Monday 24 July: The Tories must find a pragmatic alternative to the net-zero pipe dream

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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514 thoughts on “Monday 24 July: The Tories must find a pragmatic alternative to the net-zero pipe dream”

  2. Good morrow, Gentlefolks, today’s story

    Generosity Comes At A Price

    A man goes into a cafe and sits down. A waitress comes to take his order, and he asks her, “What’s the special of the day?”

    “Chilli,” she says, “but the gentleman next to you got the last bowl.”

    The man says he’ll just have coffee, and the waitress goes to fetch it. As he waited, he noticed the man next to him was eating a full lunch and the bowl of chilli remained uneaten.

    “Are you going to eat your chilli?” he asked.

    “No, help yourself,” replied his neighbour.

    The man picked up a spoon and eagerly began devouring the chilli. When he got halfway through the bowl, he noticed the body of a dead mouse in the bottom of the bowl. Sickened, he puked the chilli he had just eaten back into the bowl.

    Then the man sitting next to him says, “Yeah, that’s as far as I got, too.”

    1. YUKK!
      Hoots of horror from SWMBO.
      MOrning, Tom. Better than the standard today!

          1. Do you post using an Apple Mac? That’s often the cause why they cannot be seen on Microsoft Machines.

          1. One a knight, always a knight.
            But once a night is enough!
            (the old ones are the best ones! (c) Sid James, I think, but it might have been Kenneth Williams)

          2. Morning Paul, it was “Once a King always a King – once a (k)night is enough”

          5. “Matron, I was once a weak man.”
            “Once a week is enough for any man.”

  4. The Tories must find a pragmatic alternative to the net-zero pipe dream

    Yes, go and jump off a cliff and leave us alone

    1. A pragmatic alternative… nothing? Leave us alone? Stop pushing unreliables on us? Restoring the market in energy rather than rigging it to protect wind mills from market forces?

      Cut taxes on fuel and energy to prevent fraud and corruption? Build coal, gas and nuclear to reduce energy costs? Cut taxes to encourage individual freedom? Build reservoirs, fine water company directors personally for fraud and sewage?

      Go the flip away and leave us alone?

  5. Good morning, chums. Off to watch OPENHEIMER today. See you all later. Enjoy your day.

      1. It was good, Minty, but as usual I need to read up on who the many scientists were.

  6. I made the mistake of putting the BBC weather on earlier, got treated to the weather in Sicily, another heatwave, could be a record temperature then went up for a shave, put the radio on and it was all about forest fires in Rhodes and Corfu.
    Thought that I must look up the history on forest fires on Greek Islands before google removes all links to it

    2. There’s a picture on Twit of a flooded street in Milan, with ice floating on the floodwater, as the result of a hail storm.

      2. 374807+ up ticks,

        Morning AS,

        Coming in on tomorrow’s tide.

        Just behind the first boat.

      3. We’re having a heat wave
        A tropical heat wave
        The temperatures rising,
        It isn’t surprising
        She certainly can
        Can can.

        or

        Whatever the media
        Tries so hard to feed ya
        It’s very revealing
        The heat we’re not feeling
        Whatever their slant
        We can’t, can’t!

  9. 374807+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    The NHS must solve its bed-blocking crisis
    11,500 patients still remain in hospital who could be discharged

    This is more deflection material and political piss taking in one,the politico’s know they have more mentally disturbed patients outside looking in then there are bed blockers inside looking out.

    The three by-elections confirmed this for them and if they wanted the bed space they have two options at hand, give the bed blockers the jab, and end their treacherous Dover invasion campaign.

    Rethink,

    Give the bed blockers the 5* hotel treatment and give the invaders escaping from a free Country the jab.

  10. Ukrainian migrants: 33,000 more arrive in Poland, bringing total to 13.8 million since war began. 24 July 2023.

    Some 33,700 more Ukrainians have crossed into Poland in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of people fleeing war in their country to over 13 million, Polish authorities have said.

    There are rumours online that the Russians are advancing in the North and have broken through the Ukie lines and crossed the Zherebetz River. The absolute silence from the MSM about the fighting would suggest that not only is this true but that the actual situation is even worse.

    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/7/23/russia-ukraine-updates-live-missile-attack-on-odesa-kills-one

      2. A recent comment by a retired Cabinet Secretary:

        No one could claim, whatever their party political position, that government decisions in the last 30 years have been of a high standard…

        Britain now stands out amongst comparable European countries, and perhaps among liberal democracies as a whole, as a state

        unusually prone to making large-scale, avoidable policy mistakes.

        Sir Brian Cubbon

      3. The last time we ignored the US.
        We didn’t back North or South Vietnam; we just steered clear of the whole shebang.
        Harold Wilson, for whatever reason- and given his slipperiness I dread to think what it was – refused to involve us in the Vietnam War.

  11. 374807+ up ticks,

    Monday 24 July: The Tories must find a pragmatic alternative to the net-zero pipe dream

    Along with other members of the odious, treacherous lab/lib/con coalition, MASS RESIGN.

    Cromwell in a speech to the first Protectorate Parliament, 12 September 1654. “I desire not to keep my place in this government an hour longer than I may preserve England in it’s just rights, and may protect the people of God in such a just liberty of their consciences…

    The freedom to follow one’s religious or ethical beliefs.

    1. Let us start the week with a reminder of how articulate some of our MPs used to be:

      “It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonoured by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice. Ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government. Ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.

      Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess?

      Ye have no more religion than my horse. Gold is your God. Which of you have not bartered your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?

      Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defiled this sacred place, and turned the Lord’s temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices?

      Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation. You were deputed here by the people to get grievances redressed, are yourselves become the greatest grievance.

      Your country therefore calls upon me to cleanse this Augean stable, by putting a final period to your iniquitous proceedings in this House; and which by God’s help, and the strength he has given me, I am now come to do.

      I command ye therefore, upon the peril of your lives, to depart immediately out of this place.

      Go, get you out! Make haste! Ye venal slaves be gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors.

      In the name of God, go!”

        1. 374807+ up ticks,

          Morning B3,
          Only the peoples can bring about the much needed change and the majority seem, via the ballot stations,
          happy with the status quo.

        1. I know a direct descendant of Oliver Cromwell who, by one of life’s ironies, is a steward at Worcester Cathedral, the place where King John lies and was besieged by Cromwell for its royalist sympathies. He said that he was much maligned and there was much more to him than that he abolished Christmas, which was more the work of his followers than of the man himself.

          I have a bittersweet relationship with that speech. I cannot fault the passion behind it, nor indeed how apt it was in reaction to a general institutional breakdown that is current today. However, what remedy could he offer other than another Parliament?: more of the same; or a restoration of the old order under a chastened king who had no appetite for the old tyranny and had every interest in an institution that served the people somewhat better than it had been. The Merrie Monarch founded our constitutional monarchy, which is conditional on good behaviour by the king that has sustained the Firm to the present day.

          1. Good points.
            When you read about Cromwell, he was more human than most of his followers.
            And yes, the Christmas ban was not his initiative.

  12. RSPCA condemns ‘barbaric torturers’ who bound hedgehog’s legs, slashed his spines and painted him blue. 24 July 2023.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c72c9eb6627050ca8acef497162653e29a75929a0006c3639532a38f6a4efdb1.jpg

    The badly injured hedgehog had to be put down because vets could not save him.

    The male ‘hog’ was found pitilessly wounded, barely alive and in agonising pain, in Holt, Norfolk, on Saturday.

    Sounds like kids! Of course cruelty to animals at an early age is a warning of the coming adult psychopath.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/23/rspca-hedgehog-torture-crime-cruelty-put-down/

    2. Disgusting people.

      Pity we cannot make them suffer the same way.

      Maybe put them down as well.

    4. It has to be a child or children, but as you say, cruelty to animals as a child is a pointer to depraved behaviour as an adult. The person who did this needs to be apprehended and if necessary given psychiatric treatment asap.

        1. How do you teach empathy to people who have no empathy?

          Such people need to experience for themselves the pain they inflict on animals and, indeed, on other human beings, before they can ever begin to understand what they do.

          1. Many don’t understand how to exist in civil society and need to be broken to function.

        2. If/when caught a public flogging, on the bare backside, would be/ should be the least punishment.

          1. Now that’s humiliation, Jeremy – the stocks is too mild and allows braggarts to boast.

            They won’t boast about a flogging.

          2. It is difficult to flog someone whose feet are fastened in the stocks. It would be much easier to flog them if their head and arms were secured in a pillory.

          3. Agreed, George, and that’s what I had in mind when I wrote that piece. The whole aim is ‘humiliation’ to prevent other like-minded eejits taking the same route.

        3. I recently saw a clip from South Africa. Some people throwing rocks at windows. The police arrived and the same people were throwing rocks at the police vehicle. The coppers got out and shot them.
          Job done.

        1. I suppose that is the job of profilers.
          An unpleasant job that must haunt them.

    7. That’s a great shame.
      Holt seemed like such a lovely town when we were there last month.

    8. Horrible. Some get kicked around as footballs and some get burnt. People are cruel.

      1. Not all of us, Jules – I would not hesitate to be cruel to whoever did this, though.

        1. Many years ago, my Father took on three youths who were throwing stones at a young Herring gull, stuck on a small ledge on a cliff near Saundersfoot in Wales. They fortunately missed, and slunk away under the lash of Pa’s tongue.
          So, you’d be in good company, Tom.
          Edit: Spolling 🙁

          1. Nowadays they’d pull a knife and stab your Dad, carry on attacking the bird. Why? Because they can get away with it.

      2. It’s the power to pick on something defenceless. I suggest that those doing this be treated in the same way. Beat them to death. Then do the same to their families.

    9. There is a good case here for a spell in the stocks – an ancient remedy for this sort of callous brutality. This punishment was abolished because it was said to be humiliating, but isn’t that the point of it? Much cheaper than prison, which acts more as a training madrassa for jihadis and drug dealers. Less brutal than corporal punishment, and yet still allows for redemption and making good, which capital punishment doesn’t.

      With hands and feet bound in place in a public space, a notice is erected describing the offence in detail, a supply of rotting vegetables and other unpleasant substances within the bounds of public health be available, and a steward guard posted to see fair play, which could be a local shopkeeper and purveyor of rotten vegetables.

      In this case, the offender should be adorned in blue paint, the legs bound and perhaps the fingernails ripped out – the punishment fits the crime.

      The point is that humiliation, not the sort of bragging bravado, is society’s response to such delinquency, and that there should be no street cred allowed. The offender’s mates would not wish to be seen alongside such a loser.

      At the end of the sentence, the offender would be free to go, and no more need be said about the incident. Justice should be swift and then put in the past. I find that far more humane than a penal system that drags it on for years, blighting the lives of everyone except the lawyers.

        1. Urine is great stuff – it is actually a mild antiseptic as well as smelly and unpleasant.

          1. Here’s something I’d wager you don’t know about wee.
            Because it contains ammonia, it can be used as a quench for steel that creates an extra-hard layer on the surface of the steel. What’s actually happening is that you are nitriding the steel (like carburizing, but better).
            Not a lot of people know that…
            I’ll get me coat.

          2. Are you suggesting that it times of yore, when they had knights in shining armour, is that to improve their defences, all you had to do was to lightly cook the knight, and then douse the beast with a liberal quantity of the amber nectar?

            What’s your coat made from?

      3. Rack, flog then flay this bastard. More likely more than one, so punish them all.

  13. Morning, all Y’all.
    Grey.
    Task for the day: Tiling, using bleedin’ great tiles 12″ by 24″. Should be fun – al least, it’s indoors.

  14. Good Moaning.
    Fair do’s to the Tellygraff.
    No bloody politician at the top of the letters column.
    It contains a picture by one of my favourite artists and a letter about Jerome K Jerome’s other book “Three Men on the Bummel”.
    How many NOTTLers have read it?

    1. It was serialised on Radio 4 just the other day.
      Well, about forty years ago I think.

  15. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/143e7fa04741763c298c93d1e0b621aaac5d2051d10b3278c87d2af1675bb48c.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/23/major-banks-right-monitor-customer-social-media-farage/

    BTL – Percival Wrattstrangler

    The problem started, as most problems start – with the government.

    The government demanded that the banks behaved like tax inspectors and threatened to fine banks if their clients were involved with tax evasion or money laundering.

    You can argue the case from either side but the demand that a part of a bank’s function is to police their clients and potential clients has not only made banks feel they are justified in prying into their clients’ private social and political lives but it has also led to a very great increase in their clients’ bank charges.

    There are, I suspect, very few people who think they get a better service from their bank than they did in the past and very few who now trust their banks as they used to be trusted.

    1. How many market towns lost their last trading banks as staff and resources are diverting their deregulated excess profits towards social media monitoring?

      Much the same could be said of the police.

  16. ‘It’s guns versus butter’: Russia on the brink as Putin’s war chest empties. 24 July 2023.

    Today, cash reserves are dwindling. Oil revenues have nearly halved. Russia is losing its workforce as thousands flee conscription, are sent to fight or die on the front lines. Foreign investment has disappeared and the rouble has plunged. Inflation is gathering pace.

    Oh look! A giant Russian Squirrel! The more of this guff I read the more convinced I am that things are going seriously awry in Ukraine. Even the 77 Brigade Trolls on the Spectator threads are grasping at straws.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/07/24/russia-economy-putin-war-cost-oil-revenues/

  17. Good morning, all. Overcast and calm at the moment. Forecast is thundery showers and rain for the early part of the day.

    Was this Lancet portrayal of excess deaths due to both heat and cold designed to deceive or was/is there a genuine reason to have differently scaled axes when there is a large difference in numbers?
    If the original chart was flashed up on a BBC ‘news’ programme (other ‘news’ services are available) then it is likely it would deceive if the presenter did not explain the difference in axes.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/32768b75715ec071396cf1ce95c4674a40a91f88c304f1d7986d7d722e18f12c.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5c20c006f0cfb7008af2124cb503572995ab393c5128daee1b7bd2e19f55a00b.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1b5b232cf936888f074416a6f4ddbfdf3113fe0c9a06de49d282c4d6a3acda48.png

      1. If the intention was to show differences between nations on the warm side, then just show the warm side. If the cold side isn’t relevant, why is it there at all? Then you can scale it consistently, not full-scale is 40 on one side and 250 on the other.
        If I’d submitted anything so skewed as that when I was publishing papers and writing Ph.D, it would have been knocked back straight away.
        My conclusion is that it was expected to end up on Twitter, and they actively intended to mislead.

        1. Of course they did. The deceit and twisting excuses are just annoyance that they were caught.

          This graph will be used deliberately to promote their ideological bias. They don’t want to tell the truth.

    2. HMG did something similar during the covid scam:

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/93356c6ce44138a8416dcb66380f04345562eac41995b0562b09ef7dfd742517.png
      ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3ae563cd81a5a304e1f0846f604ec7136bfcb7051c75cae058fc61d1d1c26fcb.png
      ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/94913a28d12ed2f35cc18f02ae3e687b0ce6e7f6d6c158422f93745f87547d1a.png

  18. Morning all 🙂😊
    Same old July 2023 weather grey. Horrible.
    Same old nonsense from our Horrible and useless political classes.
    A tough final round at Hoylake yesterday.
    But we’ll worth the drenching for some. Especially Brian Harman well done. What a life eh.

      1. Annoying isn’t it. I doubt if we will have fine weather for the next few weeks. We were hoping to get away again for a week.
        We’re off to the big city tmz afternoon, my Wednesday appointment has been brought forward to 7:30 am.

          1. Thanks Ellie. 😊
            I’m also hoping for a lot of skills to be involved. 😉

        2. Didn’t it rain on 15 July, St Swithin’s Day?
          All the best for Wednesday!

          1. Precisely what I said to Spartie yesterday as he merrily splashed through a puddle.

          2. Precisely what I said to Spartie yesterday as he merrily splashed through a puddle.

    1. They wont mention such things, it will open the much needed debate that covers all the mistakes that the useless political classes have and still are making around the world.

        1. “Wrigley added: ‘At this point in the investigation, I find his Muslim faith no more notable than my Lutheran faith’.”

          And he’s the N Dakota Attorney General.

          I wouldn’t want him as an investigator, if he can gloss over such outstanding points.

          1. Trying not to offend the perpetually offended.
            Appeasement: As Churchill said ” trying to persuade the croodile to eat you last” or something like that.

          2. You’ve got to be damned careful when there are too many Lutherans infiltrating your society!

          3. And that is the long outstanding problem.
            We had a TV lecture by the bbc about misogyny. It’s perfectly obvious who the world’s misogynist are. But no mention of them at all.

          4. And does his Lutheran failth instruct him to be peaceable, charitable, turn the other cheek?

          5. God Morning Jasper and everyone.
            With due respect you might care to read that sentence several times. As I understood it, the official was subtly comparing and contrasting the shooter’s faith with his ‘culture’ and background. Not all violent criminals are Muslim.

          6. I would change that to, “Not all Muslims are violent criminals but many of that ideology commit violent crimes.”

          7. His culture is inextricably linked to his faith, the one being a product of the other just as our culture is a product of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Yes, the US has more than one category of shooter. Black on black shootings are very high in the league table of American violent crime and unboubutedly there are a few crazy loners on the right who think they can shoot there way out of wokery. The problem is that the latter category is the only one that the ruling establishment see gain from identifying honestly. As in all things, they lie by omission.

    2. DID a jihadi terror attack occur recently in the city of Fargo, North Dakota?

      Fargo’s main claim to fame until now is that it provided the setting and name for the 1996 film, a black comedy directed by the Coen brothers which led to four TV series. Its success and wide distribution helped put the city on the map, the distinctive Upper Midwest accent of leading characters becoming the source of much good-natured humour.

      Fargo is now in the news again, and no one is laughing. On the contrary, many are crying and grieving for a beloved son, grandson, brother, fiancé, nephew, cousin, friend, colleague, brother-in-arms.

      On Friday, July 14, 37-year-old Mohamad Barakat opened fire with a double-magazine long rifle on firefighters and police investigating a routine traffic accident and attending to victims at the scene. As far as we know, Barakat, a native of Syria who was given asylum in 2012 and became a US citizen in 2019, was not involved in the crash.

      Why he opened fire remains a mystery. What we do know is that one officer, 23-year-old Jake Wallin, was killed and two colleagues critically injured in the hail of bullets unleashed by Barakat, his rate of fire accelerated by the use of a ‘binary trigger’ attached to his rifle. The young woman driving one of the cars involved in the accident, Karlee Koswick, was shot in the legs. She now lies in a hospital bed, heavily sedated, and it will probably be months before she is able to walk again.

      Mercifully, she is still alive, as are Officers Andrew Dotas and Tyler Hawes, although both were seriously injured by Barakat’s bullets. Karlee is only 25 and Dotas and Hawes are also young and presumably very fit and will, please God, heal quickly and be restored to full health and mobility.

      But Officer Jake Wallin is now dead after serving his community and to his country, including in the National Guard in Afghanistan and Iraq. There would have been many other casualties and possibly fatalities had not a fourth police officer, Zachary Robinson, a very brave man indeed, not shot Barakat dead after repeatedly warning him to put down his weapon and surrender.

      The dreadful incident is, as they say in the news media, an evolving story. It has been revealed that Barakat had multiple weapons and explosive devices in his car, including 1,800 rounds of ammunition. When police searched his apartment they ‘found a stockpile of weapons, ammunition and parts to make explosives’. His computer showed that he had searched the internet for terms such as ‘explosive ammo’, ‘kill fast’ and ‘mass shooting events’, in addition to information about a downtown Fargo street fair. Everything indicates that Barakat was planning a mass shooting and was diverted from that goal by the minor car accident he stumbled across and the extraordinary courage and professionalism of Officer Robinson, who prevented the tragedy from getting any worse than it already had.

      North Dakota Attorney General Drew H Wrigley said Barakat ‘was driven by hate, driven by wanting to kill’. But whom did he hate, and whom did he want to kill?

      Wrigley added: ‘At this point in the investigation, I find his Muslim faith no more notable than my Lutheran faith’. As far as I have been able to tell, this is the first and thus far only reference to Barakat’s religion, a subject studiously avoided by the media since the story broke.

      Is it so unreasonable to ask if religion played a role in this atrocity? Is it so ridiculous to ask if this psychopathic individual was motivated by hatred of the infidel and was merely acting in accordance with calls by the Islamic State to Muslims living in the West to ‘strike their police, security, and intelligence members, as well as their treacherous agents. Destroy their beds. Embitter their lives for them and busy them with themselves’.

      No decent person would indict an entire religion based on the behaviour of a fanatical and homicidal few, but only a fool, or an attorney general of an American state, would fail to consider a possible and plausible connection between Islam (or, if you prefer, Islamism) and terrorism. It was followers of Muhammad, not of Martin Luther, who murdered thousands on September 11, 2001, and slaughtered 130 concertgoers at the Bataclan theatre in Paris in 2015, and have committed countless other atrocities in recent years, many going underreported, especially those in sub-Saharan Africa.

      While we must never jump to conclusions when it comes to assigning motives to the perpetrators of such crimes, at least we should be allowed to consider all the possible reasons that would cause someone to try to kill so many of his fellow men and women, all of them citizens of a country which offered him refuge and afforded him a higher standard of material existence than he would have ever experienced in the Middle East.

      I would rather focus my attention on Jake Wallin, a young man who represented what is best and most noble in the American spirit. May he now know the peace that passeth all understanding.

      There is a ten-ton elephant in the room that everyone knows is there but whose existence many are unwilling to acknowledge. It would be extremely unwise for us to continue to ignore it.

      1. While not all muslims are terrorists, in recent years all terrorists have been muslims.

        Their books tell them it is acceptable, no, righteous; to kill others.

          1. Which ever it is, it’s dreadful everywhere it is, or everywhere it goes it causes violence and much trouble.

    4. The trouble is, the Septics have so many mass shootings that are not by the BWMEWU (Begins With M, Ends With Uslim) crowd that they’ll, have to report the shooters’ religion every time. Devil’s Avocado – he may have been BWMEWU, but not necessarily a terrorist, just one of yer run of the mill mass murderers that the Septics are so good at producing.

      1. I think you may have a point, Stormie.

        Mass killings are – at present – very rare in Eurp. Every day event in the States.

        1. I thought it was always the second pronunciation.
          But then I know nowt about Welsh grammar.

        2. Yes. All nouns change depending on the sentence structure and prepositions e.g. Cardiff in Welsh is Caerdydd but if you say you’re going to Cardiff it’s yng Nghaerdydd, with Cardiff would be gyda Chaerdydd
          It’s a bit like Latin.

          1. I studied Latin at school in the 50s but don’t remember any similarities to Welsh being mentioned.

            Does it basically depend upon where in the sentence the word appears?

            It seems that Myfanoo happens at the end but My Myfanwy is at the beginning.

            Despite living in Wales for over seven years, I never learnt the language – apart from road signs.

    1. 374807+ up ticks,

      O2O,

      The parents side with the “government” the majority voted in, the voting pattern shows us that.

      Tribal voting, party first, guarantees more rotherhams plus.

    2. Schools exist to pander to the department for education – or whatever it’s called today. The department’s primary customer is the unions.

      The way to reverse this is school vouchers. Allow the money to be portable and have schools held to account by their customers – the parents and children.

      1. Imagine having that shrubbery across the table during meals.
        It’s a compost heap in waiting.

    4. Have just sent this to my MP.

      Dear Mr Lord

      This is happening in our schools as well what are you and this government doing to call a halt to this depraved action under the name of sex education? I’ll tell you what is happening. The government are giving taxpayers money to Stonewall to promote obscene corruption of young minds.

      What are you going to do to stop this heinous crime.

      It did have the link to the tw@t.

  22. Good morning all,

    Grey skies over McPhee Towers, rain ‘ere long until early afternoon, wind Nor’-West veering Nor’-Nor’-East, 14℃ getting no warmer than 17℃ today. I hate this sweltering heat emergency.

    From the letters:

    SIR – I take issue with the idea that voters who value a “focus on environmentalism” are “unlikely to be Tories” (Leading Article, July 22).

    I have always considered myself a Tory, but I am deeply concerned about the planet, the environment, the climate and my children’s (and other children’s) future. I would hope most people feel as I do, regardless of their political leanings.

    Geraldine Fenton
    Leeds, West Yorkshire

    One wonders if Geraldine would be deeply concerned about the planet, the environment and the climate if she hadn’t had her head filled with all the left-wing propaganda and instead conducted a little research so she could read and hear alternative viewpoints.

    and

    SIR – What is right is not always popular, and what is popular is not always right. Shame on those MPs who want to reverse responsible environmental policies simply because of some by-election results.

    Guy Henderson
    Shaftesbury, Dorset

    I don’t think they want to reverse the ‘responsible’ environmental policies (what about the irresponsible ones?) simply because of a by-election result, Guy. They wanted to anyway but they just couldn’t say so until something happened which gave them an opening.

    2. I’m very bothered about the environment. I don’t want countless thousand houses built on brown fields. I don’t want a massive population rise of over 30 million. I don’t want fields covered in solar panels. I don’t mind re-wilding, but I don’t want the state to pay farmers to do it. I certainly don’t want 500 tons of concrete poured into the ground for each windmill.

      I do want cheap energy so that water companies process waste rather than dumping it. I do want reservoirs built as not only do they store water, but they attract wildlife.

      If the Left hadn’t forced almost a two thirds increase in our population on us many of the problems we have now simply wouldn’t exist. The problem is the state is now forcing what is popular with the Left – who live in cities – and not right so their actions are neither right, nor popular.

    3. “Responsible environmental policies”

      Mr Henderson is all in favour of the destruction of much of the world’s economy and the mass starvation and death which will follow this cataclysmic climate religion.

  23. Par 🙁
    Wordle 765 4/6

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

  24. Good morning.
    Apparently Henry Kissinger went to China recently, and had a meeting with Xi.
    Yes, you read that correctly!
    But why did he go?
    Link below requires Twit membership, sorry. Keawe Wong, the tweeter, suggests that 100 year old Kissinger would only have gone in order to protect his own legacy.
    He suggests that it may have been to discuss how a potential war with the US would go. I also saw speculation that Kissinger had gone because Yellen conspicuously failed to persuade China to stop selling US Treasuries.
    https://twitter.com/KeaweWong/status/1682888616354406401

    Does anyone have any better ideas?

    edit: Kissinger’s legacy was the petro-dollar, so other Tweetlers suggest that they could have been discussing a transition to a petro-yuan.

      1. Not as daft as it sounds.
        I can remember school contemporaries who were definitely middle aged – in mind and body. (And that was long before teenage ‘refugees’ with 5 o’clock shadow.)

    2. Kissinger, the Rockefeller stooge whose fingers are all over the Club of Rome, the World Economic Forum and the Trilateral Commission. Therefore he is a man who, it could be argued, is the well-spring of all that ails us in our times.

          1. I have a tin of Baxter’s Beef Consomme, George, that I will heat half, and drop an egg into poach before I eat it.

            It does mean, same tomorrow but I can get by on that.

        2. His height has caved in, though. His width at the shoulders is the same, but he used to be in proportion, so has got a lot shorter.

    3. If they’re selling US Treasuries, what are they doing with the proceeds? The price of gold remains resolutely just under $2000/oz, the dollar hasn’t slumped.

        1. An interesting read. Longer on detail than is usual for this kind of thing. Most of it is, of course, speculative, but the writer has his history wrong: until relatively recently, silver played a more important role in the development of currencies than gold.

          Meanwhile, I have been predicting the collapse of the greenback for more than twenty years. (Don’t get me started on the euro.)

      2. Buying gold, I think.
        https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/central-banks-bought-most-gold-since-1967-last-year-wgc-says-2023-01-31/
        This trend has continued in 2023.
        China is one of the world’s biggest gold producers, and they still import gold. There is no reliable record of how much the central bank is buying.

        I think the price of gold is fixed artificially low at the moment by the Americans. This hides how much the fiat currencies are losing value, so the West is happy, and it enables central banks to stock up in advance of putting some kind of link between currency and gold, so the BRICS/SCO countries are happy.
        It can’t last forever though.

      3. I think from what I have read that these metrics, price of gold and value of dollar, are being maintained by smoke and mirrors that can’t last much longer.

  25. ‘Morning All

    Laff Time

    A heart warming tale from America:

    The teacher gave her fifth grade class an assignment: Get their parents to

    tell them a story with a moral at the end of it. The next day, the kids

    came back and, one by one, began to tell their stories.

    There were

    all the regular types of stuff: spilled milk and pennies saved. But then

    the teacher realized, much to her dismay, that only Janie was left.

    ‘Janie, do you have a story to share?’

    ”Yes

    ma’am. My daddy told me a story about my Mommy. She was a Marine pilot

    in Desert Storm, and her plane got hit. She had to bail out over enemy

    territory, and all she had was a flask of whiskey, a pistol, and a

    survival knife.

    She drank the whiskey on the way down so the bottle

    wouldn’t break, and then her parachute landed her right in the middle of

    20 Iraqi troops She shot 15 of them with the pistol, until she ran out

    of bullets, killed four more with the knife, till the blade broke, and

    then she killed the last Iraqi with her bare hands.

    ”Good Heavens,’ said the horrified teacher. ‘What did your Daddy tell you was the moral to this horrible story?

    “Don’t fuck with Mommy when she’s been drinking.”

    Next,whoever made this is a genius…………

    https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipPokXnkLzvJuXeLXFwLuqiOcrKWUBnLVlvx24RzA8EzQqkPPFS7VkQcu4Djw3bQ7g/photo/AF1QipNqNv49VunLS2E8NNQ9Ye8AfC68NiAGptsXE4ae?key=X21CbW1VNHRRMmFiV2NFT1BObHBDWjBRYlBjM0ZR

    2. The story has been nicked for The Bumper Joke Book.

      Thank you, Rik, look out for it in 12 or 18 months time.

  26. Hugh’s pup in 6 months

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/87bcc42b4c7bed0bda3eb57ff97b0dc922ebadec44591064318a7896ca8aedc1.jpg

    Rest of the medley

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2e212ba4cfce0b86866c0db3c289c554beee842c67093f176aed68d43b1a0034.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dea43246060cebd28f949d4fa16ee067008e372b924dbe46ddf31cedfed9b6f0.gif

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/009d2607edde1f7e248ccd2d81b933bb8a18a86155254a76a527539d5ad9d86e.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/af75bae937f41901b32e1af0642553f8ad8147bea4d04ea4340c489437c8f4e9.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d8ea8e55762cd577da105f77ff5ca112947c46399e9a4fe67ae37443b315e6d5.jpg

    1. Many folks have tried to point out that Snow White is anything but and the evil step mother has absolutely no reason to bother asking.

    2. Hahaha…let’s get her swimming first…retrieving shuttlecocks can only happen after that!

  27. BBC headline

    Spain’s conservatives miss out on all-out victory as left celebrates

    The truth

    Conservatives win but not an overall majority. What a piece of left wing rubbish the BBC are.

    1. Well, it was caused by a car, so the cops probably thought that damage caused by a car is a portmanteau of the two words – ‘carnage’.

      2. Car + nage? Nage is an old French word for buttocks. He/she must have backed into it!

          3. Yes, back for dental treatment, car MOT and visit family. Not been singing since Covid started. Tant pis!

    3. “I don’t know how it happened, officer. I was just driving — very carefully, mind — along the street when this lamp-post just suddenly jumped out in front of the car! I tried to swerve to avoid it but I was too late.”

  29. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a1b86c30b7259ba41c42477b2344ff2d1ead16e8e76322a80e05bc99beb1758b.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/family/life/why-men-lose-all-their-friends-in-midlife/

    Do people agree that we lose friends as we grow older?

    A wise friend of mine at UEA whom I saw a lot of in the first few years after we left university and whom I saw less of after moving to France (though he came to stay at Le Grand Osier once) said that your best friends will always be your best friends whether you see them or not.

    Last year we went to visit a very close friend whom I had not seen since our marriage in 1988. When I first started teaching in the 1970s he was my mentor and the house master when I was his house tutor. In those days over several glasses of scotch and after the boys in the house had gone to bed we ‘tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky’ (to borrow from William Cory). 35 years after our last seeing each other we are still as close as we ever were and we always shall be.

      1. I once bought a house from a chap called Bob Friend.

        Not many people know that.

          1. He had a passion for yellow paint. He promised that he would complete the redecoration of the house – in yellow – before we moved in. I said it was OK to leave it…he persevered. I had to buy gallons of paint to cover the vibrant yellow…!!

          2. My least favourite colour! I’d never wear anything yellow. I’m glad to see the daffodils when they emerge though.

    2. Three of my old Friends have died, all during the covid “pandemic”.
      Another seriously ill with leukaemia. That’s life eh, but not as we really want to know it.

    3. I’m still in touch with friends I’ve known most of my life but I’ve lost at least four to the Grim Reaper.

    4. Depends on how you define a friend. My version is “someone who actively seeks your company, and you theirs.”
      Aged 62 and introverted, friends have been slowly disappearing from my life since I was 26 or so, and now I’m down to approx. 2. Some have died, others just become strangers, and I finally discovered I was the only one making contact (it was a one-way relationship), so I terminated it since there was no mutual effort.
      It’s upsetting, because some of these friends were very close, but when Christmas cards return marked “Gone Away” with no forwarding address, one gets the hint.

    5. My husband has one old friend – they worked together in 1966 – no old schoolfriends. We’re still very good friends and will be spending a week with them in early September. He did the ‘best man’ honours twice!

      I’m still in touch with several old schoolfriends – have regular lunches with two. Lost one to cancer in 2014.

  30. Crikey! Open Google and type in “why censorship” and look at what it suggests….

    Qwant gets similar results, which suggests that perhaps it’s due to the amount of recent, available material on the internet?

      1. There, I must contradict you I’m afraid.
        I did the “European art” test with all the search engines I could find, and DDG came out almost as bad as Google.
        Plus, DDG got some bad publicity a couple of years ago when it leaked out that they are a little more careless with your data than they claim to be.

        Qwant got the best results.
        Just type “European art” in the search box, and see what pops up in the first two rows of images.

        1. So what is a reliable search engine?

          I had a major problem with Google, trying to find the ‘History and etymology’ of ‘Bugger’

          Try it – no reference to ancient Greece and ‘Bugga boys’

          1. No, I certainly will not! My computer would faint if I typed that in!
            Qwant is currently the best, I think.
            Would be interested in recommendations if anyone else has better ideas though.

          2. Hey, BB2, I’m only interested inasmuch that a supposed friend, objected to my use of the word ‘bugger’ probably in reference to Churchill and KBO.

            I didn’t want to lose that friendship but couldn’t take that sort of objection., so I walked out, I’m picky like that.

            Since I’m interested in both history and etymology, I googled it.

            Was I disappointed..

            Ridiculous is about the only word to describe it.

  31. “Knowing how vulnerable to temptation I was at that age, I’ve no doubt I would’ve gone into the Commons a fresh-faced socialist and come out an alcoholic called Tiffany.” Tim Stanley on his failed attempt to become an MP. As he has a sense of humour, he wouldn’t have lasted 5 minutes in the House of the Po Faced.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/24/the-commons-remains-no-place-for-young-men/

    “The Commons remains no place for young men

    I stood for Parliament at 23. Not being elected quite possibly saved the country from Stanleyite Corbynism

    24 July 2023 • 7:00am

    The new MP for Selby and Ainsty – who, in keeping with Starmer’s Labour rebrand, looks like Prince George – is just 25 years old. Too young, said Johnny Mercer, comparing him to one of the pimply idiots in The Inbetweeners. Not at all! said Keir Mather’s mother, pointing out that, as well as earning a BA from Oxford, he’s also had a job in a café. Mums are great. They’ve always got your back.

    The odd thing about being young is you’ve so many years ahead of you, yet you’re in such a terrible rush. I ran for Parliament in 2005, at the age of 23, as a Labour candidate. Even though it was a no-hope Tory seat, I was convinced this was my best shot at No 10. Lacking experience, I campaigned on ideology; I was a socialist, and my grasp of the theory went down well with the Quakers and the local branch of CND. But when I went canvassing in a working-class parish, what was I supposed to say to the unemployed plumber or the single mum?

    I came third, and I often think about what would’ve happened had I won. You know, I might be prime minister after all. Were I in the Commons in 2015, I’d have had a good shot at the Socialist Campaign Group’s nomination for party leader (I’m better looking than Jeremy Corbyn).

    Once elected, I would have backed Brexit (keeping the Red Wall happy) and supported Theresa May’s EU deal, splitting the Tories and triggering a vote of no-confidence – opening the way for a landslide Labour victory mid-2019. Today, you’d be governed by me and Diane Abbott and, together, we would’ve taxed this country into the ground.

    What a beautiful dream! But it wouldn’t happen in any timeline because the same year I stood, I also converted to Catholicism – so I’d never get anywhere on the Left with my views on abortion. I would’ve become more conservative over time and been hanged on Twitter for treason.

    Our culture makes a fetish out of consistency. This was said to be Corbyn’s strong point, that you knew where he stood because he never moved. But it’s actually very strange for someone to believe the same things at 74 as they believed at 25 – and putting a 25-year-old in Parliament and expecting them to operate with the certainty and polish of a finished product is absurd.

    Human beings have a right to change, as well as to make mistakes. Politics, with its brutal scrutiny, is not the place in which to mature. I don’t judge Mather for his ambition or idealism in running for office, but I do think it was an act of cruelty to vote for him.

    Young Keir Mather enters Parliament just as large numbers of MPs are getting out, which they blame on the press, the pay and even the public (all horrible, apparently). Mather might look like an Inbetweener now but after, six months of stress in Westminster, he’ll resemble a member of Dad’s Army.

    Captain Mercer certainly won’t help. Despite their complaints about unkindness in public life, no one is nastier about MPs than fellow MPs – or blind to the hypocrisy.

    Mercer and his wife are locked in a war of words with TV brainbox Carol Vorderman, who has matured into a critic of the Tories (funny because I remember David Cameron once put her on a task force). Mrs Mercer accuses “One from the top” Carol of encouraging people to attack them, yet here is old Johnny taking a pop at a new colleague on the grounds that he is inexperienced, parachuted into the constituency, yadda yadda yadda. Meanwhile, Charlotte Owen, a former adviser to Boris Johnson, glides into the House of Lords at the age of 30.

    Politicians can’t see a standard without doubling it. Any MP who insists we “be kind” is invariably guilty of calling the member opposite a communist, fascist, slimeball or idiot, and when Mather finds his new office, he’ll likely be greeted by a mug produced by the SNP that charmingly compares Labour’s new two-child welfare policy to population control. Who would let their 20-something son enter this bear pit of sleaze and ambition, a place synonymous with divorces and nervous breakdowns?

    Knowing how vulnerable to temptation I was at that age, I’ve no doubt I would’ve gone into the Commons a fresh-faced socialist and come out an alcoholic called Tiffany.

    Then there’s the handicap of being in a hurry. Younger MPs who quit typically complain that they weren’t getting anything done, but this is an occupational hazard of being in opposition, and even in government, one’s pleasures are mature in nature.

    Patient lobbying, scrutiny, teamwork, riding out bad polls, deferring to the whips. Ultimately, no ego – however “passionate” (a word too often mistaken for a virtue) – has the right to remake the country in its image, and our constitution is designed to make it difficult. If my approach to politics has changed since 23, it’s that I now believe there should be fewer MPs, less legislation and less politics altogether. Vote Stanley to do as little damage as possible.”

    1. He failed to mention that the youth is a homosexual – a bumboy. He has found his ideal home and workplace. Strange that the BBC never mentioned that. He has hit the jackpot.

      1. For how long? The previous even-younger youngster, that SNP woman Mhairi Black, has announced she is quitting.

        1. Until the BBC offer him a supersalaried position alongside the likes of Larry Ginaker(sic).

    2. as large numbers of MPs are getting out, which they blame on the press, the pay and even the public (all horrible, apparently).
      Not blaming themselves at all, just everything else but they ongoing epic irresponsible behaviour and failures that have destroyed our culture social structure in our once sane and safe country.
      From the film and to quote Colonel Nathan ( A Few Good Men) Jessop once more. (They) “You can’t handle the truth” !

    3. MP for Selby and Ainsty? When I was small I enjoyed seeing the horses and hounds of the Ainsty Hunt gather on Acomb Green. If they stil exist, I’m guessing they can’t hunt foxes now but I could suggest an alternative target.

      1. I used to live in a RAF Hiring at 12 Manor Drive, Acomb.

        Where you also near?

      2. “… but I could suggest an alternative target.”

        Unfortunately, Sue, it is not a good practice for hounds, horses or their riders, to go galloping around on the asphalt streets of inner cities. However, I concur with your thoughts.

        I once attended the sudden death of a young teenaged lass (an expert equestrian) who had been following the hunt. Her horse lost its footing as they galloped, in full pursuit, across a hard road surface. She was thrown, her helmet came off (it was ‘unfashionable’ to fasten it!), her head struck the tarmac and she died immediately. The worst part was having to pass the news to her father who had lost his wife just a week prior!

          1. Worst job I ever dealt with. The annoying thing was that I had to interview every member of the Hunt and they all had the same attitude: that to fasten one’s helmet chin strap was seen as being ‘infra dig’. This stupid ‘fashion’ cost a lovely young girl her life.

          2. That kind of experience is what I always use when it comes to safety at work. I ask myself: “What would I say to the Court of Enquiry into the death/serious injury of my team member(s)? Could I stand there and say truthfully “I did everything possible to prevent the accident”, or would I have sy say that I couldn’t be arsed to take proper care? Likewise, how could I go round to the house of the deceased, bang on the door, and ask “Are you the widow Hansen?”
            It helps one sharpen up because otherwise, the horror of the situation would be unbearable.
            In Norway, Politiet usually come with a Priest or Imam. To see that wee convoy draw up outside the gate would make one’s heart sink into one’s boots. You have my sympathy, Grizz. Part of the job nobody sees, but are glad someone else takes care of it.

      3. The West Norfolk is alive and well. The foxes are now shot by a different group to keep them in check.

    1. In Australia some 24 people have been arrested for setting fires. One wonders if they do this to reinforce the so-called climate emergency.

        1. They said that it wasn’t hot enough.
          I wonder if the same thing happened on the Greek Islands.
          And a few years ago two German women were arrested for setting a fire in Havja.

      3. 374801+ up ticks,

        Afternoon RE,
        Their reasons I would think cover a multitude of sins,some will be kids,
        adults mindset being someone must pay for their ( the arsonist) mental shortcomings
        while they also get, most likely, WEF/NWO funding.

      4. You are correct, fires are set by humans. Over the past 30 years in our North Essex locality we have witnessed massive straw bale mountains on Ridgewell Airfield go up in smoke.

        The straw is stacked on the hardstandings where aircraft and hangars stood during the War. The bales are later loaded onto trailers and taken for incineration at Bassingbourne or else transported to Wales for some farming purpose.

        The area for stacking is fenced and is equipped with CCTV or so it says on a prominent yellow sign.

        As regards the climate alarmists it is no coincidence that countries prominent in supporting the WEF Agenda feature greatly in the growth and preponderance of forest fires viz. Australia and Canada. With Greece it is an attack on their tourist economy.

  34. We have our two grandsons three and a half and eight in October, here for the afternoon. I wanted to help them make some bug houses out of bamboo and other suitable pieces of material. Weather inappropriate. We have bought a small goal net for the garden, it comes with a bouncy blow up ball. But it’s too wet outside.

    1. Amendment, nanny gets little ones lunch for him, Spaghetti with cheese sauce. He kicked the ball into the air and it landed In his bowl. What a mess. But the two of them couldn’t stop laughing.

    1. Very good Lewis.

      Could that be a contributory factor in Natwest closing down all its branches around here?

    1. —but what if the true way AGI does so is by forcibly sandpapering all our genitals off?

      I’ve been trying to get a handle on the very rapid advancement of AI backed applications in various areas and there’s no danger of genitals being sandpapered off. In fact it’s the very opposite in the PornX AI based artwork generator.

      It is a chacacteristic of AI based applications to invent things that don’t exist and here is an example where a porn AI generator did not reveal genitals but created an extra appendage.

      This image was created entirely by articificial intelligence that illustrates how future generations will have problems of differentiating between reality and photorealistic images.

      Warning: image was created by PornX.ai but with a ‘maximum clothes on’ setting – still not much left for the imagination.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b43e1fafa0611deefc9324e616ac615e076a135b674a99dfce84c8b5ce185c6f.jpg

      1. She could use a mobile phone and do the cooking and cleaning at the same time.

        1. And when she’s cleaning the windows that extra bit of elbow grease would be handy.

      2. That is beyond gruesome.

        It is one reason why I refuse to watch any 3-D cartoons; I cannot stand them. Those ‘Pixar’ abominations are simply unwatchable. I only watch and enjoy traditional hand-drawn 2-D cartoons: like Popeye the Sailorman, Mr Jinks with Pixie & Dixie, and Foghorn Leghorn.

        2. The old hand-drawn cartoons are really good quality, and the story lines excellent. The computer generated stuff seems to include movement just for the sake of it, and the stories are lousy. The pictures are flat, unlike the hand-drawn.
          Just compare the Fred Quimby Tom & Jerry cartoons in relation to the weird modern crap.

        3. My friends Simon Bor (I showed you his linocuts) and his wife Sarah had a successful animation company called Honeycomb Animations. Their early works for children’s TV included Tube Mice and Beastly Behaviour. They also made versions of Christmas stories. Music was composed by Warner Brothers resident composer and narrators included Spike Milligan.

          The cartoons were hand drawn and characters had jagged outlines which added to the charm.

          Simon hated Disney.

      3. I worry about the rate of change.

        You refer to AI producing bits that are not there; when the programmers instructed AI to play chess, using only the rules, AI then taught itself and created the most powerful chess player ever seen, in a very short timescale. Previous chess playing computers had been loaded with vast repertoires of opening and completed games. That AI chess player created its own tactical and strategic move sequences that had never been seen before and proceeded to annihilate all competition.

        1. I think chess playing presents a completely different scenario for an artificially intelligent player. Chess has a rigid set of rules for each piece and these rules cannot be violated in a valid chess game.
          In open ended scenarious like law there are only case studies that be referenced to establish the violation of any rules laid down in statutes.
          It has been known that an AI application that passed the bar exam actually created some fictitious cases to support a sample prosecution.

          1. We’re at cross purposes here.
            The chess one taught itself purely from the rules, the legal example utilises what is known about “the game”.
            If the game changed eg that AI decided humans were bad.

            The AI that “decided” that humans were unnecessary for the good of the planet and were in fact harmful, might decide to contact computer controlled elements in things such as medical care or power generation or sat nav or pharmaceutical production and they combined to harm people.
            I hope you maintain an off switch that works.

          2. Raising the issue of AI robotics as being sentient entities does make the discussion more complex by raising the problem of robots being capable of hate for humans.

            The only controls for AI in this context are to restrain the environments on which the AI software is trained. I can’t see how that be will achieved with rate at which AI is evolving.

          3. I agree re restraint, but when do the scientists, developers, entrepreneurs etc ever show that restraint?

            Time and time again “we” rush headlong into “improvements” that eventually turn out to be wrong and very often turn out to be disastrous.

          4. “We” have lived on this planet for a relatively short time. Nature has given us the means to evolve through procreation where survival of the fittesst is the key to survival of the human race.

            This is the way humans can make “improvements” to survive in a changing planet. Unfortunatelly we can’t change faster than the technological changes we are creating. Neither can the technology we are creating make the “improvements” necessary to keep the planet we think it ought to stay as.

    2. Much as I love my Children, Grandchildren and Great Grandchildren I cannot fight for them – I’m too old, they will have to fight and win their own battles.

      Hopefully I’ve imbued that into them.

  38. The Muslim revolt against Justin Trudeau. Spiked. 24 July 2023.

    Canada’s Muslim communities are rising up against gender ideology.

    Now, some parents in Canada have had enough and they are taking their anger to the streets. Last month, hundreds of parents rallied outside three schools in Ottawa. Last week, crowds gathered in Mississauga, a town neighbouring Toronto. And the resistance is growing.

    Notably, many of these protests are being led by visible minorities – by Muslim Canadians, in particular. Many of these Muslim protesters are not just attacking gender ideology, but are also directly criticising Trudeau for presiding over a woke agenda that they strongly reject. ‘Fuck Trudeau’ flags are ubiquitous at these parents’ protests.

    The irony is of course that the Wokeys in destroying the West will enable the Muslims who in turn will destroy them.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/07/24/the-muslim-revolt-against-justin-trudeau/

    1. “Fuck Trudeau”? Honestly, I’d rather not. Yes, the mythological power structures of intersectionality ignore the true nature of the supposedly powerless groups and the hard reasons that they’ve always been so low on the totem pole. There’s a long history of even the genuinely persecuted becoming persecutors once the opportunity presents itself.

      1. There’s a long history of even the genuinely persecuted becoming persecutors once the opportunity presents itself.

        Yes Sue. It seems to be an intrinsic part of Human Nature.

    2. How long before Canada, France and the UK become Caliphates?

      Not too long I think, I hope I’m dead before it happens, as I could NEVER accept it.

    3. The UK’s apologists for Islam will be very quiet when the protests start here. NTDWI!

      1. I hope that that abbreviation really stands for Nothing To Do With It.

        Clarity is the raison d’etre here.

        1. Nothing To Do With Islam – the cry that goes up after Islamic terrorist murders.

    5. Good evening, Minty.
      It’ll be interesting to see if Turdeau bends to the demands of the moslums. After all, they seem to get their own way with so much.

  40. Labour will lead on reform of transgender rights – and we won’t take lectures from the divisive Tories. 24 July 2023,

    But now, in 2023, we have a much better understanding of the barriers trans people face. That is why Labour has committed to modernising the Gender Recognition Act. Changing gender is not a decision anyone makes lightly. The process is intrusive, outdated and humiliating. So we will modernise, simplify and reform the gender recognition law to a new process. We will remove invasive bureaucracy and simplify the process.

    I wasn’t going to vote for them anyway!

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/24/labour-will-lead-on-reform-of-transgender-rights-and-we-wont-take-lectures-from-the-divisive-tories

    1. That will lose them the Working class vote, the Muslim vote and the vote of anyone who understands that the support of the alphabet people is an attack on British values.

      1. Afternoon Phizzee. They are catering here for a miniscule proportion of the population who can have no possible effect on the outcome of the election!

    2. I think I shall stick with the ‘gender’ I was ‘assigned’ at very the moment my father’s Y-chromosome tadpole decided to tango with my mother’s X-chromosome egg. It has served me well for 72 years.

      1. Don’t you think you would look nice in a Summer frock? I’m sure after being a beat copper you have the legs for it…

          3. Yes, but also an artiste who needs to attract attention. He has been quite successful in that.

          4. Yes, he is. But I don’t hold that particularly against him. Eccentric weirdos are all part of life’s rich tapestry.
            He’s not taking trophies, scholarships and prize money from women, and he’s not forcing people to repeat a lie in public, or getting people sacked because they won’t repeat a lie.

      2. I’ve spent most of life believing that gender was about remembering that it’s La Traviata and IL Trovatore. I could do with it staying that way.

        1. Agreed, Sue.

          And for me, der die das aus deutsch and le la les en français.

          That’ll do me, Sue.

          1. In yer Weegie, the article is appended to the noun. To tell which gender the noun is, try all three and see which one sounds/feel best. Works for me.

          2. Doesn’t happen in Swedish – only en and et words. No Sex attached – or even gender.

            You just have to know them.

          3. -et words: Neuter.
            -en words: Common gender (so, M&F)
            In Norwegian, -a words: Feminine gender. The language police like them to be Common gender, but yer actual Weegie prefers them to be feminine, because that’s how it is in his/her dialect.

          4. Huset: The house (neuter)
            Bilen: the car (Common, masculine really)
            Stua: the sitting room. (Feminine) Should be stuen – common, but it doesn’t roll off the tongue in the same way, doesn’t feel right.

          5. My Swedish is very Basic, Paul but thr non-genderisation of words appealed to me.

          8. Nearly the same, except for some words. Swedish spoken with a mouthful of hot potato… :-O)

    4. Why is the Labour party pushing forward legislation on an issue which most people regard as unimportant, or to which they are in opposition? Have they learnt nothing from the fiasco in Scotland?

    6. How do you ‘change’ a grammatical construct like gender.

      Do you mean ‘SEX’?

      1. When a trans-sexual went on a bender
        He or she forgot its own gender
        With both willy and womb
        It knew not to whom
        To put out its organs to tender.

    7. How stupid can these people actually get ?
      We already know how useless they are, why do they go put of their way and spend public money to prove it ?

    8. So we will modernise, simplify and reform the gender recognition law to a new process. We will remove invasive bureaucracy and simplify the process.

      Politicians, especially Labour types, simplifying laws and removing invasive bureaucracy is not only a pipe-dream but, if history is any guide, downright dangerous. Meddling is what they do best and not for the good of the people.
      A modern politician claiming to be an improver and reformer should be shot on sight. For goodness sake sit on your hands, keep quiet and just leave us alone.😎

    9. What barriers?

      Or is that a euphemism for lowering the age for k I dd y fi dd l ing?

    1. But they support JSO’s goals. So it’s just a question of who’s the most woke.

      Edited adding 2nd sentence.

      1. Yeah, I was a bit disappointed to discover that too. Still, they are leading the way. Trolling JSO is the only way to get them to stop.

        1. The eco-freaks apparently “took it all in good part”……

          Of course the “disruption” was just a few minutes long – unlike the poor sods who cannot get to hospitals, schools, work, airports etc etc

          4. I’d like to join their demonstration with my own hastily written sign saying STOP THE CROSS CHANNEL INVASION, or perhaps CLIMATE CHANGE IS A FRAUD.

          6. They did arrest demonstrators in Dover who marched down a road, for blocking the highway. This was just before JSO started their antics. Pure hypocrisy.

  42. Bill Gates and the total failure of his malaria eradication programme. 24 July 2023.

    The fun started when Twitter bloggers @TexasLindsay and @TheChiefNerd, among others, began to dig up not just the hype Gates has been promoting for more than ten years promising malaria eradication through genetic modification, but also the scientific concerns voiced at the time. Lo and behold, scientists suggested that the Gates programme would eventually lead to mutated mosquitoes which would promote the spread of malaria more effectively.

    Whoops!

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/bill-gates-and-the-total-failure-of-his-malaria-eradication-programme/

    1. Not sure if that was a whoops given gain of function.

      As with all things from the Left they are guilty of what they accuse others of.

  43. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8394c81e25604931d2979c50a078e1ed50f3df6eed58b8d718657d1bcb4686e0.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/24/andrew-mitchell-mp-petrol-vehicle-2030-ban-net-zero/

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a86d81cc0bbc6e74d37f1357fff5f17b81f5912ca3dda1297775dd150ca2d791.png

    BTL

    I keep forgetting what an odious man Andrew Mitchell, the chap who called policemen plebs, is.

    And then I see a picture of him looking smarmy and hear him still full of his rubbish about the environment and my memory revives of just what a oleaginous and nasty piece of work he is!

    2. I don’t like “impacting” used that way. I prefer “affecting”. As for “unnecessarily impacting people’s lives”, Sunak doesn’t rule out “necessarily impacting people’s lives” with this and future governments deciding which impacts are necessary.

      2. The more complicated and muddled the language, the harder it is to define an end result or expected outcome. Muddle is there to confuse, not define.

  44. Right, I’m off for more zeds. I hope not to take too long but maybe you’ll have to wait for morning’s story.

  46. Par Four today.

    Wordle 765 4/6
    ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜⬜⬜🟩🟨
    ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. Me too.

      Wordle 765 4/6

      ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩
      ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  47. A puzzled pensioner writes:

    I am bewildered by the amount of time and space Liebour and the Cons are giving to the trans “debate”.

    Assuming that there may be as many (or as few) as 100,000 people for whom this is a burning issue – they are a TINY fraction of the electorate. It is rather as though the parties have decided to adopt the policies of the Monster Raving Loonies – to look “cool”.

    I just don’t get it.

    1. Oh come on Bill – it’s the lizard elites’ newest way to destroy society. They hate strong families with lots of healthy children.
      There is a woman on Twit called Xi Van Fleet – she emigrated from China to the US in the 80s having lived through Mao in the 60s. She is now speaking out because of what she says are the parallels between communist takeover in China, and the West today. The CCP promoted all kinds of societal breakdown until they got the power, when such people were, needless to say, lined up against a wall and shot.

      The trans agenda has the same billionaire money behind it as the feminists and all the other destroyers of a stable West.
      https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-trans-cult-is-the-devils-work/

      1. I understand that – but the handful of votes that the “oppressed trans” have will make no odds to any election result.

        1. It isn’t about their votes.
          The PTB want to distract the rest of the electorate from the real issue, which is the deliberate breakdown of UK society into warring factions allowing them to enact even more controlling laws.

    3. The translobby is a sterilisation programme. Remove the natural genitalia and they can’t reproduce. It also, as BB2 notes, destroys the family unit upon which stable functioning societies are built.

      1. OK – but there are so few of them. Were there ten million I’d see there was a point.

        1. The number of people affected is huge though.

          All teachers.
          Everyone who deals with the public from wedding registrars to shop assistants.
          Children.
          Families of those who transition.
          Etc.

          Everyone who is affected is forced to repeat the lie under threat of being sacked or punished – don’t underestimate the psychological effect of that.

      2. The trans issue comes into people’s lives like a wrecking ball, to paraphrase the fragrant Miss Cyrus.

    4. It’ll become a big issue when millions of dozy parents finally realise their infant school children are being ‘entertained’ by fat men in fish-net flashing their falsies.

    5. It’s not really about them (the ‘trans’), it’s just another way by which to degrade and destroy our society. That’s the Left’s aim. They just want to destroy everything, by any means possible. Of course, they never tell us what exactly they plan to replace it with. I doubt very much that they’ve even thought about it. They have the mind of a toddler. A simpleton’s understanding of the world and human nature. They’re just smashing up toys, because that’s what they do.

      1. Spot on.
        Smash smash smash is what it is all about.
        Build back better.
        Ha bluddy ha.

    6. Nor do I, Bill, and probably 99% of the population.

      A bit of hanging and subjugation of the ‘ruling classes’ wouldn’t go amiss.

      You and I are bit too old to lead this revolution but I think that’s what it takes.

      Where is our new Cromwell, Churchill, Thatcher?

    7. It’s not just the trans population. They have a much bigger cohort of fellow travellers. The political parties have either assumed that the supporters outnumber the opponents, when it’s very likely that the bulk of the voting population don’t rank it as sufficiently important to influence how they vote, or they think it’s a matter of right and wrong – they being in the right – and that it’s too important to be left to the vagaries of a voting popularity contest.

      1. It’s worth noting that BBC bulletins have quoted the line in the report that referred to his ‘xenophobic, chauvinistic and racist views’.

        1. THE BBC would be next on my list for hanging,.

          Let’s start with:

          MPs
          The Judiciary
          The Police
          The BBC
          The Life peers.

          Basically, all that is corrupt in modern life.

          1. Marketing personnel
            Civil servants and Quangos
            Supra-national organisations (WHO, UNO etc)
            All regulators (as they have all been captured by the woke)
            Most personnel working for big Charidees

          2. You’re probably right – in fact the list could be endless.

            Let’s include
            Education departments
            Teachers – primary
            Teachers – Secondary
            University dons.
            Anyone with a ‘Common Purpose’ affiliation.

            My God, we could reduce the world’s population by half.

    4. I didn’t see the words “We failed to check the information because we hate you therefore we assumed it was true, Mr Farage.”

    5. Didn’t they check BBC Verify before running the story? “BBC Reality Check is dedicated to examining the facts and claims behind a story”.

      1. Of course they did. They examined ALL the facts that supported the prejudiced line they were going to take.

        1. Banking boss Dame Alison Rose has apologised to Nigel Farage for “deeply inappropriate” comments made about him in a document on his suitability as a Coutts customer.

          An apology is not enough; perhaps poetic justice demands that the de-banking Dame be de-damed?

          1. The article in the Sunday Grimes by Oliver Shah completely demolished her false “apology”.

  50. email from Nigel Farage.

    Dear Minty,

    As you may know, several weeks ago, Coutts Bank told me they were closing all my accounts. Our banking sector had joined the woke mob and it was my turn to be cancelled.

    I had been a customer with the group since 1980. Yet I was given no explanation. Lies were told about me and my client confidentiality was breached. I was shocked and embarrassed and left to work out how to function without a bank account.

    Since then the public reaction has been truly astonishing. I have been humbled by all the messages of support I have received. In fact many have told me the same thing had happened to them.

    I felt I had no choice but to stand and fight. After all, if they can do it to me, they can do it to you.

    After a Subject Access Request to the bank, the truth was even worse than I thought. Coutts had been monitoring my social media for some time. Their ‘reputational risk committee’ had produced a Stasi-style report that said vile and potentially libellous things about me.

    It was horrifying and read like a charge sheet in a political show trial. My friendship of Novak Djokovic is mentioned. So too my support for Brexit and Donald Trump. Even my retweet of a Ricky Gervais gag is listed. Coutts decided I didn’t ‘align with their values’ and that they should ‘exit’ me.

    It is outrageous and disgusting that banks have been allowed to make our lives a misery in this way. If we have social media checks on bank accounts, we will finish up with a Chinese style social credit system

    To add insult to injury, these are the very same banks we bailed out in 2008. Yet now they treat us with total contempt. Without a bank account you are a non-person in the digital age. Decent people are living in fear and it can’t be allowed to go on.

    I am going to fight this all the way. The Treasury are acting and the Financial Conduct Authority say they will act too.

    But I wonder if this is the start of something much bigger. A Facebook group with 10,000 members who had their accounts shut down by NatWest – the same group as Coutts – are fighting back.

    Hundreds of thousands more people live in fear of cancel culture. Whether in their jobs or on social media, they might also begin to fight back against woke bullying. In fact millions of people around the country have had enough of being told what they can and can’t say.

    But despite the support I have received from people of all political colours, the truth is stark. The old mainstream parties have betrayed us. It is because of them that our most basic freedoms are being destroyed.

    Labour and the Tories have simply misled us at every turn. They had no intention of controlling immigration or delivering on Brexit. Taxes are at their highest levels since 1945. Law and order in our big cities are gone. They have denuded our armed forces and our public services are fundamentally broken. I despise what they have done to our country.

    Reform UK are now the only party who are prepared to fight for our freedom and I am proud to be our party’s Honorary President. Under Richard’s leadership, Reform has made huge strides.

    The task ahead is even bigger than Brexit. It is only just beginning, and we have an enormous opportunity to take our country back. I’m standing with you as I have always done, against an establishment determined to tear our country down. Together, I know we can Make Britain Great.

    Thank you,

    Nigel.

    1. I thought it was typical of Cur Ikea Slammer not to offer Mr Farage any support.

  52. Hello Mather, Hello Owen,
    Are you both dating, or still growing?

    They’re all old here and decrepit,
    You will find it quite a bear pit.

    The Lords is minging, the commons blinging
    For Curly Wurlys, they need their teeth in

    Boris is happy, So is Starmer
    Their proteges, don’t wear any pyjamas

    Ones an MP, ones a Baroness,
    And the oldies, moan at all the unfairness.

  53. That’s me gone. Funny day – rain and sunshine.

    Have a jolly evening apologising to the BBC.

    A demain.

  54. BBC OTT GA .
    OK he was good, but really…
    Does he deserve the level of coverage he’s getting?

    1. BBC Breakfast spent ten minutes on his death this morning, with it being the lead news item. Hardly appropriate.

      1. I had no idea that George Allegaia had died. Thanks for enlightening me, Aeneas.

    3. They are trying to balance out the bad apples. I would imagine that they just need a national treasure like David Attenborough to expire, and they can cancel the weirdos.

    4. Who, Sos, initials ain’t enough.

      Name the unholy of unholies. We’ll go out and hang them..

      1. Is there any chance that you could be bothered to think?

        BBC: British Broadcasting Corporation.
        OTT: I suspect that 99.9% of people who ever read Nottle realise is “Over The Top.”

        Today George Alagiah has been headline news 24/24.

        There, now do you see it?

          1. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and that you’re being “sarcy”.

            But if not, are you another one who can’t be bothered to think?

            The paper trail was there:
            What was the BBC going on about OTT today to a disproportionate extent?
            George Alagiah.
            Every news post they’ve put up, he’s been the lead item.

          2. Why would I know that the BBC is writing about George Alaghiah? I don’t receive the BBC, I rarely look at their poxy website – FFS, I live in Norway, and wouldn’t take the BBC if you paid me.
            So, wind your neck in. How about you think and understand that not everyone is following exactly what Sosraboc is following?

          3. It’s not just the BBC, it’s been on EVERY UK newspaper and TV and radio, it’s even been on Nottle apart from my posts.

            I get sick and tired of people who query every FUCKING set of abbreviations, I suspect just for the sake of doing so.

            If you don’t like that, let’s agree to disagree.

          7. Why would I know that the BBC is writing about George Alaghiah? I don’t receive the BBC, I rarely look at their poxy website – FFS, I live in Norway, and wouldn’t take the BBC if you paid me.
            So, wind your neck in. How about you think and understand that not everyone is following exactly what Sosraboc is following?

          8. Yes, I read some headlines today, but to be honest, the name meant nothing to me and so I went on to other boring stuff like doing the laundry!!

          9. It may have meant nothing to you, but did you spot that GA might have just possibly have referred to George A?

        2. I don’t often give downvotes, but suggesting that Sir Jasper “couldn’t be bothered to think”, is not nice, Sos. I thought that GA stood for Georgia (USA).

          1. Fine.

            I’m afraid that I think that NtN or SJ, as you prefer, is too damned quick to query every abbreviation he doesn’t see instantly.

            I try to see what they might mean and whether the answer fits the context, but hey ho, each to their own.

          2. Just try explaining your abbreviations and don’t try taking the moral high ground – fool.

          3. GA for Georgia was my first thought, but I hadn’t given it a second one before seeing reference to George Alagiah. I watch very little BBC News so Mr Alagiah didn’t spring immediately to mind. The penny would have dropped eventually. I haven’t seen any other news broadcasts today but I imagine that their eulogies to GA would have been somewhat more muted.

          4. Thank you, Elsie.your

            Like you, i just ask for common courtesies. on here, i.e. make sure your meaning is crystal clear and unambiguous (oooh , big hurty word).

        3. Yep, all except George Alagiah who died recently.

          My only complaint is that too many people use abbreviations and acronyms without explaining them to the great unwashed who are NOT in the know,

    5. I remember seeing George Alagaiah on the TV; while I’m sorry he’s died and I’m sure he was a nice man who will be mourned by his family and friends, I didn’t know him and I also find the coverage a bit inappropriate. You’d almost think they’re trying to whip up a frenzy of grief, but the media would never do that….

    6. I remember seeing George Alagaiah on the TV; while I’m sorry he’s died and I’m sure he was a nice man who will be mourned by his family and friends, I didn’t know him and I also find the coverage a bit inappropriate. You’d almost think they’re trying to whip up a frenzy of grief, but the media would never do that….

        1. And any country with “People’s Republic” in its name is not run for the benefit of the people.

    2. Time to rise up and take against these people.

      It just takes one MP to be taken out and hanged, and then watch the rest fall in line before it happens to them.

      Same with the Police, the judiciary etc. I believe the Armed services will be on our side.

      Time for a popular uprising – we’ve had enough.

    3. There’s no mains gas north of Inverness as far as I know – most use LPG, I use propane for the hob and oli for CH but I have a multi-fuel log burner and an endless supply of wood so do I care ? – No!

        1. I do – I have a peat field although I rarely dig the stuff because of physical restraints, I can buy bags of peat if necessary but mostly burn logs these days as I have a big supply of trees

  59. Greenery is today’s established church

    Michael Gove is right, environmentalism has become a religion. It is the only one the young don’t rebel against

    ELLA WHELAN • 23rd July 2023

    What do you call a belief system which brooks no dissent, preaches of a fiery future and glorifies an ascetic lifestyle? It’s not just Michael Gove who thinks that the green agenda is sounding more and more like a morning at Sunday mass. From the worship of Greta Thunberg and David Attenborough to the doomsaying of Just Stop Oil, environmentalism seems to be giving organised religion a run for its money.

    In an interview with the Telegraph, the Levelling Up Secretary described hurried plans to reach a net-zero target as like a “religious crusade”. Discussing new stipulations for landlords to update their properties with green paraphernalia (heat pumps, insulation) or be banned from renting, Gove argued that his Government was asking too much, too soon.

    Like many things that Westminster’s favourite Machiavelli says, this remark shows that Gove is a contradiction. His frequent refusal in his housing responsibilities to allow bricks to be put in the ground – often citing the environment as cover for Nimby voters – make him part of the green problem. But on the question of environmentalism’s holy powers, he has a point.

    No religion garners as much protection and celebration as discussion about the climate. Inspired by groups like Extinction Rebellion, The Guardian announced that it would no longer use the term “change” when discussing the climate. Like any good scripture, the newspaper admitted its choice of the word “crisis” contained a moral edge: “people need reminding that the climate crisis is no longer a future problem”.

    Not only does environmentalism dictate the way we talk about the climate, green activists have also managed to control the narrative on how critics are described. “Climate denier” now encompasses everyone from flat earthers to opponents of London’s Ulez expansion. All the best religions have survived by dismissing non-believers as heretics – except the hell that climate deniers will burn in today exists right here on earth, unless they stop buying single-use plastic.

    Even the iconography is the same. Much like the leaflets given out by Jehovah’s Witnesses on the Kingsland High Road where I live in Hackney, Just Stop Oil’s apocalyptic posters come adorned with skulls. Punters are required to give up their earthly possessions, refuse the sins of heating and driving, and live a repentant life of vegetarian misery.

    Perhaps the only difference between religious fervour of the past and the current climate craze is that young people seem utterly enamoured with this new conformism. While at Catholic school we used to snigger behind our prayer hands during the Angelus, dissent among young people when it comes to green issues is worryingly low. Caring about climate change is akin to being a nice person – such is the extent to which environmentalism has been embraced in schools, that teachers have allowed kids to miss classes in the name of “climate strikes”. How the truant in me wishes the climate emergency was around when I was at school.

    By treating discussion about climate change as a holy order, we have silenced the ability for reasoned and rational debate about a key challenge for humanity. Despite being told ad nauseam that, like the pandemic, policy on the climate is simply “following the science”, we fail to approach issues relating to the environment scientifically – with a healthy amount of scepticism.

    But we also have to recognise that environmentalism isn’t a moral issue – it’s deeply political. Discussion about climate change now boils down to an enforcement of eco austerity, with citizens told that they have to accept a lower quality of life in the name of the planet. Perhaps this is why so many of today’s greens are from middle-class backgrounds. Vicars from quaint shires who spend their retirement stopping traffic with slow marches don’t consider the pitfalls of banning cars or boilers or drilling for oil, because they’ve never had to watch their bank accounts, worry about getting the shopping in or struggle to heat their homes.

    This sanctification of the environment won’t solve our problems – Mother Earth is not a deity we can pray to for answers. The future of the planet and humanity can only be decided by reasoned, rational debate about how to innovate our way out of our current challenges. Perhaps it’s about time for another reformation – a Lutheran declaration of free thought. Here I drive, I can do no other.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/23/greenery-is-todays-established-church/

    1. Gove attends Bilderberg meetings, if I remember rightly and is usually to be heard parroting their cause.
      Never believe anything he says on the subject of their pet weapons and count your fingers after shaking hands with Gove!

      1. Gove is a political lightning conductor. Every government employs one at some time.

      2. I’m damned if i’d ever shake his miserable little paw.

        To do so is to recognise kinship and friendliness, neither of which I would extend to that little rat.

    2. I’d hardly call Gove a Machiavelli – he has neither the wit or ability. to fulfil any part of that role.

      Just a nasty little sniper from the sidelines and quickly written off as such.

  60. Slightly off topic.

    I’ve had a few run ins earlier this evening with various Nottlers over abbreviations and capitalisations.

    Who thinks that every single short form abbreviation should be explained in full, just on the off chance that one and only one Nottler, doesn’t recognise it?

    1. A loaded question, Sos. Everyone understands BBC and the like, not everyone knows what you mean by GA. Explain your terms – and stop insulting those who don’t quite follow what you are trying to tell us.

      1. If people bothered to look around at virtually any UK newspaper or even the BBC after all, the hint was there: “BBC”, instead of expecting everything to be handed to them on a plate it would have been instantly apparent.
        George Alagiah has been headline news almost everywhere in the UK.

        Forgive me, I thought that most Nottlers were capable of looking before complaining.

        1. Not me, Sos, just explain yourself and don’t take other’s understanding for granted.

    2. A loaded question, Sos. Everyone understands BBC and the like, not everyone knows what you mean by GA. Explain your terms – and stop insulting those who don’t quite follow what you are trying to tell us.

    3. Explain any that aren’t in common usage, at least the first time you post them.

      1. I agree, also for those of us living outside the UK, obscure abbreviations sometimes take a while to work out.

        2. If one had accessed the BBC website it would have been apparent immediately.
          In fact almost any UK news site it would have been headline news.

        3. …and there are many, including me, because it is so biased, do not read or listen to the (fake) news.

      2. I tend to agree, but look at the context on this particular issue.
        I wrote much earlier today:

        BBC OTT GA .OK he was good, but really…Does he deserve the level of coverage he’s getting?

    4. You write what you want here, if I cant understand, I can either ask or ignore. Its not an english test!

        1. At least USE the language you were, presumably, brought up with.

          Good, old-fashioned English.

    5. You should not assume that we will recognise two-letter name/ surnames. of YOUR heroes; they are not necessarily mine!

      1. To follow the theme of this thread:

        What does “YOUR” stand for?

        Now do you see why I complain?

        GA ain’t a hero for me!

        2. YOUR in capitals means I’m shouting to get YOUR attention.

          Anyone who uses a message board will know that that is part of the etiquette.

          If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen – I doubt you’ll be missed.

          2. Thank you for that.

            Unfortunately I do know what it means but i shan’t stoop to your nastiness in reply..

            Suffice to say I shall not engage in any further conversation with you.

            You no longer exist.

            I would urge others to do likewise but that is their prerogative.

    7. I do Sos,

      If you abbreviate, then explain.

      We’re not all in your head, despite what you may think.

  61. Raised a smile
    University challenge:
    Captain, Nominate X
    X: I’m sorry I don’t know…

  62. Wishing you all a pleasant evening. I am signing off due to being stuffed to the gunwales with possibly the best risotto I’ve ever had – and I shouldn’t say that, because I cooked it! 🤣

    Arborio rice wirh a touch of truffle, more garlic than should be legal, reconstituted porcini with their juice, finished off with cold butter and grated parmesan. Had a bit of a problem with tiny black flies attracted to the red wine I chucked in, but decided to solve that by stirring the buggers in for extra protein…

    Cheers, all!

    1. Come and cook for me, anytime, Katy.

      That’s if you can bear a hike up to the Scottish Borders.

      You will always be welcome.

      1. Should my travels take me anywhere in your direction, I shall gladly do so.

  63. Politicians have lost faith in politics. This explains the state we are in

    Our MPs have voluntarily handed their powers and responsibilities to quangos, bureaucrats and judges

    NICK TIMOTHY • 23rd July 2023

    The House of Commons is not what it once was

    Why is it, so many people ask, that things do not seem to get done anymore? From new housing to high-speed rail, from policing the streets to deporting illegal immigrants, we are promised action, but so often little changes.

    In a complex and interconnected world, politicians cannot always guarantee the outcomes they want: inflation, for example, started as the world economy reopened after the pandemic and Russia attacked Ukraine.

    Sometimes policies designed with the best of intentions simply do not work in practice: consider the Coalition-era NHS reforms or the pension rules that divert our savings from UK equities.

    Sometimes the problem is a lack of strategic clarity, causing policies to run counter to one another. Here the best example is the stated desire of successive home secretaries to cut immigration, prevented by the reality of our further and higher education systems and poor workforce planning in the NHS. Sometimes the problem is that politicians will the ends – more house building, for example – but not the means: in this case planning reform.

    But there is a deeper problem with the way our politics are done and our state is run. Our constitution says the Crown in Parliament is sovereign. A government is formed when a party or coalition can command a majority in the House of Commons, and its ministers act in the name of the King. The Commons, elected by the public, is the ultimate source of political power and democratic legitimacy, and as such it enjoys primacy over the Lords. No parliament can bind its successors, and any parliament may change the law as it deems necessary.

    This model has served us well for generations. It brings clarity, accountability, and – excluding the grotesque failure of the Fixed Term Parliaments Act during the Brexit wars – a clear mechanism when a government loses its majority in the Commons. Then an election must be called, and the public must decide.

    And yet things are not really working as they should. Parliament has, for example, voted to make the scheme to remove illegal immigrants to Rwanda operational. Yet, 15 months after the deal was struck, the policy is stuck – the Court of Appeal having ruled it incompatible, on novel and narrow grounds, with Article Three of the European Convention on Human Rights.

    Parliament has tightened the law to make it clearer to the police that they must prevent the disruptive protests that bring road traffic to a standstill, hold up public transport and interrupt high-profile events. The changes were unnecessary really – obstructing roads has long been an offence – but College of Policing guidance instructed the police to reason with protestors, not arrest them. Even now, officers stand by as criminal protestors film propaganda messages.

    So often what Parliament decides is overturned by courts and watered down by public bodies through their own internal policies and published guidance. The Crown Prosecution Service, for example, elects not to prosecute any number of criminal offences, from drug crimes to illegal immigration. The drive to extend London’s Ulez and create equivalent schemes elsewhere derives in part from court rulings in which judges ordered ministers to go further in reducing nitrogen dioxide emissions.

    Elsewhere, one part of the state is stopping another from doing what it is supposed to do. Natural England has blocked the construction of 160,000 new homes, citing nutrient neutrality rules and the protection of sites and species that could, with just a little imagination, be protected even if building went ahead. One part of government wants to get tough with the water companies, improve performance and increase infrastructure investment, while others are sanguine about the systemic over-reward of investors and the failures of the regulator.

    Lawfare – made worse by Blair/Brown-era legislation like the Human Rights and Equality Acts – looms large. The Home Office funds many of the asylum charities that launch legal proceedings against it in their war against immigration controls. The UK signed the Aarhus Convention, which means the barriers to entry for litigants seeking to stop important infrastructure projects are absurdly low: in environmental cases complainants’ costs are capped at £10,000. Ministers are afraid to issue guidance to schools grappling with pupils “socially transitioning” between genders because they are advised they will be in breach of equality laws.

    The state itself is badly misaligned. The devolution of power has occurred in a haphazard fashion over the last quarter of a century, and we need a clearer common understanding of who, ultimately, is accountable for what.

    More prosaically, the geography of the state is a mess. If we want more place-based work across different agencies and organisations, it makes little sense for there to be no consistency in the boundaries between, for example, integrated care systems, police forces, fire brigades, probation services, prosecutors and the courts. The list goes on.

    None of this has come about in a fit of spontaneous disorder and chaos. The root causes are political decision-making with little regard for operational reality; legislation that sets lofty goals without realistic plans to achieve them, making ministers vulnerable to judicial second-guessing; macro legal frameworks that politicians understand cause real problems yet lack the intellectual courage to change; international treaties that are treated as de facto constitutional laws; and the surrender of executive power to an administrative class that takes political decisions – police chiefs, quangos, regulators, and supposedly expert committees among others.

    Politicians should not believe that they – or the civil service – can micromanage the state, let alone wider society. But they should understand that it is their job, in the end, to make sure things work. If the law needs to change, they should change it. If the state is not working, they should reform it. The root cause of all these problems is a passive tolerance of decline and failure, and a political class that has lost confidence in the power of politics. That, in the end, is why these days nothing seems to get done.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/23/politicians-have-lost-faith-in-politics/

    And yet, Mr Timothy, when they turn their minds to it, there is no barrier to them dictating terms to everyone…

    1. We have far too many laws, laws passed for the sake of “looking as if they’re doing something”. And those laws, such as the obstruction of highways, are not enforced.

      Over the years our MPs have given away authority over the populace in many ways, they do not want the responsibility. So why not reduce their salaries, expenses, etc. They do very little for the money they are paid. Ditto the Lords – they should be reduced to 200.

      1. If you’re going to reduce the Lords, just reduce it to the hereditaries and NO-ONE else.

        Send the current crop of ‘life’ peers to York, Stornaway or whatever – we don’t need them.

    2. Part of it stems from our previous membership of the European Union and its forerunners. Responsibility for many political decisions was passed upward, turning our politicians into administrators. Furthermore, as parliamentary powers were given away, politics as a profession became less attractive leaving the less talented to seek office. That will take many years to overcome and – only then – if powers are returned to parliament and not left with quangos, bureaucrats and petty officialdom.

      1. Agreed Stig. Time we started addressing the problems by hanging a few MPs.

        The rest will soon wake up

      2. The only way that power will return to parliament is if we (the electorate) hang a few of the troughers and they (the MPs) recognise that we (the electorate) hold the ultimate power.

        They (the MPs) need to swot up on COMMON LAW. thick shits they are.

    3. Don’t they realise that we (the electorate) have long since lost faith in them,

      A bunch of troughers on the public expense train.

      Stop the train, we (the electorate) wanna get off..

      Listen – we don’t believe you – fuckwits.

  65. 374807+ up ticks,

    Pillow ponder,

    The lab party should have won the Uxbridge by-election but the ulez campaign put paid to that, the political top ranker kahns input.

    In my book it shows quite clearly that the voters, in kicking the arse of the lab party more so than they ever did for rotherham, value their cars welfare more than their kids.

    https://twitter.com/spikedonline/status/1683567884444880904?s=20

    1. Let’s not forget that the majority of vehicles on London’s roads already meet the ULEZ requirements. While it might look like a rebellion against Sadiq Khan’s policy, many drivers with more modern vehicles might welcome an opportunity to reduce overall traffic levels on London’s streets such that their journeys are made that bit easier while dressing it up as concern about nitrogen oxide and particulate levels in London’s air. If, however, Labour’s failure to win the Uxbridge seat was due to sufficient dissenters, perhaps some voted altruistically with consideration for fellow Londoners faced with an unequal struggle to meet the cost of ULEZ charges or the purchase price of a compliant vehicle while having to sell a much less valuable non-compliant one.

      I wouldn’t label Labour’s failure to win Uxbridge a disaster. Disappointment seems more suitable, given that the Conservative majority was slashed to less than 500 and the seat turned into a marginal at the next General Election.

      1. DW, perhaps many of the voters in Uxbridge and other London constituencies see Khan for what he is and what the ULEZ will become: initially a cash cow for Khan and like-minded successors to exploit. Anyone who believes that the majority of cars will remain free from Khan’s persecution is naïve: mission creep is inevitable as at first, the requirement for money grows and second, the control function of this scheme is forced home.

      2. 374807+ up ticks,

        Morning DW,
        Could it be that the voters of U/R are realising just what their kiss X of consent means ?

        They are in agreement with a political cartel that to my mind should have been liquidated when the PM, “he who’s evil spirit haunts public park toilets” lifted the latch on hell, out of pure malicious spite.

        That action spawn the likes of khan & the concealers of the rotherham rape & abuse of children.

        Then the tory (ino) party received the continuation baton as we are witnessing.

  66. Earlier, having used AI to create the image of a clothed tribal woman in a forest, I thought I’d create a man using the same ‘filters’ as the woman with three arms to even things up and be adamant so to speak.

    Unfortunately the image, whilst appearing with two arms this time, presented unclothed with a disproportionately sized organ unfit for posting in this forum.

    Goodnight all.

      1. Well you could call it that because it rose out the ground with an impressive flourish but in this case there wasn’t a woman sitting on it!

        Edit: Quick sex change!

  67. Well, chums, I’m off to bed now and wish you all (Sos included) a peaceful and restful night’s sleep. See you all tomorrow.

  68. That is also me for the night. Goodnight and God bless, Gentlefolk, until the moring’s light

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