Friday 6 October: Sunak’s attack on the right to smoke harms his Conservative credentials

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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491 thoughts on “Friday 6 October: Sunak’s attack on the right to smoke harms his Conservative credentials”

  1. Good morrow, Gentlefolk, today’s story

    Beware The Witching Hour
    There’s this guy who’s driving home from a party, when all of a sudden, he gets really horny.

    He’s driving by a pumpkin patch and remembers how they’re supposed to be all wet and squishy inside.

    He pulls over thinking no one’s around, cuts a hole in pumpkin and proceeds to fuck it for all he’s worth.

    He’s going at it like crazy, when along comes a policewoman! She walks up behind him quietly and startles him when she says, “Excuse me sir but do you realise you’re having sex with a pumpkin?”

    He looks her straight in the eyes and shrugs and says, “Holy shit! Is it midnight already?!”

  3. Dozens killed in ‘brutal’ Russian missile strike on Kharkiv memorial service. 6 October 2023.

    At least 51 people were killed by a Russian missile strike, which hit a memorial service in Kharkiv on Thursday in one of the largest losses of life since the war in Ukraine began.

    The attack on Groza, a village in the Kupyan district where Russian forces have recently upped offensive actions, took place just after 1pm.

    A six-year-old boy was reportedly among the dozens of people killed.

    Innocent people get killed in wars. They are brutal. This is an inescapable fact. The solution is to stop the war. This particular incident is being used to expand it. The whole tone of this piece is propagandist.

    In its dealings with Afghanistan the US droned numerous civilian gatherings, most notoriously wedding parties and there was of course the strike on the air raid shelter in Baghdad during the Iraq War that killed several hundred women and children. There were no reports about the individuals killed there.

    No comment is allowed on this article or any other concerning Russia/Ukraine in theTelegraph. This now appears to be settled policy. Why is an intriguing question. There was an argy bargy on the threads last week about one of the posters and then an anti-war post; despite the best efforts of the Nudge Unit trolls, topped the polls on another. This along with the removal of the Mails Ukraine tab the other week suggests that support for the war is not going well.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/10/05/ukraine-russia-war-missile-strike-kharkiv-groza/

    1. The Ukraine war would end tomorrow if there were no possibilities of money-laundering to members of Congress and deep-state actors in the USA.

    2. Indeed, Minty. (Good morning, btw.) As I have noted before, the Telegraph prints single sentence headlines to try and persuade us to subscribe to their paper, but in the case of Ukraine it allows us to read several lengthy anti-Russia diatribes – I wonder why?

    3. 377381+ up ticks,

      Morning AS,
      ALL the time the laundry is operating ( and with the sums concerned there surely is one)
      little will change.

      I am more concerned with the war on the home front which the peoples of decency are losing daily, BIG TIME.

  5. 377381+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Letters: Sunak’s attack on the right to smoke harms his Conservative credentials

    I do take offence at the “Conservative credentials” there be only one Conservative currently in parliament, and the political pretenders ALL openly take offence at his stance.

    Which will, in turn, pose a question within the tory cartel come voting time, will the peoples listen and follow MP Bridgen as a true Conservative with true Conservative views, or the tory cartel.

      1. 377381+ up ticks,

        Morning N,
        We as kids smoked dry cane , snap a bit off light up, spit out the earwigs, after a while we took on a yellowish tinge, I believe we were likened to a gang of up and coming Triads.

  7. Good morning, all. Overcast and a light breeze at the moment. Sunny hours forecast for later. Ideal weather for the washing that is in its final spin cycle.

    What can you see in this picture, other than the obvious?

    My X reply:
    Amazing! I wear bi-focal glasses and looking through the longer range lenses I can see the image. Difficult to ‘unsee’ it afterwards.
    Another way to expose the image is click touchpad bottom left and anywhere else on the touchpad simultaneously.

    https://twitter.com/DVATW/status/1710031289783349728

    2. Apparently there is software that enables the creation of these images now. The one I posted yesterday is another example. Quite fascinating as a technical problem to solve!
      There is a figure in the background that has no shadow, so obviously it does make mistakes. I assume it’s AI generated from two photos being overlaid?

        1. I can’t make out who it is, I thought it might be Ursula fond of lying but then a tie “appeared”

          1. It’d be helpful to know what to look for. Personally I just see soldiers patrolling.

  8. Greenland’s non-existent meltdown. 6 October 2023.

    In August it was the turn of the Daily Mail to run a story titled ‘The impact of “global boiling”: Shocking before and after photos reveal just how much the Greenland Ice Sheet melted during the “hottest month ever recorded on Earth”.’ It compared two satellite images of the Frederikshaab glacier, the first taken on June 14, the second on July 24.

    The wide-eyed journalist breathlessly reported: ‘The first image snapped by a US satellite shows the Greenland Ice Sheet just before baking summer temperatures took hold. Meanwhile, the second image from July 24 shows the same region with substantially less snow cover and patches of ‘dirty’ ice where impurities have become exposed.’

    Maybe someone should have told him that snow melts every summer in Greenland, and is replaced every winter. If it did not melt, the ice cap would get bigger and bigger.

    Now summer has ended, we can see that less ice has melted this summer than average, not more. In fact five of the last seven years have seen below average melt.

    Worth a read. Anti-propaganda inoculation!

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-climate-scaremongers-greenlands-non-existent-meltdown/

    1. North West Passage was open for sea travel last year, I think. Shock! Horror! The first time since the last time, back in 1904… why does anyone think it’s called “The north-west passage“? – because ships can pass, occasionally. So, it being open isn’t new, and definitely not as a direct result of burning fossil fuels, as in 1904 and before, there weren’t many, nor many people, either.

    2. Again, it’s bringing a scientific paper to an artillery barrage. Climate change has nothing to do with weather, environment, ecology or science. It is a hoax designed solely to scam the worker of their income and transfer it to the state.

    3. Accurate ice level records have only been available since the introduction of satellite technology in 1979.

    1. Well there we have it. Mordaunt and Braverman representing the two sides of the battle for the soul of the Conservative Party, with an irrelevant puppet providing a side-show about anti-smoking laws.

    2. Well there we have it. Mordaunt and Braverman representing the two sides of the battle for the soul of the Conservative Party, with an irrelevant puppet providing a side-show about anti-smoking laws.

    5. You’ve got to give their chereography a round of applause. How she can lie so brazenly, can spout so much utter excrement is astonishing. This from a party that wants to remove encryption to view anyone’s web traffic on a whim?

      Scum. All of them.

    6. You’ve got to give their chereography a round of applause. How she can lie so brazenly, can spout so much utter excrement is astonishing. This from a party that wants to remove encryption to view anyone’s web traffic on a whim?

      Scum. All of them.

  12. G’morning all,

    Bright and clear here at the McPhee’s where we’ve been up and about earlier than usual because we’re off to see daughter and grand-daughter in Chichester today. A bit of cloud begining to drift across now but it’s going to be a nice day. Wind Sou’-West, 13℃ rising to 19℃ with a lovely autumn week-end in prospect.

    So Liebour trounced the SNP at Rutherglen and Hamilton West, once the seat of Winnie Ewing who made the breakthrough for them in the 1960s. However, the turn-out was a mere 37% so how much this can be read across to the forthcoming GE remains to be seen. Liebour, naturally, are having waves of orgasms.

    Whether or not it is going to recover Scotland from the SNP and get Mr and Mrs Kneeler looking at wall-paper and curtain samples for their new Westminster pad it will do nothing to stop this lunacy which is going on in Edinburgh:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4ccaa87d879304e7ad4c53a2b8e736fc5d8d86ce0b6dc57fc3515ea2eb6a680f.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/05/the-scottish-nhs-is-offering-slavery-reparations/

    Just because a few hundred years ago, well before Nye Bevan was born, a surgeon who owned a slave plantation gave some money to the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary so now we all have to pay. And it is all of us because NHS Lothian exists only due to the fiscal transfers to Holyrood. Isn’t it enough that there is a Jamaica Street in Glasgow city centre leading down to the Broomielaw and the expression “D’ye think Ah came up the Clyde in a banana boat” entered the Scots language? Well, the directors of NHS Lothian certainly came up the Clyde in a banana boat.

    Is there no end to our madness?

    2. Look at the descendants of the slaves. As much privilege as yer indigenous whites, compared with the crap conditions for the descendants of those not enslaved (Darfur, Biafra, anybody?).

    3. This is the state, where money is infinite because it’s not theirs. Simply put, every penny wasted on anything to do with this nonsense should come straight from the pockets of the Left wasters promoting it.

  13. Good morning all.
    A dull & overcast start this morning with a tad under 11C°on the Yard Thermometer and an almost imperceptible drizzle when I took the empty milk bottle out.

    One of todays letter:-

    SIR – What will young people do in future when they meet up behind the bike sheds?

    Simon McIlroy
    Croydon, Surrey

    I wonder why I thought of the Ginger Growler when I saw that?

    1. Our old head master was a smoker and so were other teachers of day.
      And they often advised against smoking.
      I wonder what Richie gets up to that wouldn’t go down well in public ?

  15. Dalrymple in BT mode

    https://www.takimag.com/article/whats-in-store/

    As an aside, I wonder if this was deliberate innuendo:

    Be that as it may, I was riding to Charles de Gaulle Airport in a taxi recently when I passed an electrically illuminated advertisement. “Do you prefer girls to boys?” it asked. If you didn’t know, you could call the Sex Education Hotline to find out.
    I could just imagine the automated choices you would have to make to get through to a real human being, the hotline’s expert in sexual preferences.
    With jobs like these, no wonder there is practically full employment in the Western world.
    But why should there be helplines available only for sexual preferences? Why not for culinary ones as well, for people who cannot make up their mind whether they prefer peas to carrots, beef to lamb, red wine to white? After all, food is the precondition of sex and practically everything else, and it is often difficult to make up one’s mind what one would like to eat tonight.

    2. But there isn’t full employment. There are 5 million unemployed in this country. Problem is those unemployed are unemployable as they’re mostly criminal gimmigrants.

      1. 3full employment” is one of those expressions that doesn’t actually mean what one might think.

  16. Morning all 🙂😊
    Grey but broken cloud. And a bit chilly.
    Richie has overstepped his mark. As has one of his contemporaries with his hated nazi ulez scam.
    How is smoking any of his business.
    Historically our best and most successful PM ever was a smoker.
    What next beer wine spirits vapes. Childbirth ?

      1. I feel for all those folk who’ve made a living selling vapes. Suddenly, because of government malice, they’re now looking at being out of business. I hate these fools. Absolutely hate them.

        1. The numbers of vape shops that have sprung up puts me in mind of the numbers of Turkish barbers you see on our high streets.
          I wonder if there is a connection?

      1. Our 8 year old grand son has been learning Spanish phrases at his school.
        I told him the other day to go and live there when he grows up.

      2. See what Rowen Atkinson thinks above. RR medley.
        And I agree.
        Medieval mindset set.
        And the tory leader wants to ban smoking.
        Get your priorities in order Rich E.

  17. “G ORDON JAMIESON, who has died in Australia aged 102, was one of the last survivors of the “Death Railway” in Burma. He enlisted as a private soldier aged 19 in July 1940 – “to go on an adventure,” he said – and joined the 2/26th Australian Infantry Battalion, nicknamed “the gallopers”. He arrived in Singapore on August 15 1941.

    As war with Japan brewed, his battalion was sent across the Straits of Johore to defend the mainland of Malaya. The Japanese invaded on December 8, but the 2/26th only saw action a month later, deep in the rubber plantations of the Malay peninsula, where they defended the Simpang Rengam crossroads under fire from Japanese artillery and aircraft. The 2/26th then fought successful rearguard actions (with one dashing bayonet charge) until, on January 30, they crossed the causeway into “fortress” Singapore.

    On February 15 1942, the British commander of Singapore surrendered. “It was quite eerie when the din of gunfire and high explosives ceased, to be followed by the cheering of the enemy soldiers at close proximity,” Jamieson told Australian Defence magazine.

    The next three and a half years were hellish. As Jamieson put it: “We became slaves.” He was one of 50,000 Allied Pows crammed into camps in Singapore’s Changi district and used as forced labour. He was there for a year, until April 1943, when he was herded into a metal rice van and taken to Songkurai, a remote section of the infamous Siam-burma railway, near the Burmese border.

    The malnourished labourers fell like flies, whether to cholera, dysentery, malaria, beriberi (thiamine deficiency) or tropical ulcers. The shifts lasted more than 12 hours, and there were no rest days. Jamieson put his survival down to esprit de corps, and a scrupulous policy of eating as many maggots as he could, for protein, but picking the flies out of his daily bowl of rice because he knew they carried disease.

    “On the completion of a strenuous day at work, our boys would commence the walk back to camp, several kilometres in pouring rain with little or no footwear,” he recalled. “Then someone would start to sing a tune… and others would follow, and the heads would be lifted proudly.” If a man lost his best friend, “another would adopt you”, he told the Australian government’s oral history project.

    In December 1943 he was taken back to Singapore. Of the 22,376 Australians held by the Japanese, 8,031 died, a rate of nearly 36 per cent. When Jamieson was liberated in September 1945 after 42 months of captivity, he weighed little more than six stone.

    Gordon Jamieson was born on June 14 1921 in the Queensland town of Stanthorpe. After his discharge in January 1946 he bought a café, and later worked in a chicken abattoir, then owned welding and tractor businesses.

    He married Shirley, a Quaker whose pacifism helped him come to terms with what he had experienced; together they protested against the Vietnam War. In the late 1970s, however, the damage done to his body as a POW caught up with him, and he spent three months in an ICU. In 1993, Jamieson was spokesman for an unsuccessful claim, lodged by the Queensland Exprisoner of War Association, that Japan should fund an Australian research centre for tropical disease.

    In his 90s he was invited on to the set of The Railway Man, the 2013 film about the Death Railway starring Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman. When Jamieson got out of the car, he found himself looking at one of the actors playing a POW – “a really skinny guy in shorts”, his daughter recalled. “Dad just grabbed his hand and said, ‘Are you OK, mate?’ In his mind, he was back there for a moment, and that’s how they were. Mates until the end, looking out for each other.”

    Shirley, his wife of 62 years, died in 2011; he is survived by their three children.

    Gordon Jamieson, born June 14 1921, died September 23 2023”

    1. A fantastic story, he was almost went unheard of, as were so many.
      One of so many heroes of their life times.

    2. “The malnourished labourers fell like flies, whether to cholera, dysentery, malaria, beriberi (thiamine deficiency) or tropical ulcers. The shifts lasted more than 12 hours, and there were no rest days. Jamieson put his survival down to esprit de corps, and a scrupulous policy of eating as many maggots as he could, for protein, but picking the flies out of his daily bowl of rice because he knew they carried disease.

      “On the completion of a strenuous day at work, our boys would commence the walk back to camp, several kilometres in pouring rain with little or no footwear,” he recalled. “Then someone would start to sing a tune… and others would follow, and the heads would be lifted proudly.” If a man lost his best friend, “another would adopt you”, he told the Australian government’s oral history project.”
      That sounds like the Aussies I know.
      Respect.

    3. ‘The Knights of Bushido’ by Bertrand Russell lays out the war crimes of the Japanese during WWII. The book also covers the Japanese chicanery in Manchuria from 1931 onwards. Harrowing reading.

    4. I once flew from the old RAF Changi in a 1940s Bristol Freighter of the NZ Airforce, along with 20 or 30 other paratroopers, to a jungle landing strip in north east Malaya. We flew just a few hundred feet above the jungle top all the way. The seats were the narrowest I have ever seen in an aircraft, hardly room for a child, never mind a paratrooper with all his kit. It was an interesting trip nevertheless. I thought of those poor POWs slaving away in the intense heat and tropical storms. RIP Gordon Jamison and all your fellow servicemen.

        1. No, it was specially cut in the middle of the jungle for our plane. I don’t know if it was ever used by any other aircraft.

      2. I flew to Kuantan in a Beverley from Changi in ’64 mostly at treetop height – not the most comfortable flight up in the tailboom but the fuselage was full of ground equipment anyway

    5. I once flew from the old RAF Changi in a 1940s Bristol Freighter of the NZ Airforce, along with 20 or 30 other paratroopers, to a jungle landing strip in north east Malaya. We flew just a few hundred feet above the jungle top all the way. The seats were the narrowest I have ever seen in an aircraft, hardly room for a child, never mind a paratrooper with all his kit. It was an interesting trip nevertheless. I thought of those poor POWs slaving away in the intense heat and tropical storms. RIP Gordon Jamison and all your fellow servicemen.

  18. ‘Morning All

    Medley

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/36fd179c557b2f7c8053d760bff3299957658d1ea36c71179d96cf19f8e6e719.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ad6fba0dd1bc7f40633d827c93c1b8d735071a0b04e05526c4b2f84b4368f9d6.gif

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2cc7668ff6ba69851e5381b24a00974100123da4582d7c121a006fe57c31f8a6.jpg

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a99ee09f6020e672998c983d049ed1348fbd4bbccfc7ce730b1796993f7945b0.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6dfbfac96e406629317a12acb11a661779d953399c6064671241bae946ea02f4.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1d74fd46df06d486fd97f4b706d69a86a6eb840aa5ccfe191833dfc23a267320.jpg

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d73caafabd96ad1344edd1c0a8dd878968a2abb7ea9d85d07e87b9a79138f087.jpg

    1. As regards Atkinson – the Left hate, unconditionally. Their anger and rage at others who disagree with them is boundless.

      They enforce and protect muslims precisely because of the problems they cause in society which normal people resent, thus the Left, hating everyone set about protecting and promoting muslims to offend everyone else.

    1. Funded by abolishing the Non-Dom tax status.
      I wonder where those rishinuff to utilise it will move to?

        1. They would have as much success as if they tried to abolish the law of unintended consequences, which will kick in in this with a net reduction in tax take.

    2. Surely it’s the parents responsibility to get their kids to brush their teeth not the schools – what a load of scrotal contents

    3. Surely it’s the parents responsibility to get their kids to brush their teeth not the schools – what a load of scrotal contents

  20. 377381+ up ticks,

    That is growing up with RESET, adhering to the same
    voting pattern you will NOT be alone for long,

    ·
    leilani dowding 🌸🚜 ☮️ reposted
    Cillian
    @CilComLFC
    ·
    13h
    I was 15 years old
    When they locked us down and closed my school.

    I was 16 years old
    When they forcibly vaccinated me.

    I was 17 years old
    When they gaslighted me and denied my vaccine injury existed.

    I was 18 years old
    When they censored me.

    It’s all so disheartening.

    Tis the way of RESET, the future.

  22. Andrew Boff, who leads the Conservatives in the Greater London Assembly, believes that gender is assigned at birth. I didn’t do GCE biology, so I’m in no position to doubt him, but are there any better-qualifies Nottlers out there?

    1. He is a prat. MOH, a retired midwife, advises me that a child’s gender is determined at conception.

    2. Sex, not gender. Gender is a grammatical term used in the construction of certain languages.

  23. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/70a3eb14121f6e284b2a124aad0bad92d56e4de0f484b92c75f14d80d24f4d00.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/property/why-help-to-buyers-homeowners-fall-off-property-ladder/

    Why do politicians never understand that pumping more money into a market raises the price whereas limiting the supply of money will better control prices.

    People borrowed more than they should have done.
    Property prices rose
    and then fell
    And the bank rate went up and up.
    People ruined.

    What advantage do normal people get from inflated property prices?

    Our house is probably worth ten times what we paid for it but as we don’t want to sell it what good is that to us? And if we did want to sell we would have to buy another house which has risen in price just as much as ours has.

    All it will do is add paper value to our estate and inheritance tax will take more from us than we can pass on to our heirs.

    BTL

    Mortgage rate set at a fixed rate throughout its term. (They do that in France)
    No more than 3 times income advanced on mortgage – or twice a married couples’ joint income;
    Minimum 10% deposit.
    NOT MANY PROBLEMS
    * * *
    The great mistake has been to match mortgage loans to property prices. It should have been the other way round – i.e. property prices should have been determined by the amount of money people had available with which to buy.
    Loans of 5, 6, or even 7 times income and rising mortgage rates have brought about disaster.
    HOODAGESTIT

    1. OTOH:

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/927aee5c73148108b27ce2510edc380fdb75f051e4d18612dce5b0b934737734.png

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/property/solve-housing-crisis-give-baby-boomers-tax-cut/

      He makes some excellent points. We’re in this postion. A house too big for us which is becoming a burden to clean and maintain but the market currently offers nothing we’d buy. I identified a long time ago that retirement properties, especially those in retirement complexes, are simply a means of ripping-off us ‘boomers’ and ensuring that our beneficiaries inherit a headache they’ll be glad to dump at a knock-down price.

      1. Stop making the housing crisis worse by letting in hundreds of thousands of new house-hunters every year.

        1. And another thing: the house that we live in is usually the biggest investment that any of us will make. And as investments go, it’s a lemon; all in one thing, highly-geared (or “leveraged”) and only one customer (yourself).

      2. Long term decisions? All he does is tax and waste, the loathesome stooge. A brighter future? For him and his ilk, maybe. Not for anyone else as he’s determined to force all energy out.

    2. Bankrupt the plebs so that they have to rent everything. You vil own nuthing an you vil be happy.

      1. And at the same time make it more onerous and expensive for people to rent out.houses and flats.

    3. We’ve just moved. The biggest cost was fees. It is long past time that agents fees were capped and excluded from VAT. Stamp duty should also be abolished, as should VAT.

      It is realising you have to find another £2000 in tax just to appease this loathsome government that annoys most.

      The state doesn’t seem bothered that whenever it fiddles with anything it costs real people money. Making energy expensive out of spite is simply heinous, especially for those dependent on it.

      As our monthly costs rise, all of it is down to big government’s malicious waste of precious earnings. Work more, they say. Put up your prices – all from a government that has no concept of effort or outcomes. Taking on more just means more tax. Putting up prices means lost work. It is malicious to simply say ‘business must accept the cost’.

      If we charge our dentist practice more money then it puts it’s prices up and then people find their dentist bills are higher. It’s utterly moronic. That’s inflation, you stupid b’tards.

    4. If you have a lot of equity in the house you own you can use that as a last resort by selling that equity to fund your twilight years. Sod the children !

      1. We’ve been saving for Junior since he was born. He has a pension and a savings account. What frustrates is that Brown destroyed both out of sheer spite for tax. The tories are now doing exactly the same. We have had 25 miserable years of socialism.

        When the Tories did elect someone with the guts to do what needed to be done, big government set about destroying her and Lefties whinge ever after, utterly ignorant of the situation except the media fluff. People are dumb.

      2. These ‘equity release‘ schemes do not favour the poor old punter – they just favour the insurance company/bank.

        I would keep very clear of them.

        1. From past experience of a late relative don’t go near these rip-off schemes, the interest was nearly £6k a year fixed, recovered from the estate when they went into a home PLUS the original sum. The family advised against it but they went ahead anyway and they didn’t even need the money. It boils down to re-mortaging your house

  24. All plugged up
    SIR – I have a press-down plug (Letters, October 4) in my basin. It is stuck and won’t move in either direction, so I can’t use the basin. What was wrong with a plug on a chain?

    Richard Statham
    Basingstoke, Hampshire

    Grit has sealed it tight. Take a wooden spoon. Place the thin end on the right or left side of the plug. Whack other end of spoon with a hammer.
    My call out fee is £500.

    1. Cheaper and less physical approach would be to blob baking soda around the plug then pour vinegar over it.

      Rinse, repeat.

    2. Fingernails usually do it if it’s the continental style ones. Or a blunt knife stuck under the wretched thing. I agree with Richard Statham – a plug on a chain is a far better solution!

    3. As I said in the comments on PressReader – don’t even get me started on the odious and unhygienic push-button flush mechanisms. Give me a lever to flush my loo any day.

    4. If that doesn’t work drill and tap to insert a small screw which you can then get hold of

    1. ‘I waited a decade because i didn’t think anyone would believe me’
      Where have i heard that before???

    2. The trauma was so great that she was unable to move or speak for TEN years. My arse.

    3. 14 years down the line and he gets a slap on the wrist.
      He obviously knows the right people.

      1. Looking at his activities on High Life I suspect his contact list would rival Epstein’s.

        1. Yes, some people know how to establish contact.
          Off for my walk soon. Via docs surgery to pick up a blood test form for next week.
          Another arm full goes missing.

    4. Having first made her complaint to the Met Police in 2019, the victim explained that she waited a decade to report the incident because she did not think anyone would believe her.

      She said: ‘I didn’t think anyone would believe me. The accused was, is, a wealthy and powerful man. I thought everyone would think I was lying and I was trying to make my way in my career.

      Now why would anyone think that?

  27. Good morning all. From the Guardian. Leftist rag I don’t normally read but this was in my Microsoft feed today. Slowly but surely the truth is coming out in the mainstream propaganda media.
    The Ukraine war is in a new phase. Biden must rethink the US position
    Stephen Wertheim
    Unfortunately for the president, supporting Ukraine ‘as long as it takes’, and mostly without conditions, has reached its limits

    Scrambling to avoid a government shutdown, the US Congress last week refused to approve a new $6bn aid package for Ukraine. Nearly half of the Republicans in the House of Representatives also voted to strip Ukraine money from a must-pass military spending bill. The Republican revolt comes as Ukraine’s counteroffensive, launched this summer, has garnered lackluster results. Russia has actually gained more territory in this calendar year than Ukraine has, despite the immense quantity of advanced weaponry that the US and Europe have supplied to Ukrainian forces.

    Together, these two developments mark a new phase of the war that calls for new thinking. The political support of Ukraine’s largest international backer, the US, is no longer assured in the near term, let alone if Donald Trump returns to power in next year’s election.
    For Joe Biden, it is a time for choosing. His administration and its allies will be tempted to double down on the approach they have taken of late: cast the war in near-existential terms, vow to arm Kyiv “as long as it takes” and castigate opponents as extremists indifferent to Ukraine’s plight and reckless with American national security. (Indeed, some leading House Democrats were quick to deride what they dubbed the “pro-Putin caucus” and “Putin’s little helpers”.)

    But this approach has reached its limits. In the absence of progress on the battlefield – Ukraine’s army has not made a breakthrough since last autumn – ever more strident demands for ever more aid, doled out indefinitely and regardless of circumstances, make the war look potentially endless and fruitless. The problem isn’t that arguments for helping Ukraine have lacked passion or that skeptics have been treated too kindly. It is that the current aims may be unachievable, as Biden’s “as long as it takes” mantra practically admits. And if the mission will not be accomplished, then the case for restricting aid starts to resemble the logic that led Biden himself to order the US military to withdraw from Afghanistan in 2021: it can be better to accept painful losses than to suffer greater losses.
    Thankfully, Ukraine is not Afghanistan. Kyiv’s war effort remains viable, far more so than the western-backed Kabul government’s was. Yet to sustain the support of Americans, Biden needs to put forward a better strategy, starting with more defined and attainable goals that inspire confidence.

    First and foremost, he can no longer effectively defer to whatever territorial aims the government of Ukraine adopts. Kyiv currently seeks to restore Ukraine’s 1991 borders, an unlikely prospect that would include retaking Crimea, which Russia seized in 2014, houses a key naval base, and may hold enough importance for Vladimir Putin to employ nuclear weapons in a last-ditch defense. Biden should make clear that the US will continue to keep Russia from conquering Ukraine and extinguishing its sovereign independence but that the retaking of territory must be weighed more heavily against resource constraints, human costs, and escalation risks.

    Preserving Ukraine’s sovereignty matters: the United States helps the victim of blatant aggression (tragically underscored by Russia’s missile strike in Kharkiv on Thursday that claimed 51 lives), keeps Russian forces away from Nato territory, defends international law, and shows would-be invaders that crime doesn’t pay. At the same time, Biden should note that none of these objectives requires the US to support a Ukrainian attempt to liberate Crimea. Nor must Ukraine necessarily regain, prior to a ceasefire or settlement, every inch of land it has lost since February 2022. Such an outcome, if it is militarily feasible at all, would come at immense costs in lives and treasure. The Biden administration has not committed itself to any particular territorial outcome, but neither has it foreclosed maximalist options. It would be wise to start doing so.

    Further, the Biden administration should pursue ending the war – through diplomatic steps to restart talks – as vigorously as it arms Ukraine. For now, neither Kyiv nor Moscow is willing to stop fighting, but conditions may never become ripe unless the parties communicate in advance with US encouragement and participation. Diplomacy takes time to succeed, as demonstrated by a wealth of experience from the armistice that ended the Korean war to the nuclear agreement with Iran. The US is uniquely capable of bringing the parties together. It has yet to try in earnest. Although the effort would almost certainly not yield rapid and dramatic results, it would show that Biden is serious about bringing the conflict to a close and is doing his utmost to avoid the escalation risks and financial costs of a long war.

    Finally, Biden should highlight the substantial commitments of aid made by the US’s European allies, and call on them to give more to Ukraine and to take the lead in European defense more broadly. The stakes of this conflict are greater for Europeans than they are for Americans, and prudence demands that European governments plan for the possibility that US support might dry up. When Biden instead calls for aiding Ukraine on the grounds that “we are the indispensable nation in the world”, as he has recently repeated, he implies that the US should bear almost any burden and should keep bearing such burdens in perpetuity. It is better politics, and better policy, to press European states to take responsibility for defending their own region while the US addresses domestic needs and security in Asia.

    Ironically, this approach resembles the one the White House adopted in the opening months of the war, when officials spoke of dealing Russia a “strategic failure” rather than a total territorial defeat, and envisioned the conflict ending in a negotiated settlement. Since then, official rhetoric has escalated and domestic support has eroded. Although assisting Ukraine was bound to get more contentious over time, returning to more achievable objectives would make a political difference.

    Many Republicans who recently voted against the latest aid package have voted in favor of previous ones. They may be willing to help Ukraine again. Even the 29 members of Congress who vowed to oppose further aid in an open letter last month focused on the flaws of US strategy. Rather than question the desirability of Ukrainian success, they balked at “an open-ended commitment to supporting the war in Ukraine of an indeterminate nature, based on a strategy that is unclear, to achieve a goal yet to be articulated to the public or the Congress”.

    Biden should answer these concerns. He will not make partisanship go away, but he can isolate the partisan critics from the principled ones and put the war effort on a sustainable footing. Nothing could be more dangerous for Ukraine than to allow outright opponents of aid to look like the lesser of two extremes and the guardians of Americans’ best interests.

    Stephen Wertheim is a Senior Fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the author of Tomorrow, the World: The Birth of US Global Supremacy

      1. Sadly, I am not so sure about that. The success of the Normandy landings that enabled the Western allies to liberate Europe depended on an elaborate cocktail of lies to the extent that Hitler no longer trusted his spies and sent his tanks the wrong way. Sometimes deceiving the enemy is part and parcel of the mechanism of war, and the only judge is the victor.

        It is true that the Russians are such compulsive liars that it is impossible to regard their truths with any seriousness, but that is the beast we are up against. I don’t think the Ukrainians are lying to anything like the same extent, but how far does wishful thinking morph itself into a lie, when the desired outcomes are unattainable, even with God and the USA on your side?

        The sad truth is that both sides are getting worn out and their ammunition and resolve ground down by the relentless brutality. In the end, it all comes down to who gets exhausted first, as is the rule applied in most legal cases where the only winners are the lawyers.

          1. A moot point.
            If you haven’t read it, I recommend Double Cross by Ben Macintyre, he too uses the word deceptions but in many cases they were founded on lies.

    2. Bidenis in full reverse on the southern border wall so he may as well renage on Ukraine as well. He will probably miss the bit where Trump said he would talk to Putin so no peace, just more bloodshed.

      As for Zelensky, Numb nuts Trudeau has promised never ending support and we all know how valuable a Trudeau promise is.

    3. Meanwhile, fighting the Russians by proxy is resulting in staggering costs for NATO, whilst achieving nothing.
      Assuming Russian losses are not too great, could bleeding the West white be the Russian strategy? They always were good on the long game.

    2. Why on earth does this nasty, vindictive little airhead get publicity? Is it because she is a vacuous little airhead?

      1. I certainly would not want to do to her what Laurence Fox wouldn’t like to do to the woman who belittled men who commit suicide.

      2. Possibly because she was threatened with murder? Seems reasonable that she was alarmed – and a man has been charged.

        I agree with your description of the plastic woman, by the way.

        1. Crikey! I believe this sort of stuff goes on every second on twatter and farcebook. What makes her special?

          1. Because normally it is all false and fake. This chap apparently (and allegedly) was serious.

    3. It is understood Essex Police is treating the alleged kidnapping as a credible conspiracy with it claimed there were threats of ‘serious harm’ to Willoughby.

      A source said: ‘There were apparently some sinister and threatening messages found on electronic devices threatening to seriously harm her.’

      Oh I see. It was something online!

    4. Can I point out to people that Holly Willoughby was born male, fathered children then decided he was really a woman?
      We do not have to accept his delusion, so please, do not refer to him as female.

      1. Register of Births (Mar) 1981 Birth certificate:
        WILLOUGHBY HOLLY MARIE (Mother) FLEMING (Place) BRIGHTON (Volume) 18 (Page) 0063

          1. I did look her up and saw that she went to a girls’ school and is married with three children……….

          1. A debate with David Starkey would be entertaining – as long as the good Doctor was sober…

    3. I assume this must be Olowogsu. Vile, odious Brit hater – with a white English mother…and slave trader ancestors.

      1. Yes, he’s got a new series of hate filled BS on bbc.
        He twists everything out of all proportion.
        If he hates Britain and the English so much he should fur cough and shut his moaning mouth.

    4. He treats the likes of Churchill with hate filled vengeance.
      What he should consider is he would not be alive if it hadn’t been for Winston Churchill. Hitler would never have allowed people like his father into the UK.

      1. Somebody was telling me on Wednesday that, as he used to live close to Blenheim Palace, he visited often and one day he was standing in the hall when a group of Americans arrived. One pronounced, “this house was given to Winston Churchill for winning the war”!

        1. I think he was born there.
          It’s a splendid house.
          I saw a programme a couple of days ago. Where another house had a lot of Chippendale items of furniture in the rooms.
          Now valued at many millions.
          Never a mention that poor old Thomas died with around 65 quid in his bank account. Being owed thousands of pounds by the ‘landed gentry’.
          He couldn’t sue because the lawyers were in the hands of the rich.

          1. Winston Churchill was indeed born in Blenheim Palace. I seem to recall they made a feature of the bedroom where it happened.

    3. I looked into the Metro bank some time ago. How anybody would put their money with them beggars belief, probably mask weares. anothe case of go woke go broke.

  32. 377381+ up ticks,

    Kneel the reptile snake charming (QC) is over the moon thrashing the snp, a party in its death throes.

    The cons lost their deposit, jock is exchanging the Scottish nasty party for the
    lab, PIE loving, mass uncontrolled immigration, murder inc. pro eu, bigger viaducts than the tory’s for vets party.

    1. 377381+ up ticks,

      O2O ,

      The snake charmer (QC) now thinks he is Michael Caine, “We blew the doors off” the difference being kneel blew the doors off the mortuary.

      1. 377381+ up ticks,

        Afternoon R,
        The majority voter falls for that every time, but there ain’t NO free dinners
        consequently we ALL suffer.

        Rhetorical democracy is no substitute for the real thing.

    3. Almost everyone in that constituency voted for either Labour, the SNP or the Greens.
      Addicted to authoritarian socialism.

    2. Oddly enough, the subject of fish finger sandwiches came up on Wednesday morning; one of my parishioners said she’d been out to lunch and one of the party had ordered fish finger sandwiches. She was scandalised. Why order something when you are out that you can do at home for half the price? I could only agree.

    1. I take issue on the subject of past colonialism. Greco-Roman Christian civilisation IS Civilisation with a capital C and the efforts to elevate the rest of the world were noble. The problem is that the ruling elite in the West have now chosen Satanism instead and wish to drag the whole world down. It isn’t the attitude that is wrong per se, more the plummeting values alied with the same attitude.

      1. If you think that our colonial past was driven simply by a desire to elevate the rest of the world I believe that is so patently not the case that it needs no elaboration. Greco-Roman civilisation was and remains a civilisation but a failure to recognise the other great civilisations that the planet has seen is actually a failure of this one! I am not sure how Satanism could have the right attitude as you imply. The Manichean divide is what it always has been, but it is now starkly drawn.

  35. One of my colleagues just had her connection to the contracts software we use at work crash with the message, “Fatal Error”. Now, it’s a bluddy nuisance when you’re in the middle of raising a contract and the darn system kicks you out, so you have to start all over again…been there, done that…but fatal? Really? Who died? Why the inflated language all the time?

    2. The process died. You should see Apple logs – they talk about tombstones, daemons, 0xDEAD etc

        2. Still alive and well if you mess up with driver development!
          Windows does seem to have manage to stabilise their drivers though.

    3. Software developers don’t have much excitement in our lives, you must understand….:-(

      1. My colleague is pretty peed off. I find the connection is more stable when I’m in the office using the core network instead of WiFi but her laptop crashes here too. Not certain but I think the system in question is written on Oracle and has been up-dated and customised multiple times over the years. It’s now a massive multi-tasking contracts database. One Bill Thomas is still listed as a programme contributor so you can tell it’s been around a while :-))

        1. Perhaps the word intended was “feotal”…

          Gosh – your last few words. Perhaps I am still owed money…!!

          1. You’re listed as “Profession: Expert”. There are a few people with the same name listed but I recognised your address. Do a search on “John Smith” though and a message flashes up that there are more than 500 records so only the first 500 will be displayed!

        2. LAN cable directly into the company network will certainly give the best connection.
          Oracle? Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here…

    4. It just means the system caan’t recover from it. It’s especially bad code to not be able to provide information on precisely *what* went wrong.

  36. You might remember the story of Coton Orchard in Cambridge, an environmental treasure marked for sacrifice by Cambridgeshire County Council by having a busway driven through it so that the world might be saved from its imminent roasting.

    At the time of the announcement, Lib Dem council leader Lucy Nethsingha referred to a UN report which highlighted the need to ‘decarbonise’ economies. She said: “Quality public transport links are a key part of decarbonisation. Moving to a net zero economy cannot be done without changing the way we travel.”

    Here’s a good read on the subject: The fight is on to save Coton Orchard

    1. Interesting piece – but I expect state vandalism will win and “climate change” will be appeased for a short time. The trees and biodiversity will be lost forever so they won’t matter, so long as the “carbon” is reduced………

      1. I suppose it would never occur to them that trees (and plants generally) actually reduce carbon dioxide by using it in photosynthesis?

  37. Well, you are never too old to learn something new.
    No doubt techie NOTTLers knew this, but I didn’t realise that aluminium and steel can’t be put together.
    How much did Foster and Arup make from creating the Millennium Bridge?
    For heaven’s sake, the bridge is younger than our oldest grand daughter. (And she’s certainly not clapped out.)

    1. They make an electrochemical cell when wet. Aluminium dissolves to provide protection for the steel. Well-known phenomenon, used to prevent corrosion under water for offshore steel structures.

      1. Let me get this right.
        We build a bridge spanning a river in a rainy country; and not one ‘expert’ thought the metal mixture might case problems?
        Why does the combination work at sea, but apparently not over a biggish river?

        1. Doesn’t work at sea, in fact it’s worse as salt water is quite conductive, but if you insulate the two metals, it works OK.

          3. The two metals can be connected with bolts which are fitted with insulating washers, such as fibre washers to provide mechanical strength without any electrical contact between the two metals.

          4. One of the reasons why magnesium alloy components in helicopters, particularly the gearbox casings, are corrosion protected to the Nth degree.

        2. The galvanic affect (where the aluminium would corrode preferentially) would be created if the two metals were in an electrolyte e.g. water. In open air they may have thought that no water would get in to create this galvanic (sacrificial) effect. Personally, I wouldn’t risk it.

          J Standley, corrosion technician level 2 under the institute of corrosion (Yes, it does exist).

    2. They make an electrochemical cell when wet. Aluminium dissolves to provide protection for the steel. Well-known phenomenon, used to prevent corrosion under water for offshore steel structures.

  38. Net Zero you say………

    Well this is awkward…….

    Germany
    will reactivate a number of shut-down coal plants in order to save gas
    and prevent power supply shortages during the upcoming heating season,
    the country’s Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWi)
    announced in a press-release.

    According to the ministry, the
    government on Wednesday issued an order which allows Germany’s largest
    power producer RWE to relaunch two coal blocks at its Niederaussem plant
    and another one at its Neurath plant to add extra electricity to the
    grid. Under the same order, the country’s second-largest producer of
    coal-powered electricity, LEAG, will reactivate 2 blocks of its
    Jaenschwalde coal plant.
    I supose in an emergency energy shortage we could do the same??
    Oh Wait
    We blew ours up…………

    1. Just Ratcliffe-on-Soar left. Drax has the capability and West Burton is mothballed.

      1. Ah yes, Drax, the “green” facility that has to use imported wood pellets from the back of beyond in order to call its energy eco friendly.

  39. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f0bc76841b846a73b8a44c3a66d7be85e58702648993476ae385a27e587676da.png

    BTL

    Sunak is right in thinking that most people nowadays are not in favour of smoking.

    He is completely wrong in thinking that people want to be told not to smoke by an over-bossy politician.

    Free speech and free choice will win him more votes than curtailing people’s freedoms.

    The fact that Sunak cannot understand this means that he will lose the next election by a landslide.

      1. I’m a non – smoker and always have been. The number of smokers now is down to about 14% – largely due to the massive tax rises on cigarettes over the years. The world has moved on and it’s not really a problem now. I don’t agree with banning it, as long as smokers keep their distance and don’t do it anywhere near me.

        This policy is a totalitarian Jacindaism.

        1. How does he propose to make good the lost tax revenue when smokers have to buy their tobacco on the black market?

          2. No, scrap inheritance tax. Halve VAT. Restore the market to energy. Abolish the department for climate change. Move health to an insurance model. Move schools to a voucher system and close the department for education. Institute a limited curriculum and let schools choose how to deliver it.

            Make welfare full for 6 months, then 75% for the next three, then 50, then 25. Scrap child benefit. Gradually abolish housing benefit.

          5. Extend the range of VAT and increase the percentage, as well as not raising the tax threshold (= fiscal drag) and lowering the point at which stamp duty kicks in.

        2. Probably because it’s only after becoming ‘ex’ that they are able to breathe freely and smell the smoke of others.

          1. Not sure about that. I grew up in a positive fug and blue haze of cigarette smoke. Both parents and all 4 grandparents smoked heavily. Everything stank of smoke and all the rooms were sepia! But that was the late 50s and onwards. I stopped when I couldn’t climb the Mound in Edinburgh!

          2. My Mum smoked – and after she was widowed she chain-smoked – I thought that was the normal way to light them. I tried a puff in the bushes when I was 10 – it made me cough and put me off for life. I’ve always hated the smell and not being able to breather fresh air. The ceilings at my Mum’s place were brown.

            When she came to stay with us the boys used to leave the door open – “it smells like the bus in here!” and I told her off for smoking in the bedroom.

            Strangely, she didn’t smoke at all on her last visit at Easter 1989 – I wonder if her illness had started to manifest itself, though she seemed well at that time. She died in September 1989.

          3. Bless her. My mother developed COPD and it was the saddest thing. She couldn’t breathe and panicked a lot. It was very distressing.

          4. Mine never had a bad chest – just a little dry cough. She died of cancer of the pancreas – found at post mortem as she went in for tests and died suddenly before they knew what was what.

            I have a friend with COPD – she’s painfully thin and when I last went to see her in May she was using oxygen – just sitting was an effort. She also has breast cancer but refused surgery because she’s so weak. She said this week she’s on palliative care now. She’s deteriorated a lot since the lockdowns.

          6. Yes. And still seems to be incurable. My mum’s gp sent her for an endoscopy which found nothing more than a hiatus hernia which she”d probably had for years. He then prescribed Gaviscon and Zantac. She was unable to eat solid food and in the hospital she was neglected so ate nothing. They didn’t realise she was so ill.

          7. Dreadful. The lack of care is unbelievable. One occasion when Mum was in hospital the doctor called Dad and me through about 3am, to say our final goodbyes. Mum rallied a bit, and they sent her home the next day!!

          8. Well Mum was only there for a week – for tests! – and the neglect was upsetting…….nobody to help her feed at all. She was in a geriatric ward and spent some time watching the old dear in the opposite bed ripping up tissues.
            She was making plans for the new concert season and had certainly not given up on life.
            I tried to talk to the staff about where she could go for some care once they’d found what was wrong but there was never anyone who had any idea and no doctors around. No pain relief for her as far as I could tell.
            Then we got a call to say she’d died………we were just on the verge of going for the visit that evening.
            When we viewed her body the next morning in the Chapel of Rest, they hadn’t wiped the blood from her face. That upset me. I’ve never forgotten seeing her like that. It’s 34 years ago.

          9. Shocking and disgusting. They wouldn’t know care if they fell over it. I had to say to the nurses numerous times that Mum hadn’t eaten, and I was taking things that she liked to eat into her. They just left them in the ‘fridge until they went off.

          10. I don’t know if things have improved since then or not, really, though I think my OH was quite well cared for in the five weeks he was in hospital at the end of last year.

        3. Sorry Sue, can’t agree!! As an ex-smoker I know how hard it is to give it up, I was always cutting it down to finally going cold turkey…

          2. I am still addicted to cigarettes but I gave up smoking cigarettes on December 31st 1987 and I haven’t smoked a cigarette since then. I got married in April 1988. I’m like the couple in Oklahoma – With me it’s all or nothing!

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVz5K63iYDs

            I am not addicted to pipe tobacco – I can smoke my pipe or leave it.
            I was in control of my pipe it but cigarettes were my master. And on the brink of marriage to Caroline I remembered that parable in the Bible about not being able to serve two masters!

    2. Smoking is a disgusting habit. It is revolting, it stinks, it fouls the air and I’d like people who smoke to be put into a flexible plastic phone box and made to stay in there until the smoke dissipates – BUT:

      This is only going to get worse, as the state – because Sunak isn’t doing this, big goverment is obeying some dictat from the WEF – until soon he bans say.. chocolate. Or sweets. Then it’ll be meat. Finally the state will then mandate precisely what you can and cannot do from birth to death.

      They’ve got to go. All of them. Every last civil servant, every politician.

    2. My favorite book. It has become a ritual for me to read it every spring as Mole prepares his burrow for the year, takes a break and gets embroiled in adventures with Ratty. Learnt that a moles home is actually called a fortress, rather surprising for such a peaceful creature. Toad is a wonderful character.

        1. Yes, that is the most fascinating part of the book, a mystical interlude and quite beautiful. There is an audio book by David Davies?

          2. I found this. Not narrated by Davis though..https://www.audible.co.uk/search?crid=4df775db03694f28b7ff9cac9101c322&feature_twelve_browse-bin=20229998031&i=eu-audible-uk&k=The+Piper+at+the+Gates+of+Dawn&keywords=The+Piper+at+the+Gates+of+Dawn&sprefix=the+piper+at+the+gates+of+dawn%2Ceu-audible-uk%2C135&url=search-alias%3Deu-audible-uk&ref_pageloadid=not_applicable&ref=a_search_l1_feature_twelve_browse-bin_0&pf_rd_p=ff83f79f-3ec9-4d26-81d0-a70cf6f8e4e3&pf_rd_r=GPMP07MT3H43714PEQ66&pageLoadId=DoHCvWktn39ZVsR6&ref_plink=not_applicable&creativeId=5af3cf27-07f2-4801-b1bc-1a201f4b4937

    4. `The motor-car went Poop-poop-poop,
      As it raced along the road.
      Who was it who steered it into a pond?
      Ingenious Mr. Toad!

  41. 377381+ up ticks,

    So very,very true,

    Post
    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021
    ·
    4h
    Just as I have been predicting: Labour will retake Scotland from the SNP come the next election.

    Not that I want a Labour resurgance of course but it’s an inevitable consequence of SNP imsanity, & the betrayal of Britain by the Tories.

    The other deciding factor is the inertia of the voters to organise, support or fund new alternative parties.

    In a democracy ulitimate responsibility lies with the electorate.

    1. There is no democracy in Scotland. The local toddler group does a better impersonation of that!

    2. But until None Of The Above (NOTA)votes are counted you cannot vote at all unless there is a candidate on your list for whom you want to vote.

      1. In that case, Richard, I spoil my ballot paper by writing across it. At least I don’t add artwork, like some spoiled papers I’ve seen 🙂

    3. But until None Of The Above (NOTA)votes are counted you cannot vote at all unless there is a candidate on your list for whom you want to vote.

  45. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6afa30f7aef0933be61135998cf324fc00e6b9e92657b9d1f525aaf3ca9efbe0.jpg I’ve been busy preparing my ‘man cave’ for some refurbishments; mainly, two replacement windows to improve insulation and increase light provision. This area has been many things in the past: cowshed, forge, cobbler’s shop and barn among them. For the past decade it has doubled as my workshop and art studio. Once refurbished I will be able to crack on with some productivity all year round.

    1. My husband is very jealous! He’s filled his garage with wood working tools and now has nowhere to expand!

      1. I suppose I am very fortunate. All I have had in the past is some end or corner of a garage and I know how frustrating that can be.

          1. There is a large, stocked, wine rack in the kitchen and a cupboard with single malts, gins, liqueurs and a few mixers. It’s just that I no longer have an appetite for any of it.

      1. All walls and ceiling in the main house are 15″ thick insulated and all the windows are triple-glazed (that is: a sealed double-glazed unit as well as a secondary pane). In the workshop there is some degree of insulation but not as much as elsewhere.

        I live in the very far south of Sweden, on the same latitude as the Scottish borders. Our winters are nowhere near as harsh as up country.

  46. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2d2d1013009309dae9dfbf38cb8e05f19c17d80fb34361adda3e0b0a0abe4253.jpg The main workshop area, where I have removed all fixed machine tools from the area of the windows.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b224e65bb472aaf655b5d98f1d76e45b87ec2637a02f7e727579bd993102af03.jpg Fixed workbench with table saw on its trolley.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3a7f54f6f252ca31eff472e3b63eaf2928fa004d98375c719d8ce883f2953f87.jpg Same workbench with scroll saw on its trolley.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bdeac498d9fa845f8c6cbc7341e7ce847df1cf98d7924ebdda0f2f8372fa02f5.jpg View of part of studio from workshop.

      1. I seem to recall reading that he had rheumatic fever as a child and it left him with a heart problem, which eventually did for him. He was only 42.

    4. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/836808741025bfa6694f932e61d51fc0ffa528edd3151ee9637d41fc6c019808.jpg Window area ready for refurbishment.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/aabedb7b8084cc6de1718f6044aab1a0ef7ae76164f01eaffea7d72878dfc33f.jpg Area just inside old barn doors.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/45c437175d15b0424c53c91100c26153de067a9d78877cb887cf0363a263127b.jpg Wall easel with lighting gantry (cool, daylight-rated LED bulbs).

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ebbf16409b1645530b4ebe55eefb14b74eeaea0a77c56cdc03b1b5b223e14dd6.jpg Small trolley holding various table-saw sleds, bench hooks and jigs.

        1. No part of the property is out-of-bounds to either of us. We both come and go as we please. As for cleaning, I use my Kärcher power vacuum to clean the place out. The same unit also gets connected to the table saw (and drum sander) to use as a shop-vac to collect sawdust as it is made.

      2. I’m in awe, Grizz. I’ve done a great deal of DIY over the years – mostly related to car (and DiscoVan) maintenance – but not entirely so. In my formative years, I had my Mum’s drive. Which was a repository for a few projects, of varying success.

        Cue lots of stuff in betweenLatterly, when I moved from a 3-bed detached house to a 1-bed retirement bungalow, most of my garage tools were given to my neigbour’s son, who was/is rescuing an elderly Landy. All my (power, or manual) saws went to Dianne’s daughter’s partner: Jeff shares your profession, and shows signs of being equally practical to your good self…

        I’m possibly two years from not being a church organist any more. I have a ‘virtual pipe organ project’ on the back burner at home. I need to build two M-Audio Keystation keyboards into my 1980’s electronic console. Plus lots of electronic trickery, to make the stops work.

        1. Thanks, Geoff. Although I personally made most of the stuff in that workshop/studio, a lot of it (mainly workbenches) were made from recycled materials, so it didn’t really cost much. It has taken me a full decade to get it to where it is right now. All that I inherited was the old (very heavy) workbench with the metalworking vice on it.

          I have always enjoyed making things and when I get “in the zone” I can easily get carried away.

          Regarding your pipe organ project, have you asked Spikey for his advice?

        1. I wish. You should have seen it before I started moving stuff around, vw. Many a time I tend to “forget” the need to sweep up or put things back where they belong. 🫢

    6. I’m green Grizz. In my last house I had a workshop a little bigger than yours filled with lathes, milling machines, plasma cutter, 3 welding machines, power saws, bending machine etc. Been missing it for the last 15 years

      1. I’ve never possessed top-notch machinery like that, Spikey, but I do know how to use them (from my first job). My mate, Bertil, down the road, has a fully-equipped automotive garage with a lot of that sort of stuff and much more. He has said I can use his kit any time I like.

  47. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2d2d1013009309dae9dfbf38cb8e05f19c17d80fb34361adda3e0b0a0abe4253.jpg The main workshop area, where I have removed all fixed machine tools from the area of the windows.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b224e65bb472aaf655b5d98f1d76e45b87ec2637a02f7e727579bd993102af03.jpg Fixed workbench with table saw on its trolley.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3a7f54f6f252ca31eff472e3b63eaf2928fa004d98375c719d8ce883f2953f87.jpg Same workbench with scroll saw on its trolley.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bdeac498d9fa845f8c6cbc7341e7ce847df1cf98d7924ebdda0f2f8372fa02f5.jpg View of part of studio from workshop.

  48. Does anyone know who Martin Selves is?

    I have often noted from his BTL comments that he has plenty of common sense and would be a very welcomed contributor to this forum.

    Here is a BTL he made under today’s DT letters:


    Why do so many Politicians respect the ECHR so much? Sunak and Starmer certainly do. It is not accountable to anyone. That is not democratic. We don’t know who they are. That is not democratic. No one can object to their decisions and that is not democratic. We know many are not Judges at all, and that is insane. They can make a profound decision from their bed, on their own, late at night and without consultation with any colleague, and without knowing all the facts. That is not democratic that is insane. One is a Russian, who should have been expelled from the ECHR a year ago. Nothing about the ECHR makes sense today, when everyone wants clarity and accountability, and the secrecy of this organisation needs to blown apart and replaced with a model that fits this decade. They are not part of the EU but share the same building.

    Historically they have made judgements that strongly suggest they are anti UK, and we know EU Country’s regularly ignore the ruling of it, but we abide to the letter because Theresa May made it legal within the Northern Ireland Agreement.

    Shame on her, and shame on this near communist and secret ECHR.

    And yet we allow them to decide over the will of the Country, the will of the Governing Party, and it is more powerful that our own Sovereign Court. That defies s any logic.

    Why do so many Politicians respect the ECHR so much?

    2. Is he not ‘Selves’, rather than Shelves? Carpe jugulum is also a fount of common sense and wisdom.

        1. John Cleese was of course originally John Cheese, so you could have been on the right track.

    4. He is an ex RAF fighter pilot and I think he was with BA. He is about 10 years on from me at around 76, just info gathered from his posts not personal knowledge.

    5. Slavish adherence to the ECHR is part of EU membership and our political class refuse to do anything remotely contrary to that slavish adherence.

  49. I had a callout to a hospital earlier in the week for a breakdown. Essentially, the two 30+ year old boilers that run the hospital sterilising unit failed, and about 6 hours after the loss of sterilising operations are cancelled and the A & E patients get diverted 25 miles to an alternative unit.
    They failed entirely due to age, and the fact that they are, after 30+ years of running flat out 24/7 worn out to the extent that no amount of servicing will keep them going indefinitely.
    To replace then will cost upwards of £150,000, money it is claimed the Trust does not have, although, fortunately it has got the budget for a Diversity Officer and his/her/xe department.

      1. Yes, unfortunately you know how those Far Right (© BBC) Conspiracy Theorists harp on about this.

  50. Prevening, all. Bans, high taxes, big state, control-freakery over heating/lighting/travel etc … None of this is conservative with or without the capital letter.

    1. True – it has just struck me that next they’ll ban chocolate on the basis it is bad for you. Then biscuits, cakes, pastries. Then they’ll come for meat. They’ve got to be stopped *now*.

  51. British Armed Forces to receive wearable chemical weapons sensors in £88m programme. 6 October 2023.

    Technology can detect single droplets, amid warnings of potential use of devastating new methods by Russia in Ukraine.

    Some close reading of this is required and as with anything now in the Telegraph that even touches on Russia no comments are allowed. In this case it is understandable since the article seems to serve no other purpose than to slag Russia off. The sensor mentioned in the title not only does not exist it is not yet designed. There is of course a reasonable secondary possibility that it is also a scam to transfer money from the public sector into private hands.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/06/uk-army-navy-air-force-russia-ukraine-war-mass-destruction/

  52. That’s me for today. Useful garden work (involving ladders variées). Three trays of Bramleys picked. Three pounds of tomatoes for turning into tomata tomorrow. Two pounds (still) of Cobra beans – a couple more pickings, prolly.. Tomorrow – raspberries and the rest of the potatoes to harvest. Several four foot long trombettis changing their skin to beige = soon ready for harvest and storage.

    Searching online for a good quality siphon pump – simply to suck water from water butts based on the ground and hard work to fill watering cans from. It was OK until a couple of years ago. Any NoTTLers have any suggestions? Screwfix are offering a HILKA PRO-CRAFT MULTIPURPOSE SIPHON PUMP KIT. But one is never sure tht these things are tough enough not to pack up after a dozen uses. So ideas gladly received.

    Have a spiffing evening.

    A demain DV.

      1. I want to avoid anything electric. The butts are 3 ft high an contain 150 litres. A simple siphon would do the job. There was one on YouTube which was brilliant. No long made, of course.

        2. I have one where you squeeze a bulb to create a vacuum to siphon anything off. No electric involved.

          3. I think you stick one end in the liquid you want to siphon, the other in the container you want to fill and squeeze the bulb. That’s how mine works.

          1. Said simple syphon to the python “What have you got there?”
            “Pies you stupid twat!”

    2. Evening, Bill. Since jettisoning the feet, I tend to use Bosch 18V cordless garden tools. The batteries are interchangeable. My experience of Bosch has been generally good – if one leaves aside the strimmer that I burned out.

      They do a submersible pump.

      Get a “bare” one, and I’d cheerfully send you a spare battery and charger, gratis.

      1. Many thanks, Geoff. I don’t want anything electric. Simply a very straight-forward siphon. Something simple for an old idiot to work without effort.

  54. Another four

    Wordle 839 4/6

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

    1. Lucky three today.

      Wordle 839 3/6

      ⬜⬜🟩🟨⬜
      ⬜⬜🟩⬜🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. I can match that
      Wordle 839 4/6

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

        1. We had a corgi once that would adopt that pose to be shuttled across a vinyl floor. He’d race back to be shuttled again and again!

    2. Various iterations of SMM (the Standard Method of Measurement of Building Works – a retired quantity surveyor speaks) have allowed for the (unlikely) possibility of fitted carpeting to walls and ceilings. But it’s unusual (even outside the UK, with it’s 13A sockets) to mount the aforementioned outlets 450 mm below the ceiling…

      Here’s my take:

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/082ed6d71a1e2184a9dd34e0fa5b04fe0cc8b8e95eb74ef49d9f1dd25b3100da.png

  57. I didn’t realise that Sir Keir was so diminutive
    He’s so short that even his trouser legs reach his ankles.

  58. Putin in Valdai has delivered a great forecast for the way in which a future world will look. He says Odessa is a Russian City and that it is impossible to deal with Zelensky.

    Putin says in his speech that his principal concern is with the security and care of the Russian people which he describes as a civilisational state. He says that all countries have their own civilisational qualities and are equal and not inferior to the western nations.

    The essential point is that the Russians say they are open to negotiations but are not seeking negotiations. The initiative is with the west to make serious proposals. The west has no coherent or rational proposal. The Ukraine is losing territory and is losing the war. If the west wishes to have gas and oil returned it will be on pragmatic terms.

    Putin thinks most of the leaders of the west are idiots. Too true.

    1. I agree with Vlad.
      The world has lost its way and purpose.
      Do you think I’ll be arrested ?
      Another French try 36 nil.
      And conversion. 38-0

      2. Just watched the first (of 3) progs on PBS about the history of Russia.

        In the 18th century the whole kit and caboodle – Crimea, Ukraine etc was RUSSIAN.

  59. Off to Edgbaston tomorrow for a family celebration. Two marriages and an engagement. In one family. Our youngest son is in the frame.
    Italy getting a thrashing in the rugger. Metor shower later between midnight and dawn.
    Although I’d love to see that. But It’s more than a little inconvenient.
    Night all.

    1. Congratulations. Hope you all enjoy the festivities.

      I used to live in Edgbaston. Well on the edge. My house backed onto the Reser…

  60. Moved the oil drum I use as a garden incinerator to the Cromford end of the garden yesterday and filled it with brash ready for burning today. I got about 6 loads of brash burnt, getting the hairs on my arms singed a couple of times and, when the wind changed suddenly, almost had my beard singed too!
    The drum is going to need replacing soon and I’ve got my eye on some drums in the old ruined barn across the road.
    Will investigate over the weekend.

    And a bit of music as I dance off to bed! G’night all!
    https://youtu.be/gee9GLWSS9c?si=08Dcjf0BV538G0i4

    1. I wonder if lining the oil drum with a protective layer of cement would help it to last longer?

  61. Starmer has slain the SNP beast, but what else does he have to offer?

    The Blob-sympathetic Labour leader may think he’s already won, but he should beware the fate of Neil Kinnock

    CHARLES MOORE • 6 October 2023 • 7:12pm

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3fa4a46022a6ce8bcbc28855b4f2d62ebb6887ebbb5dc893f68fc97220c40cad.jpg
    Rishi Sunak outside his family’s old business, Bassett Pharmacy, in Southampton. The Prime Minister won’t mind if it reminds you of a former prime minister’s birthplace in Grantham.
    ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

    Early on Friday, it was in effect confirmed that there will not be a second referendum on Scottish independence in this political generation. Labour’s smashing victory in the Rutherglen by-election has seen to that. The Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, sensibly seized the moment to link this perception in voters’ minds with the reminder that a Labour government would not have a second referendum on Brexit either.

    It is worth recalling that the Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, was a keen referender. Only a few years ago, he was his party’s leading advocate of a second Brexit referendum. Indeed, he resigned from the shadow cabinet, claiming that Jeremy Corbyn was too weak to lead a Remainer fightback.

    Nevertheless, let us forgive, if not forget. Indeed, let us rejoice. The Union is probably now more secure than it has been since the 1998 Blair/Brown devolution had the opposite of its intended effect. On both sides of the Scottish border, the next general election will not be about constitutional quarrels on which public opinion has already been tested. It will be a judgment about the state we’re in, chiefly our economic state.

    Since that state is poor, normal logic would suggest the incumbents will be punished. In Scotland, the UK general election will be voters’ chance to express their disapproval of 17 years of SNP dominance. In the United Kingdom (including Scotland), the Conservatives, after 14 years, will be in the dock.

    Normal logic may well prevail. The polls suggest it, what with the cost of living, the condition of the NHS and many other discontents. As I argued in these pages on Tuesday, the Tories’ strange decision to break tradition and let Labour go after them in this year’s sequence of party conferences has created a sweet moment for Sir Keir. Next week in Liverpool, he will use the Rutherglen result to mock Rishi Sunak’s radical self-reinvention this week in Manchester. Labour’s message to round off the conference season will be: “We shall be the masters soon.”

    But the Tories, made ingenious by desperation, spot an opportunity. Sir Keir’s chosen path to victory is that followed by Tony Blair in 1997 – be moderate, vague, open-minded, charming, non-tribal and let resentment against the Conservatives do the rest. He runs two risks. The first is that, by assuming victory in advance, he might lose. That error was dramatically demonstrated by Neil Kinnock’s triumphalist Sheffield rally in 1992. Voters decided they felt safer with still-fresh John Major standing modestly but tenaciously on his soapbox. The second is that Sir Keir is no Tony Blair. There is an arithmetical addendum too: Labour in 2024 will have to make up four times more electoral ground than it needed in 1997.

    If Sir Keir wins in a year’s time, he will be almost 20 years older than the Blair of 1997. On that warm May night, young Tony, the voice of the rising generation, spoke of “a new dawn”. In 2024, oldish Keir, Knight Commander of the Bath, former holder of the rank of a permanent secretary in the Civil Service and so grand as to have an entire piece of legislation – The Pensions Increase (Pension Scheme for Keir Starmer QC) Regulations 2013 – passed by Parliament to exempt his large pension from the normal cap, will be arriving much later in his political day, wafted by no spring wind.

    What will he offer the electorate, beyond the undeniable thought that it is time for a change and the contestable one that there is now little to fear from Labour?

    In world affairs, differences between the parties will be small. Labour will be pro-Ukraine, anti-China, happy with NATO, AUKUS and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. With the EU, it wants us to think, it would be “undogmatic”.

    At home, it appears cautious too. It won’t rescue the second half of HS2 which Mr Sunak has just ditched. It avoids tax changes. The only exceptions so far are more vindictive – especially the VAT on independent school fees – than numerically significant. It talks a similar talk to the Conservatives about relating economics to security, perhaps implying a readiness to copy the Tories’ new (relative) friendliness to fossil fuels.

    The differences are that Labour will try greater economic intervention to achieve expansion. It likes what it sees of Joe Biden’s absurdly named Inflation Reduction Act, which is, among other things, America’s largest-ever commitment to dealing with climate change. Yet a British attempt to match such protectionism would be ruinously expensive. It would also come at a time when investors worldwide are losing confidence in green measures and the bond market is signalling Biden has gone too far.

    Expect, too, even greater impositions on the workplace in the name of workers’ rights, led by the party’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner. We shall be back to the trade union era of collective bargaining, rechristened “Fair Pay Agreements”. In short, Labour’s government interference in economic life will be significantly greater than that of the Conservatives. Seeing how profligate the Tories have been, that is saying something.

    But voters’ judgments will probably be affected more by their overall impression of what sort of leader seeks to govern them. It is here that Mr Sunak is looking to open up a difference. He wishes to show that, by background and belief, he is not “a state-made man”, and that Sir Keir is.

    There is truth in this. If you wanted to construct a robot operating with the mindset of our centre-Left Blob establishment, you could spare yourself the engineering costs and just co-opt Sir Keir. It’s all there – the legal background and the rather moralistic language of human rights. There is his taxpayer-funded security. There is Europhilia, of course, a preference for international unelected institutions over national elected ones, and a belief that the Northern Ireland Good Friday Agreement is the template for solving all problems of political conflict. There is wokery, too, a creaky taking of the knee and a preference for talk of gender (socially “assigned”) over sex (biologically given).

    An example of the Starmer mindset may be illustrated by his poaching of Sue Gray from the supposedly neutral Civil Service to be his chief of staff. Before she left Whitehall for politics, Ms Gray was keen to stop the Government invoking Section 35 – the devolution clause which prevents devolved governments intruding upon Westminster powers. It was only by ignoring her advice that ministers succeeded in winning the first round in the clash over gender recognition in Scotland which broke Nicola Sturgeon’s political dominance.

    A Keir Starmer government advised by Ms Gray would be likely to move against the present Cabinet Secretary, Simon Case. Its favourite to replace him is said to be Sir Olly Robbins, of anti-Brexit memory. Another runner mentioned is Dame Sharon White, who will be retiring hurt from the John Lewis Partnership. Here is no culture of innovation. [I hope someone in the Tory Party or the media makes a big deal of the courting of these two losers.]

    I am different, says Mr Sunak, I want to rethink. More indirectly, he is saying he is different from his Conservative predecessors too. Cameron airily embraced HS2. May and Johnson pushed it forward, ignoring cost. May, then Johnson, embraced net zero without any sense of the controversy and chaos it might provoke. Rishi is testing these projects against reality. [No, he’s not. If he was, he’d have pulled the plug on the shuttle as well.]

    To understand him, I think Mr Sunak wants you to compare photographs of two corner shops. One is his own family’s pharmacy in Southampton (above). The other is a grocer’s in Grantham in which was born one Margaret Roberts, later Thatcher. By their roots ye shall know them.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/06/starmer-has-slain-the-snp-beast-but-what-else-offer/

    The more I see and read about The Fakir, the more I am repelled by him. His performance at the conference was the worst kind of politicking, chucking a few bawbees at the peasantry to placate them. There was no understanding of the requirements of the country because he is not of it. There is no chance of him putting anything right because what is to be done (taxes, HRA, ECHR, ICR, CCA, Equality Act, Supreme Court) requires enormous courage and he has none. He might well follow Call-me-Dave in winning a small majority but only because the electorate see right through an Opposition led by Max Headroom and the Stockport Slapper.

    And I’m still trying to detect a sense of mischief in Charles Moore’s comparison with the Roberts family. Is there meant to be one?

    1. Slightly lateral and banal observation on the picture – it’s taken from a low level to make Hi Risk Anus seem taller.

      1. That is what i immediately thought. Also, his mother that ran the pharmacy would have trouble turning a profit today given years of underfunding and underpayment of prescriptions.

  62. Starmer has slain the SNP beast, but what else does he have to offer?

    The Blob-sympathetic Labour leader may think he’s already won, but he should beware the fate of Neil Kinnock

    CHARLES MOORE • 6 October 2023 • 7:12pm

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3fa4a46022a6ce8bcbc28855b4f2d62ebb6887ebbb5dc893f68fc97220c40cad.jpg
    Rishi Sunak outside his family’s old business, Bassett Pharmacy, in Southampton. The Prime Minister won’t mind if it reminds you of a former prime minister’s birthplace in Grantham.
    ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

    Early on Friday, it was in effect confirmed that there will not be a second referendum on Scottish independence in this political generation. Labour’s smashing victory in the Rutherglen by-election has seen to that. The Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, sensibly seized the moment to link this perception in voters’ minds with the reminder that a Labour government would not have a second referendum on Brexit either.

    It is worth recalling that the Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, was a keen referender. Only a few years ago, he was his party’s leading advocate of a second Brexit referendum. Indeed, he resigned from the shadow cabinet, claiming that Jeremy Corbyn was too weak to lead a Remainer fightback.

    Nevertheless, let us forgive, if not forget. Indeed, let us rejoice. The Union is probably now more secure than it has been since the 1998 Blair/Brown devolution had the opposite of its intended effect. On both sides of the Scottish border, the next general election will not be about constitutional quarrels on which public opinion has already been tested. It will be a judgment about the state we’re in, chiefly our economic state.

    Since that state is poor, normal logic would suggest the incumbents will be punished. In Scotland, the UK general election will be voters’ chance to express their disapproval of 17 years of SNP dominance. In the United Kingdom (including Scotland), the Conservatives, after 14 years, will be in the dock.

    Normal logic may well prevail. The polls suggest it, what with the cost of living, the condition of the NHS and many other discontents. As I argued in these pages on Tuesday, the Tories’ strange decision to break tradition and let Labour go after them in this year’s sequence of party conferences has created a sweet moment for Sir Keir. Next week in Liverpool, he will use the Rutherglen result to mock Rishi Sunak’s radical self-reinvention this week in Manchester. Labour’s message to round off the conference season will be: “We shall be the masters soon.”

    But the Tories, made ingenious by desperation, spot an opportunity. Sir Keir’s chosen path to victory is that followed by Tony Blair in 1997 – be moderate, vague, open-minded, charming, non-tribal and let resentment against the Conservatives do the rest. He runs two risks. The first is that, by assuming victory in advance, he might lose. That error was dramatically demonstrated by Neil Kinnock’s triumphalist Sheffield rally in 1992. Voters decided they felt safer with still-fresh John Major standing modestly but tenaciously on his soapbox. The second is that Sir Keir is no Tony Blair. There is an arithmetical addendum too: Labour in 2024 will have to make up four times more electoral ground than it needed in 1997.

    If Sir Keir wins in a year’s time, he will be almost 20 years older than the Blair of 1997. On that warm May night, young Tony, the voice of the rising generation, spoke of “a new dawn”. In 2024, oldish Keir, Knight Commander of the Bath, former holder of the rank of a permanent secretary in the Civil Service and so grand as to have an entire piece of legislation – The Pensions Increase (Pension Scheme for Keir Starmer QC) Regulations 2013 – passed by Parliament to exempt his large pension from the normal cap, will be arriving much later in his political day, wafted by no spring wind.

    What will he offer the electorate, beyond the undeniable thought that it is time for a change and the contestable one that there is now little to fear from Labour?

    In world affairs, differences between the parties will be small. Labour will be pro-Ukraine, anti-China, happy with NATO, AUKUS and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. With the EU, it wants us to think, it would be “undogmatic”.

    At home, it appears cautious too. It won’t rescue the second half of HS2 which Mr Sunak has just ditched. It avoids tax changes. The only exceptions so far are more vindictive – especially the VAT on independent school fees – than numerically significant. It talks a similar talk to the Conservatives about relating economics to security, perhaps implying a readiness to copy the Tories’ new (relative) friendliness to fossil fuels.

    The differences are that Labour will try greater economic intervention to achieve expansion. It likes what it sees of Joe Biden’s absurdly named Inflation Reduction Act, which is, among other things, America’s largest-ever commitment to dealing with climate change. Yet a British attempt to match such protectionism would be ruinously expensive. It would also come at a time when investors worldwide are losing confidence in green measures and the bond market is signalling Biden has gone too far.

    Expect, too, even greater impositions on the workplace in the name of workers’ rights, led by the party’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner. We shall be back to the trade union era of collective bargaining, rechristened “Fair Pay Agreements”. In short, Labour’s government interference in economic life will be significantly greater than that of the Conservatives. Seeing how profligate the Tories have been, that is saying something.

    But voters’ judgments will probably be affected more by their overall impression of what sort of leader seeks to govern them. It is here that Mr Sunak is looking to open up a difference. He wishes to show that, by background and belief, he is not “a state-made man”, and that Sir Keir is.

    There is truth in this. If you wanted to construct a robot operating with the mindset of our centre-Left Blob establishment, you could spare yourself the engineering costs and just co-opt Sir Keir. It’s all there – the legal background and the rather moralistic language of human rights. There is his taxpayer-funded security. There is Europhilia, of course, a preference for international unelected institutions over national elected ones, and a belief that the Northern Ireland Good Friday Agreement is the template for solving all problems of political conflict. There is wokery, too, a creaky taking of the knee and a preference for talk of gender (socially “assigned”) over sex (biologically given).

    An example of the Starmer mindset may be illustrated by his poaching of Sue Gray from the supposedly neutral Civil Service to be his chief of staff. Before she left Whitehall for politics, Ms Gray was keen to stop the Government invoking Section 35 – the devolution clause which prevents devolved governments intruding upon Westminster powers. It was only by ignoring her advice that ministers succeeded in winning the first round in the clash over gender recognition in Scotland which broke Nicola Sturgeon’s political dominance.

    A Keir Starmer government advised by Ms Gray would be likely to move against the present Cabinet Secretary, Simon Case. Its favourite to replace him is said to be Sir Olly Robbins, of anti-Brexit memory. Another runner mentioned is Dame Sharon White, who will be retiring hurt from the John Lewis Partnership. Here is no culture of innovation. [I hope someone in the Tory Party or the media makes a big deal of the courting of these two losers.]

    I am different, says Mr Sunak, I want to rethink. More indirectly, he is saying he is different from his Conservative predecessors too. Cameron airily embraced HS2. May and Johnson pushed it forward, ignoring cost. May, then Johnson, embraced net zero without any sense of the controversy and chaos it might provoke. Rishi is testing these projects against reality. [No, he’s not. If he was, he’d have pulled the plug on the shuttle as well.]

    To understand him, I think Mr Sunak wants you to compare photographs of two corner shops. One is his own family’s pharmacy in Southampton (above). The other is a grocer’s in Grantham in which was born one Margaret Roberts, later Thatcher. By their roots ye shall know them.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/06/starmer-has-slain-the-snp-beast-but-what-else-offer/

    The more I see and read about The Fakir, the more I am repelled by him. His performance at the conference was the worst kind of politicking, chucking a few bawbees at the peasantry to placate them. There was no understanding of the requirements of the country because he is not of it. There is no chance of him putting anything right because what is to be done (taxes, HRA, ECHR, ICR, CCA, Equality Act, Supreme Court) requires enormous courage and he has none. He might well follow Call-me-Dave in winning a small majority but only because the electorate see right through an Opposition led by Max Headroom and the Stockport Slapper.

    And I’m still trying to detect a sense of mischief in Charles Moore’s comparison with the Roberts family. Is there meant to be one?

  66. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dc48c6d68b3bfb795345c14c39ccbce91f7b193d540c87506357f2bebeac4d11.png

    [Headline in the Daily Mail]

    If you want to describe me as a white guy I shall not be offended.

    If you call me that good looking intelligent guy I may be offended because you’ll probably be being sarcastic implying that I look ugly and stupid!

    Why should the BBC think it is offensive for a black guy to be called a black guy?

    Presumably the BBC also thinks that it is offensive not to call a man in a skirt wearing lipstick a woman.

    3. Thanks Jeff – the usual link to the new page from the top of the screen doesn’t seem to be working today.

Comments are closed.