Monday 21 August: A statutory inquiry is needed to address the failures of NHS management in the Lucy Letby case

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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506 thoughts on “Monday 21 August: A statutory inquiry is needed to address the failures of NHS management in the Lucy Letby case”

  2. Good morrow, Gentlefolks, today’s gory story

    The Kindest Touch
    Bob goes to a public restroom and sees this guy with no arms just standing there. “Hey, buddy. Can you help me out?” the guy asks.

    Bob, being a kind soul, agrees. He pulls out the guy’s pecker, and is horrified to see that it’s covered in red bumps, purple rashes, leathery moles, oozing scabs, and assorted scars.

    To top it all off, it smells worse than a dead cat’s vagina.

    Gagging, Bob points this rotten pecker towards the urinal, and the man pisses out a chunky stream of steaming reddish piss.

    “Hey buddy,” the man with no arms says when he’s done, “wouldja mind shaking it for me?”

    Bob gives the putrid cock a shake, noticing with disgust the bits of skin, puss and blood that fall off while he does so. The guy with no arms lets out a huge sigh of relief and thanks Bob for his efforts.

    Bob replies: “No problem, man, but what the hell is wrong with your penis?”

    So the guy pulls his arms out of his shirt and says: “I’m not sure, exactly, but I sure as hell ain’t touchin’ it!” :

    2. Red pee is a sign of kidney failure and he’d be in great pain (I can attest to this!).

  3. A statutory inquiry is needed to address the failures of NHS management in the Lucy Letby case

    The mainstream media appears to be guiding us to all to a place whereby it’s all about Letby, today it’s about whether she should appear in court.
    The NHS is not getting much of a mention, with my tin foil hat on I suspect there is much more to this than will ever be allowed out.

    1. It’s a systemic failure to confront and address institutional issues.

      A massive management chain, deliberate avoidance of accountability, buck passing and pen pushing, with everyone saying ‘we’ve done as much as we can’, over to you to take action using form 802.55b, in triplicate’, when that’s returned, it’s another form, and another, and another, or a convention, or a meeting where nothing is decided. The intent never to achieve anything, just delay and pretend something is being done.

    2. And still no news about how the 10 year old girl near Woking died.
      Why ? How long can it take ?
      What are they hiding ?

  7. On Saturday whilst attending a birthday party, sitting in the garden, I saw two Wood pigeons sitting on the garden fence indulging in what I can only describe as amorous behaviour. For about four minutes the two birds exchanged beak to beak ‘kisses’ (fourplay?) before the female presented itself to the male and four seconds later the whole messy business was complete……only to begin all over again when the female bird began ‘kissing’ the male….. it gave a whole new meaning to the term ‘Wood’ Pigeon……

  8. Putin is breeding a generation of Russian militants. 20 August 2023.

    The Kremlin wants compliance not only from its adult citizens. In two weeks, Russian children will start the new school year with a revamped curriculum designed to give them a “patriotic” education. They will be issued with new textbooks teaching them about the “special military operation” and be taught how to handle Kalashnikovs, grenades and drones.

    Anecdotal reports suggest there are plenty of teachers more than happy to facilitate this dissemination of the Kremlin’s world view, indoctrinating a new generation of cannon fodder in an isolationist, jingoistic mindset. Undoubtedly, this brainwashing will make it all the more difficult to “de-Putinise” Russians once the president and his regime are gone from power – whenever that may be.

    Many have been concerned about more radical military officials taking over, but less has been said about the potential of a more radical generation beneath. For the West, it could take decades to win over the hearts and minds of this generation and avoid more devastating conflict.

    What are we breeding? A generation of sexual doxies and perverts?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/20/vladimir-putin-breeding-a-generation-of-russian-militants/

    1. Ah, you see Minty, that’s the cunning plan. No matter how fearless yer Ruskie soldier might be he’ll be very unwilling to even step foot on our new Jerusalem, our deeply “Green, Unpleasant land”…..

      Morning Minty and all & with apols to Billy Blake.

    2. Morning, Araminta.

      Does the second sentence in your response need to be a question? Just asking!

    3. It’s odd how Russia teaching it’s version of history is bad, yet when the Left demand we teach their version of history it’s good. Utter hypocrisy – the hallmark of the Left.

      1. Slightly OT, but someone sent me this on TCW, yesterday:

        Hungary, under constant attack from ms Von der Leyen, has paid leave for mothers
        of 160 weeks. The social-security system replaces 100% of the mother’s
        income for the 24 weeks that count as maternity leave.
        Since 2020,
        every mother, who raises at least 4 children or who has given birth to 4
        or more children, does not have to pay personal income taxes. Budapest
        launched other various financial support for families, such as support
        for buying cars.

        Hungary’s government doesn’t hate the concept of
        the Holy Family the way most of the post-Christian West does, so its
        birthrate is on the rise.
        The UK and USA elites would never allow such programs.

        I haven’t checked but it does ring true.
        What do Catholic Hungary and Orthodox Russia have in common?

        1. Pondering moving to Hungary….

          I would make a killing, because I earn well and have four children. But I don’t think the model of a mother of four maximising her income is a very good one for families. Not sure they’ve thought that policy through. It’ll just mean that when a family has four children, it won’t be worth the father going out to work any more, unless his earning power is hugely more than that of his wife.

          1. I don’t think its either/or. It would be a net benefit, so the more he earns in addition to their ‘child-benefit’ the wealthier they become.
            So she won’t pay tax on that or on whatever else she might have time to earn.
            I’d need to find the actual texts.

          2. Depends whether the tax allowance is transferable to husband’s earnings, I suppose.

        2. Here’s a gobbet from an article in TCW last year on taxation and the family;

          In Victor Orban’s Hungary there is a flat income tax rate of 15% paid by everyone on aggregated income from all sources. From this can be deducted the Family Allowance for dependent children of HUF 66,670 for one child, HUF 133,330 for two and HUF 220,000 if there are three or more children per month per child. That is a progressive allowance which at the current exchange rate of HUF1,000 = £2.08 means the equivalent of nearly £1,400 is allowed against the income of a married couple with three children before it is taxed. In Hungary the average salary is the equivalent of £2,370 per month so that is serious support for marriage and the family through the tax system. In addition, since 1st January 2020 women who are currently raising or who have raised 4 or more children will pay no personal income tax on certain types of income as specified by law.

      2. Slightly OT, but someone sent me this on TCW, yesterday:

        Hungary, under constant attack from ms Von der Leyen, has paid leave for mothers
        of 160 weeks. The social-security system replaces 100% of the mother’s
        income for the 24 weeks that count as maternity leave.
        Since 2020,
        every mother, who raises at least 4 children or who has given birth to 4
        or more children, does not have to pay personal income taxes. Budapest
        launched other various financial support for families, such as support
        for buying cars.

        Hungary’s government doesn’t hate the concept of
        the Holy Family the way most of the post-Christian West does, so its
        birthrate is on the rise.
        The UK and USA elites would never allow such programs.

        I haven’t checked but it does ring true.
        What do Catholic Hungary and Orthodox Russia have in common?

    4. … who believe the nation that spawned them is historically evil. Anti-patriotism.
      Mind you, on that point there is a case to answer in recent history.

      A government that corrupts its own children ought to refrain from condemning one which teaches theirs to love their country.

    5. Ludicrously un-self-aware articles like this do not tempt me back to the Telegraph. I’m far more concerned with the CRT and LBGTQ propaganda being pumped non-stop at children in British schools.

  9. In a nutshell, how apposite?

    “Markets still underestimate the aftermath of the significant collapse in China’s property sector,” Lu Ting, chief China economist at Nomura Holdings Inc., wrote in a report.

    1. If they have a lot of empty properties we have a lot of new arrivals that could live in them.

        1. I don’t remember having seen this on our main stream know everything media news.
          What have our useless ignorant politicians done to our country ?

    2. The difference is if markets underestimate it, then the property developers take the cost – not the tax payer.

      Unlike in the UK when the public sector underestimate a cost the tax payer is forced to pay the remainder – regardless of worth, value, want or need.

  11. Shed men visiting today. Hoping for a 6’8, but may have to settle for 6’x6… The horror!

    Also have an exciting call with someone about solar and battery arrays. I don’t want the sales pitch, I just want the cost. Some neighbours ave them but they’ve not been happy with theirs. However, their array is in shadow until midday.

    1. The batteries should be stored at a certain distance from your house; is your garden long enough?

  12. 375600+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Lets not kid ourselves we are in dire need of multiple in depth
    inquiries into ALL aspects regarding the safe guarding and daily running of this nation.

    Take our guardians of the law from the top, to the lowly Doxen of Dick green copper, riddled with wokerot.

    48% of the electorate dabbling in treachery, their aim being to return to captivity within the clutches of the corkscrew eu.

    The education system, risque semi naked wooly woofters prancing before small school kids being seen as educational
    via the mindsets of criminal imbeciles running the system.

    Sure Letby has been revealed as an acting, walking,talking agent of evilness in what she has done, by the same token
    we must beware of what we are about to receive in the future via the current political / pharmaceutical hierarchy, there breeds cultures of evilness in abundance.

    Monday 21 August: A statutory inquiry is needed to address the failures of NHS management in the Lucy Letby case

  13. Good day all,

    Cloud cover breaking up above McPhee Towers. It’s going to be a nice day. Wind in the Sou’-West, 15℃ and heading for 22℃ this aftenoon.

    I watched the free documentary Ex Nihilo referrred to by Daniel Hannan in his article in the Sunday Gatesograph. As I suspected it didn’t add anything much to what I already understood about the money system. However, if you’d like to be shocked by the sheer fraud involved in the creation of fiat currency, the utter stupidity of QE and the insouciance, nay sheer evil, of central bankers, here it is (1 hour):

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cSyctENy3A

          1. Stewed steak, chicken in white sauce, Spam corned beef. All can be eaten cold if necessary as they are already cooked. You can also tell if it has gone off by the tin being blown.

        4. And firewood on which to cook them – don’t think we’ll have electricity or gas either, when it comes to it.

      3. Consider now our ability to provide ourselves with food, water, shelter, barterability, community, security and wealth preservation, both for short term crises (internet down for three weeks) as well as longer term situations that might last several years (CBDC restricting what you can buy, livestock injected with mRNA vaccines, mRNA “vaccines” introduced into plants like salads – this last is being tested in the laboratory at the moment).
        In Serco Begovic’s “SHTF Handbook” he asks basic questions like “what would you do for a lavatory if the water system went down?”

        If everyone has no defences and meekly falls into line, any tyranny can be inflicted. It only needs a small amount of resistance to stop CBDC nonsense in its tracks.

        Alasdair Macleod thinks that after the central banks have tried everything else including a fiat CBDC, aka food stamps, they will have to revert to some sort of gold standard.

    2. QE is nothing but an egregious tax to allow big government to continue to kick the can of waste further down the generational road. This is why government must be forbidden from using it. It is what is causing inflation at this point. All the other lies and waffle churned out by Sunak and co is distraction from the fundamentals – this is their fault and they are continuing it.

  14. Morning folks, grey and breezy with a smirr. Walking footie should be a riot; preferable to bashing my way around a damp golf course, I suppose.

  15. Death penalty for Lucy Letby? Let’s debate it properly. 21 August 2023.

    For the record, I used to be for the death penalty but now I’m against. I’ve grown opposed to violence in all forms and cynical about the justice system. Only last month, Andrew Malkinson had a false accusation for rape overturned after 17 years in prison. He discovered that the state, in its benevolence, offered compensation but might request some of the money back to cover food and lodging in jail. (Malkinson challenged this asinine rule and won.)

    I’m in favour of the death penalty and other forms of severe punishment. I believe that evil doers should spend their lives in terror of discovery. Only this can protect the innocent and law abiding from the predators in our midst. This is not to say that there will not be mistakes and miscarriages of justice; of course there will. It is a human system and error is built into it. Better this than that the guilty should reign unpunished.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/21/death-penalty-for-lucy-letby-lets-debate-it-properly/

    1. “Better that a hundred guilty men go free than one innocent man be punished.”

      “Better for whom?”

      2. With modern DNA techniques, CCTV it is far more likely that criminals get away on a technicality than anything else. Take Beckham who got away with a speeding fine – why? Because the police have a certain amount of time to send him the bill and they sent it 2nd class.

        Now, no doubt the cost of litigation was much higher than the bill but he still got away with it. Worse, that consumed vast amounts of court time.

        Then we have the comical situation where previous offenses cannot be considered, or if they are then it’s part of a plea to a reduced minimised sentence. A crookk who has burgled 50 homes before shouldn’t be out. After the third they should be chained to a wall and forgotten about.

          1. It’s the judges who are most left-wing and woke (since Blair’s dreadful “reforms”).

        2. But, but…we haven’t got room to build all the prisons which would be needed – we need to build houses for immigrants.

    2. Good morning Minty

      The Letby witch didn’t glory in the delight that nuture and healing brings , her character flaw was to euthanise the weak and sick, and if she wasn’t on the baby unit , she probably would have euthanised adults on medical and surgery wards .

      The passage from the original version of the Hippocratic Oath, “I will use my power to help the sick to the best of my ability and judgement; I will abstain from harming or wronging any man by it,” orders doctors to do their best in their job and not use their skill or knowledge to harm or kill their patients.

      I hope her she suffers in hell and damnation .

  16. Morning all 🙂😊
    What a grey day.
    Although it is a must. It’s not just the Lucy Letby case that needs investigating in the NHS.
    There’s a lot more going on than our useless government would care to admit.

    2. Ahmed Malik’s podcast is providing a vent for NHS doctors to voice their frustrations.

    1. I was at the match in Dublin on Saturday. It was painful watching the England performance (or rather non-performance). Still, at least the Guinness was ok.

    2. The ball is usually kicked back, not very often possession is lost.
      England appear to lack attacking players that can run past defenders and turn a game around with individual skill.

    4. I love watching a good game of rugby, which is why I stopped watching England play some time ago.

      1. We had a treat earlier this year. Free tickets and parking at Whitehart Lane the New Tottenham stadium. Watching Saracens take on Harlequins.
        Saracens won, but if was quite a close game. I just wished more play had been on our seating side of the field.

      2. I know what you mean. For as long as the prawn sandwich and pink gin brigade reign at Twickers; expect the same old, same old, déjà vu, Groundhog Day mindset. It seems that all those holding power, in every corner of the UK, are in dire need of replacement.

        1. ? ? ?

          Good morning, Grizzly

          As I posted above my old school got to the final of the Rugby Schools Cup this year and lost to Trinity Croydon have beaten Marlborough in the semi-final.

          Talking of which Jack Maunder, an Old Blundellian, won many schoolboy caps as scrum-half and won just one cap at senior level having been brought on in the last few minutes of the match in Argentina in 2017 in which he was instrumental in securing England the winning try with a brilliant side-step and pass. Jack Maunder was a part of the champion Exeter Chiefs side but he was never given the caps for England he should have had.

          But perhaps the best England fly-half was Richard Sharp who was captain of Oxford University, England and the British Lions. My father took me to see Blundell’s, my future school, when I was a prep school boy. Sharp was playing and he was bewitching. Never have I seen someone so capable of changing pace and selling dummies. He was so dangerous that a very dirty South African team set out to nobble him and effectively ended his career.

          1. Good afternoon, Rastus.

            I am a but confused as to why you mention a fly-half when the discussion was about scrum-halves.

  18. As one of the friends of my childhood emailed me to say:

    “Looking on the bright side, at least the football result in Australia has spared us another bank holiday which we do not need and cannot afford.”

    1. I missed the women’s football yesterday. Unfortunately i was poking my eyes out with sharp sticks. But i too am glad they lost, for so many reasons including the ridiculous call for a bank holiday ffs

      1. I expect a bank holiday would have been granted. Anything to reduce productivity and make us less competitive.

  19. Morning, all. Overcast here at the moment, sunny skies forecast after 10:00.

    IMO, for ‘Shaman’ read ‘Shyster’ in both cases.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ce56591db3ead926c9f3911b57cfdfbae8c821f7b0bd6abe43934e9d8bc3b7ef.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c01f184e013b88d5c55ef89b876a07fa2ee8b9d8d4c43395a37f0be887790371.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/04a890b3f9a2a75d2b9f7528267260e3b93720d527b1cddc393519009161cfae.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/62b9ba24bda490b4eac0cdc9f694d7bf0f50adb1a66dfa18a1bb1b3b4305d2b4.png

  20. Good morning, all. I’ve just been sent some more photographs of last Tuesday’s procession. The first is for the embroiderers amongst us – the stole (is that the right word?) the priest is wearing is, again, the work of a very talented parishioner. And the second one shows leaders of the procession before we started.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/08888aa7732b5dd348faba5bd45ab217a87901ef2092c5c3981acebc598ac76a.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ced5446c98c46ea8103611d1e02ad20464733c7940655980d981f8a695ff307e.jpg

    (previous post deleted because the photos didn’t upload properly)

          2. Possibly in Cathedrals. I can only recall one occasion seeing one worn in a parish church.

    2. It’s beautiful! The model boats were fantastic. Is it only your village that does this, or it is a Breton tradition?

      1. Here in Brittany 15th August is a major feast day and many villages organise processions similar to this one.

        Further west in the peninsula, particularly in Finisterre, there is also a typically Breton tradition of penitential processions called “Pardons”, which are held on the feast day of the patron saint of the village. Some of these have even become major tourist attractions and the locals wear traditional dress for the occasion.

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c4ec1458fe48153ceecab73fef6cffdd5b05718c92defa4b4bddd40e07b59922.png

        1. One of the highlights of my 3 year tour in Germany was seeing the Passionplay and parade in Oberammergau

      1. A stole is like a scarf. An alb is a full length garment worn under a chasuble, I recall from my days as an altar boy.

    6. I think that might be an orphrey worn over a cope (or a chasuble – can’t see the front of it).

        1. Stoles go round the neck and drape over the front. That might well be a scapular (if the hood is attached).

  21. Good morning, chums. Up at 7 am today, but got caught up browsing a new site showing strange, futurist architecture. So here I am at last. Enjoy the day. Now where is Sir jasper’s joke of the day?

  22. This has got beyond ridiculous. Apparently a black Sky TV panellist is saying that the Lioness Wendyball team was not diverse enough. I suppose if it had had 5% white people he would have been satisfied. This sense of entitlement of certain people is stratospheric – they do not seem to agree with people being chosen on merit, it has to “reflect” the demographic (it was the same with that stupid actress who criticised the Royal Family on the balcony recently for not being diverse enough). I have news for him –
    1) the demographic varies depending on which part of the country you are in, and
    2) we are actually a white country, whether he likes that or not (though that will change, whether we like it or not), and
    3) what about having more Indian/Chinese etc. origin people in our teams
    4) what the heck has colour to do with ability?
    5) by his criteria we need a lot more white athletes and male football players in our international teams. But people like that commentator never seem to realise that 95% coloured teams are no more diverse than the opposite.

    Apparently the panellist is a black commercial farmer. Perhaps he thinks our farmers should be 50/50 black. That hasn’t worked in S. Africa and it wouldn’t work here: he has obviously not heard of the expression “horses for courses”.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12426281/Race-row-breaks-Sky-News-panellist-claims-Englands-World-Cup-Lioness-squad-isnt-diverse-filled-blonde-blue-eyed-girls.html?ico=related-replace#newcomment

    1. What is of concern is who and what organisation(s) are behind this wokery, LBGT, BLM and equality stuff. It hasn’t just appeared spontaneously.
      (Add Net Zero, Climate Change to the list as well.)

    2. Morning HL,

      We are being subsumed into wokedom , yet I cannot believe the silent majority have been cancelled by the media .

      Try writing any comment supporting our country and culture , one’s utterance is obliterated because it doesn’t conform to the rules .
      We are being stifled , choked out by bullies who are plundering our richness and heritage .

      I am now cursing all colonialism , we should have left them alone to destroy each other, leaving them to starve , no mechanisation , power/ medicine / laws and order , because then Europe would have been off limits .

      I am witnessing the anguish and insecurity of my family in SA who believe they have contributed to the economy of the country by creating businesses employing Africans and sponsoring projects , yet the destruction of everything is gathering pace at a rapid rate .

      Gawd help us all here in the Uk, because Europe is now in a real mess .

      The BLACK PANDORAS box is wide open and will never ever be closed .

      PS Apols for not returning your kind phonecall .

      I am just despairing , I avoided the news for a while , but stuff goes on ,

      1. Morning Belle,

        I curse colonialism for this country – other countries seem to have done well enough out of it.

        I don’t blame you for avoiding news etc. sometimes I just close my eyes and ears, but unfortunately one has to come back and face what is going on. That is one reason it’s so good to have NoTTL and NoTTLers to spout off with! :o)

        PS – no problem.

      2. A Radio 4 programme popped into my podcast box last week. Normally i ignore all stuff BBC but this was on the crisis in Zim, and I spent a lot of tome there decades ago and have a huge soft spot for the place. The programme was all about people having to leave their homeland and come to work over here as care assistants etc when they would much rather stay in Zim blah blah and of course I was shouting at the radio that it is not our fault their politicians have destroyed the country and actually these people who have cone to live here (who weren’t moaning btw – it was the BBC presenter who was doing the moaning ) are bloody lucky to be able to come here.

    3. I suggest going to Nigeria and complaining that it’s not white enough. Or Zimbabwe. Why we tolerate them bringing their culture here is beyond me. Why leave somewhere for abetter life only to re-create the one you had?

      For the Left it’s not about ability. It’s all about forcing an attitude.

      1. We are forced not just to tolerate their (frankly, uncultured )”culture” but to allow them to glorify it.

          1. You know what you can do with diversity…they can go forth and multiply (but without sending us the bill).

      2. There’s a long clip on Facebook it shows a black resident I think of a London street who was dousing cars and a truck with petrol and threatened to set them on fire with a flaming torch. Shouting at everyone nearby and running around. With his can petrol.
        Towards the end it looked as if he’d set him self alight. I hope he did.

    4. Morning T.
      The man’s a complete moron.
      Being black is not a passport to guarantee success. You have to commit and the necessary talent.
      They never stop moaning.
      The door swings both ways and is always open.

    6. To see how much equality not ability impacts results, you just need to look at how ineffective the gender balanced Canadian government is at running a country.

      1. The whole point of women’s football is surely that they compete against other women’s teams – not post pubertal teenage boys who are bound to be stronger, even if they might be less skillful?

        In any sport men and teenage boys have the advantage of superior strength – that is why the so-called ‘Trans women’ want to compete against real women.

      2. My old school got to the final in the 2022/23 Schools Rugby competition and narrowly lost to Trinity, Croydon having beaten Marlborough in the semi-final.

        I wonder how the Blundell’s 1st XV would fare against the England woman’s team?

      3. I’d like a professional women’s player to ask if the Ozzie team were really giving it their all or ‘letting’ the boys win.

        I would also wonder how an under 20’s UK team would do against the England women’s football team.

        Or say, a professional club such as (I don’t know any so I will say ‘Southampton’ ) would do against the women’s team.

    2. Why did it win anything, it just shews misery on all facets of human life, as they see it

      1. Yet it has a sad ring of truth. I see so many zombies glued to their phones and sleepwalking through a virtual reality. If it wakes up just a few, it’s worthwhile.

        1. Maybe, but that’s what made it so sad for me. Who’d want to be part of that miserable world?

    4. Hi Rik. I’m reading a book by M.R Forbes. When i researched the author i didn’t get very far. His published books are many.
      11 in one year in fact. I think M.R. Forbes is an AI.

    1. What a strange cartoon. The drawing suggests gentle humour found in a middle-market newspaper of the 1950s-1960s, yet the text clearly shows it wouldn’t have appeared in the Express or Mail newspapers of that time.

      The cartoonist, George Trosley, very often produces cartoons – or CARtoons – for US automobile magazines, so the one above is not at all typical of his work.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Trosley
      https://georgetrosley.com/

    3. I am not sure we should dignify her with the title “step mother”. I was under the allusion she was merely the father’s girlfriend. But stand to be corrected.

    4. How disgusting what a sick vile thing to do to any young girls.
      They haven’t developed in over a thousand years.

    5. The very fact that we are so shocked and disgusted shows that we do not appreciate the great advantages that multi-cultural diversity has brought to Britain.

      We need the state to indoctrinate educate us better.

    1. Trebuchet them back. Yes! But would it reach the other side or would they fall a little short. Oh dear, what a pity, never mind.

      1. With all of the technological advances since the middle ages, surely they could develop a trebuchet that will gently fling a 70 kilo object just past the channel half way point and beyond rnli reach..

    3. If it takes 10 minutes to set and release for one gimmigrant, to get rid of the 250,000 here would take 3500 days working 12 hours at a time to get rid of them all.

      Far simpler to pack them into a shipping container and drop then over Africa.

      1. Well 100 of them along the south coast would do it in 1/100 of the time – 35 days or on 2 x 12 hr shifts, 17 1/2 days

  28. GP suspended for asking Muslim woman to remove veil may go back to work
    NHS shortages mean that Dr Keith Wolverson may resume practising but he’ll be monitored by a ‘responsible officer’ and ‘workplace reporter’.

    A GP who was suspended after asking a Muslim woman to remove her veil has been allowed to return to work amid NHS staff shortages.

    Dr Keith Wolverson, who was working as a locum at a walk-in centre at Royal Stoke University Hospital, asked a patient to take off her niqab three times as he could not hear her describing her daughter’s symptoms.

    He was suspended for nine months after being found guilty of or admitting a total of 17 charges of misconduct relating to incidents between January and May 2018 while working as a locum at urgent care centres in Derby and Stoke.

    Although he recently told a review hearing he “deeply regretted” the episode and had learned from his mistakes, the Medical Practitioner Tribunal Service (MPTS) decided to follow his suspension with sanctions for a further year after ruling he had not shown sufficient “insight” into his actions nor taken a course in “cultural diversity”.

    The GP will now be assigned a “responsible officer” and a “workplace reporter” to monitor him, and was told he must “design a personal development plan to address… equality, diversity and inclusion with particular reference to cultural diversity”.

    Dr Wolverson told the tribunal “it would be completely wrong to maintain the suspension and prohibit a doctor further from doing his duty to his patients when there are such grave shortages within the NHS currently”.

    ‘No repetition of misconduct’
    He told the review hearing that in the years he continued practising before his suspension he had not asked any other patients to remove their veil and there had been no “repetition of his misconduct”.

    Dr Wolverson had asked a Muslim woman, named as Mrs Q, to take off her niqab three times during a consultation on May 13 2018, saying he could not hear her describing her daughter’s symptoms.

    She refused his initial request, saying she did not want to for religious reasons, but he then repeated it.

    Her husband complained and the woman told last year’s hearing she felt “victimised and racially discriminated” against during the consultation.

    The incident provoked outrage among nurses and doctors online, with a petition calling for the General Medical Council (GMC) to “treat this man fairly and look at all the evidence” gaining more than 20,000 signatures in little over a day.

    The GMC, which brought the case against Dr Wolverson to the MPTS, does not have any specific guidelines on how to examine women wearing full-face veils.

    Conditions on registration for further 12 months
    In its new ruling, the tribunal stated: “He accepted the gravity and the findings of the Tribunal but did not accept that he was dishonest.

    “The Tribunal was surprised that Dr Wolverson had not focussed any of his remediation by undertaking any courses on cultural diversity.

    “He accepted the previous Tribunal’s findings were justified but qualified this by stating that he did not accept that it was his intention to be dishonest.

    “The Tribunal noted that Dr Wolverson explained he has undertaken a course on insight and described how he has changed his practice in relation to patients who wear a face veil.

    “However, when questioned, Dr Wolverson was unable to articulate how he has put his learning into practise.”

    The tribunal ruled that Dr Wolverson had not “provided evidence of his increased insight into his actions to a sufficient level” and so his “fitness to practise remains impaired by reason of his misconduct”.

    The tribunal decided not to extend his suspension but imposed conditions on his registration for a further 12 months.

    DC

    DJA Ch
    4 MIN AGO
    Why should he ‘learn from his mistakes’.
    Why should he be suspended for nine months.
    Why has Islam gained such a strong and demanding foothold in a Christian-secular liberal nation, when many of its precepts are anathema to the wider population.
    Why is this kingdom so determined seemingly to tolerate its dismantling from within with barely a murmur.
    Why even bother to ask.
    Such queries are stifled and ‘moderated’ regardless.
    Hades. Handcarts. Hills…. Everywhere.

        1. They need to be upset. In fact, they need to be excluded because they insist on standing out and thus refuse to fit in so they cannot participate in our society.

    2. And will she face any penalties if her mumbling into her veil results in her daughter not getting a proper diagnosis?
      Thought not.

    3. It was a girl child.
      Totally expendable, so there was no need to explain the symptoms clearly.
      This case has agent provocateur written all over it.

    5. The “tribunal” should never have been held. All it needed was a quiet discreet word with the Dr, if even deemed necessary, which it shouldn’t have been.

      People who come here and have different practises/norms should be adapting to ours – not the other way round. TOTB should be ashamed of themselves.

    6. For goodness sake. What was he supposed to do? Listen to her mumbling and not treat her? It’s not British, it’s not normal, it’s not done. muslim has no business being in this country. If they don’t like it, go somewhere else. Like Saudi.

    7. Should have written in the patient’s notes unable to proceed with examination, due to lack of coherent information from the parent. Awaiting the arrival of an interpreter will resume the examination when interpreter arrives…..

  29. GP suspended for asking Muslim woman to remove veil may go back to work
    NHS shortages mean that Dr Keith Wolverson may resume practising but he’ll be monitored by a ‘responsible officer’ and ‘workplace reporter’.

    A GP who was suspended after asking a Muslim woman to remove her veil has been allowed to return to work amid NHS staff shortages.

    Dr Keith Wolverson, who was working as a locum at a walk-in centre at Royal Stoke University Hospital, asked a patient to take off her niqab three times as he could not hear her describing her daughter’s symptoms.

    He was suspended for nine months after being found guilty of or admitting a total of 17 charges of misconduct relating to incidents between January and May 2018 while working as a locum at urgent care centres in Derby and Stoke.

    Although he recently told a review hearing he “deeply regretted” the episode and had learned from his mistakes, the Medical Practitioner Tribunal Service (MPTS) decided to follow his suspension with sanctions for a further year after ruling he had not shown sufficient “insight” into his actions nor taken a course in “cultural diversity”.

    The GP will now be assigned a “responsible officer” and a “workplace reporter” to monitor him, and was told he must “design a personal development plan to address… equality, diversity and inclusion with particular reference to cultural diversity”.

    Dr Wolverson told the tribunal “it would be completely wrong to maintain the suspension and prohibit a doctor further from doing his duty to his patients when there are such grave shortages within the NHS currently”.

    ‘No repetition of misconduct’
    He told the review hearing that in the years he continued practising before his suspension he had not asked any other patients to remove their veil and there had been no “repetition of his misconduct”.

    Dr Wolverson had asked a Muslim woman, named as Mrs Q, to take off her niqab three times during a consultation on May 13 2018, saying he could not hear her describing her daughter’s symptoms.

    She refused his initial request, saying she did not want to for religious reasons, but he then repeated it.

    Her husband complained and the woman told last year’s hearing she felt “victimised and racially discriminated” against during the consultation.

    The incident provoked outrage among nurses and doctors online, with a petition calling for the General Medical Council (GMC) to “treat this man fairly and look at all the evidence” gaining more than 20,000 signatures in little over a day.

    The GMC, which brought the case against Dr Wolverson to the MPTS, does not have any specific guidelines on how to examine women wearing full-face veils.

    Conditions on registration for further 12 months
    In its new ruling, the tribunal stated: “He accepted the gravity and the findings of the Tribunal but did not accept that he was dishonest.

    “The Tribunal was surprised that Dr Wolverson had not focussed any of his remediation by undertaking any courses on cultural diversity.

    “He accepted the previous Tribunal’s findings were justified but qualified this by stating that he did not accept that it was his intention to be dishonest.

    “The Tribunal noted that Dr Wolverson explained he has undertaken a course on insight and described how he has changed his practice in relation to patients who wear a face veil.

    “However, when questioned, Dr Wolverson was unable to articulate how he has put his learning into practise.”

    The tribunal ruled that Dr Wolverson had not “provided evidence of his increased insight into his actions to a sufficient level” and so his “fitness to practise remains impaired by reason of his misconduct”.

    The tribunal decided not to extend his suspension but imposed conditions on his registration for a further 12 months.

    DC

    DJA Ch
    4 MIN AGO
    Why should he ‘learn from his mistakes’.
    Why should he be suspended for nine months.
    Why has Islam gained such a strong and demanding foothold in a Christian-secular liberal nation, when many of its precepts are anathema to the wider population.
    Why is this kingdom so determined seemingly to tolerate its dismantling from within with barely a murmur.
    Why even bother to ask.
    Such queries are stifled and ‘moderated’ regardless.
    Hades. Handcarts. Hills…. Everywhere.

    1. I’ve just posted a comment (below) about Barry John. This must be some kind of awry coincidence.😘

    2. When I first got a car with a radio I tried Classic FM – not for long as I couldn’t stand the inane chatter and the ads………every few minutes the same ads over and over…….. so I switched to R3 and have kept it in the car ever since.

      1. It really got to me last winter with the ‘get your winter vaccinations now!’ type of advertisements.

        1. At least I didn’t hear those. I like R3 even though it’s the Beeb. No adverts there and sometimes they play music I like. Other times I get to hear things I wouldn’t have chosen to but they can be interesting.

        2. If a car drives past with the driver shouting “Fk off you evil tossers” that will be me catching one of those advertisements…

    1. I did see another tweet that asked why babies that died when Letby wasn’t on duty weren’t mentioned on the damning table showing that she was on duty when so many babies died.

      1. I have an uneasy feeling about this case. And the recent Malkinson result hardly engenders confidence in the British legal (not justice) system.
        The insulin in the feed bags must have been injected by somebody but nobody ever seems to have witnessed Letby actually doing anything. I must admit I haven’t read the full account – months of evidence, anyone? – but it all appears to be circumstantial. Was it only ever Letby intubating the babies? Was Letby inept; just not up to the job?
        Was it always the same juror who had doubts? Did he or she actually have genuine reservations or was just being a contrarian? Why only 11 jurors?
        The Post-It notes certainly suggest someone under huge emotional pressure, but given Letby’s childish choice of furnishings, possibly she was still in the self-dramatising adolescent phase.
        Maybe she was a misfit or a spoilt child – psychopaths don’t mature until they are around 40 years old; but no means are all psychopaths killers.

        1. I haven’t seen any indication of when she wrote the post – it notes. Could they have been written after she was suspended and so after the deaths for which she was being blamed? Rather than at the time the babies in her care were dying.

          I served on a jury once. I was the dissenting voice in a child abuse case. Two young girls gave evidence by video against their mother’s then boyfriend. To me there was no way a six year old and a nine year old should have been so sexually aware. The man was found not guilty.

          1. But if they had had the kind of sex “education” being dished out in schools nowadays to that very age group?

        2. I don’t know if she was psychotic. A psychopath is incapable of feeling guilt. She did (supposedly)..

          We’re all capable of moment of passion driven by rage or fear but she did this repeatedly, deliberately many times.

        3. I agree; it all seems to fit together too well except that it doesn’t actually fit together at all, it’s just circumstantial.
          One cannot tell from media coverage, but I always had a strong feeling that that unfortunate English au pair who was convicted of killing a baby in the US was innocent because everything she said and did was exactly what an innocent person would do in those circumstances.
          Letby is altogether different – she is far harder to read, and she does come across as dishonest. But is she the main perpetrator, or just a handy scapegoat? And why go to such lengths if the problem is in fact a bacterial infection in the pipes? why not just investigate that and fix it?

  33. SIR – Why didn’t reforms after the murders committed by Harold Shipman catch Lucy Letby?

    Dame Janet Smith’s Shipman Inquiry made two recommendations: one was medical

    revalidation – for doctors only; the other, which should have caught

    Lucy Letby, has still not been fully implemented.

    Dame Janet proposed a medical examiner system to scrutinise independently every

    death not investigated by a coroner – including baby deaths.

    The necessary legislation was passed in the Coroners and Justice Act

    2009. Most thought that the Shipman reforms had been implemented, but in

    fact implementation relied on the health secretary (Jeremy Hunt between

    2012 and 2018) setting a start date. He never did.

    To its credit, NHS England has recently implemented medical examiners in most hospitals,

    but 14 years after the 2009 Act was passed its powers have still not

    been used. The system remains non-statutory.

    NHS managers who should have acted sooner are rightly being pilloried. But what about the

    politicians and civil servants whose inaction allowed more babies to

    die?

    Professor Peter Furness
    Retired consultant pathologist
    Whissendine, Rutland

      1. We wanted to change a process here. In the olden days, there’d be me making the decision and other people living with it.

        Now I present it to my boss, who goes to the management board (this isn’t as fancy as it seems, it involves taking about it over coffee as all four desks face one another. It takes about five mins).

        The NHS has, what, 20? 30 layers of management? Not to mention unions, trusts and medical elements. Then there’s the department of health, itself a sprawling morass of incompetence and failure. What happens to all the reports they write? Why did no one catch the pattern – or are the reports collated then filed, forever forgotten by make work jobsworths?

        That’s another 30 layers all with an agenda of their own – that gets them further up the greasy pole. Suggesting politicians are responsible isn’t fair. It used to be they took the credit and took the blame but the civil service has become such a leviathan they simply can’t any more. Systemic failures must be addressed and those people sacked.

        I imagine somewhere there’s someone saying ‘why were these procedures not followed’ with a reply of ‘we didn’t think you actually wanted anything done, just the appearance of it.’

        1. The politicians should have had the NHS sorted years ago. Break it down to managable pieces for astart. Compare one area to another etc. Its not difficult.

        1. Honestly, Belle I wonder why I think I need them! I also have a very posh set of darts I treated myself to when I made the Poly team, back in 1975!

    2. Jacks, our grandchildren play with those when one goes missing be do take a lot of extra care.

    4. That tests my memory. One of my brothers had a set. Throw the ball, pick up two, three, four etc of the pieces and catch the ball without dropping anything?

      1. My older (female) cousin had a set back in the late 50s. She was very adept at playing it but my cack-handed attempts were all doomed to failure!

    2. Not really sure what to say to this. It is, after all, what I’ve advocated. On the one hand there is uncontrolled illegal immigration. This is bad for a country at every level – social, cultural, but most of all economic. Immigrants simply cannot go wherever they like – even UN law stipulates that.

    3. They have enough room for around one million people at their site in Mecca. They haven’t taken on single refugee. They are too busy trying to bring the rest of the world into ruination.

      1. Yes and they are now withholding oil to escalate the oil price again .

        Our diesel here is now 154p per litre, and it is climbing again .

        1. When over 90p is direct tax, and another 15p indirect tax there’s a long way to go before the price of oil affects fuel.

        2. The oil price is going to escalate because our currency is losing value due to being over-printed.

    1. Build back better on the recently available cheap real estate they have just bought.

      1. That too of course. Also the reason for smashing economies via lockdowns. Destroy the value and buy cheap.

    3. I assumed the fires are lit to further the pretence that it’s spontaneous combustion due to the earth heating up uncontrollably on account of us being bad children who don’t know our place. I expect they fool the same people who accept that it’s possible to transmit a uniquely dangerous disease without exhibiting any symptoms.

  38. Right…. must stop this displacement activity and go and collect the leaflets from the printers, which was where I was going when my car threw a wobbly on Fridayafternoon. Hopefully all ok now.

  39. https://twitter.com/BFirstParty/status/1693563669412507904

    Afghanistan flag raised at Croydon council headquarters.
    Why are foreign flags being flown on government buildings? Did we lose a war? Are we under occupation?
    Right in front of a war memorial for fallen heroes who died to keep their county British…

    The Union Flag is the national flag of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Crown Dependencies and the Overseas Territories. It is a symbol of national unity and pride. The first Union Flag was created in 1606 and combined the flags of England and Scotland; the present Union Flag dates from 1801.

    There are designated days when the Union Flag must be flown on UK government buildings by command of His Majesty The King. However, UK government buildings are encouraged to fly the Union Flag all year around.

    This guidance is aimed at UK government buildings. However, we would encourage local authorities and other local organisations to follow suit where they wish to fly flags. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/designated-days-for-union-flag-flying

    1. Well, while the Afghanistan flag is flying, at least it means that the ‘Pride’ flag isn’t being displayed.

    2. Dingy? I know their skin is a little darker, but that’s not through avoiding water.

    1. The situation is far more complicated that many in the west seem to understand.
      Speaking personally, I know enough to realise I don’t know enough.

      1. There’s a video on YouTube where a chap converted an old four-drawer filing cabinet into a successful cold-smoker for bacon and fish.

    2. A lot of effort when he could implement work avoidance strategy number 1: The Tea Round. The more people you make tea for, the longer you can take avoiding work.

      1. Thinking back to the dim and distant past as a junior office worker, I recall the highlight of each morning and afternoon was the appearance of the tea lady, rattling the cups and saucers as she wheeled her trolley and its tea urn up and down the corridors, then in and out of the offices. Life – nor the tea – were ever the same after she was replaced by vending machines.

  43. Here’s is a puzzling conundrum for those who may know the answer (I don’t):

    If Yanks insist on spelling grey as ‘gray’, why don’t they also spell they as ‘thay’?

      1. Thank goodness I was never posted to work at Derby. That city has long been a hotbed of sub-continentals. I was much happier in the north of the county dealing with drunken coal miners on a Saturday night!

    2. Probably the same reason why the English spell “bay,” “day” and “array” with an a.

    1. Coming soon to a country even nearer to you. On fact, you may already live there.

    2. Blimey the French really are slow in not opening up their 4Star & 5Star hotels to these unfortunates. I’m surprised the French Human rights lawyers aren’t on the case!

  45. Good Spiked article: https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/08/21/germany-has-fallen-to-green-dogma/

    Quote: ”
    German discount supermarket Penny recently decided to increase the prices of its meat and dairy products, to include the environmental costs incurred in their production, as part of a week-long experiment. The price of frankfurter sausages rose from €3.19 to €6.01. The price of mozzarella rose by 74 per cent, to €1.55. And the price of fruit yoghurt rose by 31 per cent, from €1.19 to €1.56.

    … Germany’s public broadcaster, WDR, asked Penny customers what they thought about the price-hike experiment. Due to a lack of enthusiasm from shoppers, WDR decided to have one of its employees cosplay as a happy shopper. That taxpayer-funded broadcasters now have to resort to outright fraud in order to drum up support for idiotic climate action tells you everything you need to know.”

    1. Do the politicians, the civil servants and the Idiot King realise that an increasingly significant percentage of the population are now fully aware that man-made climate change and carbon emissions are not damaging to the environment and the whole thing is a tax-grabbing fraud aimed at impoverishing the plebs.

    1. This is a public admission of complete surrender and an admission that Sunak does not care whether or not he wins the next election.

      With Sunak still leading the Conservative Party at the next election the Conservative Party will be destroyed to a level where it will never recover again.

      A leadership coup from the right of the party now would probably not save the party from losing the election next year but it might save it from complete annihilation.

      This is a crucial time: I am sure that if Sunak stays as leader the Conservative Party will effectively cease to exist next year.

      1. He will have completed his WEF task by the next election – the installation of the CBDC – so he does not care.

      2. 375600+ up ticks,

        Afternoon R
        There never has been of late
        ie these last 40 years a TORY party.
        Many of us have been trying to get this across all these years.
        There has been nothing so soul destroying as watching ,time & again the same fools
        supporting & voting in the same crippling treacherous political shite.
        These fools were actually
        tactically voting to keep good peoples out of the hive of `treacherous evil dealings, the HOC,whilst “their party” with their consent set about the real business of destroying the United Kingdom.

      3. 375600+up ticks,

        R,
        “be destroyed to a level where it will never recover again”.

        We have done without it these past 40 years so what ?

  47. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b1b08c4887cb2b89ac3604db2ea0fcba42c98e4a4db3ad78885cdac1ca12df85.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/21/telegraph-readers-debate-lucy-letby-death-penalty/

    The revolting case of the murdered babies has promoted a debate in the DT about whether or not the death penalty should be reintroduced.

    The utilitarian argument is not always going to be easy.

    BTL

    Imagine that having the death penalty saves 20 people a year from being murdered because of its deterrent effect but that 2 innocent people a year are found guilty and executed.

    Should we argue that the 2 people killed in error was a reasonable price to pay for the 20 saved lives?

    I should imagine that this is the sort of question and decision that officers during wartime have to answer.

    1. That’s the same argument for releasing a dangerous medicament, and it’s still wrong to kill people in the hope of saving more.

    2. There are bad people aplenty. Hanging all the detritus won’t even start to have an effect on the out-of-control overpopulation.

  48. Couldn’t believe what I was hearing on the radio earlier today,
    They were blaming the Letby murders on racism, I knew they would get there in the end.
    Apparently nobody believed the whistle blowing doctor because he was of Asian heritage.
    And management sided with Lucy because of her skin colour.

        2. I’m a weird bugger, but I always feel awkward when she’s called “Thatcher”. Mrs, or Margaret, Thatcher feels less aggressive & disrespectful
          I’ll get me cat flap…

          1. That’s why her detractors always called her by her surname.
            It was belittling; reducing her to a troublesome school child.

      1. I wondered that too, but now I think the reason for keeping the victims anonymous is so that attention won’t be drawn to the dead babies who have NOT been named as Letby victims.

      2. No, they came second out of twenty-odd other national teams. Silver medal winners and worthy of our praise.
        In my mind that is a monumental achievement.

          1. It is extremely relevant to all those hundreds of thousands who enjoy a good sporting encounter, as this was. You know, the non-curmudgeons who have grey matter that works.

          2. Sure, I have hobbies too. But I don’t delude myself that they are important, or that people deserve adulation for succeeding at them. Far too much shallow stuff is treated as important these days!

          1. That’a a vacuous Yank philosophy. The idiot, Paul Newman, vocalised it when he uttered, “Show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser.” WTF is the point of sporting endeavour if only the winners are lionised? We might as well get rid of silver and gold medals and tell all teams not winning that they are ‘losers’ and not worthy of praise. Perhaps we should give them all a gun and tell them to go out and shoot themselves in shame!

          3. It’s true of English horseracing; most people could name the winners of the Derby, Grand National and St Leger, for instance, but not many could say who finished second (unless they’d had a win bet instead of each way, like Durham Edition in the National).

          4. I’ll never forget the great Crisp, second in The Grand National in 1973 (I had a bet on Crisp).

          5. That clip must have been shown hundreds of times. Richard Pitman said he could hear Red Rum coming (Rummy was a “high blower” – in other words he made a noise when he breathed). I still think that Crisp might just have held on if Pitman had kept him together and not hit him – it unbalanced the horse.

  51. Global warming representation.
    The air temperature here is actually 36, but we are being warned that it “feels like” 42.

    Heaven only knows what they’ll call it on Wednesday when the actual air temperature is forecast to be 41.
    If you had an untreated fever at that level, your organs could possibly start going into failure.

    A week later it’s down to 23, doubtless we’ll be told to wrap up warm…

    Thank goodness for the pool, but even that is currently 31.

      1. Dordogneshire France
        Summer temperatures in these ranges are not particularly unusual here.

      2. Crikey, they are branching out. maybe he’s going for the ultimate refugee lottery – gay AND trans.

        Which surely would make him a lesbian, thus heterosexual….

  55. Is Braverman in or out? It doesn’t matter: what’s broken is the Home Office itself. 21 August 2023.

    The reason for this number is not a surge in Albanian or Kurdish gangsterism. It is not French incompetence at Calais or over-charitable lifeboats or a shortage of detention centres or an excess of dodgy lawyers. The answer was never going to be more detention ships or decanting people to Rwanda, Ascension Island or Turkey. One answer may be for the west to stop invading and destabilising countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq. But a more immediate one lies in the Home Office’s clearly hopeless, indeed collapsed, bureaucracy.

    This department of state must be unfit for purpose. Its inadequacy is sorely undermining Sunak’s bid to rescue his government from electoral humiliation. The belief that immigration could somehow be turned into a weekly headline-grabbing triumph was naive beyond belief. The issue is so emotional and electorally sensitive it has always called for de-escalation, international cooperation and as much bipartisanship as possible. All else is a gift to rightwing extremism.

    Oh My God! Even the Guardian has found out! Next up will be the NHS! The Ministry of Defence by Christmas.

    Of course if they read Nottl they would have known three years ago!

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/21/suella-braverman-home-office-department-broken

      1. Not so easy to read Nttl. Sky broadband disallows access unless you know how to adjust the parameters for racist hate sites.

    4. In 2006 John Reid ( a Labour Home Secretary) described the Home Office as ‘not fit for purpose’.
      And 17 years later…..?

  56. Is Braverman in or out? It doesn’t matter: what’s broken is the Home Office itself. 21 August 2023.

    The reason for this number is not a surge in Albanian or Kurdish gangsterism. It is not French incompetence at Calais or over-charitable lifeboats or a shortage of detention centres or an excess of dodgy lawyers. The answer was never going to be more detention ships or decanting people to Rwanda, Ascension Island or Turkey. One answer may be for the west to stop invading and destabilising countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq. But a more immediate one lies in the Home Office’s clearly hopeless, indeed collapsed, bureaucracy.

    This department of state must be unfit for purpose. Its inadequacy is sorely undermining Sunak’s bid to rescue his government from electoral humiliation. The belief that immigration could somehow be turned into a weekly headline-grabbing triumph was naive beyond belief. The issue is so emotional and electorally sensitive it has always called for de-escalation, international cooperation and as much bipartisanship as possible. All else is a gift to rightwing extremism.

    Oh My God! Even the Guardian has found out! Next up will be the NHS! The Ministry of Defence by Christmas.

    Of course if they read Nottl they would have known three years ago!

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/21/suella-braverman-home-office-department-broken

  57. Oh deep joy….

    “Hunter Biden’s lawyers played heavy with the Department of Justice, effectively threatening to force President Joe Biden to testify in any criminal trial against the First Son if a plea agreement wasn’t reached over his multiple alleged crimes.
    “President Biden now unquestionably would be a fact witness for the defense in any criminal trial,” wrote Hunter Biden attorney Chris Clark in a 32-page letter last fall, Politico reports, calling the news that there was enough evidence to charge Hunter an “illegal” leak.

    That letter, along with more than 300 pages of previously unreported emails and documents exchanged between Hunter Biden’s legal team and prosecutors, sheds new light on the fraught negotiations that nearly produced a broad plea deal. That deal would have resolved Biden’s most pressing legal issues — the gun purchase and his failure to pay taxes for several years — and it also could have helped insulate Biden from future prosecution by a Republican-led Justice Department.

    The documents show how the deal collapsed — a sudden turnabout that occurred after Republicans bashed it and a judge raised questions about it. The collapse renewed the prospect that Biden will head to trial as his father ramps up his 2024 reelection bid. -Politico
    According to Clark, putting Joe Biden on the stand would create political and constitutional chaos by pitting Joe Biden against his own DOJ.

    “This of all cases justifies neither the spectacle of a sitting President testifying at a criminal trial nor the potential for a resulting Constitutional crisis,” reads the letter, which was shared with Politico along with several other documents.”

    How can such a great country be brought so low by such reprehensible folk?

    1. Ooooh look!

      A get out of jail free card.

      “For the sake of this great nation, and to solemnly ensure that lawfare doesn’t become enshrined in politics, as your humble President I am granting Presidential pardons to Donald Trump and Hunter Biden for all crimes and misdemeanours committed before today.”

  58. I see that that new Snow White film is in big trouble for being far too woke and Lefty.
    There are no hard working dwarfs anymore, just lazy buggers.
    Instead of Hi Ho, Hi Ho, its off to work we go.
    They sing Li low, Li Low, just shirk from home, don’t go.

    1. Why do they think people are going to listen to that bunch of shysters? Ferguson is a byword for sensational fiction now!

      I was going to go on Twitter and post “Billions dead by Christmas” in reply to his tweets, but I see that he fled Twitter in 2020. Can’t think why!

        1. You know how it works. They predict 6 million deaths then when their injectables kill a million they proudly proclaim, “Look, our vaccines saved 5 million people”!

          1. They predict 6 million deaths then when their injectables kill a million they proudly proclaim, “Look, our vaccines saved 5 500 million people”!

    3. To put it mildly the BTL comments seem mostly sceptical! I liked this one “Ferguson
      is a cretin with a documented history of wildly inaccurate forecasts.
      He couldn’t predict what day comes after Saturday.      “

      1. That’s not fair, he would predict Friday, and his models would “prove” he was correct.

      1. You must be joking, he’s full to the eyeballs with placebo vaccinations, of course he’ll survive.

      2. Eris, Greek goddess of strife and discord. What’s in a name?
        Firing up the PCR turbocharger as we comment.🤢

  61. OK folks, admission time. Settled myself on the chesterfield in the Pond Room at 3 pm for half an hour with my book. Next thing I knew – it was ten past six!

    Have I missed the end of the World? Paul being blown up in Weegieland?? A cabinet reshuffle??

    Anyway, signing off – a tad shamefacedly – to help the MR get supper ready.

    A demain… (if I don’t oversleep).

  62. Remember that plan to give nasal flu vaccines to all teenagers in Britain?
    Turns out that more small children given this nasal vaccine got sick afterwards than small children given the jab. And as Dr Malik says, imagine if they had compared the nasal vaxx with a placebo!
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8a029b57dfc071fd01ab1a9cf537325b5de468d86d7d2fcba5c5fddc63ba66eb.jpg

    If they succeed in giving the nasal vaxx to teens…can anyone smell the next pandemic coming? And one that will attack young people?

    1. In an active-controlled clinical study (MI-CP111), an increased rate of hospitalisations (for any cause)
      through 180 days after final vaccination dose was observed in infants and toddlers 6-11 months of age
      (6.1% Fluenz versus 2.6% injectable influenza vaccine). Most hospitalisations were due to
      gastrointestinal and respiratory tract infections and occurred more than 6 weeks post vaccination. The
      rate of hospitalisations was not increased in Fluenz recipients 12 months and older.       In the same study,
      an increased rate of wheezing through 42 days was observed in infants and toddlers 6-23 months of
      age (5.9% Fluenz versus 3.8% injectable influenza vaccine). The rate of wheezing was not increased
      in Fluenz recipients 24 months and older. Fluenz Tetra is not indicated for use in infants and toddlers
      younger than 24 months       (see section 4.2).

      https://ec.europa.eu/health/documents/community-register/2020/20200727148842/anx_148842_en.pdf

      2. That’s what I said – more small children got ill with the nasal spray than with the jab.

        My last sentence is speculation, as I don’t know which vaxx will be offered to teenagers. However, this result shows that a nasal spray gives different results from a jab, and that it can give worse results. Because it doesn’t involve needles, it may be sold to people as being essentially harmless, which it clearly isn’t.
        Furthermore, if the manufacturers were confident in their product, they would test it against placebos.

        Just suppose, that the rate of hospitalisation was 2.6% for jabbed and 0.1% for placebo (we don’t know, because the placebo test wasn’t done). Now extrapolate to teens. Suddenly, 2.6% of teens are hospitalised in November, say. There’s your flu “pandemic”, right there. All it needs is a fear-mongering media campaign. And they would never do that, would they?

        1. Dr Malik’s tweet might lead readers with the impression that infants and toddlers are still being given the nasal spray. I thought it worth pointing out that the findings have led to Fluenz Tetra no longer being indicated for them.

          1. I think the context is the drive to give a nasal spray to teens, because he highlighted that yesterday.
            I’m scared of needles (a perfectly normal response, in my opinion!!) and might therefore have been tempted by a nasal spray before I read the Kennedy book, which was where I first learned that most vaxxes aren’t tested against placebos. I have done too much software testing in my time to want to ingest an untested product into my body!

          2. Once you put it into your body you can’t take it out.

            When her young children caught a bug, a friend used to take them to the local GP* where they would be prescribed loads of medication. Then, when her husband came home he would carefully inspect the hoard and make remarks like ‘Good choice, but ….no’ and gradually, inexorably the pile of products would be whittled away until nothing was left, except perhaps Junior Disprin or a bar of soap.

            (* in the good old days)

      1. The financial situation is mirroring 2008 and 2019. Especially 2019 – we had a delay before the US raised the debt ceiling, meaning they had to raise a lot of debt quickly.
        Therefore I fear some kind of controlled event like the pandemic.
        I don’t think they are quite ready with the CBDCs yet. To introduce those, I think we will get the big one, something like the internet being down for a month, disrupting food supplies.

    3. At some point following the crowd cannot be sufficient motivation. They will need people of real malevolence.

  63. BRICS is not going to save us from the shennanigans of the banking elites – BRICS is part of the overall plan.
    The WEF told us what they were going to do in 2015 in the “you will own nothing” presentation which also mentioned that the dollar would no longer be the reserve currency and referred to a “group of currencies.”
    Latest: Brazil has launched a retail CBDC with the inspiring name “Drex.”

    https://www.theorganicprepper.com/brazilian-central-bank-cbdc/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Keeping+You+In+The+Loop&utm_campaign=Monday+Articles+-+8+21+2023

    The writer suggests
    “1) Having something outside the system (bitcoin, precious metals, cash)
    2) Diversifying assets and locations (a second passport, some money in a different country, etc.).
    This may not be an SHTF, but to use the old beat-up cliche, clearly, the water is boiling slowly. At one point, some of those preparations may be useful to jump from the pot.”

  64. Apparently there was a ,”world friendship” football competition in Western Canada this weekend.

    Unfortunately it was abandoned as soon as it began, Etrian groups were pounding the sh”*t out of each other as they continued their little war.

    Do we really need these savages bringing their homeland wars over here.

  65. Well one tribe finally dug up a few of those supposed unmarked residential school graves over here and guess what – they found no traces of any human remains in the supposed graves.

    Not that whitey is off the hook, just saying ‘told you do” is repeating the deniers message.

    1. Dem damned whitey, dey ate all de children and den dey did grounded up dem bone fer de fertilizer…

    2. But they’ve already had the big media campaign to instill into everyone’s minds that evil white people murdered indigenous children en masse, and it won’t be retracted.

  67. I could not help but overhear a conversation at a neighbouring table on Saturday evening. It took place between a man and woman in their thirties, she a mother of three daughters, by my reckoning; he a friend of her husband. The subject of their discussion and of his astonishment was sparked by the figure of Karl Marx on his tee-shirt. She had never heard of him, nor did she have the faintest idea what Communism was. While her ignorance was somewhat eye-opening, my contempt was for the young-ish man and rested on his tee-shirt as only someone who admired the poisonous father-figure of Communism would wear such a thing.

    3. But maybe he was wearing it to be provocative, and it misfired because she didn’t know who it was.

      1. So….
        You’re saying she’s a typical woman…
        Ignorant……

        Stands very well back, waits for incoming…

  68. Here is a little ‘factoid’ to make you think.

    The distance, in a straight line, between Monaco and Perth (Australia) is 13,800 kilometres.
    13,800 kilometres is 13,800,000,000 millimetres.
    Now, if 1 millimetre represents 1 year,
    The distance between Monaco and Perth (Australia), in millimetres, expressed as years = the age of the universe.

    1. Ah but…
      If big bang was merely the latest in a series of big bangs, the current universe could be the child or grandchild or great grandchild and so on infinitum. of something much older.

        1. But can the crow fly that far in a straight line….
          Sorry, I don’t do numbers and after a busy weekend that’s the only humour I can manage;-))

          1. Possibly.

            A Pelican might too:

            A marvellous bird is the pelican, its beak can hold more that its belly can.

        3. I didn’t consider digging through the Earth’s mantle. I thought it would be obvious that the journey is on the surface.

          1. Of course it was obvious, but given your own propensity to challenge statements I was having a gentle dig ho ho.

          2. Maybe if I had rented The Mole, from Pod 3 of Thunderbird 2, I could have put the theory to the test.😉

          3. That series was excellent entertainment for children. I’m surprised it hasn’t been resurrected in a modern (but naturally woke) format.

        1. It’s Ok you are safe as burning at the stake is no longer practiced due to its carbon footprint!

    2. The last I saw, she was remarkably positive, given the strain she must be under.

      A shining example to us all in these time of universal negativity.

    2. It is a scandal the way the clubs are changing strips on such a regular basis, merely to rip off gullible fans.

      I suppose one might argue that those gullible fans deserve to be ripped off.

      1. Especially when you read the drivel explaining the design.

        Arsenal’s eye-catching away jersey takes its shape with a fresh shock-yellow as its base colour with fluid black lines across the entirety of the shirt, inspired by the map of Islington.

        The kit’s design is said to represent the journeys supporters make out of the club’s home borough for away days on the road. Light blue accents across the collar and sleeves finish off next season’s luminous away kit.

        https://www.goal.com/en/lists/arsenal-2023-24-away-kit/blt33cc04c303aa5d18#cs339448a9a8d6cb06

          1. When did replica kits become a part of club merchandise? I don’t remember any such thing before the 1980s. Scarves and bobble hats in club colours, probably knitted by mums and grandmothers, were the order of the day.

          2. Once the clubs discovered theirs’ was a deep market they reacted accordingly.
            It probably started in earnest in the early 70’s

          3. It seems that there’s no subject beyond the reach of academic research.

            When and why adults began to wear replica football shirts at matches

            New study shows Newcastle United fans were among the first to wear replica football shirts at matches

            By David Morton Nostalgia Editor
            13:18, 26 FEB 2019
            UPDATED13:47, 26 FEB 2019

            May 4, 1974 and Newcastle United fans are in full voice as their team take on Liverpool in the FA Cup final at Wembley.

            If the day was a washout for the Magpies who lost 3-0, this memorable photograph shows a little piece of football history.

            https://i2-prod.chroniclelive.co.uk/incoming/article15888974.ece/ALTERNATES/s615b/0_DMR_NEC_270819fans_01.jpg

            The two fans in the centre of the image are among the first ever to be photographed wearing replica shirts at a football match.

            The fashion for adult fans wearing replica shirts – now an integral part of football’s visual and economic landscape – was initially created by supporters rather than by manufacturers or marketing, according to new University of Sheffield research, just published in the journal Sport in History.

            Using a statistical analysis of crowd photographs, manufacturer and club shop adverts, and a survey of over 4,000 fans, Dr Chris Stride, a statistician from the university’s Institute of Work Psychology, found the first big surge in replica shirt wearing pre-dated the more commonly cited moments for football’s revival, such as the 1990 World Cup and the formation of the Premier League.

            Though replica shirts have been produced since the late 1950s, they were initially produced and promoted for children. In the early 1970s, kit manufacturers forged contracts with clubs and introduced copyrighted designs, allowing them to market their shirts with the added appeal of being exclusive and authentic. This led to a boom in the child replica kit industry.

            However, adult sizes were not widely produced, and even more rarely worn as leisure wear. Wearing sports clothing in public still seemed odd to some adults and childish to others.

            For those of us who remember match days at St James’ Park in the mid-1970s, we kids might have worn a black and white scarf tied around our wrist, but it was really not the done thing to wear a replica shirt! You would have been laughed out of the Gallowgate End.

            The exception was at cup finals, where replica shirts became part of the big game fancy dress tradition.

            The study found that, by the early 1980s, a small number of fans began to wear replica shirts to matches more regularly – mostly young adults who had grown up with replica kits, and who were wearing large youth sizes.

            However, the fashion didn’t spread beyond a small subculture for most of the decade, due to lack of production or promotion of adult-sized shirts, the risk of being attacked at a match, and the absence of football merchandising infrastructure.

            In the late 1980s there was surge in replica shirt purchasing and wearing, linked both to the decline in hooliganism and the rise of the football fanzine culture and fan activism. The game was now considered hip again by young adults.

            This change in football’s fortunes was boosted again by the 1990 World Cup, during which thousands of replica-clad fans were seen both at home and at the tournament.

            Such wider adoption encouraged clubs to strike far more lucrative shirt deals with kit manufacturers who, eager to recoup that outlay, now produced larger adult sizes and marketed their goods proactively to all ages of adult fans.

            This commercialisation chimed perfectly with the introduction of the Premier League in 1992, and the focus on new, older, middle-class and family-centered fan demographics, creating a second jump in the numbers wearing replica shirts to matches.

            Dr Stride said: “Several factors were behind the shift from child to adult sales. It was as much the gradual removal of barriers such as widespread hooliganism, the growth and professionalisation of retail outlets for football merchandise, and the sense that sportswear was acceptable leisure wear for adults as well as for children, that enabled the replica shirt industry to develop.

            “The timeline for the adoption of replica shirts maps neatly on to the gentrification of football as a whole. Just as the fan activism of the late 1980s helped create the initial, though often-ignored revival in football’s fortunes prior to the formation of the Premier League, the surge in shirt wearing by young adults in this period helped create a market that manufacturers then exploited and expanded.”

            https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/history/adults-began-wear-replica-football-15888886

      2. They don’t seem to realise that it’s no longer a sport, it’s the club’s business and the fans are the suckers who just pay, and keep paying

      1. Be fair, Annie, the arms of the chap in front are hideously white, i.e. unttattooed.

          1. Whatever else one might think about those squads, merit was the key.

            Wenger inherited what was essentially a white back five and kept it.

            The midfield was similar, the front lines tended to be black, but the constant theme was merit.

            As more, and better, black players appeared, he signed them.

          3. Agreed.
            If I was asked for the pivotal moment for the recent great Arsenal sides it would be Bruce Rioch signing Dennis Bergkamp.
            At that point everything changed for the better.
            Rioch never gets the credit he deserved.

  72. 800 illegals came in by fragile boat today.

    Over 350 arrived on the coastline yesterday .

    How many barges will be required and how many new prisons need to be built .
    How many more stabbings , murders , thefts, rapes can we tolerate?

    2. The very simple solution is to bring them ashore.
      DNA, fingerprints, photographs, chip them and dump them.

      No food, no shelter, no money, no support.

      Nothing whatsoever.

      The instant they break the law deport them to wherever their DNA suggests they came from.
      If every country in Europe did that the invasion would stop..

    3. Those in power are ignoring the herd of elephants in the room – that is the billion + individuals with ambitions to emigrate to Europe and the UK.

  73. This is a site that may interest some of you. Searching (top right) for loved ones former units may unearth photos you have never seen before or may give an insight into what they endured in the trenches or on the Arctic Convoys (for example):

    https://www.iwm.org.uk/visits/iwm-london

        1. It can be a time sink. Especially when you start listening to some of the vocal recordings.

    2. It is a very strange experience visiting and then hearing the voice of a relative who is long dead but whom one knew well in ones own lifetime.

    3. We have an Arctic Convoy museum near me at Loch Ewe where they assembled and sailed from (my dad sailed with them), there’s also a couple of memorial sites around the loch too.

    1. The cat cartoon reminds me fondly of the time I had one. On fair days I’d read a newspaper in the back garden at the table and she’d very often follow me and plonk herself right across the spread-open pages of the Telegraph.

  76. Evening, all. Just back from a day at the races which would have been delightful had it not been for some jobsworth in the car park, who, despite my waving my blue badge at him and telling him I found it difficult to walk, insisted I parked about a furlong from the entrance. As a result I spent the evening in pain which rather put a dampener on the night. Even a 4/1 winner (the only bet of the night) didn’t help ease the discomfort. I made a formal complaint, but if it’s anything like the last complaint I made (about poor treatment during a reciprocal meeting) all that will happen is I will get an email trying to exonerate themselves complete with filler of platitudes. To add insult to injury, when I limped out to go to my car, there were cars parked where I had wanted to park and had not been allowed to. Sometimes I wonder why I renew my membership.

  77. Herr Jäger clearly hasn’t read the UK press in recent months. If he had, he’d have know that it was unwise to use the ‘H’-word in talking about Covid – and being German brings with it a certain sensitivity. We cannot know what he thinks about Jews and whether he was just careless, like Andrew Bridgen, but is it really incitement?

    Germany: AfD politician convicted over Holocaust remarks

    1. How many Muslims have been imprisoned in Germany for holocaust denial. They believe it to be a myth which is worse than making a comparison with covid.

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