922 thoughts on “Tuesday 5 November: An instant flu jab at Boots is privatisation – and what is wrong with that?”

    1. Good morning to all NoTTLers. HOT NEWS JUST OFF THE PRESS: I am told that our good friend Grizzly has arrived in London. Bearing in mind that today is November the 5th expect to hear loud explosions and the smell of gunpowder in the vicinity of Westminster today. That’s telling those pesky politicians, Grizzly! More power to your elbow!

      2. If you get the chance tell him there’s a jar of my chutney waiting for him in Bonsall.

  2. Nigel Farage and Jeremy Corbyn have more in common than either will admit. WILLIAM HAGUE. 4 NOVEMBER 2019.

    For the Brexit Party to campaign against Conservatives therefore makes no logical sense. You can only understand it when you realise that Nigel Farage is more like Jeremy Corbyn than you ever imagined.

    Morning everyone. The Telegraph trashing of Nigel proceeds (it’s not even Premium for maximum coverage) unabated. They have nothing in common at all! They are as far apart on the political spectrum as it is possible to be. One is a real Conservative and the other is a Marxist ideologue. Here Hague conjures up a false parallel between Corbyn on Nuclear weapons and Farage on the EU. Qué? Never mind. I suppose it was only the headline that really mattered.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/11/04/nigel-farage-jeremy-corbyn-have-common-either-will-admit/?li_source=LI&li_medium=li-recommendation-widget

    1. Wee Willie Vauge joining the “get the man not the ball” attack is good news. Come on, who believes anything he says, this article written and approved by CCHQ I’m sure just shows how much Johnson and his EU loving colleagues are bricking it.
      (PS It is Premium on my screen)

      1. (PS It is Premium on my screen)

        Morning VVOF. Oddly enough it is on mine now! They must have read my post! Lol!

      3. They say that the first casualty of war is The Truth. It seems to be the case in the run-up to the December 12 General Election, too. I read all the “news” and opinion pieces currently on offer with a big pinch of salt.

    2. Morning Araminta.

      As the old saying goes – “you know you’re over the target when the flak increases”.

    3. I have noticed that Nigel has been under fire for the last few days. Few commentators have a good word to say for him. It is even worse than when he ran UKIP. It will backfire. The British (the English in particular) have a sense of fair play.

    4. I have noticed that Nigel has been under fire for the last few days. Few commentators have a good word to say for him. It is even worse than when he ran UKIP. It will backfire. The British (the English in particular) have a sense of fair play.

    5. I have noticed that Nigel has been under fire for the last few days. Few commentators have a good word to say for him. It is even worse than when he ran UKIP. It will backfire. The British (the English in particular) have a sense of fair play.

    6. I have given up reading Hague’s articles. His lobotomy has left him mentally deranged.

  3. One Last Try said last night:

    Netflix’s’The King’ is anti-French nonsense that flatters a war criminal, says director of Agincourt museum In accordance, with EU rules, the Battle of Agincourt will be refought’.

    All English and Welsh Bowman will have two fingers (you know which ones I mean) cut off their right hands, before the battle starts.
    Nowt changes the indomitable views of the French
    WWI lost
    WWII lost
    Vietnam Lost
    Rugby v Wales Lost
    Engand v RSA Referee won for RSA
    The French Resistance in WWII was the largest fighting force ever assembled in Warfare History (after 10/061944)

    I wonder what their reaction is to these “Legendary Quotes”

    ‘France has neither winter, nor summer, nor morals. Apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country. France has usually been governed by prostitutes.’ [Mark Twain]

    ‘I would rather have a German division in front of me than a French one behind me.’ [General George S. Patton]

    ‘Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion.’ [General Norman Schwarzkopf] My personal favourite.

    ‘We can stand here like the French, or we can do something about it.’ [Marge Simpson]

    ‘As far as I’m concerned, war always means failure.’ [Jacques Chirac, President of France]

    ‘The only time France wants us to go to war is when the German Army is sitting in Paris sipping coffee.’ [Regis Philbin]

    ‘You know, the French remind me a little bit of an aging actress of the 1940s who was still trying to dine out on her looks but doesn’t have the face for it.’ [John McCain, U.S. Senator from Arizona]

    ‘The last time the French asked for ‘more proof’ it came marching into Paris under a German flag.’ [David Letterman]

    ‘Only thing worse than a Frenchman is a Frenchman who lives in Canada’ [Ted Nugent]

    ‘War without France would be like World War II.’ [Unknown]

    ‘What do you expect from a culture and a nation that exerted more of its national will fighting against Disney World and Big Macs than the Nazis?’ [Dennis Miller]

    ‘It is important to remember that the French have always been there when they needed us.’ [Alan Kent]

    ‘They’ve taken their own precautions against al-Qaeda. To prepare for an attack, each Frenchman is urged to keep duct tape, a white flag, and a three-day supply of mistresses in the house.’ [Argus Hamilton]

    ‘Somebody was telling me about the French Army rifle that was being advertised on eBay the other day –the description was, ‘Never shot. Dropped once.” [Rep. Roy Blunt, MO]

    ‘The French will only agree to go to war when we’ve proven we’ve found truffles in Iraq ‘ [Dennis Miller]

    ‘Do you know how many Frenchmen it takes to defend Paris? It’s not known, it’s never been tried.’ [Rep. R. Blount, MO]

    Do you know it only took Germany three days to conquer France in WWII? And that’s because it was raining.’ [John Xereas, Manager, DC Improv]

    French Ban Fireworks at Euro Disney: – (AP), Paris, March 5, 2003…

    The French Government announced today that it is imposing a ban on the use of fireworks at Euro Disney. The decision comes the day after a nightly firework display at the park located just 30 miles outside of Paris which caused the soldiers at a nearby French Army garrison to surrender to a group of Czech tourists.

      1. Yes, I did. Also, the musician of colour’s instrument was a set of cymbals which requires great dexterity to play! :-))

      2. Ah, but the whole point of the French Foreign Legion was that the legionnaires weren’t French.

        1. Interesting – thanks for posting. Clearly The Battle of Camarón was their very own Alamo.

          1. …as was our own Battle of Cameroon in which 17.4 million of us defied the weak stripling posing as a David in 2016

            Bonjour Stephen.

        2. Is that the wooden hand that some French general (can’t remember his name) hurled into battle ahead of the army in Mexico?

        3. Their song is “Adieu, vieille Europe” – I think I’ll adopt it adapted as Adieu, vieille Union Européenne 🙂

    2. Perhaps a little unfair on our French friends – but hilariously funny, NoToNanny. Thanks for posting. I just love the Norman Schwarzkopf quote!

    3. I have seen the “Going to war without France is like going hunting without your piano accordion; all you leave behind is unnecessary noise and baggage.” quote before, but in that case attributed to Churchill – but then, so many quotes are attributed to him!!

      3. If you can’t remember who said what, Churchill or Shakespeare will usually get you off the hook. If you wish to show off, add Mark Twain and/or Groucho Marx.

    4. Thank you for a good laugh. Copied and distributed.
      (Ooops … I’m not a ‘good European’.)

      2. I am only “European” inasmuch as I am not Asian, African, Innuit, native American or Aboriginal.

    5. Yet HMG couldnt wait to suck US penis and rush to join in the invasion of Iraq after 9-11…..how has that worked out in the long term…the French made it clear the US was full of sh1t when the US said the Iraqis were behind 9-11, when every man and his dog knew it was the Bush family’s chums, the Saudis that allowed the attack to happen.

    6. Why are French country roads lined with tall trees? Because the German Army likes to march in the shade.

  4. The far right is far from a threat, Spiked. 4 November 2019.

    Take a recent piece in the Guardian. It cites a report by the UK’s Commission for Countering Extremism (CCE), and warns that the far right is ‘swooping on towns to exploit tensions.’

    But the actual report, Challenging Hateful Extremism, says nothing about such vulture-like acts by far-right groups. In fact, the one case in Sunderland, which is referenced by the Guardian, is covered in just a few paragraphs on page 72 of the 140-page report. It actually concludes that ‘tensions and the far right’s external influence have been reduced’ in Sunderland. Not one line of this makes it into the Guardian story, which instead asserts that ‘[far-right] activists turn residents against Muslims and [the] government fails to tackle them’. It claims Sara Khan, who leads CCE, concluded that ‘the government’s response to extremism has been “inadequate”, “unfocused” and urgently needed a complete overhaul’. Khan actually just says that ‘the current response is insufficient and too broad’.

    There is actually no far-right threat at all. Their numbers and appeal to the general public are so small that there’s a better chance of the Flat Earth Society taking over. The possibility of an Islamic coup on the other hand…

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/11/04/the-far-right-is-far-from-a-threat/

    1. Khan actually just says that ‘the current response is insufficient and too broad’.

      There’s something in this sentence that makes me uneasy about the level of bias expressed. Can’t quite put my finger on it but I’ll get there.

    2. Sara Khan is the boss of the CCE. She propelled herself into visibility in the same way as a cookery programme contestant or a footballer. I worry about the promotion of people who have no experience or training. They rise like shooting stars for no apparent reason. I cannot find her “Inspire”on the internet. (There seems to be dozens of organisations and charities called “Inspire”.)
      Sara Kahn is a pharmacist to trade. I do not trust these kind of appointments from nowhere, especially when they are so far from being mainstream British.

      ” In September 2005, after the London bombings, Khan sat on the Home Office’s Tackling Extremism and Radicalisation Working Group.. (Age 25 be it noted.)
      She worked as a hospital pharmacist and was president of an Islamic youth organisation before launching the Inspire charity in 2008″, when she was 28.
      From Wikipedia. (A useful tool, but as articles may be written by the subjects themselves, not always trustworthy.)

      The only thing in her favour, its that other muslims don’t seem to like her.
      As to the “Inspire” thing, who paid for it?
      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42807560

  6. Britain is divided. That’s why we need a hung parliament again. Polly Toynbee. 4 November 2019.

    Goodbye to this most remarkable of parliaments, dissolving all too aptly on Guy Fawkes night. For all the extremes of abuse hurled at them, it has harboured the bravest and best MPs, who have broken ranks to defend the country against a Brexit disaster, putting conscience and honour before party, tribe or personal career. This departing Commons should be remembered as the parliament of conscience.

    These MPs were fortunate in a Speaker who rose to the great constitutional crisis with the vision and effrontery to break traditions, to protect parliament’s sovereignty against an overreaching executive. With no Commons majority, Theresa May and Boris Johnson summoned unprecedented Henry VIII powers to try to sneak in shedloads of crucial legislation by statutory instrument, without votes. If taking back control was the purpose of Brexit, John Bercow seized it on behalf of citizens.

    Well aside from surreal alternative reality is Polly getting nervous about the possibility of a Labour Meltdown?

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/04/britain-divided-hung-parliament-proportional-representation

      1. You have to wonder Phil. It’s kinder to believe she’s simply a liar since the alternative is that she’s mad!

        1. With her extreme cognitive dissonance i can see in the not too distant future her having a complete melt down.

          Morning, Minty.

      1. I don’t think that, in the circles in which she moves and has her being, that she is out of step. It’s just the rest of the country that doesn’t march to the beat of her drum.

      2. I don’t think that, in the circles in which she moves and has her being, that she is out of step. It’s just the rest of the country that doesn’t march to the beat of her drum.

        1. I think it’s only if she stands and loses in a different constituency that she loses her right to the payment.

    4. I have to say Minty you are made of strong stuff venturing into Guardianistan. Were you perchance in the SAS? I do understand if you are prevented from disclosing the fact.

    7. Polly Toynbee is one of the daftest person around. No wonder she is a journalist as no one else would employ her

    8. For all the extremes of abuse hurled at them, it has harboured the bravest and best MPs, who have broken ranks to defend the country
      against a Brexit disaster,       putting conscience and honour before party, tribe or personal career. This departing Commons should be remembered as
      the parliament of conscience. traitors

      The peeple whom you praise are traitors.

      They have ignored the will of the country, colluded with the enemy, cost us £millions, made us a laughing stock, destroyed democracy, tried hard to give away what was left of our sovreignty.

      The list is endless and when the dust settles it will be seen to be for their personal gain.

        2. So what…remember c67ts like Hamilton….or even Thatcher who made sure her lad got to fill his boots..or Blair who made damn sure his lad ended up with a well filled ricebowl….

    9. ‘Morning, Minty, once again Toynbee gets it wrong “This departing Commons should be remembered as the parliament of conscience.”

      In my mind I shall always remember it as The Contemptible Parliament.”

      I suspect Toynbee is trying to write history before it is, and thinking she is the victor and is thus justified. Ha!

    10. “putting conscience and honour before party, tribe or personal career” What utter drivel! These “bravest” MPs lied to their constituents, turned their manifesto commitments through 180 degrees and actively pursued a policy counter to the democratic votes of 17.4 million people – I would argue that they put ego and personal career well before any other consideration and, as for the Squeaker … ! Anyway, since Polly is so old, surely she must be a Leaver??

    11. Doesn’t she mean “…have broken ranks to ignore their constituents’ requests “?

      Morning Minty

    12. Labour has dropped their candidate (for whom they were handing out leaflets the other day) for Shrewsbury just over a month before polling day. She’s a doctor in the NHS, ex-soldier and a very strong candidate. You couldn’t make it up! Daniel Kawczinski must be laughing all the way to the bank!

  7. Morning all

    SIR – Yesterday, I passed a Boots and popped in to see if it could provide a flu jab. The pharmacist offered it there and then (in a consulting room).

    Seven minutes later, I was back on the street fully inoculated on the NHS; no fuss, no appointment.

    Is this what Labour plans to abolish, with other treatments at NHS expense by independent companies?

    John K Nesbitt
    Lymington, Hampshire

    SIR – Labour promises to “remove all privatisation from the NHS”. Does that extend to private hospitals, private GPs, privately owned pharmacies, private patient transport services, private pharmaceutical companies and companies that provide the NHS with staff, life-saving equipment, clothing, dressings and food?

    The greatest existential threat to the NHS is now the Labour Party.

    Gary Hughes
    Waterlooville, Hampshire

      1. And it is the GP’s that are most vocal about privatising the NHS(Well they really mean Outsourcing)

        Whenever its is put to GP’s that they are private they waffle and try to pretend they are not. Given the GP service is a core function of the NHS you could make a very good case for bringing it in house

        Strangely Corbyn does not include GP’s when he comes up with how much of the NHS is outsourced

        The main things in the NHS that are outsourced are non core functions such as Security, Cleaning, Catering, General Maintainance

    4. One of the greatest existential threats to the NHS has always been the Labour Party. You cannot have unlimited immigration and still keep the NHS model designed for the stable, homogeneous society that existed in 1948 where treatment was reserved for those who paid in via their “stamp”.

  8. Morning again

    SIR – I retired four years ago as an NHS consultant surgeon. I kept a record of my hours spent with a pair of gloves on, actually doing the stuff that had taken almost two decades to get the hang of. I called it “gloves-on time”.

    I had a standard three lists a week, each of four hours. The total average “gloves-on time” came to six hours 
40 minutes. That’s about half the time an American surgeon spends operating. The causes are numerous, but they essentially come down to old-fashioned practices in a non-competitive market.

    Privatisation of the NHS, or some elements thereof, may be worth considering.

    Malcolm Binns
    Pontefract, West Yorkshire

    1. SIR – It is time to shoot the canard of privatising the NHS.

      The Labour policy is, as ever, to protect NHS staff from other providers. In this respect, it puts NHS staff ahead of patients.

      The Conservative view is to support the health of patients of the NHS by whatever means is affordable.

      If privatising means getting drugs or equipment from outside Britain, this is reality. It is up to NHS negotiators to obtain the cheapest possible prices.

      If private enterprises can do tasks at least as cheaply and effectively as more expensive elements of the NHS, this is to be applauded.

      Brian Parkhurst
      Dorchester

      1. T Labours approach is to keep the current NHS inefficiency and enhance them so the NHS becomes even less efficient

  9. When is this frightening mass delusion going to unravel as men and women realise they have been mercilessly cheated by the unscrupulous wealthy and corrupt science. There has never been a measure of any anthropogenic effect on the climate via an imagined infantile analogy with a greenhouse.

    SIR – In response to the letter on the Environment Bill (October 30), I would like to clarify that the Government has no intention of weakening current environmental protections as we leave the European Union.

    Britain is a global leader in environmental protections and already exceeds EU minimums. We were the first major economy to introduce legally binding emission targets – which go further than EU targets – and the Prime Minister has committed to review how we could bring a non-regression provision on environmental protections into British law.

    The Environment Bill provides a robust framework for maintaining and strengthening standards, creating an independent Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) and setting long-term, legally binding targets.

    The OEP will ensure that environmental standards are upheld and, through its independent scrutiny and advice, it will also monitor improvements in the natural environment.

    New targets set under the Bill will be legally binding and the Government will be held accountable if it fails to achieve them. Five-yearly interim targets, and regular reports and reviews will keep it on track.

    Finally, I must make it clear that environmental principles will be enshrined in law, through a policy statement that will show how they should be interpreted and applied.

    Our approach will go further than that of the EU, as ministers are legally obliged to consider the impact of all policy development on the environment, not just on environmental policy at a strategic level, as is currently the case.

    Our ambition is to ensure that vital protections for our landscapes, wildlife and natural assets are not only maintained, but enhanced.

    Rebecca Pow MP (Con)
    Environment minister
    London SW1

    1. Distant sound of champagne glasses…….

      “Destroying Britain from the inside was so much easier than we thought”.

    2. “Our ambition is to ensure that vital protections for our landscapes, wildlife and natural assets are not only maintained, but enhanced.”

      Well shut the ****** door then.

      Morning Epi.

    3. Our ambition is to ensure that vital protections for our landscapes, wildlife and natural assets are not only maintained, but enhanced.

      How does that claim chime with the provision of masses of solar panels and bird chomping windmills across our countryside and seascapes? Usual meaningless platitude from someone who is responsible for doing the exact opposite.

        1. It’s the economy stoopid! All that tax and NI they cough up… Then I woke up.

          Not applying to you, Anne, or any Nottler.

    4. “Britain is a global leader in environmental protections and already exceeds EU minimums.”

      I think that what Ms Pow means is that the British are global leaders in sheer gullibility.

      (Can’t be an original observation but Ms Pow certainly lacks the ‘wow’ factor)

      1. What she means is, “our civil servants gold plate all the EU regulations and add a few whistles and bells for good measure”.

    5. And who will be arrested if these targets are not met and what are the penalties for failing to achieve?
      Guff and time wasting virtue signalling.

    6. … the Government will be held accountable if it fails to achieve them.” – so, will Ministers and civil servants be personally fined and go to jail? Or will the government fine itself?
      Edit to add: vital protections for our landscapes, wildlife and natural assets – so, no more windmill parks then?
      Meaningless drivel.

      1. No more importing the equivalent of a city the size of Derby every year then, as said immigrants will have to be housed and that’s usually on greenfield sites.

  10. SIR – Why did retiring MPs elect a new Speaker? Surely that should have been the job of the incoming, newly elected MPs.

    The retiring committee of a club or society wouldn’t elect a chairman for an incoming committee.

    Peter Watson
    Sherborne, Dorset

  11. Mail to Mr R…

    It’s a shame about no Brexit…

    …but Brexiteers failed to engage the enemy and so the elephant in the room easily won…..

      1. I wonder if your down ticker sings grunts ‘Fol-de rol’!

        Grunting is probably all down-tickers are capable of.

        2. I have never down-ticked a post on the NoTTLers’ site though a certain lady, who seems to have disappeared, sorely tempted me to do so; I resisted the temptation in spite of her unprovoked abuse of many of us here. The best thing to do with personal abuse is to ignore it

          Since those who give up-ticks can be identified, why can’t down-tickers be identified in the same way?

          1. There was a phase about 2 years ago during which down-voters could be identified but the facility was removed after fervent protest.

      2. That’s very deep and cutting. Just remember Trolls have a job to do and they have feelings too.

  13. Good morning all from a grey & dull Derbyshire.
    After my diabetes retinopathy exam yesterday, in half an hour I’ll be heading to see the doctor regarding the blood test I had last Monday.

  15. Hope it hasn’t already been posted, but this letter tells and amazing and, ultimately, uplifting story:

    “SIR – On Sunday I will be marching past the Cenotaph carrying in my pocket my grandfather’s ID disc, which came back miraculously to his family 75 years after he was killed in North Africa.

    Lieutenant Commander Peter Meyrick RN died while commanding HMS Walney on November 8 1942 in the attempt to seize the Algerian port of Oran from the Vichy French during Operation Torch.

    The assault was a disaster. Of the 600 men who took part, 580 were killed or wounded, and both of the ships involved were blown up and sank in the port. Many gallantry awards were made, including a posthumous Victoria Cross.

    The ships lay where they went down, and the war went on around them. It was not until six years later that they were salvaged by the French navy. The skeletal remains of 25 of the crew were recovered from Walney and buried at the military cemetery in Oran, with guards of honour provided by the French and British navies. Because none of the bodies could be positively identified, the Admiralty did not inform any of the crew’s families of the discovery, as it was felt to do so would do more harm than good.

    Two years later, in 1952, my grandfather’s ID disc was passed to the Admiralty, having been recovered from the mud and debris in the ship. With, I regret, some cowardice, the Admiralty decided not to return it to his family because, they reasoned, no one had been told of the discovery of the bodies in the first place and to return it now would have required “considerable explanation”. Instead, the disc was consigned to a file with instructions for it to be put away for 25 years and destroyed in 2030. His widow, parents, brothers and daughter all died without ever knowing about it.

    In November 2017, as Peter Meyrick’s only surviving family, my siblings and I put an In Memoriam announcement in The Daily Telegraph to mark the 75th anniversary of his death. This was spotted by Roger Fryer, a 77-year-old former civil servant who had worked for the Royal Navy’s legal branch, and one of whose duties was to trace next of kin.

    Ten years previously, he had found the Admiralty file and ID disc for sale in a militaria fair. They aroused his professional interest, so he bought them and set about looking for my family, with no success. The announcement finally gave him his breakthrough and, having been put in touch by The Daily Telegraph, he and I had a very moving meeting a couple of weeks later at which, with quiet satisfaction on his part and enormous gratitude on mine, he was able to hand over a very precious and poignant token of the grandfather we never knew.

    It is at once a tragic and uplifting story that invites so many questions, but I shall carry the ID disc with great pride on Sunday and give thanks for this remarkable serendipity and Roger’s tenacity in returning it to my family.”

    Timothy Martin
    Ipswich, Suffolk

    1. Good to know some do care, despite the then cowardice of the Admiralty.

      I often wonder where my Father’s WWI and WWII medals have got to. They include a Mons Star and Bar.

  17. Of our total trade the EU accounts for about 10%. If we take export trade the EU is about 43% but that includes the Rotterdam affect. Trying to find a firm figure seems to be impossible but most estimate put it at about 10% so that 43% to 38.7%. THe long term trend is EU trade is declining year on year whilst the rest of the world trade is increasing year on year

    1. It’s worth pointing out that back in 1975 it was 88% – and that was to FIVE other EEC countries.

    2. Good morning Bill and everyone.
      Yes but the elite of the UK Public Sector does very nicely thank you out of Brussels. Plenty of Directives lead to increased bureaucracy and excellent opportunities for empire building.

  18. Morning all.
    Talking of things never seen before, I was looking out of a bedroom window a few minutes ago, watching a magpie trying to pick at what looked like a bunch of leaves. Only the leaves kept jumping on their own. Got my binoculars and It turned out to be a frog and the magpie was grabbing it by the leg and pulling at it. Is this usual behaviour does anyone know?

    1. Trained by Chris Packham. A local vet told me that he once watched a pack of magpies hunting along a hedgerow.

      1. Morning, Belle.
        It’s that time of the year.
        All our sensible birds have gone South. One or two daft buggers left.

      2. Good morning Belle
        They’re not struggling for food in our garden they’ve eaten almost 20kg of sunflower hearts in the last few weeks. Mainly Goldfinches, Siskin’s including greenfinches, blue and great tits, dunnocks etc. The wood pigeons and magpies wait underneath the feeders to pick up the pieces.

    3. Yes it most certainly is, Magpies will eat small animals.
      Birds such as Owls will also eat weaker siblings in the nest,
      I saw the such on Springwatch a few years back, a baby
      owl swallowed his weaker sibling whole.. it was awful to
      see but that’s the reality of nature.

      2. Thank you for that. I’ve just never seen it before.
        Some years ago at a National Trust property a mallard was trying to mate with a duck and kept dive bombing the female. A woman came running along flapping her arms and generally screaming at the mallard trying to stop him doing what comes naturally. She kept telling him to stop. It was really quite funny to watch! Silly lady.

          3. So are toads, we once had hundreds of them breeding in
            in our pond once, the water was bubbling with them
            jumping upon each other. It was quite repulsive actually.

          7. I’ll take your word upon that Mr Viking,
            Yet I’d surmise human orgies don’t take place
            within open garden ponds.

    4. Magpies will eat anything that moves, or doesn’t move. I’ve seen one killing and flying off with a pied wagtail. Frogs are just another item on the menu.

  19. The Government has responded to the petition you signed – “Rule out any prospect of granting an amnesty on illegal immigration”.

    Government responded:

    We cannot rule out any means of implementing the Prime Minister’s proposal to look at our arrangements for undocumented individuals that have been here for a long time.

    There are already several options available for those who have been in the UK for a long time to regularise their status. Adults who can demonstrate that they meet suitability requirements under existing private life rules (ECHR Article 8) must demonstrate they have lived in the UK continuously for 20 years; young adults must demonstrate they have spent half their life in the UK; and those under 18 should have lived continuously in the UK for seven years and it would not be reasonable for them to leave. There is also provision for those who do not meet requirements in exceptional circumstances. Alternatively, the family life rules enable families to regularise their status where there is a qualifying partner or child (British or lived continuously in the UK for at least seven years) and it is unreasonable to expect family life to continue outside the UK or for the child to leave.

    It is not possible to know the exact number of the illegal population in the UK and so we do not seek to make any official estimates on this. Exit checks introduced in April 2015 will, over time, provide more detailed insights into the behaviour of migrants and how they comply with immigration rules. However, the data obtained do not provide the total number of illegal migrants currently in the UK and as such information on how many individuals have entered the UK illegally is not available.

    The Government remains committed to an immigration policy which welcomes and celebrates people here legally, but which deters illegal immigration, prevents the abuse of benefits and services, removes immigration offenders and foreign national offenders from the UK and disrupts the organised crime groups that prey on the vulnerable.

    Home Office.

    This is a revised response. The Petitions Committee requested a response which more directly addressed the request of the petition. You can find the original response towards the bottom of the petition page (https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/266925)

    1. Morning, Mags, I was notified this morning that all uncompleted petitions will be deleted tomorrow evening after Parliament is dissolved.

      Here is the full e-mail.

      You recently signed the petitions:

      Force a National General Election
      https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/264215

      Stop Postal Votes except for the elderly and disabled
      https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/258370

      Because of the General Election, the closing date for the petitions you signed has changed. All petitions now have to close at 00:01am on 6 November. This is because Parliament will be dissolved, which means all parliamentary business – including petitions – will come to an end until after the election. This means the petitions site will be closed and people will not be able to start or sign petitions.

      We’re sorry we weren’t able to give you more notice that this would happen.

      The petitions will be available for people to read on the site even though it will be closed for signatures. These petitions won’t be reopened after the election.

      The Government can’t respond to petitions during the election period. This means if any of the petitions has over 10,000 signatures, they can’t receive a response from the current Government after 5 November. After the election, the new Government will have to decide whether it wants to respond to petitions from before the election.

      The current Petitions Committee, the group of MPs who decide whether petitions are debated, won’t exist after 6 November. This means that if any of the petitions has over 100,000 signatures, they can’t be scheduled for debate during this Parliament. After the election, there will be a new Petitions Committee, and they will be responsible for deciding which petitions are debated.

      The petitions site will open again after the election, but at the moment we don’t know exactly when. You can follow us on Twitter @HoCPetitions for updates, or check back on the petitions site for news if you prefer.

      Ahead of the General Election on 12 December, make sure you’re registered to vote. You can check whether you’re eligible to vote and find out how to register at: https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote. The deadline to register to vote is Tuesday 26 November.

      Many thanks,
      The Petitions team
      UK Government and Parliament

      1. Parliament dissolved tonight, eh? Good, Execute BREXIT at 03:00 on 6th, and let the whiners whine!

        1. Nice thought, Paul, if only Boris would try but he’s too windy and wants his May WA MkII to be accepted by the new Parliament.

          We can only hope for enough genuine Brexiteers (Conservative and BP) to hold his feet to the Yule Log.

    2. The question should not be about personalities – it should be about Brexit.

      Is Johnson correct when he says that he has negotiated a ‘fantastic deal’ with the EU? Or is Nigel Farage correct when he claims that the Boris ‘deal’ is not Brexit at all and will enslave Britain to the EU for the foreseeable future?

      If Boris Johnson is correct then Nigel Farage should support him; but if Boris Johnson is lying and has just reproduced 95% of Mrs May’s WA then Nigel Farage should fight him with every fibre of his being.

      What a shame that we do not have an MSM which is capable of – or even interested in – assessing each side of the argument objectively.

      1. It’s interesting how the DT has gone all anti-Farage. It’s almost as though they are positioning themselves to be bought up by a globalist.

      2. We know Doris is BRINO and Farage is BREXIT.

        It’s the referendum in sheep’s clothing…..BAAA

      3. I am sure Nigel Farage would like to prolong the Brèxit
        discussion for as long as possible as he feels it makes
        him relevant, fits into his ego.
        How he can accuse Boris Johnson of arrogance is beyond
        be, how a party that has only existed for a few months
        can use bullying and,gangster tactics and accuse
        others of arrogance is beyond me. The fact is Nigel Farage
        is relevant within his own little bubble,
        never forget how he stabbed UKIP in the back calling
        colleagues and donors he’d known for years racists.
        Speaking of donors, a few more have stopped supporting
        Nigel Farage and are now supporting Boris Johnson .
        Delaying Brèxit and allowing Corbyn to stop Brèxit isn’t an option .

        1. Why is the “e” in Brexit still coming out as è – when all your other “e” letters are unaccented?

          Just asking out of interest.

        2. Did you read my first sentence?

          “The question should not be about personalities – it should be about Brexit.”

        3. Aethelfled – So many of your comments are good, but you seem to have a blindfold on when it comes to Nigel Farage. Did he wrong you in a former life? Where does this unquestioning love and belief in Boris come from? His Withdrawal Agreement paves the way for slavery to the EU in the short term, and being dragged into full membership of the EU in the long term. Boris will give the Remainers time to overturn the referendum result.

          I have a great love for the United Kingdom, and I love it’s past as well.

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f97c10ab7a7c2805923e2e8a24e41518127d7165cc2d10cb6ce90e8fc744c99d.jpg

          I feel like a Druid who is trying to warn a local leader about the dangers of this Legate Boris who has honeyed words but is, at the end of the day, an officer of Rome. Whatever he says, our people the Celts have suffered badly under their rule.

          This betrayal we are being deceived with will hand over our lands to an invader and will see our people punished more harshly than they have ever known in peacetime. We Druids have seen the future, and our nations future will be to be occupied by Rome for many years, and our order itself will end on the Isle of Anglesey, if this agent is not driven away.

          It is time to follow a leader who wants Albion to be free, not under the heel of Rome. Or this dark future will come to pass.

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0ab5c90e4eca4ae29cd0b08670c5281aed76b45081ed87b40c8b289ba954406d.jpg

  22. BBC Radio 4 News reporting this morning that a possible postal strike in December could affect postal voting.

      1. Labour were going to do badly anyway with their party splitting all over the place. What a revealing outcome into voting fraud it would be if Labour suddenly lost an additional 50 seats, even more than their worst fears, because of this strike.

        The very thought of that should get the Unions calling off that strike at the double. They don’t want Labour to be forced to rely on real votes.

        But even if the postal system were shut down, Labour activists would fill in all of the postal votes anyway. They are getting good at it after all of the practice that they have had.

    1. The claim – unsubstantiated – is that it would be the Tory Party, on the basis that the elderly are more likely to vote Tory and vote by post. Given that universal postal voting was introduced by Labour, I’d take that claim with a pinch of salt.

    2. Probably it would damage the Conservatives most, as the muslim block vote is a local city based thing which can be arranged rather like a cash-and-carry operation (like a Bookers wholesale with lots of Asian shopkeepers making trips).

  24. I did not go looking for this, it just happened to be on one of the BBC pages. “Bideford’s ‘Little White Town’ signs set to be changed.”
    What I find objectionable is that the complainants (there may only be one) remain anonymous. Yet the cowards on the council have moved immediately into Pavlov dog mode, responding to accusations of “racism” that have not been made, merely suggested.
    Sensible suggestions made to councils in a proper manner, by people who put their name to them, hit the waste paper bin before the postman has left the building.

    Is there never any chance that a council will defend our history, our traditions and our freedoms by telling the self-appointed arbiters of everything to go and get lost?

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-50289553

    1. Horace – I think the “Little” is more offensive than “White” There are some in Parliament and elsewhere who could take umbrage at “little”

      1. Has the time come to question every descriptive term, every noun and every adjective?
        What was the word in “When dinosaurs ruled the Earth”? “Akita” for everything?

      1. Are you referring to dwarves, midgets, elves, pygmies, gnomes, or just shortarses in general?

          3. I thought that was a problem induced by an overdose of small blue pills? (I’ve seen pictures of the pills, I hasten to add)

    2. That’s in poor taste! Good morning Rik!

      Dog lovers are something else in that part of the world.

  27. We had our flu jabs in our little village chemist nearly 2 weeks ago . They are a small Boots branch. We took that decision because WE KNEW our local surgery would be crowded , and fretful, with people with coughs colds and goodness knows what else.

    The chemist shop took the strain off the surgery which is responsible for about five villages!!

    1. It takes the strain on the GP surgery and saves the NHS money. If you use the GP it will be probably a phone call to the GP then they will write to you to tell you when your appointments is which will probably be at an inconvenient time and then they will probably cancel the first apointment

      1. At my surgery we are informed by letter of a day to attend, given an alternative if needed, and then we turn up at any time within the time allotted. There are many staff on hand to administer the jab and record it on the records. It is all very efficient and in my experience there is very little waiting time

        1. There is a lady close to me who cannot drive anymore, and I drove her down to get her jab. The surgery car park was full so I said I’d be across the road in the supermarket there. She was in and out before I had gotten out of the car to keep a look-out for her.

          1. “Only a little prick.”
            Nowadays they use the word “scratch” which is not synonymous.

    2. My group practice put out an email asking for people, if they had booked, NOT to go to a pharmacy. Apparently last year they had jabs left because of NoShows.

    3. In addition to the jabs being available in doctors offices and chemists our lot organise flu clinics in most towns – just show up, show your health card and you get done there and then, no waiting, no appointments needed.

      No matter where you get the shot, the provider bills the government health insurance plan.

  29. We won’t control our fishing.

    Nigel is being a bit disingenuous here. As he states below this is just in the political document which is not legally binding at all . One of Nigel’s dislikes about Mays deal was the wording about the back stop was just in the political document meaning the EU could keep us in. He now seems to be trying to play it the other way

    Now the EU will for sure will try to get access to our fishing grounds as a part of a trade deal. IT is up to us as to whether we give them some access to them. It would be the same with the so called no deal as with Free trade negotiations they would no doubt want to try to gain some access to our fishing grounds

    Negotiations are always a two way thing

    The dreadful Common Fisheries Policy continues in UK waters during the extendable transition period, but we will have no say in it (Article 130). That means huge foreign trawlers plundering our waters at the expense of our coastal communities. After the transition, the Political Declaration (PD) signs us up to sharing ‘access to water and quota shares’ (PD, paragraph 73) – which equals continued EU exploitation of UK fishing grounds.

    1. “The dreadful Common Fisheries Policy continues in UK waters during the extendable transition period, but we will have no say in it (Article 130). That means huge foreign trawlers plundering our waters at the expense of our coastal communities. After the transition, the Political Declaration (PD) signs us up to sharing ‘access to water and quota shares’ (PD, paragraph 73) – which equals continued EU exploitation of UK fishing grounds.”

      As I have pointed out to Bertie Armstrong of of the Scottish Fishermen’s Association, and repeatedly pointed out to my MP.

  30. Farage faces walkout as 20 Brexit Party candidates suddenly QUIT

    Nigel needs to change his approach and drop his demand on Boris going for No deal. He would then stand a good chance of reaching a deal with the conservatives

    NIGEL FARAGE is facing a party walkout already as 20 Brexit Party candidates have suddenly quit over the party leader’s dismissal of Boris Johnson’s deal.
    A Brexit Party Party source said: “There is a lot of grief out there. It has been going on all summer. It is not good but it is life.”

    1. You mean the Tory plants are being deployed??
      2/3rds of MP;s are remainers,I can put up with 20 out of six hundred candidates being idiots

      1. Morning Rik,
        Let us keep in mind that a great many of those
        making up the brexit group, were in the recent past and for years supporting & voting for parties as in lab/lib/con that had been building a nation
        fit to accommodate mass uncontrolled immigration and all the evil consequences.
        This is NOT an anti Brexit group post.

      2. Rik – you are absolutely right. If these candidates think that Boris’s surrender document, that ties us under EU legal control for the next 11 years, is okay, then they should not have been in the Brexit Party in the first place.

        Much better to get rid of them now than after they have stolen a real Brexit MP’s seat. We are going to need as many seats as possible to give us a chance to be clear of the EU by the end of the year. If Nigel does send out that leaflet to every household showing them just how this W/A will hamstring the United Kingdom, then it will be Labour and the Conservatives who have fewer votes than Farage will.

        The majority of us want to be free of the EU. Dropping the W/A is definitely the right thing to do.

    2. Why must he change his approach. I have a sitting Conservative MP who voted 3 times for May’s surrender deal. Don’t try to tell me I should now accept the option of continuing to give the Bar steward my vote.
      This argument you and others like you are advocating will just see Brexit die a slower death at the hands of Johnson and his cronies.
      My mantra is simple, NEVER TRUST A TORY REGARDING THE EU. If you asked yourself why Johnson never made any attempt for example to kill the Benn act, no filibustering or withholding Royal Assent, you may become as suspicious as me and decide he is in the same mould as Cameron and May.

  31. had to laugh over one set of results in the vote for the Speaker. There were two spoilt papers

    1. ZH reported a few days ago that a top US Pathologist had concluded that his neck injuries were commensurate with the injuries associated with someone who has been strangled.

      Another possible explanation is that some folk believe he is still alive and has a trove of black arts material that some folk would rather it didn’t see the light of day.

  34. Just back from dentist. Never met the chap before – a Sarf Efrican. So I began by congratulating him – and he was magnanimous. We then spent the next twenty minutes in a partly one-sided conversation about the ills of modern rugby. His beef was the time wasted when penalty kicks are taken… His description of the kicker having a chap bring him water, then another chap bringing the tee thingy, then how the kicker combs his hair, has another drink, spits etc etc made me larf – and it isn’t often one larfs with a drill going strong!

      2. How did you use to bore them to death? Tell them how much you loved Laurence Oliver’s portrayal of dentists in Marathon Man?

        1. That subject came up occasionally. I used to entertain them with jokes based on the situation & repartee in England & Germany, but it was difficult to squeeze a laugh out of a Swede. Even the Russians had a good sense of humour.

          1. The Russians and Germans should be our allies, Saxon and Viking. I visit Ukraine and I’ve never had any cultural problems, just hit it off from the off. English fans visiting Russia in last year’s world cup thought it was brilliant. Being the top two nations for getting pi$$ed maybe helps. Doing an impression of Laurence Olivier in Marathon Man would have been funnier!)))

          2. The Russians and Germans should be our allies, Saxon and Viking. I visit Ukraine and I’ve never had any cultural problems, just hit it off from the off. English fans visiting Russia in last year’s world cup thought it was brilliant. Being the top two nations for getting pi$$ed maybe helps. Doing an impression of Laurence Olivier in Marathon Man would have been funnier!)))

    2. It appears that John Simpson has trouble with both the concept of democracy and basic maths – Leave won a majority (not “almost exactly 50-50”!!) in a well supported referendum! I bet the little hypocrite wouldn’t have mentioned a 2/3 majority if Remain had won 52-48!!

  36. Lindsay Hoyle apparently confirmed on the Today programme that he intends bringing back the Speaker’s wig.

    1. Good day, young sailor.

      If you want to see how progressive the Conservative Party is in Broadland, the seat of the Noted Historian – have a shufti at the website:
      https://www.broadlandconservatives.org.uk/ No mention of any selection process; no “news” more recent than before Easter.

      If this is typical of the way local consitutency associations are run – no wonder they are in deep shyte.

        1. I did – I also asked to be kept informed about the selection process.

          You can guess the outcome………..

  39. Another DT BTL Comment:

    Matthew Biddlecombe 5 Nov 2019 10:10AM
    I fervently hope that yesterdays’ events in the Commons marks the beginning of a new era in our politics. Despite all the fawning that went on last week over John Bercow’s last day as Speaker, there won’t be very many people outside the Westminster bubble who will miss him; indeed, I expect him to be on the summit of many organisations bonfires tonight! With many MPs not seeking re-election (many of whom have tried to destroy Brexit for the past three-and-a-half years) the opportunity is there to get replacements who will honour the referendum result.

    However, what do we do about those MPs who trashed the referendum result and their manifesto of 2017? There have been many arguments here over the past few days about what Nigel Farage and The Brexit Party should do revolving around whether they should contest every seat or to target certain ones. One assumes that, as a fledgling party, resources are limited; indeed, I’d be amazed if they had the funds to properly fight every seat in the country, therefore fighting seats where the sitting MP has a large majority seems to me to be suicide. Likewise, fighting seats north of the border is also a waste of resources.

    Local associations have been notoriously slow to remove MPs that trashed their manifesto, in particular the Tory ones. I fervently hope that someone in TBP will study the English constituencies between now and 14th November (the date when those wishing to stand have to have their candidacy registered) and ask two questions of each one. Firstly, has the sitting MP voted according to their manifesto and secondly, is he/she sitting on a majority that realistically could be overturned? If the answers are no and yes respectively, then this is where Farage should be targeting his resources. I’ve been full of admiration for Farage and his never ending quest to get a referendum; indeed, if it were not for him we would never have had the referendum in the first place, but he now stands at a crossroads.

    Farage could walk away from politics tomorrow and be remembered as someone who did great service to this country; however should he try fighting this election in every constituency there is a great danger we will end up with, at best, a Lab/LibDem/SNP coalition or at worst a Corbyn led Labour government. Farage’s reputation will then be utterly destroyed and he will forever be remembered as the man who, on one hand gave us the opportunity to leave the EU but then on the other took us over the cliff and destroyed it.

    Many are saying here that the solution is simple; if TBP stand in every constituency, then vote for the best person to deliver Brexit. However, this won’t change the dynamics; the vote will still be split leading to a Labour or LibDem candidate winning via “the back door”. The proof of this is easy to see by looking at the results of the two most recent by-elections (Peterborough and Brecon & Radnorshire) where the Conservatives would almost certainly have won comfortably had there only been one candidate standing.

    It is to be hoped common sense will prevail amongst the leaders of Conservative and TBP between now and 14th November. TBP must put their resources into fighting leave supporting Labour held constituencies where disaffected voters wouldn’t dream of voting Conservative. The LibDem stance of not accepting any referendum vote to leave has closed that avenue for Labour voters as well, so their are riches their to be gained. They should also go for those like Philip Hammond, and others, who blatantly ignored their manifesto having got elected last time out, though I appreciate Theresa May’s Maidenhead seat might be one Tory seat too far.

    Farage has the opportunity to leave politics with his head held high in the coming weeks. I hope he takes that opportunity and is remembered for the good he’s done.

    1. That is a very long-winded way of saying “If you vote for the Brexit Party you will get Labour or a coalition.” The same thing that we will hear repeated constantly between now and election day. He even went as far as to mention the Peterborough and Brecon & Radnorshire election where the Conservatives did not even try to win and stood a “discredited” candidate.

      “Farage’s reputation will then be utterly destroyed and he will forever be remembered as the man who, on one hand gave us the opportunity to leave the EU but then on the other took us over the cliff and destroyed it.”

      No, no, no. It is the corrupted pro-EU MP’s who are keeping us chained to them. We voted to Leave and they are stopping us from doing so. Voting for the same people who will not let us leave now, is ensuring that we stay in the EU. This letter writer cannot blame Farage for the corruption of Remainer MP’s.

    2. MB’s suggestion is one I agree with. Nigel must use his commonsense and fight the election tactically. Boris should cooperate otherwise the election result could be a disaster for Brexit.

      1. I see the broad point, but what if Boris will point-blank not drop the Withdrawal Agreement, which I do not think that he will? I have a Liberal in a Blue Rosette as my Conservative MP and I want to be able to vote for a Leaver.

        If our country does go down under this Withdrawal Agreement, then I want to know that I voted for us to be free. Not pick the “lesser of two evils” which is still picking evil.

  40. Nuffield Trust

    A balanced view and not Corbyn’s scaremongering. Corbyn is just talking total nonsense

    Could the NHS be the price of a US trade deal?

    After President Donald Trump told a press conference in London this week that the NHS could form part of a future trade deal between the UK and the United
    Donald Trump caused a collective intake of breath across the UK when he told a press conference that the NHS would be “on the table” in trade talks with the USA. It sparked furious reactions from opposition parties, hurried denials from assorted Tory leadership contenders, and eventually a characteristic self-contradiction from the American president himself.

    Selling off the family silver?

    Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth made his concerns clear, saying that “if our NHS is taken over by US corporations, it will undermine it as a free, universal public service.”

    Could it really happen? No. A trade deal would not have the power to stop the NHS being a free, universal service. Trade deals focus on removing barriers to companies accessing markets already available in other countries, and protecting the interests of investors in other countries. They do not redesign the funding of public services. Trade agreements that the USA has already concluded with smaller countries with publicly funded health systems, like Australia, do not contain anything like this.

    A less drastic interpretation of this concern is that a trade deal would allow US companies to bid to provide clinical services funded by the NHS, competing with NHS trusts. This looks more plausible, because government procurement of services is frequently covered by trade deals.
    But US companies already have these rights. The English NHS has increased the role of competition and private companies over the last 15 years, and that has included laws that guarantee private companies the right to compete for contracts.

    Those rights are further backed up by the EU’s Public Procurement Directives as long as the private company has a branch or subsidiary in the EU – and they are unlikely to try treating patients without one.

    US companies have taken full advantage. For example, Tennessee-based Acadia Healthcare owns many mental health services in the UK, including the Priory group that has won many contracts from the NHS.

    Only 7% of English NHS spending goes to private companies, and this figure hasn’t been rising recently. Still, that is equivalent to around £9 billion each year. The rules do not apply to the Scottish or Welsh health services in the same way, because they do not run their health services on the basis of contracts. But if they ever decided to start outsourcing, EU law – which will stay on the statute books by default after Brexit – would kick in to guarantee companies the same rights.

  41. None of pledged starter homes built, says watchdog

    What politicians claim to deliver and what they actually deliver are two very different things. In most cases they have neither the land or funding to build them

    A government plan to create 200,000 new homes in England for first-time buyers has resulted in no homes being built, the National Audit Office has found.
    Announced in 2014, “starter homes” were meant to be aimed at those under the age of 40 and sold at a 20% discount.
    But legislation to take the project forward was never passed.
    Labour called the policy a total failure, but the government said it had a “great track record” for house building.
    Former prime minister David Cameron committed to the scheme in the 2015 Conservative Party manifesto as a way of tackling the affordable housing crisis.
    The project was also supposed to support the wider growth and regeneration of local areas, and some town centres.

    1. I assume that “the great track record” means that a Government department has been established with close pals in charge?

    1. There is a saying “If he/she had brains he/she would be dangerous”. Well, she has no brains, but she is very dangerous.

        1. Good grief, Duncan, your Bible is written in Latin. Mine is written in (King James’) English. What do you mean?

          5. As I’ve explained before, when King Seumas VI sent out his “authorised” version in English, the copy he sent to my people must have gone astray in the post, so we have to rely on St. Jerome’s Biblia Vulgata.

            Here’s a translation:

            “A foolish woman and clamorous, and full of allurements, and knowing nothing at all.”

            N.B. the ‘allurements’ referred to are clearly not of a sexual nature, but promises of some reward!
            ;¬)

          6. Here’s a slight, and if I may say so more appropriate translation from the Web:
            “A foolish woman is clamourous: she is simple, and knoweth nothing.

          7. Hmm, I would describe that as an interpretation of the verse, rather than a translation, Stephen.

    2. I do not watch “live news” at all now, and I won’t until after the election. I record it so that I can “fast forward” through the 90% of waffle and lies. But I have been skipping anything that Jeremy Corbyn, Tony Blair, Brown, Clark, Chukka, etc. for years anyway, so it is just an expansion of that policy.

      It does mean that I can get through the evening news in only 5 minutes or less these days, which frees up some time.

      1. The only reason my Television is in one piece is because I gave up watching the “News”….

    2. Did I not read a while back that the Police / CPS were no longer bothered with Shoplifting (Stealing) where the value of the goods stolen is less than £200?

  45. The LGGBT brigade are confusing themselves and arguing over terminology

    One school of thought say a Transman has a Front Hole but if it is a Transwoman it is a Vagina

  46. The thought of the day, brought to you today by Phizzee.

    An uptick can mean more than one thing.

    Have you thought about that?

      1. That’s the point. Think before you uptick as thoughtless up ticking may cause offence, either way.
        Now there is another question, is it uptick or up tick? That could be tomorrow’s thingy to think on.

          1. I think you could be right, but you know what your mum told you, about thoughting, you thought wrong. As I told you in my reply to your comment, I’m thinking on it. Thinking means thinking, not just saying the first thought that comes to mind. Think on that.

      2. BTW it wasn’t me who downticked you. Only one way to prove that, here have another down tick! We can do downticks on Wednesday or Thursday.

    4. It irritates me when people do not use the full saying, “Where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.”

      1. ‘Morning, BoB, sorry about the irritation but I only required that part of the quote – it obviously fell on (deaf ears) blind eyes, here.

        I’ll edit and put in ellipsis

      2. I still have the image in my mind from a volume of The World of The Children, a four set encyclopedia from the 50s.

        That proverb was illustrated by a drawing of a girl playing with a rag doll in a happy world of her own. Then another drawing. Her brother has arrived with a pair of scissors to enlightnen himself about the doll. He leaves with his scissors and the knowledge he sought, with the girl in floods of tears as she holds her doll with the belly slit open and the stuffing falling out.

        1. The World of the Children. 4 Green bound volumes. Very well written too.
          I also had Arthur Mee’s Children’s Encyclopedia.

          1. I still have the 15 volume “Childcraft” books, somewhat battered, that my parents bought in 1954. Unfortunately the “Enquire Within upon Everything” disappeared when my parents moved house.

          2. I also remember the recipe for black powder from it, so that we could make our own fireworks at home.

          4. I saved up the box tokens….took ages….to get the ‘Weetabix Wonder World Atlas’…..does that count……

    5. That should be the adopted as the NTTL motto or better still the full saying, otherwise one might get classified as an irritant.

      1. If it bugs you so much that you leave snide and sarky comments, why do you come here? I know the site is full of repetitious blether about Brexit, but I am able to let it ride for the sake of the amusing, enlightening and cat picture comments.
        Give it a rest, FGS.

          3. I don’t know a Robert Catt, but the bigger of our two (imaginatively called “Big”) is about 9 kg. Pure muscle and fluff, so he is.

        4. To wind you middle class tossers up as you go around and around in ever decreasing circles.
          But you see the snide and sarky comments going one way, only. You mods will ignore the bullying and swearing if it is aimed at somebody not in your little cliques. What did you do about the psychological gang pressing of ogga1 yesterday evening? Nothing. The swearing at me? Nothing. Not that I’m bothered about swearing, but if I reciprocated they’d go cwying to you “That nasty Wainbow Six he called me a…”
          Why don’t you show us your Liberal Conservative viewpoint and ban me? You’ll get a lot of up ticks.

          1. You are too full of preconceptions and assumptions about people. No wonder you show such bitterness and bile. I expect you pull the wings off Daddy-longlegs, too.
            You should get out more.

          2. OB, I fully understand your frustrations but engaging is feeding oxygen to the troll. I try very hard NOT to engage with those whose intentions are not conducive to sensible discussion. We don’t always have to agree but we can and should be civil to each other.

          5. So calling Remainers traitors then….so no suggesting ALL Labour voters hate HM Forces….as one of your posters did around Remberance Sunday last year….yet when I used grown up industrial language to explain why that poster was full of offensive garbahe, the Mods couldn’t rush fast enough to ban me whilst kissing the ar3e of the poster who posted the offensive sh1t… ….or do you think every single Labour voter hates HM Forces and the Police?And before the Mods start screaming for a ban for me….look up, for example, the location of Budd VC Barracks, the huge pride that town had in supporting that action to rename the barracks….and then look at the voting pattern of the constituency….and explain to me why I was wrong to rip into the commentator who said all Lefty voters hate HM Forces… … and if this comment wants to make snowflakes on here demand I should be banned because they can’t take being challenged in their views…..and the Mods want to buckle to the demands of the whiny snowflakes…so be it. All, I ask is the Mods post to explain why I’m banned but a sh1t poster who claims, that all Lefties, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, hate HM Forces…remains to post their garbage……

          8. Apologies KtK…..the comment shout have been aimed at others….the sort of scum that think only Conservative voters have been killed in action.

          9. When I first came on here my comments were say 510 to 480 up votes but on here, same as GP, somebody can get 11 upvotes for saying “No” without an exclamation mark nor a full stop! If you had written the comments I’ve made the upticks would be around 4,000. As I said last week (you’d have seen it) I’m only bothered about my upvotes to downvotes on the DM.
            All about ingratiation and up ticking your mates. Now clearly you as a mod have read all my comments from day one and are therefore able to offer the above opinion about my comments. So show me where my “bitterness and bile” wasn’t in response to somebody who hadn’t made such comments to me in the first place.
            As for insects and arachnids, I breed spiders and flies. The small moths are killed without mercy. I had to wipe out a nest of ants that had got into my kitchen, a Dyson hoover shreds them. Mosquitos go the same way as moths, but I would never kill a wasp nor a bee. Had a daddy-longlegs on my back door for 4//5 days, I had no desire whatsoever to remove its wings.
            As for preconceptions and assumptions you nearly all preach from the same hymn book, I’d be shocked if I saw something that went against CCHQ policy.

          10. “I’d be shocked if I saw something that went against CCHQ policy”.

            This forum grew out of the readership of the Daily Telegraph letters page. Not surprising really that most commenters have conservative views.

          11. Yes aka Daily Torygraph. Remember the joke about people reading newspapers? The Times was read by those who ruled the country and I’m sure the version I saw the Telegraph was read by the wives of those who ruled the country. I’m obviously a Sun reader as I don’t care who runs the country as long as they have big…

          16. So is it ‘conservative’ or f78kin’ moronic to suggest all Labour voters hate HM Forces…..

          17. Given the current state of play in our Parliament i believe that any and all party would have sold out our Military to the E.U.. As they have.

          18. Given the current state of play in our Parliament i believe that any and all party would have sold out our Military to the E.U.. As they have.

  48. I smiled:

    Log in to Reply
    Bogtrotter

    November 5, 2019 at 11:34 am

    And the possible result of a second Scottish independence referendum:

    Joxit

  49. Lower foreign workers’ salary threshold to £20k, say bosses amid vacancy fears

    No way. That is barely the minimum wage and it is well below the London living wage. Why do these companies expect the UK taxpayer to subsidies their employees?

    Thousands of jobs risk going unfilled unless a proposed minimum salary for foreign workers is reduced to £20,000, a coalition of employers said today.
    The warning came as Mayor Sadiq Khan used a major speech to say that the Government’s immigration plans would do “huge damage” to the country and warn against the capital becoming a low-tax “Singapore on the Thames” after Brexit.

    About one in seven posts in the capital are filled by European workers and there is concern that firms will struggle to fill vacancies after Brexit.

    Today the Full Strength group of 14 employers’ organisations, including London First, the British Retail Consortium and Universities UK, called on the Migration Advisory Committee to reduce its proposed £30,000 salary qualification.

    1. “Why do these companies expect the UK taxpayer to subsidies their employees?”
      Because we do.
      If the company happens to be Amazon, we also build warehouses and give them to Amazon. We subsidise and support them and their workers, and they reward us by paying what little tax they pay, to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.

      1. WE could still have some exception for skilled jobs that are of high value to the UK such as nursing. The average nurses pay is over £30K but of course some will be below that

  51. I’ve no idea who “Jane” is or what her politics might be (that includes Momemtum). however, I think Richard will endorse a lot of what is written here:

    Jane
    November 4, 2019 at 3:01 pm
    Just looking at this tweet by David Vance : ‘Conservative hubris: Throttling Brexit whilst damning Farage for refusing to go along with it.’

    http://www.twitter.com/dvatw

    I have been thinking this ever since the election was announced.
    1) Usually to win a big enough set of seats for a majority, a leader presents a vision of the future.
    This is the Tory slogan (remember vision of the future): ‘Get Brexit Done’.
    Can you see the flaw? Already it is a slogan on the backfoot. It is a ‘will this do’ slogan.

    2) The Tories are running a ‘give us the benefit of the doubt’ campaign. The problem there is that this was how they ran the 2017 campaign. They were given the benefit of the doubt in 2017 and given tungsten-tipped Leave backers in the shape of the DUP.
    How can they be given ‘the benefit of the doubt’ merely two years later?
    The Tories have rejected the DUP and rejected Leave.

    3) Tory attacks on Farage are bouncing off him. Any Tory attack on him poses the question: ‘Why are you attacking him?’
    Oh, because you lied about Brexit. Farage has a certain amount of Teflon on him.
    Hence: ‘Conservative hubris: Throttling Brexit whilst damning Farage for refusing to go along with it.’
    It is a Catch 22 for the Tories. The harder they punch Farage, the harder they punch themselves.

    The Tories look like the liars they are.
    4) There is enormous focus on Johnson in this campaign. Remaner Tories are hiding under the sofa. Judas Goat Tories such as Judas Goat Mogg, Mark Francois, Steve Baker and Douglas Carswell are also hiding under the sofa. So the Tories main media person is Boris (as it was May in 2017 with May as the main focus). This is not good. Boris is a polarising figure. And his trust rating is nil.

    On the sidelines in the past week, there were two ‘straw man’ debate fights organised to make it look as if the Tories are fighting on behalf of their core vote.
    The first was Boris Johnson’s confected ‘row’ with Amber Rudd. This is Boris playing Basil Fawlty in the episode where Basil shouts at the non-existent chef to blame ‘the chef’ for the bad food. She was going to stand down anyway. Why not make Boris look Brexity by reproaching her in public? Which is what they did. It’s the sort of PR stunt her brother Roland does every day of the week.

    Second straw man ‘row’ was the question put to Johnson in the House of Commons by Steve Baker, who many people misguidedly think is some sort of latter day saint. And a Brexiteer. He is neither.
    This is a straw man question in the House of Commons from Baker to Johnson:

    QUOTED:

    Prime Minister Johnson – addressing a question from Conservative Party MP Steve Baker during the last Prime Minister’s Questions session before Parliament is dissolved this week ahead of the December 12 general elections – also made a reference to Britain’s colonial history in the region which made it more important for it not to intervene by prescribing any solutions.

    “The welfare of communities in Kashmir is of profound concern to the UK government,” he told MPs in the House of Commons.
    “It is the long-standing position of the UK government that the crisis in Kashmir is fundamentally a matter for India and Pakistan to resolve. And it is not – alas, since we were there at the very beginning – it is not for us as the UK to prescribe a solution in that dispute,” Johnson said.

    Baker, MP for Wycombe in south-east England with a large Kashmiri-origin population, has been among the vocal British MPs since the Indian government’s revocation of the Article 370 provisions withdrawing the special status of Jammu and Kashmir.
    He said: “Thousands of British people in Wycombe have family and friends on one or both sides of the Line of Control in Kashmir. With so many serious allegations of human rights abuses being made, does the government accept that this is not merely some foreign policy issue to be dealt with by others, but that it is an issue of the most and profound concern in Wycombe and in towns across the UK?”

    https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/kashmir-an-issue-between-india-pak-uks-stance-unchanged-boris-johnson-2124890

    So you see, Boris Johnson gets to look as if he is not wasting time on an issue most voters don’t care about. Isn’t Boris tough!
    And Steve Baker gets to look tough in front of his constituents. Baker wanted something he could use on the doorstep. And he got it.
    Are you sure Steve Baker is a Brexiteer? Last time, I looked, he welched. Just like Mark Francois and Judas Goat Mogg. It is all posturing. They are all vipers.

    Westminster, like Washington DC, has a pay-to-play culture.
    And both locations have very strong ties with Saudi Arabia.

    1. The current Tory election strategy is rapidly looking worse than May’s 2017 disastrous one.

      2. It is a good time to buy shares in sheep farms. They are going to need acres of wool to pull over peoples eyes.

        You can sell them just before the election and reinvest in rope manufacturers. There will be a booming trade in those across the country, as the voters realise what this “Brexit” actually is. Being lied to two elections in a row… The people will be more than angry.

    2. Yes, yes and again yes…

      But things have moved on.

      Brexit’s not happening because Brexiteers were too frightened to expose the conspiracy… so it’s too late.

      Now it’s Johnson or Corbyn…

      Which of the two will destroy Britain fastest ?

  52. Postal union accused of plot to wreck general election with ‘politically calculated’ strike

    The Communications Workers Union (CWU) on Monday revealed its latest strategy in industrial action was to refuse to deliver postal votes or
    campaign material unless the Royal Mail agrees a new deal on jobs and conditions.

    Just disenfranchise the postpeeple and then prosecute them’

    The must be some law about disrupting a General Election

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/11/04/postal-union-accused-plot-wreck-general-election-politically/

    2. The Peterborough by-election threw up some stories of postal votes being delivered shortly before the close of voting. The postal voting scam is well organised and those involved will find a way around any logjam. Who needs Royal Mail? Well, those people who are not ‘organised’, of course.

      1. Does a postal vote form have to be put into Royal Mail’s system? If it can be collected from the issuing office then those areas so dependent on postal votes will not be affected. Plenty of willing foot soldiers to collect and…

      2. The keenest postal voters in this country tend to rely on shank’s pony.
        They visit the residences of multiple occupancy both to deliver and collect the forms. If time is short, they save on shoe leather and go straight to Mr. Rashid’s lock-up.

    4. During the EU elections that should never have been, several areas had postmen refusing to take out election communications for UKIP, something, apparently, that the law actually allows!

    5. Where is the supreme court when we need ’em? Sequestration of assets should stop the CWU’s nonsense.

      ‘Morning, Tryers.

    6. They are intent on putting themselves out of a job. Postal services are a declining business. Striking will just accelerate the decline

      Probably in the UK we have pretty much reached the point where we need to move to alternate day deliveries. At the moment we are in a spiral of postal volumes fall. Stamp prices go up so volumes fall again. Even junk mail is in decline

      1. “Postal services are a declining business. Striking will just accelerate the decline” – more than a touch of the King Canutes, I think.

    7. The other election literature which Royal Mail delivers is the political address which goes to all the doors in the constituency. If you don’t have a large number of activists to shove leaflets through doors, this is the one way a candidate can be sure of reaching all electors.

    8. The other election literature which Royal Mail delivers is the political address which goes to all the doors in the constituency. If you don’t have a large number of activists to shove leaflets through doors, this is the one way a candidate can be sure of reaching all electors.

    9. The other election literature which Royal Mail delivers is the political address which goes to all the doors in the constituency. If you don’t have a large number of activists to shove leaflets through doors, this is the one way a candidate can be sure of reaching all electors.

  53. Labour’s London lead is halved as it’s all to play for in capital

    Jeremy Corbyn’s lead in the vital London battleground has been halved since the general election in 2017, putting half a dozen key Labour seats at risk on December 12, an exclusive poll reveals today.
    Both Labour and the Conservatives have gained ground since the last London election in May, but each has lost ground since the 2017 contest to the Liberal Democrats, whose share has doubled overall on the back of an anti-Brexit campaign.

    Brexit stands out as the most important issue to Londoners, dwarfing usual poll-toppers the NHS and the economy, says the YouGov survey which was commissioned by Queen Mary University of London’s (QMUL) Mile End Institute.

    1. The Brexit Party and The Conservatives need to sort things out and agree an approach on what seats to contest

      If Labour re losing their grip on London it gives a real possibility of a Rainbow coalition government and one that will be Remain in the EU or a very watered down Brexit where we will Remain for all intents and purposes

      A Labour spokesman on the Radio the other day attempted to explain the difference between Remain and Corbyns deal. In the end all he could come up with was the only difference is with Corbyns deal we have NO MEP’s and NO EU commissioner other that that we remain totally in the EU

  54. PM accused of cover-up over report on Russian meddling in UK politics. Luke Harding. Mon 4 Nov 2019 20.48 GMT.

    The committee’s chairman, Dominic Grieve, called the decision “jaw dropping”, saying no reason for the refusal had been given, while Labour and Scottish National party politicians accused No 10 of refusing to recognise the scale of Russian meddling.

    They keep bringing this up as if it contained Vlad’s handwritten letters to Johnson for a Russian coup. The truth is more prosaic as we can see from this article. Having failed to get No 10 to release it, Harding, (an MI6 stooge and wannabe) leaks it here.

    Allegations that Moscow money has flowed into the Conservative party via emigres living in the UK making high-profile donations, were also heard by the committee – although the party has consistently denied receiving money improperly.

    In 2014, Lubov Chernukhin – the wife of the former Russian deputy finance minister – paid £160,000 to play tennis with Johnson and David Cameron. The match was the star lot at a Conservative summer party auction. Another guest at the 2013 fundraiser was Vasily Shestakov, Vladimir Putin’s judo partner.

    There’s more like this. It’s just low level smearing of the Conservative Party. They probably didn’t have time to fake a Novichok attack on Corbyns greenhouse. It does tell us some things though. Grieve is in the EU’s pocket and has no allegiance to the Tories or indeed the UK at all and the Security Services are sympathetic to the same cause.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/04/no-10-blocks-russia-eu-referendum-report-until-after-election

    1. Duncan misjudged the first Thane of Cawdor but he drew the wrong conclusion from his betrayal by saying: ‘There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face,’ We usually do judge people by their faces as their character is etched upon them. As George Orwell commented: ‘ by the time a person is 50 he or she has the face he or she deserves.’

      Look at Grieve’s depressing, horrible, life-diminishing face: his mean-spirited treacherous nature is indelibly written upon it.

  55. According to Jo Swinson, by remaining in the EU the UK economy will be better off by £10 billion a year.

    Ignoring that the UK is a major contributor to the EU’s coffers, if being in the EU is the best thing since sliced cheese, why were the UK’s finances in such a mess before the referendum was even mooted and in a bigger mess when we’ve not yet left?

    1. Typical Lib-Dem creative accounting. WE are already in the EU so where is this magical £10B going to come from. Is she imply the EU will say here is another £10B a year for the UK as a Christmas gift?

      The EU finances are in a mess it i more like they will want another £10B off of us

      1. Bill, there was a time when £10 billion was a lot of money. Figures like that are bandied about as mere pocket money these days. I read yesterday that the European Central Bank was in hock for a trillion or more. Another reason we need to break away cleanly and distance ourselves from the EU horror show.

    2. Is she doing a Diane Abbott and means her husband’s company will be better off by £10?

    3. How can we be worse off if we stop contributing to the EU coffers?

      Just doesn’t make sense!

    4. How can we be worse off if we stop contributing to the EU coffers?

      Just doesn’t make sense!

      1. Exactly.

        Sadly, many people will see the Project Fear headline and believe it.

        According to the Office for National Statistics, we were liable to pay the EU £20 billion in 2018. Of this, our rebate (Abatement) was £4.5 billion and there was an additional £4.5 billion in public sector credits from the EU. Subtracting these two figures from the £20 billion, the nett amount paid to the EU by the government (public money) was £11 billion.

  56. The two faces of Rugby

    Exclusive: RFU ready to capitalise on rugby’s increased popularity on the back of England’s World Cup achievements

    The Rugby Football Union is adamant it will not repeat the mistakes of 2003 and is ready to capitalise on the public interest generated by England’s run to the World Cup final.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-world-cup/2019/11/04/rfu-ready-capitalise-rugbys-increased-popularity-back-englands/

    Saracens issued 35-point deduction and fined £5m for breaching salary cap

    The club have been under investigation since April after details of business partnerships between owner Nigel Wray and several leading players, including Maro Itoje, Owen Farrell and the Vunipola brothers, were not disclosed to Premiership Rugby.

    The league’s governing body confirmed on Tuesday that the charges against Saracens relate to the 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2019/11/05/saracens-issued-35-point-deduction-fined-5million-breaching/

  57. Would ANY party with a ginormous majority in the house give us a total
    severance exit, that is, one without strings attached in any shape or form?
    What incentive is there for the UK MEPs to vacate brussels ?
    Maybe offer these MEPs a more beneficial remuneration package to have no wish to leave the UK, greed is, after all, a prime mover within the political fraternity.
    If you put party / etc before country, you show yourself open to mercenary
    offers.

    1. Q1. Definitely No. But as this is the second attempt of May’s 2017 strategy, to lose an election and hand it to the remain parties, they will have learnt from the first time.
      Q2. Nothing whatsoever. Look at the re-emergence of Mr. I am Brexit himself when it came to election time.

      1. Afternoon B3,
        Brexit group in this instance, good.
        The farage, be very, very wary.
        The founder leader of the brexit group Catherine Blaiklock
        summed him up.

  58. A bloke I know, keen on saving the planet and an arch Remainer who worships at the feet of St Greta and is also a fan of Corbyn is away on a trip to Eastern Europe at the moment.No hope for the poor sod, no wonder he looks so glum all the time.

    He posted on ‘Social Media’ a photo from the trip. One of his friends pointed out that the two-way trip for himself and his partner would have used over a tonne of ‘carbon’ to get them there. No comment as to how much the same flights would have used had their two seats been empty, but never mind.

    My friend went into full hand-wringing mode and replied, ‘Feel very guilty and it’s wrong that it is so cheap to fly. Last week a return trip from Manchester to London by train cost more than a return flight to the US. How can that be right? Great rail network in Europe and cheap. We can learn from them’.

    I couldn’t resist helpfully pointing out that he could probably have found some dearer flights if he’d done some shopping around.

    No reply so far.

      1. Pretty damned irrelevent in the context of the post, but if it’s any help a couple of years ago he was in Georgia, and earlier this year China. Are they east enough?.

    2. ‘Morning, Basset, “…away on a trip to Eastern Europe at the moment.”

      Has anyone told him that most of Eastern Europe is now in the EUSSR and no longer part of Russia’s Communist Bloc?

        1. Ogga, I think it was after the first two results were called out, neither of which were in Leave’s favour. They were from Scotland. Then, he heard the Sunderland result, big majority result for Leave, and he turned back again, in the knowledge that this could be a game changer. He was correct.

          1. Afternoon P,
            I will not say you are wrong, maybe my timing was wrong would have to go back to a recording of that night.

          3. poppiesmum, think? I’ve been trying to get an answer to a question I’ve asked all and sundry and by the look of your comment above I’ve found somebody who can give me an answer. What was the difference between Farage’s two speeches that night? As for Scottish results and Sunderland I’ll go look it up and get back to you. But I’ll throw this in before I go, Downing Street knew they were facing defeat around the time the polls closed, so why would Farage concede after two Scottish results when they must have known which way the Scots were going to vote?

          4. I’m sorry, I cannot help you with this. I was in France at the time and watching the result on my iPad, as much of it as I could. I saw the first two results, thought oh, cripes! and put my head under the covers… then I heard the Sunderland result, massive majority for Leave, I think it was 33,000 over Remain, and I thought, like Farage, this could possibly be the game changer, and so he stayed. I went to sleep then, it had been my husband’s 75 birthday with rellies staying and I was very tired. I did hear something of what Farage said, along the lines, of ‘that’s it, then, let’s go’. Then the next result was Sunderland, and so he stayed. I awoke the next morning to find ‘It’s Brexit’ splashed across the media and I was completely and utterly amazed. I assumed Farage decided to leave because he was despondent and to avoid the public humiliation of votes, Remain after Remain, being the majority. i think he is quick tempered and makes personal decisions in the heat of the moment. I cannot remember the details of the second speech, but it was jubilation if I recall on the part of Farage. I will see if I can find it on youtube. I recall thinking that Gove and Johnson did not seem very jubilant!

          5. You got the last sentence 100% correct.

            You went to bed? Unbelievable! So did Gove at 10.30pm. So it wasn’t the most important night of your life nor of Gove’s political career. But Gove was woken at 4.45am by a mobile call. “Michael we’ve won”. So Mikey says” Gosh I suppose I’d better get up.” But then wifey says “You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off.” That tells you all you need to know.

            https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3665146/SARAH-VINE-Victory-vitriol-craziest-days-life.html
            I felt like you did at 10.30pm the night before on the last day of canvassing when I switched on the news for the first time, probably this century, and saw Johnson getting heckled in Ashby by a 17 year old snowflake. Johnson hadn’t got a clue how to respond because he’s a Remainer. I thought if he’s the best we’ve got we’re facked.

            Now I don’t think Farage was jubilant at all. Both speeches were delivered in the same manner. To me the only passionate speech that morning was Cameron’s resignation speech. But I’ll go through it again as I like watching Dimbleby’s attitude and demeanour change.

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUaDuMV5tyg

            Watch Peter Hitchens, he cannot contain his excitement.

          6. That is harsh to say it wasn’t the most exciting night of my life, I had been hosting two families and with extended rellies all week; I was 70 years of age at the time and I had to get up the next morning and continue hosting more of the same. It is my biggest and greatest regret of my life that I could not see the night through. I had had my postal voting papers pinched from the communal box, I had to phone for more and arise de bonne heure for several days to guard the communal post box to ensure the miscreant (British expat) did not pilfer again. Yes, I have watched the Dimbleby presentation a time or two. Oh, and do not doubt my devotion to our being a truly sovereign nation once again.

          7. I’m pretty certain that if you’d carried on watching it you’d have had the stamina to watch it all night. My adrenaline dump didn’t happen until late the next night.

          9. As I said, after watching Johnson’s pathetic attempt at handling an heckler I was resigned to defeat. But we had other ideas.

        2. I don’t know o1, who was it that turned away muttering as the result was about to be announced? It wasn’t the same person who took it upon himself to concede defeat then later do a victory speech?

          2. The same one who obviously had other plans because he thought he’d done his job and made up some lame excuses of family time etc.. as to why he had to give up UKIP.

          3. RS,
            Sometimes, but then along came Tommy Robinson to be castigated, conveniently forgetting his own use of one martyn heale in the past.

          5. RS,
            See martyn heales pedigree, keeping in mind that Tommy bailed out of EDL when it turned sour.

          7. I had a Soros bot on BB accusing me of being a disgusting racist. You must have somebody following you who is downticking you, aren’t you a lucky chap?

  60. First power cut of this coming Winter, last night.
    On a more serious note there were lots of birds flying over last week. Geese in groups of ten or twenty, or flocks of hundreds. What seemed odd was that a group of twenty birds flying West would meet a flock of a hundred coming the other way, and would turn and join them. I watched this several times. Also a big flock flying East might turn and go back, and vice versa. This happened a few times. I have seen reference to the Earth’s magnetic lines “flipping” and I am wondering if there is disturbance to the ability of migrating birds to navigate?
    A flock of several thousand geese parked for the night in a nearby field. something I have not seen so closely before,

    1. Feeding flocks, arrived here for the winter from their breeding grounds in the Arctic. Normal behaviour of a small group joining a larger one.

      Thousands of them have been arriving in Northumberland since early-mid September.

    4. Apparently, the Earth’s magnetic field is showing the kind of instability that heralds one of its occasional flips. This means that there will be a period during which we shall not be protected against solar radiation. It’s going to make Extinction Rebellion look like a stroll in the park.

        1. On a lighter note, the human race can become Hobbits for a few thousand years. Lack of access to direct sunlight can make creatures very “pale.” So that will fix the racism problem because we will all be white.

          A race of ghostly pale Hobbits. It might be better than the world that we see today.

    5. Good morning HP

      I have been fortunate enough fly in a glider ( with a pilot) over our lovely Dorset countryside .. towed up by a tow hog, flying and catching the thermals to about 3,000 feet or more.

      Believe me .. the noise of traffic below, from that height was astounding .. the noise from the shooting school was alarming , and the whirr of machinery cutting forests was very noticeable .. So how do birds communicate .. how can they hear their leaders calling , are they distracted by noise below them.. you can bet they are .. Sound really travels .. and I am not joking .. besides the swoosh of the air on the glider wings , the sound from earth was so amplified, it was very worrying . Disturbances to bird flock patterns must be significant .

      1. What was interesting was that birds at lower levels became agitated by the passage of the geese. The crows rose from the trees and swirled around as did pigeons and others. There was lots of movement below treetop height. Surprising as our crows seldom fly at much above tree height, and the geese were a few hundred feet up. I’d have thought that they would ignore the geese. The crows seem fairly unperturbed by RAF jets.

      2. When I did a bit of gliding in the late 50s (winched up) I remember talking to people on the ground when below about 300ft, didn’t hear much traffic though as there wasn’t much around in those days and it was in rural Bucks

      3. When we climbed up to Soloman’s Temple outside Buxton, we could clearly hear – even down to individual voices – the children playing at the school xxx feet below.

    6. We watched some starlings on Sunday evening looking for a roosting area. Several thousand, and the complex swirling would need a flock of mathematicians to analyse it. There is bound to be published research available, and of course Konrad Lorenz studied geese. I would guess that the ‘policies’ of flocks joining together at this time of year would involve

      a) safety in greater numbers b) knowledge of feeding & sleeping areas and c) breeding opportunities. Direction of flight could be decided by a combination of democracy and pecking order. Certainly farmyard geese argue a lot, sometimes resulting in non-fatal fights.

      1. I have been surprised by how little information is available on birds and other creatures. Very little that represents true understanding, simply observations which don’t amount to much.
        Lots of films were made by amateurs and professionals on the interaction of dolphins and porpoises, the net sum of hours of film was the comment “how cute”.
        It took careful observation and investigation of damage to dead porpoises by a researcher near Inverness to determine the nature of the interaction taking place. It was simply the dolphins having some hooligan fun by kicking porpoises to death. (Although removing rivals from the food chain may have also been involved.). Looking again at the many films, it seemed so obvious.

        1. Dolphins with legs? Wow!
          That would be at Chanonry Point – spent a lot of time there watching them catch salmon

      2. stephenroi – I don’t know the films that well and almost missed that one. Nice reference. 🙂

    2. Time to remind her that the Harry Potter fantasies are over and it’s time to wake up. This is now the real world.

      1. No , she is just another spoilt luvvy .. a product moulded and grown by the film industry .. Her head is full of scripts and she hasn’t discovered herself yet .. The camera is her lover !

        1. Yo T_B

          Watson is playing Meg March in a new Hollywood adaptation of Little Women,

          Little Women… sexist carp, should be renamed Not VeryBig Shemales

    6. “Self-partnered” reminds me of a Woody Allen one-liner, “Why does my sex life always take place with just one consenting adult”.

    7. It is sad when a human being goes “all precious” and starts to take themselves too seriously. I like the quiet life and my own company. 200 years ago I would have been a cowboy sitting out under the stars. 1,000 years ago I would be happy to be a Monk in a monastery. 1,500 years ago I’d be a charcoal burner sitting alone for days in the woods, or a hunter spending most of the day alone in nature tracking animals.

      In a fantasy world I’d be an Asteroid Belt Miner floating silently in space, or a Wizard in a tower.

      In all of those lives I would not have called myself “self-partnered.” The writing was on the wall for this young lady when she expressed some political views a few years ago. All of them were 100% Los Angeles snowflake. Not an original thought among them. It must be an empty life to need to express yourself this way, instead of being happy in silence.

  62. On a lighter note ( well maybe not )
    One of the news papers has an article ( can’t remember which one )
    about a woman who said her tiny black Labrador puppy died of
    a heart attack due to fireworks. Yes they are noisy, annoying and go on for
    more then one evening but why did she not protect the puppy ?
    she could have played music and cuddled the small dog, .
    I am tired of snowflakes who take no personal responsibility
    and constantly blame others. Also, May be the poor puppy had a
    heart defect and might have died anyway.

    1. There are diffusers and tablets available to help calm them.
      If it was the puppy’s first fireworks, she should have stayed at home with it and behaved normally.
      We have never had a dog that was bothered by fireworks. Mostly they doze through the whole thing, occasionally lifting a puzzled head if one goes off nearby.

      2. Yes indeed. Behaving normally was a valid point,
        cuddling the puppy excessively would’ve made it feel
        something was wrong.

    3. We have two scotties, Mary, the younger, is largely unaffected but connie ( 5yrs) is terrified by fireworks and is abjectly miserable when they’re going off, we’ve tried all the remedies and approaches but nothing seems to work so far. It’s interesting that she’s become more sensitive over the years. As an aside the two of them charge out into the garden and bay and howl at 1830hrs on Weds evenings when the bellringers practice across the road.

      1. Nerds such as me will be trying to work out the value of this resistor. Brown followed by black is 10 and there should be another band to show the number of zeros after that. Could the third band be grey, meaning 8 noughts? This would make it a very high value indeed and perhaps worthy of worship!

  65. Where will the Brexit party grab 650 good men and women at the drop of a hat .. people with money in their pockets and a CLEAN slate .. Will they be ex UKiP .. I would rather see Raving Looney party members .. the ones I have come across can’t be any dafter than our current bunch ..

    Richard Drax is a safe pair of hands in the traditional Brit mould.. he has his faults but he will do .. But .. what on earth are we going to do?

    1. The reported figure is 600. I doubt they will field 600. Can they afford 600 Lost deposits ?

    2. Pray for a Labour/LibDem//Plaid/SNP/Green Remain victory, then there will be no pretence that we live in a democracy.

      1. or something a little stronger. A tumbler or two of sherry is very good at this time of the year.

          1. The worst hangover I ever had was as a teenager after drinking sherry.

            It took me several years before I could look at a pint of sherry without feeling ill. I’m fine now, but seldom drink it and no longer by the pint…

          2. A PINT of sherry? Did anyone have any sympathy for you?
            Mind you, it appears that rather large tumblers are being used for wine these days; I received two Dartington tumblers with a case of NZ Sauvignon Blanc wines recently.

          3. No sympathy whatsoever.

            If I had settled for one pint and kept it to sherry I might have been OK.

            I suspect that I had had acute alcohol poisoning, the hangover lasted the better part of a week. It cured me of mixed drinks binge drinking, so that was a plus point.

            I can’t remember the last time I had a bad hangover, probably when I was in college.

          4. I had a school-friend who could drink any amount of alcohol including mixes without being sick. Drunk yes, but never sick.

            On his 21st he went on a pub-crawl with friends around Portsmouth. On leaving the final pub drunk, he didn’t step aside quickly enough & somebody threw up all over him.

          6. I was sick as a dog and got to the stage of dry retching the following day.

            I couldn’t even keep water down.

            Never again. It was a salutory experience.

          7. I suffered that by mistake at my sister-in-law’s wedding by picking up the groom’s laced drink that he’d placed next to mine. I have never felt so bad, literally for days. I couldn’t bear the smell of alcohol for weeks.
            At my stag night I had my elder sister’s husband buy my drinks and watch for anyone trying to lace them.

          8. Ditto, but with rum & I was mid-20s; old enough to know better.

            Still don’t drink it, but use it in cooking occasionally.

    5. We’re going to suck it up and KBO I’m afraid Belle – what we always do. What else is there.

        1. Worrying about it won’t change things – relax, vote for Drax and let events run their course.
          Not good for your health to worry.

        2. The only battles to fight are the ones you have a fair chance of winning. Unfortunately for us all, Brexit is not one of them. I agree with you but we can shout and holler and get very upset, blood boiling, anger rising but does it achieve anything other than depressing us. I think you May agree that the answer is no.
          The only thing I/we can do is not to vote for any of the ‘main’ political parties ever again and tell your MP that you will not vote for the party he represents but would vote for him if he was an independent etc.
          Our MP has been quite good but has/will vote for Johnson’s May deal even though it leaves us in hock to the EU. What can I do about it Sweet Bugger All. I’m not going to injure my health worrying about a battle I cannot win.
          I am not a defeatist but a realist and intend to keep my sanity as long as I can.

          1. Then your vision of reality will very swiftly be twisted to suit the EUs.

            It si a damaging, toxic, poisonous entity.

            Comically, MPs should be asked – if you won’t obey our instruction on Brexit, what’s the point in voting for you at all? You’ve proven yourselves disobedient. What’s the point?

            That will elicit some endless verbiage about legitimacy, democracy and so on but the fundamental point remains. If they will not obey us then there is no democracy. No democracy, no law. No law, no society.

          2. I will never be twisted to suit the EU. I am vehemently against all it stands for. I will do I can as an individual to hasten it’s downfall. However I am a realist and unless people like us can be galvanised into action we are at the mercy of the despot MPs who will be elected at the coming GE.

            No democracy, no law. No law, no society. The last 3 years have shown there is no democracy. No law, the lack of action by the police on so many fronts with sections of the population, not indigenous, have special treatment and the laws under which we live are not applied to them. No society, I believe what Margaret Thatcher said that there is no such thing as society only ordinary men and women. Until those ordinary men and women take note of what is happening to our country, the peril it faces and stop voting for donkeys with a coloured rosette on their backside then we are doomed.

    6. If only Richard Drax and Richard Tice had got together in the Brexit Party – they would have been the ideal people to take over once Nigel Farage has decided to leave the scene.

      1. Richard Drax is ex military , but he is not made of General, Admiral stuff.

        I don’t think he can lead from the front, if you get my drift .. he has instinct , but he is too nice!

    7. I’d stand but I am terminally sny, deeply misanthropic and an everything equal opportunities-ist. I dislike most of humanity.

  66. The NHS

    If you believe Labour our NHS is being starved of funds but statistics show otherwise. WE do not though seem to get value for money from the NHS as other similar health services give a much better service. Something is wrong but trying to pin point what is it is difficult

    Expenditure on Health as a Percentage of GDP (2017)

    France 11%
    Germany 10.6%
    Sweden 10.4%
    UK 9.8%
    EU Average 9.8%

      1. I thought he was going to stand as an Independent candidate?
        Shame. I’d have loved to see how few votes he got…

    4. Now that he has wrecked our chances of ever leaving the EU he is off to collect his fortune for his betrayal by giving after dinner speeches at unbelievable rates I expect

      2. Where is the most stinking cesspit into which we could push him? A good place to dump him while the rest of the swamp is being drained.

    5. My letter to the constituents, whom have I not served at all in 22 years:the Mugs

      It is Rule by Brussels for them and the Gravy (well Jus) Train for me.

      Now I am off to count my money and decide where my Peerage will be: Bye Suckers

        1. It takes all sorts Iffy – he’s welcome so long as he doesn’t indulge in personal insults to other posters.

    7. Philip Hammond is doing something ‘with great sadness.’

      How on earth will we be able to tell?

    8. Good, you are a useless MP, a iar, hypocrite, coward and traitor. Get out.

      Don’t bother collecting your trough money, you don’t deserve it. In your eurojob, you’ll not find us paying your pension. The only sad thing is you didn’t have the integrity to go 4 years ago.

  69. had to laugh at what Plaid on the Radio. They were blaming Westminster for their poor educational results in the Schools. Unfortunately for them Education I Wales is totally devolved and comes under the Welsh assembly and that includes funding

  70. If Russia meddled in the Brexit vote we need to know – before the election. Gaby Hinsliff. Tue 5 Nov 2019.

    Sitting on its findings until after the election has dangerous consequences for public trust in democracy. This is the first election I can remember where it’s possible to imagine people simply not accepting the result, especially if it’s close. No matter how disappointed we are in the outcome of an election, British voters generally grumble and get on with it. The unwritten rule is that losers accept they’ve lost, so long as winners promise to govern in everyone’s interest. But the smooth transition of power on which democracy depends is conditional on voters trusting that the process was fair. It is reckless beyond belief for governments to risk undermining that trust.

    I’m getting seriously worried about them at the Guardian! Where has this woman been for the last four years? First Toynbee’s unhinged piece this morning and now this. Does she not know that a majority vote in favour of Brexit was refused? Is it some form of group psychosis? Are they all suffering amnesia allied to cognitive collapse? Perhaps they’ve been taken over by aliens!

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/05/russia-brexit-vote-election-boris-johnson-intelligence-committee-report

    1. Ah. The Independent, fighting the wrong battle as usual.

      What would he make of those who had misconstrued…. when really, they forget that Islam is designed to be like this. It’s supposed to be a crusading ideology. Chances are if the Proph turned up today he’d grab a vest, shout ‘A loo and a snack bar! and go about killing people.

    2. We like to demonise Mohammed for marrying a child bride, but we do so with 21st century European sensibilities, not those of the 5th/6th century Middle East. Yet look at common and canon law in England & Wales prior to 1929 and also consider that Aisha’s age when she married Mohammed is disputed.
      We have no certainty that she was nine when that marriage was consummated. Some scholarly sources say she was a young teenager, an age which would have been legal in England and Wales well into the 20th century.

      The Age of Marriage Act 1929 increased the age of marriage to sixteen with consent of parents or guardians and 21 without that consent. It was passed in response to a campaign by the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship. Until this point, at common law and by canon law a person who had attained the legal age of puberty could contract a valid marriage. A marriage contracted by persons either of whom was under the legal age of puberty was voidable. The legal age of puberty was fourteen years for males and twelve years for females. This section amended the law so that a marriage contracted by persons either of whom was under the age of sixteen years was void.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_in_England_and_Wales#History

  72. OT – question for petrol heads.

    Took car for service AND a new battery. Driving home, I noticed that the fuel gauge was showing full – while I know the tank is only three-quarters full. Gauge worked perfectly normally until today.

    I am taking it back tomorrow – but I wonder if any car expert can offer a clue or three. (I tried tapping the dial – didn’t work).

    2. It might be that disconnecting the battery caused the computer to reboot and all system readings will be out.

      Try turning everything on again and you may find that it has returned to normal.

          1. Thanks. Thoughtful – but no use.

            The gauge was normal this morning when I took the car to the garage. They did an annual service AND replaced the battery. Now the gauge is locked on full.

            The only thing that has changed is the battery.

          2. Perhaps they swapped out your fuel tank for a big battery to make you greener. Your gauge is showing a full charge.

          3. Fill it up to the brim and see if that dislodges the float.

            I had a similar problem the other way round with my coolant level guage. It was registering low when everything was normal, turned out to be the float which had to be replaced.

          4. Thanks. I’ll try that.

            The puzzle is that -apart from the battery change – nothing should have affected the fuel gauge.

          5. My money is still on it being your computer.

            Every time I have a car service that involves a battery disconnection I get problems with guages that sort themselves out over a day or two after a few restarts of the car.

          6. You may well be right.

            I am taking it back first thing – it’ll be interesting to see what the mechano says.

          7. sucks teeth:
            “sorry guv, nowt to do with me, pure coincidence, that’ll be £200 to fix”

          8. Yo Bill

            a The garage gave you an early Xmas prezzy, they filled the tamk for you
            b, Use Berk O, aka Dipstick, to plumb the depths of the tank, might not help your problem, but you could let him leave the House of Slime in blazing Glory

        2. I once ran the head of a Dyson vacuum cleaner over the dusty top of the dashboard. !/2 the instrument dials were knocked out & it took 2 days for all to recover. During that time the car functioned normally.

    7. The car mechanic is a wizard who has transformed your car into one with a never-emptying fuel tank. You may safely drive any distance you like without fear of running out of fuel.

  73. Looking at the Brexit Party General Election tour to date. I think we can seewhere its top target seats are

    The Brexit Party General Election Tour
    November 5 (07:00 pm)
    Bentinck Colliery Miners Welfare Social Club – 18 Sutton Road, Kirkby in Ashfield, NG17 8GS

    The Brexit Party General Election Tour
    November 6 (11:00 am)
    Washington Central Hotel – Washington Street, Workington, CA14 3AY

    The Brexit Party General Election Campaign Tour
    November 6 (07:00 pm)
    Crown & Mitre Hotel – English Street, Carlisle, CA3 8HZ

    The Brexit Party General Election Tour
    November 8 (11:00 am)
    Little Mill Village Hall – Berthon Road Little Mill, Pontypool, NP4 0HE

    The Brexit Party General Election Tour
    November 8 (07:00 pm)
    International Convention Centre Wales – Catsash Road, Newport, NP18 1HQ

    The Brexit Party General Election Tour
    November 11 (07:00 pm)
    Sedgefield Racecourse – Racecourse Road, Sedgefield, TS21 2HW

  74. I am instantly going to do away with the scourge of food banks. How am I going to do it? Easy I will make all food Free. Ho am I going to pay for that promise ? Don’t ask difficult questions. Probably by a penny on income tax and taxing the rich

  75. Firefighters deal with more false alarms than fires, statistics show

    It is time legislation was introduced to stop the problem with automated fire alarm. Iy should be possible to set them up so that it only call the Fire Brigade automatically when the building is unoccupied

    Firefighters in Essex are called to more false alarms than they are fires – prompting calls to members of the public to help it reduce unnecessary call outs.

    Essex County Fire and Rescue Service dealt with 15,513 incidents between 2018 and 2019.
    However more than a third of those incidents were false alarms.
    The total number of fires in the county was 4,937, whilst the total number of false alarms was 6,292.
    Moira Bruin, director of operations, prevention, protection and response for the fire service, said: “The most common reason we are called out to false alarms is when people genuinely believe there is an emergency.
    “This could include bonfires burning under control and road traffic collisions where no-one is trapped.
    “The next most common reason for us to be called to a false alarm is due to faulty apparatus, which often includes automatic fire alarm systems.
    “These false alarms are the easiest to reduce.

    1. I advise to scan the Funding Formula to check there is no item in there for “NumberofFireCalls in SillyShire in previous year” …. a not untypical mistake by our amateur civil servants.

  76. LastChanceSaloon
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-50297501
    2019-11-05 05:40

    BBC NEWS Entertainment & Arts
    “Smuggled: Channel 4 defends itself after Home Office criticism”
    “Channel 4 has defended itself over the broadcast of its new reality series Smuggled, 11 days after the deaths of 39 people in a lorry in Essex.
    The start of the series, which sets eight British citizens the task of entering the UK using illegal means, was dropped from schedules last week.
    But it aired on Monday evening and the Home Office said it was “insensitive and irresponsible” to show it so soon.”

    BBC NEWS
    The BBC announced that its new programme, called Dead Invaders, had the highest viewing figures ever recorded.

    In Dead Invaders 200,000 British soldiers are shown manning the UK borders 24/7/365 and summarily shooting all non indigenes discovered trying to enter the UK illegally with the intention of raping and killing UK citizens.

    An aditional paramiltary force of 50,000 volunteers is shown searching all non Europeans suspected of illegal entry, all such illegals are summarily shot as required by international law.

    The BBC expects that such action will, by 2022, reduce the UK population by 3 million, reduce serious crime by 95% and release 1 million homes for the use of genuine British people.

    Vote 14 likes

    https://biasedbbc.org/blog/2019/11/04/start-the-week-thread-4-november-2019/comment-page-2/#comments

  77. Jacob Rees Mogg ‘profoundly apologises’ after claiming it would have been common sense for Greenfell residents to ignore advice to stay inside burning building

    Basically he was not wrong but considering the sensitivity of Greenfell cold have worded it better

  78. BBC Radio 4 News tonight fairly damning Jacob Rees Mogg for his comments on the Grenfell Tower disaster. At least 15 minutes on the lead topic so far. I thinkl if JRM had said it would be instinct to get out of the building when it was burning rather than saying it was commonsense. The BBC should have more important subjects to report on than this. Will we ever hear the end of this Grenfell affair?

    4. I remember seeing one resident in her flat streaming the early effects of fire on Facebook. She would have made better use of her time by leaving the building.

      1. At least we won’t be here in 30 years’ time to see if someone is eventually held accountable.

          1. Good spot !

            The ham was not off the bone. The spinach was turned to mulch and the eggs looked flaccid.

            I should write a cook book on how to ruin food. Probs be a best seller…You in?

          2. I think Delia and Jamie have beaten you to it. (Feel free to add any other chefs/cooks who churn out books containing duff recipes.)

  80. MP denied £22,000 parachute payment after switching parties complains of ‘discrimination’
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/11/05/mp-denied-22000-parachute-payment-switching-parties-complains/

    An MP who learnt she is not entitled to a £22,000 parachute payment after switching from Labour to the Liberal Democrats has complained of “discrimination”.
    Angela Smith, who left Labour this year, said she is “horrified” that she is not entitled to the cash if she loses at the election because she is fighting a different seat.
    The MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge resigned from the Labour Party in February to join the The Independent Group, later renamed Change UK.
    She had fallen out with Jeremy Corbyn and his followers over their desire to re-nationalise the water companies and lost a motion of no confidence by her constituency party.
    Having joined the Liberal Democrats in September, she is now preparing to fight the Altrincham and Sale West constituency for the party at the general election, which is currently held by the Conservatives.
    But this means she cannot claim up to £22,000 in Loss of Office Payment (LOOP) if she loses.
    In a letter to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA), the expenses watchdog, Ms Smith writes: “I cannot underestimate my horror in finding in the latest guidance these payments are only available if you stand in the same ‘seat’.
    “The implications of this terrifying and may also affect my staff.”
    An MP since 2005, Ms Smith said she had “no option” but to move to another party and to contest a different seat.
    “I honestly consider I am being discriminated against,” she said.
    Ms Smith said if she loses the Altricham and Sale West contest without relying on LOOP she would not be able to pay her mortgage and “many other bills”.
    In 2009 she became embroiled in the Parliamentary expenses scandal after The Daily Telegraph revealed she had charged the taxpayer for four beds for a one-bedroom London flat.
    LOOP is equal to roughly double the statutory redundancy entitlement.

    She should have found out the rules before switching parties twice, then standing in a different seat.

      1. Why should MP’s get anything at all. They know they are signing up for a 5 year fixed term contract that might not be renewed

        The only case for some payment is if the parliament does not last the 5 years then they should get a pro amount

          1. Covered above Pro Rata amount of the £22K but not if they just change seats or just choose not to stand for re election

      1. I don’t think it’s because she’s switched party, I think it’s because she’s contesting a different seat.

    3. This woman is unbelievable. How dare she complain she’s being discriminated against when she’s flipped party without precipitating a by-election. And she has dabbled in the expenses scandal on top of it all. She has no shame at all.

    5. Oh my aching sides.
      I do hope that this clobbers a lot of the turncoats who could have fought by-elections but didn’t

      1. It is a great shame as cannot laugh in her face.

        Greedy hypocritical liar. Why should we pay these traitors?

    8. I wonder if Antoinette Sandbach (former remainer-masquerading-as-a-leaver-Con MP, now LD remainer PPC) will get the £22k payoff if she loses.

  81. Melanie Phillips I commend the whole article

    The Brexit party website lists what it describes as the deal’s disastrous effects here. Is this untrue? In which case, will the Conservative Party say exactly what the BP says that is false?

    The key question is what the truth of all this actually is. The

    potentially invidious choice between allowing Corbyn to slip into Number

    Ten and voting for a Boris Brexit betrayal is a dilemma only if what

    Farage is saying is true.

    If it is not true, there’s no dilemma. If it is

    true, the public needs to face this honestly and squarely and then

    decide how to vote tactically, constituency by constituency. For if it is

    true, no amount of scaremongering (however justified) about Corbyn will

    prevent the UK from becoming trapped in a continuing Brexit nightmare.

    And so when will the mainstream media, which have been relentlessly

    pummelling Farage and disgracefully and absurdly claiming he is saying

    these things only because he is consumed by personal ambition and is

    happy therefore to wreck Brexit out of personal spite (as if!) start

    asking these questions of the Conservative Party?

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/farage-faces-blue-on-blue-onslaught/

    1. What Nigel is saying is not in my view really true. He is referencing the Political document which is not legally binding and even then is using a lot of exaggeration

      It says things like trying to keep close alignment with EU standards. Now if you know anything at all about these things that makes sense. If we want to export to the EU we will need to comply with EU standards so unless there is a good reason not to use them or to deviate from them it make sense to align with them as far as possible

      Most standards tend to derive from the ISO now in any case and standards worldwide are slowly converging

      1. We do not need political treaties or trade treaties for that.
        Businesses know that they need to comply with the requirements of foreign markets. So they do. It is called business.
        The politicians, most of whom could not negotiate the purchase of a takeaway coffee, do not understand that, so they think that they have to legislate for something that has been going on for the last 3000 years.
        This is just another “Irish border backstop” piece of baloney.

        1. Some of what the EU has done is good. At one time you would nee to type approve each product in every country you intended to export, A slow and very expensive process

          1. The problem is the EU wasn’t designed to do that. Such things could have been set up by a consortium of industry which then disbanded, it’s work done.

            Instead, the EU really wanted a political welding. It always has.

      2. Careful – the political document and ‘deal’ are a treaty. The PolDoc will be binding. The EU won’t allow anything to not be absolutely fixed.

        Alignment on the mechanical bits is fine. I mean, really it’s fine setting the materials to use in a fridge freezer or where a car’s door pillars have to be put. What we need to change is when a container arrives from the EU that we can open it up and look inside it. Take what’s in there apart. Test it ourselves and see if it does what it says it does.

        The important bit is that when we get to our rubbish we say ‘collect weekly, sort *everything*’ and recycle what we want to, burn what we want to, land fill what we want to. Not that we pretend recycle five bits and shovel the remainder into a container and post it to Africa who dump it in the sea and give us a certificate the EU is happy with – because that’s what happens now.

          1. Both are part of a new treaty with the EU. I’d bet my trousers that the PD is binding. The pretence it isn’t is going to be an interesting spin.

    1. The ‘11,000 scientsits have endorsed what I’ve said’ bit is disturbing. They don’t name all of them, which rather implies this was a more general response to a different question that has been abused.

      A sort of on line questionnaire where one question, deliberately biased is taken as the reference point for the entire assumption. How many were surveyed? What was the question asked? It’s just desperate abuse to obtain the desired response.

      There are too many people in this world. Vastly too many. We do have energy problems. Windmills and solar are just two of those problems because people are lied to in thinking they appear by magic and are held up but pegasi and are made from fairy dust. The reality is they are expensive, energy inefficient, sink 500 tons of concrete into the ground and never return the material or energy cost used to make them. But they make Lefties feel good, so we’re stuffed with them.

      (Missed the 000s).

          1. I’m not suggesting we open it for him. OK, it’s messy, especially if it’s double glazing, but hey. After a few bashes he’ll stop worrying about it.

  84. O’Neil a voice of sanity in outrage world

    Let me get this right: people are angrier with Jacob Rees-Mogg for saying the Grenfell

    residents should have fled their burning building than they are with

    the fire chiefs who told the Grenfell residents not to flee their

    burning building? I’ve heard it all now. There have been some mad

    Twitterstorms over the years but this is a new low. This fury with an MP

    for merely saying what we all know to be true – that it is a ‘tragedy’

    more people didn’t ignore the fire service’s advice on that horrific

    night – is just nuts.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/11/05/jacob-rees-mogg-is-right-about-grenfell/

    1. It is because there’s a small, arrogant group who hate – unreasoning – JRM.

      These people also hate Conservatives. They are absolutists, dementedly Left wing, vocal, rude, loud and obnoxious. The modern Left given form.

    2. There was National guidance on this that stated that if the containment has failed fire service should consider the need to evacuate the building. IT appears the LFB never adopted this guidance

      The basic containment is 1 Hour so even if a building fully meet the standard it could breach the containment after 1 hour

    1. Despite being able to to rattle off the script to ‘The Key’ it is still the funniest TV I can watch. Always makes me laugh.

      1. If you read the YT comments they would all agree that it probably was the best comedy ever and more like a documentary.

    1. Well the EU agreed to it and only signed it a few weeks ago

      A trade deal with the EU in theory should be simple as we already comply with all EU trade legislation . THe only reason they are claiming there is not enough time is purely to be difficult

      1. Start from the premise that the EU and many MPs, who are in the pocket of Big Business, don’t want the UK to leave its suffocating embrace, and all actions and inactions to date becomes obvious.

    2. It would be so much easier if we decided to work out a Free Trade Deal after we fully left the EU at the end of this year. Being fully outside of the EU we could make our own deals with any country that we want in the world at once, without the EU saying “No!” for the next 3 years.

      It would also make the EU come running for a deal when they do not have our taxpayers money propping them up. The EU are on their knees economically, with the begging bowl out and desperation in their eyes. Laying down in front of them and saying “Please put your boot on my neck” is not the best way to approach the negotiations for a future deal.

      1. Yes, that would be ideal.

        The establishment, however, want to keep their heads firmly in the trough.

      1. The Saxon daughter of Alfred of Wessex could kidnap
        another Welsh kings wife .
        Then run around with a blooded axe and roast an ox on
        a bonfire if you’d like 😉

          2. I wonder why. Bonfires and fireworks are so much more interesting than a hollowed out vegetable with a candle stuck in it.

          4. Are you suggesting that Peter Mandleson is a hollowed out vegetable with a candle stuck in it…?
            Oh, wait…

          9. It is amazing the pictures that pop up when you are looking for some of the old Commando and Victor comics and annuals that you read as a boy. Although this one might prophetically show what will be our taxi cabs in some of our inner cities in the near future. It is not that far from this in some areas of Sweden already, if those reports of cars being burnt are to be believed.

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7de971179fd51ff88f6618212e940a43fffe4fa2ef07f8e2a861f28170ff9eb4.jpg

          10. My parents didn’t allow me to buy such things, but a good friend across the road was a subscriber to almost every comic one could imagine. (His father died very young and I think his mother allowed him all sorts at home.)

          15. I have had an hour of almost constant fireworks in this small part of Cornwall. 🙂

          19. When in mid October I asked my sister what gifts they wanted, citing there wer eonly 8 weeks left she hit the roof, now, i am vindicated! There are less than 8 weeks left!

      3. Whats left or fireworks seem to be pretty boring all the good interest ones such as a Star burst seem to have gone

          2. I was jumping the gun,it kicked off an hour ago. Great display of golden rain and showers of silver and gold viewed from the comfort of my armchair.

          2. Years ago there was an Inn near RAF Finningley that had a Parrot like the one in the photo. The feathers on the top of its head were the only ones it couldn’t reach with its beak. I guess it was trying to make the centre fold of Health & Efficiency mag. The owners would feed it with Jam sandwiches which it held in one claw whilst woofing them down!

          4. Pretty impressive piece of kit.

            I’ve a sparrowhawk in the garden that, pound for pound, would give that thing a fair run for its money.

          5. When I first used one of these to pluck turkeys I held the bird the wrong way round and ended with skin and bone alll over me.

          7. sosraboc – Well, I was just going off to indulge in some wine and was feeling sleepy. But that picture has jerked me wide awake as I switched back to this page and saw it looming at me.

            I think I will switch that wine to a vodka now and watch a couple of the latest Walking Dead episodes. That has put me in the mood for a late night with lots of music in the early hours. Tomorrow is one of those days where I don’t need to get up early. 🙂

          8. Miss PP can say what she likes to me)))))) I’m going to go find her and retaliate. Now if I’d said what you’d said I’d get somebody coming to her defence.

  91. The Brexit Party has published a list of candidates. Apparently. Where is it?
    The following story/correspondence may be a bit longwinded yet it worries me. With six weeks to go the Brexit Party candidate had to be sought out and he then revealed nothing.
    I sent an email last week to Brexit Party HQ asking for details of our candidate. (I had telephoned, but no-one answered.). I received an answer a couple of days later which contained his name and email address. I sent an email to the candidate, asking for some background. He replied with no information, just asking if I was a member or Press, or whatever and referring me to the BrexitParty website, which is devoid of anything sensible, being a few videos. I do not wish to watch videos.
    I then emailed him indicating my disappointment at the lack of info;

    “Thank you for your reply.
    However it does not answer my question. What you have set out is already in the public domain, and I am reasonable conversant with it.
    I do not know anything about you and my searches on the internet have yielded nothing. There are simply too many “Mxxxx Bxxxxxx” around.

    Let me be clear about my position.
    I wish the UK to leave the EU with no Withdrawal Agreement and no Political Statement. Anything else would be to make the UK subservient to the EU.
    I have been involved in politics, on and off, since I was at school. I have been on committees and worked as an activist and have canvassed door to door.
    I have qualifications in market research and advertising. I have ceased to be involved in business and commerce.
    I am not currently a member of any political party, and have little intention of joining one, as the morality of political parties is not mine.
    I am prepared to work to bring about a victory for the Brexit Party solely to help towards saving my country by means of a clean departure from the EU.
    I have a reasonable understanding of the nature of this constituency.

    If I were advising you, I would suggest that you produce an informative response to emails that you may receive from voters in the constituency, from the Press, and elsewhere.
    As follows;
    Personal CV
    Place/Date of Birth, Education, Work Experience, Skills and Knowledge, Family, and Hobbies.
    Your connections to this constituency.
    Political CV
    History of political activity, membership of political societies.
    It may be that this Political CV is quite blank. That becomes a benefit.
    Summary of CV information in terms of benefits, “what you bring to the party”
    (This is to tell us why we should vote for you)
    Brexit Party
    Aims. Short term. Brexit Party in Parliament. Action to be taken to obtain clean Brexit.
    Reasons (in brief)
    Aims. Long Term. Other issues. Promoting Agriculture, Promoting Fishing, Fish Processing and Exporting, Defence, NHS, Immigration, Balancing the Budget, International Trade.

    The point can be made that unless we are cleanly out of the EU then these issues do not matter as the EU will be in control of all of them.

    Other Points
    Do you live in the constituency, or very nearby? If not why not?
    (There is only one M Banks in the Phone Book, at 12 xxxxxxx xx.)
    Do you have a campaign office in the constituency, manned to respond to requests for information, to set up interviews with yourself? If not why not?
    The clock has been running for days.
    The other parties – Tory, SNP and Lib/Dems – have pretty substantial infrastructure in the Scottish Borders.

    I am quite happy to meet you in person to discuss these points, and on how to win this seat”

    His reply was again disappointing, being bereft of anything by way of information about himself or his plans;
    “Thank you for your email.
    My reply to you dated 1st November was my attempt to sum up the position of The Brexit Party on Brexit.
    There is clear water between the Conservatives and The Brexit Party and we will be striving to explain that, far from getting Brexit done, a vote for the Tories will leave us within the orbit of the EU for many years to come.
    The Brexit Party’s overarching objectives are a meaningful brexit and to change politics for good. Our wider policies will be elaborated during the campaign, including reforms in the agriculture sector and protection of our fishing resources.
    The Brexit Party brings together people from all walks of life, with diverse experience, rather than career politicians. Several hundred of us are meeting in Westminster tomorrow before embarking on the campaign trail.
    We hope we can rely on your support,
    Best regards,”

    What should one make of that? Everything I asked of him should be in the public domain within the next couple of weeks so no reason for secrecy even if I were an agent of another Party. It is possible that he has done no work to prepare for a campaign although a GE has looked possible for some time.
    But going back to a comment I made last week, are the Brexit Party out to win, or just to split the Leave vote and open the door to Remain?

      1. Well, T-B, I don’t know where the list is. It may have been published (or not) in the DT, but I am not a subscriber.
        I waited a couple days for a reply to my enquiry with Brexit HQ. I do not know anything about their admin back-up. They should have 20/30 people in a call centre, but I’m thinking that they just have an answering machine.

        1. It could be that they won’t publish a list until they can finally confirm all the constituencies that the BXP plans to stand in?

          2. I get the impression they have no real organisation. There Web site is pretty static and contains no real information other than a list of MEP’s

      2. I am beginning to think that the Bexit Party is the hoax of the century. Now you see it, now you don’t.

      3. WE will know the truth on the 15th I think as that is when the names will be published

    2. Maybe he doesn’t want to have his personal info in the public domain because he do what to be targeted by Remain/left-wing activists. If he’s standing as a candidate, he’s going to have to give that information sooner or later, but I can understand his reticence. He’s going to have to bite the bullet.

    3. BXP are amateurs, as are UKIP and the N”ei til mer Bompenger” party in Norway. They don’t have that single-minded focus on getting elected, the discipline needed for that, and the training in marketing and communication to get the simple message across.
      Unfortunately.

    4. Afternoon HP,
      Yes, I agree to your suggestions but many sound like current UKIP policies to me.

      1. Indeed so. But why am I not being told this when I ask for it? Also who is this chap?
        My point is that the starting gun has been fired but at least one of the runners is still in the changing room.

        1. Perhaps he is holding fire until his papers are in and he is definitely the candidate for X before posting his personal details. He will have to have an imprint on any literature and that should have his address on.

      1. I don’t know. There is plenty of blah from Farage. There is little real, or new, information on their website. As I can read quite well, I do not wish to sit through videos in the hope that they will be pertinent.
        However, our candidate is clearly doing nothing much until after 14th when, he says, they will know more about relations with Tories.
        The Brexit Party will be having a rally in November in Edinburgh. Oh, wow!
        I am not seeing any urgency. There is not going to be a Storming of the Bastille, and the guns of the Aurora will remain silent.

        Edited: “in Edinburgh”

        2. OK, let me ask you the question from a different perspective. Imagine you are a top strategist for Miss Polly’s favourite globalist, how would you ensure that Brexit never happens? What does the lack of urgency tell you?

          1. Well, it might just suggest to me what I suggested it might suggest last week. I have not heard that suggestion from anyone else.

          2. Well I don’t know what you suggested last week, but if it’s that Johnson and Farage are there to split the Brexit vote I’d say your suggestion was correct. There’s a forthright Horace on Breitbart, you don’t have two BB profiles do you?

        3. Probably got the idea of a rally from Donald Trump,
          Something only of any significance for those within
          the bubble of Nigel Farage’s bloated Ego.

  95. Allison Pearson in tonight’s DT:-

    “Every Wednesday morning, I read your emails, usually with great pleasure. Last week, though, one sounded a warning klaxon. Perhaps it was the Subject that tipped me off: “YOU Entirely Corrupt and DUMB AS F*** serial LIAR will be hold (sic) to account for your crimes.”
    It would probably have been wise to stop reading right there, but curiosity got the better of me. The email contained what I believe is known as a death threat. Among other forthcoming treats, my Corbynist correspondent promised that “we will bring back capital punishment and LAWFULLY EXECUTE you alt-right fascists and traitors for your crimes on the electrical chair”.
    Reader, I was shocked. The grammar! Dear, oh dear!
    If anyone’s going to the “electrical chair”, surely it should be a moron who can’t get his subject and object sorted out. Anyway, I replied to my abuser, correcting his email in the very best English-teacher manner. I also inquired solicitously after his miniature Marxist penis.
    I won’t lie. It was disturbing. The email lodged in a corner of my my brain, a flickering, intrusive thought. “Am I an alt-Right fascist?” I asked Himself at breakfast.
    “I bloody well hope so, darling,” he said. “We do rely on your goose-stepping, although alt-Right is purely an American thing.”
    I didn’t tell him about the execution bit. Better not. He’s a mild-mannered chap, but he’d put down his copy of Uncle Fred in the Springtime if he ever found out someone wanted to hurt me.
    I’m sharing this with you because it’s not merely unpleasant, it’s indicative, I fear, of the hateful zealotry that characterises followers of the Labour leader, a man who, in theory, could be our prime minister in five and a half weeks.
    People like me, who hold mainstream views shared by millions of voters, both Conservative and Labour, are demonised by his sanctimonious Socialist stormtroopers. Words like “fascist”, which used to have a very specific meaning, are now a lazy catch-all for Anyone Who Doesn’t Agree With Us.
    Ditto racist. I am resigned to receiving patronising tweets from bien-pensant Labour supporters who claim to have thought I was a clever and humorous person before I went over to the dark side and voted Leave.
    But this, this deliberate threat of physical harm, of being put to death under a Corbyn regime, is something else entirely.
    It has only strengthened my conviction that Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage absolutely must reach some kind of non-aggression electoral pact because the consequences of Jeremy Corbyn entering No 10 are truly chilling. Each man has good reason not to cooperate with the other. Farage threatens to run 600 Brexit Party candidates in seats like Portsmouth South, where that would simply deny victory to a pro-Leave candidate.
    Is his pride really so wounded that he would prefer no Brexit at all than to let the PM and his deal take the credit? Farage’s place in history is guaranteed, but there will be a very sour footnote if he enables a Corbyn victory.
    Boris, meanwhile, is being told he can gain seats never before won by a Conservative. But Labour Leave voters are much more likely to vote Brexit Party than to put a cross next to the hated Tories. Sorry, chaps, the risk is far too great: the willy-waving has to stop.
    A week ago, I woke up in the small hours and my first thought was: “If I had to chose between no Brexit and a Corbyn government, I’d choose to lose Brexit.” I’ve never had a political dream before. The day’s anxiety must have infiltrated my sleep. Until now, there has been no general election in my lifetime in which one possible outcome was a source of genuine fear.
    Why is no one saying how profoundly dangerous to this country it would be if Jeremy Corbyn became prime minister? Why does the media continue to report his activities as if he were a normal candidate, not a man so flawed he can’t even command the confidence of the majority of his own MPs?
    Jewish friends wonder aloud which country they will move to if an anti-Semitic party comes to power. Two entrepreneurs I know, who employ hundreds of workers, have their money ready to leave the UK the second a Corbyn victory is declared. One plans to move his entire family to Jersey.Browsing comments online, I was shocked to come across intelligent professional people who claim to be sanguine about a government led by an international socialist who has always supported our enemies and never our friends: “Brexit would destroy the country for ever,” wrote one, “Corbyn would only last a few years.”
    Personally, I think it’s the other way round. The economic catastrophe, triggered in the first few hours of December 13 by an exodus of capital, would just be the start.
    There would be Diane Abbott at the Home Office with her unlimited freedom of movement, aided by her incredible mathematics. Educational standards would dive as Angela Rayner scrapped Ofsted. John McDonnell, who has the same soothing soft-spokenness as the head of the KGB in Chernobyl, and who would be Chancellor of the Exchequer, is coming for your children’s inheritance.
    A former head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, has warned that Corbyn himself wouldn’t even get security clearance to join our secret services – the vetting process would reject him. And yet this friend of terrorists hopes to run our national security.
    Is that what the Brexit purists really want? Do Nigel and Boris think that’s a risk worth running? I can live with death threats, but not the slow death of my country under Corbyn. Time to make a pact, gentlemen. Better be safe than sorry.’

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/politics/never-feared-labour-government-like-do-prospect-corbyns-rabble/

    2. ““Brexit would destroy the country for ever,” wrote one, “Corbyn would only last a few years.” Personally, I think it’s the other way round.”

      Well this lady has the current situation a55 about face, as do a disturbing number of others. Corbyn would be very bad for this country, but the EU itself would stop him doing most of the things that he is saying that he will do. Such as mass re-nationalisation of parts of our country – the EU says “No Jeremy you cannot do that.”

      Jeremy also says that he will re-open the Withdrawal Agreement and get a better deal for the United Kingdom in 6 months. The EU takes that long to unpack its pens, so that will not be happening either.

      The EU is a much bigger threat that actually exists, rather than the bogeyman of a leader of a party that is falling apart anyway, and that is under direct attack by the Liberal Democrats for their Remainer voters. If Boris dropped this terrible Withdrawal Agreement, and worked with Nigel Farage for a real WTO Brexit, then we would be FULLY outside of the EU by the New Year. Freedom is there on a plate for the taking.

      On that very unlikely note, I have just been startled by a hairless parrot and need some vodka to calm my nerves. Have a good night. 🙂

    3. “If I had to chose between no Brexit and a Corbyn government, I’d choose to lose Brexit.”
      If Corbyn were to form a government, his party wouldn’t let him leave, so your ‘choice’ would be irrelevant anyway. It’s ‘choose’ by the way, Alison.

    4. ” Why does the media continue to report his ( Corbyn’s) activities as if he were a normal candidate,”
      That is the thing that has been frightening me. The media can blacklist Leavers, but accepts this vary dangerous evil man and his supporters, as equals in the politics game. Germany 1930’s anyone ?

    5. I am very glad to hear Allison Pearson’s husband/lover/partner/whatever reads P.G. Wodehouse. Uncle Fred in the Springtime is one of the novels in the delightful Blandings saga.

      Indeed, it would ,be no bad thing if all prospective MPs were obliged to read all the Jeeves and Blandings books before being allowed to run for Parliament. They would, of course, have to take a vigorous examination to show that they have understood what they have read.

  96. Can you still let off fireworks and have bonfires on the 5th? I seem to remember reading that a lot of things are now restricted or banned.

    Local July 4th celebrations here can get pretty noisy, especially with the “mortar” style fireworks where a charge in the canister hurls the “shot” up in the air, whereupon it explodes into a huge burst – and does it very loudly.

    1. p.s. abstracted from the state’s rules:

      Consumer products legal to purchase and use in West Virginia include:

       Sky Rockets and Bottle Rockets

       Missile-Type Rockets

       Helicopter and Aerial Spinners

       Roman Candles

       Multi-Aerial Mine and Shell Devices

       Aerial Shell Kits

       Reloadables

       Firecrackers

    2. The answer to you question is Yes —(for the time being until Greta and the pillocks who endorse her get their way)

  97. Remember, remember, the fifth of November
    When gunpowder treason and plot

    Missed a golden opportunity..

  98. According to ZH: Things not looking too bright for Deutsche bank:
    “Deutsche Bank is the largest domino in Europe’s very shaky financial system. When it fully collapses, it will set off a chain reaction that nobody is going to be able to stop. David Wilkerson once warned that the financial collapse of Europe would begin in Germany, and Jim Rogers has warned that the implosion of Deutsche Bank would cause the entire EU to “disintegrate”…

    Then the EU would disintegrate, because Germany would no longer be able to support it, would not want to support it. A lot of other people would start bailing out; many banks in Europe have problems. And if Deutsche Bank has to fail – that is the end of it. In 1931, when one of the largest banks in Europe failed, it led to the Great Depression and eventually the WWII. Be worried!

    1. They will not admit that it has failed. They will find another name for what has happened, and rob the poor to re-imburse the rich, like was done here after 2008.

    2. Deutsche Bank has been in a mess for over a decade. I think it is now pulling out ovf Investment banking and is retreating to just retail banking

  99. BTL from the DT letters:

    Christian Malford 5 Nov 2019 1:10AM

    George Kelly writes:
    SIR – The postal workers’ union is threatening to go on strike during the election, thus depriving thousands of pensioners of their postal vote.

    There are plenty of ways of ensuring postal votes are available, Mr Kelly. Tower Hamlets Town Hall will provide the forms.

    A Allan 5 Nov 2019 8:07AM

    @Christian Malford
    “Tower Hamlets Town Hall will provide the forms.”

    Already completed to save you the hassle of making a decision.

    1. We may go for a postal vote. Snow and ice on tvoting day and we’re stuck, disenfrancheyesd in Gaza.

    2. Interesting that graph which shows that increasing meat consumption correlates with the climate emergency. Personally, my savings account increases at the same rate when I make monthly contributions but fail to make any withdrawals. Perhaps I should withdraw all my savings, go on a spending spree and thus save the world!

    4. I witnessed first hand and survived the bombing of London towards the end of WW2, the big freeze of 1947, the big smog of 1952, the big flood of 1953, nearly the end of the world in 1962, the big blackout of 1973 and the big drought of 1976.

      From my perspective things really haven’t been that bad since and the NHS has improved beyond all recognition.

      To modern generations the filmed records of these past events are just serialised fictional entertainment.

      1. We spend slightly above the EU average on Health. For dome reason though our NHS does not perform as well as other European health services. A lot seems to be down to poor systems and processes another problem has been mass migration which has caused a considerable burden on the NHS

        Corbyns claim that funding to the NHS has been reduced is simply not true. It is true the rate of increase has fallen but so has the rate of inflation

        1. It’s completely over burdened by the unnecessary, wasteful bureaucracy of middle management, and also hamstrung by the politics which enforces an international output from a national input.

  101. Boris Johnson is no friend of Islam according to Mohammed Amìn
    who resigned from Conservative Muslims to join the Lib Dems
    as I said below . No one can ever say that old Trotsky terrorist loving
    loon isn’t a friend of Islam. I am sure as well as cancelling Brèxit
    Corbyn is waiting to close down asylum seeker centres and he
    has said immigrant families should be allowed to come and live
    here. I am sure there are Nigel Farage followers who
    hes the saviour of Brèxit and that of England, ( neither in reality
    ut delusion on a grand scale are more like the reality,
    a kitten who looks in a mirror and sees a lion.
    An imagine in the press of a grinning Farage wearing boxing
    gloves alone in the middle of a circle of people looking
    at him from a distance speaks volumes about the ego of
    the man and his’ presidential ‘ambitions .

      1. Love it apart from.. why the bally heck can yanks not pronounce the letter T?

        Peeder Sellers, Bayddul, rowduh… really, what is wrong with them?

      2. The Pied Piper who abandoned his troops in the middle
        of a war in his own country to venture overseas and
        help someone else with foreign wars. He becomes
        a famous radio star. Comes back to his own lands
        shoots his troops and decides to find himself a new
        group of followers but as long as he has a starring role
        because in his reality it’s all about him- the star of the show.

      1. it’s Islam’s dangerous present
        form that Boris Johnson has issues with.
        Mr Mohammed Amìn has also made a point saying that
        the Conservative Party isn’t any longer the home
        of any Muslim and that Boris Johnson is making it
        very uncomfortable for Muslims on this day.
        That is of far more significance then Some documentaries
        of the past. Jeremy Corbyn embraces Islam .

          1. Absolutely. As I recall, Bojo was peddling the Cordoba Myth. In reality, the Spanish didn’t fight the Reconquista for seven hundred years because their Moslem overlords treated them well.

  102. KPMG to axe an entire HR department

    Sounds madness to me

    50 Internal trainingg jobs at Watford are to be axed with 30 going to Leeds and 20 outsourced to India

  103. Latest Rolling Poll Results

    Not going well for the Brexit Party . I think Nigel need to just agree a deal over which seats to contests. He needs to drop the insistence of Boris dropping his deal as that simply is not going to happen. There is also a mix of opinions withing the Brexit Party some want No deal others are happy with Boris’s deal others whilst wanting no deal would accept the deal

    The main priority needs to be for the Brexit Party to gain seats

    Con 38%
    Lab 27%
    Lib-Dems 16%
    Brexit 10%
    Green 3%

    1. The trouble is that he will be puffed up and proud of the fact that he can generate such hatred!

      1. “There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”

        Oscar Wilde

      1. More importantly the BBC won’t mention that the EWA is a blakc bag job. No charges, indefinite prison term, no access to lawyers, no contact, just jail. It is the fascists delight.

    1. She should be made a Dame. She was an athlete in her earlier life – Northern Ireland High Jump champion in 1966

        1. ‎Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber AKA Mitzi Gaynor.

          ♫ I’m gonna wash that man right out of my hair and send him on his way ♫

    2. One of the last of the traditional Labour MP’s that represented their constituents now largely replaced buy Momentum types

    4. The first time she came to my attention was when she was sacked from Blair’s first government in which she had been the Minister of Sport.

      I could see then that she was a woman of exceptional integrity which odious people like Blair, Cameron, May, Corbyn and Johnson are incapable of seeing – either because they have none themselves or despise those who do.

      1. We all got Kate Hoey right – she was a beacon of light in a dismal Labour Party.

        But it is almost heartbreaking to find one has made a complete misjudgement when one finds that a person whom one liked and respected is, after all, base and worthless.

        I feel very bitterly betrayed by Steve Baker and Mark Francois. I thought they were far more honourable and principled than they have now shown themselves to be. I also used to admire JRM until I saw that he is a piece of putrid slime.

  107. For Elective surgery that is available on the NHS should you be able to go private? The NHS only funding to NHS level. If private is overr that you fund the difference. THis would help reduce waiting times on the NHS

  108. Election could bring siesmic change says Swinson I guess it means she is going to self implode

    1. Actualy, this is what she said –

      ” Vote could deliver ‘seismic change ”

      One of the exceptions.

  109. A strike of Unversity staff, NHS doctors, probably a postal strike, a missile strike, and whatever, this month.
    Is this a good thing or a bad thing for the Labour Party ?

  110. Breaking news.
    Bercow found dead – electrocuted when rewiring a plug.
    Police say evidence at the scene shows he clearly had no idea what neutral meant.

          2. Hope I don’t meter when she’s in a bad mood.

            Anyhow, I’m insulate, it’s time I went to bed.

  111. Tonight’s Discussion is Are some people born to kill?

    Putting the case they are not is Meredith Mckay who says:-

    ” Nobody is “born to kill.” People can be twisted into being that way by events in their lives. It makes them sociopathic murderers not warriors. A warrior is anyone who will stand up and defend his people and values. Training makes them better prepared to do this. Those who develop an “instinct for survival” tend to last longer than those who do not. Veteran and Elite units are made up of normal men who have learned, or been lucky enough, to avoid being killed while they were still Green or Regular.”

    Putting the case that some people are born to kill is everybody’s least favourite troll, me, Rainbow Six and I said:-

    “Excluding psychopaths and sociopaths, according to the British Army there are three types of people, there are those that could never kill under any circumstance. Those that can be trained to kill. And those that were born to kill and never have a problem about it as they are warriors of which they reckon there are only 1-2%.”

      1. Put your specs on then you can see… as in dot dot dot and not comma comma comma chameleon!
        You were a dentist in a former life, weren’t you?

      2. May I suggest, to everyone, is that the best way to deal with this preening attention seeker is simply to ignore it?

      1. You got me there. A Massachussets realtor or a fisherman?
        I challenged 3 people to fisticuffs at the gym today, the 5 foot nothing, 71 year old cleaning lady. A dusky maiden who was very professional at skipping. They declined. But then this yoof asked if I’d finished with the punch bag. So I said I’d fight him for it. He showed me the licence he has to carry because he’s armed and extremely dangerous, just like you. Except he was a Bluenose not a gooner.

    3. Rainbow Six – I did reply to you twice in the past couple of days, but that was before I saw the way that you talk to some people here. I believe in politeness unless the topic or comment is right out there.

      I did not see active service in the British Army and was only full-time for 10 months with them, but in the training that I received one of the first things we were told at the selection process was “Leaders are not born, they are made.” Some people do have experiences in their lives that lead them to be better leaders, but that is the process of “being made.”

      In the original comment you made to me you suggested that the 1-2% of those who were “born to kill” were known as warriors. I disagree. The man who was working the land for 10 months of the year before being called up by his local Lord to fight is just as much a warrior as those who join the local town militia and guard the walls.

      You do not need to be a killer to be a warrior, just be willing to stand up for what you believe.

      1. I know you’ve replied.
        So you, like all the mods and all my detractors have seen all my comments from day one and seen how people respond to me? Of course you haven’t but it’s amazing how you can all pick and choose what to see, hear and believe. Anybody with a differing view gets ridiculed or ostracised or bullied.Suggest you go back and see how all the bully boys on here were having a go at ogga1 yesterday evening. The double standards are amazing.
        Well you’re totally wrong. The 1-2 percentage was mentioned in a documentary about 12-13 years ago about the British Army by the British Army.
        I doubt a true warrior suffers PTSD. They sleep easy in their beds. The British Army had it’s ar$e handed to it in the early parts of both wars why was that? In 1915 they were saved by conscripts some very malnourished and very small in stature.
        So you are saying there is no such group as warriors, they are just the same as anybody else who is trained to fight?
        The word “killology” was invented for the Yanks, they had a problem shooting to kill which goes back to WWII, I’m sure you’ve seen the film The Men Who Stare At Goats, I think 60% were not aiming to kill in Vietnam. But the Yanks have solved that problem now.
        Leaders in the British army are called Ruperts, that’s all you need to know. Before that you bought your commission. While in the Roman Army everything was on merit until you got to be a tribune. WWII German troops nearly always inflicted far higher casualties on enemies because they had far better officers.

    4. To kill and not let it get to you, I think puts you on the psychopath track somewhere. The classic accusation against such people is that they have no empathy – except for those very close to them. For example, they lose a family member and feel it badly. They see a disaster of some sort, with many dead and they feel nothing as none of “theirs” were involved. The so-called “warriors” are in fact on the “psycho” path, but are just better at hiding it. The military basically tries to brainwash people that warfare and its associated deaths are OK. The psychos come out unscathed – had to be done, move on. The rest get PTSD.

      Incidentally, research has shown that many CEO’s and similar have that same streak – it enables them to focus only on what they have to get done to be successful, and keeps them from being sidelined by anyone else’s concerns or opinions. And have no compunction about firing people, raiding pension funds, declaring bankruptcy or whatever else they see as necessary. Easy for them, as they feel nothing about the impact of their actions on others.

      1. So by your rational all your Hollywood heroes are all psychopaths or sociopaths. There’s a guy in Black Hawk Down who is a warrior, the one with his index finger as the safety. But you’re wrong, the info was from a documentary about the British Army.
        I’m sure you’ve watched They Shall Not Grow Old https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsdSlG2CZJw There’s some warriors in there.
        I read the book Why Men Don’t Iron it confirms that the top CEOs will take the risks because of the testosterone while a female CEO wont take the risks. But Vietnam was about McNamara’s morons being conscripted and the richer cleverer kids avoiding it by hook or by crook.
        The Yanks had a problem of shooting to kill but they’ve solved that problem now something like 97% shoot to kill.

      2. So by your rational all your Hollywood heroes are all psychopaths or sociopaths. There’s a guy in Black Hawk Down who is a warrior, the one with his index finger as the safety. But you’re wrong, the info was from a documentary about the British Army.
        I’m sure you’ve watched They Shall Not Grow Old https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsdSlG2CZJw There’s some warriors in there.
        I read the book Why Men Don’t Iron it confirms that the top CEOs will take the risks because of the testosterone while a female CEO wont take the risks. But Vietnam was about McNamara’s morons being conscripted and the richer cleverer kids avoiding it by hook or by crook.
        The Yanks had a problem of shooting to kill but they’ve solved that problem now something like 97% shoot to kill.

    2. “Entries for GCSEs in both subjects has dropped by 30 per cent over the past five years, while Spanish has dropped by a more modest two per cent.”

    1. At the moment Mongo is sat on my lap. At the first fireworks he heard as a puppy he went to his Dad, Wiggy who would just sit by the fire, gormless as ever – with the occassional look around ot make sure everyone was still there. Mongo sits on me. Now, when he was a puppy this was fine. He’s now 72kg. And I can’t feel my legs.

      1. My mutt has gone deaf, which is a blessing on Bonfire Night (and the re-enactments of the Battle of Jutland/El Alamein leading up to it). He used to climb on my shoulders or try to squeeze into any tiny space. Now he’s snoring his head off at my feet.

  114. Evening, all. The election proper hasn’t been called yet and already I have election fatigue; we bought a new TV and while I was setting it up, the channels seemed to be filled with screeching wimmin polly ticking. I have a problem with a sensor on my car, plus it needs a new exhaust and this afternoon I discovered that one of the headlamp bulbs has blown. It’s into the garage tomorrow and I shall be forced to use the campervan to reach the meetings I have to attend. Oh joy! Parking a 21.5ft vehicle in Oswestry is going to be a delight, especially if the car parks have height restrictions.

        1. Of course, D in K! “La nuit” and “Le jour” in French just as “La noche” and “El dia” in Spanish. For a moment, I couldn’t recall whether it was “la” or “le” nuit, hence the ? mark.

        2. Of course, D in K! “La nuit” and “Le jour” in French just as “La noche” and “El dia” in Spanish. For a moment, I couldn’t recall whether it was “la” or “le” nuit, hence the ? mark.

    1. Not really, Tony. Clinical depression (and I don’t mean a simple low mood) is a really seriously debilitating illness.

      EDIT: Sorry, Tony, the above post was meant to be to that of Richard Sk who referenced a different BBC Telegraph article.

    1. Good night everyone but me. (I was told that talking to yourself is the first sign of madness. The second sign is answering yourself, isn’t it Elsie? It sure is, Elsie.)

      1. It’s when you start falling out with yourself and refuse to speak that you need to worry.

        Good night Elsie.

        1. Stop interrupting me when I’m having a row with myself, Eddie, or we’ll both give you some welly!

          :-)) (And a good night to you too.)

    2. Good night everyone but me. (I was told that talking to yourself is the first sign of madness. The second sign is answering yourself, isn’t it Elsie? It sure is, Elsie.)

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