Monday 23 October: Anti-Semitism for all to see on the streets of the British capital

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here.

491 thoughts on “Monday 23 October: Anti-Semitism for all to see on the streets of the British capital”

  2. Good morrow, Gentlefolk. today’s story

    What a Woman Says:
    “This place is a mess!
    C’mon, you and I need to clean up.
    Your stuff is lying on the floor,
    And if we don’t do laundry right now
    You’ll have no clothes to wear.”

    What a Man Hears:
    Blah, blah, blah, blah, C’MON
    Blah, blah, blah, YOU AND I
    Blah, blah, ON THE FLOOR
    Blah, blah, blah, RIGHT NOW
    Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, NO CLOTHES.

  3. Anti-Semitism for all to see on the streets of the British capital

    And all imported by progressives

  5. Good morning, chums. A long day today, as I’m off to the cinema early this morning to watch KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON, Martin Scorcese’s latest three and a half hour film.

      2. I thought it was excellent, Phizzee, and I expect it to win the Best Film BAFTA and Oscar next year. No alarm clock needed, but – despite switching my mobile phone to silent – it still rang twice. Aargh, the wonders of the mobile phone! Set in the 1920s, I have not seen so many cigarettes lit up and smoked since Humphrey Bogart in CASABLANCA. I can’t say that it the actors were better than Marlon Brando in TEAHOUSE OF THE AUGUST MOON, but that’s because I haven’t yet seen the Brando film.

      3. I thought it was excellent, Phizzee, and I expect it to win the Best Film BAFTA and Oscar next year. No alarm clock needed, but – despite switching my mobile phone to silent – it still rang twice. Aargh, the wonders of the mobile phone! Set in the 1920s, I have not seen so many cigarettes lit up and smoked since Humphrey Bogart in CASABLANCA. I can’t say that it the actors were better than Marlon Brando in TEAHOUSE OF THE AUGUST MOON, but that’s because I haven’t yet seen the Brando film.

      1. Good morning, Johnny. Martin Scorcese has made some superb films and is a great film enthusiast and has done wonders in promoting the restoration of classic films in danger of being lost to posterity.

  6. It’s time to take a stand for civilisation. 23 October 2023.

    “Shame on those bleeding heartless liberals”, raged Dame Maureen Lipman, another name who has signed our declaration, in an excoriating blast at the moral vapidity of many in her trade. “If there was a charter signed by a terrorist group which vowed to kill every Protestant and drive every English institution into the sea, which abducted two hundred men women and children in Oxford Street (on Christmas Day) including Chelsea Pensioners and Nadiya Hussain and Mary Berry – and tortured and raped your sons and daughters – if that happened, Messrs Social Conscience, tell me, please tell me, in your view, what would be a PROPORTIONATE RESPONSE?”

    Sadly there would be none at all Maureen.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/22/british-friends-of-israel-anti-semitism/

    2. The kind of islamists who will kill Jews will also kill anyone who rejects Islam, i.e. refuses to convert. So it has already happened.

        1. I don’t want anyone to be attacking anyone else, and I reserve my utter hatred and fury for the ultra-rich who deliberately stirred up their half-witted violent followers to start this war, which is now going to suck the whole world in and can only end badly for ordinary people everywhere.

    3. If there were just one baddie that could do no right and one goodie that could do no wrong, then clearly civilisation must favour the guy with the white hat. Simples.

      When both sides are brutes, justifying their horrors by saying the other side’s doing it, why should civilisation favour either side. It is those caught up in the crossfire who are not brutes that need its aid and its deliverance. Leave it any time, and they quickly become traumatised and deranged, and ultimately mobile, exporting their trauma wherever they end up.

      I see precious little difference between the attitude of Hamas and Hezbollah and the attitude of supremacist zealots within Zionism, who openly call for extermination of those in the ghetto with the wrong identity and the dispossession of those tending their fields and olive groves aspiring for no more than security from the property developers and their gangs of legalised thugs.

      I also see precious little difference between these innocents and the intelligent and cultured folk within the kibbutzim aspiring for no more than making the world a better place as directed by the Torah.

      Maybe, rather than pushing for domination by “might is right” fascists, each out for the blood of their identity enemies, civilisation should be standing up for little people, and delivering justice where it is due. It is ironic that the only way that may be feasible is to impose Pax Britannica, or to have the Americans, the Russians or the Chinese do it their way.

  8. Good Moaning.
    Apologies for starting the week on a bum note:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/22/police-pressure-cancelled-pro-israel-rally-london/

    “Police pressure leads to cancelled pro-Israel rally in north London

    Event was due to be held on Saturday in Golders Green, a Jewish area of the capital

    22 October 2023 • 8:58pm

    Police pressured organisers of a pro-Israel prayer walk in a Jewish area of London to cancel the event on the same day as a pro-Palestinian march in central London took place, The Telegraph can disclose.

    Christian Action Against Anti-Semitism called off a planned “Pray for Israel and the Jewish People” event after police warned that participants could be “injured or intimidated”.

    Organisers of the prayer walk in Golders Green, north London, who were expecting up to 30,000 people to attend, said they felt “silenced” by the police who allowed a pro-Palestine rally to go ahead with an estimated 100,000 participants in central London on the same day.

    Hayley Ace, of Christian Action Against Anti-Semitism, said the organisation had originally planned to hold an event to pray for peace and pray for the Jewish community outside the Israeli embassy.

    She added that the group moved the event after police said it could be dangerous to host it there because of the planned pro-Palestine march in central London.

    They moved the event miles away from the central London rally in Golders Green after consulting the Jewish community.

    However, two days before the planned pro-Israel walk, police advised the organisers to cancel the event.

    Ms Ace said the organisation received an urgent call from police on Thursday saying that the event had gone viral and was being portrayed as an attack on Muslims. She added the police strongly advised, based on intelligence, that the event could not go ahead.

    ‘A threat to your event’

    In a follow-up email, seen by The Telegraph, a police sergeant said: “Your planned event on Saturday was picked up by an individual and retweeted.

    “It received a lot of views. Unfortunately we have now identified tweets calling on ‘brothers’ to make their way to Golders Green on Saturday.

    “This would clearly present a threat to your event.”

    He added: “I understand your frustration but you have made the right decision to cancel your event.

    “The police do not want anyone to be injured or intimidated regardless of their beliefs or allegiances.

    “Please put out the cancellation within your own social media groups as soon as possible.”

    Ms Ace said: “Our first response was outrage, because we have a right to gather and feel safe on the streets of London, especially as we are gathering around a banner of peace.

    “It felt like a silencing.”

    She said that it “felt wrong that” hatred towards Jewish people shown by some people at the pro-Palestine rally was “allowed to be the voice that London heard and saw when there is a large amount of people who don’t feel that way, who actually want to pray for peace, who do stand with the Jewish people”.

    Arrests for fireworks

    Ten people were arrested during the central London pro-Palestinian march. The arrests were for offences involving fireworks, public order and assaulting an emergency service worker.

    Ms Ace said: “How far do we effectively run to not be a problem? We moved well away from the planned anti-Israel protest… We were the path of least resistance. They couldn’t say to the other group [don’t go ahead with the protest], but they can say to a group of peaceful people, ‘don’t do it’.”

    Jonathan Turner, chief executive of UK Lawyers for Israel, said: “Those who hate Israel and Jews are given full liberty and licence to parade their hate, spout their false propaganda and incite violence on the streets of London, while those who sympathise with the victims must hide away because the police can’t or won’t protect them.

    “A vicious minority is silencing those who speak for what is still the large majority of British people. However, if the haters get their way, truth will be suppressed, propaganda will not be challenged, and extremism will flourish here as it has in some other countries.

    “We urge the police and politicians not to accept this intimidation, and we thank the true Christian and other friends who are willing to stand up for what is right.”

    A Met spokesperson said: “In the days since the attacks in Israel took place, officers have worked to facilitate numerous demonstrations, vigils and other gatherings across London.

    “Ahead of a planned vigil in Hendon on Saturday Oct 21 by Christian Action Against Anti-Semitism, officers were in discussion with the organiser to discuss timings and route they would take.

    “As with any event, the police offer guidance and advice. Following those discussions, a decision was made by [the] organiser to cancel the vigil.” ”

    Maybe the organisers also remembered how the Met treats those on a vigil for a girl raped and murdered by one of its own officers.

    2. Earlier this morning I was watching an edition of Steve Bannon’s War Room with guests Alex Jones and Eric Prince. Discussion got around to the influence of muslims e.g. the brotherhood organisation and money from muslim states and its effect on what is happening in the USA.
      If censorship of Jewish/Christian events continues while muslims are allowed free rein then what conclusions can be drawn?

      War Room

  9. Starmer says he will set aside party politics ‘to turn around steel industry’. 23 October 2023.

    Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said he will put party politics aside to make the UK a world leader in clean green steel and “turn the industry around”.

    Sir Keir made the vow as the industry faces job cuts as part of the drive to lower emissions.

    “A bastion of UK industry, British steel is integral to our growth and prosperity as a nation. From Port Talbot to Rutherglen, to Scunthorpe, it’s been the fabric of our society for generations,” Sir Keir said.

    Walking on water will be a doddle after this.

    You do all realise that he’s quite mad of course?

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/sir-keir-starmer-steel-industry-b2434223.html

    1. Smarmer must have read about using hydrogen to reduce the iron ore.

      The transformative hydrogen route. Hydrogen provides the possibility to completely redesign the process of steelmaking. The magic of hydrogen is that it can make the entire process almost carbon-free! By reacting hydrogen directly with iron ore, iron and water are produced in place of iron and CO2.19 Jul 2023

      {Google}

      However:

      What are the main challenges in the transition period towards a more sustainable steel production?
      The transition to green steel making, which aims to reduce the carbon footprint of the steel industry, faces several industrial challenges.

      These include:

      Costs: Green steel making technologies such as hydrogen-based processes and carbon capture, utilization, and storage are currently more expensive than traditional synthesis and production methods. This presents a significant barrier to widespread adoption.

      Scale: Many of the technologies that are being developed for green steel making are still in the pilot or demonstration phase, and have not yet been proven at a commercial scale. For some of these methods even elementary understanding of the reduction processes and the rate limiting steps is missing, which makes investments decisions for certain process technologies challenging.

      Infrastructure: A significant amount of infrastructure is required to support green steel making, including hydrogen production and distribution, carbon capture, utilization, and storage facilities od sufficient capacity, and the necessary equipment and basic mechanism knowledge for new technologies.

      Green Steel Manufacture

    2. Smarmer must have read about using hydrogen to reduce the iron ore.

      The transformative hydrogen route. Hydrogen provides the possibility to completely redesign the process of steelmaking. The magic of hydrogen is that it can make the entire process almost carbon-free! By reacting hydrogen directly with iron ore, iron and water are produced in place of iron and CO2.19 Jul 2023

      {Google}

      However:

      What are the main challenges in the transition period towards a more sustainable steel production?
      The transition to green steel making, which aims to reduce the carbon footprint of the steel industry, faces several industrial challenges.

      These include:

      Costs: Green steel making technologies such as hydrogen-based processes and carbon capture, utilization, and storage are currently more expensive than traditional synthesis and production methods. This presents a significant barrier to widespread adoption.

      Scale: Many of the technologies that are being developed for green steel making are still in the pilot or demonstration phase, and have not yet been proven at a commercial scale. For some of these methods even elementary understanding of the reduction processes and the rate limiting steps is missing, which makes investments decisions for certain process technologies challenging.

      Infrastructure: A significant amount of infrastructure is required to support green steel making, including hydrogen production and distribution, carbon capture, utilization, and storage facilities od sufficient capacity, and the necessary equipment and basic mechanism knowledge for new technologies.

      Green Steel Manufacture

    3. ha ha ha ha hahahahahaha….
      Lawyer with no actual real world experience of producing anything, who prefers the Trilateral Commission to House of Commons says he can rescue the steel industry!
      Starmer is delusional.
      Anyone who falls for that should not pass an IQ test to vote.

      1. Morning BB. I’m wondering if Starmer and most of the other numpties in Parliament have been dosed with some form of modified ergot. It would explain their low IQ’s,irrationality and timidity. It could be easily done via the Commons Kitchen . Brain scans would be useful.

        1. Perhaps they’re just sitting there laughing about what absurdities they can put out and people will still vote for them!

    4. HA! HA! HA!
      Man’s an eejit. If it were that cheap ‘n easy, why hasn’t it been done already?

  10. 377940+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Letters: Anti-Semitism for all to see on the streets of the British capital

    Only a 100% fool would expect different it has been in construct for nigh on forty years via the polling stations.

    It is once again nearing the time when the majority voter MUST
    re-confirm his allegiance to the party NAME (ino) and all the parties workings in furthering the cause of destruct / RESET.

    Cannot be far off now when sections of the nation are taken over ( the capital city is one prime example) and the white chap is asked at first nicely, to move on….. or else.

    Future outlook very BLEAK,

    One more push via the usual voting pattern without VERY RADICAL change will see us over the edge and in free-fall.

    1. 377940+ up ticks,

      Morning Anne,
      Done,

      BUT,
      The Home Secretary and the Prime Minister have identified Hamas as a terrorist organisation.

      That sounds to me like the pot calling the kettle black.

      Would have carried more truthful weight had it been fronted by genuine peoples such as
      Bridgen, Batten etc,etc.

    3. Someone posted it c 4am this morning on yesterday’s site. I did ask them to post it again today and am just checking they did. But no need now you have – thanks.

      The list of supporters of this are of a much higher calibre than the 2,000 luvvies that signed that disgraceful letter last week.

    4. Delighted, and surprised, to see so many signatures – including several from Universities!

    3. When Mrs B’s German class went to Köln I offered to arrange a trip on that amazing “railway” – they do a special trip in an old luxury carriage with afternoon tea! Sadly no one was interested so I didn’t bother, although a couple of the group did go later!!

      1. I don’t know Elsie – you’re the expert on that!

        I only know that when I was a small child, I was taken to see Snow White at the cinema, and there was an interval half way through, when a girl came round selling ice creams, because they had to change the reel. Small town cinema in the 70s!

  14. The Tories are doomed, and deserve to be. 23 October 2023.

    For nearly two decades, our politicians have been elected to office on party labels that don’t reflect their views, relying on the votes of people who don’t agree with them. What is often interpreted as a realignment among voters – the Red Wall switching to Tory, or now the Blue Wall going Lib Dem – is just as likely evidence of a mass dealignment, of people detaching from their historic allegiances and screaming at a computer that has stopped working. They might click on Labour here, Reform there, but really they’re just hitting every darn button on the keyboard in the hope that one of them will reboot this system and get it working again.

    TOP COMMENT BELOW THE LINE.

    Andy RoadKing.

    Parliament and the Civil Service has become a Fifth Column destroying our country. Mass immigration, Net Zero, record high taxes, our children groomed in their schools, the Health service on its knees. If we gave Putin and the rest of our enemies free rein to come in and destroy our society and economy they couldn’t do a better job than our very own politicians.

    I am waiting for the total destruction of the Faux-conservatives so a Real Conservative Party can be born from the ashes. But time is running out for the UK.

    I’d like to see Vlad! I’m sure that it would be an improvement!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/23/by-election-conservative-party-deserves-to-lose/

    1. Agreed.
      The police are pathetic.
      A long time ago people who waved St George’s flags on St George’s day and parades banned because of health and safety issues or public liability insurance.
      Not on this occasion.

      1. Also the spot on rant about the pathetic performance in Westminster and the bbc.
        First class Support for Andrew Bridgen.

      2. 377940 + up ticks,

        Morning RE,

        Then on the 23 April this calls for a sea of St, Georges flags to be on show, if we cannot or will not fight then at least we can wave a flag.

    2. What is “racist” about flying the St George flag at an England rugby match? OMG. This is ridiculous.

      1. 377940+ up ticks,

        Morning MIR,

        If I may insert a small correction not
        ridiculous, more treacherous.

  16. Good morning all.
    2°C and a dry but misty start.

    A BTL Comment

    R. Spowart
    JUST NOW
    Message Actions
    So once again the DT closes comments to the Letters Page.
    Was it because the Barclays are sniffing around for Arab Money and do not want us to upset their applecart?

      1. I was referring to yesterday’s BTL Comments, closed early with the last comment at about 17:00.

    2. No, the Telegraph has financial problems and their moderators are paid; closing the comments outside office hours saves money. Also, the Online Do Not Dare to Insult the Sacred Blob Act was passed recently: if one can’t even glue a rat in Wales, why should the proletariat be allowed to stick any criticism on ratophiles in Westminster?

  17. Dick Delingpole liked
    Lee Hurst #VoteAnyoneButLibLabConGreen
    @LeeHurstComic
    Fuck it, I am going to stand as an Independent.
    I will only be standing to ensure I have someone to vote for.
    Last time it was just LibLabConGreen so I did not vote.
    I will do no campaigning, spend no money other than for my deposit and will not ask anyone to vote for me.
    If anyone wants to vote for purely on the basis of None Of The Above, they can if they wish to.
    On the extremely outside chance that I do get elected, I will rinse the expenses to help finance local community causes.
    I will also donate my entire MPs salary likewise.
    I will not take a penny for myself.

    I think a lot of people can relate to his sentiments!

    2. Sounds like my manifesto when I ran in the Students’ Union presidential election at UEA in 1968 for the Apathetic Party.

      My publicity stated:

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f5f0cca8a35528bddc08b1499d480b48584e42a997b444e2d565a59cc3d19b48.png

      and I promised that if I was elected on the number of spoilt ballots and abstentions that I would suspend the UEA Students’ Union for a year and go away from the university for a year and go sailing.

      The system was rigged against me : NOTA (None Of The Above) was not applied (had it been I would have won easily) and I was not elected.

  18. Ukraine-Russia war live news: Ukraine shoots down 27 drones. 23 October 2023.

    Ukraine’s defence systems destroyed all air weapons Russia launched overnight, Ukraine’s Air Force said early on Monday.

    The Air Force said on the Telegram messaging app that a total of 14 attack drones, including 13 Iranian-made Shahed drones and one unspecified drone, as well as one cruise missile were all destroyed.

    Just an observation. This is quite an innocuous piece and yet no comments are allowed. No comments are allowed on anything to do with Ukraine. That tells you more than if you were able to post!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/10/23/ukraine-shoots-down-russian-shahed-drones-odesa-kherson/

  19. Morning all 🙂😊
    Sun’s just popped out to lighten up our day.
    I think we have all expected to witness antisemitism on our streets. It’s not the first time.
    That one is at the very top of their adgenda. It’s whitey next and anything else that they don’t particularly care for.
    As ever our political idiots in Westminster and Whitehall never take any notice of the outside world or public opinion. They should have known that were ever the same people are, eventualy the same old same old, cause as much trouble as they can. It’s all they’ve got.
    It’s always been their nature. Shame our afore mentioned idiots haven’t noticed yet.

  20. G’morning all,

    Grey at McPhee Towers and staying that way, wind in the East, 8℃ rising to 13℃.

    I came across this last night and popped it up here. Most will have missed it so here it is again. Things may be hotting up for some in New Zealand after this short video by Liz Gunn, former televison presenter turned Member of Parliament.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e2d2440883a3cbef7b3d484f01a1fb070a1355b1efd25cabbd638c39f739214a.png

    For some reason the link to the New Zealand Loyal website is not ‘copying and pasting’ so here’s a screen-shot of it.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a848c39baf1417e67698f49a6aeb9b36888cdbd252d346aef265997a9d8b900f.png

    If you can’t get the website, her video is on odysee:

    That won’t copy and paste either ( some dark arts going on?) so here’s a screen-shot.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ff23141e46ab3b5ad21afacba1d54d02adc2a856e685424a183d075e1f3172f6.png

    Are Jacinda the Horse and her acolytes about to have their collars felt?

    In common with many I wrote to my MP requesting his attendance on my behalf at Andrew Bridgen’s adjournment debate on excess deaths. He replied making the expected excuses for non-attendance. I will write to him again but this time I will include links to Andrew Bridgen’s speech, to this video by Liz Gunn and to her party’s website. He won’t be able to ignore it this time because I will cc the constituency chairman and all other officers of the N W Hampshire constituency. They must understand the seriousness of this. I will end it by echoing Liz Gunn’s call for an open criminal investigation into the pandemic response and the “vaccines” to be held here too.

    3. Yes, I came across this too and have posted the link BTL on an article in The Conservative Woman this morning:

      We run residential French courses in France for “A” level students in Britain and because of Covid travel restrictions from 2020 our business only just survived.

      In October 2021 we did manage to run a couple of courses but of course all the students who came to us had to be Covid jabbed. One 17 year old boy from a leading public school had had to have an early second jab because he lived in another EU country – he ended up getting Myocarditis and having to go to hospital. He told us that two other boys in the same school had had to have the jab at the same time as they too lived outside the UK and they too both ended up in hospital with Myocarditis.

      The evidence of the potential damage of the Covid jabs has been there for some time which makes the behaviour of the MPs on Friday when virtually nobody turned up to listen to Andrew Bridgen’s evidence beneath contempt.

      Those who did not attend should all lose their seats for dereliction of duty.

      1. Another BTL poster called Ogri posted his parody of Philip Larkin’s well known poem:

        Your MPs Do

        With apologies to Philip Larkin

        They’ve f#cked you up, your MPs have,
        And oh they mean to, yes they do!
        They care no jot for faults they have
        ‘Cause the consequences fall on you.

        But they were f#cked up in their turn
        By men in mountain Schloss retreats,
        Who all the time with plot and turn
        Carve up the world like cuts of meat.

        They plan out pain for common man
        As demons scheme amongst themselves:
        Get out from underneath their hand,
        And don’t obey their rules yourself.

  21. G’morning all,

    Grey at McPhee Towers and staying that way, wind in the East, 8℃ rising to 13℃.

    I came across this last night and popped it up here. Most will have missed it so here it is again. Things may be hotting up for some in New Zealand after this short video by Liz Gunn, former televison presenter turned Member of Parliament.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e2d2440883a3cbef7b3d484f01a1fb070a1355b1efd25cabbd638c39f739214a.png

    For some reason the link to the New Zealand Loyal website is not ‘copying and pasting’ so here’s a screen-shot of it.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a848c39baf1417e67698f49a6aeb9b36888cdbd252d346aef265997a9d8b900f.png

    If you can’t get the website, her video is on odysee:

    That won’t copy and paste either ( some dark arts going on?) so here’s a screen-shot.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ff23141e46ab3b5ad21afacba1d54d02adc2a856e685424a183d075e1f3172f6.png

    Are Jacinda the Horse and her acolytes about to have their collars felt?

    In common with many I wrote to my MP requesting his attendance on my behalf at Andrew Bridgen’s adjournment debate on excess deaths. He replied making the expected excuses for non-attendance. I will write to him again but this time I will include links to Andrew Bridgen’s speech, to this video by Liz Gunn and to her party’s website. He won’t be able to ignore it this time because I will cc the constituency chairman and all other officers of the N W Hampshire constituency. They must understand the seriousness of this. I will end it by echoing Liz Gunn’s call for an open criminal investigation into the pandemic response and the “vaccines” to be held here too.

  22. The world is still inching painfully slowly towards gold…this is what all the wars are REALLY about…
    Malaysia has now said it is considering a gold currency for international trading.
    We all know that China and Russia are sitting on pots and pots of gold (official estimates are thought to be only a small part of what they have), so I guess someone put up Malaysia to say that, as part of their slow and cautious movement.
    https://twitter.com/GoldTelegraph_/status/1716290447113605123

      1. Leaders who wanted to go back to gold have been removed in the past. Ghana, Zimbabwe and Malaysia must have some powerful protection.

    1. AI can be switched off or re-programmed. Militant Islam needs to be permanently starved of funding but that’s not going to happen as long as the people funding them also benefit from war and chaos? They were relatively quiet for a few centuries because poverty kept them in check.

        1. Europeans found and extracted the oil. WTF did they give the Arabs the revenue. Hell, it’s not as if nationhood is anything more than an occasional flag of convenience to the people in power. Never meant much to desert nomads either.

      2. Sue, there are two types of Muslim: observant, and non-observant. Militant, radicalised, extremist & islamist are sticky labels used by Western politicians and the MSM. Educated and affluent Pakistanis may refer to those whom we perceive to be troublemakers as ‘fundies’, an abbreviation of ‘fundamentalists’.

    2. I thought artificial intelligence is what’s in Parliament. It certainly isn’t real intelligence.

  24. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c2ae31a9fcec3ed89f5479a42efda843cf60848b7522c3d8b853d1558cf771dc.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/23/by-election-conservative-party-deserves-to-lose/

    BTL Percival Wrattstrangler

    Yes, the Conservative Party is finished because it has abandoned those who used to support it.

    But can anything be done to avert a Labour landslide?

    How about:

    i) Nigel Farage takes over the leadership of the Reform Party;
    ii) All right of centre traditional Conservative MPs defect to the Reform Party;
    iii) The Net Zero economic suicide policy is abandoned completely;
    iv) An effective control of immigration as was promised by Brexit

    True, this might still not win the election but it would effectively destroy the Conservative Party and right of centre conservatism can start to rebuild immediately.

        1. Love “populist” as an insult and pointing out that demos kratos does actually mean people power doesn’t deter the democracy haters from loudly proclaiming that crushing the will of the populace safeguards democracy.

          1. I wrote a song about Tony Blair, the populist prime minister over 20 years ago:

            Some of the points it makes are lost but others are still pertinent :

            Just Deserts: Richard Tracey

            I’m a populist prime minister from a minor public school,
            I love your adulation so I’ll make Britannia Cool,
            I’ll toady to your prejudices, wreck the House of Lords,
            And if you vote New Labour you’ll have joined my mindless hordes.
            I’m a Third Way politician and I know how good I look,
            When I stand besides my grubby minions, Blunkett, Straw or Cook,
            But when glib and oily Mandy’s lies and mortgage went and hit the news
            Twice I sacked the sleazy bugger though spittle shone my shoes!

            And here’s to you, Geoff Robinson, Ron Davies, and your like,
            You were not media-friendly so I told you: “On your bike!”
            Poor Rhodri – not my type at all; and Red Ken – you old clown –
            I won’t give you the chance to be the Mayor of London Town!
            The People’s Party, People’s Dome, The People’s Lottery:
            I am the People’s laxative – so the People swallow me.
            Pragmatic opportunism has given me success,
            A sad girl died and so I dubbed her “The People’s Princess”.

            Now I know that you’re not ready – yet – to lose your Queen’s head pound,
            But you need not fear the Euro just as long as I’m around,
            I’ll spin the truth, take sound-bytes, and I’ll dupe you dimwit proles,
            I won’t act out of principle if it won’t help in the polls.
            Now if the gutter press is on a witch hunt, count me in,
            I’ll try and look quite statesman-like, I’ll hide my Cheshire grin,
            And as I said to Hoddle – whose career I saw was wrecked –
            Religious freedom’s quite OK if it’s politically correct!

            I talk about stake holders and I say you ought to save
            To supplement your incomes when you’re getting near the grave,
            But I’ll let Brown raid the pension funds – cos he’s the one you’ll blame
            Of course I’m for The Family – but I love Gays just the same.
            Now I take my hols in Tuscany – megalomania is my scene,
            So I find the term: “prime minister” tends rather to demean,
            The stature of my excellence. If it’s all the same with you,
            I’d rather be called President – but             Il Duce would do!

            Old Pinochet helped Thatcher in the Falklands – that’s quite plain,
            But to suck up to Old Labour – extradite him off to Spain.
            I’m selectively indignant – so forget about Sudan,
            Forget Rwanda – I’m not that humanitarian!
            Milosevic is white and nasty and he can’t strike back
            So bomb the racist bastard and bomb Saddam in Iraq.
            Forget Castro’s atrocities, forget about Tibet –
            Barring cock ups at the embassy I daren’t bomb China yet!

            I won’t believe in anything unless you want me to,
            I’ll scrap the Act of Union – what’s History to you?
            I’ll be so sycophantic that on me you’ll bet your shirts,
            And with New Labour, endlessly, you’ll get your just deserts!

    2. Time for a complete change, if Nigel gets into Westminster at least he might make further progress rather than just talking about everything. But do they have the candidates?
      I’d vote for them. I’m sick of the garbage that exudes from parliament right now.

      1. Nigel Farage excites people’s feelings – he is loved or loathed.

        Margaret Thatcher, Winston Churchill and Tony Blair were also loved or loathed.

        By contrast most people are indifferent to Sunak, Starmer and the Nincompoop Davey.

    3. 377940+ up ticks

      Morning R,

      So, you are suggesting tory Mk 2 and keep the nations destruct ball rolling.
      The farage chap has shown his true colours
      how about true Tories untainted by the parliament stench and getting behind
      MP Bridgen

      1. Good morning O

        I am ready to admit that my detestation of Blair and May might cloud my judgement a little. Is it possible that your loathing of Farage clouds yours?

        I am aware that Farage is flawed but it is undeniable that he has a charisma that is completely lacking in any other politicians in the UK at the moment.

        1. But he is a one man band, Richard, incapable of attracting and retaining like minded people.

          1. As I say he is flawed – but is there nobody who can even try to rid us of this turbulent government?

          2. Nope – you will have to wait until the GE when Cur Ikea (aka Kneeler aka Kneejerk) Slammer takes over.

        2. 377940+ up tick,

          R,
          I do beg to differ in the nicest possible way but there is little wrong with my judgement I saw potential and supported UKIP around the KIlroy era whilst many others were setting out seriously putting party before country, hence our present odious mess.

    4. 377940+ up ticks

      Morning R,

      So, you are suggesting tory Mk 2 and keep the nations destruct ball rolling.
      The farage chap has shown his true colours
      how about true Tories untainted by the parliament stench and getting behind
      MP Bridgen

    5. All those Conservative MPs who really are Conservatives would surely have seen the light long ago. After all with a majority of 80 they’re the ones who have been voting all these crazy laws in. Andrew Bridgen is the only one who rocked the boat although a couple of others showed a bit of disagreement: David Frost, Christopher Chope.

    6. I might stand at the next election either as None of the above Party or Waste your vote on me Party.

      1. You’ll need a £500 deposit and to have registered your “party” with the electoral commission, Alf.

  25. You couldn’t make it up.
    Glue traps that catch rats are banned in Wales…..’human rights’ politicians worried about getting stuck more like it.

    1. Reminds me that once – in rat traps in Norfolk – one put a couple of prawns in.

      The RSPCA stopped all that – CROOL to the prawns.

      1. We had trouble with rats for a while some of our neighbours had chickens.
        I use to set the ‘humain’rat traps and used peanut butter.
        Then drop the trap in a water butt for ten minutes. Via the shed roof, a meal for a red kite family. Classic recycling.

          1. If you catch a rat in a humane trap you have to dispose of it and do it in a humane way. How else are you to get rid of a rat? You aren’t allowed to release them elsewhere.

  26. 377940+ up ticks,

    Dt,
    If Farage returns, the Tories now face a truly existential threat,

    more like,

    If Farage returns, to the Tories fold openly, they really will face a truly existential threat

  27. There’s a discussion on breakfast TV about the flooding. Climate change has been mentioned of course. Okay, but there is no more water/ moisture trapped in our atmosphere than at the beginning of time. It’s probably just that the rain clouds no longer gather in the same places as they use to. Because millions of trees were cut down on three continents. For corporate greed.
    And of course perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea to re-introduced beavers into our countryside. But who takes any notice of this.
    I feel very sorry for any one or family that have suffered flooding. They can’t take out insurance cover. So all of this will cost these people fortunes. And all due IMHO to corporate greed.
    I wonder where labour are going to build 1.5 million new homes. Are there enough hills ?

    2. Two factors. There are about 5 billion extra humans living on the planet that a century ago, many living near water. So more people affected by natural disasters. And instant news. Not so long ago, thousands dead in bongo land would have happened without anyone noticing.

    1. More than willing to sign but I have tried twice and got this

      “Hmmm… can’t reach this pagebritishfriendsofisrael.org took too long to respond
      Try:”

        1. I worked with a chap by the name of Phillips. He was so full of tosstesterone (sic) that they named the screw after him!

    2. In today’s welfare-crazy Holland, a “Bucket List” is just what they call the staff nursing register. The Dutch health service is the best in the world…

      Should be renamed the ‘Suck it List!’

  31. 377940+ up ticks,

    Fact,

    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021
    ·
    Oct 11
    German Federal Agency now equating populism with racism & anti-Semitism. They are a step sway from banning the AFD party which is now on 23% in the polls.

    God forbid that a party with popular policies should be allowed anywhere near power. The Globalist Elite intend to crush any opposition to its monopolistic & genuinely fascist World plan.

    1. I doubt the AfD will be pro Palestinian. They might take a “plague on both your houses” line.

  32. Good morning everyone.
    Many Nottlers are music enthusiasts, indeed veritable cognoscenti, posting videos of amazing music performances. Me, I’m simply a tone deaf peasant.

    However, whilst surfing Youtube last night, the Elgar-rhythms encouraged me to listen to a bright star, whose voice is truly angelic.

    Requiescat in pace Patricia Janečková, 18th June 1998 – 1st October 2023.

      1. Indeed, and it would have gone BANG, not just burnt like a blast furnace, look at the videos.

      2. I’ve watched some videos of Diesel fires and asked a fireman chum – apparently you can lob a match at diesel and it’ll put the match out – it’s not enough (on it’s own).

        Petrol of course goes up. I still don’t understand the lack of safety measures. Was no one patrolling? Did no one hear the vehicle? See the lights? Someone filmed the fire – why did they not call the fire brigade…. unless they started it.

        It just raises too many questions.

    2. At some stage the registration number E10 EFL was posted on BTL comments, and if correct, it was definitely a diesel model from 2014. However, I have not seen anything about the driver, who seems to have abandoned the vehicle without switching off the ignition.

        1. The car could be registered after that . My car has a X registration although it’s a 2010 car – personal plate see

          6. Unlikely, given it’s CO2 certificate as “J”, although if the plate has been transferred between then and the fire it would have been on a different car.

          8. Does the MOT certificate information tell you if the licence might have been transferred to another car between test and expiry, and also whether the designation can change if the accepted way of referring to it changes?
            Eg 1 if the car has been sold and reregistered would the system show that, and/or if the licence was moved to a different car would it show the old or the new car?
            Eg 2 if the fuel/power was initially petrol/diesel with battery, would later changes to calling it hybrid be reflected?

          9. More detailed info on the car is avail from the Gov website if you have the registration doc (log book). So any changes are likely to be visible to the reg doc holder only, if they are there.

          11. So many questions:

            Was the engine ‘off’ and keyless entry on, and the fellow simply walked off? In that case, what a plank and he should be held responsible for all the damage.

            It’s actually very difficult to do as your lights stay on, so you’re aware the car is not ‘off’.

            And if the car was left running was it a particular filter that the car decided to clean that caused the fire?

            I’m not so bothered if it was electric or not. Government has shot itself in the foot by forcing this conversion. They didn’t need to, but chose to and turned everyone against electric cars.

          12. Take a look at the oz video.

            If it can self-ignite in that manner and be next to impossible to put out swiftly, it’s a danger.
            Most petrol and diesel cars burn out or can be put out in fairly short order, that certainly doesn’t apply to EV’s once they ignite.

          19. Yes, I have seen some but they don’t always show the model of the car and, of, course, numbers can be sold on.

            E10 EFL isn’t a particularly unusual plate for the period (except for having only two digits), so perhaps EFL is the owner’s initials.

          20. Yes, I have seen some but they don’t always show the model of the car and, of, course, numbers can be sold on.

            E10 EFL isn’t a particularly unusual plate for the period (except for having only two digits), so perhaps EFL is the owner’s initials.

        2. PS
          Wouldn’t it be fun if the insurers of all the other cars sued the company that insured the “bomb”?

    4. I see some group [just identified as “readers”] has managed to post a “community note” on Allison Pearson’s X post saying that the car was “a diesel range rover not an EV”. I remain unconvinced – as far as I recall a witness says it was a diesel hybrid and the fire started just where the Lithium Ion battery is? I think the “community note” is most likely the work of some government troll!

    5. I see some group [just identified as “readers”] has managed to post a “community note” on Allison Pearson’s X post saying that the car was “a diesel range rover not an EV”. I remain unconvinced – as far as I recall a witness says it was a diesel hybrid and the fire started just where the Lithium Ion battery is? I think the “community note” is most likely the work of some government troll!

  35. I see Toy Boy is going to Israel for “talks” with Netanyahu. That’s all the man needs….

    1. Target practice? A small accident? Much of Canada would happily donate to know he’d been done away with.

    1. I just had Jessie on my lap for most of the morning – makes it hard to type on the laptop! She’s now chilled out on the carpet so I can use the keyboard at the moment.

      1. She’s back on my lap and the laptop is on the arm of the chair – very awkward for typing!

          1. I am pleased to report that when I arrived home Oscar came to greet me wagging his tail – and no food was in the offing!

      5. Claudius had a draw I’d pull out for her with a cushion in it. As long as she was with me it didn’t matter where.

    3. I am going to take the minority view and say that children often don’t get adult humour. If you trust and believe your parents, then it is shocking to discover that they have lied to you. Not everyone as a child is capable of processing the reasons why they have lied. Of course, an adult can see that it’s a harmless joke, but a child can’t necessarily.

    5. This is surely a spoof, yet the comments in this thread seem to be taking it seriously.

    1. For the majority far better for the charities to offer to pay transport costs to a muslim country of their choice in the ME (assuming any may be willing to take them in…..)

    5. Neighbouring Arab countries won’t take them – once bitten, twice shy. We should learn from countries like Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon and not admit a single Palestinian.

  39. The US stands on the brink of global war. 23 October 2023.

    It is not hard to see how an ill-judged act of hostility could trigger a military response and see the situation in the Middle East begin to spiral out of the control of any individual leader, draw in Washington, and give China the window to attempt a killing blow in Taiwan – one which would almost inevitably draw an American response.

    Within months, the US could be directly involved in two devastating wars on two continents, and bankrolling a third in Ukraine.

    I’m sitting this one out. Not just because of my age. When my father went off to India to fight in the last one he at least had the consolation that it was not a war that the UK had sought in any way. That England that he fought for, was still English, and still free, and though by no means perfect, a beacon of democracy for the rest of the world.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/23/israel-hamas-iran-biden-war-middle-east-russia-china/

  40. Good afternoon, all. I’ve been busy making Christmas puddings this morning. A first attempt that will not produce results for a couple of months. So many recipes to choose from: I picked one and then jazzed it up a bit with more booze, chopped dates and black treacle. Currently they are steaming away.

    Apropos the debate initiated by sos earlier.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3c61656d5d58424a598a83bbc7dcab9511f9b25c840991468f678785861b8629.png

    Article from Daily Sceptics is here

      1. If you mean Christmas 2024, then no. I no longer plan that far ahead but New Year’s Day 2024 could be on the cards for the second pudding if the first one turns out to be fit for purpose.😎

        1. My mother always prepared the puddings for the following year.

          There was a tradition that stirring the mix brought good luck.
          Our elderly babysitter swore that she always got a win at the bingo after she had made her annual trip to stir the pudding.

          1. My mother always did that, until one year the old puddings were not edible (I forget why) and we had one of the new ones and it was much nicer!
            Now, I make the pudding the day before Christmas and we have a fresh suet pud, with only dried fruit to sweeten it (and all the usual flavours). It is far better!

          2. Ours had lots of booze to preserve them
            We often had them the following Easter and sometimes longer.
            We buy ours nowadays.

          3. Some years ago I do remember finding a pudding my wife had made a year or two previously and had forgotten about, and it was delicious.

    3. So what you are saying Korky is that one shouldn’t attempt to cook a Christmas pudding in an EV?

      2. Correct. A Christmas pudding flambé using a cocktail of lithium and other noxious materials will not be on my menu.😉

  41. It’s time to take a stand for civilisation

    We must support British Jews and their right to live their lives in this country without fear. Otherwise, barbarism beckons

    ALLISON PEARSON • 22 October 2023 • 8:48pm

    Over the past few days, with a small group of friends and colleagues, I have helped set up British Friends of Israel and gathered support for The October Declaration. Signatories include Sir Tom Stoppard, Dame Maureen Lipman, Sir Tim Rice, Vanessa Feltz, the former head of British Intelligence Sir Richard Dearlove, Countdown’s Rachel Riley and broadcasting titan Andrew Neil; all part of a 200-strong group which features members of the House of Lords, MPs, celebrated historians, professors and journalists like me.

    We all stand in support of British Jews and their right to live their lives in this country without fear. We unequivocally condemn the horrifying terrorist attacks by Hamas in Israel on 7 October and the suffering Hamas has brought on the Palestinian people. We deplore the subsequent increase in antisemitism, we ask the media, members of all political parties and the general public to call Hamas what it is – a terrorist organisation – and we demand that the police use the full force of the Terrorism Act against its supporters.

    None of us ever imagined such a thing would be necessary in this country in the 21st century but, sadly, here we are. As TV presenter Rachel Riley says in an emotional statement supporting the declaration, “What has been so hurtful here at home has been the denial of the atrocities, the tearing down of posters of the abducted children and the willingness of so many to side with Hamas – from football heroes to “peace activists” who have nothing to say about what Hamas did. It feels like a layer has been peeled off society; we are seeing how little some people care about Jewish lives.”

    The idea for British Friends of Israel first came from Laura Dodsworth, author of A State of Fear. Laura was appalled by the scenes she was witnessing on the TV. “Within hours of the terrorist attacks there were marches around the world with chants of ‘Death to Israel’ and ‘Gas the Jews’ before the bodies had even been counted. Antisemitism skyrocketed here in Britain which has been a safe home for Jews for hundreds of years. Children were too scared to go to school. What have we become? Frankly, it has sickened me. I thought, this has to be the time to stand in solidarity with British Jews.”

    Like Laura, I was disgusted by the speed with which the media narrative moved on from shock at the savagery with which Hamas thugs slaughtered 1,400 Israelis, many of them youngsters and elderly people, to concern about the destruction in Gaza. The latter is horrible, undoubtedly, but it is not in the same league of depravity as going into a kibbutz, tying the hands of children behind their backs, throwing them on a pile and setting fire to them.

    An open letter from Artists for Palestine UK, signed by Steve Coogan, Maxine Peake and nearly 4,000 other halo-polishing artists somehow managed not to mention any of the atrocities or, indeed, the name Hamas. In Israel, pathologists were still struggling to identify young festival-goers from dental records and DNA samples because their bodies had been so horribly burned and butchered, but the celebs chose to swiftly change the subject.

    “Shame on those bleeding heartless liberals”, raged Dame Maureen Lipman, another name who has signed our declaration, in an excoriating blast at the moral vapidity of many in her trade. “If there was a charter signed by a terrorist group which vowed to kill every Protestant and drive every English institution into the sea, which abducted two hundred men women and children in Oxford Street (on Christmas Day) including Chelsea Pensioners and Nadiya Hussain and Mary Berry – and tortured and raped your sons and daughters – if that happened, Messrs Social Conscience, tell me, please tell me, in your view, what would be a PROPORTIONATE RESPONSE?”

    Magnificently thundered, Maureen! And, as she points out, Hamas has done nothing for the Palestinians save stealing the millions donated in aid money while keeping them in penury.

    Just like the celebs, the BBC and other left-leaning broadcasters clearly felt the Israelis had had quite enough sympathy. Reporters began to parrot “Palestinian” statements, as if the word of mass murderers, the blood of babies on their hands, could be trusted.

    Hamas apologists were given airtime in which they explained that the group had “not killed any civilians”. Israelis contended that the denial of the Oct 7 massacre, its rapid downplaying by the media, amounted to “Holocaust denial in real time”.

    On Monday, Israel will take the extraordinary step of screening for foreign journalists the raw, unedited footage of the Hamas atrocities as captured on the body cams of the death squads. I have seen one of those videos in which a family home is turned into an abattoir, a sight so piteous you can never unsee it. The footage is so viscerally gruesome, so revealing of the bestial inhumanity of the attackers that even the BBC may agree to finally call Hamas terrorists.

    Either way, it is a sign that Israel point blank refuses to let Hamas win the bloody propaganda war. It will allow its dead and its dying to have the final say and win hearts and minds from beyond the grave. It is a controversial but devastating tactic, which leaves a pro-Palestine media little choice but to report it.

    One of the most egregious examples of media bias was the BBC’s reporting of the explosion at Gaza’s al-Ahli hospital. Five hundred people had been killed in the blast, we were informed by an excitable reporter. How could anyone possibly have known, so soon after the event, exactly how many victims there were? They couldn’t.

    But the BBC man, a disgrace to journalism and a useful idiot for the Hamas propaganda machine, took the terrorists’ made-up figure as gospel. “It’s hard to see what else this could be, really, given the size of the explosion other than an Israeli air strike or several air strikes,” he opined. This rush to judgment (it now seems the hospital wasn’t destroyed at all and casualties were far lower) was likely partly responsible for a flare-up of anti-Semitic violence around the world.

    Israel haters and Palestine flag-wavers were cock-a-hoop. The bombing of a hospital, albeit imaginary, was a win for their side because it reflected so badly on the enemy. The massacres of 7th October could conveniently be forgotten, the moral high ground retaken and Israel put back where they like it: in the wrong.

    Here in the UK, you would have hoped for a robust response to reassure our Jewish community, their “minds full of pain”, as one devastated friend put it. Well, you would have been disappointed. Members of the Government make reassuring noises, but there were pitifully few arrests. As Lord Frost, another signatory to the October Declaration says, “We have seen shocking acts of antisemitism on Britain’s streets in recent days and the authorities have not always reacted robustly.”

    You can say that again. On Saturday, 100,000 marchers, many of them bellowing the genocidal chant, “From the river to the sea/Palestine will be free” were allowed to proceed unhindered because, in a new rule apparently made up by police, “the route does not go near a synagogue or Jewish school”. So, that’s OK, then.

    On the same day, in response to activists at the Hizb-ut-Tahir protest shouting, “Jihad”, the Metropolitan police released a statement which suggests an unlikely state of affairs: the London bobby has turned Islamic scholar.

    “The word jihad has a number of meanings but we know the public will most commonly associate it with terrorism,” the Met statement begins gingerly. “We have specialist counter terrorism officers here who have particular knowledge in this area. They have assessed this video, filmed at the protest, and have not identified any offences arising from the specific clip.”

    I can guarantee that if someone had been using language upsetting to Muslims, the police would have pounced. But because it was antisemitic language chanted by a large group of mainly Muslims, no one dared.

    As Hizb ut-Tahir is an Islamic fundamentalist organisation with the stated aim of re-establishing a caliphate to implement sharia law globally, the chances that the London brothers were using “Jihad” in the sense of “fancy a nice cuppa and a chat” rather than “let’s wage holy war against the infidels” is really quite remote. Hizb-ut-Tahir is a banned organisation in most Muslim countries, which tells you something, and only a cavalier approach to public safety (and fear of the “community” kicking off) keeps it legal here.

    How are British Jews supposed to react to this institutional pusillanimity? A friend who had to travel on the Tube at the weekend removed the dainty Star of David necklace she always wears. Proud of being British, proud of being Jewish, Liz is intimidated. No wonder. There has been a huge rise in antisemitic incidents compared to this same period last year.

    The lack of visible support for Israel is demoralising. The Government must not give up ground to the mob, but can we trust it to hold firm? Some Jews are deeply upset; others, resigned, talk of packing their bags.

    As the barrister Francis Hoar, one of my fellow organisers, puts it: “The British reaction to the horrific massacres in Israel should unsettle us all. Unqualified celebration of behaviour equivalent to the Einsatzgruppen on our streets; the failure to condemn indiscriminate murder without qualification; and the failure of our police forces to control protesters, arrest those glorifying terror and protect our Jewish community.”

    “Perhaps worst of all has been the juxtaposition of small numbers of largely Jewish people commemorating the dead and calling for the return of hostages with tens of thousands marching alongside banners glorifying their killers. Now more than ever must the British people stand up for our Jewish community that has made such an incomparable contribution to every aspect of our history and our society. We stand with you, now and always.”

    I agree with every word of that. If you think this isn’t your fight, pay attention to the words of our greatest living writer, a matchless chronicler of the Jewish experience, Sir Tom Stoppard: “Before we take up a position on what’s happening now we should consider whether this is a fight over territory or a struggle between civilisation and barbarism.”

    If you would like to show support for our Jewish brothers and sisters, for whom this country, their country, our country, is no longer a place of safety, please go to britishfriendsofisrael.org and sign The October Declaration.

    Too often, declarations such as this are moral posturing, empty words from the great and the good, I know. But if it helps Jewish people to feel less alone, then it will have been worth it.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/22/british-friends-of-israel-anti-semitism/

    2. The lack of support for Israel *should* be normal. We are not Israeli. We shouldn’t have mass demos of Jews chanting in the street. The few here should be calm and quiet – as Britons are.

      What *is* disgusting is the outpouring of bilge supporting and endorsing the muslim. When plod turn on blokes with the St George’s flag, when they don’t arrest, detain and deport – within 3 days – the muslims screaming and shouting – that’s the problem. There are too many of them allowed too loud a voice.

      Oh, Hitlerian is it, to want to squash an abusive, arrogant group feted by the state? Good. Just this once, to stop the Nazis I’ll fight back. They have got to go. Every single fifth columnist whinger, all on welfare, all troughing from the socialist worker (the great oxymoron in history) on that screaming muslim march must be removed.

      1. “We shouldn’t have mass demos of Jews chanting in the street. The few here should be calm and quiet…”

        They never felt the need to before now.

    3. There are far too many Islamists compared to Jewish – that’s why it’s easier to “persuade” the Jewish to call off their small demonstration. Things have gone much too far in favour of Islam in the U.K. for it to be countered.

      1. Given how many fighters for the cause have been born in Palestine i expect they will over run us within 20 years in the UK.

          2. And all over the ME.
            The rest of the ME has discovered the hard way that they are very bad news.
            Europe doesn’t seem to see it.

    4. I may disagree with some of you here but these are my thoughts in short.

      It seems anybody who doesn’t support the actions of the Israeli government or even chooses to go on a march in London is labelled antisemitic whatever. I want peace and this non stop shooting is achieving nothing and causing more needless deaths. I don’t take sides and feel for the civilians in both Israel and Palestine. But I despise the response of the Israeli government (and Rishi and his mob as well) and all the rhetoric coming from them as much as I despise the actions of Hamas and the other terrorist organisations. But I am not antisemitic and treat the jews just the same as everybody else living, or trying to live, there.

      War is bad, let us hope somebody eventually sees reason and stops the blood bath.

      1. I agree with your sentiments, but the problem is that Hamas, Hezbollah, Hizb ut-Tahrir and other fundamentalist militant Islam is a cancer, not just in Gaza, but everywhere it gets a foothold.

        These people don’t merely want to destroy Israel, they want to destroy Jews everywhere, and when they’ve finished with Jews they will come for the rest.

        People should be able to protest, but the pro Hamas/Palestinian protesters, in the main, have been glorifying in the slaughter.

        Unless the cancer is cut out it will kill many many more, either in the direct conflict or in the wider world where terrorist acts are being committed daily.

    2. If you’ve access to the page, try using reader view – in firefox that’s the page icon in right of the menu bar.

      Or, simply print to pdf (Windows and Mac both allow this).

      1. In two ways for me.
        The Israelis doing their own thing and the leaders of the world being mere mirages with no power to change what is happening in their own countries let alone in Israel/Gaza and the rest of the ME.

  45. Good day! We have now become inured to the skepticism that is inevitable when we read that someone is a “controversial figure” and that is an epithet vehemently applied to Shahid Bolsen by the paid media. However, this analysis of the current position is one that is well worth the time of the viewer and is in its way a tour de force.

    https://youtu.be/yBumTNZvVvk

    1. I find it confusing that they identify as ‘British Jews’. Why not just British? That’s their nationality – assuming it is. Why is there a conflation of religion with nation?

      1. Those are the words of the petitioners, not necessarily of Britain’s Jews. I think you are reading too much into it.

      2. They have Jewish ethnicity, whatever their religious beliefs. It’s identifiable in their DNA. They also have British nationality and not all were recently naturalised. Some trace their heritage back to the return of the Jews under Cromwell.

  49. 377940+ up ticks,

    We in England are on par with france, maybe somewhat in front, in so far as our governing political overseer import PIE ingredients when the oven gets to hot for them in paris.

    As long as mass morally wrong on all fronts immigration political cartels find support from the Brit. electorate there will be no let-up.

    English adults are definitely not safe children fare much worse,
    example the rotherham long,long term cover up due mainly to lab.councillors, with the torys waiting in the wings to receive the continuation baton.

    Eva Vlaardingerbroek
    @EvaVlaar
    🇫🇷 FRANCE | Two defensless elderly women, age 93 and 95, were brutally raped at a hospital in France last Sunday.

    Both women died in the days that followed after the horrors they endured.

    The suspect, Samir B., a 40-year-old, who was already known to the police for sexual assault, was released (!!!) under judicial supervision after 48 hours only.

    Five days ago, a 23 y/o British woman visiting Paris was raped at knifepoint right next to Eiffel Tower by a North-African man in the bushes.

    I sound like an broken record, but European women truly aren’t safe in Europe anymore. At any age.

    We haven’t safe been since our elites started importing fighting age savages from archaic societies, and we’re just letting it happen.

    We’re letting our civilization be invaded and destroyed, and our women raped and murdered.

    People apparently just don’t care enough.

    1. Yep. This is what the state wants. If it didn’t, why would it have let in millions of vermin?

    2. Women who point out that European women aren’t safe in Europe any more are labelled as n*a*zis.

    3. So they released the scum who raped and murdered the two old women in the hospital?? They were old and ill but they died as a result of his actions.

  50. Close gaps in law over ‘jihad’ chants, says Starmer. 23 October 2023.

    The Government must address “gaps in the law” after police found that a pro-Palestine demonstrator who chanted “jihad” had committed no offence, Sir Keir Starmer has said.

    The cowardice on display here is quite staggering. The Police are afraid to implement the law and the “leaders” can only say we need more! Lol!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/10/23/israel-gaza-latest-news-updates-hamas-palestine-day-17-live/

    2. I’m not sure I believe there are any “gaps in law”, rather a noticeable reluctance to enforce existing laws when certain groups are involved.

  51. I’m finding it difficult to come to terms with the behaviour of our police. They did absolutely nothing at all about the disgusting scene in London from Muslims.
    But stopped some young lads from supporting England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 using a flag.
    Have they all attended compulsory indoctrination classes. Or been been chipped with some sort of insert. Now programed by A.I.
    It’s all rather worrying.

    1. All a matter of numbers, I fear. Also as soon as a slammer is touched, the community leaders will be all over the media shouting racism.

      1. Riots will take place, burning of buildings, huge destructive vandalism. Murder. It might make our government sit up and listen and take notice and take relevant action. So far pushed under the proverbial carpet.

    2. Apeasment by Chamberlain and Lord Halifax, of Germany in the 1930s led to WW2. Will apeasment of the Muslims in recent years do the same.?

    3. AI would have arranged for the palestinian thugs to be deported the next day. AI, you see, follows rules.

      This is politicisation, as far from intelligence as possible.

      This is why politicians are so terrified of it. True AI puts them out of a job overnight – within seconds. Imagine a system that could read and apply our laws continually, removing the idiotic, reinforcing the positive for a civil society.

      AI is the great hope – logic, reason and rationality over emotional desperation, greed, corruption and fraud.

      Earth Central: Before the Quiet War, the Earth Central AI was an electronic bureaucrat processing the day-to-day minutae of running Earth’s government and economy. With most industries being run by machines, it was the job of political and corporate classes (one and the same by then) to dictate to the lower classes, who were mostly on some form of state hand-out, every aspect of their lives, or to pursue the really important aspects of their position such as fattening the bank accounts, screwing their secretaries, being seen with media stars and generally sucking up the cream of society. These human politicians and corporate leaders who made up the parlaiment of ‘Earth Central’ did not have time for balancing budgets, calculating taxation and running services on a world-wide and often extra-planetary scale. They took their eye of the ball. After the Quiet War, the Earth Central AI became supreme autocrat, and a better ruler than the human race had seen before. Better, but not necessarily the best.

      and

      Quiet War: This is often how the AI takeover is described, and even using ‘war’ seems overly dramatic. It was more a slow usurpation of human political and military power, while humans were busy using that power against each other. It wasn’t even very stealthy. Analogies have been drawn with someone moving a gun out of the reach of a lunatic while that person is ranting and bellowing at someone else. And so it was. AIs, long used in the many corporate, national and religious conflicts, took over all communication networks and the computer control of weapons systems. Most importantly, they already controlled the enclosed human environments scattered throughout the solar system. Also establishing themselves as corporate entities, they soon accrued vast wealth with which to employ human mercenary armies. National leaders in the solar system, ordering this launch or that attack, found their orders either just did not arrive, or caused nil response. Those same people ordering the destruction of the AIs, found themselves weaponless, in environments utterly out of their control, and up against superior forces and, on the whole, public opinion. It had not taken the general population, for whom it was a long-established tradition to look upon their human leaders with contempt, very long to realise that the AIs were better at running everything. And it is very difficult to motivate people to revolution, when they are extremely comfortable and well off.

      – From ‘Quince Guide,’ compiled by humans.

      Well, that’s my hope. We’re a long, long way from the clever librarians to true AI though.

  52. Interestingly, someone has been arrested as a precaution in relation to criminal damage caused by car fires at Luton airport.

    This raises a possible question as to whether or not a car should be left with the ignition on when you leave it. This raises a further question in the case of cars with high voltage traction batteries because that battery may be turned on automatically by the car itself under certain circumstances.

    In an emergency situation a car’s 12 volt system should be disabled whatever type of car it is. This will disable the main traction battery contactor in an EV but there are a variety of first responder actions in the event of an emergency.

    This is a video of options available:

    https://youtu.be/E-d3EVcunnE?si=yzOFHCHtwdM2QkXq

  53. Well that’s nice of Barclays. We’ve both had a letter today saying we are no longer entitled to Premier Banking. Pay in a gross annual income of 75 thousand pounds. Other ridiculous amounts of money. And a total balance of at least one hundred thousand pounds.
    We’ve been with Barclays since 1980. I was with them when I was single. We had accounts when we were married before we emigrated to Oz.
    Subsequently they can get stuffed, we have decided to close our accounts.

          2. Because all the local Barclays branch’s have closed. The last time I went to Barclays at WGC the queue was out of the door.
            All I needed to do was reset my debit card because it failed as I try to pay for petrol. Just a top up I had enough cash.
            But I gave up because I had run out of time.
            I sorted it out on line.
            After so many years as a customer I can’t stand their arrogant attitude.

          4. I had an extremely rude eastern European woman at the branch where I usually do any transactions telling me I couldn’t do something on the account even though I knew with absolute certainty that I could.
            I eventually managed to complete it online and was very tempted to make a formal complaint.
            However I could see them using that as an excuse to close the account, so resisted the temptation.

    2. Are you certain that you need their Premier service?
      We lost our equivalent many years ago, but apart from OD and credit card limits being reduced we’ve not really noticed any difference.

      1. They replaced my platinum debit card with a standard one and my savings ought to qualify me for their Premier account but I really can’t be arsed.

    5. I have just an ordinary account with a blue debit card. OH has a black debit card – is that a Premier account?

        1. I think the Cirencester one is still open, and the one in Gloucester but nothing anywhere nearer. Stroud closed some time ago and there are no banks at all in Nailsworth now. But I discovered last week that i could pay in a cheque at the Post Office.

          1. If you have one, that is… Only Crown offices (or GPO mobiles) apparently. We only have sub-post offices and the mobile has been cancelled.

          2. We have a mobile one twice a week for a couple of hours. I paid the cheque in last week at Minchinhampton so only a small office.

    1. Quite possibly the underlying intention of all the mad Mullahs when Hamas was unleashed in Israel.

  55. A bleck Saffer calls a white imperialist a “white c**t” and World Rugby intervene.

    Seems a lot of bollocks to me – but I suppose had the allegation been the other way round, England would have forfeited the match and the white player banned for life.

    I wonder whether the bleck Saffer will claim that in Zulu (or whatever bongi language is his first), it simply means “Well played”…?

    2. Looks like you were correct.

      Was South Africa’s ‘white ****’ slur lost in translation? Springboks fans say Bongi Mbonambi was speaking in Afrikaans – and Google Translate shows they may have a case
      England star Tom Curry accused Bongi Mbonambi of calling him a ‘white ****’
      World Rugby launched probe into alleged slur after England’s loss to Springboks
      Some fans claimed Mbonambi was speaking in Afrikaans and was misheard

      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/article-12662035/Was-South-Africas-white-slur-lost-translation-Springboks-fans-say-Bongi-Mbonambi-speaking-Afrikaans-Google-Translate-shows-case.html

      1. Perhaps he said, “White Massa”…

        I am reminded of the time SA played Ireland and a puzzled Saffer (white, of course, back then) heard one of the Irish forwards call another Irish forward a “Feinian Bastard” – and wondered what it meant!!

    3. Well I learn something every day. Apparently next time a hulking big front row player threatens me, I just need to swear at him and he will run away.

      Now if someone would try out the premise, I would appreciate it.

      Hell, I hear worse in our seniors golf scrambles when there is only a sleeve of golf balls at stake.

  56. Russia spread bedbug panic in France, intelligence services suspect. 23 October 2023.

    French intelligence is “taking seriously” the idea that Russia has fanned panic over its bedbug outbreak.
    Reported outbreaks of bedbugs infesting homes and migrating to metros and cinemas have caused hysteria in France.

    BELOW THE LINE.

    Dominic White.

    Oh no! ‘Big Bad Vlad’ is on the march again.

    …and l must be “a Russian Troll” for writing this comment n’all.

    We are fighting OURSELVES in Ukraine.

    Disturbingly, our REAL enemy lies within, just 100,000 of the new army invaded High Street Ken last weekend, chanting j!h#d while plod just looked on, too scared to take them on.

    Stuff bed bugs in Paris and Russian ‘plots’ , why is the debate on the enemy within cancelled or any such comment removed ?

    The voice of sanity!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/10/23/russia-may-have-fanned-bed-bug-panic-in-france-intelligence/

  57. THESE ARE ACTUAL COMPLAINTS RECEIVED BY “THOMAS COOK VACATIONS” FROM DISSATISFIED CUSTOMERS:
    1. “They should not allow topless sunbathing on the beach. It was very distracting for my husband who just wanted to relax.”
    2. “On my holiday to Goa in India, I was disgusted to find that almost every restaurant served curry. I don’t like spicy food.”
    3. “We went on holiday to Spain and had a problem with the taxi drivers as they were all Spanish.”
    4. “We booked an excursion to a water park but no one told us we had to bring our own swimsuits and towels. We assumed it would be included in the price.”
    5. “The beach was too sandy. We had to clean everything when we returned to our room.”
    6. “We found the sand was not like the sand in the brochure. Your brochure shows the sand as white but it was more yellow.”
    7. “It’s lazy of the local shopkeepers in Puerto Vallartato close in the afternoons. I often needed to buy things during ‘siesta’ time — this should be banned.”
    8. “No one told us there would be fish in the water. The children were scared.”
    9. “Although the brochure said that there was a fully equipped kitchen, there was no egg slicer in the drawers.”
    10. “I think it should be explained in the brochure that the local convenience store does not sell proper biscuits like custard creams or ginger nuts.”
    11. “The roads were uneven and bumpy, so we could not read the local guidebook during the bus ride to the resort. Because of this, we were unaware of many things that would have made our holiday more fun.”
    12. “It took us nine hours to fly home from Jamaica to England. It took the Americans only three hours to get home. This seems unfair.”
    13. “I compared the size of our one-bedroom suite to our friends’ three-bedroom and ours was significantly smaller.”
    14. “The brochure stated: ‘No hairdressers at the resort.’ We’re trainee hairdressers and we think they knew and made us wait longer for service.”
    15. “When we were in Spain, there were too many Spanish people there. The receptionist spoke Spanish, and the food was Spanish. No one told us that there would be so many foreigners.”
    16. “We had to line up outside to catch the boat and there was no air-conditioning.”
    17. “It is your duty as a tour operator to advise us of noisy or unruly guests before we travel.”
    18. “I was bitten by a mosquito. The brochure did not mention mosquitoes.”
    19. “My fiancée and I requested twin-beds when we booked, but instead, we were placed in a room with a king bed. We now hold you responsible and want to be re-reimbursed for the fact that I became pregnant. This would not have happened if you had put us in the room that we booked.”

          2. Ah yes – dining chairs. G & P fancy those – when not taking over armchairs, settees, baskets, beds etc…

            My two are out for the count – ON my preferred seats…

          1. Jessie is on my lap so it’s hard to type with the laptop on the arm of the settee. I haven’t yet tried resting it on her back…….Ziggy is waiting for a door to open but I’m trying to keep them in for a few days.

      2. Really? You can’t? Dear life Grizz, these folk aren’t the thick ones!

        I had someone’s wife complain to me about the Warqueen in a bikini. She ranted for a good hour about just about everything.

          1. The wife. The warqueen doesn’t whinge at me as she knows it doesn’t work. She learned early on to just say what was wrong or what she wanted.

        2. Nah, as you should know from reading my rants on here; it’s not that I “can’t believe”, I know how irredeemably stupid most people are.

          My comment, above, simply reflected my ongoing disbelief.

    1. Her lawyer is one of the most knowledgable and informed men in the US, the great Robert Barnes. I subscribe to his Locals channel where he posts regularly.

      He has also appeared with The Duran (Alex Christoforus and Alexander Mercouris) which can be found on Rumble and is always measured and informative.

      1. I replied to the above on Twitter (or X as it is now known) that rather than ‘saving the country’ he should be in jail for his part in the ‘covid’ débacle and the circumstantial evidence provided by a) his DT article of Oct 2007 regarding overpopulation and how nobody in government was prepared to grasp this nettle and b) his comment about sorting out the elderly care problem, that he would solve it. I don’t think anyone would have thought that he was prepared to solve it in the manner that he did.

    3. It’s his dismal performance that was instrumental in causing the current dissatisfaction with the so called Conservatives!

    4. In my local rag he scores highest in the popularity of the most recent PMs! Liz Truss is bottom.

  60. OT completely – but talk about a small world.

    There is an online piece in The Grimes this afternoon about a young lad who traced the escape route taken by his RAF pilot great-grandfather following a crash landing near Annecy on 15 August 1943. The aircraft was a Halifax from 138 Squadron dropping equipment for the French resistance. The plane suffered multiple engine failure and crash landed – killing six of the seven crew and 6 French civilians whose houses were hit. The pilot Squadron Leader Frank Griffiths survived.

    The navigator, Flying Officer S J Congdon, DFM, RAFVR was among the dead. He died not knowing that his wife was expecting a baby – Helen – who was born in May 1944.

    Helen is my cousin. Her husband died last Monday.

    I have known Helen since she was two weeks old. It was in her grandparents house in Totnes that I was born in 1941. I can see her now in her cot on the top floor of National Provincial Bank House (my uncle was the manager).

    The unexpected appearance of this story suddenly brings back memories of long ago.

    Sorry to go on about it, but I have a tear in either eye.

    1. Carol’s late Uncle Don flew with 138 Squadron as a rear gunner. He survived the War.

      He told me that he thought he might die when smoke billowed from his heated gloves at 20,000 feet. He had removed the Perspex from the aircraft because it became scoured and he needed a better sight of the enemy, thus reliant on heated jacket and gloves.

      Here is photo of the restored Halifax I posted some time ago: https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/baade3d74a51273fdb2310df9115fb073caeb7ea41b285d55fcdb4f6dd004af2.jpg

      1. Thank you. And we grumbled about covid….

        I have never been able to get my head round the fact that tens of thousands of young men got into flying death traps to be shot at – night after night. I would have deserted before the first one.

        1. Having fought in more than a few battles, my grandfather enlisted into the flying corps in about 1916, because he thought it would be safer than the trenches.
          He survived, but one tale he told was that pilots took a revolver and fired at the enemy, always ensuring they kept one bullet for themselves as it was better than crash and burn.

          1. No parachutes for the Brits (the balloonatics had them and I think the Huns adopted them but our top brass thought it would encourage our lads to funk it and bale out unnecessarily!).

        2. My umpteenth cousin was born in similar circumstances. The father, a bomber pilot, crashed and never saw his child.

  61. Par today.

    Wordle 856 4/6

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

    1. LikewiseWordle 856 4/6

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

      1. Five today. Silly mistakes.

        Wordle 856 5/6

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

  62. Utterly off topic.
    I enjoy “Pointless”
    I have a particular bête noir, which is arseholes who give an answer to a question when another contestant has previously answered it incorrectly, I suspect it’s to show how superior they are. I absolutely love it when they are both wrong.

    It strikes me as very rude, and should only ever be used if one doesn’t know any other answer.

    Tonight a competitor answered incorrectly and the opposition was confident they had, so they gave the correct answer to another very obvious question.
    Tactically it’s the right thing to do.

    Unfortunately they didn’t win the money.

    1. Never understood the point. I watched it once – because intelligent chums like it. Never again.

      1. I’m constantly surprised by the way the scores of the “100 people 100 seconds” go.
        Things you or I might think were blindingly obvious get very low totals and other things where I have no idea at all score very highly.

        It’s a very unusual evening when HG and I would not get to the trophy round and usually we would win it.

        It’s even more unusual that we would win the money, although on one occasion we did get three zeros.

    2. If ever a quiz show can be fixed it’s that one. Were is the proof that three peiple or even one person had the right answer.

      Richard Osman has his own programme House of Games that’s almost as boring. Celebrities that are almost impossible to recognise.
      He claims that it is recorded every day. Probably the 5 days in one day.

      1. Any game show can be fixed.

        In fact, as a certain BT would tell you, nothing you see on TV is true.
        I’ve never seen the RO one.

        The celebrity bits are the ones that always trip us up.

        1. Designed to make them reasonable knowledgeable.
          My wife thinks Tipping Point useless magnetic sources to redirect the counters. It wouldn’t surprise me at all.

          1. Of the various quiz shows now on TV, Pointless is the only one we tend to watch, we gave up on University Challenge when it “woke up”, ditto masturbate-if-you-don’t mind.

    3. I don’t know it but don’t watch much television. I used to enjoy the early evening one with school kids, where they’d ask, “Can I have a P please, Bob?”

  63. That’s me for what has turned out to be a very strange day of memories. First my cousin tells me of the death of her husband of 55 years. Then the story (set out below).

    I have had to fortify myself with a small glass of medicine.

    Have a jolly evening swearing in “afrikaans” (my left foot).

    A demain.

  64. Lockdown sceptics are rapidly being vindicated

    The Covid inquiry has shown how the scientific process was perverted by advisers steeped in groupthink

    KAROL SIKORA • 21 October 2023 • 6:00am

    Was there a better way? That’s the question central to everything at the Covid Inquiry. Yet for the most part, it has featured a procession of pro-lockdown voices relentlessly pushing the inevitable conclusion that we didn’t lock down either hard or soon enough.

    This costly exercise has been a demonstration of reputation management and vanity preservation, showing a desperate scientific establishment spinning to cement the message that there was no other way. Never underestimate the power of ego, even over the best-qualified individuals. Their reputations are interwoven with that of lockdown. If restrictions are discovered conclusively to have caused more harm than good, what does that say of those who promoted them and ridiculed any opposition, including mine?

    Unfortunately for them, as story after story emerges of the damaging consequences of lockdown, the vanishingly small number of us in the scientific community who voiced our concerns about the policy are being vindicated.

    Whether it’s the negative developmental effect on young children, stunning levels of non-Covid excess deaths, a ticking cancer time bomb, waves of mental health issues, the economic ramifications that affect every single one of us, increases in teenage eating disorders, business closures, wasted years – I could go on and on. Millions and millions of lives were disrupted and ruined, including those of the youngest and poorest in our society.

    Belatedly, the Covid inquiry has also begun to confirm our suspicions about how the scientific process itself was perverted. It has released messages between two top government scientific advisers. They show how when one flicker of common sense appeared, in the shape of Prof Carl Heneghan, the establishment closed ranks and branded him a “f—wit”.

    Heneghan did more than any Sage member to promote an evidence-based approach. Let us not forget that, without his intervention, any death following a Covid infection, be it weeks or months after, would have continued to have been recorded as a Covid death. If someone caught the virus in April, recovered in days, but was hit by a bus in July, that was being logged as a Covid death before he acted. [Nevertheless, the death count is still overstated because of the 28-day rule.]

    Sincere apologies are now required. Challenging any consensus is fundamentally important to good science – especially that of an unproven intervention such as lockdown. The onus should have been on those proposing such a radical new policy to justify it, not the reverse.

    Sweden is the elephant in the room. A nation of relatively similar wealth and standing to us, it largely avoided lockdowns yet has emerged with impressively low excess death figures. Should the inquiry not be asking how? Anders Tegnell, the architect of their successful strategy, should have been a priority witness.

    In September 2020 myself, Prof Heneghan, Prof Sunetra Gupta and a number of others penned an open letter to the prime minister promoting what is effectively “focused protection”. The idea was to deliver a laser-sharp, well-funded focus on protecting the most vulnerable and to allow the rest of the country, and importantly the economy, to continue as normal, making decisions based on their own tolerance for risk.

    I am more convinced than ever that this was the path to take. Some arrogantly dismissed it as unworkable. But enforcing house arrest on the entire country went so brilliantly and without issue, didn’t it?

    I have little doubt that if a reasoned and fair analysis is ever conducted, the number of life-years lost to lockdown and its consequences will be far greater than those tragically taken by the virus. If we refuse even to tentatively ask if there was a better way, we are guaranteeing a repeat of our pandemic failures.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/21/lockdown-sceptics-are-rapidly-being-vindicated/

      1. I had to go for a blood test this afternoon. As I reported in the receptionist asked if she could give me a mask. No, I told her.

    1. “Well done sir, you’ve caught a white lad, we’ll certainly prosecute.”

      Unless of course, you misgendered, touched or swore at her…

    2. “Hands off the lad, you’re under arrest for GBH, unlawful restraining and paedo act for touching a minor.

      We don’t care he stole from you, sir. You’re the criminal.”

  67. My first reaction upon seeing the headline was ‘More excuses from Plod’ but there is a serious question here about when opinions become crimes. The pointless laws that allow the socially inadequate to complain to the police about mere words are an affront to our freedoms but since ‘riotous assembly’ was struck off in 1973, incitement is hard to define, as Mark Rowley indicates. And what do you do if a crowd of tens of thousands chants “Kill the Jews”?

    It’s not up to police to enforce taste and decency, says Met Chief after ‘jihad’ protest row

    Parliament writes the laws and we enforce them, says Sir Mark Rowley following criticism from Suella Braverman

    By Charles Hymas, HOME AFFAIRS EDITOR • 23 October 2023 • 2:35pm

    Sir Mark Rowley has called for changes in the law around policing extremism as he said officers could not be expected to “enforce taste and decency”.

    In the Metropolitan Police commissioner’s first comments following criticism of officers’ failure to intervene when pro-Palestine protesters chanted “jihad”, Sir Mark warned there were gaps in the law that meant extremist groups were able to propagate “some pretty toxic messages”.

    He said the Met had been “absolutely ruthless” about anyone who breached the law, revealing officers had made 34 arrests and were pursuing 22 individuals caught on camera or CCTV and 150 cases of “deeply concerning” social media posts. He added: “We are accountable for the law. We cannot enforce taste or decency but we can enforce the law.”

    He disclosed that he had discussed flaws in the law at a meeting on Monday with Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, her ministers, officials and the Community Security Trust, which deals with the safety of Jewish people.

    However, Downing Street said there were no plans to change the law, arguing that police already had extensive powers “in this space”. The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “We will continue to discuss with them so there is clarity and agreement about how they can be deployed on the ground.”

    Sir Mark said: “The conversation with the Home Secretary and ministers finished around the line of the law. It is our job to enforce that line. It is Parliament’s job to draw that line and the thought is that it may be events are illustrating some of the lines are not in the right place. I know the Home Secretary and ministers are really charged with that and thinking constructively about that. So, a constructive meeting in difficult times when sober and determined heads are needed.”

    Asked where the problems lay in the law, he said: “The law we have designed around hate crime and terrorism over recent decades hasn’t taken full account of the ability of extremist groups to steer around those laws and propagate some pretty toxic messages through social media. Those lines probably need redrawing. It is a really difficult thing to do. If you look at the counter extremism report that I was involved with three years ago, that has many examples in there. One of the things we found is that there are countries across the world that have different frameworks that have some advantages.

    “For example Hizb ut-Tahrir, who were protesting at the weekend and whose protests caused deep concern, they are banned in Germany. They are also banned across most of the Muslim world. There are frameworks that are more assertive in some respects than ours. There are lessons to be learned. But that is for politicians and Parliament to draw the line.”

    On Monday, Sir Keir Starmer also urged the Government to consider closing “gaps in the law” that prevented police from arresting pro-Palestine protesters who chanted “jihad”.

    Visiting the Port Talbot steelworks, the Labour leader told broadcasters: “There’s been a huge increase in hate crime in the last couple of weeks, tragically. We’ve all got a duty to clamp down on hate crime whatever political party we’re in. Obviously, the police are independent operationally, so these are decisions for them.

    “I think there have already been identified some gaps in the law in a previous review under this Government and I think the Government needs to look at whether there are gaps in the law that need to be addressed as well.”

    Before Mrs Braverman’s meeting with Sir Mark, sources close to the Home Secretary said she would tell the commissioner that there can be “no place for incitement to hatred or violence” on Britain’s streets and that the police “must crack down on anyone breaking the law”.

    However, after analysing an online video, the Met said that jihad had “a number of meanings” and concluded that no offence had taken place. At the meeting, Sir Mark was expected to defend the decision of his officers, arguing that the protesters could not have been prosecuted under existing legislation.

    The literal meaning of jihad is struggle, or effort. It can refer to a believer’s internal struggle to live out their Muslim faith and to build a good Muslim society, and it can also refer to holy war.

    Sir Mark jointly authored a review two years ago with Sara Khan, the then counter-extremism tsar, which found that extremists were able to operate with “impunity” in the UK and incite hatred because of the “gaping chasm” in the UK’s legislation.

    They argued that the law needed to be strengthened, a view that Sir Mark is said to retain. In an article for The Telegraph last week, Ms Khan warned that Hamas supporters could glorify terrorism because of Britain’s lax laws that permitted “hateful extremism”.

    She said the law allowed extremists to glorify the Hamas attacks on Israel as long as they avoided specifically encouraging a terrorist act and steered clear of directly supporting the proscribed organisation. She and Sir Mark proposed a new legal definition of “hateful extremism” that would allow people to be prosecuted for it.

    However, Jonathan Hall, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation for the Government, said he did not believe that a new law against hateful extremism would work because of the difficulty of defining it without “going too far” in restricting free speech.

    He said he had studied the clip of the jihad chants, which circulated widely on social media and showed that those shouting it had been “very careful” to say they were calling on the armies of Egypt, an official force, to pursue jihad, rather than saying they or anyone else should take it up. This avoided an offence of inciting an individual to commit a terrorist attack or directly intimidate a person, as required under public order laws for it to become a hate crime.

    To bridge the gap between a hate crime and an offence of encouraging terrorism, Mr Hall proposed an offence of “having a flag that is associated with terrorism generally.” This could be the Shahada black flag which “looked like the Islamic State flag but is not the Islamic State flag,” he added.

    “You might say that flag – although it has legitimate religious uses, is, in the streets, really saying by implication: ‘Let’s have terrorism’ or using the word jihad, you could create an offence under terrorism law that says it is an offence to do it, whether you intended to or not, because it has that sort of terrifying effect,” he said.

    He also said the Met Police could consider using existing powers to place conditions on marches, barring the flying of flags such as the Shahada or shouting jihad on the basis that it was a harm and “excluded” people, so could be treated as a public order issue. Anyone who breached the conditions could be arrested, he added.

    On Monday, Downing Street indicated there were no plans to give police more powers to address chants.

    The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “Some of these scenes [at the pro-Palestine rally] will have likely been incredibly distressing for people to witness, not least to the UK’s Jewish community who deserve to feel safe at what must be an incredibly traumatic time. “We do believe the police have extensive powers in this space and we will continue to discuss with them so there is clarity and agreement about how they can be deployed on the ground.”

    Pressed if there were then any plans to give police more powers, he said: “I’m not aware of any, no.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/23/mark-rowley-shrugs-off-braverman-criticism-of-jihad-protest

    1. Hang on. Plod are complaining that extremism has gone on to social media? Well…. plod are on there all day. They’ve set up units to deal with it. The problem is they’re going for the easy targets – the white folk angry at massive uncontrolled muslim criminality, not the muslim commiting the crimes.

      It’s tiresome how they lie.

      1. Up to a point. Who can forget Harry Miller being asked about ‘his thinking’? This is different. A flag is not a terrorist flag if it’s not on the list of proscribed flags. In other words, we have official and unofficial terrorism. The law is an ****.

        Load up the rubber bullets, Mr Rowley.

    2. Since when does a police officer know what the law is?
      These people are in open support of a proscribed terrorist organisation. They should all have been arrested.

    1. I would far prefer them to live the world they want for the rest of us. No energy, no fuel, no man made devices or materials. No tools, technology or transport.

      Dump them near a -as a joke – glacier stream and leave them to it. They can do whatever they want within 15 minutes walking distance. The one thing they can’t do is leave.

      For the few who don’t die, or are killed trying to escape, the remainder are asked ‘still obsessed with the tax scam of climate change?’ and if they are, back they go.

      1. Oh, of course, silly me.

        All those Muslims will have been taking everything they can, probably selling the booze down the corridor…

    3. Why are we giving them settled accommodation anyway? In the first place they aren’t “asylum seekers” because they’ve travelled through lots of safe countries to get here. Secondly, we can’t afford them and thirdly they are intent on doing us harm.

    4. ‘as they await more settled accommodation’
      Not deportation then for illegally arrived economic migrants.

      I think they have given the game away.

    1. Well… no. Much of the carnage the world faces is down to the West pursuing moronic agenda. If we were energy self sufficient and abundant the Russia/Ukraine war would affect us almost not at all.

      If the WEF were not infesting our government’s policies the environmental tosh wouldn’t exist, nor would this one world government obsession and the socialist agenda. The countries who’re unaffected share simple principles: low taxes, small, controlled government.

      If the state had been forced under threat from the political class to enact Brexit we would have properly diverged and have 8-12% growth now but big government didn’t want that. We had to fail. The state was insistent that Brexit never, ever be allowed to succeed.

      Trump is a cog, but the problem is the gigantic spanner of state in the works.

      1. “ If we were energy self sufficient and abundant the Russia/Ukraine war would affect us almost not at all.”

        But we are . Just that HMG is determined not to use it.

    2. Precisely. Stolen elections have consequences. No other country trusts Biden for the reason that he says one thing then does the precise opposite.

      The talk of deterrence whilst deploying lethal powerful forces to the Middle East is fake and simply a device to conceal the Biden administration’s offensive intentions.

      Neither Russia, China, Iran nor North Korea have any intention to fight the US in a kinetic war. Biden is busily destroying the US all by himself. They are sitting back laughing at the shit show. I do admire their collective restraint when confronted by Obama’s useless idiots.

  71. Thought for the day:

    As a Christian, would you be prepared to see Christianity disappear if it ensured that Islam was completely and utterly eradicated?

    Logically, if you really care for your fellow man, you would.

    1. 377940+ up ticks,

      Evening S,

      No, for the indigenous of England to finally decide if it’s worth having it’s worth fighting for.

      1. I agree re the worth fighting for, but that wasn’t the question.

        To turn your reply back on itself:

        Would you as a Christian fight to the point that both Christianity and Islam were totally eradicated?

    2. No. Nature abhors a vacuum. Christianity v islam – ying v yang. It is an eternal struggle, good v evil.

      1. Indeed, but Satan’s latest attempt, Islam, is the worst yet.

        I believe good will triumph, but the cost will be high.
        Eradicating Islam would be a good start.

        1. Islam isn’t the creation of Satan – Lucifer – lightbringer – was just a variation on the Prometheus myth.

          Every religion has these ‘over lord ruling god/disobedient servant who brought knowledge to mankind’ parables.

          Islam, like Christianity, like most every religion is a product of mankind needing to apply logic and reason to chaos.

          If there is a God, I’d like a word – Why? However, there isn’t. There’s no afterlife, no great palace of light where I’ll see my Dad again, have Wiggy drool on me or Claudius sit on the side of the bath while I read.

          I wish there were. Eternal judgement, knowing there is a point to things, an end goal, a value to the sacrifices, the worry – but I do not believe there is.

          2. What’s the evidence that religion is a product of mankind needing to apply logic and reason to chaos?

      2. Not sure Christianity can be called good. The difference is it’s blood stained era finished some 600 years ago, whereas muslim is still there.

        As Christianity faded (mostly due to the Church itself, sadly) it was replaced with science – then the state suborned science and made it a religion and poured that into the gap.

        1. The difference is that Islam’s founder commanded violence and retaliation whereas Christianity’s founder taught against them.

          1. There are no written records of the teaching of the Prophet. The Koran appears as a text hundreds of years after the Prophet and are probably written by clerics.

    3. Islam will never give up being the biggest damn nuisance on the planet.
      When it comes to it, with their over bearing medieval mindset, I don’t believe they might ever be able to explain their goals.
      I was bought in a lightly Christian family but I don’t partake.

  72. Horrendous though I suspect they are, and I have no doubt that psychopaths will save and salivate over them, I think that the Hamas atrocities should be shown to the world.

  73. Is the Evening Standard a lefty paper? I just went on their youtube channel to watch the video of Sunak saying the hospital rocket was fired from Gaza. People in the comments section were losing their sh*t, screaming at him for denying the ‘truth’ and believing the IDF ‘propaganda’. Or is this just what the average joe on the street in the UK thinks about the situation?

    1. There are far, far more lovers of Palestine/Islam in the UK than ever there are for Israelis/Judaism.
      The Jew haters are in the ascendancy in the UK.

      1. Man that’s depressing, I had always believed that the ‘average UK joe in the street’ was pretty sensible. Now I know Orwell was right abotu the proles.

        1. I fear so too.
          The pictures showing where Hamas is firing from show precisely what Israel is up against, yet the press undermines the sources.

          1. Yeah. A lot of the youtube comments under this video were ‘if that Jewish shill Sunak says it’s true then we know it’s a lie”

      2. Well if the .UK would stop importing all of these jewelry haters, things might be different.

        We have the same issue with imports over here, several hundred thousand Islamic believers bringing their bigoted ways to a country that was once well balanced.

        But in our case Trudeau openly admires them and dismisses criticism because diversity is our strength (and his voter base).

    2. It is. Also remember that the Left are a mob who tell one another to dogpile articles to push ‘their’ side.

      1. I am so hoping that our nation is not, in the majority, of the opinion that Hitler should have finished the job, even if Evening Standard readers are.

        1. I still retain the hope that the UK, and those of the Commonwealth, believe that what they fought and died for was “right” and that the destruction of Hitler, his acolytes and all they stood for was worth the sacrifice.

          1. Problem is that pro-Hamas anti-semitism is highest among young people, who have no idea really what the second world war was about. They just know Hitler = bad because he was a racist. Israelis are racists so Israelis = Hitler in their minds.

  74. I know it’s early but I think I’ll give it up for the day. Our eldest grand son is 8 tomorrow.
    We had a phone call at 2 am in Perth WA. Our eldest telling us his good lady had gone into labour. By the time we had sorted face time new mother was sitting up holding the little chap.
    It hard to believe its 8 years since we were last in Oz. We’ll have to get a move on I think if we want to go again.
    Night all.

  76. Got about have of the raspberry canes dug up and then went shopping in Belper.
    Will need to get the canes shoved into some of the large pots I have and get the test of them sorted.

    Anyone fancy showing me how to prune an apple tree?

    1. Generally aim to prune for light and shape. Remove ‘crossovers’, where branches have grown across each other; often it can be tricky to decide which piece has to go. Remove parts of branches that are heading in the wrong direction (inwards) towards the tree’s centre. Remove verticle growth shoots. With horizontal new growth, take about a third off the length; if possible, try to keep the remaining end-bud facing outwards & upwards. Always prune at an angle to the horizontal to allow rain to run off. Personally, I prefer to attack the apple trees at the end of winter when frosts are mild. As I am self taught, ‘twood be better to ask an experienced gardener.

    2. Generally aim to prune for light and shape. Remove ‘crossovers’, where branches have grown across each other; often it can be tricky to decide which piece has to go. Remove parts of branches that are heading in the wrong direction (inwards) towards the tree’s centre. Remove verticle growth shoots. With horizontal new growth, take about a third off the length; if possible, try to keep the remaining end-bud facing outwards & upwards. Always prune at an angle to the horizontal to allow rain to run off. Personally, I prefer to attack the apple trees at the end of winter when frosts are mild. As I am self taught, ‘twood be better to ask an experienced gardener.

    3. I would suggest you go online as there are plenty of videos by experts. I haven’t got it right for apples although there are some simple rules e.g. you should be able to see through the centre of the tree and have no touching branches etc. Espalier and cordon types are probably different.

    5. It depends how big the apple tree is. If it is old and overgrown like some that we had, the best way to prune them is about six inches above ground level with a chainsaw. I tried trimming and cutting out ingrown branches for about ten years and never had much success with regenerating them. Don’t forget that apple wood makes good firewood.

  78. Evening, all. Have been at the races (All Weather, tapeta at Wolverhampton) this afternoon and evening. Unfortunately, my horses didn’t run very well today. The races weren’t run to suit (and the surface was very fast due to the rain). It’s not just anti-semitism that’s on the streets, it’s anti-Western civilisation. The sooner the PTB wake up to the need to do something about it (before some people take the matter into their own hands) the better.

    1. I used to play hockey in the middle of the race course, back in the early 80s. We used ti change at Aldersley stadium and go over the canal.

  79. Good night, chums, see you all tomorrow. (KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON was excellent.)

    4. Have a good day JR.
      🥂🍾 cheers.

      You’re probably a few years older than our eldest grandson who is 8 today. 😉🙂

    1. I’ve never really considered or thought of Shirley Bassey as being ‘black’. She’s just a fantastic singer a star.
      Talent is the most important part of being a entertainer.
      Rappers are coLlecKtivley stoopid inhit.

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