Wednesday 1 May: Disillusioned Tories should think long and hard before backing Reform

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

867 thoughts on “Wednesday 1 May: Disillusioned Tories should think long and hard before backing Reform”

  1. Morning all. Who remembers Bliar’s opening up of the gambling industry? And now we have this letter:

    “Sir: It is more than 20 years since tobacco advertising was banned on television in Britain. That move has been welcomed by almost everyone.
    However, advertising for gambling – which is as addictive and affects more people because of the impact on families – is still allowed. It is way past time for this to stop. The constant ads for gambling, especially during live sports coverage, are a disgrace.”

    2. just less and less freedom. It should be personal choice not the nanny state.It all started with crash helmets.

    3. I can remember when the local bookies was run by a man at the end of the street. My father was there one day laying a bet in the parlour when the police raided the place. The bookie told him to stay where he was; he would pay any fines.

      1. Keep the licence fee down tho’.

        Do what I do – look ahead and set anything you want to see to record then watch the next day. You can FF through the ads.

    5. I’ve wondered whether R4 should keep giving its racing tips in the Today programme. More people have probably lost money following those than from any other punter 🙂

      1. We had a racing sweep at Eastleigh loco works when I worked there and I tried following Hotspur from the Telegraph for a year or so and not a SINGLE winner the whole time!

  2. Also, this from the Ruth Dudley Edwards piece on Ireland and immigration. Perhaps the pedants can let me know if she is correct in her use of “petard”. I’m not sure she is.

    “ But every so often, the national inferiority complex manifests itself in a bout of Anglophobia. Ireland saw Brexit as a betrayal, and responded like a spurned lover. While under Taoiseach Enda Kenny, British and Irish civil servants were discreetly sorting out a deal that suited both countries, from mid-2017 Leo Varadkar, his successor, mobilised the EU to reject any proposal of a land border, a petard from which the Republic now dangles. Many Brits will now consider that Ireland has made its bed with the EU, and should lie in it.”

    1. Totally wrong.
      A petard is an explosive charge that an extremely brave/bloody stupid volunteer would place against the gates of a town under siege to blow them in.
      As the fuse to the charge would be lit before he began his run to the gates it occasionally happened that it would be cut too short and the petard would detonate before he got to the gates, hence the term “Hoist by his own petard.”

      1. It seems to me yer Irish have been hoisted by Varadkar’s Pet ‘ard. ie they have been fupted!

    2. Yes – ‘hoist with his own petard’ – a plan which backfires on the perpetrator. A petard is a bomb, so the maker of the bomb is blown up by his own device.

      1. Well blow me down, BoB and Aeneas (not literally, of course). As Annie and others would say “It’s amazing what you learn on this site.”

    4. I assume she thought it something aloft as it is usually associated with ‘hoist’

  3. Good morning all and a joyful Mayday for one and all!
    A dull start with a thick mist clinging to the valley sides, but it’s actually clear at the valley bottom.
    A tad above 7°C on the Yard Thermometer, much less cold than of late.

  6. Good morrow, gentlefolk. Today’s (recycled) story

    THE IRISH DAUGHTER

    An Irish daughter had not been home for over three years. Upon her return, her father yelled at her, “Where have ye been all this time? Why did ye not write to us? Not even a line. Why didn’t ye call? Can ye not understand what ye put yer old Mother thru?”

    The girl, crying, replied, Sniff, sniff….”Dad….I was too embarrassed, I became a prostitute.”

    “Ye what!!? Out of here, ye shameless hussy! Sinner! You’re a disgrace to this Catholic family, so yer are.”

    “OK, Daddy…as ye wish…I just came back to give Mammy this luxurious fur coat, title deed to an eight-bedroom mansion plus a $5 million cheque. For me little brother Seamus, this gold Rolex.
    And for ye Daddy, the sparkling new Mercedes limited edition convertible that’s parked outside, plus a membership to the Limerick Country Club.”

    She takes a breath and continues, “and an invitation for ye all to spend New Year’s Eve on board my new yacht in the Caribbean.”

    “Now what was it ye said ye had become?” says Dad.

    Girl, crying again, Sniff, sniff….”A prostitute Daddy!” Sniff, sniff.

    “Oh! Be Jesus! Ye scared me half to death girl! I thought you said Protestant! Come here and give yer old Daddy a big hug.”

    2. Excellent, Sir Jasper, I can now go back to bed with a smile on my face.

    1. 10°c and cloudy – again. No sun for The Borders. A happy May-day to all.

  8. Disillusioned Tories should think long and hard before backing Reform

    Yes I have and Reform it is.

    1. We have no choice but to back it. Things will just stay the same otherwise. Another decade or so and it will be too late to turn things around.

        1. We are a failed country if we cannot sort out issues to harm us, long before the battlefield stage. This is the revolting public school brigade treating ordinary people like playthings in a wargame. We must demand that their own kids hit the frontline.

  9. First failed asylum seeker removed to Rwanda. 1 March 2024.

    Britain has removed the first failed asylum seeker to Rwanda under a voluntary scheme drawn up by the Government to help clear the backlog of migrants stuck in Britain.

    The unnamed migrant was flown out of the UK on Monday evening to Rwanda, where he will be able to start a new life under an agreement negotiated earlier this year.

    One down. Five million to go.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/04/30/first-failed-asylum-seeker-removed-to-rwanda/

    2. It all appears to be conveniently happening in the run up to the elections

      2. He wanted to get away from the miserable British weather for a while. He will be back after his paid holiday with a few more of his family to do it all over again.

  10. Another birdie here

    Wordle 1,047 3/6

    ⬜🟨⬜⬜🟨
    ⬜🟨⬜🟨🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  11. ‘Morning all! Just in from washing my face in the morning dew on this May Day! Can’t remember why!

  12. Sorry, but why the FOXTROT isn’t this man being prosecuted for placing his daughter in danger?

    ‘I could not protect her’: A dad mourns his child killed in the Channel

    Ahmed Alhashimi stood on the beach, howling at the retreating waves, beating and clawing at his own chest, and surrendering to the grief and rage and guilt that would not go away.

    “I could not protect her. I will never forgive myself. But the sea was the only choice I had,” he sobbed.

    A week earlier, before dawn, on the same stretch of French coastline south of Calais, the 41-year-old had found himself wedged tightly inside an inflatable boat, screaming for help, lashing out at the bodies around him, begging people to move, to give him space, to let him reach down and rescue his seven-year-old daughter, Sara, from the suffocating darkness into which she’d been crushed.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68930088

    1. What a bastard. No sympathy for him, but the poor wee lass trusted him, yet was suffocated by her father’s total stupidity.

    3. Having that as the lead article on their website sums up the BBC to a tee.

  13. MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY!. Good morning, chums. A pinch and a punch, and white rabbits. And here is my Wordle result for today:

    Wordle 1,047 3/6

    🟨⬜🟨🟨⬜
    🟩🟨🟨⬜🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    I hope you all slept well last night. I’m afraid I didn’t, so I got up after a couple of restless hours and did quite a lot of jobs. I will therefore just read a few of your posts without bothering to post “(Good morning, btw)”. Then back to bed to catch up on the missed Zeds.

    1. Good Moaning., Olaf’s Relict.
      Blast, I forgot to dance in the dew at sparrow fart.

    2. Good morning Elsie, and to all, clear and cool in Co Antrim today, yesterday is best forgotten.

  14. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/04/30/sunak-rishi-commons-cameron-king-lords-africa-foreign-jolt/

    Cameron gives the Lords their first jolt of erotic joy in years

    Foreign Secretary thanked for ‘all the surging you’ve done’ as he declares Britain is back in Africa

    30 April 2024 • 9:17pm

    David Cameron is having a ‘lovely time’ jetting around the world in his role as Foreign Secretary Credit: House of Lords/UK Parliament/pa

    Who says a Foreign Secretary from the Lords can’t face proper scrutiny?

    Dave Cameron underwent a right old grilling at the House of Lords international affairs committee.

    Its chairman, the punchy Lord Ashton, began by thanking him for coming “a long way specially to be with us” – adding, as a casual declaration of interest, that “my wife is a shareholder with BAE systems”.

    The room gasped. We braced ourselves for the next peer to be a manufacturer of mustard gas and the third a dealer in coke.

    Dave’s had a lovely time in his new job, jetting to exotic locales. Last week: Central Asia, where he charmed the natives from a £42 million jet.

    I’m told he was invited to judge Miss Mongolia, and was so happy to oblige he even let out his tuxedo – only to discover, on the night, that Miss Mongolia is in fact a camel. A man of his word, Dave went through with the gig and crowned her with a tiara. Informed by a one-eyed peasant that he now owns the alluring beast, he had to make an awkward dash to the airport to escape.

    So it’s nice to return home to friends. “Good to see you,” cooed Lady Crawley (what a name!)

    “Can I just echo the welcome of the chairman,” said Lady Morris, “and thank you in particular for all you’re doing in Gaza.”

    Lady Fraser commended him for the “energy you’ve brought to the role” and “all the surging you’ve done.” Surging?! This was bordering on flirtatious – but then to many of these Lords, Dave is still a young man.

    He’s also someone they can agree with. Lady Coussins asked about the BBC World Service (at this, a fellow hack said “Oh God, no” and left the room) – and Dave agreed that it was certainly valuable, adding that he was a fan of the TV licence “in an old-fashioned way”.

    No doubt about its strategic importance. They love a bit of Pointless in Dar es Salaam.

    After Lord Bruce bemoaned the cut in aid to Africa – preventing several Bantu generals from sending their sons to Eton – Dave noted that this was Rishi’s policy, not his, and read out a list of fresh aid spending in Nigeria etc.

    “Britain is back in Africa!” he declared, and some of the Lords experienced their first jolt of erotic joy in years. The Commons has its prime minister. This is theirs.

    The only ugly note was Lord Houghton, who accused the Government of failing to invest in a conventional army. He acknowledged that he was a “defence adviser to a company called Thales UK” which supplies military hardware.

    “I know them well,” muttered Dave. The committee threatened for 30 seconds to have a very interesting debate – till Lady Coussins returned with a passionate case for investment in BBC Albania, which will make all the difference when Russia finally invades Europe.

    “Thank you very much for coming,” concluded Lord Ashton for the umpteenth time, “and we’d like you to come back again soon” – prompting a chorus of “hear, hear!”

    Afterwards, Dave checked his phone and found 13 missed calls from the owner of Miss Mongolia.”

    I’m sure Miss Mongolia will enjoy life in the shepherd’s hut.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8e173f2cd4140bab55f737f8d284ae6304ac91b733556c3a1d6ca9c2d68fc831.jpg

    1. Some BTL Comments:-

      R. Spowart
      3 MIN AGO
      Message Actions
      If ever there was a face to engender a strong feeling of Backpfeifengesicht, the Coward Mr. Cameron is it.

      Keith Horner
      14 MIN AGO
      What’s surging?

      R. Spowart
      JUST NOW
      Reply to Keith Horner – view message
      Message Actions
      A bit like ejaculating one would imagine!

        1. 386702 + up ticks,

          Morning Anne,

          She’s dotty, in the nicest possible way.

    1. First of May and it’s cold and grey. Still got the heating on here. Still coughing and spluttering too.

      2. Just been up the “garden” hanging the washing out. A rather pleasant 7°.

        Will get dressed in a short while.

          1. Morning J,

            Our garden is private, and I put my washing machine on early , then when finished , hang everything on the rotary line , whilst still in my jimjams .

            When I used to sunbathe in earlier times , the garden saw a little bit more of me !

          2. I walked into my next door neighbours garden and she was sunbathing topless. I asked her why she was hugging two baby seals.

          1. Steady on! If you mention something redolent of a Liberty bodice you will excite
            someone. 😇

          2. Women come from miles around all over Derbyshire just to watch Bob hang out the washing before getting dressed. It’s not just heaving rocks up the back garden that he is famous for.

  17. SIR – Why do supermarket chains fail to sustain the lives of their garden plant ranges?

    At our nearest Tesco, trolley after trolley of plants are ready to be taken to the skip for want of a drop of water, including a dozen standard lavenders at £18 a piece.

    What a waste. This lack of care is widespread in the retail sector, and puts me off the whole shopping experience.

    Kevin Liles
    Southampton

    You started your moan with a “why do”, Kev, so I’ll commence my retort with one.

    Why do people, like you, buy their plants from Tesco; especially when the country is awash with independent florists, plant nurseries and garden centres; all selling better quality horticultural produce than any large shopping complex, euphemistically calling itself a “super” market? These places are anything but “super”.

    Come to think of it, why does the average clueless clown (and the world is overpopulated by them) insist on buying anything from one of these infernal captive shopping experience institutions? Is it because big business has programmed your feeble minds into obedient compliance?

    1. Super – as in size, rather than splendour – markets’ attraction is that you can get everything in one go, and as you are leaving, there’s a nice plant or two as well, as an impulse buy. No special trip anywhere else, and you have to admit that shopping these days is usually so bloody awful that getting it over with (the added bonus of cheap groceries, and most folk can’t tell the difference between cheap ‘n tasteless, or quality except by price) as quickly as possible is key.
      I recall when we moved to Norway and became irritated that we had to visit 3 or 4 food shops to get what we wanted; now, that’s been fixed: Co-Op Mega has everything we want…

      1. That’s their plan, Paul. They want a captive audience (customer-base) of compliant souls … and they have one.

        Modern-day humans are nobbut puppets of the Global corporations.

    2. We desperately need to abandon supermarkets. They are the source of ill-health and obesity and the crucible of the attempted global technocratic dictatorship.

    3. I have Tesco or Morrisons, George, ship me food at least once a week, as I’m all but house-bound and have no vehicle, That’s why I do!

    4. I will admit that the apple tree, variety unknown, I bought from Aldi when it was being flogged off cheap, has been very worth while.
      Sadly, the pear I bought at the same time has yet to bear fruit, probably due to lack of a pollinator.

        1. Plenty of bees about, we have a decent number of them especially bumble bees. It was another pear pear tree that has been lacking.
          Hopefully, the one I bought from a garden centre a couple of years back and another I’ve grown myself from seed that has produced it’s first blossoms this year, will rectify the problem.

      2. Perhaps my pear tree and yours could meet up and bee friendly. Am informed that a crab apple tree (or two) is the solution, a sort of catalyst for orchards.

    5. I have a confession to make.

      I wanted to buy some veg seeds and some plants grown-on because I have left it too late myself. I went to Laylocks yesterday, which started off as an independent garden centre I often use. However, this year, they built another huge extension in order to house a huge range of designer giftware, an overpriced coffee restaurant, and pushing their plants round the back. Prices have near doubled to pay for the exciting upgrade user experience.

      So I drove into Worcester to ‘The Range’. They bought up Wilko, and operate in much the same way, cheap, cheerful with an eclectic variety of stock, much of it useful. They were selling packets of seeds for a pound that Laylocks was charging £4 for. There were also these little pots of veg seedlings for £1.25 or £2 for three. I also spotted bags of organic compost at a much better price than Laylocks.

      However, I am still happy to pay a good price for plants grown at the old-fashioned little nursery in Guarlford, which has no grand rebuilding plans, no gift shop or cafe and just sells plants. There is another one in Leigh Sinton, which often has a stall at the Fold farmers’ market in Bransford.

  18. 386702+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    For once I am in complete agreement
    Wednesday 1 May: Disillusioned Tories should think long and hard before backing Reform

    I would advise as reading, genuine Torys in regards to a genuine Tory party should think long and hard before backing Reform,

    To late of course for those who are addicted to
    supporting / voting for a party name regardless of consequence, the cause of our current state as a nation.

    These political criminals have proved “If it walks & talks Tory patter it is Tory” hugely WRONG, but it ,is successful if semi covertly, you are following an alien agenda and have the backing of the gullible majority supporter / voter.

    ALL that is seemingly happening is that desperation is demanding a party name change, the WEF / NWO will take a few hits with today’s political top rankers being eliminated but the governing baton will be successfully handed over.

  19. G’day all and 77th troops,

    Misty start to the day at Castle McPhee. Wind going North-West, 9℃ going up to 16℃, rain this evening.

    David Starkey seemed to have been a bit quiet on YouTube recently but he’s back with this analysis of how Blair, Brown and the Blair’s ‘Tory” worshippers Cameron, Osborne, Gove and the rest have wrecked Britain. Britain needs a second Restoration.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cRacMUZ1EE

    Starmer, if he wins, will merely be the undertaker..

    1. Undertakers merely dispose of the body; it takes a special skill to make bodies out of those attending the funeral.

  20. G’day all and 77th troops,

    Misty start to the day at Castle McPhee. Wind going North-West, 9℃ going up to 16℃, rain this evening.

    David Starkey seemed to have been a bit quiet on YouTube recently but he’s back with this analysis of how Blair, Brown and the Blair’s ‘Tory” worshippers Cameron, Osborne, Gove and the rest have wrecked Britain. Britain needs a second Restoration.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cRacMUZ1EE

    Starmer, if he wins, will merely be the undertaker..

  21. SIR – The idea that voting for Reform UK could result in the party replacing the Conservatives in the longer term (Letters, April 29) is a fantasy.

    The electoral arithmetic simply doesn’t work that way, and the suggestion that we should regard a decade of Labour government as a price worth paying is glib. Labour’s cultural and social agenda is diametrically opposed to the worldview of those drawn to Reform.

    I would advise anyone considering supporting this party to read Hilaire Belloc’s poem Jim, which concludes: “Always keep a-hold of Nurse/for fear of finding something worse.”

    Andrew Wauchope
    London SE11

    I have been advising on this piece of irrebuttable and sensible wisdom for years, Tony, but the clowns think they know better.

    ♬”When will they ever learn? When will they e…ver learn?”♬

    They never do!

      1. Indeed they have. The problem is that there is no political party alive today who would NOT be a disaster.

        None of them — in any country — have the stuff to stand up to the Global corporations ( and WEF) who run the planet.

    2. It is a horrible choice. But things will never change if we don’t vote Reform. There will probably be a low turnout so plenty of scope for Reform to pick up votes from the ‘threatening to stay at home’ voters. 69% (according to a recent poll) think Labour unfit to govern; 85% think the Conservatives are unfit to govern. We cannot keep propping up this rotten system. Just how bad do the Conservatives have to get?

      1. Looking at it from outside, with no traditional affiliation to the Conservative Party, I fear that Reform may be little different to another Tory regeneration under a string of radical new leaders – Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak… All started off with high hopes and soon reverted back to a state of uselessness and contempt, even from their most stalwart supporters. The string of UKIP leaders after Farage had a hissy fit over Tory electoral malpractice in Thanet suggests that Reform and the Conservative Party are not as different as they like to think.

        For me, the most impressive hope for the future has come out of Scotland. For all sorts of reasons, the young Kate Forbes strikes me a a true conservative reformer. She may want to throw England out of the pram, but is there nobody who is not Nigerian-born-in-Wimbledon who can match her?

    4. I’m out today posting Reform UK leaflets. If everybody took this twat Wauchope’s advice then nothing would ever change. I don’t fancy surrendering to the bastards.

      1. It’s a cleft stick situation. People, in general, will not vote for Reform in sufficient numbers required to make a difference. Those that do will be former Tory voters and the direct result will be a Labour Government. I’ll retain this post and check its veracity after the next general election.

        1. I know the chances are extremely thin. The Ukip vote in the 2015 GE scared that bastard Cameron though, enough for him to cough up the referendum. Not that Brexit went well.

  22. Morning all 🙂😊
    Welcome to May. It poured with rain here in Portugal last evening and it might have rained through the night. Unfortunately we are travelling home today. And I believe that it’s going to be raining in the UK as well. “Oh Booger” as unlucky Alf (Fast Show) would have said.
    Should be home by 4:30 pm. Slayders…..

  25. Good morning, all. Overcast at 06:00 but the Sun appears to be breaking through.

    This is a short article from Daily Sceptics adding to the criticism of our pathetically non-scientific but PPE rich political class and their disastrous pursuit of the unicorn that is Net Zero.

    Robin Guenier makes some good points, especially the point about the complete lack of adequately skilled people to do the work – the cross Channel invaders are definitely NOT the answer – something the proponents of this unscientific scheme do not appear to be addressing.

    My one disagreement with Robin Guenier is his final paragraph, IMO the whole point of this coming debacle is firstly, to create the conditions for Britain’s economic destruction and then that disaster to be quickly followed by the total collapse of our society.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/319234348f842c6031731ec22389db41ee7a261b34b1421cd845d7f4551f7587.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6a55fadb43cd340f5f2f64637cef6ef9ae8171a84b2350834ba133916802f006.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/621c78922124441d92e4aa8574da506b4efbf7ad5806d2832eee86cb90767489.png

    2. When I think back to the good will that greeted Theresa May’s premiership………I’ll leave others to complete the sentence.

  26. Good morning, all. Overcast at 06:00 but the Sun appears to be breaking through.

    This is a short article from Daily Sceptics adding to the criticism of our pathetically non-scientific but PPE rich political class and their disastrous pursuit of the unicorn that is Net Zero.

    Robin Guenier makes some good points, especially the point about the complete lack of adequately skilled people to do the work – the cross Channel invaders are definitely NOT the answer – something the proponents of this unscientific scheme do not appear to be addressing.

    My one disagreement with Robin Guenier is his final paragraph, IMO the whole point of this coming debacle is firstly, to create the conditions for Britain’s economic destruction and then that disaster to be quickly followed by the total collapse of our society.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/319234348f842c6031731ec22389db41ee7a261b34b1421cd845d7f4551f7587.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6a55fadb43cd340f5f2f64637cef6ef9ae8171a84b2350834ba133916802f006.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/621c78922124441d92e4aa8574da506b4efbf7ad5806d2832eee86cb90767489.png

  27. Impartial as ever, Today is majoring on the case of the dead daughter.

    2. Yes, manipulatively emotive language in the Radio 3 “news” bulletin too.

        1. Every 30 minutes. Read in hushed and sombre tones to fake seriousness and pretend to old fashioned reverence.

    3. As I commented earlier, why the FOXTROT isn’t this man being prosecuted for placing his daughter in danger?

  28. Good morning, lovely friends, I’ve just removed something corrosive from my life,
    fortunately it’ll never turn up here. Happy first of May

  31. Good morning all .
    Wet morning , golfer golfs , yes ! 10c.

    A May day poem

    May and the Poets by James Henry Leigh Hunt
    There is May in books forever;
    May will part from Spenser never;
    May’s in Milton, May’s in Prior,
    May’s in Chaucer, Thomson, Dyer;
    May’s in all the Italian books:–
    She has old and modern nooks,
    Where she sleeps with nymphs and elves,
    In happy places they call shelves,
    And will rise and dress your rooms
    With a drapery thick with blooms.
    Come, ye rains, then if ye will,
    May’s at home, and with me still;
    But come rather, thou, good weather,
    And find us in the fields together.

    James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784–1859), best known as Leigh Hunt, was an English critic, essayist and poet who was instrumental in introducing the poetry of John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Robert Browning and Alfred Lord Tennyson to the public.

    Why has May day become a socialist thing, I am always puzzled ?

    1. MB had a bad night worrying about the wisdom tooth that has chosen to erupt – sideways – and is causing hassle.
      Today is D-Day; or is it T-Day?

      1. I have a dentist appointment at 10.15 this morning too. Bottom front teeth getting plated. Two injections…arghhhhh !

      1. So what you are saying Sue is that when the time comes (and on the basis of his present performance that time cannot be far away) the 72 virgins allocated to him are going to be sorely disappointed?

      1. I have actually seen that done when we were ambushed at night. Someone threw a small bomb at us. The bloke next to me jumped out of the rear of the LRover and shot himself in the foot with his rifle. It shouldn’t have had a round up the spout, even with the threat of ambush. It may have save us from further attack though as they probably thought we were returning fire and they b*ggered off. He hopped about on one leg calling himself an effing idiot. We had a good laugh about it.

    7. Good shot! He obviously didn’t know that it automatically loaded another round after each shot. Pity it wasn’t pointed at his nose.

  38. We’re off to the recycling centre again, waltzing in such places would be odd .
    14 years of things to throw out that’s been left and then decorating.
    I’ve a feeling thar my husband will think the Lib Dem Council will destroy this beautiful semi rural area and therefore want to uproot me 😥

    2. It would be interesting if a venomous snake were released next to her.

    3. I’d have left her there with a supply of rotten vegetables nearby

      1. They should be left there until they’ve at least suffered the indignity of sitting in their own soiled clothing for a few hours.

    4. I might assume when she cries her tears for the people in the Gaza Strip she doesn’t mean getting rid of Hamas.

      1. Why doesn’t she cry for the Jewish kids killed on 7th October?

        1. Probably because the stupid news reel propaganda only mentions that the dreadful hamas have lost lives.
          But hamas don’t care for any of their own people. It’s part of their adgenda.

          1. Loss of Hamas lives is part of the plan. Then they can show “Look at the evil Jews, killing innocents” – when that was Hamas’ plan all along, as they don’t give a tiny fart about their own people, counting on massive Israeli retaliation (and they are reliable there) to gather sympathy for Hamas’ cause.
            Why people fall for it, I don’t know.
            Maybe Israel should nuke Gaza, and get it over with? Hamas glass has a ring to it…

    5. Leave her there. Weld the padlock closed. DO NOT free the glue. Oh, dear, tough titty. Shoulda thought about that before.

  40. I like this DTL comment

    Dora Beatriz Ridgway
    4 MIN AGO
    Andrew Wauchope’s letter . What could possible be worse than being despised by those you vote for ?
    We know that Labour hates people who hold conservative values. No surprise there. But every day we see examples of just how much the Tories dislike those who vote for them.
    Sir Graham Brady particularly despises the membership of his party! The very people who campaign, deliver leaflets, hold fund raisers, etc. He thinks they should be ignored when choosing a new leader, while the party is in power… Not only does he think that; but he has actually rigged the system to allow his preferred candidate to win ! Who needs democracy..
    Sunak has spat on our collective face by appointing Cameron to prance around the world pretending to speak for us. Why? Nobody voted for him !! An unelected Foreign Secretary appointed by an unelected PM, has not mandate or legitimacy to represent this country, let alone justify the vast expense of his travels which are nothing but networking for future dodgy deals…
    By voting for Reform we can at least register our disgust at how our previous votes have been trampled on. It will also be an expression of hope.

    1. I know that the Reform Party is flawed – but I cannot believe that it is anything like as flawed as the disgusting Conservative Party has become.

      1. Under the very establishment Tice is probably would end up just as flawed as the Tories after a spell in power – but I’m voting for them anyhow in the hope that the Tories are destroyed.

    3. Why can’t we send them all to Gaza? Seems to be a popular spot these days.

      1. In the middle, add “right”, then at the end, add “… get in a boat and do that some more”.

    3. It ‘gets my goat’ every time i hear this garbage from people like her. They are not asylum seekers. All of them have travelled through Europe where they could have sort asylum. We all know they have come here because of the benefits system.
      I’ll say it again and again, our government are absolutely stupid.
      They have deliberately
      wrecked the United Kingdom.

  45. Why must we think long and hard before backing Reform, too late we will do so 😊

    1. We are between the Devil and the deep blue sea.

      The Conservative Party is so rotten that it must die and the sooner it dies the better.

      I agree Reform is flawed – indeed Reform needs to reform itself!

      But it will have served a very useful and necessary function if it helps exterminate the disgusting, unprincipled, incompetent and directionless Conservatives.

      Say the Conservatives win as many as 100 seats in the election. That would be far too many and would encourage people to think there was hope for a future revival. The Conservatives need to win ten or fewer seats so that everyone can quite clearly see that the game is up.

      1. The House of Commons chamber cannot accommodate 500+ Labour MPs on the government and its back benches.

        1. No, but if nobody voted Conservative and voted Reform instead that would not happen. Former Conservative voters must not give their votes to Labour which deserves them no more than the Conservatives do.

          The Conservatives must not be killed slowly with numerous cuts – it must be killed humanely and swiftly with a sword through the heart it no longer has!

          1. That kind of pie in the sky simply won’t happen. I can imagine a vote of something like Labour 45%, Conservative 22%, Reform 16%, Lib Dem 10%, Others 7%.

          2. That is, of course, the conventional view!

            It may be a cliché but procrastination is the thief of time and unless something dramatic happens Britain will be trapped in the undemocratic uni-party system forever and have no effective choice

          3. It may well end like that but I hope it doesn’t. I hope the Conservatives are well and truly trounced.
            Hope is an essential part of a healthy life.

  46. Dolan’s Digest: Is a Trump victory part of the left’s cunning plan?
    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/dolans-digest-is-a-trump-victory-part-of-the-lefts-cunning-plan/

    Although I do not find Dolan’s hypothesis plausible he is correct in thinking that the Democrats are deviously criminal.

    BTL

    Having initially doubted that Biden’s Democratic Party stole the 2020 election their current machinations has changed my mind and I expect it has changed the mind of many others.

    A party that is so ruthless in its current dirty tricks against Trump is a party which would happily have corrupted a democratic vote. I now think that there can be no doubt at all that the 2020 election was rigged and Biden should never have been president.

  47. So very rare were the clots that this potion was withdrawn in some countries.

    Where is the evidence that this, or any of the other potions, saved even one life? There’s clear evidence that infection from, and transmission of, SARS-Cov-02 – whatever that is/was or actually existed – didn’t happen, so where was the life-saving action?

    My experience with vaccine protection. I’m up to date with my Tetanus protection, one reason was I played football and another because I am a keen gardener. I’ve never been ill with Tetanus despite a multiplicity of cuts, grazes, pricks from roses and nails etc.: therefore, has the Tetanus jab saved my life or have I not come into contact with the bacterium? How would I know?

    https://twitter.com/juneslater17/status/1785427686866763969

      1. They pick a random number, the same as Neil Ferguson did for his ‘modelling’.

        1. On starting the video I realised he’s on a TV but yes, it does look suspicious!

  48. OT – Memory and the tricks it plays.

    The MR and I were reminiscing last evening about a trip to Rome we made – where we stayed in a B&B next to the French Embassy. A year or so before the Plague – we thought. I looked up the photographs.

    October 2005.…

    Sighs…..

    1. That is why i appreciate the dates embossed on my photographs. Mind like a sieve.

      1. I’ve never had the dates on the photos – but I do always sort them into folders with the name and date. Older ones are in albums with the date on too.

        1. I use digital. Stopped using film years ago. I have a laser printer and photo paper if i want to print any out. Much cheaper than getting pics developed.

          1. I stopped using film many years ago as well. I use my hedgehog photos for the Hospital – for cards, calendars etc, as you know. My wildlife holiday photos I sort out and use the ones I like best to make up a photo book, as that’s a good way of showing them to people and keeping the best ones. Other ones like family get togethers and so on, I rarely print but I do have them saved. Our printer is rather old and ok for text but not good enough for photo printing. I usually take a couple of thousand photos on my trips.

    2. Your memory is getting about as bad as mine, Bill. Daily scolding from SWMBO about forgetting… whatever it was. 🙁

  49. A Happy May Day to all Nottlers.

    May was a symbolic month for Chaucer as it is the month of nature’s rebirth and freshness when we should not be slogardies resting in hoggish slumber in our beds.

    To be honest unlike the lovely rosy-cheeked Emily who was fresher than the flowers and even fresher than the month of May itself I was not up before the break of day as I am a bit of a slogardy myself and did not get up until 8.30 this morning.

    This passeth yeer by yeer, and day by day,
    Till it fil ones, in a morwe of May,
    That Emelye, that fairer was to sene
    Than is the lylie upon his stalke grene,
    And fressher than the May with floures newe-
    For with the rose colour stroof hir hewe,
    I noot which was the fairer of hem two-
    Er it were day, as was hir wone to do,
    She was arisen, and al redy dight-
    For May wole have no slogardie a-nyght;

    [The Knight’s Tale]

      1. Good May Morning Maggiebelle!

        Yes – thank you. May has certainly been the inspiration of many poets.

        Chaucer called his heroine May in the Merchant’s Tale as she was young and attractive and symbolic of the month. May made the mistake (?) of marrying January, symbolic of cold and sterile winter, a feeble, gullible and very old knight who is both metaphorically and literally blinded and then absurdly cuckolded by his wife and a young chap called Damian in a pear tree!

        May Day is the distress call made by ships in danger at sea. This is based on the French

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/626282f57f1fe5638a083d764aefe0d9156e5e90a6751e74dee2b9ffa52164bc.png

        meaning Help Me.

        (Who remembers Tony Hancock’s Radio Ham?)

        1. Radio operator: “Mayday! Mayday! We’re sinking! We’re sinking!”
          German coastguard” Of what are you zinking about?”
          ;-))

      1. I wonder if google is working on a a medieval English version of its Spellcheck!

  51. ❌ RAPESEED! ❌
    It’s that time of year again where farmers fields have blossomed into pretty yellow flowers, these plants are called rapeseed. Although it may be tempting to place your dog in the midst to take a scenic photo, please avoid this at all costs!
    Rapeseed is extremely poisonous for dogs, especially in highly sensitive canines.
    Rapeseed is listed by Dogs Trust as toxic to our dogs if ingested and can cause symptoms such as:
    ❌Haemolytic Anaemia
    ❌ Blindness
    ❌ Damaged Nervous System
    ❌ Digestive Disorders
    ❌ Breathing Problems
    Even walking through these fields should be avoided! In June 2019, a dog was reported to be suffering from severe open wounds after running through a crop of rapeseed.
    Please seek immediate veterinary attention if your dog shows any signs of rapeseed poisoning!
    #rapeseed #dogs #health #welfare #warning

    1. Never mind the dogs, humans shouldn’t consume anything with rapeseed oil in it. The stuff is toxic. Do not buy or consume any “food” with rapeseed oil listed in the ingredients. That’s probably going to mean abandoning eating out because you have no idea what has gone into dressings, sauces, curries, etc. And don’t eat food pan-fried in rapeseed oil or any other seed oil.

    2. Never mind the dogs, humans shouldn’t consume anything with rapeseed oil in it. The stuff is toxic. Do not buy or consume any “food” with rapeseed oil listed in the ingredients. That’s probably going to mean abandoning eating out because you have no idea what has gone into dressings, sauces, curries, etc. And don’t eat food pan-fried in rapeseed oil or any other seed oil.

    4. It also causes hayfever in sensitive humans, and I don’t think the seed oil is very good for you either. It’s a monoculture – sprayed to death and the cause of the demise of insects and the birds that depend on them for food.
      Other than that, it’s fine.

    5. Rapeseed oil (aka ‘Canola’ oil) is poisonous to humans. It only exists to make the companies who sell it filthy rich. They have no care for its detrimental effects on human health.

      Seed oils (they are not ‘vegetable,’ that is a marketing strategy) were first invented as industrial lubricants. A century ago some were hydrogenated to make them solid and these were then sold as margarine and cooking fats. All poisonous to the human system.

      Fish and chip shops frying in oil should be avoided like the plague. Only butter, ghee, lard, tallow and suet are fit for human consumption or cooking with.

      1. Right on, Grizz. The truth is as always 180 degrees out from what we are told.

  52. Is Rwanda a good holiday destination , it sounds safer than Kenya , South Africa , Botswana and Zambia .

    The houses look nice and spacious , would pensioners enjoy the experience .
    Are Rwandans kind people , would they be excellent carers .

    How can we access Rwanda , do they have a proper airport , and if one had £3,000, what standard of living would that buy .

    Do they have plumbing, fresh water, no malaria or other contagious diseases ..

    Staple diet is what, and would we enjoy the experience .

    It sounds so lovely , that I do hope migrants appreciate it

    1. I know medicines are delivered by drone to your back yard. Food is abundant and since their civil war everything has settled down. It’s safe.

    2. I looked at it on Google earth when it was first mentioned, it looked very tidy with smart houses and lots of greenery.

    4. Do they have plumbing… depends where you are and what you consider plumbing.

      £3000 would make you a very rich person.

    5. It’s hilarious watching the Leftards tie themselves up in knots on this; they say Rwanda isn’t a “safe country” but no one asks them why they say this (i think it is genuinely because they are actually racist and think Rwandans must all be genocidal backward thugs because of what happened 30 years ago, with no acknowledgment things can change. Imagine if the Germans had still been portrayed as irredeemable Nazis in 1965?)

    6. You can go and see the mountain gorillas in Rwanda – they charge a lot more for the privilege than they do in Uganda. It’s safe enough for tourists but I’m not sure I’d want to live there. The same goes for Kenya, Uganda and all the other African countries I’ve been to. £3,000 wouldn’t buy you a lot.

      Go for a holiday and see.

  53. I’m a disillusioned conservative, and have considered long and hard about voting for Reform. I concluded that although I don’t have much faith in Tice or the top lads, the members are pretty sound and that I will vote for them anyway, to register my disgust at the woke globalist regime imposed on us and their barking mad, lunatic policies.

    1. I trust Tice not one jot, but I think the object of this election is to eradicate the Tories and if we can achieve that at the small cost of voting Reform, so be it.

      1. My thoughts exactly. The destruction of the treacherous Tories is our main objective. Nothing will improve while folk fall for the old, yes, we’re crap, but Labour is worse’ tactic. Voting Tory simply endorses their destructive, woke globalist policies.

      2. I hear Tice on GB News sometimes and I just hear another boring politician. He did a disastrous interview with a sarcastic, arrogant MP and kept banging on about ‘the British people’ and I thought ‘you’re a sodding millionaire. You don’t have the foggiest about normal people.’ Worse, he couldn’t take the MP’s pathetic argument apart because he was unprepared.

        People want a calm voice, a sense of surety and confidence which nobbles the argument, not another pile of soundbites.

          1. I am not wearing a dress.

            While I would be a dreadful politician, I’d (and most folk) likely be a good governor.
            ‘Please sir, I want more of someone else’s money’
            ‘Sod off and get a job.’

            The problems we have are obvious, but government seems determined to do the wrong thing.

            we have low wages because government floods the country.
            We have high unemployment because of massive uncontrolled immigration
            We have a skills crisis because schools teach drivel so politicians can crow about achievement, not for education.
            We have massive debt because of uncontrolled immigration, unemployment and welfare.
            We have high levels of welfare because government keeps increasing the amount welfarists receive

            It is a vicious circle of debt, waste, uncontrolled immigration, tax, welfare and back to debt. It is easily broken by being cold and honest – stop people coming in to the country, stop paying people to be idle, stop rewarding failure, start rewarding effort, self sufficiency and responsibility.

            Bu the first and most important thing is to stop bringing people into the country. We’re full. 30 million need to go.

          2. Well I heard Kemi Badenoch on the World at one today tear strips of the interviewer – she was followed by some Labour woman (not sure who) and her interview was a complete shambles. I was laughing out loud.

    2. As I said a few days ago the Conservative Party left me, I didn’t leave the Conservative Party.

      1. Yep. Who does a low tax conservative vote for these days? When you look at the political parties not one of them offers a positive future. They are ignorant, stupid, backward, obsessed with deceit, none offer a future for Junior. They are all proscriptive, arrogant and staggeringly irrelevant. They are ideological identical: bigger state, massive taxes, socialism, poverty, where work is reviled and taxed out of existence, private property refused and slavish obedience demanded.

          1. Then there’s ‘positive discrimination’ to give the diversity a leg up over the locals. Heaven help the world the lad is growing in to. If the diversity cannot keep up then they should be left behind. Same for women. It is an insult to those who have worked and earned the right to find some waster getting more than them simply by dint of their sex or skin colour.

            That is the ultimate discrimination.

        1. I didn’t take much notice of politics in those dats. We’d been married 6 years, had 2 young children, and had come through the oil crisis and 3 day week.
          I liked Margaret Thatcher as she provided hope for the future.

          1. We were married in 68 and had 2 kids by then but 1974 was the year of the Redcliffe Maude Report which destroyed the county structure and they were in the process of dismantling the Grammar Schools – both I found appalling.

          2. I agree. I went to grammar school but left at 15. Academic life wasn’t for me but every job i had for my first 25 years at work I was promoted. I put part of that down to my schooling and I maintain grammar school was responsible for that.

          3. Somehow Gloucestershire managed to keep hold of its grammar schools – including the girls’ school I went to and the boys’ one my sons went to.

          4. My school, Highbury County, became Highbury Grove Comprehensive a few years after I left in 1961. It’s in the Independent Socialist Republic of Islington. Never had any chance of retaining grammar schools in that area.

          5. My school, Highbury County, became Highbury Grove Comprehensive a few years after I left in 1961. It’s in the Independent Socialist Republic of Islington. Never had any chance of retaining grammar schools in that area.

    3. Tom – Reform don’t have any members – only supporters who donate to their cause. All appointments are made by Tice and Farage. Nepotism is as rife there as in the Tory Party and most of their policies have been ripped off the UKIP website and watered down.

      Many here know I used to do a lot with UKIP but go disillusioned a bit back. I am truly surprised that they have managed to put together a comprehensive manifesto – and unlike Reform they are presently electing a new Leader – something which will never happen in Reform.
      Reform is a LTD Company masquerading as a political party.

      1. Yes, I’m aware of all that, but will still hold my nose and vote reform in the hope that it will be the beginning of the end for the Tories.

        I’m ex-UKIP and met former leader Gerard Batten once or twice. He reckoned that both Tice and Farage were controlled opposition and not to be trusted. But Ukip has no recognition now, even though its policies are way ahead of the rest.

  54. I personally think a more pertinent question would be why would a father put his daughter into a small rubber, grossly overcrowded boat, with a lot of complete strangers to sail it across one of the busiest shipping lanes in the World?

    1. Because the child will automatically be accepted. Then the entire extended family can join her, all 40 of them.

  55. 386702+ up ticks,

    They have not tried multi hot bedding yet, organise the illegals
    your overseers ( the eu) have trusted you with into day / night bed occupancy, mandatory lodgering next.

    Ireland has made its bed with the EU. It must lie in it
    On one level, the migrant row is a mutually-helpful farce. But has something changed in UK-Irish ties?

    The only noticeable change betwixt two sets of politic top ranking rear exits is they are now suffering massive bed shortages and I believe they are now calling for vertical sleeping to be made mandatory.

  57. Morning all! Nice day here in West Sussex, sunny and at the moment cool.

    Story about slavery in todays Telegraph. I don’t notice below that anyone has posted it, so here it is. One thing is that anyone who knows about Benjamin Disraeli is aware that he complained about the empire being a financial drain on Britain. In fact he referred to it as a: “Millstone around our neck.” He also had a vision for the empire that was far seeing and frankly wonderful. But the Conservatives of the day refused to entertain the idea. He wanted to make the Empire a great association of equal countries with the parliament in India. It was due to that idea that Queen Victoria learnt Hindi. She was very enthused by the idea. How different would the world be if that idea had come to fruition.

    Slavery did not make Britain rich, finds report
    New book reveals colonialism delivered only ‘modest gains’ amid debate over reparations

    Tim Wallace

    Slavery and colonialism did not make Britain rich, and may even have made the nation poorer, a new study has found.

    The riches of the slave trade were concentrated in a few families while the nation footed the bill for extra military and administrative spending, according to a book by Kristian Niemietz at the Institute of Economic Affairs.

    “Profits earned from overseas engagement were large enough to make some individuals very rich, but they were not large enough to seriously affect macroeconomic aggregates like Britain’s investment rate and capital formation,” he said.

    Mr Niemietz argued that that the slave trade had little overall impact on the economy or the country’s ability to industrialise.

    He said: “The transatlantic slave trade was no more important for the British economy than brewing or sheep farming, but we do not usually hear the claim that ‘brewing financed the Industrial Revolution’ or ‘sheep farming financed the Industrial Revolution’.”

    It comes amid a heated debate over Britain’s imperial past. Caribbean states have demanded reparations from Britain, while more than 100 British families whose ancestors benefited from the slave trade, including former BBC broadcaster Laura Trevelyan, have pledged to seek ways to make financial amends.
    By contrast, leading figures including Kemi Badenoch, the Business and Trade Secretary, have hit back to argue that Britain’s wealth was not built on imperialism.

    She hailed the report as “a welcome counterweight to simplistic narratives that exaggerate the significance of empire and slavery to Britain’s economic development”.

    She added: “It was British ingenuity and industry, unleashed by free markets and liberal institutions, that powered the Industrial Revolution and our modern economy. It is these factors that we should focus on, rather than blaming the West and colonialism for economic difficulties and holding back growth with misguided policies.

    “The paper argues persuasively that colonialism played a minor role in Britain’s economy, and may have actually been a net negative after accounting for military and administrative costs – a reminder that state overreach is always an expensive endeavour.”

    Mr Niemietz found that while the empire “did deliver some modest gains for the British economy, it came with eye-watering military and administrative costs and so may have failed any cost-benefit test”.

    He said that although Britain overall profited little from slavery, its effect on its victims was devastating.

    The regions affected still struggle today with what the economist calls “long-term scarring from imperialism and slavery”, pointing to evidence “places that were once subject to short-termist colonialist extraction continue to have worse institutions today and are poorer as a result”.

    “Colonialism and slavery were not zero-sum games that benefited the colonisers at the expense of the colonised,” he found. “It was more like a negative-sum game, which hurt the latter without really benefiting the former.”

    He said the biggest example of a highly profitable colony was Belgium’s rule over the Congo, “often singled out as a particularly atrocious form of colonialism. It may have claimed up to 10 million lives”.

    But most nations appear to have benefited little from colonialism or slavery, he said, with industrial development in particular instead powered by other factors.

    Germany industrialised before it established a significant empire, for example, while Japan was relatively poor by Western standards in its imperial era, only becoming wealthy in the second half of the 20th century.

    “The best predictors of how rich or poor a country is today are economic policy and governance indicators such as the Economic Freedom Index and the Ease of Doing Business Index,” Mr Niemietz said.

    “This tells us a lot more than whether or not a country was involved in the slave trade, how many colonies it once possessed, or how long it held on to them.”

    1. Is slavery a bad thing? Yes. People should be paid for their labour. However the history of the topic is utterly skewed, with the Left assuming that white people went to Africa, shot some people and dragged the rest away in chains.

      The truth is far more complicated but politically unpopular. What’s funny is the Left get het up about the past and an event that the British stopped globally, but that Africa continues to this day – the Rwanda genocide, for example where women were repeatedly gang raped before being discarded. The Left cling to the organisation that did absolutely nothing to stop this abomination because Rwanda had nothing to give them. No resources, no money and that institution just let people die.

      1. It’s taken Rwanda a long time to overcome the genocide – by having a strong leader, it is now a safe country.

        But raping and capturing women and girls still goes on in Nigeria.

        1. I honestly don’t understand it. No, not my usual ranting whining, just the mindset. If I see children playing in a park I don’t think they’re fair game to be assaulted. I don’t see someone driving along a road and sat at traffic lights as an opportunity to hold them up at gunpoint and if they’re women, rape them. It is anathema, yet my South African chums tell me this is normal in some areas.

          I cannot imagine a world where if a black fellow is seen beside your car window you shoot them. Where you carry a pistol to go shopping.

          The Rwanda genocide was senseless. It had a veneer of political motivation but was really just tribal.

          1. I guess that, when one is at the base of society, and action to get a moment’s overhand over the rest is seen as an opportunity.
            A sad state of affairs.
            But then, here on Geoff’s site, we all complain about the politicos that are at the top of the tree, shitting on the rest of us, so maybe it’s just a matter of scale?

          2. Yes.
            Tribal differences exacerbated by the former colonial powers, Germany and Belgium.

      2. The truth is that had white people attempted to capture slaves themselves instead of buying them from the black African slave-traders they wouldn’t have survived five minutes.

    2. It was the British who put an end to slavery – at great expense and we’ve only recently finished paying the bill. We owe no reparations to anybody.

  58. Manchild actor Daniel Radcliffe displays the wide chasm opening between the Labour Party & women as the spotlight falls on the tranny ishooo.

    How any woman can vote for Labour.. with their determination to “insert” perverted men into their changing rooms, Doctor’s surgeries and women’s sports.

    It’s not beyond the realms of fantasy to see the Labour vote to splinter into factions such as SDP, George’s Gaza party and Posie Parker’s Women’s Party.

      1. So, Mr Anderson, you can keep your culture wars. Labour’s commitment to trans people and women is not up for debate.
        Anneliese Dodds
        https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/24/labour-will-lead-on-reform-of-transgender-rights-and-we-wont-take-lectures-from-the-divisive-tories
        When a Leftie Trot says Reform.. they mean the opposite.

  60. Jak Jones, the Welsh snooker player currently competing at Sheffield, has 8 brothers and 1 sister. Imagine being the only sister with 9 brothers.

      1. Yes, any boyfriend she has will have to tread carefully and treat her well. ☺

    5. When my grandmother was born, her parents had 2 girls and 2 boys. They then had 9 more boys.

  61. I saw this on reading the BBC website (about the closure of Ratcliffe on Soar- ignoring half the article’s blithering lie about ‘climate change’.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68930088

    The headline: ‘I could not protect her’: A dad mourns his child killed in the Channel

    Yes mate, you could. You could have stayed where you were. You could have applied to a safe country – like France. You chose to illegally try to come here. You put your child at risk, you killed her through your actions.

    The interesting bit is ‘the rest of the men didn’t care where they were stepping’ – such creatures have no place in this country. Every single one must be removed. Get rid of the 30 million invaders and restore this country to normality.

      1. If you had to choose your favourite figure of speech would you choose hyperbole or litotes?

        3. Umm ….. can I get back to you later?
          I’ve an absolute stack of work to do!

      2. 1.2 million a year for 25 years.

        The UK population in 96 was 52 million. It’s now – according to the same source, Tesco (who I trust far more than government) over 85 million.

        1. I’d like to see Tesco’s workings before believing that figure. Why should they be trusted?

        2. What was Tesco’s figure in ’96? I suspect they don’t have one, but it’s needed to compare like with like – assuming such a figure were calculated in the same way. Does the Tesco figure take account of food waste, for example? Not all food purchased is eaten. Does it take account of other household items such as toiletries, sanitary products, cleaning goods?

          Above all, the entire premise of a Tesco estimate of the country’s population is utterly suspect.

          This was posted to BuzzFeed News 8½ years ago and I’ve no reason to believe that its credibility has diminished in the meantime.

          Politics·Posted on 13 Oct 2015

          How One Old News Story Convinced Conspiracy Theorists Tesco Is Hiding 20 Million People

          The British “population truther” movement keeps referring back to one article from 2007.

          by Jamie Ross
          BuzzFeed News Reporter, UK

          There are people who are so convinced that the government is lying to them that they believe the UK population is almost 20 million higher than officials say it is.

          The only thing is, there’s absolutely no evidence for it.

          Rather than trusting the official stats which place the UK population at 64 million, this band of UKIP-ers, conspiracy theorists, and other assorted migration obsessives are adamant that you can really tell the UK population from the amount of food bought – and the amount of sewage which goes out the other end.

          The source of this belief appears to be just one article written in the Independent on Sunday almost 10 years ago, which has, recently, been given a new lease of life on anti-immigration Facebook groups.

          The article, written by Martin Baker in 2007, cites an anonymous source within an unnamed supermarket who, on the basis of food consumption, estimated that there were at least 80 million people living in the UK.

          Baker wrote that his secret sources were too scared to come forward and tell the truth:

          My sources for the above statement [that there are 77-80 million people in the UK] are good, but scared of admitting the truth for fear of incurring the wrath of Whitehall. It’s like the best way of monitoring illegal drug consumption: forget the pious statements from ministers – the foolproof method is to sample our water and the effluent in it. That’s easily the best way of monitoring what the nation has been consuming. Consumption – that’s the thing. Based on what we eat, one big supermarket chain reckons there are 80 million people living in the UK.

          Since Baker’s article from 2007, online anti-EU campaigners have seized upon it to prove that immigration into the UK is too high.

          The article has been shared thousands of times and transformed into memes by English nationalists.

          It’s been shared on forums, where commenters place more faith in the alleged supermarket estimate than government statistics because “you don’t need to show an NI number or ID to shop at Tesco”.

          Shortly after the article, Tory MP Greg Hands repeated the figure in a blog post on a now-defunct website. “A leading figure at Tesco recently told one of my parliamentary colleagues that they estimate the population of the UK to be closer to 80 million, based on the volume of certain staples they sell,” wrote Hands.

          “Tesco are probably a world leader in understanding their consumer market, so it would be foolish to disregard their opinion.”

          And the unnamed supermarket in the piece has, through rumour alone, become Tesco.

          As with many conspiracy theories, it’s tempting to dismiss the population truther movement as irrelevant internet hearsay. However, at the UKIP conference in Doncaster last month, many delegates, when asked, said they believed it – whether they had read the original article or just heard about it from people within the party.

          The UKIP-ers were much more inclined to believe the unnamed supermarket source, which has been cited and shared among their online communities since it was published, rather than believe official government statistics. With the looming referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU, these are some of the people who will be attempting to convince others to vote ‘out’.

          “We’ve read it in the newspapers,” said UKIP delegate Peter Stanley. “On the basis of how much we eat, Tesco think the population is 80 or 90 million and I’m more inclined to believe them than the government.”

          “The government play around with the figures,” added fellow delegate Mike Byron. “They’ll do anything they can to manipulate them. We treat the government estimate as the minimum and add about 20 million on top of that on the basis of food sales, how much tap water we use, and how much sewage is treated here – things like that.”

          Even elected UKIP politicians believe in the theory. David Coburn MEP said you just had to look at UK food sales and the “turd count” to prove the official figure was wildly inaccurate.

          “Of course the government fiddle the population figures,” said Coburn. “From living in Britain and using my eyeballs, what the government say about immigration is absolute twaddle. Tesco is in the business of making money and in the business of finding out who’s here. I believe them.”

          The problem is that Tesco has never claimed any such thing, and in fact is increasingly frustrated at being wrongly cited as the source for the conspiracy theory. When contacted for a comment by BuzzFeed News, the supermarket firmly but politely declined on the basis that they weren’t named in the original news story.

          The Office for National Statistics (ONS), the government body which is responsible for producing the official number of the UK population, was scathing of Baker’s article for not providing any kind of source or methodology, and said it is confident its calculation of 64 million is much more accurate than Baker’s anonymous informant.

          “That article is from 2007,” said an ONS spokesperson. “Since then we have had another full census in 2011, which has produced very robust estimates that ONS is confident in. In addition we produce mid-year population estimates every year, using the census as a baseline with additional data on births, deaths, and migration from a number of sources.

          “In terms of saying how the article is inaccurate, that is difficult as the author does not cite his sources or their methods.”

          Even if the unnamed source is correct in saying UK food consumption is much higher than it needs to be for 64 million people, it’s much more likely that people are simply eating and wasting too much food rather than there being 20 million secret people in the country.

          WRAP, which carries out research into food wastage in the UK, estimated that 15 million tonnes of food are wasted in the UK each year, which amounts to around £470 spent on unused food in each household each year. In 2012, it estimated that 24 million slices of bread were thrown away each day, alongside 1.4 million bananas, and 1.2 million yoghurts.

          Regardless, people are continuing to share the article as cold, hard evidence that the UK population is around 80 million.

          And there’s nothing anyone can do to convince them otherwise.

          https://www.buzzfeed.com/jamieross/how-one-old-news-story-convinced-conspiracy-theorists-tesco

    2. I’m sorry but I don’t believe a word of this hyperbolic crap. “The sea was the only choice”. “Found himself wedged tightly inside an inflatable boat”. Was he on the run? Was he kidnapped? I’m done with emotional blackmail.

      “Ahmed Alhashimi stood on the beach, howling at the retreating waves, beating and clawing at his own chest, and surrendering to the grief and rage and guilt that would not go away.

      “I could not protect her. I will never forgive myself. But the sea was the only choice I had,” he sobbed.

      A week earlier, before dawn, on the same stretch of French coastline south of Calais, the 41-year-old had found himself wedged tightly inside an inflatable boat, screaming for help, lashing out at the bodies around him, begging people to move, to give him space, to let him reach down and rescue his seven-year-old daughter, Sara, from the suffocating darkness into which she’d been crushed”.

      1. So he took his children from a safe place in Sweden – for what??

        This is the BBC’s finest emotional blackmail working on kind-hearted people. Like Oberst.

          1. Read the story – the child was born in Belgium and was at school in Sweden. He’s Iraqi. The war there ended years ago. He should have gone back to Basra.

          2. Or applied legally to another country. There are many between us and Iraq. Many that are far easier to get to.

      2. Brits go to blasted Frogland for a holiday. He had many, many choices. He chose the wrong ones. Now his daughter is dead.

      2. Agreed. She did not deserve that and her father must be brought to book for her death.

      3. I didn’t. If I strapped Junior to the front of the car I’d expect him to get hurt. Therefore I would be responsible. The article is intended to make us feel guilty for the child’s death. The father killed him. The BBC, by promoting massive uncontrolled gimmigration killed her. The state, ditto killed her.

        I want them to stop coming here. If my wishes had been carried out the kid would be alive – and people call me callous.

        1. I don’t care about the father. Bastard – let the Devil have him as His plaything. It’s just the wee lass, trusting her dad to look after her, ends up squashed and dead. As a frustrated granddad-never-to-be, I find unthinking cruelty to children hard to take. Life’s hard enough as it is.

        2. I don’t care about the father. Bastard – let the Devil have him as His plaything. It’s just the wee lass, trusting her dad to look after her, ends up squashed and dead. As a frustrated granddad-never-to-be, I find unthinking cruelty to children hard to take. Life’s hard enough as it is.

        3. I don’t care about the father. Bastard – let the Devil have him as His plaything. It’s just the wee lass, trusting her dad to look after her, ends up squashed and dead. As a frustrated granddad-never-to-be, I find unthinking cruelty to children hard to take. Life’s hard enough as it is.

    4. He had applied 14 times and been refused. He was an economic migrant and was about to be deported by Belgium back to his home country of Iraq.
      Perhaps if he had taken the hint his daughter would still be alive.

  62. £100 a year is less than one month’s council tax.

    There’s a farmers market in town. It’s… in town. That’s £7 to park, if you can.

    We buy our vegetables from the farm down the way. We can’t get meat from there though, or the fruit juices that come from foreign, this time of year. Or the squash Junior likes. I support the intent and want to buy British meat but going into M&S and trying to find the red tractor logo on any of their goods is impossible.

      1. No, they don’t – that I know of. There’s an organic farm van River Cottage? that delivers vegetable crates. I pointed out the hard Left communist at my old place that this went against their entire ideology but they were convinced of the righteousness of their cause.

        1. River Cottage? Wasn’t that on the TV a while ago, fronted by Hugh Fearnleigh-Whittingstall, with Shaun the Sheep stop-motion programme on children’s TV?

    2. If you go up on the PFFA (Peoples’ Food & Farming Alliance) they have a link to a website which lists loads of farmers and producers who sell direct to the public – many by mail order

      ~those of interested in good home produced food should seriously consider supporting the PFFA

  64. Ah-ha! Thus it has been proven! Tintin was the worst colonialist of all times!

    Slavery did not make Britain rich, finds report

    New book reveals colonialism delivered only ‘modest gains’ amid debate over reparations

    Tim Wallace
    1 May 2024 • 5:00am

    Slavery and colonialism did not make Britain rich, and may even have made the nation poorer, a new study has found.

    The riches of the slave trade were concentrated in a few families while the nation footed the bill for extra military and administrative spending, according to a book by Kristian Niemietz at the Institute of Economic Affairs.

    “Profits earned from overseas engagement were large enough to make some individuals very rich, but they were not large enough to seriously affect macroeconomic aggregates like Britain’s investment rate and capital formation,” he said.

    Mr Niemietz argued that that the slave trade had little overall impact on the economy or the country’s ability to industrialise.

    He said: “The transatlantic slave trade was no more important for the British economy than brewing or sheep farming, but we do not usually hear the claim that ‘brewing financed the Industrial Revolution’ or ‘sheep farming financed the Industrial Revolution’.”

    It comes amid a heated debate over Britain’s imperial past. Caribbean states have demanded reparations from Britain, while more than 100 British families whose ancestors benefited from the slave trade, including former BBC broadcaster Laura Trevelyan, have pledged to seek ways to make financial amends.

    Former BBC broadcaster Laura Trevelyan has pledged to make financial amends for her ancestors’ role in the slave trade
    Former BBC broadcaster Laura Trevelyan has pledged to make financial amends for her ancestors’ role in the slave trade CREDIT: David Levenson/Getty Images
    By contrast, leading figures including Kemi Badenoch, the Business and Trade Secretary, have hit back to argue that Britain’s wealth was not built on imperialism.

    She hailed the report as “a welcome counterweight to simplistic narratives that exaggerate the significance of empire and slavery to Britain’s economic development”.

    She added: “It was British ingenuity and industry, unleashed by free markets and liberal institutions, that powered the Industrial Revolution and our modern economy. It is these factors that we should focus on, rather than blaming the West and colonialism for economic difficulties and holding back growth with misguided policies.

    “The paper argues persuasively that colonialism played a minor role in Britain’s economy, and may have actually been a net negative after accounting for military and administrative costs – a reminder that state overreach is always an expensive endeavour.”

    Mr Niemietz found that while the empire “did deliver some modest gains for the British economy, it came with eye-watering military and administrative costs and so may have failed any cost-benefit test”.

    He said that although Britain overall profited little from slavery, its effect on its victims was devastating.

    The regions affected still struggle today with what the economist calls “long-term scarring from imperialism and slavery”, pointing to evidence “places that were once subject to short-termist colonialist extraction continue to have worse institutions today and are poorer as a result”.

    “Colonialism and slavery were not zero-sum games that benefited the colonisers at the expense of the colonised,” he found. “It was more like a negative-sum game, which hurt the latter without really benefiting the former.”

    He said the biggest example of a highly profitable colony was Belgium’s rule over the Congo, “often singled out as a particularly atrocious form of colonialism. It may have claimed up to 10 million lives”.

    But most nations appear to have benefited little from colonialism or slavery, he said, with industrial development in particular instead powered by other factors.

    Germany industrialised before it established a significant empire, for example, while Japan was relatively poor by Western standards in its imperial era, only becoming wealthy in the second half of the 20th century.

    “The best predictors of how rich or poor a country is today are economic policy and governance indicators such as the Economic Freedom Index and the Ease of Doing Business Index,” Mr Niemietz said.

    “This tells us a lot more than whether or not a country was involved in the slave trade, how many colonies it once possessed, or how long it held on to them.”

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

    No comments allowed by DT

    https://thetintinshop.uk.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Congo-Cover-Poster11.jpg

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/36/Angry_King_in_Tintin.JPG

    https://cdn001.tintin.com/public/tintin/img/static/tintin-in-the-congo/C01_Congo-en-p62-abc.jpg

    https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1569929822i/28227082._SX540_.png

    1. Grew up with Tintin books. Love them! There are many layers of joke & irony to be found there.
      The English text ones were a bit sanitised when compared to the French.

      1. Me too, we were given most of them at Christmas and birthdays and fought over who was going to read them first! The whole collection ended up with my older sister who gave them to her son who then swapped the lot at school for a bag of marbles….Aaaaargh!! To be fair to him he did confess his crime in adulthood and bitterly regrets it!

        1. We have ours and Mr S is reading them to our grandson (although he currently prefers Asterix because the simple violence in Asterix plus magic potion appeals to a 5 year old)

    2. I have to say that those large, incongruous, pink areas around the mouths of those ‘natives’ does make them look more like chimps than humans.

    2. Seems like all your reaction needed was this catalyst. I’ll get me lab coat..

      1. Yes!! Love it, KP!
        BTW, we’re coming to Penarth on about 16th next month to visit Mother. Might you be up for a beer or 2?

        1. My two are named for two “strong men” of the past: Alexander and Patrick.
          Both also family names with a long history.
          Long story: The Clan became bankrupt a century or so ago, and dispersed My branch went to Hartlepool. My family has always had an Alexander in every generation, ever since whenever.
          We went to Voss in west Norway some few years ago, to fly in the wind tunnel (best fun you can have with clothes on…). There, we met a Kiwi, same surname & spelling, who was also Alexander, and the same story!
          How cool was that? Was staggered… (bakoversweis, på norsk) – took me back.

      2. I wonder how it would play if native British, especially Christian native British, refused to allow themselves to be policed by Muslim cops? I’m seriously considering it.

      3. I wonder how it would play if native British, especially Christian native British, refused to allow themselves to be policed by Muslim cops? I’m seriously considering it.

    2. vw here Yeah. I say Deradicalisation Programme, 1 month suspension at the outside. Really punish him.

    3. Stuff the 5 years; that would cost the taxpayer c. £250,000.
      Just ship the shiite back to Shitholistan.

  67. I would rather we had the opportunity to destroy Liebour first but, hey ho, you have to play the ball in front of you.

    1. We thought we’d got rid of Labour in 2010 and 2019, but they refused to die.

    2. I think it more important to destroy the Tories first, and get a genuine, patriotic conservative party in place that is prepared to really fight the woke globalist cult and its culture war. That would go a long we to also destroy the Labour Party, which is not loved by any means.
      Destroying Labour first would just leave us with identical woke globalist Tory, Libdem and Green Parties fully intact.

  68. Will get it framed, together with its friend, signed by the Queen, on Father’s elevation to Fellow.
    Just need some time to but frames & find them somewhere to hang…

  69. Will get it framed, together with its friend, signed by the Queen, on Father’s elevation to Fellow.
    Just need some time to but frames & find them somewhere to hang…

  70. Good Morning Folks.

    Quick in and out this morning – off to blood tests done – apparently if i have some I am alive 🙂

      1. Blood found in sufficient quantity but apparently it has a predominant green tinge to it – begorah that’ll be the Irish bit 🙂

        1. My advice (for what it’s worth) is to stay off the Creme de Menthe! :-))

          1. Not really my kind of poison. i am about a far from am alcoholic as you can get. A bottle of wine will last me 2 weeks – and will probably be used up in cooking.

            Note to self – must do some baking.

            Tasty recipe….

            Take one round of Camembert, wrap in panchetta (bacon) . Further wrap in puff pastry – brush with egg yolk and bake in oven 200 until pastry is cooked.

            Very filling – eat a half at a time served with salad.

            Goes down well with family and Friends.

          3. Not really my kind of poison. i am about a far from am alcoholic as you can get. A bottle of wine will last me 2 weeks – and will probably be used up in cooking.

            Note to self – must do some baking.

            Tasty recipe….

            Take one round of Camembert, wrap in panchetta (bacon) . Further wrap in puff pastry – brush with egg yolk and bake in oven 200 until pastry is cooked.

            Very filling – eat a half at a time served with salad.

            Goes down well with family and Friends.

    2. Good luck! I’m always amazed at the printouts from blood tests. The quantity and precision of the information is staggering.

      1. I don’t think I’ve ever had one – not that they gave me the results of, anyway.

  75. A West Yorkshire police constable has been arrested for two charges of supporting a proscribed organisation, specifically Hamas, contrary to section 13 of the Terrorism Act. The officer goes by the grand old Yorkshire moniker of Mohammed Adil.

    1. What can anyone expect when the main criteria for police recruitment is diversity and not suitability?

  77. Bragging:
    Wordle 1,047 3/6

    ⬜⬜🟩🟨⬜
    🟨⬜🟩⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Well I never! Me too.

      Wordle 1,047 3/6

      🟨🟨🟨⬜⬜
      🟩🟨🟩🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  79. ‘Morning All

    Fun and games with the Sunday Times wine club cancelled subscription several days ago yet two days ago was an attempted delivery which I rejected went online and gave details and asked if my card had been debited

    Yesterday a charming apologetic phone call yes card debited but refund on the way and sub cancelled

    All Good

    Then arriving home late last night what do I find?? A case of wine by my door!!

    Tempted to just keep it but not my style rang this am and charming Cat sorted it and told me to open the case and keep one of each (6bottles) for my trouble and they will arrange a pickup of the rest

    Result!!

    There are still some organisations with decent customer service I highly recommend them

    Meanwhile a lighter medley

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/484b92a2b4122cb49dffe2748e92876d0b373bc37755d3c03ccfc50ccf1d42c4.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/96bff0825343d684df7bf2f9c175dbee7e5e5ef72bcd0d9c7d9dfbf9fcd93660.gif

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4e3c1e91e1063d093a4bc12e434b8ab55b6a9463819e49e642d715dd6446666b.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6e93448115661f0ff9c002b42717071a123380134ec92d44aebda7d1fe172f72.gif

    Become ungovernable..

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c849e65d9adc5033ffcf80a14564228e652c476c898fd557d77565bcd501d348.jpg

    2. “This ride is going to be fun!”
      Not so sure, one of those flying about could have your eye out.

    3. There’s a reason the Volvo has soft suspension, and it’s not just because the Warqueen drives like a rally driver.

      When we made the to have and to hold vows we both shared a very dirty look.

    5. I ordered two boxes of assorted luxury products from Loch Fyne at £150 a pop. They got back to me a month later and said they couldn’t make the December/Christmas delivery. I told them they were Christmas presents and late delivery was not acceptable. I demanded my money back. Which i got.
      Then on the 23rd December both boxes arrived at their destination.
      I didn’t bother to offer to pay.
      That is my style.

  80. It’s a long story, but after a discussion with my statuesque Polish lady friend on WhatsApp (she’s on a sales tour of Far east just now), and the arrival of our Polish cleaner, my befuddled brain (what’s left after the stroke, at least) starts to ask questions (influenced by pints of homebrew ginger beer at about 10%):
    Q: What’s Polish folk music like? A: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn9501EPLkI&list=PLRkTdChZyTXgnryl-Sovwvq_ejP99Cbza&index=3 is a solution there. Tracks currently playing…
    Q: Why are Polish women all thin, although really good looking? A: They all work like blacks – the statuesque one, and the cleaner both do, and as the only representatives of Polish pulchritude, I have to go with the statistics. No time to eat, and calories consumed are burned.
    Q: why do many people not like the Poles? My brother doesn’t. A: Is it because they are like the Brits used to be decades ago – diligent, clannish, hard working, successful… ? Just look at the cleaner… man, does she work hard and for a rate that’s nothing like the friend in Bangkok!

    1. Or possibly, like my late step-mother in law, they are terrible cooks so have no interest in food. To be fair to her, she grew up with servants and, by the time she had to cook for herself, it was WWII so there was nothing good to eat. Then she had a spell in a Nazi labour camp followed by liberation to post war Britain with food rationing so it is not surprising that she lost any interest in food that she might have started off with.
      But at least she didn’t have the trauma of being misgendered.

  81. Bastard!
    He must buy them back, at 2024 prices!
    I still have mine, hardback and softback, from 1960’s cough cough…

  82. RB Whitehead
    3 HRS AGO
    BRAVE NEW WORLD

    Brave New World in which we live
    The Beeb unable now to sieve
    The illiberal bias from its staff
    Smug and venal; how they laugh
    As they take the bended knee
    Losing ground for all to see
    Ne’er in sight a heart of oak
    Just jellied spines; bent and woke”!!
    Off to bank their gains ill got
    Aye unaware that they are not
    Reflections of democracy
    Just hideous hypocrisy!
    Failing even to report
    Real news of truly large import
    For fear it undermines their choice
    As our ‘Vichy-British’ voice
    Anti-Brexit, anti-Tory
    The slant they give to every story
    Epitomised on Question Time
    That smorgasbord of pinko whine!
    Ditto HI Got News For You
    The jokes all based on lefty spew
    The ‘stars’ still squabbling o’er their pay
    Tax payer funded more each day
    While always happy to abuse
    Our entitlement to balanced views!!

  83. Watch: Monty Panesar stumped on George Galloway’s Nato pledge

    1 May 2024, 12:01pm

    Former England cricketer Monty Panesar. Credit: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire/PA Images

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    If you thought the last you’d hear of George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain would be the Rochdale by-election, you were sadly mistaken. ‘Gorgeous George’s’ group is back in the limelight after former England cricketer, Monty Panesar, announced that he would be the party’s candidate in Ealing Southall at the upcoming general election — even revealing ambitions to one day be Prime Minister. Panesar is just part of an eclectic bunch trying to be recruited by the Workers Party. While Galloway claims he’s held secret talks with several Labour MPs keen to jump ship, it has also been announced today that Craig Murray — the pro-indy blogger jailed for contempt of court over the Alex Salmond trial — will be joining his party’s ranks.

    But while Galloway is busy making manoeuvres, it appears Panesar himself has quite a way to go until he masters the political basics. Quizzed by Times Radio presenter Stig Abell on the airwaves, the left-arm spinner turned left-wing crusader ended up totally flummoxed on the number one priority of his party: Nato. Protesting that he didn’t ‘have a deep understanding’ of the organisation, Panesar added its purpose was to ‘protect the European Union’ before agreeing ‘it’s got America in it’. Er, right. The ex-cricketer then decided to draw a rather tenuous link between the political defence body and illegal migrants living in ‘deprived areas’ of the UK — before remembering the question and hastily calling for a ‘debate’ on Nato.

    But Abell wasn’t going to let Panesar off the hook, sensing the sportsman was on a sticky wicket. The rather excruciating exchange won’t have left many listeners bowled over…

      1. Your party leader has just said he’d like to disband Nato. Thoughts? ‘I don’t have enough knowledge about it.’ Any policies?

        I have seen videos of a very young Mrs Thatcher replying in a very similar way about Edward Heath and his ambitions to join the Common Market. She simply didn’t know enough about it, they’d have to ask Mr.Heath who knew much more.

  84. I don’t know. But I know what you mean about Polish women. Go East, young man, marry a Pole would be my advice to youngsters finding trouble with fat tattoo’d British girls.

    1. Thanks for your support. I thought I was away out on a limb here.
      But I’m a Scots Yorkehireman. No backing off.

    2. Nigel Kennedy, the violinist, married a Polish lawyer. They live in Krakow. Not as daft as he likes to appear.

  85. I don’t know. But I know what you mean about Polish women. Go East, young man, marry a Pole would be my advice to youngsters finding trouble with fat tattoo’d British girls.

    1. Is Mr Panesar OK? He is somewhat wide of the mark in his understanding here.

  90. https://unherd.com/newsroom/keir-starmer-owes-rosie-duffield-an-apology/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups%5B0%5D=18743&tl_period_type=3&utm_source=UnHerd+Today&utm_campaign=a14daf523d-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2024_05_01_10_52&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_79fd0df946-a14daf523d-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D

    Keir Starmer owes Rosie Duffield an apology

    Joan Smith

    “If you want to see a human being squirm, just say the words “Rosie Duffield” to Sir Keir Starmer. He immediately looks like a man who wishes he was somewhere else — at the dentist, maybe, or having an intimate medical procedure. It happened again this morning, when he was asked by Susanna Reid on Good Morning Britain whether he was going to apologise to the Canterbury MP after finally admitting she was correct to say in 2021 that only women have a cervix.

    The Leader of the Opposition tried, as usual, to swerve the question. “Rosie Duffield and I get on very well, we discuss a number of issues, she’s a much respected member of the Parliamentary Labour Party and I want to have a discussion with her and anybody else about how we go forward in a positive way,” he rambled.

    This is not how Duffield sees it. She says Starmer hasn’t spoken to her for two-and-a-half years, and it’s not for want of trying on her part. Her efforts to talk to him about the bullying she’s endured from party members (and indeed anything else) have come to nothing, as she revealed in an article earlier this month.

    “Have I heard a word from [Starmer]? Or from senior colleagues?” she wrote. “No!” She added that the party leader has “almost no personal contact with his backbenchers. The last message I sent to Keir, practically begging for support, was ignored.”

    Duffield is certainly in need of support. She regularly encounters hostility in the House of Commons, where she says some of her Labour colleagues mutter about “fucking terfs” as she walks past. Worse, she’s been targeted by violent men, one of whom appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court yesterday. Glenn Mullen, 31, admitted sending threatening messages to Duffield and the author J.K. Rowling, one of which was a threat to shoot the MP.

    Starmer’s refusal to apologise to Duffield is bad enough. It’s part of his mulish reluctance to admit he has said any number of risible things about sex and gender, as though we all have short memories and he can rewrite the past. He wholeheartedly embraced gender ideology after he became leader and now seems to be having second thoughts, which is hardly surprising in light of the casualties it’s already claimed — Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf in Scotland, Leo Varadkar in Ireland.

    A decent man would throw up his hands and admit he was wrong. Instead, Starmer takes refuge in platitudes — but they’re dangerous platitudes. He says he talks to Duffield. She says he doesn’t. He says he wants to have a discussion with her and “anybody else” about sex and gender. So why have I been waiting more than three years for a response to my letter on this very issue, which described attacks on women members of the Labour Party by trans activists? He still hasn’t replied after I spoke to him in person at a dinner in May 2022.

    The question of where our likely next prime minister stands on the conflict between women’s rights and the outrageous demands of trans activists is not going to go away. And Starmer has made the situation a great deal worse by appearing to lie on TV about his dealings with one of his own MPs.”

    Joan Smith is a novelist and columnist. She has been Chair of the Mayor of London’s Violence Against Women and Girls Board since 2013. Her book Homegrown: How Domestic Violence Turns Men Into Terrorists was published in 2019.

    1. It’s not an issue that will prevent a Labour victory at the GE.

      1. More’s the pity. It’s not the issue per se (though that is bad enough and should be in its own right); it’s the lack of judgement in the first place, leading us to suspect he either has no critical thinking skills and/or no spine to stand up to bullies and then the lying to cover it up. This should sink the Liebour party but the main-stream media are in it up to their necks too as they have been cheering this trans-nonsense on.

  91. Over on Talk TV (find it on Youtube), JHB majored on the dead Hainault boy.

  92. Provided nobody invades them (an occupational hazard of being Poland), they’ll be Europe’s top nation soon enough. I wish them well.

  93. My husbands Dell laptop hasn’t been coming on when pressing the button, it’s about 7 years old, he called Dell who weren’t helpful, he then found a local Dell repair place of which we left the laptop on Monday – a family run business where you talk to people. Was quite worried about how much it’d cost as didn’t ask beforehand or whether it could be fixed. They just called the problem as a tiny little battery type thing ( not the main battery) they’ll need to rattle around in the hard drive and fit the battery thingy. It’ll cost £60 for the battery more then reasonable and it’ll be ready for collection on Friday . Husband was expecting them to say he needed a new laptop .

    1. Sounds like it’s the CMOS battery, which powers the BIOS. It’s a flat disc e.g. CR2032 which you can replace yourself if you know what you’re doing.

    2. Sounds like it’s the CMOS battery, which powers the BIOS. It’s a flat disc e.g. CR2032 which you can replace yourself if you know what you’re doing.

  94. No fool like a blind narcissistic fool.

    In a recent US appearance Trudeau said he “trusted” that Canadians are ultimately going to come to their senses in the next election and vote for him.

    Seriously? His polling numbers are predicting that the liberals could lose party status.

    1. I blame the long and deep Canadian winters for their masochistic cravings…..

    2. I blame the long and deep Canadian winters for their masochistic cravings…..

    3. Does Canada use mail in ballots and Dominion voting machines?

      A colleague made me laugh yesterday. She received a text from a neighbour which read, “The Bible says the meek shall inherit the earth. We’re stuffed”.

    4. When is the next election in Canada.

      I would like to see Jordan Peterson enter the political fray!

      1. On or before October, 2025. Peterson isn’t a conservative, he’s a libertarian. I highly doubt he’d enter politics after the last eight or so years of his life. Eventful doesn’t even begin to describe it!

    1. The Human Rights lawyers and refugee charities will stick their oars in.

    1. Not if he does a Grizz and makes his own. Mind, I like the M&S versions. My concession to healthy eating is that I’ve given up margarine and soya milk in favour of butter and whole milk. Also no more Coca Cola, or cats pee and pepper, as my late father called it.

      1. I find shop bought scotch eggs to be too dry. Are the M&S ones any good?

        1. I haven’t bought any very recently but I don’t recall them being dry. Quite moist and tasty from my recollection. They contain the dreaded rapeseed oil of course. Cutting out seed oils is easier said than done.

          M&S Sotch Eggs
          Cooked Egg (37%), British Pork (30%), Wheatflour contains Gluten (with Wheatflour, Calcium Carbonate, Iron, Niacin, Thiamin), Water, Rapeseed Oil, Pork Fat, Onions, Potato Starch, Sage, Salt, Sea Salt, Ground Nutmeg, Ground White Pepper, Ground Black Pepper, Yeast

          1. Think i will give it a miss. It’s just like those cocktail sausages wrapped in bacon. Tasteless pap.

          2. Grizz Scotch Eggs: Free-range hen’s egg; Minced pork belly, salt, freshly-ground black pepper, dried sage, breadcrumbs.

      2. Go to local butchers for pies. Good choice for the margarine. It is not healthy that stuff. Haven’t touched it since the 1970s. Butter every day since.

        Incidentally my nephew used to call dandelion and burdock dandelion and bird muck! He was 6 mind.

      3. Go to local butchers for pies. Good choice for the margarine. It is not healthy that stuff. Haven’t touched it since the 1970s. Butter every day since.

        Incidentally my nephew used to call dandelion and burdock dandelion and bird muck! He was 6 mind.

      5. I’ve always dislike Coca Cola.
        It has the aftertaste of a horrible aperient called Lixon that my mother gave me every Saturday night.

      6. I’ve always dislike Coca Cola.
        It has the aftertaste of a horrible aperient called Lixon that my mother gave me every Saturday night.

    3. I used to work in a factory where they made Sausage Rolls and Pork Pies. Never eaten either since!

          7. What do the four exclamation marks signify?

            Do you love them, as I do, or do you (irrationally) hate them?

          8. Love them. We are all still waiting for our invite chez Grizz. It I can’t make Monday.

          11. A very sharp (and honed) kitchen knife, which is heated under the tap till hot.

          12. Blimey, Grizzly! Your attention to detail is exemplary. No-one can accuse you of doing things by half. Salute.

          13. Thanks.

            I was brought up and trained (in all my jobs) under the motto that if a job is worth doing then it’s worth doing well.

    4. He was never the brightest button in the box! He married Amanda Abbington! 🤦🏻‍♀️

    5. He was never the brightest button in the box! He married Amanda Abbington! 🤦🏻‍♀️

    6. Mine aren’t.

      Yes, they go through a ‘process’ when I make them but I don’t add unnatural chemicals, ville oils or weird ingredients.

    7. Mine aren’t.

      Yes, they go through a ‘process’ when I make them but I don’t add unnatural chemicals, ville oils or weird ingredients.

    8. His success/popularity puzzles me. He’s not an actor. He’s just himself in different costumes.

  97. Party Political Broadcast

    Lefties are a threat, to our country, our freedom, our history, our culture, our wealth, our civilised values and our sanity, but apart from that, they are okay.

    So Vote Labour Tomorrow

    You know it makes absolutely no sense, whatsoever
    (It obviously does for Masochists )

  98. Party Political Broadcast

    Lefties are a threat, to our country, our freedom, our history, our culture, our wealth, our civilised values and our sanity, but apart from that, they are okay.

    So Vote Labour Tomorrow

    You know it makes absolutely no sense, whatsoever
    (It obviously does for Masochists )

      3. I believe they sleep with headphones on. You can only tell if they are awake by looking to see whether they are holding a phone in their hands…

    2. What a strange co-incidence. I feel there is more to this than meets the eye. False flag…?

    3. What a strange co-incidence. I feel there is more to this than meets the eye. False flag…?

      4. A sword of Epping proportions.

        Edit: or, for the history buffs, it was what Edward III used to beget the Black Prince, John of Gaunt etc.

  101. GP struck off after having sex with multiple women at his surgery in working hours. 1 May 2024.

    The former GP was accused of having sex with half a dozen women in the room where he treated patients and blamed his actions on a “sex addiction”.

    An independent panel ruled that his ability to practice was “impaired” and his actions “incompatible” with the profession of a doctor.

    One assumes that they had less trouble booking appointments than his patients.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/30/thomas-plimmer-doctor-struck-off-sex-women-surgery-swindon/

    1. There is a trial ongoing involving a former doctor at our local surgery in similar circumstances. The first trial was inconclusive and a retrial is imminent. Why do I mention this? Well he happened to be my GP many years ago! On one occasion when I had an appointment I was kept waiting for quite a while. Eventually a young lady came out and I could tell from the look on her face that something wasn’t right. Obviously I didn’t know about his sex cravings at the time and I may well be jumping to the wrong conclusion as my own appointment progressed normally. It was some time later that I got a letter telling me he was no longer at the surgery, reason not mentioned, and I had a new (lady) doctor.

      It does seem these things go on sadly.

    2. What are the chances of me having sex with multiple lady doctors at the local surgery during working hours?

      Must I join a waiting list?

    3. What are the chances of me having sex with multiple lady doctors at the local surgery during working hours?

      Must I join a waiting list?

  102. I started to cut the grass but have given up – it’s too hot. I’ll finish it off this evening

    1. Bloomin’ warm here too, Spikey! We’re going to barbie a spatchcocked chicken wot I have prepared and marinaded! The twins are very very excited! 😘

      1. Drizzle some honey over it before serving and the twins will think you are a goddess.

          2. And to you too, Tom! You shall go to the ball again soon – just when Richard and I get our diaries sorted!

    2. He is now dead to me. Actually before he trots off he can lick my steaming sh*t.

    5. I’ll add to my earlier comment. I’m glad Star Wars: The Last Jedi was so atrocious. Haha, good.

    6. I’ll add to my earlier comment. I’m glad Star Wars: The Last Jedi was so atrocious. Haha, good.

      1. Not very much. He’s just sharing an opinion about something in another country as many of us do here.

        1. I share opinions about other countries if they affect us in the UK.
          Hamill’s life is very unlikely to be affected by a Starmer government.

          1. It’s because he once lived in London that he takes an interest. I’m not unduly worried about it. I doubt he’ll have much influence on the outcome. Khan will win a comfortable majority either with or without Hamill’s intervention. It might help if other parties would put up more formidable candidates but I suspect personal vanity dissuades them from the prospect of challenging Khan and losing.

          2. Doesn’t matter who puts who up as a candidate. The postal votes are in, as they always are, well in advance. The election is not democratic in any meaningful sense.

          6. Shaun Bailey’s supposed party (“The Conservative Party”) gave him no help at all. It is the same with Susan Hall. I agree with you that this ghastly little despot will probably win

          7. Shaun Bailey’s supposed party (“The Conservative Party”) gave him no help at all. It is the same with Susan Hall. I agree with you that this ghastly little despot will probably win

    1. Don’t want to know. If they don’t share the same body, how does that work?

      1. I don’t buy it. It’s online. And no i don’t believe anything that is printed. Speaking of which, our local councils provide pressreader for free ! You’re the one spending money on useless articles. :@)

        1. We read it online from time to time to see what lies and propaganda they are telling the herd today. One has to know these things to be prepared. The DM is less free though than once it was. The free parts are the propaganda the state requires us to ingest.

  106. “Police officer charged under Terrorism Act for sharing Hamas images
    PC Mohammed Adil, from Bradford, faces two counts of publishing an image in support of the banned terror group”

    Heartwarming, isn’t it? Policing by consent….

    Bet he says it was a mistake.

      1. Friendly local bobby. Always a kind word. Loves his Nan (and his four wives) to bits…

    3. He thought they were cuddley kittens?
      Maybe the Met should improve their eyesight tests.

  107. “Police officer charged under Terrorism Act for sharing Hamas images
    PC Mohammed Adil, from Bradford, faces two counts of publishing an image in support of the banned terror group”

    Heartwarming, isn’t it? Policing by consent….

    Bet he says it was a mistake.

  112. And then, just like that, YouTube jumps to this – a track I heard so often, driving from Aberdeen to Ardersier on a Monday and back on a Friday, living away from my lass… still breaks my heart to hear it. I’m sorry Sinead isn’t with us any longer, but at least SWMBO is…
    https://youtu.be/0-EF60neguk?si=ZhynfmgKB_zrKL_M

    1. The perfect example of a complete nutter. Post mortem said she died at home of natural causes – what are they hiding, some of her four husbands and twenty plus partners would like to know – including the women?

      1. Indeed.
        Back in 1990, lovely voice and lyrics.
        I’ll still give her a massive hug when we meet in the afterlife. She sang me through a hard episide in my life, so I owe her that.

      2. What religion was she when she died? Jedi Knight? Follower of the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

        1. She very publicly espoused the Religion of Peace towards the end of her life.

          2. Well yes. I don’t share the enthusiasm for the pop song that Ober loves, but she did have the most lovely voice and particularly good on Irish folk songs (eg the Foggy Dew)

          4. Well yes. I don’t share the enthusiasm for the pop song that Ober loves, but she did have the most lovely voice and particularly good on Irish folk songs (eg the Foggy Dew)

  113. And then, just like that, YouTube jumps to this – a track I heard so often, driving from Aberdeen to Ardersier on a Monday and back on a Friday, living away from my lass… still breaks my heart to hear it. I’m sorry Sinead isn’t with us any longer, but at least SWMBO is…
    https://youtu.be/0-EF60neguk?si=ZhynfmgKB_zrKL_M

  123. Good afternoon, swirls in on a beautful joyous sunny spring day – actual spring

  124. Good afternoon, swirls in on a beautful joyous sunny spring day – actual spring

  125. I do spatchcocked poussin then drizzled with honey. Cooks in 20 mins in my airfryer/mini oven.

  126. I do spatchcocked poussin then drizzled with honey. Cooks in 20 mins in my airfryer/mini oven.

    1. That was beautiful, and brought a lump to my throat.
      A cousin of mine who lives ‘down under’ shared a photo of her 4 year old son (complete with kilt and mini chanter) standing with a 102 year old veteran.
      Such music and images, as well as old Battle of Britain fly pasts, make me think of how my great grandparents and my grandparents must have felt when their sons went off to war. They were all ‘fortunate’, as all returned home more or less intact in body, though not all in mind. One great grandfather died at home after medical discharge caused by a pre-existing health problem that was worsened by the his WW1 experiences, one grandfather suffered from gassing and died relatively young, and my other grandfather was sent home to recover from injuries sustained at the Somme, then was sent back to the front. One of my late uncles was captured at Dunkirk, and had a terrible time in a POW camp but survived – my mother said he was, unsurprisingly, a changed man when he came home.
      It always make me grateful that my own sons have never had to answer the call to war or be conscripted.

      1. “It always make me grateful that my own sons have never had to answer the call to war or be conscripted.”
        I hope my two lads avoid that, more than anything else.

        1. My lad is 19. My daughter is 20. I am petrified a) my son might be a sacrifice to the Great Military Complex and all those getting rich off the back of it and b) my daughter may not have a husband as all the good men will be killed. See the Great War, etc.

      2. We should never forget who our friends are. Who knows when we might need those lads again?

  129. The Telegraph
    Supersize me: McDonald’s plots bigger burgers
    Fast food chain sees appetite for larger patties as it battles sluggish sales

    Adam Mawardi 1 May 2024 • 10:57am
    McDonald’s is preparing to roll out a bigger burger to help boost the fast food giant’s flagging sales.

    Ian Borden, the chief financial officer, on Tuesday said the restaurant’s chefs from around the world have created a “larger, satiating burger”.

    The new product will be introduced in certain markets to test its global appeal, he told analysts during an earnings call.

    The dish is designed to meet customers’ appetite for more filling patties, Bloomberg reported.

    The bigger burger comes as McDonald’s grapples with sluggish demand as anti-Israel boycotts continue to hurt its sales.

    Pro-Palestinan campaign groups have called for diners to boycott McDonald’s after photos and videos on social media showed franchised stores in Israel offering free meals to its soldiers following the Oct 7 Hamas attack.

    Customers in the Middle East and Muslim-majority markets such as Indonesia and Malaysia have since shunned McDonald’s over its perceived support of Israel.

    Sales across McDonald’s international developmental franchised markets fell 0.2pc during the first quarter of 2024, marking the segment’s first quarterly decline in two years.

    The fast-food chain blamed this “slightly negative” performance on the continued impact of the war in the Middle East.

    McDonald’s has denied taking any position in the ongoing conflict and said it is not responsible for the actions of its franchisees, which pay the group a fee to licence its brand and recipes.

    Chris Kempczinski, the chief executive, warned in January that such “misinformation” about its support for Israel was harming its Middle East sales.

    Chris Kempczinski
    Chris Kempczinski said the campaign to boycott McDonald’s was founded on misinformation Credit: Jean Marc-Giboux/AP Images
    McDonald’s overall increased global sales 1.9pc last quarter, driven by strong sales in the US, according to its latest results.

    Plans to introduce a bigger burger comes after McDonald’s unveiled plans in December to boost growth by focusing on core menu items.

    This back-to-basics strategy has included a new advertising campaign highlighting improvements to its Big Mac, quarter pounder with cheese and double cheeseburger.

    The upgrades reportedly mark the first time in the US company’s 84-year history that changes have been made to its classic burgers.

    Chad Schafer, McDonald’s USA’s senior director of culinary innovation, previously said: “We found that small changes, like tweaking our process to get hotter, meltier cheese and adjusting our grill settings for a better sear, added up to a big difference in making our burgers more flavourful than ever.”

    It follows plans by fast-food rival Burger King to improve its flagship Whopper burger as part of efforts to turn around the business.

    McDonald’s new burger could heighten competition with Burger King, whose efforts to offer customers more burger for their buck has previously culminated in the Big King XL and then the Big King XXL

    1. Recently I had the misfortune of being invited to a “Roast” at one of the Toby Inn eateries where you are encouraged to:
      “Go Extra Large for just £1.99”
      Judging by the sizes of some of the customers they appear to have had no qualms about following this exaltation.

      Afterwards I thought they should be renamed :T‘Obycity Inns

      1. Our two adult sons are very proud of the fact that their parents never took them to MacDonalds, nor Burger King.

        2. Yes, my parents were like that.
          I think the first McDonalds opened near us in the very early 1960s in the Upper Midwest. ‘Just drive into McDonalds’ the jingle went. We never did but I sometimes had McDonalds for lunch at friends’ houses.
          When my family moved to London a few years later there was no McDonalds. Wimpy was a place where you went in hungry and came out even hungrier than before.
          Some 40 years ago the first McDonalds opened in the centre of the Spanish city where I live now and my kids really loved going when they were small. I think they even went to birthday parties in a special kids’ section.
          The problem for McDonalds is that there are now lots of great places to eat hamburgers. Specialist places make them better and cheaper. I haven’t been to McDonalds for years.
          My son and his family live in California and we’ve eaten some great hamburgers there. There’s a place called ‘Pinks’ in Melrose Hollywood queues around the block all day every day. Fast Mexican service, chili sauce on your cheeseburger, couldn’t ask for more.
          ‘In&out’ rather than McDonalds. Gosh even working there inspires disdain apparently.
          Times change anyway. My eldest grandson (7 years old) came from California for a few days last month and we took him to lunch for something all kids seem to like now: Sushi, a buffet place where he could eat as much as he wanted.
          Don’t think McDonalds can compete with that.

        3. Yes, my parents were like that.
          I think the first McDonalds opened near us in the very early 1960s in the Upper Midwest. ‘Just drive into McDonalds’ the jingle went. We never did but I sometimes had McDonalds for lunch at friends’ houses.
          When my family moved to London a few years later there was no McDonalds. Wimpy was a place where you went in hungry and came out even hungrier than before.
          Some 40 years ago the first McDonalds opened in the centre of the Spanish city where I live now and my kids really loved going when they were small. I think they even went to birthday parties in a special kids’ section.
          The problem for McDonalds is that there are now lots of great places to eat hamburgers. Specialist places make them better and cheaper. I haven’t been to McDonalds for years.
          My son and his family live in California and we’ve eaten some great hamburgers there. There’s a place called ‘Pinks’ in Melrose Hollywood queues around the block all day every day. Fast Mexican service, chili sauce on your cheeseburger, couldn’t ask for more.
          ‘In&out’ rather than McDonalds. Gosh even working there inspires disdain apparently.
          Times change anyway. My eldest grandson (7 years old) came from California for a few days last month and we took him to lunch for something all kids seem to like now: Sushi, a buffet place where he could eat as much as he wanted.
          Don’t think McDonalds can compete with that.

  130. The Telegraph
    Supersize me: McDonald’s plots bigger burgers
    Fast food chain sees appetite for larger patties as it battles sluggish sales

    Adam Mawardi 1 May 2024 • 10:57am
    McDonald’s is preparing to roll out a bigger burger to help boost the fast food giant’s flagging sales.

    Ian Borden, the chief financial officer, on Tuesday said the restaurant’s chefs from around the world have created a “larger, satiating burger”.

    The new product will be introduced in certain markets to test its global appeal, he told analysts during an earnings call.

    The dish is designed to meet customers’ appetite for more filling patties, Bloomberg reported.

    The bigger burger comes as McDonald’s grapples with sluggish demand as anti-Israel boycotts continue to hurt its sales.

    Pro-Palestinan campaign groups have called for diners to boycott McDonald’s after photos and videos on social media showed franchised stores in Israel offering free meals to its soldiers following the Oct 7 Hamas attack.

    Customers in the Middle East and Muslim-majority markets such as Indonesia and Malaysia have since shunned McDonald’s over its perceived support of Israel.

    Sales across McDonald’s international developmental franchised markets fell 0.2pc during the first quarter of 2024, marking the segment’s first quarterly decline in two years.

    The fast-food chain blamed this “slightly negative” performance on the continued impact of the war in the Middle East.

    McDonald’s has denied taking any position in the ongoing conflict and said it is not responsible for the actions of its franchisees, which pay the group a fee to licence its brand and recipes.

    Chris Kempczinski, the chief executive, warned in January that such “misinformation” about its support for Israel was harming its Middle East sales.

    Chris Kempczinski
    Chris Kempczinski said the campaign to boycott McDonald’s was founded on misinformation Credit: Jean Marc-Giboux/AP Images
    McDonald’s overall increased global sales 1.9pc last quarter, driven by strong sales in the US, according to its latest results.

    Plans to introduce a bigger burger comes after McDonald’s unveiled plans in December to boost growth by focusing on core menu items.

    This back-to-basics strategy has included a new advertising campaign highlighting improvements to its Big Mac, quarter pounder with cheese and double cheeseburger.

    The upgrades reportedly mark the first time in the US company’s 84-year history that changes have been made to its classic burgers.

    Chad Schafer, McDonald’s USA’s senior director of culinary innovation, previously said: “We found that small changes, like tweaking our process to get hotter, meltier cheese and adjusting our grill settings for a better sear, added up to a big difference in making our burgers more flavourful than ever.”

    It follows plans by fast-food rival Burger King to improve its flagship Whopper burger as part of efforts to turn around the business.

    McDonald’s new burger could heighten competition with Burger King, whose efforts to offer customers more burger for their buck has previously culminated in the Big King XL and then the Big King XXL

    3. The Golden Age of Pop is the mid to late 1960s. Fact. Coincidentally following the era of The Beatles. Look at the top 10 records of any given week. Track after track after track. Before that period standards were excellent, it’s around then the art of in and out in under 3 minutes 30 really kicks in. This was before I was born which puts a dampener on the idea that “It’s from your yoof”. Nah.

      I also note there was a creative blossoming in the 80s, in the UK in particular, through the vehicle of the synth.

      Modern pop is generally utter garbage.

      1. “….. before I was born……” ! It all happened long after I was born…. and I regard ‘ABBA’ as being ‘my time’. As for modern pop, I didn’t know pop still existed

      2. Sgt Pepper’s was 1967. I think that was mid revolution, so it went well into the 70s. But you had to be there :-). And if you were you don’t remember!

    2. Let me be clear – are you all saying free speech is only what we agree with?

      When they come for you – and believe me they will if this goes on – there may be some changes of mind…

  135. Just glanced at my grand daughter’s homework (Year 6 – last year of Primary School).

    Me to her: “You do know Co2 is plant food?’
    Her to me: “Yes of course I do?”
    Me to her: “Then why are they trying to reduce it?’
    Her to me: “Because it’s bad for the planet…”

    Me: Silence.

    Boy I can’t wait until she’s a little older to show her:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A24fWmNA6lM

    1. Be gentle. It’s quite a revelation when all those you have believed turn out to be wrong/liars…

      1. I do intend to be gentle. I don’t want her to be ostracised by her peers until she is strong enough to prevail and convince others that Net Zero is just WWB….

        1. Tell her that CO2 is essential for running barges otherwise they sink without trace with a loss of all hands. {:^))

    2. The NASA satellite images of global greening should be good for that age group.

    3. I was talking to our grad today at work about the “climate bollox”. He was quite shocked I said that out loud. He is not stupid and admitted the assumptions going into the models might not be any good. I think he was quite shocked to hear someone say what they thought about “climate change” out loud. One hopes he might start to question it and speak out against the “orthodoxy”. We seem to be finally getting somewhere with the trans-nonsense, after all. But I appreciate the climate bollox is more lucrative and has more politicians involved in the scam.

    4. I was talking to our grad today at work about the “climate bollox”. He was quite shocked I said that out loud. He is not stupid and admitted the assumptions going into the models might not be any good. I think he was quite shocked to hear someone say what they thought about “climate change” out loud. One hopes he might start to question it and speak out against the “orthodoxy”. We seem to be finally getting somewhere with the trans-nonsense, after all. But I appreciate the climate bollox is more lucrative and has more politicians involved in the scam.

  136. Good afternoon. Washington has forbidden publication of this man’s books.( In a week incidentally where I read that an MP in the Commons was blocked from asking a question by government.). In UK they do offer one volume – to be accurate I see they offer one volume in UK – The Foundations of Geoploitics. I think he is remarkable. See what you think if you care to.

    https://open.substack.com/pub/tarableu/p/amazon-cant-sell-books-by-this-man?r=10qzvs&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

          1. I made a YouTube collection for our 40th wedding anniversary, but it was overtaken by events – my Mother having to go & live in a care home, COVID and we had to clear & sell her house, all the same summer… 40th wedding anniversary to the woman who is the source of all tha’s wonderful in my life just disappeared. YouTube reminded me this weekend (thanks…!) so I thought I’d revisit some. Turns out, it’s a bit hard to listen to wihout the actual event.

          2. All the extraneous stuff is irrelevant to the way you and your wonderful lady feel about each other. And I expect that you managing to tell her and your lovely sons, a little of the way you feel about them, is worth so much more.

          3. It would have been good to get together again with the original participants in the wedding, but it’s so long ago, I think we lost touch with them all except for blood relatives. Pity.

      2. I thought ‘God Save the King’ was bad enough, but ‘Flower of Scotland’ is even worse!

  139. It’s a bit like the minute you realise your parents aren’t infallible!

  140. Sitting in my sunny garden 18c 👒 ( thanks to Helios ) drinking a cheeky G&T before I start dinner .

  141. A clueless Par Four!

    Wordle 1,047 4/6
    ⬜🟨⬜⬜🟨
    ⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜
    ⬜⬜🟨🟨🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Surprise three today.

      Wordle 1,047 3/6

      🟨🟨🟨⬜⬜
      🟩🟨🟩🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. Just back from early doors pub. Something I did earlier.

      Wordle 1,047 3/6

      🟨🟨🟨⬜⬜
      ⬜⬜🟩🟨🟨
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. I’m with you at the back of the class today, it seems!

      Wordle 1,047 4/6

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

  142. 12c here , drizzly and dull.

    We had one hour early afternoon when I felt some warmth in the air and a little bit of sunshine , I took Pip out for a run , saw a few rabbits, yellowhammers and stonechats , and the larks were soaring and singing .

    Moh had a good game of golf , he arrived home at about twoish , tired out and his foot hurts with a corn near his heel .

    Getting an appointment with foot bods is difficult , he will have to wait 10 days .. as you know he is type 2 diabetes.

    I always warn him not to fiddle with his feet !

    I have just filled the bird feeders up again, have been doing that twice a day , hungry birds , no sign of fledglings yet . I have also scattered meal worms everywhere .

    I tried to buy a Financial Times earlier .. scanned the head lines .. saw that house prices are dropping , or are they , and where .

    The great white flight continues , and as well as that many huge beautiful country estates are on the market .. In fear of a prospective Labour/ Lib Dem government?

    1. Bird food is very expensive these days but it ‘feels good’ to help them out. House price ‘increases’ might be dropping but the prices aren’t dropping, Belle, just increasing a bit more slowly.

    1. That looks like Parnell Square, one of Dublin’s five iconic Georgian Squares.

      Parnell Square deteriorated into a slum in the ‘Fifties/ ‘Sixties; perhaps it has been refurbished for the’boat people’?

    2. We must pray that Mrs Abdul goes through the menopause before they can be reunited.

          1. Do you just say three times “I divorce you”, turn round three times and it’s done (if you’re a man) but if you’re a woman it’s more problematic and might result in a stoning to death. Classy religion.

    1. No, but the young squirrel probably won’t survive being constricted even if it’s not a venomous snake.

  146. This week’s issue of Country Life celebrates regional distinctiveness, from dialects to the differences in landscape that shape everything from the type of houses we live in to what we eat and drink. For instance, did you know there was a goddess of grit in Yorkshire, which is where the phrase “Yorkshire grit” comes from?

    With experts warning that regional accents could disappear within decades, the magazine has collated a glossary of bizarre dialect words that are becoming ever more precious. Here are the highlights.

    Apple-catchers (Herefordshire) Big knickers. The opposite of a G-string. Somewhere you could also stash a few pieces of fruit, if the occasion called for it.

    Bange (East Anglia) A lingering dampness in the air. The type of weather that tricks you into leaving your coat at home, then soaks you to your underwear.

    Beat the devil round the gooseberry bush (Sussex) To tell a long, rambling and very probably anticlimactic story.

    Blaefummery (Scotland) Utter nonsense. For example: “This article is a load of blaefummery.”

    Cag-mag (Lincolnshire) Cheap and nasty cuts of meat. Originally an 18th-century term for a tough old bird. Can now be taken to mean anything a bit rubbish.

    Clish-ma-claver (Scotland) A good old gossip. The more idle the better.

    Coopy down (southwest) To crouch down on one’s heels, resulting in a fair imitation of a hen laying an egg in its coop.

    Cuddy-wifter (Scotland/north) A person of the left-handed persuasion. If we take the Scottish definition of “cuddy” as meaning donkey, this can be translated roughly as “donkey-wafter”.

    Daggy (northeast) Scruffy and dirty, resembling the unsightly dags hanging from a sheep’s bottom.

    Dardledumdue (East Anglia) A daydreamer.

    Dew-bit (Dorset) A pre-breakfast snack or meal, preferably taken outdoors amid the early-morning dew. Was there ever a more poetic way to describe the munchies?

    Doxy (Cornwall) The object of one’s affections. Possibly not one to use in a Valentine’s card, due to its 16th-century implication of promiscuity.

    Emmet (Cornwall) A tourist. Thanks to its other definition of “ant”, the Cornish use this word to describe the summer influx of inept surfers swarming all over their county.

    Fernticles (Northern Ireland) Freckles. From the Middle English farntikylle, meaning “resembling the seed of a fern”. Almost sickeningly sweet.

    Forkin robbins (East Riding of Yorkshire) An earwig, rather than a brand of ice cream. The fork makes sense (little forked bottom, its Latin name is Forficula auricularia), but heaven only knows what those East Yorkshire earwigs have been doing to the local robin population.

    You know warmer weather is on the way when your “apple-catchers” can dry in the breeze

    Gobslotch (Yorkshire) A greedy and probably lazy individual.

    God Almighty’s cow (Dorset) A ladybird. Defies explanation.

    Griggling (Wiltshire) Knocking down the “griggles” — the runty, inferior apples — from the trees after the good fruit has been gathered.

    Hookem-snivey (southwest) A wonderfully Victorian term for trickery or deceit — monkey business, if you will — as in Devon-educated author Eden Phillpotts’s Miser’s Money of 1920: “No man plays hookemsnivey with me twice.”

    Mardy (Midlands/north) Petulant or sullen, especially when relating to a child. Can be used as a particularly fine insult: “mardy-bum” or “mardy-arse”.

    Moldwarp (Scotland/north) A mole. Derives from the Middle English moldwerp, meaning “earth thrower”.

    Neb (Midlands) To nose about. The literal definition is a bird’s beak — from the Old Norse nef —making it a cunningly subtle way of accusing someone of sticky-beaking.

    Niddy-noddy (Lancashire) An April fool. “Noddy” generally has been a nod to the fool as far back as the 16th century.

    ADVERTISEMENT

    Nuddle (Suffolk/East Anglia) To walk quickly with your head down — an old word that would adequately describe most teenagers walking and consulting their mobile phones simultaneously.

    Off-comed ’un (Yorkshire) Someone not from the area. Hopefully, you should be able to shake off this tag about 500 years after your family has moved to the village.

    Plodge (Northumberland/Scotland) To wade through or splash about in water or mud. A jolly fun thing to do, until you pass the age of ten.

    Quilt (Liverpool) A Scouser’s take on a wimp or “wet blanket”.

    Ram-stam (Scotland/north) Headstrong or reckless. Variations on the theme abound: ramstamphish, ramtamlat, ram-tambling — take your pick.

    Shrammed (south) Somewhat to incredibly cold — or “brass monkeys”, to reference an old navy phrase.

    Skopadiddle (Yorkshire) A cheeky or mischievous youth. Far more socially acceptable than some of the commonly used alternatives.

    Slammakin (Devon) An untidily dressed woman. Essentially, most relatively recent mothers and/or remote workers.

    Snicket (northwest) The passageway between two houses. Amazon drivers, take note: “Left in the snicket” is infinitely more charming than “Dumped behind the bins”.
    countrylife.co.uk

    1. The only one of those that I’d heard of was “Mardy” – common in south Lincs. in the 70s & 80s.

      2. I’ve come across ’emmet’ before. Other than that, ‘mardy’ is the only I knew beforehand. My favourite, though, is right at the top, ‘apple catchers’. You can just imagine a cluster of Granny Smiths in big knickers.

      3. I’ve come across ’emmet’ before. Other than that, ‘mardy’ is the only I knew beforehand. My favourite, though, is right at the top, ‘apple catchers’. You can just imagine a cluster of Granny Smiths in big knickers.

    2. Hence the one-word description of this present government (as sought by an earlier nottler) would be: Daggyquilt

    3. Snicket was a term also used in South Yorkshire along with Ginnel .

      Surprised they didn’t list Grockles (Dorset / Devon)

      1. That’s a North-Western word as well! Also applies to a bit of a tosser, as in ‘he’s a bit nesh’….

    6. I’ve heard of corry fister for left handedness but never cuddy wifter.

    2. It’s not as though Croxall had the wrong views on the world. She rejoiced at Bonjo’s elimination from the Tory leadership contest in 2022. The photo shows her to be a proper bruiser. How apt that the ghastly Brammar should be at the centre of this.

    1. I’m still waiting for Benny Hill to come scuttling up and pinch her arse, then she chases him all around the auditorium. Maybe slap a bald guy in the orchestra on the head a few times??

  157. Yet another reason to disown the Conservatives:

    “Yet this week, as AstraZeneca confirmed Sir Pascal’s annual salary would rise to £18.7 million, The Telegraph obtained court documents that showed the pharmaceuticals firm was admitting for the first time in legal proceedings that its vaccine can “in very rare cases” cause an illness which is fatal about 20 per cent of the time. When its symptoms of blood clots and low blood plate counts are not deadly it leaves its victims with devastating injuries. In the same documents, AstraZeneca accepts that it has no idea why the vaccine, developed in conjunction with the University of Oxford, should do that. “The causal mechanism is not known,” the company said in correspondence with Jamie Scott’s lawyers.

    It’s a legal mess made more complicated because the Government indemnified AstraZeneca and other Covid vaccine-makers ahead of the mass rollout that began to much fanfare in December 2020. In other words, though AstraZeneca is one of the UK’s wealthiest businesses (it generated revenue of £37bn in 2023) it will be the British taxpayer that will foot any legal bills and damages should Mr Scott and 50 other claimants win their class action suit against the company. The details of the indemnification agreement have never been made public.”

      1. I imagine that £18.7 million is closer to the precise figure than either of the other two.

    1. Id not have recognised him as the man he was. Hopefully eating meat again will improve his health . Boiled cabbage and nuked green cheese cannot be healthy .

      2. Morgan/Martin: aren’t they one and the same?

        In truth, I think Bob3 is having a little joke.

  159. That’s me gone for today. Turned out nice in the end. Shorts! Potted on 120 annuals. The MR has gone to her Keep Fit class – so I am reclining in the sun (indoors) with an Ivy Compton-Burnett novel. Not sure that I’ll make it all the way through….! Looking forward to a glass of wine when the MR returns at 7.05 pm.

    Have a smashing evening.

    A demain (another fine day – the last, apparently – rain Friday onwards…)

    1. I suspect you will have a heavy read ahead of you, but it will probably be comfortably enjoyable because her wordsmithery will be exact and precise .

      Probably similar to taking a quick look at another type of family life ?

      Enjoy your quiet moments with your purring cats .

      Dismal weather here , heating is switched on .

      Fish pie for supper , with broccoli .

  160. The 40mph ‘death trap’ e-bikes wreaking havoc on Britain’s streets

    Police accused of failing to tackle scourge of souped-up two-wheelers

    Matt Oliver, INDUSTRY EDITOR • 1 May 2024 • 4:00pm

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/200846dc36c13ce6856a37d83d411f922cf9501916f9668364228df8e0a27273.jpg

    Powerful e-bikes that reach speeds of nearly 40mph are being ridden illegally across Britain because of a lack of effective policing, motorcycle manufacturers have claimed.

    In a warning to the Government, an industry group representing Honda, Yamaha, BMW and others said a failure to enforce the law properly had led to “widespread” use of e-bikes that technically qualify as mopeds and should only be ridden with a licence. The rise of these two-wheelers – which are often advertised by some companies as “street legal” – is eating away at motorcycle sales while creating a dangerous situation on the roads, they said.

    At the same time, manufacturers are concerned that it is overly complicated for prospective riders to secure licences for mopeds and motorcycles. Ahead of a meeting with ministers next week, motorcycle companies have written to Mark Harper, the Transport Secretary, urging him to launch a “full-scale review” of licensing.

    Their warning comes as the Government is mulling changes to allow more powerful e-bikes to be used on Britain’s roads, despite concerns about safety and crime. Police have caught a string of people using illegal e-bikes on motorways, while motorcycle manufacturers complain they are also being adopted by food delivery riders to race around towns and cities.

    Tony Campbell, chief executive of the Motorcycle Industry Association (MCIA), said: “There are laws and regulations on this – they just aren’t being enforced properly. At the moment, if you’re riding one of these illegal e-bikes there is very little chance the police are going to come over and stop you. That is despite the fact that these machines are very much unsafe. Some are very powerful but they are not tested to the same safety standards as mopeds.

    “So are these illegal e-bikes designed to be able to stop quickly at high speeds with a person weighing 13 stone? Probably not. And most people are using them without helmets and other protective gear as well. They are death traps – and people have died using them.”

    Sales of mopeds and light motorcycles soared during the pandemic when lockdown restrictions prompted a surge in orders for takeaways, he added. But many riders are now migrating to powerful e-bikes instead because “they know they can get away without having a licence, obtaining insurance or wearing a helmet”, while they have also been used by gangs to mug victims and escape down narrow streets.

    Under existing laws, an e-bike must have a motor with no more than 250 watts of power, restricted to speeds of no more than 15.5mph. They must also require the rider to pedal – as opposed to being operated by an accelerator button on the handles. However, a string of so-called e-bikes sold online are openly advertised as having speeds of up to 37mph and motors with up to 2,000 watts of power.

    Sellers claim they are legal because the accelerator buttons are removable and the speeds artificially limited, although these limitations can be removed on request. Bike “conversion kits” can also be easily bought online, many of which allow power and speeds above the legal limit for e-bikes.

    Mr Campbell added: “You see this in towns and cities all the time now. Illegal e-bikes are being used by delivery riders and they are relying on the fact that no one is going to pull them over. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what laws are in place if there’s no enforcement.”

    Sales of e-bikes roughly tripled to more than 150,000 a year between 2019 and 2022, according to market research firm Mintel. Cycling groups say they could deliver a major boost to public health because they encourage people who may be put off by hills to cycle more often, while also helping to reduce carbon emissions through saved car journeys.

    “Half of all trips by e-bike substitute a journey that otherwise would have been by car,” said the Bicycle Association. “Furthermore, e-bikes are used for longer trips than conventional pedal cycles, so their beneficial contribution is correspondingly more, and at the same time they help us to travel more healthily.”

    However, the rising popularity of e-bikes has led to confusion about how powerful they can be and where they are allowed to be used. In several cases shared on social media by police, riders have been stopped and had their e-bikes confiscated after they attempted to drive the two-wheelers on motorways.

    Iain Stewart, a Tory MP and chairman of the Transport Select Committee, said he was concerned that e-bikes capable of seriously injuring people in collisions were increasingly being ridden in cycle lanes and on pavements. He said: “Whether they are legal or illegal, it is a safety concern for both pedestrians and normal cyclists. And if e-bikes are not road legal but are being advertised as such, that suggests a lack of proper enforcement of the law.”

    London Fire Brigade has also warned that fires involving lithium batteries, which are used to power e-bikes and e-scooters, are the “fastest-growing fire risk” in the capital. Firefighters were called to a fire involving the two-wheelers once every two days in 2023, the service said.

    Despite the concerns, the Government recently proposed increasing the maximum power allowed for e-bikes to 500 watts, arguing this would help to boost sales and allow cargo e-bikes to get up hills more easily when fully loaded. The proposals would also remove the requirement for e-bike motors to only function when the rider is pedalling.

    But the move is being opposed by the MCIA and the Bicycle Association alike. The latter group argues the change is “unnecessary, risky and the wrong approach” and would inevitably lead to a crackdown that would end up hurting the market for legal e-bikes.

    “Non-pedalling electric cycles would be less like pedal cycles and more like mopeds in character or performance, so in time, if not immediately, it will in our view prove impossible to resist calls for moped-like requirements,” the association has told the Government.

    Motorcycle manufacturers argue that the proliferation of illegal e-bikes is also sapping the desire for people to buy a motorcycle. They are lobbying for reforms to the licensing system that would mean people are able to ride “electric light mopeds” and e-scooters with a learner’s licence from age 14.

    They will then be able to progress every two years to more powerful vehicles, potentially acquiring a full licence at age 21 – down from the current minimum of 24. Mr Campbell claimed the changes would have little impact on safety while ensuring the licensing regime was easier for people to navigate.

    A government spokesman said: “We want all road users, including pedestrians, to feel safe which is why we have strict laws in place for e-cycles, including a 15.5 mph speed limit for electrical assistance. Anybody found breaking these rules may be prosecuted by the police.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/05/01/how-40mph-deathtrap-unlicensed-e-bikes-took-over-the-street0/

    There is a distinction between a low-speed, electrically-assisted pedal cycle and an electric moped. There’s no distinction between the types of riders if they’re on footpaths. More than once I have been walking through the park and heard a buzzing sound rapidly approaching, followed by a yob hurtling by at 30mph or more.

    I’d have a simple rule: no wheeled contrivance on any footpath. “The majority of cyclists are responsible” is the cry. Bollocks. They can die on the roads for all I care.

    1. For the umpteenth time. These are NOT e-bikes. They are illegal motor vehicles. As you noted (“ There is a distinction between a low-speed, electrically-assisted pedal cycle and an electric moped.). But we need to stop calling things e-bikes when they are not (and, for that matter, calling Assemblies “Parliaments” or “governments”).

    2. For the umpteenth time. These are NOT e-bikes. They are illegal motor vehicles. As you noted (“ There is a distinction between a low-speed, electrically-assisted pedal cycle and an electric moped.). But we need to stop calling things e-bikes when they are not (and, for that matter, calling Assemblies “Parliaments” or “governments”).

      2. He couldnt hold a bat the right way round – he only batted at 11 because there werent 12 in the side……

  162. Sack the lot of them…(bet taxpayers are paying for the union’s legal action)

    Civil service union tries to stop Rwanda flights with judicial review

    FDA’s application is first legal challenge to the landmark legislation

    Charles Hymas, HOME AFFAIRS EDITOR
    1 May 2024 • 5:58pm

    Civil servants are threatening to scupper Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda plan by mounting the first legal challenge to the landmark legislation.

    The FDA union, which represents senior civil servants, has submitted an application for a judicial review over concerns that Home Office staff could be in breach of international law if they implement the Prime Minister’s Safety of Rwanda Act.

    This is a breaking news story and is being updated

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

    BTL flooding in

    1. The FDA – First Division Association or Association of First Division Civil Servants – has issued this statement.

      FDA judicial review of the the Safety of Rwanda Act

      The FDA has submitted an application for judicial review relating to the relationship of the Civil Service Code with the UK government’s Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024.

      In March, FDA General Secretary Dave Penman wrote to the Home Secretary and Minister for the Cabinet Office, outlining the union’s concerns regarding the provisions in the then-Bill, which indicated ministers may have discretion to ignore Rule 39 orders from the European Court of Human Rights. These provisional orders, similar to an injunction from a UK court, would potentially be issued to prevent the deportation of an asylum seeker, before the final decision being taken by the court.

      Ignoring a Rule 39 order would be a breach of international law and civil servants have a legal obligation under the Civil Service Code to “uphold the rule of law and administration of justice”. Neither ministers nor guidance can overrule the legal obligation of the Civil Service Code, only another act of parliament can. There is therefore a potential conflict between any instructions that might be given by a minister and the legal obligations under the Code, if a minister was to decide to ignore a Rule 39 order.

      The FDA has been clear all along that our challenge is not to the policy itself – that is a matter for Parliament. Civil servants know that they have to support the government of the day and implement policy, regardless of their political beliefs, but they also know they have a legal obligation to adhere to the Civil Service Code. Faced with a government that is prepared to act in this reckless way, it is left to the FDA to defend our members and the integrity of the civil service.

      Our only option therefore is to ask for a court to decide on this issue. In doing so, we want to do everything we can to resolve this before a civil servant is potentially placed in this invidious position by a minister and we have sought to act as quickly as practicable after the bill received Royal Assent.

      Following the application for judicial review, FDA General Secretary Dave Penman said: “This is not a decision that we have taken lightly. The government has had plenty of time to include an explicit provision in the Act regarding breaking international law commitments which would have resolved this, but it chose not to.

      “Civil servants should never be left in a position where they are conflicted between the instructions of ministers and adhering to the Civil Service Code, yet that is exactly what the government has chosen to do.

      “This is not an accident, or down to poor drafting. It’s a political choice from the government, made not for the good of the country but to avoid upsetting either of the warring factions within its own party.

      “It’s also irresponsible. Those seeking to undermine the integrity and impartiality of the civil service have seized on the difficulties the government has had in implementing this policy, to accuse civil servants of acting politically.

      “We have been clear all along that our challenge is not about the policy itself – that is a matter for Parliament. Civil servants know that they have to support the government of the day and implement policy, regardless of their political beliefs, but they also know they have a legal obligation to adhere to the Civil Service Code. Faced with a government that is prepared to act in this cowardly, reckless way, it is left to the FDA to defend our members and the integrity of the civil service.

      “We do not welcome this action, but neither are we prepared to shy away from it as we must protect the interests of our members and the integrity of the Civil Service Code.”

      https://www.fda.org.uk/home/Getinvolved/Safety-of-Rwanda-judicial-review.aspx

      1. “…the integrity of the Civil Service Code…”

        This would be the same Civil Service that operates in the Home Office, giving to thousands of immigrants visas and work permits for jobs that don’t exist.

        Dave Penman is a militant trade unionist and leader of the union that complained of bullying by Priti Patel and launched a legal challenge to Bonjo’s decision not to sack her. I do not doubt for a minute that this action is political and not legalistic.

        1. Since the Judiciary, the Civil Service and the Mainstream Media have all now become uber-politicised, and the voting system has been corrupted, how we vote is moot

      1. I preferred the Beatles’ version. Was it Ringo who sang “Now it’s time to say Goodbye. Goodbye, Goodbye”? Lol.

        1. I thought that was Peter Cook and Dudley Moore? – Goodbye, Goodbye, I’m leaving you Goodbye……

    2. I find this hard to like, Kitty – partly because of Katherine Jenkins (whose voice I really dislike, although i think her a really nice person)

  164. If these mollycoddled anti-Israel students are America’s future, the West truly is doomed

    Pampered Ivy League protesters will have no influence on events in the Middle East, but Heaven help us when they walk into the top jobs

    MICHAEL DEACON, COLUMNIST & ASSISTANT EDITOR
    1 May 2024 • 6:00pm

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/columnists/2024/05/01/TELEMMGLPICT000375853015_17145783880520_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqFoHsp_UsHlI0j-apX2eHrSJvD9xiApWoSujiOHocdUg.jpeg?imwidth=680
    Columbia University’s anti-Israel students have discovered that protest is thirsty work

    The anti-Israel student protesters bringing the United States’ top universities to a standstill may be rabidly fanatical, crashingly ignorant, and possibly even a tiny bit anti-Semitic, but I will say one thing for them: they’ve just provided us with the most hilarious video clip you’ll see all year.

    The clip in question, which is going viral on social media, consists of an interview at Columbia University, New York, with a PhD English student – who, in her own words, is writing a dissertation on “theories of the imagination and poetry as interpreted through a Marxian lens in order to update and propose an alternative to historicist ideological critiques of the Romantic imagination”.

    In recent days, however, I don’t suppose she’s had much time to pursue this vital line of inquiry. For Left-wing students at Columbia, there have been far more pressing matters to attend to. Such as illegally occupying a key university building as part of their protests against Israel.

    It isn’t just the Israelis who have displeased them, though. They’re also angry with the university authorities. Because, apparently, those authorities have failed to supply them with food and drink to keep them going during their protest.

    “Do you want students to die of dehydration and starvation or get severely ill?” wails the student in the clip. “This is, like, basic humanitarian aid we’re asking for.”

    https://twitter.com/i/status/1785386376755900611

    In summary: she seems to think that people who illegally occupy a building are entitled to be fed by the people who own it. Perhaps burglars should try this argument. Break into a house during the night, and then moan to the media that the owners didn’t invite them to stay for breakfast.

    In their defence, the student says that her comrades “pay for a meal plan here”. No doubt they do. Equally, though, other students pay to be educated. Presumably they, too, are entitled to get what they’ve paid for. But they won’t be able to get it if mobs of Israel-hating hipsters prevent them from attending their lectures.

    At any rate, this delightful young woman has given us some glorious entertainment. I love everything about that clip. The pomposity. The entitlement. The spectacular lack of self-awareness. And, in particular, the obscene use of the term “humanitarian aid”, when, far from facing starvation, she and her middle-class friends could easily toddle across the road to buy snacks at the nearest bodega.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/columnists/2024/05/01/TELEMMGLPICT000375858759_17145795493720_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bqb2ZDPKGGGpkDo52HkqYK-HMb99SJ1zbY7Kzuqt-Dyzs.jpeg?imwidth=680
    Protesters flew the flag of Palestine from the roof of Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall after barricading themselves inside the building CREDIT: Stephani Spindel/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

    Come to think of it, I suspect the reason she used that term is the same reason that so many white, Western protesters go on marches wearing Palestinian-style headdresses while calling for “intifada”. It’s all a form of role-play. Just as little children love pretending to be princesses or pirates, so cossetted Left-wing students love pretending to be persecuted minorities. It’s yet another way to demonstrate how wonderfully empathetic and compassionate they are. (See? We feel your pain. We need humanitarian aid, too. We were so busy protesting yesterday, we missed lunch!)

    Then again, the rest of us shouldn’t laugh too hard. These pampered narcissists might not be able to influence events in the Middle East. But they’ll almost certainly influence our future. After all, they’re students at Ivy League universities. America’s educational elite. Which means that, in due course, they’ll be strolling into America’s top jobs, and taking leadership positions in business, the arts, education and politics.

    This should worry us all. Because if these mollycoddled brats are America’s future, the West truly is doomed.

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

    1. Some enterprising realists have erected a screen across from the ill-informed anti-semites showing the 7th October 2023 atrocities (and attendant bloodthirsty glee) on a loop. These absolute idiots need to know what they are supporting. Am Yisrael Chai.

      1. I commented at the time over at The Spectator, it will be interesting to watch the response of the Left to such outright horror. I naively thought it might bring many to their senses as to what the Israelis are dealing with. Maybe it did and those voices are quite right now. It feels however a case of “How wrong was I”.

      3. Convenient to get cat biscuits out of the sack and into the cat bowl.
        That’s what we use ours for,

          1. She and her band are wonderful, aren’t they molamola? I’m a great fan.

        2. “And watches the sihps that go sailing”? And that is Bobby Darin who is singing, not Frank Sinatra. “A song” as Terry Wogan used to say “about The Mother”. (La mere.)

    4. Rather splendid. Pity we’ve only got about 140 of them and not all fit to fly.

    1. Beautiful music and images. I really must get around to seeing this classic film one day.

      1. It is one of the few films that lives up to the book, Elsie – maybe grace a Mahler, but Venice was also a star.

  171. I’m listening to a FSU event via Zoom. The discussion is about the Scottish ‘Hate Speech’ law. Anyway, amusingly, Murdo Fraser (Conservative MSP) has just said that Humza Yousaf is not a bad man, he’s a stupid man, but not a bad man. LOL!! Talk about damning with faint praise.

      1. I think Murdo does too (maybe you had to be there – as they say), but I think it was an exceptional example of Scottish ‘dry humour’ served extra dry.

  172. The swallows are coming back. They weigh about 20 grams, but they covered more than 5000 km during the flight. They passed through the Sahara desert. They flew over the Mediterranean without having a break. They fought the rain and wind, and the scorching sun. They are extraordinary little beings. . And now they will live under the roofs of our homes and bear the offspring. Embrace their presence. Be kind to them. Respect them. One swallow can eat up to 850 flies and mosquitoes a day. One pair can kill about 1,700 flies and mosquitoes a day. There is no more effective and ecological insecticide … Make them feel welcome here

    1. I love them so much, Belle. They used to nest in my bedroom but a disaster occurred (to do with the vagaries of sash windows). They do still prospect and I live in hope that the honour will be repeated. Although I could do without that ratchet-like sound in the very early morning.

    3. Did you take antihistamine?
      Are you less sneezy/ feeling better, Maggie?

  173. The swallows are coming back. They weigh about 20 grams, but they covered more than 5000 km during the flight. They passed through the Sahara desert. They flew over the Mediterranean without having a break. They fought the rain and wind, and the scorching sun. They are extraordinary little beings. . And now they will live under the roofs of our homes and bear the offspring. Embrace their presence. Be kind to them. Respect them. One swallow can eat up to 850 flies and mosquitoes a day. One pair can kill about 1,700 flies and mosquitoes a day. There is no more effective and ecological insecticide … Make them feel welcome here

    2. A dual Spanish Brazilian national.

      Man charged with murder of schoolboy killed in sword attack

      Marcus Aurelio Arduini Monzo, 36, has been charged in connection with the rampage

      Albert Tait
      1 May 2024 • 8:31pm

      A man has been charged with the murder of 14-year-old Daniel Anjorin who was killed in a sword attack in north-east London.

      Marcus Aurelio Arduini Monzo, 36, is in custody after the teenager was killed on his way to school on Tuesday morning.

      The dual Spanish Brazilian national of Newham will appear at Barkingside Magistrates’ Court on 2 May.

      Mr Monzo has also been charged with two counts of attempted murder after a further four people – including two police officers – were seriously injured.

      He has also been charged with two counts of grievous bodily harm, aggravated burglary, and possession of a bladed article.

      The families of all those affected have been informed, the Met Police said.

      Mr Monzo is alleged to have carried out a 22-minute attack with a samurai sword that began just before 7am.

      The suspect had rammed a van into a house before he attacked victims on streets in Hainault.

      Daniel Anjorin, 14, was named on Wednesday as the pupil of Bancroft’s School killed in the attack.

      Simon Marshall, the headmaster at the £25,000-a-year school, spoke of the “profound shock and sorrow” felt by pupils and teachers after they learnt of the “heartbreaking news” of Daniel’s death.

      The school’s flag was flying at half-mast on Wednesday as pupils and parents brought bouquets of flowers to lay at its front gates.

      Mr Marshall said the boy, who joined Bancroft’s at the age of seven, had demonstrated “commendable dedication to his academic pursuits” and had become a “core member of our community”.

      He said his death “will have a lasting impact on us,” and added: “Losing such a young pupil is something we will always struggle to come to terms with.”

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/01/marcus-aurelio-arduini-monzo-daniel-anjorin-hainaut-attack/

      1. I do beg your pardon – “dual Spanish Brazilian of Newham” – what the actual FUCK does that mean?

        1. That he wasn’t black, or a muslim, or any other protected species, in which case he would have been described as”a Newham man”.

          1. But he’s not. What the hell is this lunatic doing in our country in the first place? He is of dual non-British nationality. For a start.

        2. As far as I know he has both Spanish and Brazilian passports but is currently a resident of Newham.

  175. In spite of the Speccie yesterday saying my subscription had ended, I’m still getting the emails today. I do usually read them – the Evening Blend is quite useful.

    1. My Spectator subscription lapsed some years ago but I still happily receive both the Lunchtime Espresso and Evening Blend emails. Yesterday evening, though, I was puzzled to receive 2 Evening Blend emails. One arrived as usual but the other was partly obscured by a notification that I would have to renew my subscription if I wished to see the email in full. Nonetheless, I’ve received one of each today without any obstruction. I’ve yet to determine whether yesterday evening’s second email was a blip or a warning of what will become the norm if I do not subscribe.

      1. It’s odd, isn’t it. As they came ok today I’m assuming it was a blip.

    2. My Spectator subscription lapsed some years ago but I still happily receive both the Lunchtime Espresso and Evening Blend emails. Yesterday evening, though, I was puzzled to receive 2 Evening Blend emails. One arrived as usual but the other was partly obscured by a notification that I would have to renew my subscription if I wished to see the email in full. Nonetheless, I’ve received one of each today without any obstruction. I’ve yet to determine whether yesterday evening’s second email was a blip or a warning of what will become the norm if I do not subscribe.

  176. First picture of boy, 14, killed in sword attack
    Daniel Anjorin was a student at Bancroft’s School in Woodford Green, the same private school attended by Nottingham stabbing victim Grace O’Malley-Kumar. The flag of the school is today flying at half-mast and you can read its tribute to him, and follow other live updates on this story, here [http://t3.emails.telegraph.co.uk/r/?id=h684eee96-4c7d-4ba5-a1a8-f2c3a04213da,da7fa2,6d5fb2&e=V1QubWNfaWQ9ZV9ETTMxNzk3MiZXVC50c3JjPWVtYWlsJmV0eXBlPUVkaV9GUE1fTmV3JnV0bXNvdXJjZT1lbWFpbCZ1dG1fbWVkaXVtPUVkaV9GUE1fTmV3MjAyNDA1MDEmdXRtX2NhbXBhaWduPURNMzE3OTcy&s=QOZO8pUG9qYN8N73a9hq6HfRuEsUJmPX3PlGwEaFOLo].

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/05/01/TELEMMGLPICT000375917705_17145737713250_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqG5fEwdrkPuatPx2hQsOzWvFPVOnc4KNo_J4StZjHV9g.jpeg?imwidth=1280

    1. Poor little lad. Wrong place, wrong time (since we are now a country that nurtures maniacs), or something more sinister?

    2. Shame about the poor lad. What’s happening to cause these monstrous crimes against people? I confess to thinking it was a religious killing yesterday.

      1. The boy and his family are devout Christians. The assailant was heard to be shouting about God during his attack and is a Spanish Brazilian national, so likely to be Roman Catholic. I’m confident that diminished responsibility will be used in his defence.

        1. We need to reclaim our language. That would be a start. Martyr means something quite different in Islam than it means in the Christian tradition. But the Islamic idea (of a murderer taking others with them in their violent suicide) being called a “martyr” seems to be spreading in a horrible way

          1. …and Islam is also spreading in a horrible – time to send ’em all packing.

    3. I am almost in tears reading the Telegraph report you have posted, Stig. It’s distressing to put it mildly.

  178. I hate the gushing sycophancy that accompanies the ousting of these ghastly lazy, hate-filled morons.

  180. Probably Spanish enough to have been given British Citizenship, the way it was handed out to EU people here when we left the EU.

  181. Skip this post if you have little or no interest in snooker.

    I’ve been watching coverage of this evening’s snooker from Sheffield and noted how commentators speak of bigger or tighter pockets. My understanding was that professional snooker table pockets are cut to a standard template, so I was pleased to find it confirmed by those who care very much about the integrity of the game.

    Are the pockets on snooker tables really getting bigger?

    26 NOV [2020]

    World Snooker’s leading administrators, table-fitters and players reveal why snooker pockets will sometimes appear bigger than they actually are.

    Barry Hearn wants to dispel a myth.

    “In the past, some snooker tables were known as having tight pockets, and others more generous,” he says. “But that doesn’t happen anymore.

    “There has been an official template since 1990 that fits in the pocket, and is used to cut every pocket on every professional table. Anybody could use the template to check that.”

    Hearn is responding to claims from snooker players and fans throughout his tenure as World Snooker chairman that pocket sizes have increased for entertainment purposes.

    During the 2016 World Championships, Steve Davis said on the BBC that “the general consensus among pros is that the pockets are oversized by a fraction.”

    The conversation came up again two years later, with Mark Allen tweeting that anyone claiming the conditions had been made easier was “clueless”.

    But as recently as June 2020, Neil Robertson claimed that pockets at the Championship League were “set up like an exhibition table” and “the biggest I’ve ever played on.”

    Nobody can be more sure that those statements are false than Pete Godwin, the owner of World Snooker Services, the company that supplies and installs tables for all professional events.

    Godwin personally cuts all six pockets on every professional table that is ever used, using templates that Hearn describes as “very secretly guarded”.

    “To keep things consistent, I do every single one,” says Godwin.

    “We’ve got 44 tables that we use throughout the season. Nobody else cuts pockets on those tables.”

    There are four templates that are used to cut the pockets – two for the corner pockets and two for the middle pockets.

    The first template denotes the size of the pocket openings, which is how much of the cushion is cut away to form the gap for the ball to enter.

    The second template controls the depth of the pocket – how far back the slate needs to be cut away for the ball to drop in.

    “That second template is really important,” says Jason Ferguson, chairman of the WPBSA.

    “On lots of club tables, the slate is cut away quite a bit, so the ball doesn’t necessarily have to go inside the jaws of the pockets before it drops. On our tables, the ball has to be right inside the angles to drop in.

    “We have a strict policy that these templates are used for any World Snooker event. They are checked, double-checked and triple-checked. The tournament director who checks them is a former top-16 snooker player, by the way, and if he’s off-site, I check them as well.”

    But, while everybody involved is insistent that the size of the pockets is consistent to the finest degree, that doesn’t mean that they can’t play differently from one day to the next.

    Snooker tables are made out of natural materials, so are not immune to natural variation.

    “The cloth is made of wool,” says Ferguson. “If you get moisture into it, the ball starts to move quite differently.

    “It affects the speed of the table, the way that the ball flips across, the prominence of speed and spin, but also the pockets.

    “When there is moisture in the pocket, you’ve only got to catch that knuckle by a fraction of a millimetre and it will throw the ball out.”

    That explains why pockets seem tighter in Asia, where the humidity level can get much higher than the 35-40 per cent that is considered optimum.

    “When we go to China, the pockets seem to go difficult after a day or two,” says two-time UK Champion Mark Selby.

    “The table gets heavier and seems to play a little tired. It’s all about experience, because I expect it when I get out there now, it’s just the way it is” – which may explain why five of Selby’s last 10 ranking titles have been won in China.

    It’s also true that the balls slide off new cloth much more than when the table gets older.

    Godwin is asked to recover the tables with new cloth approximately every four days during major events like the UK Championship. The illusion that the pockets are playing bigger exists when that has just happened.

    “As the table wears after a few days, the pockets play harder,” he says. “When that happens we’ll usually be asked to recover them.

    “We do it too often, in my opinion. In the 1980s, we used to do qualifiers for 69 days each summer, and we’d recover it once. Now we’re doing them every four days.

    “They always play easier with a new cover. Given this is happening so often, I can see why the pockets might seem bigger more regularly.”

    Ferguson agrees that the sheen of a new cover makes a difference – “it’s beautiful, it’s like silk” – but is sure that how players view the pockets is as much down to their mental state as the mechanics.

    “This is the strange thing about snooker,” he says.

    “You’ll hear, for example, Ronnie O’Sullivan say that that the pockets are looking big, and another player say that they felt tricky.

    “It’s just a snooker players’ way of expressing how they’re feeling about their form.”

    Ultimately, any benefits from tampering with pocket sizes would be immediately cancelled out by the reputational damage it would cause to the game.

    “It does get frustrating hearing complaints, because we do everything we can for consistency,” Ferguson says. “To make the game credible, keeping these things in check is crucial.

    “When somebody makes a 147 or wins a tournament, it has to count. No player wants to think, ‘Oh, well, we were only playing on a club table’ when they achieve something special.”

    In a game defined by precision, doing everything with exactness is just as crucial for administrators as it is for players.

    https://blog.betway.com/snooker/are-the-pockets-on-snooker-tables-really-getting-bigger/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CIn%20the%20past%2C%20some%20snooker,the%20template%20to%20check%20that.%E2%80%9D

    1. There is no such thing as a ‘snooker table’ Snooker is played on a billiards table (billiards is a much older sport).

      Two companies traditionally made such tables: Riley and Burroughs & Watts. Because of this each manufacturer may well have made slightly different pocket sizes and profiles. This would surely have ended when both companies merged to form Riley-Burwat, who now seem to have the monopoly.

      Grizzly (former Chesterfield league snooker player, grandson of the manager of Staveley snooker club, and personal friend of the late Mike Watterson, the man who brought the world championship to The Crucible).

      1. I don’t have pockets of any size in my frocks, Grizzly. I keep all my cash in my handbag, along with my bus pass. Lol. PS – I didn’t know that Arthur Miller had a scene in his play THE CRUCIBLE where the witches were accused of tampering with the size of billiards tables.

      2. I never played competitively, Grizz, but there was a time when four of us would go to a local snooker club – we were all.members – after work on a Friday and spend a couple of hours there playing amongst ourselves. The club was once a cinema, closed down long before, then, after my membership lapsed, the club was bought by Riley’s. It was eventually sold, demolished and new homes were built there instead. I still have my cue and case – a two piece of Alex Higgins merchandise – purchased when he played some exhibition frames at the local leisure centre.

        1. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2859934ad816bbbb780e4f8ea0dac4f6cd6bd66da6e5754a3b233d120336b0fa.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/35b49f92c18a924250ff2147b90737fb568bc77a3a2e97306cb28571aa19c11c.jpg I still have my old cue, Stig. It is a one-piece 17oz Rex Williams Power Glide in maple. The tip is a rounded Blue Diamond, which gave me a better ‘feel’ than the also popular Elkmaster. The cue hangs in its case in my workshop; a Biily-no-mates of sporting kit that has not been used for a couple of decades. I also have (somewhere) around half of the contents of a box of 12 pieces of cue-tip chalk that were kindly sent to me from The USA by the chairman of the company that made them.

          My grandfather was the manager of a billiards and snooker hall that was frequented by the likes of Joe and Fred Davis (both locals) and Walter Donaldson, all world champions. His eldest son (my uncle Joe) was so proficient at both sports that Joe Davis asked (back in the 1930s) if Uncle Joe would accompany him, all expenses paid, on a promotional tour of South America. His mother — my toothless bearded hag of a grandmother — refused to let him go since she required Joe’s income from the pit to supplement the living costs of her tribe of seven offspring.! Uncle Joe showed me the letter written by Joe Davis and he remained heartbroken about this once-in-a-lifetime missed opportunity all his life.

          Yes, the sports of billiards and snooker have loomed large all my life.

          1. Thanks for that, Grizz. Your Uncle Joe’s tale is a rather touching one. As for you, I imagine that billiards and snooker do not have a big following in Sweden, although pool tables are found in bars, I should think, therefore opportunities to play are few, regardless of how many mates you have.

            Looking at the provisional end-of -season rankings (awaiting the outcome of the current World Championships) mainland Europe provides three Belgians and one each from Estonia, Germany, Switzerland and Ukraine. Of those, only Luca Brecel of Belgium, ranked 4, features in the top 64. I know the World Professional Billiards & Snooker Association tries to spread the game’s appeal beyond the British Isles and China but, other than perhaps Thailand, it has yet to create many players featuring at the highest level beyond its present centres of excellence. Canada and South Africa have disappeared from the listings, despite having been well represented in the ’70s and ’80s.

            https://www.snooker.org/res/index.asp?template=42

        1. Legend has it that Prince Charles (as was) was not permitted pockets in his trousers while attending Gordonstoun.

          This apparently accounts for his habit of sticking his hands in the pockets of his jacket.

      1. Yes, he’s an exceptionally talented player not quite at his best, facing another fine player who upped his game after what had been a mediocre season before this. Stuart Bingham was a worthy winner who seems to be much liked by his peers. This has been an unusual World Championship in which none of the four semi-finalists were seeded to get this far. They weren’t even seeded to make the quarter-finals, all ranked outside the top 8.

  182. Right, chums, after a very tiring day, that me off to bed. Good night all, sleep well, see you all tomorrow, and don’t forget to vote in the Local Elections. (Voter ID needed.)

    1. Night night. Elsie. i will do the same, with a low wooffly gruffle. Am also very tired indeed. As for voting – npne of the candidates have bothered to contact me. What a shower – not a cigarette paper blah blah blah. Wankers, the whole bloody lot.

      2. I’ve been inundated with leaflets from all three major parties.

        1. Blimey! You are obviously extremely important! i would be very careful indeed in your shoes, Elsie.

      1. He deliberately put her in danger for his own ends. What an absolute piece of work. Yes, much of Northern Europe is now unsafe. Whose fault is that?

      1. Do you remember the days when the BBC and MSM would do that. It seems those days are gone forever.
        I won’t buy into the guilt trip.

    4. Was she his daughter? Children are bought from and sold by parents to another for the very purpose of making this journey – child trafficking. One of the purposes is for the emotional blackmail of the ‘host’ country.

  187. Night-night everyone. And in memory of LotL I am reading ‘Precious Bane’ – it was one of her recommendations. There is so much detail in it I can only read a chapter a night, it must be my age. It takes one back to a different, peaceful, bygone era – an era which one can almost touch via grandparents, but elusively just out of reach.

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