Wednesday 12 April: The anxiety of living as an elderly or vulnerable person during the junior doctors’ strike

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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654 thoughts on “Wednesday 12 April: The anxiety of living as an elderly or vulnerable person during the junior doctors’ strike”

  1. Good morrow, Gentlefolks, today’s story

    Starter For Ten

    Two guys are in a pub discussing their sex lives.
    One guy says to the other, “How’s your sex life, mate?”

    The other guy answers, “Not too good. Every time the missus and I have sex, she loses interest halfway through. It’s very frustrating.”

    The first guy says, “Yeah, I know what you mean. I used to have the same problem, but I found a cure. I hid a starter pistol under the bed. When she started to run out of steam, I simply fired the starter pistol. It gave her such a fright that she got all excited, and couldn’t get enough. I wish I’d done it years ago!”

    The other guy says, “Hmmm… I think I’ll try that.”

    The next day they are back in the pub again.

    The first guy says, “How did you get on with the starter pistol?”

    The other guy says, “Don’t talk to me about starter pistols! Last night we were having a little 69. As usual, she lost interest half way through, so I fired the bloody starter pistol, just like you said.”

    The first guy says, “So??? What happened?”

    The other guy says, “She bit my cock, shat on my face, and a naked man came out of the wardrobe with his hands up!”

  2. ‘Morning, Geoff, you almost caught me by surprise.

    Thank you for all your efforts.

  5. The junior doctors’ strike is a defining point in the collapse of the NHS. 12 April 2023.

    How much of this are we expected to endure? True, there are still many excellent doctors, nurses and paramedics doing their utmost in stretched conditions, but for most people the NHS barely exists anymore. A few days of strike action will hardly make a difference. People, particularly the elderly, feel abandoned. They know they are effectively without a doctor. (“More chance of seeing Lord Lucan,” quips one reader.)

    According to official data, there are just over seven million people on a waiting list for NHS England. A further two million are reckoned to be waiting (interminably and after four GP appointments) to go on the waiting list. How is that not a national emergency? Where is the COBRA meeting they convene for a broken drainpipe? “Politicians are totally in denial,” says Prof Pat Price, one of the UK’s leading oncologists.

    Our own Nottlers can testify to the truth of this. There’s nothing unusual about it; most of the UK State organisations and ministries have actually collapsed. The reason no one notices is that unlike privately owned organisations they have an endless supply of taxpayer’s cash keeping them afloat. Doctors, engineers, Civil Servants, all keep getting paid so they just keep ticking over. Eventually of course reality will intervene and the whole rotten structure will crash into ruin. I don’t pretend to know when this will happen but I imagine some quite innocuous event will set it in motion. The last company that I worked for that went into bankruptcy was triggered by the scrap man refusing to empty the bins until he was paid in cash!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2023/04/11/junior-doctors-strike-nhs-collapse/

    1. Having 1st posted this in the wrong place, I’ll repost it here:-
      A couple of BTL Comments:-

      Philip Caine
      28 MIN AGO
      Where do our striking public employees propose the money comes from? Who do they propose to tax, whose benefits do they propose to cut, who do they propose will lend us yet more money? Just asking.

      Slarti Bartfast
      17 MIN AGO
      HS2 ? Trident ? Picking fights with nuclear opponents ? Vanity projects. There is no shortage of money in the Uk. The problem is the way we squander it.

      Could someone with BTL commenting rights point out to Slarti Bartfast that the NHS its self wastes sufficient money on over paid Diversity, Inclusion and Equality Non-jobs to fund a major pay rise from its own resources?

    2. Having 1st posted this in the wrong place, I’ll repost it here:-
      A couple of BTL Comments:-

      Philip Caine
      28 MIN AGO
      Where do our striking public employees propose the money comes from? Who do they propose to tax, whose benefits do they propose to cut, who do they propose will lend us yet more money? Just asking.

      Slarti Bartfast
      17 MIN AGO
      HS2 ? Trident ? Picking fights with nuclear opponents ? Vanity projects. There is no shortage of money in the Uk. The problem is the way we squander it.

      Could someone with BTL commenting rights point out to Slarti Bartfast that the NHS its self wastes sufficient money on over paid Diversity, Inclusion and Equality Non-jobs to fund a major pay rise from its own resources?

  7. The anxiety of living as an elderly or vulnerable person during the junior doctors’ strike

    But look on the bright side, the possibility of being misdiagnosed and sent away the wrong drugs decreases

  8. It now looks like the striking junior doctors are complaining how much money they are left with each month after tax

    So where do they think the money for public sector pay rises comes from, you couldn’t make it up.

    1. Same crap here.
      Lots of strikes due to start at the weekend – cost of living outstripping pay.
      So, where does the money come from to pay the desired rises? Goods, services and the like go up in price, the pay rise is taxed, and so everything gets more expensive. If there are no savings made, such as in manpower, then it’s just leapfrog. Saving manpower means firing people, and job losses. Oh, goody. Also, increased prices = loss of competitiveness, and makes it all worse again.

      1. Wrong way round.
        The central bank/government creates more money out of thin air, the currency gets devalued accordingly, and prices appear to rise making everything appear more expensive. But the real reason is that the money is worth less.

        1. Both right. This spate of strikes is directly down to the Bank of England’s refusal to raise interest rates to reasonable levels, which are still at least 6 percent negative in real terms, according to CPI, and much more than this taking into account the hike in prices of essentials.

          I have been watching the price of a kilo of pork shoulder. A year ago, the supermarkets were giving it away, due to a glut in supply because pig farmers were slaughtering their herds in order to cut their losses. Now there is a shortage of pork, and prices have doubled.

          This failure to invest in essentials, preferring to base our economy on money-laundering the takings of tax-exempted global criminals in Premier League football, is leading to the General Strike I predicted a year ago.

          “There is no alternative” so our politicians tell us.

          1. We are powerless to stop it, but I hope you’re looking after the basics; food, water, shelter, community, barterability, wealth transfer…

  11. The shameful silence on the West Bank massacre. Spiked. 12 April 2023.

    So that’s it, is it? A British mother and her two young daughters are murdered by a terrorist in the most awful fashion imaginable, and we’re just going to move on? Three British citizens are shot to death at point-blank range on account of their identity, their beliefs, and it’s fading from our collective memory already? The Foreign Office did express ‘sadness’ over this massacre of half a family, which is something, I suppose. Though if you and your mother were murdered overseas for being the ‘wrong’ kind of people, wouldn’t you hope for something more than sadness from the government? Anger, perhaps?

    Brendan does much fulminating here but the reality is that this family could have been murdered in the UK and the response would be pretty much the same. The key to understanding this are not the victims but the perpetrator. He’s a Muslim. The Foreign Office like the Home Office almost certainly has a large Islamic contingent among its staff and as with the Cross Channel traffic there is zero chance of any criticism. O’Neill is pretty sensible usually so I assume that he knows this but of course is unable to say so. The “racist” hounds would tear him to pieces. It’s worth reflecting that all this has its origins with Blair and the Labour Party and its wish to “…rub the Right’s nose in diversity…” Did ever such childish malice have such terrible consequences?

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/04/11/the-shameful-silence-on-the-west-bank-massacre/

    1. 373359+ up ticks,

      Morning AS,
      Initially this could / would be laid rightfully so at the door of labour, no longer the case ALL GOVERNING POLITICAL FACTORS are engaged in the take down of the United Kingdom.

      ALL POLITICAL GOVERNING FACTORS are continuing to be supported by an electoral majority so thick that they swallow the politically
      poisoned fodder on a daily basis and seek more.

      I don’t mind being that their support / vote is their prerogative but I do see it as a continuing danger to child welfare and as such on par with
      pakistani paedophilia.

    2. As long as Brendan O’Neill confines himself to raging against unspecified antisemitism (twinge of guilt mandatory for all readers), he’s part of the problem.

    4. It was a horrifying attack with tragic results. May the victims rest in peace.
      My intuition says that there is more to this event than is visible in the media.

  12. Good morning all.
    A chilly start with 0°C outside but with a bright sunny start after last night’s wet & windy weather.

    Because I left for Derby before the DT went to work, it appears we left the washing out on the line!

      1. All still there! So I’m leaving it up there for now as the rain’s not due to start for several hours.

        1. Check for earwigs…or is that just something my mum worries about when folks leave washing out overnight?

  15. Pentagon leak traced to video game chat group users arguing over war in Ukraine. 12 April 2023.

    Neither was the original source, however. Before they emerged on to the public internet, the documents had been shared on closed chatrooms hosted by Discord, a gamer-focused chat app. In one server, called “Minecraft Earth Map”, 10 of the documents were posted as early as 4 March, a month before they appeared on 4chan.

    “After a brief spat with another person on the server about Minecraft Maps and the war in Ukraine, one of the Discord users replied: ‘Here, have some leaked documents’ – attaching 10 documents about Ukraine, some of which bore the ‘top secret’ markings,” said Aric Toler, an analyst at the investigative research group§ Bellingcat.

    That user had, in turn, found them on another Discord server, run by and for fans of the Filipino YouTuber WowMao, where 30 documents had been posted three days earlier, with “dozens” of other unverified documents about Ukraine. However, even that did not appear to be the original source: a third Discord server, named “Thug Shaker Central”, among other titles, may have been where the documents were originally posted as early as mid-January.

    This is so obviously a CIA disinformation operation that the pages should be stamped Made in Langley!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/11/pentagon-leak-traced-to-video-game-chat-group-users-arguing-over-war-in-ukraine

  16. SIR – I have been enjoying the correspondence on potholes, particularly the letters (April 11) from irate cyclists.
    Perhaps it would help if they contributed something towards the upkeep of the roads.

    Alan Mottram
    Tarporley, Cheshire

    Anyone who believes, for even a split-second, that the monies received by the government, for compulsory vehicle excise licences, goes towards maintaining roads … must be living in cloud-cuckoo land.

    1. Picture today of Arnold Schwartzenegger filling in a pothole outside of his mansion, as the road authority took too long.

  17. No comments…

    Trans paedophile praises Nicola Sturgeon’s gender reforms

    Katie Dolatowski, who preyed on girls in supermarket toilets, said former FM was ‘great’ and echoed SNP defences of the controversial bill

    By Daniel Sanderson, SCOTTISH CORRESPONDENT
    11 April 2023 • 10:15pm

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2023/04/11/TELEMMGLPICT000331802563_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqT9UsYpwIZ13hLjh3givJlE8FchWZRD3tSYOiRwPjWDo.jpeg?imwidth=680
    Katie Dolatowski, seen here leaving cells at Falkirk Sheriff Court in November 2022

    A transgender paedophile who was allowed to serve time in a women’s prison praised Nicola Sturgeon as a “great First Minister” and has become an online cheerleader for her controversial gender reforms, it has emerged.

    Katie Dolatowski, who has been convicted of carrying out offences against young girls in supermarket toilets, has written dozens of social media posts backing legislation which would make it easy for Scots to change their legal sex.

    The attacker, who despite being born a boy called Lennon has spent time in Cornton Vale women’s jail where the rapist Isla Bryson was also initially sent, expressed dismay when Ms Sturgeon announced her shock resignation in February.

    Feminist opponents of the legislation said outspoken backing for Ms Sturgeon’s flagship gender reforms from a sexual predator who had already preyed on girls in female-only spaces vindicated their fears about the proposed laws.

    Under a new identity of Alyanna McKenna, which Dolatowski has been referred to as in court documents, the 22-year-old wrote: “Nicola was a great First Minister, it’s a shame that people are trying to make out as some evil person.”

    Two days after the former First Minister announced her resignation, Dolatowski tweeted “I will miss Nicola Sturgeon. It’s a shame she’s leaving”.

    She also parroted a series of SNP politicians’ defences of the controversial gender Bill, which was blocked by the UK Government.

    The legislation, which would have allowed Scots to change their legally-recognised sex simply by signing a declaration, would have no impact on women’s rights or allow trans people easier access to women’s spaces, Dolatowski claimed.

    She repeatedly highlighted the fact that a series of women’s groups in Scotland, many of which are reliant on the SNP Government for funding, had backed the legislation.

    Under the alias, Dolatowski also defended the Scottish Prison Service over the Bryson scandal and backed Humza Yousaf to replace Ms Sturgeon, branding Kate Forbes a “fake feminist”.

    Marion Calder, a director with the For Women Scotland said it would come as “no surprise to anyone, apart from Ms Sturgeon and Mr Yousaf” to see sex offenders backing the gender Bill.

    “The ability to construct a new identity is of course appealing to those wishing to hide a criminal past,” she said.

    “The idea that a criminal will voluntarily approach Police Scotland to inform them of application of a Gender Recognition Certificate [as ministers claim] is ludicrous. Certificates grant greater legal protections to the holder, similar to those in witness protection.”

    Dolatowski was linked to an Alyanna McKenna Twitter account because of videos posted at a memorial for Brianna Ghey, the transgender teenager, who suffered fatal stab wounds in Cheshire in February.

    Dolatowski also posted online about the issue of trans people using bathrooms. She wrote on April 1: “I know trans women aren’t a threat if I use the bathroom.”

    Dolatowski said on March 27 “I know I’m not a threat to anyone” and told those who did not feel safe: “Don’t use public bathrooms.”

    In 2018 Dolatowski sexually assaulted a 10-year-old girl in a Kirkcaldy supermarket toilet and filmed a 12-year-old girl on the toilet at a separate supermarket.

    Last year, Dolatowski was held in Cornton Vale last year after breaching a restriction of liberty order.

    Over recent days, both of Dolatowski’s parents have publicly called for their child to be imprisoned after another bail breach.

    Dolatowski spent a night in custody last month after breaching a curfew order but was freed by a sheriff to stay at a hotel in Grangemouth under their Alyanna McKenna identity.

    A spokesman for Ms Sturgeon was approached for comment.

  18. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/67bda8f414f1f600b4a3ef60743bd560f7867b941a42e6d11a92841603d1259c.png Maltese man avoids jail after killing four flamingos

    A court of appeal in Malta has spared 24-year-old poacher Miguel Zammit a prison sentence after he was charged with shooting four Greater Flamingos.
    The decision was based on a ruling that the species is not endangered, although it is protected by law.

    Zammit was arrested near Qawra Point in October 2021 after a witness saw the flamingos being shot and made a report to the police. He insisted that he was aiming at a duck but was sentenced to a year in prison and a lifetime ban on holding a hunting license.

    The appeal hearing led by judge Neville Camilleri on 27 March confirmed that Zammit was clearly responsible for the deaths of the flamingos but based its softening of the punishment on the Least Concern status of Greater Flamingo on the IUCN Red List.

    It was emphasised that Zammit would be forced to serve time if he committed another crime during the period of his now suspended sentence. The court confirmed that the lifetime ban on hunting still applied.

    Mark Sultana, Chief Executive of BirdLife Malta, said: “While one can debate if a jail term was just or not, the reasoning the court gave today is rather baffling.

    “A protected bird is protected irrespective of its status and just because it is not at risk of being extinct, does not mean that its protection, or the consequences of illegally killing it, should be less.

    “I fail to see the logic. It’s like saying that stealing from a rich person carries a lesser punishment than if you steal from a poor person.

    The utter scum — the dregs of humanity — that populates infests Malta are surplus to requirements on an already overpopulated planet. A cull of this detritus would benefit the balance of nature.

    Blasting every single migrating bird passing overhead in order to show all your mates that you have the biggest dick (a ‘tradition’ on that filthy island) is supported, it seems, by their court system. Clear the lot out and make Malta a human-free wildlife sanctuary.

    BTL:
    Paul Bonett • 14 hours ago
    Another bad news story from Malta, the land of my ancestors.
    It’s just so frustrating to see that Malta appears so frequently in these awful stories about birds, especially migrating species.

    Clive Williamson • 17 minutes ago
    Yes, but we live here, so it is good that, like others, we will never contemplate a holiday in Malta.

    1. Some shot: aim at one duck and kill four flamingos.
      Malta would appear to harbour as many stupid judges as Blighty.

    3. So, after poaching flamingoes, what next? Stuffing them? Eating them? Taking pleasure in destroying four beautiful birds? What a sick bastard. Maybe he should receive a chuff or two of birdshot as well?

  19. Good morning all

    Good letter in DT

    Biden and Northern Ireland
    SIR – Why are the people of this country not more outraged than they appear to be at the spectacle of a foreign head of state abusing our hospitality by coming to the UK to interfere in our internal politics (“Biden will push to unite all Stormont parties”, report, April 11)?

    Why do we put up with our elected representatives being lectured on how to conduct their responsibilities? We do not kowtow to any other foreign head of state in this way.

    Simon McKie
    Rudge, Somerset

    1. All US “Presidents” claim to be Irish – even O’Bama.

      They are no more Irish than I am.

      Anyway, I bet Demented Joe thinks he is in Iceland.

      2. What, you think Joe thinks he’s gone shopping?!!!!

        Morning all. What a circus it all is.

    2. Why did Sunak happily cede precedence of British Law to the EU making the ECJ the ultimate legal arbiter in Northern Ireland?

      But just as bad as Sunak, the vast majority of people seem to think that surrender and humiliation is quite acceptable.

      John Milton’s work is very seldom on the “A” level syllabus nowadays. He is considered too difficult and he might make people think which is the last thing the PTB want.

      “But what more oft in Nations grown corrupt,
      And by their vices brought to servitude,
      Then to love Bondage more then Liberty,
      Bondage with ease then strenuous liberty”.

      John Milton, Samson Agonistes

      I know I have quoted this before but it sums up Sunak’s weak capitulation perfectly. It is easier for him to give in, isn’t it – especially when most people will go along with it?

      1. Good morning Richard

        I do enjoy reading your wonderful selection of ramblinggs( I am not being rude ,I couldn’t find the correct word )

        Moh and I had a disturbed sleep last night , we both drifted off on and off muttering about why all great civilisations collapsed , in particular the Roman Empire ..it seems that Britain is heading the same way.

      2. I remember reading Samson Agonistes at school. I bet youngsters don’t read it these days.

    1. Whilst I don’t condone in any way an attack on one person by another, maybe it will result in more effective action being taken against the violent in society.
      Had that been the US, or even Norway (recently), the bastard wielding the axe/knife/sword would/should have been shot.

      1. Felt threatened. Unused to English ways. Wants to integrate. Conditional discharge.

  21. People who hate the smell of sweaty feet could be more xenophobic
    Karolinska Institute finds people with a sensitive nose for disgusting smells are more likely to have negative attitudes towards migrants
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/04/12/people-who-hate-the-smell-of-sweat-could-be-more-xenophobic/

    Breaking News on today’s DT front page!

    ‘Scientists believe that having a sensitive nose for disgusting smells is linked to heightened xenophobia, because an unfamiliar group of people – such as immigrants and refugees – are perceived as having different, potentially inferior, hygiene habits and food-preparation skills. ‘

    So if you are a racist bigot it is clearly because you have the nose for it!

    1. Or is it racist to assume that the non-whites (we all know who this ‘information’ is aimed at) suffer from anosmia?

    2. Is that international? Do people of other races who dislike the smell of feet dislike others as well?

  22. People who hate the smell of sweaty feet could be more xenophobic
    Karolinska Institute finds people with a sensitive nose for disgusting smells are more likely to have negative attitudes towards migrants
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/04/12/people-who-hate-the-smell-of-sweat-could-be-more-xenophobic/

    Breaking News on today’s DT front page!

    ‘Scientists believe that having a sensitive nose for disgusting smells is linked to heightened xenophobia, because an unfamiliar group of people – such as immigrants and refugees – are perceived as having different, potentially inferior, hygiene habits and food-preparation skills. ‘

    So if you are a racist bigot it is clearly because you have the nose for it!

  23. Good Moaning.
    Not the p!ssy day we were expecting.
    I will celebrate by having my third (and, I hope for the sake of my bank balance) last, back grunch.

  25. I noted that those great proponents (nay, dictators) of net zero and the “don’t ever fly” policy – Toy Boy and Fond of Lying – flew to Peking in SEPARATE PLANES……. Just imagine the tons of whatever it is we are not supposed to use or have they burned.

    1. Good risk management practice. Prevent a “Two birds with one stone” and all that…

        1. On a long drive an ‘audio book’ used to be a treat, but my favourite was a selection of G&S cassettes.

      1. There is a rumour that Fond of Lying was livid that Toy Boy had gone on his own and insisted that she should be in Peking, too.

    3. The peasants can lower their thermostats by half a degree for a year to make up for it.

  26. Good morning all,

    McPhee Towers sees a sunny but chilly start at 5℃ and the wind in the SW. Showers later.

    Sally Pierce of Farnham Common, Buckinghamshire writes:

    “For myself and my fellow octogenarians, getting out of bed can be risky, as can getting washed and dressed – not to mention venturing downstairs to boil the kettle.

    What, then, are we to do? Stay in bed? Our peace of mind – the knowledge that help will be available if one of the above activities results in a fall – has been compromised by the actions of junior doctors, whose pay demands are unrealistic. It saddens me that, on top of all the other anxieties that come with age, this avoidable one has now been added to the list.”

    It must do her no end of good to look upon the smug, entitled face of young, privately-educated Dr Rob Laurenson, co-Chairman of the BMA, strike leader and listed director of his family’s multi-million pound investment firm.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bc6936d66f760692ffa55de52f50a1bc020b730d96ca7d33d286c196e4724f06.jpg .

    Why is it always the well-heeled who cause trouble?

    2. Because they have no idea how hard life truly can be.
      I have suffered from one of my children being treated for three months by highly qualified young fools like him in the past – fortunately I was able to move my child to a hospital in Austria, where the team of doctors had far more years of experience, and they were down to earth and practical, and fixed the problem in days.

    6. Is it because without any real practical experience or social knowledge they always think they already know everything.

        1. No, he looks like a girl. Until his name was mentioned, I was convinced that he was a she, etc.

    7. They can take time off work to cause it. The rest have their noses too tightly pushed against the grindstone to have time for that.

    2. Good morning J

      Half an hour ago the sky went very dark , the garden suddenly looked amazingly green, and the wind picked up and we had a grail storm , blue sky now and Moh is playing golf .

  28. What the striking junior doctors don’t want you to know about their pay

    Young doctors argue their wages have fallen in real terms while inflation has rocketed

    By Ruby Hinchliffe, 12 April 2023 • 6:00am

    Striking junior doctors are on course to pocket six-figure salaries and bumper gold-plated pensions – even without the 35pc pay rise they are demanding.

    Young doctors, currently on day two of a four-day walk out, argue their wages have fallen in real terms while inflation has rocketed.

    However, analysis for The Telegraph reveals that they are still on track to receive retirement income worth close to 75pc of their salaries – and guaranteed to rise with inflation by the taxpayer.

    It comes as last month, in his Spring Budget, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt abolished the lifetime allowance on pension savings that was stinging doctors with tax bills and forcing them to retire early. It means senior NHS doctors will be spared large tax bills once owed on their generous pension deals which are often worth well over £1million.

    Last week the Telegraph also reported how public sector pensioners would this year receive an increase worth twice as much as the average pay rise.

    Currently, those starting out as doctors in England take home a basic pay of £29,384. This moves up to £34,012 in year two, and £40,257 in year three when they start to specialise.

    The Government has said, however, that these figures look more like £38,000, £46,000, and £55,000 respectively, once you take into account additional earnings for working unsocial hours.

    Independent pension consultant John Ralfe said that a junior doctor earning the third-year pay average of £40,257 would retire after 40 years with an NHS pension paying £29,790 each year – if their salary remained the same throughout their career.

    He said the pension deal was “spectacularly bigger” than those offered to private sector workers today. He added that if the same junior doctor saw their pay rise 35pc to £54,347, they would retire on a pension paying £40,000 a year.

    The analysis is also based on a scenario where the junior doctor in question never moves off junior pay. The majority of doctors go on to earn far more than £40,257 during their lengthy careers.

    Consultants earn a basic salary of anywhere between £88,364 to £119,133 per year, according to the NHS.

    Tom Selby, head of retirement policy at investment broker AJ Bell, said a 35pc pay rise for junior doctors would not necessarily keep pay high in the long run, and could mean contribution rates had to rise.

    He said: “A future government might hold back wage rises, for example. If the costs of public sector pensions goes up significantly, adjustments will be made to address that. As these are member costs rising, you’d assume that would mean member contributions going up or accrual rates reducing.”

    The 96-hour strike, which follows a long bank holiday weekend, aims to achieve a 35pc pay rise for junior doctors. Steve Barclay, secretary for the Department of Health and Social Care, has labelled the demand “unreasonable”.

    He said yesterday: “It would result in some junior doctors receiving a pay rise of over £20,000. Not only will the walkouts risk patient safety, but they have also been timed to maximise disruption after the Easter break.”

    The British Medical Association, the trade union for doctors, says a “lack of investment in wages” by the Government has made it harder to retain junior doctors and harder to deliver care to professional standards.

    Average pay for junior doctors in their third year has increased on average by 2pc annually over the past 12 years, according to NHS data.

    But, according to the BMA, junior doctors have experienced a real-terms cut of more than 25pc to their salaries since 2008.

    The Chancellor got rid of the £1,073,100 lifetime allowance last month in a bid to prevent top NHS doctors retiring early to avoid tax on their pension.

    It comes as it emerged that junior doctors can already claim up to £10,000 tax-free in “life admin” expenses on the NHS, including redirecting their post and nursery fees.

    In the last five years, more than £40 million has been claimed by junior doctors in moving expenses, according to figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

    Since 2012, junior doctors have also been able to access bursaries and £1,000-a-year grants from the NHS, funded by the taxpayer.

    Those with access to bursaries and studying a graduate-entry accelerated degree in medicine – i.e. it is not their first degree – can also receive £3,715 a year to cover tuition fees for up to three years.

    There are, however, some hidden costs to being a junior doctor. Training doctors have to pay for their own exams, the price tags for which can sometimes total thousands of pounds.

    There are also yearly licensing fees doctors have to foot, as well as medical indemnity cover which doctors take out to protect themselves when things go wrong.

    Licensing fees through the General Medical Council are £161 a year for newly qualified doctors, before it jumps to £420, while basic indemnity insurance can cost anywhere upwards of around £30 a month.

    In April 2019, state-backed indemnity schemes were launched in England and Wales. This removed the need for GPs and their staff to arrange and fund their own clinical negligence cover – but other doctors, such as those who work on the wards and junior doctors – still have to fund their cover.

    The BMA was approached for comment.

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

    Jonathan evans
    1 HR AGO
    In year one a junior doctor gets £29,384. This moves up to £34,012 in year two, and £40,257 in year three.
    Sounds to me that they have guaranteed pay rises built into their contracts regardless of performance (typical state sector). Now they are claiming that they need a further 35% on top of this? Are they perhaps being a tad greedy?

    Where Will This End
    1 HR AGO
    Reduce Doctor’s pension benefits and increase their pay. They can always opt to top up with a private pension.

    1. State pensions should be defined contribution, like almost all non-state pensions. That would cut govt liability pretty rapidly, and by some careful planning, one can come out better-off as a result.

      1. My non-state pension rose by 3% this year – the maximum permitted under the Rules. The rest went into the bonus pot for executives and their lobbyists and fraud inspectors.

  29. ‘Morning All

    Medley Time

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/17b9003119475cb6e9271fc67ca6a98609197ea0ebdb78696d469fb91a278d44.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/18a30c6542bfd3c4fb15f5f2b3c665d82ee8d7397dedade74c26c0687ee41a18.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/83bdf97997d7bd0ea0a43ee430993528a98af6b2850a1d32558ece3f2e5e3e43.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/87668cd5fc2e81630e0cd09367a00ec7e969950065f885116270a1b185cbea65.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/045e0d77c149e7b1c96b4066ca68a8bb086ec0d8ec6a80511603366932f5acb6.jpg

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6bf58c550911da4b76703253f7de966c71504f90366582911e02a4e2c4fcbc45.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fb417defe65d55d5fb4f6ccceb29b870174ac336defa6629c2eac5ee25475f84.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2f9d2a61ad03c989aa348ff5be9a9c4b0193c20ccace54bfdfe6b8bee758879e.gif

  30. The party could be over for the kitchenware company that has been turning your Sunday dinner into Monday lunch for the past 77 years.

    Tupperware, the brand known for its airtight food containers, has warned that it could go out of business if it is unable to find new funding.

    The American company, which shot to prominence in the 1960s and 70s thanks to its famous “Tupperware parties”, said there was “substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern”. The business has been struggling under the weight of nearly $700 million in long-term debt and a failure to keep up with the taste of modern consumers.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tupperware-could-go-out-of-business-3cqsfjthz

    I remember Tupperware parties in the 1970’s, I even hosted one .. one had to be optimistic and hope that more than ten friends would turn up.

    Hosts usually provided mini sausage rolls, pineapple chunks and cheese on sticks, small sandwiches, and cake.. bottle of Harveys Bristol Cream bottle of chilled Blue Nun , Earl Grey tea .. and hopefully everyone would relax enough to buy Tupperware they didn’t really need !!!

    Don’t get me started on Avon parties !

      1. I thought it had finished years ago ..you can still see bits and pieces in charity shops .
        I have a very ugly looking Tupperware butterdish in a cupboard somewhere.

    2. I also remember Pippa Dee Parties being held in the Married Quarters at Hameln. Sadly, we men were not allowed in them!!
      Also, the Pig of Lead over the road when it was still a pub, held a couple Anne Summers Parties in an upstairs room where us mere males were similarly banned, though I do remember being in the bar downstairs listening to the shrieks of laughter from the ladies.

    3. I was staying with my sister when she had a lady visit to host a jewellery party. Trying on different rings. She handed me one and i put it back in the tray. It was her wedding ring. oops.

    4. I didn’t realise it still existed. Why would you bother when every cheapo shop and freezer cabinet has airtight plastic boxes?

  31. Morning all 🙂😉
    Not what I had expected when I looked out,
    sunshine. That certainly wasn’t the impression I had from the forecast. They’ve adjusted it, rain
    after 2pm.
    Dear junior doctors, surely during your on going training period as any apprentice will tell you its payback time. Rough with the smooth and all that, you could always move on and get another job. But do not quite have the qualifications to move around yet ? But try living on the basic state pension. As many elderly British people are now having to.
    You would certainly have something to be concerned about.

          3. Offside.
            Mr T, prejudice about skin tone is often a form of snobbery.
            Imagine what it would be like, day in day out, with people in the High Street silently labelling you as a drug dealer when in fact you work as a plumber or a nurse or a barrister or served with the Royal Marines.

          5. I heard on Radio 4 this morning that the Legal Beagle who appeared on the Jimmy Yong show had died. I nearly had a heart attack – Poor Willy, I thought, has he been climbing ladders? It turned out to be Andrew Phillips, Baron Phillips of Sudbury – Legal Eagle, not Legal Beagle. Keep safe William.

          9. Ped – could you tell me on what programme and at what time you heard that news?

            I am in touch with a BBC contact and he would like to know so that he can alert the News people.

    2. Dyslexic?
      I bet her school taught a good class in critical race theory, sex education etc though.

        1. Bad schooling, that’s all.
          My daughter tells me there is a tiktok trend of writing one’s name without lifting the pen from the paper.
          I said, Among 5 year olds?
          She said No, it’s Gen Z.

          10. I have two nephews that went to the same schools as i did and they are total mongs. One of them refused to read anything. They were both diagnosed with ADHD. Incorrectly IMO. They are just lazy.

      1. It was quite softly-spoken. Musk always speaks calmly – I think he uses it as a weapon.

    2. Musk is genuinely clever; he would be respected in a software developers’ meeting.
      Unlike the windbags with their First Class degrees in BLM studies who work at the BBC.

    3. It was a weak, unprepared interviewer who thought he could say ‘BBC’ and be instantly deified and untouchable. If nothing else, it’s a demonstration of the arrogance of the Left.

    4. When Musk asks him to give an example of the rise in hate speech the journalist is obviously making up his answer on the hoof.

    1. Diversity strength, big city and all that tripe. That they shouldn’t be here in this country at all is beside the point.

  38. Well, I have a Bill Thomas catastrophe unfolding among the seedlings on my kitchen window-sill….

    In the middle of March, I planted a lot of leeks and runner beans in pots. Four of the beans came up, and one single, solitary leek, which is now about ten days old.
    The other day I thought, oh well, there’s clearly not going to be anything else from these pots, I may as well plant some more. Couldn’t remember which pots were which, so pushed in some more beans and sprinkled some leek seeds.
    Today, baby leeks are popping up everywhere – in the tray that I planted the second round of beans in, of course…

    Trial, error and a lot of patience….!!

    1. Put a plant label in the pot with the crop on it. Saves a lot of confusion. Failing that, you could stick a label on the side of the pot.

      1. I plant them in individual pots, which I keep in old freezer trays. But they get moved around so much at this time of year that they get mixed up a bit, and I only have one label! Warm, sunny day – move them outside. Cold night – back indoors again. etc.

    1. Morning KP. A few of them have been killed while posing as charity workers. I commented on it at the time!

  40. Cyber sitters Daily Telegraph editorial, 12/04/23.

    Among three- and four-year-olds, one child in five has a mobile phone. How is one to regard this news? If it was that one in five had a book, it would sound like good news… though it would depend on the book. Things were bad enough when parents found that parking a little child in front of a video might keep it quiet for a bit. What chance would children stand if they were nursed by a smartphone with an artificialintelligence chatbot? It would be as disastrous as the experiment attributed (no doubt falsely) to the Emperor Frederick II in the 13th century of bringing up a child isolated from speech – to see what language it would come out with. The fact remains that children need to get to know other people and the real world before they start on video games and Zoom calls.

    Another nail in the coffin of the rapidly accelerating decline of human intelligence. Human stupidity is now at epidemic proportions and this irreversible trend will see the demise of the species much quicker than even I anticipated.

    1. I see kids plugged into phones to keep them quiet when out and about. So, instead of learning how to socialise and interact with other humans, they are locked into a world of fantasy. It doesn’t bode well for their development in which personal interaction and nuances play such an important part in every day life.

    3. Are we talking here about real, active mobile phones, either with pay-as-you-go credits or on contract terms, allowing these post-toddlers to make and receive phone calls and text messages or browsed the internet? Or are some of them Mum and Dad’s old, discarded models, little more than playthings, or even purpose-made toys?

    4. Are we talking here about real, active mobile phones, either with pay-as-you-go credits or on contract terms, allowing these post-toddlers to make and receive phone calls and text messages or browsed the internet? Or are some of them Mum and Dad’s old, discarded models, little more than playthings, or even purpose-made toys?

    5. Are we talking here about real, active mobile phones, either with pay-as-you-go credits or on contract terms, allowing these post-toddlers to make and receive phone calls and text messages or browsed the internet? Or are some of them Mum and Dad’s old, discarded models, little more than playthings, or even purpose-made toys?

  41. I’d heard that everything was a bit of a shambles but had no idea it was this bad

    As a monarchist, I want to be excited about the Coronation. But it’s proving a struggle

    ALLISON PEARSON
    12 April 2023 • 9:00am

    If I were the King’s adviser, I’d be alarmed. However low this column may occasionally stoop, I can assure you I will not be calling the Coronation by the name I was sent yesterday morning. The Cozza. Eeuw!

    Attempts to make the enthronement of King Charles III more “diverse” and accessible are depressing to those of us who cling to the clearly antiquated view that the Coronation should be a solemn if uplifting state occasion with Christianity at its mysterious heart.

    And by mysterious I don’t mean recruiting celebs like Amanda Holden to mentor the choir. That’s not mysterious, it’s plain baffling. The Britain’s Got Talent judge should be saluted for services to Botox; Handel not so much.

    At least the inclusive (sigh) choir in question, to be conducted by Gareth Malone, won’t be bumping the sublime choristers of Westminster Abbey off the order of service. Always a danger given the contemporary fear among the self-loathing woke classes (many of them the guilty posh) of anything English and overwhelmingly white that we do matchlessly well. Sadly, too often inclusive turns out to mean exclusive of the vast majority of British people.

    The alternative choir, composed of singers including an all-deaf sign performance group, a traditional Welsh male voice choir, Yorkshire’s only female South Asian choir, the London Fire Brigade and a troupe of RNLI sea shanty singers will be appearing at the Coronation Concert at Windsor on the Sunday night. (Good luck blending that lot, Gareth!) I’m pleasantly surprised to see that a male-voice choir made the cut, although you can bet the search was on to find some non-binary tenors and baritones. Possibly a stretch in Caerphilly.

    As a monarchist, I really want to be excited about the Coronation, but it’s proving a struggle. Perhaps it’s because we pushed the boat out, not all that long ago, for the Platinum Jubilee and because we are not quite reconciled to having lost our beloved Queen.

    The curtailed route of King Charles III – Elizabeth II travelled five miles but her son will cover only 1.3 miles, taking about half an hour – is said to be a cost-cutting measure but you do wonder whether the Palace is concerned about a low turn-out.

    Certainly, a number of devout Elizabethans I know, who always stood along the Mall waving Union flags for the big occasions, are experiencing the first stirrings of anti-Royalist sentiment as our new King diverges from his mother who, with unimpeachable discretion, managed to be a symbol of unity and stability for 70 years. Whether it’s unwisely tethering himself to an increasingly contentious net zero cause (never put the planet before your subjects’ right to keep warm, Sir!) or trying to switch titles from Defender of the Faith to Defender of Faiths, while inserting other religious texts into the ancient ceremony (the clue is in the word Protestant, Sir!), every other day seems to bring some fresh insult to the national sense of self.

    Nor are his previously loyal subjects impressed by Charles signalling his support for research into the British monarchy’s historical links with the slave trade and the inevitable reparations demanded for the same. There is no appeasing these self-styled victims. “You offer us Kensington Palace, Your Majesty, and we’ll take Balmoral and Windsor Castle plus the Aston Martin.”

    If I were the King’s adviser, I’d be alarmed by a praising piece in this week’s Left-wing New Statesman with the enthusiastic headline, “Charles is proving a political king – and we should be grateful”. The author says, “I am not a monarchist.” Ay, there’s the rub. Our monarch is a fool if he plays to those who will never love him and neglects those who long to love him.

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

    James Benson
    27 MIN AGO
    I was worried before he ascended the throne. I’m even more worried now. Pandering to those who don’t like you and adapting your ways to theirs never ends well.

    1. I agree with James Benson.

      For some reason this calls to mind Pip’s shamefully snobbish treatment of Joe Gargery – the person who has never treated him with anything other than warm kindness and good humour.

      At least Pip comes to repent and is ashamed of himself. Few of us are capable of seeing ourselves clearly and dispassionately but I certainly cannot see the current king doing so – he is too full of pompous arrogance, muddle-headedness , nincompoopery and lack of good judgement of any sort ever to do so!

      1. As I posted a few days ago- Joe Gargery is one of the unsung heroes of English Lit.

    2. When I went shopping after riding today one of the headlines on the news stand was “Coronation Chaos”. Apparently the rehearsal didn’t go well and they are struggling to make it work.

    1. Yo ogga

      And some people will stil insist that the RNLI (Regular Network (for) Landing Invaders ) are not involved in transporting aliens to UK

  43. I exchange emails and jokes with my old study-mate from school.

    Here is what he sent me today – you can tell he was educated in a hidebound, sexist establishment!

    A blonde walks into the library absolutely fuming. She is so angry she can hardly speak.
    “Can I help you?” the librarian asks.
    “The book you lent me yesterday has lots of characters but no plot,” says the blonde.
    “Ah,” says the librarian, “so it was you who took the telephone directory.”

    1. Morning Belle. I seem to remember from my childhood Robin Hood book that there were actually Black robed Friars!

      1. Blackfriars Abbey/Priory/Monastery was sited in the district near the bridge.
        The Blackfriars and Greyfriars were victims of Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries.

      2. Black Friars – Dominicans.
        White Friars – Carmelites.
        Grey Friars – Franciscans.
        Brown Friars – also Franciscans.

      3. Black Friars – Dominicans.
        White Friars – Carmelites.
        Grey Friars – Franciscans.
        Brown Friars – also Franciscans.

  45. Did palace officials joke that Prince Harry had Stockholm syndrome?

    An ‘archetype’ is a ‘universally understood term or pattern of behaviour, a prototype upon which others are copied, patterned or emulated.’ Throughout her podcast series of that name, Meghan Markle analysed and condemned different ‘labels that hold women back’: ‘crazy,’ ‘diva,’ ‘bimbo.’ Perhaps next season she’ll switch gears to assess her own husband’s pattern of behaviour. Welcome to Archetypes episode 13 where we will be discussing Stockholm syndrome, my special guest today is Prince Harry…

    It’s an expression that has been thrown around a lot when discussing the Duke and Duchess of Sussex — and it’s clear why. Prince Harry went from the fun-loving naughty royal, known for Nazi costumes, Vegas gambling and ending an interview early to jump on a helicopter in Afghanistan. Now he talks about nothing but mindfulness and unconscious bias. Even as early as October 2020, just months after Harry and Meghan stepped down as working royals, Candace Owens tweeted

    Can somebody PLEASE pay Prince Harry’s ransom so Meghan Markle stops releasing these hostage videos?

    I love you England but 2020 has been rough enough without us having to watch a Stockholm syndrome royal losing his soul to a D-list actress.’

    Well now, it looks like everybody making the joke has been vindicated — even the British royal family’s staff have made the same observation. Robert Jobson’s latest book, Our King: Charles III, claims that a senior aide said:

    ‘Some blame Meghan Markle for the fallout, ignoring the fact that Harry seems to be the driving force in everything that happened.

    There was a point when officials joked Harry was the victim of Stockholm syndrome, and he was Meghan’s hostage, but now most just feel Harry has turned his back on everything he has known.’

    Old school friends of the runaway royal have told The Spectator that although Harry is old enough to make his own decisions, they can’t help but think he ‘is being heavily influenced’ by his wife. One recounted a dinner party he attended when Harry attempted to introduce Meghan to his inner circle. It was described as being ‘overwhelmingly awkward’, with many of the young men feeling as if they were ‘being told off,’ by the American actress.

    Jobson’s book isn’t short of bombshells. One extract reveals that after Harry and Meghan’s infamous Oprah Winfrey interview, the King and Prince William decided that ‘Prince Harry could no longer be trusted,’ which led them to agree that ‘they could not meet with him alone, for fear that the conversations would be remembered somewhat differently.’ The pair decided that from then on, ‘they would have the benefit of larger numbers, as there would always be someone else in the room.’

    The book also claims that Meghan turned down the Queen’s recommendation that Meghan go to her daughter-in-law, Sophie, Prince Edward’s wife (now the Duchess of Edinburgh), for help before her wedding day. Sophie has been described as a ‘second daughter’ to the Queen, and is trusted in senior circles. Meghan passed up on the offer, saying ‘I’ve got Harry’. How different things could have been…

    This article was originally published in The Spectator’s World edition.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/even-palace-officials-joked-that-prince-harry-had-stockholm-syndrome/

  46. This is a bit of a shocker:
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/91263eaee8f001284765b62639248fed1420a08837a7816e686fd3299cf3288b.jpg

    Was the US worse hit by covid/lockdowns/masking because of their higher obesity rate?
    It was said early on that analysis of VAERS data seemed to show that the US was having more sudden deaths, and Europe more chronic illnesses after the jabs. (more Europeans have health insurance…I’m sure that has nothing to do with anything).

    I saw a chart of fentanyl deaths in the US the other day as well, and that has risen sharply since 2015, but is still “only” about 65000 deaths a year. Still, it must bring the average down a bit, as most of them will be young.

          1. I would joke about them having to try harder to kill people, but in view of NOTTLers’ experiences, it’s not a joke. :-((

        2. And this is down to what? It’s certainly not healthcare. I assume a lot is due to education.

          1. Food is worse? I don’t know.

            It could be that healthcare is worse distributed. In Britain, everyone has access to a system that doesn’t work well. On the very bottom end, that’s good, because your alternative is nothing. In the middle, it’s bad because you are prevented by the extortionate taxes from being able to afford good quality, reliably available healthcare. At the top, you can afford to pay everything privately and fly abroad if it’s not available in Britain outside the NHS, so it makes no difference.

          5. It’s also down to climate. Some places are pretty tough to live in from that point of view. It is also down to poverty, large swathes of America are poor to a point that most English people would find shocking.
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States
            Terrible education is also a factor, it can be quite astonishing how ignorant many Americans can be about health and most any other subject.
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States

            America is not the paradise it liked to present itself as. I use past tense in the last sentence because it’s pretty obvious that things are not as great as they liked to pretend a few short years ago. There is also a culture amongst Blacks to reject education. The young woman in the video isn’t kidding, she really thinks the supermarket is selling lion meat, literacy rate in the USA is poor: ” 54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level.[2]” 6th grade is 11-12 years old. The reality is there are so many things wrong with the USA that it would take a revolution of some sort to fix things. A revolution back to what the ethos of the USA was about some years ago. It should be illegal for the Democrats, as they are now, to exist. They are enemies of the State determined to bring the country down.

  47. Arnold Schwarzenegger picks up shovel and fills crater himself. 12 April 2023.

    Fed up by an enormous pothole in his Los Angeles neighborhood, Arnold Schwarzenegger picked up a shovel and filled it himself.

    The actor and former California governor tweeted a video on Tuesday of him and a helper using packaged concrete to repair the road in the Brentwood area of the city.

    Problem terminated!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/04/12/us-news-arnold-schwarzenegger-fills-la-pothole/

    3. Fed up with, for goodness sake! What is wrong with the headline writers?

      I will say the roads around our way have become absolutely riddled with the things. They’re everywhere, and very deep. Then you see the council coming along to repair them. They clear the remaining loose waste then fill it in and pour tarmac over the top and give it a bash.

      Now, that’s not going to repair the hole. Thehole needs digging out, shoring up and properly repairing. Not bodging (Bill has a better term I’ve forgotten).

      1. Yo Wibbles

        The roads in UK are now a series of giant interconnected potholes, surrounded by a minimal amount of road surface/tarmac

      2. ‘POTHOLE PRO
        Cut. Crop. Clean. With one machine.
        The award-winning JCB Pothole Pro is a unique 3 in 1 solution specifically designed to sort out any pothole repair or large reinstatement operations, efficiently, economically and permanently. Because it comes with 3 dedicated attachments to cut, crop and clean, there’s no need for additional specialist equipment or extra manpower, saving you both time and money. And with a typical pothole repaired in 8 minutes, why compromise on a quick fix that won’t last, when you can have quick and permanent? In fact, all you need to add, is the tar.’
        Stoke on Trent council bought one recently. Excellent results apparently.

  49. I’ve just been having a conversation with old Brucie in Oz. He told me a recent story about a local elderly lady and her husband. Bruce was in what is known as a ‘bottle shop’, we use to call them off licences when they still existed. One of the customers asked her how she was and she told him since they both had the covid jabs her and hubby had both not been well. Both previously reasonably able, now have ongoing heart conditions. Almost identical to mine. The guy in the bottle shop was a senior doctor in a local Hospital. He told them the story, now I think widely known about the covid injections and the problems that these jabs have caused to millions of people around the world.
    I just hope I live long enough to see these people brought to justice over this.

    1. I fear you won’t, because it’s never going to happen. The real culprits at the top are totally fireproofed.

    2. And we will never, ever know the truth. An inquiry might be undertaken but it will be a waste of time and money. The real truth will remain hidden.

    1. ‘Grooming gangs’ and ‘Shanghai’ parties are what are used to recruit most people to political and religious factions.

  53. A puzzled pensioner writes:

    The NHS is always telling us that a missed appointment, “”Costs the NHS £X”

    I have been trying to work out what that actually means. How is the amount calculated? Who “loses” – apart from the patient who prolly died waiting?

    Any suggestions?

    1. I’m always tempted to say ‘here’s my hourly rate. That’s what you cost me when I sit waiting on the phone or in your waiting room.’.

    2. It’s a load of old grollocks. Just trying to make people feel guilty. All it actually means is the doctor/nurse can see a different patient sooner.

      If the Doctor ends up with a space i’m sure they have plenty to keep them occupied.

  54. Off to see a nurse – a proper one, in a blue uniform with a belt and an upside down watch. A dying breed, I fear.

    Nothing serious.

  55. It’s getting really silly now…

    Campervan seized at Nicola Sturgeon’s mother-in-law’s house was ‘bought as SNP battle bus’

    Party insiders say the vehicle was purchased during the pandemic for use in the spring 2021 Holyrood election campaign

    By Simon Johnson, SCOTTISH POLITICAL EDITOR
    12 April 2023 • 10:13am

    A luxury campervan reportedly seized by police from the home of Nicola Sturgeon’s mother-in-law was bought to be used as an SNP election battle bus, it has been reported.

    Party insiders told the Daily Record that the vehicle, which is thought to have cost around £110,000, was purchased during the pandemic for use in the spring 2021 Holyrood election campaign.

    But it is understood the Niesmann + Bischoff motorhome was never used for that purpose after Covid restrictions were lifted by Ms Sturgeon.

    Officers confiscated the vehicle from outside the home of Margaret Murrell, the 92-year-old mother of Peter Murrell. He is the SNP’s former chief executive and Ms Sturgeon’s husband.

    Neighbours said the high-end campervan was originally delivered to the address in Dunfermline, Fife by two men in January 2021 and had not been moved since.

    Police confiscated the vehicle at 9am on Wednesday last week, shortly after police started their search of Ms Sturgeon’s and Mr Murrell’s Glasgow home 50 miles away.

    Mr Murrell was arrested on April 6 by police investigating the spending of about £600,000 that was earmarked for Scottish independence campaigning.

    He was released later that day pending further investigation. Police Scotland officers spent two days searching the couple’s home and also raided the SNP’s headquarters in Edinburgh.

    Since July 2021 the force has been examining the SNP’s handling of the donations raised in 2017 for a second independence referendum.

    The second referendum never happened and some donors asked for their money back, saying they had been told the money would be ring-fenced for a referendum campaign.
    *
    *
    *
    *****************************************

    Sprouty Brussels
    7 MIN AGO
    Complete Lies.
    1. If it was for the 2021 election, you would rent it – not purchase.
    2. Once the restrictions were lifted, you would sell the Bus to recover your loss, for the SNP.
    3. You would not store it on your mothers driveway. This would invalidate the insurance if the Bus was purchased in the name of the SNP. It would be a commercial policy, not a private policy.
    4. It’s too small to be an election Bus, only sleeps two people if you look at the catalogue.
    5. Why would their parliamentary chums, the Green party, be happy for a couple of SNP members to drive around in a 3.5 tonne motorhome??
    6. It’s not a commercial vehicle, it’s a private recreational vehicle. If it was purchased for the 2021 election campaign, you would need a fleet of them, and thats just for the Assistants required in a political campaign.
    7. A Battle Bus is used for making dictats to reporters and the press, inbetween the places you visit. For example, Harriet Harman briefed the press, while travelling the country in a Battle Bus, during the 2015 election. So you do all your press work while on the Bus and then smile and wave for the public once you arrive at the City – that is a Battle Bus.
    if the police in Scotland can’t see through this, they really do need to stay in the Union for as long as possible, so we can help them with policing.

    John Black
    2 HRS AGO
    When a commercial company finds its statutory auditors ‘inexplicably’ have resigned, the optics are bad. When that company is unable to appoint replacement auditors, the optics are worse. When the partial story emerges after six months, it is clear that no matter how many times Mr Yousaf visits Specsavers, the optics are unlikely ever to improve.

    Ian Tugwell
    1 HR AGO
    The camper van apparently has a ‘disappearing shower’, aptly named for the SNP then.

    1. How did Yusif get elected? What happened to the Christian woman? Did the Left hate her that much?

      Let’s stop fiddling about. They stole the money, bought a campervan and gave it to her mother. It was theft and fraud in one.

    2. How did Yusif get elected? What happened to the Christian woman? Did the Left hate her that much?

      Let’s stop fiddling about. They stole the money, bought a campervan and gave it to her mother. It was theft and fraud in one.

  56. I was going to the supermarket but have postponed it until tomorrow. It’s blowing a hooley and raining off and on. Somehow the idea of me doing a Mary Poppins over the town does not appeal. Will catch up on some indoor jobs….maybe 😉

  57. Interesting little summary of where the power lies in the world.
    https://www.reddit.com/r/Wallstreetsilver/comments/12jgxmb/global_american_empire_the_united_states/

    The same elites have been using the same strategy of military intervention to back up trade since the days of the East India company.
    If he is correct, then they will be expecting to use China or Russia in the same way that they have used the US. Russia does not appear to be for sale, but China, with its annual WEF meeting in Beijing certainly is.
    Perhaps we should start to see Xi as merely the latest powerful puppet of the financial elite.

    Or perhaps they feel that with UK/US military power sliding out of their grasp after nearly 300 years, they need to enslave us with a social credit system in order that their power continues.

  58. 373359+ up ticks,

    May one ask ,

    A plague kicks off via contaminated water, bad hygiene , etc.etc

    so is a junior doctor with a little plumbing knowledge,worth more than a plumber with basic knowledge of first aid ?

    Is the junior doctor worth more than the hospital electrician when
    life saving electrical gubbins go down ?

    What truly is a junior doctors take home pay,ALL inclusive ?

    1. Demanding a 35% rise is just offensive. There are plenty of junior docs happily ignoring that the price is paid by the checkout assistant on just above min wage, who won’t get that final salary pension, who will never earn over 80,000 a year, with twice that again coming from private practice work.

      They’re just greedy and taking the urine.

  60. That Reminds Me: Confessions of an ex-smoker

    Among them were Albany, Anchor, Ariel, Bachelor, Bristol, Buckingham, Cadets, Cambridge, Camel, Cameron, Chesterfield, Churchman’s No 1, Conquest, Consulate, Craven ‘A’ Cork Tip, De Reszke, Diplomat, Disque Bleu, Du Maurier, Dunhill, Embassy, Envoy, Escort, Everest Menthol, Gallaher’s De Luxe, Gauloises Caporal, Gitanes Caporal, Gold Bond, Gold Crest, Gold Flake, Gold Leaf, Grosvenor, Guards, High Kings, Kensitas, Kent, Lark, Lucky Strike, Marlboro, Matinee De Luxe, Mayfair, Nelson, Olivier, Olympic, Pall Mall, Park Drive, Passing Clouds, Peter Stuyvesant, Piccadilly, ten varieties of Player’s, Ramsey Special, Rembrandt, Reyno Menthol, Richmond, Rocky Mount, Rothman’s, Shipmate, Silk Cut, Silva Thins, Solent Menthol, Sterling, St Moritz, Sweet Afton, Three Castles, Weekend, Weights, Windsor and of course Woodbine. How many do you remember?

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/that-reminds-me-confessions-of-an-ex-smoker/

    1. Afternoon Tom. I used to smoke Benson and Hedges. Until I realised it was all about posing!

    4. Davidoff cigars.
      King Edwards – name best reserved for potatoes, which is what they were.

    5. Senior Service, smoking was never a habit for me i was an athlete, if at all, first of the day would have usually been after dinner.

      1. I remember, age 8, taking a surreptitious puff of my Mother’s cigarette as it lay on the ash-tray.

        By age 12, I was hooked; stole them from the tobacco counter of the newsagent, from where I delivered the morning papers. Gave up 61 years later, after a massive heart attack while in Tasmania.

          1. That was the third one. Really bad one in 2002, complete with straight-line VF. I was brought back with the battery charger.

        2. I had a surrepticious puff with the other kids sitting in the bushes when I was nine or ten. Never bothered again. My Mum was a life-long smoker. When she was recently widowed she chain-smoked and I thought that was the normal way to light the next one. She did cut down a lot in later years – and when she was ill, she stopped altogether.

        3. My great mate Bruce who I spoke to this morning lives in Upper Ferntree Gully Vic. Has been recently diagnosed with lung cancer. He started when he was about 12 as well.
          The last time they were over he’d packed it up for about 3 years. We sat up late chatting and I remember saying that I had to go to bed because there were two of him sitting in the chair opposite. And only three quarters of the ten year old duty free scotch had gone.

          1. Before she moved to Tasmania (via Brisbane) my daughter was living in The Basin, just North of Ferntree Gully.

            We rented a bungalow in Lorna Court for a year in 2009-2010.

          2. I love it there. You can hear Puffing Billy from their back garden.
            Strangly we’ve never been on it.
            Next time for sure.
            You might have been there when we were visiting on one of our trips.

    7. I always enjoyed seeing Jake Thackray perform He was a brilliant song writer:

      When brother Richard was thirteen
      He was a Boy Scout, keen and clean
      He got presented to the Queen
      And then he went and spoiled it all when he offered her a Woodbine
      Nevertheless despite their sins
      Bless my kiths and bless my kins
      There they perch for all to see
      Up my, up my family tree

  61. The DUP’s Sammy Wilson has just been on R4’s ‘The World At One’. The sound of BBC editors sucking air through clenched teeth was almost audible. The discussion was, of course, about Biden’s presence in Northern Ireland. Wilson made clear his disapproval and said as politely as possible it was a UK problem for a UK government to solve and was no business of the USA or the EU. When asked if “there was a US president in history who had ever been an honest broker” he said “No, too many US presidents used NI as a political campaigning tool back home. The one who interfered least was Donald Trump who understood that interfering in other countries doesn’t always turn out well.”

    A quick cut to an interview with an Irish government minister was made…

      1. We will listen to Biden on NI as soon as he sits down and takes advice on Gun control from the UK

    1. I don’t think they know what climate change is, nor how farming affects it. I think if they were fored to do without their pret coffees and kiddie shoes they’d suddenly be forced to wake up and realise how ignorant they are.

    2. I thinks it’s time to rebuild the ‘looney bins’………….. But not on farm land that’s for the thousands of new homes.

  64. Just tried out the rotisserie on my Daowoo airfryer oven. 1.5kg chicken. 40 mins at 190c. Perfect.
    It would normally take about 1 hour 10 minutes.

    It also used 60% less energy than my fan oven.

          2. We had a large leg of lamb at the weekend! I’d forgotten how much more work it is in the oven! And Yorkshire puddings as I’m still not too confident with the bake function! 😱

          3. I am keeping my fan oven. As you say a leg of lamb or a big birdie needs the space.

            The airfryer would cope with half shoulder of lamb though.

            I’ll let you know when i get around to baking some cakes.

            It does nice crispy baked potatoes. I micro mine first though to cut the cooking time even more.

    2. From https://www.usnews.com/360-reviews/home-goods/air-fryers/how-does-air-fryer-work#:~:text=Air%20fryers%20use%20convection%20heat,frying%20also%20uses%20minimal%20oil.
      “An air fryer is a countertop cooking appliance that combines a heating element and a powerful fan to circulate hot air, similar to a convection oven. Air fryers produce foods that are crispy outside and moist and tender inside without actual frying. Philips invented the original air fryer and debuted it at a European consumer electronics fair in 2010. Since then, the category has exploded.
      Err…

        1. Thank you, Philip, I was going to post the same and ask if that was the one. It is.

      1. Don’t see why not. Just a little lard in the tray and give it a couple of minutes. I’ll let you know when i get round to it.

    1. ENM? Aspie? What on earth do they mean – no, on second thoughts I don’t want to know. What a freak.
      ETA: Demisexual and neurodivergent? Different language.

        2. Its husband knows about the ENM apparently, I suspect he is in full support and provides transport if he has any standards whatsoever.

    2. ENM? Aspie? What on earth do they mean – no, on second thoughts I don’t want to know. What a freak.
      ETA: Demisexual and neurodivergent? Different language.

    2. Someone on Spiked said there’s a demo in Trafalgar Square on Sat. Something to look into.

  71. To the title:
    I suspect that at the age of 60, I might be one of the more youthful least experienced members of this community but I can assure you that the thought that these junior jab-mongers might not see me if I were ill or injured has no effect whatsover on my anxiety.
    The fact that they might not see one of my parents is an actual relief.
    Give me an experienced nurse or paramedic any day over one of these teenagers.

    1. Junior doctors are not necessarily young. It’s just that they have never made consult status.

      1. Ok.
        Well maybe. But whenever I’ve been to A&E those I saw were still in short trousers or pigtails.
        I suppose they might have both, nowadays.

          2. The problem was a cyst on my back. I can’t see it, of course. So I stood there like a lemon while the MR and the nurse prodded an discussed. I felt a bit like livestock being examined by two farmers!

          6. Bill , no 2 son had a cyst on his forehead which started to grow, started about 6 years ago.

            His quack told him the NHS would deal with it , that was before Covid , guess the rest .. so Mike went to Putney and had it removed privately .. cost roughly £700 .. he had it excised , and tissue sent away for analysis.. gunk really but needed about 4 stitches .. neat easy and a relief . Tissue result was fine .

          9. The late great Winston S Churchill’s comment about reasons for not assisting the people of China during WWII ” 400 million pigtails”.

  72. Well, I didn’t see the nurse I was expecting to see. She reveres the MR – who taught her A-level English in the 1970s! But a younger version was provided – equally well turned out and knowledgeable. Nothing to be done about the “problem”…except wait for it to get worse! Never mind, eh?

        1. I know the Doctors at my local hospital are with the strikers but my appointment hasn’t been cancelled…yet.

          Queen Alexander is a good hospital and they are trying to cover as much as they can. We will see.
          Thanks for asking.

          2. Yes. I have had so many appointment there what with different conditions that the car knows the way there!

            Polycythaemia for blood letting.

            Acute medical unit three times for different blood problems.

            Operation for Peripheral Arterial Disease.

            Bandaged ribs after falling and fractures.

            Swollen and burst right testicle.

            MRI scans and lots and lots of blood tests.

            Other than that i’m fine…

          4. Thank you. If it is cancelled at the last minute i will go to Gunwharf Quays for lunch instead. Never waste an opportunity.

          5. That’s where I was taken after the straight-line VF in 2002. They were very good though I don’t remember much about it.

            Then it was QARANC (Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corp)

          7. That’s where I was originally destined for, but traffic was too bad. I was living in Gosport on an ex-Naval housing complex.

          8. My sister was married to a guy om HMS Opposum. I stayed with them off Nimrod Drive and worked as a kitchen slave at the Belle Vue. I would cycle from Wickham on a Thursday night to their place and then work the weekend at £1.10 an hour.

          9. If, where I lived in Gosport, had been HMS Opossum, then where I stayed was 112, St Nicholas Avenue.

            I don’t know how that might relate to Nimrod Drive.

          11. Ouch, that’s beyond bad luck.
            Sounds as if they give you something else to be going on with for next time, every time you visit.

          12. I haven’t even mentioned the three operations for pilonidal sinus. The second operation they needed to call an ambulance to take me to another hospital because they couldn’t stop the bleeding. All the butchers had gone home apparently.

          17. Well hello Jonah, I’m surprised Nottlers go anywhere near you, are they in possession of all the facts?

  73. For the birders on here ( feathered variety) and my anxiety about the black plastic in their nest .

    https://www.birdsofpooleharbour.co.uk/osprey-news/plastic-in-the-osprey-nest/

    Since their return, our Osprey pair have both been busy adding material to their nest in preparation for breeding. This has included a variety of natural objects including moss and grass to line the nest cup and sticks to build up the nest wall. However on Friday 7th April our male 022 brought in a far less desirable lining material: a sheet of black plastic. Over the course of the bank holiday weekend he brought in several more pieces, some of which have since blow away (a preferable outcome for the Ospreys but not for the habitats they will have blown into), though the original piece remains weighed down by added later sticks.

    We believe that the plastic is discarded agricultural waste that has come from nearby farmland. In order to reduce the risk of any more being brought in we have been out looking for potential locations where 022 might have collected it and we are very grateful to the neighbouring land owners who have agreed to inspect their own land and ensure any such material is removed. To an Osprey flying overhead any loose plastic sheeting such as bale wrap moving in the wind likely looks very similar to grass, and unfortunately large chunks can easily be torn off in their strong talons. Once in the nest, it catches easily on surrounding twigs and gets gradually buried as more material is brought in, making it less likely to be dislodged by the wind or the birds. Sadly is it all too common to see plastic in the nests of wild birds, and Ospreys are no exception: materials such a baler twine are often collected in a similar way, and can pose an even more serious threat of entanglement for chicks and adults. Though theoretically less severe, black plastic sheeting can still pose a potential risk to the Ospreys, and this is obviously not a desirable state of affairs so early breeding season.

    In an ideal world we would be able to quickly climb the nest tree to remove the man-made material, but there are a number of other risks and limiting factors associated with this process, which must be weighed up against those of leaving the it in the nest. The first is disturbance to the birds, which could be especially detrimental at the present stage, when CJ7 is likely to begin the laying process any day now. We would not want to negatively impact them at a crucial time and risk an extreme outcome such as nest abandonment or failure. Should we conclude that the risk of this is sufficiently low and chose to make the climb up the 25+ metre nest tree, we would require a suitable weather window to do so safely. The high winds forecast for the coming days are likely to either delay this process or prolong the time it takes to reach the nest, meaning a greater potential disturbance impact on the birds. There is of course a chance that these high winds may help to dislodge the plastic but this is not guaranteed.

    We will be taking all of this into account and assessing the situation further in the coming days, and will aim make a decision as to the best course of action as soon as possible. Whatever conclusion we reach however, we will ensure that it is in the best interests of the Ospreys and their success.

    (CJ7 in the nest with the black plastic on the right) https://www.birdsofpooleharbour.co.uk/osprey/osprey-webcams/

    2. Hmm, black plastic: wind and rain proof, and has excellent thermal properties; if it is good enough for the local farmer, it should be good enough for dear Mrs Osprey (thinks Captain Osprey)

      1. My thoughts exactly. You wouldn’t see David Attenborough using moss if he had access to a nice bit of tarpaulin, so why does he expect the poor ospreys to pass up on it? They know more about nest building than “nature” commenters!

  74. Harry will attend King Charles’ Coronation but Meghan will stay in California with Archie and Lilibet, Buckingham Palace confirms – as Sussexes’ friend Omid Scobie says it will ‘only be a quick trip’ for the Prince

    7. He won’t have to suffer the Migraine but Harry is a big enough headache by himself.

    8. He won’t have to suffer the Migraine but Harry is a big enough headache by himself.

    9. As a “veteran” I have been offered the chance of a ticket in a grandstand on the Mall. I didn’t bother to apply.

      1. Eased off here too- very glad I decided to postpone the shopping trip until tomorrow. Weather then looks a bit nicer.

          1. Spring sprung here a few weeks ago – then it died down and we’ve had lots of weather.

          2. We have weather every day. In fact I’ve never known a weatherless day in all my life.

          1. I think so.

            The dogs ate their tea, we waited awhile before we were due to take them out for a run .. hey ho the wind and the rain came back again .

    2. SWMBO texted about 30 minutes ago that she was sitting in the plane at Gatwick, with the thing rattling and shaking in the wind.

  76. BTL comment on the Krankie farrago.
    Maybe NOTTLERs who know about these things can make an informed comment.
    Mine – from a position of ignorance is a question: “I wonder why the SNP accountants bailed out 6 months ago?”

    “Their 2021 accounts are interesting. In note 18 which should detail the movement in the different classes of Fixed Assets, Motor Vehicles are hidden within Office/Computer Eqpt instead of being listed separately. £116k of additions, subject to 33.33% depreciation every year. So if the Motorhome is still on the books, after just a few years it’s book value would be pretty negligible & up for purchase by any ‘interested’ parties. Another scenario could be that it has already been sold and the Loan from a Member accordingly reduced.”

    1. A possible solution:
      If that quote is from the accounts, that appears to be a qualification; indicating that either the internal accountants failed to present the accounts properly and they were approved by the Finance Director/Board or suggesting that there are differences which could not be explained to the satisfaction of the external auditors and they are hinting that there has been some accounting skulduggery. Possible grounds for their resignation.

      2. It’s not easy to mistake motor vehicles for computer equipment though, is it? Presumably they are fiddling capital allowances. I wonder what their VAT situation looks like.

  77. There is a lot here but at least one of them should bring a smile to your lisp lips

    Why doesn’t Tarzan have a beard when he lives in the jungle without a razor?
    Why do we press harder on a remote control when we know the batteries are flat?
    Why do banks charge a fee on ‘insufficient funds’ when they know there is not enough?
    Why do Kamikaze pilots wear helmets?
    Why does someone believe you when you say there are four billion stars, but check when you say the paint is wet?
    Whose idea was it to put an ‘S’ in the word ‘lisp’?
    What is the speed of darkness?
    Why is it that people say they ‘slept like a baby’ when babies wake up every two hours?
    If the temperature is zero outside today and it’s going to be twice as cold tomorrow, how cold will it be?
    Do married people live longer than single ones or does it only seem longer?
    How is it that we put man on the moon before we figured out it would be a good idea to put wheels on luggage?
    Why do people pay to go up tall buildings and then put money in binoculars to look at things on the ground?
    Did you ever stop and wonder…….
    Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, ‘I think I’ll squeeze
    these pink dangly things here, and drink whatever comes out?’
    Who was the first person to say, ‘See that chicken there… I’m gonna eat the next thing that comes outta it’s bum.’
    Why do toasters always have a setting so high that could burn the toast to a horrible crisp, which no decent human being would eat?
    Why is there a light in the fridge and not in the freezer?
    Why do people point to their wrist when asking for the time, but don’t point to their bum when they ask where the bathroom is?
    Why does your Gynaecologist leave the room when you get undressed if they are going to look up there anyway?
    Why does Goofy stand erect while Pluto remains on all fours? They’re both dogs !
    If quizzes are quizzical, what are tests?
    If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?
    Why do the Alphabet song and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star have the same tune?
    Stop singing and read on……
    Did you ever notice that when you blow in a dog’s face, he gets mad at you, but when you take him on a car ride, he sticks his head out the window?
    Does pushing the elevator button more than once make it arrive faster?

    2. Ped – I asked you a question an hour or so ago about the BBC reporting my death.

      What time and which programme was it? A BBC contact wants to look into it.

      1. Are you not dead, then? That’s a relief! 😀
        Ped also corrected himself to write the Legal Eagle, no B. Apparently someone else.

          3. Are you the last one standin’?

            Tony de Angeli left the building in 2019; I miss his enthusiasm.

      4. Yesterday the local Beeb station mentioned someone called Philips (Lord?) had died. He worked for the Jimmy Young radio show as a legal expert.

      5. Sorry, didn’t see the request. Short news extract on Radio 4 Today programme (I think).. He probably said Legal Eagle but I heard it as Legal Beagle because I didn’t know of Andrew Phillips. I was still in bed and not really listening.

      6. It wasn’t you. He styled himself the Legal Eagle. I didn’t catch his real name, but it wasn’t yours.

    4. BBC dunce at 1:07: “Misinformation can be dangerous and can cause worldwide harm.”

      Freedom of speech [can be] “…hateful and dangerous rhetoric and ideology…misinformation used as a weapon to disrupt and to cause chaos…” – Jacinta Ardern, speech to the UN, September 2022.

      1. I love the way Musk turned that round on them, and the BBC dunce was too stupid even to understand it!

    5. Listening to the deplorable standard of stammering speech [“I mean … I mean … I mean …”] of that clueless, imbecilic BBC placement puppet; it is immediately clear that he is not Richard Baker, Kenneth Kendall, Peter Woods, or a few dozen other BBC correspondents of yesteryear who could actually articulate themselves in clear, standard English.

      Even Eddie Waring would have made a better fist of interviewing Musk.

      3. BBC presenters today are routinely awful. Dead old Paxo is leaving University Challenge – because of his illness his speech has become poor. However, he is to be replaced by Amol Rajan, a man unfamiliar with consonants and pauses.

          2. Way past his sellby date. But the replacement OMFG.
            It’s pretty obvious what that’s about.

    6. Oooh he doesn’t sound very South Efrican! If I were just listening, I would have thought he were Irish!

    1. Worth every penny. Not easy transforming so many into pufters, although they do have a head start judging by the number of benders and rainbow warriors which have joined the Met recently.

      1. I have this theory Eddy that a great many of these positions go to relatives or place men who then remit a part of their salary to you for finding them a job.

        1. You’re probably right Minty.
          Pre prepping it’s the only way to understand the obscure job description.

  83. Oh dear. Somehow I think that the lawyers will emerge as the net beneficiaries….

    Oxford University urged not to repatriate Benin Bronzes as it risks ‘rewarding slavery’

    University told the plans are ‘morally indefensible’ as it waits for the Charity Commission to sign off returning the artefacts to Nigeria

    By Craig Simpson
    12 April 2023 • 3:51pm

    Benin Bronzes

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2023/04/12/TELEMMGLPICT000315496927_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqhCgYsx2VfhuD-YVUCDW-EH1fBzdowKT6pahG45Xt_d4.jpeg?imwidth=680

    Oxford has been told not to “reward slavery twice” by returning Benin Bronzes to Africa, as it emerged that its repatriation plans have stalled.

    The university has been waiting for the Charity Commission to sign off its proposals to return the artefacts to Nigeria but this process has been delayed.

    Oxford has been urged by a legal team pushing for slavery reparations to use this delay as an opportunity to scrap “morally indefensible” plans to return its 97 Benin Bronzes.

    Lawyers have argued that giving the sculptures to modern-day descendants of the African slave-trading society, which created the Bronzes using the subsequent wealth, would be tantamount to “rewarding” slavery by returning its profits.

    Deadria Farmer-Paellmann, founder of the Restitution Study Group (RSG) campaigning for reparative justice for slave descendants in the US, has engaged British legal experts to help pressure UK institutions into reversing their repatriation plans.

    She has urged Oxford’s leadership to “immediately suspend your plans to repatriate these objects to Nigeria”, adding: “It is morally indefensible to make such a determination against the express wishes of those of us in the UK, the US and the Commonwealth whose ancestors literally gave their lives so that the Bronzes could be created in the first place.

    “Your proposed actions to repatriate the bronzes would have the effect of rewarding slavery twice.”

    The artefacts were made over several centuries for royalty in the Kingdom of Benin – now absorbed into present-day Nigeria – before they were taken in a punitive raid by the British in 1897. European metal tokens known as “manillas” were often melted down to create them.

    Benin Bronzes

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2023/04/12/TELEMMGLPICT000315496923_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqT9UsYpwIZ13hLjh3givJlEikPYR0xYwuEBLwP9UFqPg.jpeg?imwidth=1280

    Ms Farmer-Paellmann and the RSG have argued that as the kingdom traded in slaves, and used the resultant wealth to produce the Bronzes, sending them back would effectively reward Benin society for its historical involvement with slavery.

    Oxford and Cambridge both pledged in July 2022 to return the hundreds of artefacts held in their museums to fulfil a “moral obligation”, a decision which required approval from the Charity Commission.

    This approval was given to Cambridge in December, but Oxford’s plans to send back 97 objects from its Pitt Rivers and Ashmolean Museum collections have been delayed. It is understood that the commission is waiting for the university to resubmit its justifications for repatriation.

    The commission considers whether such plans have a detrimental impact on a charity, in this case a university, and the regulator requires information proving that there will be no negative effects on the organisation in question.

    The RSG, which previously filed a lawsuit aimed at preventing the Smithsonian from returning Benin artefacts, has enlisted the services of London law firm Payne Hicks Beach to push for the scrapping of similar repatriation plans in the UK

    Profiteered in the past
    Partner Till Vere-Lodge told the Telegraph that “a repatriation of the Bronzes to Nigeria would amount to a ‘doubling-down’ of the wrongs committed in the context of slavery”, and “a second instalment of the reward paid to those who profiteered from slavery in the past”.

    He said the return of objects on “moral grounds” in such circumstances would amount to an “inversion of ethical standards” which museums should be following, and which were recently set down in Arts Council England’s guidance.

    This guidance states that institutions should weigh up repatriation claims against the wishes of “the people for whom they may have a special meaning today”. Mr Vere-Lodge argued that this should include the descendants of slaves whose ancestors were exploited to create the artefacts now being reclaimed by Nigeria.

    The RSG believes that it would benefit the descendants of slaves to have these historical artefacts on display in British museums for the purposes of education rather than their countries of origin.

    Oxford has been contacted for comment.

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

    septimius severus
    1 HR AGO
    All this shows is the attempts to revisit the past with some modern moral ethic is at best confusing at the worst misleading

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

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5e1ae6975cb6321616b21568668889f4707cf2507ed44d6b612b58ea622cfb3a.jpg

    2. I like the hole in the head where a brain ought to be. They’re ugly trash with no artistic merit. Why argue over them – just get rid!

        1. So that modern youth might understand how advanced African art was at that time…

    1. Flowchart continues with options: I go to prison vs He gets a knighthood and directorship.

  85. Par Four today.

    Wordle 662 4/6
    ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜🟩⬜🟩⬜
    ⬜🟩⬜🟩⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      2. Me too. Silly one.
        Wordle 662 6/6

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

    2. A 3 but not without googling for clues. I stop short of cribbing the answer but the placing of the vowels had me stumped.

      Wordle 662 3/6

      🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜⬜🟨🟩⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  86. Just seen the news, that is a Biden double in Northern Ireland or I’m a monkeys uncle

    1. The scenes with Sunak are shabby. Sunak has submissive body language, even with an old fraud like Biden. He has no presence at all. His body language is awful. The very opposite of a leader.

          2. Culture rather than caste. In Britain we have all the nuances of class and region rather than cowtowing to some bonkers religion that labelled your ancestors as clean or unclean.

          3. Our old budgerigar was cleverer than Bye Don.
            His name was Charlie and he knew where he lived.

      2. Is he holding his hands together and doing the head-wobble (like Ranji Ram on It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum)?

        “Thousand apologies!” “We British!”

  87. That’s me for tonight. A day of two halves. Lovely sun and bitter wind; then sporadic heavy showers ….and bitter wind. G & P very displeased.

    Market tomorrow – mainly fine, THEY say. Good news is that the well is within a foot of being at its limit. Phew.

    Have a spiffing evening.

    A demain

  88. PS – Stolen from the Spectator:

    Political news in Canada — in case you watch the goings on of Boy Blunder there — out of (seemingly) nowhere the entire board and the president and the CEO of the Trudeau Foundation has just resigned. over the scandal of hosting CCP China in election interference.

  89. That’s me also for the day so I shall wish you all an early Goodnight and God bless.

  90. Well, after all the rain and even hail, my butt’s were over flowing I thought I would water the plants in the green house.
    Lots of baby spinach. Picked a large colander full throughly washed. Found a packet of smoked salmon slices in the fridge. And a tub of cremfresh and Parmigiano. Penne in the cupboard. Garlic olive oil. What a delicious quick meal it made.
    Thoroughly delicious food. Highly recommended.
    Just off to refill my glass.

    1. Whoops quite a refill.
      But I did wash and tidy up.
      Well that’s why I’m here really.

      1. I just got a large refill also. Rescheduled shopping trip tomorrow and then all the cooking on Friday so all I have to do on Saturday, when family come, is reheat and serve.
        Have a good evening Eddy.

    3. Sounds glorious!

      I have friends coming tomorrow, so have found a huge bunch of amazingly fresh watercress for soup, with strawberries that smell and taste of strawberries for afterwards. Very ‘English summer’ on purpose (he’s American, she’s Chinese and has taught me to make Chinese dumplings); so naturally, after a gorgeously warm week, rain is forecast… 🤣🤣

  93. 10/10 for determination.
    Do these bastards never give up?

    Arcturus is already in the UK: Warning over new Covid variant causing carnage in India – and it may have been in Britain for a month
    New type of Omicron has mutations that could increase cases and disease

    Health chiefs announced ‘Arcturus’ had been detected in the country last month. Almost 50 cases have now been spotted.

    50 cases? Jeezus H Christos, 50!
    edit not enough zeros
    Gawd help us, that is nearly 0.00007% of the population.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11965009/Arcturus-new-Covid-strain-sparking-alarm-India-UK.html

    Perhaps we should close the borders?
    Errrr….

    1. I saw that- I simply do not believe a word of this BS at all. The NHS can hassle us all they want re boosters etc but when they consistently put off my husband’s care and mine, they can get royally stuffed.
      And from now on, I won’t be being polite about it. Enough is enough.

      1. I wonder how many of those cases arrived from India carrying the strain?
        I wonder how many had been vaccinated before catching it?
        I wonder how many who catch it from them will have been vaccinated?
        To Hell with them all!

    2. Perhaps the ‘king army should turn up unannounced in Westminster and Whitehall and open rapid fire, it’s the only way this country will ever survive.

      1. Control of government ‘puter systems would do it. Begin by wiping passwords and changing entry codes. Then start cancelling. HS2, foreign aid, arms to the Ukes…

    3. When did Arcturus become a letter of the Greek alphabet? Arcturus, in the constellation Boötes, is the third brightest star as seen from earth (after Sirius and Canopus).

          2. Yes, I’m aware of the of the apparent absurdity of the ‘at night’ bit, even though Venus (a planet) is currently visible in daylight. Other anomalies are also appropriate to mention. What we call ‘constellations’ are nothing more than a phenomenon observed from an earthly standpoint. Take the entity we call ‘Orion’ for example. All the bright stars in that grouping appear to be on the same plane; however, if you were to observe them from a point 90º away from the earth, deep in the galaxy, none of them would show any relationship to each other since each star is at vastly a different distance from earth. Cosmology (astronomy) is an endlessly fascinating subject, much of which is not easy to get our heads around.

          3. My original point was that you were omitting the brightest and also the closest star to us that is shining through my window right now.

        1. Sorry, I don’t know the connection.
          I believe there was a tradition of men dancing the parts of the sisters.

    3. I wonder what the male dancers have to say about that? They bugger their backs up lifting ballerinas as it is.

      2. I was taken to dance classes when small. I think all mothers in the late 50s and early 60s wanted their little girls to be ballerinas. In the tap class I was adequate but when promoted into the ballet room and barre,* useless. Two left feet and now, with my stick, three left feet.
        And before Sos chimes in, * it wasn’t the wrong sort of barre;-))

        1. The Warqueen also went to ballerina classes – her Mum – the mother in law – is a retired instructor. When el Warqueeno grew to be this tall, voluptuous, glorious woman like yourself Lady, it became obvious she was not ever going to be a ballerina.

          Made a fantastic club dancer though.

          1. You got my description right except for the tall- am only 5’4″ 😉 I just can’t dance. Although, I did win 2/6- in a twist contest many years ago.

    5. That is just plain embarrassing.
      It’s the sort musical skit the Two Ronnies did as the finale to their shows.

      1. If the female dancers object, theyll all be labelled terfs and their complaints will fall on deaf ears.
        Now, if a male dance partner finds ‘it’ a tad too heavy to lift, I’ll bet his complaints will be considered.

    7. I must confess to being a Philistine, inasmuch, with both ballet and opera I don’t understand, nor can I follow, the stories depicted in either

  95. Stephenroi hasn’t been around for a while, I hope he uses catch up for the BBC 4 canals the making of a nation programme, I’ve found it fascinating.
    It would be interesting to hear his take on it.

    1. I was thinking the same.
      I’ve just been watching it. I love the canal programmes. What a massive achievement it was.

      1. This one and the one with naughtylass (sp?) have been relaxing, informative and spellbinding for me.
        Excellent TV.

        1. I think the Naughty lass series has finished.
          This is all about the building and planning. Very interesting.

          1. We watched the NL one first time around and I did wonder if the current one came about because of interest generated by the NL series.
            Great TV for me.

    2. Good programme although I’m intrigued about why the BBC showed it [according to Radio Times] in order 5/6; 6/6; 4/6 etc! And the last 5 canal diaries were, IIRC, series 2/1, 2/2, 3/3, 3/4, 5/5!? Why??

        1. Annoying though as series 2 episode 3 was moving into Worcester, near where I lived years ago, and we didn’t get to see it as they swapped series! Perhaps the BBC staff can’t count?

        2. Annoying though as series 2 episode 3 was moving into Worcester, near where I lived years ago, and we didn’t get to see it as they swapped series! Perhaps the BBC staff can’t count?

    3. Watching episode 1 on iPlayer (or something). Interesting, but I find the lady presenter’s voice a bit off-putting, not to mention her arm waving when she’s monologuing or interviewing someone on camera.

      1. I made similar comment to HG, but the whole is so interesting that I ignore the bad bits

  96. Well the bright & sunny start didn’t last very long! What a bloody awful afternoon!
    Van load of rubbish tipped at Darley Dale with assistance of Stepson and a shopping visit made to Bakewell.
    Chucked a pack of pre-cooked cocktail sausages into the slow cooker with a chili mix and left over veg & gravy before I left to pick up stepson and when we got home he had some of it. I had mine later on when S@H got back from work.

    Not a lot done outside due to the weather.
    Now off for a bath and bed.

    G’night all.

  97. It was so cold earlier on that OH lit the wood burner. I fell asleep – nice and warm in here now.

    2. Very windy here – eased off a bit now. There was a bit of sunshine this morning, which brought the room temperature up to 21 deg C. The Nest thermostat is set to 17.5. I have a large East-facing window, which really takes advantage of solar heat.

      Since EPCs are in the news at present, I sought mine out. Apparently, I have no cavity wall, nor loft insulation. This is surprising, since the identical property next-door-but-one has both of these – and a ‘C’ rating. Mine is ‘D’. But if I (not me, really, but the housing society) spends up to £16,500 on insulating the cavities which are already insulated, digging up the concrete floors to insert insulation, and adding ‘Solar water heating’ Note – I’ve no idea how this could be made to work with a Combi Gas Boiler – my rating could be improved from ‘D’ to… er…’D’.

      I doubt whether the assessor actually visited the site. For what they charge, it would have been difficult to justify. But 250 mm of loft insulation is hard to ignore, and the numerous mortar-filled holes in the external walls betray the cavity wall insulation.

      1. We haven’t got an EPC. We bought this house 28 years ago and we know the old part of the house has solid stone walls. The kitchen extension built in the early 60s is also solid I think. The conservatory built in 1991 is mostly glass, though we did have an insulated ceiling put in a few years ago which made it much more usable in winter and not quite so hot in summer. The other extension we always thought had solid walls (it’s cold)we found out last year (when he drilled through the gable end to install swift nest boxes) actually does have an insulating layer. All in all, it’s a hotch potch and we like it like that. The heating is oil-fired as we have no gas here. Heaven help us when we finally have to sell up.

    1. Lily wouldn’t go out at all. Even in the morning when the sun was shining, she wasn’t keen.

      1. Oscar felt the same; he raised his head from his fleecy bed and looked at me as if to say, “this isn’t weather to take a dog out; Kadi can go!”. It was raining hard, so I can scarcely blame him. Kadi, however, is happy to go if I’m going. He’s not nicknamed Velcro for nothing.

      1. Settled down here but it’s been a horror today. Hope it’s OK tomorrow as I must go to the supermarket and etc.

  100. Evening, all. Internet is still unreliable, I’m afraid, so I may or may not be able to post. The wind was violent last night; it blew over one of my trees in a pot, despite ballast to try to weight the base and it’s stripped most of the blossom off my fruit trees. There won’t be much of a crop of cherries, pears or plums I’m thinking (the apples have yet to come out).

        1. We’re north of the M4 and it was pretty draughty here. Some panes of glass leaning on the wall blew over and smashed all over the gravel drive.

  102. Goodnight Y’all. I must sleep, I really must.
    Wish you all a goodnight’s rest.

    1. Goodnight ,

      Stay warm , so cold here and that blooming gale continues..

      The hedgehog was sniffing around when I put the dogs ouside for a wee, 10 minutes ago .

      I hope he / she has somewhere warm to sleep .

  104. Oh well, at least the DT & self have had a couple of hours sleep!
    Both woke about midnight to pump bilges and I had a craving for a mug of tea, so sat up in bed with a mug each. Not much of a wind, but it has been bucketing down for a fair bit of the night.

      1. Thanks for that. I had a bet on Lord Gyllene in the race that was run on the Monday. I let it stand from the Saturday and won a modest amount (never a big bettor me). I later saw him at Steve Brookshaw’s yard. LG was a BIG horse!

        1. Did you read his two earlier write-ups about Cheltenham?
          You can find them if you click on the author’s name at the bottom of the piece.

    1. Yes, Geoff, I’ve tried refreshing yesterday’s page and it takes ages, often coming up with error 504

    2. It’s GCHQ I tell you. It’s that new woman who has taken over! She hates us! Infamy. Infamy!

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