Wednesday 13 July: Conservative leadership candidates promise tax cuts we’ll have to pay for through inflation

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its comments facility (now reinstated, but we prefer ours),
Intelligent, polite, good-humoured debate is welcome, whether on or off topic. Differing opinions are encouraged, but rudeness or personal attacks on other posters will not be tolerated. Posts which – in the opinion of the moderators – make this a less than cordial environment, are likely to be removed, without prior warning.  Persistent offenders will be banned.

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

638 thoughts on “Wednesday 13 July: Conservative leadership candidates promise tax cuts we’ll have to pay for through inflation”

  1. An early good morning to all. Up to pump bilges an hour ago, tossed and turned for half an hour, so just had 10 minutes in a cold bath!
    12½°C with a starry sky outside and a hot day forecast.

    2. In addition, a letter I liked today:

      “ Dame Sara Thornton, the former anti-slavery commissioner, said on the Today programme yesterday that “child exploitation is common” when discussing Sir Mo Farah’s trafficking as a nine-year-old boy (report, July 12).

      What does it say about us as a nation that more energy is spent trying to rectify historical misdemeanours over which we have no control and toppling statues than on stamping out this crime?”

      Meanwhile, Al-Beeb is concentrating on playing “gotcha” with the SAS. You couldn’t make it up.

  6. I’ll run the economy like Thatcher if I win Tory leadership. 13 July 2022.

    Rishi Sunak has vowed to run the economy like Margaret Thatcher if he becomes the next prime minister, telling Tory leadership rivals: “You have to earn what you spend.”

    Speaking to The Telegraph in his first campaign interview, the former chancellor likened Baroness Thatcher’s upbringing above her father’s grocery shop to his childhood helping in his mother’s pharmacy.

    Where has this sudden enthusiasm for Mrs Thatcher and Tax Cuts emerged from? This is the man who increased National Insurance. Who raised tax levels to previously undreamed of heights. He’s not alone either. They are all at it!

    The answer of course lies in the parlous state of the UK. A country on the edge of Societal Collapse. A Civil Service that is neither. A Health Service that cannot heal itself. The breakdown of Law and Order. Immigration that is fast approaching crisis levels. A rising Cost of Living that will soon be too much for anyone of moderate means. Who would want to talk about this let alone deal with it? Better by far to mouth humbugs and nonsense.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/07/12/rishi-sunak-exclusive-run-economy-like-thatcher-win-tory-leadership/

    1. Corporation Tax will rise from 19% to 25% next year – this is an effective rise of over 30%.

      Are there any pro-business leadership candidates who will commit themselves immediately to not going ahead with this absurd tax rise?

    2. 354225+ up ticks,

      Morning AS,
      They talk a good fight with actions never to be realised.
      Fodder for fools eagerly
      swallowed, no mass opposition build, the only mass we, the decent receive is in unacceptable
      commodities as illegal immigration / paedophilia,
      knifings / killings.
      The majority voter will shuffle to the polling station & once gain shuffle the same odious political deck, mass hoping something acceptable WILL turn up THIS TIME.
      In reality putting kids and the elderly innocents back in the firing line once more,
      Supporting party’s that no longer exist in genuine forms but as ersatz political dangerous facades.

      A very nasty plague of politico’s that need sorting
      in a very indigenous Anglo Saxon manner as in A BOOT UP THE ARSE.

    3. Both MT’s parents ran the one shop.
      Sunak’s father was a GP. His mother ran a pharmacy. Two good incomes rather than the one.

      1. …and Sunak’s wife regards India as her home – not UK.

        Are we going to have another harridan wife dictating policy?

    1. That sounds about right.
      And once more “it’s been the hotest day of the year”.
      Well somewhere else in the UK.

  8. Today’s leading letter:

    SIR – The first political event I remember as I grew up was the 1959 election, when Labour candidates were asked how they would pay for their proposals. They replied that it would come from economic growth.

    Now, 63 years later, candidates in the Conservative leadership election are calling for tax cuts, not noticeably for spending cuts. Asked how they would pay for this, they reply that it would come from economic growth.

    Supposing whoever is elected does cut taxes, it is almost certain how they will really pay for it: pseudo-borrowing as in 2019 and 2020, in which the Bank of England prints the money and “lends” it to the government.

    You would have thought some remnants of 1980s monetarism would remain in the Conservative Party, but instead tax-cutting is still the obsession. Inflation is dismissed as a wage-price spiral, though this couldn’t even take place unless money in circulation was increased to allow everyone to earn more and spend more.

    There are always politicians with the top-job glint in their eyes who will tell the people with the votes what they want to hear. But you might have hoped that what they want to hear would have moved on since the 1950s.

    Roger Schafir
    London N21

    What we want to hear is the truth…fat chance!

  9. SIR – Candidates should be asked: “When will you deliver the sovereignty for which the nation voted?”

    Paul Richardson
    Elsham, Lincolnshire

    That’s more like it, Mr Richardson.

  10. SIR – We currently have a food and energy famine, not a “cost of living crisis” (report, July 12).

    One reason for the food famine is the blockade of grain exports from Ukraine by mines and Russian attacks. The recovery of Snake Island reduces the risk of Russian attacks. The other problem is reminiscent of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, when tankers risked hitting mines in the Strait of Hormuz, a major waterway for world oil supplies. Minesweepers were dispatched by the West, and the crisis was averted.

    It is impossible to dispatch minesweepers today because Turkey will not permit the transit of warships through the Bosporus. The alternative is to adapt cargo ships to withstand mine explosions. This is not as fanciful as it might appear. In the 1950s, the US navy modified 10 Liberty ships, which it maintained in the post-war period.

    Jeff Crook
    Member, Institute of Marine Engineers
    Croydon, Surrey

    That’s an interesting suggestion, although I wonder whether today’s mines are more destructive than those in the 80s?

    1. One reason for the food famine is the blockade of grain exports from Ukraine by mines and Russian attacks.

      There is as yet no “food famine” Mr Crook. It is an invention for the purposes of anti-Russian propaganda!

    2. One reason for the food famine is the blockade of grain exports from Ukraine by mines and Russian attacks.

      There is as yet no “food famine” Mr Crook. It is an invention for the purposes of anti-Russian propaganda!

    4. The Russians sail through the Bosporus as the Black Sea fleet has no other way to access the oceans.

  11. SIR – In Lincolnshire about 30 years ago, our milk was delivered in blue plastic bags that could be put straight into the freezer (report, July 11) or a plastic jug, which we were also given. We then simply cut the corner off the bag – there was no need for a bottle or other container. Surely this would be a good model for today’s dairies to copy.

    Beverley Purver
    Coalville, Leicestershire

    No, no, no Beverley Purver; these days plastic is the devil incarnate!!

    1. It’s an even older idea.
      In 1967 I went to stay with an Artillery Unit in Celle, Germany with the Army Cadets and was surprised to see that was how milk arrived in the cookhouse over there.

          1. We had a relative in Cowes IOW who ran his own dairy farm and delivery.
            Unbelievable hard work. 24/7/365

      2. I remember them well. When the milk machine ran out, we would ask the chef for another udder!

  13. SIR – One has to assume that no one at the Met Office forecasting an unprecedented heatwave (report, July 12) was around in 1976.

    In June and July of that year, there were 16 consecutive days of over 30C (86F) and five days of temperatures in excess of 35C (95F), with July 3 attaining 36C (96.8F) in Cheltenham.

    We all went to work every day, although we men were permitted to dispense with ties.

    Variations of “Phew, what a scorcher” headlines were not uncommon.

    David Bell
    Knowl Hill, Berkshire

    And inflation was rampant. However, the nanny state was in its infancy so as far as possible it was ‘business as usual’. The recent programme about the Summer of ’76 brought it all back, standpipes and all…

  14. SIR – During this extreme weather, ultraviolet levels are dangerously high and we are advised to stay indoors, especially between 10am and 3pm.

    Why then are tennis and cricket players, and spectators, exposed for hours? Heatstroke or sunburn may be short-term, but long-term problems can include skin cancer.

    John Roberts
    Wokingham, Berkshire

    …not to mention frequent visits from Betty Swollox!

  15. A second good morning to all. Still 12½°C outside with a mackerel sky. A hot day is again forecast.

  16. The campaign for the new PM is like watching a never ending edition of D lister celebrity Pointless.

    1. Whether you are referring to the weather or current affairs, yes, agreed.

  18. Morning all 😃
    Good job it’s not Friday.
    How is anyone expected to believe anything that any of these prospective replacements for Bore-us are telling us ? Promises Promises. Where have we heard that before ?
    At least the grocer’s daughter had a bit of perspective.

  19. 36°C in the shade again yesterday. I nearly had to remove my jumper when I went to the greenhouse to water some plants, I have switched off the electric blanket though – I had forgotten that it was still on.

    1. This is so typical of our country and those who purport to be in charge.
      They are absolutely ‘king useless at the jobs they have been entrusted to do.
      And as each day passes a few hundred more potential candidates of the afore mentioned in the article, arrive on our shores to plant their feet firmly on the ground and grind our culture and history into the dust.
      Deep Shame on our politicians and civil service.

  22. A BTL Comment:-

    Martin Selves
    14 MIN AGO
    Grant Shapps is saying leaving the ECHR is not a priority, and he does not think Sunak thinks any different. Burley is wading in, and we know what side she is on, but the ECHR is a major drag on this Country, and like the NI protocol is not in our interest to follow it to the letter.
    It needs to be redacted, or the procedures within it that stop our Independent action (Rwanda for example) must be redacted.
    This is important Mr Shapps, and just because you don’t think it is, doesn’t change the fact the Country rejects it. The Commonwealth, the entire Americas are not in it, and they do not miss the intervention of invisible Judge in Brussels many of whom are not Judge at all, but wield huge power on nation states. I think the ECHR is basically anti democratic in its operation and construction. Their must be no acceptance of invisibility. It is outrageous. Only REAL Judges should sit.

    Many people decry the calls for Britain’s withdrawal from the ECHR with the fact that it is not an EU institution, being set up in the aftermath of WW2 when the EU was but a twinkle in the eye of the founders of the European Coal and Steel Community.
    What they fail to recognise however is that, over the decades, there has been an almost total take over of the ECHR by EU Apparatchiks.

    1. I’ve been advocating a total break with the ECHR for a long time, together with repealing the Human Rights Act and thus taking the carpet out from under the lawyers, who climb on the legal aid bandwagon to assist criminal, illegal immigrants to resist deportation.

    2. I always find it difficult to get my head around the benefits of being a British politician. Shapps was housing minister since he’s moved on the building of new homes has accelerated beyond belief.
      Although he represents Welwyn and Hatfield he lives in what I expect is a multi million pound detached house in Brrookmans Park. As politicians actually earn less than a train driver who are currently striking because they are struggling with financial difficulties.
      As for instance our middle son earns as much if not more than a politician PA, but less than a train driver. And does not or more to the point can’t remotely afford a let’s say 2.5 million pound house and land. Where did it all go wrong, how has this actually occurred ?
      Answers on the proverbial post card.

      1. Expenses, expenses, expenses. Subsidised food, subsidised drink, allowances for second homes, payment from you and me for almost everything!

        1. Its totally Outrageous in reality.
          Whilst probably 90 percent of the elderly are suffering hardships.
          In the meantime people who work or have done in transport usually have a pass that means they can travel for free.
          90 grand a year and able to travel from lands end to
          Mallaig for nothing ?
          Can’t be bad.

        2. I didn’t include any of the 132 millions in expenses shared between them last year.

  24. A month ago, the MR and I went to the sarf of France. There the day temps were about 34ºC. No none told us that we were in great danger of sudden death – just told us to make the most of it. And apply sun block. The Wet Office is signalling grave danger approaching with temps as high as 28ºC.

    Where we were, the damned SEA was 24ºC. No one warned us we might boil to death. The only warning was about jelly-fish.

        1. Looking at that line-up of potential Tory leaders scares the living daylights out of me!

  25. As my DT Subscription has expired, can someone look up Whipping boy’s contribution and comment that pushing of “Racial Awareness” is to actually create racism and exacerbate what little remains?

    Whipping boy
    18 MIN AGO
    There was a time when I would never have considered myself as racist. It’s really an appalling admission, but I fear that events and circumstances have severely affected my reasoning. Our TV screens are infested with all things black, to the point where I feel marginalised. Just why is the desire to feature black people so disproportionately distorted? The failure to address serious crime committed by black people implicates successive governments, councils and the police. I now view this as sinister. And how long will it be before the tail that currently wags the dog, becomes the dog?

    1. ? Maybe this (on Telford):

      “M ORE than a thousand girls were sexually abused by gangs of Asian men in Telford while police dropped cases like a “hot potato” for fear of inflaming racial tensions, a report has found.
      For at least 30 years, abusers in the Shropshire town “thrived” as their appalling crimes went unchecked by the authorities who were more concerned about political correctness.
      An investigation accused those charged with protecting children of repeatedly “ignoring obvious signs of child sexual exploitation”.
      The results of the inquiry, commissioned in 2018, laid bare how vulnerable children were targeted by men – often taxi drivers – who bought them alcohol and cigarettes to convince them they were in loving relationships.
      After “brainwashing them” they abused and raped them, issuing death threats if they threatened to tell anyone.
      Witnesses told an inquiry that West Mercia Police appeared “frightened to question or challenge because they didn’t want to have the finger pointed at them, saying they were being racist”.
      The report’s authors said the force’s decisions were affected by “fear of complaint” or “because of concern about the impact… on racial tensions”.
      The report also criticised the council’s decision in 2006 to suspend taxi-licensing enforcement, which was also “born entirely out of fear of accusations of racism”. Some children were blamed for the abuse and accused of being prostitutes and the authorities’ inaction emboldened the perpetrators, the report concluded. Seven men were jailed in 2013 after an investigation.”

      1. Continued/

        “ Tom Crowther QC, who chaired the inquiry, said: “Children were sexually assaulted and raped. They were humiliated and degraded. They were shared and trafficked. They were subjected to violence and their families were threatened. They lived in fear and their lives were forever changed.”
        The council and the police have apologised to the children affected.
        AS FAR back as the 1970s vulnerable girls living in the Shropshire town of Telford were easy prey for gangs of largely Asian men, who groomed, exploited, raped and in some cases even killed them.
        Operating in plain sight, the exploiters were emboldened by the fact police and the local authority seemed uninterested in investigating the crimes.
        More concerned about not inflaming racial tensions than protecting children, West Mercia Police repeatedly failed to listen to the victims or challenge the perpetrators, a report has suggested.”

        1. Continued/

          “ In some cases officials blamed the girls for the abuse – accusing them of being child prostitutes.
          It is estimated that more than 1,000 children fell victim to the abusers, while only a handful of men were ever brought to justice. Coming after the child abuse scandals in Rotherham, Rochdale and Oxford, a report published yesterday laid bare the scale of the failures.
          Men would deliberately seek out vulnerable children and would quickly win them round by offering them lifts or by buying them alcohol and cigarettes.
          The local taxi industry in the town, largely operated by Asian men, played a pivotal role in the abuse.
          The report detailed “numerous accounts of children being subjected to unwanted sexual attention in taxis, which led in some cases to rape or other serious sexual assault by the driver”.
          The report also found that taxi drivers had worked together to dupe girls.
          “Asian men will pick up a girl in a taxi when drunk, stop at a shop, supposedly to buy a drink, and then drive off, leaving the girl abandoned,” one witness told the inquiry.
          “He will then call other men, one of whom will pick the girl up, thereby ‘rescuing’ her, with the others driving to a pre-arranged location in readiness for the second taxi to bring the girl there in order that all the men can rape her.”
          Fast food outlets in the area were also a gateway for abuse. Upstairs rooms at takeaways were used “for committing serious sexual assaults” and girls were given weekend jobs and then taken upstairs to be raped.”

          1. Continued/
            “ The abusers would convince the girls they were their boyfriends and despite the often vast age difference would force them to engage in sexual activity.
            Most abusers would not use contraception and many of the girls became pregnant. Some were encouraged to have terminations but others did go on to bear their abusers’ children.
            In one such case a girl called Lucy Lowe was targeted by Azhar Ali Mehmood, a taxi driver, when she was 12. She gave birth to her first daughter when she was 14 and was pregnant with her second child in 2000 when Mehmood, 26, poured petrol into her home and set it alight, killing her and two other members of her family.
            He was jailed for life in 2001 but despite the shocking details of the case, little was done at the time to investigate whether such sexual exploitation was evident elsewhere in Telford. Tom Crowther QC, who led the inquiry, said: “The nature of the crimes often involved brainwashing young people into believing they were in meaningful, loving and reciprocal relationships, even if such apparent reciprocity involved them engaging in things that deep down they knew they did not want to do. Although some children spoke to professionals about their situations, for some time those professionals failed to understand that these ‘relationships’ were exploitative.”
            When the authorities did investigate allegations of exploitative relationships, they failed to focus on the role of Asian men because there were “too politically correct”, the report said.
            Last night West Mercia Police apologised to all the victims of the abuse. Asst Chief Con Richard Cooper said: “Our actions fell far short of the help and protection you should have had from us, it was unacceptable, we let you down.”
            End.

          2. Police have apologised. So that’s all right then. No need for any action against the police, social services, Council officers or even the customers of the repellent pimps.

          5. It’s their culture. In the West, Christian mothers brought up their sons to respect and protect the female sex. In the lands of Islam…

          6. They’re not *in* their culture. When we didn’t demand and force integration, we permitted them to behave as if nothing had changed.

          7. Yes. A street or two in Bradford forty years ago, men in pyjamas and shop signs in Arabic. Now, well, it’s not looking good for the natives.

          10. It seems a good question to ask the current Attorney General and Home Secretary what they are going to do about this. Who will they order to be prosecuted, not only the perpetrators of the abuse but the current and former police, CPS lawyers and council officials who allowed this abuse to continue unabated.
            Then round up all the perpetrators and deport them back to Pakistan. If they want to challenge that they can do it from Pakiland at their own expense. Oh yes, and all their families go with them, 1st, 2nd and 3rd generation.
            Clear the swamp.

          11. Of course the elephant in the room is it’s not just Telford. You can add two dozen other towns to the list.

          12. Agreed. It would be lovely to see these questions asked during current leadership contest.

          13. Yes, sadly, it’s many different towns. Where ever muslims go, there’s a problem.

          14. Which is why we don’t understand why the Government is so keen to import more of them

          15. Problem is, where before these scum would have been beaten to death, there are so many muslims in our prisons that it doesn’t happen any more. Welfare dependency, prisons and councils. All rancid sewers.

          16. And … of course, their families knew nothing about it.
            The women were glad to be freed of sexual duties and constant pregnancies.
            The men didn’t realise there was any other way to behave.

      2. Yes, yes, yes, we know most of this. But who, among the “authorities”, has faced or will face prosecution? ABSOLUTELY NO-ONE.

      3. Not Asian men, my Japanese chum complains. Pakistani Muslims.

        Justice is blind, West Mercia. Law applies equally. If you happen to find one demographic mechanically raping children then you have to arrest and charge that demographic – regardless.

  26. The BBC has reported that Sir Mo Farrah is overwhelmed by the arse licking adulation – mainly from the BBC – he has received since revealing he was, and is, a consummate liar and an illegal immigrant. The Home Secretary, Pritiawful Patel, said no action would be taken – the entire staff at the Home Office shook their bongos in agreement. Fo Marrah is currently being interviewed on BBC Radio 4 for the fourth time this morning.

    1. Unfortunately, we have no choice in the matter otherwise it might be “None of the Above”. I’ve read Tory policy leaflets. I do not remember reading about “Net Zero”.

      1. 354225+ up ticks,

        Morning HP,
        There is always a choice, another option, or has it become mandatory to
        restrict the voting choice to only the lab/lib/con close shop ?
        Boycott is a choice, mass building on an existing fringe party is another option
        The referendum showed that people power works.

        tory ( ino) covert policy’s you will not read about either as in mass uncontrolled immigration (ongoing)
        Mass paedophilia (ongoing) mass,mass,mass tag on many odious issues.

        When was it made mandatory to accept the “no other choice” concept.

        1. I was really referring to the narrow issue of the PM election. On the broader issues you are right. However, it takes many years of plugging away by political groups to reach a position of influence or power. The SNP government was 100 years in the making. Labour fifty years? despite having a country of workers looking for better things.

          1. 354225+ up ticks,

            Afternoon HP,
            In war time with peoples getting
            injured / killed on a daily basis,
            important issues can receive express treatment, for instance, Tommy Robinsons feet NOT touching Mother Earth for honest speak/ actions.

            Mass return of party cards could be done on the 14 / 7 / 2022 there is a good start followed by mass membership taken up of a fringe party
            once agreed on.

            Otherwise the member / voter peoples must be prepared to suffer , they cannot have freedom of expression
            integrity / decency and vote lab/lib/con it has proven time & time again NOT possibly.

    2. Of course they will. Why did people think otherwise? The green twaddle is a religion. It is the latest tax cow to soak the tax payer. No outcomes, no results, no practical achievements just waste. It is the bureaucrats dream.

    3. ‘Net Zero’ or any description of efforts to reduce the percentage of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the WEF’s second string on their bow being used to recreate serfdom. It is another scam to create fear in people and make those people easy to manipulate and eventually accept their fate: “For the good of the Planet,” of course.
      In fact, it’s for the good of a few select ‘elites’ who feel that they, and only they, are fit to rule over the World. The very idea that the politicians in the many governments doing the ‘elites” bidding will share in the utopia being prepared, is laughable. Only a fool would trust a politician who is prepared to betray his own people for personal gain e.g. a seat at the elites’ table, when all is done and dusted. These politicians who are prepared to sell their countries out are nothing but useful idiots to Schwab, Gates et al. and when their usefulness is at an end they will, like many before them, be discarded along with the other trash. The useful idiots are being ‘played’ by the ‘elites’ but are too arrogant to see it.

  28. Morning all.

    Some years ago I bought some Tesco ‘bag for life’ bottle carriers. These would accommodate 6 wine bottles and were extremely useful. One has just reached the end of its useful life and is falling apart, so I took it back to my local Tesco and asked for a replacement. ‘We don’t do those any more, haven’t had them for years’, came the reply. So it’s not ‘bag for life’, more ‘bag until we hope you’ve forgotten’. I then ‘phoned Tesco customer relations and got the same response, this time with an apology of sorts. Which part of ‘bag for life’ has eluded them?

    Should I buy an equivalent from another supermarket and send Tesco the bill? Any ideas?

      1. They are for the staff, so she can carry the bottles from the car to the cellar.

        1. My shelves and wine fridges are stuffed full of wine. When i receive on of those vouchers for a wine club with £70 off a case i sign up. When the case is delivered i cancel the subscription.
          That’s everyday drinking wine. Some real nice ones. If you don’t like a particular bottle they refund you.

          For finer wines like Brunello di Montalcino i shop separately.

          1. The trains drawing into Liverpool Street have changed one of their nannying messages.
            It has gone from “Take your baggage with you” to “Take all your belongings with you”.
            I really cannot think why.

    5. Beware. A friend of mine joined the Tesco dating site and ended up with a bag for life.

    1. Green tyranny has nothing to do with green. It is simply the latest attempt to force people to obey the state line, pay more tax for nothing and let the state ‘do’ something that didn’t need to be done at great expense.

      Heck, the BBC has magically learned out waste is going to Turkey for ‘recycling’. I await their acknowledgement that this is due to the WEE, an EU mandate preventing us from creating above a certain amount of waste.

      The rest we post to Africa to dump in the sea. Another problem we, the West have to use energy and engineering to solve. Energy and engineering that didn’t need to be used to solve a problem that shouldn’t have existed by following a nonsense law that clearly made no bloody sense and should never have been enacted.

  30. John Major on Radio 4 discussing honesty, integrity and loyalty in politics. Probably just repeating what he discussed with Edwina Curry over the breakfast table at Chequers and Downing Street.

    2. Ye gods – John Major on Radio 4 discussing honesty, integrity and loyalty in politics– I wonder if he had to look up the words in a dictionary first?

  31. I don’t understand this article: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/07/13/europe-faces-ageing-population-nightmare-absolute-collapse/

    The problem is obvious for anyone to see. Working families cannot afford to have lots of children simply because they are taxed too heavily. As a result, they have one, 2 at most. Welfarists, paid from the high taxes on the working families can breed as much as they like, but their children are highly unlikely to produce the next generation’s workforce – the difference between Junior’s reading age and maths ability is nearly a year and a half ahead of the ‘Brandon’ in the class.

    Bluntly, Junior will get a job, Brandon won’t. He’ll live on welfare for as long as the state forces workers to pay for him.

    Replacing the lower birthrate with massive uncontrolled gimmigration is also destructive. These people are useless. The overwhelming majority of immigrants have no skills, no use, no value. They’re yet more mouths to feed. Hell, 70% welfare dependency. The last million border farce brought in are criminals, for goodness sake. When the state robs Peter of 70% of his income to give to wasters the result is inevitable. It was obvious 30 years ago. It’s even more obvious now. Seemingly only a civil servant can’t see it.

    1. That Adolf had good ideas about dealing with those he regarded as unwanted.

    2. Good morning Wibbling

      Moh and I were discussing the Mo Farah story which the media are are getting excited about .. and we are wondering how a couple could have brought a trafficked child into Britain , and how common is this , and is it an everyday occurence .. seems similar to that Nigerian couple who brought a young child into Britain recently and who did it because they wanted to harvest the child’s organs .

      1. That reminds me of a joke my dad brought back from Nigeria. Man with young boy. Is he your brother? No massa, he my dinner. At least it was meant to be a joke and OK, in poor taste but never expected to resemble a modern reality.

        2. A bit like Richard Dimbleby’s comment on the the Queen of Tonga with her Prime Minister sat next to her during the Coronation Procession.

        3. In the days of the USSR, potential escapers from the GULAG archipelago knew that they would need food. It was helpful if the ‘food’ was able to walk.

      2. I bought a transformer for Junior for his birthday from Taiwan and it was held up for weeks in customs. Maybe I’m the wrong colour.

        I imagine it is – in a certain demographic. Get a bent customs official and you can bring in what you like. Sadly, there are an awful lot of foreigners ow working in such posts no doubt specifically for this purpose.

        1. Any airport demonstrates the problem. The few indigenous staff are approaching retirement age.

    3. One could interpret the data to indicate that the population of the UK is (or rather was before the massed immigration kicked in) falling towards a more sustainable level.
      The problems caused by such a population drop are, I think, being over-exaggerated and are merely transient whilst we adapt to the lower population levels.

      2. In 1900 the population of the UK was 45m. The British Empire contained 1.7bn people, around one quarter of everyone on the planet, managed and controlled by us.
        Now, the UK itself is disintegrating, with an unstoppable influx of aliens coming to dominate us and comprising a large and increasing percentage of the UK population of 78m. We managed an Empire back then, but cannot manage to save our home.

  32. 750 grams of Lurpak Spread cost £7:25 at Morrisons one hour ago. I remark on this because they used to be one Kilo tubs!

    1. I used to buy Country Life at Morrisons but they haven’t had any there for months now. Only choice is Lurpak or Anchor. I did notice the price when I bought some CL in Waitrose the other week.

  33. I am a director of a management company running the converted Victorian school where my mother has her flat. There are nine resident shareholders, and my involvement of that of being a muggins and most of the others wanting to go nowhere near taking responsibility.

    I have just been quoted £1800 from the Managing Agent from a firm of surveyors for producing a Schedule of Works to address a large crack on a supporting internal wall, after the plasterwork was stripped back investigating dry rot. All sorts of legal disclaimers and exclusions and extras apply, such as an 8% late payment surcharge if they do not receive payment within a fortnight, extra listed building surveys, building inspection, bat surveys, mortar analysis, damp, and £30 for each letter chasing payment.

    My feeling is that this has become a money pit that has laid up open to being held to ransom by the professionals, who can hype up anything they find, name their price and spin out the work until all nine of us are cleared out, but I have reached the limit of my own competence to advise the Managing Agent what to do next.

    Is there anyone here with enough experience to suggest what to say to the Managing Agent?

    This of course has parallels with anyone thinking of becoming our next prime minister.

    2. So the £1800 is just for them to produce a schedule – not address any of the actual repairs? How much will they charge for the actual work to be done?

      1. For starters, they have got their eyes on the £42,000 reserve built up by the Service Charge since 2013. That’s low hanging fruit.

        The two other directors are both wealthy Conservatives (one was a managing director of a company and used to allocating company money aspirationally, and the other is a County Councillor with a huge budget of public spending money) and have every confidence in the professionals. Money is no object. I feel a bit of a scrooge here, but someone has to be the sceptic.

        1. Rightly so. Looking at work critically is vitally important. What if there’s a problem coming out of a survey? Will that add an additional cost?

          1. Of course it will. Everything that can add to the job will be charged at full whack until everyone’s credit is maxed out. Then they will leave it to someone else to sort out.

            Isn’t that how Government operates?

          3. These people are not former employees of Edinburgh Council are they? Council building inspectors would visit common stairs in tenements and flats. There are a great many in Edinburgh. It is the responsibility of the householders on the stair to pay for the upkeep of the stair (and also take turns to sweep and wash it). The council operatives would declare that the stair needed to be painted and issue all householders with a Notice requiring it to be done within a certain time. As most stairs have a high glass cupola this is not a job for DIY amateurs. When the allotted time had passed and nothing had been done, the Building Control officers would give the job to a firm of contractors. Back-handers all round. This was a major scam, eventually made public.

  34. ‘Morning All

    Couple of days ago I reported on FishyRishi’s planned coup being laid long before Christmas,finally some media outlets are catching up……….

    “RISHI Sunak is accused of having his campaign website built

    by a Labour Councillor who worked for organisations aiming to overturn

    Brexit and overthrow Boris Johnson, Politicalite can reveal.

    As revealed by Politicalite earlier this week, Team Rishi registered a website for his campaign six months before his resignation from Government.”

    https://www.politicalite.com/exclusive/exclusive-rishi-sunak-hired-pro-eu-and-anti-boris-labour-cllr-to-build-campaign-website/

    And more on the stich-up coming……..

    https://mobile.twitter.com/NadineDorries/status/1546904679191281666?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1546904679191281666%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.heraldscotland.com%2Fpolitics%2F20274477.eight-candidates-confirmed-tory-leadership-battle%2F

    1. There is something really weird about Nadine – and not just her dress “sense”….

          1. Blimey. Precocious or what.
            At seven I’d only just discovered books about ponies.

          2. Is that the age gap? I though she was a good 20 years older (just looking at her…!!)

    1. At least they’re inventive: Ligma, sugma. Musk asked twitter how many of their accounts were bots. They refused to tell him, now they’re forcing him to buy it they have to – and he’ll tell us.

      I imagine about 70%, give or take.

  36. “First Tory leadership hopefuls will be eliminated TODAY:”
    Rope or Firing Squad??
    If bloody only…………

  37. Flawed online safety bill is disaster for free speech, claim Tories. 13 July 2022.

    The free-speech wing of the Conservative party is lining up against the “fundamentally misdesigned” online safety bill as the government rushes to pass the legislation before the House of Commons breaks up for the summer.

    Backbencher David Davis said of the flagship bill: “We all want the internet to be safe. Right now, there are too many dangers online, from videos propagating terror to posts promoting self-harm and suicide.

    “But the bill’s well-intentioned attempts to address these very real risks threatens being the biggest accidental curtailment of free speech in modern history.”

    There is nothing accidental about it! The Bill is intended to shut down criticism of the Political Elites! The rest is accidental!

    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jul/13/online-safety-bill-tories-free-speech-david-davis

    1. Not of the politicla elite alone, but anyone the state deems having annoyed them. For example, talking about grooming gangs? Banned. Talking about state incompetence and waste? Banned. Pointing out that government is intentionally hindering Brexit? Banned. The tidal flood of sewage border farce are bringing in? Dissent about the budget? Banned.

      You name it, the state will set about destroying it.

    2. biggest accidental curtailment of free speech

      A breakdown of the statement

      biggest: True
      accidental: False
      curtailment: True
      of Free Speech : True

    1. They don’t need Spitting Image puppets- they’re worse than any manufactured puppet could ever be.

  40. Here is a list of the eight contenders for the post of Prime Minister:

    Liz Truss – Her parents are/were CND activists.
    Rishi Sunak – Parents of Indian and African descent.
    Suella Braveman – Parents Indian.
    Kemi Badenoch – Parents African.
    Tom Tugendhat – Mother French, grand father Austrian.
    Penny Mordaunt – Related to first Labour Chancellor, strong links to Romania.
    Jeremy Hunt – Father Admiral of the Fleet. Family Landed gentry. Wife Chinese. Set up/runs AIDS orphan’s charity in Africa.
    Nadhim Zahawi – Born Kurdish Iraq.

    Take your pick – plenty of diversity to choose from.

    1. Where’s my favourite candidate: None Oftheabove?

      Or Philip Hollobone? David Davis?

      1. No, most were born in UK but I didn’t find any foreign relatives – but I didn’t look far. Truss said her parents were to the left of Labour – commies perhaps? Mordaunt has Irish and American relatives.

        1. I meant English as opposed to British. Anybody can be British – by English i meant people whose ancestors were English.

          1. I don’t know. Mordaunt, Truss and Hunt perhaps. Too much effort to search further than parents or grandparents. Hunt probably most English – related to Elizabeth II and Sir Oswald Mosley.

        1. With a name like Hugh O’Leary he might, just might have Irish blood in his lineage.

        1. I am not sure if she is for or against transbenders. Her ‘gay’ brother looks like a gorilla – perhaps she is just an animal lover.

        1. She quoted Margaret Thatcher’s “everybody needs a Willie” and says she hasn’t got one.

    4. Kemi Badenoch is married to a banker, apparently, as well as being backed by Gove. The only way she could make it more obvious was if she campaigned with a WEF rosette.

      When I was at university, someone said something similar to your post about me, because my name is German in origin – my ancestor came over in the eighteenth century. Apparently there were no British candidates in an election 🙁
      Jeremy Hunt is 100% British as far as I know, and 100% tosser too.

      1. I am related to Borchardt of Austria – apparently. It’s a bugger, ‘cos I don’t like Austrians. Germans are fone, though.

    1. Interesting picture of Tom Tugendhat.

      In the last two days there have been glowing reports about him on the BBC South East news.

      I’ve never seen the BBC so keen on a Tory before.

      I wonder…………….?

      1. Just following orders.
        Mind you if he’s chosen there could be a conflict of interest in the BBC choices they seem to be directing progress towards the most obvious.

  42. Here’s the new create item experience! Experience our app!

    I don’t experience things. I use them. Stop pretending what you’re doing is exciting or interesting. It isn’t. Most of the time it’s an annoying slog through an overwrought, miserable process that makes me jump through hoops I shouldn’t have to so your poorly written, badly designed, next to no quality checking product can just about work in an equally badly written, ill conceived mess of an operating system that intentionally makes stopping it doing things difficult.

  43. I see Martin Carter has more or less copied my post of yesterday regarding Larry the cat

    1. On his election, Larry’s priority will be to send Dilyn and Nova to Rwanda.

  44. Shouldn’t we feel sorry for Hunter Biden? 13 July 2022.

    But Abbott’s claim interested me because I suddenly remembered the number of things a cruel person – never mind a fabulist – might say about her. Perhaps the standout moment in Abbott’s career was in 2010 when she tried to justify sending her son to a private school. Asked to defend herself, the socialist Abbott said that she was a hypocrite. As though that closed matters.

    Fast-forward a decade or so and that same son was grown up and also clearly a rather sorry case. Having become a diplomat, he apparently also became a drug addict. When a story emerged of him biting the leg of a policeman outside the Home Office, some people briefly thought it rather funny, if odd. And then the details started to come out: that Abbott Jr had an addiction to a horrific drug called crystal meth. That he had chased his mother around her house threatening her with a pair of scissors and attacked nine emergency workers while high on the drug. That he had been sectioned.

    “Having become a diplomat”. Lol! If it were anyone but Abbot one might feel some sympathy.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/shouldn-t-we-feel-sorry-for-hunter-biden-

    1. That’s the way to do it – here you are Rutte, have some excess farm products.

    2. We ought to do that i.e. put a pile of sh1t in front of parliament to keep the pile of sh1t that’s in parliament there.

      1. I’ve just put a pile of horse shit on my roses. If I’d known, I could have saved it for Westminster 🙂

      1. In the red corner, we have Schwab and Gates. And a few sundry others. In the blue corner, we have 8 billion persons comprising truckers, farmers, and many very mad-angry vax-injured persons and their families with nothing to lose. They have nothing and they very definitely are not happy. In the end, the state won’t get its way, although this may take some time. Romania, Ceaucesçus, 1989.

  46. BREAKING: Rishi Sunak has vowed to tackle the inflation caused by Rishi Sunak and lower the taxes set by Rishi Sunak.

    1. The irony of these people. I’ll bet he won’t borrow and give money away like his… err, him.

      None of the candidates have mentioned cutting spending. Not one.

      Meanwhile, Switzerland continues to suffer crippling inflation of….0.8%.

    2. Sunak allowed trillions of waste on the Covid scam, fraud on a scale unparalleled in history, malfeasances in public office aided and abetted by the slimy Turk and his oleageanous cabinet of fools and a medical establishment polluted by Pharma bribery and corruption.

      The whole skip load of them should be put on trial for their crimes.

    3. Not he or any of the others will tackle anything, it’s all too effed up, it’s going to take 10 – 15 years to sort out all the damage this country has suffered recently.

    2. I thought chaos and destruction was their goal all along? Population reduction and all that.

      1. I believe what you say is correct, however, I’m merely pointing out the absurdity of their claims to make improvements and the end result of those claims i.e. chaos and poverty. They are gangsters, racketeers and evil-doers: they must not succeed in their aims.

      1. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to arrest a few of these renegade ‘teachers’ and make examples of them.

  52. I’ve just spent best part of two hours on the (so frustrating) internet re-arranging our car insurance and the company we have been with for several years were trying to increase the premium buy more than 80 pounds. I then had to set up an account with Compare the Market.com which took ages and filled in all our details which also took ages. Then made three attempts to email the Gas company who have recently carried out a lot of work in our road. But each time i did the email bounced. So in the end I had to ring them. But what a pleasant surprise a very polite and pleasant chap I spoke to, is going to sort out my enquiry.
    Now i can put away the pile of paperwork i had to have available for the insurance business. Amazing isn’t it how much information you have to provide to these insurance people and you never really get the chance to speak with anyone. But i made a saving of 90 pounds and the cost was less expensive than it was lat year. Over several years, at least ten, we have not made a claim, been ‘nicked’ for speeding or anything else. And the standard of driving on our roads has deteriorated dramatically. And because if this our own premiums keep rising. Wouldn’t it be a better idea to keep the others off the roads.

    1. Don’t worry Eddy they’ll put the premium up next year, lower premiums for first year is a sprat to catch a mackerel. You don’t get rewarded for loyalty now that’s why I change my insurer every year and I’m only paying £5 a year more than I was paying 10 years ago. One thing that bugs me about car insurance is your premium goes up every year (if you let it) but the value of the car goes down by a factor of 100 in comparison so you pay more but get less back in case of an accident.
      I do the same with household buildings and contents insurance, I change every year if the premium increases and again I’m paying slightly less than I was 10 years ago. Pays to shop around and I even advise my insurer if they put my premium up I will go elsewhere – makes no difference they still put it up and lose my custom. I’ve gone back to a previous insurer and paid less than the original premium after a break of a few years. You’d think the less paperwork that is involved in a straight renewal would make it cheaper for them to stick with the original premium and retain your custom

      1. I know what will happen so i’ll change it again. I never let them get away with it.
        It’s just a game really as long as i can keep the costs down i’m fairly happy. Last time it was 220 they increased it to over 300, this time it’s 208.
        we only drive about 2000 miles each year. The car is quite compact mainly parked off road, It’s a Seat Leon auto FR sport estate. Blic Levvhar upholstery 🤗

      2. I do that. I have actually had my current insurer reduce the premium because I said I had found it cheaper elsewhere and wasn’t going to renew. Also, let us not forget that all car insurance premiums are subject to premium tax – the govt makes it compulsory then takes a cut.

    2. Don’t worry Eddy they’ll put the premium up next year, lower premiums for first year is a sprat to catch a mackerel. You don’t get rewarded for loyalty now that’s why I change my insurer every year and I’m only paying £5 a year more than I was paying 10 years ago. One thing that bugs me about car insurance is your premium goes up every year (if you let it) but the value of the car goes down by a factor of 10 in comparison so you pay more but get less back in case of an accident.
      I do the same with household buildings and contents insurance, I change every year if the premium increases and again I’m paying slightly less than I was 10 years ago. Pays to shop around and I even advise my insurer if they put my premium up I will go elsewhere – makes no difference they still put it up and lose my custom. I’ve gone back to a previous insurer and paid less than the original premium after a break of a few years. You’d think the less paperwork that is involved in a straight renewal would make it cheaper for them to stick with the original premium and retain your custom

    3. We switched car insurance from Co-op to NFU. Cost dropped by £400. NFU is a mutual Co. so you sometimes get money back. Also they have the reputation of actually paying up.

    1. Lesson to learn, you ain’t in your country and you abide by the laws of that country.

      Ignorance of the law is NO excuse.

      1. It isn’t our country , and those who govern it are not even white ..

        They ( diversity) are allowing so much nonsense into Britain .. people who import boy slaves , people who import children for spare organs, people who import chimp meat , people who CUT little girls vulvas and tiny clitoris , people who arrive here and demand their religious meat is barbarically slaughtered , people who arrive here who raise their male bums to the heavens in prayer , people who arrive here and clog our sewers up with fat and grease from stinking curries .. people who arrive here who deny their daughters a proper marriage / or existence . People who stab and mutilate and are incapable of communicating properly , who defraud , con and extract money from our economy in humungus amounts .. and those who rape young girls , thousands of them .

        Who the hell has ruined Britain in 77 years

      1. Recalled from prison to face more charges. 18 years. He will be out in 6 and they will fail to deport him.

        1. And then he will go back to raping underage children as he thinks he is performing a service to Britain by spreading his cultural diversity in any kafir enclaves which still remain in the UK.

    4. I’m sure local plod will pay you a visit to make sure you’re all right.
      Wink … nudge …

    2. Well, they can shove that up their ar5e but like Covid experimental injections will come nowhere near my body.

    4. Fk biometric payment. Gates can shove it up his ‘Arris along with his vaxx tattoos.

  56. The Met office has a forecast on Satuday of 25C and a heat warning. For tomorrow Thursday it has a forecast of 26C but no heat warning. Also heavy rain has now appeared for 9pm tonight, totaly out of the blue. They need to get their act together.Not very good anymore are they.

    1. To me, it isn’t even that hot. Wear suitable clothes and don’t sit in direct sun.
      This government and etc thinks we are all idiots and cannot figure it out for ourselves.

      1. Here It’s been raining on and off all day today – I’ve been logging in between showers

      2. Unfortunately there ARE a lot of idiots about these days.
        If things go wrong they will blame anyone other than their idiotic incompetent selves.

    4. Those are just perfectly normal summer temperatures. Not a ‘heatwave’ and not “climate emergency” – just normal summer and nothing to worry about. They just want to keep people scared of everything.

      1. Oh so honourable are they? They are all at it or getting their SPADS to leak choice tidbits.

  59. As I have reported before, our lovely doctor, Françoise, has been sacked for having the wrong opinions on Chinese Flu and refusing to have the fatal gene therapy herself.

    I used to see her for a general examination every eighteen months or so and when I needed a new prescription I telephoned and it was forwarded to the pharmacy straight away.

    Even though there is a grave shortage of doctors in France, Françoise’s replacement requires that I have a consultation every three months taking up his time and mine just to renew my prescription and the booking arrangement of this consultation takes up even more time and causes even more frustration.

    Added to which the replacement doctor seems completely devoid of all empathy.

    Here is a rather elaborate Chinese flue:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/72dc934384896e1d6f767ddf226a0018fde7b0d11bbb21a4ef7c855a2f4a2f5f.jpg

    1. It is to teach everyone a lesson.

      Careful, thoughtful, questioning doctors who challenge the mainstream view (on whatever you want) will be replaced by obedient ciphers.

      1. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that they will be replaced by an ‘app’ on one’s smartphone and Woe betide you if they haven’t access to your medical records.

      2. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that they will be replaced by an ‘app’ on one’s smartphone and Woe betide you if they haven’t access to your medical records.

      1. No, sadly. She is a few years older than me and has taken early retirement. In the meantime, they have removed her ability to write prescriptions (which is normally for life) – she has, effectively, been struck off. She is taking the Ordre des Médecins (equivalent of British Medical Association) to court for wrongful dismissal, as are hundreds of other doctors and nurses whose careers have been wrecked.

        1. Shocking. And knowing the escargot like way French courts work…..she’ll be long dead before being vindicated.

        2. What a waste of a good doctor, who obviously cares about her patients. I hope she and the others will get somewhere with a class action.

      2. No it’s covered by my insurance but yes he does get paid € 25 a pop for 2 minutes ‘work’.

        1. I suppose as we age we need more check ups from the Doc but it does sound like they are wringing as much money out as possible.

    1. They are all Trudeau impersonators and they’re all going down the Swanee with their mammies.

  63. Boris is finally free. 13 July 2022.

    In the dying moments, two backbenchers made reference to a worrying abstraction called ‘the national heatwave emergency.’ In July, the weather often gets warm but to call this an ‘emergency’ is a pernicious lie. Next they’ll announce that sunbathing is attempted suicide. MPs are desperate to launch further attacks on our liberty, as they did during lockdown. And they know that the best method is to exploit fake disasters and medical calamities cooked up in the corridors of power. The long-term plan is to train the public, like dogs, to come to heel when their Master whistles.

    Amazing. If that had appeared online it would be called a Conspiracy Theory and be banned under the new Online Safety Bill!

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/boris-is-finally-free

    2. If the people in my circle are anything to go by Masks and “stay at home” imprisonment commands would be carried out
      Iike a shot. A fellow bowls club member explained the other day she did not offer me a lift “because she knew I wouldn’t wear a mask in the car!” Brainwashed.

      1. Afternoon VW. On my way back from the Supermarket this morning I saw a schoolboy (about 14) wearing a mask!

        1. It is so so sad how many have been conditioned. They are just not thinking. How long are they going to do these things?

          1. Some people will do it for the rest of their lives, they are weak minded and have been frightened by the government’s deliberate over-reaction. Another “pandemic” is being mooted, on the other hand it could be a new covid wave that will be described in evermore frightening terms. The PTB are not about to let go of the progress they have made in controlling masses of people by fear.

          2. Monday night most of the PCC were in favour of restoring the taking of communion in both kinds. The new rector (a woman) said no because Covid cases were rising (although they are low here) and we should wait until September. We’ll never be allowed to get back to normal at this rate.

      2. Afternoon VW. On my way back from the Supermarket this morning I saw a schoolboy (about 14) wearing a mask!

      3. And your response…’That is quite all right. Of course we cannot possibly invite you to our garden party because you will’.

    3. This is a subject frequently written about in the media. Here’s an example:

      This heatwave hysteria epitomises the Tories’ fatal embrace of nanny statism

      Of course we spend and tax too much when the state has intruded into so many areas of our lives

      PHILIP JOHNSTON • 12 July 2022 • 9:30pm

      We are heading for a national heatwave emergency, or a heatwave as we used to call it. Just as a few frigid days in winter are now known as a “snow event” and winter gales come with names attached, so the arrival of high summer is greeted as a life-threatening episode. The Government’s emergency response unit Cobra has been summoned to draw up plans to cope with what might turn out to be one day with temperatures in the upper 90s.

      Back in the mists of time, a Met Office forecaster such as Michael Fish or John Kettley would attach a magnetic sun emblem on to a map of the UK and tell us it would be hot. Now their predictions are accompanied by colour-coded warnings and advice to wear a hat, apply sun cream or sleep under a sheet.

      It borders on hysteria. In London yesterday, the temperature peaked at around 31C – hot, but not that hot. The rest of the week looks warm for July, before the real scorcher arrives (probably) at the weekend. According to the Met Office: “It is uncertain how long the very hot weather will last, but it is likely that much of the UK will see a return to cooler and more widely unsettled conditions during the week.”

      So why the panic? It is not as if we are facing anything on a par with the long, hot summer of 1976 when for 15 consecutive days from June 23 to July 7 temperatures reached 90F (32C) somewhere in England. If that happened today, ministers, Army chiefs and health officials would be meeting in a permanent crisis session.

      How did people cope before air conditioning, refrigeration and the sartorial dispensation to walk around shirtless (men) or in the skimpiest of attires (women)? I often sit in an Edwardian theatre and wonder how they managed in their suits and winged collars or dresses and whalebone corsets on the hottest of days, unable to strip off because the social norms insisted you dress properly, however uncomfortable you may feel.

      After all, hot summers are nothing new. In 1911, the sun shone almost unbroken for two months and that year, until fairly recently, held the record for the highest temperature recorded in this country at 36.7C on August 9.

      Of course, people suffered from the sweltering heat and did what they could to mitigate the misery, just as we have always done. What is different nowadays is the direct intervention of state agencies, a reprise of what we saw during the Covid lockdowns.

      The same players, indeed, are reaching for the levers of nannying authority now co-ordinated by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), which sprang into being on the back of the pandemic. Its chief executive is Dame Jenny Harries, formerly familiar to everyone as a director of Public Health England. Once established, an agency such as this has to find a reason to intervene, otherwise what is it for?

      So the hot weather has given it an excuse to do just that. If the thermometer rises above 40C, which would be remarkable, it is poised to declare a “Level Four emergency”. This is to be triggered when the hot weather is so extreme that “illness and death may occur among the fit and healthy”, as well as the most vulnerable.

      In London and southern England, we already have a Level Three “heat-health alert”, which advises us “to enjoy the hot weather when it arrives, but keep yourself hydrated and to find shade where possible when UV rays are strongest, between 11am and 3pm.”

      In addition, “stay cool indoors by closing curtains on rooms that face the sun – and remember that it may be cooler outdoors than indoors; never leave anyone in a closed, parked vehicle, especially infants, young children or animals, check that fridges, freezers and fans are working properly; and avoid physical exertion in the hottest parts of the day.”

      Well, who would have known? How did we manage for millennia before the UKHSA came along? A Level Four emergency would see schools closed, as they were (unnecessarily) during the pandemic. When I was young and the weather was hot, lessons were held outside. Now, just the prospect of one or two very hot days is enough to set off a nervous breakdown, potentially affecting food supplies, disrupting travel and putting nuclear power plants out of action. It will certainly encourage those who have been working from home for the past few years to stay put.

      There is, of course, a connection between this overreaction and the way we live now, with the state feeling entitled to intrude on every aspect of our lives and, let’s be honest, encouraged to do so by many. It is a yearning to be cosseted that Boris Johnson identified when he promised to put “an arm around the nation” to support people through whatever adversity they might experience.

      It is an approach that underpins the expansion of the welfare state to encompass millions who could be working but won’t, and militates against any reform of the NHS, which then needs billions of pounds extra funding to prevent its collapse.

      This is why we spend too much and tax too much, the central issue in the Tory leadership election. A state that thinks it knows how best we should live our lives has no moral compunction in taking most of our income. Politicians sense that a majority would rather the government or others provided for them and their needs so tailor their policies accordingly. But if people want to be looked after from cradle to grave, they can’t have low taxes as well.

      To fund the paternalistic state, taxes need to be kept higher than they should be and other programmes, like defence, get less than they need. There is a trade-off. On top of that, the precautionary principle that guides modern governance generates many of the rules and regulations that suffocate individual enterprise.

      It lends itself to an inability to rationalise personal risk or to accept any hardship, however minor or unavoidable, and leaves people resistant to political arguments about re-imagining the size of state or questioning what it does.

      Amid all the waffle about taxes dominating the Tory leadership contest, there is precious little debate about this fundamental point. There is, however, plenty of hot air – as if we hadn’t got enough of that already.

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/07/12/heatwave-hysteria-epitomises-tories-fatal-embrace-nanny-statism/

      1. I went to Greece in 1987 in the middle of the “killer” heatwave. It was hot and I took a bottle of water and wore cotton or linen clothing. I survived.

  64. I received a call the other day which i ignored. If it were important they can voicemail me. They texted instead. It was a medication review for my blood pressure.

    The practice had been advised by my Haematologist that my BP was too low.
    From my records he sent that request three months ago.

    In the interim…As it happens i had a problem and the Doctor suspected a heart attack. I went and spent 10 hours in hospital and they said i hadn’t had a heart attack.

    However i was still having the symptoms and buzzing in my ears so i stopped taking one of my BP meds. Lercanipdine leaving me just the Ramipril. Symptoms went away. BP normalised.

    The text message said they had rebooked me into the clinic for a fortnights time.

    I went on E-Consult and asked them where the clinic was. Turns out it’s a virtual clinic. Why they couldn’t just say they would call me on that date i have no idea.

      1. I suspect they get more money in holding a virtual clinic. Not so much for a phone call.

  65. A removed BTL comment, not for DT readers

    Speaking on behalf of West Mercia Police, Assistant Chief Constable Richard Cooper, said: “I would like to say sorry. Sorry
    to the survivors and all those affected by child sexual exploitation in Telford.

    “While there were no findings of corruption, our actions fell far short of the help and protection you should have had from us,
    it was unacceptable, we let you down.”

    Now, if it was a white person just ‘saying norty words” or what was thought norty about a BAME, he would have been locked up.

    1. “While there were no findings of corruption”. Seems Dickie Cooper has a one dimensional view of corruption. The minds of the officers had been corrupted by a Left wing ideology. I wouldn’t expect the stupid plod to recognise that though.

    2. A question. If I know that crime has been committed but I turn a blind eye, does that make me an “accessory after the fact”, or a policeman in Telford?

      1. TBF – other Paki shiiteholes are available in England’s green and pleasant.
        Policeman in Bradford, Burnley, Oxford …….

        1. Hi Anne. We seem to be making a mistake in treating these atrocities as discrete events in individual towns. They aren’t. By and large, the perpetrators are from South Asia.
          They are mostly taxi drivers and one distinctive trait of taxi drivers is that they tend to travel from one town to another to deliver fares. In the process they no doubt meet fellow taxi drivers from their own ethnic group, network with each other and now we are seeing the cancer that has spread through out our country.
          The towns you mention are the ones where the crimes have been discovered. I have no doubt that this sort of thing is happening in every town throughout the country.

    3. Mental corruption. Police, social workers and councillors had been corrupted by the constant fear of seeming’racist’.
      Ditto the young guard at Manchester Arena who thought something was wrong but didn’t want to be accused of racism.
      How many thousands of people have died or been mentally and physically injured in Blighty during the past thirty years by fear of a 6 letter word?

    4. They have only recently (to much protest) released a slammer who was banged up for paedophilia with young kuffar girls in Telford. Were they asleep at the wheel? Don’t answer that – we know they were looking the other way.

    1. Made my most typical mistake today. If there’s more than one word starting with the same 4 letters, I’ll choose the wrong one. Every time.
      Wordle 389 5/6

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

    2. Birdie Three for me …

      Wordle 389 3/6
      ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. #metoo

      Wordle 389 4/6

      ⬛⬛🟩⬛⬛
      ⬛🟩🟩⬛⬛
      🟩🟩🟩🟩⬛
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    5. Par 4 for me too.
      Wordle 389 4/6

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

    6. Normal service resumes.

      Wordle 389 5/6

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

      2. I get the impression that even the most cynical of MPs were unimpressed by his behaviour.

    3. One of my friends in church this morning asked who I thought would be the new leader. After I’d denigrated the whole lot of them and said nothing would change (I am not in love and charity with the contenders!), she asked how many were left. I guessed at a half dozen and it turned out we neither of us had been watching the news.

    1. Maybe Dilyn. Jack Russells have minds of their own; he wouldn’t fall for Carrion’s green crap.

    1. As a parent he is an utter disgrace to do that to a child. Does he want her to have nightmares and be afraid of shadows?

    2. Says the creep who tried to get a delivery driver fired for driving in his own lane
      Nasty piece of work

        1. That’s why (among many other reasons) I refused to work with him 20 years ago.

  74. ‘A woman like me’ doesn’t have a penis, says Penny Mordaunt in Tory leadership campaign launch
    Former defence secretary quotes Margaret Thatcher as she pushes back against criticism she is too ‘woke’ to lead the party
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/07/13/woman-like-doesnt-have-penis-says-penny-mordaunt-tory-leadership/

    A good BTL response:

    Does she mean a woman not like her can have a penis?

    (The result of the selection of the new Conservative Party leader is irrelevant and the one person who could have saved the party is still in the House of Lords and not eligible)

      1. You are quite right but this is the headline I pasted from the DT article. And of course MT said that everyone needs a willy.

        White Law would be a change from Black Law which seems to take precedence in the UK nowadays.

    2. ‘A woman like me’ doesn’t have a penis, says Penny Mordaunt”.

      How they try their best not to alienate but still manage to do so.

        1. We have had these people in this country for decades. They are not the problem. Pakistani Muslims are and always have been the problem.

          Remember the days of half day closing on Wednesdays and closing of shops on Saturday lunchtimes? It was the Bangladeshi that opened all hours. Not Arkwright.

          On a local level, Suella has made a big difference where i live. And she is a true blue Tory. Unlike the rest of them. IMO

          4. I could climb down and not feel so biased , and I actually trust your judgement .

            I appreciated the Wiki read, thank you Phizzee.

            She seems solid, loyal and on the right track.

    2. The new PM
      Perhaps we could elect the only BAME person in UK who has not been in a TV advert, to the position

  76. ‘Night All
    Cats&Dogs

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0f0686f569ba63336dc27315145ebf6d99cd9991c425b7f61862d90fcbe3676a.jpg

    https://media2.giphy.com/media/gdU2jwhJsMVW2zZHT1/giphy.gif?cid=790b761172ba0d0cce29075d9dd39b3aca4afad6d2428c40&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2aa4e2305897fd8e9d109a4f1354faec395b965de5c97034d0c9bcc04761fa82.gif

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/39b7d2c4eb6cd046de6a379217a5b8acc7bdd37c087ad9d98816d70a49b052f3.gif

  79. Funny thing. BTL on The Grimes. You are not allowed to use the word “dim” of a person (eg Penny Dormant) – but “thick” is OK..!!

  80. It’s like Alan Freeman & Pic of the Pops, so I’ve given up looking at any msm news.
    It will be what it is, no matter our thoughts.

    I have a bottle of Johnny Walker red label that needs cracking open.

    This in the CD player:
    Donald Fagen.
    https://youtu.be/Sv6daGTR45Y

      1. Cats on the rooftops, cats on the tiles,
        Cats with syphilis, cats with piles,
        Cats with their assholes wreathed with smiles
        As they revel in the joys of fornication.

        I seem to remember this ditty from somewhere.

          3. Now just sit down and read the warning labels on the hooch wot you bought….{:¬))

            (Oh, and “Mind the gap”…)

          4. I thought they might.
            Our Siamese stuck a middle claw up at me when I was saying the ditty out loud.

    2. We have been shopping and stocked up on the liquid refreshments. And other stuff.
      Sick to death of all the nonsense about “coping” with the heat- ye gods; it’s summer. We must be babied and treated like little twerps who cannot make a single decision for ourselves.
      This once great country has become a travesty of itself.
      Enjoy your music and Johnnie Walker!

      1. I will 🥃 and agree, it’s summer (not that UK seems to get much) and 24/25 is not exactly hot. For me anything upto 30C as long as humidity is low – bliss.

        1. As I said this morning, four weeks ago on holiday in Cap d’Ail the SEA was 24ºC

          1. I remember sea like that, people in UK could not understand why I refused to dive here in a dry suit.
            If it’s that cold that I need one, you can sod off, was my response.

          2. Quite. I leaned to swim in 1949 in the Suez Canal – where the water was often warmer than that.

            Never tempted to do so in Engerland…!!

          5. Yes, you are quite adroit with return comments which must indicate some sense of normality

          8. Just imagine him speaking in the voice of Kryten from Red Dwarf. Works for me. :@)

          9. Sorry Phiz, what is Red Dwarf? being out of UK for more than 30 years, I’m somewhat clueless.

          11. A space comedy, I think you’d call it, although I never found it particularly funny.

          15. Don’t allow yourself to be led astray by LotL…{:¬)) She is trouble in spades (whoops – sorry!)

      2. The thing is , the country cannot cope because we are more overcrowded and built up since the last real heat wave of 1976 which was horrendous for many , no water, standpipes , cracked earth , subsidence , and no food for farm animals .. the earth was parched , crops were hopeless and a drought that went on for three months .

        Now we have high rise cities , glass buildings , more idiotic conservatories , solar farms , nearly all glass hospitals , high rise offices and more housing, motorways , tarmac , housing estates that have no decent gardens or front lawns , flats etc etc. and double glazed homes that have tiny windows .. Double glazing was rare in 1976.. and homes were not like they are now.

        1. I remember the summer of 1959, we were on the verge of getting standpipes in Yorkshire, then the weather broke mid-September and we were back to normal.

        2. I’ll have you know, Maggie, that my conservatory is NOT “idiotic”! It’s contemporary (or it was until I had it replaced like for like apart from double glazing and insulation) with the house (1930s).

        3. I don’t rhink England has built a new reservoir for many, many decades. And Filling the country with illegal invaders and providing new homes for them is the most ridiculous nonsense on the whole planet. It’s about as green and carbon free as massive Bush fire.

          2. Makes you wonder what was the real intention behind that.
            Perhaps the fore sight of future problems our own politicians have never been able to get to grips with.

          3. My thoughts exactly. RE.

            Water is becoming scarcer and scarcer , and our little Dorset rivers are sluggish and not exacly full. and I expect our bore hole water tables are zilch .

            You are a clever chap , is this true ..In a wholly or partly new building, the fabric contains water used in concrete, mortar and plaster. In a typical brick and block house about 8000 litres (eight thousand)

          4. It’s not easy to calculate TB but even the extraction of materials such as sand and ballast would need to be washed before use. Clay extraction for bricks roof tiles then of course mixing concrete and mortar plastering tiling the list goes on. Building all of these new houses is an absolute ecological disaster.
            Enough is enough.

          7. At Newton Abbot it was mentioned how green the course was (they can water from the river) and the comment was “compared to your lawn”. Actually, both my lawns are still green – probably because the roots go down a long way because I never water them.

          8. Of course they can’t control the weather.
            But, what does it take before our idiots who purport to run everything realise that the just ruin everything.

          9. The EU banned new reservoirs as they said it would make the population use less water. Bloody idiots! We live in a temperate climate and should now build more reservoirs.

          10. Jeeez 🤔
            What the hell did any of that have to do with the Brussels mafia.
            We use to have several chalk streams in the home counties but they all seem to be dried up now. A lot of that has been caused by abstraction for agriculture. Too late to change now. Once again it’s the result of the political classes and civil service effing up everything they come into contact with

    3. As long as you don’t take the whisky into the library with a revolver, Andrew!

      1. No chance of that, it would ruin the books with all the mess.
        Not to mention giving me serious lead poisoning.

    4. What amuses me, Andrew, is that just about everyone last week was shouting “Out, out, anyone but Boris”. I’ll repeat that “anyone but Boris”. Yet now, “anyone” is not good enough: not Liz Truss because she used to be a LibDem, not Rishi because he used his nous (and legal means) to minimise his wife paying too much tax, not Tom Tugendhat because he hasn’t had enough ministerial experience, “not… etc. etc. because…” Be careful of what you wish for. We will have a new Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister and then the complaints will continue, despite the fact that the leadership election winner will be… anyone who isn’t Boris.

  81. Having a potential PM with Mord and Daunt in her surname couldn’t be more apt for the great reset that’s coming

  82. Anyway, in barefaced defiance of all nanny bleating- I am going to sit outside for a while.

    2. Me, too, Ann. It’s time to use the hose to water the side garden. And then an early night, so it’s “Good night, everyone”.

    2. I do think that many creatures are much more intelligent than we think. I suspect that they hide it from us.

    3. Ayumu is 22 years old, and his mother Ai was born (wild, in West Africa) circa 1976. Lots of training involved for them to reach that level..
      The ability to absorb information in 60 milliseconds looks like part of a survival technique, e.g. the need to swing from branch to branch rapidly but without crashing to the forest floor. Although chimps and other animals are supposedly unable to cope with abstract ideas, Ayumu’s brain is engaged in linear programming, specifically the transportation simplex algorithm. (I had to look that up).

  84. That’s me gone for this warm day. At times it was almost cool – but more heat appears to be around tomorrow.

    Have a jolly evening

    A demain

  85. Evening, all. Despite the heat, the Connemara and I completed a dressage test (we are moving up the levels – today was elementary!). The problem was, the test should have been ridden in a 20 x 60m arena, but we only have a 20x40m, so the letters VSRP were missing (and obviously you have less room to perform the movements). I was really pleased with him, but I am so unfit that when I dismounted, my knees buckled when my feet hit the ground and I collapsed on the floor!

    1. Help! Hope you’re ok. Did the gee gee react or does he just think humans do odd things?

      1. I warned him beforehand that my legs were wobbly. He just stood there. I only ended up on my back. No harm done.

    2. Went fishing with my good friend Posh Richard today at ‘Boilers’, Whitsand Bay. A 300′ descent and then traversing nasty jagged rocks to a decent spot. Incoming tide cut us off a bit and Richard took a dunking while jumping to another outcrop. I had a wave up to my waist and we weren’t rigged for wading.
      My sun cream dripped off me with the sweat. 3½ hours flinging lures out. 10 bass between us and none quite large enough to be legal, although one fell into my fish bag accidentally. Walking back up was slow and we had to stop a few times. We were both too tired to think of an early beer and he drove us back the 20 miles to Gunnislake, where I’m now drinking a chilled white. It’s helping to dull the pain in my legs, feet and shoulders.
      My point is that doing things we enjoy can now be very painful. Give Oscar a pat for me.

      1. You should be more careful ! You should have knowledge of where you are fishing. You could have been swept out. Were you wearing floats? If you had been wearing waders you might have drowned.

        Ever fished at Chesil Beach?

        1. We know the place well enough Phizz, it’s odd, being almost a surf beach with huge metamorphic vertically bedded outcrops jutting out into the sea. Challenging sometimes, but we know what we’re doing, ha ha.
          Chesil has a horrid beach of graded pebble sizes with a sharp incline down to where the waves impact. Always feels like you’re in quicksand, and no I don’t fish there, once long ago was enough.

          1. I remember my uncles and aunts in a row boat netting 100lbs of mackerel.

            From the beach itself you always had to watch the wave cycle. The seventh or eighth could give you concrete boots and the next wave take you.

            Two of my biggest bass catches from that beach. My brother had a hard time getting over that fact.

            Most of the time though. Nothing.

          3. Around a pound and a half and the second one 3.2 pounds. The weird thing about it was the second one i only noticed when it got to the shingle. It must have been swimming through the close waves or decided to commit suicide.
            It really did piss my older brother off because he thought he was the reincarnation of Jack Hargreaves on all things nature.
            I gave up some time after that because at night i was landing small small fish that in my headcam light looked like they could walk. Can’t remember the name of the fish but they under the light looked irridescent. Put me off eating those little buggers.

          5. That’s the one. I know they can be bought now and cooked and stuff but i had a moment. I put all my tackle on a free site. You may think it an over reaction but other things were going on with the family at the time and it was time. I had two beach rods. Some smaller rods for the Broads and a couple of telescopic. A chap came round with his little boy and i just off loaded the lot. I kept the knife though !
            I still eat fish a lot but don’t feel comfortable about catching them. Sport fishing is an entirely diff matter and i would probably still enjoy that. As long as drinks are available !

          7. Sounded a bit fishy. I don’t travel well these days, maybe have a drink one day.

          9. Drinks are for after. Gurnard of a decent size are absolutely delicious. Fillets are small because the box shaped fish has an odd anatomy. Tiny bones in the fillet soften with cooking, a bit like mackerel, and can be eaten without a problem. Fried in butter they’re possibly my favourite fish, but they need to be big’uns. Beautiful dark blue eyes.
            If my missus ever finds out how much my fishing gear has cost I’ll be in a pickle..

          8. I was saddened, yesterday, when walking through some patches of woodland near me. What should be cool and peaceful refuges in the heat are marred by the sheer volume of litter scattered alongside the paths and amongst the trees. The casual disregard for the local environment is dispiriting. Typical of the detritus are drinks cans and foil or plastic snack wrappers. It isn’t as if litter bins are not provided. Given the types of product that you’d typically find in these wrappers and containers, I’d have to guess that most of the miscreants are youngsters, the very people who have “saving the planet” drummed into them throughout their schooling.

          9. We have oodles of woodland here, but it’s one of his (many) weaknesses. He gets this dreamy look in his eyes in the woods, his nose twitches and he’s away. I once waited for 55 minutes for him to come back, crawling on his belly, totally wiped out after chasing deer. This is why I walk him on Kit Hill, 400 acres of moor, woods and gorse, but all enclosed.
            There’s currently a search on for a boy staffie (same colours as my Oscar), lost 2 days ago 3 miles upstream from us on the Tamar who was last seen floating downstream, woods both sides, he could be anywhere.
            https://www.facebook.com/groups/GunnislakeCommunityMatters/posts/5109977365774850/?comment_id=5113251462114107&reply_comment_id=5113306568775263&notif_id=1657726367893624&notif_t=group_comment_mention

          10. Oscar is largely white (he’s actually tri-colour), but he hasn’t been clipped since March. He spends his time flat out on the kitchen quarry tiles.

          11. That’s were ours was most of the day and she creeps around the side of the house and lays on the concrete slabs and because its also drafty.

      3. Reminds me of a climb on the north Devon/Cornwall coast – there were 3 of us, doing a rather impressive [for us] route which finished about 25/30 ft below the cliff top at a band of very unstable shale. It was normal to abseil off, but you had to be aware of the tide. With 3 of us, it took a while so I asked the others what they preferred – finish the route and wait for the tide or retreat now – they opted to carry on and I wanted to lead the route so we carried on. Long wait later plus a bit of swimming/wading between outcrops – I think we thought it was worth it, although we got some odd looks in the pub – dripping sea water!

      4. Do you only sea fish now?

        You’re not too far away from Eddystone are you? Some good fishing on the wrecks there.

        1. 13½ miles SSW from Mountbatten. Wrecks and reefs are good but vary hugely from year to year. Lat year was a pollack and bass fest. This year very slow but some pollack around. We’ve had years of the cod (not for quite some time now though), a ling year, not keen on them though they fight well. Organising a charter trip for 3 or 4 blokes is a nightmare though.

          1. I remember there being some huge congers in the area.

            I coarse fish so know very little about sea fishing but I did have a day after marlin when last in Tenerife. We didn’t get a run all day 🙁

          2. Famous for congers, but personally they’re far too much hard work.
            Bugger the marlin and huge tuna, they’re like jag owners.
            My first fishing was on the Thames at Ham and Teddington, perch and pike.

          3. I haven’t been basically since Amy was born due to a lack of money.

            I can’t wait to start fishing again. Hopefully next season maybe.

            I used to fish almost exclusively for roach, chub and barbel with the odd trip after big tench and bream.

            I have an impressive PB list except for a few species which I don’t fish for. I’ve had 3 3lb roach and a host over 2lb. I’ve had 2 17lb barbel and a bunch of doubles, maybe 200 or more. My best chub is a shade under 8lb.

            My best rudd is only 12 oz. That’s one I’d love to improve. I haven’t had a tench over 8lb. Im 4 oz short on the 20lb carp but i catch them using match style tactics with light lines so 19lb 12oz is really a cracking fish. Pike and zander are two PBs I don’t really care about as I don’t predator fish, but my best pike is about 7lb and zander 3lb.

          4. An interesting and impressive PB list, especially the barbel and chub. I’ve been a predator angler for over 50 years and my love has always been lure fishing. PB perch was a tad over 4lb, pike only 17½lb but never had a decent chub.
            I had a 10lb barbel on the Kennet on a lump of spam the first time I fished for one, but as I say my heart is in lure fishing.

          5. If i ever get fishing again and you can travel to peterborough i’ll let you help me improve my best zander and pike ( perfect waters here for those) and in return i’ll help you to a 4lb+ chub.

  86. Some of the adverts infesting my TV watching must surely violate the Advertising Standards rules? EVs claiming 300+ miles range? Shell claiming customers use 100% renewable; that windmills power x million homes – presumably the wind blows all the time in Shell land?

    1. Ah, re the 300+ mile range, I think you’ll find it’s “UP TO”. Anything short of the quoted figure (and I suspect most of them are well short) falls into the “up to” category. Scottish Power also claims 100% renewable sources for its power. Aye right.

      1. I had a few ‘discussions’ on Facebook with energy suppliers regarding them stating they only supplied 100% renewable energy, they removed some of their adverts but also said they only ‘bought’ energy from renewable sources but my argument was that it didn’t matter as the consumer got waht was on the grid the same as everyone else.
        It brought back the memory of the old lady who wanted her electricity taken out as she didn’t want this nuclear stuff in her house

          1. The advert I saw was based on driving in low temperatures and snow with a 4 wheel drive system running!!

    2. The interesting thing I found out from EV reviews was that because of regenerative braking you shouldn’t charge your EV to 100% full particularly if you live at the top of a hill otherwise the energy you will have gained after reaching the bottom will have nowhere to go and your brakes won’t work.

      On the other hand of course if you can keep going downhill for long enough even with a flat EV battery then you could possibly go 300+ miles on the regenerated energy alone and that claim would be completely on the level!

      🤔

      1. ……… and that claim would be completely on the level!
        Surely it wouldn’t be on the level it’d be on the hill.

    1. What is the betting mandatory vaccination will be back on the to do list with our new PM

  88. So, we have a cost of living crisis, millions of ‘economically inactive’ people sitting at home harbouring their resentments, thousands of illegal immigrants, public services failing…

    And now some hot weather.

    It could turn out to be a long, hot summer.

      1. No shortage up here although it’s cleared up a bit this evening. Managed to get some more logging done and drew blood – fell on chainsaw, luckily it had stopped just prior to contact.

          1. Once bitten and all that Sue, got away with a lapse in concentration this time

        8. Heck. They are a bit of equipment that needs serious respect.
          Please be careful.

          1. Yes , I failed to notice some small branches when stepping back – got away with a small cut on my hand (I wasn’t wearing gloves either!)

        9. Saved by the chainbrake?
          Someone said to me the other day that it is a question of balance: certain brands tend to be much better designed than, for example, Chinese copies.

    3. We always have millions of the economically inactive. This includes those with passive incomes, investors, housewives, househusbands, ill people, students. These people are not seeking work because they don’t have to.

    5. It’s the long cold winter that will follow it that we should be worried about.
      Is everyone prepared?

    1. Goodnight! Say goodnight to Oscar from me! Hope you are able to sleep comfortably.

  91. Am off to bed now…. cream crackered. Hope Y’all sleep well.
    What a bloody state this country is in.

  93. 1667
    (Summer) 11th June: Beginning of long dry spell lasting until mid-August; great heat in June & July. Although it doesn’t stand out in the rather rough CET record for this time (anomaly around +1C against the all-series mean & certainly not as warm as 1666), it appears that there were several very warm/hot spells during this summer, and it was noted from England at least, that a prolonged dry spell occurred from early June to mid-August; June & July are particularly picked out as being months with an ‘exceptional drought’. Pepys (London) notes a dramatic ending to the hot/dry weather around 16th August (OSP).

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