Saturday 22 June: Michael Gove is wrong about why voters lost faith in the Conservatives

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

599 thoughts on “Saturday 22 June: Michael Gove is wrong about why voters lost faith in the Conservatives”

      1. You'd like Tipping Point. It's been on for 12 years now and still going strong. It's an ideal game show after coming back from the pub.

        2. Isn’t that the Osman giant bloke? Seen him on HIGNFY. Quite funny in a dry droll way.

          1. Richard Osman? I think he prefers something a bit more challenging for 'ze leetle grey cells'. No, it's hosted by Ben Shepherd. He's perfectly bland for Tipping Point when all that one's fuzzy brain can cope with after a boozy session is the tension of waiting for discs to be pushed over a ledge.

          2. DI don't like him much. Seems too pleased with himself always. And his quiz on Beeb2 at teatime – aargh.
            If he says "Shall we?"once more, as in "Let's start the next round shall we?" I'll need a new TV as I'll have thrown something at it.

    2. Why is the election poster with the refuse bin for the nation yellow, and the flashy casino alternative red and blue?

    1. In the frozen canadian wasteland, it hasn't been that cold for about a week now.

    2. Blood will boil. Don't you realise this will be the hottest June ever!

      1. Perfect temperature for me. It’s why i holiday in the Med Spring and Autumn. What sort of idiot goes there in 40 degree temps and then goes for a walk in the mid day sun?

        2. I lived on the outskirts of Estepona on the Costa del Sol for five years and in one mid-summer, I recorded a temp of 44°c.

  3. Richard Kemp has seen active service in some bad places, has campaigned against the prosecution of veterans, is a friend of Israel and supported leaving the EU. However, here he's missed the target by a mile for apparently thinking the history of Putin's invasion began in 2014 with the seizing of Crimea.

    Nigel Farage has just proven that he's not a serious leader
    –
    The Reform head is naive at best. It was Western weakness, not NATO expansion, that encouraged Russia to invade Ukraine
    –
    RICHARD KEMP • 21 June 2024 • 9:35pm

    Nigel Farage's analysis of Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine could hardly be more wrong. He claims that NATO and EU expansion was provocative. In fact, it was Western weakness and timidity that encouraged Putin's aggression in 2022. Rather than making any attempt to oppose Russia's seizure of Crimea in 2014, or helping Ukraine to do so, Western governments called on Kyiv to take no action that might lead to escalation. In spirit, it was a foreshadowing of Joe Biden's offer in February 2022 to give President Zelensky a ride out of Ukraine.

    When Putin saw the West was unwilling to confront him, he rapidly followed up with aggression in the Donbas. In the face of that, Europe desperately sought to revert as soon as possible to business as usual with Russia, even taking steps to increase energy dependence. Seeing he had nothing to fear, an assessment reinforced by NATO's abandonment of Afghanistan, Putin returned to the charge in Ukraine in February 2022.

    To give credence to Putin's frequently trotted out excuse for starting this war is, to say the least, naive. Farage says that he admires him as a "political operator". Well, the political operator understood only too well that Russia had nothing to fear militarily from NATO, having rubbed shoulders with the heads of Western governments for so many years. Not one of them has any aggressive instinct let alone intent.

    Quite the reverse. As we have seen repeatedly in the pusillanimous responses from both Europe and the US to the 2022 invasion, with pretty much whatever Ukraine has needed to fight back being provided reluctantly, inadequately and with crippling restrictions, if at all. If Putin has any genuine fear of NATO's eastward expansion, why has he withdrawn 80 per cent of Russian forces from the border with Finland shortly after it joined the alliance?

    Beyond his imperialist motivations to recreate a greater Russia with him as Tsar, what Putin did actually fear was a democratic Ukraine and a Ukraine that has benefited increasingly from alignment with the West. He recognised the dangers to his own regime of growing economic prosperity just across the border, with the potential to create envy inside Russia that could lead to popular challenges to his repressive authority as he leads his country into economic decline and marginalisation on the world stage.

    A serious political leader should not parrot the talking points of Vladimir Putin. Instead, Farage should be encouraging our country and the West to stand up to this dictator against his criminal assault on a sovereign state. We have seen the consequences of appeasement play out over the last two years in Ukraine, and we can be sure that anything short of Russian defeat there will inevitably lead to even greater aggression and bloodshed in Europe in the future.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/21/nigel-farage-has-just-proven-that-hes-not-a-serious-leader/

    1. A real shame, Kemp usually stand up for the truth. In this case he is sadly mistaken. Give an officer a compass and he is almost guaranteed to pick the wrong direction if given a free choice.

  10. The West provoked Russian invasion of Ukraine, claims Farage. 22 June 2024

    Mr Farage was asked why he had “blamed the West” for Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

    He said: “Right, I’ll tell you what you don’t know, I stood up in the European Parliament in 2014 and I said, and I quote, ‘there will be a war in Ukraine’.

    “Why did I say that? It was obvious to me that the ever-eastward expansion of Nato and the European Union was giving this man a reason to his Russian people to say, ‘they’re coming for us again’ and to go to war.”

    This is all perfectly true of course. The question is, why has Farage chosen to say it in the middle of a General Election? He should have kept his mouth closed until it was over. He has given ammunition to the opposition.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/21/west-provoked-russian-invasion-ukraine-nigel-farage-reform/

      1. Morning Johnny. He could have waffled as any other of the "leaders" would have done when faced with a difficult question. On the other hand the comments BTL are massively in support, the opposite of the usual trolled arrangement.

    2. Ben Wallace is speaking well on this topic, and the whole Ukraine situation is more complex than Farage appreciates, as I myself laid out here a few days ago.

      I must say though that Farage is entitled to his opinion, and has every right to speak his mind, however right or wrong, especially during an election campaign where the electorate is the jury. Far more dangerous than Farage's opinions is the will to suppress him, as if it were some great crime to pass comment that has not been commanded by the Consensus.

      Yes, prodding the bear is not a sensible thing to do, but then Russia is quite capable of prodding the defences of its neighbours for weaknesses it can exploit. This is normal diplomatic behaviour and an aspect of Realpolitik that should not faze Putin any more than anyone else. The response is not to be so weak that potential foes might try it on.

      What neither Farage nor Putin's apologists understand is that the closer the EU gets to Russia, the closer Russia gets to the EU. Putin was catastrophically idiotic by barging in with heavy artillery, spooking the neutrals such as Finland and Sweden and bringing in America, who were losing interest in Europe. His much more effective strategy was making Germany dependent on Russian energy via Nordstream, on being the peacemaker in the Middle East against an extremely violent and aggressive Islamic foe, and on appealing to social conservatives in Central Europe tackling woke lunacies further West, and realigning the EU on Vienna and Budapest rather than Brussels and Paris. If Putin had played Ukraine right, he would have used it to draw the whole EU into a force sympathetic to Russia, first commercially, and then even militarily if America could no longer be relied on to tackle the Islamists and the Woke.

    3. Someone has dragged up an old tweet and Nigel was asked whether he still held that opinion. Of course, Auntie is delighted that they have a bone on which to chew and have elevated the story to the top line.

  11. Good morrow, gentlefolk. Todays (recycled) story.

    Dead Beat
    It's spring and the bear comes out of his cave.

    His knees are wobbling and he's a total wreck.

    He's all skin and bones with big circles under his eyes.

    So his brother looks at him and says: "You look awful! Didn't you hibernate all winter like you were supposed to?"

    To which the bear replies: Hibernate?! Holy shit! I thought you said masturbate!"

  15. 388769+up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Fact or fiction,
    I tend to err more towards it being factual, especially in regards to the political department,

    As I suggested in a prior post if we ever get a grip on reigning in
    the politico's, as it seems unlikely at the moment with the reshuffle of ALL highly dubious components set to take place,
    ALL must pass muster on the PEOPLES covid 19 jab plus booster.

    https://x.com/SandraWeeden/status/1804379958174761246

    1. 388769+ up ticks,

      O2O,
      I do believe that those current political / pharmaceutical hierarchy must receive the peoples jab, their own creation, to have any credibility and stand as candidates in a General Election.

      1. 388769+ up ticks,

        Morning Anne,
        I don’t believe so, these Smiths are spelt with a double f.

  16. Morning, all Y'all. Ssunny. Was beautiful last "night" – cloudless, still, silent, bright.

  17. Morning, all Y'all. Ssunny. Was beautiful last "night" – cloudless, still, silent, bright.

  19. Michael Gove is wrong about why voters lost faith in the Conservatives

    Gove is certainly one of the reasons why voters lost faith in the Conservatives.

  21. Good morning folks. The Queen of Sheba. Arrived yesterday evening. I’m just hoping her charioteers will arrive today and start clearing the canal!
    Hope you all have a good day!

  22. I wouldn’t use private healthcare even if my children were ill, Starmer says. 22 June 2024.

    Sir Keir Starmer has said that he would not use private healthcare even if his children were ill.

    The Labour Party leader said he would not go private even in a case of chronic illness because the NHS is “absolutely the best” at treating acute health problems.

    Sir Keir has said repeatedly during the election campaign that he would always choose to use the NHS.

    Then he’s not fit to be a father let alone a Prime Minister.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/21/general-election-latest-sunak-starmer-farage/

    1. Millionnaire politician is prepared to let his children die.
      Plus those of poorer people who have been queue jumped by his rich kids.

    2. It is one thing to sell your own grandmother – but a bit extreme to sell your wife and children!

      Not using private healthcare for his children does not bode well for his Jewish wife and practising Jewish children when Starmer capitulates completely to Islam.

    3. 'Sir Keir has said repeatedly during the election campaign that he would always choose to use the NHS'.

      That fucking wanker might change his mind if he was sitting on a plastic chair in A & E for 24 hours. But that would never happen would it…

      They are so thoroughly detached from reality they are not fit to run a whelk stall.

      When i go to vote i will take a doggie poop bag with me and smear it over the ballot paper. Fold into a nice origami parcel and poop it in the box.

    4. He'd be rushed to the front of the queue anyway, so no difference. As well he knows.

      1. 388769+ up ticks,

        Morning KB,
        Good post,” failed the peoples” time after time after time.

  24. Good morning, all. Overcast with a threat of showers later.

    The USA is gearing up to have the draft i.e. conscription mandates reinforced. There is a problem in that upwards of 60% of the population eligible for the draft have chronic health problems that would exclude them from being drafted. Evidence?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ffd648d79e6d7993568902bb3c586f59b65de04a03462bc6c62dbe45c64d13d4.png
    Despite the probable shortage of fit draftees the sabre rattlers, including the UK, continue their machinations, including the nuclear threat.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/aa2dcdb47e6677bb21e37cfdaf887a276bc7649399c28ad64da48d94d1f66e4a.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/302c77db977d7be8a96cc1059cc86bed0aa12b27b5ef726ff1b9ea58b42feb0f.png
    Meanwhile back on the farm:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/898848e3ac59b338c0cb52e06f13b7b2802dc3ac1f03a539756f5dc05642da77.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/aba3f8ecdcababcc7dd2a473a8758a7737a02ec2d6288b5feaae9cb920ca398d.png

    The "virus" isn't out and about but we'll authorise a "scientists think would be protective" medication based on studies (modelling?), anyway. It isn't that these people are refusing to learn the lessons of the last four years, they cannot fail to know the dangers of these "vaccines", they are wilfully ignoring the dangers to follow a narrative. Either these people are stupid beyond measure or evil, maybe both.

    Jefferey Jaxen's report from this week's The Highwire

    1. Bloody hell Paul. You didn't warn me that the narrator of that video was a mincing trannie!

      1. I was somewhat taken aback, as well. On reflection, you could hear it in the voice.

        1. I was suspicious when a”proud Newcastle lad” kept spouting vapid Yankisms, like “airplane”.

  26. ’Morning all! Beautiful sunny day here – perfect for a visit to the Royal Highland Show! Our daughter and SiL have been there since Thursday with their sheepies and have won lots of lovely rosettes! We were looking after two of the grandchildren yesterday while Mummy took the baby to the show. Today the other daughter and the twins are going and we’re all meeting up! I may be some time!

      1. I’m more worried about rampaging Simmentals and raging Clydesdales! 💕

  27. Usual nonsense about the Empire Windrush on Toady. We still had rationing in 1948, FFS!

    1. We had rationing until 1954.
      All those lining the streets for EIIR's coronation still had books of coupons.

      1. I remember my brother ( 3 years older) playing grocers and cutting up the families ration books!

      2. I remember my brother ( 3 years older) playing grocers and cutting up the families ration books!

      3. I remember it well, running to the sweetie shop with my brother, my coupons and a threepenny bit.

    4. According to the BBC “today, Sir Keir Starmer will be out in London to unveil his party's plans to expedite payments for the thousands of victims of the Windrush scandal”. What was/is “the scandal” and why were there “victims” and of what?

      1. Under the Labour government The British Nationality Act 1948, giving the status of citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies to all British subjects connected with the United Kingdom or a British colony. Prior to 1962, the UK had no immigration control for CUKCs, who could settle indefinitely in the UK without restrictions. Between 1948 and 1970, nearly half a million people moved from the Caribbean to Britain. 83 of them were deported, probably because they came before the act came into affect, but they and 19,000 descendants claimed compensation.

      2. Governments should be disallowed from throwing our money at their pet ideological projects. We will be paying for this and we don't even get a say. Labour winning by default is not democracy.

        1. You make an excellent point. This could cost a great deal but, far more worrying, set a precedent for future compensations.

  28. Few know much or care about my industry, commercial shipping, but they should as it carries well over 80% of world trade. And it is feeling abandoned. The World Shipping Council has expressed exasperation at the lack of action taken to stop Houthi attacks on shipping. Since November there have been over 70 attacks and two ships have been sunk. Several seamen have been killed. All that self-promoting crack from politicians like Biden was just cack. They are doing nothing, or very little. Ships are making the long trek around Africa, pushing up costs.

    1. You'd think the Egyptians, out of self-interest at losing Suez Canal income, would do something about it.

      1. You'd think the Environmental lobby would say something about it, what with shipping being responsible for lots of oil consumption.

    1. God moaning
      I was pissing by the door when i heard two shats………..

      What would you say was a reasonable BP read for someone like me? I drink a lot. I smoke a lot. I don't take any exercise. I am 60. Not over weight. But i have great hair.

        1. I have learned a few tricks.
          GP's are not the same breed from my youth. One i saw not long ago was wearing crocs. That's fine. I know lots of medical types do. His were just dangling from his toes. He also had google open on his screen.
          Not sure he was even noticed the contempt in my tone.
          He had three months previously sent me for tests. The prescription was to be based on the results.
          No follow up so i made an official complaint to the surgery.
          I got the standard response which was it was somehow all my fault.
          I did get an appointment with the Doctor though.
          Same spotty little git.
          He had obviously been ordered by the Practice manager to see me.
          One would think he might…just might…have looked at my notes.
          Clearly a grown up needed to take charge so i spelt it out for him in a calm measured way.

          I now understand the phrase…brook no argument. I doubt he does.

          5. A chum of mine who is a golfer said someone wearing pants like that and is crap at golf is known as a prize dick.

            Finally…recognition…I have arrived !

    2. I really don't know what to make of either of the figure charts. Assuming the numbers continue an upward trajectory by age, by those age related measures my BP is incredibly low. Even at the GP I tend to be 110 over 70 when I go in.
      I was regularly 100/110 over 60/70 with a resting heart rate of low 50's when doing my cardio rehab and the staff were very happy.
      At the end of my half hour hooked up to the monitors on the velo I was up to 130/140 over 90/100 and after warm down and five minutes rest back to 110 over 70 and pulse mid 60's.
      Even on the final day "bust a gut" session I was 140/100 which dropped back quickly to 110/70 and pulse to low 60's

      1. But what medication do you take? And were your BP and heart rate normal before you had your MI?

        1. A complete pharmacy worth now, but none before. As they don't appear to be doing any harm, so I do as I'm prescribed.

          My readings haven't changed significantly. The pulse is now slightly lower, but only very slightly, BP the same then as now.

          I had been regarded as exceptionally fit for my age.
          One reason why my doctor was so very surprised by my heart attack was no prior indications, it came completely out of blue during a coughing fit.
          It isn't stated, but I get the feeling the Covid jabs are no longer trusted.

          1. My OH is now on a whole lot of meds since his triple by-pass in Dec 22. Prior to his collapse in October that year he was on the three-monthly antigen jab for prostate cancer but nothing more than that and was very fit and active. Blood pressure always on the low side. Never overweight. He's ok now but I wonder what all the meds are doing. He's 81.

            I wonder if your coughing fit was the precursor or the cause of the heart attack?

            I won't be having any more jabs for anything if I can help it. At almost 76 I take no meds and keep away from the surgery. I had two AZ jabs for covid and he had three Pfizer ones.

          2. The cough was that phlegmy blighter doing the rounds that arrived well before Christmas, and I think it was certainly a contributory factor. Initially I thought all I had done was pulled an internal muscle, which if one thinks about it was what I did, in effect.

    3. Indeed. I have been on Ramipril for many years with a blood pressure up to 140/90. Have just done a set of readings for our surgery as requested and seemed to be a good time, 125/72. But TCW is right, the doctors try and push you on satins at the slightest opportunity. When I went for heart checks last year I was told that just by being on Ramipril I had to have blood thinners (edoxaban) to reduce my risk of a stroke. When I looked at the statins risks it was something like reducing my risk of a stroke from 20% to 10%, at 75 I think I can live with that sort of risk.

  31. Nigel Farage speaks the truth and the BBC goes into overdrive giving platforms to reams of liars complicit in the EU/NATO attempt to expand its influence in Ukraine – and potentially install nuclear missiles on the Russian border. Tens of thousands of deaths and billions of dollars worth of profit from the sale of arms and ammunition and the people responsible blame a British patriot for spreading truth and verisimilitude amongst the Left-wing Loons in Big Brother Centre.

    1. Cuba. Russian missiles. Castro. Parallel.

      Why was it acceptable for the US to feel threatened and react but not for Russia to feel threatened?

      1. I believe that at the time the USA was proposing to station nukes in Turkey, which was why Cuba arose as a tit-for-tat.
        Both sides withdrew, but one doesn't hear about the Turkish bit to anything like the same extent.

        1. The USA already had nuclear missiles in Turkey:

          Conflict resolved diplomatically

          Publicized removal of Soviet nuclear missiles from Cuba
          Non-publicized removal of American nuclear missiles from Turkey and Italy
          Agreement with the Soviet Union that the United States would never invade Cuba without direct provocation
          Creation of a nuclear hotline between the United States and the Soviet Union.

          Parties involved in the crisis
          Soviet Union Cuba
          United States Italy Turkey Venezuela

          1. "Publicized removal of Soviet nuclear missiles from Cuba
            Non-publicized removal of American nuclear missiles from Turkey and Italy"

            That squares with my recollection, Ped.

    2. Morning Ped. I think people are pretty clear in general over who is blaming whom. Farage doesn't have a history of political fibbing in his locker is all they need to know, even if the powers that be are trying their best to make the whole Russia / Ukraine thing as foggy as they can to the plebs. I don't think they believe Putin is out to "de-Nazify" Ukraine any more than they think Biden is out to "defend the West".

      This debate needs to be played out in full, because by the end of it I believe what both our major 'Libs' have to say will seem pretty hollow.

    2. The MSM and the Conservative Party are using the truth about the causes of the war in the Ukraine which Nigel Farage is airing as a stick with which to beat him.

      And why did Biden and Johnson act as provocateurs to persuade the corrupt and megalomaniac Zelensky not to engage in the talks that had been arranged? The situation could have been resolved but the West seemed to be more eager on armed conflict than Russia.

      Don't poke the bear! Many of us here were, up to a point, sympathetic to the Russians whom the West was provoking until Putin launched his "invasion".

      1. Zelenskyy is without doubt a Jewish clown, and the closest Western equivalent I can think of is Sacha Baron Cohen. He may well be corrupt, but then who isn't in that part of the world? I do not think he is a megalomanic in the way that Putin is. He has rather been thrust into the role of war leader, and is having to deal with it using his limited talents, which are largely in show business.

        Nor do I think the West is particularly eager to bury its huge and expanding national debts in the battlefields of the Donbas. I can think of better ways of spending money.

        1. " He has rather been thrust into the role of war leader, "

          I agree – but who was doing the thrusting and why?

          "Nor do I think the West is particularly eager to bury its huge and expanding national debts in the battlefields of the Donbas. I can think of better ways of spending money."

          Again I agree that I can think of better ways of spending money – but it is tax payers' money rather than the PTB's own money and the more ground that can be flattened the easier it will be to "build back better"! Doubtless Gates, Soros and the WEF are all in favour of the war!

          1. Putin did the thrusting. Who else invaded Ukraine? Ukraine did not invade Russia.

            The logic applied to Israeli clearance of Gaza to make living space for redeveloping this plum Mediterranean site hardly applies to the destruction wreaked on Ukraine, unless it suggested that Ukraine is as self-combustible as a UN humanitarian vehicle.

            No doubt arms dealers, like lawyers, will make money out of any conflict, and the more they can stir things up, the more they like it. It is the duty of Government to resist such little earners and have more regard for citizen outsiders not in on the scam. Easier said that done though, since those PTB control the media and finance political campaigning, and with it direct public opinion. If that were not so, very more Independents would get elected.

            How did Starmer get this overwhelming lead in the polls?

          2. If Putin hadn't acted Russia's most important naval base would have been occupied by now and the Yanks would have nuclear weapons stationed in the Donbass. Politics is knowing when to to act in the interest of one's country – Business is knowing when to act in the interest of rich men's bank accounts, irrespective of the consequences.

          3. I don’t think so.

            Sevastopol was a nice little earner for Ukraine for decades, with special energy concessions from Russia, which Ukraine then sold on to the Germans for a profit. Even if Russia welshed on the deal by organising direct trading with Germany, I doubt Ukraine had the means or the global support to evict the Russians from Sevastopol.

            As for the Americans, maybe under the Democrats they might have pushed out an expeditionary force into the Black Sea to threaten Russia. Trump already made his isolationist position clear, and the Republicans had bigger fish to fry, such as sorting out the Southern border, neutralising the threat from militant Islam, and there is the serious commercial and possibly military challenge from China. Why bother with a faraway country with a similar GDP to Italy? The U.S. does have a closer sea border in the Barents Sea, but even though Ms Palin could claim she could see Russia on a fine day, I doubt even gun-toting America thought at taking a pop or two at any stray Russian, just for the hell of it.

          4. We seem to be talking at cross purposes.

            I was referring to Zelensky going to war because of the influence of Johnson and Biden.

          5. Whilst Biden has business interests there, I rather think it was the other way round, and the only reason Zelenskyy went to war was because the country he was president of was invaded. I don’t think he had much choice in the matter.

    4. I don't think Mr Sachs account of events is correct. Yanukovych pulled out of the EU deal after Russia 'intervention' and that provoked the violent protests.

    6. The amazing thing is that Piers let Jeffrey speak for over five minutes without interrupting him. Never would happen on the bbc.

  33. Bingo – Another tripo:
    Wordle 1,099 3/6

    ⬜⬜🟨⬜🟩
    🟨🟨⬜⬜🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

        1. I also got it in two, but only because I couldn't think of any other word that fitted!

          1. A little Poem:

            Edison (Sue) and BB2
            Must start Wordle with ADIEU

            To paraphrase BB2 "I couldn't think of any other starter word that fitted!"

          2. I’m too lazy to change my starter word! I have a nice range of second attempts lined up, which I use according to the correctness of the letters in ADIEU.
            STARE, STORY etc.
            I’d have to think of a whole new set of second words if I changed my starter word!

    2. Par four
      Wordle 1,099 4/6

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

    3. After a run of birdies, I struggled on this one

      Wordle 1,099 5/6

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

  34. DNA Testing Kits

    Hi Eddy, I'm replying to your appeal yesterday – sorry it's a day late.

    I have been investigating my family tree for 45 years and there are over 1,500 relatives on my tree, reaching back to the late 1400s. I have used both MyHeritage and Ancestry DNA kits. Ancestry is the most comprehensive of all the firms and has the biggest DNA database but is much stronger on American members. MyHeritage is stronger on European relatives.

    Initially I received strong ‘hits’ from a few relatives who I already knew about. But especially from Ancestry there has been a steady stream of very weak DNA Associations, allegedly from 3rd or 4th Cousins, but of course, ONLY FROM PEOPLE WHO HAVE SUBMITTED THEIR DNA. On the plus side, these are people who are probably building family trees which may have members you don’t know about. But go back more than two generations and it is too late to get DNA records.

    On the minus side there are dozens of email notification arriving in your inbox every week. After a few months I gave up on tracking down these links as the relationships are so remote. Also, you may find unique photographs of relatives that you have posted on your own family tree turning up on other folks’ family trees because they have swiped them from yours via Ancestry or MyHeritage.

    It is quite hard to keep your family tree private if you want other distant relatives to offer their information. An old University friend in California has become the Marin County expert on DNA matching and gave me a one hour seminar on how to narrow things down, while I was in San Rafael last September, but I haven't used his methods (yet).

    Another thing to worry about is that by submitting YOUR DNA to an American firm, you never know what is going to happen in the future to it or its data. Worth thinking about if you visit USA at all frequently.

    Don't know if this helps. RC.

    2. I've done family history for many years and found quite a few relatives I didn't know before.
      I also get the Lost Cousins newsletter and he's very keen on dna checks. I decided not to go down that route and don't regret it. Like vaccination, once done it can't be undone.

      I also had chunks of my family tree copied by someone on Genes Reunited so I keep all my info private since then.

      1. Hi Ndovu,
        I too have used Lost Cousins since its inception. Its records are based on the 1881 UK Census, which is free to search and (almost) 100% reliable.
        My Mother-in-Law was born in 1908 and the manuscript record of her entry in the 1911 Census shows 3y (3 years old). But the transcribers took this as 31 yrs and so her Year of Birth got shoved back to 1880, a little before her own mother was born. I attempted to get it corrected but was told that there was insufficient evidence, so the General Record Office would not amend it. So do NOT trust 100%.

        1. You do need to look at the manuscripts and not trust the transcriptions as they are very often wrong. I have sent up numerous corrections to Find my Past but I don’t know if they made any changes.
          And some people were not recorded – eg my Gt grandmother – the first record of her was in 1841 as 3 years old. She reduced her age on each census as a lot of people did. But I do know she was born on 11th September from a little birthday book given to my mother. Also her baptism in April 1839. These three clues set her birth date as 11.09.1838.

    3. Thanks RC I'll look into both, it's interesting to know that others have used the services. And results noted.
      Many thanks.

    1. I thought that Twitter, now X, has been more open to differing opinions since Elon Musk acquired control.

    2. I've just looked back and been reminded that Peterson's suspension began 2 years ago. Has he not yet been reinstated?

    3. I've just looked back and been reminded that Peterson's suspension began 2 years ago. Has he not yet been reinstated?

    1. So, what is their actual beef? Did they not get to move to a rich country to work and have a better life?

    1. The mania for controlling the masses is completely out of…well…out of control!

      1. Anybody that criticises will be swiftly;
        debanked, cancelled, abused, audited, down-ticked, unliked, arrested, fined, demonetised, fired, de-amplified, shadow-banned, marginalised, black-balled, have payment services providers withdrawn.

        In China, they flick a switch so your broadband speed becomes a trickle. Stop you from marrying.. there's a long list.

        So many options. All at once or spread over six months.

      2. Anybody that criticises will be swiftly;
        debanked, cancelled, abused, audited, down-ticked, unliked, arrested, fined, demonetised, fired, de-amplified, shadow-banned, marginalised, black-balled, have payment services providers withdrawn.

        In China, they flick a switch so your broadband speed becomes a trickle. Stop you from marrying.. there's a long list.

        So many options. All at once or spread over six months.

      3. 388769+ up ticks,

        Morning SE,

        The impression I get via the polling patterns is that, in the main the peoples like being herded,not realising that the political shepherd is using the boiling frog method.

        1. I think the vast majority of people are quite oblivious to the manipulation that is applied.

          1. 388769+ up ticks,

            Morning N,
            I do agree, hence the odious political manipulators are using the boiling frog method.

    2. about a month ago..

      A far-remote Canadian municipality has imposed mandatory QR codes for people to enter and exit. With this, the Canadian township Îles-de-la-Madeleine has reportedly become the first country in the world to make QR codes mandatory for visitors.

      1. The things that are not seen in the Canadian media (well it received a mention in the French cbc but not mainstream English stuff). It is municipal Quebec stuff, who cares about them.

        it's surprising that they don't demand people use the covid Era ArriveCan app to register and leave, that was built to control ins and outs at airports.

        The easteners have a penchant for controlling access. During the pandemic panic,a number of Eastern Provinces shut their provincial borders to stop people entering or leaving their provinces.

  38. Morning all 🙂😊
    It was sunny a few minutes ago, but not too bad, light drifting cloud.
    Michael Gove ? He's just another one of the ME political classes. And says anything he thinks he can get away with.
    It's time for politician's to stop the 'US and them' attitudes. The people who have to pay for all of their 'services and other arrangements' should be considered to the first degree. But it's all about them and what they can get out of it and what they think they can get away with.
    And that is their first and only priority.

    1. Gove is a bit of a poseur. He annoys the sidesmen in church by always arriving five minutes late. He’s so consistent that it can’t be beyond his control. There are people at work who are late for every meeting and appointment because they think it shows how busy busy important they are.

      2. When he was President of the Union (Ox Uni debating society, they invite a lot of guest speakers), he left no records behind. Zero. Every other President left a folder of letters and replies, so that future Union officers would know who to write to, and what they had replied in the past.
        At the time I thought it was incompetence, but now I wonder if he destroyed the evidence on purpose.

      3. Offer him some coke. That will speed him up.

        People who are always late annoy me. To stop getting annoyed their invitations dry up.

        Speaking of annoying … my sister texted me at 11pm and woke me up. I texted back and tore her off a strip. She texted this morning to say sorry. And ! woke me up again !

        1. I keep my phone on silent. I don't like noisy interruptions. If I'm awake I hear the vibrations.

          1. Not sure if i have that setting. It's an old style flip phone. I pretend i'm Captain Kirk. :@)

      4. If it's a committee and there is a quorum on your "side", get everyone to turn up bang on time, call the meeting to order, vote through everything you want, finish the meeting and tell late-comers:
        "Tough, you should have been on time."

        1. One of our number at an old works refused to turn up at the same time as everyone else. We'd have done 3 hours work by the time he rocked up.

          He refused, outright to come in earlier, even to get up earlier and attend remotely. We did everything we could to accommodate.

          One day as we sat there waiting and his floppy hatted self turned up I said 'sorry, we wanted to get on. You've missed the meeting which we held at 8:30.'

          When we got to planning he had no idea what was going on and made a huge fuss and shouting match over being excluded. I simply said 'you excluded yourself from the team.'

      5. That's a well-known trait with some professionals. They will turn up late to an appointment just to show how important and busy they are – in my book it only shows that they are pretentious t!ts. If you have an appointment you turn up on time. Full stop.

        In fact if I have an hour appointment I have no compunction in taking them over that hour, if I need to.

        1. We suffered from late to meetings syndrome at work until we got a new CEO.

          After a week of delayed meetings, he just announced that doors would be locked at the appointed hour and anyone who was late would be excluded from the meeting.

          it did not take long before 10AM meetings actually started at 10.

          1. I'm talking about when a professional is late for a meeting which I am paying for. I remember when I once used a local solicitor who at that time worked from home (years ago her office was at home). I turned up for the meeting at the appointed time, she was 15 minutes late! I later sacked her because she was useless, plus she was charging me for all sorts of time that she should have borne the cost of, herself.

            Moral: if you are in a profession, don't mess about with clients who are of the same profession. They know how it works, from the inside. In fact don't mess about with anyone because it gives the profession a bad name.

        2. I always endeavour to arrive on time. It annoys me that the GP and the Vet are consistently late. my Dentist is always on time. Why can't the others manage it…Either poor planning or contempt.

          1. Perhaps it’s because the dentist is looking at teeth and teeth alone. Moreover, at my dentist’s a routine check is just a check. If anything actually needs to be done, you have to make another appointment. This means that the appointment system is usually under tight control.
            For the most part a GP or vet does not know what you or your pet may be presenting with. Even if you had a routine appointment for a blood pressure check and medication review, you might suddenly mention that you’d been getting some symptom or other that would be a red flag and need to be dealt with without delay. It only takes one patient who is found to be really sick and – say- needs an urgent hospital referral then and there to completely derail a surgery. Even if that doesn’t happen, it isn’t uncommon for people to try to get 3 or 4 issues sorted out in one appointment.

          2. My dentist always runs late – like the doctor and the vet. I suppose if I turned up late it would be the one time they were on time and I'd be told off for being late.

      6. Why not “make” the next meeting 15 minutes earlier. Then all turn up at the usual time without letting Gove know. He is extremely rude to keep arriving late. He needs to be shown.

        2. It’s the church services he’s late for and the sidesmen do make people wait to take their seats. It just annoys them when it’s clearly habitual.

          1. Has anyone actually confronted him over his tardiness? He needs to be told his behaviour is rude and unacceptable.

  41. @squireweston:disqus. Good morning from Audrey and I on this glorious sunny day.
    You've not been let free here for awhile, are you happier in your Speccie box even if they are leaning further to the left 🤣

  43. Nice try, Frosty, but no one's listening.

    Nobody is confronting the great Remainer lie about Brexit

    It's now eight years since the referendum, and Leave backers aren't doing enough to counter pro-EU propaganda

    DAVID FROST • 21 June 2024 • 6:30pm

    Eight years ago on Sunday, we went to vote in the Brexit referendum. Let's not forget that most of our rulers never wanted it in the first place. It only happened because of the campaigning of Nigel Farage and UKIP and the determination of a bunch of Tory MPs like Sir Bill Cash. It became the largest act of democracy, and indeed the largest vote for anything, in British history.

    Four years later, through a supreme effort, and in the teeth of the opposition of the anti-democrats and the blockers – including Sir Keir Starmer and most of the current Labour leadership – the Conservative Party, Boris Johnson and I smashed through the barriers and delivered the referendum result.

    We went on to sign the largest, widest, and deepest trade and co-operation agreement anywhere. We made Britain a free and independent country once again.

    Where has that spirit of hope and optimism gone? In part, of course, it dissipated amid the Covid pandemic and the shock of the Ukraine war.

    But it's not just that. Those who never wanted to leave the EU have taken every opportunity, seized on every random economic figure, to tell us that Brexit was an irresponsible populist mistake. And since Boris's departure, there has been no real counter-argument from the Government.

    It's not surprising so many believe – despite the actual evidence – that somehow "Brexit is failing". Yet it really isn't so.

    Obviously any change on the scale of leaving the EU entails both costs and benefits. Assessing that trade-off is not just about economics and trade, but also about intangibles like control and national democracy, upon which free Western countries have traditionally put a high value.

    So there will always be room for debate. But one thing we can be sure of is that the catastrophising of Project Fear was simply wrong. We accomplished the biggest change in this country's economic and political model for 50 years, and you can barely see it in the figures.

    The likely small hit from disentangling ourselves from the single market and customs union isn't even visible in the charts. The disasters predicted by so many have simply not happened. So when the critics got so much wrong before, why should we believe them now?

    Yet you still hear many who should know better, like the Office for Budget Responsibility, and many who don't, like the actor Brian Cox on the BBC last weekend, claiming that Brexit is shrinking our GDP by 4 per cent. But this figure is not a fact: it is a prediction, a very unsafe one, made several years back, about the supposed drag on our GDP sometime in the next decade.

    And the prediction just does not reflect reality. The truth is that, since we left the EU's economic area at the end of 2020, our hourly productivity has grown faster than the eurozone's and, according to the OECD, our overall economy has grown faster than that of France or Germany. There is every reason to think that both of these trends will continue. Similarly, don't believe the anti-Brexit hype about our trade performance. We are actually in the middle of a services trade boom, one unpredicted by the gloomy anti-Brexit economists.

    Moreover, as the economist Catherine McBride has been repeatedly pointing out for the Briefings for Britain group, our goods exports to the EU and the rest of the world have performed roughly equally, and our goods imports from the EU have actually gone up faster than those from elsewhere, neither of which suggests that EU trade barriers are at the root of any difficulties we have.

    So why do so many voters feel they aren't getting what they hoped for from Brexit? One answer is that our problems are deep-rooted: housing and planning, unreformed public services, tax and spend at the highest-ever levels, the crackpot pursuit of renewables, and an economy that has got hooked on the sugar rushes of low-skill immigration and zero interest rates. Add to all this the pandemic, with its £400 billion debt, a shock which is going to take a long time to work through, and plainly the last few years would have been difficult come what may.

    The other reason is that we have not delivered on our promises. We pledged to cut immigration and it has not happened. Quite apart from the negative direct effects, this failure has revealed just how much the levers of control are outside the government's hands and how ineffective the British state really is.

    Leaving the EU is the necessary condition for solving these problems. It doesn't fix them in itself. We, the British people, still have to do that for ourselves. What Brexit does do – or should do, for the job is not entirely complete – is give us back control, the ability to govern our country in our own interests and in a way that suits us.

    That is about changing the laws that we inherited from the EU. It's about taking on the European Convention on Human Rights. And it is also about ending the passivity of the last couple of decades, in which too much of the British establishment seemed to prefer investing in our minority, non-controlling, share in the EU than in governing Britain in the interests of the British people.

    Yes, we should have changed more and more quickly. But, again despite what you will hear from many, getting out of the EU has already made a big difference.

    First of all, we have our democracy back. Here, we can change everything at elections. EU countries can't. They can change their leaders but can only change the policies if they can persuade everyone else to agree.

    We choose our governments ourselves, but the EU's miscellaneous job-lot of presidents – including seemingly one who was forced to resign from his own government due to a corruption scandal – is currently being chosen in backrooms, divvied up among political groupings, and rubber-stamped by its parliament. Nor do we have to pay £10-12 billion a year net into the EU each year, a sum that would be a lot higher by now as the bloc has expanded its budgets and borrowing since we left.

    We have got all the EU's old trade deals and several new ones of our own, too, notably the huge trans-Pacific Partnership, which gives us free trade with the fastest growing economies in the world. We have cut our own tariffs, making prices cheaper in the shops – impossible within the EU.

    We have begun to free up our financial services sector again to give back the City some of its old dynamism. We have our own flexible subsidy regime and we can reduce taxes and regulation within our new freeports.

    We can change our own VAT rates, at least within Great Britain. We have a better-tailored farming support scheme, new procurement rules, greater freedom in foreign policy, streamlined trade processes, and an increase in fisheries quotas before we take back full control of our waters in two years' time.

    And above all we have control over our borders. Of course, we have been far too generous with low-skilled migration, but we can now change those rules overnight, and absolutely should do so. We have also avoided the EU's new migration pact, which would have made us take a share of all the illegal migrants coming into the EU.

    You can find more unsung successes of Brexit in a report launched today, setting out 50 Brexit benefits, at globalbritain.co.uk. None of them is a silver bullet. But all will – or would, if Labour weren't determined to reverse them – deliver increases in economic growth in years to come.

    We could do more – in labour markets, competition policy, distancing ourselves from the excesses of net zero, and in dealing with the drag on reform created by the deeply unsatisfactory Windsor Framework in Northern Ireland. But that is not an argument for giving up and going back to the starting point.

    That is why it is so dangerous to give Labour a free hand on Brexit. They are starry-eyed pro-Europeans who want to put us gradually back, bit by bit, under the thumb of EU rules. They will wind back the clock, make us subject to laws set to suit others, and weaken our democracy and our growth potential.

    So when people say Brexit is failing, don't listen. Point to the evidence, and be proud of what we did to make our country free and independent once again. And vote wisely on July 4.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/21/britain-should-be-proud-of-brexit/

    1. From Coffee House, the Spectator

      How has Farage fallen for the idea that the West provoked Russia?
      Comments Share 22 June 2024, 10:57am
      Nigel Farage enjoyed a combative exchange with Nick Robinson in his BBC Panorama interview this evening, and acquitted himself well on many issues. True, the tax cuts and spending rises in his manifesto don’t add up – they rely on a rather over-hopeful expectation of the economy, as indeed do Labour’s. But then Farage is honest that he is not really selling us a programme for government, only giving an indication of the issues on which Reform UK will be pressing if succeeds in gaining a Commons presence. Therefore, his party can get away with some loose budgeting.

      But at the same time Farage made his first big error – and one that could cost him dearly among many of his potential voters. He doubled down on previous remarks claiming that the West ‘provoked’ Vladimir Putin into invading Ukraine – provoked him, that is, by allowing the eastwards expansion of Nato and the EU.

      It is a theory with which Farage’s friend, Donald Trump, is known to be in sympathy. But such is the apathy towards Europe on the part of many US voters that Trump might get away with it. It is a very different business when you are trying to appeal to the centre-right in Britain.

      To accuse the West of provoking Putin into invading Ukraine is, frankly, outrageous. Putin tried to help himself to Ukraine not because the West was rattling sabres at him but because it was too weak. For years, the eastwards expansion of Nato was more symbolic than a genuine attempt to extend the umbrella that had protected western Europe during the cold war; it included only token deployments of weapons and personnel, and certainly no nuclear weapons as lay on the other side of the Russian border. Putin started testing western defences, and only when he was convinced the West was not going to defend Ukraine did he annex Crimea. Even then the western defence was feeble, both militarily and economically. It is remarkable to think now that the deal for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline was signed after the Crimean invasion. Europe was still at that point prepared to make itself reliant on Russian gas in spite of Russia having committed an act of war against a neighbouring country.

      But even if Putin did feel threatened at any point by the symbolic eastward expansion of Nato or the EU, is Farage really trying to say that sovereign states of Eastern Europe do not have the right to decide which alliances they wish to join? You might as well say that Ireland has provoked the UK by remaining a member of the EU, and that therefore it would be entitled to invade its neighbour.

      Farage has had a good campaign so far, but this is not going to encourage many erstwhile Conservative voters that he is a serious candidate to be Prime Minister – even if he could use the result of this election to manoeuvre himself into future contention.

      1. Since 2014 the Ukraine had bombarded the people in the Donbas regions and also completely disregarded the Minsk accords. This seems to have been quietly forgotten.

        1. Absolutely right, Jules. And slaughtered 14,000 Russian Speakers.

          Most Politicos want to ignore it!

        2. Absolutely right, Jules. And slaughtered 14,000 Russian Speakers.

          Most Politicos want to ignore it!

      2. I don't know why you've posted this as a response to an article on Brexit.

        1. Since disqus modernized its app I can only use this system to upload using my iPad. At home I am able to use my computer but here at the seaside I depend much more on the iPad and for that reason I have taken advantage of your good nature to upload the article in this way.

          1. S'alright. I just wondered if you'd had a good night with the corkscrew, that your vision might still have been a little blurred and you'd missed the target!

    2. From Spectator comments thread

      Ian Cooper
      a few seconds ago
      Farage predicted it. He did not endorse it.
      −
      B
      BANASTRE TARLETON
      3 minutes ago
      The writer of this twaddle is exactly the type who should be press ganged into the Ukrainian front line trenches , but instead he’ll continue writing globalist propaganda , keeping the war going until much of the youth and manhood of Ukrain are rotting in their graves . I just want karma to catch up with these creeps in some way
      −
      D
      David Evans
      3 minutes ago
      Because he actually is a pub bore??
      1 person writing a comment…
      −
      M
      Marlowe
      3 minutes ago
      I was taught in O-level history in the 1970s that Russia – after Napoleon and Hitler – was afraid of Europe and wanted buffer states of influence around it to protect itself. (AJP Taylor I think.) So I worried at least ten years ago about the EU’s rather imperialistic overtures to Ukraine. Like Farage, I feared it would mean trouble. Those who view his comments in black and white are simplifying the issue and don’t know their history. Farage didn’t say Putin wasn’t to blame. Of course he is. But Farage did predict it, for the right reasons, and he was right.
      1 person writing a comment…
      −
      B
      Bill Rees
      8 minutes ago
      It’s possible for two things to be correct at the same time.
      1. Russia regarded the eastward expansion of NATO as a provocation.
      2. Russia invaded Ukraine because it was weak.
      I would also suggest that the west’s complicity in the 2014 ousting of the then Ukrainian government also gave the Russians grounds for suspecting that the west was out to surround it.
      −
      R
      Robert Bidochon
      9 minutes ago
      Do that many people really care about Ukraine anymore? It’s not on TV much and issues closer to home are more pressing.
      −
      D
      Derek M Robert Bidochon
      6 minutes ago edited
      Very true, although they might start to care when our politicians’ carelessness and stupidity ends with us sleepwalking into a war. Of course, it will be too late by then.
      −
      M
      Mark Smith
      10 minutes ago
      Another commentator who didn’t listen to what he said because the BBC operative was drowning him out. He said that Putin used the excuse of expansion of NATO and the EU to invade Ukraine. He didn’t say that was the reason for his invasion. He noted that Putin is a political operator which is clearly true.
      −
      D
      Derek M
      11 minutes ago
      Ross Clark may know a lot about Net Zero but clearly he doesn’t know much about international relations.

      “For years, the eastwards expansion of Nato was more symbolic than a genuine attempt to extend the umbrella that had protected western Europe during the cold war; it included only token deployments of weapons and personnel, and certainly no nuclear weapons as lay on the other side of the Russian border. ” What a load of utter nonsense, given that NATO transformed from a defensive alliance to one which attacked countries which were no threat to it (from Yugoslavia to Libya) why would the Russians believe that. If it was only symbolic and not real, then what was the point of it.

      “…is Farage really trying to say that sovereign states of Eastern Europe do not have the right to decide which alliances they wish to join?” They certainly have the right, but we also have the right not to ask them to join or not to give them membership. The job of British politicians is to look after British interests not those of foreigners. Too much of the British political and media class have forgotten that.
      −
      Avatar
      Stephen Boyce Derek M
      a few seconds ago
      Both self interest and justice speak for supporting Ukraine.
      As for all the Nato provoking Putin nonsense, did they provoke him also when he was bombing hospitals in Aleppo?
      Ukraine is an enormously resource rich country as well as being strategically positioned. That’s why Putin wants it.

      2. "The job of British politicians is to look after British interests not those of foreigners."
        Too effin' true.

        1. Trouble with the Foreign Office is that they think their job is to work for the foreigners' interests.

      3. The war in Ukraine is not about Putin’s desire to take the land but is about the US desire for regime change in Russia and the dismantling of the Russian Federation.

        Russia’s vital strategic interest was always to have a port on the Black Sea whereas the UK in the days of Lord Palmerston and the US of today hoped to block Russian access and place its own fleet in the Black Sea.

        Russia has vast resources and much of its land mass has gone unexploited.

    3. The penultimate paragraph of this piece – we have never left the EU, we follow all EU diktats, rules and regulations still. And there is no democracy in this country, we are ruled by WEF, UN, WHO et al. Oh, and the snivel serpents.

      BTW, what happened with the IHR/WHO plandemic/scamdemic treaty, was it all pushed through? And, if it was, who signed us up to it? Anybody know?

      1. I assume you read about the court case involving Surrey County Council and planning permission for oil extraction.

        1. One of the first things to go should be the Supreme Court and reinstatement of the old Law Lords. Except that that wouldn't work either – the HoL is now also so stained with the Blair paint; that man did so much damage to this country, he should be behind bars, to be wheeled out every day in stocks for the ordinary populace to throw rotten eggs at.

          1. I once heard a sermon on how people don’t realise what a severe torture the stocks are and how it makes all the joints and muscles ache. It was intended to deter us from the flog ‘em an’ hang ‘em mindset and not reinforce it of course. I don’t recall it being at all relevant to the lectionary, which breaks rule number one for sermons.

          3. Our current system of justice does not work. Our laws are not equally, fairly applied. A new form of law enforcement, one far more brutal is needed.

          4. I still believe in flogging and hanging 'em, Sue.

            Reduces the criminal classes.

          5. Cut the Lords down to just the hereditaries.

            They take the long view for our country because they have a vested interest in their estates and the longevity thereof.

            Clear out all the placemen and revert the lairds to being a purely modifying house!

        2. No, haven’t read anything about that. Are you able to enlighten me, provide a link maybe?

          1. Another blow to our energy industry

            An extraordinary judgment from the Supreme Court has put North Sea oil drilling at risk

            TELEGRAPH VIEW • 20 June 2024 • 10:00pm

            One of the supposed benefits of Brexit was the opportunity it provided to ditch EU laws harming growth and innovation. These included a directive requiring an assessment to be carried out before planning permission can be granted for a development project likely to have significant environmental effects, known as an EIA.

            This was contained in regulations passed by Parliament in 2017, after the vote to leave the EU, and reinforced later by Theresa May's commitment to net-zero carbon emissions.

            The consequences of not repealing this provision became apparent this week. The Supreme Court ruled that Surrey County Council had failed to follow the law when granting permission for oil extraction because it had not taken into account the impact of future emissions on climate change.

            This extraordinary judgment, taken by a 3-2 majority, would effectively stymie all future oil and gas exploration in Britain. The court said an EIA was necessary "to identify, describe and assess the likely 'direct and indirect significant effects' of the project on the environment, including (among other factors) the impact on climate".

            While the legislation does not prevent the planning authority from giving consent for a project deemed to be harmful, it must reach a reasoned conclusion on the impact and take this into account in making its decision. The council thought this applied only to the immediate emissions associated with the scheme. The dissenting judges considered it constitutionally inappropriate for a local planning authority to be expected to take long-term decisions that were usually the responsibility of central government. Moreover, it went beyond the text of the directive and was contrary to the EU principle of proportionality.

            But the majority ruling that future emissions from burning oil must be considered adds another layer of uncertainty to an industry already pulling back from investing in extraction under threat of even heavier Labour windfall taxes. We will need oil and gas for the foreseeable future despite the fantasies of net-zero proponents and will either have to produce our own or import it. Without North Sea oil and gas Labour's plan for growth will be hot air.

            This damaging ruling can only encourage the Just Stop Oil zealots who have spray-painted Stonehenge and tried to attack the private plane belonging to the pop star Taylor Swift. Their arrogance and self-regard seemingly knows no bounds.

            https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2024/06/20/another-blow-to-our-energy-industry/

          2. The idea that a bunch of stupid, backward fools can hinder such projects is insane.

            Those complaining should in this instance be put into a compound where they are forbidden anything made with or from oil.

    4. When you read the comments you see how many truly bonkers remoaners there are even now fighting against Brexit. This is what's so wrong with the Left. They're psychotic.

    5. I only wish this country were free and independent again. Brexit has not been delivered. NI is still part of the EU and there's a border down the middle of the Irish Sea. We still have loads of EU diktats being adhered to.

    1. I'm confused. Was the liquid spilling my fault for having some or the others for bumping into me?

      It's because someone bumped into me. Cause, effect. The contents of the mug doesn't matter. The effect the other had on me does.

      1. I have to try desperately hard not to let all the milk of human kindness I possess leak out of me at the best of times, let alone when someone barges into me (though I am unlikely to be wandering the streets with a cup of tea, let alone coffee)

    1. Roman Catholic Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, 83, who served as the Vatican's ambassador to the United States from 2011 to 2016, was summoned to an extrajudicial trial at the Vatican for "the crime of schism" this week, he announced Thursday on X.

      "I have been summoned to the Palace of the Holy Office on June 20, in person or represented by a canon lawyer," wrote Viganò, who faces potential excommunication from the Roman Catholic Church after years of publicly questioning the legitimacy of Pope Francis and portions of the Second Vatican Council.

  46. Our culture is in the hands of people who hate it

    It's easier to 'queer' the Bronte sisters than actually engage with their ideas and their hinterland

    MADELINE GRANT • 22 June 2024 • 9:00am

    Another day, another example of our cultural heritage in the hands of people who hate it; or at least can't bring themselves to love it as it is. The Bronte Parsonage Museum in Haworth, the childhood home and centre of study and interest in the Bronte sisters, has produced various baffling LGBT-themed resources as part of its series "Pride at the Parsonage: The Brontes and Gender Identity".

    I should be clear; I am not against gay historical figures having that side of their personalities and contributions explored. You can imagine it being quite a big deal, say, for the estate of Oscar Wilde. But trying to shoehorn 21st-century concepts of the "queer" into the lives and works of three vicar's daughters from the mid-19th century, isn't just deranged but faintly insulting.

    One justification for this fantasy alternate universe appears to be that the Brontes used male pseudonyms to publish their work. Yet they adopted these not for fun, or to achieve the "queering" of gender boundaries, but out of cold necessity. (In Charlotte Bronte's case, nothing screams "gender-queer" like being forced to publish under a man's name, before dying from complications in the early stages of pregnancy.)

    To most people, claiming something that was the product of repression as a choice made as part of some greater struggle sounds tangibly insane. However, it gives an insight into the mindset of many custodians of our cultural treasures. Theirs is a moral world where it is impossible to say that something is "good" for its own sake, because that would imply the existence of categories of objective "goodness", or, shock horror, a morality different to their own. Instead, culture must always be repurposed to fit the prevailing ideology.

    Similar attempts have been made to recast Shakespeare as a proto-gender pioneer due to the ubiquity of male actors playing female parts in Elizabethan and Jacobean theatres; as if this were a creative choice by the playwright, rather than it simply being illegal for women to act on stage professionally until the Restoration.

    The "Reclaim Her Name" project recently published a number of George Eliot's novels under her birth-name, Mary Ann Evans. However, George Eliot chose her adopted name carefully, and delighted in it; George being the Christian name of her beloved partner GH Lewes, and Eliot "a good mouth-filling, easily-pronounced word". In her essay Silly Novels by Lady Novelists, Eliot is scathing about the mania for women's romance fiction during the era. Perhaps she wouldn't have wanted her name to be "reclaimed" for the #Girlboss era?

    Indeed, Charlotte Bronte's ideas about equality come from a very particular place; one which has little to do with the secular egalitarianism of today. They are rooted in explicitly Christian understandings of souls being equal under God. Jane Eyre's glorious words to Mr Rochester (which still bring a tear to my eye 20 years after I first read them) make this clear. "Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! – I have as much soul as you– and full as much heart!" You might have thought that those working at Haworth Parsonage (clue in name) would have some appreciation for this. Apparently not.

    Truly getting to grips with literature of the past involves entering a thought-world different from our own, doing serious legwork with things like attitudes to death, faith and truth. The easy option is simply to impute contemporary ideologies onto these texts, rather than spending hours poring over the King James Bible in an effort to understand their hinterland.

    I suspect that one reason for the soaraway success of the podcast series The Rest is History is that it doesn't view the past as a stick with which to beat the present – but as its own place, whose stories are valid and interesting. People who don't feel comfortable inhabiting the past, or at least engaging with it on its own terms, are entitled to their opinion. But perhaps they shouldn't be handed the keys to the museum.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/22/our-culture-is-in-the-hands-of-people-who-hate-it/

    1. Thank you Madeline. Howarth Parsonage is just one of thousands of libraries, museums, heritage centres and other public funded bodies which have come out in support of woofters, benders, trannies and similar mentally deficient ideologies.

    2. Lefties live in a perpetual now. There is no past, no future, nothing except the moment. They are incapable of learning from history because to them, it doesn't exist. It's why they're so insane.

      1. "They are incapable of learning from history because to them, it doesn't exist." That's better.

      2. To them, those that can read, 1984 is an instruction manual. Having just read it again it is worrying.

  48. BBC in overdrive denouncing Farage and his views on Ukraine/Russian conflict. I do hope that the British public see it for the pro-left propaganda it is and vote for Reform at the coming election.

    1. He may well have turned a lot of potential voters away with what he said. I think a majority of people have swallowed the “Putin is bad” hook, line and sinker. I totally agree with him but I’m not sure many others do. The west, US particularly, keep prodding Russia and sooner or later Putin will bite back. To our cost.

      1. As he has done. And will do again if the west keep prodding and sending missiles into Russian territory.

  49. Sunak and Starmer turn on Farage over Russian invasion claim. 22 June 2024.

    Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer have criticised Nigel Farage after he claimed the West provoked Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

    The Prime Minister said the Reform UK leader was “completely wrong and only plays into Putin’s hands” after Mr Farage said the “ever-eastward expansion of Nato and the EU” had given Vladimir Putin a reason to justify war.

    Sir Keir subsequently said he was “disgusted” with Mr Farage’s comments.

    The Labour leader told reporters on Saturday: “Nigel Farage’s comments were disgusting. Russia is the aggressor and Putin bears the responsibility. We see this on the battlefield and we see it online.”

    These people are just Globalist drones. I doubt that either has ever had an original or independent thought.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/22/election-politics-latest-news/

    1. Their propensity to self delusion is staggering. Farage speaks the plain truth and they can't cope. Neither Sunak nor Starmer are are fit to run a whelk stall.

    2. ‘The Labour leader told reporters on Saturday: “Nigel Farage’s comments were disgusting. Russia is the aggressor and Putin bears the responsibility. We see this on the battlefield and we see it online.”’

      I’ve just seen the interview on TikTok. Farage makes it quite clear that Putin is the aggressor.
      This comment by Starmer is pure flannel.

      1. But everyone will go with what Starmer says, and not check for themselves. Unfortunately.

    3. I'm too busy trying to avoid all this political nonsense.
      I've made up my mind.
      At the start of this conflict, I remember a well respected ex army General explaining the situation between Russia and Ukraine and he didn't seem to agree with what the bbc were saying at the time.
      A previous regular seemingly expert opinion hasn't been seen since.

    4. How can you tell the postal vote envelops arrive from today. We had ours, and with a begging letter from the Torys to vote for them.

      1. Our postal votes arrived today. Since the recent boundary changes, we will be in a different constituency. Given our location right on the boundary of the new area, I suspect we will be ignored. Both our current and the new constituency are very safe Con seats.
        From friends of MH who live in the new constituency, the current MP there is that rare creature, a well-regarded MP who (unlike the con MP we currently have) seems to do quite a lot for the constituents.
        I shall be voting for the Reform candidate.
        So far, we have had a leaflet then a little booklet from the current Tory MP in this new, very safe Con area, and a leaflet from the limp dumb candidate. Ha ha ha , fat chance he stands . We also had a leaflet from an independent candidate ……. for another new, and neighbouring, constituency. That last one doesn't even know where the boundaries lie for the constituency he hopes to represent – what a plonker.

    5. Neither Sunak nor Starmer are serious politicians. It would be a tragedy if Starmer gains power.

      The reason the conservatives have lost support is precisely because Boris Johnson focused his attentions and support on Ukraine. Nobody but a fool would fail to see that Russia was provoked, a provocation starting with the displacement of the elected Ukrainian leadership in 2014 by western allies of the US, a provocation escalated by the persistent shelling of the Russian speaking Donbas over the past decade.

      Most of us are horrified to see the idiot Sunak sharing a joke with Zelensky and sending billions to Ukraine whilst our country infrastructure is falling apart and virtually all public services failing.

      Hopefully Sunak, Hunt, Shapps and the rest of the cabinet lose their seats at the coming election.

    2. I couldn't have received the memo to make her life miserable. Has anyone got the instructions, so that I can join in?

    4. Dear dear, I'm so sorry that you think like that, perhaps you should kindly leave the country.
      And do us a favour. And your self of course.

    5. Bu88er.
      And there was I catching up on the ironing.
      Think of the fun I was missing.

  51. 388769+ up ticks,

    Many of the electorate would do themselves a massive favour if they took time out to think outside the box, ALL party leaders are handicapped, toting odious baggage from past actions, the need currently for some sort of political saviour is enormous.

    In reality we could be looking at enough interchangeable cheeks for two arses,

    General election latest: Sunak and Starmer turn on Farage over Russian invasion claim

  52. We have just posted our postal votes. Its our first time. Shouldhave done it years ago.

  53. Really rude !

    Three things I learned whilst fucking Taylor Swift.
    1. She has a tight pussy with no pubes.
    2. Her tits are perfectly formed with nice nipples.
    3. The staff at Madame Tussuads are really quick at calling the police.

      1. The young lady seems to be doing very well. Makes Madonna look like a burnt out tart.

          2. Not my cup of tea either.
            I prefer coffee – but I do need to get the grind right and keep the pressure up so that I get enough crema squeezed of the beans.

  56. Farage accused of bribing each electorate £169.50.. New York Attorney General Letitia James to advise on show trial.

    Farage vows to scrap BBC licence fee. 'Wasteful' broadcaster's levy is 'taxation without representation', says Reform UK manifesto.

    Landslide.

    1. Not taxing people is not a bribe. It's simply not taking their own money from them.

    1. Google's search is considered pretty much useless these days because it's either deliberately giving 'right on' answers or just deceit.

      Try searching for the costs of windmills subsidy. You won't get any of the answers referencing the truth. This is the opposite of what Google started out with.

      1. Try searching for the income tax rates paid by European Commission retirees on their EC pensions. Christopher Booker wrote about it once, but I have failed to find the figures.

    2. All these systems have now been corrupted. I was on Wikipedia the other day looking up Russiagate. It bears no resemblance to either my memory or the truth.

  59. Nigel Farage is a ‘pub bore’ with simplistic answers, says Ben Wallace
    Reform leader accused of being ‘consistently wrong’ about Ukraine war after claiming the West provoked Russian invasion
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/22/nigel-farage-pub-bore-claiming-west-provoked-ukraine-war/

    Cuba. Russian missiles. Fidel Castro. Nikita Khrushchev. Jack Kennedy?

    Why was it acceptable for the US to feel threatened in 1962 when nukes were going to be installed in Cuba but not acceptable for Russia to feel threatened in the 2020s when the USA was talking about installing nuclear weapons in the Ukraine and there was loose talk about Ukraine joining the EU and NATO?

    BTL Percival Wrattstrangler

    Sorry, Wallace, old chap, but you must be a bit thick and bit boring yourself not to notice that Farage is very amusing, very well briefed, has all the facts and figures at his fingertips and, whether you agree with him or not, he is without doubt the finest British orator since Winston Churchill.

    2. Nigel Farage is a ‘pub bore’ with simplistic answers, says Ben Wallace – a man who served in a Government that couldn't even manage simplistic answers!

  60. A weatherman on GBN just boasted that we’re in for much higher than average summer temperatures so Dawn thingy asked him, “How long is it going to last”? He said, “Until Thursday”. Reminds me of “The Commitments” version of the “Fame” song. 🎼 “Fame! I’m gonna live ‘til Tuesday!”

    1. It's just over two thirds of the way through the month, and we've already had over 3 times our total average monthly rainfall.
      Some rain is forecast every day for the next 10.
      edit correction to two thirds through.

  61. A weatherman on GBN just boasted that we’re in for much higher than average summer temperatures so Dawn thingy asked him, “How long is it going to last”? He said, “Until Thursday”. Reminds me of “The Commitments” version of the “Fame” song. 🎼 “Fame! I’m gonna live ‘til Tuesday!”

  62. All this trying to gotcha Nigel Farage about Russia is just a red herring – to keep the campaigning away from the topic of immigration. Won't work. Vote Reform.

    1. This is how serious the Idaho attack on farmers is:

      Wall Street Apes
      @WallStreetApes
      I Hope This Makes The Idaho Water Shutoff To Farmers Real For People
      🚨 Idaho is fining Farmers $300 PER ACRE for using water
      Farmers are already declaring bankruptcy
      Here are 2 farmers from eastern Idaho who have just received their water shutoff orders
      “We just got our curtailment letter from the Idaho Department of Water Resources and they're telling us we have to shut our eight wells off.”
      “Shut our water off?”
      — “They want us to shut our water off. — They want us to turn our wells off.”
      “The reservoirs are full, yet we're being told we cannot water 500,000 acres of crops”
      “Thing. If you decide that you're just gonna keep watering, they're going to fine you $300 per acre.

      1. If I remember rightly, Idaho is potato growing country.
        Potatoes need a lot of water.

  64. On the front page of the Mail is a picture of William and his two eldest children taking a selfie with a grown woman who makes her living by singing in her underwear and is way too successful not to be part of the Hollywood elite.
    Painful.

    1. "two eldest children" ? As for Swifty, I admire her success, though I am not (yet) a fan of her music.

    2. Does it strike anyone other than myself that it is quite acceptable for the royal family to be populist but quite unacceptable for Nigel Farage to be so?

      1. Populist? Catering to the lowest common denominator of consumers that are fed satanic trash?

    4. It was shown on the racing programme. They are full on into slebs. The racing seems to come a poor third to that and football. When I give up TV once my current TV licence ends, I shan't miss it.

  65. Dalrymple

    ….wherever you look, you find the same willful incompetence, combined with ever-escalating costs. Nothing succeeds like failure. Whether it be in education, social security, health care, infrastructure, border control, armed forces, etc., the whole apparatus now touches nothing that it does not cause to decay. No wonder that disenchantment is widespread and that people, no doubt naively, turn to alternatives.

    https://www.takimag.com/article/its-a-crime/

    Trigger warning: the anecdotes quoted may boil your blood

    1. “There’s no success like failure and failure’s no success at all” Bob Dylan 1965.

    2. Annoyingly it says I must subscribe to read the article. A shame, as I like Dalrymple.

    2. Are the authorities finally waking up? This has been going on for years and the Police never seem to be able to solve the crimes of sheep and lambs being slaughtered by the roadside and the remains left in ditches. It is bloody obvious it's Methodists !!!
      When will they get their act together !

      1. But if they approached Methodists with such an accusation they would be stabbed, so can you blame them?

        1. Excuse me ! What is the point of the badge and the uniform if they cower behind their sofas?
          I read a few years ago that officers should accept vulgar language and swearing because it is normal to those types. Those types need a bloody good slap.
          Respect the office. You lose that you have anarchy. Which is what we are now seeing on the streets.

    2. I've not shaved for nearly 70 years, but if I wanted to go to an upmarket shopping center (sic) to die, I'd go to Merry Hill.

    3. We (the civilised world) should be grateful for small mercies. 500 is better than none …..

  70. Another plate of beef carpaccio and flagon of Laurent-Perrier champagne for seat 2F.
    As Dame Emma Thompson jets into London on £18,000 first class BA flight for Extinction Rebellion protests.

    ‘We should all eat less meat and fly less, the future of this planet is at stake and that’s perhaps more important than our own reputations.’ It may seem counter-productive in the short term but we are looking at the bigger picture.’
    Bleats right-on Leftie Dame Emma.

    1. I can assure “Dame Emma” that the planet is OK and will still be revolving round the sun in 50 million years’ time.

    2. It's Emma Thompson, so every one froze,
      There's always a shi tshow, wherever she goes.

      Inspired by the captions under the cartoon frames in Rupert the Bear annuals (remember those?).

      It's Emma Thompson, what a to do,
      The hectoring hypocrite, crock-full of p oo.

      Sorry, Freudian blip. Whenever I think of Emma Thompson, the thought automatically correlates with something brown, smelly and swirly. I have no idea why.

      Fun Fact: Emma is the patron of the Refugee Council which is, naturally, a charity (so paid for by us) which undermines our asylum laws so that our 'cake-filled, grey, little island' is rammed full of the kind of people Emma The Poop wouldn't share an aeroplane seat with.

      Oh no, Emma Thompson. I don't want to meet her,
      Her head's like a potty and full of excreta.

      I can't stop. Help!

  71. Another plate of beef carpaccio and flagon of Laurent-Perrier champagne for seat 2F.
    As Dame Emma Thompson jets into London on £18,000 first class BA flight for Extinction Rebellion protests.

    ‘We should all eat less meat and fly less, the future of this planet is at stake and that’s perhaps more important than our own reputations.’ It may seem counter-productive in the short term but we are looking at the bigger picture.’
    Bleats right-on Leftie Dame Emma.

    2. That video is of Coventry Road, Small Heath, Birmingham where I grew up. Truly depressing.

    3. That video is of Coventry Road, Small Heath, Birmingham where I grew up. Truly depressing.

    1. Wow. Just imagine the aggro if say a young boy scuffs a Koran, or a teacher shows a cartoo…..oh….wait…

    2. Every single place on earth they end up in or at, they create and cause as much trouble and disrespect as possible.
      shiite, absolute and utter shiite .

  74. Just back from a bimble along part of the Castleman Trailway, a defunct railway line that fell to the Beeching axe.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3e7f3237f214352c6dc18e4e0666c43ac822685ed155402efad3d448f298f02b.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cb668e1cd9fb6cbf5abb9309dd611cf8662b2544fa67997255be9d79a51f4df4.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b6b1df358706f49ed876587a09d7017c0d6b39e2b753a1fc4bbb6eee6999eb9b.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6561060b978206439202c32a9c58c8b0b50f6c80547fa6cef5338c55a628e912.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/64593be258b545761fdcd8fca985ea7b8a38f98282dd71355074e35903e6b635.jpg

    1. Castleman's Corkscrew, the original south-western mainline that became a backwater and which, if open today, would be a valuable public transport asset in an increasingly urbanised area.

      1. Indeed William. A tramway linking up the villages it runs through would be a Godsend.

  75. A slated Birdie Three!

    Wordle 1,099 3/6
    ⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜
    🟨⬜⬜🟩🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Same here.

      Wordle 1,099 3/6

      ⬜⬜🟩⬜🟨
      🟨⬜🟩🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. I’m waiting for the day my customary first word is actually the answer but this came close.
      Wordle 1,099 2/6

      ⬜🟩🟩🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      3. All you Goodbye people were always going to do well on this one!

        Boring, boring Arsenal for me…..

        Wordle 1,099 4/6

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

  76. “I cannot find a single redeeming feature about the Labour Party. They want open borders, zero growth and everyone living in a bucket of shame because their great great grandad once bought a hairbrush that had possibly been made by slaves.

    “Their manifesto contains just 87 words on farming. Which, when translated into English basically say: ‘We hate you, you meat-eating rural halfwits.’”

    "Inheritance tax on farm land means that in 20 years there’ll be no farm land left in the UK – and people face the possibility of having hard-earned savings given to those who “haven’t worked at all.”

    " I’d rather vote for my dog than Sir Starmer’s merry bunch of ideological nincompoops”.

    Jeremy Clarkson, The Sun.

      1. As we only 5 minutes walk from our polling station I've
        been checking out the new local candidates for the 4th of July.
        We've recently had a bit of a boundary shuffle. Our previous mp no longer represents our area.
        With no previous knowledge of either I shall vote Reform. He's ex Labour, so two birds with one stone as it were. 😊

      2. look at the state of the one on the left..
        Managed to get rid of Worzel Gummidge.. then Aunt Sally rocks up.

    2. I’d rather vote for Jeremy’s dog too but Louise someone or other is standing for Reform in Hammersmith so I’ll vote for her.

    3. Was chatting to a farming family at the fete. They were very unhappy with the prospects of a Labour government. They live in Wales and said Labour had been a disaster, particularly for their National Health Service.

  77. a neighbour went on holiday today and left me a big bag of spinach and a head of broccoli. So I have made spinach, lentil, chickpea and lemon soup; and sweet potato, carrot (using veg brought back by my daughter) and spinach curry. I am pondering the broccoli, but anything using onions is off the menu as I have run out.

    A colleague at work asked me to being home some eggs and cottage cheese as she is on holiday next week. So I am going to make some cheese and onion cornbread. When I get some onions!

      1. Indeed.
        Did the right thing, not what the Establishment wanted – which was why we never heard much about him afterwards. Brings someone else to mind…

      2. Indeed.
        Did the right thing, not what the Establishment wanted – which was why we never heard much about him afterwards. Brings someone else to mind…

  81. this fits in with a thread from earlier. It’s a podcast from UnHerd on censorship and how governments are deliberately allowing the UN etc to rule over us.

    Paul Coleman is executive director of Alliance Defending Freedom and has been involved in more than 20 cases before the European Court of Human Rights. He is the author of Censored (2016), about the rise of European hate crime laws. He joins UnHerd’s Freddie Sayers to demystify the inner workings of the international censorship complex.
    https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/unherd-with-freddie-sayers/id1540134798

    Dashing off now, cats, mice etc

  82. Here's one for you: There's a craft fair next week, the "the summer artisan fair at Sculpture by the Lakes" in Dorset, that I can recommend. My crazed teacher friend is (wo)manning a stall there, Dorset Wool, so I have no shame in recommending all Y'all that live in those parts to visit when you get a moment. 25-29 June. https://www.sculpturebythel…
    Looks interesting!

  83. General election 2024: Nigel Farage doubles down on Ukraine invasion remarks despite furore

    22 June 2024 • 5:22pm

    Nigel Farage has defied criticism relating to his claims that the West provoked Russia's invasion of Ukraine despite the mounting backlash.
    The Reform UK leader has been criticised by Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer after he said the "ever-eastward expansion of Nato and the EU" had given Vladimir Putin a reason to justify war.

    Mr Sunak said he was "completely wrong" while Sir Keir said he was "disgusted" with the comments. Mr Farage also faced accusations of being an "apologist" for Putin from Sir Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader.

    However, writing in The Telegraph Mr Farage dismissed the furore and doubled down on his position (below).

    5:03PM

    John Swinney calls Nigel Farage a 'traitor' over Ukraine war comments

    Scottish First Minister John Swinney has described Nigel Farage as a "traitor to the interests of the people of these islands" following his comments about the war in Ukraine.

    In an interview with the BBC, Mr Farage said "we provoked this war" and drew a link between the war and the expansion of Nato and the European Union.

    But responding to the Reform UK leader, Mr Swinney told journalists on a campaign stop in Edinburgh: "I this these are some of the most appalling remarks I've heard, literally in my life, and they're of an extraordinary degree of absurdity and danger. Vladimir Putin has voluntarily invaded a sovereign country and nobody provoked him to, nobody was a threat to Vladimir Putin.

    "Nigel Farage has confirmed what all of us have suspected of him – that he is a dangerous man. And that he is a traitor to the interests of the people of these islands, and the people of Ukraine."

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/politic...
    _______________________________________________________________________________________

    The West's errors in Ukraine have been catastrophic. I won't apologise for telling the truth

    Until we admit what we got wrong, we will never have a lasting peace

    NIGEL FARAGE • 22 June 2024 • 3:44pm

    Don't blame me for telling the truth about Putin's war in Ukraine. Facing up the facts about the mistakes of the past has to be the first step towards the peaceful future we all want to see.

    In my BBC Panorama interview on Friday, Nick Robinson outrageously accused me of "echoing" Russian president Vladimir Putin's excuses for his invasion of Ukraine. The political establishment has since been busy echoing that slur.

    So, let me set the record straight. I am not and never have been an apologist or supporter of Putin. His invasion of Ukraine was immoral, outrageous and indefensible. As a champion of national sovereignty, I believe that Putin was entirely wrong to invade the sovereign nation of Ukraine. Nobody can fairly accuse me of being an appeaser. I have never sought to justify Putin's invasion in any way and I'm not now.

    But that doesn't change the fact that I saw it coming a decade ago, warned that it was coming and am one of the few political figures who has been consistently right and honest about Russia's Ukraine war.

    What I have been saying for the past 10 years is that the West has played into Putin's hands, giving him the excuse to do what he wanted to do anyway.

    Back in 2014, when the EU first offered Ukraine an accession agreement, I said in a speech in the European Parliament that "there will be a war in Ukraine". Why? Because the expansion of NATO and the European Union was giving Putin a pretext he would not ignore.

    As I have made clear on multiple occasions since then, if you poke the Russian bear with a stick, don't be surprised if he responds. And if you have neither the means nor the political will to face him down, poking a bear is obviously not good foreign policy.

    Even though he was on the radio last night (Friday) denying it, former Labour cabinet minister George Robertson, who later became head of NATO, has also recently made clear that Putin's fears about EU expansion helped cause the war. He is on the record – twice – in his New Statesman article in May and a BBC interview in February of this year.

    And it's not only Ukraine. The West's diplomatic blunder over how to tackle Putin's mix of paranoia and assertiveness was just one of many disastrous interventions in the two decades since Tony Blair's Labour government joined the catastrophic invasion of Iraq (which I opposed).

    Western statesmen have too often tried to dress up in white cowboy hats and pose as heroes saving the world. We have witnessed vanity taking the place of reason in foreign policy, and the result has been to destabilise a series of countries with dire effects both there and here.

    We should recall how, around the same time as tensions with Russia were being ramped up, US President Obama and his secretary of state Hilary Clinton, with the full support of David Cameron's Tory government, reduced Libya to a smoking ruin in order to remove the dictator Gaddafi.

    I have consistently pointed out the dangers of the West's foreign policy. It gives me no pleasure to say that I have been proved right and that the Tories and Labour have been wrong.

    Of course I understand that many British people strongly sympathise with the resilient Ukrainians. The fog of war always makes it hard to be sure of casualty figures, but US intelligence sources suggested last year that almost half a million had been killed or wounded on both sides in the conflict. It is a meat grinder for both Ukrainian and Russian soldiers, with no apparent end to the slaughter in sight.

    The UK alone has pledged £12.5 billion to Ukraine in military support and other aid. The war has also had a drastic impact on the European and British economies, contributing to the big jump in everything from energy costs and food prices to interest rates, intensifying the cost-of-living crisis that has hit millions of hard-pressed British households.

    There is no easy solution to the war. But facing up to the truth about the causes and consequences must be a start. That is why I simply want to tell it as it is, and have done for a decade. Those slanderers who claim that telling the truth makes me a "mouthpiece for Putin" only reveal the weakness of their own case.

    There is an issue of British democracy here, too. The escalation of British support for the war in Ukraine has not even been an issue in this election campaign, since the old parties all agree with it. Am I, as the leader of Reform UK, a party that is now running second in major polls, not even allowed to question this political conformism?

    What real democratic choice could there be, if we are all expected to say the same thing and libelled if we refuse to do so? At election time, more than ever, free speech remains the lifeblood of our democracy.

    My question for voters is this. Who would you trust most to shape the future of UK foreign policy? Me, who saw the disastrous wars in Ukraine and elsewhere coming down the line and repeatedly warned against them? Or the establishment parties who helped to make them happen?

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...

    1. I fear an own goal here. Farage has handed his enemies, of which there are millions, a stick to beat him with, and taht beating has started. Given that most people are stupid and do what they are told, I'm afraid Reform's ratings will now drop.
      He shouldn't have gone there, and just spouted platitudes. Unfortunately.

        1. I noticed, but I fear you are right. His enemies, of whom there are myriad, have an effective weapon now when thet didn't know how to before.

      2. It was a tweet that was dredged up from 2022 that kicked off this spat. He is not a chap to change his mind and what he says (as we know) is absolutely correct. However, you are correct in that his enemies have found one big stick with which to beat him.

        1. But what was he to do? Deny his remarks online and, indeed, in the EU parliament that are on record? Any backtracking or obfuscation would have been pounced upon.

      3. "That the truth should remain silent I had almost forgot."

        [Enobarbus: Antony and Cleopatra]

        For far too long politicians have done all they can to avoid telling the truth. And of course liars will always accuse those who tell the truth of being liars.

      4. Disagree, most people agree with Farage, if you look at the btl comments across the papers.

    2. You, Nigel Farage, every time. The EU and our successive governments since and including Blair, have proved themselves to be liars as well as incompetent. Their meddling in foreign affairs terrifies me.

    3. It could be argued that the emergence of Putin and his 25 year grip on power owes a lot to western triumphalism when the Soviet Union imploded.
      With more tactful handling of a bruised giant, we would now have a useful ally in the struggle against militant Islam.

  84. General election 2024: Nigel Farage doubles down on Ukraine invasion remarks despite furore

    22 June 2024 • 5:22pm

    Nigel Farage has defied criticism relating to his claims that the West provoked Russia's invasion of Ukraine despite the mounting backlash.
    The Reform UK leader has been criticised by Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer after he said the "ever-eastward expansion of Nato and the EU" had given Vladimir Putin a reason to justify war.

    Mr Sunak said he was "completely wrong" while Sir Keir said he was "disgusted" with the comments. Mr Farage also faced accusations of being an "apologist" for Putin from Sir Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader.

    However, writing in The Telegraph Mr Farage dismissed the furore and doubled down on his position (below).

    5:03PM

    John Swinney calls Nigel Farage a 'traitor' over Ukraine war comments

    Scottish First Minister John Swinney has described Nigel Farage as a "traitor to the interests of the people of these islands" following his comments about the war in Ukraine.

    In an interview with the BBC, Mr Farage said "we provoked this war" and drew a link between the war and the expansion of Nato and the European Union.

    But responding to the Reform UK leader, Mr Swinney told journalists on a campaign stop in Edinburgh: "I this these are some of the most appalling remarks I've heard, literally in my life, and they're of an extraordinary degree of absurdity and danger. Vladimir Putin has voluntarily invaded a sovereign country and nobody provoked him to, nobody was a threat to Vladimir Putin.

    "Nigel Farage has confirmed what all of us have suspected of him – that he is a dangerous man. And that he is a traitor to the interests of the people of these islands, and the people of Ukraine."

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/politic...
    _______________________________________________________________________________________

    The West's errors in Ukraine have been catastrophic. I won't apologise for telling the truth

    Until we admit what we got wrong, we will never have a lasting peace

    NIGEL FARAGE • 22 June 2024 • 3:44pm

    Don't blame me for telling the truth about Putin's war in Ukraine. Facing up the facts about the mistakes of the past has to be the first step towards the peaceful future we all want to see.

    In my BBC Panorama interview on Friday, Nick Robinson outrageously accused me of "echoing" Russian president Vladimir Putin's excuses for his invasion of Ukraine. The political establishment has since been busy echoing that slur.

    So, let me set the record straight. I am not and never have been an apologist or supporter of Putin. His invasion of Ukraine was immoral, outrageous and indefensible. As a champion of national sovereignty, I believe that Putin was entirely wrong to invade the sovereign nation of Ukraine. Nobody can fairly accuse me of being an appeaser. I have never sought to justify Putin's invasion in any way and I'm not now.

    But that doesn't change the fact that I saw it coming a decade ago, warned that it was coming and am one of the few political figures who has been consistently right and honest about Russia's Ukraine war.

    What I have been saying for the past 10 years is that the West has played into Putin's hands, giving him the excuse to do what he wanted to do anyway.

    Back in 2014, when the EU first offered Ukraine an accession agreement, I said in a speech in the European Parliament that "there will be a war in Ukraine". Why? Because the expansion of NATO and the European Union was giving Putin a pretext he would not ignore.

    As I have made clear on multiple occasions since then, if you poke the Russian bear with a stick, don't be surprised if he responds. And if you have neither the means nor the political will to face him down, poking a bear is obviously not good foreign policy.

    Even though he was on the radio last night (Friday) denying it, former Labour cabinet minister George Robertson, who later became head of NATO, has also recently made clear that Putin's fears about EU expansion helped cause the war. He is on the record – twice – in his New Statesman article in May and a BBC interview in February of this year.

    And it's not only Ukraine. The West's diplomatic blunder over how to tackle Putin's mix of paranoia and assertiveness was just one of many disastrous interventions in the two decades since Tony Blair's Labour government joined the catastrophic invasion of Iraq (which I opposed).

    Western statesmen have too often tried to dress up in white cowboy hats and pose as heroes saving the world. We have witnessed vanity taking the place of reason in foreign policy, and the result has been to destabilise a series of countries with dire effects both there and here.

    We should recall how, around the same time as tensions with Russia were being ramped up, US President Obama and his secretary of state Hilary Clinton, with the full support of David Cameron's Tory government, reduced Libya to a smoking ruin in order to remove the dictator Gaddafi.

    I have consistently pointed out the dangers of the West's foreign policy. It gives me no pleasure to say that I have been proved right and that the Tories and Labour have been wrong.

    Of course I understand that many British people strongly sympathise with the resilient Ukrainians. The fog of war always makes it hard to be sure of casualty figures, but US intelligence sources suggested last year that almost half a million had been killed or wounded on both sides in the conflict. It is a meat grinder for both Ukrainian and Russian soldiers, with no apparent end to the slaughter in sight.

    The UK alone has pledged £12.5 billion to Ukraine in military support and other aid. The war has also had a drastic impact on the European and British economies, contributing to the big jump in everything from energy costs and food prices to interest rates, intensifying the cost-of-living crisis that has hit millions of hard-pressed British households.

    There is no easy solution to the war. But facing up to the truth about the causes and consequences must be a start. That is why I simply want to tell it as it is, and have done for a decade. Those slanderers who claim that telling the truth makes me a "mouthpiece for Putin" only reveal the weakness of their own case.

    There is an issue of British democracy here, too. The escalation of British support for the war in Ukraine has not even been an issue in this election campaign, since the old parties all agree with it. Am I, as the leader of Reform UK, a party that is now running second in major polls, not even allowed to question this political conformism?

    What real democratic choice could there be, if we are all expected to say the same thing and libelled if we refuse to do so? At election time, more than ever, free speech remains the lifeblood of our democracy.

    My question for voters is this. Who would you trust most to shape the future of UK foreign policy? Me, who saw the disastrous wars in Ukraine and elsewhere coming down the line and repeatedly warned against them? Or the establishment parties who helped to make them happen?

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...

      1. Of course not. My home-made Pâte brisée was properly blind-baked first (with scrunched greaseproof paper and genuine ‘baking beans’).

        Leftovers (with the steamed tenderstem broccoli stalks) today.

    1. Perhaps private, as opposed to public, opinion polls are showing Reform is doing far better than the PTB would want.

    2. More reasons to vote Reform.
      The whole of our existing political format needs changing. None of our established political parties will ever do anything about it. They are too comfortable to make changes.

  89. Given that Max is coy about Labour's intentions on all kinds of taxes and illegal immigration, don't be surprised if he capitulates on the EU.

    Labour will put Brexit gains at risk

    TELEGRAPH VIEW • 21 June 2024 • 10:00pm

    This weekend marks the eighth anniversary of one of the greatest democratic exercises in this nation's history. On June 23, 2016, 17.4 million voted for the UK to leave the EU, the largest mandate the British people have ever given in a public poll. It took three and a half fractious years for Britain to eventually exit the bloc. In January 2020, however, it finally did.

    That was no thanks to Sir Keir Starmer. The now Labour leader did not play a prominent role in the referendum campaign. But in the parliamentary battles that followed, he used his position as shadow Brexit secretary to seek to frustrate the will of the people. Instead of seeing his duty as being to respect the mandate that MPs had been given, he manoeuvred to crush it. The result was a well-deserved rout for Labour in Brexit-supporting seats in the 2019 general election.

    Labour today insists that its plans to change Britain's post-Brexit relationship with the EU are relatively limited. It says that it will not attempt to rejoin the single market or customs union. It asserts that it only wishes to improve the UK's ties with Brussels, through a veterinary agreement, work to prevent border checks, and a new security pact. But it may not need a formal new deal to effectively extinguish the Brexit project. As the Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch warns in this newspaper, Labour could take us backwards simply by copying everything the EU does.

    There is no evidence that Sir Keir, his shadow Cabinet, or his party's candidates have become genuine converts to Brexit or new freedoms. Their view of the EU tends to be cartoonish – unwilling to acknowledge, for example, that Europe is shifting to the Right on matters like immigration – but it reflects the party's wider belief in international institutions and technocracy. Winning a massive majority would almost certainly result in a growing clamour within Labour for Sir Keir to seize the opportunity to put the UK back into the EU's tractor beam.

    It is strange that Brexit has played so little part in the current election campaign. Some imply that this is because leaving the EU has been a failure. That is wrong. As Lord Frost writes in these pages, many of the arguments made by Europhiles are fatuous and the opposite of the truth.

    We have been critical of the Conservatives over the past few years for not embracing the full possibilities of leaving the EU. But it was always going to be a long-term project, and the deals that allowed Britain to leave Brussels' orbit stand among the most significant recent Tory achievements. They gave us back our independence and restored faith in the UK's democratic institutions. [Pardon?] Sir Keir threatens to put that at risk again.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2024/06/21/labour-will-put-brexit-gains-at-risk/

    1. We haven't significantly gone away from all the EU regs; they incorporated them all into UK law. I bought some Round up the other day and it's pathetic. Before the EU started meddling, it was really effective.

  90. So Farage answers a question honestly and then suddenly the MSM and the Westminster uni Parties go apoplectic.
    Farage ends up getting more election coverage than he ever thought possible.
    While the leaders of the old mainstream parties go into meltdown.
    Farage has certainly learnt a lot from Trump and the mainstream has fallen for it all over again.

    1. Nigel should shamelessly nick Trump's greatest line;

      It's not me they're after, it's you! I just happen to be in the way……..

        1. I have to admit I’m not a huge fan, he has too many failings (like the rest of us) but he has the ability to nail it with a phrase or a saying. He’s a very good politician and if I was American I would actually vote for him every time!

          1. The simple statement "I have a completely open mind about Trump" has led to the loss of so many previously supposed friends. What is the matter with having an open mind on any subject at all?

    1. What kind of diplomatic gobbledegook is contained that statement?
      No wonder nobody ever seems to understand what is intended or wanted.

  92. The cold blooded, cynical, bastard inside me starts to wonder if this is all a set up to raise a lot of cash.
    Who gets the "GoFundMe" proceeds if he suddenly pops up again.?
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13558249/new-pictured-jay-slater-missing-nightclub-female-friend-hours-disappeared.html

    I hope he's OK, but given the history I wonder what's going on here.

    Revealed: New picture of missing Jay Slater shows 19-year-old in nightclub in early hours with female friend just hours before he disappeared in Tenerife – as GoFundMe page appeal she set up nears its £30,000 target

    1. We were just discussing that.
      A vey strange set up and one that doesn't encourage charitable thoughts.

        1. The average 19 year old hardly moves from the bars and sea fronts.
          Why is he up in the mountains an 11 hour walk away from the resort?
          He doesn't strike me as being a rambler or a nature lover.

    3. This is a very bizarre story and I’m sure that something is being held back. The British police have even offered help. Why so much interest in this particular disappearance?

          1. Hi KJ – I gather from James Gatehouse you were asking after me recently – how very kind 😊 I'm OK but not been very well so not as active here and elsewhere as I usually am. Should be back to whatever passes for "normal" with me soon I hope.
            This actually is a very strange story, more and more so as it unfolds. I think he was mixed up in something very unsavoury with the two Brits who rented the apartment he went back to from some night-club. Originally it was reported that he had misses a bus, but he was seen early the following morning at a bus-stop and asked a woman when the next one was. She told him about two hours so he decided to make an 11-hour walk? Pull the other one, it has bells on. He wanted/needed to get away from someone fast. Anything could have happened to him really. I guess we'll find out in due course.
            Hope you are fit and flourishing and doing lots of painting :))

          2. Hi PJ, really good to hear from you, and thanks to James G for passing on my msg. I’m very well, apart from the memory gaps – those who seem to know tell me I’m making good progress. News update – we were married on 3 June my 75th following solicitor advice to avoid IHT which would have been eye watering, largely due to me buying up land/woodland as and when I could afford, prices having increased substantially since. Had a great day with closest people and lots of champagne. So yes, reasonably fit and flourishing, as I hope you now are too:-) and very much hope to stay in touch. The Spectator is not the place it once was, my sub expires in a few days and I doubt I’ll stay, will likely be here instead. I haven’t painted for a while, although my head is full of ideas especially re landscape – I know I am ockering and should just get on with it. Latest Tenerife update 7 days and counting re the young Brit seems to be along the lines of dancing topless in night club the night he disappeared. My offspring and their friends went out there 20 odd years ago and were glad to leave. If he was as high as is suggested, could be anything just as you say. See you soon I hope PJ 🙂

          3. Congratulations! So pleased to hear that BH has made an honest woman out of you even if for somewhat less than altruistic reasons 😂
            Currently raising a baby magpie that fell out of its nest and the guy who comes to clear my gutters found about three weeks ago. It is the second time I done this, the first about nine ago and very successfully – it went off to join its friends after about three or four weeks. This one is completely different and showing no signs of wanting to leave “home”😯 Has only just learned to use its wings to prevent crash-landings and still sits there with mouth wide open waiting for food to be put in as soon as I appear. It isn’t bothered by the cats which is a bit worrying too, but they don’t seem very interested – so far! Lots of young magpies around, one of which keeps trying to tempt it into trees, but so far it is lacking either courage or interest and keeps coming back to the open kitchen window and its cage/nest. I shall just have to let it go its own way in its own time, hope for the best but keep it inside at night.

          4. Ha. He’d have done it years ago, I was the one dragging the old feet. Magpie very interesting…why the heck would it leave you and your place:-) What are you feeding it on btw…dog food? It’ll talk back to you, similarly to a parrot. I haven’t seen a magpie for a few years now, we have a lot of crows (nest robbers), in turn the sparrow hawk takes baby crows. Very pleased pipistrelle numbers increasing again after quite a few years, nothing like the numbers previously as yet tho. How’s your pond doing? We have lots of yellow iris this year, no idea how they came there. I must be the most idle gardener I know :-DD

          5. Magpies are very intelligent and very easy to tame – too easy probably! I was feeding it mince (like the last one) then it seemed to go off that and I saw it pecking at left-over cat-food so switched to that. Seems happy with it at the moment and also pecks away at hydrangea leaves and flowers just outside the kitchen window. If I manage to swat flies I feed it those too – it loves them :D! I don’t have a pond but I do have a pool. It is green! Never had this problem before but heard today that this year it is widespread but not sure why. Lots of odd things happening in gardens this year. My montbretia is about two months ahead of itself and saw one today in full flower by the side of the road!

          6. Oh my..look forward to conversation updates with magpie. Possibly cat food easier to swallow? Mind, some pet meals sound like any other ready meal, just need a glass (bowl in cat’s case) of wine 😀 I have left our pond to go wild, do as it wishes – one time I used to refresh the water and all that sort of nonsense. Now I see different birds and animals drinking there. Saw wild swans yesterday for first time several years. Also had hares, badgers..no foxes tho, not for some years. Bizarrely, montbretia has grown in woodland here for around a decade – I thought deliberately planted but maybe not as you’ve seen by roadside – they must self seed perhaps? you’ll know 🙂

          7. Anything will self-seed if left to its own devices, but montbretia spreads like mad and needs thinning out in gardens, so maybe someone did that and just threw what they didn’t want into the woodlands?

          8. Yes, likely scenario. Years ago, there was no refuse collection so people used to just discard their rubbish anywhere, often in the wood. I’ve found many pieces of shell, porcelain, metal, glass…have a shoebox almost full. Also found full and half empty bottles of spirits, condoms, playboy mags, risla papers (no tobacco or maryjane), tents, burnt underwear…list goes on, but this was around two decades ago….now people buy booze from supermarkets, see porn online….also my kicking off might have made a few teens think twice…

          9. In fact I don’t see the harm in chucking some unwanted montbretia bulbs back into nature :)) Agree with you about the rest though.

    4. My SiL tells me he is a very nasty drug dealer with a very violent past. The kidnap theory seems quite a good one.

      1. If the name and address isn’t merely coincidence he’s a thug of the first water.

      3. He’s the same age as my son, and when I read the initial report I was really upset. If it turns out I’ve been scammed, I’ll be apocalyptic.

    5. Reported earlier his phone was pinging somewhere locally. Doesn't mean he's there with it, I suppose.

    6. People are such shameless hustlers these days. Almost a badge of honour. I do, though, hope that the lad has come to no harm

        1. Not bad, had a bad dizzy spell yesterday a.m. and another this morning. But I think I'm onto the cause, hopefully.
          I'm thinking it's some kind of Labyrinthitis or similar. Once the weekend is over I shall try a few experiments.

          3. Ah! My husband had a very unpleasant attack of that, did nothing about it for ages 🙄 and developed tinnitus! Be warned! Glad you’re on the ball! X

  94. On Gove: he wrote a diary piece on the Speccie last year where he revealed his reverence for Gramsci and his admiration for the "long march through the institutions" including how this has been accomplished. I think that says it all.

    1. Gove was a red hot socialist at university. Many people, me included, have never bought his sudden conversion to conservatism about five minutes after graduating.

        2. I think he has been the biggest force in the Cons for about a quarter of a century.

      2. Quite. If we are looking for the destructive power within that has destroyed both Brexit and the Conservative Party I think we need look no further.

          1. Once you accept the idea that the end justifies the means – the end being your particular dogma and the means being any kind of unethical behaviour – then you are lost

        2. Only have to watch the beggar dancing, opopanax, see the cut of his jib. (EV still under tree….)

    2. I'm not a pinko (surprise) but some of what Gramsci said is right on the money – extract from Wiki (yes, I know!)

      Gramsci is best known for his theory of cultural hegemony, which describes how the state and ruling capitalist class — the bourgeoisie — use cultural institutions to maintain wealth and power in capitalist societies. In Gramsci's view, the bourgeoisie develops a hegemonic culture using ideology rather than violence, economic force, or coercion.

      Sounds pretty good to me……

    1. I think the problem might be as the previously emmenent ex army General explained about three years ago. A country cannot join NATO if it has a border dispute with another country. And the same as every other single thing that becomes relevant on the planet, as soon as the political idiots take control its stuffed beyond repair. Same old story.

    2. People have exceedingly short attention spans. The confected fury Lab Con Lib are expressing is just that, I'm afraid. They do know all this.

  97. Another day is done so, I wish you a goodnight and may God bless you all, Gentlefolk. Bis morgen früh. If we are spared!

          1. I don’t care for the smokey, peaty Western Island Scotch. Clean Speyside for me. Even J Walker of Kilmarnock is preferable to Laphroig.

          4. I agree. My brother loves the Islay malts but I find them overpowering. Speyside and Highland for me.

          5. Glenlivet or MacAllan for me from Speyside, love Bunnahabhain from Islay as the best.
            Johnnie Walker Blue Label is the best blended about – and ought to be, at that price.

          9. Wow, I like that – even if it may be just a teensy bit blasphemous, I'm a good Catholic lad you see – and I will use it in future! Respect to your second son, both of mine cant stand Scotch of any description!

          10. SS is one smart cookie. When I was 23 as he is, I could barely stand, I was such a dumbass. But, the effect of his Mother on bringing him up all proper like, and he's a useful, skilled and discerning member of society.

          11. Great stuff! – just occasionally they make you as proud as hell, dont they?

          14. Educating Second Son in the joys of Scots whisky. He's developed a taste for Speyside before dinner, and West Coast after dinner. He's one savvy lad; he's not tried Jameson yet, and isn't excited by US whisky.

          16. Cat among the pigeons…

            <i>Sir, claret is the liquor for boys; port, for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.
            Dr Johnson.</i>

            Must say I agree with him; I like whisky but I've just opened a bottle of Hine VSOP. Perfect!

          19. Sensible lad but I don’t aprove his post prandial tastes. As for Jamesons and others- if it’s not Scotch, I don’t wanna know.

          20. I can't bear the taste of any Scotch whiskey, the Speysides being the worst. They taste like TCP

          23. I like Oban.
            "Gentle on the nose, with maritime aromas, this super-natural Oban has a rich personality on the palate; a second maturation in Amontillado casks gently bringing new layers of vibrancy and flavour. Rich caramel and spice light up violet plum and blackberry."
            It just tastes good to me.

          25. Don't know Oban. I'll have to give it a taste, now you describe it like that, Johnny.

  101. Can rest assured if it ever goes I'll be the first to crow 😀 Quite useful tho to 'mention' it to him now and again! Trust you and yours well x

  102. My good lady and I popped into to have a coffee and socialise with my elder sister and her hubby this morning.
    Their daughter from SA is staying at the moment. Poor old BiL although at almost 90 years of age is very compos mentis but is slowly slipping away. He is sleeping a lot. It's inevitable, but very sad to see a really nice and clever old chap slipping away.
    And on that note it's good night from me. 😴

  103. The media has led the country into an anti-Tory fervour

    Our current travails are as nothing next to the Winter of Discontent – yet the political discourse is far angrier

    JANET DALEY • 22 June 2024 • 2:50pm

    When Sir Keir Starmer walked onto the stage for last Thursday's edition of Question Time, he was audibly booed.

    When he refused repeatedly to say whether he had meant what he said when he claimed that Jeremy Corbyn would make a "great prime minister", the audience laughed.

    Yet this is the man who is, we must assume, about to be elected prime minister in an unprecedented landslide. Even though much of the popular anger with the Conservatives is clearly coming from the Right, with voters stating explicitly that they are furious about both the failure to control migration, and exorbitant levels of taxation, the electorate seems about to install a party of the Left which could well end up declaring an effective amnesty for illegal migrants and raising taxes.

    Nigel Farage, who is going to facilitate that enormous Labour victory by dividing what might have been the Tory vote, is a man whose personality, by all the traditional measures, should be anathema in national public life. His political persona – the egregious conceit, bombastic braggadocio, and almost nihilistic disregard for the damaging consequences of his strategy – is, paradoxically, quite un-British.

    So, with apologies for tiresome repetition, I ask again the question that this column has posed before: what is going on here?

    Let me be clear: I absolutely understand the disgust with the chaotic and visibly irresponsible shambles of a succession of aborted Conservative attempts at leadership. I get that. The expectation that the Tories will lose this election is completely reasonable.

    What seems odd is the disjuncture between the unprecedented degree of hatred that appears to dominate the political scene, and the daily experience of most people. There have been historical moments within living memory when the everyday lives of much of the population were far more desperate than now – and then you could feel fear and outrage in the streets.

    In the fateful Winter of Discontent of 1978-79 which changed the politics of this country, when the uncollected rubbish was piling up on the pavements, the streets were blocked with uncleared snow and ice, and the lights were going out, nobody talked of anything else. This was not just annoyance or exasperation: it was a sense of existential dread, a truly terrifying vision of a country that was beyond hope of recovery and restoration. The Tories would take power in the May of 1979 with a working majority of 44 seats, but no great hope that they would be able to bring the country out of what seemed like an inevitable doom spiral.

    Living through that time was a bit like living through the war. There was serious doubt about whether the country could survive in its present form. A great many people who had the chance, simply left to make their lives in America or Australia because they believed that there could never be any future for them here.

    More than a decade later, the Thatcher government had its own moment of explosive public discontent. The poll tax riots of 1990 came close to rocking the political establishment in a tumultuous wave of rebellion. For a moment, Downing Street trembled. Then it caved, Thatcher faced a leadership challenge, resigned, and her potential successors uniformly announced that the policy would be abolished.

    Again, there was a palpable outrage which you could hear and feel in the public square. It was a phenomenon that was talked about by real people – not just the media – in the pubs and in the bus queues because it had an immediate impact on so many households. I would say that the only issue with that sort of resonance today is the state of the NHS which really is a topic of everyday conversation because it has life-changing consequences, and so many people have personal anecdotes to contribute.

    But Labour has not outlined any credible plan for dealing with this that I can see as unambiguously distinct from what a Conservative government would do. Indeed, given Labour's relationship with the trade unions, their demands are likely to take precedence over any reforms that might bring dramatic change.

    So the question must be: is there something unreal about this present picture? Frustration and disillusionment certainly abounds, especially for the young who are hoping to buy homes or even rent them at affordable prices. But then again, they are not faced with the hopelessness of mass unemployment that previous generations were.

    There is no shortage of jobs for those prepared to take them.

    Both taxation and the cost of living are outrageously high but that, as people should understand, is a consequence of a series of emergencies for which no one has an instant remedy. And yet we have an unstoppable stampede to a leader who, according to the polls, is actively disliked by nearly half of respondents and a party whose programme for government is deliberately, almost absurdly, vacuous. Or do we?

    Rishi Sunak was certainly the wrong person to be fighting this fight. What was needed after the Truss car-crash was an elder statesman of calm and sombre maturity to deliver a grave message that would have put the dilemma in frank terms, and asked the country to help bear the burden with its usual steadfastness. But even allowing for that miscasting, I have never seen a media pile-on against a ruling government like this one.

    In the – literally – dark days when militant trade unions were making the lives of ordinary people impossible, or in the febrile anti-Thatcher period, there was still some attempt to describe events and their causes in a way that made them graspable. There was at least some acceptance of the need, when reporting an immediate crisis, to set it in a context that helped to account for government decisions, making it clear how limited the choices were.

    But now? Can you recall hearing a broadcast interview or discussion which acknowledged the economic damage done by the pandemic and the Ukraine war, and the severe restrictions that they have imposed on the government's decisions?

    Most crucially, has this relentless news onslaught made it unthinkable to vote Conservative? Or just unthinkable to admit to the pollsters that you are going to vote Conservative?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk…

    Janet Daley describes the state of the nation as comparable with 1979. It's not. That was a UK that was still the country that we grew up in. For all its faults even then it was recognisably ours and we hoped that a change of government would bring a change of fortune. There were two sides to the argument – a bit to the left, a bit to the right.

    In the 45 years that have passed it's changed beyond recognition, socially, culturally, racially. That simple world has gone. Society is fracturing in all directions. Alien cultures have been implanted. Notwithstanding that there were at times modest tensions between England and the rest, we bumped along together. Not now. It's not just Blair's devolution disaster that has broken the country but immigration, with the ancestral British (and the decent adopted of long standing) having to fight for space in their own land with the one-eighth of the population that has arrived in the last 20 years.

    So why does she ask why Farage is so prominent? All he's is doing is pointing out what's wrong. He's not the Master of Chaos. We all know who that is.

    Farage hasn't split the Tory vote. Cameron did that. And there are no elder statesmen. Not any more. Perhaps one will emerge from the calamity about to engulf us but I won't bet much on that happening.

    2. “Farage hasn't split the Tory vote. Cameron did that. And there are no elder statesmen. Not any more. Perhaps one will emerge from the calamity about to engulf us but I won't bet much on that happening.”

      Yes. I am getting a bit fed up with MSM saying it’s all Farage’s fault. It’s nothing of the sort.

      (I’m back from my gallivanting btw).

    3. Any Labour ‘plans’ for the future are not muc different to the Cons. And there is so much the Cons could and should have done in the last 14 years it’s not worth listing. We’re even at war with Russia without officially declaring it. What do the Cons expect – that we should vote them back in? They’re avin a larf! I’d like to think there will be a really big swing to Reform but I wonder if NF has put a spanner in the works by putting the blame on the west for poking the bear over the last 10 years. (I agree with him btw).

      1. Labour plans are very different and even more sinister. I know and agree that we have been conned for the last 14 years, but what is coming will knock that betrayal into a cocked hat,

    4. This notion of "splitting the vote" carries and arrogant assumption that one party is having lost the votes to which they have some sort of right.

  104. The media has led the country into an anti-Tory fervour

    Our current travails are as nothing next to the Winter of Discontent – yet the political discourse is far angrier

    JANET DALEY • 22 June 2024 • 2:50pm

    When Sir Keir Starmer walked onto the stage for last Thursday's edition of Question Time, he was audibly booed.

    When he refused repeatedly to say whether he had meant what he said when he claimed that Jeremy Corbyn would make a "great prime minister", the audience laughed.

    Yet this is the man who is, we must assume, about to be elected prime minister in an unprecedented landslide. Even though much of the popular anger with the Conservatives is clearly coming from the Right, with voters stating explicitly that they are furious about both the failure to control migration, and exorbitant levels of taxation, the electorate seems about to install a party of the Left which could well end up declaring an effective amnesty for illegal migrants and raising taxes.

    Nigel Farage, who is going to facilitate that enormous Labour victory by dividing what might have been the Tory vote, is a man whose personality, by all the traditional measures, should be anathema in national public life. His political persona – the egregious conceit, bombastic braggadocio, and almost nihilistic disregard for the damaging consequences of his strategy – is, paradoxically, quite un-British.

    So, with apologies for tiresome repetition, I ask again the question that this column has posed before: what is going on here?

    Let me be clear: I absolutely understand the disgust with the chaotic and visibly irresponsible shambles of a succession of aborted Conservative attempts at leadership. I get that. The expectation that the Tories will lose this election is completely reasonable.

    What seems odd is the disjuncture between the unprecedented degree of hatred that appears to dominate the political scene, and the daily experience of most people. There have been historical moments within living memory when the everyday lives of much of the population were far more desperate than now – and then you could feel fear and outrage in the streets.

    In the fateful Winter of Discontent of 1978-79 which changed the politics of this country, when the uncollected rubbish was piling up on the pavements, the streets were blocked with uncleared snow and ice, and the lights were going out, nobody talked of anything else. This was not just annoyance or exasperation: it was a sense of existential dread, a truly terrifying vision of a country that was beyond hope of recovery and restoration. The Tories would take power in the May of 1979 with a working majority of 44 seats, but no great hope that they would be able to bring the country out of what seemed like an inevitable doom spiral.

    Living through that time was a bit like living through the war. There was serious doubt about whether the country could survive in its present form. A great many people who had the chance, simply left to make their lives in America or Australia because they believed that there could never be any future for them here.

    More than a decade later, the Thatcher government had its own moment of explosive public discontent. The poll tax riots of 1990 came close to rocking the political establishment in a tumultuous wave of rebellion. For a moment, Downing Street trembled. Then it caved, Thatcher faced a leadership challenge, resigned, and her potential successors uniformly announced that the policy would be abolished.

    Again, there was a palpable outrage which you could hear and feel in the public square. It was a phenomenon that was talked about by real people – not just the media – in the pubs and in the bus queues because it had an immediate impact on so many households. I would say that the only issue with that sort of resonance today is the state of the NHS which really is a topic of everyday conversation because it has life-changing consequences, and so many people have personal anecdotes to contribute.

    But Labour has not outlined any credible plan for dealing with this that I can see as unambiguously distinct from what a Conservative government would do. Indeed, given Labour's relationship with the trade unions, their demands are likely to take precedence over any reforms that might bring dramatic change.

    So the question must be: is there something unreal about this present picture? Frustration and disillusionment certainly abounds, especially for the young who are hoping to buy homes or even rent them at affordable prices. But then again, they are not faced with the hopelessness of mass unemployment that previous generations were.

    There is no shortage of jobs for those prepared to take them.

    Both taxation and the cost of living are outrageously high but that, as people should understand, is a consequence of a series of emergencies for which no one has an instant remedy. And yet we have an unstoppable stampede to a leader who, according to the polls, is actively disliked by nearly half of respondents and a party whose programme for government is deliberately, almost absurdly, vacuous. Or do we?

    Rishi Sunak was certainly the wrong person to be fighting this fight. What was needed after the Truss car-crash was an elder statesman of calm and sombre maturity to deliver a grave message that would have put the dilemma in frank terms, and asked the country to help bear the burden with its usual steadfastness. But even allowing for that miscasting, I have never seen a media pile-on against a ruling government like this one.

    In the – literally – dark days when militant trade unions were making the lives of ordinary people impossible, or in the febrile anti-Thatcher period, there was still some attempt to describe events and their causes in a way that made them graspable. There was at least some acceptance of the need, when reporting an immediate crisis, to set it in a context that helped to account for government decisions, making it clear how limited the choices were.

    But now? Can you recall hearing a broadcast interview or discussion which acknowledged the economic damage done by the pandemic and the Ukraine war, and the severe restrictions that they have imposed on the government's decisions?

    Most crucially, has this relentless news onslaught made it unthinkable to vote Conservative? Or just unthinkable to admit to the pollsters that you are going to vote Conservative?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk…

    Janet Daley describes the state of the nation as comparable with 1979. It's not. That was a UK that was still the country that we grew up in. For all its faults even then it was recognisably ours and we hoped that a change of government would bring a change of fortune. There were two sides to the argument – a bit to the left, a bit to the right.

    In the 45 years that have passed it's changed beyond recognition, socially, culturally, racially. That simple world has gone. Society is fracturing in all directions. Alien cultures have been implanted. Notwithstanding that there were at times modest tensions between England and the rest, we bumped along together. Not now. It's not just Blair's devolution disaster that has broken the country but immigration, with the ancestral British (and the decent adopted of long standing) having to fight for space in their own land with the one-eighth of the population that has arrived in the last 20 years.

    So why does she ask why Farage is so prominent? All he's is doing is pointing out what's wrong. He's not the Master of Chaos. We all know who that is.

    Farage hasn't split the Tory vote. Cameron did that. And there are no elder statesmen. Not any more. Perhaps one will emerge from the calamity about to engulf us but I won't bet much on that happening.

  105. Evening, all. Kadi was a star at the fun dog show this afternoon; he didn't get placed, but he behaved really well, especially since he'd never done it before. He had a couple of consolation rosettes (veteran and most handsome lad). It was a real traditional fete; a coconut shy, plant stall, lucky dip, afternoon tea and Pimms. We were lucky with the weather, too; sunny but not too hot.

    1. Sounds like a good day out.
      I do enjoy visiting a traditional Vilage-Fete Worse-Than-Death!

    2. I know everyone else here knows this, Conway, but what breed/sort of dog is Kadi?

        1. Sounds very cute! Daughter has something rather similar (now on last legs) – very nice little dog (and supremely lovable)

          1. He'll be 9 next month. He looks rather like a Norfolk terrier, but with longer legs.

    1. Bravo Kadi! I was at the Royal Highland Show today, and the number of brilliantly behaved dogs was amazing!

        1. Am I correct in assuming that others on here have been exposed to puppy photos?

          1. I never had him as a puppy. I inherited him from my neighbour when she had a terminal cancer diagnosis. I've only had him two years.

  108. A beautiful day today.
    Got a bit of tidying up done up the "garden" this morning, then a bit of shopping in Belper and a bit more done up the "garden" this evening.
    No plans for tomorrow.
    And that's me off to bed!

  110. That is a Staffie! My mother used to breed them. Brilliant dogs (except with other dogs) – and their final one from a litter after we'd all grown up could not be trusted with children, who it obviously saw as sinister and a threat.

    1. He is half Staffie and half Springer. He loves people and other dogs. Unless you are a cat, a rabbit or a squirrel he is wonderful company.

  111. There is no knight in shining armour coming to save us.

    "The footage of US President Joe Biden on the world stage is a metaphor for our times. His faltering and failing on the presidential campaign trail, his incomprehensible mumblings, his advanced decrepitude, even his fragility. Just as that old man is done, visibly confused, spent and needing time not in the glare of the spotlight but more likely in a care home – or perhaps in jail – so is the collective establishment of the West – as one dieth, so dies the other.

    "All the headlines and the manufactured panic now are about the so-called 'Right', which is to say popular parties talking about the need for secure borders and the preservation of national identities, the preservation of cultures and the defence of a religion that served as well for most of 2,000 years.

    "The fear porn about fascists and the like is from those dependent on the status quo who fear any challenge to their anti-human agenda. Anyone speaking up for the people will therefore be demonized by the establishment as 'The Right' and 'The Far-right' but that's just to distract attention from the actual direction from which the real danger has come. The West now is being nudged ever closer to international communism, world communism, one world government by those that presume to address and conquer the endless complexities of life with simplistic one-size fits-all policies."

    The whole show, not the monologue which is at the start and runs to 11:20.

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

      2. Wishing you a very Happy Birthday, Paul! Hope it a good one! 🎂🥂🍺🎉

      1. Yes, I know. Unfortunately, because he'd been ill-treated, he was a grizzly inside. He didn't like being touched on his head and would defend himself. It was really difficult to convince some people not to rub his head.

    1. ' Morning, Geoff, thank you and cheers for all the sterling work you have done to overcome difficulties. Wel done!

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