Saturday 1 October: Truss and Kwarteng need to make a clear, persuasive case for their economic plan

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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502 thoughts on “Saturday 1 October: Truss and Kwarteng need to make a clear, persuasive case for their economic plan”

  5. Good morning, all. Rain in the night. Now sort of dry and with a hint of sun. Leaving shortly for Narridge.

  8. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/776cb57312dd6fed00dc994b5365e607bad697e5a1b4d46a396223b2780d56b0.png I find it hard to disagree with you, Max. Nothing makes me cringe more than someone asking me if I’d like a cup of tea and then watch them pour water — not always boiling — onto a teabag in cup. At such times I invariably decline their offer. I invariably get two large mugs of strong, properly mashed and delicious, tea from a teapot, whether I use loose tea or a good quality teabag from a source I trust.

    2. A standard cup of tea is about 1/3 of a pint.
      I make mine in a one pint mug so I get the equivalent of 3 cups.

    3. Loose tea from Wilkinsons of Norwich by mail order. We alwys drink loose leaf tea made in a tea pot. We have given up on coffee.

      1. I still get mine from Wilkinson’s by mail order. I wouldn’t be without it. I’m drinking and enjoying a cup of their superb Assam as I type this.

    4. Morning, Grizz.

      Mashing tea takes me back to my school days in the sixties. The chemistry/physics master, Frank Hood, came from well north of Essex and he never went to the staff room for the tea break but preferred his own brew in the lab. When we were considered mature enough, 2nd or 3rd form, one of us would be delegated to make his tea, however, it had to be made to his precise specification that included warming the pot, mashing etc. I’d never heard the term before where tea was concerned and my mother never mashed the tea leaves.
      Mr Hood, nicknamed Codger because he looked older that he was and was slightly stooped was an excellent teacher and a really nice person. He was also a very accomplished spin bowler as he demonstrated in the staff v 1st eleven matches.

      1. Morning, Korky.
        How would he want the tea mashed, then? Not familiar with the terminology.

        1. It was 60 years ago! However, I can recall having to warm the pot with boiling water for a short time then after discarding the water putting the required amount of tea in the pot followed by enough just off the boil water to cover the leaves. This mixture was left to mash the leaves, I don’t remember for how long, maybe 3 or 4 minutes before adding the required amount of just off the boil water to complete the process. He taught us to make his tea as if it was an experiment, very precise.

          1. Best tea I ever drunk was made in a pot kept permanently on the stove, and with huge, loose-leaf leaves. A round of delicious tea would be poured, the pot topped up with water, and put back on the stove. Repeat. The tea was equally excellent each time, the leaves not being replaced. (This was in the Chief Engineers cabin on the crane vessel Baku, in the Caspian Sea.)

          2. My family in Yorkshire always ‘mashed the tea’ but others would say ‘let’s get a brew on’. My mother was from Lancashire so perhaps that is where the term ‘to mash’ (the act of pouring boiling water over tea leaves) comes from.

      2. Morning, Korky.

        The idea of him going to his lab to mash his tea makes me smile. It s certainly something I would have considered doing had I been in his place.
        My science teacher, Mr Rodgers, was unlike anything anyone had ever seen. A cross between Peter Lorre and Gabby Hayes, he would sip a sample from a flask of meths whenever using it, telling us that it was the spirit of choice of most tramps.

    5. Don’t let my wife know, but I usually get two mugs of tea from one tea bag. She doesn’t like strong tea as I do.
      But all of our uncooked (vegetable) kitchen waste is composted and becomes the growing bed for our tomatoes, courgettes, spinach, garlic and other veg.

      1. I knew a professor at the U of C who kept all his tea bags in plastic tumblers to re-use, and re-use, and re-use yet again. These tumblers were arranged lovingly around his desk, on his bookshelves, window ledges – yes, there were quite a few. Then one day, a new cleaning lady arrived on the scene and dispatched all the teabags (in his absence) to the departmental dustbin. All hell was let loose over this misdemeanour, we thought we’d never hear the end of it from both sides of the equation. How was she to know that these drying out, fading teabags were there to be recycled and upcycled indefinitely?

        1. I have to confess on behalf of my very late father. “Durin’ the war”. He was in Egypt and Algeria where they liked their tea. He and his fellow RAF colleagues used to brew their cuppas a couple of times and sell the at least twice brewd leaves to on the locals.

      1. Indeed it has, KP. Only the other week I weighed two bags from different suppliers and found a marked difference in weight.

  9. Good Moaning.
    Just been reading a light hearted article in the Tellygraff about the return of real watches.
    Apparently a new Timex ad has this strapline (ho ho) for wristwatches:

    ‘Know the time without seeing you have 1,249 unanswered emails.’

    2. Mine’s a gold wind-up presented to my great-grandfather.

      Mind, it’s been hanging from a hook in my caravan for nearly a year now… 🤣

    2. Bonjour, as they say in Canada.
      There’s a potentially fatal strain of starvation in circulation if these diabolical baboons don’t start running the show with an ounce of common sense.

      1. … he wasn’t a boy, after all?
        Until Tuesday. Then he became one for a while.
        In the meantime the wolf had a picnic.

    6. ………. more of a threat to public health than COVID this winter
      More common colds. Not very serious.

  11. 365705+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Saturday 1 October: Truss and Kwarteng need to make a clear, persuasive case for their economic plan

    First things first, priorities, would it not be best
    this time to establish, who they are making it clear to.
    Her take on mass, morally illegal immigration is decidedly unsettling for the sane indigenous, quite the reverse for the Dover / Dungeness daily intake of potential troops/ paedophiles / etc,etc.

    A massive concern is, going on past voting pattern history the majority of the electorate
    these past four decades are voting in a
    “satisfied with the status quo, party before Country, manner”.

    Much of our sufferance today is due to the voting pattern over the last four decades and with the full knowledge of many a voter, the
    daily downward spiral within society was clear to observe, if you had a mind to look.

  12. BTL Comment:-

    John Langdale
    1 HR AGO
    I don’t always agree with Tucker Carlson and certainly not with his views on the Russia/Ukraine conflict but I just read in another comments section ( the one on the fourth plinth ) a quote from what he said after the death of our late Queen and It struck such a chord with me that I wanted to share it more widely on here.
    “It is hard to believe it now, but Britain was not always a regional banking centre-slash- refugee camp. It was a real place with a history and a language and a culture and a genuinely remarkable people, a country in the North Atlantic the size of Alabama that somehow took over the world and ruled it with a decency unmatched by any empire in human history.”
    I haven’t given up on this country yet but I am increasingly beginning to feel that the battle to save it is lost and if so this seems a poignant epitaph to the country I grew up in.

    1. While I echo the sentiment on this country, Mr Langdale needs to pay more heed to Tucker.
      There is going to be refugee pandemonium soon with people trekking everywhere to escape hunger because of this insane war.

    2. It seems our good deeds around the whole world have come back to haunt us. We now have more moaning going on than the proverbial stick can be poked at.
      And Of course aided and abetted over 32 years by a series of sniveling scum bag over apologetic polititicos.
      Now people hate Britain so much they risk everything to be here.

      2. 365705+ up ticks,

        Morning RE,

        These past 20 years at least on witnessing the daily downward trend the electorate are with full knowledge of a parties pedigree getting precisely what they voted for.

    4. Seems a fitting epitaph and fair. All of us in our own way need to speak up for the U.K. and stop putting ourselves down. I think as a whole the country is depressed!

        1. Hi Tom, really sorry for your troubles. Have you chatted with new neighbours and maybe found someone with whom you can “click”? Sending lots of hugs and good wishes.

          1. As with the Irish, vw, living in hope but prepared to die in despair.

            Thank you for your wishes.

        2. I used to feel down sometimes. Huge pressures at work. Stress. Worry. It is my nature. I was an excellent manager, priorities sorted plans in place, highly trained . All of that. Nevertheless there were times when I felt down. I would have a warm bath, and consider deeply all my miseries. I’d face them, consider them, let loose my emotions to the point where tears would run down my face.
          Then, I’d pull the plug. The bathwater and the tears would drain away, taking my worries with them. I’d dry myself off. Steely, determined, and in control once again.

  13. Morning all 🙂
    Brighter than I expected out side today, after the deluge.
    I think two people in the headlines will be thinking that a week…..really is a long time in politics. And probably very lonely.

    1. Also brighter here than yesterday.

      Thinking that 8 weeks in limbo, is a very long time and the lonliness doesn’t lessen.

  14. Morning, all! Diving in briefly to wish you all a good day before I restart painting my brother’s palatial dining room ceiling. Worked on it from eight until seven yesterday, only stopping to help him rescue the contents (some of which were bloody heavy) from the marquee they were using to store Stuff they haven’t yet found a home for. The marquee had been uprooted in the gales, and we got soaked to the skin. 🤣 Life is never boring!

        1. I’ve a bit of lathe tooling to pick up for t’Lad from Bridgwater this week, so I’ve kitted the van up for camping and I’m heading down to see eldest daughter in Basingstoke today and then cutting across West tomorrow to pick up on Tuesday or Wednesday. Back home Wednesday or Thursday.

          1. In that case, BoB, I shan’t post you a jar of my home-made marmalade (as promised recently) until Wednesday.

      1. 🤣🤣🤣 Plain white, this one. I might be let loose on a less public wall in this house at some point, though! 😈

  15. Good Morning, all

    Lovely day; calm and sunny.

    Grimes article – ‘It sounds as if Truss has been listening to Coolio on how to give an interview’

    1. Morning, I care not a fig what the Times think about her interview techniques that she gives to our lame stream media. I get the impression nothing she says or do will impress the likes of The Times, unless she advocates more of the same since Major came to power. Far more of concern to me is the fact that she says something in keeping with Conservative thinking, it would after all make a change, it has been so long since we had a Conservative PM.

      1. I do care about what the electorate think of her. I don’t know if you heard recordings of her going round the radio stations but she shouldn’t be allowed near a microphone. Other ministers should be rolled out to do that .

          1. The 1st Duke of Wellington was briefly a (de facto) dictator, in his second ministry. Whilst awaiting the return of the real PM (Peel?) he controlled all the offices himself.

        2. The electorate will only care about the health of their wallets, and that will come to the fore at the next GE.
          The PM sending out other ministers to be interviewed on policies which she has instigated would be perceived as cowardly, far worse than sticking her in front of a microphone.
          I can think of May and Blair who sounded good in front of a microphone, thanks I would rather hear Truss if the message is better than what we have had in the past.

          1. “The electorate will only care about the health of their wallets…”

            Hence the furore over personal tax rather then the purpose of them i.e. for the economy.

          2. Delegation is necessary. If you are rubbish on radio send someone who is good. The PM is not the government. I have always compared managers to conductors of orchestras. Th do not play all the instruments. Their job is to get the right notes played in the right order* at the right time.

            *As endorsed by Morecambe and Wise

          3. I do not disagree with what you are saying, but the truth is the vast majority of the electorate would not see it that way, they would see her absence as ducking the issue.
            This perception would be ruthlessly played upon by all the usual suspects, MSM etc. They had such success with Johnson and “party gate” and buoyed by that, they would be determined to drive her out to impose someone more to their liking.

  16. A new series immerses us in Russia’s 90s trauma – and the human cost of economic shock. 1 October 2022.

    Not that that stops some pointed jokes. A Russian journalist who recently fled Putin’s regime reflected sardonically to Curtis: “You in Britain are Moscow in about 1988. Everyone knows the system isn’t working. Everyone knows that the managers are completely looting it. They know that you know that they know, but no one has any concept of a possible alternative. The only difference is you’ve already tried democracy. You’ve got nothing else left.”

    It’s no secret then?

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/30/new-series-russia-90s-adam-curtis-bbc-films-traumazone

  18. ‘Morning, Peeps.  Can’t remember the last time I slept until 08:00.  Plenty of wind and rain last night, leaves down everywhere.

    SIR – Once again, the Bank of England has got it wrong.

    Last week it announced that Britain’s economy was in recession, but we have now been told by the Office for National Statistics that, in fact, there was growth in the second quarter.

    I wonder if the Guardian, the BBC and others will change their tune.

    Brian Pegnall
    Falmouth, Cornwall

    Andrew Baily is a classic case of the rewarding of failure.  His tenure at the FSA was a disaster, after which he should have been kept well away from the levers of power.  And as for the ONS cocking up their figures…

    1. Sounds as though he’s very successful at the revolving doors remuneration packages.

  19. SIR – For the first time since my naive teenage years, I wouldn’t mind if Labour formed the next government.

    Susan Cunliffe
    Woodbridge, Suffolk

    Ms Cunliffe, seek help immediately.  Either you are still naive, or you have never had to live under a Labour government!

    1. I made that mistake in 1997, when the incompetence of John Major made me vote Labour for the first and only time. Never again.

  20. Red Square becomes concert arena as Putin annexes four Ukrainian regions. 1 October 2022.

    The US will continue to provide military aid to Ukraine after Russia’s annexations, President Joe Biden has said.

    “We will continue to provide Ukraine with the equipment it needs to defend itself, undeterred by Russia’s brazen effort to redraw the borders of its neighbour,” he said in a statement.

    “We will rally the international community to both denounce these moves and to hold Russia accountable.”

    Amidst all the hysteria and hypocrisy just to be clear about annexations. England annexed Wales though of course they didn’t call it that in the twelfth century. They were much too honest. Hawaii was annexed by the United States in 1898 by methods very like those they used in Ukraine to overthrow the legitimate government .

    Texas was first and then California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah and Colorado were all annexed by the Americans after the unjustified invasion of Mexico in 1845 where they experienced difficulties very similar to those of Russia today. The Mexican Government have not given up on regaining their lost territories; though they don’t press the point for obvious reasons, and most ordinary Mexicans regard the Southern States as part of Mexico. They are of course reclaiming these by cross border migration and outbreeding the Anglo’s!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/09/30/russia-ukraine-news-live-annexed-regions-gas-putin/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

    1. Those Ukraine regions voted to leave Ukraine and move to Russia. How can that be undemocratic? Scotland is headed the same way – if they vote to leave, would that be illegal and undemocratic? If they vote to stay, same question applies.

      2. Any vote Scotland made, Paul, would be considered illegal, if made without Westminster approval.

  21. An overnight funny from Nagsman

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

    Harry, a lawyer, who had a wife and eight children, needed to move because his rental agreement was terminated by the owner who wanted to reoccupy the home.

    But Harry was having a lot of difficulty finding a new house. When Harry mentioned that he had eight children, no one would rent a home to him because they felt that the children would destroy the place.

    Harry couldn’t say he had no children, because he couldn’t lie. ***(We all know lawyers cannot and do not lie.)

    So, Harry sent his wife for a walk to the cemetery with seven of their kids. He took the remaining one with him to see rental homes with the real estate agent.

    Harry loved one of the homes and the price was right — the agent asked, “How many children do you have?”

    He answered: “Eight.”

    The agent asked, “Where are the others?”

    The lawyer, with his best courtroom, sad look answered “They’re in the cemetery with their mother.”

    He got the house!

    MORAL: It’s not necessary to lie, one only has to choose the right words.

    ***…….. and this is how half truth is presented to us everyday by news channels and social media like WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook etc so be careful……

  22. SIR – I am also dismayed that postal workers plan to strike in time to spoil Christmas deliveries for everyone (Letters, September 30).

    Do they not realise that this, coupled with the cost of stamps, will destroy their jobs as people turn to digital cards and private companies to deliver their post?

    Rosemary J Wells
    Weymouth, Dorset

    Unions are very good at sawing off the branch they are sitting on, Ms Wells, and I have to say that this must be one of the better examples of self-harm.  So be it, but it will make little difference here because using their increasingly expensive and failing service is always a very last resort by the occupants of Janus Towers.

    1. Stop posing for the camera in idiotic LGBTQWERTYUIOP gear and go out and catch a few criminals.

    2. With obviously stated political bias like this, how can ANYONE be surprised at the Police trying to come down heavily on anyone questioning the Stonewall Trans bullshite they’ve swallowed?

    5. Why don’t they go round in black and grey striped jerseys and wear Lone Ranger masks in support of burglars? Let’s have some equality here.

    7. Sussex Police Farce have promised to bend over backwards forwards to please the LGBT community and create warm bonds with oppressed minorities.

  24. Phew . Back from Narridge. The plane actually arrived form Schiphol – and will leave on time. Added bonus – as I was there before 8 am carpark (usually £3 for a few minutes) was FREE.

    Gorgeous, cloudless sunny morning – but chilly.

    I shall treat myself to a coffee then start on the list the MR has left……..

    Any other news?

    1. Morning all.

      The list you speak of is merely occupational therapy whilst the MR is off gallivanting. I mean, what on earth would you be doing otherwise, just rattling around in your estate!

    2. Beckhams appear to have made peace with the DiL (whilst they have a look at what the prenup says).

  25. I am willing to be that neither of these eminently sensible BTL posters work for any part of the ‘lamestream media’ (hat-tip to Oldie):

    Steve Jones7 HRS AGO

    So let’s see now- down here in convict central the AUD has dropped like a rock to the USD – it’s below .65cents from .75 cents just a while back – the ASX follows the DOW down the drain – interest rates are through the roof and this Tuesday will go up even more – people can’t afford to repay current loans or seek out new loans – house prices are plummeting – investors are selling off their buy to let properties so rents are higher than ever – that is if you can find a home to rent………..now take a breath that’s a lot of words without one of these…!

    So – I see now what the problem is – it’s all Lizzies fault. Well that’s a relief, here I was thinking the newly minted Marxist government of Anthony Albanese might be to blame when it’s really the fault of a conservative government 9000 miles away..boy oh boy Albanese will be delighted…………so too will Mr Trump, at long last the world has someone else to blame for everything.

    Martin Selves1 HR AGO

    1 GBP, 1.11239 USD, back to where it was. The UK GDP grew in the second Quarter. The FTSE 100 is far stronger than the USA Markets. Our National Debt is proportionally 50% less than Italy. The UK has never defaulted. The “run” on the Pension Funds were the fault of their Trustees who risked their clients portfolio with high risk investments. The sharp drop in the currency rate nearly caused them/us a disaster, and were saved by HMG. The Chancellor should be praised for his injection of cash, and he should start an investigation into the Trustees behaviour. He saved them, instead the MSM blamed the Chancellor. Irresponsible investment in Pension Funds is just plain stupid.

    Our MSM has gone nuts over this once again. It is never too early to pour scorn and derision onto the Conservative and Brexit Party. I point the finger at the Labour Party and many Conservative MP’s. The sheer scale of narcissistic and extreme hatred of anything British is extraordinary.

    Even now they do not tell their viewers the Pound has recovered, the Country is not in recession, the £65 billion was not given to the rich. Yesterday David Mellor, ex Tory Cabinet Minister said on GBNews “he was appalled HMG has borrowed £65 billion to give to the rich”. This is utterly, utterly absurd and quite disgraceful.

    How can the “real” truth ever get out when this lot pump retrospective waves of duff gen to the public? Today the Country will benefit from a generous energy package. This will greatly help each one of us through these Winter months. I thank Liz Truss and the Chancellor for this, and much else in their Budget. The Overseas Markets seem content right now, but the howls of fake protest continues at home. We start another normal day of self inflicted narcissistic behaviour.

    1. The rich have been looting the money that’s been rolling off the printers for years – they don’t need tax cuts. It’s all the years of reckless money printing (still continuing) that is causing inflation and the death of the fiat currencies.

  26. EXCLUSIVE: Ministry of Defence under fire over ‘scandal’ of 1,300 empty military homes that could be used for Ukrainian refugees who face being left homeless when six-month placements end
    Wiltshire MP Danny Kruger blasts the MoD over homes left ’empty for years’
    It comes as a council boss warned Wiltshire was on the brink of a housing crisis
    Cllr Richard Clewer said homes might be needed for 360 refugee families https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11261585/Wiltshire-MP-blasts-chiefs-Ministry-Defence-1-300-military-homes-scandal.html?ito=push-notification&ci=0oHawN5KTE&cri=uz2L76Kuqv&si=xYJ0MlrMyMmf&ai=11261585

    1. The military should give these homes to home less military veterans and give them proper treatment and, if possible, appropriate civilian work for the military.

      1. Why didn’t the MOD think of that? Oh, hang on, I know. The MOD is staffed by the woke do-gooders who have foreigners at the top of their list of priorities. Ex-servicemen? Well, they are not actually on the list.

        2. I was lucky to find a billet within a RAFA house, albeit in Scotland and a far cry from my previous billet.

  27. 365705+ up ticks,

    The police as with the electorate majority simply follow the rotherham monkey rule of
    see nothing, say nothing, do nothing, you know it’s for the good of the party.

    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021
    ·
    21h
    Future generations will look back on our age as a period of collective insanity. When those in authority abandoned their duty to do what is right. A police force that thinks a male pedo can become a woman just because he says so & then persecutes someone who tells the truth has taken leave of its senses.

    How did cops let catching a vile paedo turn into a gender identity ?

    https://gettr.com/post/p1snm0ra414

  29. Statista .com gives their up to date distribution of votes. Only one I could get access to.
    Labour 40%
    Conservatives 29%
    Lib/Dems 10%
    Green 7%
    Reform UK 3%
    UKIP 0%
    What choice have we if this is approximately correct.
    What would ogga1 suggest.

      2. “ SIR – For the first time since my naive teenage years, I wouldn’t mind if Labour formed the next government.
        Susan Cunliffe Woodbridge, Suffolk”

  30. Statista .com gives their up to date distribution of votes. Only one I could get access to.
    Labour 40%
    Conservatives 29%
    Lib/Dems 10%
    Green 7%
    Reform UK 3%
    UKIP 0%
    What choice have we if this is approximately correct.
    What would ogga1 suggest.

  31. Congratulations to LOTLnon her 4th wedding anniversary 🎂👏🎂. Hope you both have a lovely day.

    1. Thank you, not sure what we might do but I am sure we’ll find a good way to celebrate.

        1. Which Nottler can boast to have been married to the same spouse for the longest? (Caroline and I are mere debutantes at 34 years)

          3. Got a mention in family genealogy program stats for all the wrong reasons – ‘oldest person to be divorced – 55 years 4 months’!

      4. I’m sure you’ll find something (nudge nudge). :o) Congratulations to you both, enjoy your day

  32. From Grahame Linehan:-

    From a NHS mental health ward nurse

    Graham Linehan
    12 hr ago
    This is a SBARD (SITUATION/BACKGROUND/ASSESSMENT/ RECOMMENDATION/DECISION) I just received from a mental health ward nurse. Another scandal in plain sight. Her comments follow the document.

    https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F412f6afa-3051-4807-bac7-4d3274c696e6_480x640.jpeg

    “I’ve attached a picture of the SBARD that all staff in an NHS trust have had to read and accept.

    I’m beyond angry about this, how can I possibly keep vulnerable women safe when I would ‘have to’ admit men on to the ward? This whole situation is wrong on so many levels!

    This ridiculous gender ideology seems to have infiltrated many organisations; women’s prisons, women’s physical/ mental health wards/ even women’s toilets/ changing rooms in shops. It is so wrong.

    Some of the women on Mental Health wards are known to have been sexually/ physically abused by men. How are they supposed to feel safe? And what about when this gender ideology reaches women’s refuges? If it hasn’t already. (Editor’s note: it has). I’ve had enough of being ‘told’ what I should think/ feel.

    I’m all for inclusion of trans men and women but sex segregated spaces are essential for safeguarding. What is going on?”

    https://grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/from-a-nhs-mental-health-ward-nurse

    1. Our country is out of control while the politicians stand around with their hands in our pockets.

    3. I think men who pretend to be women in order to get access to real women are a far greater danger to women than ordinary men who have no hang ups about sex and gender.

      1. It’s what the cock in a frock who was recently jailed for a long stretch for sexual assaults on children – and that the Sussex Perlice France called “she” – didn’t have.

      2. Morning Sue – torrential rain and gales up here but the sun keeps breaking through

        1. ‘Morning Spikey! Yes! Much the same here! It’s actually dry just now, and the dogs have had their run in the park/stream! And as I type the sky darkens….

  34. Why Kwarteng is right and Carney is wrong

    In rightly challenging the declinist consensus, the Prime Minister and Chancellor cannot afford to give their enemies ammunition

    DAVID FROST • 29 September 2022 • 6:14pm

    I write this week in a state of high anxiety, deep concern and, yes, even anger.

    I am angry at the feeding frenzy that has once again surrounded our Government and our country – but also at the avoidable mistakes that have caused it. The stakes could hardly be higher. This country has been offered the opportunity to be the first to break from stagnation, from the paradigm that says that growth is unattainable or maybe doesn’t even matter. That won’t be easy. So it is crucial to proceed with seriousness – to explain, to persuade, and to bring people along.

    This week has not been a great start. The Government must raise its game, and fast.

    Liz Truss is taking on the economic establishment – the conventional view, the view of the international hectoring classes like the IMF, the European Commission, the Mark Carneys and the Gordon Browns, the editorial board of the Financial Times and the The Economist, the whole ghastly crew that thinks that the West inevitably faces stagnation and decline.

    These people think the future is one where more taxes are the solution to every problem; where demographics inevitably push up public spending; and where monetary policy is the permanent shock absorber, with super-low interest rates and super-high house prices. They like regulation, they don’t like competition, and they prioritise “stability”, the quiet stability of the grave, instead of constant churn and change that comes with dynamic capitalism.

    They lack confidence in the future of the UK and therefore attach huge importance to the opinions of the international nomenklatura, to maintaining “influence” through respectability, and to symbols like the value of sterling. They are happy to see Britain as a shabby-genteel aristocrat, desperately keeping up appearances in our historic mansion, but too proud to get out and earn some money.

    This Government rejects that defeatism. It believes growth can be re-established if we get back to free markets, real competition, and incentives to invest and work. It sees no future in high-tax high-spend. It maintains that regulation has furred up the arteries; that monetary policy needs to get back closer to normal; and that the exchange rate is a shock absorber not a target. And it is confident this country can succeed if after Brexit we do things differently and learn from successful countries.

    I share this view. Luckily for the country, so did a majority of the Conservative Party membership. Let’s not forget that, novel and radical though it may sound, this is the conventional wisdom of most modern economic history. It is the past twenty years that are the outliers.

    But taking this view means looking reality in the face. It means telling people that Labour’s “things can only get better” is fantasy. Instead, it means spelling out that we can’t go on as we are, things will be difficult – but that it is worth it. The Government began this new journey last week. The measures set out last week were exciting, and correct. They must stick to them.

    But they were launched into a political and economic environment that wasn’t entirely ready. The break with the paradigm needed to be spelt out, explained, justified. Spending control and structural reform should have been as prominent as tax changes, supporters lined up, the arguments prepared. This didn’t happen. So it is hardly surprising that the markets were spooked.

    Mistakes will of course be made. But it is important to recognise them – and correct them fast. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor should not offer comment on every twist and turn in the markets. But they should have been visible, making their strategy clear, and doing so again and again so people understood. They will now have to do so at next week’s party conference, and it will be high stakes.

    We are, unfortunately, operating in a highly collectivist environment, one in which “fair” division of a static cake has become much more important than growing it. That can be changed, but it will take time and the Government must take the lead.

    Moreover if they want to re-establish confidence in the markets, ministers must be honest in what they say. Yes, global conditions are part of the story, but it is obvious that last week’s statement caused the crash. Yes, Putin’s war has made things worse – but it is not the cause of our problems, as Liz Truss tried to argue on local radio yesterday.

    There are many, many people who want the Government to fail – much of the media, unreconciled Remainers, the international commentariat and, it seems, not just Labour but all too many Tory MPs. It is all the more important not to give them unnecessary ammunition.

    The team around Truss is pretty inexperienced. They must hold their nerve, but also learn from the past few days. Many more weeks like this one, and people will be saying: “We tried your form of Brexit. It lasted a month. Now can we get back to normal?” If we don’t want this to happen, the Government needs to get serious – now. Blow this chance, and years of patching up the British stately home await.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/09/29/liz-truss-has-offered-sound-economics-terrible-communication/

    1. He’s right, but I think it’s only half the story. The pound is doomed. There’s no way back for any fiat currency, especially after the current round of money printing (how many billions did they find down the side of the BoE’s sofa this week again?)
      When it finds its real level or the government/BoE launches some more stable alternative, everyone’s going to have to accept a lower standard of living. Pea soup instead of avocadoes.

      If we embrace the low tax, work hard, less regulation recipe pushed by Frost and others, then we have a chance to regain in time some wealth, but more importantly, our self-respect. If we don’t, then we will slide into slavery under the mantra that the Government is keeping us safe.

      1. 365705+ up ticks,

        Morning BB2,

        All day long they’re saying, huh ah
        Huh ah, uh ah, uh ah, keep supporting the lab/lib/con coalition is the repeated mumbled mantra of the peoples working on the chain gangs, as they are currently mumbling ,stumbling along

    2. I still wish that Frost had been able to run in the Tiverton by-election because he would probably have won it and then become a serious contender for the party leadership.

      I would suggest that Truss tries to engineer things so that David Frost can run for a seat in the HoC as he should be at the very centre of government and then available the next time the treacherous Tories want to do a bit more back-stabbing.

      1. If I had to make a guess, I would put forward the theory that Tory central office stopped that from happening.

        1. The Conservative Party certainly has a death wish.

          Johnson lost his nerve on both Brexit and Covid. He should never have agreed to the NI Protocol and with an 80 seat majority he did not need to do so; he also should not have betrayed the UK fishermen. His initial reaction to Covid was to do what Sweden did and have no economy-shattering lockdowns but he showed himself to be a flatulent hot air balloon.

          I have no idea if Truss will succeed – but her greatest enemy will be from within.

          O perilous fyr, that in the bedstraw bredeth!
          O famulier foo, that his servyce bedeth!
          O servant traytour, false hoomly hewe,
          Lyk to the naddre in bosom sly untrewe,
          God shilde us alle from youre aqueyntaunce!

          (Chaucer : The Merchant’s Tale)

      2. Might be better for FRost to be an outside advisor, like Cummings wass for Boris. As long as he isn’t fired by somebody’s girl/boy/transfriend, that can be very powerful position not having to answer to a ministry or electors.

  35. The odious Matthew Parris in today’s Murdoch Rag:

    “This Prime Minister must be dispatched now”…”It’ll take courage to end the Truss horror show but it is the only way to offer the Tory party – and the country – hope”

    For pity’s sake she’s only been in No10 for three weeks, and much of that was taken up with the death of Her Maj.

    Pillock!

      1. And those are just his good points.

        His endless diatribes against the Conservatives show his true colours: Greeniac Limp Dumb.

    2. Look out, he’ll probably be on the BBC TV Sunday morning programme with Koons Burger Tomorrow.

    3. The people of Clapham Common thought he was a public toilet attendant, he spent so much time there. He enjoyed his time as a politician, he claimed to know about 60 other ‘gay boys’ in the Commons bars and back rooms.

  36. First job done – kitchen windows cleaned. Next – make chutney…(after taking bottles to the bottle bank.)

      1. Well, Gus has walked up and down the car windscreen after I had washed it….

        Pickles is out on a frolic of his own. They like sunny days – good for hunting…

        1. That reminds me of the day that our next door neighbour’s cat somehow sneaked into our garage and walked over the foredeck of my dinghy, which I had just finished varnishing!

    2. Meh. Everyone else apart from me in our household is either sick in bed or out at work. I have to pick all the Bramleys, cut the grass and wash up two days’ worth of dishes that got neglected during the last chaotic week, when we were hit with one piece of bad news after another with no respite apart from bouts of NOTTL! And then I have to log into my paid work and try to catch up!

        2. Oooh! ‘Ark a’ ‘er!

          The Warqueen does almost no housework. She tried hoovering but got distracted by a phone call. She is, at the moment, ensconced in an armchair with a book. I expect by the time I get back to her she’ll be asleep.

    1. I thought that the West was far too provocative in its constant push eastwards and indeed I thought that Russia occupied much of the moral high ground – until the invasion. But now pro-Ukrainian sentiment is beginning to wane.

      I am sure that had Trump been President rather than the pathetically senile Biden then US weapons would not have been left behind in Afghanistan and the war in Ukraine would have been avoided.

      It is becoming increasingly clear that Biden is a puppet under the control of the WEF who are hoping that the War in the Ukraine will speed the arrival of the Great Reset.

  38. Central banks have been loading up on the yellow stuff since 2008 when they saw the way the wind was blowing.
    Wealthy individuals were loading up throughout August and September apparently.
    Now it’s, “ugh, plebs! Get away, we don’t want you sharing any wealth!”

    *For info only, clearly this will not affect anyone round here as we are all way too skint

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0f20bdeead14e3fde845da6b452544501f3b8819c4668f90687eefc79150a053.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/837e932c8cf0b2deea2c07090836247dd89c77d27294e6ee74696eb23de2b4df.jpg

  39. Right, that’s me logging off to bugger off to Basingstoke.
    Might be back online later.
    TTFN

    1. “confine” should be ” consign” – Capri spoof fails.
      As for the Aston Martin one. I am not sure what it means but it seems vaguely disgusting, as well as not funny.

      1. The A-M one is quite old, I recall seeing it before we left UK 24 years ago, and being rather surprised about the explicitness of it.

  41. Modern Life….

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f3a6ec41988aaee8e3beecd70647fe4a23baecada82ef83e58570570c1408c7e.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bcabd378e923f4b5676de4e078d29b0657fbfd3f068004012c02021012d87775.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8b3c1bc2a00c7e35ce36fb1057548814f6cb04e062bd91e39e3368e7310d94a2.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b49d1266feacdd26a52cbf3b8bf3aa9a7a21c34e5efa7247f8806fb80290d6cc.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b4f65d633aaf676471b3f7866ef5c28b46e8b7a96599a33510f3ab5eb0dd21ec.jpg

      1. The West has, and continues to, pour hundreds of billions into foreign aid for poorer countries. Ignoring the corruption and fraud, it has made almost no difference to their living conditions, wealth or lifestyle.

        Therefore proving that socialism doesn’t work. The solution to making them richer is markets. Free, fair, uncontrolled, no tariff markets.

        In China, Singapore, Russia, markets have been the great leveller. That is how we must help the third world. The Left wing, big state, top down command economies have caused nothing but chaos. Big government, misery. It’s time to cut taxes and get the state out of the way.

    2. Yes. But. Is buying government bonds that need to be redeemed at some time in the future by the government borrowing money to buy them back, not some kind of perpetual; motion money machine?

    1. What a load of lefty-nonsense – they (the UN) do NOT own the science, whatever their conclusions they are based on falsehoods, and their outpourings are just as stupid and nonsensical as all those who promote ‘Climate Change’, as being due to man-made emissions of CO2, rather than recognising that any change in the climate is largely caused by the sun and its changes.

      1. Something which several hundred “real” climate scientists pointed out in letters to the UN Sec Gen on at least two occasions – both times they were ignored as their well supported views obviously didn’t fit the narrative!

      2. Climate change is obvious – it’s raining now. It was sunny a month or two ago. The climate always changes. Man has no impact on it at all. There’s much we can do for our *environment*, but we can’t really affect the earth itself.

        What these people mean is ‘we’re promoting a big state, Left wing agenda where people like me control your life, with you having no say whatsoever.’ That’s the truth they want to say but despite the stupidity of far too many still can’t – yet.

    2. A sentence that should never be uttered. Wasn’t even considered grammatical until a few years ago.

    3. Sadly google does only return results that suit the big state Left wing ideology. Comically, that has people intentionally ignoring it.

  44. There is a marked difference in the way in which Truss and Kwarteng are going about their jobs, the approach is personal as in ” I promise to do…..” ” I will not shirk from…..” ” I will make unpopular decisions….” to that of previous ministers.
    I wonder where this personal “me, me,me” thing has come from. Kwarteng cannot bring spending under control by himself, indeed he needs to go significantly further than just bring it under control, he needs to enforce policies to reduce it, by a very significant amount. This need buy in by all Ministers. Thatcher was successful in this because she had 10 odd years of experience in the opposition benches, and had, in that time, several years to select and groom her inner circle. Truss has no such background, her team are all learning on the job. I’m not suggesting she is failing, but she has a mammoth task ahead of her. I just wish senior Conservatives would stop sniping and give her the undivided support she will need. I’m not hopeful though, there are too many self important egos present.

    1. A couple of weeks ago we went out to lunch with some friends and discovered that our host’s brother was Milton McKenzie who was a session guitarist who worked with Ray Davies and Jeff Lynne amongst others.

      This is still my favourite Kinks’ song:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_MqfF0WBsU

  46. https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/9f126351e343e54f1f683a3369285d5d90aef122/0_0_6720_4480/master/6720.jpg?width=720&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=32ad6d6dc1f899958b8e4ec06268cbcf
    A man dressed in North American Indigenous head dress and clothes walks past the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II as she lays in state at Westminster Hall.

    I happened to be watching the live feed from Westminster Hall as this chap paid his respects. He stopped to give HM a very dignified Lakota Indian ‘ háu‘ salute (= ‘How’ to us palefaces)

    https://previews.123rf.com/images/dragoscondrea/dragoscondrea1404/dragoscondrea140400018/27250550-native-american-men-greeting-on-brown-background-studio-shooting.jpg

    2. A man is driving in Indian territory and sees a sign:

      ” Chief Running Bull can answer any question”

      The man stops and enters the lodge and asks:
      “OK, What did I have for breakfast?”

      ‘Eggs’ is the reply and the man thinks: wow and leaves.

      Ten years later he drives past the same lodge and thinks to himself that ‘eggs’ was a fairly odds on guess so he stops and again enters the lodge to ask a harder question, he greets the chief “How!”

      “Fried”.

      boom boom.

    5. Probably just dropped In to demand more money for past slavery / genocide / schools / whatever.

  48. This episode has been a lesson in hubris, but Truss’s good mission must not die

    While the blame is not theirs alone, a more competent approach from Prime Minister and Chancellor would have averted market chaos

    CHARLES MOORE • 30 September 2022 • 8:38pm

    Because the new era’s growth plan was unveiled by Kwasi Kwarteng on a Friday rather than From Hansard eight days ago: “The Chancellor of the Exchequer: “We are at the beginning of a new era…[Hon. Members: ‘Oh!’]”.

    Whenever a government announces something bold to Parliament, Honourable Members shout their “Oh!”s. That is parliamentary democracy. Before it makes its announcement, any government must be ready to answer the sceptics. The new Truss Government wasn’t.

    Because the new era’s growth plan was unveiled by Kwasi Kwarteng on a Friday rather than an earlier weekday, the problems did not fully emerge in the House of Commons. Instead, they spooked the markets. And they spooked them again this week when neither the Chancellor nor the Prime Minister appeared in public to answer the attacks.

    We did not hear from Liz Truss until Thursday. She was patched through to a series of BBC local radio stations. It might have been better if she had not been. She spoke for a long time, if you add up each interview. In terms of content, however, she might as well have been speechless.

    This sequence of events is immensely frustrating for anyone who longs for the British economy to break its fetters and escape the prison of discredited orthodoxies. It was avoidable.

    It is part of a wider, longer-lasting frustration felt since the financial crisis of 2008/09 and growing greater since the Brexit vote in 2016. It is that our Establishment (which is but a subset of a global club of the complacent) has been getting most things wrong and most voters understand this; and yet the politicians who have come to power in response to our disillusionment with the status quo keep bungling the remedies.

    You see, I could be writing this article in a different way. I could devote the whole thing to how the Establishment, here and abroad, are using these events to escape the blame they deserve.

    If I did that, I would say that the Establishment policy of effectively zero interest rates prolonged for so many years, and the Quantitative Easing (QE) which accompanied it, have badly damaged normal economic incentives, enriching their already wealthy proponents at the expense of the great majority who lack large assets and live mainly on wages.

    I would point out that the Bank of England has been laggard. Long after inflation was staring every shopper in the face, the Bank continued to advance the 21st-century central-banker credo that the inflation rate is determined by the Bank’s own inflation target, and so there is no serious problem. When it finally started raising rates, it has done so too little, too late.

    Mervyn King, the former Bank Governor and a rare dissenter from the orthodoxy, has christened this “the King Canute theory of inflation”. The central-bank culture, obsessed with its own arcane brilliance, thinks it can rebuke the waves of the market. It has forgotten the simpler truth. Inflation occurs “when too much money chases too few goods”. If you keep printing it, you devalue it: prices rise.

    In the article that I am not writing, I would have examined the Bank’s behaviour in this week of market turmoil. On Tuesday, its sound chief economist, Huw Pill, said publicly that the Bank would have to tighten policy by raising interest rates in November and December. Yet the very next day, the present Governor, Andrew Bailey, ordered loosening in the form of more QE. This was to save the pension funds by putting a floor under the price of gilts. The funds’ managers had speculated by buying derivatives and now needed cash for margin calls.

    One might ask how our financial guardians – the Bank’s financial policy committee and the Financial Conduct Authority – ever allowed pension funds, which are supposed to prize safety, to get into this territory.† Once again, public money goes to the undeserving, in this case underwriting the profits of BlackRock and others, which were counter-parties to these transactions.

    It isn’t just the Bank’s behaviour. On Tuesday, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) issued an unsolicited anti-testimonial to the Kwarteng growth plan. The IMF is yet another institution which has diverged from its task of assisting monetary stability. Its best work is done by private advice to national leaders, not by grandstanding about climate change or, on this occasion, about “inequality”. I do not remember the IMF attacking, for example, Ireland when it introduced its current 40 per cent top tax rate. Its timing shows a desire not to help, but to wreck.

    But, as I say, this column must not obsess about the shortcomings of the Mark Carney classes. Instead, it will lament how the Government’s mismanagement of its growth announcement allowed those classes to shift the blame. The years of elite policy errors, the effects of dollar strength upon all European currencies, not just ours, and the crisis of energy prices caused by Russia’s war were all forgotten. A weaker pound – on the whole, a good thing just now – was reimagined as a sterling crisis. Everything could be dumped on the heralds of the “new era”.

    Of the several errors those heralds made, two stand out. The first was the sacking of the permanent secretary of the Treasury, Sir Tom Scholar. The Government was entitled to shift Sir Tom, since he has been so heavily identified with Remainer views and the Treasury’s anti-growth policy. But this should have been done politely, quietly, and later. By drumming out an able and conscientious, if mistaken, official on Day One, the Government guaranteed a surly lack of cooperation from those whose professional skills it so badly needed to prepare its policy shift. It introduced the new policy without a permanent number 1 or number 2 in place at the Treasury.

    The second, bigger mistake (now privately acknowledged by some ministers) was to separate its radical and mostly sensible growth policies from the spending side of the ledger. This is not normally how a Conservative government behaves, because no economic policy can be properly understood unless we are told how it can be paid for. The word “budget” literally means a bag (or box). We need the bag to be emptied in front of us. Can we see, for example, that Britain’s debt to GDP ratio will be falling within five years?

    The Chancellor spoke punchily when he announced his plan in the Commons, but he resembled a restorer of the crumbling house you have just bought who enthuses you with his glorious plans for renewal but is coy about his estimate. At present, we must wait until November 23 to be told, and for the OBS’s forecast to be published. After this week’s debacle, I strongly suspect these will be brought forward, even though the Treasury remained stubborn today.

    The fact that the Government announced the growth bit all by itself also suggests a flawed political calculation. In their desire to convince everyone the growth they want will be visible by 2024 (i.e. in time for the general election), ministers have actually made it less likely.

    How bleak is all this? In one sense, very. It separates the words Truss and “trust” at the precise moment when they needed to come together. It makes the new era’s target a lot harder to achieve.

    I do notice, however, that it has changed the conversation. Tax cuts and supply-side reform now make the running. Labour immediately accepted the Tories’ basic rate income tax cut which, until then, it had scorned. The Government must press on. If it now resiles, terrified, from its good aims, it will have no reason for its continued existenc

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/09/30/episode-has-lesson-hubris-trusss-good-mission-must-not-die/

    † The FCA was formed in 2013 but it replaced the FSA, the legacy of Brown’s breaking of banking regulation, which contributed so much to the crash of 2007/08.

    BTL:
    John Eley
    The article is correct in its overall sentiment about the economic policy of Truss and Kwarteng. “Truss’s good mission must not die”. Indeed it must not. However, There are some contradictions and a lack of willingness to acknowledge the antipathy of the Establishment, both global and national, to the UK government policy and Brexit in general.

    The UK Establishment has had years to come to terms with Brexit and it refuses. Sir Tom Scholar cannot be both ‘able’ and ‘mistaken’. Mistaken on fundamentals is synonymous with incompetence, at best.

    “It is that our Establishment (which is but a subset of a global club of the complacent) has been getting most things wrong.”

    This is another example of evasion of the culpability of the Establishments, global and national, for resistance to democratic control, including Brexit. There is no way that either the global, or national Establishments can be described accurately as ‘complacent’. They are most active and partisan. You only have to listen to some of the speeches that come out of Davos, or read reports of Treasury forecasts.

    1. The entire state machine has been wedded to borrowing, taxing and wasting ever larger amounts of money to support state expansion.

      The heavy taxation of workers has widened the wealth gap and made us all poorer. Inflation, a result of debasing the currency, tax and legislation (from the EU) has enforced this crippling of our economy. The Left wing green agenda was merely the last nail in the coffin of socialism, and socialism does not work.

      The Left eep denying trickle down economics yet also refuse to acknowledge the damage their ideology has done in recent times. As always, they can only exist in a state of utter hypocrisy.

      2. OT but you may like this…..I have been trying to recall the name of a children’s book about a Newfie. There are a few around but the one I was trying to remember has a small boy in the story.
        The book is: Sailor: The Hangashore Newfoundland Dog by Catherine Perkins.
        The dog is, unusually, scared of the water and his pal, who I think is called Ike aged about 6, is trying to encourage Sailor to go in the sea.
        Then something happens….
        Won’t spoil it but it’s a nice tale and isn’t your little guy aged 6?
        Anyway, just thought you might be interested.

  49. 365705+ up ticks,

    This is unbelievable, the messenger has just got through since one anthony charlie lynton
    AKA the bog man / PM lifted the latch

    DT,
    The return daily continuation of unskilled migration via Dover /Dungerness will do nothing to solve the productivity crisis
    Cheap foreign labour allows companies to get away without investing in growth

  50. Laffs

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0b8abd385f1b4775a58d9854baf1f1df5c28fd422b438689ecab57442dc2ac22.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2469b781691b27ae9a02cd1d6570fcee7b836035e85fb1b0d904c23c87c53e25.jpg

    Paypal

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a3a4dd106af4dbfba2fd2f57a47bae9d7ae756de01086b0a3021f64d92be17b2.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/639ca1d331ee76c5f19a5d8452614d5731edd18c9748c58ba5ede8dba6f35df2.jpg

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/31680d5dc1e6f12873aa3fa90b994ce86fb0ede97c10f5f55f2899d8bea925b8.jpg

    2. A daft question, but why have they not created infrastructure to handle the storms? Or have they and they were overwhelmed? Or, have they, but they’re so infrequent that there’s no point spending more?

      1. That’s a good question but when the size of the Mississippi breaks its banks what are you to do?

        2. And also the tidal surges.
          When the tornado passed by us in NC, there was a large Good Year plant a ways away. Out front it had a huge stone edifice saying Good Year blah, blah. That was gone never to be seen again.
          Ditto a poor llama on a nearby farm….poor thing.

      2. Hurricanes are very powerful and deadly storms. The later the season the worse they can be because the ocean is so warm.
        Many shoreline homes are either on stilts or have car space on the lower level as cars can be moved.
        The infrastructure is good as far as it goes but if, as was the case, a category 4 makes landfall, nothing much will survive. When I was still living in CT USA , Andrew made landfall at Homestead in Florida. The town was pretty much destroyed.
        Hugo was supposed to hit us in CT and so all outside furniture etc was put away and we battened down. Got up next morning to sun and blue skies. Hugo had changed direction and gone out to sea; however it devastated Charleston SC.
        It makes me laugh and rather cross when all these asinine weather warnings are issued in this country. For what? A few inches of rain, a snow flurry?
        The weather in North America is dangerous and should be taken seriously. The only thing I have not experienced close up is a tornado, thank god, although one passed within 5 minutes of the house in NC. But hurricanes, tropical storms, blizzards, whatever, should be taken seriously and acted upon accordingly.

      3. Not much you can do against that storm when you live at sea level, I should think. Apart from these fine waterproof doors…

      4. When a concrete bridge collapses, there is not much else will survive. The majority of homes will be timber framed, they will have had no chance of surviving this type of storm.

        I trust that Biden has ordered all heavy equipment used in cleanup and rebuilding will be battery powered, I would hate to think that they use diesel-powered heavy equipment at a time like this.

  52. Surrounded by body bags – Putin’s ‘war crimes’ only strengthen Ukraine’s resolve. 1 October 2022.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/83bc9af9291afff1fd7818024b295c1e9da29af59fb0c0e95d30e3ba94912cab.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/958895b854fc8e87c0b21969ad4280fe50c1c1e69a6760e56056655fc7c6dd4c.jpg

    There was an awful near silence as the war crime investigators went about their business and the bodies of the victims were methodically packed into body bags.

    We counted at least 15 body bags being loaded one on top of each other into a succession of ambulances. The death toll is higher and includes several children, one a baby just a few months old.

    The attack was so swift and so deadly, when we arrived at the scene, many of the victims were still where they had died.

    I’m at something of a loose end and came across this article. It has raised the usual doubts that I have about these “atrocity” reports from the Ukies. From the photographs there is a single point of impact; a crater some twenty five yards from the double column of cars, though a witness who says she was present says that there were three. It looks as though the one visible was a large single explosive device, probably a bomb. There are several curious things about this scene. The first is that none of the cars have “brewed up” and the blast hasn’t moved them or turned them over; they are as they were parked. The damage is all to the sides of the cars even the ones shielded by the right hand column. These look suspiciously like bullet holes and not shrapnel impacts. If there were indeed three strikes why have none of the vehicles sustained damage to their roofs? Where is the debris from the weapons and most of all where are the wounded! A 100% percent mortality rate is almost unheard of!

    I think this whole thing was staged. They had a convenient crater and they brought in the vehicles from the scrapyard and the bodies, then called up Alex Crawford to sell her the story.

    https://news.sky.com/story/surrounded-by-body-bags-putins-war-crimes-only-strengthen-ukraines-resolve-12708697

    1. Wouldn’t they show us the blood, gore and bodies…especially the baby…if it happened where they say? I think it is staged also.

      1. Afternoon Phizzee. The more I look at it the more I’m convinced that its faked!

          4. Why aren’t there any peacekeepers/makers? Deep state clearly wants war. I hope they die first.

          5. You’re probably right, normally by now, there would be meetings in the UN, EU and anyone else who could get on the bandwagon, all shouting for peace. Nothing, not even a whisper it seems.

    2. The bomb must have been dropped from a stationary balloon to achieve a circular hole. Odd to say the least!

      1. Maybe we are meant to believe that the Russians have so depleted their weapons stocks, they are now using WW2 leftover supplies.
        The whole site is not indicative of a HE bomb.

      2. “The Mirror has a long history of working against racism” … And a history of printing fake pictures claiming the Armed Forces were torturing people in Iraq!

      3. “The Mirror has a long history of working against racism” … And a history of printing fake pictures claiming the Armed Forces were torturing people in Iraq!

          11. Even if LH wins it, gets fastest lap, AND Georgie fails to finish LH will still be below him in the standings.

          13. To be fair, it’s the car that has been shown to be lacking.
            But then again, it’s almost always down to the car.

  55. Frank James, Jesse James, and a pig robbed a bank. As they were making their getaway, the sheriff, his deputy and a posse were hot on their heels. The James gang holed up in a shack and fired at the posse outside; the posse surrounded the shack and fired in. Eventually the James gang ran out of ammo and had to surrender.“Come out with your hands up.” demanded the sheriff.

    The shack door opened and the first man emerged with his hands in the air. “Name?”, said the sheriff. “Frank”, was the reply. The sheriff looked at the “wanted” sheets then turned to the deputy and said, “Yeah, Frank James, wanted, arrest him.”

    Next another man emerged also with his hands up. “Name?“, said the sheriff. “Jesse“, was the reply. The sheriff looked at the “wanted” sheets then turned to the deputy and said, “Yeah, Jesse James, wanted, arrest him.”

    Then the pig walked out. “Name?” said the sheriff. “Oink“, was the reply. The sheriff looked through his “wanted” posters but couldn’t see anything that fit. So he said the pig, “You can go, you’re obviously not wanted.” The pig walked away.

    On the way back to the town jail, the deputy turned to the sheriff and said: “Good grief, sheriff, did you notice how ugly that Oink James was?”

      2. Er … the sheriff and (especially) the deputy were not very bright. They thought the pig was a bona fide member of the James family with his own first name!

  56. 365705+ up ticks,

    Do you have trust in truss ? will you continue to cast a country destroying vote knowing full well the EUs odious history, in my book best send her and party hierarchy to rwanda and keep the illegals.

    Rejoining EU by the Back Door? PM Truss Signs Up to First Meeting of Macron’s ‘European Political Community’

    1. Macron is irrelevant. In fact, every EU leader is irrelevant. We do need cordial relations with them for trade. Spurning the meeting makes no sense.

      It does make sense to use it to beat the crud out of him and make him sort out the gimmigrant issue.

      Hell, the entire civil service has been desperately trying to force us back into the EU with one economic or social catastrophe after another. We get a chancellor who not only sacks the bloke resposnible for crushing taxation, but we get (fractionally) lower taxes as well.

      1. 365705+ up ticks,

        Evening W,

        On par with the mafia you do NOT get to the higher order of this tory (ino) party without “making your bones” some way or tother.

        In my book “OW DO” will suffice, the least said the better.

  57. Khan’s London: Park Named for Famous Prime Minister to Be Transformed Into ‘Slavery Garden’

    https://media.breitbart.com/media/2022/10/GettyImages-515177048-e1664631797898-640×469.jpg

    Brent London Borough Council, which is dominated by Labour Party councillors, are paying ethnic minority artists to populate the park with prickly plants from Africa and other areas to “[mirror] the emotions contested history can elicit… something may seem pleasant enough from a distance, but uncomfortable when seen up close”, according to a horticulturist quoted by The Telegraph.
    *
    *
    *
    https://twitter.com/BreitbartLondon/status/1363051092347674624?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1363051092347674624%7Ctwgr%5E15c13559cce1c25bba924f2c25fc1aef5b993396%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2Feurope%2F2022%2F10%2F01%2Fkhans-london-park-named-for-famous-prime-minister-to-be-transformed-into-slavery-garden%2F

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2022/10/01/khans-london-park-named-for-famous-prime-minister-to-be-transformed-into-slavery-garden/

    3. It’s the likes of Khan and his BAME & BLM friends who are making us all racists. Their stupid and wanton destructive antics, makes me hate and be disgusted by them.

      1. I’m sure it’s deliberate, so they can then boast about how racist the indigenous Brits are.

      2. It would be interesting to see the results if we all gave completely honest answers to the questions:

        “Do you think you are more racist than you were ten years ago? And if so why?”

    4. It’s the likes of Khan and his BAME & BLM friends who are making us all racists. Their stupid and wanton destructive antics, makes me hate and be disgusted by them.

    5. Perhaps there should be a special tax on all black people descended from slaves.

      Had Britain not stopped the trade they might never have been born and their immediate ancestors might still be enslaved.

    6. So Gladstone opposed abolition. I have a book of collected letters of Thomas and Jane Carlyle and Thomas explains in one set of correspondence that he opposed the abolitionist movement because it was massively expensive and many British working class people endured far worse living standards than slaves on the plantations. It was true and a valid point.

      2. Hmm… Lancashire mill workers, as far as I am aware, were not flogged or sold down river away from their families etc.
        Some mill owners, like Titus Salt for example, treated their workers very well. The slaves were not allowed to learn to read or write and those who did, and those who taught them, were punished.
        There are similarities but the circumstances are somewhat different.
        Edit for clumsy fingers.

  58. Happy with a Birdie Three …

    Wordle 469 3/6
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    1. Par 4 for me. Content with that.
      Wordle 469 4/6

      🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜
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  59. Eurozone at risk of financial meltdown as market chaos spreads

    Bloc exposed to surging inflation and higher rates, say analysts

    By Tom Rees 1 October 2022 • 4:00pm

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/business/2022/09/30/TELEMMGLPICT000310678234_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bq4J1yLHOFZ3YBJkkmkixXHXxmFDwBcscIvzDIrFQJJyo.jpeg?imwidth=680
    *
    *
    *
    ************************************************************
    Pat Bowles
    4 MIN AGO
    Christine Lagarde looks like Madge from Benidorm.

    Alan Jenkins
    55 MIN AGO
    Why are the IMF not criticising the Euro Zone?
    Oh that’s right, the IMF head is an ex EU commissioner.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/10/01/eurozone-risk-financial-meltdown-market-chaos-spreads/

      1. She should be in prison. Her financial dealings with Bernard Tapie should have led to her being put on the carpet.

        (My attempts at bi-lingual puns are not always appreciated.)

  60. That’s me for today. A very agreeable day, apart from missing the MR like mad. Did the main items on “the” list – two more tomorrow.

    I’ll have a quiet evening with a book. Hope you have a jolly one.

    A demain.

  62. In the Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty of 1890 the UK ceded Heligoland to Germany along with some bits of Africa. In return Germany left the UK with sole interest in Zanzibar. It worked out well for us.
    Why did Russia and the Ukraine not do a deal?
    (Why did did Russia not ignore sanctions imposed? Had Russia not retaliated by blocking gas supplies, the picture would maybe every different?

  63. As from today the BBC suggests that I shall be paying 34p per kWh for electricity.

    Two days ago I took delivery of a 64 kWh electric vehicle trading in my perfectly serviceable 2009 family diesel which had only 11k on the clock.

    The EV has now travelled 16 miles and the dashboard shows that it is achieving 4.8 milles per kWh.
    That means that the early manufacturers’ claim that it would cost 2p per mile to run an EV has now to risen 7p per mile!

    The increased insurance cost is however offset by the zero vehicle excise duty.

    2. The price of electricity will continue to rise so renewables don’t need subsidising, and the Green twats will force gas and fossils out of use to meet the net zero goals.

      1. I got 37 (up from 29)
        St chg 57/per day (up from 56)

        All prices in pennies + some fractions.

          5. They’re profit-hungry sharks, Geoff.

            There is no need for any standing charge these days

      2. I ordered a Hyundai Kona 2022 Ultimate in June 2022 on the basis of a USA Hyundai sales pitch on YouTube without seeing the vehicle or visiting the local dealer.

        I picked it up on Thursday with some trepidation with two hours of dealer tuition for conversion to an automatic EV. Hyundai have reached levels of technological advances in Elon Musk’s Teslas.
        Its selectable level of regenerative braking on-the-fly gives if a 300 mile range together will an outstanding torque profile.

        1. I’ve watched videos about it and it looks really good Let me know how it goes!

          You can’t go wrong with Hyundai – amazing reliability.

          1. I’ve dscovered a lot of info about the Hyunai Kona and it’s difficult to find any major drawbacks. Many criticisms I’ve come across in video reviews relate to misunderstanding of the way you need to configure the drive modes and interpret the selected drive assist functions that you have chosen.

            One criticism is how the enormous torque in the larger motor of the 64 kW Kona tends to spin the front wheels which have low rolling resistance tyres. But I’ve noticed my Ultimate version has Michelins so I should leave less rubber on the road! 🙂

          2. Just taken the Kona EV for a few miles today locally to get used to the Hold option in Drive. The drive options are highly configurable to meet a large range of performance characteristics which makes the Kona dificult to compare with oother vehicles.
            Very pleased with it so far.

    4. I fear that you have made a bad decision, AO’E.

      Widespread/ universal vehicle ownership of motor vehicles is incompatible with foreseeable supplies and distribution of electricity – and grossly insufficient resources of Lithium and Cadmium for batteries (Cadmium is mined by children in West Africa).

      Delusional ventures in this direction are motivated by the Carbon-Zero Religion: not by science or common sense.

      1. It can’t be any worse than my decision in 2009 to buy a new diesel on the basis of the Government’s encouragement to reduce CO2 emissions. My EuroIV diesel did meet particulate emissions at the time with the fitting of an exhaust filter. However the increasing levels of emission control demanded by governments forced manufacturers to fix conformance by deceptive performance tests.

        The ICE engine has become completely outdated by the latest EV technology. Innovations in vehicle control can now be developed to address ever increasing levels of efficiency in the use of electrical energy for propulsion instead of dealing with fossil fuel emissions controls that have been steadily eroding the potential fossil fuel energy availability.

      2. It can’t be any worse than my decision in 2009 to buy a new diesel on the basis of the Government’s encouragement to reduce CO2 emissions. My EuroIV diesel did meet particulate emissions at the time with the fitting of an exhaust filter. However the increasing levels of emission control demanded by governments forced manufacturers to fix conformance by deceptive performance tests.

        The ICE engine has become completely outdated by the latest EV technology. Innovations in vehicle control can now be developed to address ever increasing levels of efficiency in the use of electrical energy for propulsion instead of dealing with fossil fuel emissions controls that have been steadily eroding the potential fossil fuel energy availability.

      1. 34p per kiowatt. £340 per megawatt. Fck me. Nuclear costs £50. Coal and gas – before the madness – £30. Wind was £500.

        The costs are obscene. Get rid of contracts for difference!

      2. I’m afraid the diesel kept throwing diagnostic trouble codes soon after a dealer service. The AA escorted me back to the dealer and explained the fault diagnosis. The dealer charged even more money to fix the trouble codes. Then the fault codes reappeared and a further AA analysis revealed the problem had not been fixed saying it needed to go back to the dealer.

        That’s when I drew a line under dealer servicing. I traded it in for a Hyundai EV as perfectly drivable with an MOT but with a particulate filter diagnostic indicating the need for a parked DPF regeneration.

    1. No, Mr Mogg, Putin hasn’t. The government – through contracts for difference – has. You lot rigged the price of energy at the most expensive. You forced unreliables on us – forcing us to bear the cost and further subsidy because no one sane would build a windmill unless the state were forcing others into paying for it.

      You lot broke the market. You forced price controls on energy (by fixing it at high) and now because of your stupidity you’re having to fix the price low so we can keep the lights on. The problem is obvious: the government must bugger off out of the market for energy and it must operate freely, untaxed, unsubsidised with the only government mandate being for energy security.

      1. Quite so. It’s a year since Octopus emailed me with the cost of a new fixed tariff. So I looked at comparison sites, and found very few options. British Gas (who I hate with a passion) had a 2 year fixed tariff which was slightly more expensive than Octopus’ variable tariff, but ‘variable’ means what it says, so I signed up.

        I’ve saved around £200 this year. I stand to save around £850 next year, in comparison with the new price caps. In real terms, I’m paying just over £50 a month for gas & electricity. While the discount applies over the next six months, I may well be in credit. My heating hasn’t been on since March, and I’m working on the basis that there’s no bad weather – just inappropriate clothing. It’s 15 degrees outside, and 21.5 indoors. I’ve a large East-facing picture window in the lounge, and the heat gain is noticeable, even in the Winter. I grew up with no central heating – just a coal fire with back boiler, and a paraffin heater in the hall. And ice on the single-glazed windows. I can do this…

        1. I remember jack frost on the windows and my mother banking (a shovel full of small bits of coal) up the fire before bedtime.
          A Tilley lamp incase of power cuts and the wireless accumulator battery that needed exchanging once a week or so.
          But we survived and never went hungry.

        2. As advised I took my meter readings this morning and tried to post them on line to my energy company, but met a brick wall saying try in 20 minutes. I gave up in the end.

          1. I had an email from my electricity company saying I didn’t need to send in my readings on 30th September, followed by another on the 30th telling me to send in my readings! I did and they went straight away.

          2. I sent mine yesterday after waiting in a queue but today when I checked my account they’d put the 7th Sept on my reading instead of 30th. Call me a cynic but I bet this is done in case you’re daft enough not to check so they can charge the new price from the 7th. The other strange thing is that they have a lower reading which I sent them on the 16th. Doesn’t their computer pick up that there is a lower reading after a higher reading. Another phone call to them tomorrow or Monday – good job it’s free……bastards

        4. Yes, we can all live with ice in our windows but – and I apologise – why the [beeeeep] should we? The whole point of technology is to make our lives better, not to drive us backward into poverty and misery.

          We’re an advanced, high tech society. What next? A water pump in the village square? No. Energyshould be abundant, endless and feck off cheap. pennies per megawatt, we should have so much flooding in we could all turn a tumble dryer on all day for the fun of it. Whack the heater on full blast for hours a day. Run an air conditioner 24/7.

          That’s the bally point of technology – to make our lives better, not drive us back.

      3. 365705 + up ticks,

        Evening BB2,

        In my eyes he always run protection for treacherous treasa when on her trips to the wire.

    3. I’m still waiting for someone to explain why the cost of electricity has gone up.
      Frankly I ask WTF has it got with anywhere except the UK ? And I was long ago led to believe our gas came from sources off the coast of Norway piped directly to the UK.
      My theory has always been, we are being forced to finance the cost of supporting thousands of forgien rubber boat invaders.
      It’s pretty obvious to a lot of people.
      That’s the reason no one from government sources have ever discussed this matter in public.

      1. Because gas is sold on global markets and suddenly one of those suppliers – a big one – has gone a bit ka-ka. The others are saying ‘fine, we’ll double our prices’ (supply). We also came out of lockdown and now need lots of energy (demand).

        Thus gas is now very expensive. As the green agenda has forced us to pay for energy at the cost of the most expensive producer (contracts for difference) to protect the unreliables (it’s basically price fixing through disguised subsidy, as rather than just give unreliables huge containers of cash to do nothing and have nuclear and coal and gas complain, they were all told, “right, whichever is most expensive is what you’ll all sell at”) and stuff the bill payer up the bum.

        In addition, to force down demand for energy government has made energy expensive (see above) and has not replaced decomissioned power stations with new ones, so we haven’t got enough capacity to say, ignore gas and use coal or nuclear instead.

        Government has, once again fixed supply, price and told demand to go shove it, which was ok when the world was stable, but gave no room for any errors or hiccups. Big fat state was happily hammering down energy generation to meet green targets for the non-jobs. Energy costs were going up, taxes on energy were soaring, government was very happy.

        Then the world broke and the stupidity of the morons in Whitehall became obvious to anyone with a brain. The state broke the market and now price fixing – well, deferred payment – is the only thing stopping energy soaring off into the stratosphere.

        Apologies for the rants, this is – as I understand it – the underlying cause of the issue.

        1. Thanks for the explanation.
          We all rant, its part of life.
          It will very interesting to see how much those political bastards steal in so called expenses this year. It will be even more than the amount of 132million they stole from the taxpayers last year.

          1. Considering they put their bills on expenses I imagine a lot more. It’s infuriating.

            I know the tax cuts were necessary but they’re wiped out by energy costs.

      2. Because gas is sold on global markets and suddenly one of those suppliers – a big one – has gone a bit ka-ka. The others are saying ‘fine, we’ll double our prices’ (supply). We also came out of lockdown and now need lots of energy (demand).

        Thus gas is now very expensive. As the green agenda has forced us to pay for energy at the cost of the most expensive producer (contracts for difference) to protect the unreliables (it’s basically price fixing through disguised subsidy, as rather than just give unreliables huge containers of cash to do nothing and have nuclear and coal and gas complain, they were all told, “right, whichever is most expensive is what you’ll all sell at”) and stuff the bill payer up the bum.

        In addition, to force down demand for energy government has made energy expensive (see above) and has not replaced decomissioned power stations with new ones, so we haven’t got enough capacity to say, ignore gas and use coal or nuclear instead.

        Government has, once again fixed supply, price and told demand to go shove it, which was ok when the world was stable, but gave no room for any errors or hiccups. Big fat state was happily hammering down energy generation to meet green targets for the non-jobs. Energy costs were going up, taxes on energy were soaring, government was very happy.

        Then the world broke and the stupidity of the morons in Whitehall became obvious to anyone with a brain. The state broke the market and now price fixing – well, deferred payment – is the only thing stopping energy soaring off into the stratosphere.

        Apologies for the rants, this is – as I understand it – the underlying cause of the issue.

      3. Because gas is sold on global markets and suddenly one of those suppliers – a big one – has gone a bit ka-ka. The others are saying ‘fine, we’ll double our prices’ (supply). We also came out of lockdown and now need lots of energy (demand).

        Thus gas is now very expensive. As the green agenda has forced us to pay for energy at the cost of the most expensive producer (contracts for difference) to protect the unreliables (it’s basically price fixing through disguised subsidy, as rather than just give unreliables huge containers of cash to do nothing and have nuclear and coal and gas complain, they were all told, “right, whichever is most expensive is what you’ll all sell at”) and stuff the bill payer up the bum.

        In addition, to force down demand for energy government has made energy expensive (see above) and has not replaced decomissioned power stations with new ones, so we haven’t got enough capacity to say, ignore gas and use coal or nuclear instead.

        Government has, once again fixed supply, price and told demand to go shove it, which was ok when the world was stable, but gave no room for any errors or hiccups. Big fat state was happily hammering down energy generation to meet green targets for the non-jobs. Energy costs were going up, taxes on energy were soaring, government was very happy.

        Then the world broke and the stupidity of the morons in Whitehall became obvious to anyone with a brain. The state broke the market and now price fixing – well, deferred payment – is the only thing stopping energy soaring off into the stratosphere.

        Apologies for the rants, this is – as I understand it – the underlying cause of the issue.

    1. They haven’t.

      Jesus! How wrong can you possibly be?

      Let’s start with widened the wealth gap significantly. This is measured by the GINI coefficient.

      https://www.statista.com/statistics/872472/gini-index-of-the-united-kingdom/

      Here’s a graph of our GINI. You’ll notice the massive widening of inequality occurred between 1979 and 1990 when we most definitely didn’t have socialist, high tax, big state policies in effect. Do you remember exactly what the politics of that time were?

      Let’s look at unemployment….

      https://www.statista.com/statistics/279898/unemployment-rate-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/

      The highest unemployment was reached in 1984 at 12% of the workforce. There’s another peak due to recession in 1993 at 10.6%. On both occasions the government was Tory pursuing the neoliberal agenda just as Truss is doing right now.

      When was unemployment low? This appears to be the Blair years. Between 1997 and 2007, before the GFC hit and caused a recession. Unemployment today is even lower still but this is largely an effect of Brexit.

      Tax rates? The lowest taxes (if we assume thatcher years) correlate with high unemployment and rapidly rising GINI. The highest taxes (assuming blair/brown years) correlate with low unemployment and a reasonably flat GINI.

      Growth? Well let’s see….

      https://www.statista.com/statistics/279898/unemployment-rate-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/

      The Thatcher government created about 4% growth per year (when they weren’t causing recession). A very nice figure, but the eighties were an era of easy credit, north sea oil revenues, and massive technological progress which had huge effects on companies. Growth averaged about 3% under Blair which for the time was perfectly respectable.

      You are simply totally wrong. Your beliefs are destroyed by the empirical data.

          1. Nor does anyone on this site, Wibbs.
            Did you see my post about the book about a Newfie?

          2. I’m not just disagreeing with you, I’m showing you that your very ideology creates the things you moan about which you then blame on ‘socialism’ or ‘the left’. Do you think unemployment under Blair was higher than under Thatcher? Do you think someone other than Thatcher created the 10 point rise in GINI? Do you think she was a big state high taxing socialist?

            Check other countries if you like. How about Norway. I’m sure Paul will tell you all about how much tax they pay and how their economy is doing. I mean for you that must be an awful place of never-ending recession at those tax levels surely. How’s their unemployment levels? How big is their state? Through our Thatcher years Norway had even better growth than we did, and during our Blair years they had similar growth. Norway has consistently low unemployment, usually lower than the UK.

            Pick another country. Go on. Show me somewhere that has practised what you believe and proved you right. I have many more examples proving you wrong.

        2. I think there’s a difference of view. People think the economy is best run different ways. I am a free market libertarian – ruthlessly. This model works, consitently, reliably. It’s cruel, but it works.

          Thayaric isn’t.

        3. Since when?

          I am a libertarian georgist centrist, not that you need reminding of that.

          Trouble for you and wibbles alike is that anything that isn’t full neoliberal is automatically a socialist.

          The wealth gap increased massively under Thatcher and has reasonably flat-lined since then. Unemployment was generally higher under the Tories than under New Labour. Wibbling makes the point the figures are massaged, yes they were certainly under Thatcher, they were massaged downwards. She and Major are still world leaders in the realm of creating unemployment. Under New Labour the ONS not the government decided what constituted unemployment.

          What do you think making the already wealthier even wealthier and eventually cutting spending on services to ‘balance the books’ will ultimately achieve at a time of high inflation, high energy costs, rising interest rates and the average house being 300k or so?

          How can we get growth if people can’t or are too afraid of rising bills to consume? Are those wealthy going to buy everything and prop up a growing economy on their own?

          1. Dress it up as you wish, it’s still the same, the state keeps taking, under the guise of fair distribution until the whole collapses under the weight of the takers.

          2. Or it doesn’t and the economy turns into a crime-ridden cess pit of capital accumulation where the wealthy amass almost everything and the poor and middle classes have no money to spend so the whole house of cards falls down. Unbridled capitalism is every bit as bad as unbridled socialism.

            Who buys the wealthy’s goods and services when no one has any money to spend? Where do they extract more wealth from then?

          3. Odd how so many socialist states collapse into poverty or totalitarianism, where so far, few capitalist ones have, wars excepted.

            Where have there been states where there has been unbridled capitalism and they have collapsed?

      3. Yet why have the richest got richer?

        You point at statistics that the state fiddles by default. The unemployment figures were changed every single year so are meaningless.

        Low taxes reduce the wealth gap. They create employment. Looking to government statistics is daft. I appreciate they allow the state to say how good it is, but much like exam results, grade inflation exists to allow big government to say how good it is.

        Instead of looking at comfortable numbers, look at the number of welfare dependents and the differentiation between the highest earners and lowest.

  66. Wordle 469 5/6

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    1. Didn’t like the spelling on the bottom left Quordle.
      Daily Quordle 250
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      ⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
      ⬜🟩⬜🟨⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛

      Wordle 469 5/6

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

    1. I absolutely love it.
      Like our lab, if she wants to get into the kitchen from her enclosure in the utility room, she jumps up and uses he feet to pull down the door handle and push.

    1. Ms Budd, a former medical student from Wales, said: “I was studying to become a doctor because I believe in taking care of people. If we believe that the NHS is important, if we believe in taking care of each other, if we believe that NHS workers are doing essential work, why are forcing our healthcare system into collapse, why are we forcing our civilisation into collapse, why is basically no-one taking this genocide of all humanity seriously?”

      Ms Budd is retarded.

      2. Maybe she’s against the experimental jabs but doesn’t quite know how to come out and say it? She thinks the NHS is killing all its patients or summat like that?

        Whatever cause she’s trying to support she is an unspeakable person.

    2. The article also sounds like it was written by a 7 year old half-witted idiot about someone of a similar ilk.

      1. She was studying medicine. Perhaps the key word is was because she has failed her exams?

    5. Before I arrested her, I would have rubbed her face and hair in that shit. I would then have frog-marched her through the streets on the way to the nick.

  69. Evening, all. Back home now and catching up on four days’ worth of emails and several telephone calls (messages left on the answerphone).

  70. Birdie Three today

    Wordle 469 3/6

    ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
    ⬜🟨🟩⬜🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Wordle 469 4/6

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

      Daily Quordle 250
      5️⃣6️⃣
      7️⃣8️⃣

      1. With two jabbed sons whose wives voices were ‘louder’ than mine, and their in-laws – I was the solitary voice in the wilderness – I need every scrap of hope I can find to keep me going.

        1. I would take heart if my brothers would just stop taking them but they seem determined to carry on til it hurts.

          1. I dare not ask them how many they’ve had. I’ve had no peace of mind since I knew they had partaken of the juice.

          3. Oh – that is just awful for you, it is such a worry. There is no peace in one’s heart once you know.

        2. I totaly understand. We were just the same, so dissapointed in so many people who just obeyed

  72. We have been watching playback of Francesco De Mosta in Tuscany Umbria. We lost count of the times we’ve been saying, “We’ve been there”.
    And some where else I’ve been is……up the wooden hill. To Bedfordshire.
    Night all.

  73. We have made our plans to celebrate…. didn’t feel like going out tonight so we have been playing soppy love songs and other music. Is there a more sublime piece of music than the final movement of Mozart’s Jupiter? I don’t think so.
    Tomorrow we are going for an appetizer at a small Malay restaurant and then onto the steak house where MH can stuff a T-Bone in his mush.
    I shall likely have the avocado salad.
    Might as well have some fun before the buggers catch up with us.

  74. Sky News.

    King Charles will not attend COP27, the UN climate conference due to
    be held in Egypt in November, Buckingham Palace has confirmed.

    There had been speculation that the King, who has been a passionate campaigner on environmental issues, would attend the event in Sharm el Sheikh, making it his first overseas trip since becoming monarch.

    The confirmation that he will not go comes after reports that Prime Minister Liz Truss and Number 10 advisers had told the King he should not attend.

    1. That put his nose out of joint – this can be no bad thing. He is given the message straight away, and Truss has put her foot down. The last thing she – and we – needs is him meddling in Affairs of the State behind her back.

    2. I suppose the Republicans will urge him to muddle and meddle as much as possible because if he interferes too much in politics it will lead to the end of the British monarchy.

  76. I am going to say goodnight. This laptop (not the Win 10 I was using when I was away) has been playing up so I’m packing it in for the night. It keeps freezing and that’s very frustrating – I can see what I need to read, but I can’t get at it. I have a council meeting on Monday and loads of emails to download, read and assimilate before then. I hope tomorrow will be better.

    1. A Council Meeting on Monday, Conners? Who is in the Chair? You, Oscar or Kadi? Good night to the three of you, anyhow. Lol.

      1. Somebody else. I used to be chairman, but when re-election was due, I withdrew because somebody else was keen to do it. I don’t seek power!

  77. It seems everyone is sloping off but I have washing that now needs tumble drying (thank God it’s free here) and an anti-biotic that I have to take at midnight.

    Back later

  80. Goodnight and God bless you, Gentlefolk. Going to read my book while waiting for the washing to dry.

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