Sunday 27 August: For all the Tories’ criticism of Ulez, the Government has once again failed to act

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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473 thoughts on “Sunday 27 August: For all the Tories’ criticism of Ulez, the Government has once again failed to act”

    1. Good morning, Minty. I’m back to bed now for some extra zeds, because I woke up at 3.45 am. A lot of sorting out now done, and I shall continue my exertions later.

    1. 375761+ up ticks,

      O2O,

      Currently, as has been for nigh on forty years the lab/lib/con coalition are AKA
      “the left,” have put on all counts Thomas Atkins at the rear of the queue.

    2. I’m sure that flag must have been doctored – ‘vets’ is such a Septic term.
      What’s wrong with calling us what we’ve always called us, ‘old soldiers’?

      2. I also dislike this shift to the American “Veterans” or “Vets” and refer to Ex-Forces, Ex-Servicemen or Ex-Squaddies.

      3. Vets treat dogs so well that they have been known to retrieve them from the battlefield.

  4. Just read Nadine Dorries’ resignation letter eviscerating Rishi Sunak which she release at approximately 6 pm last night. I’m looking forward to reading her new book which is due out soon. Now I really am going back to bed (after reading Sir jasper’s joke, that is.)

  5. Good morrow, Gentlefolks, today’s story. For you More philosophy doncha know!

    A Change Is As Good…
    A man and wife are in the livestock section at the county fair.

    They happen upon a stall, where there is a large bull.

    Upon reading the sign posted by the stall, the wife in exclaims: “Look here dear! It says this bull mated 365 times last year! That’s once per day! I think you need to take some lessons from this bull.”

    To which her husband replied: “Go ask the farmer if all 365 times were with the same cow.”

    Motes and beams spring to mind, especially since I have a particularly persistent bit of grit in my right eye!

  6. Reason must triumph over emotion or we risk our very own Trump. Peter Hitchens. 27 August 2023.

    What if the war, which is always in danger of bursting beyond its current limits, pulls us down into the pit of conflict, loss, corruption and national poverty which now engulfs Ukraine?

    Our politics are not that stable. Both our big parties are increasingly despised by people who were once their loyal voters. Powerful, passionate resentments are growing in our midst.

    We may sneer at American supporters of the oaf, Donald Trump. But if we continue down our current path of debt, inflation and feeble government, with deepening war added to the mix, are we sure that we may not find and elect our own Trump before long? I am not.

    Bring it on Peter! As it is we are destined for poverty and slavery; if we are fortunate. Trump; or Putin for that matter, could be no worse.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/columnists/article-12448555/PETER-HITCHENS-Reason-triumph-emotion-risk-Trump.html

    1. Our politics are not that stable. Both our big parties are increasingly despised …

      IMO our politics are stable in as much that although the two (let us forget the LibDumbs at our peril) big parties are despised by the people, a majority of those people remain wedded to voting for those they despise. Using the assumed least worst option as the deciding factor is one of the main reasons we will remain in this current mess.
      Despite the arrangement of two big parties and a small but equally malevolent third party, literally, we inhabit a one-party state. Captured by outside interests this arrangement does not address the interests of the people. Indeed, current politicians truly believe that once elected they become our masters and have thus been empowered to ride roughshod over our rights as a free people.

        1. Araminta, I agree but where is the leadership to enable change?
          Tice and Fox are likely well intentioned but can they be placed in the true leader category? I know that Sunak and Starmer aren’t in that category but they have the weight of their party machines and the globalist cabal backing them. Frankly, IMO we are leaderless. Is there a patriot in the HoC? Even the Monarch cavorts with the WEF/Globalists.
          Shit creek and all that that entails.

        2. I’ve been advocating revolution for the last couple of years – the bloodier the better

      2. It is who stands for election, under any party banner.
        If the entire country refused to vote, the party apparatchiks would retain power by default.
        We are in one heck of a bind.
        (By ‘we’ I mean the entire western world. We are in a C15 ‘War of the Roses’ state, which was not unique to England.)

    2. We may sneer at American supporters of the oaf, Donald Trump.

      Is he such an oaf?

  7. Reason must triumph over emotion or we risk our very own Trump. Peter Hitchens. 27 August 2023.

    What if the war, which is always in danger of bursting beyond its current limits, pulls us down into the pit of conflict, loss, corruption and national poverty which now engulfs Ukraine?

    Our politics are not that stable. Both our big parties are increasingly despised by people who were once their loyal voters. Powerful, passionate resentments are growing in our midst.

    We may sneer at American supporters of the oaf, Donald Trump. But if we continue down our current path of debt, inflation and feeble government, with deepening war added to the mix, are we sure that we may not find and elect our own Trump before long? I am not.

    Bring it on Peter! As it is we are destined for poverty and slavery; if we are fortunate. Trump; or Putin for that matter, could be no worse.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/columnists/article-12448555/PETER-HITCHENS-Reason-triumph-emotion-risk-Trump.html

    1. As an aside, I read yesterday (though darned if I can find the article) that the BRICS countries form 29.9% of the world’s GDP. In comparison, the G7 form only 23%.

      With the Bretton Woods Agreement a distant memory, change is afoot. Especially as the BRICS want to return to gold as a guarantee of currency value.

      Talking of game changers, India are calling for the world to target per capita emissions which they feel would level the carbon footprint playing field (for them as well as the similarly populous China); https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2023/08/26/india-want-the-world-to-target-per-capita-emissions/

        1. My guess is that most of them are of Afro-Caribbean heritage (so unlikely to be Muslim).

          2. And also probably second or third generation, so not ‘immigrants’, but born in this country.

  12. Good morning all. Interesting letter to highlight (and I for one agree wholeheartedly with”

    “ Michael Miller (Letters, August 24) mentions particulates in his claim that Ulez will improve health by reducing emissions, leading to cleaner air. It’s not that simple. Emissions are not only from exhausts. Electric cars are much heavier and can emit higher levels of dangerous respirable particulate matter from brakes and tyres that are damaging to health. Gases are retained transiently in the lungs but particulates remain, doing harm over a longer period.

    If all cars became electric tomorrow, the effects might actually be more damaging, not less.”

    Edit. I remember Mr Miller’s ridiculous letter and commented on it in PressReader. He lives in Yorkshire and should keep his opinions to himself on ULEZ as it has nothing to do with him, not being affected by it.

    2. So bloody skilful, the pair of them. I wish I could do a fraction of it. I have a daughter who can but won’t.

    5. Has Demi Moore had a sex change? And where is Patrick Swayze? Lol. And don’t you need an oven to bake the pots? I doubt whether the sun’s rays will do the trick.

  14. Do not heat your homes in the evenings, net zero quango tells public. 27 August 2023.

    Millions of families will be urged by a green quango not to heat their homes in the evening to help the Government hit its net zero target.

    The Climate Change Committee (CCC) said people should turn off their radiators at peak times as part of a wider drive to deliver “emissions savings”.

    In a document on “behaviour change” the body recommended Britons “pre-heat” their houses in the afternoon when electricity usage is lower.

    I imagine most Nottlers understand by now that the ruling classes are totally unhinged and that there is no need to pay any attention to their lunatic ramblings!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/08/26/new-net-zero-advice-turn-heating-up-only-during-the-day/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

    1. The way temperatures are going this year, we’ll be lighting the Rayburn and the fires a lot sooner than usual!

    3. I managed the whole of last winter without turning the heating on once.

      I found that a good dressing gown or blanket plus two or three microwave bean bag ‘hot water’ bottles kept me nice and snug.

    4. Morons, the lot of them – I bet they will have their heating on AND charge it to us as “expenses”.

    5. I think I will have to write and ask my mp about Net Zero. I can’t quite understand how the Welwyn, Hatfield and St Albans areas are planning oto build 15 thousand new homes all on green belt and or agricultural land.
      I suspect that as usual ‘a few bob’ has changed hands under the old proverbial counters.

    6. I don’t use electricity to heat my home. These idiotic announcements are bringing on Tourette’s.

  15. Good Moaning.
    I’ve discovered I labour under a huge burden; I was taught to speak, write and read English English.
    This infirmity reached critical mass when I tried to do a back-up on my new laptop with a new whizzy back-up gizmo.
    CaliforniaSpeak uses seemingly English words, but not as we know them. It seemed more interested in selling me Adobe products than actually helping me do a back-up.
    In desperation, I emailed my pet ‘pooter geek. Before he could reply, Sonny Boy and Grandson popped in while out on driving practice.
    I mentioned my problem; Grandson took over the laptop and with a few deft keystrokes solved the matter. Better still, he showed the old bat a simple routine that even she could understand. All it cost me was one chocolate Swiss roll and lashings of creme fraiche.
    (I use ‘pooters like I use water or electricity; I USE them. I don’t fiddle with things I don’t understand – especially after the disaster of a fortnight ago!)
    The moral of this story is: Make sure you have 17 year old grandson to hand. I do realise this requires either careful planning and/or a great deal of luck!

    1. 22-y.o. sons are also helpful here. The 32 y.o. will build you a new one if you want…
      Glad you got it sorted, Anne. Smart thinking sidesteps the problem and gets solution!

    2. I suspect just like many others of a certain age group, we all wonder why after “an update” nothing is as easy as it was before the ‘king update.
      And they don’t listen to what you say either. 😡😫

    3. England and America are two countries separated by the same language.

      (George Bernard Shaw).

  16. We need to drop the conceit that ULEZ is a matter for London and the UK parish council known as HM Governement.
    It is being imposed all over the world by people who fancy themselves as global leaders.
    And those people are nothing more than the willing stooges of the industry which will drop this electric car fantasy when the pollution, war and elitism it supports have run their course.
    New combustion engines are being developed to run on hydrogen, I know of one person who is stockpiling the old ones in anticipation of the bio-petrol that is about ready. I think he is premature, though maybe his kids will inherit those engines.

    When we are set to work to build back better it will be on the basis of newer energy. Those who have survived the hardships in the meantime will say, “Thank you for screwing us over, again.” At least that would be the plan.
    It is more likely this pyramid will collapse into its rotten foundations and Russia, China, India etc will rebuild without worrying about whether girls have willies, and men with boobs should twerk to our kids.

    Apart from that little rant, Bonjour les amis!

  18. … and do spare a thought for your Metropolitan constabulary today. All hands on deck in case things get difficult in NW London.

  19. Good morning all.
    Dry at the moment, but a very grey and threatening sky with a tad over 7°C on the yard thermometer.

  20. Shoplifting is out of control. Forget the police – stores need to up their game. 27 August 2023.

    What to do about shoplifting? It’s a delicate subject. Shoplifting is not quite like other crimes. Pilfering, purloining, filching, snaffling – it is by nature relatively trivial, the sort of thing children try their hands at without necessarily graduating to car heists and bank jobs. No punishment quite fits (the collapse of Winona Ryder’s career for a few designer gowns stands as a sort of parable for the shoplifter: it’s hardly ever worth it). But most of all, shoplifting is a crime that seems to reflect social need: it rises when the economy dips. The current spate seems partly fuelled by the cost of living crisis. Starving your population and then “cracking down” on it for nicking baby formula or a can of soup can start to make a government look rather unreasonable.

    Of course it’s all the fault of the shopowners. Tempting people with food and other luxuries. What did they expect?

    This Guardian article; it is almost needless to say, ignores the giant Ethnic Elephant in the room. Video from these events does not show little old white ladies sprinting for the door with a pack of toilet rolls under one arm and a leg of lamb under the other.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/27/shoplifting-out-of-control-forget-police-stores-need-to-up-their-game

    1. “Video from these events does not show little old white ladies sprinting for the door with a pack of toilet rolls under one arm and a leg of lamb under the other.”
      Hoorah … Those years charging up and down the hockey pitch were not wasted. Dodge that camera like swerving past the half-back from the Colchester Girls High School.

    2. It’s theft, something that the rest have to pay for as the shops raise their prices to recover the loss.

      1. Someone was saying over coffee after church this morning that Singapore was such a lovely clean place. I pointed out they had draconian punishments in place and zero tolerance. It’s the only thing that works.

      1. I wondered why all the shop fronts in the Nottinghill area were being boarded up on Friday.
        It’s only a joyous carnival.

    4. As I mentioned on Friday my wife was witnessed a large black man shoving booze down the front of his joggers in Sainsburys at WGC. There was nobody at all on any form of duty so she paid at the checkout and left.
      Thinking if she had said anything about it he might have had the opportunity to follow her to the underground car park and been violent.
      But seemingly the shops don’t really care about those sort of losses. They just put up the prices to cover it.

    1. After I had been obviously effected by the AZ covid jabs, and my GP surgery suggested not only to me but I suspect all those who are registered, you require boosters, I explained to my GP in person that I would not be taking boosters. He agreed with my comment. When the second booster was available I again reminded him of what he had previously said and he replied that it was entirely up to me.
      Apart from our three grandchildren our whole family had covid but only a mild version. Which really proves the ‘vaccines’ didn’t work.
      I will be reminding anyone who suggests that I need to be injected with any further health risks, it took two years out of my life and no chance. Anyone who takes a jab again is risking far too much.

  23. Oh dear – it’s the BBC yet again:

    On this morning’s news the BBC have got very overemotional about a certain company that produces warrant cards for the Met.

    has been hacked, and names and numbers of Met. members have been revealed.

    What we really need to know is how many false warrant cards have been produced/sold by the hackers?

    And how long has this been going on for?

    Pity that the BBC are unwilling to penetrate the smokescreen and reveal some real news.

    1. The bbc are probably scared if they get too personal they’ll be hacked as well. And more beans will be spilled.

  24. Morning, all Y’all.
    Rained like fcuk all night. Have a leak into the bedroom, so wooden floor in danger of being damaged. Hope we can get it dried out quickly.

      1. Now it’s sunny, now he clouds have dumped all over the place, no water left to float around in the sky 🙁

    4. I thought the idea was to do it as quickly as possible. Making it more difficult for yourself seems a bit of a handicap. I look for patterns and eliminate impossible combinations.

  26. Here’s one for you.
    In Firstborn’s local paper, there’s an srticle by the currently ruling party in the big town Kongsberg, saying how they will change the commercial policy for the town to encourage big DIY places to move in, but not mentioning that it was the same party who successfully drove said shops away a few years ago, so much so that they build DIY warehouses a few miles down the road! Why would they move back now, after that investment, and what utter hypocracy of these prats!
    They opened for comment BTL, so I let them have it. Straight between the eyes!

    2. I have little doubt that he has all the necessary licences and much as I would like him fowled I really cannot see why the police are wasting time pursuing this. It won’t discourage people who are illegally taking them nor will it encourage others to try it at home.

      Silly me, it’s a high profile individual and a wonderful opportunity to publicise how wonderful our police are.

      2. The RSPB should be the investigators and if they find evidence of wrong doing then involve the Police. For the Police to be involved after what could be a single, possibly malicious complaint shows the Police have lost the plot.

    5. “The man who complained – a shooting enthusiast ”

      I imagine his firearm licence will be revoked soon.

  28. Morning all 🙂😊
    Sunny Sunday a good start to the week.
    And the headline today just emphasis what a set of habitual and pathological liars we have in Westminster and Whitehall. And they are costing the honest working people of Britain an absolute fortune.

  30. For all the Tories’ criticism of Ulez, the Government has once again failed to act

    And they have the nerve to attack Dorries for not representing her constituency.

  31. Good morning all,

    Clear blue skies overhead McPhee Towers but clouding over soon. Wind in the West-Nor’-West, 11℃ rising to 18℃ today so August ending as it started – cooler than average.

    ULEZ letters:

    SIR – The expansion of the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) to all London boroughs is imminent. The Tories have alleged that Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, made “false” and “dishonest” claims to the London Assembly over the scheme’s consultation. Furthermore, his office funded scientists who published studies on Ulez’s effectiveness, and he then sought to discredit those whose findings contradicted the claims about its impact (report, August 20).

    The Government has the means to ban the expansion but has chosen not to. A full explanation of why is surely the least that we might expect. The Prime Minister would have scored a lot of brownie points had he stepped in.

    Susan Hall, the Tory candidate for the mayoral election next May, has promised to scrap the Ulez expansion if she is successful (Comment, August 24). She must make this the central theme of her campaign. If she does, she will be at least half way to winning.

    Peter Higgins
    West Wickham, Kent

    Well spotted, Peter. As with the small boats, so with the ULEZ expansion. They want it. Susan Hall, should she be successful in her campaign to become the London Mayor, needs to pledge to do more than scrap the extension. She needs to scrap ULEZ altogether. And, furthermore, she needs to have all the cameras removed and ‘put beyond use’ so that they cannot be used for anything else. Ever. THEN we’ll know if there are any real conservatives in the room.

    Edit: Then she should send the bill for the whole sorry tale to Sadiq Khan personally.

    1. Unfortunately, if Susan Hall had any true Conservative leanings she wouldn’t have been selected as a Tory candidate.

          2. Though if everyone stuck such a plate on their cars….it would eff up the system….

          3. That might be a profitable business opportunity, making and selling stick on versions, but only if everyone refused to pay their inevitable fines

  33. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d16c1948beeb4980435347249aece0952ce12311ea7e4c094a71edcfd006c674.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/26/anti-westernism-is-rampant-in-europe-and-beyond-love-of-put/

    BTL

    Define ‘Westernism.’

    The music, the art and the literature of Russia indicates that Russia is culturally just as ‘Western’ as we are and it is a society rooted in the Christian faith unlike the people who are currently invading Britain and Europe with alien moral codes and religious beliefs.

    Is it not possible that once again we are being duped by the MSM and the PTB into backing the wrong side as we did in Syria and much of the Middle East?

    1. In the final paragraph Hannan suggests that the Anglosphere is the last bastion of the “rule of law, personal freedom and representative government” – he obviously hasn’t noticed that we fail in all 3 areas.

      1. Some of us had hopes of Hannan some years ago – but he showed himself to be a man of straw during the Brexit campaign. He certainly should not be relied upon or trusted.

    2. Also featured on here yesterday evening. Hannan got a bit of a kicking then as well.

  34. Morning all,

    EV range anxiety gets surpassed by charging rage.

    This Express piece illustrates the problem posed by EV manufacturers who now make long range EVs that require ever higher charging capacity to function like a conventional ICE car.

    https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/cars/1805352/electric-vehicle-home-charging-costs

    This results in charging rage at fast charging centres and at home where home charging facilities are constrained to a charge rate of 7kW with a wall charger or 2kW through a 13 amp plug.

  35. A letter from Phil Angell bemoans the cost of weddings because of the “extras couples are now demanding”.

    The other day I saw something in Tunisia that I have never seen before, namely a very traditional wedding procession with the bride on a camel in a palanquin.

    There’s an idea, better than drones and helium balloons. But I wonder how much a camel and a palanquin cost in the UK!

  36. Posted on TCW:

    Whatever your opinion of Nadine Dorries (personally I rather like her) put aside any prejudices you may have and read her resignation letter to the PM. Here be some Truths:

    Dear Prime Minister,

    It has been the greatest honour and privilege of my life to have served the good people of Mid Bedfordshire as their MP for 18 years and I count myself blessed to have worked in Westminster for almost a quarter of a century. Despite what some in the media and you yourself have implied, my team of caseworkers and I have continued to work for my constituents faithfully and diligently to this day.

    When I arrived in Mid Bedfordshire in 2005, I inherited a Conservative majority of 8,000. Over five elections this has increased to almost 25,000, making it one of the safest seats in the country. A legacy I am proud of.

    During my time as a Member of Parliament, I have served as a back bencher, a bill Committee Chair, a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State before becoming Minister of State in the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) during the Covid crisis, after which I was appointed as Secretary of State at the department of Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS). The offer to continue in my Cabinet role was extended to me by your predecessor, Liz Truss, and I am grateful for your personal phone call on the morning you appointed your cabinet in October, even if I declined to take the call.

    As politicians, one of the greatest things we can do is to empower people to have opportunities to achieve their aspirations and to help them to change their lives for the better. In DHSC I championed meaningful improvements to maternity and neonatal safety. I launched the women’s health strategy and pushed forward a national evidence-based trial for Group B Strep testing in pregnant women with the aim to reduce infant deaths. When I resigned as Secretary of State for DCMS I was able to thank the professional, dedicated and hard-working civil servants for making our department the highest performing in Whitehall. We worked tirelessly to strengthen the Online Safety Bill to protect young people, froze the BBC licence fee, included the sale of Channel 4 into the Media Bill to protect its long-term future and led the world in imposing cultural sanctions when Putin invaded Ukraine.

    I worked with and encouraged the tech sector, to search out untaught talents such as creative and critical thinking in deprived communities offering those who faced a life on low unskilled pay or benefits, access to higher paid employment and social mobility. What many of the CEOs I spoke to in the tech sector and business leaders really wanted was meaningful regulatory reform from you as chancellor to enable companies not only to establish in the UK, but to list on the London Stock Exchange rather than New York. You flashed your gleaming smile in your Prada shoes and Savile Row suit from behind a camera, but you just weren’t listening. All they received in return were platitudes and a speech illustrating how wonderful life was in California. London is now losing its appeal as more UK-based companies seek better listing opportunities in the US. That, Prime Minister, is entirely down to you.

    Long before my resignation announcement, in July 2022, I had advised the cabinet secretary, Simon Case, of my intention to step down. Senior figures in the party, close allies of yours, have continued to this day to implore me to wait until the next general election rather than inflict yet another damaging by-election on the party at a time when we are consistently twenty points behind in the polls.

    Having witnessed first-hand, as Boris Johnson and then Liz Truss were taken down, I decided that the British people had a right to know what was happening in their name. Why is it that we have had five Conservative prime ministers since 2010, with not one of the previous four having left office as the result of losing a general election? That is a democratic deficit which the mother of parliaments should be deeply ashamed of and which, as you and I know, is the result of the machinations of a small group of individuals embedded deep at the centre of the party and Downing Street.

    To start with, my investigations focused on the political assassination of Boris Johnson, but as I spoke to more and more people – and I have spoken to a lot of people, from ex-prime ministers, cabinet ministers both ex and current through all levels of government and Westminster and even journalists – a dark story emerged which grew ever more disturbing with each person I spoke to.

    It became clear to me as I worked that remaining as a back bencher was incompatible with publishing a book which exposes how the democratic process at the heart of our party has been corrupted. As I uncovered this alarming situation I knew, such were the forces ranged against me, that I was grateful to retain my parliamentary privilege until today. And, as you also know Prime Minister, those forces are today the most powerful figures in the land. The onslaught against me even included the bizarre spectacle of the Cabinet Secretary claiming (without evidence) to a select committee that he had reported me to the Whips and Speakers office (not only have neither office been able to confirm this was true, but they have no power to act, as he well knows). It is surely as clear a breach of Civil Service impartiality as you could wish to see.

    But worst of all has been the spectacle of a prime minister demeaning his office by opening the gates to whip up a public frenzy against one of his own MPs. You failed to mention in your public comments that there could be no writ moved for a by-election over summer. And that the earliest any by-election could take place is at the end of September. The clearly orchestrated and almost daily personal attacks demonstrates the pitifully low level your Government has descended to.

    It is a modus operandi established by your allies which has targeted Boris Johnson, transferred to Liz Truss and now moved on to me. But I have not been a prime minister. I do not have security or protection. Attacks from people, led by you, declared open season on myself and the past weeks have resulted in the police having to visit my home and contact me on a number of occasions due to threats to my person.

    Since you took office a year ago, the country is run by a zombie Parliament where nothing meaningful has happened. What exactly has been done or have you achieved? You hold the office of prime minister unelected, without a single vote, not even from your own MPs. You have no mandate from the people and the government is adrift. You have squandered the goodwill of the nation, for what?

    And what a difference it is now since 2019, when Boris Johnson won an eighty-seat majority and a greater percentage of the vote share than Tony Blair in the Labour landslide victory of 1997. We were a mere five points behind on the day he was removed from office. Since you became prime minister, his manifesto has been completely abandoned. We cannot simply disregard the democratic choice of the electorate, remove both the prime minister and the manifesto commitments they voted for and then expect to return to the people in the hope that they will continue to unquestioningly support us. They have agency, they will use it.

    Levelling up has been discarded and with it, those deprived communities it sought to serve. Social care, ready to be launched, abandoned along with the hope of all of those who care for the elderly and the vulnerable. The Online Safety Bill has been watered down. BBC funding reform, the clock run down. The Mental Health Act, timed out. Defence spending, reduced. Our commitment to net zero, animal welfare and the green issues so relevant to the planet and voters under 40, squandered. As Lord Goldsmith wrote in his own resignation letter, because you simply do not care about the environment or the natural world. What exactly is it you do stand for?

    You have increased Corporation tax to 25%, taking us to the level of the highest tax take since World War Two at 75% of GDP, and you have completely failed in reducing illegal immigration or delivering on the benefits of Brexit. The bonfire of EU legislation, swerved. The Windsor framework agreement, a dead duck, brought into existence by shady promises of future preferment with grubby rewards and potential gongs to MPs. Stormont is still not sitting.

    Disregarding your own chancellor, last week you took credit for reducing inflation, citing your “plan”. There has been no budget, no new fiscal measures, no debate, there is no plan. Such statements take the British public for fools. The decline in the price of commodities such as oil and gas, the eased pressure on the supply of wheat and the increase in interest rates by the Bank of England are what has taken the heat out of the economy and reduced inflation. For you to personally claim credit for this was disingenuous at the very least.

    It is a fact that there is no affection for Keir Starmer out on the doorstep. He does not have the winning X factor qualities of a Thatcher, a Blair, or a Boris Johnson, and sadly, prime minister, neither do you. Your actions have left some 200 or more of my MP colleagues to face an electoral tsunami and the loss of their livelihoods, because in your impatience to become prime minister you put your personal ambition above the stability of the country and our economy. Bewildered, we look in vain for the grand political vision for the people of this great country to hold on to, that would make all this disruption and subsequent inertia worthwhile, and we find absolutely nothing.

    I shall take some comfort from explaining to people exactly how you and your allies achieved this undemocratic upheaval in my book. I am a proud working-class Conservative which is why the Levelling Up agenda was so important to me. I know personally how effective a strong and helping hand can be to lift someone out of poverty and how vision, hope and opportunity can change lives. You have abandoned the fundamental principles of Conservatism. History will not judge you kindly.

    I shall today inform the chancellor of my intention to take the Chiltern Hundreds, enabling the writ to be moved on 4 September for the by-election you are so desperately seeking to take place.

    Yours sincerely,
    Nadine Dorries

      1. No, but i suspect she got a lot of pleasure from flaying him alive. I know i enjoyed it.

    2. Since you took office a year ago, the country is run by a zombie Parliament where nothing meaningful has happened. What exactly has been done or have you achieved? You hold the office of prime minister unelected, without a single vote, not even from your own MPs. You have no mandate from the people and the government is adrift. You have squandered the goodwill of the nation, for what?

      It is significant that she has only discovered these truths (and others) on her departure!

          1. Who is the least trustworthy: Bonker Boris, Medusa May, Teflon Tony, Homo Heath or Wily Wilson.

            Stiff competition.

            Does any one remember balloon debates from one’s schooldays?

            In a balloon debate each speaker adopts the persona of a well known personality. The balloon is losing air rapidly and will crash killing everyone in it. However one person will survive if all the others are kicked out. Each speaker must argue the case for him or herself staying in the balloon and why each of the others should be kicked out.

            As a former pipe smoker I would probably vote for Harold the pound in your pocket Wilson to be saved but it would be a difficult choice.

          2. A Lefty teacher of my acquaintance described Wilson as “chicanery on legs”.
            However, Harold did stand up to America and keep us out of the Vietnam War.

          5. You can visit his grave (as I have done). It’s in the cemetery at Old Town, St Mary’s, Isles of Scilly. His holiday bungalow, at the top of the hill between Old Town and Hugh Town, enjoys splendid panoramic views of those beautiful isles.

          6. I sailed past the Scilly Isles in 1985 when making the passage from from Ponta Delgada in São Miguel in the Azores to St Mawes but I did not stop there because there are not many safe deep water anchorages for boats with deep fin keels.

            My sons enjoyed the Michael Morpurgo books some of which are set in the Scillies.

          7. The Scillies are a graveyard for shipping with thousands of wrecks around them. I have a huge wall map showing the location of them. The worst was in 1707 when four warships of the British Fleet, commanded by Admiral of the Fleet Sir Cloudesley Shovell (probably my favourite name), were wrecked on the western rocks; killing between 1,400 and 2,000 seamen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scilly_naval_disaster_of_1707

          8. Sir Cloudesley Shovell – I like it. Maybe you could adopt it as your pseudonym’s pseudonym!

          9. I’m guessing he pronounced it “Show-Vell” and not like the implement used for scooping up coal.

    3. I can’t say that I have ever taken much notice of her in the past, I assumed because of all the negative media coverage that she must be on our side.

    4. Apart from the “green” nonsense, and even there she’s right about voters under 40, bang on the money.
      I hope her replacement Conservative in name only candidate loses.

    7. I liked her description of George and Dave – “Two posh boys who don’t know the price of a pint of milk”.

    8. She certainly brings attention to the sheer devious nastiness of the incompetent and grubby little man, Sunak!

      Sunak has all the characteristics of a bully – he will attack those he can squash but is too cowardly to engage with any opponents who may defeat him.

      This is why he has given way on Brexit and N Ireland’s place in the UK, why he has scrapped the EU laws and practices in the UK which he promised to scrap, why he has shied away from leaving the ECHR and stopping the illegal immigrants, and why nobody believes he will do anything to sort out the corrupt and over-greedy and politically-motivated banks

      2. Surely he has NOT scrapped the EU laws and practices in the UK which he promised to scrap. He is an empty vessel.

      1. I don’t know. It’s not far off. You have to consider compounded taxes. Take fuel:

        The driller’s pay tax.
        The transport company pays tax.
        Import duties
        Refinery business rates and employee, heat, light, energy taxes
        The taxes on the pensions of those employees.
        Then there’s the tanker drivers and haulage company – heat, light, business rates, corp, insurance taxes, fuel, road taxes

        Then the retailer selling the fuel – the same heat, light, business, insurance and corporation, insurance taxes.

        Then there’s us, actually buying the fuel having paid our company corp tax, insurance, heat light, business rates then from that heavily taxed costs, pensions – which are taxed – employer NI, employee NI, income tax, road tax,

        And then… after hundreds of taxes, the state takes another 80% chunk in fuel duty and VAT.

        And on and on ad nauseum.

        This is why the country is stuffed. The tax burden is disgusting, crushing and worse, despite this incredible soaking of private wealth into public waste, the state *still* borrows two thirds again adding another tax for future generations. Then, having utterly failed at every level, it tries to inflate that debt away – adding another tax through devaluation of the measly amount left over.

    10. The online safety bill is nothing to be proud of. A more revolting, fascistic assault on liberty I cannot imagine.

        1. They’re rather related: both are deeply damaging, globalist (EU) enforced ideologies that are incredibly destructive.

    11. There are some good bits with which I thoroughly agree. Others are total bollards.
      But Nads is throwing a hissy fit because she cannot get her rump on the red benches.

  37. Posted on TCW:

    Whatever your opinion of Nadine Dorries (personally I rather like her) put aside any prejudices you may have and read her resignation letter to the PM. Here be some Truths:

    Dear Prime Minister,

    It has been the greatest honour and privilege of my life to have served the good people of Mid Bedfordshire as their MP for 18 years and I count myself blessed to have worked in Westminster for almost a quarter of a century. Despite what some in the media and you yourself have implied, my team of caseworkers and I have continued to work for my constituents faithfully and diligently to this day.

    When I arrived in Mid Bedfordshire in 2005, I inherited a Conservative majority of 8,000. Over five elections this has increased to almost 25,000, making it one of the safest seats in the country. A legacy I am proud of.

    During my time as a Member of Parliament, I have served as a back bencher, a bill Committee Chair, a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State before becoming Minister of State in the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) during the Covid crisis, after which I was appointed as Secretary of State at the department of Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS). The offer to continue in my Cabinet role was extended to me by your predecessor, Liz Truss, and I am grateful for your personal phone call on the morning you appointed your cabinet in October, even if I declined to take the call.

    As politicians, one of the greatest things we can do is to empower people to have opportunities to achieve their aspirations and to help them to change their lives for the better. In DHSC I championed meaningful improvements to maternity and neonatal safety. I launched the women’s health strategy and pushed forward a national evidence-based trial for Group B Strep testing in pregnant women with the aim to reduce infant deaths. When I resigned as Secretary of State for DCMS I was able to thank the professional, dedicated and hard-working civil servants for making our department the highest performing in Whitehall. We worked tirelessly to strengthen the Online Safety Bill to protect young people, froze the BBC licence fee, included the sale of Channel 4 into the Media Bill to protect its long-term future and led the world in imposing cultural sanctions when Putin invaded Ukraine.

    I worked with and encouraged the tech sector, to search out untaught talents such as creative and critical thinking in deprived communities offering those who faced a life on low unskilled pay or benefits, access to higher paid employment and social mobility. What many of the CEOs I spoke to in the tech sector and business leaders really wanted was meaningful regulatory reform from you as chancellor to enable companies not only to establish in the UK, but to list on the London Stock Exchange rather than New York. You flashed your gleaming smile in your Prada shoes and Savile Row suit from behind a camera, but you just weren’t listening. All they received in return were platitudes and a speech illustrating how wonderful life was in California. London is now losing its appeal as more UK-based companies seek better listing opportunities in the US. That, Prime Minister, is entirely down to you.

    Long before my resignation announcement, in July 2022, I had advised the cabinet secretary, Simon Case, of my intention to step down. Senior figures in the party, close allies of yours, have continued to this day to implore me to wait until the next general election rather than inflict yet another damaging by-election on the party at a time when we are consistently twenty points behind in the polls.

    Having witnessed first-hand, as Boris Johnson and then Liz Truss were taken down, I decided that the British people had a right to know what was happening in their name. Why is it that we have had five Conservative prime ministers since 2010, with not one of the previous four having left office as the result of losing a general election? That is a democratic deficit which the mother of parliaments should be deeply ashamed of and which, as you and I know, is the result of the machinations of a small group of individuals embedded deep at the centre of the party and Downing Street.

    To start with, my investigations focused on the political assassination of Boris Johnson, but as I spoke to more and more people – and I have spoken to a lot of people, from ex-prime ministers, cabinet ministers both ex and current through all levels of government and Westminster and even journalists – a dark story emerged which grew ever more disturbing with each person I spoke to.

    It became clear to me as I worked that remaining as a back bencher was incompatible with publishing a book which exposes how the democratic process at the heart of our party has been corrupted. As I uncovered this alarming situation I knew, such were the forces ranged against me, that I was grateful to retain my parliamentary privilege until today. And, as you also know Prime Minister, those forces are today the most powerful figures in the land. The onslaught against me even included the bizarre spectacle of the Cabinet Secretary claiming (without evidence) to a select committee that he had reported me to the Whips and Speakers office (not only have neither office been able to confirm this was true, but they have no power to act, as he well knows). It is surely as clear a breach of Civil Service impartiality as you could wish to see.

    But worst of all has been the spectacle of a prime minister demeaning his office by opening the gates to whip up a public frenzy against one of his own MPs. You failed to mention in your public comments that there could be no writ moved for a by-election over summer. And that the earliest any by-election could take place is at the end of September. The clearly orchestrated and almost daily personal attacks demonstrates the pitifully low level your Government has descended to.

    It is a modus operandi established by your allies which has targeted Boris Johnson, transferred to Liz Truss and now moved on to me. But I have not been a prime minister. I do not have security or protection. Attacks from people, led by you, declared open season on myself and the past weeks have resulted in the police having to visit my home and contact me on a number of occasions due to threats to my person.

    Since you took office a year ago, the country is run by a zombie Parliament where nothing meaningful has happened. What exactly has been done or have you achieved? You hold the office of prime minister unelected, without a single vote, not even from your own MPs. You have no mandate from the people and the government is adrift. You have squandered the goodwill of the nation, for what?

    And what a difference it is now since 2019, when Boris Johnson won an eighty-seat majority and a greater percentage of the vote share than Tony Blair in the Labour landslide victory of 1997. We were a mere five points behind on the day he was removed from office. Since you became prime minister, his manifesto has been completely abandoned. We cannot simply disregard the democratic choice of the electorate, remove both the prime minister and the manifesto commitments they voted for and then expect to return to the people in the hope that they will continue to unquestioningly support us. They have agency, they will use it.

    Levelling up has been discarded and with it, those deprived communities it sought to serve. Social care, ready to be launched, abandoned along with the hope of all of those who care for the elderly and the vulnerable. The Online Safety Bill has been watered down. BBC funding reform, the clock run down. The Mental Health Act, timed out. Defence spending, reduced. Our commitment to net zero, animal welfare and the green issues so relevant to the planet and voters under 40, squandered. As Lord Goldsmith wrote in his own resignation letter, because you simply do not care about the environment or the natural world. What exactly is it you do stand for?

    You have increased Corporation tax to 25%, taking us to the level of the highest tax take since World War Two at 75% of GDP, and you have completely failed in reducing illegal immigration or delivering on the benefits of Brexit. The bonfire of EU legislation, swerved. The Windsor framework agreement, a dead duck, brought into existence by shady promises of future preferment with grubby rewards and potential gongs to MPs. Stormont is still not sitting.

    Disregarding your own chancellor, last week you took credit for reducing inflation, citing your “plan”. There has been no budget, no new fiscal measures, no debate, there is no plan. Such statements take the British public for fools. The decline in the price of commodities such as oil and gas, the eased pressure on the supply of wheat and the increase in interest rates by the Bank of England are what has taken the heat out of the economy and reduced inflation. For you to personally claim credit for this was disingenuous at the very least.

    It is a fact that there is no affection for Keir Starmer out on the doorstep. He does not have the winning X factor qualities of a Thatcher, a Blair, or a Boris Johnson, and sadly, prime minister, neither do you. Your actions have left some 200 or more of my MP colleagues to face an electoral tsunami and the loss of their livelihoods, because in your impatience to become prime minister you put your personal ambition above the stability of the country and our economy. Bewildered, we look in vain for the grand political vision for the people of this great country to hold on to, that would make all this disruption and subsequent inertia worthwhile, and we find absolutely nothing.

    I shall take some comfort from explaining to people exactly how you and your allies achieved this undemocratic upheaval in my book. I am a proud working-class Conservative which is why the Levelling Up agenda was so important to me. I know personally how effective a strong and helping hand can be to lift someone out of poverty and how vision, hope and opportunity can change lives. You have abandoned the fundamental principles of Conservatism. History will not judge you kindly.

    I shall today inform the chancellor of my intention to take the Chiltern Hundreds, enabling the writ to be moved on 4 September for the by-election you are so desperately seeking to take place.

    Yours sincerely,
    Nadine Dorries

  38. Mr Farage explained very clearly on GB News a couple of weeks ago that the Conservative Party had the legal means to postpone the expansion of ULEZ until after the mayoral elections next year.

    But once again the impotent Sunak and his collapsible government have chickened out just as they have chickened out on the immigration issue, on scrapping EU laws, on honouring the integrity of Northern Ireland as a part of the UK and fulfilling Brexit properly.

    And does anyone honestly think that Sunak will take appropriate action against the quasi-criminal NatWest Bank? No, Dame Alison Rose will keep her title and her money and the chairman, Howard Davies, and the board of directors of Nat West will stay in place!

    Have people noticed that there have been far fewer demands from Labour for Sunak to resign from his position as PM recently? The Labour Party has come to the conclusion that the longer Sunak is in place, and if he can stay in place until the next general election, the more likely it will be that the Conservatives will not just be routed but that it will probably be extinguished for ever.

    There needs to be some sort of coup to remove Sunak – but I fear that the British are no longer capable of imitating the action of the tiger, stiffening the sinews, summoning up the blood, and disguising fair nature with hard-favoured rage against the limp-wristed leader!

    2. ULEZ is a huge hole the enemy is digging. To regain the mayoralty the Conservatives don’t want him to stop digging. Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

      2. Farage also made the point that in between now and the mayoral elections next year several small businesses – not just within but also outside the M25 – will be destroyed by Ulez expansion.

        But, to this completely repulsive government, small businesses and individual people are unimportant.

        May the whole lot of them equivocate and ravel in a purgatorial Hades before rotting in Hell!

          1. But the irony is that the Conservative Party under Sunak seems to be oblivious of the fact that with every passing day they become more unelectable.

    5. Sunak will do absolutely nothing, about anything. His job is to make life difficult and expensive for the public for the profit of his masters.

  39. Right, I’m off to the Wiltshire Avon. A large trout which I couldn’t tempt to take anything was lurking in the shade of this tree the last time I was there. It’s a good lie for a big fish as there’s a depression in the river bed under it too. First port of call for a recce then assess the weather to decide the best time of day for an assault. As long as someone hasn’t got there before me.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8eb4b091e2481ec17fed8fd71edcc5bab78808f356d7c4a78c94ea3c03f6c67b.jpg

  40. ‘Morning All

    Also see parking your car………

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/adcb15ec80adc3493108bc6e9947d14d9657282ad044751990caef7cde74b641.jpg

    Rest

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6be27c02ad468637ff778569f3d5a9c0b8a8273aec94f09c17d825f5346db230.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b8917e4f736adf553d4865cc500e3f2158f71c40e77ebdf09167c742a887bf6d.gif

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8e8d57ce90d242590131205569934eed65385b2690fbf8de0a0ee8947dcce285.jpg

    https://i.imgflip.com/7wxxlc.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cd1e1ef02fd605f0bc8f59d87c0156afc5c316cb26c43acb1b5a837a174fa708.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0002a43bebe981ce6d7ac5468416b0d47c790804b4ed645694fb1f3990ba549f.jpg

  41. OT – I didn’t see England’s sparkling performance at Twickenham. And Stephen Jones in the Grimes is predictably scoffing. However, in his”players’ ratings” it is interesting to note that the best marks go to the young new players. While the aged warhorses score badly.

    Not that the RFU will take any notice of new fresh talent, of course.

        1. In breaking news. The owner of Dulux Paints has sadly been found dead on
          Mount Snowdon. Spokesman for Snowdon Mountain Rescue said that he
          appeared to have succumbed to hypothermia and could have done with
          another coat.

  42. Good morning all

    BTL from yesterday’s letters.

    Edwin Pugh

    14 HRS AGO

    As you say your prayers tonight remember to thank Sir Ed Davey for his wonderful gift. My thanks to Paul Homewood for bringing this to our attention.
    “According to the Low Carbon Contracts Company, subsidies to offshore wind farms under CfDs amounted to £419 million between April and July this year, equivalent to £96/MWh. The market price averaged £81/MWh during the same period.
    Older offshore wind farms, which are subsidised via ROCs, are paid a subsidy of £125/MWh at current rates.
    Last year offshore wind generated 45 TWh, split 22.1 TWh for ROC generators and 22.9 TWh for CfD ones. On this basis and at current levels of subsidies, the total subsidy for offshore wind will amount to over £4.9 billion in this year as a whole. That works out at about £200 per household.
    Remember that next time when people tell you how cheap wind power is!”
    And remember that it was Ed Davey who loaded these subsidies onto your energy bills.

    1. The comical thing is that the profits are privatised, but the costs are socialised – forced on to bills.

      The state does so much meddling to fiddle the real costs of energy and to protect the revenues of windmills – usually for their own benefit – it’s obscene.

  43. “Acts of Parliament make almost no difference because we have franchised government to the sandal-wearing people who nowadays sit on specialist committees, the likes of Tony Juniper.”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mG3kc-iUM2E

    There are a couple of moments when Anderson appears to thinking “What’s he on about?” but it all ends well. There might be a longer version out there.

    1. I do not always agree with Starkey but I always enjoy the lucidity of his point of view.

    1. I wonder if plod said ‘Well, for the duration of their stay, it’s their property…’ to which I’d reply ‘The contents of a police station are mine. I’ll take all the computers, please.’

      Plod seem to be really struggling with this concept of theft.

      1. Anything that gives them actual work to do is avoided. I hope they have a pleasant day at the carnival today with all the vermin.

      1. I wonder how an insurance claim would work out, it’s quite obvious what has happened. Robbery.

    1. Nice one DM! Now this thieving couple can be seen by all! If I were the landlady I’d tell the police to “Sod off and do your job properly”. I don’t normally use the F word.

      1. What the long suffering people and particularly on Nottle i have noticed is ordinary folk who have never used vulgar language are more inclined to do so now.

        1. We’re getting older and losing our inhibitions……… I think it’s one of the first signs of dementia…….

          3. I never did, but nowadays when I see the likes of the RNLI asking me to leave them money in my will, I think it’s the only appropriate response!

      2. I would suggest that they go and fornicate elsewhere.

        Of course the failure of the police is yet another of Sunak’s failings.

        1. “Of course the failure of the police is yet another of Sunak’s failings.”

          Have you forgotten about Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron, MAY, Johnson and Truss?

          May (as both Home Secretary and PM) was by far the worst.

          1. You must have the same level of despair about the police as I have for the unprofessional teaching profession.

            Medusa May is certainly a gorgon and I agree with your list of villains except Truss who didn’t have enough time to do any good or any bad. How many on your list failed by sheer incompetence and how many of them deliberately failed?

          2. May certainly deliberately failed; she had no time for the police and said so at a police federation conference when she was Home Secretary.

            I’m in contact with a good number of retired former colleagues and they all think the same thing. They believe that most recruits wish to do a good job but are being thwarted from doing so by a combination of piss-poor management and malignant governmental interference.

          3. I agree that you cannot blame the recruits – just as an incompetent teacher will blame his or her pupils for being stupid when they fail their exams.

          4. Or as an incompetent carpenter blames his saw and plane for his lack of ability to use them properly.

      2. The Police as usual exposing their idiocy. They have no idea how the Internet and social media works. Even if the landlady removed the video it has already been copied thousands of times and is all over the place. Schmucks.

      3. These people are a scourge on society.

        Years ago we stayed in the lovely Luttrell Arms Hotel in Dunster. A large group of music students from Bridgewater had taken a block booking and commandeered the place. At meals they pushed tables together and behaved in the most boorish fashion leaving food scraps everywhere.

        In the manner of Germans they ‘booked’ the garden seating by leaving their sheet music and other items on the furniture and tables, they kept us awake at night romping along the corridors exchanging bedrooms and God knows what else. To cap it all the morning they left the poor staff told us that they had removed anything removable from their rooms including but not only bath robes, towels and toiletries.

        1. I would have escalated that. Got the Police and the College authorities and the Media involved. Public shaming is the way to treat people who behave in such a fashion.

    4. I do hope the clips go viral and warn off other places who might accept bookings.

      That’ll cause them well earned stress.

    5. The police would have been flummoxed if asked to provide the statutory authority for such a request.
      The very useful question I learned as an usher ‘Please provide me with the statutory authority’.

  46. Israelophobia is the one hatred that polite society embraces. 27 August 2023.

    However secular Western society becomes, it remains steeped in Christianity. The Bible elevated the Jewish land to the Holy Land, the Jewish city to the Holy City and a Jewish prophet to the Son of God; yet the Chosen People were blamed for killing Christ. This fetishisation and demonisation of Jews lies at the very foundation of our civilisation.

    In the Middle Ages, Jews were accused of murdering Christian children to drink their blood; last month, a BBC presenter was forced to apologise after remarking that Israel was “happy to kill children”. As the novelist Howard Jacobson put it, Israelophobia is “the old hatred decanted into new bottles”.

    Like the anti-Semitism of previous centuries, the bigotry is based on conspiracy theories and falsehoods. Israel is accused of pulling the strings of politicians, finance and the media.

    We must be due for a rerun of Holocaust programmes on TV!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/27/israelophobia-is-the-one-hatred-that-polite-society-embrace1/

    1. A guiding light – reposted without apologies.

      When the Nazis came for the communists,
      I remained silent;
      I was not a communist.

      When they locked up the social democrats,
      I remained silent;
      I was not a social democrat.

      When they came for the trade unionists,
      I did not speak out;
      I was not a trade unionist.

      When they came for the Jews,
      I remained silent;
      I was not a Jew.

      When they came for me,
      there was no one left to speak out.

      Als die Nazis die Kommunisten holten,
      habe ich geschwiegen;
      ich war ja kein Kommunist.

      Als sie die Sozialdemokraten einsperrten,
      habe ich geschwiegen;
      ich war ja kein Sozialdemokrat.

      Als sie die Gewerkschafter holten,
      habe ich nicht protestiert;
      ich war ja kein Gewerkschafter.

      Als sie die Juden holten,
      habe ich geschwiegen;
      ich war ja kein Jude.

      Als sie mich holten,
      gab es keinen mehr,
      der protestieren konnte.[1]

      Friedrich Gustav Emil Martin Niemöller
      (14 January 1892 – 6 March 1984) was a Protestant pastor and social activist.

      2. This is propaganda. “Israelophobia” is not the one hatred that polite society embraces. There is no evidence to support such an assertion and it is a libel on the generality of the public who are more likely to be its supporters. Despite claiming this Simons doesn’t hesitate to dig up every historical meme that he can. In reality he is pleading oppression for the richest and most powerful state in the Middle East. Usually there is a rash of these things when Israel is in political difficulties because of its policies.

      3. The Nazis “came for the communists” because they were practising a different form of totalitarian socialism to what they were.

        1. Folk often argue that quite obviously, the Nazis were right wing because they were fascists. Once that argument has been obliterated with the truth that all fascism is Left wing, they then launch into the ‘they killed socialists!’ Yes, and Lefties have a habit of murdering each other over petty differences of ideology precisely because they cannot cope with a dissenting voice saying something their group disagrees with.

          1. Mussolini founded his movement because he regarded Italy’s socialists as insufficiently left-wing.

          2. He actually built his Fascism on the work of Giovanni Gentile who’s work was driven by a fear that Marx’s “Class Conflict” would undo the union of Italy after the Risorgimento.

          3. Calling the Naazis right-wing is a deliberate untruth – apparently, everything right-wing is awful, ergo nazi-thinking, and so everything left-wing is, by being opposite, good.
            Except the Nazis were left, the communists left, the fascists left. There is no real Right-wing movement, as it embraces individualism not collectivism, and so individualists typically don’t band together – but collectivists do.

      4. He was awarded for service as Lieut. Cmdr in the U-boat service with Iron Cross, 1st class, in the First World War. Trained as a priest in 1931.
        The poem, to me, is a powerful warning about the salami tecchnique, of splitting one from another and taking the one.

  48. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/40bde9fd7909c96057be2375c6048abaa87e97c6baf1baaada582d692fda9dc8.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/08/26/migration-rishi-sunak-channel-crossings-tory-voters/

    But it is not just on immigration that Sunak and his government is failing: it is failing on everything it has touched. Above all it has failed because it has betrayed the basic conservative values it is meant to represent. It has failed to heed the words of Polonius:

    This above all: to thine own self be true,
    And it must follow, as the night the day,
    Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

    They have certainly been false to any man – or woman – who voted for the Conservative Party in 2019

    BTL

    If the Conservative Party wishes to survive beyond the next election they must get rid of Sunak NOW. There is no time to waste.

    They will certainly lose the election even with a new leader – but at least they can start rebuilding a conservative Conservative Party immediately. If they wait until after being annihilated at the election the Conservative Party will be so dead that there will be only a lifeless corpse and nothing left to rebuild.

    1. If Fishi was deposed – WHICH true Conservative MP would replace him?

      Just asking…

        1. When we elected a Conservative who set about a pro growth, tax cutting agenda the globalists kiboshed her in favour of their own man.

      3. I believe that Belgium functioned rather better than it usually did when there was no government for the better part of a year.

        I suppose my favourite would be a brief interregnum with someone like John Redwood in charge until a Parliamentary seat can be found for David Frost who can then take over.

        The Conservative Party is writing its own suicide note which will go on until Sunak is deposed.

          1. Corrected – you knew whom I meant! I usually try to correct my many errors and typos before too many people spot them!

    2. One… in four? What did the other four think? That’s he’s importing them deliberately?

      With genuine respect Richard, they’re not failing because that assumes the intent is to resolve the problem. Once you acknowledge that the intent is to deliberately, intentionally make the problem worse through inaction and deliberate malfeasance their activity becomes clearer.

    3. Not trying very hard? Not trying at all would be more accurate; mouthing platitudes is not making any attempt to deal with the problem.

  49. Major wine-producing regions, particularly the famed Bordeaux area of France, are struggling.

    The French government has announced a £170 million plan to buy up huge quantities of the excess, which will be destroyed.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12448995/France-pour-away-170m-wine-desperate-bid-stem-tumbling-prices-sales-crash.html

    They give lots of reasons as to why they are pouring perfectly drinkable wine down the drain except the obvious ones. The UK now beat the French at their own game wether it is wine, cheeses or charcuterie.

    Plus the fact that there are better and cheaper alternatives.

    In their arrogance they have sat on their laurels and been left behind.

    1. I wonder how many in the French government will be helping themselves to the best of what’s available.

      1. I wonder how many in the French government won’t be helping themselves to the best of what’s available.

        1. Canada still has supply management on some products. It is not unusual to hear of a farmer having to dump excess milk down the drain because they have exceeded quota.

          Somehow the price of dairy products compared to the US is not supposed to be related to this control of product.

          1. They throw away perfectly good food then ask us to pay money to feed the starving in Africa.

          2. On top of what the government has already poured into the bottomless pit. The government, of course, being shorthand for taxpayers.

    3. The English have always been top-notch at charcuterie. In the 1950s and 1960s there were at least four dedicated “pork butchers” in Chesterfield whose produce was simply mouth-watering.

      1. Didn’t an English butcher beat the French opposition at a Black Pudding contest a few years ago?

        2. The Beefy Boys won best burger UK and went on to win 2nd place in las Vegas in the world championship. That showed the yanks how to make proper burger !

          1. Originally. It was made here when we had rationing. Newforge Foods factory in Liverpool where it was then produced from 1941.

    4. Can we say ‘because of Brexit’ now? After all, the frogs have overproduced and we’ve got other markets for our vino. We’re also no longer forced to fund them. Well, while no longer forced, because DEFRA are spiteful scum we still are, but we could have left the CAP and CFP.

        1. I think that the rumour that James Hewitt is really Harry’s father can be laid to rest. Forget DNA tests which can be doctored with – nobody other than the Idiot King could have fathered a person as spectacularly stupid as Harry!

    5. I’d set a 6pm curfew if I were married to her. Upstairs medear, thrice before lights out!

  53. Women will soon be the equal of men at chess – if they are allowed to. 27 August 2023.

    The game has been pervaded by sexism, but unlike most sports all-female competitions will hopefully eventually prove unnecessary.

    Ms Strimpel’s hopes are of course based on the Cultural Maxist tenet that we are all equal except for the social prejudices that restrict our growth and that when these are removed equality will reign. This is comforting for Feminists but the unfortunate truth is that women are inferior to men in almost every category except giving birth and when this is corrected one suspects that even that will vanish. It is true that women have achieved higher status in Academic and Political circles in recent years but this is not due to some radical improvement in their performance but because the goalposts have been moved at one end of the pitch. There’s no doubt that all this has been achieved at huge cost to Western Society. It has lowered the standards in almost every sphere of human activity and is directly responsible for many of the crises that now face the West!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/27/women-soon-equal-men-chess-if-allowed/

    2. Sex is not the only factor. Many young male channel migrants have an IQ of 80. Mine is 120. However, there will never be a female Michelangelo, a female Dante or a female Mozart.

      1. I doubt there will ever be another male Michelangelo. With the tools he used the fineness of detail is exquisite. A modern sculptor will probably use a 3D printer using resin.

    4. I’m not sure that it’s lowered the standards per se; the women at Bletchley Park were just as good as the men and made an equally valuable contribution.

      1. The ladies were prepared to do those mostly boring repetitive jobs to support the war effort. The men were busy.
        Also, they were ladies of a certain standing who could be vouched for.

  54. An interesting evening last night.
    There is an old air force base nearby that has been showing its age after being neglected for the past fifty years. In the past few years a big effort has gone into restoring and reusing the base

    Which is how I spent the evening in the drill hall enjoying a concert

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dc762b0d7bcceaaa4a0eac839aa63dd78c6bb0078b105e9e1abc88e7019c15f5.jpg

    It was actually operated by the RAF during the war as No. 31 Bombing and Gunnery School – RAF Station Picton

      1. Why not? We could then use it as a weapons testing range.

        Giant hangers could easily accommodate thousands of the criminal welfare shoppers. Any that get away we get free testing.

        1. I was listening to the radio earlier about Hemsby earlier, how about housing them on beach front properties.

          2. It’s an imported mercenary army, for when people rebel against the great reset, there can be no other explanation for the madness.

  55. Coming home from church today, the train was crammed with young tarts heading for the Notting Hill crime fest and I make no apology for describing them thus. Acres of flesh on display, much of it fat and all of it tattooed. Their makeup was crude, their language skills limited and they were too stupid to have found out that there aren’t any trains stopping at Ladbroke Grove. My only satisfaction was the expression on all their faces as they realised too late that Westbourne Park was their stop.

    1. Kids will be kids. Sometimes the idea of getting involved is more important than the reality.

      We went to Brazil during carnival season once and that really was something. You don’t bring anything with you. Even a pen got pinched.

    2. I wonder where this stupidity comes from? Stupid parents? Stupid teachers? Stupid contemporaries? Or is it just part of the insidious progression from good education to thick-as-pigshittedness that is evident everywhere you look these days?

      1. Lots of contributing factors, Grizz; poor education, lack of discipline, poor parenting (parents unmarried, fathers missing, serial boyfriends), poor role models in slebs, poor behaviour everywhere on TV. Children don’t know any better and monkey see, monkey do.

          1. That’s true. People need to feel they belong and for fatherless children, the gang is where they get support. How are you, by the way?

      2. Genetics. One byproduct of non-contributory welfare payments has been a growing population of fighters and fornicators. You don’t need a job, a career or even any vocational training in order to get pregnant with some local thug.

  56. It seems that Save the Children (Redd Barna) in Norway are having their very own Bud Light moment.
    They have rejected a substantial donation from Kongsberg Defence, who make some of the world’s best weapons, because they won’t handle dirty money. However, it’s OK for the money to be whitewashed through other people’s bank accounts (such as the employees), or other companies bank accounts, They even said send it to Medecins sans Frontieres, and they’ll pass it on! And they are for the sending of weapons to Ukraine!
    The hypocricy is rank.
    BTL comments are universally hostile to Redd Barna. I believe that when they come round rattling cans, they will get a nasty surprise. They will here, at least.

    1. That is so funny. Alf and I just back from a bowls afternoon, club competition, and were sitting chatting afterwards. The husband of one of our lady members came in and said to her, where’s my dinner, we’re out at 7.30.!!!!!! She quietly finished her drink and left. Gobsmacking in this day and age. Couldn’t believe it!

      1. Wow ! So glad i made you laugh. Just an off the cuff thing. Now it’s your turn !!! See you on the 4th. And remember after i pranked you and John….You have to do one better. :
        @)

  59. Afternoon, all. It will be a case of “hail and farewell” shortly. I’ll have to feed the dogs and pick up a friend to go to evensong, as I mentioned last night.
    As for the headling; the Tories (TINO) haven’t done anything about removing Labour’s legacy or mitigating the worse effects of wokism.
    I had to laugh as I read the headlines on the newspaper stand when I shopped for groceries; Labour says it won’t instigate a wealth tax. Ha ha! The other unsurprising news (in the paper version of my local rag, on the front page) the “Black Country men” arrested for the murder of a Singh are all named Singh! Frankly, I’m sikh of it all.

    1. Did you read the Nadine Dorries resignation letter? (down below somewhere). She gives Sunak a right royal kicking. It was a joy to read. I bet when he read that he spat out his breakfast poppadom.

        1. Like most people whilst employed they keep schtum because they want to remain in employment.

  60. I dropped off for half an hour to be awakened by what I thought was a breeze.

    Wrong. Quite heavy rain. Looks as though it will last a couple of hours. Saves watering. AND glad that we picked a couple of pounds of raspberries before it started.

  61. Off to evensong and then the Proms. Mahler 9 with the LSO under Rattle.

    Wordle 799 3/6

    🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜
    🟨⬜🟨🟨⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Not a good day today, too many beers

      Wordle 799 6/6

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

    2. Well done, Sue!
      A Par Four for me.

      Wordle 799 4/6
      ⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜
      🟨⬜🟩⬜⬜
      ⬜⬜🟩⬜🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. A bogey 5 here, Sue, well done.

      Wordle 799 5/6

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

  62. I’m off now to pick up my pal and drive to Nantwich. The dogs have been fed and are sleeping it off. I may be back on Nottl later.

      3. No, it’s in Cheshire. There are lots of “wiches” round there; northwich, nantwich, middlewich … It’s where they used to produce salt.

  64. Blimey how the seasons fly by,
    There was I shopping in Waitrose earlier today
    And noticed that people already have their face masks on.
    And then, there was me still with my climate change decorations up.

  65. My daughter’s boyfriend is in the army and as a perk he is able to get entrance for 4 people to Buckingham Palace. So I have just been in to London with them for a very enjoyable afternoon. London is heaving with foreign tourists!

        2. You mean you were in one of the most significant palaces on the planet and they didn’t provide a buffet? !!!

  66. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/27/tory-councillor-arrested-racial-hate-crime-anthony-stevens/

    A Conservative councillor was arrested for an alleged hate crime
    after re-tweeting a video criticising how the police treated a Christian
    street preacher.

    Cllr Anthony Stevens, 50, from Wellingborough,
    Northamptonshire, told The Telegraph he was arrested at his home this
    month and escorted to a police station for questioning about tweets from
    his personal account, which has 76 followers.

    One tweet involved a
    video showing how police had treated the arrest of Christian preacher
    Oluwole Ilisanmi in Southgate, London, in 2019.

    A police officer
    snatched Mr Ilisanmi’s bible after the preacher was accused of being
    Islamophobic. Mr Ilisanmi was later awarded £2,500 for wrongful arrest.
    The video, shared by Cllr Stevens in May, also showed footage of a
    police officer apparently stating that a Muslim preacher was allowed to
    preach on a high street.

    Cllr Stevens, a member of Wellingborough
    Town Council, said he was told by the police officers that the original
    tweet he had shared had been posted by a member of Britain First, the
    far Right political party. Cllr Stevens said he had not known this and
    had not known who Britain First were. He said he only re-posted the
    video as “disturbing evidence of religious discrimination in law
    enforcement”.

    2. It is only going to get worse as the muslims force this issue. What the police were doing stopping someone preaching is beyond me. There are religious freedom laws in this country. Comically, put in to protect muslim.

        1. Given that most of them have an IQ average of 65 who wrote those signs for them in ENGLISH !

  67. That’s me for this day of three halves. Chilly start – condensation on the outside of the west facing windows. Then agreeably sunny from 11 until 3. Then rain. To be followed by rain.

    Have a spiffing evening trying to identify a true Conservative MP.

    A demain.

  68. Fibre goes in tomorrow. It’ll hopefully stop the whinging that Alexa’s broken/can’t get to the internet….

    Thing is, they’ve got to go through 3 walls…

      1. Bally well hope so. It’s a long route into, then through the outhouse, then into the downstairs bathroom, then through the store cupboard and into the living room.

          2. Agreed, but keep them away from the TV. They chuck out lots of RFI, which can bugger up the TV reception. I know this from bitter experience. But they saved me from some difficult cabling, when I put a 4G router into the top level of the tower of one of our churches. No mobile network works inside the building, but the height of the tower made all the difference. There’s a Powerline Wi-Fi access point at ground level, and card payments now work without a problem. It also means I can surf the interweb during the sermon…

    2. If you, the Warqueen, Mongo, Junior and the other one all wear tin foil hats all your problems will be solved.

      1. Mongo does have a sunhat. He looks utterly absurd in it but it does keep the worst of the sun off his head.

          3. Not necessarily demeaning, but it might cause her problems breathing if too tight.

            Mongo has a harness – as there’s no way he’s having a collar stuck around his neck – when we walk about, and we all learned very early on that a Newfie will happily suffocate rather than stop if he’s not properly managed.

            On the upside, once in the Lake district we were climbing and Junior slipped, his only hold being on Mongo’s lead. Never been so proud of the great beast.

          4. I use adjustable harnesses for the as i call them the black and white minstrels. No danger of being too tight.
            Harry and Dolly have bonded very well. They spend a lot of time chasing (thundering) around the house and kissing. Jaw to jaw and both enjoying it. I don’t know what is going on !

            They have just put in an appearance….gotta go………………

    3. My fibre went in on Friday but the Morrisons guy who put the Smart Hub 2 in was only trained in fibre and not the Alexa digital handset that goes with it. He left without checking the line speed and that phone would ring.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/38bca8fdf715a946ddf40f66c88d6ac6b23d034ed347096bfa08e833c108afc8.jpg

      I’ve got this on MyBT app:

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8b5cbc8f9439baeb3e97be6fec5af102256a1b05631d78c90c6af6d9d3dce3bb.jpg

      But BingAI says:

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/64391e4063c13b1050f3982e92a02f482b77ad5d8967296eb1dcb91546c40e15.jpg

      2. Is the phone working for you? I imagine it’s an IP phone, and uses the wifi. The router then does the translation to a phone call?

        Or… is it a bit like this one: https://youtu.be/6f9UIOOlv_E ?

        I think the router then does the work in translation, as the phone ‘signal’ comes from the fibre connection.

        We use 3cx here in a little raspberry pi here, but being honest, the number of calls we really make is miniscule. When we really need to call someone we tend to use our mobile telephones.

        1. I’m still on ancient analogue copper wire. But I helped out a parishioner who had been ‘migrated’ to Digital Voice. Large 17th Century house (long and narrow). BT put the router in what is essentially an outbuilding, at the far end of the property. The DV handsets don’t work beyond the Kitchen. At least six BT ‘engineers’ have been out to ‘solve’ the problem, to no avail. The house is awash with Wi-Fi discs, and the interweb is loud and clear throughout the house.

          I did some Googling, and discovered that the Smart Hub acts as a base station for the DV handsets. So they installed it as far as possible from most of the house…

          I’ve suggested that the answer is to relocate the Smart Hub to a more central position, via Cat 5/6 cabling.

          The mobile signal is shiite, too, but I introduced them to Wi-Fi Calling, which seems to have resolved that issue.

          Have to concede that their broadband is blisteringly fast, though…

          1. Thanks Geoff for relaying your experience.
            I found the changeover communication with BT very confusing and what is clear is that the information is not necessarily relevant to individual internal setups.

            Your comment does however answer the question:

            “How many BT engineers does it take to install a fibre linked digital voice phone?”

            I’ve got some Cat6 ethernet cables on standby.

        2. Thanks for the DIY Smart Hub video – zI hadn’t come across that defore.

          I was expecting all that to have been done by the Morrisons guy who fitted the OpenReach hub on the wall, unpacked the hub and Alexa Digital Voice phone and set it up. He only had a few weeks training though

          I understood that he should have demonsrated an incoming call ringing and test the fibre line speed.

          He left in a hurry telling me to get in touch with my provider if I had any problems.

          I’ll have to sort it when I get home.

        3. In answering your question wibbling, here is the setup that was in place at home three days ago (Friday),:

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/38bca8fdf715a946ddf40f66c88d6ac6b23d034ed347096bfa08e833c108afc8.jpg

          Anyone phoning our home landline (just transfered to fibre) gets a BT voicemail saying user in unavailable.
          Both the original landline phone and the newly supplied Alexa digital voice phone are conneccted to the BT Smart Hub 2 but neither of them ring on incoming calls despite them being logged on the digital phone.

          It looks as though all incoming calls on new fibre connection are being barred either by BT or by the setting on the new Alexa digital voice phone.which the Morrison installer said he wasn’t trained to use.

          There is doubt as to whether or not I have to set up the calling configuration for the diverted to fibre home number by using the Smart Hub 2 option on the following link in the MyBT app on my Android tablet:

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8b5cbc8f9439baeb3e97be6fec5af102256a1b05631d78c90c6af6d9d3dce3bb.jpg

        4. In answering your question wibbling, here is the setup that was in place at home three days ago (Friday),:

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/38bca8fdf715a946ddf40f66c88d6ac6b23d034ed347096bfa08e833c108afc8.jpg

          Anyone phoning our home landline (just transfered to fibre) gets a BT voicemail saying user in unavailable.
          Both the original landline phone and the newly supplied Alexa digital voice phone are conneccted to the BT Smart Hub 2 but neither of them ring on incoming calls despite them being logged on the digital phone.

          It looks as though all incoming calls on new fibre connection are being barred either by BT or by the setting on the new Alexa digital voice phone.which the Morrison installer said he wasn’t trained to use.

          There is doubt as to whether or not I have to set up the calling configuration for the diverted to fibre home number by using the Smart Hub 2 option on the following link in the MyBT app on my Android tablet:

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8b5cbc8f9439baeb3e97be6fec5af102256a1b05631d78c90c6af6d9d3dce3bb.jpg

  70. There’ve been kids ‘playing’ by shouting at one another all day. Junior doesn’t shout. He doesn’t bellow down the road. He thinks of other people. Where are the parents of these brats to say ‘Think of others’? Where is the basic discipline of good behaviour?

    1. They have been brought up to think they are the centre of the universe, wibbles. Not to mention all that “child-centred learning”.

  71. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1af6b5a0144bb30c6e1364fd889ef18a942c713a0f316c93a61c5168f368dfed.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/27/the-kiss-of-death-for-spanish-machismo/

    Before supper I posted this comment under Allison Pearson’s article and within 4 minutes it had 12 up votes and so after supper, 50 minutes later, I took a look to see how my post was faring – the upticks has slowed right down and had amassed 28 up votes but it had acquired 15 down votes.

    The DT certainly does not like it if saucy posts like mine are too popular. The DT’s editors are control freaks who should not be trusted!

    Here is my post:

    I would not much want to kiss a tattooed lesbian on the mouth but chacun à son goût.

    1. As I pointed out yesterday, most lesbians are much better kissers than many bog-standard (or even de-luxe😉) women. They try so much harder to please.

    2. A kiss causing national disaster. Bollocks. Nasty man kisses unwary woman. Get over it.

    3. Just because she’s lesbian doesn’t make her a monster. The kiss was disrespectful at best; cheek kiss would have sufficed, or even a handshake!

  72. I may be mistaken about reports of forces gathering in Poland to fight the threat of Russia. Again because of propaganda I may be mistaken. The forces in Ukraine who have forced the response from Russia are Azov Nazis.
    Again i may be mistaken.
    History tells us how easily Poland after being invaded complied, some could say quite eagerly to rid themselves of Jews.
    Are we seeing something approaching genocide again? And who will it be next time?

  73. The ruination continues. Shetland covered with turbines. You know how it goes: xxxMW to power xxx,xxx homes for xx months. There’s also to be some pumping of CO2 into empty oil and gas reservoirs.

    Resentment swirls as Britain’s windiest place gears up for a green revolution

    Shetlanders unconvinced as declining oil and gas leaves islands in a state of flux

    Gary Buchan stands outside his home and counts how many wind turbines have sprouted from the moors and hills he can see from his living room window on a clear day.

    “…25, 26, 27,” the 53-year-old sighs. “That’s what I can see from my house.”

    Completed last week, Viking is one of the UK’s largest onshore wind farms by output, with 103 turbines spread over roughly 50 square miles of land. It has also been built in one of the smallest and remotest parts of the country – the Shetland Islands. Towering over the surrounding landscape, each turbine stands 155 metres tall from base to tip – one and a half times the height of Big Ben.

    […and so on…]

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/08/27/shetland-islands-scotland-wind-turbines-energy-oil

    1. Our government has betrayed us all.
      Every last one of us.
      Turbines in beautiful areas of traditional landscapes to supply thousands of homes built all over our tradional once green countryside.

    2. What you need are Blandings turtles. We supposedly have some of these mythical beasts near us and every time a new green initiative comes up, the project is rejected for fear of harming their habitat.

      The scam has worked for at least ten years now.

  74. Ahem, who has had their carpets hoovered, washing up done done by a Dame of the British Empire? She’s coming back tomorrow after doing a small shop for me. Never mind that, the company was splendid and we spent a pleasant time together. What a star she is!

    1. So glad to see that Ann! It must make you feel a bit better, having such a lovely time together. Hope you also have a pleasant night.

    2. And perhaps that’s why she got her award, not just for whatever her career might have been , but because she’s a thoroughly decent human being?

    3. Wonderful, keep it going Ann, this is getting you through the terrible upsets and trauma you’ve been suffering. Best wishes 🥰🤩 and to your star helper. 🤗

  76. I think I’ll turn in, there’s a new series on bbc just start Called The woman in the Wall.
    It looks a bit mysterious.
    It’s on record I don’t want to have nightmares 🤔 night all.

      1. My good lady was watching it when I said goodnight. She had subtitles on at the time. It was recorded ill watch it later.

  77. Bonsoir, mes amis. Me voici de retour. The choir was, as ever, magnificent and it was good to catch up with old friends again.

  78. A rather damp day today, but did get a bit done outside hacking my way through holly and brambles to a couple of dead elm clumps I plan felling.
    Just listened to Mahler’s 9th on the proms, a powerful ending to the piece.

    Now off to bed.
    G’night all.

  79. Going to bed after another nice day. Sleep is needed.
    Hope it’s as good as today was!
    Sleep well Y;all.

    Oops ;-))

      1. I most certainly did, thank you. The choir is cathedral quality, which makes it all the more sickening that the rectorette didn’t appreciate it. I suspect the church will be packed next Sunday when she’s away on holiday (again – she claims she never gets any time off, but she won’t have officiated in one of the parishes in the benefice from July until October!).

  83. It is clear that the US has throughout the Ukrainian war been obsessed with getting control of Crimea. The US is prepared to give up Ukrainian ground in the Donbass etc., to gain control of the Black Sea.

    The obsession with Crimea plus the UK component, wishing the second Crimean War, is delusional stuff. The neo-cons in the US and Britain are prepared to tell another country viz. Ukraine to sacrifice their best young men to an impossible conflict.

    There is no possibility of Ukraine launching a massive mobilisation programme. The Ukrainians have been fed lies and will by now have realised that they were lied to about the capabilities of their armed forces.

    If you now take all the Ukrainian men from the fields there is no food production, the men will be lost leaving yet more broken families.

    Whilst writing this I have a small window where Joe Biden, the tool utilised by the Obama retreads, is sitting under an umbrella on a Sandy beach, an image of a decrepit old man with his skinny legs scoffing yet another chocolate chip ice cream.

    It is fair to say that the current US administration comprises pure evil actors. They sit shielded from the sun whilst others on their orders are incinerated in another US proxy war.

  85. 375782+ up ticks,

    C’ant argue with that

    On retirement you can only weigh in weekly if you’ve paid in weekly during a full working life, the party that goes for that
    omitting the lab/lib/con coalition party, prepare for a landslide
    whilst we still have a workforce.

    Regarding the Dover governmental anti British invasion campaign, manna for the foreign masses can never,ever be satisfied.

    https://twitter.com/Mexico1978R/status/1695872074210787358?s=20

Comments are closed.