Friday 27 May: The windfall tax hits pensions and does nothing for Britain’s growth

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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646 thoughts on “Friday 27 May: The windfall tax hits pensions and does nothing for Britain’s growth”

    1. Lovely here too, Bob! Good morning to you and Minty! And as I type, the sky darkens….

      2. “And as I type, the sky darkens….”

        For heaven’s sake (and ours) Sue, please stop typing!

        1. Have done! Taken Hector for a walk in a wild and windy field! Very bracing!

    3. Same start here but now some cloud and there is a very strong breeze. Again!

  3. The windfall tax hits pensions and does nothing for Britain’s growth

    So it looks like their aim is to make everyone dependent on government handouts while they pursue ever more insane climate targets.

    2. My own view is that it is simply a “sweetener” for the masses. Robbing Peter to pay Paul, for which Paul will end up paying.

    2. Parents can help end this nonsense by not indulging their children on both this, and other, sick ideas from the ‘gender’ fascists.

      1. It’ll sell to those ghastly deranged young city folk who can’t wait to launch their children on a life of mental health problems.

    3. Hopefully the cock can be extracted leaving a bloody hole accompanied by screams of pain and howls of anguish.
      The sound can only be switched off by replacing the knob.

  7. Russia cuts rates again in bid to contain surging rouble. 27 May 2022.

    Russia’s central bank has slashed interest rates for the third time in a month as it tries to pull down the value of the rouble.

    The Central Bank of Russia cut its key rate from 14pc to 11pc, saying price pressures were easing “on the back of the rouble exchange rate dynamics as well as the noticeable decline in inflation expectations of households and businesses.”

    The rouble fell 6.9pc, following a 5.7pc drop on Wednesday.

    After plunging to nearly half its pre-war value following the invasion of Ukraine, the currency rapidly recovered, buoyed by Russia’s massive trade surplus and capital controls. Its trade surplus reached $58bn in the first quarter of the year, the highest in recent history.

    Nice to see these sanctions working as UK prices rise, inflation takes off and the £UKPound drops like a stone!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/05/26/russia-cuts-rates-bid-contain-surging-rouble/

  8. I think that the only way that we can get Johnson to work for the good of UK, is to castrate him

    2. Separate him from his gonads and throw the body away. His balls are doing a better job than the rest of him.

    1. Good morning. I’ve been up for hours ! Not doing my debit card any good. :@(

  10. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    This is not today’s leading letter, but it did jump off the page:

    SIR – The nursing home caring for my mother, a feisty 92-year-old former ward sister and district nurse who now suffers with dementia, called me to say she had been diagnosed with terminal liver failure. They wanted to discuss end-of-life care.

    Distraught, I pressed for more information. The doctor had apparently conducted an examination by video link. I requested a face-to-face visit, which was refused. The only alternative to the end-of-life care option offered was a visit to A&E. I reluctantly agreed, worried about the distress this might cause my mother.

    After 12 hours on a ward trolley, she was diagnosed with a simple infection, which was treated with antibiotics. Three days later she returned to the home and has made a full recovery.

    The initial complacency of the NHS has left me speechless. Had my mother been aware of all the shenanigans, on the other hand, her views would have been unprintable.

    Michael Gough Cooper
    Chiltington, West Sussex

    What a shocking diagnosis.
    Professional misconduct on the part of the GP?

    3. Examination by video link – Zoom, in other words. You cannot pick up on things accurately watching a computer screen (still less if it’s only a telephone consultation).

    1. Happy dead day ! Vile old farts. Charlie boy has never had any sense…Jimmy Saviles bestie. Wanker.

      1. Charles isn’t a silly innocent, he’s right in there with their policies. He chose to employ Porritt as an adviser – Porritt is patron of Optimum Population Trust, now renamed Population Matters.

        1. He’s a silly old fool. I expect he was shaking hands and mumbling inanities with
          Gotabaya Rajapaksaat at the Glasgow summit.

          1. Like the rest of them, he thinks he’s cleverer than he is. But don’t forget that he has run a multi-million pound business very successfully for years (the Duchy of Cornwall).

          2. When i shopped at Waitrose i sometimes bought Duchy of Cornwall organic. Taking a closer look at some of the labels showed me some of the fruit and veg came from Spain.

    5. Is the same puppet master pulling Soros’s strings as pulls Biden’s?
      It sound like it.

  13. SIR – Under the stewardship of Dame Lynne Owens, the National Crime Agency was effective and well led. I fail to see how that will continue to be the case if, as reported (May 24), Lord Hogan-Howe takes the post of director-general.

    He was by far the worst of the eight Met commissioners I served under. His “total policing” concept was incoherent, unstructured and ultimately meaningless. He oversaw the closure of a third of police stations and the loss of successful neighbourhood policing teams. He showed a lack of decisive leadership over “plebgate”. Operations Midland and Elveden were far from successful.

    He left a fractured and demoralised force behind him. It is astonishing that he should even be considered for another senior role in policing.

    Clifford Baxter
    Wareham, Dorset

    The principle of ‘reward for failure’ is alive and well, Mr Baxter.

  14. SIR – Afternoon tea in England used to be taken between 4pm and 5pm. Today it seems almost impossible to find a tea shop open after 4pm.

    This really is absurd, as those who desire a cuppa and a scone need to find a suitable establishment by 3.30pm, which might be only an hour or so since their lunch. It’s is a sad trend.

    Anthony Robinson
    Southwell, Nottinghamshire

    The rest of your world is presumably perfect then, Mr R?

    1. He could always open his own Ye Olde Tea Shoppe but that would mean he would have to work for a living.

  15. SIR – Russia’s invasion and destruction of areas of Ukraine has been appalling, and the crimes should be prosecuted.

    However, am I alone in feeling unease that the first prosecution was against a young officer aged 21 (report, May 24)? One wonders what his options were, under orders. He at least pleaded guilty – but the people truly responsible for sanctioning these atrocities seem unlikely to face justice.

    Rev Anthony Oehring
    Poole, Dorset

    Obviously I wasn’t alone in wondering why his superior(s) have apparently avoided prosecution…

    2. If one believes the propaganda, they will all have been killed and Putin himself is dying.

    3. Several comments BTL that he was not an officer but an NCO. It seems that service in the military is so remote to many people that they can not tell the difference.

  16. SIR – As part of their plan to disrupt the rail network (Letters, May 26), union members are going to refuse to work overtime. The rising cost of living is clearly not a problem for them.

    David Palmer
    Royal Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire

    I trust that the strikers are not paid while they down tools? Mind you, any attempt at starving them into submission is going to be a slow process if the size of some of them is any guide!

    1. Union members still haven’t caught on to the fact that they are being used as a political pawns. It takes a certain type of stupid to anger the general public whilst destroying your own industry. British Leyland anybody?

      1. Here, people were urged to stay away from public transport during the pandemic. And they did. Now, they are still using their cars, bus revenues are well down, and the services are to be drastically cut.
        Nobody saw that coming

  17. Fish shop owners say they face a battering from sanctions on Russian cod and haddock. 27 may 2022.

    Fish and chip shops say government sanctions on Russian cod and haddock could drive many of them to bankruptcy.

    Ministers are planning to impose punitive trade tariffs on whitefish exports from the country in response to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

    That will teach you Vlad. We are not going to eat your cod or your wheat, or use your oil or burn your gas. We are going to sit here; go out of business and starve while we freeze our asses off! That will show you!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10859379/Fish-chip-shop-owners-say-face-battering-sanctions-Russian-cod-haddock.html

    1. Another attack on British culture, more like. Bet Indian, Chinese and Thai takeaways won’t be forced to shut!

      1. I’m looking forward to the day when chicken flu arrives and all the KFC’s run out of nuggets.

        1. I can quite honestly say that I have never been into, or bought anything from, a KFC ‘restaurant’.

          1. I have had two. My mum came to visit and we went to the cinema and watched Roger Rabbit. Had a KFC after which we enjoyed. More recently i had one and after one bite i threw it in the bin. Slimey and horrible. Never again.

        2. Not funny though – they’ve stopped private poultry owners from buying chicks in parts of the US.

  18. SIR – There is increasing resistance in hotels to pleas to turn off the canned music in public areas.

    A recent polite request was met with an abrupt “Why?” My explanation that it was turning one of the grandest dining rooms in Europe into a cheap trattoria did not go down well. What is the best way to stop this noise?

    Francis Bown
    London E3

    A few years ago the ‘music’ in a country pub was intrusive, so I asked one of the staff if it could be turned down or, better still, off. She agreed, but it didn’t happen. Since the loudspeaker was close by, I simply unplugged a wire from the back of it. The staff member didn’t notice, but the other diners did and all expressed their relief at the blissful silence that followed.

    1. “What is the best way to stop this noise?”

      Get up and leave, Mr Bown.

  19. One for the gardners…

    SIR – I had a similar experience to Ann Wright (Letters, May 24), who wonders whether to save her roses from an “aphid invasion” or leave the aphids to feed the birds.

    Our roses and honeysuckles were covered in aphids that left a sticky residue but, as we were going on holiday, we didn’t have time to do anything about it.

    Two weeks later, on our return, the same plants were covered in ladybirds, which had cleaned up the mess while we were away. No more aphids, as they had been cleared up by natural means.

    Andrea Bates
    Enstone, Oxfordshire

    Whenever my runner beans became infested with aphids I rarely had to spray them (soapy water only) as the ants would usually mop them up for me.

  20. 352832+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Friday 27 May: The windfall tax hits pensions and does nothing for Britain’s growth

    Much of this monitory salve is generated by the peoples then used as a purchasing agent
    when redistributed among the herd seeking
    their continuing support.

    The electorate is in self destruct mode being played by the government / people smuggling political overseers sweeter than a Stradivarius.

        1. Happy anniversary to you both ! I hope the birthday card i sent you has pride of place on the sideboard ! :@(

    5. Please refer to my best wishes from yesterday! Congratulations to you both and have a wonderful day! 🌹🍷

  22. Good morning all. A slightly cooler 6°C this morning, but bright, dry & sunny with scattered cloud with a sunny day forecast.

  23. When the sanctions stop and goods and services flow again normally do you think prices will fall to anywhere near pre sanctions levels?
    Of course not, because all other costs will have risen and inflation is always better than deflation for our masters, even in the good times the Bank of Bandit’s remit is to keep steady inflation, ideally in the 2% range.

    You will own nothing but we’ll be happy.

      1. It’s an illusion, the debt doesn’t change, the cost of the “value”, exchanged for the debt falls. It’s why the government loves inflation.

        They borrow £1, and buy a pound of sugar. They hold the sugar for a while and sell it for £2 and repay the £1 they borrowed. They now have £1, you have your £1 back but that pound’s purchasing power has halved. You might have a little interest on you £1, but nowhere near enough to compensate you for the loss in purchasing power.

        Of course governments don’t actually buy something with the £1 borrowed, they spend it to get votes. They then tax you to repay you your £1.

        2. Meanwhile the value of our savings and investments plummets. 14 years on near zero interest rates.

      2. Perhaps properly to say it destroys the value of money, which has the effect of reducing what needs to be repaid. These economic tools are all being used as if the government were sovereign. Government is a parasite, an annoying expense. It is not the centre of the economy.

        1. In addition if the BoE is forced to put up interest rates to ‘defend’ the value of Sterling the cost of borrowing increases and with any compound effects it is likely to increase the size of the National Debt….

    2. If they want communism then they keep forgetting how it ends. They will be killed and the world will return to a rational balance again.

      In the meantime hundreds of millions will die.

  24. So lets get this straight
    Government engineers our economy around green energy.
    Basic living standards become far too expensive for everyone bar the super wealthy all as predicted.
    Everyone is fleeced of every bit of money they have just to eat and keep warm
    Government gives people back some money to make things just about bearable.
    People become dependent on government.
    Government becomes all powerful,
    Government monitors everything people do and say.
    Dissenters are left to go hungry and cold.
    Great reset complete.

      1. Frankly, we need to get on with it, because we are heading toward a cliff of oppression and socialism at a rate of knots.

        What the crazed cabal want is bad for this country, bad for freedoms, bad for our way of life. They’ve got to learn who they serve, brutally.

        1. I’m not up to the hacking off of heads bit but i will gladly provide refreshments.

        1. You’ll find it even more fascinating when the price of a punnet reaches £10!

          2. Ah, with added uranium ….

            Congrats by the way. Did you have a Church Wedding?

          3. Indeed. A neighbour was a retired canon. The then bishop refused to allow divorced people to marry in church. The Rev John said, “Bugger the bishop – I’ll marry you both with great pleasure”. And he did!

          6. I suspect the MR had a hand in the arrangements so that the first thing she saw as she entered the church
            was the Aisle.
            The next the Altar
            and finally her chosen Hymn

          7. Scrumping is going to create a black market in strawberries.

            I’ll get me punnet.

      2. Us neither. Soft fruit we buy locally, so it’s not been picked unripe and airfreighted from the other side of the world. Also means it has flavour.

      3. Only buy English strawbs in season. The Spanish polytunnel ones are red sprouts pissed on by the slave labour of illegal immigrants. (they do that to increase the weight)

      1. No M&S near here. Will see what’s in Morrisons later on. Neighbours coming for dinner tomorrow evening.

          1. I don’t think they’d want to deliver just one item! I did find some English ones in Morrisons so we’ll see what they’re like. They do smell like real ones.

    3. I’ve just noted a load of wild strawberries in front of my storage containers just up the road!

  28. I did not write this but, goodness, it does speak to my heart.

    No sooner had the day started … then it’s already six in the evening.
    No sooner had I arrived on a Monday … and it’s already Friday.
    And the month is already over.
    And the year is half over.
    And already 40 (or 50, 60, 70 or 80) years of our lives have passed.
    Then we realise that we have lost our parents, friends … and we realise it’s too late to go back.
    Let’s try then, despite everything, to enjoy the remaining time.
    Let’s keep looking for activities that we like.
    Let’s put some colour in our grey.
    Let’s smile at the little things in life that put balm in our hearts.
    And, despite everything, we must continue to enjoy with serenity this time we have left.
    Let’s try to eliminate the “afters”.
    “I’m doing it after.”
    “I’ll say it after.”
    “I’ll think about it after.”
    We leave everything for later like “after” is ours.
    Because what we don’t understand is that:
    Afterwards, the coffee gets cold.
    Afterwards, priorities change.
    Afterwards, the charm is broken.
    Afterwards, health passes.
    Afterwards, the children grow up.
    Afterwards our parents get old.
    Afterwards, promises are forgotten.
    Afterwards, the day becomes the night.
    Afterwards, life ends.
    And then it’s often too late.
    Let’s leave nothing for later.
    Because still waiting to “see you later”, we can lose the best moments, the best experiences, best friends, the best family.
    The day is today.
    The moment is now.
    We are no longer at the age where we can afford to postpone what needs to be done … right away.

    1. Excellent! I have tried to leave nothing to ‘tomorrow’ since the Big C came a knockin’ 4 years ago…so far, so good.

      ‘Morning Grizz.

    2. Indeed, Grizz. 🙁
      Afterwards our parents get old.. With mother now in dementia and Father dead 25 years ago, I realise (too late, of course, ‘cos I’d do it after…) that the family history is gone. A few unlabelled photos of mysterious people, but no story. Just a few snippets my parents told me, and that’s it.
      I even had the opportunity to fix it. I read, on yet another interminable flight, an article about a lady who would come round and interview your relatives and knock up a family biography. Aha!, thought I, just what’s needed. I’ll take care of it after… and now, too late, all gone.
      Shit!

      1. Morning, Paul. We’ve all been there and we’re all guilty of doing (or not doing) it.

        1. Not so, George, download Not a Bad Life from Kindle for the princely sum of USD 5.00.

          “Passing Three Score Years and Ten” will be available after my death.

          1. I meant the ingrained human proclivity for procrastination, more than anything, Tom.

      2. Good morning Paul and everyone. Sunny-ish.

        Remember the past and enjoy the present. Write your own family history while you can; I mean YOUR lifestory and your family unit, so that when/if grandchildren appear, there is something on a few sheets of A4. Start with a few thoughts and expand. The order doesn’t matter because it’s not an exam. For example, IIRC you mentioned Africa. Great subject.
        It’s more than half a century since the 1960s, and your childhood experiences and memories are now ‘history’.

      3. For heavens’ sake write down what you can remember of the stories now!
        I really MUST do that for my family…when I’ve got time…later….

    3. So I’d better go out right away to pull out that thistle, because tomorrow it eats me.

    4. Very true. I am trying not to put off doing anything I want to do (and can afford).

  29. Soon, charity donation books, picturing small, starving white children, living in Islington, will be availabe throughtout
    Africa, so the resdents there can support a starving Brit

    There will also be picture of kids, carrying on their head Jerry Cans of petrol/diesel miles through the countyside, to fuel tractors for
    farmers

  30. Fish and chips to take a battering in latest round of Russian sanctions

    Let me get this straight.

    We are imposing sactions on Russia, to cost them money and make them leave Ukraine alone.

    The Rouble is gaining in value, The Pound Sterling is falling in Value

    We hit Russian Whitefish Exports….Fish and Chip shops will have to shut (Just see how many shut down pubs are about after Convid Lockdown)

    Fuel and electricity prices are rocketting in UK, (Mostly through Green Madness.Net Zero)

    Not harming Russia at all

    What punishment Johnson inflict on us next,

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/05/26/fish-chips-take-battering-latest-round-russian-sanctions/

    1. Quite. Russia is self-sufficient. Oil, gas and coal to spare, enough food to feed her own and export the surplus, very little national debt and ample gold reserves. All the things the globalists despise. Debt makes us slaves. Our national debt places a price on our heads and that’s exactly where Mr Global wants us.

      1. One begins to wonder how easy it might be to emigrate (and seek asylum) in Russia.

        1. I think with Hungary you have to pay a bond of 250,000 and buy a property of the same value. The worst part is having to learn the language. You get the bond payment back after 5 years residency. Or it was the last time i looked. Don’t know about Russia.

    2. Why do we have to import fish anyway? We’re surrounded by sea and we’ve left the EU … oh, wait! We didn’t get our fishing grounds back and the foreign super-trawlers are leaving nothing for us (assuming we still have a fishing fleet).

    1. I wonder how large the entrenched blob of dancing rainbow warriors that he will have to deal with is?

    3. Intensive, necessary profiling would be a start. Don’t search everyone at airports, just those who are a risk. Let the Left bleat. Increasingly when the guardian complains it’s a sign we’re doing the right thing and should do more of it.

      1. As a white-haired white woman I usually get the pat-down at airports. I must look like a criminal.

          1. I once went with a church party to Jordan and Israel and when we arrived at the airport in Jordan, all of the women in the party were taken one by one into an enclosed cubicle to be patted down by a big strapping uniformed dyke who was clearly having a whale of a time. She was quite good looking and totally un-Islamic. I can’t recall whether she was armed but I think it quite likely.

        2. When I was doing that I lost count of the times a little white-haired woman would turn to me, from the woman officer searching her, and say, “I’d much rather that you did this!”

    4. He will be fired, like the Geordie Policeman who introduced ‘Zero Toilerance’ into his force.

      Plod is much happier sitting in fromt of his computer screen, scrolling through soshul meeja to find supposed ‘Hate Crimes’.

      1. Too many feathers will be ruffled by his approach, so you’re right, Tom, he’ll be fired. Too many pompous pricks will be shown up as incompetent for him to survive long.

    5. Good morning Grizz and all
      Reminds me of a Detective Sergeant I used to see, occasionally, in Court when I was an usher. He received a commendation from the Chief Constable for his work on car crime. The CC asked him why he was so successful and he replied “we get out and about talking to the local people as they know what’s going on “. He said the CC moved on quickly.

      1. Hi, Alf. No flies on that DS. He’s probably forgotten more about crime-fighting than his Chief will ever know.

    7. I heard him interviewed last week. Very sensible, down to earth bloke, with back to basics ideas. So that’ll be him cancelled, then!

          1. Hey, hey we’re the Nottlers, we like Nottling around …. Could Nottl pox be the next pandemic? 🙂

  33. This article shows the extent to which the UK government is raiding Russian owned property and stealing the assets of Russians. Moreover, it is clear that the government is not protecting these assets from harm, as the occupation of a house by protestors demonstrates. We also know that yachts seized by governments across Europe have been abandoned and their condition will deteriorate. Our government is not just composed of selfish drunken incompetents, but they are also thieves. (As an aside, did Abramaovitch lose money when Chelsea was seized and sold?)

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-61591547

  34. Rise in UK asylum approvals renews fears about Rwanda transfers. 27 May 2022.

    The proportion of asylum seekers being granted refuge in the United Kingdom has risen to a 30-year high, prompting renewed concern from refugee charities about recent changes to the system which will see many people criminalised or transferred to Rwanda.

    New Home Office data shows that 75% of asylum claims in the year ending March 2022 were granted, with most claimants entering the UK via small boats or other irregular routes. This means they could face prosecution under the new Nationality and Borders Act, which was passed in April.

    Calm down dear! No one is being prosecuted and no one is going to Rwanda!

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/may/26/rise-in-uk-asylum-approvals-renews-fears-about-rwanda-transfers

  35. https://www.takimag.com/article/the-meek-have-inherited-the-earth/
    Dalrymple

    There is nothing a strong government likes more than a weak people; and therefore, whether consciously or not, everything is done to render the people ever feebler. Not physically, of course, we are raising up giants of a size and strength never before seen, as can be seen on any sports field, but psychologically—which is why psychology is the handmaiden of soft authoritarianism, it teaches people their vulnerability.
    The more vulnerable people can be induced to believe themselves to be, the more they need assistance to keep themselves going. Such assistance (which is self-justifying, though never sufficient, or indeed even partially effective) requires a vast legal and other infrastructure, put in place and regulated by the government. The government is the pastor, the people are the sheep.

  36. Weather forecast for Monday here, SIX Centigrade and rain at mid day…

  39. 352832+ up ticks,

    Labour-Ordered Report Denies Claims Rotherham Abuse Continuing ‘On the Same Scale’

    It does seem this has turned into a point scoring issue with the kids welfare taking a secondary place.

    We have one section of the lab/lib/con COALITION scoring brownies from tother while both groups of political tripe are as guilty as black sin.

    The Dover campaign is the daily top up of potential felons / troops.

    As for the mass uncontrolled immigrant party’s and the continued backing of the herd what can be said” kids will lose their virginity eventually so what harm done” to
    face up to facts is surely going to bring the party into disrepute.

    1. Labour denies it… well, they did the first time around. Sadly, the pakistani muslim rapists had almost mechanised abuse. That group need to be watched like hawks for any recurrence and punished severely.

      1. 352832+ up ticks,

        Afternoon W,
        They should be kicked out of the Country along with family’s, no jail time
        let the family’s mete out justice their way.
        Guilty verdict same day deportation.

    2. Oh Lord, save us. The present Hospitaller at St Barts is gay and we were asked in the notices one Sunday morning to congratulate Fr Evan’s partner, also a priest, on his recent promotion but apart from being made aware of the existence of said partner when Evan was first appointed, his sexuality is never mentioned. He is who he is and it’s taken for granted. The thing that always irked me about the Dean of St Edmundsbury when he was Vicar of Fulham was his apparent need to constantly politicise his sexuality and shout it from the chancel steps. Mind, even he stopped short of draping it on the altar!

      1. I first saw the stonewall flag in the church when my local church had a special service for an LBGT group. Christianity wasn’t enough for them – it had to be accompanied by their holy flag.
        The vicar apparently didn’t see anything wrong – it’s all a bit see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, judge not lest ye be judged. She forgets the rest of that tale, of course, which was Jesus admonishing the sinner not to do it again.

    4. To celebrate weirdo month, our local council have decided to rainbow up some pedestrian crossings. Obviously so much money to spare.

      Pedestrian crossing? I didn’t see a pedestrian crossing , just some paint splashed on the ground.

    1. I thought that was very off as well. As Chancellor, he has a better idea than most of what’s likely to be coming, and he’s trying to guilt-trip people much poorer than himself into giving away the little crumb of their wealth that he has graciously allowed them to keep.

      1. Yes – folk don’t seem to realise *this is their OWN bally money*! It’s not Sunak’s to give back, it’s our taxes that he has stolen!

  42. We are going out – to the coast, despite the gale. Sausage sandwiches made for our celebration.
    If I am not back later – send helico to Hunstanton Cliffs!!

    6. Congrats on your anniversary Bill and your MR.p from Alf and me. may we ask how many? I’ve only just seen the comments so you may already have said.

  45. Had to put the grill on to melt the butter and make it spreadable for my lunchtime sandwich… It’s June next week…

      2. JD- re your keratosis- go and get it seen to. Don’t put it off! That’s what I was told I had, Bowen’s disease and it has morphed into skin cancer because it wasn’t treated! Let’s see, why wasn’t it treated? Oh yes, protect the NHS, stay at home.
        They have lied to me twice about this and right now, I am rather upset.
        Maybe more later.

    4. Could all nottlers stop having a go at Hamilton? He is the very best in his sport and although he whinges a lot, he is a brilliant driver. I get sick of ignorant people talking him down and if I have to read one more moronic comment about “oooh it’s all down to the car” I will explode! He is mixed race British (don’t go with the ‘oh what about his mum!’) and I hate his BLM stance, but he is at the top because he’s brilliant.
      I am down voting all you haters

      2. Whatever his talents, he doesn’t come over as a nice person (I don’t follow noisy, stinky racing cars). Why shouldn’t people express negative opinions about him? It used to be a free country.

        1. So what? He’s very probably not a nice person, but was Jim Clark? James Hunt? And then there is the truly ghastly Jackie Stewart! Go and look on the beeb sports? website! The vitriol is horrible.

          3. I shan’t do that for several reasons, the chief being that I don’t read anything the beeb publishes and I am only interested in one sport which involves four-legged horses rather than mechanised horsepower. My point was, it’s an opinion and people should have the right to express it without being told to shut up.

          5. Surely, telling someone not to keep on (talk) about him, is telling them to shut up (not to say anything about him)? Sorry, I’m a linguist and I look for meanings.

          7. I shan’t do that for several reasons, the chief being that I don’t read anything the beeb publishes and I am only interested in one sport which involves four-legged horses rather than mechanised horsepower. My point was, it’s an opinion and people should have the right to express it without being told to shut up.

          8. I see your point, but I loathe Hamilton so much that I don’t feel like giving him credit for a sport that I don’t really appreciate at the best of times!

          10. No class, no taste, no dignity, no intelligence. Or if he has any of these things, he keeps them very well hidden.

          11. Jim Clark is my all-time favourite F1 driver.

            Ayrton Senna, before he was also tragically killed, commissioned a large mural to be painted on the wall of his São Paulo apartment. It was to feature a fictional grand prix and to have every F1 world champion to date competing in it. Senna told the artist: “You may place the drivers in any position you wish but I have two strict stipulations: 1. I do not wish to see Alain Prost (Senna’s sworn enemy) anywhere in the painting. 2. The pole position must be given to Jim Clark; after all, he was the best of the best.”

          12. Thank you Grizz. I’m not trying to defend Hamiltons awful PR re BLM or his whinging, or anything else, but to hear stuff about his tax affairs, his mother, his silly clothes, etc etc makes me very cross. He’s British and I’m very proud of him! Flawed genius – Schumacher anyone?

      3. Is that why he’s getting trounced this season and his fellow driver, in the same car, is ahead of him in the standings.?

        1. For goodness sake, sos, can you not just appreciate what he’s done? The young pretender will probably never achieve 7 world championships. Hamilton has, and should have 8 but for a numpty Aussie placeman!

          1. I fully appreciate what he’s achieved AND I fully appreciate that the best drivers are offered the best contracts to drive the best cars for the best teams.

            But please don’t try to tell me that without those cars, and the pit crews, that Hamilton would have got even close to achieving what he has.

            The car and support team must make up at least 50% of the partnership and probably more.

            It will never happen, but I would like to see a season where every driver is allocated their car at random, and then one would get a better picture.

          2. Hello, Mrs Macfarlane. I’m trying to work out who the “numpty Aussie placeman” is? No Aussie has won the F1 world championship since Alan Jones in 1980.

          3. Ah! That would be Michael Masi, the race coordinator who, for some random reason, changed the rules during the Dubai Grand Prix. Charlie Whiting had died suddenly and Masi was shoved in.

    5. I don’t have a car or driver in this race but I do admire Sue’s driving through the field!

    1. The bum you can balance a cup and saucer on was the inspiration for the Victorian bustle. Inspired by the 19th C. explorers?

    2. The Hottentots were the first known tribes in southern Africa many of the present residents were migrants attracted by the success of the white society which there were latterly encouraged to hate so much they have ruined the whole country.
      She’d never be able to get off the bog eh ! Or on it come to that……..

      1. The black tribes who now rule South Africa are just as much colonisers as the Boers and British settlers they so loudly criticise. It was, by and large, they who displaced the original inhabitants such as the Hottentots and San.

        1. Exactly my point Bob. have you heard of the ‘Cape coloured’s’ they are totally made up of mixed races and have a known hierarchy who run the area they live in.

    3. I guess that’s perhaps why the male members of the species are rumoured to have gone to extraordinary lengths…….

  50. Out later so Wordle 342 4/6

    ⬛🟨🟩🟨⬛
    🟨⬛🟩⬛🟨
    ⬛🟨🟩🟩⬛
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
    Have a great afternoon/evening. We have a special presentation for our past-President, unknown to him, should be very good. An award for doing so much for our Bowls Club over many years.

    1. Wordle 342 4/6

      🟨🟩⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜🟩🟩⬜🟨
      ⬜🟨🟨🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      Me too. Enjoy yourself!

    2. #MeToo
      Wordle 342 4/6

      🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜
      ⬜🟨⬜🟨🟨
      ⬜🟩🟨🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
      Enjoy the party!

    3. Moi aussi.
      Wordle 342 4/6

      ⬜🟨🟩⬜⬜
      🟨⬜🟩⬜⬜
      ⬜⬜🟩🟩🟨
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

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

    Academic freedom and the FSU’s defence of Dr Abhijit Sarkar

    The Times Higher Education ran a story about Professor Nigel Biggar, the FSU’s Chairman, defending academic free speech at Taking the Politics out of University Teaching, an event hosted by the thinktank Politeia. “There was,” Nigel said, “a rising tendency in universities not to argue with positions but to attack the persons who hold them, smearing them as racist or white supremacist, or transphobic, and clamouring that their research be shut down, and that they be disciplined or even dismissed” – a tendency all too obviously exemplified this week by what Quillette described as Princeton University’s “disgraceful” decision to fire Professor Joshua Katz. What would help dampen this tendency, Nigel argued, was “a revision of the Equality Act 2010, so that it cannot be argued, normally, that [people holding] a point of view you disagree with constitutes a form of harassment”.

    The fact that ideologically motivated academics are policing the thoughts and actions of colleagues and students is bad enough, but as Dr Arif Ahmed pointed out in Spiked, universities’ attempts to win the approval of bodies like Advance HE are having a similarly ‘chilling’ effect on academic freedom and free speech. For a university to win Advance HE’s Athena SWAN award, for instance, it must show commitment to certain ‘principles’. Back in 2015, those principles included “tackling the discriminatory treatment often experienced by trans people”. Now, however, an institution must agree to “fostering collective understanding that individuals have the right to determine their own gender identity”. Is it the job of a university to “foster collective understanding” about the rightness of a particular ideological position, or to facilitate open debate? To Arif, a member of the FSU’s Advisory Council, this looks uncomfortably like a move away from tackling discrimination and into the realm of thought policing.

    Similar issues were raised during Parliament’s ‘Freedom of Speech in Education’ debate this week, with Sir John Hayes calling for a review of universities’ free speech policies prior to the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill reaching the statue book. The review was necessary, he argued, because “universities continue to use the Equality Act 2010 to elevate the fear of disturbance or distress above free speech’s ability to inspire, enthral and to move the academic agenda forward”. While making his case, Sir John cited the “sad, but by no means exceptional” case of FSU member Dr Abhijit Sarkar. The FSU defended Sarkar following Oxford University’s failure to protect his academic freedom. We’re now helping a group of senior academics petition Oxford to reform its policies and protect free speech and academic freedom in accordance with law.

    The FSU endorses Sir John’s demand that universities get their policies in order now, before the Bill becomes law. Our view is that the Bill cannot be passed too soon (although we’d like to see some amendments to strengthen its free speech protections). We’ve intervened in many cases involving students or academics, and in almost every instance those individuals would have been in a stronger position had the new law been in place. Our briefing on the Bill can be found here.

    Speakeasy with Dr Joanna Williams – book your place now!

    Following the FSU’s successful online event with Douglas Murray on Wednesday, our next Speakeasy will be on Wednesday 15 June, 6:30pm BST. General Secretary Toby Young will be joined by the Head of Education and Culture at Policy Exchange, Dr Joanna Williams, to discuss her new book: How Woke Won: The Elitist Movement That Threatens Democracy, Tolerance and Reason. Joanna is one of Britain’s sharpest and most eloquent writers on the phenomenon of ‘woke’. In How Woke Won, she forensically exposes how the ‘woke’ culture war has exploded into our schools, workplaces, media and politics – and why we need to fight back against this threat to our values and freedoms. Please register here to receive the Zoom link.

    Academic removed from an academic event for “disruptive” questions

    Dr Jon Pike is a member of the FSU. He’s also a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the Open University. His specialism is the philosophy and ethics of sport, and he’s also a world-leading expert in issues surrounding transgender inclusion in women’s sport. On 16 May 2022 Dr Pike attended an online event at Loughborough University entitled IAS Festival of Ideas: Transitions – Festival and Book Launch Gender Diversity and Sport: Interdisciplinary perspectives on increasing inclusivity. This topic was well within the parameters of his research and expertise, but he was removed from the event for asking questions about the fairness of allowing biological men to compete against women athletes. Dr Pike later received a terse email from Loughborough University’s Institute of Advanced Studies informing him that his removal had been necessary “due to the disruptive nature of [his] questioning”. The Free Speech Union has written to Loughborough University’s Vice Chancellor, Professor Nick Jennings, to express its concern. We consider this to be a failure of the University to uphold its obligations to uphold free speech on campus, and an act of discrimination against Dr Pike on the grounds of his gender critical beliefs. The full text of the FSU’s letter is available here.

    The Living Freedom Summer School open for applications until Sunday 29 May

    The applications deadline for the Living Freedom Summer School taking place in London this summer is Sunday 29 May. Organised in partnership with the Free Speech Champions project, the Summer School is a fantastic opportunity for young, critical thinkers to meet one another and debate the key freedom issues of our times. The full programme is now available. Speakers include the FSU’s own Toby Young and Karolien Celie, former cop and free speech campaigner Harry Miller, James Esses, writer and campaigner Caroline ffiske, Professor Frank Furedi, journalist Bruno Waterfield, Professor Arif Ahmed, writer Ella Whelan, author Dr Joanna Williams, journalist and historian Dr Zoe Strimpel… and many more.

    The FSU’s schedule of events this summer

    We have a packed schedule of events – online and in-person – over the coming months. You can keep up to date and check what’s going on at a glance thanks to our website’s brand new Events page. As most of our events are members-only, you won’t be able to book tickets from that public page, but our Events team will be sending out regular emails with full details and booking links, so do keep an eye out for them. If you don’t receive those emails, please let us know and we’ll make sure you’re on the mailing list (and if you’re on the mailing list and you still aren’t receiving those emails, then please check your junk mail inbox).

    FSU Summer Comedy Night – tickets available now!

    FSU members are warmly invited to round up their family and friends for the FSU Summer Special on Wednesday 29 June. This one night only extravaganza of comedy and music is being held in association with Comedy Unleashed – the home of free-thinking comedy. The MC for the night will be FSU favourite Dominic Frisby, and Dominic will also be performing a special set of comedy hits, old and new, with his amazing band The Gilets Jaunes. Also on the bill is comedy crooner and ubermeister of lounge, Frank Sanazi, described in Chortle as “the extravagantly offensive love-child of Adolf Hitler and Frank Sinatra… flamboyantly executed”. Frank will be bringing the glamour of Das Vegas to the stage with his legendary friends Dean Stalin, Spliff Richard and TomMones. Book your tickets here to join the fun with the whole FSU team and 100s of FSU members.

    Free Speech Champions launch the new issue of TNT

    The Free Speech Champions are going from strength to strength. The organisation packed out a London pub last Saturday to launch the second issue of their magazine The New Taboo, which aims to showcase a wide array of exciting new voices and promote free thinking for a new generation. You can read it online here or pick up a print copy at any of the FSU’s forthcoming events. Congratulations to all the contributors and especially to editor Daniel J Sharp and designer Izzi Jones!

    The Parliamentary return of the Online Safety Bill

    The Online Safety Bill, which has reached the Committee stage of its journey through Parliament, is attracting more and more criticism. The Economist warned of its potential to “change the face of the internet” and “incentivise” tech firms to censor their users en masse. Writing for The Critic, Toby Young agreed, describing the Bill as a “censors’ charter” and “the most serious threat to free speech since the proposal to force state regulation on the press in the aftermath of Leveson”.

    Notoriously, the bill will force companies to remove “legal but harmful” content from their platforms. The fact that the largest firms could be fined up to 10% of their annual global turnover for failing to do so will inevitably create an incentive to remove anything remotely contentious. Might that have a chilling effect on free speech? Not according to Nadine Dorries, Secretary of State at DCMS. She believes the bill will strike a blow for freedom of expression. In his capacity as FSU General Secretary, Toby has met with DCMS ministers and officials who’ve also sought to reassure him that there’s nothing in the Bill requiring social media companies to remove “legal but harmful” content. The Cabinet minister responsible for the Bill, Chris Philp, even authored a piece for The Times this week in which the same claim appeared: “There is”, he wrote, “no requirement in the Bill at all to censor legal content.”

    Toby describes this as a “sleight of hand”. The bill will “require the Secretary of State to bring forward secondary legislation in the form of a statutory instrument to identify ‘priority’ harms that providers will be under a particular obligation to protect us from”, he writes. So it will be the secondary legislation, and not the Bill per se, that identifies “legal but harmful” content. In other words, although the Bill won’t specify the “legal but harmful” subject matter that social media companies need to remove, it will nonetheless create a general obligation to remove it once it has been identified in a statutory instrument.

    What worries Toby is that the press release accompanying the Bill cites “harassment” as an example of the type of “legal but harmful” content that will be included in the statutory instrument. Not that he’s a harassment enthusiast, of course; it’s just that it isn’t difficult to “imagine Parliament approving this secondary legislation, and activist groups then petitioning platforms to remove any content they find disagreeable on the grounds that it amounts to ‘harassment’ of the victims they claim to be representing”.

    At this late stage, our “best hope” for averting this danger is to “persuade the Government to ditch the worst parts of the Bill – like the ‘legal but harmful’ stuff — and try to improve the rest as it passes through Parliament”, he says. The FSU currently has nine amendments it’s hoping to push through, and over the coming weeks we’re looking forward to engaging with allies in both houses of Parliament to ensure that the final version of the Bill better protects online freedom of speech.

    The ‘woke’ capture of relationships and sex education

    During Parliament’s ‘Political impartiality in schools’ debate this week, Gareth Bacon asked the Secretary of State for Education, Nadhim Zahawi, whether he was concerned that “children were at risk of being indoctrinated by political activists masquerading as teachers?” It was a timely question. As the Mail reported this week, schools are increasingly outsourcing Relationships and Sex Education classes to “unregulated providers pushing a ‘woke’ agenda”. In response to Bacon’s question, Zahawi referenced the “clear, comprehensive guidance” his Department had published to help schools tackle these “sensitive issues”. But is this guidance being observed? Not according to The Critic’s Shonagh Dillon. “In reality”, she argued, “many RSE providers are not following the guidelines, and schools are not asking the questions they should of the material being used.” That was why, as she went on to point out, RSE provision had become “a wild west of competing providers, each vying to be more ‘edgy’ and ‘cool’ than their rivals, with little regard for safeguarding or child development”. Dillon’s research into RSE provision uncovered teaching content aimed at children and teenagers that promoted “bondage and discipline + sadism and masochism” (BDSM), explained what a swinger was and celebrated “sex toy day” with hyperlinks to sites selling toys like “anal training sets” (or ‘butt plugs’, as they’re known in the porn industry). One provider had posters featuring friendly aliens that asked children “which pronouns do you want to use?” Another posted publicly accessible images to its Instagram account that declared: “Virginity benefits no one.”

    Just as concerning from a free speech perspective was the Mail’s assertion that the content of lessons delivered by these providers is in some cases being obscured from parents. A child’s primary school in Lambeth, South London, for example, reportedly signed a contract with an external provider agreeing not to distribute teaching materials to parents. A mother who subsequently became worried about the content of the course – which allegedly involved a mixed sex group of 10 year-olds discussing masturbation in pairs – sent the school a freedom of information request, only to be informed that, “after consultation with both [the provider] and legal specialists, [the school] were unable to allow her to see the course materials”.

    Ricky Gervais vs transactivists: seconds out, round one…

    The outrage over Ricky Gervais’s new stand-up special for Netflix was, as Ella Whelan pointed out in the Telegraph, “all too predictable”. Particular fury seems to have been roused by a section in which Gervais mocked trans activists. US LGBTQ rights group Glaad denounced the jokes as “dangerous”, the National Centre for Transgender Equality in the US condemned them as “dehumanising” and the Director of Communications at Stonewall, Robbie de Santos, felt it was “disappointing that Ricky has once again chosen to use his global platform to make fun of trans people – punching down is never funny”. In the new woke lexicon, this is apparently the greatest crime a modern comedian can commit – to “punch down” is to make fun of any person or group who is in some way deemed to be less “privileged” than the comedian.

    Writing in the Telegraph, Michael Deacon wondered whether critics like de Santos might not have misunderstood at whom Gervais’s jokes were targeted. The supposedly offensive part of the show, as Deacon explains, imagines an exchange between a woman and a hard line transactivist. The woman is nervous about someone with a penis entering the ladies’ loos. “What if he rapes me,” she asks. “What if she rapes you, you f***ing TERF whore!” the enraged activist screams back. To be sure, the joke is crude. “But it isn’t bullying,” points out Deacon. “It’s about bullying: the bullying of women by aggressive activists. The sort of activists who hounded Prof Kathleen Stock, the feminist academic, out of her job at Sussex University and constantly send threats and abuse to JK Rowling.” Surely, Deacon concludes, “by mocking bullies on behalf of their victims, Ricky Gervais is actually punching up, not down?”

    Then again, was Gervais actually punching anyone at all? It’s certainly interesting the way de Santos’s woke metaphor forces us to personify humour’s intended targets, rendering the comedian either as an abuser (i.e., ‘punching down’) or a progressive campaigner (i.e., ‘punching up’). But what if Gervais was actually swinging away at an abstract set of ideas? His own explanation of his routine, offered to the Spectator, certainly suggests just such a possibility: “My target wasn’t trans folk, but trans activist ideology. I’ve always confronted dogma that oppresses people and limits freedom of expression.” The Spectator’s Debbie Hayton certainly felt it was time someone gave it the sort of satirical, no-holds barred thrashing that every other form of political ideology has had to endure since the European Enlightenment. And why not? “Trans activist ideology” is, after all, mixing it with the big boys now – capitalism, feminism, liberalism – having “shaken the foundations of our society and challenged the meaning of such fundamental concepts as men and women”.

    Feliks Kwiatkowski fundraiser – show your support

    Our member, Feliks Kwiatkowski, needs your help. After four decades as a barrister, his statutory regulator, the Bar Standards Board (“BSB”), brought charges against him for saying something a female colleague found offensive. Feliks was prosecuted, tried in public, fined and reprimanded. His unblemished professional reputation, built over 40 years, was tarnished. He seeks your help in appealing to the High Court, where his public hearing has been listed in the Administrative Court for 21 and 22 June this year. This case is about protecting the right to discuss and express views that some people may find offensive. It is about our right to disagree, which is being gradually eroded by professional bodies using their power as gate-keepers to suppress opinions that some people find disagreeable. This is suffocating freedom of speech in our free, or supposedly free, society. You can find out more and pledge your support here.

    Sharing the newsletter

    As with all our work, this newsletter depends on the support of our members and donors, so if you’re not already a paying member please sign up today or encourage a friend to join, and help us turn the tide against cancel culture. You can share our newsletters on social media with the buttons below to help us spread the word. If someone has shared this newsletter with you and you’d like to join the FSU, you can find our website here.

    Best wishes,

    1. The Royal Tournament was a very good day out for a young boy. My parents took me most years.
      Yet another British tradition consigned to history.

      2. I had the nour of performing there with the Royal Air Force Cosford Pipe band in 1961.

    2. Worked with a guy who was wheelman. He had no neck… tough bugger, he was.

    5. I always thought of that competition and the men competing in it as being the embodiment of “British”.

  53. I bought an owl with a speech impediment. It didn’t bother it at all.

    In fact it couldn’t give two hoots.

  54. James Akaster/Nish Kumar telling Ricky Gervais to be a better comedian
    is like Diane Abbott telling Steven Hawking to be better at mathematics!

      1. He’s quite funny without being offensive. A bit vanilla really. Kumar is a racist.

    2. I never really liked Ricky Gervais but I’m starting to appreciate him more – if Nish Kumar doesn’t like him then Gervais must be OK!

      1. I couldn’t stop laughing at his Netflix special Supernature. Side splittingly funny.

      1. Gosh! Glad I didn’t say that…..I appear to have been reprimanded🙄😳

  55. https://twitter.com/UnityNewsNet/status/1529761915496542208
    What is the explanation for these bizarre throat movements? I’ve never seen this on a human being before.
    For anyone who can’t get Twit, it’s Albert Bourla, the CEO of Pfizer being interviewed, and he seems to swallow a lot while he’s not talking, and his neck puffs out in a weird way. The footage is apparently genuine. The comments underneath are predicatably humorous.

      2. Only the Emperor is allowed to wear Tyrian purple. To make the dye was incredibly expensive. Millions of spiny sea shells were ground up to make the dye.

          3. Did that also involve crossing the Channel in Rubber Dinghies during the 400 years they were in charge here?

          2. Blair, Trudeau, Macron have if memory serves me correctly, all been seen wearing ties of the the same colour. Reminds me of the TV ad for Purple Pricks…

    3. Thyroid problem plus a swallowing problem whilst trying to suppress a cough?
      I’ve seen similar in people with such issues.

          1. I suppose image is everything when you’re sitting on top of a 30+ billion dollar profit that was made off the back of a media scare campaign and a fraudulent test program (see TCW yesterday).

  56. Afternoon, all. I had some printing to do so I’m here early. Is the headline letter-writer a Nottler? If not, perhaps he/she (other pronouns are, regrettably, available) should be.

  57. Good afternoon. Back from our outing. In the end we abandoned the cliffs at Hunstanton – facing a 30 mph gale didn’t seem that attractive. Instead, we went just ten miles to look at churches in half a dozen villages that – after 38 years of living here – I had never been to. The three Raynhams and three others.

    Glorious. Like going back 60 years. Empty lanes through fields of waving corn. After turning off the main road, in two hours, we saw three people, half a dozen vehicles and one cat.

    And the last church – Shereford – is largely pre-Conquest.

    What a memorable afternoon with my best girl by my side.

    Thank you all for your good wishes. The sausage sandwiches (venison from an animal shot by my elder son) were superb.

    1. What a lovely post. Sounds like an afternoon out of a Dorothy L Sayers novel.

          1. Fortunately, very little evidence of bats – that do SO much damage with their droppings. The pre-Conquest church DID have a bell once.

          2. Our church in Ashen has appealed for donations to refurbish its three bells. The Tenor was cast by William Chamberlain of Aldgate circa 1450 and the 2nd and Treble were cast circa 1330 by Thomas de Lynn, making them some of the oldest in the country.

            The castings are exquisite and the bells lucky to have survived the Reformation.

            A previous Rector of Ashen was Matthew Parker, Chaplain to Queen Ann Boleyn and Archbishop of Canterbury to Queen Elizabeth. Parker was the ‘Nosey Parker’ of Corpus Christi College Cambridge fame. His library bequest at Corpus includes the Bury Bible used at the investiture of Archbishops at Canterbury.

          4. Hi Bill,

            Belated congrats on your anniversary. We are still awaiting completion on the new bungalow in Whissonsett. No real problems so far but I am employing engineers from Norwich to provide assurances to potential insurers. Such a drawn out affair last experienced nigh on 30 years ago when we last moved.

            The church in Whissonsett is a nice one if a bit over-restored window wise. I was struck by a notice on the entrance door requesting visitors close the door on exiting in order to avoid animals becoming trapped inside. Then I noticed some small Muntjacs wandering around the churchyard and was told that a family of such had established territory in the Pit prior to its development.

            I worked on Norwich Cathedral for a year in the nineties and on several churches in Norfolk including Kings Lynn and I designed the bell turret on the funerary chapel at Dereham. The practice in those days employed two chaps permanently simply doing quinquennial inspections on two hundred or so churches on the books.

            The retirement of Sir Bernard Feilden and the gradual takeover of the established practice and its values by ‘second and third generation’ partners put paid to that.

          5. Funnily enough, I was talking to one of our bell ringers the other day who mentioned the procedure put in place for Operation London Bridge. She said, “it’s nine tolls for a man and six for a woman”. Brought to mind the Nine Tailors (indeed, she nodded when I used the phrase).

          7. We have one in our church. When the building was re-roofed the whole plan was almost ruined because of an eco-freak bat officer. Who charged us £1,000 to count the ONE bat….

          9. When he attended a meeting, the wonderful Architect grabbed my arm and said, “Don’t open your mouth. He can wreck the whole project.” I followed her advice…

    2. There’ll always be an England while there’s a country lane, wherever there’s a cottage small beside a field of grain …

      2. Spartie and I have just pootled past our dentist’s surgery.
        No bossy notices on the doors. I might actually make an appointment.

    4. It’s a pleasure to see that you and MR had a good day, Bill.
      There’s not a lot of happiness around just now, good to see that you got some of your share today!
      :-D)

        2. I’m none the wiser.
          Yeah, I know, I start from a low threshold of wisdom

      1. While “close confidant of Hitler” is far-fetched, and the photo is of someone else, I think the fact checker is bending over backwards to put Schwab senior in a good light.

        It says:
        “Klaus Schwab’s father, on the other hand, was the managing director of a subsidiary of Zurich-based engineering firm Escher Wyss. The history of Eugen’s relationship with Nazism in general is complex, but there is no substantive evidence of ties to high-ranking German leadership, particularly Hitler.

        A fact check published by accredited German journalists dpa used Denazifaction records to uncover that Eugen Schwab was a member of some National Socialist organizations, but that alone does not prove any relationship to German high command or a belief in Nazi ideology.

        While the Escher Wyss branch in Ravensburg, Germany, (which Eugen managed) used prisoners of war and forced laborers, it is not clear whether the company was forced to do so by the Nazis or because of a lack of workers.
        .
        At the end of the Second World War, as Germany attempted to remove Nazis and Nazism from public life, Schwab was acquitted before a committee investigating prominent public figures.”

        Germany including occupied territories had a population over 80 million in 1939, but the membership of the Nazi party was about six million, even though this conferred benefits in terms of career advancement. The large majority of Germans were not members and were not hauled up before investigative committees after the war, acquitted or not.
        I would say the apple did not fall all that far from the tree.

  60. Beautiful warm day today so i decided to treat myself. Two scoops of chocolate ice cream topped with toasted almonds, honey and the pièce de résistance, sherry soaked raisins !

      1. Le Petit Anjou. Summer flowers. I bought it as part of a lot at a charity auction. For the blind.

  61. A bientôt, mes amis. I’m off to do other things (now I’ve finished my printing), but I will probably look in again later.

  63. I wouldn’t worry about Monkey Pox if I were you. You may not live long enough to see a case….

    “The Biden administration is said to be intensely debating providing long-range missiles to Ukraine, in what would mark a massive escalation given their ability to reach inside Russian territory. Fresh reports suggest the White House is about to pull the trigger.

    CNN reports Friday that “The Biden administration is preparing to step up the kind of weaponry it is offering Ukraine by sending advanced, long-range rocket systems that are now the top request from Ukrainian officials, multiple officials say.” It’s expected likely part of the next large package of military assistance to Ukraine, which will be announced next week.

    As Sky News points out, Russian state media has issued fresh warnings to the West that long-range missiles supplied to Ukraine forces will mark a “red line”:

    So when hosts on news shows respond to recent developments in the war, the content of their statements can offer an insight into the thinking of Vladimir Putin’s administration.

    Given this, the threatening nature of one host’s reaction to reports the US was considering sending long-range missile systems to Ukraine (see 7.32 and subsequent posts) will be of some interest to observers. “If the Americans do that, they will clearly be crossing a red line,” she warned. “We’ll have witnessed an attempt to provoke a very harsh response from Russia.”

    1. There’s stupid, and then there’s completely, dangerously feckin barking – have the Biden “administration” any idea of what they are doing and how appallingly insane such an action would be?

      1. Perhaps they think that if white Europe is wiped out that they can deport their Southern border invaders across the Atlantic?
        Oh, silly me, deport all their white Republicans.

    2. The only explanation I can think of is that Biden is so senile that he cannot remember the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

      1. He certainly ain’t no JFK. Indeed a large number of American Citizens when referring to him say FJB apparently.

    3. A man suffering from dementia is about to plunge the world into war between superpowers? You couldn’t make it up!

    4. This begs the question:

      “Does the US Federal Government have the power to ‘section’ the POTUS on the grounds of insanity”?

  65. That’s me for this very agreeable day. An outing. Picnic. Fabulous buildings. Empty roads. And with the MR beside me.

    Must go and put a bottle of fizz in a bucket of hot water to bring to room temperature!

    Have a jolly evening – praying for rain… I’ll have to get the hose out again tomorrow, dagnabbit.

    A demain.

    2. Belated congratulations.
      Sounds as if you had one of those magical low key, pottering around days that happily stick in your memory.

      1. Not half. Pootling through the lanes reminded me of my time at prep school in deepest Hampshire between 1951-54. A totally different (and very enjoyable) world.

      2. Extending an invite… Bel and Dragon at Kingsclere Hampshire. Fancy Lunch?

        1. I just googled it. I pay a couple of blokes to do my garden. Got to the point where i can’t be arsed. I’m even giving them all my books on gardening because i can’t be bothered to read those either. Lazy slob that i am…

          2. Dolly is my everything. I have stopped going to all places that don’t accept little beautiful doggies. I am surprised at Wetherspoons. I thought they were lower class ! :@)

  67. Nice change here. Just been preparing to load Minis onto a trailer for transport to Firstborn’s farm, now opened a can of Shep Neame Spitfire. Been years decades since I had any of that. Quite good for a canned ale.
    🙂
    Cheers!

    2. My question is how on earth did the woman manage to flip it onto its back?

      Hides behind Phizzee

    4. I hope they didn’t scratch the paintwork, that would ruin the no claims bonus.

  71. Here’s some previews from Gary Delaney for all y’all:
    I just stubbed my toe and Alexa started playing Piers Morgan’s new TV show.
    Someone stole half my camel outfit so now I’ve got the right hump.
    Petrol pumps are so much faster than they used to be. It used to take me two minutes to reach fifty quid but now I can do it 30 seconds. Well done garages!
    When I was 18 I bought a litre of olive oil. The woman said ‘Do you want extra virgin?’, I said ‘No, thank you. One litre is plenty’.
    Last night I got absolutely sh1t faced which will teach me to buy a cheap glass coffee table.
    You have to feel sorry for Jesus, not only was he crucified, but it was right at the start of a four day weekend.
    I got caught shoplifting mascara in Saudi Arabia and they gave me fifty lashes.
    I’ve given up making innuendos for Lent but it’s getting really hard now and I’m not sure if I can pull it off.

  72. Boris Johnson changes ministerial code to remove need to resign over breaches
    Boris Johnson removes instruction to ministers to “uphold the very highest standards of propriety” The updated foreword came alongside a minimally changed edition of the Ministerial Code. It is the first update since the first edition released under Johnson’s premiership in August 2019. Johnson has also watered down the punishment for breaches of the code.
    https://ground.news/article/boris-johnson-changes-ministerial-code-to-remove-need-to-resign-over-breaches_10b87d

  73. transgender nine-year-old child
    Or a parent with Munchhausen’s Syndrome by Proxy?

    ‘Reckless’ doctor struck off after giving puberty blockers to nine-year-old
    Michael Webberley’s treatment of 24 patients was deemed a ‘catalogue of failings’ and ‘fundamentally incompatible with being a doctor’
    By Ewan Somerville 25 May 2022 • 10:15pm

    A “reckless” doctor who wrongly prescribed puberty blockers to a transgender nine-year-old child after a ten minute chat on Skype has been struck off.

    Michael Webberley’s treatment of 24 patients was deemed a “catalogue of failings” between February 2017 and June 2019, a tribunal found.

    Seven of these patients related to GenderGP, a controversial private online clinic which a Telegraph investigation found was willing to prescribe sex change drugs and puberty blockers to children as young as 12 without asking them to talk to a doctor.

    The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) imposed its most severe sanction on Wednesday, erasing Dr Webberley from the medical register.

    It ruled that his behaviour was “fundamentally incompatible with being a doctor” and amounted to “serious misconduct”.

    Acted ‘outside the limits of his expertise’
    The tribunal found he had acted “outside the limits of his expertise” as a consultant gastroenterologist, and without the necessary qualifications and training in general practice, transgender medicine or paediatrics.

    Several doctors raised concerns about his treatment with the General Medical Council (GMC), which subsequently investigated and he was later suspended.

    In one case in 2018, Dr Webberley prescribed sex-change treatment to a nine-year-old girl who wanted to be a boy after the child’s parents contacted the GenderGP service.

    Dr Webberley prescribed the child hormone blocker treatment following a Skype call lasting 20 minutes, with him “actually having spoken to Patient V (the child) for only ten minutes”. A questionnaire provided was also inadequate for her age, the tribunal found.

    ‘No physical examination’
    The tribunal said it was “striking” that Dr Webberley’s first email reply to the child’s parents “appeared to anticipate puberty blocker treatment before he could possibly have known that a diagnosis of gender dysphoria was appropriate”, or that the treatment was appropriate.

    There was “no physical examination” of the patient, the Tribunal determined, and there was “no evidential basis” beyond the parents’ concerns for Dr Webberley’s view that “there is a very real risk of self-harm and mental health issues” if puberty was allowed to progress further.

    The MPTS handed down an immediate order of suspension on Dr Webberley on Wednesday, meaning that he cannot practise during a 28-day appeal period before erasure comes into effect. It handed down the sanction after finding that his fitness to practise is impaired.

    ‘Liable in the future to put patients at risk’
    The tribunal, which has been ongoing since March, said “all of the patients were exposed to a real or a potential risk of harm”.

    “In the absence of any expression of regret and/or remorse, insight and/or remediation, Dr Webberley is liable in the future to put patients at risk, bring the medical profession into disrepute, breach fundamental tenets of the profession and act dishonestly,” it added.

    The tribunal also ruled that Dr Webberley’s “disregard” for good medical practice “was reckless” and that he had “breached fundamental tenets of the medical profession”.

    ‘Only appropriate sanction’
    It concluded: “Erasing Dr Webberley’s name from the medical register is the only appropriate sanction in order to meet the overarching objective which is to protect patients, maintain public confidence in the medical profession and uphold proper professional standards.”

    Dr Webberley ran GenderGP with his wife and fellow GP, Dr Helen Webberley, who has received an interim suspension by the MPTS while a tribunal is ongoing.

    A Telegraph investigation previously found that the online clinic used a legal loophole to flout NHS rules to issue valid prescriptions, which can then be used to obtain the medication from pharmacies in Britain, after the clinic was relocated to Spain in 2019. The pair are no longer listed as directors.

    GenderGP was contacted for comment.

    2. I wonder if doctors are offered cash for putting children on puberty blockers, as we hear they are offered cash for each patient vaxxed, with a higher cash payment offered for injecting children? A cash offer would send out a different signal from govt to health care provider. That would go some way towards explaining his casual attitude to this – after all, if govt doesn’t take it seriously, one cannot be surprised if the gp does not take it as seriously as he should.

      1. I think they are a married couple, both doctors iirc, who are ideologically committed to this agenda.

          2. Guava jelly, on a lavash crispbread, with some Fromager d’Affinoise, is a taste and texture sensation. Do try it.

          3. Agreed.
            Many, many years ago, 40+ at least, I discovered tinned guava. Since then I’ve found it (relatively) fresh on market stalls. A fruit that I would not hesitate to recommend.

            I’ll try it with cheese as suggested.

            Recently, I posted a comment on summer truffles, mixed with mascarpone as a mixed layer in ripe Brie, I suspect that with guava it might be an interesting combination.

    5. Just a thought.
      Everyone who promotes this garbage and their partners, parents and children should be forcibly re-sexed before they are allowed to practice.

    6. What does a nine year old kid know?

      Leave them alone until they are old enough to make their own decisions.

  74. Just to say, True Belle contacted me via Direct Messaging on Twitter “Hello PM. I cannot see any Disqus comments . I can see Geoff’s header but that is all… totally blank underneath, have you had any probs. Can you help ? , Maggie”

    I replied that everything was ok for me, I don’t have any notification problems either, and that I could access either by Geoff’s ‘here’ the day before and by nttl.blog in the google banner. I have no idea what the problem may be, it is possible that it could be a network/broadband provider. Whenever we were at our son’s home I could not access nttl comments, nor the DT comments. That problem was solved when he changed his broadband provider to Virgin.

    She has asked me to let you know that that is the reason she may not be around until she gets it sorted. At least we can keep in touch via Twitter.

    1. Hope she gets it sorted soon. We will miss her evocative posts, and her doggy tales!

  75. Well, what an exciting evening.
    About half an hour ago, Spartie went absolutely ape. Looking out of the window that he was trying to jump through, we saw a dog fox casually strolling along the top of our fence.
    It snootily gazed down at the small dog working himself into a frenzy and continued its stroll through the ivy.
    By the colour, I think it was the one that we spotted snoozing in our neighbour’s composter a couple of weeks back.

  77. An early knock off tonight.
    Eldest daughter from 1st marriage is up for a visit, has taken over the bed settee in this room and, as we’re off for a walk & a pint or two, I’m logging off not.
    TTFN.

  78. Only comment about this tonight….I got my letter today from the hospital where I have had two facial interventions; they have been telling lies. The first one was a biopsy and the second one was a curettage and cauterisation and I was told that this would ensure that the thing would not come back. The letter today said that my second procedure was only a biopsy- oh really? Not what I was told.
    A leaflet enclosed said that Bowen’s Disease, which I was told it was; if not treated, can become skin cancer. How were we supposed to get treatment? Stay at home, protect the bloody NHS. They can get stuffed.
    Lies and more lies. They will contact me re an appointment for this thing to be removed- not holding my breath.
    This should have been gone, it isn’t but they have lied about it all the time. I am sodding sick of it.
    So MH and I are back at the beginning.
    Sod this bloody government and sod the NHS.

    1. Gee, that’s tough, Ann. Would improve one’s confidence if they actually knew wtf they are doing.
      Is there any chance of a private op and just get the sodding thing fixed, so you can de-stress a bit, then take on the NHS and burn their place to the ground, slaughtering the firstborn as you do so?

          1. No idea but it’s out of the question. Anyway, as stated, I have my husband to consider also.

          3. It didn’t happen- they couldn’t unblock the stent. So another waiting game. Next is a meeting with the consultant and surgeon to see what can be done.
            I am sorry to whine on about this all but there is nowhere else I can let off steam. We thought it was going to be over and we are back to the start.

          4. It is not whining, Lottie. Many, many people are in similar situations. I myself have been refused an operation because they don’t approve of my lifestyle. The lump in my leg is getting bigger and bigger. They will only operate if the leg needs to be removed.

          5. Oh lord, I had no idea you were so poorly. I am sorry that I didn’t know that. If you post about it earlier in the day I don’t often see such posts.
            I sleep so badly that it’s rare that I am on here early- unless we have an early start for a hospital trip.

          6. Please don’t be concerned. I am in a good place. I am more concerned about people waiting in ambulances outside hospitals for 20 hours.

          7. Oh no…….how disappointing and worrying for you both. Back to square 1 again before something can be done.
            Don’t worry about whining and letting off steam – this is a supportive little group who are here to listen.

    2. I hope you get proper treatment soon.

      In future perhaps you should insist that all conversations are recorded.
      As the NHS phone systems would say: “For training and monitoring purposes”

      Also, always ask for the full name of anyone you deal with, and after they’ve given their name then tell them that it’s so that you can sue them personally. (Father in law was a barrister and that was the approach he took, he reckoned it worked wonders in concentrating the minds of those thwarting you.)

    3. I thought that they hacked you around pretty well last time, more like chopping the beast out than a biopsy.

      I suppose no idea of how long they need before starting the process again.

        1. At least you will be getting £400 towards your heating / drinking bills.

          Trouble is with every bugger getting the money, it won’t go far.

          4. Sending additional blessings to you both. Nobody should have that sort of treatment. 💐

          5. Thanks Sue, am fed up with it and fed up with boring y’all about it also. Nowhere else to download is my issue.

          6. It’s not boring, pet! I hope it’s a great release for you to blast at people you can’t see! 😂

          9. Trouble is that almost all my mates are in the US as is my son. I don’t and won’t do twitter or faceache so it’s my mates or you poor lot 😉
            Anyway, I doubt it I will be up late.
            I did cook a nice dinner- roast chicken legs, mashed spuds with chives and steamed spring greens. I don’t eat spuds any more but the chicken and greens were nice. Oh and chicken onion gravy too.

          13. Prices rise to soak up the available cash sloshing around in the economy.

          15. Principles of supply and demand; demand and supply….. My face is ok just about, it has several scars, life events… !

          16. In no way i was suggesting anything other than we are human. Shame i won’t be seeing you in June. We could have matched scars! Obviously mine would be more on trend !!! :@)

            As an aside…….I read the ABBA report in the DM today and though Agnetha and Annifred wore white and cream i was taken by Benny Anderson wearing a long coat/cardigan with flowers and butterflies. So i bought one ! I will post pics after the event.

    5. Ah Lottie, late here today and only just read your comments…please no worries about whinging, we all have to let our hair down and have a good bi**h about life and such…take care and keep posting, we all care!! x

  79. Compare & contrast: See https://ground.news/
    Europe · Geneva: Monkeypox can be contained if we act now, WHO says
    Latest data from WHO’s Member States to 22 May, indicates more than 250 confirmed and suspected cases of monkeypox from 16 countries and several WHO regions. The disease “can affect anyone and (it) is not associated with any particular group of people,” Dr Rosamund Lewis told journalists in Geneva.

    and

    Europe · London: Twenty more cases of hepatitis reported in children in the UK
    Another 20 children have been diagnosed with unexplained hepatitis in the UK, bringing the total number affected to 222, health officials say. Of those cases, 158 live in England, 31 in Scotland, 17 in Wales and 16 in Northern Ireland. Most are under five years old and had diarrhoea and nausea followed by jaundice. A surge in cases has also been detected in countries around the world.

    So, the UN get excited over 250 monkeypox cases worldwide, where the outcome is blobby but not so serious, and not 222 hepatitis, where the outcome can be really quite serious.

    1. “The disease “can affect anyone and (it) is not associated with any particular group of people,” Dr Rosamund Lewis told journalists in Geneva.”

      https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/news-events/epidemiological-update-monkeypox-multi-country-outbreak#:~:text=A%20multi%2Dcountry%20outbreak%20of,sex%20with%20men%20(MSM).
      ‘A multi-country outbreak of monkeypox is ongoing since early May. As of 25 May 2022, a total of 219 confirmed cases have been reported worldwide, with most of cases being detected in young men, self-identifying as men who have sex with men (MSM).‘

    2. Well, let’s do some simple things: Close the border. Any border farce boats go out, they stay out – permanently. We deport the last six months of foreigners to France immediatelyAny pride nonsense, gay promotion or such is banned on the basis of a public health risk.

      These measures will only be temporary, of course. Like income tax.

    3. “Monkeypox can be contained if we act now, WHO says”
      Now imagine that their evil treaty is in place….
      Somebody sneezes in the Congo.
      “It can be contained if we act now,” WHO says…cue, Lockdowns, masks, mandatory jabs etc.

        1. How ELSE would you spread a Lab grown virus that wasn’t particularly strong?

  80. Thought for the day:

    If the Ukrainians are winning as decisively as we are told, why do we still need to be supplying even more weapons, even more advanced weapons, even more personnel and vastly more sums of money?

    Where is it going, given how badly we are told that the Russians are being thrashed?

    Ukrainian politicians’ bank accounts?
    Surely not.

    Hunter Biden?
    Hardly, he’s as honest as the last 10% of the day.

    It’s all going straight to Putin? Please don’t tell me it’s so.

    1. Putin, can win hands down.
      At the end of the war, he does not want to seem to be a butcher.
      He is keeping the war low key
      Not like the US & UK when they went after the WMD in Syria.
      The EU’s Eastward drive has been a major cause of the conflict.
      France has made more White Flags
      Chermany is buying everything as usual from Russia
      Our sanctions are hurting us a lot more than are hurting Putin and Co

    2. “But for the first time The Washington Post is out with a surprisingly dire and negative assessment of how US-backed and equipped Ukrainian forces are actually fairing. Gone is the rosy idealizing lens through which each and every encounter with the Russians is typically portrayed. WaPo correspondent and author of the new report Sudarsan Raghavan underscores of the true situation that “Ukrainian leaders project an image of military invulnerability against Russia. But commanders offer a more realistic portrait of the war, where outgunned volunteers describe being abandoned by their military brass and facing certain death at the front.”

      1. The WaPo, aka the “We told you so”, after the event, newspaper of record.

      2. Strange isn’t it that a superpower was failing against poor little Ukraine. I never believed a word of the reports on the BBC. They have seriously damaged themselves as a global brand.

    3. Just remember that last year the Guardian was running a campaign against Ukraine, calling it the most corrupt country in Europe.

          1. I am teasing! I dislike the way that the MSM conflates the European Union with ‘the continent of Europe’.

        2. Shirley it’s the ‘Breadbasket’ of Europe, even though it exports no wheat to any European country.

        3. If it’s west of the Urals it is in geographic Europe – as is part of Russia.

      3. BBC Panorama – Gangsters’ Dirty Money Exposed
        https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b120k8

        This might be the programme from which came an extract I saw recently about Ukraine’s corrupt politics, with some of the accused accompanied by big men with very short hair and in which the reporter bravely held back from uttering the ‘N’ word.

        There’s also this:
        BBC Panorama – Euro 2012: Stadiums of Hate
        https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01jk4vr
        https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jun/13/ukraine-bbc-euro-2012-panorama
        https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x17b7u3

        Haven’t heard much of the ‘N’ word from the BBC lately, have we?

    4. I think the point is to piss our wealth away on any project to bring us in line to WEF dogma. As a first world country our so called betters haven’t run out of ideas to crap on small businesses and taxpayers. As terrible as the recent school massacre was i would actually wish similar on the House of Commons.

      New front door on order.

    1. Thank you Andrew, that is one of my favourites. Just a delight. Good old Tony;-)

  84. A windfall tax isn’t just bad economics – it’s terrible politics

    The Chancellor would do better to live his brand as the low tax enthusiast. That’s what the public needs

    JOHN REDWOOD

    I was happy to vote with the Government in opposing Labour’s windfall tax plans when they put them to Parliament. Ministers were right to say then that windfall taxes make the UK a less attractive place for business to invest. They introduce a more unpredictable element into planning long-term business investment. It is particularly strange to single out the production of oil and gas from domestic sources for such a tax. After all, surely the Government wants to cut carbon dioxide output which we do by collecting and using our gas instead of importing foreign gas in LNG tankers.

    We already tax home-produced energy at double the rate of other business activities, which amounts to an inbuilt windfall tax for the Government. That should be another reason to maximise home production and cut out imports. Why pay all that production tax away to Russia or Qatar when we could have it to pay for the NHS? If we produce more energy here we also have more better paid jobs, a further source of tax revenues as the Treasury taxes the salaries and then taxes the spending of those who earn the money. The Government should actively be speeding and licencing more North Sea output and new fields to replace imports for green reasons, to raise more revenue and create more good jobs.

    There is a wider point of political importance. Conservatives believe that free enterprise and the marketplace are the right answer for the supply of many of our needs, from bread and water to energy and clothes. The private sector innovates, offers great customer service, gets rid of unsuccessful or poor quality ventures and finances itself without recourse to tax revenue. In 2020 the large oil companies lost huge sums as demand for their products collapsed with lockdown. None of us thought the taxpayer should subsidise them. Shareholders took the hit. Two years later those same oil companies are making high profits on oil and gas production in the UK which will smooth the shareholder returns after the bad year. The Treasury will take 40 per cent of those profits. Those same companies, like BP, that also had big interests in Russia have just lost far more on their Russian write-offs than they are making on the North Sea output. BP’s first quarter figures were a huge reported loss overall. It’s a reminder of what a risky business it is.

    I urged the Chancellor to have a second package of measures this spring. I am glad he came to the view that he had not done enough to offset the recessionary forces unleashed by such a large hit to real incomes. I urged him to give back the extra tax revenue he is collecting on oil, gas and electricity. His VAT receipts on energy bills will rise, his taxes at the petrol and diesel pumps are well up, and his North Sea oil corporate tax is surging. This should be given back to help people afford the dearer food and energy. I also urged him to give it back by a combination of increased Universal credit to help those hardest hit, and to offer some tax cuts.

    If he had cut the taxes we pay on domestic energy and at the pumps his measures would have nudged inflation down a bit. The higher inflation goes, the bigger the future costs to the government as they index payments to the new rate. Instead, he chose to give it back through one-off payments which will not reduce the cost of living at all.

    The more of the money he claws back in extra tax payments elsewhere the less impact the givebacks will have on helping growth and avoiding too sharp a slowdown. The Bank of England expected the economy to stall next year before the measures, based on the impact of the income squeeze and their own monetary tightening. The Chancellor needs to bear down on inflation more whilst at the same time assisting growth.

    Growth means revenue grows faster and the deficit comes down. Past governments that have caused or allowed recessions have had ballooning deficits as revenue falls and public spending rises in a slump. There needs to be a big investment-led boost to the economy, since we need more capacity of many kinds: more home produced energy, more home grown food, more home landed fish, more home manufactured technology. This requires low corporate taxes, a stable approach to taxing profits, and regulatory, procurement and licensing policies which assist capacity building at home.

    Essentially, the Chancellor would do better to live his brand as the low tax enthusiast.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/05/27/windfall-tax-isnt-just-bad-economics-terrible-politics/

  85. The Government is determined to prove to the world that Britain isn’t a serious country

    The windfall tax sends a message to investors that the UK is not a place capable of making difficult trade-offs to fix our energy mess

    JULIET SAMUEL

    There’s a way to do a windfall tax in a minimally damaging way, and this isn’t it. The case for one, in the circumstances, is not unreasonable. Energy companies are sitting on vast, exceptional profits generated by geopolitical accident and the crazy way our regulations price electricity.

    If it was going to raid this cash pile, the Government ought to have said so months ago and accompanied a one-off tax with a package of measures designed to get money flowing into British oil and gas prospects. It has, of course, done the opposite, and announced an open-ended levy alongside few measures to encourage investment. BP, which had said it wouldn’t mind a tax, has instead begun to review its North Sea investments.

    It should be obvious why. The Government isn’t taxing energy firms because ministers think this will benefit the economy or raise revenue efficiently. They are doing it because they think it’s popular and politically convenient. It takes attention away from Boris Johnson’s transgressions and outflanks Labour to the Left. In other words, it is a decision based on the most parochial and self-serving of reasons.

    In the outside world, we are at the start of what Goldman Sachs is calling “the return of energy investment”. After seven years of famine, which has seen the world’s known oil and gas reserves halve, the industry is now set for a feast. There is a major limiting factor, however: there are only so many rigs in the world capable of drilling underwater and the cost of leasing them has gone through the roof.

    So why would any company pay through the nose to drag one all the way to the North Sea so they can be demonised by climate protesters, taxed at random by grasping politicians, starved of capital by our regulators, tied up in planning for any onshore kit they require and forced to sell their assets on the cheap to China when gas prices fall? Most of them, I imagine, would rather make a barely taxed killing in the Gulf and then take tea with royalty in its air-conditioned palaces.

    Britain, in truth, is never going to be the top destination for new oil and gas investment because it’s unlikely we have any unexploited super-massive reserves left in the North Sea. But the Government could be doing a lot more to make the most of the assets we do have left while getting on with its revived nuclear power programme. The investment allowance built into Rishi Sunak’s super-tax is a start. But what companies really need is some degree of security, so that when they make the very risky, long-term investments needed to find and extract Britain’s remaining gas, they stand a chance of making some money in the process.

    This might sound perverse to a public accustomed to the image of a stinking rich oil baron cashing in on destroying the planet, but finding gas buried miles underground and getting it into our pipelines is actually a very precarious way to make a profit. Just ask Cuadrilla, the small company trying desperately to make a go of British shale. Aside from the technical risks inherent in looking for gas that may not be there or may not be extractable if it is, our political and regulatory system loads further uncertainties onto companies.

    One of the most important is that our gas is priced at the spot price, which is to say that even though companies often plan and operate for years before getting hold of any gas to sell, they are then forced to sell it at whatever the going price is on the day. This is because successive governments, in their wisdom, oversaw a phasing out of long-term pricing contracts after the privatisation of British Gas in the 1980s. The idea was that if we built plenty of import terminals, then international competition would always drive the price down, so it would be better for consumers not to guarantee a price up front. It hasn’t exactly worked out like that.

    Instead, because we inevitably at some point entered a period of rising prices, we have ended up with a price cap for consumers and a volatile market price for producers. In between, a whole load of “innovative” small suppliers have gone bust, shunting their customers onto the books of the big companies everyone dislikes. This means that we have the worst of all worlds: spiralling costs for households, but still limited incentives feeding through to the corporate decision-makers who might actually explore for new gas. They look at the UK and see not a profits bonanza but a market beholden to political fads and regulated in all the wrong ways.

    The spot price mistake has been compounded by another big government policy error: the closure of large-scale UK gas storage facilities – an error highlighted in 2017 by Oxford economist Dieter Helm in a paper the Government itself commissioned and then ignored. The Government was still stuck on the idea that building lots of import capacity meant we wouldn’t need storage because the world was our storage tank. This has led to a ludicrous situation today in which the UK is being flooded with cheap gas from abroad – so much that it cannot fit through the pipelines into Europe – but has no way to store enough of it to help us through the winter. The lack of storage also makes it difficult to encourage companies to strike long-term supply contracts. It’s just another way in which stability and predictability have been stripped out of the system.

    And then there’s the effect of the climate campaign. We are all familiar with the image of oddly dressed protesters chaining themselves to lamp-posts. This nuisance pales in comparison to the planning system, however, which can tie up companies for years over the most minor and basic pieces of infrastructure. Our Government, in its usual pathetic way, only ever overrules these Nimbys when faced with the most acute political pressure.

    Even further behind the scenes than the planning system, our financial regulations are themselves being designed with the aim of stifling new investment in oil and gas. With little thought for the effect on energy security, the Treasury last year handed to the Bank of England the poisoned chalice of building “climate resilience” into the financial system. In effect, this means that banks will be penalised for lending to oil and gas companies. Where, then, does Mr Sunak expect these companies to get their capital from? China?

    It is one thing to levy an extraordinary tax in extraordinary times. It is quite another to do what our Government has just done, which is send a message to investors, loud and clear, that this is not a country capable of making difficult trade-offs to fix our energy mess. It is a dithering posse panicking over yesterday’s headlines. As for tomorrow’s, at this rate they will almost certainly be someone else’s problem.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/05/27/government-determined-prove-world-britain-isnt-serious-country/

    1. If Johnson wants to be taken seriously, by we tax payers, he must ditch Net Zero

      1. and the Baitch
        He must Carry on without her
        We elected Johnson as MP the as PM.
        She should open her legs, but not her mouth…

    2. A good article, but the use of words like ‘error’ and ‘mistake’ concerning the government’s treatment of oil and gas exploration are wrong. It’s seems an intentional strategy to me.

  86. I have mentioned in the past about a friend who was best man at my first wedding. He’s a bachelor; a couple of years ago he had a major stroke and is seriously physically and mentally compromised. He cannot really understand my emails any more. His carer has been removed because he attacked her- not sexually- and he told me this on the phone. He is so ashamed. Lock down has , of course, been wonderful for this poor guy.
    He was an Astronomer at UCL and so clever; loved to play golf and was in the Barmy Army.
    I have suggested to him that maybe there are carers who specialise in stroke victims. He’s up in Perivale in Middx – as it was.
    I can’t do anything except try and keep in touch and his family- he has 3 brothers seem to have abandoned him.
    There are so many people who have been ballsed up by this government and their asinine policies.
    All I can do is phone him now and then but he needs company.

    1. Lottie,

      You can walk on water (without knowing where the stepping stones are)

      You are atrue friend to him

      1. As always, one wishes one could do more more. Right now my husband and I must come first. I feel so bad for him; he is my son’s courtesy godfather. He was the only English guest my son wanted at his wedding in 2013.

  87. Going to bed- yawning my head off.
    Thank you all for your support and generous responses.
    I wish you all the best this evening and overnight.

  88. A pleasant walk with daughter and a lovely evening.
    Called in to both pubs up the village for a pint in both and then home.
    Goon night all.

    1. Morning Geoff,

      I’m just about to leave to collect the boat and embark for Reading. It seems we haven’t had any more takers for Tuesday’s offer which is still open:
      ( can I invite any Nottlers to meet up at bel and the dragon Reading on Tuesday 31st May. They do a fine lunch and there is the prospect of a Narrowboat cruise along the upper Thames. Places on the boat are limited to 10 persons (plus Skipper).

      As I’m about to go offline for a couple of days communications may be tricky, so keep an eye out for stories about boats sinking in locks!!!

      Looking forward to meeting you on Tuesday

      S

      https://belandthedragon-rea…

      1. I will repost your comment (if you don’t mind) to see if we can catch a few more barflies.

      2. Yo, King Stephen. I’ll be there. It’s a shame that there a few takers. I’ll make my way to B&tD. Have you booked anything? Should you need to contact me, I’m at Oh Seven Eight Seven Oh Won Four Double six Tree Five.

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