Tuesday 11 April: Strikes will do lasting harm to doctor-patient relations in the NHS

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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520 thoughts on “Tuesday 11 April: Strikes will do lasting harm to doctor-patient relations in the NHS”

  2. First Second! Hah!
    Morning, all Y’all. Cold, raining. Ugh. Working day, too.

    2. You and SWMBO busy packing your bags today?

      Norway counts the cost of its new wealth tax as billionaires flee to Switzerland

      Outdated levy has long been a thorn in the side of the country’s super-rich

      By Charlotte Gifford
      10 April 2023 • 7:07pm

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/business/2023/04/10/TELEMMGLPICT000331702333_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqqVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwSX5rhseiWKOo9p9OQ-ymek.jpeg?imwidth=680
      *
      *
      *********************************

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/04/10/norway-wealth-tax-billionaire-flee-switzerland/

      1. The neighbouring kommune lost one guy, and that reduced their tax income by about 21 million NOK alone. And he’s not the only one to leave. Stupid bastard politicians fail to understand that the rich are highly mobile, and don’t have to be any particular place – nor their money. So, lets drive it away so ordinary folk have to pay more, typical actions of a Socialist government. Farking idiots, they are.

      1. Glad to see that little Ophelia/Kayleigh has a suitably tanned doll.
        NOT a wolligog, natch.

      2. Sod the NHS. Right now I am so mad at them I could explode. They just don’t bloody care about patients and they don’t care if people die. There are 3 hospitals in our area and only one gives decent care; the other 2, including the one I am supposed to attend, are total crap.
        Patient care? Don’t make me laugh.

  10. The SNP saga just gets better by the minute. Sturgeon’s driving lessons (for the Campervan)
    https://i2-prod.dailyrecord.co.uk/incoming/article29672940.ece/ALTERNATES/s810/0_JS296319271.jpg
    Nicola Sturgeon has been learning to drive at the age of 52

    Thomas Struzzi
    9 HRS AGO
    If you ever feel even the slightest tinge of compassion for Sturgeon, Murrell, Blackford and the rest of the Scottish Nazionalists, just remember the truly murderous hatchet job they executed on Charles Kennedy.
    Some things are just beyond forgiveness.

    A charge sheet
    https://www.effiedeans.com/2020/10/the-snp-hall-of-shame.html

    1. Karen Wilson
      6 HRS AGO
      I am loving it. Humza’s Useless is going to surprise people. I think surprises are the last thing the SNP need.
      A camper van. Really? We all knew she was going. We all knew she went in a hurry and the leadership campaign was rushed to get Humza in. We dared to hope that SNP sleaze and secrecy could be their downfall, never mind their nutty policies and inability to effectively govern.
      Now we have an appropriation of half a million GBP and a dearly held hope that Ernst Stavro Blofeld has nicked the funds and fiendishly hidden the proceeds in his Mums driveway while his missus has been booking driving lessons.
      Is this real. Am I dreaming…. Oh the joy that life can be

    3. Thanks for that. Given everything that’s been going on these last three years I haven’t been visiting the excellent Effie. I should get back to her.

      Oh, as for compassion for any of the SNP? Fuggedaboudid as Taki would say.

  12. Good morning, all. Blue sky all around in N Essex.

    Apologies to sirjasper, Bill Thomas and Bob of Bonsall for the late reply re the image I put up yesterday. I was out all of yesterday afternoon and evening and didn’t have time to look for the original image.

    This morning I tracked it back to the GatewayPundit website but as the image is very large I have found it impossible to read the detail even when using Windows Magnifier i.e. (Windows logo key) plus (+ key): perhaps you have something better.

    link here:

    GatewayPundit – Dr Shiva>

      2. It probably depends on your browser, but I right click on the three small vertical dots at the top right of the screen and a menu drops down. About half way down that menu is a zoom function. You can right click the + or – as needed.

      3. (Windows Logo key) + (Escape) for magnifier.
        Using the Chrome browser – see sos’s comment below.

        1. Thanks I was just pressing escape. its easy when you know. Have a goood day.

          1. JN, you’re welcome. I only found magnifier and its controls yesterday. I had been using zoom in the browser up until then.

  13. Pregnant smokers to be offered £400 to give up smoking

    Well I suppose that’s cheaper than treating infant diseases but will they be asked to pay it back if they don’t give up?

    2. I identify as a woman
      I identify as pregnant
      I identify as a smoker
      Please send the £400

  15. 373308+ up ticks,

    Are we about to be living witnesses to the first self inflicted
    ROYAL WOKE CROAK ?

    King Charles is becoming so woke he is in danger of abolishing himself
    His Majesty would do better to please monarchists and the nation as a whole, not bend to every prevailing fad and foible

    2. Somewhere in Spain there used to be a company on the coast that bottled and distributed carbonated mineral water. Of course, air pressure is lower in mountainous areas…
      I suppose eventually someone explained the situation to the gas technician.

  18. The ‘anti-racist’ mission to destroy Britain is working – and we have surrendered

    This was never about history, but crude propaganda. Yet our best institutions were all too happy to capitulate

    ROBERT TOMBS
    10 April 2023 • 9:30pm

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2023/04/10/TELEMMGLPICT000247619435_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bq9UBoSe11MJPy0xbuNzaYpmreqapuikfNyCYuptSHoIo.jpeg?imwidth=680
    Portraits of King George III (L), who signed into law the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, and Queen Charlotte (R)

    It was inevitable that the monarchy would be attacked for involvement in 17th- and 18th-century slavery. Nearly every other national institution has been already. A new King and the forthcoming Coronation make it a tempting target.

    The King, quite understandably, has expressed support for a historical investigation, and perhaps this will calm things down until after the Coronation. But the monarchy would sooner or later have become a target as the symbol of the nation, its unity and its history – the very things that “anti-racist” and “anti-colonial” activists aim to undermine. They have an ally in Vladimir Putin, who attacks the West’s “centuries of colonialism”.

    We play along with the pretext that the obsession with slavery and colonialism is about history. We even acquiesce in activists’ claims that the aim is uncovering some long-hidden aspect of our past and “facing up to it”. But real history seeks above all to understand and it aims at getting the complete story. Trawling through the past in a search for something discreditable is crude propaganda.

    There is no serious historical purpose when institutions such as the Church of England, Cambridge University, Kew Gardens, the National Trust, or the Bank of England solemnly announce that they are investigating their guilty past. It is perfectly well known that Britain, and hence the monarchy and many other institutions, were involved in the slave economy. It is equally well known that nearly every other country was – not only European countries, but African, American, Asian and Middle Eastern ones too.

    Many people also realise that Britain, and hence its monarchy, were the leaders of a long global campaign to end the slave trade and then slavery itself. Successive governments were responding to a tide of public pressure, including mass petitions and boycotts of slave-grown products – sufficient proof that Britain has long been one of the least racist societies. Of course, efforts to end slavery were not wholly successful, but they were sustained and often heroic.

    Moreover, they were unique: the British anti-slavery policy was strongly resisted by American, European, Arab and, of course, African states, which had to be persuaded by diplomacy, bribery and sometimes force. This epoch-making endeavour, not participation in the slave trade, is the part of our history that is now being deliberately downplayed and distorted. Yet while we need to reiterate the basics – of which many children and young people seem ignorant – argument alone is not enough, as it assumes a willingness to listen and be convinced by plain fact.

    In reality there is no such willingness among those who are singling out Britain, as if this country and its monarchy were uniquely tainted. Sometimes their motives seem to be ideological, as succinctly expressed by the newly elected National Education Union general secretary, Daniel Kebede, who has spoken of “taking back education from a brutally racist state”.

    But behind such ideological verbiage there are plenty of less exalted motives. “Anti-racist” and “anti-colonial” notoriety is a shrewd career move in those reaches of academia, publishing, curatorship and entertainment where competition for jobs is intense and outstanding ability rare: how else can you tell one professor of post-colonial literature or lecturer in hate studies from another?

    Major institutions have repeatedly given in to pressure from junior staff. The trustees of such bodies, usually well-meaning people but rarely experts, seem frightened of doing their duty to safeguard their institutions in the interests of the wider public. Yet in law, trustees have huge and largely unaccountable discretion, and if they give in to every “woke” initiative, the consequences will be serious and in some cases irreversible.

    The sorry saga of the Benin Bronzes is a study in such institutional failure. A large number of these objects were brought back by a British expedition in 1897, and are now found in many museums in Britain, France, Germany and the US. The kingdom of Benin, far from being a defenceless victim of gratuitous colonial aggression, was a violent slave-owning despotism that killed slaves for ritual purposes and the 1897 expedition put a stop to that.

    International museum curators have decided, without bothering much about other opinions, that the bronzes should be given back unconditionally as “colonial loot” to Nigeria. This consensus is based on a systematically distorted account of 1897, which passes over the anti-slavery aspect of the British intervention in silence.

    The Horniman Museum and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge are among those disposing of important collections of Benin bronzes. Yet the Nigerians themselves are quarrelling over ownership. Moreover, American descendants of enslaved Africans have formally requested that the bronzes should be kept safe in Western museums where they can be seen, and they strongly object to their being donated to the successors of the slavers who sold their ancestors. But they have been ignored.

    Even august institutions cannot, it seems, now be trusted to safeguard historic objects. Furthermore, they are all too willing to tarnish their own reputations in the cause of virtue signalling. Cambridge University conducted research that found no evidence that it had benefited from slave holdings. Was its finding a cause for celebration? Far from it. The ensuing report resorted to tenuous accusations against 18th-century alumni and rather than honouring the University’s anti-slavery campaigners, preferred nit-picking criticism.

    Government ministers have been reluctant to get involved. But we are experiencing a wholesale attack on our culture and history abetted by publicly funded or charitable institutions. In many cases, their trustees are appointed by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, whose ministers cannot pretend that this is none of their business.

    When we get further attacks on the monarchy it may wake them up to the fact that our younger generation are being told to despise everything about our common past – one of the main foundations on which national solidarity rests.

    Robert Tombs is a Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge

    1. The ‘anti-racist’ mission to destroy Britain is working – and we have surrendered.

      Well the Elites have surrendered. I haven’t!

        1. The pronouns of guilt! “We did that to them” “It’s our fault”. It’s up to us“.

      2. The educators of today’s children have. It bodes I’ll for the future. Still we won’t be there to see the backlash unless it’s very soon.

  19. Good morning all. A much brighter start, bright sunshine and a clear sky showing 1°C on the thermometer in the yard with Flight UAE1KM inbound to Manchester as I opened the curtains!

  20. 373308+ up ticks,

    Is this for real ? isn’t there first going to be answers to the seemingly political corporate manslaughter / murder appertaining to the JAB.

    Who was / is / will be held responsible for the backlash of deaths and serious injuries incurred, surely the herd want answers to the former before considering the latter (more of the same deadly shite)

    Rishi Sunak plans autumn 2024 general election in hope of shock victory
    Well-placed sources believe going late maximises the chance of the economy improving

    Mull over a well known fact,

    There ain’t no pockets in a shroud.

  22. I would have more sympathy for doctors if they had exercised their expertise a bit more during the pandemic and contradicted the governments lockdowns, mask wearing and vaccination programs, instead they went along with it all and now it is proven that it all did more harm than good.

    What is the point of all their training if the general public can work it out long before them?

    Now they want a huge pay rise, do they think they are owed this for their compliance and breaking their Hippocratic oath

    I shall never intentionally cause harm to my patients, and will have the utmost respect for human life. I will practice medicine with integrity, humility, honesty and compassion. I recognise that the practice of medicine is a privilege with which comes considerable responsibility and I will not abuse my position.

  23. G’morning all,

    Bright start, rain later at the McPhee desmesne 6℃ with a SW breeze.

    Just in case there are some who still think that our governments in the West are the ‘good guys’ here’s Vanessa Beeley, daughter of a former UK Ambassador to Egypt, giving a “Beginner’s Guide to Syria” to Jerm Warfare. If they are capable of doing what they have done in Syria, in the Plandemic and in Ukraine they are capable of anything. They really don’t care about us, the livestock, at all.

    As Vanessa says at one point we have to distrust and disbelieve everything we have been taught about our history and start again to find the truth.

    https://odysee.com/@jermwarfare:2/Vanessa-Beeley:6

      1. As Vanessa puts it the US is the muscle, MI6 and the City of London are the brains.

    2. I was listening to this yesterday but stopped listening when she said the state of Israel was illegal.

      1. When a non British citizen trys to register to vote in the UK, the application is handled by the local council.
        If Mr Rashid has friends who work in the Town Hall, who knows what errors might occur?

  26. Yesterday, there was a very good article in The Grimes about the many and evident failures of the Church of England, in particular its inability (or unwillingness) to train and encourage parish priests.

    This was a BTL comment that rang clanging bells in this house:

    “In our (Herefordshire) benefice there are seven parishes served by a Rector, two retired clergy, and an unpaid Reader. It leaves little time for the sick and lonely, the dying and bereaved. This is usual across the diocese. And yet, in its great wisdom, within the last two weeks, the Hereford Diocese has made two central appointments, one for an ‘Environment Enabler’ (to help achieve Carbon Net Zero), and the other a ‘Social Action Enabler’. They are both good, decent people, but will they spend the next few years building up relationships with parishioners? No, they will draw up ‘strategies’ and ‘plans’, they will make presentations about ‘implementation’, and, irony of ironies, there will be ‘action plans’. Their diaries will be full. There won’t be time to call on X in his late 80s, living on his own and with a heart condition, and a small herd of cattle that he’s worried sick about. But then they won’t know about him in the first place.”

    And in the paper today, there is a letter from a retired clergyman:

    “Sir, Thanks to Emma Thompson for speaking the truth to power (Comment, Apr 10). I retired ten years ago but am helping to support five country parishes. Meanwhile, the Diocese of Coventry has appointed an evangelist on £50,000 a year who is “not expected to work weekends”.
    The Rev Canon A James Canning
    Coventry”

    Sums it all up.

    1. A friend of ours was a retired banker on a very good pension. He was ordained and ran several parishes unpaid until he finally left the posts. I wonder how many others there are like that in the UK?
      The Church seems able to find and squander great sums at the expense of old fashioned pastoral care.

      1. And they make perfectly fit, active, alert and competent clergy retire at 70 – even though they wish to carry on.

        1. Look on the bright side, it also forces out the duds, of which there appear to be more and more.

          1. As far as duds go, ours is a case in point; dictatorial, won’t take advice, doesn’t do the services properly, doesn’t visit the sick, has alienated the choir and the PCC (she caused the Treasurer and Gift Aid co-ordinator to resign) and won’t let any congregation members read the lesson any more. We are having to have an extra APCM because the pig-headed rector refused to change the date to a time when the accounts had been audited. I worship elsewhere now.

    2. Surely the vicars should ignore the bits of paper and tend their flocks or am I missing something.

    3. And when the band-wagons they have created are stuck in their own ‘mud’ and they fall off, they will all be wondering what happened.

    4. Morning all.

      It occurred to me recently that the AoC has no leg to stand on if he wanted to protest KC3’s intention to invite other faiths to the coronation. He simply has made no effort to encourage/inspire Church of England followers, taking a sabbatical during Covid when you’d think he may be needed to show the way to his flock. And locking all the churches, of course, when people may have felt the need to go to church. He’s been an utter failure as AoC.

    5. This is of course why Marcus Walker and Giles Fraser launched Save the Parish. There are now about 150 General Synod members who identify themselves as supporters and there’ll be another event in the Palace of Westminster this month. (25th, 6-8 pm if anyone wants to try encouraging their MP to attend.) There are a small number of MPs and peers already on board but of course it’s hoped that more will listen. The journalist Emma Thompson (not the actress) is a member/supporter.

      1. T’was she who wrote the article. To be honest, I was surprised The Times printed it.

    1. When there’s a knock on the front door why does the dog always think it’s for him?

      1. Even when it’s just bills cascading through the letter box.
        Never seems to follow up his interest by paying them.

      2. When Oscar barks to come in, Kadi (who hasn’t bothered to go out) barks to let me know!

  28. Morning all 🙂😉
    What a beautiful sunny morning. Mr Blackbird singing his heart out in our Rowen tree as he does at least twice a day.
    And the relationship between doctors and parents have already soured, considerably.
    I wonder if my GP is getting a move on with my request for improvement in conditions.

      1. They’ve heard about HMG’s insulation campaign?

        Sorry, Belle. I find people are so disgusting with rubbish, it’s awful the stuff seen being blown along the road. Makes you wonder what their homes are like.

    1. I’ll just go and have a read of Kipling’s ‘The Wrath of the Awakened Saxon’.

      Please, God, may it soon come to pass so we may arrest this evil amongst us.

    2. I have little doubt that if Christian choirs pulled the same trick, singing Onward Christian Soldiers in front of mosques there would be riots and the choirs would be arrested.

    3. I literally cannot watch this, it is to painful. Such an affront to our culture and our values that a religion that glorifies in blood and violence should be allowed such privileges. It is testimony to the warped minds that rule us.

    3. Are people aware that if the Shahada is given in a place it makes that place Islamic territory for ever? That is why Muslims will not accept that Spain is Christian. As far as they are concerned it is Islamic territory stolen by the Kafir. Kafir is “An unbeliever; an infidel: applied malevolently by Mohammedans to Christians and pagan negroes.” Another example of the decency of the “Religion of Peace”.

  33. Volcanic eruption in Russia’s Kamchatka threatens aviation. 11 April 2023.

    One of Russia’s most active volcanoes erupted on Tuesday shooting a vast cloud of ash far up into the sky and smothering villages in drifts of grey volcanic dust, triggering an aviation warning around Russia’s far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula.

    The Shiveluch volcano erupted just after midnight reaching a crescendo about six hours later, spewing out an ash cloud over an area of 108,000 square kilometres, according to the Kamchatka Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Geophysical Survey.

    Just what we need. A major eruption! No doubt the MSM will put it down to Vlad!

    https://www.telegraphindia.com/world/volcanic-eruption-in-russias-kamchatka-threatens-aviation/cid/1928874

    1. A sign of his prosperity and success in life. He can afford to eat the rest of the tribe out of existence. Historically, probably literally. Yuk!

        1. Good morning Mr T(hin) and everyone.

          Average male life expectancy in India in the 1920s was about 27, IIRC. Breed in your teens, work and die.

    2. While it’s a sign of wealth in many cultures, in a hunter gatherer society such size makes you slower, harder to hide, heck, simply harder to move. Even that ignores the imbalance of weilding weapons – while you’re turning you’ve got to overcome the inertia of your belly coming back the other way.

  35. Weather is a disgrace, sunny and a pleasant temperature. Where’s the gloom and drizzle?

    I have been on hold with the Pension service since 10 past 9, it is now 10:16. My pension didn’t arrive and I’m still waiting for someone to answer the phone.

    1. Just got off phone after a 3 minute conversation with DWP so that took me from 9:10 until 10:50. Absurd!

        1. Yes thanks, I hope! Didn’t get my pension. On Bank Holidays it should come on the day before the holiday, so Friday this time. But wasn’t in my account today either. They have noted error and I should have it on Thursday. Curious, do others get paid weekly or monthly? Seems to be different for different people. I get paid weekly which is nicer than monthly.

          1. State pension every four weeks – clockwork. Private pension 4 times a year. Also clockwork.

          2. State pension (pittance) evert 4 weeks, Company pension every month (bigger pittance) but I’m not one to complain. 😊

          3. State pension, ditto – every 4 weeks, 13 per year.
            Ditto Railway Pension but offset by 2 weeks so I get something every 2 weeks.
            Army pension every calendar month so 12 per year.

          6. I never asked but it’s a choice is it. That’s good. I find it much easier to regulate spending and pay bills by getting it weekly.

          10. Do you get a UK state pension if you lived for 40 years in the USA? It’s more likely to be Income Support or Universal Credit.

          11. Yes, I get a small pension and universal credit and for the last 3 years,attendance allowance for the rest of my life. Now a days I can do very little for myself. Even washing dishes is an Olympic competition event!

        1. Thanks. Try putting your issues to them face to face. They don’t like angry people in front of them.

    3. Urk. Shipman was my GP for three years and my friend was still a patient when he was arrested. She was a deputy head in a primary school and her daughter called her with the news. Local lore has it that her screams of horror could be heard for miles.

  37. Britain’s net zero future hinges on a £35 piece of paper that is wiping thousands off house prices

    This hopelessly flawed system is forcing landlords to make expensive upgrades

    BEN WILKINSON, Head of Personal Finance • 8 April 2023

    Britain’s charge towards net zero is gathering pace, but there’s a farcical flaw at the heart of it that is still not being addressed with any sense of urgency. That is the Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) that are used to gauge how good – or rather bad – your home is for the environment. Currently all homes being sold or rented out have to be assessed and rated on a scale of A (most efficient) to G (least efficient).

    EPCs were introduced in 2007 to raise awareness of energy efficiency and also give recommendations as to what could be done to bring down bills. Assessors can qualify after a few days of training and the assessments themselves are not thorough yet the Government has put landlords on notice that they will soon have to have a rating of at least C to let out their properties, and mortgage lenders are primed to have an average rating of C across their books within a few years.

    But a glaring problem is that these certificates, which cost as little as £35, are far from a precise science and can have perverse results. Despite their new-found importance, EPCs are hopelessly flawed.

    As we report today, homeowners face a gamble when making energy upgrades and improving their rating. Installing a heat pump could see your rating fall and people are being told to install wind turbines in cottage gardens to jack up their ratings. For some landlords, it makes more sense to demolish the house and start again.

    Housing minister Michael Gove has indicated that he’s aware that EPCs need an overhaul, but it does not look like that will happen any time soon. In the meantime, these fag-packet assessments are wiping thousands of pounds off people’s homes.

    EPCs are typical of a short-sighted pursuit of targets. Solar panels will boost your score, but take decades to pay off and do not last forever. The current system, based on how much it costs to heat a home rather than carbon impact, means you could reach the golden C rating by installing a more energy efficient gas boiler and putting in some insulation.

    The blinkered following of arbitrary targets also risks penalising those who live in older homes that are harder and more costly to insulate. England has some of Europe’s oldest housing stocks, with over half of homes built before 1965, but the onus for upgrading them to hit net zero is being put squarely on the homeowner.

    While green mortgages will offer better rates and longer-term loans to help borrowers get work done, those who own their homes outright will be forced to shell out or take on a new loan to make upgrades, or accept a lower offer when they come to sell up the property.

    Homeowners are being forced to improve their energy ratings, but the measure being used is ridiculously inadequate – and the Government has admitted this. If we are going to be forced to dig deep, the EPC rating system has to be replaced immediately.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/house-prices/net-zero-epc-energy-certificate-house-prices/

    Another legacy of the Blair era. These assessments should be included in a thorough building survey, leaving the potential buyer to decide. EPCs are little better than MOT tests for cars.

    1. It doesn’t make sense to do any repair and maintenance on your house that doesn’t increase its EPC rating then.
      Better just let it rot and sell it for the value of the building plot.

  38. Britain’s net zero future hinges on a £35 piece of paper that is wiping thousands off house prices

    This hopelessly flawed system is forcing landlords to make expensive upgrades

    BEN WILKINSON, Head of Personal Finance • 8 April 2023

    Britain’s charge towards net zero is gathering pace, but there’s a farcical flaw at the heart of it that is still not being addressed with any sense of urgency. That is the Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) that are used to gauge how good – or rather bad – your home is for the environment. Currently all homes being sold or rented out have to be assessed and rated on a scale of A (most efficient) to G (least efficient).

    EPCs were introduced in 2007 to raise awareness of energy efficiency and also give recommendations as to what could be done to bring down bills. Assessors can qualify after a few days of training and the assessments themselves are not thorough yet the Government has put landlords on notice that they will soon have to have a rating of at least C to let out their properties, and mortgage lenders are primed to have an average rating of C across their books within a few years.

    But a glaring problem is that these certificates, which cost as little as £35, are far from a precise science and can have perverse results. Despite their new-found importance, EPCs are hopelessly flawed.

    As we report today, homeowners face a gamble when making energy upgrades and improving their rating. Installing a heat pump could see your rating fall and people are being told to install wind turbines in cottage gardens to jack up their ratings. For some landlords, it makes more sense to demolish the house and start again.

    Housing minister Michael Gove has indicated that he’s aware that EPCs need an overhaul, but it does not look like that will happen any time soon. In the meantime, these fag-packet assessments are wiping thousands of pounds off people’s homes.

    EPCs are typical of a short-sighted pursuit of targets. Solar panels will boost your score, but take decades to pay off and do not last forever. The current system, based on how much it costs to heat a home rather than carbon impact, means you could reach the golden C rating by installing a more energy efficient gas boiler and putting in some insulation.

    The blinkered following of arbitrary targets also risks penalising those who live in older homes that are harder and more costly to insulate. England has some of Europe’s oldest housing stocks, with over half of homes built before 1965, but the onus for upgrading them to hit net zero is being put squarely on the homeowner.

    While green mortgages will offer better rates and longer-term loans to help borrowers get work done, those who own their homes outright will be forced to shell out or take on a new loan to make upgrades, or accept a lower offer when they come to sell up the property.

    Homeowners are being forced to improve their energy ratings, but the measure being used is ridiculously inadequate – and the Government has admitted this. If we are going to be forced to dig deep, the EPC rating system has to be replaced immediately.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/house-prices/net-zero-epc-energy-certificate-house-prices/

    Another legacy of the Blair era. These assessments should be included in a thorough building survey, leaving the potential buyer to decide. EPCs are little better than MOT tests for cars.

    1. One added risk for Native American code talkers in the Pacific campaign was being harmed (ie shot at) by fellow American soldiers in the vicinity, who suspected that they were talking Japanese.

    2. I believe that a conversation between Churchill, who was in France at the time, and London was translated and relayed by two Army officers, one in France and the other in London who were both fluent in Urdu. It was unclear whether or not the Germans had control of the telephone circuits but it was almost certain that no German who possibly had access to the telephone circuits spoke Urdu.

    3. I was in 39 Brigade in Northern Ireland from 1980-82. In 81, the Royal Welch Fusiliers (great bunch of blokes, btw) were on a tour of West Belfast, during the hunger strikes. They used to use Welsh sometimes in their radio messaging.. I used to muse that the IRA would be desparately trying to find some Welsh-speaking sympathiser to translate these radio messages.

  40. ‘Morning All

    Short Medley

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/59ffc7556b342158af2f976100c7ee6ac6b26cef259280715800dab45c5ba5d9.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/806bdac94ff8781236bc7c1fceb0da33012e4463d19e5d330868e84be8044c08.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4d19d2bf6dc9e85a9a5c358bdfdf8cc459f0daedae8d79de1f7cd0a2dc46718d.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/80fddd80d05b02be975b3e2379d3d2851991838aad69f9974dfadddcab575d1f.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ab4aa0a7dd68f31bfec2107fac060c7073798a09f6ff0c363c7518992df02055.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fd1fc08da9cb17edb7a3ade4e459926ee7ea239107c8026add52c8179cae8936.jpg

      1. So you’ll make impulse purchases while you’re looking for the stuff you’ve gone in to buy, of course.

    1. Good – feel free to leave and don’t let the door hit your ar$e on the way out!

    2. Where has he come from? His accent sounds a bit like Douglas Murray (Eton & Oxford)

    2. Strange how so many companies are using the same freak-show as their frontman.
      Can’t they find any others?

      1. I wonder if it’s a case of ‘Any publicity is good publicity’. In that sense, I’d ask Gillette how they think about that.

    3. You’re joking! Aren’t you?

      ETA: I hope their sales completely collapse. What are these people thinking? Proper female women, you know, the ones with a vagina, must show what they think of this. It is despicable.

      1. About Estée Lauder products being good, no. Whatever their corporate failings, I’ve found the products safe and reliable.

    6. Just use the rule i use. I avoid products that i disapprove of (for any reason) but if i can’t get similar anywhere else i will buy it. In my case it’s Roquefort.

  43. I was born pre NHS in 1947 in a nursing home , how much did it cost my mother to be cared for at my birth and the laying in for 10 days?

    Do any of you know about maternity costs ?

    1. No – I was also born in a nursing home, but just a few weeks after the NHS began. My brother was also born in a different nursing home but survived only five days. I’ve no idea how much it would have cost, though i do have a collection of bank statements of my parents (we all had the hoarding gene) so I could maybe find out.

      The one I was born in is now an end of life care home – when I meet my old school friends for lunch we often wait for the bus just opposite the home – it has a kind of fascination. I’ve often thought I should end my days there…….

  44. The Sod’s Law of Gardening strikes again.

    Over a month ago, I set five trays of different pepper varieties. Four weeks on, nothing. Not a sniff. So I emptied four of the trays into the bucket to re-use the compost.

    The fifth tray I left because half of it was producing excellent broccoli seedlings. Yesterday three of the peppers appeared!!

    1. Growing from seed is far harder than I thought it would be! This is the first year I am really doing it seriously, and it is full of surprises.
      The best things were the pumpkin seeds that I saved myself from last year’s crop – they all germinated!

      1. It is a lottery! I have just received three tray of seedling for a specialist company. Not a single failure in the trays….bastards!!

        I suppose they have exactly the right environment, temperature, watering etc etc..bastards!!

        1. I bought some trays of cabbage seedlings from a local nursery. Theirs are so much fatter, thicker and stronger than the seedlings I raised myself. They are also rooted in what looks like a small column of sand – I am guessing it has some special magic powers that ordinary compost doesn’t.

          From my experiments this year, I think that keeping them in the warm kitchen until they germinate works best, then putting them outside in a small polythene greenhouse so that they can benefit from the light. I cover this construction when it freezes at night.

    2. The trombo seeds aren’t working for me. So i bought some to make sure i have a crop this year. Thanks anyhoo.

      1. Be patient. They are slow to germinate. Very slow… And, last year, I didn’t sow mine until 27 April.

          2. Figs wrapped in bacon, grilled then sprinkled with Roquefort. You don’t know what you are missing.

          4. Then you will just have to come and see me won’t you ! Three each for a snack. Goes great with a bottle of Brunello Di Montalcino. I’m waiting…taps feet… :@)

    3. Bill. The only thing I can think of, taking it for granted that the seeds are viable, is that peppers need warm soil to germinate. But I suspect you know that anyway. Other than that do you always reuse compost and do you sterilize first? If not might be nematodes or fungi.

    4. Never plant over where you suspect there to be an underground stream, that is why some patches in gardens never grow stuff. Good luck with the next batch.

  48. Ukraine war latest: Ukraine counteroffensive could fall ‘well short’, Pentagon leak says. 11 April 2023.

    Ukraine’s military could fall “well short” of Kyiv’s goals for a spring counteroffensive as a result of difficulties massing troops, ammunition and equipment, a leaked US intelligence assessment has said.

    The “top secret” file from early February, first reported by the Washington Post, warned that such an operation would only result in “modest territorial gains” and “force regeneration and sustainment shortfalls”.

    Lol! They keep hanging these “leaks” out as bait for the Russians and they are not getting any bites! My guess here is that both sides are waiting for the other to make the first move. They can then counterattack and with sufficient force inflict a decisive defeat and roll up the opposition.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/04/11/ukraine-russia-war-putin-latest-pentagon-documents-leak/

    1. Also waiting for the mud season to pass and give way to firm ground again. Winter wasn’t up to normal Russian standard.

    1. Grizz may know, but if my memory serves, the Met uniformed police back in the 60s or 70s were called golliwogs by the CID.

        1. That’s it! My memory obviously doesn’t serve. I’ve been searching for the novels of GF Newman, 4 of which were made into a TV series in the 70s called ‘Law and Order’. The books were Detective’s Tale (1977), Villain’s Tale (1977), A Brief’s Tale (1977) and a Prisoner’s Tale (1977).

          He also wrote a “The Nation’s Health a 4 episode series written by G.F.Newman based on his book of the same name, originally broadcast on the fledgling Channel 4 UK TV channel in 1983. The series consists of four episodes titled Acute, Decline, Chronic, and Collapse.”

          1. If any defective ever called me a ‘woodentop’ I would remind him of two things:
            1. He used to be a ‘woodentop’ prior to moving sideways to CID.
            2. Most defectives eventually return, at some stage, to being a ‘woodentop’ again.

            I shall look up Mr Newman’s works.

        2. And the Cityof London police used to call the Met, the goblins. Height requirement for Met was 5’8” and CoL 5’11”. The tallest requirement was, I believe, Nottingham at 6’.

          1. That’s all true, Alf. I would have failed, by half an inch, to be recruited in the City of London Police. I had the pleasure, during the 1984–85 coal miners’ strike of chauffeuring a few CoL bobbies around the picket lines. They were a lovely bunch of lads and we had a good laugh with them. They gave me a CoL tie-pin and red-and-white striped ‘duty band’ ( not in use outside London), both of which I still have.

            Compare that to the rednecks from ‘the other lot’ who behaved much worse than the striking miners did. They pulled down wooden fencing to burn in their braziers, and were generally obnoxious. I personally witnessed one Metropolitan superintendent run, kicking out, at a group of pickets. Silly boy, he missed them, his shin caught a railing and this snapped his tibia in two. Served him right, the idiot.

          2. I nearly applied to join the CoL police as a cadet in 1962/63 as I only lived less than a mile from its boundary. Then it snowed on Boxing Day and the ice was still on the ground in early March. I decided they could have me in the summer but not the winter. My dad called me a fair weather policeman. I couldn’t disagree.

    2. The worst aspect of this appalling story is that those involved acted upon the receipt of an anonymous complaint.

      In my day I invariably told anonymous callers to either identify themselves … or fuck off! I never received any official complaint.

      1. There is a Sweet Shop on the main street of Rochester that had golliwogs displayed in the window 9 years ago. Would be curious to know if they are still there. Rochester was the first place I lived when I came back from the USA. Learnt what a Chav was, next door is Chatham, said to be the birthplace of the species. From what I saw on Chatham High Street, it’s true. Place swarmed with the creatures.

      1. They’re already dismantling the exhibits Jules, some have found good homes, I just hope they all do because this decision isn’t going to be reversed

          2. Oh – that’s good! Maybe the petition is making a difference – not far off 50,000 sigs.

  51. Watch out folks. Another Anne coming to watch over us, interfere, be difficult and bossy.

    GCHQ names first female director

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2023/04/11/TELEMMGLPICT000331771148_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqD3d2dmOlWYuQkR76XZjLQKOylOV7i1cNNz18XOj47vE.jpeg?imwidth=680

    MI5 chief Anne Keast-Butler will succeed Sir Jeremy Fleming as 17th head of intelligence agency

    By Jamie Bullen
    11 April 2023 • 11:30am

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/04/11/gchq-appoints-first-female-director-replace-jeremy-fleming/

    2. Bit nervous of the references to ‘diversity’ and ‘launched a programme within Whitehall’.

      Sadly, our security services are too often tasked with political agenda – the Civil Service’s.

      1. Did they ever discover how the spy got into the red sports bag and locked it from the outside?

        1. No. Or at least, if they have, they’ve kept it, unsurprisingly, to themselves.

    4. Will our teddy bears be safe? I have Teddy, Berlioz and Jack and my husband has Peter Panda. I don’t think there’s a problem with bears but who bloody knows nowadays!
      Edit- BLM- Bears Lives Matter!

    5. Will our teddy bears be safe? I have Teddy, Berlioz and Jack and my husband has Peter Panda. I don’t think there’s a problem with bears but who bloody knows nowadays!
      Edit- BLM- Bears Lives Matter!

    6. Uneffing belivable. I see that J A Brown person got a well earned hammering in the comments as well.

      1. I was highly offended this evening; there was a Tesco advert for Eid Mubarak. WTF has that barbaric custom to do with this country and its established Church? That’s Tesco off limits from now on.

    9. I’m just wondering if the Robertson’s factory would have been raided by now, by these clowns, if they’d still placed paper golliwogs under jam-jar labels.

  53. I have to apologise Nottlers I have made a dreadful mistake, it is something that seems to happen ever since I had my TIA.
    I read something and often miss the crux of the matter, sometimes perhaps because I’m actually anticipating and expecting good or better news.
    I have just been rereading my recent letter from the cardiology department and the appointment they have made for me on the 2nd of January next year is not for a much expected and needed ablation but an effing phone conversation.
    But hopefully because I had underlined the appointment date, my GP will have noticed the mention of a phone call.

    2. You might be better placed to take a trip to France and pretend to collapse in the street. There are several excellent hospitals where you might well be treated same day.
      Bordeaux is a possible and the local wines are pretty good!!

      1. “…and the local wines are pretty good!!”

        Of course they are and include the four ‘First Growths’ Latour, Lafite, Margaux and Haut-Brion.

        1. That’s the 1855 group.
          There is a view that the original classification was a bit of a stitch up by the wealthiest owners.

          4. I was only referring to the Bordeaux ones in his guide.
            I’ve always thought he was biased towards American wines.

        2. Chateau Mouton Rothschild was granted First Growth status in 1973 making them the fifth.

    3. Let me get this right: They wrote you a letter to advise that they will phone you in January in 9 months time?
      What’s the fcuking point of that? They could have phoned you quicker than that runaround.
      With that level of care, the sooner the whole shebang is sold to the Yanks, the better.

      1. The Admin people are hoping that in January next year the phone will just keep ringing. Money saved.

      2. That’s correct Obs.
        I’m now waiting to hear back from my GP surgery. And I have made enquiries to see if I can afford to have it carried out privately. With out selling our home.

  61. Off to dentist – back late afternoon (I hope..)

    My younger son would have been 54 today. I had a wonderful message from his daughter (my favourite grand-daughter!) 15½ going on 30.
    She said how much she missed him (she was 8½ when he died) and wishes he could see what she has become….. I take comfort from the legacy he left in his daughter and son…. Ah me.

  62. ‘We’re not antivaxxers… we have lost loved ones’: Widower of BBC presenter who died from Covid-19 vaccine complications launches legal action against AstraZeneca on behalf of 75 people whose ‘relatives passed away or suffered jab-related injuries’
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html

    Will this finally wake up our MPs and will Andrew Bridgen be reinstated?

    I doubt it – but it may help.

    1. I’d love this to succeed but the Pharma companies have been given immunity from prosecution. Maybe they would do better to bring a class action against the Department of Health? In any case TPTB seem determined to double down on their “the vaccines are safe and effective” mantra. As parroted in the HoC when Andrew Bridgen stood up and made his speech recently – to an empty house.

        1. They are suing Astra Zeneca – their potion was proven to cause fatal blood clots and was withdrawn all over Europe and quietly dropped here. So they may not still have the legal indemnity.

        2. I think there is a loophole in that the pharmaceuticals already knew these ‘vaccines’ were bad in the data they received from the 3-month trial – out of 44,000 who tested the vaccine 1,220 (!!!) died and 42,000 had adverse effects. This invalidates the immunity from prosecution given by our govt.

          Edit: Pfizer, that is, and data they wanted and tried to keep under wraps for 75 years – until they were ordered by the SC to publish. The media has kept it quiet.

          1. I would hope that would be grounds for the indemnity to be broken, but I have read suggestions that they will have to rely on the whistle-blower in the US who reported poor test protocol. But I am no expert, so will have to wait and see how it pans out.

          2. There was also the court case in the US which forced Pfizer to release their data and not keep it hidden for 75 years as they wanted to do.

    2. They should not have referred to themselves as ‘we’re not anti-vaxxers’ – it would have been sufficient and perhaps have more weight to say ‘we have lost loved ones’. And if they are not anti-vaxxers they certainly should be now after all that has happened.

    3. He should shut up, or the government will reveal her past as a s*x worker and his criminal record for drug use. And even if that is a lie, and the media get sued, people will believe it.

      (clue: Death on the Rock)

    1. Great news. We need much more of this I just hope peope switch to The Reform Party at the local elections in May. We will.

      1. Good afternoon Johnny

        But how shall we get Richard Tice to change his mind and abandon Net Zero and how shall we get him to see that the Covid Jabs are proving far too dangerous to be continued?

        1. I would support ‘Reform’ if Tice has the balls to back-track on both those areas.

          Grow a pair, Tice.

          1. I would consider supporting ‘Reform’ if Tice were to resign.

            Net Zero is for Millipedes and other numpties.

        2. We cross that bridge at a general election but we can shake things up at the locals.

    1. Yes, the death of the West. And due to our various governments own stupid policies.

    2. To have substantially more than 2 children you need to be very rich or very poor. The middle is being squeezed.

      1. I am one of three children as is Caroline and we have two sons.

        But my paternal grandfather had eleven children because he thought that by so doing he was bringing the right sort of people into the world – the sort of people the world needed.

    3. And the conquered nations actually pay the conquerors to conquer them.

      Enoch Powell but it very succinctly:

      “We must be mad, literally mad, as a nation to be permitting the annual inflow of some 50,000 dependents, who are for the most part the material of the future growth of the immigrant-descended population. It is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre.”

      50,000 is a gross underestimate. Can anyone give me a good definition of Litotes?

  66. Vladimir Putin Suffers From “Blurred Vision And Numb Tongue”, Doctors Panic Over His Health. 11 April 2023.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cfb967da04699124911ef23fa06d4bb3f7b500196f3aa809d1bf9d9a75359218.png

    Ever since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine war last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s health has always been a topic of discussion. Now, a new report says that his health has worsened, with the Russian President suffering ”severe pain in his head, blurred vision, and numbness of the tongue,” causing doctors to panic, according to Metro.

    I don’t know about the doctors but I’d be pretty concerned if it was me! What I want to know is why with all these ailments he looks as fit as a butchers dog.

    https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/vladimir-putin-suffers-from-blurred-vision-and-numb-tongue-doctors-panic-over-his-health-report-3938607

    1. He’s a medical miracle! According to our media, he suffers from such an encyclopedia of illnesses that he must have died at least four times!

      But do not forget that Joe Biden is perfectly healthy and got 81 million votes.

    3. Happens to me every Tuesday morning after my Guinness session on Monday night’s open mic.

    1. So, let me see – too old to attend the coronation, but fine to travel to Ireland??

      2. At the Oirish dodder fest he can be got to the loo, at the Coronation his Tena pants would be very visible.

  68. I have had a delightful lunchtime meet up with ex service veterans , now in their late eighties and early nineties .. and one elderly lady who is 99 years old who is as sharp as a needle .

    Of course the topic was about the NHS and the junior doctors .. and migrants .

  70. Sun out this morning and now pissing it down. Wind picking up too- outside. Looked at the CT paper online and it’s going to be 80 F there today- aaargh.
    Global warming in UK…..ha ha sodding ha.

    1. Started raining here in West Sussex as well and it is cold. Thank god it’s back to normal and I can put the light back on!

    2. We just paid a visit to a garden centre on the lookout to fill a few gaps at our bowls club. Lots of the display beds were empty, being spring cleaned, but there was no bloody spring about I can tell you. Bought one Arabis to replace one lost in our own garden, a packet of savoury biscuits and that was it. It was freezing. And while we were there the heavens opened – again – and we had to hide under cover with everyone else. The few plants that were there looked in need of some sunshine. Me too!

  71. Just finished cutting the grass – absolutely knuckin’ fackered – a cold Guinness is shouting at me for company – mustn’t disappoint!

    1. Why don’t you use sheep? Nah nah not for that !
      I loved all the close cropped verges in Scotlandishire where the sheeps roamed.

      2. You won’t find sheep cropping the verges anymore, the bastard Slammers would nick them all.

        1. Getting a handel on the subject:

          We like sheep,
          We like sheep,
          We like sheep

          (We like ’em, like ’em, like ’em)

          Don’t Mess with the Ayah!

  73. Back from dentist. First visit (apart from a filling falling out 3½ years ago) for 15 years….(I know, I know).

    Dentist found absolutely NOTHING wrong or to worry about…!! Pretty good since I have had this lot of choppers for 70 years!!

    2. I hope your Easter sheep was up to expectations and that you haven’t lost your taste for medicine.

    3. Did you get a new set at the age of 12? What choppers did you have up until 70 years ago?

    4. Cure Tooth Decay, by Ramiel Nagel. All about research done by various dentists in the twentieth century. Apparently even holes can mend themselves if you have the right balance of calcium, phosphorus, Vit D in your diet, which most people don’t nowadays.
      Clearly you must be doing something right!

  74. Sinister Clownworld

    “And there you have it. A man in women’s sportsgear is fawned over by the

    right-on while a woman who wants to protect women’s sports is monstered

    by them. A man does a sardonic take on women’s ‘girly’ workouts and

    progressives cry, ‘Go, girl’. A woman stands up for the right of women

    to have their own sports and progressives shout, ‘Shut up, bitch’. The

    confluence of these two stories is perfect. It captures what a

    devastating impact the trans ideology has had not only on women’s

    rights, but also on the entire category of womanhood. That the elites

    feel more comfortable with a man’s frivolous performance of womanhood

    than they do with a woman’s passionate, reasoned defence of womanhood

    confirms that the trans ideology has laid waste to truth, science and

    sexual equality. All that is left in the wake of this deeply

    misogynistic ideology is the skin of womanhood, the accoutrements of it,

    the mask and the drag and the lippy. That’s why, in certain circles,

    Dylan Mulvaney is a more respected ‘woman’ than Riley Gaines – because

    he performs the caricature so much better than she does.”

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/04/09/dylan-mulvaneys-parody-of-womanhood/

        1. Do not look if of a normal and polite dispossession.

          “Oi, you, shag-nasty, yeah you, you tranny twat.
          My mate fancies a fuck where’s yer cunt?
          Not got one? Then you ain’t a woman, so fuck off and die you male pervert”

          You were warned!

  75. Yousaf doing an outstanding job of keeping the SNP in the headlines

    Humza Yousaf claims rivals ‘envy’ the SNP despite their ‘difficulties’… as First Minister reveals how the party ‘hid’ the resignation of its auditors for SIX MONTHS amid police probe into its finances

    SNP leader says party isn’t paying legal fees of ex-chief executive Peter Murrell

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11960239/Humza-Yousaf-reveals-SNP-hid-resignation-auditors-SIX

  76. They just can’t help themselves helping themselves.
    Rochdale

    The video has been shared widely on social media. The Uber driver was spooked after parking outside someone’s house.
    The man filming the incident taps on the window and the Uber driver immediately pulls up his pants and jogging bottoms.
    The woman kneeling on the back seat tries to hide her face.
    Filming the Uber driver’s face, he says: ‘Yo, what you’re doing? Brother, what are you doing? In the month of Ramadan and you’re doing stuff like this? What the f*** are you doing? This is disgusting. What are you doing? I’ve got kids inside here.’
    Filming the Uber badge on the Toyota Auris, he says: ‘What kind of taxi are you? You dirty b***ard’.
    The Uber driver repeatedly says: ‘I’m sorry. I said I’m sorry. Bro, I’m sorry.’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11959859/Uber-bans-driver-seen-video-car-trousers-young-woman.html

    3. Just a thought, was the gobbler a tranny and the one being chastised for eating during Ram it in a Dan?

    4. What is this? Another pakistani muslim paedohpile rapist or just some muslim pakistani paedophile getting his end away with a consenting adult? It’d be a new one for them.

  77. Lil’ Birdie Three today.

    Wordle 661 3/6
    🟨🟨⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜🟩🟨🟨⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Par 4 for me.

      Wordle 661 4/6

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

      1. Me too. Took me a while though.
        Wordle 661 4/6

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

  78. That’s me for this day of two halves. Lovely sunshine until about 4 pm. Rain due any minute. BUT – tomorrow will be fine and sunny, too.

    Have a spiffing evening. I shall have a glass of medicine and reflect on what might have been. Thank you all for your thumbs.

    A demain.

    2. Maybe, she’s attempting irony but, with that rant, she’s doing herself no favours.

  80. ‘Means testing the state pension would only deter saving’: ROS ALTMANN tells critics the older generation deserve their 10% increase

    https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/pensions/article-11960939/Means-testing-state-pension-deter-saving-says-ROS-ALTMANN.html?ico=mol_desktop_home-newtab&molReferrerUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailymail.co.uk%2Fhome%2Findex.html&_ga=2.140332339.1840243715.1677761681-31712591.1664742260&_gl=1*60htq7*_ga*MzE3MTI1OTEuMTY2NDc0MjI2MA..*_ga_XE0XLFFF16*MTY4MTIzMjcxOC4xMC4xLjE2ODEyMzI3NzIuMC4wLjA.

    Just a thought:
    If in future all benefits stopped entirely at the then retirement age and the State pension was abolished entirely for all those under 30 today, and NI reduced to take account, it might make a few of the parasites get off their arses to get a job and save.

  81. The BBC is headlining this:

    UK to be one of worst performing economies this year, predicts IMF

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65240749

    IMF researchers have previously pointed to Britain’s exposure to high gas prices…

    We know the answer to that but no one in government would dare to put it right. At least there’s no mention of the B-word.

    PS The photo – any excuse to push the social message.

    1. Can’t be the UK. Canada is just about shutting down all oil and gas exports at the same time as the government is upping its carbon tax with the explicit purpose of making petrocarbons unaffordable. If your economy is worse than ours, you really are in deep doggy doo.

    1. I don’t even need a study to tell me how many people have died. I only need to look at my own family, friends and acquaintances circle to see how many people have died or been taken to hospital since the jabs rolled out.

      1. Sad but true.
        I suspect that there are some VERY dirty dealings behind the scenes here.

        1. It would only be the first dirty dealings to hit the mainstream media. Loads of research that challenged the agenda has been suppressed, most notably around cheap and available treatments for covid.

          1. It’s not that research side I was referring to, it’s the legal shenanigans being used to stifle the truth.

          2. The Kennedy book details all the cheating that’s gone on over the years. Organised crime is the best way to describe it.

    4. Be sure that before we learn to speak, read and write, Arabic ALL the slammers, wives and children also, are ALL fluent in English.

      Then, and only then, might I consider adding Arabic to my four other languages.

      1. Just make all benefits dependent on speaking and writing English. Don’t understand – pay for healthcare and get no benefits paid.

        Exceptions for newly landed refugee claimants of course-with maybe a day or two of accommodation and bacon butties so their clothes can dry out before being shipped back to France.

      2. I can say quite a few sentences in Arabic .. my father and mother were fluent .. I also picked up some Hausa .. my parents also lived in Nigeria.

        1. I have, English, Germam, French, Swedish and Spanish – the last two I can get by in, that’s all.

  84. Been busy faffing with sending photos to a fridge repair company. The door seal is coming away on one corner and fridges are not made as slimline now but according to the Zanussi website, a replacement door seal for this model is still possible. A bother but hopefully not beyond repair.

    Not back to work till tomorrow and this afternoon I went to the Wallace Collection. Familiar so I tend to make a beeline for my favourite paintings but paused today to admire the magnificent Sevres porcelain. How can anyone look at such artistry and believe that the fruits of Western Civilisation rank below a blanket, a bowl and a stick?

      1. No. Love the Reynolds of Miss Bowles with her dog and no fee for that. Is the exhibition in the basement worth paying to see?

    2. I love the Wallace, I haven’t been for years but it was a regular lunchtime jaunt when I was working in London.
      If you ever get to the US NY I am sure you would enjoy the Frick.

      No Phizzee, not what you thought you read!

    3. I was last in The Wallace Collection back in November 2019. I spent ages just marvelling, close up, at Fran Hals’ masterpiece, The Laughing Cavalier. Unlike a lot of art, this one gets better the closer you get to it.

  85. SNP politician forced to resign over police probe questions why Murrell has not been suspended

    Michelle Thomson asks for clarity in how cases are handled as former first minister’s husband retains party membership

    By Daniel Sanderson, SCOTTISH CORRESPONDENT
    11 April 2023 • 12:41pm

    An SNP politician who said she was forced out of the party by Nicola Sturgeon while she faced a police probe has questioned why Peter Murrell has been allowed to keep his membership.

    Michelle Thomson, who was elected as an SNP MP in 2015 but lost the party whip within months after it emerged police were investigating her business dealings, said she would be demanding clarity from headquarters around the party’s rules.

    The 58-year-old, who has since made a successful political comeback at Holyrood after the case against her was dropped, said while Mr Murrell, who is Ms Sturgeon’s husband, was “innocent until proven guilty”, his treatment highlighted contradictions around how different cases were handled.

    Ms Thomson, who was deselected by the SNP at the 2017 election, claimed in an interview after she was cleared that it was a “reasonable assumption” that Ms Sturgeon had taken the decision to force her to resign the party whip when allegations against her emerged.

    Last week, Mr Murrell, who was chief executive of the party for more than two decades, was arrested and the home he shares with Ms Sturgeon was searched extensively over two days.

    However, the SNP has refused to suspend him, with party insiders saying it is for Mr Murrell to decide whether or not to “step away”.

    Ms Thomson, who was campaign manager for Kate Forbes in the SNP leadership contest, told the BBC on Tuesday that she was unclear about the party’s procedures.

    After being asked whether Mr Murrell should be suspended, she said: “What specifically are the rules around membership? I am a strong believer in natural justice, people are innocent until proven guilty.

    “Does the point at which rules kick in occur if someone is charged with a crime? The honest answer is, I don’t know the answer to that and I think that’s the sort of thing we need to be very clear about because we’ve had different examples in different cases.

    “The governance of the SNP needs to be looked at, needs to be tightened up. Absolutely, it needs to be more transparent.

    “While it’s extremely dismaying to see what’s been happening, he [Mr Murrell] is innocent until proven guilty. He has not been charged with a crime, that may change, but we need to be clear about what specifically are the rules.

    “I’m certainly not clear about that and I’ll be asking about what the position is.”
    *
    *
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    Do Little
    3 HRS AGO
    Talk about black humour, this gets better by the week. You have to hand it to the SNP, when they do a meltdown, they make it a whopper meltdown, with all the extras.
    It has to be the only thing they have ever succeeded at. Aye credit where it’s due, this has got to be the best free entertainment in Scotland for years.

        1. Especially the Scotch Broth- my favourite soup from a can; otherwise I make my own.

      2. Too sane.
        How about Rab C Nesbitt?
        I’m sure Mary Doll needs a luxury camper van.

  86. Well, after a trip to Derby with lovely sunny weather, I arrived home, sat down and fell asleep for an hour.
    Woke up absolutely chilled because we’d just had a downpour and the damp air had brought the temperature down, so what started as a lovely day ended up a miserable afternoon!

    3. We had a torrential downpour as well, just as we sat down to eat our dinner earlier on. The conservatory is our dining room, so very noisy it was. Also shows we have a leaky joint by the back wall.

    1. “Climate change” and another “vaccine” in one article.
      Kerchinnnnngggg ………….

      1. And 3 cases of tick-borne encephalitis virus. Oh, since 2019 btw. Oh, and probably or confirmed cases.

        1. In NC, my ex got bitten by a tick and became sick. It turned out that he had Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. He was taken to hospital and pumped full of antibiotics and also had a course of them for 4 weeks.
          Some people have thought I am making the name of that disease up, some said I’d got it from the Goons.
          If not treated it can be fatal.
          Don’t take tick bites lightly.

    2. My surgery have been pestering me to ‘come and get’ something called a Sanofi vaccine, i’m still trying to get over the dire effects of the two AstraZeneca vacs almost two years ago.

      1. Sanofi is a French pharmaceutical company, it seems it their turn now for a share of the covid profits…. it’s just another covid vaccine. If it were me, I wouldn’t touch with a barge pole, any of them.

        1. Don’t worry PM i’m not i did send a message back but it seems they haven’t read it yet.
          Did you see my earlier comment about my letter from the Hospital cardiology department ?
          I had a confusing three page letter telling me they had made an appointment for a telephone call on January 2nd 2024.
          I am waiting one more day before I chase up my GP to get all this useless nonsense sorted out.

  88. Evening, all. If I disappear without saying goodnight it will be because I have no internet. The connection has been dropping in and out all night, probably because it’s wet and windy here and the line goes through trees. As for the headline; the NHS has already killed off any patient-doctor relationships I might have wanted to forge; I’ve managed to get an appointment to see a doctor, but not before late MAY.

      2. Ours absorbed three practices that closed. Unsurprisingly, it can’t cope. Despite this, County has given the go ahead for nearly 600 houses in the catchment area. Things can only get worse.

      3. Ours absorbed three practices that closed. Unsurprisingly, it can’t cope. Despite this, County has given the go ahead for nearly 600 houses in the catchment area. Things can only get worse.

        1. Ours combined with the other one but that was more than 25 years ago. There has been an expansion of the population though. All the Drs work three or four day weeks. OH has seen all of them at least once in the last few months. Our regular one seems to have retired last year.

  89. I’ve a trip to the tip planned tomorrow with stuff I loaded from t’Lad’s this morning. Then plan going to Bakewell for a bit of shopping, including a pair of walking shoes to replace the ones I’ve had for the past 5 or 6 years!

    Off to bed now, so g’night all.

    1. Night Bob, I often wonder how high the great wall of Bonsall is.

      On the subject of Bakewell’s, the warqueen likes the Tesco ones. We have six packets in the ’emergency rations’ cupboard.

    1. Yes, but – as much as the Left hate it – we pay for everything. The gimmigrant ethnic doesn’t. In fact, they cannot survive without white cash. To get rid of them all we need do is stop sodding well paying their welfare!

    3. If in doubt, call your customers racists, sexists and transphobes. That always works.

    2. So you think that what they are doing is just incompetence or mistaken ideology and not being done deliberately?

      1. No I don’t, but there is no other way to describe this effect of dastardly ignorant stupidity. No one could ever call what they are doing, intelligent of even slightly clever. And what on earth can be the outcome of it all ?
        It is in its self complete and utter madness. The people they are encouraging to come here are never going to fit in and will never going to be able to support themselves. Before l too long the rest of our society must realise they are being conned.

        1. They will never be able to support themselves because they don’t need to- all paid for by the stupid govt via the taxpayers.

          2. Personally, I don’t care as I will likely be dead. I feel for my country but I am not the one destroying it.

          3. I’m going to leave a letter behind me telling my family they need to go and live in Australia. Our eldest was born there.

          4. Have been seriously thinking about putting my affairs in order.
            If it wasn’t for my wonderful husband, I’d have been treated and out of pain in the US. Couldn’t stay with ex any longer.

      2. No I don’t, but there is no other way to describe this effect of dastardly ignorant stupidity. No one could ever call what they are doing, intelligent of even slightly clever. And what on earth can be the outcome of it all ?
        It is in its self complete and utter madness. The people they are encouraging to come here are never going to fit in and will never going to be able to support themselves. Before l too long the rest of our society must realise they are being conned.

      2. I can’t help thinking he has no connection with this country – no back story here.

    4. The criminal gimmigrants are being deliberately imported by the Home office out of spite for Brexit.

        1. They want to punish us uppity serfs for having the temerity to try to put a spanner in the works of the Fourth Reich.

    1. Good night Tom ,

      I have a couple of chaps who served in the RAF in Cyprus and Egypt, they belong to my veterans group, but are few years older than you .

      They are full of fun and cheek.

      1. A friend of our younger son from university was routinely stopped and searched in London. His only crime was that his grandfather was Indian. He was a lovely lad and completely inoffensive.

  95. Had a letter today from NHS saying they were sorry I had cancelled my appointment for Sept 22nd and my new appointment was May 25th. Why are they sorry?
    Maybe because they will have to do some sodding work?
    We are not well but there are many people who are worse off than we are. I can’t get rid of the thought that this govt wants us dead.

    1. It does. It wants its pensioners dead (so expensive and such a nuisance with their demands on the nhs) and its pesky white indigenous population replaced by those lovely dusky dinghy people à la Kalergi plan.

  96. I haven’t actually done much at all today, I did make some rissoles from the left over roast beef.
    Took my BP, high and heart rate, fast, took a paracetamol for a terrible head ache and went back to bed for an hour.
    I’m behaving like an old man, but in my mind i’m still keen to get on with things that need doing around the house and garden.
    But I become breathless at the slightest and meagre attempts, eventually I might have to go and be out of breath at the local surgery. It could be the only way anyone might take any notice and offer help. It’s all rather, very annoying.
    So it’s good night folks.

    2. Rissoles are great and you can make them from any leftover meat.
      Sleep well, dear friend.

    3. Mmm home made rissoles.
      (Although, I’ve àlways made them with lamb not beef)

      1. Stormy, you have confused me. Why would you want us to eat our MPs? (Mother always told me that most politicians are rissoles. Lol.)

    1. 373308+ up ticks,

      O2O,

      When found guilty,

      A paki rapist / abuser of children, is a paki
      rapist / abuser of children, is a paki rapist / abuser of children, an honest descripton.

    2. One earlier group of child molesting men were readily identified by their religious associations in that they were Catholic priests. There was no hesitation in pointing this out at the time. Plus the additional factor of the Church effectively brushing complaints under the carpet.

    3. A fine example of Vote catching.
      How much more evidence is needed against these so missed named non British ‘communities’ ?

  101. Going to bed now… worn out yet again and need to go to the shop tomorrow…. possibly an invasion of grandmonsters on Saturday.
    Pain is debilitating and wears one out.
    Sleep well Y’all.

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