486 thoughts on “Tuesday 3 December: Rehabilitation of ex-terrorists is a noble aim but security is paramount”

  1. The Brexit Party has betrayed us. 3rd December 2019

    The Brexit Party’s move is not a tactical retreat. It is appeasement and betrayal. It more or less guarantees – as current polling suggests – a majority for the Conservatives, a Remainer party.

    Morning everyone. I don’t believe Nigel (it was his choice) has consciously betrayed us but I do think he has made the wrong decision. The conclusion in this article that it will create a Conservative Government that will pass BRINO should it gain a working majority seems correct. I suspect that it will also destroy the Brexit Party and all coherent political opposition to the EU for a generation which effectively means forever.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/12/03/the-brexit-party-has-betrayed-us/

    1. Wrong decision by Nigel and deeply disappointing, not to mention confusing, when we had such high hopes of TBP. I had hoped TBP would gain enough support to be able to hold the Cons’ feet to the fire over Brexit.
      Good morning all BTW.

  5. What is this if not politicisation? It’s the Merritts’ lefty view that anyone with a different opinion must be bad and evil.

    ‘Jack would be livid his death has been used to further an agenda of hate’

    The father of Jack Merritt, who died on Friday at London Bridge, writes that the attack has been used to reinforce the worldview his son fought against

    Dave Merritt
    Mon 2 Dec 2019 16.30 GMT last modified on Mon 2 Dec 2019 23.05 GMT
    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/b7b78aa6c5e521b4dcb5da67190ec7eaf7d1de53/95_228_958_575/master/958.jpg?width=1140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=5cd6e4863fe19b83d915b8c240bfe91a
    Jack was proud. Jack was absorbingly intelligent. Jack was fiercely loyal. Jack loved music, art, eating good food with his family, and having more than one pint with his mates. Oh, and in case you haven’t realised by now … he was also devilishly handsome.

    But Jack was also angry, frustrated, selfless, stubborn. He was angry because he saw our society failing those most in need. He was frustrated because the political elite have forgotten why it is important to be fair. He was selfless in his dedication to make things right in every second of his life. Jack devoted his energy to the purpose of Learning Together: a pioneering programme to bring students from university and prisons together to share their unique perspectives on justice. Unlike many of us, Jack did not just go to work. He lived and breathed fire in his pursuit of a better world for all humanity, particularly those most in need.

    If Jack could comment on his death – and the tragic incident on Friday 29 November – he would be livid. We would see him ticking it over in his mind before a word was uttered between us. Jack would understand the political timing with visceral clarity.

    He would be seething at his death, and his life, being used to perpetuate an agenda of hate that he gave his everything fighting against. We should never forget that. What Jack would want from this is for all of us to walk through the door he has booted down, in his black Doc Martens.

    That door opens up a world where we do not lock up and throw away the key. Where we do not give indeterminate sentences, or convict people on joint enterprise. Where we do not slash prison budgets, and where we focus on rehabilitation not revenge. Where we do not consistently undermine our public services, the lifeline of our nation. Jack believed in the inherent goodness of humanity, and felt a deep social responsibility to protect that. Through us all, Jack marches on.

    Borrow his intelligence, share his drive, feel his passion, burn with his anger, and extinguish hatred with his kindness. Never give up his fight.

    To Jack Merritt. Now, and forever.
    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/dec/02/jack-merritt-london-bridge-attack-dave-merritt

    1. Jack Merritt may well have had sterling qualities and a concern for other human beings can never be a fault. He is nevertheless a victim of his beliefs which were unworldly to say the least. He supped with tigers and became the dessert!

      1. Morning Minty

        The lad was a victim of his lefty parents .. Believing in the impossible . clearly huge gaps in his education , and protected by some strange beliefs . Greta Thunberg is a classic example .. The fairy tale world of make believe. The big bad hungry wolf called life catches everyone out , eventually .

    2. This doesn’t mean he was right, Mr Merritt, as he couldn’t see the flaws in his belief. Obviously a pleasant young man but not used the way things are in the real world.

        1. So you’d rather have them like those nodding donkeys who sit there soaking up everything they’re told without question?

          8. A young person holding any views other than those of a leftie, climate bothering nature, would not be called ‘idealistic’.
            Words like N@zi, Fascist and KKK would be sprayed around.

    4. What about the fairness to those actually murdered, and to those who might be murdered if the perp goes free? Those living in fear of their lives? All because of the WILLFUL ACTS carried out by murderers snd felons. Where’s the fairness in that?
      Arsehole.

    5. I am probably more political than the average mother, but I could not use my son’s untimely and tragic death to make political points when his body was barely cold.
      The Merritt family seems to be a trifle odd.

    6. Sounds as though Jack will have felt dying was well worth while (though I couldn’t be bothered to read it all).

  7. THE GUNFIGHTER

    A young cowboy sitting in a saloon one Saturday night recognized an elderly man standing at the bar who, in his day, had been the fastest gun in the West.

    The cowboy took a place next to the old-timer, bought him a drink and told him of his great ambition to be a great shot…

    ‘Could you give me some tips?’ he asked.

    The old man said, ‘Well, for one thing, you’re wearing your gun too high – tie the holster a little lower down on your leg.’

    ‘Will that make me a better gunfighter?’

    ‘Sure will ‘

    The young man did as he was told, stood up, whipped out his .45 and shot the bow tie off the piano player.

    ‘That’s terrific!’ said the cowboy. ‘Got any more tips?’

    ‘Yep,’ said the old man. ‘Cut a notch out of your holster where the hammer hits it – that’ll give you a smoother draw’

    ‘Will that make me a better gunfighter?’ asked the young man.

    ‘You bet it will,’ said the old-timer.

    The young man took out his knife, cut the notch, stood up, drew his gun in a blur, and then shot a cufflink off the piano player.

    ‘Wow!’ exclaimed the cowboy ‘I’m learnin’ somethin’ here. Got any more tips?’

    The old man pointed to a large can in a corner of the saloon. ‘See that axle grease over there? coat your gun with it.’ (Of course, every saloon had its can of axle grease – why wouldn’t it?)

    The young man smeared some of the grease on the barrel of his gun.

    ‘No,’ said the old-timer, ‘I mean smear it all over the gun, handle and all.’

    ‘Will that make me a better gunfighter?’ asked the young man.

    ‘No,’ said the old-timer, ‘but when Wyatt Earp gets done playing the piano, he’s gonna shove that gun up your ass, and it won’t hurt quite as much.

  8. The weather forecast for tonight has been described an ‘Motown Weather’

    So we can expect 3 degrees………maybe 4 tops.

  9. Shirelle Jacobs gives it a blast.

    I was always a ‘middle-grounder’, rather than a ‘denier’ – until I discovered the extent of the dishonesty

    The climate change “emergency” is fake news. Many will roll their eyes in exasperation at the conspiratorial bombastry of yet another “denier”. But for years I have been a plastic recycling, polar bear cooing middle-grounder. In fact, Aristotle would probably turn in his grave at the logical fallaciousness of my long-held presumption that the truth must lie somewhere between those two mutually loathing opposites – Scepticism and Armageddon.

    But as the doom-mongering acquires the rubber-stamped smell of instutionalised illness, it is impossible to ignore that the “woke” are the new “slept” – too deep in their sugar coma of confected hysteria to realise they are being duped by disinformation.

    Before I explain why the climate “emergency” is the most electrifyingly effective propaganda exercise of the 21st century, two clarifications. I have no fight to pick with glaring evidential realities: surface records clearly show the planet is getting warmer. Nor do I have a culture war-bloodied axe to grind with the fundamental laws of physics: carbon dioxide indisputably contributes to the greenhouse effect. But I do take issue with how the mainstream debate has become an insult to both the public’s intelligence and basic science.

    This was clearer than ever yesterday, as bureaucratic catastrophists kicked up dystopian dust-clouds on their way into the UN Madrid climate change summit. As Greta Thunberg arrived by yacht (after her British skipper likely clocked up 3 tonnes of carbon emissions flying to the US to pick her up), UN Secretary General António Guterres rumbled that, over the horizon, he could see “the point of no return”. Delegates waved the UN’s latest Emissions Gap Report as if it were both a millenarian death oracle and a methodologically indisputable text; in it, the recommendation to cut emissions by at least 7.6 per cent per year for the next decade.

    One can’t help but feel that we have heard such curiously precise warnings before. Last year the UN warned that we had just 12 years to save the planet. Scientists have since revised this to approximately 18 months. Or perhaps it is already too late. The experts don’t seem quite sure.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/eb0e8976bfaad9abcdddab27c75ef4eba31a390cbdab56003646dd03593c659b.jpg

    Indeed, the distinction between present and future seems to be fading to discardable subtlety. Take the study which has gone viral in recent days for claiming that parts of the world have either already reached – or are inching towards –“tipping point”, whereby the planet becomes caught in destructive feedback loops. Are we already doomed, or nearly doomed, or nearly already doomed? More is the mystery.

    Claims such as these are projections, but they are routinely presented to the public as unquestionable facts. This effectively reduces them to fake news. Even more so, given that the accuracy of the climate modelling upon which these figures and scenarios rely is contested, and the climate does not change in a straight line.

    To take one example, the UN’s international climate change body, the IPCC, said in 2007 that temperatures had risen by 0.2C per decade between 1990-2005 and used that figure for its 20-year projection. Inconveniently, warming turned out to have been just 0.05C per decade over the 15 years to 2012.

    The IPCC acknowledges the uncertainty of the computations it champions; hence the disclaimer squirreled away on its website stating that it does not guarantee the accuracy of the information it contains. A caveat lost in translation at the resplendently funereal press conferences.

    This post-truth scam is having a chilling effect on science. Experts are locked in a race to the bottom to make detailed and disastrous premonitions. And despite the fact that disciplined debate is the motor of scientific discovery, eco-extremists are shutting down discussions that dissent from the Apocalypse narrative. CO2 emissions may not be the only reason for warming. So sidelining studies that have, for example, found the natural climate system can suddenly shift, and ridiculing researchers who explore other possible variables – from solar changes to volcanoes – could be driving us further from the truth.

    Laymen like me sense that something is amiss, because we grew up assuming science is more about possibility than limitations. But so it goes that, in this messed-up world, the optimists have become sceptics; and those unradicalised by global warming delirium, the extremists.

  10. Good morning thinkers , chilly morning here.

    Perhaps I can be radical putting this idea forward re muslim terrorists.

    Deradicalise these people by making them wear a crucifix ( Britain is still a Christian country)
    Teach them the Lord’s Prayer. Bombard them with Choral music, liturgies , Christian chants 24/7, twice a day .
    No more Iman nonsense , regular visits instead from either Roman catholic or Protestant priests and maybe a Rabbi
    Shave off their beards .
    Deny them halal food or any special diet
    No mobile phones or any such luxuries ..

    1. Morning Belle. This would infringe their yuman rites and it’s also Ismamophobic. lol!

          1. Good morning GG

            Are you plagued with the sounds of calls to prayer from Mosques .. are you allowed to drink alcohol , wear shorts, females have uncovered shoulders , embrace , be watchful and cautious ?

          2. Good morning to you Belle
            No call to prayers where we are but it’s not unusual to see a taxi drive pulled up at the side of the road with his prayer mat and bum in the air. Yes we drink alcohol and it’s served in most restaurants. We both wear shorts and women do go with uncovered shoulders and we do hold hands in public. It is quite a westernised way of life. Plenty of women in abayas and a few in face veils or burkas. The majority of the workforce are expats and as long as you respect their laws and customs you don’t have much to worry about.

          3. “As long as you respect their laws and customs you don’t have much to worry about” – if only it were the same in the UK!

          5. So, yes … I know all about respecting their laws .. I have lived in Muslim countries as well.

            How about them respecting our laws here in Britain though , and make THEM feel worried if they don’t obey them .

            All we are seeing in our local newspapers are Abduls and Mohs doing the robbery thing , with stabbings and assaults a regular occurence!

          6. Thing is, Belle, in the U.K. the authorities seem unwilling to make Them respect our laws, they’d rather come up with excuses for them while the general public suffers from the random attacks the muzzies are so fond of.

          7. I don’t think those types would be tolerated in Dubai and they certainly wouldn’t try it on here. Most taxi drivers are Pakistani if they lose their job they have to leave the country like everyone else.

          8. Some of the larger supermarkets have a pork section for ‘non-Muslims’ as they put it.

    2. ‘Morning, Mags, and when that hasn’t worked give them a choice of repatriation to their home country or life (meaning whole life) imprisonment.

      1. When it hasn’t worked, I’d say chop chop, wouldn’t you ?

        After all Sharia punishment could be more severe, if you get my drift .. so why don’t the heavies from the Mosques sharpen their swords, gather the stones and do what they would do in the land of their grandparents?

    3. In a nutshell.
      Let’s start by protecting the innocent and victims and put the perpetrators at the bottom of the list.

      1. That’s a novel idea…but it won’t catch on I’m afraid, because the likes of the BBC, Grauniad and others will shout it down.

        ‘Morning, Grumps.

      1. Demolish them.
        Equip a rabid jihadi with a suicide vest. Send him in, lock the doors and activate the explosives.
        Two jobs in one. Who said men can’t multi-task?

    6. I think the same could be useful for all the do-gooders who support them.

      I think Ferdinand & Isabella had the right idea in 1492 – convert or leave.

  11. Been trying to put what happened with the terrorist attack and the fathers comments into some perspective, If I spent my life saying don’t ban drink drivers, rehabilitate them, then got killed by a drunk driver over the limit that never got a driving ban would people be saying please don’t politicise it?

  12. News

    Man arrested after boy, 12, killed and five others injured in ‘deliberate’ hit-and-run outside Essex school

    Police have arrested a 51-year-old man on suspicion of murder and attempted murder following the “deliberate” hit-and-run collision in which a 12-year-old was killed.

    Four teenagers, who are thought to be pupils at Debden Park High School in Loughton, Essex, and a 53-year-old woman were also injured when the vehicle ploughed into them outside the school on Monday.

    Essex Police said in a statement the Loughton man has also been arrested on six counts of attempted murder and one of causing death by dangerous driving.

    He also faces charges including causing serious injury by driving, failing to stop at the scene of a collision and driving without insurance.

    The arrest came after police earlier said they were searching for Loughton man Terry Glover, 51, over the incident.

    Police also revealed they are investigating if it is connected to a similar incident amid claims a car tried to mount the kerb near another school in the area.

    Helen Gascoyne, the school’s head, said the community is “devastated” by the death of one of its students.

    Chief Superintendent Tracey Harman had urged Mr Glover from Loughton to hand himself in. She said: “We have responded to reports of a serious collision on Willingale Road shortly after 3.20pm today.

    “A number of casualties were reported near to Debden Park High School and sadly a local boy of 12 years old died after being taken to hospital.

    “At Essex Police and on behalf of all of those called to the school our thoughts are with those, his family and friends and all those affected by what happened this afternoon.

    “This has been an incredibly difficult day for the community and we ask everybody to continue to show their kindness and bravery that we have seen today.

    “We believe that the collision was deliberate and as such we have launched a murder investigation, we are investigating whether or not this incident may or not be connected to an incident nearby.”

    “I would like to make a direct plea to Mr Glover if he is watching or listening to this please contact us we need to talk to you.

    Police were called to the scene shortly after the end of the school day, at around 3.20pm on Monday.

    Essex and Herts Air Ambulance medics assisted staff from East of England Ambulance Service, while members of the public also gave medical help at the scene.

    A 12-year-old boy was taken to hospital where he died – while two 15-year-old boys, a 13-year-old boy, a 16-year-old girl and a 53-year-old woman were also hurt.

    Essex Police said they were treated at the scene or in hospital, and their injuries are not believed to be life-changing or life-threatening.

    Debden Park is a mixed academy school for pupils aged 11 to 18, which specialises in the performing arts and received a rating of “outstanding” in its most recent Ofsted inspection, according to its prospectus.

    A man whose daughter escaped injury after being clipped by the car’s wing mirror told Essex Live: “A Ford KA mounted the pavement behind her. Her friend was bounced onto the bonnet before another boy was hit very bad.

    “The car drove off down the road and the police arrived quickly. My daughter is safe, but the wing mirror clipped my daughter. Her friend got thrown off the bonnet.

    “It was awful to witness. Everyone is in shock.’

    Discover more from The Telegraph

    Read more on our website

    Access exclusive insight and opinion

    Listen to our podcasts

    A white man so picture on the page immediately.

  13. Morning all

    SIR – How could the perpetrator have a large knife plus a fake suicide vest while attending a session on the rehabilitation of criminals?

    We should attempt to deradicalise and rehabilitate terrorists, rather than lock them up for life. I admire those undertaking this work. But common sense dictates a search at the entrance to the building for such a gathering.

    We all submit to security checks under certain circumstances, for the safety of the public. I do not see that those at the event at Fishmongers’ Hall would have had their sensibilities offended by such a procedure.

    Ex-terrorists may express remorse and tick the right boxes while secretly holding on to their original beliefs. This is a question to which there is no easy answer, but while such individuals are at large, one would have thought that basic security procedures should be in place.

    Ann Gibbons

    Lerryn, Cornwall

    SIR – There is immense sadness at the loss of young lives from the London Bridge attack. Dealing with constant threats to personal security is complex, needing joined-up thinking.

    People with strong beliefs will not be deradicalised if they have support from others thinking in the same way. We live in a society that accepts plural views, but if there are some not respecting our people’s values there will always be extremists taking violent means to justify and assert their authority.

    Blaming austerity and lack of security services is naive when other countries with less resources attain better standards overall through consistent preventative strategies.

    We need an integrated approach to our security and well-being which will demand a tougher strategy overall.

    Professor Rosemary Sage

    West Haddon, Northamptonshire

    2. Gosh, clever people. Muslims do not change. All muslims are jihadis, see q’ran for evidence. There are 6m supporters in the UK.

  14. SIR – I would suggest that most people approve of the potential rehabilitation of criminals, circumstances permitting. Terrorists should be treated differently and simply locked up for life. They are prepared to take human lives randomly; loss of liberty is the very least they should expect.

    Peter Boxall

    Merton, Oxfordshire

    SIR – At the time of writing, it appears that the brave members of the public who took on this terrorist were men. This is only as we would expect and what most men would want.

    But is this what some regard as “toxic masculinity”? Of course men commit many of society’s wrongs, but it would be nice to see some balance from today’s woke community.

    John Clezy

    Flims, Graubünden, Switzerland

  15. SIR – It seems to me that, following the London Bridge knifing, it was the media that attacked Boris Johnson by asking how he could have allowed this to happen. He answered, and is accused of politicising the atrocity.

    What a hopeless situation we are in.

    Quentin Skinner

    Lower Zeals, Wiltshire

    1. It seems unlikely that these ideologically driven terrorist can be de radicalized and certainly not in the short term. Most tend to be in their twenties. I suspect if given a 25 year sentence which they actually have to serve that by the time they are release they are far less likely to be a risk simply due to their age. If they were 25 when released they would be 50. Not many 50 year old would be likely to go around attacking people

      2. H’mmmm. They would still be able to stir up younger and fitter men.
        The current batch of hate preachers don’t appear to be in their first flush of youth.

    2. Some years ago I watched an interview on Newsnight where a hapless Minister was roughed over for not having done something or other demanded by the pre-woke. This went on for about five minutes. Finally having convinced her accuser that she had in fact done the thing she was accused of neglecting, the interviewer began a new attack demanding to know why the Minister had done the thing she had supposedly not done and to apologise. The fact that the Minister was a complete dud promoted above her abilities and the issue is one I have entirely forgot, does not detract from the technique, that continues and expands. It is all entertainment now; like bear baiting or burning heretics entertainment.

    3. Quite so, Mr Skinner. If our PM condemns this dreadful act and takes immediate action after such a crime has been committed, he is held responsible for it by a twisted media. Conversely, if he keeps his head down and does little or nothing, the same media will accuse him of complacency and a failure to act. Either way, he’s on a hiding to nothing.

      Oh that Agent Corbyn, friend of terrorists and other similar scum, should be permitted to snipe from the sidelines without any apparent criticism for his repugnant views…

  16. Nish Kumar the achingly right-on unfunny Al-Beeb “comedian” meets the real world

    Booked for the Lord’s Taverners’ Christmas lunch as the entertainment and, a few smug anti-Brexit ‘jokes’ later, he was booed off and pelted with bread for good measure!
    This has cheered me up no end!!

    2. Me too, Rik! Organisation hires unfunny leftie ‘comedian’ and then complains when he turns out to be unfunny and leftie…

  18. My thanks to Ss for this

    I thought this an interesting observation in John Ward’s Slog:

    This
    is what Boris Johnson said about Islam in 2005, shortly after the
    London Tube bombings that the British Muslim Council took three weeks
    and a great deal of Blairite arm-wrestling to only equivocally condemn:

    ‘To
    any non-Muslim reader of the Qur’an, Islamophobia – fear of Islam –
    seems a natural reaction, and, indeed, exactly what that text is
    intended to provoke. Judged purely on its scripture – to say nothing of
    what is preached in the mosques – it is the most viciously sectarian of
    all religions in its heartlessness towards unbelievers.’

    But when
    interviewed by Andrew Marr on Sunday, the Prime Minister felt compelled
    to say, “People are always going to drag out bits and pieces of what I
    have said over the years to distract”….as if he should be forgiven for
    saying something silly.

    As a historian and longterm student of
    Islam, I endorse every word Johnson wrote in that Spectator piece as a
    courageous attempt at being frank and empirically accurate. So I wind up
    now not only angry that the BBC employs a former Trotskyite Socialist
    Worker activist as an attack dog against Truth, but even angrier at BoJo
    for meekly disowning his comment from fifteen years ago.

    All one can do is add cowardice to the growing list of character defects among our political class.

    2. Morning Rik,
      Surely the is enough evidence gathered already to show this GE on the 12th is a farce, re-electing the same political sh!te that has been the root of our problems from the outset.
      The result already known to be either
      Sh!te,sh!te or sh!te.

      1. Maybe we are looking at this wrong?

        We should be discussing which sh!te smells best. I like the smell of a cowpat, and certainly insect life likes it. Dogpoo is not nice though. I personally like the smell of pig droppings – the rectory in Norfolk where I stayed with my grandparents as a child was next to a pig farm, and it always brings back happy memories.

        They say though that nothing smells sweeter than one’s own fart.

        1. Morning JM,
          Currently many of the electorate hold their noses, whilst others vote for the best of the worst while many go for the keep in/keep out method.
          We could not have got to where we currently are as a nation without their continuing input.

  20. Morning Each,
    Rehabilitation of ex-terrorist currently to me is on par
    with trying to rehabilitate the SS during 39/45.
    As with bring back hanging to me is a definite no/no why would I want to help them to achieve martyrdom ?
    Incarceration proper run, forget the Billy Butlin style is IMO the way to go.
    They in this war are out to not only kill us physically but also spiritually.
    We as a nation hanged one mentally damaged innocent
    & to me one is far to many.
    To late for apologises a split second after that trap door opens.
    In future let us try learning by our mistakes starting via the ballot booth.

    PS,
    Mandatory sentence for any found wilfully using
    PC / Appeasement as a softly / softly approach

    1. Morning Ogga. Don’t worry about the martyrdom bit, its Just a scam. Anyway, they ran out of virgins ages ago!

      1. Morning Kp,
        Are you pattering heresy ? if so you are flying in the face of PC / Appesementism.

      2. The martyrdom bit could easily be dispensed with by having a woman carry out the sentence. However I am against bringing back capital punishment as today the PTB would be hanging all the wrong people (probably starting with TR).

    2. Martyrdom doesn’t last. Hang them – it’s cheaper and best of all when they get to their ‘heaven’ they’ll find out that all the virgins are male and their efforts have been wasted…..they are in hell.

        1. Use the Witch Test

          As part of the infamous “swimming test,” accused witches were dragged to the nearest body of water, stripped to their undergarments, bound and then tossed in to to see if they would sink or float. … According to this logic, an innocent person would sink like a stone, but a witch would simply bob on the surface.

          1. I suspect that he is alluding to the fact that digging Timothy Evens up to say, “Sorry, we got it wrong,” was a bit late.

          4. Bob we are talking about the death penalty solely for terrorists – it what they advocate for the rest of us

    3. Who gives a flying one. Each one of these shiites that we keep alive costs us – the taxpayer – a minimum of £50,000 pa.
      There are better uses for our dosh; hell, we could even keep it and spend it on ourselves.

      2. Morning Anne,
        What price innocents a ? time does not alter the fact that an innocent chap was murdered by the state.
        As for the finance, all the time we pay for the upkeep of despots overseas there is no argument on monies spent wisely on the home front.
        Hanged and forgotten of an innocent after a certain time does not make it acceptable to those who remember.
        Make hard time a reality not a fantasy, stop
        yesterday HS2 in its tracks, stop after many years of treachery voting for mass uncontrolled immigration, mass paedophilia umbrella parties, stop supporting / voting for political PC / Appeasement parties ie lab/lib/con.
        Save the Country & economy via the polling booth.

          1. Evening EE,
            Yes, ” let him have it” was he meaning the gun or the bullet ? for him he was in the wrong age group.

    2. Isn’t it true that the uneducated are more easily influenced and controlled than the educated? For the Rohingya that means islam is easily foisted on the children and in this Country it’s currently liberal left thinking: however, that will move further to the left if Corbyn takes control.

      1. Isn’t it true that the uneducated are more easily influenced and controlled than the educated?

        Considering the nonsense coming out of the universities, I’d say it’s the opposite.

        2. You’re assuming that all university students are receiving an education as opposed to indoctrination. There is a difference.
          In addition, history shows that keeping the masses ignorant, even of their own written language, worked for the Church over centuries.

    3. Morning OLT,
      That can be rectified via people power & the ballot booth, but when you witness the electorate voting the same even after what the JAY report revealed & when their kids were being raped / abused there is little chance of change.

    1. The Conservative Party may not win the election because of its vendetta against Nigel Farage who is the only politician who is remotely sincere and genuine in his support of a proper Brexit.

      Had Johnson had the integrity to see that Brexit is more important than the Conservative Party, the Brexit Party, The Labour Party, the Lib/Dems or any other political party he would have made a pact with Nigel Farage and together they would be heading for victory.

      The last time I voted in a British general election I voted for Margaret Thatcher. I voted for her for positive reasons because I believed in her philosophy, integrity and her honesty and I believed in her competence.

      Will anybody vote for Boris Johnson for positive reasons? Does anyone here believe that he is honest, honourable, has integrity, a clear vision and the competence to govern? As I said last week Johnson is all mouth and trousers – his mouth just utters vague meaningless waffle and the fly on his trousers is permanently not done up.

  23. In its election coverage, the BBC has let down the people who believe in it. Peter Oborne. Tue 3 Dec 2019.

    I hope that BBC executives are not favouring the Tories simply because they fear the revenge a Conservative government would take if the corporation gave proper scrutiny to its stunningly dishonest campaign. This wouldn’t work: Johnson has allies who would love nothing more than the destruction of British public service broadcasting.

    It is past time for the BBC to regain its confidence as a fair-minded news organisation admired and envied across the world.

    I of course do not watch the BBC but the idea that it is favouring the Tories strikes me as unlikely in the extreme. It is a Cultural Marxist organisation in its entirety, a propaganda outlet for every half-baked Woke campaign from feminism to transgenderism. As to it being admired and envied across the world, one might ask who this might be: North Korea? Iran? China? Any media outlet that has what is in effect a government monopoly on the news and that is financed by extortion is unlikely to be fair minded in anything!

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/03/election-coverage-bbc-tories

    2. I think he’s saying that it was once admired and envied and should regain that position?

      Robin Aitken, in his book “The Noble Liar”, argues that the BBC actually never did tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and was always a government mouthpiece, for instance in it’s wartime broadcasts of the 1940’s.

      1. Morning Sue. It was of course once admired and envied for its fair play but those days are long past. Oborne does not wish that to return but that it should support his ideas, which is somewhat misleading, since it already does!

    3. He’s writing in the Guardian. Say no more. They view anyone to the right of McDonnell to be far right (and even Corbyn should watch himself…)
      After all, there’s many who are convinced that the BBC is a right wing organisation because it allows Farage on Question Time occasionally.

    4. Peter Oborne’s output tends to vary widely.
      To be charitable, I suspect he still has an humungous mortgage to finance.

      3. I can’t help thinking that that crawled out of one of those 3-legged pods in “War of the Worlds”.

        1. Talking of which, did you not think that the producer of the WotW stole the image of the Martians from the film adaptation of Robert Heinlein’s “Starship Troopers”? (sorry but can’t find screen grabs to illustrate my point).

  26. Daily Brexit Betrayal

    ‘Truth’ is the Remain Establishment’s ‘truth’.

    Everything else is ‘fake news’ and must be ‘addressed’ by ‘the

    authorities’. Our Leave votes must be suppressed in the proper way, by

    closing those ‘loopholes’ which allow this ‘guerrilla war’ to be waged.

    After all, the establishment knows how effective their propaganda is, so

    why let ordinary people have access to social media where their voices

    can be heard?

    That’s the front of the coming, post-GE battle – a battle which will intensify if we’re still In. So keep vigilant, keep fighting

    https://independencedaily.co.uk/your-daily-brexit-betrayal-tuesday-3rd-december-2019-nine-days-to-polling-day/

    1. I think Labour got a brief bounce from the publicity around when it released its manifesto but this is now dropping out as is the bounce the Lib_dems got when they released theirs

    1. Zero emissions

      Quite seriously that should apply to African and Asian men and others who are equally productive .. some birth control would be useful , very useful.

  29. A TCW piece written by a man who obviously wishes to be torn apart by the PC Maenads.

    “Women footballers should earn less, because they’re rubbish

    Dr Gregory Slysz
    December 3, 2019

    THE recent Spurs-Arsenal women’s football derby in front of a record crowd of 38,000 provoked fits of excitement among the liberal-Left media, which claimed a major breakthrough for the women’s game in its alleged ongoing battle against misogynist, sexist males who deny it its rightful place in the sporting world.

    A year ago, the Guardian’s Suzanne Wrack wrote in one of countless carbon-copy pieces that it was ‘time for female footballers to be treated as equals’. By this she meant equal distribution of money, the de rigueur cause in today’s ‘gender pay gap’ hysteria. Yet behind the pretence of a rational argument is a message crafted in PC-speak, in which football serves as a smokescreen in the cause to deliver diversity at any cost – and ultimately it does come down to cost.

    In a profit-driven business, the market is king. And women’s football, contrary to increasingly assertive claims, does not stack up. Yes, in some cases its popularity has increased, both in terms of participation and match attendance. But even where the game is most developed, as in Italy, Spain and the US, the increase has been marginal. Elsewhere, including England, it has been negligible as average attendances in top leagues are counted in the hundreds. Where it does pull sizeable crowds, it does so in one-off games involving heavily discounted or free tickets or ‘Women’s Football Weekends’, during one of which the aforementioned derby was held and which took advantage of a European qualification break in the men’s game.

    ‘The Women’s World Cup,’ noted Fifa president Gianni Infantino, ‘has an audience of 1billion [and] should pull in at least $1.5billion (about a sixth of the men’s equivalent). But it [does] not. It generates far less.’ Not difficult to see, then, why female teams competing in this year’s World Cup shared £24million compared with the £315million shared by men’s teams at the 2018 tournament. As such, discrimination and sexism have nothing to do with a pay gap, which is due to pure market forces that do not render the women’s game commercially viable to compete in any way with the multi-billion-dollar business that is the men’s game. Demands for equal pay, therefore, have no merit and are based purely on ideological prejudices. And there is one very good reason why the women’s game will never be as marketable as the men’s: ‘What a load of rubbish!’, the cry that every underperforming male team is all too familiar with.

    Doubtless there are some women players who have decent individual skills and are capable of deft touches and passes, but most matches are exceedingly boring, uncompetitive, lack pace and skill and are replete with unforced errors. Nowhere is the disparity between the men’s and women’s games on display more than during the regular drubbings that top women’s sides receive from leading boys’ teams, which they are obliged to play as part of their training regime due to the shortage of competitive female teams. In 2017, for instance, reigning world champions America lost 5-2 to FC Dallas U-15 boys team. A year earlier Australia were thrashed 7-0 by Newcastle Jets U-15s, while in 2019 Manchester United ladies fell 9-0 to a Salford boys’ academy side. These are facts that cannot be hidden by the mimicry of men’s goal celebrations, uncritical TV commentary and claims of discrimination and misogyny in a grand game of the Emperor’s New Clothes.

    Perhaps ‘specious comparisons’ misunderstand the nature of sport, which is about ‘struggle and contest’ and the best that one can be at what one does. But although ‘the time for pointless comparisons is over’ seems to have become the default position for those who lavish undeserved superlatives on the women’s game, it has an air of damage limitation about it. Ironically with greater media exposure, this comparison, specious or otherwise, is precisely what people are doing. And beyond initial curiosity, they are not particularly enamoured with what they are seeing. When the England and Barcelona female striker Toni Duggan commendably demanded ‘equal criticism’ for the England women’s team, claiming that praise heaped upon them even when they underperform is rather patronising, she ultimately invited open house on women’s football which hitherto has been protected by a PC code of silence. To subject the women’s game to the same level of scrutiny as the men’s would not be pretty, given the ubiquitous flaws that would be continuously highlighted. Sport indeed should be about struggle and contest, but people will naturally gravitate towards quality which will inevitably deprive substandard spectacles of financial and popular support. This in no way diminishes the struggle of sportswomen, but simply confirms a reality in the same way as celebrating women’s gymnastics as sublime and brilliant does.

    It is of course possible to implement equal pay in women’s football, just as it was implemented in Grand Slam tennis tournaments. But when it was introduced at Wimbledon in 2007, it was not justified by commercial parity or equal work, because neither applied, but rather by a protracted campaign by activist players such as Billie Jean King and Venus Williams as well as Leftist British politicians, which gathered momentum amidst the increasing militancy of the gender equality climate with all its flawed arguments. This ultimately forced the chairman of the All England Club, Tim Phillips, to cave in after some years of defiance, on the grounds of ‘broader social forces’. The debate, however, has not gone away, with many like Novak Djokovic claiming that prize money should be ‘fairly distributed’ based on ‘who attracts more attention, spectators and who sells more tickets’. In this, he echoed the less diplomatic remarks of the Indian Wells Tennis Garden CEO Raymond Moore, who noted that women tennis players ‘ride on coattails of the men’.

    Like almost every aspect of Western cultural life, sport has been hijacked by Leftist ideologues on the ‘diversity’ warpath who seek to turn it into an ideological battering ram against established social structures. Those in charge of women’s sport are advised to de-couple it from this ideological anchor to which it is tethered, lest it is demeaned further among a public that is growing weary of PC swagger.”

    1. The above is based on the unspoken premise that sport should be financially rewarding. The argument centres on the financial rewards of professional sport accruing to women compared to men. Spectator numbers and seat prices should therefore be the moderator of payments, rewards, and prize money.
      Well, professional sport is a business. I have frequently ranted at some length on this in respect of rugby union. Rugby union is now literally owned globally by financial investors. it was not always thus. Rugby union was once fiercely amateur and this resulted in the Northern Code splitting away following disagreements on broken time payments, and the Rugby League was formed.
      Professional sport is a business and dances to the financial tune, as it should. It is open to skullduggery, betting and fixing.
      We have seen plenty of this. Professional cycling has mostly been crooked and the taking of performance enhancing drugs was, and is, endemic. So too with athletics.
      If you want to watch sporting amateur sport you may have to watch schools sports. And that will get you arrested.

    2. I would just as eagerly watch a men’s netball match as I would a women’s football game.😎

    3. I have often enjoyed watching sports that show individual skill, such as archery. I went through a phase when I would follow the Sumo Wrestling tournaments that were on TV 30+ years ago. It was something to observe when this young wall of flesh, who was a massive Samoan, was beating everyone that opposed him. Then he came up against this much older man, who was retiring that year, and was batted aside by superior age and skill. The older man was left standing while the young giant was flat on the ground.

      I also watched tennis for a while, as that was also individual skill. Taking part in sport is one thing, but watching team games seems to me to be time that could be better spent reading a book. As one individual said a while ago, Golf is a good walk ruined. If you enjoy a sport then fine. I like a good walk.

      1. Individual sporting contests are often intriguing, engrossing, even you have only a marginal knowledge. I would not deliberately choose darts, or snooker, but one can be captivated. Sumo was similar. Chyonofuji was amazing to watch. One of the greatest of all time, and the complete records of sumo go back 600 years! Channel 4 picked up such sports, including some Indian thing I don’t recall accurately.
        Not so much now.

          2. Kabaddi. I recall watching in on Channel 4 many years ago. A cross between Chain Tig and British Bulldog I thought at the time.

    4. I think feminists should campaign vIgorously for an end to sex discrimination in sport.

      Serena Williams should be allowed to compete on level terms with Roger Federer, Raphael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. It is an outrage that there are separate competitions for men and women. And the same goes for football and rugby. It is also an outage that only biological women should have children.

  30. Another TCW article.

    TCW Election Watch: Hastings and Rye, East Lothian
    December 3, 2019

    MORE constituency reports with the election campaign in its last two weeks. See below for how to submit your own report on the choice of candidates you have, which of them you plan to vote for and why, what you think of their chances and your stance on Brexit.

    HASTINGS AND RYE

    Outgoing MP: Amber Rudd (Conservative)

    Chris McGovern writes: In 2017 Amber Rudd, then Home Secretary, retained her Hastings and Rye constituency with a majority of just 346 over Labour. This time around the seat is a prime target for Jeremy Corbyn. Labour, after all, won the seat in 1997 and held it until 2010.

    Since I was a candidate for James Goldsmith’s Referendum Party in 1997, it is a general election that I remember well. My 2,511 votes may have been 14,356 short of winning the seat but they brought me closer than any other Referendum Party candidate to achieving success. Crucially, for the constituency, it was enough, along with a few hundred UKIP votes, to remove the sitting Europhile Tory MP.

    So, where are we today in Hastings and Rye? Rudd has stepped down and the Conservative candidate, Sally-Ann Hart, has quite a battle on her hands. It so happens that the Labour council in Hastings is an exception to Labour’s rule of misrule. They have been running local affairs with an element of competence.

    Sally-Ann Hart can still be optimistic. The fishing community in Hastings understands how much it has been betrayed by our membership of the EU. Furthermore, there will not be a Brexit Party candidate to diminish the Tory vote.

    Hastings, though, has changed much in recent years. Pockets of real deprivation remain but the old town has been gentrified with escapees from London, in particular, having a noticeable presence. It is positively trendy in parts.

    The trendiness has a downside for the Conservatives. A rather unattractive political face of Extinction Rebellion is showing itself in the constituency. The Hastings Observer has reported that the Tory candidate turned down an invitation to an Extinction Rebellion election debate. Her agent was concerned for her safety.

    It takes some courage, these days, to participate in the democratic process.

    EAST LOTHIAN

    Current MP: Martin Whitfield (Labour)

    Gary Oliver writes: This large constituency combines former mining communities near Edinburgh with more genteel and affluent towns and villages.

    East Lothian was one of six Scottish constituencies which in 2017 Labour wrested back from the SNP, gaining 36 per cent of the vote and a majority of just over 3,000.

    The first campaign leaflet through my letterbox read: ‘Re-elect Martin Whitfield’. This saved me having to check the name of the sitting Labour MP, who since his election has failed to cross my radar.

    Whitfield assures voters that ‘he will never be a cheerleader for Brexit or independence’; otherwise, his priorities are local issues. Sensibly, he avoids mention of Jeremy Corbyn.

    Attempting a political comeback for the Nationalists is Kenny MacAskill, fondly remembered in Libya as the Holyrood justice secretary who in 2009 approved the compassionate release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the convicted Lockerbie bomber.

    In 2017 the Conservatives received almost 30 per cent of the votes and came only 3,500 behind the Labour winner. That marked improvement was due largely to former leader Ruth Davidson: at the last election she headed an effective pro-Union campaign against another independence referendum. Under caretaker Jackson Carlaw MSP, the Scottish Tories are rudderless.

    The 2017 result deceptively hints at a three-way marginal. However, the recognisable MacAskill will almost certainly reclaim East Lothian for the SNP, probably by a comfortable margin.

    Scottish Labour is tanking: support is reported to have fallen to 16 per cent. Incumbent Martin Whitfield should exceed that pitiful poll; nonetheless, if the Labour’s national slump is as forecast, he might even struggle to finish ahead of the Conservative candidate Craig Hoy, a councillor in the county.

    As in both 2015 and 2017, the Liberal Democrat is likely to forfeit his deposit. It will take even less time to count the vote for UKIP. Sadly, there is no Brexit Party candidate. Mercifully, no one is standing for the Scottish Greens.

    Finally, diversity auditors will be appalled that East Lothian is a contest between five middle-aged white men. How long before this is outlawed?”

  31. I’ll only post the last verse {:^))

    On the twelfth day of Christmas
    My ROPer sent to me
    Twelve forced weddings
    Eleven Giro cheques
    Ten insurance scams
    Nine postal votes
    Eight grooming victims
    Seven bombs exploding
    Six mosques-a-building
    Five paedo rings
    Four ISIS brides
    Three boss-eyed daughters
    Two retarded sons
    And a central London stabbing spree
    Nicked from DH

    2. What concerns me i they are yet to supply any empirical data to back up their claim of global warming all we get is the work will end if the temperature increases by 2 deg C which is clearly nonsense as the plant has been a lot hotter in the past. Sure a few areas that are barely viable to live in will become non viable but equally areas that are to cold to support much population will be able to support a much larger population

      1. Only part of the story. When you say “in the past” what was the global human population then?

        1. Well the bison population in the USA was once probably somewhere between 50 and 100 million, and the planet didn’t complain. Now the human population is increasing by APPROXIMATELY 90 million per annum.

          Of course, there is just enough of me and far too many of them. (quoted from a book)

          1. About the current human population of the UK spread over half a continent then. Even though they are bigger, bison have fewer material aspirations.

  34. Morning all, bright and cool and no rain.

    A walk down into town and back for odds and ends and also managed to remember to buy a Christmas card for Mrs VVOF. That and the fact I have already purchased her pressie and it is only the start of December gives me a warm smug feeling, not used to this, a Christmas Eve dash around shops is my normal style.

    I am trying not to read too much today about politicians/Brexit/climate change or the like, why spoil my warm glow of satisfaction?

    2. My wife won £25 and I’ve just this morning handed it to the Salvation Army. Usually the grand kids get it but we thought someone else should benefit this time..

      1. As we’re both well below the maximum permitted holding, our megre winnings get recycled as more Premium Bonds.

  37. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Car6po30MKg

    Tucker Carlson Tonight
    He’s always worth watching as an antidote to the usual MSM propaganda, but I especially recommend watching from around 34 mine in, where he talks about how the millionaire/billionaire class are funding the destruction of the Criminal Justice System and from that, the USA and the states that made them rich in the first place, by funding radical far-left, pro-criminal prosecutors, such as District Attorney Larry Krasner.
    Watch this before it gets deleted in a few hours time.

  39. Police arrest man, 51, for MURDER

    There must be more to this. It is very usual to bring a charge of murder when it was first reported as a hit and run

    Murder means it was premeditated and he deliberately drove at them with the intention of killing them/ Essex police reports suggested it might be releated to another incident as well

    1. Unusually, They named the man they were looking for. Don’t want anyone jumping to any conclusions, eh.

    2. It may have been initially reported as a ‘hit and run’, which, by definition, is used to describe a road traffic accident where the guilty party does a runner. In this case the reports now suggest the driver deliberately drove onto the pavement to hit a group of schoolchildren, which meets the definition of attempted murder.

      1. Afternoon AA,
        The parents will be castigated for bringing up children who are in front of the court charged with breaking & entering a vehicle.

    2. In a cupboard with JRM. Hopefully, we don’t get the same out come as when Boris Becker last entered a cupboard or a completely new branch of the human species might be produced..

  41. British values will prevail against terror. 3 December 2019. Telegraph View.

    TOP COMMENT BELOW THE LINE

    Infidelus Maximus 30 Nov 2019 2:17AM.

    British values ? Exactly the tolerant of the intolerant, appeasement and pandering to a violent, religiously sanctioned ideology of conquest is exactly why Britain is screwed.

    France has already all but gone, Germany not far behind, Spain trying hard to catch up to France and Sweden truly has already gone.

    This on the day that Bojo apologises for all the “hurt caused by Islamophobia” !!! You just couldn’t make it up.

    Notice the need now for concrete bollards to be constructed in most major cities to prevent vehicle jihad. Shall we call them “diversity bollards” ?
    It is a very accurate term as there was never any need for them prior to the evil opening of the borders to reckless mass Hijrah.

    So, let us all spew the same, tired old platitudes (you know the ones), light some candles, buy some flowers and pretend we will win……until the next one, and the one after that ad infinitum, because until such time as their votes count, this will continue to happen as they are now an officially protected species.

    Oh, and just as an aside. They are teaching their kids how to hate and bully, we are teaching ours about proper fluid pronouns and how perversion is good. How is that going to work out for you ?

    We should try to recruit Infidelity. His heart is in the right place. Lol!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2019/11/29/british-values-will-prevail-against-terror/

    1. “British values will prevail against terror.”

      …but not the terror of leaving the EU without their deal.

      Morning Araminta.

  42. Anjem Choudary’s licence under ‘urgent’ review in wake of London Bridge attack. 3 December 2019.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bfe9026f896a7cece8e5171845b0517b612ff5b77650d75ed1a50444ddc104d4.jpg

    Anjem Choudary, Britain’s most notorious hate cleric, will be subjected to even tighter controls as a photograph emerged of him standing side-by-side with the London Bridge terrorist. 2 DECEMBER 2019.

    Yup I can see that they are all fully integrated with lots of British Values! Lol!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/12/02/anjem-choudary-have-licence-conditions-reviewed-emerges-met/

      1. Hip-hop, edgy, street-cred and stylish – it’s what’s trending, and it’s what we’re getting.

    1. You mean the President Trump that flew to Perv Island multiple times??
      Oh wait,that was Clinton……………
      More fake news from the Mail

  44. Morning again

    SIR – If people born after rail privatisation want a preview of what a renationalised railway will be like, they should observe South Western Railway (report, November 29) in the run-up to Christmas.

    I lived through a time when undemocratic union bullies disregarded the needs of the travelling public to get to work or simply live their lives. A catastrophically inefficient, ill-disciplined and ill-managed system, run for the benefit of employees and not customers – this was my experience of British Rail. The present system, with its impenetrable fare structures, is not perfect, but at least there is some accountability. We cannot return to union indifference.

    W R Parker

    Lowestoft, Suffolk

      1. The RMT are also trying to mislead people. These trains will still have a second man on board. The role being as train manager focused on customer safety and service as well as checking tickets. The driver will become responsible for closing the doors so it is an improvement but the RMT dont like change

        1. My experience is that the guard (or whatever the word is) often does bu66er all apart from opening and closing the doors. Some of them, however, actually do a decent job.

        2. I venture to suggest that this dispute has little to do with safety, since there are driver-only trains running perfectly well in some other regions.

          1. Train drivers who are Tories .. in fact all tory MP’s could train to be auxiliary train drivers, policemen , nurses , prison officers, bin men etc etc . Just get MPs off their backsides .. make them mingle with the public ..they will soon be brought down to earth.

          2. Which is what happened during the 1926 General Strike.
            Imagine a country without H&S nixing any sign of initiative.

          4. I suppose that is the one plus; we don’t have Lennon caterwauling like Elton John.
            No doubt, by now, Yoko would have produced a baybee at the age of eighty.

          5. Like Brexit it will require the will which I know is, unfortunately, missing.
            When you see a picture of Parliament with all MPs in attendance it’s difficult to detect a spine, especially as Kate Hoey is leaving.

          7. High Court injunction, followed by squestration of assets if breached. It would require politicians with balls, of course, which is why it won’t happen.

            ‘Morning, PT.

    2. I know him!

      The problem is that Lefty kids don’t understand that. They’ve never lived through it. They think this is just ‘a strike’. It’s annoying, but they think it’ll end. Of course, Labour would spin this is nothing to do with them but it would be. The lies pie up so fast you need wings to stay above it.

    1. Also why Tutankhamun was such a mess. The result of centuries of brothers and sisters breeding together.
      The Hapsburgs used to get the Pope to set aside inconvenient consanguinity barriers – for a fee, natch.

      1. Afternoon Anne,
        Again I would say a tip of the musberg the good the bad & the ugly all adhere to the same manual, all settled in the toxic host
        parties,the coalition, waiting, waiting…….

  47. Morning all. Not new news as such, but totally to be expected from the EU.

    “EU ultimatum: fishing waters are the price for a trade deal
    Fishing for LeavePOSTED ON NOVEMBER 28, 201911

    The EU has confirmed what we feared all along: any UK-EU trade deal will be dependent on the UK handing over access to our fishing waters. Boris Johnson told the Commons in July that surrendering fishing for a trade deal “would be a reprehensible thing to do”. It is now clear that our fishermen’s next big battle will be to prevent exactly that happening, as Fishing for Leave explains in this article.

    The EU has issued an ultimatum to the UK on fishing. As reported by the Irish state broadcaster RTE, “Brussels has raised the stakes: if the UK wants a free trade deal, it will be linked to what access EU vessels get to both UK waters and the fish that live in them.”

    RTE’s account has been corroborated by the Telegraph, which reported, “Sources said the plan was to make EU access to British waters a condition for any trade deal and to make the demand public on, or as close as possible, to February 1, if Boris Johnson wins a majority in the general election.”

    This ultimatum confirms the uncomfortable reality of the deal Britain is walking into with its eyes wide shut. Fishing for Leave has been desperately pointing out this reality, but has been met with heads in the sand – as it conflicts with the narrative that a bad deal is somehow palatable and can deliver a simple free trade agreement.

    The Conservative Party manifesto may pledge to take back full control of our waters, but the reality is rather different. We would be obliged to remain in the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) for the transition period. And then, the EU has used the terms of the Political Declaration to box the UK into a corner on fishing.

    There is absolutely no difference between May’s deal and Johnson’s deal as far as fishing is concerned. As RTE notes, “One year on, Mr Johnson has signed up to exactly what Theresa May did on fisheries. In the Political Declaration of October 2019, agreed by both sides, the four paragraphs on fisheries, including the link between fish and trade, is word for word the same as the Political Declaration of November 2018.”

    If the Withdrawal Agreement is ratified then then the UK may nominally be an ‘independent coastal state’. But we will be obliged under the Political Declaration to have a fisheries agreement based on:

    ‘non-discrimination’ – the founding principle of equal access to a common resource.
    ‘level playing field’ – only achievable by binding the UK to regulatory alignment with CFP rules.
    to be bartered as ‘part of the overall economic partnership’.
    The EU has now made the implications of this crystal clear. Surrender fishing a second time – or no free trade agreement.

    It is clear to even the most optimistic that trying to ratify a free trade agreement with the EU by summer 2020 is near impossible. It is equally clear that the Political Declaration is constructed to ratchet the UK into concession after concession as another ‘cliff edge’ approaches.

    The crucial question is: what on Earth is Boris Johnson’s and the Conservatives’ response to the EU’s ultimatum? If they cannot answer this, then alarm bells will ring around coastal communities and constituencies. It will show that a Conservative government would have no intention of telling the EU to get stuffed, but will capitulate to bully boy tactics of being asked to surrender our nation’s greatest natural resource for a trade deal.

    That is something that no other nation or government in the world will have ever done. Not Iceland, not Norway, not even the little Faroe Islands. Yet all sell huge volumes of fish and other goods to the EU.

    It shouldn’t and needn’t be like this. We can automatically take back complete sovereignty over all waters and resources under Article 50, which causes all current CFP access and resource shares to ‘cease to apply’ on exit day. Tariffs on seafood are so low (between two and four percent) that our fishermen would enjoy more or less free access to EU markets in any case.

    Economically, this would repatriate a potentially £6-8 billion pound industry, injecting an adrenaline hit to maligned coastal communities which if husbanded can provide billions every year, year after year, for generations. Politically, it exorcises the ghost of Edward Heath surrendering Britain’s fishing as “expendable”, which still haunts the Conservative Party decades later.

    It should be a huge totemic win for any government. Yet, the government and wider political establishment have allowed the EU to box us into a legal corner. Many in the political establishment say fishing – and by extension coastal communities – don’t really matter. Well, then why is the EU pushing so hard to continue being able to pillage our waters?

    The response from Johnson and the Conservatives is critical. They MUST scrap the Political Declaration on fishing or be blackmailed into surrendering fishing for a trade deal – something Johnson told the Commons in July, “would be a reprehensible thing to do”.

    The EU is testing them on a totemic issue. Their response will be telling – particularly to those in coastal constituencies.”

    https://campaignforanindependentbritain.org.uk/eu-ultimatum-fishing-waters-are-the-price-for-a-trade-deal/

    1. Good morning lass
      Unfortunately it seems that Boris was a remainer all the time and doesn’t have the will to do what is right for the U.K. He will be backed by the ERG who will also have given in. The last three and a half years have been a charade and a total sellout of 17.4 million voters. A plague on all their houses wouldn’t be sufficient, the way I feel about it.

      1. Good morning, Grumps,

        Our politicians have lied to us so much and sold us down the river so much with unwanted imports etc., that no punishment could be punishment enough. NWO and Agenda 21 are the directing forces (with adjuncts), even if some/many of our moronic politicians don’t realise it.

    2. The EU tried this with Norway and were told to promptly FO.

      Then, when the EU – using our seat we gave them at the international fisheries body – said ‘this is what we want to do – Norway again told them to FO.

      Norway has vastly more power over the EU than we do. Cameron was right, it is governed by faxes. Where he lied was in saying that Norway sends them, we, and the EU are forced to obey them.

    4. Look at fishing from what the Politicians are not saying: Labour, LibDums, Greens, Plaid and SNP are all Remain parties and are quite prepared to leave our fishing industry under the bus where Heath threw it decades ago and wouldn’t protest if the EU reversed over its corpse.
      The Tories have the chance, if they win the GE, to make a statement of real intent. Johnson could tell the EU that our fisheries are off the table, he said as much in answer to Owen Paterson but he also made positive sounds about Ireland and then folded.
      There’s an awful lot of nasty stuff in the WA and PD but fishing is the bellwether, if Johnson folds on fishing then we are lost and the EU will have carte blanche to do whatever they desire to this Country. Johnson, too, would be finished; there exists out in the blogs and the twittersphere a great deal of doubt about Johnson and his direction of travel. He could change that opinion overnight, but will he?

      1. He won’t care – if he gets in, that’s him financially sorted for the next five years and beyond. Nuff said.

        1. This is how he’s perceived by many. An opportunist and only in the job for himself. If that turns out to be true, will he last five years? The MSM may try to hide the EU’s attempts at asset stripping our Country but social media is a powerful tool, that’s why they want to control it tightly or better, close it down.

  48. As it seems President Trump doesn’t want to buy the NHS perhaps we could suggest he buys the Al-Beeb instead
    That would really make Leftards heads explode
    Just imagine Trump UKTV…………………

  49. Leave in a right-wing way?????????

    Don’t leave because of what the future may hold?

    Where would mankind be if all the brave people who took a step in the dark had Labour’s attitude to leaving the EU.

    Worth a watch.

    https://youtu.be/4SFmdw9-Si4

        1. He deserves an entire pub *as long as* he doesn’t vote for Plaid Flippin’ Cyrmu!

          Those idiots will betray him faster than a stabbed rat to fill their boots with ministerial pay, err, improve the life of Welshmen.

    2. We’re going to give you a wake up call… and vote plaid cymru! Even more Left wing, anti Brexit.

      Dear life, the Labour voter needs so much help.

          1. At least he had a bread roll for his supper. Probably couldn’t eat it though because it wasn’t butter or gluten free.

    2. And he wasn’t sacked from the BBC.

      How about…

      I want all you black and Asian people in the audience to do something for me.

      I want you to go home and kill your Jihaddi Imams.

      Nether are particularly funny.

  52. ‘Morning All

    Another day,another mass rape and abuse trial

    “Girl ‘lost count’ of number of men she was raped by in two years of ‘hell’, court hears”

    https://uk.news.yahoo.com/woman-lost-count-men-raped-birmingham-court-202020546.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cDovL2Rpc3EudXMv&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAByewFNAJYjFEsEuEF32Zfk8l71px9stXpUg-qjboXKOpePvwBPOKzFo2w311UjVjJ7s9K3iau8ws79BVsDAn_1yKG2JWTrJ4IoZnpkd1GJ3dQV1V-uaVdTZ0RAYy4xjfBc8Vg2KiZym_OG4zImbB2ez7J6MKTs1v2TsSSmJD4Fj
    Luckily the victim was fully supported by Cambride Academics,bought a computer and even offered a place at the college to study to rebuild her life
    Oh Wait………………………
    Wrong sort of “victim of the system”

    1. The men deny any wrongdoing. The trial continues!

      Morning Rik .

      The press, Pornorama, BBC etc do not seem as excited by Muzzie mass rapes of very young girls as they do about the woman who didn’t think twice about shacking up with a prince.. because he was a prince, sweaty or not , with a Royal chopper!

  53. Shirley & Dolly Collins with David Munrow’s Early Music Consort of London on BBC R3!
    Lovely!

        2. Vinyl does have a special aroma .. don’t know why . Smell the music , the vinyl odour clings to cover!

          I have some nice perfume , one of them is Joy by Dior .. I cannot smell it .. and it seems just like coloured purple water to me , J’Adore is just as bad .. marketed like mad , but I am wondering whether perfumeries are pulling a fast one !

          2. Ahhhhhhhhhhh!

            It is a ghastly name for a perfume isn’t it .

            I wonder what other appallingly named perfumes there are ..

            I can remember when I was about 16 , buying Californian Poppy scent with some pocket money .. A few years ago , a large landowner .. who is our MP, grew huge crops of white poppies for the pharma business the scent was delicious , rather similar to the scent wafting over from acres of flowering Broad beans .. a Norfolk Essex Kent smell .. beautiful.

          4. Wasn’t Californian Poppy a Woolworth special?
            I can remember jokes about it from way back when.

          6. They were more passing comments suggesting that laydees who used it were no better than they should be.
            Think “all fur coat and no knickers”.

          8. I bought Issy Miyake and it’s quite nice. I bought a different one by Miyake without trying it and i can’t smell anything either.

  54. Student Shelby Judge, 24, has accused Mr Clever of ‘mansplaining’ to Little Miss Curious after he told her about the Forth bridge.
    Shelby Judge, 24, said she was angered by the book in Stirling Castle gift shop. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7749135/Mr-Men-book-caught-sexism-row-student-24-accuses-Mr-Clever-mansplaining.html

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/76c5d296ab75717853cff5ea2ca15a7ea9ba29716402b866faf25287d1caa702.jpg

    For the easily confused Mr. Clever is on the left…..

    1. BTL:

      If a medical doctor made a mistake that resulted in the death of someone he/she would be hauled up before the Medical Council and disciplined. Why should this Doctor be any different?

  56. One of Britain’s biggest outsourcers is hoisting a ‘for sale’ sign over two of its major divisions as part of plans being drawn up by its Spanish owner to offload the business next year.

    Sky News has learnt that Amey has hired advisers to sell its environmental services and utilities divisions, which between them account for approximately one-third of the company’s 17,000-strong workforce.
    City sources said on Tuesday that the auction of the two units would get underway shortly.
    Amey’s environmental services arm includes several giant energy-from-waste facilities and handles refuse collection for local authorities, covering more than 1m UK homes.

  57. Sky to build huge new Elstree film studio

    Media giant Sky is to build huge new film studios near the existing Elstree production site outside London, creating 2,000 jobs.
    The 32-acre development will be used by Sky, other Comcast-owned firms including NBC Universal, and be open to third parties.
    Sky predicted up to £3bn would be invested in new production at the site over the next five years. The UK’s film and television sector has performed strongly in recent years.

    Hit shows such as The Crown and Games of Thrones have been filmed using UK facilities as the battle between Netflix, Amazon and other streaming services has intensified.

    Sky spends £7bn a year on production in Europe, including football rights, and plans to double the amount it spends on making its own content to £1bn per year by 2024.

    Sky Studios chief executive Gary Davey said it was hard to keep up with the increasing demand for high quality content, given that it typically takes three years to bring a project to the screen.

  58. To add to JC’s giveaways, we could include free virgins for slammers as supplies are running very low at the pearly gates. Trouble is, the grooming gangs seem to have had the idea first and have used up available supplies.

    1. Man, the chicks go through a cool process of revirginisation when they are serving in Heaven.

      1. So with that procedure available, Essex could become the new heaven. Brentwood high street on a Saturday night will never be the same again.

    2. No virgins left in Inverness now. We used to have twenty-four but they went away to a dance somewhere and that was that.

      1. I was in Inverness yesterday Duncan and I saw a couple who would never be anything else

        1. Good evening Spikey

          Was the vicar’s wife there sitting by the fire knitting contraceptives from a ball of runner wire? And how about the many people standing in the general election: the village idiots they were there – each one was a farce, pulling his foreskin over this head and vanishing up his arse.

  59. Britain’s Secret War With Russia. Story by Tom McTague. 3 December 2019.

    THE DETAILS OF the Skripal poisoning are well known: On the night of March 4, 2018, the former Russian spy, who was living in retired exile in Britain, was found alongside his daughter, who was visiting from Russia, foaming at the mouth on a park bench in Salisbury, 90 miles southwest of London.

    Eight days later, then-British Prime Minister Theresa May formally accused Russia of carrying out the attack. Britain’s Porton Down military-research facility—which, alongside the Spiez Laboratory, is one of the centers of expertise accredited by the OPCW—had determined that the Skripals were poisoned with a nerve agent called Novichok. The chemical weapon, May told Parliament, had been smuggled into the country by two hitmen working for Russia’s military-intelligence agency, the GRU. In response, Britain and its allies in 28 countries expelled more than 150 suspected Russian spies. Russia protested its innocence and denounced the Western response. (Skripal and his daughter ultimately survived. Another woman, Dawn Sturgess, died, after spraying what she thought was perfume, but was in fact Novichock, onto her wrists, and a police officer was hospitalized while investigating the poisoning of the Skripals.)

    This is very long and involved exposition of a supposed propaganda war between the UK and Russia over the Skripal Incident. The problem it has, from my point of view, is contained in the quotes. I regard all citing of this incident as proof of Russian machinations as either idiocy or deliberate disinformation on the part of the writer. It is my litmus test for credibility. This is because the official UK account is not simply fake but inherently stupid. Couples poisoned by any chemical weapon, let alone Novichok, do not drive into town, feed the ducks, sink a couple of pints and then eat a meal before three and a half hours later keeling over simultaneously on a park bench. This course of events is not just unlikely; it is impossible! All this and without mentioning the bottle of perfume that could not have been the same one used on the Skripals by virtue of it being sealed when given to Dawn Sturgess!

    There is an ongoing attempt by the Security Services to restore this farrago in the public mind as genuine by regular publication of articles that ignore its glaring errors and obvious lies. This is one of them!

    https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/12/britain-russia-nato-disinformation/602836/

    1. They should give up trying to convince us it was the Russians wot dunit, they’re making themselves look utterly stupid.

    2. TBF, Minty, Salisbury local council not emptying waste bins for three months does sound credible.

  60. Morning, Campers.
    I’ve just come up with an idea for our first trade deal with the US when we shake off the EU shackles.
    We bargain down the cost of sending our jihadis to Gitmo or that super secure hole in the ground where Hook Hand is incarcerated.
    Even if we haggle down the cost from £50,000 pa to £49,000 (economies of scale, ready supply of fee earning customers) it would still be cheaper than return tickets from Stoke on Trent to London and trail of dead kuffirs.

    1. The awful thing is …. are they hoaxes?
      I would like to think so, but after the mansplaining Mr. Man saga, all bets are off.

      1. They are, but this isn’t:
        https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/02/fascists-basket-makers-unite-women-only-festival
        The fascists are marching. Witches and tree talkers – this is your moment by
        Zoe Williams

        https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/22/thomas-the-tank-engine-children-parents
        Thomas the Tank Engine had to shut the hell up to save children everywhere
        Tracy Van Slyke

        Which is the problem: the Guardian is so bad it’s hard to tell real headlines from spoof ones.

    3. The problem is telling the genuine headlines from the spoofs. Alibaba-Brown’s could almost be genuine.

    4. Who are the “we” Brown is talking about, all the brownies? Isn’t this a “hate”crime? Oh no, doesn’t work that way round does it.

  62. “You see, Watson, a man does not, in my opinion, spend £52,000,000 in one year on his personal lobbying office half a mile from parliament, Whitehall and Downing Street only to have his wishes ignored.

    He quite naturally expects value for money.

    Nor does a man have 72 meetings in one year with the European Commission for no reason.

    So I think, Watson, that all the unknown unknowns have been converted into known knowns, and now we know who really runs Britain and Europe ! “

  63. What is this election really about ?

    I think it’s really all about compliance with the will of George and covering up his involvement with the British political system since 1990.

  65. At what point does it become an Act of Aggression?

    It is important that we get a proper definition before woke mission creep makes any old crimethink an Act of Aggression.

    Once we know what it is, then we can make it a bone-fide Declaration of War, where military rules apply. I believe that an enemy posing a mortal threat to British subjects, or those under the protection of the nation, can be shot on sight.

    1. Not manly enough to be a man and not feminine enough to be woman. So they choose to be nothing.

    3. Give it what it wants, then sit back and wait for entry into every normal country in the world to be refused.

      It will be able to leave UK, after that any costs are down to It

      oooooops Yo Rik

  68. I wonder how many people in the Conservative Party who defected to the Brexit Party did so because of the party’s abysmal failure to enact Brexit properly and honestly and because a large proportion of Conservative MPs were remainers while the majority of erstwhile Conservative voters were leavers?

    Boris Johnson, who had won support for his leadership campaign on the basis being a ‘committed leaver’, made a great show of being determined to leave the EU on 31st October without a deal with the EU if that was the only way. How many of the defectors consequently returned to the Conservative fold with optimism?

    But since 31st October passed and a general election was called Boris has systematically betrayed the core Conservative voters by his refusal to make a pact with TBP in order to secure the proper Brexit that leavers wanted and by evading all questions about the fact that his deal is essentially the same as May’s surrender and by lying in saying that he has secured a ‘brilliant deal’?

    Conservative voters may have been prepared to hold their noses over Johnson’s obscenely immoral and callous private life as long as he offered a proper Brexit. But his ‘deal’ is a sell-out and a sham and though former Conservatives dread a Corbyn government they would prefer to abstain rather than vote for an immoral, unprincipled liar.

    Does anyone actually trust Boris Johnson? The promise to effect a clean and proper Brexit won Johnson the party leadership. His devious and mendacious betrayal of that promise may very possibly lose him the general election and Britain will be destroyed for ever.

    3. Morning R,
      Still not got the feeling that ALL party
      politico’s concerned with brexitexit are on the same side & that does NOT bode well for England / GB.
      The lab/lib/con parties are stepping stones to greater personal power & wonga within brussels.

    4. Many of us were on a wait-and-see more, but we’ve seen his WA and it’s little better than Teresa’s deal, so no, we don’t trust him. I’d vote BXP but we don’t have a candidate standing.

      1. I wonder if the lowly polls for the BP are the result of the fact that they are not standing in all constituencies and what the figures would be like if they were counted just in constituencies where they have serious candidates?

  69. Good Morning all!
    Today is the anniversary of Wilson’s Last Stand.
    “The Shangani Patrol (or Wilson’s Patrol) was a 34-soldier unit of the British South Africa Company that in 1893 was ambushed and annihilated by more than 3,000 Matabele warriors in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), during the First Matabele War. Headed by Major Allan Wilson, the patrol was attacked just north of the Shangani River in Matabeleland, Rhodesia. Its dramatic last stand, sometimes called “Wilson’s Last Stand”, achieved a prominent place in the British public imagination and, subsequently, in Rhodesian history, similarly to events such as the Battle of The Little Bighorn in the United States, the Battle of Shiroyama in Japan, the Battle of the Alamo in Texas, and the Greeks’ last stand at Thermopylae.”

    Let us remind ourselves of who we really are. For they’re us, and we are them.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shangani_Patrol

      1. I have been brought up as British. Much of the indoctrination was self-imposed. I read Kipling and Percy F. Westerman before I was in my teens. I still have “King of Kilba” on the shelf.

        1. “Bulldog Drummond and his four rounds with Carl Petersen”.
          The fourth round gave me a lifelong fear of acid. Little did I realise my childhood reading was preparation for life in vibrant C21 Blighty.

          1. Ah! Bulldog Drummond. Stout fella. I read his treatise on “The Cricket Bat as an Aid to Interrogation”.

    2. They were outnumbered by almost 100-1 and fought until overrun. We outnumber our latest crop of invaders by over 10 to 1 and are in our own homeland. But there are some who are trying to tell us that our country is already lost and that we should give up and accept the inevitable. That nothing can be done to save our way of life.

      I disagree.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/16c331f10b5b17a33489478d0a8d9e3607e0d5e55c4ef64bd2ca83f233fa7669.jpg

      1. We tend to forget that the red on the globe was put there against the odds. The odds were always against us. Why, 100 to one was just average! India, China, Africa – we were always outnumbered. It was about trade and settlement, not conquest. Our Empire, a ramshackle thing to be sure, was put together by private persons on the make.

  70. Do Arab countries deradicalise their home grown terrorists. Saddam had answers , so has Assad , Kuwait and Saudi act in the same way ..

    Look at this … Pakistan death-sentence courts ‘are funded by UK’
    This article is more than 11 months old
    Parliamentary response shows government spent £10m on Islamabad’s terror prosecution programme

    British taxpayers are funding prosecutions in Pakistan that have led to dozens of death sentences, according to newly disclosed details of a secretive UK aid programme.

    The documents reveal that the Foreign Office is supporting specialist civilian courts that prosecute terrorist suspects in what the UK government’s global security strategy calls a “rule of law” programme in Pakistan.

    They reveal that the UK government has supported the project since 2016, during which time the courts have handed down 59 death sentences, some of which are likely to be unsafe convictions.

    A parliamentary response last week said the UK government had spent £10.39m on the Pakistan programme, the bulk of the money – £9.32m – coming from the overseas aid budget.

    One strand of the project, the “counter terrorism associated prosecutorial reforms initiative” (Capri) “aims to increase Pakistan’s civilian capacity to investigate, detain, prosecute and try terrorists in line with international standards and human rights norms”. However legal charity Reprieve says it is impossible for the UK support civilian terrorism courts in Pakistan in accordance with international law because the courts do not meet recognised standards.

    Read on ….

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/22/uk-funding-pakistan-death-sentence-courts

    What shall we do… Send them back to the home od their grandparents.. WE MUST.. and show them all we mean it … rescind their British passports .. and if any one wants to clear off to Pakistan on holiday.. make sure they don’t come back !

    1. “…the courts have handed down 59 death sentences, some of which are likely to be unsafe convictions….”
      Unsafe for whom? (Sardonic smile.)

  71. Another one bites the dust………………..

    Jeffrey Epstein’s private wealth banker, who brokered and signed off

    on untold multiple millions of dollars in controversial Deutsche Bank

    and Citibank loans spanning two decades for the convicted pedophile, has

    died from a reported suicide.

    The news of yet another mysterious

    Epstein-linked death comes shortly after the FBI was seeking to

    interview the bank executive about loans he approved for Epstein and the

    indicted child trafficker’s labyrinth of US-based and offshore

    companies.

    The

    Los Angeles County Medical Examiner confirmed Thomas Bowers died by an

    apparent suicide by hanging at his home before Thanksgiving.

    https://truepundit.com/jeffrey-epsteins-private-banker-at-deutsche-executive-suicide-before-feds-questioned-him/

    2. Assuming that it was not suicide, it does show how increasingly little these people care about “what things look like” to the outside world anymore.

      They would ideally like a system where they could gun someone down in the street, just because they wanted to, and nothing would be done about it. They are doing their best to get us there.

    1. We were down to -2 last night and there was ice on the car windscreens this morning. We are forecast for 7 degrees down here overnight, so not so bad. The advantages of living on the South coast.

        2. Very few people actually like the people for whom they vote.

          Is it possible actually to like Johnson, Corbyn or Swinson – they are all odious? The only one whom I rather like is Farage.

          1. The only one I now like is Gerard Batten, who was blocked by the UKIP NEC.
            I like Farage, but I don’t trust him, or forgive him for shafting UKIP, a totally unnecessary move.

          2. I feel much the same, but I am beginning to wonder what has really been going on behind the scenes at UKIP and am starting to wonder whether Farage had good cause.

            With regards to the others Rastus names, I would guess Boris would be entertaining company, and possibly quite likeable at a personal level. Unfortunately he has been a disappointment in the Brexit stakes. I wonder how many really good effective Prime Ministers one would actually like.

          3. I would imagine that getting “hammered” with Winston Churchill would be an entertaining night out. Although he would drink me under the table.

    1. Brian Wistful Cox has one of those faces that is an incitement to violence.

      Then he opens his mouth and there’s no going back.

      2. I quite liked Brian Cox when he did that series on the planets. But then they loved him so much that they gave him another series about nature or life or something… He did talk some bowlocks in that one. At least he had the decency to sound uncomfortable as he was saying some of the lines.

        It was not his field and he was clearly unsure about some of the opinions he was repeating as if they were facts.

        1. I can’t watch or listen to him. He reduces my attention span and my mind goes off elsewhere. Eventually he sends me to sleep. He drones in a particularly tedious way.

          1. I actually use that to my advantage. When I become fully awake at 03:00am, after hearing the sound of a mouse kicking over a pebble at the bottom of the garden, I put one of his “Planets” programs on and by the end of it I’m asleep again.

            Much better than a Charlie Chan film, as I try to stay awake to see how they end.

    1. Obviously they are swines for doing that, but truth be told, I’d go out of my way to avoid a ‘street preacher’.

          8. M,
            First started traveling, very, very cheap sherry
            Black country Birmingham, six in one big bedroom, two jocks in a double bed a plasterer & labourer, one wore the top half of pink leopard skin pyjamas the other the bottom half, polish off the VP then being dry
            quench the thirst via the hot water bottle containing cold water during the night, well organised them lads.

          12. British or English sherry as I recall. Awful stuff with a headache and hangover to match.

          15. As with most appellations, there is white Burgundy and white Burgundy. A whole spectrum of quality and associated prices!

    1. “The town name comes from the Old English name (as recorded in the Domesday Book) for the area, Cestrehunt, which probably refers to a “castle, erected by the Romans”…”
      God bless our Roman and Anglo-Saxon forbears for giving Photoshoppers hours of fun.

  83. Rehabilitation: The facts.

    One day a scorpion was trying to find a way around a body of water, but could not find a dry route. He approached a frog. ‘Frog! Please carry me over the water to the other side’. The frog was wary. ‘If I do, you will sting me!’ ‘Of course not Frog’ replied the scorpion ‘If I did that we would both drown!’ ‘You have a point’ said the frog ‘I will help you then’. Half way across the water the scorpion stung the frog. ‘I’m dying!’ said the frog as they both sank ‘Why? Why did you sting me? We’ll both drown!’ ‘I know!’ spluttered the scorpion ‘But I can’t help it. You see I am a scorpion‘.

    1. Imagine the frothing internal rage of a committed jihadi as some no-nothing do-gooder patronisingly explains why he is wrong and should be “rehabilitated”
      No surprise at the target…………

      1. I am in agreement that the parallel to the hapless prison chaplain in Waugh’s Decline and Fall is not so comic now. Evil can put with the well meaning all day long.

        1. If you can find it, the 1969 film of the book, during the filming of which Donald Wolfit, playing the headmaster of Llanaber school, sadly died, is worth a look. It successfully captures the spirit of the book.

      1. Thanks. I think I was told this story as child a long time ago, but not that long ago obviously …

  84. The comments on the DT letters seem to have completely disappeared. Perhaps the I word was being mentioned.

    1. It’s Araminta. She’s complaining that the Novichok isn’t strong enough to deal with Corbyn.

    2. “Jessica” (I’m assuming its a man then) is shocked, confused and hurt by a real world response from someone using common sense.

      These fragile little petals are not going to survive the first 24 hours when things get serious and the globalists stop pretending that its still a democracy and openly make their move.

      1. I think this is the Canadian who tried to get his bollocks waxed whilst pretending to be female.

    3. I unwisely clicked on the link at the top of that comment thinking that it would take me to Ricky Gervais’s page and it took me to the “trans” mans page instead. After seeing him in a dress there my eyes need a good soaking in alcohol. One of the labels that he gives himself is “Global Internet Personality” which says it all really.

      At least I think it is a man who wants to be a woman. It looks like it, but he also identifies as a Lesbian. So it’s a man who wants to change into the body of a woman, but still sleep with women and call himself a lesbian… I think that anyone with half a brain cell can see that this has all gone far too far now. I did like one of the responses that he had from someone else with common sense:

      “Eric Strickland III, Replying to @trustednerd @cpsbc_ca

      So an airport control tower that I went to today literally told me at the door “this is for qualified people in the aviation industry only” and I couldn’t believe my ears. Like, can’t I just identify as an air-traffic controller and pick my own desk?”

  90. This jumped out at me from Allison Pearson’s latest piece in the DT on the London Bridge affair.
    (No comments allowed.)

    …… “one of the very men who had benefited from Jack and Saskia’s shared passion for rehabilitation.”

    Quite patently, he hadn’t. Unless the day included ‘Brush Up On Your Knife Skills”.

    1. The media are stuck in a groove with dealing with terrorism stuff. They just don’t know how to handle it.
      The headlines should have been simple.-
      MAN KNIFED BY MUSLIM
      MAN DIED
      MUSLIM KILLED BY POLICE
      (End of story. Back to Climate Change or Brexit or the Election)

    2. They seem to start off on the premise that these people have somehow been steered from their chosen path and that they want to be ‘rehabilitated’ to save them from themselves by people who think that they have the cure.

      It never seems to occur to them, or if it does they will not admit it, that these people are in fact on their chosen path and are exercising their free will in a manner of their own choosing.

  94. I was delighted to find this marvellous record by the King’s Singers on the Internet. The first song, ‘Girl Talk‘, would be loathed by modern feminists! My particular favourite is With You on my Mind at 17m 32. Very well worth a listen. It takes me back to my first teaching job in a boarding school in Bideford when I was in my 20’s.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZwD45tOnaY

  96. This man’s son was murdered on Friday. By Monday, he is writing articles for the Guardian banging on the about “the politics of hate and division” like a good Corbynista. This is seriously weird, I have a son and (God forbid) anything happened to him I would be too paralysed by grief only three days later to be writing worthy articles for the Guardian. What the H is going on here?

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/12/03/the-politics-of-grief/

    1. Good question. It’s a bit like Brendan Cox days after his wife’s murder, on tv giving interviews.
      If it was my partner murdered, I’d be unable to function for a long time, let alone give interviews looking perfectly fine.

      1. I would not be able to speak. I would not be able to gather the words to express myself. I know this from experience, like probably yourself and many others on this blog. At best I could manage ‘yes’ or ‘no’ in response to questions. I had nothing else to say, I had lost my words.

        The father said he did not want his son’s death to become political, for political gain to be made. And yet, he has done precisely that himself. Johnson’s involvement was in response to a journalist’s question, reasonably what else could he have said? I find it all very strange. All of it.

        1. I feel the same as you. When my mother died suddenly at age 52 all i was able to do was point to my throat and shake my head. I was unable to speak at all.

          1. That is what I remember when my father died suddenly from a heart attack when I was 22 – the numbness and complete silence within myself, it lasted for weeks, it was the first really cold day of the winter yet to come.

    2. That is a very well written article. The father is so involved in his good intentions and doctrine of forgiverness that when tragedy enters his own life he simply cannot see the bigger picture. And the media use him in the same way as they use Greta Thunberg – to sell stories and make money.

      1. Maybe it’s his way of coping with grief? But seriously, how brain-washed must you be not to feel anger and hatred for a man who killed his well-meaning son in the name of his blood-thirsty god?

        They kill our loved ones and we weep for the killers. I fear for our civilisation.

    3. They are totaly brainwashed and are fanatics in their cause to impose their wet left wing beliefs on us all.

    4. This is plagiarised and slightly edited from elsewhere:-

      Is Rehabilitation of ex-terrorists a noble aim?
      Visit a graveside, talk to an apostate with an acid ravaged face, talk to the maimed, the FGM victims. Childless parents. Orphans. Talk to the dead. It’s not a ‘noble’ aim to rehabilitate religiously motivated murdering child rapists and slavers.

      Virtue signalling kills. Destroys, maims. You feel good and the BBC and the cold hearted university robots will cheer you on, but your ‘nobility’ sent others (who actually are innocent) to their graves and the survivors into hell. How terrible noble they all are. The judge who freed this murderer should be in prison for life for he is a murderer.

    5. The father should be ashamed of himself. The git has lost a son but seems to think that his son was unambiguous In his political views given the expressed greater cause of facilitating the early release of murderers from prison.

      There is a problem with our Universities and supposed Professors. Most would be unemployable in the real world yet they persist in promoting their mad ideas which are funded by student fees, fees which are running at record levels and at record levels of interest.

    6. Do you remember Gordon Wilson whose daughter was murdered by the IRA?

      He forgave them for their heinous crime – but the killers never repented and took him for an idiot and showered him with contempt.

      1. They take our kindness as weakness. They use it against us. We must stop seeing these people as victims needing to be saved, but as a ruthless and vicious enemy.

    2. You could throw darts at that picture for a hundred years and not hit anyone who is working in the interests of the British people.

  100. I see that all 4 finalists for the Turner Prize were awarded the 1st prize jointly. I wouldn’t have given a prize to any of them.

    1. It is all about trashing what was our beautiful, once existing culture. All in line with “we will make the West so corrupt that it stinks.” I have only one word for them (along with the adjectives ‘complete’ and ‘utter’).

      1. …and another thing…

        The pedants’ pedant: why the Apostrophe Protection Society has closed in disgust!

  102. We as a nation are well down the line of mass uncontrolled immigration, mass murder,mass rape & abuse, ongoing since the mid 70s no change in the voting pattern.
    Many of the same politico’s and the very SAME parties that triggered a tsunami of this countries troubles to start with.
    I can see what the treacherous politico’s get and that is 80 K a year and exs, but what do the electorate get that keep the same politico’s / parties
    in power again& again ?
    Just who was supporting / voting for these parties that unleashed this sh!te on these Isles ?

  104. OT: Just back from getting the cats vaccinated. Big Cat weighs 10kg, Little Cat 7.3 kg. All muscle, fur & purr. 😸😸

    1. It makes you shudder, doesn’t it? Surely she realises what a complete idiot she makes of herself.

    2. The Abbottopotamus thinks that being Home Secretary means she can do all Jeremy’s work from her Islington Palace and that she will not need to attend the HoC.

      She will of course claim travelling expenses
      Get her (cooked) food delivered from the HoC Cafe
      Have her drinks delivered (unopened), bought from many bars
      Put two cleaners on her staff
      Employ a computer competent BAME

      etc

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