Thursday 1 August: What Labour’s raid on pensioners reveals about its plan for Britain

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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800 thoughts on “Thursday 1 August: What Labour’s raid on pensioners reveals about its plan for Britain”

  3. Good morning, chums. A pinch and a punch and white rabbits. I hope you all slept well and are now feeling refreshed, and ready to face a new month. And, of course, thanks to Geoff for today's NoTTLe site.

    Wordle 1,139 5/6

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

    That’s the Way to Do It

    A construction worker came home just in time to find his wife in bed with another man.

    So, he dragged the man down the stairs to the garage and put his wet willie in a vice.

    He secured it tightly and removed the handle. Then he picked up a hacksaw.

    The man terrified, screamed, "Stop! Stop! You're not going to (gulp) cut off my dick, are you???!?”

    The husband said, with a gleam of revenge in his eye,

    "Nope. You are. I'm just gonna set the garage on fire."

  6. ‘A disgraceful hijacking of our tragedy’: How Southport is defying the rioters. 1 August 2024.

    In Southport on Tuesday, just hours after more than 1,000 people had attended an evening vigil to remember the young victims of a deadly knife rampage at a children’s dance class on Monday, violence swept into this normally safe, cheerful seaside town. Bus-loads of thugs assaulted police officers, intimidated locals, and damaged homes, businesses and a mosque.

    It was, as local artist Tony Wynne puts it, “a disgraceful hijacking of our tragedy, and a failed attempt to divide us”. The largely masked rioters, who scarpered in the small hours, their convoys of vehicles witnessed leaving Southport by sickened residents, had left a trail of ruin down the Sussex Road area. Scorch marks on the pavement where flaming wheelie bins landed; garden walls kicked down to free bricks that could be hurled at the police; cars scratched and dented; a mosque’s windows smashed.

    Of course the residents are all dutiful believers in Multi-culturalism who wouldn’t hurt a fly and the rioters were all British Rail/Bussed/Drove in strangers. I would never have guessed.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/31/disgraceful-hijacking-tragedy-how-southport-defying-rioters/

    2. Isn't it great to be lied to all the time.
      Collapse of trust is the understatement of the decade; possibly of the century.

      1. Morning Anne. I have just noticed this morning that the Telegraph has started pruning the up and down votes on the threads. Which; depends on the particular comment. It makes the Soviet Union look rational.

      2. Morning Anne. I have just noticed this morning that the Telegraph has started pruning the up and down votes on the threads. Which; depends on the particular comment. It makes the Soviet Union look rational.

      3. Morning Anne. I have just noticed this morning that the Telegraph has started pruning the up and down votes on the threads. Which; depends on the particular comment. It makes the Soviet Union look rational.

  7. Good Morning, all

    Cloudy

    Hares but no rabbits on the lawn

    Rachel Reeves has just admitted the grotesque truth about her plans for Britain

    The Chancellor has given the game away. She will punish the prudent and successful to reward the feckless state

    ALLISTER HEATH
    31 July 2024 • 8:12pm

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/07/31/TELEMMGLPICT000387784302_17224521268000_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqBJxccnRzP1TnJIgTWTVSvqPkq_qO7HPPYzDbAhCWpfw.jpeg?imwidth=680

    That was quick, even by the standards of today’s amoral, ultra-cynical politics, where the ends are seen to justify the means. It took Rachel Reeves just 25 days in office to admit that she will be increasing taxes in her first Budget, over and above all of the horrors already announced.

    Sure, she will be sticking to the letter of Labour’s manifesto, but that disgraceful document must now be seen for what it was: a series of flagrant lies by omission, a shameless ploy to dupe voters into believing that the party had moderated. It did not give a true and fair view of the policies Labour will actually end up pursuing in the October Budget and later fiscal events, and many of the most significant non-financial decisions to date – the abhorrent cancellation of the Tory university free speech reforms, the despicable likely ban on arms exports to Israel – weren’t in the manifesto, either.

    Income tax, National Insurance and VAT rates won’t be hiked for now, but every other levy is up for grabs, especially all of those that the party kept maintaining “it had no plans” to touch. Dissembling, much? What will happen to capital gains tax, to inheritance tax, to pension tax relief, to council tax, to Isas? What new taxes will be invented? Will we end up with an actual wealth tax?

    The Government promised that it wouldn’t put up taxes on “working people”, yet millions who work, often very hard, are about to be clobbered, often for the sin of having built up too many assets to get on to the housing ladder, to look after children and families, or in readiness for old age. Most will feel that they have been played by a brazenly dishonest Government that hides behind legalistic verbiage.

    What is most galling is that Reeves continues to take us for fools: instead of admitting that she wants to spend more, she is pretending to have discovered a black hole in the public finances. Yes, the Tories adopted tough assumptions about future spending. But all of this was well-known to the Labour team, as was the cost of the now cancelled Rwanda scheme – there was no mysterious, unaccounted for “gap” large enough to justify a fresh tax grab.

    The inescapable conclusion is that Labour remains a party enthralled by class warfare. It seeks to take rather than create, to coerce rather than incentivise, to control and regulate and tax all that moves. It divides the country into two classes: its friends, the “good” people, and its enemies, the “bad” people. Its mission is to hammer the latter pitilessly while helping the former in every way possible, partly out of misplaced ideological conviction and partly to buy votes.

    Woe betide if you fall in the “wrong” category, if you work too hard, are too thrifty, too prudent, too successful, too productive or too entrepreneurial: the Labour Party is coming for you, for your income, for your capital gains, for your school fees. “Unearned” income, a Marxist concept that demonises the proceeds of investment, including dividends, interest, rents and capital gains, is deemed inherently suspicious, as opposed to “earned” income from salaries and wages, which is “good” as long as there isn’t too much of it.

    But if you are a member of the “working people”, that amorphous category which includes some who work and others who do not, you will be just fine. Take junior doctors: they will be enjoying a 22 per cent pay rise over two years as a down payment before the next strike, paid for by raiding the pockets of supposedly less-deserving folk.

    This simplistic neo-Manichaean worldview, derived from a combination of Labour’s pre-Blairite class-struggle heritage fused with self-righteous woke ideology of more recent import, will be a disaster for the country. It is also the best prism through which to understand Reeves’ plans. I happen to agree with one of her decisions – the scrapping of the winter fuel payment for most pensioners – but it fits into this pattern, and of course Labour claimed last month that it had “no plans” to change the benefit’s eligibility.

    Asset-rich pensioners who made sure they have plenty of savings fall into the “enemy” class, and will also be ripe for much higher taxes, a vindictive and incentive-destroying move designed to punish those who strive to reduce their reliance on the state. Even the new homes targets – more in the “bad” shires, fewer in “good” London – smacks of the same Manichaean approach.

    So far, two of Reeves’ preannounced tax attacks – on private schools, and on non-doms – have materialised in the most brutal form possible, and the attack on private equity will doubtless be equally ruthless. Her repugnant raid on schools will commence at the earliest possible moment, on January 1. Education is tax-free in almost all countries. New Zealand is the notable exception, and only because it charges a flat 15 per cent sales tax on almost all goods and services, including food and university fees; as the Adam Smith Institute notes, the NZ government pays a compensatory subsidy to lower and mid-priced independent schools. Britain stands alone in its vindictiveness.

    The state was set to confiscate 37.1 per cent of GDP in tax on Tory plans, its highest level since 1948. Reeves will break records. The damage will be immense. High taxes are bad for growth, a lesson the Tories, to their great discredit, have forgotten and that Labour cannot even countenance.

    Attempts at equalising outcomes come at a severe opportunity cost. Higher taxes reduce the payoff from work, investing, setting up a business or accumulating assets, and discourage the behaviours that are conducive to greater national prosperity and individual autonomy. Steeper taxes allow the state to increase in size, which also cuts growth: a bigger welfare state traps more people in dependency, and public services come with abysmal productivity and greater malinvestment.

    Yet it isn’t just the wasted GDP that is so galling. The loss of trust will be almost as pernicious. The Government proffered endless non-denial denials about proposed tax increases, and has now admitted that it is about to turn the screws on Middle England. How can it expect the public to believe it on anything else ever again?

    ***********************************************************
    John Bickley
    10 HRS AGO
    The Labour front bench is made up of people who haven't got a clue about wealth creation, incentives, how to maximise productivity and value added, and couldn't run a whelk stall.
    They have a very small mandate but will set out to destroy the country, by pandering to the feckless, skivers, unions, illegal immigrants and minority ethnic communities. At heart the Labour Party hate the country they now govern.

    Jimmy Bizzo
    7 HRS AGO
    Reply to John Bickley – view message
    🎵 Rachel Reeves, Rachel Reeves
    And her band of thieves 🎶
    🎵 Rachel Reeves, Rachel Reeves
    And the lies she weaves 🎶
    🎵 Steals from the poor, to make the public sector rich 🎶
    🎵 Stupid bit©️h, stupid bit©️h, stupid bit©️h. 🎶

    1. She's just another classic example of a horrible nasty minded bitch with some sort of mental health problems.
      And she's not the only version of that description now in Wastemonster and Whitehall.

      1. Oxford PPE, LSE, Bank of England….most surely a map of the road to hell as ever there was.

    2. 80% of the electorate did not vote for this.

      I saw through it from the start. "Change" was all about being not Corbyn; it was never about being not Blair, not Brown, not Clegg, not Cameron, not Yousaff, not Sturgeon and above all not Truss. Growth was always going to be about taking from those whose lives do not matter.

      I face the winter with trepidation. I am trying to work out a way of evicting my tenants before the Budget, knowing that landlords are targeted bogeys and I have been gullible enough not to put up the rent in seven years. There are so many regulatory hoops to jump through these days, mostly relying on tradesmen who know the law allows them to name their price and jobsworth their way into lucrative extra work. I know that since Brown lifted the index-linking on CGT, investors will be effectively taxed hard on inflation as the value of the pound has already reached sixpence and will go further as they slip through more tricks thinking we will not notice prices going up.

      I wouldn't mind so much if I felt the money was to be well spent, but I have grave misgivings over this. Most of it will go on financing the debt to global financiers, and much else on "safeguarding" – surveillance, disclosure & barring for my category of person, and Equality & Diversity compliance, as well as applying Critical Race Theory to compensate those whose ancestors sold their neighbours into slavery.

      I doubt they'd go for Lineker's pot of gold. They wouldn't dare, and have already made it clear that hardworking BBC presenters should not expect tax hikes.

    3. Don't know why anyone is surprised; Labour has always been spiteful, anti-aspirational, hard on success and class warriors.

  8. 390674+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Thursday 1 August: What Labour’s raid on pensioners reveals about its plan for Britain

    I would guess with a great deal of prior evidence that we will be
    offered up as a block offering, on bended knee of course, to the cause of serfdom.

    It will satisfy many indigenous of course as seen via the voting pattern, and the return post 24/6/2016 to supporting the pro eu
    lab/lib/con coalition party, killing off any true patriotic opposition
    that had the foresight to see "what we were about to receive".

    AND WE DID, IN GRAVE DIGGING SPADES.

  9. Good moaning.
    And thank you, Geoff.
    The DT have returned to the reason why you first set up this site.
    It has taken fright and banned any comments under the letters. And most other columns as well.
    Still, I suppose we can always make bets on which athlete in Paris first goes down with e.coli or Weill's disease. A macabre form of bread and circuses.

    "Police ‘deal swiftly’ with violent mob in London and Hartlepool after previous Southport riot"
    Watch this Saturday.

    1. The DT has left themselves wide open to much deserved criticism.
      Banning comments on events that have already happened obviously makes no sense or any difference on what might happen next.
      it's all rather childish.

      1. They are literally shit-scared and are worrying about the laundry bill for their underwear.

    2. Yes, it was when the DT stopped its Comments Section that The Nottlers' Forum got going. I used to use – and still do use – my nom-de-plume, Rastus C. Tastey, when I post comments under DT articles. This was a sobriquet some friends gave me when I was at UEA and it and anybody who knows me can penetrate the disguise which is how a longstanding Nottler identified me and emailed me suggesting I might like this site.

    3. Thank goodness for our Geoff. We are very fortunate that Geoff has continued to put up a new page every day for so long. I wonder how many of we original Nottlers still post here.

  10. Something for Our Grizzly to get his teeth into…

    Labour council suffers backlash over ‘draconian’ meat and dairy ban

    Countryside Alliance and farmers union criticise Labour-run Calderdale after move to 100pc plant-based catering at local authority events

    Amy Gibbons, POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
    31 July 2024 • 7:33pm

    A Labour council has been accused of launching an attack on British farmers with a “draconian” meat and dairy ban.

    Calderdale council, in West Yorkshire, has become the latest in a string of town halls to implement “100 per cent plant-based catering” at events to reduce its carbon footprint.

    The move, agreed at a meeting of the council last week, provoked a backlash from countryside campaigners, who urged Steve Reed, the Environment Secretary, to condemn the policy.

    An increasing number of local authorities, including Labour-controlled Enfield in London and Oxford city council, have introduced meat and dairy bans or signed so-called plant-based treaties in a bid to be more environmentally friendly.

    But the trend has been resisted by some rural communities, with 10 councils – including Suffolk, Cornwall and Dorset – voting in favour of an alternative motion from the Countryside Alliance to keep meat and dairy on the menu.

    The policy agreed by Calderdale last week states that catering provided at meetings and events hosted by the council on its own premises must be “100 per cent plant based”. It should also be “focused on wholefood which is minimally processed, and where possible should be locally sourced and seasonal”.

    ‘Attack on farming’
    The ban specifically covers catering funded by the council, and does not apply to food purchased by staff for their own consumption, or for individuals, such as children in care.

    Drinks are also exempt, although plant-based alternatives to milk should be provided at council events.

    Mo Metcalf-Fisher, director of external affairs at the Countryside Alliance, said: “It is incredibly concerning to see a Labour council introduce such a draconian and anti-livestock farming policy. This represents an attack on farming and freedom of choice, which I only hope Steve Reed and the Labour Party condemn utterly.

    “If the council truly cared about achieving net zero, it would commit to reducing emissions from food miles by sourcing local produce – be it meat, dairy, or plant-based – at all events, following on from many other councils across the UK.”

    The plans, first endorsed by cabinet members in June, prompted concerns from the National Farmers Union, which argued that “removing certain products from our diets misses the point of a sustainable food system”.

    ‘Too simplistic’
    In a letter to the council’s leader and chief executive, Rachel Hallos, the union’s vice-president, said: “Many organisations need to consider how they can play their part in our collective climate change challenge, just as farmers like myself across the country are doing.

    “But banning all red meat and dairy, regardless of where and how it is produced, is too simplistic an approach for such a complex issue.”

    Calderdale council has been approached for comment.

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

    Sarah Preston
    11 HRS AGO
    Our council tried it, but so little was eaten and so much thrown away they had to rethink. Not exactly green

    Irene McLay
    11 HRS AGO
    This is nothing more than virtue signaling.
    The councillors need to remember exactly what their remit is I.e emptying bins, sweeping streets etc, and stick to that.

    Monty James
    11 HRS AGO
    Reply to Irene McLay – view message
    And of course they will employ a whole department of these well paid Diversity,Equality,Inclusion, Environment, Net Zero zealots to come up with all this rubbish!

    2. The Paris Olympics are reported as being mainly vegan, to ensure “sustainability” (and the participants are revolting).

      I know of a couple of lifelong vegans who have recently converted to eating meat on the grounds of “sustainability”. They recognise that eating avocados flown in from South Africa and drinking almond “milk” made from thirsty Californian almonds is not in the least “sustainable” and they are eating locally*-sourced fish and meat, fruit and vegetables. I for one commend them.

      *when i was a humble junior c. 1994, i visited the Japanese car manufacturing plant in Derby where they proudly boasted that 90% (or whatever) of their components were “locally sourced”. I innocently enquired as to their definition of “local”. It was about 1000 miles.

    3. Calderdale council, bloody fools, it'll not make one iota of difference except reduce food availability to the rest of the population.

    4. Apparently, Olympic athletes are complaining they aren't getting enough meat; there's too much vegetarian and vegan stuff being provided.

  11. Poole Harbour

    One of the youngsters has caught its very own HUGE breakfast fish. It spent the first five minutes squawking "Look-at-me, look-at-me" and is now refusing to share even a scale with any of its siblings.

    2. That sounds remarkably like my 2 year old grand daughter . Her pronouns are all possessive.

  12. Good Morning Folks,

    Cloudy humid start here, the project fear thunder storms came to nothing.

  13. So what is the likelihood that if they suddenly reduced the age to under 16 for being named when committing heinous crimes that those carrying them out would all be 15 years old.
    Interesting that Labour were all for giving the vote to 16 year olds before the election because they were considered mature enough to do so.

    1. Well – think logically. If you are old enough to murder – stands to reason you are old enough to vote.

      2. And didn't Harriet Harman and Patricia Hewitt have a connection with the Paedophile Information Exchange which wanted the age of sexual consent reduced to 12?

        1. Legal Officer and Chair of the National Council for Civil Liberties that gave PIE and PAL Associate Membership in the '70s.
          Patricia Hewitt at least apologised for her involvement, something Harmer never has done.

  14. What Labour’s raid on pensioners reveals about its plan for Britain

    We know what Labour's plan is, the same as the Conservative one.

    1. Absolutely spot on we get rid of one lot of political idiots only to have the rest of the morons released by an election. The army should have taken over and cleared the decks, both green and red benches and the desks of all of the self important slugs for some sort of reformation.
      It's the only way forward.

  16. Surely in the public interest and to calm the tinderbox situation it is time for everything that is known about the maniac to be published.

    Of course, if it turns out that he really is yet another Muslim with mental health issues, already known to the police, it could make matters worse.

    2. From what little we know, a chap has planned a murderous attack with knives on young children. There is only one ideology that regularly uses this modus operandi. So whether he was a member of the local mosque or not, it looks to me that he been inspired by the cult.

      1. That is certainly where I would place my bet.

        However, there are an awful lot of black stabbers and slashers out there too, who are not cult members.

  17. Morning all 🙂😊
    Pinch and a punch.
    A bit grey outside, apparently thunder storms on the way.
    After all my testing yesterday I can see again. 3 weeks of three different types of eye drops is suposed to make it better.
    I also believe what labour have done specifically to the british (seniors) elderly is illegal, it's against all forms of human rights and probably a contravention of long established health and safety issues.

    1. Is that 3 different eyedrops at the same time, or have they finally found one that does the job?

      1. 3 to 5 minute intervals between drops. Nobody mentioned what could happen, before I had the operation.
        It's all gone rather pear-shaped,
        Literally. The consultant explained my vision is similar to a curved mirror due to a small swelling behind the replacement lense.
        The drops hopefully will reduce the swelling.

      2. Different types of each drop.
        After the operation I had two different types twice a day, one for two weeks the other for four.
        But they obviously didn’t have the right effect.
        It’s now six weeks and two days after the op.

  19. Vlogger Matty Taylor wryly notes Keir Starmer rarely tweets.. recently he managed two.
    Firstly, to announce the standard "shock".
    Second tweet? to condemn the natives for protesting.

    of course, to date, not a single condemnation of the murderer of children. Same with MSN. They just dont care.

      1. It's a pity he stated the killer was born abroad.

        Assuming, of course, that we are not being lied to about his birth in Cardiff.

        1. "he's no more Welsh than I am.
          His parents are from Rwanda.
          Just because you happened to hover your vagina over Cardiff and drop a baby out presumably paid for by the British taxpayer on the NHS that doesn't make your baby Welsh does it?"
          Katie Hopkins

          1. "If you're born in a stable, it doesn't make you a horse."

            1st Duke of Wellington

        2. Maybe it is time for a debate about local identity?

          It could be based on birth, on one's ancestors' birth reducing in weighting the further up the generations one goes; or it could be based on residency, how long one has lived in a place, and also on one's ancestors, reducing up the generations.

          As an Englishman, I identify with counties, but outside England (or the Swiss cantons) it is regions.

          I was born in Middlesex; my parents were born in Surrey and South Wales. I get a bit hazy over grandparents and beyond though and would have to look them up. I know South Wales and Surrey feature prominently, as well as London and Somerset.

          As for residency, I have lived most of my life in Worcestershire. Also prominent is Surrey, Middlesex, Herefordshire, Hampshire, Birmingham and West Sussex.

          My parents' residency includes London, South Australia, Surrey, Middlesex, Essex, Gloucestershire, and South Wales.

          According to nationality, this makes me overwhelmingly British, although I suggest that this is unusual these days.

          1. If an individual obeys the laws and integrates and accepts the obligations of citizenship and, if fit and healthy, is not a financial drain on society I am happy for them to consider themselves British.

          4. I’m afraid the time for debate is just about passed now.
            You see debate nowadays is about you understanding whybb B you are wrong and the elites are right.
            Debate too long and you either get done for hate crime or a new law is put in the statute books to shut you up.

          5. The laws on the 'Statute Book' are preceded and overruled by Magna Carta and Common (natural) Law. Mrs Croc, pay attention to your heritage, assuming you're English, born and bred.

          6. I am in deed and I will do as you suggest, unless of course the government repeals the magna Carter !

          9. Or as Tony Hancock famously put it;

            Does Magna Carts mean nothing to you? Did she die in vain?

          11. “Norfolk and Good” as the old song goes.

            When I was little, my grandfather was the local parson for a nest of villages on the Norfolk coast. A beautiful old rectory next to a pig farm. I loved it. I still have relatives in Norwich.

          12. Parents both came from Staffordshire, as did Mother's parents. Dad's mother came from Bewdley, Worcs, his dad from Wales. I was born in Worcestershire from the administrative point of view, but Staffordshire geographically. Have lived in various places in England. That makes me English 🙂

        3. How did we trust Starmer when he kept on fibbing
          When we know he's been a liar
          A dirty rotten liar,
          When we know he's been a liar all his life!

          [Borrowed from Alan Jay Lerner and Burton Lane]

    2. IMO these events are being used by the PTB as a means to an end. Bob3's comment directly above isn't far off the mark.

      1. Never let a good crisis go to waste.

        Some Labour apparatchik from the Blair years.

        1. Wasn’t it a woman working for Stephen Byers who referred to some atrocity (?9/11) as ‘a good day to bury bad news’’? I’ve forgotten her name but I daresay she’ll turn up soon as a special adviser. If they can bring back Damian McBride, there’s bound to be a job for somebody who was just a bit cynical.

          1. Wasn’t that the “a good day to bury bad news” episode?
            I thought “mine” was Campbell or Mandelson.

          2. Now that you mention it, that does sound familiar. I suppose Moore was just following their bad example.

          3. It certainly showed the mindset of the time and I suspect they will be even better at it now.

  20. Vlogger Matty Taylor wryly notes Keir Starmer rarely tweets.. recently he managed two.
    Firstly, to announce the standard "shock".
    Second tweet? to condemn the natives for protesting.

    of course, to date, not a single condemnation of the murderer of children. Same with MSN. They just dont care.

  21. So what would be the typical establishment strategy be in the event of a mass murder of children that may be linked to religious fanaticism that they have been encouraging for decades.

    Control the news narrative and leak out bits of information to divide and confuse any public unrest.
    Change the narrative and emphasise far Right and extreme behaviour behind any unrest.
    Blame the Russians and fake news for stirring up agitation.
    Stage false flag events with people doing Nazi salutes.
    Publicise the local people doing the clear up as if they are all living in harmony
    Gaslight and make the people that are angry about it all to be the bad people.
    Bring in new laws to control free speech for next time this happens.

    1. Well according to the telegraph, violence is not the answer for white people and betrays their values! It is of course the answer for blacks and muslims as they are the “good guys”who are fighting the oppression of evil whitey and so it’s justified.
      Honestly, sir kneeler has only been at it a month and already society is visibly breaking down.
      Far right my entire backside. Did he really believe that the indigenous whites would put up with being blamed for everything, taxed to redistribute their money to layabouts and illegals and get killed if they offend someone’s religious sentiments whilst being told it’s their own fault for starting it?
      Apparently so because they seem to think that if they can control the information people have access too, it will all stop.
      Well I have news for them. The more control they exercise, the more people will know they are being gaslighted.
      The more they think the state is against them, the more this sort of thing will happen. After all, what have we got to loose? They’re going to take everything anyway and give it to their favourite groups, which definitely do not include the natives.
      From what I can see unfolding, the only white privilege I have is the privilege of being blamed for everything and carrying the can for everything.
      Labour, the party of Islamist, child abusers and caucasiophobics!

  22. "Meghan Markle wishes Prince Harry could 'let go' of the legal battle over their family's security as she wants the Duke to be 'free', sources have said.
    Harry is continuing to appeal against a UK High Court decision about his security, having lost several rounds of the case against the Home Office."

    I rarely bother with the grifters, but The Sorcerer's Apprentice springs to mind.
    A story I doubt MeGain or her 'advisors" even know.

    1. It is the flip side of marrying a prince the Disney tales do not tell you about.

      Maybe that's why they moved to California – no nutters with guns out there!

    3. Meghan (honorary mermaid and Disney princess) is bound to be familiar with the sorcerer’s apprentice. It features in both the original and the revamped versions of Fantasia.

  23. Good morning, all. Overcast.

    …society was already under stress.

    …had started to witness the widespread raiding and instability which would later engulf it. There may have been economic problems, overpopulation, crop failures, drought and famine…

    …similarly we cannot yet answer the question of climate change.

    Reads very similar to today's world view and news? Not a bit of it.

    This is taken from the concluding chapter – Conclusions: The End Of The Bronze Age – of Michael Wood's 1985 book, In Search Of The Trojan War. The timeline is around 3,300 years ago and set in Greece, Crete, the Aegean islands and stretching into Anatolia – Hittites et al.

    Climate change possibly/probably occurring 3,300 years ago. What could have caused that phenomenon, horse powered chariots, burning wood and dung, too many humans, including slaves, consuming resources?

    The differences between then and today in matters of population, transport, utilising resources, farming etc could not be more stark but there is a suspicion that climate change could have been a factor in great ancient empires collapsing. Later, of course, other great empires arose in that area e.g. that of Greeks, Rome and Carthage.

    Interesting if not conclusive evidence that climate change happens despite man's efforts.

    1. Seems more like the normal cycle of civilisation. They all get degenerate in the end, as they forget how to do things, and fill their heads with fancy ideas that do no good, because they are "cool".

      1. Wouldn't surprise me. I find "climate change" being inserted into all sorts of books. It's as though they feel the need to virtue signal.

    3. But man, proud man,
      Drest in a little brief authority,
      Most ignorant of what he’s most assur’d;
      His glassy essence, like an angry ape,
      Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven,
      As make the angels weep.

      [Shakespeare]

      The sheer arrogance of our species to think that we are in control of the universe!

      We are certainly ignorant about climate change!

    1. That's what they are designed to do. They are nothing more than a method of control by the Big State. They destroy cholesterol, which, contrary to all the crap we are told, is vital for life. Your brain is made of the stuff.

    2. I was prescribed them 20 years ago, and I too was going gaga, so I gave them up. I was prescribed them again recently, but being borderline diabetic I decided they were too risky to take.

    3. The nagging phone calls from my otherwise uncontactable surgery to get/keep me on statins were remorseless
      Finally i gave up and succumbed,not to take them of course but to add them to my monthly prescription order where they are promptly binned

    4. My memory has been permanently damaged by high doses of Simvastatin. To learn about the big pharma invention of 'good' and. 'bad' cholesterol and the damage caused by statins google Dr Stephanie Seneff.

  25. Good morning all,

    There's just been quite a heavy shower at McPhee Towers but it's blue skies again. Wind wafting around North, 20℃ expecting 27℃ and thundery showers later.

    I wonder if Millipede's minions have told him?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6f77dccf6d054cc64dc47c42a01099ba6a392f5896d1796ef4a13f5e544d4efb.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/08/01/ftse-100-markets-latest-shell-next-barclays-interest-rates/

    There really is no substitute for cheap hydro-carbon energy, Ed. It's abundant.

    1. Here, a specialised electric car sales organisation has gone tits-up. Big excitement over who will support the guarantees, what about spares, and so on. El-car sales were really strong, now have tanked.

  26. Good morning all,

    There's just been quite a heavy shower at McPhee Towers but it's blue skies again. Wind wafting around North, 20℃ expecting 27℃ and thundery showers later.

    I wonder if Millipede's minions have told him?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6f77dccf6d054cc64dc47c42a01099ba6a392f5896d1796ef4a13f5e544d4efb.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/08/01/ftse-100-markets-latest-shell-next-barclays-interest-rates/

    There really is no substitute for cheap hydro-carbon energy, Ed. It's abundant.

  27. Good morning all.
    A damp start today after some welcome overnight rain with 12°C on the Yard Thermometer and not a lot of wind.

      1. ‘Morning Spikey! Fortunately the shed is now up and the roof is on! Has been a busy few days but the twins have been a huge help! It’s supposed to rain but at the moment it’s warm and the air is claggy!😘

        1. Evening Sue – been out most of the day playing for the wrinklies. It cleared up and was quite sunny eventually. We could do with a bit of rain. 😘

          1. Very warm and sunny today! Unfortunately Alan has man flu, so the shed is continuing veeery slowly!😘

  30. What stands out to me is the way people are treated by the police . only the white poulation have the full force of the law upon them. All others can get away with light treatment for anything. It should be the same for al but clearly it is not.

      1. 390674+ up ticks,

        Morning SC,
        Shame on us for voting for it and allowing it to take place.

          1. I really think you deserve a discount in council tax. That is a key service you pay for which they did not provide.

    3. The biased police are bringing the very foundations of our society to ruin.

      The only thing that can be said in their defence is that they cannot use the brains God didn't give them and they are merely following the orders of their masters.

      1. The excuse of the extermination camp murderers, "We were only obeying orders"

    1. If the arrest of an unarmed middle-aged white woman counts the same on the scorecard as the arrest of a machete wielding drugged up Somalian which would you and your mates go far?

      1. Come a long way from Sir Robert Peel. They are now the Animal Farm attack dogs, to protect the slime in parliament and the pigs that have been imported.

        1. I expect that successful arrests will be taken into consideration when they have an annual review.

          I don’t know whether there is an element of performance related pay or bonus or bigger pay rises, but I would not be surprised if there was, certainly with regard to promotion decisions when several candidates are in line for one job.

    2. "I am in this earthly world; where to do harm is often laudable, to do good sometime accounted dangerous folly"

      [Lady MacDuff in the Scottish Play]

      William Shakespeare "was not of an age but for all time!”

      [Ben Johnson]

    3. The useless stupid political idiots and
      They are obviously trying to prevent someone from filming this nonsense.

      1. I remember the scene in FT when an American asked for a Waldorf Salad and Basil said "Sorry we've run out of Waldorfs"

        1. In the same episode there was a very brash American, his lover – a very English woman, and a nasty little boy who complained about the mayonnaise saying he preferred salad cream. Basil said that he would ask his cook to buy salad cream with his own hands as that was how he made the mayonnaise.

  33. My OH finally listened to me and stopped taking them a few weeks ago. He's on enough other drugs to stock a shop.

    1. I take 11 in the morning and 4 at night plus 2 big inhalations morning and night, Jules. I almost rattle!

      1. I don’t know how many he’s on but it’s a lot. Blood thinners, beta blockers etc. But he stopped the statins.

        1. Glad he stopped the statins. I also had doubts about the beta-blockers and refused them.

      2. If you're not appearing today, Datz, I can only wish you…

        ,,, Have a happy, happy day, Datz, followed by 364 happy unbirthdays

    2. Datz, who I do believe also went under the name Uncle Beastly, has not commented for some considerable time.

      If he is still around (and I hope he is), Grattis på födelsedagen. 🍾👍🏻🎂😊

    1. That's all well and good, but which Islamic country do you think will accept them?

      France or the UK of course.

      1. See the mass arrival of "Dutch" Somalians after a benefit crackdown in Holland years ago for details
        How enriching they were……….

        2. I used to make a regular journey by minicab driven by a Somalian and we chatted a lot as he was keen to improve his English and I was almost the only passenger he ever had who spoke English as a first language and was prepared to correct his mistakes (at his request I must emphasise). He spoke fluent Italian as he had learned it at school but he explained to me that he had chosen Britain over Italy because of our welfare system.

  37. Good morning all,

    Quiet gloomy warm start to the day 20c.

    Not a leaf stirring or a bird tweeting .

    Re the Hugh Edwards news .. the BBC have protected him and paid him his salary even though he wasn't working .

    What other things are the BBC capable of .. yep , they supported Labour , dissed the Tories, savaged Farage and allowed the idiot Lib dem bloke a huge amount of daft gymnastic publicity .

    The BBC have pushed their Gay/ Lesbian theme , promoted appalling TV programmes , they are the Sodom and Gomorrah of broadcasting .

    How very strange that the BBC investigative journos didn't smell a rat , yet Edwards apparently was known to pester younger male BBC staff, and was he on such an untouchable throne that no one dare challenge him .

    The filth the BBC push out , and the mucky characters they promote makes my stomach heave .

    My second son is in a good settled relationship with similar partner , but even they say that the BBC has fallen from grace , and the Arts have a reputation for deviant behaviour .

    1. When is a "thug" not a thug? When he acts on behalf of the far left.

      Nothing will change until our government starts working on behalf of all its people and not just its favoured groups.

    1. It's Tommy Robinson they are after, and anybody who supports him.
      The left are truly evil.

      1. "I'm gonna mince your kids Tommy"
        From the film "silenced"
        Make that threat to me or mine and they'll never find your body I have friends who own JCBs
        Edit
        The scrote who made that threat to kill on film was never arrested let alone charged

        1. Couldn’t have a contact number could I, for I have a little list. Actually it’s a very long one, might need a long , deep trench.

    2. Home Secretary responds to riots in Leeds: it's disgraceful what happened in Leeds. We will be working with local community leaders.

      Home Secretary responds to riots in Southport: it's disgraceful what happened in Southport. These things are a scourge on the town and the far right right must take responsibility.

      Yes Yvette, we hear you. Even handed approach to every citizen applies. Yes siree, ma'am.

  40. Ref Southport murders. I would draw NoTTLers attention to this comment from the Crown Prosecutor:

    "Sarah Hammond, Chief Crown Prosecutor for CPS Mersey-Cheshire, said: “The Crown Prosecution Service has authorised Merseyside Police to charge a 17-year-old male, of Banks, Lancashire, with three counts of murder and ten counts of attempted murder following the tragic incident that took place in Southport this week.

    “He will appear at Liverpool City Magistrates’ Court on Thursday August 1, 2024.

    “We remind all concerned that criminal proceedings against the defendant are active and that he has the right to a fair trial.

    “It is extremely important that there should be no reporting, commentary, or sharing of information online which could in any way prejudice these proceedings.”

    The lady is spot on. I would certainly not want prejudicial stuff about me being published anywhere should I have been charged with anything, let alone murder.

    Just saying.

    1. I think Smarmer is panicking. The sooner he's (replaced) out of office, the better.

    2. There is only one answer to that, turn up in force, at least 50,000 strong in parliament square, for at least one month and hold the government to account.
      French style.

  43. One for our pilots
    How long would you expect it to take before a trained fighter pilot was able to move up to an F-16 to be a serious threat to the opposing forces?
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13696885/First-F-16-flies-Ukraine-Western-fighter-jets-FINALLY-arrive-aid-Zelenskys-war-Putin.html
    The article gives contradictory details.
    If the first is already flying sorties it seems to me that the pilots won't be Ukrainian. Surely the planes are too valuable to be lost in the hands of a novice?

    1. I suspect that only the most experienced pilots will have been selected for training, which will have already been completed, so flying the aircraft as a weapon platform should be relatively straightforward. I can't see them getting involved in dogfights, but as per the article, sitting above their own territory launching missiles to counter threats. I have no experience with modern day weapons so it's difficult to say how much training time is needed to become competent to launch smart weapons but I think there would be a major training input with simulators.

      1. I've done a pretty realistic computer simulation of the F-16. It's pretty easy to use the weapons. The trick is to avoid being hit in return. Far more difficult in my opinion.

      2. Thank you
        The article suggested three years or more, which is why I posed the question.

        The roughly nine-month training in the US and Europe for Ukrainian pilots amounted to a crash course compared with the usual three-year course for Western pilots in what Miron calls 'a very complex piece of machinery.'

        I don't believe that the Ukrainian pilots would have been trained to the equivalent level of US/Western pilots being moved up when they started that crash course..

        2. The RAF training from new is 3 years, although I believe there are huge delays in the system. When you get to your assigned squadron, you will then train up for the role of that unit and become ‘combat ready’. That used to take about 6 months although it could be accelerated if the need was there. Although the Ukes flew Russian types, the F16 is probably easier to fly with more done by clever boxes. You might also sanction less training and accept a higher risk of failure depending on the need. All in all, hard to say and depends very much on whether they have already done the weapons training.

  44. 390674+up ticks,

    What an emblem of hope for the future a fitting figurehead for the CRUSADER PARTY that is yet to be formed from
    civil / ex military patriotic peoples.

    Dt,
    Sycamore Gap stump shows ‘astonishing’ signs of life 10 months after felling
    Conservationists set to monitor eight emerging shoots as they grow to full-size

    Ps,
    I do believe there are a great many that don't like the
    CRUSADER UP EM, all I can say is TOUGH TITTY.

    1. 390674+ up ticks,

      O2O,

      If by an amazing act of survival this tree, felled by evilness, can pull itself by its roots back into being, so can we as a once decent nation.

    2. The people should start forming militias for their own defense called The Crusaders. Because it is only going to get worse and it is clear we cannot rely on the forces of law and order, they have made their position clear and it is not to defend the people of this country

      1. 390674+ up ticks,

        Morning JR,
        Precisely my feelings & meaning,
        there has got to be an opposition
        of a NO NONSENSE calibre, we have sampled the political overseers way only to find it is
        forty shades of odious continued suffering, injurious & deadly.

  45. Good Morning all. Another hot day here, it is miserable because it is to much. But I'm in the minority in thinking that but it is a real drag on my health.

    Anyway

    I watched for several hours the events outside Downing Street. It was an utter disgrace. There was no riot but there was certainly blatant two tier policing. People standing innocently on the pavement were arrested arbitrarily. I mean that literally. Watched a policeman walk up to one person, pull him off the pavement and drag him off arrested. For what? no idea, the victim was just as bewildered as were the onlookers, They even arresting old people who were there out of sympathy for the three murdered girls. It was not a riot, that is a lie, it was police provoked skirmishes clearly aimed at arresting people in a show of abuse of power. Utter disgrace. By the time I stopped watching I was left with no sympathy for the police at all. The clearly hate the indigenous people of this country and have no regard for their feelings or their hopes and wishes for the future. They have degenerated into Storm Troopers, henchman for the left and an establishment totally disconnected from the people. I predict that things are going to get worse and a great deal uglier due to their actions.

    I noticed too, this morning on GBNews breakfast that the clips they showed deliberately showed only big burly men being arrested and the police behaving impeccably. Clearly edited to show a false narrative of thugs v. the police. It was blatantly dishonest.

    “Double Standard Policing” | 100 Arrested In London As Mob Flares Downing Street
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWZf-_ko06k

  46. Good Morning all. Another hot day here, it is miserable because it is to much. But I'm in the minority in thinking that but it is a real drag on my health.

    Anyway

    I watched for several hours the events outside Downing Street. It was an utter disgrace. There was no riot but there was certainly blatant two tier policing. People standing innocently on the pavement were arrested arbitrarily. I mean that literally. Watched a policeman walk up to one person, pull him off the pavement and drag him off arrested. For what? no idea, the victim was just as bewildered as were the onlookers, They even arresting old people who were there out of sympathy for the three murdered girls. It was not a riot, that is a lie, it was police provoked skirmishes clearly aimed at arresting people in a show of abuse of power. Utter disgrace. By the time I stopped watching I was left with no sympathy for the police at all. The clearly hate the indigenous people of this country and have no regard for their feelings or their hopes and wishes for the future. They have degenerated into Storm Troopers, henchman for the left and an establishment totally disconnected from the people. I predict that things are going to get worse and a great deal uglier due to their actions.

    I noticed too, this morning on GBNews breakfast that the clips they showed deliberately showed only big burly men being arrested and the police behaving impeccably. Clearly edited to show a false narrative of thugs v. the police. It was blatantly dishonest.

    “Double Standard Policing” | 100 Arrested In London As Mob Flares Downing Street
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWZf-_ko06k

    1. A news reporter was arrested for doing just that too. He was quickly de-arrested after another officer identified him. Martin Daubney, of GBNews.

      1. Actually there have been lots of little clues I have noticed that tell me that GBNews is not on the up and up. The most obvious one being the vilification of Tommy Robinson another being the misrepresentation of people as far right when they are anything but. There is obvious conflict going on too, because Michelle Dewberry often contradicts Mark Dolan, who strikes me as a creep. There are other little weirdness's that I have noticed that tell me that not all is harmony and light at GB News.

        1. They are probably coming under a lot of pressure from Ofcom who will be much emboldened by the new Stasi regime governing Britain.

          1. The only source of truth is the government.
            [Jacinda Ardern]

            The job of Ofcom is not to supress fake news, it's job is to discredit any information that the government does not want you to have.

            Ofcom has been given clear instructions to Ardernise the media.

        2. Mark Dolan is, as you say, a creep. Where is Patrick Christys this week – he is probably the best journalist GBNews has. I imagine he is on honeymoon as he married fairly recently.

          Why does GN News regularly have such appallingly frightful women on it – Rebecca Reid is repulsive, Amy Nickel-Turner is a mindless bimbo and Tessa Dunlop is a nasty posh yob. Narinder Kaur has an obscene persona beyond all hyperbole and there are many more from the same stable cowshed.

          1. GBNews have those appalling people on air to fob off Ofcom with the veneer of 'balance'. They are paid handsomely to be obnoxious, not to appeal to the vast majority of their viewers

    3. Morning Johnathan. This is all to justify repression. A Tactic as old as time.

    4. I am surprised at GBNews because their own reporter (I forget which one) was arrested and only de-handcuffed when he produced his press accreditation.

    5. I watched it unfolding on Twitter. The police waded into peaceful crowds and groupsnwith truncheons and batons intent on causing trouble. An elderly lady was gratuitously pushed over on to the ground, others were selected at random (male and female, it was of no concern) for arrest and hurled to the ground whilst several police officers knelt on the poor person underneath the scrum whilst they put the 'cuffs on. It was disgraceful. What has happened to us? This, this was the reason for Dunblane and the manipulated removal of handguns nearly three decades ago. How cunning to organise it under a conservative government at that time.

    1. Such a contrast to the old days. When, in London, you could walk up to them and ask them how to get somewhere and engage them in casual friendly conversation at the same time, with smiles all round.

      If you don't mind me asking. How old are you? I wonder because, is there a pre modern contingent who remember decent policing and a point where younger people can only remember the police as a menace and danger to their well being?

      1. It is a contrast, yes. This is not like it used to be. I think Common Purpose and HR have effected the transformation since about 2000 I'd say. I doubt anyone under 30-yrs of age knows about those days except through carefully curated documentaries.

      2. Last time I was in London and asked a policeman a question, he was a) foreign and b) surly.

  48. Luckily for me i was ill yesterday because i wouldn’t have been able to resist going home past Downing St and would probably be in the Klink now too

    1. They were arresting anything and everyone. I watched it unfold on Twitter (now known as X…). It was gob-smacking.

  50. A BTL Comment:-

    Looking at the videos of the Police actions outside Downing Street last night on X-Tw@ter and YouTube, I get the impression that the police tactic was to arrest random people simply for the "crime" of "being there" until one showed signs of daring to resist and then use excessive strong arm force to subdue them with the obvious aim of provoking a response from other bystanders.

    This would then allow them to go in with full strong-arm tactics against the "Extreme Far Right" troublemakers.

    1. I watched for several hours on various web sites. You have put it succinctly Bob. The police provoked and were the thugs, not the citizens that were demonstrating, they were ordinary people, not right wing extremists.

      1. They have been rumbled. And now they have no credibility at all what should we do now? I know, let's write some strong letters to the home secretary – that'll sort things out!

        1. I would not dare put in print what I think should be done. But it certainly doesn’t involve writing letters to the enemy.

    2. Yes, I'd go along with that assessment. Using the police as "agents provocateurs" by governments wanting to stir up trouble for certain groups is a well known tactic in more than one country. It was done extensively in France during the Yellow Vest protests for example.

  51. I would urge anyone who has been arrested or assaulted by police officers to COMPLAIN to the Chief Constable and to the (ludicrous) PCC for their area. Create a blizzard of paper to keep them busy. And to contact their (most likely Labour) MP. The more MPs hear from real people about real life – the better.

  52. 390674+ up ticks,

    If this were to be triggered then the "government" would be speechless.

    Dt,

    Social media companies urged to act on misleading Southport posts
    Government officials raise concerns with Twitter/X and Meta, the owner of Facebook, over the spread of the false claims

  53. 80 plus years-old, Johnathan and brought up in the late 40s and 1950s. I remember, despite the Statins (which I don’t/won’t take).

    1. Ha! OK, you write as if you were younger. I hope I display the same trait and not come across as some old fuddy duddy.

  54. para-phrasing Matty Taylor..

    if the Govt & particularly Sir Keir Starmer refused to do anything about decades of swarthy foreign gentlemen folding up little girls like deckchairs above kebab shops.. Literally the worst crime you can think of.. Worst than murder isn't it.. Torturing children..
    When the Govt & Keir Starmer proved they were willing to be complicit in that type of behaviour..

    then, do you really think he cares about; lying.. implementing two-tier policing.. lawfare.. destroying 800 years of democracy.. 300 years of a superb education system.. destroying the countryside.. and anything else you can think of?

    1. And The Idiot King turns on his diesel generator to power the electric motor which turns the blades of the wind generator to make it look as if they are being turned by the wind and are not completely useless!

  57. Just watching the vids posted below – thanks, all.

    The plebs are truly revolting

  58. Katy Balls
    Keir Starmer’s plans to soften Brexit
    From magazine issue:
    03 August 2024

    Anew political bromance is brewing on the continent. Keir Starmer has met Olaf Scholz, his German counterpart, three times since he entered Downing Street last month. Already the two men have found plenty in common. Both are social democrats, both are lawyers from similar backgrounds and both went through a socialist phase before selling themselves on competence. ‘Charisma is largely alien to them,’ said Der Spiegel after the two met recently at Blenheim Palace. ‘Perhaps this is why they like each other so much.’

    Most importantly, Starmer and Scholz are both very keen for a new, closer relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union.

    After Starmer won the Labour leadership in 2020, he quickly did what he could to dispel the notion that he was a diehard Remainer (even if he did once cite Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’, the EU anthem, as the tune that best sums up the Labour party). The new Labour leader, who had called for a second referendum during the Brexit years, changed tack and said there would be no going back. This was partly down to a calculation by his own team that accepting the referendum result would be vital to bringing back disillusioned Labour voters in northern heartlands.

    Although every cabinet member backed Remain, Labour ministers now rigorously stick to the script on Starmer’s Brexit red lines: Britain will not rejoin the single market or customs union. David Lammy, now Foreign Secretary, spent several years campaigning for the undoing of Brexit – even after other Labour MPs let the subject drop. He’d quote Martin Luther King to his colleagues, saying that ‘silence is betrayal’. Yet even he, now, is silent about his own sympathies.

    Still, it’s becoming clear that, while Starmer stops short when it comes to officially rejoining the EU, he wants much closer ties with Europe. Now the party is in government, plans are in motion to bring the UK back into the EU’s orbit. Starmer knows he needs to be careful how he phrases it, but his strategy is to soften Brexit significantly.

    The goal is to reset EU relations through a charm offensive (not words often associated with Starmer) in the hope of securing a better deal than Europe gave the Tories after years of Brexit bad blood. ‘With Rishi and Ursula [von der Leyen] there was an improvement [compared with Boris and Truss] but there was no real goodwill for the Conservative government,’ explains a Brussels figure. The trade deal Boris Johnson agreed in 2019 is up for review in 2026. So it’s already time to talk changes.

    Lammy may be Foreign Secretary but he will not be in charge – or not by himself, anyway. His job will be to build relations with EU counterparts and national governments, but Nick Thomas-Symonds, a longtime Starmer ally, has been asked to liaise with the European Commission and other Brussels institutions.

    It means EU relations have largely been moved back to the centre in the cabinet office. Thomas-Symonds (known as NTS) has held a meeting with Maros Sefcovic, a vice-president of the Commission. Thomas-Symonds and Lammy joined Starmer to travel to the Nato summit in Washington.

    Under Labour plans, it seems, Britain would unilaterally but informally agree to match EU regulations. To the Tories, this means being ‘a rule taker not a rule maker’, but Starmer sees such a move as harmonious convergence – and the key to reducing trade friction and improving relations. Perhaps some extra goodies such as a returns agreement to tackle small boat crossings will be thrown in.

    Starmer shared his theory with centre-left leaders at a conference in Montreal last year. Tension with the EU arises, he says, ‘insofar as the UK wants to diverge… We don’t want to diverge. We don’t want to lower standards… Suddenly you’re in a space where, not withstanding the obvious fact that we’re outside the EU and outside the EEA, there’s a lot more common ground than you might think’.

    The first step is likely to be a deal to harmonise veterinary standards – which studies suggest could boost food exports to the continent by a fifth. The Commission is open to the idea on the conditions that the UK takes their rules and accepts the jurisdiction of the EU’s own court, the European Court of Justice, on any disputes. This could then act as a blue print for more industry specific deals. Not so long ago, ‘no to the ECJ’ was a Brexiteer mantra. That’s about to change.

    The new approach will come as a relief to Brussels. The European fear was that the UK would use Brexit powers to diverge, cut red tape and become a ‘Singapore on Thames’ in order to attract vast amounts of international capital. The Tories, of course, did none of that. But Starmer has little interest in using Brexit powers to compete with the EU – his interest is in getting closer to Brussels.

    His job has been made easier by the paucity of Brexit dividends delivered so far. Polls suggest that 60 per cent now think Brexit was a mistake. In the eight years since the referendum, a string of modest bilateral trade deals have done little or nothing to improve living standards. Immigration control has not, to put it mildly, lived up to its billing. Meanwhile, voters have noticed the frictions Brexit has caused, from the issues over Northern Ireland to the passport control queues at airports.

    Starmer will not make any explicit promises but hopes the change in mood music – conveyed through meetings and warm words and gestures, such as the possible return of the Elgin Marbles to Greece – will suffice. When Rishi Sunak cancelled a meeting with Greece’s Prime Minister at the last minute over a row about the Parthenon Sculptures, Starmer was quick to reach out. The two premiers are due to meet soon.

    Starmer also has found a somewhat surprising ally in Dublin. The Taoiseach Simon Harris did not like the Rwanda deportation deal, saying it was sending more small boat arrivals to Ireland. But now Starmer has scrapped the scheme and relations are on a better footing. Ireland used to be a block in the initial Brexit negotiations; Harris is now keen to ease trade across the Irish Sea. He regards Starmer as a more acceptable ally. The Prime Minister is not just surrounded by people with links to Ireland (two of whom, Morgan McSweeney and Sue Gray, are his most senior advisers) but has also spent much time there for work and holidays. ‘If Tory MPs said they knew Ireland it was often because they did a tour in the Army,’ says one insider on the perceived difference.

    But it is Germany that has been leading the charge to bring Britain back in from the Brexit cold. Lammy’s first visit as Foreign Secretary was to Berlin to announce that ‘we will not rejoin the single market or the customs union, but there is a lot we can do together’. His German counterpart Annalena Baerbock has cheerfully said she is ‘examining with the new British government how the UK can move closer to the EU again’.

    Lammy’s proposal, aired at the recent Munich security conference, is to begin with defence and then widen out into energy, climate and migration issues. Security is viewed as a point of strength for the United Kingdom – so a good place from which to start discussions. What’s more, doubts over how long the United States will fund European defence mean there is a need for countries on the continent to up their commitments on military spending.

    Keir Starmer and Olaf Scholz in Washington DC, 10 July 2024 (Getty Images)
    The list of EU demands in return is growing. Germany, for example, would like more cross-Channel mobility for young people. Other EU members may then seek their own bolt-on requests, such as improved access to fishing in UK waters. After the success of the recent Blenheim Palace summit (agreed by Sunak for all European countries, not just EU members) there is talk of the first UK-EU summit since Brexit – perhaps early next year. Anytime sooner is unlikely given the Commission is just starting the process of selecting new EU commissioners who would start their terms in November.

    It’s ultimately the European Commission that makes the final decision on any negotiations. The Commission’s President Ursula von der Leyen still ‘calls the shots’, says a Brussels source.

    Von der Leyen, re-elected last month, could have the power to agree concessions – she did so with Sunak over the Windsor Framework negotiations. And given she’s on what is likely to be her final term she could want to make a legacy for herself by smoothing the UK-EU relationship further. However, there is a reluctance in Brussels to enter any big renegotiation, so the best Starmer can really hope for are mini-deals added to the current deal. What’s more, the Commission wants the UK to honour all the agreements already made – including checks on goods as part of the Brexit agreements involving Northern Ireland.

    There is also the question of what the UK is willing to give. This week No. 10 slapped down reports that Starmer is open to the idea of a youth mobility scheme that would see young Europeans travel to the UK without the paperwork, which leaders across Europe have cited as a priority. The fear among Starmer’s allies is that it could be attacked as the beginning of a return to freedom of movement. Yet the Prime Minister is unlikely to make much progress on sticky issues such as the mutual recognition of services or reducing the red tape for touring British artists without giving something back.

    Then there’s the question of whether there are any Brexit powers Starmer might actually find useful. A test case will come with Chinese cars. To hit his ambitious net-zero targets, Starmer will need more electric cars on the road – but they’re still expensive. Will he join the EU in imposing big tariffs on Chinese electric cars when Chinese-made vehicles are coming on to the market at such competitive prices? How the government responds to this question will reveal much about how Starmer plans to balance climate, the economy, Europe and national security.

    In his first few weeks on the world stage, Starmer has made a good impression. In Brussels, he is viewed as ‘workman-like and not playing to the gallery’. EU chiefs see a leader with whom they can work. However, a lot of the European focus is elsewhere – with the potential return of Donald Trump, the challenges of migration and EU competitiveness in the globalised economy. In the words of one blunt EU figure: ‘No one here is talking about Brexit.’ Starmer may discover, as David Cameron did, that when it comes to Europe, warm relations only get you so far.

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

    Bill Rogers
    3 hours ago
    Three weeks in we have Miliband's climate madness, a 22% capitulation to blackmailers quickly followed by Reeves robot-like defence of the election lies, the beginnings of the Cooper strategy for society – "Blame the EDL", and now we can add the worst kept secret in the history of Spectator garden parties – appease the EU. The Blob has gone from Sunak's steady drift into the woke swamp to Starmer jumping off the cliff.

    Trojan
    2 hours ago edited
    What a dreadful position to be in. A fawning prime minister making exactly the same mistakes as all the others, namely not realising that the EU sees any negotiation as one way traffic. Thatcher was the only one who understood this and got us our rebate. No one else got anything.
    This of course is at least partly because of the treacherous civil service and Labour Party sabotaging Brexit at every opportunity.
    As a minor example, how is it that EU citizens go through UK passport lanes, but we go through rest of the world ones when entering the EU (unlike Switzerland as an example). The only explanation that I can think of is that our Remainer negotiators wanted every passenger to regret Brexit.
    I love the way that article glosses over the terms of a rapprochement, which essentially would amount to a caving in.

    1. Starmer is a bureaucrat. He loves legalese and will default to that. He isn't a leader with vision and so loves the minutiae. He will do incredible harm and not understand – or care – why.

    4. Thank goodness, Stig – we were beginning to worry that you had been arrested for your well-known far-right proclivities!

  60. What Labour's raid on pensioners reveals is that it will start with them in its desire to impoverish the country and turn it into a net zero taxation tyranny.

    If any of you think that Britain has gone to the dogs, pop over to https://www.freespeechbacklash.com/ for confirmation by Xanda H.

  61. I tended to find that while I had very little against her in the days I took the Spectator, Katy Balls' role was most characterised as the sweetener of bad news. She certainly never wrote anything original: just radiated, so to speak. That article's sole purpose is in my view then, to lay some groundwork and to get people used to the idea, as in:

    "In his first few weeks on the world stage, Starmer has made a good impression. In Brussels, he is viewed as ‘workman-like and not playing to the gallery’"

    The final paragraph tells you all you need to know about nearly any Speccie article.

    As for Lammy, all that needs to happen is for journos to relentlessly repeat two questions for as long as he's Foreign Secretary: a thing I do not suppose they'll do;

    1. Mr Lammy, is silence still violence?

    2. Mr Lammy, is President Trump still a threat to democracy?

  62. I have read a lot of comments on forums such as this regarding how terrible the Labour Government are turning out to be. Are people really surprised by their actions, history has always shown them up for what they truly are.
    A comment I posted elsewhere but is still true is that on July 4th people had a choice at the ballot box on where to place their X, vote for inconsequential parties, the Limp Dums, Greens or the like, or vote for the red or blue cheeks of the WEF arse, or perhaps vote for a party that at least offered a glimmer of hope for the country, Reform UK.
    It is early days for Reform, hopefully over the next 5 years they will become more credible and show they are working for the UK, not the WEF, UN or the WHO and gain even more votes.

    1. I believe Peter Hitchens has the right to say I bloody well told you so.
      From June 2024.

      Peter Hitchens, people say you're always right.
      Ah, but unfortunately always too late..

      it's astonishing to watch so many people in modern Britain determined to ensure the election of a Labour government even though they don't support it. people are so relaxed about it. what does it matter. well it does.. it's an important moment.

      I am constantly reminded of how I felt back in 1997 when everybody around me said well what does it matter if we get Blair gets in? Let's give him a go, he looks nice. I said No. He's not nice. And it wasn't nice.
      He started with an extraordinary brutal raid on private pensions from which it never recovered.. ended the independence of the BofE, the bizarre appointment of Alistair Campbell & Jonathan Powell to give civil serpents all the power they needed, and not accountable to either houses of parliament.

      I promise you when starmer gets in there will these types of things about to happen. They are vigorous with radical ideas and are geared up to restart the extraordinary ambitious Blair project to transform the country with a green frenzy and continue the sexual revolutionary agenda DEI stuff at expense of anything else.

      We are dealing with dogmatic egalitarian spitemongers..

      1. It was a downward spiral with the Tories too. At least this won't be a drip feed and people will see the uni-party for the stinking carcass that it is.

    2. It's the surprise I don't understand. This is what Labour do. It's their fundamental MO!

      1. The public sector votes Labour for more money.
        The welfarists vote Labour for more money.
        Stupid people vote Labour because 'da torwees' despite being pig ignorant morons.
        Lefies vote Labour because they're spiteful, tedious, ignorant bores.

        Basically, Labour are sustained by the greedy, the thick and the bitter. Thus their policies are ignorant, thick and spiteful and why they always leave the country in a complete mess. Left wingery is wrong. It is evil.

        1. While I don't disagree in general, I think you overlook that millions of Conservative voters deliberately voted for other parties. That clearly had an effect on the FPTP system that caused so many Liebour MPs to be elected.

        4. What is worrying is that only 22% of the potential electorate voted for them, if you include the ones who did not turn out in the overall percentage. 22% – to give absolute nutters the opportunity to destroy the UK! And many of them will only have voted because they were sick of the other buttock Tories.

      2. Only 22% of the potential electorate voted for them. Most will be welfare claimants or beggars of some kind. Some will be the perverted sleb class and some will be the parasite class who like virtue signalling. The workers and/or thinkers/those with hard won assets, will not have voted for them. And I think many welfare claimants will hate Labour too and will not have even bothered to turn out. So basically, the loonies and beggars voted for them.

      3. Given the appallingly low turnout for the GE, I'd say it's not so much Sane and Sensible People voting them in, but Sane and Sensible People being so disappointed by the Conservative (In Name Only) Party that they either did not bother to vote, or, like myself, they voted Reform in the full knowledge that Labour were going to get in, whatever we did.

  63. I have read a lot of comments on forums such as this regarding how terrible the Labour Government are turning out to be. Are people really surprised by their actions, history has always shown them up for what they truly are.
    A comment I posted elsewhere but is still true is that on July 4th people had a choice at the ballot box on where to place their X, vote for inconsequential parties, the Limp Dums, Greens or the like, or vote for the red or blue cheeks of the WEF arse, or perhaps vote for a party that at least offered a glimmer of hope for the country, Reform UK.
    It is early days for Reform, hopefully over the next 5 years they will become more credible and show they are working for the UK, not the WEF, UN or the WHO and gain even more votes.

    1. I am afraid that I found what she had to say almost impossible to hear. Also her voice appears to be out of sync with the sound….

      (I hope she did not catch cold, by the way..!!)

      1. Give the page a refresh and try again – I heard the voice ok – it is a bit 'chavvy' but the point is entirely valid.

    2. It is not true that Labour haven't given empathy to the public. They're set about deploying tthe police to ensure the muslim is protected. That's very empathic. That it is entirely Labour's fault that such vermin are here at all, when they've absolutely no right to be is beside the point.

      We all know who the state protects. We know who they pander to. The real question is why? Why are 30 million stone age savages here? Is it just to give the state a massive job to do in policing, security, welfare? Is it really just to allow the state to be an obese, useless blob?

  65. I believe Peter Hitchens has the right to say I bloody well told you so.
    From June 2024.

    Peter Hitchens, people say you're always right.
    Ah, but unfortunately always too late..

    it's astonishing to watch so many people in modern Britain determined to ensure the election of a Labour government even though they don't support it. people are so relaxed about it. what does it matter. well it does.. it's an important moment.

    I am constantly reminded of how I felt back in 1997 when everybody around me said well what does it matter if we get Blair gets in? Let's give him a go, he looks nice. I said No. He's not nice. And it wasn't nice.
    He started with an extraordinary brutal raid on private pensions from which it never recovered.. ended the independence of the BofE, the bizarre appointment of Alistair Campbell & Jonathan Powell to give civil serpents all the power they needed, and not accountable to either houses of parliament.

    I promise you when starmer gets in there will these types of things about to happen. They are vigorous with radical ideas and are geared up to restart the extraordinary ambitious Blair project to transform the country with a green frenzy and continue the sexual revolutionary agenda DEI stuff at expense of anything else.

    We are dealing with dogmatic egalitarian spitemongers..

  66. I believe Peter Hitchens has the right to say I bloody well told you so.
    From June 2024.

    Peter Hitchens, people say you're always right.
    Ah, but unfortunately always too late..

    it's astonishing to watch so many people in modern Britain determined to ensure the election of a Labour government even though they don't support it. people are so relaxed about it. what does it matter. well it does.. it's an important moment.

    I am constantly reminded of how I felt back in 1997 when everybody around me said well what does it matter if we get Blair gets in? Let's give him a go, he looks nice. I said No. He's not nice. And it wasn't nice.
    He started with an extraordinary brutal raid on private pensions from which it never recovered.. ended the independence of the BofE, the bizarre appointment of Alistair Campbell & Jonathan Powell to give civil serpents all the power they needed, and not accountable to either houses of parliament.

    I promise you when starmer gets in there will these types of things about to happen. They are vigorous with radical ideas and are geared up to restart the extraordinary ambitious Blair project to transform the country with a green frenzy and continue the sexual revolutionary agenda DEI stuff at expense of anything else.

    We are dealing with dogmatic egalitarian spitemongers..

  67. A couple of the woman are decent but I agree with your list of abominations. The women you mention are absurdities of the first order. I like Christys too. Wasn’t aware that he finally go married. So congratulations to him, hope he has a happy marriage.

    1. NOT OFFEND MUSLIMS! is a very odd name for an RAF Squadron and I was in No 6 Squadron, The Flying Tin Openers.

      2. 390674+ up ticks,

        Afternoon MM,
        I can’t believe you are responsible for this current CAN of worms, are you ?

  70. Not terror related you said, very early on.

    Chief Constable Serena Kennedy said: 'Whilst these charges are a significant milestone within this investigation, this remains very much a live investigation and we continue to work with our partners from Lancashire Police and Counter Terrorism Policing North West (CTPNW).

    Has something changed?

    1. You will be told what to think when the state has decided what that is. Until then you are far right and must be suppressed. Ignore what happened. muslim good, you bad. Big city, normal life, get raped diversity strength.

  71. Weather forecast for my area was thunderstorms this morning. Clear blues sky.

    I'll get me watering can.

    Also, my toilet became blocked and i couldn't clear it so got a man out. 5 minutes = £50.

    Made me laugh when i saw the reg plate on his van…POO SOGO.

      1. I just have visions of flushing the toilet and some big foam monster erupting from it if I squirted washing up liquid down there.

        1. We were on our honeymoon (all the money had gone into building our home) and when I flushed the toilet the first chamber of the septic tank overflowed.

          Fortunately I had the architect’s drawings to work out how far down to reach into the first chamber to clear it.

      2. When i had my bathroom remodeled i had the WC moved and the old pipe took the new shower drain. With the extra pipework and a new pipe for the sink…simple methods don't work. Needed a good prodding which is what it got.

      1. Good advice, Johnny. The pipework is a little more complicated and the guy that came around today is coming back tomorrow with cameras. All included…I hope !

  73. This should be interesting.
    A totally unsolicited phone call from The Energy Saving Centre, from a Manchester number, has led to me making an appointment for one of their "Loft Insulation Inspectors" to visit to inspect my loft insulation.
    I am looking forward to giving him a full verbal broadside before telling him to FOXTROT OFF in VERY basic and crude language.

    1. Hello Bob

      You visited us years ago when you were passing through to Weymouth on your train , so you will have remembered we live in a largish chalet house , not bungalow , several stairs , and two lofts T shaped property , and dormer windows upstairs , and loads of space in the eaves.. Can be cold in winter , we have no heating upstairs , just a few portable oil filled electric heater .. so four bedrooms upstairs no heat , one bedroom on the ground floor heated as are the kitchen, dining room and living room and hallway

      We are so well insulated now , cavity wall , replaced old windows 8 years ago and loft insulation , the property is so warm, I feel ill at the moment .

      Our home was built as an individual home by a builder for himself in the eighties , he went bankrupt , we have lived here a couple of decades or more , and it is too expensive to sort plumbing out and put in proper facilities . It would mean ripping floorboards up and creating huge problems .

    2. There seems to be a new process where they cover the inside of the roof with insulation rather than lay it on top of the ceiling. Imho there is already too much insulation in my loft as it gets damp in winter

      1. When they did ours they installed these vent things in the tiles so moisture would get out. Not sure how effective they'll be.

        1. The roof is vented where the walls meet the roof, if its sealed with insulation it must be vented to avoid condensation. Homes are not meant to be airtight. We open our windows every day to ensure a change of atmosphere.

  74. Nicked
    Starmer is a Davos puppet. He's admitted it. He's BOASTED of it.

    And Davos says that the invasion must continue. All dissent and opposition to the invasion must be ruthlessly suppressed.

    Lie and prevaricate for as long as that works to keep the British people unhappy but docile.

    When they show signs of uprising quell them with no mercy. Have the police browbeat, intimidate and beat protestors. Have the media vilify them.

    It's all worked so far.
    Medley
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/231679c19f27cef00bd81f706ca5d20fc273c213edcd109911dd4f67393a90f6.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dc5b8fc381dc707abd1eb4650065f90b81c775e78c26b8490177b0cca198eb82.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ac32896b4ab407bb568c62befe9f45562703bb5c46d7c2b4c1dd6cbfe0ead83b.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/40142b857a9953d8a965190f69bea10f890150c0c6f0ca98b2ce19eccbd7aa0f.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1a370c74715728bad9b39c1fcbfeaeb96d4b4bfe0dab2ac881052d8b8220a27a.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6e551612be21473aa7905176ceaf743c357caf48da3147cdd569a20354107c18.jpg

          1. Then the BBC will suggest deep fake rather than deep state. They really do need to be ended.

      2. Whatever makes the police do that? I mean, the PC in the helmet – my experience in the past is that they are decent people, not social justice warriors or some kind of rectionary revolutionary – so, why go along with plans to provoke the crowd, and lift totally random folk? That will become well-known, and will damage relations badly.
        Or, is the big plan that the police lose all trust – in the same way that the media have lost all trust? The current excitement over misinformation only came about due to the government and cronies suppressing all information, yet allowing it to become easy to tell what they meant by what wasn't said… or was that the plan, too? They used to say in Libya that you could tell by what wasn't said – and the way it wasn't said.
        I'd better go & lie down in a dark room…

    2. I remember a clip of a Russian ship off the coast of Somalia and the men aboard opening fire and wiping out the pirates.

  75. OH NO!!! The poor, poor little lefty organisers of the Olympics' opening porn show were upset by a traditionalist theme park's popularity. They are sick and sad

    Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony Was Created to Reject Popular Conservative Theme Park Celebrating French History

    OLIVER JJ LANE 1 Aug 202416
    7:04
    One of the stranger facets of the deeply controversial Paris Olympics opening ceremony is the apparent agreement by its creators that part of its purpose is to refute — of all things — a French theme park and its traditionalist approach to national history.

    The fact one of France’s most popular tourist attractions is a theme park celebrating French history appears to be an annoyance that lives rent-free in the head of some, with the park repeatedly cited as a key driving force to make the Paris Olympics opening ceremony last week as anti-“heroic” as possible. When discussing the controversial ceremony, its creative team don’t seem to be able to stop talking about the place.

    But what is this tourist attraction, apparently so powerful that it influenced France’s Olympic games opening ceremony?

    Puy du Fou is a theme park in the Loire in Western France, founded among the ruins of a historic Chateau in 1978 by, as he is described by the left in French media, the “ultra-rightist” businessman and politician Philippe de Villiers. As disapprovingly noted in some reports about him, de Villiers is a “royalist… a Eurosceptic nationalist who has been criticised for his anti-Islam and anti-abortion views.”
    The park eschews the rollercoasters most commonly associated with theme parks and instead treats guests to vast theatrical productions exhibiting French history. This is no niche concern either: this theme park without rides pulls millions of visitors a year and is easily one of the largest tourist attractions in France, snapping at the heels of Disney World.

    Among the spectacles are a Roman Amphitheatre staging gladiatorial battles and a recreation of a Vikings raid, including a longship. The highlight of the park, a show it claims is the largest theatre production in the world, sees 2,500 actors changing through 28,000 costumes to tell the story of France from the Medieval era to the Second World War. The park hit headlines in 2016 after it bought a medieval ring said to have belonged to French heroine Joan of Arc, which had spent 600 years in England.

    Given the deeply conservative views its founder and the self-professed mission to “honour ancestral knowledge,” the existence and popularity of Puy du Fou has long irked left-wing thinkers – which has apparently created a very deep-seated desire to, pretty weirdly, repudiate a theme park and prove it “wrong”. Indeed, several of the top members of the creative team which produced the controversial opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics last week – already disowned by sponsors and even its own Youtube channel – found themselves unable to avoid talking about it.

    Presumably comfortable to be speaking her true feelings to the French Communist Party-backed newspaper L’Humanité, French media celebrity screenwriter Fanny Herrero, who co-wrote the Olympic ceremony, cited it as an example of what the creative team strove to avoid, saying their vision was a “counterexample” to the park. She explained that, in her view, the idea of France portrayed to tourists there is “a frozen, heroic, virilized look at history. We [instead] describe a movement, the idea that the French spirit is the effect of influences, collisions, accidents.”

    L’Humanité, which refers to the park as a “reactionary circus”, reflected of the remarks in their editorialisation and said: “All this makes particular sense, going against a ‘national romance,’ made up of great men, great dates and long Christian roots, so popular with the right.”

    An article this week explained how Paris’s River Seine inspired the multicultural vision of ceremony artistic director Thomas Jolly, saying the constant movement of the water is a “beautiful image for a portrait of country’s identity, which is constantly changing and being renewed.”

    Jolly also wrote for national newspaper Le Equipe in 2021, outlining then his core vision for the Olympic display he would go on to direct in 2024. Here, even in the earliest days of the conception of that performance, that traditionalist theme park is already looming large. In a whole section of the essay titled “Let’s not do a Puy du Fou project,” Jolly stated:

    Each ceremony, and this is what I find very beautiful, tries to take a picture of the country and its place in the world at the moment of the Games. What does France have to say to the world?… Let’s not do a Puy du Fou project that retraces the history of France.

    […]

    Let’s take the major chapters of the history of France and turn them towards the future…. I would not make a show to the glory of France’s past and its heritage, it’s dead! It must be a show of a new humanism, where each person in their singularity, in their culture, their sexuality, their language, their skin colour, their religion, feels in a respected and respectful place within society.

    Consulting the show-producing team was French historian Patrick Boucheron, who cited other past productions and said his idea for the Olympic ceremony was one that “thwarted national stereotypes and was not afraid to advocate global crossbreeding.” The event should be the opposite of the Beijing Olympics of 2008, “an ode to greatness and a demonstration of strength,” and so be “the opposite of a virile, heroic story” instead, he said.

    French conservative newspaper Le Figaro, which calls Boucheron an “activist historian,” noted he has his own obsession with Puy du Fou, having railed against that “favourite target” as a “hostile environment” and the “key location in the cultural battle led by the reactionary right.”

    The deep loathing for this theme park may not, paradoxically, be something the French Olympic committee may necessarily strongly agree with their opening ceremony team on. Indeed, the Olympic Torch relay route taking it from Greece to Paris this year saw the flame take a stop at Puy du Fou, where it was paraded around the Roman amphitheatre.

    And to be clear, the loathing is not all one sided. The Olympic opening ceremony was castigated by Christians and cultural conservatives world-wide. Indeed, Puy du Fou park founder Philippe de Villiers had his own words for the Olympic opener last week, writing in Le Journal du Dimanche that ” everything was ugly, everything was woke … It was wild, crazy, deformed, unsightly. We acted out before the whole world the suicide of France.”

    Obsessions aside, it is not above some in the French left to leverage Puy du Fou to their advantage, too. In 2016, then-French Finance Minister Emmanuel Macron travelled to the park and stood alongside its conservative owner, the first French left-wing politician to have ever done so.

    While there, he posed on a Roman chariot in the park’s amphitheatre and declared himself to not be a socialist. That same year, Macron founded his personal political party and declared his intention to run for President.

    The rest, as they say, is history.

    2. Joan of Arc spent 600 years in Britain? Crikey. Only 97 more and she'd have got back in pension payments what Gordon stole from her in tax.

    4. The opening ceremony is unwatchable ideological insulting rubbish
      If they had copied Villiers ideas it would have presented France in a much better light.

      Our opening ceremony from 2012 was so enjoyable i watched it twice. Involving her Majesty was inspired.

      When the Left tried to involve her Majesty it was a total cringefest.

  77. At 12 o'clock BofE will lower interest rates to 5% I reckon.. get the JCBs ready to convert the farmland.

      1. Not all turned mad and jumped ship as in care homes where their savings and property sales will cover the costs of millions of invaders. Who of course rely solely on benefits, and will get winter fuel allowances.

      1. Most of them are habitual and pathological liars.
        The very worst possible creatures to be running the show.

      2. Yes. It was the installation of Rhyming that made it obvious that the endgame was in progress. And so it accelerates.

    1. Please stop posting photographs of this revoltingly stupid, thick dumb arse labour bitch.

  82. It's remorseless,never ending one can only hope and pray the lads father is UDF or Provo
    https://www.tiktok.com/@kierangower1988/photo/7388878207262395681?_d=secCgYIASAHKAESPgo8aGvD6ounGQ%2BxdsRB3e%2BFH1%2B%2FjZ4nbRdUVFRFHS56a2KuqrJi23Hoqd2uf%2BtlpQpFlIqlfBQ5eUD7PaOFGgA%3D&_r=1&aweme_type=150&checksum=cabd1b323b6d3f15dab67b9ff9f6c0be29eee452365040c6491eec6c55a3c050&pic_cnt=1&preview_pb=0&sec_user_id=MS4wLjABAAAAhR8o6hD5rOWsIT5IGuPT-shaUv5AmLHXiKbk5jNstus55d0bP102egn6E3aAWGXL&share_app_id=1233&share_item_id=7388878207262395681&share_link_id=7f5fb726-e0d3-4f95-9ce5-f5a4b3968d30&sharer_language=en&social_share_type=14&source=h5_m&timestamp=1722508234&u_code=edhdijja67ci76&ug_btm=b2001&ug_photo_idx=0&ugbiz_name=UNKNOWN&user_id=7358169470126523425&utm_campaign=client_share&utm_medium=android&utm_source=copy

    1. Handy hint: in a url, everything from the first question mark can usually be dumped.

      1. Aye, it's tracking cookies. But few folk know what to remove, leading to these things. Honestly, it'd be a lot easier if websites respected privacy and didn't shove this tripe everywhere.

        1. "…it's tracking cookies…"

          Or parameters that load up a sub-page of a website.

      2. Something I learnt by trial and error.
        I had no idea about the tracking stuff; it just appeared to be cumbersome and unnecessary.

  85. A boxer deemed a 'biological male' today won against an Italian woman in one of the most controversial Olympic bouts ever.

    The fight took 46 seconds and her Italian opponent threw her helmet onto the floor as the fight was abandoned.

    She refused the handshake, fell to the canvas sobbing as the emotional Italian broke down in tears after just two punches.

    Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, 25, fought Italy's Angela Carini, 25 despite being banned from a major boxing contest before the Olympics.

    After the match was stopped, the referee raised Khelif's hand in the air. But a visibly furious Carini yanked her hand away from the fight official before exiting the ring without shaking her opponent's hand.

    Ignoring the Algerian, the Italian fighter then dropped to her knees and burst into tears as she said she had never felt such strong blows in a contest before.

    Speaking after the match, the heartbroken Italian said: 'I have always honoured my country with loyalty. This time I didn't succeed because I couldn't fight anymore. So I put an end to the match.'

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13697397/Boxer-Imane-Khelif-cleared-compete-Olympics-despite-deemed-biologically-male-leaves-Italian-opponent-tears-fight-abandoned.html

    1. Absolutely effin ridiculous – very spineless decision by the IOC, but that's no surprise! Basically the IOC view is "it says woman on her passport, so that's OK"!!

      1. All woman sports people should refuse to compete against biological men. And a complete boycott of any tournament or competition which allows men-born 'women' to enter should be strictly observed.

        1. I agree. It's a travesty.
          But – many women can shoot more accurately than men.

          1. And in some sailing and horse riding events women are just as good as men and can complete on level terms.

      2. The problem is they have all trained for 10+ years for this opportunity and for some it may be their last chance. The IOC should hang their heads in shame.

    4. Men fighting women is going to have the woman seriously injured or killed. Male bodies are designed to hunt, fight and kill. That's why they're bigger. These are not fantasies, they're plain, biological facts.

      I train with a tall, boxy lass and she can land a hefty blow on me but it'll bruise. If I go full out on her I'll break her bones. This was wrong, the trans cannot be allowed to enter against women.

    5. That male should have either fought other males or been disqualified. There should be no place in female sports for these males.

    6. The IOC should resign in shame. This is nothing less than authority approved grievous bodily harm and assault against females.

  86. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/23c44a550f83f6a917dca1a8777d01bda8ce0445ef8a1c7239152c9532349f05.png

    Saw that beneath the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buH6n49VSy8
    Milioaf is wasting 8,000,000,000 on the pointless 'great British energy'. To make a profit in five years it needs to make 1.8,000,000,000 every single year in profit.

    We're a small services company and for the now 7 of us, the wage bill is about half a million, our office costs around £1000 a month for electricity and ground rent some £3000. On top of that there's the big van, the little van and my car, which I drive about and the company pays petrol for , so 3 tanks of fuel a month. Then there's crippling business rates, waste taxes, green taxes, duties, corporation tax – you name it. last year we made about 50,000 in profit and shared it entirely equally pro rata, giving a bit more by majority vote to the young kiddie who started in August but has worked like stink. No one knew or expected that windfall, but hey, we came in under support contracts.

    Bluntly, to make that 50 we had to earn about a million. Thus Milioaf is suggesting that pointless energy will be making, in revenue, 18bn a year – which is about a third of IBM's global revenue. It doesn't make anything, has no properties, holdings, product or value. Also, as it'll be chock full of public sector troughers, wasters and Lefties the wage bill will be far higher so we're really talking 20bn a year revenue, every year.

    He's a liar. I doubt he's ever seen a profit and loss sheet in his life. Mrs Clarke could do better than most entire government departments, and she'd be more efficient.

    1. He might have seen a P&L, but will have no idea how to get the figures printed in black to grow to a size where there's a decent margin.
      Congratulations on your profit, BTW!

      1. I honestly don't think he ever has.. Milioaf has lived his entire life in the state, living off other people's money. He's never made anything. He is a student politician suddenly finding his grand dreams of socialism are possible by destroying, completely, the UK energy market.

        And thank you, I wasn't expecting it!

  87. There's now a picture of the piece of dung that murdered those kids in the DT, complete with a name. Reporting restrictions lifted.

    1. Pictured: Southport suspect, 17, named as Axel Rudakubana
      The teenager is charged with murdering three young girls at a Taylor Swift themed holiday club

      Martin Evans,
      CRIME EDITOR
      1 August 2024 • 12:31pm

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/08/01/TELEMMGLPICT000387903294_17225118624180_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bq6MorF_KQdzjxU0qYQClKmzXaG_3FkRG2WH2SGzlVXbs.jpeg?imwidth=680
      Axel Rudakubana
      The 17-year-old charged with murdering three young girls at a Taylor Swift themed holiday club in Southport can be named as Axel Muganwa Rudakubana, after reporting restrictions were lifted.

      The teenager appeared at Liverpool Crown Court on Thursday morning charged with three counts of murder and ten counts of attempted murder. He was remanded into custody.

      The 17-year-old, who turns 18 in just six days time, was born to Rwandan parents in Cardiff before moving to the village of Banks in Lancashire.

      This is a breaking news story. Follow for more updates.

        3. What drove him to ALLEGEDLY kill children. He is entitled to a fair trial.

          Perhaps he doesn't like Mondays? Silicon chip switched to overload?

          1. Lets not ignore facts. Of course the lawyers will make all sorts of excuses and some will believe them.

  89. There are many academics and intellectuals who become very interested in the religions and culture of the middle East and these are studied in many British universities. T.E Lawrence and Edward Fitzgerald became Arabists who were completely fascinated with the subject.

    I would be very interested to hear if there are any Islamic P.G. Wodehouse Appreciation Societies.

  90. Southport suspect, 17, named as Axel Rudakubana. 1 August 2024.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3e9e4c86ed4393b6480921ccd1af81fe2e77ef29829adbfadd159d5bbe5e3f73.jpg
    The 17-year-old charged with murdering three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed holiday club in Southport can be named as Axel Muganwa Rudakubana, after reporting restrictions were lifted.

    That would be one of the Cardiff Radukubanas then?

    No Comments Allowed.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/01/southport-suspect-named-axel-rudakubana/

      1. Sue Edison's recent memo advising me that the photo may not be recent – has been 'REMOVED'

        What is going on?

    2. Anybody can see that this is not a recent photo of a 17 year old. This is, in effect, a lie and the police and the PTB cannot see that the more they lie the less they will be believed?.

      Even if his parents are not Muslim there is no reason to be sure that he has not been radicalised.

      1. As I have said in a few places, people dont just go out of the house to a specific place and murder random people. There has been instigation from somewhere.

    4. I wonder why its not a recent photo.I bet he looks at least 20. Why have they released his name perhaps those on here in the know can tell us why the law has been broken.

      1. As he turns 18 next week the judge decided in was in the interest of national security to release his name now to avert further rioting.

    5. The picture is not recent, as acknowledged elsewhere.
      He kept his face covered throughout the proceedings.
      The judge put him into youth custody with a caveat that that might change when he reaches 18 in a few days time.

      Just a thought:
      It might save a lot of time and trouble if he was put in with hardened criminal adults who might well express their displeasure at what he did.

    7. The judge has been very perspicacious in making the point that the more information is made available the better for the public at large in this case. Perhaps the good judge ought to stand for PM, given that neither he nor his Home Secretary seemed to think that was at all relevant over the past few days.

    2. My Italian colleague tells me that the name Carini is from the south of Italy. Hopefully the poor lady has some…err, useful contacts.

      1. What are you saying? Contacts? In peaceful Mediterranean idyllic villages? What good would that be?

    3. Sorry just had to add my own spin to it after you Jonathan. It is indeed a disgrace.

  92. Southport lawlessness

    SIR – It is sad that ignorant people caused trouble in the streets around a mosque in Southport on Tuesday evening (report, July 30). Which aspect of British or English values were they upholding?

    We have systems of law and democracy to decide matters – mob rule is a catastrophe. The alleged murderer should get a proper trial under English law, regardless of race or beliefs.

    Hate attacks by thugs do not help anyone. Those wanting to riot should try to switch their brains on first, just in case they have the intelligence and decency to decide instead to be law-abiding citizens.

    If that is not what they want, they are welcome to exit the UK and leave the rest of us in peace.

    Dan Hartley
    Solihull
    _______________________________

    SIR – Following the brainless vandalism in Southport after the tragic child murders, is it now time to restrict the open sewer that is social media ("Police say name of Southport stabbing suspect on social media is wrong", report, July 30)?

    Mike Aston
    Stourbridge

    Two more idiots. I wonder if Mr Hartley was as outspoken about the 'mostly peaceful' riots of 2020. Mr Aston is clearly in support of a Ministry of Truth.

    1. How many letters expressing worry about the divisive nature of mass immigration and horror at the perpetrators failed to see the light of day, I wonder?

  93. When it suits the PTB and the MSM they will accept that a heavily-bearded 25 year old illegal immigrant is a 12 year old child.

    Also when it suits them they show the photo of a child of 12 and expect us to believe he is a 17 year old murderer.

    Is the murderer really called Axel Rudakubana?

    Is he really 17?

    Is he really not a Muslim?

    The whole purpose of News Management is to distort the truth but the more times you distort the truth the fewer people will believe you.

      2. Where has the photo gone?
        Who removed it and why?

        Axel Rudakubana is no longer under judicial wraps …

    3. Only 2% of Rwanda's population is Muslim and if he was, I would expect to see a name that makes this apparent although I may be wrong about this. What I fail to grasp is what motivated him to turn up to a dance/yoga class to murder young girls. There must be an ingredient in this that explains such a horrendous attack. Was he on medication- we have some background regarding his behaviour and that normally goes hand in hand with various prescriptions that appear to be a common denominator when it comes to mass killings but this is not mentioned.

      1. He could well be a muslim convert, especially if his friends are muslims; he is more likely to hang out with the brown-skinned ones than the white in his youth. Converts often ascribe more zealously to the doctrine of the cult than those born into it, they have to prove, perhaps to themselves, as well as others in the cult, that they are a worthy member.

      2. I realise that there are similar classes in Colchester. But, without some research, I would not have a clue when or where they are held.
        How would a 17 year old boy know the timing and location of such classes for primary school age girls without checking beforehand? (Even given his alleged appearances on the stage.)
        This event was neither spontaneous nor random.

  94. When it suits the PTB and the MSM they will accept that a heavily-bearded 25 year old illegal immigrant is a 12 year old child.

    Also when it suits them they show the photo of a child of 12 and expect us to believe he is a 17 year old murderer.

    Is the murderer really called Axel Rudakubana?

    Is he really 17?

    Is he really not a Muslim?

    The whole purpose of News Management is to distort the truth but the more times you distort the truth the fewer people will believe you.

  95. 390674+ up ticks,

    Just musing,

    Seeing as seeing the doctor is now limited to 25 a day and say on average 250 a day invaders coming in ALL given preference over the indigenous peoples, we the fully paid up members of the nation insurance stamp may NEVER see a doctor again.

      2. Wait until they are offered a minimum of £15.00 a pop to jab people's arms.
        Then the 25 patients per day will go straight out of the window.

  96. Swap sausages for beans to reduce risk of Alzheimer’s

    The Daily Telegraph,1 Aug 2024, By Laura Donnelly, HEALTH EDITOR

    SWAPPING sausages or bacon for beans or tofu could cut the risk of dementia by nearly a quarter, a study has found.

    Research looked at the links between processed red meat consumption and a person’s risk of developing dementia.

    Scientists from Harvard analysed a long-term study involving more than 130,000 people. They were tracked for up to 43 years and entered information on their dietary habits.

    They were asked about how often they ate processed red meat, such as bacon, hot dogs, sausages, salami and other processed sandwich meat.

    They were also asked about their consumption of nuts and legumes, including peanut butter, peanuts, walnuts, other nuts, string beans, beans, peas, soy milk and tofu. More than 11,000 cases of dementia were identified during the follow-up period.

    Consuming two servings of processed red meat each week appeared to raise the risk of dementia by 14 per cent, compared to consumption of about three servings a month, according to the study, which has been presented to the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in the US.

    The researchers found that replacing one daily serving of processed red meat for a daily serving of nuts, beans or tofu may lower the risk of dementia by 23 per cent, with 20 per cent lower odds of cognitive decline.

    There was no significant link found between unprocessed red meat and dementia risk.

    Previously, studies have suggested that processed meat fuels heart disease, with growing evidence that what is bad for the heart is bad for the brain.

    The new study could not prove any causal link between the foods consumed and the risk of dementia, but scientists said the preservatives and salt in such foods might be fuelling the risks.

    Laura Donnelly "Health editor". Health destroyer more like. Do you realise, you stupid, vacuous cow, that you are nothing more than a vessel for promoting the WEF/UN/Global Corporations/Big Pharma agenda?

    Every single day, nowadays, we are being told of a new 'study' and 'research' that tells us to stop eating nutritious meat and substitute it with vegetation. It is all erroneous hogwash and is part of a WEF and UN plot to diminish the population. You are far more likely to develop Alzheimer's by eating weeds, sugar, carbs and seed oils than you are by eating your natural diet of red meat.

          3. I order it by the 5 litre keg for my beer machine. I first came across it in Paris.

    2. The new science: statistical correlation = causation; modelling = reality.

      I have my own scientific stance: unwanted advisor = sad busybody.

      1. Here's a story — possibly apocryphal, but who cares — that I read t'other day:

        Yesterday two older ladies made a comment to me that they liked my tan.

        I said, “I love sun and sun loves me back.”

        One of them (who was breathing from oxygen tank) said, “Yes, I used to love it too … until I learned that sun causes skin cancer.”

        I informed her, “The sun does not cause skin cancer. It is the consumption of sugar, processed foods and seed oils that cause it. If it were the fact that the sun was responsible for causing skin cancer, then humans would be extinct by now!”

        The two ladies simply sat there with an incomprehensible blank look on their faces.

        1. Yes, excellent observation. Mind you, good job you’re not a cockerney cove. They might have been pretty bemused by the idea that the Sun loves backs.

          …I’ll get me coat.

    3. Hey, Beatnik, there ain't no decent hogwash around- not like Mama used to make it back at the Old Homestead, Hombre. This Al Zheimer Dude is muscling in everywhere, these days, Pal. He needs to get some greasy grits down him and leave folks to dribble and drool their own sweet way, all this "healthy eatin' mumbo-jumbo" is just makin' Big Bucks for the Fat Cats, Honcho.

      1. Way to go, Dean. I saved up my polk salad and turnip tops to feed to the stockyard rats before I boiled 'em up into a nourishing soup, Dude. You make do and mend as a Bo, Bro; and there's no VAT on my vat of shunting yard broth for the Head Honcho of the IRS to cream off, Compadre.

        1. Hey Beatnik, you stick it to that IRS Man, Dude, he's way out line- he ain't no "Young Girl" either, for sure. He's a mean old misbegotten tub of lard, Pal-sticking his filthy meat hooks into the hard won dough of hard workin' blue collar all-American heroes, the sonofa B, Hombre.

    4. ‘SWAPPING sausages or bacon for beans or tofu could cut the risk of dementia by nearly a quarter, a study has found.’
      Is it just me or does that introduction imply that sausages and bacon protect against dementia relative to beans and tofu?

      1. You tell me. I find the standard of English — in what purports to be “journalism” in this new-age DT — to be impossible to read, comprehend, assimilate or understand.

  97. Care cap scrapped

    SIR – The decision by the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, to scrap a cap on social care costs (report, July 29) should be applauded.

    Why should I, a basic-rate taxpayer, help to keep others in their dotage just so that their children can inherit hundreds of thousands of pounds? If children want to inherit, they should look after their parents. We only need to look at the NHS to see what a catastrophe state-funded provision would be.

    At present, money paid for care goes into the largely private sector providing that care. Low levels of supply and high levels of demand result in high fees. Reducing regulation and increasing wages should result in more companies entering the market, driving prices down.

    John A Landamore
    Lutterworth, Leicestershire

    What a nasty letter. My mother had to go into a care home because she had become a danger to herself. Even though she recognised me and my sister, she had otherwise lost her ability to manage her life, indeed even to have a conversation. Within a couple of years she was doubly incontinent. Tell adults in their 50s or 60s that they should look after parents in this state.

    In this story, hats off to the hospital social workers who dealt with our case in the early days and a week in the stocks for the consultant geriatrician who told me I should take her home, give up my job and look after her for the rest of her days.

    1. Quite so.
      I see so many of these holier than thou denigrations of those whose parents are in residential care. I doubt that many of them realise the serious difficulty of supporting many of those who have dementia. Some may be quiet and sleep most of the day but many are aggressive, loud, wander off, fall over and are subject to incontinence. The children of the elderly are often quite elderly themselves and may have serious medical problems.. When I was a child I didn’t know any of the next 2 generations who were supporting very elderly family members. But large numbers of my contemporaries have found themselves in this position.

      1. Crazed teacher friend's father has Alzheimers. His favourite activity is to attack people and bite them.
        Imagine that at home 24/7, and then you have to go out & work…

      2. I had to care for MOH who had dementia. It nearly finished me off, it made me so depressed. The strain was unrelenting. Aggressive, leaving taps running, nearly setting fire to the house, wandering off and in the end doubly incontinent – being a carer in that situation was no sinecure.

    2. Difficult, William, when you child is in Tasmania – not exactly next door to me in The Scottish Borders.

    3. I wonder why I, a basic rate tax payer, should help to pay for people who've never contributed to the system, lived on benefits all their lives and made no effort to provide for themselves? They don't come under my definition of "the deserving poor".

  98. Yet there are more guns in circulation in the UK than ever.
    I exported my guns to Norway, so they were not seized by the police. When the firearms officer came round for an inspection, I showed him the receipt and a pile of other papers (my air ticket, my baggage tag and so on) and he said "Bloody well done. This won't solve anything, just make people cross!".

  99. Even that requires strength. I once tried to pull the trigger on a pistol and my fingers were simply not strong enough. Plus with larger guns women can be hurt by the kickback?

  100. Boxer wins bout when Italian opponent quits.

    "Algeria's Imane Khelif won her his bout in just 46 seconds after the Italian Angela Carini quit in the round of 16 match in the 66kg category.

    A boxer who was previously banned from competing in the world championships because she he failed testosterone and gender eligibility tests has won her his opening Olympic bout after her his opponent quit."

    Good for Carini, but…

    Funny isn't it. Blokes claiming to be women always seem to pop up in sports where you get a legalised chance to bash a woman. And with people applauding you for doing so. What's not to like?

    The Woke Games continue apace.

    https://news.sky.com/story/paris-2024-boxer-who-failed-gender-eligibility-test-at-world-championships-wins-olympic-bout-in-46-seconds-after-opponent-quits-13188674

  101. Awful night last night, it was soo warm. Diarrhoea and sickness. Not us, the poor little dog. We finally got him settled round about 4.00 am. Just dropped off to sleep about 4.30 am when he decided he wanted to go out for what turned out to be a very long tiddle. His preferred method of waking us is to stand on us and lick our faces. We finally all settled down about 5.00 am. I am now preparing food for a family BBQ on Saturday, the icecream is churning in the kitchen, the potato salad is underway, the poshdogs are in the 'fridge, the meringues will be made tomorrow. I think it is all under control but I'm exhausted. I hope everything is calme et tranquille tonight….

        1. Thanks Tom – it's going to be warm I think so hopefully well – attended. Hard work too.

    2. Phew! I hope so PM! Poor little chap – I hope he's ok now too.
      It was very warm and sticky last night but we slept ok.
      Just about to load the car with all the stock for our three day weekend at the Steam Fair. We're setting up laterr this afternoon.
      This evening a little neighbourly get-together to celebrate a retirement.

    3. My dog (14+ years) hates the heat, pants a lot, wearing himself out (and my patience, sorry to say). Shouldn't complain, think the weather due to break soon – possibly just in time for weekend. BBQ sounds good especially food, have a great time everyone (incl any dogs:-)

    4. I eventually got off to sleep at 3am. At 4 I have a paw land on my stomach and a whuffing on the head as Mongo wants to be let out.

      It was appallingly hot. Put a cold blanket around him and ran the paddling pool. Didn't really want to leave the door open but not much choice. Our bedroom was 27 at 11pm.

      Make sure you're drinking a lot and stay cool when you can.

    5. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6398e69d20ff10821200e12f9ca42f181e2020fef35eb4427518d8764cff957f.jpg

      It is very warm and humid today.

      I hope you manage to relax for a while .

      Bio plain yoghurt , cooked chicken and cooked cold rice ( the microwave packet plain rice )just a little offered , but I suspect you know all about pup stuff .

      I think we all need some sleep, Moh comes from a different planet , golfing , sunbathing , fiddling around and not a trace of heat problems , pink face or perspiration .

      He copes with the heat very well , Pip spaniel and I are enjoying the fan in the living room .

      2. I learned very early on that fishing anything out of Oscar's mouth was a severe risk to my fingers!

    6. My sympathies poppie. I'm sitting here in a puddle of sweat. In the house it is 27c. It makes me feel ill. I'm trying to get up to get an ice cream but apathy rules.

    7. I hope you have more success that we did yesterday with our posh tea with visiting niece and co.
      It turned out that both of us thought the other was having tea at their house.
      It was a terrible combination of niece originally planning to drop in after a dental appointment in Colchester; as we were out that day we fixed a new date.
      Then Sonny Boy and I popped round when we were passing through Long Melford but niece was on holiday.
      Messages between us ('Look forward to meeting up on 31st.') didn't exactly make matters any clearer.
      However, all was not lost. MB and I had posh tea for our evening meal (the scones were scrummy and the Victoria sponge to die for; MB scoffed chocolate brownies and went into raptures over the cucumber sandwiches). And Sonny Boy's family had an emergency delivery of posh tea stuff which saved them from having to cook last night.
      As we delivered the comestibles, we sang "Feed the Woooorld"

      1. We don’t know. The symptoms would suggest that (both ends instead of one or the other!) and he has recovered quite quickly. He is not as fastidious as Poppie who, after the first year didn’t pick up anything that wasn’t offered to her.

    1. I hope they can piece it back together. And kick out the perpetrators after they've suffered in jail.

      1. If it can’t be pieced together again tie pieces of rock to the perpetrators ankles and drop them mid Atlantic.

    2. As a comment below the line on Twitter says: "Make the Crusaders Great Again."

      1. Didn’t you post a few days ago about RAF 14 Sqn being banned from using the nickname “Crusaders”?

    4. Like the giant buddas the intellectuals of the TalibanIsis blew up. These people can only destroy, because that's all their inbred brains can cope with. If we dropped a few atomic bombs on their godforsaken rat holes then we would be doing the world a hugh favour.

  103. Typical – painted three-quarters of the front of two sheds – then the sun came out. Paint was dry between can and door. Bugger. Will have to finish off later.

  104. So the native population has now realised what our immigrant communities have known since the 1960s
    Rioting pays, you don't get any respect from the state by taking things on the chin and turning the other cheek.

  105. They could be good neighbours – pop round and offer to help with his training.

    1. Oh yes. A purely educative matter borne out of neighbourly good will. Yes, that'll be it. I'm so unfamiliar with the culture. Seems we could all learn a thing or two from Italian familial existence.

  106. Here we go:
    "Russian fake news about Southport attack is ‘grey warfare’, says former MI6 head."

    Asked whether X, formerly Twitter, had become a “wild west” under the control of its owner Elon Musk, Sir Richard said Mr Musk’s approach to the social media platform represented “a split in America between those who believe in control and … absolute freedom and anarchy”.

    And I think it was Facebook that got caught out censoring the "iconic" assassination photo.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/01/russian-fake-news-southport-attack-grey-warfare-mi6/

    1. The Marxists have taken over everywhere. In the end if they think the people will roll over and give in, they should check their history books they have never read.

      1. If Lefties knew anything they wouldn't be Lefties. The fact that Lefties exist is the mendacious arrogance of fools who think they know better than every time their mindless ideology has been forced.

    2. Why would the Russians bother?
      1. The west – especially Britain – it is collapsing itself very nicely.
      2. What on earth would the Russians do with the decaying husk – a good 1,500 miles from Moscow?

          1. He doesn't own all the 99 year leases; freehold values of those properties are worth a lot less. A cousin of mine forced Grosvenor Estates to sell her the freehold on her tiny mews house down an alley in Belgravia…nifty transaction which paid for itself several times over.

        2. I cycle home though Kensington Park and Richmond Park and both are wall-to-wall 4 women in burkas with children and one man. Just saying

      2. An opportunity to attack Musk as he's the only social media giant that is not "on side" with the approved narrative.

        1. And the attacks come from the kind of people who own Tesla cars, which always amuses me.

    3. Yes, blame Russia. But honestly, our country is now so messed up, of course, those who dislike us will point to the ruinous doings of our unhinged, ruling, parasite class. Let's face it, our parasite class leave us wide open to mockery.

  107. I see the JSO protesters at Heathrow have been arrested. Funny, don’t you think? When JSO started glueing themselves to roads and suchlike they were just allowed to get on with it. What is the difference? It’s nothing but a political decision.

    2. It was that those on parole have violated that to pursue their demented crusade. They won't learn. They're fanatics. They don't care about the law. They're zealots.

      The way to punish them is to say 'here, you have no tools made in the last 250 years. All yours'. And allow nothing in or out. They'll be dead within months and will learn that their psychopathic arrogance is the end of them.

      But of course, folk forget that 'green' is not about the environment or ecology. It's all about controlling society and forcing it in their image.

      1. When all this ends we must show no sympathy to the supporters of this eco insanity. Of course, take care of our planet but the zealous and unhinged eco brigade have no sane limits.

    4. I think I liked it better when the children of the rich were presented at Court and did the Summer Season. They spent a lot of money but it was their own and they left the rest of us alone.

  110. meanwhile at the sodom and gomorrah Olympic games.. Italy's Angela Carini quits after being pummeled into a puree by chick-with-a-dick Algerian opponent Imane Khelif.
    Just because Imane has a voice like Barry White & testicles the size of rugby balls.. doesn't make her any less feminine.

  111. Prince Harry and Meghan to visit Colombia at invitation of vice president. 1 August 2024.

    Their trip will come ahead of the first Global Ministerial Conference on Ending Violence Against Children, which takes place on November 7 and 8.

    It was announced via the vice president’s office, shortly after Prince Harry said he would not bring his wife to Britain because of the security threat to his family.

    Last week, in an ITV interview about tabloid phone hacking, he said: “Whether it’s a knife or acid, whatever it is, and these are things that are of genuine concern for me. It’s one of the reasons why I won’t bring my wife back to this country.”

    Wait till he meets the Cartels.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2024/08/01/prince-harry-meghan-visit-colombia-invite-vice-president/

    1. Bet Harry thought that he was being invited to visit Columbia University's campus at 116th and Broadway, NYC

    3. "Violence Against Children", really? Colombia featured in the movie Sound of Freedom, about child traficking. When they're not dealing in drugs, they're screwing little kids and there have to be guns, these people always have guns. I see UNICEF and the WHO are involved. These people really do take the piss, don't they?

  113. Starmer talking about the far right .

    He doesn't talk about Muslims, or far left extremism .

    What about Black Lives Matter , he is a bleeding kneeler for goodness sake .

      1. True_Belle
        @True_Belle
        ·
        1s
        Why doesn't Kier Starmer talk about the badly injured Lt Colonel , why doesn't he refer to the breakdown of law and order in London and other cities, black youths creating terror?

        1. Because he knows he can do nothing about it. Just flip-flops from one policy to another without resolving anything.

        2. Because he's just yet another POS and a useless lying political creature who makes his living out of hateful controversy.

      1. Nope.
        From the ES newsletter

        There are a number of reasons why the United Kingdom is not going to join the United States of America as the 51st state any time soon. But chief among them is not geography. The distance between the town of Hamlin, Maine and Rockall, a tiny granite islet in the North Atlantic claimed by Britain, is 2,327 miles – less than that between California and Hawaii.
        With a median household income of £35,000 before taxes and benefits, regardless of how you swing it, the UK would be closer to states such as Mississippi and Arkansas than our imagined equal, New York. Still, our relative poverty is not the biggest stumbling block either.
        That would be our politics.
        The UK makes Vermont look like a hotbed of hard-right fantasists, with an exclusive Ipsos poll for The Standard finding that Britons would prefer to see Kamala Harris in the White House over Donald Trump by a 50-21 margin.

        I don't possess the maths to calculate exactly how many electoral college votes the UK would receive in such a scenario. Needless to say that with almost double California's population, Harris would not need to worry quite so much about retaining Nevada and its six electoral votes. Indeed, such is the chasm between our two political cultures that it is not even surprising for the survey to find that Tory voters would prefer a Harris win, by 38 per cent compared to 23 per cent for Trump.

  116. Elon Musk has accepted an invitation by Nicolas Maduro, the Venezuelan president, to a fight following criticism of his contested re-election.

    Mr Musk, the world’s wealthiest man, repeatedly criticised Mr Maduro on his social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, accusing him of “major election fraud” and labelling him a “dictator”.

    Mr Maduro was declared the winner in Venezuela’s election on Sunday, but electoral authorities have failed to disclose detailed results to back up the claim.
    The result has been widely called into question, with the US and EU demanding Venezuelan authorities release detailed voting data.
    “Shame on Dictator Maduro,” Mr Musk wrote on X on Sunday.

    In response to Mr Musk’s attacks, Mr Maduro declared on national television in Venezuela on Monday: “Do you want to fight? Let’s do it. Elon Musk, I’m ready. I’m not afraid of you, Elon Musk. Let’s fight, wherever you want.”
    On Wednesday afternoon, Mr Musk tweeted: “I accept”, adding that Mr Maduro “will chicken out”.

    “If I win, he resigns as dictator of Venezuela,” Mr Musk posted to X. “If he wins, I give him a free ride to Mars.”

    I do like the cut of Elon's jab!

  119. There is a petition around against the governments proposed robbery of British pensioners winter fuel payments.
    Sorry I can't post a link my computer has broken down there were already nearly ten thousand signatures when I discovered it earlier.
    If someone else can track it down and post it, passed around it will soon become another mass debate in Wastemonster.

  120. A cheese-less Birdie Three?

    Wordle 1,139 3/6
    ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Well done, par here.

      Wordle 1,139 4/6

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

      1. Not terribly inspired here…
        Wordle 1,139 5/6

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

    2. Par for me.

      Wordle 1,139 4/6

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

      1. Plodding along behind with a par
        Wordle 1,139 4/6

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

  121. Starmer will not allow far-Right to co-ordinate ‘summer of riots’. 1 August 2024.

    During a press conference to address the escalating disorder, Sir Keir Starmer was asked whether he was worried that Britain could be facing a “summer of riots”.

    Sir Keir answered that the violence was a “coordinated” action by the far-Right, and said that the government would “ensure this is met with the most robust response in the coming days and weeks”.

    The prime minister said: “It is obvious to me and obvious to anybody looking in that as far as the far-Right is concerned this is coordinated, this is deliberate, this is not a protest, it is a group of individuals that are absolutely bent on violence.”

    Ahhh. If only he was as concerned about little girls being stabbed. This of course is the totalitarian state responding to the challenge to its authority. As always repression is the answer.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/01/southport-attack-latest-arrest-riots/

      2. Dim as a Toc H Lamp.

        (The more dated a cliché becomes the more comfortable it becomes.)

          1. I think Toc h was a refuge for soldiers in the great war. Ypres, maybe, and the entrance was lit by a dim lamp.

          2. Talbot House abbreviated to TH which, in the signaler's alphabet at the time was enunciated as "Toc Aitch".

        1. Prick the fat sausage with a fork, or with one of the machetes/knives favoured by his scum enrichers, and watch the fat and filth seep out.

    2. Who are the "far-Right"? The violent anti-Jewish riots, the people running amok with machetes, the aggressive actions of our two-tier police force towards indigenous British citizens, the involvement of various Jihadi groups in the weekly hate marches calling for the eradication of Israel, Hate not Hope and the pro-Fascist Antifa look pretty "far-Right" (in the sense this term is usually deployed) to me. Full blown anti British Nationalism and hatred directed against our culture and our people – and , natch, the Jews. Although the bullying, dogmatic authoritarianism is, as we know, historically, more a feature of the far-Left.

    3. 1. The Far Right does not really exit to any measurable extent;
      2. What Starmer refers to as 'the Far Right' is not violent – it is composed of normal people who feel they have been overwhelmed;
      3. The lies that this piece of excrement and his colleague issue are breathtakingly poisonous.

      1. Is that what they call a strawman? Building something that doesn't exist up, as a reason for repressive action? Looks like that's what's coming soon – lockdown, to stop the Right from doing their dastardly deeds.

    4. Starmer is little different from the majority of the UK's politicians and officials. They know deep down that the country is hurtling towards disaster and that immigration is largely responsible for it. They cannot bring themselves to admit to it and just hope that they can deflect criticism towards the 'far-right' for as long as it takes them to run away (or at least make arrangements to do so).

      We must hope that soon the demonstrations grow but remain peaceful and that a good distance can be kept from dim-witted, beered-up ex-football hooligans.

    5. Smarmer is fixated on the idea that there is a far right movement within this Country and that any expression of disgust towards the actions of terrorists, murderers etc. is a conspiracy of the far right against his authority. He appears incapable of understanding the feelings of good people that have been traumatised, horrified, disgusted, terrified etc. by the actions of savage criminals.

      His total lack of empathy with people that are hurting is not a trait one would wish in a PM.

      The continual, I thought of writing drip-feed but in reality it has become a torrent, of rhetoric against a mythical far right is being "managed" in such a manner that Smarmer will use it as an excuse for a harsh clampdown.

      We are in very dangerous times with this Labour government.

      1. To all those simpletons and quarter-wits whose voting patterns in the recent general election ensured a Labour government:

        I hope you all reap what you have sown!

    7. Starmer has been the no. 1 fan and enabler of mass immigration. Together with his fellow comrades Yvette and Lammy.

  122. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13340201/Huw-Edwards-invited-worker-hotel-room-Prince-Philip-funeral-BBC.html
    Am I missing something here? Please note one of the texts sent to the young man afterwards saying "We had a nice evening after the show". Is this the same BBC (among others) who revelled in Boris Johnson's downfall over eating some birthday cake with people he worked with all the time? And since when was a funeral "a show"? It is just as I suspected, all those in the MSM berating everyone else, especially those in No.10, for breaking Covid rules were, behind the scenes, doing exactly the same only with bells on. Hypocritical doesn't even begin to describe it.

        1. Please don't talk about the BBC that way. They will double the licence fee.
          When someone posted earlier about Savile, Rolf, Schofield and now Hugh they forgot Garry Glitter…real name Paul Gadd. Fucking bastards. No wonder they play down muslim grooming rape and bombing…That's who they are.

          1. And now we are similar abusive behaviours with Strictly. Seems our National Broadcaster facilitates paedophilia, rape, bullying and abuse.

            Stop paying the fee !

          2. I did some years ago, lots of ever increasingly threatening letters, one visit some years ago from an "inspector" , who agreed with me that tv was boring but still the letters arrive, sometimes in a red envelope. Gosh that did scare me!!!

          3. It's Crapita isn't it? They go after the single women with kids on council estates as they are easy meat…in both senses…They also get bonuses for convictions just like those fucking bastards in the Post Office.

          4. I had some around last month. Can we come in and check your equipment – "no, Anything else I can help you with". Bye!

          6. I've been licence free for 5 years now and don't get any threatening letters since I made an on-line declaration that I didn't need one. I still watch what I want on catch-up TV and you don't need a licence for that

          11. Interesting note there, Phizzee. Someonoe did mention there were more powerful figures involved in the rape of children by pakistani muslim paedophiles.

      2. The leading political parties in this country (as well as the BBC) operate a hypocracy.

        1. In the words of Tracey Chapman (or Luke Combs, if you prefer)

          “You still gotta make a decision
          Leave tonight, or live and die this way”

    2. From the long, long list of overpaid zealots to be overpaid to advise the Great Man at our expense, this one caught my eye:

      "Paul Ovenden – Director of Political Strategy. A former journalist and party veteran, who left under Jeremy Corbyn but returned as head of communications in June 2020. During the election he ran the party’s successful attack unit and landed more than 150 anti-Tory stories."

      Full list of troughers to be found on the Speccie, as if one needs even more depressing news.

      Why is there no journalist looking in to the ethics of Sue Gray and her hinterland?

      1. Because the teenage scribblers are in awe of her. She is the primary school teacher they were all frightened of.

  124. Well – got the fourth shed door painted. Finished just as the MR returned from a trip to Narridge. She was (as they say these days) well impressed. Second coat on Saturday.

    Good that Stig looked in briefly. At times such as these, we need his calm objective comments.

    That's me gone. Got to get the knuckledusters out in case the perlice call in.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

    1. At least your labours were appreciated.
      Now you are such an experienced shed painter, would you care to sort out my shed?

      2. I can’t for some reason post my witty reply to Bill below, so here it is:

        Four candles?

        🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️

  125. Now GPs are taking industrial action, supposedly about funding. Not that we would know any difference these days.
    They claim that, "The latest data shows that GP practices delivered 28.6 million appointments in June, which is nearly five million more appointments compared to the same month in 2019."
    Deliberately misleading figures. From the experience of most patients, GPs themselves now deliver far fewer appointments than they did before 2019. There may well be more appointments carried out at GP practices, but most now seem to be by nurses, HCAs, the far inferior 'physician associates' and other so-called health care 'professionals.' These substitutes have neither the training nor qualifications to properly diagnose patients, with many potentially serious illnesses being misdiagnosed, ignored or missed altogether.
    Is it time GPs were brought under direct employment by the NHS rather than as private contractors who are often a law unto themselves?
    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/health/other/nhs-gives-vital-update-for-patients-as-gps-begin-immediate-industrial-action
    and
    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/health/other/striking-gps-will-hit-patients-hard-and-bring-nhs-to-standstill-for-months-experts-warn

  126. What the hell is “far-Right”?

    I wish the press would cease using idiotic, made-up, descriptions such as the risible (and eminently unprovable) term, "far-Right" (or “extreme-Right”, or "hard-Right"), which simply does not exist. “Far-Right" is a mythical concept invented by the far-Left (which does exist) to provide a smokescreen to cover the excesses of the various opposing factions of their own wing.

    Being called “far-Right” is simply an absurdity.

    Being labelled ‘far-Right’ is preposterously idiotic. If you are on the Right of the political spectrum it means you shower, work, know the words to the national anthem, belong to a family, voted Brexit, eat meat, and prefer single-sex lavatories. Have I missed anything?

    Oh yes, I've missed a lot. It also means you love life, liberty, freedom and the pursuit of happiness. You are an independent, self-sufficient and self-reliant individualist who has aspirations and are innovative. You are a knowledgable, entrepreneurial, enterprising and hard-working individual who enjoys low taxation and small government. Moreover, your preference is a free-market economy, and you do not go in for mob-handedness, rioting and civil disorder. You expect these positive attributes to be encouraged and rewarded. Your self-esteem, your family, your locality and your country come first, and you are prepared to kill (and die) to defend them.
    In a nutshell, you are NORMAL.

    Therefore it logically follows that to be ridiculously labelled as being ‘far-Right’ means that you must be extremely free, extremely happy, extremely independent, extremely self-sufficient, extremely self-reliant and an extreme individualist; who is extremely aspirational, extremely innovative, extremely knowledgable, extremely entrepreneurial, extremely enterprising, extremely hard-working, and enjoys extremely low taxation and extremely small government, etc.

    If that is the case, then you may call me extremely ‘far-Right’ until the cows come home.

    1. When Lenin is 'far Right' by the media's idoelogy everyone is. It's the latest slur now that racist doesn't work.

      Burn the entire thing to the ground. They are useless, not by their inability to act, by their desperation to suppress well deserved dissent caused by their own miserable, evil actions.

      1. Debunking the myth of the “far-Right”.

        Let this sink in. There is no “far-Right”, “extreme-Right” (or “hard-Right” come to that). This invented comical fiction is nothing more than an illusion, created by socialists, to distinguish themselves from their ideological enemies who they have chosen to label as “fascists”. The fact is, though, that both socialists and fascists are products of the far-Left wing of the spectrum of political ideology. Whilst the mobs of Antifa, and their ilk, are generally accepted to be liberals on the far-Left (which, indubitably, does exist), the exact same can be said of their ideological opposites, whom they have conveniently dubbed “fascists”.

        Those who revel in mob-handedness, ergo those who believe that the only way to enforce their own agendæ is by rioting in the name of ‘the People’, may exist in a number of different forms, creeds and calling, many of which are a polar opposite of others. No matter how much each of those groups hate, loathe, detest or simply name-call one another, the irrebuttable (irrefutable) fact is that they are all of a totalitarian bent and all come from the Left.

        Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin all despised capitalism; Hitler and Stalin even formed the Nazi-Soviet Pact to counter it. Their creeds of communism and fascism shared similar beliefs: both demanding totalitarian state control, subjugation of the Jews, and a complete loathing of individualism.

        On the true Right of the political pendulum is conservatism, which values the rights of the individual, encourages innovation and a hard work ethic, and values freedom. True conservatives and capitalists do not form gangs, march, and seek to terrorise those who do not espouse their beliefs. They are patriots who simply get on with working hard to better themselves, their families and their country.

        By all means allow the ragtag mobs of socialists, communists and fascists of the far-Left annihilate one another in their quest for liberal superiority. Just don’t let them refer to peaceful, innovative and entrepreneurial conservatives and capitalists as the “far-Right” or “fascists”. They are far from it.

        “Fascism and Communism are not two opposites, but two rival gangs fighting over the same territory, based on the collectivist principle that man is the rightless slave of the state.”

        Ayn Rand 1905–1982.

          1. It's an irrebuttable fact that cannot be denied or argued.

            But try telling brain-dead Lefties that.

          3. I've never read much Rand, I am aware of her general thrust. I have come to a similar conclusion. Stephen Hicks is good on this idea.

          5. You should read Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead both cracking books by Ayn Rand – written in the 1950s.

          7. Oh I understood and agreed with her right from the start, but I must qualify that by saying that I discovered her through her novels. I did try some of her essays but a bit too heavy for me :DD!

          9. You are one up on me then – I’ve never seen her interviewed :)) Must have been interesting?

          10. That’s a first 😀 it was a good few years ago, b&w interview. I thought she sounded interesting, combative, a different point of view. I just searched internet , there seems to be at least one from 2008, but I think the one I saw would have been earlier, actually on b&w tv.

          12. I think possibly the date posted, didn’t actually run the reel. Just listening to one of your favourites …Mearsheimer…🤔

          13. Night KJ, I’m off to bed! A bit cooler here today and due to be even cooler tomorrow – thank goodness 🙂

          14. I’m already there😄 yes maybe even some rain later in the day. ‘Night PJ, hope to see you tmrw 😊

        3. The Left cannot – ideologically – accept that they are responsible for all evil in the world. They can't bring themselves to admit that they hate, unrelentingly. They are so desperate to deny these basic truths they scramble to label 'the other' as what they are.

          1. What supporters of the Left are far too dim to understand is the clear and provable fact that every Labour administration that the UK has had to suffer has left all the population much worse off financially.

          2. If Lefties understood economics they wouldn't be Lefties.

            What i find funny – and sad – is their eagerness to blame (for example) high prices of energy on energy companies.

            Yes, Centrica have made massive profits. Good! However the high cost of energy is simply their passing the taxes the state levies against them on to fuel bills. They refuse to take the next step and admit the truth – every problem stems from government.

    1. "…whether it's in Southport, London or Hartlepool…"

      Have you forgotten Leeds? Of course, Leeds wasn't started by ancestral white Britons…

      "…a country that will not allow understandable fear to curdle into division and hate in our community…"

      The fear comes from the division…

  128. Alongside all this madness my friend and his wife have had their car vandalised. She's a formidable woman who has made great efforts to integrate into British society. He's a neurosurgeon.

    They're driving down now to stay with us. Damned to hell I hate what the Left have done to this country. Their irrational hatred of all that is good and decent, the abusive 'end justifies the means' has killed hundreds in awful ways. But no. They wanted to pour millions of foreigners on us to 'rub the right's nose in diversity'.

    1. I am sorry to hear about your friends' car. They are collateral damage in the build up to a potential civil war.

    1. He needs to direct His ire at Wastemonster and send a thunderbolt to take out the cabinet.

  131. 390674+ up ticks,

    Can this kneel starmer wallah define his idea of "far right" seeing as there were actions taken from both sides of the odious issue
    POLICE acted as no police of old have acted, now more like snatch squads of a dictatorship.

    We must seriously sort this excessive deaths & serious life long injuries first & foremost, allegedly through actions taken via the political / pharmaceutical brigade we the peoples of decency are seemingly loosing the daily battle with the political governing politico's.

    Dt,
    Southport stabbing latest: Starmer will not allow far-Right to co-ordinate ‘summer of riots’

      1. The only thing he seemed to say was that he would "like" to see Police use more Criminal Behaviour Orders. Well, that'll be good then. Anyone whose name is not actually Tommy Robinson should be safe.

        Looks like the usual stuff. I believe there was a film once. What was it? Can't remember but I do recall a French inspector saying, "Round up the usual suspects".

        Allows him to say that he's doing something about it, I guess.

  132. The Hard Left are having a great week, defending mass murderers, supporting male boxers clobbering women and punitive taxes on pensioners and it's not even Friday

    1. Problem is, they'll do what they know – oppress, suppress and restrict. They won't permit dissent. Fascists can't.

  133. "The far-right wants to create the impression that immigration is a threat to law and order. Police chiefs would argue that it's the far-right that represents the greater danger. The evidence is that there is no link between the level of violence in a community and the number of asylum-seekers or foreign workers. Indeed, despite record immigration in the past few years, violent crime has never been lower."

    Mark Easton, BBC1, Hartlepool.

      1. And room 101 for those who don't believe, and those who don't believe strongly enough.
        we are doomed.

    3. God Almighty! The stuff I've read today makes me want to cut my throat!

      I'm off for now. A demain.

    5. The idiot must be blind and deaf as well as moronic! How many lies did he manage in that short passage?

    6. They refuse to admit they have all been wrong, and smeone like powell was right after all.

    7. If there really is no evidence to link levels of violence and "asylum seekers" then it will be because the PTB have erased it or deliberately hidden it.

    9. "The far-right wants to create the impression
      Doorstep one of these fictitious fascists then, Easton, and let them "create the impression" to camera- put a microphone under his nose, name him, shame him, like that halfwit Allwright does with dodgy double-glazing salesmen. You can't though, can you, because, perhaps surprisingly, the "far right" in this country's effectively non-existent, isn't it, you lying ****

      Police chiefs would argue that it's the far-right that represents the greater danger.
      Let's see you actually interview a "police chief" then, and let's hear him her actually say this to the British public, you lying ****

      The evidence is that there is no link between the level of violence in a community and the number of asylum-seekers or foreign workers.
      What evidence? Cite it, you lying ****

    1. A propos of the story in today’s Terriblegraph of the man swearing on his favourite river (rather than the bible)?

        1. “ A nature-lover serving on a crown court jury has become the first person to take the oath swearing on a river. Paul Powlesland, 38, took the oath at a London crown court with his fingers dipped into a cup of water taken from the Roding, in Barking, east London, where he lives on a houseboat. As he did so, he said: “I swear by the river Roding, from her source in Molehill Green to her confluence with the Thames, that I will faithfully try the defendant and give a true verdict.”

          A LAWYER serving on a crown court jury has become the first person to take the oath swearing on a river.

          Paul Powlesland, 38, took the oath at a London crown court with his fingers dipped into a cup of water taken from the river Roding, in Barking, east London, where he lives on a houseboat.

          As he did so, he said: “I swear by the river Roding, from her source in Molehill Green to her confluence with the Thames, that I will faithfully try the defendant and give a true verdict according to the evidence.”

          Mr Powlesland is a barrister at Garden Court Chambers who specialises in nature protection, employment and housing law.

          He told The Telegraph: “When I was called for jury duty, I was thinking of the thing that was most meaningful for me – something that I would truly feel bound to if I gave an oath on it. I realised it was the river.”

          He took a small bottle containing the river water with him to court and was asked by security staff to take a sip from it – a test required of everyone taking drinks into court to prove the contents are not harmful.

          Mr Powlesland, who set up a trust to clean up the river in 2019, complied but added: “I didn’t swallow any. I love my river, but I’m not entirely confident about what Thames Water might have put in it.”

          The judge looked at him with a “slightly perplexed, but friendly” expression when he told him he wanted to swear on a river but accepted provided he made an affirmation to tell the truth. An affirmation is an alternative non-religious oath.

          Mr Powlesland told the judge that nature was his god and that he treated the river Roding with the same “reverence, sacredness and love in action as many religious people give to their holy book ”.

          He said that he was neither Christian nor an atheist, but described his belief as being “adjacent to Christian spirituality”.

          “I relate to nature as divine and believe our society needs to as well if we are going to stop destroying nature and ultimately ourselves,” he said.

          Last month, he completed a five-day pilgrimage, walking from London to Canterbury with no money, tent or phone and sleeping in hedges or taking sanctuary in church porches during rainy nights.

          On reaching Canterbury Cathedral, he received a blessing from the vicedean and visited the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket, where he “gave thanks for my journey and the blessings that had been bestowed”.

          He said: “I believe one of the reasons our society is so destructive towards nature is because we’ve lost the idea of it being sacred.”

          But, he said that he manifests that reverence for nature in the way that he lives his life and cares for the river through physical action, removing rubbish from it, planting trees nearby, campaigning against water pollution and working to bring back public access.

          According to his chambers website, Mr Powlesland specialises in “upholding the rights of environmental activists to protest and protect the natural world, and uses environmental law and regulations to defend trees, rivers and wildlife”.

          During the lunch break, he went for a dip in Eagle Pond, in the grounds of the court, which he said he was delighted to discover fed into a stream that flows into the Roding, which is the third biggest river in London.

          Jurors can swear to tell the truth according to their own religion. A Hindu would substitute Gita for Almighty God, a Muslim Allah, a Sikh Guru Nanak.

          Even if a juror has no religious belief, taking an oath using a Bible, for example, “shall not for any purpose affect the validity of the oath”, according to the Oaths Act of 1978.

          Anyone who objects to being sworn is allowed to make a “solemn affirmation” instead of taking an oath.”

          2. "I do solemnly and sincerely and truly declare and affirm, that the evidence I shall give shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth."

            That affirmation has been valid for decades. Well before the Oaths Act, 1978 came onto the statute book.

          3. "He took a small bottle containing the river water with him to court and was asked by security staff to take a sip from it "

            Lucky he's not a Dorset man with a houseboat on the Piddle.

          4. My thought was that I hope that the river wasn't too polluted – but perhaps he boiled the water first.

          5. I think he had more sense than that, he "took the oath at a London crown court with his fingers dipped into a cup of water taken from the river".

  137. Toiletless trains blamed for forced door openings
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c80xzny1jr9o

    This a quite appalling story of our hopeless country. It might appear to be a scandal that there are no toilets on the CrossRail trains but then there are none on Tube trains, including those that make long journeys out to Essex and Buckinghamshire. The real scandal is that it took four hours to rescue a broken-down train.

    God help us.

  138. 390674+ up ticks,

    How about those politico's that flooded the country with paedophiles, knifers, mass assorted foreign criminals, that are now the authors of allegedly seriously maiming and killing in a joint operation with the pharmaceuticals pushing an untested vaccine.

    Do they carry on regardless patel ?

    Dt,

    Treat threats to MPs as terrorist offences, says Priti Patel
    Conservative leadership candidate condemns abuse targeted at parliamentarians as ‘attack on democracy’

    1. How about threats to everyone else? Or, don't they matter? Self-important, priviledged git, she is.

      1. Nothing ever changes unless one of the political classes suffers from some sort of 'personal inconvenience'.
        All of these problems have been caused by their joint and rather infectious stupidity.
        None of them are worth a rotten carrot.

  139. I see Steven Lawrence's body is being returned to the UK after resting in Jamaica for 31 years. They just gotta keep the drama going. Don't spose the air freight is going to cost that much though..

      5. ereem, yep, that’s about it. Without putting a political slant on the matter, it is a bit macabre to shift whats left of a body across the world.

    3. I'm going against the grain here.

      SL was killed by racist thugs who got away with it for years due in part to the racism of the police.

      His mother did all she could to raise awareness, and well done her.
      Has she been "elevated" beyond her achievements? I don't know.
      But I do believe that the Lawrence case showed Britain up in a very bad light at the time.

  140. Olympics: Murray's tennis career ends with quarter-final exit – reaction

    Reaction?
    So what.

        1. In Sicily, drag the tips of your extended fingers backwards under your chin, from throat to tip, in a flicking gesture. Means "I don't give a shit!".

  143. I was put on them for a few weeks but then refused to take any more – with diet I got my cholesterol down to normal

  144. So why did team GB send an unfit over the hill Murray to compete in the Olympics when we have much better players being denied the chance to compete.
    Just so he could have a big farewell opportunity that very few cared about.

    1. At least we won't have to look at that giant gob any more which should result in an extra hour of daylight

  145. Evening, all. Have just trialled watching the racing from Goodwood on ITV X. Seems to be okay so I shall be streaming in future. Saving £159 a year is my first step to dealing with Labour's cost of living crisis.

    I have suffered from six Labour governments; none of them has done the country the remotest bit of good.

    1. Just be aware that watching live ITV X requires a licence, Conners. Just don't admit to watching it live if you do.

      1. It wasn't possible to watch it live; I had to wait until the transmission had finished before today's racing would come up. I expect the same will apply to the Racing League going on now. As I don't bet, I'm happy to watch it later. When I used to record it, I often did watch it well after it had finished. I don't watch anything else. If I want non-racing stuff, I have box sets of DVDs or You Tube.

          1. I have decided I'm not going to play their game. As far as possible, I shall become ungovernable. My council is going to start charging for emptying green bins, so I am going to compost more and start shredding garden waste. I shan't pay their surcharge, so they won't get as much revenue as they expect. Enough is enough.

          3. My bin collectors are sneaky. They tear open black bags to ensure you haven't put non-kosher items in. If they find any they take the bags out and leave you an "issue notice" on your bin.

          5. It's been heading that way for a while. I used to think I was reliving the thirties (not that I actually lived then). Now I am not looking forward to reliving the seventies.

  146. 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. In today's speech, Prime Minister Starmer revealed himself to be unfit for purpose . . .

    2. Plenty of ordinary folk will also suffer. It's already been reported elsewhere that 'Tory' areas (if there are such places now) will get far more of this. It is an act of spite by Labour, which cannot rid itself of its predjudice against the countryside and all who live there.

      1. Yes, I saw that. As most rural areas tend to be small C conservative and vote Tory, they are singled out for lack of funding and now punitive building. Labour delenda est.

      2. Everyone suffers in these cases.
        I just pleased to see an incredibly woke luvvee getting some of the medicine that so many lesser people (in their eyes) are getting.

  150. Well, chums, it's only 9.35 pm, but I've decided to head for bed now. Good night, sleep well and I hope to see you all tomorrow morning.

  151. I will just point out that there were other, white, victims of racism that never got a mention, let alone elevating the mother to the House of Lords. That didn't show Britain in a good light, either.

      1. Kriss (can't remember his surname, sorry) for a start. The reason I can't remember his last name was that it barely got a mention.

        1. Kriss Donald.
          The difference being that there was no attempt at a cover up of what it was, a racist attack.
          SL’s case was ignored or the perpetrators were not investigated properly and that was what made it different.

          1. SLs case was not ignored. It was screamed from the rooftops and his somewhat murky life was completely covered up.

          3. At the outset the SL case was regarded merely as a stabbing, not the attack that it actually was. The thugs who perpetrated it were people who I would hesitate to defend, you can if you wish.

        2. Kris Donald 15 tortured and murdered and set on fire by a gang of Pakistanis

          2. It was. And watching the smirking little b*stards going into court was shocking. I could only imagine the terror of the victim.

        3. Kris Donald 15 tortured and murdered and set on fire by a gang of Pakistanis

  156. Further to my earlier report about the BBC in Hartlepool…Easton went on: "Despite the far-right's false narrative, last night's trouble doesn't reflect the attitudes of the community where it happened – nor indeed the country."

    Who did he speak to? A 50/60 year old Pakistani man at the mosque and a blonde Eastern European woman who said she was scared because she thought she had come to a place "that would be safer to raise her kids". Safer than where we were not told. I hope the 'independent' media picks up on this misrepresentation and the sheer arrogance of Easton in presuming to speak for millions.

    You can be sure that someone will point out that the Southport murderer wasn't an immigrant nor were the members of the Southend-on-Sea knife-dancing troupe.

    2. We heard that as well, the flim flammery of the socialist BBCis beyond a joke ,

      Mark Easton or what ever his name is has distorted information in the past.

    3. Reminds me of the time the gone woke church I used to attend claimed to be holding a presentation/debate on illegal immigration. They found a Brazilian Christian who’d worked throughout his time in the UK but had overstayed his visa. The irrational and unspoken suggestion being that he was typical. He told his story and garnered much sympathy. But so what?

  157. Further to my earlier report about the BBC in Hartlepool…Easton went on: "Despite the far-right's false narrative, last night's trouble doesn't reflect the attitudes of the community where it happened – nor indeed the country."

    Who did he speak to? A 50/60 year old Pakistani man at the mosque and a blonde Eastern European woman who said she was scared because she thought she had come to a place "that would be safer to raise her kids". Safer than where we were not told. I hope the 'independent' media picks up on this misrepresentation and the sheer arrogance of Easton in presuming to speak for millions.

    You can be sure that someone will point out that the Southport murderer wasn't an immigrant nor were the members of the Southend-on-Sea knife-dancing troupe.

  158. I wasn’t defending them as you well know, but the fact is that it was trumpeted as a racist attack from day one. Yes, awful but used as divisive tool from the very start. Much as recent events.

  159. The people who decide this bring shame upon the Olympics.

    Olympic bosses dramatically doubled down on their decision to allow two boxers who failed a gender test to compete in Paris – after the opponent of one withdrew from their bout in tears after just 46 seconds.

    Amid deeply disturbing scenes on the outskirts of Paris, Italy's distraught Angela Carini quit her contest with Algeria's Imane Khelif, who was disqualified from last year's World Championships after being deemed biologically male.

    The defeated welterweight was hit twice, suffered a suspected broken nose and barely threw a punch before telling her corner: 'It's not fair.'

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/olympics/article-13699779/olympic-chiefs-boxer-female-rival-angela-carini-imane-khelif.html

  160. 390674+ up ticks,

    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021

    ·
    5h

    ·
    Edited

    This is the real nature of protests at what is happening in our country: thousands of ordinary decent people from all backgrounds congregating peacefully to stand together.

    The few thuggish idiots who throw bricks at police & burn police vehicles undermine all the decent people & merely give ammunition to the very people (.e. the political & media establishment) who promote the very things the decent people oppose.

    It gives the opportunity to call them ‘far-right’ & ‘nazis’ etc.

    Some of the thugs may well be plants & agent provoceteurs.

    This is the real nature of protests at what is happening in our country: thousands of ordinary decent people from all backgrounds congregating peacefully t

    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021

    ·
    5h

    What’s he going to say?

    ‘Far-right, far-right, far-right, stop the far-right’.

    The continual provocation of ordinary decent people was always going to end in repression. That was always phase two of the great replacement.

    There are about 260k police & army personnel in total. If Sir Stazi Starmer intends to crush millions of Brtish people he’ll nerd them all.

    Prime Minister Keir Starmer to hold emergency Downing Street press conference – Manchester Evening News, https://apple

    Unrest flared in Manchester, London and Hartlepool overnight

    http://apple.news

    1. 390674+ up ticks,

      Maybe the knee will come into play again as in, approaching brussels for a large batch of kapos

      1. Brussels is the epicentre of western power corruption. Major organisations are based there close together viz. European Union and NATO Headquarters for example.

        The people occupying this part of Brussels all know each other, they dine in the same exclusive restaurants and send their children to the same schools meaning that their children too get to know each other.

        I liken Brussels to an enormous ant hill where a few super-ants rule and send their lesser ants out to boss the rest of the cerf ant population about, sending them off to overseas wars and otherwise abusing their subjects.

        The world and Europe in particular would be a far better place for all of us if Brussels in its current concentration of bureaucratic agencies ceased to exist.

        1. I'm buying RAID this weekend to quell my own infestation of ants and flying Ants that descended on my lavatory on Thursday last week. There is no window, so how they got there, I've no idea and only the lavatory. Strange???

          Can we find some SUPER RAID for Brussels?

    2. The ones who throw bricks etc are probably ‘placemen’ of the PTB.
      Edit. Replace probably with undoubtedly.

      1. 390674+ up ticks,

        Evening AtG,
        I'll wager a large amount of wonger on you being on target

      2. You are correct.

        Where America leads our idiot politicos dutifully follow. So we know the Twin Towers was an inside job as anyone with any engineering knowledge can tell that this was a controlled explosive detonation. The planes flying into the Twin Towers and other supposed targets was merely a false flag and a diversion. The aim was to give cause for yet another war overseas.

        More recently we have witnessed the cinematic display in America of the so called January 6th insurrection where FBI and CIA plants were all over the place inciting their plants in the supposed mob.

        Almost as though the memories of the assassination of President Kennedy and his brother are now known to have been organised by the CIA and Lyndon Johnson, the FBI have attempted an assassination of President Trump in broad daylight. The mistake however is that everyone has a smart phone with camera. One of the men actually shot at Trump’s Rally in Butler has released footage from his phone which is damning.

        If anyone in the UK even supposed that the likes of Starmer, Yvette Balls, the Ginger Growler and our useless Police ‘Service’ are incapable of instigating false flag provocations for their political ends I have a bridge to sell you.

        We are dealing with habitual liars and dissemblers. Starmer & Co are strangers to the Truth. May they all be exposed and rot in hell.

        1. I’m an engineer with considerable experience and expertise with explosives, and I visited the Twin Towers site not long after the attack. Your first paragraph is total, absolute and unmitigated nonsense.

          2. And Enri hides his/her commenting history and has a very low upticks-to-postings ratio. Just saying.

      3. You are correct.

        Where America leads our idiot politicos dutifully follow. So we know the Twin Towers was an inside job as anyone with any engineering knowledge can tell that this was a controlled explosive detonation. The planes flying into the Twin Towers and other supposed targets was merely a false flag and a diversion. The aim was to give cause for yet another war overseas.

        More recently we have witnessed the cinematic display in America of the so called January 6th insurrection where FBI and CIA plants were all over the place inciting their plants in the supposed mob.

        Almost as though the memories of the assassination of President Kennedy and his brother are now known to have been organised by the CIA and Lyndon Johnson, the FBI have attempted an assassination of President Trump in broad daylight. The mistake however is that everyone has a smart phone with camera. One of the men actually shot at Trump’s Rally in Butler has released footage from his phone which is damning.

        If anyone in the UK even supposed that the likes of Starmer, Yvette Balls, the Ginger Growler and our useless Police ‘Service’ are incapable of instigating false flag provocations for their political ends I have a bridge to sell you.

        We are dealing with habitual liars and dissemblers. Starmer & Co are strangers to the Truth. May they all be exposed and rot in hell.

  161. 390674+ up ticks,

    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021

    ·
    5h

    ·
    Edited

    This is the real nature of protests at what is happening in our country: thousands of ordinary decent people from all backgrounds congregating peacefully to stand together.

    The few thuggish idiots who throw bricks at police & burn police vehicles undermine all the decent people & merely give ammunition to the very people (.e. the political & media establishment) who promote the very things the decent people oppose.

    It gives the opportunity to call them ‘far-right’ & ‘nazis’ etc.

    Some of the thugs may well be plants & agent provoceteurs.

    This is the real nature of protests at what is happening in our country: thousands of ordinary decent people from all backgrounds congregating peacefully t

    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021

    ·
    5h

    What’s he going to say?

    ‘Far-right, far-right, far-right, stop the far-right’.

    The continual provocation of ordinary decent people was always going to end in repression. That was always phase two of the great replacement.

    There are about 260k police & army personnel in total. If Sir Stazi Starmer intends to crush millions of Brtish people he’ll nerd them all.

    Prime Minister Keir Starmer to hold emergency Downing Street press conference – Manchester Evening News, https://apple

    Unrest flared in Manchester, London and Hartlepool overnight

    http://apple.news

  162. Been to see our grandson this evening, he’s 21 today. Smashing young man, 6’2” and built like a brick you know what.
    Very proud of him and the way son and dil have brought him up.
    If all young people were like him the world wouldn’t be in danger of imploding.

  163. Had a very pleasant evening in our neighbour 's garden to celebrate the retirement of our neighbour from the other side. And a few others. It's great to be able to sit outside on a warm evening with good company.

  164. I'm ready for bed, but am waiting up for the DT to arrive home from Bursledon where she's been for an aunt's funeral.
    I've the hot water on and a mug of cocoa ready for her.

  165. OK, DT's safely home and having cocoa before going for a bath so I'm off to bed.
    G'night all!

  170. Two-tier’s speech about the far right “getting on trains and buses…and going to communities that were not their own”

    I’ve said it before and I’ll day it again. I loathe the word “community”.

    1. If as Smarmer claims, so many of us are 'Far-Right', how come his lefty gov't was elected?

      1. Only 18% of the electorate voted for them, Tom. They’re in power because the system is corrupt, not because they were democratically elected.

    2. It is a defensive measure to disguise 'muslim'.

      What i found most abhorrent is the obvious: don't address the root cause, use all the force of the state to suppress and control. Don't resolve the problem, don't do anything to acknowledge it, just stamp on those fighting back against the state line.

Comments are closed.