a better idea what is really going on than sitting in a well-heated office in the Kremlin (or indeed in Great Portland St), being instructed what to write by some committee.

            I see it as a matter of scale. However much I try, I struggle with equating the firepower of the Azov Batallion with that of the Russian Army.

          7. I agree, apart for the last paragraph. Although journalists “embedded” with the troops might learn a little more?The government of the Ukraine (elected by the CIA apparently) empowered the Azovs to carry out their attacks on the Russians in the Donbas did they not?

          8. Probably applying the principle that the enemy of an enemy is a friend. We allied ourselves with Stalin, didn’t we?

            Of those 13,000 casualties, how many were actually down to the Russian-orientated, anti-Maidan element and their militia?

            I have long argued for Partition (with the Dnieper as good as any line) or Neutrality for Ukraine, but never invasion by one side. As for CIA infiltration, this has long been a hallmark of the KGB and its successor organisation of spooks. This game has been the staple of Cold War novels for the better part of a century. It would not surprise nor alarm me if both were at it. Anyone fit for national government anywhere should be able to handle this. The British have military intelligence (MI5 and MI6) specifically to deal with this issue, and to do a bit of our own intrigue abroad.

            Sometimes we are not terribly good at it. There was this farce of a rock in a park in Moscow where our spies used to leave their messages. The Russians knew all about it, probably before anyone in Downing Street did, and would routinely intercept these messages, so they knew what was going on. The British knew that they knew, so would drop by a tasty bit of disinformation, along with a feed of uncritical genuine information. The Russians, knowing that we knew that they knew that we knew that they knew, would then do psychological analysis on these messages, so they could determine which nuggets were disinformation, for use when they found another rock to play with. They got bored with it in the end, and some local journalist exposed the existence of the rock.

            I often suspected my father, and a drinking companion (now a Conservative MP) was a sort of spy. He certainly drank like one. He learnt his craft from Oliver Reed, who lived next door. These two would go on adventures behind the Iron Curtain like a pair of James Bonds, with the local secret police in hot pursuit. Whilst they would sometimes talk about Century House, I suspect that they were flambuoyant decoys, allowing the real spies, so boring that their presence wouldn’t register even if you were in the same room, could go about their business unmolested.

          9. The Minsk agreement, Jeremy, calmed nothing down because Ukrainians promptly ignored it and never implemented a single item in that deal, not one. On the contrary, they promptly went on a campaign of complaint declaring that it was a detriment to Ukraine and thus it was impossible to abide by it. They signed knowing that they were going to ignore it.

          10. It’s having a teacher stand in to stop the violence and punish the thug. While the teacher is paying the thug for a lift in to work, nothing can change.

    2. What has most damaged our belief in the MSM telling us the truth: the lies about global warming, the lies about Brexit or the lies about Covid?

      Does anyone believe the ‘news’ we are given about the Ukraine?

      1. Does anyone believe the ‘news’ we are given about the Ukraine?

        Not me Richard. I’m pretty sure that it’s Fake!.

      2. I don’t believe any ‘news’, politician or newspaper.
        No wonder the government didn’t appoint Minister for Fake News as there would have been fighting for the job and government would have been closed down.

      3. No. From Ukraine is proven to be rubbish in some cases, so I disbelieve it in all cases. I can’t be arsed to try & work out what might be true, nearly true, embellished, propaganda, spun, whatever.

      4. After this past two years in particular, I believe absolutely nothing; from all sides.

      6. No, I was even wondering to myself if there is a war really happening at all or is all just propaganda.

      7. No. I went for a drink with my neighbour this afternoon. She spouted all the MSM propaganda. Fortunately there was no fallout 🙂

    3. Please Mrs Ambassador, explain to me what alimited nuclear strike on Ukraine is

      The wind, altitude dropped from, weather, terrain, water courses, etc will all effect the outcome, disregarding of course the Megaton power of the weapon

      1. Oh, don’t be like that. Ms Simmons is friend of Ms Truss. Ms Simmons CV is all woolly and cuddly.

      2. Since the prevailing wind in Ukraine is from the west, any nuclear fallout would drift back into Russia as would the after-effects of any biological or chemical strike.

        Stupid people in positions way above their competance.

      3. This woman is completely nuts. Self-obsessed. Inexperienced. Untrained. A veritable walking disaster.

      4. The are low yield warheads in the low kiloton range and even sub-kiloton devices.
        Think of the W54 warhead, with a tiny yield equivalent of 20 TONS of TNT, which the Davey Crocket was designed for in the ’50s.

        1. 177A weighed 272 kilograms (600 lb), and had a variable yield of 10 kt (42 TJ) or 0.5 kt (2 TJ).
          It was known to the British Armed Forces as ‘Bomb, Aircraft, HE 600lb
          MC’. ‘MC’ (Medium Capacity) referred to a nuclear weapon in the kiloton
          range.

          That, was meant for ‘Underwater’ use against submarines, Gawd Knows what it would do topside

    4. Putin is actually going slow in order to avoid civilian casualties as much as possible. In other words, doing the exact opposite to what the liars are saying in the West. What is frightening me is the incessant talk of a chemical attack by Putin. One wonders what the Ukrainians are going to do to their own people next, with the aid of the senile thug in the White House.

      3. Pleasant up here, but rain forecast to be about to start.
        I’ve been chop-sawing sticks and logs up to 2½” to go into my plastic mushroom trays the past few weeks and nearly worked my way through the smaller lengths of the garden logstack.

        I think we’ve used two thirds of what we used last year so, with the two larger stacks we have used already refilled, we probably have more than enough for next winter.

        Time to get gathering logs for the winter after next.

    1. The vast majority of the cost of fuel is still tax. Government could do the sensible thing and scrap those taxes, but it chooses not to.

      Does no one else remember Atlas Shrugged?

      I’ll say this though – driving is still faster, cheaper and more convenient than taking the train.

      1. I would suggest, Wibbles, that very few today will have read Atlas Shrugged – a book that helped form my views on socialism, especially the Equalisation of Opportunities Act.

      2. SWMBO is visiting her mother for Easter, and the car rental is absolutely enormous, especially when compared with 2019. She said, she doesn’t want to buy the damn car, just use it for ten days.
        Then comes fuel… :-((

          1. The hassle comes with insurance – no record in the UK for 25 years, no bonus, only needed for 2 weeks…

    2. There really is no hope for people who haven’t worked out what the government policy really is here.

    3. I saw a fella pull up at pump 4 and put a £10 in. I thought……where are you driving to…pump 5?

      1. We’ve been getting the car MOT’d, serviced, checked and repaired, and new tyres fitted for a tour of the UK to visit elderly relatives etc. A tour postponed for a couple of years because Covid rules made it illegal and impractical. Now with petrol about to be £2 a litre it is going to be a lot more expensive than we envisaged.

    2. Good morning sos

      Thank you for posting this – I always enjoyed reading Theodore Dalrymple in Spectator when I used to subscribe to it 25 years ago.

      I must say I find the urge for some people to defile themselves with vulgar body graffiti is rather sad. The current trend by minor slebs is pathetic – I suppose the likes of Judi Dench, David Dimbleby, Samantha Cameron and Helen Mirren thought it would widen their appeal to the proletariat?

      Incidentally, I wonder if the tongue of Zara, Princess Anne’s daughter, has now recovered from the hole made in it for her stud? (No I don’t mean Mike Tindall, the dwarf chucker.)

      I wonder how many Nottlers have body graffiti?

      1. I bruise easily, and after jumping from the back of a pickup truck early last year and coming a purler, I did look like ‘the Illustrated Man’ for a while.

      2. Yo Rastus

        I have not even got a ” blood group tattoo”

        Now, it is not unusual to see lotsa tattooes, with a body attached

        1. Sailors had some very funny tattoos , usually on their arm or on their buttocks .. how do I know , because bods were hospitalised for nasty skin infections to their tattooed skin , and nurses and doctors had to sort things out.

          Women who had tattoos in those days were regarded as “Butch bitches”.

          1. On one of my Ships, we had a 40+ year old CPO, who always showered when he was the only one about

            One day, it was discovered why:

            He had the Huntsmen, on Horseback chasing the Fox (you could see it’s tail going down ‘The Hole) on his back

            Good when you are in 20’s stupid at 40+

            A site, with some sights. Please have sick bowl handy

            https://www.google.com/search?q=fox+hunting+tattoo&tbm=isch&client=firefox-b-d&hl=en-GB&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwimt7Ci6b32AhVBrhoKHR6iBhcQrNwCKAB6BQgBEIgC&biw=1349&bih=768#imgrc=bVqXAdB3lnG9XM

          2. I have seen one of a snake coming out the bumole and then twining around the waist.

          3. Yo Fizz

            I hope you did not hurt your back, lookin in the mirror!!!!!!!heheheheh

          6. Phew , well thanks, but I saw for a second and that was enough .

            There was an RN Surgeon Captain who used to collect tattoos.

            People do not understand that the skin is our largest organ .

          8. Now the body graffiti are called TRAMP STAMPS.

            There was a young harlot from Hayle,
            Who tattooed her price on her tail
            And because she was kind
            And some clients were blind
            She also embossed it in braille.

          10. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

            You do have a wonderful memory for amusing little ditties .. great fun . and I bet you are good company , Richard .

        2. My brother used to race cars. He has a small tattoo on his left wrist detailing his blood group and his allergy to penicillin.

          1. Now that is sensible. My favourite botanist: “Crime pays but botany doesn’t”, on You Tube, has his middle finger tattooed in millimetres so he can measure specimens in the wild. Clever idea.

      3. Actually Rastus, at the grand old age of 63 I got 3 tattoos! I didn’t want them but they were for lining up the laser when I had radiotherapy! 3 little black dots! My SiL thinks it’s dead cool!

          1. No Pip. It is to make sure that the radio beam is aimed properly. So in order not to take a risk they tattoo them on. Did it with biro and the danger of putting the dots in the wrong place increases. One doesn’t want ones heart, lungs or family jewels bored into with a destructive ray.

        3. Alf had those 3 little dots way back in 1998. Haven’t been able to see them for years now.

        4. I got those but I can’t even see them! But apart from that I think tattoos are ghastly. So are beards. I always figure that people with tattoos have no self respect and the bearded are hiding something, literally or metaphorically.

      4. I was deeply asleep and HG wrote: “DO NOT RESUSCITATE” on my chest in indelible ink. Does that count?

        Not really.

        1. I have to re-read the word “Resus” above the doorways in the local hospital.
          I’m never sure if I’ve strayed into a zoo or an evangelical church.

    3. The vogue for covering the body with ink appals me. No doubt, in the not far distant future – SAGE will discover that tattoos kill you slowly and they will be outlawed. Or that the ingestion of the colouring mediums will be carcinogenic.

      They remind me – depressingly – of the monotonous and repetitive and unimaginative “graffiti” seen on public buildings, trains, everywhere, really. Ugly and threatening.

      2. Good morning Bill

        I am always so shocked to see young women covered in tattoos .. Tramp Stamps.

        Their bodies will look appalling as they get older .

        Moh says that the summer months are an affront to his eyesight .. being a chap he still eyes up the attractive female form which is becoming a rarity .

        Decades ago the Beckham chap had a glorious golden body .. the thin skinny wife of his sought to get his golden body covered in graffitti, and now he looks so ugly .. which doesn’t even compensate for his ugly voice .

        I think he set the trend , and tattoo parlours are not confined to seedy parts of big cities , small market towns have these places in the high street.

        People who are part of the benefit culture spend their money on tattoos, no wonder there is the myth about hungry children .

        1. Time and again, interviews with those whingeing about having to use food banks feature a pallid creature tattooed (literally) up to the eyebrows and with a ton of metal hanging off her face.

      5. My niece has briefly detailed the ins and outs of the tattooing inks. Why pay to have potentially lethal materials injected under your sin?
        Especially when, over the past two years, government will do it free of charge.
        Which reminds me, I think the NHS lass on the phone yesterday was some taken aback when I described a third jab as a waste of time.

        1. Well, you won’t be able to go abroad without the “boaster” – that was the only reason the MR and I were jabbed.

  21. “SIR – More than 70 years ago I flew in the Berlin Airlift. The Russians then were obstructive, difficult and at times dangerous.
    Stalin was a megalomaniac, and it seems the present incumbent is no better. Expect nothing but hatred from the Kremlin.
    Gerry Abrahams
    Birchington-on-Sea, Kent.”

    98 years young, RAF veteran.

    1. Stalin and Putin are different people. Russia is no longer a Communist regime after Glasnost’ and Perestroika.

  22. Watch: Ukrainian troops blow up Russian convoy heading to Kyiv’
    At least three armoured vehicles have been destroyed inan ambush that has left experts baffled by Kremlin’s inept tactics

    Turn the clock back, to the Falklands:

    Argentinian aircraft were hitting RN ships, with their bombs, which failed to detonate.

    A “Talking Head” on BBC TV programme, explained that the bombs were not airborne long enough, for the small propellor on the
    front of the bomb to rotate enough, to align the arming train.

    Obviously the Argies watched the BBC, bombs released at a greater distance, from target: bombs detonated, ships lost

    History repeating itself “inept tactics”

    You never, ever comment publically on bad tactics, smile and let the enemy continue.

    Some ‘News’ is not news, it is treason

    I see on here, many posters are advising Mr Putin of the way ahead, if he wants to win

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/03/10/russian-tanks-destroyed-ukraine-war-footage-brovary/

  23. British public will be asked to take Ukrainian refugees into their homes. 11 March 2022.

    The British public will be asked to offer homes to tens of thousands of Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion under plans to be announced this weekend.

    Ministers will launch a hotline and webpage enabling individuals, charities, businesses and community groups to offer rooms to refugees with no family links to the UK.

    The move follows criticism of the Home Office’s “chaotic” rollout of its scheme for Ukrainian refugees with family in the UK, which has led to delays and complaints of excessive bureaucracy.

    This is of course an unspoken admission that the UK is Full. Very soon from being voluntary it will become compulsory with the seizure (a la Oligarchs) of unoccupied properties and then the billeting of immigrants on families.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/03/10/british-public-will-asked-take-ukrainian-refugees-homes/

    1. Morning Minty

      It would be a good idea to kick out the 400,000 foreign students , send them home , what on earth are these people doing here, especially the Chinese etc.

      I am sure many of them have overstayed their welcome .

      When our big cities were bombed during the war, how did we cope ?

      1. They could start with the unemployed muzzies and illegals. That would free up space.

    2. I wonder how many of said Ukrainian refugees will be young middle eastern and African men? Just a wild guess…

  24. Good morning to all. 50f. here in West Sussex and appropriately drizzly for this time of year.
    Reading todays letter in the Telegraph I note it is the usual emotive claptrap for which, it seems, the only solution is for all of us to get involved and hasten our end with a nuclear war. I really don’t understand how so many people can be so stupid. The absurdity of the lead letter is pretending that Ukraine is a democracy. Nothing of the sort. Are people aware that the opposition in Ukraine to Zelenskyy, before elections, were jailed, or that newspapers that opposed him were shut down?
    And now they want the British public to take Ukrainians into their homes. It really is the most obscene propaganda drive that I can remember ever, based on lies, half truths and censorship of our own media in order to hide like criminals in the shadows with the refusal to admit that we are at fault. How do people expect good to come out all this when the boot is coming down hard on the face of truth. Joseph Goebbels, Stalin, and Mao would cry with envy at our agitprop.

    3. Dolly wouldn’t eat it. She will even leave chicken if she sees me handling a steak.

      1. Dennis, who wasn’t much bigger than Dolly, would rip my arm off if I attempted to take his rib-of-beef bone from him. His little snarls were enough.

        1. Yes. Dolly is of a nice temperament unless i try to take her pork or lamb bone away. She also likes to bury them. Which i don’t allow her to do.

          The Vet said i shouldn’t give her any bones because of damage to her teeth. I ignored that advice. Life is for living and Dolly oh so loves her occasional boney treat.

          3. They don’t damage the teeth as it’s all edible. I’ll find the name and source.

          4. Rice upsets Oscar’s stomach – as I discovered when I took the vet’s advice and put him on a fish and rice diet 🙁

          5. Best I can find until Best Beloved returns from church where she’s catering for a funeral.

            Try this:

            https://www.amazon.co.uk/WHIMZEES-Natural-Dental-Treats-pieces/dp/B01J5Q6ZBW/ref=sr_1_5?adgrpid=100931961744&gclid=CjwKCAiAg6yRBhBNEiwAeVyL0OZdtsIk_zhcjE2auBBe0MdiyIzM8k2Vli81l5yjpBW6m3UXdVYk7BoC7gYQAvD_BwE&hvadid=578445488778&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=1006826&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=b&hvrand=3960047937769847823&hvtargid=kwd-879742049662&hydadcr=22582_2196194&keywords=rice+bones+for+small+dogs&qid=1647006916&rdc=1&sr=8-5

    1. The whole Western strategy is about prolonging this war, so that they can keep the sanctions in place, which will help to hide their culpability when the financial house of cards collapses and they impose the CBDC.

    2. Western civilisation is truly broken. It is morally and philosophically bankrupt.

    2. He must have spent the money the US Democrats gave him to write his fake Russia story. I hope nothing happens to him!!

  28. Well,well well,that didn’t take long did it……

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f8a92a0dfd45dc54ede4eb242db59df6f55979805d585e6a3f72f399e93faff0.jpg

    Can’t vouch for this one,wouldn’t be surprised tho’

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b35ff4df5032178704642a98c2c01d15ee712400d5dec38e255545bfdc57dd43.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/92860e1bfef421d8ac36b993f86b9269b5b8bbf861e1d4afbc7d0f9fe7b6d7e3.jpg
    What next?? Novichoky barrel Bombs??

    3. Hate to say it. But I told you so. These people are not the good guys, they will use their own people and even their children to score points. They really are Nazis. What I find ironic is that in watching RT I find that the Russians are telling the truth and it only comes out out days later in the West as little dribbles of truth in the alternative media.

  31. We predicted this one; as would anybody who has had to deal with the Great British Bureaucrat.

    “People offering homes will have to agree to take Ukrainian refugees for a minimum period of potentially six months, demonstrate that the accommodation meets appropriate standards and, if necessary, undergo criminal record checks because many of those fleeing the conflict are likely to be women and children.”

    1. Places available in homes in Rotherham, Bradford, Leeds, Salford, Oxford and Swindon. Young ladies and small children very welcome.

    2. Start billetting them with
      MPs
      Senior Snivel Servants
      Extinction Rebels
      The Greens
      Anyone who went to COP
      BLMers
      All alphabet souper

      1. Balls-Cooper was getting very aerated in the Commons yesterday.
        As her home is jam packed with Syrian refugees, maybe she has room in the garden shed for half a dozen Ukies.

        1. With her married name being what it is it is understanding that poor Yvette has confused and unresolved ideas about sex and gender.

        2. Yo anne

          May I correct a small typo

          As her home is jam packed with Syrian refugees slaves

    3. Will the young middle eastern and African men who eventually arrive also have undergone criminal record checks?

    5. The BBC states that if one is paying Council Tax as a single person, that privilege will be removed once a refugee(s) moves into your house.

        1. Then of course there are the extra energy costs as they are going through the roof. I expect the government will bribe people with taxpayers money to take in the refugees.

      2. That’s correct – bang goes your 25% discount. In my case that would be £517 up the Swanee.

    1. The dental surgery is very stupid. The one that the MR uses has (a) a waiting time of several weeks for an apptmt; (b) insists on seeing credit card before having treatment.

    2. 351308+ up ticks,

      Morning LD,

      That is how the electorate want it
      that is obvious by their voting pattern.

      1. When there is a credible alternative people will vote for it. In the meantime abstention or spoilt ballot is the only answer – but until NOTA (None Of The Above) votes are counted this will achieve nothing.

        1. I’m not so sure. The recent Birmingham, Erdington by-election had a 27% turnout. Just imagine a GE with that sort of turnout. A government could be formed with maybe 15% of eligible voters. What sort of mandate would that government have?
          I know by-elections are often won with fewer voters than GEs but it would be telling the PTB what we think of them. If you don’t have a good independent, Ukip/Reform/GetBackBritain or some such party to vote for, NOTA is the way to go.

          1. That’s where we’re heading. As they ignore the electorate more, fewer people are going to bother to vote, when it’s so obviously a waste of time, which in turn makes it easier to ignore the people.

        2. 351308+ up ticks,

          Afternoon R

          Does one realise the likes of fringe party’s MUST be built on & financed they are NOT bolt holes for lab/lib/con coalition member / voters who after decades of country destructive voting realise the damage they have done.

          YOU build a pro English / GB party & stay loyal to that party always keeping in mind the Country rules supreme first & foremost.

    3. I think free medical care, even above the neck, is included in the contract, when they paid Mr Rashid their crossing fee

    5. Have the politicians no idea of how much resentment this causes amongst people who have worked and paid taxes all their lives?

      1. They do, and they don’t care. This policy is decided far above us, by people who don’t recognise our petty little country borders. We’re all the same to them, and our paltry little financial concerns mean nothing to them.

      2. According to Karl Marx, “”From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”.

        According to Saint Paul, “For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat”.

        According to Thomas Sowell, “What exactly is your ‘fair share’ of what ‘someone else’ has worked for?”

    1. Terrific advice! If theUkraine follows it, as well they might, the fighting will continue for ten years and not ten days.

      1. We’re quite sure that both the USA and China would be delighted if Russia was caught up in an “Afghanistan type” situation for

        the next ten years. They might even send arms to the Ukrainian forces to ensure a lengthy conflict.

        1. Well, we are sending weapons to the Ukraine. Not even smart enough to do it through an intermediary arms dealer.

    1. I should think the parliamentary Labour Party is about as far as you can get from competence.

        1. No better. You can’t even say that the Conservatives are to the right of the Labour Party, now. All of them are buffoons. I am constantly reminded of a cartoon about the Tory Canyon disaster. It depicts crowds of jackasses on their hind legs, in suits, excitedly looking as the chaos unfolds. I think the cartoon was by Giles.

    2. I assume they will abolish all woman short lists? Or does their “enlightened attitude” go that far?

      1. They’ve recently completely revamped my local Co-op and very smart it is but hardly heaven. Prices remain uncompetitive, though. Their best line is from a fairly local, Halstead, bakery: beats the mass produced stuff.

        1. My local co-op is excellent. Nice bread and pastries. The staff are all very friendly and helpful too.

          1. Sorry, Philip, I tend to be suspicious of organisations with leftist leanings – it’s why I avoid Sainsbury’s.

    3. Wordle. Got it in 2 today, got lucky with my first go which contained the first 3 letters in the right place.

  38. I’ve just recieved my yearly Water Bill. It’s gone up by £21. I guess it’s piped directly from the Caspian Sea!

    1. I related a little while ago that I had a battle with them. They seem to be another utility riddled with incompetence and corrupt. When I lived in California we went through a severe drought, it lasted 7 years if I recall correctly, dead lawns and no washing cars and, if you could, shower with someone else. Millions of dead trees and wild animals, it was really tragic for anyone who loves nature.
      That palaver, needless to say, makes me highly conscious of my water usage. I argued with the company down here in West Sussex, South East Water, that what they were charging me was impossible considering how little water I used. Oh no sir, there is a meter in the road and we check it before charging you and it is correct blah blah and blather. I notice that suddenly I’m being charged less and then approximately a year later I get a cheque for close to £1000.00 for being overcharged. What really got me is the gratuitous lying because they couldn’t be bothered to check, read the metre. I assume they were estimating usage.

    3. I was wondering why wheat had increased in price the last harvest must have all been used up or distributed elsewhere by now.
      You have to pay for the increase water costs Minty, NATO might come and bomb your line of supply as they did in Libya when Gadhafi was brutally murdered.

        1. Well if that was a wise move you may ask why our Government didn’t also buy up supplies of wheat.

      1. Mine’s gone up £38 pcm! The PCC had the nerve (the police element has gone up 3.9%) to claim how he was spending money on making everyone safer and tackling crime – yeah, right! The police station has been closed and I can’t remember the last time I saw a PC on the beat – or even a police car.

  40. Oh Dear, Madison Cawthorn, one of the most popular Republican Representatives has called Zelenskyy a thug and his government corrupt and incredible evil. This really will not do. For those who don’t know who he is the misleading hatchet job done by Wikipedia against this young man is proof positive that he is not a friend of the establishment but goes his own way. A Trump supporter and therefore to be smeared.

  41. Modern Life

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0158a29c109910a4d0fd23532b05a57e741ff29b39a00e0023f42e99001067f7.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ea490f9c521b940ba576244d8ddcad71263621dbffeb4648104761952ddebbc2.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5fefaf51147dddf16d5c838834ad34183e484d49a7daeb56e2080a1cd95654bf.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2783652e007491a0df2ffae059920e51874aa2023e7eefb9fc4b15687727cd8f.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c53cd5b0786c72ffe1c9da3d603a5f7f405737fd0b499c3fe6c70682950b2d7e.jpg

      1. Off topic, I was out a lot yesterday and all morning today, from what i can make out from comments yesterday your a Spurs fan is that right Sos.

    1. People who support Zelenskyy and his corrupt regime should read this article. I’m actually surprised that the Guardian published it.

      2. It shows that Zelensky owns shares in several companies, not all of which were declared, but it doesn’t show that he is getting backhanders or irregular income, or indeed any income at all from them.
        Of course, a complicated network of companies could be used to pay bribes, but this has not been demonstrated. It could all be normal stuff.

        1. Well I have looked at many sources on the internet about Zelenskyy’s worth. There isn’t a single one that says he is worth less than a billion dollars. It is difficult to believe he got that billion plus just by acting.

          4. I would take those with a pinch of salt, but I admit I’m not up on the going rate for buying a puppet government.

  44. Posted on LinkedIn, by a Texan I respect highy as a great Engineer and Consultant:
    Are there any upcoming conferences or online discussions on how to survive three more years of the Biden regime? This is a serious inquiry. Every business is threatened by hyper inflation, cancelation by social media, government overreach, elimination of free speech, credit curtailment, trade sanctions and embargoes, and tyrannical policies that can shut down any business for any reason.
    All businesses, employers, employees, consumers, and even LinkedIn need to know how to cope.

      1. And in this case, the more obstacles that are placed, the more sensible the outcome.

      2. The fonctionnaires in France give the English ones quite a good run for their money.

          1. Having failed to break Zelensky’s resolve, the coward in the Kremlin is now ruthlessly targeting civilians.

            Yesterday his forces destroyed a maternity hospital in Mariupol. Women and children, the new-born and the elderly, the disabled and the vulnerable: the more defenceless the better, it seems.

            It was empty!

          3. Three people, including six-year-old girl, are confirmed dead after Putin’s troops blows up Ukrainian maternity hospital. 11 march 2022.

            Three people, including a six-year-old girl, have been confirmed dead after Russian warplanes bombed a maternity hospital in Ukraine yesterday as pregnant women gave birth in the basement in what President Zelensky described as an ‘atrocity’, a ‘war crime’ and ‘the ultimate proof of genocide against Ukrainians.

            Afternoon Phizzee. The pictures show a building with no signs of personal occupation and three people, even if true, seems an unlikely death toll for a fully functioning hospiral. Though the windows are blown in there seems to be no sign of structural damage. The photographs of the “victims” are eeriely reminiscent of Syria’s false flag operations.

            https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10596473/Desperate-search-survivors-trapped-Mariupol-maternity-hospital-genocide-bomb-blast.html

          4. Good afternoon.

            I am inclined to agree. If the windows are blown out there would be far more injuries if there was anybody in there.

          5. I wouldn’t be surprised if Asov had armaments on the roof – typical cowards with their human shields.

          6. Why Did the Russians Intervene in Ukraine and is Europe Heading for a New Dark Age?

            Hypocrisy and lies have reached their peak. I had the opportunity in 2014 and 2015 to visit Donbass several times. The war was still going on. Confused and frightened people showed us demolished houses, monuments, damaged hospitals and kindergartens, demolished churches, and fresh graves.

            They did not understand why they were bombed by the army of the country they lived in. Ukraine forbade the Russian population to speak their own language and to remember their ancestors. None of the great Western watchdogs said that this was a violation of basic human rights.

            Over the past eight years, as the Ukrainian army and neo-Nazi battalions have fired missiles at the civilian population of Donbass, many civilians have been killed, including children, women, and the elderly.

            Are these victims not important to the West, because they are Russian?

            In Odessa, Ukrainian neo-Nazis committed a horrible crime in 2014.[3] They burned people because they spoke Russian. No one was found responsible for this crime. We did not hear anyone protesting in the Western media.

            https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/03/no_author/why-did-the-russians-intervene-in-ukraine-and-is-europe-heading-for-a-new-age-of-the-dark/

          8. And, of course, no mention of the Churches, schools and hospitals shelled in Donetsk for the last 8 years. Or the women and children killed there.

          9. I’m assuming the mental hospital supposedly bombed announced today on the lunchtime news was also empty until the opposite is proven to be the case.

          10. The readers are probably more likely to be affected by and have to deal with the consequences of the policy.

        2. The Canadian Immigration service have said that it will take at least two weeks to tell their front line workers that visas are no longer required for Ukranian refugees.

          Not much delay compared to visas for refugee translators from Afghanistan, the work from home civil servants are still working on that problem.

      3. The Civil Service, like the fountains in Trafalgar Square, play from ten ’til four.

  46. Lot of Russians, oligarchs, gangsters, billionaires, have estates in Scotland with castles and liveried staff*. Why does the UK government not seize all of these properties? Some worthy Tory MPs could be installed as temporary “caretakers”?

    *I have seen some of these items at my local “gentleman’s outfitters” who is supplying the made to measure breeks, waistcoats and jackets. Very Country Life a la 1890.

    1. Follow the Mugabe model, you mean? Seize an estate and give it to your mate who then runs it into the ground.

      1. The BBC greatly admired Mugabe, so I’m sure that they wouldn’t object to your suggestion Herr Oberst.

    2. Ironically, given that a fair amount of that property would have been bought with assets stolen from the Russian state and rapidly taken out when Putin was elected, I suspect Putin would be quietly please with their siezure.

  47. Good day. There is a good deal to suggest that the action in Ukraine has been planned for some time to distract the western population from the reality of the hecatomb created by the injections at home.

    Recent independent analysis of the CDC metrics which as published are opaque, by reason of their presentation, shows that last year more 25-40 year olds died in the US than in the 10 years of the Vietnam war – 68,000 against 58,000. The head of the CDC is under fire for refusing to respond to Congressional inquiries on this, and about a week ago German life insurers disclosed that their calculations show that 2,500,000 Germans have suffered injuries from the injectates. This is just the start of disclosures which will show the scale of what has been done and the accelerating catastrophe across the world.
    The fact of this is now incontrovertible, and the sudden absence of Tony Fauci (and indeed Klaus Schwab) from the public eye is in no way coincidental. The general awakening will bring general fury, and rightly so. What the motives are for this mass-murder we do not need yet to focus on – the fact of it needs to be recognised by us all first.

    So, turning to the Ukraine, it has been near-impossible ever since 2008 to divine the truth of events on the ground at the time they occur, and in my view that remains the case redoubled by the unreliability of the legacy media. How Putin fits into the construction of events leading to the confrontation remains to be seen, but I do not think he will be far behind the ball on deployments he wishes to make.
    The unpleasant truth is that the enemy of ordinary people is a lot closer to home, and if we deal with that enemy the prospects for humanity will look up from the long slide down of the last years.

  48. To start my day off, here is a quote from the idiot

    “the infinite dignity of each individual means no one should get left out (of society).”
    “We all need to commit to more listening and less shouting. Diversity of ideas helps us learn from one another. Talking with people who think differently from us is how we challenge ourselves, and challenging ourselves is how we grow.”

    Not bad for a pm who just a few weeks ago vilified and had his forces attack peaceful demonstrators.

    2. Sod off Boris. You aren’t listening to the population, you’re only listening to the blob – big state, high tax, big waste.

      Bog off you hapless, useless bugger.

      1. Someone should post on facebook that Boris should be assassinated. Good for the goose good for the gander.

    4. It’s the hypocrisy that gets me too. It’s torture for sane people to have to see him getting away with such blatant lies.

  49. Welcome to the Free Speech Union’s weekly newsletter, our round-up of the free speech news of the week. As with all our work, this newsletter depends on the support of our members and donors, so if you’re not already a paying member please sign up today or encourage a friend to join, and help us turn the tide against cancel culture.

    Britain’s “wokest” school downgraded for silencing dissenting pupils

    Previously dubbed the wokest school in Britain, the American School in London has been downgraded following an Ofsted inspection which found that pupils feel unable to “express their views freely in class”. Inspectors said “alternative views are not felt welcome”, and that the school places more emphasis on teaching “social justice” than “subject-specific knowledge”. Our founder Toby Young spoke to talkRADIO’s Mike Graham about the case. A student wrote for the New York Times about having to self-censor during seminar discussions.

    Children’s author Simon James Green has been banned from appearing at a Catholic state secondary school. Green writes LGBTQ+ teen fiction, and had been invited to speak to pupils at the John Fisher School for World Book Day. The Archdiocese of Southwark recommended against the visit, but the school’s senior leadership team and governing body both decided to go ahead with the talk. The Archdiocese then cancelled the event and removed several governors. A second event featuring Green at a primary school, also under the auspices of the Archdiocese, was also cancelled.

    Don’t ban RT, urges free speech author

    Jacob Mchangama has written that banning the Russian state television channel RT is a Soviet-style tactic which should be rejected. He wrote in UnHerd that “free speech and access to information is a competitive advantage, not a disability, when it comes to fighting information wars against the Kremlin”. Writing in the Spectator, Nick Cohen said the channel is collapsing anyway, even without a ban. You can hear Jacob speak at our event next week.

    New Iron Curtain as censorship tightened in Russia

    Russian broadcaster Denis Kataev wrote in the Guardian about the closure of Dozhd, the last independent channel on Russian TV. Facebook has criticised Russia’s ban on its platform. The BBC reported that Twitter has also been “restricted”. TikTok has limited its services in Russia, and Netflix has withdrawn entirely.

    Meanwhile, United Nations staff have been told not to refer to Putin’s assault on Ukraine as a “war” or “invasion” in order to be “impartial”. A UN spokesman later said the advice was not “official policy”.

    Cats, concerts, and pianists cancelled in campaign against Russian culture

    The Cardiff Philharmonic has removed Tchaikovsky from its programme, stating that performing the composer’s music would be “inappropriate”. A 20-year-old Russian piano prodigy has had performances in Canada cancelled, despite having publicly opposed Putin’s war on Ukraine. The Montreal Symphony Orchestra said the political situation made the performances “impossible”.

    Russian artists are not the enemy, said Tom Slater. He wrote in Spiked that McCarthyite “knee-jerk censorship” is taking hold. Even the International Cat Federation has censured Russians. Kat Rosenfield compared the current climate to the misdirected attacks on Muslims and Sikhs following the attack on the World Trade Centre.

    Female Police Commissioner censured by male panel for discussing women’s rights in trans debate

    We have offered our support to Lisa Townsend, the Surrey Police and Crime Commissioner who has been reprimanded by a panel after complaints because she spoke out about women’s spaces. Lisa retweeted JK Rowling and defended the right of women to voice their concerns about “gender self-identification”. Conservative MP Crispin Blunt, chair of the all-party parliamentary group on LGBT+ rights, complained about this, as did two other men. The verdict, from a majority male panel, came on International Women’s Day.

    The publishing purity spiral

    Children’s author Gillian Philip wrote for the Daily Mail about being dropped by her publisher. The golden age of creative freedom seems to be at an end, she said:

    Our freedom to think expansively and creatively, even to express our own views, is being undermined as surely as it would be in a totalitarian state. Books are literally being pulped if their authors refuse to toe the line. It is as if the Communist Red Guard has taken over.

    We’ve been supporting her. Meanwhile, the University of the Highlands and Islands has given a trigger warning to students reading The Old Man and the Sea because it contains “graphic fishing scenes”.

    Sam Leith wrote in UnHerd about the lucrative business of being an “antiracism” consultant. Robin DiAngelo, author of White Fragility, reportedly charges £10,000 per speech, while Dr Ibram X. Kendi, who says “you can’t truly be antiracist if you’re not being anti-capitalist”, charges £15,000 per hour. Leith said boilerplate “antiracist” slogans are being “folded into the numbing cliches of the business self-help manual”.

    Tech and online “safety”

    Our opposition to the Online Safety Bill was noted by Juliet Samuel in the Telegraph. She wrote of the legislation: “Once created in law, this category of ‘harmful’ content won’t ever be abolished and, like ‘non-crime hate incidents’, will become a legal grey zone, where censorship is implicitly encouraged.”

    Paul Thacker wrote in UnHerd about censorship of the lab leak theory.

    Trump’s new free speech social media platform has had a rocky start, according to the Times.

    Scotland’s gender wars

    Several Labour politicians refused to define the meaning of “woman” (on International Women’s Day), prompting JK Rowling to suggest that the Shadow Secretary for Women and Equalities Anneliese Dodds needs both a “dictionary and a backbone”. Yvette Cooper likewise refused to answer the question. Labour MP Wes Streeting, a former leader of Stonewall, urged politicians to build bridges in the trans debate.

    Writer and former New Statesman journalist Laurie Penny was told by Rowling that she should consider “find[ing] a job where dishing it out, but not being able to take it, is a key requirement”, after Penny claimed to be suffering from PTSD after getting a series of negative book reviews. Julie Burchill, commenting on the feud, mentioned that she herself had been “suspended from Twitter after saying that unarmed Ukrainians facing down Russian tanks are braver than men who dress up as women”.

    Discussions about trans issues could be criminalised if the Hate Crime and Public Order Act comes into force, warned Lois McLatchie in the Times. Sarah Ditum wrote in UnHerd about the rigorous policing of language by trans activists and the “taboo” questions at the heart of trans ideology. A second Green Party member is suing the party over its transgender policy. Lisa Keogh spoke to Julia Hartley-Brewer of our Advisory Council about the latest debate surrounding Scotland’s proposed Gender Recognition Bill.

    Baroness Kennedy has called on the Scottish Government to make misogyny a hate crime with new legislation to “create an offence of stirring up hatred against women and girls”. The UK Government has rejected similar proposals.

    Piers Morgan Uncensored

    Piers Morgan has announced his new show on TalkTV will be called Piers Morgan Uncensored. He’ll be opposing cancel culture and promoting freedom of expression on the soon-to-be launched rival to GB News.

    Miscellany

    Kathleen Stock wrote about the EDI missionaries colonising workplaces.

    Tomiwa Owolade wrote for UnHerd that the culture wars are here to stay.

    New Zealand is the wokest country in the world, argued Patrick Whittle in Spiked, not least because of the case of the scientists under investigation by the New Zealand Royal Society for having questioned the promotion of indigenous “ways of knowing” in science lessons. Those scientists are being helped by our sister organisation in New Zealand.

    Battle of Ideas

    FSU members in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland might be interested in a Battle of Ideas event being held in Belfast on Saturday, 26 March as part of the Imagine Belfast Festival. The day will include three panel discussions: ‘The Dangers of Online Safety’, ‘Can Culture Survive The Culture Wars?’, and ‘Snowflakes or Revolutionaries? Free Speech on Campus’.

    Final chance to book: free speech from Socrates to social media

    Join us in London for a live public lecture, discussion, and book launch on Thursday, 17 March with Jacob Mchangama, who will talk about his new book, Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media. Jacob is an author and lawyer, and the founder and director of Justitia, a Copenhagen-based think tank focusing on human rights, freedom of speech, and the rule of law.

    Following a short lecture, Jacob will be joined in conversation by Dr Joanna Williams, writer and director of the think tank Cieo, and our general secretary Toby Young. The discussion will be chaired by Claire Fox, director of the Academy of Ideas. There will then be a wine reception, hosted by Basic Books. Tickets are £10/£5, with special rates for FSU members using this link or the promo code FSUmember. Founder Members should email events@freespeechunion.org if they would like a complimentary ticket.

    Sharing the newsletter

    As with all our work, this newsletter depends on the support of our members and donors, so if you’re not already a paying member please sign up today or encourage a friend to join, and help us turn the tide against cancel culture.

    You can share our newsletters on social media with the buttons below to help us spread the word. If someone has shared this newsletter with you and you’d like to join the FSU, you can find our website here.

    Best wishes,

    2. Simon James Green’s book. For school pupils aged 13 -15. Is this what we would like our children and grandchildren to have pushed at them in classrooms, Catholic or secular?
      Here is a quote from “Noah Can’t Even”. It is about a homosexual seduction.

      “Oh, what the hell,” Harry muttered, putting his hand behind Noah’s head and pulling him towards him. He never thought the day would come. Things like this just didn’t happen to him. So he’d never given it any thought … but now … it was… It was actually happening. To him. Their lips touched, and his heart was immediately all thump thump thump. His stomach lurching, heavy, like before an exam, or when someone says “I’ve got bad news.” Thump. Lurch. But sort of nice. And some sort of terrible. Definitely weird. Sick and warm and trembling hands that he didn’t know what to do with. What the hell was going on? What was Harry doing? Harry was kissing him, that’s what, but why? Why were they kissing? And why was Noah allowing himself to be kissed like this? Was Harry suddenly gay? Harry was never gay before. Not that Noah had noticed, anyway. And he, Noah, wasn’t gay either. Was he? They were both drunk. He couldn’t feel his nose. They were still kissing. It was tender and soft and … Harry was good at it. Had he done this before? He was a master at kissing. A pro. Noah needed to buy time. He needed to work things out. In the absence of any other options, the best thing to do was to continue kissing…. He’d come here to kiss Sophie, and now he was kissing Harry. This wasn’t in the plan! He’d been ambushed by Harry … and now his first kiss was a big gay kiss and not a girl kiss, like he’d planned … like he surely wanted? “Are you…” Noah began, desperate to buy time, “are you … are you gay … or…?” “If wanting to do stuff with other boys means I’m gay, then yes, I’m gay.” “Well, that is what it means. Unless you’re bi, or just experimenting. You know, trying things out…” “No, it’s not like that. I’m gay.” Noah nodded and swallowed hard. It all sounded very final. How had he missed this? How had he not realized? He almost didn’t want this to be true. If it was true, it had to be faced. He didn’t want to face it. He wasn’t ready. He didn’t know how. “So … is this a recent thing, or…” “Not really. I’ve just never fancied girls.” “Right. But maybe … that doesn’t mean you’ll never fancy girls. Maybe you just don’t fancy the girls at our school. Maybe that’s all.” “But I fancy the boys. Some of them.” “Right.” “I fancy you,” Harry said”

      1. 13-15 is middle school age; the kids are still very immature at that age.
        I was an elementary school librarian and, when I took over the library, I returned a lot of books to media services because I thought they were age inappropriate, more suitable for middle school. However, I am not sure even a middle school library is the place for a book like this. High school or upper years at secondary perhaps.
        Some kids read and understand well beyond their age while others do not. I have always had issues with this “one size fits all” approach to children’s lit.

      2. Gross and totally inappropriate. Even if the characters were a girl and a boy, I wouldn’t consider it suitable for children of 13-15, especially in a school.

    3. Regarding the rights of women to voice their concerns about “gender self-identification”, there is a simple solution that could help reduce the risks to real women from those who pretend to be women then go on to abuse real women. Any male-bodied trans woman creep that (I deliberately didn’t use ‘who’) assaults a real woman or girl should have their man-bits surgically removed and lose all rights to future ‘hormone’ treatment. Might concentrate a few minds.

  50. Just had someone try to hack my FarceBok password. Probably a Ruskie. What they don’t know is I don’t actually use it for posting.

  51. Customers who have been shopping around for cheap energy still complaining about being transferred to British Gas at the cost to taxpayers and existing BG customers:

    However, this has not stopped consumers from worrying about their energy supply.

    Mr Garnett added: “What concerns me the most is the gas supply and where we get it from. As a country, we should be moving very quickly to being self-sufficient in energy supply but the government does not seem to be in any hurry about energy in case they upset the environmental groups.

    “Electricity should never be an issue if we had enough solar plants and wind turbines as the sun and wind are free to use.”

    https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/money/peoples-energy-customers-british-gas-moved-supplier-collapse-least-satisfied-change-1504869

    1. Hmm, “…if we had enough solar plants and wind turbines …”

      … and covered acres of good arable land with photo-voltaic panels at a loss of food-growing ability, never mind the pain and CO2 expended in their manufacture by slave labour.

      2. I think I read an estimate some years ago that you would have to cover half of England with pv panels to supply the country with electricity.

          3. It does but it’s no reason why we shouldn’t do it. It might give some protection from the rain.

          4. My solar powered lights were out by 19.00 today (they come on about 18.00 normally) – it’s been dull, drizzling and miserable. By all means use solar panels as shelters from the rain, but don’t expect them to power the country!

    2. Hmm, “…if we had enough solar plants and wind turbines …”

      … and covered acres of good arable land with photo-voltaic panels at a loss of food-growing ability, never mind the pain and CO2 expended in their manufacture by slave labour.

    3. As a country, we should be moving very quickly to being self-sufficient in energy supply

      Nursie, quickly,one of your patients has escaped.
      Lock him back up, before he can do harm to the Great Reset

        2. Make sure that your unicorns are facing in the direction of travel, you need the unicorn facts to help not hinder.

    5. A windmill on the top of every car. Just park it at the top of a hill and there’s free motoring until you stop. Simples eh?

    6. The government is actively stopping us being self-sufficient in energy as they have banned fracking. They need to stop decommissioning coal-fired power stations for a start. Windmills and solar panels will never give us enough energy (especially if we keep increasing the population). One a dull day like today my solar powered garden lights won’t be very bright and will go off about 19.00.

  52. Fratricidal wars are more common than we may think.

    Countries with shared identities often go to war with each other. This is most likely when two countries are culturally similar but differ in their political institutions. Elites in repressive regimes are threatened by a culturally-similar country where citizens are becoming empowered. The example of the two Koreas illustrates such a conflict vividly. North Korean citizens are most likely to push for change when they are inspired by a culturally-similar democracy such as South Korea. As a result, North Korean dictators work to prevent their citizens from learning about South Korean democracy. They even use force against South Korea to ensure that North Korean citizens see their Southern brothers as an enemy rather than a model.

    The Russian invasion of Hungary in 1849 during the European liberal revolutions is another example. The czar’s greatest fear was that revolution would spill over from Hungary to Russian-ruled Poland, spreading “political illness’’ into his own empire. On the eve of the war, he wrote to his general in a private letter that intervention in Hungary was necessary because the Hungarian revolutionaries were “villains, scoundrels, and destroyers, whom we must destroy for the sake of our own tranquility.’’

    Putin likely sees Ukraine as a threat based on its cultural proximity to Russia rather than its cultural distance. The recent political change in Kiev resulted in a dramatic shift from an authoritarian regime to one with liberal aspirations in a country that is culturally-similar to Russia. Large protests for democratic change were held not just in Western Ukraine, but throughout the East as well, where there is a significant Russian-speaking minority.

    Why is this change a threat to Putin? Perhaps because a more democratic Ukrainian government may serve as an example to Russian citizens of how culturally-similar people can be alternatively governed. As history shows, a dictator with an army does not wait for this to happen. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/03/04/russia-vs-ukraine-a-clash-of-brothers-not-cultures/

      2. Exactly..

        Same old same old quarrels , even us with the War of the Roses , it just repeats itself , on and on . Ireland is another example .

      4. I have a copy. I also bought one for my sister who taught English in Paris and French in schools here. She is a raving Francophile and loved the book.

  53. Evil Tories under the spell of Putin

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/feb/23/oligarchs-funding-tories

    Well, it’s not quite the headline but it might as well be. A couple of lines caught my eye:

    Oligarch is a loose term but is often associated in this context with very rich people who generally made their money amid the financial free-for-all of the post-Soviet and Putin era, and who often keep close links to the Russian president.

    I thought that many who had made off with billions were the enemies of Russia. Aren’t we told that Putin despises them for stealing? Why would he want to keep links with them, other than to recover the money? We are also told that Russian ‘influence’ won the EU referendum and the 2019 general election (yes, the Left is still going on about it). Why would Putin support political parties and causes funded with money he regards as stolen?

    Down at the bottom of the piece is the usual begging letter. It includes this:

    “We know there is no substitute for being there – and we’ll stay on the ground, as we did during the 1917 revolution, the Ukrainian famine of the 1930s, the collapse of 1991 and the first Russo-Ukrainian† conflict in 2014.”

    † Shouldn’t that be the other way around?

    1. A post wot I writted earlier on Going Postal:-

      Bob of Bonsall Sir-Boobsytitwank • 2 hours ago
      I’m under the impression that many of the Russians he wants to target are former Soviet Apparatchiks and Nomenklatura who make their money by asset stripping their former departments and, with the assistance* of the Western Financial Institutions, “invested*” their ill gotten gains in the West before themselves decamping West at the election of Putin on a manifesto that included getting a grip on the rampant corruption.

      If I am correct, then relieving them of their assets would probably strike a sardonically humorous with old Vladimir!

      * For “assistance” read Money Laundered.

  54. Evil Tories under the spell of Putin

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/feb/23/oligarchs-funding-tories

    Well, it’s not quite the headline but it might as well be. A couple of lines caught my eye:

    Oligarch is a loose term but is often associated in this context with very rich people who generally made their money amid the financial free-for-all of the post-Soviet and Putin era, and who often keep close links to the Russian president.

    I thought that many who had made off with billions were the enemies of Russia. Aren’t we told that Putin despises them for stealing? Why would he want to keep links with them, other than to recover the money? We are also told that Russian ‘influence’ won the EU referendum and the 2019 general election (yes, the Left is still going on about it). Why would Putin support political parties and causes funded with money he regards as stolen?

    Down at the bottom of the piece is the usual begging letter. It includes this:

    “We know there is no substitute for being there – and we’ll stay on the ground, as we did during the 1917 revolution, the Ukrainian famine of the 1930s, the collapse of 1991 and the first Russo-Ukrainian† conflict in 2014.”

    † Shouldn’t that be the other way around?

    2. …and when the wind blows from the west..?

      Don’t be stupid – remember the Germans with Gas in WWI. Talk about getting your own back.

    3. It said troops have been seen collecting the bodies of dead Ukrainian servicemen to plant at the scene.

      Russian forces have been in charge of the disused power plant since capturing it in the first few days of the war.

      What would be the point of contaminating a position that you currently hold? It does however tell us something. There is nothing these people would not say or do. It is propaganda carried beyond the bounds of reason!

  58. A spot of Spekkie reading:

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/what-s-the-real-reason-british-soldiers-are-deserting-to-fight-in-ukraine-

    Why are British soldiers deserting to fight in Ukraine?

    “When my brother was an infantry officer in the early 1990s the soldiers under his command were hard men. Most hailed from the north-east of England; in an earlier era they might have mined coal for a living. They smoked and drank and swore, and they were superb soldiers, as they proved in South Armagh and in Bosnia. It’s safe to assume these men would have struggled as infantrymen in today’s British army.

    Even the word ‘infantrymen’ would cause problems today. Last year, the Ministry of Defence recruited for a director of diversity and inclusion (salary £110,000 per annum, compared to the £20,000 an infantryman is paid). Meanwhile, in November, it was disclosed that the RAF had dropped ‘airmen’ and ‘airwomen’ in favour of ‘aviator’. This followed the decision by the RAF in 2020 to promote gender-neutral pronouns.

    ‘The RAF actively promotes diversity and inclusion throughout its ranks in a number of ways,’ explained a spokesperson. ‘The open and transparent sharing of chosen pronouns is one way we can be an inclusive employer.’

    With nonsense like this now rife in the British armed forces, is it any surprise that several soldiers have gone AWOL and headed east? One of the those reportedly now in Ukraine told comrades ‘he wanted to do something real.’ As ill-advised as it is to travel to Ukraine to fight the Russians one can sympathise with those young men who have deserted. Recruitment in the British army has always risen in times of conflict, be it Bosnia, Iraq or Afghanistan. Peacetime soldiering can be stultifying.

    Ineptitude and not ethnicity is the impediment to a fulfilling military career

    The difference between the British army today and even that of fifteen years ago is one of ideology. It is not an exaggeration to say that among some of the top brass patriotism is increasingly being usurped by progressivism. In December, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, the chief of the defence staff, gave a speech that in light of events in Ukraine is almost too excruciating to bear. Bemoaning the lack of diversity in the armed forces, Radakin told his audience:

    ‘This is not about wokefulness. It is about woefulness. The woefulness of too few women. The woefulness of not reflecting the ethnic, religious and cognitive diversity of our nation. And the woefulness of not following our own values.’

    Yet the British military – the army in particular – has always been a diverse employer, ready to accept anyone who is up to the job. Men such as Johnson Beharry, born in Grenada, who was awarded a Victoria Cross in 2005 for his gallantry in Iraq. Another man held in awe by his former comrades, was Talaiasi Labalaba of the SAS, killed at the battle of Mirbat in Oman in 1972. A statue to the Fijian was unveiled at the SAS HQ in Hereford in 2009.

    Fijians continue to serve with distinction in the British army (one, Semesa Rokoduguni, has played four times for the England rugby team) as do many other nationalities. Ineptitude and not ethnicity is the impediment to a fulfilling military career.

    But in Sir Tony’s speech the inference was that the British armed forces might in the future jeopardise combat effectiveness for the sake of meeting diversity targets. That was also the implication of the army’s £1.6m advertising campaign back in 2018, which addressed questions such as ‘Can I be gay in the army?’ and ‘What if I get emotional in the army?’. The campaign was revealed soon after the team of General Sir Nick Carter, Radakin’s predecessor as chief of the defence staff, wrote a report suggesting the previous advertising campaign, ‘Be the Best’ was now ‘dated, elitist and non-inclusive’

    Colonel Richard Kemp, a former commander of British operations in Afghanistan, excoriated the campaign, stating that the main attraction for young men in joining the army was the prospect of fighting. ‘The main group of people who are interested in joining aren’t worried so much about whether they are going to be listened to,’ he said. ‘They are going to be attracted by images of combat.’

    This explains why some British soldiers are deserting and heading to Ukraine: they want to see some action. As I wrote on Coffee House on Wednesday they are misguided in doing so, but their courage and resolve should be respected.

    Last month, soldiers were forced by their superiors to undergo a training day in order to help ‘remove barriers, maximise diversity and enhance operational capability through true inclusion’. One hopes it was a worthwhile exercise, though perhaps a more useful one would have been a live fire exercise on Salisbury Plain.

    The worrying impression conveyed by several senior military figures is that they are travelling in the same calamitous direction as their counterparts in the police, pushing a progressive ideology that saps the morale and undermines the effectiveness of the fine young men and women in their ranks. To paraphrase that famous description of soldiers in the first world war as lions led by donkeys, today’s troops are lions led by dogma.”

    1. I feel very sorry for the misguided young men going out to fight for Hunter Biden’s interests in Ukraine, but I can completely understand why a Diversity training course drove them to it.

    2. Interesting article Anne .

      Judging by the Tankies and all who are constantly hungry and who visit our local baker and other shops , they are great well balanced guys who don’t look as if they would stand for any Woke nonsense .

    3. The trouble with using the word ‘Aviator’ indicates that it is one who flies.

      The majority of Airmen and Airwomen don’t fly, they either fix broken aeroplaines or push paper around.

      Blind stupidity on a £120,000 salary – what a waste!

    4. The ministry of defence is not fit for purpose, wastes money and returns appalling value for money.

      Which, given it’s a government department is fairly self evident. How about we get back to having a tenth of the people staffing that useless organisation?

    5. I’ve been saying this about the Air Force for some time. Every time I go to RAF Cosford it seems to get woker. I’m due to go several times next week (operating GB80LAN, SES celebrating 80 years of the Lancaster bomber). I hope I don’t have to tell them my “preferred pronoun”.

  59. Rain all morning and the sun is now shining .

    The Aerial chap arrived an hour ago and has just fixed our wonky TV aerial , he brought his 30ft ladder and he brought the sunshine ..

    We can now receive lots of spare channels on the box..

    The bill wasn’t too bad either .

    1. Given the current news, are you sure you don’t want to call him again tomorrow and ask him to make it wonky again??

    1. If you pause a while, when hovering over the ‘captcha’ tick box, it takes it that you are old, infirm or both and goes straight to sign in.

      2. That frequently happens to me (it did tonight), but I don’t hover over the tick box any time at all – mind you, my aged computer takes ages to put the tick box up, so maybe that’s it.

    2. Something is wrong when we accept a computer asking us to prove that we are not robots.

  62. India accidentally fires a missile into Pakistan: Delhi apologises for ‘regrettable’ maintenance error that led to weapon blasting into its nuclear-armed sworn enemy
    India said it accidently fired a missile into Pakistan on Friday
    It was carrying out maintenance when the missile fired across the border and into Pakistan due to a ‘technical malfunction’, said the defence ministry
    India called the bombing ‘deeply regrettable’ but said no lives were lost
    Both India and Pakistan are nuclear-armed and share a history of border tension
    By AFP and TOM BROWN FOR MAILONLINE

    PUBLISHED: 14:18, 11 March 2022 | UPDATED: 15:07, 11 March 2022

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10603027/India-accidentally-fires-missile-Pakistan.html?ito=push-notification&ci=0A703Dn8bg&cri=CIrNvFoBxG&si=26738248&ai=10603027

    1. Just an accident – pure coincidence that it was pointing towards Pakistan – could happen to anyone!
      Thank God they don’t share a border with Russia, or who knows what could happen.

  63. Well, we had some precipitation earlier on, but I was still able to get a bit done.
    However heavier rain has arrived, so that’s me for outside work for the day.

    1. And why didn’t the Biden administration secure the contents of these labs before the Russians invaded?

      Perhaps they are so damned dangerous they can’t be moved?

      That link is absolutely horrendous. What the Hell is going on?
      Perhaps that’s the real reason they wanted Hunter in Ukraine, to report back to Joe.

    3. There were maps around a few days ago that showed the locations of the biolabs and what they were doing.

  67. A few things….
    Thank you all again for your messages of support; as others of you know when you have been in troubling circumstances, messages of support, condolence etc really do help, so my gratitude is genuine.
    I am not going to drive you all bonkers by going on about this- we’ve got the ball rolling and that’s the main thing. I just want to pass on something my husband was told today.
    He went to the hospital for what we both assumed was blood work but he got a pretty thorough workover. He called me about 11 to say he was waiting for a scan. (Had I known this, I would have gone with him!)
    He was examined by a specialist nurse who asked about a few red spots on his neck. He didn’t know and then told her about the red spots I’d had (and another big one has appeared today.) She asked about our vaccine status and MH told her we were both double jabbed but had refused the booster. GOOD THING YOU DID, she said, it gets into your circulation and ends up in your liver where it does harm. And this is what this govt has been trying to force on us and the children!
    I am so appalled and disgusted that words, almost, fail me. This is a specialist nurse at our local NHS hospital saying this.

    4. It’s so unfair that you have the jab worries on top of everything else. I am furious on your behalf. Glad to hear that medical diagnosis and hopefully treatment is getting going though.

    5. Goodness, that’s awful for you both. I have missed whatever the original cause was for attending the hospital but I do hope nothing else untoward will be found on the tests.
      And what a brave nurse for daring to speak out.

    6. That will be the end of that nurses care if her comments become known.

      They are still advertising vaccination clinics and pushing kiddie shots over here.

    7. Glad that things are getting going and YOH has had a good once over. Fingers crossed all goes well for both of you. If it gets out, that nurse will be hauled over the coals for telling the truth.

  68. Where are these spacious UK classrooms with spaces for 100,000 Ukrainian children?
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10602489/Britains-schools-open-doors-100-000-Ukrainian-children.html
    The government also wants us to take Ukrainian families into our homes. “However, it is expected that anyone offering to house a Ukrainian refugee will have to pass Disclosure and Barring Service checks, which will slow the process further.”
    “Refugees who enter through the new route will be allowed to stay for an initial period of 12 months during which they will be entitled to work, claim benefits and access public services.” They’ll probably be entitled to free heating too. Mind you, I suspect Ukrainian incomers would be more likely to want to work than the aggressive hordes of illegal young males crossing the channel. How long before taxes are once again raised?

      1. I used to have one from working in a primary school. Presumably long since expired. If the authorities looked at all our posts on here, we would be unlikely to be found suitable anyway.

        1. I got it when I returned to UK and have kept it going in case I can volunteer in a library. Easier to keep it and it’s only £13 a year.

        2. I retired from teaching before I needed one – ah, those were the days when you took a job because you wanted to do it and not for nefarious reasons.

          1. I stopped teaching a loooong time ago for health reasons but later worked teaching ‘special needs’ children until I retired. Great job satisfaction, very rewarding (though not financially!). No petty fogging bureaucracy and very few meetings.

        1. I decided not to have the criminal check for the curling club therefore although I am a certified instructor, I cannot be involved with the school program.
          Much more fun teaching adults anyway, you can tech them curling etiquette – which means having drinkies after the game.

          1. Ah! But Rainbows was very entertaining! Children the same age as your own, but sooo different! I found it a very rewarding time!

    2. They are hard workers in my experience. Will the government red tape to allow them to stay in the country be finished before the 12 months is up though?
      Oh well, look on the bright side, the red tape, corruption and bureaucracy will make them feel right at home. 🙁

      1. I found that with the many Polish and other east European families I knew. Unlike many indigenous families, they actually expected their children to behave, be polite and work hard at school. I think the issue with the Ukrainians who may come here is that they aren’t coming to known jobs and will arrive in large numbers. Better 100 of them though than just one young male ‘enricher.’

        1. My feelings too, but I honestly wonder how many of the refugees will be chancers from Africa and the mid east who have travelled via western Ukraine.

          1. Presumably the Ukrainians will have some form of Ukrainian ID, passports or the like.
            The chancers won’t.

          4. The over-generous ‘freebies’ may well attract the wrong sort. Maybe such largesse should only be for a limited time after which they would be expected to either return whence they came or to work.

          5. 1. They will all be “students” (how racist of you to ask them to prove it!)
            2. I don’t know what the going rate for a Ukrainian passport is, but I bet it just went up.

          6. Any who are even remotely suspected of belonging to that category should never be given access. Fingerprint and take DNA samples to be stored for 100 years. We should be doing this anyway to every fake asylum seeker, and checking evry arrival against the data base. Profiling of arrivals should be mandatory.

          7. Poles have been refusing them at their border, complaints about beastly waycism in our media…

          8. I think if they are ‘non-reflective’ that maybe a clue. But our idiotic border force will probably nod them through.

        1. Oh, I don’t know.
          Have you seen some of the pretty Ukrainian women. let alone the pretty boys.

      1. I’d pay to NOT have any of that lot in my home! Apart from which, virtually none of them are genuine refugees, and don’t deserve a penny of our taxes.

    2. Didn’t Neil Ferguson’s ten thousand line, bug-ridden, untested, single file of C code (cr)app say it was going to kill 1000000000000000 people? I expect we’re safe.

    3. I still cannot donate in blood in Canada, the rule is something like three months in the UK in the past fifty years.
      They have recently updated the rules to allow some Europeans to donate.

      1. I couldn’t donate here for about ten years because I’d had an op on my back and couldn’t prove I hadn’t had a blood transfusion.

    4. Just another reason, Plum, for Big Pharma to introduce a new mandatory vaccine gene therapy to enrich themselves a tad more.

    6. Ah, so after a Covid jab or five, or six, you get Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (predicted) and the powers-that-be say oh look, mad cow disease has been lying dormant in you since the outbreak in ’93.

          4. Yes, I knew that but he didn’t deal with a Slough of Despond. Anyway, Sue said “a Christian.”

    2. Because of the Mars factory?

      I rather agree with Come friendly bombs and drop on Slough, it isn’t fit for humans now….

      1. Zebra crossing

        Beatles fans still flock to the most famous zebra crossing of them all – the one that adorned the cover of the Fab Four’s Abbey Road album..

        1. I take the 139 bus along Abbey Road going to and from my hairdresser. I’m always surprised at how young the crowds around that zebra crossing are. The Beatles were long gone before those fans were born.

    5. NoTTlers you are far too smart….WTF are you doing here?
      Get out into the real world and put it to rights…..

      Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough!
      It isn’t fit for humans now,
      There isn’t grass to graze a cow.
      Swarm over, Death!

      1. New improved Omo wipes out Staines ….. and Slough ….. and Windsor ….. and Maidenhead …….. and, come to that, doesn’t do much good to Bagshot either.

        1. As a child I remember buying our young pullets from Slough…I loved the colourful markets and fish and chips for lunch….

      2. Come, bombs and blow to smithereens
        Those air -conditioned, bright canteens,
        Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,
        Tinned minds, tinned breath.

      4. I would fix it, only they won’t give me the source code.
        (programmer joke)

        We had the misfortune to live in Slough for a couple of years once. The best thing in it is the Mars factory! I spent the most fascinating evening of my life ever on a guided tour around the factory, watching Mars bars being made at the rate of about 3 million an hour. Brilliant!

  72. A Ponder

    How long will it take before a Ukranian immigrant is elected as an MP and Johnson puts ‘them’ in the Cabinet
    One consolation with that is
    There will be at least one Whitey, apart from The PM’s husband

  73. That’s me for this day of two halves. Lovely sunny morning; cloudy at 1 pm – rain at 4 pm – which will continue for several hours.

    It is said to be fine tomorrow – but who believes anything, these days?

    Have a jolly evening sloughing about.

    A demain.

  74. Putin may be many things but I doubt that he’s stupid.

    Putin is ‘planning a man-made catastrophe’ at Chernobyl: Ukrainian intelligence claims Russia will fake terror attack at nuclear plant and try to blackmail the world – as West warns Vladimir could use chemical weapons if invasion fails

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10602703/Putin-planning-man-catastrophe-Chernobyl-Ukrainian-intelligence-claims.html

    Why would he poison his own country?

      1. Indeed, and that alone suggests that this one is another load of old B iden ollocks

    3. Setting the scene for a ‘false flag’ event? Legacy media being drip fed ‘ideas’ from those who would be involved in such an event. Remember, the legacy media are strangers to the truth and well remunerated for spreading the government’s propaganda.

    4. Putin will do none of those things. Does Russia even have chemical weapons?

  75. The full scale of losses suffered by Putin’s armies are unknown, but Ukraine has claimed it has destroyed over 12,000 troops, 350 tanks, 80 helicopters, 125 artillery units, 1,150 personnel carriers and almost 60 planes

    A couple of things strike me about this.

    1 Ukraine is claiming unlikely successes.
    2 Russia is trying to cause minimum damage, Hell’s teeth they could have razed ANY city in the Ukraine.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10602157/Ukraine-Inept-Russian-tactics-baffle-military-experts.html

    1. “…they could have razed ANY city in the Ukraine.”

      Like they did with Grozny…

    2. Didn’t Lord Haw Haw broadcast reports that your army is finished, your troops demoralised, your planes shot down, your ships sunk, etc. etc. Plus ça change.

    3. The figures being claimed by Ukraine are reminiscent of the daily kill rates that were getting published by the USA during the Vietnam War.
      I hope they have a few CH-47’s on QRA.

    1. I’m faintly surprised that he managed to find that much level ground in Cinderford.

  77. I agree that the West is already at war (and has been for some time), but it’s against their own citizens!

    1. Hear, hear. When I read about the “vicious” tactics of the Russian police, I reflect on those of the UK police, the Australian and New Zealand thugs in police uniforms” and think – hmmm.

      I really HAVE gone, now. Drink in hand, thank God.

    1. Who really cares abo0ut what they think or what they do? Couple of PC bores.

    2. Why do you read such tosh? It’s much better for the blood pressure if you don’t!

    3. Despite all the evidence of ‘vaccine’ harms that has come to light and the criminal conspiracy behind ‘vaccine’ promotion has been laid bare this carrot top prize idiot and his moll still wishes to visit the poison on the peoples of the world.

      Who precisely gave this wanker a
      voice?

  80. The latest propaganda incontinence from Fox, this time: LIVE UPDATES: Russian forces have attacked dozens of health care centers in relentless war on Ukraine

          1. As they all appear to be singing from the same hymn sheet someone ought to offer them their on channel – YarooTube…..

    2. Hmm, actually of days ago I was told how Fox is a very reliable news source.

      Must depend on if people like the stories.

      1. Headlines make no difference to the content of their stories. Have you ever bothered to watch? I do every day and they are the most reliable and honest mainstream news source out their. Attention getting headlines are routine for the MSM and I’m sure toy know that.

    3. or

      Russian forces have attacked dozens of health care centers in relentless war on Convid

    1. Thanks, Herr Oberst, that’s a wonderful way to end my day. It’s put a smile on my face as I head for bed.

  84. Watching Mark Dolan….
    I am a woman, I have always been a woman. I have never wanted to be a man or fancied another woman. Yes, occasionally I do identify as a penguin but that is to take the piss out of all this BS. (After all that chocky cake- maybe I should identify as a piglet?)
    Personally, I don’t give a shit what these nutters want to think they are but trans people should not be in prisons, loos, changing rooms designed for men OR women. Edit- changing rooms for women should be just that; ditto loos and prisons. Same for men.
    And I am sick to death of this bollox being shoved in our faces all the time. Give it a bloody rest.
    I Am Woman I Am Strong….

    1. You put a man who thinks he’s a woman in a male prison. You put a woman who thinks she’s a man in a woman’s prison.

      You don’t let me into women’s prisons.
      You don’t let men into women’s changing rooms
      You don’t let men into women’s refuges.

      A man in a dress remains a man, and should be treated as a man – except medically, where his insanity can be properly indulged and he can wake up from the anaesthetic long before he should – ditto dentistry.

      Theey’re not special, not clever, they’re ill. People escapinng their lives into a fantasy that indulges their delusions. It doesn’t change biological fact.

      1. I am simply fed up with it all Wibbers. Just when you think the world cannot get more mad- it proves you wrong.

        1. Oh it can and it will. Madness seems endemic these days. Instead of addressing this madness for what it is with plain facts we are forced to indulge it.

          Sadly, the people forcing it are anti social, bitter, egotistical, spiteful and nihilistic.

    1. Oh, before I go, I should share this gem (from Ofcom) with you:

      Link FM fined for inciting violence and offensive content

      Ofcom has today imposed a financial penalty of £2,000 on The Pakistan Muslim Centre (Sheffield) Limited after our investigation found that its community radio station, Link FM 96.7, broke our broadcasting rules.

      On two occasions in December 2020, Link FM 96.7 broadcast a Nasheed – a piece of devotional vocal music – entitled “Jundallah”, meaning “Soldiers of Allah”. Our investigation found that this Nasheed, which was in Arabic, contained lyrics and imagery that amounted to an indirect call to action to encourage people to join a form of violent Jihad. It was therefore likely to encourage or incite violence or lead to disorder. The content also had clear potential to cause significant offence and we did not consider there to be sufficient context to justify its broadcast.

      Given the seriousness of these breaches, we have imposed a financial penalty of £2,000, payable to HM Paymaster General. We have also directed Link FM 96.7 to broadcast a summary of our decision on a date and in a form to be determined by Ofcom.

      Should have been shut down, those broadcasting it deported and the mosque sanctioned.

      1. What Conway said!

        Those responsible for deliberately attempting to ruin this nation by importing such dross should be flayed, flogged and chained in the sewers.

      2. Just imagine what the vicar of the Hyderabad church singing Onward Christian Soldiers would have received as punishment.

      1. Gawrsh, Mickey, I made a mistake! “Something not quite right here”, as Goofy used to say.

  89. We’ve allowed narcissistic eco martyrs to booby-trap our energy markets

    The market could easily solve the crisis now facing the West – if we let it

    JULIET SAMUEL

    The skittles are tumbling. Hedge funds that bet on growth are closing down. Central banks have gone back to the drawing board. Across Europe, factories and smelters are already being mothballed.

    Markets expected to absorb the Ukrainian war without much trouble, but, like Vladimir Putin, they hadn’t banked on sanctions. The correction is proving painful. Amid it all, there is one signal coming through loud and clear: the rocketing price of oil.

    There are few more powerful market signals than a price change. In normal circumstances, the response would be unambiguous. A high price means scarcity, which tells producers one thing: more, please!

    But these are not normal times and the oil market is not a normal market. For one thing, it is dominated by Opec. The cartel usually tries to keep prices relatively stable and respond to price rises by raising production, but its chief member, Saudi Arabia, has been in high dudgeon with the United States ever since a row over the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.

    The US wants Riyadh and its allies to ramp up production to offset price rises caused by the war. Normally, asking Opec to grab market share when prices are this high this would be an easy sell. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, however, is sulking. He won’t pick up the phone.

    Meanwhile, European gas markets have gone haywire at the prospect that Russian gas might be cut off, one way or another, over the coming months. Qatar, the biggest alternative prospect to Russia, has sold most of its gas to Asia and was until recently being investigated by EU authorities for alleged antitrust violations, making it understandably reluctant to increase production and send more shipments north.

    All of this adds up to a truly horrible prospect for Europe’s economy. An inflationary recession is on the way.

    The good news is that, in the absence of another shock, like an Israel-Iran war (God forbid), markets are capable of solving the problem. The bad news is that we seem to have forgotten how to let markets solve problems.

    Let’s start with the US. America’s mighty shale oil and gas producers have already proved that they can turn global markets upside down. Back in 2013, oil prices were around the same level they are today ($120 per barrel) and the received wisdom was that they could only go higher. According to the experts, $200 a barrel was a realistic prospect. Instead, a year later, the price had halved.

    What happened in the meantime was that the shale industry innovated. As prices fell, the US’s patchwork of new oil producers didn’t shut down, as many had expected. They worked out how to produce more cheaply. What followed was a dramatic price war waged by Saudi Arabia, as it increased production in an attempt to wipe out its upstart rivals. It was a contest that Riyadh lost.

    Today, once again, that $200 number is being bandied about. All things being equal, there is no good reason to think that things won’t play out much as they did before. US oil companies will produce more in response to high prices and Opec countries will conclude that they would be fools to let US firms reap all the benefits, so they will in turn raise production.

    Similarly, more and more American shale gas could be shipped to Europe to take advantage of the huge local price rises. The one major constraint on capacity comes from Europe’s gas terminals – the UK is the only country to have invested substantially in gas import capacity, one of the few successful elements of British energy policy over the last decade.

    So after serving the British market, the gas will need to flow east from here along pipelines to bail Europe out of its mess.

    Of course, there’s another piece to this puzzle, which bypasses the problem of import constraints: the UK’s own gas reserves. North Sea production is already on the rise, and could potentially increase further. And then there’s our own shale gas. Britain’s shale reserves haven’t been explored as extensively as America’s, so there’s still a lot of uncertainty over how much we can get out of the ground, but even a fraction of what’s there could potentially put a sizeable dent in European gas demand. According to Cuadrilla, the company trying to pull it off, the first gas could be flowing to British consumers within a year of getting equipment back on site.

    But as Cuadrilla’s trials demonstrate, there is a problem with this vision: Western governments have spent the last decade building up a forest of environmental regulation and restrictions designed to make it impossible. In the US, a series of drilling moratoria, regulatory restrictions and investor anxiety over climate change and government policy have made oil companies reluctant to turn on their drills in response to demand.

    In the UK, the combined forces of Nimby objectors, radical green protesters and do-good Davos men like Mark Carney have built a series of financial and political booby-traps around our last-resort, strategic resources.

    With impeccable timing, Extinction Rebellion has popped up again (how we missed them) to announce a new series of protests at oil refineries. We are hobbled by good intentions – and the narcissistic martyrs who parade under their banner.

    These green legions argue that we ought to focus all of our effort on building more renewables and improving energy efficiency. Yes, fine, let’s do both – and add a fleet of new nuclear plants into the bargain. But these measures aren’t enough alone. They say they want us to turn down the heating and drive at 55 miles per hour. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is meant to be the West’s response to Russian cluster bombs and economic ruin: voluntary self-impoverishment.

    It won’t wash, and the Government needs to understand that now. It is simply unacceptable, with Europe facing a war on its borders, a refugee crisis and the prospect of energy rationing or even blackouts, for our bureaucrats to tut their tongues and tap their clipboards and say: ooh, it’s shale gas you want? That’ll be 10 years, minister.

    The Conservatives used to understand that getting things done was the essence of competent government. But after over a decade in power spent failing to avert this catastrophe, it seems all they know how to do is pander.

    The absurdity is that if only they could at least remember how to get the government out of the way, markets would fix the energy problem for us.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2022/03/11/allowed-narcissistic-eco-martyrs-booby-trap-energy-markets/

    I’ve just listened to R4’s ‘Any Questions?’. The guests were Lord Adonis, the Brighton Pixie, Charles Moore and Jeremy Quin MP, the Minister of State for Defence Procurement.

    The question of fracking came up. You can guess the responses of the first three. Quin spun for a while and then appeared to come down against it ‘because of the science’, although he didn’t explain what that was.

    Lucas was appalling. It wasn’t just for her usual mantra of more renewables, greater energy efficiency and a windfall tax on the evil energy companies to relieve the burden on the poor but for a swipe at Charles Moore: “We should remind ourselves that he is (I think) on the board of the Global Warming Policy Foundation which is deeply critical of the very idea of climate change.”
    CM: “No I’m not and no it isn’t.”
    On she ploughed, oblivious and obsessed. My God, she can get under the skin.

    Moore also claimed that the capping of the Lancashire wells will not go ahead but I haven’t seen any confirmation of that.

    Listen here from about 31:40: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00154qk

    2. We won’t get any further until the great reset is publicly acknowledged as the pushing force behind these destructive policies and sanctions. But of course, that’s what the legacy media, funded partly from the usual suspects, won’t do.

      1. One has to wonder what will be the catalyst that destroys the wall of silence surrounding the legacy media. It appears that the recent horrendous revelations from the USA’s CDC re the Pfizer serum aren’t sufficient despite the deaths and maiming of thousands of people. Perhaps the strong rumours of a manufactured worldwide famine coming to fruition with untold millions dying will stir the latent consciences of some of those being paid to remain silent by governments? Is it a forlorn hope that a conscience even exists within these people?

        1. It is amazing how heartless people can be, if they are under the influence of a strong belief, for example, that the world is over-populated.

  92. Goodnight Y’all. I am wiped out so off to bed also.
    Tomorrow I shall wear my penguin sweater in solidarity with all the penguins who feel that they are misunderstood. (And yes, I do have a sweater with penguins on the front- knitted, you understand?)
    Thank goodness for a sense of humour and the absurd.

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