Monday 8 July: The Conservatives now face a long battle to unite a party riven by factions

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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575 thoughts on “Monday 8 July: The Conservatives now face a long battle to unite a party riven by factions”

  1. Good morrow, Gentlefolk, today’s (recycled) story

    Grab Life As It Passes

    Three old women are sitting in a park, feeding the pigeons.
    Suddenly, a man in a trench coat runs out from behind a tree and flashes them!
    The first old woman has a stroke!
    Then the second old woman has a stroke!
    But the third old woman, try as she might, just couldn't reach him!

    1. Can we stop pretending the UK is a democracy now?

      I stopped years ago.

    2. Over seventeen million people voted to Leave the EU; less than 10 million voted for Labour in the last election

      1. Nope. Never have. They have disgusting personal habits. And that was before they got into bed with the goat shaggers.

    2. Morning Phizzee. It didn't stop any of the MSM television channels describing National Rally as far-Right.

      1. Good morning, Minty.

        Hard right…extreme right…meh.

        Now they have a coalition of far left fruitcakes.

  6. David Lammy warns China against helping Russia in Ukraine. 8 July 2024

    David Lammy, the new Foreign Secretary, warned China not to become embroiled in Russia’s attempt to undermine Ukraine.

    He said Beijing should be “very careful” about deepening its partnerships with Russia, Iran and North Korea.

    Shock. Horror. China in state of mortal terror.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/07/07/david-lammy-china-warns-ukraine-help-russia-poland-trip/

    2. How embarrassing! What a posturing fool.
      Hopefully the Chinese will only laugh.

      1. Nope, his intention is to send lots of white boys off to be murdered in war. He probably stays awake at night dreaming about it.

    4. He'll tell them we'll sanction them into the 19th century, and remind them that Henry 7th followed Henry 8th.

    2. The question is, will Reform promise to repeal all this at the next election, or will it be the usual choice between fast destruction and slow destruction?

      1. 389495+ up ticks,

        Morning BB2,
        "The next election" the indigenous IMHO have let it slide far to far in the islamic department for one thing, we are being herded in direction of travel.

    3. Anyone else noticed how net zero nutter can be be shortened to 'netze'. Another word comes to mind when I see, 'netze'.

    4. It's a terrifying prospect. I am really down about the whole nightmare, no light at the end of the dark tunnel. Even if reform or similar sensible party get in at the next election, I fear we will be so far down the rabbit hole of 'reset'/ WHO/ davos/Nut Zero destruction that it may well be too late.

  9. Labour ‘remains iron clad’ on Ukraine as Defence Secretary visits Odesa. 8 July 2024.

    The UK has provided more than £7.6 billion of military assistance to Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

    Mr Healey said: “As the new Defence Secretary, I will ensure that we reinvigorate Britain’s support by stepping up supplies of vital military aid.

    I’m glad that we don’t have any money worries.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/07/07/labour-remains-ironclad-on-ukraine-as-defence-secretary-vis/

  10. Good morning all.
    A rather chilly start today, a tad over 3½°on the Yard Thermometer, but bright & sunny with little discernable wind.

  11. Good morning, chums. Another week begins, and a very full day. Thanks, Geoff, for today's NoTTLe site.

    Wordle 1,115 3/6

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    1. Good morning Elsie
      Wordle 1,115 4/6

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    2. You did well getting that in three, Elsie Bloodaxe. If you were doing the NY Times Wordle, there were so many variations.

    3. Well done.

      Wordle 1,115 4/6

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  13. Good morning. The news from France is grim. Clearly an attempt to start a civil war.

      1. How long will London, as the UK's financial hub, last? In this increasingly digitalized world, the hub could be anywhere. Indeed, will we need a hub? What other things attracts financiers to London? The city life, the culture? It is increasingly dirty and dangerous and its urbane cosmopolitan feel has been transplanted by unwelcoming, tribal mono-cultures which cater to third world poor.

        Saw a drama the other night with London streets full of blacks or other POC. I had a Jon Snow moment in reverse. The programme was trying to normalise it but it looked so wrong in a predominantly white country esp. with it being its capital city. It seemed forced and as it it was an intentional provocation rather than a naturally evolved situation. Would you want to bring a family up there? With so much crime, threat, poverty and close to unwelcoming alien cultures, where you and your family wouldn't fit in? How long a shelf-life does London have with regard to its financial importance? I give it another 15 years, if that. And what happens when the welfare money runs out? Will these new visitors peacefully accept free money being withheld from them when they have been conditioned to accept it as their natural right? Politicians' ideas of multiculturalism are certainly not mine.

        1. In due course if things turn really nasty and the indigenous population is evacuated the M25 should form a useful relatively easily defended containment barrier…..I think Julius Caesar had the same idea a while back….

        2. London is going the same way as South Africa and quite a few American cities. Soon to be burnt out wrecks.

    2. Is the population part of the per capita the legal residents, or …?

  17. 389495+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    A near future lab/lib/con child minder, labs turn in the political bent power seat, davos calling, first things first
    bigger, safer, channel crossing boats, daily.

    And so the dismantling of democracy continues unabated.

    Is it true that ALL ploughshares are being taken under government control ?

    Should we, the peoples, be demanding a United Kingdom 2nd amendment along with revealing the reason Dunblane has a hundred year D notice on it.

    https://x.com/goddeketal/status/1810050789613752432

    https://x.com/goddeketal/status/1810050789613752432

      2. Thank you, Dolly's Slave.
        Thank you, thank you, thank you for today's sodding ear worm.

  20. Good Moaning.
    Note to self: make that opticians appt.
    Guess what I read first time round. "Andrea Lawful-Sanders, a host on WURD Radio, said the Biden campaign ……."

  22. Good morning all,

    Sunny over Castle McPhee but beginning to cloud over, showers this afternoon, heavy rain tonight. Wind South, 11℃ rising to 14℃.

    Something is happening in mainstream-media-land if the DT publishes this:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9bd391d3e039415f7cfa5e9c4bf30ed581908453a78badd7a396b3b27091bf98.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/2024/07/07/moon-landing-hoax-conspiracy-theory-apollo/

    In September 2002, the astronaut Buzz Aldrin – the second man to walk on the Moon – was confronted in Beverly Hills by a camera crew led by Bart Sibrel. Sibrel, the creator of several documentaries alleging that the Moon landings never happened, shoved a Bible at Aldrin and demanded he swear on it that he wasn’t lying about walking on the Moon, before calling him “a coward and a liar”.

    In response Aldrin, then 72, punched Sibrel in the face. Aldrin’s angry reaction didn’t reassure anyone, though, and just fuelled a new wave of conspiracy theories. The central claim: the Apollo landings were a gigantic scam, perpetrated on the whole world by the American government.

    I have met and talked with Buzz Aldrin during a flight to Munich in the 1990s. I have his autograph in my log-book. Is it worthless?

    1. This is STILL news? Clearly, we're in what the Norwegian press call "agurktiden" – cucumber times, the silly season, where there's no news so they go around re-re-rehashing old crap.

  23. British police to be deployed in Europe to fight people smugglers. 8 July 2024.

    Hundreds of police officers will be deployed across Europe to stop people smugglers as part of Sir Keir Starmer’s new UK Border Security Command.

    Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, announced on Sunday the first steps in setting up the command by kickstarting the search from Monday for a former police, military or intelligence chief to head it.

    It will also see up to 1,000 extra officers recruited by the National Crime Agency (NCA), Border Force and MI5 specifically to target smuggling gangs.

    This is a nice sinecure for someone who fancies living on the continent at public expense. There’s probably an index linked pension to go with it. It would suit a Labour apparatchik. No experience required and success guaranteed because very shortly the boats will dry up as their passengers will be able to walk up to Calais and catch the Cross Channel Ferry with no fear of being delayed on the other side.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/07/07/uk-police-deployed-europe-fight-people-smugglers-home-sec/

    1. Somewhere nice and sunny?
      Like Plod nipping over to Portugal whenever a 'new piece of evidence' crops up over Madeline McCann.

  24. Nice three here

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  25. Shout from SWMBO upstairs. She's just caught a FUCKING GIGANTIC HORNET in a cup. The thing's colossal. Squirted with a good dose flyspray and left to die outside. Blasted thing has a diameter as a wasp is long!
    WAs going to photograph it with a scale, but it's turned the plastic cup over and gone…

      1. Problem is, didn't notice the legs, and now it's gone.
        Hopefully, dead – we have honeybees that don't need to become hornet dinner.

    1. Good story.
      And Turned into an absolute tip by that afore-mentioned little shiite.
      We have just welcomed two new neighbours (with one on the way) to our road. They have moved slightly north and out of London. They seem to be happy.

  30. Mélenchon in yer France makes Corbyn seem like a moderate (old-fashioned) conservative…..

    Interesting to see what happens next.

    1. The French elections are being rigged to thwart democracy and keep out Marine?

      1. You may think that, Our Susan, I could not possibly comment…

        Of course they were rigged – but the riggers did NOT anticipate Mélenchon crawling out of the woodwork and demanding to be Prime Ministe!

        1. The boomerang has come back, bigger, heavier and a lot sharper.
          Interesting times ahead.
          Perhaps Macron's gamble will pay off long term, assuming there's anything left of France.

          1. I see your commune voted Le Pen. So did Laure – though it is full of far-left loonies!

          3. I thought it was the Popular People's Front but I may have got that wrong and it could well be the People's Popular Front….?

          4. The age profile here has dropped considerably over recent years, so it suggests younger voters may be drifting to the right.

  32. Good morning, all. Sunny at the moment with showers forecast for later. I've had an optimistic moment and put the washing on!

    Is Smarmer reading the room post the election?

    Johnson, for some obscure reason that I never fathomed (I spoilt my ballot in 2019 and not for the first time) was deemed popular and had an eighty seat majority that he wasn't capable of exploiting for the good of the Country, let alone the Tory party. Of course, it all ended in tears and the destruction of the Tories.

    Smarmer, he who lost 50% of his own majority in Holborn and St Pancras and only garnered votes from around 18% of the total electorate or 33% of the votes cast i.e. less than Corbyn achieved, has double the majority that Johnson received. These figures are hardly those of a popular endorsement by the electorate but of course Smarmer and Co will state otherwise, using the seats won as the reason for the popularity of the Labour party. That of course is a false premise, an oddity thrown up by the FPTP voting system here in the UK.

    It's almost a nailed on certainty the this Labour government will push on, and push on hard, with similar policies that brought the Tories to their knees. As reflected in the election turn-out the people are currently not happy and a continuation of the policies employed by the Tories, and especially if those policies have a harder edge to them, will not improve the mood in the Country.

    Farage has clearly stated that he will go after Labour votes, is he reading the room better than Smarmer? We are entering what is looking like very tough times under this government: is Smarmer's "victory" presaging the beginning of the end for the Labour party?

    It would appear that the globalist agenda has to be followed no matter what the collateral damage being done to the major political parties. What then, anarchy, tyranny, a dog eat dog situation?

    1. The whole point of modern democracy is to hand out huge profitable contracts at public expense to favoured business interests, who have been lobbying hard and are therefore "hardworking" and "aspirational". Why should Starmer be any different?

      Farage was denied his seat in 2015 thanks to some chicanery from the Conservative Party that did breach the law, but went unpunished because the lawyers chose to look the other way.

      And who exactly led these criminal lawyers in the run-up to this election ,with the power to decide who would be brought to justice and who wouldn't? Would it be someone who let organised gang molesters of young people get off, whilst prosecuting the whistle blowers, or the man who picked up the postmasters the superjudicial Post Office missed when punishing those unfortunate enough to be bludgeoned into becoming victims of a huge organised crime that even the former PM Tony Blair knew about before it was even rolled out?

      In 2015, Farage's party got just under 4 million votes nationally and one flaky MP to show for it. This time he got just over 4 million, but managed 5 MPs – one for every 800,000 votes or so. Starmer's party got one MP for every 23,000 votes.

      Aren't lawyers supposed to dispense justice?

  34. Morning all 🙂😊
    Lovely sunny start, but hardly summer 12c and more rain on the way.
    What we really need in Wastemonster is 200 armed troops a dozen or so trucks lined up outside going straight to the dump. Spikes on the benches to stop them coming back and proportional representation. It's pretty obvious that it's all a complete waste of time and a huge waste of money and all in a dreadful mess.

    1. Wait till February’25 and nuke Davos. The Augean Stables would then be clean.

  35. Oh dear. Radio 3 has just told me it’s “international town criers day”. Ripon still had a town crier when I was young. Maybe it still does but emblazoned across the front of the Town Hall building, as I recall, is “Except Ye Lord Keepeth The City, Ye Wakeman Waketh In Vain”.

      2. Always one of my favourites. Wonderful pianist, keyboardsman and entertainer. Rick is also very funny and witty, in a laconic sort of way.

        1. He’s a proper grumpy old man! I love him! Unlike the ghastly Roger Waters and Brian May!

      1. Not in Ripon. In fact it’s “Keep Ye Cittie”. I got that bit wrong.

          1. According to the Daily Fail, a herd of cattle stampeded (ambled) through Ripon yesterday!

          10. I've been to Ghent. I was once taken to a party hosted by the 3rd Royal Tank Regiment in their barracks in Paderborn, Westphalia. There weren't any ladies loos in the building but they did have more than one set of loos so one lot was simply labelled "Ladies" for the evening and we tried to ignore the row of urinals. I also noticed at that party that there were young male solidiers cuddling each other and I was told that when they go home they'll be straight, they're just lonely.

          11. And I’ve seen male cleaners in the Ladies. There tends to be a notice alerting the female loo users that there may be a cleaner who is male.

        2. I think Joe might be alluding to the fact that the word 'Ye' is actually pronounced Þe ('Thee', definite form of The).

          Many people think that "Ye Olde Worlde" is pronounced "Yee Oldy Worldy" when it is, in fact, properly pronounce "The Old World".

    3. Shrewsbury's Town Crier should be having a good day then. He gave us an interesting talk on the first Monday of the month.

    1. I think that the PTB in the West have been hypnotised by the WEF, George Soros and Bill Gates and have been inculcated with a Death Wish for their own citizens and their own countries.

      This is all part of the Great Scam of Net Zero. In order to build back better one must clear away everything that exists, flatten the ground and dig in new foundations.

      1. 389495+ up ticks,

        Morning R,
        The motley treacherous political
        cartels the majority voter has insisted on supporting these past forty years govern for whoever pays the highest, patriotism and loyalty to voters does NOT enter the equation,ever.

        Their political aim is, get aboard insider dealings / scam / run.

  37. Yesterday I posted a Substack essay by Elizabeth Nickson about the Rockefeller family. She's done it again.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d54c462c5539ce60a8387a696ca994ca20b8c9a610b2093cad15b54646ba8182.png
    https://substack.com/home/p…

    In the climate change arena, the Rockefellers call the shots. The whole thing was their idea, they took a silly but interesting theory and amped it up with hundreds and hundreds of million of dollars. They founded institutions and linked the survival of those institutions to promoting climate change and population reduction. They adopted one likely politician after another.

    But Jacob Nordangård is the man who has done the 'hard yards' of research.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/46828b2f1b8ed6ab5a90a5647224cb53fce36057e673bd2653a19521c199b04c.png
    Just consider what this family has done with its vast tax-free wealth in the Rockefeller Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund – they funded the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, the funded Hitler and the Nazis, they were involved in trying to mount a military coup in the USA in the 1930s, they founded or facilitated the League of Nations, the United Nations, the Club of Rome, the Trilateral Commission, the World Economic Forum which is now formally tied to the United Nations, they sponsored Gates and Soros so they gave us AntiFa, BLM, Just Stop Oil etc. etc.etc. You can see that they are behind every single ill that besets us in the 21st century. They really do want to rule the World. David Rockefeller told us so.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e956f2dcfb8a6b94c057bb637bf1bffbd2b93ab2348ba57f8f1ab937ffb28ca7.png
    And who backed John D Rockefeller who started it all off? The Rothschilds who will have been repaid a hundred-fold.

    If, when, the people of the World win against the globalists we will have to dismantle the wealth and power of this family and everything and everyone it has spawned. Nothing less will do.

      2. Ah but remember Sue…

        Roses are Reddish
        Violets are bluish
        If it wasn't for Christmas
        We'd all be Jewish!

    3. And,
      “We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost 40 years……It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supernational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries.”
      ― David Rockefeller, Memoirs

      1. Yes. We must never forget that one. Never.

        All MSM is bought by Rockefeller interests or corporations in league with the Rockefeller interests.

    4. I listened to the Delingpod with Elizabeth Nickson yesterday, it was very interesting.

  38. Yesterday I posted a Substack essay by Elizabeth Nickson about the Rockefeller family. She's done it again.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d54c462c5539ce60a8387a696ca994ca20b8c9a610b2093cad15b54646ba8182.png
    https://substack.com/home/p…

    In the climate change arena, the Rockefellers call the shots. The whole thing was their idea, they took a silly but interesting theory and amped it up with hundreds and hundreds of million of dollars. They founded institutions and linked the survival of those institutions to promoting climate change and population reduction. They adopted one likely politician after another.

    But Jacob Nordangård is the man who has done the 'hard yards' of research.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/46828b2f1b8ed6ab5a90a5647224cb53fce36057e673bd2653a19521c199b04c.png
    Just consider what this family has done with its vast tax-free wealth in the Rockefeller Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund – they funded the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, the funded Hitler and the Nazis, they were involved in trying to mount a military coup in the USA in the 1930s, they founded or facilitated the League of Nations, the United Nations, the Club of Rome, the Trilateral Commission, the World Economic Forum which is now formally tied to the United Nations, they sponsored Gates and Soros so they gave us AntiFa, BLM, Just Stop Oil etc. etc.etc. You can see that they are behind every single ill that besets us in the 21st century. They really do want to rule the World. David Rockefeller told us so.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e956f2dcfb8a6b94c057bb637bf1bffbd2b93ab2348ba57f8f1ab937ffb28ca7.png
    And who backed John D Rockefeller who started it all off? The Rothschilds who will have been repaid a hundred-fold.

    If, when, the people of the World win against the globalists we will have to dismantle the wealth and power of this family and everything and everyone it has spawned. Nothing less will do.

    1. Who is that dreadful woman? And what is wrong with her face? And that accent!

      3. She cites Cameron having no problem dealing with Trump but hasn’t noticed that Cameron left prime ministerial office before Trump was elected and that Biden has been president throughout the time that Dave has been Foreign Secretary.

  40. Good morning.

    I missed most of the follow up to my tongue-in-cheek comment, yesterday, on the standard of my education. A good batch of reasonable comments ensued. If I'd still been around I would have elucidated further.

    I "failed" my Eleven-plus and was sent to a Secondary Modern. A lot of my former classmates who "passed " that exam and went to the local grammar school ended up in manual jobs, like gas-fitters, jobbing gardeners, prison officers and shop-assistants.

    A good number of my new classmates at the Sec Mod (who had also "failed" their Eleven-plus) became successful entrepreneurs and businessmen. One became the managing director of his own successful businesses; another became a diplomat at the British embassy in Canberra; another ran his own successful pig farm; and another rose to become the chairman of an engineering enterprise.

    The whole elementary education system was riddled with flaws and it took no account of the relative levels of intelligence of the children forced to sit that mockery of a selection process. Those teachers who were charged with recognising the potential of their pupils failed them miserably.

    1. I was a" late developer" but caught up in the end.I went to a first class Sec.Mod.

      1. I went to fee-paying schools (except for 2 years in the Middle East when I went to RAF schools). Complete waste of money for my impoverished parents. Left school with 8 O-levels. Real education started at age 18….

        1. I was a vacuous flibbertigibbet until my late 20s.

          I did not grow up until others depended on me being competent and when I started teaching I worked very hard indeed to get on top of the job. Fortunately I have always loved reading and the more I had to teach English at "A" level the more I started reading in depth.

        2. I had a milk round at 10 and than a bakers round till I went into the Fith Year at school. I learnt so much about different people in my jobs. That prepared me for the interviewing I had to do in later life. Understanding people was a great asset. and still is. I spent months at a time interviewing people for jobs.

      2. I went to a grammar school that had been a technical school. It had its own gym, swimming pool, tennis courts, athletics track, three science labs, a domestic science suite, woodwork and metalwork shops and an excellent teaching record. It's now a comprehensive.

    2. Sensible teachers are well aware that talent, success and academic qualifications do not always go together.

      When I was at my public school a boy who was also there was there because he had failed his 11 +. He ended up going to Cambridge, becoming a don, head of his academic department and finally the Master of his college at Cambridge.

      Both my sons were home-schooled up until the Sixth Form after which one went to Gresham's (where Bill's MR used to teach) and the other chose to go to a state comprehensive boarding school. Both have done well and got good degrees and good jobs but the one who went to the comprehensive school went on to do a Masters' degree in Computer Science and Data Analytics and was awarded a distinction and was top of his year: he now writes sophisticated AI computer programs.

      One of my good friends at UEA went to one of the first comprehensive schools in Bristol. We had several summer holiday together in Cornwall. He became not only a well qualified chartered accountant and merchant banker but a very successful rugby player (Attached is a photo of him with our boys when they were little)

      The point is that those who are determined to succeed will do well no matter where they went to school but I don't blame parents wanting to do what they think is best for their own children.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5e1376fcc874c3f2b908a4c81bd976f08393916bb7fbfb636c4e2579d969739f.png

    3. "…One became the managing director of his own successful businesses..."

      He wasn't a toolmaker by chance?

          2. Smarmer keeps bleating about his Papa being a toolmaker – he certainly produced a right tool!

    4. Maybe the key here is "failed", Grizz (however defined). I coasted at university, was thrown out after the first year, due to terrible exam results. Got myself a job, including my first trip to offshore production platform, and a massive kick in the arse to buck my ideas up a bit – I believe it's called growing up! Studied hard, was readmitted, and progressed reasonably until reaching the heady levels of being a Maintenance Expert.
      I'd have been 3/4 of bugger-all without that initial failure.

    5. I was borderline on Eleven Plus but after attending an interview I gained a place at City of Bath Technical School which I attended 1963-1970 when it was amalgamated with the local secondary school.

      Both my elder and younger brothers attended the secondary school and both were failed by that institution where the emphasis was on sport.

      I consider that I dodged a bullet by avoiding the Westhill secondary.

      First degree at University of Sheffield in Architecture and post grad at University College London. Qualified and practiced mostly in London for 30 odd years. A couple of years in Norwich and for the next 20 odd years worked for myself on all manner of projects. Retired when I reached the age of 70.

      My Technical School was the last one of its type in the country to be closed. My other great good fortune was that throughout my time there the Headmaster was F T Naylor who had co-founded the Grammar Schools Association. I read a resume of a radio programme he gave in The Listener where he cited my Year as having achieved the highest pass rate of any West Country school at A Level.

  42. Yo and Good Moaning all

    "gooseberries are bitter and the bushes are thorny, but liberally sprinkled with sugar and baked under a crumble topping, they make a delicious pudding. "

    The thorns go soft then?

    3. Reminds me how rare it is to see Gooseberry Jam nowadays (I had gooseberry bushes at a previous house).

  43. I've got one bush and the bloody squirrels steal the gooseberries. Even if I net the Bush.
    And the little buggers steal my grapes and Hazel nuts.

        1. Paul Ritter. A very funny man. A terrible shame he died at 54.
          Quite an unusual show. Mark Heap had me in hysterics.

          The episode where they were decorating. You just knew what was going to happen with the tin of paint. I couldn't stop laughing. And the one with the piano tuner. Comedy gold.

          The last time i was in town i went to see a show with David Mitchell and Mark Heap in Upstart Crow. Hilarious. I met them both after and what surprised me was Mark Heap is exactly the same in real life as he is when he is acting.

      2. My rifle’s in bits in the garage I don’t need a telescope i’m an expert shot. ….was !

    3. The squirrels steal my hazels, but the effin pigeons steal my cherries and grapes.

    1. Informed choice? Bollocks ! Those girls couldn't make an informed choice on sexual behaviour because they were under the age of legal consent.

          1. In the expectation that they have not the mental maturity to understand the implications of sex at an early agel. Plenty of time for that a bit later.

      2. Phizzee, you're applying logic to the insane. The muslim wanted to rape children. The state enforced this. The state protected the muslim. The state endorsed, encouraged and defended it.

        When the raped children fought back, the state attacked them. It attacked anyone talking about the rape of children by muslim.

        The muslim was told – do what you want. We'll support you by the state machine.

    2. I'd bet Afzal is both still in government somewhere and still supporting muslim.

      There is never enough punishment for these vermin.

  45. How it all went wrong for Le Pen’s National Rally
    French electorate comes out against Macron in first round and then unites against far-Right party in second round
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/07/07/marine-le-pen-how-went-wrong-national-rally-france-election/

    BTL

    Many supporters of Marine Le Pen will think , just as the supporters of Trump thought in 2020, that the election was rigged.
    The uprising of anger in France could make the US reactions to Trump's defeat seem very small beer indeed.

    2. I don't think it was rigged, what happened was that Macron thought the anyone but Le Pen mob would vote for him.
      What he failed to appreciate is that the anyone but Macron group were the ones who voted for Melenchon

      1. It's the usual pattern. In the second round everybody unites, no matter how disparate their views, to defeat the pretender.

      1. From Coffee House, the Spectator

        Vegans are addicted to junk food
        Which is ironic, given how moralistic they are

        Comments Share 8 July 2024, 5:01am
        Recent research has revealed what many of us suspected: that fake meat is highly processed and contains junk such as exotic emulsifiers, stabilisers, flavour enhancers and artificial colourings, all of which are designed to make them feel, taste and look like the real thing. Often, they are loaded with salt, sugar and fat. Many Britons become vegan (or vegetarian) precisely because they want to cut down on this stuff, but end up with even higher blood pressure and blood sugar levels.

        Lots of my friends’ offspring are vegan for ‘save the planet’ reasons – but they subsist on chips, cola, and fake burgers, not even realising that avocado farming is killing off the rainforest. Facon (‘This isn’t Bacon!’ – no kidding!), chickin and cheeze substitutes are hellish. Meat-substitute nuggets, given to kids by hessian-clad parents, are packed with rubbish.

        As a feminist born in 1962, I have been surrounded by vegetarians (and, in more recent decades, vegans), throughout my adult life. While it is both a lefty position and a stereotypical, Greenham Common type ‘women save the planet’ thing – it is also an anti-machismo schtick. One book published in 1990, The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegan Critical Theory, by Carol J. Adams, argued that behind every forkful of meat is the death of an animal, and that this cloaks the violence inherent to meat-eating, ‘to protect the conscience of the meat eater and render the idea of individual animals as immaterial to everyone’s selfish desires.’

        I got it, but I didn’t buy it. I figured that I was doing enough to make the world a better place, campaigning to end male violence against women and girls. I would occasionally join forces with the animal liberationists by joining their protests outside fur coat shops, in exchange for their attendance at protests outside local porn cinemas or strip joints.

        Most popular
        Jonathan Miller
        Le Pen is France’s real winner

        But the main issue for me was that the fake meat and dairy products that were becoming popular by the late 1980s tasted like cardboard with the flavour extracted. The local health food store (staffed by humourless, overly earnest activists) would sell blocks of fake cheese that looked like stuff for grouting bathrooms, and jars of cashew nut butter that needed a drill and a hardhat to get into.

        Today, while actual junk food is looked down upon because it is eaten by the working classes, vegan junk food is extremely popular. Everyone knows a diet of sweet, carbonated drinks, chips, and processed food is bad, and parents that take their kids to McDonald’s for a treat are considered slightly more dangerous than Fred and Rosemary West. Queuing in a fish and chip shop recently, I heard a middle-class couple (out for what they described as their ‘special fortnightly treat’), saying that a woman, who came in at least twice a week to feed her kids, was nothing short of a child abuser and should be reported to social services forthwith. One of them remarked, ‘Can’t she cook soup from scratch?’

        Of course, it’s a different matter when upper–middle–class posers eat vegan junk food, which is somehow seen as very on-message and not unhealthy at all. But why on earth would it be? Think about vegan sausage rolls (stuffed with oil, salt, and sugar), cakes without dairy that need twice as much sweetener to mask the horrible cotton wool taste, and dreadful vegan ‘cheese’, packed with something I really don’t want to know about.

        The flavour of these products is indistinguishable from that of really cheap, nasty meat, packed with additives and fillers. As soon as I could afford to, I stopped buying factory-farmed animals, cut down my consumption of meat, and only bought free range. It tastes better, and allows me a clear conscience. If anybody suggests jackfruit – with its lack of flavour and weird texture – as a meat substitute, I tell them I’d rather eat a tomato salad. And the ‘smashed avocado on sourdough’ craze, which has ruined high street cafés, has also contributed to deforestation and degradation in central and southern Mexican forests.

        But never let it be said that I’m resistant to innovation. Two or three years ago, I was introduced to oat milk by a friend who doesn’t like the taste of dairy. She challenged me to try it, and I was sold. I haven’t had cow’s milk since. Occasional junk food is fine, but if you are going to become vegan, at least learn to cook. I can recommend some divine South Indian recipes. Give me a cauliflower and coconut curry over a tasteless soy burger any day.

        2. What I could never get veggies to face was that by uprooting and cooking veg they were killing it just as surely as slaughter for meat. Worse, in some cases (peas, for instance) they were killing the children. I am evil, me.

          1. I don’t remember when I first read about plants responding to music or displaying powers of telepathy. There is a famous book which explains how trees in the forest socialise and cooperate in the protection of each other.
            It’s true that our knowledge of plants here is in its infancy and those who insist that they have feelings are often regarded as cranks.
            Vegetarians in their eagerness for moral purity do not seem to consider that in fact all living creatures are interdependent and eating each other is unfortunately part of life.
            Peeling an apple or a cucumber may be just as unethical as cooking chicken. Potatoes or onions left too long will sprout because they are alive. At least I know when I mix minced beef into a spaghetti sauce that the cow has been long dead. Not so when I slice up a tomato.
            That’s just the way it is. Eat octopus or pork or potatoes, but you’re still killing living things.
            I have read about the detection of stress in cucumbers because of blight. My point is that vegetarians who believe in eating vegetables instead of meat are simplistic.
            Much more complicated than that. Life is interconnected and living things are stuck with eating each other
            Tell them this and they will cover their ears.We are still at the very beginning of our understanding of how plants feel or perceive the world but any study that you may come across will certainly confirm that plants tend to feel anxiety, pain, empathy with other plants and there are also suggestions that they may be telepathic.
            Simplistic people have decided that it is wrong for human beings to use animals for food. Presumably this is because they are sentient and many humans feel empathy towards them. My argument is that plants are the same.
            Unfortunately human beings in common with other animals have to eat survive. There is no easy solution.
            If you are a vegetarian you may find this idea somewhat upsetting. Just when you think your life is on a sound moral footing, someone suggests that plants have feelings too. Naturally you would pooh pooh this notion.
            However I have been of the opinion now for a very long time that this is so.

  47. Right, load of stuff in the van for the tip so off to unload it.
    Back later, TTFN.

    3. No, Phizz. The country is steeped in crookedness, but there are some good ones around.

  49. Labour MP’s home allegedly attacked with sledgehammer after general election result. 8 July 2024.

    A Labour MP’s home was allegedly attacked with a sledgehammer after the general election result. Andrew Western, who was re-elected as the MP for Stretford and Urmston on Thursday, claimed that the incident took place on Saturday evening and police have since launched an investigation.

    He said he was “absolutely fine” and “no one was hurt”, but warned the “toxicity in our politics at present must be drawn out”, as “harassment, intimidation and abuse” of politicians is becoming “an ever more regular occurrence”.

    My heart bleeds for them.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/07/07/labour-mp-home-attacked-sledgehammer-after-election-result/

        2. They should be afraid of us – they work for us after all. We, however, need to be very afraid of what they intend to do.

  51. Hollandaise made. Will go nicely with my smoked haddock in puff pastry. As i had 3 egg whites left over i made a meringue as well. Now…what to do? I can't possibly do any housework. Need to leave something for Mrs Thursday.

    1. Sounds like.a job for a well-deserved cocktail to me! Put your feet up and.let the dogs bring you nibbles. 😉

      1. I thought you were in Buenos Aires not fantasy Island !

        My no longer estranged sister is coming to the party and she drinks …bleugh… Raspberry Vodka, Chambord and Baileys as a cocktail. I can just imagine the curdling in my tummy.

  52. FND is the one modern situation comedy that I find funny.
    We have the DVDs and I can watch them again and again.

      1. I relate to Horrible Grannie.
        Apparently Cynthia Goodman was one the sexy 6th. formers in the first St. Trinians.

  55. Emily Thornberry ‘surprised and disappointed’ over Cabinet snub by Keir Starmer
    MP loses out on Attorney General role as Downing Street announces a raft of ministerial appointments
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/07/08/keir-starmer-emily-thornberry-cabinet-snub/

    BTL

    Married to Lord Nugee – what did she expect?

    She made the fatal mistake of telling the truth that the imposition of VAT on private school fees would result in state schools having to have larger classes. There is no place in politics for those who, even inadvertently, let cats out of bags.

    Maybe she should buy a white Transit Van, equip it with living arrangements and tour the country complaining about her Starmer Stabbing to anyone who is prepared to listen.

      1. 389495+ up ticks,

        Afternoon Pip,
        May I add poor to little runt, pity then laughter must surely be the order of the day.

    2. I had plenty sunshine, both in Nigeria and working as a farmhand.
      Plus oceans of alcohol, with guinness being the latest, right here by the keyboard.
      Does that make me a stud?

      1. 389495+ up ticks,

        Evening O,
        Same as that, been a Guinness vast consumer for years was in Ikeja Nigeria on the Guinness new brewery.

        1. Cool!
          I remember the advertising: A huge poster with a beaming black man at the head of a crocodile of children that meandered off into the distance, a picture of a pint of the black gold, and the tagline “Guinness gives you power!”

      1. You can bet that the hypocrite will not be flying EasyJet when he Swans off to Baku for the next COP extravaganza.

  60. 389495+ up ticks,

    Has anyone else noticed how close kneels eyes are ? I believe him to be 1 quarter of an inch from being a cyclops, a very dodgy character omen.

    The lammy chap playing the race card, will be first & foremost seeking vengeance for Rorke's Drift.

  61. 'Afternoon All
    Nicked
    *** Day 3 of the. Occupation ***

    life continues under the new dictatorship much as it was under the old one , but I feel the heavy sense of dread lying over the land like a fire blanket

    still no Gestapo at the door at 4am so there is that positive news
    .
    carry on resistance fighters, keep the faith…………
    Meanwhile
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ca0817df704fbeff1fe9dc800085cd44acccfeaeeee372fdbd4de1bcecb1a4a2.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1c503d1cfc395ad57f6e806a928ed3370d6ef8e7d34a8068aa8ed04e42605d3e.jpg
    https://x.com/belfastDGM/status/1810220145362551135
    https://x.com/Sargon_of_Akkad/status/1809582813500293245
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/969685ee88f3a02b481e9d8caba71d6a4e7541a91f74aa8940fed351a207f480.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bd7145031f70ed8486ac40d703fdd828622c1c8debd70343a62d5e14ef150495.png

    1. It is all so depressing.

      To cheer myself up i have booked a flight. Not just any flight. On holiday in Malta a previous landlord was also a pilot. He had his own plane !
      He charged 100 euros to go up and fly around the islands for an hour. I have just re-booked !

      I wonder if i can claim asylum….

      1. Will the last person to leave please turn out the lights…
        From late-middle 1970s and earlier Labour governments.

      2. I already work in a mad house. When I was young, the local loony bin was Naburn Hospital, formerly the York City Asylum. There was also Bootham Park Hospital, formerly York Lunatic Asylum. I was often reminded of how lucky I was not to be threatened with incarceration in such places. I've also discovered that the present inmates of Bedlam, the staff of the Imperial War Museum, don't regard that as a suitable subject for humour. I wasn't admonished. My quip was just politely ignored.

        1. How rude of them. Something is funny or it isn’t. People apply too many filters.

          You are coming to the party aren’t you? Not begging. I have loads of far more interesting people coming. :@)

          1. Oooh, bitchy! Yes, I'm hoping to come. HL and her OH have very kindly offered me a lift down. Just have to find my own way back as I need to be home Saturday night for Sunday morning church. There are trains from Fareham to Waterloo?

      1. This is pretty much what Ayn Rand explains in every chapter of Atlas Shrugged, which is of course why she's so unpopular in fashionable circles.

  62. Labour has never failed to deliver at least one cataclysmic destructive policy during their tenure.
    1948 Labour nationalised every clinic and hospital creating the "envy of the world". LOL.
    1965 Anthony Crosland on Education: "If it's the last thing I do, I'm going to destroy every fxxkxing Grammar School in England and Wales."
    Great job there, Tony.
    1967 Roy Jenkins Criminal Justice Act (1967). It's not anyone's fault, it's society to blame. LOL that worked out well.
    1997 Tony Blair..From the destruction of Technical Colleges & Pension Funds to.. (not enough electrons available to list the damage).
    2024 Sir Keir; privit skols gotta go, innit like. Oil based industries. Democracy. Loser's consent. Free speech. Farm land. just for starters.
    buckle up..
    on the plus side.. Deliveroo opportunities.. esp to WFH Lefties.

  63. I've sometimes heard it said that Labour has no understanding of or sympathy with rural affairs, and certainly are hostile to the farmers that feed us. This of course must change, now the ChangeUK Party has a huge majority, even by the law of probability must produce a farmer by chance. A sort of New Labour Clarkson.

    Has anyone looked at the biography of the new Secretary of State for the Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, Steve Reed?

      1. You need to chill !

        Come to my party in August. I have just ordered 2lbs of picked white Devon crab meat ! You can bathe in it if you want.

        I'll get me bucket…

        1. Typical Tory response!

          Someone points out a serious problem with the way the country is run, and it's time to party.

          1. This party was organised before the Tino's imploded. Besides…Belle needs cheering up.
            The boss Geoff Graham is coming. You can too if you promise to smile. :@)

        2. Exactly, nothing I can do to change things. Traditionalists are outnumbered, we are rodgered to put it politely. I'm bathing in asses milk, there is a glut at the moment..

          1. Did a little birdie tell me you are coming to the party? I do hope you bring your lovely wife.

          2. Mrs P has options on that date for a do of her own, we have yet to settle the calendar!

          3. As i said Geoff is coming. Wouldn’t want to interfere with other arrangements but you are both welcome. It’s just a garden party at a standard style bungalow. Don’t want to make people i ha ve a grand house like an MP.

          4. I have a modern box but I like it. I left Mrs Pea Mk 1 the old pile in Salisbury, it was warmer outside in winter.

      2. I fear a bit of an understatement there from you!

        I’ve been to Croydon and Streatham, and do not remember a lot of farmland there. As a former Leader of Lambeth Borough Council, his main achievement was to spend the Council Tax on Unconscious Bias training, in order to spare young black men being disrespected. His other great virtue is that he is gay, which counts for a lot in the Commons.

        Starmer, in his North London wisdom, has decreed therefore this is this the best man to be responsible for feeding the nation and preserving our countryside.

        I really don’t know what Farage has to say about this, but someone has to put the barley and hops in his pint.

      4. I know just how you feel, Belle. And I am thinking more and more of the JFK quote: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable." And it would seem to be our only hope. I find it difficult to comprehend that the majority of the British public are so politically naive and illiterate.

        1. Wow, wise words PM, the lot that are in now were useless fifteen years ago , they weren’t terribly helpful when Covid hit the population , Starmer wanted to quarantine us all for months .

          Nor have they been helpful re the illegal boat landings , nor have they been helpful in Labour areas where the Mussies have control, nor have they been helpful re the twerp Khan and the lawlessness in black areas of London .

          Labour are dangerous , they encourage revolution and bad behaviour , and I would not be surprised if Blair has a hand in this , and the Royal family and landowners had better watch out .. they are a target +++++++

          1. Some members of the RF seem to be part of all this, Belle, they are not squeaky clean in this milieu.

    2. If you're looking for a countryman/woman in Labour, you're looking in the wrong place. It's an urban party par excellence.

  66. Back from Darley Dale tip and a bit of shopping in Matlock.
    Picked up a soldering iron from Twiggs as I need to bodge up a lead to charge my leisure battery from the cigar socket.

    Just had a mug of tea whilst catching up with the posts, fo off up to the shed!

  67. Goodbye England.

    Reeves has just confirmed the expected plans for 1.5 million homes in 5 years (like the CCA, to be enforced (sic) by targets in law) and the end of presumption against land-based wind turbines.

    1. I wonder if she's worked out how many bricks she'll need, and whether such a number is actually available?

      1. I put this up days ago. A quick search on the internet brought up these figures. Surely the civil service will have accurate figures to show her the error of her ways.

        ogga1's post last evening re Rayner's promise/pledge/threat to concrete over this green and once pleasant land by building 1.5 Million homes over five years for asylum seekers set me thinking.

        Bricks, I thought: has the dopey woman considered this most basic item of house building? Taking to Google there are a few number ranges given for the number of bricks a house requires, clearly a standard 4 bedroom property would require more bricks than a standard 3 bedroom property and so I've taken the average house figure.

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/54d30080cae6dc790df16f4b9172b55dbee78f56f95b442926afb29b53fcfd53.png Now, building 1.5 Million average homes will require:
        at least

        1,500,000 x 7,000 = 10,500,000,000 bricks = 2,100,000,000 bricks per annum

        at most

        1,500,000 x 10,000 = 15,000,000,000 bricks = 3,000,000,000 bricks per annum

        Now,
        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9fa439173121822691c80dac793a725980d8956739aa3d2104201b57e1a58659.png
        Already there's a shortfall of > half a billion bricks per annum and Rayner's plan will exacerbate the shortfall even if her housing numbers include what would have been built without her unwelcome intervention (not all of the 2.4 Billion bricks currently used in construction are for housing). However, if her plans are in addition to what would have been built then there will be a very serious shortfall year on year.

        1. They'll be kit buildings, with wall panels made of pressed straw, waste paper and wood.

          3. The kit buildings I mention in my reply to JN were not made of the materials you mention, they were steel modules that were bolted together. Come to think of it we don’t make much steel these days; I think you could be on to something.

        2. They'll be kit buildings, with wall panels made of pressed straw, waste paper and wood.

        3. They wil be putting up Prefabs.( Eco Building they wil call it) Timber and concreat. labour know how to do that.

          1. Many of the prefabs constructed post-WWII are still going strong and were pleasant spacious houses. On the Carr Estate (Acomb,York) where I grew up, we were considered posh 'cause we 'ad a brick 'ouse, even though it was also a council house. Since then many of the houses there have been bought and sold and the prefabs have been faced with different materials. The present government will build cells not houses of course.

          2. I had a Welsh cousin who, with her OH, ran a pub in Acomb. I'm struggling to track down her former address, but the Green Tree sounds familiar.

          3. The Green Tree pub was on Beckfield Lane, not far from where I went to school.

          4. When I was growing up there was a whole estate of prefabs on the edge of the village. Put up at the end of the war.

          5. When we lived in Dersingham it was a long cul de sac We had a 4 bedroom house and the rest were wery good looking bungalows. I found out they were all post war prefabs that had been updated and you would never have guessed it.

          6. After retiring from BT one of my jobs was office admin for a contracts manager on part of the Merville Barracks project for the Paras/Air-landing Brigade. The company, Terrapin, was based in Bletchley and they constructed fully equipped modules for a range of buildings e.g. prisons, hospitals and hotels. In fact, the buildings being erected, Junior Ranks Single Living Accommodation, were not unlike modern hotels. The modules were erected and then provided with a protective single skin brick wall. All services were pre-installed in the modules and had only to be connected to the main feeds.

            Prefabs of a kind but the build quality was first class. The company also made modules for housing but at that time, around 2007, the idea wasn’t gaining much traction.

          1. A previous owner (allegedly a builder) of my bungalow used blocks for the first extension that included a large single skin garage with a small workshop area. I’ve had to demolish the garage as cracks appeared along the length and one corner was in a bad way with cracks in the blocks and the mortar beds. The remainder of that extension (double skin blockwork) is now inside the extension I had built and is no longer exposed to the elements. The building inspector for my extension was completely against external blockwork.

            Is jerry-building coming back into vogue?

          2. Up here most houses are timber frame with external block work which is then wet harled and mostly painted white or (like mine) magnolia. The latest trend is to use profile sheeting for the roofs over sarking or weatherproofed plywood. The timber frames are insulated with 4″ Kingspan or glass fibre and there’s a cavity between the wooden frame and the blockwork – gives excellent insulation but that means we can’t have cavity wall insulation

      2. They'll start putting up containers. Migrants in hitherto untouched communities, result.

        1. If it's anything like here, they'll requisition empty buildings and shove them in there.

    2. … and the need for compulsory land purchase and all the legal challenges, the need for labour to build 300.000 places a year, building supplies, machinery… what about the carbon signature of these places, where will they physically be placed? Nobody wants to live in the middle of Bodmin moor, they all want to be in the city centre.

      2. … and what about the sewage, water, refuse, access, 'leccy…. there isn't enough leccy for the Goddamned electric cars, let alone 1 500 000 "homes".

        1. Was having a similar conversation with the chap who installed my gas cooker today. He reckoned when the leccy ran out, the country would have ground to a halt in 5.5 days. Nothing would work – no sewage, no fuel stations, no refineries, no deliveries. The list is endless.

          1. Interestingly the new house has been cut off the gas as the previous owner, who has gone back to Ghana, is not only a pig but also a non-payer of his bills. I have paid £59 on the pay as you go gas but they still haven’t managed to connect me, despite 3 phone calls. On the one hand I don’t care as i can survive on wine so don’t need a hob; and i can live without a bath for quite a while (but it would have been nice to have tested it); but that’s not the point. They shouldn’t be cutting people off who have paid.

            Since yesterday I have picked up a table, large rug and a sofa bed (it is a large sitting room). Staying here tonight; i have worked hard on the grease and grime, more to tackle tomorrow but at least i don’t feel unclean to be in the house any more. Of course, i am looking at it through my old eyes; as a 21 year-old, none of this would have phased me.

    3. Can we fix cabins on to the blades of the wind turbines and kill two birds…or is that two thousand birds…with, err, one stone?

      2. There is already a presumption in favour of allowing it to go ahead. Many is the time when we, the parish council, have rejected building schemes because they are unsuitable, only to have them overturned by County who only think of the ££££.

    5. That's only 12,500 Grenfell Towers.
      Say 10,000 acres.
      Plenty of Islands around the UK bigger than that for all those flats and gimmegrants, with space to spare for hospitals and schools etc.
      And we're told they are all potentially such useful highly qualified members of society. They could build them all, provide staff for the schools and hospitals and shops.

    1. The other thing they never mention is that but for slavery most of the descendants would never have existed, their ancestors would have been killed out of hand.

  69. Some good news….! Out this morning with doggo, my route took me past one of the lime trees on the green. It was alive and humming with bees!! On my route back home (it was getting warmer) there were a few bees lazily inspecting the clover, as though they had just woken up. I counted 12 house martins flying to and from a nest outside a couple of cottages. A red admiral and peacock butterfly were inspecting the buddleia in our garden on my return and a yellow brimstone has just fluttered past the window whilst writing this. All is not lost yet. Fingers crossed.

    1. It's been cold and wet this summer, not so good for bees (and we watch our honey bees closely, with regular hive inspections).
      Hope it's warmer in the rest of "summer" – the little buzzers need it.

  70. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    Le Pen is France’s real winner
    Comments Share 8 July 2024, 10:06am
    Ignore most snap verdicts from last night – the big winner in the French parliamentary election was still Marine Le Pen, whose third-place finish was perfectly placed. True, egged on by polls showing it on the verge of an absolute majority, the Rassemblement National over-promised and underdelivered. But, in the topsy-turvy world of French politics in 2024, to lose was to win.

    Dirty work is about to be done at the Elysée
    Le Pen fought a competent campaign and her voters aren’t blaming her for failing to take the top of the podium. She’s demonstrated again that she’s highly resilient. Not achieving a majority has done her a favour because none of what is now unfolding is her fault. The chaos was authored by President Macron. She will reap the rewards.

    Her protégé Jordan Bardella did well, too, broadening the reach of the party towards the young. He’s more or less doubled the size of her group in parliament. She’s still in poll position for the 2027 presidential, where the electoral rules might be more favourable. So the gold medal for her, the wooden spoon for Macron who has plunged the country into la mouise. Dirty work is about to be done at the Elysée. The forces of the left and centre will struggle to create a government as an abyss looms; at the same time, the world is assembling in Paris ahead of the Olympics, which were supposed to have been a moment of triumph for Macron.

    The progress of the Rassemblement National is not imaginary. The populist-nationalist new right continues its long march contesting open borders, green energy, an ever-closer European Union and stagnating living standards. Le Pen had a handful of MPs in 2017, won 89 seats in 2022, and two years later has doubled that. It will become the largest single party force in the French parliament, even if bereft of allies, it is not currently able to forge a majority.

    Much of the media in Paris is playing it cautiously this morning and avoiding the central problem which is Macron himself. He is the author of this entirely unnecessary drama. This is the culmination of a presidency that has failed, despite some good reforming intentions at the beginning, because he has unfortunately succeeded only in uniting France against him. For now, chaos rules. The bond markets have not reacted well to the sudden success of the radical left – comprising as it does the Socialist party, the Communist party, the EELV greens and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s ultra-left La France Insoumise, infested with Trots, extremists, woo-woo Greens, Islamists, superannuated comrades, Antifa activists, Israel haters, America haters, Nato haters, and wokistes.

    These forces could enter into a cohabitation with Macron, who isn’t excluding the possibility of a deal. Such a manoeuvre might be constitutional but would be regarded as a coup by Rassemblement National voters. And France could move swiftly into a grave economic crisis. One hundred billion or more of social spending could quickly be added to the projected 5.5 per cent national deficit as prices on food and fuel freeze, the pension age is lowered and the minimum wage increased.

    In the absence of a government, what? Mélenchon, invited into the Republican barricade against Le Pen, is demanding to be named prime minister and to implement his economic programme immediately and in full. Macron cannot allow this but may have to find space to give Mélenchon, who is toxic in or out of government. He is a rabble-rouser and there is a risk that his more violent supporters will take to the streets if they don’t get what they want.

    Others suggest the formation of a purely technocratic government, like that of Mario Draghi in Italy 2021-2022, or even a minority government that would seek compromises to pass legislation on a case-by-case basis. None of this seems plausibly durable and there will inevitably be new elections. Le Pen will be able to exploit the crisis. Macron created this unnecessary situation and has resurrected an unreconstructed French left stuffed with authoritarian ideologues – one that includes an alliance with the most hard-line mosques. Moshe Sebbag, a rabbi for the Synagogue de la Victoire, tells the Times of Israel that ‘it seems France has no future for Jews.’ He advises young French Jews to leave for Israel.

    Even this morning, the Parisian bubble was pretending that it wasn’t so bad. Henry Samuel reports in the Telegraph that ‘Elysée sources insist that Mr Macron’s bet to “clarify” French politics has paid off and that he will now somehow manage to cobble together a majority with “reasonable” centre-Left and centre-Right forces.’ Good luck with that magical thinking. Macron has committed the greatest political blunder of the Fifth Republic. His narcissistic and dramatic personality have sown disorder. The credibility and credit of France have been undermined by him.

      2. Ironic, isn't it, that Bombay was so named by the Portuguese Bom Bai – a good bay.

  72. Labour have announced a slew of what Labour do. Big state, high tax, Left wing ideologically driven policies.

    It's only the 4th day, for goodness sake and they're already doing exactly what the Tories did and wrecking the country.

  73. Brick Shortfall

    Korky,

    I can't remember how old you are, but do you not remember the PREFABS, built (without bricks) at the end of WW2? They were compact bungalows, put up very quickly between 1945 and 1951 and designed to last only 10 years, were well insulated, well planned internally and convenient to move around in.

    My auntie lived in one until 2007 when she was 99 and told me that the neighbours on her little development of prefabs were mostly approaching her age and were very happy with them. The council had tried to get them redeveloped (i.e. destroyed) but had not succeeded.

    Actually, according to Wikipedia*, 156,623 were built. Today, a number survive, a testament to the durability of a series of housing designs and construction methods only envisaged to last 10 years.

    * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefabs_in_the_United_Kingdom. (photo from Wikipedia) https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7552f66882c2b32555fc2f5d409ffaf416a6b4f05e387359b54c71426f252f7d.jpg

    2. I would find it utterly impossible to comment, on the pathetic excuse for a woman in that clip, without resorting to old-fashioned Anglo-Saxon execration or profanity.

    1. Bomber Harris was a boy at Allhallows School where Caroline and I taught before moving to France in 1989.

      Very sadly this splendid old school – founded in the Sixteenth century – and set in magnificent grounds overlooking the sea in between Lyme Regis and Seaton – closed down in 1999 owing to the financial incompetence of the governors. At night, from the school flat in which I once lived, I could see the flashing of the Lighthouse off Portland Bill to the East and the flashing light of Start Point Lighthouse to the West. Many times these lights guided me as I sailed between Lymington, where my parents lived, and St Mawes, where I had spent my childhood.

      And now with the arrival of Starmer many more such places will have to close – not because of the schools' governors' incompetence but because of the envious spite of nasty politicians who will soon be seen to be even more incompetent and destructive than the last lot.

          2. Kenneth Williams was famous for his line in one of the Carry On films:

            Infamy, Infamy – they've all got it in for me!

            I added my adaptation:

            It's odd of me, 's odd of me – they all think it's sodomy!

          1. Erm.. I think the alternative career for a would be politician is a narcissistic psychopath likely to commit murder.

      2. A strong competitor in the contest for being the nastiest piece of excrement in the HoC

  78. The opposition? 121 Tories (ok, some of them aren't conservatives), 5 Reform and perhaps 8 NI Unionists of varying hues. Labour has an effective majority of 270+. LDs, Jockos, Taffs, and Greens will probably back much of Max's programme but even if they were all entirely absent from the chamber, it would make no difference. Labour would have to lose 80 MPs to the opposition to be even a little bit nervous.

    Nothing but a political, economic or social cataclysm will stop them. That, though, might be the end of it all.

  80. A vote for the Lib Dems, what does that actually achieve?
    Okay they can snatch a lot of seats through trickery but once in Parliament what is the point of them.

    1. I think that applies to the vast majority we are forced to pay millions for. Shiitehall runs the UK, most of that lot are Woking from 'home' in another country.

    2. What are they for? To keep them alive serves no purpose (part of a Khmer Rouge saying).

        1. He was so good, anne. Still very very funny, and relevant. Unlike today’s BBC ‘sanctimonious claptrap’ (Better Half’s description:-)

        2. According to Kenny's memoirs, she was originally going to be called Mary Hinge…

  81. Yesterday i mentioned we now had to go to a friend's funeral on the 18th. But it coincides with a pre booked Hospital appointment. I spent more than two hours trying to get in touch with the out-patients department a St Allan's hospital.
    I rang 6 different numbers the first one at Watford was the only one where someone answered. The number she gave me, no one answered. As is what happened with all the others, the email address they gave me bounced.
    if I don't turn up they'll withdraw the treatment and I'll have to re apply through my GP practice. Who also couldn't help me.
    There's a job for the new health secretary or circular Starmer. Sort that out.

      1. As I told the receptionist at our GP practice I could have actually have walked to the hospital. And she agreed it might be a good idea to 'pop in'.
        I'll try the reception desk again in the morning. King useless.

        2. I have found with my surgery that the only way to get any sort of response is to go there and speak to the receptionist in person (and then refuse to give way until the problem has some sort of resolution in terms of an appointment, for instance).

    2. We had a similar experience with a young relative sudden hearing loss, Eddy, a few years ago. Following non-answered calls bundled him in car and went directly there. Passed the desk on the way in, phone still ringing. Sorry to read of friend, more of us experiencing similar. Husband went to a pre-arranged appointment at glaucoma clinic last week, place packed, everyone's appointment was for same time, 9.30am. He spoke to young female consultant on way out, she was already tired. Said it's the same situation every clinic. Too many patients, insufficient numbers of staff.

      1. The Western Eye Hospital in Marylebone does that. A 9.30 am appointment is just a morning appointment and means that you should be seen before 12.30 pm.

        1. I think it likely quite widespread, Sue. Seems all patients can do is sit and wait. And wait again at Pharmacy if given prescription. My husband is a Type 2 Diabetic and before his bloods were under control he had a couple of eye bleeds. Saw various specialists at a couple of hospitals – advice, go home and rest. Mentioned it in passing to a neighbour who told me stop wasting time go and see this guy – a senior consultant who has since left for America, but lasered his eyes before leaving NHS. I’ll leave you to guess which consultants said rest (ensuring repeat visits every six weeks) and the one who took action (one follow-up appt, all good and no trouble since.) Good thing was husband learned how to keep his blood sugar until control since then. Worrying at the time, we both thought he’d lose his sight. Almost everyone I know has an NHS story.

        2. Exactly, I've had appointments there previously and waited an hour to be seen and spent less than five minutes with the doctor.

      2. There is absolutely no excuse for 'everyone's appointment at 9:30' Clinic appointment schedules are customarily agreed with the Consultant. It's the Consultant who should be ashamed of the way the clinic is being run!

        1. It sounded odd to me, too. She was quite a young, female consultant, a bit overwhelmed? Possibly standing in for a more senior colleague.

        2. It's common where I live. Everybody has to turn up on time and hang around waiting. I suppose it's their way of dealing with the no-shows.

          1. Quite often the out-patient list will consist of New and follow up appointments spaced out at different times to fill the available slots. Past studies show patients arrive on average 10 minutes earlier than their appointment time. But what isn’t made clear is that the consultant will review the list of patients just before the start of the clinic and then determine which ones he or she needs to see, which ones can be seen by the Registrar and which ones can be safely left to the SHO… in short because of this the appointment times often bear no resemblance to reality.

            The fact that appointment times are stated as 09:10 am for example sets expectations which are often not fulfilled for the reasons I’ve outlined above. Is one still advised if booking a channel ferry crossing to turn up an hour or so before the sailing time?

          2. It's common in clinics here to be told there is a one hour or whatever delay before starting, never mind that they often run late once they get going. I haven't been on a ferry since before covid so I have no idea.

          3. Then the Consultant should take an interest and sort out the scheduling….

      1. I’ve found someone to talk to and she is hopefully going to sort it out for me.

          1. Thanks all, I managed to get a phone call this afternoon. Appointment re-schedule. September????

          3. It shouldn’t be like this Alf, but the administration always seems to make life difficult.

          4. It’s so that they can claim to need more bureaucrats to do the same amount of obfuscation.

    1. For the life of me, I cannot work out what word is hidden in the blueprint. Ecinimy? Economy?

      1. I think it's meant to be ECONOMY. I stared at it for a while but then I'm always slow on the up-take.

          2. Finally, the hours of physical work have sloshed enough blood through what's left of my brain to dislodge a few cobwebs.
            But, man, I'm worn out! Easy day today, fell asleep in the sofa after lunch and awoke about half a nour ago for a shower. Now clean, NTTL & red medicine.

    2. For the life of me, I cannot work out what word is hidden in the blueprint. Ecinimy? Economy?

    5. Wattle and daub are well hidden.

      If they return to that method of building they'll be able to use the copious amounts of bullshit they generate as the daub.

      1. Part of my house is mediaeval and parts of the original wattle and daub survive in places. It is oak framed and those parts date from circa 1430. It is a testament to the strength and durability of English Oak that it remains after 600 years.

        1. Fabulous!
          Firstborn's place is a log cabin, two storeys, from about 1770. As far as we can tell. And he has a similarly log built storehouse from 1670. Can't match your mediaeval, though, Corim.

          1. I have a collection of books on timber framing by American authors. Almost all make reference or otherwise pay homage to Lavenham.

            Framing is big business in America and Canada. Timber is plentiful and surprisingly many prefer to reuse the timbers salvaged from demolished buildings such as factories.

            The Americans retain old machinery and meld with the latest technology. I was impressed with their retention of the means of cutting siding or what we would call shiplap. A stripped log is placed between two pillars as though on a giant lathe and a saw makes a vertical cut the whole length of the log to its centre. The log is then switched through a few calculated degrees and the next cut is made. In this way the tree rings on the wedge shaped siding are concentric this warping is avoided.

          2. I wondered how that was done… here, you can see the adze marks where they cut the “round” trunks to have two flat and parallel sides – at least, for the “fine” house. The oldest dwelling which is now the wood store, didn’t get that effort put in when it was built.

      1. A restoration project, or were you at a museum or heritage site?

        My grandfather flew one in WW1, amongst other planes.

        Edit for silly typo.

        1. It was in about 1979 and I was in the draughtsman office of an aluminium window manufacturer based near Clapham Common.

          I had complimented the chief draughtsman on the quality of their production drawings for a project I was running on the Millbank Estate for the Crown Estates Commissioners in Pimlico (the building which sits above Pimlico Underground Station with an adjoining lower building on Rampayne Street).

          The chief draughtsman produced the Sopwith Camel blueprint and explained that his father was the draughtsman at the company. The quality of the draughtsmanship was exquisite. The blueprint was beginning to wear at the folds and was rarely shown to others.

          I was a good draughtsman and won the Draughtsmanship Prize at the University of Sheffield along with my first degree. I have always judged Architects by this competence and history shows the better Architects were accomplished draughtsmen. I reckon it must be the same in other professions where things have to be visualised and assembled.

        2. It was in about 1979 and I was in the draughtsman office of an aluminium window manufacturer based near Clapham Common.

          I had complimented the chief draughtsman on the quality of their production drawings for a project I was running on the Millbank Estate for the Crown Estates Commissioners in Pimlico (the building which sits above Pimlico Underground Station with an adjoining lower building on Rampayne Street).

          The chief draughtsman produced the Sopwith Camel blueprint and explained that his father was the draughtsman at the company. The quality of the draughtsmanship was exquisite. The blueprint was beginning to wear at the folds and was rarely shown to others.

          I was a good draughtsman and won the Draughtsmanship Prize at the University of Sheffield along with my first degree. I have always judged Architects by this competence and history shows the better Architects were accomplished draughtsmen. I reckon it must be the same in other professions where things have to be visualised and assembled.

        1. I replied to Sos below. I have visited the Shuttleworth Collection years ago. They have some interesting stuff on display.

          I recall the chief draughtsman at the window company (G & E Engineering) was Norman White and his father was probably chief draughtsman at Sopwith.

          1. I read it. There doesn't seem to be the same craftsmanship about these days. When I had a sidesaddle refurbished, the saddler showed me a bridle his grandfather had made; everything was handstitched, but it was as regular and perfect as machine stitching and the stitches were tiny. A thing of beauty.

          2. There are still great craftsmen out there but skilled work was always expensive. The growth in quantity surveyors (knowing the cost of everything but the value of nothing) and the constant pressure on costs has brought us to the present sorry pass.

            I would add that the growth of the corporate client and move away from the individual commissioning projects has broken the essential personal link between the Architect and his client. We are dealing with committees often comprising warring factions as opposed to a single person or small group of likeminded persons.

        1. Yes I remember the smell of ammonia. On major projects we would draw in ink on tracing or film and have printers collect and deliver paper prints the same day. On the largest projects we would have our drawings printed on film and issue film copies to the contractor who would arrange a contract with his printers and distribute to subcontractors and suppliers as required.

          In house printing was limited but in one Norwich office they retained a large Ozalid printer in its own printing room.

          With computerisation and email throughout the nineties we would generally convert our CAD files to pdf format or to Autocad format (.dwg or .dxf) or both and our drawings in those formats for those receiving to read or print.

          Most practices will send files by email to a local copy centre who are equipped with large format inkjet, laser and Xerox type printers.

          We also send CAD files to fabricators such as laser and water jet cutters for metals and some wood sheet materials and for cnc routing.

          Hardly anyone uses the standing drawing boards that I used for the first twenty ears of my career, but I am always encouraged to see lots of hand drawn sketches next to the computer keyboard. I would add that CAD drawings prepared by those like me who came from the drawing board are easily distinguishable from those trained purely on computer. It is about weight of line, setting out of text and a whole range of subtleties lost on a younger generation.

    7. Need bricks, brick layers, carpenters, plasterers need I go on. Materials and well trained tradesmen. And when did these lame brained politicians phase out technical colleges and apprenticeships for at least 50% of children to go into universities.
      May the good Lord help us, because Labour won't.

      2. But but but….
        All the gimmegrants Labour is putting out the red carpets for will provide all those skills.
        Won’t they?
        Won’t they??
        Won’t they???

  85. A profile Par Four?

    Wordle 1,115 4/6
    ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
    🟩🟨⬜⬜🟩
    🟩🟩🟩⬜🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Yes. Me too.

      Wordle 1,115 4/6

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

    2. Me too. Perhaps should have done better.

      Wordle 1,115 4/6

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

        1. My four was a flook. There were at least three other possible words and only two guesses left.

    4. Likewise, happy with that – a potential killer given all the options!

      Wordle 1,114 4/6

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

    5. Likewise

      Wordle 1,115 4/6

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

  86. That's me gone. Funny old day. Dry. Partly sunny. Two lines of washing dried. Tonight/tomorrow = rain and more rain – then, apparently, four dry days in a row. I'll believe that when I see it.

    Have a jolly evening

    A demain – DV.

    2. I wonder if horsing around on the beach was arranged on the hoof? 🤔

  91. I'm taking time away from UK politics atm, it makes me want to vomit when I read about it or see pictures of Starmer etc , I don't want to hear or know, amongst other things I am taking an Interest in American politics. I think Joe Biden was meant to go after the first term but Kamala Harris I'd useless. Maybe Obama is hanging out for his time again . It was amusing to watch at the beginning ' senile Joe ' etc but his dementia is clearly getting worse, now he refuses to go – he said he'll go when God tells him to go ( maybe someone should find a loud speaker with ' God speaking in an American accent saying GO JOE ' he thinks there is an elitist establishment plot against him, crazy – he is the elitist establishment, he sleeps most of the time and looks at notes to help him find the lecturns and he has the finger on the red button. I'm sure the Chinese etc are watching this. In the real world no one would find it amusing to watch an elderly man with dementia. But alternative reality of the Internet is cruel and not the real world . Anyway I've finished reading the American press, that was my moment involving politics now 🕊🙏.

    1. I have a sneaking sympathy for Joe Biden. I may be treading the same path as a result of a stroke some years ago (terrible memory, not so good at standing up…) and yet I'm pretty sure that what I know is valuable and I can still contribute something other than dribble. Amnd I'm INTJ, not the type of personality to become POTUS, with the overweening belief that self is right AT ALL TIMES.
      So, I can see why he doesn't want to admit that, actually, he's going daft, and will (shortly?) become worthless to anybody. I'm struggling with that concept, and I'm not the most powerful man on Earth.
      Also, he has a huge staff who are dependent on him being POTUS for their power, status and pay… that can't help.
      He needs kindness, not vituperation. And to retire.

      1. I’m very sorry to hear you had a stroke, I hope you’ve recovered and fighting fit. Joe Biden is in his 80s, he’s frail, forgetful and sleeps a lot, he’s far past the age of retirement. Indeed I agree with, regardless of political differences , people should be kind and understanding .
        His wife should try and have a word, they have a villa in Tuscany I believe it’s unfortunate he has dodgy children that might be encouraging him to stay on .

        1. Stroke was a decade or so ago, and slowed me down a bit. There are ways to compensate, but it takes more effort to do anything. Not surprising, since part of the brain dies.

          2. Indeed.
            Have kept pushing ever since, including walking to check-ups in horsepickle before I was signed off as well again – gotta keep going (not allowed to drive, buses too infrequent). Seems to work, although much more susceptible to alcohol than before.
            Never say die.

          3. Thwart the beggars! That's what my 93 year old friend keeps saying; he'll continue to draw his pension for as long as he possibly can.

        2. His wife is the one who won't let him go – she clearly treats him like a child.

          1. I understand 'Doctor' Jill is rather a bit too fond of the status and trappings of FLOTUS and, accordingly, is highly unlikely to do the decent thing vis-a-vis her stricken husband…. Sad really…..

        3. Biden has always been a nasty piece of work. His interrogation of Clarence Thomas is on record to prove it. Biden is also an habitual liar and plagiarist (Kinnock speech) who invents stories about himself. Biden is highly corrupt and probably responsible for the Ukraine war not just because of his kickbacks (10% for the Big Guy) but also by pushing NATO eastwards.

          Biden is about the most incompetent President in the history of the United States.

          3. I read very similar, in a number of blogs. Either they're co-ordinating, or it''s true.

        4. It's his wife who is persuading him to keep going. She likes the important life style.

          1. Quite a contrast to the Reagans. When RR started to show signs of Alzheimer’s, Nancy shielded him but then she loved her husband.

        5. I read that too, Audrey – his wife and son are the main ones wanting to keep him there due to the perks, including dollars. Seems unbelievable. Can't imagine doing it to any of mine.

      2. Very sorry to read of your stroke, hoping you continue to make progress. You are valuable, and I value your contributions here 🙂 Completely agree last line, My grandmother died on Parkinsons. The rumours indicate it's his wife, son and others who are keeping him there, to enjoy the connections with his status. That seems pretty unkind to me, if it's true.

    2. The entire world has watched the decline of Biden. This decline has been progressive. White House visitor logs show that an expert in the treatment of Parkinson’s has visited regularly.

      The real story is just how controlled the media have been both in America and especially the UK in pretending otherwise. The press obviously perform under instruction and lie copiously without a second thought. So ‘sharp as a tack’ translates as ‘blunt as a rusty razor’.

      It is also an undisguised fact that the Biden administration has sought to control every facet of the media including heavy censorship of social media. The recent disgraceful Supreme Court judgement in the case brought by Missouri has enabled Biden to continue with the practice. The dissenting judges were inevitably Thomas, Alito and Roberts. The judgement was inevitably given by Sotomayor a Liberal placement.

      1. Parkinson’s affects movements and speech, talking becimes impossible when the muscles in the throat seize up but their minds are as sharp as a pin . My husband had a relative with it and the husband of someone in our history group has Parkinsons, he has difficulties speaking, he has no facial expressions, they cannot smile and walking is difficult but his eyes are lively and intelligent and one can have long chats with him but need to be patient as its difficult to speak but his memory Is fine . Joe Biden is just a forgetful frail elderly man with age related dementia who doesn’t know he should retire .

        1. It seems to take different forms, my grandmother eventually died from it after a long illness, became almost made of stone.

        2. People with Parkinson’s quite commonly get dementia. Obviously not all do but it looks like Irish Joe is one that has.

        3. Some of the rigidity is courtesy of the drugs used to treat the disease. I don't think Biden has Parkinson's (but what do I know?) I do, though, think that he has senile dementia. In any case, if he is not mentally competent to face charges in a court of law he is not competent to lead the most powerful and warlike nation on the globe.

        4. It affects different people in various ways. My old schoolfriend's husband has Parkinson's and he has dementia with it – not to the extent he can't hold a conversation of sorts, but he can't do much other than sit and watch telly.

      2. Someone should confront him in an interview:

        "Sir, you tell us you have been a great President.
        A genuinely great President with your health problems would have withdrawn from this race by now.
        What do you have to say to that, President Biden?"

          1. “No, you silly old man, it’s GOD.
            Now, resign before I really make you FOAD, it’s your choice but you only get one.”

      3. They've probably created a stand in as well, with modern technology it wouldn't be difficult. There have clips of a possible stand in. With obvious 'seams' just below the shirt collar line.

      4. The media control in the US echoes what had happened in Canada. Does anyone think that the UK or European media are independent?

        We now have hate laws where someone can complain that they are upset by what you are thinking of saying.

        1. I still believe that a free media is our best guarantor of freedom. The BBC, Ch 4 and many of the newspapers are free from impartiality but the internet has made it possible for vast numbers of blogs, forums, video channels and so on to proliferate and they form a huge mass of media that is genuinely free from government, big business and the super-wealthy. It wasn’t all that many decades ago that Biden’s mental condition, politicians’ illegal activities, corruption in high places, electoral fraud and so on would have been obscured from the ordinary citizen behind a veil of secrecy and silence. The internet has been a double-edged sword but it is merciless.

    3. ….. "he said he'll go when God tells him to go" ……
      Hubris. He is really tempting fate.

      2. God is not mocked. I am reading in church in August, so I looked up what I'll be doing. It is the letter which tells the readers to put on the whole armour of God because we are not fighting flesh and blood but against principalities and the forces of darkness in high places. Come August I suspect that will have become even more obvious than it is now!

    4. Hello Audrey/Yourself…good for you…UK going to be predictable for some time. As for America…apparently a dementia/parkinsons specialist has been visiting the WH for some weeks…here Kamala comes, for a limited time until dadaddada yes, it's Hillary. I'm not certain Obama can return he's had his turns, only a limited number allowed. Luckily there's a cascade to get to the red button…there is….isn't there..

    5. Hello Audrey/Yourself…good for you…UK going to be predictable for some time. As for America…apparently a dementia/parkinsons specialist has been visiting the WH for some weeks…here Kamala comes, for a limited time until dadaddada yes, it's Hillary. I'm not certain Obama can return he's had his turns, only a limited number allowed. Luckily there's a cascade to get to the red button…there is….isn't there..

  93. Evening, all. Have made my own personal first step towards making my house proof against nut zero; I am now cooking with (Calor) gas and it doesn't need any electricity. Winter fuel in the form of anthracite will be delivered tomorrow. I collected my generator on Friday and just need to get the electrician to connect it into the system such that when the power goes off, it switches on. The water should be heated by the oil system as soon as the suppliers get their act together to provide the necessary coil. With any luck, I shan't be using much electricity at all soon. For local transport I have the trike. Sod 'em all!

    As for the Cons, they face a long struggle to become truly conservative and, which will be more difficult, convince the electorate to believe that they have. Trust, once lost, is very difficult to regain.

    1. Excellent plan, Conway – congratulations. Going to be a difficult winter I think, and not just weatherwise. 🙁 Already some rumbling….

      1. I have next to nothing essential that requires electricity – heating is oil or solid fuel with open fires. I have lots of candles and oil lamps. Once the genny is in place, what little requirement for electricity, to keep the central heating pump going, for instance, should be supplied. Be prepared! SI vis pacem, para bellum et praemonitus praemunitus.

        1. Simblar here, Conway – oil, filled once annually, rest wood burning we cut our own. Also have a generator, electric supply sometimes fails. Now then…Latin…only self taught one winter around 3 or 4 months when ill…guessing if you desire peace, get ready for war…??

      2. I have next to nothing essential that requires electricity – heating is oil or solid fuel with open fires. I have lots of candles and oil lamps. Once the genny is in place, what little requirement for electricity, to keep the central heating pump going, for instance, should be supplied. Be prepared! SI vis pacem, para bellum et praemonitus praemunitus.

      1. For some time I have seen the trends and I don't like them. I have an SAS survival manual as well. Fortunately I had an old-fashioned upbringing (growing veg, plucking game, lighting fires, etc). I have lots of potentially useful skills (how to harness up and drive a pony and trap for one and how to set snares). It seemed a prudent thing to do and since Labour got in, the only sensible thing to do!

  94. Just tried to look at a previous residence through Google Earth.
    What have they done? All pictures look like an artists representation, with unrealistic colours and no scruffiness, appalling. It's like a picture from a brave, new world!

    1. Look, a cave is a cave is a cave, doesn't matter how you dress it up.
      };-O

  95. Do we think Sir Kneeler has a sense of humour?

    "Starmer insists Thornberry has ‘big part to play’ in Labour Party after Cabinet snub"

    2. I heard he said that she was 'a big, fat, sneering lump of lard' and everybody laughed – he is a one!

        1. Back up a bit there…
          This is an intelligent, polite, good-humoured forum

          4. I;m just too dull and thick to get that sos. I would be grateful if you spelled it out {: /

          6. Quasimodo was a hunchback. Jokingly it could be said the OP was an attack on the individual, Quasimodo.
            I’ll leave the stage to booing and jeers.

          8. It's an old joke about Quasimodo, O, 'I dont know his name but his face rings a bell' ….

    2. I wonder why boundaries are set in the way that they are by the people in power?
      /sarc
      It used to be called Gerrymandering..

    3. Weird how the voting numbers appear to mirror our election here and the globalist establishment won again

    4. Sounds familiar. It will have to end in civil war, if the State won’t Reform itself.

    5. Sounds familiar. It will have to end in civil war, if the State won’t Reform itself.

  101. FRom the Beeb…

    "Fetching drinking water is a gruelling daily routine for millions of women in India.
    Even without enduring the scorching summer months or the freezing winters, they walk for miles every day, balancing plastic or earthen pots on their heads and carrying buckets in their hands to manage the household water stock.
    “It’s a daily struggle. I get so tired that I collapse when I’m done,” says Sunita Bhurbade from Tringalwadi, a tribal village 180km (112 miles) from India’s financial hub, Mumbai."

    Not a single mention of India's Space Programme…….

    1. Am I supposed to feel guilty for not being born into bad culture? I know someone whose ancestors were persecuted Christians in India. They relocated to Trinidad and have enjoyed a good standard of living there.

        1. We could send them the Bishop – he eats babies according to Blackadder 🙂

    4. Providing clean water is hardly …rocket science to those countries who have sent rockets to the moon.

      1. Indeed and just think how much clean water and sanitation India might have provided for its population instead of spending billions on Space…

        1. Or how many potholes the UK might have filled instead of spending billions to provide gold-plated Rollers for foreign despots in deprived countries around the world

    5. Or its nuclear capability.

      Or the fact that the country's population now exceeds that of China.

    1. That Border Force vessel is starting to look very much like a bloody ferry!

    1. The size of the first one is large enough to be an Andean condor. These wind farm people need culling.

      1. It is very difficult to think of anything horrible enough that should be done to this odious Milipede.

  105. Well, chums, it's now 10 pm so it's my time for bed. So I wish you all a Good Night. Sleep well and I hope to see you all tomorrow.

  106. Night night all. Unhappy at the mo – I do hope that tomorrow will bring some good news or at least some hope x

    2. Don't be unhappy Sugar! I'm told worse things happen at sea! (But what they are I've no idea!)

    1. Just got back from open mic. A quiet but good evening, weather didn't help.

    2. I preferred Bonnie Tyler's version. Her gritty voice made her sound rather a like a female Rod Stewart.

    2. Jesus Christ. We all need to go back to the Catholic Church. I constantly remind folk that our own village church was Catholic long before Henry VIII came to power and fucked everything.

      In the case of our own village church a previous Rector was Matthew Parker (Nosey Parker) who was not only a founder of Corpus Christi College in Cambridge but also Chaplain to Queen Anne Boleyn and Archbishop of Canterbury under Queen Elizabeth.

      He is commemorated in a plaque in the floor of Lambeth Palace Chapel in front of the Laudian Screen a building I helped to restore.

    1. The Rwanda scheme was never an effective deterrent. This was as the new Labour administration say was a gimmick from the outset.

      The problem for Labour is now how they as an administration might stop the boats. I very much doubt that Pixie Balls of “Refugees Welcome” notoriety will have an answer.

      Of course the answer is for this country to finally extricate itself entirely from the EU and its institutions, specifically those supra national institutions such as the European Commission on Human Rights (ECHR) and all associated EU weaponised institutions. These are designed to subjugate our country and exploit our peoples to the will of the unelected but appointed rulers at the European Commission and European Council.

      Ted Heath has much to answer to. It is a shame that the Sailor is now dead and thus no longer accountable for his misdeeds. This lamentable story simply repeats from one generation to the next ad infinitum. I am personally sick of it.

    1. 'Morning, Geoff and thank you for all the work and effort you have put in to keep us all going. Well done!

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