Friday 22 July: The candidates for PM have no chance of emulating Boris Johnson’s success at the ballot box

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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518 thoughts on “Friday 22 July: The candidates for PM have no chance of emulating Boris Johnson’s success at the ballot box”

  2. The candidates for PM have no chance of emulating Boris Johnson’s success at the ballot box

    At the next election we will have the choice of high taxation and spending, high immigration, mandatory covid passes, net zero and idiot wokism levelling down all our institutions.

    Or

    The choice of high taxation and spending, high immigration, mandatory covid passes, net zero and idiot wokism levelling down all our institutions.

    1. The UK needs to continue using coking coal for our (Indian) steel industry – electric furnaces are the net zero option ideal but windmills and solar panels just don’t have the output.

      The UK needs to protect its high quality (Chinese) silicon fabrication plants because chips are so important in the UK’s digital revolution.

      The new PM must realise the importance of both carbon and silicon in the UK’s industrial survival and that being a world leader down to net zero is really short cut to the cliff edge.

      1. That would require some knowledge of science, engineering and common sense – not a lot of that in a PPE degree, I suspect!

  5. Uvalde and the deadly consequences of safetyism. Spiked. 22 July 2022.

    The cops’ overly cautious approach made them bystanders to the mass murder of children.

    An incredible 376 officers were on the scene at the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas in May – a force larger than the garrison that defended the Alamo. All these officers failed to stop an 18-year-old gunman from murdering 19 children and two teachers. A report into the Robb Elementary School shooting commissioned by the Texas House of Representatives found no single weak point in the authorities’ response. Instead, it indicted every single one of the 23 agencies involved. Any of these could have taken control of the situation, yet none did. ‘They failed to prioritise saving the lives of innocent victims over their own safety’, is the report’s damning verdict.

    Yes they were cautious. Because they knew that even if they survived the confrontation with the gunman that would not be the end of it. Vilification by the MSM would almost certainly follow with a better than reasonable chance of criminal proceedings and a long gaol sentence to follow. Who knowing these things would want to stick their necks out? Being a policeman in the United States must be one of the most thankless jobs on the planet. There are high daily risks with poor rewards,

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/07/21/uvalde-and-the-deadly-consequences-of-safetyism/

    1. Pity the young lad who stopped the latest mall shooting by using his own pistol wasn’t at hand. He’d maybe have taken some executive and effective action.

    1. 354543+ up ticks,

      Morning B3
      Then the circle is complete
      The major chap was the start of the openly seen decline.
      From then on the member / voters went into HOPE mode, ALL treacherously, to no avail.

      It would have to be a veggie curry.

      1. Thatcher was cancelled way back, well before anyone realised what was going on.

        She was years ahead of Trump

        1. 354543+ up ticks,

          B3,
          What I never did realise was how many
          indigenous lemmings we were/ are harbouring in the United Kingdom.

        2. The Left really don’t like to lose, do they? They bang on about it endlessly. Heck, they probably think they won WW2.

      1. He won’t – none of them will. I think they confuse who their employers are. We think it’s us – because, well, it is. They work for the state and rely upon it for their careers.

        As soon as they stop funding the voracious furnace of waste that is state machine it immediately attacks them.

  9. Good morning .

    Indeed not, the Tory candidates will never be as successful at the ballot box as Boris Johnson.
    They are plastic and fake. It was interesting, Red Wall voters have said – Boris was our Prime Minister too – that they don’t care that he made mistakes and broke the rules – that he was flawed and normal like everyone else – they feel they have had their votes for him stolen.. they voted for Boris Johnson ( not for the Conservatives ) very few can inspire such loyalty.
    The Conservative Members are being squashed and Ignored by Politicians who were determined to make Boris a scapegoat and replace him with their choice of 2 candidates who are flawed, dishonest and not a fresh start – they don’t inspire- Boris was childish and had many faults but no one but he could have won all those seats. The media, remoaners, BBC and politicians were determined to get rid of Boris. A few days ago he won a vote of confidence, Conservative politicians also cheered him at the last P&O’s and yet the same duplicitous snakes are trying to make him loose his seat over eating a sandwich .
    The candidates don’t have a chance to win the next election- and Boris is still a threat because there are people campaigning to have his name places on the ballot box and some insisting on a general election so that the people can choose . So therefore Boris must be totally removed.

  10. ‘Morning, Peeps. A nice fresh breeze and 14°C to start the day.

    Of all the letters today about the leadership election, I find myself in full agreement with this one:

    SIR – Much is being made of the need for original ideas from the new PM.

    I don’t want original ideas, I want decent old ones. Compassion and fiscal responsibility would do for a start.

    David Nesbitt
    Irthlingborough, Northamptonshire

    2. This is where MPs struggle. They don’t want to do only what needs to be done, they want the headlines for ‘shiny’. There’s no capital to be made from doing only the necessary.

  11. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/322dc807a6d9ca31f045fab17529497694e8f6a9c3ca4d223d4edcea1f830319.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1e51745dd3d72c7c921bd02f608bc5865ee1883cc6a4a1575f242e879d206221.jpg I would doubt that even if the Commander had spelt the word “fladgeon” correctly, with a ‘d’ (the recipe still appears in the 1980 edition of Mrs Beeton’s Cookery And Household Management of which I possess a well-thumbed copy), he would still have been stymied by the great lexicons of the world. I, too, can find no reference to a fladgeon/flageon anywhere, in litt or online.

    1. Bonjour Grizzly and everyone.
      It looks like a corruption of a French word. In tomorrow’s Letters page a multilingual gourmet lexicographer will re-veal the answer. Edit: perhaps derived from
      flagellation (n.)
      Old French flagellacion “scourging, flogging,” or directly from Latin flagellationem (nominative flagellatio) “a scourging,”.

      1. God morgon, Tim.

        There is no revealation in either The Escoffier or Larousse Gastronomique on this culinary conundrum. As you say (“‘ow you say?”) maybe one of our resident Frogophiles may throw some lumière on the topic.

        1. I’ve had a hunt round with no joy, none of HG’s French cookery books show anything similar even allowing for potential misspellings

          I wondered whether the name of the recipe might be a family neologism, made from a combination of one or more words said by children to describe it or its cooking dish

          1. I always find it frustrating to encounter a word with no clearly-evident etymology. I’m hoping that someone out there (DT reader) who read the initial letter will be able to throw some light on the subject for us.

          2. Looking at the recipe again I am struck by its cosmetic resemblance to a (rather delicious) South African dish called Bobotie.

            Bobotie is made of minced beef (usually lightly curried) with chopped dried apricots (instead of lemon zest) and similarly topped with beaten egg before being baked, as is the recipe in question.

            Could “fladgeon/flageon” be of Boer or Afrikaans heritage I wonder?

      2. “flagellatio”. I’m sure I once saw such an act in a 70s Danish porn flick…

    2. I expect someone out there in DT letterland will have an answer.

      I would hazard a guess that is a corruption of ‘flaon’. Meaning a flan.

  14. SIR – As regards the protesters who glue themselves to roads, office windows and even works of art, might I suggest the authorities ignore them. Leave them stuck there, devoid of water, food and publicity. Eight or nine hours should do the trick.

    Peter Sullivan
    Stamford, Lincolnshire

    That’s tempting, Peter Sullivan, but what about those who are unable to go about their lawful business for those “eight or nine hours”? Far better that we get the police to do the job they are paid for by clearing the roads of this tiny minority of eco-morons as soon as they appear?

      1. Save you doing that Bob, let’s all carry a bottle of something similar in our cars, that wee can tip over them.
        Job done.

    2. Take them to a suitable side road where they can still block a highway and glue them to it firmly. Leave them with plenty of water and food, which should be very healthy but also laxative
      Leave them there for 24 hours, but making sure to film them soiling themselves.
      It might make for a few martyrs initially but enthusiasm for such protests will swiftly wane.

        1. Indeed, but if one isn’t careful the right to peaceful protest will be removed for everyone under the guise of stopping a few nutcases.

    3. When these people appear, rip them off what they’ve glued themselves to. If it’s a priceless work of art then charge them for the repair. The removal must be immediate and brutal. Then they are chained up outside, regardless of the weather. A repeat offence leads to a fine, the third a custodial sentence.

      If the police won’t do this then the public must – in direct contravention of Peelian principles.

      1. How about publicise exactly where they are glued to whatever and invite the public’s verdict? As in throw eggs, tomatoes etc. etc. or hiss, boo, shout hurty words …

        Morning all BTW.

      2. How about publicise exactly where they are glued to whatever and invite the public’s verdict? As in throw eggs, tomatoes etc. etc. or hiss, boo, shout hurty words …

        Morning all BTW.

  15. Good morning all. A dull start this morning, 11°C outside with rather welcome light rain.

    The leading letter and a BTL Response to it:-

    SIR – Tory MPs have chosen electoral suicide, having once again not listened to their constituents.

    Rishi Sunak is a multi-millionaire who has no understanding of voters and their worries, cares or frustrations. Liz Truss has no charisma, relying on old policies and sound bites. She is not Margaret Thatcher. Neither stands a chance of winning the next general election.

    The Conservative Party knew what it was getting when Boris Johnson was elected. Where were the so-called grandees, the 1922 Committee and the Cabinet in controlling and advising him, or privately rebuking him when he was wrong? They all knew the nature of the man.

    They were nowhere. All were concerned about themselves, not the country or the Conservative Party. The consequence may be consignment to the political wilderness for a generation. I fear for my country.

    David Shadwell
    Little Baddow, Essex

    Simon Bell
    7 HRS AGO
    I totally agree with David Shadwell. The Tories were already heading for electoral oblivion under Treason May. The ONLY thing that saved them was Boris who they have now removed. I have voted Conservative my entire life but feel that the Party deserves 10 or 15 years in opposition to figure out what they actually stand for. At present it’s very difficult to tell what that is.

    I agree with Simon Bell, the do deserve 10 to 15 years in opposition. But does the country deserve 10 to 15y of the alternative?

      1. All politicians are especially expert and vastly experienced at that Phiz.
        The only thing they don’t eff up is their take home expenses and their bungs.

        1. Labour seem determined to do the wrong thing at every possible turn regardless of the evidence.

    2. Thing is, Boris did the wrong thing during his entire tenure. During covid two things stood out – repetition and evidence of the failure of that repetition, yet we were told to keep doing the same thing despite it not working.

      The first lock down – ok, an annoyance. The second? Maybe, but the third and fourth? Idiocy. The vaccine was quickly shown to not work and the intensive marketing around that defied all normal considerations – where was the calm: it’s your choice, we recommend it, but it remains your choice?

      Chances are such would have increased the uptake because people are obdurate by nature.

      There were no reforms. No changes. The agenda pushed were destructive and damaging Left wing nonsense. we needed cuts, he added taxes. We needed economic growth, he spent on the state. We needed less regulation and oppression, he added it. Crime soared, gimmigration sky rocketed, worked needed to pay and Boris hiked welfare. Why should those on welfare get an inflationary increase when they’ve done nothing to earn it?

      1. “obdurate”? Yes. Right out on the flying bridge of the SS Bolshie.

      2. Pre-vaccine something like 30% of hospitalisations had to be ventilated. Post-vaccine very few people got sick enough to need hospitalisation and most of them didn’t need ventilating. Does that sound like the vaccine didn’t work?

        We didn’t need cuts, we needed public investment. Less regulation could be an utter disaster. Regulation keeps your food safe to eat, makes sure alcoholic tipples don’t make you go blind. Ensures the drugs you are prescribed weren’t knocked up in the back of a kebab shop, and so on.

        Crime soared because some wally cut money to the poor and at the same time cut police numbers by 20%.

        Welfare is 75 quid per week. You try living on that and see how you get on. Remember a week or two ago you said living on 50k a year was a bit of a struggle. Imagine living on 4k per year. Even assuming your full housing costs and council tax costs are taken care of for you, could you live on 75 quid per week then? And these days housing benefit rarely covers the full cost of rent. You have to be renting quite some sh1thole to get all of your rent paid.

        1. Less regulation could be an utter disaster. Regulation keeps your food safe to eat, makes sure alcoholic tipples don’t make you go blind. Ensures the drugs you are prescribed weren’t knocked up in the back of a kebab shop, and so on.

          Straw man argument. No one is arguing for deregulation that reduces safety standards.

          1. Which regulations need to go then? As most are in place for safety, or economic stability, or to stop exploitation.

            No one ever suggests what should be deregulated, just that things should be. It’s like hey I know a buzzword, I’ll sling it in here.

            Should I be allowed to sell horse meat as beef and vietnamese catfish as cod? Both are safe. Both have happened until we introduced regulation. Buyer beware huh.

          2. So all regulation is good, is it? Every business that complains about regulations wants to remove them to make its products less safe, get a bad reputation and put itself out of business?

            Jeez…

          5. I’ve never worked anywhere where the boss has moaned about regulation. Rent too high, yes, taxes too high yes, but never a word about regulation.

          6. Model employers, no doubt. How lucky you were to work for such worthy organisations.

          7. It’s certainly true that I have worked for some right assholes. Parents that refused to pay me, an indian I had to take to tribunal for money owed, a son of a rich private paediatrician who used his company as a personal bank spending the funds we needed to work on his 5 or 6 caribbean holidays per year which of course failed the minute Lloyds said that’s enough of that and called in his working overdraft.

  16. Mike Pence’s security detail ‘called their loved ones to say goodbye’ during US Capitol riot. 22 July 2022.

    Former US Vice President Mike Pence’s security detail feared for their lives and were calling loved ones to “say goodbye” as violence escalated at the Capitol on January 6, according to shocking new testimony.

    “The members of the VP detail at this time were starting to fear for their own lives. There was a lot of yelling, a lot of very personal calls over the radio, so it was disturbing. I don’t like talking about it,” the official, who was unnamed for security purposes, told the committee.

    “But there were calls to say goodbye to family members,” the official continued. “It was getting – for whatever the reason was on the ground – the VP detail thought that this was about to get very ugly.”

    If this is true and one has doubts (the source is unnamed) then the whole Secret Service needs to be shut down! Considerable, one might almost say, exhaustive efforts, have gone into making this minor fracas into something resembling a coup. It has failed; it has simply made the Democrats look ridiculous!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/07/22/mike-pences-security-detail-called-loved-ones-say-goodbye-us/

      1. Black people burn and loot cities. Media reports a bit of bother.
        White people go for a stroll around the capitol building and media goes into hysterics.

        1. Officialdom doesn’t go in those areas which the blacks destroyed. They were statistics on a page, not real. Same as bankruptcy and poverty are merely figures on a sheet, not real to politicians.

          As it is, the media spent so long desperately denying there was a problem that wasn’t caused by whites that their cognitive dissonance had no where to go.

    2. Good! Government officials SHOULD be frightened of the public. Their job is to serve, not control us. If they had spent their lives serving the public dutifully, honestly and with integrity there would be no need to fear.

    3. They have to keep ramping this up and prolong it as much as they possibly can, to distract from the disaster unfolding in Biden’s administration.

    4. Americans, hysterical as usual. It is a pity that this kind of over emotionalism has spread over the Atlantic, mainly I suspect because of twitter and facebook.

    6. Phoning their mummies, “please come and take me home, please Mummy”.

        1. Floods next week. And not so many arsonist around for the last couple of days. Shortage of matches ? Lighter fuel cost gone through the roof ?

        2. No no, it’s a ‘climate emergency’. The marketing wasn’t keeping up with the hyperbole so the zealots fiddled it. What they ignore is that the more outrageous their squealing the more people will ignore it.

      2. The reality didn’t suit the marketing, so the term was changed. As ‘climate change’ is much broader – it’s weather, despite what the fanatics say – they don’t have to keep fiddling the marketing to suit.

        1. I’ve pulled the windows to. Ah, British summers. So much better than anywhere else.

  18. Ukraine calls for international tribunal to bring Putin to justice more quickly. 22 July 2022.

    Andriy Smyrnov, Ukraine’s deputy head of the presidential administration, said on Thursday that Ukraine believed trying Russia separately for the act of aggression, with international participation, would speed up its quest to hold the Russian president and his inner circle accountable.

    The act of aggression – accepted by UN members as an international crime – cannot be tried by the international criminal court due to lack of jurisdiction, but is considered the gravest international crime because of its subsequent consequences. On Thursday, three people were killed and 23 injured by two Russian attacks in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, according to the Kharkiv regional prosecutor’s office.

    Really? Are we going to have Blair and Cameron up there in the dock with Sarkozy; and what about Dubya Bush? This is the purest hypocrisy. Vlad can at least claim some interest in his activities. The rest killed and destroyed without compunction vast numbers of innocents who posed no threat to them!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/21/ukraine-calls-for-international-tribunal-to-bring-putin-to-justice-more-quickly

  19. 354543+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Friday 22 July: The candidates for PM have no chance of emulating Boris Johnson’s success at the ballot box

    Farce upon farce has been the name of the game since jonny major unzipped, decline ALL the way and now the angle of decline is nigh on vertical.
    I am listening now to the news of NHS waiting lists that will NEVER ,EVER be cured because every time an indigenous patient leave an operating theatre
    after an unacceptable wait sometimes of years, a dozen potential patients are waiting in calais & a % are landing daily at
    Dover / Dungeness.

    Tell me, do these issues have any affect at all on repeat voters of the lab/lib/con mass ongoing illegal immigration
    coalition?

    Seemingly the farce is set up to continue until shortly, the ever closer bitter end is reached… via the polling booth.

    t

  21. Morning all 😃
    The candidates have no chance of emulating anything at the ballot box. There will be so many ‘none of the above’, spolied papers, or absent voters. The electorate are in urgent need of a huge change in the parliamentary process, system and amount of candidates.
    In the chamber.
    It doesn’t work, and hasn’t for decades. Its too one sided and public opinion is totally ignored and tramped upon soon after the election.

    1. 354543+ up ticks,

      Morning RE,
      If the NOTA / spoiled papers created over the las three decades, had been put to building a credible opposition party outside of the close shop lab/lib/con coalition party, innocent
      peoples now would not be choking on treacherous political shite.

      1. There’s nobody in my area that is worth me walking the 5 minutes to cast a vote.

        1. 354543+ up ticks,

          RE.
          Then in not casting a vote the political overseers take it you are happy with the status quo.
          What i’m saying is join and fund a fringe party outside of the lab/lib/con coalition.
          Build an opposition instead of marking time on a proven treacherous coalition
          hoping things will improve as has been the case these last three plus decades.

          1. I voted Ukip until they imploded. The fringe parties now should get together instead of fragmenting their votes. We currently have a tory MP here who is ineffectual nationally, but does spend quite a bit of time supporting local projects. She is preferable to the alternatives.

          2. 354543+ up ticks,

            Afternoon N,
            They were treacherously struck down by their own nEc & farage the tory (ino) hero.
            Under Batten leadership they were financially in the black, gaining members daily, a much needed party success story.
            The neC triggered the treachery farage put the boot in while promoting johnson by polishing up his hill marching.

          3. Barnet had a Tory MP for years and he was gold. His name was Sir Sydney Chapman. A thoroughly decent fellow whose daughter was his PA and she was very much like her father. After he retired we got Theresa Villiers who was just awful. I don’t know who my local MP is here in Peterborough.

        2. I’ve always used my vote because women were denied it for so long – but now there really does seem to be nobody worth voting for – and a five mile round trip in the car is more effort than a five minute walk.

          1. You could vote for the person predicted to come last.

            Be kind. Just might save him/her from losing their deposit.

      2. Of course they would. New parties don’t get mass votes. It took Labour over 20 years to become established enough to garner enough votes to win an election.
        What would be the electorate winning policies?
        This electorate only likes things that cause it pain, like the self-flagellating votes for austerity.

        1. 354543+ up ticks,
          Morning T,
          Small additive , large consequences ,
          They like sharing the fruits of self harming whilst
          whinging & supporting more of the same via ” my MP”, not the area’s MP,
          Smacks very much of Stockholm syndrome.

          1. A new party would have to set up policies that appeal to the young, the old (mutually exclusive from what the young want?), poor earners, good earners, workers, and employers (mutually exclusive from what workers want). That’s the only way to garner enough votes to win an election especially against the current two party status quo tinkerers.
            The old will want highly capped immigration. The young will see that as xenophobic.
            Poor earners would like help. Good earners don’t mind that as long as they are not asked for more to ‘fund’ it.
            Employees want more rights, employers want you to have no rights.

            What you’ll end up with is a populist party that tries to be all things to all people and won’t actually achieve anything.

            Or you can set up a sensible set of policies that learned people will know should be good for the country but the electorate on the whole possesses zero wisdom so that party will never get elected.

            See how difficult this is O?

    2. The last thing this lot offer is radical change. It’ll be same old, same old tax and waste. That taxes should be funded from cutting spending seems beyond them. Sunak thinks he can lift himself out of a bucket by the handles. Truss thinks that taxes can be cut – they must, but only by cutting spending significantly more.

      1. Bang on Wibbers.
        They get their feet under the table and are glued to aged traditions.
        Nothing ever changes.

      2. Spending funds taxes. Why do I have to keep telling you this?

        The government isn’t a household. It does no good to think of it as one. That leads to the moronic behaviour of the Cameron administration and Osborne thinking he can get strong growth by cutting everything in sight, a tactic that has worked precisely nowhere at any time.

        1. Yet demonstrably, throughout history, the process of lowering taxes and cutting state spending has led to successful economies.

          Government can only spend what it raises in tax. If a Doctor buys a new car and pays for it from his salary, it’s just the money taken from the car dealership given back to it. All state spending – be that from employees or directly is subsidy. The return of private wealth.

          No new money is created. When the government says a thousand new ‘green’ jobs are created, if they only exist because of government funding then they’re not new wealth, they’re just taxes being spent.

          Thus – no, *government* spending does not fund taxation. While there are more levers the state can play with, at heart it is a question of inputs and outputs and then it is a simple matter of less in, less out. However, as the state is awash with waste and unnecessary pointless activity, the effort must be to eradicate that and thus cut spending.

          Sadly there have been no real terms cuts in state spending. It has continually increased. This is why we’re in the mess we are. Note I do not distinguish the difference of cost to value. A policeman is a cost, but he provides value. A Doctor provides value. A bin man provides value. They are what government is for – the provision of essential services.

          1. Really?

            What went wrong with the Trump tax cuts then?

            Government can spend whatever it wants to as long as what it is buying is priced in pounds, and just about everything the UK government buys is priced in pounds as it is mostly labour and third party services from UK companies. Governments year after year spend more than they raise in taxation. In fact there’s only been about 8 years in the past 50 or so when it hasn’t. So that’s a very normal state of affairs, and a normal state of affairs not just for the UK but for most developed nations.

            New money is always created when the government spends. Government cheques do not bounce. Government never says to its workers sorry people, no wages for six months, things are financially dicey. Governments do exactly what banks do when they make loans. It’s called money creation.

            There were lots of real terms cuts in this past 12 years. That’s directly responsible for there being no growth over 2% and usually much less.

            In 2021 government spent roughly 1 trillion quid, approx 50% of GDP, and took back only 700B in taxation. UK households in aggregate got 300 billion pounds wealthier from government spending. Of course the distribution of that was quite suspect with at least one third of it going to friends and family of politicians notably the ones that set up PPE companies one day into the pandemic.

            Just like banks don’t lend out savers’ monies, government doesn’t spend taxes. It looks like it does when you look at a balance sheet but that’s superficial. Governments create money, spend what they like, tax a reasonable amount which in their mind will keep inflation fairly low, then allow monetary policy to tweak inflation. That’s really how things work.

        2. If you want growth, you have to invest – in the factors that cause growth, so education, infrastructure, and remove impediments, such as the licence Raj and punitive taxation that results from initiative and growth.

          1. And is that what the UK Tory governments have done?

            They cut education, cut investment except in white elephants no one wants like HS2, haven’t done much for infrastructure which is why travel takes so long, we have no water and have to import energy. And they have increased taxes.

            Basically if they could have done something wrong, then they did.

  22. My thoughts on the current state of the Tory Party. I’d be delighted if someone could copy and post onto the BTL section of the Letters page.

    There is a massive disconnect within the current Conservative Party between the leadership and the rank & file members.
    The current TINO leadership are, effectively, a close knit, Blairite, New Labor Lite clique, wedded to the concepts of high Government spending and the subsequent high taxes and borrowing required to sustain such policies.
    They are without any understanding of the fears and aspirations of the party membership, let alone the country as a whole and are destined to either destroy the party or condemn the country to 10 to 15 years of WEF inspired Socialism.
    The grass roots level Tory party membership needs to get a grip of their constituency parties. Deselect any MP who supported the coup against Boris Johnson, replacing them with local people known and respected in the area, and reject any attempt by the control freaks at Conservative Party Central Office to impose unsuitable candidates.
    Only then will the Conservative Party have a chance of recovering the ground they have lost in recent months.

    1. It’s going to take a lot more than that to erase the memories of the past twelve years.

      They’ve had not just 1 but three chances to form a decent administration and by all metrics they have failed.

      As bad as Labour currently are, I still expect them to win the next election and probably the one after as well.

        1. OK.

          So what would real Conservatives have done and how and why would things have turned out differently?

          They would have cut spending even more drastically and probably put taxes up even higher as dealing with the deficit was the number one important plan. Remember real conservatives want spending and tax revenues to match. I can tell you that would have magnified the effects of Osborne’s policies and been even worse for the people.

          Looking at Thatcher and Major shows the Tory way is no public investment.

    1. Thing is, if you state these facts and refuse the totalitarian position, the state sets about destroying you. Worse, it removes the basic freedom to say that 2+2=4.

      Remember that from 1984? “… By weakening the independence and strength of individuals’ minds and forcing them to live in a constant state of propaganda-induced fear, the Party is able to force its subjects to accept anything it decrees, even if it is entirely illogical …”

      1. Good morning, Bob.

        Would you please be so kind as to show me how I may post Tweets on this forum (and elsewhere) in easily assimilated steps. I’ve tried in the past but I evidently do something wrong. Thanks.

          1. Thanks, Jules, but even that is confusing. What is the “timestamp of attention”? And how do I find “copy post location”?

          6. Well done! There seems to be a number of different ways to achieve the result you want.

          7. ‘Attention’ was an edit by my phone, which I corrected. Each tweet has a time when it was posted. Right click on it and copy. Then paste where you want it.

        3. Heyup Grizz. What are you using? Touch screen pad or keyboard?
          All I do is copy the URL of the Tw@ter post I with to display and then paste it into the comment box on here.

        4. In Firefox Right click on the address bar,from the drop down menu hit “copy”
          Move mouse to where you want the tweet and hit “paste”

      2. Nice to hear you, to hear you, nice.

        I’m sure that many on here feel a certain justification, for their seemingly unpatriotic avoidance of a death cult.

  24. A little par 4 today

    Wordle 398 4/6

    ⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜
    ⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜
    ⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. A wee birdie for me.
      Wordle 398 3/6

      ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
      🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      1. Do not read this spoiler text if you haven’t done Wordle today and still intend to.

        Same for me. Never had this before. First two guesses eliminated all five vowels, gave me a T as first letter, S as fourth, and an R that could only really go at position two. From there there’s only one word it could be I think.

          1. Sure.
            But I think this is my first wordle without a vowel. That’s why it was unusual.

      2. Me too
        Wordle 398 3/6

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

    2. After my first two guesses I thought there was only one possible word it could be. 🙂

      Wordle 398 3/6

      🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜
      🟨⬜⬜🟩⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. #MeToo!

      Wordle 398 4/6
      🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜
      ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟨
      🟩🟩⬜🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  25. I see from the rain radar that today’s precipitation will miss us YET AGAIN.

    1. Nice dark blue patch over here on the current weather. The forecasters think it’s raining, but it’s not… No doubt there will come a time when one wishes for dry weather instead of floods…

    2. Yo Bill

      Can you not get your computer mouse to move the rainclouds to over your house?

    3. I think the rain here began about 06:00ish, light to begin with, then a bit heavier and now back to light, barely more than a drizzle at the moment.

  26. Anyway, one mystery has been solved by a fiery article in the Telegraph today.
    Some of the roof timbers in that famous big old Parisian church had been coated with a gel which was petroleum solvent based.
    Specifically Xilix Gel Fongi+, marketed by a French company called Adkalis.
    Even allowing for evaporation, some flammable or combustible residue may have been present, such as a wax or resin, which could have melted and fallen upon other pieces of timber.
    Ironically, the parent company Groupe Berkem also sells fire retardant solutions.
    Good ol’ schlimmbesserung.

    1. Those beams had worked perfectly well for 900 years.
      Why did they suddenly need anti-fungal treatment?

      2. Timber treatments have been a racket for decades. The only timber I know of which will absorb a preservative is Scots Pine. Timbers such as oak are too dense in structure to absorb any preservative.

        The principal issues with oak are when exposed to moisture for a long time it becomes susceptible to Death Watch Beetle attack and in some instances to Dry Rot.

        Notte Dame could not have burned down so rapidly without an accelerant.

        Edit: Oak does not need a fire retardant. Under flames oak simply chars and the charring provides insulation.

  27. Anyway, one mystery has been solved by a fiery article in the Telegraph today.
    Some of the roof timbers in that famous big old Parisian church had been coated with a gel which was petroleum solvent based.
    Specifically Xilix Gel Fongi+, marketed by a French company called Adkalis.
    Even allowing for evaporation, some flammable or combustible residue may have been present, such as a wax or resin, which could have melted and fallen upon other pieces of timber.
    Ironically, the parent company Groupe Berkem also sells fire retardant solutions.
    Good ol’ schlimmbesserung.

    2. I’ve watch a few of those narrow boat videos the silence and the scenery is golden.

    5. Thanks for that I was unaware of this tunnel. I did the Blissworth tunnel several times and thought that was the longest navigable tunnel, and I thought the Dudley tunnels were the longest but now no longer navigable.

          1. Careful, Sr, putting ideas like that into Phizzee’s head, you won’t be able to keep him out of the MRI machines (or simulators)! :o)

    9. If anyone is wondering about the ‘checkpoints’, they are the adits that were dug to link the canal tunnels with the later, parallel, railway tunnels. The latter were built without construction/ventilation shafts, the waste material from the works being removed by boat. Also, the reference to service tunnels is a bit misleading. The first railway tunnel (1848) was single track, followed in 1871 by a second. In 1894 a third tunnel, double track, was added. This is still in use today; the two single-tracks tunnels are disused but intact and in good order. They are the ‘service’ tunnels referred to. The connection was referred to only very briefly by the lady interviewee at the end .

  29. Once more unto the breach.
    The French are being nasty again, no surprises. British holiday makers and transport services are held up by the childish mentally of the French government. Only 6 of the usual 12 document inspection kiosks are open. They are deliberately making life hell for travellers trying to cross the Channel.
    Coming from Calais in a rubber boat takes about two hours. Getting through French customs on this side of the Channel is
    taking 5 hours plus the crossing.
    They are like pathetic little children who have never been able to get over the history of the English knocking them around a bit.

    1. That’s about the size of it – and don’t forget Jupiter’s vaxx mandates and ‘merde’ to anyone who failed to comply.

      1. And at the same time they pack people into rubber boats and send them here. The absolute irony of it all.

      1. Before knocking the French – on many occasions while returning to the UK from France I have been delayed because there were very few Border Farce staff working. Chunnel = six booths – only one open.

        1. I’m not particularly knocking the French people Bill, but their vindictive government, it seems that at any given opportunity they have to cause problems they are all over it. The queues on the roads to Dover are miles long. Similar I guess to the queues for the rubber boats. 🤔
          Incidentally when our three boys were younger we use to take our holidays in Le belle France every year. I Drove thousands of miles North to south and east to west. And never had the slightest problem ever, often quite the opposite.

          2. I just had oily fush for lunch. (Kiwi) Mackerel in home made bread with……horse radish source.
            How can anyone trust a man whose wife is a multi millionaire but keeps it quiet ?
            Surely if they have been working together, people outside would have been aware. And if not what sort of relationship would that be ?
            Something not quite above board there, me thinks.

  30. Nazarin Veronica regarding her interview with Dan Wootton on GB News last night with reference to the editing of the ‘unvaxxed’.
    “I don’t know about you, but I think we smashed it! Thank you for giving us the opportunity to share the truth @danwootton. There wasn’t enough time to cover everything, but we have another interview with @MarkSteynOnline on Monday, so will go into more detail then 😉 @vickyborman”
    Interview with Dan Wootton can be seen about halfway here:
    https://twitter.com/cerumol/status/1550241305409765379?s=20&t=zXdpRsWfo-0qBkG-FK4ZxA

    1. I have responded to the YouTube version, as follows:

      “I’m frankly surprised that neither the BBC documentary nor the Dan Wooton interview made any reference to the Pfizer document of 55,000 pages, that they, Pfizer, wished to subject to being locked for 75 years. Since a Supreme Court Judgement forced them to publish it, researchers have found many examples of the poor research done on any adverse effects (long-term or otherwise) that they might have found and which have subsequently come to light.“

      1. Not only poor research has come to light but also multiple harmful effects including death.

    2. Air temp stuck at 14.4C here. Occasional light drizzle now, not enough to be useful though it will help to reduce transpiration so leaves won’t droop. Humidity 90%

    1. Frightening people. Nottlers can see through it but I don’t think the public can.

    1. Socialists really don’t get it, do they? It does not, cannot and never, ever will work. It goes entirely against the human condition. You’re forcing an unnatural act on someone.

      If folk want to be socialists, let them nip off and start a nice little commune together where they can all grow vegetables, but as soon as they need something, they have to trade something of equal worth. Heck, as soon as they want a relationship they’re entering a market society.

      Heck, yesterday the dog entered the market by coming to give me a hug and then bringing me his treat box. If he can manage it, why don’t the socialists get it? Markets are inevitable.

        1. That word “trust” wrecks it. You can’t trust politicians, nor most people. That’s why mobile (nomadic) societies still spend a lot of time getting to know you before dealing with you – the Arab way of taking tea before discussing business, for example.

          1. The government in theory are the people’s representatives that we elected. If anyone is to blame for lack of trust we need only look in the mirror. Elect better candidates.
            We have politicians we know we can’t trust and yet they get elected over and over again.

          3. There’s always independents to take a plunge on. The electorate likes names they know and faces they can recognise even if they know those guys to be dullards or expenses cheats. Half the country still believes they vote for a PM.

        2. Why? Too many of them? I find it odd that so much is spent and so little value returned.

          However it rather makes me wonder if we’re missing the definition of ‘arrest’. I’d also like to see the conviction rates for the crimes they do pursue.

    3. Perhaps most of them were glued to their desks and didn’t get out to tackle crime.

    6. People continue to labour under the illusion that the police are STILL public servants. They haven’t been for over 30 years. They exist only to carry out government diktat.

    7. Some bright civil servant will set them a target of x number of arrests per year – look out if you’re white and docile-looking.

    8. 7 in 10 probably never left their stations at all, except to attend pride and similar events

  35. Good morning, Nottlers! As the UK road system grinds down to snail pace as thousands protest the robbery of the fuel and energy prices, the Sturgeon junta is under the spotlight again. Scotland deserves a lot better than this criminal shyster crew. A strong causal connection has been made between the large increase in “excess deaths” and the jabs, but the nothing-to-see-hear mantra of the nomenklatura of the troughers at Holyrood Palace.

    https://tarableu.substack.com/p/very-strong-evidence-for-a-causal?sd=pf

    1. Of course Scotland “deserves better” – But the stupid heifers keep voting for the Nats.

        1. Well – do something about getting normal people (if there are any) to vote OTHER than the Nats.

          1. Well – Sue is pretty normal (as far as any NoTTLer is) and there are plenty like her. It’s a bit like asking members of the Conservative Party (or their voters) to get Tories to be more, erm, conservative.

          3. But obviously – given the state of the Scottish pretendy parliament – not enough.

          5. Well, there’s the problem! ‘Normal’!! I was out walking with my dear old friend the Nat loon, yesterday! We don’t talk politics any more! 😱🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

  36. For some reason, the house has become infested with dopey flies. I’ve dealt with five in the last ten minutes

        2. We had the same a few weeks ago. They all looked suspiciously alike. My daughter floated the idea that they had hatched out from somewhere in the house!
          I’m darned if I know where. The compost is emptied regularly, and I don’t think there are any other sources of rotting food anywhere.
          Anyway, the invasion only lasted a couple of days, I killed as many of them as I could catch, and the house is blessedly fly free at the moment.

          1. Most flies will only blow on meat. Often particular types of meat. You won’t find maggots in a rotten apple.

          2. They lay eggs in the inside of our dustbin lid most years. There’s the occasional lot of bones in there, but not a lot of meat. We don’t tend to throw meat out!

          3. Houseflies like decaying matter. Their maggots are tiny. Fisherman call them squats. Bluebottles prefer meat. Their maggots are much larger, many times bigger than squats. They need a food source to match. Roadkill is common. The maggots fishermen know as maggots are bluebottle larvae.
            When I was a kid we had a massive bluebottle invasion, so bad that environmental health turned up to ask if we had a problem. Mum of course said no but she was chasing them around the house with a hoover. Dad had left three pints of maggots in a bait tin in a small fridge which conked out overnight. The ice melted and dripped water into the maggots which gives them the ability to climb out of the pot and getting through the rubber door seal is easy for them. Millions of maggots made their way under the floorboards into a space shared with next door and they had complained to the EHO that they had a fly problem and were wondering why 🙂

          5. I think those ones come in with the kitchen compost tin. When I empty it I think some get into the tin. I’ve taken to washing the tin with diluted bleach.

        3. At this time of year they are probably cluster flies, they can get in through the tiniest cracks

    2. “Raid” aerosol insect killer works. That’s how I got rid of the little buggers that bit me all over last weekend. One of the bites became badly infected and while I was waiting to see the doctor who prescribed antibiotics and fucidic acid cream, I sat in the waiting room reading the instructions for fumigating with Raid. The nurse approved when she came to give me an antihistamine tablet.

        1. Close all windows, spray room from middle, leave room and close door for 15 minute then re-enter and open windows. Apparently works for 4 weeks.

  37. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mopMFfMlwvE&list=WL&index=56 Here is one for Paul to answer.

    In order to be imprisoned (in any Western country) you must have first broken a law of that country. Laws are enacted by legislative bodies (i.e. parliaments of elected representatives) and, following a trial, someone who has broken that law many be punished.

    What law has been broken, in this case, that states it is illegal to speak common sense and biologically-proven facts? Three years’ imprisonment for telling the unassailable truth? WTF is happening?

    1. IIRC, it was said in a hurty feelings law case in the Netherlands a couple of years ago that truth was no defence.

      1. Since ‘truth is no defence’ then a jail term may be ignored because it’s only truth and there is wrong in enforcing it since, by their own admission, it’s a truth and ‘truth is no defence’.

        QED.

        1. I mean, telling the truth is no defence if saying it is deemed to be a hate crime.

    3. Hadn’t heard of this until now. Accused of hate speech, but only available outside of msm, and who can keep up with the crazies in media?

    4. This just illustrates the total wrong that there is in tody’s warped world – warped mostly by the woke left and supported by the power-graabbers of WEF, UN, WHO and EU.

    5. Not the case here.

      Leaders of the freedom convoy were charged and imprisoned without bail. After being locked up for four months, one was finally released on bail but pretty much undernourished arrest. A second leader is back under arrest after supposedly breaking bail conditions.

      All have been charged with various crimes but none have yet been in court to answer to the charges.

    6. The state has increasingly passed law that allow it to silence people saying things it disagrees with. It does this under banners like equality, fairness and decency, but it’s just oppression.

    7. My word this is absolutely stupid. How can she be judged as being wrong. And what harm could she have done to any one.
      “If the law supposes that,” said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, “the law is a ass – a idiot”.

  38. Email that landed in my inbox from UKIP today:

    “Whist illegal immigration continues at pace across the English Channel, I did not think that it would impact on the country’s defence industry.

    However, after reading an email from a defence contractor working in Barrow-in-Furnace for BAE Systems on the new nuclear submarine project ‘The Continuous At-Sea Deterrent’, it has been highlighted that many travelling contractors and locals working on this project are unable to find a good standard of accommodation, local to the site.

    A couple of years ago an entire local hotel, the OYO Majestic was commandeered for illegal immigrant accommodation. In the last month, the regular clientele of contractors staying in the sister hotel, the OYO Imperial close by were told it was closing for maintenance.

    It would appear that this hotel has also been commandeered to house illegal immigrants.

    The housing of hundreds of illegal immigrants in this area, who are free to roam the local area, close to such an important defence site is of great concern. Most, if not all these illegal immigrants have not been vetted in any way. This news also follows today’s independent review into the failings of our Border Force and the large numbers of Illegal Immigrants who have disappeared from their hotels before biometric information is taken to use for their identities. We are funnelling in security risks and putting them up in sensitive areas like Barrow-in-Furness. Terror attacks waiting to happen??

    These important contractors have now had to find alternative accommodation, further from the site and at a greater expense due to reduced accommodation availability.

    The UK Independence Party finds this situation unacceptable and would not house unvetted illegal immigrants close to any defence site.

    Sqn Ldr Peter Richardson Retired”
    UK Independence Party – Spokesman for Defence and Veterans

    We don’t have a functioning country any more, just a sham. Thanks to Mr Richardson for highlighting this story – it just underlines what a task we have to re-build the country that we have squandered since the War.

  39. PASSENGERS in the Netherlands were yesterday told they could only fly with carry-on bags after a technical failure at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Shithole airport, in the latest example of travel disruption and a growing lost luggage crisis.

    KLM (KaLaMity Airlines), the Dutch flag carrier airline, which operates the majority of flights out of Amsterdam, said that owing to a “malfunction” passengers with a transfer flight within Europe yesterday would not be able to travel if they had hold luggage.

      1. I suspect that is so. I’ve flown with KLM over 100 times, always via Schiphol and I’ve always found it a fine airport with great facilities and all round it’s very efficient. I flew out of Schiphol in March and went straight through security in minutes and went through the automatic passport gates with no problems.

        Given the reasons for mass protests by Dutch farmers for 3 weeks, (Not anywhere in the MSM btw) and their government’s commitment to WEF aims, I would not be surprised if it were all planned.

    2. A few years ago, we were travelling back from Kenya but with a change in Shithole – the security took so long to get us through that we missed our connection. The helpful lady on the desk booked us on the next flight to Heathrow, which was only another hour to wait. Our luggage, however, went on the flight we had missed and was lost at Heathrow. It did eventually get delivered home a few days later.

      1. We were tintenting through France, Holland Denmark and Germany and took a wrong turn, when we left Amserdam.
        We saw a sign for Schipol and thought, pick up drop off passengers route, so, an ideal place to do an about turn.
        Entered the airport, drove past arrivals and back out onto the Motorway
        Many Dutch were lookng at us in amazement

      2. A Swedish friend has taken his holidays in the USA every year for the past 35 years. He flies from Copenhagen to Washington DC where he meets an old friend before going on tour. On one occasion he flew into Schiphol on the way home and, during his transfer was given a hard time by immigration and Security at the airport for no good reason. He then resolved never again to pass though “Shithole” Airport (as he coined it).

      3. Our neighbour was panicking a bit she was in Cape Town New variant on the move (supposedly) and needed to get back to her second home in the Lot region in France. So on advice instead of flying to Paris, she booked a flight to Schiphol landed and boarded a fight to Paris and took the train home. No hold ups no covid testing straight through.
        We haven’t flown for a couple of years last time we came home from Almeria to Luton and it a bit daunting when you can’t see your luggage on the conveyer belt. Ours ended up in Portugal ?? But they delivered to our door three days later. No harm done.

        1. The worst time for us was in 2005 when we went to South America – first stop Lima, after Heathrow -Madrid. No luggage when we arrived in Lima. We had a meal and bought some underwear and toiletries and after 13 hours travelling we were ready for bed. Lima was just an overnighter on the way to Cuzco. We wore borrowed clothes to Machu Picchu and bought some jumpers and sent the bill to Iberian. Eventually, after five days, our bags caught up with us. It was a great trip – we spent a week or so in Peru, then the whole of October in Bolivia.

      4. Nowadays the flight wouldn’t have been allowed to leave with luggage in the hold that didn’t belong to somebody on board.

        1. It wasn’t that long ago – long after the bombing incidents. 2017 I think. It left on the flight we should have been on but missed.

          Another time we were coming home from India – we went to Gatwick and the luggage went to Heathrow ( or was it the other way round?) They sent it on a few days later. That was the time I found a scorpion in my washing.

          1. The last time I flew the aircraft was delayed because one of the passengers didn’t turn up on time and his luggage (presumably it was an onward flight) had to be offloaded.

  40. Keeping an eye on the weather: going to enjoy an evening at Burnby Hall Gardens Pickering.
    We have tickets for an outdoor performance of Pride and Prejudice so fingers crossed.

    1. Whatever you do, DO NOT WATER THE GARDEN, that will guarantee that it will rain

      2. You are absolutely right!
        The times I’ve spent ages watering plants, only to find the forecast was wrong and the heavens opened up.

  41. Apropos those two “Time” front covers – shown below, earlier:

    Some say the world will end in fire,
    Some say in ice.
    From what I’ve tasted of desire
    I hold with those who favor fire.
    But if it had to perish twice,
    I think I know enough of hate
    To say that for destruction ice
    Is also great
    And would suffice.

    Robert Frost

  42. This week’s update from the Free Speech Union:

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

    Regional Speakeasies
    The final Regional Speakeasy in our Summer Season of events will take place next Wednesday, 27th July, in Brighton with GB News presenter Inaya Folarin Iman as our special guest speaker. Please register on Eventbrite (here) to secure your place and do invite friends and colleagues who are interested in finding out more about the Free Speech Union.

    The FSU’s five-point free speech manifesto
    The results of an independent opinion poll commissioned by the FSU show that people strongly support our five-point free speech manifesto (available here). The headline finding is that only 2% of the public strongly agree that the Government is doing a good job of standing up for free speech. Among 25-49-year-olds, that number falls to 1%.

    In light of our poll, the FSU launched a campaign to get supporters who are also members of the Conservative Party to use our new campaigning tool to email the candidates in the Conservative leadership election and urge them to do more to protect free speech. After all, one of them will be our next Prime Minister, and this could be our best chance of extracting a commitment from them that they’ll do everything in their power to defend free speech when they’re in 10 Downing Street.

    As of Thursday afternoon, nearly 2,500 emails had been sent via our online campaigning tool, and it’s already clear that the campaign is making a real difference to the tone and tenor of the leadership contest. Thanks to the pressure the FSU and its members have been able to exert during the first full week of campaigning, free speech issues that might otherwise have been overlooked are now being forced to the forefront of debate.

    Take the issue of non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs). In the email we urged Conservative Party members to send to the candidates using a campaigning tool, we asked them to “end the investigation and recording of NCHIs by the police and [to] delete all those that are still sitting on people’s records.” A few days after we launched our campaign, leadership candidate Kemi Badenoch warned that the police in England and Wales were logging tens of thousands of NCHIs each year and announced that if she won the contest she would take “whatever steps are necessary to end the recording of non-crime hate incidents”, stop the police intervening in Twitter spats and get them back to investigating burglaries and anti-social behaviour. (Mail, Reclaim the Net, Unherd). The next day, Rishi Sunak set out his agenda for law and order and made clear that “our police forces must be fully focused on fighting actual crime in people’s neighbourhoods and not policing bad jokes on Twitter”. (Telegraph).

    It seems unlikely that this esoteric policing technique would have become such a prominent issue in the leadership contest were it not for the volume of emails on the topic that have relentlessly been pinging into the candidates’ inboxes over the past week.

    Another action our template email urged the candidates to commit to was “ditching those clauses in the Online Safety Bill that pose a threat to freedom of expression”. To be sure, as Madeline Grant pointed out for the Telegraph, Ms Badenoch was clearly willing to challenge Tory orthodoxies, including the Online Safety Bill and its alarming free speech implications, right from the very start of the leadership contest. But the final two Tory leadership candidates – Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss – have only recently expressed reservations about the Bill’s ‘legal but harmful’ clause.

    During this week’s Spectator magazine hustings, for instance, it was put to Rishi Sunak that the Bill would create a new category of speech to be censored – legal but harmful – and that politicians would end up deciding what is harmful. “Would you protect free speech by stopping this from happening?” asked the Spectator’s Isabel Hardman. “I do want to make sure that we are… protecting free speech and the legal but harmful bit is the one that I would want to spend some time as Prime Minister going over and making sure that we’re getting that bit exactly right,” Rishi said. “I can’t tell you what the right answer at the end of that process will be, but I think it’s fair that people have raised some concerns about that and its impact on free speech. And I think it’s right that those concerns are properly addressed.”

    The same question was then put to Liz Truss, who made the following remarks: “The principles I believe in are the protection of free speech, but also making sure that we’re not exposing under-18s to harm online… So I will want to look at that and make sure that that is in the right place, as well as protecting freedom of speech, freedom of the press. I’m a great believer that those are core freedoms that a healthy society depends on.”

    Over the coming weeks we want to extract further, more substantive commitments to protect free speech from both the remaining leadership candidates. If you’re a Conservative Party member and you haven’t already done so, please use our new campaigning tool to send them an email. If you’re a Conservative Party member and have already used the tool, remember that the template can be tweaked to accommodate whatever free speech issues you’d now like to raise with Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss.

    No-platforming at record levels across UK university campuses
    The Office for Students warned this week that “freedom of speech is at risk of being stifled on campuses” (Times Higher). A survey carried out by the universities watchdog found that a record number of speakers and events were rejected last year. Out of 19,407 external speaker requests or events on English campuses in academic year 2020-21, 193 were rejected, compared with 94 in 2019-20, 141 in 2018-19 and 53 in 2017-18. (Evening Standard, Mail, Times).

    As FSU General Secretary Toby Young pointed out to the Telegraph, these figures are “just the tip of the iceberg”. It’s a nice analogy. The media always seems to focus on the number of no-platforming episodes per year, as if that figure were the totality of the issue faced.

    It isn’t, of course, not by a long stretch – but that type of data all too easily plays into the hands of those who want to suggest that cancel culture is indeed little more than a myth. The Independent demonstrated exactly how to pursue that particular line of argument this week. Ignoring the increase in the overall number of cancellations reported by the OfS, it focused instead on the fact that “fewer than 1% of speaker requests or events were rejected last academic year”. Here was proof positive, claimed the paper’s expert source, General Secretary of the UCU, Jo Grady, that “the Tory narrative of a free speech crisis caused by oversensitive students is totally at odds with the evidence”, and that the Government are “whipping up a phony culture war”.

    Certainly, it’s true that if all you ever chose to look at were the data on no-platforming, the free speech crisis in Britain’s universities might well come to seem a little ‘aerated’. Previous research by the OfS, for instance, found that of 62,000 requests by students for external speaker approval in England in 2017–18, only 53 were rejected. Similarly, research from WonkHE found that of almost 10,000 events involving an external speaker at an English university in 2019-20, just six were cancelled. Crisis, what crisis?

    And yet the free speech problem at UK universities goes far deeper – indeed, it can’t really be seen or properly understood until more nuanced, qualitative data is considered. That’s why Toby’s “iceberg” analogy is so apt. As he made clear to the Telegraph, over the past year alone the Free Speech Union has helped hundreds of students and academics, “all of whom have got into trouble for expressing nonconformist views or pushing back against ideological orthodoxy on campus, whether by refusing to do unconscious bias training, criticising their university’s links with Stonewall, objecting to the decolonisation of the curriculum, or daring to point out that George Floyd had a criminal record”.

    And what about the countless other incidents that occur but never come to the attention of organisations like the FSU? They too must surely have a ‘chilling’ effect on the actions of all who come to hear of them through the academic grapevine. As FSU Advisory Council member and Reader in Philosophy at Cambridge University, Arif Ahmed, attested in a piece for Spiked: “I have attended conferences on the Gender Recognition Act that have had to be held in secret locations on university premises, unadvertised, with a closed guest list. I have met academics who live in daily fear of violence for expressing a widely held scepticism about Stonewall – and their universities do nothing to protect them. I know of 18-year-olds being ostracised within weeks of starting at university because someone dug up something they had written questioning this or that orthodoxy. All of this is happening in universities in Britain today.”

    Understood in this broader context, it is, as Dr Ahmed concludes, “virtually impossible to deny with a straight face that there is a free-speech problem at universities”.

    FSU research on proposed NI Hate Crime Bill in the media spotlight
    General Secretary Toby Young appeared on BBC Radio Ulster’s The Nolan Show to discuss the results of an opinion poll commissioned by the FSU. As reported by the Belfast Newsletter, the poll revealed little public appetite in Northern Ireland for a Hate Crime Bill and considerable anxiety that it would have a chilling effect on free speech.

    Back in 2019, the Northern Irish Justice Department commissioned Judge Desmond Marrinan to carry out a review of hate crime legislation. Following publication of the Marrinan Review in December 2020, the Department immediately accepted 22 of his 34 recommendations, including those that would: apply a statutory aggravation model to all criminal offences, whereby any offence motivated by hostility towards protected groups is punished more severely; include transgender identity as a protected characteristic; frame legislation to allow more groups to be added to the ‘protected’ list in future; extend the ‘stirring up hatred’ offence so it applied to all the groups on the ‘protected’ list; and implement the proposals in the UK Government’s 2019 Online Harms White Paper to prohibit online content that is ‘legal but harmful’. As we point out in our latest briefing paper (here), the Marrinan proposals appear to have been heavily influenced by Scotland’s Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act – a piece of legislation that FSU Scottish Advisory Council member Jamie Gillies recently referred to as an “authoritarian mess” (Spiked).

    Phase one of a public consultation designed to inform the development of a new Hate Crime Bill closed earlier this year, with phase two issuing in due course. As Toby pointed out on The Nolan Show, one of the things the FSU poll did was confirm the existence in Northern Ireland of a ‘demographic divergence’ that first became apparent in the consultation exercise. Whereas activists and campaigners tend to support the idea of legislating against ‘hate speech’ to make society more ‘inclusive’ and ‘respectful’, individual members of the public – in both the consultation exercise and our polling data – tend to express concern about the impact of such legislation on freedom of speech and expression.

    Remarkably, the Department dealt with this ‘divergence’ by consistently adopting recommendations opposed by the public and endorsed by activists. “So what was the point of running a consultation process?” a perplexed interviewer asked Toby at one point. “So they can say that they consulted about it,” he replied, rounding off an interactional exchange that would surely have graced any episode of Yes Minister.

    Worryingly, phase two of the consultation looks set to consider what Toby went on to describe as “even more draconian and illiberal” recommendations. “There is”, he explained, “currently an exception within the Public Order Act whereby you cannot be prosecuted for stirring up hatred against a member of a protected group in the privacy of your own home. One proposal in phase two is to scrap that defence, so that if you say something supposedly hateful to your child at the dinner table, you could be prosecuted and your child summoned as a witness in a court as part of the prosecution.” Another proposal is to make “transmisogyny” a hate crime, such that if someone were to say that they didn’t think transwomen should compete against women in women’s sport, “they might then be liable for prosecution on account of having committed a transmisogynistic hate crime”.

    The concern now is that this final phase of the consultation will follow a similar pattern to phase one, with the public expressing concerns about the proposals, activist groups cheerily endorsing them as useful tools for the persecution of their opponents, and the Department then siding with the activists.

    It’s worth noting that the Marrinan Review was commissioned, and its proposals accepted, by officials within Northern Ireland’s Justice Department when Northern Ireland didn’t have a Government. There was no Government in Northern Ireland between 2017 and 2020 and there hasn’t been one since February of this year, when First Minister Paul Givan resigned. How can it be democratic for unelected bureaucrats to make such sweeping changes to the law?

    The FSU writes to Lancaster City Council regarding the no-platforming of Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown
    We’ve written to the Leader of Lancaster City Council, Councillor Jackson, urging her to reconsider the cancellation of Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown’s forthcoming performance in Morecambe. As the Mail reported earlier this month, the controversial 77-year-old comedian was due to perform at the council-run Platform venue in August, but the show was cancelled after a total of 59 people signed a petition calling for the council to ban the performance.

    As we pointed out in our letter, the FSU take no view on Chubby Brown’s comedy routine, just as we do not advocate for specific points of view. What we do believe, however, is that unless laws are being broken, as opposed to some people finding something distasteful, members of the general public are mature enough to make up their own minds on what they wish to watch, read or listen to. We therefore concluded our letter with the request that Cllr Jackson reverse her decision. The Lancaster Post has now picked-up news of the FSU’s intervention, and we hope that this local press coverage will encourage Lancaster Council to do the right thing and allow the people of Morecambe to decide for themselves whether Chubby Brown’s set is worth the ticket price or not. You can read our letter in full here.

    Another reason to support the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill
    Student activists in Germany successfully pressured administrators to call off a public lecture by a PhD candidate on the evolution of binary sex at Berlin’s Humboldt University (Times Higher). The lecture, titled “Sex, gender and why there are only two sexes in biology” had been programmed as part of an established public science event that has taken place in Germany since 2000. Just two days before the talk, however, it was called off for “security reasons” after staff were alerted to a planned protest – activists from a group called ‘Working Group of Critical Lawyers’ had taken to Twitter to denounce the postdoctoral student’s work as “unscientific, inhuman and hostile to queer and trans people” before then offering the following, thinly veiled threat: “There is no place for queer hostility at our university. See you on the street!”

    Humboldt University claims to have set a new date for the lecture, although whether that ever happens is now a moot point. The problem for organisations that cite “security reasons” when bowing to the demands of the mob is that they set a dangerous precedent. Every radical transactivist in Germany will now believe that if Humboldt University hosts a speaker whose views they happen not to like in the future, the threat of protest is all it takes to get the whole thing called off.

    Thankfully, our Government recently accepted two amendments to the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill that the FSU has long been campaigning for, one of which will make it harder for universities or students’ unions in England to cite “security concerns” as a reason to cancel events when faced with the threat of protests. Our amendment will also make it harder for universities and students’ unions to pursue ‘pre-emptive’ cancellations, whereby the ostensibly neutral language of “security costs” is invoked for altogether more political purposes. As former Universities Minister Michelle Donelan pointed out in the Commons recently, a student society recently faced a £500 security bill from Bristol University student union to allow Mark Regev, then the Israeli Ambassador, to give a talk, while charging nothing to allow his Palestinian counterpart to do the same (Jewish News). The Jewish Society at Lancaster University was also recently asked to pay £1,500 towards “security costs” as a condition of inviting Mark Regev. Because the Society couldn’t afford this, the event was cancelled (Telegraph).

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

    Best wishes,

    Freddie Attenborough

    Communications Officer

  43. OT
    I waa flippping through the TV channels earlier this week and came across Professor Iain Stewart’s programme about his exploits in Australia and how the continent was formed since being part of an enormous land mass called Gondwana.

    https://hdclump.com/rise-of-the-continents-episode-2-australia/

    It turns out that Gondwana was so big in the Earth’s Southern hemisphere that in the timeeframe of just one million years it split from being a forested continent with wildlife into a desert ridden land mass, Australia, and a frozen wasteland, Antarctica.

    What was refreshing was the absence of any refrences whatsoever to either global warming or animal extinctions but an explanation of how the species that survived the major opposing temperature changes as Gondwana split were those that could evolve the most rapidly.

        1. Getting out for a stretch.
          I recorded a prog about two days ago and the professor was explaining how Australia will be reconnected to south Asia. Probably wiping out Japan. Mind you don’t panic………….

      2. With the Aussies’ meek submission to the recent Covid imposition perhaps the place should be renamed GoneWankas?

        (Only kidding Sports!)

      3. Thanks for that mm. It really is one of those pictures that says a 1000 words.

    2. Thanks for the tip. Found episodes 1 & 2 on BBC iPlayer but not episode 3, the Americas.

  44. Just got back from a rather nice lunch. Bresola e Granna and mussels for main. A couple of cocktails and……..no taxis or buses. Had to call my neighbour. He said i was lucky he was home and twice lucky that he answered his phone which he does rarely. Thrice lucky that he wasn’t playing golf !

  45. Just had a post disallowed on arsebook: “Shoot the messenger – always works.” (Kinda ironic, no?)

    1. It’s the reason why Doctor receptionists have a bullet proof screen between them and you.

    2. I rang our surgery this morning and explained a certain situation to the receptionist and the lady rang me back after half an hour with an appointment next Wednesday afternoon.

          2. Yeah I’ve stitched it all back on, should be okay ’till Wednesday. Mind you we are at a BBQ Tomorrow afternoon i don’t know how i’m going to hold my drink. 😂

          5. Not a plastic straw though…We wouldn’t want to add to the billions of tonnes that our councils outsource to India to throw straight in their rivers. Oh no…

          6. 🤭😆

            If I go shopping and I assure you it’s never often, but I quite often ask for a bag. And I confirm to the assistant that I will never throw it in the sea.

          8. Nothing personal Mr fantastic Geoff.
            It’s Just my rather off the wall sense of humour.
            Your a great guy matey.
            Good night to you and many thanks for what you do. It’s rather Wonderful.

          9. No worries, Eddy. You’re very welcome.A neighbour’s terrier escaped a few days ago. The family’s son opined that he would happily remove a rear left leg and a front right. I’ll leave you to work out the response…

    4. Saw the same in Spain many years ago.
      Brit had gone to get rezidencia card; advised he was in the wrong office, go out into the street, tirn left, left and left again, and he’ll see the door labelled in front of him.
      Does that, opens the door – to find hinself at the other side of the same counter, with the same bloke opposite!

      1. And the new government just happened to have a rationing system ready to impose! What a coincidence, eh!

    2. 354543+ up tick,

      Afternoon BB2,
      They are accepting it at the same time as laying in child abuse for future generations.

      “What
      did you do in the great repression / reset daddy”

      “Took away your childhood
      it”

  48. Had a nice bike ride this arvo – calling by to see the GOATS. Here are some snaps – one of the a kid; one of the three “kiddens” and one o an adult trying hard to get to the leaves of the walnut tree…

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/26a1a769adb345da997b968d579f29e63891d280dde0d63a99f9d5fb7771ec0e.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/05d14b60a1a1e5028adb43307c426b9a150d0074542f8c5a979098041b5ec456.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/866638578c0e1bd1b89fb9e5c9340b6fd1ba95b780867d3ca9e86ea48d41ef71.jpg

    1. A neighbour keeps pygmy goats, they are quicker than Lewis Hamilton when they spot a way to escape onto the road.
      Very amusing things to watch, particularly the kids I wonder whether he sells them for meat or as pets

      1. The “kittens” have grown rapidly. A week ago they were recently born; now they rush about!. They look a bit like Jack Russells…

      2. Probably just for meat. If you allow goats to grow too old they become like sosraboc. Don’t tell him i said so ! oops

      1. The little ones are funny because they bounce around a lot. And they taste good…
        Also, that jacket i was wearing when last we met was made from goat skin.
        I love curry and my jacket but never the twain shall meat… sic

  50. Apropos the posts below about Schiphol and KLM managing everything so well – it was the same in April when the MR and I set off for Rome. Refused boarding at Narridge – because we had an onward booking. Told that it was due to striking baggage handlers. No likelihood of a flight for three days. We aborted the whole thing. KLM did refund the flights – eventually – but refused point bank to pay the €500 compensation due under the EU regulation – saying that it “wasn’t their fault”. The only alternative would have been to sue in the Dutch courts….. So we gave up and lost of £700 hotel charge in Rome.

    Nothing will persuade me to go anywhere near an airport for the foreseeable…

  51. Wordle 398 5/6

    🟨⬛⬛⬛⬛
    🟨🟨🟨⬛⬛
    ⬛🟩⬛🟩🟩
    🟩🟩⬛🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Another fluke. Mind if there is more than one word with the same 3 or 4 letters in the same place, I will always choose the wrong one first.

      Wordle 398 3/6

      🟩🟩⬜⬜🟩
      🟩🟩⬜🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      2. #MeToo!

        Wordle 398 4/6
        🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜
        ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟨
        🟩🟩⬜🟩🟩
        🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

        1. Ditto. Not often the word doesn’t have any vowels. Well, technically, it had one.

  52. Any one in touché with Plum ?
    Please Send her our best wishes for a speedy recovery.

      1. Yes I did, Lotty – and I tried:

        “The number you have called is not recognised …”

        1. Oh dear- that does not sound at all good. Maybe she just forgot to charge it….
          Please be OK Plum.

          1. When I had the lurgy back in February I simply couldn’t be bothered with the computer and I certainly couldn’t have phoned someone as I was so fatigued and my concentration was shot to pieces, but at no point did I feel my life was under threat, I just needed to rest and sleep. It did last for quite a while (a few weeks) before I could pick up the threads again and I expect it is the same for Plum. Hopefully she will be back with us when the bug has run its course.

          2. Am glad you are better and I am sure Plum will be too. Fingers crossed, we have not had any covid like disease- but then we have had other health issues.
            This country is such a mess these days, I am continually amazed that we are holding on to our sanity!

          3. I can only second that, Ann.

            Please let her know that her NoTTLer family care about her, love her and wish her only, well.

          1. On Wednesday, she wasn’t well enough to bother with her computer. perhaps she doesn’t want calls or emails, Phiz …

          2. I hope she has someone caring for her….maybe her daughter is with her; hope she’s not alone.

    2. Yes, I have been wondering about Plum….hope she is okay.

      Has anyone heard from Peddy lately, another missing person here.

  53. You Tube- a Neil Oliver 20 min video. ” what’s coming is all about control…” It’s new today and he is spot on.
    Don’t ask for a link- my computer has thrown a couple of wobblers today. Well worth a listen.

    1. Is this the one about The race for leader ship of the conservative party is a farce ?

      He missed one,…. Where is the candidate that might explain the thousands of people arriving on our shores for the free hand outs ?

      3. B3, you’re right. Those of us who are awake are well aware. But we’re a tiny minority. Anything which spreads the word is good, in my book,…

      1. Thanks Bro’- my computer doesn’t like doing links. Bolshy sod, so it is.

        1. I’m betwixt ‘pooters. The last one finally died as a result of Shiraz ingress. The new one is a ‘refurbished’ one from Amazon. It didn’t work out of the box, but it’s OK now. A vast improvement, and it runs Windows 11, which the last one couldn’t manage. I’ve a couple of discarded laptops which have come back to life, after years of drying out.

          This one is determined to upload thousands of files to OneDrive. Which is slowing down my internet access. I’m thinking that an extenal drive, plugged into the router, would be a better option. That, or stop drinking wine… 😊

          1. Life is short- go with the external drive and stick to the wine! Lately, I have realised how precarious and precious life is. As you well know.
            I don’t overdo the plonk but I like it and have no plans to give it up.
            I plan to enjoy every minute left to me and MH.

          5. Er, we are not in Hants….more Dorset.
            Sos has been on the sauce again…see what I did then ? ;-)))

          7. Comment:
            “I plan to enjoy every minute left to me and MH.”

            reply:
            “#metoo”

            What else could one conclude?
            };-))

      4. Dear Neil, Please consider on your blogs Neil Oliver @patreon https://www.patreon.com/join/neiloliver
        That Earth’s atmosphere consists of 78% Nitrogen, 21% oxygen and just 0.04% CO² of which CO² is just 0.04% of the total atmosphere. In other words it CO² is just a TRACE gas and, as such, could easily be disregarded.

        More emphasis could/should be placed on this, apropos ANY green levy, that these planet-suckers devolve upon us.

  54. Right, fixed the back door lock but need new handles the springs have gone, put the tools away, lock the shed no need to water it’s going to rain,(so i’m told) close the green house, something has been digging in there.
    And it’s Friday and it’s Pub o’clock,……….. i’m off,…… Copya-layders.

  55. That’s me for today. Nicely cool. But no rain – dagnabbit. They say it might drizzle tomorrow and it MIGHT rain on Tuesday – but they have been giving us in North Narfurk these “jam tomorrow” forecasts for three weeks.

    Have a jolly evening. I came across this YouTube the other day – completely by accident. I had watched something topical – it finished and this started automatically. Quite interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLjPk99iR9s

    Hope to join you…demain.

    2. Thank you, Bill. Quite an eye-opener and I still wonder, given my background, why St Clement Danes is now the dedicated church of the Royal Air Force?

      1. Sorry, Bill. My irony meter is prolly broken. But if you’re seriously suggesting that Tucker should be jailed, you haven’t been paying attention.

        1. It was a – joke, Geoff…..

          Sorry.

          I’ll never post a joke again…..(hangs head in shame…)

    1. As the US is finding, the legal immigrants are not at all keen on the illegal ones circumventing the system. And who can blame them?

    2. An educated and intelligent workforce doesn’t *need to be be governed*. It is self governing. All it needs and asks from the state is the provision of essential services and to be left alone.

      No room for meddling mandarins in such a society. No need for a big fat state machine. No need for them. Thus they set about destroying our way of life to ensure their own.

      1. 354543+ up ticks,
        Evening B3,
        I have had the same feeling for years, and posted such.

        1. Ogga, Once again I have temporarily unblocked you, just to say, “Stop ponitificating on the same old, same old lies that we, the electorate know nothing. We do, we really do, and to be accused of voting for your version of lib/lab/con we REALLY do know the differences. Give it a bluddy rest I might, just might, unblock you in the future.

          You are a well-spent force, best summed up by the bard:

          “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
          Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
          To the last syllable of recorded time;
          And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
          The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
          Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
          That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
          And then is heard no more. It is a tale
          Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
          Signifying nothing.          “

    2. The Home office is bringing them here. Let me say that again : the state department responsible for border control and immigration is intentionally bringing illegal immigrants into the country.

      Surely, someone, somewhere is saying that this is a direct violation of the purpose of the department, and thus should be shut down as not fit for purpose?

  60. ‘Evening, all. Let me be clear. While I don’t post much these days, NoTTL is an essential daily part of my life, if only because it makes sure I drag my arse out of bed every morning before 7.00 am.. It’s a news aggregator, leaving aside the social side. That doesn’t mean I’m online 24/7, as some clearly are.

    But today I shelled out £370 for web hosting for the next three years. That;s what credit cards are for. I’ll be shifting that to a 0% balance transfer card before the end of the month. Admittedly, it’s a lot more than the first three years, but it seems to work, and we are where we are. I’m not seeking support for this. It’s worth a tenner a month just to have everyone delivering the important news to my inbox.

    So, all I’m saying is that the site is secure, and paid for, until August 2025. If we’re not closed down by the wokists, the Gubmint, or GCHQ.

    But as I become increasingly decrepid, it would be useful to have a plan for my replacement. Any volunteers to take on the poison chalice in my absence, do get in touch. Sorry, Polly – you’re excluded.

    Otherwise, carry on…

    1. Thanks Geoff for all your good work.
      I’d be happy to make a contribution to the costs if you can let me know how.

      1. And me Geoff! Sometimes you’re the only one around when I get up! 💕

        1. No need, Sue. I really only mentioned it because I feel it would be useful to have a backup plan, should I be run over by a bus. Fat chance of that, admittedly… 😒

          1. Hope for the best, plan for the worst.

            When my grandfather taught me to play chess he was constantly telling me:
            “If you see a good move, stop and look for other opportunities. If it really is a good move, it still will be a good move after you’ve considered the alternatives.”

          3. Nope, I would choose “alternatives”; for every move one examines there are alternative moves, within those alternative moves there are other options. Probably a matter of semantics.

            I could generally go to three iterations, sometimes more if the responses were forced, rather like those problems one saw in the newspapers. I no longer buy or subscribe to papers so am not sure if it is still done, but I used to enter the British chess problem solving competition for fun and generally got beyond the first stages.

            My grandfather was good enough to go to four iterations. I could beat him very occasionally, but he would have been giving away 60 years to me and whether we like it or not chess is really a young man’s game.

          4. That’s all chess bollocks.

            Option and choice are usually considered interchangeable, but an alternative is an option or choice that stands “instead of the other.”.

            That’s English.

          5. The fact that something may usually be considered interchangeable doesn’t mean that it always is.

      2. Cheers, Bob. Don’t worry. If there was an obvious way of monetising the site, I’d have gone for it. At approx a tenner a month, it’s far better value than a Telegraph or a Speccie subscription. Enjoy…

        1. Ditto Bob3’s comment. I’m more than willing to chip in. Since I went TV and licence-free in 2005, I aim to donate the equivalent of a licence fee to blogs like this every year.

        2. Thank you Geoff for all the good work and your generosity. Perhaps if I am ever near Sinkhole Road, West Guildford I could chip in a tenner.
          My suggestion is that if you have already written a will, you might consider writing a signed & witnessed letter for your executors (cut price codicil) which could permit a couple of junior Nottlers to continue with nttl.blog after your demise. May that be many years away!

    2. Just give us your bank account details…………………..

      Seriously – you know how to contact those of us who are brave enough to reveal our e-mail addresses.

      1. Indeed, I do, Bill. But my post wasn’t seeking contributions. Rather, it was saying that the site will be up for another three years, if TPTB allow it.

        1. True though that may be, why should you pay the bill, see what I did there, alone?

        2. We realise you’re talking about your mortality rather than financial situation, but I’m sure we’d all like to chip in, (edit) anyway.

          1. At 65, I’m prolly one of the youngest here. I really don’t care about the negligible cost of hosting the site, though, in fairness, after the initial three years, it is somewhat more expensive.

            But I could step under a bus tomorrow. Actually, that’s highly unlikely, since the main road here has been closed for four weeks, due to a sink hole. But the point stands.

            I hope to be around for decades, yet. State Pension only kicks in for me next March. However, the time will come when I’m no longer here. It would be really useful if any Nottler younger than the average age profile here was prepared to raise their head above the parapet.

          2. Move to Cornwall, no buses so you can live forever (under the bus wise at least).

          6. Family holiday early next month in Rock. Middle sons 40th birthday. Dinner at Wickstiens.
            And a four ball with me, dad. And three sons on a golf course. Can’t wait.

          9. The Stagecoach 520 service towards Guildford appears here three times a week. Except when it doesn’t. Which accounts for the last three weeks, since my local main road has acquired a sink hole…

          10. I would, but I’d be absolutely bloody hopeless. I don’t know how you do it! I’m allergic to routine, and led a legendarily unsettled life even before becoming my own travelling circus. I’m also without internet half the time.

            If no-one volunteers, I’m sure someone can be blackmailed! 🤣

          1. Why not? I pay Vodafone for a piss-poor broadband connection, for which they give me a £3/mth discount. I spend three minutes a day, posting the new page. In return, untold millions (OK, hundreds, or at least tens) post a lot of interesting stuff. What’s not to like?

          2. Yeah I understand what you’re saying, but you’re a good man and you deserve the appreciation.
            What I’m really saying is I can’t thank you enough.

          5. Whether or not you accept our offer to share the cost you have just incurred, Geoff, can I personally thank you so much for the NoTTLe site which you have created. And thanks too to all those who have stepped up to become Moderators on this wonderful site.

    3. Your site is one of the pleasanter aspects of dealing with modern life and I’m certain I’m not alone in giving hearty thanks.
      There must be a few technically literate youngsters out there

      I wonder if you could dragoon BT’s MR?

      She fits all the requirements, young, very competent, tolerant,
      Hell’s teeth she puts up with Bill
      and she wouldn’t even need to post.

      1. In the past I have recommended Nottlers to so many people I have known for many years but none of them have joined in. Which I find rather sad. For me and I’m not joking this had been the education (left school in 1962 at 15 and six months) I missed out on. I think it’s bloody marvellous. Had a few disagreements but that’s the Tom Jones syndrome.
        It’s not unusual.
        But Thank you all so much.
        Especially you Geoff.
        But How about a Nottlers ‘Egg Heads’ challenge.

        1. Re recommendations: If Nottle has a problem, my take is that we are not welcoming enough to newcomers.

          I accept that trolls appear, but by and large we are sometimes too suspicious and are too quick to chase off those who may have joined in with contrary comments without giving them an opportunity to defend the position they adopt. Being able to debate is part of Nottle, in my view.

      2. Yo Sos,

        “A technically literate youngster” on Nottlers would be someone under 65, I think

    4. Personally, there are some people I disagree with but generally the banter and conversation is OK. I like the social contact as I don’t do any of the other sites- like faceache or twitter.
      I know you are not asking for ££ and if I could afford it, I certainly would chip in.
      Stay well and thank you for this site where so many of us can have a little fun and let off steam.
      Cheers, little Bro’.

        1. You are like a rash… one gets used to you;-) Seriously, you are not the worst Sos.

    5. I have enjoyed “popping in” most days to find out what everyone is thinking, back home, plus learning a lot of stuff!! At any time you feel contributions would be helpful, I would be more than happy to contribute to keep this wonderful site going, It has kept many of us sane!!

    6. Geoff I would imagine most Nottlers are loaded. Let us pay…..and if you wish you can donate the overspend to charity. 🤗

          1. Nor me, but that might be something to do with never buying a ticket, who knows?

        1. I’d just love to show my appreciation and help out.
          See my post below about Egg Heads. Why not ?

    7. I can only extend my grateful thanks for your generosity, Geoff. Long may you continue. It would be no use my offering to do it; my Internet is dodgy (and has just become more expensive now Royal Dutch Shell has taken it over), my computer is on its last legs, I fear and I am seriously technologically challenged (plus I don’t do early mornings now I’ve retired – they were always a struggle before).

  61. A much cooler day today with a good dampening of the ground from the rain.
    I’m off to bed, so goodnight all.

  63. Huge delays at Dover. French blame Brexit. Where is our Foreign minister in all this? Why Liz Truss is threatening nuclear war with Russia in her bid to become Prime minister. She does not seem to have done a hand’s turn to sort out the shambles at Dover*. No suggestion that this woman is going to retaliate against France, or even summon the French Ambassador for a kicking. If she cannot do her job of Foreign Minister and keep our borders moving quickly and smoothly, how can she manage the job of PM?

    * Which I wrote to her about last year and got no reply.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-62273523

    1. If the EU, and by that I really mean the constituent countries, really were our friends, we and they could have carried on regardless of what Brussels dictates.

      They don’t, and that tells me exactly why we are better out than in.

    2. Yes, happy to go to war in Ukraine but no support for British people and values. A whole lot of shysters, but we already knew that on this board. Its difficult to know where to turn. Look after yourself family and good friends, after that…

  64. Well peeps good night all.
    When are we moving in to Westminster. Some common sense needs to introduce. 🤗🤔

      1. I know, but a kick can sometimes get things moving. I’ve never been accused of being sympathetically minded, though I try.

  67. Anyway, I am logging off- rather tired and wanting to sleep. What happened to those days in the past when one could stay up for ages?
    Will try and not keep you awake with the snoring.

    1. “What happened to those days in the past when one could stay up for ages?” Simple, we grew up!!
      Cheers, it’s 9pm and it’s been a long hot day so I’m off to bed, perchance to sleep!!

  68. Evening, all. It seems to me that the Conservative Party in general (largely because people have finally cottoned on that it isn’t really conservative) has no chance of emulating Boris’ success at the polls.

  69. The BBC’s bias against tax cuts is now too obvious to ignore

    Does the ‘Today’ programme ever give a right-of-centre politician a fair hearing?

    JILL KIRBY

    As the Tory finalists launch their respective campaigns, it is clear that there is one big policy difference between them – how to steer the economy out of its present difficulties. Briefly put: can government tax and spend its way out, or should it be cutting taxes to stimulate economic growth? The importance of this debate and its impact on future prosperity outweighs everything else under discussion in this summer’s contest, since it will not only determine our living standards but also our future security.

    Here, then, is an opportunity for the BBC to put both sides of the argument and to reach the widest possible audience. Auntie is uniquely placed to air this argument from an entirely neutral standpoint. But is there any serious prospect that it is up to the challenge? On the evidence of its coverage so far, the answer is no.

    Yesterday’s Today programme was a particularly depressing example of its failure to examine both sides dispassionately. The corporation’s inherent bias seems to be now so deeply ingrained that its researchers and presenters are quite possibly unaware such a bias exists.

    Interviewer Nick Robinson has, over the years, developed a tone of mounting incredulity when questioning almost any right-of-centre politician. This reached its apogee when challenging Boris Johnson and it seems that as he turns his attention to one of the Prime Minister’s potential successors, Robinson finds it impossible to accept that listeners could possibly sympathise with an essentially Conservative message.

    In BBC-land, public spending must always be a Good Thing, whereas tax-cutting and keeping spending low must always be Bad. Tax cuts are therefore preceded by the word “unfunded”. More government spending, particularly on public services, will be unquestioningly accepted as evidence of compassion, for which more money must always be found.

    In his breathless quizzing of Liz Truss yesterday, Robinson loftily insisted that tax cuts were inflationary and claimed that all leading economists agreed with him. Scornfully dismissing as a “gamble” Truss’s argument that keeping tax low would stimulate growth, he made it quite clear to listeners that he considered his interviewee to be a reckless know-nothing.

    This despite the fact that, in contrast to many politicians, Truss was not dodging the question but was clearly determined to set out the reasoning behind her claims. In so doing, however, she was challenging the BBC orthodoxy. Robinson was therefore clearly keen to move her on, to questions of a more personal nature, perhaps hoping to unsettle her and to cement his authority.

    But the authority which was once the preserve of our national broadcaster, and on which the Today programme could maintain its place in the news firmament, has long since ebbed away. As viewers and listeners turn to a vast range of other sources of news and comment, the BBC can surely only survive if it is willing to discard its institutional bias, its supercilious tones, and demonstrate instead a genuinely open mind. Otherwise how can it can it justify its dependence on the licence fee?

    But maybe that’s the problem: the licence is, after all, a tax we are compelled to pay and the BBC will always want to increase it.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/07/21/bbcs-bias-against-tax-cuts-now-much-obvious-ignore/

    I listened to a little of this. Truss is not an inspiring speaker but Robinson’s interjections were so typical of BBC interviewers that I simply turned off. Interviewees aren’t allowed to finish a sentence, let alone a paragraph. Oh for a big figure to roll into a BBC studio and pop one of these inflated little egotists.

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