Saturday 25 May: A disillusioned Conservative asks: does any party deserve my vote?

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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790 thoughts on “Saturday 25 May: A disillusioned Conservative asks: does any party deserve my vote?”

  1. Good morrow, gentlefolk. Today’s (recycled) Stories
    Well, I thought I may as well have a last shot at bringing some humour to this miserable world
    POLITICALLY INCORRECT

    Police in London found a bomb outside a mosque…
    They’ve told the public not to panic as they’ve managed to push it back inside.

    =============================

    During last night’s high winds, an African family were killed by a falling tree. A spokesman for the Birmingham City council said “We didn’t even know they were living up there”.

    =============================

    Jamaican minorities in the UK have complained that there are not enough television shows with minorities in mind, so Crime watch is being shown 5 times a week now.

    =============================

    I was reading in the paper today about this dwarf that got pick-pocketed.
    How could anyone stoop so low?

    =============================

    I was walking down the road when I saw an Afghan bloke standing on a fifth-floor balcony shaking a carpet. I shouted up to him, “What’s up Abdul, won’t it start?”

    1. Excellent, Sir Jasper. So pleased to have a good smile brought to my face this morning. Please keep it up; we all appreciate it.

    2. Very good Jasper! Although I imagine the state will soon pass law to prevent such humour.

  3. We follow the golden rule. Stay at home on Bank Holidays. We learned that many years ago. So many never learn.

    1. Morning Johnny. I once went to the Lake District on an Easter Bank Holiday. It was full! I never went again.

  4. Drain cleaning day today . Both in and out. Pity we can no longer buy proper Jayes Fluid.

      1. Just to let you know, Grizzly, that I really enjoyed your post of “Sucu Sucu” last night. Checking it this morning, I ended up playing it at least four times. It really brings back happy childhood memories.

        1. I was just 10 years old when Top Secret was the TV drama of the day. It was unmissable and it introduced me to Buenos Aires.

  6. Good morning, chums, and thanks Geoff for today’s Saturday site. I only just made today’s Wordle as shown below:

    Wordle 1,071 6/6

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  8. Good morning all,

    Nice morning at McPhee Towers in the Hants/West Berks borderlands. Wind in the South, 9℃ with a forecast of 19-20℃.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ea416db93d5e53c17be9d325a39249fa3b24beaf139213ce6532e29a150d57d4.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/05/24/uk-general-election-jeremy-hunt-inheritance-tax-unfair/

    Oh, really? You’ve had fourteen years to get rid of it but, just as with the promises on everything else, you’ve betrayed us.

    They lie. We know they lie. They know we know they lie. They still lie.

    Never forget.

    1. Staggering isn’t it? The comments are very funny, saying much the same. Gods I hate these sewage.

    2. I know, the sheer brass neck of him. His neck wouldn’t look out of place on granny’s mantelpiece.

    3. Quite.
      What the blue blistering blazes have they been doing for the past 14 years?

    4. Just dangling it in front of our eyes again, to be swiftly snatched away should his party win the election.

    5. BTL Comment:-

      R. Spowart
      18 MIN AGO
      Message Actions
      It’s not just Inheritance Tax that is not “Conservative”, whatever that means today, but the entire UK Tax system and how many years have the Tories had to sort it out but done nothing?

      1. The Tories did do something. They added thousands of pages of new conditions.

  9. Michael Gove to step down at election. 24 May 2024.

    Michael Gove has announced that he is stepping down as an MP, becoming the biggest name in a Tory exodus after Rishi Sunak surprised colleagues with his snap election.

    The Communities Secretary, who has been in Cabinet for most of the Conservatives’ 14 years in power, said it was time for a “new generation” of political leaders.

    The rats, having gnawed their way through the hull, are now leaving the ship.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/05/24/general-election-rishi-sunak-latest-news-keir-starmer/

    1. There is no point having a general election. There really isn’t. Sunak implemented Left wing, socialist policies. Starmer will do the same just even more of it. Both parties are exactly the same: big state, high tax Left wing.

    2. 387656+ up ticks,

      Morning AS,
      The Odessa line has been well and truly triggered.

    3. Michael Gove was one of the few politicians who put our country first. He led Brexit at great personal and professional loss. And he was also one of the few who thought Boris would be unsuitable to be PM – and he was.

      2. He led Brexit to destruction. He is the most vile, self-serving individual imaginable! He has used his undoubted intelligence for nothing except propelling himself up the greasy pole as far as he was able, and organising the parliamentary Conservative party into a giant, obedient Gove slate, thereby wrecking it as an effective force in the House of Commons.
        Gove has done more than any other individual apart from Tony Blair to bring Britain to the sorry state in which we now find ourselves.

        1. Two days before the Brexit deal was agreed Lord Fox was adamant that the UK would not yield on either Northern Ireland nor UK fishing waters.

          Then Gove and Johnson arrived in Brussels and Northern Ireland was betrayed and so were the UK fishermen.

          How did Gove and Johnson get Frost to cave in? What did they do? What did they say? Shall we ever know?

          1. I was at university at the same time as him. It is opinion, but I had plenty of opportunity to observe him and the Conservative party. He was Marmite even at university – I could never understand why some people thought he was so wonderful, but I know I wasn’t the only one who loathed him. Still unknown is what happened to the Moynihan Plate either (big silver debating trophy that disappeared while he was president of the Oxford Union), however the then senior members are known to have discussed not prosecuting anyone because it would be a pity to “blight a young man’s career.”
            I genuinely do not know what happened to the trophy or what prosecution was under discussion.

          2. Odd little anecdote but he doesn’t come across as shady. If he was he would have endeared himself more to the electorate because he would have covered it up more – like the others do.

          4. It is also fact that Gove was head and shoulders the best political planner of his generation, and many of the things that have happened in the Conservative party since 2008 are remarkably similar to political campaign ideas that were current during my time at Oxford, when Gove was in action there.
            Boris always relied on the bumbling good-natured Boris act, but Gove planned meticulously.

  10. 387656+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,
    Saturday 25 May: A disillusioned Conservative asks: does any party deserve my vote?

    In all probability this disillusioned one, since the take down of Mrs Thatcher (RIP)
    has been a supporting / voting member for these last forty years, active in building the future of these Isles, definitely without forethought but one, to put the party before the Country.

    By ” any party” that will be inclusive of the labour party, the very party, in my book the initial collection of criminal paedophile umbrella holding misfits, ever to grace parliament in being, led by a major criminal misfit hailed as “miranda the latch lifter ” who is still enjoying freedom and still active with a political shout.

    For what we are about to receive via the polling stations is sad for those that had NO hand in the desecration of a nation, but is richly deserved in retrospect.

  11. Good morning everyone from Audrey and Me who waltzes upon this page with a sunny smile. I’m not online much atm, especially before the election, I need to keep away from all of it as much as possible. But on the 5th of July with our new Labour government ( regardless of Stasi Starmer, Tottenham turnip wannabee Mugabe Lammy, Rayner etc ). We will have a government made up of predominate Muslim MPs of which will outnumber indigenous Labour MPs ( as with the Gaza supporting councillors) making our laws in the House of Commons to suit their aim of Muslim rule – Labour being the useful idiots . We’ll also have an increase of Antisemitism to such levels Jewish people will leave. No political party will discuss this elephant in the room – Labour’s useful Idiots will eat them and us alive – why not put articles up about that issues. Why not mention the true enemy within our gates.

  12. Good morning all.
    Bright & weakly sunny through a hazy overcast and a chilly start to the day with 3°C on the Yard Thermometer.

    1. If you read the 12 replies you’ll see the channel feed is now down..

      2 comments that stand out..

      Honour killings coming in 3…… 2……

      Imagine how many are silent?
      The noncey left will never even dare discuss this. They’re too busy berating the oppressive white man.

    2. Well done you two, its a shame that more of you don’t open up. We all know what goes in within and outside of your communities. Get a move on before it’s too late for everyone. The take over of our country is in the wind.
      And our political idiots are letting it happen.

      1. 387656+ up ticks,

        Morning RE,
        Idiocy can be seen as an unfortunate malady, what these politico’s are doing is bringing
        anti United Kingdom long laid odious plans, to fruition.

        1. Destroying our long established
          Culture and social structure.
          Wrecking our country.

      1. 387656+ up ticks,

        Morning Bob,
        Known about and still given support via the polling stations and the unchanged voting pattern
        over the decades.

      2. And it will never be heard as long as Muslim women carry on turning a blind eye to their men raping white girls, and blaming the girls as “whores.”
        Islam encourages its followers to favour muslims over non muslims , but they are too stupid to realise that their own daughters will carry on being abuse victims as long as they carry on blaming white abuse victims.

      1. Three fifteen year old British girls in costume were allowed to travel abroad through London Gatwick airport, and at least one was travelling on someone else’s passport. No flags were raised? Subsequently all three were subject to statutory rape and two were killed. Their contact in Turkey was known to (ie working for) Canadian Intelligence, and quite possibly for the UK equivalents. Lambs to the slaughter. No, I have no sympathy for Daesh etc, but Shamima was legally a child. Similar age to all those girls in Bradford etc. It’s no wonder the PTB don’t want her back, because the Home Office, Gatwick Airport security and the politicians in charge (Mrs May, not a parent) are de facto a gang of child abusers, or morons. I would bet that Ms Begum would not have been allowed to check in that day on any El Al flight, and would NEVER have passed airport security checks in less-developed countries.

        1. What is not often stated is that she was taken to various mosques to listen to extremist Imams by her father who is now back in his native Bangladesh.
          THAT is where she should be going to.

        2. What is not often stated is that she was taken to various mosques to listen to extremist Imams by her father who is now back in his native Bangladesh.
          THAT is where she should be going to.

        3. The decision of Andrea Leadsom to resign reminds me of her spat with the evil Theresa May. Leadsom said that as a mother she knew more about human experience than the childless May. This produced indignation – but the truth is that May hated children and did not want to have any.

          Lady May is Baroness May but she ought to be known as Barrenness May!

  15. The excellent young journalist Steven Edginton has left the DT and is now US correspondent for GB News.

    Here he talks to Steve Bannon who, as always, nails it. How the lying Tories betrayed Britain, World War 3 and how to destroy the left.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoUO4Lx1JeU

    Bannon’s solution. After the Tory destruction people need to move in to the husk of the Conservative Party, take it over and turn it into a nationalist populist movement just as the Republicans have become in the US. Such a force would sweep into power when Labour are destroyed as they will be within a couple of years. It ain’t gonna be pretty, folks.

    Why is Steven Edginton so good? Answer: He’s been nowhere near a university so he doesn’t have a liberal arts ‘degree’.

    1. Dominic Cummings’ new party.. The Startup Party declares the Tories are dead 1834-2024.

      David Starkey warns.. he only gets it half right, he’s an “outcome” guy, not a historian and will ultimately fail.

      1. I rather like the Bannon solution. No time for the Cummings of this world.

        1. I don’t trust Cummings, I think anything started by him will be either controlled opposition or will fail due to arrogance.

  16. Good morning, all. Pleasant start to the day, blue sky and calm. Showers forecast for later this morning.

    With Gove stepping down the Tory surrender continues. Good riddance to these people who have so gravely failed the UK and its people.

    Sadly, the worst is yet to come. Those poor souls who are looking to Starmer and his acolytes for salvation from the quite useless and ruthless Tories are in for a shock of seismic proportions.

    Over in the USA the select sub-committee on corona virus is unearthing some gems and exposing the behaviour and at times crass ignorance of some of their officials, especially where e-mail is concerned.

    The Highwire’s Jaxen Report from about 28 minutes 10 seconds in.

    Here are some screenshots of the main points.

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    1. From a seaside village in Valencia

      19°C
      Saturday Partly cloudy High: 22°C Low: 16°C

    2. Could use a load of rain here, wash some of the blessed pollen out of the air.
      But the blossom is spectacular this spring! Apple, especially.

  18. Ukraine to fire generals and send them to front line. 25 May 2024.

    Kyiv has been struggling against waves of Russian attacks as it loses ground in the eastern Donetsk region.

    Soldiers have complained they are outmanned and outgunned and that the military’s upper ranks are bloated.

    The army has not said how many generals would be reassigned but it said it would cut around two thirds of top staff.

    The stories from here become ever more improbable.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/05/24/ukraine-generals-front-line-russia-soldiers/

    1. Ukraine hasn’t fought a significant war for some time except against a defenceless enemy. Of course her generals are inept.

      However, looked at rationally, Russia doesn’t want to go anywhere. It’s happy sat there where it was invited. Their failure is in not taking back Eastern Ukraine and they can’t.

      1. If the West seriously wanted to survive it would not have poured its resources into a futile war in Ukraine but would have joined Israel in getting the total elimination of Hamas as quickly as possible.

        As it is Islam looks as if it will triumph.

        How long will the West survive?

    2. “it said it would cut around two thirds of top staff.”

      Posting them to the Front Line should do that…..

    3. “it said it would cut around two thirds of top staff.”

      Posting them to the Front Line should do that…..

  19. On the Vennels farce – yes, she was clearly incompetent but as an aside to that, chances are she actually had no idea what was going on.

    For example – we’re working with a big organisation on an end to end data transport program. We’ve flagged multiple times that this is not complete as we’re writing to ‘pretend’ end points that provide a response, not the real software (stubs).

    We were told off for highlighting this as project management want to say to their bosses inside the organisation that the first set of work was feature complete. They lie to get the next round of funding and avoid the questions that honesty would demand.

    Upper management tell their management, embellishing at each step. Software full of bugs becomes working to stable to high quality. The data fiddled at each step to ensure milestones/checkpoints are met and bonuses are paid.

    1. She should never have been in the job she clearly wasn’t capable of doing, then. It was her business to know. Even if she had no idea about software, it was her duty to ask questions when the rash of prosecutions started.

      If you have a proper system for reporting bugs, even the situation you describe should be rescuable.
      Yet worse is the situation which I have witnessed, where everyone knows that the data has got to be encrypted but nobody is capable of designing a secure system to bring that about!

      1. I agree, but what should she ask? Who should she ask? Most of the time the bigwigs just don’t know what to say. Mention a stub to them and they think of a toe, not an endpoint.

        Yep, and Fujitsu were clearly deficient. The lies told to protect people rather than just admit it was rubbish, the dreadful practices being carried out, the testing in live… the list of egregious failure is monumental.

        Yep, I’ve some some absolute howlers. Once we had data in plain because it was easier than writing the encrypt/decrypt. Thankfully I put a stop to that by preventing anyone working on it until it did what it should.

        1. My dearly beloved is a manager. When he had to understand something technical, he would go and ask an engineer. He would carry on asking until he got answers that he understood.
          I have never met a manager in the course of my career who tried this simple tactic. They prefer to pretend they know everything, or else like Vennels and Dido Harding, they assume such knowledge is for the little people.
          Little do they understand that we KNOW they’re ignorant, and we would respect them far more if they would just ask for information instead of staying ignorant.

          —

          Quick question, do you know how to build a string in C++ code (eg for a self-generated key), that can’t be found out by tools like hex-ray’s IDA debugger?
          You can inspect the stack using this tool – if you make sure your string is generated on the heap (using new/delete), are you safe?

    2. In Quango’s, The Snivel Serpentcy etc, most High Rankers are promoted to at least one level above their ability

  20. No Farage. No Starkey. No Matt Goodwin. If they can’t be bothered, then why should the voters. Very very low turnout.

    And just like Sadiq Khan where 81% of Londoners didn’t vote for him, it’ll be a comfortable win for Sir Smarmy. A national leader that took the knee in June 2020.. très embarrassant.
    And a decade of his irritating nasal gushings announcing more NGOs, Quangos, CRT, DEI, ESG, Rejoin, Net-Zero, PIE, EBRD, JSO & EU regulations.
    He’ll be dropping the Union Jacks of course.

    1. Smarmy will along with most other labour Mpees will be on both knees soon.

    2. It’s not business as usual – we are moving into the critical phase where the velvet glove comes off the iron fist. Starmer is apparently up for leading Britain into a authoritarian dystopia the likes of which we haven’t seen since before Magna Carta.

      1. Considering the appalling net zero act – criminalising citizens for refusing it, allowing police to break into your home to turn off high energy use equipment – folk missed that, didn’t they? The ghastly online harm bill – we’ve already got dystopian policies from these fools. 300 jobs lost in Wales and another 15,000 to follow them as supplmentary industries dependent on steel vanish all because of net zero?

        This government has done massive damage to our society. It doesn’t care. It is following orders. Same as Starmer will

    3. Farage does more good poking from the outside than he could do from the in.

      1. Yes, but what will it actually achieve?

        Yes, he managed to get Cameron to have a referendum and he did much to persuade people to vote for leave.

        But when it came to the crunch he stood down Brexit Party candidates in 2019 in seats held by Conservative remainers. The result: the betrayal of Northern Ireland and British fishermen and a Brexit which was ruined by there being too many remainers in the HoC and a vehemently remainer civil service intent on thwarting Brexit at every turn.

        WHEN THE CHIPS ARE DOWN FARAGE DECIDES TO GO FOR MASHED POTATOES!

  21. 387656+ up ticks.

    The Mrs leadsome lady played a leading part in the treasa may leadership placement farce, Ogga1

    Gerard Batten,
    The Tory rats really are jumping ship. They know they are heading for the rocks. These amounts of desertions are surely unprecedented.

    I wouldn’t be surprised if Sunak didn’t drop
    out before nominations go in.

    Housing Secretary Michael Gove and former business secretary Andrea Leadsom have said they will not stand at the general election.

    apple.news

    1. No one wants to speak of the elephant in the room. The soon to be influx of Muslim Labour MPs . Muslims always vote for Muslims and the Northern cities and towns are bursting with Labour voting – mean – Muslim voting Muslims waiting to take over the HoC . I find it rather scary, this is never discussed or even accepted.

      1. Fortunately this time round.. the Islamic Party approval missed the boat.

        1. They’re getting their foot in the door via Labour constituencies, not Tory constituencies. Just like with the new Muslim councillors making demands about Gaza in their speeches – the soon to be Muslim MPs will doing the same. There will be very soon, more Labour Muslim MPs – a very new thing for the House of Commons will be seeing the government full of men wearing pyjamas and making our laws and spreading hate. Labour are their useful idiots. Yet I never hear about destroying the Labour Party of which Islam will gain power, eventually
          .

      2. 387656+ up ticks,

        Morning DOM,

        As I tried to point out some time ago, join the dots of the islamic mayors nationwide and the image of a rather large mosque will appear.

      3. Diversity strength. Except when we end up with a block Muslim vote, in which case there is no diversity at all.

  22. Impressive:
    Wordle 1,071 3/6

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    1. Wordle 1,071 4/6

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  23. My thoughts on the Gove creature:

    A climate catastrophising, warmongering, totalitarian, dripping wet, neocon lunatic.

    Utterly wrong on almost every major issue, not least his fanatical support for catastrophically damaging lockdowns, which wiped out any of the very minor educational improvements he made during his tenure as education minister.

    Even his alleged improvements to schools are vastly overrated. If he were a genuine Conservative he would have opened an array of new grammar schools rather than Blaritie gimmicks like academies.

    He his without doubt one of the most wicked men ever to hold high office and the damage he has caused this country will be felt for decades to come.

    2. With such a gormlessly stupid face, I wonder if he was bullied at school and then enter politics as a petulant form of revenge.

      2. He was adopted – I wonder what effect this had on him.

        Cousins of mine adopted a boy and a girl. The girl was well adjusted and said she loved her adoptive parents and had no interest in tracing her ‘birth’ parents who had deserted her when she was a baby; the boy had psychological problems and was eager to trace his ‘birth’ parents and when he did so it resolved nothing and he was very disappointed.

        One of my best friends, who is one of the best looking, best adjusted and talented people I know, only discovered that he had been adopted when he was in his 70s and his father died. His much loved father’s left him, his “adopted” son, his worldly goods in his will! My friend was fascinated but not traumatised to learn this and he set about finding out all he could about his birth mother who turned out to be a ‘fallen’ Irish woman.

    3. Agree completely. Add to that his machiavellian hold on the Conservative party since the Cameron era, and damage done to the parliamentary party during that time. Filtering out independent thinkers and right wingers in favour of wet simps and yes-men.

      1. About his marriage to Sarah Vine I am reminded of this:

        ……… as a matter of fact, however, he (Tennyson) was an excellent companion, a ready talker, and gifted with so much wit that it is a pity that more of his sayings have not been preserved to us.

        One of the best known is that which was drawn from him after he and a number of friends had been spending an hour in company with Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle. The two Carlyles were unfortunately at their worst, and gave a superb specimen of domestic “nagging.” Each caught up whatever the other said, and either turned it into ridicule, or tried to make the author of it an object of contempt.

        This was, of course, exceedingly uncomfortable for such strangers as were present, and it certainly gave no pleasure to their friends. On leaving the house, some one said to Tennyson:

        “Isn’t it a pity that such a couple ever married?”

        “No, no,” said Tennyson, with a sort of smile under his rough beard. “It’s much better that two people should be made unhappy than four.”

        1. Gawd. I’ve been to households like.
          How many different words are there for “squirm”?

        2. I like Sarah Vine, but she has sold out to the same masters as her ex husband – she’ll write anything to keep her job at the Daily Mail.

    4. Without wishing to play devils advocate, he was responsible for keeping the churches open during the second lockdown, not the bishops. He does attend and yes, I know there are others of his ilk who do likewise. Whether they’re deluded and consider themselves virtuous or recognise their need for forgiveness, only God knows.

      1. Nasty, vindictive, incompetent, yes – but evil? I think that term should be reserved for Theresa May and Tony Blair.

  24. Morning all 🙂😊
    Lovey sunny start, but it says grab an umbrella.
    Our small group of islands is right in the middle of it all.
    And which particular member of Parliament is the delusional Conservative? Oh yes they all are know. Same old story from our useless political classes. When it all goes wrong it’s always everyone else’s fault. They are all lying cheats.

    1. Our old lab was a ball finder. Especially along side the 9th fairway at mid Herts.
      Good old Buddy. But the question that has to asked is, how did so many tennis balls end up out side the court?

    2. The poor little Jack Russell developed this obsession after being neutered.

      This reminds me of what the eunuchs wanted in the coarse version of the Eton Boating Song. (Christmas Day in the Harem, The Sexual Life of the Camel, All Queers Together, etc.)

      It also reminds me of the present that the Dauphin sent as an insult to the new King of England taunting him with his sporting and hedonistic past as Prince Hal:

      Henry V
      What treasure, uncle?

      Exeter

      Tennis balls, my liege.

      Henry V

      We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us.
      His present and your pains we thank you for.
      When we have matched our rackets to these balls,
      We will in France, by God’s grace, play a set
      Shall strike his father’s crown into the hazard.

  27. Duchess berates noisy Cannes crowd about climate change

    The Daily Telegraph – Saturday25 May 2024 By Craig Simpson

    THE DUCHESS OF YORK berated the crowd at the Cannes film festival as she told them to care less about parties and more about the climate.

    The Duchess attended the party on the Riviera to auction off a portrait of Elizabeth II.

    Footage shows the Duchess scolding the gathered crowd for not staying quiet during her address, and berated them about climate change.

    Celebrity guests included Heidi Klum, Kelly Rowland, Demi Moore and Cher, who were in attendance at the amFar Gala held to raise money for research into Aids.

    Struggling to be heard over the chattering crowd at the villa in Cap d’Antibes, near Cannes, she told the crowd to “stop, stop, stop” and insisted they be “quiet”.

    She said: “Did you see I removed the microphone, because all of you are saying ‘I want to go, because where is the next party? What are we meant to be doing next?’

    “But what I want to say is, why are we here? What is the future and why are we not making our planet better for the youth of tomorrow?”

    She added: “I am so sorry that we have completely destroyed your planet, but thanks to amFAR and these people

    ‘What I want to say is, why are we here? What is the future and why are we not making our planet better?’ with scientific brilliance.” At this point, the video of her address cuts out.

    She was on stage to sell off Chris Levine’s portrait of Elizabeth II, which sold for €475,000 (£404,892).

    The moment was captured in a video shared on Instagram by supermodel Heidi Klum, with the Duchess not the only one to have trouble with containing the rowdy crowd at the event.

    Demi Moore, the actress and Cannes contender, appeared on stage at the gala to introduce Cher, and also took issue with misbehaviour in the audience.

    She waited for silence, saying “I’m just making sure that you’re really, really with me. Because this incredible woman that I’m about to introduce – she’s a Grammy winner, an Oscar winner, an Emmy winner.”

    She added over the din: “Are you an Emmy winner over there in the back of the room? I f–ing don’t think so.”

    The amFAR gala is a fixture of the Cannes Film Festival, taking advantage of the presence of Hollywood stars in the south of France to raise money for charity. AmFAR was founded in 1985 by Elizabeth Taylor to support Aids research and prevention, and its gala has taken place since the early 1990s.

    It will forever remain a source of mystery to me as to how this over-entitled, talent-free, clueless nonentity managed to inveigle herself into the top echelon of society and influence.

    STFU you vacuous and terminally pointless twat!

      1. Prince Andrew’s housemaster at Gordonstoun went on to be headmaster of the school in which Caroline and I used to teach. He and his bride, Sarah, came to open a new Sports Hall and as you can imagine the school tried to plan everything for the day in great detail.

        One of my colleagues – who was even more mischievous than I, put up an alternative programme for the day on the main school notice board. One of his entries stated: 1130 Arrival of Koo Stark!

    2. Good morning all, and Grizzly.
      Reporting to the MSM someone’s off-the-cuff words at a private event is clearly a job for an ex super model. As for the Duchess, she’s had her problems but at least when it all went wrong she worked to earn some money and pay some debts. Wait, are you referring to Demi Moore or Sarah the Duchess?
      PS The Duchess is 64, and needs to keep the wolf from her door; her ex, Paddy McNally, owns property in the South of France, so perhaps she got the gig through his contacts?

        1. I know, but nttl is all about words followed by nitpicking. My weakness is to care for the underdog, even when he or she may be undeserving.

          1. An altruist, eh? In this benighted day and age? It’s underdog-eat-underdog out there, Florence Nightingale.

        2. Aaaarrggghhhhhhh ……………………..
          Reach Out goes in lock step with Mental Ishoos.

      2. I fried off some bacon, boiled off some cabbage, sautéed off some potatoes, roasted off a joint of pork, then boiled off some apple sauce.

        I’m feeling a bit off after all that!

    5. Bet anything she has been bribed to megaphone that message. I do like her but let’s face it, she is a bit of a money ho.

  29. Two letters with which I wholeheartedly agree:

    SIR – In 2017 Theresa May thought she could increase her majority in the general election by constantly repeating the phrase “strong and stable”. This proved catastrophically misguided.

    Why does Rishi Sunak believe that parroting “the plan is working” ad nauseam will have a more beneficial effect?

    Andrew Sturmey
    Selby, North Yorkshire

    SIR – Paul Bendit (Letters, May 24) deplores politicians’ overuse of the word “deliver”. I know that, as soon as one of them says he is “very clear” on a policy, he is actually admitting the opposite.

    Dr Daphne Pearson
    Monmouth

    Add your own pet hate cliché….

    1. Integrated.
      Levelling up.

      In fact just about anything a politician says in the run up to an election.

    5. Isn’t it completely obvious that the last thing Sunak wants is to win the election? People who take this charade seriously are beginning to annoy me!

      1. He has already got his Green Card and ticket lined up – he wants to flee asap.

    6. One newish trick used by politicians when answering a question is to commence speaking with the word “look”……. stated in such a way to suggest that the rest of the answer is unquestionable fact.

      2. Anyone interviewed by anyone, really. I think it came out of Oz. Their cricketers are fond of it: “Aw, look…”

      3. Goes with, “don’t be absurd.” A particular favourite of Wets and Liberals from all parties.

      1. “Our” NHS,…….hard working families……..

        ‘Morning Stormy.

    9. I love the old favourite top notch cliché, “only x-days to save the NHS”.

      I’m thinking of running a book on the actual day before 4 July when some politician parrots it and a punter gets “x” right.

    10. I cannot beat Paul Bendit as his pet hate is the same as mine.

      In sports commentary, the word “aggressive” is grossly overused as a synonym for “bold”, “fearless”, “confident”. While dictionaries say that aggressive can be used in the sense of assertive rather than belligerent or hostile, it nonetheless seems peculiar in some instances such as golf. I imagine the golfer taking hot-headed, angry, wild swings at the ball but commentators suggest that aggressive golfing is a positive attribute.

    11. I see from the comments that lessons have been learnt.

      Trudeaus latest line is bring fairness to all generations. Roughly translates as increase taxes.

    1. “A jumped up jockey in a dinner jacket” was one description of “Major” Ferguson that I liked…

    1. 387656+ up ticks,

      Today totally acceptable, but woe betide any indigenous even thinking of praying opposite an abortion clinic.

    2. It has revealed to our fragile democracies the views of those who are relatively recent arrivals to our countries.

      This is news?

      1. Sadly, to a great many people this is not only news, it is news they will ignore.

    3. If someone stood up at a public meeting and said the same about Muslims I am confident that they would be hunted down and arrested.

  33. Oh dear God.

    Bournemouth double stabbing: Woman, 34, dead and another, 38, in hospital with serious injuries
    By JACK WRIGHT

    PUBLISHED: 06:06, 25 May 2024 | UPDATED: 08:39, 25 May 2024
    A manhunt is under way after two women were stabbed at Bournemouth beach with one victim dead and another fighting for her life.

    Police were called to the incident on Durley Chine Beach at the popular Dorset seaside town at 11.42pm last night.

    A 34-year-old woman from Poole was pronounced dead at the scene. Her next of kin have been informed and the coroner notified. A 38-year-old woman from Poole was taken to hospital with very serious injuries and her next of kin are aware.

    Police have cordoned off the section of beach and are searching the area for the culprit, with no arrests made. They have appealed for witnesses to come forward.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13458673/Hunt-knifeman-Bournemouth-beach-double-stabbing-left-woman-34-dead-38-hospital-wounds.html

      1. Yes, who in Bournemouth is like to go around the beach with a knife? Must be a Methodist.

    2. Has a physical description of the suspected murderer been given?

      If it hasn’t we know what to expect.

      1. No indication of who the victims might be either and I’m finding it very hard not to speculate.

    3. Reading that makes me feel sick.
      Those poor people and their families.
      I suspect that if our political idiots had been even more than slightly alert, this would not have happened.

    1. Lucky you! We have rain followed by more rain until late Monday…. And COLD…..

      1. Typical of a British Bank Holiday.
        Our middle son has planned a family BBQ.
        We will have to sit in his lovely garden office and watch him get wet.

      1. Only the 14 boxes on/in our house. Some of them are integral with a hole on the outside and the box in the loft. Others in the stonework and the rest wooden ones on the outside. Three pairs back so far + one singleton. Still waiting for the mate in box 14. Have a look at Stroud Swift Group on Fb. I’ll take a few photos while we’re in town.

        1. Our first ones just arrived yesterday in the town five miles away. They usually end up forming screaming parties of around 12-15 every year. It’s a continuous screech if you go there.

          1. You’re very lucky – the screaming parties are usually later in the season – the breeders arrive first and get busy nesting. The screamers are usually young ones looking out for nest sites. They don’t normally breed until they are a couple of years old, and once they find a mate and a suitable nest site they will return every year.

          2. I didn’t know that about which do the screaming. It is an annual event though and as you say tends to gather pace mid to late summer.

          3. When they get close to actual nest sites they will often have a look inside if they can – hence the title “bangers” – they get screamed at from inside the boxes (or natural nests) then and sent on their way.

          4. By late July the first birds will have finished breeding and the young will have fledged. The parents relax for a few more days but most will have gone by mid-August.

  35. Does any party deserve our vote? Nearly everyone I know replies with an immediate and emphatic ‘No’.

    The sickening state of British politics is summed up by the lying hypocrite Hunt, that globalist plant installed in the coup that resulted in Sunak being impost on us, the very same Hunt who has repeatedly raised taxes, including stealth raids on inheritance tax, now declaring – a few weeks before an election – that IHT is against conservative values. The sheer effrontery of it boils my blood. Hunt hasn’t a conservative bone in his body.

    And Labour? Led by a dismal, dull, mediocrity of a lawyer who colluded in covering up the mass rape of vulnerable girls by Pakistani Muslims, and who abased himself on his knees to the crooks and thugs of BLM?

    Me, I’ll vote Reform, but with little expectation that, under Tice, they are anything but controlled opposition. I’m a natural optimist, but I have never felt so alarmed about the future of our society.

    1. I haven’t decided yet but am thinking of sticking with our current Tory MP – she’s been very active locally on behalf of various groups. I don’t know yet if Reform have a candidate. It’s a very Green area locally and I certainly won’t be voting for them.

      1. I think that is the answer.
        Vote for a person, not a party.
        If I’d lived in Vauxhall, I’d have voted for Kate Hoey.

        1. I’ve done that in the past. It’s the biggest pull for keeping the FPTP system to my mind. Trouble is, the Cons have stitched up the candidates’ list so well that finding a good one is nigh on impossible and the chances that rare beast would be in your constituency? It won’t happen here.

          1. Yes, I read that Conservative Central blocked David
            Frost from standing as MP. The Conservatives are lost. And we really need to kick Tarquin’s ass oot of there. The Conservatives are like the BBC. You don’t want to think of them as bad but they are as they prove time after time. You give them chance after chance and they just get worse and worse.

          2. They have become classic Blairite “please be good or you will get no tea” scolding nannies and until they cheer up I shall not return to them.

        2. Having met her, yes, I’d agree. A person of some individual worth, in my opinion.

      2. I understand, but I’m my view if she’s standing as a Tory then she, and those who vote for her, are endorsing the Tory government of Sunak and Hunt, and all the woke globalist lunacy they stand for.

        Ah well, hakuna matata as we say in the NE.

      3. We need to seed Parliament with proper MPs not nutters/ideologues so if you have a good one, vote for them – bearing in mind that Reform have the most sensible policies, I think.

        1. She’s focused mainly on issues affecting women but that’s ok really. She’s quite photogenic and gets her pic in the local paper most weeks meeting local people. This week one of her guests at the H of P was someone we know – and saw this morning. She’s been a much better local MP than the last Tory one, who was useless, but for years we had a local Labour man. I could never bring myself to vote Labour but he was a good MP. I don’t think Reform will get anywhere here. More will vote Green I think, though I won’t.

      4. We need to seed Parliament with proper MPs not nutters/ideologues so if you have a good one, vote for them – bearing in mind that Reform have the most sensible policies, I think.

    2. I hope Reform are making sure they have plenty of candidates in place.
      They are well worth the chance.

    3. Morning Tom. I don’t use this word lightly but I really hate these people!

      1. I have to admit, I don’t normally do hatred as the emotion damages the hatee rather than the hated.
        But …. I do now know what hatred feels like.

      2. Good Morning! Hate is the only rational response to them, just like it was to hate Stalin, Hitler and Mao, for these people are not much better, given the damage they are doing to the world.

        1. I would normally only strike for necessity, but for this lot I would do it for sheer pleasure.

        2. I would normally only strike for necessity, but for this lot I would do it for sheer pleasure.

    4. I’m toying with the idea of going back to UKIP as Reform does not appear to have it’s act together.

      1. I’ve thought of that but I’m not sure if they have the means to put up candidates everywhere. If they do, I’ll likely vote for them.

        1. Either will do for me. I don’t know if I’ll get a Reform candidate in my area, but the likelihood of a UKIP one is vanishingly small I’d think.

          2. Right spoilsport isn’t he?

            Reform are saying that they will cover every constituency. Mine too is a brand new one. I used to be in Poulter’s area. The new Conservative candidate seems run of the mill from what I can make out he seems to think cost of living and NHS are the biggest problems around here that’ll get him voted in. I think not, so I’ll be going Reform too I hope. Or…. I shall simply have to “NOTA” across my ballot.

        2. You don’t need much in the way of ‘means’ to put a candidate up, really, I read. No reason why they can’t stand in all areas. They should get enough votes to cover most deposits. You just need people willing to stand and they have enough of those.

          1. You need a £500 deposit (returnable only if you get more than 5% of the vote) for each candidate. Plus enough cash to cover leaflets and signs. UKIP did have a potential candidate in my area but as there is a Reform candidate already announced, she decided not to stand so as not to split the vote.

          2. You don’t need much then really. 500 you will likely get back and even then it’s worth a punt. And a bit of cash for some signs and leaflets. And I expect the party will cover all that anyway.

          3. A Royal Mail mailing can cost thousands (depending on the number of “doors” in the constituency). Ideally you will need more than one leaflet drop and the boots on the ground to deliver them. Correx signs aren’t particularly cheap and then you have to find people who will put them up (you can’t put them on lamp posts or road signs or on fences without the owner’s permission). It is not usual for the Party to cover such costs; normally it is the constituency branch which forks out.

      2. Why do you say that, Bob? I think that given the circumstances, Reform are doing remarkably well and are definitely worth voting for.

    5. I would like to vote Conservative but where is it? As things stand I’m voting Reform even though in this constituency its as helpful as spoiling a ballot. This place will remain blue even to the point that it is so bleached out that the colour is all but gone.

    6. And why did they raise corporation tax when the economy is so dire? Sooner gone the better before they do any more damage. At least Labour don’t hide their pathetic ideology.

      1. Both globalist parties actively want an at best stagnant economy, but prefer a declining one. That is the only way they will achieve their precious but pernicious net zero.

        1. I think they are purposely weakening us so that we can be dominated by others.

    7. When I picked the paper off the doormat and saw that headline, my first thought was, “duplicitous bastard” – followed closely by some expletives.

  36. Fishi reminds me of a former headmaster of a nearby public school who took up his post one September – was sacked in October but required to stay for the rest of the school year. Had to g through the motions of being an active, supportive headmaster – when everyone knew that he wasn’t. I really felt for the bloke. I do NOT sympathise with Fishi. The speaking clock.

    1. Richie Fishi has been going through the motion’s since he was wedged in to the job.
      Even all the rain didn’t clean him up.

      1. I do not believe that nobody knew it was going to rain. There are apps now where you can see the rain cloud approaching your area in real time. They pulled that stunt on purpose as part of their losing the election campaign.

    2. He knifed two previous PMs to get the job, so clearly wanted it. That we couldn’t get rid of him is more the problem.

  37. Fishi reminds me of a former headmaster of a nearby public school who took up his post one September – was sacked in October but required to stay for the rest of the school year. Had to g through the motions of being an active, supportive headmaster – when everyone knew that he wasn’t. I really felt for the bloke. I do NOT sympathise with Fishi. The speaking clock.

    2. Fishi on the left pretending to be a perliceman. There’s an election on, you know…must be seen to be “like the people”.

      1. Scurrilous suggestion that, Bill. Clearly it was a bring your kids to work day for the police in Bournemouth.

      2. Scurrilous suggestion that, Bill. Clearly it was a bring your kids to work day for the police in Bournemouth.

  40. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/348fdedc51eef92b71d2e5cdae9b0337d7e98cf5b4440ed0049baf7c2d42c708.png Star who once ate McDonald’s for a month dies aged 53

    The Daily Telegraph – Saturday25 May 2024By Benedict Smith

    THE star of the fast food documentaries: Super Size Me, Supersize Me 2: Holy Chicken!, has died of cancer at the age of 53.

    Morgan Spurlock received an Oscar nomination for the 2004 film, in which he ate nothing but McDonald’s food for a month.

    Spurlock died on Thursday in New York from complications of cancer, according to a statement by his family.

    “It was a sad day, as we said goodbye to my brother Morgan,” Craig Spurlock, who worked with him, said. “Morgan gave so much through his art, ideas, and generosity. The world has lost a true creative genius and a special man.”

    In his documentary Spurlock ate three McDonald’s meals a day, tasting everything on the chain’s menu at least once, and had to accept “supersize” portions when they were offered to him.

    He also exercised less to match the average American’s physical activity. By the end of the film, Spurlock claimed he gained almost two stone and developed depression and liver dysfunction.

    “You’ve got to stop,” one doctor warned him during the filming. “Your liver is pâté.”

    McDonald’s dropped the “supersize” option in 2004 but denied there was a connection with the documentary. In 2017, Spurlock released a sequel, in which he opened his own fast food restaurant.

    It was dropped by its streaming platform after its premiere when Spurlock said he had been accused of rape and sexual harassment in a post on social media. He also admitted drinking heavily since he was 13 and said he had not been sober “for more than a week in 30 years”.

    Commentators said this contradicted his account during and may account for some of his weight gain and liver damage during the filming.

    Let me get this right. He voluntarily force-fed himself with massive portions of a starchy carbohydrate (potatoes) deep fried in seed oil, for over a month; while at the same time consuming huge quantities of more ultra-processed carbs in the sugar-laden bread ‘buns’ that were coated with a sweet, carb-and-sugar-laden ‘sauce’. The only normal and healthy part of this diet was the beef ‘patties’.

    If you make a conscious decision that you want cancer, then there is no surer way of going about getting it.

    2. It still took twenty years. Maybe it was because of his month eating McDonald’s or maybe it wasn’t. I think it’s more likely to have been his drinking.

    3. Yo Mr Grizz

      May I point out a toyp:

      It is MuckDonalds, not McDonald’s

    4. I still enjoy an occasional Big Mac. About one in 3 months. Same with Fish & Chips.

      When i had all those hospital visits a drive thru Maccies was useful.
      Spurlock war a fraud and a liar.

      1. Must be 20 years since I enter such a place. My own home-made hamburgers are a million times better.

        1. I enjoy cooking and i always try to source the best but there are times when i just want what i want. And i do quite like Big Macs. Not often though.
          I have a pressure king pro and did a beef stew and dumplings in an hour today. I used beef cheeks. Beef oxo, fruity daddies sauce, Hendersons and a bottle of red wine. I also added some Taylors.

        2. Before I became a schoolmaster I worked in London for a few years and lived in flats in the SW postal districts.

          There was an American hamburger joint in the Fulham Road near the ABC Cinema called The Great American Disaster which served hamburgers unlike anything I had ever had in England – I found them delicious but at the time I was, perhaps, green in judgement.

          These spread in the early 1970s and there was one called The Walrus and the Carpenter near the Theatre Royal in Bath which I enjoyed visiting and another one in Exeter called Bananas.

      1. Thank you William. Although if you watch the above you can see it was no “clash” but an unprovoked attack by people who look like, one imagines, black suited secret Iranian police. Who, when they are done retreat to hide in the Islamic Centre. And the victims are not only other Iranians.

        1. Ah, but the BBC has to be very careful about accuracy and impartiality…

      1. Are the Muslipolitan Perlice helping their Iranian counterparts identify the trouble-makers?

        1. I think what has happened is plod has been warned that if they make any arrests there will be riots.

    6. I won’t look as good as Delboy, the father of the house, in 10 years time! In fact I don’t look that good now!

    1. And I thought Rab C and his missus were long gone. I thought she was going to stick the heed on the copper.

    2. What a terrible state this country is in now. 14 effing years of Tory stupidity and possibly more and even worse problems from the next ‘government’.

      1. I used to shop at a local Farm Foods but it closed when the precinct where it was located was redeveloped. Sadly, it never returned. The nearest is now in Luton; a bit far for weekly groceries. As you’ve found, it’s prices were competitive and some lines it stocked I haven’t seen elsewhere. It did a particularly strong Cheddar with a slightly grainy texture I was fond of. Iceland now fills that void. I prefer Iceland’s Cheddar to that of any other convenient supermarket or brand. Pilgrim’s Choice is ok but I’ve never been keen on Cathedral City: bendy and bland.

        1. Cathedral City is different from when it was first launched. Dumbed down the recipe. I bought a piece of Brie, some seriously strong spreadable cheddar and some primula all for 89p each. Add a £1 to each of those from Sainsbury’s.

      2. Thank you Pip I’m certainly going to try that one. Need to do another order on Tuesday or thereabouts. Farm Foods? No, haven’t heard of them around here.

        1. Regarding delivery charges you can buy a £4 delivery which lasts a month. Deliveries only on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. You can have a delivery on each consecutive day if you wanted at a cost of £1 a week.

          It does rather lock you in but it is very good value seeing as what you can pay.
          That’s from Sainsbury’s.

    4. That’s just fascism now isn’t it? Plod literally doesn’t care.

      1. Plod like the power they have – and they are abusing it like little H! tlers.

  46. ‘Morning All

    Priorities,priorities the perfect metaphor for our doomed society the Mail leads with a full width banner about some sleb actor,below we hear about the double stabbing on the beach

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html

    Medley

    Candace cooking on gas

    https://x.com/RealCandaceO/status/1793674843121910144

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/02110e22257e7d14b9699196634b30ce813dda28f32be4760cd78fa64802c441.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1dbc21640b0422a33ccae4491dc9d95e3fa7f1aa235805d20ba459f3a01514e9.jpg

    G&P look round nervously….

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ad96c14f835a173213a2a69a12ae61edac0faceddc55cc0059f7b9ca43da28f7.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/16c7595f142f466bdf90bb865a26d792a34583b63645b5a65058775b051ab189.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/556004edd5c930c799ec94d028e69422eb60e778be398d4307b6b8d71e644389.jpg

  47. OT – has anyone read what caused the death of that very young spin bowler, Josh Baker, the other day? Obviously there would have been a post mortem – but it all seems to be very silent.

    2. Probably cod liver oil, which apparently is really bad for us according to the latest MSM scare!? [/sarc]

    1. And it will guarantee well to the left of centre governments for the foreseeable future; it’s why the left is so keen on it.
      The country will go bankrupt, but those voters will be too stupid to connect the dots.

      1. I think there is always this intention behind these moves. The younger you are, they think, the more likely you are to vote for left wing options.
        Young people are often under the influence of their parents and families and are still very likely to vote as their parents do.
        I don’t believe the move will make that much difference despite Labour hopes.

        1. I think it might have been the case when we were young, the power of the internet has changed that.
          I also think that immigration and “breeding cohorts” have changed the electoral profile in the 16-18 and particularly rising 16 groups.

    2. 16-year-olds voting but never being allowed to buy cigarettes! (Yes, I know that Bill was halted by the dissolution of Parliament).

      1. In the US the legal drinking age is 21, they only need to be 17 to join the army.

        We have heard calls for the voting age to be reduced to 15 – catch them while they are freshly indoctrinated and have no worldly experience.

    1. A promise is not fact.
      If this matters so much, why did it not happen in the last decades when the Tories held power? Or is it just “pour encourager les autres” and will be forgotten on the day after the election?
      BTW, the last right-of-centre government (Høyre, under Erna Solberg) here removed inheritance tax – and the subsequent Labour (Arbeiderpartiet) government has held that position. So, good on them.

      1. This has been a carrot the Conservatives have been dangling for years. Lots of promises but it’s never happened.

  50. GB News is going from strength to strength – and the media elite is terrified

    The upstart broadcaster’s astonishing audience growth proves an alternative to the BBC is needed – no matter what Andrew Neil may say

    ROBIN AITKEN • 22 May 2024 • 6:11pm

    The sheer effrontery of it is astounding. One of the Grand Old Men of British journalism sits in a BBC studio and condemns and patronises an upstart broadcaster of which he disapproves. In what has become a favourite tune of the establishment media Andrew Neil this week appeared on Today to unleash a broadside against GB News – the station he helped set up three years ago. In the studio it was all very matey, everyone on first-name terms; it was Andrew this and Andrew that as Mishal Husain allowed Mr Neil a free hand to vent his spleen. It was a most revealing interview but not, I think, in quite the way the BBC and Neil intended.

    You have to wonder why the hatred of GB News by the others is so pungent. Is it because they are losing audience share to a competitor? A reasonable suggestion because GBN is increasing its audience by leaps and bounds. As the UK Press Gazette reported last month: “Year-on-year, relative newcomer GB News, which launched a dotcom url last year, saw the fastest growth in the top 50. Audience to the newsbrand was up 167 per cent compared to February 2023 at 9 million people.”

    But, apparently, it is not the fact that GB News is now ranked at 21st in the list of top UK news brands with an astonishing year-on-year growth of 3,515 per cent, that worries Mr Neil. He adapted the station’s claim that “Britain is listening” by saying that it was “only a wee, wee bit of Britain” that listens and watches. Perish the thought that his ire was sparked by a vigorous young competitor eating his lunch. What really gets Mr Neil’s goat is that some GB News programmes are fronted by serving Tory MPs. It’s the principle of the thing you see.

    And, putting MPs behind the mic is a break with British broadcasting tradition which – as everyone knows – is all about maintaining pristine “impartiality”. Yet the whole notion of media impartiality is phony; it is a Big Lie constantly repeated to browbeat us into submission. The BBC – and the rest of the media – is no more “impartial” than GB News. It’s just that their preferences and prejudices are rather different.

    The interview with Andrew Neil was prompted by the announcement by the media regulator Ofcom that it was to investigate GB News for a breach of the rules involving a programme where Rishi Sunak took questions from the public. Ofcom said the programme, called The People’s Forum, broke its rules because the Prime Minister’s responses went unchallenged. Portentously, the Ofcom statement said: “Given this represents a serious and repeated breach of these rules, we are now starting the process for consideration of a statutory sanction against GB News.”

    This could spell the end for GB News, as Ofcom has the power to strip it of its licence to broadcast. I rather doubt they’ll go that far. It wouldn’t be a good look either for Ofcom or British democracy generally, to be closing down a broadcaster merely because it offends elite opinion – especially not as a general election looms. Perhaps there’ll be a fine or perhaps GB News will be ordered to conform more closely to how the BBC and the others do it. Which would be a recipe for more bland, middle-of-the-road, “consensus broadcasting”. That would be a pity; the experiment of using MPs and other politically engaged people like Nigel Farage as presenters has, to my mind, been a resounding success.

    Jacob Rees-Mogg, for instance, has shown himself to be a fiercely intelligent and quite brilliant interrogator and someone whose understanding of politics and deep historical knowledge makes his programme one of the consistently best things around. It would clearly be better if GB News had some Labour MPs to balance the books but, as the station’s boss Angelos Frangopoulos, has said: “We have been trying very hard to encourage members of other parties to come on board and present programmes. We would love to have a wide range of MPs on our channel in the same way that stations like LBC do… It’s an ongoing conversation, but it’s purely because we’ve yet to find someone to say yes.”

    I wonder why? MPs are not generally shy of getting their voices heard. I suspect it’s because GBN has become a dirty word on the Left – and in elite circles more generally. And the reason for that is simple: GB News is the only broadcaster where you will hear full-throated challenge to some of today’s mad orthodoxies, like climate change. I have heard, and admired, debates on GBN which have robustly questioned the UK’s Net Zero policies.

    To some of us, it’s beginning to look as though this piece of eco-zealotry might prove hugely damaging to national prosperity. But you will not be hearing that kind of debate on Today anytime soon. The BBC, the High Priest of the Church of Climate Change, censors heretics. A political naif might expect Ofcom to be interested in that kind of failure of “impartiality” too – but that would be to misunderstand the regulator, which is a central pillar of the media establishment alongside the BBC.

    It was fascinating to hear Mr Neil justifying his criticisms of GB News whilst also attacking Ofcom itself. The decision to focus on the Rishi Sunak Q&A programme was, Neil intoned, like prosecuting Al Capone for tax evasion (a slur he’d copied from Michael Crick who had appeared on Rees Mogg’s programme the night before lambasting GBN as a “Right-wing propaganda channel”). In other words, GB News’ sins were much greater in other areas.

    One had to wonder how much of Mr Neil’s odium arose because of his connection with GB News as originally conceived. He was its first chairman and its star presenter at its launch in June 2021. But the relationship quickly soured and Neil departed whilst GB News set about finding its own voice. Frangopoulos says its mission is to be a “disruptor ” of the UK media scene and that, of course, is why it is so resented.

    But Mr Neil said that he was all in favour of disruptors – just not, apparently, of GB News’ ilk. He much preferred the Sky News model – which, he boasted, he had been instrumental in setting up. Yet Sky has turned out be be a “disruptor” in the same way as Tweedledum is to Tweedledee. Its output is now, in terms of content and underlying world-view, indistinguishable from the BBC.

    George Orwell’s timeless parable Animal Farm comes to mind where the revolutionaries shape-change over time into exact replicas of their original oppressors. Andrew Neil, by-the-by, has just announced he’s off to join Times Radio – another “disruptor” following pretty much the same agenda as the BBC, but one growing more slowly than GBN.

    GB News is not perfect. Some of its coverage is shouty and sometimes downright ignorant. But its saving grace is that it represents something new, a departure from an old, stale, media consensus that censors proper debate about important topics.

    Up to now, Ofcom has resisted calls from people like Neil to hobble the newcomer with regulatory burdens that would make it sound and look like all the others. For anyone who cares about free speech and free debate in a free country it must be hoped Ofcom holds its nerve and allows GB News to prosper.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/gb-news-ofcom-impartiality-andrew-neil

    1. Some of the people who are on the GB New panels are abysmal: Benjamin Butterworth, Amy Nickel-Turner, Rebecca Reid, Joanna Jarjue,
      Nina Myskow, and the repulsive Michael Crick (and who is that ghastly woman with long fair hair, a Ph.D and claims to be a historian?) and others who make me turn for the remote channel changer when they appear.

      Why is it that people who do not share my views are so banal and stupid!

      1. I am in total agreement. Yet they have some lefties on who are well worth listening to.

      2. Don’t forget the obnoxious. J
        im Dale, climate-crisis promoter extraordinaire.

    1. Shouldn’t he be chasing sexy looking girls in their frilly underwear?

  52. Im fully aware that online is a little bubble where people ( mainly anonymously) can let of steam. I’m not sure about how much the thoughts of those blogging ( including my thoughts ) match up when amongst the reality of those living in their local communities. It’s one thing to protest throughout many years and protest parties have their moments. I’m rather concerned about the arrogance of Tice who is just starting out even without charismatic Farage speaking of ‘ destroying the establishment parties ‘ well actually no – he only speaks of ‘ destroying the Tories ‘ .
    Maybe he’s fine with the incoming Labour Muslim MPs who will predominate the Houses of Commons and indigenous Labour MPs reduced.

    Any decent Labour MP who isn’t antisemitic and in cohorts with Islam and bizarrely leftist Trans ( turkeys voting for Christmas ) will be removed, Starmer himself a Stasi shape – shifter is likely to be removed. But of course according to work experience seeking Reform – they’ll destroy the Tories but have not said anything about Labour – but I suppose they’ll ‘ go after Labour ‘ when Labour are the government – and be so powerful they’ll take over in 5 years time – do they think Labour will exist in 5 years ? I’m not sure and certainly there will be no free vote.

    In reality like many others who have very good MPs will vote for my true Conservative MP who when a young man worked for Margaret Thatcher in her offices, that’s what will matter when we will have an incoming Labour majority government . Having a decent Conservative MP in opposition especially with our Lib Dem Council.

    1. Well put, Dancing. I like the thought process.
      Get rid of the evil torwees, and there’s a vacuum that will be filled, most likely by something worse, such as a party that supports the islamisation of the UK – “reasonable” step by “reasonable” step, in the interests of fairness, don’cha no?

      1. I am 100% certain of a Labour majority or minority government on the 4th July. Voting for my local Conservative MP won’t change that but hopefully he’ll have his voice heard ( or maybe not ) In opposition – he’s old guard Thatcherite Tory – a brilliant MP who does a good job and has a world of experience and knowledge. He’ll keep his seat because he’s good and hopefully will keep the Lib Dem Council from their destructive wishes. There will be a Reform candidate ‘ looking for a chance ‘ but why on earth would I cut my nose off to spite my face. When things affect your local communities and families – protecting the things we value come first. I don’t believe there will be another democratic fair election after this coming election

        1. Crispin Blunt is my MP. Standing down this time. I got on with him rather well, but never voted for him.

        2. I don’t believe that this election is either democratic or fair in any event.

    2. I get disqus notifications sent to my own email (an email telling me that someone has replied, and I then click on a link to get through to the message) as well as being able to access notifications via the little red dot next to my name at the top of this page. I don’t seem to be able to access anything you have written by either route. It’s not the notifications, as I am getting all others from here. I don’t know what it is, but I saw that you had answered a recent post I sent you, but could not get to see your answer. This is the second or third time this has happened, so I don’t know how to overcome this.

      1. I don’t understand the issues with disqus with notifications but I always hope to catch you online when we’re both around – I don’t like to leave things around that are of a private nature because anyone reads these threads these days- from outside Nottl. I also seem to catch threads and then Geoff closes them the same time- hopefully this one will stay around for awhile ( yesterday’s) . I am away from home atm with an elderly relative who doesn’t have a Internet connection-. I just wander to some public building or elsewhere with my kindle of which I can get disqus ( I’m back home briefly next week before travelling to Yorkshire. I I don’t exchange emails to anyone else online but Im happy with chatting with you privately)
        I managed to find Belle last week who posts daily at Nottl and who you and she chat privately and asked her to send you a message saying not to worry and that i’ ll be in touch at some point. I shall do so, I know your busy atm and away a lot yourself. Please don’t worry, I will get in touch. x

        1. Hello Dancing, not worried, just thought that you might wonder why I didn’t respond to your posts! I did get this one – the previous two have had the “crack, problem with accessing this message” picture when I have tried to go into what you wrote.

          Belle did let me know, so AOK. Hope you enjoy your travels!

  55. Ref the “interview” with Jeremy Rhyming in today’s DT.

    The WEF warrior (with a Chinese Communist Party spy wife) is “interviewed” by Szu Ping Chan.

    Now there’s a coincidence….

  58. Thames Water tests for vomiting bug contamination as families fall sick. 25 May 2024.

    Thames Water has sent samples of water for lab testing after dozens of people reported becoming unwell with stomach cramps, vomiting and diarrhoea in south-east London.

    Earlier this month, unsafe drinking water led to more than 100 cases of a waterborne disease in Devon, with people asked to boil their water because of contamination fears.

    Any Thames Water Nottlers?

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/25/thames-water-vomiting-bug-cryptosporidium

      2. Sutton and East Surrey. Got my bill today: £85 for 13 cu m over 177 days.

    2. I’m with Portsmouth water. They actually answer the phone!!!
      We have had crytosporidium twice in 30 years but not recently.

    3. Yes. The only tap water I drink has been through the filter jug and the kettle. Otherwise I buy bottled water and preferably in glass bottles. Tap water is for washing not drinking. My home building is 90 years old and the plumbing is notorious. I was cautious anyway and these scare stories won’t make any difference.

        1. No, the shower head doesn’t get too bad but the shower mat has to be replaced regularly. Once a year my plumber comes and takes the shower apart, checks the valve and thermostat and generally gives it a good once-over. London water and limescale.

          1. Limescale in a showerhead is a great home for legionella, some of which will break free when you use the shower, and some of them, you will surely inhale.

          2. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Showers are the devil’s invention.

      2. We’re with Severn Trent – I’ve never had a problem with drinking tap water.

        1. Birmingham has lovely soft water coming from reservoirs in mid-Wales.

          1. Ours is very hard and limey but I’m sure the calcium is good for our bones.

          2. Yet Wolverhampton has hard as nails water. I never liked the soft water when I lived in a Brum – no good for tea!

          3. One needs to avoid Tetley and Yorkshire tea in Brum. Sainsbury’s and M&S brands seem good with Brum water.

          5. True. I used to have to descale my kettle and shower head frequently when I lived in North Yorkshire. When I moved back to Birmingham, I looked for descaler in Asda and they didn’t sell it.. It is never needed. Thank you, Wales.

    4. I have a direct debit with Anglian Water – they don’t accept crypto!

      1. Our water up here is still in public ownership and is fairly cheap, collected as part of the council tax

        1. The rain in Dubai
          Falls mainly in the dry.
          Seeds in the clouds? –
          I don’t know why.

  59. Hello everyone. I’ve just met our local Reform Parliamentary Candidate. Anne Widdecombe-esq but without a posh accent.She gets marks for having the courage to put herself forward as a candidate in JRM’s constituency and points for leafletting. However, not very inspiring was my first impression…..

    1. Tell Marcus that the keynote speaker will be the Revd P Vennells on “Repentance”….

  61. Inheritance tax.
    Taken from the so-called wealthy to be wasted by government, where if it passed down to the heirs it might be spent on goods and services boosting the economy as a whole and generating more taxes, via VAT, income taxes NI, and other consumption taxes and creating new businesses and jobs.
    Abolishing it might even produce far more tax than is lost.

    1. Does anybody seriously think that imposing VAT on private school fees will save the government any money? It will put incredible strain on the state system and will cost the state untold amounts of money.

      1. Both these policies are attacks on anyone who dares try to escape perpetual slavery and indoctrination by the state.

        1. We keep our turnover under the VAT threshold.

          I wonder if we should now advertise our courses as being VAT free!

          1. I think most bridle their businesses because of our crazy and wasteful tax system. The potential of this country is constantly capped. I expect there will be an exodus of young high earners over the next ten years. And many rich older retirees. And who can blame them?

          3. People will just think you’re cheating on VAT! It’s been tried in my family!

    1. Anyone for Whitby rather than Welby?

      The Synod of Whitby was a Christian administrative gathering held in Northumbria in 664, wherein King Oswiu ruled that his kingdom would calculate Easter and observe the monastic tonsure according to the customs of Rome rather than the customs practiced by Irish monks at Iona and its satellite institutions.

      664 – two years before 666 – the Number of The Beast!

          1. I do wish Tim wouldn’t go on about Pru’s illness but they are good sports . They both did a lot for canal restoration back in the day….

    1. They should have just raised the thredhold. I am still waiting for HMRC to provide a code to apply for probate. 20 working days is the service standard, I have been waiting 40 wds. Shambles.

  64. We had a good morning for the Welcome the Swifts event. The town was heaving with people as it always is for the Farmers’ Market. They close the streets to traffic on a Saturday and it’s always very busy – not that I go into Stroud much. Had to pay for parking but I had a couple of coins as I refuse to use my phone for that purpose and the machines don’t take cards. So I had to overpay for the time we needed but at least we didn’t have to worry about a deadline. We were very busy talking to people, also had a Morris dancer and fiddler to draw people in and we bought a couple of pasties (nice meaty ones) from one of the stalls for lunch.

    I took quite a lot of photos so am about to sort through them and put some on the Stroud Swift Group Facebook page – so have a look later on.

      1. Yes – and there was a Samba band as well just down the road. I thought it might be for a protest (Stroud was the home of Extinction Rebellion) so I went down for a look, but it was just a group performing and making lots of noise.

  65. Don’t say the Tories never achieve any records. They have enabled more immigrants, legal and illegal, to enter the UK than ever before. A Washington-based think tank stated there may have been between 800,000 and 1.2 million unauthorised migrants living in the UK in 2017. . . 7 years ago – and it has got worse since then. Last year alone there was an increase in legal immigrants of more than 750,000 and 10,000 more illegals have crossed the Chanel with the aid of the UK Coastguards and RNLI since the beginning of the year. It is worse than people realise – much worse.

    1. It was reported recently that in the 25 years up to 1997, net migration was under 70K. In the 25 years after it was 5.9 million.

      Starmer will give all the illegals an amnesty.

      1. Fewer than a million came in the entire two thousand year period prior to 1997. But, but, we’ve always been a nation of immigrants…

        1. My ancestors must have arrived a long time ago then as they were here as far back as the records go.

    2. What an awful record…certainly nothing to be proud of. I fear for the UK in the coming months/years whichever way the election goes.

    1. Wow, that’s just how Mogg listens to debates in the House!
      (Pawses mainly for thought 🤔)

  67. My latest e-mail from M&S……………..really Woke

    This is your M&S review.

    Hi Mr OLT,

    Thanks for shopping with us!

    Share your thoughts on your new Delicate Doreen Non Wired Full Cup Bra C-J, just click the stars to get started.

  68. Funny thing – that banner headline and the article about IHT and the f*ckwit J Rhyming – does NOT appear in the DT online…

    Can’t imagine why….

  69. Bournemouth murder:

    “Police arrest 17 yer old BOY….”

    Not “youth” or “young adult” (who would have the vote under Cur Ikea Slammer’s party) – but a “boy”.

    “Boy” suggests to this old fogey a male child under 13.

    1. Yes, a boy is prepubescent. But these days children have beards and travel the seas in rubber dinghies.

    3. We know adult males up to the age of 40 can be “boys” and receive the treatment reserved for children and go to school with fourteen year olds but we now live in La La Land. Their human rights prohibit examination of teeth to resolve the age issue.

        1. Or Oldham, Preston or Manchester – all towns in which the white population will soon be a minority.

        1. My dear old nan who was from Norfolk and lived with us, absolutely loved that song. And she never smoked.

    3. Just as the Liberals have taken over the Conservative Party the atheists have taken over the Church of England.

      1. It is really galling the way this is happening. It makes me want to scream (and not in a good way)

  73. I read that there’s actually been genetic continuity here for several thousand years. The invading armies of the first thousand years AD were just a few thousand men each time and they settled and intermarried. After the Romans they were all Northern Europeans too. Very little disturbance to the gene pool.

  74. Loving the live feed of the ospreys in Poole Harbour. They are feeding the two chicks right now!

    1. 3 bobs hatched now at Loch Arkaig! Wonderful live feed there as well, and beautiful scenery!

      1. Maybe thre is a God, after all? A God of beauty, kindness and tolerance, rather than the islamic impostor?

          1. The Christian God has the capability to be angry, there’s enough warning in the Bible for those who want to see, to be informed. Despite His love of tolerance and kindness. “I am the Lord of Hosts” gets repeated often enough for even the stupidest dumbass to understand.

  75. Another pandemic is ‘absolutely inevitable’, says Patrick Vallance. 25 May 2024.

    The former chief scientific adviser to the government Sir Patrick Vallance has said another pandemic is “absolutely inevitable” and urged the incoming British government to focus on preparing for it, warning “we are not ready yet”.

    Speaking at a panel event at the Hay festival in Powys, Vallance said it is “great we are having an election” as there are “clearly issues that need to be sorted out”. One of the things the next government must do is implement “better surveillance to be able to pick these things up”, he said.

    Yes it is. And another Meteor Strike that will kill off all the dominant species and a Supervolcano eruption that will wipe out most of the human race. The question is when?

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/may/25/another-pandemic-is-absolutely-inevitable-says-patrick-vallance-covid

    3. Prepare how? For what? an unspecified pandemic?
      We have iodine tablets in case of nuclear war, will that do?

    4. Project Fear again. “…the only thing we have to fear is…fear itself” – F D Roosevelt at his inauguration as President of the USA, March 1933.

  77. It’s “absolutely inevitable” because pharma “needs” to sell more products and the parasite class wants to reduce the number of peasants further!

    1. It’s also ‘absolutely inevitable’ because they changed the definition of ‘pandemic’. Funny, that.

    3. If he’d gone down on his knees, forehead on ground and bum in the air shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’, he wouldn’t have been fined.

      1. You may have the answer. If you wish to silent protest…take a prayer mat with you. That would certainly confuse plod.

  82. Bit of a blow to morale. Looks like a spitfire from the BBMF has just gone down in Lincolnshire.

      1. We’ve had it all before. You can’t get any better maintained than those airplanes. If they’re going to start down that track then we ought to include every passenger airline leaving Heathrow in any ban.

        1. That is what they want. Except for themselves of course. 48,000 airmiles for Welby. Goodness knows how many for Mr and Mrs Markle. Private jets to Cannes, Davos.

          1. They’ll always find a way to make it illegal for plebs to fly while keeping themselves free to do what they want. The most brass necked drivel was that celebs, politicians and other worthies should be exempt flying bans and criticism because they’re promoting green issues that will save the planet. Their self righteousness knows no limit.

        2. Followed by dirty coal-burning steam locos, road engines, canal boats and marine pleasure cruisers.

          1. Indeed so. If these people have their way no one will be allowed out of their own gardens, everyone will be made to work from home and food deliveries made by solar powered drones.

            They say “stay safe”, but really they’re just killjoys.

  85. The Left will let Saudi Arabia seize the jewel in our crown

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/24/saudi-arabia-british-private-schools-labour-vat-mayfair/

    This is a fascinating story because it dovetails with a persistent rumor that is going around that the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, is an atheist and wants, not only do away with Wahhabism but wants to modernize the state from top to bottom. So it is not surprising that his attention has been drawn to the fate of British elite schools with a view to moving them to Saudi. #

    It is due to him that funds for radical Islam in other countries, which were a regular feature of Saudi largesse, are now being stopped. I posted something about that in a video by Harris Sultan yesterday. Harris Sultan is well worth looking up on You Tube. Very informative channel.

    1. Thank you. That’s one of the great things about NoTTL – the way NoTTLers can bring in articles/items from places and forums that we otherwise don’t see – one can’t read everything everywhere.

  86. I was thinking today that it seems we need to form a citizens militia in order to defend ourselves. We clearly can’t depend on the police anymore.

    1. I don’t suppose the BBC will include in any of its coverage the black guy at 3.30 waving an Israel Defense Force flag.

  93. US-supplied Himars ‘completely ineffective’ as Russia jams skies with new tech. D Torygaff
    Ukraine forced to stop using many arms supplied by the West because of Putin’s electronic warfare strategy. They include the Excalibur GPS-guided artillery shells, which are no longer able to fire reliably at targets.
    The assessment said that Ukraine stopped using the Excalibur shells last year after the weapon “lost its potential” and effectiveness fell to just 10 per cent.
    The Himars system, hailed early in the war for its ability to destroy targets with a single shot, has now become “completely ineffective,” according to one Ukrainian military source.
    The Russians deployed electronic warfare, disabled satellite signals, and Himars became completely ineffective,” they said.

    No, No, No, this is not possible. The Russians are retreating on all fronts as fast as they can – I read it in the Daily Fail and dozens of other news outlets. They couldn’t by telling fibs, could they?

    1. Putin is willing to negotiate now from a position of strength. He’s not throwing the towel.

  94. What an absolute sh£t show. Muslims & Ireland v Jews and UK

    Edit. And we have got into this because of the muslims. This whole thing doesn’t concern us. Why do we have this going on on our streets?

    1. Not impressed by this sentence:
      “…Spitfire enthusiast Trevor Bailey had warned that flying the jet was “great fun but can be challenging” before the tragic crash….”
      Arseholes.

    2. No news of the pilot – perhaps he bailed out? But it looks like the value of the remaining Spits has just gone up….

  99. This is an incredible story of scientific and engineering skill:

    Nasa engineers bring Voyager 1 back to life after interstellar glitch
    After a sudden loss of contact in November, mission controllers were able to re-establish contact with the probe across 15bn miles of space.
    Launched in 1977 the spacecraft is 15 billion miles away speeding along at 32,000mph, meaning any commands sent from mission controllers take 22.5 hours to reach the little probe, and once they arrive, the engineering team must wait the same time again for a response.

    The full article here: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/27/nasa-back-contact-with-voyager-1-after-computer-glitch/

    1. Inspiring. Though they could just be making it all up. Voyager isn’t likely to enter another solar system for millions of years.

      1. To be honest, I struggle mentally to understand my bar bill (esecially at Norwegian prices), let alone the concept of the next solar system being millions of years away…

          1. I just pay.
            Too old now to have the mental powers for understanding.
            Difficult enough to remember the PIN number.

          3. My guess is that hundreds of thousands of Military veterans use their Service number as their PIN.

      2. No, but it’s an astonishing achievement. It frustrated me that 50 years ago we were launching satelites to explore our universe. Now the mentally ill are cutting their willies off and demanding normal people sleep with them or else causing them ‘phobes’. Another bunch of wasters think a gas plants use to create oxygen is harmful and seek to permanently retard our entire way of life for their hoax.

        How far we have fallen.

      3. No, but it’s an astonishing achievement. It frustrated me that 50 years ago we were launching satelites to explore our universe. Now the mentally ill are cutting their willies off and demanding normal people sleep with them or else causing them ‘phobes’. Another bunch of wasters think a gas plants use to create oxygen is harmful and seek to permanently retard our entire way of life for their hoax.

        How far we have fallen.

        1. I am much older than you. At my prep school, “house points” were a sign of disapprobation…!

          1. Yes I can well believe it! I was merely following the modern idiom as exemplified by the Harry Potter series!!

      1. Not so much – the revolver weighs a lot. The noise is something else, as are the purple “ears” of flare around the cylinder-to-barrel gap, and the muzzle flash.
        Most satisfying!

      1. I have as well the Ruger GP100 in 357. Excellent gun. Bought in 1990s. I really like their design philosophy. plus their grips fit my small hands.
        And some semi-autos… and a 12-bore and .30-06 bolt-action Mauser.
        Well-tooled up, me.

        1. I also had a Browning 9mm but along with the Ruger I had to hand it in after the Dunblane massacre. Firearms cert handed in years ago unfortunately as I think I will need a shotgun the way things are going

      2. Norway. Live close to Oslo, but shoot in the country to the west, where Firstborn lives.

  103. I am not going to vote for any party that is in favour of mass immigration or net zero.
    So that eliminates Labour, the Conservatives, the LibDems and the Greens.

    Voting for the least worst of bad options won’t change much, imo.
    People have to stop voting for the mainstream when the mainstream manifestly does not represent them in any meaningful way.

      1. Owing to the vagaries of FPTP I will always be able to look myself in the eye, Oberst. My constituency has always been Labour, always will be. So no matter how I vote, I’m effectively disenfranchised (as me voting Labour is not going to happen).

  106. A beastly Par Four!

    Wordle 1,071 4/6
    ⬜⬜⬜🟩🟩
    ⬜⬜⬜🟩🟩
    ⬜⬜🟨🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. I gave it five.

      Wordle 1,071 5/6

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

    2. Happy with a 3 today.

      Wordle 1,071 3/6

      🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜
      ⬜⬜🟨🟨🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. Ugly par 4
      Wordle 1,071 4/6

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

  107. Excellent!
    The “look yourself in the eye” test is one I use when difficult decisions arise. So far, my principles are intact.

  108. Good afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen from a pleasantly sunny and warm Verwood. Spent my Christmas present from Firstborn Offspring today, a voucher for Exbury Gardens:
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c216d1c3e1f647ca2ff976a5afddd893f7ec27f2e5523d7ea2f87316cc091354.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f80d7b975cf099a0bb7b66aa22146efb29d01c62b11b8257d423d59ddc480dd9.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/97b5c68aad9acd00f01e6983e2d30d83b8ef242c246ecca3f3e6094688029df3.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7c6fab7142a575b4ea9d7d1a96406d35c86dc4e65b557b475e375dbc37e470ec.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2a64e21fdda190c9b78e98da59f9b82302cd09a451a92985652f238e61464f66.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7bf7b8e1d24f85611c960f55a9e456f5b4401d893261a4511bbbd527e7c56a38.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/459e507df11400c50566990793ef78b1a7a1f088dcd9d87ea5d66389c567cfe7.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6ee3af75e012d240462c0b539a750f0567685c6189a4c59f94221acdbd9c29d9.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6e7d912406095bf044926df56d75081e8abadada1a83c0f8e62c1c8e663c0041.jpg

    4. I had some correspondence with Nick de Rothschild at work. He seems very nice. His gardens are lovely of course but my contact is always about archive footage.

    5. Lovely pictures.

      My parents loved making the occasional visit to Exbury Gardens when they lived near Lymington.

      I used to sail up the Beaulieu River – the Exbury Gardens were on the starboard side as you headed towards Buckler’s Hard..

      The fifth picture down reminds me of the horse which Basil backed in Fawlty Towers.

      1. https://www.google.com/search?q=Basil+Fawlty%27s+mime+of+Dragon+fly&sca_esv=cfae4c7047bddcaf&ei=Vx5SZpatApzUkdUP8dKNqAM&ved=0ahUKEwjWtM67qKmGAxUcaqQEHXFpAzUQ4dUDCBA&oq=Basil+Fawlty%27s+mime+of+Dragon+fly&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiIUJhc2lsIEZhd2x0eSdzIG1pbWUgb2YgRHJhZ29uIGZseUiIgQFQ_QlYmEpwAXgBkAEAmAGXFKABvzOqAQ0wLjEuNi0xLjEuMS4xuAEMyAEA-AEBmAICoAKrBsICChAAGLADGNYEGEfCAgoQIRigARjDBBgKmAMAiAYBkAYIkgcFMS41LTGgB9oS&sclient=gws-wiz-serp#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:b5a31090,vid:BiUWAOL_uH8,st:0

  109. No! She comes first: Absolute rule.
    Looking self in the eye – were you honourable and decent, using all relevant holes with permission?

          1. How very rash (and brave) of you to suggest that ladyees’ soccer is a farce!!!

        2. I didn’t go to Umbridge I went to UEA!

          Reminds me of H.F Ellis’s accounts of the life of A.J. Wentworth B.A. the prep school maths master whose bête-noire was a boy called Mason.

          Wentworth: If you go on misbehaving, Mason, you and I will find ourselves at Loggerheads.
          Mason: That’s fine by me, Sir, but I’m going to Cheltenham.

      2. Because there is a women’s version of the same event and given the question posed, if I had said cup final, (there are at least three football finals on in Europe today), I doubt that wibbling would have been any the wiser.

        Manchester Utd won the women’s too.

    1. Because it has been sodding pissing down here all sodding day and there is more to follow tomorrow.

    1. WE all know that. There are one or two NoTTLers who are ardent supporters of equality…

  118. Splashed across the “lawn” to check the greenhouse. All well – except for the bastard gastropod that is eating the cucumber seedlings. Couldn’t see it. Notice damp patch on the floor. Then saw that one of the vents was not properly shut.

    To my amazement (and pride) I was able to identify the problem and with two twists of a screwdriver move the bit of auto-opener that was touching the frame and not closing. Only needed a step ladder and two screwdrivers, four hands and two sets of eyes. Done in a trice.

    2. I’ve lost 50% of my Clematis Montana due to the little blighters. I removed over one dozen in just one sitting. To give thenm an alternative dish I’ve planted a Passion Flower along side the Clematis. I hope it isn’t to their taste!

      1. Apart from the fury it causes – the amount they can get through in a few hours is extraordinary.

      2. The clematis will regenerate – they are amazingly robust- in fact, the slugs may have done you a favour.

        1. My Montana (35 years old) died in the hard winter the year before last. Having left a some of the dead stuff on the fence supporting a honeysuckle, I have now found a lot of new growth inside the old stuff and at the base of the plant!! A Lazarus Clematis!

          2. Mine did too – it was a wedding present from ’97. I left it last year in case it regenerated from the roots but it didn’t. There’s masses of it still to clear before I can plant the replacement I have ready for it,

          4. I left the ‘masses’ as we normally have a wren and a couple of sparrow nests in it, and they were using the dry stringy stuff for nesting! Then yesterday, there they were – green shoots! Hope yours may do the same!

    4. Lol i nearly posted on this topic earlier. I have been on a slug and snail warpath for the last few days and have gathered dozens of them, including the buggers which have destroyed my hydrangeas. I feel bad but don’t want my plants destroyed. We have a pond which had a toad in a few years ago but haven’t seen toad since (else I’d feel worse about collecting up the gastropods); but my question to you erudite bunch was whether I have now deprived the local magpies and pigeons of sustenance?

  120. I wouldn’t dream of it. She is well able to stand her corner and is a valued contributor.

    1. We provide tout confort (as they used to say) in our students’ accommodation but Caroline put her foot down about hot and cold running chamber maids and French widows in every bedroom.

    2. What they will have to endure prior to their arrival at the Tastey’s establishment, where they will find heated seats and Japanese cleaner-jets

  124. That’s me for this foul day, enlivened only by my success in the greenhouse and being able to sit by the stove and read. Am rediscovering Michael Lionel Davidson. 1960s novelist. Very good writer – now unknown, I think. Funny the way fashions in fiction change.

    Have a spiffing evening – there are two progs about D-Day tonight (Ch4 and BBC4) which will, no doubt, over-emphasise what the Yanks did. Will record both and report in a day or so.

    A demain – in yet more continuous rain. Going to last several days, dagnabbit. Thank God it is wine o’clock.

    Edited to delete signs of senility…

    3. Have you inadvertently slipped into a parallel universe, Bill? Here in the Surrey Hills, it’s been a pleasant, bright, dry day, peaking at 20 deg C. The sun is still shining, though there are rumours of showers late this evening.

      Agree re. wine o’clock, though…

    4. That is weird, Bill – where do you live? It’s really nice here (at last). Goldilocks weather (South Wales)

      2. North Essex has been very variable.
        Bit of rain spasmodically.
        Damn cold for nearly summer.
        And now warm and sunny.

      3. Bill lives in Norfolk. His weather always seems a bit different from the rest of the country (but normal for Norfolk) 🙂

    5. Here in N Essex we’ve experienced a mixed bag of weather. Started quite well then the overcast set in with drizzle around midday. Post lunch the Sun has been on display most of the time, remains shining, causing the temperature to rise to a very comfortable level. I spent all day gardening and tidying up garden rubbish to be taken to the ‘dump’ next Tuesday and Wednesday.

      Of course, Norfolk is a distant county of which we know very little.😎

  127. Tory Associations panic-select their candidates, with Johnson fans being purged in favour of One-Nation Remainers and Rishi Sunak acolytes.

    If nothing else works, a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through.
    General Melchett, Central Select Committee Chairman

      1. Why should they , though? it’s like the “you an always emigrate” argument, now shamelessly deployed by the Islamists. Why should we give up our country (and in the case of the Conservatives, their party) to arrant bullies?

    5. I wouldn’t vote for a Johnson fan or One-Nation Remainers and Rishi Sunak acolytes.

  128. Tory Associations panic-select their candidates, with Johnson fans being purged in favour of One-Nation Remainers and Rishi Sunak acolytes.

    If nothing else works, a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through.
    General Melchett, Central Select Committee Chairman

  129. Has anybody seen/reported this nonsense from Essex Police Farce?

    Does this mean that white British people are now the equivalent of ‘grey squirrels’ in their own land?

    https://x.com/CDP1882/status/1793631072632308198

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/26894fb81cee33a60c1cc03b50c7da8d20b94947939c8aeaa455d1c0f34ffe0c.png

    Surely, upholding the law of the land and protecting the people of Essex should be top of the agenda and woke crap shouldn’t be anywhere near policing by consent.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5586991ebbb44d0027da2da6587718ffe8d0296ccfb817c6a1ab9f5811ef55b1.png

    1. I believe 50% of the populace are oblivious to the shenanigans of the political elite.. and it has to get worse x1000 over a period of a decade before they finally wake up.
      Buckle up.

    2. Aren’t the police supposed to protect everyone regardless of race, creed or colour?

      1. Clearly that imperative has changed (without the consent of the electorate – no, no, no no no) There are now “protected” groups and “unprotected” groups. Have a guess which is which, and have a guess who pays.

    4. Korky – you are an Essex Council Tax payer. Have you blasted the (otherwise useless) Perlice and CRime Commissioner about this and demanded that he takes immediate action to prevent such appalling behaviour?

      Just asking.

      2. Bill, I only came across this nonsense a couple of hours ago, please give me a chance to get some thoughts together. Writing lucid letters isn’t my forte, sadly.

        My first idea was to put the Conservative PPC, James Cracknell, on the spot as this state of things has developed under Conservative governments. Cracknell has been active with the usual promotional guff and it will be interesting to see what he thinks of this.

    5. Glad I wrote “waste of money” across the PCC voting slip.
      I doubt the Buggins who was re-elected will slap down the chief constable.

    6. Who are these people ? What is going on in our country at the moment is absolutely disgusting.
      How can these people follow such orders that are so obviously destructive to our culture and social structure. Treason seems to be rife.

    7. “Does this mean that white British people are now the equivalent of ‘grey squirrels’ in their own land?”

      Yup, that’s us on the vermin list and fair game.

      1. You’ll be “alright Jack”, though, mola, being a rare and revered species

    8. Ah, I see ‘Non protected ‘means that in an emergency they can’t count on a response from the police?

          1. I didn’t see your comment, so I can’t judge it. Commend you on your apology…have seen some online tasteless comments before, but never an apology.

          3. Back at you, opopanax! (I still think of you every time I drive the dreaded EV :-D) hope you and yours all doing OK:-) Speccie had tumbleweed for a while, I suspect FN has had a sub drive or similar – a number of new names. Or possibly found a new way in without paying (again). My sub expires end next month, I’ll wait to see if they make me an offer otherwise I’m offski…

          4. i stupidly succumbed to one of their offers that seemed to good to be true. I will definitely be jumping ship for good when this expires. I deeply dislike the BTL antisemitism, there is very little to enjoy or stimulate in the ATL, and a lot to be disgusted by. Even the pleasure of your company there, KJ, is no longer enough!

          5. I’ll likely be tempted too if the offer is sufficient. Many comments re Israel, both for and against. And now we’re in election mode so Sunak bashing too. I’m happy to read your comment re my company – back at you and hope to see you here again soon….m-i-l staying here for a while, so not painting, another frustration…

      1. I fear it might be new the C.O. He took one out at Garforth golf club only yesterday I think.

  133. I see sir kneeler is going to give sixteen year olds the vote.
    Why stop there? If you are going to give immature humans whose brains haven’t yet finished developing rights to determine the fate of their fellow citizens, then allocate the vote at birth and require them to vote as soon as they can make their mark.
    Going down to eighteen was a big mistake, and importing child worship and envy from America was an even bigger one
    Next thing you know, they’ll be saying primary school children have the right to have sex if they choose; after all if they can understand the complex system of interchangeable variables that affect political life they can certainly consent to sex.
    Or, maybe treating half grown children as fully functioning miniature adults out of “respect “ for their opinions and needs makes your sophisticated manipulation of their minds morally acceptable?

      1. It does for certain sections of our communities. Apparently 81% voted against sad dick. But he took over London again.

    2. My view is that no-one should be considered fully adult until they are at least 25. Reducing the age of voting to 18 was, in my opinion, a massive mistake. 21 was quite low enough to be the age of majority. We now have the deeply odd situation wherein younger and younger children are being granted adult rights to decision-making, particularly on sexual and political matters (why could that be?) whilst being babied into their 30s and 40s.

        1. That’s Sir Kneelalot’s tack of course, but it is flawed. He’s almost a Timocratic if he believes that really. Representation should be based upon citizenship at the very least and the argument over age should be based upon much more than whether or not you can pay for your vote.

          Kneelalot would recoil very sharply if we were to suggest if taxation is the abiding criterion for the franchise we might be justified in setting aside our right to vote if he would be willing to set aside his need to take our taxes in return. It’s specious nonsense.

      2. My point exactly! I can’t believe this is happening, or rather going to happen.
        We are supposed to be protecting infants and children until they reach maturity from things that they are not yet equipped to deal with.
        Now we expose them to everything from birth to eighteen and then create safe spaces when their addled little brains go into meltdown.
        Crazy!

  135. So what are the odds that the two people stabbed in Bournemouth are from the unprotected community and the unnamed 17 year old attacker was from the protected community

  136. Good evening all
    Haven’t been here since Thursday as we’re on a bowl’s tour to Bournemouth and the stabbing was on the beach opposite our hotel. 7 sirens last night and helicopter, police still around this morning.
    Played bowls in Bournemouth yesterday and New Forest today. Last match in Bournemouth tomorrow afternoon and back home Monday afternoon.
    vw playing but not me, I’ve got trouble with both knees and lower legs and feet. Hope to play this season but can’t at the moment.
    Off to dinner now.

    1. Apparently the arrested suspect was a little boy of but 17. I wonder from whence he hails?

  137. Voters know they will regret supporting Labour, but they’re going to do it anyway

    Let me guarantee you one thing: if Sir Keir Starmer wins, nobody will call him a heavyweight

    DANIEL HANNAN • 25 May 2024 • 6:00pm [Edited highlights]
    ….

    Why, then, are the Tories 25 points behind? Across most of Europe, the same factors – war in Ukraine, mass population movements, and concerns about inflation and crime – have prompted a swing to the Right, often the authoritarian Right. Conservative parties, whether of the traditional or populist variety, are set to romp home in the European elections in two weeks’ time. What makes Britain different?

    Part of the answer is that voters around the world have turned on whichever party was in power when the bills for the lockdown came in. Being in charge at the height of the pandemic bestowed a certain authority. Justin Trudeau and Jacinda Ardern were sly enough to seize the moment and hold snap elections.

    But once voters realised what the lockdowns meant in terms of higher taxes and higher prices, they forgot that they had themselves been clamouring for even tighter restrictions and blamed the downturn on whomever happened to be in office.

    For the Tories, this anger is exacerbated by long tenure. The last prime minister to take his party to a fifth consecutive general election victory was the Duke of Wellington in 1830. After 14 years, people are not just cross because of the effects of the lockdown. They have heaped up numerous accumulated frustrations, some more niche than others.

    Canvassing before last month’s local elections, I came across one woman who would never vote Tory again because we were sending too much money to Ukraine, a second who was furious about the Post Office scandal, and a third whose complaint had to do with VAT.

    In each case, I asked whether they expected a different party to bring redress, but I found that I was asking the wrong question. None of them was interested in Labour. What they wanted was to give the Tories a kicking.
    ….

    Still, Starmer’s strategy is working. It is remarkable to think that he is ahead, in large measure, because people want immigration to be cut, wonder where their taxes are going, and feel that our strike-ridden public services are failing.

    In what world will these things improve under Labour? Does anyone imagine that Starmer will make the NHS more market-oriented, tackle the problem of unaffordable public sector pensions, or cut taxes?
    …

    If the opinion polls are right, Starmer will win a huge majority, but little of the benefit of the doubt, the readiness to forgive, that usually accompanies a big win. In a scenario that might have come straight from Very British Problems, people are putting Labour in office knowing that they will almost immediately regret it.

    Sunak is right to try to make the contest presidential. He knows that, the more Starmer is forced to declare his position, the more Labour’s all-things-to-all-men coalition will splinter. Hence his attempt to have as many head-to-head debates as possible; and hence Starmer’s reluctance.

    Perhaps, as polling day draws closer, people will begin to compare the Conservatives, not to some imagined Platonic alternative, but to the actual alternative. Perhaps they will ask whether a country whose taxes are already at a 70-year high can afford Labour’s promises. Perhaps they will notice Starmer’s proposal to scrap the Rwanda scheme and, in effect, give an amnesty to asylum-seekers already here. Perhaps.

    But most voters have already made up their minds. If the streets I have canvassed are anything to go by, they see the Labour leader, not as the answer to their problems, but as a club with which to belabour the Tories.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/25/voters-know-they-will-regret-supporting-labour-but-do-it/

    Part of me wants the people Hannan describes to suffer for their stupidity. Unfortunately, everyone will suffer as a result of that. Let us hope that the chaos that follows a Labour victory is so appalling that events cause a collapse of his government and that something good rises from the ruins. I know that sounds like the plot for a bad Hollywood movie but hope is all we have left.

    1. It is a prime example of cutting off the nose to spite the face. We are stuffed whichever which way, but far worse if it’s Starmer, as he will change the suffrage and the constitution to make his party irremovable.

      1. Whoever is voted for, nothing will change. There seems to be a policy of deliberate enforced decline.

    2. “have prompted a swing to the Right”

      There in a nutshell is the problem. That might be a possibility in European mainland but regrettably there is no real party to the right in Britain. What can people do? The best potential solutions are UKIP and Reform; however, the first has failed to make a big impact despite being around for some years while the latter is completely untested.

      The biggest winner in Britain is likely to be NOTA, I’d say.

      1. Ukip has been riven with sectarian nastiness. Reform hopes to wing it free from that kind of thing. I hope to hell that it does. i want someone to vote for.

        1. Yes, spot on with UKIP. They’ve shot themselves in the foot. They could be improving currently but it doesn’t make any difference, since it’s still too soon to trust that they’ve become stable enough to be credible.

          It’s another face of the fact that Britain out of most of the European nations is predominantly left wing politically. In Europe there is representation*. In Britain the majority parties have conspired in effect to disenfranchise the vast majority of the nation’s electorate.

          * Representation in the sense that right wing politics exists – still makes little difference though if it’s to go into the EU parliament!

          1. I do profoundly disagree with the first and second sentences of your second paragraph. James. The rest of your post is sound.

          2. Well, just my perception. They certainly don’t project themselves massively well anymore, let’s say.

          3. Second para – I do not think that Britain is predominantly left wing – just its perfidious media and elite classes. I would argue that the vast majority of Brits, including most immigrants, are predominantly conservative (although they would be too scared to refer to this as “right wing”, for obvious reasons)

          4. Yes, by politically I meant among the political parties themselves. As I’ve qualified and agree with you we hold conservative values along with a bit of down to earth compassion. Give to those who need and so on. We live pink, but vote blue.

          5. Sorry just reread what you wrote – second paragraph you wrote. I added an edit qualifying what I meant by representation. I would still stand by what I think about UK politically though. For me it’s always been the case that we as a people like to live pink, yet vote blue. There’s no blue to vote for in the mainstream anymore.

          6. We will agree to disagree on some of this, James. On the lack of Blue I am totally in agreement. We have no choice at all and are disenfranchised. We have been lied to and false promises have been made on a grand scale.

    3. Voting Tory got us high taxes, massive uncontrolled immigration, a crippled economy through inflation – brought about by devaluation of the currency, the hoax of climate change (also spiking inflation). Public services are appalling, Rolls Royce expensive but Trabant quality. Absolutely nothing works. Big state has a hold on everything and the country is paying for it.

      The last 14 years could have been so different, such progress could have been made to create wealth, growth, amazing services, a state brought to heel and forced to serve, taxes lowest in the G7 and proving how pointless the EU is by growth and…

      Ah.

      That’s it, isn’t it. If we prove we don’t need the EU, are better off out of it, democracy wins. It becomes obvious what the problem was. OPopulism (another word for democracy) is shown to be the right approach. Low taxes and small government demonstrably successful. Big fat state can’t have that so it set about destroying everything in sight, like a 50 foot tall petulant toddler.

  139. BBC journalist ‘liked’ tweet describing reports of Hamas rapes as ‘nonsense’

    The broadcaster’s social media guidelines state that its reporters have a ‘particular responsibility to uphold the BBC’s impartiality’

    Jacob Freedland • 25 May 2024 • 3:48pm

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/455df27ae063ff8d0e1efd07dd21c093e8cfebef385eba3b122eca01e2dd0db1.jpg
    A BBC Wales journalist liked a tweet describing reports of rape perpetrated on Oct 7 as “nonsense”, it has emerged.

    Shazia Ali liked a post – published on Oct 8 – that said: “Nobody raped anyone. Stop this nonsense.”

    The news reporter also “liked” a series of other tweets that appeared to justify Hamas’ atrocities on Oct 7, including a post from a different account that said: “You can’t expect a beaten and caged lion to purr when he finally breaks free.”

    Another post liked by Ms Ali said: “Y’all wanted ‘decolonization’ and ‘land back’ til they decolonized and took the land back. i won’t forget [sic].”

    A different tweet from a separate account quoted the French Marxist Frantz Fanon saying “decolonization is always a violent phenomenon”.

    Ms Ali, from Swansea, wrote on a website showcasing the experiences of Welsh people of BAME backgrounds: “My passion for journalism is centred around telling real people’s stories, giving coverage to BAME communities, and presenting them as more than just victims, they are victors!”

    The findings come after it was revealed that the BBC is still employing several BBC Arabic journalists who appeared to endorse Hamas’ Oct 7 attack, despite the corporation saying that it was “urgently investigating” the social media activity of its journalists working in the Middle East.

    The BBC’s social media guidelines state: “Individuals working in news and current affairs and factual journalism production (all divisions) have a particular responsibility to uphold the BBC’s impartiality.”

    It tells reporters: “Do not express a view on any policy which is a matter of current political debate or on a matter of public policy, political or industrial controversy, or any other ‘controversial subject’. Think about what your likes, shares, reposts, use of hashtags and who you follow say about you, your personal prejudices and opinions.”

    A spokesman for CAMERA, a US-based media monitoring group that campaigns for “accurate and balanced” coverage of Israel, said: “Despite the BBC’s director-general having pledged to tackle the issue of inappropriate social media use on multiple occasions, as this example shows, little progress has been made on that front.

    “The BBC’s claim to produce accurate and impartial ‘news you can trust’, including in relation to the current war in the Middle East, continues to be compromised by its own staff, some of whom – as Ms Ali’s social media activity demonstrates – are clearly woefully under informed on the topic of the Arab-Israeli conflict.”

    In March this year, a UN report found that Hamas attackers raped women’s corpses citing “clear and convincing” evidence to support multiple accounts of sexual violence. Pramila Patten, the UN special envoy on sexual violence and women, said there were “reasonable grounds” to believe Hamas committed “sexualised torture” when they carried out their attack on Israel on Oct 7.

    A BBC spokesman said: “We do not comment on individual staff matters, however, we take any breaches of our social media guidance very seriously and always take appropriate action wherever necessary.”

    Shazia Ali was approached for comment.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/25/bbc-reporter-hamas-liked-tweet-rape-impartial-breach-wales/

    These people make up 7-8% of the population of England and Wales.

    1. And they are either thick and deluded or evil, muderous liars. There is no middle ground.

        1. Tend to agree. No-one is that stupid, or at least no-one with good intentions

    3. “Ms Ali, from Swansea, wrote on a website showcasing the experiences of Welsh people of BAME backgrounds”. What bs is this? Welsh people are by definition of Welsh background. My father grew up in Llandaff but never claimed to be Welsh. In old age when he had dementia he thought my youngest brother and I had been born in Wales but the poor man was being medicated for Parkinson’s Disease and couldn’t help being confused. Dad was Jewish and very proud of the state of Israel. Today is the 117th anniversary of his birth.

      1. Shirley Bassey is described as Welsh on Wikipedia. Her father was from Nigeria, her mother from Yorkshire. Racial appropriation.

        Obvs I admire Dame Bassey, but she is British not Welsh, just as Mr Sunak isn’t English even if he was born in the UK.

  140. Hmm. I can see problems with that, especially with so many indirect taxes applying to us all.

  141. Muslim Vote frontman suggested Britain helped ‘create racism’

    Abubakr Nanabawa established the campaign group in response to the war in Gaza

    Tim Sigsworth • 25 May 2024 • 6:12pm

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/eb68c94129ac47f5397e8121aec1f79758fbad94f6908b75e760e0384bd9ba63.jpg
    The frontman for The Muslim Vote campaign group suggested Britain helped to “create racism” through colonisation, the Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

    Abubakr Nanabawa is the co-ordinator, spokesman and sole director of the group, which will create a list of approved candidates for Muslims to vote for in the general election on July 4.

    While a student Labour activist at Birmingham University, Mr Nanabawa suggested there was a link between the British Empire and the prevailing attitude towards the races it colonised.

    The campaign was established in response to the war in Gaza and the Labour Party’s decision not to oppose Israel’s military response to Oct 7 from the start.

    It is aiming to make sure Britain’s 3.9 million Muslims turn out on polling day and vote against Labour candidates, putting pressure on Keir Starmer to adopt The Muslim Vote’s 18 demands. These include immediately recognising Palestine as a state, cutting military ties with Israel and investing seven per cent of public pensions in “ethical and Islamic funds”.

    A number of prominent Muslim radicals are involved in the campaign, prompting concerns about its leadership. Those involved include the ex-leader of now-proscribed Hizb ut-Tahrir and a man who has dismissed allegations of hostage rape against Hamas as a “lie”.

    Mr Nanabawa, 24, was a student at the University of Birmingham when he told the University of York’s Labour Club in June 2020 that “the UK played a role in creating racism” and “setting up concentration camps in Kenya and other countries”.

    He said: “Opinion polls show that the majority of people in the UK believe that the British Empire did more good than bad in countries it colonised.”

    A Labour activist during his time at university, the following year, Mr Nanabawa called for every student at Birmingham to take a “compulsory” module on race and empire, regardless of their degree. At the same time, he also worked as a voluntary caseworker for the Federation Of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS) – a position which, according to his LinkedIn profile, he continues to hold.

    FOSIS was criticised by the Home Office in November 2022 for touring universities up and down the country with Cage and Prevent Watch, two groups accused of undermining counter-extremism efforts by claiming the Prevent programme is biased against Muslims.

    Prof Nigel Biggar CBE, the author of Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning, disputed Mr Nanabawa’s reading of imperial history, saying: “Group prejudice is a normal human phenomenon. The Brahmins despised Untouchables in India long before Britons arrived. Medieval Arab Muslims explained the natural inferiority of white Europeans and black Africans as an effect of a climate, respectively, too cold and too hot.

    “And when the Irish novelist, Gerald Hanley, was serving in the British Army in Somaliland during the Second World War, he found he couldn’t persuade his Somali troops to obey their Bantu sergeant, because they regarded the Bantu as natural slaves.”

    The Muslim Vote launched earlier this year and has since issued Sir Keir Starmer with a list of 18 demands to win back Muslim support in the wake of the war in Gaza. However, it has disclosed little about who is behind it.

    Its website lists 24 Islamic organisations as “supporters”, including two – Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) and Muslim Engagement and Development (Mend) – which are currently being assessed against a new government definition of extremism.

    In December, Jalaluddin Patel – the former leader of Hizb ut-Tahrir – wrote on X: “I am pleased to announce a project we have been working on. A united group of organisations have come together and launched https://themuslimvote.co.uk.”

    Mr Patel, who hosts a podcast called ‘The Thinking Muslim’ under the name Muhammad Jalal, did not respond to a request for comment. He has previously denied that he is an organiser for the campaign and said he only helped The Muslim Vote with data collection. But the Community Security Trust, which tracks anti-Semitic hate in Britain, said it was “extremely troubling” that Mr Patel was involved in an “effort to sway votes in British elections”.

    “It is extremely troubling that a former leader of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a radical Islamist group with views so extreme that it has now been banned, is claiming to be behind this effort to sway votes in British elections,” a spokesman said.

    “While election campaigning in itself is entirely legitimate, The Muslim Vote ought to be much more transparent about the people behind their campaign and ensure that anybody who has expressed extreme or anti-Semitic views is not involved.”

    The Sunday Telegraph can reveal that another figure involved in the campaign is Anas Altikriti, who said in an interview with Mr Nanabawa on April 17 that he was acting as an “adviser” to the organisation. Mr Altikriti has previously said the taking of hostages was a “very important part” of any “act of resistance”, that Israel was “mimicking” Nazis and that allegations of hostage rape against Hamas were a “lie”.

    Dr Rakib Ehsan, author of Beyond Grievance, said The Muslim Vote’s leaders and proposed policies prove it is wrong to claim it represents Britain’s four million Muslims.

    “Failing to represent the socially conservative values which run deep in many British Muslim communities, its list of eighteen demands to Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer included nothing on family policy and promoting the institution of marriage,” Mr Ehsan said.

    “There was also no reference to the sanctity of life in relation to abortion and euthanasia.”

    Alka Sehgal Cuthbert, director of Don’t Divide Us, added: “We should be very concerned about any group abusing genuine anti-war sentiment to entrench sectarianism, intolerance and racism.

    “The Muslim Vote initiative claims to speak for all Muslims, but like all campaigns driven by identity politics it represents a particularly ideological position which may or may not meet the new definition of extremism but is certainly inflexible, divisive, and in practice, not conducive to upholding democratic norms.”

    The Muslim Vote, MAB, Mend, Mr Patel and Mr Altikriti have all been approached for comment.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/25/muslim-vote-campaign-frontman-britain-racism/

    3. Tell me again why you think my take on Muslim power brokers seizing the opportunity was so wrong.

  142. 387656+ up ticks,

    He who cast the stone should be Tommy Robinsoned via a one minute court appearance, mandatory five year.

    Streamlined for similar issues the courts should be able to handle twenty an hour,
    Whatever bunch of political trash the majority voter lays on the innocents this time round the peoples must demand a prison building program, or if not, a morgue building program.

  146. From whatever perspective you view the politics of the country it’s hard to argue that we have not indeed been lied to and done up like the proverbial kipper. The wonder is that some are still in denial but I suspect those people sense they’ll be winners when the next lot get in, in any case.

    I’m into kippers today. I had an exceptional one for breakfast by the way!

  147. Been busy in the garden today, just following orders. Filled the green bin to the top with trimmings.
    I’ll be standing down within an hour so i’ll say Good night all. 😉
    Take care in this wicked world.

    1. You’d get shot for that round here! Our green bin is household waste! Brown bin is garden rubbish! Why? You might well ask!😳

      1. No no no no… No!
        Green for recycling, brown for garden and black for rubbish.

        1. Absolutely not: green with blue top for recycling, brown for food rubbish, green all over for garden, grey for rubbish. Simple innit?

          1. No you are all wrong.
            Green for composting, blue box for recycling and everything else goes in whatever colour bag you have for real rubbish.

          2. I think you all need to know that different authorities have different rules and colours for different types of rubbish. It used to be equally confusing with milk bottles until the entire nation standardised as red for skimmed, green for semi-skimmed and blue for standard milk.

          4. And then it gets distributed along the verges, the residue goes to landfill. Worth all the angst.

          5. We have black box for recycling, and a maroon bin for cardboard! Of course, when it gets to the dump….who knows?

          6. We have green for garden waste, black with a black top for general waste, black with a purple top for recycling and a blue bag (which always blows away when it’s been emptied) for paper and cardboard.

          7. Grey for tip rubbish, green for recycling, brown for garden waste and a little caddy for food slops.

  148. Now, as then, Hoxton has, for inner London, an unusually high %age of white people.

    2. An excellent rendition, but why the FOXTROT was the recording cut off so bloody early?????

  150. I’ve got to go bye byes – night all, sleep well and sweet dreams all!

    I don’t know why, but I’ve been listening to different versions of this, which I love, and I did quite like this one (partly because of the clarity and obvious counterpoint in the bass). Wondering what the experts and proper musicians on here think?https://youtu.be/KDCcqczz-vY

    1. I rather like this version of this piece with an arrangement for two organists as I think it is lighter and has more expressiveness in the interpretation. It gives more room for the bass counterpoint to come to the fore towards the end of the piece with a prominent crescendo in the finale.

      https://youtu.be/MgzbRHi5oEU?si=LBuhSkLeptAT0tRo

      Goodnight opo and all and don’t go to heavy on the snoring bass line.

  151. There are jet planes flying low over Shepherds Bush. Very odd. We’re not usually on the Heathrow flight path. They fly over the Thames at Hammersmith every minute or so but not up here. Oh well, goodnight all.

    1. And a bit off from a PM who is expected to leave for California shortly.

    2. Why not compulsory for the new arrivals. Finish their military training and arm them.

  154. Heffer stands up for his friend.

    The Tories have lost the one man who knew how to defeat the Blob

    After his triumph at Education, it is sad Michael Gove wasn’t given another big department to transform

    SIMON HEFFER • 25 May 2024 • 4:43pm

    Public life is weakened by Michael Gove’s leaving it. He has his faults, as do we all, but he is immensely able, and ability will be in short supply after the election. I must declare an interest: I have known him for 30 years, and we are friends. We have had disagreements; but he is one of the most considerable figures of this era of Conservative-led rule.

    When in 2010 he became education secretary, he proved his effectiveness in driving through reforms that revived traditional learning and teaching methods. This led to higher standards. The Programme for International Student Assessment, which evaluates 15-year-old students, showed him that the best performing countries had rigorous accountability, allowed head teachers greater ease to hire and fire, an “aspirational” core curriculum and emphasis on success. In 2012, England was below Vietnam, Taiwan and South Korea. By 2022 England’s mean Pisa score of 492 in maths beat an OECD average of 472. In that subject – vital for the country’s future – England came 11th out of 81, up from 17th in 2018.

    The unions hated Mr Gove’s reforms, which confronted the failed ideologies they had imposed since the 1960s, and exposed bad teachers. They declared war on him, something he should wear as a badge of honour. Shamefully, David Cameron was intimidated, demoting Mr Gove to chief whip. He then served for a year as Lord Chancellor. There as at Education, he had the character and grip to be master in his own house, not to delegate its running to civil servants.

    He coined the term “The Blob” to describe the army of bureaucrats who fought to prevent ministers from doing what they were elected to do. Perhaps the most shameful failure of the last 14 years is that the need to reduce the size and power of the Civil Service was never acted upon. Had colleagues inferior to Mr Gove in intelligence and foresight heeded his warnings, the paralysis the Government has increasingly suffered, and its inability to sustain Conservative policies and values, might have been mitigated.

    Although he gets little credit for Brexit, it was Mr Gove who, on the morning after David Cameron announced the referendum, produced a sincere and eloquent statement of why he was exercising his right to disagree with the advice to remain – an act some painted as disloyal. It was not, because Mr Cameron allowed dissent, but it was principled, unlike Boris Johnson’s.

    Mr Gove’s reputation was damaged by his decision to desert Mr Johnson’s aborted campaign for the party leadership, and then to stand himself. It looked untrustworthy: a label Theresa May reinforced by refusing to offer him a job and telling him “to go and learn about loyalty on the backbenches”. It was a fatuous remark. Mr Gove, having been promised the job of chancellor, abandoned Mr Johnson because he learned he had also promised it to Andrea Leadsom.

    It is hard to blame him, in those circumstances, for his actions. He was unwise to seek the leadership himself, because he ought to have known he lacked the necessary support. Paradoxically, what Disraeli called “the stupid party” has long distrusted anyone appearing to be an intellectual, and Mr Gove was no exception. He returned, most recently as housing and levelling-up minister. An unhealthily authoritarian attitude to restrictions during the pandemic lockdown annoyed some colleagues, but his misjudgments were hardly unique. However, he has long been the politician most alert to the dangers of extremism in our discourse and society.

    The sadness of his career is that, after Education, he never held an office in which he might have turned the tide for his party. He had the capability to bring some order to the NHS. He might have controlled the benefits system. He might have been a sufficiently capable Home Secretary to limit the ruinous immigration crisis. However, people less effective, and less threatening to a weak prime minister, took the jobs. Like many of Mr Gove’s friends, I expect him to go back to Fleet Street. If so, it will be journalism’s gain.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/25/tories-have-lost-the-man-who-knew-how-to-defeat-the-blob/

    1. Fraser Nelson has written a similar sycophantic glory piece. The Speccie, remember, was a prime mover in getting the disaster that is Sunak into No 10. Their awful columnist Macdonut wrote the most spiteful piece I have ever seen published anywhere re Truss and for months little J Forsyth was pushing Rishi with Fraser furiously pushing behind.

      Little James is now touting for personal electoral candidacy having so wisely advised Sunak during his disastrous PM hood. No doubt the little wet will be offered a safe seat.

      There is no independent press, not by anyone’s standards

        1. I hope the concept of a safe Lab Lib Green Con seat dies at this election.

          It won’t though, the bunnies are going to vote in the WEF’s Barmy Starmy.

    2. Well he’s completely buggered up leasehold Reform plus the private rental sector.

  155. Just before he goes with Cameron, Johnson and all the other WEF puppets, he’ll light the fuse for Britain to fight Russia.

      1. This is a WEF puppet change op, Sunak out, Starmer in. It’s Johnson out, Truss out all over again.

        1. Indeed. Still, it’s probably beneficial for the Tories to let Labour deal with the results of the detonation.

          1. The plan is to destroy Britain. With a combination of weirdo destructive policies such a Net Zero, wide open borders and a war with Russia, it’s looks like they going to do it.

          2. They’ve been halfway there with the immigration for years. Plus the US of A “elite” could never quite get over this country having an empire – and have been determined to be world top dog for over a century. And their rich megalomaniacs are richer and more power-mad than any others on earth.

          3. They’ve been halfway there with the immigration for years. Plus the US of A “elite” could never quite get over this country having an empire – and have been determined to be world top dog for over a century. And their rich megalomaniacs are richer and more power-mad than any others on earth.

  156. A conservative speaks…

    The Tories can still be the party of change

    Promising stability will only take us so far. We must set out a vision that Labour could never emulate

    DAVID FROST • 24 May 2024 • 6:55pm

    Not everyone seems to have been happy with the timing of this election. But from a conservative perspective, it has had some very happy consequences. In the couple of days of wash-up at the end of the parliamentary session, we have lost the Renters Reform Bill with its ban on no-fault eviction, the abolition of short prison sentences, the football regulator, and the smoking ban. If only every day could have been like this.

    Clearing the decks is welcome, for it enables us, if we wish it, to signal a change in our own approach. And as a party, we do need to show we want to change things. The most common complaint I get in my emails is “you Conservatives have been in power for 14 years and have done nothing”. Fair or not (and I don’t think it is fair), it doesn’t suggest people want more of the same.

    I say this because this election is already shaping up as one between change on the Labour side, and security and continuity from us Tories. And of course Labour are extremely implausible representatives of “change”. They seem to think the main change needed is to replace Tory ministers with Labour ones, so they can carry on with consensus policies a bit faster. They seem perfectly comfortable with more tax and higher spending, they are quite happy to accelerate the damaging net zero policy, and of course they see no difficulty with higher immigration, legal or otherwise.

    So we shouldn’t let Labour occupy this territory, and we can surely make these criticisms stick in campaigning. But this will require us to talk about change ourselves. In fact, the Prime Minister hinted at this in his Downing Street speech, noting that “economic stability was only ever meant to be the beginning. The question now is how and who do you trust to turn that foundation into a secure future for you, your family and our country”. That implies that we must do something different in future from what we have been doing hitherto.

    I hope so. Security and protection only takes you so far. The biggest boost in our poll ratings came when the Prime Minister responded last autumn, however mildly, to growing public disquiet on net zero. The Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho has in fact continued some positive change in this area, but it has all been rather below the radar – so we have got little credit.

    Everyone knows that this country has some huge strengths but also some big problems. So we must begin talking about the issues on everyone’s mind – the NHS, energy costs, the tax burden, house building, immigration – and do so in a serious way. People do want things to change.

    We know from Theresa May’s campaign in 2017 that security as a theme isn’t enough on its own. Her defensive approach enabled Jeremy Corbyn to tap successfully into a wish, especially among the young, not for continuity but for change. Of course Corbyn’s policy prescriptions would have brought a horrendously damaging form of it, but the wish for it should have been obvious from the 2016 referendum. In many ways it still is.

    So before long in this campaign, let us do what the Prime Minister signalled and set out a vision that shows how Conservative Britain will differ from Labour’s. That means going to places that are uncomfortable for Labour: an end to the Equality Act’s damaging regime of group rights; a determined defence of free speech, not Labour’s fearful policing of opinion; and freeing up the entrepreneurial spirit and the rights of the self-employed, perhaps by repealing IR35. And much more.

    A key component of this must be the idea of freedom. Labour don’t trust people to decide things for themselves. They prefer nannying and control. But if we are not careful, we too can, in promising to protect people from so many risks, make freedom seem like a burden and a danger.

    Freedom should be exciting: the right to run your own life, take your own decisions, bring up your family as you wish, build your own business, develop your own skills. All these things have become more difficult in the past couple of decades. A Tory government won’t be able to fix all this overnight, but it can at least set a new direction – towards liberating the potential of this country and its people.

    That’s a clear dividing line: Labour will never be able to follow us there.
    ________________________________________

    Considering parliamentary options

    I mentioned in my earlier column this week that I wasn’t clear whether I could apply to stand for Commons seats at this election. So I am grateful to the Prime Minister for clarifying today that I can do so. It is very late in the process, and time is short, but I will now consider the options.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/24/uk-general-election-rishi-sunak-conservatives-david-frost/

    1. David Frost may be a.natural “sea captain” in that he displays strong “going down with the ship” tendencies.

    2. Too little, too late – the Tories are finished. Entirely due to their own dreadful performance. Mr. Frost had better look at other employment options.

    3. Evening, folks. I don’t want continuity of what the Cons have been doing! I don’t want more illegals, more “hate crime” legislation, more partisan policing, more islamification …

  157. I was in Marks and Sparks today – in the men’s clothing section there was a rail of shirts with ‘World’s Best Dad’ on the front.

    Sweet, I thought, but I’m puzzled as to why they would have made more than one.

  158. Well, chums, I now wish you all a Good Night. Sleep well, and I hope to see you all in the morning.

  162. Phew!
    That was a good walk/pub crawl.
    Up to the King’s head, then up Ember Lane, past Ember Farm and drop down for a pint in the Old Bank, the Rose Cottage and The Fish Pond. The latter paid for by Welder Son who I met up with there.
    A decent pub rock band in the Fish Pond too.
    Then back up Jacob’s Ladder and home!

    I now need a bath so will be off the bed soon.
    Good night all.

  163. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13460033/prime-minister-military-service-school-leavers-12-months-general-election.html

    Rishi Sunak would introduce compulsory National Service for all 18-year-olds if the Conservatives win the General Election.

    Under the bombshell plan, unveiled by the Prime Minister in an article for The Mail on Sunday, school-leavers would be obliged to spend a year in a full-time Armed Forces role or volunteering with organisations such as the police or NHS.

    2. We are not at war with any country. We do not wish to go to war against other counties. Conscription is necessary when this country is at war.

      The British people do not wish to go to war in Ukraine and we have no wish to confront Russia or any other country. We do not trust the Obama/Biden regime nor do we trust the Sunak regime. These useless neo-cons wish to draw us into a hot war with Russia. They are fools. We need to be shot of these war pigs once and for all.

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