Wednesday 17 July: Local concerns count for nothing in Ed Miliband’s climate crusade

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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700 thoughts on “Wednesday 17 July: Local concerns count for nothing in Ed Miliband’s climate crusade”

  2. Good Moaning.
    Sod Corey Comperatore. And any other Deplorable.

    "The US Secret Service did not put agents on the rooftop where an assassin shot at Donald Trump for health and safety reasons, the head of the agency has said.

    Kimberly Cheatle, the Secret Service director, said the “sloped roof” where Thomas Matthew Crooks was positioned on Saturday could have posed a risk to agents."

    1. Heaven forbid that an agent be placed at risk when his entire purpose was to put his own life at risk whist doing his job.

      1. And a drone would have done a much better job of surveillance and checking out flagged issues. Where were the drones?

      2. Especially when there was a defensive sniper position just over 130 yds away, who apparently weren't roped up or wearing crampons. Perhaps that sloping roof had a slip-resistant surface?

        Or, just for safety's sake, it might be an idea to take the shovel off the Melissa McCarthy wannabe before she damages the earth's core.

    2. Heaven forbid that an agent be placed at risk when his entire purpose was to put his own life at risk whist doing his job.

    3. Can we take it then that that roof posed a danger to the public gathering? If so, and the roof was considered a health risk for security services, why wasn't the access to the building cut-off by security services and why weren't drones employed to provide constant surveillance of the area? Massive cock-up(?) whichever way you slice it.

      This video exposes another lapse in security: the left-side-of-stage snipers couldn't see the perpetrator as their line of sight was obscured by a tree. The right-side-of-stage snipers must have taken the kill-shot. Hence the delay in ending the attack.

      https://x.com/BusfaceontheAir/status/1812910511174086771
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/34a4d5f20ce9cdee0a6a31f56948a31537230a530e592caf90dc04590d2dbafa.png

        2. Obviously some people at the very top level of US politics were involved.
          I don't like him as a person, but I hope DT becomes POTUS and exposes the culprits.

      3. My BTL comment:

        "…Either total incompetence or Biden (the shot caller) had his orders from WEF et al…"

      4. I suppose a roof is the best vantage point for a sniper in the absence of a decent grassy knoll.

  3. London is slowly turning into an unlivable nightmare. 17 July 2024.

    Congratulations to everyone who rents in London! Today you have reached a significant milestone: Cost of Rent Day. After working tirelessly for 197 days, renters in the capital finally earn for themselves rather than to pay their rent. While this is a day of relief, it is also a sobering reminder of the severe housing crisis plaguing this great city and our broader country.

    Yes. I wonder why that could be? Oddly (though not to Nottlers I trust) there is absolutely no hint whatsoever in this article of the real cause of this crisis. Mass immigration. We have an entire political class, the politicians the MSM who having destroyed the country now refuse to even admit it to themselves. Classic ostrich syndrome. This will go on until the whole edifice collapses into absolute ruin. It will make Argentina look like a success story.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/16/london-is-slowly-turning-into-an-unlivable-nightmare/

      1. Note to self (again…). Read rest of comments before posting own…

      1. NEVER. Under Smarmer and the Liebour party, you will be taxed 365 days/24 hours a day for the rest of your miserable lives.

        1. and if you haven't spent your pension, looks like any leftovers will be taxed after you are dead.

        2. What's truly funny is they won't see that's a bad thing. Socialists just don't understand – well, anything. The facts are all in front of them and still the statist attitude is 'we must take what someone has earned and give it to someone who has not because 'that's fair'.

      2. TPA has it around May the 14th, Adam Smith in June: https://www.adamsmith.org/taxfreedomday .

        Looking at our bills and Mrs Clarke's breakdown (including depreciation on our cars and the VAT needed to buy a new one) we charge £250 an hour. £150 of that is tax. That makes our tax freedom day about 60% of the year, around August sometime which is about right once you account for the theft of nursing fees, pension taxes and the caboodle there.

        In either case, half the year spent working solely for the state is intolerable. 90% of what it does isn't needed and is actively detrimental to society.

        1. That's the nub. We have no say in how they spend it. Thus we are seeing unhinged people like Miliband planning to spend billions on unwanted and useless green initiatives which will probably be obsolete in ten years anyway. How is it possible that they will raid the savings of the sane to throw away on their pet projects, and that this is allowed in a modern country?

    3. There should have been an investigation on how that horrible hatefilled creature returned as mayor.

        1. But London is London, England’s Capital city. it’s not the personal possession of any one of any colour or religion.

          1. It does belong to England. And it should reflect England and its values, religion and traditions even if it does accommodate a wide selection of people from around the globe. It should not be usurped by any interloper who happens to rock up. There is no respect for England in the current set up, not least from its horror mayor whose family came here for a better life (he should show some respect not take the opportunity to destroy our country – no concept of shame).

    4. It's not a housing crisis. It's a population crisis. I can't find it now but there's a video showing – in colour banks – the movement of peoples. It starts off mostly white. Then some browns and black arrives, and the white gradually moves away. Then vastly more (from 99-2007) brown, more black and the white rapidly moves away. Then there's a massive flood of brown and black (and corresponding crime increase) and the white vanishes to tiny enclaves. It's further eroded until it's a bad on the outside of the city.

      Simply put, when foreigners were forced on this country people moved away from them.

    5. One day the welfare will run out and then we will see how amiable and peaceful our new guests are. And when the welfare has run out, the rich will go due to crime and there will be no-one left to pay welfare. What a pretty prospect. I think we should do a study. How many politicians, journalists and high ranking media folk have bolt-holes, already, abroad. That would be an interesting survey. What they privately think will be at great odds to what they say to each other in public, I warrant.

    2. Actually I have been meaning to post this. Rubbish. Everyday on my cycle from the sunny uplands of the london borough of Richmond upon Thames into Aldwych, every single day I get pissed off (technical term) about the sheer volume of litter I encounter everywhere. In the hedgerows, in the gutters, strewn around the road after the foxes have had a go at rubbish bags just left out (not in proper bins). A civilisation in decline, for sure.

      2. I don't think there is a hedge row, grass verge or lay-by in the country that doesn't contain rubbish.
        Yesterday on a trip out to the opticians even I could see the old double bed and other masses of rubbish shoved into a Hertfordshire lay-by.
        All of which could have been taken to the tip for free.
        Obviously gypo's in a truck.

        1. I once tried to get rid of an oven that'd broken. It took 2 months for the council to collect it. They ignored the first day, saying it wasn't kerbside. I told them in the message that putting it on the slope wasn't possible (as it'd fall on the pavement). They said 'You'll have to move it' I said it's 60kg of steel and I've a dislocated shoulder. How do you suppose I do that?

          Then they missed it. Then they didn't bother. It took days of telling them to do their damned jobs that eventually it was removed. The sate should be paid once it has done the work. Not before. I should have sent them a bill for my time they wasted.

          1. A few years ago, I dismantled some cabinets in our dinning room. I kept some of the handy pieces of timber but had a lot of glass shelves that were no longer required.
            I was passing the local tip that day, so I put the shelves on the passenger side floor in my van.
            I pulled into the yard and Mr Gobby came rushing across almost shouting obscenities telling me I wasn't allowed in.
            I politely pointed out I was a local council tax payer and that all I had was some glass.
            But the Lord of the rubbish dump told me to leave or I would be fined.
            I parked outside on the road carried the shelves in and made sure he saw me as threw them into the skip.

      3. On my walk to pick up Junior you see endless litter. It's always the same type – junk food, energy drinks. You never see a Fortnum and Mason hamper and a bottle of red slung about. Thus it's always the same class of person. Always the same attitude and ideology. It's always the welfare lump, who are given everything and thus don't care about anything.

        So many problems this country has could be solved by the simplicity of just scrapping welfare.

        1. Likely, they are eco-fanatics, too, who don't understand the implications of rubbishing everywhere.

          1. Something I do find in the eco zealots is that they desperately want other people to use less, to force people to use less energy, fuel and eat dirt, want to build windmills in the middle of the sea and buy solar panels from the China but at no point do they propose building recycling plants to re-use the materials we throw away. They're also very happy with massively high immigration. They really love the EU, despite it being responsible for ocean plastic under the weee.

            In short, they're hypocrites who aren't interested in the environment at all. They do want the state to have more power over the citizen. That, ultimately is the goal of all Lefties.

  6. Good Morning Folks,

    Blues sky this morning and bright sunshine.

    Now watch Labour spoil it with their King's Speech

  7. Good morning, chums, and thank you Geoff for today's NoTTLe site. Note that in today's Wordle the difference between the fourth and fifth attempt was just in the order of the last two letters – odd that both the fourth and fifth attempts made sense in terms of words.

    Wordle 1,124 5/6

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

    1. A rather annoying five this morning

      Wordle 1,124 5/6

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

      1. The starting word is everything today….
        Wordle 1,124 2/6

        ⬜⬜🟩🟨🟨
        🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. Interesting one.

      Wordle 1,124 4/6

      ⬜⬜🟩⬜🟩
      ⬜⬜🟩⬜🟩
      ⬜⬜🟩⬜🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  8. Good morning everyone.
    Here is an extract from an article by SCIENCE EDITOR Sarah Knapton:
    "Disruptive children may have smaller brains than well-behaved youngsters rather than simply being naughty, a new study suggests.
    British researchers found significant brain changes in children who exhibit prolonged bad behaviour, such as lying, stealing, fighting, rule-breaking, animal cruelty, arson and bullying. "
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/17/disruptive-children-smaller-brains-rather-than-naughty/#comment

    The BTL comments are in like Flynn.

        1. Junior said yesterday eve 'Da, pass me a couple potatoes.'

          I said 'What?'

          And he repeated 'couple potatoes'.

          I asked him why he had omitted the qualifier and that set off a chain of discussion about speaking properly and using English, not yankee youtube speek.

  9. Evidence of 1,300-year-old Christian community found on Arabian Gulf. 17 July 2023.

    The British-led team found the excavation was part of the Nestorian Church, a sect of Christianity in Asia, and is the first evidence that the Nestorian Church was present in modern-day Bahrain.

    Researchers believe the structure was once used as the palace for a local bishop before the region converted en-masse to Islam around 300 years later.

    Hmmm? I wonder how that was achieved?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/07/14/1300-year-old-christian-community-found-in-bahrain/

        1. This formidable building started as a Christian cathedral in Istanbul – it then became a mosque after the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans. After being turned into a museum and a magnet for tourists by Ataturk – who wanted Turkey to be a lay state – Erdogan – who wants Turkey to be a Muslim state – turned it back into a mosque again.

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6af3d19250787791dee917e4deff750076cc6c464cdd70c1ec59e1d65e90a804.png

          1. Paid a visit a few years back, thought it was a fantastic building in a very interesting city. Not so sure if I’d want a return visit these days..

    1. I know it's a joke, but it rather emphasis just how stupid our paimentary system is.

  14. I forgot to mention yesterday that we had watched on Monday night an excellent documentary recorded from PBS America about Sir Ernest Shackleton's "Endurance" expedition.

    Quite staggering. The stoicism of all involved as they watched their ship crumble into the ice. Then spent TWO years trying to get back t some sort of civilisation. Amazing. And the TOBACCO they must have taken with them. When the last group was rescued by Shackleton they were all still smoking their pipes….! And they all survived.

    Do try to see on catch up: https://www.pbsamerica.co.uk/series/the-endurance/

    1. P.G. Wodehouse was a pipe smoker who, to use one of his transferred epithets, enjoyed 'a thoughtful pipe'.

      I now only smoke my pipe when I am given pipe tobacco as a present by my sister-in-law because the price is exorbitant and duty free shops at airports no longer sell it.

    2. P.G. Wodehouse was a pipe smoker who, to use one of his transferred epithets, enjoyed 'a thoughtful pipe'.

      I now only smoke my pipe when I am given pipe tobacco as a present by my sister-in-law because the price is exorbitant and duty free shops at airports no longer sell it.

    3. We pass the time on long car journeys by listening to audio books. A few years ago we listened to Alfred Lansing’s ‘Endurance’, a formidably detailed account of Shackleton’s expedition, taken direct from the diaries of the various men. I think that if I had read the book physically I would have speed read a lot of it but listening on audio conveyed an extraordinary sense of the relentlessness of the setbacks endured by the men. It was very powerful and quite emotional as Shackleton, Crean and Worsley struggled into Stromness even though we knew there was a ‘happy’ ending (not terribly happy for all and Shackleton wasn’t too generous to the others). I recommend it thoroughly for anybody who has a tedious drive in prospect this summer.
      The true hero was Frank Worsley. His navigational skill using only a sextant was mind blowing.

    4. We pass the time on long car journeys by listening to audio books. A few years ago we listened to Alfred Lansing’s ‘Endurance’, a formidably detailed account of Shackleton’s expedition, taken direct from the diaries of the various men. I think that if I had read the book physically I would have speed read a lot of it but listening on audio conveyed an extraordinary sense of the relentlessness of the setbacks endured by the men. It was very powerful and quite emotional as Shackleton, Crean and Worsley struggled into Stromness even though we knew there was a ‘happy’ ending (not terribly happy for all and Shackleton wasn’t too generous to the others). I recommend it thoroughly for anybody who has a tedious drive in prospect this summer.
      The true hero was Frank Worsley. His navigational skill using only a sextant was mind blowing.

  15. DOCTORS TOLD TO STOP DIAGNOSTICS AND CUT PRESCRIPTIONS “TO SLOW CLIMATE CHANGE”

    The Royal College of Physicians has declared that climate change “is one of the biggest threats to human health” and will kill a quarter of a million people every year by 2050. Which is why it has created a “green toolkit” telling doctors across the UK how they can save the climate…

    Flagship recommendations for doctors to “slow the pace of climate change” include reducing prescriptions, cutting blood tests, and reducing diagnostic imaging. What’s the point, seeing as we are all about to be eviscerated in climate judgement day anyway…

    Doctors are also told that they should work remotely where possible and use more “active travel” like walking and car-pooling. When they do get face to face with patients, though, they are as “uniquely trusted members of the community” told to “help their communities understand how climate change will affect their health” which includes talking “about the health benefits of climate action“. “Sorry, no blood test for you madam – have you heard about the ice caps, though?”

    https://order-order.com

    1. I really do believe I've been transported to a parallel universe. It's almost as if The Matrix really does exist!!

      Good morning Michael & all….

      1. 389767+ up ticks,

        Morning S,
        I do believe that a parallel society must be constructed in many aspects, and isolation of the WEF / NWO (our political overseers) and their actions be the order of the day.

        Lethargy today = mandatory educational camps tomorrow.

        1. There should be two streams of society. Those who ignore the zealotry and carry on as they wish, and the stone age fools who believe in the cult. The stone agers will eventually die from disease, food shortages. They will live short, brutish lives and die at 40 if they're lucky. The other stream can live to be 140 with AI creating a life of abject leisure surrounded by all the material wealth cheap energy buys them.

          1. 389767+ up ticks,

            Morning W,

            Agreed,
            The other stream will, as you say, live long and contented lives, the main cause of death being dying from sheer bloody boredom.

    2. 389767+up ticks,

      Morning C,

      – have you heard about the ice caps, though?”

      Patient,
      No, but may I introduce YOU to my toecap.

    3. Surely even the dimmest climate change believer will see the contradiction there?
      Let people die in order to save them from being killed by climate change? How can people carry on believing this nonsense – but they do! Just wading through masses of articles by village people who are fully immersed in the cult, willingly joining carshare schemes to save the planet, not realising that it's a gateway to having no car

      1. I don't mind car-sharing, it reduces my petrol bill if I get a lift. I don't, however, think it will do anything to "save the planet". Importing fewer non-indigenous and no longer building on green fields/cutting down mature trees/grubbing up hedgerows will help to do that.

    4. Is that right? I mean not a joke? If so, I want my national insurance back so I can find a doctor who practices medicine and not climate voodoo!

      1. Yup…saw it on GBNews last night…Patrick Christys with one sensible doctor (who kept on saying "I am not a climate denier but…") and a young green nutjob doctor who was very over-excited about it all.

        1. Then I suggest the young doctor look around him. Every single thing he uses in his profession uses oil. It's all disposable.

          These people are insane.

    5. Well it seems that the order to accept endless 'covid' boosters didn't work and it's left a huge hole in so many pockets.

    7. How about on going to hosp or the quacks folk are asked if they believe in climate change. When they say 'Oh yes, definitely!' the hosp then says , righty, we can't give you any medication, scans or tests.

      After all, net zero is going to ensure there isn't the ability to do that anyway, so the zealots should get used to it.

    10. The RCP has lost the plot. The president was recently forced to resign after trying to bring in the equivalent of ‘barefoot doctors’ and I know college fellows who have cancelled their subs. I assume they have been taken over by the same cabal of woke prats that seems to control the BMA.

  16. Good morning, all. Sunny with a fine day forecast.

    UK's concerns for Miliband minor's plans in the UK are mirrored in the USA. Here, Dave Walsh explains the USA problem.

    Walsh mentions that part-time intermittent solar power works effectively for at best five hours/day in the southern states and about four and a half in areas such as Northern Virginia. Now, Northern Virginia is at latitude 39 degrees North and one of Miliband's huge solar farms will be set in Lincolnshire at around 53 degrees latitude North. Makes sense, well to an energy generation ignoramus like Miliband it obviously does.

    Miliband needs educating in all the facets of energy provision, availability etc.

    Dave Walsh on Energy

    1. Good morning, Dandy Front Pager

      Look at Miliband's eyes – they are the eyes of a deranged and obsessive fanatic.

      It strikes me that Milipede Junior is using Coleridge's poem to provide him with a role model:

      Beware! Beware!
      His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
      Weave a circle round him thrice,
      And close your eyes with holy dread
      For he on honey-dew hath fed,
      And drunk the milk of Paradise.

      Mind you it will be no sunny pleasure dome that Milipede wants to construct – it will be a sunless wasteland and however sacred old Alf is I doubt if he will turn any turbines as he meanders through measureless caverns!

      1. We would remind readers that Milliband's father was a Communist fanatic, dedicated to

        the collapse of capitalism.

    1. Cisco used to be the watch word for quality and performance. Now their software is buggy, badly written, their ecosystem muddy and inconsistent (deliberately so, to segregate the market – you can't put a low end switch in a branch office and have 5 people connect to it and have that switch appear in the web manager, it has to be one of the expensive ones).

      We don't both with them any more, despite my having more CCXX's after my name than I can bother with. I don't like Ubiquiti's 'spiking' of their products either and my customers aren't fond of Mikrotik's 'per switch' config but we just plumbed in 4 100gb switches as a two point pathway, 2 point failover with 10gb to the desktop on 200 seats and the Mikrotiks just worked without fuss. I just wish they had a manager console.

      1. Well I guess that's what happens when playing financial/legal games is more important than producing quality products.

      2. Lawyers & accountants vs engineers.
        Incidentally, yesterday The Telegraph reported that the UK economy's predicted growth rate of 0.7% is the largest amongst major European economies; however Latvia's growth (MikroTik) is expected to reach between 1.7 and 2.4%.

        1. The Left are holding us back. It's deliberate. The vast expansion of demented globalist idiocy. A vast bunch of public sector parasitic jobsworth's doing absolutely nothing useful except holding up the country.

    2. Tracking funds and investment firms need to balance their portfolios, so someone somewhere has to pay too much; IMHO the important part is the underlying demand for that company's goods and services, together with the quality of the management. (whoops, trigger warning to BT, Hewlett Packard, British Leyland, Baring Brothers etc)

  18. got caught up in the road closures re state opening of Parliament this am. What a palaver.

    “Here we go again. Another tsunami of legislation is about to pour out of Westminster to inundate an already saturated political landscape. Today’s King’s Speech will contain around 35 major Bills mainly to implement the reforms promised in Labour’s election manifesto. This seems reasonable enough – except that we know there will be another 30 Bills next year and the year after that.
    The last Labour government was notorious for its excessive law-making: between 1997 and 2010, there were 520 Acts of Parliament. The Coalition took office pledging to curb this legislative frenzy and for a while did so before joining in.
    The Tories even had a self-denying ordinance that required one law to be abolished for every new one introduced. That didn’t last. In the 14 years of Conservative-led administrations, there were 497 UK Public General Acts, as they are called – ie those spawned by central government. That is not much better than Labour, which at least believes in running things from the centre and constraining the actions of individuals. The Tories were supposed to reverse this trend but didn’t, which goes some way to explain their heavy defeat on July 4.
    Most new laws do not come into being directly through an Act but by means of a statutory instrument – secondary legislation, often unamendable, and triggered by ministerial fiat. Each year, thousands of these are tabled – about 30,000 since 2010, far more than occurred even under the previous Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
    Yet go back in history and there were hardly any. In 1964, there were just 73 statutory instruments; in 1950, also an election year, only 28. Moreover, there were only 13 Acts of Parliament.
    Many people today probably do not appreciate how much more government there is than there used to be. Its encroachment has been so insidious that we have come to regard it as the natural order of things. More than that, we have come to expect a law to be introduced to cover any incident even when they are one-off events or accidents, however tragic.
    New statutes with names attached, such as Martyn’s Law, are examples. They are a response to a dreadful event, such as the Manchester Arena bombing in the case of Martyn Hett, and help the families of victims come to terms with their loss.
    This particular law imposes a new duty on venues to take steps to improve public safety. It is supposed to be implemented in a proportionate way, but is impacting on village halls and churches. Such laws often have unintended consequences. The vetting and barring regime set up after the Soham murders, for instance, pushed thousands of volunteers into giving up helping in the community.
    Whenever anything happens, ministers feel under pressure to respond with a new law. They also have their own agenda to implement but rarely consider the cost incurred by this excessive legislating. Billions of pounds are frittered away in implementation in the public sector, while companies must find the money to employ staff whose only job is to ensure compliance with new laws that often hold back innovation and investment. It is hardly surprising that an over-regulated economy is an unproductive one.
    Much of the blame for this sorry state of affairs is attributable to a fetish for ever more legislation – and because politicians feel they have failed in their job if they don’t come up with at least one new Bill every session. Ministers trying to make an impression set out impossible ambitions; officials try to achieve them (or don’t), often through new information technology and processes that are unsuited to the task, and a few years later the project collapses at vast cost to the taxpayer.
    Every year before the King’s Speech, the process is the same. Ministers, egged on by their officials, compete with each other for a space in the legislative programme. Not to get one is deemed a failure. Yet the minister who would really be earning his salary would make sure that his department is delivering what Parliament intended in an efficient and cost-effective way and not always be looking around for another law to introduce. He or she would also ensure that existing legislation that doesn’t work is repealed or amended.
    The nature of laws has changed, too. They used to advance the cause of personal liberty and reduce the power of the state (Habeas Corpus, Bill of Rights etc), but nowadays do the reverse. Free speech is curtailed, rights constrained and opinions are controlled by statute. Stealing from a shop is overlooked whereas to make an injudicious comment on Twitter (X) is to invite a visit from the local constabulary and possible prosecution. The fact that the last Labour government introduced thousands of new criminal offences may help to explain prison overcrowding.
    Of course, not all new laws are bad, but we have had too many whose lack of efficacy has been apparent from the outset and that were introduced simply to make a political point, not to make anyone’s life better or simpler or freer.
    The state’s accretion of power to restrict what we do and shape who we are has created a society of pliant individuals who are forever looking for someone else to help them out. Governments clearly need to keep law and order, fight wars, provide strategic infrastructure and defend minorities. But by reaching so far into areas once considered off limits, they have created a normality that makes those arguing for a smaller state look eccentric and out of touch.
    Rest assured, but no sooner will this first parliamentary session end than pressure will crank up in Whitehall for yet more new laws even before we know whether the ones we have already work properly and are worth keeping. At least Bills are now discussed before they go into the parliamentary system; yet the one thing we do very badly in this country, and should do more of, is post-legislative scrutiny.
    But one way to put the brakes on this tendency would be to have just one King’s Speech per Parliament in order to implement the Government’s election manifesto. That would end the annual ministerial scramble to find something – anything – to insert in the legislative programme.”

    1. This is why under referism, recall and direct democracy when government forces more stupidity on us we simply refuse it. The state is there to serve, not control. Folk have forgotten that government is nothing more than a hired manager. Not ruler, certainly not leader. They're an annoying functionary.

      Look at this speed restricting. The infrastructure it will need for satellite tracking storage of every vehicle, processing of those cars and then obviously fining them (which is the point) will eventually become tracking directly, then control over speed and eventually once the state has decided you have travelled too far this week permanent disability. It will also use the data to monitor where you go for absolute control.

      Of course, big government is useless and stupid, so such won't happen for over 50-70 years and then it'll leave the information on a disk somewhere – by accident, of course, not at all because the scum involved wanted to sell the info to a scammer.

    2. All legislation should have a sunset clause. If it's working it can be renewed for a set period. If it isn't, it automatically gets repealed.

  19. Boris Johnson urges Trump to stand by Ukraine
    Former PM has one-on-one meeting with ex-president amid concerns over VP pick JD Vance, who has called for negotiations with Putin
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/07/16/boris-johnson-urges-trump-back-ukraine-meeting/

    The BTL comments are very cynical and ask why on earth Trump should be prepared to see the corrupt and dishonest Mr Johnson. One BTLiner suggests that Johnson's wife managed to wangle the meeting; another that maybe Donald has Carrie in his little black book as a potential squeeze in the future.

    BTL

    Talks to stop the war ever starting were being arranged but Biden and Johnson between them egged on the corrupt and narcissistic Zelenskyy to go to war. Between them they are responsible for a multitude of Ukrainian and Russian deaths.

    Trump said he would have stopped the war ever happening – let us hope he will soon end it.

    1. I do wish twits would stop using 'narcissist' when they mean egotist. The term is a specific mental condition, not something to throw around on a whim.

      Zelensky is clearly getting something out of the farce and Hunter Biden is deep in the corruption, profiting personally. It seems the only people to get anything out of war are those who demand it, never those whofight it. Blair, for instance.

      1. Several politicians display overt signs of narcissism:

        Inflated or fluctuating self-esteem
        Often very arrogant and entitled
        Manipulating or deceiving others for personal gain
        Displaying aggressive behaviors
        Sensitivity to criticism and shame
        Constant need for validation and attention from others
        Strong desire for power and success

        If I break my leg it is relatively easy to verify that I have broken my leg. If, on the other hand, I have an erratic or difficult personality then it is not certain whether it is caused by being bi-polar, autistic or narcissistic. A family member displayed virtually all the narcissistic symptoms and our doctor was of the opinion that this was the problem

        1. But…those are also the symptoms of an egotist (or jus a psychopath, which is most MPs). Narcissism is a result of childhood trauma creating a fake personality to protect the broken and miserable child self.

          I would argue that MPs are simple psychopaths – the traits are similar but include an utter lack of empathy or realisation of guilt or shame.

          For example:

          https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/basics/psychopathy

          Glibness and superficial charm. Pretty much the definition of politician. Grandiosity, pathological liars, manipulative, lack of remorse (Hancock throughout the covid farce was drunk on his own power), parasitic lifestyle – heseltine's obsession with the EU for his own benefit, the expenses farce), lack of empathy – tying in with the pretence of giving a stuff without actually caring at all for the long term effects of those decisions – it's all about them), parasitic lifestyle – Raynor has never had a job. Nor has Milioaf. They all pick up trougher directorships), lack of realistic goals – again, pretty much the definition of MP, irresponsibility (with other people's monney), lack of stability in their relationships (Look at the affairs, infighting and promiscuity of Johnson for one, let alone Raynor). That ignores the number of criminal convictions for speeding, fraud, theft, assault, drunk and disorderly that is vastly prevalent in the HoC.

          They don't think the law applies to them because they believe they're above it.

          This isn't trauma. They're just thoroughly disgusting individuals.

          1. During our training, politicians were always the given example of constructive psychopaths.
            I'm not too sure about the "constructive" bit.

        2. But…those are also the symptoms of an egotist (or jus a psychopath, which is most MPs). Narcissism is a result of childhood trauma creating a fake personality to protect the broken and miserable child self.

          I would argue that MPs are simple psychopaths – the traits are similar but include an utter lack of empathy or realisation of guilt or shame.

          For example:

          https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/basics/psychopathy

          Glibness and superficial charm. Pretty much the definition of politician. Grandiosity, pathological liars, manipulative, lack of remorse (Hancock throughout the covid farce was drunk on his own power), parasitic lifestyle – heseltine's obsession with the EU for his own benefit, the expenses farce), lack of empathy – tying in with the pretence of giving a stuff without actually caring at all for the long term effects of those decisions – it's all about them), parasitic lifestyle – Raynor has never had a job. Nor has Milioaf. They all pick up trougher directorships), lack of realistic goals – again, pretty much the definition of MP, irresponsibility (with other people's monney), lack of stability in their relationships (Look at the affairs, infighting and promiscuity of Johnson for one, let alone Raynor). That ignores the number of criminal convictions for speeding, fraud, theft, assault, drunk and disorderly that is vastly prevalent in the HoC.

          They don't think the law applies to them because they believe they're above it.

          This isn't trauma. They're just thoroughly disgusting individuals.

    2. Remember that Warmonger Johnson was sent to Kiev when it seemed that Zelenski was about to negotiate a peace, and told the Ukrainians that 'We are not ready for peace with Russia'. Hundreds of thousands of deaths and a ruined Ukraine later……….

      And I am also surprised that Trump would spare Johnson the time of day. he should have told Johnson to jog on. maybe his near miss has addled him, or is some powerful group easing his way?

    1. Belgium did rather better without a government for some time.

      If the UK could lose Westminster politicians and the inhabitants of Whitehall for a year or two it would be no bad thing.

      1. How about we send them a 'you've won free Carribean holiday' and then sack 70% of the civil service?

    2. Almost all European nations have no useful government. France isn't alone. Some, like us, have a a monolithic mess of endless hordes of pettifogging morons, a bunch of meddling, ignorant, stupid fools. That's not government.

    3. Toy boy takes his orders from the head of the Brussels mafia. Fond of lying.

    4. I must be a bit thick. Surely if you resign that’s it, you stop going to the office, maybe even get a job elsewhere. They can’t make you stay. Or do the do a disciplinary and end up sacking you?

      1. Dame Celia Molestrangler and Binkie Huckaback! Sunday dinner time with a smell of boiling cabbage.

  21. Morning all 🙂😊
    Lovely start again, but we probably all know what will happen later.
    Toronto 'copped it' in a massive down pour and terrible flooding.
    And Miliband, he's just another self obsessed danger to British people, most of whom never voted for him.
    He should be restrained in stocks, then his popularity could be debated.

  22. , Over slept, sorry. Good morrow, Gentlefolk, today’s (recycled) story

    Appreciate What You’ve Got

    A man goes to the doctors complaining that he can't "get it up" and hasn't been able to for many years now.

    So after a quick check-up the doctors tells the man to come back next week with his wife. Next week, they are both in front of the doctor.

    The doctor tells the man to step outside whilst he checks out his wife. He asks her to undress and lie on the bed.

    He then asks her to shake her bottom a bit.

    Then he asks her to put some fingers in her vagina. Then, finally, the doctor tells her to get dressed, and he steps outside to speak with her husband.

    "So what’s the problem, Doc?"

    "Well, as far as I can tell, there's nothing wrong with you. She doesn't turn me on, either!"

  23. , Over slept, sorry. Good morrow, Gentlefolk, today’s (recycled) story

    Appreciate What You’ve Got

    A man goes to the doctors complaining that he can't "get it up" and hasn't been able to for many years now.

    So after a quick check-up the doctors tells the man to come back next week with his wife. Next week, they are both in front of the doctor.

    The doctor tells the man to step outside whilst he checks out his wife. He asks her to undress and lie on the bed.

    He then asks her to shake her bottom a bit.

    Then he asks her to put some fingers in her vagina. Then, finally, the doctor tells her to get dressed, and he steps outside to speak with her husband.

    "So what’s the problem, Doc?"

    "Well, as far as I can tell, there's nothing wrong with you. She doesn't turn me on, either!"

  24. Morning, all Y'all.
    Raining still.
    A bit later than usual, been solving (I hope) some banking issues, now on 2nd coffee.

    1. it's sunny here in NW Durham. You are probably getting the rain we got yesterday. I'm surprised that there is any left mind, it was so heavy.

          1. And worn the T shirt, I suppose.
            When I was younger I could never manage more than weekends at the beach, some longer than others. Now, retired,after a couple of weeks it still seems too short. Where I live, in the Spanish interior, the temperature is, I read, 44 degrees today. So I appreciate sea breezes and a mild temperatures.

  26. Don’t worry, it won’t affect the public sector:

    “RACHEL REEVES is under pressure to launch a £2bn inheritance tax (IHT) raid on pension pots to help fund public spending pledges.
    Economists are calling on the Chancellor to introduce a death tax on unspent defined contribution (DC) pension funds, which are currently exempt from IHT.
    Sir Steve Webb, a former pensions minister, said the Treasury was “likely” to revisit the policy. Senior City sources also fear Labour will push ahead with plans to bring workplace pensions into the scope of inheritance tax. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) believes it could raise between £1bn and £2bn by the end of the decade.
    David Sturrock, an economist at the IFS, said: “The current system gives an incentive to hold on to pension wealth and use other assets to fund retirement.
    “This leads to the rather perverse situation where pensions are used as a vehicle for inheritances rather than to fund retirement. In terms of the IHT revenues that would be gained from bringing pension pots into inheritance tax, the impacts now would be modest.
    “We estimate around £200m extra could be raised now. But the importance of this special treatment is set to grow quickly because more and more people will arrive at retirement with wealth in DC pension pots over time and the sums involved will be larger.
    “In the coming decade or so, we estimate that the revenues raised by bringing pension pots into the scope of IHT would be in the range of £1bn to £2bn.”
    At the moment, defined contribution pension pots are not subject to IHT. If the pension pot owner dies under the age of 75, the money can generally be withdrawn and used without any tax at all. If the owner dies after turning 75, subsequent withdrawals from the pot by their inheritor are taxed as income.
    Introducing IHT would mean taxing pension pots in the same way as other assets when someone dies. The standard inheritance tax rate is 40pc.
    Former Labour advisers said that applying IHT to pension pots would amount to a double tax grab leaving some children facing a 64pc tax charge on their parents’ savings, if they died after turning 75.
    Bill Dodwell, the former head of the Office for Tax Simplification, warned that it could lead to big tax charges. The former Labour adviser on tax administration added that ending an exemption that enables under-75s to pass on their pots completely tax-free made sense.
    He said: “There has never been a good reason why pensions inherited from someone who died before age 75 should not be liable to income tax. After all, the original pension holder received tax relief on pension contributions.”
    However, adding an inheritance tax charge as well as income tax would look like a double tax charge on the same item – and could mean paying 64pc for a higher tax rate payer (and more for those in Scotland).
    Sir Steve, now a partner at Lane, Clark and Peacock, a management consultancy, highlighted that money put in Isas, another tax-free savings vehicle, was subject to IHT. He said: “Any review of pension tax relief is likely to look at the favourable tax treatment of pensions when someone dies. The Government may look at ending the way in which wealth held in Isas counts as part of an estate but pensions do not.”
    Around 30pc of men and 18pc of women die under 75. The IFS estimates £1bn will be bequeathed by under-75s who die without a spouse this year.
    A HM Treasury spokesman said: “We have set out the need to deliver economic stability, so we can grow our economy and keep taxes, inflation and mortgages as low as possible.””

    1. How can anyone organise their retirement when the rules keep changing in such important ways?
      "pensions are used as a vehicle for inheritance…" and heaven forbid that the peasants should be allowed to pass anything to their children.

      1. Only on the private sphere of course. The public sector sails on with their risk-free gold-plated schemes.

        But you are absolutely right, the continued changes since “A-day” back in 2006 make you wonder why you bother.

        1. Defined benefit pensions die with the beneficiary (and/or their spouse) so there is nothing to tax.

          1. I know but the spousal element is a nice benefit.

            My theory was that George Osborne introduced the tax-exempt status on DC pensions in a bid to tempt the DB public sector workers to want to transfer out of the state system into the private system, thus ultimately breaking the state DB schemes and saving the state some money. It’s a shame that all the financial advisers are too scared to recommend transferring out. We need to end pension apartheid before it breaks the country.

        2. I have opted out of the financial system as much as possible. I think there’s a high likelihood of loosing 90% of one’s wealth and ending up with a CBDC allowance dependent on getting the latest jabs after the monetary reset. Still paying into a private pension, but no idea what I will get out of it in real terms.

      2. "pensions are used as a vehicle slush fund for governments to waste our money or inheritances on their failed dreams"

    2. This further act of theft is just another step to the Globalist's desire outcome where the State owns everything.

    3. Very understandable.
      We simply cannot let people hang onto their own money or benefit their children.
      That's what Big Brother is for.

  27. Don’t worry, it won’t affect the public sector:

    “RACHEL REEVES is under pressure to launch a £2bn inheritance tax (IHT) raid on pension pots to help fund public spending pledges.
    Economists are calling on the Chancellor to introduce a death tax on unspent defined contribution (DC) pension funds, which are currently exempt from IHT.
    Sir Steve Webb, a former pensions minister, said the Treasury was “likely” to revisit the policy. Senior City sources also fear Labour will push ahead with plans to bring workplace pensions into the scope of inheritance tax. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) believes it could raise between £1bn and £2bn by the end of the decade.
    David Sturrock, an economist at the IFS, said: “The current system gives an incentive to hold on to pension wealth and use other assets to fund retirement.
    “This leads to the rather perverse situation where pensions are used as a vehicle for inheritances rather than to fund retirement. In terms of the IHT revenues that would be gained from bringing pension pots into inheritance tax, the impacts now would be modest.
    “We estimate around £200m extra could be raised now. But the importance of this special treatment is set to grow quickly because more and more people will arrive at retirement with wealth in DC pension pots over time and the sums involved will be larger.
    “In the coming decade or so, we estimate that the revenues raised by bringing pension pots into the scope of IHT would be in the range of £1bn to £2bn.”
    At the moment, defined contribution pension pots are not subject to IHT. If the pension pot owner dies under the age of 75, the money can generally be withdrawn and used without any tax at all. If the owner dies after turning 75, subsequent withdrawals from the pot by their inheritor are taxed as income.
    Introducing IHT would mean taxing pension pots in the same way as other assets when someone dies. The standard inheritance tax rate is 40pc.
    Former Labour advisers said that applying IHT to pension pots would amount to a double tax grab leaving some children facing a 64pc tax charge on their parents’ savings, if they died after turning 75.
    Bill Dodwell, the former head of the Office for Tax Simplification, warned that it could lead to big tax charges. The former Labour adviser on tax administration added that ending an exemption that enables under-75s to pass on their pots completely tax-free made sense.
    He said: “There has never been a good reason why pensions inherited from someone who died before age 75 should not be liable to income tax. After all, the original pension holder received tax relief on pension contributions.”
    However, adding an inheritance tax charge as well as income tax would look like a double tax charge on the same item – and could mean paying 64pc for a higher tax rate payer (and more for those in Scotland).
    Sir Steve, now a partner at Lane, Clark and Peacock, a management consultancy, highlighted that money put in Isas, another tax-free savings vehicle, was subject to IHT. He said: “Any review of pension tax relief is likely to look at the favourable tax treatment of pensions when someone dies. The Government may look at ending the way in which wealth held in Isas counts as part of an estate but pensions do not.”
    Around 30pc of men and 18pc of women die under 75. The IFS estimates £1bn will be bequeathed by under-75s who die without a spouse this year.
    A HM Treasury spokesman said: “We have set out the need to deliver economic stability, so we can grow our economy and keep taxes, inflation and mortgages as low as possible.””

    2. MB and I have been laughing at the behaviour of the "chicks" that have learn to fly.
      Like teenagers, they keep returning to be fed; I hope Mother Osprey's washing machine is working.

    1. Extract:

      “Indeed, those plotting “a once-again-in-a-100-year pandemic” need to craft a “disease fiction” that is both plausible, and is seemingly based upon scientific legitimacy. They need the people to trustingly believe, and to again submit to the full-spectrum wickedness of their monumental Lie — so that they can again justify implementing draconian public health measures.

      Each week brings another incremental global development, another “unprecedented infection,” another cross-species’ mutation — from wild birds to domesticated poultry, somehow to cows, and via the milk to cats, and supposedly to a few unfortunate humans working within proximity of diseased US dairy farms. Now it is in the mice1, and surely it will soon be spluttered about all major cities within the expectorated sputum of devilish plague rats.

      The WEF-WHO-UN medical marauders absolutely need to resurrect their now dormant Biomedical-Fascist State — and the unarmed, multicultural (hence, no integrated national allegiance to any uniform cultural identity — no united resistance to Globalist plunder), and comparatively low population of Australia features foremost in their New World Order designs.”

      I will forward on to my bro in Perth – thanks

    2. What a terrible waste of chickens' lives in Australia over a low-level pathogen that appears to be fairly harmless. All for the sake of fear- mongering.

      1. Reducing the food supply. Same is happening in the US, another intensive chicken/egg production factility went up in flames the other week. Not that I approve of or patronise those businesses.

        1. 400,000 chickens at one Australian facility. Far too many crammed in – that in itself has to be unhealthy and likely to spread disease.

      1. We will, eventually abandon whatever currency governments force on us and adopt one they cannot break.

        1. I agree that people usually find their own way. But British people are so heavily bought into the system that most are defenceless.

    2. His statement sums up my attitude of him. The Left were terrified by his economic ideas which were their end, so they set about destroying the man, as they always do.

      1. Lefties always resort to playing the man, because they have no way of playing the argument.

  31. Democracy is being subverted in the name of the false god of climate change. Honestly folk, we really do need to make our voice heard. Iain Hunter is doing a superb three part essay on climate change at Free Speech , with part two up yesterday. And today Paul Sutton treats us to a tongue-in-cheek satire on a Holmes and Watson investigation into a transgender de-bollicking. Do NOT ask whose tongue is in which cheek.

  32. Democracy is being subverted in the name of the false god of climate change. Honestly folk, we really do need to make our voice heard. Iain Hunter is doing a superb three part essay on climate change at Free Speech , with part two up yesterday. And today Paul Sutton treats us to a tongue-in-cheek satire on a Holmes and Watson investigation into a transgender de-bollicking. Do NOT ask whose tongue is in which cheek.

  33. 200 police officers raid the office and home of Compact Magazine publisher & YouTube Channel, Jürgen Elsässer, along with the homes of other employees and financial backers.

    For the crime of agitating in an unspeakable way against Muslims and their faith, their origin.

    These raids would have happened all over Europe and inside the USA if Trump had not turned his head.

    2. While Muslims "agitating in an unspeakable way" [eg. killing/demonstrating on our cenotaph/burning our flag/ whingeing Islamophobia if anyone objects] against everyone else is of course OK.

      1. Don't forget Charlie Hebdo, and the delightful 'behead those who insult muslim.'. Then the simply truth hat most of them are welfare dependent, drug users, stabbings, 'honour killing', the mechanised rape of children, mutilation, sexism, intolerance – you name it.

        1. They are so delicate in their eagerness to take offence – could it be that that’s because they can’t bear to contemplate any shortcoming in themselves or their prophet – that the truth about them would be too painful?

      2. Muslims have deteriorated from the days when they had intellectuals who devised a better system of numerics and advanced the understanding of maths, medicine and astronomy.

        1. I understood the advancement of maths (eg algebra) to go back to the ancient Babylonians, many centuries before Mohammed. Ditto many of the other systems, which Muslims take credit for, but in fact pre-dated their existence as Muslims.

          1. Yes, it's their custom to take credit for the achievements of those they conquer. They'll claim the industrial revolution if we let them.

          2. Yes, they seem to have a dearth (or should that be death?) of achievements of their own.

            Well we seem to let them do everything else, in our masochistic guilt-fest in this country.

          4. Quite likely.
            Maybe I should have said that they introduced (or reintroduced) these advances to mediaeval Europe.

          7. ALL comments must be welcome – even repeats – it identifies the strength of feeling.

      3. Goddamned, uneducated savages, whose 'religion' is mere ideology.

        I cannot abide having ANY of them in MY country.

      4. I could continue with a list of murders, rapes and general others crimes of threats etc, but that would be pushing against an open door. The fact remains that, if they can't prove they want to live peaceable in our country then they must go back to the hell holes they came from.

  34. Serious question.

    Why is it de rigueur these days for young people to treat their skin as they would a school jotter, and to have a face that looks they fell into a fisherman's tackle box?

    Back in my day ("way back" I hear you say) the only skin decoration we had were scars from falling over in the playground and the only facial embellishment was acne!

      1. A lass turned up covered in tattoos and, at the end she made it clear that 'it was a protected human right and I couldn't discriminate against her for them.'

        We didn't hire her. She would have been an appalling ambassador for my company because she thought she was more important than the company.

        I did hire the most argumentative, determined and bright woman. She was on time, prepared, criticised my choices, gave me some better ideas and argued her point fiercely but professionally. In the 'customer wants something stupid' quiz she excelled.

        The nearest competitor was an incredibly bright, very nerdy electrical engineer type fellow who was barely 16. We took him on as a 'special apprentice' and he does our server configs now and is gradually coming out of his shell and getting over his shyness. Both are amazing. Both are ideal for the company.

        Not some circus act tattoo wonk.

        1. Personally, dislike tattoos intensely on men or women. A discreet tattoo on a mans shoulder is OK but not on a woman. There is no way in hell that I would ever hire someone who had a tattoo on their face. To me that's indicative of poor self esteem. So I'm not going to deal with someone that probably has problems.

          1. That's one of the reasons you should always meet someone face-to-face before hiring them. Only once did I make the mistake of hiring a field operator based on telephone call, and deeply regretted it some months later (after all the training and preparation, natch) when he was run off the FPSO in Angola by our Client. I'll not be making that mistake again.

        2. I used to employ who I wanted, You can find any reason you want not to employ someone . If you have one job and 100 applicants, you emplioy one and discriminate against 99.for whatever reason you want.

          1. Not these days, JN. Rejected blacks will go to a tribunal and say that you discriminated on racial grounds.

          2. No you can avoid all that. I did all the time. I had proper reasons for rejecting people and proper reasons to employ.. Followed procedure to the letter. and won every case.(3)

          3. Maybe back then – now it is ALL quite different, I promise you. I am thankful that I am no longer in practice.

        3. What? No “black and brown” people, hired solely on the basis of the colour of their skin? What sort of “diversity” is that?
          (Still fuming at that “Zambian” bod’s “people who look like me” comment yesterday).

        4. A psychiatrist pal mentioned that many people with body adornments have mental issues , and often or not multiple tattoos can convey the pain of childhood abuse .

          2. Someone once told me that for her, getting piercings/tattoos was a form of self-harm. She realised it, but the compulsion to do it was strong.

    2. Thinking of school rough books, I'm waiting to see this tattoo:

      Latin is a language,
      As dead as dead can be.
      It killed the Ancient Romans
      And now it's killing me.

      Plenty of chances for the "artist" to make right rooster up.

      1. I remember that one , Anne .

        What about this one ?

        “When you get old and ugly as people often do, remember that you have a friend that’s old and ugly too.

      2. We used the textbook "The Approach to Latin" – most copies read "The Approach to Eating" .

      1. Regret is an emotion only intelligent people understand. I dont think most tattooed clowns are bright enough to experience regret.

      1. Looks like the ear flaps have been removed.
        How will he keep his specs on when he gets older? Nails?

        2. He also had his tongue cut in two. and he is now thinking, apparently, of having his fingers cut off down to the first joint. I hope that he can be stopped because yes, it has to be a form of mental illness.

      2. At what point do the tattooists and surgeons have to bear responsibility for pandering to mental illness?

      3. It looks absolutely hideous, which is probably the reaction he is looking for, but for professionals to actually aid and abet is sickening.

    5. Good morning, Grizzly

      A tattoo should be a spectacular military display. Defacing one's skin with ugly daubs should be termed body graffiti.

      And just as street graffiti is often found in low, run down areas, body graffiti is often found on low, run-down people.

      1. Good afternoon, Rastus.

        What's your opinion on all the scrap metal they install in their faces (and nipples, tongues, navels, glans penises, clitori … )?

  35. Hallo to all of you😊Back again after a series of opportunistic lung infections that laid me low. Weather is nice here in West Sussex but I'm dreading Friday. According to the weather people it is going to be 28 here which will be a nightmare. This house is so well insulated it will turn into an oven above 39, it is very slow to cool down, so it will be a miserable night too.

    Miliband in charge of destroying our energy sources as he implements crackpot green policies. Lammy as Foreign Secretary, I'm sure he will charm Trump no end considering how flattering he has been to the President in the past. The left of the Socialist Party is, apparently, after The Dear Leader and yet others are trying to remove the Ginger Growler. We haven't even gone a month of Socialism yet. Isn't today when the king sets out the policies of the government in parliament? I look forward to so much chaos that we will only have to wait, at the most, two years before another election.

    1. Morning, Johnathan.
      Do you have fans or someone who could get one for you?
      Are the window so climate controlled that they can't be opened?
      I'm not being funny, but a through draught might help. In Essex, a through draught is a way of life, whether we want it or not.

      1. Hi Anne! Yes have a fan and also one of those mini air conditioners and two air purifiers, heppa filter fan things. I will open the house but will wait until the sun goes down, before that it doesn't help. But it's OK it's just that it is wretched stewing in your own juices, to be delicate. It's simply that the house is so well insulated it retains heat extremely well. No complaint in the winter. I only had the heating on, perhaps a week in total this past winter, just with the water heater on it warms up really well.

        1. Hello Johnathan

          Is your home built in a chalet style , ours has eves and the heat rises , we have two loft spaces , the property is almost T shaped ..

          I enjoy a through draught though , because I am a windows open at all times person . Top windows and side windows .. I can do this because we are fairly private.

          People who live in very modern properties complain about their windows being too small , and downstairs windows open are a security risk .

          Houses don't seem to built for global warming , do they .

          I hate visiting other peoples homes , not enough ventilation .

          If you are too warm , why not spend the night in a hotel, just an idea , an expensive idea , but a good night's sleep is essential.

          1. Hallo Belle. Its a typical brick cottage, The problem is it faces south so the sun is full on to it all day. At night I do open the front door and the back door to the garden as well as all the windows, they are just regular double glazed windows. But if there isn’t a breeze, I hope there is Friday night, the cottage simply retains the heat and it takes a long while to cool down. I do open the loft in the evening because that helps a lot.
            As for going to a hotel. I’m not mobile and it would be a bit of a drag to go. Would need someone to push me, haul oxygen and other nonsense. So it is easier to go to my bedroom turn out all the gadgets and stay there until early in the morning, I’m often awake at three or four.

          2. Ouch , so sorry to hear about your kit to make you more comfortable being difficult to move.

            Dare I suggest something silly, pop your jim jams , or even a bed sheet in a plastic bag , and put them in the fridge ,

          3. Actually, I have some large pickle jars. Fill with water and freeze them and put in front of the fan would be helpful. So thanks for sparking my imagination.

          4. Join the Night owl clan, Johnathan.

            Even if I'm abed and falling into sleep by 23:00, at 02:30 I'm awake again and cannot find sleep.

    2. My breathing suffers in the heat too. I run a dehumidifier in my bedroom overnight. I find it does help in reducing the moisture content of the air.

      1. Have you tried the Hepa filter. I though that it was you that suggested that last year, wasn't it?

          1. Well whoever it was. They are great. You might want to think about getting one or two of them. Help clear the air wonderfully.

  36. Not bad:
    Wordle 1,124 4/6

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

  37. Now here's a headline to ponder over.
    The actual job was a piece of cake.

    "Penis filler surgery broke lockdown rules"

  38. 'Morning All
    Awkward……..
    https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1813291920535486718
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/327f47ff22408f235cee7ce65b3aca76659e2831197b4122f1111100de56666b.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/622810ad4cd068f10ff779367048f61174d1fa662420bfc8a0b644fc94b410c4.jpg
    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/26d13f06375789a5bfc4e15e4555be3d7af778d4943d504b74c163ce740d2c6a.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8826811f30d1847005681c382bb9b4f0c6bc133d89ed48feaaeecd5897201d35.jpg
    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9185b9454b0f3ea86cb519928363447ce2a51c33f8ef68346d1def31b7fdb51f.jpg

    1. Milei lists the symptoms. The cause is the desire to exert power over others.

      1. You have to look at why they want that power. What sort of a mindset is so desperate to control how other people live their lives?

        1. There is another factor that I am experiencing with an American friend on the left, right now. He has what I would call a Marxist point of view, although he protests when I say that. But a component of his ideas is that they are self contained and reflect a conviction of personal virtue and truth. So that when you try to point our flaws in his argument he will simply not accept them. You are the fantasist, the paranoid, the crazy. He is right, right, right, and right. The armour is impenetrable. The British Empire was evil. But when I point out that the British ended slavery he will rationalize it away as something to do with the evil of capitalism and attempting to gain an economic advantage, otherwise we would not have bothered. Anything good about us or America is always twisted into the worst possible motives. I find there is no way to penetrate his conviction. It is like a religion in which he has gained tools that affirm his virtue and the virtue of the causes he supports and has a mechanism that shows him how to discredit all those who disagree. I, as a friend, am deluded and on those grounds tolerated. But as he says, my ideas are evil. That he is closed to alternatives suggests to me he is a carrier of evil. But there is no point in arguing that.

          3. I have relatives in Pennsylvania who suffer from severe Trump derangement syndrome. One of them, "Once met Joe Biden and he seemed like a decent guy".

          4. Best not to discuss politics and religion. Except with like-minded nottlers, of course.

          5. My father had a 1st in Classics from Cambridge; his best friend has a 1st in Greats from Oxford.

            They disagreed about just about everything but they loved arguing with each other and remained the firmest of friends throughout their lives.

            Respect for opposing points of view does not mean giving in to them. Indeed, one should try to defeat them with sound reasoning but some people today do not seem to be interested in sound reasoning.

            .

          6. Exactly Rastus. You end up like brothers who love each other but can't agree on many or even most things. I count myself lucky that I have such a friendship. Most people don't.

          7. Friendship is based on other things but having know each other for so long its a friendship that is unbreakable. I would say that it is like the friendship of brothers who sometimes don’t get along but mostly do. As I said elsewhere, known each other since 1966

          8. Yet you still like each other as friends? I tend to avoid politics when with friends as I doubt many of them share my point of view.

          9. No surprisingly politics has come up due to Trump but yes, normally I avoid politics, We have known each other since 1966, so a very long while. I’m 75 and he is a couple of years younger. At this point we have an unbreakable relationship.

          10. I’m still friends with a couple of ladies I was at school with – we tend to limit conversation to chat about family, friends etc, rather than politics. Today was lunch with some old colleagues, and similar chat.

          12. His conviction rests on profound ignorance, which he nurtures because it confirms his virtue and that virtue grants him the right to demand that others conform or be cancelled.

          13. I read the following comment somewhere (not on Nottl) and thought the book referred to looked interesting. I haven't read it, but it might be relevant to this subject:
            "One aspect of wokism that you do not mention is its element of insanity. There is actually a book about this called The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness by Lyle H. Rossiter."

        2. They are only a handful of families. We are billions. Add their lieutenants and little helpers and you get around 7000 people that run the world (estimated)
          I think we always underestimate how terrified they are of us.

      2. 'Morning Sue 🙂 rumours out now that remote detonators were also found in backpack, concerns possible bombs buried/camoflagued somewhere nearby.

        1. As Blair said in the ironic personification song I wrote in the earlier years of his government:

          Now I take my hols in Tuscany – megalomania is my scene,
          So I find the term: "prime minister" tends rather to demean,
          The stature of my excellence. If it's all the same with you,
          I'd rather be called President – but Il Duce would do!

      4. No need to cry for Milei – he might save Argentina!

        On the other had we might laugh at Venezuela.

    2. Did they really claim it was because the roof was sloped? Oh my flipping skies. This is what health and safety gets you. It's what Left wing diversity obsession gets.

      1. To be fair. The policemen that tried to get up on the roof before the sniper shot, could not see him because they were to close to the building to see anyone on the roof. Apparently one of them did try to see by climbing onto the shoulders of another policeman and, found himself looking straight into the rifle barrel, startled, he ducked and fell. But that is no excuse for the government snippers who were on another roof and had no difficulty seeing the snipper. Apparently they had already seen him turned their guns to him and initially did nothing, hence giving hm time to fire.

    3. With regard to the Clint Russell quote. I would say that you are in real trouble when a large section of the media refuses to admit that there has been an assassination attempt. You don't have to watch this whole video, just go to two minutes in to see what I mean. Although I would say it worth watching from start to finish.
      The Media EXPOSE Themselves Like Never Before…
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbUvxND2l9I

    1. 🎵 Star Trekking across the universe, boldly going forward, still can't find reverse…🎵

        2. Klingons on the starboard bow…

          It’s life Jim, but not as we know it etc…..

    2. Although if two Klingon warbirds were to decloak while they were rescuing civilians I'd be quite excited.

    3. Unwinnable scenarios could potentially exist, as in the tragedy of the Montevideo Maru, 1942. (it was mentioned a few days ago in an obituary of two Australian coastwatchers)

  41. I have been researching Jame Vance, and boy has Trump picked well for his running mate. Vance is going to do great things. He is a very smart man..

    1. If your interested, there is a film about his life called 'Hillbilly elegy', that you can find on line.

        1. Downloaded it last night. Will watch it this evening. I take it you have seen it?

          1. Also plan for this evening, husband already has…I take him at his word…(big Trump fan too)

    2. If your interested, there is a film about his life called 'Hillbilly elegy', that you can find on line.

  42. Serious question.

    Why does a Pinko Labour administration have a State Opening of Parliament?

    Shirley they would prefer to dispense with all the pomp and pageantry (pension off the Royal Family) and simply have a march-past in Trafalgar Square of a (depleted) military show of force as they do in other Communist States.

    1. Because truly they love it. I can't recall any of the prominent ones refusing a gong or a life peerage. Can you?

    2. They probably get a slap up meal out of it.

      no hang on, they get that anyway.

  44. Just been clearing the shed – a bit. So many car care chemicals! And why is one always standing on the wrong side of something heavy & awkward? Anyhow, looking better – phase 2, putting-away, can wait to another day.

  45. Kings speech, Charles seems very croaky, He might have a cold .. he looks very wan and fragile .

    His physical health is not good .

    Just being really cynical here , but did Rishi think that by having an early election , certain duties would be done and dusted before the King became even more unwell.

    Looking and hearing all of this on the box now , has made me feel anxious, do any of you feel the same ?

    1. Well, this one: Hereditary peers to lose the right to sit and vote in House of Lords
      Labour will remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords.

      Was sodding terrifying. It means that the proper role of the unaccountable, quiet purpose of the Lords has been removed. The whole point of hereditary peers was to ensure the Lords was apolitical. Since stuffing it with cronies the whole point of the upper house has been perverted.

      1. True – but the so-called Tories were just the same about promoting their cronies.

      2. The final destruction of the institution that did more than anything else to keep Britain stable.
        18% support doesn't give them the right to make these sweeping constitutional changes.

      3. Agreed. The hereditaries are the only sane lords. The rest are just place-men (and women) interested only in ensuring that their favoured parties are returned at the next GE.

        THAT's the lot who must be scrapped.

    3. Full right to equal pay.

      Now that's just sexist. You get paid the same as someone who's been in the job for 20 years jus because of your genitalia? Bug off.

      1. Funny this equal pay thing. Governments have been trying to get this since the days of Barbara Castle. And failed.

      2. This is pointless legislation. Women already get equal pay. The gap is a myth.

        1. Friend was a caretaker at a local school. Women were paid the same as men BUT because they was wimin they were excused from many of the tasks requiring strength, they were also excused from working alone.

          Is it equal pay for equal work or a generic wage must be the same, even though they do different work?

          1. What feminists want is equal money for less work. The so called gap has been well accounted for. It consists of such things as women not putting in extra hours that men do, taking off more time, pregnancy or problems with their periods. illlness, child care etc. A whole host of circumstances including the fact that women go for lower paying jobs than men.

    4. The Government will also legislate to restrict advertising of junk food to children along with the sale of high caffeine energy drinks to children.

      Next beer, then chocolate, then meat, then ultimately refusal of sale. All for your own good, of course.

    5. You have a tendency to look like that for a long while after [prostate cancer treatment. For me it has been two years or more and I still feel dragged out by it and still suffer after effects. It takes a long while.

    7. We have to remain strong, Maggie, and believe we can come through. They want us to be anxious and cowed.

    1. Sure it wasn't "and may God have mercy on your souls?"
      He knows what he's letting loose on the population. Him and his WEFer sons

    2. It is, fundamentally the fault of the Tories. They didn't unravel the state. They didn't reform the voting system. They didn't stop massive uncontrolled gimmigration. They continued to permit violent crime. They didn't reform the state. They didn't bother dismantling the NHS, schools or welfare. Too much like hard work. Too many people fighting them.

      Well, that's the way it works. They should have passed a law permitting ministers to sack civil servants for any reason. They didn't. They taxed, taxed and wasted. By forcing socialism on us thy kicked the door wide open for the real mentalists.

  47. A Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill will be introduced to “modernise the asylum and immigration system, establishing a new Border Security Command and delivering enhanced counter terror powers to tackle organised immigration crime”.

    A Crime and Policing Bill will “strengthen community policing, give the police greater powers to deal with anti-social behaviour and strengthen support for victims”.

    Translation, more violent criminal foreigners will be forced on this country, the only 'victims' they'll bother with will be the immigrant or criminal.

  48. 'Great British energy… lower bills over time.'

    How much time? So long that when there is no power at all because of government stupidity that people simply can't heat their homes and so we just don't bother? After all, the socialisation of those defaulting was the start of this. The ultimate goal is simply to subsidise unreliables and ensure energy is so expensive no one can afford it at all, brinnging bills down to zero at a stroke! Net zero met with massive effort, at incredible cost as there are no jobs, no lights, no fuel, no energy.

    These fools have got to be stopped.

    1. Perhaps someone should point out to Sir Beer that Renewables have been around for quite a while now but energy has only gone up in price.

        1. Sir beer Korma after the curry and beer partly during covid, that definitely didn't take place with Starmer present, ahem…

          1. And absolutely definitely did not break the restrictions. Unlike the piece of cake.

    2. From CNN:

      The International Monetary Fund has warned that stubborn inflation could keep interest rates higher for longer than expected, increasing fiscal and financial risks around the world.

      Persistently high prices for services — which include haircuts, hotels and restaurants — as well as escalating trade tensions are propping up inflation and raising the prospect that interest rates will stay high for a while yet, the IMF cautioned Tuesday in its latest World Economic Outlook.

      The warning highlights that the global economy is not yet in the clear when it comes to inflation, which explains the caution on the part of central banks in cutting interest rates. High borrowing costs, in turn, are prolonging the squeeze on household and business finances.

      Last week, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said central bank officials in the United States needed “greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably” toward their 2% target before going ahead with the first interest rate cut.

      The Bank of England, meanwhile, held off on cutting rates last month even though UK inflation slowed to the central bank’s 2% target in May. However, services inflation came in higher than expected.

      The Bank of England emphasized that “monetary policy needs to be restrictive for an extended period of time until the risk of inflation becoming embedded above the 2% target dissipates.”

      1. I already have solid fuel heating and cooking when the Rayburn is lit. I am trying to Starmer proof my life style.

  49. Giving 16 years olds the vote. Dear life. They are desperate. My niece is 16. She's lovely. Very bright, very clever. But ask her how money is made and she just won't know. Her Dad would unplug her iphone 2000 turbo and it caused a screeching hissyfit.

    The franchise is only being extended to get them more control. It should, properly be revoked.

        1. They do have a better idea!
          Nigeria has been making a positive contribution to humanity for the last few years by rejecting the eNaira, their government’s attempt to force them onto a CBDC, aka digital food stamps.
          Their government burned banknotes in order to form artificial scarcity of cash to force people to use the CBDC.
          Alternatives have been found….it seems that Nigerians do not trust their government enough to let them see every financial transaction they are making…

      2. I pinged to a chap demanding that – as always – Amazon pay more tax. I said 'who pays the taxes levied on business?'

        Hs reply 'the business. Durrrhhh'

        And lo! We see how dumb some people are.

      3. The Royal Mint, currently based in Llanelli, Wales, the hole with a mint in it.

      4. The Royal Mint, currently based in Llanelli, Wales, the hole with a mint in it.

      5. Political classes know how to get their hands on the results of taxpayers hard work.
        It's thinly disguised as their expenses.
        And Bungs.

    2. 16-year-olds will be old enough to vote, but not old enough to buy tobacco or alcohol.

      1. In the US they can enlist in the army four years before they can legally buy a drink.

  50. So when the snap elections in the UK and France were called a couple of months ago, those that notice things were wondering why, what suddenly made it all so urgent, what was coming our way?

    Then a couple of weeks after the results were in there was a serious assassination attempt on the front runner to be the next President of the USA.

    1. I don't know what the latest details are, but it looks like Saturday's attempt was very much an unorganised lone wolf.
      BUT, how much was the TDS rhetoric aimed at engendering such an extreme reaction?

      1. Too many co-incidences for it to be a lone opportunistic wolf. My take on it is that he was groomed (he appeared in a BlackRock advertisement in 2016 where he was no doubt targeted as being suitable for indoctrination). It would seem he was given a free run at the roof with the state agencies turning their backs on people in the crowd who noticed things that were suspicious. 'Lone wolves' always have a pack to which they return.

    2. According to Andrew Bridgen.. MOD had advised Nutsak that a ground war with Russia was inevitable sometime in the autumn.. Sunak decided he didn't want to be a "wartime PM" and handed over the tag-wrestling baton to Sir Keir Starmer of Rotherham staunch advocate for;
      open borders. release of violent crims. spiteful tax. ender of Loser's consent. confiscation. nutty-zero. CRT. BLM. ESG. DEI. PIE. NGOs. EBRD. JSO, BAME. Oxfam. Rainbow, FIFA, UEFA, EU. SAGE. BBC… and of course WEF.

    3. According to Andrew Bridgen.. MOD had advised Nutsak that a ground war with Russia was inevitable sometime in the autumn.. Sunak decided he didn't want to be a "wartime PM" and handed over the tag-wrestling baton to Sir Keir Starmer of Rotherham staunch advocate for;
      open borders. release of violent crims. spiteful tax. ender of Loser's consent. confiscation. nutty-zero. CRT. BLM. ESG. DEI. PIE. NGOs. EBRD. JSO, BAME. Oxfam. Rainbow, FIFA, UEFA, EU. SAGE. BBC… and of course WEF.

  51. 389767+ up ticks,

    These Isles must surely be the biggest test lab on the planet and the only one giving the rodents / monkeys a break by consenting
    via the polling stations to taking part in death dealing vaccine
    experiments, not only for themselves but also offering up their
    children as innocent victims of perennial abuse.

    Britain becomes first country in Europe to approve lab-grown meat
    UK start-up Meatly wins approval to sell cultivated dog food

    The lab/lib/con coalition have been feasting on ALL types of bullshite fodder for the last forty years so sadly, addiction has a strong grip.

        2. A man who looks like a freak, sounds like a freak and behaves like a freak is rather likely actually to be a freak.

  52. They still don't want to get any of it do they?
    There would be no reason to build any more houses if the useless stupid idiots had stopped the effing boats. It would be cheaper to send them all back to the much bigger countries they have all come from and supply them with the materials to build their own.
    But they are all far too lazy and politicians wouldn't be able to make unearned profits from all the inline bungs.

    1. Except they are too unintelligent and lazy to be able to plan, let alone build anything worthwhile.

      1. We know and that’s why they turn up on our shores uninvited. And our ignorant and extremely stupid politicians have and are still allowing it to happen.

      2. I have just finished reading "What did the Tudors and Stuarts Do For Us?" by Adam Hart Davis. All the inventions, particularly under the Stuarts, that I learned about in my physics lessons at school were ALL brought about by EUROPEANS. Not a black anywhere to be seen.

    2. Except they are too unintelligent and lazy to be able to plan, let alone build anything worthwhile.

  54. They have to deliver on the invasion utopia, and keep this idea of migration thang going.
    These people have to ignore the obvious worst social contagion that the nation will ever have to experience since the Black Death of 1348. They must continue to believe that they are doing the right thing for the rest of their lives.. for their own sanity and for their own self-respect.

    They've everything to lose. And it's a fight to the death as far as they're concerned.

    2. The political classes involved should be locked up for treason against the British people.

  55. Sir Keir Starmer wants to launch a new government initiative "Just Stop Snake Oil!".
    However I don't understand the mention of 'populism'. Is he scared of democracy, or simply worried about the millions who dared to rejected LibLabCon and who voted for change via the Reform party?

    1. Here's the Guardian view":

      Keir Starmer has set out a government agenda that he will claim can counter the "snake oil charm of populism", in a king's speech pledging change to people's lives including rights at work, cheaper energy and secure housing.

      Starmer said the "fight for trust is the battle that defines our political era", and said the king's speech – the first under a Labour government for 15 years – would end the performative and divisive politics of the last years and counter the rise of the populist hard right.

      https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/17/labour-promises-to-counter-snake-oil-charm-of-populism-in-packed-kings-speech

      Perhaps he means "You won't be allowed to disagree with us."

      1. Representing a party that came into power with 20% of the electorate's support (not the number of actual votes cast) Kneeler will be very chary of populism.

      3. I didn't think it was possible to loathe Starmer even more than I did. Delivering things that are good for British people and they actually want is "the snake oil charm of populism"
        Only 18% actually voted for him – presumably the rest are all this mythical "populist hard right"?

  56. Greeting all.
    On line at the Old piggery tea room on the Selsey road.
    Have stopped at Warmington, just off the B4100 North of Banbury on Sunday night.
    Had a stop on White Hill between Kingsclere and Overgton on Monday nightt in rather foul weather and last night was in Selsey where I plan stopping tonight.
    Tomorrow night I'm meeting up with the King John's Morris at Shedfield and will be stopping there for the night.

    2. Good to see you Bob.
      Have you read Paul Sutton's satire of the goings on around your neck of the wood?

  57. Apologies for quoting from the Guardian but it's the only source I've seen so far that mentions this:

    Measures to modernise the constitution will be introduced including House of Lords reform to remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the Lords [House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill]. My ministers will strengthen the integrity of elections and encourage wide participation in the democratic process.

    The Government will propose a modernisation committee of the House of Commons which will be tasked with driving up standards, improving work practices and reforming procedures.

    Analysis: Labour said it wanted to remove hereditary peers from the Lords quickly. But the speech does not include a commitment to lower the voting age to 16, only a generalised reference to widening participation in elections. This proposal was much criticised during the election, and campaigners will be worried the government is going off the idea. Government sources say that is not the case, and that a bill has been omitted because this is not a priority at this stage of the parliament.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/jul/17/keir-starmer-kings-speech-house-of-commons-rishi-sunak-conservatives-uk-politics-live

      3. Postal voting forms to be delivered direct to Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, etc, etc.

    2. To finish the mess Bliar made. Totally dismantling our constitutional arrangements and replacing it with a system of state-sponsored patronage. Revolutions have bee fought over matters of state patronage.

    3. modernise the constitution..

      ask Peter Hitchens. He did warn the voters. David Starkey refers to The document, A New Britain: Renewing Our Democracy And Rebuilding Our Economy.

      summary: in Starkey's words..
      nine centuries the greatest gift we possessed of the supremacy of Parliament is about to be done over and replaced by a socialist utopia. Starmer & Gorden Brown's sinister plan will withdraw Losers’ Consent, and prevent their ideas being undone.
      There's a whole list of dangerous proposals about to be pushed through.. new constitutionally protected social rights.. The new rights would cover health, education, poverty and housing. turning them into a pretext for judges to make and unmake the law. Imagine what they might do with this formula.
      Labour’s Supreme Court will have the power to intervene in the running of the economy. It will, as far as I can see, be able to overrule the economic decisions of the Cabinet in London.
      The House of Lords will go, but be replaced by something even worse, a ‘Chamber of the Nations and Regions’ modelled on the German senate and undoubtedly crammed with nationalists and Leftists.
      All power This plan will remove huge amounts of power from Parliament. That power will go instead to Edinburgh and Wales, and to big (usually Labour-controlled) local government. Parliament will be forbidden by law to take this power back.

      1. Yet eight hundred years ago our constitution was agreed to be binding in perpetuity therefore "modernising" it is of itself not lawful. These people have attempted to abolish the three and a half thousand year old Ten Commandments but it's simply not their right do so.

        1. It wasn't their right to suspend habeus corpus or to allow EU law to be supreme to ours. But they did it.

    4. Is Charles the cretin really that thick? Or, more likely ,is he both thick and in on the plan – after all he and his family will stay rich…

      1. I’m sure he is, and always has been. I can see him when he was a Gordonstoun, looking like the dim kid with no pals. No surprise he talked to his plants!

        1. I gather he lost his rag with a pageboy today (sorry, pageperson) while trying to sit on the grownups' chair in Parliament. As he did the othe day in the Channel Islands.

          Crotchety old bugger – (bit like some NoTTLers, really!!)

          1. And he had a silly little hissy fit when his fountain pen exploded rather than laughing it off as he would have done if he had had more grip.

      2. I do hope he is not suffering with his illness, poor chap, but I think I can no longer euphemize so I shall have to be rather more truthful and honest and go back to calling him The Idiot King as I used to do.

  58. "British".. of course they are.. Juan Cifuentes and Farooq Abdulrazak.. "travel agents", yeah right.. found in burned out car in Malmo.

    Malmo? Nuff said.

    1. A burned out car in Malmo, Sweden's Third World gang-invested grenade chucking capital of Diversity.

      2. "usually" as soon as car rental firm tips off gang leader in UK that rival is making his usual trip to Malmo.. they order an online hit. The rates are quite reasonable with good TrustPilot reviews.

        Tottenham Turks leader killed by drive-by gunman in Moldava.

      3. "usually" as soon as car rental firm tips off gang leader in UK that rival is making his usual trip to Malmo.. they order an online hit. The rates are quite reasonable with good TrustPilot reviews.

        Tottenham Turks leader killed by drive-by gunman in Moldava.

  59. "British".. of course they are.. Juan Cifuentes and Farooq Abdulrazak.. "travel agents", yeah right.. found in burned out car in Malmo.

    Malmo? Nuff said.

  60. The King's speech, at first glance, appears to be as bad as feared. The State will get bigger and bossier. You will pay more tax and have less freedom. And they are on schedule for the 'by 2030 you will own nothing' threat.

  61. The price of gold is surging. I'm up by over £5000. Silver is lagging behind but still up £600.

    When's the crash coming?

    3. The only gold I have is what's in me gob.

      That, and a filling on a recently extracted tooth.

      1. I had all my gold crowns updated. My dentist didn't complain when i asked for them back. Sold them to a jeweler in East London. Net profit for me because i had them years ago on the NHS.

    4. Why does platinum never seem to go up much? I bought some years ago when it was on a par with gold and thought the industrial uses would keep it up there with the gold price. Since then, the gold has gone up loads but the platinum barely creeps up in comparison.

      1. Don’t know really except gold is hoarded by governments and the rest of it is bought and sold more often.

  62. Well that’s me done. I’m going to have a word with number one son and tell him that we will not be leaving him any inheritance, but after paying off his mortgage will be spending the lot!
    If this bloody government thinks I am going to save like mad so that they can claim even more tax and then rinse me for most of it when I die, they can get stuffed.
    They always go for the low hanging fruit, instead of multinationals and other extremely rich organisations and people who can afford to fight back.
    To claim that this is for the benefit of ordinary people is just taking the wee wee!

      1. Yes, but neither will they if we spend it all first! I would put it all in our sons name if I didn’t think that’s the next loophole for ordinary people they will close.
        I am not rich, but not poor either; just a combination of luck and being sensible means we can look after ourselves financially and have the odd holiday if we want.
        Mind you nowadays we don’t much want as it’s more stress than benefit.
        However, I was brought up to believe that it was my responsibility to make provision for my later years and that would mean a top up pension as the state pension would not do it.
        Now, because I don’t have to work to live anymore, the state wants to penalise me for having more than some layabout or foreign migrant who has never paid into the system in their lives but demands their “human rights” is theft as far as I’m concerned.
        If I can’t pass it all to my children, we’ll spend it together whilst I am alive and the government can get stuffed.
        What was it Thomas Sowell said?
        “Just how much of the money I have worked my butt off for is your fair share?

        2. I’m just wondering if we should upgrade to business class for our flights to western USA. It seemed criminally extravagant when we booked so we settled for premium economy but, after a lifetime of living well within my means, I’m getting the same spendthrift urge that I had when Comrade Jez became a potential PM.
          The extra carbon footprint would be an added bonus – suck that Ed Miliband.

          1. I've decided to follow the example of some friends who are also not rich but have worked hard and saved and decided that they're damn well going to travel first class now.

          2. Oh do! We did when we flew to Egypt last year. Apart from anything else it makes the airport bearable so it’s worth it just for that. In fact I would have gone first class but it wasn’t available on the airline at the time.
            It’s the only way to survive airports at both ends of your journey and make sure you keep the benefit of the holiday.

          3. Yes, sabotage in every which way. We should share strategies. Use cash where possible. Don't do DD for the council or energy bills. Don't let the large wasters have such easy access to your money. Watch your tax and don't earn more without thinking it through. Claim, claim, claim – the reffies do so get your share. The sooner we go bankrupt the sooner they will be forced to be realistic about mass migration. Take a look at where your pension providers are investing and kick up a fuss if you don't like what they are investing in. Harangue Mps with letters/emails so that they do not fall into the delusion that their destruction of our country is ok. The time for trusting the authorities is over. They hate us so never trust them again.

    2. My parents are on notice not to croak in the next five years. I’ll keep ‘em alive in the freezer if i have to.

        1. Cryptocurrency, gold, silver, property, art, foreign currency bank a/c, anything that’s worth money that you’re an expert in…

          1. Personally I'm not an expert in anything investment-wise as I've never had anything to invest, or worked in that kind of area…the trouble with buying anything in this country is that transactions appear to be tracked, so the government can find out what you have. I guess one can buy gold and take physical possession of it (and bury it or whatever) and it can't be roved whether you still have it or not.

            It must be nice to know about things like that – I wish I did!

          3. I am not unaware of the need to be informed, but I have a certain amount of caution about putting what I read to good use. No doubt some of that stems from what I saw in my 35 years of working in the City as a lawyer.

          5. Some of the information of the internet is contradictory, some is based on agendas, some has been proved simply to be wrong in the past. Some seems sound, but involves putting things in the hands of people that one does not know whether are trustworthy or not. Bubbles (whether they are South Sea or Dot Com) often burst.

            There is a lot of information of the internet about a lot of things – it takes a great deal of time, reading and experience sometimes to distinguish what is likely to be of real use for the future. I think I am aware enough to be worried about the Great Taking. I'm not sure about how, as an individual, realistically to be able to deal with it with enough certainty.

    4. I am slowly working my way through my savings to fund projects on the house and garden. I'm damned if I'm going to let Labour get their hands on it.

  63. Well that’s me done. I’m going to have a word with number one son and tell him that we will not be leaving him any inheritance, but after paying off his mortgage will be spending the lot!
    If this bloody government thinks I am going to save like mad so that they can claim even more tax and then rinse me for most of it when I die, they can get stuffed.
    They always go for the low hanging fruit, instead of multinationals and other extremely rich organisations and people who can afford to fight back.
    To claim that this is for the benefit of ordinary people is just taking the wee wee!

    1. Yet another example showing how we are importing the brightest and best on the planet.

      1. That would be because we put them through intensive testing, sos, check their physical and mental health, and also of course their qualifications. Not to mention legal passports. And somewhere to live. And employment.

        1. Yes of course – a person of same ilk looks at them or their name, and they're in!

    3. Ah…that pelvis…..had to venture out today, car service…on the way saw at least two young women out and about in their underpants (not shorts), with a teeshirt covering their top half. What would they have to say if young men went out and about in their underpants……….

  65. Am I alone in growing just a little tired of folk on our side who see everyone who appears to make even the slightest degree of positive progress in politics as "controlled opposition"? Yes we should always be sceptical and always enquire further but sometimes it errs on the side of farce.

    1. I think you are right on two counts Sue: everybody should be given a fair trial – and there are some decent folk out there – but also it is fundamentally foolish to trust any politician, Trump, Farage or even a Winston Churchill with your freedom.

    2. Agree, Sue. To be honest, I think it's been a circus since BoJo/Covid/Sunak era. We'll have some fun with Starmer & Co. and hopefully Conservatives find their true purpose with both hands before next election:-)

      1. Well the Tory MPs seem to find most of their purposes with one hand, while they were in office.

          1. Not really. the one-handed gesture doesn't really translate to two hands (not enough room) and it is commonly ascribed to the male in the vernacular parlance.

          3. Not really. the one-handed gesture doesn't really translate to two hands (not enough room) and it is commonly ascribed to the male in the vernacular parlance.

    3. If you've heard of them, they're controlled opposition – MiriAF
      Sadly, there is a lot of truth in that.
      eg Reform and Laurence Fox both got masses of publicity from the start – UKIP, SDP and the Heritage Party get zero.

      A Twitter commentator @FringeViews has done great work identifying a network of independent US comentators who get funding from the same source, especially The Wellness Company that she thinks is contaminated (I forget the evidence for that), and who all support each other.

      We all want a white knight to come along and save us, but reality is, it's not going to be the ex-City man who's funded by donations from Goldman Sachs people, and many of whose candidates come from the City – including at least one ex banker who re-trained as a doctor (where have we heard that before??). And it's also not going to be the man who's endorsed by Musk, Carlson and the rest (see network above), and who is rumoured to be thinking of installing the JP Morgan guy to manage America's finances.
      It does make sense to have a professional banker in charge during the reset, but the outcome will be a new system that will also be run by central bankers. Wealth fleecing will continue, the same small group of families will stay in control of the world and they will carry on farming us like cattle, harvesting our energy, preying on our children and culling us when we become too numerous

      The quicker we all realise that the only people who are going to save us are ourselves, the better.

    4. We are in a position wherein we must assess the available evidence, and draw conclusions, for ourselves.

      I entirely appreciate that it is probably a step too far, at this point in the Evolution of History, to expect the de-educated, utterly politically-naive and drug-addicted people of the UK to do this- but eventually, Sue, they will. Unfortunately, and probably after much of what Jack Priestley called blood, toil and anguish, they will. What they inherit will not remotely resemble the past, I'm afraid.

  66. "Banker gets ‘substantial’ payout after height surgery leaves one leg shorter than the other
    Height-conscious Merrill Lynch employee had sued surgeon for £1 million"

    The BTL comments are pure gold.
    Thank goodness there's still some robust and tasteless British humour to be found.

    2. Where is that, please? If DT, I hardly ever look there and am not a paying subscriber.

          1. The fact that she’s called a ‘high-flying banker’ really made my day! The height of stupidity!

          3. Another greedy banker. She's 5 ft 2" and then wants to be 5 ft 8". How about settling for 5ft 5"?

    5. One of the distinctive features of 1960s Sindy dolls was that the legs were often slightly different in length. My guess is that the body parts being mass produced, batches might differ slightly and be assembled randomly. Presumably that isn't what happened to the banker {sic}.

      1. From Coffee House, the Spectator

        Europe should prepare for president Vance
        Stephen Daisley17 July 2024, 1:00pm
        Foreign policy will have been low on Donald Trump’s list of considerations when deciding to anoint JD Vance as his running mate. The Ohio senator, a former detractor turned loyalist of the Republican nominee, is now close with Team Trump, and Team Trump rewards loyalty above all else. Vance is also a populist and speaks to the very voters (white, non-graduate, rust belt) Trump must attract if he is to return to the Oval Office. Vance’s relationship with Trumpism has been a complicated one but his selection can be seen as a legacy pick that consolidates the Maga agenda’s hold on the Republican party for several more election cycles.

        The themes undergirding Vance’s foreign policy are self-interest and self-reliance
        Vance’s positions on world affairs are particularly striking in their departure from the crumbling bipartisan consensus on American global leadership. Although his shifting allegiances make his worldview difficult to pin down at times, he is, broadly speaking, an America First candidate who wishes to see the federal government more focused on America’s borders than those of other countries. He repudiates neoconservatism and its assertion of the United States as a global Superman, dispatching frigates and fighter jets around the world to uphold truth, justice and the American way. Vance’s foreign policy philosophy may be characterised as a crude neorealism, combining the insights of Kenneth N. Waltz and subsequent scholars that international politics is defined by ‘anarchy, self-help, and power balancing’, with the grievance-laced message that liberal elites care more for the interests of foreigners and supranational institutions than for those of their fellow Americans.

        The most concrete expression of this comes in Vance’s analysis of the Ukraine war. He considers it ‘ridiculous’ that the United States is ‘focused on this border in Ukraine’, stating: ‘I’ve got to be honest with you, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other.’ He has attempted to block US funding for the embattled European nation and calls Volodymyr Zelensky’s goal of recovering all Ukrainian territory ‘fantastical’. Vance has urged Ukraine to end its offensive military operations and commit to ‘a defensive strategy’ that could ‘preserve its precious military manpower, stop the bleeding and provide time for negotiations to commence’. A second term for Trump with Vance as his wingman would likely see an end to the strong, if belated, support given to Ukraine by the Biden administration. Deprived of American arms and money, it would be all but impossible for Zelensky to continue his country’s resistance to Russian occupation.

        Most popular
        Ross Clark
        Britain has entered a birth rate crisis

        While Vance is sometimes characterised as an isolationist, this isn’t quite right. His crude neorealism can be seen as a populist variant of the Monroe Doctrine, with the chief international policy of the United States being the maintenance of its spheres of influence – in Vance’s case economic spheres. He is a hawk on China, though not for liberal reasons of democracy, human rights and the upholding of international norms. He regards Beijing as both a threat to American hard power and to Washington’s economic spheres of influence, with its goods and manufacturing dominance and its ability to disrupt shipping in the South China Sea. This dovetails neatly with Vance’s industrial policy outlook, which majors on the role of China in hollowing out Ohio’s manufacturing towns and his backing for tariffs. This is in line with Trump’s policy of slapping a 60 per cent import tax on all Chinese goods.

        Vance goes beyond protectionism, though. He has framed his criticism of President Biden’s Ukraine policy in the context of Beijing’s threat to the Republic of China, telling Fox News that Washington is ‘stretched too thin’ to be ‘strong enough to push back against the Chinese,’ and that China will only be ‘dissuaded’ by the US ‘having the weapons necessary to prevent them from invading Taiwan’. Detractors will see this as a rhetorical sleight of hand, fully expecting the ideologically protean Vance to pivot elsewhere when Beijing invades its island neighbour, but there is an America First logic to his position.

        It makes little difference to the US economy if Russia gobbles up Ukraine and the rest of eastern Europe with it. Chinese annexation of Taiwan, which manufactures 90 per cent of the world’s advanced semiconductors, poses an unprecedented threat to global supply chains. Beijing could dangle the threat of a digital Dark Age over western nations unwilling to bend to its will. Of course, the counterpoint to this is: if you think America arming Ukraine against Russia is a futile exercise, just wait till you’re trying to keep Taipei stocked up on Patriot missiles against the People’s Liberation Army.

        Vance’s regional spheres approach would also have major implications for the Middle East. He visited Israel for the first time in 2022, a customary pilgrimage for Republican presidential candidates, but he speaks about the Jewish state in a different way to earlier generations of American right-wingers. Rather than seeing a common providence in Zionism and the American founding, one articulated in shared democratic and civilisational ideals, Vance speaks of intersecting interests and an alliance that is more transactional. The Israeli right is relaxed, and even enthusiastic, about this shift because it is accompanied by statements on Gaza like: ‘The Israelis are our allies, let them prosecute the war the way they see fit.’

        But Vance has also said the priority is to ‘get this war over and as quickly as possible’ so the US can facilitate an Israeli-Sunni alliance to maintain regional stability, a proposition he outlined in a speech to the uber-realist Quincy Institute in May. The biggest roadblock to such an alliance is the question of a Palestinian state, a priority in the Sunni street if not in the Sunni palaces but one which would require Israel to hand over strategically vital territory to the Palestinians and hope they don’t use it to launch another 7 October style attack. There is a danger that Republican Middle East policy comes to join its Democrat counterpart in seeing Israeli intransigence as the obstacle to peace. The Israeli right might come to regret its embrace of outwardly pro-Israel realism.

        The themes undergirding Vance’s foreign policy are self-interest and self-reliance. He objects to US funding for Ukraine because ‘we should be focused on our own problems’ rather than ‘subsidising European security’. European nations had already begun to step up defence expenditure in response to the Trump administration’s Nato scepticism. Whether or not the Trump-Vance ticket is victorious in November, the direction of travel is clear: the Republican Party no longer sees it as America’s responsibility to foot the bill for a continent that directs its resources to social spending rather than defence. Europe will have to re-examine spending priorities and take some painful decisions.

        US vice presidential candidates seldom matter all that much, even at home. A VP is a constitutional understudy, a ginner-up of the party’s base and a lightning rod for the other side’s voters. Vance is unusual for a VP candidate in that his mere selection poses fundamental, long-term challenges to settled policy on multiple continents. World capitals are already preparing for another Trump presidency. They should prepare for an eventual Vance presidency too.

        1. I would dearly love it if the USA told the UN and all its cancerous growths to find new premises outside the USA, e.g. Africa.

      3. Ahh, remember it well. One of my claims to fame is that my uncle, who had a barbers shop in Holmes Chapel used to cut Bernard Lovel’s hair!
        He got me and my cousin a guided tour of Jodrell Bank when we were both twelve and we got to shake his hand.

  67. Having been an expat Englishman (never a 'Brit!") for, coming up, the past 15 years, I have seldom been exposed to the advertisements that are routinely broadcast on British independent television channels. My memory has recollections of clever, inventive and entertaining examples of that medium.

    This past few weeks I have been tuning in (on my computer, via a VPN) to ITV4 to watch the Tour de France, which I enjoy. The only problem is the never-ending advert breaks (around six–to–seven an hour) that are interminably long in duration.

    What appals me is the fact that none of those entertaining adverts any longer exist. All I see is dismal succession of the following puerile attempts to relieve one of one's lucre. There are never-ending adverts for:

    ● Gambling sites and lotteries.
    ● Incessant urges from countless charities demanding a weekly (or monthly) donation to: save children in Africa, abused pets, the RNLI, and a plethora of other "worthwhile" causes.
    ● Plans for one's cremation!
    ● A 'health drink' invented by scientists, including a hundred ingredientschemicals, to be drunk daily to 'improve your health'.
    ● Companies that bring ready-made junk food to your door.

    And many other purveyors of needless and inconsequential crap. These adverts are broadcast over and over again, ad infinitum, ad nauseam, in a determined way to brainwash and bully those viewers of limited intellect to part with their hard-earned (or easy-benefitted) cash.

    I am lucky insofar as I can simply turn off the volume while I await the return of my programme. Even the BBC is full of adverts, these days, usually plugging its own 'superiority'.

    Not being a frequent and committed watcher of television I have become naïve about many aspects of modern life. As a direct consequence, I shall continue to rejoice in, and embrace, my naïveté.

    1. The same happened with us recently. We were on holiday with my Mum who had telly on non-stop. The adverts were atrocious. We haven’t watched any live tv at home for years so the decline in quality or entertainment value was really noticeable. Absolutely brain dead tv. So glad we never switch tv on or pay the telly tax.

      1. I keep getting demands for payment with threats following, but I have yet to have anyone knock on the door. I'm disappointed because I would love to give someone a rant on the corruption and cheek of the BBC in daring to ask people for money for their trash. I live in hope.

        1. I have set up ITV X racing on my laptop, so when my licence expires at the end of August, that's what I'll use.

          1. I don’t have a TV but I wouldn’t tell the people who came to the door that. I would force them to get a court order first before they could come into the house. Bloody minded, you know.

    2. If you'd watched GB News with the ads, you'd see an endless cycle of weight loss surgery plus furniture warehouses, car dealers and and gold merchants that all seem to be in Wales. Also travel promos with voice-overs urging you to go to the Por-a-Gdansk or "walk on the steps of the wise" (whatever that means).

    4. Added to which I'm pretty sure that either the spaces between advert breaks have become shorter, or the breaks themselves are longer. I can usually get a pint poured plus a plate of biscuits and cheese prepared during an average advert breaks these days.

      1. I've stopped watching telly altogether. Husband has been watching Wimbledon and the footie, don't know what he'll do now they've finished; though there was ladies' footie last night.

  68. Having been an expat Englishman (never a 'Brit!") for, coming up, the past 15 years, I have seldom been exposed to the advertisements that are routinely broadcast on British independent television channels. My memory has recollections of clever, inventive and entertaining examples of that medium.

    This past few weeks I have been tuning in (on my computer, via a VPN) to ITV4 to watch the Tour de France, which I enjoy. The only problem is the never-ending advert breaks (around six–to–seven an hour) that are interminably long in duration.

    What appals me is the fact that none of those entertaining adverts any longer exist. All I see is dismal succession of the following puerile attempts to relieve one of one's lucre. There are never-ending adverts for:

    ● Gambling sites and lotteries.
    ● Incessant urges from countless charities demanding a weekly (or monthly) donation to: save children in Africa, abused pets, the RNLI, and a plethora of other "worthwhile" causes.
    ● Plans for one's cremation!
    ● A 'health drink' invented by scientists, including a hundred ingredientschemicals, to be drunk daily to 'improve your health'.
    ● Companies that bring ready-made junk food to your door.

    And many other purveyors of needless and inconsequential crap. These adverts are broadcast over and over again, ad infinitum, ad nauseam, in a determined way to brainwash and bully those viewers of limited intellect to part with their hard-earned (or easy-benefitted) cash.

    I am lucky insofar as I can simply turn off the volume while I await the return of my programme. Even the BBC is full of adverts, these days, usually plugging its own 'superiority'.

    Not being a frequent and committed watcher of television I have become naïve about many aspects of modern life. As a direct consequence, I shall continue to rejoice in, and embrace, my naïveté.

  69. Rather than thinking about giving children the vote, would not Cur Ikea Slammer do better be trying to ensure that , by the age of 16, they can read and write?

    Just a thought.

    2. Socialists, Lib/Lab/Con, only want the populace to be educated enough for them to be told where to put the X but not sufficiently to challenge the dogma.
      We are a dying breed.

    3. All they need, as a client state, is to be able to make their mark. X is sufficient.

    4. It would descend into an argument about in which language should they become proficient. The English language is so racist. Everything in England is so racist. Benefits aren't racist though.

  71. I tend to catch up with GBNews items on YouTube. Cuts all the detritus in between.

    1. Alternatively, record and fast forward. That also enables one to cut out any vacuous contributions from Amy Nickell-Turner, and her ilk. The woman makes sweeping statements referring to ‘research’ and ‘’evidence’ that bear no scrutiny whatsoever.
      I’ve not watched a lot recently as I’ve been rather busy but this week I find that a Greek woman called Stella is much in evidence. Apparently she has been a Labour Party ‘adviser’ although what she was qualified to advise on is never mentioned. Unfortunately she seems as ludicrous as A N-T and a heck of a lot more shouty. It’s as if we have returned to the unedifying shouting down of other panellists that characterised a lot of Dan Wootten’s panels.

      1. Ha, yes, the word "research" has become meaningless when found in the mouths of any journalists on the telly and most pundits too, I reckon. I've evolved a defence mechanism. Whenever it's uttered all I hear is the word 'yaga'.

      2. I have to keep reminding myself that I'm not entitled to criticise until I learn to speak Greek to at least the same standard as her English and moreover to spout it out of my backside in the same manner.

        1. She may be able to speak English, but that doesn't mean that she can think English. Even if you could speak Greek to the level of her English, you would have the decency not to go to Greece and spout to the people what they should be doing.

  73. Anorak moment:
    It was around 2000/01 that the commercial terrestrial stations were allowed longer advert breaks, increasing the minutes per hour from about 8/9 to 12/13.

    2. commercial terrestrial stations were allowed longer advert breaks, increasing the minutes per hour from about 8/9 to 12/13.

      And isn't it bloody obvious? Even my dear, darling other half, who would- quite literally- believe that the Moon was made of green cheese if Sophie Raworth told her that this was the case, has noticed this.

  74. Is there anything in Max's Great List that will reduce the cost of existing, whether it be the individual or any organisation, private or public sector?

      1. I see a lot of this current squad are limited in experience. That Shamar Joseph, if fit, might cause some damage.

  76. Nice lunch out today with the 'girls' I used to work with – local pub very busy – good food and not too expensive.

    1. Brings to mind these lines from Hilaire Belloc's poem, The South Country:

      I will hold my house in the high wood
      Within a walk of the sea,
      And the men that were boys when I was a boy
      Shall sit and drink with me.

      2. That is lovely. I didn’t know he wrote such charming poems.
        I only knew about his cautionary tales.

      3. That is lovely. I didn’t know he wrote such charming poems.
        I only knew about his cautionary tales.

      4. Sadly, many of the men that were boys when I was a boy are no longer alive. If Fallick_Alec reads this, how many of your Entry are still with us? Fewer than half of mine and we were after you.

    2. Our NTTL luncheon was also excellent.

      A very nice chance for some human interaction – a boon for the house-bound!

        1. Yes, Richard Scott did the duties having already picked up Geoff in Carlisle. Stout fellow.

  77. Two days ago, there was a discussion here of the effects of Methformin and Statins on, amongst other things, memory.
    Google being my friend, I Googled it, read a few of the scientific papers, and forwarded the links to my Doctor, with a request that she take a look, and maybe we can explore my memory issues in the light of the prescribed meds.
    She's just mailed back to say that she was not aware of these effects, the papers were interesting, and most encouragingly, my forgetfulness does not follow the pattern of dementia!
    You have no idea how good I feel after reading that! Mother is daft with dementia, I was afraid I was going the same way…
    She has referred my case to the specialists in the National Hospital for advice and following up. What a star she is! Definitely worth the £22 fee for a 10-minute consultation!
    All started following some posts by you lovely people here on NoTTL! I'd buy you all a drink right now, if I could!
    (Instead, I'll get one for me!)
    Thank you all for that discussion.
    😀

    2. …my forgetfulness does not follow the pattern of dementia!

      Of course you could just be going mad.

      2. With the decline of society and the government creating a socialist nirvana, dementia might not be a bad option.

          2. Yes.
            One notices the reduction in cognitive function </pomposity> as the memory degrades.
            I noticed two very definite memory lapses:
            1. You remember the event or whatever, but can't remember a name involved in it, or something like that – location, or…. You end up with asking "wossisname, you know, the guy with the beard?"
            2. You have never heard of the event, althtough those with you insist you were there. Last weekend, I suggested we test drive an EV for fun, but was told that a couple of years ago, we had done so. I have no idea, just tumbleweed. This one is the scary one, the absolutely no recollection of the event. What else have I done that I don't recall, in the tiniest?

          3. #1 can be called forgetfulness, and increases with age.
            #2 is a whole different matter. Your brain has leaked the event totally. That was what was stressing me out – I do brain work and enjoy it, but if I am to forget everything I know, best go jump off a high-rise, because my self has been lost – at least the jumpiung would happen before the dribbling, and (as a friend has it for her Father) attacking and biting his wife of 60+ years. I cannot tolerate that in myself.

          4. I had a whole lot of memory wiped when I was so ill I was forced to take early retirement. Thankfully, after I recovered, although I still can't remember that period, the rest of my subsequent memory seems okay.

          6. In the early stages, yes. I think it would be terrifying. Then a gradual decline.

          11. I saw my sister go down that route 5 years ago. She didn't know it, but it was like she was living a perpetual nightmare. Not for me!

          13. I recognise my own short term memory loss now, but whether it is just old age or something worse, I dont know. I watched my mother decline for about 3 years while she lived independently but close to me, then another 3 years with me.

    3. Any particular links you read which I could pass on to my OH, who seems to think he's not allowed to do anything without his Dr's say so………?

        1. Yes – but of course he doesn't take my word for it – so some ammunition would be good. I'll have a look and pass those on to him. Then at least he can be informed before he broaches it with the gp.
          He's taking other things since his triple by pass, which include beta blockers and blood thinners, but I really think the statins are the ones to lose.

          1. Agreed. Statins can be lethal as they almost certainly damaged my kidneys and possibly made my peripheral neuropathy worse.

          2. Get a discussion with the GP – they, after all, are supposed to know something about this.

      2. On the subject of statins recently, I posted this link by a doctor who challenges the common acceptance by both doctors and patients that once you on certain drugs after the age of 65 then you are on them for the rest of your life.

        A comment by a Nottler pointed out that on hospitalisation your GP's drug regime may be completely halted and a different group of drugs may be precscribed on discharge. It makes one think if GPs really have enough time to check if, as you grow older, whether or not your health might be improved by de-escalating some original GP prescripted drugs.

        https://youtu.be/pcWib5ySQh4?si=wE8pGLlf9K7-7fIf

        1. A lot of doctors now have a pharmacist in the practice.
          Our grandson is studying for a Masters in Pharmacy, a 4 year course and a further year for registration. He will then be qualified to prescribe drugs.

          1. You must have caught the pre-edited version before I put the missing link in after checking my posted comment.

      3. On the subject of statins recently, I posted this link by a doctor who challenges the common acceptance by both doctors and patients that once you on certain drugs after the age of 65 then you are on them for the rest of your life.

        A comment by a Nottler pointed out that on hospitalisation your GP's drug regime may be completely halted and a different group of drugs may be precscribed on discharge. It makes one think if GPs really have enough time to check if, as you grow older, whether or not your health might be improved by de-escalating some original GP prescripted drugs.

        https://youtu.be/pcWib5ySQh4?si=wE8pGLlf9K7-7fIf

    4. Good stuff. What a load off your mind.
      However, 0/10 for your doctor. She should know these things. These are well known medications for common ailments, not some abstruse conditions suffered by 5 people in the entire world.

    5. When I am stressed my memory is terrible. But then when I was about thirty, I remember someone on a train asking me where I was from and I really could not remember. I was v stressed at the time. For some reason, when stressed ordinary routes I travel every day become scrambled and I can't remember which way to turn. And I think when we are older there is more to stress about so not automatically dementia. To stave off that kind of problem push yourself to remember ennui: what you ate/did/read/watched yesterday.

    6. When I am stressed my memory is terrible. But then when I was about thirty, I remember someone on a train asking me where I was from and I really could not remember. I was v stressed at the time. For some reason, when stressed ordinary routes I travel every day become scrambled and I can't remember which way to turn. And I think when we are older there is more to stress about so not automatically dementia. To stave off that kind of problem push yourself to remember ennui: what you ate/did/read/watched yesterday.

    1. Strictly has moved so far from being just a dancing competition and into the realms of a circus freak show that I suppose this stuff was inevitable. If you're serious about learning to dance then the coaching gets very exacting and lack of progress can exacerbate tempers. Been there, done that, got the medals to prove it. However, if you're a narcissistic weirdo, you might consider that to be bullying and an affront to your fragile ego.

      1. If you want to be the best you have to push yourself and be prepared to take criticism. Something today's snowflakes find totally alien.

      2. Celebs are just so…. delicate. I don't hear any complaints of beatings from the men paired up, perhaps they ahem enjoy it.

  82. I thought this was a good article from the business section, then saw it was written by Reform’s business spokesman.

    ”As neither the new City minister, Tulip Siddiq, nor the new Business Secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, appear to have any business experience, let me explain some key business concepts they may not be aware of. The concept of “acting as agent” is simple. It means that you do your best job for your client, who pays you a commission for your services. “Acting as principal”, meanwhile, means that you buy and sell assets you own for the best price. A principal is not obliged to use an agent.
    An agency transaction might be a landlord engaging an estate agent to rent out their property. The client is the landlord, the estate agent is the agent, and the tenant is the counterparty. The agent charges the client a fee for introducing the counterparty/tenant. Crucially, however, the agent can only charge the client/landlord a commission for services, and there can be no other legitimate source of income on that transaction for the agent.
    In a stock market transaction, a stockbroker acts as agent, and the client/investor and their counterparty are acting as principal and taking risk. The agent is therefore the middleman between the client and the counterparty. Again, the agent can only charge the client a fee. In employment, a business owner hires staff and acts as principal, employing people who act as agent. The business risk is taken by the principal, who could be an individual entrepreneur or another legal “person”, company, partnership etc. They have “skin in the game”. In every agency transaction, the risk-taker is either the client/ investor or the counterparty/principal. It is never the agent.
    Unfortunately, the financial services regulators’ interpretation of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 has not understood these basic business premises – with disastrous consequences for the London Stock Exchange over 20 years.
    The Financial Conduct Authority handbook, the Conduct of Business “sourcebook”, is about 1,000 pages long. Agents now pay vast amounts in personal indemnity insurance because they cannot afford the principal risk that being a regulated adviser involves.
    Over 20 years, this has had malign effects on the London stock market. Agents stop their clients taking risks because they fear the regulatory consequences of a failed investment.
    Caveat emptor, “buyer beware”, no longer applies. In turn, entrepreneurs no longer take their firms to float on the stock market because liquidity has dried up as investors are discouraged from taking risk by agents who fear regulatory intervention. The recent Consumer Duty initiative by the FCA was yet another step in the wrong direction, adding more bureaucratic obstruction, instructing agents on how to treat clients and counterparties.
    The end consumer may not always be the client in an agency transaction. He or she may be the counterparty, as could be the case in the motor finance example. The FCA’S Consumer Duty rules create circumstances where the consumer is not the agent’s client but is still owed a duty of care by the agent.
    We expect an estate agent to act in the interest of the vendor. In financial services, that equivalent expectation is muddled by the FCA, which is asking agents to act also in the best interests of the purchaser/the counterparty. This creates a conflict of interest that regulated agents are obliged to avoid under the FCA’S Principles for Businesses. So when, just days after Labour entering power, we hear that the FCA plans a massive overhaul of the listing rules. Regulation has strangled caveat emptor and the essential risk-taking that grows an economy by obstructing investors, which is a big factor in the demise of the capitalisation of the LSE to its current pathetic value.
    It has become an overly complex charter for enriching the legal profession rather than securing long-term business investment which creates wealth and employment.
    And Labour looks set to push us further down the road to serfdom.”

  83. An absolute Par Four?

    Wordle 1,124 4/6
    ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
    🟨⬜🟩🟨⬜
    ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Guess two left me with just two possible answers. I always expect to choose the wrong one.

      Wordle 1,124 3/6

      ⬜⬜🟩🟨🟨
      🟨⬜🟩🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. par is good

      Wordle 1,124 4/6

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

    3. Late (early?) session at the pub. I'll post my result. but can't remember the word.

      Wordle 1,124 4/6

      ⬜⬜🟩⬜🟩
      ⬜⬜🟩⬜🟩
      ⬜⬜🟩⬜🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    4. Really annoying, a stupid third guess denied me a birdie!! Ahhh, what the hell….

      Wordle 1,124 4/6

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

    1. Ha, ha. the King's Speech was just a rehash of the Labour Manifesto.

      God help us.

    2. ÅÅÅ! Grizz, you torturer!
      They look absolutely fabulous! As the best pies, not injection-moulded perfect, evidence of handwork…
      Sigh

      1. My Pork Pie (makes four large pies )

        Filling: (make up to two days in advance)

        800g pork shoulder
        400g pork belly
        24g* salt
        2·4g* freshly-ground black pepper
        2·4g* dried sage

        [*The magic ratio for seasoning pork for pork pies, sausages, sausage meat and Scotch eggs etc., is: 2% of the total weight of the meat in salt, and 0·2% of the total weight of the meat in pepper and/or seasonings]

        Cut half of the pork shoulder into small cubes (roughly 5-10mm) and place into a mixing bowl. Mince the remainder of the pork shoulder along with the pork belly on a medium setting. Add the mince to the diced pork shoulder in the mixing bowl. Add the seasonings and mix, thoroughly, with your hands until all the ingredients are well combined. Cover the bowl with clingfilm (or a shower cap) and chill in the refrigerator to partially cure for between one and two days.

        Jelly:

        2 pig’s trotters (split lengthways)
        Roasted pork bones (boiled to a stock in pressure cooker)
        2 small onions roughly chopped
        20-or-so black peppercorns
        2 tsp celery salt

        Place all jelly ingredients into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Simmer gently for 2 hours, covered. Strain into a jug through a fine-mesh sieve lined with muslin. Allow to cool.

        Hot-water crust:

        400g plain white flour
        150g strong white flour
        200ml water
        100g butter
        100g lard
        2 eggs

        Sieve the flour into a large bowl. mix in the beaten eggs until a breadcrumb texture is achieved. melt the butter and lard in a saucepan with the water until an emulsion is achieved. Do not allow it to boil. Pour the hot emulsion into the flour/egg mixture and knead with your hands until a smooth dough is achieved. Wrap in clingfilm and cool in the refrigerator.

        Building the pies:

        Fill each pastry-lined pie mould with the meat mixture and press it down to ensure no gaps. Fill to the level of the top of the moulds. Roll out the smaller portions of pastry into 5-6mm thick discs, cut an 8mm hole in the centre of each lid. and place on top of the moulds. Crimp around the edges to form a seal. Wash with beaten egg. Using my 4” pork pie tins I have found that for each pie, 200–210g pastry will fill the tin, 50–60g of pastry will form a lid, and around 230–240g seasoned pork is optimum for the filling.

        Baking the pies:

        Place the pie moulds onto a baking sheet (or inside a baking tray) and bake, uncovered in a preheated oven at 180ºC for one hour. After an hour, reduce the oven temperature to 140ºC and cover the pies with a sheet of greaseproof paper. Continue to bake for another hour. At the end of the cooking time, remove the pies and allow to cool for about one hour. The meat mixture will have shrunk during baking leaving a gap between meat and crust. Invert each pie to drain out all the accumulated juices and fat.

        Warm the jelly, until just melted, in a jug and place a small funnel into the centre hole in each pie lid. Gently pour the jelly into the pies through the funnel until some emerges from the hole. Leave the jelly-filled pies to cool thoroughly, preferably in the refrigerator. These pies will last up to a fortnight in the refrigerator.

        They will also freeze successfully for up to three months. Always allow plenty of time to defrost at room temperature since pork pies cannot be reheated or the jelly will melt and disappear! Pork pies are always meant to be eaten cold.

          4. It takes a number of separate days to make, Tom.

            First the jelly is made and then placed into ice-cube trays to freeze.

            On another day the meat is prepared and then put in the fridge.

            The pastry is done similarly the next day and also put in the fridge.

            When the time comes to make the pies you simply fill the pie moulds with the pastry, add the meat filling, put on the tops, crimp them to seal, then bake.

            An hour after baking you pour in the re-melted jelly.

            Broken down like that it is no more difficult to do than any other recipe.

          5. I just don’have either all the ingredients not the implements – no little pots to bake the pastries/pies. Will porcelain ramekins do?

            By the way, both my freezer and fridge are full – no room left.

          6. I’ve made them in ramekins and cake tins. Anything will do. If not you could do it the Melton Mowbray way with no support at all.

        3. Drooling here, Grizz. But – having been in the Great Border City for a couple of nights, having checked out from Carlisle Station Hotel this morning, I made a pilgrimage to Cranstons the butcher for 1.8 kg of Cumberland Sausage. Also a very nice sandwich and a cheese scone. Back in the day, my uncle John had one of a number of traditional butcher's stalls in Carlisle Covered Market.

          I'm reliably informed that – back in the day – Laing managers, returing to the company's roots from Mill Hill for meetings and the like, would make a point of visiting J Kenyon's stall, and 'fill their boots' before heading South…

          I'll shortly break it down into links or rings, and stick them in the freezer.

          2. Cumberland sausage is truly one of the great sausages of the world and one of my favourites, Geoff, but I've yet to attempt to make one.

            I remember going into a Grasmere pub one cold rainy day around 40 years ago. I had a small pot of steaming Cumberland stew. It was a thick onion gravy filled with chunks of tender lamb, hunks of Cumberland sausage, and equal sized pieces of black pudding. Served with a chunk of freshly baked crusty bread, it was sensationally delicious.

            I shall have to have a go at recreating it.

  88. Evening, all. Have managed to work in the garden removing a surplus privet bush because it was in the way of a garden storage cupboard I want to instal. Amazingly enough, not only was it dry, it was SUNNY!

    NOTHING counts as important for climate change zealots, including that CO2 is essential plant food.

    1. After a decent, if cool, evening Sunday, Monday was a total washout, Yesterday could not make it's mind up and, after an early evening downpour, turned out pleasant.
      But today has been a scorchet!

  93. That's me done for today. The first sunny, warm day all day since early May. Two similar days to follow, apparently.

    Have a jolly evening

    A demain

    2. Wooo, wooo, Heatwave on the way for the next 2 days. Oh hang on, the wet office definition of a heatwave is 3 days of temps above normal. Oh well, just shout about it anyway. I'll get me sunshade..

      1. I have a big Swiss Army cammo rain poncho with hood that's really effective… gets a bit noisy with the rain beating down on it, though.

    3. Wooo, wooo, Heatwave on the way for the next 2 days. Oh hang on, the wet office definition of a heatwave is 3 days of temps above normal. Oh well, just shout about it anyway. I'll get me sunshade..

  94. Sinn Fein praises Labour commitment to repeal Tory amnesty act
    The King announces Sir Keir Starmer’s commitment to repeal ‘shameful’ Legacy Act giving amnesty to British veterans of Troubles

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/07/17/sinn-fein-welcome-legacy-act-repeal-starmer-harris-finucane/

    Does the idiot King have any views on this? I would rather he stuck up for British veterans than interfere on climate change and the great Net Zero Scam.

    And what did he make of Sunak's disgraceful Great Windsor Sell out effectively giving away a part of the UK's realm to the EU?

    1. Nothing. He's upholding impartiality. Except when they're his own causes, of course. They don't count.

      2. I think it just emphasis and underlines the over all ignorance and stupidity of the people in politics.

    4. Didn't the British veterans in question risk their lives for the Crown? Loyalty clearly a one way street…

    4. I thought that was Darwin's 'survival of the fittest" i.e Head wouldn't go through the uprights of a guillotine….

  96. At first face this would appear to be irrelevant to the debate over the settled science. But am I alone in thinking the attitude of the Chinese "healer" is no different from the attitude of convinced climate scientists?

    Diabetic grandmother, 71, who died after she stopped taking insulin at slap therapy retreat 'would have lived' if Chinese healer did not have such 'unwavering conviction' in his alternative methods, court hears

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13644393/Diabetic-grandmother-died-slap-therapy-retreat-Chinese-healer-unwavering-conviction-alternative-methods.html

  98. Wicked of me, I know.

    But did anyone else who looked at Trump's would-be assassin in the picture where he was lining up the shot and there was a side-on view,
    think:
    Tranny

      1. My link goes to that picture, normally the picture appears, not sure why it didn’t for me, but thanks for posting it.

  100. These two articles go together. The contempt that the elite has for the English is seen not just in the attitudes of 'artists' like Allen and Thompson but the utter failure of the state authorities to deal with the tidal wave of illegal immigrants, as seen in Boston and scores of English towns already run down before the invasion that began in 2004.

    Should the English ever finally rise up against it all, they will be put down again – probably viciously by the police – and the media will broadcast to the world the news that they are once again behaving true to form and are deserving of everything they get. In BBC/Labour World, all of Earth was pure and good until the English stepped abroad.

    We are witnessing the dismantling of a nation, for a nation is its people.

    Boston's unskilled migrants are proof that the benefits of Brexit have been squandered

    Puritans left Lincolnshire for America 400 years ago to create a better place; the masses pouring into the county today have no such intent

    ISABEL OAKESHOTT • 16 July 2024 • 8:00pm

    On April 8 1630, four ships left the Isle of Wight bound for America. On board were dozens of highly educated merchants and their families, as well as lawyers, preachers, skilled tradesmen and labourers.

    This was the beginning of the great migration of Puritans to New England – and leading figures went to great lengths to ensure that everyone who set sail would have something positive to offer at the other end.

    Those early voyagers went on to found Boston, Massachusetts, naming it after their home in Lincolnshire. They left behind a thriving market town and the most fertile agricultural land in England, as well as the most important port outside London. In short, these dreamers were turning their backs on a highly prosperous place that was getting richer.

    Today, the traffic is all in the other direction. Boston, Lincolnshire is getting poorer and more dangerous, amid an extraordinary influx of unskilled migrants. This time it is Bulgarians colonising the county – and the impact on the town appears catastrophic.

    So magnificent is the old architecture in modern-day Boston that however hard the town has fallen, it has not been totally stripped of grandeur. The handsome bow-fronted shopping parade built by the Boston Corporation in 1820 is still there, along with a spectacular old court house that once served as an Augustine priory.

    Visible for miles over the flat fenland, the ancient St Botolph's church, known as "the stump", where some of those Puritans worshipped, still dominates the Lincolnshire skyline.

    All this should make Boston, Lincolnshire a top tourist destination. Instead, it has become a magnet for East European opportunists, who arrive by the day to take advantage of our almost-no-questions-asked benefits system.

    These are not refugees but unskilled labourers who appear to do just enough work to claim benefits and tick the right boxes to bring relatives. According to well-placed local sources, they fly into Britain quite legally, falsely telling border officials that they are "visiting friends" for a few days, and make a beeline for agencies that help them find ways to stay.

    Disturbingly, the vast majority do not appear to speak a single word of English: not even hello, goodbye, yes or no – still less please or thank you. I know this because I spent a good deal of time trying to communicate with them – and got absolutely nowhere. Small wonder that integration is difficult.

    Earlier this week, new figures from the Office for National Statistics confirmed what was already abundantly clear: Britain is in the grip of an unprecedented population explosion, driven solely by chaotic, uncontrolled immigration. Two weeks ago, voters in Boston booted out their Tory MP in collective fury at what this has done to their town. These people voted overwhelmingly for Brexit, thinking it would end the influx of foreign workers that has turned their town centre into a drug and crime-riddled no-go area after dark. What followed was a slow and sickening realisation that the end of free movement that was supposed to accompany the UK's departure from the EU is a complete fiction. Aided and abetted by enterprising firms that help the new arrivals navigate the system, certain migrants seem to be milking our generosity for all it's worth.

    Again, I know this because I have seen it with my own eyes and talked to some of those providing the services, from translators to recruitment and money-transfer agents. All the signs are that the promise of Brexit – sincerely made by those who campaigned for it but betrayed by the government charged with its delivery – was a monstrous lie.

    On a sunny Monday morning, Boston market square is dominated by groups of Bulgarians who hang around listlessly, chain smoking and grazing on fast food. In the shadow of the church, a bored looking woman in stonewash jeans lolls on a park bench, surveying the scene from a semi-horizontal position. Another sits idly, tossing the ends of a cheap sandwich at a huge flock of pigeons. All around are huddles of young men, who seemingly have nothing to do and nowhere to go. None are speaking English.

    How long they have been in this town, and how they occupy their time when they are not loitering, is difficult to ascertain because of the hopeless language barrier. They all know one word however: Bulgaria.

    Though locals find their heavy presence intimidating – I heard this time and again, especially from women – at this time of day, there is no evidence they are doing anyone any harm. All that changes after nightfall, when the town centre is considered off-limits by those born and bred in the area, especially women.

    It was in a street off the market square, in July 2022, that a nine-year-old girl was randomly stabbed to death as she played with a hula hoop in the lane outside the shop where her mother worked. Her killer was a 23-year-old Lithuanian who arrived in the UK in 2020, to pick fruit. Such violence to a child was clearly a terrible one-off but, sadly, murders are not, earning Boston an unfortunate reputation as the "murder capital of England". Of course, crime is not all committed by migrants, but witnesses complain of regular street brawls, open drug dealing and other antisocial behaviour.

    By 9pm, almost the only people in and around the town centre appear to be Bulgarian. Some sit in expensive cars parked in pairs; lights on, engines running. Quite what they are doing is unclear, but it seems a fair bet that it involves drugs. According to locals, street brawls between these young men are commonplace. Hopelessly outnumbered, the police appear to have semi-abandoned the place.

    No surprise that the owners of the upmarket boutiques and other high-end stores that used to be found in the town centre have long fled. In their place are numerous dilapidated, boarded-up shop fronts interspersed with bookmakers, slot machine venues and kebab shops. A single short street has half a dozen barbers.

    What on earth is going on here? Two booming local businesses offer a heavy hint. They help Bulgarians and other foreigners obtain so-called NINOs – National Insurance numbers for overseas nationals. With these, they can work in the fields or pizza parlours and apply for benefits, not only for themselves but for umpteen dependents. The longest queue is at a money exchange, where more than a dozen Bulgarians wait to transfer funds home. Some of the cash may well have been honestly earned, but the whole set-up stinks.

    The Puritans who left Boston to create a better society in America didn't know what a good thing they had. If they looked down now, they would surely be as horrified as the British taxpayer.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2024/07/16/immigration-ruined-boston/

    ____________________________________________________________________________

    Our elite has turned contempt for England into an art form

    Nobody does sneering at this nation better than the English, and Lily Allen is just the latest culprit

    MADELINE GRANT • 17 July 2024 • 6:15am

    WS Gilbert, in his list of people who would "not be missed" in The Mikado, wrote of "the idiot who praises with enthusiastic tone, all centuries but this and every country but his own". The assumption is that this is a generic figure, an example of that peculiar bien pensant desire to slag off the place they come from. Now we know that such a figure does have a fleshly manifestation: no less than the pop star Lily Allen.

    One of the appealing things about England and the English is that there is always someone prepared to add a note of sourness to a moment of national pride. Normally it's done with a healthy cynicism or humour. Occasionally, however, it seems to be done with real hatred, and generally by those with the least reason to hate their country; those who owe their success to it.

    The singer tweeted an AI-generated image of a group of fat, Union-Jack-clad football hooligans mourning England's Euro loss; managing both to irritate and pick the wrong flag. Amusingly, Allen's father wrote the novelty song Vindaloo, a tribute to the best (or worst, depending on your view) excesses of football culture. Perhaps the most charitable assumption is that there may be an element of "paging Dr Freud" about her affected loathing of fans.

    Allen's "mockney" accent compounds the offence: it says "I want to speak like these people but not think like them". This accent was ubiquitous when I was at university; overwhelmingly among people in the Allen mould – public school alumni who peppered their speech with glottal stops in hopes of sounding "street". You often hear this in politics too; a sort of Blairite softening of the vowels to affect being in touch with hoi polloi while also often favouring policies antithetical to their interests.

    Nor is this an isolated incident. See also: the annual parade of "St George was Turkish, actually" posts on social media – now a national tradition in itself – or those who delight in reminding everyone that there is no such thing as a "Full English" breakfast (sausages were invented in Ancient Sumeria, dontcha know). No other country does cringing self-abasement quite like us.

    Self-consciously dunking on your country has become a distinctive genre with guaranteed plaudits. After the Brexit referendum, Emma Thompson described Britain as "a cake-filled misery-laden grey old island". Even the "soggy cake" metaphor is familiar. Lawrence Durrell (who famously bullied his mother into relocating their entire family to Corfu) spoke contemptuously of "pudding island". In all cases, it's a class and status signifier, demonstrating superiority.

    Roger Scruton adopted the term "Oikophobia" (an irrational hatred of one's home) to describe the phenomenon. Likewise George Orwell, and John Carey's phenomenal book The Intellectuals and the Masses, chronicling the snobbery and revulsion of pre-war intellectuals towards the newly-literate working man. Few would describe the celebrity oikophobes as intellectuals, but social media provides a hitherto-unavailable platform for ritual sneering.

    I recently learnt that the Paris Olympics will hold the surfing events in…Tahiti. It is hilarious how much flak Britain gets for having had an empire, despite its hand-wringing. Meanwhile, across the Channel a country will host an Olympic event in one of its actual, current colonies. The only kind of patriotism that seems to exist guilt-free is the twee, self-referential kind; Boaty McBoatface-grade "humour".

    There's little point getting annoyed with these people, who are engaging in a form of performance art. But English anti-exceptionalism is no different to claiming your country is perfect and can do no wrong, and just as bizarre.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/17/our-elite-has-turned-contempt-for-england-into-an-artform/

  101. What Starmer left out

    While Labour’s pledge to strip hereditary peers of their seats did feature in the speech, the party’s commitment to force members of the House of Lords to retire at 80 was also nowhere to be seen.

    The latter measure had attracted criticism from Labour peers, who labelled it “ageist”.

    A briefing on the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill said it would be a “short and narrowly focused” piece of legislation to “bring about modernisation by removing the right of the remaining hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords”.

    There is no mention of Labour’s second manifesto commitment to “introduce a mandatory retirement age”, meaning that “at the end of the Parliament in which a member reaches 80 years of age, they will be required to retire from the House of Lords”.

    Downing Street said it was because more time was needed to develop the policy.

    Labour also left out plans to reform the Gender Recognition Act, which have proved controversial with women’s rights activists.

    Currently, to get a gender recognition certificate, trans people have to receive sign-off by a panel of doctors and lawyers and provide two years of evidence that they have been living in their new gender.

    Labour has said it is planning to “simplify” the process, which it has called “degrading and torturous”, by downgrading both requirements.

    Kemi Badenoch, the former Tory equalities minister, has warned the change risks creating “loopholes for predators and bad-faith actors to infiltrate women-only spaces”.

    While Labour has shown no sign of backing down, the plans were missing from its legislative agenda set out on Wednesday. Again, Downing Street said it needed more time to draw up the policy.

    Labour’s pledge to lower the voting age to 16 did not feature in the speech. It is understood that it will not be enacted in this parliamentary session.

    Despite coming under pressure from campaigners, Sir Keir stood firm on his refusal to scrap the two-child benefit cap.

    There is no suggestion that any of Labour’s manifesto pledges have been dropped from its long-term agenda.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/07/17/kings-speech-keir-starmer-labour-opening-parliament/

    1. Will the bishops stay in the Lords? I wonder too if you will own nothing etc means Bolshevik style theft of the great estates.

    1. I wonder whether anyone will/is doing any forensic analysis to see if all the bullets were fired from the same rifle?

      1. If they weren't you can rest assured that it all stinks to higher Heaven than we suspect

    3. The dead father was obviously an evil right wing bigot who deserved being shot whilst trying to shelter his family.

        1. I always believe that if a (sarc) is needed, I’m talking to the wrong people.

      2. He is mistaken when he says "Every living thing in the Universe knows the difference between Good and Evil". That is only Humans, and I do believe it holds the clue to the point of our existence, as a species as well as individually. This, of course, gives us a unique responsibility (not shared by other organisms who do not have this discriminatory power) to behave honourably.

        1. "This, of course, gives us a unique responsibility (not shared by other organisms who do not have this discriminatory power) to behave honourably."

          Our species deserves to disappear, we are reaching a point of no deserved return. I wish that 'honour' was a possibility, but fear that we're beyond that.

      3. The 'liberal' [sic] Left, in their pursuit of universal peace, love and understanding, argue that if all children were taught to be decent, there would be no badness in the world (their fixation with the nature v. nurture argument). Quite apart from their moral conceit in imagining that they have a unique understanding of what constitutes decency, they cannot perceive of badness. "We are born good", they say. Ask them where badness comes from – and then stand well back.

    1. 389767+up ticks,

      O2O,

      We, political residence in the HP sauce factory strongly beg to differ.

    2. Orban is a fantastic egg, a double yolker, which is why the puppeteers hate him so.

  105. Bedtime. chums. Good night, sleep well and hope to see you all here tomorrow.

  106. Upticks not registering. Either the fault of my keyboard or something more sinister. I am now ditching Occam's Razor in favour of the Razor of Opopanax, which says that one should never ignore a conspiracy theory in favour of what BBC Verify say.

    1. I put that to my my current wife this evening, regarding the Gaza/Israel situation.

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

    1. When I had been vaccinated against all kinds of things – whooping cough, diptheria, cholera, I didn't catch them, not even "mildly".

      1. I have not been vaccinated against 'Covid' nor have I worn a mask … and do you know what?

        I've never caught it!

        1. Same here. I might have had a dose before it became fasionable, or it could have been a nasty cold… Since I started with vitamin D3, I haven’t been ill with anything.

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

Comments are closed.