Wednesday 14 June: Why has Jeremy Hunt left it so late to talk about public-sector reform?

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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627 thoughts on “Wednesday 14 June: Why has Jeremy Hunt left it so late to talk about public-sector reform?”

  1. Good morrow, Gentlefolks, today’s story

    Those Pesky Vikings

    There’s a Viking called Rudolf the Red, on account of his hair and beard.

    One day, he comes in soaked to the skin and declares to his wife, “By Odin, it’s pouring out there!”

    His wife looks out of the window and says, “It’s worse than that, it’s snowing heavily!”

    “No, it isn’t, it’s just raining hard,” says Rudolf.

    The wife looks out again. “I’m sure it’s snowing,” she says.

    Rudolf sighs with exasperation and tells her, “Rudolf the Red knows rain, dear!”

      1. Better, Sue. I do get these awful ‘Black Dog ‘ depressions and can only call out for help. Luckily, I now have an elderly Lady Friend here in Moffat and, while I don’t wish to put upon her unduly, she can be a very present help in time of trouble.

          1. Morning, Anne, don’t get it wrong – no sex/love involved, just a lonely old lady whose husband died recently after she’d nursed him at home for six years. We’re both glad of companionship and someone to talk to.

          4. My elder brother has found a lady for a platonic relationship and it has cheered both up quite considerably.

    1. Forecast is for 27C again here today.Sussex Coast.(Met Office) (25C BBC.) Mert office wwere corect yesterday

      1. ‘Morning JN. The Met Orifice promised 27°C yesterday but we got 29.4° at peak. Today the forecast is a slightly more modest 25°, so nearer 27° then.

        We were out yesterday evening so had to close everything up just before 5pm. As expected the house was stifling when we got back at 9.30. Thankfully it was soon reduced when all windows and doors were opened, and not forgetting the loft hatch. A reasonably comfortable night followed, interrupted only by Openreach at 1.50am, lifting manholes in the lane in further pursuit of a fault with the fibre optic lines installed last year. Why such an ungodly hour, I hear you ask? ‘Cos the lane is narrow and they can’t be bothered to obtain the necessary authority to work in it during normal business hours. I call that anti-social!
        (That came from one of their engineers last time when I went out to investigate the noise.)

        1. We had a very cool breez all night so cooling it was wonderful. 23C now. We have a new gas main being replaced near by complete at the end of the month.

  3. Why has Jeremy Hunt left it so late to talk about public-sector reform?

    Because he thinks that he wont be in power long enough to carry it out?

    2. Spot on. The Blob won’t chew him up and spit him out because they know he can’t do anything.
      Good thing none of us ever hoped for anything good from Jeremy Hunt.

      1. I suspect that he is manoeuvring to become the first Gauleiter once we rejoin the EU.

    3. Close.

      It is to give Labour lots to criticise and to guarantee that as many public sector employees as possible, as many younger people as possible, and as many immigrants as possible all vote Labour at the next election.
      Huge Labour majority.
      Then UK back into the EU on even worse terms than we left, and free movement from Europe of even more gimmegrants, UK bankruptcy.

      Job done

    4. I agree, B3, hence the sense of panic that now prevails. Besides, his time at Health did not produce any meaningful reform – simply because he’s not a reformer by nature.

    5. I agree, B3, hence the sense of panic that now prevails. Besides, his time at Health did not produce any meaningful reform – simply because he’s not a reformer by nature.

    1. 373294+ up ticks,

      O2O,
      In my book Og regarding the evil fallout from mass government controlled / uncontrolled immigration, RIP is becoming a decent folks mantra.

      May one ask what type of person currently supports these politically
      nasty,atrocious regimes ?

        1. 373294+ up ticks,

          Morning AS,
          Maybe you are right in ” not many” but lessons learnt, we should always be aware that graven image ( party names)
          worshippers lurk.

      1. 373294+ up ticks,

        Morning A,
        I do believe that for many it is easier to say RIP than to change their voting stance.

      1. Both of them the same age as our youngest granddaughter.
        How many other grandparents are experiencing the same hatred that I feel towards our spineless government and its enforcers?

      2. Good morning BoB and everyone.
        I misread ‘prime suspect’ as ‘prime minister’. My brain is sharper than me.

  6. Has any mentioned to Welby & Lineker that if this attacker was in Rwanda that these young people will still have their lives to live?

    1. Morning Bob. The BBC switched to Trump in Florida last night and ITV is leading with the same this morning. It will have vanished by Friday!

        1. I blame Katie. It’s all her fault. Drinks like a drain so she does. And she beat me at Scrabble 2/1. Unforgivable !

          1. 🤣🤣🤣 Oh yes; all my fault. I apologise for pouring excellent wine down your unwilling gullet… 😉

            Great evening!! Thanks, Phizzee. I do like nattering with Nottlers.

            I would however like to point out that I only burst into song when either jolly well paid for it, or poked beyond my limits by importunate and mischievous friends! 🤣🤣

          2. Best play on Scrabble ever was Exigence. double letter, triple word, all 7 letters.

        1. When we left the restaurant the sun was high and much hot. We waddled up the high street and Katie saw her chance. The Wetherspoons had lots of tables out and was packed with a jolly crowd until…full on opera !

          They were spellbound. Got a round of applause and cheering. The most culture they have ever experienced. I went around with my hat. Got a couple of quid and lots of bottle tops. :@(

  8. Ukraine called off Nord Stream sabotage after CIA tip-off. 14 June 2023.

    US spy network warned Kyiv off attack as Nato exercise was taking place in Baltic Sea.

    Ukraine called off an earlier plan to sabotage the Nord Stream pipelines after a warning from the CIA, according to Dutch state TV.

    Netherlands intelligence agents alerted the US spy network to the plot by Kyiv to blow up the pipeline in June 2022, at the same time as a major Nato exercise in the area, broadcaster NOS reported.

    CIA officers then warned Kyiv not to destroy the strategically important energy link after receiving a tip-off from their Dutch counterparts.

    Lol. This is just blowing smoke in the peasants eyes. The good thing is that the truth about it being the US is predominant Below the Line!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/06/13/ukraine-cia-nord-stream-ii-nato-the-hague/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

    2. Both Biden and Victoria Nuland (under S of S)are on film saying that Nordstream 2 would not go ahead if Russia invaded.

      This “Ukraine did it” is not the least bit convincing.

  9. ‘Morning All

    GB News reported a whistleblower has revealed some very dark stuff about the Nottingham murderer’s history no further details available and down the memory hole by friday no doubt

    MSM reporting continues to plumb ever lower depths,like this

    The fantasy

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/eb79f8bd68d91af3ee9faa82b9cc4ed1eb18e1b1165ea76261c7bb061619106d.png

    The reality

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/310410876d05998d2c55743a08a8b0d0a4858b904be5f61df53d2d89efd78ab9.png

    Anyone who watches police traffic programs knows they have to deal with an endless number of young feral scrotes that ignore the law and the consequences of their actions endangering us all

    As for this “Skegness Man”……..

    https://twitter.com/dave24144975/status/1668328295149211650?s=20

    Oh Yeah remember the “Christian” stabber??

    https://twitter.com/DaveAtherton20/status/1668611545021181953?s=20
    I’m sick to the back teeth with it all

    1. I’m sick to the back teeth with it all

      You and me both, Rick. Sadly, that is what the perpetrators, or rather the traitors, forcing this on us want. The traitors use humanity as their reason for importing the masses from the Third World and some fall for the lie. As the violence and crime escalates many will come to the conclusion that they were duped but by then it will be too late: either resignation to their fate i.e. living in a dystopian crime ridden shit-hole courtesy of corrupt politicians and their agents or a civil war with our culture at stake. I see no other options.

    2. I’ve reached the icy cold hatred stage.
      We certainly need a Cromwell; even more a Guy Fawkes who is an efficient planner.
      The British Establishment – politicians and their lackeys who push the ‘humanitarian’ schtick and criminalise anyone who expresses reservations about the policy – have blood on their hands.
      We have had two, possibly three, decades of this pernicious doctrine, and the trail of deaths and maimings grows ever longer.
      And that’s before we even discuss the mental and social effect of this deliberate hollowing out of a reasonably happy and settled culture.

      1. Enoch Powell saw it coming and tried to warn us by speaking out.

        The success of the disgraceful treatment of Enoch Powell and the truth he spoke taught the PTB how to rubbish veracity with lies and their ability to do this has increased steadily over the last fifty years.

    3. As I just posted above how many more of these scum have our useless politicians allowed into the UK ?

    4. If the Head of the Church of England, the Imbecile King, and his chief executive, Justin Welby, had any firm belief they would not cowtow to Islam but would follow the second commandment:

      “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”

      People argue that all monotheistic religions worship the same God but if the God of maniac, murdering Muslims is the same God as the one who gave the world his only begotten son, Jesus, Christ, then the whole rigmarole is a fraud.

    6. So he’s not a ‘Skegness man’ he an illegal criminal welfare shopper.

      The Home office should be on criminal charges – for every crime the criminal invaders commit, they get charged with it.

  10. Alison Pearson

    “Terminating a baby between 32 and 34 weeks’ gestation is not, and never

    will be, “healthcare”. Sorry, but a woman’s “reproductive rights” do not

    include stopping the heart of a baby that can live outside its mother’s

    body. If a Labour government tries to decriminalise abortion, it will

    have a bloody fight on its hands.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2023/06/13/aborting-baby-32-weeks-illegal/

    BTL

    The unfathomably stupid attention seeker,
    Stella Creasy, expressed outrage at the sentence saying that violent men
    get lesser sentences. She clearly doesn’t consider that any violence
    was done to that poor baby by its own mother. The mother is not the
    victim here. She is an adult with agency who chose deliberately to
    practice deception in order to obtain the means to kill a healthy and
    viable unborn baby girl.

    1. This case is utterly vile. There are many people around who were born before 32 weeks. The latest date for abortions should be rolled back in the light of medical advances, not brought forward.
      That this is not even up for debate shows only that the abortion industry is run by human-hating ideologues and big money.

      1. When they touted legalising abortion I warned that it would be subject to mission creep and so it proved. Euthanasia will be next.

    2. Post natal abortion on the way with a Labour government. What will the limit be – a month, a year or up until puberty?

      1. In that case is that one of the many reasons we are seeing hordes of Muslim men infesting our towns and cities , because the girl babies are aborted ?

    3. The Left hate everything normal and natural. Personally I don’t believe it is any thing for the state to be involved with. It is entirely the decision of the mother.

  11. Good morning all.
    Another bright & sunny start with a clear, blue sky and 9°C outside.

    After a 10min immersion in a cold bath last night, a much better night!
    Woke once about 02:30ish to pump bilges, then fell back asleep fairly quickly until 07:15!

    The fightback against the Trans Delusion is beginning:-
    https://youtu.be/-mXVH8RG2tc

    1. One person raises it, 20 others ignore it.

      I don’t think anyone cares what you do with your own body. If you want to indulge a fantasy, go ahead. What shouldn’t change is law. Just because you think you’re a goat doesn’t mean society has to accept your choices. There are two genders, determined by biology. There is a point where fantasy due to low self esteem, inadequacy confusion or simple psychoses meet the hard barrier of reality.

    2. Again, Well said that man.

      It’s nice to know that someone still on the CINO benches will speak up.

      How long before the whip is withdrawn.

  12. Students stabbed to death in Nottingham attack named. 14 june 2023.

    A 31-year-old man was arrested a short time later by armed police using Tasers. The man was taken into custody, where he was being questioned on suspicion of three murders.

    Sources said the suspect was a West African migrant who had settled in the UK legally and was known to police. It is not yet known what sparked the rampage and sources said that while the suspect did not have a criminal record, he was known to police and also had a history of mental health problems.

    No comments allowed! Which tells you pretty much everything you need to know!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/13/students-stabbed-nottingham-attack-named-barnaby-webber/

      1. Preferably the moment he arrived in this country; better still, before he stepped on the plane/boat.

        1. How many more of these have our useless stupid politicians let into the UK ?

      3. I agree. However, the reference in the media to ‘bullet holes in the windscreen is almost certainly wrong. The damage there and to the leading edge of the bonnet is typical of pedestrians being hit, and at some speed. The whole episode is sickening beyond description.

      4. There was a witness report that shots were fired, its what woke him up, but who knows whether it was actually gunfire.

    3. “No comments allowed!”

      They (the MSM and the PTB) know what we think but they feel that our views are not in line with their own truth which is that society is enriched by mass uncontrolled immigration.

    4. Ah the delightful ‘known to police’ – i.e., has a string of convictions a mile long and keeps getting let off by Lefty judges.

      A violent thug with no right to be here, a career criminal has now killed 5 people. When is the Home Office staff going to be held accountable?

    2. Joe, a friend of mine at Eton (who many years later became my best man), used to send me Donald McGill’s postcards – and some of those in the same style by Pedro – when I was at Blundell’s. Joe knew that my housemaster – a prudish man rather deficient in humour – looked at all the mail to boys in the house which arrived at his part of the building before being taken to the boys’ side.

      Here is one of the many Joe sent me.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/59e518268e02680d4c61e5651175708253f7e711ef8b88464a638ec78adc8aa9.jpg

      1. I’ve always been a fan of McGill’s postcards. Presumably they now require trigger warnings – or will be banned altogether.

        1. I cannot find a version of Fred Wedlock’s song loosely based Duncan McGill – Sidney Brown – to put up here but I have found the lyrics.

          The song is sung to the tune of the song about the artist L.S. Lowry.

          TITS AND BUMS.
          Fred Wedlock
          (To the tune: Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs.)

          This is the tale of Sidney Brown, a postcard artist of renown,
          He had a little stall on Blackpool pier.
          He painted ladies in the raw – doing things the Butler never saw,
          And the men he drew were randy, daft, or queer.

          CHORUS: And he painted Tits and Bums and Scouts with knobbly knees
          He painted red nosed drunks and dogs all covered in flees.
          He painted mothers-in-law, but he preferred to draw,
          All the Tits and Bums and Scouts with knobbly knees.

          A man of simple pleasures he, drank metal polish with his tea.
          Sydney could be spotted any day,
          Prowling round them Blackpool streets with his long grey mac and a bag of sweets,
          Looking for little boys who’d gone astray. CHORUS

          Now word soon got to London Town about the work of Sydney Brown.
          They said, “Come on Sydney, do your bit.”
          “Tell us all about Blackpool Pier, is Cyril Smith daft or queer,
          Or is he just a typical Northern twit?” CHORUS

          Now Sydney Brown’s a right old drag, on ‘Parkinson ‘ or ‘Melvyn Bragg’,
          He’s even done ‘The Terry Wogan Show.’
          His dirty postcards are the rage, they’ve been adapted for the stage
          By Andy Weber – and he ought to know. CHORUS

        2. There’s a museum dedicated to his work, I believe, but I can’t remember where, other than it’s “oop north”. Possibly near Harrogate.

    1. Would’ve been cheaper just to print the money on paper and burn that, surely?
      It beggars belief that no heads have rolled over this blatant fraud.

      1. 373294+ up ticks,

        Morning BB2,

        As of yet, via the enquiry
        someone’s political / pharmaceutical heads must be offered up to placate the
        minions,

      3. Is this the only one? Surely not.

        What other blatant frauds are being hushed up?

      4. Is this the only one? Surely not.

        What other blatant frauds are being hushed up?

    2. There goes Personal Allowance inflation increases and at least 1p off income tax.

      Nobody to blame. Please move along. Bastards.

      1. It’s not so much the waste of equipment or money, it’s the demented, irrational panic. The slow suppliers, the lack of capacity planning in the event of radical change. That hospitals and trusts and the department for health was completely blind sided and unable to respond. As always, it proved the incompetence and pointlessness of big government. The private sector saved the country. The state made everything worse and lied continually.

  15. Homes stuck with three million smart meters that do not work. 14 June 2023.

    Households have been saddled with three million faulty smart meters in a botched roll-out that is ballooning over budget, a report reveals today.

    Nearly one in 10 smart energy meters installed in UK homes are not working properly and more than one in three homeowners have reported problems, the National Audit Office found.

    It comes as the roll-out, which was supposed to have seen a smart meter installed in every home by 2020, is now forecast to cost more than £13.5bn.

    They keep plaguing me about having them and I steadfastly ignore them!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/homes-stuck-with-3m-faulty-smart-meters/

    3. Does it say in what way they are not working?
      Faults with the actual meters are rare in my experience, but there are a lot of electricity suppliers who are too tight to buy the software that enables them to read meters installed by another supplier.

    4. I gave in last year and now have smart meters. When working they are great to be able to see your daily consumption on the supplier’s website – which fits in exactly with my know consumption anyway. They do not save you money and the much touted little remote box in the kitchen has long since been relegated to a bottom drawer.
      The main problems seem to be the network linking them back to the suppliers. Since second generation SMETS2 meters this is a new national network independent of the suppliers and they have little control over it. When I was with SSE the electricity one was not feeding back data for a long time but eventually got sorted. When I moved to EDF earlier this year (to have real bills rather than the grossly inflated estimates from SSE) it took three months for the gas meter to move over and any attempt to point this out them via customer service hit a brick wall.
      The advantages have been grossly overrated, they do nothing whatsoever to ‘save the planet’ whatever that is and for those of us who know all about kW and kWH (and the difference) they tell me nothing more than I already know.
      The biggest moan I have with the energy companies is why they so hard push you to have these estimated monthly debit schemes as the only way to pay and not charge on what you use like the old way. I will refuse to have ‘fixed direct debit’ as long as I am able but see the time comes when I am forced to be ripped off.
      OK morning moan over, good morning, must enjoy the sun and heat.

      1. DON’T consent to having the regular readings if you can avoid it. These are sold as being for the customer’s benefit, but I think the costs far outweigh any benefit to the customer.
        Your readings can be analysed to give detailed information about how many people are in your house at any given time, and even what appliances you have and when you use them – information that is sold on and used for things like credit ratings.
        It’s all sold as extra information for you, but that’s not the main motivation behind it.

      2. The intent of smart meters is not to save you money. They’re to force down usage. The long term plan is to find out when you use electricity and to make it as expensive as possible at that time. Or, to ensure you only use electricity when the windmills are working – so 30% of the time.

        This way they will ensure they have met their grand and vaunted ‘net zero targets’ – by ensuring no one can use energy when they need it.

        In reality the smart meter network is pointless as data is only collected on a quarterly basis as that’s how the structures of energy companies work – because they’re used to reliable, stable, efficient energy production. As it is, forcing people to rely upon utterly unreliable energy is moronic.

        1. The intent of smart meters is to enable the electricity companies to cut off your supply at their whim.

          1. It sadly does seem some on here have been taken in by these scare stories. Although there is a built in facility for remote disconnect it is unlikely to be used ‘at a whim’. Of possible concern is the battery inside the gas meter, when that runs out it is designed to disconnect the gas for safety reasons (lifetime 5 years plus). It seems energy companies are quite happily not to bill you anyway – I had an issue with SSE when I went six months with no bills or charges due to a computer issue their end, then 3 months when EDF never charged me for the electric. The suggestion that they are going to disconnect innocent customers the day after their direct debit fails is frankly nonsense.

            Much is said about half hourly versus hourly readings. What is not known is that the meters store half hourly data regardless. You can tell your energy company to use daily or half hourly data but they only access and read the meter daily anyway, they have no instantaneous knowledge of your consumption. The network used in SMETS2 meters is pretty secure, to access it you need the correct credentials including the wireless key of the meter and other things. There are programs available online for you to access this data directly and I have used this but it is a right pain to set up and authorise. Yes, it may be hackable, but it is pretty hard without knowing all the codes.

            I agree the smart stuff does very little for Jo Average but as Johnathan says above much of the anti stuff is 1% exaggeration. I held off for a long time as I saw little point, but having moved I don’t see anything to worry about.

      3. As I have said before. I gave in to getting a smart metre because I could no longer access the meters to read them, it was physically to much for me. I know that people dislike the things and there are all sorts of horror stories about them. For that reason I avoided getting one until last year. I have had no problem with it, in fact what I pay per month is less than before I got the thing and I have not changed my usage at all. My point is that they aren’t all bad.

        I suspect that a great deal of the dislike people have for them is based on paranoia generated by the type of reporting where 99% of the good is ignored and the remaining 1% is exaggerated by people who have as much of an anti power companies agenda as the anti frackers, for example, who’s main sponsor is Saudi Arabia.

    5. Our supplier has been hounding us for about three years to have a smart meter fitted.
      While I’m still smart enough to supply them with the readings each month, no chance.

    6. The truth being they don’t save you money – smart people save money by judicious use of their electricity

      1. My electricity company keeps asking me if they are helping me to use less electricity. I keep telling them that, short of cutting off my power, there’s nothing they can do – I’m the one in charge of switching the lights off, using the oven less, etc.

  16. 373294+up ticks,

    May one ask,

    One hundred years to get the truth of the Dunblane evil issue,

    Three years to get the final take on the covid inquiry with maybe interim reports.

    Three minutes to get Tommy Robinson from street freedom to Belmarsh incarceration.

    Why are these political top rankers allowed to get away with this
    dictatorial type governance ?

    1. Why do you think we were deliberately disarmed?
      Nowadays, only state employees and criminals have regular access to effective arms.

      1. 373294+ up ticks,

        Anne,

        I would say there is no need for mass killings with the likes of machine pistols, selective killing via the polling booth is just, & maybe more, effective.

        Peoples really MUST stop supporting their political persecutors again & again & again .

          1. 373294+ up ticks,

            Afternoon Anne,
            If that ever were the case then surely you have a dictatorship.
            That would leave three options, submit , flight or fight.

          2. 373294+ up ticks

            O2O,

            Og, can you see anything obstructing a person joining ,financing , and building on a fringe party say, the RECLAIM party for instance, an opposition party as a guard against
            any political treachery ongoing.

            NOT a thing Og.

    2. Hamilton’s reputation had been trashed for suspected paedophilia towards young boys.
      Today, pride perverts are positively encouraged.

    3. Because there is no way to stop them. We do not live in a democracy. Look at prison sentences. Shop lifting – theft – is ignored. For a burglary you get a crime number. Tax evasion, however and it’s 5 -8 years, no parole. Why? Because big government doesn’t care if you’re robbed, but if you don’t fund it exactly as it demands it will go for you, with all the power and money and time it has because the cost of getting you is irrelevant. The punishment is what matters.

  17. Morning all 🙂😊
    Lovely start again, got to get busy this morning tidying up the garden for our fathers day BBQ. And our friends from Perth WA staying over.

    Described as a 31 year old male migrant originally from West Africa tasered and arrest on suspicion of the murders in Nottingham. And the blame for this atrocious vile incident lies firmly with our political classes. And nowhere else.
    They let all these people into our once safe and comfortable to live in country. They need to be named shamed and dismissed from their comfortable lifestyles. Between them all and their colleagues in Whitehall they have wrecked this country.
    How many more would be murderers rapist and thieves are we paying millions of pounds a day for and to keep in relative luxury ?
    Oh what a tangled Web they’ve weaved.

    1. 373294+ up ticks,

      Morning RE,

      These current political bastards did not get into power on their own, they were voted in,

      The last lot of political basterds did not get into
      power on their own, they were voted in.

      The lot of political bastards prior to the last last lot of political bastards did not get into power on their own they were voted in.

      There is an easy seeable pattern.

      1. Unfortunately Ogga, its the only option most of us have have in the UK. I would judge many voters are actually voting against certain parties rather than for a particular party. I would favour a lot of people would not vote mainstream at all, but there are not enough realistic and trustworthy choices. Farage had a lot of backing, but failed the people who were voting for him.

        1. 373294+ up ticks,

          RE,
          If the only option means you have to vote for the same,same,lab/lib/con coalition party then the peoples electorate has become shite graders as in
          Really super dupa shite, super dupa shite,super shite.
          the ongoing voting result will guarantee SHITE.

          Try building on the two
          by-election parties if not by voting then by financial input
          and constructing a countrywide new Party.

          My choice Reclaim.

  18. Good morning, all. Cloudy – no one in the sea. Storms this arvo – THEN proper weather starts!

    Any news? I gather that, as I expected, the killer was just a lone wolf…..

    Must go and start the crossword

    1. 32c at the beach yesterday and no one about, Katie and i went skinny dipping, Oysters everywhere but given the state of the mismanagement of the sewerage system i left them where they were.

    1. It’s terribly sad that the BBC’s so called ‘verify’ unit continue to promote an agenda. But then.. as I’ve said above they genuinely believe they are right and righteous. Her intent was never to debate an issue, but to set out her stall. It’s embarrassing.

  20. Lots of BTL Comment on this particular letter this morning. I append one example out of a couple of dozen:-

    Broadcast news rules
    SIR – Robin Aitken (Comment, June 13, telegraph.co.uk) says I am “deluded” for calling for a public debate about the rules governing broadcast news in this country – rules that are meant to prevent what we have seen in America, where Fox News had to pay out more than $600  million to settle a libel case after admitting that it continued to broadcast what it knew to be lies about the presidential election.

    Mr Aitken states that GB News and Sir Jacob Rees Mogg (who now has his own nightly show) are “not pretending to be impartial”. However, Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator, is under a legal obligation to ensure that news programmes are impartial (or, to be precise, to demonstrate “due impartiality”). Furthermore, Ofcom states that in normal circumstances “no politician may be used as a newsreader, interviewer or reporter in any news programmes”.

    Sir Jacob’s programme has not, so far, been judged to be in breach of these rules as Ofcom has, to date, not treated it as a news programme, even though it is broadcast on a network called GB News. Ofcom is now reviewing these rules.

    This is not, to be clear, a debate about GB News. Talk TV has also employed MPs to present programmes – most famously Nadine Dorries interviewing Boris Johnson. Their decision to leave Parliament will free them to present any programme they like. LBC has used politicians to host phone-ins too.

    I am not arguing against competition – we are lucky in this country to be blessed with huge amounts of choice – and I am certainly not saying that the BBC is perfect. What I am saying is that if people believe there should be no rules – or laws – governing broadcast news here they should have the courage to say so, start a debate, try to win over the public and then change the law. Broadcast news in Britain is still far more trusted than that in America.

    This debate is about something far more important than whether you do or don’t like a particular news provider. It is about how we can ensure that broadcast news can never be replaced by partisan propaganda, paid for by people who are more interested in securing power than in reporting on what is happening in the world.

    If it is deluded to worry about that, I plead guilty.

    Nick Robinson
    Presenter, ‘Today’, BBC Radio 4
    London W1

    Nanu Nanu Trans-species
    59 MIN AGO
    Nick Robinson wholly misses the point.
    It is the BBC that PRETENDS to be impartial but is in reality so much more biased than GB news, Talk TV or LBC.
    It is both his and the BBC’s hypocrisy and deceit that should be illegal.
    Mr. Aitkin’s case, that is is almost impossible to be wholly impartial, and that by using presenters such a JMR, whose bias is clear, the deceit is avoided and balance is provided by offering clear counter bias.
    GB News do this extremely well with both good humour and great courtesy, between opposing views, as it should be.
    The BBC, sadly, will not permit the expression of views it does not agree with and avoids airing them. When such views are expressed by a guest, they are condensing, insulting and beyond dismissive.
    The nature of the BBC’s innate bias controls the structure and content of its debate, which is limited to a very very narrow field of “acceptable” doctrine.
    One of the emerging benefits of social media is that voices that would not be heard on the likes of the BBC are starting to get awareness. Jordan Peterson, Jo Rogan, Elon Musk, voices who both challenge the accepted doctrines and offer comprehensive and intelligent alternatives.
    Defending the BBC appears ridiculous when seen in the light of the broader debates elsewhere. It is so obviously a propaganda network for a particular type of metropolitan, libertarian elite, who remain blind to the realities of life that surround them.

    1. I think it’s one of those Left wing disconnects where they fervently believe that they are just and righteous in what they say purely because ‘they’ say it.

      They cannot see the bias because it is all around them. The echo chamber has become Janis’ groupthink.

    2. Morning Bob

      My elderlies were present yesterday for lunch at the RBL. Many of them were Sappers in a different world , although in my group I have a mixture , including ex RAF etc . The majority of them are now in their late eighties early nineties .

      One of them is the same age as me .. served in Aden , etc and is with us because I am trying to encourage veterans from age groups who served in other campaigns .

      Have you ever heard of a rice bomb.. which according to many is just as lethal as any other device?

    3. GB News do this extremely well with both good humour and great courtesy, between opposing views, as it should be.
      The BBC, sadly, will not permit the expression of views it does not agree with and avoids airing them.

      Climate change is the prime example. I cannot remember a BBC news or current affairs programme in which a sceptic was allowed on unaccompanied (and for this purpose a sceptic might be someone open-minded on man-made warming but critical of energy policy in respect of it). Christopher Booker wrote about the corporation’s editorial decision of 2006 that effectively barred such people unless a ‘believer’ was also present.

      Contrast this with the recent interview with the climate change actvitist on GBN. No rancour, no contempt.

      1. Ah, but the science is ‘settled’ on that, a bit like the geocentric model of the universe was.

    4. Who cares what Nick “Red Robbo” Robinson thinks?
      I gave up my TV licence years ago and never watch the BBC’s propaganda. I find that following the financial news from a short list of independent analysts tells me most of what I need to know.

  21. FFS

    Also in the Mail article about the scum who carried out the murders in Nottingham, this little nugget, buried away:

    “

    There are also unconfirmed reports that the suspect recently converted

    to Islam and started attending an Islamic centre close to the scene. He

    is also described as having a history of mental health issues.”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12192845/Nottingham-rampage-Suspect-West-African-migrant.html
    This no doubt was the news they were hoping to bury!! Jihad pays for all past sins……

        1. This whole invasion problem has now been allowed to get totally out of hand. Suggesting that as many people have and are saying, they are all completely and utterly stupid.

    2. And that ridiculous invertebrate Sunak was boasting last week that his policies were working as numbers were down. He went to Dover to make the announcement while the weather and wind direction had temporarily stopped the boats coming.

      Indeed Nigel Farage saw what the snake was up to and that he had to lie while the weather suited his deceptions and, sure enough, now that the sea is calm the invasion has recommenced.

      Maybe the only answer is for Sunak to get his Hindu gods – Shiva, Vishnu, Brahma, Ganesh, Parvati, Durga, Lakshmi, Karthikeya, Rama and Krishna – to give us a permanent Force 6 + Northerly wind in the English Channel?

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d8f6b14d4df1fcb1e671834447f30c5154d6c92344bfc6b1f65bde945bb732f8.jpg

      1. It’s the goddess Kali who needs to sort him, the HoC and Whitehall out, in a brutal fashion.

  24. Putin claims Ukraine counter-offensive is failing. 14 June 2023.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin claims that Ukraine’s counter-offensive has been unsuccessful, with its army suffering major losses.

    Speaking at a meeting of war correspondents, he said that Kyiv’s losses were approaching a “catastrophic” level.

    That has not been verified, and Ukrainian President Zelensky has denied the counter-offensive is failing.

    “There is movement forward,” he said in his nightly video address.

    He thanked Ukrainian troops for “every step and every metre of Ukrainian land that is being liberated from Russian evil”.

    This was echoed by Valery Zaluzhny, the commander-in-chief of the country’s armed forces, who wrote on Telegram there had been “some successes, we are implementing our plans, moving forward”.

    Judging by this lukewarm endorsement by the Ukies and other sources the counter–offensive has been a debacle. More Charge of the Light Brigade than Operation Bagration. Back to the drawing board.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65899424

  25. We are still heading for peak lunacy,the maggots are infesting the rotting corpse of what used to be our education system

    “A spokeswoman for the Diverse Academies Trust, who run the school, declined to comment.

    Retford

    Oaks Academy has its own ‘inclusion’ policy. As part of its

    ‘relationships and sex education policy’ it promises ‘through a formal

    partnership with Stonewall, to promote the wellbeing of children who

    identify as LGBTQ+, and to educate the wider academy community on issues

    around gender identity.’

    A senior teacher has told how he was

    ‘treated like a paedophile’ and faced being banned from the profession

    over a science lesson about puberty that upset children with gender identity issues.

    Roy

    Huggins, 54, a history teacher with more than 30 years’ experience, was

    asked to fill-in for an absent colleague to teach a class of 11 and

    12-year-olds.

    He read from a national

    curriculum text book about the physical changes to the bodies of boys

    and girls during puberty and provided some additional explanation to

    help the pupils understand. He believed the lesson went well.

    But

    unknown to Mr Huggins there were at least two pupils in the Year 7

    class who were ‘diagnosed with gender dysphoria’ and several pupils

    later lodged complaints about ‘inappropriate’ comments he made in the

    lesson which caused offence.

    Instead of

    simply discussing the problem with Mr Huggins to avoid a repetition,

    the school reported him to the local authority safeguarding body who

    deal with allegations against adults working with children.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12189171/EXCLUSIVE-Teacher-54-treated-like-paedophile-upset-children-gender-dysphoria.html
    “Diverity Trust and Stonewall” ‘Nuff Said comments (which have been closed) are interesting

    1. Morning all. Has anyone read the TCW article on “The sinister project to brainwash our children.” Many of us have grandchildren and maybe even great grandchildren. It is really appalling reading. I will copy some of it but WITH A STRONG WARNING that nobody will like it.

      REMEMBER – STRONG WARNING BEFORE READING BELOW:

      “Material in some secondary schools produced by The Proud Trust for ages 13 and up includes descriptions of oral sex, anal penetration, rimming, felching, fisting and fetishes. Beware before Googling – some mind-boggling stuff indeed. Curriculums that include teaching children as young as six about masturbation have also been rolled out under the radar of parents. A programme titled ‘All About Me’ which was for a short time taught in schools in Warwickshire taught year 2 children about ‘self-stimulation’, and told them that ‘lots of people like to tickle or stroke themselves as it might feel nice’. Parents were understandably upset, and the programme has since been withdrawn pending review, but this is a prime example of the way that parenting is being undermined where subjects surrounding sex and gender are concerned. Parents are not being asked permission, or being shown content prior to the roll out of such material to their young children. Unsurprisingly, the guidelines to which the educational authorities are adhering have been set out by none other than our friends at the WHO“.

      I’d never heard of some of these expressions so I looked them up. Rather wish I hadn’t. It’s unbelievable what our poor children are being messed up with. How it is allowed I just can’t understand. The WHO should be disbanded.

      What I find, well, I can’t quite find the word for it, what I find so disgusting 🤢 is that these people’s own children/grandchildren are being indoctrinated with this appalling depravity.

      1. My daughter already says that she won’t voluntarily put her (future) children in schools that teach this kind of stuff, i.e. she plans to home educate, whatever the cost.

          1. If it isn’t, then there might be a massive flood of refugees out of UK/Europe…

      2. I didn’t know some of the expressions and concluded that “ignorance is bliss” 🙂

    2. What on earth do kids of that age know about LGBTxxxx? When I started secondary school it was considered too young to even know about the birds and bees and anything else had not even been invented (well maybe it had but it was all under covers). The only reason they know about the transgender rubbish is that it is pushed into them by the ‘modern’ corriculum, and media nonsense.

      1. I was about 9 when my parents gave me the booklet issued by ‘Family Doctor’ magazine, and called The Facts of Life. “Anything that isn’t clear, just ask us”

        1. My mum gave me that one when I was about 10 – it saved her the bother of having to explain it all and saved me the embarrassment of asking.

          1. My mother would only tell me that the seed goes from the man to the woman. I chased her around the house asking how does the seed get from the man to the woman, Mum. She became flustered and upset and refused to answer. I actually found out by reading the chapter on sex in a copy of The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris that one of my brothers had bought and deposited in the family bookshelves. Many years later, Mum swore that she had told me everything. Bless.

          2. I gave my eldest son “the talk” when he was about 11.
            He told me he knew all about it, but hadn’t heard about the risks of STD’s.
            I didn’t bother with the others.

    3. The school rewarded and encouraged bullying of staff by pupils, by the sound of it.

    2. This cannot be true! The worry is that the Archpillock is capable of saying it.

    3. That’s a spoof, surely!
      We don’t have saints in the Anglican church for one thing. And for another, Welby has just had a vote of no confidence passed in him by the African bishops. It happened about the time of the coronation, and was completely ignored in the poodle press.

      1. Surely we do have saints in the Anglican church – if it isn’t the BVM or the Holy Trinity, most churches are named after saints (St James, St Oswald, St Asaph, St Alkmund, etc).

          1. We celebrated St Barnabas’ day last Sunday. The “son of encouragement”. The church I attended on that occasion isn’t particularly high. My (now) usual church is all for celebrating Saints Days.

    4. It’s from the Upper Lip, which is a British version of Babylon Bee.
      Their stuff is very believable at first glance!

    5. It appears mental health issues are far more contagious than anyone could ever imagine.

    7. Relax, Maggie.
      It’s a Spoof site.
      But I suspect VERY close to what the Archpillock of Cunterbury would like.

    9. Just in case anyone should believe this news, I should perhaps point out that its source also proclaims “Mother’s Pride To Be Renamed “Pregnant People’s Pride”” and “Following Success Of TV Licence Fee, Labour To Introduce Licences For Dishwashers And Microwaves”

  27. Right, that’s me off to pick up my meds in Matlock, then hence to Sheffield to pick up the cabinet I’ve bought at auction.

    Anyone want some amaryllis seeds? I’ve lots to get rid of for anyone interested!

      1. I suppose there will be some kind of retaliation, and it will end in war if that’s what the bankers want.

    5. Nicking private property.
      There are still Russians who remember that from the last time round.

    2. Saw that on Twit, and it annoyed me intensely. Exhibitionist tosseurs.
      My garden is an oasis of sanity and down to earth reality – but those disgusting creatures want to polllute even gardens with their filth.

    4. Norse mythology included tree worship. Trees were special to Odin and Odin demanded human sacrifice. Not uncommon with our pre-Christian ancestors. They were great nature lovers.

      2. Odin became god and Freya the Earth mother. The war element was lost. Loki morphed into the Green man and was slowly erased as the devil.

        Christianity has a lot to answer for in it’s erasure of cultural identity.

        1. Rubbish. It drove out religions that included human sacrifice, stoning adulterers and fear of the sun rising and replaced them with something better.
          Many beloved superstitions survive until this day from the pre-Christian religions as part of cultural identity from Africa to Lapland.

    5. Did they get confused over the terms ‘bed of roses’? As it is, I think this is a great idea. Dig a hole, have them hop in to tingle with the roots.

      Then leave them there.

          3. The number of times I’ve heard that song; and it still makes me crack up.
            (Dooble ontong thrown in for free.)

      2. 373294+ up ticks,

        Afternoon W,

        All the lot should have been kettled in the nettles.

    6. And Eve thought to herself: “I wonder what Adam might do instead If I can persuade him to taste the apple…..’….

  30. “UK has no alternative to interest rate rises – Hunt”

    I always thought that pushing up costs of borrowing (mortgages & investment in production) spurred demands for higher wages which inturn increases costs passed on to the consumer and actually fuels inflation.

    Akin to fucking for virginity….

    1. Alasdair Macleod says that interest rates are down to market forces anyway (the price of credit) and the central banks only maintain the fiction that they set them, but in fact, they are only reacting to events.

    2. Yes, we do Hunt. We have many, many options. The first, and simplest is to cut state spending. The second is to stop printing money. The third is to stop borrowing money. Both rely on radical, significant cuts to state spending. Of course, given those are the only way out of the carnage you’ve created you don’t see them as options.

      Although, I rather think this whole farce is engineered to force this nonsense of digital currency. Personally I hope people ignore it in favour of Bitcoin or similar. At least that’s backed by something.

  31. Managed an actual swim just now. The sea is what yer French call “rafraîchissante” (aka decidedly chilly). Then the rain started. Back to the flat for lunch……

    1. Just finished my lunchtime swim, a decidedly pleasant 28° in bright sunshine, air temperature 26°

      1. There has been a lot of rain and storms. The sea is flat as a pancake and the air temp tomorrow will rise to 28. It was wonderful (if chilly) to be in the sea again after a whole year.

        1. It is hot here. Like a hot, wet blanket in a room on fire. Had to give Junior the speech on keeping Mongo in the shade, drinking and giving him plenty of time to rest.

          If I see him panting too much I boot him into the office and stick the AC on with an ice bucket. Oscar is at work with the Warqueen. Apparently they like dogs there. How her office crush man will cope with a small bear around her is anyone’s guess.

        2. The sea beats a pool every time, unless it’s too cold to be pleasant.

          If the water is old, I find that the rougher the sea the better it is, but I enjoy just throwing myself into a breaking wave and racing towards the shore.

      1. Fear not – you can expect the wettest July and August “since records began” (or, as the beeboids will tell you- “Since the Earth was formed”)

        1. Hope so, but I’ve been told this before. I think it’ll be blazing hot for the next four months, only abating to a slightly chilly October.

  32. Nottingham student, 19, knifed to death as she walked home from night out with friend was ‘popular’ England Hockey rising star whose hero father saved the lives of three teenagers stabbed in gang attack close to his GP surgery in 2009
    Grace Kumar, 19, was killed after being knifed during rampage in Nottingham
    Her father is a hero doctor who saved the lives of teenage knife gang victims

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12193437/Nottingham-rampage-Grace-Kumar-19-popular-England-hockey-rising-star.html

    1. Teenage knife victims. A phrase that would have been rare if the state hadn’t force 25 million welfare shoppers on us.

  35. Has the DT dropped its paywall? For the last few days I’ve been able to open it without using the 12 ft ladder. Comments don’t load though.

  36. Man looking for golf balls shot by hunters who mistook him for an animal. 14 June 2023.

    A man looking for lost balls at an Irish golf club was shot when he was mistaken for an animal by a group of passing hunters.

    The freak accident led to the wounded man, who is unnamed and in his 40s, being rushed to hospital.

    Police said they thought the hunting party noticed movement in the low light and fired at what they thought was an animal.

    That would be the Irish Golfer, a two legged herbivore.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/06/13/man-shot-by-hunters-mistake-animal-golf-balls-ireland/

  37. 373294 + up ticks,

    May one say,

    Rescuing peoples at sea in trouble is very, very noble of the RNLI

    All well and good, BUT by the same token, there cannot be much difference between taking them back to france from whence they came, as to continuing to bring them to Dover and factually putting English lives in jeopardy as proven.

  38. A cautionary tale, because many Nottlers are of a venerable age…

    Our 87 year-old Irish friend, Jim, went to the Post Office yesterday afternoon to get some cash, 300€. When he got home, there was a car behind him with a 40 year-old couple and a child, who stopped and asked him if they could use Jim’s loo. Jim, being a really kind-hearted chap, said yes, of course. They then asked him where the nearest campsite was as they were on holiday, so Jim being Jim said: follow me in the car, I’ll show you. The child’s father was really kind and helped Jim into his car and all. They followed him for a short distance but then turned off the road. Jim returned home and found his wallet missing – he had put it on the kitchen table when he got in. He thought he’d misplaced it to begin with, and looked for it everywhere, but eventually the penny dropped that the couple must have taken it.

    In the wallet was the cash, two debit cards, his Carte Vitale (the French National Health card) and his top-up health insurance card. And also, on a tiny piece of paper, the PIN numbers for both cards…

    I was able to stop the two cards he had in his wallet, but only several hours after the theft. Jim has internet banking on only one of the cards and the couple have taken over £550 from his account. We won’t find out until tomorrow morning what the damage is on the other card as Jim does not have internet access with this one and the agency is closed today. I took him into the police station this morning and we went through all the paperwork.

    Interestingly, the police officer said that the modus operandi was very much that of the manouches, as she called them: travellers. The internet showed that the couple had made payments locally and then also on a motorway, with the last payment being in the South of France – they must have travelled all night.

    Two lessons for all of us:

    Never, never, let anyone you don’t know into your house unless you know exactly who they are and why they are there. Jim was taken in by the 6 year-old child who needed a pee. Harden your hearts and don’t let them in.

    Don’t, whatever you do, keep your PIN number reminders in a place where they might get stolen at the same time as your cards.

    Basic stuff – but I know that I, for one, may well have been fooled by the story of a child needing a loo.

    1. What mean people they were! And easy to see they’d followed him from the Post Office too. Easily done to drop your wallet etc on the kitchen table as a habit when you get in. So they got his cash but worse than that his cards.

      I’ve certainly never kept the pin numbers as handy as that but with contactless cards they didn’t need them.

      1. In “good” news, the money that has got taken on his cards should be refunded by the banks’ insurance – which is why the police statement was so important. Without that, the insurance doesn’t work. There’ll be a huge amount of paperwork to plough through but hopefully he’ll get most of it back. The cash in the wallet is irrecuperable, I fear.

        1. Yes. that’s one advantage of cards over cash. A few years ago, my card got scammed somehow and some bogus items paid. Barclays fraud team were onto it before I was – eventually it was all returned to my account.

          1. Then you get a telephone call about your credit card from someone claiming to be with the bank. I would not talk to them but called my local branch to see if it was a scam.
            When I called the credit card company back, they told me that my response to the call was quite normal.

          2. When the fraud team called I thought it was a scam but actually they were genuine.

      2. Can I be realy picky, try to forgive.Its either a PIN or a PI Number never PIN Number as its full title is Personal Identifacation Number.

        1. Of course you’re right. It’s a mistake that has morphed into common usage! (A bit like spelling really with one single letter l , or its without the apostrophe when it needs one – both mistakes which you have made yourself. And yes, I forgive you.)

          1. Johnny and I do not make mistakes – but we sometimes may make typos.

          2. Reading, Riting and Rithmetic.
            The three ‘Rs’s. A perfectly memorable acronym based on a joke spelling mistake.

        2. Funnily enough the French refer to the PIN (Personal Identity Number) when they should call it the NIP. (Numéro d’Identité Personal)

          Acronyms are difficult and unpredictable to translate – The French use OTAN where we use NATO, SIDA where we use AIDS and ONU when use UNO.

    2. A child can pee by the side of the road.
      Who tipped off the travellers that there was an elderly man living at that address or who regularly withdrew cash in the village? They surely didn’t drive across France on a whim. Has Jim recently had any casual building work done on his property?

      1. No. Jim remembered, after the event, that he had seen the car in the village square where the Post Office is. They must have been waiting for a suitable prey to come out of the Post Office. Jim is doddery on his feet and walks with a stick; he does not look very alert either, and particularly not at the moment as he has had two nasty falls in the last week. Scum, people who did this!

    3. A child can pee by the side of the road.
      Who tipped off the travellers that there was an elderly man living at that address or who regularly withdrew cash in the village? They surely didn’t drive across France on a whim. Has Jim recently had any casual building work done on his property?

    4. A sad story but one often repeated. The trouble is that naturally friendly chaps, like Jim, are the types that this form of scumbag target. They use their genial warmness against them in the most despicable manner.

      Keeping your PIN handy on a scrap of paper is all too common among older people to whom modern technology is a strange concept. You may warn them all you like but they need some means of remembering the PIN when needed. It is not an easy situation to remedy.

          1. Why do I still remember my ex’s army number? We’ve been divorced over 30 years.

          3. But it was his, not mine. Though I suppose I did write it on very many envelopes……

      2. I know my own pins but I have to admit I’ve kept the one for the table tennis club on the slip it came on.

    5. A sad story but one often repeated. The trouble is that naturally friendly chaps, like Jim, are the types that this form of scumbag target. They use their genial warmness against them in the most despicable manner.

      Keeping your PIN handy on a scrap of paper is all too common among older people to whom modern technology is a strange concept. You may warn them all you like but the need some means of remembering the PIN when needed. It is not an easy situation to remedy.

    7. I am so sorry for your friend; these types never let up, whether in real life or on the internet.
      Some years ago, when we still lived at Allan Towers, a couple of small children came to the door at 9.00 pm asking for a someone with a name on the Smith/Green/totally forgettable spectrum. I explained that we knew no-one of that name; the boy then asked for a drink of water. I had to expunge all my natural instincts and tell them to go.
      1. We live in an area where unaccompanied small children are not wandering around at that time of day – even on a pleasant summer evening.
      2. Their appearance was not that of offspring from a leafy English suburb – think Victorian Seven Dials.
      3. The request for a drink of water suggested a Fagin lurking round the corner.

      1. They would prolly have claimed that you abducted them. And the plod would have believed them.

          1. A delivery driver asked me if there was a public loo nearby. Town centre i said. Then i said you can use mine. I felt quite safe as he was from Ocado.

    8. A couple of years ago I was conned out of my debit card and pin in Central London. Young chap claiming his new electric car had broken down and he need to contact his insurers via a public phone. Long story but idiot me ended up in losing my debit card (very sneak handed these chaps are) and foolishly typing my pin in while he it seems filmed me. £500 drawn at a nearby cash machine then a couple of £k spent in Selfridges on who knows what. By the time I had managed to get home and close it via my internet banking (not realising there was a big HSBC at the end of the road…) the damage had been done. Eventually got it all back from HSBC. Got the police involved, a bit of chasing by me Selfridges found a video of the chap using my card, and they seemed interested. In the end Selfridges ‘accidentally’ erased the video so the police just dropped the case although I sense they did actually know who it was.

      Lesson learnt, the ‘it will never happen to me’ is wrong, it will.

      1. I think it can happen quite easily. My card went into the waitress’ machine while paying for a meal in London. I was distracted, asking for directions to where we were staying. Someone watched while I paid. That was in November 2018 and I thought nothing more of it till fraud phoned me in January. My card (or a clone of it) had been used in a Just Eat in London to pay for three meals in quick succession. Fraud were onto it before I’d noticed. They sent me a replacement card very quickly and put a stop on the other. The refund took a little longer.

        More recently, I was scammed on my Barclaycard. I’d stupidly agreed to pay postage for a “free watch”. I duly paid the postage. They then took two more unauthorised payments in the weeks following. Barclaycard cancelled them without quibble, and replaced my card. I sent back the ‘free watch’ which was rubbish.

    9. All this started when hand-chopping and hanging was abolished. All criminals should live in a state of perpetual fear!

  39. Pulitzer Prize-winning US author dies aged 89. 14 June 2023.

    Pulitzer Prize-winning author Cormac McCarthy, known for his gritty novels, has died aged 89.

    The Road and No Country for Old Men writer died on Tuesday at home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, his publisher said.

    McCarthy won major literary awards and gained international acclaim for a dozen novels over his nearly six-decade long career.

    R.I.P. McCarthy. Quite typically this Telegraph article does not mention Blood Meridian, probably the greatest (and most disturbing) novel of the late Twentieth Century.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/06/13/cormac-mccarthy-dead-89/

    1. I enjoyed his NCFOM, not so much his The Road. Haven’t tried Blood Meridian, will do so.

    2. Great joke, but the effect could have been neutralised by drinking the H2O from the chemist’s glass.

          4. It’s along the same lines as Little Bobby Tables, which is still the funniest joke in the Structured Query Language ever!

      2. that would only dilute it not change it chemically. It was used at 99.9% concentration to fuel the Blue Steel missile carried under the Vulcan. If a drop of it went onto clothing or dirt it decomposed into water, oxygen and released a lot of heat. The resulting fire couldn’t be put out by normal methods as it produced its own oxygen and water was the only answer diluting the H2O2 until it reached a low level of concentration. We had baths full of water all round the hangar and readiness platforms, covered in pingpong balls which you had to jump in if you got any of the stuff on your clothes. The Germans used it in their rocket interceptor during the war, if the aircraft even had a small crash it used to leak into the cockpit and consume the pilot

    3. You can drink pure H2O. If you drink 5 litres very quickly you’ll likely drown, but a glass of absolutely pure water is going to do you no harm at all.

      However! That depends on your body. It needs to ‘do something’, such as move salt around.

  41. Wish me luck- off to supermarket for nerve tonic and mainly paracetamol. Just taken the last two. The NHS, true to form, has not followed through on any pain meds. Had another rotten night and am fed up to the back teeth. At least my pension seems to be sorted.
    The weather is wonderful.

  42. The agreeable rain enabled me to stand on the balcony and do the ironing. Very satisfying.

    1. As a “Cold War Warrior” of over 20 years service I find myself nodding vigorously in complete agreement with the findings Sue.

      Vince

        2. She is a Barens Sea Trader 48 cutter rigged ketch, a stately old lady that I sold in 2018, a decision that I have deeply regretted ever since.

          As far as I know she has been on the hard in Grenada since then.

          I had ten wonderful years of a “no shoes and no knickers” island hopping carefree lifestyle.

          Three major hurricanes survived along the way, I’m sure with your experiences that you fully appreciate the reward versus risk balance of such a life?

          She was named ‘Bimbling’ which I defined in both the Bimbling blog and the Urban Dictionary as a verb meaning;

          “To amble without real aim, yet in a friendly and harmless manner.
          It’s not required to achieve anything whilst Bimbling, although it’s aimlessness is a frequent side effect.
          Bimbling can be made a little more business like with a slight hunch of the shoulders.
          It is not essential that Bimbling should be a solo sport.”

  44. For NoTTLer francophones – I spotted a new word in Le Figaro on Sunday – which must have the Academie Francaise in hysterics:

    “Defendre l’ideologie transgendre est devenu une sorte de badge do COOLITUDE progressiste…”

    (Sorry about missing accents – too time consuming on tis laptop (no number pad so cannot use the ALT+ shortcut)

        1. Moi, j’aime bien “Sky! My teacher!” par Jean-Loup Sifflet (John Wolf Whistle) pour les idiotismes.

    2. I do dislike his strident, hectoring voice plus that he cannot read an autocue.

          1. Here’s the transcript. It is a scathing indictment of the US administration:

            “The Biden Administration arrested Donald Trump this afternoon. They had him arraigned and fingerprinted in a Miami Courthouse, like the accused felon he now technically is.
            These were the first steps in a process that is designed to put Donald Trump behind bars for the rest of his life.

            Cable news carried every moment of it live “it’s unprecedented” they told us with what looked like shock. But they weren’t shocked they knew this was coming. Everyone who’s paid attention knew it was what just happened was always going to happen.
            It’s been inevitable since February 16 2016. that’s the day Donald Trump made a blood enemy of the largest and most powerful organization in human history which would be the federal government.
            Despite what you may remember it wasn’t anything that Trump had said about immigration, or trade with China, or rapists from Mexico – those are the stories that dominated the headlines that year – “Trump’s a racist they scream stop him.”

            But inside Washington that was just noise none of it really rated identity politics doesn’t mean much to permanent Washington what matters – then and now – is foreign policy the invasions and occupations and proxy wars: the decisions that determine which global populations will thrive and which will die. The policies that come with trillion dollar price tags, the ones that over time have made the counties around DC the richest suburbs in the world.

            In Washington that’s what actually matters and it’s obvious when you look carefully. When there’s a debate about anything else for example the debt ceiling, both sides take their assigned positions and they start yelling. But when Congress decides to start a war – no matter how foolish or counterproductive or obviously disconnected from America’s core interests that war may be – when that happens the leaders of both parties automatically jump behind it like circus clowns.
            And then they stay there, sometimes for decades. They defend that war relentlessly against all evidence, until somebody finally Rings the all clear Bell and they can begin to admit that actually maybe it wasn’t such a great idea. We meant well but it just didn’t work out the good news is we’ve learned a lot of important lessons.

            In the end they usually do say something like that, but only after emotions have cooled and the damning details have begun to fade from collective memory. It’s an apology that’s not actually an apology, much less repentance and it’s years too late to matter in any case.
            But until then that’s all you’re getting, until then no dissent is allowed – that’s the first rule of Washington.

            But somehow Trump didn’t bother to follow it. He is from out of town so maybe he didn’t know it was a rule or maybe he just didn’t care. Either way, seven and a half years later we can point to the precise moment that permanent Washington decided to send Donald Trump to prison. here it is it’s from the Republican candidates debate in Greenville South Carolina:

            “we should have never been in Iraq; we have destabilized the Middle East. They lied, okay. They said there were weapons of mass destruction there were none and they knew there were none there were no weapons of mass destruction.”

            We should never have been in Iraq, Trump said. We destabilized the Middle East. Now by the time Trump said that a lot of Republican primary voters were starting to reach the same conclusion; how could they not. But it was the next line that doomed Trump to today’s arrest. “They lied” he said, “there were no weapons of mass destruction” and they knew there were none.

            Now when he said that a few in the crowd booed, most just sat there in silenced stunned. Can he say that? Well he said it anyway and by saying that he sealed his fate. That was the one thing you were not allowed to say because it implicated too many people on both sides, which on this topic is really just one side.

            Hillary Clinton was guilty of it, but so was Paul Ryan. All of them were guilty; they all knew, they all lied, and to a person they hated Donald Trump for exposing them.

            After that it was pretty clear that even if he did get elected president Trump was going to have a very hard time controlling the federal government he was supposed to be in charge of. Most of permanent Washington decided that thwarting Trump was the single most important mission in their lives. Everything depended on it, many of them said so publicly. But others didn’t say so publicly; in fact the stealthier ones took another path – they ran toward Trump not away from him. They sucked up to him, they ingratiated themselves- the man they intuitively understood was susceptible to flattery which Trump is, and they did this in order to subvert his new Administration from the inside.

            There were a number of these and you could spot them immediately: they were flatterers. Invariably the ones who flattered Trump the most hated him the most and disagreed the most strongly with his views. You saw them in the hallways of the White House and at press conferences; they were there slobbering over their boss with elaborate self-abasement as if they were addressing a monarch or a God.

            It was a scene from the ottoman Court – it was filthy and decadent and it was false. Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, Mike Pompeo, Lindsey Graham in the Congress. They all called Trump a Visionary genius… up until the moment he lost power and then they unsheathed their real agenda – as always the neocon war agenda – and they piled on with maximum Force.

            Here’s Mike Pompeo for example on Fox news this morning:

            “President Trump had classified documents where he shouldn’t have had them. And then when given the opportunity to return them he chose not to do that for whatever reason… when somebody identifies that you got to turn them in. So that’s just inconsistent with protecting America’s soldiers sailors, airmen and marines… and if the allegations are true some of these were pretty serious important documents… so that’s wrong”

            May future historians hoping to unlock the mysteries of late empire Washington study that clip, because it will reveal everything. That very same Mike Pompeo – the one who’s sneering at Donald Trump on TV this morning – that guy served Donald Trump as both CIA director and as Secretary of State. Those are the two most powerful jobs in the federal government and as he worked in those jobs, Pompeo promised – in fact he swore – to support the president’s agenda.

            Why? because that’s the way a democracy works: you vote for a candidate in the belief that his appointees will carry out the policies that you voted for. It’s not about the president, it’s about you the voter.

            But Pompeo didn’t do that he didn’t even try to do that. In fact he undermined Trump’s often stated commitment to peace and non-intervention abroad at every turn; his every waking hour was devoted to fomenting war in some Far Away foreign country or other. Iran, Syria Russia, North Korea… the list goes on but rather than telling Trump that he disagree with his ideas as a man would, Pompeo toadied up to Trump – a man he despised – in the oiliest, most over-the-top way imaginable.

            Ask anyone who worked in that white house at the time who is the appointee most likely to tell Donald Trump on a daily basis that he was handsome, virile, sleek and powerful. “Mike Pompeo” that will be the consensus answer. Those of us who saw firsthand Pompeo’s relentless cow Towing will never forget it – it was indelibly repulsive. No one with self-respect could do something like that, but Mike Pompeo did it effortlessly with relish and Verve. Now this same person is telling Fox News viewers that he fears for the safety of our military, our soldiers “Sailors Airmen and Marines” in the approved phrase, because Donald Trump took some classified documents home and didn’t immediately return them to the National Archives.

            What a lie that is: Mike Pompeo knows that’s a lie. He spent his entire life in Washington. Washington is a city where internal memos about Labor Day are classified because everything is classified. Your government has classified more than a billion Federal documents most of them boring and pointless and a danger to no one, and locked them away in secret. You can’t see them because you may be an American citizen, but not really… and therefore you don’t have the necessary clearances to know what’s going on.

            And by the way none of this is done in order to make America safer any more than Covid restrictions were designed to keep you healthy. No it’s a caste system that’s the point, and you’re the Untouchable in this hierarchy.

            Mike Pompeo knows that, everybody who works in Washington knows that.

            How many secret documents do you think Dick Cheney took home with him while he was running the Iraq War? How many did his wife read? She never had a clearance. We’ll never know the answer because there is no chance Dick Cheney will ever be investigated, or his staffers will be told to wear wires in his presence. He will never be indicted for this.

            Of course not: Dick Cheney is a neocon Donald Trump is not. Dick Cheney supports war with Russia, Trump does not. That’s the difference: the rest is just a distraction.

            The prosecution of Donald Trump is transparently political. He’s literally Joe Biden’s main political opponent. He’s polling over 60 percent among Republican voters right now. So Joe Biden is doing what no president has ever dared to do. He’s using law enforcement to lock up his chief rival: that’s happening right now, and anyone who denies it’s happening is lying to you.

            But actually it’s worse than that Trump’s prosecution isn’t just political, it’s ideological. Nobody with Trump’s views is allowed to have power in this country. Criticize our Wars and you’re disqualified, if you keep it up we’ll send you to prison.

            That’s the message Washington is sending, not just the Democratic party is sending but both parties are sending.

            Like so many Republicans, for example, the supposedly conservative governor of Texas Greg Abbott spent yesterday totally ignoring the destruction of the American justice system. Instead, he signed a highly important bill called the crown act which according to the celebratory tweet Abbott sent commemorating it will “prohibit discrimination based on Textures and hairstyles historically associated with race.” In other words in Texas cornrows are now protected by law, having unapproved views about Ukraine is not.

            That’s fine with most elected Republicans: they find Trump tiresome and embarrassing, their donors hate him; they will not be sad if he dies in jail.

            But what about voters: what are they learning from this spectacle? Well mostly they’re learning that they have no power at all because nobody cares about them.

            But they already knew that. Unlike so many of our elected leaders, they have been to America recently. They know what it looks like. Have you seen it? If you’ve got a few days this summer find out take a road trip and see for yourself Drive 500 miles in any direction and then come home. How are things looking? Well they should look great – the federal government spent six and a half trillion dollars last year. That’s more than any government has ever spent ever. So at the very least you would expect pristine public roads. Oh no that’s not what you see when you drive around this country – there are potholes and Jersey barriers everywhere. Looks like Tegucigalpa before the Chinese decided to rebuild the infrastructure of Honduras. We don’t have China buying our roads so they’re falling apart.

            You’d think the people you would pass on your road trip would look happy and prosperous; again this is a very rich country. But a lot of them don’t. Quite a few appear to be strung out on drugs. You see them shuffling by shuttered storefronts in small towns. And you wonder as you see all of this where did all the money go, it’s certainly not here?

            Well, it’s in Washington, it’s in Fairfax, in Loudoun counties, and in leafy perfectly manicured Northwest D.C. And of course a huge chunk of it went to Ukraine to Zelenski and his friends. Not because you voted for that; you didn’t vote to give it to them you never would, but because Joe Biden and his many allies from Chuck Schumer to Mitch McConnell to Paul Ryan and every single news anchor on all of Television all of them believe that Ukraine its borders its future its infrastructure are all more important than the town that you live in.

            They sincerely think that, and it’s obvious everyone in power thinks that… except for Donald Trump.

            Whatever else you say about him, Trump is the one guy with an actual shot of becoming president who dissents from Washington’s long-standing pointless War agenda. And for that that one fact they are trying to take Trump out before you can vote for him and that should upset you more than anything that’s happened in American politics in your lifetime.

            Even if you don’t plan to vote for Donald Trump, even if you would die before voting for Donald Trump – which is your right and a lot of good people feel that way – even still, the destruction of our democracy which is the right of Voters to support any candidate they want, even candidates who don’t want war with Russia, the destruction of that should keep you up at night.

            Yes, Donald Trump was a flawed man but his sins are minor compared to those of his persecutors.

            In this life we don’t get to choose our Martyrs we can only choose our principles… and America’s are at stake.

      2. I love the comedy voices that he puts on, as well as his infectious laugh. I think he does appeal to female audiences a lot!

    1. The irony. If they produced more CO2 the tulips would grow better – outside.

    1. And that’s why governments hate having currencies tied to valuable objects that don’t change. It prevents them destroying it.

  53. The Chairman of UKIP, Ben Walker has just sent out a supporters’ email that starts as follows…

    “Whilst I recognise that socialist governments of old are rightly feared by those who sit themselves firmly on the “right” side of the political fence, we must no longer fear an impending Labour government for one simple reason…

    We already have one!”

    You may not be planning to vote for UKIP, but it’s hard to disagree with him.

  54. We are having some lovely weather , although 32c is just a bit too warm for me .

    We have seen lizards and adders , and in the evening have heard and seen nightjars here on our local heathland .

    The spaniels are resting in the cool, but can wander into the garden , the younger dog is taken out in the evening for a run , and a dip in the river .

    Moh played golf on Sunday and he won a rather nice golf bag for coming second in the match, he also played today , he is looking so brown , I almost feel like wobbling my head when he speaks to me !

    Because the weather is so nice , lots of bods are exposing their bodies , and new tattoos … WHY are pretty young women inking themselves all over , our skin is our largest organ , lots can go wrong .. moles , lesions , allergies , rashes etc ..

    Why are chaps inking themselves all over .. there is a bloke who has had his head tattooed.. Tattoos cost a fortune , how do people afford them , on the never never?

    I don’t want to be judgemental , The Armed services have the tattoo thing , I get that , regimental fellowship thing , but young girls look terrible .

    2. On the plus side, it is a very easy marker for a young girl that says she has some class and isn’t part of the herd, NOT to have a tattoo!

    3. Tattoos are silly because these people who get them think ‘you only live once’ and ‘who cares, it doesn’t matter’. Then they’re asked what an employer would think and it becomes ‘So? You’re old, it’ll be my generation getting them’. They are ignorant and childish folk who live in a permanent ‘now’.

      And I replied with ‘No, it’ll be me looking to offer you a job – and I’ll say no. You deal with professionals and you reflect on me. One look at a tattoo like that and their opinion of me falls.’

      1. Don’t for heaven’s sake say that. That’ll be discrimination – and lumber you with ££££ in compensation.

        Find some other reason to reject them.

    4. What I fail to understand is why older women cover their arms and legs with tattoos, so ugly and unattractive!!

      1. They may have thought they were still young and attaractive! But imagine the old and wrinkly all covered in them.

        1. When I was waiting to see the nurse on Friday, a large, quite middle-classish woman came in. She had an enormous tattoo on the back of her neck. She could not possibly see it without complicated mirrors. It was hideous.

          I just don”t get the whole miserable thing. Even Nurse had one……though she was deffo not MC.

        2. Even when I was young – although probably not very attractive! – I never wanted to be tattoed.

      2. It’s a generational thing. Young people love them, us oldies are aware of what the mutilation will look like when skin starts sagging.

      3. We saw one yesterday – probably 50ish.
        Slim, wearing a lovely floaty summer dress.
        Her arms and what we could see of her front were covered in tattoos. They just made her look grubby.

    5. Why not be judgmental? If it’s wrong, it’s wrong and therefore right to say so.

      1. Oh come on! I’ve already posted that Durex cucumber advert once this week!

  56. ‘Extremely fierce fighting’ as Ukraine advances. 14 June 2023

    Ukraine reported “extremely fierce fighting” in the Zaporizhizhia and Donetsk regions as troops inched south, making incremental progress in Kyiv’s counter-offensive.

    Hanna Maliar, Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, reported “partial” success in the latest assaults, with troops having advanced 200-250 metres in different areas near Bakhmut and 300-350 metres in the direction of the city of Zaporizhzhia.

    Ms Maliar added: “Our troops are moving in the face of extremely fierce fighting, and air and artillery advantage of the enemy.”

    This makes a mockery of the words counter-offensive. It’s quite clear that the initial attack failed with serious losses and that they are bogged down. All this is being done at the instigation of the United States. What is required is negotiations.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/06/14/ukraine-russia-war-latest-news-counter-offensive-putin/

    1. I find myself feeling more respect for the Ugandans who when offered dollars in return for promoting the alphabet soup agenda, responded by doing the exact opposite. Of course the Chinese will move in and make no such demands but how can one sympathise?

    2. They could try digging trenches. They were awfully successful between 1914 and 1918…

    2. Jake’s take:

      I love a good bum on a woman – it makes my day
      To me it is positive proof of God’s existence a
      Posteriori. Also I love breasts and arms and ankles, elbows, knees
      But it’s the tongue the tongue the tongue of a woman that spoils the job for me!
      Please understand I love and admire the frailer sex
      And I honour them every bit as much as the next
      Misogynist – but give some women the ghost of a chance to talk and thereupon
      They will go on again, on again, on again, on again, on again, on again on!


      https://www.google.com/search?tbm=vid&q=On+again+on+again+thackray&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj43KPsncP_AhUaRKQEHQxQCFcQ8ccDegQIERAH&biw=1280&bih=625&dpr=1.5#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:f5859c50,vid:iWY_pxcRNPU

  58. Home!
    A pleasant day out, stopping off at Matlock and Chesterfield for a bit of shopping.
    Going from the old Chesterfield Cattle Market towards the town centre, I passed a lady who’s bus for Sheffield left as we were crossing the road, so after buying the couple of pairs of shorts I wanted and visiting the cashpoint, I gave her a lift near to where she was going.

    Didn’t realise Sheffield town centre has road tolls as the council has designated it a clean air zone, but I managed to avoid it by coming in via Attercliffe.

    Just had a cold bath and enjoyed a bowl of stew I’ve made with some pheasant stock and the somewhat “gamey” pheasant meat I’ve had lurking in the freezer for a couple of years with some chicken pieces added.
    Despite the still gamey smell, it actually tastes rather nice!

  59. End of the road for EV drivers?:

    https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-12180805/Its-end-road-troublesome-electric-cars.html

    This guy sums up what is wrong with his performance EV after leaving it at Heathrow for three weeks.
    On his way home he takes his frustration out on EVs with many adverse comments and doesn’t hold back on what is wrong with Britain either:

    “All I want to do is get home”: https://youtu.be/UIx4RQAsE54

    Meanwhile Elon Musc is starting to realise why other car manufacturers are giving up making EVs in favour of HFVs:

    Elon realises HFVs are more sustainable than EVs: https://youtu.be/N6DqwPcGsiw

    1. The reason why I don’t trust Elon Musk is that the bankers could pull the rug out from under his EV business in 5 minutes if they wanted to. Yet for some reason, they don’t.

      Twitter is looking good, but don’t forget that it’s slurping up all the smaller competitors, who were growing because people were getting fed up with the censorship on Twitt.

          1. A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!

            [Shakespeare’s Richard III, act 5, scene 4]

          3. Sentient transport can be a problem in its self? Plenty of manure as a bonus though?

      2. The reason the bankers don’t is that so far his track record is pretty good.

        1. If he was seriously threatening to derail the great reset, they’d replace him in an instant. Maybe he’s irreplaceable – he’s certainly a higher calibre than most of their other tools – but if I were Musk, I wouldn’t bet too heavily on that.

          1. Unless the dollar is destroyed totally, I suspect he’s fireproof, and I wouldn’t mind betting he’s hedged with crypto.

          2. I expect he has got some safeguards for when the dollar goes titsup, which I don’t see how it can avoid now.
            I think all the private cryptos won’t be worth much – we might be left with only bitcoin and whatever gets the blessing of the lizard elites.
            Thank goodness my finances are small enough to manage – I’d be awake at night if I were contemplating having to steer billions through the reset!

          4. I practice regularly in the flea markets….I have quite a large and varied car boot sale art collection! Not all of it is junk either!

          5. I’m quietly converting my miniscule account to cash, as it will be all that small traders will accept, and without the small trader we will all be lost, while the supermarkets will all go bust within a month.

    2. I think EV drivers have only themselves to blame for the predicament they put themselves in.

      That idiot in the Porsche Snail trying to drive home from LHR to Mansfield (a shite town) and having to rely upon a selfish charger who must put his up to 100% and therefore waiting ages, in an area where to stay longer than 2 hours incurs a £150 fine.

      EVs, forget it, I wouldn’t have one if they were being given away.

    3. I didn’t realise that EVs actually slowed down as the charge got lower.
      Is that to conserve power or simply lack of oomph?
      I noticed the wind screen wipers were not much used.

      2. My brother had a Ford Prefect back in the day – when it went uphill, the wipers stopped to nothing.

      3. When the traction battery on an EV goes below about 10% all power sonsuming devices in the vehicle will be drastically limited to conserve main battery power and the EV will go into tortoise mode (a tortoise symbol may even appear on the driver’s cluster).

        The aim is to try and get the EV to its programmed destination rather than provide driver and passenger comfort.

  60. The MR has brightened this dull, wet evening with a glass of improving medicine. So I’ll wish you all a spiffing evening. I shall be writing shopping lists for Italy tomorrow…!

    Ci vediamo domani (apparently)

    1. Shopping lists for Italy, that’s a lot of shopping lists.
      How much do you charge for each list?

      1. One for the market
        One for shops in the town
        One for the cut-price supermarket…

        You want me to go on???

  61. A pleasant wee Birdie Three today.

    Wordle 725 3/6
    ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
    ⬜🟩🟩⬜🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Tied you

      Wordle 725 3/6

      ⬜🟨⬜🟨🟩
      ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      That beats my normal four or five.

        2. Par four for me too.

          Wordle 725 4/6

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

    2. Me too.
      Wordle 725 3/6

      ⬜🟩🟩⬜🟩
      ⬜🟩🟩🟨🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  62. Safely back from the wilds of the supermarket and within an hour I was on the receiving end of three acts of kindness.
    Firstly, the cabbie that took me there dropped me off right by the ATM instead of by the shop.
    Did you know that you can only buy 2 packets of paracetamol these days? I had five in cart but she only let me buy two. The lady behind me in the queue said she would go and get some more but the cashier said she wouldn’t be able to process it. Left with two packets.
    Cabbie who picked me up, when I told him this, said that he would get them for me, two more packets. He went in and bought the pills and added the cost to the fare- 80p- and he only charged me a fiver for the ride home. Also, when he came to get me he shouted, Hiya Annie!
    I sing the praises of this cab company all the time but they are truly wonderful.
    Restores one’s faith in human nature.

    1. The paracetamol/ibuprofen limit is another bit of state nannying.
      It’s to stop people O-Ding; if they’re that keen they will simply make purchases from several shops and/or stockpile.
      Plus you can buy far larger amounts from chemists.

      1. Paracetamol comes in hundred packs over here and we don’t hear much about overdoses. There again druggies can get heroin and cocaine through a safe drugs program.

        1. At the taxpayers expense. If I was i/c I’d give every druggie as much as they wanted and then some, No help from the public purse, no rehab – zilch. Funerals would be paid for. They know it’s an addiction yet they still take the drugs. Drug barons would be out of business, crime would reduce and the cost to the nation reduced. What’s not to like?

          1. The problem is that the addicts are not using the good stuff that they are given, they sell it and then buy fentanyl or whatever the latest black market drug is. The end result of the drug program us more addicts.

          4. Agree, whole-heartedly, Spikey.

            I’ve been advocating the legalising of drugs for years, for all the reasons you state.

      2. Because Oscar is on paracetamol, I buy two packets from every supermarket I visit! Much cheaper than buying them from the vet’s!

        1. I’m prescribed 60 co-codamol at a time. Nobody seems to worry that I might be tempted to OD!

          2. Clearly my MO is erring on the side of caution 🙂 Actually, where I live the NHS wallahs are mean bar stewards and scrimp on everything. “The guidelines don’t allow X, Y or Z treatments on the NHS.” In other words, FOAD you old git unless you’re prepared to cough up (again as I’ve paid in over the years a medium-sized fortune in NICs)!

          3. Mine is on a monthly repeat, but I don’t usually need that many, so go for it every 8 weeks. I understand what you are saying about the NHS. Some areas are shocking for service, others are fairly good. The postcode lottery.

    2. Yes, I did know about the paracetamol – oddly, if you pay and go round again you can buy another two!

    1. Gets worse.

      Last week Trudeau had the Canadian flag taken down at the Houses of Parliament and replaced it with a poofter pride flag.

      Needless to say, people are not amused by his actions but until some Liberal or NDP MPs have the guys to speak up against this minority government, we are royally shafted.

  67. Am in tears listening to the two fathers in Nottingham at the vigil. Nobody, nobody ever should have to go through something like this!

    1. I think they held together well – if I’d been in their position I would have blamed the politicians publicly for letting these people into the country – I doubt if the BBC would have reported that though

    2. Three decent, good citizens murdered by one piece of trash. Makes me sick too.

    3. You are braver than I.
      I just simply could not cope with it.
      I looked at my son this morning and realised he could have been one of those fathers.

  68. Copied directly from the BBC Sport app. Does the comma make all the difference?

    The BBC and ITV have agreed a deal with Fifa to broadcast the Women’s World Cup in the UK, five weeks before the tournament begins on 20 July.

    3. Good catch.
      I am not remotely tempted to get a TV licence to watch the Non-men’s football, but I am sure the BBC will be instructing everyone to love it for the next two months solid.

      1. I was only wondering how they we going show the games 5 weeks before the tournament starts on 20th July.

        1. That’s when the propaganda will start! We’ll be fed up long before the first kick!

      2. Speaking of which, I read that Johns Hopkins University now define lesbians as ‘non-men, attracted to non-men’. Seems a rather broad definition to me. My fridge/freezer and washer dryer both identify as ‘non-men’, as do the microwave, toaster, filter coffee machine and breadmaker. I’ll be prepared for unseemly behaviour in the kitchen, first thing tomorrow…

        1. Don’t you find that anything labelled in the negative (e.g. ‘non-man’, ‘non-smoker’, ‘non-rapist’, etc) is just that, negative?

          Being someone who doesn’t smoke is a positive attribute: a fresh-air-breather. Being labelled as a ‘non-smoker’ elevates smoking to a positive thing and not smoking to being negative, an arse-over-tit situation.

          Anyone calling me a ‘non’ anything had better get ready for a proper tongue-lashing. Any woman worth her salt being called a ‘non-man’ would surely do the same.

        2. Apparently they have now pulled the offending text (which was clearly written by a dimwit of the first water) off the internet.

      1. Meh. The interfaces are just badly designed, that’s all! 1900 should come at the top, not the bottom!

  70. Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen. I believe this is my first post here:

    Sent to my MP, one Simon Hoare:

    Sir,

    Congratulations on your party’s wonderful immigration policy.
    A couple more kids who will never see their homes again, well done.

    Faithfully,

    GQ.

          2. Thruppence?
            You will be receiving a letter from my accountant, and possibly a visit from a couple of my larger business associates.

          3. If this is your first visit here you may not know that I’ve gotta stick;-)

          5. And I often use very strong language in insulting other NoTTLers, i.e. I call them a Very Silly Sausage and tell them to go to the Naughty Step. Lol.

        2. I used to laugh at TW3 at the time. Looking back, I see it as the start of the rot! Incidentally, I had no idea Cy Grant (of topical calypso fame) was ex-RAF air crew.

    2. Good evening.
      Good letter. I knew Hoare at university; shallow doesn’t even begin to describe him.

        1. Geoff is the “King” of the blog, it’s thanks to him that we have this hideaway.

          1. I appear to have made a deliberate mistake.
            I shall rectify forthwith.

    4. Great to see a new “face”.
      Someone with your comments to upvotes ratio suggests you’ve somehow managed to avoid the minus-bot.
      Welcome to Nottle.
      As a matter of interest, how did you stumble across us?

      1. My normal (for a given value of normal) home is GP and I think one of the other posters there advertised you all.

        1. GP is a great site for those of my ilk. I don’t post there, but enjoy reading the threads.

          People who will agree to disagree, but tend to be what in olden days would have been small c conservatives.
          Nowadays? regarded as fascists (wrongly so).

          1. It’s just pleasant to be able to say what you think without the moderation hammer coming in.
            Personally I tend to wear those infantile lefty insults as badges of pride nowadays.

          2. I go to GP every day but this site is not so err..intense. I love your U-Boat posts by the way.

          3. Thanks John, I just feel we should remember the sacrifices made by ordinary people.

          4. When this site was launched in 2016, we were infested by trolls, and moderators were kept busy. These days, not so much. A quick scan of the ‘deleted’ comments over the last month shows that all were deleted by the original commenters – none were deleted by moderators. And the Disqus default ‘hurty word list’ is disabled here.

            Nevertheless, we still have Mods scattered around the planet, and manage to keep this place pleasant.

          5. Moderation is needed on most blogs, especially the, dare I say ‘B’BC stylised ‘Far Right’ ones simply because there is a lot of extremists, from both ends of the spectrum who will spout their vile garbage and then get abusive if anyone has the temerity to object or disagree. Thoughtful intelligent moderation can help the flow of conversation with the end result that people can make their minds up about a subject or person they haven’t been sure of.

          2. Ah yes of course, i have seen a few links here to “GP” (check me out with my TLAs🙂).

            Thanks!

          5. Going Postal? Don’t know- don’t post anywhere but here in LaLa Land 😉

    5. I might use that to write to Richard Drax, except he is overwhelmed with everyone complaining about the Migrant barge which is due here in South Dorset in a few days time .

      2. Set fire to the bloody thing – that’ll deter them from bringing them anywhere near our shore.

        A Molotov cocktail or two, Bow and Stern should be sufficient.

        1. We ain’t fussy here, as long as you’re a miserable old cuss. Times are bad.

        2. I think we all try and keep a foot in the real world, and do not accept what “they” are trying to do with us.

    7. Have you had a recent lateral flow test and your sixth booster? Askin’ for a friend.

  71. Evening, all. In answer to the headline question, probably because it’s just dawned on him that there will be a general election soon and better late than never to try to save his skin.

    1. Impossible, Connors, nothing will save any of their skins, apart from boiling in oil. We’ re doomed to another 5 years of socialist meltdown.

  72. Eating supper on the terrace this evening, it was very interesting to watch a pair of collared doves.
    They (I assume it’s the same pair) have been regular visitors to the garden. They have had a few successful nests and are reasonably accepting of our presence.
    Tonight they arrived within a few minutes of each other and went into a courting/grooming ritual, each very gently cleaning the other.
    Then: “wham bam thank you Ma’am”.

    They separated, cleaned up individually, and then paired up again for more mutual grooming.

    As I took our trays back to the kitchen I stopped to watch them from a different angle (no Phizzee I’m not a voyeur) the female glared at me, or so it seemed, so I moved on. She then flew down and settled on the birdbath for a wash and brush up and a long drink.
    Spring watch? Pah!

    1. There are a pair of wood pigeons which rarely stray far from my modest garden. And I assume that they’ve been busy, since there are now a few juveniles, too. The feeding station is popular, attracting great and blue tits, an occasional Great spotted woodpecker, loads of dunnocks, Several jackdaws, a few magpies, goldfinches (on and off) and dopey bloody wood pigeons. The latter would empty a nut/seed feeder in an hour, given the opportunity, but I’ve arranged things to frustrate the buggers.

      Main problem is that – where there are bird feeders, there are invariably Rattus norvegicus. I think the bait box is working, since each rat I observe seems smaller than the last one. They get worryingly close to the open back door, though…

      The feeding station has, however, rekindled my interest in photography. My Nikon D40 has been stored, unloved for a decade or more. It still works perfectly, and is heading for eBay. I’ve replaced it with a used D3400 from eBay, plus a 70-300mm zoom lens. It’s still an ‘entry level’ DSLR, but has a few useful extra features over the D40 (the 3400 was launched around ten years after the D40) – and the latter is about to go on eBay.

      1. Good luck with the photography.
        The feeders here are replenished between October and March, the birds then have to earn their keep, although there is enough wild garden to provide a plentiful supply of bugs and seeds.

  73. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f6998429677362bec3f3e2d3e025a3b410dce5a12c961b670563ffb94ff74805.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/aec73a2325eca3f7a771ff8ff22846db517d9d6542ab84de19d31f0d040945d9.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4b2502425fe4cd23f59d540200cfcb48feee54f7c608bf0c2bc15634bbd900ac.jpg Where’s Philip?

    Being on a carb-free diet I can’t eat my favourite pork pies. So I hit upon the idea of making a crust-free version. To do this I made a pork terrine with hard-boiled eggs inside (a sort of ‘Gala’ Terrine). The meat filling is the same as for a standard pork pie: I chopped up chunks of fatty pork to 6mm cubes then seasoned them with my pork-pie seasoning mix and left it in the fridge overnight.

    I wrapped the pork in bacon (to stop it sticking to the terrine pan) then topped-and-tailed the eggs to get a continuous yolk string. I baked this in a bain-marie in the oven at 160ºC for 2 hours. After pouring out the juices I removed it from the pan, placed a few frozen peas in the bottom (as shims), replaced the terrine then poured over some pork trotter jelly (as you would in a pie with a crust). After a couple of hours in the fridge to cool down and set the jelly, it is now ready for slicing and eating.

      1. I hope so, I’m confident it will. I made three more mini ‘pork pies’ in ramekins with the excess meat. I had one for my meal with salad and it was indeed scrummy. I shall try a slice of the above on Friday since tomorrow is a ‘no meal’ fast day.

        2. I did the same as you this evening, Grizzly, i.e. I had a “no meal” fast day, although I did eat my usual dessert of blueberries with double cream. Looking forward to lunch with Korky the Kat tomorrow. I just sit back and sip his wine whilst he is on chef duties. Lol.

          1. That’s my diet most days.

            I just cannot be arsed cooking for one and the freezer is full of two day (mostly) chicken and veg dishes but it’s still a potch to get them out, halve them and put a still frozen half back. I shall wait, ooh a year, and if the level has dropped significantly, I might start cooking again.

          3. Either that, or cook them, eat half, and re-heat the following day? I know it isn’t recommended, but I do it often, and I’m still alive.

          4. That would mean having to replace all the current containers I have, for much smaller ones. These were bought when there were two of us.

    3. Grizzly, it looks delicious to me. But overnight in the fridge, then two hours in the oven and finally another two hours in the fridge to cool down? By that time, I would have given up and nipped out to the chippy for a fish supper and hang the diet.

      PS – I assume you’re talking about Philip Harben; have you looked in the fridge? Lol.

    5. I avoid using the oven and am very sparing with the hob, because of the eternally rising of the price of electricity.

    7. Excellent.

      You do have a big appetite don’t you…how long would that last? A week?

      1. Probably a month. I am only eating solid food one-meal-a-day, and every other day I eat no solid food whatsoever (just like the Amazonian tribes, who are the healthiest people on earth). I shall slice it into portions and freeze them.
        Today’s menu is: water, tea, coffee, hot Bovril, and lots more water. At no stage of the day will I experience hunger.

          2. Popeye the sailor man: “Gee, Olive, you’re awful pretty.”

            Olive Oyl: “Ooh, Popeye! You’re pretty awful yourself!”

  75. Why has Jeremy Hunt left it so late?

    Because he’s an incompetent without any vision . . .

      1. I hope (not really, nobody should die as a result of someone’s legal protest) that at some point one of these people’s nearest and dearest can’t get to hospital because of their actions and suffers as a result.

    4. Already voted ‘Yes’ but we’re still in a minority.

      Fcuk the sheeple, they shall reap as they (don’t) sow.

  77. This evening’s edition of BBC East Midlands Today from the campus of Nottingham University.

    There is a thankfully brief section from the HoC featuring, amongst others, two of the city’s MPs. Unless it’s been edited out, Ms Greenwood, either through tact and decency or mere bias, does not make the obvious point about yesterday’s events.

    It’s available until 6.30pm tomorrow.

  78. I’m watching Spring watch and I’ve noticed that a lot of the birds that feature appear to be “rung”.
    I’ve never seen a bird with an obvious ring in the garden.
    How many birds get rings and is a ringed bird comparatively rare or common?

    2. The bird-ringing programme in the UK is administered by the BTO (British Trust for Ornithology). Groups around the country, made of trained and licensed amateurs, catch birds and ring those that are positively identified. The idea is that data from recoveries of ringed birds show their age, longevity and distribution.

      Very few birds are ringed when taken as a percentage of the overall population, but the data secured from those that are ringed and recovered has helped in the understanding of how species move and distribute around the globe.I was a licensed BTO ringer for a number of years in the early 1990s.

  79. Chums, I’m quite exhausted this evening. I was due to watch LITTLE BIG MAN starring Dustin Hoffman and directed by Arthur Penn on YouTube this evening. But it’s two and a half hours long and I fear I may well nod off and wake up just as it ends. So I’m off for an early night now. Quite possibly I may wake up at around 2 am and come downstairs to watch it until 4.30 am. So don’t expect to see me bright eyed and bushy-tailed tomorrow morning. Just as long as I can get to Korky’s by around 12.45 pm.

    1. That’s a great movie! I am not a fan of Hoffman but he does a good job in this one.

  80. It’s almost impossible to imagine why anyone would risk a perilous crossing over cold, dark waters in an inflatable dinghy. This is a story of humankind: the despair – or ambition – that drove them, the wickedness of the traffickers who exploited them, and the moral dilemma of those of us already living where they want to go. History is all about borders.

    Two cross-party reports out this week have sought to inform the political and moral response to the ‘Illegal Migration Bill’, currently making its way through Parliament, which proposes that people who come to the UK “illegally” will be detained and permanently removed. The Commons Joint Committee on Human Rights concludes that the bill, “breaches a number of the UK’s international human rights obligations”. Meanwhile, a Home Affairs select committee report states there is “little evidence” Albanians are at risk in their country and need asylum in the UK.

    Migration brings into focus the competing worldviews of universalism and localism. Universalists argue that the world is shrinking, and that pandemics and climate change reveal our interdependence as one global community. It is neither moral nor in the national interest, they argue, to erect bigger borders out of a sense of protectionism. Their opponents see borders as not just territorial or political, but intrinsically moral. Borders, in their view, create moral communities in which people feel rooted and valued.

    How much should a country be willing to compromise the integrity of its boundaries out of compassion for non-citizens? Is it unjust to see people differently, based on where lines are drawn on a map? Would a world without borders be a better place?

    This is the blurb for tonight’s Moral Maze on Radio 4. I listened to very little of it as my blood was rising. Ash Sarker, naturally, though it was absolutely correct to allow them in. Tim Stanley was doing OK until he suggested that failure to deal with it will lead to the RISE OF THE FAR RIGHT.

    I’ve heard it all before. Only when yesterday’s events are repeated a hundred times will anyone in authority even dare to ask a question.

    1. If it was made abundantly clear that anyone arriving illegally would get no support whatsoever and that they were left to survive on their communities and that if they broke the law they and their hosts would be deported the traffic would end over night.

      1. The trouble is that the PTB want them here. They’re not interested in stemming the tide, just fulfilling quotas that are apparently given to them by a higher power. The more you think about this business the more depressing it is.

    2. “Is it unjust to see people differently, based on where lines are drawn on a map? “
      You can just hear the sounds of liberals crying into their hankies. No, it isn’t unjust, but it is unjust to describe different cultures as “lines drawn on a map.” Next stupid question, please.

    3. 373294+ up ticks,

      Evening WS,

      I do believe it could very well be taken out of their hands before then.

  81. It’s almost impossible to imagine why anyone would risk a perilous crossing over cold, dark waters in an inflatable dinghy. This is a story of humankind: the despair – or ambition – that drove them, the wickedness of the traffickers who exploited them, and the moral dilemma of those of us already living where they want to go. History is all about borders.

    Two cross-party reports out this week have sought to inform the political and moral response to the ‘Illegal Migration Bill’, currently making its way through Parliament, which proposes that people who come to the UK “illegally” will be detained and permanently removed. The Commons Joint Committee on Human Rights concludes that the bill, “breaches a number of the UK’s international human rights obligations”. Meanwhile, a Home Affairs select committee report states there is “little evidence” Albanians are at risk in their country and need asylum in the UK.

    Migration brings into focus the competing worldviews of universalism and localism. Universalists argue that the world is shrinking, and that pandemics and climate change reveal our interdependence as one global community. It is neither moral nor in the national interest, they argue, to erect bigger borders out of a sense of protectionism. Their opponents see borders as not just territorial or political, but intrinsically moral. Borders, in their view, create moral communities in which people feel rooted and valued.

    How much should a country be willing to compromise the integrity of its boundaries out of compassion for non-citizens? Is it unjust to see people differently, based on where lines are drawn on a map? Would a world without borders be a better place?

    This is the blurb for tonight’s Moral Maze on Radio 4. I listened to very little of it as my blood was rising. Ash Sarker, naturally, though it was absolutely correct to allow them in. Tim Stanley was doing OK until he suggested that failure to deal with it will lead to the RISE OF THE FAR RIGHT.

    I’ve heard it all before. Only when yesterday’s events are repeated a hundred times will anyone in authority even dare to ask a question.

  82. Goodnight Y’all. Hopefully will be around tomorrow.
    Face awful and has been weeping and bleeding tonight. Gawd, ain’t life grand.
    Words can’t state how effing fed up I am!!

    1. I can imagine how fed up you are.
      I hope you at least have a good night’s sleep.

    2. See your quack, Ann and insist upon Tramadol for pain relief and Diclofenac as a muscle relaxant.

      It’s worked for my lower back pain for about six years,when chiropractors and osteopaths couldn’t fix it Be very, very sparing with Tramadol – it’s an opioid and can become addictive. I’ve only used them for ‘screaming’ pain and a box of 30 lasts about 18 months.

    3. G’night Ann, have a peaceful night – tomorrow is another day, we’re all thinking about you

    5. Crikey, that sounds nasty. Has this been caused by treatment? You have certainly been through the mill.
      Fingers crossed for a restful night and improvements tomorrow.

      Yesterday, I was shocked to be told I have 3 BCCs on my face that need the Mohs surgery. I suspected the one in the middle of my nose would need something drastic.
      Another needing the same is where a supposedly harmless lesion was frozen off 20 years ago but left what I thought was just a red patch. New consultant is sure it is a BCC, and shouldn’t have been merely frozen off.
      The 3rd I wasn’t even aware of.
      Two other lesions need biopsies.
      The consultant is referring me on to another consultant dermatologist at Addenbrookes for the Mohs and the others.
      Oh joy.

      1. Good luck and I hope you get better care than I. I suspect the two on Friday doing the biopsy buggered it up.

        1. From the sound of it, my treatment can’t be much worse. Why are there so many apparently incompetent and negligent doctors?
          Are you in any less pain and ‘mess’ this morning? Maybe the ‘wound’ has somewhat ‘sealed’ itself overnight.

          1. Slept a bit better but pain still here. The two Ps- paracetamol and Pinot;-)

          2. I am so sorry you have to suffer because of incompetent medics. I just hope the one I am being referred on to isn’t like yours.

  83. This farcical inquiry must not shy away from lockdown’s hard truths

    The Covid probe appears far more interested in apportioning blame than learning from past mistakes

    MADELINE GRANT, Parliamentary Sketchwriter • 13 June 2023 • 7:58pm

    My mother’s recent absence on holiday provided the perfect opportunity to embark on a seemingly impossible task – clearing out the Augean stables of a hoarder’s study. Amid editions of The Spectator dating back to the Iraq War and a copy of ACE with Pete Sampras on the cover, I discovered a stash of Cold War-era “Protect and Survive” pamphlets. We are used to the paraphernalia of “fears past” in our lives. Think of all those ghost signs to wartime air-raid shelters in our cities or even the abiding flim-flam of the Covid-19 pandemic; gratuitous hand-wash dispensers in public places, faded instructions to maintain social distance on pavements.

    For most of us, these seem equally outmoded; indeed, you’d think someone was odd if they insisted on sleeping in an Anderson Shelter every night, just in case the Luftwaffe were up to their old tricks again. But not so the official Covid inquiry, which is reportedly requesting that hearing attendees take lateral flow tests – more than a year after the Government scrapped free testing and mandatory self-isolation. A small thing, perhaps, but the implications are obvious. In asserting that Covid remains a far more serious threat than virtually any other public body currently believes it to be, the inquiry betrayed a subtle bias before the hearings had even begun.

    This development epitomises concerns about the inquiry’s scope, focus and direction. The idea that the biggest suppression of individual and corporate freedom in living memory represents a case of “too little too late” has become a widespread mantra in public health thinking and public discourse. Certainly, the fallout from Partygate suggested that lockdown was widely seen as fundamentally correct; it was only the personal conduct of politicians that was at fault.

    The inquiry must be willing to challenge such orthodoxies and question why sceptical voices were so often excluded from the debate. But given the make-up of witnesses, and its unfolding agenda, any serious reckoning looks unlikely. There are no obvious potential lockdown critics among the inquiry’s “core participants”, who are drawn mainly from Covid support networks, special-interest groups, trade unions, health and governmental authorities. An alarming 17 current and former members of the pro-lockdown pressure group Independent Sage have been asked to give evidence so far; apparently compared to only a couple of voices on the opposing side.

    As such, many burning questions may not even be asked. Questions such as why the UK’s previous pandemic planning, emphasising advice rather than coercive measures, was so quickly jettisoned in 2020. What of the lack of examination of the likely collateral costs of lockdown, and the manner in which Parliament was quickly shut down, and for months barely performed a rubber stamp role? What was the purpose of the UK’s lockdown strategy after the initial flattening of the curve? For much of 2020, many policy-makers knew that outdoor mixing wasn’t driving transmission. Why did they ban it?

    Will any attention be given to the media – especially the broadcast media – and their complicity in pushing for the suspension of liberties and creating a wider climate of sensationalism?

    Crucially, will the inquiry major on “lockdown theology” – debates about whether we locked down too late, or unlocked too soon – at the expense of broader questions like whether lockdown was worth it in the first place? And even if the inquiry were to conclude that indiscriminate lockdowns were damaging, and closing schools a grave mistake, would our policy response be any different should another Covid-like virus materialise over the next few years?

    It may not be popular to say it, but if we’re serious about learning lessons, which would mean fewer unnecessary deaths in the future, then this has to be a dispassionate, even-handed, analytical examination of the events of March 2020 onwards. Yet the inquiry appears to have begun in an emotionally-charged, instantly confrontational way– starting with the unveiling of four tapestry panels commemorating “people’s experiences and emotions during the pandemic”. Its chair, Baroness Hallett, has promised to put bereaved families “at the heart of the inquiry”; as well as questions of social justice and racial inequality. Its aims appear big enough to encompass everything, and diffuse enough to be meaningless.

    “Brexit” has already been cited (but not, funnily enough, the Chinese Communist Party). If the inquiry simply morphs into an all purpose grievance-mill, or an exercise in apportioning blame, rather than focusing on the practical, then it does nobody any favours whatsoever.

    Another pertinent question is this; when was the last time a British public inquiry produced results in a timely fashion? It is too early to say whether this will be a worthwhile exercise, but it’s certainly going to be a lengthy and costly one. The inquiry is expected to run for several years and be the most expensive ever conducted; by August 2022 the bill was already running at £85 million of public money before it had even begun taking evidence. Unsurprisingly, given the levels of legal representation involved, total costs are anticipated to exceed £500 million, dwarfing Leveson, Chilcot, and even the £200 million Bloody Sunday inquiry. The Former Attorney General Lord Falconer wasn’t far off the mark with his ill-advised quip, during the pandemic, that Covid-19 was “the gift that keeps on giving” for lawyers. Given previous experiences, by the time the UK report comes out it will probably be out of date anyway.

    As in so many areas, Sweden took a different approach, appointing a Covid commission, presided over by a neutral figure, which wasn’t obliged to hear lawyers and witnesses. The Coronakommissionen’s final report was released before the UK’s terms of reference had even been announced. Its 1,700 pages lay out clear recommendations in a level-headed fashion. Though intensely critical of some aspects of Swedish pandemic policy, it strongly supported their overall strategy, concluding that its decision to rely primarily on the issuing of non-coercive advice had been “fundamentally correct”. Having so often failed to learn from Sweden during the pandemic, Britain appears doomed to repeat its mistake after it.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/13/this-farcical-inquiry-must-not-shy-away-from-lockdowns-hard/

    1. Terriblegraph coming in with some food articles, eventually.

      I would also add Grenfell to the list of liberal-left failed expensive enquiries

  84. This farcical inquiry must not shy away from lockdown’s hard truths

    The Covid probe appears far more interested in apportioning blame than learning from past mistakes

    MADELINE GRANT, Parliamentary Sketchwriter • 13 June 2023 • 7:58pm

    My mother’s recent absence on holiday provided the perfect opportunity to embark on a seemingly impossible task – clearing out the Augean stables of a hoarder’s study. Amid editions of The Spectator dating back to the Iraq War and a copy of ACE with Pete Sampras on the cover, I discovered a stash of Cold War-era “Protect and Survive” pamphlets. We are used to the paraphernalia of “fears past” in our lives. Think of all those ghost signs to wartime air-raid shelters in our cities or even the abiding flim-flam of the Covid-19 pandemic; gratuitous hand-wash dispensers in public places, faded instructions to maintain social distance on pavements.

    For most of us, these seem equally outmoded; indeed, you’d think someone was odd if they insisted on sleeping in an Anderson Shelter every night, just in case the Luftwaffe were up to their old tricks again. But not so the official Covid inquiry, which is reportedly requesting that hearing attendees take lateral flow tests – more than a year after the Government scrapped free testing and mandatory self-isolation. A small thing, perhaps, but the implications are obvious. In asserting that Covid remains a far more serious threat than virtually any other public body currently believes it to be, the inquiry betrayed a subtle bias before the hearings had even begun.

    This development epitomises concerns about the inquiry’s scope, focus and direction. The idea that the biggest suppression of individual and corporate freedom in living memory represents a case of “too little too late” has become a widespread mantra in public health thinking and public discourse. Certainly, the fallout from Partygate suggested that lockdown was widely seen as fundamentally correct; it was only the personal conduct of politicians that was at fault.

    The inquiry must be willing to challenge such orthodoxies and question why sceptical voices were so often excluded from the debate. But given the make-up of witnesses, and its unfolding agenda, any serious reckoning looks unlikely. There are no obvious potential lockdown critics among the inquiry’s “core participants”, who are drawn mainly from Covid support networks, special-interest groups, trade unions, health and governmental authorities. An alarming 17 current and former members of the pro-lockdown pressure group Independent Sage have been asked to give evidence so far; apparently compared to only a couple of voices on the opposing side.

    As such, many burning questions may not even be asked. Questions such as why the UK’s previous pandemic planning, emphasising advice rather than coercive measures, was so quickly jettisoned in 2020. What of the lack of examination of the likely collateral costs of lockdown, and the manner in which Parliament was quickly shut down, and for months barely performed a rubber stamp role? What was the purpose of the UK’s lockdown strategy after the initial flattening of the curve? For much of 2020, many policy-makers knew that outdoor mixing wasn’t driving transmission. Why did they ban it?

    Will any attention be given to the media – especially the broadcast media – and their complicity in pushing for the suspension of liberties and creating a wider climate of sensationalism?

    Crucially, will the inquiry major on “lockdown theology” – debates about whether we locked down too late, or unlocked too soon – at the expense of broader questions like whether lockdown was worth it in the first place? And even if the inquiry were to conclude that indiscriminate lockdowns were damaging, and closing schools a grave mistake, would our policy response be any different should another Covid-like virus materialise over the next few years?

    It may not be popular to say it, but if we’re serious about learning lessons, which would mean fewer unnecessary deaths in the future, then this has to be a dispassionate, even-handed, analytical examination of the events of March 2020 onwards. Yet the inquiry appears to have begun in an emotionally-charged, instantly confrontational way– starting with the unveiling of four tapestry panels commemorating “people’s experiences and emotions during the pandemic”. Its chair, Baroness Hallett, has promised to put bereaved families “at the heart of the inquiry”; as well as questions of social justice and racial inequality. Its aims appear big enough to encompass everything, and diffuse enough to be meaningless.

    “Brexit” has already been cited (but not, funnily enough, the Chinese Communist Party). If the inquiry simply morphs into an all purpose grievance-mill, or an exercise in apportioning blame, rather than focusing on the practical, then it does nobody any favours whatsoever.

    Another pertinent question is this; when was the last time a British public inquiry produced results in a timely fashion? It is too early to say whether this will be a worthwhile exercise, but it’s certainly going to be a lengthy and costly one. The inquiry is expected to run for several years and be the most expensive ever conducted; by August 2022 the bill was already running at £85 million of public money before it had even begun taking evidence. Unsurprisingly, given the levels of legal representation involved, total costs are anticipated to exceed £500 million, dwarfing Leveson, Chilcot, and even the £200 million Bloody Sunday inquiry. The Former Attorney General Lord Falconer wasn’t far off the mark with his ill-advised quip, during the pandemic, that Covid-19 was “the gift that keeps on giving” for lawyers. Given previous experiences, by the time the UK report comes out it will probably be out of date anyway.

    As in so many areas, Sweden took a different approach, appointing a Covid commission, presided over by a neutral figure, which wasn’t obliged to hear lawyers and witnesses. The Coronakommissionen’s final report was released before the UK’s terms of reference had even been announced. Its 1,700 pages lay out clear recommendations in a level-headed fashion. Though intensely critical of some aspects of Swedish pandemic policy, it strongly supported their overall strategy, concluding that its decision to rely primarily on the issuing of non-coercive advice had been “fundamentally correct”. Having so often failed to learn from Sweden during the pandemic, Britain appears doomed to repeat its mistake after it.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/13/this-farcical-inquiry-must-not-shy-away-from-lockdowns-hard/

  85. This farcical inquiry must not shy away from lockdown’s hard truths

    The Covid probe appears far more interested in apportioning blame than learning from past mistakes

    MADELINE GRANT, Parliamentary Sketchwriter • 13 June 2023 • 7:58pm

    My mother’s recent absence on holiday provided the perfect opportunity to embark on a seemingly impossible task – clearing out the Augean stables of a hoarder’s study. Amid editions of The Spectator dating back to the Iraq War and a copy of ACE with Pete Sampras on the cover, I discovered a stash of Cold War-era “Protect and Survive” pamphlets. We are used to the paraphernalia of “fears past” in our lives. Think of all those ghost signs to wartime air-raid shelters in our cities or even the abiding flim-flam of the Covid-19 pandemic; gratuitous hand-wash dispensers in public places, faded instructions to maintain social distance on pavements.

    For most of us, these seem equally outmoded; indeed, you’d think someone was odd if they insisted on sleeping in an Anderson Shelter every night, just in case the Luftwaffe were up to their old tricks again. But not so the official Covid inquiry, which is reportedly requesting that hearing attendees take lateral flow tests – more than a year after the Government scrapped free testing and mandatory self-isolation. A small thing, perhaps, but the implications are obvious. In asserting that Covid remains a far more serious threat than virtually any other public body currently believes it to be, the inquiry betrayed a subtle bias before the hearings had even begun.

    This development epitomises concerns about the inquiry’s scope, focus and direction. The idea that the biggest suppression of individual and corporate freedom in living memory represents a case of “too little too late” has become a widespread mantra in public health thinking and public discourse. Certainly, the fallout from Partygate suggested that lockdown was widely seen as fundamentally correct; it was only the personal conduct of politicians that was at fault.

    The inquiry must be willing to challenge such orthodoxies and question why sceptical voices were so often excluded from the debate. But given the make-up of witnesses, and its unfolding agenda, any serious reckoning looks unlikely. There are no obvious potential lockdown critics among the inquiry’s “core participants”, who are drawn mainly from Covid support networks, special-interest groups, trade unions, health and governmental authorities. An alarming 17 current and former members of the pro-lockdown pressure group Independent Sage have been asked to give evidence so far; apparently compared to only a couple of voices on the opposing side.

    As such, many burning questions may not even be asked. Questions such as why the UK’s previous pandemic planning, emphasising advice rather than coercive measures, was so quickly jettisoned in 2020. What of the lack of examination of the likely collateral costs of lockdown, and the manner in which Parliament was quickly shut down, and for months barely performed a rubber stamp role? What was the purpose of the UK’s lockdown strategy after the initial flattening of the curve? For much of 2020, many policy-makers knew that outdoor mixing wasn’t driving transmission. Why did they ban it?

    Will any attention be given to the media – especially the broadcast media – and their complicity in pushing for the suspension of liberties and creating a wider climate of sensationalism?

    Crucially, will the inquiry major on “lockdown theology” – debates about whether we locked down too late, or unlocked too soon – at the expense of broader questions like whether lockdown was worth it in the first place? And even if the inquiry were to conclude that indiscriminate lockdowns were damaging, and closing schools a grave mistake, would our policy response be any different should another Covid-like virus materialise over the next few years?

    It may not be popular to say it, but if we’re serious about learning lessons, which would mean fewer unnecessary deaths in the future, then this has to be a dispassionate, even-handed, analytical examination of the events of March 2020 onwards. Yet the inquiry appears to have begun in an emotionally-charged, instantly confrontational way– starting with the unveiling of four tapestry panels commemorating “people’s experiences and emotions during the pandemic”. Its chair, Baroness Hallett, has promised to put bereaved families “at the heart of the inquiry”; as well as questions of social justice and racial inequality. Its aims appear big enough to encompass everything, and diffuse enough to be meaningless.

    “Brexit” has already been cited (but not, funnily enough, the Chinese Communist Party). If the inquiry simply morphs into an all purpose grievance-mill, or an exercise in apportioning blame, rather than focusing on the practical, then it does nobody any favours whatsoever.

    Another pertinent question is this; when was the last time a British public inquiry produced results in a timely fashion? It is too early to say whether this will be a worthwhile exercise, but it’s certainly going to be a lengthy and costly one. The inquiry is expected to run for several years and be the most expensive ever conducted; by August 2022 the bill was already running at £85 million of public money before it had even begun taking evidence. Unsurprisingly, given the levels of legal representation involved, total costs are anticipated to exceed £500 million, dwarfing Leveson, Chilcot, and even the £200 million Bloody Sunday inquiry. The Former Attorney General Lord Falconer wasn’t far off the mark with his ill-advised quip, during the pandemic, that Covid-19 was “the gift that keeps on giving” for lawyers. Given previous experiences, by the time the UK report comes out it will probably be out of date anyway.

    As in so many areas, Sweden took a different approach, appointing a Covid commission, presided over by a neutral figure, which wasn’t obliged to hear lawyers and witnesses. The Coronakommissionen’s final report was released before the UK’s terms of reference had even been announced. Its 1,700 pages lay out clear recommendations in a level-headed fashion. Though intensely critical of some aspects of Swedish pandemic policy, it strongly supported their overall strategy, concluding that its decision to rely primarily on the issuing of non-coercive advice had been “fundamentally correct”. Having so often failed to learn from Sweden during the pandemic, Britain appears doomed to repeat its mistake after it.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/13/this-farcical-inquiry-must-not-shy-away-from-lockdowns-hard/

  86. This farcical inquiry must not shy away from lockdown’s hard truths

    The Covid probe appears far more interested in apportioning blame than learning from past mistakes

    MADELINE GRANT, Parliamentary Sketchwriter • 13 June 2023 • 7:58pm

    My mother’s recent absence on holiday provided the perfect opportunity to embark on a seemingly impossible task – clearing out the Augean stables of a hoarder’s study. Amid editions of The Spectator dating back to the Iraq War and a copy of ACE with Pete Sampras on the cover, I discovered a stash of Cold War-era “Protect and Survive” pamphlets. We are used to the paraphernalia of “fears past” in our lives. Think of all those ghost signs to wartime air-raid shelters in our cities or even the abiding flim-flam of the Covid-19 pandemic; gratuitous hand-wash dispensers in public places, faded instructions to maintain social distance on pavements.

    For most of us, these seem equally outmoded; indeed, you’d think someone was odd if they insisted on sleeping in an Anderson Shelter every night, just in case the Luftwaffe were up to their old tricks again. But not so the official Covid inquiry, which is reportedly requesting that hearing attendees take lateral flow tests – more than a year after the Government scrapped free testing and mandatory self-isolation. A small thing, perhaps, but the implications are obvious. In asserting that Covid remains a far more serious threat than virtually any other public body currently believes it to be, the inquiry betrayed a subtle bias before the hearings had even begun.

    This development epitomises concerns about the inquiry’s scope, focus and direction. The idea that the biggest suppression of individual and corporate freedom in living memory represents a case of “too little too late” has become a widespread mantra in public health thinking and public discourse. Certainly, the fallout from Partygate suggested that lockdown was widely seen as fundamentally correct; it was only the personal conduct of politicians that was at fault.

    The inquiry must be willing to challenge such orthodoxies and question why sceptical voices were so often excluded from the debate. But given the make-up of witnesses, and its unfolding agenda, any serious reckoning looks unlikely. There are no obvious potential lockdown critics among the inquiry’s “core participants”, who are drawn mainly from Covid support networks, special-interest groups, trade unions, health and governmental authorities. An alarming 17 current and former members of the pro-lockdown pressure group Independent Sage have been asked to give evidence so far; apparently compared to only a couple of voices on the opposing side.

    As such, many burning questions may not even be asked. Questions such as why the UK’s previous pandemic planning, emphasising advice rather than coercive measures, was so quickly jettisoned in 2020. What of the lack of examination of the likely collateral costs of lockdown, and the manner in which Parliament was quickly shut down, and for months barely performed a rubber stamp role? What was the purpose of the UK’s lockdown strategy after the initial flattening of the curve? For much of 2020, many policy-makers knew that outdoor mixing wasn’t driving transmission. Why did they ban it?

    Will any attention be given to the media – especially the broadcast media – and their complicity in pushing for the suspension of liberties and creating a wider climate of sensationalism?

    Crucially, will the inquiry major on “lockdown theology” – debates about whether we locked down too late, or unlocked too soon – at the expense of broader questions like whether lockdown was worth it in the first place? And even if the inquiry were to conclude that indiscriminate lockdowns were damaging, and closing schools a grave mistake, would our policy response be any different should another Covid-like virus materialise over the next few years?

    It may not be popular to say it, but if we’re serious about learning lessons, which would mean fewer unnecessary deaths in the future, then this has to be a dispassionate, even-handed, analytical examination of the events of March 2020 onwards. Yet the inquiry appears to have begun in an emotionally-charged, instantly confrontational way– starting with the unveiling of four tapestry panels commemorating “people’s experiences and emotions during the pandemic”. Its chair, Baroness Hallett, has promised to put bereaved families “at the heart of the inquiry”; as well as questions of social justice and racial inequality. Its aims appear big enough to encompass everything, and diffuse enough to be meaningless.

    “Brexit” has already been cited (but not, funnily enough, the Chinese Communist Party). If the inquiry simply morphs into an all purpose grievance-mill, or an exercise in apportioning blame, rather than focusing on the practical, then it does nobody any favours whatsoever.

    Another pertinent question is this; when was the last time a British public inquiry produced results in a timely fashion? It is too early to say whether this will be a worthwhile exercise, but it’s certainly going to be a lengthy and costly one. The inquiry is expected to run for several years and be the most expensive ever conducted; by August 2022 the bill was already running at £85 million of public money before it had even begun taking evidence. Unsurprisingly, given the levels of legal representation involved, total costs are anticipated to exceed £500 million, dwarfing Leveson, Chilcot, and even the £200 million Bloody Sunday inquiry. The Former Attorney General Lord Falconer wasn’t far off the mark with his ill-advised quip, during the pandemic, that Covid-19 was “the gift that keeps on giving” for lawyers. Given previous experiences, by the time the UK report comes out it will probably be out of date anyway.

    As in so many areas, Sweden took a different approach, appointing a Covid commission, presided over by a neutral figure, which wasn’t obliged to hear lawyers and witnesses. The Coronakommissionen’s final report was released before the UK’s terms of reference had even been announced. Its 1,700 pages lay out clear recommendations in a level-headed fashion. Though intensely critical of some aspects of Swedish pandemic policy, it strongly supported their overall strategy, concluding that its decision to rely primarily on the issuing of non-coercive advice had been “fundamentally correct”. Having so often failed to learn from Sweden during the pandemic, Britain appears doomed to repeat its mistake after it.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/13/this-farcical-inquiry-must-not-shy-away-from-lockdowns-hard/

  87. There’s a mortgage catastrophe coming – and it will prove Liz Truss right

    The ‘sensibles’ believed higher taxes would stop interest rate hikes. They were calamitously wrong

    ALLISTER HEATH • 14 June 2023 • 7:00pm

    Do you remember when Liz Truss was said to have “crashed” the British economy with her tax cuts, and when the global economic establishment and cowardly Tory MPs screamed and screamed and screamed like Violet Elizabeth Bott until she was ousted? Why no such clamour today, given that the financial situation is, if anything, even more critical? Where is Michael Gove?

    The cost of government borrowing is higher than it was after Truss’s mini-Budget, HSBC has pulled swathes of its mortgages for the second time in a week, and fear and loathing stalk the property market. The cognitive dissonance is shocking: are surging interest rates only deemed a crisis for Right-wing prime ministers?

    Truss made mistakes and was insufficiently prepared, but the chaos engulfing the British economy confirms that her central analysis was spot on. She was right to want to cut taxes, she was right to want to deregulate, and she was right that monetary policy is a nightmare.

    The “grown-ups” have been back in charge for eight months, armed with their orthodox, social-democratic playbook, and have only managed to mess everything up even more badly. Borrowers are facing a repayment catastrophe as fixed-term loans expire, Bank interest rates could hit 5.75-6 per cent, tens of thousands of families will lose their homes, the buy-to-let market is finished, house prices will fall by at least 25 per cent in real terms from peak and, following in the footsteps of the Eurozone, the economy is heading into a nasty recession.

    It is only because the IMF and Joe Biden don’t feel threatened by Rishi Sunak that they have refrained from launching another propaganda campaign against Britain, despite British economic fundamentals that are now probably worse than under Truss. The cant, the hypocrisy and the double standards are breathtaking.

    It is true that there has been no repeat, as yet, of the LDI pensions crisis, a disastrous industry and regulatory failure that Truss couldn’t have foreseen, and Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt have communicated better with the markets – one reason why the rise in gilt yields has been less abrupt. The pound is strong, but only because returns on British gilts are now so high relative to other countries.

    Sunak has also been lucky when it comes to electricity, oil and gas prices, which have fallen back sharply: it was the need to devise a bailout for energy consumers that eventually did for Truss, seemingly blowing a hole in her budget.

    Yet despite this good fortune, Sunak’s dashboard is flashing bright red: taxes are at an all-time high, private sector pay is up by 7.6 per cent, inflation remains at 8.7 per cent, the gap between yields on German and UK 10-year bonds is over 2 per cent and, for good measure, ministers have lost control of the public sector, with NHS treatment volumes down 10 per cent on April 2019, the IFS estimates, despite billions in extra resources. The rocketing debt burden will greatly complicate Hunt’s attempts to cut taxes from next April.

    All of this exposes the fundamental error at the heart of Sunak’s pitch last year: the idea that it was possible to avoid higher interest rates if he and his team of “sensibles” were handed the levers of power. It was vital to hike taxes to reduce the deficit and cut aggregate demand, he intimated, thus accommodating a looser monetary policy, and to allow the Bank of England free rein to act in any way it wished, with no democratic accountability. Truss had taken on the Bank, and been crushed by it: Sunak was suitably deferential. There was no point or time to deregulate: incentives be damned, sending out the right “vibes” would be enough to attract foreign investment and unleash British entrepreneurs.

    It didn’t work. We have ended up with higher taxes and higher interest rates, as well as low growth. Andrew Bailey, the Bank’s Governor, is the principal culprit for our excessively high inflation and gilt yields, and yet, for reasons I genuinely cannot fathom, Sunak continues to cover for him and the Monetary Policy Committee, and seems willing to pay the price for their mistakes.

    Truss’s analysis – which sadly few market participants actually understood – was fundamentally sound. She knew higher interest rates were inevitable, a necessary readjustment after years of bubblenomics (though she underestimated the fury of mortgaged homeowners). As Milton Friedman famously said, “inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon”: the Bank of England had engaged in too much quantitative easing, especially after the second phase of Covid.

    Our elites had become enthralled to the idea that ever-cheaper and more plentiful money would lead to perpetual growth: it was especially appealing to big government types as it gave them carte blanche to put up tax and red tape, safe in the belief that central banks would rescue them. Gordon Brown was the first to test this theory, and it was refined by George Osborne. Fiscal conservatism – in the Osborne and Sunak sense – became simply about keeping the budget deficit in check, rather than reducing the size of the state, and went hand in hand with monetary activism.

    This was a lethal combination which camouflaged the deleterious effects of anti-growth microeconomic policies and rampant bureaucracy, inflated house prices, promoted malinvestment and depressed productivity growth. Truss wanted to reverse this: she proposed fiscal activism via targeted, pro-growth tax cuts, even at the cost of a temporarily higher deficit, combined with monetary conservatism. She lasted 49 days.

    Sunak’s high-tax, low interest rate gamble having failed, he is facing calls for a massive furlough-type scheme to bail out mortgage-holders as interest rates return to their traditional, early-2000s levels. Property losses would be socialised and gains privatised: it would be an anti-capitalist economic and moral calamity, a terminal negation of individual responsibility. It is a tragedy that some people will lose their homes as rates normalise, but no government can protect us from reality forever.

    “In the long run, we are all dead” was John Maynard Keynes’s justification for his short-termist approach to economics. But after 25 years of kicking the can, of borrowing and printing money rather than encouraging hard work, saving and investment, the long run is the present, and there is nowhere left to hide.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/14/truss-right-looming-british-mortgage-catastrophe-proves-it

    1. The words, quantitative easing, should have always been seen, for what it meant, as bullshit.

      1. Money printing as was, saw off the Weimar Republic and paved the way for Adolf.

          2. Better stock up on barterables!
            They’ll give us a CBDC this time round. But if you want to do any transactions without the authorities recording every detail – you need some kind of valuable tokens.

          4. Lynette Zang always says Food, Water, Shelter, Security, Wealth preservation, Barterability.
            I have a lot more veg this year than in previous years. If food is going to get scarce, the more of it that is produced, the better.

        2. It rang a giant alarm bell in my head in 2008 when money printing was suddenly re-christened “quantative easing”. Still didn’t have a clue what was going on until 2020 though!

    2. Far from encouraging hard work, saving and investment, the bastards have actually penalised it.

    3. “………..Why no such clamour today, given that the financial situation is, if anything, even more critical? Where is Michael Gove?

      Michael Grove has crawled back under the stone from which he never should have crawled out in the first place!

      1. The idea of Gove being competent to fix the nation’s finances is frankly risible!

    4. The answer to our economic ills starts with energy. We should enable deep mining for coal, redevelop our North Sea oil extraction, build modular mini nuclear power plants as refined by Rolls Royce, start fracking in earnest, build our own nuclear power stations whatever the cost, but not relying on Chinese ‘science’, cancel useless wind turbines and even more useless solar farms and restore the land contaminated and deprived by these useless overly costly developments to food production and grazing.

      The government should employ persons with a sound knowledge and experience in what works. It follows that anyone pushing environmentalism should be laid off.

      There is no disputing that the climate is changing but simply that it is not arising from our carbon dioxide emissions or farting cows.

      Climate change is a both a natural
      and periodic occurrence. It is to
      do with the eruptions of the Sun
      and the influence of planets within our solar system. It would
      obviously be helpful were we able to restrict the clearance of vast areas of Amazon rain forest to
      compensate for the massive emissions of both China and India
      which dwarf the rest of the world many times over.

    5. The answer to our economic ills starts with energy. We should enable deep mining for coal, redevelop our North Sea oil extraction, build modular mini nuclear power plants as refined by Rolls Royce, start fracking in earnest, build our own nuclear power stations whatever the cost, but not relying on Chinese ‘science’, cancel useless wind turbines and even more useless solar farms and restore the land contaminated and deprived by these useless overly costly developments to food production and grazing.

      The government should employ persons with a sound knowledge and experience in what works. It follows that anyone pushing environmentalism should be laid off.

      There is no disputing that the climate is changing but simply that
      it is not arising from our carbon dioxide emissions or farting cows.

      Climate change is a both a natural and periodic occurrence. It is to
      do with the eruptions of the Sun and the influence of planets within our solar system. It would obviously be helpful were we able to restrict the clearance of vast areas of Amazon rain forest to compensate for the massive emissions of both China and India which dwarf the rest of the world many times over.

  89. Goodnight and God bless, Gentlefolk until the morning’s light – too bloody early, these days, this far north.

  90. Our Prime Minister and our Chancellor of the Exchequer are unelected incompetents . . .

    Sweet dreams.

    2. Whilst agreeing with the thrust of your argument, no-one votes directly for a Prime Minister, let alone a Chancellor of the Exchequer.

      But I’m sure you know this. Sunk ‘n’ ‘*unt are certainly elected – as MPs. Their appointments to Government are dubious only insofar that they make a nonsense of Conservative Party procedures.

    1. I’m all for embarrassing Sunak and the ridiculous Tories. You go, Nadine – at the time of your choosing!

    1. Thank you, Geoff. I’m guessing that the brighter mornings are interfering with your sleep patterns

      1. I generally instruct my female friend Alexa to set an alarm for 5.30 am. The delay between that event and the posting of the new page depends, mostly, on how quickly I can drag myself out of bed, put the legs back on, and attend to the inevitable call of nature…

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