509 thoughts on “Monday 25 November: Scrapping home visits will weaken the bond between GPs and patients”

  1. London’s knife crime epidemic continues with three fatal stabbings. 24 NOVEMBER 2019.

    London’s knife-crime epidemic continued this weekend with three fatal stabbings in the space of 24 hours.

    The number of killings in the capital is now nearing its highest level in more than a decade, with 130 recorded this year, compared with 132 in 2018.

    Morning everyone. I see Stop and Search is working well.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/11/24/londons-knife-crime-epidemic-continues-three-fatal-stabbings/

  4. Why I’d never press the nuclear button. Nicola Sturgeon. Sun 24 Nov 2019.

    Would you ever be prepared to use a nuclear weapon?” This question is increasingly put to politicians as some kind of virility test. The subtext is that to be a credible political leader, you must be willing to use an indiscriminate weapon of mass destruction – killing millions, or even tens of millions, of innocent people. When the Liberal Democrat leader, Jo Swinson, was asked the question last week, she pondered it for a mere split second before calmly replying, “Yes.” The consequences of this position should be made clear.

    This is more revealing of Sturgeon’s vanity than a real concern with the use of Nuclear Weapons since she will never be in the position to decide. That said I seriously doubt that any UK leader will be faced with such a stark choice. The idea that we would initiate such an action is inherently absurd and there would almost certainly be a period of political crisis and conventional hostilities with probable first use by one of the major powers before Downing Street was required to make a decision, and by then they will almost certainly be dead along with the rest of us. The Captains of the UK’s Trident submarines will be the ones to decide!.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/24/nuclear-weapon-kill-millions-cold-war-mentality-nicola-sturgeon

    1. Maybe the state could provide a special telephone for calling GPs. After an 18 months wait, the problem would solve itself.

    1. Morning zx.

      The fact the Conservatives have had 9 years to eliminate the budget deficit, haven’t done so and yet are still promising stuff requiring borrowed money doesn’t impress me.

      We know what to expect from Labour.

        1. Morning Anne.

          Surely, the downside of the universal franchise is that when people are given the vote, it’s ignored?

          1. Ultimately, yes.
            But the universal franchise seems more about bribing voters with their own money.

          2. Point taken. I’d also add that it’s now became a case of bribing people with their grandchildren’s and their children’s money.

            I realise that the national debt is a boring subject for most people but we seem to be going down a very dangerous path.

  7. For once I agree with much of what Tim Stanley writes…but even more so with D Walker

    The Tories have conceded too much to Labour
    TIM STANLEY – NOVEMBER 2019 • 6:58PM

    There are obviously gargantuan differences between the Tory and Labour manifestos, but there is also similarity in the direction of travel. Call me a party pooper, but I’m worried that in order to win this election by the biggest majority imaginable, the Tories have conceded certain fundamental arguments that will make it easier for Labour to win the next one.

    The contrast was articulated well by ITV’s Robert Peston at the Conservative manifesto launch in the Midlands. During questions to Boris Johnson, Mr Peston said: “You’re proposing £3 billion a year of extra public service spending compared to Labour’s promise of £83 billion … So anyone who wants to see a definitive end to austerity and improvements in public services, they’re going to vote for Labour aren’t they?” The PM replied: “I couldn’t disagree with you more. [This is] a radical agenda … We will be investing the biggest ever cash boost to the NHS … It’s our job as One Nation Conservatives to support a step change in funding to our public services.”

    No words on reform. No belt-tightening. No individual responsibility. Thatcherism is dead; long live the nanny state.

    Now, as Mr Johnson went on to say, there is a galaxy-sized difference between the way Labour and the Tories will roll back austerity. Under New Labour, the centre-Left wanted to milk capitalism to finance social reform: now the goal is to reform capitalism itself, to build a new kind of society via a mix of nationalisation, union power and taxation. This isn’t just about helping the very poorest. If it were, Labour wouldn’t propose taxing the wealthy in order to create universal benefits that even billionaires can enjoy, such as free internet and free tuition fees. It aims to become the first government in history to steal from the rich to give to the rich.

    Labour dreams of a Britain in which private financial independence is reduced in favour of general reliance upon social goods. This is socialism and it almost goes without saying that what Mr Johnson is offering us is very different.

    Except that it does need saying. Unless these differences are articulated, there is a risk that people won’t understand them and the Conservatives will lose the argument because they are not prepared to make it – namely that a society in which people enjoy autonomy from the state is generally freer, richer and even kinder than one in which Big Brother does everything for you.

    Why don’t the Tories say this? The answer is partly that Conservatives are always a bit scared of their own shadow: they hear Labour’s moral rhetoric, they see the Question Time audience nodding gravely and they think: “I better say something similar!” The other problem is the calculation that they have made in this particular election, namely that Brexit will lose them seats down south, so the only way to win a walloping landslide is to gain as many MPs as possible up north. Hence the Tory plans are generous without being transformative: they are designed to persuade former Labour voters that they can risk voting for Mr Johnson because hospitals and schools will be safe in his hands.

    It’s a tactical masterstroke, but I fear it could be a strategic blunder. I’m not against more spending, or raising taxes to do it. I’m happy to pay more in tax (not borrow) if I understand clearly where the money ends up and if it goes into investment for growth or genuine need, like social care. On that subject, however, the Conservatives don’t offer a “radical agenda”, just extra cash to plug gaps and a national debate about what to do next, with the prerequisite that no one should have to sell their house. The Tories have begun with the concession that social care is the responsibility of the state and will be fixed from the public purse.

    Which brings me to my greatest worry, that by trying to echo Labour’s language on spending, the Tories validate Labour’s direction of travel, if not its destination. If there is to be a national consensus that the UK needs to spend a whole lot more, then all it takes is for Labour to replace Jeremy Corbyn with someone more attractive and it could easily win an election by outbidding the Tories.

    Just as I was thinking this, I got a text from a friend of mine who is a financial expert. He said: “I think that what Corbyn’s peddling is coming. Maybe not this time; but what’s telling is it’s the anti-Semitism which has killed him, not the policies. The same [Labour] manifesto under a half presentable 40-year-old would have a good shot – the Conservatives are only arguing about degree, they accept all the premises regarding the structure of the economy, loading debt, the rich somehow swooping in and picking up the tab, all the immoral new morality.”

    My friends’s language might confuse some younger readers: we have come to assume that the moral thing to do is spend more. But there is a moral dimension to frugality and freedom, and unless you argue this on the campaign trail, the battle will be lost – and the voters will have to learn the lesson all over again, the hard way.

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

    BTL:

    D Walker 24 Nov 2019 9:26PM

    The Not-a-Conservative-Party surrendered to the language of the Left decades ago.

    Then they surrendered to the Agenda of the Left. And now they’ve surrendered to the Policies of the Left.

    They’re terrified of the “liberal broadcast media” and its legions of lefties who use propaganda tactics to promote politically-correct left wing policies at every opportunity.

    They simply haven’t got the GUTS to stand up to the Lefties who infest the Broadcast Media and Public Sector, let alone argue for what they’re supposed to believe in.

    They’re only ever pushed in a conservative direction by Nigel Farage.

    1. This is all movable furniture rearrangement. It is shuffling the deckchairs on the Titanic. Six months from now it is more likely that economic control will be entirely in the hands of the EU, and not the UK Government, whether Tory or Labour. This will be the case if we “leave” as per the WA or Remain.
      The only issue of significance is Brexit. Will the UK be an independent nation or will it vanish as if it had struck an iceberg?

    2. By rights it is corbyns turn that is how a successful coalition should work,and it cannot be denied lab/lib/con are a successful coalition as pro eu political minions / rubber stampers.

    3. The Conservatives had every chance in 2010 to explain to Mr & Mrs Bloggs in plain language why it was necessary (and still is) to have spending cuts, reduce the budget deficit and live within our means.

      They failed miserably and let the BBC and the Labour party control the narrative.

      1. People are thick.

        We fall from the same trap that because we are surrounded by intelligent, cogent, literate people with a wide understanding of the world, a basic understanding of economics and govenrment that others are as well.

        They are not. More than half the population are so utterly, impossible dim that the concept of a supply and demand graph would actually cause their minds to physically stop. Such people vote Labour because they are so monstrously mindless.

          1. Wot I Tw@ted to Laura Pillock earlier today in response to her rabbiting on about “Austerity”:-

            Laura, what austerity?
            National Debt in 2000/01 was £0.39tr.
            By 2010 that, under your party, had increased to £1.08tr with massive leaps from £0.64tr to £0.82tr in 2008/09 and an even greater hit of £0.16tr in 09/10 taking the total up to £1.08tr.

            Since coming into Office, the Tories have allowed it to increase further to £1.82 trillion.
            In 2015/16 Interest payments on the national debt cost the government about £46 billion, over a third of that year’s Health & Social Care budget of £127.1bn

            The UK national debt grows at a rate of about £5,170 per second and is currently over £2,272,129,000,000.
            Your party’s plans will push that, plus the resultant interest increase, even higher.
            Do you REALLY think it is a good idea to saddle our children & grandchildren with that much debt?

          2. The national debt, as big as it is doesn’t include the billions in unfunded future commitments.

            The bottom line is that most politicians of all parties either don’t know or don’t care about the appalling mess the UK’s finances are in or where the money’s to come from to pay back all the money we’ve borrowed and are still borrowing.

  11. Yo all

    A new scam

    Just received this email

    [TV]Licensing.DirectDebit | Renew Home Licence | (Not UK website address)

    You are covered until 11/24/2019 10:41:21 p.m. (Date wrong format)

    We are sorry to let you know that the TV License could not be automatically renewed. Something’s gone wrong with your payments.

    As we couldn’t take the latest payment from your bank account, this amount will also need to be paid when you set up your new Direct Debit.

    Update you Direct Debit >>

    1. This must be the same crowd who are spamming with the same message, except about Netflix.

    2. You’ve just reminded me of another phone message scam I received a couple of days ago. The female voice is identical to the one on the earlier ‘unusual withdrawals/action on your credit card press #1 etc’ scam but this time it relates to P60s and the end of the tax payment window in January next year.

          2. 2018/19. I got a refund of £28. Getting into my “personal tax account” was a bit of a rigmarole but eventually it worked.

  12. Morning all

    SIR – I was horrified to hear that my profession has voted in favour of scrapping “routine” home visits.

    I am an old GP and value family medicine. Sadly, general practice today seems to take an anodyne, one-size-fits-all approach. Patients, especially the elderly and housebound, value GP visits, which also allow doctors to identify problems and pre-empt crises.

    Yes, we are pushed for time, and visits can be arduous and even dangerous, but they can also be a welcome break – an escape from staring at a screen ticking boxes. Spending half an hour with a frail elderly lady, listening to her concerns and having a mug of tea, beats sitting in surgery with the worried well and performing pointless tasks to please the Care Quality Commission.

    Many changes are needed in general practice – but scrapping visits is not one of them.

    Dr Kate Mash

    Salisbury, Wiltshire

    1. As almost all GP’s now are in large group practices it should not be difficult to organise home visits. Certainly the government is right to say to the GP’s that their contract states they must make home visits and this is not changing

    1. “Wet” as in “rain”, or “Wet!” as in “Where’s me tea?”

      Morning, Delboy.
      }:-))

  14. SIR – GPs at the British Medical Association conference described home visits as an “anachronism” that should not be part of their core work.

    Is it only those paid from the public purse who are allowed to think and act in this way? After 30 years spent working in private companies, I have plenty of experience of performing tasks that I’d have gladly avoided, had our customers not wanted the service. How unreasonable they were.

    Mark Allen

    East Grinstead, West Sussex

  15. SIR – I was horrified to hear that my profession has voted in favour of scrapping “routine” home visits.

    I am an old GP and value family medicine. Sadly, general practice today seems to take an anodyne, one-size-fits-all approach. Patients, especially the elderly and housebound, value GP visits, which also allow doctors to identify problems and pre-empt crises.

    Yes, we are pushed for time, and visits can be arduous and even dangerous, but they can also be a welcome break – an escape from staring at a screen ticking boxes. Spending half an hour with a frail elderly lady, listening to her concerns and having a mug of tea, beats sitting in surgery with the worried well and performing pointless tasks to please the Care Quality Commission.

    Many changes are needed in general practice – but scrapping visits is not one of them.

    Dr Kate Mash

    Salisbury, Wiltshire

    1. Decades ago , I belonged to the WRVS.. a brilliant organisation .. it had many different functions , and was an absolute asset to the community .

      Meals on wheels covered large areas , and delivered meals to people who were elderly/ disabled and in need of a warm meal regularly. Our organisation worked in pairs , we usually had an old van or even our own cars sometimes , where we stacked the meals in hot boxes ( We used to collect the meals either from schools or large organisations who had canteens ) but the organisation of the distribution was on the button ..

      The point I am trying to elaborate on is that we had a first hand connection with people who needed help .. and the beauty of the task was if the client was poorly or not responsive we would report back to their doctor or social services .. We would put a warm plate of delicious food and a pudding in front of them , then a few years later food was delivered in tin foil containers .. but what was important was that clients saw someone at least once a day .

      Couldn’t doctors work in pairs , a home visiting team , or say, driver and doctor , specifically for that purpose , a dedicated team .. In my MOW times , no one had a mobile phone , and very few people even had landlines .. These days, doctors have phones, and lap tops .. Lets not get into Shipman territory , but I am sure a dedicated home visit team would be a good idea?

      1. Our surgery will carry out a home visit if booked before 10am subject to an ‘assessment of the need’.

      2. Before the days when Thatcher’s “Free Single Market” purists considered bad form for one business to support another, part of my job as a postman was the daily visit to Mrs Cooper in her cottage for a chat and a cup of tea. She was the matriarch of the village, and one of the few original country folk of Holmbury St Mary between Dorking and Guildford before it was overrun by stockbrokers.

      3. Strangely, South Wales police report back on vulnerable old folk to a co-ordinator, who then visits and organises with Social Services to take care of the oldster, as required. My mother was visited by them as a result of being scammed, and the PC who attended her house was a) very kind, and b) very, very fat. The coordinator called the next day, and was round a few days later, thereafter organising the SS (who have done absolutely nothing).
        Seems strange that it’s the police who took this on, but hey.

        1. Sadly, it is not just in the field of social care that the police are having to pick up the slack.

          1. They are now providing ‘care’ for people who should be in a mental hospital. Remember those? Large buildings – the size of villages – where, despite their imperfections, patients were kept warm, clean, fed and regularly given their medication.

    2. I was just talking to my mates in the pub last night about this.

      Early 1980s I managed to blunder into a hole in the ground in the dark after I’d got off a bus. A concrete wing-wall across my chest arrested my fall after a drop of about 5 feet and left me in some discomfort. Some discomfort? Actually agony and unable to breathe for some time. Until I got over the impact and drew that first painful breath I was wondering if the damage might be terminal. I was trying hard to breathe, but just couldn’t at first – badly winded. I crawled from the culvert and managed the 200 yard walk up the farm track to the cottage we rented and made it to bed. Next morning it was clear that the damage wasn’t just bruising and that there was stuff broken. It took an hour for my wife to get me on my feet.

      A neighbour drove me to the nearby town and I saw the duty doctor at the surgery (Sunday morning). After some prodding from him that ended in a yell of agony from me he diagnosed me with 4 fractures affecting 3 ribs, the top end of one, the bottom end of another and both ends of the rib between them. He sent me home with a bag of painkillers and some antibiotics to stave off any chest infection I might come into contact with.

      The next day, as I lay feeling sorry for myself at home the doorbell rang. It was my GP. He’d seen from their records that I’d attended the surgery the day before and had taken it upon himself to come to see me unannounced to check how I was.

      Now THAT’S a GP.

        1. It was a stream coming out of a deep culvert that ran under the road. Until I hit the wing wall I didn’t even realise there was a wing wall there. A moonless overcast night in December, out in the countryside, no streetlights within a mile and a half. I was busy chatting to the driver of the bus, who I knew, but hadn’t seen for some years. We were passing my normal stop before I realised and I got off the bus a hundred yards down the road. I was aware that the stream was there and that it was crossed by the verge of the road over the culvert and also by a redundant bridge from where the road had been diverted. I missed the roadside crossing in the dark. Hands in pockets against the December cold and the ground just disappeared under my feet.

          Mea culpa.

          6. Too busy trying to draw breath. It was a strange feeling, apart from the obvious.

            When I hit the concrete I saw a yellow diagonal flash of light in my head that corresponded with the diagonal shape of the impact on my chest. Then I realised where I was. I was aware of my feet in water, my face in some nettles and that my thinking seemed to have split into two separate streams.

            The ‘right’ side of my head was just getting on with the hurting, while the ‘left’ side was suddenly very clear and lucid. My ‘left’ side realised that I wasn’t breathing and that before I did anything else, I had to get some breath. I wondered if I’d broken my chest so badly that I’d caved it in and I wondered if I’d be posted missing and my cold body found after a day or two.

            My ‘left side’ started telling my ‘right’ side ‘Breathe, breathe, breathe!’ Then I managed to draw that first halting and very painful breath and I knew I wasn’t dead. My left side was still in control and I crawled up the bank back to ground level, so at least I wouldn’t be hidden from view if I passed out. Then my ‘right’ side started moaning loudly, over and over. My left side was telling it to stop ‘Stop it, stop that moaning’ in case the noise disturbed the neighbours in the big house nearby. Eventually the left side won and I stumbled along the track home, holding myself together.

            It was a strange experience all round.

          7. Have an understanding of the winded bit.
            Fell out of a tree once, and winded myself completely. Getting that first breath took forever, and I was beginning to get rather panicky that I’d broken something so badly I wasn’t going to breathe again, then wheep! – I began to get air in again. Relief! Rather not do it again, though. Absolutely not fun.

          8. It smarted a bit. After the doc diagnosed the four fractures on my right ribcage on the Sunday morning I went home and kept as still as I could, but it was interesting slipping the ends back into place by sort of shrugging my shoulder after I sat down again if I had to get up.

            By the Tuesday I noticed a bit of a pain on my left side that had been taking a back seat so far. That’s when I realised I didn’t have 4 fractures, I had 5. There was a cracked one on the left side too. 🙂

          9. I feel for you. I once had a motorcycle accident where I came off at about 80 kph caused by a bee flying into my helmet – before you say it was only a bumble bee, it was an African bee and those devils can really sting. Net result of the prang was 6 broken ribs and a collar bone. I’d broken bone before (legs and ankle) in bike prangs but this was the most painful of all. Fortunately I wasn’t riding solo and my wingman rode through to the next town some 60kms way to summon an ambulance.

          10. I always have a smile to myself when Clint Eastwood gets a good hiding in a western, resulting in a couple of broken ribs plus multiple bruising. He gets a wash and brush-up and a big magic bandage wrapped around his chest and half an hour later he’s climbing over hacienda walls and fighting bad guys and winning.

            When I did my ribs they were on the mend getting on for three weeks later (Christmas). I was standing with my back to our living room fire and I felt an irresistable tickle in my nose. Having avoided even a single sneeze for over a fortnight I decided it would be safe to treat myself to one then. One sneeze later, I was picking myself up off the floor.

            It’s not until you have a few ribs loose that you realise how many muscles are involved in having a crap. It hurts all the way up to your chin, especially if you’re on tablets with codeine in them.

          11. I know exactly what you mean. The incident I described saw me dropped off at home and helped to bed. My kindly friend left the radio on for me (just out of comfortable reach). Shortly after he left, what came on but the Goons. Agony ensued…

          13. I did have a similar experience recently when unloading a car off the recovery truck in the dark. I fell over the ramps which in spite of the rear loading lights were in the shadow of the car, scraped my shins and hurt my wrists, all was ok by the next day.

          15. Could have been a lot worse. If my head had hit that wall rather than my chest (it was on the opposite side of the stream) it would have been Goodnight Vienna.

  16. Morning again

    Corbyn and Brexit

    SIR – Jeremy Corbyn has finally “clarified” that he will continue to sit on the fence with regard to Brexit – a disgraceful position for someone trying to become prime minister.

    Does he think people do not realise that he is simply doing this because he is terrified of alienating any of the catastrophically split factions within his party?

    He speaks of reaching a rapid and different Brexit agreement with the EU. But the EU will only agree to a new deal if it will benefit. Voters must therefore be told what the terms of Mr Corbyn’s revised deal are, and why he thinks the EU would accept it.

    Bob Hart

    Newark, Nottinghamshire

    1. But as Emily Thornberry assured remainers – no matter what deal Labour negotiated they would scrap it.

  17. SIR – I was delivered of my mother at the height of the war by our family GP, who worked as a single-handed practitioner and was on call 24/7.

    Later, when I was a single-handed dental practitioner, I was also expected to be on call at all hours. Domiciliaries were indeed a nuisance, as were 40-mile drives at weekends, but they were considered to be part of one’s duty of care. It is a pity that today’s well-remunerated GPs do not share this sense of obligation.

    Dr Martin Henry

    Chelmsford, Essex

    SIR – The news about home visits comes as no surprise. Over the last 
 two years I have visited my local surgery five times but seen my own 
GP just once.

    Kevin Wright

    Harlow, Essex

  18. I see the BBC’s review of the papers today includes the comment “the Tory-supporting Daily Telegraph”. I did look but I can’t see any comment along the lines of “the Labour supporting Mirror” or the “pinko Grauniad” – what a surprise!

    2. Morning B,
      I cannot honestly see, especially after
      viewing the last four decades a reason for supporting any of them.
      Many peoples want to rebuild & not demolish.

  19. Spreading the warmth

    SIR – My wife and I have each just received our annual £100 winter fuel allowance from the Government.

    While we appreciate the sentiment behind this gesture, we, like millions of other pensioners, are fortunate in not needing this financial fillip.

    Surely it should be means-tested. The considerable amount of money saved could then go towards keeping the homeless warm over the winter.

    Lindsay Jones

    Poole, Dorset

    5. Two possibilities. Increase the allowance t £250 and make it taxable by adding it to the state pension. Second possibility is to limit the allowance to 0% and 20% taxpayers only which is simple to do

  20. Morning again

    Climate emergency

    SIR – Charles Moore risks confusing an understandable frustration at Extinction Rebellion’s activities with the facts behind the group’s concern.

    I also tut-tutted my way through the amiable and varied XR crowds in Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square recently, but they are pushing an agenda that is deeply, properly conservative – and, as with many other campaigns labelled as “extreme” over the years, including civil rights and women’s liberation, most people will eventually come to realise they have right on their side. We have wrecked this planet and it sorely needs fixing.

    To tackle this problem, we need to look beyond tribal politics, and I salute the Government for acknowledging there is a crisis.

    Colin Burrows

    Richmond, Surrey

    2. They are pushing an agenda that is deeply ill informed for they do not understand science and it’s tested methods. The earth is not warming dangerously and CO2 does not control climate.

      1. They are even now trying to claim that methane is a Greenhouse gas. There is no evidence at all to support that claim, Methane occurs naturally and is a hazard to miners. It also occurs in lakes and pond where rotting vegetation gives off methane as do for that matter does land fill. The best they can manage is to claim methane absorbs heat. Well so does almost anything. Building absorb heat as does water is that going to be regarded as harmful

        The methane story seems to have originated from vegans who wish to ban the eating of meat

          1. Perhaps they will campaign to get all buildings demolished as they absorb heat and add to so called climate change. If you take London typically it will be 1 or 2 degrees warmer than the surrounding areas due to the density of the population and buildings

          2. Will we be allowed to chop down trees to make lovely draughty log cabins? Or are there enough caves for 80 million people?

    3. Let’s hope ER’s next target is Mr. Burrows’ road in leafy Richmond.
      With a bit of luck, they’ll all camp and cr@p on his lawn.

    1. Morning, Belle.
      Bit of a long shot. I bow to no-one in my loathing of the Beeb, but they’re not responsible for the possible reaction of a mob of teenage psychos.

      1. Morning Anne

        Of course you are quite right , but don’t you think that the BBC sow the seeds of discontent and anti society with some of their soaps , plays music and , well the film..

        I suspect gang adrenaline runs high .. ‘cos it’s their culture , innit?

        1. The Beeb is the enemy within.
          Because of vague memories of its wartime messages to the Resistance and comedies like Steptoe, it has taken many years for people to question its current malign influence.
          Let us hope that unthinking belief is now dying the death.

  22. Should the GP Service be Nationalized

    Currently the GP services does not work well and GP’s are constantly trying to dictate to the NHS how it should be run

    The GP service at least in my view is a core NHS function and I can see good reasons for it being directly an NHS service and not as now a private service

      3. And as for ‘the bond between GPs and patients’! There is little of that left in group practices, one is just a number on a computer database…

          1. I know, I am lucky to have a good group practice. But it is not easy to see the same doctor so they never get to know you.

    3. Apprently the Chinese government were accused of being Nazi’s in their discussion of the demostrations.

      That’d be the demonstrators wanting democracy.

      Yet here, the BBC and Left are lauded as heroes for wanting to enforce fascism on us. The hypocrisy of the media is staggering. Their utter lack of self regard shocking. However, no doubt ‘oh, for the referendum it’s different. The EU is democracy” or some twaddle.

      I am tired of being hostage to stupid people.

    4. I see only a blank area, but even without enabling twitter.com in my NOSCRIPT settings, this must be about the BBC and their enthusiasm for the Hongkong freedom fighters!.

  28. Daily Brexit Betrayal

    It’s the start of yet another week of electioneering,

    yet another week of promises by the competing peacocks, yet another

    week of ‘punditry’ by MSM journalists. I can’t quite make up my mind if

    the election strategists of the two main parties think that we voters

    are truly so childlike that we believe their shiny promises or if they

    are only playing to the ranks of the MSM, the TV show hosts and the

    twitterati.

    Brexit, as I’ve pointed out repeatedly, has become a formula,

    a pawn in this election. Labour’s strategists have now decided to

    become the Remain Party – not officially, but their top politicians have

    made it clear over the weekend that, with the exception of their

    ‘neutral’ leader Corbyn, they would back ‘Remain’ once they are in

    power. The small fact that the LibDems had been surging in the polls

    before the GE kicked off properly has of course nothing at all to do

    with their decision to become the Remain Party – of course not! Labour’s

    attitude could not be more plain:

    https://independencedaily.co.uk/your-daily-brexit-betrayal-monday-25th-november-2019-17-days-to-polling-day/

      1. I remember Billy Connolly saying “Never miss an opportunity to have a pee and never waste an erection – even if you’re on your own”

  30. Boris is going to build a million new ‘homes’.

    Who will they be housing I wonder? Who will be footing the final bill? Those rag-tags coming ashore from those boats and dropping gasping out of wagons don’t seem to be good mortgage risks.

    And he thinks this is a selling point?

    1. Where will they be located? Who will pay? Will there be any work there? What about infrastructure, medical services, transport? Will there be any space left over for all the promised trees?

      2. As I’ve often mentioned before there are plans for many tens of thousands of homes along the A120 corridor from just East of Colchester to just North of Braintree in what are euphemistically called Garden Communities. These developments are in addition to the mass of homes going up all over the area. The local population will not fill these homes, they are being built probably to accommodate people who are leaving London and whose current properties will go to the new British being imported by the Government. The people leaving London will continue to work there and by doing so will exacerbate the commuting problems on the rail and road networks.
        Good farm land will be lost forever in this rush to build. As I travel around North Essex and into Suffolk almost every village, no matter how small, has a development of housing in progress. Most of these village properties are too expensive for the incomers but will, for a time, provide a haven for those that can afford them. It’s looking grim now but the future is looking extremely bleak if the PTB’s obsession with mass immigration isn’t halted. May, when PM, supported the idea of infilling between Cambridge and Oxford: look that area up on a map and weep.

        1. Wasn’t that the whole point of HS2? To open up the Chilterns for comprehensive redevelopment…

          1. Providing infrastructure alongside developments? That’s novel but you may be on to something.
            The PTB want all the housing along the A120 but still haven’t agreed on the route for the final 8 or 9 miles of dual carriageway between the A12 and Braintree (M11). That’s if a plan for the road actually exists.
            Last I read, people in the area and hence in the know, were very concerned as to where the rainwater run-off from the new ‘village’ would be directed: the existing water courses being inadequate – Roman River these days is a mere stream – and the only river of any size, the Colne, is some miles away.
            All this hassle and expense: surely it would be very much less expensive to curb mass immigration?

        2. Similar large scale development around towns and villages in Gloucestershire. Nice houses for incomers.

          1. We have just wandered down our beautiful Back Lane this morning, which runs parallel with the green behind several very, very large gardens belonging to houses fronting the green. As we approached we stood in amazement – since probably 8.00 am this morning much of the ground had been cleared of its rambling trees and sprawling undergrowth on the corner in the garden of an old Enid Blyton type thatched cottage, often seen at this time of the year with grey-blue smoke gently curling out of the chimney. It certainly did not look as if the garden was being tidied for winter, the clearance – about half an acre – was much more wholesale than that. Sadly the long-time occupants died recently, having lived there for more than fifty years.

            What profiteth a man who gains the whole world but loses his soul in the process.

      3. They pretend they are an asset when the reality is that Council houses charge rents of less than 50% of the economic rate and what’s left of the rent is frequently paid for by Housing Benefit

        In standard accountancy these properties would be in the books as an asset but if they are never going to be sold they are more a liability

        Even in standard accountancy whilst they re an asset the value would be written down over about a 25 year period but there is also another half to the equation and that’s the debt and at the amounts repaid in rent it will never pay off the debt and the debt will continually increase

        In South Wales a quite strong Labor are mot Local Councils gave their council housing stock away to Social housing landlords. They did this because they could no longer afford to keep them , A very significant amount of Council tax was going to subsidise them

    2. Is the cost of housing the people you describe, contained in Johnson’s spending plans within his Party’s manifesto? It’s one thing to make statements of intent and quite another to explain why the need is going to be there and how it will all be paid for. He hopes that people will not make the connection between the need and his policy of mass immigration. He is, like so many other politicians, a complete and utter fraud.

  31. Another scam warning
    Taxis this time,if ever asked to use a debit card rather than a credit card “save me the 4% comm guv” be very careful,several people have reported having their bank acc emptied after their details were farmed this way
    The suggestion I saw was in the event make a “mistake” with your PIN number the first time,if the machine appears to process the transaction it’s a scam

      1. Khan does not like Uber. There seems to be no valid reason to deny them a licence they have added all the concerns TfL raid and you can bet if there were any issues with Uber in London it would be all over the media

        Uber have now even added full tracking so you can see where your taxi is. You can even have a friend or parents monitor it on its journey

    1. Ooooh you horror, Plum! I’ve only just got rid of my last earworm and letch for big beef boy (with huge white shirt) Nick Garvey and you put it on again…!

      No fair! :o)

    1. Revenge is a dish best served cold!
      Sadly, all my grandchildren are now too old for the prezzie, so that form of revenge for sleepless nights is unavailable to me.

  35. A BBC spokesperson interviewed:

    Q: I see that the outbreak of mass fighting, assisted by machetes, at the Star City Cinema complex was associated with a BBC backed (and part-financed) film about gang culture. What do you have to say?

    A: Diversity is our strength.

    2. Most rents outside perhaps London do only go up with inflation or even less. If you have a good tenant you want to keep them. If they leave you can have voids plus all the costs involved in getting a new tenant in who may or may not be a good tenant

    6. I think the girl might be of mixed race and such relationships have a recent royal precedent so the BBC wants to keep up to date.

      2. She was confused. Not used to such places, she mistook the urinal trough for a bath.

        Easily done.

  40. First! Yaay!
    Morning, folks. Still dark & miserable. But enough about me :-((
    Off to tropical Finland today (Tampere), so unlikely to be much on NTTL for the week.

      1. We have a sunlamp that gets used occasionally, but it’s a horrible, blue-white harsh light, and I don’t like it. Otherwise, waiting for the snow, then all is lighter outside, and much more bearable. Having written that, it’s a tough part of the year – the 5th season, the bit between autumn & winter. Cold, dark, wet, miserable. A good time to go to Australia for later spring!

      1. Finnish, unfortunately. I can’t speak any word of Finnish, other than “Kippis!” – meaning Cheers!/ Bottoms Up!

        1. The western 1/3 of Finland is supposed to be Swedish-speaking. I thought that Tampere might be bi-lingual.

          Mind you, they speak a lousy Swedish – my boss sounded off like a monotone machine gun.

  41. Morning Geoff.

    BBC:

    “The (Hong Kong) election saw an unprecedented voter turnout of more than 71%.”

    So did our EU referendum and we all know what happened to that.

    1. I couldn’t get over the hypocrisy of trumpeting democracy in HK whilst the BBC gives all the appearance of wanting to undermine democracy in the UK because the populace voted to Leave the Undemocratic construct that is the EU.

      1. What I can’t understand is that the main protests (about independence from a central power) in HK come from young people – the very age group that’s been brainwashed into thinking the EU (another centralised power) is the bees knees.

  42. Property developers would be FORCED to sell new homes to local first-time buyers in key jobs at HALF the market price under Labour plans to help young people get on the housing ladder
    Labour live in la la land. Builders already have to provide huge payments for local infrastructure and for affordable housing. All that will happen is builders will stop building. THey cannot build if they will be making a huge loss

    1. I guess that is how government economics work. They do not seem to realise that private companies can not print money once they are bankrupt.

      1. My understanding of economics is slender but doesn’t printing money when you’re bankrupt lead to 200,000 million marks (pounds, dollars, euros, whatever) for a loaf of bread?

    1. It’s still possible in parts of South London providing you don’t mind paying about £2 a pint….

        1. It is a bit more than supermarket milk but we have whole milk and it’s not homogenised so we fight over the top for our cereals.

          2. We used to have Gold Top but compromised with silver top. Not sure how much it is now as we pay weekly by direct debit.

    2. Afternoon TB.
      The party first mode of voting took a hand and countrywide decline was on a daily basis.

    3. I remember when it was the majestic Clydesdale and Shire horses which were the mainstay of the delivery wagons, milk, coal and bakery. Their “emissions” were highly valued by gardeners.

      1. Our milkman and greengrocer delivered by horse and cart but they were smaller horses than Shires.

  45. Moment man wearing Islamic dress tells British Asian Tory campaigner to ‘go back to a white f***ing country’ and calls him ‘sick in the head’ for voting Conservative as he campaigns in east London

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7722231/Moment-man-tells-Tory-activist-white-f-ing-country.html

    Mr Ahmed, who is also Muslim, said that the man followed him for three to four minutes, during which time he was branded a ‘coconut’ – a racial slur accusing someone of betraying their ethnicity.

    1. Presumably the unnamed one is guilty of a hate crime and will soon be getting a visit from the Met??

      2. Talking of the Met, has Dick of the Yard left her bunker recently? Another stabbathon over the weekend, surely she has something to say even if it’s her usual mealy mouthed verbiage?

        1. Shame about the slugs – they carry lungworm and roundworm and other parasites, which can make hedgehogs very poorly and often kill those with weakened immune systems.

          4. They form a smaller part of their diet than people think – they mainly eat worms, beetles, larvae and whatever they can find.

  46. What concrete evidence is there that this is a brexit
    General Election ?
    more like hold your nose / best of the worst truth be told,
    Party first, sod the consequences is the name of the game.
    We cannot be far off at this moment in time of a
    political party coming through who’s dedication to a party
    when conversion of a country is at stake, will know no bounds.
    Look at positions of power being put in place countrywide, then judge the outcome by mayor sadiq kahn.

      1. T,
        Get your priorities right as in, keeping you & your families canisters atop of their torso’s
        when the take-over is complete.

    2. There was a very early comment this morning by a pecularly named person which has disappeared. It listed the Muslim Mayors, the number of Mosques, Muslim No Go areas, the number of Sharia courts etc. The last time I looked the comment had disappeared. It set me wondering if the press attend and report freely on these Sharia courts, do they stay within the UK law and what are the judgements and penalties.? Why do the police allow No Go areas?

      1. Afternoon C,
        Why ?
        To fall in line with the unwritten
        PC / Appeasement rulings backed up by the establishment
        governing parties & others.

  47. Swastika was scrawled in area of police station accessible only to staff. Mon 25 Nov 2019

    A suspected far-right sympathiser is feared at large in the Metropolitan police, having got away with scrawling a swastika in a secure area of a police station, the Guardian has learned.

    The Met said it had launched a thorough investigation into the swastika graffiti, which it had classed as a faith-based hate crime, but could not identify the perpetrator.

    Despite the reams of existential angst in this article about the “far-right” the “N@zis” or the perpetrators of “Hate Crimes” penetrating the Holy Sanctum of Cultural Marxism that is Edmonton Police Station, it is more than likely that it was someone Taking the P!ss out of the system!

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/nov/25/swastika-was-scrawled-in-area-of-police-station-accessible-only-to-staff

        1. Ahh. This’d be why they keep thinking that oppressors are always right wing.

          Hush! Don’t tell anyone: It’s always a Lefty.

  48. I got a scam e-mail this morning with a small square label with BT logo beside it at the top
    It came from relation services<,noreply-bounce ..... plus among other items in the address ....croatia.... it read "IMPORTANT NOTICE Brexit is upon us and your terms of service must be updated. When we leave the EU we also leave the EU's General Data Protection Regulations. This requires our customers to agree to our new terms of service This means your contract terms must be updated to comply with our services. Failure to update your new terms may result in a reduction in the quality of your services. Now here's the good news! Your monthly [sic] remains unchanged.This includes all of your BT subscription products." There is then a fairly prominent green rectangular box with the invitation to ACCEPT I turned down the invitation and have trashed the e-mail.

  49. The leading headline on today’s ‘The World At One’on Radio 4 is ‘Greenhouse gases reach record levels’. The presenter asks: “Why isn’t international action effective?” Environment correspondent Roger Harrabin answers: “Modern economies are based on fossil fuels. They’re very addictive.”

    If there should ever be a proper debate on the subject on TV or radio, the shock might kill…

      1. A company has just started producing tomatoes at their huge greenhouse complex just outside of Ipswich. Guess what, they pump Carbon Dioxide into the greenhouses to help produce more and tastier produce. How green is that?

        2. ‘Afternoon, Korky, I shall be passing it shortly on my way to the Doc. It gets its heat from the PCB burning site about 500 metres away as the crow flies.

          1. We seem to be building a number of these large production sites. The tomatoes (a small version of the Italian San Marzano variety) I’ve been buying from Lidl are produced in the Durham area and are more tasty than the Dutch produce.

    2. Greenhouse gases reach record levels’.

      Well, that depends on when the records started, doesn’t it? The lifetime of one person compared to the lifetime of the planet is meaningless. Even three, five, ten lifetimes, when 500 million years ago, it’s believed that CO2 levels were fifteen times higher than now, i.e. around 7000ppm, instead of 400ppm. And the planet didn’t go up in a puff of greenhouse smoke, because we’re all here. If CO2 was that effective as a greenhouse gas, at 7000ppm the Earth should have become like Venus, instead of having the biggest explosion of life across the planet….

      Just sayin’

  50. I recently put up a story about a cardiologist and a car mechanic. Someone hinted at another, similar story – here it is:

    A gynaecologist had become fed up with political correctness and so-called ‘transgender’ issues and was burned out. Hoping to find and try another career, where skilful hands could be beneficial, he decided to become a car mechanic.

    He went to the local Technical College, signed up for evening classes, attended diligently and learned all he could. When the time for the practical exam approached, the gynaecologist prepared carefully for weeks and completed the exam with tremendous skill. When the results came back, he was surprised to learn that he had obtained a score of 150%

    Fearing an error, he called the instructor saying, “I don’t want to appear ungrateful for such an outstanding result but could there be an error in the marking?”

    The instructor replied, “During the exam, you took the engine apart perfectly and that was worth 50% of the total; putting it back together was also done perfectly, earning another 50% of the total.”

    After a pause, the instructor added, “I gave you an extra 50% because you did it all through the exhaust pipe, which I’ve never seen done in my entire career!”

  51. The Uppity Saga

    The claim that the word Uppity has racial connotations is without any foundation at all. The word first appeared in UK English in about the sixteenth century with a meaning pretty similar today so it long pre dates slavery

    In the US it came into use around the 1880’s and was used amongst black Americans who would refer to some other black as Uppity Africians. There are some references to white Americans referring to some black Americana’s as Uppity N**** but the Uppity was as its original meaning. At that time as well it was commonly used by white American to refer to another white America as Uppity so there has been no racial connection with this words at all. The word Uppity in UK English was derived from another English word Uppish

    1. Bill, late last night LBC’s Tom Swarbrick had this item up for discussion. Three of the first five callers were ‘people of colour’ and all were concerned that the word ‘uppity’ was used as it has connotations of slavery. One of the concerned citizens thought that as his edition of Collins’ Dictionary had the word ‘control’ in the explanation of ‘uppity’, people should immediately link that to slavery. How he made that leap he couldn’t quite explain.
      Another concerned citizen, a motor-mouthed female, was extremely rude to Swarbrick as she called him out as ignorant because he admitted he wasn’t away of the perceived slight to slaves/blacks. From her ranting I understood that she thinks that we, old whitey, should educate ourselves by reading as many books about black/slave culture as we can lay our hands on so that we know which words we can and can’t use lest we insult black people. Good luck with that.
      The two other callers were both dismissive of the furore around this word.
      Currently listening to Ferrari and his first caller is taking the line that Holmes should have been aware of this word and the meaning black people apply to it: Ferrari closed her down as her argument was becoming ridiculous.
      One fact from the discussions is that there exists a Mr Uppity in the Mr Men series. Horror of horrors, how did he slip through the Permanently Offended’s net for all those years?

        1. Ah, the book the SA censors banned unread because of its supposed story of love across the colour bar.

  52. The Tory manifesto is a first step on the road to political realignment
    NICK TIMOTHY – 24 NOVEMBER 2019 • 9:30PM

    ********************************************************************************
    BTL:

    Charlotte PS 24 Nov 2019 11:06PM
    We are in this position because of YOU and your ridiculous Red Tory “let’s attack the middle classes” manifesto in 2017. Manipulating a weak PM to showcase your pathetic labour-lite policies. How do you sleep at night? Please go away and stop peddling your views here.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/11/24/tory-manifesto-first-step-road-political-realignment/

    2. I can understand BTL posters getting ratty. To call the 2017 campaign and manifesto a clusterfook is an an insult to real clusterfooks.
      But, as details of the May camp and campaign seep out, I do just wonder how much genuine NT input made the final cut. Or has he (dread phrase) ‘learnt lessons’?
      It is becoming apparent that May was narrow, stubborn, totally lacking in imagination, intellect, breadth of vision or even charity. Who, ultimately controlled the well named Maybot?

      2. May was all those things and worse. She’s also a hopeless campaigner.

        This is the initial summary by the Independent of the manifesto

        **The Conservative Party will fight the general election on a hard-Brexit manifesto that says “no deal is better than a bad deal”.

        Theresa May’s written threat to crash out of the European Union with no agreement if necessary, binds all Tory candidates to the policy condemned by many as reckless.

        The Prime Minister dropped the threat from the March letter triggering the Article 50 exit clause, amid speculation she was contemplating the huge economic damage it would cause.

        But the Conservative’s manifesto reads: “We continue to believe no deal is better than a bad deal for the UK.”

        It makes clear that Ms May would enter the negotiations in a “spirit of sincere cooperation”, aiming to strike an agreement favourable to Britain.

        Including the “no deal” threat in the manifesto may make it harder for pro-Europe Tory MPs who hope to persuade the Prime Minister to step back from the brink.

        Speaking in Halifax, Ms May said she agreed with EU leaders who did not want Britain “half in, half out”, stating: “Britain will leave the European Union.”

        The Prime Minister said leaving the bloc offers the chance to build a “stronger, fairer, more prosperous Britain” based on “a new contract between government and people.”

        The party’s manifesto renews a promise to reduce net immigration to below 100,000 – a vow the party has made and broken since 2010. It sets no date by which Britain will reach the goal.

        Many Britons who voted last year to leave the European Union were motivated by a desire to control immigration, which has soared as the EU has expanded. EU citizens have the right to live and work in other member states.

        Ms May insists she is determined to make a success of Brexit, which poses huge risks for the economy. The value of the pound has tumbled since Britons voted to leave the bloc, pushing costs up and driving inflation past wage growth. **

        But it was the social care element of the manifesto, authored by Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, that did so much to dent the Tory majority.

        **Theresa May’s social care package fails “to tackle the biggest problem” facing elderly people, the man who carried out the coalition’s review into service in England has said.

        Sir Andrew Dilnot’s castigation of the policy comes as the Prime Minister prepares to publish the Conservative manifesto for the general election, pledging to significantly raise the threshold of personal assets at which people will be eligible for state help with residential care costs from £23,250 to £100,000.

        David Cameron had proposed a cap of £72,000, delayed until 2020, but Ms May will now argue that limit – proposed by Sir Andrew, in an independent review in 2011 – is no longer needed.

        But Sir Andrew said he was “very surprised” by the new thinking from Downing Street. “New thinking that I’d argue shows a less than full understanding of the problems when there is a green paper that is due to come out later this year,” he added.

        Speaking on BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme, Mr Dilnot, who is also a former head of the UK Statistics Authority, said: “The disappointment about these proposals that we’re expecting to hear in the Conservative manifesto later is that they fail to tackle what I’d argue is the biggest problem of all in social care, which is at the moment people facing a position of no control.

        Social care services for children being ‘pushed to breaking point’
        “There is nothing you can do to protect yourself against care costs, you can’t insure because the private sector won’t insure it and by refusing to implement a cap, the Conservatives are now saying that they are not going to provide social insurance for it so people will be left helpless knowing that what will happen is that if they are unlucky enough to suffer the need for care costs they will be entirely on their own until they are on their last £100,000.

        Mr Dilnot said he was “very disappointed” by the proposals in the manifesto – due to be released later on Thursday. “Not personally. I feel very disappointed for all of us – the millions of people who are very, very anxious about this,” he added.

        Citing Ms May’s conference speech last October at the Conservative conference, in which she outlined the “good” that government can do and her willingness to intervene in “dysfunctional markets” when they are in need of repair, Mr Dilnot continued: “This was an absolute open goal for that kind of approach and it seems to have been missed.”

        Asked whether people would be better off under the Conservative plans to overhaul social care, Mr Dilnot added the new means test will help some people the “majority” of people getting care in their own home will find themselves “worse off”.

        “The changes are not bad in themselves,” he said. “It’s just that they fail to tackle the central problem that scares most people.”

        Responding to the proposals, Barbara Keeley, Labour’s shadow social care minister, said: “In their last manifesto they promised a cap on care costs. But they broke their promise, letting older and vulnerable people down.

        “It’s the Tories who have pushed social care into crisis; their cuts to councils have meant £4.6bn axed from social care budgets between 2010-2015, leaving 1.2 million people struggling to get by without care.”

        Sir Andrew also told the BBC he was unaware of the proposals from the Conservatives until they appeared in the media.

        “The analogy is a bit like saying to somebody you can’t insure your house against burning down, if it does burn down then you’re completely on your own, you have to pay for all of it until you’re down to the last £100,000 of all your assets and income,” he said.

        “There’s been some work going on in the Cabinet Office recently to think about what might come next, there’s the proposal for a green paper after the election.”**

          1. Then it’s on a sliding scale, up here in Scotland anyway, down to (I think around £14k) then they just take your pension off you. What you don’t pay is made up by the local council. The personal care part is free. They can’t touch anything that isn’t wholly yours nor can they put a charge on it.

          2. I don’t think personal care is free here. Obviously if the person in care still has husband/wife living in the house, then it can’t be sold.

          3. If that’s down in England then I don’t know much about it but I have heard of charges put against the future sale of the family home. I’m sure I’d heard that other members of the family, if living in the family home, don’t have the same protection.

      3. As demonstrated later in the article, the man remains an unrepentant socialist, just like May.
        “They will need to become more communitarian, and less libertian.They need to reassess their attitude to tax, and grow more comfortable with active government”

  53. I just had a bad experience.
    I went to a cafe not far from here that I go to sometimes. They do a good mediterranean style all-day breakfast.
    The assistant was a very nice cheerful and attractive young lady who works there intermittantly.I don’t know anything about her except
    her boss told me she is 28 years old. I am a married man so I don’t need to know more about her, but I think someone less shackled than me might call her a ” cracker ”
    I was reading The Times over breakfast and in passing she asked me who I was voting for. I said ” none of them ” what about you ?
    She said ” I’m voting Labour ” I couldn’t believe it. Like I had been hit in the face with a wet fish. I asked her why she was voting for Corbyn.
    She said: “I like him. He’s nice “.
    Suddenly she didn’t look attractive any more.

  55. TSB to close 82 branches next year to save costs
    TSB is to close 82 branches next year as part of a plan by new chief executive Debbie Crosbie to make £100m of cost savings by 2022.
    The Spanish-owned bank has 540 branches and is trying to restore its reputation after last year’s huge IT failure, which hit 1.9 million customers. The outlets to be shut will be named on 28 November after staff have been told.
    82 branches is bout 15% of the total number of branches they have at present
    TSB would not comment on job numbers, but it is thought that between 300 and 400 positions will be affected.

        1. Sabadell not Santander.

          TSB was part of Lloyds and, if memory serves me well, was then floated again on the SE as an independent bank.

  57. Morning Nottlers, out for the morning soon, but hope to catch up with you all later…

    The ungrateful French are at it again?

    France threatens to veto post-Brexit trade deal if UK doesn’t agree to EU rules [now why is that just such not a surprise. It’s what they’ve been saying over and over again. And the cowards had the nerve to criticise us over not being fast enough to protect them during WWII. They really make me see red!]

    France could veto the post-Brexit trade agreement unless Boris Johnson signs up to EU labour and environmental standards, Paris’ trade minister has warned. Jean-Baptise Lemoyne insisted that any future trading relationship must remain “very close” because of the UK and EU’s geographical and historical ties. He said the deal was unlikely to “resemble any other bilateral agreement, any other trade agreement” that Brussels has previously brokered.

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1208869/Brexit-news-France-Jean-Baptise-Lemoyne-UK-EU-trade-deal-Boris-Johnson-latest-update

    1. “geographical and historical ties.” Ties? We’ve been at war on and off with the French for the last thousand years or so…

        1. I’m doing my best. There are perfectly good substitutes for French – and EU – produced goods.

          1. Yes, all these ER people want to reduce fuel consumption by banning citizens flying on their holidays, but when you suggest banning lorries that bring in food and manufactures from Europe, then you are totally ignored.

    3. As long as they don’t persist in scooping up our fish and grubbing out our orchards.

      Fair enough to insist that we don’t undercut them on the continent who have high labour and environmental standards. They don’t want hormone beef or chlorine chicken finding their way into their horsemeat burgers because they are cheap.

      The best way round this may be to come up with better standards ourselves, point out to the French that ours are in fact superior to the mere box-ticking exercise from the Brussels napoleons, and suggest that they consider upgrading their standards to ours.

      Someone pointed out on the Farming programme the other day that some of the Vegan objection to cattle rearing and beef production relates to the feed lots in America where they keep them in huge ranches and feed them soya, which is better fed direct to people, In Britain, we put our cattle out to grass (which is not edible by people and grows well here on marginal land), and our traditional methods considerably more environmentally benign.

      True, cows fed on grass still burp and fart. Didn’t Clarkson come up with an ingenious solution to this problem by strapping cattle to the roof of a Porsche 911 or whatever he had in Hammond’s garage at the time, and connecting a tube from the bovine orifices to the air filter to enrich the fuel supply with natural gas? With his Damascene conversion to the cause of climate change, surely it’s something he could lobby for at this election.

    4. If Jean-Baptise is concerned about historical ties the could he say when the war is going to start. That seems to be most of our history fighting the French, German’s, Spanish, Dutch etc.

      1. True, but usually only after they’ve been fighting each other tryibg to take over the whole of Europe, first.

    1. I wonder if either Blair or May are aware of just how deeply they are loathed and why they are so deeply loathed?

      2. The fact that he can’t attend book signings in the UK must trouble him to some degree. I wonder if MacBlair hath murdered sleep?

  59. Hackney North Lib Dem candidate dropped over ‘clearly offensive’ tweets
    No idea as to what happens here. It is to late to remove him from the ballot paper and he will be on it as a Lib-Dem but says he is now standing as an Independent
    It is not very satisfactory. Whether they can put a notice up in the poling station stated the facts I don’t know

    1. Any idea what he posted?
      Chances are a lot of normal people will probably agree with him!

  60. Rumblings about this sharp practice have been around for some time but this is the first time I’ve seen it in print. Didn’t Fergie try to charge a fee for ‘access’ to Prince Andrew? Now everyone is rushing for the door trying to get out before they too are contaminated.

    COFFEE HOUSE – Prince Andrew’s Pitch@Palace was bad news for businesses
    Rich Wilson – 25 November 2019 – 2:33 PM

    A couple of years ago, I was briefly involved with Pitch@Palace – Prince Andrew’s initiative to link up fledgeling businesses with investors. On Friday, the Duke of York quit the project following a wave of criticism surrounding his connection to Jeffrey Epstein. But from what I saw of the scheme, the Prince has more questions to answer than just those arising from their friendship. Pitch@Palace appears to have been a vehicle for Prince Andrew to enrich himself at the cost of the hardworking entrepreneurs he claimed to be helping.

    In 2014, I was invited to a networking reception at Buckingham Palace. The event was part of the Digital Nations initiative, an international network of governments looking to use new technologies. To this day I have no idea why I was invited. I’ve built and sold quite a few technology firms over the past two decades but this was completely out of the blue.

    I enjoyed meeting some very senior foreign dignitaries from countries like Korea and Estonia. They seemed just as bemused as I was to be there. After pitching to the guy from Korea, I was met with a grim silence and an expressionless face. My embarrassment was somewhat tempered when I discovered he didn’t understand a word of English. So far, so weird.

    Afterwards, I was invited to take part in a Pitch@Palace event, the Dragon’s Den-style business initiative that the Prince has just resigned from. I was asked to fill out an online application.

    Now I’ve been in the world of business start-ups for a while and I know there are a few shysters scamming less experienced company founders. One of the obvious red flags is when these people ask for money in return for the chance to pitch to investors. Potential investors will always want to know more about your business so will happily pick up the phone, while most other founders will gladly tell you about people they know. And start-up incubators usually have investor contact lists that they willingly share. There is no reason to pay to pitch to investors; it’s simply predatory on the part of the organisers.

    So I was surprised when reading through the lengthy terms for Pitch@Palace that the project was asking for equity from firms that managed to win funding after the event. Bear in mind that the scheme itself has been funded by big business sponsors like Standard Chartered and KPMG. They clearly didn’t need the cash. Somewhat cleverly, the project wasn’t asking for money upfront, that would be too gauche I guess.

    Buried in the form, the contract explained that Pitch@Palace Global Ltd (the Prince’s private company, not the charity) was taking two per cent of your business for zero cash.

    This is absurd beyond belief. An early-stage technology start-up can easily justify a £500,000 valuation if they have some good people and a bit of tech, so that’s like giving away £10,000 before you’ve even started. And £10,000 for a few investor introductions is scandalous.

    Worse still, if you raise another round of investment in the following three years, the conditions make clear that you’re still tied to the Prince. This section of the contract has now mysteriously disappeared after The Telegraph reported the story on Friday.

    But the question remains – what on earth was a member of the royal family doing using his status to take from early-stage start-ups for essentially nothing? I, for one, am out.

    Rich Wilson is an entrepreneur and has built up companies including an AI-driven hedge fund and an audience research firm specialising in the music industry.

    1. In May 2010, Sarah, Duchess of York, was filmed by a News of the World reporter claiming that her former husband had agreed that if she were to receive £500,000, he would meet the donor and pass on useful top-level business contacts. She was filmed receiving, in cash, $40,000 as a down payment. The Duke’s entourage emphatically denied he knew of the situation. In July 2011, Sarah stated that her multi-million pound debts had been cleared due to the intervention of her former husband, whom she compared to a “knight on a white charger”. WIKIPEDIA.

      Crooked as corkscrews the pair of them!

    2. Evening, Bob.
      How about a regular ‘spot’? Maximum, say, 30 minutes?
      I suggest Mahler 3 1st movement Lucerne Festival Orchestra.

      1. I’m afraid that with many symphonies and concertos that one movement is not enough.
        Beethoven’s 5th Symphony is typical where R3 or CFM will play the 1st movement only, by the end of which I am psyched up for the languid dah dah dah dah dah dah dah-dah of the 2nd movement.

        1. Very true. That’s a reason I hate applause between movements – as in much classical music, the silences can have as much weight as the notes and this, I think, includes the pause between movements. One assumes the composer’s score didn’t include a direction ‘add clapping here.’

          However, we do have shorter pieces to choose from. Something relatively brief but complete. Some Elgar I recently came across is (unfortunately) just 8 minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqMF-Vc6e48

  63. It’s ironic that as we approach 2020 (Vision) “Just as we warned would happen, the tech giants are now moving aggressively to ban all speech that contradicts whatever “official” position is decided to be “the truth” by the corrupt establishment. This week, Facebook announced it would block all content on Facebook that questions the official dogma on vaccines, which falsely insists that vaccines have never harmed anyone (a hilarious lie), that vaccines contain only safe ingredients (a blatant deception) and that vaccines always work on everyone”

    Now I’m not acknowledging for one moment the assertion that vaccines can do harm. But what really concerns me is the imposed censorship, because as you know it won’t stop there. It seems that this is one of the first steps in curtailing free thinking and discussion.

    1. The internet has been a terrible burden to the elites since it enabled the people to not only find out the truth but more importantly that they were not alone in perceiving it. From the point of view of their own survival it has to be shut down!!

      1. It feels like we are about to be walled in like the East Germans. The Police “Service” has already developed Stasi like attributes by policing thought. I wonder how long it will be before we begin to fear the early morning knock on the door?

        1. Not long I would have thought. I already get moments when I become quite frightened by what is happening. A monstrous evil stalks the UK seeking revenge for both real and imagined offences. It does nothing overt but acts behind the scenes and justifies this program to itself by invoking the Iago Defence: I did nothing; the evil comes from within their own natures!

          2. I veer between fury and despondency.
            A monstrous evil stalks the world, not just the UK. I fear that things are going to get worse before they get better.

        2. “begin to fear”??
          If many NoTTLer’s posted their thoughts on twitter rather than here B&Q’s shares would soar!!

        3. S,
          Judging by the voting pattern over the last four decades especially
          it is what a great many of the electorate wants is it not ?

      2. Evening AS,
        In regards to it being shut down
        & viewing the state of these Isles due to alternating party governance & support do
        you think the electorate would have any qualms regarding the internet ? many seem to be taking to
        PCism / Appeasementation via the lab/lib/con parties with little problem.

    2. Pandremix? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-35472926

      Of course, the only way to test for long term effects of vaccination programmes would be to have a control group of unvaccinated children and to monitor them throughout their lives. And those children would have to be selected from different populations; I was astonished to learn some years ago that there is a medication which is safe for Europeans but not for Latin American people. Or vice versa.

      1. There are lots of foods/medicines/drinks that are bad news for different populations/races/ethnicities.

        I strongly suspect that many of the anaphylactic responses that one sees nowadays are down to peoples having children outside the herd.

      2. When the Andrew Wakefield care was at its height a large cohort of Children weren’t vaccinated. I know there are many types of autism, but if Dr Wakefield’s theory was right the epidemiology stats ought to show a reduction in the rates of autism during the period of low uptake of vaccination. This of course assumes that someone in the DoH is collating the information….

        1. They will not be. Wakefield has been disgraced. End of story. (Even if he is right. Even if the problem is MMR multi-jab.)

  66. Walking in Bournville yesterday, I harangued a Conservative Party leafletter who approached me and asked whether I’d be voting Tory. I’d like to, I said, if you plonkers would scrap the BBC Licence Fee (blank look from leafletter and “that’s your top priority?”) and stopped wrapping yourself in political correctness (smiling, but blank look). I say, oh BTW, “how many times did Cameron tell us there’d be no benefits for those who couldn’t speak English? The plonker, grrrrrrrrrrrh” …. nowt happened, did it!” I also added, you’ll never get in here, the area’s full of snowflakes, most of them living on the public sector teat …

    I continue walking, I look at the leaflet …. and the photograph? …. it showed me that I’d been talking to The Conservative Party Candidate (Birmingham Selly Oak).

    1. I’m afraid I’ve just disgraced myself.
      A LimpDumb leaflet dropped through the door and I caught up with the poster, a lovely and very inoffensive gentleman from the village and gave him a right ear bashing.
      I now feel rather guilty!

      2. In the last 10 minutes we have just done the same in response to a knock at the door. A wishy washy gentleman looked very downcast as he trudged towards the gate.

        We have a dilemma. This is usually true blue country. However, it is also strongly Remain and I can see the possibility that the lib dems might just squeeze in home and dry, there are loads of their placards all over the place – it looks like an offensive. Do I vote tory to keep the lib dems (and Remain out) to keep a liberal democrat from gaining a possible seat in Parliament to keep their numbers down; do I vote lib dem to hopefully hope that the awful Withdrawal Treaty will be voted against by them….. I somehow cannot bring myself to do this. Our only candidates are Con, Lab and Lib. I think it may well be a duvet day.

        1. She’s not that bad looking, but sadly her attitude would have totally the opposite effect to an aphrodisiac.

          Interesting.
          Looking up “Opposite of Aphrodisiac” I came across this little gem:-

          Adjective▲
          Opposite of aroused in a primal sense
          unaroused unstimulated aloof apathetic blasé disinterested dispassionate indifferent passionless uncurious unemotional unfeeling uninterested uninvolved unresponsive

          “She lost me when she began talking about politics, and I subsequently became unaroused.”

          https://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/the-opposite-of/aphrodisiac.html

  67. More than 600,000 passengers a day are set to face Christmas travel misery with a series of strikes to disrupt services throughout the month.

    Train staff on South Western Railway trains will strike for 27 in December in a row over guards on trains after peace talks collapsed on Wednesday night.

    Much of the Media misreports this. These trains will continue to have a second person onboard

    What is happening is the drive will become in charge of the train. Currently it is technically the guard. Going forward the Driver would be responsible for closing the door and ensuring it is safe to start the train

    The Guards would then become train managers responsible for checking tickets and for train announcements and customer service and passengers safety this would include assisting passengers on and off the train if they needed assistance

    In the future as well they are looking to having the Train managers trained in basic first aid and for trains to carry an AED

      1. The train manager can then assist. This though would only ever happen in an emergency and ned the authorization of the signalman to run the train against the signals and then has to proceed at no more than 5mph

  69. Nov 25, 2019, 01:06am: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/11/25/why-everything-they-say-about-climate-change-is-wrong/#7cfd11312d6a
    Why Everything They Say About Climate Change Is Wrong
    Michael Shellenberger – I write about energy and the environment.

    Climate scientists are speaking out against grossly exaggerated claims about global warming.

    Environmental journalists and advocates have in recent weeks made a number of apocalyptic predictions about the impact of climate change. Bill McKibben suggested climate-driven fires in Australia had made koalas “functionally extinct.” Extinction Rebellion said “Billions will die” and “Life on Earth is dying.” Vice claimed the “collapse of civilization may have already begun.”

    Few have underscored the threat more than student climate activist Greta Thunberg and Green New Deal sponsor Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The latter said, “The world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change.” Says Thunberg in her new book, “Around 2030 we will be in a position to set off an irreversible chain reaction beyond human control that will lead to the end of our civilization as we know it.”

    Sometimes, scientists themselves make apocalyptic claims. “It’s difficult to see how we could accommodate a billion people or even half of that,” if Earth warms four degrees, said one earlier this year. “The potential for multi-breadbasket failure is increasing,” said another. If sea levels rise as much as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts, another scientist said, “It will be an unmanageable problem.”

    Apocalyptic statements like these have real-world impacts. In September, a group of British psychologists said children are increasingly suffering from anxiety from the frightening discourse around climate change. In October, an activist with Extinction Rebellion (”XR”), and a videographer, were kicked and beaten in a London Tube station by angry commuters. And last week, an XR co-founder said a genocide like the Holocaust was “happening again, on a far greater scale, and in plain sight” from climate change.

    Climate change is an issue I care passionately about and have dedicated a significant portion of my life to addressing. I have been politically active on the issue for over 20 years and have researched and written about it for 17 years. Over the last four years, my organization, Environmental Progress, has worked with some of the world’s leading climate scientists to prevent carbon emissions from rising. So far, we’ve helped prevent emissions increasing the equivalent of adding 24 million cars to the road.

    I also care about getting the facts and science right and have in recent months corrected inaccurate and apocalyptic news media coverage of fires in the Amazon and fires in California, both of which have been improperly presented as resulting primarily from climate change.

    Journalists and activists alike have an obligation to describe environmental problems honestly and accurately, even if they fear doing so will reduce their news value or salience with the public. There is good evidence that the catastrophist framing of climate change is self-defeating because it alienates and polarizes many people. And exaggerating climate change risks distracting us from other important issues including ones we might have more near-term control over.

    I feel the need to say this up-front because I want the issues I’m about to raise to be taken seriously and not dismissed by those who label as “climate deniers” or “climate delayers” anyone who pushes back against exaggeration.

    With that out of the way, let’s look whether the science supports what’s being said.

    First, no credible scientific body has ever said climate change threatens the collapse of civilization much less the extinction of the human species. “‘Our children are going to die in the next 10 to 20 years.’ What’s the scientific basis for these claims?” BBC’s Andrew Neil asked a visibly uncomfortable XR spokesperson last month.

    “These claims have been disputed, admittedly,” she said. “There are some scientists who are agreeing and some who are saying it’s not true. But the overall issue is that these deaths are going to happen.”

    “But most scientists don’t agree with this,” said Neil. “I looked through IPCC reports and see no reference to billions of people going to die, or children in 20 years. How would they die?”

    “Mass migration around the world already taking place due to prolonged drought in countries, particularly in South Asia. There are wildfires in Indonesia, the Amazon rainforest, Siberia, the Arctic,” she said.

    But in saying so, the XR spokesperson had grossly misrepresented the science. “There is robust evidence of disasters displacing people worldwide,” notes IPCC, “but limited evidence that climate change or sea-level rise is the direct cause”

    What about “mass migration”? “The majority of resultant population movements tend to occur within the borders of affected countries,” says IPCC.

    It’s not like climate doesn’t matter. It’s that climate change is outweighed by other factors. Earlier this year, researchers found that climate “has affected organized armed conflict within countries. However, other drivers, such as low socioeconomic development and low capabilities of the state, are judged to be substantially more influential.”

    Last January, after climate scientists criticized Rep. Ocasio-Cortez for saying the world would end in 12 years, her spokesperson said “We can quibble about the phraseology, whether it’s existential or cataclysmic.” He added, “We’re seeing lots of [climate change-related] problems that are already impacting lives.”

    That last part may be true, but it’s also true that economic development has made us less vulnerable, which is why there was a 99.7% decline in the death toll from natural disasters since its peak in 1931.

    In 1931, 3.7 million people died from natural disasters. In 2018, just 11,000 did. And that decline occurred over a period when the global population quadrupled.

    What about sea level rise? IPCC estimates sea level could rise two feet (0.6 meters) by 2100. Does that sound apocalyptic or even “unmanageable”?

    Consider that one-third of the Netherlands is below sea level, and some areas are seven meters below sea level. You might object that Netherlands is rich while Bangladesh is poor. But the Netherlands adapted to living below sea level 400 years ago. Technology has improved a bit since then.

    What about claims of crop failure, famine, and mass death? That’s science fiction, not science. Humans today produce enough food for 10 billion people, or 25% more than we need, and scientific bodies predict increases in that share, not declines.

    The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) forecasts crop yields increasing 30% by 2050. And the poorest parts of the world, like sub-Saharan Africa, are expected to see increases of 80 to 90%.

    Nobody is suggesting climate change won’t negatively impact crop yields. It could. But such declines should be put in perspective. Wheat yields increased 100 to 300% around the world since the 1960s, while a study of 30 models found that yields would decline by 6% for every one degree Celsius increase in temperature.

    Rates of future yield growth depend far more on whether poor nations get access to tractors, irrigation, and fertilizer than on climate change, says FAO.

    All of this helps explain why IPCC anticipates climate change will have a modest impact on economic growth. By 2100, IPCC projects the global economy will be 300 to 500% larger than it is today. Both IPCC and the Nobel-winning Yale economist, William Nordhaus, predict that warming of 2.5°C and 4°C would reduce gross domestic product (GDP) by 2% and 5% over that same period.

    Does this mean we shouldn’t worry about climate change? Not at all.

    One of the reasons I work on climate change is because I worry about the impact it could have on endangered species. Climate change may threaten one million species globally and half of all mammals, reptiles, and amphibians in diverse places like the Albertine Rift in central Africa, home to the endangered mountain gorilla.

    But it’s not the case that “we’re putting our own survival in danger” through extinctions, as Elizabeth Kolbert claimed in her book, Sixth Extinction. As tragic as animal extinctions are, they do not threaten human civilization. If we want to save endangered species, we need to do so because we care about wildlife for spiritual, ethical, or aesthetic reasons, not survival ones.

    And exaggerating the risk, and suggesting climate change is more important than things like habitat destruction, are counterproductive.

    For example, Australia’s fires are not driving koalas extinct, as Bill McKibben suggested. The main scientific body that tracks the species, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, or IUCN, labels the koala “vulnerable,” which is one level less threatened than “endangered,” two levels less than “critically endangered,” and three less than “extinct” in the wild.

    Should we worry about koalas? Absolutely! They are amazing animals and their numbers have declined to around 300,000. But they face far bigger threats such as the destruction of habitat, disease, bushfires, and invasive species.

    Think of it this way. The climate could change dramatically — and we could still save koalas. Conversely, the climate could change only modestly — and koalas could still go extinct.

    The monomaniacal focus on climate distracts our attention from other threats to koalas and opportunities for protecting them, like protecting and expanding their habitat.

    As for fire, one of Australia’s leading scientists on the issue says, “Bushfire losses can be explained by the increasing exposure of dwellings to fire-prone bushlands. No other influences need be invoked. So even if climate change had played some small role in modulating recent bushfires, and we cannot rule this out, any such effects on risk to property are clearly swamped by the changes in exposure.”

    Nor are the fires solely due to drought, which is common in Australia, and exceptional this year. “Climate change is playing its role here,” said Richard Thornton of the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre in Australia, “but it’s not the cause of these fires.”

    The same is true for fires in the United States. In 2017, scientists modeled 37 different regions and found “humans may not only influence fire regimes but their presence can actually override, or swamp out, the effects of climate.” Of the 10 variables that influence fire, “none were as significant… as the anthropogenic variables,” such as building homes near, and managing fires and wood fuel growth within, forests.

    Climate scientists are starting to push back against exaggerations by activists, journalists, and other scientists.

    “While many species are threatened with extinction,” said Stanford’s Ken Caldeira, “climate change does not threaten human extinction… I would not like to see us motivating people to do the right thing by making them believe something that is false.”

    I asked the Australian climate scientist Tom Wigley what he thought of the claim that climate change threatens civilization. “It really does bother me because it’s wrong,” he said. “All these young people have been misinformed. And partly it’s Greta Thunberg’s fault. Not deliberately. But she’s wrong.”

    But don’t scientists and activists need to exaggerate in order to get the public’s attention?

    “I’m reminded of what [late Stanford University climate scientist] Steve Schneider used to say,” Wigley replied. “He used to say that as a scientist, we shouldn’t really be concerned about the way we slant things in communicating with people out on the street who might need a little push in a certain direction to realize that this is a serious problem. Steve didn’t have any qualms about speaking in that biased way. I don’t quite agree with that.”

    Wigley started working on climate science full-time in 1975 and created one of the first climate models (MAGICC) in 1987. It remains one of the main climate models in use today.

    “When I talk to the general public,” he said, “I point out some of the things that might make projections of warming less and the things that might make them more. I always try to present both sides.”

    Part of what bothers me about the apocalyptic rhetoric by climate activists is that it is often accompanied by demands that poor nations be denied the cheap sources of energy they need to develop.

    “If you want to minimize carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in 2070 you might want to accelerate the burning of coal in India today,” MIT climate scientist Kerry Emanuel said.

    “It doesn’t sound like it makes sense. Coal is terrible for carbon. But it’s by burning a lot of coal that they make themselves wealthier, and by making themselves wealthier they have fewer children, and you don’t have as many people burning carbon, you might be better off in 2070.”

    Emanuel and Wigley say the extreme rhetoric is making political agreement on climate change harder.

    “You’ve got to come up with some kind of middle ground where you do reasonable things to mitigate the risk and try at the same time to lift people out of poverty and make them more resilient,” said Emanuel. “We shouldn’t be forced to choose between lifting people out of poverty and doing something for the climate.”

    Happily, there is a plenty of middle ground between climate apocalypse and climate denial.

    Michael Shellenberger is a Time Magazine “Hero of the Environment” and Green Book Award Winner. He is also a frequent contributor to The New York Times, Washington Post…

    1. “…the collapse of civilization may have already begun.”

      It has begun but for other reasons…

    2. With regards to Greta’s prediction, there’s also a prophecy that the Second Coming will happen in 2030.

      3. Aren’t Jehovah Witness’s sweet. You agree with their argument that the end of the world is nigh and that God has granted their wishes of heaven on Earth and they start crying accuse you of being a heretic.

        1. The good news is, all my garden plants love the teeny weeny extra dash of C02 in the atmosphere. It’s almost as if a Supreme Being was making it happen to ensure all his chil’en can be fed……

    4. Climate change: Greenhouse gas concentrations again break records (BBC News).

      “Concentrations of CO2 reached 407.8 parts per million (ppm), up from 405.5ppm a year previously.
      This increase was above the average for the last 10 years and is 147% of the “pre-industrial” level in 1750”.

      How did we measure CO2 in 1750?

      2. I expect there are ways of measuring it from ice cores or something like that, to get some idea of fluctuations during times past.

    5. Well, Jolly good, Michael. But. But you say that,”In October, an activist with Extinction Rebellion (”XR”), and a videographer, were kicked and beaten in a London Tube station by angry commuters.” Indeed. But you have left out the context. These two were deliberately obstructing the Tube train, and the desire of real workers to go to their real homes. the commuters would’ve been justified in doing much worse. Preventing someone from going home is about as bad as you can get?

    6. Of course, Australia is full of Eucalyptus and other gum trees. These are actually dependant on fire for seed germination , a technique they have developed over millions of years. Many of the trees and shrubs over there also have developed bark layers that are designed to burn and be discarded.

  73. …… “Waitrose is set to only sell British lamb as it phases out meat from New Zealand in order to “support UK agriculture.”
    The retailer used to supplement its lamb range with New Zealand products in the winter months, but is to stop doing so by 2021.”

    Nothing to do with NZ lamb all being halal slaughtered.

    1. I make no judgement on the method of killing here.

      But is it really a good idea to shaft a trading partner when we hope to leave the EU to trade freely with the rest of the world?

      1. NZ was shafted when we joined the EC and chose to find a customer in the Middle East instead. Their lamb is nothing like as good as ours and I wouldn’t choose to buy it – especially as it is all halal.

        1. We buy frozen NZ lamb legs. Cheaper and generally better than anything we can get in France, unless we pay “caviar” prices.

          3. It doesn’t appear on supermarket shelves, and certainly not on market stalls or boucheries.

            I wonder whether it goes into the catering trade.
            We had some superb lamb in a restaurant locally and asked where we could get the same.

            Sorry monsieur, trade only…

          4. I look at the cuts of meat on some cookery shows and think I’ve never seen anything looking that good even in a good butcher let alone a supermarket

    2. The Chinese can pay with hard currency, and now that it is not quite so radioactive, the Waitrose elite will have to make do with Welsh lamb.

    1. P-PWhat is Cantor and is there money to be had there for Blair.? Blair certainly looks happy.

      1. He certainly does. And why does Blair do all this stuff with his hands outstretched in nearly every single photo that one sees him pontificating… it makes him look as though he is grasping. Funny, that.

    1. The daft bat will know what austerity really is within a couple of years of Corbyn/McDonnell economics. Then, will she put her hand up and declare, “Mea culpa,” and beg forgiveness for being a complete misguided prat? It will of course be too late and years down the line the Country will be paying for her and the other Labour goons’ folly.

      1. Well Blair made an absolute packet. (That’s not to say that Heath, Major and Wilson didn’t). And the Kinnocks are a lesson in how to sell your soul. AND he didn’t even make PM – but then the EU is comprised of failures.

        1. It’s clearly much easier to influence an unprincipled failure than a successful person who retains most if not all of their principles.

    2. BoB,

      Someone like her simply wouldn’t understand what you were talking about. Their grasp of concepts is very superficial indeed. Any delving beyond soundbites is beyond them.

      1. Why is he sitting there .. smug as hell, wearing tartan trews and using a name like George when he is really Ugooboogo or Simian or or some one similar .. people like that pinch our culture , our clothes and our sophistication .. what an ungrateful import he is !

    3. Not so long ago Roger Scruton mischievously suggested that the Empire countries owe Britain for what it spent on them.

    5. Where’s HIS apology,after all he’s equally benefitted from the post colonial society or is it just evil whitey that;s supposed to cough up??
      Or he could just fluck off to Africa and put it all right for us
      No??
      Thought not

  80. Apparently the reason that Virginia Giuffre (Roberts) was upset and made a complaint about Prince Andrew may not have been what we thought. It seems that Ms Roberts had been given the impression that she would have received official recognition. “By Appointment to His Royal Highness The Duke of York, Supplier of Personal Services”. She was most displeased to discover that this would not happen.

    1. That collapsed road looks interesting , is it built on top of an old Roman road.. just examine the right hand side of the photo.

      Has anyone heard from Bill Thomas .. where is he ?

  83. “They Dindu Nuffink !!”
    (apart from the assaults and the machetes)

    “The Blue Story panic shows that black culture is still marginalised”

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/25/blue-story-black-british-culture-marginalised

    Not only film but Drill Music is being marginalised and targeted
    The horror,showing distaste for music that glorifies gang culture, drug dealing,drive by murders and slappin’ bitches and hoes around
    Watching the Met program I saw one “drill artist” arrested and jailed for drug dealing,kidnapping,torture, and trying to arrange the murder of a witness
    How dare I be so judgemental…………………….

  85. ABBC-backed gang film has been banned from Vue cinemas following a mass brawl involving youths armed with knives and machetes outside a screening in Birmingham.

    Blue Story, a film about a postcode war in south London, will not be shown in any of the chain’s UK venues after a riot at the Star City multiplex in Nechells, Birmingham, on Saturday.

    Families queuing to watch the opening night of Frozen 2 at the cinema were horrified when a fight between three girls escalated into major disorder at 5.30pm.

    Choleigh McGuire, who was waiting to watch Frozen 2 with her 11-year-old sister at the screening in Birmingham, said it was “one of the scariest experiences of my life”.

    “It was so scary … we had a Taser pointed at us my little sister didn’t know what to do she just froze,” she wrote, in a Twitter post.

    “There was a fight in the cinema … [a] group of girls on one girl and it all escalated – the group ran into the cinema rooms to hide and a lot of police turned up.”

    West Midlands Police sent dozens of officers to the cinema following a report of a gang of youths with machetes.
    The force said they were “met with a very hostile response” and had to draw their Tasers to restore order.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/11/24/bbc-backed-gang-film-banned-cinemas-mass-brawl-outside-screening/?li_source=LI&li_medium=li-recommendation-widget

    Dear Nottlers ,

    It is that sort of life time scary experience that those young children experienced which MAY have a life time bad memory for many. of them .
    I experienced a similar very nasty experience when i was a small child .. whilst living in Africa, one of many .. the noise , the speed , the anger and the sound of angry pangah waving people , with rattly cans and shouting screeching people is not a pleasant experience, no police with tasers in those days either!

  90. This immigration thing.It just struck me.

    When they come here, they want to keep their own culture, but they expect us to discard ours.
    And we think they are right ???

    2. It depends on the culture – European cultures tend to be quite compatible with a Judo-Christian culture like ours.

  94. I agree:

    digg
    November 25, 2019 at 1:54 pm

    Fascinating watching the BBC trying desperately to come out of the Blue Story debacle the right way up.

    Gradually the push is towards branding the Cinema chains as “Racist” for banning the screenings,

    For God’s sake BBC, people showed up at the screening with Machetes and attacked the Police.

    YOU CANNOT TURN THIS INTO A WOKE STORY ABOUT INTOLERANT WHITE FOLKS. IT’S BBC MONEY BEHIND THIS SO TAKE IT ON THE CHIN AND ADMIT YOU FOULED UP YOU CREEPS!

    Vote 40 likes

    And a picture of the local audience:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/40019d19aa6ae6d928d391fee535cb9ba55ce1a8273b9b63db278acb28099a0d.jpg

    1. It is a sad observation to make, but if these 12 people no longer existed, or they were removed to another country, then the average IQ of citizens in the United Kingdom would rise slightly, our cities would be safer and our culture would be richer.

      They are an unwanted drain on our society.

      1. I notice that Labour and Lefties are moaning about an impending exponential increase in child poverty …. and I bet most of it is down to large immigrant families and “families” where only the male seeds were provided, rather than a male bread-winner who stayed around to face up to his responsibilities.

  98. ” Sainsbury’s doubles cost of plastic bags to 20p leaving shoppers furious”
    I thought this would happen sooner or later.
    Having decimated their customer base by incompetent stocking and messing around with prices,
    they have found an additional inducement to turn customers away.
    Good news for M&S.

    1. “Would you like a bag?”
      You could accept the generous offer of a bag, query the cost, then cancel the bag. But you should only do that when there is a queue.

    1. The link goes to a paywall block – easy to guess what he said.
      The danger from Corbyn is because antii-semitism ( which relatively is pretty low here compared to other European countries )
      can flare up suddenly like a burning flame, and if the Leader of the country has defective eyesight and by ignoring, approves it,
      something terrible could easily happen. And don’t say it couldn’t happen here.

  100. Apparently 2 million people have registered to vote since the election was called according to the Electoral Commission. Far more than in 2017.

    Sounds a huge number.

    I wonder if Labour activists have created hundreds of thousands of non existent voters across the country, all with a postal vote ?

    There seems nothing to stop them.

    1. “I wonder if Labour activists have created hundreds of thousands of non existent voters across the country, all with a postal vote” ?

      That’s what Labour activists do, PP!

    3. And will Boris Johnson ever do anything to stop postal voting fraud or to rearrange constituency orders faorly or to deliver a proper Brexit rather than a May WA rehash?

      Let is face it – Boris is all mouth and trousers with the fly zip undone.

      1. Evening Richard

        You really don’t like Boris , do you ..
        I expect you have met blustery caddish type characters like him before ..

        What in particular don’t you like about him , and , what alternatives are there left?

        2. He has misled and betrayed us all over Brexit; he has misled and betrayed every woman with whom he has had any sexual dealings; he refuses to give any substance to anything he says; he is untrustworthy and evasive; and the tragedy is – as you say – what alternatives are there?

          Bleed poor country, bleed.

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