Wednesday 6 December: The Tories can’t afford to delay their migration reforms until the spring

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its commenting facility (now reinstated, but we prefer ours),
Intelligent, polite, good-humoured debate is welcome, whether on or off topic. Differing opinions are encouraged, but rudeness or personal attacks on other posters will not be tolerated. Posts which – in the opinion of the moderators – make this a less than cordial environment, are likely to be removed, without prior warning.  Persistent offenders will be banned.

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

626 thoughts on “Wednesday 6 December: The Tories can’t afford to delay their migration reforms until the spring”

      1. Me three, but I only have to switch the computer on today. Slight cold, so not travelling in to work.

      1. One of the benefits of being a little older is that you no longer need to go to work – nor work from home. You and I are lucky, Aeneas.

  3. Good morrow, Gentlefolk. today’s story

    Experimental Drugs
    A man goes to visit his doctor. “Doc, you’ve gotta help me! My wife just isn’t interested in sleeping with me anymore! No passion, nothing! Haven’t you got a pill or something I can give her?”

    “Look, I can’t prescribe…”

    “Doc, we’ve been friends for years. Have you ever seen me this upset? I am desperate! I can’t think; I can’t concentrate; my life is falling apart! You’ve got to help me man!”

    The doctor opens his desk drawer and removes a small bottle of pills. “Okay. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t do this. These are experimental; the tests so far indicate that they’re very powerful. Don’t give her more than one, understand? Just one in her coffee, Okay?”

    The man goes home, where his wife has dinner waiting. When dinner is finished, she goes to the kitchen to bring dessert. The man quickly takes out the pills, then slips one into his wife’s coffee. Then he begins to wonder… The Doc said they were powerful. Out of the blue, he drops a pill into his own coffee, just to see what it’s like.

    His wife returns and they enjoy their dessert and coffee. Sure enough, a few minutes after they finish, she shudders, sighs deeply, and a strange look comes over her face. In a guttural tone, she moans, “I… need… a man…”

    When the husband sees this, his eyes well up with tears and his hands begin to tremble. In a passion-choked voice, he exclaims, “So do I!”

  7. The Tories can’t afford to delay their migration reforms until the spring

    Lets just face it, nothing of any significance is going to happen

  8. ‘Morning All

    Can someone with a Speccie subscription ask Minty why she no longer posts here??

    Medley

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    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/99a1d4feb34f6be0ab6258d5cdff693c1dcb1a1fe5aa3e517993be6efa54d023.jpg

    Doh!!

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/39e736641cf81ca13f84a7451d34ad647b29209c66a061eb242945d7b43cf602.png

    1. Good morning Rik

      Lewis Duckworth #supportIsrael #defundtheBBC and M.K. Sikh. liked
      HIN News🇬🇧🇺🇸
      @HerdImmunity12
      Breaking: Welsh Police Downplay Aberfan Terror Attack: Chief Inspector Rob Miles, at a press conference hosted 3.5 miles from the incident, said the perpetrator was “known to the victim” and had carried out a “targeted attack”.

      He confirmed the victim, a 29 year-old-woman was recovering from non-life threatening injuries and that the alleged assailant, a 28-year-old man, who is now in police custody, was “local to the area”.

      Here we see the cleansing of this ‘terror’ attack of a pregnant British woman, reportedly by a Romanian asylum seeker. The people of Aberfan have clearly been ‘terrorised’ as this crime has ‘terrified’ them.

      The use of “local to the area”, is yet another flimsy pretext to cover for the FACT that this demonic crime has apparently been carried out by someone the Home Office have welcomed into our country with open arms.

      A new arrival living in a migrant hotel from day 1 is now “local to the area”, if we want to play games with words?

      Those responsible for this latest terror attack must be held to account.

      1. What a jolly good idea it is to import Roumanians*. Such peace-loving folk.

        * AKA “Roma” = gypsies.

    3. They’re up in arms about Othello being played by a white actor, so what’s the difference?

    1. It’s light here now – clear sky and mist gently rising in the valley below. Might see some sunshine today.

      1. Another heavy frost but clear skies so will be a sunny date. Care home gig this afternoon

  11. Good morning, chums. I slept like a baby last night, totally oblivious to the world. I hope you all did too.

    2. Yes, thank you, Elsie. The boys slept all the way through (as opposed to getting me up to let them out every two hours).

  12. Good morning all,

    Foggy start, at Castle McPhee, some sunny periods this morning, wind in the East going Sou’-East, 2℃≫5℃.

    The public are speaking. Politicians, are you listening?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a328e255f9d9c85021b46a5a0a946b2d50f22d2e9eca9dcb16f970331e1306e2.png

    I wonder what this “consumer confidence” is that carmakers say will be knocked?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/aa2e41492f3fc4ada84afb53e3c08d70a834cd8b322bc18941a8e1c797aaf038.png

  13. 379337+ up ticks,

    Morning Each.

    Wednesday 6 December: The Tories can’t afford to delay their migration reforms until the spring.

    They never had or do have, any intentions of reforming morally wrong mass immigration. safe in the knowledge that the party name tory (ino), is a magnet for the party before Country
    voting fools

    The road to RESET is now fully operational fulfilling the WEF agenda.

    Fact,
    Dt,
    Britain has opened up its welfare state to the world
    Sustained mass immigration is tearing our fragile social contract apart

    This has been achieved by, these past forty years, via the polling stations and the majority voter insisting that the tory party
    (ino) comes before the Country regardless of consequence.

    1. Plus Ogga not one person in the whole country has ever voted or been asked to vote for what they have done.
      Their ongoing ignorant behaviour, in so many ways will end in complete disaster for our country.

      1. 379337+ up ticks,

        Morning RE,

        “has ever voted or been asked to vote for what they have done” once bitten twice shy, bitten numerous times and seeking more of the same is a very dangerous addiction.

        1. Because none of them ‘advertise’ what their real intentions are, people are sucked in by their habitual and pathological lying. It’s the usual way of life in Wastemonster.

          1. 379337+ up ticks,

            RE,

            There ain’t no honest crooks in parliament.

            As I say, once bitten twice shy……

      1. 379337+ up ticks,

        Afternoon W,
        I also do see the party as the NWO minions, supported in turn by legions of repeat fools.

  14. Good morning, all. Light frost overnight and a yellowish sky in the east. Washing ready to go out into the forecast sunshine.

    The NZ “vaccine” whistle-blower saga continues to cause problems:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7b2ff7212207be3931cd686058c1f77526c9d5620705e37c99759441108f0169.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/05dc5554b51c372e19b67bb340041678c8381671919fcbbe2009807d80e0c2ba.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7dc06f26f9b0852f17d7ee396e6deb410e010c24cdb30c2c86e29616a6bef36d.png

    Daily Sceptic – Kevin McKernan Loses Entire Data Base

    The reach of the NZ MoH appears to be long and powerful. Strong backing from…

    Meanwhile, over in Texas, Attorney General Ken Paxton, has filed a lawsuit against Pfizer for fraudulent marketing practices. ‘Up and at them’ Stew Peters has doubts about Paxton’s approach but Karen Kingston, looking back at her best after an attempt on her life a few moths ago, is a voice of reason and thinks Paxton is taking a smart approach – a slowly, slowly catchee monkey situation?

    Stew Peters with Karnen Kingston – Texas AG Files Lawsuit Against Pfizer

        1. The game is up.
          They know it.
          We know it,
          They know that we know it
          We know that they know that we know it.

          But they’ll be damned if they’ll admit it!

          [But they certainly deserve to spend Eternity in Damnation]

          1. It’s a time like this that I wished I could believe in heaven and hell. However, I’ll settle for the World’s population to vilify and damn these criminals for what remains of their vile lifetimes. The latter may be short if some people have their way.
            I do not believe in capital punishment pre se but for those who pushed this narrative and knowingly lied to convince/coerce/mandate people to take this potion, I think I could have a change of heart.

      2. Astonishing that he should lose his data. Even my dull domestic stuff is backed up on two seperate external hard drives.

      3. Astonishing that he should lose his data. Even my dull domestic stuff is backed up on two seperate external hard drives.

      1. Everything I have is backed up weekly/monthly to 3 external hard drives as well as a cloud server for really important stuff.

        1. I don’t use the Cloud – though I suppose phone photos on google are in the cloud.

          My best photos are on two hard disks and the original card.

      2. Everything I have is backed up weekly/monthly to 3 external hard drives as well as a cloud server for really important stuff.

  15. Hi guys, my thanks to vw, who yesterday tried to help me to paste my Wordle progress on today’s NoTTLe site. I used my iMac instead of my iPhone to work on today’s answer which I got in four. Then I had a bit of a struggle to paste my progress on here but finally managed it, albeit with some big gaps between the lines of colour. I shall persevere on future days to get the lines closer. Never give up! Once again, my thanks to vw.

    🟨⬜⬜⬜🟨

    🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜

    🟨⬜🟩🟩🟩

    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  17. A long article.

    DIE versity is our strength?
    Next time your plane is flying in American airspace think about this:

    Is Diversity truly a booster of disruptive innovation and faster development cycles? Wouldn’t it seem more likely that diversity qua diversity gums up the works with employees needing to waste time on DIE training and DIE dispute arbitration? Isn’t diversity basically a cover story for hiring politically privileged incompetents?
    There are a lot of trivial fields where we can probably afford Diversity-Inclusion-Equity, but isn’t air traffic control one where the acronym DIE should be taken literally?

    My bold
    https://www.takimag.com/article/die-in-the-air/

    1. An aviating friend of MOH claims that something similar happened at Gatwick a few months ago, causing many delays and cancellations.

      The nation really needs to keep politically motivated people out of safety regulation.

  18. Morning all 🙂😊
    Frosty but a brighter start.
    I think every one and their dogs, cats and budgerigars, know that the tories have made a very serious mistake, something they could have very easily stopped, but have let carry on for all of their time in office. But it seems that they are too thick and obvioysly totally complacent
    to have even taken into consideration the consequences and future damage they have delivered to our lives, families and the future of our country. For this they do not deserve to be in office, but the alternatives are very worrying indeed.
    Useless Wreckers all of them.

  19. Strange things, memories.

    A wheni story okay.

    My parents put me in b/school in North Yorks, whilst they were off to Nigeria 1959ish .

    Christmas hols spent there with parents .

    I was put on the train by my aunt and uncle. I was wearing winter school uniform , cannot remember whether I caught the Flying Scotsman in Darlington or York, but I know I had a label attached to my coat.. I was to be met by what was called a Universal Aunt at Kings Cross Station .

    My parents had requested that my relatives pack 2lbs of sprouts and a handful of parsnips and a tin of powdered Birds custard in my luggage .

    I arrived after a very sooty exciting journey at KC station, there were several more schoolchildren travelling , and they were also on their way to Kenya, Hong Kong , and other Colonial outposts etc The train guard kept his eye on us all, and reminded us NOT to open a window .

    I seem to remember travelling on a BOAC bus from central London to London airport . The universal aunt provided me with food and drink and checked me in for my flight to Lagos , the other children were escorted by airport staff , to other check in’s.

    AL flights were delayed , fog .. thick fog . I slept on a leather bench in the terminal , by then the BOAC ground staff had taken charge of us all, more food , comics , Ludo and Snakes and ladders board games .

    When the weather cleared and the Britannia flight was called , London was freezing cold and I was glad I hadn’t changed into summer gear for the flight .

    I must search out my Junior Jet Club log book.. the flight took forever , my ears hurt . We refuelled I think at Nice , Rome , Kano.

    My parents , as to be expected , wondered why I looked so overdressed , hot and sticky and did I remember the sprouts .

    They sailed to Nigeria by Elder Dempster shipping line .. so they had NO idea what my flight and journey involved . I was nearly thirteen , a very young thirteen .

      1. You are so kind , Bob .

        I was only the eldest of the four children of parents trawled around Africa when times were very different to now .

        Children and adults of that particular colonial era daren’t squeak a word really.

        Damask Rose will have similar stories as will several others on here.

        I am terrified my memory will fade, life can be quite dull and quiet now , but with a twinkle in my eye , I have had many adventures , and still here to tell the tale .

          1. I think you, too, Jules, have a story to tell.

            Feel free to follow the methodology. I’ve sent to Rose/Maggie

          4. You will be writing the stories for your children, grandchildren and the rest of the descendants, to let them know how we lived. ”Anyone’ covers a vast swathe of society who WILL have interest.

          6. I didn’t move around as much as you did Tom. First 21 years at one address. Apart from three years as an army wife I’ve been quite static. 28 years in our current house. I do write copious notes on my travels though.

        2. You sometimes post some contentious things, which I don’t always agree with, but I respect that your opinions spring from your own personal experiences – experiences that I haven’t had, and things I haven’t seen.
          So yes, those times shouldn’t fade away unrecorded.

        3. I think you *should* squeak the words, without hesitation. You have an interested audience here, and we are not alone.

          Writing your memories down is a great way to keep them fresh in your mind, too.

          I would be happy to proofread or edit any Nottl reminiscences gratis.

    2. Good morning, Maggiebelle

      My sisters, who were born in the 1930s, were at school in Sherborne so they would have had to take flights when they didn’t stay in St Mawes with my aunts. But for some time during the war my parents could not get home to England or my sisters get out to Africa so Belinda and Mary spent school holidays with our maiden Aunt Katherine who became known as Kitty Mum.

      My parents had left Africa by 1954 – the year I went to prep school in Bath – so I didn’t have to take flights at the beginning and end of school holidays. The train journeys home to St Mawes involved walking to Bath Spa station and going to Bristol Temple Meads to change onto a train to Plymouth and another change onto St Austell or Truro where my parents collected me. When I went to school in Tiverton I had a similar train journey to make and I once cycled the 110 miles home from school to Milford-on-Sea where my parents usually spent the winter in the house they bought in 1960. I also attempted to make the journey one Christmas from Tiverton to St Mawes by bicycle but got stuck in a blizzard on Dartmoor and had to go and stay with Polly Courtier, the Tracey family’s old cook, who lived in a little cottage at Throwleigh, until the weather had cleared enough for my father to come and collect me a couple of days later. I think in those days we were encouraged to be more self-sufficient as children than today’s generation are.

      My parents used to travel by boat to and from Africa and the printed passenger lists were a source of interest to a little boy. My mother wrote an account of her life as the wife of a colonial administrator in the Sudan for the Diocesan Review. I shall photocopy it and send it to you.

      1. Hello Richard ,

        You have had a good adventurous childhood , but those were the days when one could do so with relative safety.

        We used to fly to the Sudan but come back to the UK by Union Castle line , Braemar and Warwick Castle sailing from Port Sudan after catching the train from Khartoum which took 2 days on a sleeper .. quite rough and scary , dusty and hot .

        1. Look for a Book by Flame Tree Publishing, it’s called. A Grand Parents’ Book
          Our Story of our life.

          1. Checking out the recent posts here of NoTTLer lives I think there is a rich seam of autobiographies to be be mined.

            Go to it NoTTLers and get published – if you can afford it!

          2. Re-reading my own, has evoked so many memories, I almost get reduced to tears for what was and what might have been.

    3. I was cared for by Universal Aunts too, Belle, on the way to & from Nigeria, in my case getting off at Kano. Usually involved an overnight at the UA’s house. That takes me back… never took sprouts anywhere, though.

      1. You’ve read Not A Bad Life, Paul

        Following my guidelines to Rose and Maggie. now write your own!

          1. Go for it, Paul, It’s not for me, it’s for your descendants, don’t they count for the future?

          2. I confess it took 10 years, what with constant re-visits, re-writes and addendum, as memory sparked in but I think it was worth it. Now continued in a journal for the last 9 years.

            Keeps your brain occupied.

      1. Imagine that, loaded with scrap, as a Pikeymobile exhibit at steam and vintage vehicle rallies!

        3. These days pikeys drive massive new 4x4s. Of course, none are insured or taxed and most bought in cash – proceeds from crime.

    1. What comments were deleted???
      I know she can be somewhat contentious, but that’s life!

        1. A question of personal identity. Some Nottlers are rather more wary of giving their name, gender, sex etc.

          I am pretty sure you are not Wilhelmina.

    2. I wasn’t aware that any of Minty’s comments had been deleted. They aren’t usually directed at other people – the boot is more likely to be on the other foot.

      1. I checked one of Minty’s comments on the death of the 4 teenagers was deleted I have no idea why I didn’t find it offensive and have reinstated it
        I have informed Minty of this

    1. I might have just squeezed in. I have an appointment on the 14th.
      Already had two cancelled this year.

    2. Apparently all appointment slots are in use, so call somewhere else. It’s tiresome. Going to have to go to the walk in centre which’ll be full of foreigners and wait to be seen.

      I get annoyed that I’m paying for something other people who are not benefit from. I know this is ‘morally wrong’, but it isn’t damned well fair.

    3. The response of the health system bureaucrats is disheartening. No apologies, just self justified claims about the good job they are doing. BC are referring some patients to the US for treatment but this guy had the wrong kind of cancer so that option wasn’t open to him.

      Our whole health system is completely buggered. Emergency departments frequently close because of staffing issues, there are over two million in Ontario cannot access a family doctor and so it goes all ofthe way across the country.

      The benefits of social used medicine for you.

      1. But surely, we have hundreds of qualified Doctors. Surgeons, Medical Staff arriving daily via rubber boat, or so the ‘woke’ lefties tell us.

    8. Wishing you a very Happy Birthday, Duncan Mac! Hope all is well with you and yours! 🥂🎉🎂

    9. Grattis på födelsedagen, Monarch of the Glen.🦌 Lang may your lum reek!🥃🥃🥃🥃🥃

    11. Happy Birthday to Duncan from me as well – it’s a long time since we saw one of those Stanley Unwin parody posts……. a very talented and perceptive poster. Much missed.

    1. I see what you mean.
      Feel sorry for her being stuck on these blasted things now.
      A friend of mine was prescribed them for post natal depression, but she threw them away, being aware of possible long term effects. The PND is now past. She should never have been prescribed them in the first place probably.

      1. There have been some interesting posts by “A Midwestern Doctor” on the dangers of anti-depressants. I am very glad to say I have never succumbed to these things. I am reluctant to take so much as a paracetamol these days. The only ‘things’ I do take are vitamins.

        1. I trusted my doctor when I took more and more drugs that the GP prescribed whilst trying to achieve some unattainable unpublished health target.

          I sent a detailed record of the drugs I had taken and the consequent adverse reactions to the MHRA.

          After that my GP didn’t trust me to keep quiet about my experiences and terminated our doctor/patient relationship.

          1. I keep away from doctors as much as possible, while I am in good health. My time will run out and then I will have to do as I’m told, I suppose. But they won’t get me to take anti-depressants or statins.

  25. Cynical Rik has a few awkward questions………

    1 Why is the deaths of a few hundred Palestinian/Israeli children cause for such furore when the death of thousands of children by war and starvation inYemen,Sudan,Mali DRC etc etc goes largely unremarked??

    2 How is it the leaders of Hamas continue to lead their bloated billionaire lives undisturbed in Qatar??

    3 Who exactly profited by Billions by shorting the israeli stock market just before Oct7th obviously with prior knowledge

    4 Where are Palestinian refugees to go? Given the total refusal of their Arab “brothers” to take a single one (after lebanon who can blame them)

    5 Who gets the fairly newly discovered oil and gas just off the coast??

    6 Why has Ukraine vanished from the news cycle??

    So many squirrels

    https://twitter.com/wideawake_media/status/1730940602743709937?s=20

    1. The BBC has a formal partnership agreement with the WEF (I can’t access the document but I’ve seen it) and it’s almost certainly not unique?

      1. Ironically it is probably the Islamic world which will resist a a One World Government, because they are intent on making the world Islamic.

  26. A heavily pregnant woman’s ex-partner has revealed she is a ‘very good mother’ who works part-time at Home Bargains after she was stabbed multiple times during a ‘targeted attack’ in Aberfan yesterday.

    Police are continuing to question a 28-year-old man after mother-of-two Andreea Pintilli was stabbed multiple times by an attacker who posted warped videos of her and her children on TikTok – before ‘lying in wait’ outside the family home as she returned from taking her children to school.

    Last night Ms Pintilli’s ex-partner Teodor Balan, 34, who is the father of her two children, said: ‘Thank God she is OK, I was so worried about her’.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12831515/Heavily-pregnant-mother-ex-unborn-baby-survived-Aberfan-stabbing-targeted-attack-knifeman-police-quiz-suspect.html?ito=push-notification&ci=teoGLMsq4G&cri=0isDrmPpbq&si=p3DSQ2YwOLik&xi=b5f60c52-6dce-4376-9749-a62e964f078c&ai=12831515

    The unborn baby, who is the father of it then?

    1. One of the two. Probably a crime of passion, as it were. However, what are they doing in the UK – aside from claiming benefits?

      2. Romanian – probably moved here legally while we were in the EU. Now we have BRINO the invaders come from elsewhere.

    2. On the morning before the attack the alleged knifeman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, shared a music video on TikTok with lyrics in Romanian referring to a relationship break-up.
      What legal reason are there as to why he can’t be named ?

  27. Good Morning all. At least it isn’t raining😊
    Popped in to post this article because it is something I have talked about before and represents just one of the problems that makes Islam such a danger. E.G. When you see a Muslim with the name Al Andaluse, your alarm bell should ring loudly and clearly.

    Why Are Islamists Claiming Non-Muslim Land?
    https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20203/slamists-claiming-and

      1. I hope they never build that wretched thing! Firstly because seeing Stonehenge is one of the highlights of the journey, and secondly because that whole area is choc-a-bloc with historical remains, and they shouldn’t plough through it with a destructive tunnel.

    4. Our son studied at Plymouth University and my wife and I always took this ‘scenic’ route when we went there, no M4/M5 for us: M25 and M3 were more than enough.

      1. Contrary to much common mythology, indigenous Brits are much readier to make foolish/light displays in public than other nationalities. Certainly, we are much less prudish than most of those with darker skins who live outside tribal jungles.

        1. Probably because most English/British people no longer have any religion, which would previously have acted as a deterrent to such exhibionism. The ABC and the Pope have succeeded where others have failed to eliminate Christianity in this country.

  31. OT but is freezing fog here, and the birds are starving! We have 4 very beautiful fieldfares eating the apples, and about a dozen blackbirds and a couple of thrushes who have stripped the holly tree! I’ve put out soaked porridge oats and sultanas, plus fat balls and suet shred things! The twins are loving the birds!

  32. It was sunny earlier on…………now we have thick fog so I can barely see the end of the garden (which isn’t far). I really hate this time of year.

    1. Cheer up Ndovu. In around a fortnight, the sun starts rising earlier and setting later. Won’t be long now.

      1. Yes – and I’m always glad when the days start to lengthen again. Not really noticable till well into January though.

    2. You have to get outside in the little patches of sunshine and soak up as much as you can. I just got my midday five minutes of sun on my face – it’s gone in now!

      Am dead chuffed that my winter lettuces survived the recent cold snap, with temperatures well below zero! I bought the seeds in France – I didn’t think it would do what it said on the packet!

      2. Presumably this all in Bayern, totally different weather to UKi

        Drier and colder with odd pates of sun.

  33. EXCESSIVE BBC SALARIES

    SIR – My wife and I are 78 and 79 years old. We still pay our licence fee, but we rarely watch any BBC programmes – and never BBC News.

    Instead of increasing the licence fee (Letters, December 5), the BBC should look at how much money is paid to employees, especially Gary Lineker, who apparently earns £1.3million. Paul Coyte of GB News would be more than capable of replacing Mr Lineker – probably for a more realistic salary.

    I suspect newsreaders are also paid astronomical amounts. The BBC seems to forget that it is misusing viewers’ money. It is well past time for change.

    Brian Roebuck
    Alveston, Gloucestershire

    SIR – We are constantly being given the impression that if we don’t fund the BBC adequately it will cease to exist.

    It is clearly indefensible to force viewers to subscribe via the licence fee to a programme provider that is not to their liking. The alternatives available to an independently funded BBC include subscription, advertising or a combination of the two. Product placement and sponsorship are further funding options that should be considered.

    There could be governmentimposed safeguards to ensure political neutrality. These would probably make the BBC appear less politically biased than the public perceives it to be at the moment.

    Nicholas Young
    London W13

    My failed missive on the same topic:

    SIR — “Rishi Sunak is preparing to block increase in BBC licence fee.” (report, December 5). Is it not beyond time we investigated how the BBC clearly squanders its cash? Back in the 1950s–1970s, when the BBC’s sports output was the envy of the world, each sport was presented by one presenter and commented upon by one commentator.

    Those commentators and presenters were the ultimate professionals whose knowledge of their sports and clear distinctive voices made them icons. Today’s risible excuse for sports presenters and commentators, all lacking in charisma, personality and listenability are routinely found in large groups. They talk over one another in a non-stop cacophony of banalities and non-sequiturs.

    Since all members of these cliques are vastly overpaid, isn’t it time the BBC reverted to the years of its former glories and cut out the middling men?

    A Grizzly B
    Sweden

    1. I would quite happily ditch the BBC, live telly and even the box itself – but my OH does like to watch some things, especially sports, and even (dare I say it) David (spit) Attenborough – his programmes now send me to sleep, although the photography is wonderful. The old bu…… has sold himself out to the climate change scam.

      1. Join the club!
        Having said that, the current programmes on the National Aquarium in :Plymouth are surprisingly interesting. I never thought I would coo over sting rays or fret about the health of a three-legged turtle.
        I haven’t paid enough attention to know if it’s BBC or some other lot.

        1. It was a shrewd move on their part to ditch the free licence for the over75s – the age group most likely to be paying up now.

        1. It comes out of our joint account – and we’re pretty law-abiding. I would happily stop watching, but he wouldn’t.

          3. You believe wrong Bill – there’s BBC stuff which they’ve bought in that you can watch on catch-up. You can’t get the news on catch-up (no point really) but GB News is on Youtube

      3. As Orwell seemed to understand the direction of things at the beeb, perhaps Attenborough did also, in the early days he made himself appear so trustworthy and benign – we were all taken in by it. A necessary front get on board as many as possible for the marxist lurch to the left in later days. I wonder this about Neil Oliver.

      4. Clerk of the course at my local racetrack spouted “the climate is changing” because we’ve had a wet autumn and the racing has been off for four meetings. No, it damned well isn’t! It’s the weather and it’s cyclical.

    2. Governments must all being controlled by some higher level, those letters could equally apply to today’s cbc in Canada. They get over one billion dollars a year from the government and earn every cent of their trudeaugeld with biased, left leaning coverage of events.

      After awarding herself a $50,000 salary increase, the CBC president has just announced some major cuts with 600 employees getting the boot.

    3. Why does the Beeb fly reporters etc…. out to trouble spots when there are informed locally based journalists already in situ?

      1. The guy they had reporting in Gaza had such an accent he was hard to understand. The one they had in Afghanistan seems to have decamped to the other side – Secunda – was very well-spoken.

        1. Not all cretins are nasty – they cannot use the brains that God didn’t give them. However, those who run the BBC are especially nasty cretins.

    4. It should be free for pensioners.
      I doubt their assumed right to make such charges would hold up in court.
      Mind you a dopey wokey judge would be of assistance.

      1. It used to be free for over 75s – but that is the main population that still watches live telly.

      3. Why not really see how much they can outrage the indigenous British population by saying that the BBC licence fee is waived for all mixed race and those of other ethnic minorities so that only white people have to pay it!

      4. It was “free” for over 75s – iirc the Government agreed with the BBC that the BBC would fund the licence fee for over 75s in return for an increase in that fee for everyone else and other things of benefit to the BBC. The then Director General of the al-Beeb described it as “a good deal”. The BBC then unilaterally decided to renege on the deal; predictably the Government didn’t cancel their side of the deal and insist the BBC go back to the previous licence fee.

    5. Of course the funding model that they will impose will be a compulsory licence fee. They will probably get round it by claiming that part of the money goes to funding the internet infrastructure used by everyone or some nonsense like that.

      Doesn’t mean we have to watch the propaganda though!
      Science (yes, I know…!) shows that one of the best ways to resist propaganda is simply not to see it in the first place.

    6. I like “there could be government imposed safeguards to ensure political neutrality”. That would be in place of the government imposed bias. If anyone believes that mainstream media have editorial independence and Ofcom is an indepentdent regulator then, well, I have a bridge…

    7. I have never understood why, if the BBC are providing a public service, the salaries they pay ‘talent’ are not pegged to public sector rates. Having worked for 25 years in the public sector my salary never went over the 35k mark, like to see the ‘stars’ happy with that 😂

  35. Advice to Nttlers:

    1. Talk to yourself. There are times you need expert advice.

    2. “In Style” are the clothes that still fit.

    3. You don’t need anger management. You need people to stop getting up your nose

    4. Your people skills are just fine. It’s your tolerance for idiots that needs work.

    5. The biggest lie you tell yourself is, ” I don’t need to write that down. I’ll remember it.

    6. “On time” is when you get there.

    7. Even duct tape can’t fix stupid – but it sure does muffle the sound.

    8. It would be wonderful if we could put ourselves in the dryer for ten minutes, then come out wrinkle-free and three sizes smaller?

    9. Lately, you’ve noticed people your age are so much older than you.

    10. Growing old should have taken longer.

    11. Aging has slowed you down, but it hasn’t shut you up.

    12. You still haven’t learned to act your age, and hope you never will.

    And one more: “One for the road” means going to the bathroom before you leave the house.

  39. “Boris Johnson admits to the Covid inquiry he “should have twigged” how serious the virus was sooner than he did…”

    You will of course remember that in Sweden millions died because they didn’t take draconian measures…….

    1. It seems the aim of the Covid Inquiry is to ‘prove’ that the UK should have locked-down earlier, thus setting the scene for future ‘pandemics’.

    3. Boris is taking the p. He’s just been crying crocodile tears because the committees weren’t diverse enough, there weren’t enough women apparently. Considering that one of the few women was also one of the most toxic (the Commie Prof), this is particularly irrelevant.

  41. The BBC is playing the King’s Gambit.

    Sir David Attenborough’s iconic wildlife documentaries ‘could be axed by the BBC’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-12832217/sir-david-attenborough-wildlife-documentaries-axed-bbc-licence-fee-increase.html
    They know full well that these are some of the most popular programmes on television and sell to a world wide audience. I would not be surprised if they actually make a lot of money for the BBC.
    They are merely mustering support from a very articulate and vocal audience in for their play for more money, knowing that such people will write, broadcast, and complain about this threat.

  44. 379337+ up ticks,

    Nigel Farage would not rejoin Tories under Sunak, Richard Tice insists
    The Brexit Party leader also said his party would challenge Conservative seats in the next election

    The stitch up MK2 is shaping up again, lest we forget the way he dealt with those far righters last time out.

    https://youtu.be/Fc7iuUHk3Yk?si=m9yukGQRe64RJLpo

  45. Sat in minor injuries with junior. Endless hordes of foreigners. Middle easterners mostly, some unintelligible Poles.

    All rather annoying.

      1. Maybe I’m just an incorrigible racist, but I am tired of the hordes of foreigners shuffling in and out.

        The boy might have a fractured wrist. Is it so difficult to be seen in less than 3 hours?

        1. Give them a break….

          (Sorry – a long and cynical life has taught me that black humour (sorree – humour of colour) is the ONLY way to get through the day.

          1. Heh, I got it. He is doing far better than I am. Need to get someone to look in on the dogs.

          4. We are leaving at 5 regardless.

            We physically cannot stay later as el Warqueeno needs to get home.

    3. Dreadful isn’t it and not one of them would have in a penny for the use of.
      Something else that our political Jerusalem have wrecked.

  46. The immigrant salary bar has been badly reported by the media. I questioned the letter by Michael Nazir-Ali earlier. Read on:

    Couples ‘devastated’ by migration visa rule changes
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67630258

    From April 2024, British citizens or people already settled in the UK will need to show they earn £38,700 before their overseas partner can live here with them – a sharp jump from the current threshold of £18,600.

    …and further down…

    The government argues the new £38,700 threshold – which is also being introduced as a minimum salary for many migrants seeking work visas – brings it into line with average earnings.

    Putting a high bar on immigrant workers is correct, especially if they are already married and with families, but not in the circumstances of the two couples featured in this report. Sunak & Co get it wrong again.

      1. As I wrote yesterday:
        “A high bar should be put on pay to prevent the mass importation of cheap labour, not the settling of small numbers of foreign nationals of good character.”

      2. As I wrote yesterday:
        “A high bar should be put on pay to prevent the mass importation of cheap labour, not the settling of small numbers of foreign nationals of good character.”

  47. Possibly 120 people were killed by a Nigerian military drone strike that mistakenly targeted a Muslim celebration in the country’s north. The incident was the latest in a series of air strikes with heavy civilian death tolls as Nigerian forces tackle marauding militia gangs and jihadist insurgents. The victims had been celebrating the festival of Mawlid to mark the birth of the Prophet Mohammed. Roofs littered with body parts, mostly women and children.
    O dear. O dear!

  48. Earlier on there was discussion of anti depressants – here’s one today from Epoch Times

    Reverse Rising Rate of Antidepressant Prescriptions, Urge Experts:

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/reverse-rising-rate-of-antidepressant-prescriptions-urge-experts-5541389?utm_source=ref_share&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ref_share_btn

    A group of experts and MPs have called for the government to commit
    to a reversal in the rising rate of prescribing of antidepressants.

    In an article published in the British Medical Journal on Tuesday,
    a wide range of health experts and MPs have warned that intervention is
    needed as the growth of antidepressants is resulting in huge exposure
    to unnecessary harm.

    Some of the co-authors of the article
    include the secretariat to the All-Party Parliamentary Group for
    Prescribed Drug Dependence Dr. James Davies, Professor of Critical and
    Social Psychiatry Joanna Moncrieff and Conservative MP Danny Kruger.

    The
    article said that over the past decade, antidepressant prescriptions
    have almost doubled in England, rising from 47.3 million in 2011 to 85.6
    million in 2022/2023.Over 8.6 million adults in
    England are now prescribed them annually (nearly 20 percent of adults),
    with prescriptions set to rise over the next decade.

    2. Given all the ‘policies’ being pushed on us, especially in the last few years, is it surprising that more and more people need antidepressants? Convid and all the related harms, net zero nonsense, out-of-control legal and illegal immigration, difficulty in accessing decent healthcare in a timely fashion, sinister brainwashing and indoctrination of our children & grandchildren, disturbing and ever-growing control by unseen entities (WEF, WHO etc), curbs on free speech and so on.
      I regularly wake at night in a panic over what is happening.

      1. It is disturbing but you have to try and shut it out as there is not much we can do to change things, just live our own lives as best we can.

        1. You are right of course. I think it is the feeling of being completely helpless that preys on my mind, especially in the wee small hours.
          Goodnight to you, and anyone else still here.

  49. Dear Supporter

    We have fantastic news coming very shortly!

    We can’t say too much except that we will be all over the news in a week or two with huge support from all the heavy-hitters from the Freedom/Truth movement.

    This should include being on many of the key GB News shows over the course of a couple of weeks. They want to meet our candidates. It’s very early days so far and we haven’t even launched properly yet so we don’t have many confirmed candidates.

    If you have already been in touch with us or if you are now considering standing as a candidate in the next general election please reply to this email and let us know you’re interested. Ideally, you should be able to get to London two or three times during the middle part of December and be on TV.

    Remember, you don’t need any experience. You just need to be passionate about helping the public take back the power that we handed to the 650 people in the House of Commons who say they represent us!

    Thanks again for your continued support.

    Regards

    David Fleming
    Founder of Not Our Future & Independent Alliance

    1. Dear supporter,

      We are now ready to set up our local committees all across the country and this is your direct invitation to help set up and join the one nearest to where you live.

      Join your Independent Alliance Local Committee

      What is a Local Committee?
      A group of at least 5 people, who live in the community, are registered to vote there and who agree to the Independent Alliance manifesto.

      How does it Work?
      The Committee will choose the parliamentary candidate and represent the Independent Alliance in your constituency.

      What roles are involved?
      Volunteers
      Committee members
      Parliamentary Candidates

      How do I Join?
      To arrive at the campaign page for your constituency, please do the following:
      Click on this link: Join your Independent Alliance Local Committee

      Once there, click in the “Constituency” search box on the top right corner of the page and type the name of your constituency. When your constituency pops up as a search result, click it and you will be taken to the campaign page for your constituency.

      You can also find your constituency campaign page by clicking the “Constituencies” button on the left of the main menu (or top of the menu if you’re on a phone), then click on your UK region e.g. Wales or South West where you will be led to a list of constituencies in your region. Scroll down to find your constituency and click to go to your campaign page.

      The campaign page will be essentially empty at this early stage so scroll down to the box called “Visit the forum” and click the “Go” button. This will take you to the forum for your constituency where you can meet up with others and decide to meet up to discuss creating the local committee.

      On the forum page, register and then confirm your email address by clicking the link in the email we send you. If there are no other users, leave a post just to tell others that you are around and will check in and respond later.

      PLEASE NOTE:
      AT THE MOMENT, UNTIL WE CHANGE SERVERS, EACH PAGE ON THE VOLUNTEER WEBSITE MAY TAKE BETWEEN 3 TO 9 SECONDS TO LOAD RATHER THAN BEING INSTANT. PLEASE BE PATIENT WHILE THE PAGES LOAD!

      This is the chance we’ve all been waiting for to finally make a difference in our local community, our country, and eventually, the world. What we start here will have the potential to echo across the globe and inspire all peoples to follow our example and achieve the same goal.

      By helping to set up and join your local committee, you will be taking real and solid action to re-imagine and build a vibrant and healthy human society founded on the principles of freedom, human dignity and above all, common sense.

      Be in no doubt it is only you who can do this, together with all the other people just like you. You, who have already shown by your actions how much you want to safeguard a beautiful future for your children and grandchildren. This is our moment where we will become a force of nature no dark vision can withstand.

      This is the step that can make a real difference. The opportunity we have been waiting for our whole lives.

      So stand your ground, dig in, and get activated. The time is now. There’s a general election in less than a year’s time – we want to be ready for it.

      Join your Independent Alliance Local Committee

      Thanks for your support.
      Best wishes,

      David Fleming
      Founder of Independent Alliance

        1. I subscribed to their emails some time ago, out of curiosity.
          I’m not really sure who they represent or if it is independent of the others.
          They certainly appear to be getting their act together.

          1. I bet both the Labour and Conservative Parties are rooting for them to help split the challengers vote!

          2. It would be splendid to see a new, right of centre, party do what the Labour party did in the early 1920’s

      2. It’s so spanking new that I’m wondering if it’s just a distraction from the established Reform.

          1. I did too, but it and the second one appeared appeared again today, so I thought I would post them.
            I don’t recall seeing them up on Nottle, although I may have missed them.

          2. Yes – I got another one this afternoon as well. I don’t think I’ll be joining the local committee but it will be interesting to see if they have a candidate in the election.

      1. Par four for me.

        Wordle 900 4/6

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

    3. 4 here.

      Wordle 900 4/6

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

    2. Bravo that man!! What a view! Is it Gairloch? 😘
      Oh no! I see it’s Aultbea! Beautiful place.

        1. I once worked alongside a male nurse called David. Whenever anyone referred to him as “Dave”, he would retort, sharply, “Dave’s the plumber. My name is David!”

          1. Whenever Richard Burton was called ‘Dick’ by anyone, he would roundly inform them, “My name is Richard. ‘Dick’ is an appendage!”

    1. I hoped Trump would do it in his first term
      The whole talking shop should be shifted to a central African third world Hell hole.

  56. People on Twitt not too impressed with our greatest statesman’s testimony at the covid whitewash coverup enquiry…

    AJ Roberts
    @ajrobertsshow
    Well Boris, you should have used the £37 billion track and trace app to find your ‘lost’ messages.
    You know the one that text everyone saying they’ve been in contact with someone with this deadly disease, that like your leadership……. never fucking existed!

  57. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c784aa1c44c79f0c1a60c7e307570655115afecd4498314df86da78980da0403.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/12/06/nigel-farage-rejoin-conservatives-rishi-sunak-richard-tice/

    BTL

    Nigel Farage should have nothing to do with the Conservative Party. He made the great mistake of not opposing seats held by sitting remainer Conservative MPs in 2019 and the result is that the Conservative Party is still overstuffed with remainer MPs.

    If Richard Tice wants to help destroy the Conservative Party then he ought to have the grace to stand down as leader of the Reform Party, become its deputy leader and allow Farage to be the leader.

    Many people are already convinced that The Reform Party led by Farage would have a far better chance of beating Starmer’s Labour Party in next year’s general election than the pathetic Conservative Party.

    1. “Many people are already convinced”. How many? Where is the evidence? Or is this just an uncorroborated opinion by the BTL commentator?

      2. Many people are already convinced that the Conservative Party is already virtually dead. I suggest they put it on a life support system powered by a wind generator

      3. Who knows? But as it looks likely that liebour will be next in no.10, I will vote Reform if they put a candidate in our constituency. If enough voters do that, even if (as is likely) no candidates win, at least it will show there could be future change….. assuming we are ever allowed to vote again. We have to start somewhere.

        2. Reform claim to have candidates in every constituency. I’m worried, though. I had a letter from them yesterday, in a handwritten envelope, saying that my subscription had expired. In fact, it was renewed two weeks ago by direct debit. Not impressed.

          Though, in fairness, I’m unimpressed with pretty much everything at the moment.

          Off topic, I won’t elaborate, but what I thought was a generous offer, having replaced an ailing parish copier/printer at my expense, has become a fine example of ‘looking a gift horse in the mouth.’ I’ll say no more at present.

          1. Give them the benefit of the doubt here.

            The hand written envelope suggests that they may have been issued a list and been sending everything out manually.

            Giving them a kick between the pockets they need to update their systems.
            There are too few supporters to risk offending any.

          2. I agree. But they wasted an envelope, a letter and a stamp. Still, I’ve been known to recieve four identical letters from the NHS in a single delivery, so ReformUK comes out smelling of roses, by comparison…

          5. I sympathise. Our rectorette is off on one about “church property” at the moment. Nobody she’s emailed has anything that they aren’t entitled to have.

    2. 379337+ up ticks,

      Evening R,

      A tory party (ino) by any other name will suffice a ?, reform party = tory (ino) MK2.

  60. Question

    A socialist dictatorship on America’s doorstep is sitting on the world’s biggest oil reserves – and it’s about to invade its neighbor to grab MORE. Now ANDREW NEIL demands: Why is the White House asleep while Venezuela prepares for war?

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12833185/venezuela-guyana-maduro-dictatorship-oil-ANDREW-NEIL.html
    Answer
    It suits the Biden administration, which is merely a similar socialist dictatorship.
    Wait for the agreement to import their oil gas etc and close down America’s production.

      1. The time to strike is when your enemy’s attention is elsewhere.
        They succeed; fait accompli.

    1. It seems to have been intended as a depopulation drug. Some were killed, others have their lives shortened by illness, and younger people collapse with heart disease; while fertility issues seem to be the other way of population reduction. All having their intended effect.

    2. Who does she think she is? The Finns should stop importing them right now. Bugger diversity.

    1. It’s no good blaming him – the Cabinet had collective responsibilty, and they were listening to Sage. The spads also were influential. They just want to save their own skins.

    3. If there really is any fault to be allocated it’s to the advisors.
      They were supposedly the experts, they should have made their advice clear, with all the pros and cons clearly identified and rated.

      Judging by what I have seen from these Salem witch trials, they didn’t.

        1. I would dearly love to follow the audit trail of the money that went to support the research that so much of the advice was based upon.

      3. The entire presentation with those crappy lecterns and slogans was always a shit show. Nobody but a fool would have fallen for any of the shite.

    4. Very simply, there are millions who hate Johnson for being Johnson but especially for ‘getting Brexit done’ (I know, don’t quibble). For this he has to be held entirely responsible for every recorded Covid death, real or statistical, and must go to prison (yes, it has been suggested).

      Sadly, millions still think instant and lengthy lockdown would have saved 200,000 lives. They appear to think that if everyone had hidden in their homes for a few months, the virus would eventually have run away, bored with the silly game, and Grandma and Grandpa would have lived for, oh, another year until an innocuous cold virus knocked them out.

      As each day passes, I long for someone to tell Baroness Hallett to do something innovative with an intubator but he or she would undoubtedly be led away for a few days at HM’s pleasure for contempt of court.

      It is the most appalling sham.

      1. It would be nice if some pertinent questions were asked.
        eg. Why did we vaccinate people/kids who were at least/no risk?
        Why herd immunity was abandoned before it was given a chance?
        etc

        1. It’s much less about the merits of any particular measure and far more about personalities, especially those nasty useless Tories.

    5. Rats in a sack. I am reminded of a scene in a Jerzy Kosinski novel where rats trapped in a concrete bunker having consume a trapped human eventually begin to eat each other.

      This is the spectacle we are now enjoying, small men and women tearing away at each other, all as guilty as hell and all deserving of prosecution and imprisonment for malfeasance in public office. There is insufficient whitewash to cover this ignoble lot.

  64. That’s me gone for today. The Rembrandt fetched £9,500,000 – which Sotheby’s translate as £10,965,300. (They’ll be disappointed – they had hoped for £15 million…!)

    Market tomorrow then to Narridge as the MR has a dental appointment. I’ll look in after lunch. Play nicely.

    A demain.

    1. Fees dear boy, fees.

      You, as a member of the fee charging classes, should have recognised that immediately.

    2. Enjoy. I miss Narridge. Living in Thetford, I was spoiled for choice – Norwich, Cambridge, Newmarket, Bury St Edmunds were all reasonably close, shopping wise. Now it’s Guildford, Aldershot, Farnham or bloody Woking. Not the same…

  65. It seems various towns in England have now cancelled Christmas.
    They claim they don’t have enough money. They simply no longer have the faith.

    1. They claim they don’t have enough money. They simply no longer have the faith. have too many Muslims

      1. Of course they won’t Sos.
        And no one will complain because they could end up under arrest.

          2. To err is human…..
            I get distracted with other conversations.
            But I guess you know what I mean.
            See my reply to Ndovu 😊

      2. Ready Eddy has just insulted you appallingly.

        On behalf of all Nottlers I apologise on his behalf.

      3. Hello Ellie 🐘 I’m quite often distracted by family matters as I post.
        What I meant was, if Ramadan etc do take place and people complain about it they could be arrested for islamaphobia. This ban on Christian celebrations will continue as life goes on.
        They already stop and have stopped many St George’s day parades.

  66. Immigration minister Robert Jenrick QUITS as Tory Right revolts over Rishi Sunak’s ‘fatally flawed’ Plan B on Rwanda: PM facing meltdown over emergency law that DOESN’T exempt deportations from European human rights rules https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12833421/Rishi-Sunaks-new-migrant-flight-law-rule-Rwanda-safe.html?ito=push-notification&ci=uvIvKfK3km&cri=h6Z0pgGSZC&si=p3DSQ2YwOLik&xi=b5f60c52-6dce-4376-9749-a62e964f078c&ai=12833421

  67. Interesting…:

    “Following bombshell censorship revelations exposed over the last year, beginning with the Twitter Files, the state of Texas, The Daily Wire, and The Federalist have filed a lawsuit against the US State Department on Tuesday, alleging that the government agency funded censorship technology designed to bankrupt domestic media outlets which have disfavored political opinions.

    The State Department is tasked with foreign relations and has no authority over domestic affairs, yet it took a government office designed for countering foreign terrorist propaganda, the Global Engagement Center (GEC), and unleashed it against Americans engaged in what it claimed was “disinformation,” according to the lawsuit, filed in federal court in the Eastern District of Texas on Tuesday night by the New Civil Liberties Alliance.

    It was “one of the most audacious, manipulative, secretive, and gravest abuses of power and infringements of First Amendment rights by the federal government in American history,” said the suit, which also names Secretary of State Antony Blinken and five other officials as defendants.”

    Americans just love to litigate!

    1. Much as I dislike “lawfare” there are times when it might, just might, be our saviour.

      1. By 2030, which is when they’ve earmarked to stop this war on us and let the reduced population start generating wealth again.

        1. When the parasites let the reduced population start generating wealth again for their benefit…

      2. The example of “lawfare” we see in the US with the frankly ridiculous and groundless actions brought against President Trump are merely demonstrating the panic on the part of the liberal left Democrats.

        People are not stupid and everyone can see the injustice of the attempts to keep Trump off the ballot. This is election interference and quite blatantly pursued.

    1. Given that the UK’s contribution is probably worth far more to them than theirs is to the UK, they should be paying us £2Bn

      1. That’s the fundamental problem – we’re the big player. They need us. Only thanks to the oaf Sunak pretending this was a negative for the UK he’s turned into a positive we’re now lumbered with a massive bill which the eurocracy will spaff on something else.

      2. Joke of the month, if not the century! They’ve always only wanted our money; we are an inconvenience because we don’t fit in.

    4. Brussels should pay at least £2bn to the UK – they need us far more than we need them.

    5. I don’t know enough to have an informed opinion. My knee-jerk reaction is to not support it but you might just as well ask me about how best to grow asparagus.

    6. We’ve already given them £40billion for a “satisfactory trading agreement”

      How did that go, then?

  71. A High Court judge has ruled that a Home Office plan to house up to 2,000 asylum seekers at a former RAF base is lawful.

    Mrs Justice Thornton dismissed the claims made against it following a two-day judicial review over 31 October and 1 November at the High Court in London.

    The legal challenge to the government’s plans was brought by West Lindsey District Council (WLDC), which owns the site of former RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire and is strongly opposed to them.

    High Court judge urged to quash plans to house migrants at RAF bases
    The base was once the home of the famous Dambusters 617 Squadron during the Second World War and later the Red Arrows aerobatics team.

    https://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2023-12-06/judge-rules-governments-asylum-seeker-plan-for-former-raf-base-is-lawful

      1. His ghost is said to haunt Gibson’s office and footsteps have been heard in the empty building.

    2. Mrs Justice Thornton, being female, cannot understand the depth of feeling from ex RAF personnel about an iconic site being turned over to ruffians from a third-world country who have no idea what such a place means to us

      Judiciary and Government having no idea about our history..Wake up!

      1. I agree, but short of lashing barrels together 100 miles of Ireland where do the vermin go?

        Well, aside from the obvious answer – ‘anywhere else’

    3. and home to the Vulcan which carried the Blue Steel missile on which I worked for 3 years

    4. I believe that Wing Commander Guy Gibson’s dog, who MUST now remain nameless, is buried by the Guardroom at Scampton.

  72. Another busy day but home now to get some doggy-snuggles and get ready to repeat it all again tomorrow.

    I have spent the past 5 months getting fitter and losing weight following my younger child finishing his schooling. Phew! What a relief! Time for me after 20 years! I have lost 3 stone and am 80% of the person I used to be. I use bulldog clips to hold up my work clothes. I can get into clothes I haven’t worn since I was 30. I feel (and, without wishing to be boastful, look) great.

    A few weeks ago, I had my first NHS health check, now I am “of the age”. Doctors called last week that I had to speak to the doctor about my results. Had the call today. Apparently my kidney function is too low, my cholesterol is too high and my white cell blood count is not within a tolerable range. Doc suggests I exercise more and lose weight. It took all my considerable resolve not to throw the phone on the floor. If I lose any more weight they will complain I am anorexic, I am fitter than most women my age, I am sure.

    Anyway, rant over. I am going to snuggle my dog and catch up on all the news and your news below. I do appreciate you all.

    2. Ooh Mir! That’s a kick in the teeth! Well done to you for losing the weight and getting fit! To have some disembodied doctor telling you you’ve not done it well enough is really rotten! KBO pet, and enjoy the doggy cuddles!

    3. I’ve only once had a “well woman check” – that was more than 30 years ago. As far as I’m concerned, if I feel well, then I am well. I’ve had some cancer scares: breast cancer twice, with surgery and radiotherapy and the tablets. No medication now except vitamins, and I haven’t consulted a dr since I had shingles in 2019. I keep away from them.

    4. Did they give advice on how to improve kidney function? Cholesterol can be managed through diet – not dieting.

      Keep up the exercise, don’t worry about your weight. What matters – the only thing that matters – is that you are happy.

      1. The kidney one is the worry. Whatever the measure was, it didn’t sound good (for context, my brother has a kidney issue which was diagnosed when he was about 21, back in about 1986 and he is lucky that experimental medication at the time worked for him).

    6. Ignore the stuff about cholesterol. Poppiesdad and I did, and we are both still here 20 and 11 years later respectively. I was told that I had a 10 percent chance of having a heart attack or stroke within 10 years, and poppiesdad’s cholesterol level was higher than mine. That’s ok, I told the doc, that means I have a 90% per cent chance of not having either and those odds are good enough for me. That was at my 65 years old check up. I am 76 now and poppiesdad is 82. I honestly don’t think I will bother turning up for any more check ups, I think the next one is when I’m 80. I intend to let nature take its course. Big pharma is forever moving the goalposts of normality to draw you into their chemical grasp. There is no honesty nor integrity now, it all about you, and your health, being milked to provide profit.

  73. Dreadful thought for the evening.

    Many days ago I suggested that flooding the Hamas tunnels with sea water might be a solution. I stand by that.

    I would bet good money that if it happens that Hamas will leave hostages in situ to be drowned.
    It will be a propaganda coup, and more importantly from Hamas’s perspective it will prevent those hostages from telling the world how they were treated.

    Callous as it may seem, the Israelis should still go ahead.

    But, before they do, they should warn Hamas at the outset that unless all the hostages are released they will shoot every single Hamas rat that appears from a tunnel.

    1. These Lefties are almost all female, young and very middle class in ‘media’ jobs. None of them are engineers, scientists, folk who have to make a living based on physical reality.

      In short, they’re spoiled little girls with no experience of the real world. Asked where power comes from for their telephones and they’ll no doubt point at the wall.

      1. “Where does electricity come from?”
        “The wall!”
        Where does the toilet empty into?”
        “The wall!”
        Er…

  76. Here’s the source of some of the appeals to emotion that I referred to earlier.

    ‘I would like to see some of them in jail’: Bereaved families protest as Boris Johnson attends Covid inquiry

    By James Evenden, 6th Dec 2023

    Families who lost loved ones during the Covid-19 pandemic gathered outside Dorland House in central London on Wednesday as Boris Johnson attended the Covid Inquiry. The former prime minister faces two days of questioning over his government’s response to the pandemic, in which over 200,000 people lost their lives.

    Johnson resigned as prime minister in July 2022 after a series of scandals including reports that he, and other officials, had been present at alcohol-fuelled gatherings in Downing Street in 2020 and 2021.

    His appearance at the Covid Inquiry has already been caught in scandal as Johnson was unable to provide the probe with any of his WhatsApp messages from February to June 2020 – the period of the first lockdown. He denied he deleted the messages and said it was a technical error.

    Bereaved families gathered outside the building to share their anger over Johnson’s handling of the pandemic. Some held placards reading “Johnson partied while people died”, while others held up pictures of their deceased loved ones.

    Johnson is alleged to have said “no more f****** lockdowns – let the bodies pile high in their thousands,” after reluctantly approving a second England-wide lockdown at the end of 2020.

    Louise, from Newcastle, who lost her sister to Covid shortly after Christmas 2020 was outside Dorland House: “I’m still really angry about the way Johnson in particular handled the pandemic,” she told LondonWorld. “I’m not sure we’re going to get any particular answers today to be honest, but I just feel I have to come here today for some kind of closure.

    “My parents went to see my sister, and I kind of gathered it was going to be her last Christmas because she had been in intensive care with Covid-19 and I couldn’t see her. She had managed to come back out for Christmas, and I chose not to go and see her because it broke the rules, and I feel stupid for doing that while they were all out partying.”

    Peter, who came from Wimbledon to join the gathering, is suffering from long-Covid after experiencing a mini-stroke in his right eye whilst suffering with the disease: “I would like to see some of them in jail over what has happened. It’s criminal negligence as far as I’m concerned. I’m feeling sad, particularly sad as I walked up here past all these hundreds of pictures of people who died. It’s very moving. It’s also a feeling of despair, that we have such a lousy government.”

    Lucia Giordano lost both of her parents in 2021 to Covid-19: “Within two days of each other they were both admitted to hospital where they both passed away 12 days apart. It’s very emotional standing here, supporting and being amongst other people who have experienced similar tragedies in their lives.

    “In terms of the politicians and those who have been called to the hearing, it’s been very intense. Lots of information which we did not want to hear, and hoped was not true. The truth is coming out. Bodies pile high and that’s very difficult to take.”

    Johnson started out the inquiry by expressing his regret, stating that he was “deeply sorry” to the families who lost family members during the pandemic.

    Other politicians and government advisors have already been questioned, including former Health Secretary Matt Hancock and former government advisor Dominic Cummings.

    https://www.londonworld.com/health/bereaved-families-boris-johnson-protest-covid-inquiry-4436553

    1. The problem is, Boris does not act alone. The accountability is shared amongst the committee, all the way down to the police officers bashing in doors to drag someone breaking quarantine out of his home, to the funeral director forcing families apart.

      As nice as it is to point at goodies and baddies, the reality is much, much more complicated.

    2. One news story will lead with how the Govt didn’t enforce lockdown quickly enough, another story will lead criticising the damage lockdown did.
      No-one had experienced anything similar to Covid on such a scale and the fact that criticism is coming from both opposite sides of the argument is proof that there was no right answer at the time and there still isn’t – even with hindsight there are differing opinions on what the Govt should have done.
      Can’t win either way.

      1. We live in a time suffering from PWS – Prefect World Syndrome. Nothing shall go wrong. Punish those who allow it to do so.

      2. Quite so, Stormy. More fuss is made of the so-called Downing Street parties than what might have been done differently given what was known at the time. Citing the Swedish model, for instance, forgets that theirs was just as much guesswork as ours. That it might have proved right later was sheer good fortune on their part.

    3. At least you are having an inquiry. Over here the public health officer published a self congratulatory report about how her department handled covid and that was that. Pay raises all round!

      1. You do realise ours has already cost the taxpayers at least £100,000,000 already? And we all know the recommended outcome will be to lock down earlier, harder and for longer.

  78. Q: Any particular song you think of irt the collapse of the Conservative Party?

    A: Aye, there is: “When The Boat Comes In” (Dance to your daddy)

    1. Night, Bob.
      I’m off too. Must be the weather… :-((
      Heavy snow forecast in the next 2 days. Bummer.

  80. Here’s a wee story I have saved, on the subject of robots (I read something today about McDonalds automating the burger preparation and delivery process):
    “Union boss & Henry Ford are walking through a Ford factory. Ford is extolling the virtues of the robots assembling the cars; how they don’t take meal breaks, don’t take vacation, aren’t off sick, don’t need paid shift allowances – the Union man listens quietly, and at the end of the discourse, asked Henry “And how many of your cars will your robots be buying, Mr Ford?”
    Sub-optimising…

      1. Our sons (42 and 40) are now proud to relate that they were never taken to MacDonald’s by their parents. How times change!

          1. It will help you appreciate what real restaurants call burgers.

            I did succumb to a Maccyd lunch a month ago just do that I could sit out on their patio, enjoy the sunshine and watch the passing world. Damn, they are expensive nowadays.

        2. Never ever a Pizza place either , nor EVER ever allowed them to eat on the hoof , apart from an ice cream.

          Moh has never worn a pair of jeans , unlike me !

          1. We never went to Mc Donalds, but the boys would have fish & cips sometimes. Went to Burger King one time about 30 years ago with younger son – never again.

            Husband no 2 has never worn jeans either. I have but prefer cords these days – warmer and more comfortable. Summer trousers – lighter material, plenty of pockets as I can’t be bothered any more with bags.

  81. E’enin’ all.
    The reason I’ve been hors de combat for a while is because I’ve been attending nightclasses at Oxford Uni; An Intro to Geological Sciences. A bit of a cheat as I had done two years of a geology degree about a hundred years ago (had to have time off to have a knee op and never caught back up 😞)

    I finished my essay tonight and submitted it – The Geology of the Vale of Neath. Fingers crossed its OK

    2. Just for interest or some deeper reason.

      Far less noble, my later than late arrival nowadays is because of other ailing members have become the main icemaker at our curling club and that is stealing about three hours a day of notl time. If it was a paid position it would be reasonable but it is four volunteers into one.

      1. I think I’d like to try to qualify for a degree when I retire in a few years and so thought I’d ease myself in gently and try to get used to studying again to see whether I’ve got it in me.

        1. Probably a good way to avoid some of the volunteer requests that will come your way as soon as it is known that you are retiring.

    4. Well done!

      Henry’s godfather’s first degree was in Natural Science at Cambridge. After working for Shell for three years he then studied for an MBA at the INSEAD in Fontainebleau in France and at Harvard in the USA. He then made obscene amounts of money in the financial world and then, when he retired from being a director of Warburg’s Investment Bank he decided to study for another degree for fun – this was In Philosophy at the Open University.

      1. Rather like me and my Fine Art degree. I had the heavy stuff (languages, linguistics, education) so when I was forced to retire I did something completely different.

  82. Important article:

    It’s over for this Conservative Party: too many Tory MPs hate their own voters
    Sunak’s attempts to reform migration were thwarted by the party’s Left. Robert Jenrick was right to resign

    ALLISTER HEATH

    There is a reason why Rishi Sunak’s last-ditch immigration proposals turned out to be a defanged, neutered variant of the policies advocated by Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick, who rightly resigned in protest. The Tory Left-wing caucus is too large, too petulant, too intent on political hara-kiri: it was prepared to veto any genuinely novel thinking.

    Even the modest reforms that Sunak actually agreed to may turn out to be too much for the One Nation caucus, despite the cautious welcome it gave the plans last night. Left-wing Tory MPs are convinced that they have the moral high ground, and are ready to gang up with Labour and damn the electoral consequences.

    Jenrick, who put principles before power, is a considered, thoughtful politician convinced that Sunak’s plan won’t deliver what Tory voters are rightly demanding. This is why the Government may well be doomed. Unlike Jenrick, too many Conservative politicians dislike their own voters, a sentiment increasingly reciprocated by a conservative electorate enraged by the Government’s betrayal of their values and interests.

    Dozens of Tory MPs – they are often quite open about it – are embarrassed by the suburban attitudes, the quiet patriotism and the cultural conservatism of Tory Britain. On most issues, they disagree with those they pledged to represent, and generally find the views of much of Right-leaning Middle England to be cringeworthy, especially on immigration.

    The Prime Minister is far from blameless, having mobilised Leftist Tory MPs to force out Liz Truss, but he is stuck trying to hold together a party that has degenerated into an unmanageable, ungovernable coalition of irreconcilable ideologies.

    The Tories are pathologically divided, almost comically so, seeking to be the home of centre-Left technocrats and genuine Right-wingers, social democrats and free marketeers, anti-car eco-warriors and petrolheads, supporters of national self-government and lovers of international bureaucracies, advocates of “net zero immigration” and those who believe that a net 745,000 a year is still too low, supporters of Israel and apologists for Hamas, opponents of the woke ideology and devotees of critical race theory and extreme trans activism.

    All parties are heteroclite, especially in a first-past-the-post, two-horse system like the UK’s, but this ideological incompatibility has gone too far. It is preventing the Government from reflecting public opinion. We live in an increasingly politicised world: the culture wars are real, and too many Tory MPs are on the wrong side.

    For years, this subversive minority – probably at least a third of the parliamentary party on a bad day – has found more in common with their more centrist Labour and Lib Dem MP “colleagues” than with the “Tory Right”, party activists and the broader Conservative electorate. They tend to hold Red Wall and lower-middle-class voters in the greatest contempt, assuming them to be easily connable oiks. To describe such politicians as useful idiots for the Left would be too kind; they are the Left.

    Even though they supposedly represent the Conservative Party, their icons and heroes are invariably “progressive” – Tony Blair, Greta Thunberg, Barack Obama. The causes that exercise them, if there are any, tend to be either ultra-local, statist-technocratic (tweaking tax credits for the film industry) or cretinously Left-leaning (cutting prison sentences, continuing the rush to net zero or allowing gender self-recognition).

    These Left-leaning Tory MPs have too much respect for credentials and pseudointellectual “expertise”, and too little for common sense or traditional values, which they dismiss as irrational and “low status”. Even when they do believe in some conservative or classical liberal principles, they are defeatists who think such ideas are “on the wrong side of history”. Wokery can’t be defeated, merely slowed down, they argue, just as the West assumed socialism was inevitable in the 1960s.

    These renegade MPs suck up to outlets such as the BBC, better to relate to their dinner-party companions, who tend to be other members of the new, “high-status” ruling class. They spend much of their time on Twitter, or if young enough, on TikTok, lapping up nonsense. They are hooked on Left-wing podcasts that reinforce their insularity, their sense of comradeship with “rival” politicians and lull them into believing that their progressive views – often held by just 10-30 per cent of the electorate, almost none of whom vote Tory – are the mainstream and everybody else are extremists.

    Their electoral strategy has been simple: shower the Tory base with cash and other perceived goodies – in the form of the triple-lock pension, massive increases to NHS spending, Covid handouts and frozen planning laws – and hope that it doesn’t notice when it is betrayed on every other issue. It might have worked once, but no longer.

    The One Nation Caucus counts some 106 Conservative MPs, refuses to leave the European Convention on Human Rights and doesn’t want to repeal the Human Rights Act. Most of its members have accepted the Blairite legal revolution, and are in fact substantially to the Left of where New Labour was in the late 1990s on tax, immigration, welfare, and law and order.

    The One Nation position is clear: it believes Conservative governments “played a vital role in creating and protecting the ECHR as well as the Refugee and Torture conventions”, and the group not only holds these treaties “dear”, but sees them as a fundamental part of “protecting the UK’s democratic legacy”. Such a vision is incompatible with a more conventional interpretation of British conservatism, but it has now been implicitly accepted by Sunak and James Cleverly.

    The Supreme Court judgment on Rwanda demonstrated that Britain, under current treaties, cannot lawfully control its borders. The principle of non-refoulement reigns supreme. The choice is thus either the status quo promoted by the One Nation folk (tweaked slightly by Sunak), and political oblivion, as Braverman warned yesterday, or a Brexit-style disentanglement from international treaties that no longer work.

    Tragically, Sunak’s approach will satisfy nobody, and won’t change the country noticeably before the election. This disaster is on the Tory Left: they have declared war on their own voters, and will be held responsible for the catastrophe about to engulf the party.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/12/06/iover-for-tory-party-too-many-tory-mps-hate-own-voters/

    1. The only way that Starmer can be defeated is if the Conservative Party is completely eradicated and all the right of centre conservative Conservative MPs join the Reform Party. There i no time to lose.

      If this does not happen very soon it will be too late.

    2. Most of my news sources come from this forum. I have little conception of what the country at large thinks. Allister Heath posits a view largely consistent with mine but it might easily be a form of self-delusion, imagining that large swathes of the country think as I do.

      1. Do you not discuss current affairs with other people? I end up chatting to fellow racegoers, people in queues, pedestrians when I’m walking the dog … Invariably, they echo the same views as I hold – and no, I don’t start the political conversations. I’d say much of the country (those who work and pay taxes for instance) share our views.

  83. Evening, all. The Tories have no intention of reforming migration; by the Spring they’ll probably have called an election and left it to Starmer.

    1. In an episode of Endeavour, Chief Inspector Bright (played by Anton Lesser) had suffered a heart attack and was put into a hospital where there was a suspicion that patients ran the risk of being killed by a villain on the staff. Lesser chuckled at this because in the entire episode he had to lie in bed pretending to be unconscious whilst he was being paid his full salary as an actor to – as he put it – do nothing.

  85. Often in accounting of our history some bloke has to die before the historical Truth emerges. Such is the case with the demise of the duplicitous warmonger Henry Kissinger, Klaus Schwab’s mentor.

    George Soros might be the next domino to fall. Apparently his son is funding the teeny bopper fake country artist Taylor Swift who wishes to buy back copyright of her albums provided she becomes a spearhead for Biden’s re-election campaign.

    We truly inhabit a mad world. Ukraine has now vanished up its own fundament and the worst hawks in the Senate and Congess in the US have gone into reverse no longer advocating more money for the Zelensky clown regime.

    Glimmers of hope are springing up all over.

  86. Often in accounting of our history some bloke has to die before the historical Truth emerges. Such is the case with the demise of the duplicitous warmonger Henry Kissinger, Klaus Schwab’s mentor.

    George Soros might be the next domino to fall. Apparently his son is funding the teeny bopper fake country artist Taylor Swift who wishes to buy back copyright of her albums provided she becomes a spearhead for Biden’s re-election campaign.

    We truly inhabit a mad world. Ukraine has now vanished up its own fundament and the worst hawks in the Senate and Congess in the US have gone into reverse no longer advocating more money for the Zelensky clown regime.

    Glimmers of hope are springing up all over.

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