Sunday 8 May: Voters have spoken on a PM incapable of leading this country through crisis

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

542 thoughts on “Sunday 8 May: Voters have spoken on a PM incapable of leading this country through crisis”

  1. ‘Morning, Peeps.  Another fine, sunny day in prospect, but if anyone could spare some rain and send it this way…

    This is the second letter in today’s batch, but I think it should have been leading:

    SIR – The poor showing of the Conservative Party is easily understood. Voters want the originals, not the tribute band.

    Phil Alderman
    Ponthir, Monmouthshire

    This BTL poster says it all:

    Lance DeBoles et al 1 HR AGO

    I agree that one must be wary of drawing too many conclusions from the recent local elections.

    That said it has been blindingly obvious for some time that conservative voters now believe we have a socialist tribute act in No10 who are hell bent on delivering the agenda of the Blob and not what real people want.

    Voters from both sides of the spectrum feel politically homeless but crave almost identical things……….a Pro British, anti-woke, party who pursues practical commonsense policies……..and delivers on them.

    The Conservative party is now incapable of this, demonstrated by Boris clinging to the toxic and foolhardy net zero targets and his pretence at tackling immigration.

    I know I will never vote Conservative again, instead I gave decided to vote Reform UK……….the traditional parties are a waste of space and need to be put out of their misery.

    * * *

    Put out of OUR misery, I would suggest!

  2. ‘Morning, Peeps.  Another fine, sunny day in prospect, but if anyone could spare some rain and send it this way…

    This is the second letter in today’s batch, but I think it should have been leading:

    SIR – The poor showing of the Conservative Party is easily understood. Voters want the originals, not the tribute band.

    Phil Alderman
    Ponthir, Monmouthshire

    This BTL poster says it all:

    Lance DeBoles et al 1 HR AGO

    I agree that one must be wary of drawing too many conclusions from the recent local elections.

    That said it has been blindingly obvious for some time that conservative voters now believe we have a socialist tribute act in No10 who are hell bent on delivering the agenda of the Blob and not what real people want.

    Voters from both sides of the spectrum feel politically homeless but crave almost identical things……….a Pro British, anti-woke, party who pursues practical commonsense policies……..and delivers on them.

    The Conservative party is now incapable of this, demonstrated by Boris clinging to the toxic and foolhardy net zero targets and his pretence at tackling immigration.

    I know I will never vote Conservative again, instead I gave decided to vote Reform UK……….the traditional parties are a waste of space and need to be put out of their misery.

    * * *

    Put out of OUR misery, I would suggest!

  4. SIR – I am sure it’s just a coincidence that those Conservatives who won in the local elections had made it abundantly clear they wanted nothing to do with Boris Johnson.

    People’s standard of living has plummeted, their cost of living has rocketed, and projections suggest that things are going to get worse.

    All we get from the Prime Minister are excuses and ridiculous promises – not to mention his egocentric and self-serving behaviour.

    Alan Lloyd
    Liverpool

    This is the leading letter in the DT today.  Unfortunately no one shows any sign of moving Bumbling Bunter to the door, but time is fast running out and before we know it Labour will be back in to finish off his wrecking of our economy.  This BTL post will surely find favour here:

    Robert Gray1 HR AGO

    There is a litany of reasons behind protest vote signalling to government at local elections. Our domestic needs are being sidelined as, in notably good cause, Johnson nonetheless postures on the international stage. The reality at home is that the vast majority has no truck with unaffordable net zero virtue signalling at vast consumer expense, that it recognises that HS2 is utterly unaffordable folly as with WFH the new reality, Grant Shapps offers 50% discounts to get people even on the trains we have. The public sees failure to grasp the NI protocol, itself a BJ fudge, as handing Northern Ireland to Sinn Fein at the local level and leaving rexit limping. The public sees a housing shortage being fed by demand pressures not least from immigration and it sees problems with stauching immigration is also partly due to the civil service running its own broad comprehensive challenge to government unchecked. It sees crowd control reverence to the NHS during covid now overruning into NHS immunity from challenge as waiting lists balloon. Yes, photo opps in Kiyiv and material support are highly worthy but there is much fiddling whilst our own house burns down brightly with rampant inflation and unaffordable dogmas.

    1. “The reality at home is that the vast majority”… could not find the Ukraine on a map. They know nothing of its history, of the now defunct Soviet Union, or of the reasons for such bad relations with Russia, of the interference by outsiders and the one-sided nature of the reporting.
      As to the other matters, in any sensible nation the people would hang the politicians from lamp posts – although that could only be done in daylight as we cannot expect street lights to continue in use because of energy costs…

      1. When there isn’t the energy to clean the water and politicans are force fed it, then they might stop. Until then, they just won’t give a damn.

    2. That discount doesn’t apply to the wife’s season ticket. Besides, her reason for not wanting to go into London is simple – she’s sick and tired of waiting on train platforms for a cancelled or delayed train surrounded by black yobs (of both sexes) screaming at one another and leering middle easterners.

      It’s not nice to say that, but it’s true.

  5. SIR – The CEO of NHS Providers, the chair of the Royal College of GPs and the CEO of the NHS Confederation (Letters, May 2) say that “frontline staff are as committed as ever and are working flat out.”

    In military terms the writers are commenting as staff officers, sitting in their ivory towers and totally removed from what is happening on the frontline. Another way to put it is that their perception does not reflect my reality as an inpatient for 13 days. During my stay I was never seen by a consultant. As a result, my care was dysfunctional and I had to influence it on several occasions.

    On admission I did not mention that I was medically qualified, had been a director of A&E, and had been a medical director and chief executive of a hospital. As well as not seeing the consultant, I always saw the nurses and junior doctors independently. Had there been a clear clinical plan the dysfunction would have been addressed. That is what used to happen.

    This is not about resources and money. It is simply about care and clear planning.

    D W Spence FRACGP
    Sheffield, South Yorkshire

    It is like everything else Dr Spence; a shambles where incompetence is rife and no one seems capable of reversing our rapid decline.

    1. 352523+ up ticks,

      Morning HJ,
      Any individual / party showing signs of being beneficial to these Isles was closed down in favour of the lab/lib/con coalition.
      Much of our woe is created by this coalition and braindead hard core members ie, the party first regardless of consequence, Dover being a prime example.

    2. By not speaking up about his qualifications and experience I should have thought he brought some of it upon himself.

      If his inaction is representative of how he and other similarly senior people perform their roles it might indicate one of the problems with management.

      1. If he had announced himself they would have pulled out all the stops. Disguising reality.

      2. I disagree. He did not bring any of it on himself. His experience has been what any ordinary member of the public would have and that is the point. It’s ok for those letter signatories – they would have first class treatment and attention o simply because of who they are . The rest of us …

        1. I agree re the treatment he received being similar to the rest of us, but if you don’t take advantage of what you know then you are contributing to your own demise.

          For example, if you are aware that something is available far better and far cheaper elsewhere do you continue to buy the expensive and inferior goods?

          1. I think that’s a totally different situation. Everyone makes up their own mind about what to buy. You cannot do that with the NHS. It’s pot luck. And it shouldn’t be is my point.

          2. Having been hospitalised a couple of time two things are evident: it’s demently inefficient and painfully slow.

            If you’re well and functional on day 3, and could go home you are waiting until the consultant can see you which is usually mid afternoon. Then he instructs a nurse to fill in the paperwork and then it’s late evening and the pharmacy is closed so you’re stuck there for another day.

            As for appointments, those are just laughable. Supposedly to give you ‘choices’ they offer an entry… of one choice. Then the appointment is months away.

          3. I agree that it shouldn’t be pot luck and I agree that it is; far too often. But if you don’t use what advantages you have you bring problems on yourself that could be avoided

          4. It’s because politicians and the rich do that, that the rest of us are in such sh!t.

          5. Everyone does it in their areas of expertise or connections, the wealthy and most powerful just have greater opportunity to do so.

          6. Erm, there was such a thing as philanthopy (genuine philanthropy) once. Not more than, well, two generations ago.

          7. I hate to be the one to break this to you:
            Gates, Soros, MegaHonk, Blair etc etc et bluddy cetera, all think they are philanthropists.

    3. After being admitted to the Acute Ward and been diagnosed i waited 7 hours for the Consultant. He didn’t turn up and i walked out. It would have taken him 30 seconds to see me and send me on my way. No wonder there is a shortage of beds.

    4. Yet the people who manage the resources and want the money – because most of it goes to them – say it’s about resources and money. The things they’ve control over.

      Odd that, isn’t it?

    5. There is the capability to reverse the decline – just not the will. Too many incompetants pocket too much for doing very little.

      Gosh what an edit – I am typing so many typos…

  6. SIR – I have been a civil servant, and can recall occasions when government direction and policies were not popular among colleagues – but this did not stop work to implement them.

    The current situation reflects both a weak Government and a Civil Service that is too powerful. It is wrong of Jacob Rees-Mogg to go around leaving sarcastic notes on desks, because it is the responsibility of individual permanent under-secretaries to control their staff, following direction by their secretary of state

    It is perfectly reasonable to state objections to policies, suggest modifications and have views heard, but once senior ministers have considered these it is the job of permanent under-secretaries to ensure efficient implementation of any decisions – be they on home working, Ukrainian refugees or the Rwanda asylum plan.

    We are witnessing the return of the Sir Humphrey approach, and if senior civil servants are unable or unwilling to control and motivate their staff to produce timely results upon the direction of ministers, they should resign or be sacked.

    We could be at war soon. It’s time for the Government to get tough.

    Laurence Barnes
    Tattenhall, Cheshire

    The ‘permanent under-secretaries’ seem to be conspicuous by their absence, Mr Barnes, so what happens now?  This shirking from home simply isn’t working, and the sooner a return to the office is ordered, the better.

      1. It isn’t the location, it’s the work being done. Most of what the CS does is irrelevant. The rest is usually done badly. The last bits crawl through, hindered endlessly by state incompetence.

        That won’t change suddenly by bringing people into an office.

        1. Yes, but it will stop the individuals from watching morning telly or whatever.

    2. The permanent secretaries seem to be happy with the status quo – the massive taxes allow them to build petty empires, the endless immigration could stop tomorrow if border farce were so instructed.

      Just look at the treasury. Here’s an organisation that thinks you can lift yourself out of a bucket by the handles. It wants more money to make up for spending more money, behaving as a greedy miser as if it were their money in the first place.

      Every single thing is back to front and that is because of government incompetence, political stupidity, civil service arrogance and inertia.

  7. The lost age of common sense. 8 may 2022.

    The omnipresent spectacle of climate-change activists is one of today’s more dispiriting aspects. Whether they are gluing themselves to roads, blocking refineries or generally inconveniencing the public, they do so with a missionary zeal that channelled in another direction might be beneficial. But do they consider the outcomes if we accepted their illogical demands? No heating for homes, no petrol, no lights, no electricity, meagre food rations and no travel, for starters.

    These largely middle-class eco-warriors say such discomforts are a price worth paying to ‘save the world’ and that the magical electricity, spoken of as though it is conjured up from thin air, will solve all problems.

    No mention that the UK’s suicide mission to be carbon neutral will be the most economically and socially damaging pointless gesture the world has ever seen. While India, Russia and China carry on producing ‘greenhouse gases’ to secure their industries, plucky Britain will hunker down, swaddled in the warm glow of pious stupidity, whilst we watch as not only pensioners but families freeze in their own homes.

    No alternative view is permitted to be expressed. Woe betide anyone who speaks up for fossil fuels and the benefits they have bestowed.

    Common sense!

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-lost-age-of-common-sense/

    2. “These largely middle-class eco-warriors say such discomforts are a price worth paying to ‘save the world’’.
      I wonder if they feel guilt each time they put the kettle on for their morning tisane.

    1. Hugh, the important item in this description of an admitted crook was “the Electoral Commission and the Police did nothing”

    2. They probably will, Hugh, and then they will blame it on the Lib/Lab/Con national coalition government of the day. Which inexorably will lead to a Muslim government in the not-too-distant future.

      1. Plus their offspring and their extended families and offspring coming in to vote. How anyone can not believe that we are being shafted by our governments (and all the rest of the Elites – and unfortunately I include the Royals: the Queen who happily signed us into the EEC, plus the other wokes in that family who really are not very intrerested in the direction of this country, or very bright).

    4. I wonder how many postal votes there were. I also wonder who stood against him. The entire area is infested.

  9. SIR – Philip Roberts (Letters, May 1) is concerned about Britain’s nuclear deterrence policy. However, he should not doubt that Mutually Assured Destruction is extant.

    Vladimir Putin and his various mouthpieces can puff themselves up and threaten a nuclear strike until the cows come home. In the meantime the Royal Navy patrols unseen 365 days a year, ready to retaliate if Britain or a Nato nation is attacked.

    The French and the United States have their own nuclear deterrents, which will also influence Mr Putin’s decision-making.

    Squadron Leader Dave Tisdale (retd)
    Ryde, Isle of Wight

    Dave, I don’t think Putin ‘does’ logic old chap, so we could be in for a very rough ride…

    1. Vladimir Putin and his various mouthpieces can puff themselves up and threaten a nuclear strike until the cows come home. In the meantime the Royal Navy patrols unseen 365 days a year, ready to retaliate if Britain or a Nato nation is attacked.

      Squadron Leader Blimp!

    2. I think Putin has just watched the West destroy its own economies for a couple of years so he must be wondering: If they do this to themselves they can’t care too much about what might happen if they kick it off with us.

      1. Whacko! Are you sure that we actually control our nuclear weapons? Are you sure that we do not need the permission of the Americans? Do they control the launch codes, do they have access to the “kill switches”? These weapons are British in name only as we pay for them. However they are serviced and maintained in the United States.

        1. It us clear we are not masters of our nations.
          I am not certain the “Americans” are our masters or even America’s as we saw their own leader suppressed until this demented crook of a puppet could be enthroned.

  10. Good Morning Folks,

    Cloudy start here, off down the South coast for the day, not my idea of a relaxing Sunday but hey ho

    1. Chin up, B3: the sun is out and the sea is calm. 16°C will be nice, too.
      Which bit of the sarf coast are you heading for?

  12. SIR – The Government’s “pledge to ban trials for Army veterans” may offer the illusion of closure, but it will hide the greater moral failure of the Good Friday Agreement.

    The proposed Legacy Bill’s statute of limitations will not give “closure with honour and finality” to the families of the more than 2,100 victims of intentional Provisional IRA violence (more than 70 per cent of the Troubles’ casualties).

    The failures of various governments, the Northern Ireland Public Prosecutor and the Northern Ireland Police Service to provide even-handed justice to the bereaved over the past two decades permitted Sinn Fein and misguided American pressure groups to focus on the handful of security forces cases, while the greater evil of premeditated murder was ignored.

    Tony Blair’s naive secret deals and “comfort letters” betrayed the bereaved families and endorsed the evil of those who abandoned democratic principles. The perversion of justice that took place behind the Good Friday Agreement, on grounds of political expediency, will be clouded to history by the proposed Bill.

    Brigadier Roy Wilde (retd)
    Barford St Martin, Wiltshire

    And now the people of NI are faced with the very real prospect of a united (so-called) Ireland.  It won’t end well.

    1. It’s interesting that on the BBC news Mrs McNeill stated that although Sinn Fein was the largest party she would not press for

      reunification of Ireland, yet on Al Jazeera the Sinn Fein representative stated that it will be full speed ahead for reunification.

      1. Morning Janet. It speaks volumes that you have to get the truth from Al Jazeerah!

      2. Can Southern Ireland afford to take on the north?
        Ah ….. of course, our numpty government will give them oodles of our money to ease the pain.

    2. It’s interesting that on the BBC news Mrs McNeill stated that although Sinn Fein was the largest party she would not press for

      reunification of Ireland, yet on Al Jazeera the Sinn Fein representative stated that it will be full speed ahead for reunification.

    4. The role of the United States in this has been understated and under reported. I believe that the United States threatened to send “peacekeeping” troops to NI if there was no cease fire and agreement. In this American article the troubles are described as being between Catholics and Protestants. This religious distinction was an obvious division but was not the whole story. Discrimination in housing, employment and voting rights, all controlled by Unionists/Protestants were very important. Harland and Wolff at one time employed 35,000 people, none of them Catholics. While the religious division is obvious, ultimately, in my view it was the social distinctions made, the employment difficulties endured by the “Catholics” who were pushed into the position of being an underclass (universal suffrage for men did not arrive in NI until 1959) that caused boiling and enduring resentment.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belfast_Pogrom
      https://www.usip.org/public-education-new/george-mitchell-building-peace-northern-ireland

      1. The US of A has been one of the most harmful forces in this world, for at least a century.

  13. Voters have spoken on a PM incapable of leading this country through crisis

    Most astute voters think that the crises has been deliberately created and all the mainstream parties are fully signed up to it.

    1. So why do they keep on voting for the same 3? Oh I get it – most astute voters might think something, but most of the voting population aren’t astute voters.

    2. So why do they keep on voting for the same 3? Oh I get it – most astute voters might think something, but most of the voting population aren’t astute voters.

    3. So why do they keep on voting for the same 3? Oh I get it – most astute voters might think something, but most of the voting population aren’t astute voters.

  14. ‘Morning All

    Why Indeed??

    https://twitter.com/SimonNotFloyd/status/1522981903241990145?t=C7esu6BBQlccLknPuP6y2Q&s=19

    The answer seems to be they’re not working for us but their boss Klaus,what an interesting list of WEF “graduates”

    https://twitter.com/WAPFLondon/status/1522948556029677570?s=20&t=JKT6C1ZrPHKQFHw0aSvIng

    “These people have been trained to believe in and support a globalist form of unelected government, in which international business is at the center of the management and decision-making process. They have been trained to advance the interests of a global transnational government which represents a public-private partnership in which the business interests of the WEF members take precedence over the constitution of the United States. The WEF believes that the concept of independent nation states is obsolete and must be replaced with a global government which controls all. They are fundamentally anti-democratic, and their views are both fundamentally corporatist and globalist, which is another way of saying that they are for totalitarian Fascism – the fusion of the interests of business with the power of the state- on a global scale. These people do not represent the interests of the nation-state in which they reside, work, and may hold political office, but rather their allegiance appears to be to the WEF vision of a dominant world government which has dominion over nations and their constitutions. In my opinion, in the case of those trainees and WEF members who are in politics, and particularly those who have been used to “penetrate the global cabinets of countries”, these persons should be forced to register as foreign agents within their host countries.”

    This meme is missing a nought,it’s billions

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dc5d49fd0764b052530f26aff50b17b9e56d30380a1ee90f9c79044ebbce6115.jpg

    2. This morning the BBC stated that Boris is sending a further £1.3 billion to Ukraine.

      2. Would that be the loose change found under the tasteless sofa cushions?

  15. Headline in today’s DT:

    Housing crisis cost us votes, says Michael Gove

    Really? The man is deluded if he really thinks this.

    1. Most people who vote Conservative already have a house. Try for another excuse…

    2. Good day, Hugh. I saw that headline in The Sunday Grimes and thought that he really has gone completely mad.

    1. Morning Sos. He’s made no comment on Ukraine. Has the D Notice silenced him?

      1. Perhaps he’ll have a separate column, or “The Confession” bit was an allusion.

    3. Not quite accurate.

      The IRA didn’t win. The British Government lost.

      …but it doesn’t matter. Northern Ireland voted to stay in the EU, and

      that is what they’ll get.

      2. I personally wouldn’t care much – OK the EU and Dublin would crow – but NI is a bit of a chain.

  17. Good morning, all. Lovely sunny day. No rain for days to come.

    No news, I gather.

  18. Greetings to you all on VE-Day. Seventy seven years ago today, for the first time, I saw a fire (the Stanmore victory bonfire) that had not been started by the Germans.

    Looking back – all the sacrifice and austerity and, eventual, optimism seems to have been a complete waste. Our parents generation would be appalled.

    1. I think whoever it was that said that freedom and democracy have to be protected with the blood of patriots every couple of generations was right, that’s all. We will win in the end, the only question is how long and hard the struggle will be.

      1. That was before countries like ours were overrun by people who don’t give a stuff about it, or us.

    2. Good morning Bill

      VE day is a hardly heard whisper now .

      No mention , media silent , pushed under the carpet .

      My father served in the RN . VJ day was significant for him .

      2. Not in France. A national holiday and lots of commemorations.

        Yer French won it single-handedly don’tcha kno?

  19. The media predicting the breakup of the UK after the recent election results and blaming it on Brexit.
    The fault lies with the creation of the devolved parliaments, an EU program brought in under Blair for the very purpose of breaking up the UK.

    1. I don’t see a great surge of Scottish patriotism based around their inspiring leader though. If Boris had any guts at all, he would take Scotland back under direct rule and sort out the corruption. But England’s almost as bad at the moment too, not sure there are enough honest men.

    2. And converting it into the various EU segments prescribed as ‘Transmanche’. The Civil Service still operates the programme, hence ‘elected mayors’ etc.

  23. Good morning all. A tad above 6°C and a dry but overcast start today.

    A trip to Derby to pick up some of Student Son’s stuff. He’s been having trouble coping with the demands of his course and is taking “leave of absence” for the rest of the academic year, restarting the year in September.

    1. Good morning Bob

      Sorry to hear student son is having a few problems . Is he studying the right course?

      Quite a few youngsters do a Uturn and then go on to study for a more agreeable subject .

  24. 352523+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Sunday 8 May: Voters have spoken on a PM incapable of leading this country through crisis,
    The poor bloody fools must have seriously sore throats by now the line of treacherous leaders goes back to jonny ( shirttail inside
    underpants ) major,the wretch cameron using the GPO & voters own monies to convince them the eu was the best route to take, rotten as a pear, followed by terribly treacherous treasa with her nine month delay ( waiting time for brussels to organize
    restraints to keep us in ) & now the tubby yank / turk & his “deal” the umbilical cord to
    brussel ( hotel Calif)

    They, the electorate are now in the process of voting back in a United Kingdom nation of
    27 plus tongues, with no intentions of building a pro English / GB party truth be told.

  27. Morning all.

    When I cut my finger a few days ago whilst doing some plumbing it started me on a scientific mission to find out if my anticoagulant prescription had any bearing on either my response to a suspected COVID-19 infection and/or subsequent Pfizer vaccinations. It is important to me because, whilst anticoagulants are a routine treatment to prevent arterial clot formation after surgery and in ageing patients, a stroke can result from either excessive internal bleeding or clot formation.

    Currently I regulate my prescribed anticoagulant dosage according to undesiable side effects that I have already reported to my cardiology consulant who has his own targets to meet compared my GP’s who are entirely different.

    Now it looks possible for me to visually observe my immune response and blood clotting process through my microscope by watching my neutrophils. I know that should I start showing signs of a fever for any reason then I need to get worried if I can see my neutrophils committing ‘suicide’.

    I’ve made a note of this useful reference:

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4884809/

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4884809/

    1. From what I’ve read so far in the above reference, neutrophils in the blood stream
      are mulitasking voracious subnuclear hunters that are part of the immune system’s attempts to clear one’s body of harmful pathogens.

      However they can do their job in two fundamental ways – as a vital neutrophil or a suicidal neutrophil.

      vital neutrophils get to live another day whilst suicidal obviouslly hit the bucket.
      Here’s figure two from the reference to illustrate the sort of visible progression that might be seen in in vivo recordings through a microscope:

      https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4884809/figure/fig2/?report=objectonly

    2. From what I’ve read so far in the above reference, neutrophils in the blood stream
      are mulitasking voracious subnuclear hunters that are part of the immune system’s attempts to clear one’s body of harmful pathogens.

      However they can do their job in two fundamental ways – as a vital neutrophil or a suicidal neutrophil.

      vital neutrophils get to live another day whilst suicidal obviouslly hit the bucket.
      Here’s figure two from the reference to illustrate the sort of visible progression that might be seen in in vivo recordings through a microscope:

      https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4884809/figure/fig2/?report=objectonly

    3. From what I’ve read so far in the above reference, neutrophils in the blood stream
      are mulitasking voracious subnuclear hunters that are part of the immune system’s attempts to clear one’s body of harmful pathogens.

      However they can do their job in two fundamental ways – as a vital neutrophil or a suicidal neutrophil.

      vital neutrophils get to live another day whilst suicidal obviouslly hit the bucket.
      Here’s figure two from the reference to illustrate the sort of visible progression that might be seen in in vivo recordings through a microscope:

      https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4884809/figure/fig2/?report=objectonly

    1. Good morning Phizzee

      Chortles of laughter 🤣

      Party insiders said that potential successors to Sir Keir – including Ms Reeves, Mr Streeting and Ms Cooper – are now drawing up plans for a future leadership contest. ‘They’re all raising funds, talking to people,’ one Labour insider said.

      He added: ‘The Mandelson, Streeting and Blair types were making noises during the local election campaign that they weren’t completely happy with him [Sir Keir]. But it will be for them to make the first move.’

      Sources close to all three Labour frontbenchers last night dismissed the suggestion of leadership manoeuvres, stressing they were loyal to Sir Keir.

      One said Mr Streeting’s donations were mostly funding his Shadow Health brief and a personal adviser for his office – not a leadership bid. However, one Labour insider said privately that given Sir Keir’s position, would-be replacements were right to lay the groundwork. Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham – the so-called ‘King of the North’ – and London Mayor Sadiq Khan are also considered future Labour leaders. The two ex-MPs would first need to get back into the Commons. But there are rumours of long-serving MPs being prepared to stand down to make way for Mr Burnham or Mr Khan.

      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10793159/Keir-Starmers-Beergate-story-blown-apart-leaked-Labour-memo.html

      1. 352523+ up ticks,

        Morning TB,
        The sadiq kahn chap a ?
        ALL the props are in place the Koran is between the dispatch boxes and halal on the parliamentary canteen menu,

      2. Good morning. Conservatives in mid term dolldrums and Labour does its usual act of tearing itself apart. I think we need better governance. Vote Dolly !

    3. Cur Ikea is also being criticised by Corbynliner. Sort of Pot v Kettle!

  31. Today, in our much-vaunted democracy I cannot view RT in any shape or form. The TV channel has been closed down by the UK government, and the internet channel has apparently been closed by the service providers. Keep in mind that RT is the official broadcaster of a major European country. During WW2 we could listen to all the German propaganda on our radios. In the 70s I could walk around a corner to buy the Red Mole, a hard line Marxist paper (the editor was Tariq Ali, later of the BBC).
    You would think that there would be less censorship now, wouldn’t you, you would really, wouldn’t you? – these are enlightened liberal times aren’t they, aren’t they…?
    For your delight:
    https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/redmole/v01n01-mar-17-1970.pdf

      1. Thanks. RT send me an email with headlines, but I cannot see more as the link to the website does not work.
        Thank you for your links. However, RUptly is quite incoherent. Rumble is worth a look although the stories don’t match the email. Odysee gives you the current story but one cannot locate an overview menu to choose from.
        It is quite wrong for governments to close down news channels.
        The internet has made censorship quick and easy and it goes unchallenged.

    2. I can get it via a VPN – I’m using proton mail’s free one at the moment.

    3. Yes, they are, but that means more communism, more tax, more waste, more oppression.

      However, the state is incompetent so you just work around it’s useless stupidity.

  32. Rishi Sunak vows to ‘look at all options’ to ease the
    cost of living crisis as the Tories lose nearly 400 council seats in
    local elections

    Anxious backbenchers have urged Prime Minister Boris Johnson
    to cut taxes to prevent a repeat of the losses at the next General
    Election – and to sack the Chancellor if he refuses to do so.

    It comes amid the backdrop of growing alarm within the party over the Bank of England’s
    warning that the economy was heading for a recession, with inflation
    set to exceed ten per cent by the autumn and families facing the
    second-biggest income squeeze since modern records began in 1964.

    Writing
    in today’s Mail on Sunday, Mr Sunak warns that while ‘things will
    continue to be challenging economically’, he is ‘working with all my
    Cabinet colleagues to find ways in which we can continue to ease the
    burden for families’

    Today
    he announces £1.3 billion in military and aid funding for Ukraine, in
    addition to the existing £1.5 billion of support to the war-torn country
    – the highest rate of UK military spending on a conflict since the
    height of the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    Tactical nuke on Westminster please Mr Putin.

    1. ‘Morning, Phiz. I make it 490 seats lost, ie ‘nearly 500’. I know, that’s nit-picking…

    2. I think Fishi Rishi should send a forest of money tree saplings to the Ukraine…

    3. And the Telegraph has a thing by Gove pushing for more housing and, as usual ignoring the elephant in the room.

    4. He will probably just print a few more billions and distribute it to “the poorest in society”, which will mysteriously bypass any of us. Job done! says the Government.

      1. Tories don’t distribute to the poorest in society, they distribute to the already wealthy, their donors and their friends. Just look at the people that got PPE contracts during the pandemic.

        2. Well of course they will require a quango with a Chair on 600K to distribute the money to the poorest in society. The Tories spread just as much largesse to this group as Labour do. Neither party seems to have twigged that the more pretendy money you spray around, the more of them there will be, and they will stay just as poor.

    5. Ease the burden for families. It’s easy, breadstick. Cut taxes. See? Easy. That means that fuel duty is scrapped. The green taxes scrapped. The basic, higher and upper rates of tax increased dramatically. It means cutting taxes. It’s as simple as that.

      But you don’t want to cut taxes. You want high taxes. You’l no doubt waffle on some tripe about helping people in a certain group, a tiny amount in real terms that you’ll crow the heavens and will achieve nothing.

  33. ‘Morning again

    Saw this just now in yesterday’s Murdoch Rag: https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3e5a802b964f5d964ee668e0a4b4d8e1ee3136b45aa464778573c22500c486ee.jpg

    What’s the betting that it won’t be signed off now until just after the price cap increase in October? If KK doesn’t like it perhaps the contract should either have set a ‘completion by’ date or alternatively a fixed price to apply whenever it starts. Or is this loophole more than just accidental??

      1. There are so many birds yet to be destroyed, There is so much of the ‘deadly’ CO2 to be pushed into the atmosphere to boost the current 0.04% to become somewhat startling and so many of the plebs who need to be denied both heating and eating.

        So many pockets that need loads of taxpayer’s wonga to be stuffed in them. Signed, The Ministry of Truth.

    2. Stuff the “spirit” of their contracts – the wording should be water-tight. Useless.

  34. Petition
    Do not sign any WHO Pandemic Treaty unless it is approved via public referendum
    We want the Government to commit to not signing any international treaty on pandemic prevention and preparedness established by the World Health Organization (WHO), unless this is approved through a public referendum.

    https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/614335

    5. Signed the other day when it was just over 9,000. Seems to be going quite well.

      2. Owing yourself money isn’t being in debt.

        The national debt isn’t what many think it is. It’s very badly named.

        1. It is the difference between what government spends on what it raises.

          It is also the commbined liabilities of future government expenditure – money already spent – against earned income.

          The problem is, big fat state keeps wasting more and more money, increasing future liablities and commiting ever more expenditure. It’s a reckless drunk using a loan to pay off the credit card of his bar bill. Difference is, it’s us forced to pay the bill and our children lumbered with the credit card.

          Dress it up as you like Thayaric, state debt is a problem and must be reduced by getting rid of the deficit. That means so called ‘savage’ cuts so that state spending is below tax revenue. If that means closing entire government departments, so be it. We cannot afford them as it is. Besides, what do 150,000 administrators in the department for education do? That’s more than IBM employ globally.

          1. Government doesn’t ‘earn income’. Government creates. Taxes destroy.

            If our children are lumbered with debt then we’d see a year on year unstoppable slide going from good growth through nil growth to backwards growth. In fact they will be able to buy what they make the same as any generation in aggregate. The national debt is little more than an accounting statistic representing the money the government created and left in the private and foreign sectors since 1684.

            Deficits are not usually problematic. State debt isn’t problematic. Running surpluses is an act of stupidity. The government is not and never will be a giant household. If the government runs surpluses it takes out more from the economy than it puts in. This can only hurt living standards and cause job losses and is why economists wet themselves laughing at Osborne’s fiscal charter.

            I have no clue as to the workings of the DoE. Write and ask your MP.

  36. A propos my request for info on BTL comments on a review in yesterday’s Telegraph of a new book by Peter Oborne. Geoff said he could find no reference to it when he did an online DT search.

    I have done further research this morning.

    The book is called “The Fate of Abraham”. Author Peter Oborne. Review by a slammer Sameer Rahim. The book sets out the case that the west has always been very very horrid to the poor put upon slammers.

    I was interested to see whether any BTL comments were allowed (suspecting not) – and, if so, whether they agreed with the reviewer (who thinks Islam is the greatest gift the west has ever had – in a nutshell).

    The online DT makes no reference t the book, the author – an the reviewer is simply revealed as having been a regular reviewer of other books.

    Odd that they should actually print the damned thing in the, er, print edition but ignore it online. Can’t imagine why…..except to infuriate the majority of the readership.

    1. I also found nothing. Probably dont want to infuriate the readership who then cancel their subs.

      1. Good morning Kaypea.
        I’ve looked all around our house and couldn’t find anything.
        Am I missing something? What does nothing look like. 😂😂😂

    2. Morning Bill. Peter Oborne’s The Fate of Abraham is available on Kindle for £15.99 and will be released on May 12. The blurb says;

      For more than a generation, the idea that the end of the Cold War would be succeeded by a new conflict—between Islam and the West—has dominated. At first, with the events of 9/11, this thesis seemed prophetic, but as Peter Oborne shows in his remarkable and important new book, The Fate of Abraham, it could not be more wrong and it continues to cause huge damage around the world, with disastrous consequences.

      Oborne shows how the concept of an existential clash is a dangerous and destructive fantasy. Many in influential positions in governments across the West have suggested that Islam is trying to overturn our liberal values and even that certain Muslims are conspiring to take over the state. But in reality, these fears merely echo past debates, as when from Tudor times to the 19th-century Catholics were the target of Protestant suspicion; once Catholics were incorporated into the state, it was Jews who were treated with hostility by a Christian nation. Now we are repeating the pattern.

      With murderous attacks on Muslims taking place from Bosnia in 1995 to China today, Oborne dismantles the lies and falsehoods that lie behind them, and he opens the way to a clearer and more truthful mutual understanding that will benefit us all in the long run.

      The Crusades were obviously a figment of our collective imaginations!

          1. Precisely – what was the cause of the Crusades in the first place? The RoP seem to forget that it was their aggression and take-over of Christian lands that gave rise to the (certainly later) Crusades.

        1. Another Arabist…Probably half the foreign office is still the same way.

      3. I think “Behead those who oppose Islam” is clear enough. The idea that this is a view only held by a tiny number of extremists is banished when one realises that it is derived directly from instructions in the Koran to kill all those who reject Allah.

        1. “Allah” of course meaning the Creator, but only as described and as set out by his illiterate, war-mongering, paedophile, slave-owning prophet…

      4. Would Muslims then be happy if their every planning permission for mosks were refused? If their loathesome wailing were banned? If rather than segregate men and women, they were forced to worship together?

        If Muslims were means tested for affordability while here, and if they failed that, deported?

        A phobia is an irrational fear – there’s nothing irrational about being wary of Islam.

    3. Morning Bill. Peter Oborne’s The Fate of Abraham is available on Kindle for £15.99 and will be released on May 12. The blurb says;

      For more than a generation, the idea that the end of the Cold War would be succeeded by a new conflict—between Islam and the West—has dominated. At first, with the events of 9/11, this thesis seemed prophetic, but as Peter Oborne shows in his remarkable and important new book, The Fate of Abraham, it could not be more wrong and it continues to cause huge damage around the world, with disastrous consequences.

      Oborne shows how the concept of an existential clash is a dangerous and destructive fantasy. Many in influential positions in governments across the West have suggested that Islam is trying to overturn our liberal values and even that certain Muslims are conspiring to take over the state. But in reality, these fears merely echo past debates, as when from Tudor times to the 19th-century Catholics were the target of Protestant suspicion; once Catholics were incorporated into the state, it was Jews who were treated with hostility by a Christian nation. Now we are repeating the pattern.

      With murderous attacks on Muslims taking place from Bosnia in 1995 to China today, Oborne dismantles the lies and falsehoods that lie behind them, and he opens the way to a clearer and more truthful mutual understanding that will benefit us all in the long run.

      The Crusades were obviously a figment of our collective imaginations!

    4. I also had a good look , even though I am banned from commenting , my DT subscription was renewed before I was banned .

      I searched for nearly an hour on line and couldn’t find the book, so frustrating , bt I did manage to become distracted and view lots of other semi interesting items .

      1. Because we give them money, free health care, free education and freedom to pursue their filthy religion without let or hindrance.

      2. As well as those things identified by Bill, be assured that the objective is the total dominance of what will be the European Caliphate and the EU are so up their own fundament with their ‘Alice in Wonderland‘ grand plans that they have no cognisance of Jabberwokey that’s about to consume them.

        1. That’s because all the woke leaders will jet off to sun-soaked islands to live, when things get impossible here.

  37. Part of the UK will soon be ruled by Dublin. So much for the defeat of the IRA…
    PETER HITCHENS:
    It is now clear even to the dimmest that the IRA have won in Northern Ireland.
    Their political poodle, Sinn Fein, has toppled the Democratic Unionists as the largest party in the Stormont Assembly.
    It is hard to see how this will not now lead, in the fullness of time, to the transfer of the Six Counties of Northern Ireland to Dublin rule.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10793025/PETER-HITCHENS-UK-soon-ruled-Dublin-defeat-IRA.html

    ‘ere we go again….!

      1. And organised crime. Mind you, there is a fair amount of that south of the border too.

    3. Time to close Stormont, the Wesh Assembly and Sturgeon’s wee pretendy Parliament and bring the responsibility and accountability for the well-being of the UNITED KINGDOM back to Westminster and demand action.

      All these devolved idiocies are spreading poison at the roots of our country, costing us fortunes and achieving less than nothing, except the grand-standing of a few political spin-doctors.

      1. No. It’s time for an English assembly with the UK government concerning itself with matters that pertain to the union and not individual countries of the union.

        1. Hold the bus, are we not supposed to be a United Kingdom not broken, disparate parts of a Broken Kingdom?

          1. No we’re four individual countries inside a federal union. The other three nations have their parliaments, we do not. Because of this im paying a tenner per item on prescription when if i lived in Scotland or Wales it would be free. My kid owes 60k student debt. If she had been in scotland she wouldn’t owe that. Don’t you think the English get shafted by not having a national representation?

          2. Thankfully my medication is all free in England but then I’m much older and wiser, thank you.

            We have not been four individual countries since 1707. We may be four individual nationalities but for that to be effective we would need to have individual nations. Having checked your history, I can only suggest you go and suck on the teat of the Scottish taxpayer – it’ll be no more than you, or they, deserve.

          3. We have always been separate countries in a borderless union. The UK government was a government for all until devolution which started before the first world war in Ireland. Now it isn’t so much. There’s so much they do not control except in England where they give the English the shaft so that the devolved governments can do what they like while the English seem to pay for it all.

          4. Your kid would not have that student debt if she had come from an EU country, either. Just rUK (and the rest of the world outside the EU). And wee Crankie still wants to be part of that behemoth – because that’s where you’ll be swallowed up with your pretendy independence you silly woman.

    4. Time to close Stormont, the Wesh Assembly and Sturgeon’s wee pretendy Parliament and bring the responsibility and accountability for the well-being of the UNITED KINGDOM back to Westminster and demand action.

      All these devolved idiocies are spreading poison at the roots of our country, costing us fortunes and achieving less than nothing, except the grand-standing of a few political spin-doctors.

        1. Apart from that, does S. Ireland really want the economic and financial cost that unification will entail? I mean, really?

  38. Last evening, Lacoste asked, “Dealing with ‘Cookies’ has become a 24-hour nightmare; what can we do to ameliorate this?”

    As promised, I have tackled this as a procedure that not only gets rid of cookies but the other hidden evils in your computer like ‘trackers’ that inform advertisers what sites you visit and may then be able to influence your buying choices.

    The procedure is called How to safely close down your computer and may be downloaded from this link:

    https://www.mediafire.com/file/as355b95fks20i3/How_to_safely_close_down_your_computer.pdf/file

    1. Thank you very much for finding a solution to the problem of cookies and ‘other hidden evils’, Tom!

    2. Increasingly I think the best option is a browser flag that sites respond to – reject all should be the default, with a before and after the site visit and deleting them when the tab is closed. That stops the tracking and permits those sites you don’t mind or want to keep a login for active.

      1. …and you can see Big Pharma and all the other globalist troughers signing up for that?

    3. So happy to see that 27 of you, trust me enough to download the PDF. Please let me know of any improvements and/or updates that may be necessary. It was, after all, only finished at 04:00 this morning.

      1. A guide to deleting history and cookies then using CCleaner a program that should not be in the hands of anyone that doesn’t fully understand what they are doing. It’s quite easy to remove something you shouldn’t have and make your computer play up or even not boot into windows at all. Why shut down your PC at all? They are designed to be left on, to update when you are in bed etc.

        1. Anothe believer in silly, hacker inviting, processes. I’ve had both mine and work computers hacked through others being left on – many not signed out – a hacker’s paradise.

          1. Tell me how they hacked through NAT won’t you!

            You probably had malware which is something CCleaner won’t fix.

        2. …and don’t for one second believe that ‘updates’ are for your benefit. They’re not it’s ar5e covering by the app supplier.

          1. Of course they are for your benefit, bringing enhanced security, bug fixes, and occasionally new features.

        3. I’m happy to report that now 39 people see it my way rather than yours.

  39. Off to an event shortly – the first for nearly three years! A bit out of practice for these. Exhausted already just from sorting out what stock to take………

  40. Still not a nice day here. Up to 13.5c and grey skies with windy gusts.

      1. Setlers bring express relief. But Bisodol are cheaper and just as good.

  41. 352523+ up ticks,

    It matters not to the United Kingdoms lab/lib/con coalition hard core voter the “party” can do NO WRONG.

    We are going through a shite storm of odious issues. mass knifing, mass paedophile rape & abuse, mass in your face illegal immigration, UK infrastructure in breakdown mode and still the treacherous, dangerous clowns, are giving their support to this anti United Kingdom coalition.

    https://twitter.com/UnityNewsNet/status/1523223617076862976

    https://twitter.com/UnityNewsNet/status/1523223617076862976

    1. The UK government wastes 2.4 billion a day. Of that, 400 million is borrowed. The vast majority goes into welfare, pensions and then the NHS.

      Now, welfare fraud is so high that if it were ended, we could scrap the basic rate of tax.

      Welfare exploded after 1997 – and 70% of ethnic non native Britons are entirely welfare dependent.

      If Gordon Brown had not robbed pensioners through his tax grab, that pension debt might be lower. Equally if government invested the NI funds properly it would return a million quid pot for every pensioner.

      If the overnment hadn’t opened the flood gates, hadn’t wasted our money, hadn’t stolen our savings and hadn’t run up the debt, not only would pensions be vastly higher, but private saving would be much higher, government debt vastly lower and thus taxes lower.

      We’re just paying for state greed and the consequences of state waste. Shred the state.

      1. Brown’s raid on pensions was the last straw that made us leave the UK, not to return.
        Glad we did, the place has become a completely useless shithole.

        1. Brown’s raid was not the worst, although I can undertand why it was the last straw. Brown refused to listen to advice given to him that what he was doing would mean the end of final salary pensions. Well, except those for government or other state-provided employees, MPs, doctors etc. – i.e. everyone in state-sponsore dschemes. Private company-sponsored scheme provision went to the wall.

        2. Brown’s raid was not the worst, although I can undertand why it was the last straw. Brown refused to listen to advice given to him that what he was doing would mean the end of final salary pensions. Well, except those for government or other state-provided employees, MPs, doctors etc. – i.e. everyone in state-sponsore dschemes. Private pension company-sponsored scheme provision went to the wall.

      2. Where does that 2.4 billion go. Oh yes households and private sector businesses. So that’s 876 billion quid per year. That’s enough money to pay 29 million people 30k per year. That’s quite some job losses you are recommending.

        Welfare didn’t ‘explode’ after 1997. Brown widened some criteria a little. Wages were held down but prices particularly land prices were not. This led to an ever increasing number of people in work being unable to afford basic essentials. This meant more and more people had access to in-work benefits which were not a new invention they had already been in existence for 25-30 years.

        Brown’s pension raid was the third such raid. You never moan about the two before even though Lawson threatening to tax pension surpluses is what put all the funds into deficit in the first place.

          1. The Conservatives and the Accountancy profession were even worse – see below.

          2. What socialist policies?

            That’s the truth. That’s where government money goes. The government pays its employees and buys stuff from the private sector. It goes to households and private sector businesses. 800B is about 40% of our GDP.

            Please point out the socialism because I can’t see any.

            Socialism would look like this. Government buys business from the private sector and runs them itself. Government buys from itself as much as possible and when it isn’t possible well we’ve identified another business we need to buy.

            You wouldn’t know socialism if it slapped you in the face.

          3. “What socialist policies?”

            Those that you espouse in your narrow views – that’s what.

        2. Brown’s raid did not put funds into deficit. Brown abolished Advanced Corporation Tax credits, which adversely affected the funds that pensions held.

          But already in 1988 Lawson tried to tax any “surplus” funds (i.e. the funds held that were more than enough to pay its immediate liabilitiies etc.) and decreed that pension funds would not be allowed to hold more than 105% of its liabilities – as calculated on the Government Actuary’s Department’s assumptions, which were very conservative (no pun intended).

          So funds got down to holding an amount which represented 105% of liabilities. Then the stupid accountancy profession devised a new formula for calculating fund liabilities and issued a new Accounting Standard – which was disastrous. As a result of this nearly all the pension schemes that had been in 105% surplus (down from even higher surpluses in the past) immediately went into deficit overnight.

          Any deficit has to be made up by the employing company/ies, so most of the previous, good, final salary schemes were now closed as it proved unaffordable to keep them on.

          So Brown just was one of several disasters committed on pension funds by short-sighted politicans and accountants, who didn’t know what they were doing, or talking about. So it wasn’t all political – just largely political…

          2. I have deleted my comment because I edited it and then found that the edit had not been incorporated. Then I was not allowed to edit what I saw here – so as it is not what I wanted to post, I have taken it off.

            Rather strange.

          3. As my post (which was below) has been irretrievably mangled, I will not go into the detail I did before. But:

            Lawson taxed all pension fund assets over 105% on the GAD basis. That did not put schemes into deficit.

            Brown abolished ACT credits for pension schemes, which had been a useful asset for pension scheme investment. That did not, of itself necessarily cause schemes to go into deficit, although some might have. That was easier when the previous “buffer” had now gone due to Lawson.

            The Accountancy profession adopted a new Accounting Standard by which to value pension scheme assets and liabilities. That standard was unrealistic and didn’t reflect the actual running of schemes, which calculated liabilities over an extended period. That standard meant that most schemes that had been funded on 105% basis (even though some had had far more than that before Lawson’s raid) went into deficit overnight.

            I was there.

        3. Households and private business? Are you joking?

          Welfare did indeed explode. The cost of living rose because the oaf Brown hiked every tax going and kept the tax allowance down for years. In work benefits remain an attempt to force everyone into welfare dependency. They should be scrapped. The right solution was lower taxesa massive rise in the tax allowance and so forth but Brown hated doing the right thing.

          No, it wasn’t. Brown removed tax relief from pension companies. That destroyed the UK pensions industry. Please explain how a threat of a tax could result in pensions being in deficit. When Brown stole the money – as all Labour chancellors do – pensions were in significant surplus. Brown stole the money and wasted it on welfare handouts.

          1. No. Where did you think government funds were spent? Again government spends by paying wages and pensions of employees and ex-employees and buying goods and services from the private sector. OK some gets spent abroad for the things you just cant buy in the UK. What did you think they did with it?

            Welfare spending by year….

            1993 54B
            1994 59.24B
            1995 60.15B
            1996 63.65B
            1997 64.42B
            1998 62.08B
            1999 54.89B
            2000 59.08B
            2001 57.73B
            2002 59.21B
            2003 65.53B
            2004 73.95B
            2005 77.98B
            2006 81.57B
            2007 83.47B
            2008 90.35B

            So as you can see there was no explosion. In fact Brown spent less than Clarke did on welfare. From 2000 to 2007 you can see the climb. That’s land prices, higher rents, and tripled house prices that caused that. Then came the GFC and the world blew up.

            Hertslass explained perfectly how Lawson forced company pension schemes into deficit. At the time of the Brown pension raid company pensions were becoming rather rare. They were struggling from the previous ten years and two Tory raids by Lawson and then Lamont.

    2. 352523+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      Could it also be be a cache of cash for politico resettling purposes as when the shite hits the fan
      as it surely must.

  43. Is an unknown, extraordinarily ancient civilisation buried under eastern Turkey? 8 May 2022.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fcb42ec740f9a2c87a7676c330406ed959518c15a315d48ccb5e38f9cb437c65.jpg

    I am staring at about a dozen, stiff, eight-foot high, orange-red penises, carved from living bedrock, and semi-enclosed in an open chamber. A strange carved head (of a man, a demon, a priest, a God?), also hewn from the living rock, gazes at the phallic totems – like a primitivist gargoyle. The expression of the stone head is doleful, to the point of grimacing, as if he, or she, or it, disapproves of all this: of everything being stripped naked under the heavens, and revealed to the world for the first time in 130 centuries.

    Yes, 130 centuries. Because these penises, this peculiar chamber, this entire perplexing place, known as Karahan Tepe (pronounced Kah-rah-hann Tepp-ay), which is now emerging from the dusty Plains of Harran, in eastern Turkey, is astoundingly ancient. Put it another way: it is estimated to be 11-13,000 years old.

    An article about a fascinating archaeological discovery in Eastern Turkey and unfortunately too long to post in its entirety. The photograph illustrates one of Minty’s basic historical beliefs. That human beings are essentially the same as they were when they came out of Africa twenty thousand years ago. You can fill their heads full of drivel but as the Australian aphorism observes all that really matters is your stomach and what’s on the end of it!

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/does-an-unknown-extraordinarily-ancient-civilisation-lie-buried-under-eastern-turkey-

    1. The ‘man’ in question appears to be most interested in his own genitalia – what does he have in his hand – for maybe comparison purposes. History doesn’t change man’s basic instincts, it seems.

      1. Turks have always been a bunch of w*nkers, I mean, look at Johnson.

    3. You have all got dirty minds. He is just a zookeeper holding a sausage for his pet lions.

    5. Sigh. They look like more or less square columns to hold up a wooden floor.

  44. For Doctor Who fans (I used to be one when it was first aired back in 1963, but haven’t watched it for decades), the new Doctor has been announced.
    Have you guessed it?:-
    Ncuti Gatwa: BBC names actor as next Doctor Who star
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-61371123

      2. I don’t have a problem with a black actor playing the Doctor. However it has became unwatchable because of the wokey snowflake scripts.

    3. Showrunner Russell T Davies said Gatwa “dazzled us” in his audition. How could he tell – R T Davies usually has his head buried face down in his pillow when he has male XY gender company.

    5. Afternoon A . I shall not be watching anyway! I’ve given up on the BBC!

    6. As he’s originally from Rwanda it should shut the Lefties up moaning about the economic migrants being sent there for resettlement – unless they think they should be sent to where he was raised, namely Scotchland.

    7. Mystic Rik predicts two storylines for the new Doctor
      1 Windrush in some form
      2 The Doctor travels back in time and is enslaved by evil Whitey
      Remember you heard it here first…………..

      1. Tardis travels back half a million years or so and finds people descending from trees..

    8. Me too. When William Hartnell (the only doctor) was despatched, I despatched the programme.

  45. Local election voting paper.

    Mark with an X your preferred party at which, when having a work event during lockdown, the leader would:

    swig beer from a bottle and order a curry that suddenly turned up unexpectedly at the party HQ ▢

    get a surprise birthday cake at No 10 whilst quoffing bubbly from a bring your own bottle meeting ▢

  46. FFS,the “You couldn’t make it up files” gets an outing

    https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1522986274365259780

    Amazingly this dog-induced carnage wasn’t happening for all those
    centuries before people started getting mystery goo stuck into their
    arms. Repeatedly.But that’s totally a coincidence and anyone who says it isn’t is a conspiracy theorist who doesn’t love the NHS

    1. Remind me, which particular religious sect is it that does not like dogs…

    2. Perhaps the dogs also distributed the effects, now put down to thalidomide.

      Just as plausible.

  47. Nato cannot afford to dismiss Putin’s nuclear threats as a bluff. 8 May 2022.

    Vladimir Putin has always taken actions that other European leaders would have regarded as unthinkable. He invaded Georgia and fomented separatist movements in neighbouring countries. He ordered a covert invasion and annexation of the Crimea, and the proxy invasion of the eastern Donbas. Then came a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, intending to turn it into, at best, a slave state of Russia.

    Really? Who invaded Grenada? Invaded and occupied Iraq? Destroyed Libya and destabilised Syria? There were no interviews with the inhabitants of these countries. No one invited them to come and stay with us. There was no running commentary on War Crimes and Atrocities.

    Vlad is not uniquely evil. A NATO Ukraine would always be an existential threat to Russia. He is obeying the age old rules of Geopolitics. Is he bluffing? I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure that when he feels that the survival of Russia itself is threatened he will use any means he can to prevent it!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/05/08/nato-cannot-afford-dismiss-putins-nuclear-threats-bluff/

    1. Given the history of the region, “a slave state of Russia” is a nonsensical assertion. The direct link has gone belly up but I managed to watch the latest edition of RT’s CrossTalk show yesterday evening. Commenters from across the globe and the consensus was that Russia is still on track to achieve its objectives if only because the aid and weapons supplied by the West are quite useless to the Ukrainians, though the US wants to prolong the war for as long as possible.

      1. The U.K. isn’t slow to prolong the war, what with another £1.3bn on its way to Ukraine. (There’s plenty more where that came from too!). Never mind the U.K. population looking forward to even higher energy prices, higher food prices, energy rationing, food rationing, etc.etc. What an effin’ useless, dangerous, criminal government this is.

    2. “… the survival of Russia is threatened…”

      Odd way to preserve Russia by destroying it (which would be the inevitable consequence of Putin using nukes).

  48. 352523+ up ticks,

    Tell me, is any other politico speaking out
    against the islamic take over or is it just
    Anne Maria Waters & Tommy Robinson.

    breitbart,

    Exclusive Video: London Mayor Sadiq Khan Tells Muslim Crowd They Are Trump’s ‘Worst Nightmare’

  49. Good afternoon all!

    There was a large RAF contingent from 600 Squadron in church this morning. All in uniform though they appeared to be my age group. They had their own short service in the Lady Chapel and sang “I Vow to Thee, My Country” before joining the rest of the congregation for the main service. Yet no mention of VE Day.

      1. They are but the squadron was active in WWII, which might have been acknowledged?

        1. Yes it was, both in UK and North Africa. My Father in law was a Navigator with them and awarded a DFC.

    1. I don’t like to see pictures like this! They are of a people that endured hardships and despair in the belief that they would make a better world. They have been betrayed by their leaders to serve forces more evil than the ones they fought!

    2. I don’t like to see pictures like this! They are of a people that endured hardships and despair in the belief that they would make better world. They have been betrayed by their leaders to serve forces more evil than the ones they fought!

    3. We are having a street party for the platinum Jubilee. We are going to clear the two adjoining front drives and put chairs out. All the neighbours have been invited.
      Bunting and flags etc. I decided to take the easy option and order in 40 Greggs sausage rolls. Cut them in half. Should be enough.

      Supper is Vitello scallopine al limone.

      1. I hope you’re using proper white veal and none of that pastiche ‘rose’ nonsense.

    3. Starve peasants, for the good of the collective! Uncle Joe Stalin would be proud.

    4. Completely unnecessary! Everyone knows that food only comes from supermarkets!

      1. And milk comes from bottles and plastic jugs.
        And eggs come from … er …

  52. On a lighter note…

    Wordle 323 3/6

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    1. I coulda got three (it was my first choice).
      I coulda been a contender.
      I wimped out on five! ☹️
      Wordle 323 5/6

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        1. I thought about it but wasn’t tempted.

          It was food from heaven followed by Mary Poppins that did for me.

    2. #MeToo
      Wordle 323 3/6

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  53. Can anyone direct me to a report about the effect of repeat inoculations for Covid that would be easy to print out and give to someone. My next door neighbour is on her forth injection and this time she has had a negative reaction to the damn thing. Ideally the report would have reports of deaths from inoculations and how they would be considered unacceptable in trails of any other vaccine.

      1. Thanks vw. I will keep that. But what I’m looking for is number of deaths caused by the shot. I actually saw something about it yesterday or the day before, but I can’t remember where.

    2. Daily Sceptic and TCW both have regular vaccine safety updates which mention the number of deaths and injuries.

  54. Apology, 800 years on, for laws that expelled Jews from England. 8 May 2022.

    The Church of England was not created until the 1530s, when Henry VIII split from the pope. Nevertheless, it was now right for Christians to repent of their “shameful actions” and to “reframe positively” relations with the Jewish community, said Jonathan Chaffey, archdeacon of Oxford. The Roman Catholic church was “fully in accord” with the apology, he added.

    The Italians are going to have some trouble with the Siege of Jerusalem and the Jewish Diaspora. Personally I think we should get the Danes to pay us for the attack on Lindisfarne and all that Danegeld they extorted out of us!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/08/apology-800-years-on-for-laws-that-expelled-jews-from-england

    1. But but…it was Oliver Cromwell who brought the Jews back to England, not the woke mob.

      1. Needed the cash. It’s always the same…Socialists always run out of money.

        1. Interesting question! Was Cromwell a socialist? I don’t think he was.

          3. A much maligned man of his time. He certainly introduced some radical changes in the way England was governed.
            Unfortunately he died before being able to make the changes he implemented permanent.
            The old guard went back to lining their pockets and so it goes.

          4. A much maligned man of his time. He certainly introduced some radical changes in the way England was governed.
            Unfortunately he died before being able to make the changes he implemented permanent.
            The old guard went back to lining their pockets and so it goes.

        2. “Socialists always run out of other peoples money”
          (c) Margaret Thatcher

  55. https://twitter.com/the_tpa/status/1523317071383527426

    MAY 04 2022
    by James Roberts, political director at the TaxPayers’ Alliance

    In March Rishi Sunak, committed to crackdown on wasteful spending across Whitehall by cutting £5.5 billion worth of waste. Billions were wasted during the pandemic and there are billions more to be found, so this is a welcome initiative for taxpayers.

    One place the chancellor could start is the vast number of diversity and inclusion managers.

    In recent years these social justice positions have become prolific, packed into every crevice of the public sector. In the last few weeks alone there have been numerous reports about HMRC and Homes England publishing job listings for such roles, with salaries between £43,523 and £72,202. At a time when there’s a 70 year high tax burden and a housing crisis, these organisations need to get their priorities straight.

    The same applies across the wider public sector. We’ve seen diversity manager jobs in the NHS paying over £60,000 and Network Rail’s director of diversity and inclusion being the highest paid diversity officer in the public sector, raking in between £160,000 and £164,999.

    The TaxPayers’ Alliance recently discovered advertising by Surrey county council for three equality, diversity and inclusion posts at a total cost to the taxpayer of around £170,000. Meanwhile, the council decided to put up council tax by five per cent in the middle of a cost of living crisis. When we spoke to local residents they were understandably angry. At a time when households are struggling to make their budgets stack up, they expect to see central and local government use their money to deliver frontline services – not waste it on diversity.

    3. Birdie Three for me today, sweetie … x
      Wordle 323 3/6

      ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
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    5. #metoo, or #mefour, I should say.
      Wordle 323 4/6

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  57. Decolonise your ears as Mozart’s works may be an instrument of Empire, students told
    Undergraduates on University of Cambridge music course taught to view classical works as an ‘imperial phenomenon’

    Cambridge music students are being instructed to “decolonise the ear” and consider the classical canon as “an imperial phenomenon”.

    The works of composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Giuseppe Verdi are being taught in relation to topics including European imperialism and Orientalism, as the music faculty pursues work on “curricular decolonisation”.

    Undergraduates studying for the course, titled Decolonising the Ear, are taught to consider listening to sound in a “postcolonial” way, while a “music, power, empire” module explores how the classical repertoire is a middle-class and imperial phenomenon.

    The music faculty has agreed to offer content warnings ahead of teaching “potential disturbing” musical topics, according to internal documents, after they were requested by students.

    According to a course guide for Decolonising the Ear, undergraduates will examine topics including how musical repertoires could be “complicit… in projects of Empire and neoliberal systems of power”.

    Students also learn how “Empire… affected our understanding of what constitutes ‘music’” and how “genres like opera seem particularly susceptible to racialised representations”.

    The imperial leitmotif appears in a Western music history course dedicated to studies of “music, power, empire”, which urges students to consider the classical canon as an “imperial phenomenon”.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/05/07/decolonise-ears-mozarts-works-may-instrument-empire-students/

    Kyt Thompson
    21 MIN AGO
    Our civilisation is being dismantled before our very eyes and our elected representatives are too spineless to do anything about it.
    Deeply, deeply tragic.

  58. This week’s Taxpayer Alliance bulletin.

    Hospital estate spending: taxpayers could save hundreds of millions
    Our latest research has found that NHS trusts could have saved almost £220 million in gas and electricity costs.
    As part of an exclusive with the Daily Mail our findings raise serious questions about the huge spending disparities between hospitals on essential items.
    But it’s not just energy where savings can be made. We also discovered that disparities in laundry costs between hospitals leave room for millions more in potential savings.
    So too in catering where hospitals were found to have paid well over the odds for meals, to the tune of £10 per meal and more – with no marked improvement in quality!
    With the new health and social care levy coming into force and energy prices skyrocketing, struggling taxpayers need the NHS to be eradicating these inefficiencies.
    Hospital bosses should ensure they are offering value for money for patients and taxpayers in every pound spent.
    Click here to read the research in full.
    Grassroots: Town Hall Rich List Roadshow arrives in Hythe
    For the first leg of our Town Hall Rich List Roadshow we paid a visit to the Kent coast. More specifically Hythe where the local authority had the most council bosses in the county receiving remuneration in excess of £100,000.
    Setting out our stall in the town centre, residents we spoke to were staggered by our findings. Many questioned if execs were worth the money particularly given a recent 3 per cent increase in council tax. Even a council employee said her bosses were paid too much!
    For the next leg of the roadshow we’re heading to Morpeth in the north east of England. If you’d like to come and campaign with us or simply say hello please get in touch.
    TaxPayers’ Alliance in the news
    NHS hospitals spent £800k on gender-neutral toilets
    Just when you thought it wasn’t possible for the health service to waste more money we unearthed shocking expenditure on gender-neutral loos. Data obtained by the TPA and published in the Daily Mail reveals that nearly 740 new unisex toilets were either built or converted since 2018.
    Asked to comment on the finding our investigations manager Elliot Keck told Daily Mail readers, “Taxpayers are sick of seeing NHS managers splash out on redundant refurbishments. Gender-neutral toilets go against clear government guidance that there ‘needs to be proper provision of gender-specific toilets’.”
    The TPA is putting NHS trusts on notice. They must stop these costly conversions and focus money on frontline health services.’
    Cut taxes to ease the cost of living
    The cost of living continues to plague millions of households across the country. Many, but not all, who are entitled have received their £150 council tax rebate in recent weeks. But does this go far enough?
    Speaking to listeners on BBC Radio Cornwall our media campaign manager Danielle Boxall argued that the government needs to ease the tax burden on Brits. The recent increase in national insurance has done little to help matters and rising inflation is dragging more people into higher rates of income tax.
    We’ll continue to ramp up the pressure on the government to make much-needed tax cuts. Click here to listen to the interview.
    Government should abolish the death tax
    Figures obtained by The Telegraph show that families have fallen foul of complex inheritance tax regulations and the taxman has clawed in hundreds of millions of pounds as a result.
    Families who were caught by what tax experts described as “little-known rules”. Once again it raises questions about Britain’s unnecessary complicated tax code.
    Responding to the news we stood up for taxpayers, pointing out that, “Taxpayers facing the cost of living crisis are struggling with the increasing burden of inheritance tax. Not only does the frozen threshold hit hard-working families’ savings which have already been taxed once, but the reams of reliefs add a great deal of unnecessary complexity to the tax code.
    We’re keeping the pressure on the government to abolish IHT entirely and show a more compassionate attitude towards the bereaved.
    Blog of the week
    How to ditch diversity demagogues
    In March Rishi Sunak, committed to crackdown on wasteful spending across Whitehall by cutting £5.5 billion worth of waste. Billions were wasted during the pandemic and there are billions more to be found, so this is a welcome initiative for taxpayers.
    As our political director James Roberts writes this week, one place the chancellor could start is the vast number of diversity and inclusion managers.
    There is no legal requirement or penalty for employers for not having a dedicated diversity, equality and inclusion officer. Taxpayers are struggling to get by and are sick of having to pay for diversity non-jobs.
    Rishi should require government bodies to think again, scrap these unnecessary positions and begin to tackle the post-pandemic pile of wasteful spending. Click here to read the full story.
    War on Waste
    The price of spin
    Analysis of government figures by The Sun has unearthed the massive taxpayer-funded sums lavished on “government spin doctors”. According to the paper Brits “footed a £27 million bill to pay for government spin doctors in a single Whitehall department last year.”
    It’s quite frankly unacceptable that while taxpayers faced down the pandemic, the Cabinet Office splashed out millions for media managers. It’s high time ministers clamp down on these surging spin costs and deliver hard-pressed households some much-needed savings.
    Please send me your examples of public sector waste.
    Harry Fone
    Grassroots Campaign Manager

    1. Not just do companies not need Diversity etc. managers, they (the managers, natch) are normally paid an enormous amount for a jumped-up HR twit, if the figures I have seen are to be believed.

      1. I can not understand why the NHS has them except to keep track of the odd white face among the staff.

    2. And it’s so good for us taxpayers to know that whatever savings are made, we’ll all wake up next day to hear on the news that Boris has announced an extra £billion in help for Ukraine or extra aid to India or some ungrateful Caribbean colony ….

  59. Sadiq Khan travels to US to ‘bang the drum’ for London

    The Mayor of London said the city lost £7bn in 2020

    Sadiq Khan will travel to the US this weekend to “bang the drum” for London’s tourism and tech industries.

    The mayor of London will fly to New York, before making his way to San Francisco, Silicon Valley and Los Angeles in a bid to boost London’s tourism industry.

    Mr Khan said he also hopes to use the trip to attract investment to the capital.

    He will also discuss pandemic recovery with senior politicians.

    London was hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, losing £7.4 billion of international tourist spend in 2020 alone.

    Mr Khan will launch his new £10 million tourism campaign in New York, alongside mayor Eric Adams.

    He will then meet representatives from Google and LinkedIn in San Francisco, before travelling to Los Angeles to promote London’s film industry.

    Sadiq Khan told PA that London has had a “horrible” two years.

    “What’s really important is that we encourage international tourists back to our city. We will encourage tourists, we will encourage business, we will encourage investment”, he said.

    “We are the greatest city in the world, but we have had a horrible two years. https://www.gbnews.uk/news/sadiq-khan-travels-to-us-to-bang-the-drum-for-london/288971

    2. If he was trying to convince me to visit London, I would go anywhere but there.

      1. I am sure a self-obsessed, jumped up leftie slammer will go down a “bomb” in NY.

    5. He’s visiting the right country, as they should be quite familiar with the crime levels London seems to have.
      Then again he could be having a nice holiday at tax payers expense.

    6. He already has more than enough international “tourists” – permanent ones.

  60. Actor Dennis Waterman, known for his roles in TV shows including Minder, The Sweeney and New Tricks, has died, his family have said. He was 74.

    A statement said: “We are deeply saddened to announce that our beloved Dennis passed away very peacefully in hospital in Spain.”

    He died on Sunday afternoon with wife Pam at his side, they said.

    “The family kindly ask that our privacy is respected at this very difficult time,” they added

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-61372712

    RIP Dennis..

    I thought he was terrific .. so sad .

    1. That is sad and not all that old either. I really liked New Tricks and watched it in USA…the cast in the original series was great…Alun Armstrong, James Bolam, Amanda Redman and Dennis.
      RIP Dennis.

  63. Back now from the event – a glorious afternoon and it was well- supported. It was held in the garden at Daphne Neville’s house – she’s the “otter lady”. She had one sitting on her shoulder. Her family was there and lots of people came and many children too.

    All the proceeds were for Minnie’s Wildlife Rescue – Debby who runs that takes in any of our hedgehogs which need extra care,
    and brings them on so that they can then go to Annie or Mary, who both work full time. She’s been self – funded up until we started that arrangement. We pay for anything she needs for the hedgehogs. It was very strange dealing with cash again and I kept running out of change when people gave me £20 notes.

  65. Good afternoon. Extraordinary couple of days during which the UK government’s data is shown to confirm that the jabs materially increase your chances of dying at whatever age you get them, and US data shows that people who have had all the jabs are developing Vaccine-induced AIDS.

    A good moment to reflect, perhaps, that Mr Gate’s WHO now wants to usurp national sovereignty with a treaty to reach into all of our lives with their pandemic bull droppings and make fear and lies a permanent feature of Globalist Heaven.

    If these people have any sense they will find somewhere a long way away to hide. Nemesis is stirring.

    https://tarableu.substack.com/p/who-trusts-who

  66. That’s me for this glorious day. Lots of gardening done. Our new experiment is to cover the anti-pest cages (for the veg) with scaffolders’ net – in the hope that the cabbage white butterflies (large and small) will be defeated. Peas sown. Tomorrow French beans.

    Odd that there has been no mention anywhere in the meeja of this significant anniversary. Can’t imagine how it slipped their minds…..

    Anyway, have a smooth evening.

    A demain.

  68. Just lit the barbie. Prosecco is chilled in the fridge. Beers sliding down nicely… sun is shining, terrace flowering plants and the citrus trees are out… looks like a nice evening with family is on the cards.

    2. Enjoy your barbie , OB .

      The tastiest barbies I have eaten were overseas.. When we lived in Nigeria .. BBQd giant prawns and fish served on banana leaves, plantain, or wild pig , was never keen on goat meat though .

      Not keen on the English idea of a BBQ.. cannot bear the idea of sausages and stuff like that ..

      Later on in the month son will bbq a piece of lamb..slow cook it .. delicious.

      1. My family BBQ’s were burgers and sausages. I stopped going to them. The food was always burned too. I like things like marinated chicken skewers and Tika masala skewers, flat breads and salads.

        1. Diving off Masirah Island in Oman for Scallops.
          Guinness and BBQ Scallops with chapatis and chopped salad after a quick shower and putting the dive kit away.
          No more, but such is life.

  69. Just lit the barbie. Prosecco is chilled in the fridge. Beers sliding down nicely… sun is shining, terrace flowering plants and the citrus trees are out… looks like a nice evening with family is on the cards.

  70. The Andrew Neil Show. Channel 4

    Jacob Reece Mogg and Andrew Neil talking over each other…Bye..

  71. Wisteria in full flower and my hayfever has left me wheezing. Got my air purifier on full blast.

  72. Evening you long suffering people. Weather gorgeous all day.
    During the afternoon, I cleared a backlog of washing up which had been neglected because I was fatigued. Emptied bins and managed to install some contacts into new, much more user friendly phone.
    Just now looked at my upper arm and several more of these sodding red spots have appeared.
    Tomorrow, I see the nurse to get my dressing changed again. (Am booked in for blood test next Monday.) I am going to create a stink the get the blood test done tomorrow….this is really beginning to bother me.
    WTF is causing it? I have my suspicions! Not sore or itchy or flaky. But bright red and it’s been almost a year now and still ongoing. I need answers and will make a right fuss tomorrow.

      1. No infection would last almost a year- would it? No, I will ask for my blood to be tested tomorrow because this is bloody daft.

          1. This is LotL you’re advising.

            They would bottle it to sell it to Phizzee as an aperitif!
            };-O

          3. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news but Sos has had a brain infection and they’ve had to take his head off and microwave it.

          10. I can’t dance anymore. Left leg gives out and people think i am drunk…erm.

          11. They’ll put a vintage label on the blood test. My Pinot has been the only thing that has deadened the pain lately. And early nights.

    2. Don’t get angry. Don’t get too loud but be assertive and insistent. Don’t give them the chance to fob you off. Keep at them and they will do anything to get rid of you. Good luck.

      1. Thank you but I don’t think so. Will see if I can get more info tomorrow.

    4. Parasitic blood infection? A lady on twitter showed before and after pictures of a skin rash her 15 year old son had after ‘vaccination’. The difference after three days on Ivermectin was amazing. As you probably know, Ivermectin is banned in this country – otherwise the ‘vaccine’ would not have passed emergency use legislation. Ivermectin, Hydroxychloroquin, kills parasites. A Spanish laboratory has found parasites in some of the vaccines. https://www.reliablerxpharmacy.com/ivermectin-6mg-austro.html A chat line is available so you could ask about dosage and anything else that troubles you.

      Incidentally, there is an interesting relationship between Ivermectin and cancer as well. No wonder it is banned in the UK. Its inventor won the Nobel prize for medicine in 2014.

    5. If you do get an answer Lady do let me know. I’ve had similar on my neck – one day nothing, that night, a burning hot wire sensation and suddenly spots all around my neck. Not itchy, not flaking, just there.

      1. Wibbs, this isn’t hot though. They come and they fade. No burning sensation. That sounds painful.

      2. PS- Wibbs- it’s Ann or Lottie. Lady makes me feel as though I should have my tiara on 😉

    2. You [the WEF] can feck right off! You do it if you want – I’m out!

      2. Europeans figured out how to build cathedrals when bush man was still living in a mud hut. Waycist! My studio flat is 310 sq ft. Built in 1937.

      3. This is only aimed at white people. No mixed race couple in the photo….

    6. I’m sure that Schwab, Gates, Johnson et al, will be leading the charge.

      1. Don’t forget Charles telling us that houses should be built in rows, because they take up less space that way.

    7. When the WEF folk live in central Africa with their base in Somalia then they can speak. Until then, they’re the most racist and least diverse bunch going. A bunch of rich white men hectoring others.

      They need shooting.

      1. Many of the “rich White men” are co – ethnics of George Soros . Ask GS and his ilk if they consider the Holocaust to be “White Genocide”.

    8. Bunch of rich feckers telling white people to live in cages. WEF you.

    2. I don’t know if Linton-on-Ouse is still a Royal Air Force Base but I was stationed there from 1964 to 1967.

      I don’t think the Yorkshire population of the village and its surrounds will welcome this.

      1. It is no longer an RAF base. Coming from not too far away, rellies had the village shop at nearby Gt Ouseburn once upon a time, I find this very nostalgic that the RAF is no longer there. What on earth are these people going to do with themselves, how are they to be occupied during the day? A suspicious thought is training exercises….. On the other hand they may scarper and decamp to London.

        1. Of course, Mum, nail on head as usual but these infantile slammers will see it as their right to rape and despoil any female under 20. That is the slammer way. Maybe we should adopt their mantra, slanted our way, that any who do not believe that Christ is the Son of God are entitled to be killed.

          1. Yes, that is the most concerning (‘concerning’ ‘worrying’ ‘distressing’ are not the right words, not strong enough but I can’t think of the right one – terrifying, perhaps?) aspect of the whole thing, and the fact remains that they shouldn’t ever have been allowed in this once peaceable country in the first place, that is the elephant we all skirt around. And I agree with your mantra. It was just so, once upon a time – they had more sense in those days.

      2. The key question is whether the runway is still operational?

    1. Thanks for posting this. It’s not many years since I would have encouraged my choirs to tackle this. Ten years ago, I managed to assemble sufficient voices to do a creditable rendition of the Fauré Requiem, with John Belcher (Godalming) accompanying and Robert Mingay-Smith as soloist (look him up). Post-Covid, we struggle to manage hymns. I turn up for a united choir practice on a Tuesday (two of our churches have choirs), and I’m insanely grateful if more than two turn up. Frankly, it’s bloody depressing.

      The only consolation is that Robert does the Fauré each Remembrance Sunday at St John, Wimbledon, and I get to join in.

      I’ve 3½ years of a five-year contract left to run. If the CofE still exists in October 2025, I might be able to do my own thing on Sundays. Or I could grow a beard and learn the Adhan. Inshallah…

  77. Yesterday, Bill Thomas referred to the DT review of the Peter Oborne book and asked about any comments made (he couldn’t see them). There are only three and BT will be disappointed by their moderate tone.

    The Fate of Abraham review: how did Peter Oborne become British Muslims’ loudest defender?

    The veteran journalist’s polemic about how the West mistreats Muslims is brave and well-meant – but he picks some questionable ‘heroes’

    By Sameer Rahim

    Peter Oborne was once, in his own words, a “conventional Conservative”. From a distinguished military family, Oborne became a Tory journalist, working at The Spectator and as a columnist for this newspaper, among others. But the Iraq War changed him. From then, he says, “I went mentally into opposition to the British state,” and, “concluded that many British journalists were actually instruments of power and part of a client media class” subservient to politicians. He wrote excoriating books about New Labour.

    Oborne is still a Conservative, but a distinct kind – a moralist in the vein of Dr Johnson, with a dash of the colonial governor who now wants to cleanse his imperialist sins. Just as Johnson toasted the slave rebellion in America, so Oborne has taken up the unpopular cause of British Muslims, who feel misrepresented by politicians and the newspapers.

    The Fate of Abraham is a compendious and rather chaotic collection of history, journalism and reportage, but the through line is simple: the popular idea that there is a “clash of civilisations” between the West and Islam has resulted in failed wars abroad and shameful persecution at home. Recently, an American president tried (and partially succeeded in) banning Muslims from entering the country; in France, explicitly anti-Muslim candidates won more than 50 per cent of the vote in the first round of April’s presidential election.

    Things aren’t so bad in Britain, but there are still worries. More than 50 per cent of the nation’s 3.4 million Muslims live in poverty and they are disproportionately represented in prison, usually for drug offences. Shocking acts, such as the murder of the MP David Amess by an Isis supporter, have heightened tensions.

    Oborne’s sections on the US and France especially have some interesting nuggets. I knew about Thomas Jefferson’s interest in Islam (he owned a copy of the Koran), but not about his battles with Barbary pirates in North Africa – a precursor to the War on Terror, in Oborne’s telling. Similarly, we learn that French interior minister Gérald Darmanin, who has accused even Marine Le Pen of being soft on Islam, is the grandson of an Algerian military officer who worked for the French, part of a group targeted as traitors after independence.

    But for an author who wants to avoid a clash of civilisations, it seems odd to focus so much on where the West has been in conflict with Islam. There is a more positive story to be told: Oborne could have mentioned that the United States honours the Prophet Mohammed as a lawgiver in a frieze in the Supreme Court, that the Alhambra-inspired Grand Mosque in Paris is an architectural gem, and so on.

    Oborne’s chapter on the UK is inevitably more granular. His analysis of the web of think tanks, politicians and journalists shaping the narrative around British Muslims is certainly eye-opening. The now defunct Quilliam Foundation, which claimed to deradicalise extremists of all stripes, was itself funded by US foundations linked to anti-Muslim extremists. Also instructive is Oborne’s analysis of how a simplistic narrative took over the Trojan Horse affair in Birmingham schools (recently the subject of a popular New York Times podcast) and the grooming-gang child-abuse scandals. In both cases, a myopic focus on Islam as inherently the problem stigmatised a whole group.

    Yet in his fierce defence of “underdog” Muslims, Oborne does end up in some odd company. Tunisian dissident Mohamed Ali Harrath, now resident in London, should, the author says, be regarded as a “hero”. Yet in a footnote, he admits that Harrath’s Islam Channel was censured by Ofcom for allowing a presenter to “condone marital rape and violence against women”. Oborne’s heart is clearly in the right place, but I wish he had been a bit more careful in who he lauds. There are other British Muslims he could have championed: for example, women fighting for their rights in relation to the state, as well as sexism within the community, at the same time.

    To be a British Muslim is not always to be a victim. For a start, there is more religious freedom here, especially for minority sects, than in most Muslim countries. Over the past decade, Muslim politicians, sports stars and actors have become national icons.

    If we are indeed living under a new McCarthyism, as Oborne argues, I suspect it will be a blip – if a painful one – in what we must hope is a long and rich future for Muslims in Britain.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/fate-abraham-review-did-peter-oborne-become-british-muslims/

    BTL:
    Anne Carmichael
    He should know better.

    Anthony Andrews
    It seems to me that politicians are subservient to the media and not the reverse as he states.

    John Hughes
    Peter Oborne has, or had, a dislike of Israel. He used to write critically about the country when at the Telegraph and sometimes a second article by an Israeli or a British Jew was quickly published to balance Oborne’s piece, the DT being generally pro-Israel. His pro-Muslim opinions now set out in this book help explain what was a puzzling attitude towards the Jewish state in those days (he left the DT a decade and more ago).

    Apologies to the forum if this has already been reproduced.

    1. “Shocking acts, such as the murder of the MP David Amess by an Isis supporter, have heightened tensions.”
      These shocking acts did not happen by chance, as the wording of the sentence suggests. They happened because islamic texts told a Muslim that this was an acceptable thing to do, and because that muslim decided of his own free will to act on those texts and carry out the shocking act.

      1. And, of course, (as a loyal,fanatical slammer) he fails to refer to the hundreds of other despicable murders committed by slammers throughout the west.

    2. I am much obliged.

      It surprises me that the DT allowed BTL comments.

  78. Yesterday, Bill Thomas referred to the DT review of the Peter Oborne book and asked about any comments made (he couldn’t see them). There are only three and BT will be disappointed that they have not called for Oborne to be dragged from London to Mecca by a team of dysenteric oxen.

    The Fate of Abraham review: how did Peter Oborne become British Muslims’ loudest defender?

    The veteran journalist’s polemic about how the West mistreats Muslims is brave and well-meant – but he picks some questionable ‘heroes’

    By Sameer Rahim

    Peter Oborne was once, in his own words, a “conventional Conservative”. From a distinguished military family, Oborne became a Tory journalist, working at The Spectator and as a columnist for this newspaper, among others. But the Iraq War changed him. From then, he says, “I went mentally into opposition to the British state,” and, “concluded that many British journalists were actually instruments of power and part of a client media class” subservient to politicians. He wrote excoriating books about New Labour.

    Oborne is still a Conservative, but a distinct kind – a moralist in the vein of Dr Johnson, with a dash of the colonial governor who now wants to cleanse his imperialist sins. Just as Johnson toasted the slave rebellion in America, so Oborne has taken up the unpopular cause of British Muslims, who feel misrepresented by politicians and the newspapers.

    The Fate of Abraham is a compendious and rather chaotic collection of history, journalism and reportage, but the through line is simple: the popular idea that there is a “clash of civilisations” between the West and Islam has resulted in failed wars abroad and shameful persecution at home. Recently, an American president tried (and partially succeeded in) banning Muslims from entering the country; in France, explicitly anti-Muslim candidates won more than 50 per cent of the vote in the first round of April’s presidential election.

    Things aren’t so bad in Britain, but there are still worries. More than 50 per cent of the nation’s 3.4 million Muslims live in poverty and they are disproportionately represented in prison, usually for drug offences. Shocking acts, such as the murder of the MP David Amess by an Isis supporter, have heightened tensions.

    Oborne’s sections on the US and France especially have some interesting nuggets. I knew about Thomas Jefferson’s interest in Islam (he owned a copy of the Koran), but not about his battles with Barbary pirates in North Africa – a precursor to the War on Terror, in Oborne’s telling. Similarly, we learn that French interior minister Gérald Darmanin, who has accused even Marine Le Pen of being soft on Islam, is the grandson of an Algerian military officer who worked for the French, part of a group targeted as traitors after independence.

    But for an author who wants to avoid a clash of civilisations, it seems odd to focus so much on where the West has been in conflict with Islam. There is a more positive story to be told: Oborne could have mentioned that the United States honours the Prophet Mohammed as a lawgiver in a frieze in the Supreme Court, that the Alhambra-inspired Grand Mosque in Paris is an architectural gem, and so on.

    Oborne’s chapter on the UK is inevitably more granular. His analysis of the web of think tanks, politicians and journalists shaping the narrative around British Muslims is certainly eye-opening. The now defunct Quilliam Foundation, which claimed to deradicalise extremists of all stripes, was itself funded by US foundations linked to anti-Muslim extremists. Also instructive is Oborne’s analysis of how a simplistic narrative took over the Trojan Horse affair in Birmingham schools (recently the subject of a popular New York Times podcast) and the grooming-gang child-abuse scandals. In both cases, a myopic focus on Islam as inherently the problem stigmatised a whole group.

    Yet in his fierce defence of “underdog” Muslims, Oborne does end up in some odd company. Tunisian dissident Mohamed Ali Harrath, now resident in London, should, the author says, be regarded as a “hero”. Yet in a footnote, he admits that Harrath’s Islam Channel was censured by Ofcom for allowing a presenter to “condone marital rape and violence against women”. Oborne’s heart is clearly in the right place, but I wish he had been a bit more careful in who he lauds. There are other British Muslims he could have championed: for example, women fighting for their rights in relation to the state, as well as sexism within the community, at the same time.

    To be a British Muslim is not always to be a victim. For a start, there is more religious freedom here, especially for minority sects, than in most Muslim countries. Over the past decade, Muslim politicians, sports stars and actors have become national icons.

    If we are indeed living under a new McCarthyism, as Oborne argues, I suspect it will be a blip – if a painful one – in what we must hope is a long and rich future for Muslims in Britain.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/fate-abraham-review-did-peter-oborne-become-british-muslims/

    BTL:
    Anne Carmichael
    He should know better

    Anthony Andrews
    It seems to me that politicians are subservient to the media and not the reverse as he states

    John Hughes
    Peter Oborne has, or had, a dislike of Israel. He used to write critically about the country when at the Telegraph and sometimes a second article by an Israeli or a British Jew was quickly published to balance Oborne’s piece, the DT being generally pro-Israel. His pro-Muslim opinions now set out in this book help explain what was a puzzling attitude towards the Jewish state in those days (he left the DT a decade and more ago).

    1. Mothering Sunday was way back in March, Jonathan. Your identification of ‘Mother’s Day’ is purely a Godless American view that has been slavishly adopted by many othe countries – not least Australia and probably Canada. They’ve all lost the (Christian) plot.

      1. Good point, well made, Tom. Mothering, or Refreshment Sunday, is the fourth Sunday in Lent. This being the Fourth Sunday of Easter (and also ‘Good Shepherd Sunday’) is about as far from Mothering Sunday as one can get.

        I use the Royal School of Church Music publication Sunday by Sunday to choose hymns. One of the Easter Sunday hymns I picked from the list was absolutely fine in Common Praise. But the ‘same hymn’ in Mission Praise (or Mission Impossible, as I like to call it) turned out to be a Christmas Carol.

        Thanks for the upvote, Sandy. Can I expect to see you at Choir Practice on Tuesday afternoon?

  81. Goodnight, Y’all. Worn out again and another tedious busy week, starting tomorrow.
    Keep us in your thoughts, if you will.

  82. I’ll be off tomorrow for a week to fish with some friends abroad. Sadly, I have to confess that to do so I had to have this 3rd jab crap. It was just 2 weeks ago at my local GP surgery, and my final attempt at avoiding it was to ask the nurse to please squirt the vaccine into the sink and just sign me off. She gave a smile, but the Germanic looking lady on the computer just gave me a stare. Apologies for letting the side down. I’ll only have my phone so can’t check in. I’ll be missing my dog and the forum, and the family of course.

    1. Good luck, mm. I’m sorry to say that in my locality, the folk going down with Omigod are the boostered/third jabbed. Thankfully, they seem to survive. But rather you than me…

    1. Thanks for the upvote, April, but I wasn’t speaking to you my dear.

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