645 thoughts on “Tuesday 12 November: Farage should work with Tories for a pro-Brexit majority in Parliament”

    1. Where do I start?

      Thurrock is hardly promising territory for the Lib Dems. Although it is a “marginal seat”. it is actually a contest between the Tories and Labour. Tim Aker for UKIP almost took the seat in 2015, but their vote fell back in 2017 following their leadership debacle. Nevertheless, the Tory incumbent is a Remainer and the Essex seat one of the most promising prospects for the Brexit Party.

      I cannot fathom therefore Farage’s annoucement yesterday that he would be pulling his party’s candidate from contesting the seat.

      What the Lib Dem has to say, which might criminally offend those who object to the basic human rights of free speech, so violated by our current “liberals”, is of no interest to me.

      1. Hi Jeremy, and good morning.

        In the interest of pedantry (?), should “leadership debacle” be “leaderships debacle” or “leadership debacles“?

        1. If UKIP were one party, then it only has one leadership at a time. It’s not as if it aspires to the Green Party or the SDP/Liberal Alliance. Even though there were a series of leaders (but one debacle), there was only one leadership.

          Since walking out after being defrauded by the Electoral Commission in South Thanet, Farage was not really intending to take on UKIP’s leadership any more, and has since formed his own party – Nice to Muslims UKIP.

      1. A trifle unnecessary and certainly not something I would ever write, but trawling back a decade is entering GDR territory.
        But, being pragmatic, anything that shifts a shifty LibDem is good news in the short term.

  4. Good Morning, all

    SIR – Baroness Warsi’s “institutionally racist” Conservative Party (report, November 10) is presumably the same party that makes Muslims home secretary or chancellor of the exchequer (unlike Labour), and bestows peerages on them, even if they prove to be third-rate politicians , who are reduced to being hired by jumped-up polytechnics rebranded as universities, where, as at Hogwarts, it appears that anyone can become a “professor”.

    I feel one of my heads coming on …

    Mark Boyle
    Johnstone, Renfrewshire

    Can’t someone get that ‘institutionally stupid’ woman off the airways?

  5. Now that both Labour and the Tories have oodles of moolah to spend…

    HS2 should go ahead despite costs soaring ‘to £88bn’ and ministers should back the full route from London to Manchester and Leeds, independent review recommends
    *HS2 should go ahead despite soaring costs, according to a review of the project
    *Former HS2 chairman admits project is ‘not affordable’ with the current budget
    *HS2 has been dogged by delay, scandal and spiralling costs in recent years

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7675019/HS2-ahead-despite-soaring-costs.html

    Madness

    1. £88.000.000.000?? Wow, that’s some money.
      10 major offshore platforms, from drilling through engineering & construction, to installation and operation.
      WTF are they spending the money on? Over £1.000 per UK capita!
      It would be cheaper to book every potential passenger Business class flights.

    2. In other words, the “independent” former chairman of HS2, whose baby it is and probably depends on payoffs for his living, admits that it’s unaffordable, but hell yeah, let’s go ahead with it anyway. The taxpayer is stupid and has plenty of money to borrow on smashing up the Chilterns, North London and Warwickshire.

      Loadsamoney!

      Incidentally, what the devil is going on over Government policy on fracking? After announcing that it’s a risk to public safety, it seems that there was a covert announcement this morning that fracking contracts would proceed on the condition that this is done without public knowledge. Is this really honourable?

      1. That seems typical government. Say one thing, do another. The rest of us call it “lying”, and deceit is most certainly not honourable.

        1. It’s what we get when we vote in “honourable members” though. Under the Safe Seat system of governance, I don’t really have a choice.

    3. It won’t be 88bn though.

      If the treasury think it will then you can easily double the number, add ten and then triple it.

      It used to be double the number and add ten, but that was before the Harm-to-Man’s idotic equality act got involved.

  6. Morning all

    SIR – It is a welcome start that the Brexit Party will not stand in those 317 constituencies won by the Conservatives in 2017. That, however, may prove insufficient to secure a pro-Brexit majority in the House of Commons.

    At the very least, the Brexit Party should also not contest those seats won by the Conservatives in 2015, but subsequently lost, as well as those marginals held by other parties where there is a reasonable chance of a Tory victory.

    Many of these constituencies have tiny Labour majorities (such as 22 in Dudley North and 30 in Newcastle-under-Lyme) but a Brexit Party candidate could well split the Leave vote and allow the consequent return of a Remainer Labour MP.

    Edward Giles
    Hamble-le-Rice, Hampshire

    SIR – As a Conservative, my admiration for Nigel Farage and all that he has done to get us out of the EU has now turned to a deep respect for his pragmatism and political courage. Well done, him.

    Michael Shaw
    Holyhead, Anglesey

    SIR – It is very sad that Nigel Farage has stood down 300-plus candidates around the country. (You can imagine how happy many of them will be.) I now have no one to vote for.

    I just hope he can be persuaded to put himself up for one of the seats being fought. We need this man in the House of Commons.

    Mike Critchley
    Gosport, Hampshire

    1. Err… Mike Critchley seems a tad confused. How does it seem like a good idea having Farage, a man who seems more and more like a blowhard, vacillating & u-turning, in the commons? TBH, from here, it doesn’t look like the man can run a bath, let alone a political party, and would be a disaster as a minister (and there’s lots of competition for that position).

      1. Hear hear, well said .

        Farage is now scuttling and running away once more .. He cannot be relied on .

        I suspect his candidates were excited and ready to go the extra mile for all of us .. Warm hearts , good ideas and safe hands ..

        What now?

        Build up, then an orgasm that never happened!

      2. He is the grit in the oyster. I’m not sure he actually wants the responsibilities that accompany power.

        1. Morning, Anne.

          I think yours is a very accurate description. Farage has stated countless times that his aim was to free the UK from the clutches of the EU. His, “I want my life back,” statement after the referendum was won goes some way to confirm that. He has admitted that his greatest political mistake was to believe May when she made her first Brexit speech.

        1. He refused to understand my points quite a while ago, that insulting voters is unlikely to win them over to his argument. I got tired of the monotone, so blocked him. Haven’t seen anything from him in ages now. However, there’s plenty in the same mold here from others.

          1. I would never block anybody, apart from girlfriends. Actually Ogga1 just made an interesting point, similar to yours, but he used the words deja vu. Anyway, for me Farage is a plant.

    2. The Conservatives would be wise to stand down (unofficially – there are always eager beavers keen to cut their teeth on a hopeless cause) in constituencies where they came a poor third or even fourth.

    3. Looking at it objectively, the candidates that Farage is standing down weren’t going to win anything anyway, so they’re losing nothing.

  7. Morning again

    SIR – I will certainly join Tim Stanley (Comment, November 11) in boycotting the tacky, secular celebrations that coincide with Christmas.

    Ironically, when I am feeling particularly depressed by it all, I escape to the peace and tranquillity of a church.

    Helen Webster
    Pyrford, Surrey

    SIR – Tim Stanley is wrong to assume that Christians have the right to demand big businesses “stop using the birthday of Jesus to sell rubbish to atheists”.

    Many of the things we enjoy most about Christmas hark back to the pagan roots of the winter solstice. Long before Jesus, celebrations in December signalled the end of winter, and the Roman birth of the sun was adopted as the celebration of the birth of the son of God.

    Christmas today is a more of a cultural festival than a religious one. If you don’t wish to join in until a set date, don’t. The season starts for each individual when they decide they want it to start. Christians don’t own the festive season and we’re all allowed to enjoy this time of year.

    Emilie Lamplough
    Trowbridge, Wiltshire

    1. ‘Morning, Epi, it seems that Emilie Lamplough doesn’t think things all the way through, “…and the Roman birth of the sun was adopted as the celebration of the birth of the son of God.”

      Which works OK in the Northern Hemisphere but in the Southern, it must celebrate His death if one follows nature to it’s obvious conclusion.

      1. To be fair, at the time all this stuff started the Southern Hemisphere hadn’t yet been discovered by people with the ability to read and write and to make wheels.

  8. SIR – Listening to Emily Thornberry on the Today programme yesterday left me in no doubt that Jeremy Corbyn would be a danger to this country and its overseas territories.

    He has never supported military action and he opposes Nato – in fact he says that Nato is the problem. He is a danger to freedom and our way of life.

    Graham Mitchell
    Haslemere, Surrey

    1. So too is NATO for as long as it greenlight’s Erdogan’s Ottoman Caliphate aspirations.

  10. Morning, Campers.
    Finally got round to reading Sherelle Jacobs.
    Here is one her best analogies: let it be true!
    “Labour is a fatberg clogging populist democracy, with its coagulated 1970s dogma, syrupy virtue-signalling and milky, patrician statism. It is one of the most embarrassing political failures in modern European history, having only made it into power for 37 of the last 119 years. It’s time to clear it out for good.”

    1. Good morning Anne

      Angela Rayner has just been on BBC Breakfast.. The vituperative splatterings that came out of her mouth were far too much for me to cope with.. so I switched over to Flog it!

      Sherelle Jacobs has summed up Labour beautifully ..The image of fatberg suits them very nicely.

      1. Morning, Belle!
        Breakfast TV is the invention of the Devil. It ruins the already dodgy start to the day.

        1. Morning OB

          Radio 4 is also a turn off, and some of the voices irritate me like hell, local radio is not my choice either .

          Just sitting quietly , watching the birds on the feeders , and waiting for the rest of the house to wake up!

          Fine day here, chilly wind . Are you snow bound?

          1. ‘Morning, Mags, the great thing about no radio, No TV but just a lap-top and NoTTLers, means that one may vent one’s spleen among (mostly) like-minded souls and feel better for it.

            Go on to have a great day, girl.

          4. Tablets, eh? I have seven – no space left in stomach for breakfast! :-((
            Morning, Tom.

          5. ‘Morning, Paul, 5 tablets every morning (6 on Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays) plus three in the evening.

            I rattle when I can walk.

            Oh, and two steroid puffs in the morning and another two in the evening.

          10. Are they helping, though?

            I’ve four painkillers 3 times a day and another 2 at bedtime. It’s bally awful feeling so dependent.

          11. Not Painkillers, Wibbles, Entresto (Heart boost – morning and night) 2 x vit D as recommended by Doc and Tamsulosin for the prostate. The two puffs of steroid are for COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease).

            Another Entresto in the evening plus 5.5mg warfarin to reduce blood clots, prevention of them taking out the rest of my heart.

            What fun we have!

          12. There’s an amount of snow, yes. Not a great deal, and will apparently go over to freezing rain (!) later today. Deep joy. :-((
            The value of experience shows in that the local snowplough contract was awarded to a new company who, in the last 2-3 days, have been entirely unable to properly clear the roads. Chaos Friday, since they weren’t out early enough to clear and salt/grit the roads before the rush traffic. Last night they came down our road with a vehicle the size of a medium apartment block, and couldn’t do it properly – they aren’t using people with local knowledge. Sigh…

          15. Prevailing Westerlies wafting across the North Sea.
            Respect to the Vikings rowing against that.
            East Bergholt to Dedham finishes us!

    3. ‘Morning, Annie, couldn’t agree more. That’s why I paid my three quid and voted for Comrade Steptoe…I see him as the best chance of doing really serious damage to Liebour. With a following wind it might even be terminal, fingers crossed.

    5. And with Farage gone from the fray and the possible consequent re-election of several venal remainer Conservative MPs it looks as if the swamp will remain undrained for the foreseeable future.

    7. And with Farage gone from the fray and the possible consequent re-election of several venal remainer Conservative MPs it looks as if the swamp will remain undrained for the foreseeable future.

  11. SIR – You report that “Britain faces a new waste crisis from a ‘battery mountain’ caused by the growing use of electric cars” (November 9). Is the encouragement to buy electric cars (like government encouragement to buy diesel, not petrol, earlier this century) advice to ignore?

    The batteries have a life of seven to 10 years, and what is the planet-friendly disposal process? There is a need for some long-term thinking, a novelty for politicians.

    Michael C W Terry
    Deal, Kent

    SIR – Your report did not mention that car batteries are being recycled (by Nissan) into home energy storage batteries, as they still have years of life, albeit at a lower capacity.
    Jeremy Davies
    Caterham, Surrey

    1. Batteries for electric kettles? Don’t the batteries still need to be charged? Charged with electricity from the power stations?

    2. Where would most people keep the batteries?
      Modern houses have gardens that can barely contain a wheelie bin and a rotary clothes line. Also more and more flats are being built.
      All for a flickering 40watt bulb that won’t work if the toaster is fired up.

      1. ‘Morning, Citroen, long time ago on one of America’s talk-shows, Mrs Arnold Palmer was being interviewed and was asked if Arnold had any superstitions, she replied that she was the superstitious one and, before any big match, she would kiss hiss balls. the interviewer quickly rejoined with, “Wow, I bet that makes his putter flutter!”

  13. Tories making further demands on Farage to stand down candidates in Labour marginals. It’s clear that the Tories do not want a significant Brexit Party presence in the HoC. Give Johnson a large majority and there’s no telling what the Tories will do. The Tories have already put the Country into a perilous position with the rapacious EU and now they want a free hand to continue their disastrous negotiations, leading to who knows what. Johnson is untrustworthy and now without a BP candidate in Colchester I am hoping that an Independent stands; if not, then NOTA gets my endorsement.

    1. I am considering spoiling my ballot paper too. I would certainly do this if there are no decent candidates forthcoming – all I’ve got so far are two brainless women.

    2. Morning Korky.

      I suspect there are many who wouldn’t vote Tory were their life to depend on it but whose allegiance to Labour is fading. The Brexit party offers an alternative.

      1. I suspect that internal polling isn’t giving Johnson the clear cut majority he wants. That, of course, isn’t Farage’s fault nor his duty to try and rectify in favour of the Tories. Farage clearly doesn’t trust Johnson and he’s not alone there.

      2. One would have thought so. But that means BXP need to focus on taking seats from Labour, not Tories, and they seem reluctant to do so.
        In fact, from here, it looks like they are but farting strawmen, rather like UKIP.

        1. Morning Ob.

          I got the impression that by targeting Labour seats they were after the Labour vote. I hope that’s the case.

        2. So far the Brexit Parties Election Campaign appears to be a damp squib in fact has it an election campaign

          WE definitely need another party in the UK but Nigel seems to be making the same mistake he made with UKIP and has made the Br exit Party a one issue party just like UKIP and that limits the voters it wil attract and without as rapid change in strategy the Brexit Party faces extinction after the election

          Even the two election Conferences it held yesterday made little impact in fact the only mention it got was the announcement that it was standing down candidates in Conservative held constituencies

          May be the Brexit Party needs a new leader. I am afraid I don’t see Nigel changing

          1. Carry on with your line of argument and come to another possible conclusion, besides they need a new leader, which is correct.

          2. “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” – Attributed to Albert Einstein.
            Morning, R6.

          3. Guten tag, Herr Oberstleutnant. Thanks, I’ll use that in my anti-Farage campaign as with a contribution by HL that I changed slightly to The Cameron-Farage Referendum Pact.

          5. The updated pact is the Johnson-Farage Election Pact. Same result, the polls get carved up!

          6. Bit like trying seven times to be an MP in constituencies where his chances were less than 50/50 as opposed to going to Boston in particular or the rest of Lincolnshire.

          7. BJ,
            You blame UKIP for every odious move made by the political
            untrustworthy sh!te.
            You especially, along with many other bloody fools have put your trust, one after the other in bent as 9 bob notes politico’s on the return to brussels trip.
            Plus arriving back there with a damn sight less than we left with.
            I was calling for a membership build on
            UKIP membership in
            2016 of 17.4 million to safe guard our victory
            but the ” leave it to the tories” won out.
            We are witnessing the outcome.

        3. O,
          Still at it ? why not ask yourself why UKIP has been suppressed all the time ?
          Why did the latest anti Batten move take place ?
          The party under his leadership on the rise once again, financially sound membership mounting.
          The only party in this political sh!te storm that has had leaders of integrity.

    3. Morning Korky

      True Leavers hoped that getting out of the EU and restoring sovereignty to the demos and its elected parliament would lead to a broader draining of the swamp and flushing out of Common Purpose driven Cultural Marxism from many aspects of national life. The Tories have no such vision and don’t want a noisy BXP contingent rattling their cage.

      2. Well, the swamp may not have been drained yet, but the buggers have been flushed out into the open for all to see.

      3. I am beginning to think that Johnson organised some thugs to menace Farage unless he withdrew. Maybe they threatened to harm him and his family? Perhaps it was some other blackmail? Perhaps he was bribed?

        I certainly would not have put this past the thoroughly evil Conservatives who have already shown just how low they are prepared to stoop..

  15. Thurrock Lib Dem candidate steps down in tweets row

    The Liberal Democrat candidate for Thurrock in Essex has stood down after being accused of posting racist and homophobic tweets 10 years ago.
    Screenshots purporting to show Kevin McNamara social media comments have been circulating, prompting his resignation.
    Mr McNamara said he was “deeply sorry for the comments that I made”.
    A Liberal Democrat spokesperson said: “A disciplinary process has been instigated.”

    1. He does appear to have been more than a bit racist, but the tw@s offensive tw@ts all appear to date from 9 or 10 years ago.
      On the other hand, he is also alleged to be an IRA supporter by some.

  16. I wonder how many Brexit Party voters have now been effectively disenfranchised thanks to the Party’s decision to ignore 300+ seats.

    I will be spoiling my ballot paper, by writing “Brexit Party” across it.

    On second thoughts, given the toad who will be elected: a Tory who is a staunch remainer, I will be improving my ballot paper by writing “Brexit Party” across it.

    1. I will probably write “No worthy option” on mine. I will not decide quite yet though – there might still be a decent candidate on offer here, and I will wait until nominations close and I have read what they all have to say. I have no confidence in any of the parties, except perhaps the SDP Revivalists.

      All these spoilt papers have to be read by the candidates, the agents and the returning officer in order to establish voter intention where there is doubt. If there are several thousand of them at each count, perhaps a message could be got across?

      Messages should be memorable, short and pithy. Essays would not be read, but a couple of words might stick in the minds of the officials,

      1. Morning JM,
        I have had quite sufficient of hearing what they say as in
        ALL rhetoric pelt.
        Manifesto’s = fodder for fools.

          1. Morning PP,
            Granted but, the two horses
            marxism / democracy have bent jockies in a close shop race, has been so for many a year.

            The form offered to the punters every time is
            vows,promises, pledges made to be broken.
            The same punters accept this,deja vu.

    2. You have to be realistic as to what can be achieved. I am not even certain that they had 600 candidates. They announced they had but no names or constituencies were released

      In my view they are better focusing on about 50 seats where they stand some chances of winning them and campaigning heavily in those seats every day rather than spread the parties limited resources thinly. The Brexit Party stand no chance in most Scottish seats for example and in most London seats
      Better to focus on the East Of England. and Midlands & North of England and Wales

      1. My Conservative choice is a die hard remainer. He will not be getting my vote. I do not know the candidates list but previously apart from UKIP, who lost his deposit, they have been equally remain.

        If every single voter put their X in one other box and 10% of his total was taken from him and added to that total he would still be elected.

    1. If I were Boris I’d have my eyes tightly shut in case I saw more of Wee Jimmy than I’d like.

  18. Good morning from a Saxon Queen with long bow and blooded axe

    I seem to have a very swollen painful ear that greeted me at dawn,
    was thinking of calling the doctors for antibiotics but have decided
    It’ll be easier and quicker to pop into the local village pharmacist.

    1. ‘Morning, Ethel.

      You won’t get ABs without a prescription. Call the docs & ask if they can email a script to the pharmacy. Mind you they shouldn’t prescribe ABs without a prior examination, unless it’s an on-going problem.

      Maybe you shouldn’t sleep with your axe on the pillow.

    2. Good idea. I have great respect for pharmacists. They will soon tell you if you need a prescription.

    4. Do you have water filled swellings within the ear labyrinth?

      This was the first sign I had of Ramsay Hunt Syndrome earlier this year. It is caused by the Shingles virus. It is serious.

      1. How on Earth is she going to see in there?

        I’d blame that dodgy fish pie from the other night.

    1. Good morning Delboy.
      How did your honourable march past at the Cenotaph go on Sunday? Hope it all went well for you.

    2. I doubt Boris offered Nigel a peerage.

      I think it’s far more likely to be a ruse they concocted so that Nigel could pour scorn over Boris for electoral purposes.

  21. Thoughts from pre-bath mode, or “morning musings”.
    We spent some time negotiating our joining the European Economic Community. We spent almost no time at all joining the political and legal framework of the European Union when the the EEC was transmogrified into the EU.
    So why has it taken so long to discuss leaving? The discussions on leaving have nothing at all to do with trade, which were the ones that took time, other than the EU making it clear that we won’t be allowed to compete.
    On the subject of our departure, how is it that a 300+ page document springs full grown into being, “i”s dotted and “t”s crossed with no preliminaries? Why were all the discussions on our departure not held in public and broadcast live on TV? From June 2016, with the EU people, in Brussels and in Westminster?
    Live on the BBC our “negotiators” and theirs.
    HM Government have just agreed the sale of British Steel to the Chinese for maybe £70m. To put that into perspective, HM Government has also apparently agreed in the WA to pay the EU over 500 times the price of British Steel, for er, something or other.
    Let’s not mention spending over 1000 times the price of British Steel on building a railway line from London to Birmingham. I suppose it would be ironic if the actual rails for HS2 were to be supplied by the Chinese-owned British Steel, as that is what British Steel produces.
    Giving this degree of profligacy, and the low value placed on British Steel, a strategic national asset, I’m guessing that the sale was handled by the office boy.

      1. And Big Cat would be a fearsome negotiator – based on how he handles mice in the house (introduced by Little Cat).
        He just parks himself where the mouse is hiding, and waits… and waits… and waits, like a furry bollard. When the mouse shows itself, it gets thwacked by a paw the size of a garden spade, and it’s all over bar the crunching of bones.

          3. We just got a new supply from Sweden (cheaper) that the cats love. Strange star-shaped things, looking like an Airfix tank trap.

    2. What effect did £100,000,000, but probably far more, spent to stop WTO Brexit have in actually stopping WTO Brexit ?

      1. They succeeded in stopping Brexit altogether.

        Boris’ Brexit is just May’s BRINO with a different PD

    3. Why aren’t we weeping buckets..

      More national assets sold off to one of the major polluters on the planet .. So the way I see it is that India and China and who else are laughing all the way to the bank?

      1. British Steel management couldn’t make it make money. Likely, interference from government didn’t help. The Chinese believe they can make it make money – although Tata weren’t so successful there, either. Good luck with that one.

        1. I doubt it’s the money making potential that interests the Chinese.
          Apparently the company is quite small, and, therefore presumably be unable to stand up to Chinese government pressure.

        2. I suspect that Tata and the Chinese could not care less about making money out of it, what they want is whatever technical expertise is available.

        3. If the idea is that the Chinese will buy British steel companies to actually make steel you’re mistaken.

          The EU makes making things too expensive. The energy requirements, waste created, materials used are all basically prohibted, let alone the safety at work larks.

          No. The Chinese are buying it to ensure we don’t make steel and can’t compete with them.

      2. I certainly think that selling such an asset to the Chinese is a Bad Thing.
        A malign mixture of the unions, the EU and poor management are probably responsible.
        I do think that governments should have a list of strategic companies that cannot be sold to foreign interests.

        2. Once an industry or organisation is labelled “Strategic”, it is effectively nationalised as, regardless of the level of performance and competence in management, government will pump endless money in to keep it afloat. That’s OK, as long as folk remember that government money comes from taxpayers. Just like the old Britrish Leyland. Not necessarily a Bad Thing, but expensive for the taxpayer.

          1. Yes. There is the danger of ‘back to the seventies’; but spineless governments played their part in that debacle.
            Maybe strikes should be banned in strategic industries in exchange for union representatives playing a positive role in the boardroom.

      3. China buys our steel industry cheaply, than after a reasonable time it closes it. Leaving us steel-making free and reliant on people like China to supply our steel in future.

        Madness.

      5. China buys our steel industry cheaply, than after a reasonable time it closes it. Leaving us steel-making free and reliant on people like China to supply our steel in future.

        Madness.

        1. Off topic and good morning ..

          Yesterday afternoon , after visiting Arne to buy bird food from RSPB shop , we stopped off near an area called Redcliffe .. near Wareham , on the River Frome .. I have sometimes seen a kingfisher there , and other birds hiding in the reeds … what a surprise … We saw a large bat flitting and feeding near the waters edge , sun was still out at 1530 .. breezy, chilly, but a few midges were dancing around off the muddy river bank.. the bat put on a brilliant display as it dipped and fluttered across the surface .. it was so amazing .. then it flew off to I know not where .

          1. Maybe disturbed from its daytime roost and taking advantage of a spell of mild weather to get some food for hibernation while it was out and about. ‘I’m up now, I might as well have something to eat before I go back’.

            One bright, warm and cloudlessly sunny day in May a good few years ago I paused in my efforts to tempt a salmon from our local river to sit on the bank and have my mid-day sandwich. The river is quite wide at that spot, where a burn joins it from the wooded bank opposite. I spotted a sparrowhawk about 20 feet over the river, but it was acting strangely. Instead of gliding on a search and destroy mission, or flapping off to somewhere new, it was twisting and turning like a mad thing over the river, with sudden stops, dives, changes in direction and general craziness.

            Then I looked a bit closer and saw the object of its interest. A small bat, probably a pipistrelle, was also twisting and turning, trying to evade the attentions of the hawk. Eventually the sparrowhawk gave up the chase as a bad job and the bat fluttered off towards a line of Scots Pines on the opposite bank to get some rest.

          4. You were so lucky, that must have been quite an amazing experience.

            Years ago , I saw a pair of Hobies hunting dragon fly on a wild lake .. the birds seemed to be just a little larger than the food they were hunting. they gave a grand aerial display .. I haven’t seen any since.. don’t know why .. would sparrow hawks be predatory on smaller raptors I wonder, what do you think?

          5. Your lack of hobbies won’t be down to sparrowhawks. They have plenty of other easier prey to be taking. They don’t need their prey to be smaller than themselves either, but it usually is for practical reasons. I saw one a few years ago flopping around on the road in front of my car trying to immobilise a wood pigeon it had just brought down, dragging it across the road to a pavement, although most of their prey will be smaller birds. Any raptor needs to be in full fighting trim to be able to hunt and survive. A damaged eye or even broken flight feathers from struggling with the wrong prey could seriously compromise their future.

            Hobbies and sparrowhawks have similar overall dimensions, and despite appearances, the longer-winged hobbies are actually slightly heavier. Males of both species are typically 29cm long, while the female hobby at 35cm is slightly longer than the female sparrowhawk, (typically 34cm). In weight, male and female hobbies average at 180g and 275g respectively and sparrowhawks average 150g and 260g.

            Maybe your lack of recent sightings is down to timing. Dragonflies tend to appear variably, depending on season (‘hatching off’) and weather, although I photographed a hobby hunting newly hatched dragonfly swarms in pouring rain they are usually better seen in fine conditions. Dragonflies form only part of the prey of hobbies, mostly they are after birds. They are adept at taking hirundines, such as swallows and martins, and even swifts. There is also the fact that hobbies are migratory and spend only a short while here in the summer – May to September. They often hunt at dusk, falling on flocks of birds as they go to roost.

          6. Good heavens , your info is so interesting , I had no idea.. so Hobbies are well able to grab other prey.. I knew they were migratory, but I always feel anxious when I don’t spot them again in the usual places… as you say timing can be critical .

            I usually wander here there and and everywhere saying to myself , I wonder what I will see today .. and I am still trying to see if I have seen a goshawk in our local woods and not a young buzzard!

            I assume they all have the same cry … or not?

            My spaniels and I have some lovely walks.

          7. They all have different cries. Goshawks are usually silent away from the breeding season – a cackling call.. Buzzards call constantly – a far-reaching ‘mew’. Often heard.

          8. Do you have Sandwiches at other times? Is there a ‘Just after hte short walk to the pub’ sandwich? The ‘Early morning after the tea and newspaper walk’ sandwich?

            Sorry, I’m cruelly pulling your leg over the ‘mid-day sandwich’ bit.

          9. Only at mid-day. Having bacon on fried bread as I type. I mentioned mid-day to emphasise the unusual timing for the bat.

            The exception is a Sunday night when I come in from the pub and I have one made from whatever joint of meat we had for Sunday dinner.

          1. It used to be that the Tories understood business and industry. Now they don’t even understand politics.

          2. But this is precisely the sort of headline grabbing ‘good news’ they want in the run up to Election Day. Sod the consequences later on…..

    4. The whole governance apparatus of the UK is anti-democratic, corrupt, nepotistic and moribund. It is more suited to some sixteenth century Oriental cess pit than a modern state. It is beyond reform, only revolution or collapse can save us from it!

    1. Good stuff

      “Only yesterday, novelist Alice O’Keeffe wrote a disturbing article for The Guardian about publishers’ refusal to ‘reach out beyond the cosy pro-Remain bubble’.

      A senior figure at publishing conglomerate Hachette, employing the pious cant that has become so tiresomely familiar, said he would refuse to take on anything that didn’t uphold ‘social justice’ or that ‘went against our inclusive ethos’.

      And the managing director at publisher Profile even said he would not publish anything that appealed to Leavers: ‘What would we be publishing? Fantasy histories of a Britain in which servants doff their caps?'”

      1. The problem is that the book maybe accurate, valid and rational but the sheer bile and spite from the Left at any perceived accusation will see the publisher villified relentlessly for no good reason, dropping sales everywhere.

        The Left are acting as censors on society. They, of course think this is great. What happens when someone inevitably refuses their voice?

  23. Nottlers never ask what effect that £100,000,000 plus spent to stop Brexit actually had…..

    Is it because Polly discovered it ?

  24. High energy costs means no British industry means no independent Britain means globalism job done.

    Who wants globalism ?

    Who has spent vast sums promoting green energy right up to UN level ?

    Oh look… another coincidence.

    1. Good morning, Maggiebelle

      I would not trust Boris Johnson one inch.

      If he, May, Heath, Cameron, Major and Hague are the best the Conservative Party have been able to come up with then the party has had a terminal disease for a long time and the sooner it dies and is replaced by an honest right of centre party the better.

  27. Good morning, all.

    Seems the Liebour Party, as its spokespersons flounder from one car-crash interview to the next, has decided to play the victim card, claiming hackers have attempted to sabotage its online presence with massive cyber attacks.

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1203248/Labour-Party-news-cyber-attack-election-2019-latest-computer-hack-mobile

    By strange coincidence, this comes just as Hillary Clinton crawls out from under her rock to denounce “Russian meddling” in the upcoming British General Election.

    https://gut.bestwebsite.online/news/uk/1203223/BBC-Radio-4-Today-Hillary-Clinton-Russia-UK-general-election-government-twitter-reaction

    Aye, right! In the words of Victor Meldrew, “I don’t believe it!”

      1. She doesn’t have an abacus, Sos, she uses voodoo prayer beads.

        That way, she can recite her devotional prayers to ‘Damballa’ and ‘Baron Samedi’, while at the same time calculating the National Budget.

        1. Clinton is interfering with our political persuasions one month before a GE .

          What a po faced hypocrite she is and who invited her to butt in?

          Morning DM

          1. A foreigner actually interfering in UK politics who complains that other foreigners are allegedly interfering. Strewth.

          2. Morning, Maggie!

            The arrogance of these globalists is beyond belief but I reckon her intercession will be as counterproductive to ‘the cause’ as was that of Baroque O’Banana, in the 2016 Referendum.

  28. John Ward

    Pretty Please

    The week before last, the UKIP site Kipper posted a piece that intrigued me. The author pointed out that – despite having the opportunity to enact in law the

    Parliamentary majority for proceeding with his Withdrawal Bill – Boris

    Johnson chose instead to move for a General Election, which he duly

    obtained.

    Immediately following that outcome, the House of Commons saw, over a

    72 hour period, the biggest standing-down of MPs in modern history.

    Almost all of them were Remain diehards. Many were women who blubbed

    into the open arms of liberal media about how they were “leaving

    politics because of the House and online violent threats and misogony to

    which they’d been subjected”. But most of them were Party deserters and

    Remainers: to me, their rationale seemed hollow.

    The vast majority of those quitting were running away from the

    massacre they were doomed to suffer in a General Election; and also, one

    suspects, because they felt they’d been outmaneouvred by Team Boris.

    The Kipper article suggested that Johnson would get his election

    majority….and then choose to start getting heavy with Brussels on the

    detail of those elements in the WA regarded by Tory ERG and other

    Brexiteers as unacceptable diktats.

    The result might then be leaving with No Deal on January 31st….or at the very least, threatening the EU with that outcome.

    Such would explain why the likes of Steve Baker, others in the ERG,

    and Dominic Raab seem to have gone along with a WA2 possibly even worse

    than WA1.

    Does it also perhaps explain why Nigel Farage was willing to cave today? Has he been brought into the loop?

    Only time will tell. But a little birdie tells me that Conservative

    activists in TBP-contested seats will be allowed to canvass for the

    Faragistas.

    Stay tuned.

    https://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2019/11/11/explosive-is-this-the-reason-why-farage-chose-to-leave-the-tories-alone-in-their-heartlands/

    2. Hah! They can try.

      123 ads blocked, 10 + scripts blocked. Endless video pop – ups – blocked.

    3. Hah! They can try.

      123 ads blocked, 10 + scripts blocked. Endless video pop – ups – blocked.

    4. Hah! They can try.

      123 ads blocked, 10 + scripts blocked. Endless video pop – ups – blocked.

    5. You’ll be OK. You mis-read it. It should read –
      Now the Daily Mail insists on no bad lookers………

      1. i use firefox 70 – on my average hardware it’s very quick – amd with ublock and ghostery installed (happy to post the additional lists I use for blocking – web browsing is almost fun.

    1. It’s easy to just pause Adblock for a moment while you read from a site that insists on no blockers.

      1. Yes, but I find reading the Daily Mail with ads is annoying….. and smart new AdLock solves the problem.

        AdLock is better than Adblock because it blocks the block !

    2. It’s easy to just pause Adblock for a moment while you read from a site that insists on no blockers.

  33. Sweden’s 100 explosions this year: What’s going on?

    I had always seen Sweden as a very peaceful law abiding country, It looks as if thing have changed there big time

    When three explosions took place in one night across different parts of Stockholm last month, it came as a shock to residents. There had been blasts in other city suburbs, but never on their doorstep.
    Swedish police are dealing with unprecedented levels of attacks, targeting city centre locations too. The bomb squad was called to deal with 97 explosions in the first nine months of this year.
    “I grew up here and you feel like that environment gets violated,” says Joel, 22.
    The front door of his apartment block in the central Stockholm neighbourhood of Sodermalm was blown out and windows were shattered along the street.
    Who is to blame?
    This category of crime was not even logged prior to 2017. Then, in 2018, there were 162 explosions and in the past two months alone the bomb squad have been called to almost 30.
    “Bangers, improvised explosives and hand grenades” are behind most of the blasts, says Linda H Straaf, head of intelligence at Sweden’s National Operations Department.

    2. It’s got so bad, the Malmö Polis are right peeved about it. Sometime soon, they may start to actually do something about it, but not yet.

      2. Never used to hear much about Sweden before this migrant invasion. The only thing I knew about Sweden was they invented the Carl-Gustaf recoilless rifle and that presumably there was once a chap named Carl-Gustaf after whom it was named.

        Wait though …. nearly forgot ABBA
        ;¬)

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

        1. And IKEA, SAAB, smörgåsbord…
          Here’s one for you: Sweden had an industrial revolution. Norway never did. That’s why Norway was a poor country until oil was found in the late sixties.

      4. The Swedes could always put a prohibitive tax on bombs and hand grenades, it’s how they deal with other things that might make people happy, especially booze.

        Will Systembolaget be the ones selling bombs and grenades?

        2. And introduce a state run chain of bomb shops where the quantity of explosive can be closely controlled. Purchases to be taken away in plain brown paper bags.

      5. They will issue a stern declaration that if anyone ccomplains or raises a single concern about this activity they will be arrested and sent to a re-education camp.

  34. In search of the Holy Groil……

    “Scientists have developed a large-scale economical method to extract hydrogen (H2) from oil sands (natural bitumen) and oil fields. This can be used to power hydrogen-powered vehicles, which are already marketed in some countries, as well as to generate electricity; hydrogen is regarded as an efficient transport fuel, similar to petrol and diesel, but with no pollution problems. The process can extract hydrogen from existing oil sands reservoirs, with huge existing supplies found in Canada and Venezuela. Interestingly, this process can be applied to mainstream oil fields, causing them to produce hydrogen instead of oil.”

    https://phys.org/news/2019-08-scientists-hydrogen-gas-oil-bitumen.html

    1. While discarding that other important fuel to be found in hydrocarbons, namely carbon?

      Do they say how much energy they have to pump in to get the hydrogen out?

      1. Apparently it is perpetual energy they are using to extract maximum $ for further research……

      2. “Oil fields, even abandoned oil fields, still contain significant amounts of oil. The researchers have found that injecting oxygen into the fields raises the temperature and liberates H2, which can then be separated from other gases via specialist filters. Hydrogen is not pre-existing in the reservoirs, but pumping oxygen means that the reaction to form hydrogen can take place.”

        Let me see, consume oxygen to produce motion in a conventional (internal combustion) vehicle, or consume vast quantities of oxygen to produce reserves of H2 gas which eventually (may or may not) produce motion in an H2-powered vehicle… ????

        Doctor, I can’t breathe!

    3. TB,
      I do believe that they were going to be in alphabetical order, but that idea was scrubbed on finding, due to the past voting mode, there are millions of Mo’s.

  37. Letter to the Doomgoblin

    The truth, as one anonymous blogger aptly put it, is that your

    generation is unable to work up to forty hours per week without being

    chronically depressed and anxious. Its members cannot even decide if

    they want to be a boy or a girl, or both, or neither, or a “they.” They

    cannot eat meat without crying. I might add that your generation needs

    “trigger warnings” and “safe spaces” as pre-conditions for learning in

    school. Its members have a pathological need to be coddled and protected

    from the challenging realities of life. Your generation is the biggest

    demander and consumer of carbon spewing technological gadgets and

    devices. An hour without any of them and too many of you succumb to

    paralyzing lethargy. Your generation is the least curious and most

    insular set of individuals one has ever encountered. Your hubris extends

    so far that you think you have nothing to learn from your elders.

    Yes, we have betrayed you: by capitulating the world of leadership to

    bored, attention-deficit children who spout bromides, platitudes and

    slogans that a rudderless and morally relativistic culture accepts

    because a significant number of its denizens have become intellectually

    bankrupt and morally lazy.

    https://cms.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/11/open-letter-greta-thunberg-jason-d-hill

    1. Where as I put it, the first generation in the history of mankind that is not only cleverer that their elders but wiser too.
      I hope I’m around when they all get conscripted into the EU army and march off to fight the Russians or Chinese in their trainers. Then realise that somebody lied to them about safe spaces when they get to the front.

  38. Parachute in your Remainer and/or Spad, CCHQ:

    THE selection by local associations of ‘Conservative’ Party general election candidates is now in its final phase before the deadline of declaration day on November 14.

    Some intriguing claims are emerging, however – especially from constituencies where the sitting member is standing down – about party HQ attempting to micro-manage the selection process in favour of its own preferred choices, even to the extent of excluding a local candidate whom the constituency association would choose.

    Firstly, I was told earlier this week by a friend who is a stalwart of the local constituency association in a currently Tory seat in the South East whose MP is standing down, that ructions were very likely to occur at the meeting scheduled to be held shortly to discuss their new candidate.

    He alleged growing disquiet at what he described as Central Office trying to impose, over the head of an eminently suitable local councillor, a favourite of the Candidates’ Board central list with no constituency connection whatsoever.

    As he put it to me, if objecting causes fireworks, then so be it. But he’s damned if he’s going to rubber-stamp the selection of some chinless-wonder staffer who’s coming straight from gofering in Central Office after getting a second-class PPE and seeing the constituency solely as the first step on his political career path.

    Secondly, let’s move to Mid-Sussex, where archetypal patrician Tory grandee Nicholas Soames, one of the 21 anti-Brexit rebels deprived of the Conservative whip for in effect voting to stop Brexit happening on October 31, is bequeathing a current majority of more than 19,000.

    In the frame for this are a current Government special adviser (Spad) with pro-Brexit credentials, a teacher whose current political activity is centred on London, and the Tory MP for Eastleigh, Hampshire. Their connection with the constituency is perhaps rather more claimed than it is immediately obvious. Is there no suitable local candidate?

    It’s the latter candidate who’s the most intriguing case. Despite sitting on a 14,000 Tory majority in Eastleigh – a seat that voted 54 – 46 in favour of Leave – MP Mims Davies is trying to up sticks and move to Mid-Sussex.

    Her somewhat disingenuous statement that she ‘would not be a candidate’ in her current constituency originally gave the impression she was quitting Parliament altogether. So the revelation that she is instead seeking a safer seat has given rise to speculation that fear of losing to the Lib Dems is her real motivation.

    Thirdly, let’s journey westwards, to Devizes, Wiltshire, which, although voting Leave by 51.4 per cent to 48.6 per cent, was, at least until the dissolution of Parliament at 00:01am on Wednesday November 6, the domain of the wildly over-promoted and eco-gullible Claire Perry, with a majority of more than 21,000.

    There, elements of the local association are objecting in no uncertain terms about the possible selection of Danny Kruger, Eton-educated former speechwriter to David Cameron and current Political Secretary to PM Boris Johnson, to the extent of circulating annotated (mostly unfavourably) copies of his CV to all members.

    Kruger is clearly perceived by his detractors as one of the favoured metropolitan – ‘liberal’ – Cameroon glitterati, and it’s arguably difficult in the current climate to imagine a more damning assessment than ‘definitely on the Nicky Morgan, Amber Rudd, side of the party’. But that’s their verdict.

    Meanwhile, the chairman of the Devizes constituency Conservative Party has resigned, allegedly in protest about the undue influence head office has had on the choice of candidate for the safe seat. The original shortlist of six has apparently been arbitrarily reduced to three, none of whose connections with the constituency appear especially strong, or particularly convincing.

    Perhaps many local Tories in Devizes are just not prepared to have what, rightly or wrongly, they see as a Cameroon carpetbagger imposed on them by Central Office willy-nilly. Is there really not a good, genuinely Conservative local councillor who would make a good constituency MP? After years of being ‘represented’ by Claire Perry, one can understand Devizes’ local Tories being wary.

    Fourthly, let’s travel north, to the East Midlands and Bassetlaw, the seat vacated by staunch anti-Corbynite Labour Brexiteer John Mann, who resigned as a MP on October 29.

    In the 2016 EU referendum, Bassetlaw voted 68 – 32 for Leave, a margin of more than 2 – 1. With Mann’s majority of only 4,852, and Labour having all but formally declared itself to be a Remain / Second Referendum party, it’s obvious that a mere 2,500 voters switching from Labour to Conservative would turn it blue.

    Yet an allegation reaches TCW from Bassetlaw about the 2017 Conservative candidate, apparently a former local councillor and previous Tory constituency association chair, who campaigned for Brexit in 2016 and significantly reduced Mann’s majority in 2017. The safe Labour seat was thus turned into a marginal.

    But, it is claimed, the candidate was critical of Theresa May’s approach to Brexit and has twice been rejected as the 2019 candidate by Conservative Central Office, despite being originally admitted to the candidates’ list. The expectation is that an external candidate, presumably acceptable to Tory HQ, will be parachuted in.

    This is doubly troubling when the Labour candidate selection process in Bassetlaw is itself in near-total disarray. It follows a Momentum / National Executive Committee decision to overrule the local party and deselect its choice of candidate in a manner more reminiscent of a kangaroo court than due process.

    The candidate herself is an outsider from Labour-Lefty North London, but at least one acceptable to the local party. Presented with an open goal in Bassetlaw, therefore, Tory Central Office appears to be kicking the ball off the pitch.

    Does anyone see a pattern here? It may or may not be a coincidence, but there has recently been an abrupt change at the top of the party hierarchy, with the resignation from both the Candidates’ Committee and the Party Board of a senior MP over ‘rising tensions in the Candidates’ Committee about the controversial approach to selections which CCHQ is pursuing’. Amid mounting fury over the Candidates’ List, local associations are increasingly pushing back against central control.

    One would have thought the ‘Conservative’ Party would have learned from the débacle of the Cameroons’ now notorious A-List, which eventually was quietly killed off. Evidently not.

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/local-tories-battle-to-repel-hqs-parachute-invaders/

    2. Leopards and spots, the Conservative party is incapable of reforming themselves into a political party which reflects their core voters.
      Does anyone really believe Johnson, if returned with a sizeable majority, will deliver anything other than the softest of Brexit with the objective of rejoin.
      I certainly do not.

    3. Rather unfair on the Eastleigh Tory, who, incidentally, is the last of 3, not the latter. She may wish to transfer to Sussex because her husband’s work means a move, or maybe she wants to live nearer aging parents. Both of these possibilities would serve to indicate her withdrawal from Eastleigh.

    1. I thought was going to be about the mandatory automated alcohol checks and banning arbitrary lane switching by drivers to be introduced in 2022.

        1. Morning Eddy, It’s too dark to see the sun at the moment, I’m not usually up this early but I have a big recovery to go to

          1. Morning, FA.
            If you’re out to a recovery, was there an unsuccessful covery first? ;-))

          2. Morning Obers, you could say that, we tried to get a lorry out of a ditch last night but being dark it was dangerous so doing it at first light today

          9. So your solar panels won’t have kicked in yet.

            I get up when I get up. I’ll be whizzing into town for a pint tonight and will therefore miss tomorrow’s early shift.

    1. Toodle ooh? What neck of the woods does that come from? It’s toodle loo or toodle pip in these here parts.

    2. Toodle ooh? What neck of the woods does that come from? It’s toodle loo or toodle pip in these here parts.

  43. Nice to see our dear Trudeau come off second best at our remembrance day ceremonies in Ottawa yesterday.
    The Legion selects a Silver Cross mother to represent all mothers who have lost a child in the forces. This lady gets to be front and centre of the event, second only to the Governor General when it came to laying a wreath and then sharing the podium with the GG when it came to the parade of veterans.

    Trudeau was relegated to the also rans and boy it looked good on him.

    3. Boris Johnson is almost completely untrustworthy. Why people have not seen through him is completely beyond my comprehension.

        3. Good afternoon, Peddy

          I was about to post a curt reply but decided that whatever abuse I might hurl at politicians I should always try always to be polite to my fellow NoTTLers.

      3. I wrote a big response to you the other day but it got removed as Spam. Yes completely agree. But to me Farage is the same.

  45. May one ask who are the straw clutching brigade going to pin their HOPES on next ?
    Seems to me that the HOPE commodity is not working out to well, and common sense / self respect left town long ago in regards to what passes as the lab/lib/con
    pro eu parties & their current supporters.

    1. Some here are pro Johnson-Anti Farage. Some will be voting Tory because they always do. Some have realised Johnson is a complete con artist, so only alternative is vote BXP/Farage. But some are starting to realise Farage is not what he seems. So a clever strategy to call a GE. But then again so was the 2017 GE.

  46. The caption on this Graun podcast gave me a larf….democracy???

    “George Soros has spent billions of pounds promoting democracy around the world, with a specific interest in Hungary, his country of birth. But he has also become a controversial figure in the UK by funding an explicitly anti-Brexit group.

    The Guardian’s central and eastern Europe correspondent, Shaun Walker, recently interviewed Soros at his New York residence and tells Anushka Asthana how he rose to such prominence – and how he deals with his many enemies.”

    1. What, European Commission, do you like so much about this multi billionaire that you welcomed him, or his reps, 71 times in 2018, and why do your policies look identical to his.. ?

    2. Am I being unkind when I say that this chap, an enemy of democracy, ought to be on a bucket list along with others of his ilk? Bucket list in this instance being: “He’s finally kicked the bucket’.

    2. I find that ad hilarious. The fellow standing stiffly to attention, wearing a 1950s sports jacket that is several sizes too small is most odd. Is he the MD/CEO trying to economise on his ad budget? Not that it’s an outfit I’d have anything to do with anyway. The expression should be ‘Go AND Compare’, not some crude Americanism. If they can’t even the name of their firm right, why should I trust them with my business?

      1. Wynne Evans is a trained singer and has been in the ads for some time. He has become a parody of himself and I find the ads rather annoying but quite catchy at the same time! He is also the late morning presenter on Radio Wales and is has a very good sense of humour. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wynne_Evans

          4. Apparently, he slimmed down a while ago and the ad agency didn’t like it because he looked less like the epitome of an opera singer.

  48. Farage reveals major offer Tories made him just days before Brexit Party election decision

    If this is true I think it could be a very serious matter as we are in the election Purdah period and this could be seen as an attempt to influence the outcome of the election and even possibly a form of bribery

        4. Actually I have two very fine pairs of gold cuff links. One pair engraved with the Tracey family crest and the other engraved with the Bowen-Cooke crest of my mother’s family. The scallop shell indicates that the family had to atone for the fact that Henry de Tracy murdered Thomas à Becket and a pilgrimage had to be made to Santiago de Compostela.

          We took a bus from Muros and visited the cathedral when we were sailing along the NW Spanish coast. Christo, then aged ten, managed to push his way through the crowd at a procession and warned the Archbishop what his ancestor had done to an English archbishop in his cathedral in Canterbury.

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/712d30dc3cc829e0a964604cf3ad79c6ed7d6fb1b490686971ac1534dd840c3f.jpg

    4. BJ,
      You are a bloody caution, curiosity makes me ask, did he say it was not enough he could get more via the eu?

    1. Then ‘uck em. My sitting Conservative MP will not receive my vote because I no longer trust BJ or the Conservatives.

        1. Many cannot bring themselves to do it, if they did then the keep in / keep out / nose gripping / best of the worst / PC /Appeasement mode of voting would collapse.
          Then where would we as a nation be ?
          When the facts were truly faces there would be a tsunami of suicides.

        2. Many cannot bring themselves to do it, if they did then the keep in / keep out / nose gripping / best of the worst / PC /Appeasement mode of voting would collapse.
          Then where would we as a nation be ?
          When the facts were truly faces there would be a tsunami of suicides.

    2. The obvious question is whether Boris would prefer facing a Labour/LibDem/Green MP or a BP one. If the former then he is clearly going to shaft us.

    4. I wouldn’t expect anything less from Boris. Except he should have pulled a few Remoaner Tories from the ballot in their districts, and notified Nigel on the sly.

    5. Johnson is quite determined to do everything he possibly can to stop a proper Brexit.

      He would really prefer to remain in the EU but if he cannot get away with that he will be happy with a BRINO which will enslave Britain for the foreseeable future.

      He is completely despicable – how much better it would be for the country if he had kept his word and really were dead in a ditch – but that was just another lie.

        1. I agree with the first part of the post is unacceptable, but really believe that the record should be reissued again,again,& again.

          1. “The Brexit Party” is an inherently-destabilizing development in UK politics, and should be treated as such. They’ve been in existence now for what, five minutes?

            (Greetings, ogga).

          2. Evening A,
            By the same token the UKIP party is a party of stabilization
            once the destabilising
            element ( nec) within
            is without.
            The truth must one day be faced, the good peoples within UKIP have had years of castigation by those that have supported / voted for the very parties that have near destroyed this nation, then totally screwed up the referendum.
            A country would not need enemies with friends like the current lab/lib/con members.

        3. During the usual overload of tribal politics just
          before an election the Saxon Queen used to
          eschew politics for awhile. She used to venture forth
          towards the free Disqus sites of literature, philosophy,
          art, history and trees. It can become suffocating at these times.
          I am just glad it’s just a month – I am ignoring the news totally atm.

          1. It’s the infernal repetition that gets my goat. How many times does anybody have to say the same thing over & over again?

          2. It’s zee echo chamber of thee internety thing
            Mr Viking. Today I am reading Middle English
            with my old chum Geoffrey Chaucer..
            not a single word of the forthcoming election
            of which is the day after my birthday .

          3. I’m approaching the end of a German thriller set in Toronto (thanks, John), then another German book, then finally a book in English.

  50. I’ll vote Conservative to help keep Jeremy out and to try and stop those silly peeps who spoil their ballot papers from suffering under a hideous Labour government !

    1. It would be better to suffer under a Labour government than to have Johnson and the Tories string Brexit it out for another plus five year or so.

        1. So you want 5 more years of Tory rule, who will have absolutely no intention of leaving the EU just like they’ve done for the last 3 1/2 years.

  51. Brexit Party accepts donation from “Vladimir Putin”. Scram News. November 11, 2019. By Kate Plummer.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4d7ca1b5d95b924a35b108f590e47de4692c57edb0a6167c44fa3819f83a5c81.png

    The Brexit Party allowed us to donate £1 to the cause under the name “Vladimir Putin”.

    The Brexit Party system would have allowed us to donate up to *£1 million* under Putin’s name and address. This is despite the fact that the Electoral Commission says that donations cannot be made to political parties from abroad, unless they are less than £500.

    We promptly received a thank you email for our generous £1 donation, with the opening line: “Dear Vladimir, Thank you for your donation, your support and generosity is hugely appreciated.”

    Though this is not so much desperate as moronic it has interesting points. One of the Directors of Scram News is Will David John Straw. Mr Straw is a Labour Party apparatchik and the son of Jack Straw. He was awarded a CBE by David Cameron in his outgoing resignation honours! Wheels within wheels eh?

    https://scramnews.com/brexit-party-accepts-donation-vladimir-putin/

      2. Ah, well, you see the money is paid into a charity. The British domiciled charity pays into the political party of its choice. The accounts of the charity, or even a private company, don’t need to be lodged with Commissioners/Companies House until all of this is all over. Job done! No worries!

        1. Phew!! For an awful moment I thought the fragrant Gina would be brought down by her own crookedness.

          1. Read that as “For an awful moment I thought the fragrant Gina would be brought down by her own cockroaches ”
            It seems more appropriate, somehow.

    2. Likely Mickey Mouse and D Duck Esq. have donated, too. Also, BXP was a company, not a political party, the last time I was interested. Different rules.

  53. So Mr Farage in the light of BJ’s “eff you” will you now reverse your decision and stand candidates in every seat so that 17.4 m of us can vote once again for Brexit?

    1. Bad timing from Boris; he should have waited with his refusal until late Thursday morning.

        1. Say over the last three decades when have the electorate got anything right in regards to domestic voting ?

        1. Err, you would like the BP to put up candidates everywhere to get a Remain parliament?

          I’m confused!

          1. Do you really believe BJ is going to engineer our departure from the EU? When you look back the Conservative party has a history of signing up to even deeper integration. Heath, The blessed Margaret, Major, (Cameron ” we can share our aircraft less aircraft carriers with the French) and finally May with her surrender document of a “WA” the majority of which is still in place in the hands of BJ. I’m not surprised are confused William.

      1. I was potty trained for 8am. Yesterday, never happened. So you could be right for a change, still cooking it. But you’re always, right, right, right.

      1. Too simplistic. It’s phizzee I’m talking about. It has to have panache. A certain je ne c’est pas!

        1. I say! Pan-ache? Is that a result of using Le Creuset heaviest-metal-on-earth cast pans? With contents, too heavy for me.

      2. Too simplistic. It’s phizzee I’m talking about. It has to have panache. A certain je ne c’est pas!

        1. She must be out and about in the constituency trying to ram the Second Referendum down local throats.

          1. I’ve been looking for a clip that was on here a couple of weeks or so ago of her being accosted on the street on her own turf by a local woman who told her in no uncertain terms what she thought of her. ‘A disgrace’, I think she said. Couldn’t find it.

      2. Top choice for me. I’d stay up all night on 12th December just to see her face pinch up even more when the result hit.

    2. Unfortunately, the Kinnock dynasty lives on in South Wales. Despite toughing from the EU swill bucket, and dodging tax in the country his children went to school, the red rosette wins the day.

      1. Despite toughing from the EU swill bucket…

        What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

    3. Unfortunately, the Kinnock dynasty lives on in South Wales. Despite toughing from the EU swill bucket, and dodging tax in the country his children went to school, the red rosette wins the day.

    4. Sourbry?

      I don’t mind Corbyn being leader of the opps. At least he believes in something, unlike the rest who are just out for themselves.

      The man to get rid of is McDonnell. He’s a stark raving loony.

  58. A posting on conservativewoman by an erstwhile NoTTLer

    Uusikaupunki • 4 days ago • edited

    Upper-class lady returning to the UK after many years in up-country Malaya….

    “What’s the servant situation in the UK now?” she enquired haughtily of the stewardess on the flight to Heathrow.

    “Don’t worry,” said the young stewardess, with a smile, “I’m sure you might still be able to get one of the few positions going”.

  59. Japan’s rising sun flag is not a symbol of militarism. Tue 12 Nov 2019.

    Looking at Prime Minister Abe’s statement on the 70th anniversary of the end of the second world war – issued by cabinet consensus – it is clear that Japan has squarely faced the facts of history and repeatedly expressed feelings of deep remorse and heartfelt apology for its actions during the war, which this opinion piece fails to recognise.

    It is completely wrong to state that embracing the rising sun flag means taking pride in Japan’s military history. The design of the flag has been widely used in numerous scenes in the daily life of Japan for a long time, including celebrating childbirth and seasonal festivities. It is not an expression of political statement, nor a symbol of militarism.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7c0af12429adc65b1fa4329693c5b558b26ac6de5f07b027bec4542055e78424.jpg

    Of course not!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/12/japans-rising-sun-flag-is-not-a-symbol-of-militarism

    4. Symbolism aside, the most formidable military alliance for checking China’s globalistic-colonialistic strategy is the US/Japan military alliance.

      (Greetings, Minty).

  60. I was fairly unhappy about the first glance at what Nigel Farage did yesterday, especially as it means that I will have no “Leave Candidate” to vote for now.

    Now though I suspect that it may not have been such a bad move. If Boris cannot get a majority (here’s hoping) then he will have difficulty forcing that UK suicide note through and our country will not fall under massive control of the EU for years. If Boris does get a majority, and the W/A passes, then the economic and social carnage that the EU inflicts on the United Kingdom will be so severe that those Conservative voters who still support Boris will realise what a massive mistake that is.

    It would cost us years under EU control, which may turn into becoming full members of the shambling EU if they can get enough new voters in. But at this election, there are still too many Conservatives who do not see what this deal will do to us. The best thing that can happen is no Conservative majority and enough Brexit Party MP’s from Labour seats to stop the W/A. Another hung Parliament is infinitely preferable to handing our country to the EU bound and gagged on a plate.

    1. Good morning, Meredith

      How right you are. Where did you get your hymn sheet? We often seem to sing from the same one!

      1. It occurred to me this morning as I was watching the news. Yesterday Sky were laughing at this turn of events because they thought that it meant Boris’s W/A would get through and we would be trapped in the EU, which is what they want.

        Then it started to sink in that the only way that Boris could get a majority was to win some of those Labour seats, and The Brexit Party would still be standing in them, so that was not going to happen now. That wiped the smile off of the faces at Sky News. So suddenly there is pressure for Nigel Farage to stand down in Labour seats as well, because the globalists are not going to get their W/A through if Boris cannot win those.

        Anything that makes the pro-EU lobby sad is a good thing for this country. Now we just need Farage to keep standing in those Labour seats.

    2. “The best thing that can happen is no Conservative majority and enough Brexit Party MP’s from Labour seats to stop the W/A.”
      That can’t happen unless Boris stands down Con candidates in Labour held Leaver seats. Too many Leavers have been conned into thinking the WA is acceptable.

      1. mola – I see what you are saying about the seats but I respectfully disagree. Conservative candidates in those old Labour seats don’t have a hope in hell of winning anyway. The voters would run naked to Old Petticoat Junction before they would put their cross next to a Conservative candidate.

        They have already voted for The Brexit Party though in the recent EU elections, and are more than happy to do so again. So even if Boris does not stand the candidates down, he is not winning those seats anyway. It would be helpful if the Conservative voters in those seats voted for TBP as well though. Just to show they want what is best for the country.

        As for your final sentence about Leavers being conned, there are an alarming number of them who do not seem to realise that this W/A was written by EU lawyers to break the United Kingdom and what terrible damage it would do to us. It is not Leaving in any way and ties us closer to the EU than any other country is.

          1. mola – Those who want a real Brexit, such as ourselves, and the disenchanted Labour voters vote for them. You must have seen the stories about how the Labour parties vote is collapsing after their betrayal of their traditional voters. 🙂

            I was a Conservative Party voter for a very long time, before the rot set in. I would vote for a Brexit Party candidate no matter that there is a Conservative one standing. Many of us want the chance to get real Leavers in.

          2. No BXP candidate will stand here as Conservative majority of 18,000 last time out. Where Labour are incumbent in Leaver constituencies the Leavers will be split between Con and BXP (unless Cons stand down), while the Labour vote will lose some to BXP and even some to the Cons, but to the Lib Dems too. If BXP win one or two seats I’ll be amazed. I hope I’m wrong.

          3. As I pointed out – Those old lifetime Labour voters will NEVER vote for a Conservative party candidate, but they have already voted for The Brexit Party and see them as being patriotic and on their sides.

            As for those seats with a large Conservative majority with Conservative members who will vote for a Remainer such as Theresa May, then they are the tribal voters who will doom this country. The Conservative party MP’s are now a shabby little band of Quislings. With fresh new Remainers being parachuted into safe seats so that we will never leave the EU.

            You cannot vote for Theresa May and then complain that the country has been ripped apart by the EU and we are being overrun by migrants. Those people are voting for the MP’s that are making it happen.

        3. And the MSM refuses to give a detailed analysis of the WA pointing out clearly and honestly what its dangers and traps are.

          Boris Johnson’s jolly, buffoonish facade does not disguise the fact that, as far as I can see, for sheer nastiness he is one of the most dishonest, mendacious people ever to lead the Conservative Party. Unfortunately few people seem to have noticed this.

  63. As people know I have grumbled about the fact that both Blair and Cameron disenfranchised me – in general elections (Blair) and the referendum (Cameron).

    The bright side is that I do not have to vote for the Conservatives who are so mendacious, bullying and treacherous that do not deserve to win any election. And the other parties are, if it is possible to be so, even more disgusting and dishonest.

    So whatever foul stinking cesspit Britain becomes after the general election I can at least hold my head up high and say that I did not vote for the Conservative Party; I did not vote for the Labour Party; I did not vote for the Lib Dems, SNP or Green parties.

    2. Don’t make such a big thing about it. Nobody in their right minds would vote for any of them, other than for habit.
      I am hoping, whatever the result, that this election carries the lowest number of voters in history. We should all just walk away.

      2. If I had the vote I would spoil my ballot paper by putting: NONE OF THE ABOVE.

        I have argued for some time that votes for NOTA (None Of The Above) should be counted and, in cases where these come to a higher total than any of the other candidates, then nobody should be elected to that parliamentary seat. If abstentions were added to the NOTA votes then NOTA would win by a landslide.

  64. Just as the Monster Raving Loony Party decided to call itself ‘The Official Raving Loony Party’ so as to distinguish itself from the other parties then surely there should be ”Unofficial Independent Brexit’ candidates standing in constituencies which voted Leave in the referendum but are lumbered with a Remain Conservative or Labour candidate.

    The Conservative Party effectively wants committed anti-BRINO Brexiteers to be disenfranchised and Nigel Farage might have to disassociate himself from such independent Brexiters. However, it would at least give voters where there are no candidates in favour of a proper Brexit the chance to vote for a candidate who is.

    1. I’ve just found out that my BP candidate has been stood down. I don’t want to vote for Johnson’s BRINO (or the mass immigration/LGBT in schools/foreign aid/climate change/hate speech that comes with it). There is no centre-right, pro-Brexit party for me to vote for now. I may have to sit on my hands on December 12th.

      1. Please vote – and spoil your vote. Not voting indicates that you don’t care. Spoiling your vote shows that you do care, and that you are angry.

      2. Many people who want a proper Brexit rather than Johnson’s BRINO feel disenfranchised as they do not have a candidate to support their point of view. I know that our NoTTLer friend, Meredith feels he has been cheated of his choice. Independent unaffiliated ‘Pure Brexit’ candidates would give you your vote back and re-enfranchise you!

    1. Ben Elton has written a scurrilous but at times amusing book called ‘Identity Crisis’ which is about a transgender woman with a penis who is murdered. I am only half way through it but the chief suspect for the time being is a former feminist activist who led a campaign to stop men from swimming in a pond on Hampstead Heath where women traditionally had had the place to themselves and could bathe naked.

      1. David Cole is making some valid and thought-provoking comments; particularly over how something that is clearly false is allowed to be recreated as real, to the detriment of reality and is allowed to “trump” and have rights that are denied to those who are genuine.

      2. David Cole is making some valid and thought-provoking comments; particularly over how something that is clearly false is allowed to be recreated as real, to the detriment of reality and is allowed to “trump” and have rights that are denied to those who are genuine.

      3. David Cole is making some valid and thought-provoking comments; particularly over how something that is clearly false is allowed to be recreated as real, to the detriment of reality and is allowed to “trump” and have rights that are denied to those who are genuine.

  66. The first thing I see looking at the Guardian is this-

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/12/israel-kills-islamic-jihad-commander-in-gaza-sparking-reprisal-rocket-attacks

    ” Israel strikes at Islamic Jihad commanders, sparking reprisal rockets.”
    It’s quite a long report. As is normal, the Guardian presents the report as a probably unwarranted attack on the innocent little jihadists.
    There are many ways of reporting a political action, and we often interperet reports through our own feelings or understanding of the matter.

    The subtle anti-Israel propaganda from the Guardian and BBC goes on and on.To them, Israel is an abomination.
    I haven’t looked at the BBC yet. Some of you may not understand me or think I am over-reacting.
    But this reportage is one of the reasons why, should Jeremy Corbyn become Prime Minister , some of our population will feel at risk, and, as they are doing in France, leave our country. We will no longer feel safe.

    1. If the Jihadists don’t want to be blown apart in their beds, they could stop shooting rockets randomly into Israel.
      Just a thought.

    2. I recall a case not long ago of an Arab (I can’t call them Palestinians because they are not Philistines, end of) killing a Jewish family in their beds and later being shot be Israeli police. BBC News reported only the shooting of the Arab. No mention of what he’d done. I’d supply a link if Google would find one but I remember it clearly. All too typical unfortunately.

      Worth noting though that the far left love Marxist Jews (Soros, the Frankfurt School) but hate religious Jews (in their parlance, Zionists) and while devout Moslems hate all Jews, Marxist Jews seem to love all Moslems.

    4. I recall a case not long ago of an Arab (I can’t call them Palestinians because they are not Philistines, end of) killing a Jewish family in their beds and later being shot by Israeli police. BBC News reported only the shooting of the Arab. No mention of what he’d done. I’d supply a link if Google would find one but I remember it clearly. All too typical unfortunately.

      Worth noting though that the far left love Marxist Jews (Soros, the Frankfurt School) but hate religious Jews (in their parlance, Zionists) and while devout Moslems hate all Jews, Marxist Jews seem to love all Moslems.

      1. And there was the one where an Arab went up to an Israeli check-point and started shooting. Some Israel shot back and killed him.
        The BBC reported this under the header ” Israelis kill Palestinian”
        There were immediate complaints and the Beeb took it down and changed it.

      2. The BBC lies by omission.

        They report ‘today Issrael bombed a hospital’

        In reality ‘Israel suffered 20 days of rocket attacks from Palestine and today responded with one missile to the launch site which didn’t penetrate the roof’ – because they’re got wise to Hamas tactics). It is tiresome. Every single time to know that they’re just lying, deliberately to set a narrative.

      3. For the globalists to take over the world they need to eradicate Christianity and Judaism. They are not enamoured of other religions, but do not really care about them a great deal. Not compared to the main two. This is why they love islam so much. It is written in their “holy book” that they should lay in wait and kill the Jews and “People of the Book” as they refer to Christians and others in places.

        Those of us brought up with a “Western set of values” will stand up to tyranny. Those who follow the globalists or islam bow down before it.

  67. Land O’Lakes owner Dean Foods files for bankruptcy

    Must be down to Brexit

    Dean Foods, America’s largest milk producer, is filing for bankruptcy.

    The 94-year-old company has struggled in recent years because Americans are drinking less cows milk. 2019 has been a particularly brutal: the company’s sales tumbled 7% in the first half of the year, and profit fell 14%. Dean Foods stock has lost 80% this year
    The company, which makes some of the country’s most recognizable milk and dairy products, including Dairy Pure, Organic Valley and Land O’Lakes, has blamed its struggles on the “accelerated decline in the conventional white milk category.”

    The company is saddled with debt and has been unable to fund all of its workers’ pensions. So on Tuesday, Dean Foods filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to keep the business operating, reorganize its debt and help fund the pensions while it looks to sell the company.
    Dean Foods said in a statement that it is working with the Dairy Farmers of America cooperative on a potential deal, in which the cooperative would buy almost all of the company.

    As part of the bankruptcy process, the company secured $850 million in financing from its existing lenders, including Rabobank, to keep the company running.
    Once a staple of the American refrigerator, milk has slowly fallen out of favor with consumers as they seek less-sugary or plant-based alternatives.
    The global market for milk alternatives is expected to top $18 billion this year, up 3.5% from 2018, according to Euromonitor. That’s still a fraction of the traditional milk market which will come in at just under $120 billion globally this year.

    That’s not the only problem Dean Foods has faced. Walmart, which was one of Dean Food’s biggest customers, dropped them last year after building its own dairy plant.

      1. American brands. Being dropped by Walmart may well be what is doing them in. Clearly plenty of milk is being sold, otherwise Wally’s would not have built it’s own dairy plant. Nearly all the milk being sold in the supermarkets here is “own brand”, so who knows who produces it – apart from the cows of course.

    2. “Milk alternatives” such as soy and almond milk are often made with local water supplies, which in heavily-agricultural areas, may contain fluoride or even residual pesticides.

      (Greetings, Bill).

      [edited: spelling fluoride].

  68. Voting Conservative is merely a tactical move to defeat Marxism, the Brexit battle continues the next day….

    The best tactic to victory is to expose the Remain billionaire funded globalist conspiracy, expose the EU as no nation globalist collaborators….. and uncover one of the biggest cover ups the world has ever seen !

  69. As they put warnings before virtually all TV dramas and quiz shows: “The following contains bad language.” So of you are likely to be offended by something to which you are subjected on TV every day of the week then please do not look at this!

    I am beginning to think that The Conservative Party is now more fucked that the Whore of Babylon.

      1. 2 different meanings. ‘More fucked’ (adjective) means more confused, bemused, etc. ‘Fucked more’ (verb) means shagged more often than the WoB, which is a nonsense, because you can’t shag a Party.

  70. ‘Morning All

    Daily Brexit Betrayal

    These findings must have been mirrored in the private polls

    run by TBP and it is these findings which I believe forced Farage’s

    hand. Remember that TBP does want to get MPs into the HoC, and the

    experience of voters in the 2014 EU Parliament elections moving to the

    Tories in the 2015 GE must also have played a role.

    Let us also not forget that quite a few of his top-level colleagues

    have argued with him about not standing PPCs in every constituency –

    they would have seen the same polls – and that a number of TBP’s PPCs

    had already stood down unilaterally.

    We should also keep in mind that we who write and post

    on social media, doing more than just click a ‘like’ icon, regrettably

    are a minority – vociferous, opinion-forming in our own vicinity

    perhaps, but not as influential as our enthusiasm makes us wish we were.

    Nor do we represent all the Leave voters across the country.

    So where do we stand now – what can we do? Wherever we’re able to we

    must now show up the establishment, MSM included, for the craven

    cowards they are – craven in the face of the EU, like Labour who is

    losing any claim to be a credible ‘government-in-waiting’ with their

    traitorous behaviour, with the support for yet another now fallen tinpot

    dictator in South America. We

    must show up the LibGreen traitors for the Quislings they are, and that

    they are even denying the voters in their target constituencies the

    choice between Green and Yellow.

    Above all we can and must take on the greedy Tories who are without honour given that they are now demanding TBP simply stop standing anywhere:

    https://independencedaily.co.uk/your-daily-brexit-betrayal-tuesday-12th-november-2019/

    2. Does Independence Daily try to unravel what is going on in the shadows, establish who is pulling the strings, and what happened to that £100,000,000 plus ?

      No.

      Until they do, they’ll get virtually nowhere.

      1. Good Morning,

        Polly is asking pertinent questions – here are some more.

        Where is the TBP Bank account held?
        Who are the Directors of the TBP?
        What happens to the substantial funds left in the account after the election and TBP folds?
        Why have they got off-shore accounts?

  72. IS you IS or IS you ain’t a terrorist?

    “As of Monday Turkish officials announced plans to begin sending hundreds of the some 1200 plus ISIS detainees and other jihadists it has in its custody back to Europe, saying Turkey “is not a hotel for jihadists” — to quote an Interior Ministry statement from last week.

    Turkey deported three foreign jihadists on Monday, with more than 20 Europeans including French and Germans in the process of being expelled to their countries of origin,” the AFP reported. This after Turkish officials have repeatedly lashed out at European capitals for refusing to repatriate their citizens caught fighting for ISIS.”

    1. “Country of Origin” and citizenship are not exactly the same thing in the case of many of these people.

    2. “French and Germans”???
      This is the new “gay” language, of reportage, where a word is used for something it patently is not.

      2. Well at least tie a lifejacket to the end of the rope, give him a chance.

        Sending him back to France is the best thing that could have happened.

    3. “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”

      The Bible [current King James Version] Proverbs 16:18.

      1. Maybe, but it’s causing a few problems with the carols though. The one with ‘deep and crisp and even’ has had to be shelved.

        2. Enough of this deal and crisp stuff – it wasn’t even, there was a drift across the driveway.

          As has been said, it is the fault of all of those shops selling Christmas stuff already, the weather fairies don know what the season is so they are responding with winter.

        3. Enough of this deal and crisp stuff – it wasn’t even, there was a drift across the driveway.

          As has been said, it is the fault of all of those shops selling Christmas stuff already, the weather fairies don know what the season is so they are responding with winter.

  76. Most odd; NOTTL replies made yesterday are just appearing in my in-box.
    Are GCHQ on to me? Have the CalBots taken against me? Do I blame sun spots?

    1. My notifications are taking several hours to come through today.

      On a happier note, my up-vote tally has been rising for the last 24 hours – perhaps the bot has been removed.

      1. Why do you bother to look at it? Does it really matter? People seem to get so upset when bots lower the total in some way. To me it looks a bit like teenagers seeing how many “friends” they can get on facebook – surely we are above that…

        1. I was rather enjoying it.

          That some spotty lefty thinks I’m worth bothering with amuses me.

          The bigger issue is that if they can alter insignificant matters like these, how long will it be before they can remove your words, or alter your words, or get you arrested for something you didn’t write?

        2. I was rather enjoying it.

          That some spotty lefty thinks I’m worth bothering with amuses me.

          The bigger issue is that if they can alter insignificant matters like these, how long will it be before they can remove your words, or alter your words, or get you arrested for something you didn’t write?

      2. The votes of several people have been going up for 3 days now. If, as quite a few suspect, it is just a staff member at Disqus doing it, and they have gone on holiday, then they will start falling again in either 4 or 11 days. Depending on if they have had 1 or 2 weeks off.

        He obviously forgot to leave a note telling his cover to run the program each day. It is a bit of a giveaway that it is a central person / people stripping the votes when several people’s counts “out here” all start rising at the same time. That absolutely suggests one list of names all being lowered by a single program, not multiple users targeting different people.

        1. If that’s the case, they should be able to trace the miscreant fairly easily – if they want to.

          1. peddy – LOL. It IS Disqus doing it on purpose themselves (almost certainly.) 🙂

            They are a shower of snowflakes who do not like people such as us who don’t worship at the altar of the left wing. They have been massively biased ever since I have discovered that this little system existed 2 years ago.

            Just like facebook, twitter, etc. Censorship of those with “right wing” views is very popular these days, as we know. I believe that BobofBonsall has been blocked from sending messages on twitter at times.

  77. The head of Britain’s “strictest school” has said that children are using the “race card” when in disputes with teachers.

    Katharine Birbalsingh, headteacher and founder of Michaela Community

    School in Brent, north west London, said that black pupils “have an

    extra card to play” when they are in trouble.

    She warned parents to take their children’s claims of “racism” with a pinch of salt if they are being disciplined at school.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/11/11/head-britains-strictest-school-says-children-using-race-card/
    Gettting practice in early??
    Article bravely not open for comment
    Edit
    Now imagine the shitstorm if a white headmistress dared speak the truth

  78. Kingston Primark guard forced child shoplifters into back-room sex abuse

    “A Primark security guard is facing jail for forcing teenage girls to perform sexual acts in return for not reporting their shoplifting. Zia Uddin, 27, raped one 15-year-old girl and pressured three others into sex acts after he caught them stealing from the clothing chain’s Kingston branch.”

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/kingston-primark-guard-forced-child-shoplifters-into-backroom-sex-abuse-a4284746.html

    1. Funny thing, I didn’t need to know his name or look at his photo ………
      I must be a racist …………

      1. What’s the term when you check against confirmation bias by independent confirmation, and end up confirming your confirmation bias?

      2. What’s the term when you check against confirmation bias by independent confirmation, and end up confirming your confirmation bias?

    2. A,
      There really should be a mandatory set
      compensation payment paid to these
      type chaps, save all the court time.

      1. The correct (and possibly most important) charge against the security guard should have been False Imprisonment.

        Prosecutors failed to send a clear message to other would-be assailants by failing to charge the perpetrator with a separate assault charge for False Imprisonment. The False Imprisonment directly led to “Unlawful wounding/inflicting grievous bodily harm (GBH) – s20 OAPA 1861”, and may have been racially/religiously motivated/aggravated under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998.

        https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/offences-against-person-incorporating-charging-standard

    3. A,
      There really should be a mandatory set
      compensation payment paid to these
      type chaps, save all the court time.

  79. Straight from the horses mouth:

    Boris Johnson’s deal is ‘mainly a copy’ of Theresa May’s, says Guy Verhofstadt
    James Crisp, Brussels Correspondent, reports:

    Boris Johnson’s new Brexit deal is basically the same as the agreement Theresa May struck with Brussels, Guy Verhofstadt has said.

    The European Parliament’s Brexit Coordinator said the deal made by Mr Johnson only differed in its treatment of the Irish border. Even that, Mr Verhofstadt claimed, was Brussels’ idea.

    “We have scrutinised the new agreement that has been reached,” he told MEPs in the European Parliament’s Constitutional Affairs Committee on Tuesday.

    “This Withdrawal Agreement is mainly a copy of the previous Withdrawal Agreement,” Mr Verhofstadt said.

    1. The EU seem quite happy to be open about the fact that it is the same trap that their own lawyers prepared for us. Possibly because they control the main media and you won’t see the BBC or Sky talking about the details of how critically bad this W/A is for our country.

      “”…this Tweet from the EU Commissioners, dated 19th October, 2019, proves that what the Tories are offering is not Brexit at all. It’s just BRINO Mk.II:

      “The revised protocol responds to the unique circumstances of the island of Ireland with the aim of protecting peace and stability. All other elements of the Withdrawal Agreement remain unchanged in substance, as per the agreement reached on 14th November, 2018.””

      1. The MSM spends all it’s time attacking Farage, rather than dissecting the deal which is 95% the same as May’s Awful Surrender Document.

        1. JK, with the MSM in the globalists’ corner, if Farage didn’t exist they would have to invent him. They need a bogeyman to use in their deflection technique that disguises the truth of what the PTB are up to with the EU.

          1. Greetings Korky,

            Or maybe Boris advanced an awful WA to generate much-needed opposition to it (to mobilize Brexiteers into voting), and he’ll pick the WA up again after the election, with major (EU-excluding) amendments.

          2. Who knows? Who knows anything nowadays? One can have no belief in serial liars, even if they tell the truth.

          3. Nice idea, agnosic. Better still, don’t pick it up, just tell the EU to stick it where the Sun doesn’t shine.

      2. The MSM spends all it’s time attacking Farage, rather than dissecting the deal which is 95% the same as May’s Awful Surrender Document.

    2. Verhofstadt is muddying waters. Treating the Irish border differently removes the EU from future Customs obstreperousness.

      (edited for manners: Greetings JK!).

      1. The “Irish backstop” problem was only “bolted on” to the EU’s enslavement deal at the last moment, specifically so that it could be changed again to show that the EU could be flexible. Now they are not even bothering with that charade. The EU must be confident that the trap will be sprung and the United Kingdom will be handed to them to asset strip just at the time when it approaches economic meltdown.

        Boris knows full well how bad this deal is and called it a t*rd and said it was dead. Only to present it here again as a “great new oven-ready deal.” Of course it is oven-ready as the EU prepared it a year ago. That is why they only needed to fiddle with the legal wording around Ireland. The rest of the deal is the same.

        1. Yes, the deal is oven ready and Johnson is happy to truss and sprinkle salt all over us on the way into the EU oven.

          1. Why have leading blayers in the ERG accepted and now promote Boris’s version of May’deal.? Why has Nigel Farage surrendered to Boris and given him a clear shot at getting Remain Conservatives re-elected. Something stinks.

      2. This non issue could have been solved instantly if May had said:

        “Fine, we will treat NI and Eire exactly as we do now. If you want to set up border controls that’s up to you. We won’t.”

        1. Allowing the EU to dictate the terms of the Irish Backstop gave Northern Ireland political influence way out of proportion to their actual population. Yes, NI is important. No, they don’t get to dictate Customs regulations for the entirety of the UK.

  80. Is it the lab/lib/con member / voters influence that makes these Isles ASK brussels what we must do ?
    Instead of TELLING THEM what we have done, as in
    ………………………….. LEFT.

    1. I know that it was a dreadful part of his life but I wish that the “Nick” episode could be erased from all Obits and assessments of his life and career.

      Yes, they should appear in Biographies, histories, reference books etc., but just for the celebrations of his life, on his death, cut them out.

  82. Skint Katie Price is begging for a PANTO role – and wants £1 million fee

    A source told The Sun Online: “She’s been telling her team and even pal Rylan (Clark) to land her a role in a panto.
    “She knows they can be big money for soap stars and celebs, and thinks she could land a £1m fee. She says she’s got the voice and loads of people would pay to see her be Cinderella.

    “The problem is, she’s got a reputation as being flaky and she’s not exactly a squeaky clean family friendly name anymore after the arrests and the drugs she’s admitted taking. She’s gutted she hasn’t landed a role this year.”

  83. Off topic, for the singers amongst you:


    Come and Sing ‘Creation’ – 23rd November, St Marylebone Church, London

    I’m looking forward to a fun sing of Haydn’s lovely Creation – plus one or two of my own little pieces. Don’t worry too much about the ‘training’, all are welcome, just come and enjoy it. JR

    https://johnrutter.com/

  85. Darlington tenant’s possessions ‘strewn across street’ after dispute

    A LANDLORD dispute led to a tenant’s possessions being dumped in the street in Darlington.
    Appalled residents contacted the town’s MP Jenny Chapman, and took photographs, after spotting the tenant’s personal possessions strewn across the street near Denmark Street, which is just off North Road and the A167.
    It is believed there was a dispute between a suspected rogue landlord and tenant which led to a potentially illegal eviction.
    It is understood that the landlord was eventually encouraged to clean up the mess himself after being spoken to by the council.

    Labour MP Ms Chapman said: “I was appalled when I saw what had happened. It is so wrong to have someone’s personal possessions strewn across the back lanes like this.
    “I contacted the council immediately as this looked to me like an illegal act.
    “The Council needs to take this issue very seriously, and if this is indeed the result of an illegal eviction, action should be taken. In any case, discarding someone’s entire life’s possessions in this way is cruel and unnecessary.

    “Landlords should never take action in to their own hands in this way.”

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/48239876a00efdb4cc38c9e05e968293a7874027324b57306db94110b1e4899c.jpg

    1. That’s what happens here if you don’t pay your rent. The local sheriff’s office will chuck the tenant and belongings out. A bit of a shock when you first see possessions on the roadside, but put that against the lack of ability in Britain to deal with non-paying and destructive tenants.

      1. “It is believed there was a dispute between a suspected rogue landlord and tenant which led to a potentially illegal eviction.”

        Without knowing the details it is hard to comment, although just throwing their possessions across the road like that does not make the landlord look like a moral human being.

        For all we know the landlord is one of many of a certain faith and he has just bought the house. He wants the rent-paying Christian out so that he can get 10 migrants on benefits in.

    2. This is Jersey, correct? Missing something: where’s the hole in the second-story window where the Porsche went in?

  86. Brexit Brexit Party Election Tour Venue

    Not sure what constituency Hainault coms under. My best guess is Epping Forest and that’s a strong conservative seat

    The Brexit Party Election Tour
    November 13 (02:00 pm)
    Gator ABC Boxing Club – Unit GX 11-17 Fowler Road Hainault , Ilford , IGU 3UJ

  87. have still not seen a single name for UKIP standing for election. WE should no on Saturday as all the names will be released then of all the candidates standing for all the parties

  89. I notice the Bbc News kept banging on about the causes of the current floodings being ‘lack of money’ coupled with climate change, but no mention of the main exacerbating factor, which is the EU Directive that prevent dredging of rivers.

    1. Overdevelopment of areas and not upgrading the drainage, Building on flood plains and building up river banks

      1. – So here we are with the flooding up North we are back to where we were at previous elections, one EU party blaming another EU party for a disaster that an EU directive is to blame for, this is the way we have been governed for 40 years or more, nothing has changed.

      2. – So here we are with the flooding up North we are back to where we were at previous elections, one EU party blaming another EU party for a disaster that an EU directive is to blame for, this is the way we have been governed for 40 years or more, nothing has changed.

      3. David Cameron, who visited the area earlier this month, has promised regular dredging will commence once flood water subsides.
        Speaking during his visit, he said: “The pause in dredging that took place in the late 90s – that was wrong.
        “We need to get dredging again and I have said when the water levels come down and it is safe to dredge we will be dredging to make sure that these rivers and ditches can carry a better capacity of water.

        “There are lessons to be learned and I will make sure they are learned.”

        Oh my aching sides.
        Bastárd.

    3. And when Owen Paterson, the Minister of the Environment at the time, pointed this out when the flooding of the Somerset Levels was at crisis levels Cameron sacked him to place Adultera Trussy-The-Hussy in his place.

    4. I’ve just read the EU Water Framework Directive on river basin management.

      The word flood appears 0 times.
      The word environment appears 30 times.

    1. This may well be the work of the cleaners (it was at the Forensic Science Service after there had been a cutback in cleaner hours).

    1. And why do you hate him? It is sad that you cannot unite behind a common goal – trying to secure a proper, clean Brexit.

      1. You’ve worked out that Johnson is a bad un. Now do the same for Farage, it won’t be difficult. I first realised in 2015 when he took himself off to GCHQ.

      2. Evening R,
        We as a party won the eu elections, designed & activated the referendum, that was taken out of our hands and totally screwed up by the lab/lib/con pro eu coalition party, current members / voters.
        The farage condemned himself
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fc7iuUHk3Yk
        After stabbing 30000 plus in the back, there is 30000 good reasons right there not to trust him and most definitely to dislike him.
        We in the party have been trying for 28 years to break out
        NOT the last three years ongoing on account of a major
        treacherous screw up.
        The “nige ” has form.

          1. I’m still waiting for someone to give me a plausible reason for why he took it upon himself to concede defeat then delivered his victory speech in the same level of passionlessness.

          2. “…The MEP, who also hinted he will attempt to make his eighth bid for a seat in parliament despite seven unsuccessful runs,..”

            Er, hmm, Graudian, wake up, he’s already said he isn’t standing for election.

            Another great example of ‘fake’ news.

        2. The Nigel Farage led UKIP harried the Cameron led Tories into designing and activating the referendum / Brexit.

          3. Yes, the Cameron-Farage Referendum Pact which neither expected would end up in the UK voting out.

    2. Well said, Girl. Yes, it IS the left that causes the racial tension – they don’t yet realise that playing the racist card means that they have a busted flush.

    1. What the hull is it about Welsh Conservatives?
      Have Brecon and Radnorshire Tories picked their dead cert loser winner yet?

  94. Anyone know how many “guest’s have taken up welfare
    since the 29th March, how much have we paid
    the Mafia ? how many are we going to take in while we are in purgatory? how much are we going to continue to pay to the Mafia ?
    How many mosque have been built ? will the “guest’s”
    shortly have their own political parties ?
    Will the original English be able to stay in their own homes when the take over is complete …… shortly ?

  95. From the DT:
    “Do no Evil”

    Google has been collecting the personal healthcare information of millions of Americans in a previously unknown scheme called Project Nightingale.

    The technology giant teamed up with Ascension, the second largest healthcare provider in the United States, and has been gathering the data of patients in 21 states since last year.
    It appeared to be the most aggressive move yet by a technology company to move into the healthcare industry, raising privacy concerns about how the data would be handled.
    Patients and doctors were not told their data was being passed on, and at least 150 Google employees have access to it, the Wall Street Journal reported.
    The information reportedly included patients’ names, addresses, dates of birth, medical diagnoses, lab results, medications prescribed, and hospitalisation records.

    1. Normally I am very anti US style punitive damages, but a few class action lawsuits and a massacre of these tech-no-goodforus virtue signalling, censorus, companies might send out a salutory message.

        1. In the USA that only applies until a lawyer challenges it and gets lucky. Look at SCJ Ginsburg’s career.

  96. Jeremy Corbyn accuses Tory Government of ‘woeful’ response to flooding in northern England

    It is very limited what can be done until the waters recedes

    1. Leave the EU, so we can ignore their short-sighted Directives that mean rivers can’t be dredged. Oh, and stop building on floodplains and concreting over the land to accommodate millions of newcomers.

    1. Well, i hope that helps. Most of the Welsh i have met have been resentful or good in bed…probably trying to prove a point.

  99. Tory spending manifesto for leaving the EU whilst remaining in Europe:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/72f8431f30276ed4f42b96b9097744f43bec3a60d0e235e214b51688b07a63da.gif

    Labour spending manifesto for not doing either but having a good time:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/021f6debaa3f623bbfae9bd32e031367cca9fb744ca13b28602bc8ebdc9930a4.gif

    Green spending manifesto for saving the planet whilst all other nations have a good time:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e487dc6a47141274bd0040d97e0cdc69c4c3bb862a0593648f089be18113978d.gif

    2. Well it is physically impossible for us to leave Europe as that is where the UK is geographically located

  100. Don’t Sweat U.S. Presidential Vote, Russia Says It’s on the Case. November 12, 2019.

    With Donald Trump facing the threat of impeachment and a field of Democratic contenders that’s still larger than a soccer team, the contest for the 2020 presidential elections remains wildly unpredictable for U.S. voters. But help from Russia may be at hand.

    “We will resolve the problem, don’t worry,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov joked at a Paris peace forum on Tuesday, prompting laughter from the audience, after the moderator had asked him how Moscow was getting ready for the elections that are now less than a year away.

    Good job the Russians still have a sense of humour; it’s dead pretty well everywhere else!

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-12/don-t-sweat-u-s-presidential-vote-russia-says-it-s-on-the-case

    1. Islamic Jihad -List of attacks

      August 1987: The PIJ claimed responsibility for a shooting that killed the commander of the Israeli military police in the Gaza Strip.[2]
      July 1989: Attack of Egged bus 405 along the Jerusalem–Tel Aviv highway,
      at least 14 people killed (including two Canadians and one American)
      and dozens more wounded. Though intended to be a suicide attack, the
      perpetrator survived.[42]
      4 February 1990: A bus carrying Israeli tourists in Egypt was
      attacked. The attack left 11 people, including 9 Israelis dead and 17
      others injured.[43]
      February 1992: in Night of the Pitchforks, killed three Israeli soldiers asleep in their base, using knives, axes and a pitchfork
      December 1993: Killed an Israeli reservist, David Mashrati, during a public bus shooting.
      April 1994: A car bomb aboard a public bus killed 9 people and injured 50.
      January 1995: Bomb attack near Netanya killing eighteen soldiers and one civilian.[22]
      April 1995: Bomb Attack in Netzarim and Kfar Darom. The first bomb killed 8 people including American student, Alisa Flatow, and injured over 30 on an Israel bus; the second attack was a car bomb that injured 12 people.
      March 1996: A Tel Aviv shopping mall is the site of another bombing killing 20 and injuring 75.
      November 2000: A car bomb in Jerusalem at an outdoor market killed 2 people and injured 10.[44]
      March 2002: A bomb killed seven people and injured approximately thirty aboard a bus travelling from Tel Aviv to Nazareth.[44]
      June 2002: Eighteen people are killed and fifty injured in an attack at the Megiddo Junction.[22]
      July 2002: A double attack in Tel Aviv killed five people and injured 40.
      November 2002: 12 soldiers and security personnel killed in an ambush in Hebron.[45]
      May 2003: Three people killed and eighty-three injured in a suicide bombing at a shopping mall in Afula.
      August 2003: A bomber killed 21 people and injured more than 100 people on a bus in Jerusalem.[44]
      October 2003: A bomb killed 22 and injured 60 at a Haifa restaurant.
      October 2005: A bomb detonated in a Hadera market was responsible for killing seven people and injuring 55, five of them severely.
      April 2006: A bomb in a Tel Aviv eatery killed eleven and injured 70.
      January 2007: Both the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades and the PIJ claim responsibility for a suicide bombing at an Eilat bakery that killed three

  104. Good night from a Saxon Queen with a long Bow and axe .
    I’ve just tasted betrayal and treachery .

  106. Who is organizing and/or funding the Remain Alliance ?

    How the coincidences just keep rolling in !

    From this extraordinary story………….

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5402339/Tony-Blair-links-George-Soros.html

    To this alleged ”pulling strings” scenario………………

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/09/10/tony-blair-peter-mandelson-pulling-strings-remain-alliance

    and then that well known name just happens to pop up in this entirely random house buying spree………………

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/7883304/The-mystery-of-Lord-Mandelsons-finances.html

    Still, it’s all just innocent coincidences of course !

    Isn’t it ?

  107. New fencing installed after 16-year-old boy hit by train takes his own life

    Must have been terrible for the driver as he saw the boy on the track but in spite of applying the emergency brakes could not stop in time

    A 16-year-old boy left a heartbreaking note to his family before he was killed by a train.
    Oliver James, 16, was pronounced dead at the scene when he took his own life near Elstree & Borehamwood station on May 1 last year.

    The Borehamwood teen was seen on the tracks, but sadly the driver was unable to stop the train in time.

    2. What a misleading headline. It implies he was hit by a train, and then killed himself.

  108. What Hillary Clinton doesn’t understand about Brexit
    Brendan O’Neill – Coffee House – 12 November 2019 – 4:49 PM

    Is anyone else watching Hillary Clinton’s whirlwind trip to the UK and thinking to themselves: ‘Thank God she didn’t become president?’

    All her worst traits have been on display. Her arrogance. Her penchant for lecturing foreign countries (in this case ours). Her harebrained conspiracy theories. Her belief that loads of people are racists — or ‘deplorables’, as she once put it. Can’t we organise a protest or something? I’ll make the placards. ‘GO HOME, HILLARY.’

    She’s here with her daughter Chelsea — the dictionary should replace its definition of the word nepotism with just a photograph of Chelsea Clinton — to promote their book, The Book of Gutsy Women.

    That’s clearly how Hillary and Chelsea see themselves. As gutsy women. I guess it does take a great deal of courage to live in vast mansions and earn £190k ($250k) for a speech to filthy-rich bankers about diversity or whatever. I wonder if the numerous women adversely affected (to put it politely) by the various Hillary-cheered wars in the Middle East think the Clintons are gutsy? Someone should ask them.

    From the moment she arrived, Hillary has been insulting Britain and its people. She’s called into question the wisdom of our democratic vote to leave the EU. She is ‘concerned’ about where the the UK is heading. You shouldn’t ‘separate yourself from Europe’, she said. ‘Democracies need to stick together.’

    We’re not separating ourselves from Europe, Hillary. We’re separating ourselves from the EU. Europe is a vast continent that has existed for aeons; the EU is a bloated, bureaucratic nightmare that has only existed, in its current form, since 1993. We’ll be fine.

    Also, speaking of ‘democracies’ — we voted to leave, and that’s why we’re leaving. That’s how democracy works: you lost the 2016 presidential election and your Euro-chums lost the 2016 EU referendum.

    Warming to her theme that Britain is in a dark place right now, Hillary called on the government to release the report about alleged Russian interference in UK politics.

    This is the unpublished intelligence analysis that has caused a frenzy of whispers and rumours among Remainers and leftists who are increasingly convinced, a la Joseph McCarthy, that Russians are hiding in plain sight in the UK and are puppeteering our politicians. We’re ruled by the Kremlin Konservative party, these mad chattering-class conspiracy theorists claim.

    Hillary has never seen an anti-Russian conspiracy theory she didn’t love, so it’s no surprise that she has leapt upon this story. It is ‘inexplicable and shameful’ that the government hasn’t released the report, she says. Apparently ‘there is a lot of evidence’ that Russia played a role in the vote for Brexit.

    Oh, really? Where? Of course she is saying the same — still — about Donald Trump’s victory. She’s still banging that tattered drum. She told the Today programme that she ‘has no doubt of the role that Russia played’ in the US elections.

    Even though the Mueller report found little evidence for that. Even though many of the Russian bots stories have been exaggerated. For Hillary and other members and supporters of the old, exhausted liberal elite, Russia has become the explanation for everything that doesn’t go their way.

    Hillary can’t accept that many people just didn’t want to vote for her, just as some hardcore Remainers can’t accept they lost the referendum fair and square. And so like modern-day McCarthyites they weave increasingly mad tales about the Kremlin polluting American and British people’s minds and reducing us to the unwitting playthings of the Putin regime.

    It’s insane. It brings to mind a line from a very good Matt Taibbi piece in Rolling Stone on Hillary’s never ending Russia obsession: ‘Hillary Clinton is nuts.’

    Anti-Russian hysteria is the comfort blanket liberal-elite losers on both sides of the Atlantic wrap around themselves to avoid having to confront the question of why they are so unpopular with vast swathes of the public.

    And Hillary still wasn’t done. She then had a pop at our press and at social-media users for their supposedly racist and sexist treatment of Meghan Markle.

    She says there is ‘absolutely’ a racist element to the criticisms of the duchess. It is ‘heartbreaking and wrong’, she says. All Meghan did was fall in love with Harry, and him with her and you dim Brits ‘should be celebrating that’.

    Erm, we did. There were big celebrations when they got married. Everyone liked her. Until she started spouting woke nonsense and banging on about climate change in between taking private-jet trips to the South of France. I hate to break it to you, Hillary, but Brits don’t take kindly to being lectured by PC Americans.

    So we aren’t racist. We aren’t deplorable. We aren’t the mental slaves of the new Russian empire. We’ve just had enough of out-of-touch elites looking down on us. And in that spirit: please go home, Hillary.

    ********************************************************************

    BTL:

    Here be Bod • 2 hours ago • edited
    Why is this absolutely repellent human being still getting publicity in the UK?

    Yet another reason to dismantle the BBC completely.

    Norwich Tory • 2 hours ago
    And their book about Gutsy Women evidently omits Margaret Thatcher because she didn’t knock down barriers for others.

    1. What amuses me is that normally the very left of centre Democratic Party in the USA would be Russia’s natural allies, why on Earth would Russia want Trump when a Putincócksucker of a Clinton was available?

      1. I apologise to Hillary.

        I should have written Putinknobgobbler, it’s not quite so “in your face” as Bill was, is it, Hillary?

        1. Luckily, Bill’s criteria for women was “anything in a skirt” (or even a wide-hipped trouser-suit).

      2. The Democratic party on the average is not that leftwing. Not much further (if any) left than much of the British Conservative party. There is a left wing to the party who would fit right in with Brit politics – in favour of a evils like an NHS, higher taxes on the rich, etc., but they are not that widely supported. And the party elders know that a left wing presidential candidate won’t get elected. Bill Clinton was definitely a centrist who happily worked with a Republican congress. Hilary is still trying to make it out of Bill’s shadow – and failing miserably. Plus still very bitter about not being the first woman president.

        Long term is a different story. The demographics show the whole country moving more toward the left – more in line with other Western countries in general, due to the effects of immigration and education. Trump’s “hard core” supporters for example, can be categorized as angry white men, mostly with no college level education. In other words, a group in the US workforce for whom there is not a lot of future as more and more jobs fall to various forms of automation/AI. And the low level, low pay jobs are where the South of the Border immigrants dominate. Like Britain, our college grads tend to be more lefty than their parents – although mostly still with a serious work ethic I have to say. They need that, as benefits are much, much harder to obtain. For example, the only way to get unemployment payments (which are for a maximum of 6 months) is to be fired from a job. You just quit and you are on your own.

        Angela M. once said that if Germans had to live with US levels of benefits, there would be a revolution. Lord knows what would happen if Brits had to face a “US reality” in that department.

  109. 700.000 homeless in Germany

    Germany as gone from housing supply being reasonable to having a major shortage . Germany now has 20,000 food banks about the same number as in the UK

      1. Politicians and Economists always try to claim a country is different to a large business but other than the fact that countries can print money and run up unlimited amounts of debt they are the same. If we have no control over the numbers coming in we cannot manage the country

      1. Why wouldn’t they, there is no means test and they can save their bennies for better phones, drugs, ciggies and booze?

        What’s not to like in our stupid welfare culture?

Comments are closed.