602 thoughts on “Friday 27 December: Interrogation and interruption on Today are a discourtesy to listeners”

  2. Good Morning, folks

    SIR – Henry Webber (Letters, December 24) points out that, since the ministerial boycott of the Today programme, it has been more enjoyable, without constant interruptions from interviewers.

    All BBC political broadcasting would be more enjoyable if interviewers learnt the difference between interviewing and interrogation; if they knew how to ask questions without advancing their own opinions; if they understood that to interrupt is a discourtesy not just to the interviewee but to listeners also; and if they realised that aggressive, ill-tempered interviewing is plain bad manners as well as often counterproductive.

    Perhaps a training course with some of our skilled young barristers wouldn’t go amiss. It might even end the boycott (another loss to listeners) and restore some faith in the BBC.

    His Honour Peter Birts QC
    London SW6

    Wishful thinking, yer honner. Until Our Susan is made Queen of all she surveys and can chop their heads off, the BBC is a lost cause.

    1. Look ‘ee here, Hall. Everybody thinks that you are a steaming heap of disingenuous crap

      SIR – Lord Hall of Birkenhead, the director general of the BBC, says that “criticism came from all sides of the political divide” and cites that as evidence that its coverage is not biased.

      This is a puzzling failure of logic. The point is that the BBC is biased in favour of a centre-Left, pro-Remain agenda. Complaints from pro-leave Conservatives and a Left-wing Labour movement are completely consistent with the BBC’s centre-Left bias.

      Peter Kirk
      London W2

      SIR – Lord Hall claims the BBC was unbiased over the election.

      Was that “despite Brexit”?

      Edward Boaden
      Salisbury, Wiltshire

      SIR – Lord Hall fails to see that having some journalists biased in opposite directions results, not in impartiality, but untrustworthiness. Furthermore to claim that the number of people watching election results on the BBC was “a reminder of the trust people place in the BBC” is naive. Reporting audited vote counts is simple and verifiable. It is in presenting subjective claims of competing politicians where real journalistic skill and impartiality are required, and the BBC seems to have lost both of these attributes.

      Joshua Bowmaker
      Macclesfield, Cheshire

      SIR – It is generally agreed, with glee or with indignation, that Broadcasting House promotes an agenda of liberalism with Leftist inclinations, which has become increasingly apparent over the past three years, in the wake of the 2016 Referendum.

      From what I hear and read, it seems to me that, pace its general director, outside a milieu of “progressive” liberals, the BBC has completely and deservedly lost the trust of the British public. The obvious consequence, in my opinion, is that it should also lose the unfair advantage of its TV licence, and the sooner the better.

      Dr Paolo Ferrante
      London SW6

      1. ‘Morning, Citroen.

        Peter Birts makes some good points, and there is certainly a need for a much better standard of radio and TV interviewers, but there is one further problem: the long, rambling questions from those interviewers of the self-opinionated windbag tendency who are quite incapable of being concise. At a stroke, wily politicians who have been ‘media-trained’ are given plenty of scope to avoid addressing the point, selecting instead a side issue as a means of escape. And you just know that the interview will be a waste of time if the interviewer is doing most of the talking.

        I’m pleased to see letters critical of the BBC and, in particular, the vacuous comment from Hall to the effect that they are getting it right if both sides are complaining. No, the BBC is succeeding in upsetting both sides, as one lot of bias doesn’t mysteriously cancel the other lot out.

        In my view the BBC’s blatant leftie bias is mainly manifested in its News and Current Affairs output, but this alone is a good enough reason to see the present funding method scrapped, and as soon as possible, as it seems to be the only way to bring this monster to heel.

        1. “Is there anything you’d like me to ask you, Minister?”

          There – sorted!!

          Morning, Hugh.

        2. With viewing habits now changing the BBC only attract a minority of viewers. The figures for 2017 still show the BBC as attracting the largest single TV audience at 31% but that means 69% are not watching the BBC and these figures are only for TV and not catch up and Netflix etc and figures for say 2018 are likely to be even lower

  3. SIR – When Daniel Hyde’s appointment as director of music at King’s College, Cambridge, was announced last year, you kindly published a letter from me declaring my apprehension that we would lose the traditional King’s sound, because of his dislike of “polite singing” and his like of open-throated singing.

    After hearing the broadcast on Christmas Eve, I could not detect any difference from the normal King’s sound. My apprehension has been removed.

    A K Parsons
    Knowle

    Apart from the entirely discordant Gloria!, you tone deaf idiot.

    1. I had wondered if Stephen Cleobury’s untimely death in November would result in a change of both content and style, but thankfully it didn’t. I thought that it was, if anything, one of the very best I have heard in over 50 years of tuning in to this unique service. In particular, the inclusion of Taverner’s hauntingly beautiful Little Lamb was just delightful.

  4. Weather beautiful … wish you were listening

    SIR – Jo Platt, my former MP, has been chosen to sit on the Labour commission to determine what went wrong at the election (report, December 23).

    Perhaps she could save Labour money it can ill afford, by reviewing some emails that I sent to her in the year before the election.

    My last email was sent in October from the beautiful Italian town of Matera, highlighting the fact that you can love Europe but dislike the EU.

    I had become increasingly frustrated by the fact that she continued to ignore the wishes of the vast majority of her constituents by repeatedly voting against Brexit. I indicated that, unless she chose to listen to the electorate, they would have their say and she would lose her seat.

    James Grundy, our new MP, popped in to Wetherspoon’s in the week before the election, and was more than happy to listen to the locals. Leigh will be all the better for the latter approach.

    Paul Mercer
    Leigh, Lancashire

    I do so hope that Jo Platt reads this but somehow I doubt it. Smug cow.

    1. Fancy appointing a failed MP to look into and report on what went wrong! Too stupid for words.

    2. Yes a fundamental reason Labour lot votes is they went against the wishes of their electorate. MP’s deciding as well without consulting their electorate decide to switch parties added to their problem. The Marxist Corbyn lead London Labour party was yet another problem

      1. Long may their Marxist outlook remain unaltered, as it guarantees a very long visit to the political wilderness.

        1. Be careful what you wish for.
          The last time it seemed that Labour was going that way we ended up with Blair.

          1. The British electorate doesn’t like extremism, so we are safe until Labour comes to its senses (If ever). And the revolting Blair was lots of things, but never a Marxist.

          2. Blair has done more long term damage to all aspects of the UK than the Marxists would have dreamt of attempting.

            Even Russia, Cuba, Vietnam and China didn’t put in train some of the race and cultural replacement policies Blair encouraged and facilitated.

    1. Morning Anne .

      Great article , thanks , nothing new there though.

      Slippery slidey conditions outside don’t help with walking the extra roast parsnip and potato off

      The saturating rain , soggy ground , puddles and not so bracing damp dark days where one in four days turn out to be fine ..

      My excuse.

      1. I shall be off shortly to tramp up and down a muddy field looking for flints and pottery. I think I have a couple of volunteers to keep me company over the next few days – might get it finished by Sunday.

    2. Seems to make sense. I’ve dropped a stone in weight this year. Eating less is the answer.

      Good morning from Mr Skinny.

    4. That’s a bloody enormous turkey for two small children…it’s a wonder that the obesity crisis wasn’t with us a few decades ago.

  7. Good morning all – bright sunshine in Laure.

    Any news? Oh, I see that most of the south of England has been washed away – which I hope does not mean that we have lost precious NoTTLers.

    1. Morning Bill

      MI6 building plans go missing: Construction giant Balfour Beatty is sacked from refurbishment of Secret Service headquarters after major security breach saw layout and alarm details lost
      Balfour Beatty was let go after more than 100 blueprints went missing from MI6
      They included details about the layout of new building and alarm systems
      Building in Vauxhall Cross, London, is famous for being in James Bond films

      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7829165/Construction-firm-Balfour-Beatty-sacked-MI-headquarters-refurbishment-lost-plans.html

        2. Perhaps we ‘leaked’ a deliberately dodgy set, as we probably did prior to the failure of the Tupolev Tu-144 at the Paris air show in 1973…

      2. Without negligence I do not see how this could happen. I would guess that this information was Classified as Secret some of it may have been classified Top Secret and the controls for handling and managing that data is stringent

      3. When the American Embassy was being built in Grosvenor Square during the 1960s, no contractor had access to all the plans, just their particular section etc.

        1. With Classified material . First you have to have the appropriate level of security clearance then it can only be accessed in parts of a building that have the required security level and then access is only on a need to know basis and when not in use the material has to be locked away in an approved secure cabinet or safe

    3. Undyed smoked haddock here, gently poached in milk followed by wholemeal toast and homemade marmalade.

          2. Greetings Phizz. You’re right, they don’t seem to keep it except as an ingredient in Chinese Five Spice mix. Strange. Next time I’m in there I’ll ask.

          3. I heard that Sichuan pepper used in hot curry dishes has a numbing effect on the heat of the chillis. You get the heat and the taste but it doesn’t hang around too long in the mouth.

          4. I like black too and I grind my own from peppercorns in small batches for cooking and general use, and I have a nice stainless steel grinder I bought 20 years ago for table use, but there’s just something about the flavour of white pepper that makes it go better with certain foods, smoked haddock at the top of that list.

    4. Good morning, Peddy. That rave review of my marmalade (“Scrumptious”) might well have delighted me in the past; but Annie’s post today about the only way to lose weight being to eat food that does not appeal has taken the shine off your praise. Perhaps for the forthcoming (January) marmalade-making session I ought to use those bitter Seville oranges but this time omit the sugar!

  9. Nigel Farage sacks Brexit Party staff after general election disaster

    It was a poor campaign and in my view they should have say identified about 30 key seats and focused on those seats as it was it was pretty much a non existent campaign

    Nigel Farage has made Brexit Party staff redundant after its disastrous election result.
    Party workers including senior officials were told after the 12 December general election that they were being let go, raising questions over the future of the party. Mr Farage has raised at least £11.5m for the Brexit Party in the past year and has vowed to turn it into the Reform Party after Britain leaves the EU.
    But it is now unclear how he plans to proceed after laying off most of the staff hired before the election. One source told i: “Straight after the election we were all told we had to look for other jobs.”

    Mr Farage has insisted that he will not shut down the Brexit Party entirely despite its poor election performance and the fact that Brexit is now certain to happen next month.

    He said: “It will have to reform into the Reform Party, it’ll have to campaign to change politics for good, get rid of the House of Lords, change the voting system, so much to do.”

    The party managed to come second in just two parliamentary seats

    1. Without the Brexit Party, we might still have Mother Theresa as our national leader. Hardly bears thinking about.

        1. Malheureusement – didn’t you see her in that hideous sky-blue trouser suit on Brenda’s speech day?

      2. There is a need for a new party. without it the Conservatives will drift back to their old ways. A lot of ex Labour party voters also have no party that reflects their views to vote for

          1. The membership of political parties i tiny and generally that membership does not reflect the views of the electorate as a whole

          1. Certainly not Mr Bercow, Uncle Peddy, Sir. He says that he doesn’t give a Flying Flamingo!

            :-))

    2. BJ,
      Could be that the brexit group was a great success in consolidating the tory power base as was intended from the outset, & charging many who swore never to vote tory again £25 a pop, all in it together springs to mind.
      Along the way he also satisfied his hatred of UKIP along with some UKIP internal help via the NEc.
      IMO he has been a tory master coxswain since the year dot.

      2. Given his politics and position on brexit and the RSPCA being politically to the left, i would think nothing at all will happen to him.

        Good morning.

    3. Yo peddy

      The chickens will be scared when he arrives with a broomstick

      Using the “Broomsticking” Method –

      The broomsticking method is done by placing the chicken down on a hard surface between your feet, placing a broomstick behind the chicken’s head (just where you would place your hand), stepping down on the broomstick while simultaneously pulling up the chicken’s back legs to snap the neck.
      Again, please watch a video or have someone show you before trying this to ensure you do it properly. I haven’t used this method on chickens,
      but it is what I use for rabbits. It is quick, humane and does allow a smaller person to dispatch an animal that may be too large with the above technique.

      https://www.offthegridnews.com/how-to-2/the-4-most-humane-ways-to-kill-a-backyard-chicken/

    4. ‘Morning Peddy

      The internet was swift and merciless

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b11459e78080ceaa171e323764c67a22204230cbe6b134eb8e4f174248f114f3.jpg

      https://scontent.flhr2-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/80793293_266687434310812_8780818615264870400_n.jpg?_nc_cat=103&_nc_ohc=-q1a_xgYJUIAQl2TjpPMZ889pjunycprdsznrv1gSmFCQ4sXIKYokfyqw&_nc_ht=scontent.flhr2-1.fna&oh=eed928047ecf65e64bd518a679a8b2f0&oe=5EAE7595
      Edit
      https://twitter.com/clunkymc/status/1210150514169651206

  12. Where now for the Labour Party ?

    The Labour party look as if they will be in the wilderness for a very long time. The Leadership of the party is in the hands of extreme left wingers with policies that only appeal to their London supporters. I dont think I can thing of a single standout moderate Labour party MP and even if there was I dont think they would get anywhere with the current Labour Party. It could take decades if at all for the moderates to take back control of the party

    2. I’m thinking from the review I’ve read that this Worzel might be nearer to the ‘real’ one, the Worzell I imagined when I read all the books as a child. I loved them, but Worzell in the books always came across as a slightly sinister figure to me, with a deeper voice than the squeaky tones of Jon Pertwee’s version, and I liked him for it. A pity that it seems to have been updated in other ways though to make it more ‘accessible’ to modern bairns.

      I looked forward to seeing the 70s version before it came out, but I always found it a disappointment because of the portrayal of Worzell as a cuddly, squeaky-voiced mate, rather than the rather grumpy, but kindly round-headed original in the books. I know millions think of Worzell as Jon Pertwee, but I always thought he got it wrong.

      ‘It seems to me’.

  14. Morning all

    As thick as pea soup

    SIR – The Met Office has used metric units for distance for over half a century (Roy Tubb, Letters, December 24). The legal definition of fog is visibility less than 1,000 metres.

    Huw Baumgartner

    Bridell, Pembrokeshire

    SIR – Mr Tubb bemoans the forecasting of visibility in metres. While most meteorological phenomena (fog, rain, snow depth) are now recorded in metric units, some are not.

    Vertical heights of cloud, for example, are still officially measured in feet. If only roads went up and down, rather than horizontally, the forecast would achieve the compatibility with other highway measurements that Mr Tubb desires.

    John Hammond

    Director, weathertrending.com

    Bournemouth, Dorset

  15. SIR – Your report of the findings on UK GP incomes by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, and the number of part-time doctors, confirms what I have long suspected.

    The 2004 GP contract has changed the old family doctor mindset from 24-hour responsibility and an ethical approach to one of restricted hours, restricted appointment availability and passing the buck to A&E and walk-in centres.

    Pension regulations complicate the situation by making high incomes unattractive, so that many GPs opt to undertake part-time work.

    The ethics by which family doctors looked after individuals throughout their medical needs seem to have vanished. The appointment system in many practices now renders follow-up with the same doctor a rarity.

    Pouring more money into GP incomes is counter-productive, as it leads to part-time working and early retirement.

    A radical change is required in which professional satisfaction is enhanced by the doctor getting to know patients as they follow their and their families’ episodes of illness. The reward of a doctor should be primarily professional and medical, not just in what goes into the bank.

    Dr Martyn T Lucking

    Lytham St Annes, Lancashire

    1. Too late Martyn I’m afraid. The vocational element has gone and doctors no longer feel the profound duty towards the sick that dominated their practice. Waiting lists were anathema and would be eliminated by out of hours work. The seriously ill were seen immediately, day or night. We need to recruit doctors not triple A technicians.

      1. The same applies to nurses . It is all so high tech now… checks are done in silence , the click clack of modern medical technology , the whirr of expensive equipment .. and the computer station .. are different places to the old fashioned ward desk , and the nurse writing notes and keeping an eye on her patients

        We just wanted to make people feel better , mend them ..look after them, nurture them ..

        1. And when they shove a needle into you, they say, “Just a little scratch”… “Prick” has been outlawed….

        2. Modern equipment should give the nurse more time to give personal care to the patients but it does not seem to happen they seem to be glued to the nurses station

          1. They seem to spend the majority of their time writing up copious notes rather than actually looking after the patients. Part of the problem is the litigious nature of our society. If the hospital is more likely to be sued, it needs to know exactly what treatment a patient has had, which takes up an inordinate amount of time to record.

      2. It is simply crazy that two thirds of GP’s work part time particularly when it takes several years to train them. It is made wore by GP’s retiring early. The average age of a GP retiring is 58

        When I looked at the data the UK is slightly lo on the number of GP’s we have but only by about 0.3% yet we get a far worse service. The above could be a good part of the problem. Most GP’s service in Europe as well make a nominal charge to see a GP where as we do not. This could be another part of the problem. In Europe much greater use is made of pharmacy in the UK they are little more than where you go to pick up prescriptions

    2. With most GP practices no being large group practices should they also take on minor injuries work taking that load off of A&E leaving them to get on with the major trauma and critical care work which is what they are really there for

          1. The way hospitals & The GP service has gone means it leave most people no option but to go to A&E to get quite minor injuries treated

          2. Sadly, very true.
            A properly organised local Cottage Hospital with a minor injuries unit can act as a triage clearing house for the A&E departments of larger hospitals.

          3. At the moment outside of London and the very large towns and cities an A&E can be a 30 to 40 mile round trip meaning most ambulance manage just two trips a shift which is not a very efficient use of resource. Taking minor patients to a more local facility would be much more efficient. They could even use patient transfer ambulance which are unused at night and take several patients to a local facility. They could stitch minor wounds and also as lonmg as they had xray facilities minor fractures etc, deal with nose bleeds etc

          4. We have a minor injuries unit here (three miles) at our local hospital but the A&E is 15 miles to the nearest one.
            Edit: there was a massive outcry when it was threatened with closure a few years ago and also when it was no longer open 24 hours. It closes at 11pm.

      2. If you carefully proof-read your gibberish before posting, you would be less likely to contradict yourself.

    3. Our Muslim friend who came over to us for Christmas evening and Boxing Day is a consultant in a busy hospital and head of department.
      He had been working until midnight on Christmas eve on department paperwork. He told us that on several occasions he’s been the only doctor working for the department, as the other doctors took every opportunity to go sick or duck out of their shifts. Their work ethic was non existent.

  17. Good morning to all you happy Nottlers.
    By chance I watched a BBC documentary about Paddington Bear and his amanuensis, Michael Bond. Turns out that Paddington decided to wear that ‘Please Look After…’ label when he heard that Mr Bond’s parents kindly cared for some Jewish refugee children just before the war.

      4. Thanks. The white stripe fits Ob’s suggestion (which has vanished as quick as the bird does when anyone approaches).

        1. When I was a licensed bird-ringer I used to try and avoid ringing ‘Maureens’ since they inevitably shit all over you when you pick them up.

          5. Pick them up? I was very lucky to get as near as I did. Usually, they spot me a mile off and hop it as quick as they can. I think they must have been having their Christmas do that day.

          7. A few years ago I came across a short tail-back of traffic on a local main road, caused by a mute swan that had decided to go for a walk along the road. It was summer and the swan was in eclipse, so unable to fly. The nearest water was at a nature reserve about three-quarters of a mile down a single carriageway road and I could see things weren’t about to improve on the traffic front because the stopped cars had managed to shepherd the swan away from its escape route.

            I pulled onto the broad roadside verge and after a few minutes grabbed the swan by the neck and tucked its body under my arm. I didn’t fancy walking three-quarters of a mile with a swan under my arm, because I knew from past experience that after a relatively short distance a swan’s not inconsiderable weight begins to tell, so I shoved it into the boot of my car, where the darkness would keep it calm while I drove it to the reserve entrance, before carrying it the rest of the way to the lake for release.

            You think a moorhen can shit? You should have seen the state that ungrateful bastard left my car boot in.

          8. My two strangest bird experiences are these:

            I was driving my patrol car through Arkwright Town when I was flagged down by a pedestrian who had a stunned adult great crested grebe under his arm. He informed me that it had tried to land on a very wet stretch of road whilst being dazzled by a low sun, which made the road look like a lake. I told the chap to get into the car and I drove him to a nearby large pond where the now-revived grebe was released, swimming and diving strongly.

            On another occasion I was directed by a fellow member of the Birkland’s Ringing Group (of which I was a member) to attend a lady’s house outside Mansfield. This lady (who was well-known in the area as someone who took in injured birds and animals to help them recuperate) showed me a puffin someone had found exhausted at the side of the road the previous day. Since Mansfield is about as far away from the sea as you can get, it was apparent that the unfortunate bird had been blown inland on gale-force winds and found “wrecked” (exhausted) by the side of the road. After reading up on puffins’ habits, she had fashioned a ‘tunnel’ for it out of cardboard boxes, where it readily took refuge, and fed it on whitebait (there are no sand eels available in Mansfield!). I examined the bird, found it in robust health, attached a numbered ring to its leg, then got a friend to drive me the 95 miles to Bridlington (nearby Bempton Cliffs has a large breeding colony of puffins, as well as razorbills, guillemots, fulmars, gannets and kittiwakes), where it was released and flew strongly out to sea.

          9. They don’t come stranger than this one. Me trying not to get my toes consumed by a very hungry griffon vulture.

            I was photographing a short-toed snake eagle as it migrated out of Spain when I caught a glimpse of something big and close out of the corner of my eye. I looked away from the camera in time to see the eight foot wingspan of the vulture as it landed less than 20 yards away. I told my wife to keep quiet while I grabbed a shot or two before it departed. I got the shots, but it didn’t fly off. It stayed. Rather than move away, it walked towards where I was sitting in the back seat of my VW car with the door open and stood less than 5m away (according to the focus ring on my camera). After a while it walked even closer and finished up sheltering in the lee of my car from the gale force wind that usually blows along the Strait.

            I got out to take some photos and it just posed for a while, then it started to take an interest in my camera. It came towards me and started pecking at the end of my lens hood, actually leaving a few cuts in the neoprene casing. I backed away to give it space, fending it off with the lens, but after it realised that the camera was no good to eat it started trying to give my toes the same treatment. I wasn’t having that – those beaks are there to slice open buffalo hide, so I retreated to the car. It came along and huddled in next to the rear wheel arch. In all it was with us for just short of an hour until an environmental patrol (summoned by a passing tour guide that I know) came and boxed it up to take it into care.

            It was a young bird, not long out of the nest, hungry and exhausted by the strength of the wind – a quite common occurrence. After a week or two of being fed it was released to go on its way to its first visit to Africa.

    4. ‘Morning, Eddy, This may be a coot (white beak) the one with the red beak that looks similar is not his mate, it’s a moorhen.

      1. Morning NTN.

        Looking at the brown back, the white stripe and the green legs, I’d say they’re the same bird.

        I’ll settle for moorhen.

    5. Certainly a moorhen. White under the tail and on the flank. The red and yellow colouration on the bill isn’t fully developed, so maybe a first winter bird. Also different head and body proportions to the bigger coot, which has a pinkish-white bill and a white shield on the forehead and no white feathers on the body.

      1. Thanks. I’ve looked at its partner with the red beak and its fits the picture I get doing a search.

      2. What crack’s me up, Bass, is the number of people who rush to make a misidentification of a bird, only for others to agree with them. So many people rely on guesswork or superstition instead of observation and proper research.

        2. When I managed a cinema in Scotland and half a dozen staff and I were held up at gunpoint as we were locking up for the night, the police interviewed us all separately. Because had one of us volunteered that the thief was tall (or short) there would have been a tendency for everyone else to agree, even if some of us thought “Well, I thought the opposite, but since everyone else agrees I must have been mistaken”.

          In that way, a much clearer and unbiased description of the criminal was obtained.

          1. It has long been a problem for police investigations that witnesses are notoriously unreliable when giving descriptions of things they have seen (or what their memories tell them they have perceived—and remembered—to have seen).

      3. I’ve learned something. I was under the impression that waterhen and moorhen were different, but closely related species.
        After a quick look for waterhen pictures, I now know they are different names for the same bird!

        1. When I was nobbut a sprog, we had “waterhens” emerging from a ditch to plunder the food in the chicken runs at my grandparent’s house. I later learnt that the name “waterhen” was a local dialectic term for moorhen.

        2. I use the both terms, having been brought up with waterhen when i was a sprog.

          Interestingly, the Spanish for moorhen is ‘polla de agua’ – ‘Water hen’.

  21. A Spekkie article to pass a drab morning;

    https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/12/corbyn-may-be-a-goner-but-his-ideology-is-as-strong-as-ever/

    “Corbyn may be a goner but his ideology is as strong as ever | Coffee House

    East Germans had a name for their version of ‘woke’ culture’; it was Zersetzung, or ‘decomposition’ in English. It was a form of psychological warfare deployed against citizens suspected of ‘subversive incitement’. There were several techniques to Zersetzung but probably the most effective was what the Stasi described as the ‘systematic discrediting of public reputation’ by eroding the ‘self-confidence and self-esteem of a person [to] create fear, panic, confusion’.

    This is now the strategy of the online mob, who have become ruthlessly adept at degrading those they charge with subversion: Toby Young, professor Nigel Biggar, Germaine Greer, Ian Buruma, Placido Domingo, Sir Tim Hunt and Sir Roger Scruton are just a few who have been targeted.

    Describing his experience in The Spectator last year, Young wrote that “my fall in status has been vertiginous…I have been surgically removed from every VIP list”. Young was brought down by some ancient tweets, whereas Domingo has been publicly disgraced by a series of unproven allegations of sexual harassment. “It is very easy these days to go against someone you don’t sympathise with, and to disseminate falsehoods,” he said in an interview earlier this month.

    Those who whip up the online mob into a frenzy are overwhelmingly Zoomers but their indoctrination is the work of the Boomers. That generation of gullible idealists who embraced Marx, Lenin, Gramsci and others in rebelling against their parents’ perceived conservatism.

    Someone who saw ‘woke’ culture coming was a former KGB operative Yuri Bezmenov. Speaking on US television in 1984, defector Bezmenov described how the KGB had for many years been conducting a campaign of ‘ideological subversion’ against the USA. The goal, he explained, was ‘to change the perception of reality of Americans to such an extent no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interests of defending themselves, their family, their community and country’.

    Bezmenov explained the strategy would require a minimum of twenty years because that was how long it took to brainwash a generation of students. ‘Marxist ideology is being pumped into the soft heads of at least three generations of American students without being challenged or counter-balanced by the basic values of American patriotism,’ said Bezmenov. ‘The results you can see. Most of the people who graduated in the 60s, dropouts or half-baked intellectuals, are now occupying the positions of power in the government, civil service, business, mass media, educational systems.’

    Bezmenov was describing America, but he could have been talking about Britain, a country where eight out of ten university lecturers now identify as left-wing and schoolchildren are marked down for “inappropriate” answers to sometimes politically loaded questions. And where university lecturers call Conservative voters ‘vermin’.

    The internet, particularly social media, has accelerated the long march through the institutions into a short sprint. And so, as Bezmenov forecast, the perception of reality has been changed. Many in the West are increasingly incapable of reaching sensible conclusions. As Rod Liddle wrote recently, ‘we are now living in a world which could best be described as ‘post-real’, where truth and fact have no purchase.’ This is particularly true on the topic of gender; and, as JK Rowling has discovered, woe betide anyone who speaks out against the new dogma, even if they voice a consensus opinion.

    Not so long ago, I visited the Stasi’s museum in Berlin, an absorbing insight into how they so artfully broke the spirit of their enemies. My interest piqued, I bought a copy of Anna Funder’s ‘Stasiland‘, which is a brilliant study of the Stasi, published in 2003 in the interregnum between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of social media. Asked by Funder why an estimated 189,000 East Germans became informers, an ex-Stasi operative told her: ‘Informers got the feeling that, doing it, they were somebody. You know, someone was listening to them for a couple hours of week, taking notes. They felt they had it over other people.’

    The mob on Twitter has the same pathetic lust for power. As Roger Scruton remarked recently:
    ‘I have been as astonished as everyone else by the mass denunciations and targeted character assassinations.’

    To avoid being denounced, East Germans learned to keep their opinions to themselves. This withdrawal from social intercourse was called ‘internal emigration’, and it’s becoming increasingly prevalent in Britain, a country where holding the wrong opinion in the workplace can result in dismissal or even a visit from the police.

    The most chilling interview Funder conducted was with a Herr Winz, who worked for the Stasi in counter-espionage from 1961 to 1990. He was an angry old man when Funder spoke to him in 2002. Yet today, if he’s still alive, Winz will be delighted with the emergence of organisations like Extinction Rebellion.

    “Capitalism plunders the planet,” he raged. “This hole in the ozone layer, the exploitation of the forests, pollution – we must get rid of this social system! Otherwise the human race will not last the next fifty years…capitalism will not last. The revolution is coming!”

    It’s time to wake up to the online mob and understand that this is no passing middle-class fad that will blow over in a year or two.

    Thirty five years ago, Yuri Bezmenov warned the West about the damage being done by half-baked intellectuals pumping Marxist ideology into the soft heads of students. No one listened. Now those students are the ones doing the pumping, not just in lecture halls but on social media. This perhaps partly explains why the majority of under-34s voted for Jeremy Corbyn in the general election.

    Education, academia and the arts in Britain have for years been dominated by the left and, to paraphrase Yuri Bezmenov, their anti-Western dogma has not been challenged or counter-balanced by the basic values of British patriotism.

    This month, the millions of men and women who love their country ensured a Marxist did not get elected, but in another decade or so Corbyn’s protégés will have the demographics in their favour. When that time comes, Conservatives won’t be able to crow, as they have since the election, that Labour ‘went woke and broke’.

    Boris boasted during the campaign that Britain will be Corbyn-neutral by Christmas; Magic Grandpa may be a goner but his ideology is as strong as ever, and it will continue to grow until the Conservatives take back control of Britain’s education.”

    1. Thanks. A depressing but illuminating article. The last sentence is the most relevant. I wonder if the Tories will ever do anything about it. Gove started to, but Cameron stopped him.

      1. There seems to be little chance. The edjacashun unions seem to have the same sort of leverage as the railwaymen do in France.

        1. I was shocked when you said that even the teachers at Gresham’s were unanimously against Brexit and were far too far to the left to your and my taste.

    2. Some hope that the young will learn their error with age and responsibility but it isn’t guaranteed.

      I know a perfectly pleasant and intelligent young man in his thirties who pays income tax, national insurance and his hefty student loan repayments, has a steady girlfriend and should by now be settling down with a home and family of his own but can’t afford to and refuses to see that multi culty woke ideology has landed him in this situation. He still thinks that more of the same is the solution.

      1. It is not for nothing that student loans attract the usurious rate of interest of ten times the BoE base rate which ensures that 80%+ of students will remain in debt for at least 30 years.

        The state wants people enslaved – this is clear. Otherwise student loans would be interest free, there would be tax breaks to help employers and employees to get free of debt as soon as possible and special schemes for doctors, nurse and teachers to have their debts written off after, say, eight years working for the state-funded systems.

      2. WE are probably the most over populated country in Europe. Officially I think it is Holland but most people accept that our official population figure is way out. Officially the UK has a population of about 65M but most estimates put it at over 70M and even more worryingly is the alarmingly high population growth which is somewhere between 750.000 and 1M a year and that does not include overseas students which re estimated to be about 500.000. Now whilst each lot of overseas student only stay about thee years they are replaced by another lot so the net impact is another 500,000 on our population numbers

      3. ” I know a perfectly pleasant and intelligent young man ” I think you overate his intelligence because intelligence without common sense is like having a brand new car with no engine , its going nowhere! I personally believe that all these progressives who believe in multi-culturalism are lacking in common sense & one day when he gets mugged or knifed by a 3rd worlder he just might begin to wake up to the problem !

      4. Greetings Sue. It’s because of the DoubleSpeak:

        1. It’s not “Income Tax” primarily used for provisioning of roads, water systems, electrical grids, waste management, etc. It’s actually a “non-Income Tax” to redistribute monies to those not able or not willing to work.

        2. It’s not “National Insurance” if it insures non-UK Nationals.

  22. “A father murdered on Christmas Eve was gunned down in front of his family

    as they returned from an evening out, police have revealed.

    Flamur Beqiri, a 36-year-old from Sweden, had been yards

    from his front door on Battersea Church Road, south London, when he was ambushed by a gunman and shot repeatedly.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/12/26/christmas-eve-murder-victim-shot-front-family-returned-evening/

    Police have no idea of the motive??????????????????

    At least the Mail still has some journalists,he was of course an Albanian druglord formerly on Sweden’s “Most wanted list”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7829791/Record-label-boss-36-shot-dead-London-Christmas-Eve-one-Swedens-wanted-men.html
    Just another gangster living here untroubled by our Police Farce until (probably) his Somalian rivals did us all a favour
    This will not end here,more violent gang warfare will result

      1. In general,no Bill,me neither,but as the lawlessness grows some poor bloody innocent is going to get caught in the crossfire
        (I mean a genuine innocent not some drug dealing aspiring footballer)

    3. All the media said he was Swedish. Then when I saw his picture I wondered if Climate Change had moved Europe into central Africa.

  23. Nicked

    In the Spectator James Delingpole has written a column on …. BBC’s A
    Christmas Carol was the victim of tub-thumping lefty politics..

    There are some great comments by contributors , but one that I thought excelled was …..

    Just wait until their Xmas 2020 adaptation:

    Captain
    Achmed Ahab is played as a reformed ISIS head-hacker, seeking
    redemption (or true love?) in his search for a giant white whale.

    Instead
    of a wooden leg, he has a hook-hand and is a devout Muslim, thrown out
    of Finsbury Park by a bunch of Brexit voters – who refused to accept he
    had reformed.

    The Pequod is his multi-cultural haven – Sharia based – but with one “bad apple” – a midshipman Farage, who drinks bathtub gin.

    In a twist that will delight Melville scholars, the eponymous white whale is played by Jo Brand.

    The
    famous/notorious “The whiteness of the whale” chapter becomes a
    diatribe against the slave trade, with Brand seen rescuing freed slaves
    from the ships she has sunk, mid-Atlantic.

    At the novel’s
    climactic ending, Brand and Achmed share a night of unforgettable
    “harpooning” passion – with a tidal wave sweeping them up the Thames.

    Britian rejoins the EU – and Moby D is made our first Ambassador – advised by Sir Ivan Rogers

      1. For some unfathomable reason the Brand woman was hired to make an advert to ask for charitable donations to help the homeless. Her perfunctory delivery of the message is quite awful and all of those people who really do put in the effort to help must have been disappointed with the outcome. If she gave her time gratis it was still a mistake, in my opinion.

        1. “Gratis”? You mad or suffin? No sleb ever does anything without payment. Charridee begins at home.

          1. If she was paid then the person who signed off the contract should be fired; the advert is that bad.

        2. Not seen that advert but I can well imagine she made a pig’s ear of it, like everything else she’s involved with. Having a fatty to appeal on behalf of the homeless/hungry is nothing but crass.

          1. I do not know if the TV stations are running the advert, I’ve only heard it on the radio. At least with the radio Ms Brand is not visible.😎

    3. But casting Brand as the whale is whiteist! Surely the BBC will feel the need to cast Diane Abbot as the white whale.

  24. DT Headline story

    ‘Victims’ of Church of England preacher reveal allegations of naked beatings, ice baths and massages

    Many men who went to traditional boarding public schools in the early 1960’s will have experienced being beaten when wearing only flimsy pajamas by prefects, housemaster and headmaster. They also will have experienced cold baths and showers. Having experienced these things myself made me the man I am today! However I missed out on the massages.

    The man accused in this case, The Rev. Jonathan Fletcher, protests that what was done was not in any way, sexual and I can well believe it. However the gangs in various parts of England who rape 12 year old children attract far less condemnation from the MSM.

    1. The fact that you survived your schooling unscathed does not mean that those practices were right.
      Why also are so many “churchmen” into this kind of thing?

      The rape gangs are a different culture – but still male.

      1. I think being very naive about sexual matters helped.

        Having never had any sexual feelings towards anyone of the same sex I have never been able to empathise or understand such urges. I believe Queen Victoria refused to sanction any legislation against lesbianism because she could not believe that it actually existed.

        2. ‘Twas Queen Victoria’s ministers who made the decision for her, in order to spare her tender feelings.

          ‘Morning, Richard.

        3. My OH was the smallest and youngest boy in his public school. The treatment he received from the masters and bigger boys scarred him for life. I couldn’t understand why his parents never noticed as he was a day boy. He never told them.

          2. ‘Morning, J, in those days, beatings were not unusual, my father, a disciplinarian born in 1895, would beat us boys with six of the best across the bare backside, with a riding switch for any transgression of good order and discipline, until my brother, told by him in the stable yard to, “Fetch the switch.” did so but, at age 12, broke it in front of his face – and then took off like a hare across the marshes with the Father in hot pursuit. I don’t think he caught him.

            When I went to the local Grammar School at age 11 in 1955, it was not unusual get the cane there also – even for minor misdemeanours.

            Discipline was generally good in those days among the younger generation except for the ‘Teddy Boys’ who were seen as products of the ill-disciplined council estates.

          3. Discipline in my Cof E village primary school was good, without any punishment beatings, apart from a rap over the knuckles with a ruler. I do remember people being made to stand in the corner, though.
            At my Grammar school, some teachers could not maintain order at all, while others had no problem. Only the maths teacher was in the habit of throwing the blackboard rubber.

          4. I held the record for broken rulers at Mr MacGregor’s private nursery school in Gerans on the Roseland Peninsular near St Mawes where I was until the age of 8 when I was sent away to St Christopher’s a pretty foul boarding prep school in Bath.

            Mr MacGregor was a very pleasant, humorous and avuncular man until he lost his temper and whatever it was that reduced him to being a raving monster I had it.

            Buttocks were safe but he let rip on hands which you had to hold forward with open palms for him to attack. Such was the ferocity of his attacks that he always broke the ruler when it came to my chastisement.

          6. Morning Tom, I had the cane at grammar school 6 times between ’52 and ’57 – not always to blame either – I got 2 courtesy of a certain John Lennon who did the deed but I got the blame. There was a horrible little worm of a teacher who used to take you up to a top floor classroom and give you a smacked arris and then ‘rubbed it better’ until one of my schoolmates floored him.

          7. I was lucky – having always been large I was never bullied or victimised and whatever it is that appeals to homosexuals it must be something that I completely lack.

            Indeed when I was a young man I had a very good friend who was homosexual who was very charming, cultured, civilised and much loved in a platonic way by all my girlfriends; but beyond friendship he had no sexual interest in me at all. I had no knowledge of what he actually got up to his but he contracted AIDS and died.

        4. I’ve often wondered if she only meant that girlies don’t have the physical equipment for penetrative sex, which is true.

    2. The homoerotic beatings at the Iwerne summer camps were definitely sexual. Welby and his circle are implicated, hence his campaign against George Bell. Divert attention by throwing a dead man’s reputation under a bus.

      1. Happy Friday Sue, the CoE is no different than the RC church in its dealings with children – Homosexuality & sadism is part & parcel of the priesthood for almost 2000 years !

          1. Good morning Bill, I too blame the Jews, those troublemakers upset everybody with all their no rape, no sodomy, no murder , no stealing, no coveting , no adultery, no idol worshiping rules ! Everybody was having fun till Moses put a stop to it & made us take our tablets !

          9. ‘Morning, Bill, in my book they’re all tarred with the same brush, their ideology being to control the masses through the words (written by men) in the Quran, the Bible and the Torah.

            I do believe that there’s something bigger than us but it ain’t writ the book yet. There has to be a reason for us above the science of ‘The Big Bang’

          10. Whenever I look at the delicate and complicated design of a rose, or the way a bird flies (or a 100 other examples) – I cannot but believe that something was behind it all.

          12. Wouldn’t it be strange if the Lord turned out to be a bird, and birds had been made in his own image ?

          16. “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.” .

            Good morning Bill. Which things in the above list cause you a specific problem covetousnessly speaking?

            I can assure you that I have no interest whatsoever in my neighbour’s donkey.

          19. ” I can assure you that I have no interest whatsoever in my neighbour’s donkey.”
            You are obviously not a lecherous Palestinian.

          21. The Big Bang is described in Genesis 1 in a way that folks in ancient times who knew nothing about a cosmological model for the observable universe from the earliest known periods through its subsequent large-scale evolution, would easily understand

            1) In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
            2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
            3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
            4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.
            5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

            “Let there be light,” is IMO a clear reference to the big bang

          23. Well either the God of Israel did reveal it to my ancestors or Aliens visiting earth offered my ancestors an over simplified explanation of how we came into being – take your pick !

          31. Well either the God of Israel did reveal it to my ancestors or Aliens visiting earth offered my ancestors an over simplified explanation of how we came into being – take your pick !

          33. Then. along came Greta the Cheata, you preached her own version.

            Woe betide anyone who doubts her words, and says so, they will be accued of Hate Speech

          35. Most likely a rewrite of ancient Sumerian legends along with the Flood and others picked up when many Jews were captive in Babylon. The Sumerians’ ‘Gods’ were called the Anunnaki and they descended from the sky: write into that what you will.
            In Bolivia/Peru the ancient people worshipped Viracocha, another God who appeared from the sky.

          37. Absolutely.
            I believe from what I read many years ago that the baby Gilgamesh was put into a small reed basket lined with a substance that was waterproof and was subsequently found by a woman. Moses, anyone? The Epic of Gilgamesh was written millennia before Genesis etc.
            The one thing that lets down the Abrahamic religions are the ‘personal revelations’ that took place: they are all over the Bible and the moslem texts. Even the Mormons’ Joseph Smith had personal revelations with the Angel Moroni, and Smith was a known charlatan. Why did only one person, the person who became all powerful, have these revelations?

        2. Happy Friday, Pud.

          Strange how no one never hears of any “Atheist Kiddie-Fiddling Gangs” or “Organised Agnostic Child-Molesters”.

    3. So much for the fabled Christian charity & goodwill to others. Of course the Rev. Jonathan Fletcher’s actions were purely Homosexual & he should not just be de-frocked by the CoE but sent to jail & the CoE needs to pay compensation to his victims!
      As for the Muslim rape gangs – it should officially be recognized as what it really is – a form of TERROR & part and parcel of the Jihad being carried out against us Infidels !

  25. Daily Brexit Betrayal

    It’s indeed not about jilted lovers

    or even about Mr Timmermans’ ‘love’ for Great Britain – I recall a

    certain Mr Verhofstadt also professing his undying love for us! – this

    letter is about preparing the ground for the coming negotiations with

    Brussels once Johnson’s withdrawal agreement has been cooked and we’re

    officially Out on the last day of next month. It’s the tried-and-tested

    carrot-and-stick routine: Mr Timmermans tells us about his ‘love’ while

    his ‘diplomats’ show us the stick – and it’s a big one. The Times

    reports from Brussels:

    “Brussels will

    threaten to block the City of London’s access to European markets in an

    opening salvo of post-Brexit trade talks in the new year. EU chiefs will

    also warn Downing Street that they could put up barriers to data flows

    vital to British commerce. In two weeks European governments will begin

    internal talks with, according to a restricted document, “possible

    decisions on adequacy [personal data] and equivalence [financial

    services]”.The two decisions will be central to the EU’s negotiating

    strategy because both will be crucial for the British economy in terms

    of data flows critical for smooth commerce and the future of financial

    services, which account for 7 per cent of Britain’s output.” (link, paywalled)

    We knew that the EU would be preparing

    instruments to thwart Johnson’s plans to leave on December 31st next

    year, deal or not. So far it’s only “we could be very nasty to you even

    while we love you”, but the threat is real.Here’s more, with the

    inevitable quote from “a source”:

    “These are both big

    levers for the EU,” a senior European diplomatic source said. “Data

    adequacy and equivalence are decisions under our direct control,

    decisions that can be reversed at any time and that will be linked to

    progress in the wider negotiations.” (link, paywalled)

    Let that sink in: we’re being told

    that the EU can and will be prepared to unilaterally (!) restrict our

    access to EU markets – a political decision under their control alone.

    This is no idle threat, the EU has already got the necessary

    instruments:

    https://independencedaily.co.uk/your-daily-brexit-betrayal-friday-27th-december-2019/
    OK now about those 300% tariffs on German cars and French cheese and wine

    1. Happy Friday Rik, I hope that Boris will try some divide & conquer tactics – make it very hard for French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Scandinavian, Dutch & Belgian citizens to reside & work in the UK whilst allowing those from the former Warsaw Pact bloc – the Poles, Hungarians , Czechs , Bulgarians, Slovaks , Estonian & Lithuanians to reside & work in the UK ( but not the Romanians ) as well as the Greeks & Italians just to annoy the French & Germans!

      1. But they need to check them out for criminal records and Interpol might make that difficult.

        Morning, Hat.

        1. Good morning Jules, Happy Friday. Yes of course background checks are needed . Interpol is not under EU direction but is an international treaty organisation so I don’t think that the EU would make things difficult for the UK as it would be in breach of the treaty

    2. It has nothing to do with sensible cooperation and everything to do with revenge and discouraging the others.

      There is very little if anything that we cannot obtain elsewhere and sell elsewhere.

      If they want to play silly buggers with financial services I am confident that our traders and bankers are at least as good as theirs and quite probably have greater expertise.

      Let this be a lesson to underline what they will do if the WA & PD are as bad as we fear.

    3. I’m doing my bit.
      My German Noddy car is coming up for 9 years old and I avoid EU wine, cheese and any other products wherever possible.

        1. Been driven round Cracow in one of those.
          When it petered out on the road to Nova Huta, a fellow Trabbie tour operator gave it a thump and off we went again.

  26. France Musique has just played some Bach partitas played by Wanda Landowska – the brilliant Polish harpsichordist – who taught Ralph Kirkpatrick most of what he knew.

    Nostalgic…..and wonderful.

  27. High street troubles will continue in 2020 with supermarkets Sainsbury’s and Marks & Spencer set to struggle

    I would include Waitrose in that list. The Market is moving to the Discounters. In general the quality is as good but you get a more limited choice and more basic stores but at a much better price. There is probably not room for 3 Higher end supermarkets at least one I think will disappear. When ? Who knows

      1. Yes M&S is a bit niche , few people would do all their shop there

        Sainsburys though is struggling its cost base is probably to high to compete with Morrison and Tesco’s and ASDA it is a better bet for them to try and win over Waitrose and M&S customers

          1. Same here.

            When I came to St Ives there was a M&S Food Only in the High St, which was very good. Unfortunately it closed years ago.

        2. Waitrose and M & S customers won’t be impressed with the quality in ASDA. They will go to Aldi instead.

          1. I tend to shop for the basics at Asda as it’s only about a mile away. It’s OK for yer tins of beans and packets of tea, but for anything fresh, forget it.

  29. Johnson plans to shift civil servants out of London

    I thought most have already been moved out. I am not sure moving senior civil servants out of London would make sense as they work very closely with the government

    The new science and innovation will be outside of London. There are a number of possible locations such as Peterborough or Birmingham. They are close to Oxford and Cambridge as well as a number of the locations in the Midlands and North so would have a good pool of academic expertise as well as industrial and with cheaper house and commercial and industrial premises

    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/johnson-plans-to-shift-civil-servants-out-of-london/ar-BBYnzke?ocid=spartandhp

    2. Not a new idea – in the sixties I remember adverts on the tube by the LOB (Location of Offices Bureau) encouraging many businesses to move out of London.

    1. Maybe the “woke”, lefty preachers have put some people off.

      I don’t necessarily agree with some of the uses that have been found for cathedrals, either, but concerts and exhibitions are generally ok.

      1. I believe our natural leaning towards our traditions and belief in our thought process far exceed religious ritual .. We have the faith and cling on, but we know in our own hearts and minds that we do the right thing because it right ..

        Me being naive I guess..

        I popped into Wimborne Minster and paused for thought for a while .. It felt nice, I wasn’t uneasy , just soaked up the architecture and atmosphere and the sound of the QuarterJack chimes..

        Stuff we do , isn’t it .

        1. I remember my first visit to Paris when I was young, and visiting the Notre Dame and the Sacre Coeur, and on a later visit the Saint Sulpice (Manon) and in Rome, Sant’Andrea della Valle (Tosca) and absorbing the beauty and religious feeling, St Pauls in London drew a blank.
          Wandering round country churches here also often promotes a good feeling.
          A funny thing, religion. You know I’m not Christian, but that is not relevant.

          7. It was my treat for 5 friends. I also bought their gaming chips for them. We had Blackjack and Roulette to boost the takings for the charity. I knew what the bill would be beforehand as it was a set menu.

            Virtue signalling over.

          10. I remember walking around St John co-Cathedral in Valetta. I was agog. They also have two Caravaggio.

          13. Simple, little old churches have a feeling you won’t find anywhere else, except maybe away in the forests. Peaceful, but occupied, and awe- inspiring.

      2. I believe our natural leaning towards our traditions and belief in our thought process far exceed religious ritual .. We have the faith and cling on, but we know in our own hearts and minds that we do the right thing because it right ..

        Me being naive I guess..

        I popped into Wimborne Minster and paused for thought for a while .. It felt nice, I wasn’t uneasy , just soaked up the architecture and atmosphere and the sound of the QuarterJack chimes..

        Stuff we do , isn’t it .

          1. I enjoy it. The (male) rector is brilliant, the choir is to die for and they even occasionally use the BCP.

    3. (Christian song alert. It is peaceful but might possibly cause offence if you are a died in the wool traditionalist. 🙂

      The problem with that article is that it defaults to “The Church of England represents Christianity” in the United Kingdom. It has not done that for a long time, especially since they deliberately replaced Christian believers with common purpose Marxists / Agnostics as the spiritual leaders. That is why the numbers are falling, there is almost nothing real there anymore in many places. It is closer to “God” when the building is empty, and you can feel the peace that even non-believers can feel, then when the vicar is speaking.

      Even the Archbishop himself has said in an article that he has sometimes doubted the existence of God. Christianity is not an intellectual exercise for the spiritually bored as it appears some vicars/priests appear to think. The churches that are much closer to the way that they did things back in the days when a man was nailed to a cross for saying that we should be nice to each other, are massively gaining numbers and have been for years.

      I’m out of touch with the latest figures, but these from Wikipedia are only a few years out of date:

      “According to research performed by the Evangelical Alliance in 2013, 87% of UK evangelicals attend Sunday morning church services every week and 63% attend weekly or fortnightly small groups. An earlier survey conducted in 2012 found that 92% of evangelicals agree it is a Christian’s duty to help those in poverty and 45% attend a church which has a fund or scheme that helps people in immediate need, and 42% go to a church that supports or runs a foodbank. In the 21st century there are an estimated 2 million Evangelicals in the UK.”

      So Christianity is thriving in the United Kingdom (although not in places such as Bradford obviously) but people are falling away from the “traditional churches” because their leaders have fallen away from Christianity. And now for the song: (It is a bit tongue in cheek at the start, and pokes fun slightly at those who value buildings over people, but it is not meant to cause any real offence. The guitar is nice. 🙂

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tzH65rHPrk

  32. Asylum Seekers

    Why are we accepting asylum seekers from safe countries. Iran for example is not that much more dangerous than London

      1. Even Iraq is not that dangerous now at its height about 3,500 people a year died but it is now down below a 1000. The population of Iraq is about 37M perhaps about 3 times as dangerous as the UK

  33. Just spent five very satisfying minutes destroying a computer hard disk with an electric drill.

    VERY satisfying!!

        1. Data can still be extracted if enough resources are thrown at it. What did it contain, plans for stealing the Crown Jewels? Or the complete encyclopedia of Trombetti?

          2. If there is an overwhelming need there will still be enough surface area to extract snippets of information.

            So if you are trying to hide stuff from MI6 or the CIA, give it another crack – an electric sander over the recording surface should suffice.

    2. What a wonderful clip – it’s made my Christmas. I had no idea until I watched this that she had stepped down from her role as Head of the Supreme Court.

    3. She is now off to Hong Kong where – we hope and pray – she will become the guest of the Peoples’ Liberation Army. For life.

    4. I was brought up to respect my elders, apart from the ones who were bl00dy idiots. This approach is found in many cultures where the “village elders” are trusted to make the decisions. It is a philosophy that has paid dividends in the wisdom that I have picked up, that would have taken me decades to gather on my own by going through life in the normal way with mostly those of my own age around me.

      This woman however, and the cronies around her, are not idiots and have tried to make the courts the final authority on political matters in the United Kingdom, instead of the elected representatives of the people. That has the reek of the European Union about it. So, whilst I do not advocate violence against older people, I think that if someone managed to slap her with a fish before she fades from public life, then that person should not be punished but rewarded.

    5. Lady Hale warns UK not to select judges on basis of political views– and yet, somehow we ended up with a Supreme Court (oxymoron) composed entirely of Remainers – I wonder who selected them!?

    1. Sadly, I doubt if satirists’ most way out suggestions could surpass the Beeb’s ‘adaptations’ of literary classics.

    2. Auntie once produced quality programmes worth viewing….now for most of their dross it helps if you’re brain dead.

      During Christmas I tuned into Clive James’s Postcards from …….A 1989-1995 TV travel documentary program, hosted by Clive James. In each episode James and crew visited a world famous city around the globe. Paris, Bombay….Cairo etc.

      Well worth viewing on Youtube..

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaLxmCzSGs4

      1. Clive James has a way of speaking that is a work of art in itself. The sentences that he structures and the words that he employs are exquisite. That was very enjoyable and I cannot remember the last time that I smiled so many times during a single program.

        2. Clive James the kid from Kogarah – ‘Unreliable Memoirs’ Autobiography.
          You may also enjoy ‘Somewhere Becoming Rain’.

          1. Someone here mentioned some of the books that he had written about his years reviewing television programs, and I ordered them all just before Christmas. 🙂

        3. I have just finished rereading Unreliable Memoirs , the first in his five volume autobiography, and Caroline has bought me the other four volumes second hand from Abe Books for Christmas.

          (Was Adolph Hitler really born in Milton Keynes?)

    1. I wonder whether it might be sufficient to get him a prison sentence or be struck off.

      I certainly hope so.

      Ideally both!

        1. A law created by libtard townies who have never seen any one of these (or the others in the schedule) in their effing lives.

          1. I’m sure you’re right, but it will be poetic justice if a libtard townie barrister who supports libtards in every way possible should lose his job as a result killing a fox with a baseball bat and then boasting about it..

          2. Hard to believe he was stupid enough to boast about it on the internet (I presume it surfaced on facebook or twitter).

          3. Indeed.

            The gloating even went to the extent of describing how he was wearing his wife’s Kimono, which was too small.

          6. He didn’t take any enjoyment out of it and that’s what counts. You can do it, but by no means enjoy it. Guilt is essential.

          9. No I didn’t, but if a complicated surgical extraction went well there was a certain afterglow of success, which is not the same thing.

          12. IMO it’s as much about the boasting about it, as the actual killing. If I had chickens, and I was woken by what I thought was a fox killing my chickens, I would arm myself. Foxes don’t stop at killing until they have finished off most of the coop. Plus, they don’t do fisticuffs.

            A fox anywhere near chickens is very bad news for the chickens. I doubt if there would be time to call out a vet or the RSPCA without potentially endangering the lives of several birds. So, I can understand the clubbing (I don’t think I could have done that myself – I would probably have tried to scare off the fox and then had to wait in trepidation in case it came back).

            But to boast about it – that is tasteless. It’s probably as much to say “look everyone, I have a house in London which has such a large garden that I have chickens” boast, boast, “and I clubbed a fox this morning” haw, haw, haw.

            The man is an obnoxious little tic and I can understand why so many want him to have some come-uppance. I hope his career is ruined as well, for being such a ghastly oik. But I can understand wanting to protect one’s chickens.

          13. Agreed.

            Having had a neighbour who kept chickens in an urban environment and having been woken regularly by their noises at 4 am, without any fox activity , my sympathies are with the fox there.

            My father kept geese and a fox got in and killed the flock, so I have little time for them and they should be shot as vermin, but clubbing and bragging is a no, no.

            Around here we get lots of genuinely wild foxes, they are shot on sight by the locals because the farmers keep chickens as part of their livelihood.

            I don’t have anything I would “defend” here apart from the hares, so I live and let live with Monsieur Renard.

          15. Near “Royal” Tunbridge Wells.

            They kept turkeys too, and stated that the reason they did so was to annoy the neighbours on the other side.
            B@stards.

          17. It was more his wife who was the problem.

            She delighted in making other people’s lives a misery.

    3. If the French government owns a ballet company, then there’s no wonder it’s economy is – ahem – up the black swan-y

  45. As I write, the time is just past 16.00.

    Already the days are lengthening in the evenings,
    the air is fresh and God is in His Country!
    [ie. .the UK for you non-believers.]

    Here we go again, perhaps 2020 might just,
    hopefully, give us hope for a better future!

    1. Afternoon G,
      Hope is to fickle to rely on, more positive is to put country before party
      when visiting a polling booth.
      We are witnessing the results of the reverse, mass murder / mass rape & abuse, odious mayhem.

    2. I wonder what 20 20 vision will make of the past few years when we look back? Isn’t 20 20 hindsight supposed to perfect.

  47. That’s me for today.

    The two chaps who want to buy the house spent 1½ hours here this afternoon. Indicated the four items of furniture they want to buy and agreed a price. I am 99% certain that they are for real (especially when they asked where they could put (wait for it) their cement mixer…)

    The MR has been losing weight by the day – and I have tried to persuade her – with, now, a glass of fizz – that all will be well.

    Now we have to think hard about how best to get rid of the good stuff. The other utilitarian things will go to a very efficient charity – which collects…

    So I will see you all on Holy Innocents Day. Have a smooth evening battering foxes with baseball bats.

    1. Sounds a bit odd to me but with house buyers it is hard to tell. It can go either way you can have people spend ages looking around and ask all sorts of detailed questions and you never here from them again yet others that just have a quick look around can buy,. A good sign is those that come back for a second viewing. Best of luck though. , Selling a property can be very frustrating. Selling a house seems to be bit of a black art

        1. They have, but under French law there is a cooling off period where they can withdraw, without penalty, and there are clauses that can be put in a sale agreement that nullify a sale if they cannot be fulfilled.

          On the plus side, BT’s situation looks very promising

          1. I prefer the Canadian system. Your offer to purchase, once accepted by both parties has legal standing.
            Yes there are always get out clauses about clear title and some people make offers subject to obtaining financing and / or a satisfactory building inspection but basically once your offer is counter signed by the seller, you are committed to the purchase.

            Not much gazumping or long sale chains here.

            If course it can work against you. The last house we sold had an unconditional offer on it three days after it went on the market. That is where we saw the small print in the estate agents contract which made us liable for their fees if we received a full price offer – even if the sale did not go through.

          3. Yes, the offer comes to you signed. You just need to sign it and return it for it to become a very solid commitment.

          5. I know I have signed off – but I’ll just add this:

            You should have seen the Estate Agent’s (spit) face when I mentioned that I was a Notaire…..

          7. Same in Norway. Accepted offer is binding on both parties.
            Buyer can escape, but the penalty is usually to make up the difference from the next offer that is accepted.

    2. Cement mixer? They are mafia and want to use your place to bury the bodies. Have they asked if they can build a fly-over on your property?

  48. Totally off topic.

    HG put the remains of the mulled wine into a smaller saucepan without telling me and refilled “my” pan with water but left it on the same hob.

    I heated the larger pan and when the contents were sufficiently hot I took out a ladleful.
    I know it’s Christmas, but having turned wine into water without my intervention came as a surprise.

  49. The BBC doesn’t interrupt and interrogate Lefty guests. Those are given endless time to say whatever tosh they want, completely unchallenged.

    Hard Left academic doing funding paid for by the EU would be introduced as an expert in ‘continental economics’ and would immediately say that the EU is a magnificent thing and we should have joined the euro. The interviewer will then ask ‘Oh, that’s an interesting perspective, do go on!’ and the Lefty will continue with perhaps one other question such as ‘so masive fiscal transfer such as the UK’s contribution to the EU are entirely positive then?’

    The BBC is thoroughly biased. It knows it, we know it. Sadly, there are some people in the UK who don’t think it is.

    1. Not just the BBC ! Sky News always ask Tory MP’s / Ministers questions & then interrupt them as they begin to answer but never do it to Labour, SNP or Lib-Dem representatives & ITV’s over rated super bleeding heart labour luvvie Julie Etchingham always interupts or cuts short Tories yet absolutely gushes over any Labour or lib-Dem that she interviews !

  50. Treasury ‘to rewrite rules to favour areas outside of London and the South East’

    The Treasury is reportedly planning to rewrite rules governing public spending in a move that may benefit areas in the Midlands and North of England.
    The changes, reported by the Times, would make it easier for cash to be allocated to projects outside of London and the South East.
    It could help boost investment in infrastructure, business development projects and schemes like free ports.

    The Treasury has not denied the reports.

    Current rules require government to allocate cash to projects that promise the biggest economic benefits.
    Those projects tend to have most impact in areas with more people and businesses.

    Perhaps they should properly dual the Felixtowe line to have such a vital and busy line single track is crazy when the demand for extra capacity alreay exists

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4fb204685df52f541006f7e4247c11247f93b512500e97b6174caee21818982d.jpg

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50925321

    Network Rail is investing £65m to transform the single track Felixstowe branch line by installing 1.4km track loop near Trimley station. The Port of Felixstowe is also helping fund the upgrade. This additional track will allow the line to operate more effectively, giving the flexibility needed to run more freight trains as well as improve the reliability of existing passenger services.

    The Felixstowe branch line serves the Port of Felixstowe, which is the largest container port in the UK. The work on the branch line in this area will support up to 10 additional trains per day in each direction to move goods to and from the Port of Felixstowe. With each additional freight train taking the equivalent of up to 76 lorries off the roads, the upgrade works will help to reduce congestion and pollution for the local community and the wider region.

    1. Does that diagram mean that the track will only be partially twinned? You would have thought that they would complete the job all of the way to the Ipswich main line whilst they were at it.

      But I suppose that there would be no benefit this side of the next election.

      1. The line was only built as single track. The short length to be doubled is on level land with no bridges and the line continues like that for another couple of miles towards Ipswich. After that, bridge replacements and new earthworks would be required along the next six miles.

    2. Good to see them actually admit that for decades they’ve been pouring increasingly huge amounts of money into the richest parts of the country while the worst off have been left to stew.

        3. With an azimuth bearing of around 74° it’s closer to due east of Watford. It’s even further round that east-north-east at 67° 30′.

      2. If one uses the classic definition of a line from the Bristol Channel to the Wash as the North/South dividing line, then Felixstowe is clearly in the South.

          1. From somewhere in England with a higher latitude than Haltwhistle, ‘The South’ starts at Leeds – almost halfway to London.

          4. A useful constituent of water, or so I’m told.

            I seldom drink the stuff, having heard what goes into it.

    4. Ought to have been done years ago together with getting the line wired up and the route from Haughly Jn to Birmingham via Ely, Peterborough, Leicester & Nuneaton to Birmingham to allow electric traction for the entire route.

  51. Will the PC / Appeasement contingent insist that post exit we still kick in occasionally, like on a weekly basis.

    ://twitter.com/GerardBattenUK/status/1210579128904278016

    1. I remember the series.

      It raised a few eyebrows, but it was funny.

      Never got a second series for some reason.

  53. HAPPY HOUR – Brexit ?

    The number of prescriptions doled out for antidepressants has doubled in the last decade, along with soaring numbers of drugs for conditions caused by unhealthy lifestyles.
    Experts said the NHS figures showed the toll of modern life, with political uncertainty linked to Brexit adding to the nation’s woes,

    1. Yet another benefit of Brexit, antidepressant use will plunge as we head into our bright blue future.

          2. Look you pig ignorant bastard, the vast majority of cases of diagnosed clinical depression are genuine.

            I have always said I would never wish it on anyone.

            In your case I might well make an exception.

          4. Thank you.

            Having had several attempted and “successful” suicides in the extended family, due in the main to clinical depression, I am afraid I have no time whatsoever for the like of this fundamental female orifice.

          5. While I was in Germany I translated a book in German on depression for the author, who didn’t speak English. During the process I learnt a lot.
            I don’t think the English version was published.

          6. It is a ghastly affliction.

            No outward signs for those who don’t know, no immediately obvious indicators, except to experts; sufferers hide it surprisingly well, until it’s too late.

            How was the German book received?

          7. The German book had a rather limited readership, because of its nature. I thought it was well written & quite comprehensible. Somewhere, probably in the garage, I have a copy.

          10. On this subject I get very angry with people who suggest that the majority of depressed individuals are faking it.

          14. Having been through it myself, no it is not fake, but depression is often confused with stress. The symptoms are often very alike.

            With stress, there is a good reason to feel down, whereas with depression there isn’t.

            In short doses, stress is actually good for you, and provides a natural response that is very constructive. Unhappiness about a situation makes one determined to do something about it. In many cases, this not only provides a remedy, but actually helps with improving one’s life. Often, a long walk or a nice cup of tea or a good moan at a friend is all that is required to convert the stress into positive action.

            However, if it persists, and if too many attempts to remedy a bad situation are clearly futile, then depression sets in and then the mood cannot be so easily shaken off and requires medical intervention.

            Unemployment is perhaps the most common cause of stress developing into depression. The futiity of actively seeking work and constant rejection is what does the damage. Those who are signed off for depression may often be perfectly capable of doing a day’s work, if they are allowed to and not taken advantage of, but really struggle with the process of actively seeking work. A lot of ignorant folk fail to appreciate this.

    3. More likely that people haven’t got anything else to worry about so become very inward facing.
      Don’t hear much about depression during the war

  54. ” Israel: Netanyahu wins landslide in battle for Likud party leadership”
    ” Guardian writers cry bitter tears “

  55. US proposes remote ID requirement for drones

    US regulators on Thursday unveiled a proposal to require privately operated drones to use remote identification — a kind of electronic license plate — as part of efforts to ensure airspace safety.
    The Federal Aviation Administration proposal for remote ID is now subject to a 60-day comment period before a final rule is adopted.
    Officials said the new rule would help identify potential threats, and presumably enable security officials to act against them.

  56. Irish PM Leo Varadkar says bridge between Scotland and NI ‘worth examining’

    It would be a major security risk though if we have a soft border between Ireland and NI

    2. Has he any idea of the depth of the channel it would have to cross?

      Up to 200m deep, with strong tidal currents, stormy seas and passing Trident submarines isn’t the best mix for a bridge. The channel may be narrow (narrow-ish – it’s as wide as the Strait of Dover), but that’s its only advantage. Well seen he’s not a builder.

      The bridge from Denmark to Sweden, which is presumably where these dreamers have taken their ideas from is only a couple of miles long and the water depth is only 10m. The channel they want to drive over in style is 22 miles across and 200m deep.

  59. Evening, all. Why is it that if the Irish or the Scots win the Grand National, it’s a cause for lengthy celebration, but if the English win any big race nationality gets no mention? We had a Welsh winner of the Welsh National today and you couldn’t hear the end of it. When the English won the Scottish National, there was no celebration of Englishness at all.

    1. To paraphrase Flanders & Swann:

      The English, the English, the English are worst, and we’re never happy lest English are cursed.

    2. When winning over a foreign team or player, the BBC always proclaims it as an English victory – unless, of course the team or player is Scottish or Welsh when it is a British victory.

      1. I no longer watch the Bbc, so I must have missed this. I thought Murray was Scottish if he won and British if he lost 🙂

  62. Scotland.s Spending out of Control

    Scotland ran a deficit 7 times higher the UK as a whole. Figures show a deficit of £2000 per person between total spent on services and debt and total tax revenues for 2018/19. Total deficit of £12,6B or 7% of GDP inc North sea oil revenues, UK total deficit is £23.5B inc Scotlands UK deficit being 1.1% of GDP

    #total spending per person in Scotland is £1.661 per person higher than the UK average . Whilst tax revenues were £307 less per head

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/aug/21/scotland-2018-deficit-higher-than-uk-as-a-whole-last-year

      1. And that’s in spite of slightly higher income tax in Scotland. At the moment Sturgeon trys to blame Westminster yet the figure show Scotland is given very generous funding. The problem is Scotland grossly overspends

        1. Being relatively rich, Scotland would be a net contributor to the EU, if they’d let them join. Go on, let them have it! I’d throw in Berwick-upon–Tweed for good measure.

    1. I’d take that Natural News article with a pinch of salt, given the titles of the other articles…

      1. Problem is that lots of things need doing irrespective of the climate change hype.
        Sending little boys up chimneys was found to be wrong, then someone realised that the smoke belching out of the chimneys needed stopping.
        A hole in the floor of the lavatory in a railway train where the shit went straight through to the tracks was phased out, and plastic choking up the oceans should have been dealt with years ago. Exhaust fumes from cars are killers. Etc. etc.Global Warming and Climate Change are probably from natural causes, but we still need to look after the planet for common sense. Don’t do nothing because of a daft little girl that doesn’t know what she is talking about.

      2. Evening AA,
        Tis Your prerogative to use the full complement of condiments, does not alter the fact that the climate change issue is, to say the least,a massive rip off, IMO.

  67. 2020 budget

    The budget was postponed from last year whilst no exact date has been set it is expected to be in February

  69. Inequality. New Years Honours.

    More than half of the awards, 51%, went to women, who were better represented than in previous years.

    The imbalance was caused by the difficulty in deciding where to put Elton John.

    3. It will do Boris Johnson’s credibility an immeasurable amount of harm if he gives in to Remainer pressure and ennobles the deceitful and bullying traitor Bercow.

      1. Tony Bliar wasn’t. But then…once the damage is done and they collect their 40 pieces of impure silver.

      2. I find it shocking to think that small egotistical men such as Bercow could ever be considered for an honour. But when we look at the present composition of the Lords we find hundreds of non-entities, hundreds of Liberal Democrats that none of us ever heard of, plus hundreds of assorted failed politicians from other parties (who failed demonstrably In public life and who have little if anything to offer).

        I noticed that Natalie Bennett, the tongue-tied Australian Green Party Co-Leader has been elevated to the Lords. Has the world gone mad?

        1. House of commons failure. Moved to a charity or other quango sinecure at 10 X average wage from either side of the political spectrum because they don’t want to lose that talent. Baroness Morgan et al.

          How lucky we ain’t.

  71. Seems to be a problem with Disqus. I haven’t had any upvotes in the last 3 hours.

    Must be the Russians.

      1. I can’t understand why. It was me that gave them the blueprints to the not so totally hidden spy headquarters on the Thames next to the bridge.

    2. All the other intelligent NTTLers must be away. I haven’t had many, either. Maybe we have scared them away.

    1. Just written to Nadia Whitcome MP to let her know that supporting rappers and their values do not get their followers very far and shows her poor values. I’m sure there are some positive role models from the ‘community’ who are more deserving of support from am MP. But I guess that wouldn’t be very woke.

  73. ” Mother of British children who drowned in Spain blames pool”
    I’d blame snooker, myself.
    No such thing as an accident. It’s always somebody’s fault.

    1. I may have missed something here but a child who couldn’t swim got into difficulty in a pool. Two other family members who also couldn’t swim died along with her through drowning.

      Quite clearly all pools need to be water free.

    1. Wasn’t Guy Verhofstadt trying to get Turkey fully into the EU itself last year? Something obviously went wrong with the membership application, possibly that fake military coup that was staged to allow their president to arrest those people who were his opposition.

      Guy is just panicking because they don’t have enough followers of islam in Europe yet to eradicate those of us with outdated ideals of democracy. So if they can get the money and organisation together then they can just give new arrivals from North Africa guns and uniforms as they stumble off of the boats. That will be a shiny new defence force for the EU that won’t hesitate about opening fire on us.

  75. DT Dishonesty 28 Dec 2019 3:40AM
    It is a pity (and quite intentional) that the plebs have information deliberately withheld from them on the current Hijra (conquest by immigration) underway.

    It was first mentioned at the UN Assembly in 1974 by the then president of Algeria.

    Mentioned countless times by Islamic leaders ever since. Most notably the late Col Gadaffi but by many, many more.

    The scale of it and the inevitable crime waves are so bad that governments have no choice but to cover up and falsify the evidence. The media complies by omitting important information.

    Here is a an accurate quote which should resonate with rational people and trigger the snowflakes. “Heaven has a wall and a strict immigration policy. Hell has open borders”.

    And two quotes from Turkey’s PM Erdogan from last week when in Switzerland. (Where he gave the 4 finger Muslim Brotherhood salute, called the “Rabia salute”).

    “Nobody can expect you to submit to assimilation. Assimilation is a crime against humanity!”

    “Get active, in politics, science, the economy!” In other words: infiltrate Swiss society”.

    I will let those sink in.

    I fully expect this post to be deleted, for the above reasons.

      1. Brave! But he should be sparing a thought for the postman (postperson?) who will suffer a hernia delivering the first of many sacks of hate mail…

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