Tuesday 30 April: The SNP’s serial failures serve as a powerful case against independence

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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895 thoughts on “Tuesday 30 April: The SNP’s serial failures serve as a powerful case against independence”

    1. Good morning Mr Norfolk, similar weather in East Anglia but 8C .

      1. Its just what is needed. pity the April heatwave forecast by the Met Office did not arrive.

  2. Good morning, a bright and peaceful morning at 5.40 am, it’s a enchanting early morning .

    1. “Some enchanted morning
      You may see a stranger,
      You may see a stranger
      Post on an online forum
      And somehow you know,
      You know even then
      That somehow you’ll see them
      Again and again”.

      (With Apols to Richard Rogers)

      Morning Dancing & all.

      1. At the break of the day
        I’ve finished dancing upon the moon
        It must be time to wake
        The birds singing brightly
        Good morning sunshine
        And good morning to you and Richard Rogers.

      2. Er, no, King Stephen. Apologies are due to Oscar Hammerstein; Richard Rodgers wrote the music. (Good morning, btw.)

  6. Behind enemy lines, Ukraine is busy setting Russia ablaze. 30 April 2024.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0493973c6a52bab30aa9551bbad7ea2cff6fe2f04a487260713ce8f765103a85.png

    Whereas Russia is desperate to display ‘destroyed’ western kit, Ukraine is hard at work eroding Russian capacity and, crucially, hitting Moscow where it hurts – inside its own borders. The news today that two railway lines in Russia have been destroyed is a clear example of an evolving strategy designed to hurt a security-obsessed Putin and degrade Moscow’s ability to wage war.

    Propaganda much? Russia is displaying some Western equipment at a park in Moscow. It is not “desperate” to do so! Two trains are reportedly on fire but there is no evidence for it or that the Ukies are involved or how serious they are. Trains are not “train lines”. The photograph is not a picture of either of these incidents.

    With this level of support you have to wonder just how bad things are for the Ukies?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/29/behind-enemy-lines-ukraine-is-busy-setting-russia-ablaze/

    2. I go to UK Column and Colonel Douglas McGregor for reports on Ukraine nearer to truth.

  7. Who gets to ask the questions on Question Time? 30. April 2024..

    What there was, however, was the most unrepresentative audience unanimity. About 30 people, plus the three whose questions were called, must have spoken on air. Without, I think, a single exception, they all expressed Left-wing views.
    For them, everything was the Government’s fault for not spending enough money. Rishi Sunak was a billionaire (he isn’t, actually) and so understands nothing. There should be no illegal immigration controls, let alone sending people to Rwanda. Everyone who wants a sick note should have one. The place was almost literally an echo chamber.

    Charles Moore has woken to the bias of the BBC. Whoever would have thought it? The next thing he will discover is that the Telegraph threads are just as fake. The Question Time audience (as anyone who applies online discovers) is carefully chosen to avoid any nasty “far-Right” influences. The BBC itself would be a credit to any totalitarian regime. Apart from its political convictions it would make Stalinist Russia green with envy.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/30/bbc-bias-question-time-left-wing-studio-audiences/

    1. How many of the Reader’s Letters are fake? We know a few definitely aren’t because we know who wrote them but there are others which surely must be, such as letters that come from one Sebastian Monblat, I think his name is.

      1. They often come with prosaic, very boring names too. Staid, sensible English names so as to dupe us.

  8. Good morning from a bright, sunny, but still rather chilly Derbyshire.
    Blue skies when I got up, but looks like they are clouding over and 4°C on the Yard Thermometer.

    A bloody exhausting day yesterday largely entirely caused by Stepson’s own actions.
    After a bit of difficulty and doing a bit of shopping in Lidl, we found a Methodist Hall that hosts a Monday Morning Advice Session and Food Bank.
    Discussed a couple of problems and had what I feared confirmed and also had confirmed that, for those on Universal Benefit, there is no postal address available to advise them of necessary changes, it’s either a phone call or setting up an internet “journal”.
    Not much at the food bank, but a nice load of bread rolls that stepson was not interested in!

    Back to his flat for a mug of tea, then hence to Tunstall for a mental health review appointment.
    And there the fun began!
    Stepson went in with the “Mental Health Practitioner”, a Nigerian I would guess, whilst I was sat waiting.
    After an hour I was invited to join them and then closely questioned about my 1st marriage, having to repeat things several times over.
    Then the fun got even better!
    My stepson is, obviously, on medication which he receives in weekly batches.
    Unfortunately, he tends to “over-medicate” and, after picking up his prescription last Tuesday, had taken the whole bloody lot be Wednesday!
    Because of the overdose and, despite it being 5 days previously, I was told to take him to A&E at the other side of the Stoke Conurbation for a blood test!

    On arrival, after a fantastic tour of the hospital car parks before I finally found a parking slot, we went to the hospital reception only to be told that A&E was on the far side of the place and we had to walk round the outside!
    We eventually navigated our way through the construction works to A&E only to be told that we should have been told to go to Pathology as the medication overdose was several days ago!!!
    HOWEVER, the lady who initially greeted us in A&E, sensing my growing frustration, located a member of staff, a very pleasant lad in his 30s, who had toxicology experience who said that, given what the medications were and how long ago it was, the blood test would not be necessary, but he would need an ECG.

    After a comparatively short wait, this was duly administered but not without some difficulty as the supposedly adhesive sensor tabs kept falling off Stepson’s body, and we were told to sit and wait for it to be analysed.
    After a 2nd, longer wait, we were told that it was ok, though with some minor anomalies, and that Stepson would be prescribed his two evening tablets to take before he left the hospital, but it might take a little bit of time as they were not drugs that A&E kept in stock!

    After another wait a nurse appeared with one of the tablets. Apparently they were still looking for the 2nd.
    Then after another wait and getting close to 18:30 without the 2nd tablet appearing, Stepson decided he could make it home on the bus and, with leaving him with a £10 note for the bus fare, I left with some reluctance, but a great deal of relief, getting home about half seven.

    Not the most enjoyable of days and I will confess, being exhausted as I was, my driving was not at its best.

    3. Morning, BoB.
      The sheer purblind stupidity of Don’t Care In The Community would be gobsmacking if the results all weren’t too predictable.
      Nobody will admit that they have made an appalling mistake, especially now that the buildings and land have been sold off to developers.
      What started as a humane solution to many patients incarcerated for flimsy reasons, became an unstoppable medical fad and a money spinner.
      You have the patience of a saint. But that knowledge doesn’t solve the problem of Stepson or an unhelpful medical system.

      1. Anne, I’ve had enough.
        I will say that the DT has been a star through this.
        No problems with using her car whilst the van’s laid up and, when I got home, she’d lit the fire in the sitting room and was already making me a mug of tea!

        1. Hello Bob,

          So sorry to say this but your quality of life is being affected by an individual with no quality of life , your energy resources are being depleted .

          Here , there is a driveway next door to us full of trees , come the Autumn we are constantly sweeping up leaves . Everyday a pile of leaves by our front door , and no matter how much one of us sweeps them up, there are more the next day , then there are the seeds , sycamore and acacia and others which embed themselves in the grass , there are always a few that appear to be growing overnight , I forgot to mention the elderberry shoots etc…

          So I guess the endless problems you are experiencing with stepson are similar to gathering autumn leaves , yes , sorry it is a silly comparison, but I feel exhausted for you .

          1. Thank you Maggie.
            The support I get from here is much appreciated!
            As for self seeded trees, I’ve a dozen new horse chestnut seedlings growing up the “garden”!
            I’m in two minds whether to just pull them up or transplant them to replace the ash and elm that’s been lost in recent years.

          2. Pot the seedlings on , then replant .

            I could really howl my heart out re this Ash die back , the tree bods are clearing vast areas of woodland of dead ash , and goodness knows how much money it is going to cost councils to close roads in order to fell the trees on our B roads.

            I gather the virus originally came over from the continent .

            The thing is , by ridding woodland of trees, brambles quickly take over , and some lovely blue bell woods around here are now wastelands of thick bramble cover .

            Seedlings don’t stand a chance.

          3. I’ve just dropped a dead 4″dia ash this morning.
            Cut it into approx. 8′ lengths so a useful bit of firewood.
            Dropped a larger one t’other day, 6″ and half a dozen 8′ lengths.

          4. It must be a huge fireplace to take an 8′ length! Or do you feed it like a yule log?

          5. Billy Sugger!
            The 8′ lengths are stacked awaiting cutting to 8″ to 12″ logs and, where needed, chopping.

      2. This grief has been going on for some time. I remember well back in 1980 when my then-girlfriend, a French nurse specialising in paediatrics was allocated to one of the two newly-built wards, for the geriatrics. She hated it. In order to pay for the building, they cut the staff and fights would break out between the patients and the nurses because the the nurses could not keep up with the demands of some quite aggressive and confused old people.

        The policy was to demolish the old Dorking General Hospital, a converted Victorian workhouse. It had its problems, with dry rot and an air of solid Victorian dourness, unfashionable and unmodern, but the care of the patients and morale of both staff and patients in the old hospital was vastly better. They went ahead anyway with the demolition, and it is now a housing estate with most of the functions transferred to Redhill and Guildford, and a “health clinic” surviving in the old 1980 geriatric wards.

        It seems that those eager to spend NHS money see a Victorian hospital and dollar signs flash over their bonus pots as they think “ripe for redevelopment”. The politicians insist that the NHS is better funded than ever.

    5. So sorry to hear of your frustrating day, BoB. As Minty has remarked, God bless you; you are a very caring man.

    6. Picking up on your last sentence.
      Please be very careful, an accident won’t help any of you.

      Well done you for all you put with

      1. Yes, I know!
        I was tired and frustrated by following a Merc Van that was barely doing 40 on the twisty bits, so when I got to a decent straight bit started to overtake him only to find he’d also accelerated. As the road was clear, I just floored it to get past him.
        Then glanced at my speedometer!

        1. Think you should contact your medical services and say you have depression from it all. Ask for social services to be involved and explain how your stepson has brought your mental health issues on. That way, you will get a two prong approach. Seriously. Do it now even if you don’t feel depressed because you might develop it and by then it will be too hard to push for help. That is what I think. Think ahead. I think you should be asking for help from Adult Social Services anyway. Your stepson needs more support than you can give but if you say you will do anything or everything, they will let you. You need to accept that you cannot help him like this. Do this before things really get bad. Get the ball rolling now.

    7. You’re a hero Bob and your stepson is very lucky to have you take care of him so well.

  9. Good Moaning.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/29/ireland-migrants-britain-rwanda-simon-harris/

    “Hypocritical Ireland is now facing the consequences of its woke virtue signalling

    Isn’t this what welcoming Ireland is supposed to be doing: offering sanctuary to anyone who fears for their safety in brutal Britain?

    29 April 2024 • 1:22pm

    Who could possibly have imagined that the Irish public would turn out to be no more keen on illegal migration than people in Britain? This is, after all, the country of Mary Robinson, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, who still travels the world lecturing us all about how the rich world is oppressing the poor and weak through climate change.

    The lectures don’t end there. Ireland has prided itself on “standing up” for the Palestinians, to the point it tried to persuade the EU to issue a statement demanding that Israel refrain from any kind of military response to the October 7 terrorist attack. And just last month, its High Court ruled in March that it would be illegal under Ireland’s constitution to designate Britain as a “safe third country” for refugees on account of the evil Rwanda policy.

    Ireland was supposed to be the shining human rights citadel on the hill, rising above nasty, racist and xenophobic Brexit Britain – or so the country’s liberal elite loved telling the world.

    And yet. The Irish public is suddenly marching the streets waving banners with slogans such as “Ireland is Full”, “Ireland for the Irish” and “Irish Lives Matter” – the latter of which could well earn you a trip to court if transposed to “English Lives Matter” in an English street.

    What’s more, it’s not just the Irish public bleating about migration. Suddenly, the government is fed up with migrants spilling over the border from Northern Ireland into the republic. It wants to change the law so that migrants can be returned to the United Kingdom whence they came – the United Kingdom which a few weeks ago was deemed to be unsafe.

    Isn’t that what welcoming Ireland is supposed to be doing: offering sanctuary to anyone who fears for their safety in a brutal country like Britain? Yet it seems that Dublin’s enthusiasm has begun to pale a little now the numbers are rising. Rather than an exceptional paragon of woke virtue, it is, in other words, just like Britain – and indeed every other country.

    If you needed further proof, just look at Germany. Nine years ago Angela Merkel was chirping her country’s moral virtue through her willkommenskultur policy – which said to refugees: if you can make your way to Germany, don’t worry, we will put you up, feed you and clothe you. What is Germany doing now? Er, considering deporting asylum-seekers to Rwanda.

    No western country can sustain a policy of complete openness to migrants for long. There are just too many people in the world whose living standards could theoretically be raised by migrating to the West. Any Western country which opened its doors wide to migrants would quickly have its public services, housing stock and welfare system overwhelmed, making everyone poorer. The fact that Ireland is suddenly moaning about migrants spilling over the border from the United Kingdom just goes to show that virtue signalling only goes so far.

    It also suggests that the Rwanda scheme is beginning to work. It might be expensive, and few migrants may ever be deported there, but that misses the point: the scheme is a powerful deterrent which tells economic migrants that if they are thinking of posing as refugees to come to Britain, don’t bother. We will protect you if you are in danger – but your safe berth will be in Rwanda, not here.

    Perhaps goody-goody Ireland will soon start threatening to send asylum-seekers to Rwanda, too.”

    1. As I used to say to people who called me a Nazi for questioning their willingness to take the proverbial huddled masses.

      “How many should Britain take, 50,000, or 500,000 or 5 million or 500 million or 5 billion?
      Because sure as Hell there are 5 billion people on the planet who would quite happily take your lifestyle.”

      In those days 5,000 crossings was nearer the mark.
      I no longer bother with such conversations, they’re incapable of seeing where it is likely to end.

    2. I always said that the only true way to help these people is to develop businesses in their own countries, to provide wages and communities. OK there might not be much profit but at least it would prevent refugees here being a massive money pit. If we did that though, the ruling elites would not be able to virtue signal, politicians would not get supranational jobs and the Human Rights industry would have their golden goose taken away.

  10. Von der Leyen criticises European far right for being ‘Putin’s proxies’. 30 April 2024.

    The European Commission president, Ursula Von der Leyen, has criticised the far right as “Putin’s proxies”, while refusing to rule out working with other rightwing nationalists, as campaigning began ahead of June’s European elections.

    The “far-Right” of course have discovered the truth about the war and Fond a Lying doesn’t like it.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/29/ursula-von-der-leyen-criticises-european-far-right-for-being-putins-proxies

    2. “Something something Far-Right”, it’s like the Emperor from Star Wars “Something something power of the Dark side”.

    3. Interesting how the Guardian no longer puts links to directly post their articles on X-Tw@ter or Faceache.
      I wonder why?

        1. Hardly a scapegoat – he promised Brexit and he failed to deliver. He is a chancer and a spiv and deserved all he got – just a pity that more politicians don’t get the same.

    1. Excellent, BoB, but the only children I see are the two sitting on the floor and playing the tambourine and the bongo drum.

      1. I think you’ll find that the rest of the players are young teenagers, so still children.

        1. No, post-pubescent teenagers are minors or adolescents, but not children. They are very different. Teenagers have their own vulnerabilities, perhaps even more so than children, and need to be treated carefully. Not that this detracts from the delight offered up by all these young people. Musically, I love the tonal quality of these ancient instruments – less full-bodied than their modern equivalents, but with a fineness and an elegance that is swamped by the more shouty power of modern convention.

          When I first saw the young Alma Deutscher perform in her opera ‘Cinderella’ as well as a remarkable world premiere of her completed violin concerto and her new piano concerto, at which she was soloist in both, she was 12 years old and still a child. She was eighteen when I travelled out to Salzburg last year for the premiere of her latest opera ‘The Emperor’s New Waltz’. I have therefore seen her transition from child to teenager to adult (although still technically a teenager for now), and most reflected by the revisions she made to ‘Cinderella’. I actually prefer the childhood versions, because I actually find them more mature and insightful, and less pandering to standard modern conventions. Today, she is composing less and concentrating on furthering her career as a conductor.

  14. ‘ Waltzes back in whilst its sunny outside ‘

    Daily Mail
    ‘ Duchess of Sussex won’t join Harry in the UK when he comes here for the Invictus Games Anniversary ‘
    Thank goodness for that, she’d not be welcome and the invictus games were nothing to do with her anyway. But I always notice the press call her Duchess of Sussex whereas they call our own beautiful Princess of Wales Kate Middleton – so very disrespectful.

    1. Meghan would have her work cut out dodging the rotten tomatoes and eggs if she were to set foot in the UK again.

      1. It still has not dawned on her the offence she and her friend Oprah Winfrey caused to the whole nation in that one soundbite moment during that interview. It exposed the difference between a nation that has still not got over its civil war over black slavery and a nation that used its imperial might to abolish it nearly two hundred years ago.

        “Will the baby be brown or ginger” is something any curious auntie might ask of the couple. In reality, he most resembles Thomas Markle, which must please the Duchess greatly!

        1. And will Lilibet grow up to resemble her paternal grandmother, the former Princess of Wales, or her maternal grandmother, Doria Ragland?

          1. Or neither – we don’t know the genes in those children, and the RF are very silent about the whole thing. To save the precious “darling boy” and his father embarrassment the RF are prepared to let the people in the future potentially pay for what may be two complete impostors in the line of succession. The RF shouldn’t get away with any more under-the-carpet sweeping than they have already done.

            Apart from Harry’s vexatious claims for IPP status – he should be prohibited from bringing any further cases on the basis that it is a waste of the courts’ time (and public money) – like with what happens to other vexatious litigants.

          2. Damned
            Nasty
            Authorities

            could use an appropriate test to find out.

            And while they’re at it many would like to see Harry’s own paternity tested!

  15. Thousands of migrants bound for deportation to Rwanda are ‘missing’. 30 April 2024.

    Thousands of asylum seekers earmarked by the Home Office for deportation to Rwanda have lost contact with the department, a Government document suggests.

    Out of 5,700 people identified for removal, 2,145 “continue to report to the Home Office and can be located for detention”, the impact assessment says.

    Lol! Come the day and there will be none.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/04/30/migrants-rwanda-missing-home-office/

      1. They probably have direct payments into an account. It’s not as though they have to appear in person for handouts.

        1. That’s a bad idea. A really bad idea.

          In other words the Government doesn’t know who the recipients are, where they are, or even if they’ve

          gone back to their homelands and are just transferring their money every few weeks.

          2. For all the Government knows, the “account holders” could be employees of the Home Office using false names

          3. For all the Government knows, the “account holders” could be employees of the Home Office using false names

    3. 386663+ up ticks,

      Morning AS,
      Stop ALL welfare to NON INDIGENOUS until such times they reveal themselves again.

      Incarcerate ALL home office employees as a security risk within a nation that is on a war footing.

      1. But, but that would be waaaaycist. Support the indigenous in Australia and New Zealand, but NEVER in the UK. Right?

  16. 386663+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Tuesday 30 April: The SNP’s serial failures serve as a powerful case against independence

    More like,
    Tuesday 30 April: The lab/lib/cons serial failures serve as a powerful case against independence, then again that has always been the plan has it not, nigh on 50 % of the nation wanted foreign rule, obstructed progress, and pulled every odious trick in the book

    to obtain it.

    In ALL fairness now, ALL current lab/lib/con coalition members
    should have, as mandatory, to accept a minimum of two alien
    troops into their homes to help alleviate the hotel bills put upon the decent tax payers.

    Since the passing of Mrs Thatcher (RIP) every member/supporter/voter in regards to the lab/lib/con mass uncontrolled / govn. controlled mass paedophile, assorted felons coalition party, must accept much of the blame for the atrocious state we find the nation in today.

    One saving grace is as a lasting legacy we are leaving a nation
    super fit for the invaders who will find very little to change from their daily way of life.

  17. The BBC is insisting that Kate Forbes is unelectable because she argues that the economy and public services are more important than gender politics, and that this stand is unacceptable to SNP members. Furthermore, it is quite unacceptable to appeal to Green supporters more concerned with protecting the environment than with gender.

    She lost last time because 30,000 SNP members resigned from the party in the dying months of the Sturgeon leadership and were therefore not able to vote. Will they make the same mistake again?

    1. Wikipedia is not terrible complimentary about Forbes’s rival John Swinney. An old hand with a long record of failure and torpitude, but a great survivor and is the preferred candidate of the Scottish Greens. He also has the support of Alex Salmond.

      My feeling is that a Swinney leadership could prop up the SNP’s control of Holyrood until the 2026 elections, but a Forbes leadership might bring down the Government and force an early general election in Scotland, but one that the SNP are more likely to win. A Forbes leadership might also deny Labour its majority in Westminster.

  18. Good morning, chums. I overslept this morning.

    Wordle 1,046 5/6

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  19. Morning all – brief visit as we have a power cut in 1 hour whilst they clear trees from around the power cables – a tout a l’heur

    1. When they set about hacking the trees in my garden under their power lines, I watched them like a hawk. The jobsworths may insist on a 4 metre clearance, but I pointed out that if they did that, the regrowth would shoot up and it would need doing again in a couple of years. Keeping the horizontally growing branches 3 metres away though would encourage regrowth sideways and would keep them away from the power lines for much longer.

    2. Had that unannounced Sunday evening just as it was getting dark. The cables pass through the branches of a large oak along the road and the cable was damaged.

      We were due road re-surfacing that evening – gasps of envy? – and I was bewildered when the lights went out: how could re-surfacing the road affect the aerial cable supplying the electricity? Perhaps the contractors had damaged a pole/cable? No, the road work cancelled from Saturday due to heavy rain wasn’t happening, the power outage was due to a repair to reported damage. It was very quickly and effectively repaired and well within the time frame estimate that one of the technicians making the repair gave me.

      Road resurfacing took place last night and I managed to get home through the barriers as the work area was just along from my home. I was helped by another friendly and helpful workman. It’s not all bad.

      1. We had road resurfacing done in my road and there were so many complaints about the shoddy job that was done, that the contractors had to come back and redo it. It is still bad, but I’ll bet that our LibDem council won’t change the contractors. Sub- and sub/sub etc. contracting should simply not be allowed.

    1. We are apparently going to be subject to ‘sizzling’ temperatures soon. No doubt it will be hailed as the hottest day of the year with the mercury rising to a predicted…. 22 C. Gosh, I’d better find a dark room. .

    2. Pah! Very windy here….I’m worried about a couple of my older trees in the gardens….and overcast. I expect rain as well from the look of the skies. 11 degrees according to Siri.

  21. Good morning all and the 77th,

    A sunny morning at McPhee Towers, wind in the South, 10℃, going up to 15-16℃ today.

    Somebody called Claire Coutinho who is allegedly a government minister has realised that Net Zero is damaging to industry and ‘will say that climate policy is at a fork in the road’.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2c84a13056bfbe49e75b244c356782ad8a53a4744f8949dfef420ac193dc7b51.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/04/29/net-zero-risks-crushing-businesses-warns-energy-secretary/

    But hold on, she hasn’t realised that the whole thing is a lie and a scam. No, she just thinks that the drive towards Net Zero should be done by the ‘free market’ and not the state, conveniently ignoring that if the free market is required to drive towards anything mandated by the government through its acts and statutes (not law), it is not free at all.

    Never mind, someone from the red team will be along soon to correct her mis-thinking.

    1. The old mantra of the Ecology Party, which became the Greens was “think global, act local”. Well, have those drawing up Net Zero policies thought whether transferring industrial capacity to China and absorbing the shipping costs to the cause serves Net Zero better than a trade policy that encourages more benign local operations?

      1. Best laugh of the morning, Citroen1. Good morning, btw. (And where is Sir Jasper, btw?)

          2. Go back and catch up on the zeds. It’s what I do after sleepless nights – too many of them, despite what Squire Western has to say.

          3. Go back and catch up on the zeds. It’s what I do after sleepless nights – too many of them, despite what Squire Western has to say.

    2. Very little room inside one of those. In fact hardly enough space in which to swing a black cat.

          2. Close … but no cigar.

            I can’t believe no one has picked up on my reference to Mackems in the OP.

        2. There was on the Boeing Stratocruiser, too. Parents flew to Nigeria with BOAC on Stratocruisers many times.

    3. “Flying Hedgehog”, as Ze Germans called them. Only a couple of those remaining, I believe, along with a couple more Short Sandringham civilian versions.

    4. I was told that me, my sister and mother and other mothers and children were evacuated from Egypt, during the Suez crisis , by boarding a Shorts Sunderland from the Bitter Lakes .

      I was 9 years old , I can vaguely remember the night time journey , but little else.

  23. 386663+ up ticks,

    May one ask said Balance Singh the one legged Indian tightrope walker

    Why do ordinary decent peoples put up with this continuous political shite day in day out ?

    Very good question.

    1. I think the internet exposes government malfeasance which is why they want to shut down internet free speech.

  24. A little birdie today

    Wordle 1,046 3/6

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  25. Good morning, all. Bright and sunny in N Essex this morning.

    Conspiracy theorists on the issue of 15 minute cities and movement control etc. take a bow. The very thin edge of a very large wedge has just been manoeuvred into place in Trudeau’s Canada. Where else?

    https://twitter.com/juneslater17/status/1784912067209634074

    More precise information:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/82858f64072b4230073f52f24fe0a294730acc881b5d6abeaf6dc1b5a8de0c37.png

    2. Bethselamin here they come

      The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
      For years, the fabulously beautiful planet of Bethselamin increased its booming tourist industry without any worries at all. Alas, as is often the case, this was an act of utter stupidity, as it led to a colossal cumulative erosion problem. Of course, what else could one expect with ten billion tourists per annum? Thus today the net balance between the amount you eat and the amount you excrete while on the planet is surgically removed from your body weight when you leave; so every time you go to the lavatory there, it is vitally important to get a receipt.

    3. 386663+ up ticks,

      Morning KtK,

      I can hear Bulala echoing in the background, and getting louder & louder.

  26. I fail to understand how people can become so blasé about the demographic disaster that has been allowed to build up over recent decades.

    3. Such people often lead the shitegeist but are the first to flee to somewhere more pleasant when they are encroached upon. Nutters.

  27. Does anyone see the irony of Ireland complaining to England about unwanted travellers crossing their border and causing law and order chaos in their communities.

    1. Part of the ‘charm’ of the Irish is that they can hold contradictory points of view simultaneously. They can sincerely, passionately and innocently believe what they know to be wrong and illogical. So it is deeply sinful for illegal immigrants to come from England to Ireland but completely acceptable and laudable for Ireland to send those it does not want to England.

      1. You would not welcome a cup of raw sewage for elevensies, simply because of your duty to return it from whence it came. Once it leaves your body, it becomes someone else’s problem.

        1. Yes but you return it to where it needs to be, not necessarily where it happened to be immediately before it came to your attention.

          Where it needs to be is a matter for discussion.

          1. Hell may have been their original departure point – but the trouble is they want to bring it with them.

  28. Good morning all ,

    Is this the reason why the Scots have negative interest in their politics when the real truth is Scotland has been sold off piecemeal .

    The governments of China, Qatar, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates have extensive property portfolios in Scotland collectively worth nearly £250m.

    Among the properties owned by these states – often purchased using money from their national investment funds – are warehouses, office buildings, student accommodation, Highland estates, and a private island.

    These owners were revealed through The Ferret’s analysis of the new Register of Overseas Entities, which has revealed for the first time the true owners of some of Scotland’s properties.

    Our findings have prompted concerns about the growing influence of foreign states — which have chequered human rights records – over Scotland’s economy.

    The Scottish Greens described the sums of money involved as “staggering” and argued Scotland’s land and resources should not be benefiting regimes with poor human rights records. Transparency International queried whether the country’s “national infrastructure is in safe hands” and said there should be an “informed debate” about overseas ownership of property.

    China
    The China Investment Corporation (CIC) — a corporate entity owned by the Chinese government — owns properties worth collectively £10.7m, through firms registered in Luxembourg and the Isle of Man.

    Headquartered in Beijing, the CIC was founded in 2007 as China’s sovereign wealth fund and is mandated to make overseas investments and “seek maximum returns for its shareholders within acceptable risk tolerance”.

    CIC’s property in Scotland includes premises at Houston Industrial Estate in Livingston, the Clydesmill Industrial Estate, Carmyle, and block six at Inchinnan Business Park in Inchinnan, Renfrewshire. CIC also owns 17 Arkwright Way in Irvine – a commercial block in North Newmoor Industrial Estate.

    Elsewhere, CIC has a long term lease on 7 South Gyle Crescent in Edinburgh, and it is owner of a Bathgate path.

    China has been condemned by Amnesty International for human rights abuses which include the “systematic repression” of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang and Tibet.

    This is particularly worrying for Scotland as there will always be political influence where there are such large sums of money involved.

    Read more ….

    https://theferret.scot/foreign-states-bought-millions-scottish-property/

    1. Hang on a minute there..
      when you as a country decide to perpetually swap engravings of His Majesty, month in-month out, in return for Chinese tat.. and oil.. you leave the recipients of these engravings two options. 1/ dig a hole and stash the GBP cash. or 2/ spend it in UK on education & property.

      I’m afraid it will stay that way until you either crank up exports and/or sort out your energy policy.

        1. you mean “we exchange GBP for USD to buy oil”.. and those GBP are not “converted” they are exchanged and only the Treasury shreds them.. so whoever ends up with those engravings are left with the same two choices.

          Luckily for UK the GBP is a major reserve currency, it even makes up part of the US Dollar Index DXY so there’s some kind of balance between options 1 & 2.

          1. The GBP go to the US then don’t they?
            And every country who buys oil must have the same problem? (excluding new oil deals made in other currencies)

          2. yep. Just ask the Chinese.. even Iran won’t accept the Micky Mouse renminbi.

            probably why the USA have a 25 trillion dollar economy and can fund a military with 1 trillion to make sure we all sing from the same song sheet. However, at least they, and the UK, don’t try and break the laws of the “currency trilemma” like the CCP.
            It always ends in tears if you try.

      2. Kow, you can also invest in other country’s currencies, goods and services. I bought some Polish ‘tat’ (some superbly made brushes) so China is not the only country selling items.

        While we do need to export more, before that we need to look at taxation and public sector debt, which means radical change in all sorts of areas: public sector spending, high taxes, ideological policy and fundamentally,, the state realising it is irrelevant, annoying and not the centre of the economy.

        1. the problem with export led mercantile countries is.. the UK stuffs them with as much paper as they want.
          The strange phenomena of stashing foreign currency as financial assets for their magic sovereign wealth funds. Effectively locked on the left hand side of their balance sheet and never used. They all do it.. Denmark in pension funds.. Norway. They should spend it.
          Start buying up Division 3 footie teams.

        2. the problem with export led mercantile countries is.. the UK stuffs them with as much paper as they want.
          The strange phenomena of stashing foreign currency as financial assets for their magic sovereign wealth funds. Effectively locked on the left hand side of their balance sheet and never used. They all do it.. Denmark in pension funds.. Norway. They should spend it.
          Start buying up Division 3 footie teams.

    2. In many countries, foreigners aren’t allowed to own property.
      I wonder why?

  29. To be sure , indeed.

    They allow their thieving brigands to travel over the Irish sea with their disgusting habits to inflict chaos on our green spaces, steal our dogs , pinch scrap metal and cause rowdy feckless behaviour

  30. Who gets to ask the questions on Question Time?
    Obviously biased Left-wing studio audiences shame the BBC
    Charles Moore : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/30/bbc-bias-question-time-left-wing-studio-audiences/

    “One thing, however, has not changed in nearly 40 years – the fee. I think I got £150 then. I get £150 now, which works out, given the hours of preparation and travelling involved, at roughly the minimum wage. Not much for quite a bleak experience ”

    BTL

    I suspect that the appearance fee is dictated by your political standpoint. You get £150; Peter Tatchell and all panellists from Stonewall probably get £1,000; and Ken Livingston probably gets £5,000.

    2. The argument that the audience say they’re Conservative voters is a nonsense. The audience is entirely biased and deliberately so, bussed in from outside to suit the desired result and present a lie as truth.

    3. Ken Livingstone won’t be getting any more fees from the Beeb as he has Alzheimer’s.

      2. Poor bugger.
        As much as I detested his politics I would not wish that on my worst enemy.

        Though I MIGHT make an exception for certain leading Globalists.

    1. When he’s finished being PM in Slovakia (wherever that is) can he come and be our PM please.

    2. Is he free on Thursdays?
      There is a desperate country looking for a leader.
      p.s. being free on the other 6 days of the week would be even betterer.

  32. ‘Morning All

    This is all over the MSM

    Oh Wait………….

    FFS!!

    https://twitter.com/A1an_M/status/1785021177250935162

    Medley

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/45231426cb1da126b136705286a106449b9ca880f9efb70a9485ddf23ce86697.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/99164931e0db49dccbac73e62dfe681796ba0121c7c65407cf8e076c3c88f331.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b5de5b1cb0d691468420d8f536a98a91a570c5f6bdf84a3abdccb0e828d6b950.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9a585ca7b8ac89c9f73f56765592560945a9158504b4ed3de6c45a14943792dd.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ad4ff694b48aa09b6b7f7207e80f277783062b275895fe20fcdc7586645140ed.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a391f0adfb33bed7cb3b37c231fc9db3f29249f4abbe3f71e3ccef3979b0239e.jpg

    2. Heck. That last one describes life while selling Allan Towers and buying the Dower House.
      Just the sheer dread of what extra complications and set backs the morning would bring.

    1. He also did nothing about this:

      Did you know that the former CEO of LGBT Youth Scotland, James Rennie, was a ringleader of Scotland’s largest paedophile network?! He was convicted of 14 offences including molesting a young boy over more than four years.
      Some of his victims were introduced to him through LGBT Youth Scotland schemes.
      This same organisation is still in Scottish schools today! Talking to children about their sexual preferences, orientation, and gender identity.

  34. Just been out to open the greenhouse. It is warm and mild. I expect the Wet Office will warn us to stay out of the sun and drink lots of water….

  35. We always knew that the Conservative party is in reality undemocratic, now Brady confirms that its ‘movers and shakers’ are also anti-democratic.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c6b8bb90fdd479703c0261eb121934001d0b3af5dd3ac64576171175975f674e.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/04/29/tory-members-should-not-pick-leaders-in-government-brady/

    Quiet in the cheap seats. Don’t you know that only those of us in the pocket of the central bankers must choose party leaders?

    Contacted by The Telegraph about his comments, Sir Graham said he had made similar arguments before in public. He also made it clear that at no point was he advocating for a change in leader.

    The MP for Altrincham and Sale West will step down at the next election and will publish a memoir, Kingmaker, after the general election.

    Another one getting out before the shit hits the fan.

    “Kingmaker”. Doesn’t think much of himself, does he?

    1. As he ran the party as it “elected” one failed leader after another – I reckon he should keep very quiet.

    2. If any Tory MP earns the title of Kingmaker, it must surely be Penny Mordaunt.

      They don’t like it up ’em. So she held it quite still during the event.

    3. It’s a bit late for the head of the 1922 committee to realise this. Mrs May didn’t exactly shine, either.

      1. Not enough people have grasped the fact that Mrs May is an extremely evil woman. And any system of choosing a leader which selects Dave Cameron must be very deeply flawed.

    1. NOW they’ve noticed.
      It is known that many medications and other treatments affect the sexes differently.
      I’m not just talking about the hormone stuff or hysterectomies.

  37. Ah, I see. You want to decide who is in charge based upon favours, back hander, jobs for the boys and so on rather than let, you know, the people paying the organisation who only benefit from the policies of the person selected.

    Right. OK. At least you’re admitting you’re corrupt and anti democratic.

  38. the painful schadenfreude is that their politicos & new elite have decided to eradicate their culture within a decade. Quite easy with a small nation (barely 5 million people) and few cities.

    And they are still at it.. every day 500 new arrivals.

  39. the painful schadenfreude is that their politicos & new elite have decided to eradicate their culture within a decade. Quite easy with a small nation (barely 5 million people) and few cities.

    And they are still at it.. every day 500 new arrivals.

  41. He also hated white people, fiscal duty, private property – other people’s, he wanted his own protected. He, like all good socialists hates freedom of speech and individual liberty.

  43. ‘Four people have been injured following a stabbing in Ilford, according to reports.
    The victims were allegedly attacked at Hainault Tube station in Redbridge, near Essex.
    Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, said on social media that one man has been detained.’ The Telegraph.

    Odds on the stabber being black are not being quoted by bookmakers, but my estimate is that the odds would be:

    Black 1.01
    Any other colour 45.0

    (Decimal odds)

    1. A* Student.
      Always said “good morning”.
      Kept himself to himself.
      Known to the authorities.

      1. In my next life I must remember to be none of those things as they always seem to be stabbed first.

          1. I suppose a law change allowing everyone except blacks and Muslims to carry knives would be regarded as racist, even though it would make a certain amount of sense?

          2. A more sensible law would be to strictly control who can enter this country and to deport those who have not worked or who are not of benefit to the nation. That’d mean no muslims.

          3. It would also mean no Afro carribeans and no Albanians. We need a number of East Europeans though because these are the chaps who do the car washing.

          7. It would also mean no Afro carribeans and no Albanians. We need a number of East Europeans though because these are the chaps who do the car washing.

      2. Previous convictions, awaiting deportation, fifth attempt getting into the country, released on recognisance.

      1. OK, I’m happy to lay that bet.😂

        Update odds change

        White 1.0
        Any other colour 150.0

    3. Picture in Telegraph …. perpetrator appears NOT to be African. Not clear whether machete or Samurai sword.

      1. Police say , do not speculate…

        So, it could have been … oh forget it , someone who would rather be detained in a British prison than be sent to Rwanda?

        1. Middle easterner then. It’s always the diversity. When they refuse to say, it’s definitely the diversity.

      2. Fair enough….he does indeed appear to be white! wonders never cease. that is a particularly evil looking blade he has as well.

      3. SE

        Steve E Jones
        13 MIN AGO
        Forgive me please – but isn’t it remarkable how fast the MSM can pump out a picture of a sword carrying white bloke…………..or is it just me who thinks this is remarkable.

        Reply by Anthony Thomas.

        AT

        Anthony Thomas
        9 MIN AGO
        That’s todays MSM but at least you know when they don’t show a photo it’s bound to be ‘One of Them’

        1. Judging by the lone beard and no hair on the upper lip, smacks of Islam. Is he a convert?

  44. ‘Four people have been injured following a stabbing in Ilford, according to reports.
    The victims were allegedly attacked at Hainault Tube station in Redbridge, near Essex.
    Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, said on social media that one man has been detained.’ The Telegraph.

    Odds on the stabber being black are not being quoted by bookmakers, but my estimate is that the odds would be:

    Black 1.01
    Any other colour 45.0

    (Decimal odds)

  45. Even stupider I think. Anyone who thinks that Tory MP’s should be able to choose their own leader rather than the membership should take a look at where that got them. We chose Boris and he got an 80 seat majority. They got rid of him. We chose Truss and they immediately got rid of her. They selected May and Sanook without consulting us. No further observations are necessary.

    1. I wonder why the post is being removed? Is it the terror of an impending election campaign?

      HMRC just enforce the rules. That those rules are absolutely, monumentally stupid, vindictive, offensive, appalling, farcical and moronic is not their fault. Almost all of government is stupid, vindictive, offensive, appalling and moronic.

      The problem with the public sector is that there is no impetus to improve because pay is a given so time is no object. There is no need to do anything at any pace because the is no penalty for being inefficient. What matters to someone else is irrelevant to the state machine so the tax code doesn’t change to be easier to interpret, planning law can remain byzantine and a mess, councils can keep refusing development, environmental law remains a farce of contradictions, the utter nonsense of ‘climate change’ is pushed in to everything, the diversity nonsense is pushed to ensure continual delays and hinderances – delightfully, for officialdom.

      For the state to start to work, to serve the public, there must be an incentive to force efficiency and that means making sure pay is only provided on the basis of outcome.

      1. HMRC doesn’t know the rules as they’re so complicated.
        I had a run in with them 20+ years ago when they tried to purloin my redundancy package after I had told them they all about and they ran out of time. My tax office was in Scotland but elected to go before the Commissioner here in the south. When the paperwork arrived at my local tax office the case was dismissed and I was told by HM Inspector it should never have been brought. They repaid all the tax I had paid and subsequently paid all my expenses and gave me compensation.
        I think the rules have become more complicated than ever since.

        1. Brown – well, Brown’s treasury – added over 10,000 pages to the tax code.

          It’s now over 17,000 pages, all to soak some groups, excuse others, create even bigger loopholes (the videoing window cleaner registered as a media company). The effort has gone into taking more, by ever more byzantine and muddly means and that’s only caused them problems as their appalling legislature creates holes elsewhere.

          If as much effort were put into cutting state waste and redesigning for lower, flatter taxes – such as a flat rate of 18% on income tax regardless of employment type than nonsense like IR35 more tax would be raised over time, everyone would be better off, fewer civil servants would be needed… but no. It’s an ever tightening fist that collects ever less water.

        1. In that context is screw an euphemism for ****?

          Some of the other euphemisms need more than 4 asterisks such as ****; *****; ***** ***** **** *** ****’* **** ******.

          Talking of euphemisms – a friend of ours gave those who used the smallest room a felt-tip pen so that they could write their own term for the place on the white door. Powder room, comfort station, the john, the jacques, bog etc. etc. on it. I thought the best euphemism was euphemism.

    2. The HMRC? Isn’t that like the HMS? (Can’t let Grizz do all the heavy lifting.)

  47. Quotes of Steven Wright – American comedian:

    1 – I’d kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.
    2 – Borrow money from pessimists — they don’t expect it back.
    3 – Half the people you know are below average.
    4 – 99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name.
    5 – 82.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
    6 – A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.
    7 – A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
    8 – If you want the rainbow, you got to put up with the rain.
    9 – All those who believe in psycho kinesis, raise my hand.
    10 – The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

    There’s more – I’ll post some later.

    1. The Warqueen is bright. Properly top of the heap clever. She’s way more intelligent in raw processing than I’ll ever be.

      I asked her what it was like talking to some people and she explained that it’s a bit like a virtuality where you can predict the entire course of the conversation but have to go through the rigmarole of the wasted time and just want to skip to the end, but can’t.

    3. #3 only works with a normal distribution of values.
      So: 51 friends, one has an IQ of 100, the other 50 have an IQ of 1.
      Average is not 50… but 3.

      1. Just boobed that – for underline, did ctrl + U, rather than selecting from the list under the text box. Disqus has shown me the programming code instead of underlining… see below. There’s a lot of lines, so only a snippet here…





        Tuesday 30 April: The SNP’s serial failures serve as a powerful case against independence – Not the Telegraph Letters




          1. Elon Musk walks into a crowded bar. Instantly, the mean wealth of those present shoots up to the tens of billions. However, the median wealth hardly changes.

  48. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/29/stomach-churning-injuries-for-council-worker-bitten-by-dog/

    You can put your hand in Mongo’s mouth. I often do to clean his back teeth. He’ll try to pull away. As for biting, the only time he’s closed his jaws over a human was to pull an overexcited small child (after the mother had fallen asleep on the loo) away from a stair gate and that was an emergency after blocking, terrific barking didn’t work. The baby was barely bruised. The worst came from his paw over the babe’s chest.

    1. Stupid headline says “council worker” when the old lady was 88 and out to see wild plants.

  49. Good morrow, gentlefolk. Today’s (recycled) story Late again – Soorreee
    ENTERTAINMENT NIGHT

    It was entertainment night at the senior citizens’ centre. After the community sing-song led by Alice at the piano it was time for the Star of the Show – Claude the Hypnotist!

    Claude explained that he was going to put the whole audience into a trance … “Yes, each and every one of you and all at the same time,” said Claude.

    The excited chatter dropped to silence as Claude carefully withdrew from his waistcoat pocket a beautiful antique gold pocket watch and chain … “I want you to keep your eyes on this watch” said Claude, holding the watch high for all to see.
    “It is a very special and valuable watch that has been in my family for six generations” said Claude.

    He began to swing the watch gently back and forth while quietly chanting … “Watch the watch – Watch the watch – Watch the watch”

    The audience became mesmerised as the watch swayed back and forth, the lights twinkling as they were reflected from its gleaming surfaces. A hundred and fifty pairs of eyes followed the movements of the gently swaying watch. And then, suddenly, the chain broke!!!

    The beautiful watch fell to the stage and burst apart on impact!

    “SHIT” said Claude.

    It took them three days to clean the Senior Citizens’ Centre and Claude was never invited to entertain again!

      1. As a care user and resident I find that joke both ageist, ableist, pro-continent and gerontiphobic. This is typical of the wild exaggeration of the quality of care home entertainment

          1. Things are going well thank you, I’m making a slow but certain recovery .
            the spinal surgery has been very effective I’m beginning to mobilise. I’m tearing around the care home in my electric wheelchair scattering carers and nurses as I go. All being well I should be able to go home early autumn.

          2. That’s very good news that you’re still making steady progress. I don’t think you were mobile last time we heard from you. You should pop in here more often.

          3. Excellent news!
            Going out for a few pints with Second Son this evening, will raise them to your continued improvement, Datz!

          6. Glad to hear it, Datz. You’re lucky to get spinal surgery. when I asked my doctor for a referral for spinal surgery he could only offer physiotherapy – a complete waste.

        2. It’s a joke in case you hadn’t noticed. All about the power of hypnotism and none of those you mention. Sorry that you are so easily offended.

          1. Oh dear, Tom! Datz has a sense of humour, whereas yours just failed. You do know he’s been seriously ill for a long time?

  50. The SNP’s all Tony Bliar’s Constitutional serial failures serve as a powerful case against independence.

    Had to fix that one, too. I really don’t know what the DT is coming to, honestly I don’t. It doesn’t seem able to get a proper handle on anything these days.

    1. They won’t attack Blair. It’s draw parallels with how similar current Tory policy is.

      1. Not a chance I’m afraid. One politician attacks another from the past and it’s open season on them all. The herd sticks together.

  51. It is interesting that the tube stabber’s photo is instantly on the front pages so we can see he is white, whereas 99% of the time no name/ no photo and all ‘for legal reasons’.

  52. Good Morning all. Nice day here, sunny but cool.
    Two videos to start with that I hope you enjoy. The first Tucker Carlson in Russia and the second, the new Military Cathedral just outside Moscow. The photography in the cathedral is exceptional so I thought it worth posting. Sorry, for those unfamiliar, you have to click on where it says “watch on You Tube” to see the Cathedral video.

    https://twitter.com/i/status/1785066534995714067

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sHavfEbzcc

    1. Please send us here in Snowdonia the sun. I’m beginning to forget what it looks like.

      1. Poor dear Squire, just for you, Terpsi will dance in the presence of poets, mortals and God’s. She will wake up the lugubrious weather God from his stormy slumber and tell I’m to bring sunshine to Snowdonia 😁

  53. Not surprised. These people are protected by the very people that should be arresting them.

    Rochdale whistleblower Maggie Oliver reveals she took

    anti-depressants, lost her home and was threatened with jail by her

    fellow police officers while investigating grooming gangs.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-13363063/maggie-oliver-threatened-jail-police-bring-rochdale-grooming-gangs.html

    I expect similar reasons for hiding what really went on in Dunblane.

    1. The whole system is corrupt. These people reach a point where they protect one another and the rest are hung out to dry, never to progress because they threaten the hegemony.

    2. Just watching, ‘The Confession’ starring Martin Freeman. Similar problems with the modern, ‘shove it in the corner and chase promotion instead’ police system. Based on a true story.

    3. Just watching, ‘The Confession’ starring Martin Freeman. Similar problems with the modern, ‘shove it in the corner and chase promotion instead’ police system. Based on a true story.

  54. Geoff kindly opened this thread at 5.45 am this morning and at that time there was a clear blue sky and sunshine, its seems to be more cloudy now . I shall do a sun dance 😆

    1. I am looking forward to the results of your sun dance arriving here. I suppose it will take a while to travel here from Norfolk though.☹️

      1. I’m on the Suffolk borders. It’ll be okay, the sun God and I will Quick Step the Sun up towards Manchester, turn left and Waltz over the mountains avoiding speed Limits and shall arrive later today 😀

  55. Great! I’ll have a look for my sunglasses and break out the Aperol Spritz this afternoon then.😁😁

  58. Ha ha! Some good news in the Telegraph. ‘Welshman who refused to pay English parking ticket until it was translated landed with £10k bill’. Serves him right.

    2. Megan Markles wrote messages on 🍌 maybe the tax bill was leeked out on a leak for the Welshman 🤣

    3. Talwch eich bil treyh a rhowch ( 🐑 ) y gorau I drafferthu defraid 😊

      1. Bit stumped by that as my Welsh is not good enough to translate. Oh Terpsi, could you please do that sun dance again as it has started to spit with rain now. Thanks.

        1. I looked in a book – i think it says ‘ stop bothering sheep and pay your tax ‘ but not sheep bothering as in muzzies. More like reading poetry to sheep. I’ll pop by and see Helios maybe he’ll send beams your way 😊

          1. I’m afraid old Helios is declining to oblige today. At least the wind has stopped howling.

          2. I’ll have another word with Helios, maybe he’s been listening to doom goblin Greta about climate change 🤔

          4. I’ll see Helios tomorrow before going for a walk and will tell him to ignore the doom goblin and send sunshine to Snowdonia

          6. It should be sunnier today, I’ve given Helios a talking too .😁

  60. Morning all 🙂😊
    Calmer today no wind. Must have been some I’ve eaten.
    It’s not just the SNP guilty of serial failures most of our politicians are absolutely useless.
    When did Hainalt in Essex become North east London?
    I’m so pleased that Astra Zeneca are being ‘hauled over the coals’. They ruined almost 4 years of mine and my families lives.
    Relaxing today after our pacey week. Back home tomorrow evening. Apparently a lot of rain on the way UK. And excuse for me not to cut the grass. But potter in the green house with some seeds I’ve picked up here 😉🤗

  61. https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/e215dcce26ad09dad629495c7c5eb6166887cf1d/0_0_4000_2575/master/4000.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=e4dc89a4ae171b803a5d829ed0e429b6
    Houston, US
    Mick Jagger on stage during a Rolling Stones gig at NRG Stadium in Texas

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/4a362c05766d96da4e7fd0b68a26393c3932e3f5/0_0_2000_1491/master/2000.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=eee6bf4cdc330729e70ddf17230c3183
    Wall Running, Shaolin Academy, China, Hunan Province, 2004
    Wall running is part of the training regimen of young practitioners learning martial arts at a training institute in China

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/b101b9cf1245abe7a97f8eec503bb2d25ed74900/0_0_2000_1886/master/2000.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=e113267e2b0048fa7a555fff29127d63
    French actor Martine Carol with her poodle, Torremolinos, Spain, 1951

      1. I fear we’ll never know. We just don’t have Martine Carol’s self-identity/perception proclamation. Tragically for Martine, during the time that she lived, preferred pronouns were a shameful secret. People were forced to accept the pronouns imposed on them by the cold, unfeeling society in which they lived.

    3. Or actress, even

      Edit. I may have mentioned this before…many times…note to self…read all the comments in a thread before posting….

      Head, wall.

    1. David Starkey pointed out in a video lecture that none of the contemporary records actually written in the 19th century, 18th, 17th, 16th, 15th, 14th, 13th, 12th or as far back as you want to go make any mention of Ukraine. However, history books and internet pages being written now or in the recent past do mention it frequently in relation to all periods. The past is being rewritten. Even the Atlas of World History published by Penguin which I bought sometime in the 80s or 90s falsifies the names of peoples and territories. I smelled a rat many years ago when I asked my parents about my father’s family apparently having come from the Ukraine and was met with blank incomprehension that something wasn’t quite right.

      1. Can you find the video for me Sue? Would be very interested in watching it.

        Where was your father’s family from. If I may ask.

        1. It was on YouTube. I’ll see if I can find it. My father’s parents were born, married and had their first two children in Odessa. They were Jewish and identified as Russian.

        1. It is interesting to speculate how different the world would be if the Byzantines had managed to hold onto Italy after Justinian’s reconquest of the Italian peninsula in the 6th century. The Pope would have been under the thumb of a Roman Emperor rather than a ruler in his own right and the Great Schism could never have occurred. Orthodoxy would have remained unchallenged until Luther’s day, and indeed, without the obvious abuses of the Catholic Church in the late mediaeval period the Protestant Reformation may never have taken place.

          1. Quite agree. I believe the Roman Catholic church is the cause of the greatest injury to Christianity since the Church was founded. The pope is supposed to be, ‘the first amongst equals’ not the supreme pontiff. What is particularly outrageous is that much of the popes “authority” is, as you well know, based on a fake document, The Donation of Constantine. I also think that in the face of Islam the split in the Church, which could be resolved, is the greatest enemy in contemporary Christianity, that we face. In short the danger is not external, it is within and unfortunately the enemy is the Roman Church.

  64. Extract from Why The Old Are getting Younger from the Spectator
    So what’s going on? Well, as a general rule, there are fewer manual workers in our developed societies than there were, so there’s less wear and tear on the body; and those manual jobs that do exist benefit from being more mechanised than ever before. Moreover people smoke less and they drink less, and the public health management of conditions like heart attacks and stroke has reduced their prevalence too, so we’re all living longer and somewhat healthier. We’ve been having children later in life on average, meaning grandchildren turn up later, so grandparents tend to be older too.
    It could be, as some believe, that there’s something biological going on: sexual selection is increasing the prevalence of neoteny – that is the retention of juvenile traits – in human beings. And, accordingly, we are becoming less hairy, less angular and heavy around the eyebrows – altogether a bit less Land That Time Forgot.
    I could not say. Certainly we know that we are living longer and we are active for longer. Nowadays, if you skip or survive cancer, you can keep being 60 until your late-70s or even 80 if you’re lucky, albeit you’re just a little bit less 60 with each passing year. In the same way, you can essentially be 30 until your late 40s, particularly if you use the right toothpaste, keep your hair and go for the occasional jog. Everything is relative. The fact is that everyone is now so old that most of us are probably younger than we think

    1. I read that with interest until getting completely foxed by the last sentence. 🤣🤣 I think I’m getting old!

    1. It’s the government’s policy on “integration”. Show more North Africans and Middle Eastern on the telly adverts to make them feel part of the furniture while showing more white people doing North African and Middle Eastern things to make them feel we are all the same.

      Liberalism. Cuddly ain’t it?

  66. This man’s drivel is creepy..

    Steerpike
    Watch: Starmer U-turns over Rosie Duffield
    30 April 2024, 9:55am

    Starmer Chameleon does it again. The publication of the Cass review brought about a period of reckoning for politicians previously willing to live in fantasyland — and now it’s Sir Keir who has been forced to swallow his words. After years of flip-flopping on the trans issue, the Labour leader this morning admitted that he does in fact agree with one of his most vocal MPs on women’s rights: Rosie Duffield.

    A politician with a penchant for U-turns, Starmer has a long and convoluted history of changing his mind on the trans debate. Sir Keir was staunchly in favour of gender reforms and allowing trans people to self-ID as recently as 2021, even working with LGBT+ site PinkNews to release a video reiterating his support for the trans community. And, in September of that year, Starmer even went so far as to blast Duffield for saying that only women have a cervix. ‘It’s something that shouldn’t be said,’ Starmer told Andrew Marr during a BBC interview. ‘It’s not right.’

    How does it feel to swallow your words, Keir? For today Starmer made a remarkable volte-face when quizzed by Good Morning Britain presenter Susanna Reid.

    SR: To get the clarity, is it right or is it wrong for Rosie Duffield to say ‘only women have a cervix’?

    KS: Look, biologically, of course she’s right.

    SR: So do you owe her an apology?

    KS: I don’t want this to go back into this toxic place where everybody is divided…

    SR: So then would you say sorry to Rosie Duffield for the way that she’d been treated?

    KS: Look, Rosie Duffield and I get on very well…

    Not well enough for him to apologise, apparently. When one Twitter user questioned how their friendship works if Starmer refuses to meet with and listen to his backbencher’s concerns, Duffield replied: ‘Telepathy?’ Ouch. The Labour leader will need to try harder than that…

    Watch the clip here:

    https://youtu.be/O_eZpBzplYc

    *****************************

    Septic Sceptic
    an hour ago
    Why are the political classes suddenly starting to agree with the vast majority of their electorate. Is there a GE coming up or something?

    Whizzleygog Septic Sceptic
    6 minutes ago
    Well spotted that man.

    1. Obviously will say whatever he thinks people want to hear. Don’t believe a word of it as he clearly doesn’t believe his own drivel.

      1. The Labour manifesto, and what follows if Labour are successfully elected to form the government, is going to be a hoot if Starmer remains on top U-turn form. Changing everything will not faze him one bit.

  67. I thought that the majority of NoTTLers were a bright, switched-on and intelligent crowd. I’m losing faith!

    This morning Smeg Kettle posted an old photograph of a SUNDERLAND flying boat. OK sol fa?

    Underneath it he commented: “They just don’t mackem like this, any more.” Still with mi?

    I then commented, “… not enough room to swing a black cat.” Right over most heads this went. Whoooooosh!!!

    Having to explain a joke is not fun.☹️

    SUNDERLAND (city of).
    MACKEM (resident of said city).
    BLACK CATS (nickname of Sunderland FC).

    D’oh!

      1. I’m not, but I knew that bit of general knowledge.

        I do read the Daily Telegraph, you know, as well as commenting on its content.

        1. We stopped buying it years ago, except the Saturday one, but that’s now not worth nearly a fiver. So we’ve now stopped buying that one too. Since the DT put up a paywall I can only read snippets online.

          1. I pay £29·00 a month for all copies of the DT, ST and supplements, which I read online as a ‘virtual newspaper’.

            Buying the real newspaper each day would cost over £82·00 a month

          2. Check out if your local borough provides you with free access to PressReader. Mine does; quite a lot do. Then you can read it for free, every day!

          3. Thanks for that – I just found a free sign up and made an account. Now I have to find out how to use it! I also found my old library card but it didn’t ask for that.

          4. You have to root around a bit to find the “library” – i think it is under accounts? And then find your library; i have to add my library card number and a PIN associated with that number (i have to do this every month).

            Here is the link to my local authority’s library page: seems we have even more stuff now than we did last time I checked a few years ago
            https://www.richmond.gov.uk/services/libraries/digital_library#PressReader

            It says: What you need

            You will need internet access and a valid Richmond Card or library card to use any of our Digital Library resources wherever you are. Our libraries all have free Wi-Fi, so you can download or stream content using your device when you visit us.

            Also “ Sign in via the ‘Library or Group’ option.

            Please note you will need to log in every 30 days to revalidate your account.”

          5. I finally managed to sign up for Pressreader – I thought I had done so earlier on but kept getting “invalid user name or password” and invited to get a password reset email. Anyway this evening I’m in but only for a seven day free trial.

          7. It seems my free trial ends tomorrow – then it’s £6.00 per week. Can’t find any mention of free use via library. Had a look at my local library’s services and it doesn’t appear to include Pressreader, only the British Newspaper Archive, via Find My Past.

            So I’ll have a look at today’s DT and then my free trial will end tomorrow – I don’t think I’ll subscribe. £6.00 per week isn’t bad – but there’s such a lot of reading matter online that I’d never be able to read it all at the moment, free.

          8. Sorry to hear that. I did look a while ago and was surprised at the number of local authorities offering access to Press Reader

          3. But I read the question arse ways, sorry, Janet.Many aeroplanes named after towns and cities.

          5. Like the New Zealand city, the Wellington aircraft was named after the man.

          12. Aye, the ‘Alifax up-and-under went hand-in-hand with the Avro Lancaster and York.

        3. I detect an aura of grumpiness in you , what is the matter ?

          Are you cold/ in pain/ run out of painting kit / flour/ cooking materials/ headache/ what?

          Gout?

          1. None of the above, Margaret.

            I seem to have caught a dose of contagious curmudgeonliness from some of the other old farts on here.🤣

    3. Good morning, Grizzly

      The thing that is most attractive about you is your sunny optimism, your tolerance of other people’s stupidity and your acceptance of them having views that you do not share!

      2. Careful, Rastus.

        I might just catch some of that cynical sarcasm from you if I’m not circumspect.

    4. You’re very erudite Grizzly. Most people don’t even seem to know how to spell D’oh! probably.

    5. You’re very erudite Grizzly. Most people don’t even seem to know how to spell D’oh! probably.

  68. A few more:

    11 – I almost had a psychic girlfriend, ….. But she left me before we met.
    12 – OK, so what’s the speed of dark?
    13 – How do you tell when you’re out of invisible ink?
    14 – If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
    15 – Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.
    16 – When everything is coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane.
    17 – Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.
    18 – Hard work pays off in the future; laziness pays off now.
    19 – I intend to live forever … So far, so good.
    20 – If Barbie is so popular why do you have to buy her friends?

  69. Jeremy Morfey mentioned this girl earlier:

    Alma Elizabeth Deutscher was born on 19 February 2005, in Basingstoke, England. (Age 19)

    She began playing piano at the age of two, followed by violin at three. Her strong affinity to music was apparent from an early age. She could sing in perfect pitch before she could speak, and she could read music before she could read words.

    She composed her first piano sonata at the age of five; at seven, she completed the short opera, The Sweeper of Dreams, and later wrote a violin concerto at age nine. At the age of ten, she wrote her first full-length opera, Cinderella, which had its European premiere in Vienna in 2016 under the patronage of conductor Zubin Mehta, and its U.S. premiere a year later.

    https://assets.classicfm.com/2020/07/alma-deutscher-1582028307-editorial-long-form-0.png

    Amongst her many musical works are three operas:

    The Sweeper of Dreams (mini-opera, written aged 7)
    Cinderella, a full-length opera (written aged 10)
    The Emperor’s New Waltz, an opera commissioned by the Salzburg State Theatre, premiered in 2023

    A truly remarkable person.

    1. Lovely. Your wisteria is a bit further along than mine but then you are further East.

    2. Gorgeous pics Bill.

      Please tell me more about your wisteria . We planted one about 10 years ago west facing .. it hasn’t grown thickly , quite straggly and has never flowered , Moh says it is a waste of time and wants to hack it down .

      Also what is the climber growing on your extension , it can’t be a clematis?

      1. We have three. This blue; planted 30+ years ago. A white – about to come out in flower – 25 years old; and a very pale blue with is just starting.

        The yellow shrub is a Rosa Banksia 30 years old.

        1. I thought the yellow one was a Banksia. When I moved here in 2009 there was a rather dull, very tall green/grey pine tree on the drive that had lost several branches on one side in a storm so I thought it needed cheering up. I planted a banksia on the denuded side which has now reached the top and spread through all the branches. It looks fantastic in flower (just coming towards the end now) and provides nice bright green contrast when not in flower 🙂

          2. I’m not surprised, they do very well here. I saw a white, scented one in the same place I bought the yellow one and have been kicking myself ever since for not buying it because I’ve never seen another one!

          3. We had a white one, too – very disappointing. Nothing like the yellow variety.

          8. Go there with a sharp knife and take a few slips, then stick them into pots. This is the ideal time of year – their growth and rooting hormones are raging.

    3. When I bought my cottage at Briston there was a tall, mature laburnum in the back garden on the fence between neighbour’s property and mine. The first time I saw it full of its resplendent deep yellow flower cascades it looked stunning. However, the next time I looked many of those flowers had turned violet!

      Investigation revealed that the neighbour had (long ago) used the trunk of the laburnum as a support for a wisteria. That wisteria had continued to grow up into the canopy of the tree, hence the dazzling display of dual colours each spring.

    4. Just come in from tidying, or at least attempting to tidy, the Shed and the “garden” has switched into Suntrap Mode.

  71. And finally:

    21 – Eagles may soar, but weasels don’t get sucked into jet engines.
    22 – What happens if you get scared half to death twice?
    23 – My mechanic told me, “I couldn’t repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder.”
    24 – Why do psychics have to ask you for your name
    25 – If at first you don’t succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.
    26 – A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.
    27 – Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.
    28 – The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread.
    29 – To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.
    30 – The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.
    31 – The sooner you fall behind, the more time you’ll have to catch up.
    32 – The colder the x-ray table, the more of your body is required to be on it.
    33 – Everyone has a photographic memory; some just don’t have film.
    34 – If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is not for you.
    35 – If your car could travel at the speed of light, would your headlights work?

  72. England cricket hero Monty Panesar is set to stand for the Workers’ Party at the next General Election.

    Party boss George Galloway revealed the news that the legendary spinner will be standing in Southall during an LBC interview this morning.

    And in his first interview on the subject Panesar told MailOnline that he is sick of watching the ‘average Joe’ in society struggle the most under both Conservative and Labour historic leaderships, adding that ‘it is time for a change’.

    https://twitter.com/True_Belle/status/1785265910376206666

    1. I’m not very interested in cricket but that chap does look as if he should have been playing for Pakistan rather than England. Once again it seems that like a leopard, a Muslim never changes his spots.

        2. Then I amend my comment to Belle. We can do with some honest enquiry in politics.

      2. Panesar, 41 was born in Luton to Indian Sikh parents, before going on to play for England from 2006-2013.

        He was part of the team that made it to victory in the 2009 Ashes Series and took 167 Test wickets during his career.

        Panesar’s last international series was against Australia in the 2013-14 Ashes, but he has not played professionally since leaving Northamptonshire in 2016.

        Although never formally announcing retirement, after leaving cricket in 2016 he went on the study sports journalism at St Mary’s University, London, and is currently a freelance journalist and writer.

        However, in December it was announced that he had signed with the East Anglian Premier League side Great Witchingham, in Norfolk for their 2024 campaign.

      3. In fact he is a decent kind of man though perhaps currently a bit misguided! He stood fair and square behind Michael Vaughan when he was very wrongly accused of racism at Yorkshire.

    4. IMO Galloway is a blight on society – and Paesar was always over rated as a crickets.

  73. I logged off disqus and struggled to get back in due those wretched American captcha boxes. When they say tick the buses, they mean tick the coaches,
    sidewalks are pavements, they call zebra crossings something else. I know it’s set in America but they were building farms, bothering red indians until Columbus found them where we were civilised, long time before that. We later gave them a language. It’s English – our language why should I tick boxes of distorted American language that doesn’t really exist. So there!!!

    1. Lived in America for decades and I have had a couple of battles on NOTTLERS about British English v. American English. Often as not it is British English that has changed not American which is actually more conservative. So it isn’t a matter of “distorted American language”. Often as not it is British English that is distorted but, being convinced of their language superiority, they cannot accept that American are talking perfectly correct English and, if we go back in time, they are speaking it in a way that would be far more intelligible to our ancestors than is the accent of a modern Englishman. King George would have used along with all Englishman of his time, the rhotic ‘R’ and would have found our inability to use it bizarre. In fact he would probably have assumed that you had a speech impediment. A zebra crossing is precisely that only the ‘Z’is pronounced as in zuider zee. What the hell is ‘Zed’ anyway, you don’t say zedbra! A bus is called a ‘coach’ as a continuation of a horse coach and four. In other words far more conservative usage of English than modern English which, inconsistently, talks about horse power whilst saying bus when coach, obviously, makes more sense in terms of continuity and consistency.

      2. My relatives in Pennsylvania have a dictionary of American English which explains the origins and yes, mostly it’s what the early settlers took there and which remains the same in America but has evolved here. When my brother first moved to Pittsburgh someone asked him where he learnt English, they not having heard a Yorkshire accent before!

      3. I would not rate todays American English at all. I would cal it Lazy English.

        1. The point is that it isn’t lazy at all. As I say above, it is more conservative than British English and retains many features that we have lost, such as the rhotic ‘R’ and words that were quite familiar to our ancestors but that we now mistakenly think of as American. ‘Fall’ meaning Autumn, for example.

          Americans today pronounce some words more like Shakespeare than Brits do… but it’s in 18th-Century England where they’d really feel at home.
          https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180207-how-americans-preserved-british-english

      4. I don’t understand why people get so upset about the difference in vocabulary used in different places.
        I left the US at 10 in 1965 and lived for a while in Manchester. Learned new words, new accent. Moved to London and had to start all over again.
        In Manchester at least people were easily understandable and open to words they may not have heard before.
        In the south, the natives were often incomprehensible and always refused to countenance any deviation from their dialect. For Londoners the rest of the country didn’t exist.
        English is the third language of the world after Chinese and Spanish and certainly the most used as a common foreign language. We should embrace that and disdain foolish snobbery about whose vocabulary is the most authentic.

  75. Sword attack leaves five in hospital, including two police officers
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/30/four-stabbed-hainault-tube-station/

    Would the photo of this suspect have appeared on the front page of the DT if he had been of a different ethnicity?

    And if he had been of another ethnicity would the mayor have said how “absolutely devastated” he is!

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/95c95ef3b2639be584fdcd98097820f735a93b5b92d3cee9afbf78fa6103e070.png

    1. Indeed, if it was the usual Islamic savage, it’d not have had a picture and it would say ‘ of Asian appearance ‘ which insults every decent Sikh and Hindu who doesn’t belong to the death cult of Mo .

  76. Charles Moore in the Telegraph discussing Question Time
    Last Thursday, I appeared on BBC Question Time. On being told, when invited, that the venue would be the Bernie Grant Arts Centre in Tottenham, I had asked how the studio audience would be selected.

    Bernie Grant was the local Labour council leader in 1985 when rioters in Broadwater Farm, Tottenham, murdered a policeman, Pc Keith Blakelock. He declared that “the youth think they gave the police a bloody good hiding”. The area retains its reputation for militancy. The balance of the studio audience is often a problem with Question Time. I suspected it would be particularly so in Tottenham.

    The BBC reassured me: “There is an audience producer and 2 audience researchers whose role is to speak to and vet every member of the audience including in-depth social media checks to ensure that they are who they say they are and hold the views which they claim (which includes excluding extremist views). This … should mean the audience is more representative than your last appearance.”

    Arriving, we were greeted by a small but noisy mob of pro-Gaza activists, who targeted a fellow-panellist, Wes Streeting. He and I arrived together, and security moved us fast to the door, but not before the apparent ringleader, a man with an enormously loud voice, yelled at Mr Streeting for supporting “genocide” and being a traitor to his gay sexuality (on the trans issue, I think). Mr Streeting remained calm and we passed inside. The beating of protesters’ drums outside continued through the evening.

    The panel was as respectable as Mr Streeting – a Liberal Democrat MP, Munira Wilson, the policing minister, Chris Philp, and the amusing Lord Adebowale, chairman of the NHS Confederation. Fiona Bruce, 60 that day, presided pleasantly. There was no disorder.

    What there was, however, was the most unrepresentative audience unanimity. About 30 people, plus the three whose questions were called, must have spoken on air. Without, I think, a single exception, they all expressed Left-wing views.
    For them, everything was the Government’s fault for not spending enough money. Rishi Sunak was a billionaire (he isn’t, actually) and so understands nothing. There should be no illegal immigration controls, let alone sending people to Rwanda. Everyone who wants a sick note should have one. The place was almost literally an echo chamber.

    I was not personally ill-treated, but I did find it uphill work. The audience was so sure of its views that it was not interested in discussion. On rents, for example, I pointed out that if no-fault evictions are banned (the current crazy plan of Michael Gove), many landlords will leave the market, so rents will rise. This obvious truth seemed part-repulsive, part-incomprehensible to those present.

    The main victim was not me, but the audience back home. Presumably they want a neutral atmosphere in which to hear a range of views. Most will be unpolitical and therefore uninterested in electioneering and slogans.

    When I complained afterwards to the friendly staff, it was explained that the majority of those chosen had told the audience selectors they had voted Tory at the 2019 election. This prompts two questions. One is, “If they were a majority, why did you choose them? I thought you wanted party balance, not a one-party majority.” The other is, “Do you think they were telling the truth? If you cannot tell, don’t you need better methods of selection?”

    Unfortunately, studio audiences today are the real-life equivalent of the Twittersphere – a space dominated by politicised people who want a fight. People of more small-c conservative views are usually shyer than the Left, certainly in the politically skewed BBC milieu. Which small-c conservative person would want to pipe up in a studio audience like last week’s? The problem reinforces itself.

    This issue will become hotter in the coming general election debates as party supporters try to pack the audiences. If studio audiences are unrepresentative, how can the BBC perform its impartiality function? Should we opt for French-style election debates with no studio audience, or select to get a balance of views rather than nominal party allegianc?

    1. The BBC want it both ways. They want to be as openly biased as they like whilst claiming they’re impartial. They want GBNews closed down on the other hand, because too many people are tuning in to its very obvious bias without problem. Even Andrew Neil is now in on the act.

      Nigel Farage had this weighed off properly recently by pointing out Ofcom’s own written standard for “bias”. They define the term “due impartiality” showing that GBNews is perfectly within its rights to be biased, as long as they demonstrate due impartiality.

      As of course is the BBC. I stopped watching Question Time years ago, because of the bias. What’s objectionable is that I’m made to pay by law for the right to view lefty propaganda. I’ll defend to the hilt their right to be biased, though.

  77. Second part of article
    It wasn’t like that in Sir Robin’s day
    Before coming to Tottenham, I checked, and found that I first appeared on Question Time in 1987. I tried to compare then and now.

    Then, there were only four panellists and far fewer audience interventions. Now there are five, and so much audience participation that the number of subjects covered falls (only three last week). The old show was pacier.

    Forty years ago, panellists had dinner together beforehand, as still happens on Radio 4’s Any Questions? This made us feel friendly and relaxed. Now it is just a dreary snack, sometimes not even seated.

    At that time, the presenter, Sir Robin Day, would sit with the guests at dinner and jolly us along. Now no one really acts as host or introduces panellists to one another. After the show, Robin Day would ring up or write to thank panellists. Today, nothing like that happens and you barely meet the chairman off air.

    As the programme’s audiences have fallen, it has degenerated. Nowadays, the most important public figures do not want to take part.

    One thing, however, has not changed in nearly 40 years – the fee. I think I got £150 then. I get £150 now, which works out, given the hours of preparation and travelling involved, at roughly the minimum wage. Not much for quite a bleak experience.

  78. So unfair..

    TickyTokky “star” Mizzy found guilty of stealing phone while riding e-bike. (Again).
    Mizzy said: “he had fled officers because he was “scared” of the police. Sometimes I don’t feel comfortable talking to the police because of the negative stereotypes they have in the area.”

    Lefties demand less police, and more funding for Mizzy.

  79. Sorry to interrupt! Wisterias normally take about 7 to 9 years usually before they’ll flower for the first time if you plant from a pot specimen. I have a less rampant variety called, “Ed’s Blue Dragon”, which I planted in 2017 and this is only the second year it’s flowered.

    They need some pruning mid way through the year then again in about November to thin them out. Should solve your ‘stragglyness’ problem. Both prunings use different techniques – there are one or two useful vids on You Tube covering the subject. I was quite surprised when I saw how to do it.

      1. That’s good advice too. You take a risk buying a newish potted version, for certain.

        1. Find someone who has got one and ask them to let a runner they throw out take root. Wait a few weeks then cut it off, dig it up and plant it where you want it 🙂

          1. Yes, probably the safest answer. We always make sure we buy from nurseries producing reliable quality rather than more commercial garden centre places. Nothing wrong with many of those, but all they need is a takeover by the wrong people, cost saving exercise, bad manager brought in etc., then they quickly turn bad.

            There was a good nursery not far from us “The Walled Garden” and the owners retired so closed it. Nearly all our stock came from there, so we’ve found another couple of good outlets to replace them. Get to know in detail where it comes from or do it yourself. That’s the way forward, I find.

          2. We often visited a garden centre called The Walled Garden when we first moved here, small village near Clare on the Essex side of the Stour. I would drive via Monks Eleigh to Yoxford and the garden centre was on the A12.

            If the same place I am sorry to read of its closure.

          3. It is the very same place regrettably. The owners didn’t want to see it sold on and change, so they decided to retire and return it to the estate. Pity really.

  80. That so-called prankster should be made to feel thoroughly mizzerable by rigorous application of the birch.

    2. Invading people’s homes is not a prank. He needs a good thrashing. Let’s hope he gets a good ‘seeing to’ in prison.

  82. Hi folks

    Late on parade today but here in good order. I suppose we should expect good and bad days – dis not enjoy yesterday at all. Think I pushed my luck on Sunday – and it is not helped by the medics wanting to reduce/amend my medication – just when we had everything under control.

  83. I had a dental appointment yesterday, in Poole .

    Have been attending for decades , was a warm sunny day , and everywhere looked lovely , Poole Park looked beautiful, the sky was blue , lots of people enjoying the sunshine with their small children ,swans and ducks and geese sunbathing on the grass etc.
    Azaleas, Rhodidodi’s and flower beds looked very pretty and these https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echium_pininana

    The temperature must have been 2 degrees higher than here at home in our nestling village .

    My visit to the Dentist was a washout, my hygienist was ill, and my dental checkout failed as soon as I opened my mouth .. I couldn’t stop coughing , my eyes were watering , sneezing coughing a dry cough which has been with me since the new year , so dentist suggested I revisit in June and hoped I hadn’t got covid !

    I tested myself last week , and no I haven’t , but having said that feeling ropey off and on . Oil seed rape is in flower , fields are being sown/ silage cutting / grass cutting here and pollens on trees .

    Weather here is 13c and windy , drying day but not as warm as Poole yesterday .

    I drove back via a couple of villages , and called into see some old friends , strangely didn’t splutter until I got back in the car to drive home , so having left the house at 12.30pm to drive to Poole , I arrived home at 6pm , several frantic messages from Moh , where are you . I am relieved he cares .

    1. Lovely and warm up here today!
      Yard thermometer up over 10°C earlier after a 3° Start.

    2. Spectacles or sunglasses help shield you from pollen. Also try Vicks or similar shoved up and around your nostrils.

    3. Have you had covid jabs and boosters.? The more you have the worse you may become.

      1. AstraZeneca jabs, Pfizer boosters, not an iota of a problem thus far and I remain unconcerned about the possibility of more. I’ll make a decision when I’m next invited/recommended to have one.

        1. We are both relieved that we refused to have them. The rush for people to have an unproven jab was astonising.

          1. Our gp practice keeps sending us messages to book for the ‘covid spring booster’ after almost four years of suffering the effects of the previous wonder “vaccine’. I’m giving it a seriously wide swerve.
            All of our family and spouse’s (8) caught it despite having the ‘Vaccines’. My elder sister and brother in law, despite taking every jab and booster both had covid twice.
            Back in the 50s and 60s we all had several vaccines. Seemingly and generally they all worked.

      2. No more boosters since 18 months ago .

        I reckon I am full of all sorts of strange chemicals and I react to everything these days , including mustard and tomato sauce .

    4. I reckon you are suffering from severe hay fever, Maggie.

      Common allergens that can trigger hay fever symptoms include pollen and dust mites. Tiny flecks of skin shed by cats, dogs, and other animals with fur or feathers (pet dander) also can be allergens.

      Antihistamines will probably bring about instant relief . . .

      1. Thank you for that Lacoste.

        I will have a look in the cupboard for some Antihistamines .

        How are you these days , didn’t you have bad painful arthritis?

        1. Caroline has had hay fever for many years and she can no longer take antihistamines as they send her to sleep. The first time she had acupuncture it worked well – subsequently and with a different acupuncturist less so.

          Caroline has read this article in the DT today:

          https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/conditions/cold-flu/11-ways-to-stop-hay-fever-immediately/

          She is going to try the infra red light treatment, at the moment she takes quercitin which is not bad.

        2. I have experienced severe Hayfever since I took a shortcut through a field of Barley at Castle Howard aged 18.

          Having now been diagnosed with late onset asthma my Hayfever is not so bad. Along with other medications I am prescribed Cetirizine Hydrochloride Tablets 10mg.

          At present the fields are mostly oilseed rape having last year been mostly Wheat and Maize. There is some type of mould associated with the yellow flowers of the rapeseed which are dusty if in contact with clothing. I suspect the rapeseed is the problem from your account.

  84. I had a dental appointment yesterday, in Poole .

    Have been attending for decades , was a warm sunny day , and everywhere looked lovely , Poole Park looked beautiful, the sky was blue , lots of people enjoying the sunshine with their small children ,swans and ducks and geese sunbathing on the grass etc.
    Azaleas, Rhodidodi’s and flower beds looked very pretty and these https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echium_pininana

    The temperature must have been 2 degrees higher than here at home in our nestling village .

    My visit to the Dentist was a washout, my hygienist was ill, and my dental checkout failed as soon as I opened my mouth .. I couldn’t stop coughing , my eyes were watering , sneezing coughing a dry cough which has been with me since the new year , so dentist suggested I revisit in June and hoped I hadn’t got covid !

    I tested myself last week , and no I haven’t , but having said that feeling ropey off and on . Oil seed rape is in flower , fields are being sown/ silage cutting / grass cutting here and pollens on trees .

    Weather here is 13c and windy , drying day but not as warm as Poole yesterday .

    I drove back via a couple of villages , and called into see some old friends , strangely didn’t splutter until I got back in the car to drive home , so having left the house at 12.30pm to drive to Poole , I arrived home at 6pm , several frantic messages from Moh , where are you . I am relieved he cares .

  85. The UK’s last coal-fired power station, Ratcliffe-on-Soar in Nottinghamshire, closes in September. Decommissioning will follow, taking two years to complete, and then demolition. BBC East Midlands TV featured it last night.

    Presenter: “We now know coal is the UK’s dirtiest fossil fuel. When it burns, it releases greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.”

    Peter O’Grady, plant manager: “Being able, in my working lifetime, to go from 80% of the country’s power[sic] being produced by coal to zero and the lights staying on is a great achievement.”

    Idiots. Everywhere.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-68912006

    1. Cult member. There’s something of the Nazï German about this. I’m not bringing up the horror of the holocaust here but the swivel eyed dedication to the 1930s programme.

    2. Dangerous, ignorant, mendacious lunatics more like. They will drive us back into the dark ages if we let them.

      Carbon dioxide is an essential part of our planet’s atmosphere. It is called a greenhouse gas because it absorbs and retains heat in the atmosphere, and keeps our planet at a livable temperature. In the natural carbon cycle, carbon and carbon dioxide are constantly cycled between the land, ocean, atmosphere, and all living and decomposing organisms. Atmospheric CO2 has been much higher in the past than now, and Antarctic ice core samples indicate that rises in CO2 FOLLOW rises in atmospheric temperature, as the sea warms up and releases the gas. The whole man made climate change cult is based on risible, fake science and more faith than Roper’s belief in their 72 virgins.

  86. Okay, I’ve managed to log back on but got a strange message from disqus .
    I’d been spending ages ticking those captcha boxes disqus tells you to tick before logging onto the account. It went on for ages and then I was sent a massage
    ‘ disqus cannot allow you to log on because you computer is sending computerised images, for our own safety, try again later ‘. Eh, the captcha things are the computerised messages that they ask for. I’ve never even seen that one before .

      1. Saves a trial. Time to bring back the Death Penalty and birching for those lunatics under 25.

  88. Sex is biological fact, NHS declares in landmark shift against gender ideology

    Campaigners welcome change to constitution, which will ban trans women from female-only wards, as ‘return to common sense’

    Laura Donnelly, HEALTH EDITOR • 30 April 2024 • 12:01am

    The NHS is to declare that sex is a matter of biology in a landmark shift against gender ideology…

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/30/nhs-sex-biological-landmark-shift-against-gender-ideology/

    Wibbers put the link up earlier is up earlier but he didn’t include any of the text. This shows what ordinary people are up against:

    Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents healthcare leaders, said its members would review the proposals in detail. However, he added: “What is absolutely clear at this stage is that a focus on high-quality care for all is maintained and that the NHS is not dragged into a pre-election culture wars debate. This is not where energies should be focused.”

    Mr Taylor said staff worked hard to show fairness and compassion towards all patients.

    “In particular, groups of people, including trans and non-binary patients, continue to receive some of the worst health outcomes of any group in our society and NHS leaders and staff will want to do all they can to support these patients, as well as their trans and non-binary staff to reduce inequalities. Whatever changes are eventually introduced following the consultation need to be clear and workable for NHS staff, who should not expect to have to interpret ambiguous guidance at a local level.”

    Biology is political for this dangerous half-wit.

  89. Sex is biological fact, NHS declares in landmark shift against gender ideology

    Campaigners welcome change to constitution, which will ban trans women from female-only wards, as ‘return to common sense’

    Laura Donnelly, HEALTH EDITOR • 30 April 2024 • 12:01am

    The NHS is to declare that sex is a matter of biology in a landmark shift against gender ideology…

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/30/nhs-sex-biological-landmark-shift-against-gender-ideology/

    Wibbers put the link up earlier is up earlier but he didn’t include any of the text. This shows what ordinary people are up against:

    Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents healthcare leaders, said its members would review the proposals in detail. However, he added: “What is absolutely clear at this stage is that a focus on high-quality care for all is maintained and that the NHS is not dragged into a pre-election culture wars debate. This is not where energies should be focused.”

    Mr Taylor said staff worked hard to show fairness and compassion towards all patients.

    “In particular, groups of people, including trans and non-binary patients, continue to receive some of the worst health outcomes of any group in our society and NHS leaders and staff will want to do all they can to support these patients, as well as their trans and non-binary staff to reduce inequalities. Whatever changes are eventually introduced following the consultation need to be clear and workable for NHS staff, who should not expect to have to interpret ambiguous guidance at a local level.”

    Biology is political for this dangerous half-wit.

        1. As long as it isn’t a customer facing role. It’s bad enough dealing with ex-cons at Premier Inns.

    4. My concern is that this young man will become the norm leaving employers with very few exceptions when recruiting.

      Dating must be rather depressing for young people not into tattoos and piercing, They now have a much reduced field of people to choose from.

      1. I have just had a local electrician company check the wiring in my thatched property and replace the fuse box with a fireproof fitting and individual circuit breakers. The young men carrying out the work were respectful, charming and industrious.

        The same day we had organised for the intruder alarm company to install a new wireless alarm system and fire and smoke sensors.

        Likewise the young man carrying out the alarm system installation was engaging and careful to explain the technicalities. In conversation he mentioned that he enjoyed his work, that he was well rewarded since he was prepared to complete the job on a single visit and not ‘clock off’ at 5.00pm. He said that the company promoted those with his attitude.

        I mention this because all to often young people are categorised as feckless and lazy whereas in the trades they are anything but.

        1. Yes. There are still young’uns like that, perhaps still the majority, but sadly it’s the dross who get the publicity.

      2. I have just had a local electrician company check the wiring in my thatched property and replace the fuse box with a fireproof fitting and individual circuit breakers. The young men carrying out the work were respectful, charming and industrious.

        The same day we had organised for the intruder alarm company to install a new wireless alarm system and fire and smoke sensors.

        Likewise the young man carrying out the alarm system installation was engaging and careful to explain the technicalities. In conversation he mentioned that he enjoyed his work, that he was well rewarded since he was prepared to complete the job on a single visit and not ‘clock off’ at 5.00pm. He said that the company promoted those with his attitude.

        I mention this because all to often young people are categorised as feckless and lazy whereas in the trades they are anything but.

  91. hallelujah.. (if still permitted).

    NHS to define sex as ‘biological fact’ in shift against gender ideology as trans patients to be ‘treated in separate wards’.

    However, criticised by the British Medical Association, which suggested transgender and non-binary patients could “potentially find their access to vital NHS services limited” as a result.
    James O’Brien (with headphones on one ear thinking he’s Pete Tong), adds.. “what gives you the right to tell victims how to feel..”

    1. The NHS has of course been steadily reducing the number of beds available. I would ask James OBrien by what objective criteria victimhood is defined. I wouldn’t expect a sensible answer.

      1. It’s unclear where the victimhood lies. Is it the illness or injury or is it the shame, stigma and suffering of having an unwanted gender identity imposed by others?

    3. If it has taken the NHS since 1948 to establish that sex is a biological fact, no wonder it is in such a mess.

  92. Boy, 13, killed in attack
    A 13-year-old boy has died following the attack in Hainault this morning.

    Announcing the death Chief Superintendent, Stuart Bell, said: “It is with great sadness that I confirm that I confirm that one of those injured in the incident, a 13-year-old boy, has died from their injuries.”

    Their injuries? Their? His injuries you pillock!

    1. It’s not the pronoun that’s the problem. It’s “boy”. It’s presumptuous. Until we know better, it should remain “person”.

          2. We will only be told what suits them and what they want us to know.
            I had a feeling that the recent stabbing incidents near Sydney weren’t quite what actually happened. It’s very unusual to see one of the assassins ‘parents’ being interviewed within 24 hours. Especially when the assassin had been shot dead at the scene. It had the impression of a quick cover up.

          2. Many years ago I worked with a black guy who one morning walked into the office on time, which prompted another colleague to look up and remark, “What’s the matter Rodney, yer bed on fire”? He was not amused.

        1. That’s all very well, but did the victim self-identify as a boy or young male?

          1. I don’t give two monkeys what you think the victim may have identified as – he was male. If he you think he was a fish or a rhinoceros it doesn’t make any difference. He is what he was born – A male.

          2. Agreed. The globalists came up with the idea of transhumanism and the weak and gullible have gone along with it.

            The LGBTQ….nonsense should be shunned by all normal folk along with the pronouns mischief.

    2. The ‘stabber’ shouted at the police, “Do you believe in God?”

      We do not believe there is any ongoing threat to the wider community – this incident does not appear to be terror-related.

      Of course not!

          1. We were in agreement after I first mentioned it……now it seems you’ve changed your mind 🤔🤗😆🤣
            But the method was as usual.

          2. I’ll change it again too.
            He was a new fortified Jehovah’s Witness…
            Method stabbing is so passée

          1. A nasty, hard bastard in a region where one needs to be a nasty hard bastard to survive as leader.

  95. At the Spectator someone has remarked on the resemblance between Rashid Sanook and Roland Rat. Do you think they might be related?

        2. The resemblance is remarkable though. Something to do with Sunak’s constantly alert face they’re about to suss that I’m completely incompetent!

          1. It doesn’t matter if he were to look like Jabba the Hutt, can he do the job adequately? As for the rodent allusion, you-know-who used that in the 1930s, and then they progressed to rodenticide.

  97. We only have the police version of it. There is audio/video recording of some of the incident but that bit hasn’t been posted.

  98. There’s no worthier fight than against those who want to destroy Britain, says Ben Habib

    I rarely talk about Brexit anymore. For years it consumed my political campaigning, but political discourse has moved on. There is a myriad of threats facing the country and the Brexit debate has taken a backseat.

    That is a shame because had we genuinely achieved Brexit the country would now be in a much better place. Indeed, we would still be a country; a claim we can no longer in good faith make. There is a border in the Irish Sea and Northern Ireland has been left behind in the EU.

    The country did not leave the EU as one United Kingdom.

    For re-joiners, Brexit was an act of unparalleled self-harm. In fact, it should have been an unremarkable event: the UK taking its place alongside 167 countries in the World that are not members of the EU.
    For Brexiteers, it was a vote to get our country back from the grip of an anti-democratic supranational entity with imperial designs. In the event, the establishment did not approve, and we got the mess we have.

    There can be no doubt that the political turmoil we have suffered since 2016 is fundamentally a result of Parliament standing against the will of the people. Had Johnson actually Got Brexit Done we would no longer be dancing to the EU’s tune of thousands of laws and regulations.

    Had he not signed two new treaties, we would have jettisoned the weight of our EU legacy. HMG would have had to up its game. Taxes would have been cut. We would have rediscovered the entrepreneurial DNA which comes with being British.

    Instead, we left our seat at the table in Brussels and changed little else with the exception of hiving off over 1 million British citizens in Northern Ireland – that was the true act of unparalleled self-harm.
    So, the fight for Brexit continues. It may not be called Brexit but when we campaign for ditching the Windsor Framework/ Protocol, cutting taxes on the working and middle classes, cutting taxes on business, ditching DEI and Net Zero, slashing immigration and stopping illegal migration, taking back our fishing, scrapping quangos, leaving the ECHR and building our defences we are fighting for Brexit.

    It is an uphill struggle. The establishment is still dead against it.

    It prefers the culture of dependency created by 40 years of EU membership. Much easier to control and influence a dependent populace. Aspiration, even if vital for the human spirit, is troublesome to govern.

    Large government, borrowing, taxation and spending are the order of the day. Wealth redistribution of ever smaller amounts of wealth is preferred to wealth creation.

    Nation states themselves are abhorred by the illiberal intellectual elite. They want to be rid of national identity. Contempt for the Union flag exceeded only by contempt for St. George’s. They “decolonise” the English language, trash our history and open our borders.

    They want to destroy our confidence in Britain and for us to lose our contextual position as British citizens.

    Why?

    Because they want to take us back into the EU.

    The Tories never wanted to leave, and Labour will take us ever closer, if not back in.

    They do not like me saying it, but re-joiners are anti-British.

    Without doubt Starmer will do whatever he can to defeat the little kernel of Brexit we have. He may well try a second referendum. If so, he must be resisted. As exhausted as we are, we must never give up.

    There is no worthier a fight than the fight for the United Kingdom. I for one will never leave the battlefield.

    2. Gorgeous George Galloway to field 500+ candidates against Labour and targets that red-headed bint’s seat in Rochdale as top priority.
      That’ll liven things up.. with the Hamas voters.
      Chance yet for Team Farage, Starkey, Goodwin & Anderson in the Last Chance Saloon.

      1. In yesterday’s paper, a story about how all new cars sold in the EU and Northern Ireland will have automatic something to stop us doing something. Can’t remember the details; except our cars will have it and we can turn it off daily, but our compatriots in N. Ireland will have it and will be forbidden from turning it off.

        What a travesty.

  101. The Lib Dems are really targeting South Dorset , we are receiving literature and personally addressed letters nearly every other day .

    Loads of placards and posters etc

    They must be spending a fortune ..

    I will never forgive Nick Clegg and his idiotic mistakes when he was part of the 2010 coalition , what a twerp, as is the clueless present bod . Smirky Davey.

  102. When I started as a Trainee Hotel Manager I was paid one pound ten shillings per week.. On call all day, every day of the week. Worked about 60 hours approximately which is equivalent to two and a half pee* per hour, as they say nowadays.

    It really gets up my nose when the say pee instead of pence but it is beyond recall now.

    1. Joined up at 15½ as a Boy Entrant in the Royal Air Force and paid £6/10 shillings per week but only 10/- paid weekly was for daily expenses. The rest kept until we went on leave. What fun!

      1. In my first year as an apprentice my pay was £1 – 10s – 0 of which £1 was put in the PO

        1. I was paid 3 pounds a week at 15 1/2. Ten Bob tax and ten Bob House keeping. A pint in the pub was one shilling and sixpence.

    2. That must have been a long time ago! In 1970 I was paid 28 shillings to work as aSaturday boy in Tesco. The full time 15 year olds were paid six pounds a week.

  103. Another hospital run to the fracture clinic for my friend packed running 75 minutes behind appointment time but envy of the world you know

    A couple of nicked posts that reflect the bitterness I’m feeling………

    “The Western World was built by centuries of hard work and sacrifice to

    create a peaceful, prosperous and tolerant land. Science, technology and

    art combined to produce the best living standards in history and it was

    getting even better.

    But just a few generations of ‘liberal’

    policies imposed by perverted globalist abominations like The Wandering

    Tribe Of International Banking Families and their WEF minions are

    allowing predatory parasites from Africa, Asia and The Middle East to

    stroll in, conquer and destroy it all.

    Everything for which our

    ancestors suffered and bled is being taken by overinbred animals who are

    awarded it on a plate by their relatives who have slimed their way into

    our institutions with the support of marxist traitors.

    And the Western world is going to be a dark place again.”

    And

    “I was born in London.
    I grew up amongst and got on with all colours of people and the common factor was, we were all British.
    Then other countries swamped London and we were told multiculturalism was a good thing.
    Spoiler alert, it isn’t.
    Instead
    of everyone becoming British, we saw our society overwhelmed. Brits
    never seemed to rise any further on the housing waiting list as more and
    more people arrived and jumped the queue.
    Then the new people took over issuing the housing and so the Brits had no choice but to leave.
    I stayed there for 50 years in the same borough. My whole family has gone except one cousin.
    I wanted everyone who arrived to become British like we were, instead I guess we are expected to be like them.
    However their culture is alien to me and does not offer the same freedoms, especially to women and gays.
    So I eventually quit London myself 10 years ago.
    In that time, the area I now live in has started to change like London did.
    New homes go to newcomers and locals struggle.
    Rinse and repeat.
    I don’t blame people for wanting to come to Britain, but they mostly turn it into what they supposedly wanted to escape from.
    Brits have nowhere to go. We are just fading away.
    I expect to be called racist for this post.
    That’s what they do, but if stating facts makes me racist, under some sort of new bizarre definition, then I guess the cap fits.
    Why is it wrong to want to live in the county and society you were born into? It was a good one.”
    We were never asked were we……………

  104. Sky has no concept of viewer fatigue. It trails upcoming programmes three or four times an hour, every hour of every day for several weeks to the extent that what might once have tempted me to tune in, I’m now determined not to see a second of, even if it’s something I might have enjoyed. It’s what people do when they are cajoled, nudged, encouraged, reminded, nagged or badgered several dozen, if not hundreds, of times.

  105. More complicated than decimal coinage but a lot easier for sharing.

    I never understood why we didn’t go for 100 old pence becoming the equivalent of a new pound. The move to 2.4 old pence to one new one was thought potentially highly inflationary so they even introduced a new half penny coin, how silly was that?.
    We could even have kept old coins with the new values and few people would have lost or gained much.
    1 op = 1 np
    3 = 2
    6 = 5
    1/- = 10
    etc

    1. At a guess, they probably wanted to hide the inflation that they knew was coming (money printing)?

    2. At the time I thought that the introduction of a fraction coin (½p) in a decimal currency, must have been thought up and introduced by halfwits.

      I wasn’t far out in my assumptions.

      1. I understand it was a counter-inflationary measure as the BoE was fearful of rounding up on all prices by a full new penny. A nearly 2 1/2 old penny rise on low priced items would have had quite an impact.

          1. Indeed.
            But be honest, would you have said one and a nought point five pence or one and a half pence?
            Or for that matter a penny ha’penny,?

  106. Britain is about to surrender its sovereignty to the WHO
    Our pandemic response was world-leading. Handing control to a secretive international body will only make things worse
    John Redwood https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/30/who-treaty-parliament-vaccines-sovereignty/

    I disagree with Redwood – UK’s response to Covid showed sheer funk, confusion, incompetence and panic. But he is right to have his doubts about the WHO.

    BTL


    This raises the question:

    Which was more man-made – Covid 19 or climate change?

  107. The NHS should think again before employing diversity, equity and inclusion staff, the health secretary has said, as she outlined reforms to ensure only biological women would be treated on female-only wards.

    Victoria Atkins told Times Radio that with “finite resources” the NHS should prioritise spending on frontline healthcare.

    She said patients should not be “equated to racists” if they ask to be on same-sex wards and transgender patients could be treated in rooms on their own if other patients are uncomfortable.

    The health secretary announced changes to the NHS constitution that would, for the first time, define sex as “biological sex” for the purpose of patient rights.

    These have been backed by Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, who said his views on gender issues “start with biology” and said trans women should not have a right to be treated in female-only hospital wards or prisons.

    ADVERTISEMENT

    “There’s a distinction between sex and gender. The Labour Party has championed women’s rights for a very long time,” he told ITV’s Good Morning Britain. “I’m not sure it needed clarifying but there we are, it’s being clarified, clarity is always a good thing.”

    Atkins told Times Radio she wanted the NHS to move away from social issues and get back to treating patients.

    “Every single penny counts and I do wonder whether those roles are as essential as some of the other roles we are recruiting to,” she said.

    “So my challenge to NHS England is to say we’ve had now a great deal of time to ensure that we are trying to be understanding and inclusive and responsive to people’s needs, we don’t need separate roles.”

    She said that language used by the NHS should “be clear and make sense to people”, and not “eradicate women”, adding: “I would love for it to be business as usual for people to understand that when a woman walks into a maternity unit, we ask her what she wants to be called and if she wants to be called a mother or a mum or a woman, then we all respect that, we don’t try to use artificial language.”

    ADVERTISEMENT

    Under the planned changes to the NHS constitution, transgender patients could be placed in a room on their own if another patient requests to be in a single-sex ward.

    This would be permitted under the Equality Act 2010, according to the Department for Health and Social Care, in situations “such as respecting a patient’s wish to be in a single-sex ward”.

    Victoria Atkins, the health secretary, said: “Listening to patients and respecting their rights are at the centre of my plans to make our NHS faster, simpler and fairer for everyone. Men and women experience illnesses and conditions differently and this must be reflected when delivering their care. But we know that this does not always happen, with guidance left too vague or interpreted in a way that puts ideology before biology.

    “We have heard farcical stories that claimed patients who demanded to be on single-sex wards were equated to racists — this cannot be right. We are launching a consultation on changes to make sure the fundamental principles that underpin all parts of the NHS are based on biological sex.” She added: “The NHS starts and ends with you — and your voice is crucial to help shape your care.”

    The NHS constitution outlines the rights of patients and staff in England and is updated every decade. The changes are subject to an eight-week consultation, which will hear the views of patients, staff and the public.

    ADVERTISEMENT

    Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, said “rights on paper are worthless unless they are delivered in practice”.

    He added: “The NHS constitution already pledges that no patient will have to share an overnight ward with patients of the opposite sex, but that is not the case for too many patients. The use of mixed-sex wards has exploded under the Tories. Women were forced to spend the night on wards alongside male patients 44,000 times last year, 20 times as many as a decade ago, putting huge numbers of people at risk.”

    Maya Forstater, chief executive of Sex Matters, a human rights charity that campaigns for clarity on sex in law, policy and language, said: “We can expect an outraged response from trans rights activists, but this is simply a return to common sense.”

    Also included in the changes to the constitution is Martha’s rule, which follows the death of Martha Mills, 13, in 2021. She developed sepsis after a pancreatic injury. The rule provides a second opinion when a patient’s condition is deteriorating.

    The NHS must listen to its patients
    Listening to patients and respecting their rights are at the centre of my plans to make our NHS faster, simpler and fairer for everyone (Victoria Atkins, the health and social care secretary, writes).

    ADVERTISEMENT

    Men and women experience illnesses and conditions differently and this must be reflected when delivering their care. But we know that this does not always happen, with guidance left too vague or interpreted in a way that puts ideology before biology.

    We have heard farcical stories that claimed patients who demanded to be on single-sex wards were equated to as racists — this cannot be right. Today, we are launching a consultation on changes to make sure the fundamental principles that underpin all parts of the NHS are based on biological sex.

    The NHS constitution enshrines the rights, pledges and responsibilities that patients and staff are entitled to when using these services. The changes in this consultation also provide a fundamental shift in the way patients and the NHS interact. The constitution also makes clear the expectations about the behaviour of both staff and patients, and the role they need to play within the health service.

    If you have an appointment, you should go to it or tell your clinicians if you can no longer attend. Equally doctors or health workers should provide choice and flexibility in the care you receive. You should also be able to access a rapid review from outside your immediate care team if you’re concerned about a loved one deteriorating — learning from the tragic circumstances around Martha Mills’s death and empowering families to have their voices heard.

    And for the first time, supporting people to remain in, and return to, work is included in the NHS’s constitution. Because a strong economy is built on a strong NHS. And a strong NHS is built on a strong economy. The NHS starts and ends with you — and your voice is crucial to help shape your care.

    14 years , 14 years , 14 years and now they have done a u turn

    I give up.

  108. 386663+ up ticks,

    Gerard Batten,

    t was not planning to vote in the Mayor & London Assembly elections this Thursday 2nd May but …

    I see that LAWRENCE FOX is running for the London-wide Assembly. His name will appear on the Orange Ballot Paper.

    I will vote for him, & I hope enough other Londoners will too. He only needs a relatively small % of the vote to win a seat.

    Let’s put a Fox among the pigeons & enjoy the spectacle for the next four year

    1. Still waiting for my POSTAL vote ballot but that’s just Dumfries & Galloway for you. Tardy is the least of it.

    2. As there are no candidates standing worthy of my votes (three seats are up for grabs in my ward), I shall either spoil my ballot paper or, if it’s raining, stay indoors to watch raindrop races on my windows.

      2. Are there no Reform candidates? They must be supported wherever they stand to send a message to the Tory high command.

        1. No. Three Labour and one each from the Conservative, Liberal, Green and TUSC (Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition) parties.

      1. 386702 + up ticks,

        Morning LS,

        I do believe he will appreciate a kiss of consent.

  110. Britain is about to surrender its sovereignty to the WHO

    Our pandemic response was world-leading. Handing control to a secretive international body will only make things worse

    JOHN REDWOOD
    30 April 2024 • 2:16pm

    The UK is holding a long and expensive inquiry into how its various governments handled the covid epidemic and into the response of the NHS. There are many questions to answer and lessons to be learned. In due course the work of the committee will trigger more Parliamentary and public debate. It should mean we enter any future health alarm better prepared and better informed.

    Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation shaped much of the work on Covid-19. It published data and advice on how to handle matters, and seemingly sought to be a world Government for the pandemic. Despite this, it is not holding an open public inquiry into what it got right and wrong.

    There will be no public scrutiny and debate over how quickly it responded to the initial outbreak, how long it took to offer good advice to member countries, whether its role in vaccines and medicines was helpful, why its statistics seemingly lacked a common basis to make fair comparisons between countries or even whether its thoughts on the duration and severity of lockdowns did get it right, given the damage done to economies and healthcare systems.

    It is alarming, then, that the WHO is now seeking to lock us into a new treaty which would empower it to set a policy on stockpiles and access to medicines, vaccines and health equipment, including obliging Britain to hand over up to 20 per cent of pandemic-related health products.

    If this right is granted, it could prove the thin edge of the wedge. It’s not hard to see how the WHO might try to take powers over a wider range of issues relating to the response to any new health problem it identifies as being in its area of influence. Instead of getting on with organising our own reply to a pandemic and offering generous assistance to others as we did in 2020, the UK would be puzzling over legal advice worrying about what we were allowed to do for ourselves and what we had to share or accept from the WHO.

    British governments and opposition parties should have learned by now that our voters do not want their powers of self-government removed by signing up to international treaties. The public expect their elected Ministers to make the decisions that affect us all and keep us safe, in an accountable Parliament and with much debate and criticism to try to get it right.

    The UK is a generous country that has done a lot to help others with medicines, vaccines and aid money. During the pandemic UK scientists played a leading role in finding a vaccine for the virus. It would be wrong to seek to organise and control this kind of response and bring it under the powers of an unaccountable world body. In a future crisis I am sure the UK will offer leadership, be helpful to others and attentive to all that is best about World Health Organization research and knowledge. What we do not need is a power loss to sort things out quickly, or an army of lawyers running the policy. This is a good treaty not to sign.

    ************************

    Chris Brooks
    57 MIN AGO
    If ever an international body needed investigation it is the WHO.
    The Covid scandal is a case in point all on its own which justifies such an inquiry.
    No way should the UK give any sovereignty to the WHO, the UN or any other unelected body.
    No way, no how!

    Ryan Brighton
    56 MIN AGO
    Reply to Chris Brooks – view message
    The stories about the UN have been horrifying for decades now, but it is *never* investigated or even a half-serious discussion had as to whether it needs serious reform or a start-over.

    Chris Brooks
    56 MIN AGO
    Reply to Ryan Brighton
    Too true and UNESCO.

    1. Given that the UK was at the forefront of introducing Covid-19 vaccines, wouldn’t it be better to allow the World Health Organisation to take control of vaccine research and distribution to ensure it takes many years longer than the knee-jerk, panicked response of reckless British governments?

      1. Handing over such power to an unelected unaccountable supra-national NGO is not, in my view, a good idea.

        1. To say the least. We do not need the WHO and should withdraw. Co-operation between countries can happen without any outside international body deciding what we need to do, when and how.

          However HMG seems determined to go along with it.

      2. I can’t imagine myself ever being as innocently free of cynicism as you are Stig!

    1. They never stop moaning do they.
      Pre and during the victorian era we had more slavery in our own country than anywhere she could even imagine.
      Most of the slaves and their descendants were better off. And seemingly, still none of them have ever rushed back to their homelands, such as the wonderful Nigeria etc.
      for a new life.

  113. https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/3297b1c01def50038e0272224d34dbff4c9c56ee/11_181_2976_1786/master/2976.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=d5951e287fa0eefb07c4ab4f9ab7b141
    Lier, Norway

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/77f5a07890a3056f24a0fd1ca037ec293edee168/0_0_5339_3204/master/5339.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=cb806401ea4c9f8eeb187d87296f7181
    Austvågøy, Norway
    ‘The Lofoten Aquarium in Kabelvåg. The two fish otters of the aquarium, Eddie and Målfrid, were just served fish

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/c8950c2753baced6ddeeb5bc093fea048131ea24/0_112_6066_3640/master/6066.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=4510ab4f0391c56dc3b16f399220b97c
    Żebbuġ, Malta
    ‘Men dressed as Roman soldiers lead the procession of the cross through the streets at dusk for Good Friday.’

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/f0ce457cc731c0252f80ca74d95d0b15db697fbf/0_271_2303_1381/master/2303.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=bdeea1d9a9069cf8134a929bd5037a7f
    Clydebank

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/2da956f9dfd5c49939f53b3a93511d22725dd40a/0_424_4032_2419/master/4032.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=28b3fffcf0f5dd7686ac5fa0fb217f1f
    Ballintoy Harbour, County Antrim

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/49e79e91759831ffe6b6551fb7ca7c417930bfcf/0_730_4864_2918/master/4864.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=19ec0e6d8b0365f3b8c62a5a99ba9fad
    Goitside, Kirkstall Valley, Leeds

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/979a571931580914e7f6c191eb3132fe83ae5669/0_605_4032_2419/master/4032.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=95bb7efa41d6ae44d86825d350ba7997
    Keswick

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/b412f5717431afc217a463f8790d64a9b3622449/0_391_2137_1282/master/2137.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=f69f72b803217966039b3bccf66f1d79
    Hampshire

    1. Utterly superb, Citroen1! The sort of picture to use our precious empty wallspace for!

  114. A creepy Par Four!

    Wordle 1,046 4/6
    ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
    ⬜⬜🟩⬜🟨
    🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Took me five today.

      Wordle 1,046 5/6

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

    2. Same here.

      Wordle 1,046 4/6

      ⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. Another birdie
      Wordle 1,046 3/6

      ⬜⬜🟩🟨⬜
      🟩🟨⬜⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    4. #metoo. But without the hint.

      Wordle 1,046 4/6

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

      Hope you don’t mind me saying but, even though I didn’t see it beforehand, I’d prefer to try without any hints. A bit like posting footie results!

      1. Fine, vw.

        I started it when there was concern expressed whether we were all in the same contest/ all looking for the same daily word; I shall desist forthwith!

    5. Moi aussi – yet another boring, boring par….

      Wordle 1,046 4/6

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

  115. Humza Yousaf couldn’t carry on as SNP leader because of his values.

    The Green schism came about because of their insistence of Scotland’s net zero path to be 75% by 2030 as I understand it.
    However the Greens did seem to go along with the ideas of trans and hate legislation.

    Do the Greens in Scotland really believe in loving legalised carbon free sex changes and what parts of their values are inconsistent with Humza Yousaf’s ?

      2. I have no idea but it is a good starter to argue about what it means.
        All I gather is that Greens in Scotland want to accelerate net zero. That seems as sensible as legistating against Marmite haters and for allowing sex changes in prepubescent children.

  116. I discovered I had six 1977 Elizabeth II Crowns the other day. I’ve also got a 1953 Coronation crown which if its ‘value’ had kept pace with inflation according to the B of E’s inflation calculator would be worth just under £6 today….

    1. I only had a 1953 Coronation Crown and, in 2007, I pressed it into the hand of my new-born niece (as a gesture of good luck). I hope she looks after it.

  118. The sycamore tree fellers. Will they stand trial – or do a deal?

    I’ll log that and get me coat.

    2. Amongst other things, he said, “We must make the healthcare system needs to be far more accessible for poor people.”
      Where does he think he is living? In the UK, ‘poor people’ have just the same access to the NHS as others.
      Silly man.

      2. He’s probably suggesting that poor people should have private healthcare paid for by the state.

  121. That’s me gone for today. Parts of it ere very pleasant – but a cold snap mid-afternoon was disappointing. Still, sorted out the greenhouse – and sowed the last main veg crops. Tomorrow dentist (six-month check – in and out in ten minutes £50 lighter…) then to pot on annuals. Busy, busy…
    hope it is nice again.

    Have a jolly evening – I note that the JWK has said his “thoughts and prayers are with all those affected” by the stabby chappy. Never seems to do that when a slammer is involved…

    A demain.

      1. Nice! When I smoked I had one a bit like that – I never really liked the ‘roller’ ignition — mine cost about £30 I think (a lot in the mid-eighties!)

          1. David was making a play on Bill’s comment which included the phrase ‘£50 lighter’ see above…..

        2. I had a very nice Colibri gold lighter, given to me by a boyfriend and half-inched by a night porter in a Glasgow hotel where I worked!

          3. Well yes, but adjusted for inflation it makes it about 66p! Nonetheless, class has no price tag!!

    2. Poor old MB has a corker of an appt. tomorrow.
      A wisdom tooth has decided to grow. I have kept very quiet on the subject of late developers.
      Tomorrow it will be ‘beheaded’ and capped so it doesn’t cause any future problems – (fingers crossed).

      1. Self identifying was a thing, even in his day. He identified as a philistine. He was Egyptian, born and bred. (Nearly typed born and bread. That too!)

      1. Yes! I read the rest of the thread before posting!

        Edit. It doesn’t even have a “government” or a “parliament”, but an “Assembly”.

        An Assembly of what, we ask?

          3. It’s not that they’re evil, or wicked or bad – it’s knowing they’re foreign that makes them so mad

          4. I have a couple of very good Scottish friends who are as every bit as confused and angered (and embarrassed, actually) as I am by the success of the openly racist SNP.
            Unfortunately they both believe that there are sufficient numbers of stupid neanderthals, motivated solely by their hatred of ‘Y’English Bastards’ to keep the SNP running for a few years yet!….

          5. It may have been the fact that I was attending the Speyside Whisky festival ( Highly recommended – Stay at The boat of Garton Hotel with the steam railway adjoining) but I found the Scittish natives in that particular region incredibly hospitable and very welcoming. I felt sorry for them that they had to suffer under the despicable SNP….

          6. Speyside malts all taste like TCP. Its something to do with the sea air blowing through the seaweeds and picking up iodine before hitting the crops.

          7. What Scotch tastes like iodine?
            Two single malt whiskies from the Scottish island Islay, i.e., Laphroiag and Lagavulin, are characterized by an iodine-like flavour associated with marine environments. In this study we investigated if this flavour impression could be due to bromophenols which are character impact compounds of marine fish and shrimps.

    3. Goodness, Arafat was an ugly bugger, inside and out. I see that chap on the top right appears to be speculating on “beautiful dancing boys”. Poor little Anas. Maybe I’m just a nasty-minded cynic..

    4. Another slammer? His priorities, according to his cult, would lie elsewhere, not with proper Scottish people.

    1. Good for you.
      Do you pedal faster when the action picks up? Or pedal in time to the music?

      1. I’m a plodder whether uphill or downhill, fast music or slow. I am 73 you know. 😉

        1. A mere youngster. I struggled for breath walking up a hill today, and I’m not 70 yet.

    2. I hope you are contributing to the National Grid. I once went to a function where I was able to make my own smoothie by means of an exercise bike

      1. I’d need a high-tension cable 1,000 miles long to contribute to the UK’s National Grid.
        I live in Skåne.

        1. But you could contribute to the Scandiwegian one, Shirley? (blah blah blah save the planet blah blah blather blather)

      1. How on earth would he have done that? She’s much bigger than him – and he looks sort of White Adjacent.

    1. Be fair, that one didn’t have any rockets, of course they have the right to protest.

    3. One of the comments: “These kids seem to have the necessary qualifications to
      attend Harvard”.

    1. Crumbs! Good luck, if you time your request after the corks have started popping… 😉🤣

      1. I have a catalogue of non-allergenic, gluten, pvc and nut free sex toys and dildos. Burz brz brz…Would that be of any help at all? Obviously if anyone bought one they would have to buy a planet destroying battery…

        1. No, no, no, no, no, thanks all the same, Phizzle! Completely different difficulty.

          1. I am sure there are folks on here who would offer support and advice or even technical information.

            From me…not so much… :@)

    4. I know where this is going – use petrolleum based moisturisers. They last longer and don’t rub in as quickly as water based ones but provide the same lubrication.

      1. Nice try but no cigar. Anyway, I’ve had second thoughts on this asking advice lark.

  128. Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen.

    This evening you could knock me down with a feather, as I have actually received a reply to an email I sent my MP a day or two ago:

    Dear Mr GQ,
    Thank you for your email. I am truly fascinated by your reference to the influence of Germany and would be most interested in hearing further from you on this intoxicating point.

    Sincerely

    Simon Hoare
    Member of Parliament for North Dorset
    House of Commons
    London
    SW1A 0AA
    Tel: 0207 219 5697

    Sir,
    As your party of faux Conservatives have destroyed this country I look forward to the country destroying your party.
    You have squandered an eighty seat majority, kept us shackled to an undemocratic corrupt bunch of Globalist crooks run from Germany, and consistently and regularly lied to us about controlling immigration whilst in actual fact accelerating it to a level never seen before.
    You are also spending billions on a war in the Ukraine that is nothing to do with us whilst increasing the tax burden to levels that not even Gordon Brown would contemplate.
    I have to say though, I like the catchphrase ‘Net Zero’, but only in relation to the number of seats your grubby little party returns after the election.

    I have also CC your Conservative association as I now never get any response from you to my valid concerns.

    Yours Faithfully,
    GQ.

    P.S. I’m a life long Conservative who now has no one to vote for. Thanks.

    1. Sarcastic bugger! How revealing that he feels comfortable posturing so arrogantly towards a constituent. These people are truly weapons grade twats.

      2. The use of the word ‘intoxicating’ suggests drunkenness. Easily dismissed.
        I on the other hand had a letter embossed envelope from the House of Commons and letter from Suella Braverman’s parliamentary office signed by her considering my complaint. Not only that…the lady did actually make a change in my/her constituency. If MP’s behave like hoares…treat them as such.

      4. OT opo, but have you seen KJ recently? I’ve not seen her anywhere and am a bit worried.

        1. I am no longer subscribed to the Speccie, Peta, which is the only place I have seen her. She does often change her name. I do hope she’s OK, too. She did pop over here but didn’t find it to her taste – I think we all miss the BTL community at the Speccie as it was, although I remain grateful to be tolerated here and enjoy the banter and the warmth. It’s possible that she might also post on Conservative woman (which I visit rarely and hardly ever BTL as I find some of the stuff there un peu vitriolic for my taste). Worth popping over for a look.

          1. Good idea, I’ll have a look at TCW. Agree with you though, about the btl comments and I don’t usually get through many before I abandon ship! I remember when she came here and was a little surprised she didn’t enjoy it – I would have thought it would be right up her street as she always enjoyed a chat 😕

          3. I was reading an article on TCW yesterday and was appalled at the number of commentators who were openly anti-semitic.

          4. I was reading an article on TCW yesterday and was appalled at the number of commentators who were openly anti-semitic.

      5. At least that letter may actually have been written by the MP. It’s more common to get some slight variation on a standard response that has nothing whatsoever to do with the points one made in the original letter. The expression ‘pearls before swine’ comes to mind whenever one deals with MPs or any bureaucracy.

    2. I confess to not knowing who the “undemocratic corrupt bunch of Globalist crooks run from Germany” are.

      1. The Greater Germanic Economic Support Zone, more commonly called the EU.

      2. He (the MP) is hoping to elicit a statement of “Far-Right” antisemitism, I would wager

    4. Dear Mr Hoare
      I am very pleased that you find the aroma of sniffing arses intoxicating.
      Germany is the power behind the throne of the EU, an undemocratic corrupt bunch of Globalist crooks.
      There sir, does that make it sufficiently simple for your pore brane?
      .

    5. Knowing Simon Hoare (knew him a long way back), I’m sure he fully appreciated your letter. But he is a yes-man to the bone, so won’t lift a finger to stop the WEF takeover.

  129. Asylum seeker fast tracked to be appointed as.. drumroll.. city Mayor.
    Lilian Seenoi-Barr set to make history as Derry mayor.

    and a BLM activist to boot..
    the commie rats want you to know they are in control and there’s nowt you can do about it. Suck it up.

  130. If the government can build Nightingale hospitals during covid surely they can build Nightingale detention centres to house migrants before they are removed?

    2. The land was given freely without rental charges. If the government decided to put criminal migrants under the millenium dome the owners would raise merry hell.

      Besides, we have waste ground. Ram a post in it, bury it in concrete and chain the criminals by the neck to it.

  131. Brexit has not made food unaffordable Ross Clark Spectator Coffee House

    Comments Share 30 April 2024, 1:01pm

    Imagine that for the past 30 years all food entering Britain from EU countries had been subject to stringent sanitary checks and that today, for the first time, the government had decided to abolish those checks. It isn’t hard to guess how the Labour party would react.
    The government, it would be claiming, was throwing our farming and horticultural industries to the wall in the name of an ideological commitment to deregulation. Britain was being opened up to infection from devastating diseases like swine fever and foot and mouth disease – all so that the government’s friends in the food import industry could trim a few percent off their costs in order to boost their profits.

    So, no, Brexit hasn’t made food unaffordable for UK consumers

    That, however, is not what is happening. In fact, it is the reverse of what is happening. Today, sanitary checks are being introduced for the first time on food imports from the EU – a result of Brexit, but one which has been delayed several times in order so that the right systems can be installed. And guess what? The Labour party is lambasting the government for introducing extra regulation.
    According to Stella Creasy, the checks are going to impose a ‘Brexit border tax’ on shoppers. The SNP, too, has been joining in, claiming that the new checks will be ‘highly damaging for industry and consumers’ says spokesman Steve Bonnar – this the party which four years ago could never seem to go far enough in finding ways to outdo the UK government over another sort of biosecurity measures: Covid restrictions.

    According to the government, the new checks will cost the food industry £330 million a year and add 0.2 per cent to food prices over the next three years. Critics like to cite a different figure: an estimate of £2.9 billion, arrived at through an estimate for ITV by three anonymous ‘customs and boarder [sic] professionals’. This, they claim, will add £8 a month to the average shopping bill. Should we believe them? It should be remembered that Remain campaigners have been making claims that Brexit would push up food prices ever since the 2016 referendum. Has it happened?

    Not according to World Bank data on the affordability of food. Indeed, post-Brexit Britain remains one of the cheapest countries in the world to eat, and to eat well. In 2021 – the latest year for which figures are available – it calculated that the daily cost per person of a healthy diet in Britain (the minimum you could spend and still eat well) was $1.95. In France it was $3.25, Germany $3.08, Italy $3.17 and Spain $2.88. The 2021 figures, of course, were for a period before the surge in inflation which followed covid lockdowns and the invasion of Ukraine, but they did come after Brexit and the end of the transitional arrangements.

    So, no, Brexit hasn’t made food unaffordable for UK consumers – and the new checks are not going to change that, even if they will be unwelcome, and will add cost, for many food importers.

    1. I buy cheap packs of cooked chicken so that I can disguise medicine for my spaniel , from several popular supermarkets .

      Would you be shocked to know that that meat is packed and sent here from Thailand ?

      1. I buy end of shelf life cooked chicken to feed the brood!
        I tend to have several pack in the freezer at a time.

      3. Packed and sent from Thailand, but where were the chickens from.

        They do ship seafood from Eastern Canada down to the far east where it is processed and packaged before being shipped back to canada and labeled as Canadian.

    2. Paulllus

      3 hours ago

      To be honest with you I cannot find half the stuff that I used to that came from Italy in my local shops. I don’t want product substitution I want the real ayam from Italy. Meanwhile olive oil has become very pricey. Now I cannot be the only person who registers this annoyance. This is not the only annoyance, my friend the barber owns a property is Spain and it is becoming complicated for him getting too and fro and all sorts of palaver, too much for me to take in. Now these people are all committed Brexiteers and it would all be going swimming if they did not notice any change as was promised. This has to be sorted out.

      Now signing mutual defence pacts with the US and potential visa free travel to Australia to visit distant relatives is all great stuff but travel and some sunshine is a necessity for many people. People are getting to the point of voting for the restoration of the Hapsburg empire and joining if these inconveniences are not sorted out.

      We want to see a decent arrangement sorted out by the Election A retail offer no less. People don’t want to listen to abstract arguments. It is a bit of a ritual t send your offspring off to work in Europe. And now this is denied by some personage no less than the prime Minister on the basis that the majority don’t want a dentist from eastern Europe and content to keep layabouts around the house because they cannot go and work and debauch themselves in Europe.

      Is there a story of England’s glory that can be set to rhythm to understand the reason. For we see no reason and don’t particularly want to set it to rhythm to agitate the barber with a set of scissors in his hands and who is a former professional boxer.

      Share ›

      −

      S

      Seabury Pongleton Paulllus

      an hour ago

      I don’t think this comment makes sense.

      Share ›

      −

      A

      Archonsod Paulllus

      2 hours ago

      Olive oil is expensive everywhere due to the poor harvest last year, which I suspect had more to do with weather than Brexit.

      Share ›

  132. The Pet Abduction Bill was approved by MPs in the House of Commons on Friday 19 April. It will now go to the House of Lords who also have to agree to it before it becomes law.

    Watch the debate
    Read the transcript of the debate
    What will the bill do?
    The Bill would make dog and cat theft a specific criminal offence in England and Northern Ireland. People found guilty of the offence could be given up to five years in prison, a fine, or both.

    You can read more about what the Bill would do in this House of Commons Library Research Briefing.

    What happens next?
    Having passed the House of Commons it will now go to the House of Lords. If the House of Lords make any changes to it, it will go back to the House of Commons who will decide if they agree with the changes.

    When both Houses agree the final text of the Bill, it will go to the King to receive Royal Assent. This means it becomes a law and is called an ‘Act’.

    Read more about the bill and keep up to date with its progress
    Read more about how laws are made
    Easy Read: How laws are made
    Get involved in the work of the UK Parliament
    Sign up to the UK Parliament newsletter for the latest information on how to get involved and make a difference.

      1. Well, you would find it hard to believe the botching they have reluctantly done on the arroyo that used to be our lane. it will last a few weeks at best.

        2. And snooze all day during the winter months in the armchair of an old dear, before squeezing themselves through their home catflap at 10,00 pm….

    3. England and Northern Ireland. But not Scotland or Wales. And Northern Ireland still being part of the EU. What a goddamn (apols) awful mess.

  133. There’s book (as in betting) going around on the nationality of our sword waving friend from Hainault.

    Police haven’t said his name or offered a description but provided a suspiciously accurate age.
    Anyhow, 5/4 Eastern European with Albanian & Turkish worth a punt at 8/1.

    1. Can’t be a Turk because he was yelling something about God. A Muslim would have said Allah. Most Albanians are Muslims too. I think he’s just a nutcase and probably on drugs.

      1. That’s what thy want you to think, Squire. None of those “identities” are mutually exclusive,

      2. I tend to agree with you. I don’t suppose he can be named until he is charged and they say that he is in hospital and not yet well enough to be interviewed. I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

          3. He was well enough after the crash to wander around stabbing people and kill a 14 year old boy. He should hang. The old argument about possible mistaken identity making capital punishment too risky cannot apply here. Off to Tyburn with him.

          5. Totally agree, as someone said earlier, armed police should arrive and shoot such people dead.

          6. If there were armed citizens, they could do the same much quicker, and save lives in the process.

          10. Before going on his sword rampage, he crashed his van into a house in Hainault. He’s being treated for injuries sustained.

          11. I must admit that the next time, (God forbid there is one) that I am in a crash, that I’m fit enough to swing a sword and vault fences.
            My suspicion is that they are holding him in hospital while they do some research into him, assuming he isn’t “already known to the police” to ascertain what he can be charged with apart from driving and violence offences.

          12. Well, my suspicion (even more cynical) is that some schwonky lawyer has advised him already that this is the necessary get-out clause to head for the mentoo elf defence.

    3. Of course with the London Mayor coming up for election let us hope the assailant doesn’t have a ‘far-right’ background….

      1. I’m sure they will find a way to say that. After all, he does appear to be hwhaite.

  138. My mother used tons of the stuff before she passed away in her 80s. I think Johnson & Johnson sent flowers in grateful thanks for propping up their profits!

        1. From a report by Reuters:

          “Facing thousands of lawsuits alleging that its talc caused cancer, J&J insists on the safety and purity of its iconic product. But internal documents examined by Reuters show that the company’s powder was sometimes tainted with carcinogenic asbestos and that J&J kept that information from regulators and the public.”

          No wonder i”m fire-proof!!!

          1. Years ago we had an asbestos plate thing which sat on the gas burner on the stove, underneath a pan! I can’t remember why! I can see it under the chip pan! Eeh pet! Health and Safety would have a fit!

          2. The ironing board in my childhood home had a resting plate for the iron that was asbestos. Over the years it fragmented as it got wet from the steam iron and we used to pick bits off it.
            Edit – apologies, I see that I’m not making a novel observation . I notice that it is the female commenters that remember the ironing boards of previous generations.

      2. II believe they used to use powdered asbestos as fake snow in Hollywood productions. This was thought to be the cause of Steve McQueen’s development of pleural mesothelioma.

    2. I know! I was always a bit sceptical about the asbestos threats, especially after reading about the grey and the blue types.
      It was Christopher Booker who highlighted a bit of a scam by builders!

  144. The Speccie must be getting desperate! For years I’ve received their lunchtime and evening emails.

    Now this evening they tell me my subscription has expired… but I can resubscribe for £13 every three months! I don’t think so!

    1. Yes. Same here. I am genuinely no longer interested. Hey – who do you think will buy them?

    2. Dont do it, I cancelled on-line and was immediately offered £3 for three months!

      I accepted but, if nothing changes on the BTL front (it wont) I will not be renewing – well, possibly if they make the same offer again!

      1. That was just for the emails – not the actual magazine. The emails were always free.

      2. I’m waiting to see who buys it and hoping for a less gutless editor. In the meantime, even though it was very interesting to me in the past, i find that I now don’t give a hoot.

  145. My mother had an asbestos plate attached to her ironing board for resting a hot iron. Over the years it became quite worn and dented. I dread to think of the fibres that flew into the air every time she put her iron down.

    1. Yes! Ours was in shreds as well! I my Grans ironing board had the asbestos built in! 🤣

  146. Lacoste is funny about this sort of thing. He did accuse me of doing a different one when I couldn’t work out how to post those block thingies (since conceded).

  147. Very good!
    They’ll be back in 5 minutes, just as soon as the government gives up on the Rwanda fairy story.

      1. The Travellers have their own club in Pall Mall. Rather a good one, actually. I think these are a better class of Traveller than your average itinerant Irish thief.

    2. If 700 arrive a month that’s 2 full flights a month. For a government blithering on about climate change the obvious is to just return the criminal welfare shoppers to France.

      The laws that stop us doing this should be repealed. So much effort is wasted adding in new laws to solve a problem the old law caused. Just scrap the bad law.

      1. We definitely need very many fewer laws and to actually enforce the few that do matter.

  151. This is delightful.
    https://youtu.be/7b6a2h2wDmg?si=E3gC_6IFBOrKQtSf

    Another Early Music youth band, this time with dancers!

    Capella Juvenalis pro Musica Antiqua is the renaissance ensemble of “Nieuw Vocaal Amsterdam”, a training program in classical singing for children and youth, aged 4 and up, specialising in opera and music theatre. Capella Juvenalis was founded in 2007 by Caro Kindt, has been invited to perform in several european countries and recently won a First Prize Summa Cum Laude at the Europees Muziekfestival voor de Jeugd (linkje eronder naar de engelse pagina).
    Capella represents everything NVA has to offer – high quality children’s and youth choir singing, combined with confident stage presentation and more. The melting of Renaissance song, dance, instrumental music, theatre and staging into a dynamic performance, and the fact that this is all performed by children and young people, is a combination you will not find anywhere else. Capella’s performances aim to bring the Renaissance to life; they invite the audience to see the court entertainment from long ago and make the symbolic meanings of the authentic dances meaningful for a modern audience.

  152. All very well, but no-one in the West is starving, or even properly poor. Once those get their oar in (and at this rate it will not be long) there really will be mayhem.

    1. Everyone is sufficiently comfortable that they have the energy to bugger up the world politically-speaking.

    2. A lass posted on a forum asking for a fridge as they’d no money to buy a new one.

      I offered budget advice so they can build up an emergency fund. Her response was really rather vicious, saying ‘my husband’s pay was late, we don’t need to budget’.

      Well… you were begging. You wanted something for nothing because – you said – you’ve no money. That implies you cannot budget. Therefore you’re going to keep demanding charity. I imagine there is no one on here who doesn’t plan their spending and at least try to build an emergency fund.

      1. I must confess to being very careless with money – if I’ve got it I spend it and if I haven’t, well, I can’t, can I? But I do like mending things and do keep broken things with that in mind. I also enjoy giving things to people that appreciate or need them and hate throwing stuff away. But a new fridge is something of a luxury, really. We did get one (about 20 years ago) but have always otherwise got such a thing second hand. If you’re genuinely broke a new fridge hardly seems a priority.

        1. I had a look at the price of a new fridge. You can buy one for less than £100 at Currys.

          If you cannot manage an emergency fund of that size, you are either living right on the poverty line or seriously lack budgeting skills.

          1. £100 is actually quite a big deal in many quarters, Richard. I just don’t see the need to spend it on a fridge – especially not when so many are consigned to landfill.

          2. In our area there are used fridges for sale in the local charity shop very cheap.

          3. If you don’t have any money, then £100 is a lot of money and seems unattainable.

          4. British Heart Foundation shops will sell you a reconditioned one for £30.

          1. You can put a new bulb in, I have recently discovered (daughter showed me, it’s actually easy)

          4. Ours is getting on for that too, Ndovu. My mum’s neighbours were going to dispose of their old fridge back in the early 1980s, it must have been 40 years old, and my mum offered to take it in, she had never owned a fridge. It was a big cumbersome thing with no freezing compartment, not even a small one. She used it for another 20 years, we had to dispose of it when she went into residential accommodation.

          5. My Mum bought her first (and only) fridge in 1971, when I did – mainly because I’d got one (and a new baby) and I said she should have one. It was a gas one. She covered the top with a tea towel, and several got a small hole burnt in one corner. She didn’t have enough power sockets for an electric one. It went the way of most of her appliances etc in 1989 when she died.

  153. The latest book from my collection of books I own which i haven’t read (or don’t remember reading or which I want to re-read) is Andrew Buckoke’s “Fishing in Africa: a guide to war and corruption.”
    It was first published in 1991 and i have dated my copy 1995 (which would make sense as 1995/1996 was the time I spent a year in East and Southern Africa).

    The first chapter of this book is on Eritrea and, having finished the chapter, I thought I had better find out more about the Eritrean/Ethiopian conflict.

    I am led to understand that the actual war finished in 1991 (officially 1993) but Eritrea has been a one-party totalitarian state since -1993 when the EPLF (about whom the chapter was written) seized control. There has been a subsequent war with Ethiopia, but has also supported Ethiopia in its war against Tigray in 2020.

    We are all reassured to learn “A 2022 analysis found that the expected costs for Eritrea to adapt to and avert the environmental consequences of climate change are going to be high”.

    The next chapter is on the Sudan. Or, Sudan, if you prefer.

  154. Certainly that, but I would hope they are looking for counters to the diminished responsibility plea.

    1. Like almost everywhere, people are kind and pleasant (in Norwegian: Folk er folk! – people are people.), and if treated with respect respond in like coin. The only place I have ever received negativity on the basis of my nationality was Scotland – “Youse bastard English!” – never in Africa, Asia, Middle East, USA, Brazil… there are twisted and bitter folk around, but, frankly, fcuk them.
      Edit: Oh, yes, and Australia. Great lads, Aussies. Crikey!

      1. Ironic, really, as I’m of Scottish descent – tartans, Castle (Eilean Donan), the works.

          1. Expat Scots family. Went bankrupt a few generations ago, and scattered to the 4 winds.

      2. Agreed, People are decent enough most places as individuals, though the society might be unpleasant. And Scotland is the only place I’ve had abuse at being English, when supporting England in a pub in Greenock. But even that was just gob. Japan is the only place I’ve suffered ‘racism’ – being excluded from bars with ‘Japanese only’ signs. That said, I lived and worked in Japan and found the Nipponese decent enough.

      3. It can be a mite uneasy being English in Wales sometimes. There is an ingrained attitude of dislike/dismissiveness here which is a tad unpleasant.

  157. Thanks Ndovu, I’ll look out for her. A moth avatar makes sense – she loves moths!

      1. They do say that if you want to know what your bride will look like in the future…look at her mother.

  161. OK, chums, I’m off to bed shortly. So I’ll wish you all a good night’s sleep. and I’ll see you all next month.

    1. Splendid – Produced in Ljubljana the wonderful capital city of Slovenia.

    2. It still amazes me that Hildegard lived from 1098 to 1179 and left us so much wonderful music.

  163. Another day is done so, I wish you a goodnight and may God bless you all, Gentlefolk. Bis morgen früh.

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