Sunday 5 May: The Conservatives can’t hide from their disastrous track record in government

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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669 thoughts on “Sunday 5 May: The Conservatives can’t hide from their disastrous track record in government”

  1. Good morrow, gentlefolk. Today’s (recycled) story
    WHEN YOU HAVE AN ‘I HATE MY JOB DAY’

    [Even if you’re retired, you sometimes have those days]

    Try this out:
    Stop at your pharmacy and go to the thermometer section and purchase a rectal thermometer made by Johnson & Johnson.
    Be very sure you get this brand. When you get home, lock your doors, draw the curtains and disconnect the phone so you will not be disturbed.
    Change into very comfortable clothing and sit in your favourite chair. Open the package and remove the thermometer.
    Now, carefully place it on a table or a surface where it will not become chipped or broken.
    Now the fun part begins.
    Take out the literature from the box and read it carefully. You will notice that in small print there is a statement:
    “Every rectal thermometer made by Johnson & Johnson is personally tested and then sanitized.”
    Now, close your eyes and repeat out loud five times,‘ I am so glad I do not work in the thermometer quality control department at Johnson & Johnson.’

    Have A Nice Day; And Remember, There Is Always Someone Else With A Job That Is More Of A Pain In The Ass Than Yours!

      1. I’ve been told that it’s more accurate than under the tongue or the armpit< Jules.

          1. Vets would need a bloody big one for testing the internal temperature of a Loxodonta africana.🤣

  3. 386915+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    The end is truly nigh with the coming of the really nasty mass paedophile R us, mass assorted felons from a multitude of nations,we taught the fake con party all they know about treachery, party.

    IMO the sunak and co have one chance to still remain in the seat of power, that is to “take to the boats” in redemption to trying to destroy the lifeboats of these Isles via RESET WEF / NWO plus.

    The redeeming action would be to reject the WEF/NWO agenda
    and stop the daily invasion, TODAY.

  4. Former minister took energy firm donation despite security concerns. 5 May 2024.

    Since 2012, Temerko has personally donated over £700,000 to dozens of individual Tory MPs, while Aquind Ltd has donated a further £1 million to the Conservative Party.

    Other MPs to have previously accepted donations from Aquind – or Offshore Group Newcastle (OGN) Ltd which Aquind was a subsidiary of until 2015 – include Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, Tom Pursglove the immigration minister and Simon Hart the chief whip.

    Former ministers are among over 30 Tory MPs to have previously accepted donations from Aquind or Temerko, including Brandon Lewis, Alok Sharma, Dr Liam Fox and John Whittingdale.

    Just a small insight into the true nature of Westminster and its inhabitants. It’s not just money though. The betrayal is total. The country itself handed over to the Globalists and the people of the UK sold out by these creatures to an Alien Religion and their children into sexual slavery.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/05/04/former-minister-took-energy-firm-bung-despite-concerns/

  9. 386915+ up ticks,

    Truth will out, the true battle cry of the greens is
    ALLYS SNACKBAR.

    A vote winner if ever.

    Victorious Leeds Green Party councillor shouts ‘Allahu Akbar’ after ‘win for Gaza’
    Mothin Ali said his election was a ‘win for the people of Gaza’ amid signs Muslims are voting on different issues from rest of electorate

    1. and the celebrations scene outside Leeds city hall was straight out of footage of any Muslim hellhole.. just missing the AK47s firing off and eighteen muzzies hanging off an old battered Mercedes saloon.

    2. and the celebrations scene outside Leeds city hall was straight out of footage of any Muslim hellhole.. just missing the AK47s firing off and eighteen muzzies hanging off an old battered Mercedes saloon.

    3. We have this sort of doublethink when it comes to defining political parties – Labour works in the interests of speculators and capitalists and against the poor or the workers; Conservatives who “update” their institutions to a travesty of what they are traditionally meant to mean; Liberal Democrats who pursue authoritarianism and dictat from the centre; and Greens who push for those who do most damage to the environment and what is understood by natural biology.

      I have long argued that Israeli action in Gaza and the West Bank is despicable and a violation of the teachings of Moses. However, any glance at Google Earth will reveal that the kibbutzim on the Israeli side are considerably greener and more environmentally benign than in the overcrowded and now bombed-out ghetto of Gaza. If Greens want to make a stand for the environment, they would be on surer ground opposing the cutting down of Palestinian olive groves by aspirational Israeli settlers in the West Bank. As for the ‘Allahu Akhbar’ nonsense, why should Muslims be the only ones whose lives matter?

      1. 386915+ up ticks,

        Morning JM,

        ” why should Muslims be the only ones whose lives matter”?

        Most likely because they are guaranteed to come out and vote 100% plus,a politico’s delight when on ones side.

    1. It certainly is superior to Common Law.. as is Napoleonic Civil Law
      superior in its quest to maintain ill-gotten corrupt power.

    2. And you have plenty of Islamic countries to choose from. It’s time to leave, jog on.

  11. https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/607bd5c14756e0ae0d40ae57d01ca9d939d1653f/0_0_6500_4148/master/6500.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=591decdeacbe70593e44e09b95beeb50
    Agassiz, Canada
    Harrison tulip festival in British Columbia

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/0fc9162e1ba4573503fbda7f67d86a59d37efb3c/0_0_4823_3215/master/4823.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=ad3f03d0f9bae8f1b8348aa70f5bcbfa
    Jerusalem
    Christians from around the world walk the Via Dolorosa on Orthodox Good Friday

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/4014588d6bd5d94b27fc1aa7961ff134ffaac181/0_0_5616_3744/master/5616.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=ad6466ad9b27c03ac6d501dc7b764fb5
    Vatican City

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/61cdea2e721847359daa87a2807ea73410699d8b/0_0_2537_1691/master/2537.jpg?width=700&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=0e1d2fd37745e1fb33c5fda91854904b
    Tallinn, Estonia
    A bee-fly feeds on flower nectar

    1. Top picture looks like a little girl running along a slice of spongecake…

      1. Could it be Teresa May’s latest “naughty” moment after conversion to the LGBT+ philosophy? Lol.

    2. I think the caption for the penultimate photo could be “I wish the cleaners wouldn’t polish these marble floors so assiduously”. Lol.

  12. Russia plotting sabotage across Europe, intelligence agencies warn. 5 May 2024.

    European intelligence agencies have warned their governments that Russia is plotting violent acts of sabotage across the continent as it commits to a course of permanent conflict with the west.

    Russia has already begun to more actively prepare covert bombings, arson attacks and damage to infrastructure on European soil, directly and via proxies, with little apparent concern about causing civilian fatalities, intelligence officials believe.

    While the Kremlin’s agents have a long history of such operations — and launched attacks sporadically in Europe in recent years — evidence is mounting of a more aggressive and concerted effort, according to assessments from three different European countries shared with the Financial Times.

    Of course. Who else would they discuss it with but the Financial Times?

    https://www.ft.com/content/c88509f9-c9bd-46f4-8a5c-9b2bdd3c3dd3

    1. Laying the groundwork for what exactly?

      Disrupting society using terror, real or imaginary, is what the cabal running the covid scam is currently doing. As for infrastructure damage one only has to see what has been happening in the USA. Is this ‘announcement’ running cover for the cabal’s next move: to do here in Europe what has been going on in the USA for the last few years?

      2. Good morning, Korky. I may phone you later this morning; are you likely to be in?

        1. Hi, Elsie. I’m out to lunch and I will be leaving around 10:15. Tomorrow morning before 11 will be a better choice.

          2. And?

            You haven’t met me, Elsie has on a number of occasions, usually accompanied by a bottle of Malbec.

            Mind you, I am usually sober when I comment here. Today is an exception, I am definitely out to lunch and the current score is Korky 2 and a bit, Black Stump and a nice Rumanian Sauvignon Blanc 0. 😎

            Enjoy your day, I’m aiming to with more vino and one of my large home made beef pies accompanied with a fine selection of vegetables ,including my very creamy mashed potatoes.

    2. And still the useful, useless idiots, without a collective brain cell, will support whom they perceive to be “victims” (in this case, the Palestinians) despite the evidence before their eyes that it is the cult of Hamas that instigated the war and that the Palestinians are not the innocent victims that the useful, useless idiots think. If “think” is the right word. Maybe my bete-noir, the very, very misused word “believe”, is indeed the correct word in this context.

    3. And still the useful, useless idiots, without a collective brain cell, will support whom they perceive to be “victims” (in this case, the Palestinians) despite the evidence before their eyes that it is the cult of Hamas that instigated the war and that the Palestinians are not the innocent victims that the useful, useless idiots think. If “think” is the right word. Maybe my bete-noir, the very, very misused word “believe”, is indeed the correct word in this context.

    4. Putting aside the point of the speaker, this guy is a “scholar”?

  14. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/huge-majority-backs-15-000-tax-threshold-for-pensioners/ar-AA1o8Q7U?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=2755e3c9c91845309d08fcb860e65fb5&ei=8

    Being pensioners we selfishly approve of this idea, but should we wonder whether it’s just another “divide and rule” ploy?

    We have so many different rules for different groups in this country. All applied unequally. Ask any pikey !

    …and wild cyclists disobeying the Highway Code are uncontrolled.

    If you have children why should your IHT bill be different to those who have been responsible enough not to add

    to an overcrowded world? Those with children have already had the advantage of free schooling and free healthcare for their children

    so why should their IHT be less?

    Similarly why should pensioners be taxed at a different rate than workers?
    .

          2. To distinguish it from Income Tax. The replacement of the old Capital Transfer Tax (CTT) and before that Estate Duty.

    2. Tax rates and rules in Norway are pretty well identical for all. Same allowances, same %.

    1. Now is the time for all the businesses and financial services to move out of London and let Khan’s nightmare town go completely bankrupt.

      1. You are quite right, Stig, see my own post above. (Good morning, btw.) I wonder if he thought the Sir Dustbin Head candidate behind him was an Eskimo (Inuit). If so, he might have bumped heads with him after the result was announced. Lol.

    3. Wow. Look at the condescension on that face. Breathtaking. But mainstream media won’t mention it.

      1. Don’t agree, Mif. Photographers taken zillions of expressions using rapid shutter action; the editors then use the one which suits their narrative; Just look at press photos of any person on any day.

    4. Two points to make about this:
      (1) – Is Sajid Khan really a Muslim? I ask because there are photos of him taking his wife and the family dog to the polls on last Thursday’s voting day?
      (2) – Shaking hands is not really “a mark of respect”. Think of the Red Indian saying “How” to the white man whilst holding up his right (weapon) hand. This was to denote that the hand was empty of any possible weapons. And for that reason, Boy Scouts always shake hands with their left hand; there is no need to show their right (weapon) hand because “A Scout is a friend to all, and a brother to every other Scout” hence there is no need to show an empty right hand, for it is a given that it is empty. Traditionally, this has evolved into the traditional handshake.

      1. The Caliph is a slammer alright.

        Remember he told Iranian TV that any slammer who reported another slammer for terrorism was an Uncle Tom….

        1. I don’t remember that, Bill., but I am surprised that they simply ignore the family dog and the handshake.

          1. That’s the trouble, Harry. People forget the vile things this little bastard says AND means.

  17. Good morning, all. Sunny. Fairly still (for a change). No news, I see.

  18. US shared ‘gobsmacking’ Covid lab leak file with UK. 5 May 2024.

    The US shared “gobsmacking” evidence with Britain at the height of the Covid pandemic suggesting a “high likelihood” that the virus had leaked from a Chinese lab, The Telegraph can reveal.

    In January 2021, Five Eyes intelligence-sharing nations were convened to discuss the possibility of a lab leak as the US warned that China had covered up research on coronaviruses and military activity at a laboratory in Wuhan.

    Alternatively of course they could have read Nottl and looked at Rik’s photographs of the Fake Pandemic victims in Wuhan. All denied of course by the PTB!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/05/04/us-shared-gobsmacking-lab-leak-evidence-with-uk-pandemic/

    1. I wonder who smacked the gob of The Telegraph. Grounds, perhaps for an assault case? (This is obviously sarcasm concerning the standard of the English language amongst today’s so-called journalists.)

  19. Morning, all Y’all.
    Misty, after a gorgeous day yesterday! A day to be filled with administration, I fear: Mother’s tax and finances. Sigh…

        1. Good morning all. When i was working from home, colleagues told me I could claim an allowance from HMRC for home light and heat, about £12 per month. Needless to say, I didn’t claim, it was worth £12 a month NOT to have to deal with HMRC !!!!!

    2. Its one thing having to complete them but getting a response from HMRC is like pulling teeth. Still no response from my father’s SA I sent in Feb or his IHT forms I sent more than 25 working days ago (the service standard). Morning!

      1. Good morning, Kaypea. Are you by any relation of Aitchpea, the famous manufacturer of Brown Sauce? (Joke: see my post yesterday to Sue Mac which refers to Yma Sumac.)

      2. Include a cheque for £5. They’ll cash it – so that you then have proof that (when they deny it fours months on) they DID receive it.

        (There is no charge for this tip!!)

  20. SIR – No wonder this country is descending into mass obesity. Since when did the great British bacon butty require butter? At every eatery I visit, I have to request “without butter”, which gives rise to a quizzical look.

    Christopher Allen
    Swettenham, Cheshire

    That is a very interesting question, Chris, insomuch that it comes in two parts: one part being indubitably factual; and the second part being a weirdly-popular but hugely fallacious myth.

    Indeed, why do people insist on putting butter on a bacon sandwich (I deplore the silly, nonsensical term, ‘butty’)? Butter has no place on any properly-made bacon sandwich, no matter the bread used. The bread must be dipped in bacon fat.

    The second point you brought up is a mistake. It is not the delicious and nutritious butter that it the cause of obesity, it is the bread. You, and millions more, are still brainwashed by decades of WHO propaganda that “fat is bad: vegetables and grains are good”. This idiocy has now been disproved by intelligent, independent scientists who have now conclusively proved that the proper food for all carnivorous species (of which we are one), is meat, fat, fish, eggs and dairy. This is what made humans the most powerful intellect on the planet: physically strong and mentally acute.

    This then started to go completely tits-up when the ancient Babylonians and Egyptians started growing and eating grains. This was soon followed by making the consumption of vegetation a priority for a massively increasing population. It has now been proved, historically, that most morbid diseases and ailments affecting humans started when they stopped eating meat and fat and commenced chomping on weeds and grains.

    Just try and engage any vegan in a sensible discussion, on any topic, and you will quickly realise that it impossible to debate with an imbecile.

    The big problem is that most humans are still deluded by that WHO propaganda (ably assisted by governments, institutions of higher ‘education’, and global corporations) and they simply continue to believe that eating those unnatural items they call ‘food’, as well as modern poisons in the form of seed oils and chemical additives, is the correct human diet. It is not!

    Continue to tell those vendors of snacks to stop putting butter on bacon sandwiches (as I do), but do not, under any circumstances, stop eating delicious and nutritious butter (or any other animal fats). By all means eat small amounts of bread (and weeds) in moderation if you wish, but please clear your head of the idiotic propaganda put about by the WHO and the global corporations who wish you to carry on consuming their chemical-laden crap in order to make them richer and more powerful.

    1. Humans are omnivores, and are best with a wide variety of food. The problem with the modern diet is that it is limited to just a few favourites “top sellers”, which tends to starve a lot of essential gut microbes.

      Meat and fish are a shortcut, since they provide an easy package of most nutrients rather than having to forage for dozens of different plants to provide that variety. Sometimes though meat is not so easy to catch, especially when pursued by a bear. Humans are ingenuitive though – one tribe in East Africa found that by learning to hold one’s breath for long periods, it was possible to gather shellfish and only be chased by sharks rather than lions (the latter talent might explain why even today Ethiopia provides a lot of champion runners).

      1. Good morning, JM. An amusing post. However, I think I owe and apology to Grizzly and shall henceforth always use bacon fat instead of butter for my bacon sandwich.

      2. Higher altitude and fewer trees than in heavily forested parts of West Africa. A need to run faster than predators until a tree could be reached.

    4. Interestingly, yesterday’s Terriblegraph had an article on “Why I am hungry all the time and how I can stop it”. One of the “things” was this:

      “Our body cares about nutrients, not calories

      “We are sabotaged by a food industry that makes food hyper-palatable. So people are overfed, but undernourished,” says Moore.

      “The problem is that we don’t have a calorie sensor in our body, so it has no way of knowing how many calories we’ve eaten. It does have exquisite nutrient sensors so if we are eating wholesome nourishing food, the signal of ‘I’m done, you’ve met all my nutritional needs’ is ticked.

      “But eating ultra-processed foods devoid of anything useful means we keep eating because there’s no point where the brain goes: ‘Oh, yes, I’ve hit my vitamin E and D quota, thank you.’ Instead it says: ‘We’ve got the calories. But there’s been nothing good yet. So I’ll keep eating.’”“

      1. Did you see that the most overweight man in the UK died aged not quite 34 weighing over 47 stones after a lifelong diet of junk food? I think I read it in the Mail yesterday.

        2. An interesting cremation. Quite a ‘carbon footprint’ I would imagine.

        3. I once had to assist some undertaker’s assistants to carry a 26-stone corpse down a narrow and very steep staircase in an old house. How we managed to keep hold of his body bag and not let it go crashing down those stairs — without pulling my arms from their sockets — will forever remain a mystery.

        4. An acquaintance of mine – my family moved from the village to the big town in 1973 – returned from Canada a few years ago, as he requires knee replacement on both knees. He was overweight when we last bumped into each other at a funeral about 6 years ago, but has now been informed that he will have to shed 25 stones before they will consider him for surgery. He’s only about 5’7″, he must look like a ball.

        5. Wow. Just wow.

          I am a convert to the idea that poor diet = poor gut health = depression/“mental elf”.

      2. Did you see that the most overweight man in the UK died aged not quite 34 weighing over 47 stones after a lifelong diet of junk food? I think I read it in the Mail yesterday.

      3. They never tell you the simple and provable facts.

        Eat protein and fat (meat, fish, fat, cheese and eggs): remain nourished, healthy and sated.
        Eat carbohydrates and sugar: remain undernourished, prone to disease, and permanently hungry.

      1. Oh, I do, and always have done. I always buy shoulder of lamb (it has more fat and much more flavour than leg). When it has roasted, I love the crisp skin and associated fat that comes with it.

        I utterly deplore cooks and butchers who “French-trim” the rib bones on lamb and pork chops and beef ribs. They are not only removing some of the most delicious and nutritious meat and fat, they are making the damn thing look like a vulture-picked carcase from the desert! Those rib bones, replete with their natural meat and fat, were designed for me to suck and nibble on.

    7. You tell it like it is, Grizzly. Mind you, I’m afraid that on the rare occasions when I treat myself to a bacon sandwich I do put butter on the toasted bread. Are you suggesting that I am a Very Silly Sausage? How very dare you?

      2. I wouldn’t dare, Auntie Elsie, but I shall tut-tut you for putting butter in close proximity to bacon.😉

        1. Before she went in to do the breakfasts of the Kirkups who she worked for, my mam used to do me a bacon and egg sandwich for breakfast before school.

    9. My enjoyment of a bacon sandwich is increased immeasurably by the bread being buttered, thickly.
      Likewise, a (thickly sliced) ham sandwich requires butter and mustard.
      Each to his (or her) own.

    2. Amended Greetings to Dave Sergeant whose birthday is tomorrow! (I am beginning to think that Caroline is quite right in saying that like my birthday list I am not infallible)

      Please would everyone check this list and tell me of any errors or omissions. Some Nottlers are rather shy!

      02 January – 1947 : Poppiesmum
      08 January – 1941 : Rough Common
      09 January – **** : thayaric
      10 January – 1960 : hopon
      16 January – 1941 : Legal Beagle
      18 January – 1963 : Stormy
      21 January – **** : Nagsman
      23 January – 1951 : Damask Rose
      23 January – 1960 : Kifaru
      27 January – 1948 : Citroen 1

      10 February -1949 : Korky the Kat (Dandy Front Pager)
      11 February- 1964 : Phizzee
      22 February- 1965 : AW Kamau
      22 February- 1951 : Grizzly (Alan/George)
      24 February- 1941 : Sguest
      28 February- 1956 :Jeremy Morfey
      29 February- **** : Ped

      02 March- **** : Garlands
      05 March—– 1957 : Sue MacFarlane
      08 March—– 1957 : Geoff Graham
      26 March—– 1962 : Caroline Tracey
      27 March—– 1947 : Maggiebelle
      27 March—– 1941 : Fallick Alec

      19 April——- 1954 : Devonian in Kent
      22 April——–1950 :Jay Sands
      26 April——- **** : Harry Kobeans

      06 May———1949 Dave Sergeant
      18 May———****: Hertslass
      24 May——– 1944 : Sir Jasper (NoToNanny) (Tom)

      01 June——- 1952 Bob of Bonsall
      02 June——–1939: Clydesider
      08 June——– **** : Still Bleau
      09 June——- 1947 : Johnny Norfolk
      09 June——– 1947 : Horace Pendleton
      23 June——– 1961 : Oberstleutnant (Paul)
      25th June——-1952 : Corrimobile

      01 July———-1946: Rastus C Tastey (Richard)
      12 July——— 1956 : David Wainwright/Stigenace
      18 July——— 1941: lacoste
      19 July——— 1948: Ndovu (Jules)
      21 July———-1960: Richard II (ex Tier5Inmate)
      26 July——— 1936 : Delboy (Father of the House)
      29 July———- 1944 : Lewis Duckworth
      30 July———- 1946 : Alf the Great

      01 August—— 1950 : Datz
      03 August—— 1954 : molamola
      10 August—— 1967 : ourmaninmunich
      14 August ——-1944 jillthelass
      18 August—— **** : ashesthandust
      19 August——- 1951 : Hugh Janus

      04 September- 1948 : Joseph B Fox
      07 September- 1946 : Araminta Smade (The Mighty Minty)
      09 September ———: Conway (Connors)
      11 September- 1947 : Peter Anderson (ex peddytheviking)
      12 September- 1946 : Ready Eddy (ex Eh Calm Down)
      13 September- **** : Anne Allan (The Push Nurse)
      15 September- **** : veryoldfella
      26 September- **** : Feargal the Cat
      30 September 1944 : One Last Try

      07 October—– 1960 : Bob 3
      11 October—– 1944 : Hardcastle Craggs
      25 October—– 1955 : Sue Edison
      26 October——-1948: Jonathan Rackham

      12 November- ***** : Cochrane

      01 December– 1956 : Sean Stanley-Adams
      06 December– 1943 : Duncan Mac
      10 December– **** : Aethelfled
      16 December– **** : Plum
      21 December– 1945 : Elsie Bloodaxe

      (E&OE)

    3. Many thanks Rastus and all. I gather they are arranging a cake at church for me today so I will be celebrating a day early anyway. I think the error was by me, when I updated your list a rogue typo slipped in, one of those things that happens when we reach these dizzy heights. Oh the joys of being a nearly 75er.

    5. 🎶Happy Birthday, Dave! And 🎶happy birthday for Round Two as well! 🎉🎂🧁🥂🍾🍰🎁🎈🎊

  22. Berlin city are totally unable to even give away the Villa Bogensee, outside the city, due to it’s associations… the last owner was Josef Göbbels. The place needs a lot of attention, but despite being free to any taker, can’t be given away.

  24. “ SIR – Zoe Strimpel (Comment, April 28) says the Israel Defence Forces are the most moral soldiers in the world, and my own professional experience suggests she is right. I have taught the law of armed conflict (otherwise called humanitarian law) to quite a few Israeli officers enrolled by the IDF on expensive, detailed and wellestablished courses, alongside military officers from all over the world, including Arab countries. These are complementary to their national “in-house” training on the subject.

    It is a complex matter, little understood by most people outside the military, and an army’s inclination to learn and try to practise it hardly suggests a lack of morality.

    The cynic in me asks: where are the worldwide demonstrations and campus sit-ins against Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, and more than two years of mass destruction of civilian targets, with huge civilian casualties? This is clearly avoidable, and therefore deliberate and both immoral and illegal, because such targets in Ukraine are usually far away and clearly distinguishable from legitimate military objectives, unlike in Gaza.

    But then, Russia is not the Jewish homeland. Col James Stythe (retd) Pewsey, Wiltshire”

    This accords with what Mosab Hassan Yousef said in a very recent Jordan Peterson podcast. Mosab Hassan Yousef (born in 1978) is a Palestinian ex-militant who defected to Israel in 1997 where he worked as an undercover agent for the Shin Bet until he moved to the United States in 2007. Yousef was considered the Shin Bet’s most reliable source in the Hamas leadership, earning himself the nickname “The Green Prince.” The intelligence he supplied to Israel led to the exposure of many Hamas cells, as well as the prevention of dozens of suicide bombings and assassination attempts on Jews. Yousef’s father is Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a co-founder of Hamas.

    https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-jordan-b-peterson-podcast/id1184022695?i=1000653621281

    1. where are the worldwide demonstrations and campus sit-ins against..

      it’s just a front for Leftie & Muslim Jew-hate.
      They are obsessed with it, always have been for various reasons. They’ve even put in writing for the hard of hearing.

      1. “ They’ve even put in writing for the hard of hearing.”

        Love it! Will nick it please, for future use.

      2. And their street demonstrations make clear their inbred hate is their only objective.

  25. “ SIR – Zoe Strimpel (Comment, April 28) says the Israel Defence Forces are the most moral soldiers in the world, and my own professional experience suggests she is right. I have taught the law of armed conflict (otherwise called humanitarian law) to quite a few Israeli officers enrolled by the IDF on expensive, detailed and wellestablished courses, alongside military officers from all over the world, including Arab countries. These are complementary to their national “in-house” training on the subject.

    It is a complex matter, little understood by most people outside the military, and an army’s inclination to learn and try to practise it hardly suggests a lack of morality.

    The cynic in me asks: where are the worldwide demonstrations and campus sit-ins against Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, and more than two years of mass destruction of civilian targets, with huge civilian casualties? This is clearly avoidable, and therefore deliberate and both immoral and illegal, because such targets in Ukraine are usually far away and clearly distinguishable from legitimate military objectives, unlike in Gaza.

    But then, Russia is not the Jewish homeland. Col James Stythe (retd) Pewsey, Wiltshire”

    This accords with what Mosab Hassan Yousef said in a very recent Jordan Peterson podcast. Mosab Hassan Yousef (born in 1978) is a Palestinian ex-militant who defected to Israel in 1997 where he worked as an undercover agent for the Shin Bet until he moved to the United States in 2007. Yousef was considered the Shin Bet’s most reliable source in the Hamas leadership, earning himself the nickname “The Green Prince.” The intelligence he supplied to Israel led to the exposure of many Hamas cells, as well as the prevention of dozens of suicide bombings and assassination attempts on Jews. Yousef’s father is Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a co-founder of Hamas.

    https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-jordan-b-peterson-podcast/id1184022695?i=1000653621281

    1. I can lend you some of mine, Tom. Nearly 12 hours flat out, like a lizard drinking. Now, to Mother’s admin…

  27. A Good Morning to all my NoTTLe chums, but especially to Geoff, for providing today’s site. I hope you all slept well (I over slept like a baby) and enjoy the day. And now for my solution to today’s Wordle:

    1,051 5/6

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

    1. Morning! I got it in 5 too, by a process of elimination. No idea what the word means.

      1. Four here

        Wordle 1,051 4/6

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

        1. Me too
          Wordle 1,051 4/6

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

      2. Good morning, Sue Ed. It means what something is worth. Is this a help?

      3. It is a form of transferring a ‘printed’ image or design. Usually from a paper or plastic sheet to a solid surface. It is from a French word décalquer” (which means “to copy by tracing”).

  28. The mayor elections are being given a lot of importance by the mainstream media yet they haven’t really won over the public imagination going by the turnouts, they haven’t yet realised the powers that mayors will have over their lives with the globalist agenda.
    Most people never even wanted mayors

  29. Morning all 🙂😊
    Wonderful start to the day.
    Old friends coming for lunch, early evening all off to see the band our eldest plays lead guitar in. Tickets only.
    Yes it’s plain and more than obvious to see, the Conservatives have been an absolute disaster. But I fear for the future of Britain now Kahnt has his feet back under the table, no matter how this came about. It needs urgent investigation.
    And if the labour party take over I’m afraid to say, “We (actually) are doomed”. As Fraser use to say quite often……finished !

    1. Conservative-minded folk need to learn how to do civil disobedience – fast.

      1. I hate politicians in general.
        Most of them are only in it for what they can get out of it. Nothing else seems to matter to them, if It did, this once safe and reasonably well ordered nation would not be in such dire straights.

  31. Good morning all,

    A sunny start to the day at the McPhee’s, wind in the South-East, 9℃ rising to 14 or 15℃, light showers later.

    This story caught my eye.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/17392c89b9371614b5069918dbcad7ef2b5ec78fa1ea8af6c81dc73bc0d2c9e4.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/04/cyclist-escapes-prosecution-after-fatal-collision-with-pens/

    Regent’s Park is a public park, is it not? It’s open to all so there could be pedestrians, including dog walkers and children there at any time.

    Brian Fitzgerald, a director at Credit Suisse, was in a “fast group” of cyclists doing timed laps of Regent’s Park in London when Hilda Griffiths, 81, crossed the road they were on to try to reach a pedestrian island.

    Despite a 20mph speed limit, Mr Fitzgerald, a member of the Muswell Hill Peloton cycling club, told a coroner they were travelling at up to 29 mph in aerodynamic “pace line” formation to maximise momentum when he struck the retired nursery teacher walking her dog.

    They were racing. I don’t think this is an appropriate thing to have been doing in a public park. What possesses these people?

    As to the speed limit not applying to bicycles, this could surely have been dealt with under Common Law if the police and lawyers were aware of it. Do no harm, cause no injury or loss and act in honour. Everything is permitted but one person’s inalienable rights stop where those of another begin.

    Surely the Crown Estate has a responsibility? It must have known these cycling time trials take place and it could have banned them or closed the park to others while they were in progress.

    1. Yet another travesty. Our legal system is truly broken. It’s probably a good job the old lady was killed, otherwise Plod would be prosecuting her for walking on the cracks in the pavement or looking at the cyclist in a funny way.

    2. Yet another travesty. Our legal system is truly broken. It’s probably a good job the old lady was killed, otherwise Plod would be prosecuting her for walking on the cracks in the pavement or looking at the cyclist in a funny way.

    3. Never mind the speeding, there is the little issue of riding without due care and attention or even manslaughter that ought to warrant a prison term. However, this is London remember. There, one is excused criminal behaviour by being rich and aspirational. It is a protected characteristic in London.

      If one must organise race trials on a public highway, it should be properly stewarded, so that the public and their dogs do not get in the way of the racers.

    4. Let’s be perfectly honest about this.
      Cyclists do what ever they want to do and get away with it. Cases as in this dreadful event vary.
      They should all have audible warning device’s, public liability insurance, pay road tax MOT certificate and stopped from riding in known pedestrian areas. The Law is (as usual) an Ass.
      I was once struck on the shoulder from behind whilst walking my dog along a local footpath. And he shouted back that dog should be on a lead ! My dog was under control, 20 yards in front of me enjoying the freedom, the countryside and open space.

      1. I’m afraid that cyclists are virtuous in the eyes of the average politician prone to green washing. Currently they could form up as hordes of Hells Angels, go around beating up old ladies or robbing corner shops for a laugh and so long as they’re riding a pedal cycle they’d be given a free pass.

      2. I’m afraid that cyclists are virtuous in the eyes of the average politician prone to green washing. Currently they could form up as hordes of Hells Angels, go around beating up old ladies or robbing corner shops for a laugh and so long as they’re riding a pedal cycle they’d be given a free pass.

    6. Remember that this was an inquest, and that the victim died 59 days after the crash. If speed limits do not apply to pedal cyclists, Mr Fitzgerald did not cause death by dangerous driving, therefore actual bodily harm would have been another possible charge. On another note, pedestrians have previously died due to impact from cyclists, so I wonder if anyone bothered to bring a case for negligence; would be interesting to know if Mr F was wearing any clothing advertising his employers, Credit Suisse. Incidentally, I doubt that he is a director, more likely a vice-president.

    7. They hardly needed Common Law. I don’t know what charges he faced; however, the wording of Offences Against the Person Act 1861 (as amended by the Criminal Justice Act 1948) states:

      “Drivers of carriages injuring persons by furious driving Whosoever, having the charge of any carriage or vehicle, shall by wanton or furious driving or racing, or other wilful misconduct, or by wilful neglect, do or cause to be done any bodily harm to any person whatsoever, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and being convicted thereof shall be liable, at the discretion of the court, to be imprisoned for any term not exceeding two years.”

      A bike is considered a carriage under highways law.

    8. Comments on the CycleChat social media forum suggest that the unfortunate Hilda Griffiths stepped out between the 2nd and 3rd of 4 cyclists travelling at speed in close formation.

      https://www.cyclechat.net/threads/cyclist-escapes-prosecution-after-fatal-collision-with-pensioner.297313/

      Despite a 20mph speed limit, Mr Fitzgerald, a member of the Muswell Hill Peloton cycling club, told a coroner they were travelling at up to 29 mph in aerodynamic “pace line” formation to maximise momentum when he struck the retired nursery teacher walking her dog.

      An unfortunate incident, but…..
      It would appear that the victim walked out into the road without much warning. This fact is corroborated by an independent witness (the jogger who stated it was not the cyclist’s fault). She was hit by the 3rd of the 4 cyclists in the group, which again tends to point towards her walking out in front of the 3rd cyclist, otherwise the front rider would have hit her?

      Nor will the official statistics record this as a road traffic accident.

      Because it took her 59 days to die from head injury “complications”, she will not appear on official data as a pedestrian killed on a road following a collision with a cyclist.

      Nonetheless, London roads are not a suitable place for fast cycling, even if only out of concern for the safety of the cyclists.

    9. Regent’s Park has historic protected interest and any change to its pathways’ usage is illegal, from what I understand. I would consider these new high-speed bikes as rendering these pathways to change and dangerously away from their historic use. This decision should be challenged. But of course, our legal aid is totally grabbed by illegal strangers.

      2. Who cannot think for himself and who races around in a public park full of pedestrians. ‘ Oh, but it’s for charity!’ Yes, that old canard. As long is it’s for ‘charity’ then the whole country can go down the toilet.

  33. Sends a clear message to lycra bandits doesn’t it. He should have been charged with involuntary manslaughter regardless of the speed he was going. Through his actions that lady is dead. Like all road users he should have had a care for others and be able to stop in time.

    1. Traditional cyclists ride upright, can see hazards ahead and can dismount easily. Trending cyclists in lycra have their heads down and do not dismount that easily, meaning they keep going when someone is in the way.

      I have often been ignored by my betters when I suggested that a dismounted cyclist is a pedestrian, and if they want to share the road with pedestrians and operate under the same rules of the road, they should be able to dismount quickly and easily.

      1. I have from time to time pointed out to wayward cyclists that :
        a. Red traffic lights apply to them too.
        b. Riding bicycles on pavements which are intended for pedestrians is illegal.

        We seem to have lost those.

        PS I’m a cyclist, driver and pedestrian. But not all at once.

        1. You must be fortunate in not having an idiot Highways department, as such imposed in Worcester.

          To get into the city over New Road, requires navigating a one-way race track with cars juggling lanes and a fair old detour. Alternatively, a cyclist can use a wide footpath that has barely anyone on it that is direct. My rule is that a cyclist should dismount when passing a pedestrian, but can ride when there is no pedestrian.

          Likewise with red traffic lights, if a cyclist dismounts, I feel it has the same status as someone pushing a pram and can follow the directions for pedestrians.

          What gets me quite angry is when riding cyclists on a narrow pavement full of street furniture ride round a blind corner into pedestrians on the city side of the bridge in order to avoid two sets of lights there without having to bother to dismount.

          A sense of entitlement creates a lot of grief.

        2. Ref pedestrian crossings: I recall the Highway Code said the cyclint must dismount to have priority on the crossing – ie, become a pedestrian.

      2. I have from time to time pointed out to wayward cyclists that :
        a. Red traffic lights apply to them too.
        b. Riding bicycles on pavements which are intended for pedestrians is illegal.

        We seem to have lost those.

        PS I’m a cyclist, driver and pedestrian. But not all at once.

  34. Demented Ed…If you want to be scared, read the whole article.

    Labour plots new net zero crackdown on corporates

    Ed Miliband to legally oblige directors to publish their company’s carbon footprint

    Jonathan Leake
    4 May 2024 • 6:00pm

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/business/2024/05/04/TELEMMGLPICT000330346065_17148187724830_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqcFbVwrldgDqLr44SrdFj-kSrd5oMAa-pRGH0qE40YGY.jpeg?imwidth=680
    *
    *
    *
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/05/04/labour-ed-miliband-plots-new-net-zero-crackdown-corporates/

    M Wheeler
    1 MIN AGO
    Every time I see a picture of Miliband I just think I want to lamp him. He is such a moron and so arrogant.

    Mr D A Eaton
    14 HRS AGO
    Watch BP and Shell list elsewhere with UK pensioners affected and UK corporation tax receipts decrease. Idiotic “Cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face”.

    James Nash
    13 HRS AGO
    Reply to Mr D A Eaton
    Here we come ( literally) to the dark ages. All set in motion by Treason May and her spineless sycophants.

    1. Can’t fault his meterological skills. It’s the age-old method of finding out which way the wind is blowing.

      1. Good morning Jeremy, and everyone.

        Um, is that irony? They appear to be blowing on their own finger.
        (you people want pronouns? I can give you pronouns.)

      1. The standard procedure of the self righteous, isn’t it? Name and shame those who don’t conform to their narrow mindset. The “adults” are in the room moralising at us again.

        Blairite, Liberal, Authoritarian. Didn’t see that coming, eh.

    3. It’s like a zombie movie. Ed Moribund emerges from under his famous tombstone to tell us that one day we’ll all be like him.

        1. Hello Stephen, yes Mr Dead. Neck up, feet up, dead all over. The dead hand of mediocrity takes centre stage, once more. Whichever way you look at it, it’s dead.

          I’m going to find it amusing though, when he and many others in his party run up against implacable reality.

      2. That will clear out most of the hydro carbon companies from Britain.

        I’m sure that it’s a coincidence, but it was only last week that the USA declared record high production of hydrocarbons.

        Fracking really seems to work enriching the populace.

        1. I don’t think the Labour Party realises, apart from if it’s to do with banking, how little America needs us. We really can be bypassed, but little Moribund will be happy that the writings on his tombstone will come to pass; at least in his own mind they will.

          Still, I’ll be breaking out the popcorn when the day comes that they’re asking big carbon producers to bail them out.

  35. Has that black bloke who threatened to kill a Jewish lady been banged up yet?

    Just asking….

  36. Sad news. The male osprey, Laddie at the Loch of the Lowes site near Dunkeld, has been found dead near the nest. His partner is incubating 3 eggs but that is unlikely to continue as she relied on the male to feed her. The police aren’t saying much, but I’m guessing some little ba*tard shot him. Personally I’d rip his head off, if he’s ever caught. They fly all the way back from Africa for that.

    1. Sue ,

      So sorry to hear that shocking news . Brave tenacious clever birds manage to navigate their way back to the polluted disgusting UK, their odds of survival are extreme but to be murdered by a thug is wicked .

      I truly despise the cruel oafs that lurk in our cities towns villages and countryside .

      2. Talking of brave tenacious birds, seems to be a lot fewer swallows and house Martin’s about this year here in Co Antrim.

        1. Swallows very rare in this part of Kent/Sussex.

          No swifts or house martins.

          Never seen that before.

    4. 🙁 That’s very sad, Sue.
      Who would gratuitously shoot a bird you were not going to eat?

  37. Good morning all.
    Slightly delayed due to Dr.D’s occupation of the Sitting Room.
    A beautiful day, already got a load of washing the DT did last night hung up the garden and I see she’s put another load on.
    A cooler 4°C when I got up to make the teas for everyone.

    2. Morning Bob, a little rain overnight but now back to normal sunny day

  38. I shall pass on your message to Mr Lime, Uncle Bill. Toodle pip!

  40. Awkward missed handshakes are not always about a Muslim’s [alleged] hatred of women.

    I note the gracious words of thanks from the new West Midlands mayor to the man he succeeded.

    Keir Starmer rejects handshake with new West Midlands mayor Richard Parker

    Sir Keir Starmer arrived quickly at the election count to greet new West Midlands mayor Richard Park – but one awkward gaffe was picked up by viewers.

    By VICTORIA CHESSUM, Assistant News Editor
    22:27, Sat, May 4, 2024 | UPDATED: 22:41, Sat, May 4, 2024

    An awkward moment between Sir Keir Starmer and newly-elected West Midlands mayor Richard Parker has been picked up by eagle-eyed viewers.

    The leader of the Labour Party sprung up miraculously in Birmingham to congratulate Mr Parker, who beat the Tories’ Andy Street in a shock election battle.

    Mr Street had been hoping for a third term in the role, but was narrowly beaten by Mr Parker who received a total of 225,590 votes in comparison to Mr Street’s 224,082.

    The shock turn of events saw Labour supporters gather with their placcards as they faced cameras – but a clip on BBC News unearthed a slightly tense moment between Sir Keir and Mr Parker.

    Sir Keir was eager to seal his victory, and addressed crowds, clutching the new mayor’s shoulder: “We started in Blackpool, we had a 26 percent swing – and we’ve ended in the West Midlands with our new mayor, Richard Parker.”

    As more cheers erupted, Sir Keir paused with both hands in front of him as the new successor looked towards him with his hand out – begging for a shake.

    After the brief pause, Mr Parker quickly retreated shrugging his shoulders and looking ahead. Sir Keir added: “There are plenty in-between of mayoralties of councils, also our Police and Crime Comissioners – and untold story of these elections – a fantastic way to end this batch of elections.”

    As he was announced as the new mayor, he quickly thanked Andy Street after his shock win. Mr Parker said: “Thank you also to Andy (Street), you’ve led this region through a number of great challenges and you deserve a great credit for that.

    “You deserve credit for building up the combined authority into the powerhouse that it is today, through the economic shocks, and leading this region when it came out of Covid.

    “You’ve been out there representing our region, I absolutely believe that whilst our politics are different, Andy, we both have our best interests of the West Midlands at heart.”

    Former West Midlands mayor Andy Street said it has been his “honour to serve and to lead this place for the last seven years”.

    He said: “I hope I’ve done it with dignity and integrity. And I hope I’ve bequeathed to Richard a combined authority and indeed a role to which young aspiring leaders will want to aspire one day.

    “In a sense, I can have done no more than that. It has been a great privilege. But tonight, I just wanted to say thank you, and good night.”

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1895721/keir-starmer-richard-parker-local-elections-2024

    1. This was one of the most moving decent “handover” speeches (from both winner and loser) I have seen in recent days.

    1. I might very well have been unaware of this but for a friend who often joins us for a beer on Sundays. His wife is Romanian and, today, they are observing the Orthodox Easter with her family. I wouldn’t say he is an adherent but he is supportive of his wife.

      Out of interest, are the Easter traditions of the family of Western Christian churches and their secular societies – such as chocolate eggs, eating of lamb meat, egg hunts, decorative rabbits, lambs and chicks – also followed by the Eastern Orthodox or are the observances rather different?

      1. I presume that Easter eggs are a tradition, hence the Faberge eggs that members of the Romanov family gave to each other.

  44. Well, that will teach me to have a lie-in. It’s taken me well over an hour to wish everyone a Good Morning since I came on to this site. Maybe in future I should just post “Good Morning everyone” and leave it at that. Now off to read my emails.

    3. https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=658240e8e121b876JmltdHM9MTcxNDg2NzIwMCZpZ3VpZD0wMTQ1ODI5NC0yYjAxLTY3ZDEtMGViZS05MTdhMmE1NDY2ZjMmaW5zaWQ9NTUzNw&ptn=3&ver=2&hsh=3&fclid=01458294-2b01-67d1-0ebe-917a2a5466f3&psq=laurel+and+hardy+good+morning+to+you&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZmFjZWJvb2suY29tL2xhdXJlbGFuZGhhcmR5Y2luZW1hL3ZpZGVvcy9nb29kLW1vcm5pbmctdG8teW91LzQ2NDU2NzU3MzcyMDEzNS8&ntb=1

      A little ‘Good Morning’ from Laurel and Hardy.

    4. https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=658240e8e121b876JmltdHM9MTcxNDg2NzIwMCZpZ3VpZD0wMTQ1ODI5NC0yYjAxLTY3ZDEtMGViZS05MTdhMmE1NDY2ZjMmaW5zaWQ9NTUzNw&ptn=3&ver=2&hsh=3&fclid=01458294-2b01-67d1-0ebe-917a2a5466f3&psq=laurel+and+hardy+good+morning+to+you&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZmFjZWJvb2suY29tL2xhdXJlbGFuZGhhcmR5Y2luZW1hL3ZpZGVvcy9nb29kLW1vcm5pbmctdG8teW91LzQ2NDU2NzU3MzcyMDEzNS8&ntb=1

      A little ‘Good Morning’ from Laurel and Hardy.

  45. JUST 155 of 29,437 migrants who illegally crossed the Channel in small boats last year have been removed from Britain
    Only 0.5 per cent of illegal migrants have been deported
    This follows a crackdown by border officers which have included dawn raids
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13383283/migrants-illegal-Channel-small-boats-rwanda.html

    And the Conservative Party does not seem to understand why it is so unpopular.

    Have the Invasion Forces now reached the point where they cannot be stopped?

    Should the indigenous population fight back or meekly admit defeat? I fear that John Milton’s words might very well apply:

    “But what more oft in Nations grown corrupt,
    And by their vices brought to servitude,
    Then to love Bondage more then Liberty,
    Bondage with ease then strenuous liberty”.

    [John Milton – Samson Agonistes]

    1. Yes. An American saying, which was a corruption of an Irish orator speech, is more succinctly put, and it is this:-
      The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
      Never a truer phrase was spoken.

  46. Voters aren’t just sick of the Tories. The Western model is broken

    People across the West are venting their anger at the established parties. The rot is far deeper than we knew

    JANET DALEY • 4 May 2024 • 4:01pm

    You might think that the Conservative party is facing a uniquely catastrophic fall in public confidence. But the scale of the collapse in its support is not exceptional – or even particularly remarkable – among ruling Western governments.

    In recent years, we have watched time and time again as governing parties and coalitions in the major democracies have suffered either outright defeats or electoral setbacks of historic proportions. Centrist respectability has lost out again and again, often to populist forces. There is a common theme in these rejections of traditional parties and their leaders who had grown almost indistinguishable from one another.

    The assumption of the post-war West that the state could provide unlimited resources to insure its population against poverty, ill health and social disadvantage while maintaining a thriving market economy, has reached its endgame.

    This is a crisis of the democratic socialism which, in one form or another, has prevailed in all the advanced countries. A great debate had dominated a succession of governing generations: how can you provide what electorates now expect in terms of welfare state security and publicly-run services while permitting the freedom that allows private enterprise (which must fund all of this beneficence) to grow and prosper?

    Now, thanks to a peculiar succession of events that included a European war and a pandemic, we have the answer: you can’t. The demand for limitless government support and intervention is simply incompatible with the fluctuations of a market economy which must expand through innovation and individual enterprise if it is to produce the only real wealth there is.

    The various formulae which attempted to find an ideal balance between state-guaranteed safety and capitalist risk-taking have been exhausted. State provision has to be financed by capitalist growth and this is now proving impossible. The inflated expectations raised by the former have exceeded the capacities of the latter. And the voters – who are more economically literate than politicians generally give them credit for – understand this.

    That is why, although they are furious with the present Conservative government, they are not showing any great enthusiasm for Labour. Hence, the low turnouts and unusually large number of votes cast for the alternative none-of-the-above parties in these local elections.

    This disillusion is the real dilemma of our times because it raises fundamental questions about the modern democratic political settlement. I believe it will be seen ultimately to be more significant than the arrival in our midst of an Islamic culture which, had the Western host countries been more robust in their self-belief, could have been handled with little difficulty.

    There is a real risk now that, with the disintegration of the old social democratic consensus, there will be a fragmentation of party politics that allows scope for sectarian religious parties to emerge. That would be a horrifyingly divisive development in British politics. This is the worst possible moment for the mainstream parties to lose their grip and their nerve.

    So what now? Any solution will have to involve presenting the country with the honest truth. A Tory version could sound something like this:

    Let’s have a grown-up conversation. We know that many people have come to expect unconditional support and relief whenever they feel they are in need. There are any number of vociferous, self-serving career advocates who lobby for that cause. But we also know that many of you (probably the majority of the country, in fact) want a flourishing economy that will allow you to earn more and spend more, as well as providing opportunities for your children to prosper. No government can provide both of these things: any party that says it can, is lying. This is, in fact, the reason that Keir Starmer cannot present a plan for achieving it: because he knows that it is impossible.

    And the people know that he knows, which puts Labour in the invidious position of seeming to promise what could never be delivered, but then drawing back from that promise with hedged qualifications.

    In the most significant election result – the London mayoralty race – Sadiq Khan has won by a large margin. But this result is not an endorsement of Labour as much as it is a condemnation of the Tories in Westminster, and their unwillingness to mount a proper campaign. Had they offered a high-profile candidate, and backed them properly, things might have been a good deal closer.

    There is a wider lesson here for Westminster and the coming general election. London may indeed be socially Left-liberal but it is also the country’s economic engine and home to the largest proportion of apirational, eagerly competitive wealth creators of any area in the country. Its ethnically diverse population may be misleading.

    Everyone – including the purblind Tory hierarchy – regards the capital as permanently and inalienably a Labour town. But this misunderstands the nature of its population.

    Many of the capital’s minority communities consist of ambitious, determined people who run their businesses and practice their professions with pride. They want to succeed and they want their children – whose education is of huge importance to them – to progress upwards in their adopted country.

    London is a truly cosmopolitan city but the great majority of people who live in it have important things in common. They are prepared to take on the challenges and obstacles that surviving in a highly competitive economic environment involves. Many of them have come precisely to engage in that competition.

    These voters should bitterly resent the obstacles that the Labour mayor has put in their way: making it impossibly expensive to use the cars and vans on which their livelihoods depend, allowing policing to deteriorate to such an extent that the city has become a dangerous place in which to raise a family, and making it quite clear that he is not there to facilitate the wealth creation which is the capital’s indispensable function. It is catastrophic that the Conservative party was unable to capitalise on this.

    There is a lesson in this, and in the wider pattern of results, if the party is willing to listen. Here’s hoping it is.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/04/local-election-voters-western-model-broken/

    JD has saved me the effort. Between now and the GE, prominent people have to stand up and tell the Great British Public that the current arrangements are unaffordable. It might be a negative way to conduct the debate but it has to be done. If there is one thing that the faux-Tories can do which will help in this, it is to delay the election to the latest possible date and hope that the message gets through, not to save their wretched necks but to show how Labour will simply continue the policies that have ruined the country.

    The desert death cult is another matter entirely but perhaps Labour’s deadly embrace of it will be its undoing. And a summer of riots will be a great test for all parties.

    1. I believe that the BBC has played an enormous part in the destruction of our country through its originally subtle and now quite open restriction of proper debate. It started with racism being implied if there was any attempt to debate immigration policy but there has been highly selective reporting of almost every issue that threatens the welfare of the country. Even this week, the BBC seems to have ignored the sentencing of a rape gang that looks to be formed by the usual crowd of enrichers and that has ruined many young lives. Meanwhile they witter on about their own preferred issues such as female representation in the ranks of train drivers.

    1. That man is a true patriot,he should be supported to the n’th degree.
      I believe there is a gathering in the capital on, I think, the 1st of June.
      I personally will keep an eye out for it closer to the due time.

      1. “The Family is the enemy of the State and the state will never gain complete control until the family is destroyed completely.”

        [Friedrich Engels]

  49. Anybody know anything about Kombucha? A friend, a southern sort of soft lefty, but her heart’s in the right place, is a kombucha fanatic and swears that if you drink a cup a day, you’ll live to be 200. Leaving aside the fact that I’m not sure that would be a good thing, the way the world is going, she’s offered me a ‘plant’, a scooby or summat, and I’m wondering if anyone on here can advise whether the health benefits are genuine and worth the hassle. The internet seems to agree with my lefty friend.

    1. I believe it is now accepted that fermented food is good for your microbiome (good bugs in your stomach). You don’t need to spend any money.
      You can easily ferment your own at home. Just chop up some cabbage. Put in a jar and add salt. A week later you have a version of sauerkraut.

      2. Fish, chips, tripe and onions, pig’s trotters, black pudding, stotty cake and panackelty .

      3. But don’t boil the cabbage until it goes soggy and gives off a sulphurous stench.

          1. I steam mine wirh a little salt, sometimes with a little grated fennel on it, and serve it with black pepper and butter. Green summer cabbage (‘Primo’) is my favourite and it is delicious with steamed cod.

          1. No Johnny but – I daresay like many people – I have a dominant memory of my Grannie always being guaranteed to have a paper bag full of mints in her handbag. Not only are the Scots legendary for having a sweet tooth but I imagine that rationing had created a population that was always going to indulge once they got the chance again.

          2. That was not the point I was trying to make, but the food they ate was basic but far better than we have today unless you search

    3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kombucha

      Reading the above article I can’t see why it would be particularly good for you. However, I don’t think it would do you any harm. Frankly I think this sort of thing is nonsense, it’s in the genes not the food, unless you go out of your way to consume things that have had tons
      of pesticide and god knows what else poured all over them.

    4. My health-conscious gay work colleague also swears by its health benefits but that’s all I know. I’m not aware he’s particularly left-wing though.

    5. I like kombucha, and believe it is rather good for one’s gut biome*. (Not sure about living to five score, mind.) It’s not too much hassle; why not take her up on her kind offer and see how it grabs you?

      * I hadn’t realised quite how important this is until I came across Dr Sabine Hazan’s work during the covid madness. Fascinating!

  51. ‘Morning All

    Modern Life…….

    https://twitter.com/LeeCraddock12/status/1774173637488062870

    Rest

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0eae594671b240feed8945793e3b3cf1355b0379ec68ad6dd1de86e989127145.gif

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6c1b1b11229424fa05c1497d7ca69684d3d44827cdd5a2c7ddf90fdc950a3afd.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3af8816bb0b415598a96f6dec6589da961b1a8388df0c9958fa0eb2c8ad0dd55.jpg

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f41863e5568f773a7bf57661aa8d74da33e944e707db0e02c049700b7af9b1de.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ad36f1c6fbb2f6a5aabe82aee1883d15e2bc9c45a59aa07aa89254df5053bb46.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/155f5a4ef686c04773a057258dd7f76392cf6b7e8fab6aa63e34c88be87abce1.jpg

    1. The last one especially shows how stupid those rainbow people are. There’s no cure for stupid.

      2. Did you see the earlier post of the Islamic “scholar” saying that’s why Hamas are loosing because their God is punishing them due to the European Muslims protesting alongside the LGBTQ+? True story.

          1. Now now. Did you watch the video posted by Rix Redux?

            No discrimination against those of us who can’t spell (and in my defence, and I say that because I am the victim here), it was because I was taught to rede and rite using ITA.

          3. It was funny, about Wokesters being more concerned about gender fluidity than being able to do maths or spell correctly.

          7. Initial Teaching Alphabet devised by Pitman. Used in my elder son’s school in the 70s. He managed to switch quite easily to English.

          9. It was the Independent Television Authority once upon a time.
            Alternatively, the Initial Teaching Alphabet

          10. Something like “initial teaching alphabet”? It was a fonetic sistem of spelling witch bares no resemblance to how words are aktualy spelled

        2. No, I didn’t see that. On the other hand, as you indicate, the Islamic notion of a “scholar” is not really the same as ours…

          Perhaps if the European Muslims threw the rainbow people off their marches, then the latter might actually gt the message. But neither is going to happen until the slammers are so established that they don’t need anyone else’s support.

        1. Rather extreme, and I’m not sure that they don’t die as thick as they lived…

          1. Extreme but extremely effective for raising the intellectual level of the remaining population.

          2. That depends. On the other hand the throwers won’t exactly raise aren’t exactly raising the intellectual level of the population either.

    2. I’d prefer railway employees stuck closely to the numerous safety protocols, timetables, service schedules, speed limits, you name it, than come over all creative. That leads to disasters.

  52. Trust Big Pharma,the NHS and Government what could possibly go wrong………

    Bloody Hell i’m not easily shocked these days but this story is truly appalling

    “Pharmaceutical companies knowingly sold a treatment infected with HIV to the NHS, The Telegraph can reveal.

    Internal documents from American pharmaceutical companies show they knew a “wonder drug” made from human plasma could transmit HIV to patients, but they sold it regardless.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/04/pharmaceutical-giants-sold-hiv-infected-treatment/
    Whole article well worth a read should be murder trials for this!!

    1. People are far too trusing of mega large organisations and politicians. Nothing would suprise me. look at all the lies about Covid when non mask wearers like us. Were pointed at and nasty comments made when we knew it was a complete waste of time. As it has now been shown it was.

    2. Why wasn’t the NHS smart enough to know that as well, and so not buy it?

  53. Talking of enthusiasm, here is the turnout for the Mayoral elections. Apologies if anyone has already posted this.
    London, 40.5%.
    WestYorkshire, 32.71%
    Greater Manchester 32.1%
    North East 30.9%
    Tees Valley 30.1%
    York & North Yorkshire 29.9%
    West Midlands 29.8%
    East Midlands 27.6%
    South Yorks 27.6%
    Salford 25.9%
    Liverpool 23.7%

    So amongst all the talk of historic swings, of seismic results, of all the other overblown hoopla, the facts are that nowhere did anywhere near half of the electorate bother to turn out.
    I know that Manchester and Liverpool never wanted a Mayor, maybe no one else did either.
    This is just a massive, unwanted and expensive expansion of the political class. Also a continuation of the EU principle of “subsiduarity”, taking decisions nearest to the people affected (in other words, a further weakening of national government).

    I can’t wait for the “citizen’s assemblies”; what joy.

    1. The system needs constant monitoring. That should be built in. The mayoralty should be abandoned if the turnout is less than 50%. Otherwise this is not democracy.

      Same with General Elections. Blair was the only politician to get less than 50% and look what has happened to us because of his lack of foresight. If a GE has less than a 50% turnout then a cross party govt should be installed. And another election held a year later.

      Apparently, 69% (according to a recent major poll) think Labour unfit to govern. 85% think the Conservatives are unfit to govern. And this is our choice. This is DINO (Democracy In Name Only).

    2. Good morning Sossidge – and the East Midlands does not include Leicester and Leicestershire!

  54. Every now and then I google the Spectator website for its headlines. Today’s main headline by the Spectator itself (and not one of the journos specifically) is: ‘Why Sunak should stay’.

    And this is why I no longer pay a subscription fee to support the wages of another traitorous organisation.

    As London is our capital city, the whole country should be able to vote for its mayor. Better still, abolish mayoralties. It’s just another means for the government to deflect accountability. The government seem to now outsource all of its decision-making to quangos, charities etc. This is not democracy. It is plausible deniability.

    1. Absolutely right. It’s a way of denying democracy. “Oh, we’d love to do something but that power lies with the Mayor.”.

      Or with the WHO, or the ECHR, or with the Climate Committe, or the office for Budget Responsibilty, or the Bank of England…

      An ever greater expansion of the political class does not equate to more democracy, anything but!

      1. Thanks. We vote them in to take direct responsibility – and they don’t. They increasingly outsource it. And most of the problems which we have are due to the government dodging its responsibilities and shoving nationally important decisions onto some quango led by some overpaid, chinless, ideologically-driven zealot.

      2. Or as Quintin Hogg – Lord Hailsham said many years ago – an “Elective dictatorship”.

  55. China is now engaged in open hybrid warfare against the West. 5 May 2024.

    China under Xi Jinping is making use of all the vulnerabilities it can find or create in liberal Western societies. Its tactics include coercive diplomacy, proxy war through hostile states, political espionage and influence operations, disinformation and propaganda, data theft, cyber attacks and more in pursuing its goals.

    This is classic hybrid warfare, for which Xi has ordered “combat readiness”. How long before we are ready to defend ourselves and our allies from this grim reality?

    The War- Mongering in the MSM is quite relentless. This of course serves as a distraction from the reality of the destruction of the West by the forces of Globalism.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/04/china-tiktok-blinken-xi-jinping-hybrid-warfare/

    1. It was very noticable when the media started talking as one about “being at war with Russia within twenty years”.

      1. Like a chorus it was. Talk about trying to set a hare running. It used to be terrorists, then death by climate catastrophe, then it was COVID, now rumours of wars. They’ll do anything to scare people into the pen.

      2. Only when they run out of other people’s money. Thus a clear starting point is to prevent councils spending any money unless the public approve of it. There you go.

    4. Our chief weapon is surprise… Surprise and unrelenting ignorance… Our two weapons…

  57. Son of co-founder slams Islam
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnrRLdMagr8&list=TLPQMDUwNTIwMjTXEwi06jZtZQ&index=7

    I have been watching over the last couple of weeks, Islam/Christian debates at Hyde Park Speakers Corner. The behaviour he talks about here is absolutely true. The Muslim apologists can’t abide losing, being humiliated or defeated even though their logic is at the level of kindergarten rhetoric. They constantly threaten people with violence and think that screaming at people so they give up, constitutes a victory for Islam, it’s insane behaviour. Watching them I cannot understand how they are making progress in this country, there arguments are so stupid and display a complete ignorance about Christianity and Christian thought. I am honestly beginning to suspect that the claim to the conversion of Christens to Islam, is a lie, that the numbers are far less than Muslims claim.

    1. “Son of co-founder slams Islam”
      Er, did Mohammed Pbuh have a co-founder?

      2. Listened to an interesting discussion about that. Apparently Muslims leaving Islam is more or less the same as the birth rate and increasing. Result, Islam is static in the West and is beginning to lose the advantage. So there is hope for the future. The reason it doesn’t look like this is happening is because most Muslims keep quite about leaving Islam and go with the flow to avoid trouble in their families and communities. However, they are beginning to become rather more vocal as the number of apostate Muslims increase. Eventually the danger of being murdered etc. will decrease to the levels where they will have no sociological problem to leave and be vocal about it and the danger of Islamification will be over. This is based on surveys by Matthew Goodwin which were done to assure the participants that they would have total anonymity. Interesting that when such surveys are taken without the safeguards that Goodwin put in place, results are totally different due to fear.

    4. I am surprised he has not been imprisoned or something worse, son or no son. After all, they believe in fatwas and honour killings.

      Apart from that, wishing you a peaceful and happy Easter celebration.

  58. Hello folks

    Not quite so sunny here in Wiltshire today. Sadly I did not benefit much from yesterdays appearance of the sunshine – but today is dry and I am going to get back on the horse this afternoon. Yeah!!

    Good to be feeling back on form

    3. Watch out – he’ll be complaining of overwork soon. 😉 Enjoy your ride!

      Similar wearher here. I need a chopping board so intend to wander along to the market in San Telmo, snaffling one of the most delicious empanadas I’ve come across here (deep fried, and filled with morcilla – a type of black pudding – and pear) as a bonus. 🙂

      1. Well it’s not as if you have to watch your figure. All those swarthy types do it for you.

  59. These “Mayors” put me in mind of another fatuous creature – the Perlice and Crime Commissioner. Bet none of you know the name of your local con artist who is the lucky recipient of £££ per annum – for doing sod all.

    1. Ours is called Chris Nelson and apparently he was reelected. This year was the first time I didn’t bother going to vote – last time I spoilt my paper saying the PCC was just another useless layer of bureaucracy. I haven’t changed that opinion.

        1. I didn’t get any – the only leaflet was from the incumbent Green woman who was reelected.

          1. No council elections in my area this time around, just the PCC. The councils were elected last year around us and the Greens got in overall. It’s well known though, that the reason was many disaffected Tories went over to them. Labour are never a threat outside the cities here, so it’s either Lib-Dumb or Green if you want to protest.

            We are in a newly formed constituency for the next GE and so it’s anyone’s guess what’ll happen. It’s very rural, in any case.

    2. Just another layer of outsourcing so our government can shift accountability onto another quango.

    3. We had to vote for another one this time round; I spoiled my ballot paper with NOTA.

      1. I didn’t bother going to the polling station, as the PCC was the only voting choice in my area.

        2. We had the joint Notts & Derbyshire mayor and the PCC plus we had 2 x Reform candidates so I went up and exercised my civic right.
          As did the DT and two lads.

  60. “University dean fears ‘99.9 per cent’ of his students are using AI to write essays”
    ‘Huge threat’
    “They literally don’t learn anything.”….

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education-and-careers/2024/05/05/university-dean-fears-students-using-ai-write-essays/

    I fear that 90% of graduate jobs will soon fall within the abilities of AI. No idea what Nottlers’ grandchildren will do for a living, any suggestions? Certainly the ‘public’ sector has become a home for dinosaurs.
    Edit: graduate jobs.

    3. 386915+ up ticks,

      Afternoon T5165,

      All of the majority voters will go on the game and notice little difference, having been sexually abused via the polling stations,decade after decade.

    4. Use an exam hall and exam conditions to write the essay. 3 1/2 hours, doors locked.

    5. There’s software to detect that sort of thing but frankly I don’t blame kids.

      Falling student numbers is a bigger issue. Administration is so bloated and inefficient.

  61. “University dean fears ‘99.9 per cent’ of his students are using AI to write essays”
    ‘Huge threat’
    “They literally don’t learn anything.”….

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education-and-careers/2024/05/05/university-dean-fears-students-using-ai-write-essays/

    I fear that 90% of graduate jobs will soon fall within the abilities of AI. No idea what Nottlers’ grandchildren will do for a living, any suggestions? Certainly the ‘public’ sector has become a home for dinosaurs.
    Edit: graduate jobs.

      1. MOH used to get irritated when I ranted about slammers coming in: I was accused of being a conspiracy theorist (I said it was deliberate – else why should Christians be denied asylum?), and advised to “live and let live”…Not that our unwanted incomers have any intention of letting us live and let live if we don’t capitulate to their stone-age belief system.

    2. It’s not that the slammers ever hide their intentions, it is our idiotic establishment who does not listen.

      1. 386915+ up ticks,

        Afternoon KP,
        I do believe that they are fully aware of what is taking place but currently it suits their interest.

        They, the politico’s as with the islamist are not, end never have been on the side of the
        indigenous peoples, these last four decades ,far from it.

      2. IMO the establishment are sufficiently arrogant to believe that they can, for whatever reason, eradicate the indigenous population, replace it with moslems and still remain in control. They are stupid and the latest outcome should be a warning to them, but then arrogance…

        1. They still won’t care – they’ll move abroad when they reached their zenith.

    3. Only because the beyond-dim halfwits in those countries will continue to permit their existence.

      People are far too stupid, in these modern days, to mount civil war, which is the ONLY way to return to normality.

      1. 386915+ up ticks,

        Afternoon G,
        Total agreement, self inflicted mass,via the polling stations sexual sadomasochism, the proven fact is the majority voter loves to receive a good, thorough rogering, and these last four decades they have never been denied that, in spades.

        1. The white flag has been hoisted since the ‘permissive’ (i.e. indisciplined) days of the swinging sixties.

    4. To which the Leftie Stu Grant says.. “they’d never do that…. anyways.. what’s Sharia Law?”

    6. And when the welfare stops flowing in, th muslims will go away.

      Let’s make it easy and just stop paying them?

      1. 386915+ up ticks,

        Evening W,
        The very issue that would save the tories (ino) sorry arses.

  63. Can I take it that the 30% or so turnouts are now perfectly acceptable for a mandate but the turnout for the Brexit referendum isn’t?

    1. Take a dozen, a gross and a score
      And add it to three times root four
      Divide it by seven
      Add five times eleven
      Makes nine squared and not a jot more

        1. Full disclosure – I’d heard it before, albeit some time ago – it just took some time to make it scan!

          Interestingly, it is credited to the person (cant recall his name) who came up with what I think is one of the best palindromes of all time;

          A man, a plan, a canal – Panama!

          2. T. Eliot, top bard, notes putrid tang emanating, is sad; I’d assign it a name: gnat dirt upset on drab pot toilet.

          5. Blimey, just had a look at it – it looks like they took the original and filled it with what mostly looks like gobbledygook!

            Checked the original – it was by a man called Leigh Mercer, described as a ‘wordplay and recreational mathematics expert’ – cool!

      1. Quite. I nearly choked on my turkey and Christmas chutney sandwich just then

        2. It’s caught in a trap
          It won’t let go
          Because it loves itself too much, baby

    1. What is that pasty white stuff in the bread, by the way? Not tofu, I trust

    2. The food at my local hospital is very good. They also do a packed lunch. Sandwich, piece of fruit, Yogurt. Fruit juice. Mini dessert. Cutlery and napkin.

        1. When i had a pint of blood taken every month for six months i always told them i hadn’t eaten. Which you should when they take that much. Then they would reappear with a free packed lunch. I have no shame.

    3. White bread? Surely they could at least have tried to be healthy and used a wholemeal loaf.

      It’s now a long time since I was in hospital but every morning we got to chose our lunch and dinner meals from a menu of twenty or thirty options.

      1. There were two or three options when my OH was in hospital in November/December 22.

      2. I like sourdough bread, or as it used to be called, “Bread” before the Chorleywood process ruined it. Actually tastes of something, and has some body behind it.

        1. I usually buy a spelt, wheat and rye loaf from Morrisons – actually tastes of bread.

          2. I would love not to buy bread. Because you bake it. But unfortunately the bread would probably get stale before it arrived.

            One day, when I have moved into my last home, I will bake. Perhaps.

          3. ALDI sell an “ancient grains” sliced loaf.
            Makes lovely sandwiches and toast.

  68. Eventually – Strange word:
    Wordle 1,051 6/6

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

    1. Just need to be lucky on guess

      Wordle 1,051 4/6

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

      1. Likewise
        Wordle 1,051 4/6

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

  70. Michael Ray Dibdin Heseltine, Baron Heseltine – a guest on Radio 4 – Spouting anti-British bowlocks, as usual.

    Age 91. I would gladly pay for a wreath to be laid on his grave – I just wish he’d hurry up!

    1. I thought he’d kicked the bucket when I saw your heavy type! Sadly, I was mistaken!

  71. This day in 1943 saw the start of the battle for North Atlantic convoy ONS 5:

    “This convoy lost 12 ships, as it turned out, the last time that a convoy would lose a major number of ships. For these 12 ships, the Germans lost 6 U-boats in the battle, to which could be added U-710 and U-209. Another 7 boats had to abort due to severe battle damage. So this convoy battle is often seen as the turning point in the battle for the Atlantic. In fact, in the 3 weeks following this disaster, the Germans were unable to mount an attack on any other convoy but continued to suffer severe losses. This would prompt Donitz to recognize his defeat and on 23rd May he halted all convoy operations and recalled his boats from the North Atlantic convoy routes.”

    With hindsight we can see that the comprehensive defeat of the U-boat, using superior technology, tactics, seamanship, and training had been achieved, and would remain a lasting tribute to the merchant, Royal Navy Navy and Royal Canadian Navy men involved.

    Having seen a few Winter storms in the north Atlantic in the comparative luxury of a Leander class frigate, I find it difficult to comprehend the hardiness of those souls who went out time after time to take on the Violence of the Enemy, and still maintained such a high moral courage.

    O Eternal Lord God, who alone rulest the raging of the sea; who has compassed the waters with bounds until day and night come to an end; be pleased to receive into Thy almighty and most gracious protection the persons of us Thy servants, and the Fleet in which we serve.

    Preserve us from the dangers of the sea, and from the violence of the enemy; that we may be a safeguard unto our most gracious Sovereign Lady, Queen Elizabeth, and her Dominions, and a security for such as pass upon the seas upon their lawful occasions; that the inhabitants of our Commonwealth may in peace and quietness serve Thee our God; and that we may return in safety
    to enjoy the blessings of the land, with the fruits of our labours, and with a thankful remembrance of Thy mercies to praise and glorify Thy Holy Name.
    Amen.

  72. Mayoral elections are a bit like the MEP elections in the past, once elected they disappear from view and are hardly heard until the next election.
    They don”t appear to get much media coverage or scrutiny or any public holding to account as there isn’t really the media infrastructure for doing that or much interest from the public.
    Until a LTN is imposed or 20 mph speed limits or Ulez, that is and pay per mile seems very likely to be imposed during the next four years.
    Blair’s idea for creating them was supposed to give more democracy and power to regions and cities, but in effect they are just a back door way of imposing globalist agendas while bypassing national government.
    Nobody at the time realised, apart from Blair, I suppose that Mayors would be enrolled into worldwide global institutions and just become drones for the supranational agenda.
    The national government have seemed powerless prevent any of these mad schemes coming into effect at local level, even if they had the will to get involved, yet they appear to get the blame at election times for the general loss of freedoms and damage to business that the net zero agenda is causing.

    2. You have only to look at the demise of the London Stock Exchange, once the most important in the world, to witness the results of globalist socialist policies.

      Left unopposed cranks like Khan and his circle will heap further social and financial damage on our capital city.

    3. ‘ a back door way of imposing globalist agendas while bypassing national government’
      Which was why Mrs. Thatcher abolished the GLC.

  73. Good afternoon, all. Misty first thing but now a glorious sunny day in N Essex.

    A few days ago I mentioned La Quinta Columna, a Spanish research group looking into covid and the “vaccines” that followed that scam.

    Below is a selection of screen shots from the almost 3 hours long presentation given by a leading member of this group.

    LQC are in the camp of other researchers who are claiming that they are unable to find biological material in the ‘mRNA’ vials.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6e6997b5bae4f8c8549c2038313ea4e92ad4ec4bdad39adbec8cb18fea64d6f0.png

    Graphene/Graphene Oxide revealed by a microscope using visible light: “vaccines” should be free of particles at this level of magnification.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ec0b4a640704b1d2661ede2c1c1aaf8aabb1198f17da747bd6e9f123033ae797.png

    The contamination of the vial fluid exposed.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c4553829fd3e23219773b1f44f74fb46b0cf1e99d653a900caf1b76b9e1c85c2.png

    Contamination is not restricted to the covid “vaccine”.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/374d0975fd3a14a4d5496032a30cb891203c24b990bd8d87f7111ced4eb2fd3d.png

    An example of the above.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c6482a8ac9d31a6e5751f1325aad173f896301360cdb20d2736e9b9522419016.png

    Do you recall that children were unlikely to suffer from ‘covid’. Is this the reason?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e6845ec7916a21bd349163db80d502575b9d93e268db0561ef4e68ce794eed86.png

    And one for people in care homes…

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2ee47ca391b9d44e0632594c2902aec058b5ab08fc3ea62f7a24315b3dd18732.png

      1. This presentation shows that dental anaesthetics might be compromised. Whoever is running this scheme, they are leaving nothing to chance.

  74. Afternoon everyone. Just finished watching out of town with Jack Hargreaves.
    It had a pg warning before it started. I mean why?
    What is so offensive to anyone about this programme and why should it disturb children?
    I love watching the programmes on talking pictures as it takes me back to a time when we really were free.
    Now we have citizen Khan re elected and a government in waiting that can’t wait to trash and control the public even more than the idiots governing us at the moment.
    The new dark age is going to become very difficult very quickly for the average person in this country.

    1. I love the trigger warning some channels show when there really isn’t anything to get offended about. It goes: ‘the following programme contains attitudes from a different time that viewers may find offensive’. Or some such.

      Poor snowflakes.

  75. Afternoon everyone. Just finished watching out of town with Jack Hargreaves.
    It had a pg warning before it started. I mean why?
    What is so offensive to anyone about this programme and why should it disturb children?
    I love watching the programmes on talking pictures as it takes me back to a time when we really were free.
    Now we have citizen Khan re elected and a government in waiting that can’t wait to trash and control the public even more than the idiots governing us at the moment.
    The new dark age is going to become very difficult very quickly for the average person in this country.

  77. Ooh.er! I haven’t had a dental anaesthetic for a long time….but I’m not as brave as I was with my original dentist who didn’t use any anaesthetics for fillings. He never did cause any pain though.

    I do remember the time he extracted four premolars to straighten my teeth ( as the orthodontist refused to treat me as an “uncooperative child”). He used gas and I still remember the strange dream I had when I was under the gas.

    1. I remember (I must have been about five) when I had my adenoids out under gas. I never forgot seeing stars – a whole sky full of stars all falling towards me – it was actually a lovely feeling.

      1. Sounds like an Acid trip. Naughty naughty. I tried it once. The wallpaper was a rose bud pattern. They all burst into bloom.

        1. Acid trip – at five years old? Plus I never tried it afterwards, just as I have never even attempted to smoke a cigarette as I have disliked those since I can remember.

    2. Snap. Had the same op. so I didn’t develop “Essex teeth”.
      The dentist only had 30 seconds to remove two pre-molars.

    1. As untested as the vaccine likely was, is this not a result of the scale of the program?

  80. From Coffee House

    Why Taiwan is pulling down statues of Chiang Kai-shek
    Comments Share 5 May 2024, 6:00am
    While the West obsesses about whether or not China’s supreme leader, Xi Jinping, is going to invade Taiwan, the Taiwanese seemingly have other concerns. Today the hot issue is statues. To be precise, statues of Chiang Kai-shek, the post-war founder-dictator of independent modern Taiwan.

    In an inventory taken in 2000 it was estimated that there were over 43,000 statues of Chiang in Taiwan. A removal process, albeit limited in scale, was begun shortly after. Some 150 statues were removed and taken to the sculpture garden that surrounds the mausoleums of Chiang and his son Chiang Ching-kuo – a place often referred to as the ‘Garden of the Generalissimos’. So why then is the newly elected Taiwanese Democratic Progressive party president, Lai Ching-te, planning to remove 760 more Chiang statues?

    To explain why the statue issue is such a hot topic with not insignificant relevance to Taiwan’s current and future relationship with China, we need to delve back a little in history to the Chinese civil war that brought Mao Tse-Tung to power. By 1947 the parts of China controlled by Chiang were falling into chaos. While a Japanese military arsenal had fallen into the hands of Mao’s communist forces after the Pacific war, Chiang was relatively starved of equipment by a US state department which tended to believe the Zhou Enlai propaganda that Mao was more of a rebel against the corrupt government of the Chiang’sKuomintang (Nationalists) than a hard-line communist.

    The resulting collapse of morale within the Kuomintang forces combined with Mao’s seizure of the countryside destroyed the economies of China’s cities where Chiang was strongest. Food shortages and the printing of money to finance military expenditure brought hyperinflation and civil unrest. In Shanghai between 1946 and 1947 there were 4,200 labour strikes. Panic spread as Mao’s armies advanced.

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    As defeated loomed, Chiang developed a Plan B, which was to fall back on the island of Taiwan (formerly Formosa). The island had been liberated from Japan in 1945 after 50 years of Japanese rule following their victory in the First Sino-Japanese war. At the peace Treaty of Shimonoseki, Taiwan was ceded to Japan. When Chiang sent an advance guard of 48,000 troops to Taiwan in 1946, they were welcomed as liberators.

    Although the islanders and the Kuomintang were both ethnically Han, there was an almost immediate mismatch of expectations on both sides. An article in the Kuomintang magazine New Taiwan Monthly in September 1946 noted the need to re-educate the Taiwanese because they had been ‘poisoned intellectually and were forced to accept twisted notions.’ To a large extent the Han Chinese on Taiwan had been Japanized. Chiang Kai-shek’s regime thus sought to make Taiwan more Chinese. Even so, when I first went to Taiwan in the 1980s the educated older generation still spoke Japanese.

    Rather than making it a province, Chiang appointed his protégé Chen-Yi as governor general and garrison commander. Chen-Yi’s poorly paid soldiers plundered and looted – and not just from the departing Japanese. Rigged auctions took place to sell off Japanese property or that of ‘collaborators’. Owners of desirable properties were sometimes falsely accused. Most of this ended up in the hands of mainlanders. Some 40,000 Japanese bureaucrats were replaced by Kuomintang administrators who imposed an even more draconian control of the economy. They granted themselves state monopolies in salt, opium alcohol and tobacco.

    It was this last monopoly which led to the uprising against the Kuomintang invaders as they had become to be seen. In 1947, on the 28 February, an elderly grandmother, Lin Chiang Mai, was pistol whipped by a Monopoly Bureau agent for illegally selling cigarettes on the street. An angry crowd gathered, and a bystander was shot dead. What followed was an uprising and the Kuomintang’s brutal suppression which became known as ‘the White Terror’. Some 3,000 to 4,000 were executed, up to 30,000 died in the uprising and five times more were incarcerated. Martial law lasted until 1987.

    Not surprisingly the indigenous Han Taiwanese developed and a hatred for the mainland Chinese – it is a hatred that has passed down the generations. When I mentioned the 228 Incident to a young Taiwanese hedge-fund manager a few years ago, she launched into colourful invective against the mainlanders. While they are forced to exist together because of their shared antipathy towards communism, strong sentiment remains. The relationship was summed up by an islander who commented, ‘The Red Pigs are worse than the white ones (Kuomintang) – we hate them all but if we can’t get independence, we’d rather have the present ones.’

    Because of the White Terror it is no surprise then that the issue of Chiang Kai Shek’s statues remains sensitive. After all, passions run high when it comes to statues of much older nineteenth-century figures, such as the Confederacy monuments in the United States and Britain’s statues of slave traders such as that of Bristol’s Edward Colston.

    In Taiwan today Chinese mainlanders and their descendants are still called Waishengren (mainlanders) and would tend to support the Kuomintang Chinese Nationalist party. Meanwhile Han Chinese inhabitants and their descendants of Taiwan pre-1945 are called Benshengren (islanders). These people are generally supporters of the Democratic Progressive party (DPP), which was only founded in 1986 as dictatorial martial law was coming to an end. Both groups of course are Hanimmigrants, albeit of different generations. (Sixteen of Taiwan’s original aboriginal tribes are officially recognised and live in the island’s densely forested hills and mountains.)

    Paradoxically, given the People’s Republic of China’s long civil war with the Kuomintang for control of the mainland, Xi Jinping may not look on the removal of Chiang Kai-shek’s statues favourably. The DPP would like independence from China. They may hedge around the wording, but they reject the long-held mantra that Taiwan is part of China’s two ‘systems one country fudge’ that was hammered out in the Nixon-Mao agreements of the early 1970s. As James Yifan Chen, professor of international relations at Tamkang University, Taipei, has pointed out, President Lai is pushing for the removal of Chiang’s statues by White Terror Memorial Day on 19 May. It will likely be seen by Beijing as a further attempt to de-Sinicise Taiwan.

    This is a concern to Beijing because opinion polls clearly show that Taiwanese people are rapidly moving away from the idea that they are Chinese. In 1991, 25.5 per cent of Taiwanese identified as Chinese, while 17.6 per cent identified as Taiwanese. By 2020 the proportion who identified as Taiwanese more than doubled to 64.3 per cent. Those who identified principally as Chinese have fallen to a miniscule 2.6 per cent. Meanwhile identification as both Chinese and Taiwanese has fallen by 41 per cent.

    Another factor in the Chiang Statue debate is the position of Taipei’s new mayor, 46-year-old Chiang Wan-an – popularly known as Wayne Chiang. He is the illegitimate great-grandson of Chiang Kai-shek. Given that three former mayors of Taipei have gone on to become president, the DPP rightly fear that Wayne Chiang could go on to challenge for the presidency next time round for the Kuomintang. The DPP and President Lai therefore have every reason to want to remind the electorate of the White Terror instigated by Wayne Chiang’s infamous great-grandfather.

    But ultimately domestic political issues in Taiwan that resonate nearly always lead back to big brother across the water: China and its current leader Xi Jinping.

    1. There’s a broadcasting company there called Formosa Television, which claims not to have any political affiliation but surely just using the name is a political statement?

  81. We laid (well, I laid) nigh 100 metres of armoured, enclosed, insulated fibre cables to the shed (huge overkill, but plenty of redundancy) where there was already power plumbed in. The house computer stuff sits in there.

    Somehow – and I don’t know how – something has bitten through 5 layers of kevlar, ceramic and plastic and bitten the fibres to nothing.

    Any gardeners any ideas on how to protect cabling from the wildlife that isn’t military?

      3. Yes, it’s a rodent. That’s why they gnaw, to control their teeth.
        All rodents gnaw.

    2. Get a cat.

      Ours destroys everything on sight, no messing. That sounds to me like a rat if the chunks out of it are only small.

      1. It will almost certainly be a rat or rats. Set a trap or shoot them.

          1. An air-rifle is effective where a shotgun is not suitable. I have one exclusively for that purpose.

          2. Yes, good choice, hence my point about dustshot too. Unless you live somewhere without a backstop and miles of open ground you’ve got to be so careful. Heavy pellets for game in the air rifle is the way forward.

          3. As my air-rifle is not an FAC model (way too much fuss for the odd rat) the flatter trajectory of a lightweight .177 pellet is, counterintuitively, more effective on account of its accuracy. Shot through the brain the death is instant and humane.

          4. Flatter trajectory, therefore more velocity must be involved in your rifle, higher energy, with more energy dump the result, aka Energy=½(mv)².

            Mind you, you must be a good shoot to hit a rat’s head consistently. Using a scope or iron sights?

          5. A scope. At 10-15 yards I will hit the head every time. If I see a rat about I will lay out some bait and set myself up and wait. Most rats will keep returning, grasp a bit of food and scurry off into cover to devour it. Eventually they will become careless and remain still long enough for me to take the shot.

          7. I became quite a useful rat killer many years ago as my mother was very keen on feeding wild birds in the gardens and used to leave large numbers of bird feeders about the place. These spill seeds etc onto the ground and attract the rats. I noticed that the rats tend to approach the feeders using the same routes over and over again which makes it relatively easy to ambush them. Like you I assumed a .22 and heavy pellets would be the answer but was told by the experts at the gun shop that the flatter trajectory of the .177 increased the accuracy which is particularly useful if you are not going to know the exact distance of your target.

    3. Something metal. Wire wool can work on stuffing small gaps around pipes for example. I don’t know what you could use in your case.

    6. My money is on a rat. Can’t you put the cable in copper tubing? Poison the bastard.

    7. Had a job years ago in India, where they had a real rat problem.
      Solution was to run the cables through wide-bore pipe (too big for the rats to get a decent bite on), then run the whole thing in trunking that was filled with really fine sand – rats hated it, it got in their eyes. Result: Almost no rat bite problem.

    8. So its not ‘armoured’ in the sense of SWA mains cable?

      Just a thought. Putting a bird feeding station in the garden has, inevitably, attracted rats. They were around anyway, but the table manners of the local birds is such that there’s plenty of food on the ground for rodents, and it’s brought them out into the open. So I have a couple of enclosed bait boxes, one with the ‘grain’ type of rat poison; the other with those waxy poison blocks that they can gnaw on. The rats stay away from the house, so I leave them be, and they clearly take the bait. I have visits from successive litters, but only for a few days at a time.

      Might a similar arrangement distract your rodents from chewing cables?

      1. The problem with doing that is that other wildlife may be poisoned if they eat the rats. The thought that our local owls may swoop on a rat that is on its last legs has put me off poisoning them but it does mean also that I can’t have a bird table. The last attempt resulted in a swarm of rats by the shed that rivalled Hamlyn, town in Brunswick.

  82. We had a great little walk on a very damp Stoborough Heath https://www.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/sport-leisure/walking/walking-in-purbeck/the-purbeck-way heard a cuckoo and saw green woodpeckers . Pity I was nearly run over by a speeding maniac in a brand new 4×4 as I was crossing a small narrow country lane .. Plenty of wildlife , could have been a pony, deer , pig or donkey ,me or my dog . Some people don’t care.

    The gigantic range rover then backed up after slamming its brakes on after I leapt out of the way , and the male driver screamed at me , the lane is no wider than a large garden path , with a few passing places .

    Moh was slow off the mark , I wished he had shaken his fist , but he didn’t.

    4. Horrid experience, took the shine off your lovely walk. People get so angry now with such a massive sense of entitlement.

  83. The Tories must change course, or be wiped out
    It’s time to wake up. These results will look like a tremor next to the earthquake due on general election night.
    Suella Braverman: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/04/local-election-results-suella-braverman-rishi-sunak/

    Many people – including some Nottlers – think that the mould cannot be broken and that the Conservative Party is irreplaceable and we are lumbered with what we’ve got.

    This may be true – but unless the mould is broken we are lost for ever. Maybe the mould is now at its most fragile level ever. Maybe now is the time to take the current while it serves, mix our metaphors, and break it!

    Many BTLs suggest that Braverman and a host of Conservatives on the right side of the party should defect to Reform now.

    BTL

    I wonder if the Reform Party would be way ahead of the Conservative Party by now if Nigel Farage were its leader?
    Like him or loathe him, few would deny that Nigel Farage has charisma and is an outstanding orator.

    Few would deny that Starmer, Sunak and Tice have very little charisma indeed and completely lack the ability to inspire people.

    1. I remember Douglas Carswell at UKIP… Nothing but trouble, defectors, for the most part. I feel that, if they had any principles, they’d have long since left the Cons. for Reform.
      It’s also long overdue for Nigel to do his business or get off the pot. He needs to come back now or just stay out of it. Reform only needs a small number of seats at the election to become a ‘real’ party, by which I mean legitimate in the eyes of Mr. and Mrs. Normie.
      As for Labour’s majority, it matters not whether it’s one or one hundred. They can still pass laws and they’ll still be in government.

      1. They don’t leave if it might affect their bank balance.

        As for Farage, I totally agree, but I think his eyes are on the USA.

        1. Yes, that’s my opinion, too. But if he doesn’t want to get involved, he should clear right off. This whole ‘I might have to return!’, ‘Watch this space!’ every few weeks just looks narcissistic, and is a distraction.

          1. At this stage Reform needs all the help it can get. He is good at speaking, but there will need to be something more concrete to offer. On the other hand, look at the vacuous “promises” made by Labour, and still the Less-than-able-to-think will be voting for them.

    3. if Nigel Farage were its leader? Unfortunately nope.

      The maths is all wrong. Many don’t realise how high a proportion of the vote in a constituency one needs to be in with even half a chance winning it.
      Sure Reform will get plenty of votes but the winner in each constituency needs at least 30% and more often over 40%. That ain’t gonna happen.
      The only faint hope is for the Labour vote to fragment.

      Or, the other faint hope is for Farage to sit this one out, and Johnson returns. Of course all the silenced majority know he’s a faux Conservative.. but there’s a warm fluffy feeling inside to be had when a dead-cert Labour victory turns to tears.. and Kevin Maguire, Lammy, Sir Smarmy, Ash, Owen and James O’Brien have a collective meltdown.. again.

      1. Farage can’t afford to sit this one out as well. It is not worth not having Labour in at any cost, if that cost is having the Tories in. The country will simply have to suffer for five years until the sheeple learn the hard way that nobody in our Parliamentary system can be trusted. If they ever learn.

        1. Indeed. However, he knows deep down it’s a lost cause without funding, the foot soldiers and a well-oiled party machinery.. He also needs some heavy artillery to join him.

          1. It is not beyond the wit of that man to know ways to try to secure funding. It’s partly that Reform (like the Brexit Party before it) don’t capitalise enough and go for the political jugular when they have the chance.
            Capitalise on Starmer’s record concerning rape gangs.
            Capitalise on May’s and the Tories signing us up to “immigrants are welcome”.
            Threaten to stop RNLI and several other establishments from claiming charitable status, including educational and Common Purpose and various others.
            Commit to stopping any kind of welfare for illegal immigrants, and for legal ones if they go on benefits.
            Forget about his “one out one in” rubbish. One older English person who can pay for themselves must NOT be replaced by one young immigrant who will have children (and up to four wives if muslim). None in except in VERY rare circumstances.
            Stop the building of any more mosques.
            Stop automatically allowing families of students in.
            Repeal the Human Rights Act, with a view to leaving the ECHR.

            Etc. Etc.

          2. The worrying thing is that yer decent, educated, hard working British women are not having enough children. The only people keeping the national replacement rate up around 2.4 children per woman is yer non-Brits and yer benefit blaggers.

          3. That’s how we are being outbred. But most hard-working British women are not single mothers, or in families where benefit cheating is perfectly acceptable; therefore they really cannot afford to have many children as they need to go out to work. The same cannot be said for many of the breeders, hence they breed.

      2. ‘The maths is all wrong. Many don’t realise how high a proportion of the vote in a constituency one needs to be in with even half a chance winning it.
        Sure Reform will get plenty of votes but the winner in each constituency needs at least 30% and more often over 40%. That ain’t gonna happen.’

        Spot on

        1. From the Telegraph

          Nigel Farage gives strong signal he won’t contest UK general election

          Reform’s honorary president plays down the idea he would stand as a candidate

          Ben Riley-Smith, Political Editor5 May 2024 • 7:02pm

          Mr Farage has been a prominent supporter of Mr Trump since the 2016 US presidential race and has cultivated a friendship with him

          Nigel Farage, pictured with Republican candidate Donald Trump, says the US presidential race is more important than the UK vote Credit: GB News

          Nigel Farage has given his strongest indication yet that he will not return to front-line politics at the general election, saying the US presidential race is more important than the UK vote.

          Speaking to The Telegraph from the United States, where he spent the week of the local elections instead of campaigning for Reform, Mr Farage played down the idea that he would run as a general election candidate.

          Mr Farage said: “Yes, we’ve got an election year, but the biggest election in the world is taking place here. While I’m not ruling out anything in the UK completely, I think where I am this week is an indication of my thinking.”

          Asked if he was now closing the door on the idea of returning to the UK political front line for the election, while not fully ruling it out, Mr Farage said “that is a good summation”.

          The news that Mr Farage appears minded not to stand as a Reform candidate or to campaign full-time for the party is a boost to Rishi Sunak.

          For months there has been speculation about what would happen to the Tory vote share if Mr Farage decided to play a much more prominent role in the election battle for Reform.

          Mr Farage, the former Ukip and Brexit Party leader, is Reform’s honorary president. He played a critical role pressuring Lord Cameron into calling the Brexit referendum in 2016.

          Richard Tice, the Reform leader, claimed his party had effectively stopped Conservative Andy Street being re-elected as mayor of the West Midlands

          Richard Tice, the Reform leader, claims his party had effectively stopped Conservative Andy Street being re-elected as mayor of the West Midlands Credit: Getty/Oli Scarff

          Tory rebels had feared Mr Farage’s return would trigger an “existential event” for the party, with analysts debating whether it would see Reform overtaking the Conservatives in the polls.

          The US presidential election, which will see Donald Trump run as the Republican candidate, is held in November. The UK general election is expected in either October or November.

          Mr Farage has been a prominent supporter of Mr Trump since the 2016 US presidential race and has cultivated a friendship with him. There is speculation he could be offered a job in a second Trump administration.

          The former Ukip leader has just spent more than a week in the US, first in Florida and then in Texas, meeting with local groups of Republicans. He was in the US as voters went to the polls in England on May 2.

          Mr Farage said: “As I’ve said for some time, I’m weighing up a lot of options. Perhaps I’m in the fortunate position that I have a lot of attractive options this side of the pond. The Republicans really treat me like an American, they really do. I’ve been commuting back and forth politically for a long time.”

          Asked if he was minded not to return to a more prominent role in UK politics, Mr Farage said of the US: “Everything here feels so much more positive. I think the conservative movement in America has got the wind back in their sails. I think the causes they’re fighting are similar to ours. There is a huge level of cross-over. It is just an exciting place to be at the moment.”

          Taken up US opportunities

          Mr Farage, 60, has said previously how for the first time in his life he is making good money. He is a GB News presenter and has taken up opportunities in the US.

          Were he to run as a parliamentary candidate, Mr Farage would most likely have to remain in the UK on the campaign trail in the run-up to the election, limiting chances to rally for Mr Trump in the US.

          He would also face the possibility of an eighth defeat in parliamentary elections. Reform, while polling around 12 per cent, is not forecast to win any seats at the general election, given the UK’s first-past-the-post voting system.

          Richard Tice, the Reform leader, on Sunday claimed his party’s candidate had effectively stopped Conservative Andy Street from being re-elected as mayor of the West Midlands.

          Mr Tice told Times Radio: “We stopped Andy Street from winning in the West Midlands. We’re delighted by that.”

          Some Tory MPs echoed the claim, using it to underline the message they have been sending to voters considering Reform at the general election – that backing Mr Tice’s party helps Labour.

          Richard Holden, the Tory chairman, referenced the remark and tweeted: “Absolute clarity from Reform about their real aim – to help Sir Keir Starmer and Labour win.”

          He added: “A vote for Reform is a vote to help Labour win. Mr Tice’s own words.”

    3. What a nasty little man. A perfect example of the bizarre and paranoid luxury beliefs the modern Left hold. No insight into the concerns of every day people. Don’t engage just smear, degrade and posture one’s contempt.

      Keep huffing that gas Kevin.

    4. What did folk expect? Londonistan is overrun with sewage. You import the third world, yo get the third world.

      Start off by ending welfare and scrapping housing benefit and it would empty over night.

      1. Some of the streets in Bournemouth smell like London, cannabis stink, urine , food on the hoof .

        Students bring disgrace and and antisocial behaviour and attract the drug dealers ..

        Traditional old fashioned seaside towns no longer smell of discreet scents like Yardley Lavender or Paco Rabanne and the smell of pipe or cigar smoke , the clunk of balls on bowling greens , or tea at three. English voices , nah , just coarse language , tattooed bodies , sloppy behaviour and much worse.

        1. My hometown, used to be Boscombe (parts of) that was dodgy, now the Square and main shopping areas have gone downhill. Shocking governance by successive councillors.

    5. Ironically most of these ‘Progressives’ hanker for the 1970’s.

    6. Abandon all hope ye who pay attention to Kevin Maguire.

      I’ve scraped more pleasant excreta from the sole of my shoes than Kevin Maguire.

  85. The neighbours have a act. He took one look at Mongo and sauntered past him. The one time he’s actually scratched the boy Mongs did respond and it didn’t end well for the cat – especially as the fence didn’t exactly stop the dog….

  86. Well, that’s the rear section of the inside of the van back in place.
    I’ve now got the front panel to do, but will need a sheet of 5mm ply first. Whilst the van is off the road, except for very short journeys to pick up logs etc. I’ve a decent chance of getting it done.

  87. A few days old but interesting:

    “On April 24, Ford reported it lost $132,000 for each of its 10,000 electric vehicles sold in the first quarter of 2024, according to CNN. The sales were down 20 percent from the first quarter of 2023 and would “drag down earnings for the company overall.”

    That’s a mere $1.3 Billion…..

      1. What happened to old Ford’s famous maxim: “You can have any colour you like providing the profit line is in the black!?

    2. c. 1908, Henry Ford made a killing with the ‘Model-T’ – “any color so long as it’s black” – while sundry electrically powered cars failed to make it.

      Perhaps the EV will cause the Mighty Ford to bite the dust?

  88. A few days old but interesting:

    “On April 24, Ford reported it lost $132,000 for each of its 10,000 electric vehicles sold in the first quarter of 2024, according to CNN. The sales were down 20 percent from the first quarter of 2023 and would “drag down earnings for the company overall.”

    That’s a mere $1.3 Billion…..

  89. Nicked from elsewhere….

    My son was flunking out of college so I told him “you
    will marry the girl I choose.”
    He said, “no.”
    I told him, “she is Bill Gates’s daughter.”
    He said, “yes.”
    I called Bill Gates and said, “I want your daughter to
    marry my son.”
    Bill Gates said, “no.”
    I told Bill Gates, “my son is the CEO of the world
    bank.”
    Bill Gates said, “yes.”
    I called the president of the world bank and asked him
    to make my son the CEO.
    He said, “no.”
    I told him, “my son is Bill Gates’s son-in-law.”
    He said, “yes.”
    And that’s exactly how politics works.

    1. What qualifications does Khan have to be Mayor of London apart from being a Muslim and talking the talk

      What qualifications do any current politicians have if they have no religious affinity the way that Muslims do.

      1. Main facts and figures
      according to the 2021 Census, the total population of England and Wales was 59.6 million, and 81.7% of the population was white
      people from Asian ethnic groups made up the second largest percentage of the population (9.3%), followed by black (4.0%), mixed (2.9%) and other (2.1%) ethnic groups
      out of the 19 ethnic groups, white British people made up the largest percentage of the population (74.4%), followed by people in the white ‘other’ (6.2%) and Indian (3.1%) ethnic groups
      from 2011 to 2021, the percentage of people in the white British ethnic group went down from 80.5% to 74.4%
      the percentage of people in the white ‘other’ ethnic group went up from 4.4% to 6.2% – the largest percentage point increase out of all ethnic groups
      the number of people who identified as ‘any other ethnic background’ went up from 333,100 to 923,800

      https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/uk-population-by-ethnicity/national-and-regional-populations/population-of-england-and-wales/latest/

      1. The increase in the “white – other” groups was probably the Poles and other Eastern Europeans. They are probably not increasing now and some will have returned home. In the next census we will see an increase in Asian and African groups.

        1. Poles tend to assimilate easily and quickly identify as British whilst retaining affection for their historic homeland. The same for many other European immigrants. Compare and contrast with some of our more stroppy and less welcome forced imports.

    2. What qualifications does Khan have to be Mayor of London apart from being a Muslim and talking the talk

      What qualifications do any current politicians have if they have no religious affinity the way that Muslims do.

      1. Main facts and figures
      according to the 2021 Census, the total population of England and Wales was 59.6 million, and 81.7% of the population was white
      people from Asian ethnic groups made up the second largest percentage of the population (9.3%), followed by black (4.0%), mixed (2.9%) and other (2.1%) ethnic groups
      out of the 19 ethnic groups, white British people made up the largest percentage of the population (74.4%), followed by people in the white ‘other’ (6.2%) and Indian (3.1%) ethnic groups
      from 2011 to 2021, the percentage of people in the white British ethnic group went down from 80.5% to 74.4%
      the percentage of people in the white ‘other’ ethnic group went up from 4.4% to 6.2% – the largest percentage point increase out of all ethnic groups
      the number of people who identified as ‘any other ethnic background’ went up from 333,100 to 923,800

      https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/uk-population-by-ethnicity/national-and-regional-populations/population-of-england-and-wales/latest/

      1. “I can do that. All you have to do is walk straight. I can walk straight!”

  91. A trans Birdie Three?

    Wordle 1,051 3/6
    🟨⬜🟨🟩⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Me too.

      Wordle 1,051 3/6

      🟨⬜⬜⬜🟨
      ⬜🟩🟨🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. I got there. There was no other possibility left.

      Wordle 1,051 5/6

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

      1. As a childhood builder of model, military aircraft, the word was familiar, Sue!

  93. I mentioned these fatuous Police and Crime Wazzocks earlier.

    If their job is to oversee the police – why on earth do they have to have a political label?

    1. Just another layer of bureaucracy – Chief Constables used to do the job – what do they do now?

      3. The Chiefs’ financial needs used to be met perfectly adequately by the old Police Committees. The most staid, most dependable arm of county bureaucracy in my opinion. The PCCs are irrelevant.

        1. Borough Watch Committees.
          (Gets dewy eyed over the days when things worked.)

          1. Yes, that’s it. They were Watch Committees weren’t they. I think Bill mentioned them too.

            As you say, not broke, didn’t need fixing.

    2. I voted NOTA re PCC, in fact, NOTA for the councillors too.

      For the life of me I can’t think what they’re for. All they seem to do is require yet another layer of minions to “help” them carry out their “duties”.

    3. ‘They’ call them Commissioners. Just getting Joe Public used to the term before they morph into Commissars.
      We already have thought police.
      We already have morality police.
      Only a matter of time before we have blasphemy police.

      1. I crossed out the paper and wrote “Waste of Money” across the Essex PCC voting slip.

        1. Where can one find the record of “spoilt” ballot papers? Does anyone know?

  94. That’s me for this Sunday. Quite nice at times. Even removed my pullover.

    I put out the garden furniture…so you can blame me for the inevitable rain.

    Have a spiffing evening.

    A demain

    PS – that “Green” slammer councillor who was elected oop north – I imagine that he assumed that “Green” = “Slammerdom”. It’s their colour doncha know? Nothing to do with the usual (barking) green isshoos.

    1. Just goes to show that the ‘Greens’ will accept any candidate regardless of their actual affiliation.

    2. Was a really sunny & warm day yesterday… today, back to chilly & grey. Sigh. At least, one started to deal with admin I’d been putting off…

      1. We have – according the Beeb – rain and thunderstorms tomorrow.
        It’s a Bank Holiday. The one set up by Wilson to suck up to the Left wing of the Labour party.

    3. What the hell is wrong with you? He has an allotment !

      You do realise how difficult that is if you are not the right ‘flavour’.
      Experienced it myself in a town that has always been Tory.

      Only Union/Mason club members allowed.

  95. You can forget conspiracy theories. It is now documented that viruses are being modified in Labs to attack certain groups.

    ‘They’ were rather successful with HIV.

    The TV scare campaign worked well in those days too.

    The infected blood scandal that has been going on for 40 years where the NHS was sold blood plasma from prisoners infected with HIV and Hepatitis.

    Thalidimide also.

    The Horizon PO shambles is using the same tactics.

    Wait a generation and people forget.

    1. My mother took Thalidomide when she was pregnant with me. It turned out that I am very lucky indeed (no physical deformities). One would have thought that this particular disaster would have curbed the enthusiasm for Big Pharma – but no. Why on earth do so many people want money so much that they will sacrifice everything worth having for it?

    2. Went over to look but found that I wasn’t interested. Ta for the heads up, though, Obers.

  97. Good evening, All.
    Not quite sure where the day’s gorn, but gorn it has.
    I think I’ve achieved some mundane jobs, but I’m not sure what.
    Perhaps dozing off in a warm summer house has something to do with my general vagueness.

    2. Evening Anne ,

      We have been feeling vague for days , but have achieved a few useful tasks .

      We paid a visit to our tip this morning . It is very well organised .

      Moh piled his car up with plastic pots and trays and stuff that had been lying around the garden shed and behind it , cardboard boxes and stuff like that . We then gave the dog a run on the heath , and visited a farm shop where I bought more bird seed and a bag of kibble to mix with Pip’s meaty food mixture .

      The sun came out later this afternoon , warmish and we were feeling dozey after lunch .

      Another short walk after 6pm , low cloud over the Purbecks , and then it cleared .

      Moh’s corn on his foot hurt and my hip ached because the ground was rather slippery , so the walk was a short one .

  98. I’m pooped. I’ve spent the w/e spring cleaning my mother’s house. She has some visitors coming to stay for a couple of nights – I had to check the paper that it wasn’t the King and his court that were coming, there’s been that much she’s wanted me to do.

    1. Make the most of it, Stormy. I’d love to be in a position to clean Mother’s house, if she had one… It’s a lovely, understated way, to show your love for her.

  99. Evening all. I’ve had a lovely day with all the chicks around me and it’s now sunny after even more rain. The below was on the Daily Sceptic and I thought you might also find it amusing:

    Topsy-Turvy Land

    by

    Guy de la Bédoyère

    5 May 2024 9:00 AM

    It seems, in a most unexpected discovery, that Enid Blyton

    (1897–1968) – doyen of children’s writers in the mid-20th century and

    naturally long since castigated for her political incorrectness – was

    way ahead of the curve when it came to understanding the tearing of

    society apart by compelling everyone to join in the madness to be the

    same and using Stasi-like police as enforcers.

    Perhaps living in a time of totalitarian dictatorships had helped

    hone her satirical take? I sat down the other day to read one of her

    books to my grandchildren. I plucked The Magic Faraway Tree off the shelf, a book first published in 1943, and started reading.

    Topsy-Turvy Land

    by
    Guy de la Bédoyère

    5 May 2024 9:00 AM

    It seems, in a most unexpected discovery, that Enid Blyton
    (1897–1968) – doyen of children’s writers in the mid-20th century and
    naturally long since castigated for her political incorrectness – was
    way ahead of the curve when it came to understanding the tearing of
    society apart by compelling everyone to join in the madness to be the
    same and using Stasi-like police as enforcers.

    Perhaps living in a time of totalitarian dictatorships had helped
    hone her satirical take? I sat down the other day to read one of her
    books to my grandchildren. I plucked The Magic Faraway Tree off the shelf, a book first published in 1943, and started reading.

    For those of you who don’t remember the book, the Magic Faraway Tree
    has a series of clouds that take their place at the top of the tree. The
    children in the stories climb the tree and go up into whichever magical
    land has appeared that day. In the chapter I started on, Topsy-Turvy
    Land has arrived. If that already sounds familiar, you’re not wrong.

    In Topsy-Turvy Land a spell has been cast and everything is turned
    upside down. The children look around in amazement but settle down to
    eat. It’s all horribly familiar:

    They all tucked in to a good lunch. In the middle of it, Joe happened
    to look round, and he saw something surprising: a policeman was coming,
    walking on his hands, of course.

    “Look what’s coming,” said Joe with a laugh. Everyone looked. Moon-Face went pale.

    “I don’t like the look of him,” he said. “Suppose he’s come to lock
    us up for something? We couldn’t get away down the Faraway Tree before
    this land swung away from the top!”

    The policeman came right up to the little crowd under the tree.

    “Why aren’t you Topsy-Turvy?” he asked in a stern voice. “Don’t you
    know that the rule in this land is that everything and everyone has to
    be upside down?”

    “Yes, but we don’t belong to this silly land,” said Joe. “And if you
    were sensible, you’d make another rule, saying that everybody must be
    the right way up. I’ve just no idea how silly you look, policeman,
    walking on your hands!”

    The policeman went red with anger. He took a sort of wand from his belt and tapped Joe on the head with it.

    “Topsy-Turvy!” he said. “Topsy-Turvy!”

    And to Joe’s horror he had to turn himself upside down at once! The
    others stared at poor Joe, standing on his hands, his legs in the air.

    “Oh, fiddlesticks!” cried Joe. “I can’t eat anything properly now
    because I need my hands to walk with. Policeman, put me right again.”

    “You are right now,” said the policeman, and walked solemnly away on his hands.

    “Put Joe the right way up,” said Rick. So everyone tried to turn him
    over so that he was the right way up again. But as soon as they got his
    legs down and his head up, he turned topsy-turvy again. He just couldn’t
    help it, because he was under a spell.

    A group of Topsy-Turvy people came to watch. They laughed loudly.
    “Now he belongs to Topsy-Turvy Land!” they cried. “He’ll have to stay
    here with us. Never mind, young man –you’ll soon get used to it.”

    “Take me back to the Faraway Tree,” begged Joe, afraid that he really
    and truly might be made to stay in this peculiar land. “Hurry!”

    The children beat a hasty retreat to get back home.

    I don’t think I’m ruining it for you by saying that the following day
    the Land of Spells was coming to the top of the Tree, and upside-down
    Joe would be able to escape the terrible consequences of Topsy-Turvy
    Land.

    At least they had a way out. However, I’m left wishing another land
    of spells would arrive in our own time and perhaps we could rid
    ourselves of the spell and insanity of Topsy-Turvy Land that took us
    over a few years ago.

    1. I remember reading all of those books , I soaked up books like a sponge .

      Don’t you feel that we are all guests of the Queen of hearts , attending the Mad hatters tea party ..

      When Tony Blair was in charge that felt like a bad dream , especially so when my Northern family lost a few hundred animals in the mishandled foot and mouth crisis . Then the war in the middle east and all the atrocities that happened in London / 9/11 and everywhere else in the world .. and financial disasters in the banking world , we lost money , as did many many people .

      We are all now trying to wipe out the nightmare of lockdown , poor medical help, rising prices and the terror of what old age might hold eventually .

      We were young in the Tony Blair era , vigorous and optimistic , as were our young nearly adult children ..

      Many people are living hand to mouth , we are just about getting by.

      1. The Foot and Mouth “crisis” was, IMCO, manufactured to quell the revolt of the country people against what we then saw coming (and here it is!). It was also a dry run for the Covid nonsense and all the arrant crap that successive governments are forcing upon us. If you remember the context of the F & M clampdown it was that the peasants were getting uppity and the Evil Emperor Blair majicked it out of thin air, with the help of Fony Fergusson, in order to make us shut the fuck up about the numerous lies and injustices being introduced into our polity

        1. Yep, yep , yep .. and so the story continues .

          The blacks and the browns are the hidden epidemic causing pain and insecurity , and our culture is being devalued .

          I think the Greens should wake up , their party logo and so called goody goody what is good for the planet optimism now has a Muslim label!

    1. Quite a lot of open nutters responding to that, Ogga. I read a few then gave up in despair. I do so wish that those with sound ideas would not expose themselves so.

  103. Ordered more painkillers on Thursday last as i was running out. Seems to be a holiday weekend this week so no one answering their phones. I didn’t even get an auto email.

    No worry. I have Vodka Martini in reserve.

    4. I have a system: As I open the last foil, the empty one goes in my trouser pocket as a reminder to get more as soon as I have an opportunity. It has the name, dose, and is in my pocket, so my hand touches it frequently. Works well.

  104. The Library

    But what strange art, what magic can dispose
    The troubled mind to change its native woes?
    Or lead us willing from ourselves, to see
    Others more wretched, more undone than we?
    This BOOKS can do;–nor this alone; they give
    New views to life, and teach us how to live;
    They soothe the grieved, the stubborn they
    chastise,
    Fools they admonish, and confirm the wise:
    Their aid they yield to all: they never shun
    The man of sorrow, nor the wretch undone:
    Unlike the hard, the selfish, and the proud,
    They fly not sullen from the suppliant crowd;
    Nor tell to various people various things,
    But show to subjects what they show to kings.

    By George Crabbe

    1. Oh, that’s wonderful! I hadn’t come across it before; thank you.

  105. Tell me this. Why do films show credits of hundreds of people all the way down to the person sweeps the floor.

    I shall ask our secretaries to include in patient discharge letters the names of everyone involved I the appointment from the consultant, the HCA, the porters who pushed the wheelchair, the secretary who made the appointment and the secretary who wrote the letter, the receptionist on the front desk, the people in IT support, the people in the staff canteen, the Gardner, the security staff, the consultants’ hair dresser, clinical engineering, and, and, and.

    2. Because it’s important to them, especially for their future careers and it is probably an obligation on the part of the filmmakers negotiated with the unions.

    3. More importantly why is the background music so bluddy loud during the whispering scenes? Have the actors / actresses fluffed their lines?

    4. For some odd reason (possibly a tropical storm)we watched Master and Commander, in our apartment in Cuba. The credits went on for so long we thought it was on a loop! They were almost as long as the film!

    5. For some odd reason (possibly a tropical storm)we watched Master and Commander, in our apartment in Cuba. The credits went on for so long we thought it was on a loop! They were almost as long as the film!

    6. When I was at the NNUH in Aug 2020, the porters were the most sympathetic and kindly and thoughtful of ALL the various staff.

    7. It never was like this in the Golden Age of films, Stormy. Title of the film and list of actors, maybe studio, producer and director, then the film itself, and then “The End” was all that was shown. From memory, the long list of participants started with SUPERMAN – the movie (around 10 minutes’ worth).

    8. The film cost millions to make so the producers have to demonstrate that the money was spent on a necessary cast of thousands.

      I confess to following the costume and make up credits because a late friend of ours worked on many films providing costumes and advice on make ups. A few years before he died I asked him about the Hollywood stars he had dressed for films. The star he most disliked was Drew Barrymore. He was not keen on Cliff Richard either. Stories too long to recite on this thread.

    9. The film cost millions to make so the producers have to demonstrate that the money was spent on a necessary cast of thousands.

      I confess to following the costume and make up credits because a late friend of ours worked on many films providing costumes and advice on make ups. A few years before he died I asked him about the Hollywood stars he had dressed for films. The star he most disliked was Drew Barrymore. He was not keen on Cliff Richard either. Stories too long to recite on this thread.

    10. I think if you are credited you are entitled to a percentage of the royalties.

    11. Now the credits are shown before the cast and, as you say, last an awful long time. In older films there were very few credits and they were shown after the cast.

      1. Clicking the escape key still works. As you refresh the page you have to tap the key within a fraction of a second.

  107. I know I am jumping around abit , but we listened to this obit on the radio http://roycrossfineart.co.uk/airfix

    Roy Cross was an illustrator , he died a day over his 100th b/day .

    His paintings and illustrations for Airfix, and Eagle comic , and aeronautical and nautical paintings are worth looking at .

    Skill is beyond everything .

    Just look at the link and click on the bits and pieces .

    Very impressive .

    1. Thanks for posting Belle. Very impressive – I made lots of Airfix kits as a lad including the mighty Lancaster Bomber!

      1. I belong to an earlier generation; we made scale models out of balsa wood; good finishes – coating & sanding – were a fine art!

        Mostly WWII fighters and bombers …

        1. Moh made gliders out of balsa wood , and fine paper and glue , the dust tickled my nostrils , he then used a catapult , and flew them down via radio control !

          4. Yes Dope , Lacoste , it was a knockout .. phew !
            Boys toys .. and then son no 1 did the same ..

            One of son’s gliders came down in a field full of barley , SOMEWHERE.. and months later he had a phone call from the farmer to say he had saved his glider from being combined during the harvesting of the field .. a big wow !

      2. I had about 40 hanging from my bedroom ceiling when I was a lad – my mother used to hate dusting them. When I joined the RAF she flung the lot in the bin along with my Dinky Toys, Meccano set and train set (Hornby O)

    4. Sad to hear this, Maggie. I own a signed artist’s proof of one of his paintings which sits in my living room.

    6. Thank you Belle. What a superb artist and it brings back happy memories. I have forwarded the link to my eldest niece whose husband is an avid model maker and belongs to a club. He’s 60ish.

  110. You too. I was livid when I discovered what had been done. Only the Dinkies and Meccano survived.

    1. It was the other way round in our home. Our elder son disposed of all of his beautifully painted, by himself, war games (games workshops) models. I was horrified when I discovered what he had done. Roll on nearly twenty years and….”Mum, what happened to my Games Workshop models? Do you know where they are?” I had to remind him of the sad truth, it was hard – I suppose it seemed like a good idea to him at the time; a gesture to himself that he was ‘moving on’ in his young life.

    1. No. Dr.D, or rather Registrar Daughter, & boyfriend left at mid day, so I’ve got the sitting room to myself again.

    2. Visitors were using the bed-settee in the same room I have my main computer in.

  115. Good night, chums, I’m off to bed now so I will wish you all pleasant dreams and hope to see you all on here tomorrow.

  116. From the Telegraph

    No 10 ‘shelves plan for summer general election’

    Allies say Sunak hopes an improving economic picture and Rwanda flights finally leaving can improve his re-election chances this autumn

    Ben Riley-Smith, Political Editor5 May 2024 • 9:30pm

    Rishi Sunak

    Number 10 sources had suggested that if a plot to oust the Prime Minister had materialised after the local election results, it could have triggered an election in June or July Credit: Ian Forsyth/Getty Images

    Downing Street has shelved plans for a general election this summer, The Telegraph understands, with an autumn vote now widely expected after Tory local election defeats.

    Rishi Sunak is said by allies to hope that an improving economic picture and the Rwanda deportation flights expected this summer can improve his re-election chances in the autumn.

    Number 10 sources had suggested that if a plot to oust the Prime Minister had materialised after the local election results, it could have triggered an election in June or July.

    But Tory rebels are understood to have given up on changing the party’s leader before the general election and senior figures working on the Tory campaign now believe it is “80 to 90 per cent likely” Mr Sunak will reject a summer election, instead calling one for October or November.

    One well-placed Sunak ally told The Telegraph: “I definitely think the weight of views is to go later as there’s still plenty we can keep doing to show delivery.”

    With counting in the local elections now complete, the scale of Tory defeats has become clear. The Conservatives lost 397 council seats. Both Labour and the Liberal Democrats won more than the Tories.

    The Tories also claimed just one of 11 mayoralities. Andy Street’s narrow defeat as mayor of the West Midlands was blamed by some Tories on support for Reform.

    tmg.video.placeholder.alt yZfBfENwpFI

    But a glimmer of hope was provided in analysis by the Oxford University academics Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher who said the results pointed to a hung parliament after the general election.

    Estimating what the vote share for each party would have been in a nationwide election, the academics put Labour on 34 per cent and the Tories on 27 per cent – a lead of just nine points. This is much lower than general election polling, which puts Labour about 20 points ahead, prompting hopes among some Tories that Mr Sunak could turn the party’s fortunes around with more time.

    The Prime Minister seized on the analysis on Sunday, saying “These results suggest we are heading for a hung parliament with Labour as the largest party.

    “Keir Starmer propped up in Downing Street by the SNP, Liberal Democrats and the Greens would be a disaster for Britain.

    “The country doesn’t need more political horse-trading, but action. We are the only party that has a plan to deliver on the priorities of the people.”

    Labour shadow cabinet ministers have also admitted some Muslim voters abandoned the party over Gaza. On Sunday, one Muslim political pressure group published an 18-strong list of “demands” for Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, to win back their support.

    The Tory losses have triggered a public debate about which direction the party should now go in to pull off what Mr Sunak has said would be the “greatest comeback in political history”.

    ‘There is no spinning these results’

    Miriam Cates, the co-chair of the New Conservatives, a group of new Tory MPs largely on the party’s Right, wrote in The Telegraph on Sunday that the party is “now staring into the abyss”.

    She said: “It is often said that we are a ‘broad church’, but since 2016 this has at times proven to be a weakness rather than a strength. These divisions certainly create unhelpful headlines, but they also ensure that some of the key reforms demanded by our voters simply cannot happen – under Rishi Sunak or any other leader.”

    She called for policies such as leaving the European Court of Human Rights [ECHR], “drastically” reducing immigration and reforming planning laws to boost house-building.

    Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, warned in an interview that the Tories would be “lucky” to have any MPs left after the next election if Mr Sunak does not change course.

    Ms Braverman told BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: “There is no spinning these results, there is no disguising the fact that these have been terrible election results for the Conservatives and they suggest that we are heading to a Labour government and that fills me with horror.”

    Mrs Braverman told Ms Kuenssberg the thought of a Labour government ‘fills me with horror’

    Mrs Braverman told Ms Kuenssberg the thought of a Labour government ‘fills me with horror’ Credit: Jeff Overs/BBC

    She too called for a move to the Right on policy.

    But Mr Street, a poster boy for moderate Toryism after entering politics having run the John Lewis shopping chain, argued that a different message should be taken from his defeat as West Midlands mayor.

    After his narrow defeat was declared, Mr Street said: “The thing everyone should take from Birmingham and the West Midlands tonight is this brand of moderative, inclusive, tolerant conservatism, that gets on and delivered, has come within an ace of beating the Labour Party in what they considered to be their backyard.”

    However, Dame Andrea Jenkyns, the Tory MP, said on Sunday: “Every Conservative whether it’s one nation, whether it’s Thatcherite Conservatives like myself, we’ve to wake up and smell the coffee.”

    She added: “It’s rubbish saying we’ve got to go to the centre of politics.”

    The Prime Minister will try to get on the front foot this week, visiting a community centre in London on Monday and with new details of his welfare shake-up expected later this week.

    The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee will reveal their decision on an interest rate cut on Thursday. Tories hope at least one reduction will come before an autumn election, reinforcing their argument that the economy has turned a corner.

    ‘We must prepare for disaster’

    Mr Sunak is not expected to publicly rule out a summer election until a final, binding decision has been made with his core team of advisers.

    The Prime Minister’s public stance is that he expects the vote in the second half of the year, a position that leaves open the possibility of a July vote.

    But some Tory figures, including the former chancellor George Osborne, have urged him to name a date, arguing the uncertainty about the timing risks causing political damage.

    On Sunday, Lord Frost, the former Brexit negotiator, expressed fears that it is now too late to turn around Tory fortunes before the next general election, which must be held by next January.

    Writing in The Telegraph, he said: “I wish this could be done in the remaining months before the election. We did it, after all, in 2019. But I fear it isn’t going to happen.

    “So genuine Conservatives must now face the fact that we must prepare for disaster: shore up the refuges, put out the sandbags, clear the drains, wait for the flood. And then, as it recedes, see what we can grow on the new fertile land left behind.”

    1. There is neither solid support nor enthusiasm for Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrats and Greens. Reform has solid support but not as yet in sufficient numbers to make an impact on a general election.

      The traditional parties have failed to represent the British people by any measure for decades. The British value and prize their history, culture and way of life. The importation of millions of immigrants who clearly despise our traditions and beliefs is proving to be an utter disaster for our sense of place and wellbeing.

      Any political party proposing serious measures to right the wrongs of Blair and successive administrations by cancelling the legislation brought in by Blair, properly exiting the EU and ECHR and reclaiming our fishing waters and the right to pursue our own national interests without interference would win buy a landslide.

      The mindless adherence to the US in geopolitical matters such as giving support to the proxy US war in Ukraine and other disastrous misadventures around the world are leading to the total loss of US hegemonic power and are an embarrassment to all moral citizens of our country.

      Both the US and France have been booted out of Niger and Chad and other neighbouring African counties are now looking towards China for economic support and Russia for military support in breaking away from the US. Perhaps Russia and China will exploit the vast riches and resources of Africa as we and other colonial powers have done for a century and more. I do believe that the new colonists will be more constructive and might help develop these exploited countries and help them develop and become wealthy or rather bring their populations out of abject poverty.

      I pray that some good will come from the relative demise of the US and that Americans will finally awake to the evil machinations of their ruling cabal and vote to do something about it.

      1. I am no great supporter of Tice but surely even the dimmest Conservative voter must now be able to see that The Conservative Party is dodo dead and they must not vote ever again for a decaying and putrid corpse.

        So if they truly have conservative views the least bad party on offer ubtil something better comes along is Reform

      2. Well said for the first three paragraphs re domestic politics.. Not sure about the rest.

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