436 thoughts on “Tuesday 19 November: Tactical party alliances are now tantamount to coercing the electorate”

  2. Good Morning Geoff and everybody else

    SIR – The latest Lib Dem flyer to land on our mat proclaimed: “Jo Swinson: the Prime Minister Britain Deserves.” Have we really been that bad?

    Wesley Hallam
    Ubley, Somerset

    1. I find myself with no valid candidate to vote for.

      Our one sent around a poster envelope thing which was a questionnaire jobbie. However, he neglected to include any means of returning it, I assume he thought we’d all do that for him, with a nice first class stamp, no doubt.

      He doesn’t communicate. I think he did once in a newsletter type thing, but since then he’s been invisible. No local activism, no meetings to ask him questions, no debates. No responses to emails. Credit to the last bloke, he bothered to reply to my messages. I’m hardly brain of Britain. Simple stuff like sign posting to help people get into lane, having all traffic lights along the front (where there’s a double set every 50 feet) be green unless someone presses them to stop.

      But nothing. I assume he feels comfortable with his majority of 1.

  5. Reassuring to learn that it is not only the UK with asylum escapees at the wheel

    SIR – The Conservatives and Labour are trying to outdo each other on the numbers of trees they intend to plant (Letters, November 18). In New Zealand – our Coalition of Losers wants to plant one billion in 10 years. They are currently planting on arable farm land.

    Peter Beveridge
    Putaruru, Waikato, New Zealand

    1. The point of tree farming is that you plant the trees where nothing much else will grow. Such as on 45 degree hillsides, rocky screes, and the like. NOT good arable land that will be needed to feed all the silly buggers who only want to eat vegetables.

      1. But if they can’t be starved to death due to a lack of arable farmland, how else are they going to drastically reduce the global population….??
        It’s also clear that the people pushing this policy, and the “climate emergency” narrative fully believe that they won’t be the ones affected…

      2. I believe that we could improve poor land by having national composting. Every suitable house would have compost bin collected monthly. The compost would be taken to the wild rough areas, “screes” and the like, and put into holes in which trees could be planted. Over time, the land would be greatly improved. But politicians don’t like projects that might take 50 or a 100 years.

        2. We already have green wheelie-bins for kitchen & garden waste. They are emptied fortnightly.

  6. SIR – The Duke of York has been humiliated by the interview he gave (report, November 18) and the relentless pursuit of the media since. He has certainly done wrong and has said he is sorry. I wonder how much further the media wish to punish him. Do you want to treat him like the late Lord Bramall and others?

    I believe enough has been said and it will be better to leave him alone, for two reasons. First, the Royal family do a great service to our country through their charitable work and the goodwill they generate around the world, as we have seen recently with Princes William and Harry. Secondly, the public would much rather have the media focus on things that are more important, such as the pending election and the vital issues it raises.

    Dr Prem Sharma
    Reading, Berkshire

    On behalf of all NoTTLers I have done a bit of Google research on the good doctor. This was my first attempt but there’s something about the photograph that doesn’t ring true.https://weddingplz-res.cloudinary.com/image/upload/f_auto,fl_lossy/v1/live/vendor_portfolio/1/33208/Dr.-Prem-Kumar-Sharma-2265-1-weddingplz.jpg
    Dr Prem Kumar Sharma: Best Astrologer in India: https://www.premastrologer.com

    I think that this chap is closer to the mark
    http://conservativehome.blogs.com/.a/6a00d83451b31c69e20192ac52f54a970d-pi

    https://www.readingeastconservatives.com/person/dr-prem-sharma-obe

    1. Morning

      SIR – Surely the security surrounding the Duke of York would record his movements every hour of every day. That being the case, it should be quite easy to state where he was on each of the occasions he has been accused of being with Virginia Roberts-Giuffre.

      Ken Culley
      Marlborough, Wiltshire

  8. This responds to most of the letters selected for the top of the page

    BTL:

    Finian Manson 19 Nov 2019 6:46AM

    A number of letters criticise tactical voting and alliances.

    What they fail to comment upon is the fact that the vast majority of them are between pro-Remain parties who used the same tactics in Peterborough and elsewhere.

    The one Pact, Alliance or Accord that those of us want to leave the European Union would welcome is one between the Conservative Party and the Brexit Party.

    The sheer nonsense of the Conservative Party standing paper candidates in order to split the vote in pro-Leave Constituencies in the Labour Heartland defies belief if one was not aware of the hubris of the leadership of the Conservative Party and its advisers.

    The leadership is actually conspiring to ensure we do not leave the European Union because Boris’s Deal is Boris’s BRINO. In other words Boris’s Brexit is BRINO and that is the only option that will be offered in the Conservative Party Manifesto as far as anyone can judge so far.

  10. I LOVE MY JOB

    Next time you have a bad day at work think of this guy.

    Bob is a commercial saturation diver for Global Divers in Louisiana, he performs underwater repairs on offshore drilling rigs.

    Below is an E-mail he sent to his sister.

    She then sent it to radio station 103 .5 on FM dial in Indiana, who was sponsoring a worst job experience contest.

    Needless to say, she won. Read his letter below…

    Hi Sue,

    Just another note from your bottom-dwelling brother. Last week I had a bad day at the office. I know you’ve been feeling down lately at work, so I thought I would share my dilemma with you to make you realize it’s not so bad after all. Before I can tell you what happened to me, I first must bore you with a few technicalities of my job. As you know, my office lies at the bottom of the sea. I wear a suit to the office.

    It’s a wet suit.

    This time of year the water is quite cool, so what we do to keep warm is this: We have a diesel-powered industrial water heater. This $20,000.00 piece of equipment sucks the water out of the sea. It heats it to a delightful temperature. It then pumps it down to the diver through a garden hose, which is taped to the air hose.

    Now this sounds like a darn good plan, and I’ve used it several times with no complaints. What I do, when I get to the bottom and start working, is take the hose and stuff it down the back of my wet suit. This floods my whole suit with warm water. It’s like working in a Jacuzzi.

    Everything was going well until, all of a sudden, my butt started to itch. So, of course, I scratched it. This only made things worse.

    Within a few seconds my ass started to burn. I pulled the hose out from my back, but the damage was done. In agony I realized what had happened. The hot water machine had sucked up a jellyfish and pumped it into my suit. Now, since I don’t have any hair on my back, the jellyfish couldn’t stick to it, however, the crack of my ass was not as fortunate.

    When I scratched what I thought was an itch, I was actually grinding the jellyfish into the crack of my ass. I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma over the communicator.

    His instructions were unclear due to the fact that he, along with five other divers, were all laughing hysterically. Needless to say, I aborted the dive. I was
    instructed to make three agonizing in-water decompression stops totalling thirty-five minutes before I could reach the surface to begin my chamber dry
    decompression.

    When I arrived at the surface, I was wearing nothing but my brass helmet. As I climbed out of the water, the medic, with tears of laughter running down his face, handed me a tube of cream and told me to rub it on my butt as soon as I got in the chamber.

    The cream put the fire out, but I couldn’t shit for two days because my ass was swollen shut. So, next time you’re having a bad day at work, think about how much worse it would be if you had a jellyfish shoved up your ass. Now repeat to yourself, ‘I love my job, I love my job, I love my job.’

    Whenever you have a bad day, ask yourself, is this a jellyfish bad day? May you NEVER have a jellyfish bad day!

    Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift.

    1. My friend used to work on fishing boats. In the summer we get jellyfish of several species, from the small purple, clear or brown ones to the giant lion’s mane.

      They vary in their ability to sting, but the stinging cells of those that sting remain potent even after being detached from the host. They are independent little organs that contain a venom sac, a trigger and a barbed spike to pierce skin and transmit the toxin.

      The fishermen call the jellyfish ‘swatters’. I don’t know why.

      As long as they are in the sea they don’t pose a problem, but jellyfish have a habit of leaving parts of themselves attaced to anything they touch. When I was mackerel fishing last summer from local rocks I was often bringing lumps of lion’s mane up attached to my line. I had to beware of teh spray as the line passed over the bale arm of my reel. In fishing boats the problem is worse. They come up attached to the ropes that haul the nets and the nets themselves and when those ropes pass over the mechanical hauler, the lumps get sprayed about. Those lumps include stinging cells. The waterproof clothing those on deck wear protects them from the stings. Gloves, or even the thickness of the skin itself protects their hands. Eyes and faces can be a problem. My mate was quite proud one particularly bad day when the swatters were in unusual abundance, when he fashioned a face mask from a 2 litre plastic pop bottle to protect his eye and the delicate skin around them from the spraying cells.

      His pride took a fall shortly afterwards when he felt the need to urinate. His bare hands were covered in jellyfish cells, but the skin on his hands was too thick to let the barbs penetrate. No pain. The skin on his old lad that he was holding with those same hands wasn’t of such a robust nature and there were soon tears in his eyes as the stinging cells on his fingers got to work down there.

      He’s not a fan of swatters.

        1. I was stung while swimming in the Med when I blundered into a swarm of mauve stingers. Fortunately it was before lunch and I had a ham and tomato baguette to hand. A slice of tomato rubbed on the welt on my chest cooled it down.

        2. I was stung while swimming in the Med when I blundered into a swarm of mauve stingers. Fortunately it was before lunch and I had a ham and tomato baguette to hand. A slice of tomato rubbed on the welt on my chest cooled it down.

  11. Swans are knocking on doors to demand food, and have taught cygnets to copy behaviour, claim villagers.

    Swans who ‘won’t take no for an answer’ have taken to knocking on villagers’ doors to demand food and have taught their cygnets to copy their behaviour.

    The residents of Kirk Hallam, Derbyshire, have learned to keep a loaf of bread around at all times in case the beaked visitors come to call.

    At least the beggars are local

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2019/11/18/TELEMMGLPICT000216563189_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bq6L_6PE9pPYpJiQqAWto_r9YAEB8IMpisnyggmaw7xcU.jpeg?imwidth=1400

    1. If that happened here our Lab would be through the door without opening it. Not sure they would make a return visit.

      ‘Morning, Tryers.

    3. I’m beginning to think that naturalists know a lot less than they think they do. We stopped filling the bird feeders in the front garden, about six feet from the front door, around the beginning of May. In the following days the letterbox flap rattled on a number of occasions . Just the wind? No. It was blue tits at work, “Hoy, mate, where’s the grub?”.
      The empty feeder in the back garden continued to receive visits from time to time until a group of wrens made it plain a couple of days ago that they wanted to be fed.

      1. What is there in your description that naturalists don’t know about?

        Learned behavior and reaction to locally abundant food sources is well known and understood. If blue tits are rattling a letterbox in May it’s more likely that they are investigating potential nest holes and checking out what to them is a crevice rather than knocking at the door for food at a time when their insect food is in abundance, pretending to be characters from Snow White.

        2. I have had this very experience recently, being woken up at first light by a blue tit banging away at the bathroom air extractor vent.

  12. Morning all

    SIR – In this year’s Reith Lectures, Lord Sumption emphasised the need for legitimacy in politics if voters are not to feel coerced by the state.

    As we approach the general election, we see members of the British political class manoeuvring among themselves to force the electorate into voting in the ways that politicians want us to vote.

    Instead of unfettered plurality on the ballot paper, we find political parties choosing to field or not field candidates depending on how they wish to engineer the results in certain constituencies. If this is not coercion, then what is it?

    One wonders if Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system is now obsolete and should be replaced with something more representative of our 21st-century political landscape. This might make British politics legitimate once more.

    Mark Nash
    Hopeman, Moray

    SIR – It is true that the electorate is in an unprecedented state of flux, with old tribal loyalties broken down by Brexit (Leading Article, November 14). The problem is that our first-past-the-post voting system cannot reflect this. In the last election, the Lib Dems won only a dozen seats on a vote share of 7.4 per cent, while the SNP won almost three times as many MPs with less than half that vote.

    In this election, it is possible for the Greens or Lib Dems to come second in every constituency, earn more votes than either the Tories or Labour and not win a single seat.

    Voters can be trusted to judge the quality of the arguments of each party, but they cannot trust the voting system to express their judgment. Is it any wonder many are considering tactical voting?

    Jon Burden
    London W14

    1. The quality of the arguments of each party is irrelevant to me. It is so much fluff – all of them. All manifestos are is a list of things they think the public want to hear at election time; it bears no resemblance to what we can expect once they are safely in place for the next five years. All we get then are platitudes, and they can do what they like.

      It is, however, all the public information we are getting. They won’t let us hear or discuss the truth – better we go back to Strictly and just vote as we are told. That is “democracy” according to the London Look.

      I find the Green Party manifesto quite ridiculous. Where are they going to get the money from? Every corporate money junkie going will siphon that £100 billion a year in offshore bonuses and will cobble up some consultancy business plan to get at the money without doing anything whatsoever to tackle climate change. It will be HS2 or the NHS with a vengeance.

      My political objective this time is to address the serious poverty of talent in the Commons under the Safe Seat system of select party patronage and vote for the one with the best personal qualities, regardless of party.

      Therefore I will probably end up voting for Martin Allen, the local Green candidate, to go somewhere to keeping his deposit and maybe get his vote into the sort of heady heights of popularity normally reserved for the runner-up in a County Council division election. There is little prospect he will actually get into Parliament, and even less that Caroline Lucas will make it into Downing Street to put that manifesto into practice. Most likely if that happened (and a pound stake at the local bookie would make me a millionaire overnight if it did), the first thing a Green Government would do would be the opposite of anything pledged in any election manifesto.,

      1. ‘Morning, Jeremy, we may only judge our politicians on their past record.

        Puts head in sack and shouts, “Lost.”

    3. “One wonders if Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system is now obsolete.”

      It has been obsolete for a long time. If you are a Conservative voter in a safe Labour seat, or the reverse, then your vote will have no effect.

      You can be born, live your whole life voting in a democracy, and as the grave finally looms before you, your vote will not have changed anything.

      1. Morning Meredith. The refusal to implement the result of the referendum has struck a mortal blow to Democracy in the UK. Governments were never very enthusiastic about fulfilling their Manifesto commitments and will now no longer bother since there is clearly no penalty for doing so. What we will probably see after the farce of the coming election is whoever is in charge doing just as they please! The forms (elections) will probably be followed for a while before being totally dispensed with. My guess is that the future will more resemble Blade Runner than Star Trek. A vast corporatized State without any input from its servants!.

        1. There are a number of people across the world who are trying to bring that dark future about, but the shred of democracy that we still have gets in their way. Which is why they want to get rid of it.

          There is little that many of us can do in this election with Remainers in most parties on our ballot papers. The single best chance for the United Kingdom now is that we get another hung Parliament, and I never thought that I would say those words.

          It will prevent Boris passing that deal which will strip our country of any semblance of statehood, as the EU will give us instructions and we will obey them. The final court of appeal for any disagreement will be a European one. Not that these politicians will ever say no to the EU.

          A hung Parliament gives us as much freedom as any other EU country. As the EU continues to fall apart with internal economic and social stress, then we will be able to just walk away on WTO terms any time that we like. Or, I should say, any time that real Leavers get themselves in a position to make decisions.

  13. SIR – The piece of paper Chamberlain held in his hand at Heston aerodrome was not the Munich agreement, a complex document of several pages.

    He was holding a paper he had asked Hitler to sign stating that our two countries would never go to war again. Hitler signed it just to get rid of him.

    Peter Bold
    Llandudno, Conwy

    1. Technically, I suppose that Adolf kept his word, as it was the UK which declared war on Germany rather than the other way round.

      1. Good morning, Aeneas, only as a result of the Treaty with Poland and Germany ignoring an ultimatum to withdraw.

        In other words you can only goad some people so far and then they get martial.

        Watch what may happen after this General Election – the Government has a pact with the electorate to deliver the result that 17.4 million of us voted for and if they renege…

        1. Funny Old World
          I always wondered if that treaty was important why we didn’t declare war on Russia when they invaded the other half of Poland….
          An event that the Left seem to have almost airbrushed from history

          1. Morning Rik. It did come a couple of weeks later if I recall correctly and Churchill probably thought we had enough on our plate with Germany!

          2. On the other hand, if we had set an extended deadline, “…withdraw by 31st January 1942…” the Germans and Russians could have just got on with it.

    2. “We, the German Fuhrer and Chancellor, and the British Prime Minister, have had a further meeting today and are agreed in recognizing that the question of Anglo-German relations is of the first importance for the two countries and for Europe.

      “We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German naval agreement as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again.

      “We are resolved that the method of consultation shall be the method adopted to deal with any other questions that may concern our two countries and we are determined to continue our efforts to remove possible sources of difference and thus to contribute to assure the peace of Europe.

      What was written on Chamberlain’s “piece of paper”!

      2. It has been said that Chamberlain’s true purpose was to demonstrate to the world that Hitler could not be trusted, knowing as he did that Hitler had his fingers crossed when he signed that scrap of paper (to use a term of some historic resonance).

    3. …but, Mr Bold, in so doing Chamberlain gave us another year in which to prepare for war. Calculating or just naieve? Who cares, it probably saved our bacon.

      ‘Morning, Epi.

      1. Calculating. The anecdote from the late C Booker is that Mr C walked into a meeting with the words “Gentlemen: prepare for war.”

  15. ‘Morning All
    In the DT Charles Moore attempts a defence of Prince Andrew,I fear in vain
    I look around in utter bemusement at our “leaders” the entire concept of shame seems to be lost on them
    Cash for questions
    Fiddled expenses
    etc etc etc
    I suppose I should not be so judgemental after all who among us has not offered to buy a male prostitute cocaine……………………….
    Jeez

    1. If he has broken the law and it can be proved he should be charged if not he should be left alone.

      1. I couldn’t agree more Johnny,now when we see the prosecutions of ALL the MP’s that fiddled their expenses and committed fraud??
        I think the court is booked for the 7th of never

    2. Morning Rik,
      By the same token, as in a prior post
      let those without sin cast………
      This issue is receiving far to much media / people attention, deflection is in play in a big way.
      One could get the impression we are
      living in s sinless society.
      Tommy Robinson was banged up for pointing out under age abuse of a similar nature.

    3. You would need to be drugged with something to let that washing machine salesman touch you. Propofol would be a good one.

      “Propofol, marketed as Diprivan among other names, is a short-acting medication that results in a decreased level of consciousness and lack of memory for events. Its uses include the starting and maintenance of general anesthesia.”

    4. I had a ward of court (I forget the proper term) who was a hooker addicted to coke.

      Regularly I’d pick her up from a hotel so crazy, either euphoric or suicidal, you never knew.

      One evening – early morning I think – I find her spread eagled over the bonnet of her car, utterly naked having been raped, beaten, her wrists jammed in windows and the windows wound up, bleeding from her backside where something like a pine cone had been shoved, her vagina bruised horrifically, her biceps purple with rope burns, her breasts slapped red raw and of course, coke smeared all over her face drolling idiotically.

      It took three days before she left the bathroom and I nearly gave up on her. Drugs aren’t funny. Abuse isn’t funny. Whoever you are, it’s a spiral into a horror story.

  16. Letters and BTL:

    Michael Hudson 19 Nov 2019 8:04AM
    @Carolyn Thomas-Coxhead
    Whatever you do, don’t vote for that A Allan chappie.

    I wasn’t aware that our Anne was putting herself up to ensure that the NoTTLer vote is carried to Parliament.

    And, Carolyn Thomas-Coxhead’s comment was undersigned (Bill Thomas)

    Curiouser and curiouser.

  17. Good morning all.
    A bright and sharp Derbyshire with an outside temperature of -3°C.
    Once the sun swings round it should warm up a little!

  18. Labour to double number of police officers enforcing fox hunting ban. Indy. Jon Stone. 9 hours ago

    Labour has unveiled plans to double the number of police officers tasked with enforcing the fox hunting ban and other wildlife crimes.

    The party says it will put £4.5m into cracking down on bloodsports like hare coursing, badger baiting and stag hunting.

    What about the anti-stabbing ban and the ant-countylines drug running ban? Are they to be doubled as well?

    All this is just farce. It has nothing to do with running the country but is part of the eternal Class hatred and envy that Labour is prone too!

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/fox-hunting-ban-labour-election-police-officers-illegal-a9207936.html

    1. One can’t help but be amazed at the LAbour party’s propensity for wasting public money to achieve absolutely sod all.

  19. My comment to John Redwood’s Diary – Defence.

    The UK also needs to ensure it has sufficient control over the technology and capability to produce weapons and fighting machines in the UK.

    Strange use of the word ‘sufficient’ in the context of producing our own weapons. Understandable that total control will not be available when we buy in a system such as Trident or the F35 aircraft but our own production? I do hope that this is not a tacit recognition that Johnson’s ‘deal’ could have a detrimental impact on our arms industry.
    If we are, as seems likely at the moment, being prepared to be reduced to a vassal state it is the usual practice for the vassal to have to pay tribute. Our arms industry would be a great capture, reducing at a stroke our ability to stand up for ourselves in addition to reducing our international reach and earning capacity. What’s not to like from the EU’s standpoint?
    Fanciful? Who imagined that May would agree to the WA document she brought to Parliament and attempted to force on us three times?

  20. Good morning, everyone. Slept in this morning as I have the dreaded lurgy. I was coughing all night.

    3. Good morning Delboy and les autres Nottlers.
      This lurgy produces a horrible cough. I tried chewing raw garlic last night, and that had some effect. SWMBO said that I simply forgot to cough for half an hour because of the burning sensation.

      1. Maybe if you’d chewed the raw garlic earlier, the bug bearers wouldn’t have got near enough to you to pass on the lurgy.

      2. Minimise exposure to other persons. I’ve even ordered my Christmas stamps on line, even though Royal Mail charge £1.45 to post them. I hate going out in cold weather, I invariably get head aches and a stiff neck.

    3. I can quite understand his dislike of the parachuting in of a candidate with no connection to the area, but one does need to remember that he’s quite happily supported a corrupt, lying pervert for more than a few years.

  22. “If the

    polls are to be believed, Boris Johnson is redrawing the electoral map.

    If he succeeds, he will redefine the Conservative Party and change

    British politics for decades to come.

    The Prime Minister has already converted the Tories into a resolutely

    pro-Brexit party. Every Conservative candidate in this election

    supports his plan for getting Britain out of the European Union”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/11/17/boris-redraws-political-map-changing-means-tory/
    Now about that large tower of scrap iron in the middle of Paris I want to sell you……………………..

    2. This from a man who was a special advisor for Teresa May in the 2017 GE and has failed to be selected as a candidate for this GE.
      There is no room for him as a candidate in a safe Tory seat, a small blessing for him at least, he will not be blamed too much when Johnson delivers BINO.

  23. Doctors will have their tax bills paid by the NHS in a bid to avert a winter crisis caused by understaffing.

    Thousands of medics will be offered an emergency deal, amid growing

    concern about the number of consultants refusing to work overtime

    because they are hit by a pensions “tax trap”.

    The rules mean doctors can be hit with tax rates of more than 90 per

    cent on their earnings – including their pension contributions – if they

    earn more than £110,000 a year.

    It means consultants are substantially cutting back on any overtime

    or weekend work as they can be taxed thousands for earning a penny over

    the threshold.

    Matt Hancock, health secretary, will today issue a ministerial

    direction instructing NHS chiefs to introduce a plan aimed at heading

    off an immediate crisis.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/11/18/nhs-pay-doctors-tax-bills-attempt-avert-winter-crisis/
    Now about judge’s exemptions from these tax regs……………………..

    1. It is nice to know that these Doctors are prioritising taking care of sick patients, instead of worrying about how much money they get to take home.

        1. Well that is something that I did not know. I am sure that the carers who look after family members, being paid less a week than these people pay for lunch, will be crying a river at the poor Doctors fate.

      3. Doctors who exceed the pension cap end up working for nothing.

        Would you undertake a life saving operation on a patient with all the responsibility that entails for little or no reward?

        1. After Maggie’s Pension Holidays were so closely followed by Brown’s Tax Raid, UK Pensions have been farcical.

        2. Nagsman – That is an odd thing to say. I would like to think that a medical professional would certainly act to save a live, whether they were being paid to or not.

          Looking down at someone struggling for breath and saying “Well… Am I getting paid much or not?” Is not how I view the majority of Doctors.

          1. Acting to save a life is one thing, e.g. coming unexpectedly to a RTA, but working routinely & being severely penalised for it is quite another.
            With all due respect, I don’t think you’ve got to grips with the situation.

          2. With all of the respect that you are due back, I have had extensive experience of working with the medical profession. It is an interesting concept that you think Doctors are “hard done by.”

            Especially after the terrible, terrible changes to their working conditions that they have re-negotiated in recent decades.

            But if you think that their jobs are underpaid and their lives are hard, then that is an opinion that you can hold. I suspect that the long line of overseas medical professionals who wish to come to work here may disagree.

          3. I was a dental surgeon for 40+ years, in Britain, Germany & Sweden. What exactly was your experience with working with the medical profession?

            I have not said that I think the medical profession is hard done-by. Stop putting words into my mouth. I have not said that I think they are underpaid, far from it. The point is that if their earnings exceed a certain limit, they are heavily penalised through taxation. Why can’t you grasp that?

          4. Get ahold of yourself. You were the one that tried to pivot the conversation into something that it was not, but I was too polite to mention it. The conversation was clearly about contracts and covering shift work and rotas NOT wandering into a Road Traffic Accident. Nagsman may have been unwise in the words that they used, but this is what they said:

            “Would you undertake a life saving operation on a patient with all the responsibility that entails for little or no reward?”

            This is obviously an operation on a patient in a ward. If you really do have any experience of medical procedures then you will know that you do not just wander onto a ward, roll up your sleeves and start in with something sharp. An operation takes planning and scheduling. The clear implication in Nagsman’s words was that a life saving operation on a patient would not be carried out due to overtime.

            That was the point that I was making and you deflected from. I assume that you knew what you were doing when you said that, as you claim to have an advanced grasp of the English language.

            As to my experience of working with the medical profession – with respect that is private information and none of your business. However, I have seen individuals from ALL levels damage and wreck peoples lives, NOT through honest mistakes but through sheer arrogance. Some of them WILL NOT LISTEN when you are giving essential health care information for a patient where you have experience and they have none.

            They will happily ignore the statement that this procedure has been tried 5 times before and has failed each time, causing ever deeper injury each time it fails. They will smile and repeat the treatment for a 6th time. Until you tell them to stop and you take over yourself.

            So these Doctors with their very nice contracts should shut the hell up and work the hours and treat the patients that need it. When new Doctors have been trained they can share out the workload. You don’t just sit talking over coffee while a patient is squirming in extreme pain surrounded by a family that is in obvious deep distress as they watch him. I have witnessed that as well.

          5. I think you are the one who needs to come down off his high horse.

            I’m really surprised, because until now I had a good impression of you. Just goes to show…

          6. My impression of you was borderline because of the way you speak to some others. But deliberately misreading a discussion point in an attempt to deflect from a point is a poor sign of character.

            I mainly have one bar for behaviour. Treat others with respect and if you do not grasp someones else position then stay silent until you do. I am unimpressed with your behaviour in this thread.

            We shall see whether it was a blip or error on your part, and if you can recover. If this attitude is a part of your character, and it is the cause why others dislike you, then there will be no recovery until that behaviour is amended.

          7. My upticks during this thread would indicate otherwise, but you are apparently suffering from the delusion of what the Germans call Spiegeleffekt.

            As for your experience in working with the medical profession being private & none of my business, you are the one who introduced that into the thread. From what you said in another thread today about your IT work, one would gain the impression that the closest you ever got to treating a patient was from looking at them on a monitor screen.

            Btw, if you do not grasp someones else someone else’s position…

          8. You asked me what my medical experience was so I replied. It is not the wisest course of action to assume that people are pigeon-holed in life to one role.

            One final note of advice to assist you in the future, if you should ever find yourself talking this way with someone again. Referring to how many votes you have on a comment, in an attempt to justify your position, dismisses you as a serious person in the eyes of the experienced. So you can now avoid that mistake again.

            Good luck in the future, citizen.

        1. ……..Apart from the minimum 5-10 years training and innumerable hours on shift at unsocial hours.
          Why wouldn’t you be happy to work those extra few hours that would result in you actually paying the NHS for the privilege of coming to work ? Can’t see many of the vocal critics signing up for that little caper.

      1. Just repeal the Pensions Cap legislation. It is not just the NHS which is suffering due to this – also the Armed Services where middle ranking officers are putting in their papers in order to avoid it – also professionals such as architects and accountants are being affected.

        This was yet another of Osborn’s idiotic ideas which was never thought through – sorry – been my soap box for about 18 months now.

        1. I should imagine that any half competent accountant could have spotted that Osborn’s idea was a real stinker – sadly he seems to have been financially illiterate! Perhaps we need a law that says that any idea from a politician needs to be approved by a “committee of common sense”!?

  24. Why the Black Country is turning blue as frustration over Brexit and fear of Jeremy Corbyn take hold

    “I am surprised that an area like this is Conservative. It’s mind-blowing to me. This is about as working-class as you can get,” says David Wright, shivering under his ‘Unite’ beanie cap.

    He motions despairingly at the red-brick bungalows with fastidious front lawns and smashed-up wing mirrors taped to Vauxhall Corsas.

    His dragging Brummie vowels immediately give away that he is not local to the Black Country town of Dudley. It eventually transpires that he has travelled from his safe constituency in Hardshield, Birmingham to campaign for Labour in the General Election in the bell-weather seat, which the Tories missed out on by just 22 votes in 2017. Although Mr Wright insists Labour can hang on, in the end, bewilderment seems to get the better of him.

    “For the life of me, I can’t work out why this is a Conservative area. It can only be the Brexit issue,” he says, almost thinking out loud.

    Dudley North, which voted 72 per cent Leave in the referendum, is top of the Tory’s target list in the West Midlands. On paper, local conditions couldn’t be more favourable for a Conservative victory. The incumbent Ian Austin has resigned from Labour over anti-Semitism to run as an independent, but lacks popularity on the doorstep. The Brexit Party candidate, Rupert Lowe stepped down last week, giving the Conservatives’ offering – former Mayor of Walsall Marco Longhi – a clear run.

    The 55 marginal seats where Corbyn’s Brexit muddle leaves Labour vulnerable
    His Labour rival, Melanie Dudley insists that “Brexit is coming up a lot less than you would think.” But her subconscious echoing of the Prime Minister’s favourite catchphrase perhaps hints at Labour’s awareness that, locally, Boris Johnson’s message has sunk in: “There are a few people who are talking about Brexit,” she says, “very much in terms of the frustration about how long it’s taken. It’s like ‘let’s get something done.’”

    Dudley North should be a shoe-in across a region that is tantalisingly close to turning blue. With the exception of the safe red seat of Warley in Sandwell, the Black Country is for the taking, with Labour margins varying between just 0.4 and 14 per cent. On a good night, the Tories should be able to take near a dozen seats.

    After the disappointment of 2017, Tory HQ is almost superstitiously paranoid that Labour will be able to defy the laws of political gravity and somehow hold on in the region. But on the ground, it already feels like a very different election.

    In West Bromwich East, the resignation of Tom Watson has left local Tories prickling with forbidden hope that their born and bred candidate Nicola Richards, just might take the constituency from Labour for the first time in history. Scott Chapman, her campaign organiser, is tentative but he can barely suppress his smile when canvassing in what is usually one of the seat’s weakest wards for Tory support; house after house indicates that it is voting Conservative. After an hour and a half, we have encountered just two locals who say that they are sticking with Labour. The need to “get Brexit done” is brought up repeatedly by voters on the doorstep. So is the need to “keep Corbyn out”.

    “It feels different this time,” says Ms Richards. “A lot of local public sector workers like nurses and teachers, who normally vote Labour, say they are voting Tory. They are sick of Labour dominance here – over the years, its MPs have done nothing to help the area.”

    One can’t help but get the sense that, across the Black Country, Labour’s popularity has collapsed. The party’s support for a second referendum has caused widespread outrage. A less reported, but almost equally potent development is that over the last three years, mystified scepticism towards Jeremy Corbyn has congealed into visceral loathing.

    You feel it in the working-mans pubs. At one spit-and-sawdust establishment in Walsall – the kind of crimson-draped Black Country joint that has Tia Maria on tap and a dance floor glinting with the over-polished boots of former army men – the atmosphere is almost revolutionary.

    “Labour has utterly betrayed us. The anger I feel is unbelievable,” says one punter.

    Another calls Jeremy Corbyn “traitor to the working-class race,” and chortles that Boris “seems like a man you could have a drink with.” That said, he intends to vote Brexit Party rather than Tory “so the grandparents don’t turn in their grave”.

    While support for Labour is undoubtedly in freefall, the big question is whether the Tories can attract enough of its rival’s disillusioned defectors to win a sizeable number of seats. The Brexit Party seems like less of an obstacle to this than it did a few weeks ago. Although it is fielding candidates across the region Rupert Lowe’s controversial decision last week to step down as the party’s candidate for Dudley North has blown a hole in Nigel Farage’s regional strategy; it was his party’s best prospect for a West Midlands seat. Mr Farage will now concentrate on campaigning in Labour strongholds in the North East and the Welsh valleys instead. He failed to attend his party’s West Midlands candidacy launch in Willenhall last Friday.

    The Conservatives remain tetchy about the “Farage Factor” but, across the Black Country, the Brexit Party feels like a fading song. With sermons about peerage “corruption”, and rows of empty chairs at the back, its Willenhall rally had the feel of a fiery Sunday sermon at a declining evangelical church. Local Conservative candidates also claim to have been pleasantly surprised by the lack of support on the doorstep for their Brexiteer rivals.

    Still, one gets the sense that Mr Farage’s final faithful foot soldiers are the voice of thousands of votes across the region that the Tories simply will not take.

    “There are many of us who can’t vote Tory – some for tribal reasons, others because we feel we are being taken for a ride with Boris’s awful deal,” Stephen Morley, a retired teacher and former Labour supporter from Wednesdbury told me at the rally. “What the Conservatives who were so keen for the Brexit Party to stand down have failed to grasp is that those of us who aren’t voting Brexit Party won’t be voting at all.”

    Apathy could decide the final numbers in this election. Behind the scenes, senior Brexit Party officials are anticipating a poor turnout. Conservative candidates – who also suspect this will be the case – are pushing hard to mobilise disillusioned voters with a positive vision of the future beyond leaving the EU.

    “Officially this is a Brexit Election, but unofficially it is a Local Election,” says Ahmed Ejaz a 31-year-old Dudley-born optometrist who is running as the Conservative candidate for Wolverhampton South East – home to the long-folded Bilston Steelworks. “People are fed up with career politicians from London who have no drive to transform areas like this, which are suffering deeply from unemployment and crime.”

    The seat of Tony Blair’s former adviser, Pat McFadden, which has a majority of 8,514 and has never gone blue, is perhaps the most challenging Tory target seat in the West Midlands. But there’s a twinkle of quiet excitement in the optometrist’s eye.

    “I think we can win here. What people crave here is progress. If we can create an aura of change for the country over the next couple of weeks, that is going to give us the momentum to take seats like this.”

    And the two top BTL comments:

    A Gunn 18 Nov 2019 7:35PM
    T
    hree people can realistically be PM. Well, two and a half.

    One of them has been endorsed by Hamas, Nick Griffin, Gerry Adams and David Duke.

    One of them wants Leave voters to die off, so she can mastermind a rigged re-run. Oops: mistressmind.

    One of them, well…

    … he doesn’t want the British voter to die soon, nor is he endorsed by terrorists. So whatever else might be said of him – womaniser, charlatan, fake Brexiteer, born-to-rule elitist – it’s still not a hard choice.

    The Black Country is the heartland of the aspirational working class vote. Johnson will walk it.

    William Grace 18 Nov 2019 9:07PM

    Labour is a london centric, liberal, pro immigration anti democracy party that is obsessed with fine points of political correctness and hates England and wants unlimited benefits.

    They dont care about the working man, or the referendum, they just want to rub the brexit voters noses in uncontrolled mass immigration, while they pat themselves on their backs at how progressive they are.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/11/18/black-country-turning-blue-frustration-brexit-fear-jeremy-corbyn

    2. One can’t help but get the sense that, across the Black Country, Labour’s popularity has collapsed.

      Why can I not find it in myself to cheer at this news?

      1. Because you are not inspired by the alternative? Boris isn’t anyway near as morally repulsive as Corbyn, but that doesn’t mean he’s not going to betray the electorate and the country. It’s just that his methods are different….

      2. Why can I not find it in myself to cheer at this news?

        Shortage of experience of life in Venezuela and argentina?

    2. In the public sector there was a long period where “positive action” was applied to recruitment policy and only ethnic minorities were eligible for employment in a range of jobs. To then point to the results and claim it was done out of necessity is totally dishonest.

  27. Nobody had seen Labours Shadow Home Secretary Dianne Abbott or shadow
    Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry out and about campaigning yet.

    When your campaign is being led by Long-Bailey, Ashworth, Gardiner,
    McDonnell, Pidcock, and Angela Rayner It just goes to show how
    incompetent these two Marxist intellectual heavyweights (and when I say
    heavyweights I mean heavyweights) must be!

  29. Looking Around………….

    “Consequently there was a long period during which nearly every thinking

    man was in some sense a rebel, and usually a quite irresponsible rebel.

    Literature was largely the literature of revolt or of disintegration.

    Gibbon, Voltaire, Rousseau, Shelley, Byron, Dickens, Stendhal, Samuel

    Butler, Ibsen, Zola, Flaubert, Shaw, Joyce — in one way or another they

    are all of them destroyers, wreckers, saboteurs. For two hundred years

    we had sawed and sawed and sawed at the branch we were sitting on. And

    in the end, much more suddenly than anyone had foreseen, our efforts

    were rewarded, and down we came. But unfortunately there had been a

    little mistake. The thing at the bottom was not a bed of roses after

    all, it was a cesspool full of barbed wire.”

    The rest is worth a read too

    http://orwell.ru/library/articles/notes/english/e_notew

    2. Rik,
      I do agree to your post but on the 25/6/2016 a little mistake was made with horrendous consequences.
      There was a safety net needing four pins to hold it in place, only two pins
      were hammered home, the four pins were UKIP.
      For want of a nail…………

      1. Morning, Belle. It’s an occasional visitor to my garden for the catnip but not at all friendly.

    4. i’m just back from mine.
      Checking kidney & liver function with respect to the medications I’m on.

      1. Yo Oberst

        Naggers’ private secretary here

        I was talking to her on the electric telephone when your kind enquiry popped up on the screen. She is now taking an incoming call from someone important.

        She has ‘the bug’ that is doing the rounds over here. Has walked the dog and will remain indoors for the duration.. Otherwise she is her usual feisty self.

  37. Leaving you say……………..

    EU confirmation that the UK will keep paying

    “The

    agreement is based on the premise that the United Kingdom, following

    its withdrawal from the European Union by 31 January 2020 at the latest,

    will continue to contribute to and participate in the implementation of the EU budget until the end of 2020 as if it were a Member State.”

    – Statement by the EU Commission, Brussels, 18 Nov 2019

    So the UK will not be a member of the EU after January, and will

    not be able to vote on anything at all, but is expected to continue to

    make massive contributions into the EU’s coffers as if it were a member.

    https://facts4eu.org/news/2019_nov_eu_spends_uk_money#

    1. Apparently the UK funding the EU budget is not a news item

      Yesterday and today the BBC has not seen fit to mention that the EU has decided how to spend €169 billion of UK and EU27 citizens’ money next year, so Brexit Facts4EU.Org is once again doing the BBC’s job for them. This is highly relevant for British people because the UK is one of the few EU countries which pays in far more than it gets out.

      Our readers are very well-informed. Most of what you have read above will not come as a surprise. Sadly this is not the case for many British people. Perhaps it is to be expected that three-and-a-half years after the EU Referendum, many Britons have had enough and are ‘tuning out’.

      We continue to believe that it is essential to get basic messages out. It is our assessment that large swathes of voters simply do not realise that ‘getting Brexit done’ by 31 Jan means nothing of the kind. There will be no trade deal, and no sense of anything being “done”.

      Instead we will continue to pay into the EU, big-time, and will have agreed a massive divorce bill which has no basis in law. We will be subject to every existing and new law and regulation from the EU. The only difference will be that the UK will no longer have any say over any of this. For the duration of the ‘Transition Period’ we will be, in effect, a submissive colony of the EU.

      1. Because Boris Johnson is a bumbling idiot who has been completely outwitted by Tusk, Barnier and Juncker

        1. Evening R,
          The way I see it is he can only act to their script if he wants to be a future employee, and the way he is acting as with others he definitely wants.

    3. We are not meant to know that and any journalist who questions Mr Johnson in any detail showing just how bad his surrender to the EU deal is will be punished or sacked from his job.
      .

    1. Oh, the grand old Duke of York
      He had ten thousand girls
      He marched them up to the top of the steps
      And kissed them on their curls
      And when they were up, they were up
      And when they were down, they were down
      And when they were only half-way up

      They were neither up nor down

  40. This week last year.

    Whooper swans are winter visitors, with an uneven distribution around the country. We’ve been lucky enough to have them overwintering in these parts since the year dot. I first paid attention to them in the local fields over 50 years ago. They’ve abandoned those particular fields since the sods built a wind farm on them a few years since, but fortunately they’ve found alternatives nearby. They spend less time on water than the resident mute swans, being more likely to be seen grazing in fields, but they call in occasionally for a wash.

    Running up to a take-off here. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7ed63fccd9f1af15d57d79ed9f46be16c0fb39b8549bcf469b76a36d6c5b818a.jpg

      2. No, the paler bill (and greyer plumage) is a juvenile. They develop the deep yellow as they get older to maturity. It’s common to see family groups with two adults and 4 or 5 juveniles in tow from the previous season’s clutch.

        This family group flew in making a hell of a racket only one minute before I took the other photo. There were about 45 swans in that particular herd. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7ef445191158703b24d98c7bbe2fe0745d31c1cf81b0d2dd4c7c8e8b01addb03.jpg

        1. I like odd collective nouns:

          Here are a few for swans:

          A bevy or a game and if in flight not a wing, as one might expect, but a wedge.

  41. British government and army accused of covering up war crimes. Sun 17 Nov 2019.

    A BBC/Sunday Times investigation said it had obtained evidence from inside the Iraq historic allegations team (IHAT), which investigated alleged war crimes committed by British soldiers in Iraq, and Operation Northmoor, which investigated alleged war crimes in Afghanistan.

    Morning everyone. I watched this documentary and I was not impressed. It struck me that the so called investigation team had decided in advance that these soldiers were guilty and that all that was needed was to find someone to say so. The presenter for example had that John Pilger air of earnest and concerned self-righteousness which says that if you disagree with me then you are obviously an ignorant far-right fascist pig. The “evidence” consisted largely of relatives recounting events, with all that is implied in such; personal grief, resentment and of course the real (but unmentioned) possibility of compensation in sums beyond these peoples experience. A flavour of it can be gained by noting that the Afghan victims are described several times as children, to accentuate the heinousness of the crime, and yet one of them had a daughter, who her grandmother said was a baby at the time, but judging by appearance must have been 5 or 6 at least. This was a single incident in Afghanistan but a good half of the programme was devoted to two deaths in Basra in 2001 which the time elapsed would make events and supposed evidence even less clear.

    All this of course does not mean that innocent people were not killed by British Soldiers in either country, it is in fact a virtual certainty that such occurred. They were war zones and as such inherently dangerous to anyone in them. The real crime here is that we were involved. Of all the countries on the planet one would have thought that the UK would be most aware of the dangers in meddling in countries were the West is universally hated by everyone. Even by our supposed allies. This is not to say that they won’t ask for our help or weapons when dealing with their co-religionist enemies on the ground, but that is simply survival and common sense. What we should do is to keep out of these dreadful places with their even more dreadful inhabitants and stay out. If the Americans want to play there let them! The whole region is not worth one British life!

    https://www.theguardian.com/law/2019/nov/17/british-government-army-accused-covering-up-war-crimes-afghanistan-iraq

    1. ‘Morning Minty
      We have already had one law firm closed down over totally faked allegations to claim compo and another narrowly avoided the same fate (better connections to the great and good?)
      It is perhaps just as well the generation that invaded Normandy and subsequently fought across Europe are no longer with us the lawyers would have a field day over the survival rates of MG42 gunners and snipers attempting to surrender
      Not all were shot out of hand of course but the reality of war is you don’t get to slaughter half a platoon and just stick your hands up when you get flanked
      War is hell,that is all

      1. ‘Morning, Rik, in 1967 while stationed in Gogh in North Rhine Westphalia, at RAF Laarbruch on the German Dutch border, I was told that when the 51st Division arrived in the back-end of 1944, they surrounded the then Gestapo headquarters and ‘No prisoners were taken’.

        1. ‘Morning Nanners
          For gawds sake don’t share that with Leigh-Day the planes to Berlin will be full of lawyers looking for relatives

      2. Problem is – most of the armchair warriors have never been in combat and therefore have no idea of the realities of war. Their sanitized, black and white views are a million miles from what really happens. Their pious pronouncements, often years after the event, are usually many miles wide of the mark. Like it or not, t’was ever thus.

        ‘Morning, Rik.

    2. There must be an important distinction made between a state of war and a state of civil order. With the latter, of course normal jurisdiction applies, and any soldier operating there must honour civilian law or face the consequences before the judge according to the law of the land.

      In a war situation, civilian law has by definition broken down, so then military law applies. The main and often the only criterion that matters is military objective, and normal humanitarian morality is suspended. One acts honourably only because it benefits the military objective to keep the civilian population on one’s side. One agrees a set of rules with one’s adversaries purely out of mutual self-interest. If this is violated, then one can expect one’s own soldiers to be similarly (or worse) treated, and this is fair. Acting dishonourably in battle may also lose potential third party allies, who may be crucial later on in winning a war.

      It is often standard procedure for victors to mop up dissent after a war by applying civilian law retrospectively to what happened during a war. Sometimes it may be expedient to grant a general amnesty and cast the whole sorry affair into history.

      The PBI is trained not to make such moral discussions in a conflict, where the capacity to obey orders without thinking about them can make the difference between winning a battle or being shot. Any court martial knows when this is the case, and would hold those giving the orders responsible for any rogue behaviour.

    3. Richard ‘Nasal’ Bilton was the presenter. Personally I never have been able to stand his santimonious tone.

      ‘Morning, Minty.

        1. Once upon a time he used to appear on the telly far too often, and I had hoped he was gone for good. Another disappointment.

    4. I only watched a few minutes of the programme. One interesting point for me is that the wording of the rejection (of charging the men) is almost word for word the same as the statement made in respect of the death of Sheku Bayo,
      “Following what has been a complex and thorough investigation and review, the Lord Advocate has confirmed that, on the basis of the evidence available, there will be no criminal proceedings against Police Scotland or individual police officers in connection with Mr Bayoh’s death.”
      The Justice Minister then announced a Public Enquiry into the death. This was last week.
      I have written to the Justice Minister asking if the decision not to prosecute any of the nine officers involved in arresting Mr Bayoh might be revoked. I have not had a reply. I do not expect one very quickly. The protocol is for the government to take no more than 28 days to respond. In my experience they take every hour of those 28 days.

    6. It was when the report came from the BBC/Times and was reported by the Guardian that it was obviously going to be biased and twisted.

      Makes one wonder if they want an army. Heck, if they were in charge we’d all be wearing lederhosen.

  42. Someone put me right about this N.H.S. Doctors Pensions thing.
    A badly conceived change in tax allowances, similar to many that have screwed more money
    out many of us over the years, meant that the amount that the doctors ( and others ) could put into a pension scheme
    and get tax relief on, was reduced.
    So, being in a privileged position, they threw a fit and blackmailed the Government into agreeing to re-imburse them with amount of tax that they had lost.
    The doctors and the media had been shouting in chorus, about” Having to pay tax on their pensions “. Which is, of course, bullshit.
    Now, as the Government has decided to give them free money to put them in the same position as they would have been had the rules not been changed ( and I have not seen anything to show that non-doctors are also covered ), is not this a perk of the job and therefore taxable ? With tax on tax being payable, as in any other case when the employer pays an employee’s tax for him/her/it ?

    1. Overtime is voluntary. If it results in negative finances then some Doctors may be unwilling to do overtime resulting no Consultant medical cover on a number of shifts. Without senior medical cover, the Royal colleges will not recognise the junior doctor posts for training purposes. If training recognition is withdrawn then the hospital will not be able to recruit to the junior doctor posts which may then have a knock on effect for other specialties. For example if it is made impossible to recruit junior doctors in paediatrics, the lack of paediatric cover may have a knock on effect in being able to offer Maternity services. (Junior doctors of course includes Registrars and Senior Registrars).

        1. The Medical Profession and the Royal Colleges have the government and hospitals over a barrel…..

      2. If the Doctors hit he lifetime limit they can simply withdraw from the pension scheme once they rich the limit. They could then put the money in an ISA

    2. If your earnings are greater than £150k you can only put in £10k per ann to a pension scheme. The detail is fiendish, but I think that when doctors are earning overtime, part of the payment was to pension. The penalty tax charge on the pension going over the £10k (55%) wipes out the earnings after tax (45%). I am not a Dr, but that is the jist. https://www.gov.uk/tax-on-your-private-pension/annual-allowance

      1. Tough luck though. It’s still just a change in tax law that affects everybody..
        Any one on the standard 20 per cent basic rate gets a shock when they move into the
        next – 40 per cent – bracket. A lot say – what’s the point of working – but have put up with
        it and got no sympathy. Special cases make bad law.

        1. I think you are missing the point – the doctors’ reaction as pointed out above, is not to do the overtime, without which there is inadequate medical cover in the hospitals, due to years of understaffing and reliance on overtime. And other doctors are retiring, putting even more pressure on a creaking system. So, in the long run, either the government fixes the doctors’ problems, or hospitals will start to shut up shop.

          That’s how unions got their way for years in the public sector, whether it was the railwaymen, miners, etc., etc. They were always portrayed as a special case. And the government always backed down in the face of such tactics. Except Maggie and the miners, because she knew what they would do and had prepared for it.

          4. They are lucky to get paid overtime at all it does not happen in the private sector for senior grades

          5. Consultants are obliged by contract to fulfil sessional commitments it follows that a Hospital is required to pay more if additional sessions are worked over and above their contractual commitments.

        2. Senior civil servants’ can receive a pension for life, automatically rising with inflation, at 2/3rd (or (40/60ths) of their final salary. An MP’s pension is even better based on only 20 years ‘service’ while the maximum a teacher or a nurse can get is 40/80ths.

          Imagine a doctor or a person running his own business retires at the age of 65 making £150,000 pa having worked for 40 years. A civil servant on that final salary would expect an inflation proof pension of £100,000 pa.

          How large would a doctor’s pension pot (or that of a person working in the private sector) have to be in order to get such a generous pension and how in earth could he or she build up such a sum?

          If the state decides to take £50,000 pa from me in tax and then ‘gives’ me a reduced rate of tax so I pay only £40,000 the state has not given me anything – it has just robbed me rather less. Remember the story of the mugger who steals £1,000 from somebody and then gives his victim £300 back – has the criminal given away £300 or has he stolen just £700 rather than £1,000 ?

          1. I agree with you on that, but it rather off the point I am making. There has always been every reason to stop giving civil servants such treatment.

          2. Many years ago, civil servants got paid less than the equivalent job in the private sector – I know, my old man was one – but they had a solid pension plan. It was seen back then as a tradeoff. But once civil servants started receiving salaries that are on a par with or better than the private sector, they should not still expect the gold plated pension benefits.

          3. The “Classic” civil service pension scheme closed to new entrants many years ago. It was a defined benefit scheme of 40/80th. You had to work for 40 years to get the maximum benefit. I was still in the classic scheme when I retired after 21 years, so I got just over a quarter of my final salary, which wasn’t a great deal but it does go up a bit each year – that changed from RPI to CPI a few years ago.

          4. My father had a very good pension which continued until he died and then my mother, who out-lived him by seventeen years finally dying at the age of 97, received half the annual sum he had received for the rest of her life.

            As a teacher I never earned anything like as much pa as my dear old dad, former governor of the Northern Sudan, received in pension.

      2. Outside of the Public Sector people in professional and management jobs don’t get paid for overtime

  43. Exclusive: Major sports bodies guilty of ‘shocking’ lack of women’s representation at board level

    A very simple answer would be ‘proportionality’

    Take the number of registered women (how long will it stay with just those) / number of men (see previous brackets) particpating in the sports and the board then reflects the ratio of participants

    How many men are on the Netball board

    If the ratio is exceeded, in favour of women, then they will be over represented: an inequality is produced, which is always what those who shout ‘Equality’ really want

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/2019/11/18/exclusive-major-sports-bodies-guilty-shocking-lack-womens-representation/

  44. Morning, Campers.
    Quick visit before I nip off to have my barnet chopped. (A girl has to do her best.)
    Richard Littlejohn in the DM:
    “Then I remembered that as recently as this summer, the Government extended the Blue Badge free parking permit scheme to people with ‘hidden disabilities’ such as anxiety and depression.” I’m feeling a smidge pee’d off, so must try that one.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-7700099/RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN-College-teachers-union-says-people-allowed-choose-race.html https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/34373da46228767ba83637388e380dd813b6ac49a63340d667855971b3d7fa65.jpg

    1. I parked in a disabled bay for five mins while I posted off a box. I came back to a woman photographing the car. As I hobbled into view, I said ‘Can I help you?’ and she lectured me about disabled parking and blue badges and I said ‘I’m sorry, could we sit down while we have this conversation as I am unable to stand up.’

      She then told me that you can get temporary blue badges to wit I replied ‘I didn’t want to waste council time, I fully understood the need and would she mind asking someone to help me up.’

      To her credit, she was qite decent about it all. I do realise how important such badges and parking is, but I am also lenient when some great oaf is hobbling along and doens’t have one.

  45. Is there any party politico truly, currently with dealings appertaining to the brexitexit issue that are doing so
    putting England / GB first before their own self interest.
    Because to me after 3 1/2 years the exit road looks to be unadopted whereas the partial re-entry road is firming up no end.
    Can it be that the lab/lib/con politicians use these odious parties as stepping stones to rainbows end, brussels.

      1. Evening AS,
        That has been my very strong feelings since
        “nige” made his anti UKIP membership rant.

  46. Morning all.
    From the letters …

    ” Political parties and candidates should present their policies LIES and
    arguments BOLLOX without fear or favour, regardless of outcomes.”

    Eleri Jones. Aberystwyth, Cardiganshire.

  48. When I was at school in the year dot, we had streaming , and I cannot remember anyone with special needs in any school I attended .

    Why are we hearing so much now about young children with very specific physiological needs these days .. and why are these children in mainstream education , disrupting the progress of children who just want to get on.

    When I was at school , and in the form I was in we had bright children with physical disabilities resulting from polio , or similar , different diseases for a different era , but we all got on with our school work together , and helped each other out.

    Where and how and why have so called special needs sprung from , and why are they so common. School budgets suffer because children require extra help from specialists for mentally disruptive issues.

    I feel so sorry for the mothers of these children.. Strange behaviour seems to be so commonplace these days. What on earth is happening to modern youngsters.

    Is something poisoning them , the way that our insects like butterflies , moths and bees and beetles are dying out ..

    There’s stuff we need to know about , before the whole world goes mad .

    1. When I was at primary school (started in 1953), there was a boy with severe “learning difficulties” ans another with water on the brain.

        1. In my first three years at school, the class size varied between 50 and 52. Before we went up from Infants to Juniors, nearly all of us were literate and numerate. Today’s teachers don’t know they’re alive.

          1. School teachers in those days were probably better educated and were pre war I expect, and knew how to discipline and keep order and TEACH..

            I can remember my old teachers and how they influenced ..

          2. The disciplinarians were sadists. Most of the teachers were not pre-war, they were ex-military. Our French teacher had a steel ruler that he enjoyed applying to kids’ backsides. He spoke French with a standard English accent, so my pass in French was useless when I went to France.He was an anti-semite and hated kids with disabilities. Yes, they knew how to keep order and teach – sorry, not the case.

          3. The living saint who got me through O-Level maths had been a POW of the Japanese. Thin as a rake, he wore jerseys and jumpers even in summer. He loathed violence, once apologising to a boy for calling him an idiot.

            My French teacher was always the master in the classroom, but never raised his voice, let alone his hand.

        2. Did you have a PE bag with the word Gym shoes embroidered by yourself … or a material handkerchief bag with embroidery that you practised your stitches on..

          Those were the days .. I still have mine .. and the gym shoe bag still smells of old school plimsolls..

          5. I loathed both cookery and needlework at school.
            Funnily enough, I now enjoy both after picking up the skills as an adult.

      2. I don’t recall any ‘special’ children during my school years. It’s possible they’d been siphoned off into specialised schools but I never heard of it.

      3. Decades ago, bad birth deliveries like forceps etc could produce lots of problems , and of course childhood diseases.

        Now it appears as if virtually every child has some sort of attention deficiency .. and it seems to be regarded as a status symbol.

      4. Back in the ’50s, as standard treatment for children with water on the brain, they used to give them a tap on the head.

        …… I’ll get me pipe-wrench.

      5. We had one poor child who, a result of her mother’s syphilis, was born with one eye higher than the other, which in turn was almost scrunched shut.

        Charming little children that we were, she was nick-named ‘Cyclops’

    3. When I was training – umpty years ago – we were taken round the local ‘subnormality’ hospital.
      The law had just been changed to make the children in these hospitals attend normal school rather than the hospital’s own unit.
      As a result, the children and their nurses didn’t have time to do the basics; the children were just about capable of learning to laboriously wash, dress and feed themselves.
      In the rush to get them to main stream school on time, the nurses had to do it for them. So the children’s progress went backwards – and they were not happy being the odd ones out at the schools.
      But hey, never let reality intrude on dogma.

    4. That is a really good question. One I ask frequently. Why do we keep looking for treatments for such ailments rather than the cause?

    6. Don’t feel sorry for the parents – in many cases (but not all) they are the ones encouraging a bad attitude in their offspring.

    1. Apparently, yes. Geoff posted this message late yesterday evening…

      “Just before I turn in for the night – I’ll reveal my guilty secret. Twice in my life (or possibly three times – I’ve lost count) I have dined at Pizza Express, Woking. It wan’t by choice – it was the office Christmas lunch, but nevertheless… The Guildford branch, I could understand; it even has a grand piano. But Woking? It would be less embarrassing to admit to shagging a 17 year-old Yank hooker, who – let’s face it – is marginally more attractive than a Fiorentina in GU21…”

    1. I wonder if it occurred to the authorities to run test on these characters at the time to see if they had been drugged causing them to fall asleep- after all none of the CCTV cameras were operating in the vicinity?

        1. Living in the US, I can definitively say most conspiracy theorists are hard right Republicans. The Dems don’t have that much imagination.

          BTW, there are questions of the lack of CCTV coverage at the time of his exit. But he did bring his lawyer in and change his will just beforehand. Of course, he may have paid the guards to pop him – the theories are endless.

    2. If they hadn’t have got him there, they would have got him in the Saudi Embassy. It happens all the time.
      (Suicide my left foot ).

      2. Campaigners have long demanded justice for those who suffered due to Britain’s conquests overseas, as well as its role in the slave trade.

        More compo from the magic money tree….

        1. I’m still awaiting reparations from Italy for the injustices of The Roman Empire and from France for the Norman Invasion and the susequent Frenchifying of Middle English.

          ‘Morning, P-T we just have to KBO.

          1. I want Norway and Denmark to compensate me for the profligate spreading of Scandinavian genes during the Viking years that led to my developing Dupuytrens contractures on both hands.

        2. I wonder how he would deal with the decendents of those Native Cheifs who kidnapped and sold into slavery members of opposing tribes?

      1. Look how they’ve all done so well in Africa since we gave them the independence they wanted in the 1960s.

        They’ve all come forward in leaps and bounds since they threw off the shackles of colonialism that were clearly holding them back.

        It’s so good now, it’s a wonder we aren’t all paying people smugglers to take us there.

        The streets of Harare are lined with…something.

      2. I don’t think it works that way around! On a smaller scale I notice that the “Celebrity Antiques” thingy on BBC keeps saying “all profits go to Children in Need” – I don’t suppose that an of the many losses are charged to Children in Need?

  53. Say what one will about George Soros, if you read the small print he’s 100% clear about his 30 year mission, which is influencing Europe, including Britain, into implementing his personal vision for the future.

    He actually admits it……………..

    https://lobbyfacts.eu/representative/1742c4e55b744063a6c757ce939ef91c

    ”OSEPI is the EU policy arm of the Open Society Foundations, a private foundation that has worked for three decades to promote vibrant and tolerant democracies.
    OSEPI works to influence EU policies based on our vision that open society values are at the heart of what the EU does, as a policy maker and as a funder, both inside and outside the European Union.
    The Brussels team provides evidence, argument, and recommendations to policy makers in EU institutions and member states, drawn from the Open Society Foundations’ work in nearly 100 countries.”

    How successful has he been ?

    In the EU, 100%.

    In Britain. Again, it looks like 100%. I can’t see any differences in major British policies between 1997 and mid 2019, and even now new policy announcements appear to virtually mirror Soros policies. The British even want to sign the WA, which is probably his brainchild, almost certainly carefully designed to keep the status quo.

    1. ” Her father is of Italian descent (a Sicilian from Lipari who emigrated to Australia with his family at age five)”
      He must have been very smart to arrange that so young.

  55. The BBC tells us that the Greens pledge zero carbon by 2030

    How?

    I’ve just downloaded some information from Gridwatch giving the main sources of our electricity between 6pm last night and 6am today.

    These are the averages:

    Coal = 4%
    Nuclear = 18%
    Gas = 51%
    Wind = 9%
    Biomass = 7%

    Bear in mind that this is only electricity and that electricity only contributes about 20% to the total energy we use.

    Where is the magical source of our future energy requirement?

    Also, since every pound we spend generates CO2, isn’t the Greens’ £100,000,000,000 per year fighting climate change going to cause its own problems?

        1. The number of MPs with a STEM degree is less than 5% of the total.
          They are basically scientific and engineering illiterates, who need the same simple explanations of how things work that you would give a 5 year old child

          1. They need them, but they won’t absorb them. Stuff like that slides past them unrecognised as information. They simply have no interest in how things work, which is for lesser people in their eyes.

            Much too complicated when there are committees to attend.

          3. “Oh. I leave all that detail and technical sort of stuff to others” is the sort of thing they come out with, missing the fact completely that there are no ‘others’, only more useless suit-fillers like themselves.

            They think that their avoidance of ‘detail’ makes them look more like leaders and decision makers. Nothing is further from the truth.

          4. “Oh. I leave all that detail and technical sort of stuff to others” is the sort of thing they come out with, missing the fact completely that there are no ‘others’, only more useless suit-fillers like themselves.

            They think that their avoidance of ‘detail’ makes them look more like leaders and decision makers. Nothing is further from the truth.

    2. Just because peeps think they ”require” energy doesn’t mean they actually need it all the time………

      What’s wrong with part time energy, say, 8 hours a week ?

      After all, what do you think your smart meter is for ?

      Ummmmm……..

      Oh.

      1. My energy supplier keeps pestering me to have a smart-meter fitted, but no way Josie.

        All it’ll save me is having to nip outside once a month to read the meter.

        1. I wouldn’t trust any of that lot with reading my meter with a computer programme they could hack into any time they were short of a few quid. This smart meter stuff is an accident waiting for happen. Like smart roads and smart politicians.

          1. The ones my supplier’s currently pushing are the new Greta-Metas. Seems they give out a fog-horn sound whenever a 10 watt light is switched on.

            Apparently, every ohm should have one.

    4. You mean that solar was not generating power overnight? I thought that was when their output was supposed to be recharging electric cars.

      1. The Spanish government had to change their rules relating to feed-in tarrifs and attached subsidies a few years ago. Solar panel owners were being paid way over the odds for any electricity they produced to feed back into the grid.

        The wheels came off that when somebody finally noticed that they were paying for electricity produced during the night.

        The imbalance between what people were being paid to produce electricity over what they were paying to use it meant that farmers were shining spotlights on their solar panels when it got dark.

      2. Surprisingly, there were some figures for solar – 0.000013% of the total. Whether this was moonlight or roofers on night work, I don’t know.

        I’ve just had a look at the local council’s Facebook site and there’s loads of information about Christmas lights, activities, etc. The reality of the lunatic ‘saving the planet’ nonsense is that few people, if any, are going to change their lifestyle to any extent. I.e. We’ll start tomorrow but business as usual today.

    1. Hand on my heart , I have never ever eaten a pizza in a restaurant , nor ever had a takeaway .

      I wonder whether I have missed out so much in life .. my list would be endless!

        1. Moh hates anchovies , I love them .. and marinaded herring .. So I have made my version of pizza at home for others , lots of sliced tomato , squashed garlic, mushrooms , prawns and anchovies, sliced peppers, olive , pesto , cheese .. crisp and tasty and lots of flavour .. no idea what a real pizza should taste like .. hey ho..

          1. Your ‘pizza’ sounds good & you’ve steered away from meat. I like meat, but not on pizzas. Make sure your pastry is fairly thin.

            I love anchovies – I’ve had them twice this week as a pre-dinner appetiser & there are more in the fridge. W/rose has them on special offer atm.

          4. Lidl do lovely herrings. There are rollmops or bismarck herrings; they also do herring fillets in sour cream with gherkins/apples/dill etc…

          5. Boquerones fritos. Fresh whole anchovies, gutted, head left on, rolled in seasoned flower and fried in shallow oil until they are just ready and golden.

            Squeeze of lemon over the top. Simple salad and a baton of bread.

            Delicious.

            The head, with its gaping mouth, is used as a handle while you peel the stll warm fillets off the bone.

          6. Excellent, Belle, anchovies and thin, home made bases, mmmmmmm.
            My only meat would be waffere thin slices of a good saucisson sec. A spicy home made tomato and garlic sauce and just a thin scattering of good mozzarella. A little coarsely ground pepper and a spiral drizzle of olive oil. 230°C at top of the oven for 8 minutes, crisp and golden.

          7. Delicious MM… that’s the way .. My image of a real pizza .

            My taste buds are slavering ..

            Need some comfort food just now, I think the debate will be horrible .

            This election is similar to the failed mission to Mars .. We will all be in tears on the 13th December!

          9. I nicked an idea from a friend who used a scone/soda bread base for his pizzas.
            They were not only delicious, it was also a good way to use up bits and bobs.

      3. A missed cultural experience – especially when part of a large group, and accompanied by plenty of alcohol.

  60. Green Party Manifesto (Note this is only for England & Wales)

    It is a good job this idiots have no chance of being elected

    https://greenparty.org.uk/assets/files/Elections/Green%20Party%20Manifesto%202019.pdf

    Some of the things they have in the manifesto are devolved to Wales so they cannot even impairment them in Wales

    Just had a quick read through it. It amounts to spend, spend, spend and borrow, borrow, borrow

    Tuition fees to be abolished and all student debt to be written off

    Building a 100,000 Council Houses a year. Where the money comes to finance them and to subsidize them is unexplained. Nor is how they will find the land to build them or the builders and the material to build them

    Raid on Pensions – Limiting tax relief to 20%. Reducing tax free amount you can take from a pension to £40K

    Legalise all drugs

    Increase Alcohol taxes. Strangely it does not mention the loss of jobs that would result

    Scaping Trident. It claims a saving but by the time you take into account the cost of cancelling it and the huge job losses it will be more likely a cost increase

    Increase Foreign Aid

    Make it easier for migrant to enter the UK

    1. ” Raid on Pensions – Limiting tax relief to 20%”
      What’s wrong with that ? Same as happened with mortgage interest relief, before they scrapped it entirely.
      ” Scaping Trident ” – sorry, there’s no escape….

      1. Well giving the UK pensions are some of the worst in the developed world I would suggest it is a problem

  61. Doctors Triple Win

    Gold Plated Pension
    Paid Overtime
    Paid a bonus

    In the private sector it would be a money purchase pension scheme
    In the Private sector senior staff would not be paid overtime

  62. Labour Loony

    A loony Labour spokeswoman has said she will make a concrete pledge to abolish food banks with in 3 years and that without even knowing what’s in her parties manifesto

    She had not the slightest idea as to how she would achieve this. I would guarantee she will not. A lot of people that use food banks are feckless and reckless so unless you deal with that you will not stop them using food banks

    2. ” A lot of people that use food banks are feckless and reckless so unless
      you deal with that you will not stop them using food banks”
      You talk like a Tory !!

    1. Such a brilliant cartoonist and political commentator , isn’t he Plum ..

      I wonder what he is like in real life, quiet or noisy , whatever .. he has a real finger on life at large!

    4. Just watched ” The Biggest Little Farm” film.
      It was a feel-good show and should be compulsory viewing for vegans and vegetarians.

  64. Boris /Corbyn 20::00 ITV tonight

    Hard to tell how this will go. I don’t rate Boris as the best debater and even his speeches can be a bit rambaling

    2. Yo T_B

      I do not know where it comes from, but I have a feeling that Muslimettes will not be allowed to eat their (school) dinners til the Muslimstuds have pigged out

    1. It never even occurred to me to watch it. They are both going to lie through their teeth to appeal to voters who don’t know what they really want to do. Corbyn dislikes the EU far, far more than Boris does, but Labour are falling apart and what Corbyn wants won’t matter. Boris just wants to slip this Withdrawal Agreement through without anyone realising what it means, because he likes the EU and wants to stay.

      I can think of much better ways to spend an hour than watching this pantomime.

  68. Well, it’s the interval ( err.. break).
    I liked the bit where someone in the audience asked a question about integrity.
    Jeremy Corbyn misheard, and though he had said electricity. Jeremy said that Labour would, of course, nationalise it.
    Boris made clear that the Conservative Party would increase the number of volts in an ampere, which would make
    the conversation more current.
    Mr. Corbyn was asked about anti-semitism in the Labour Party, which Jeremy said was quite unacceptable and
    everyone in the room giiggled.
    The lady in the red dress said it was time for a brake as the politicians were clearly exhausted.

  69. 26 stowaways found in refrigerated container on DFDS ship bound for UK

    It looks as if the security at the channel ports is deterring them there. Refrigerated containers are normally steel and the doors are sealed

    1. DFDS ? I hope they don’t put Danish Bacon in the container after that lot. I hate to lose any of my friends.

  70. Theresa May was out canvassing in Kirriemuir today. When asked by a reporter about “IndieRef2″ she got quite heated, ” Let’s get Brexit done!” she said.
    Ho Hum.

  71. Greens promise zero carbon by 2030

    It shows just how daft they are. What they are claiming to be going to do is a total and complete impossibility . In fact we do not even have the technology to do it and even if the technology it could never be done in that timescale and remember our population is constantly increasing as is our energy usage

  74. Gawd. Boris wiped the floor with Corbyn as expected despite the interventions of Julie Etchingham (where the fuck did she come from?). I could not follow the other leader’s debate because it felt and looked like a freak show. The twisty mouthed countenance of Kuenssberg reporting on it proved my point.

    1. She certainly wasn’t as good as Emily.
      It was more like a farce than something serious.
      I’m still not sure if I would buy a used withdrawal agreement from that man.
      Corbyn is a dead man walking.

      1. It is in my view Corbyn’s last stand. If he does not win the election (And that seem highly unlikely that he will) he will be gone. Mind you his potential replacements are no better

        There is a golden opportunity here for the Brexit Party(It really needs a new name though it was daft to go with that name. Most of Labours supporters outside of London have lost faith in the Labour party and are desperate for a party to vote for. I think as well that after the election assuming Boris wins a lot of voters that will have voted Conservative or Lib-dem could be won back by the Brexit Party , I think they could win Lib-Dem voters over as well. Many went to Lib-Dem simply because of Brexit once that’s out of the way they will have little reason to stay with the Lib-Dems

        The big downside to the Brexit Party is it is coming over as very much the Nigel Farage party’s and lacks real policies. It would be nice if it gain several MP’s to give it credibility. People will be more prepared to voter for a party that has some MP’s. I don’t see it getting any MP’s though

        A priority for the Brexit Party after Brexit should be to work with the other parties on electoral reform. At present there are parties that may in total take a thirds of the vote that would be in favour of a form of PR even some Labour and Conservative MP’s may well be as well

        1. ” …the Brexit Party is it is coming over as very much the Nigel Farage party’s and lacks real policies.”
          It always was.
          It has done a great job, but it’s all over now, looking round and wondering where to go. Farage never wanted to be King.

    2. I shall have to listen to it. I don’t regard Boris as the best debater, even his speeches are not great

  78. An idiotic Labour Spokeswoman trying and failing to explain how Nationalizing Openreach would not wipe out hundreds of thousand of jobs. She did not even have a basic grasp of the Industry

    She claimed it was to enable investment but again was totally unable to explain how making something free would fund investment

      1. But I can’t understand anyone who experienced the dysfunctional Labour governments of the ’60’s and ’70’s ever voting for that chaotic mess again.

        p.s. Blair doesn’t really count – he wasn’t “real” Labour like Comrades Corbyn and McDonnell.

        1. I remember many years ago, talking to a client after a Labour government had just been voted in,he said ” there always seems to be pleaty of money around when Labour are in power “.
          There always was, until the roof fell in.

          3. For both the Wilson and Callaghan governments, it was the IMF’s money as they had spent all the country’s wealth.

  80. “A copy of my brilliant Brexit deal” is what Johnson says he wants to give Corbyn for Christmas.

    Why are Corbyn and the MSM unwilling and incapable of putting this appalling surrender May rehash deal under the microscope and subjecting it to serious scrutiny?

    If it really is ‘brilliant’ then why does Johnson not say what is brilliant about it and defend it from the many criticisms that should be levelled at it by the any articulate unbiased journalist who can see it for what it is? Is because he cannot because it is indefensible?

    I fear that Johnson will always give us nothing more than bombastic waffle and I fear that too many voters will not see his ‘brilliant deal’ for what it is: total capitulation to the EU.

      1. ‘No deal’ would be the best possible deal for Britain and this would be what I would vote for if I had the vote.

        However the ‘brilliant Boris deal’ gives us, who live in France and run our own businesses, the very worst of both worlds: none of the advantages of a proper Brexit and all the hassle and inconvenience that BRINO will give us.

        So if the choice for me is between BRINO or Remain in the EU’ it would be in my best interests and in Britain’s for Britain to stay in the EU as BRINO is in Britain’s worst interests.

        .

        1. Understood. What I meant, of course, was that none of us would get what we would want. We are all trapped now because there has never been anyone to stand up and say ” Lets do This ” – except the hard core Remainers. I am stll wondering why Phil Hammond never wanted the job. He is a bastard but has a strong personality,

    2. Every time there’s a terrorist incident in the UK, there’s the usual ‘we won’t give in’ response.

      Yet, when the chips are down and there’s the slightest whiff of inconvenience or hardship, as there is at the moment with the Brexit situation, that’s exactly what most people do.

      I’m voting for the Brexit Party in December.

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