Wednesday 12 June: The Tories’ manifesto pledges can’t redeem their record in government

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

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

712 thoughts on “Wednesday 12 June: The Tories’ manifesto pledges can’t redeem their record in government”

  2. Good morrow Gentlefolk, today’s (recycled) Thoughts

    Thoughts from A Friend:

    I was lying around, pondering the problems of the world, I realised that at my age, I don't really give much of a rat's arse anymore.

    If walking is good for your health, the postman would be immortal. A whale swims all day, only eats fish, drinks water, but is still fat.

    A rabbit runs and hops and only lives 15 years, while a tortoise doesn’t run and does mostly nothing, yet it lives for 150 years. And you tell me to exercise?? I don't think so.

    Just grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked, the good fortune to remember the ones I do, and the eye sight to tell the difference.

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

    Now that I'm older here's what I've discovered:

    1. I started out with nothing, and I still have most of it.

    2. My wild oats are mostly enjoyed with prunes and all-bran.

    3. I finally got my head together, and now my body is falling apart.

    4. Funny, I don't remember being absent-minded.

    5. Funny, I don’t remember being absent-minded.

    6. If all is not lost, then where the hell is it ??

    7. It was a whole lot easier to get older, than to get wiser.
    8. Some days, you're the top dog, some days you're the hydrant; the early bird gets the worm but the second mouse gets the cheese.

    9. I wish the buck really did stop here, I sure could use a few of them.

    10. Kids in the back-seat cause accidents.

    11. Accidents in the back-seat cause kids.

    12. It's hard to make a comeback when you haven't been anywhere.

    13. The world only beats a path to your door when you’re in the bathroom.

    14. If God wanted me to touch my toes, he’d have put them on my knees.

    15. When I'm finally holding all the right cards, everyone wants to play chess.

    16. It's not hard to meet expenses . . . they're everywhere.

    17. The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.

    18. These days, I spend a lot of time thinking about the hereafter . . . I go somewhere to get something, and then wonder what I'm "here after".

    19. Funny, I don't remember being absent-minded.

    20. Have I Posted This Message Before?

  4. The Tories’ manifesto pledges can’t redeem their record in government

    Rishi is blaming Reform voters for letting in Labour, when it is all his fault for letting in Labour and by design, I suspect.

  7. 388426+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Manifesto's are for the weak minded, party name addicted supporter / voters.

    Also I cannot get my head round how a country can even contemplate voting & returning to power those politico's
    who are currently, in a great many peoples minds highly suspect of being party to a joint
    political / pharmaceutical at least, corporate manslaughter campaign.

    Surely to those taken from us in such a highly suspect manner"Rest in peace" cannot be applied.

    Could be shortly the answer to a great many of our problems is a chain reaction, landing at Dover.

    https://x.com/RadioGenoa/st…

    1. 388426+ up ticks,

      O2O,

      This surely gives "escaping from a warring nation another truer meaning"

      Will the United Kingdom now become a casualty
      R/R station for the miscreants the French kick out, whatever the immediate future holds ours, rest assured, can only get worse.

      https://x.com/Christian360N…

    2. 388426+ up ticks,

      O2O,

      This surely gives "escaping from a warring nation another truer meaning"

      Will the United Kingdom now become a casualty
      R/R station for the miscreants the French kick out, whatever the immediate future holds ours, rest assured, can only get worse.

      https://x.com/Christian360N…

    3. I shudder to think what might be hidden in the small print, dutifully ignored by the compliant media. Then Starmer will turn round and tell people that they voted for whatever hell he intends to inflict on them.

  8. Good morning, chums, and thanks for today's NoTTLe page, Geoff. A pretty good (for me) Wordle result today:

    Wordle 1,089 3/6

    ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
    🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Wordle 1,089 4/6

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

  9. Good Moaning.

    Oink …. Oink ……… Pass down the trough. Make way for a little one.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/06/11/dame-alison-rose-joins-private-equity-firm-saga-debt/

    Dame Alison Rose joins private equity firm accused of ‘loading’ Saga with debt

    Former NatWest chief’s role at Charterhouse Capital marks first since debanking scandal

    11 June 2024 • 5:59pm

    Dame Alison quit NatWest after discussing Nigel Farage's debanking with a BBC journalist Credit: Dominic Lipinski/PA
    Dame Alison Rose has joined a private equity firm in her first role since leaving NatWest in the wake of the debanking scandal last year.

    The former bank chief has been hired as a senior adviser at Charterhouse Capital, a buyout specialist previously criticised for loading Saga, the over-50s provider, with too much debt.

    Charterhouse is one of London’s oldest private equity firms and owns a range of companies in the consumer, healthcare and services sectors.

    It is perhaps best known in the UK as the former co-owner of Saga and AA.

    Its ownership of Saga sparked criticism from Euan Sutherland, the company’s former chief, in 2020, who said Charterhouse had left the business in a “weakened position, loaded with debt, starved of investment and driven with a very short-term focus”. Charterhouse declined to comment at the time.

    Dame Alison stepped down as chief executive from NatWest last year after her role in the Coutts debanking scandal involving Nigel Farage, Reform UK leader.

    Mr Farage said Coutts had closed his account owing to his political views, prompting fierce criticism of its parent NatWest.

    Dame Alison admitted to making a 'serious error of judgement' in discussing Mr Farage's case

    Dame Alison, formerly a lifelong employee of NatWest, opted to quit after it emerged she had discussed Mr Farage’s case with a BBC journalist.

    This led to her forfeiting millions of pounds in pay after making a “serious error of judgement” in discussing the case, although there were no findings of misconduct.

    The fallout prompted the biggest crisis at NatWest, formerly known as Royal Bank of Scotland, since it was nationalised by the Government in 2008.

    An independent report by Travers Smith, a law firm, found problems in the way Coutts assessed customer exits.

    She will join Lord Patten of Wincanton, a former education secretary, who is also a senior adviser at Charterhouse.

    Charterhouse, which has €5bn (£4.2bn) of assets under management, has a small presence in financial services including ownership of UK pension consultants Lane Clark & Peacock.

    The group, chaired by the former chief executive and co-founder Gordon Bonnyman, was spun out of HSBC in 2001.

    Dame Alison’s appointment was first reported by Private Equity News."

    2. All this talk of the average hardworking prospective Tory or Labour voter gaining in promised tax cuts is brazen fiddling while Rome burns and is no credit to those who still insist that elections are won or lost over promised tax cuts.

      For me, there is only one issue – the general breakdown of our institutions that this election and its debating processes seem incapable of addressing or even considering. There is no remedy on offer as they dwell on easy fripperies.

      The example above is just one of far too many. It seems that it is not within the remit or the competence of our regulators to prosecute offenders. Too many lobbied interests, and the worst they can expect is a couple of days grovelling to Parliament before getting let off with a bonus and a gong.

      I want to hear what each of the parties' candidates intend to do about the gross miscarriage of justice that was sustained by our representatives since 1999, just with the Post Office, once a highly respected national institution, and for five years my employer.

      Then we can start on the pernicious effect of Critical Race Theory and "Pride" favouritism and for that matter the hateful entitlement of the feminists, whose main saving grace is that they go for some of the Pride pushers like rats in a sack.

      Then we can start on how, since "upgrades" are forced on us, nothing seems to work any longer, we cannot get someone to fix anything without ripping us off, and life has become so much more wearing and exhausting just to keep up with it all.

      Not even Farage seems to be willing or able to sort all this out now, which has gone on for far too long and swallowed up pretty well every mechanism we relied on to sort out.

      Trust and confidence are easy to lose, but the very devil to recover. It does not make it any less vital, and is the only thing that really interests me in this election.

      1. Nothing works, you're right. But institutional corruption goes hand in glove with all the other things that are being used to abuse our country: mass immigration, net zero, welfare profligacy. I see them all as the same weapon. Tackle one and you tackle them all because it is the same cabal and ideology behind them all.

  10. For anyone who missed this yesterday. The Hamas death cult laid bare…

    Hamas leader believes civilian deaths are ‘necessary sacrifices’ in Israeli war, leaked letters show#

    Yahya Sinwar appears to be stalling ceasefire talks and using Palestinian fatalities to his advantage

    Nicola Smith, ASIA CORRESPONDENT, IN JERUSALEM
    11 June 2024 • 1:58pm

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/world-news/2024/06/11/TELEMMGLPICT000381343790_17181090542550_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bq-IWLY18X4-CzgyIcjLEAj0k9u7HhRJvuo-ZLenGRumA.jpeg?imwidth=680
    Yahya Sinwar appears more interested in cementing his own position than securing peace in Gaza

    The mastermind behind Hamas’s Oct 7 attacks on Israel is stalling ceasefire talks and using the mounting Palestinian death toll to his advantage, leaked messages show.

    Correspondence between Yahya Sinwar, the terror group’s military leader, and officials tasked with brokering a ceasefire with Qatari and Egyptian officials indicate he is more interested in securing his own future than peace.

    “We have the Israelis right where we want them,” Sinwar said in one of dozens of messages to ceasefire negotiators obtained by The Wall Street Journal.

    The messages display a calculated disregard for human life and a belief on the part of Sinwar that Israel has more to lose from the eight-month war than Hamas.

    More than 37,000 people, mainly civilians, have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, according to Hamas-controlled health authorities. The number of combatants killed remains unknown.

    The messages revealed by The Wall Street Journal appear to support the view that Sinwar is willing to put his political objectives above the preservation of human lives.

    In one message to Hamas leaders in Doha, he cites civilian losses in national-liberation conflicts in places such as Algeria, where hundreds of thousands of people died fighting for independence from France, saying, “these are necessary sacrifices”.

    In a separate letter, sent on April 11 to Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas political leader, whose three sons were killed in an Israeli air strike, Sinwar claimed their deaths and those of other Palestinians would “infuse life into the veins of this nation, prompting it to rise to its glory and honour”.

    A recent analysis appears to show a decline in the rate of women and children being killed from more than 60 per cent in October to below 40 per cent in April, coinciding with a change in Israeli battlefield tactics.

    However, the reported deaths of at least 274 Palestinians in the Nuseirat refugee camp during the rescue of four Israeli hostages on Saturday has fuelled international anger about Israel’s handling of the war and whether it is doing enough to protect civilians.

    In response, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) condemned the “cruel and cynical” tactics of Hamas’s leadership to endanger the local population by hiding hostages among them.

    On Tuesday, Hamas responded to a US-backed Israeli ceasefire proposal transmitted to Qatar two weeks ago which would first allow for a six-week truce to exchange some of the remaining 120 Israeli hostages for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.

    A source said the terror group’s response contained amendments to the Israeli proposal including “a timeline for a permanent ceasefire and the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip”.

    It is understood there is a split between the group’s political leadership which would be open to the six-week truce and the military leadership which wants a full ceasefire.

    The three-stage peace deal, which sets out a framework for the eventual release of all hostages, a permanent ceasefire and full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, has stalled over the terms of how to proceed after the first phase and bring an eventual end to the war.

    The fine details of how the war ends could determine the political future of the Israeli and Hamas leadership and, for Sinwar, possibly his physical survival.

    During a trip to Israel on Monday, Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, urged top officials to accept and implement a plan for post-war Gaza. He also pushed for more international pressure on Hamas to agree to a ceasefire proposal.

    “My message to governments and people throughout the region is this: If you want to alleviate the terrible suffering in Gaza, to get all the hostages home, to put Israelis and Palestinians on the path to durable peace — then press Hamas to say yes to the ceasefire,” he said in a statement on social media.

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

    Iain Duncan
    16 HRS AGO
    Will the protesters now go and march in Gaza to protest about the 'genocide' inflicted upon the Palestinians by Hamas?

    James Maynard Kitchener Lampwick
    16 HRS AGO
    Reply to Iain Duncan
    Unfortunately the mindless rent-a-mob lot only get their news from Tik Tok. So they will be unaware of this. I saw one numpty interviewed who did not know that gays are imprisoned or killed in Gaza, she also thought Israel a Muslim state.
    The depth of ignorance is staggering. EDITED

    LM Smed
    16 HRS AGO
    Reply to James Maynard Kitchener Lampwick
    Unbelievable ignorance:
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ufmcubp2szg&pp=ygUOZ2VuWiBpZ25vcmFuY2U%3D
    INSANE: Young Americans Don't Know ANYTHING!
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g2oMv93EUpY
    HUMILIATING: Gen-Z Can't Answer the Most Basic Questions
    I'd like to see if the level of ignorance of basic knowledge is as prevalent in the UK.

    PJ Spiers
    14 HRS AGO
    Reply to Iain Duncan
    Not a chance Iain. The protesters are ignorant beyond belief. They are too stupid and unaware of history to realise – that should those whose evil intentions they are supporting ever gain power – that they would be first up against the wall. Those who succeed in violent revolution always eat their useful idiots.

    CE Hartridge
    16 HRS AGO
    This statement by Hamas proves that they are happy to use civilian Gazans as human shields. It's now on record that they have admitted what we all thought anyway.

    Steven McFarland
    14 HRS AGO
    Reply to CE Hartridge – view message
    And anyway, they're all muslims who always say that their real life begins when they ascend to paradise. In other words they must like being dead, so pass the ammunition and the more the merrier.

    1. There seems a serious outbreak of Stockholm Syndrome with both Hamas and the Israelis.

      This particular episode started with the Holocaust of the Third Reich. History has delivered a pretty damning verdict on the 1000 Year Reich, but the long-term effect on its victims has not been adequately explored. Atrocity breeds vengeance, and who knows how this vengeance may seep out amid the generations that follow and remember. I see an uncomfortable reprise of the methods used against the Jews being inflicted now on those they consider Untermensch, and it is not pretty. The effect on what I have just said on free speech and democracy in my country, the United Kingdom, may be illustrated by the inevitable responses to this comment and outrage is heaped against me.

      That Hamas seems now to be adopting the same cavalier attitude against the innocent under its protection does not make the process any better, or any less universal – an unfortunate trait of human nature more than anything specific to any set doctrine or faction.

      It was Jesus Christ, someone pointedly ignored in this discussion, who addressed the problem using the cross to put a stop to this cycle of revenge and counter-revenge, and offer humanity a clean sheet where Love stands a chance to prevail. Jesus Christ was a Jew.

        1. Unfortunately it seems these days that the average citizen would be apathetic, if only he could raise an interest.

    3. Matt Goodwin: "the question is.. what the hell are they teaching kids nowadays?"

    4. Matt Goodwin: "the question is.. what the hell are they teaching kids nowadays?"

    5. As M would have said, "Take the shot, Take the bloody shot"!
      As far as we know, those vile repulsive excuses for humanity still hold the Jewish prisoners hostage.

  12. Thoughts from America on D-Day – is this what our heroes died for? 12 June 2024.

    I thought about the sacrifices and extraordinary courage of the men who took part in these titanic conflicts and offered that greatest of gifts – their young lives. As the West continues its accelerating downward slide into decadence, depravity, self-hatred and barbarism, I sometimes wonder if their sacrifices were worth it.
    Such a thought, I confess, borders on the blasphemous, especially given the fact that their sacrifice allowed oppressed people throughout Europe to breathe the pure of air of liberty once again, not to mention the countless Jewish lives saved with the liberation of the concentration camps. Let us not forget, Nazi Germany was committed to eradicating every Jew in Europe. But if those who sacrificed so much – a few hundred of whom are still with us – were to see the current state of the civilisation for which they offered everything, I cannot help thinking they would be horrified.

    I'm no hero but I have given up on it. That England that I was born into no longer exists and the “West” is simply a disguised Globalist tyranny.

    https://www.conservativewom…

  13. Good morning all.
    A dry but overcast start to the day with 7°C on the Yard Thermometer with a largely dry day forecast.
    Two jobs to intend doing today.
    Clearing all the paraphernalia used for shifting the safe out of the van and continuing sorting out the heap of not very well rotted compost I'm half way through after shifting the bin it was in.

  15. BTL Commentator Edwin Pugh appears to have his head under a bucket for the past decade and a half.

    Edwin Pugh
    14 MIN AGO
    Can someone among all those here saying 'vote reform' explain why? All seem to say vote for that party because we don't like the Tories. That's a protest vote, isn't it? Have yet to see a post that says vote Reform because of this policy or because of that policy with an explanation as to why it's the way forward and preferrable to similar policies of the other main parties.

    REPLY8 REPLIES 1 6
    REPORT

    Stripey The Cat
    8 MIN AGO
    Reply to Edwin Pugh
    For me, it is three things, Edwin. One is control of our borders, one is abandonment of this net zero lunacy, and one is cutting government waste .

    R. Spowart
    JUST NOW
    Reply to Edwin Pugh – view message
    Message Actions
    One has to wonder where you have been for the past decade and a half, Edwin.
    Upon election as leader of the party, the coward, Mr. Cameron, immediately began appointing those sharing his Blairite ideology to Conservative Central Office.
    Then CCO began the process of installing those Blairites into safe Tory seats, effectively turning the party into "New Labor Lite".
    As a result the Party has shifted strongly to the Left leaving traditional Tories behind wondering why they are facing such high taxes, a ridiculous level of Government spending and State overreach into their private lives.
    Throw in the events after the Referendum when the Coward, Mr. Cameron, despite his promises, fled with his tail between his legs like a whipped pup.
    Now, Edwin, considering all that, tell me why a traditional Tory Voter should vote for the current Conservative (In Name Only) Party?

    1. 388426+ up ticks,

      Morning R Spowart,

      It has seemingly not stopped traditional tory voters, continuing these past thirty plus years
      still supporting / voting tory ino) party.

      1. 388426+ up Ticks,

        Morning JS,
        The issue is of such a odious magnitude that to ignore it would be a major crime in itself.

        "Legal retribution" is highly suspect currently with the peelers becoming the felons.

        I do believe justice maybe in the form of rough justice, will be served.

  18. Good morning all, 77th too,

    Cloudy with sunny periods at Castle McPhee. Still cold at 9℃ rising to 15℃ in the late afternoon according to the Met Office.

    Ther Marxists are intent on ruining Wales, simply because the working class failed to join in their revolution. Doesn't quite sit with Hen Wlad fy Nhadau or Yma O Hyd, does it?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/27c4e108c6ebc3cf642841d87feca080e770c8768f21c658c2efcbe3869be55c.png https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/11/welsh-labour-coal-mines-white-working-class-history/

    Knowing the Welsh, I feel it's doomed to failure.

    1. The industrial revolution was built on coal. Cheap energy is essential for a modern economy, and we in the West pay five-six times that the Chinese, Russians and Indians and so are handing the future to them.
      And of course all British miners were white – after their wives had scrubbed them clean in a tub in front of the (coal) fire in the kitchen, as I can still remember my grandmother doing to my grandad.

      2. Our house was heated, all through my childhood, on 3 tons of concessionary coal each year.

          1. Sounds about right. We had an open fireplace in the living room. The rest of the house was like an oven in summer and a fridge in winter.

  19. Farage’s goal

    SIR – Nigel Farage (Letters, June 11), having severely damaged the country by engineering Brexit, now seeks to demolish the Conservative Party in the general election.

    A supporter of Donald Trump and an apologist for Vladimir Putin, he is the most destructive force in politics today. I hope voters do not fall for his false promises this time round.

    Sir Christopher Gent
    Newbury, Berkshire

    The Financial Conduct Authority has fined Sir Christopher Gent, former non-executive Chairman of ConvaTec Group Plc, £80,000 for unlawfully disclosing inside information. https://www.fca.org.uk/news/press-releases/fca-fines-sir-christopher-gent-disclosing-inside-information

    Why should we listen to someone like you, Chris?

    1. Just your typical “elite” having a wobbly because it’s so much harder to visit his Tuscan villa (or similar) and don’t you know the common people who voted for Brexit are just vile etc

    2. Even if you do listen it's very difficult to hear him at all. He's Mr Vodaphone and the reception is lousy.

    3. An Arch-remainiac & Globalist for obv reasons.. though granted he was the superstar in the noughties that saw the takeover of a German telecom rival called Mannesmann. And how did that work out? It revealed that takeovers within the EU tend to be one way and never in UKs favour.

      1. They destroyed Mannesmann, stripped it of anything worth money and threw the rest away. What they did was utterly disgusting.

      2. Mannesmann used to make steel, back in the last century. Good, it was, too.

      3. Everything within the EU tended to be one way and never in UK's favour. That's why they had to have such childish tantrums after the UK left, rather than coming up with some platitudes for the traiitor Cameron to appease the masses here with. The EU politicians were, and are, very childish in their dealings.

    4. An Arch-remainiac & Globalist for obv reasons.. though granted he was the superstar in the noughties that saw the takeover of a German telecom rival called Mannesmann. And how did that work out? It revealed that takeovers within the EU tend to be one way and never in UKs favour.

    5. Until 2015, he [Gent] served as the non-exec chairman of GlaxoSmithKline, the world's fourth largest pharmaceutical company [Wiki]. That seems reason enough to oppose anything he supports!

    1. As it stands Labour will get in, the only issues are by how many and is there enough support for Reform to squeeze sufficient seats to allow its members to make an impact in parliament so that they can demonstrate that they can be a serious force next time.

      They need at least enough seats to get appointments to committees where they can be a raucous caucus, showing up how poor proposed legislation is going to be for Britain.

      2. 388426+ up ticks,

        Morning S,

        Forever the optimist, "they can be a serious force next time".

        With the same politico's in place next time has a very, very, good chance of a mullah dictating the order of play.

    3. Fox is an actor. He is paid to act. For some reason, people think he has changed his profession…

    4. Reform need a clear message. Three points that they keep repeating.

      Put the public first
      Reduce debt
      Create real growth

      Detail why on their website.

      1. A chum of mine who's paralyzed from the waist down goes to conventions as Davros/a Dalek. He made the frame, chassis, does the make up. It's very impressive.

        Which is partly why when I see a kid saying he has a 'bad back' or depression I think '[expletive]'.

        1. I used to have a radio ham friend who was blind and in a wheelchair. He still held down a job (techie). No time for snowflakes.

    1. It's not about what's right or wrong. It's about controlling how people behave. The green con is just a hoax tax scam to take as much money from the earner as possible and move it to the state, prevent human freedoms and choices and eventually force complete state control over your life.

      Which'll be funny when there's no energy.

      When plod cars can't run I'll be walking, collecting folk along the way to find MPs responsible. Then they will be punished. What will they do? What could they do?

  23. An international newspaper has blamed “remote elites” for losing sight of issues important to working- and middle-class Europeans for the results of the Euro election. It predicted that the results were not outliers but “foreshadowed the continent becoming more conservative and far-right leaning.” and that “This trend will likely overturn Europe’s policies on immigration, green transition and its support for Ukraine,” the state newspaper predicted.

    It went on to say that “Europe is mired in deep crisis now. The continent’s current political elites’ rule has failed to solve its problems,” lamenting that “remote elite” leaders had failed to retain the trust of the public. it also suggested that the results were not just a protest vote against the left but that “Europe will continue turning conservative and right-leaning, as the mainstream parties have failed to curb the right-wing forces in the past five years.

    That newspaper was The Global Times, the international mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Government!

      1. It didn’t work for me, no jab, no Covid, but still breathing!

        Weird eh?

        1. Me too. Mind, no Covid ‘cause I didn’t indulge in stuffing sticks right up my nose either. I did waggle one in the general direction then spat on it but Our NHS lost that one so I was spared.

          2. I mean that the likes of me are commonplace. I cannot be lucky as I'm in the majority. It would be like alighting from an aircraft in one piece and saying, 'Phew, that was lucky'.

      3. I took the booster but still got covid and decided not to have any more. I was always of the opinion that the testing of the vaccine has not been carried out over a long enough period to establish its safety.

      4. You might also have had no covid if you hadn't had the jab, which was the experience of many people too.

    2. A council wonk I know tests himself regularly for covid. As soon as he gets a positive response he takes a week off work.

      So far this he has had covid 6 times. Still manages to play lacrosse though.

        1. You are one of the few. one of the 1% . So many did. I was shocked. Often shopping we were the only couple not in masks.

  25. Morning all 🙂😊
    Usual outside, grey is the word.
    Woken up by a lot of noise, it seems our almost opposite neighbours are moving from the rented property. Only a 12 month stay. It must have been something we said 🤭

    I think we end up in the same situation at every election since they got rid of Maggie, we no longer have much real choice.
    We all hate the government and hate the possible opposition who might take their place.
    In general the British public hate the constant battle with the hated political classes and Whitehall, from the top down. But unfortunately we are stuck with the useless lot of them.
    Hey ho.

    1. We are only stuck because we insist on being stuck. RE. That's why we need to vote Reform, to break the mould. This election will see the Tories eviscerated. In next election Labour with be loathed as much or more as the Tories are now. That's what we must prepare for. We need to have a non-woke, non-globalist party in place, in parliament, to give power then.

      1. Tom,, yes, we do need change but it isn't from just moving the parties around. You're forgetting the changing demographic of the nation. Labour will force even more diversity on us, even higher taxes – carefully hitting those the stupid poor hate (such as folk paying for private schools, for example), they'll expand welfare and buy their voting block off with my money.

        Then, when elections come around the proles will voting Labour again because their lives have got easier. Oh, they'll grumble about things, but because they're so damned thick they won't be able to put 2 and 2 together to realise what's going on until it's too late.

        1. All true wib, Labour will do exactly as the Tories have done for the last 14 years, which is why we need the biggest ‘far right’ backlash possible.

      1. There are too many who vote for the state to give them more of other people's money full stop. That they have a vote is 90% of the problem.

    3. That's the fundamental problem no one is addressing. Government is a giant toddler, pottering around, smashing up the furniture, raiding the fridge, pooing everywhere, throwing his toys around and having endless tantrums when it doesn't get it's way.

      The public – those paying for the toddler – must say no, firmly and put it back in it's cot and keep it there.

      I hasten to add when Junior was a toddler and potty training we did have some accidents but, to his great credit he would come and tell me or his mother (usually me as she was oft at work) and we'd clear them up together.

      1. Agreed.
        But the only way to get this nation back on its feet is to clear out, including the Lords the whole of Westminster and Whitehall.
        All of them put together have been responsible for wrecking everything with in the shores of the UK.

        1. Restoring the Lords to herediatries only would be a start.
          They take a longer view and many have proper qualifications other than a few years Spadding.

          1. Never going to happen though is it? Both sides of the commons like to elevate people for favours.

    1. Does anyone remember the clackers from the 1970s? This was derived from a Maori traditional dance, whereby women greet prospective male invaders with a demonstration of a testicular injury in a women's sport if they ever tried it on.

  27. Rishi Sunak cut £108 million from the Natioanl Citizen Service. The NCS was designed specially for 16 and 17 year olds, the NCS experience exists to engage, unite and empower young people, building your confidence so you can go out there and achieve your dreams, no matter where you’re from or what your background is.

    The proposed budget for National Service is £2.5 billion

    1. The whole thing is a nonsense. If kids are forced into it, then all you're getting is a slovenly, vicious youth who will make trouble for everyone else.

      For those who would volunteer, they're already doing this sort of thing through markets. An entire day's government waste to achieve… what? How would folk get around? What will they be doing? Who will provide the equipment, tools? How will that not be stolen by the diversity?

      He was grasping at straws, desperate for something, anything to resonate with the public. It's al about spending, what they will spend. There is never any interest in what they will NOT spend, what must be cut. It's just a pointless popularity contest with both sides desperate to tell you how much more of your money they will waste than the other fools.

      1. They could very cheaply have expanded the Duke of Edinburgh Awards Scheme. But as with groups like the Scouts and Guides it doesn't really appeal to those at the bottom as you have to put in some effort.
        And of course Labour feels all these groups are elitist.

          1. I'm not sure that any of us would wish our mistakes from 40 years ago to be dragged up.

    1. This was for the celebration of a career criminal who used fake notes to buy goods while high on drugs and when arrested, resisted arrest and was restrained.

      I don't se what the fuss is about. One fewer vermin off the street. But in the Left wing mind, the criminal is to be praised and the law enforcer sent to jail.

    2. Why is the brother of a druggie career criminal dancing on the White House lawn next to the President?
      Talk about a picture being worth a thousand words (of an election manifesto).

    3. Dear oh dear. And USA has the cheek to call him President. Poor man. Parading him like that is so disrespectful and demeaning. Officials should be ashamed of themselves.

      1. You can get around that by going jam cream jam. Or… cream jam cream. Some folk go a bit mad and go jam cream cream jam.

          1. "Fairy cake?"

            Is that what soft southerners call a bun?🧁

            Yanks call buns "cupcakes", but they would, wouldn't they?

          3. Strictly speaking, you is rite.
            However, buns can also mean the easy cakes you make with your children when you can't face another batch of grey pastry laced with dog hair.

          4. Yanks, for some obscure reason, and some southerners, call breadcakes (roll, cobs, baps, teacakes, batches, etc, etc) "buns" FFS!

            You do not put a hamburger in a 'bun'.

          6. Up north we don't mince our words. All small doughy or cakey comestibles are called buns.

          7. When aah wez a bairn, we had buns and bread bun. Buns were made from a sponge cake mix and bread buns, as the name suggests, bread dough.

        1. Unless the jam is loose like a compote and you spoon it on top of the cream. :@)

          3. Mostly a matter of pectin. I'm no expert but then my other half was a maker and provider of pickles and preserves at farmers' markets, meaning I've had the full lecture. I shall refer anyone that disagrees to her 😆

            Oh, if any Americans reading this? Please don't argue with her that they've got jam over there, either.

          4. Yanks don't have jam. They have jelly. Or worse jello.

            You can add a high pectin fruit to your strawberry jam or leave it out for compote.

          5. Jello indeed. To be fair I've never actually heard one argue they have jam. It's mostly Brits who do that who think jam ought to be made without sugar or some substitute.

          6. 'Jell-O' is the Yanks' brand name for what we call jelly (wobbly jelly).

            'Jelly' is what Yanks call jam.

          8. There is a Jello museum just iotside Rochester in New York.

            Hardly worth visiting.

          9. Oi!

            My boss will take on your boss about the aspersions that you are casting upon her abilities.

            She has been working with a fundraising group at the hospital for about five years now as they make jams, jellies and various pickles for sale at farmers markets.

            They do not make compôte because I cannot find the ô on this keyboard.

          10. At least a sensible reason for not making compôte! I can’t complain about quality or taste of it. Even though I can find the character ok, please don’t get your boss to talk to my boss. It’s cold enough round here as it is 🥺.

          11. Mostly a matter of pectin. I'm no expert but then my other half was a maker and provider of pickles and preserves at farmers' markets, meaning I've had the full lecture. I shall refer anyone that disagrees to her 😆

            Oh, if any Americans reading this? Please don't argue with her that they've got jam over there, either.

          14. I just love winding Philip up.

            After all, he takes great delight in attempting to wind me up. 🤣

          20. That's Krautspeak – compote in English!

            compote (n.)
            1690s, "fruit preserved in syrup," from French compote "stewed fruit, fruit preserved in syrup," from Old French composte (13c.) "mixture, compost," from Vulgar Latin *composita, fem. of compositus "placed together," past participle of componere "to put together, to collect a whole from several parts," from com "with, together" (see com-) + ponere "to place" (past participle positus; see position (n.)). Etymologically the same word as compost (n.).

          28. Compost – English for chucking everything into a heap and hoping it will be good for plants.

          29. That's Krautspeak – compote in English!

            compote (n.)
            1690s, "fruit preserved in syrup," from French compote "stewed fruit, fruit preserved in syrup," from Old French composte (13c.) "mixture, compost," from Vulgar Latin *composita, fem. of compositus "placed together," past participle of componere "to put together, to collect a whole from several parts," from com "with, together" (see com-) + ponere "to place" (past participle positus; see position (n.)). Etymologically the same word as compost (n.).

      4. Neither jam nor cream have any place on a scone.

        Scones should always contain dried fruit (currants and sultanas for preference) — 'plain' scones are bird food.

        They should be lavishly spread with good quality butter, nothing else.

        1. But not real gravy. It is white with chunks of chewed up meat floating in it.

          Disgusting to look at but not too bad although it ruins a good buttermilk biscuit.

    2. Aaarrggghhhhhh ……………………
      They've mispronounced scone.
      We know the Scots do it regularly, but then their men wear skirts, so what can we expect?

          1. Phew! I was concerned there 😁

            My other half is always a “scohne”-er. Dreadful habit.

        3. I asked the girl with dulcet tone,
          To order me a buttered scone.
          The silly girl has been and gone,
          And ordered me a buttered scone.

          That little ditty, seen framed on a wall in a north Norfolk café, takes all the pretentiousness out of how people prefer to pronounce the word. Neither way is 'right' and neither way is 'wrong'. Just a personal preference.

          1. Ha, Norfolk-ites can’t talk. They doont even use the King’s English, bouy!

    1. Morning wibbly. Bizarre wasn't it? Mr Shapps obviously thinks you're to blame for their poor showing since 2010.

  31. A 17-year-old boy who works part-time at Pizza Hut drives up to park in front of the house in a beautiful Porsche.
    Naturally, his parents know that there’s no way he earned enough with his after-school job to buy such a car.
    “Where did you get that car?” his mom and dad screamed in shock.
    “I bought it today,” replied the teen calmly.
    “With what money young man?” his mom demands. “We know how much a Porsche costs and you cannot afford it!”
    The boy explains, “Well, it’s used, and I got a good deal. This one only cost me 20 dollars.”

    Shocked, his mom exclaims, “Who on earth would sell a car like that for 20 dollars?!”

    “The woman up the street,” the boy replies. “I don’t know her name – she just moved in. She ordered a pizza, and when I delivered it to her, she asked me if I wanted to buy a Porsche for 20 dollars.”

    Unable to contain their curiosity and anger, the boy’s dad and mom rush over to their new neighbor’s house, ready to demand an explanation. To their surprise, they find their new neighbor calmly planting flowers in her front yard.

    Approaching her with determination, the dad speaks up, “I’m the father of the kid you just sold a sports car to for $20. I need an explanation from you!”

    The woman, still focused on her gardening, looks up and calmly responds, “Well, this morning, I received a phone call from my husband. I thought he was on a business trip in Florida, but it turns out he has run off to Hawaii with his secretary and has no intention of coming back.”

    Perplexed, the mom interjects, “What on earth does that have to do with selling our son a Porsche for $20?”

    Smiling brightly, the new neighbor pauses for a moment before answering, “Well, my husband asked me to sell his new Porsche and send him the money. So, I did.”

    1. It would cost him more than the Porsche is worth to insure it though. Bonuses don't pay themselves.

    3. A joke always worth retelling. Even knowing the punchline I enjoyed it again. Thanks.

  32. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/12/nigel-farage-man-charged-objects-thrown/

    Everyone: The kind and caring Left. First a milkshake, now this. The Left simply can't help themselves. They hate, unthinkingly, absolutely everything they cannot force to be like them. They are fascists. Always have been. This sort of person should have been erased from this country. Their mindset crushed under the treads of common sense, logic and reason, kicked in the face with evidence of why they are wrong. But no. They carry on, blindly following their forebears in abusing those they hate.

  33. Morning, all Y'all.
    Cloudy, rain showers, but now I don't care so very much, as I cut the grass on Monday, so no urgency to get the stuff to dry and be cuttable.

    2. Okay put your hand up Obs, the weather is all your fault. Our neighbour who lives in France tells me that the Froglès are blaming us. 🤗🤭

      1. The Froglès blame us for everything. Just sail serenely by as if you haven't noticed their chirruping in the background. It annoys them to death.

        1. When our boys were young we use to go to different parts of France for our summer holidays every year. We loved it and apart from the long drives, it was easy. Mid Eighties early 90s.
          What happened ?

          1. I know, sad isn't it. We used to go to the Languedoc a lot where their attitude to the English is completely different. Mind you, their attitude to the rest of France is different too.

            I first encountered it in a small village near Beziers. I was in a tabac looking for a post card. I stood in the queue. Two men together were served quickly at the front and left. The middle aged bloke serving waved me forward in front of the man in front of me. I obviously did the English thing – "he's before me". "No he's not", came the reply. "Parisienne!" What was astounding was that the Parisienne in question just looked a bit cowed and ushered me forward too.

            It was August when Paris goes on holiday en masse to plague the life out of what those in the Languedoc consider to be a foreign country.

          2. I've always found the French to be friendly – but then, I do speak French very well 🙂

          3. I spent holidays in my late teens hitchhiking in France. The truth is I met lots of very kind people. Many times looking for directions in a village I would be bundled into a car and driven to my destinations. I particularly remember when I was 15 a kind couple inviting me and a friend to supper and spend the night in their family home. Even took us to Mass Sunday morning and the mother gave us money for the collection plate.
            French reputation for ratbaggery is of course not unjustified and I could give examples, but on the whole I would consider them some of the kindest people in Europe despite the horror stories.

          4. I too, in South of France that is. I speak French with a heavy Languedoc accent, probably since I was taught it from age 11 in school by a headmaster who used to holiday there in the sixties. The locals immediately respond to me although it takes a week or two for fluency to return to me when I go there.

            In Paris, however, on my first experience of the city, I stepped off the Euro train at Gard du Nord and we went into a restaurant adjacent. I spoke in French to the waiter who regarded me with a face resembling ossified fossil before announcing in perfect English: “stop talking like that. You sound like a fucking peasant!” 🤣

            I had to laugh but of course also had absolutely no need of French that long weekend thereafter. The experience didn’t make me dislike the French, but then I like a level of rough earthiness in people.

          5. We did too – right through the eighties. Last time I was in France was in 96 or 7.

    1. I have Islamomisia! I loathe them.

      Any fear I may have is definitely not 'irrational'.

      1. Morning Grizz, it not true that they should not and do not gamble?
        If as I have thought for some time it is true. Why did I see a woman on the TV program Tipping Point playing for money and wearing the Islamic regalia not quite the full burka but not far off.
        What point are our broadcasters actually trying to make ?

          1. They are pushing their luck a little further each year since they first arrived.

        2. I was selling draw tickets once in the office and a Muslim colleague wouldn't buy them, though she did give me a donation. She did wear the full black outfit with a coloured hijab and you could see quite nice clothes underneath the black garb.

      1. Probably out hunting down anyone who insults The Prophet, along with the government, Queers for Palestine, lefty media, the civil service, your local council and anyone else who considers themselves a member of the cognoscenti.

      2. Probably not recorded in a country that has hate speech laws of the kind we have in the UK. I very much doubt it was in the UK itself. However, the voice is an overdub, so how are we to know whether or not it's a translation of what was originally said?

        1. The words behind him – yayasan, menjunjung and pusat pengajian – are Malaysian.

        2. I would not want my daughter to marry a radical Muslim; would you?

          (No worries, I do not have a daughter – but do you?)

          1. No offspring but, if I had a daughter, I'd not be comfortable with such a union, although your bait is somewhat tangential to the point about the video clip and its translation.

      3. 388426+ up ticks,

        Afternoon D,
        It cannot be considered to be in my book a hate crime if it is a true fact.

        I believe it was rather sporting of the old raghead to forewarn us as to the true fact,s if we are to dumb to take heed then we surely deserve all we are about to receive, amen.

    5. Religion of Peace (c), innit?

      copyright Al -Beeb, Grauniad, all politicians etc

  35. Bon Jewer!
    Wordle 1,089 4/6

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

        1. When I broke up from a boyfriend in 1964, he gave me a record token and I bought one of hers with it.

  38. This is beyond the joke.
    I have closed the kitchen door and added a fleecy waistcoat to my several layers of clothing.
    Time to chuck a Doom Goblin into the latest erupting volcano to appease the Gods of Nut Zero.

          1. Really? It was a standard when I was growing up across the border. I always thought it originated in Derbyshire because of the link to sheep.

        2. in my childhood we wore a liberty bodice and a vest! I think I persuaded Mum to let me leave the lb off in my early teens !

          7. We certainly had vests. And ankle socks until we were in our teens.

            "The past is a foreign country" L. P. Hartley

          8. And school bloomers, which we tucked up.
            Except for one girl (a change of life baby, methinks) who wore them with the elasticated leg ends down at her knees.

          9. We didn't have bloomers, but our netball and lacrosse divided skirts were definitely not far above the knee.

          1. She was so self-confident that she didn't realise what an awful tw*t she was making of herself. Narcissist, anyone?

          2. She was so self-confident that she didn't realise what an awful tw*t she was making of herself. Narcissist, anyone?

    2. 13⁰C in my garden today. It's the warmest cold spell in June since records began, announced the BBC.

    4. Agreed. Even if it didn't appease Demeter, it would make the rest of us feel better.

  40. Germany is descending into chaos – and it will take the rest of the eurozone down with it. 12 June 2024.

    First, it based its economic model on cheap Russian gas, fuelling an industrial machine built on chemicals and automobiles that requires huge amounts of energy (one BASF plant consumes more gas than the whole of Switzerland). Its nuclear plants were closed down on a whim, fracking was ignored even though Germany has abundant shale oil and gas, and wind and solar power were not built quickly enough to replace it.

    The result? When Vlaidimir Putin invaded Ukraine and the gas was turned off, German industry was left with some of the highest energy costs in the world, destroying its competitiveness at a stroke. Meanwhile, the Merkel government encouraged huge increases in immigration, using the same arguments familiar to the UK about an ageing population requiring lots of young people to fill all the vacancies.

    Though this is true insofar as it goes the destruction of NordStream 2 by the Americans was what triggered the collapse.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk…

  41. Cupcakes are about twice the size – and that's before you add lots of whipped buttercream and sprinkles.

    1. Yes quite. I've started referring to the government and opposition as minority issue pressure groups now. It's about right I reckon.

    1. MB and I have been watching with our hearts in our mouths.
      He/She seems to be getting along. Often the runt of the litter ends up as the toughest.

  45. Yay! I just received my booster jab letter! I thought they'd forgotten me….but our post only comes every few days now. "You are a priority……" they can sod off with their toxic brew. We both got letters but mine was in a brown envelope and his was in a white one with the NHS logo. How much more are they going to waste on this rubbish?

    1. The NHS are mostly leaving me along but EDF make up for it by telling me every few days that they're legally obliged to come and install a smart meter. The irony is the lie about inaccurate readings. The readings on the mechanical meter are consistent, as is my usage, while the "smart" set up would allow them to falsify readings at will.

      1. This time around the boosters are only for those over 75 (as they think we are stupid enough to fall for the “vulnerable” line) but Scottish Power have been trying to get us to have a smart meter as well. So far we’ve resisted. I expect them to send in the heavies at some stage.

        1. Scottish Power keep trying to tell me my meter is too old and needs to be replaced – with a "smart" meter, of course. I keep ignoring them. They seem to have given up for the moment.

    2. How much more are they going to waste on this rubbish?

      That will depend on how many jabs are currently in stock after the mass purchase mania. They've p'd billions up the wall on this craze and they want their money's worth.

      I am harbouring doubts about the incoming Avian Flu jabs: will it be the current bio-weapon to use up stocks followed by an enhanced potion with an update or two to enhance its "efficacy"? If you get my drift.

      1. Whatever it is i don’t want it. The man who was supposed to have died from bird flu recently apparently had other comorbidities which were the real cause of his demise.

      2. That would be the avian flu that is suddenly leapfrogging from one species to another?
        Conveniently after WHO has arrogated to itself powers to close down entire countries.

    3. It's almost as bad as all the election Flyers we get through the letter box. The bigger and brighter the posters are, the more like you are to vet for them…………..they think !!!

      1. I haven’t seen any election flyers yet. We’ll see if they influence my decision at all.

      2. I doubt I'll get any election flyers apart from the post office mailing that all parties are entitled to. Even activists don't feel inclined to brave the potholes in the dirt track and then fight their way through the jungle that is the back path after they've steeled their courage to ignore the "Beware of the Dog" (Gwyliwch i ci) sign on the gate.

        1. Speak of the devil – the postie has just delivered one from the limp dims. It's gone straight on the fire.

    4. I had one today.
      For my Spring convid jab.
      Either the weather's confuddled them or they're referring to next year.
      Either way, it has been filed under B for Bin.

  46. Just had a test of the air-raid warning system – sirens outside, and all mobile phones going "EEEEEEEE" – with a message that this is a test. This has been on the news for a day or two, the systems test
    Really rather eerie. I hate the sirens!

    2. We had one here in April last year. I set my phone to reject them, but as we were on a train at the time we got them anyway.

  48. How Jacinda Ardern almost drove New Zealand to blackouts – and why Starmer should be worried. 12 June 2024.

    The ban was announced by former prime minister Jacinda Ardern in 2018.

    “The world has moved on from fossil fuels,” Ardern proclaimed at the time.New Zealand’s trailblazing policy, which was the first of its kind, became a key inspiration for the Labour Party’s own plan.

    However, some in the party are now questioning the commitment after New Zealand resources minister Shane Jones last weekend denounced its own ban as a disaster – and revoked it.

    These people can do nothing right.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk…

    1. I am looking to move away from electricity as much as I can – oil and solid fuel heating the water rather than an immersion and Calor gas and solid fuel for cooking rather than an electric stove.

  50. Two and a half hours useful garden work completed. Tomatoes planted out. Original outdoor ones tied up and blighted leaves removed. They have an equal chance. The "spares" are magnificent three times the size of the "originals" – though all were sown on the same day back in March. Treated with Bordeaux Mixture. Greenhouse half sorted – that to be completed this afternoon.

    The sky is grey but dry and, thank God, NO WIND blowing – first time for weeks that it has been still.

    Have I missed any excitement?

      1. It will be cold – but it is the LAST cold night for a couple of weeks – so everything will have a chance to start growing.

          1. Slugs make hedgehogs ill – they carry lungworm. It is a fallacy that they are hedgehog food. They have to be desperate to eat them or snails. Their natural food is insects and larvae and earthworms.

    4. The picture is more than 10 years old. It's a stock photo used hundreds of times.

  52. Not so Fake News Flash

    This cold snap and the havoc with flooding in Southern Europe has all been caused by a sudden deficiency in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

    We must all start burning fossil fuels for transport, electricity and domestic heating without delay.

    The government will immediately impose very heavy taxes on electrical cars so that people are forced back into ICE cars which use petrol and diesel.

        1. You had to live in the Scottish Highlands and be outdoors at night to truly appreciate how much milder than usual the month had been. For the bulk of us in England and Wales, asleep at night, not so much. The average does not pertain to where most people live and when they sleep.

          2. From Aragon in the Spanish interior

            21°C

            Wednesday 14:38 Partly cloudy

            And we sat on a terrace last night very cold and had to come home.

          5. Isn’t the measurement usually taken on the tarmac of a busy airport? Then the use it to comment on the trend since the 18th century.

          6. Average temperature (Day/Night) at Dalcross (near Inverness):

            1992-2021 = 14/7
            May 24 = 12/7

            Just one weather station obviously but neither my son in Aberdeen nor my previous neighbours and friends in the Hebrides reckon May was any different than normal.

    1. I first thought this was recent – a long lost German bomb discovered in Devonport, Plymouth – then I looked again and saw that the man looking up doesn't look modern, then the initials IWM – Imperial War Museum – more or less confirmed it was taken soon after the bomb dropped. The image is in the Imperial War Museum's collection. All the same, these were very brave souls. I presume it was taken to a location where it could be either safely exploded or defused.

      https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205147185

  54. I've been trying to log in as usual on my PC.
    I seem to have been frozen out of my email account virgin media. And I can't access NOTTLERS. Lots of numbers and letters leading to =U531 might be having issues or it might have moved permanently to a new Web address. ???? Any thoughts? Q

    1. SMTP error 531 is a common issue that occurs when sending emails. It is usually caused by the recipient’s email server being full or having storage limitations, which prevents it from accepting new messages.

      Unfortunately the only way to resolve it generally is to contact them to let them know. Either that or wait for it to go away, since they might have a technical problem going on.

    3. How peculiar I have just found an old link on my screen from March. Clicked on Geoff's name and todays link came up ???? Mind boggling.

    4. How come we can read your post?
      I hardly ever have to log in – I just shut the lid on the laptop and it's all there again when I open it.
      On the phone there's a symbol to click on.

      1. Because I posted from my mobile.
        There was problem with our Internet connection. i had to sick the end of a paper clip into a tiny hole on the back. It rebooted, it's so annoying 😡grrr.

    1. If you’re wondering whether you’re living in tyranny, ask yourself how many of his political opponents Joe Biden is sending to prison. Steve Bannon is the latest.

      Afternoon Johnathan I'm not wondering at all. I know.

          1. Not only do I get physical exercise, I engage in conversation with others, which Dr Sandison reckons is food for the brain. I could, of course, stay at home and shout at the television but it never responds. It just carries on as if it hasn't heard me.

          2. I also engage in conversation with others – not just my neighbours, but strangers who think Kadi is cute and want to talk. I also exercise my vocal cords and express my opinions should I put the TV on, but that is a rare occurrence outside the racing festivals.

        1. Tricycling I hear. My dad was given an adult tricycle after his lower leg amputation in the late 60s. It had a gear/pedal adjustment that enabled him to use it with an unbendable false right leg. He found it impossible to use. When 2 friends asked me to ride with them to the south coast from Richmond and my bicycle was broken I ‘stole’ his trike (he never used it). Possibly one of the worst days of my life. Steering was almost impossible (I’m not sure why). On the way past Chessington some bastard shot me in the arse with an air rifle (I must have looked odd and a prime target). We got about halfway to Worthing and I told my friends I was turning back and they agreed to return too.

          On the uphill stretch, north of Guildford, I’d finally had enough, got off, and let it roll downhill to a distant garage, the first time it had steered true all bloody day.
          I haven’t told that tale for 50 years or more, but it’s the gospel truth.

          1. I can identify with that. Trying to avoid the trike when getting the car out of the garage tonight, I caught the wing mirror on the garage door and broke the fitting. I am beginning to wonder if it wasn’t an ill-thought out move 🙁

          2. As for the steering I wonder if it's because steering a bike you have to lean into the turn, which I suppose you don't have to do with the trike but unconsciously do.

          3. I have come to the conclusion that you need to be centrally balanced on the trike and not to hold the handlebars tightly. A slight shift of weight going round corners is advantageous, apparently. I certainly got on better with it yesterday, but today the weather has been foul and I’ve been busy so it’s stayed in the garage.

    3. While much of that strikes me as credible and sensible for reasons other than just delaying or stopping dementia, it nonetheless reads like an advertorial. Is it anything other than a plug for Dr. Heather Sandison's book?

    4. I like the idea of strength training helping my brain. I'd be very very clever if it were true!

  58. Started off so well…and then only 5

    Wordle 1,089 5/6

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

    1. Donations have fallen off a cliff, haven't they? I thought big fat state had then said 'right, if you won't voluntarily pay for criminal foreigners to invade this country and enjoy things you cannot have then we will force you to' and gave the RNLI the cash.

      1. I've extracted the RNLI's income for three years from its two most recent annual reports. Overall, its income has continued to increase, particularly donations, although note how "Other – including Government subsidies" has dropped sharply, but the cost of generating it has also risen, suggesting its having to work harder to raise its funds.

        2022 2021 2020
        £M £M £M

        Legacies 140.8 137.6 131.5
        Donation 66.5 60.2 47.1
        Trading (net) 5.4 6.0 3.5
        Charitable trading 4.4 4.2 2.6
        Investments (net) 3.0 0.8 1.1
        Other – including Government subsidies 1.5 5.4 8.3

        Total Net Income 221.6 214.2 194.1

        Cost of generating income (44.2) (32.5) (23.5)

        Net income available for charitable spend 177.4 181.7 170.6

        https://rnli.org/-/media/rnli/downloads/agm/22512651_ara_2022_dc_v9_download_protected.pdf?rev=dfa7e2838c5343be8003b5f1db881ecf&hash=83C5B1DA1ABAF5B240C723225D4C6606
        https://rnli.org/-/media/rnli/downloads/about_us/2021_rnli_annual_report_and_accounts_online_public.pdf?rev=732fbcecf9394fa5ae56b378efc1b374&hash=F347E11C6E56A1A4CC62F66413E4F51E

        1. Unfortunately, my attempt to align the columns of figures has been thwarted by Disqus, which has disregarded the spacing I typed in.

        2. Perhaps the quickest way to discourage the taxi service would be to make those that land the gimmegrants pay for their upkeep.

          I wonder what the volunteer crews of the RNLI really think about what they are being obliged to do.

    2. As a Shoreline member I used to get the RNLI magazine.

      They are very happy to report daring rescues in storms of yachtsmen and mariners but very reticent about their activities in ferrying illegal immigrants across the channel free of charge.

    3. That's why we have defunded the RNLI. A bit hard on the folk who are in real need of rescue, but lines need drawn somewhere.

      1. I wrote them out when all this started. What's left of my money is going to the local hospice. Which doesn't qualify for government funding.

  60. I see that Fishi's parents were "too poor" to acquire SKY TV and a dish because they were paying school fees.

    Hmmm.

    I suspect rather that Mr and Mrs Fishi thought that SKY was not worth having.

    1. A satellite dish wasn’t such a big deal. We had one when my children were young and my kids are only a couple of years younger than the PM.

    2. His mother was a pharmacist in Southampton so not drenched in money. That came with his wife.

        1. I doubt very much that he would have watched Sky anyway. He would have been busy with studying and extra curricula activities not practicing to be a couch potato.

          1. Quite. It is yet another of his fatuous un-thought through remarks to make his "seem" normal…

      2. His father was a GP.
        I suspect taste, rather than lack of the readies, was the reason for their lack of Sky reception.

        1. Quite. It makes him look silly. Though the tactic could backfire. Keir Starmer’s great grandfather lived in a castle.

  61. Well, well, well…

    The Guardian has just released the news of their latest hire:

    “We are pleased to share the news that we have appointed Amber de Botton as our new chief communications officer.

    A journalist for almost two decades, Amber was deputy head of politics at Sky News before moving to ITV News, where she was head of politics and then head of UK news. At ITV News, Amber led teams across the UK covering the death of Queen Elizabeth II, managed exclusives like Partygate, and oversaw investigations including care homes during Covid and social housing, which led to changes in the law.

    Amber managed coverage for several UK elections and negotiated multiple TV debates including the first ever televised head-to-head debate in the UK. Amber then served as Communications Director at 10 Downing Street from 2022-23, where she was in charge of the UK Government’s communications strategy.”

    De Botton left Downing Street in September last year after Rishi’s Chief of Staff told aides to quit if they don’t believe the Tories can win. “Managed exclusives like Partygate”…

  62. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    How will Remainers cope with a right-wing Europe?
    Comments Share 12 June 2024, 12:14pm
    I love to make up new words and see them gradually used more by others – for a writer, there’s no greater thrill. My brilliant ‘cry-bully’ – coined in this magazine back in 2015 – has probably been the most successful, to the point where it’s sometimes amusingly used by cry-bullies themselves, Owen ‘Talcum X’ Jones being the wettest and most bellicose example. Then there’s ‘Frankenfeminism’ (centering the fetishes of cross-dressing men over the rights of women while identifying as a feminist) and ‘Transmaids’ (the people who do this.)

    But the one I’m most pleased with, though the least used, is Le Grand Bouder, or – to translate it into a lovelier and more popular language – The Big Sulk.

    In extreme cases, Brits suffering from BDS even left these sceptered isles to seek ‘refuge’ in France and Germany from the alleged crypto-fascism of Brexit Britain
    Referring to the inability of some Remainers to get over the fact that they lost the referendum fair and square, this condition often leads to Brexit Derangement Syndrome. I’ve seen this mental affliction transport its followers into a realm of magical thinking only reached otherwise by the most extreme of the trans-brigade. For instance, cult members will often identify as younger than they are; think of the then 68-year-old Ian McEwan relishing the idea of ‘oldsters, Brexiters, freshly in their graves’. During a social media spat, a Remainer told me to move over and make way for the youth, of which he was one – he’s three years older than me!

    One can only imagine what these poor befuddled souls are going through now, with the right (which these days pretty much refers to anyone who doesn’t believe in literally limitless immigration) on the up throughout mainland Europe. In extreme cases, Brits suffering from the terminal stage of BDS even left these sceptered isles in order to seek ‘refuge’ in France and Germany from the alleged crypto-fascism of Brexit Britain. I can’t imagine anything more delicious than hearing these hysterics now trying to justify why they’re living in countries which (by their definition, not mine) are or are about to be ‘right-wing’ while back here in deplorable old Blighty, a Labour government is set to romp to power in a few weeks’ time. An octopus playing Twister would look straightforward compared to this lot.

    What this sequence of events will throw into mercilessly sharp relief is that – as Gareth Roberts summed up so pithily on X – ‘the Remain movement was never about Europe, really. It was about British snobbery.’ It was never about having the freedom to wander. Britons were travelling to and living in Europe long before the EU was even a gleam in Konrad Adenauer’s eye – think of a penniless Laurie Lee in 1934 deciding to go to Spain on a whim and ending up assisting the anti-fascists. Or the artists colonies on the Greek islands which acted as a magnet for the louche of all nations, or the teenage Beatles first residency in Hamburg.

    No, blind belief in the EU was an early example of the ‘luxury beliefs’, the phrase coined by Rob Henderson in 2019 to describe the way espousing certain opinions is mainly done to signify superiority to the ‘herd’.

    The most passionate EU-ophiles were signalling that they were not of the ‘left behind’ classes, thrown on the scrapheap in abandoned industrial towns. These Remainers weren’t the ones cut out of even the most humble jobs by an influx of cheap foreign labour running roughshod over the unionisation it had taken the British proletariat so much effort to achieve. On the contrary, they were those who hired cheap Eastern European cleaners and builders, keen to cut corners and save money while painting their choice as being somehow an affirmation of the international brotherhood of man. The gap between the puffed-up fantasy self-image and the tawdry reality of the most rabid of the Remainers was revealed in the days following the referendum result, when the ‘swivel-eyed’ and ‘spittle-flecked’ persona they had attempted to paint Brexiteers as came home to roost.

    During the campaign I was repelled by the casual arrogance and bad manners of many Remainers and their open loathing of the proletariat; Bob Geldof being accused of mocking fisherman on the Thames, Will Self snarling at the black working-class writer Dreda Say Mitchell during a debate. But this was nothing compared to how this most entitled of pressure groups reacted when they were beaten fair and square. It was Glastonbury weekend, and the Sunday Times carried the following: ‘The chavs have won, mate,’ one cut-glass raver told his mate. ‘I’m already looking into dual citizenship.’ Elsewhere in the paper a Brighton Remainer commented ‘If you give a vote to every man and his dog, you have to be prepared for the answer you get.’ ‘WELCOME TO CHAV BRITAIN’ was a friend of a friend’s Facebook status the morning of the result. It was an eerie feeling, having presumed that literally everyone I know believed in the principle of one adult citizen, one vote. I suddenly suspected that I’d been hopelessly naive in thinking this, and that some acquaintances secretly believed that people who hadn’t attended university shouldn’t really be allowed to vote on matters of importance, but excluded in the manner of prisoners and lunatics.

    It’s always Brexiteers who were painted as insular misanthropes – but we wanted to embrace the whole wide world, and saw no reason why we should cleave to countries just because they were majority white. Brits often (due to the Commonwealth) have more in common with Bajans than Belgians, or with Australians than Austrians.

    The misanthropy of some Remainers, with their livid Hyacinth Bucket-ish hatred of the white British working class, can no longer be covered up with endless performances of ‘Ode to Joy’. They’ve flounced around feeling superior to the common little oiks who voted Leave for long enough. Now they’re going to see a bonfire of their vanity, as populism – so vulgarly American, my dear! – cuts a swathe through their beloved Europe. They won’t learn any lessons, though. Remaining is now a fully-fledged cult, all about the ‘feels’ rather than the facts. When the facts about Europe turning to the right are put to many Remainers, they generally refuse to even face them, preferring instead to talk about how upset they were by the referendum result – something that happened a whopping eight years ago.

    These are idiots whose fealty to the EU is so hopelessly devoted that I honestly believe that if a united European army of fascists crossed the Channel on U-boats and goose-stepped from Lands End to John O Groats – flying the EU flag – Remainers would still be bleating ‘O, why can’t we rejoin the EU? It’s so civilised’

    But these are difficult days to be an EU groupie. Even over at the Guardian, Polly Toynbee is serenading our spunky little island, swimming again the tide of ‘a fissiparous European far right bound by anti-immigration sentiments’. But this is the very bloc that her kind warned us we would have to keep ahold of lest we be revealed as Little Englanders to a mocking world. I’m feeling a new phrase coming on – maybe Le Grand Bouder has had its day. How about La Grande Gêne – the Great Embarrassment?

    1. The referendum might have taken place eight years ago, but we're still waiting for the result to be implemented! Incidentally I have attended three universities – and I voted to leave.

      1. From Spectator comments Julie Burchill

        Jorge Espinha
        6 minutes ago
        Back when my country joined and the same happened with Britain, the thing was called European Economic Community. It wasn’t a “Union “ . It was about trade not fulfilling Napoleon’s or Hitler’s dream
        −
        G
        Gilian Holroyd
        9 minutes ago
        Gorgeous piece, Julie!
        −
        P
        Prickly Thistle
        18 minutes ago
        I know of several very upper class Leavers – this atrocious snobbery on the part of Remainers is unforgivable.
        −
        W
        Wildrover
        23 minutes ago
        I’ve never ( in the whole history of this issue) ever heard a convincing argument for being IN the EU , the mythology of the benefits of being in were always just that , a myth
        −
        A
        Andrew-Paul Shakespeare
        30 minutes ago
        “Britons were travelling to and living in Europe long before the EU”

        There is a reason the main thoroughfare through Nice is called the Promenade des Anglais!
        −
        W
        WhiteVanMan
        41 minutes ago
        Julie Burchill, one of the top three journos in the UK (if not the best) and has been so for quite some time.
        −
        P
        PGBB aka Ngooozi Fulaaani
        42 minutes ago
        Le Grand Massdebate?
        −
        A
        Andrew-Paul Shakespeare PGBB aka Ngooozi Fulaaani
        19 minutes ago
        Oh very good! 😆
        −
        T
        Ted Smith
        44 minutes ago
        My personal favourite was a vacuous 20 something woman interviewed the morning after the referendum result who was in floods of tears because “I’ll never be able to visit France again now.”

        There really ought to be an intelligence test before you’re allowed to vote.
        −
        S
        Suednym
        an hour ago
        Absolutely bloody right Julie, spot on as usual. Oh, give us a break from these winers and wackos.
        −
        B
        blue2beak
        an hour ago
        Don’t forget the ECHR. As Europe’s far right wins or shares power we could see some interesting appointments as judges.
        −
        C
        CC7 blue2beak
        3 minutes ago
        Good point!
        −
        K
        Kiosk
        2 hours ago
        Obviously, Julie, you need to keep on demonising remainers, but spare a thought for leavers too. They got us out of the far-right-drifting EU and “took back control” on behalf, it now appears, of a Labour party that many of them think is dominated by woke Marxists (whatever they are). Happy with that, are we?
        −
        M
        Michael Cannon
        2 hours ago
        See also ‘boudoir’, a place where ladies go to sulk or practise pouting provocatively, while applying lipstick.
        See also Francoise Hardy.
        −
        8
        80286
        2 hours ago
        The funny thing is a shift to the right… IF it translates into an EU that is more open to the challenges posed by illegal immegration, and returns to a more customs based union rather than the every closer political ‘United States of Europe’ may move in a direction that is more like what the UK was after 10 years ago.
        −
        A
        Ask Zippy
        2 hours ago edited
        Talking of inventing phrases, in response to an article by John Major I used Brexit Derangement Syndrome before I’d heard it in these very comments. I defined it as something like: a mental affliction that can cause a retired senior politician, who is incapable of remembering his biggest failure in office, to write nonsense. I wouldn’t claim to have “invented” the term because I’m confident others also used it independently and I’ll never know who was first.
        −
        A
        Alexander Henry
        2 hours ago
        Its hard to understand why Lords Heseltine, Patten and Clarke are still here. Mind you, £350 a day tax-free, would make me think twice before leaving.
        −
        M
        Mark
        2 hours ago
        Oh dear….and just as I thought the last embers had died…..They’re back!!!

        Rather than La Grande Gêne…can we call them Les grands désagréments. Much better……like dog pooh on the pavement.
        −
        B
        Betty Swollocks E-K
        2 hours ago edited
        There is a failure here, there and everywhere in the West to address the democratic deficit that sees the majority unrepresented.

        I would have happily remained in a conservative minded EU. It now seems that most of the residents of the EU are conservative minded too.

        It is the EU Commission that wields all the power anyway. The Right Wing will not get its way.
        −
        T
        Tyhrtelingas Betty Swollocks E-K
        2 hours ago
        There is also a sizeable extreme conservative demographic too……Islam.
        −
        B
        Bill Thomas
        2 hours ago
        But it ISN’T a right-wing Europe.

        The people elected to the pretendy parliament has NO power or influence. The ghastly, self-appointed mob in Brussels will simply carry on doing what they have always done.
        −
        T
        Ted Smith Bill Thomas
        40 minutes ago
        Yes. Ursula von Sinecure will get another go round on the tax payer teat for no reason other than being a woman and being connected.

        She’s got exactly zero leadership ability.
        −
        S
        Spectator User
        2 hours ago
        I don’t think it’s possible to argue with Remainers now. Perversely, I’ve seen recent argument that the rise in the £’s value against the euro and the dollar is a sign of Brexit failure, eh?? Fed up to the back teeth with the Brexit isn’t done mantra, yes it is now we need trade deals. Trade gap between EU and UK is growing perhaps the EU would look into ways into making it easier, single market (?) no we don’t want freedom of movement we had that battle and we won, and I think the EU population are coming to the same conclusion.
        −
        A
        Analyst
        3 hours ago
        Still talking about Brexit in 2024? amazing…
        −
        P
        Pravda Verify Analyst
        2 hours ago
        I’m still fuming at the repeal of the Corn Laws.
        −
        S
        Sir Eldred Godson GCMG Pravda Verify
        an hour ago
        The Enclosures Acts concern me somewhat… 🙂
        −
        T
        Ted Smith Sir Eldred Godson GCMG
        38 minutes ago
        The loss of weregild is still keeping me up at night.
        −
        P
        PGBB aka Ngooozi Fulaaani Sir Eldred Godson GCMG
        39 minutes ago
        Yes – Oh for the good old days of feudalism…..
        −
        R
        Richard Harvey
        3 hours ago
        believed that people who hadn’t attended university shouldn’t really be allowed to vote on matters of importance. Just remember, Julie, that this is precisely what your beloved suffragettes believed.
        −
        O
        OhAndAnotherThing Richard Harvey
        3 hours ago
        Elaborate please.
        −
        T
        Tom Armstrong OhAndAnotherThing
        3 hours ago
        Pankhurst and the Suffragettes did not want to give the vote to working class women.
        −
        R
        Richard Harvey Tom Armstrong
        2 hours ago
        Indeed, the franchise was only claimed for university-educated women.
        −
        P
        PGBB aka Ngooozi Fulaaani Richard Harvey
        34 minutes ago
        That’s also the belief of many in Europe – I recall a dinner in Netherlands with some European colleagues who were adamant that people with no degree were ‘too schhhtoopid to vote’
        −
        S
        Sir Eldred Godson GCMG PGBB aka Ngooozi Fulaaani
        22 minutes ago
        I know a few EUropean ‘Intellectuals’ (Professors and suchlike) on the distaff side who share that scorn for the common man… Equally I always felt the ingrained slavish ‘respect for authority’ typical of Europeans was a significant difference between ‘us and them’ …
        −
        V
        Valerie Rowe
        3 hours ago edited
        I think it a mistake to believe that Remainers were/are a homogeneous group or that those of us who are/were Remainers did not accept the result. Some did. Some didn’t. I am not left wing and I am in my seventies and always thought Ken Clarke’s opinions were most akin to mine though these days I find I am moving further and further right- still a Remainer though. Still think it was a mistake. Still think it has not given Brexiteers what they wanted . So many now coming here to settle from Pakistan and India and the middle east and far fewer from Europe. Is that what Brexiteers wanted or even expected. Perhaps some did. But some I suspect did not.
        −
        M
        Mulga Bill Valerie Rowe
        an hour ago
        I like the name Valerie.

        “So I called Valerie… I said ‘Valerie, get over here quick with a polaroid!'”
        −
        T
        Tom Armstrong Valerie Rowe
        3 hours ago
        That is down to the spite of Remainers in the ruling class, in revenge for Brexit, not Brexit itself.
        −
        P
        Potted Stilton Tom Armstrong
        3 hours ago
        Boris Johnson, the author of our immigration misery, wasn’t a Remainer. So what are you on about?
        −
        N
        Nick Brown Potted Stilton
        2 hours ago
        Most popular culprit for author of our immigration misery I think you will find would be Anthony Charles Lynton Blair. Though,yes, he too a Remainer, possibly though only because he fancied the re-introduction of the role of Stadtholder or maybe even Holy Roman Emperor.
        −
        T

    1. Yep, it really is time OFCOM were given a thoroughly kicking in the face.

      Much obliged Johnny!

      1. Given the attitudes of our learned bewigged friends, I wouldn't bet on it.

          3. You would approve of it. It is an instrument to promote the BBC's version of the truth and claim that anything that does not fit in with the BBC's view is spreading misinformation or disinformation. It is very much in bed with Ofcom which is determined to silence Steyn for telling the truth about the dangers of Covid gene therapy and the damage they have caused and are still causing..

          5. I think that was a bit uncalled for, Rastus – why do you think David would approve of it?

      3. Yes he was right and Ofcom made a big mistake. they are evil and a big problem trying to end free speech.

  66. You can expect more of this coordinated paid activist work courtesy of trade Union do$h.

    It all started with a call to arms from BARNSLEY TRADE UNION COUNCIL, using their protesting legislation powers, to work alongside Far Left Hate groups who could then target Right wing politicians like Farage.. while everybody else works.
    Unison trade union Leftie stormtrooper steps up and lobs rocks.. then flounces off like a big cry-bully.
    https://x.com/UnmaskedAntifa/status/1800642037970075706

    1. Antifa [sic] will no doubt accuse the police of being far-right f-f-f-f-f-f-fascists for arresting one of theirs for street violence…

  68. Afternoon, all. I'm here early because I've got an AGM to attend tonight. As a Trustee, I need to be there.

    Sunak and Co have had years to actually "deliver" what they are now promising – or should that be pledging? They haven't. That means after they've conned voters yet again, it will be business as usual.

    Trike update (not that I think you're interested, but I'm pleased): I didn't wobble at all today and managed to get farther, not just in a straight line but also round corners. A week or so continual progress and I might be able to cycle down to the shops (which is why I bought it in the first place).

    1. Don't fool yourself. We are interested in your three wheel antics. Got some panniers for that shopping?

      Personally i would have bought an E-Bike Trike. Practically drive themselves. On my E-Bike going up the steepest of hills is a doddle.

      1. I do have panniers, but they fit the bike. There is a basket (not yet assembled and fitted). I don't fancy e-bikes. The whole point of cycling is to get fit.

        1. True, but does it have to be all or nothing? I would like to have a bicycle, but I know that I would only be able to do so much without a bit of help. The point of having a bike would be to do as much as possible and I'm thinking of getting one when we move.

          1. I don't have to charge a pedal (i e non-E) bike. It will be ready whenever I reverse it out of the garage without me having to think ahead. Given the price of electricity, it's going to be cheaper to run as well.

          4. I used to ride when I was a child – I was crazy about horses (well, ponies n my case, except when I was lucky enough to ride on a parental friend’s Arab mare – I believe Arabs are horses at 14.2 hands)?

  69. Feared drug cartels are using 'unlimited' supply of child migrants in Europe as foot soldiers to shift cocaine threaten them with rape and torture if they fail to sell enough, investigation finds

    Europe's booming illicit drug market is worth at least €31 billion (£26 billion)
    Drug kingpins see desperate underage migrants as ideal targets for recruitment.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13521201/Feared-drug-cartels-using-unlimited-supply-child-migrants-Europe-foot-soldiers-shift-cocaine-threatening-rape-torture-fail-sell-investigation-finds.html

    THE ANSWER…

    Welcome to hell: Inside brutal El Salvador mega prison where thousands of gang members are kept in cramped cells amid merciless crackdown on narco gangs

    The Centre for the Confinement of Terrorism holds the most violent criminals
    Completed in January 2023 to hold 40,000 prisoners under brutal conditions

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13521341/El-Salvador-prison-gang-members-cells-crackdown.html

      1. Wouldn't the death penalty be easier and cheaper? After all, they're Satan's helpers.

          1. Plus…those prisoners won't be costing anywhere near the £50,000 we spend on ours. Yes the facility would have been expensive to build but that would be offset by the growth in tourism.

      2. …and eventually dissenters become "brutal criminals" in the way they became categorised as mentally ill in the USSR. It's not morals that count, it's who has the power to "uphold" morality.

  70. I've been pondering – not on my pillow, Ogga – about comments posted yesterday in which Home Office civil servants were heard to advocate violence against Nigel Farage and that he should be treated like a criminal. In the unlikely event of Farage becoming our next Prime Minister, it must surely be within similar bounds of reason that elements within our public services will be more than willing to sabotage his time in office, not just through traditional strikes and working-to-rule, but by criminal acts such as corrupting government computer records, releasing toxic waste into the environment, leaving prison gates open, arson on government property, leaking information to foreign rivals and enemies. Those are off the top of my head, so other examples might spring to mind later. While the cases could be prosecuted, what's to stop our judiciary treating the culprits leniently, that's assuming the number of cases won't simply overwhelm our investigators and courts. Perhaps I'm being far-fetched, but it's no secret that Farage triggers visceral hatred in many.

    1. I think the civil service has been sabotaging attempts at Brexit for years. Ably aided and abetted by the remainiacs in Wastemonster, of course. It would, perhaps, be truer to say Farage triggers visceral hatred in the woke, the remainiacs and the MSM. He seems to be well received among the many who attend his rallies.

      1. He seems to be well received among the many who attend his rallies = Taxpayers. Same with Trump.

    2. It's true, but I also think that that vitriol has been stoked and nurtured over the years by the MSM, Tories and Labour et al.
      BBC watchers have been trained to froth at the mouth at the mere mention of him.

    3. If you or I advocated violence against, say, Jeremy Corbyn or Kneelalot Starmer it would be long before we had our collars felt by Plod. So why are they not investigating these sinister civil servants?

    5. Bitterly disappointed as I am with this government, it has been obvious from the beginning that the CS and the meedja have used every dirty trick available to them to undermine anything positive the few quasi-sound ministers have tried to do. Patel, Raab, Johnson, Truss, Braverman – I'm sure there are others. This was clearly in cahoots with Starmer and the wider EUrophile enemy. Every time a minister went for one of the supposed levers of power it came away in his/her hand.

      Of course, with the likes of Sue Gray presiding and that ghastly woman who's just been appointed high chief waller of the Graun, etc., etc. it is pretty obvious what was going on. Why has Sue Gray's blatantly unethical behaviour not come under any public scrutiny?

  72. Was doodling today, and then doodled a little verse which summed up my frustration with bl**dy politicians, especially the Tories

    You've taken my country without my consent,
    We're made to pay for the £billions you've spent
    On your global virtue. So generous and kind
    To the immigrants who flood our land,
    Illegal, uncultured, with outstretched hand,
    Given four star living, and still they whine.
    Our veterans are lucky if they have a tent.

    1. I spotted a fourth “Turkish Barber” shop in Haverhill this afternoon and a Halal Butcher shop next to Iceland on the High Street.

      The Turks are of course Albanians running drugs and seen in expensive fast cars racing around the town.

      1. Natch. We have to go through loads of "money laundering" checks – the foreigners just do it.

      2. Turks and Albanians have no excuse to claim why they should be taken in and given hospitality by our country. It's the EU and Merkel that created this. I'm sure she is happy in her millionaire hideaway – we haven't been told much about her recently, have we? She sold out Europe, and she is no doubt living happily on the proceeds.

  74. here's a link to an interview with Ian Gribben, the Reform candidate recently under attack by the MSM, including Nelson's catchfart Steerike.

    It's long, but watch for a few minutes and it soon becomes obvious that he's a decent sort, well capable of serving as an MP.

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

      1. Maybe in the USA. Not here. And we DON'T want to import any more US-spawned ideologies (like the ridiculous BLM whose founders incidentally seem to have true to form and allegedly absconded with much of the donation money. To give to a good cause – nah, to buy themselves properties).

        1. No, of course not. Trump was just getting to the heart of the matter in context. Journos just want it both ways, as usual. BLM on the other hand are just race grifting feckless criminals, USA-style. Adding any more to Britain would give our own feckless criminal types a bad name frankly.

        2. "We're all immigrants."

          There are plenty in this country who spout this nonsense. How can you discuss the subject with such dunces?

          2. It usually goes like this:
            "It's our land. We've been here for at least two millennia."
            "It's not ours. We're just custodians. Others will come after us."
            "Rather like the European empires, especially in the New World?"
            "But..but…bu…bu…b…b……..**** ***!"

      2. Maybe in the USA. Not here. And we DON'T want to import any more US-spawned ideologies (like the ridiculous BLM whose founders incidentally seem to have true to form and allegedly absconded with much of the donation money. To give to a good cause – nah, to buy themselves properties).

      3. Maybe in the USA. Not here. And we DON'T want to import any more US-spawned ideologies (like the ridiculous BLM whose founders incidentally seem to have true to form and allegedly absconded with much of the donation money. To give to a good cause – nah, to buy themselves properties).

    2. No "poor lass" about her. If she wants to spout sh!t she has to put up with someone who can beat her, if her narrative isn't up to it.

    3. No "poor lass" about her. If she wants to spout sh!t she has to put up with someone who can beat her, if her narrative isn't up to it.

    4. No "poor lass" about her. If she wants to spout sh!t she has to put up with someone who can beat her, if her narrative isn't up to it.

  76. Top Tip #837:
    If you go up a 40ft scaffold with the right spanners to do the job make sure that some twat hasn't changed one of the bolts for an Allen screw and washer.

    1. They will just ignore it. As per usual. They have the $$$ so they control everything that the ordinary, not-very-questioning person gets to see.

  78. And another thing that pisses me off. "Colleague".

    I have just been to B&Q to buy the last pot of slug pellets in North Norfolk. Our B&Q is now "self-service".

    Great if you are buying one item – not so much fun if you are behind a chap who will be spending the weekend using the fifty things he is struggling to buy…

    Except if the one item is slug pellets. "There is a problem with this purchase. A "colleague" will be with you shortly." Staff member turns up, fiddles with the screen and the purchase "may now proceed"…..

    This person is NOT a colleague of mine. If the store is so insecure that it refers to its staff as "colleagues" in in-house stuff – fine, I suppose. Woke, naturally and stupid.

    But don't use that word when communicating with the PUBLIC.

    There – I feel better already.

    1. Apologies for mentioning this, but B&Q uses the term 'colleague' to cover all its employees within its stores. Sounds better than 'shop assistant' and less intimidating than 'manager'. Incidentally, chickens like to attack slugs and snails.

      1. That's fine for in-house stuff. But NOT when dealing with the public. Grrr.

        For chickens (or ducks) to deal with slugs – we would need a flock – and loose to ramble – and would need to spend a fortune on fencing!

          2. By the way, our B&Q has a "Manager" – a young woman (looks about 12)! Extremely efficient, helpful and co-operative.

      1. Haven't seen a hedgehog here for 20 years. Used to be several living in the garden. Too many badgers roaming around, I fear.

        How do you suggest that I try to prevent the slug invasion?

        1. The one thing that does work without endangering other wildlife is watering the soil with nematodes (you get them by mail order from one of those biological control firms). Takes a while, but meanwhile you collect all the adults you can find and dispose of them humanely.

          2. Employ some scamps from the village and pay them a fiver a bucket to collect all they can find. But they must wear gloves in case they are the poisonous Spanish jobs. Use the nematodes on the particularly vulnerable bits (lettuces, etc) and hope that they spread. They need the soil to be a certain temperature so will not last the winter. I have a friend who has done this – normally he's a skinflint, but was at the end of his tether – with very encouraging results.

          3. “Village scamps”? You jest. I wouldn’t let any of the dozen or so young people in this village anywhere NEAR my property. They only wear gloves when going shop lifting and burgling.

          4. It'll have to be poultry, then – but you won't enjoy the havoc they wreak, either. 🙂

          1. No – there is too much ground. One has to strike a balance. The veg we grow is not for fun – it is to eat. In 75 years of determined gardening, I have never seen such destruction as this year. Trays of plants wiped out over night. Soul destroying and depressing.

        3. Badgers are often found dead in streams in Somerset, apparently. It is supposed to be from eating apples which ferment in their stomachs causing inebriation – then they fall in the streams (we've all been there). Unfortunately they can't get out of the streams and drown. Don't know if it's true but I read it somewhere. So…following on from my suggestion that you put out beer to kill the slugs, I now reckon you should put out cider thus killing two birds with one stone (or killing two birds through being stoned).

    3. It is not a colleague of yours that is being referred to, but colleague of the person who is speaking to you. Simple, really.

  79. I was trying to remember yesterday which other TV sleb doctor had the same slightly odd CV as Michael Mosley (Oxbridge graduate, high-flying job, leaves it to go to medical school, qualifies but never practices as a doctor, instead goes into the media and ends up pushing the covid vaxxes)

    Ever on the ball, Miri Finch has joined the dots. She thinks both Mosley and Clarke are spooks put into the media to promote medical propaganda. Her theory isn't that far-fetched when one realises that the pandemic was in the planning since before 2011 (2011 was the failed swine flu pandemic, scotched by Dr Wolfgang Wodarg, medical advisor to the German government who put the kybosh on the utterly unreliable "swine flu test". Don't forget that the PCR test for covid originated from Germany and was this time, accepted without question.)

    https://miriaf.co.uk/

    1. Pah.. Hong Kong had the first dry run in 2003 with SARS. The place shut down, mass bankruptcies, expensive flight to safety.. all for what? 43 measly deaths. About the same as traffic accidents.
      Did anyone learn? Yes, Singapore & Taiwan did.

      On the plus side.. Covid put paid to any grandiose ideas that China CCP had about ruling the world.

      1. Yes good point about SARS.
        I don’t think covid did anything – it was just a cover for the financial side of it, i.e. I think they did the lockdowns because of the financial problems not the other way round. China moves slowly, they’re still inching the dollar out at microscopic speed.

    2. Swine Flu was in 2009. Not that it made much of a mark for me but I do remember dates.

    3. I just read one of Dr Mosley's DM articles – and even then the comments were pretty sceptical.

      1. Who knows? The idea that he was working for British intelligence, I find quite believable. This media circus around his death is definitely strange. We tend to think this kind of stuff only happens in fiction, but I think some of these people get wrapped up in their own legends.

        1. I think the overkill is just because he was a ‘meeja person’ and of course, as a doctor (of sorts) he should have known better than to walk in that heat. The strangest bit is the fact it took so long to find him.

    5. Michael Mosley studied medicine, but as he didn't work as a GP, he avoided the term 'Doctor'. 'Doctor' is used as a term of respect, but few medical doctors have a doctorate. If he were in any way connected to British intelligence, Mr Mosley would surely have retired at 60, not at 67. As for his body appearing to be wearing trousers, that could be due to general putrefaction after three and a half days of hot weather.
      Yes, it's very strange that he wasn't spotted as he crawled down the hillside, but I doubt that any tourist relaxing on a sunlounger would take much interest in a rocky hillside. It puzzles me that no gulls, corvids or local vermin were inspecting or feasting on the corpse.

      1. He might have retired after covid was over, that being his main area of expertise, so to speak. Some of the things he said about the jabs were unhinged – a person would need some sort of motivation to come out with the stuff he did.

      1. He did, but Thorsten Drosten in Germany wrote a paper saying that it could be used to detect covid, which was mysteriously accepted for publication in a very short time and was adopted by the German government. Drosten is one of those very good-looking, completely untrustworthy looking men that women are supposed to believe in.

          1. I think the Germans were used in both cases because if Germany accepts a scientific test then the rest of the world will follow. In 2009, Wolfgang Wodarg upheld German scientific standards by pointing out that the test was rubbish, and the whole swine flu “pandemic” train ground to a halt.
            In 2020, Drosten, an altogether more elusive figure, was in place to lead the campaign to get the world to accept the PCR test – which as we know, as since been proved in a court in Portugal to be useless at detecting covid. Wodarg was pointing out that it was a fraud, but by then he was retired so the government and media ignored him.

  80. A balked Bogey Five?

    Wordle 1,089 5/6
    ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
    ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
    🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜
    🟩🟩⬜🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Lucky three today.

      Wordle 1,089 3/6

      ⬜🟨⬜🟩⬜
      🟩⬜⬜🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. 5 o'clock club. Bit late on parade. Happy with a 5.

      Wordle 1,089 5/6

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

    3. Five as well.

      Wordle 1,089 5/6

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

      I think that my poor brain overheated on the golf course today. Lovely weather we are having.

    4. 4 today.
      Wordle 1,089 4/6

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

  81. Biggest, but also most unlikely, laugh of the year would be if Reform became the second largest party by seats and thus the official opposition.

    Imagine Farage taking on Starmer at PMQ's, the sparks really would fly.

      1. True, but it might actually be a very good selling point to wavering Tories.

        "Given that Sunak is very likely to resign, even if he holds his seat, would you prefer Farage or one of the likely leaders of the defeated Conmenervatives, such as Shapps, to be questioning Starmer at PMQ's?"

          2. Sunak was never there in the first place.He didn't know much about this country or its history or its people, and he cared even less. He may have been born here but he was NOT English. Which just goes to show what giving power to foreigners has got us. Our forbears fought it during WWII, just to have it given away by traitors in governments, who should rightly be hanged.

          3. He has resigned physically – wife has been sorting out place in California for them to live. He never gave a stuff about the people in his country – he isn't that bright and just said what he was fed.

  82. Pah.. Hong Kong had the first dry run in 2003 with SARS. The place shut down, mass bankruptcies, expensive flight to safety.. all for what? 43 measly deaths. About the same as traffic accidents.
    Did anyone learn? Yes, Singapore & Taiwan did.

    On the plus side.. Covid put paid to any grandiose ideas that China CCP had about ruling the world.

  83. Pah.. Hong Kong had the first dry run in 2003 with SARS. The place shut down, mass bankruptcies, expensive flight to safety.. all for what? 43 measly deaths. About the same as traffic accidents.
    Did anyone learn? Yes, Singapore & Taiwan did.

    On the plus side.. Covid put paid to any grandiose ideas that China CCP had about ruling the world.

  87. 'Night All
    Nicked comment,as always follow the money…….
    United States Senator, Lindsey Graham, revealed on CBS News what the Ukrainian war is all about………… But wait, haven’t we been told that the only reason to pump trillions of Dollars into Ukraine is to protect the country’s freedom and democracy? If we didn’t support Zelensky then ‘Putler’ would invade the whole of Europe before taking over the world, shurely ?

    Of course, that was the propagandised reason, meant to stir the emotions so the critical thinking wouldn’t activate and then there was the real reason. MSM hasn't permitted talk about the real reason but Senator Graham doesn’t care anymore. He has explained very clearly that, as with most things in geopolitics, the real reason for the war is money and power.

    “They’re sitting on 10-12 trillion Dollars of critical minerals in Ukraine. They could be the richest country in all of Europe. I don’t want to give that money and those assets to Putin to share with China. If we help Ukraine now, they can become the best business partner we ever dreamed of. That 10-12 trillion Dollars of critical mineral assets could be used by Ukraine and the West, not given to Putin and China. This is a very big deal. Let’s help them win a war we can’t afford to lose. Let’s find a solution to this war but they’re sitting on a gold mine. To give Putin 10-12 trillion Dollars of critical minerals that he will share with China is ridiculous.”

    Translation – We’ve invested billions of Dollars up front to take control of 10-12 trillion Dollars of critical minerals in the future. Hundreds of thousands of deaths is an acceptable price to pay when we will be able to steal all Ukraine’s natural resources at the end of it all.

    1. And I wonder what %-age Zelensky and his cronies have been guaranteed, let alone "the First Family"

  88. Remainers are about to discover the real face of Europe
    –
    Britain's pro-Brussels elite hasn't got a clue how to handle the EU's sharp shift to the populist Right
    –
    MADELINE GRANT • 12 June 2024 • 7:00am

    Earlier this week, the Lib Dems finally gave voice to the policy that dare not speak its name. There is a part of the British centre (and it is generally them rather than the hard-Left, who are either in retreat or going full crank) that harbours a deep hankering for one particular objective: rejoining the European Union. Mostly they limit themselves to moaning about passport queues. But they are quietly beginning to speak about it as an actual policy, or rather as a series of policies incrementally bringing Britain back into the EU orbit.

    What Sir Ed Davey will say out loud, many in Labour will be quietly salivating about, especially if they win the expected super-majority next month.

    Closer relations may not be on the horizon immediately, but recent changes in Europe would make it grimly amusing if this lofty aim came to pass. Those who advocate reunion invariably have a view of the EU as preserved in aspic around 2016, an abstract ideal much preferred to the messy reality of continental politics. On Monday, Davey seemed taken aback when a journalist mentioned Europe's Right-wing surge. All this ignores how the tectonic plates have shifted since the Brexit vote.

    And shifted they have, in an election where Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy cruised ahead with almost 30 per cent of the vote, Olaf Scholz's centre-Left coalition suffered a stinging defeat, and the Greens took a battering across the board.

    Especially striking are the voting habits of young people. An astonishing 40 per cent of 18-24-year-olds in France plumped for Marine Le Pen's National Rally. The German Bundestag recently voted to allow 16- and 17-year-olds to participate in the Euro elections, some supporters no doubt hoping this would play into their hands.

    In the event, the extreme AfD (who resisted the change) topped the table among 16-24-year-olds; tied with the centre-Right CDU on 17 per cent. The Greens, the runaway winners of the youth vote in previous Euro elections, were shunted into third place on a measly 11 per cent.

    Following the EU referendum, some commentators announced they would be moving to continental Europe to escape "far-Right" Britain. You wonder how they are doing now. Probably with heads still in the sand. At the heart of this mindset is to see Brexit Britain as backward, a pariah state.

    Never mind that remarkably similar policies to those pursued here are being put into practice on the Continent. Meloni recently struck a Rwanda-esque deal with Albania, expected to be operational within a couple of months. But it's not just the milder face of European populism; the EU itself has funded a scheme moving asylum seekers from Libya to Rwanda.

    Social Democratic Denmark, meanwhile, has pursued some of the toughest immigration policies in Europe in recent years. Danish lawmakers insist on integration in ways that would be anathema to leftish British sensibilities; migrants who commit serious crimes can lose their social housing, for instance. Interestingly, Denmark's harder line on migration appears to have shielded its government from the fate of many other centre-Left parties. It's almost as if voters reward you for listening to them.

    Perhaps a certain level of "America brain" leaves us more fixated on events across the pond than on the changing shape of politics across the Channel; the farmers' protests, the bitter internal wrangling about migration policy, and support for Ukraine – whose future, sadly, looks less assured following the Euro elections.

    Whatever the cause, our view of our own place in the world can feel parochial and self-contradictory. The NHS, for instance, is often branded "world-beating" and our greatest national achievement, while being so creaky and dysfunctional that other countries (Australia) actively feature it as a cautionary tale in political adverts. On migration we are monstrous outliers, even when other countries are actively copying our policy – and sometimes going further. We are Schrödinger's island to these people: admirable and awful at the same time.

    Amusingly, the social-media accounts of the Labour frontbench are full of disobliging messages about politicians with whom they will soon be geopolitically involved. David Lammy, our probable next foreign secretary, has particular form here; accusing Boris Johnson of "twisted priorities" for hosting Viktor Orban at No 10 in 2021.

    In 2017, he tweeted: "First America, now Le Pen. This virus is contagious, just as it was in the 1930's [sic]". It'll be interesting to see how Lammy the statesman will conduct relations with the woman he declared a political anthrax; especially in vital areas such as the small-boats crisis.

    Many of those sweeping to power in Europe despise the equivalent political class in their own countries. The idea that they will turn into fluffy liberal technocrats when a Brit arrives in a nice suit is delusional.

    Europe might well prove important for Britain's next government, but perhaps not in the way that those who lust after rejoining a long-vanished Europe think. First past the post insulates our politics from "extremes", but at the cost of insulating politicians from voters' true sentiments. The European body politic is already being reshaped by populism. How long that will continue to be resisted here remains to be seen.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/12/remainers-are-about-to-discover-the-real-face-of-europe/

    Le Pen v. Lammy – I'd pay to watch that…

    1. I would have been astonished if the Lib Dems did not have a policy of rejoining the EU. I'm not at all surprised that many on the Labour benches are also for it. There will be a substantial number of Conservative politicians who think likewise Those pleased with the UK's exit from the EU are a minority – by a wide margin – in the House of Commons, it's just that some of them still hold to the mantra of abiding by the electorate's wishes, even if it sticks in the craw.

    1. They've already done it. Short of actually deporting many of the gimmiegrants, we are stuck with them, and their many children, and their offsprings' many offspring. Many of them wanting to change us, and our laws, and our lives. Paid for by us.

      1. I cannot understand why so few politicians supported the views of Enoch Powell. He was despised and abused for telling the simple truth.

        1. That's when this refusal to discuss the truth all started (or began to set in).

        2. It didn’t look very “nice” as we were all so enlightened then. And one doesn’t know what the Rothschild/Rockefeller ilk were planning at that time – after all Coudenhove-Kalergi was several decades before Powell.

    2. What with that and Khan promising that every Musssslim should be housed at public expense within a few minutes of a mosque and any other desired facilities it's looking a lot of fun for any actual Londoners remaining.

      2. That disgusting POS is now threatening to fine every driver in London for speeding.

    2. I've not seen the news so I presume Davey has had repeated dunkings. Anything for a photo opportunity, especially for Lib Dem leaders, who might otherwise be ignored.

  94. That's me for today. Very busy in the garden – now completely knackered. At least one can now see the greenhouse floor..

    The MR is still slaving – potting on 160 Bizzie Lizzies…(among other things).

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain – probably.

        1. She's a good advert for celibacy – the Catholic Church should have posters of her face in all their seminaries.''

          1. Surely they'd do better with someone of the opposite sex? Hugh whatsit, for example, or that Schofield fellow.

      1. Caught at a precise moment, most of us will have had a similar sneer on our fizzogs.

  96. Probably an old story, but I never heard it before…

    The Permaculture Guy
    @permacultureGB
    This is even funnier when you realize it's real! Next time you have a bad day at work think of this guy.
    Bob is a commercial saturation diver for Global Divers in Louisiana. He performs underwater repairs on offshore drilling rigs.
    Below is an E-mail he sent to his sister. She then sent it to radio station 103.5 on FM dial in Indiana, who was sponsoring a worst job experience contest.
    Needless to say, she won. Read his letter below:
    ~Hi Sue,
    Just another note from your bottom-dwelling brother. Last week I had a bad day at the office. I know you've been feeling down lately at work, so I thought I would share my dilemma with you to make you realize it's not so bad after all. Before I can tell you what happened to me, I first must bore you with a few technicalities of my job. As you know, my office lies at the bottom of the sea. I wear a suit to the office. It's a wet suit. This time of year the water is quite cool. So what we do to keep warm is this: We have a diesel powered industrial water heater. This $20,000 piece of equipment sucks the water out of the sea. It heats it to a delightful temperature. It then pumps it down to the diver through a garden hose, which is taped to the air hose.
    Now this sounds like a darn good plan, and I've used it several times with no complaints. What I do, when I get to the bottom and start working, is take the hose and stuff it down the back of my wet suit. This floods my whole suit with warm water. It's like working in a Jacuzzi. Everything was going well until all of a sudden, my butt started to itch. So, of course, I scratched it.
    This only made things worse. Within a few seconds my ass started to burn. I pulled the hose out from my back, but the damage was done. In agony I realized what had happened. The hot water machine had sucked up a jellyfish and pumped it into my suit. Now, since I don't have any hair on my back, the jellyfish couldn't stick to it, however, the crack of my ass was not as fortunate. When I scratched what I thought was an itch, I was actually grinding the jellyfish into the crack of my ass.
    I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma over the communicator. His instructions were unclear due to the fact that he, along with five other divers, were all laughing hysterically. Needless to say, I aborted the dive.
    I was instructed to make three agonizing in-water decompression stops totaling thirty-five minutes before I could reach the surface to begin my chamber dry decompression. When I arrived at the surface, I was wearing nothing but my brass helmet. As I climbed out of the water, the medic, with tears of laughter running down his face, handed me a tube of cream and told me to rub it on my butt as soon as I got in the chamber. The cream put the fire out, but I couldn't take a crap for two days because my ass was swollen shut.
    So, next time you're having a bad day at work, think about how much worse it would be
    If you had a jellyfish shoved up your a*s. Now repeat to yourself, 'I love my job, I love my job, I love my job.' Whenever you have a bad day, ask yourself, is this a jellyfish bad day?
    Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift

    1. Good evening BB2.
      Do you have any idea where the picture of the camouflaged jets was taken? The country would suffice as both of us and a friend in US are interested.

  97. “In Brussels with our friend and ally
    @MLP_officiel
    , to take stock of the situation after the elections which confirmed the desire for change of citizens across the continent. Macron, Scholz and Von der Leyen get over it: we want to revolutionize Europe, in stark contrast to the left and eco-fanatics.”
    https://x.com/matteosalvinimi/status/1800927905289007388

  98. Evening folks – mostly dry but at times bluddy cold steering the boat – a couple of photos:

    The Vale of Pewsey:
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/64b68b37b12c75f28a27bac04a6a23d1c784d5e92bd56cb0aeb9bde0af2980be.jpg Lady Bridge:
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/697d7f5cd9bfa92deb352a19178432f3f8c7192cdbf0ecbd9bad88edf27efca1.jpg
    Moored for the night at Pewsey Wharf:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/56f6efad150a923ff5727458d2e5bf162f8a6a305102c663691631046e0ce949.jpg

      1. Yes and the forecast for the early part of next week is for 'Persisting it down!' 🙁

      2. Yes and the forecast for the early part of next week is for 'Persisting it down!' 🙁

  99. 388426+up ticks,

    When in the polling station face the fact as to which parties set up & covered up the ongoing importation of foreign paedophiles,
    and their actions as, in the rape & abuse of children, then please enlighten me as to your reason for casting a vote for said parties.

    I can only think that a great many are paedophile friendly, or have paedophilic tendencies the cover ups prove this to be the case in many respects.

    https://x.com/MaggieOliverUK/status/1800804554981667132

    1. Wondering why the eulogistic interview with the Manchester supercop didn't mention this phenomenon as part of his zero-tolerance approach?

          1. Think about a total move .. to the Isle of Wight .

            My son and his partner have just done that .. better quality of life , so I have heard , however down here where we are isn't so bad either , cross fingers .

          2. I think that the Solent might prove to be problem in getting supplies in the future, so we are staying on mainland.

          3. My cousin lived on the South Coast for most of her life. She crossed the Solent a few years ago, and has never looked back. There have been a few hospital trips to the mainland, but – otherwise – she's happy with the decision.

          4. At one stage, I thought I may have to return home to Carlisle, but I now have an affordable place in rural leafy Surrey. I'll likely leave here in a box…

          10. It was that way when I went some 20+ years ago, for work visit. Stayed in an old-fashioned guesthouse, with an old-fashioned landlady.

          11. Hopefully not old-fashioned landlady of the 'Please vacate the premises by 10 and don't come back until 5pm' mould from the 1960s.

          12. It's lovely. If it wasn't for the Solent we would be looking to relocate there.

          18. At eighty to old to make the move, and we have family here so stuck to the bitter end. So good luck to you, are you going somewhere nice?

          19. Hope so. Are moving to interim property in lovely Dorset, and then will sell this home (hopefully) to find final homestead. Will then look for the next couple of years in the South West.

          20. Hi, HL. You could do worse than Devon. Friend moved to Topsham from Woking late 2019. Exeter a short bus ride. Exmouth ditto. Dartmoor on the doorstep. Lots going on. It's given her a whole new lease of life.

          22. Will be looking at Devon for final home. Just too far for us to visit often from here, and N. Dorset is more doable for the future, a we can commute between two homes for the time being.

  101. Good evening everyone,
    When Haiti that suffered a major earthquake some years ago, billions of dollars and other currencies were donated in aid. Where did all that aid money go, apart from immediate humanitarian relief?
    Seems like they were so worth saving.

    Headline in a telegraph email: "Haiti starves as it descends into lawlessness." Wasn't that country already a fairly lawless place even before the earthquake?
    "A pedestrian walks past a dead body, wrapped in plastic and dumped in the street – a daily reminder of the gang violence plaguing Haiti and its descent into lawlessness.
    Amid the security crisis, the poorest nation in the Americas is on the brink of famine as it battles the worst levels of food insecurity on record.
    Nearly half the population – 5 million people – in Haiti are “acutely food insecure”, of which 1.6 million are classified as facing “emergency” food insecurity conditions, says the World Food Programme (WFP).
    Jean-Martin Bauer, the Haiti country director for WFP, said the problem had been snowballing under the radar for years, adding: “These are the highest numbers we’ve had since the 2010 earthquake.” "
     https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c52b377d83fa2e3abdae63952dce0dc1f27fd0a7b0ace74188b3b1a4f93c6732.png

    1. I believe that a huge amount of aid money designated for Haiti was funnelled through and administered by "The Clinton Foundation". It seems administration costs were very high indeed and only a negligible fraction of the original sum has reached its destination. Then, of course, there was the despicable behaviour of UN and Oxfam aid workers.

      1. Just don't give any money to any such organisation. The beneficiaries are not the people that the bleeding heart brigade are appealing to.

          2. These are not charities. They are massive businesses – grifts – that also get huge bungs from the tax-payer without permission or oversight, don't pay any taxes and provide overpaid sinecures for the usual bandits. Most of them do considerably more harm than good to those whom they are allegedly supposed to serve. Look at UNWRA. And the "Tony Blair Foundation". Anything UN or Soros backed. Ugh.

          3. Tony Blair's disgraceful "Lead beyond authority" Common Purpose outfit is a charity – so gets tax breaks. Totally undeserved, but we are subsidising it.

            The Charities Commission needs very close examining

          4. Interestingly enough it was the Blair government who greatly increased the scope of the type of organisations that could qualify as charities. Perhaps he did this with the intention of benefitting from it in the future …

        2. As I’ve said many times. The large international charities are the problem, not the solution.

      3. That reminds me of a children's book written by Hilary Clinton. We were given a copy so that we could read to our Canadian grandchildren over Skype. While I appreciate that the book was chosen for the gardening theme (I caught the gardening bug from my dear mum, and passed it on to the son and grandchildren, albeit only on a balcony for them), it was incredibly patronising and full of little 'morals'. Utter bilge, and it wasn't even that well written. Neither I nor my husband can stand the Clintons or O'Barmy either.

      4. Precisely. America under the Bushes, Clintons and Obama was truly the Evil Empire.

        We can only pray for its deliverance under Trump and hopefully JD Vance.

    2. Haiti has lost its soul and head , it appears that everyman is for himself .

      Terror and anarchy were part of Europe during many wars including the last war.

      Sorry to be dramatic , but there are built up reckless crude communities here in the UK , where life is shocking , frightening , cheap , drug addled , vulgar and lawless , and the people who inhabit them are probably white , uneducated bullies .

      Money and food are only a placebo , one can pump £trillions into SAVE this that and the other .

      Hopelessness and day to today survival skills required require primitive instincts.

      It is happening here on this 850mile Island of ours .

      Sorry to sound negative , but there are so many societies crumbling quickly.

      1. Haiti has been corrupt and lost to civilisation since Papa Doc Duvalier. We are being deliberately swamped with people from not dissimilar backgrounds. thanks to our politicians (and their puppetmasters). Look to the USA for the source of the evil in the world.

    3. I remember reading Graham Greene's The Comedians when I was a student and then seeing the film of the book starring Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor and Alec Guinness.

        1. Me too. Graham Greene was spot on in his newspaper article explaining the real appeal of Shirley Temple to American men of a certain age and disposition.

        2. I haven't read the book but i have watched the film a few times. I haven't been able to find a decent copy of the film. It's a bit grainy.

    4. Wasn't Haiti one of the very first countries to be fully independent and run by the blacks for the blacks?

      1. I presume it was fairly well set up when it gained independence. Like most (or all?) former colonies, I assume it benefited from modern infrastructure and organisations/ government established by their former European bosses, but all those benefits were destroyed/allowed to fail because the ‘natives’ were simply not capable of maintaining them.

        1. Nope.
          Haiti was violent from the start, the white French colonialists were massacred indiscriminately. A genocide.

          1. Violence, serious crime and disorder seems to be a common theme running through so many 'communities' of African descent. It isn't 'allowed' to say so, but is it something genetic after all?

          3. Their ‘rights’ to behave in such ways, just like the ‘travellers’ who can ride roughshod over laws and safety of normal people who have to put up with their filthy, criminal ways.

        1. Sounds like a connection to the Alhambra Palace.

          But perhaps Cataplana one of my favourite all time meals.

    2. Speaking as a person who has been a companion to cats for 40 years – this woman is NUTS. You an see the reaction from her tw bewildered cat.

  103. I heard today on the radio this morning that one of the many reason we have so many potholes in our roads, is because we are not in the EU.
    It's because they have saved millions to cover the cost of the repairs and because we pulled out we are the losers. Sounds a bit Tar (mercy) Mac(ron)radam to me.
    Could anyone make that up ?
    Nobody but the Brussels mafiosi..

    1. We have spent the money on cycle tracks that they hardly use and pay nothing for. Tax The Bike.

        1. Cyclists should have Third Party Insurance, A Road Tax . and a yearly mot.as a minimum. a charge per mile in cities. just like the rest of us no more and no less.

    2. We have spent the money on cycle tracks that they hardly use and pay nothing for. Tax The Bike.

  106. From French rule. Don't think the French did much for the countries in their Empire.

    IMO let the blacks do what they want in their own countries. But they DON'T ask us for help because they were once colonised (and got all the infrastructure that they are destroying|) and they DON''T come here in droves and expect us to take them in because their own governments are such carp.

    And especially they don't have their ghastly race-baiters online etc. telling how much more we owe them. We owe them nothing. How many African slave-sellers ever paid compensation to anyone? None. How many slaves are there in Africa today? Rather a lot.

    1. The reparations argument could equally be applied against all black countries where the slaves came from.
      They owe “us” for looking after all their people so that they were able to multiply and thrive in due course.
      It’s an equally fallacious argument.

      1. In view of the crippling sums and the loss of life spent by this country in order to end the transatlantic slave trade it seems patently obvious that reparations are owed to the UK

      2. Shame that they multiplied so much in the countries that they could fleece for “reparations” rather than their own countries, where they may well have had almost nothing.

        Black opportunism will get a backlash once the wets in the West realise that blacks don’t want equality – they want preference. And if they’re not capable they still want us to keep them as they have been accustomed – utilities, society functioning etc. Ignoring what has happened in so many African countries where blacks now rule. Why should we pay?

    2. Don't worry they will not turn up in the UK, they arrive in droves in Montreal where they can be welcomed as french speaking immigrants.

    1. Good news.
      The article consistently refers to him as 'she', when we all know he is still a man, intact or not. A man's physique, a man's muscle power, male chromosomes/genetics, and he went through male puberty. He couldn't make the grade as a man, tough.
      Having long hair, make-up and women's clothing/swimsuits will never make him a woman.

        1. Yes. Some of the women who have to share a changing room with him say he's not shy in showing them off. Pervert.

        1. Now we have the oh-so-enlightened ‘care in the community.’ That has failed so many vulnerable people who really do need the security of some sort of supportive residential units, though not severe like the old asylums. But these he/she/it/cat things need locking away to receive psychiatric help.

  109. It's working out really well for Farage by not appearing on tv head to head debates with Sunak and Starmer.
    Let the public see how useless they are, if Farage appeared they could get away with spending all the programme attacking him.
    Keep the focus on the fakes

  111. Thunderstorm outside – lots of flash 'n bang, rain beating on the windows. Think I'll hit the sack, even though it's only 21:14, so I'll bid all Y'all goodnight and sleep well.

  113. I acccompanied her to view a few properties. Those in central Topsham are pretty, but parking is a nightmare. One newly-refurbished house ticked most of the boxes, but it was immediately apparent that fumes from the adjacent property's gas boiler were going straight into the bathroom. And beyond.

    In the end, she bought a new "zero carbon eco-home", and did a great deal regarding the show house furniture, lampshades and the like.

  114. It's over for the SNP, and voters have finally realised
    –
    The electorate is at last tiring of the Scottish Nationalists' excuses for their own awful failures
    –
    ALAN COCHRANE • 12 June 2024 • 6:01pm

    At last the penny seems to have dropped. Hard evidence has emerged that voters have finally cottoned on to an awful truth – at least for John Swinney, leader of the SNP and First Minister of Scotland – that he can't keep "passing the buck" and blaming London and other parties for the shortcomings of his own government.

    The accusation came from a Glasgow mother who said that she was "sick" of him blaming everyone else, instead of accepting his responsibility for poor performances in wholly devolved areas such as education and health.

    In the same BBC debate between Scotland's political leaders this week, a young man in the audience joined in the criticism of the SNP when he expressed his "anger" at seeing boarded up businesses and the number of beggars in the streets, when all the nationalists could talk about was independence.

    Swinney had sought to use the programme to defend his party's record, blaming any deficiencies on the British government or other parties. But in the hour-long debate, this mother and young office worker separately demonstrated that Scottish voters are increasingly accepting that the SNP's perpetual excuses are threadbare. The anger displayed may also be a confirmation of opinion polls, which suggest that Swinney's party is heading for a major defeat on July 4.

    The attacks on Swinney were on a par with the embarrassment suffered by Gordon Brown following the then Labour prime minister's run-in with Gillian Duffy, the Rochdale woman who Brown condemned as "bigoted" when she confronted him about several issues, including immigration, during the 2010 election campaign.

    He hadn't known that his words were being picked up by a TV microphone, but Swinney's comeuppance occurred in the full glare of TV cameras during the Scottish leaders' hustings in Glasgow.

    The blistering verdict of this Glaswegian mother took him by surprise when she insisted that he should accept responsibility for the SNP's failure in areas, especially education and health, which were entirely the responsibility of his government.

    While the First Minister fended off attacks by Tory and Labour leaders by saying that most Scottish problems were the fault of the UK Government, his principal critic stormed: "I want a direct answer. Glasgow parents and Scottish parents are sick of you passing the buck.

    We're sick of hearing it's Westminster's fault that education is in crisis. We're sick of hearing what Labour and the Tories would do. We want to know what you and your party are going to do to fix what's happening in education right now." And when Swinney tried to dodge her barb, this lady shouted out: "Stop passing the buck."

    The First Minister said that Scottish independence would enable him to tackle such problems, even though education and the NHS are wholly devolved. He described independence as a "beautiful proposition". But this led to him being attacked by his other audience critic who said that, thanks to the SNP, independence dominated the political debate.

    In a jibe about the prospect of Swinney's position as First Minister being short-lived, he added: "Tidy the flat before you move out, John."

    Both Douglas Ross, the outgoing Scottish Tory leader – at least that's what he says is his current position – and Anas Sarwar, of Scottish Labour, blamed Swinney for seeking to shift the blame for his government's failures in education and the NHS when he had all the necessary powers.

    This Scottish leaders' debate may have given traditional SNP voters pause for thought as the July 4 election date draws near, but there was another leader, or in her case co-leader, who did her party no favours with an extraordinary performance.

    It was more of a confused and noisy rant against all the other participants than a considered offering of alternatives from Lorna Slater of the Greens. I'm sure she did promise that a vote for her party would lead to more roads being built, even though I understood that the Greens didn't like roads because cars and lorries run on them.

    But I'm grateful that the excellent moderator, Stephen Jardine of BBC Scotland, allowed Ms Slater her say. Otherwise all those EV driving residents in the middle-class ghettos of Glasgow and Edinburgh – from whence the Greens derive much of their support – wouldn't have known what they're voting for.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/12/snp-general-election-24-scottish-nationalism/

    In the same a BBC debate between the UK's political leaders this week, a young man in the audience joined in the criticism of the SNP Tories when he expressed his "anger" at seeing boarded up businesses and the number of beggars in the streets, when all the nationalists government could talk about was independence immigration…
    _____________________________________________________

    It's a shame it's two years until the next Scottish election. That should see the end of the SNP there as well (but sadly not the end of the WPP).

  115. It's over for the SNP, and voters have finally realised
    –
    The electorate is at last tiring of the Scottish Nationalists' excuses for their own awful failures
    –
    ALAN COCHRANE • 12 June 2024 • 6:01pm

    At last the penny seems to have dropped. Hard evidence has emerged that voters have finally cottoned on to an awful truth – at least for John Swinney, leader of the SNP and First Minister of Scotland – that he can't keep "passing the buck" and blaming London and other parties for the shortcomings of his own government.

    The accusation came from a Glasgow mother who said that she was "sick" of him blaming everyone else, instead of accepting his responsibility for poor performances in wholly devolved areas such as education and health.

    In the same BBC debate between Scotland's political leaders this week, a young man in the audience joined in the criticism of the SNP when he expressed his "anger" at seeing boarded up businesses and the number of beggars in the streets, when all the nationalists could talk about was independence.

    Swinney had sought to use the programme to defend his party's record, blaming any deficiencies on the British government or other parties. But in the hour-long debate, this mother and young office worker separately demonstrated that Scottish voters are increasingly accepting that the SNP's perpetual excuses are threadbare. The anger displayed may also be a confirmation of opinion polls, which suggest that Swinney's party is heading for a major defeat on July 4.

    The attacks on Swinney were on a par with the embarrassment suffered by Gordon Brown following the then Labour prime minister's run-in with Gillian Duffy, the Rochdale woman who Brown condemned as "bigoted" when she confronted him about several issues, including immigration, during the 2010 election campaign.

    He hadn't known that his words were being picked up by a TV microphone, but Swinney's comeuppance occurred in the full glare of TV cameras during the Scottish leaders' hustings in Glasgow.

    The blistering verdict of this Glaswegian mother took him by surprise when she insisted that he should accept responsibility for the SNP's failure in areas, especially education and health, which were entirely the responsibility of his government.

    While the First Minister fended off attacks by Tory and Labour leaders by saying that most Scottish problems were the fault of the UK Government, his principal critic stormed: "I want a direct answer. Glasgow parents and Scottish parents are sick of you passing the buck.

    We're sick of hearing it's Westminster's fault that education is in crisis. We're sick of hearing what Labour and the Tories would do. We want to know what you and your party are going to do to fix what's happening in education right now." And when Swinney tried to dodge her barb, this lady shouted out: "Stop passing the buck."

    The First Minister said that Scottish independence would enable him to tackle such problems, even though education and the NHS are wholly devolved. He described independence as a "beautiful proposition". But this led to him being attacked by his other audience critic who said that, thanks to the SNP, independence dominated the political debate.

    In a jibe about the prospect of Swinney's position as First Minister being short-lived, he added: "Tidy the flat before you move out, John."

    Both Douglas Ross, the outgoing Scottish Tory leader – at least that's what he says is his current position – and Anas Sarwar, of Scottish Labour, blamed Swinney for seeking to shift the blame for his government's failures in education and the NHS when he had all the necessary powers.

    This Scottish leaders' debate may have given traditional SNP voters pause for thought as the July 4 election date draws near, but there was another leader, or in her case co-leader, who did her party no favours with an extraordinary performance.

    It was more of a confused and noisy rant against all the other participants than a considered offering of alternatives from Lorna Slater of the Greens. I'm sure she did promise that a vote for her party would lead to more roads being built, even though I understood that the Greens didn't like roads because cars and lorries run on them.

    But I'm grateful that the excellent moderator, Stephen Jardine of BBC Scotland, allowed Ms Slater her say. Otherwise all those EV driving residents in the middle-class ghettos of Glasgow and Edinburgh – from whence the Greens derive much of their support – wouldn't have known what they're voting for.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/12/snp-general-election-24-scottish-nationalism/

    In the same a BBC debate between the UK's political leaders this week, a young man in the audience joined in the criticism of the SNP Tories when he expressed his "anger" at seeing boarded up businesses and the number of beggars in the streets, when all the nationalists government could talk about was independence immigration…
    _____________________________________________________

    It's a shame it's two years until the next Scottish election. That should see the end of the SNP there as well (but sadly not the end of the WPP).

  116. Just about sunset, first time i've seen it today. I think might turn in soon. Well just after 21:00.
    I'm lucky sleep always comes easy to me.
    Night all. 😴

    1. How many points ahead of the Conservative Party does Reform have to be in order to win more seats?

      Don't forget that in the 2015 election UKIP won more votes than both the SNP and the Lib/Dems combined

      Result:
      UKIP – One Seat.
      SNP: 56 seats
      Lib/Dems 8 seats

      The joys of cluster votes and FPTP

      1. Currently 2024

        Labour 38%
        LibDems 15%
        Tories 18%.
        Reform UK party 17%
        SNP 2%
        Predicted numbers of seats;

        Lab 422
        Cons 140
        Reform 0
        LibDems 48
        SNP 17

  119. Britain is heading for a populist tsunami far greater than anything seen in Europe
    –
    Sir Keir Starmer's coming supermajority could be the last hurrah of the failing, neo-Blairite political order
    –
    ALLISTER HEATH • 12 June 2024 • 7:15pm

    Be in no doubt: the next few years are going to be calamitous for Britain. Almost everything that is bad today will get worse, and everything that, for now, is still working will be vandalised or destroyed. The public is clamouring for change, but there will be no great rupture under Sir Keir Starmer's Labour, no break with the dismal status quo, just a further acceleration in our national decline.

    We should be grateful for small mercies. Jeremy Corbyn would have imposed full-on socialism; many of his allies wanted to ban private schools altogether and savagely expropriate wealth. Starmer will misinterpret his likely super-majority as an endorsement of technocratic rule, giving him carte blanche to double-down on the neo-Blairite consensus that has been hegemonic in the UK since 1997, with an added dollop of class warfare, punitive taxation and wokery.

    But Starmer's plan stands no chance of success. It will merely make a bad situation worse, further ruining an already broken Britain, and will be remembered as the last hurrah of an ancien regime that never learnt from its mistakes. Our taxes will go up to even more extortionate levels, especially on capital and property, making it even less worthwhile to work, invest or create; our drift to European-style social democracy will accelerate; our ultra-regulated economy will carry on stagnating in terms of per capita GDP, delivering paltry wage growth and ensuring children can no longer expect to be better off than their parents.

    The NHS, pensions and the welfare state will career ever-faster towards bankruptcy; immigrants will arrive at extraordinary rates, fuelling problems of integration and exacerbating the housing crisis; the gap between London and the rest will grow; the Somewheres will still be pitted against the Anywheres; the education system, state and private, will be trashed by egalitarian fanatics.

    Quangos and human rights lawyers will be handed even greater powers. The woke revolution will tear through more institutions; the family will continue to wither, intensifying the baby-bust; criminals will run riot; energy costs will rocket further in a mad rush to net zero, while the war on mobility will be intensified; and our Armed Forces will remain preposterously small.

    There is a small chance that Labour might improve the housing crisis, but if so it is concealing its real plans. Our foreign policy will worsen substantially, especially vis-à-vis the Middle East, and a hideous anti-Semitism will continue to gnaw away at our society.

    Nobody of a conservative bent should wish for a Labour victory, or for a 1906-style Tory defeat or worse. It would be a catastrophe were the Lib Dems to become the official opposition. Starmer's popularity will undoubtedly collapse in two to three years' time, when it becomes apparent that he doesn't have any answers, but by then great damage will have been done.

    Yet the terrible truth is that it is the Tories' embrace of neo-Blairite ideas, camouflaged by a thick coat of blue veneer, that is the fundamental reason they are set to be rejected by the electorate. Bad ideas never work, regardless of which rosette is pinned on them. Britain needs a cultural conservative, free-market and democratic revolution, a massive shock to the system, not a narrow choice between bad and worse.

    The Tories, especially those who saw themselves as the heirs to Blair, have only themselves to blame for the fact that Nigel Farage is now polling almost as highly as them. There is no future for the Tory party unless it breaks with today's pseudo-centrism and invents a new mass market Thatcherism for the modern era.

    If that doesn't happen, Britain will go the way of much of Europe, where the mainstream centre-Right and centre-Left stand utterly discredited for failing to fix any of their countries' economic or cultural problems, and are being replaced by radical parties, some sensible (such as Giorgia Meloni's in Italy) and some unpalatable (such as the AfD in Germany, which is rife with extremists).

    Growing up in France, I dearly hoped that the centre-Right would pull itself together, and reform France's failing institutions, economy and society, lest demagogues of the far-Left or Right fill the vacuum instead. It never did, and now, 30 years later, and after a succession of useless centre-Right and centre-Left presidents, it is too late. Les Republicains, the successor to de Gaulle's party, are down to 7 per cent and are tearing themselves apart over their leader's decision to subordinate himself to Marine Le Pen's party in the forthcoming general election. This is one possible nightmarish future for our own Tory party.

    France's anti-establishment rage has been building for much longer than Britain's, partly because it never had a Thatcher and because it has mismanaged mass immigration to a far greater degree than we have. Emmanuel Macron, a narcissist who pretended to break the Left-Right dichotomy, was the last chance for France's old order, just like Boris Johnson and now Starmer were the final hope for the Tory-Labour duopoly.

    Macron blew it spectacularly, his record of abject failure crowned by a humiliating downgrade of France's national debt. In a fit of pique, dressed up as a Machiavellian calculation, he decided to take his ungrateful country down with him days ahead of the Paris Olympics.

    There is a high chance that Jordan Bardella, Le Pen's 28-year old number two, will be prime minister after July 7. The consequences will be nuclear. There were runs on the pound after the Brexit vote and Liz Truss' budget; with no franc, a Rassemblement National victory would see the markets turn on French IOUs. Protestors will descend on to the streets. In time, if Le Pen's party survived contact with reality, her proposed referendum on migration would amount to the start of a Frexit in all but name, blowing up many of Starmer's assumptions.

    Britain has been lucky with its populists in recent years. Farage is a real conservative who would have been at home in Thatcher's Tories and who, unlike many European Right-wingers, believes in free markets and a smaller state. But far less salubrious characters and parties could easily start to spring up when the next government fails, as it inevitably will.

    The Tories have a duty to the country not to go the way of France's Gaullists, and instead to help reunite the mainstream Right to defeat the neo-Blairite consensus for good.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/12/britain-faces-populist-tsunami-greater-anything-seen-europe/

    Heath's forecast is notable for its one omission…

    2. "The Tories have a duty to the country not to go the way of France's Gaullists, and instead to help reunite the mainstream Right to defeat the neo-Blairite consensus for good."
      I thought the current Tories were already neo-Blairites.

    3. "The Tories have a duty to the country not to go the way of France's Gaullists, and instead to help reunite the mainstream Right to defeat the neo-Blairite consensus for good."
      I thought the current Tories were already neo-Blairites.

      1. After being hit by a milkshake in Clacton, when Nigel Farage went to Barnsley to promote Reform some idiot threw a brick and wet cement at the bus Nigel was standing up on. The Government has belatedly offered Farage extra security officers in addition to his own – but not Police support.

  123. A lot of comments unread, but that's me off to be.
    A trip to Sheffield to pick up a couple of auction purchases tomorrow.

  126. Farage had milkshake thrown at him, then wet cement. What next? Who next? Where will it lead? I see violence ahead, pre- and post-election.

    1. ' Morning, Geoff, thank you and 3 cheers for all the efforts you have lavished on us, on our behalf.

Comments are closed.