Friday 17 March: The unedifying spectacle of a Conservative Government penalising enterprise and aspiration

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its comments facility (now reinstated, but we prefer ours),
Intelligent, polite, good-humoured debate is welcome, whether on or off topic. Differing opinions are encouraged, but rudeness or personal attacks on other posters will not be tolerated. Posts which – in the opinion of the moderators – make this a less than cordial environment, are likely to be removed, without prior warning.  Persistent offenders will be banned.

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here.

658 thoughts on “Friday 17 March: The unedifying spectacle of a Conservative Government penalising enterprise and aspiration”

  2. Morning, all Y’all!
    Heavy snow today Railway to Bergen blocked by avalanche. Exciting, eh?

        1. Nothing wrong with the temperatures further south – they’ve had an average winter. However, it has been rather dry.

  4. Good morning all.
    A dry but overcast start with a springlike 5°C on the yard thermometer.

    Having a run to Nottingham today, there’s a lunchtime concert by a saxophone quartet in the lobby of the Theatre Royal and there is a bit of shopping I want to do.

      1. Fairly modern and one or two bits not quite to my taste!
        And a good evening by the way.

  5. The unedifying spectacle of a Conservative Government penalising enterprise and aspiration

    Yep, the remainers weren’t joking when they said that they didn’t wouldn’t let the UK seek any economic advantage over he EU with Brexit

    1. If only Liz Truss were a better communicator and had sold her original economic plan to the nation and the international markets had not forced her out of office we wouldn’t be in this pickle.

        1. I suspect that your suspicions are not far from the truth, Conners. PS – What happened last night with Oscar that you had to wake him up to tell him it was time to sleep?!?

          1. He’d been drugged up before his appointment at the vet’s. Unfortunately, the full effects didn’t kick in until after we’d got home.

  7. UN investigators say Russia’s forced deportation of Ukrainian children is a WAR CRIME. 17 March 2023.

    The investigators said they had reviewed in detail incidents concerning the transfer of 164 children, aged four to 18, from the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Kharkiv and Kherson.

    Parents and children had spoken of youngsters being informed by Russian social services that they would be placed in foster families or adopted, and said children ‘expressed a profound fear of being permanently separated’ from relatives.

    There’s more than a little conflation and obfuscation with a dash of blatant lying going on here. The first paragraph for example would imply that the Russians gave them access to these children for extensive interviews. Quite frankly I don’t believe that at all and reading further the UN makes no such claim in direct quotes.

    The second, even if it were true is hearsay. The parents and children quoted cannot be by definition the supposed deportees. They would be in Russia.

    This is just propaganda without a shred of truth to it!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11869401/UN-investigators-say-Russias-forced-deportation-Ukrainian-children-WAR-CRIME.html?ico=livefeed#comments

    1. So, the children should be left in the middle of fierce fighting? Likely they were moved by the Russians to avoid just that, but kidnapped?

      1. Morrning Oberst. Children are good copy. This is just an attempt to portray a Russian humanitarian act in a negative light.

  8. Good morning all,

    Dreich again at McPhee Towers, wind in the South 10℃. As we used to say in Scotland when I was a lad “don’t worry, t’ll soon be whiskey”. It’s brightening later though. Off to see offspring and grand-offspring today.

    Yesterday I said I was agog with indifference over Hunt’s budget. Today I am not.

    Today’s top letters get it right: The unedifying spectacle of a Conservative Government penalising enterprise and aspiration.

    The best is this:

    SIR – Under this Government, there has been an attack on wealth and aspiration, compounded by the increase in corporation tax. Today’s Conservatives are further to the Left than Tony Blair’s Labour.

    High earners are being targeted, specifically those on between £100,000 and £125,140. These people already lose their personal allowance on a tapered basis, giving a marginal rate of 60 per cent on earnings in that bracket. Now anyone making over £100,000 will not get the new childcare benefit. The Institute for Fiscal Studies suggests that a parent earning just over £100,000 would need another £35,000 to maintain a similar rate of take-home pay to someone earning just under £100,000.

    This is not Conservatism. A true Conservative government would lower taxes on families to help them afford childcare.

    Andrew Holgate
    Wilmslow, Cheshire

    They are commieservatives.

    1. …or perhaps the CONservatives?

      ‘Morning, FM. Local elections in May for some, retribution will be painful for them (I hope).

    2. …or perhaps the CONservatives?

      ‘Morning, FM. Local elections in May for some, retribution will be painful for them (I hope).

  10. The retired colonel makes an admirable plea to improve the lot of our servicemen, pointing to what a bit of morale boosting did in Ukraine, when faced by what Putin thought was a fait accompli.

    Last year, I bought a pair of walking boots. I’ve been needing them for years, since my old German Meindls were heavy, very uncomfortable, and eventually shed their soles when tramping in the English mud in the fields around Malvern. I decided in the end on a pair of Altbergs, cost £200.

    Altberg is a British phoenix company, founded on the destruction of manufacturing industry in the North under Thatcher, modernising finance towards money laundering in the City of London, rather than metal bashing beyond the M25. A traditional shoe company in Yorkshire was duly closed, all its staff made redundant, the executives given golden handshakes and the premises earmarked for redevelopment. All going to plan so far. However, the workers were not prepared to give up, formed a workers’ co-operative and bought the place out, setting up a new company to take over.

    One of the old hands spotted a hole in the market. During the Falklands, British soldiers were taking the boots off the Argentinians they shot, to replace the dreadful standard issue boots that were ruining their feet. The Argentinians made much better boots. The old craftsmen in Yorkshire were rather annoyed at this, and felt they could make army boots better than any Argie, and set about doing so. Altberg’s intention was to supply the military with decent boots, and the police too. It was not a big leap then to extend into hiking boots too.

    These days, their bulk production is outsourced to Italy, because facilities in Yorkshire are not big enough, but they still keep their design and their specialist departments in Halifax.

    My boots are designed for the oddly-shaped British foot – wide at the toes, narrow at the heel and asymetrical, available in half sizes and are very comfortable, even when new.

    Altberg was founded in 1989, I believe, which is a generation ago now. Do folk here think this could still be done today?

    1. Do folk here think this could still be done today?

      Morning Jeremy. No! The entreprenerial mindset required to do this has been eradicated and even if it were attempted it would be quashed.

      1. Need this be so though?

        It might require a new broom at the top, but the King is not beyond setting up a company (Duchy Originals was his, which he sold off eventually to Waitrose), or pushing artisan craft skills that can be marketed (his Prince’s Trust was set up to divert inner city kids away from drugs and gangs and towards something more interesting). Kate Forbes (born 1990) is showing promise too, if she can get past the wretchedness of the woke Blairites who took over her party.

        Right now, the important thing is to stabilise money, so it can relied on to trade with. Whilst speculators count on milliseconds and algorithms to click their wads abroad, entrepreneurs rely on months, years or even decades of relying on a currency in order to make their business plans work.

    2. The hi-leg boots were we first issued in 1983 were an improvement on the DMS boots you mentioned but still left a lot to be desired. Only in the early 90s did boots improve significantly.

      1. As a general purpose work boot, Boots Durable Moulded Sole were not that bad. Reasonably hard wearing in normal conditions and fairly comfortable.
        They were not, however, suitable for use in prolonged wet conditions, one of the reasons why those doing patrolling duties in NI often bought their own hiking boots.

        1. I could put on a pair of new DMS and run in them next day but they were not suitable for wet conditions. Luckily I got a pair of NI boots shortly after arriving there.

  13. Evil presidents Vladimir Putin and Bashar Assad join forces to make brutal war vows. 17 March 2023.

    Syrian President Bashar Assad met his top ally Russian President Vladimir Putin with the evil pair backing each other’s wars and vowing more cooperation.

    At the three-hour lunch in Moscow, warmonger Assad said that he would welcome any Russian proposals to set up new military bases and boost troop numbers in his country and reaffirmed his support of Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

    The meeting took place on the anniversary of Syria’s 12-year uprising-turned-civil war and Assad thanked Putin for his continued support — in a war which has killed a minimum of 580,000 people and displaced 13 million more.

    I think that this is the first time I have ever quoted anything from the Mirror but the headline was irresistible! Assad of course, far from being a Warmonger, was engaged in a struggle for his very life and the lives of all his friends and allies. The people he fought were Jihadists, armed and financed by the Proxies of the United States. There seems little doubt that had the Russians not assisted him he would have been overthrown and Syria come to resemble present day Libya; another western construct. One of the things to remember when looking at the Cross Channel traffic is that the majority of these people are here largely because of our government’s actions in the Middle East and they do not love us!

    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/evil-presidents-vladimir-putin-bashar-29478059#comments-wrapper

  14. Top of the morning to you all, and never forget that old wise Irish saying, “Every man is sociable until a cow invades his garden”.

    1. With me shillelagh under me arm,
      And a twinkle in me eye,
      I’ll be off to Tipperary Tomelilla in the mornin’…

    1. Errrrrm……don’t tell us our political classes and Whitehall have effed up something else……again.

  16. Well, morning all 🙂😊 🇮🇪 be jaysus.
    Double figures but wet.
    Once more speculation that politicians don’t know what they are doing.
    Is anyone surprised ?
    Has there been any further or feasible explanation as to why Plymouth politicians secretly gave the order to hack down all those beautiful trees ?

    1. Speculation? No the current lot of MPs prove day by day that they’re unemployable and their party hierarchies are like revolving doors for the dumb and useless.

  19. “Two Irish lads were working for the local county council. One lad would dig a hole and the other lad would follow him and fill the hole in.

    They worked up along one street and then down the other. They then moved to the next street and did the same, working flat out all day without stopping.

    One lad digging the holes. The other lad filling them in.

    A passerby saw what they were doing and was amazed at the hard work, but couldn’t understand what they were at.

    So, he shouted over to the lad digging the holes, ‘I don’t get it – why do you dig a hole, only for the other lad to fill it in?’

    The lad wiped his brow and sighed deeply, ‘Well, I suppose it probably does looks a bit odd. You see, we’re normally a three-man team. But today the lad who plants the trees phoned in sick.’”

    (Sorry it was rather feeble)

        1. Fair to middling thanks – off to play at a St Patricks Day gig in a care home 70 miles away

  22. Yo and good moaning all

    The verb “to Covid”

    Lie, cheat, alter facts, confuse, ignore the science, consign the elderly to death, manipulate the MSM …..

    Please add more

  23. Rolls-Royce go-ahead to build a nuclear reactor on Moon

    Scientists and engineers are working on the micro-reactor programme that will help humans to live and work on Earth’s natural satellite

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/17/rolls-royce-go-ahead-build-nuclear-reactor-moon/

    Meanwhile Energy bills support extended for an extra three months

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/energy-bills-support-extended-for-an-extra-three-months

    The Conservative Party, the party which never stops giving us a good laugh whilst dipping their hands in our pockets!

  26. Off topic….but a warning!

    Shock horror chez Thomas. Last night I noticed that the waistband on my gardening trousers had shrunk. I was going to ask the indoor staff whether the fastening could be moved slightly. Then, as a matter of curiosity, I weighed myself.

    I have put on FIVE kilos.

    So crash diet starts today. No wine, beer, biscuits or ice cream. Very little cheese (I am a cheese addict). Soup and salad until Easter. Fortunately, the MR is a nutrition expert – so there will be no opportunity to stray from the regime….

    Just shows how these things creep up unnoticed….

    2. Go low carb Willum lost 10 kilos since my diabetes diagnosis cheese and wine are fine but the beer/bread/spuds has to go

    4. FIVE kilos is quite a lot. Your cats aren’t fat. Perhaps you should hunt for your food as they do and eat it raw.

      1. I know – I was shocked. Lack of exercise during the cold snap, I guess. Must get the bike out.

        Mice are not very nutritious. Only about 30 calories.

          3. It is the sneakiness. “Another glass?” “Well, it’s a shame to leave so little in the bottle….”

          4. I know, I know, I know….there’s an identical devilish voice living in this cottage…and it sounds remarkably like me.

    5. The fattest members of my family seem to live the longest. Uncle John who was really quite tubby got to 90 while Uncle Leonard and Aunt Decima who were lean and wiry pegged out in their 70s.

      Remember Aunt Vera in the Giles cartoons – she was so thin she did not look healthy while Grandma, who was very stout, looked as if she would live for ever.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/94cdea81f9d0e969a1767a27988db77c37c482a02db2ae87d9881721ebf71945.jpg

      she also knew how to handle an umbrella when confronted by a functionary

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5176309feace3f39a0a2fd057dc32bd422e4fa0c71b57d4119de8d8f93ff240e.jpg

  27. Medley Time

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9f0d066af91b3c2a199f87563e0551562bdcd5aa063493149dcc3ae3a27b9ac3.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8303eea0bd597a876dddf2a2dce770c5ffeeaab9f4182456090c278b1715af07.jpg

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/443ef7f9eb6cb0d3b5540d99f45861bb41c21a1a1005e9b0745282057d040454.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/42b66440d5e4b45328db0170f9c4d70af98973bafd451c00e806a98570500805.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/204f2c01ae0fd9d5970833b7232018ed92b3ed9bb1e5b5a317b69adf8326e488.jpg

    Redneck lawnmower

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/aed2f3759aedb8609579bf8d7552801a6085c3d30d017726134cef294af406f2.jpg

  28. 372065+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Friday 17 March: The unedifying spectacle of a Conservative Government penalising enterprise and aspiration

    Why the pretence, is it to give comfort to the lifelong tory brigade
    who could see what was taking place via a series of treacherous pro eu leaders, deeply deceptive and treacherous by nature following an anti United Kingdom agenda.

    One can only believe the current majority voter is politically dead from the neck up in continuing to support a tory (ino) party so as to deny their equals, the “opposition” (lab) the power seat, knowing full well they are, all three, a coalition.

    We are suffering the just rewards via the polling booth the near forty year time span has shown us that quite clearly.

    Time to shape up because doom & disaster is on a crest of a wave, being shipped in daily, via ” YOUR PARTY”

  30. Two headlines caught my attention this morning, neither of them in the DT.

    1. Stop saying mother and father, Oxfam tells staff

    Oxfam is a woke, left-wing political organisation that is totally undeserving of charitable contributions.

    A clue can be found in “What we stand for” in its website:

    We are rights-based
    We are feminist
    We fight inequality
    We are driven by diversity

    Oxfam’s annual report naturally includes sections on climate justice and gender justice.

    Climate change is a human-induced disaster that is reversing progress
    made in the fight against poverty and inequality, and worsening conflicts
    and disasters worldwide.

    We fight to ensure that people of all genders [sic] have agency over their lives,
    by challenging harmful social norms and belief systems, including through
    gender transformative education and by exposing the patriarchal practices
    that prevent women and marginalized groups from realizing their rights.

    I tried to review its audited financial statements from which a few well-hidden gems can usually be found. But the most recent available are dated March 31st, 2020! I can’t be bothered to delve into their outdated and very complicated accounts!

    2. Proms boycott fear over axing of BBC Singers. The BBC’s decision to disband the country’s only professional chamber choir and make sweeping cuts to its orchestras.

    The left-wing BBC has much to answer for in the undermining of our heritage, culture and traditions. It is primarily responsible for spreading the woke disease in the UK , something from which Oxfam is clearly suffering.

    And here was I under the illusion that the UK has a conservative government with a significant majority!!

          1. Our friend Sguest was around briefly on the site after his birthday on 24th February when he turned 82.

    3. Good Lord Sguest! Long time no see.

      I have never donated to Oxfam – they are the patron saints of Guardian readers. There are far more worthwhile targets for my cash…

    4. Oxfam (which I stopped supporting some years ago) sent me a letter asking for up to date contact details. I didn’t reply.

    6. Nice to hear from you Sguest.

      Good career choice though.

      At Oxfam, the highest paid job is a Director of Sales at $224,681 annually and the lowest is an Admin Assistant at $46,817 annually. Average Oxfam salaries by department include: Design at $119,058, Legal at $156,510, Sales at $141,758, and Business Development at $127,546. Half of Oxfam salaries are above $119,122.

        1. Morning Ndovu. Indeed. I’ve stopped donating to charities of any kind (with the exception of deprived hedgehogs) because they are a scam!

        1. International, innit.

          The International exam board for which the MR slaves has its pay scales in dollars – which are converted to the local currency on payment.

          1. When I was a schoolmaster in an independent school in England some of my colleagues used to mark “A” level papers. But as I found marking the most irksome job as a teacher I was determined not to do it.

            In France schoolteachers have to mark exam scripts as part of their job but they have time off teaching in which to do it. This is done by rota and exam marking is likely to come around once every three years or so.

      4. All I can say about Oxfam is remember Haiti

        Oxfam failed to act on reports its workers were raping girls as young as 12, damning report concludes

        Oxfam failed to act on reports children were being
        sexually abused by its workers in Haiti in 2011, according to a major
        Charity Commission inquiry which concluded the allegations were “not
        taken seriously enough”.

        https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43112200

    8. How do, S. Great to see comment from you again! Hope you’re keeping well.
      😀

    9. Thank you all so much for your kind comments.

      Despite my advanced age, I am always so busy that I don’t have time to do justice to the excellent comments from the interesting people on this site. I will try to find more time to improve my performance!

    10. There is plenty of evidence of creeping woke within the workplace in the UK. I pick up quite a lot of influence from the 5 in my own working family. Quite often I am told off, as in…you can’t say that anymore dad. Even my wife tells me off. 😄🤭
      Want a bet ?

    11. Its a left wing Conservative government and I for one will not vote for them ………..VOTE REFORM.

      1. I refuse to play the Woke game – I speak as I find and if some cock-in-a-frock has an attack of the vapours, tough! (reply to Ready Eddy)

        2. Ther are actually vanishingly small numbers of them. Like miltant gay guys, who aren’t into all the “in-your-face” Pride crap, with bollox hanging out of tiny briefs.
          In previous employment, there was a bloke (lab technician) who liked to wear dresses, and woukd often come to Christmas dinners in a ball gown. Nobody got on his case, he wasn’t aggressive about it, and you could have an ebtertaining half-hour discussion with him after dinner, when he’d show pictures of him all dressed up as Dolly Parton or whatever. I was pleased to work for an organisation who didn’t get all arsey about this stuff, ‘cos he’s good at his job. It’s the miltant types that destroy it for the others, by getting everybody’s back up – I know my tolerance of these “alternatives” now needs some serious work, whereas before it was easy – live & let live. Now the few try to force me to change my language and thinking, it’s not so easy.

      2. I refuse to play the Woke game – I speak as I find and if some cock-in-a-frock has an attack of the vapours, tough! (reply to Ready Eddy)

    12. Lol. Have been doing battle with Eqi (part of Equinity) this week. When you call them, you get a 10 minute lecture on respect, diversity, inclusion etc. would prefer staff who know what they are doing.

  31. Two headlines caught my attention this morning, neither of them in the DT.

    1. Stop saying mother and father, Oxfam tells staff

    Oxfam is a woke, left-wing political organisation that is totally undeserving of charitable contributions.

    A clue can be found in “What we stand for” in its website:

    We are rights-based
    We are feminist
    We fight inequality
    We are driven by diversity

    Oxfam’s annual report naturally includes sections on climate justice and gender justice.

    Climate change is a human-induced disaster that is reversing progress
    made in the fight against poverty and inequality, and worsening conflicts
    and disasters worldwide.

    We fight to ensure that people of all genders [sic] have agency over their lives,
    by challenging harmful social norms and belief systems, including through
    gender transformative education and by exposing the patriarchal practices
    that prevent women and marginalized groups from realizing their rights.

    I tried to review its audited financial statements from which a few well-hidden gems can usually be found. But the most recent available are dated March 31st, 2020! I can’t be bothered to delve into their outdated and very complicated accounts!

    2. Proms boycott fear over axing of BBC Singers. The BBC’s decision to disband the country’s only professional chamber choir and make sweeping cuts to its orchestras.

    The left-wing BBC has much to answer for in the undermining of our heritage, culture and traditions. It is primarily responsible for spreading the woke disease in the UK , something from which Oxfam is clearly suffering.

    And here was I under the illusion that the UK has a conservative government with a significant majority!!

    1. Note the BBC wording – protest and shock. Oh they are not happy. Of course we get the buzzwords in the text – more protest, conservative (boo word), populist, another boo word and more…”.. he told the BBC most people would characterise them as a right-wing, populist party that was quite anti-EU, anti-immigration and in favour of banning burkas for Muslims….”

      All boo words, of course.

      Anything to smear and insult. A complete ignorance and anger at the fact the party run by normal, decent people has beaten the establishment.

      Even the image refers to ‘clogged up’ rather than protested about the forced purchase of their land to suit EU controls.

      The entire BBC is desperately, inherently biased. No mention of what led up to it. No mention of the dangers the EU wanted to cause for the country, for food supplies. It’s almost comical the degree they fight to hide the truth.

      1. I noticed the lack of the word “forced” in the land purchase description.

  33. Good morrow, Gentlefolks, today’s story

    Theoretically and Reality

    A small boy has a school homework question to answer, so he asks his father

    “Hey Dad, what’s the difference between ‘theoretically’ & ‘realistically’?”

    His Dad thinks for a while & then says;
    “Right-o son……go & ask your mother if she’d sleep with David Beckham for a million quid.”

    The boy trots off and comes back saying “Dad, dad, she said she would!

    She would sleep with David Beckham for a million pounds.”

    “OK son,” says his dad. “Now go & ask your sister the same question.”

    The boy toddles off, & comes back saying “Dad, dad, she said she would too!”

    So then his dad says “Right, son, now go & ask your elder brother if he’d sleep with David Beckham for a million pounds.”

    The son comes back excitedly saying “Dad! Dad! He said he would too!”

    “Well there you have it, son,” said his dad.

    Theoretically we could be sitting on three million quid.

    Realistically we’re living with two tarts & a poof.”

      1. ‘Morning, Jules. I said at the time that Ped was nicking my thunder but it was almost two weeks ago and I am up late this morning.

        1. Sorry Tom – wasn’t meant as a criticism. Just a statement. Hope you are feeling better these days.

    2. I missed it when Ped posted it, Tom, but it’s a good ‘un. Enjoy your day.

        1. I was thinking more of garden labels! I have never had a “test” nor seen a LF pack.

          2. You have to ‘assemble’ the stupid things before use. They come as seven packs of separate bits. I got one pack in 2021 – I donated them to my N-d-n when she wanted to see if she had got over her bug.

        2. A bic biro top is much better than a swab on a stick – you can really scrape the ear’ole clear.

      1. MB had one as well.
        Now hiding somewhere – possibly with the shoe cleaning box. (How can a smallish house conceal so much junk?)

        1. MB is hiding with your shoe cleaning kit? Isn’t he a bit big for that, or is he a leprchaun?

    3. Saint Patrick died on 17 March 461 AD. Not much he could do about that. He was English born of course and taken to Ireland as a slave. Must have been black [sarc].

    1. Convenient !
      When it was first mentioned that Rawanda was being lined up to take some of our illegals.
      I looked at the country on Google earth. And I thought what a shame it looks pretty well layed out and civilised. With some decent looking properties smooth roads and unlike a lot of African countries tidy.
      Why would they accept any of these people at all.

      1. Another thing that struck me is that Rwanda has a greater population density than England, let alone the UK.
        UK 276 per Km2
        England 434
        Rwanda 525

        1. Europe has millions of hectares of spare land. It would be cheaper for us to supply g building materials for self builds.

        1. Something else those idiots in west-monster have effed up.

          New Mercs for all in the government and swimming pools galore.

          1. Should have paid direct to Mercedes and Gulfstream. Less banking charges that way.

    2. Weil’s Disease used to be endemic in Britain, especially amongst sewer workers.

      It’s not a mystery disease !

      1. Given the previous experience one would have thought that that was the first thing they tested for.

  38. Good morning, folks. Up late today after last night’s tour of Essex and Suffolk. I’ll now read Tom’s daily joke before heading back to bed. A restful day for me today.

    1. You may remember, Elsie, that Ped posted it a couple of weeks ago – but it was next on the list.

    1. Even allowing for the tax relief, I have to wonder how people manage to get those amounts into their pension pots.

      Starting today and saving £2000 per month and assuming an annual compound rate of around 3 % it would take the better part of 30 years.

      Given that the median UK income is in the £33,000 range it rather suggests that the overall numbers affected are quite small, because the great majority can’t get close to that amount to put away a month

      1. There is also the important matter of increasing investment in a modern economy.

        The best way of increasing long term investment is through pension funds.

        1. Once it was, newer rules mean that many are heavily invested in bonds, thank you Gordon Brown.

      2. We save £500 a month between us. Once all the bills are paid, the mortgage, various insurances for the dogs and £100 put aside for Junior for the future (I don’t want him to come out of university owing 30K in debt) that’s it.

        I’m not going to plead poverty, we live reasonably well but if that’s what we save, what does someone – as you say – on 2 thirds of that save?

          1. We won’t – never expected to. My pension is going to come from my side job’ rather than my main one.

      3. Take a civil servant who retires at 65 on a pensionable income of £100,000 pa.

        He/she would receive an inflation-proof pension with a built in hedge against inflation of up to two thirds of his/her income.

        What pension pot would a person in the private sector have to build up to receive the same pension at the same age?

      4. After seeing some of the oxfam salaries that were quoted earlier, maybe the cap applied to charity workers.

    2. What politicians really want is a nice, big pot of money that the public pay into, but locked away for 50+ years thinking it’ll be safe which they, the political classes, can then empty on demand, expecting it to be refilled.

      When it isn’t – as it wasn’t after Brown’s debacle – they throw a tantrum and tell us to save more: which they then set about robbing.

  41. 372065+ up ticks,

    Post
    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021
    ·
    1h
    As Lenin said, “ Worse is better”.

    The more insane the Wokist ideology gets the sooner people might wake up & rebel against it.

    Translate post
    Oxfam‘s bizarre’ language guide says sorry for using English and warns staff not to use words like ‘mother and people’ — LBC
    Oxfam‘s bizarre’ language guide says sorry for using English and warns staff not to use words like ‘mother and people’ — LBC

    Oxfam has been slammed for a “bizarre” new “inclusive” language guide issued to staff that warns against using a whole slew of normal words like “stand”, “pregnant mother” and “people” – and even apologises for being written in English.

    apple.news

    https://gettr.com/post/p2bqcr88347

    1. About time Oxfam was giving the heave-ho. Too much is spent on executive salaries and wokeness – it should lose its charitable status.

      2. RSPCA is similar; CEO on a 6 figure salary, expensive HQ in London, full page political ads in the national press … Meanwhile, they have closed animal shelters.

    2. Fortunately we seem to be rather detached from many of the problems in France although Caroline was rather disappointed not to be able to find her preferred brand of yoghourt at the supermarché yesterday.

    3. That would appear pointless if he’s not going to switch his position. He’ll have to adopt a new platform if he wants to stay on track. He has to have a lot of sleepers under him if he’s not going to hit the buffers and get derailed.

        2. Did you really take my comment seriously or were you just being sulky in studiously ignoring all my puns?

  43. Rachel whines that lifting the doctors’ pension cap no longer fits Labour
    The Shadow Chancellor says it is the ‘wrong policy for the wrong people’ after Wes Streeting had previously endorsed the idea
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/03/16/rachel-whines-lifting-doctors-pension-cap-no-longer-fits-labour/

    BTL

    My nephew-in-law (my niece’s husband) is a very competent doctor. Indeed he decided to go into general practice rather than specialise even though he had passed out top of his year at Cambridge before finishing his studies at the John Radcliffe Hospital at Oxford.

    At the age of 58 he retired because he worked out that he would be considerably worse off if he continued to work as a NHS GP because of Osborne’s pensions vandalism.

      1. So did ours. The excuse was the pension position – it was an excuse to leave without looking overtly greedy.

    2. Sorry, but there was a simple answer: keep working but with a pension contribution of 1p by the doctor and nothing by the employer. Or as someone who had left the pension scheme, with some agreed necessary tweaks.

      This was a complete disaster which could have been easily averted. If doctors could afford to retire at age 58, they could have been able to continue to work without further pension accrual. IMO it was simply a convenient excuse for many medics to put their feet up.

    3. Not eating too much? How cool is that! Go to live in Africa and get thinner whist still stuffing yourself full of eclairs!

      2. Big bums are beautiful to blacks.

        And they provide a carriage for the piccaninny.

      3. The origin of the 19th C bustle of course. Europeans had ventured into the African interior and it was all the height of fashion. A bum you can balance a teacup on!

    6. I suppose she could just stop shoving family sized pies in her gob. And stop blaming whitey for all her problems.

    7. It’s true – to an extent – that different bodies work in different ways but to blame that on stress caused by racism is pathetic.

      Tyra Banks is black. Don’t see her whinging she can’t lose weight.

        1. That might help explain some of the enormous bums we are seeing down here.

          Not much chance of a face plant with that much of a counter balance.

        2. It’s the common denominator in most of Africa.

          https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=0b8ccaffa651ebaeJmltdHM9MTY3OTAxMTIwMCZpZ3VpZD0xZDA5Y2YzNS0wNDZiLTY1MzYtMGMwYi1kZGUzMDU5MDY0MWEmaW5zaWQ9NTQ2Mw&ptn=3&hsh=3&fclid=1d09cf35-046b-6536-0c0b-dde30590641a&u=a1L3ZpZGVvcy9zZWFyY2g_cT1iaWcrYm90dG9tK2dpcmxzK3Nvbmcmdmlldz1kZXRhaWwmbWlkPTMwRjJBNUUxQkJEMkQ4RkREOUUzMzBGMkE1RTFCQkQyRDhGREQ5RTMmRk9STT1WSVJF&ntb=1

    9. They never stop moaning about something and don’t a lot woman have large bottoms in Africa ?

  47. Tough Read

    “Why? Why was this regime so mad? This is the question many

    have asked. After this latest visit, finally going to Choeung Ek, I

    think I perhaps have an answer. In his fine, troubling book – The Elimination – about

    his interviews with Duch, Khmer Rouge survivor Rithy Panh quotes Duch

    saying that in his world ‘there is no place for the individual’, and

    ‘beauty is an obstacle’.

    This is important because it reveals the insane yet inexorable logic

    of the Khmer Rouge. If Marxism means enforced equality, its ultimate

    endpoint is this. Individuals cannot be ‘allowed’ as they might be

    ‘different’, they might laugh or be happy, unlike others. Beauty –

    physical, artistic, sexual, spiritual, intellectual – must likewise be

    ruthlessly extinguished, because it too prevents a Marxist Utopia.

    Beauty is unfair. It must be eliminated.

    Does this matter? Yes, because we live in a time when kids think

    Marxism is cool again. When self-confessed Marxist Jeremy Corbyn is seen

    as an amusing old uncle.

    This cannot stand. Just as we teach children about Hitler, the ne plus ultra of rightwing ethno-nationalism, they need to be taught about the ultimate leftwing cruelties

    of the Khmer Rouge, and the horrors of Pol Pot. That is to say: we need

    to take young people from the cocktail bars of modern Phnom Penh, down

    that long, littery suburban road, to a sunlit stupa full of human

    skulls, to trenches gleaming with human teeth, to the place where babies

    were smashed to death, in the name of Karl Marx and Chairman Mao, the

    Saucepan Man and Moon-Face of communism. We need to show them the

    Satanic Faraway Tree.”

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-we-forgot-about-pol-pot/
    We are one election away from politicians who will cheerfully spout “Mao did more good than harm”

    1. Trying to explain to a crazed fool waving a communist standard that it has caused the deaths of hundreds of millions will be met with ‘And how many has capitalism killed?’

      They do not understand. Let them live in their communist utopia. Let them die for their cause. Only having experience the horror of their enthusiasm will they realise that we were right and they were wrong. The sad thing is it applies to the EU as well. Anyone can see where it’s going, what the intent is. yet they’re blind to it.

  48. 372065+ up ticks,

    And so it joins the lab/lib/con/current ukip coalition,
    Know thine political enemas for what they are,

    Never surrender.
    Never forget.

    Dt,

    The EU’s moral claim to exist has collapsed
    The war in Ukraine has revealed it to be little more than a tool for promoting French national interests

    1. Not French but US government interests, Ogga. We thought Germany was the power in the EU but Germany is being systematically destroyed by Washington.

  49. Nipped into the bank today.
    The very decor suggests that money is no longer revered.
    More like suburban sitting room with lift music.
    Gone are the substantial Corinthian pillars and counters like deep brown wooden ramparts.
    There is no suggestion that capitalism – especially male, white capitalism – is the system that built the modern world.

    1. The nearest branch of Barclays now is in Gloucester. I last went there some months ago, having received a cheque. Nothing but a couple of souless machines. I didn’t stay long.

    2. Yes; and any care for those whose money they hold abandoned to the computer. I am in severe logistical difficulties, having had my phone (and therefore my contact number) stolen whilst abroad. Without my dear family to help, I’d be in an impossible situation.

        1. No, when returning from dancing. Everyone watches everyone else sooooooo intently at a milonga (social dance) – it’s how you choose your dance partners – that belongings are pretty safe.

        1. We could set up a Nottler crowd fund for impoverished and distressed folks caught by the short and curlies.

    2. Agreed, Grizz: Snobbishness rules! Never mid ability, the “right” backdround.

      1. My ex-husband used to work for a well-known firm of surveyors. They had a famous rugby player surveyor. He didn’t do much actual surveying compared to the others, but his name fitted.

          4. I knew a Marcus Ripley when i worked in the Lloyd’s market, whose father was a professional rugby player (?Andy Ripley?)

    3. Especially not to some foreign johnny living in a far away country of which we know little!

      2. Forrin Johnnies wear a string of oignon and ride a bike from town to town. The dude, above, may be referred to as a forrin Göran.

  51. Credit Suisse shares continue to slide; US banks join forces to rescue First Republic. 17 March 2023.

    Shares in the UK subprime lender Non-Standard Finance crashed 22% to 35p after it set out plans to recapitalise itself by raising £95m through a share sale that would wipe out existing shareholders.

    Its top shareholder is the British private equity firm Alchemy Special Opportunities with a 29.9% stake.

    The stock has lost nearly all of its value since hitting an all-time high of 108p in 2015.

    The Apocalypse is on its way!

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2023/mar/17/markets-us-banks-first-republic-rescue-business-live

    1. Here’s a good talk by Alasdair MacLeod on that subject.
      One of the interesting points he makes is that they seem to have backed away from bail-ins for now, as that would cause widespread panic among the public.
      So all that legislation put in in various countries is on hold. My feeling is that they might use it down the road, when everyone’s thoroughly panicked anyway.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bF25vxgQi3Q

    2. Nope. The only big name is Credit Suisse, and their management deserve all they are getting. Whoever heard of all those others? Non standard finance, Alchemy Special losses, or whatever? Small opportunistic fry.

      1. I wonder what happened to the English little bank of Dave, who seemed a decent enough chap.

    1. Now, if she had been an immigrant of non-white ethicity, the world would have been her lobster

      1. I just find it all infuriating. You couldn’t support your children, you shouldn’t have had them. Why did she think it acceptable to force others to pay for her choices? Did she give them any consideration at all? Did she just assume she could do what she wanted?

        Of course she did. A selfish, spoiled, indulged woman complained about her health – yet kept having children.

        I’m tired of paying for such people.

        1. Afternoon Wibbles. A child every couple of years is the giveaway. It ensures the benefits keep rolling and actually increasing for some time until the older ones fail to qualify! It’s a self-created Ponzi Scheme!

          1. Rather screaming that we should end all forms of child benefit. It’s creating and enforcing a dependent underclass.

          2. My Mum spent the child benefit on fags and bingo and got my school shoes from the jumble sale.

          3. My mother would take me shopping and every year get trousers and shirts that were too small for me and uncomfortable saying ‘you’ll slim into them.’

            I didn’t.

          4. That’s new. My mother would take me to buy the official school uniform and always buy a size too large. – don’t worry, you will grow into them.

          5. I had that – jeans which were turned up by about 4″, raincoats ditto the sleeves (i.e stuff that I didn’t wear at school). My parents were well off and I went to private school!

          6. My mother bought me a pair of jodhpur boots that were at least two sizes too big saying I’d grow into them. I still have them and can still wear them – as long as I wear two pairs of socks!

          7. No doubt then the older ones start to have their own children, and the saga goes on…

        2. Afternoon Wibbles. A child every couple of years is the giveaway. It ensures the benefits keep rolling and actually increasing for some time until the older ones fail to qualify! It’s a self-created Ponzi Scheme!

    2. The High Court had heard Ms Whiting had received benefits for over a decade due to serious, long-term physical and mental health issues including severe pain and a history of self-harm.

      Mr Nicholls said she had told the DWP that she was having suicidal thoughts ‘a lot of the time’.

      This woman was milking the system and it failed to meet her expectations!

    3. Mother of nine, Ms Whiting, said she needed a house visit as she was housebound, had severe anxiety and was unable to walk more than a few steps. Ms Whiting? Possible cause of disability – always on her back with legs in the air and partner/s unable or unwilling to set her on her feet?

      1. Don’t forget the junk food and the ravages of multiple childbirth on her body. Self-harming.

      2. If she couldn’t walk etc. how did she look after nine children? Or perhaps she didn’t, just kept getting more…

  53. Morning(ishl, all!

    This is Katy (AshesThanDust) in a new guise. My phone was snatched a couple of days ago. (I always wondered what I’d do in such a situation. Turns out I belt after the thief for three blocks while screaming like a banshee 🤣🤣. OK, wrong language, I suspect, and wih him being half my age I didn’t succeed in catching the bugger, but am quite proud of myself. 🤣)

    I’ve managed to get a new phone and a local SIM card, but can’t access my google account and therefore all my contacts (yes, I had a backup email, but upon providing a code sent there received an automated message saying it would take 30 days to review my case 🙄), so apologies to those Nottlers with whom I correspond.

    All fine here, though. It’s just money and frustration, although I am upset that some people will worry when I don’t respond to emails or messages. The heatwave continues in Buenos Aires. Lots of close, sweaty embraces on dark dance floors sans air conditioning, due to power cuts – what’s not to like? 🙂🙂

      1. No use. I cancelled everything useful straiģht away, and the phone wasn’t worth much. It’s just life. 🙂

        1. Keep your pecker up, chick. Are things getting sorted? Food, place to say, boyfriends? :@)

          1. My pecker? I know it’s 2023 but I’m not that sort of girl… 😉

            I have cash, thankfully, and am getting by on charm for the rest. Plenty of tales with which to regale you when next we meet!

    4. Bad luck. Well done for chasing. Very courageous in the circs.

      Good luck in getting reconnected….

    5. That was bad luck, but probably for the best that you didn’t catch up .
      If you have a payment app on the phone don’t forget to tell your bank.
      Good luck, don’t let it spoil the rest of your stay.

    7. It’s a good point that I’d think ‘call the provider’ but how can you? What if your phone is locked to the 2FA that lets you into the website?

      1. I’m trying to work around exactly that by devious means. Currently trying to persuade my lovely, straight-as-a-die sister into a little harmless impersonation… 🤣🤣

    8. The fun is just beginning as you try to switch to a new number. I still have my phone but it doesn’t work in the US (cheap barsteward going for a canada only plan) so for the moment I using a US pay as you go phone.

      The fun has come when I tried to add the US phone as an alternate number for banking authentication. The system wanted to send a text to my phone to confirm the new number – but it doesn’t work here. So I called the bank. Oh yes we can help. To confirm your identity, can you tell us the balance on one of your investment accounts. Umm, small issue here.

      Rather foolishly brave chasing robbers like that. Whenever I visited our offices in South america, I was always warned about robbers and told to never resist.

      1. Yes; I was in instinctual mode, which doesn’t appear to have much of a safety catch in me. I suppose I was hoping that a passer-by might apprehend him.

        Yes; Catch 22 all round with banks and phones. I had absolutely no problem when I moved to Germany and back, flitting all over the world in between, so wasn’t quite prepared for this… 🤣🤣

    9. Poor you, what a pain!

      As you no doubt know, United Kingdom embassy in Buenos Aires is located at Dr. Luis Agote 2412 and can be contacted by telephone on 11 4808 2200 as well as by email askinformation.baires@fco.gov.uk.

      They might be able to provide an embassy email address where you could collect emails from us?

        1. She does. Her new phone.

          I just thought that perhaps the embassy might have a sort of poste restante email that people in Ashes’s situation can use.

      3. Ah, you are a darling. I have an alternative first name (diminutive) at randle dot org. Do send me a message, as I can’t remember your email address! 🙂🙂

  54. One for corimmobile
    Dalrymple

    The story of the modern addition to Pusey House in Oxford is a case in point. Only three years after it was completed and opened, it has had to be closed because it is cracking up, but not with laughter. At the time of its opening, it was lauded by the usual suspects as being “innovative” in design, but we have enough experience of innovation by modern British architects to know that the word in their mouths means ugly, dysfunctional, and improvable only by demolition. W.B. Yeats was an architectural visionary when he said that things would fall apart and the center could not hold.

    https://www.takimag.com/article/unwelcome-addition/

  56. Politics latest news: Rishi Sunak issues plea to Tory Brexiteers to back deal at crunch vote
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/03/17/rishi-sunak-news-latest-jeremy-hunt-pensions-northern-ireland/

    Looking at the BTL comments under this article it does seem to be finally dawning on DT readers that Sunak’s Windsor arrangement is total capitulation to the EU and will mark the end of Brexit if it is not stopped.

    BTL

    Percival Wrattstragler

    The Great Windsor Surrender keeps the EU firmly in control in Northern Ireland with the ECJ having final authority over British Law in UK territory. Indeed Usula Von Leyden made it abundantly clear that this was the case.

    The EU will keep British taxes and regulations on the UK mainland in line with the EU because of the grip it has in Northern Ireland.

    The Windsor Surrender marks the end of Brexit and the monarch, by allowing the association of the name of the royal house with it, seems unaware that this will also mean the end of the monarchy.

    2. A practical suggestion in a BTL comment by a chap called John Frankel:

      A simple statement from Sunak that no foreign court must ever have jurisdiction in any part of the UK is all that is needed. If the EU don’t agree, then we just leave the protocol.

      1. The Norwegian Constitution has a statement to that effect.
        If one wants to be sovereign, then it must be over everything.

          1. Problem comes that your point then opens to State funding of political parties… it’s a difficult one.

        2. So does our constitution (I forget which doc.) but QEII happily broke that, and her Coronation Oath..

        3. I fear that many members of our PTB would be more than happy for Sharia Law to take precedence over British Law in the UK.

        1. If Sunak is a Brexiteer – as he has claimed to be – then he is a very dim one as he has been completely outmanoeuvred and outwitted by the EU.

    3. The monarch is either exceptionally unaware, or else he is stupid, or else traitor to the people of his country. Or a bit of each/all.

      Whichever it is, he does not come out well.

  57. Free childcare, that’s a jike. Trudeau has tried to buy votes with $10 over here in canada, sounds nice I’d you like that kind of thing. After the media celebration, they are now finding that childcare needs resources and there are not enough daycare workers to meet the demand.

    Just another example of government incompetence.

  59. Putin’s war is headed for a terrifying escalation. 17 March 2023.

    Second, the West is increasingly bold in its actions in support of Ukraine. On Wednesday Polish president Andrzej Duda announced that Warsaw would send four Soviet-era MiG-29s to Ukraine – the first Western nation to send fighter jets to Kyiv since the war began. As they are replaced over this year, we may well see all 28 of Poland’s MiGs head to Ukraine. Slovakia has also committed planes.

    These actions were rejected last year for fear of escalation. Ukraine’s Nato allies had restricted their actions to providing spare parts for Kyiv’s fleet of Soviet jets as supplying actual airframes could be viewed as direct participation by the Kremlin. Now this line has been crossed, and Finland and the Netherlands could well follow suit.

    With greater Western willingness to arm Ukraine and cross Russian red lines, with victories thin on the ground, Moscow may find itself backed into a corner. And with the survival of his regime at stake, nothing would be off the table for Vladimir Putin.

    The escalation here is of course from NATO! One can only assume from this sudden urge to cross former red lines and supply planes that the Ukie position on the ground is becoming increasingly untenable.

    We will be glowing in the dark before these morons are done!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/17/putins-war-headed-terrifying-escalation/

    1. Putin is just responding to NATO/American provocation. They are doing this to distract from corruption at the highest levels and the covid hoax. They don’t care how many people die.

      And if you think that is over the top just remember what Madeleine Albright said about half a million Iraqi children dead being worth it. May she rot in hell.

  60. Is any country free from Chinese interference?

    I thought that Canada was bad with the Chinese election interference becoming a national scandal but now I see that China is suspected of bribing your not so fovourite presidential family.

    Even CNN is talking about it. https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/16/politics/house-gop-memo-biden-family/index.html

    At least Biden is keeping it simple by just taking money, Trudeau has allowed a much deeper infiltration of the Canadian parliamentary systemm.

    1. Is any country free from Chinese interference?
      No. they all bought Chinese communications electronics without wondering what surveillance is built into them. Revealed a few years ago, from Africa IIRC.
      Bloody idiots, the lot of them.

  61. British ambassador ‘directly involved’ in poisoning schoolgirls, claims Iranian news site. 17 march 2023.

    An Iranian news website run by the Revolutionary Guards accused the British ambassador in Tehran of being behind the ongoing spate of apparent “poisonings” of schoolgirls in the country on Saturday.

    On Saturday, Mashregh News – an outlet run by the IRGC – wrote: “The British ambassador in Iran has been directly involved in the poisoning of girl students in our country as he follows the instructions of the Churchill Club which is a secret British foreign policy that uses students in carrying out their terrorist operations in many different ways.”

    Now that’s my idea of a “Conspiracy Theory”! No Proof. No Evidence and No Sense!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/03/11/british-ambassador-directly-involved-poisoning-schoolgirls-claims/

  63. Just called the hospital to see if I can bring my appointment for April 14 ahead. Not a chance, fully booked. Really? Last time I was there it was like the Marie Celeste. So can’t go earlier and I asked to go on the list if there’s a cancellation….I am number 30 on the list. So not a chance.
    Who needs sleep anyway? Will stock up on Pinot tomorrow…

    1. They also say there are no GP appointments available and each time i have been the waiting room has been empty.

      Kick up a stink and they will likely see you to get rid of you soonest. Meek and polite doesn’t seem to work.

      1. My wife tried the demanding approach when looking for a help after MIL fell.

        She got banned from the surgery and it took effort to get a nurse to visit.

      2. To be honest, I suspect that after this appointment I may be admitted for slightly more serious surgery. Right now I can’t leave my husband by himself for an extended period. He IS doing better but still not as he was so I need to be around.
        A couple of over the counters before sleep and a few Pinots and I’ll manage.
        Not being noble just practical. It won’t help if I’m away and he has another mishap.

        2. If it’s actual sleep, rather than pain, I’ve found Sominex to be effective. I used it at odd times when downsizing from Allan Towers to the Dower House was really getting to me.

          1. Thanks but it’s pain which often prevents sleep. I will cope. Am a tough old bird.

          2. You can buy co-codamol over the counter – just not as strong as the prescription stuff. Have to avoid alcohol, though.

    1. By doing this at night, with security and police, the council knew there would be trouble, and so just wanted a fait accomplit. “Oh, dear. Too late now”. Lets hope the whole shitsshow fails badly, and the council all lose their seats. Bastards, the lot of them.

      1. We had a local builder ignore restrictions and preservation orders by demolishing a church one Sunday morning. Just a small slap on the wrist could be administered.

        Council did get even with the builder, that lot remains empty and building permit applications continue to be refused.

        1. The same happened to a listed barn and a pub locally some years ago. In both cases the miscreant builder was forced to rebuilt a structure exactly as the originals were.

          That would never happen now.

          The same happened to the old Kensington Town Hall about 55 years ago, which some builder had been prohibited from knocking down. Then, surprise, surprise, there was an explosion one night… I think the builder might have got away with that one.

          3. I think a lot of ‘Migrant Hotels’ should suffer a sudden conflagration.

            Maybe a crowd with machetes should be waiting for them to run out.

          4. Colchester had a series of ‘interesting’ fires in buildings that had been hanging about waiting for permission to redevelop the sites.
            In one case, just round the corner from us, the owners were so keen to rebuild that there were two fires in one week.

    2. By doing this at night, with security and police, the council knew there would be trouble, and so just wanted a fait accomplit. “Oh, dear. Too late now”. Lets hope the whole shitsshow fails badly, and the council all lose their seats. Bastards, the lot of them.

    3. I’ve walked the Armada Way many many times over the years. I simply cannot express my contempt enough for the idiot councillors who authorised this wanton act.

    2. Perhaps the thick little spoilt brat should take up martial arts then and not expect others to pay for his choices.

    3. Isn’t he supposed to have invested all of his money in that Silicon Valley bank?

      I guess that royalties from his novel are not coming in as quickly as they expected.

    4. He had a perfectly good job and a lucrative one at that but he chucked it in. All he had to do was say yes Klaus no Klaus, open a few woke events and patronise some charities. He had to do it to someone else’s timetable and at their bidding but which of us doesn’t. What kind of job does he think doesn’t involve service?

  66. Guess who went out to do the shopping and found she had no means of payment? Fortunately discovered before entering the shops. Can’t be bothered to go down again (it’s a five mile round trip) so I’m back here. At least the washing has dried.

    3. Don’t the jolly traders just tug their forelocks and add it to your monthly account?

      (That takes one back…!!¬)

      3. My colleague at work, when it came to paying for the tea club money, used to say:
        “Could you put it on account – on account I don’t have any money”!

    4. As Phizzee says plod isn’t interested. You can nick goods up to the value of £200 and not be nicked!

          1. The Rabbi emerged unscathed from a car crash and astonished everybody by doing the sign of the cross.

            No, I am not a Christian but I’m just checking:

            ***************Spectacles*****************************
            *
            *
            *
            Wallet *************and*********************** Watch
            *
            *
            *
            *****************Testicles*******************

          2. Sometimes you need the balls to go up and present your Debit Card, knowing full well you’re going to go over the limit.

      2. Apparently not – OH said it’s not the first time………… can’t remember that!

  67. ICC issues arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin over war crimes. 17 March 2023.

    The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin for war crimes because of his alleged involvement in the abduction of children from Ukraine.

    Putin “is allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation,” the court said in a statement.

    Ooops! Vlad’s up in front of the beak! These international institutions are now as corrupt and rotten as their domestic equivalents! Perhaps it really is time for the End!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/03/17/ukraine-russia-war-latest-ukraine-russia-war-latest-news-putin/

        2. 🙂 you are quick off the mark as I realised quite quickly I didn’t put the link in. But as always it appears my favourite podcasts have videos you can watch as well, so here is a link to the You Tube and I’ll also reattach the podcast link.

          You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqHQN54XCL0

          Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-jordan-b-peterson-podcast/id1184022695?i=1000604509502

          Edit: I haven’t seen the video…I am more of a podcast-person.

        3. 🙂 you are quick off the mark as I realised quite quickly I didn’t put the link in. But as always it appears my favourite podcasts have videos you can watch as well, so here is a link to the You Tube and I’ll also reattach the podcast link.

          You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqHQN54XCL0

          Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-jordan-b-peterson-podcast/id1184022695?i=1000604509502

          Edit: I haven’t seen the video…I am more of a podcast-person.

    3. The whole point appears to be that too many have nothing whatsoever to do with Ukraine, it’s gimmegrants coming in the back of the Ukrainians.
      And God only knows the Ukrainians should be helped and the rest should be dumped in the channel.

    4. Much as I admire Tommy Robinson, I am disturbed when anyone starts quoting percentages. Right at the beginning he states that numbers of immigrants have risen by 547% in one year. This sounds alarmingly high, but if last year’s immigrants were only two people, then 547% would mean that this year 11 migrants were admitted. Far better to say that “last year Ireland admitted two million immigrants, but this year the figure is eleven million, an increase of 547%”. I am sure the earlier figure is no way as low as two, nor (hopefully) as high as two million, but just giving a 547% increase is – to my mind – deliberately playing games with people’s minds.

    1. Whelm or whelmed without under or over is perfectly correct. Problem is that overwhelmed and just plain whelmed mean essentially the same thing. Unlike couth which is the opposite of uncouth. Yes, I know it’s a joke – but there IS an answer!

      1. “And that is the end of Schools Broadcasting for today.”

        (Merely a joke, Our Susan!)

      2. “Though not actually disgruntled he was very far from being gruntled.”

        [Pelham Grenville Wodehouse]

        1. The play I watched last night in Ipswich was called Woodhouse in Wonderland – a one-man performance by Robert Daws as PGW set in his final home in Long Island, USA. A wonderfully written play which was well worth watching (and the subsequent two and a half tour of Suffolk and Essex in order to get home).

      3. “Though not actually disgruntled he was very far from being gruntled.”

        [Pelham Grenville Wodehouse]

          3. An immutable law of nature alongside the laws of thermodynamics:

            all puke has carrot in it

          6. Following your heart with integrity can increase your Influence with others.

            Because Ruth followed her heart and went with Naomi to Bethlehem, her influence on others increased.
            Instead of looking down on her as a pretend foreigner from the Southern States, the Nottlers noticed her and admired her.

  70. Bogey Five, today.

    Wordle 636 5/6
    🟨🟨⬜⬜🟨
    ⬜🟨🟨🟨🟨
    ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Wordle 636 4/6

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

      More American than English.

    2. I expected a five or six ’cause I thought the word couldn’t possibly be correct but might provide a further clue.

      Wordle 636 4/6

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

    3. Par 4 here

      Wordle 636 4/6

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

    5. Me too.
      Wordle 636 5/6

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

  73. Today I received notice of a 13% increase in my monthly broadband charge. So I’ve just spent 1&1/2 hours on BT Chat pointing out that when I renewed my broadband contract I asked their agent to confirm the monthly price would be constant during the 2 year duration of the contract. I had the foresight to Screenshot capture the conversation so I had a record of the agent confirming: “Yes I am doing this”. After an hour communicating with our friends in the East I was ‘escalated’ to a chap with an British name. Who reviewed their records and said I had the right to cancel the contract. I suggested that having been a customer for nearly 50 years wouldn’t the simplest solution be to honour the current monthly payments. BT couldn’t do this but offered a new contract at the lower price available to new customers (but with the CPI +3% annual increase) which I agreed to. Hoping to God that the chancellor’s inflation forecasts have a degree of accuracy!

    Lessons leaned 1) Always capture Screenshots of Chat when agreements are being made otherwise the company has a record and you don’t
    2) When a contract such as this is up for renewal. End contract and get spouse partner to take on new contract at New customers only terms. Rinse and repeat.

    1. I found out last year that any % increase is on the basic premium before discount. My broad band and mobile with BT is going up just over £4 to just over £17 a month – unlimited broadband and unlimited mobile calls. Then of course there is the standing charge which I pay yearly

  74. That’s me for Day one of the Great Diet. Jolly dull feeling hungry and being unable to satisfy it…..{:¬((

    A dull day in general – drizzle and unwelcoming – though mildish.

    The GREAT news is that the lady who owns the flat we have rented for years in Cap d’Ail (in the same block that we lived in when the MR worked in Monaco) e-mails to say that we could have two weeks in June. Calloo Callay – the best beach in France just 154 steps down from the block….

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain and Englnd’s final disaster

    1. If you set off now, you could walk there.
      Think how slim and fit you would be, even if you ate a Hardcastle lunch every day.

    2. Why are you on a diet? Any photos you have posted you seem as thin as a rail.

      1. He noticed his trousers were a bit tight and has put on 10 kilos. He’s probably still thin as a rail.

          1. Bill,life is not a dress rehearsal- it’s the performance. Get on with it and enjoy!!

          2. He won’t enjoy it though if he’s feeling fat and his waist bands are cutting him in half!

    3. Out of the kindness of my heart I looked up the distance and it’s only about 10 miles day, so hire a gardener and set off NOW!

      If you did it by bike you could wait a little while before setting off.

      1. Do you mean that if they collided it would be matter and anti-matter and they’d not matter?

    1. They can claim whatever they like.

      Who’s in the White House?

      possession is 90% of the law…

        1. It might be right/correct but the bottom line is

          Biden’s an arsehole.

          But he’s still the man behind the Resolute Desk

          1. The same thing has happened here with Rishi, a leader nobody voted for.

            I don’t think they can be beaten through the democratic process because it has been subverted.

          2. The thing that concerns me most, is that in the longer term this is going to become the norm.
            Vote “X”.
            Once in place the MPs vote “Y” and they select the government.

            For clarification on the point:
            Look back at how Andrew McIntosh was usurped by Ken Livingstone

          3. Well it has been going on for a long time, just that it is brazenly more in our faces nowadays .

          4. That’s because they think we’re powerless.
            The Dutch may be that necessary straw in the wind to show them they’re wrong, I certainly hope so.

          6. The left went for the ‘long game’ many years ago. They’ve thought it all through very well. Regular folk, like us lot, have been cut off at the knees I’m afraid.

          7. As with Macron in France these WEF appointees simply prescribe legislation by passing their parliaments. This is precisely what Mscron has done regarding increasing the pension age in France and Rishi in regard to the abolition of Article 16 with regards to Brexit and our ability otherwise to tell the EU to take a run and jump.

            Far more worrying is the behaviour of Rutte in Holland who would wreck the farming industry, steal vast acreages of good agricultural land and bankrupt thousands of efficient farmers in order to build some massive Tri-State City.

            Needless to say the new city would include a whole load of detritus with fighting age men from Africa, tribesmen from shit-holes such as Somalia and many more if radically different cultures.

            We can already see that the policy of unprotected borders and importation of such people under UN dictat will necessarily divide our societies and cause disharmony. The WEF idea is really to eliminate the things which give us our unique identity as a people. By taking away our cultural identity, destroying our history and demeaning us by labelling us as racist or imperialist they will obtain control over us all.

            These bastards shall be resisted.

    2. Shared. It’s so catchy, cheerful and uplifting! It does, amazingly in these troubled times, inspire hope.

    1. Yet another waste of skin being kept expensively alive by the taxpayer.
      Do with them what is done to rogue elephants and rabid dogs.
      The planet is a better place without them.

        2. There have been documented cases where recipients of donated organs have taken on the characteristics of the donor. ‘Anecdotal’ only.

  80. The Twiiter Enforcer Spam Flagger was at it again.

    Here is a comment I made today under the Spectator article on “gay marriage” and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

    “The author of this piece seems deliberately to be pushing his own M25-inclusive agenda when it comes to analysing the Archbishop’s apparent dilemma.

    Although St Paul wrote to the Corinthians to suggest that marriage was a second-best alternative to celibacy when it comes to avoiding the natural urges of animal sexuality, I do feel that those whose tastes vary from that of the King do need an alternative of their own in order to avoid the torment of suppression of their natural urges. Otherwise, it could erupt in all sorts of unwelcome ways, from trysts in the gents to choirboys. However, if such couplings are to be tolerated, and even by some enjoyed, then they need to be given another name. Marriage it ain’t.

    Therefore the language of “gay marriage” should not even be spoken in church. Leave it to the confused legislators who pushed this through without a democratic mandate, if we must, but any liturgy must bear the right terminology if it is to mean anything. Lest, people suggest I am being pedantic by insisting that marriage is a union of opposites, and therefore in our species between just a man and a woman, may I quote the opening of St John’s Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word.”. Words are important.

    As for the concept of sin, I understand this to mean the denial of the importance of God, and thus separation from God’s Grace. Often, it is a matter of choice to adopt hubris in place of God, but to the devout, this rarely ends well. It is a moot point whether it is sinful the refusal of the natural sexual procedures for the procreation of our species, and replacing such feelings with those directed to one’s own sex. I personally feel that our sexual instincts, and that of many sexual species, is hit-and-miss and doesn’t really conform to one limited set pattern. If that were so, how would the Kama Sutra or ‘The Joy of Sex’ ever get past the first chapter? If may even have been God’ intention to add a degree of randomness, in order to avoid in-breeding and stimulate evolution.

    In any case, I do not know enough to judge whether it is sinful, and I doubt even Jesus Christ felt qualified to make such a judgement. Leave it to the consciences of those doing it, and they can sort it out with God. However, one thing I do firmly believe in, and was the fundamental point of me accepting my own baptism and confiemation in middle age, was that the Peace, in preparation for the Sacrament of the Eucharist, must be unconditional. This is no time for me to treat my neighbour, holding hands with his brother-in-heart, or sister-in-heart and clearly on intimate terms, anything less than the love I share with all those present. “We are one body”, even though an arm may not be the same as a leg. It would be churlish not to offer such a couple God’s blessing as much as it would be wrong to call it a marriage.”

    1. Very profound for a Friday evening, Jeremy – and I don’t mean to be frivolous, either. A piece like this needs some thought to be answered properly. I do, however, like the last paragraph that mirrors my own position on the subject.

  81. For some on The Left, the Lineker business demonstrated (at least at first) that the BBC is now a Tory-controlled news agency ready to stamp out freedom of speech in the country. Tim Davie’s capitulation says otherwise. The same people were, of course, outraged at the time of the Jess Brammar affair, convinced that Robbie Gibb’s interventions were proof that the BBC was always in support of Brexit.

    Accusations of political bias from the right also rather miss the point. Davie’s failing isn’t that he hasn’t changed editorial policy in party political ways – no DG or chairman ought to do so – but that he hasn’t tackled the BBC’s approach to so many subjects currently in the news. Some presenters and news editors possess a great skill – the ability to give an impression of even-handedness while coming down subtly on one side (you know which one…). The approach to Covid was typical, following the OFCOM guide lines yet every now and then producing an article on its news website that suggested a more critical approach before toeing the line again.

    ‘Climate change’ is quite the worst example. Here’s another piece that includes the infamous line about the number of homes to be powered by solar panels. It’s all very well reporting the local protests but has any one ever heard a BBC reporter, national or local, offer a hint of a challenge to this nonsense?

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjj7d17q6jyo

  82. Back from my trip and I see there are 450 new comments!
    I don’t think I’ll be trawling through them so apologies over anything I’m going to miss.

    And enjoyable trip. Did a small amount of shopping, had a wander down to the Cattle Market to try the Silly Sausage Cafe, a VERY enjoyable beef stew & dumpling and back for the concert which was interesting.
    A 1h10m recital by a saxophone quartet with a bit more modern music than I wanted, but still enjoyable.

    Slow bus journey back to Derby, A52 at Pentagon Island gets bloody worse. It took longer to do the ½mile to the roundabout than it did the rest of the trip.

    Transpeak bus was also running late but I did have a chance of catching the Bonsall bus from Cromford until the driver was forced to put the anchors on as we approached the North Mill due to an oncoming 7½ tonner drifting over to the wrong side of the road.
    Said 7½ tonner wrote off his wing mirrors and a couple of passenger suffered light injuries.

    Eventually got to Cromford and stopped off for a pine in the bell before walking home.

      1. It used to be an hourly Manchester-Nottingham service then it was progressively cut back first Manch-Derby and now Buxton-Derby.

    1. It looks bad, but that’s how the Chamber works.
      For all but the show pieces; budget PMQ’s emergency statements and the like, the chamber empties.
      It has little to do with Bridgen or a conspiracy it’s just normal.
      Virtually nothing is actually debated properly.

      1. So let’s get this straight. YouTube is banning certain proceedings of the United Kingdom’s Parliament. Barstewards!

      3. We haven’t had freedom of speech and opinion since they cobbled together
        the Race Relations Act in the mid sixties.

    3. For such a short clip this is extraordinarily revealing about the nature of the people who infest Westminster. They are shown to be small minded and docile bigots unable to listen to an alternative view. I note that the footage of them is blurred so that we cannot identify them! These people and this institution no longer represent me. I am done with them!

  84. Just dug the car out of snow – nasty, icy, heavy wet stuff – so SWMBO can fetch Second Son. The road has been driven on and so is about 2 inches of compressed snow/ice, almost impossible to remain standing upright on. She got up the hill OK, hope it’s as easy coming back down.

    1. Uncle sosraboc writes:

      I know you think you’re immortal, but for goodness sake be careful, you won’t be helping your family if you take a tumble and do some irreparable harm.

      And besides witch, ho ho, I like your jokes and would miss your presence.

      1. Was very careful how I shovelled and moved. Falling over wouldn’t be fun, neither dislodging the peacemaker or it’s connections before they are properly grown in.

    2. Bloody hell Paul, take care of yourself. I would miss teasing you about your jokes if you weren’t around. And never mind that- what about your family?!!

      2. Looks like the Credit Suisse Knives are out – including the blade to extract banks from an ever deepening hole of their own making!

  86. Slightly off topic, but it’s the last W/E of the 6 Nations rugby.
    I noticed a staggering statistic:
    In Henry Arundell’s six England appearances he has touched the ball six times in 77 minutes and scored two tries.
    He’s been selected as a starter for the Ireland match. As has Farrell.
    So, kick chase, kick chase, kick chase is menu du jour.

    1. Can’t be true. Ask the wokerati. African effnics don’t do chop-chop. That’s just a waycist myth. Not.

    3. Regarding no death penalty:-

      MrAppliance, Somewhere, Canada, 11 hours ago

      For everyone asking why no death penalty: the victims families asked the DA to offer a deal, he pleads guilty and gets life in prison and this way they dont have to hear the details of the attacks.

  91. Evening, all. People still seem to be under the misapprehension that we have a “Conservative” government. We haven’t had one of those since they deposed Maggie Thatcher.

    1. As I have said both my husband and I have had our health seriously compromised by the jabs. No end in sight. See my post below about me trying to get a sooner appointment for my skin cancer. Not on.

      1. My super sporty husband suddenly developed heart trouble. He had three of the Pfizer jabs.

        1. A good friend of mine, a very fit builder, who implored me to take the jabs, died aged 57 years of an aortic aneurysm. I am convinced the jabs were responsible for his death.

          He has a grieving widow, a son and daughter. His father wept at the funeral at the loss of his son.

          We are not simply numbers on some confected Neil Ferguson spreadsheet but real people who expect to be properly served by those we elect, by those we pay for by our taxes in government and organisations such as the various Health Agencies and the NHS.

          There is little evidence that any of these people and Agencies have provided any sort of service for the money they take from us. In fact they have taken our money and sold us down the river to pharmaceutical giants, incompetent medical research institutions (Oxford Astra Zeneca a prime example but give the bitch a dame hood and knight the others for epic failure) and PPE fraud companies set up by their chums (Matt Hancock is a perfect example of this scum) for their own personal interests.

    2. No matter. The evidence of government corruption in the promotion of experimental vaccines, the suppression of known effective cheap remedies, the erection of vast Nightingale hospitals and equipment at enormous expense which were never used or required, lockdowns, masks and the expensive paraphernalia and bribery involved in procuring vast quantities of toxic ‘vaccines’ and the other crud such as ineffective masks (causing other harms especially to children forced to wear them and pollution), the costs in bribes to media such as the BBC to spout falsehoods and the video evidence from the likes of Matt Hancock (a shit of the first order and complicit with and under direct instructions of Schwab is more than enough evidence to try those responsible with Crimes Against Humanity.

      The evidence of harms from these ‘vaccines’ is mounting yet the perpetrators of this massive fraud are persisting and intending to inject babies, toddlers and small children. It must be stopped. This is medical genocide.

      The signs are that the World is waking to the enormity of these crimes. We are dealing with the most evil cabal of Rothschild usurers and their minions whose singular aim is to increase their wealth and control the enslaved viz. the rest of us. Their model is the CCP.

      If you ever wondered why hundreds of urban trees were removed in cities such as Sheffield and lately Plymouth it is to remove obstructions to the installation of cameras in their proposed surveillance society, their fifteen minute cities and the rest of the dystopian nightmare these fuckers have been planning for decades.

      We shall defeat them and I hope that they will be hung for their crimes.

      1. Evidence is mounting, kudos principally to Karen Kingston and Dr David Martin in the States for researching the patents, contracts and the web of evil between those responsible, that the ‘virus’ doesn’t exist and is, in fact, a bio-weapon. The idea of an air-borne virus was promulgated to enable the inoculation of the bio-weapon into the World’s population. It is likely that the bio-weapon was spread in numerous urban areas worldwide to give the impression of spread but again the spread didn’t correspond to that of an air-borne disease. The fake PCR test (who knows what was in the assay used?) was utilised to purely misinform re spread and the intensity of infection (cases) and therefore create fear and panic to push the real pathogen, the jab, onto humanity.
        How those involved sleep at night is beyond my comprehension.

        1. Morning Korky. Your last sentence – they sleep well because everything’s going their way. The plans are working absolutely perfectly.

  93. Time for drinking perhaps.

    The Conservatives are putting forward a motion in the commons to force Trudeaus chief of Staff to appear before a committee investigating Chinese election interference.

    All parties are onside with the motion and Trudeau is rumored to be making it a confidence vote.

    Thre may be hope that the emporer falls.

    1. Have been drinking Richard and now heading to bed. Gawd, I need to sleep tonight.

    2. Trudeau is a tyrannical monster created in part by Klaus Schwab. His father is Castro and his supposed father a Mafia accomplice. All of this has been known for decades.

    3. Trudeau is a tyrannical monster created in part by Klaus Schwab. His father is Castro and his supposed father a Mafia accomplice. All of this has been known for decades.

Comments are closed.