Friday 2 August: The Government’s counterintuitive approach to house-building

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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798 thoughts on “Friday 2 August: The Government’s counterintuitive approach to house-building”

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

    The Nursing Home

    One evening a family brings their frail, elderly mother to a nursing home and leaves her, hoping she will be well cared for.

    The next morning, the nurses bathe her, feed her a tasty breakfast, and sit her in a chair at a window overlooking a lovely flower garden.

    She seems OK, but after a while she slowly starts to lean over sideways in her chair.

    Two attentive nurses immediately rush up to catch her and straighten her up.

    Again she seems OK, but after a while she starts to tilt to the other side. The nurses rush back and once more bring her back upright.

    This goes on all morning. Later the family arrives to see how the old woman is adjusting to her new home.

    "So Ma, how is it here? Are they treating you all right?"

    "It's pretty nice," she replies. "Except they won't let me fart!"

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

    1. Only 20% of the electorate voted them in.
      The Conservative lost: Labour didn't win.
      And good moaning, Sir Jasper.

  8. Unregulated social media disinformation is wrecking Britain. 2 August 2024.

    Our freedoms must be balanced with responsibility. Free speech must come with accountability, whether you’re a TikTok influencer or the editor of a newspaper.

    These are weasel words designed to justify repression and tyranny. It is worth pointing out that the comments thread to this article are closed as are all the others. That’s the sort of freedom they are talking about. You say what we like or you say nothing.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/01/unregulated-social-media-disinformation-is-wrecking-britain/

  9. Good morning, chums. And thanks, Geoff, for today's NoTTLe page.

    Wordle 1,140 6/6

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    1. A bit dodgy today.

      Wordle 1,140 5/6

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  10. Good morning all.
    A pleasant start today with 9°C on the Yard Thermometer and scattered clouds.

    1. We had enough rain to make life pleasant.
      Well, pleasant until I read about Huge Pervward's pension.

  11. 390749+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Dt,
    The Government’s counterintuitive approach to house-building

    Good a, they will have our unwanted "guests" building houses for
    our unwanted "guests" the kneeler MUST be informed that the bulk of the far right racist, represent the bulk of the English indigenous, and there are warning signs, sirens & klaxons asounding showing him ,quite clearly the English displeasure.

    maybe that is what he seeks, the final confrontation prior to the English spirit being extinguished and manipulative serftom to follow.

    2. Morning Bob. They shut down practically everything yesterday because people kept posting about Southport regardless of the article. So much for Free Speech.

    4. 390749+ up ticks,

      Morning Bob,

      So no information can fall into enemy
      (the peoples) hands, honest loose lips sink governments.

    5. Same happened yesterday.
      Waiting until the kommisars have given the facility the nod.

    1. Morning Oggy. A pretty impressive account of the Doings at Downing Street. It was almost certainly under orders from the incumbent.

  14. 390749+ up ticks.

    Every little helps said the old lady as she peed in he Medway.
    So does your TV licence fee going towards old huwies pension.

    Dt,
    Huw Edwards free to retire on £300,000-a-year BBC pension
    Former broadcaster is entitled to gold-plated deal despite criminal convictions

  15. Good Morning, all

    Cloudy and humid

    They are keeping an eye on us Frights (=Far-Rightists)

    UK Cuts Feed of Police Inquiry Hearing After Witness Admits MI5 Spies Are Tasked with Smearing Political Activists

    The UK Undercover Policing Inquiry was hearing evidence from a former police officer on Thursday when the feed was abruptly cut after he started talking about the role of the government’s domestic spying agency, MI5, in smearing political activists.

    An inquiry into the conduct and activity of undercover policing in the United Kingdom from 1968 to 2008, commonly known as the ‘Spy Cops’ inquiry due to it having been set up over a decade ago in response to claims about police officers entering romantic relationships with female left-wing activists, is hearing evidence from its first former undercover police officer on Thursday.

    Trevor Morris is a former undercover police officer who had used the recycled identity of a dead child to present as Anthony ‘Bobby’ Lewis, a disc jockey and German translator when infiltrating left-wing and activist groups in the early 1990s. As revealed by documents published by the inquiry, Morris takes strong exception to the criticism levelled at the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) undercover unit, arguing it saved countless lives and prevented much disorder by infiltrating radical groups.

    While the SDS infiltrated dozens of groups in the decades of its existence until its role was taken over by the National Domestic Extremism Unit in the years following 2008, one of the cases which has grabbed most attention is that of the campaign for Stephen Lawrence, a black teenager who was murdered in a racist attack in 1993. It has been alleged for years that undercover police officers who infiltrated the Lawrence Family Campaign had tried to find “dirt” to “smear” them.

    Questioning inevitably turned to this during evidence-hearing on Thursday, and while former undercover police officer Morris totally denied the police tried to smear activists, he clearly implied other branches of government did so. He said: “nonsense. That’s not what we’re about, we’re about gathering intelligence, not smearing individuals. That’s a Security Service job, let them do that. We’re about gathering intelligence, that’s what we were doing.”

    Apparently realising what he’d said, the police officer quickly followed up by remarking: “Sorry, I shouldn’t say that… let’s scrap that last bit, I’m not saying that”.

    David Barr KC, lead counsel to the inquiry, then started to ask a follow-up question before the live-feed, broadcast on a ten-minute delay to allow for such moments, was cut. He asked: “Just to be clear, are you or are you not in a position to say whether or not the Security Service was seeking to sm-“.

    The feed returned some 45 minutes later with the chairman of the Inquiry, retired High Court judge Sir John Edward Mitting warning the journalists in the room not to report what had been said during a period of time when the cameras had been off.

    Sir John said, in sombre tone: “before you resume, may I say to those behind that there is a purpose to these orders. I know that you have complied with them up to now. They are serious orders, they do have a potentially serious consequence if they are breached. Please, I ask of you as well as demand of you, comply with what the order requires you to do. A transcript in due course will be published, which will contain part of that what was said between the hours of 11:16 and 11:22, but only part of it”.

    Of these orders, the Inquiry official website notes: “These restrict certain information from being disclosed or published. They are issued by the Chairman and are legally enforceable.”

    While a short break had been programmed in during the morning session, the camera was off considerably longer than the 15 minutes advertised, and the feed was taken down mid-sentence as the counsel spoke.

    “Security Service”, as referred to by witness and counsel, is the formal name of the British government’s domestic spy agency known commonly as MI5, deriving from its origins in the Great War when it was known as the Directorate of Military Intelligence, Section Five. Per MI5’s own reckoning, their mission is to: “[protect] the UK against threats to national security… We carry out investigations by obtaining, analysing and assessing intelligence, and then work with our partners to disrupt these threats.”

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2024/08/01/smearing-activists-is-mi5s-job-says-inquiry-cop-before-live-feed-cut/

    1. STARMER CONFERENCE ON SOUTHPORT AND AFTERMATH

      https://youtu.be/tAAbnUquMsc
      Starmer had senior police leaders over to Downing Street earlier this afternoon and reportedly told them:

      “This is not protest, this is violent disorder and action will be taken. So, this government will make sure you have got the powers you need and will back you in using those powers.”

      The PM is said to be announcing a new “national violent disorder unit“:

      Starmer hits out at the “actions of a tiny mindless minority”:

      Give people time to grieve.
      The country will not allow understandable fear to curdle into hate.
      Starmer met with police to discuss response to “crime” and “assault on the rule of law“.
      New “national capability across police forces to tackle violent disorder“.
      Shared intelligence and use of “wider facial recognition technology“.
      Pre-emptive action – preventing getting onto trains.

      A short statement…

    3. As I mentioned yesterday, 'members' ( officers, employees?) of MI5 are not forbidden from making indecent images or pseudo-photographs of children for the purposes of their work. (see the 1978 Act).
      That's quite an incentive for aspiring paedophiles to seek employment within MI5, MI6 or GCHQ, nudge nudge, wink, wink.
      Edit: some of those undercover operatives committed r*pe, but if r*pe continues to be a policy of the Home Office, what can anyone do? There is a criminal case to back me up, if the snoopers are on duty today.

  16. How censorship made Tommy Robinson. Spiked. 2 August 2024.

    Robinson’s arrest under anti-terror laws on Sunday ought to alarm anyone who cares about free speech and civil liberties. He was detained at the Channel Tunnel in Folkestone under Section 7 of the Terrorism Act 2008. This draconian post-7/7 law allows officers to stop, examine and search passengers at the UK border. Under the law, a suspect can be detained for up to six hours, is obliged to answer questions and must provide police with access to any electronic devices. In an audio recording posted to Robinson’s X account, he claims he was held for the full six hours. He also says he was ordered to hand over the PIN for his phone, but refused. This, then, became the pretext for an arrest, although he was subsequently released.

    Still, while ‘frustration of a Schedule 7 examination’ may have been the immediate grounds for Robinson’s arrest, this cannot explain why he was stopped under the UK’s terror laws in the first place. Although Schedule 7 powers are incredibly wide-ranging, they are only supposed to be used to determine whether a person has been involved ‘in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism’. If Robinson is to be believed – and going on previous form that is a big if – officers used the opportunity to grill him about his political beliefs, on everything from Gaza to the Great Replacement Theory.

    This is useful if only because it reveals what happened at Dover. Since the author knows we can safely assume that the MSM does too but has refrained from nforming the peasants. As to the reasons for Tommy’s detention, that is perfectly obvious. This type of harassment is typical of his history.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/08/01/how-censorship-made-tommy-robinson/

      1. They would eagerly accept that excuse, section him, and he would then disappear.

        1. I bet the government are kicking themselves for closing mental hospitals.
          How many "far-right" thugs could be conveniently put away.
          And I'm sure the NHS could find enough psychiatrists amongst the dinghy enrichers prepared to dole out the antipsychotics without the medication to stop the Parkinsonism.

    2. …is obliged to answer questions and must provide police with access to any electronic devices.

      Those Border Force people in Dover must be overwhelmed with all those irregular cell-phones they investigate daily.🙄

      1. I'll bet good money they all get a free pass, cos it's only the indigenous population that need questioning and realignment to Starmers thought group .
        I have often thought how much brainwashing was needed for the internal police of less democratic countries it took to make them use such extreme force against their own, looking at our home grown riot police, not much.
        Of course with all the politics being thrown around, the victims are pushed into the background. RIP .

    3. What are they going to do with TR when he returns from holiday?

      I very much fear that they are planning for him to be murdered by Muslims either inside or outside prison.

  17. Good Moaning.
    Savour this one: "‘It is obvious to the court, I’m sure, that Mr Edwards is not just of good character,’ he said, ‘but of exceptional character.’ Make sure you get that dosh, Mr. Evans KC.
    Yes, I could go along with that. Only exceptional people shell out £35,000 for views of teenage boy's bits or are so interested in children that they accept WhatsApp photos from convicted paedophiles.

      1. The paedophiliac BBC gave Edwards that £40,000 pay rise was so that he would not be out of pocket for his £35,000 expenses when buying pornography of children.

        1. Be fair! he would have had to pay 45% of it as tax.
          Unless, of course, he was paid into a service company.
          But that would never happen at the BBC.

    3. Some on the Right might well argue that it's his right to spend his own money as he sees fit. It's the Left that might argue that such money is not always well spent, and it could do more good elsewhere, such as paying market prices for BBC presenters.

      Surely a journalist of the calibre and experience of Huw Edwards must have known that WhatsApp, a subsidiary of Facebook, is wide open to hostile surveillance from the authorities, and that users' habits and tastes are constantly being recorded, analysed and may be used in evidence?

      Or he is an idiot, which seems more likely.

          2. (That happens to me from time to time. They broadcast simultaneously in my head and don't even helpfully accommodate themselves into a mashup, for the most part. Drives me batty! 🤣)

  18. Two Keir policing.

    (beware. no sniggering, the spiteful egalitarians don't tolerate being mocked).

    1. Trying desperately to cover up the terrible mistakes committed by our useless governments for decades.
      Same old story they eff up everything they come into contact. And his everyone else's fault.

  19. Two Keir policing.

    (beware. no sniggering, the spiteful egalitarians don't tolerate being mocked).

  22. 'Morning All
    Misinformation/disinformation abounds on all sides
    I have no idea if this is fantasy/lies
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/641fe20a45752148285241b48970748e9fd8afc9328d4589011c61ef4b9492dd.jpg
    Why did the court reporter draw him with his lower face hidden??
    Why is the MSM using an ancient child photo of him??
    https://x.com/ukipstera/status/1819251421746774242
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5d1189288e185aba429cf2e0140958eba328463a870ff9f1174b572a769d6059.jpg
    It's all so tiresome

    1. Autistic choirboy.
      Yeah, right.

      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13700639/Boy-17-accused-murdering-three-girls-Taylor-Swift-themed-dance-class-Southport-quiet-choirboy-unwilling-leave-house-speak-family-court-hears.html

      Boy, 17, accused of murdering three girls at Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport is a 'quiet' choirboy who was 'unwilling to leave the house and speak with his family', court hears.

      Must mean he cannot possibly be a Muslim, not even in a month of Sundays.

    1. 390794+ up ticks,

      O2O,

      If the kneeler needs to he can always seek advice from a likened brother politico,
      "miranda" of the cloven hoofs.

    1. From a seaside village in Valencia

      28°C
      Friday 09:19 Sunny

      Good chance of rain today

  26. Orbán: The West sees immigration as a ‘way of getting rid of the ethnic homogeneity that is the basis of the nation state’
    Viktor Orbán: “By 2035, Hungary should be demographically self-sustaining. There is no question of a population being replaced by migration. The Western experience is that if there are more guests than owners, the home is no longer a home. This risk should not be taken here.”

    “But Westerners, quite differently, believe that nation-states no longer exist. They therefore deny that there is a common culture and a public morality based on (the nation-state). There is no public morality, if you watched the Olympic opening yesterday, you saw it. So, they also think differently about migration. They believe that migration is not a threat or a problem, but in fact a way of getting rid of the ethnic homogeneity that is the basis of a nation. This is the essence of the progressive liberal international concept. That is why the absurdity does not occur to them, or they do not see it as absurd,” he said.

    He said that this contrast between East and West is playing out through war and the movement of peoples, saying that while hundreds of thousands of Christian people are killing each other in the East, “in the West of Europe, we are letting hundreds of thousands of people into a foreign civilization, which is absurd from our Central European point of view.”

    This dramatic ideological cleavage is not a “secret,” according to Orbán. He said that the documents and policy papers coming out of the EU shpw that the “clear aim is to transcend the nation.”

    “But the point is that the powers, the sovereignty, should be transferred from the nation-states to Brussels. This is the logic behind all major measures. In their minds, the nation is a historical, or transitional, formation of the 18th and 19th centuries — as it came, so it may go. They are already in a post-national state in the Western half of Europe. It’s not just a politically different situation, but what I’m trying to talk about here is that it’s a new mental space.”

    https://rmx.news/article/orban-the-west-sees-immigration-as-a-way-of-getting-rid-of-the-ethnic-homogeneity-that-is-the-basis-of-the-nation-state/

    Good morning all.

    2. When I read this comment, I immediately thought of a song that came out when I was a teenager from a very famous British singer songwriter at the pinnacle of his career, who later had an airport named after him in his home city. He was murdered at the age of 40.

      It was inspired by a 1960s poem from the anthology 'Grapefruit' that goes
      "Imagine the clouds dripping; dig a hole in your garden to put them in" which he combined with a Christian prayer book someone had given.

      This song went on to become an international anthem and is still sung everywhere. I suggest that whilst internationalism was championed by Marx and Mohammed, and even Hitler aspired to rule the world and impose a new order that would last a thousand years, it was Lennon's dirge that inspired a generation of abolitionists that are producing what is happening today. They say the road to hell is paved with best intentions, and while Lennon and Ono imagined a world, emptied of strife, would fill the vacuum in the bag with something wonderful, is perhaps somewhat naive, given what people are really like. "One thing you can't hide is when you're crippled inside" – well it's all on show when there is nothing else to look at.

      Here are the lyrics to the song, and I invite others to pass comment:

      "Imagine there's no Heaven
      It's easy if you try
      No Hell below us
      Above us only sky
      Imagine all the people livin' for today
      Ah, ah, ah-ah

      Imagine there's no countries
      It isn't hard to do
      Nothin' to kill or die for
      And no religion, too
      Imagine all the people livin' life in peace
      Yoo, hoo, oo-oo

      You may say I'm a dreamer
      But I'm not the only one
      I hope some day you'll join us
      And the world will be one

      Imagine no possessions
      I wonder if you can
      No need for greed or hunger
      A brotherhood of man
      Imagine all the people sharin' all the world
      Yoo, hoo, oo-oo

      You may say I'm a dreamer
      But I'm not the only one
      I hope some day you'll join us
      And the world will live as one."

      1. I suspect JM that the EU’s hope is that once the ‘nation’ states are no longer recognisable – war between nations will cease. However, if the authorities can’t keep a lid on the powder kegs they are creating the resulting ‘civil’ wars (driven by intolerant dogmas)will result in hundreds of thousands of deaths. See King Alfred of Wessex for further details…..

      2. Ah, Lennon's famous dreadful dirge. That 'song' is in my personal top-ten of most despised songs. Its lyrics are limp, banal, puerile, naïve, childish and beyond risible; and its tune is simply funereal.

      3. " Nothin' to kill or die for
        And no religion… "

        Conclusion: he was killed for wishing to destroy Islam.

        1. The Frogs assign a sex (gender) to everything sodding thing.
          So they don't have a word for "it".

    2. There is a separate Olympic Games, called the "Paralympics" which caters for those athletes with physical and mental ailments and infirmities. Why can't transvestites and other similar types take part in their own events within that forum? Trannies can then knock the shit out of one another to their heart's content. I shall not watch them, though.

      Until we make all athletes drop their kecks for a physical examination (fuck Human Rights!), and provide a sample for chromosomal analysis, this abominable state of affairs will continue with the full support of those cretins running the sport.

  28. Medley
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d937b9bc86141d38238e97894333ef2b83cf2e389f3ea28a32c52d08250579ec.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1b8615ab9ae3b961f0cf285998290c1fa0eeb0389e3d1682b5a35a056f637fb9.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/faa14f935b85986882e4072e0587e8158ad32e61bb2bc260368941b76bb93415.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2f6964b031cb1f7eb2b1a2dfffc877e7513e30d2b8b1360dd9c038415956735b.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/81496ca66a72e2ce3121f5dbb4f245b0f2472f79f6cc4060c522f57dfaf5e201.jpg
    https://x.com/BrigadierKetch/status/1819088734886961159?t=m7Y4jeLyndw_XsmLmNg15A&s=19

    2. another iconic photograph of post-moderne policing.. they are adding up.

      i] Lesbo Nana cuffing autistic kid.
      ii] a squad of Teletubbies cops escorting & protecting lone Pally flag waver.
      iii] The Met riot squad kettling 75 year old granny wearing flip flops.

    3. So many truisms R R
      And the Froglès managed to clean up their river in a few hours is an absolute miracle.

  29. A thought while I'm walking through the rain: there are NOTTLers who will say "Who's Johnny Ray?"
    Weirdo story of the week.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/01/man-stalked-bus-driver-belief-1950s-pop-star/

    Man stalked bus driver for 60 years in belief he was 1950s pop star

    Kenneth Furnival has been jailed after harassing a man he was convinced was the singer Johnnie Ray

    Cameron Henderson1 August 2024 • 7:25pm

    A man who stalked a bus driver for nearly 60 years in the belief he was the 1950s pop star Johnnie Ray has been jailed for three years.

    Kenneth Furnival, 75, bombarded John Ray, 78, with an “avalanche” of love letters and unwanted gifts over a six-decade campaign in one of the longest cases of stalking ever recorded.

    Furnival’s obsession with his victim began in 1964 when Mr Ray, then 18, checked his bus ticket, Chester Crown Court heard.

    Aged 15 at the time, he would send multicoloured notes to Mr Ray in which he referred to him as Johnnie Ray, complimenting him on his “blonde hair and blue eyes” and asking for signed pictures of him dressed in a blue pullover.

    When Mr Ray ignored or burnt the letters, Furnival began secretly taking pictures of the father-of-two and his family and covertly spied on them as they went out on day trips to the seaside.

    One letter from Furnival referred to a date when Mr Ray took his wife Jean to a restaurant and his jealousy at seeing them kissing. He also sent him Johnnie Ray CDs and DVDs.

    Mr and Mrs Ray knew nothing about Furnival or what he looked like. They repeatedly tried to report him to police and handed over large bundles of letters he had sent but officers took no action, claiming they were harmless.

    In 1979 they hired a lawyer to take civil action against their tormentor which resulted in him being jailed for flouting a court order, but Furnival still refused to give up his bizarre obsession.

    During their ordeal the Rays never let their sons play outside as they had their father’s looks and they feared Furnival would target them too. They moved house and even changed surnames in a bid to be free of him but he would eventually catch up with them and the letters and gifts would start again.

    Furnival, from Runcorn, Cheshire, was finally arrested in 2023 after the Rays captured him on their security camera when he delivered letters and a parcel of CDs through their door during a postal strike.

    He had earlier sent them a Christmas card with a letter which read: “In 2023, I will burn £100, in 2024, I will burn £200, in 2025, I will burn £300, and stick it down your letterbox until it gets to £1,000. Money is no good to me unless I can buy photos of you, John Ray.” He signed off: “Kenneth Furnival, the man who knew too much.”

    Police, fearing an arson attack might be imminent, searched Furnival’s home and found a framed picture covertly taken 35 years earlier of Ray on his bedroom wall. When interviewed he talked fondly of Mr Ray’s namesake who was known as the Prince of Wails for his ballads Cry and Please Mr Sun, and who died in 1990.

    In court Mrs Ray, 73, who married her husband in 1973, spoke of their ordeal as Furnival was jailed after admitting stalking. “It was creepy and I was in a permanent state of anxiety,” she said.

    “His letters made comments about my husband’s blonde hair and blue eyes and the singer Johnnie Ray. My mother even asked us to leave her house despite me looking after her.

    “There were also comments about the movements with my children and those really frightened me as my son was, at that time, three years old, blonde and with blue eyes, and he had to endure the most overbearing mother as a result.

    “I had never seen this man. I never knew where he was and yet he could comment on all our movements. We had our second son 12 years after the first, and he was another with blonde hair and blue eyes, so that was another cause for concern.

    “This man seemed to know everything. We still did not know who he was, only his name, not who or what he was. I could have passed the time of day with him and not even known. My children were never out of my sight for much longer than they should have been. They were not able to go to the park unless I could go too. They had little freedom to grow. It became a way of life.”

    She added: “I am now stuck in replay flashbacks, it’s horrible. I cannot get it out of my mind. All those years of being ridiculed and I was not wrong.

    “We now live in our house surrounded by cameras and the stress has affected my relationships with other people.

    “I had to bring up my children, overreacting for fear over their safety, and it affected my marriage. I have conducted a whole 50 years of my life with this intrusion. This has been an absolute nightmare. I have felt unsafe, angry, frightened and I felt that this will never end.”

    In mitigation, Furnival’s lawyer Sarah Badrawy said her client had a “mental and neuro development disorder”, adding: “He is particularly susceptible to pressure, easily led and manipulated.”

    But sentencing Judge Michael Leeming told Furnival: “You harboured an infatuation, an obsession, for over 50 years with the complainant which shows this offending was not isolated behaviour on your part or in any way out of character.

    “You sent unwanted gifts, DVDs, CDs and letters on an extremely regular basis, going to his address and following him unseen. There has been similar behaviour which dates as far as 1964. The letters caused Mr Ray extreme distress, to both him and his wife.”

    Summing up Furnival’s actions, he said: “These offences have involved a high degree of planning and persistence.”

    Furnival was handed an indefinite restraining order prohibiting him from contacting the Rays. They declined to comment afterwards.

    Danielle Reece-Greenhalgh, partner at Corker Binning, says: “This is a case in which, for an extraordinary length of time, the defendant was not properly investigated by police.

    “Harassment persisting for over 50 years is almost unheard of, and the police’s inaction perhaps reflects archaic attitudes about how stalking behaviours manifest and who ‘typical’ offenders and victims of harassment and stalking might be.”

    1. My client offers a genuine expression of remorse, and acknowledges having made poor choices in the past and promises never to repeat these mistakes ever again.

      He asks Mr Ray to show some kindness and understanding by signing an autograph on reverse of the enclosed photograph inside the self-addressed stamped envelope.

    2. Even I, a mere slip of a lad at 73½, remember Johnny Ray; despite his heyday being in the 1950s when I were nobbut a sprog.

      1. I'm wondering why on earth it was allowed to continue for so long.
        Not just the police, but also the couple on the receiving end of this behaviour.

    1. Herr Oberst, you are George Galloway – and I claim my five bob postal order! Lol.

    1. Quite frankly our politicians are self serving morons. They wouldn't recognise a problem if it sat on their heads. Which it clearly does.
      But enjoy your walk TB.
      I envy that.

      1. Oh they do, but until it becomes a problem for them personally, such as they lose out they don't care.

    2. Good ping Leilani! It's always pandering to the scum but suppressing the justly angry.

    2. Odd that there's no lampooning of Starmer and how happy he is for the greeniacs, Lefties, wasters and vermin to parade their loathesome creed.

  34. I see the police have at last been given the go ahead to crack some skulls
    No need to watch their backs when it is whitey

    1. Odd that when the muslim was prancing through London they kick those complaining about it back into their houses. It's two tier policing and is only going to get worse. I don't want police officers to be injured, they're just folk doing a job. What I do expect is for the police to police everyone equally.

  36. 390749+ up ticks,

    So the political kneeler is going to introduce a new police unit
    solely for the quelling of the alledged "far right racist".
    ( ALL right thinking indigenous)

    Witnessing his actions so far I do believe that the new unit will comprise of, dark skinned personnel only, whitey only to be governed in the main and NOT in a governing position.

  37. It was not so long ago that the Irish rioted in Dublin because an innocent family had been attacked by a Muslim.

    The Taoishit, Leo Varadkar, who subsequently resigned, condemned the people who objected to the terrorism but did not seem willing to address the evil of those who committed the outrage.

    Déjâ-Vu

    Starmer is now going for the mythical Extreme Right and ignoring the plight of the families who have lost their little girls.

      1. It is only because of the strange working of our electoral system that Starmer has an enormous majority in the HoC

        We must not forget that of the people who bothered to vote the combined votes of Reform and Conservatives outnumbered the votes received by Labour.

        If you then add in the people who were eligible to vote but did not do so you discover that only 20% of the electorate actually voted for Starmer.

        So in spite of his Parliamentary majority Starmer in hardly riding on a tsunami of popular support and he should remember this.

    2. I have just posted this letter to the DT, which I know will end up in the WPB and never published:

      SIR — I wish the press, and the current prime minister (report, August 2), would cease using idiotic, made-up descriptions such as the risible (and eminently unprovable) term, "far-Right" (also called “extreme-Right”, or "hard-Right"), which simply does not exist. The “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.

      Ayn Rand (1905–1982) warned us: “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.”

      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.

      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 is innovative. You are a knowledgeable, 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.

      It therefore logically follows that to be 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 knowledgeable, 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. That would be a far better protest. The state exists on our money. If we collectively said no, we're not paying our taxes, we're not working, we're not paying for you to house criminals rapists and paedophiles until you address this basic, fundamental problem and start getting rid of the alien, the terrorist, the rapist, the criminal they'd have to actually do something.

          At the moment the state has it's boot on our neck. It lies Reeve's waffle about a black hole when it's just her spending having caused it, the crushing state debt of over 20 trillion, their demented plans for yet more waste through the moronic 'green' hoax. We must throw them off and remind the state it is not the economy, it does not create growth, it cannot create wealth, it cannot make people richer, it is not any use and it is our money they are spending and that we will decide what that money is spent on.

          1. Yes, they do need constant reminders that this is our money which they are wasting on their ideological pet projects. Miliband is a nutter. If he is so into green issues, why weren't they mentioned on his Ed Stone?

          2. The state forgerts we do not need them, but they need us to pay for them. They must not understand history.

          4. Atlas Shrugged was published in 1957. Ayn Rand warned us. Now it's happening all around us.

            I wish i could live long enough to see the pendulum swing the other way.

      2. The Right is for individualism, the Left collectivism. As you wrote, Grizz.
        Fascism & Communism – two cheeks … and as for those famous Right-wing Nazis, well…

    3. He is ddeliberately treating the response as the problem. It lets him disguise it. No longer is this about the response to the murder of 3 children by an immigrant muslim. He's happy to 'reframe the narrative' to one that suits his preferences: crushing those who disagree with him.

      That gives him the narrative to set about being an authoritarian dictator and stamping on those disgusted at what he and his ilk have done o this country without having to address or even acknowledge the problem.

      After all: the ends justify the means. Get raped inn the name of diversity, big city, get used to it, 'most' survived unharmed, not 'terror related', lone wolf, mental ill… no. It's always the same problem. Always the same cause. Massive uncontrolled invasion. But Starmer has his excuse to demonise those he hates.

      The state does this a lot. The BBC is a master of it:
      'muslims are mostly welfare dependent'
      'You're a racist.'

      1. Which is why I prefer Diversity, Inclusion, Equality because the acronym forms DIE which will be the end result, unless we're very careful.

    1. What someone does with their body is entirely up to them. When that same person demands other people acknowledge and adopt their life choices that becomes oppression. The right to speak the truth and reject the fantasy of others is vital. Otherwise you indulge mental illness.

      1. 390749+ up ticks,

        Afternoon Anne,
        Tis not meant as a sporting event
        Tis meant to say “we the political elite are keeping you in the shit
        with your polling station consent
        get use to it”.

  39. From where, among our number, are we going to find the next King Edward I (or Queen Elizabeth I, or Sir Francis Drake, Sir Winston Churchill or Lady Thatcher)?

    Without someone of balls, brains and fortitude to rise up lead the nation and defeat the enemy within (whose ranks are being supplemented hourly), we are sunk.

    A 23-year old Churchill wrote this, back in 1898, about those who are intent on supplanting our nation:

    "How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries. Beside the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia is in a dog, there is a fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly system of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in a Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property — either as a child, a wife or a concubine — must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen; all know how to die; but the influence of religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytising faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science – the science against which it had vainly struggled – the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome."

    Time for a new leader of a nation to step forward with this mindset.

    1. Good morning Grizzly and everyone.
      All religions are concerned with control, power and money. Management.

      1. Good morning, Tim.

        Indeed. The concepts of both religion (all religions) and politics were created for no other purpose than mind control.
        And look at how many minds they have controlled — and continue to control — over the ages.

        2. Look also at how the "officers" of the religion have comfortable lives, despite their adheremts living in squalor.

    2. Resolving the problems this country has requires more than 4 years, or really, 2 as the state gears you up for election in the first and last terms.

      The civil service, long used to doing what it likes with the security of time simply needs to be burned through. Sacked every other person in it, the unions disbanded, the entire monolith sent crumbling to the ground. If senior civil servants get uppity they must be punished appropriately.

      Then the social reforms will cause unrest amongst the lower classes used to having had someone else ay their way. Then there's the culture of lawfare, long paid for by the state so it finds itself funding it's enemies. The entire Left wing needs to be confronted and smacked down, hard. The greeniacs made an example of publicly.

      The sort of brutality and strength needed to face down the enemy within – the hydra of the Left, the international Left, the green scam, the quangocracy, the law courts, the 'human rights' brigade would need at least a decade of uninterrupted governance and mean while taxes would need to be cut, deportations carried out en masse, the entire tax code replaced, a raft of law repealed to prevent the entrenched blob from fighting the public will.

      It took blair 14 miserable years to slap chains of paper around this country. It'll take that long to burn them and the governing party cannot be hindered by petty popularity contests in the meanwhile.

      Once the reforms are made then, of course, democracy will be imposed: referism, recall and direct democracy. But you cannot have those things while the snake of the Left has it's fangs in society.

      1. Well said, Wibbling.
        You have articulated what all normal people must feel, and have certainly phrased it far bette rthan I could.
        In so many comments here and elsewhere, along with the 'protests' by normal citizens, I sense the growing anger amongst British people.

    3. Resolving the problems this country has requires more than 4 years, or really, 2 as the state gears you up for election in the first and last terms.

      The civil service, long used to doing what it likes with the security of time simply needs to be burned through. Sacked every other person in it, the unions disbanded, the entire monolith sent crumbling to the ground. If senior civil servants get uppity they must be punished appropriately.

      Then the social reforms will cause unrest amongst the lower classes used to having had someone else ay their way. Then there's the culture of lawfare, long paid for by the state so it finds itself funding it's enemies. The entire Left wing needs to be confronted and smacked down, hard. The greeniacs made an example of publicly.

      The sort of brutality and strength needed to face down the enemy within – the hydra of the Left, the international Left, the green scam, the quangocracy, the law courts, the 'human rights' brigade would need at least a decade of uninterrupted governance and mean while taxes would need to be cut, deportations carried out en masse, the entire tax code replaced, a raft of law repealed to prevent the entrenched blob from fighting the public will.

      It took blair 14 miserable years to slap chains of paper around this country. It'll take that long to burn them and the governing party cannot be hindered by petty popularity contests in the meanwhile.

      Once the reforms are made then, of course, democracy will be imposed: referism, recall and direct democracy. But you cannot have those things while the snake of the Left has it's fangs in society.

    4. 390749+ up ticks,

      Morning G,

      Princess Anne for certain, Gerard Batten showed in one year how a patriotic party should be built
      Francis Drake & Churchill brilliant, their spirit hopefully lives on but, missiles & nuclear make them obsolete.

    5. I seem to remember a few years ago a man being violently arrested whilst reading that very apt and realistic Churchill passage by that now awful place known as Westminster.

  40. 390749+ up ticks,

    May one ask,

    Will the internment camps for the innocent " far right racist" have
    HI FI, could it be more comfortable inside the camps for the brit 48 % than outside in daily reality, these questions must be asked.

  42. Morning all 🙂😊
    Looking grey out there now, thunder storms forecast, but it is British summer time.
    The government's counter-intuitive approach to anything. They all live in another world and they don't get out much and don't have to survive on the pathetic state pension. Most of them take home more in 'expenses' each week than the average amount of the pension allowance.
    And you can bet your boots that none of the hundreds of thousands of illegal invaders new free homes will be built anywhere near the political classes live.

  44. Good morning all,

    Bright and sunny at the McPhee's, wind in the West, 17℃, 27℃ later.

    Nice work if you can get it, no?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/869ac29fd567e40700e8a43aee374e023cdd8e669ed82c2a16ef9ab4346ee572.png

    Imagine that. A £300k pension just for having been an auto-cue reader. We don't know if it's a SIPP or part of the BBC pension scheme but, either way, that sort of pension implies a £6m – £7.5m capital value of his pension 'pot' or the portion of the BBC fund ear-marked for him. The paedo's pay-off.

    1. I'm surprised the HSE aren't investigating the Beeb for providing a 'Hazardous work environment'…..

  45. I see the surly, self-obsessed, gawky Scottish tennis player has had yet another tearful departure….

    One can only hope that he is never heard of again…

      1. Aye, well, if ye'd been brought up whaur this wee ray o'sunshine wiz brought up…..

      2. Yes, it was P.G. Wodehouse who wrote:

        "It is never hard to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grudge and a ray of sunshine."

        He was referring to Alistair McAlister, one time head gardener to Lord Emsworth at Blandings Castle..

    3. I wouldn't know. The unwatchable 'sport' of lawn tennis (not played on lawns, FFS!) does not feature in my life.

      People knocking a ball back and forth over a net is not the problem for me. It is simply that this pastime is played by, watched by, commented upon and reported on by a clique of pretentious chinless clowns who have no grasp of the English language.

        2. From Coffee House, the Spectator

          The National Trust’s abuse of language
          Y cant thy b bovered 2 spll poperlee?

          Comments Share 2 August 2024, 5:00am
          ‘Remember to bring your childrens bikes with you so you can all enjoy the estate,’ the National Trust’s website says, inviting visitors to its parkland site at Crom beside the shores of Upper Lough Erne in Northern Ireland. If, like me, you think omitting the apostrophe in ‘children’s’ is a bad look for an organisation that claims to raise ‘the standard of presentation and interpretation’ at the places it looks after, then steel yourself; it gets much worse.

          The National Trust can’t even be bothered to make sure its pronouncements are written in correct English
          You see, the National Trust may ‘look after nature, beauty and history for everyone to enjoy’ but it doesn’t seem to care much about the English language. Its invitation to ‘Take a peak at the view of Sidmouth’, for example, might be more alluring if the reader wasn’t thinking: ‘Er… shouldn’t that be “peek”?’ An organisation with an educational mission and commitment to ‘teach and inspire’ really shouldn’t be making basic grammatical mistakes and spelling errors.

          Occasionally, Spectator articles have suggested that, as a custodian of our islands’ history and heritage, the National Trust is not always above reproach. But exhorting us to ‘camp considerably’ (I think they mean ‘considerately’) when visiting Divis and the Black Mountain suggests that perhaps the Trust can’t be trusted with our language either.

          ‘Mistrust all in whom the urge to punish is strong,’ warns Nietzsche. However, given the comic combination of smugness and error found in so many of the Trust’s pronouncements – ‘The plan sets out the best way to care for the long-term future of Lyme’s diverse landscape and the wildlife that live here’ – sometimes the urge becomes irresistible. How can they be so sure that it’s ‘the best way’? And why can’t they conjugate verbs?

          My urge to punish came on quite suddenly one morning when I was reading the National Trust’s ‘commitment to inclusion and diversity’: I’d like to see it pay a fine for each grammatical and spelling mistake it makes. After all, the English language is also an important part of our national heritage.

          Especially as the fines I have in mind would be quite hefty. What might be a suitable punishment for an organisation that thinks it’s OK to write ‘a hot summers day’, or wonders if the damage to a Georgian urn was caused when it fell ‘of its base’? I don’t know what the penalty is for leaving rubbish, but the Trust has surely got to fork out a fair bit more for littering its public pronouncements with such solecisms. After all, sweet papers on a lawn are soon removed and do no permanent harm. But the Trust’s spelling and grammatical mistakes constitute an educational hazard. How many impressionable schoolchildren will assume that the phrase ‘It’s location is unknown’, published by such an august body, must be correct?

          Most popular
          Graeme Thomson
          Jack White’s new album will be of close interest to Led Zeppelin’s legal team

          In case anyone thinks I’m just another intolerant pedant, let me be clear that I’m not suggesting that the National Trust be penalised for typos, such as ‘There a deckchairs to relax in’. Or for its occasional, unaccountable preference for American spelling: ‘the simple joys of exploration and free-spirited fun take center stage.’ And I’m not suggesting either that it pays for its self-satisfied pomposity: ‘a series of key initiatives which have been developed through an extensive co-creative journey with local communities and stakeholders.’ Provided the Trust shows remorse and a genuine determination to try harder in future, such errors and the frequent clumsiness – ‘He placed the mansion back to how it looked in his childhood’ – needn’t be punished.

          But it’s clearly unacceptable for an organisation that hosts many thousands of schoolchildren persistently to confuse ‘of’ and ‘off’, ‘everyday’ and ‘every day’ and ‘it’s’ and ‘its’. And the same, of course, goes for ‘effect’ and ‘affect’ (having sanctimoniously informed us that ‘As a member of the LGBTQ community Wilde endured prejudice, oppression and the loss of his freedom’, the Trust then laments that Oscar’s prison sentence ‘irrevocably effected his health’).

          Despite boasting about its ‘focus on quality’ and ‘high standards of conservation, stewardship and curatorial care’, it seems that the National Trust can’t even be bothered to make sure its pronouncements are written in correct English. If our new government could fine the Trust £500 for every mistake, it would surely raise educational standards. Corporations have neither bodies to be punished, nor souls to be condemned. True – but they do have coffers to be raided.

          It only took me an hour or two browsing the National Trust’s webpages, and a morning wandering around one of its properties, to find the mistakes I’ve listed above. But since this is an organisation which has rather a lot to say for itself, there are still reams of text that I haven’t looked at and doubtless plenty more mistakes just waiting to be found. If its education officers are too busy, then there are surely plenty of retired lecturers and English teachers who, in return for a modest fee (£10 per error detected?), would be only too happy to help the Trust avoid those hefty fines and ensure that visitors really do get ‘a better experience’.

          1. As a pedant and a lover of my English language, I heartily endorse the sentiments displayed above.

          2. ‘Take a peak at the view of Sidmouth’, for example, might be more alluring if the reader wasn’t thinking: ‘Er… shouldn’t that be “peek”?’

            Personally I would take a peep. We have a peep show (never a 'peek' show) and Little Bo Peep (Little Bo 'Peek' would be ridiculous).

          3. Much confusion when I looked them up. But I, too, would prefer ‘peep’ as in ‘Peeping Tom’, ‘Peep through keyholes’. ‘No peeping’.

          4. The head of the National Travesty is Hilary McGrady who has a diploma in graphic design. All good, then. By the way, that is all she has a qualification in. She probably designed the signs.

  47. More than somewhat disappointing from Richard Littlejohn in the DM.

    The disgusting rioting in ­Southport that followed the ­horrific deaths of three young girls at a Taylor Swift dance class appears to have been ­orchestrated online by knuckle-scraping thugs linked to Tommy Robinson’s ­English Defence League and incited by false allegations shared on platforms such as whatever Twitter calls itself these days. The lack of information from the police and other official sources only served to fuel speculation.

    I had thought he was halfway decent.

    1. TR has not been associated with the EDL for at least a decade. But let's not allow the truth to get in the way of the gov line.

      2. Memo to self (again). Read the thread before commenting! [MIR smacks own head against wall for the umpteenth time]

      1. You cannot hope to bribe or twist.
        thank God! the British journalist
        But, seeing what the man will do
        unbribed, there's no occasion to

  50. If only someone in the media could turn up the e-mails between No 10 and Leeds social services in those few days after July 18th…

  51. "A lie is two miles down the road before the truth has got it's shoes on" – (c) I forget
    "A lie repeated often enough becomes the truth" (c) J Goebbels

      2. There is some doubt that it actually was him.
        There is an interesting article on Quoteinvestigator.

        https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/07/13/truth/

        In conclusion, there exists a family of expressions contrasting the dissemination of lies and truths, and these adages have been evolving for more than 300 years. Jonathan Swift can properly be credited with the statement he wrote in 1710. Charles Haddon Spurgeon popularized the version he employed in a sermon in 1855, but he did not craft it. At this time, there is no substantive support for assigning the saying to Mark Twain or Winston Churchill.

  52. Even wiki acknowledges his departure.

    In 2013 Robinson—supported by the Quilliam think tank—left the group. He claimed it had become too extreme, and established the short-lived rival Pegida UK. EDL membership declined significantly following Robinson's departure and various branches declared independence.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Defence_League

    1. It made me chuckle to hear that during the interrogation last week TR was asked for his 'political views'. He's not exactly one to keep them under wraps…

  53. Global stocks plunge amid fears of US ‘collapse’. 2 August 2024.

    Global stock markets have plunged amid fears that the US Federal Reserve has left it too late to begin cutting interest rates and risks damaging the world’s largest economy.

    Shares tumbled in Asia, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 index closing down 2,216.63 points – its second-largest points drop in history – after weaker than expected US factory data showed output dropped to an eight-month low in July amid a slump in new orders.

    It never rains but that it pours.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/08/02/ftse-100-markets-latest-news-stock-sell-off-interest-rates/

    2. FTSE has plunged almost all the way back to where it was at the beginning of this week!

  54. With UK on the point of bursting into flames, I don't suppose the quality of sports commentary is the most important subject for debate but following recent comments on TMS, here are two more letters on the subject:

    SIR – Terry Lloyd (Letters, July 30) is correct about modern sports commentators.

    When David Gower retired from first-class cricket and moved into televised commentary, he asked Richie Benaud for some advice. Benaud told him: "Just imagine you are talking to one person sitting at home watching television." Gower took note and became an excellent commentator.

    These days commentators do not talk to the listener – they talk to each other. This is the same for radio sports commentators, who often do not keep up with the action on which they are commentating.

    Martin Kemp
    Woodley, Berkshire
    _________________________

    SIR – I, too, often resort to the mute button while watching sports events (Letters, July 31).

    However, this does mean missing out on the nonsense frequently spouted by the commentators. In recent days I have heard: "He [the batsman] has taken the bait", whereupon the said batsman whacked a six; "the humidity is getting warmer"; and "if you are going to bowl a slower ball just make sure nothing gets slower".

    Tony Palframan
    Disley, Cheshire

    1. I'm afraid the day of the nonpareil commentator has long gone.

      On television alone, Alan Weeks, Peter O'Sullevan, Eamonn Andrews, Raymond Baxter, David Coleman, Barry Davies, Bill McLaren, Harry Carpenter, Ron Pickering, Hamilton Bland, Kenneth Wolstenholme, Richie Benaud, Eddie Waring, David Vine, Julian Wilson, Peter West, Dorian Williams, Peter Alliss, John Snagge, Sid Waddell, Christopher Martin-Jenkins, Cliff Morgan, John Arlott, Ted Lowe, Peter Dimmock, Murray Walker, Stuart Storey, Dan Maskell, Des Lynam, Peter Montague-Evans and a few others of note were the gold standard between the 1950s and the 1980s.

      Their modern counterparts cannot even string a few listenable words together in a manner that makes sense.

      1. Mr Kemp writes "These days commentators do not talk to the listener – they talk to each other."

        This is the worst habit on TMS. It makes it almost unlistenable at times.

      2. Naughty boy, Grizz. Those are all straight white men. (I dread to think what Peter West would make of the circus freak show that is the current incarnation of Come Dancing. He presented the original of course.)

        1. David Vine even made 'It's a Knockout' authoritative, whereas Stuart Hall's commentary was mostly inane guffawing. I would add Jeremy Clarkson to the roll of honour – his commentary on 'Robot Wars' was excellent.

        2. I shall go and stand in the corner, Sue.

          And take with me the wonderful Donna Simmonds, Bajan cricket commentator of encyclopædic knowledge and marvellously mellifluous tones.

          1. Would that have been Frank and Peggy Spencer’s school of ballroom dancing?
            I remember there being adverts for it on the buses in sarf London when I was a child. It is strange what the brain retains.

      3. Bill McLaren’s extremely partisan commentary – every Scottish victory (6-3 in pouring rain and high winds at Murrayfield) was a “famous” one – became rather annoying. Ditto Eddie Butler’s escapee from a Eisteddfod act, but luckily you didn’t mention him.

        1. Bill was occasionally partisan but only when Scotland were playing. I can forgive him that because he was supremely knowledgeable and I could listen to his wonderful brogue all day long. There were quite a few I didn’t mention, mainly because I concentrated on the earlier chappies.

          I didn’t mention John Motson because I found him profoundly irritating (as was Radio Five’s Alan Green) and a poor second-rater when compared to Barry Davies. Nor did I mention any ITV commentators (Reg Gutteridge was a poor imitation of Harry Carpenter).

    2. After watching football recently I also turned the sound down and change channels at half time. And switched off immediately after the game. I can see what is happening on the pitch and don't really need any further information or other opinions.
      What really has emphasised the total waste of time and effort of common- tayters. Was the current Olympic games.
      Surely the viewing public can see exactly what's happening in a rowing race on a river or lake.

      1. I've enjoyed the discussions between Foster and Addington regarding the swimming.
        Informative, light-hearted and generally knowledgeable and relevant.

      2. Not if most of the allocated air time is given over to chatter, human interest presentations, what's coming up, and the compulsory post-event interviews that say much the same thing over and over.

      3. I can read a race better than some commentators; they miss things that I pick up. Mind you, I don't have to talk about it, just watch it.

        1. I understand exactly Conners.
          I’ve been watching quite a lot horse racing recently.
          I was a bit annoyed with the Olympic show jumpers taking all the credit for their success. The actual and real winners hardly get a mention.

    4. Mr Kemp is correct. I blame the influence of recent Australian commentry and the BBC . The Beeb seems to think that Phil Tufnell’s 4th former lighting up behind the bike sheds persona is endearing. It isn’t.

      1. Tuffers is by no means the worst of the sidekicks. It’s usually the commentators proper who don’t know when to stop chatting and start commentating. Alison Mitchell and Dan “Hello! I’m Alan Partridge!” Norcross should be taken aside for a little team chat…

  55. With UK on the point of bursting into flames, I don't suppose the quality of sports commentary is the most important subject for debate but following recent comments on TMS, here are two more letters on the subject:

    SIR – Terry Lloyd (Letters, July 30) is correct about modern sports commentators.

    When David Gower retired from first-class cricket and moved into televised commentary, he asked Richie Benaud for some advice. Benaud told him: "Just imagine you are talking to one person sitting at home watching television." Gower took note and became an excellent commentator.

    These days commentators do not talk to the listener – they talk to each other. This is the same for radio sports commentators, who often do not keep up with the action on which they are commentating.

    Martin Kemp
    Woodley, Berkshire
    _________________________

    SIR – I, too, often resort to the mute button while watching sports events (Letters, July 31).

    However, this does mean missing out on the nonsense frequently spouted by the commentators. In recent days I have heard: "He [the batsman] has taken the bait", whereupon the said batsman whacked a six; "the humidity is getting warmer"; and "if you are going to bowl a slower ball just make sure nothing gets slower".

    Tony Palframan
    Disley, Cheshire

  56. Oh look. The inevitable weasel get-out-of-gaol phrase.

    "Liverpool magistrates court heard that he had an “autism spectrum disorder diagnosis” and had been “unwilling to leave the house and communicate with family for a period of time”."

    Obviously, not that unwilling.

    4. My best friends son had severe autism, it killed him in the end at just 13 years of age. I discovered that the vast majority who plead autism do not have it. It is abused by people for kids who have behavioral problems that could be dealt with via a decent amount of attention and giving them the discipline they need.

      1. Some years ago I went to a very interesting talk on autism organised by Foyles bookshop. They have a conference room on the top floor and used to have events there that weren't always connected with books they were promoting. This was a panel discussion and there were of course people in the audience with a personal interest. The verdict, between the professionals on the panel and the audience, was indeed that the "autism spectrum" has become far too broadly interpreted.

        1. Hi Sue! Yes, I knew the kid from the time he was born. Not once did he say a word and not once would he allow anyone, including me, touch him. Only his mother. It was, frankly, a sad relief when he died, the toll on his mother was to much.

        2. Two of our friends have an autistic grandson.
          To put it mildly, you would not confuse him with a boy who is a bit socially awkward.

    6. I fully expected something of the sort but all it does is add a bit of context rather than provide any excuse – for example, it suggests he may be socially naive and have spent an inordinate amount of time on-line so he was at increased risk of being groomed by malevolent persons, and/or it suggests he is more likely than the average person to have a psychotic disorder.
      I daresay the next revelation will be that he was on a waiting list for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services so it will all be the fault of the Tory administration.

  57. Morning all. Another hot day but at least not as bad as the last two. Deluge last night and a huge clap of thunder, so loud it seemed to be right above the house, excited, I love thunderstorms but that was it, one clap then nothing but the sound of rain. Such a disappointment.

    I watched this earlier on today and got drawn in to it and ended up watching to the end. Worth it because of how events develop and how people respond. It's long but nevertheless it is worth watching to the end if for nothing else than the 'twist' at the end.
    And, by the way, it thoroughly contradicts the lies of Keir Starmer last night and the lies of the MSM.

    England Burning: Enough Is Enough
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0X4uPjcEsE

  59. I shall sign off now. Must get ready for the funeral of our chum. Back mid-afternoon. Play nicely – you far-right devils!

    1. From what I understand from Smarmer’s best man, the IOC Spoke, if the passport says female that’s good enough despite all evidence to the contrary.

  63. Well, well, well…wotta surprise…Starmer's best man doesn't know what a woman is either…

    Official at centre of Olympics boxing row was Starmer’s best man

    Mark Adams, spokesman for the IOC who warned against a ‘witch hunt’ towards Imane Khelif, has known the PM since school

    Dominic Penna, POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
    2 August 2024 • 10:02am

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/08/02/TELEMMGLPICT000388090316_17225890570300_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqqVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwfSVWeZ_vEN7c6bHu2jJnT8.jpeg?imwidth=680
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/02/mark-adams-official-ioc-olympics-boxing-row-starmer-friend/

    1. This will be dubbed a Far-Right conspiracy theory if anyone cares to notice the relationship between the choice of close friends and their ideologies.

      I hope this is a case of Prime Minister Starmer having not thought through the ramifications of the ideological position that does not fundamentally acknowledge human beings are a sexual dimorphic species. In the case of Mr Adams his ideology is not so much playing out as in the rubber hitting the road, sadly it's a case of the boxing gloved fist hitting the nose. I hope Ms Carini's injuries will heal quickly, that she will be OK and be back to fight another day.

  64. Watching Alex Phillips, Talk TV, on YouTube. She really is an excellent presenter with top intellect + common sense/ life experience..

    2. Really? Not spotted her half-baked assertions almost randomly thrown about yet? No thanks.

  65. Someone has probably already pointed this out. Are people who sub to the Daily Telegraph aware that they cannot comment in the letters section? Is the Telegraph that afraid the public will contradict there false narrative about what is going on in this country?

    1. instructed by the blob.. all in the interests of self-preservation.
      we're all guilty of that one.

        1. yep.
          you can't win. once the facial/gait recognition database is up & running you'll soon "feel the full force of the two-Keir law".
          Andrew Brigden was an MP with a voice in parliament.. and they slowly beat him into submission.
          It's the car insurance that is the killer.

          2. huff & puff and a bit of venting at the screen.. whoa that'll frighten Sue Grey.

          3. True. But people can exchange ideas here. But you can't do much that is substantial. I looked up something this morning about how to get something that the police use. But I would not dare publicise that on here because it would jeopardise the group. Still, overtime, you get to figure out who is to be trusted or not. At that point you can take steps to make a relationship closer.

          4. "the progressive liberal hate you, if they could kill you.. they would. The women in particular."
            David Starkey.

          6. I'm lucky in that facial recognition AI doesn't consider me human. "Get help" is their stock response.

          8. They’d have no luck at all with Cpl Nobby Nobbs of the Ankh-Morpork night watch!!

          9. Gait recognition existed in the late 1960s.

            When I was an apprentice my fellow workmates would often follow me around mimicking my idiosyncratic gait. They were convinced I was the rôle model for the character of King Louie in the film version of Kipling's 'The Jungle Book'.🦧

    2. I’m surprised the regulars haven’t resorted to posting on yesterday’s, which appears still to be open as they have done that in the past.

    3. I’ve onlyjust looked at the letters and realised no comments can be made.

      It is undoubted a result of the recent peaceful protests made about the slaughter of three little girls by an allegedly 17 year old man. This civil unrest will continue to worsen as nothing is done except ‘the murderer is a deeply disturbed mental health sufferer who does not know the difference between right and wrong’ and ‘HMG should place him in a mental health hospital wing so that he can be cared for for the rest of his life at our expense’. Bastard.

  67. Re the boxing blokesses.
    It's now up to the women.
    They should refuse to fight them.
    Step into the ring and as soon as the bell goes lie down on the canvas.

      3. If they had any shame they would withdraw.

        That’s not in the sense Phizzee would!

    3. SWMBO is livid about the fight, and the whole principle. How to destroy women's sport. And I agree with her – it's not fair, and actually dangerous, for women to fight with men, however trained and gifted the lass is. Just read what the Italian boxing lass said.

      1. The BBC are pushing a series about a British couple who are both cage fighters in the USA. I’d pay to see what would happen if the woman got into a ring with the boxing blokess, especially if she was allowed to use her feet, knees and elbows!!

  69. This could have been written by the Guardian:

    A further wave of far-right protests is expected across the UK following the killings of three young girls in Southport. Violent extremists are planning to descend on more than a dozen town cities and towns in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, according to reports.

    Hope not Hate, the anti-racism charity, has warned demonstrations are being planned for London, Aldershot, Sunderland, Hull, Liverpool, Cardiff and Manchester. Flyers are also being circulated online for rallies in Nottingham, Leeds, Newcastle, Middlesbrough, Belfast, Bristol and Hull.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/02/southport-attack-latest-axel-rudakubana-riots

    Belfast, eh? Wouldn't there be a beautiful irony if citizens from south of the border linked arms with those from the north to demonstrate against immigration throughout the island? I'd like to see Starmer tell a temporary alliance of Loyalist and Republican hardnuts that they're just racists and fascists.

    2. Ringleaders plotting violent protests over Southport stabbings warned by minister: 'We are watching you'

    3. There's a double whammy of Leftist language games here. The title of the group "Hope Not Hate" is misleading. There is plenty of evidence to support the claim they are a Far-Left activist group. I'll take what they claim with a great degree of speculation. The slogan "Anti-Racism" as with much of the new Left is misleading. Without getting stuck in the weeds of the disingenuous I'll hand over to Glenn Loury and John McWhorter who can explain and refute. They have both been pushing back against this US invented Race Marxism for years.

    2. How much more evidence do we need? This is a man, getting his kicks from assaulting women. All approved by Starmer’s mate. Ffs.

      1. At the risk of getting shot down in flames I think a bit of perspective is needed here. Khelif is not transgender, she was brought up as a girl and the DM are today running an interview with her from a while ago with photos of her as a child. Like Caster Semenya she comes from a very simple family and outwardly was born a girl so was brought up as one. The male characteristics would not have revealed themselves until puberty. Semenya was found to have a full set of male genitalia internally and I suspect that Khelif has too. The fault lies not with these unfortunate people but with the governing bodies caving in to ideological mantra. The test should be a very simple one: if high levels of testosterone are found a DNA test becomes mandatory. XX is female, XY is male. End of discussion. Life isn't always fair and fate deals some people a poor hand.

        1. It is a very sad story.
          I dread to think what life in a muslim country would be like for Khelif.
          The villains of this piece are the trainers and promoters who encouraged the sporting career and the IOC who effectively made this person into a freak show.

          2. Indeed, apparently she no longer lives in Algeria but I’m not sure where she does live.

          3. As long as he doesn't compete in female sports he can do what he likes. He is a he. Sorry, but life is hard sometimes.

          4. As long as he doesn't compete in female sports he can do what he likes. He is a he. Sorry, but life is hard sometimes.

        2. He's had the DNA test. The IBA tested him last year and the result was XY. He is not intersex.

          1. Yes, I know that, so he/she should never have been allowed to compete. Semenya is XY as well. As I said the fault lies with the governing bodies.

          2. How about himself, knowing that he had been shown to be a male? He must have known that he was cheating.

          5. How about himself, knowing that he had been shown to be a male? He must have known that he was cheating.

        3. I feel very sorry for both of them. They were brought up as women and found they had a ‘gift’ of strength and speed that could lift them out of poverty. But that ‘gift’ was illusory as it was the result of a biological anomaly.This isn’t a technicality – they wouldn’t have superior strength and speed if they weren’t genetically male.
          It’s tough for them to be ruled out but much tougher for all female participants if they are ruled in.

    1. The chump needs to be informed that the building is called The Parthenon, which sits atop a hill called 'The Acropolis'.

    1. Two tier governance. He is correct- it goes beyond two-tier governance. Public confidence is undermined – it’s no “perception”.

    2. Also. How does the hate-filled far left get away with this constant slurring of Nigel? I had “heard” that Nigel had been “stirring it” but FFS he has said nothing inflammatory and was extremely moderate. What is going on?

      2. They are trying to make him the icon of the mythical extreme right. It's as simple as that. Because Reform represents a distinct alternative to socialism that the Tories don't. Their aim is to get rid of Reform and, in the mean time use it as a scapegoat.

        You need to consider that when the Conservatives were in power the issue of a right wing was not of great unimportance but with the left it is of vital importance. Vital because they must, somehow, deflect criticism from the extreme left wing that they are responsible for creating. They must deflect the general public from making the connection that our troubles are from the left. So the sudden obsession about the right wing, the sudden insistence that it exists, has to be manufactured so that they can further their ambitions to push forward the left wing police state that they are busy manufacturing for us. Increased surveillance, increased police powers, increased repression of freedom of speech, the regulation of gatherings, the introduction of an ID card with all our info on it, cashless society. The ability of the police to demand ID without any reason, which will come, so that they can track us all. These things and, I'm sure many other things I have not mentioned, will come into being all in order to "safeguard" you from the extreme right who seek to undermine the socialist idea of democracy but what ordinary people call tyranny.

        1. I saw someone on XTwitter this morning insisting that Starmer is "centre right". It's all a matter of perspective, isn't it. I guess he's to the right of Pol Pot.

          1. I have read he is more left than Corbyn. He just hides it well being a lawyer.

  74. Usual palaver to get to speak to Mother.
    Firstly, the call is put through to her department, silence. Next, put through – goes to voicemail. Next, put through, Mother is there, but there's such a powerful crackle on the line that nobody can hear anything… next call, they'll call me back, but nothing.
    Sigh.
    Why must even the simplest thing be so difficult? No talk to Mother.
    :-((

    1. Keep trying. I tried to speak to my mother when she was admitted to hospital. She was unable to hear me and clearly thought I was my sister. I tried phoning in again but couldn’t get through but I gave up as I was going down to visit her next day.
      That was the last time I ever spoke to her.

      1. Oh, Lord, Lola.
        I’m sorry for that.
        I’ll keep trying. Problem is, can’t call too early due to breakfast, ablutions and meds, then there’s lunch, then a zed, then she’s away with the fairies…

    1. I too have won nothing. This is most disappointing. Don't they know I need to win the jackpot to justify the expense?

        1. My last financial advisor to use statistics likes swimming with the fishes…Well…when i say likes…it is statistically provable because he is still doing it.

      1. Talking of getting pished, is the nearest railway station within walking distance of your house? On the map it looks as if it might be but without getting the ruler out and calculating the scale, maps can be deceiving.

        1. Yes it is. I manage it in about 12/15 minutes. And that's with a bit of hobbling. Okay if it isn't raining.
          Are you in contact with Tine about travel arrangements? I think they are getting a cab or bus from the Red Lion.
          Though it takes a bit longer from the station to the Pub than it does from the station to my place.

          1. Thanks! Yes, in touch with Tine via email about the outward journey. I need to make my own way back on Saturday evening though, as I'm serving in church on Sunday morning. The 7.28 pm would get me back to Waterloo by 9.22 pm or there's 7.49 arriving at 9.52, with one change of course. (I notice the later the train, the cheaper it is!)

          3. Just hope the local plod dont suspect the gathering as one of these extreme right wing gatherings looking for trouble. Mind you, they won't be far off…

          4. I did invite Suella Braverman to give us cover but unfortunately…

            Dear Philip,

            Many thanks for your message and incredible support. I really appreciate it.

            I will continue speaking out for the law-abiding, patriotic, common sense majority.

            Do consider joining the Conservative Party- we have social events, care about our community and country and are working to fight Labour and stand up for Conservative values. You can join here: https://membership.conservatives.com/membership/Levels

            Whilst I am not running for Leader, let’s work together to ensure that we hold the government to account and build a better Britain.

            I think my Secretary has been in touch to send my apologies about attending this event. Thank you for the kind invitation but I will be away. Hope to meet you at some other time.

            Kind regards
            Suella

          5. I'll provide the 'effnic then to prevent any whiff of white privilege! A little something I gathered on my travels…

          6. That should give us enough cover. The lady can be pushed to the front and plod will back off.

            I remember the picture of you both at table. I am very much looking forward to meeting her chicken feet. :@)

          7. Just sorted it out at Colchester station. There were TWO counters open!
            The whole thing was much easier that I thought.
            My return ticket is valid until 9th. September.
            (Oh look, Phil's gone rather pale.)

          9. Sonny Boy reckons the Red Lion staff will send us all up to bed at approx 2.00 am.

          10. Don't let the Spanish bar man serve you. He is on tripadvisor for going to the loo and not washing his hands.
            I was also there for lunch one day when he shouted at me for bringing Dolly in even though they are dog friendly. We were standing on flagstones and he directed us to a carpeted area.

          11. Looks eminently walkable from the map, though a taxi load of NOTTLers might be rather fun.

          12. There will be plenty of time for Nottler fun on the Saturday evening seeing as a cohort are all staying at the same Pub !

          14. I very much doubt i will be there. Much as i would like to. I expect i will be knackered and enjoying a long cool shower.

    5. I was delighted that my younger brother, a machinist in a Thames-side timber yard, and not able to retire until he is 67, won £25 shy of £1000!

  77. Big Brother Watch: Civil Liberties Group Raises Alarm on Starmer Using Anti-Stabbing Riots Pretext to Roll Out Facial Recognition Cameras

    OLIVER JJ LANE2 Aug 202416

    Declaring “far-right hatred” the immediate challenge for the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announced a rollout of facial recognition technology on Thursday night, sparking warnings by civil liberty advocates Big Brother Watch about the encroaching surveillance state.

    The UK has seen a series of protests and riots in several towns across England this week, with authorities bracing for what they suspect could be more on Friday night. These indicents of violence follow the mass stabbing of children at a summer holiday activity club on Monday.

    17-year-old Rwandan-heritage Alex Rudakubana was arrested and subsequently charged with murder and attempted murder, and having appeared before a judge on Thursday will now not be seen again until October with his next court date.

    Speaking on Thursday night in a speech addressing the riots in the country — if not so much the deadly attack that sparked them — Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer listed his responses to the unrest, including a crackdown with a new cross-border police command. Of the tools to be rolled out to stifle dissent, Sir Keir named: “wider deployment of facial recognition technology, and preventative action: criminal behaviour orders to restrict their movement, before they can even board a train”.

    While many might have suspected the riots this week might have had something to do with protesting the mass-stabbing of children in Merseyside on Monday and its subsequent handling by the authorities, the Prime Minister dismissed the possibility there could be any legitimate concerns being articulated. He said: “Let’s be very clear about this, it’s not protest. It’s not legitimate. It’s crime, violent disorder… this is not a protest that has got out of hand, this is a group of individuals who are absolutely bent on violence.”

    Silkie Carlo, Director of Big Brother Watch which campaigns against intrusive government surveillance encroaching on the lives of Britons and to reclaim already lost privacy, was fast to recognise the implied threat of the comments, and called the Prime Minister’s words an “alarming pledge” that threatens rather than protects democracy”.

    She said she was “angry” about the direction Starmer had decided to take, stating: “This AI surveillance turns members of the public into walking ID cards, is dangerously inaccurate and has no explicit legal basis in the UK. Whilst common in Russia and China, live facial recognition is banned in Europe.”

    Mandatory ID cards as cited by Carlo are a long-standing obsession of the Labour Party, now again in power in the United Kingdom after this month’s election. The country almost had them imposed during the last left-wing government, until they were repealed at the last minute by the new Conservative-Liberal coalition government in 2010.

    The Prime Minister was looking to address the symptoms of the problem, she said, rather than the root causes. Carlo continued: “It’s deeply worrying that the Prime Minister totally failed to address the causes of the violent, racist thuggery we have witnessed in Britain this week, let alone his failure to even address the causes of the heinous knife crime that has cruelly taken so many lives.

    “To promise the country ineffective AI surveillance in these circumstances was frankly tone deaf and will give the public absolutely no confidence that this government has the competence or conviction to get tough on the causes of these crimes and protect the public.”

    A serious problem that has massive implications for civil liberties with facial recognition camera systems is they produce a lot of false-positives, Carlo said. Citing Big Brother Watch’s ongoing campaign against the technology, she noted her co-campaigner is — ironically — an anti-knife campaigner who had been falsely flagged as a criminal by a Metropolitan Police camera.

    The group said of Shaun at the time of launching the campaign: “This is a dangerous reversal of the presumption of innocence – the foundation of our democracy and freedom. They include Shaun, a community worker who was stopped on the street, interrogated for almost half an hour and threatened with arrest following a facial recognition misidentification by the Metropolitan Police.

    “He was walking home from a patrol with Street Fathers, a community group that provides a positive male presence for young people and takes knives off the streets. As Shaun said, “instead of working to get knives off the streets like I do, they were wasting their time with technology when they knew it had made a mistake”.”

    1. Always watch for the opportunists. I don't suppose that the murders were part of the plan, but some have worked hard to prepare for the kind of disaster that will allow easy push for surveillance technology, tightening of rights and the advancement of a police state. It's not coincidence that the "far Right" are being blamed for made-up stuff, that's all been prepared, it was just to copy 'n paste in the event.
      So, a great tranche of freedoms are to be eaten up in the next few days. Somebody in planning should get a promotion.

  79. Remember this ?

    A British politician lost her job over a tweet: how to explain it to someone outside the UK
    This article is more than 9 years old
    James Walsh
    If you’re not British, Labour politician Emily Thornberry’s resignation for posting a tweet of a house, some flags and a van may seem baffling. Here’s why it happened.

    Emily Thornberry’s resignation from the Labour shadow cabinet for posting an image of a house in Rochester has provoked fury in Britain and bafflement abroad. While political commentators in the UK were divided over whether she should have resigned, they were fairly united in the belief that Thornberry had committed an embarrassing and potentially devastating faux pas.

    At worst, she had shown her (and therefore Labour’s) contempt for the patriotic working classes. According to the prime minister, David Cameron, “effectively what this means is Ed Miliband’s Labour party sneers at people who work hard, who are patriotic and who love their country. And I think that’s completely appalling.”

    All for tweeting this photo, with the caption: “image from #Rochester”.

    So how would you explain to someone from outside Britain why Thornberry’s position became untenable? Obviously there’s the timing, turning what should have been a tricky day for the Conservatives – who were about to lose another MP to the insurgent rightwing party Ukip – into one dominated by questions of Labour snobbery. And it played perfectly into the narrative of the main political parties being a bunch of out-of-touch metropolitan elites. The tweet was particularly disastrous as Thornberry is MP for Islington, an area of London long a byword for rich, bourgeois cultural and political elitism.

    But why? After all, Thornberry has a habit of taking pictures of buildings and posting them on Twitter. The problem, as with so much of British politics, was one of class. She had taken a picture of a working-class home, covered in England flags: exactly the kind of home potentially containing the kind of “white van man” voter that the Labour leadership is accused of being out of touch with. And, some claimed, there was an air of contempt in her choosing to tweet the image at all.This, despite Thornberry herself being brought up in a council house.

    Her case was not helped by her subsequent comments to Mail Online, who she told: “I’ve never seen anything like it before. It had three huge flags covering the whole house. I thought it was remarkable. I’ve never seen a house completely covered in flags.”

    The St George’s flag has a complicated history in England, and its association with far-right politics, though fading, is still one that resonates with some. And the idea that the flag is synonymous with anti-immigration feeling – and that Thornberry’s tweet was drawing attention to this – also explains why the MP got into such hot water on the day an anti-immigration party was on course to win a byelection in the area.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/nov/21/emily-thornberry-resignation-explain-outside-britain

    The tweet was particularly disastrous as Thornberry is MP for Islington, an area of London long a byword for rich, bourgeois cultural and political elitism.

    Kneeler Starmer still hasn't got it , has he , he won the election by default , and his voter base (not Muslims ) will turn on him .

    1. The mask slipped..
      Still to this day Labour at pains to to make this culture war, a war of melanin levels.. and NOT.. definitely NOT.. no siree a class war.

      Listen, don't mention the ghastly white working class. I mentioned them once, but I think I got away with it all right.

    3. He can do a great deal of damage in the time he has got (even if it is cut short). He knows that. Plus he will get PM pension and security. What's not to like for a pr@ like that – the people of this country can get stuffed as far as he is concerned. Same with the Rayner school drop-out and many others (on both sides).

    4. He can do a great deal of damage in the time he has got (even if it is cut short). He knows that. Plus he will get PM pension and security. What's not to like for a pr@ like that – the people of this country can get stuffed as far as he is concerned. Same with the Rayner school drop-out and many others (on both sides).

    1. Miserable Scottish sod! And that’s not racist (before anyone gets upset on his behalf or otherwise!) – it’s a fact.

    2. Um, I think he was joking Sue 😕 It was just a light-hearted, throwaway comment. And just for the record, I've never been a big fan.

      2. Probably he was. Thank goodness he didn't give up the day job; his earnings as a stand-up comedian would have been a big fat zero.

  81. Maybe if they are going to allow men into women's boxing they should allow hitting below the belt.

    1. Could not care less about Brendan Cox and I have little, if any, respect for Farage. To me it was pretty obvious that when Trump was shot Farage invited himself over for his own self aggrandisement. His evasiveness when asked if he had been invited and if he was scheduled to see Trump, spoke volumes about his dishonesty. Further more, his attitude to Tommy Robinson displays the same ignorant bigotry of most mainstream politicians. He could only wish that he was able to muster the troops in the way that Robinson did in Trafalgar square or have an iota of Robinsons sincerity or integrity. Instead he is a fool who wants to keep distance from the working class, the very people that made Reform possible. He, in that wonderful word used by Americans for some politicians, 'bloviates'.

  83. Official at centre of Olympics boxing gender row was Keir Starmer’s best man
    Mark Adams, spokesman for the IOC who warned against a ‘witch hunt’ towards Imane Khelif, has known the PM since school
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/02/mark-adams-official-ioc-olympics-boxing-row-starmer-friend/

    "You can tell a man by the company he chooses."

    The more closely we look at Starmer's entourage and personal friends the nastier this foul man will be revealed to be.

    1. Mark Adams also worked for the BBC, ITN and was a senior communications executive for the WEF for 10 years. There you have it.

    2. Starmer is not having a good week.
      If I were a nice person, this would upset me.
      Luckily, I'm not.

  84. Ukraine drone downs $15m Russian helicopter. 2 August 2024.

    A $15m Russian helicopter was destroyed by a small Ukrainian drone 50km inside of Russia, Ukrainian and Russian sources said.
    The attack on the 12-ton Russian Mi-8 helicopter near Russian-occupied Donetsk potentially marked the first time a Ukrainian drone has taken down a military helicopter.

    This is being vaunted as a demonstration of Ukie moral and technical superiority. In actuality the powerful are always brought low by the lesser on the battlefield. Men are killed by single bullets. Aircraft, the epitome of modern technology, are shot down by missiles costing less than the fuel that drives them. Tanks succumb to mines and explosive devices that are inert in every sense except the last.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/08/02/ukraine-russia-war-latest-news15/

  85. Just asked a neighbour if she watched the people demonstrating in Whitehall? She doesn't use a computer so is reliant on the TV. Her response to my question. "Right wing thugs". My guess is that she constitutes the majority who would rather believe the BBC than people on You Tube.

    1. I’ve said it before. The state of the world, a nuclear war would be a welcome relief.

    2. Vlod the drag queen is more intelligent than i thought. He knows how to hold a colouring pencil correctly.

    3. So, who is going to lend in the future if that's the kind of response they get? I won't be.

    1. They're afraid of the public contradicting their message of "right wing thugs". They work in cahoots with politicians, you know, constructing a false reality for the sheep.

    3. Looks like it.
      Yesterday they were delayed for several hours.
      Today, they've gone the full Starmer.

  88. It's all bloody grim time to lighten the mood
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c33c3d0f3dd7f6101a1514c6e63f537f824f5901dfb8017bd4781f1355af75e7.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/48f6c58fea16e6706e20b3cabb580467df2fb3c6f702277c9555b4947b3189d0.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d10ce24ac8de3da8fe054a64a03219dc75ea644767b79691618672f990f91b7d.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4803a41f99e44c326d773abaf5a124563f109625272ebba0c1ed0d962c5c0427.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/589c5c7d2a3245cdfcf44debe7d9b2a5a6a6433ae96cfc727517d03d924edfbf.png
    My favourite
    https://x.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1817526667847385343

    1. That reminds me of when the authorities used to burn cannabis plants in South Africa.
      But they used an old railway engine.

  89. YouTube has just gone to war on us happy freeloaders! I can't watch any video without having to sit through at least 3 minutes of ads that get past Ublock and Adblock.

    Any handy hints, anyone?

    1. Try using two screens simultaneously; while the ads are on at low volume) look at something on the other screen. Or make a pot of tea.

      1. I do too but i have a suspicion as yet unproven that by doing that you end up with more interruptions. I don't watch enough to bother either way.

      2. This is before the video plays, not one of those annoying interruptions. I don't get a 'Skip ad' message.

        1. Maybe it's down to Mac v. Micro or the age of the program.
          As long as I can zap with the minimum of inconvenience I let sleeping dogs lie.
          (Memories of losing MB's holiday photos some 20 years ago have scarred me for life.)

    3. Err, not seeing these adverts? Ublock seems to be doing it's job.

      I don't see it as freeloading. I'm not interested in the products they are selling. I wouldn't buy it anyway. Does the video editor want me to watch their sponsor's messages? Again, only if I want to same as I can skip any part of the video they are publishing.

      My first recommendation is a pihole. My second, use firefox. Then one adblocker, I use ublock. Having two can conflict.

  90. Why do police only beat white protesters?.

    Because only tax payers get the full service. :@(

  91. £90749+ up ticks,

    May one ask,

    Is there someone on the same intelligence level as kneeler to ask him, in regards to facial recognition, are BURKA wearers exempt if or guilty if they put their hands up to cover the slot.

    Ps
    Seemingly if you are out to break any of the new laws wear a BURKA, how about ALL far right racist have a BURKA DAY or better, don a burka at the next freedom mass meeting.

    1. Didn't Wokeish Feminists argue that doning the burka was an act of liberartion? Perhaps they were right.

      2. 390749+ up ticks,

        Afternoon AAL

        As an anti political @rsehole countermove it would be highly commendable I would say.

  92. Ummm… we've got another dog. Another Newfoundland, a landseer female, called Lucy. She's underweight and her coat is a mess. Turns out the owners were not prepared for the small fluffy puppy to turn into a small horse.

    So Lucy is staying with us while she recovers and gets her strength back. The breeder can't take her due to her own dog being in season and aggressive (aggressive for a well behaved Newfie means overly excitable, not bitey). Oscar has been spayed but Mongo hasn't, and while i'm keeping her apart from the boys it'll only take one door left open.

    1. Rather you than me. When our dog was in season one of the neighbours dogs tried to get in through the cat-flap! We found it in pieces on the kitchen floor when we came back from shopping 🤣

      2. Our cats regularly crash through the cat-flap, resulting in it being in the middle of the floor.

        1. I’ve had that problem too but not often. I think it only happens if they are being chased or something outside has spooked them. Usually it means that the cat-flap needs to be replaced!

          1. It’s an intact tom. Chases our two who are twice the size of the tom, each.

    2. With a gathering pack of Nufees you should be warm in winter. You should invite us round for a Gander…

    4. I would offer up Harry. He is fully intact but needs a ladder. My breeder says some help is often needed.

      Puppies of Harry's bloodline sell for £15 hundred. I wonder what a Newfie Chihuahua cross would be like.

      Probably like long haired elephants charging around yapping.

  97. Back from funeral. Good turnout. 200+ Proper rector; proper organist; proper hymns. Churchyard burial. Good bash at village hall. And the sun shone.

      1. No surprise in banning thongs. A lot of water parks in the UK are in muslim held territory. Given how muslim men become mad eye swiveling lustful animals at the showing of an ankle and then being confronted by a beautiful empowered woman makes them go even more insane.
        Easier for them to groom children and goats because they would never, ever get a date with one of these women.
        They want these women to cover up to make up for their shortcomings, small penises and shitty arseholes.

    3. I guessit's nice to be laid to rest in sunshine. 200 mourners, eh? Popular person!

  99. YouTube ad nuisance update:
    It was happening in Chrome. I signed into my Google account and the problem disappeared.
    Firefox and Edge – not a problem, although in Edge the ad appeared very briefly.

    1. I use Premium (on Safari). I pay a monthly fee but it's only a pittance since I use YouTube a lot.

    2. I use Premium (on Safari). I pay a monthly fee but it's only a pittance since I use YouTube a lot.

    1. What shite.
      "exploiting local land and labour without proper compensation or respect for local rights." – Of course, no mention of what all those people would have done without the tea plantations, for money and accommodation, schooling, and the like.

      1. Not forgetting local farmers growing food to eat which the tea pickers could then afford to buy. Oh no.

    3. FFS. Just shut up about British exploitation, I’m sick of having it rammed down my throat.

      1. As if other colonialists haven't exploited crueller and harder – without doing anything for the populations concerned. Ottomans being one such. Various African, Indian, S.American, N. American and Europeans being other such.

      2. As if other colonialists haven't exploited crueller and harder – without doing anything for the populations concerned. Ottomans being one such. Various African, Indian, S.American, N. American and Europeans being other such.

    1. Would it be wrong of me to suggest that the intersex freak looks like a monkey?

      Asking on behalf of other primates…

    3. I've lost count of the number of dykey "domestic" disputes I attended as a young copper with nary a 'Y' chromosome in sight.

      Those rug-munchers can be pretty violent.

      1. I remember a 'girlie' punch-up in a Mykonos bar.
        All the men – of every type – made themselves very inconspicuous or melted away.

    4. I've lost count of the number of dykey "domestic" disputes I attended as a young copper with nary a 'Y' chromosome in sight.

      Those rug-munchers can be pretty violent.

  104. Appealing to my fellow nottlers for guidance. I have just been on Substack and apparently there are a lot of people who believe that the Manchester bombingand the attack in Southport were faked and a psyops event to wind up the white population so that the government could pass draconian laws. They also think that the Trump shooting was fake and just about every other event since the Korean War was engineered to drive the population into an insane corner so they could be contained.
    Has anyone else heard of this view? It has blown my mind!

    1. In all the best conspiracy theories there is a grain of truth.

      'They' don't need to fake these atrocities. They are happening on a daily basis around the world always involving angry insane muslims.

      I expect those same people on substack believe the moon landings were faked too.

      1. Some do but not all. This opinion was on James Deligpole’s Substack and the followers were quite scarily militant about their beliefs.

        2. I saw that too – it seemed extreme but (I guess) plausible, but I'm not sure that the proof that he sought about things happening (or being made up) was there.

      2. ♬"Space may be the final frontier, but it's made in a Hollywood basement."♬
        [Californication, The Red Hot Chilli Peppers.]

    2. It comes from the same mindset that sees every apparently right thinking individual as "controlled opposition"? I think lying became endemic when Marx first acquired a readership. It's a philosophy so evil that it can never gain acceptance without deceit. They don't fake events so much as fake the reasons for the events and lie about the consequences.

    3. I think everything is fake and in the spirit of cynicism I don’t think you exist and it is not me writing this comment.

      I hope that helps.

      1. Actually it’s one of the most sensible comments I’ve heard for a long time, even though you probably have your tongue in your cheek. I have come to the conclusion that I can only vouch for things that I have personal experience of, the rest may or may not be true.
        I find it difficult to watch tv anymore and have given up completely on the news; even the weather pronouncements are faked.
        We seem to have one fairy story after another fed to us and it’s getting worse.
        I asked about this site because what was proposed seemed utterly impossible and ridiculous.
        However, seeing the way such tragedies are quickly developed into a narrative that drives people in the way the elites would like them to think, I’m not so sure.
        It’s no longer about the children or even the boy, but all about brave Starmer protecting us from the evil far right. I find that disturbing and very very scary.

        1. My tongue was in my cheek however I try to find humour where I can, I suppose it is my coping method. I stopped commenting for a long time, I found I was becoming Mr Angry, humour tempers my inner rage.
          Much like yourself I doubt nearly everything I hear, certainly everything that comes from our established political parties. To my mind they are happy to keep the status quo, my turn now, your turn next. When things get sticky blame the far right or in times past momentum.
          Why people are surprised by Starmer is beyond me, he and his Labour Party has established form, did people expect anything different.
          It is all our fault, remember that when he comes begging for our votes next time.

    4. Well, we all know that the Twin Towers "attack" was a joint effort by Israel and the USA.

      1. The Towers being full of International banks and the majority of deaths coming from responders who are and were Irish descendants both police and fire.

        No wonder the conspiracy theory. Most of NYPD and NYFD were made up of people with a common background.

        And were white.

          1. Can you imagine. I would have invited Emily Thornberry but i think the sound of silence might have made her leave in her security detail having more problems than Trump. Without anyone saying anything or firing a Glock at the back of her head.
            I have been to a party like that. Would you like to meet my sister?

  105. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/95891816d6d3540277f8e7efcd76b204764aca32ea141c2abf3e423fe2a2dbdb.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/02/forget-the-supermajority-labour-may-lose-the-next-election/

    BTL

    Keir Starmer's wife looks a very supportive and pleasant woman and she is Jewish as are their children. I wonder what she makes of her husband's attempts to win the Muslim vote when so many Muslims seem to want the extermination of Jews?

    1. She knows that wether her husband is successful or not they will be safe in their elite, gated and secure community.

      1. 390749+ up ticks,

        Evening Pip,
        Could be either or neither would not surprise me, once one or two murders are committed the mass become statistics as the old ruskie once said.

      2. 390749+ up ticks,

        Evening Pip,
        Could be either or neither would not surprise me, once one or two murders are committed the mass become statistics as the old ruskie once said.

  107. So far the slogans are:

    Robert Jenrick: “Change. Win. Deliver.“
    Tom Tugendhat: “Unite. Rebuild. Win.”
    Priti Patel: “Unity. Experience. Strength.“
    Mel Stride: “Trust. Change. Win.“
    Hardly eye-popping stuff. It’s going to be a long campaign…

    1. I think it obvious why Suella isn't running. She just couldn't bring herself to spout all that bullshit.

      1. Bellends wanting to retain their lush expenses so they don't have to actually do any work.

        Sending the intelligentsia into the fields to pick rice wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

        1. "Sending the intelligentsia into the fields to pick rice wasn't necessarily a bad thing."

          In Ireland?

    5. Well Piti Patel seems the most honest, she at least does not promise “win” in her campaign.
      Being a party of Limp Dums disguised as Conservatives and now seen for what they are, winning is not likely no matter who leads.

  109. Phew what a relief . Here's BBC's verify…..

    "What sex was Khelif assigned at birth? Was she born biologically male or female?
    Khelif has always competed in the women's division and is recognised by the International IOC as a female athlete.
    "The Algerian boxer was born female, was registered female, lived her life as a female, boxed as a female, has a female passport," IOC spokesperson Mark Adams said on Friday.
    "This is not a transgender case. There has been some confusion that somehow it's a man fighting a woman, this is just not the case. On that there is consensus, scientifically this is not a man fighting a woman."
    Khelif has spoken about her experiences of growing up as a girl in Algeria and the prejudice she faced playing football alongside boys.
    "Don't let obstacles come in your way, resist any obstacles and overcome them. My dream is to win a gold medal," she said in March 2024.
    "If I win, mothers and fathers can see how far their children can go. I particularly want to inspire girls and children who are disadvantaged in Algeria."
    There is no suggestion Khelif identifies as anything other than a woman.

      1. …Very wealthy. My Nigerian cousin would like to know how someone generates a pension of £300k on earnings of around £400k.

    2. Simple question – XY or XX? Or do the IOC only “follow the science” when it suits them?

      2. From Academy of Ideas.
        https://www.academyofideas.uk/p/the-punch-felt-around-the-world?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1010287&post_id=147250424&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1oqaot&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
        "Khelif is one of two boxers at the centre of controversy at the Olympics. Along with Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, both boxers had previously been deemed ineligible for the female category by the International Boxing Association, likely because of a cheek swab establishing that they have XY (male) chromosomes rather than XX chromosomes (female). As the charity Sex Matters points out, the IOC has allowed the two to participate in the Paris Olympics on the basis that ‘their passports say female’. If the IOC is prioritising bits of paper over previous medical examinations, this is clearly a problem".

    3. Khelif was given a DNA test by the International Boxing Association and found to have XY chromosomes. Possibly the male organs weren't clearly visible at birth therefore his sex actually was wrongly assigned but he was not born female. He's a man not a woman and has the strenghth of a man therefore should not be allowed to beat up women for sport.

      1. Wrongly observed, Sue – sex is not assigned at birth, no matter what the Wokesters think

        1. In fact it is "assigned" in one way – by simply observing which bits are there, or not. There is no other way unless DNA tests are carried out on every single new-born.

          2. I do understand what you are saying. It is a question of semantics and the wrong word is being used. In that I agree with you.

          3. Perhaps a baby is "categorised" at birth (rightly or wrongly). I agree you can't assign a sex but you can describe someone by a sex.

          4. Perhaps a baby is "categorised" at birth (rightly or wrongly). I agree you can't assign a sex but you can describe someone by a sex.

      3. There exists the possibility that Khelif is inters*x.
        The artist Fiore de Henriquez (1921 – 2004) preferred a more traditional term, describing herself proudly as 'hermaphrodite.

    4. He looks like a beautiful woman and any man would be proud to have him as his girlfriend

    5. No human has ever had their sex "assigned" to them. They are the natural product of a fusion of chromosomes at the point of conception.

      The BBC needs disbanding (completely, with the exception of Sue E) and resurrecting, with common sense taking the place of Common Purpose.

    1. Obviously there isn't a single left-leaning political group in the country that uses the internet and social media. Perhaps the BLM riots were organised by the writing of letters.

      1. As my grandkids would say, natch!
        I on the other hand, waits patiently for the BBC Verify to remind us all that the BLM protests was a legitimate gathering to allow our police farce the opportunity to carry out stretching exercises, taking the knee and standing up in time to swap hugs and kisses with every BLM member.

      2. These days I would say that the best way to organise a riot without being detected would indeed be by the writing of letters 🤣

        1. I am considering changing my avatar to “Uninvited Guest”. I think it very likely I would never see my door being kicked in by plod.

    2. Here are two very telling lines that reveal the BBC mindset:

      But its core ideas – in particular an opposition to illegal immigration, mixed with indiscriminate and racist claims about Muslims – are very much alive, and loudly and widely spread among sympathisers online.

      Thrown into this mix are tropes from conspiracy theories that "elites" are somehow covering up the truth – including the abuse of British children.

      It's the casual dismissal of the concerns of millions, the lofty disdain that sticks in the throat. Let's not forget "the mostly peaceful" BLM and Bristol riots of 2020 and the extraordinary mental, moral and verbal gymnastics that the BBC engaged in at that time. Effectively, it joined the Labour Party and The Guardian (for they are all as one) in saying: "They have a point, don't they?"

    3. "Bloody peasants.
      How dare they protest against their lives being turned upside down."
      (Beeb Stooge on £400,000 per annum.)

  113. What a bunch of disgustingly greedy crooks and robbers our UK motor insurance companies are.
    Our car insurance quote has risen from around 300 pounds PA fully comp, to over 500 pounds.
    And we have never made a claim or ever had a single point on both our licenses.
    What's that all about.

    1. About an extra 5 million ininsured drivers. Can't imagine where they came from……….

      1. I rate myself as a safe and very experienced driver.
        The problem seems to be there are people driving with not a clue how they should behave. Have never seen the highway code.
        Never passed a driving test in the UK and some with licences had standins taking the test for them

    3. it's the algo.. you either left it too late, or were not quick enough.
      try this procedure.. 32 days before your expiry.. use gocompare with your target price of £300.
      type in all the details.. (they know your real expiry date anyway).
      On receipt of "best quotes", select cheapest price £325.. it's the best you'll get.. then immediately pay with new starting date.
      You overlap 1 or 2 days of insurance. So what.
      If you leave it overnight the quotes will expire, and hey-presto your new requotes get larger & larger nearer yr expiry date= no choice but to pay £500.

      1. The cost of repairs/replacement of electric cars don't help matters.
        We are all paying for them.

        1. Or it could be Sue Grey's new Two-Keir Stasi algo picking up far too many negative comments about Sir Keir's regime on your Disqus account.

  114. An effing Bogie Five!

    Wordle 1,140 5/6
    ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
    🟨🟨⬜🟨⬜
    ⬜🟨⬜🟨🟨
    ⬜🟩🟩⬜🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Me too.

      Wordle 1,140 5/6

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

      1. Wordle 1,140 4/6

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

      2. I didn't get it at all :o(

        Second time that has happened, normally I just about manage.

      3. I didn't get it at all :o(

        Second time that has happened, normally I just about manage.

    2. Lucky par which beats most of todays golf game.

      Wordle 1,140 4/6

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

    3. Not alone.
      Wordle 1,140 5/6

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

    4. Managed a par here…

      Wordle 1,140 4/6

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

  118. Just back from a pleasant couple of days in Barnstaple where I paid a visit to Lynmouth, parking up the cliff in Lynton and then getting the Victorian cliff railway down. The bottle embedded in the wall contained ginger beer manufactured from the river water and advertised in the early part of the 20th century as having health benefits from the mild radioactivity.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/02709e209829f003941953cf8889484c30f88560bf74fbd46bff322240ff46ee.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1dc33dee281c359e9b7bee1cd1c0ca809629724162e92b5ed9adfc77df630694.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f0fa585ca1e58cc8b381b40b34e61bb709074c129ca959d96836037f0423945e.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6b01679d6950142cac3bdd64fd50130eb8f2782b8a4278eea039884b5793a0ff.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4b409c763f51aa18e17300455e3f46c0a4cf8df90c81d5a5b61822ae57b51541.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7c8add2d6a9d54240cce8f0a5058c764d82ab13be93cb6c1521cdf724448c745.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fbd10c468fa1bb045603fb7b077179bab350ad84aa9b61c96d9c4af97bd4ddfe.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cbfcd462cbf5532a6db8ac640d9109a614a4608ca61a65e55252e84a7526bdc7.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/43530d5a55a56815caed87c7fff4086675339e974659592a8580bc99fc37e85a.jpg

          2. I am afraid we used to sing very rude words to this tune when we returned to school after an away rugby match.

            Last night I contemplated masturbation
            It did me good, I knew it would
            Tonight I shall repeat the operation
            I do desire, to bend my wire.
            Bang it, bang it, bang it on the floor,
            Slam it, slam it, slam it in a door
            Some people say that sexual intercourse is really simply grand
            But for personal satisfaction I prefer to us my hand.

            A very good friend of mine – who is a brilliant organist who used to be the director of music in a very successful school – has the same problem: – he can't listen to Mozart's Horn Concerto without the words written by Flanders and Swann flooding into his mind.

    4. Exmoor ties with The North York Moors as my favourite national park. I love Lynmouth. [I wouldn't have wanted to be there on August 15, 1952 though!]

      Lovely photo of a juvenile grey wagtail.

  119. I see that we manged a gold meddul in the show jumping DESPITE the absence of the horse-whipperer.

    Clearly she is not missed…

    2. Charlotte rode dressage, not show jumping. They are completely different disciplines.

  120. That's me for this sultry and slightly oppressive day. Terribly hot at the funeral and in the churchyard. Interesting to see that even in the best regulated families (of which my late chum's and his wife's are exemplars) there were: the relatives from India; the lesbian couple complete with tattoos and nose rings; the incredibly obese relative. Most of the men looked rather like English film actors from the 1960s…! Those who read, did so extremely well. The hymns were rousing. I am now going to join the MR and have a glass or three in memory of absent friends. John was one of the very few people with whom I shared my 1970s clarets – it was always a pleasure to see the delight on his face!

    Anyway, enough of that. Have a spiffing evening sharpening your machetes.

    A demain

      1. Give it time, and I’m sure we will be told that it was constant far right racism that drove him insane.

    2. Could these stories and the concentration on the violent protests possibly be as a deflection from the obvious conclusion that people will arrive at as to the motive behind the attack?

      1. I must admit that I am intrigued as to what the police may have found regarding his internet activity.

      1. An unsuitable comment to underline my concerns over how he is being presented, not making light of what happened.

        It will be what he was peacefully protesting against, while singing a happy tune.

        It just got a little out of hand /sarc, /sarc /sarc.

    4. Well, I have heard some stories about mental issues , but that Autism diagnosis that the media are rabbiting on about , gives everyone an excuse to murder , so any stabby stabby black / brown / yellow / whitey can say "ooh don't touch me , my autism got out of control "

      If the protests in every city happen this weekend , the wrongly labelled 'Right Wing ' crowds should shout out , don't mind us we are having an Autistic episode .

      Hands up Nottlers , if perhaps you have been shopping , supermarket , street or where ever , and a child plays up , screaming and shouting and throwing stuff around , have you ever heard a harassed parent say , kiddo has ADHD or Autism ..

      But

      Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a behavioural disorder that includes symptoms such as inattentiveness, hyperactivity and impulsiveness.
      People with ADHD may also have additional problems, such as sleep and anxiety disorders.
      Adults with ADHD may find they have similar problems, and some may have issues with relationships or social interaction.

      Listen up , if you have a disorder like that, you don't target young children and adults by hacking them to death , and enjoy the pleasure of wounding, hearing painful screams , distress and blood everywhere ..

      Only a screwed up maniac / barbarian would do a thing like that … and you know what , that is what they did in Rwanda , DRC during the appalling slaughter years .. Genocidal slaughterers.

      This murderous thing runs through their genetic makeup .

      Innocent children were sacrificed and kind adults and more children have been left badly scarred .. in a town in England , not Africa.

    5. Well, I have heard some stories about mental issues , but that Autism diagnosis that the media are rabbiting on about , gives everyone an excuse to murder , so any stabby stabby black / brown / yellow / whitey can say "ooh don't touch me , my autism got out of control "

      If the protests in every city happen this weekend , the wrongly labelled 'Right Wing ' crowds should shout out , don't mind us we are having an Autistic episode .

      Hands up Nottlers , if perhaps you have been shopping , supermarket , street or where ever , and a child plays up , screaming and shouting and throwing stuff around , have you ever heard a harassed parent say , kiddo has ADHD or Autism ..

      But

      Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a behavioural disorder that includes symptoms such as inattentiveness, hyperactivity and impulsiveness.
      People with ADHD may also have additional problems, such as sleep and anxiety disorders.
      Adults with ADHD may find they have similar problems, and some may have issues with relationships or social interaction.

      Listen up , if you have a disorder like that, you don't target young children and adults by hacking them to death , and enjoy the pleasure of wounding, hearing painful screams , distress and blood everywhere ..

      Only a screwed up maniac / barbarian would do a thing like that … and you know what , that is what they did in Rwanda , DRC during the appalling slaughter years .. Genocidal slaughterers.

      This murderous thing runs through their genetic makeup .

      Innocent children were sacrificed and kind adults and more children have been left badly scarred .. in a town in England , not Africa.

    7. The whole story stinks from start to finish imo. The way that aspects of it are being dripped out, Starmer's speech that looked as though it was ready prepared.

    1. I think this is fake news. I can't believe that publicly funded lab would produce these drugs in such immensity to spread around the world would do such a thing.

      1. Of course not, and all those drug smugglers are doing so for their poor brethren who need something to take their minds off the injustices of America.

      2. Of course not, and all those drug smugglers are doing so for their poor brethren who need something to take their minds off the injustices of America.

      3. Covid too, Phizzee – virus and vaccine, both courtesy of Pfizer. But you'll know that already 🙂

      1. I'm not looking, opopanax – thanks for warning. I've read it's flooding over American southern border, incorporated into other drugs, comes from China. This is the border Kamala Harris has the job of sorting out, but doesn't seem to have had much success. Various senators kick off about it (Kennedy, Hawley, Cruz et al) but doesn't seem to change the situation.

  123. Peter Hitchens slams 'dangerous' discussion of Islam as 'some kind of nameless threat'
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13699657/Peter-Hitchens-slams-dangerous-discussion-Islam.html

    "I am a practicing, communicative Christian member of the Church of England. I differ on large and important theological matters with Muslims, and in fact, rather enjoy discussing it with them. And I've had many, many conversations, including in that strange programme I took part in last year, in which I was in a pretend prison.

    "One of my cellmates was a very serious Muslim, and we discussed it a lot, and at one point we ended up praying alongside each other. I take Islam very seriously as a faith… I don't welcome some of its precepts, particularly its attitude towards women. But the way in which so many people now speak of it as if it was some kind of nameless threat seems to be dangerous and also possibly coded for something else.

    "And I think that we have to recognise that we now have brothers and sisters living in our society who have a different religion from the one that we may have grown up with."

    Responding to the suggestion that the "M word is a term of pejorative abuse" for some people, Peter said: "There is that. And then there is the suggestion that someone, because they are Muslim, is perhaps more given to taking part in terrorist acts than other people.

    "And of course there have been Islamist terrorists, and there will be Islamist terrorists again. But I think that to jump from that to this sort of wider suspicion and attitude seems to me to be a mistake, a very large mistake."

    Peter Hitchens displays a BBC level of reasonableness. Has he been got at?

    1. Has he missed the surveys of Muslims which show a high level of support for terrorist activities against non-Muslims?

      1. If the population of Muslims is 4,000,000 and assuming that only the men will commit acts of terrorism, then just one-half of one percent is 10,000. Think what that many, spread around the country, could do in one moment…

    4. 390749+up ticks,

      Evening WS,

      His pretend cell mate could have been telling him a complete web of lies as ordered to by the islamic instruction manual, the Quran.

    5. He falls into the trap that most people do.
      The XYZ individual that I know, who is pleasant, polite and reasonable is truly representative of the vast majority.

      Sorry to disabuse you Mr Hitchens, but "people like us" tend to mix with "people like us", not the overwhelming majority who are ill educated savages following a 7th century death cult, invented by a warlord for strategic reasons.
      Most, what I would term middleclass people like me, Muslims I met were only Muslim when it suited them.

    6. I see attitudes towards Jews gets dodged. I see the intensity of violence towards others when they kick off, including and in large part other Muslims, isn't accounted for. When it does kick off the group collectivism is activated, again true of the various denominations within Islam. The attitude towards innocent life, which from what I understand tactically developed from the 1970s, appears to be unique. Sam Harris points out that the so called extremist isn't necessarily misreading any texts within this particular religion, how does Peter navigate that observation? What about the attitudes towards apostasy? They seem at odds with our inheritance of liberty of conscience.

      Mr Hitchens doesn’t appear to be applying the same rigour he displays towards Leftists. But I will grant him the benefit of the doubt he might address some of my raised eyebrow moments elsewhere.

      1. It's all of that, plus their attitude to telling the truth that makes me distrust them. Oh, and the small matter that their holy book tells them to behead me because I'm a kuffar.

  124. Peter Hitchens slams 'dangerous' discussion of Islam as 'some kind of nameless threat'
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13699657/Peter-Hitchens-slams-dangerous-discussion-Islam.html

    "I am a practicing, communicative Christian member of the Church of England. I differ on large and important theological matters with Muslims, and in fact, rather enjoy discussing it with them. And I've had many, many conversations, including in that strange programme I took part in last year, in which I was in a pretend prison.

    "One of my cellmates was a very serious Muslim, and we discussed it a lot, and at one point we ended up praying alongside each other. I take Islam very seriously as a faith… I don't welcome some of its precepts, particularly its attitude towards women. But the way in which so many people now speak of it as if it was some kind of nameless threat seems to be dangerous and also possibly coded for something else.

    "And I think that we have to recognise that we now have brothers and sisters living in our society who have a different religion from the one that we may have grown up with."

    Responding to the suggestion that the "M word is a term of pejorative abuse" for some people, Peter said: "There is that. And then there is the suggestion that someone, because they are Muslim, is perhaps more given to taking part in terrorist acts than other people.

    "And of course there have been Islamist terrorists, and there will be Islamist terrorists again. But I think that to jump from that to this sort of wider suspicion and attitude seems to me to be a mistake, a very large mistake."

    Peter Hitchens displays a BBC level of reasonableness. Has he been got at?

      1. Yep. At least OH had done the watering before I arrived home. And the ironing. He's now doing a bit of food prep for tonight's meal.

      2. Yep. At least OH had done the watering before I arrived home. And the ironing. He's now doing a bit of food prep for tonight's meal.

    2. Because of flooding, it took the DT over ½ an hour to get off the M3 onto the A34 yesterday evening about 7ish!

        1. Bursledon, to the East of Southampton just above Hamble.
          She’d picked up the M27 then M3 and got stuck trying to get off onto the A34.

          3. Geoff

            That is where son and his partner live .. East Cowes , lovely view of the River Medina from their flat.

            We visited last weekend , took the car . We sailed from Southampton, Red Funnel,

            We were early so visited the pier next door to Ferry terminal , we both needed to visit the loo, We took it in turns , parked up for less than 10mts , this morning we had a shock .. £100 parking fine .

            The pub at Netley was always a favourite , nr waterfront etc

            Sadly haven't had a proper drink for a couple of decades now.

          4. Shocking, Maggie. Cousin and family are in Wootton Bridge. I had a few nights at Luccombe Hall, Shanklin, in June, being the first "Cousin's meet-up" since lockdown. Can't recommend the place too highly. Some of the cousins, maybe a bit less… 🙂

    3. Because of flooding, it took the DT over ½ an hour to get off the M3 onto the A34 yesterday evening about 7ish!

  127. Two months rain in two hours leave Winchester flooded.
    Perhaps unblocking the drains in the high street might fucking help.

    1. I lived in Winchester in the 70s. It was idyllic, both the town and the surrounding countryside (hills and watermeadows). Couldn't believe what has happened to it when I went back a few years ago. It used to have a very strict and extensive green belt, but that must have gone because it is now surrounded by regiment after regiment of orange brick rabbit hutches.
      I do remember that all the rivers flow under the Cathedral, which is built on floats. When I lived there it started to sink and they had to do some complex engineering work to mitigate that. I suppose with all the new buildings, the explosion in population and careless attention to drainage its not surprising that it floods.

      1. All the Hampshire towns , villages are ruined , and now our Dorset villages , towns are filling up with houses , ghastly red brick things , apart from Poundbury of course which has mellow brickwork and stone facades.

      2. All the Hampshire towns , villages are ruined , and now our Dorset villages , towns are filling up with houses , ghastly red brick things , apart from Poundbury of course which has mellow brickwork and stone facades.

  128. Two months rain in two hours leave Winchester flooded.
    Perhaps unblocking the drains in the high street might fucking help.

  129. Lots of people there today and we were busier than I expected on the Friday. There was a distinct lack of diversity there, apart from a couple of Indian-looking security guys on traffic duty at the gate.

    Quite a lot of extremely obese people, in the mainly working-class type crowd. It was very warm in the morning but rather windy in the afternoon.

    People seemed happy to be there, spending their money. Plenty of food stalls etc. We were in the animals and countryside section.

  130. Lots of people there today and we were busier than I expected on the Friday. There was a distinct lack of diversity there, apart from a couple of Indian-looking security guys on traffic duty at the gate.

    Quite a lot of extremely obese people, in the mainly working-class type crowd. It was very warm in the morning but rather windy in the afternoon.

    People seemed happy to be there, spending their money. Plenty of food stalls etc. We were in the animals and countryside section.

      2. The news media even showed the mullahs laying bunches of flowers to remember those poor children who were murdered.

          1. Oh yes, on an extreme scale.
            Rubbing our noses in it all.
            Our political classes don’t have a clue what they have done to our country. If they are actually fully aware, they as is happening, make something else up as in ‘far right’ influences to blame for the on going damage to our culture and social structure. Wreckers all of them.
            Having four lovely grandchildren I fear for their future.

  132. Lord Hague and Lord Mandelson potential candidates for Oxford’s next chancellor
    More than 250,000 alumni are set to vote for the ‘most venerable post in British public life’ later this year

    Who knows the Voters might give both of them the bum's rush….

    1. Then fact that that Chris Patten held the post makes it a post of ill repute if you ask me!

  134. “It is difficult to imagine the Treasury giving up its substantial current fuel duty revenue without a replacement in mind. It is now more important than ever for policymakers to think about long-term sustainability of tax revenues, and how increasingly dated taxation mechanisms can be replaced.”

    PwC suggested a pay-per-mile tax on EVs, a policy that has already been introduced in Iceland and New Zealand.

    In Iceland, drivers with EVs and plug-in hybrid vehicles must pay 5.4p for every mile they drive. Drivers use an app to report the odometer reading on their vehicles and are invoiced every month.

    A UK system could be done automatically through geolocation trackers or through self-reporting like in Iceland"

    EVry little helps!

    1. Since my sporadic local bus is being withdrawn at the end of the month (520, Aldershot – Guildford or Woking – thanks, Surrey CC), I'll be forced to travel by EV. My EV of choice is the 450 class Desiro electric multiple unit operated by South Western Railway on the North Downs line, between Guildford and Farnham. Intermediate stops are Wanborough, Ash and Aldershot (home to 'far right' protestors, apparently). At least I don't have to charge the bloody thing. They run twice an hour each way, Monday to Saturday. Hourly on Sundays, when Farnham is replaced by Ascot. GWR stinky, noisy Diesels used to call regularly, en route between Gatport Airwick and Reading. Now reduced to three or four stops a day. Used to be handy for trips to Exeter St David's, but that won't be happening any more. 😟

      There seems to be a pattern here. When I lived in Seale, and was driving, the 65 Guildford – Alton bus would leave the A31 near Seale, and collect/set down passengers hourly, just outside the village, and then Runfold and all points betwixt (or vice versa), before re-joining the A31.

      Stopped driving. Leaving aside my experience when the 65 stayed on the A31, was shown live on a timetable, but didn't stop at White Lane (which resulted in an Anglo-Saxon exchange of views by phone with some utterly unhelpful Tuesday, Wednesday And Thursday at Guildford Bus Station, I acknowledged defeat (or "de-feet"), which was relevent to all but Stagecoach. "We advise people from Seale to walk to Farnham for a bus." "I was trying to catch a bus to Farnham. Why TF would I walk to Farnham to catch a bus there, when I've already wakled there? Expletives mostly deleted.

      The next nearest bus was the 3 service between Aldershot and Camberley. Helpfully, it called at Frimley Park Hospital on the way. So Stagecoach 'improved' the service by no longer calling at Tongham, adding another mile to my walk to catch it.

      Now I've moved, history is repeating itself…

    1. Daughter, Elite level (unpaid) Head Coach of Trampolining at local University is delighted.

      1. As I kid I loved the idea of trampolining but when I finally got to try it, at the school where I did my sixth form, I discovered it’s darned hard work. The bed doesn’t give you the support you think it will. Badly put but you know what I mean?

        1. I certainly do Sue. I'm told one student landed awkwardly on his head and paramedics were summoned. The bed had to be stabilised before the paramedics could approach the student.

  136. Totally off topic.

    I discovered a new biscuit for the sweet toothed, a maple syrup based, crumbly, shortbread with a soft maple cream centre.
    Absolutely delicious, and incredibly moreish.

    Probably my next heart attack in the making!

      4. Don't bother. It screams "carbohydrates". There's only so much insulin in the world, and mine is already under threat from the GP Surgery..,,

        1. You'll remember my husband, Geoff …been Type 2 for over 30 years…several weeks ago he started carbohydrate free diet (he calls it carnivore diet), eats all meats, cheese, milk, any dairy, eggs. No veg, no fruit, no carbs of any kind. I couldn't do it, but he loves it. And importantly, his numbers all down. Not recommending it by any means, but anyone interested might like to research (before changing diet!)

    2. That is so amazing and we all thank you for your contribution. Is it available to all vegans, coeliacs, queers, french presidents and their boyfriends, drag queens that other load of suckers up of muslim cunts who think shortbread has racist slavery connections or is it safe for us to eat without being arrested for having it in our fucking larder?
      Asking for a friend not yet admitted to a mental hospital…………

      1. Indeed, available to all, even bizarre chihuahua loving pornophiliacs with slave trading ancestors .

    1. You read it here first.
      By next week, those little girls and their teachers will be blamed for triggering his actions.

    3. Instructions to partygoers.
      1 check all the drink is out
      2 check all the food is out
      3 check all the glasses are out
      4 check all the plates are out
      5 check all the cutlery is out
      6 check the dogs are out
      7 chuck the Phizzee out
      8 have a really great time
      9 check out
      Edit as an afterthought
      10 don't forget to let Phizzee and the dogs back in and remember to write your thank you letters.

        2. Alarm set for 05:30 daily, Sue. I listen to "News Briefing" on R4. It's the only BBC allowed in this house. That and Farming Today. I live out in the sticks, so I'm interested. Caz Graham might just conceivably be related. I have to be out of bed to avoid the Today Prog by 6 am.

          Make first mug of tea, ASAP and take Lercanidipine at least 30 mins before eating. Check interweb in meantime. Get distracted. Remember that it's nearly 7 am. Post new page. Make and eat porridge, drink second cup of tea..

          Sundays, I have a lift to whichever church from 08:25. If I have printing to do, this impacts on the time availabe for ablutions. Which take much longer, given the prosthetic situation. No matter – I've yet to be late, but it's been butt-clenchingly close a few times…

          1. Farming today? Admittedly it was 10 years plus ago since i last listened, but we ended up calling it “anti-farming today”.

      2. Once you're in the routine of early mornings, Geoff, it somehow never stops. Have a great weekend, hope your Sunday a good one 🙂

  141. These congenital bloody idiots are giving cursed harmer and his Muslim base all the excuse they need to introduce laws that will place Muslims as a protected species with extra privileges and separate laws.

    2. Let us pray that the Indians ( educated ones like Rishi) kick up a fuss , because they are the moneymakers and intelligentsia , aren't they, oh yes and I forgot the Chinese and the rest of us ,

      We should be the protected species , a vanishing tribe.

      The 2021 Census data shows that:

      The total population of England and Wales was 59.6 million

      48.7 million people (81.7%) were from white ethnic groups
      – 44.4 million of those identified with the white British group (74.4% of the population) and 3.7 million with the white 'other' ethnic group (6.2%)

      5.5 million people (9.3%) were from Asian ethnic groups

      – 1.9 million of those identified with the Indian ethnic group (3.1%), and 1.6 million with the Pakistani ethnic group (2.7%)

      2.4 million people (4.0%) were from black ethnic groups – 1.5 million of those identified with the black African ethnic group (2.5%), and 0.6 million with the black Caribbean ethnic group (1.0%)

      1.7 million people (2.9%) had mixed ethnicity – 0.5 million of those identified with the mixed white and black Caribbean ethnic group (0.9%), and 0.5 million with the mixed white and Asian ethnic group (0.8%)

      1.3 million people (2.1%) belonged to other ethnic groups – 0.9 million of those identified with the ‘any other’ ethnic group (1.6%), and 0.3 million with the Arab ethnic group (0.6%)

      I don't believe those figures .

      I thought there were more of us than that, we have shrunk in size since the late 1950's

      2. The interesting thing is what a small proportion are black Caribbean or mixed white/black Caribbean. Has anybody told the people who make TV adverts?

  142. Appears that the alleged child killer and stabber appeared on a BBC Children in Need video nearly six years ago.
    It speaks normally, no obvious sign of being 'on the spectrum'.
    Where next for speculation?
    Was he a convert to some Manson-type cult, or a hired assassin working for County Lines?

    1. It is rather destroying his autism defence, isn't it?

      Perhaps that's the intention.

          1. Sorry Sue. That's the problem with speed reading, I read the last word as bush…

    3. Such a luverly lad, wouldn't hurt a fly, just had a funny turn. Luckily war seems to be brewing in the Mid East, that should make us all forget what has happened. I saw a pic of the individual on FB today, it was very similar to the drawing seen yesterday; odd how its not appeared in the papers (well not really!).

  143. I have just been browsing the Guardian ..

    Those Lefties indulge in carnal lust!

    When I was a student nurse in the 1960's , innocent and 18 years old , and about to be plunged into the amazing rules and routines of the Royal Navy (QARNNS) With in a month of my group, all girls of a similar age, we were shown a graphic film , lasting about an hour , in our classroom .

    The film was horrific , the sin of unprotected sex and the long term health problems , including some horrible film of diseased individuals, face neck throat , skin , down below and that was before Aids .. but if sailors contracted STDs, they were punished , stoppage of pay etc .. and if babies were born diseased , riddled with horrible things through parents having unsafe sex, well I won't go on, but the film was enough to turn anyone frigid .

    https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/article/2024/aug/02/sex-parties-tina-horn

    2. "Sex parties are governed by different rules than the rest of the world. A lot of things are bound to surprise you about your reaction to being in these liminal spaces: who you find yourself attracted to, what you’d like to watch, how it feels to be witnessed, what you’d be down to try, what your fantasies look and smell like outside of your head. But it’s still you. You don’t have to put on a fucking Venetian mask and pretend to be something you’re not. It’s transgressive enough for you to be present."

      'We are approaching 'debauchery central', next stop is South Buggery.'

    3. I don't believe her. There is an air of desperation just beneath the very shallow surface.

      Sonnet 129:

      Th'expense of spirit in a waste of shame

      By William Shakespeare

      "Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame
      Is lust in action; and till action, lust
      Is perjured, murd'rous, bloody, full of blame,
      Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
      Enjoyed no sooner but despisèd straight,
      Past reason hunted; and, no sooner had
      Past reason hated as a swallowed bait
      On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
      Mad in pursuit and in possession so,
      Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
      A bliss in proof and proved, a very woe;
      Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
      All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
      To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell."

  144. A mass movement of anti-racists is being mobilised to counter a number of far-right rallies taking place across the UK this weekend, campaigners have said.

    Counter-protests are being planned across the country in response to far-right demonstrations expected to take place in more than 25 towns and cities after the Southport attack that left three children dead.

    Samira Ali, the national organiser for Stand Up to Racism, which is behind many of the counter-protests, said the growing “confidence” of the far-right cannot be “left to fester, or go unopposed”.

    “We’re fighting as hard as possible to get as many people in a coalition around the country to make sure that these protests are opposed,” she said.

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/aug/02/anti-racists-mobilise-to-counter-protests-at-unprecedented-far-right-rallies

    Hang on a minute , what did I post , and re read .. ?

    Is this the same one ..Samira Ali

    Head of Cyber Governance | Standards | Security Awareness
    London, England, United Kingdom

    2. Wow. Amazing – thanks for the heads up on that.

      They must think we are stupid.

      Also. “anti-racist” (sic).

      We are not racist per se. Just fed up of foreign religions pitching up here and slaughtering us.

    1. I doubt that any police officer would release any information about the actual arrest.

  146. Just a thought but could the Southport attack be connected to the Islamist preacher Anjem Choudary's court case ?

  148. Churchill would never have defended today's ECHR

    Evil racist or champion of the international courts? The progressive Left cannot have it both ways

    ANDREW ROBERTS • 2 August 2024 • 6:15am

    Sir Winston Churchill has suddenly become the darling of the Left. After years of being denounced as a sybaritic racist warmonger fit only for the dustbin of history, denounced as a "villain" by John McDonnell MP, with his statue the subject of vandalism during Black Lives Matter marches, he has now magically transmogrified into an elder statesman whose wisdom should be heeded, especially when it is used to embarrass the Conservative Party that he led seven decades ago.

    This is all because Churchill supported Britain joining the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which today many Conservative leadership contenders wish to leave. So The Guardian hails Churchill as "a trailblazing advocate from the start" of the European convention. The New European newspaper – while offering a free "B*llocks to Brexit" passport holder to subscribers – runs a "Churchill vs The Tories" piece. Labour peers in the House of Lords hail Churchill, and contrast his support for the ECHR with the Tories of today, implying that the modern Tory Party has lost the compassion and decency of those of the Greatest Englishman.

    Yet of all people it was Polly Toynbee in The Guardian who let us spot the central flaw in the Left's argument, when she wrote that, "It was Winston Churchill who promoted the ECHR as a never-again protection against the horrors of the Second World War, with Britain persuading others to join."

    For what Churchill was hoping to do in the late 1940s and early 1950s was to use human rights legislation to protect Europeans from the persecution of totalitarianism, not provide a way for illegal immigrants to enter and stay in Britain.
    As Hillsdale College's Churchill Project attests, Churchill only made two references to the ECHR. The first was in a speech in Brussels on February 26 1949, in relation to the arrest and show trial of József Mindszenty.

    Catholic Archbishop of Esztergom in Hungary, Mindszenty had been brave enough to oppose both the Nazis and the Communists. After the first step of establishing a European Assembly Churchill said, "We have now to take the second step forward and try to establish, as the practical result of our meeting here, the setting up of a European Court of Human Rights."

    "It must not be possible," he continued, "that within the boundaries of United Europe, such a legal atrocity could be perpetrated as that which has confronted us all in the case of Cardinal Mindszenty. Here you have the crime of religious persecution committed on an innocent man under the direct orders of Moscow, and carried through with all those features of police government with which we are familiar in trials under the Soviets. There must be means by which such events in any of the countries with which we can consort can be brought to the test of impartial justice."

    After his conviction, Mindszenty was tortured by the Communist government. Freed during the Hungarian Uprising of 1956, he lived in the American Embassy for 15 years before finally being allowed to leave Hungary in 1971, four years before his death in 1975.

    Churchill's only other reference to the ECHR was a brief one on July 23 1951 in London when he said, "There can be no Europe unless it be based upon a solid foundation of trust and comradeship between the French and German peoples. Within the wider framework of the United Nations Organisation, a Council of Europe has been set up. A European Army is beginning to take shape, and a European Court of Human Rights is shortly to be established."

    If Churchill had thought for one minute that the ECHR would metastasise into what it is today – the body to which illegal immigrants immediately turn to prevent being deported – we can be certain that he would never have supported Britain joining. His views on the unregulated entry in small boats of large numbers of Afghans and Sudanese – both of whose tribesmen he personally fought against – can easily be imagined.

    The Left cannot without self-contradiction and hypocrisy simultaneously denounce Churchill as a racist and also argue that he would have supported the unlimited and unregulated incursion of illegal immigrants into Britain. If he had wanted to do that, he would have when he was home secretary, but he did not.

    Churchill expected the European Court to protect the rights of Europeans: the clue was in the name.

    He opposed even legal New Commonwealth mass immigration, using language that was common then but would not be considered acceptable today. "Problems will arise if many coloured people settle here," he told the Cabinet on February 3 1954. "Are we to saddle ourselves with colour problems in the United Kingdom? Public opinion in the United Kingdom won't tolerate it once it gets beyond certain limits." He was of course proved wrong about that, but his views on what he called "the magpie society" were clear.

    For the Left gleefully to invoke Churchill, therefore, and attempt to use him to embarrass current Tory politicians for wanting to leave the ECHR now that it has shown itself to be adamantly on the side of the illegal immigrants, is profoundly unhistorical, and even more profoundly cynical.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/02/churchill-would-never-have-defended-todays-echr/

    1. From Coffee House, the Spectator

      Of course whole-life prisoners should be banned from marrying
      Ian Acheson2 August 2024, 11:12am
      Is there any point in rehabilitating prisoners sentenced to ‘whole life’ tariffs, who will die in custody? Today’s announcement banning such prisoners from a fundamental human right – to get married – would suggest the state thinks there isn’t.

      This act, contained in an innocuous statutory instrument is a rare example of retribution in action. We don’t hear much about revenge in our criminal justice discourse these days – that, after all, is the less pretty descriptor for one of the three main aims of imprisonment. Society takes revenge for harm done on the part of the individual because crime is a societal hurt. This is the reason why such trials are styled as Rex or Regina vs the alleged perpetrator. By convention, these are crimes against the King.

      The people we are talking of here have, by their despicable actions, sealed their own fate
      There are estimated to be around 70 prisoners serving a ‘whole life’ tariff in England and Wales. These sentences are given to offenders who have committed grave and heinous crimes and they include serial killers, rapists and terrorists. Not exactly a roll call of eligible suitors but you would be surprised – or maybe not – at the cachet of people whose wickedness and cruelty seems an aphrodisiac.

      Charles Bronson, a prisoner I remember meeting in the segregation unit of HMP Durham twenty years ago is not a whole life prisoner. Nevertheless, in prison for 50 years and recently denied parole, at the age of 71 he enjoys the reputation of one of the most violent men in prison to the extent that a film was made of his life starring Tom Hardy. He may well die inside too.

      Bronson has been married three times, twice in prison, including once to a soap star. He has caused untold psychological and physical harm to many victims, including a prison teacher he took hostage. Each time he got hitched, the prison service had to explain to the press that the only grounds for stopping the ceremony, not the act, was if there was a security risk. The European convention on human rights guaranteed his right to marriage and I believe he exploited this right to the full with women he had only developed a relationship with through supervised visits, letters and the odd phone call. Cue a media pantomime.

      These nuptials will now no longer be available to a small but growing number of offenders who will only leave prison in a stretcher, terminally ill, or in a box. They include Michael Adebolajo, the terrorist murderer of Fusilier Lee Rigby, the serial killer Rose West and the kidnap/rapist police killer Wayne Cousins. Why anyone would consider marrying people capable of such grotesque and callous harm is a question for another day. But should the state have the power to deny them a fundamental human right?

      The right to marriage is enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights, specifically article 8 and within article 12 – these are the right to marriage and the right to privacy and a family life. But these are not absolute rights – they are qualified to allow states to deviate providing there is a legitimate and proportionate reason for doing so. The European court which adjudicates on these matters (and in whose jurisdiction we remain) has left it open to states to ban marriage in prison in specific circumstances. This is the wiggle room that has allowed the UK government to act specifically in terms of those whose crimes have outraged society. The King’s speech in 2023 committed the government to extending whole life orders to those convicted of murder where there was a sexual or sadistic component. Stand by for an increase in the number of people who have been given this civil ‘death sentence’.

      It’s also worth considering the impact of depriving people who have nothing left to lose but many years to live out behind bars. I’m not talking about morality here – though that has it’s place, more of the practicalities of safely managing sometimes extremely violent people who continue to have the potential to harm other prisoners or staff. Robert Maudsley, who is serving a whole life sentence, murdered four people, three of them in custody. He has been kept in solitary confinement for years in a specially protected cell. Managing people who have lost all hope is a very, very tricky business. Deprivation of one of the few rights left to them will add to that risk. What are you going to do? Send them to prison?

      But on balance, the government is absolutely correct to act as it has. The people we are talking of here have, by their despicable actions, sealed their own fate. They are irredeemable. The harm they have committed is so heinous that the state must make it impossible for them to exploit marriage and retraumatise bereaved citizens who would be forced to endure the desecration of a sacred office that is forever denied to their dead loved ones. Sometimes a line is crossed in civilised behaviour from which there should be no return. This is definitely one of them.

      1. " though that has it’s place" Professor Acheson uses 'it's' instead of 'its'; sad that the Spectator can not afford an editor or proof reader.

        Also, any law student should be aware that in England and Wales, criminal cases are cited as Rex (or Regina) v Someone, not 'vs'. Although the 'v' derives from the Latin versus, it is read and said as 'and' for civil cases and 'against' in criminal law. Yes, I may be partially incorrect, but I haven't even started to criticise the latest Government edict which forbids Christian subjects of the King, head of the Church of England, from entering into Holy Matrimony.

      2. " though that has it’s place" Professor Acheson uses 'it's' instead of 'its'; sad that the Spectator can not afford an editor or proof reader.

        Also, any law student should be aware that in England and Wales, criminal cases are cited as Rex (or Regina) v Someone, not 'vs'. Although the 'v' derives from the Latin versus, it is read and said as 'and' for civil cases and 'against' in criminal law. Yes, I may be partially incorrect, but I haven't even started to criticise the latest Government edict which forbids Christian subjects of the King, head of the Church of England, from entering into Holy Matrimony.

  149. Churchill would never have defended today's ECHR

    Evil racist or champion of the international courts? The progressive Left cannot have it both ways

    ANDREW ROBERTS • 2 August 2024 • 6:15am

    Sir Winston Churchill has suddenly become the darling of the Left. After years of being denounced as a sybaritic racist warmonger fit only for the dustbin of history, denounced as a "villain" by John McDonnell MP, with his statue the subject of vandalism during Black Lives Matter marches, he has now magically transmogrified into an elder statesman whose wisdom should be heeded, especially when it is used to embarrass the Conservative Party that he led seven decades ago.

    This is all because Churchill supported Britain joining the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which today many Conservative leadership contenders wish to leave. So The Guardian hails Churchill as "a trailblazing advocate from the start" of the European convention. The New European newspaper – while offering a free "B*llocks to Brexit" passport holder to subscribers – runs a "Churchill vs The Tories" piece. Labour peers in the House of Lords hail Churchill, and contrast his support for the ECHR with the Tories of today, implying that the modern Tory Party has lost the compassion and decency of those of the Greatest Englishman.

    Yet of all people it was Polly Toynbee in The Guardian who let us spot the central flaw in the Left's argument, when she wrote that, "It was Winston Churchill who promoted the ECHR as a never-again protection against the horrors of the Second World War, with Britain persuading others to join."

    For what Churchill was hoping to do in the late 1940s and early 1950s was to use human rights legislation to protect Europeans from the persecution of totalitarianism, not provide a way for illegal immigrants to enter and stay in Britain.
    As Hillsdale College's Churchill Project attests, Churchill only made two references to the ECHR. The first was in a speech in Brussels on February 26 1949, in relation to the arrest and show trial of József Mindszenty.

    Catholic Archbishop of Esztergom in Hungary, Mindszenty had been brave enough to oppose both the Nazis and the Communists. After the first step of establishing a European Assembly Churchill said, "We have now to take the second step forward and try to establish, as the practical result of our meeting here, the setting up of a European Court of Human Rights."

    "It must not be possible," he continued, "that within the boundaries of United Europe, such a legal atrocity could be perpetrated as that which has confronted us all in the case of Cardinal Mindszenty. Here you have the crime of religious persecution committed on an innocent man under the direct orders of Moscow, and carried through with all those features of police government with which we are familiar in trials under the Soviets. There must be means by which such events in any of the countries with which we can consort can be brought to the test of impartial justice."

    After his conviction, Mindszenty was tortured by the Communist government. Freed during the Hungarian Uprising of 1956, he lived in the American Embassy for 15 years before finally being allowed to leave Hungary in 1971, four years before his death in 1975.

    Churchill's only other reference to the ECHR was a brief one on July 23 1951 in London when he said, "There can be no Europe unless it be based upon a solid foundation of trust and comradeship between the French and German peoples. Within the wider framework of the United Nations Organisation, a Council of Europe has been set up. A European Army is beginning to take shape, and a European Court of Human Rights is shortly to be established."

    If Churchill had thought for one minute that the ECHR would metastasise into what it is today – the body to which illegal immigrants immediately turn to prevent being deported – we can be certain that he would never have supported Britain joining. His views on the unregulated entry in small boats of large numbers of Afghans and Sudanese – both of whose tribesmen he personally fought against – can easily be imagined.

    The Left cannot without self-contradiction and hypocrisy simultaneously denounce Churchill as a racist and also argue that he would have supported the unlimited and unregulated incursion of illegal immigrants into Britain. If he had wanted to do that, he would have when he was home secretary, but he did not.

    Churchill expected the European Court to protect the rights of Europeans: the clue was in the name.

    He opposed even legal New Commonwealth mass immigration, using language that was common then but would not be considered acceptable today. "Problems will arise if many coloured people settle here," he told the Cabinet on February 3 1954. "Are we to saddle ourselves with colour problems in the United Kingdom? Public opinion in the United Kingdom won't tolerate it once it gets beyond certain limits." He was of course proved wrong about that, but his views on what he called "the magpie society" were clear.

    For the Left gleefully to invoke Churchill, therefore, and attempt to use him to embarrass current Tory politicians for wanting to leave the ECHR now that it has shown itself to be adamantly on the side of the illegal immigrants, is profoundly unhistorical, and even more profoundly cynical.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/02/churchill-would-never-have-defended-todays-echr/

  150. Well, chums, it's almost 10 pm which is my bedtime. So I'll wish you all a Good Night, decent night's sleep, and hope to see you all tomorrow.

  151. Trying again to log in and greet you all. I tried earlier, but encmy internet connection was down. I've had persistent trouble since Talk Talk took over my previous provider. If this is a duplicate, please forgive me. Evening, all. Was sunny and warm, so spent time in the garden reading on the chaise longue after the electrician had been to work out what was needed to connect the generator into the system. Then it rained. Ah, well.

    Labour never thinks about the consequences of its actions – one reason why we're in such a mess even before July 4th.

      1. It was supposed to read "my internet connection", but for some reason extra characters have been appearing in my posts. GCHQ, maybe? 🙂

  154. In yesterday's speech (Thu 1Aug), Prime Minister Starmer revealed himself to be unfit for purpose . . .

    He hadn't a single word for the grieving parents and neighbours in Southport.

    In today's speech (Fri 2 Aug):

    "I can announce today, that following this meeting…
    we will establish a national capability, across police forces…
    To tackle violent disorder.
    These thugs are mobile…
    They move from community to community…
    And we must have a policing response that can do the same.
    Shared intelligence…
    Wider deployment of facial recognition technology…
    And preventive action – criminal behaviour orders…
    To restrict their movements…
    Before they can even board a train…
    In just the same way we do with football hooligans.
    And let me also say to large social media companies and those who run them…
    Violent disorder clearly whipped up online…
    That is also a crime.
    It’s happening on your premises.
    And the law must be upheld everywhere.
    That is the single most important duty of Government…
    Service rests on security.
    And we will take all necessary action…
    To keep our streets safe."

    He will perhaps thereby create the alleged Extreme Right-Wing movement – the villain of his OTT National Police Force?

    1. TB, with due respect, Mr Fox is not a man who worries about checking all of his factoids.

  159. True Belle or someone was suggesting that MSM is brushing matters under the carpet and that soon the Three Little Angels will be expected to shoulder the blame:
    "A further wave of far-Right disruption is expected across the UK following the killings of three young girls in Southport.
    Violent extremists are planning to descend on more than a dozen cities and towns in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, according to reports."

    1. Both, Rastus. And no, he's not a Christian. Nor is he fit to lead our established church. Yet another vain, power drunk trougher intent on dispersing the physical and spiritual capital invested in our church for centuries, but not, of course, at any personal expense.

    2. Both, Rastus. And no, he's not a Christian. Nor is he fit to lead our established church. Yet another vain, power drunk trougher intent on dispersing the physical and spiritual capital invested in our church for centuries, but not, of course, at any personal expense.

    3. We are approaching a crossroads , Richard.

      Our Christianity is fading fast , our leaders are weak and we are allowing a controlling coercive culture to take root in Britain, a culture that punishes and is wily and savage .. and where females are are abused ruined separate and controlled and cut!!

    7. I have similar concerns about Victoria Principal. I'm glad we're not alone.

    8. My elder sister and BiL have a close friend (a lovely person) who is a retired ex Bishop. And I seem to remember him saying something very similar to that about Welby.

    9. I thought the Palestinians claim the whole of Israel is Palestine, so isn't he effectively calling for the end of the state of Israel?

    2. From Coffee House, the Spectator

      The trouble with ‘spy swaps’
      Comments Share 2 August 2024, 3:55pm
      Yesterday’s exchange of prisoners at Ankara airport in Turkey will have been personally ordered by President Putin. He is a veteran of the Cheka, the Soviet secret police agency, and no doubt aware of the role that swapping agents with the West has played in the troubled history of superpower rivalry. Putin knows that Russian spies look after their own – especially as the Chekists concerned are killers with blood on their hands. Vadim Krasikov, the hitman freed yesterday, was jailed in Germany in 2019 for murdering an exiled Chechen in a Berlin park.

      Vladimir Putin is as tenacious in exacting revenge on traitors to Russia as he is in protecting his own agents
      The trouble with these ‘spy swaps’ is that they always benefit Russia more than the West. They place the same value on the lives of innocents jailed in Russia, like the Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich, as Moscow’s trained professional spies and killers such as Krasikov. This means that any westerner based in Putin’s police state is permanently in peril of being arrested and jailed as a pawn in a deadly power play between the competing West and East.

      Look at the case of Gerald Brooke, an English innocent abroad. Brooke was a Russian language teacher jailed in 1965 for smuggling Christian literature into the Soviet Union. Brooke spent four years in a gulag before being freed in 1969 in exchange for Helen and Peter Kroger (real names Morris and Lona Cohen), a married couple working as KGB agents in Britain. They lived undercover as second-hand book dealers in a suburban bungalow in Ruislip.

      The Brooke-Kroger swap was part of a larger story. The Krogers were members of the Portland spy ring, extracting British maritime secrets at the Isle of Portland Royal Navy base with Britons Harry Houghton and Ethel Gee, a traitorous couple who worked at the base. The Portland ring was broken up in 1961, and its members were tried and jailed. The ring was run by Russian KGB spymaster Konon Molody, posing in London as a Canadian businessman called Gordon Lonsdale.

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      The National Trust’s abuse of language

      In jail in Birmingham, Molody/Lonsdale was befriended by the Great Train Robbers, but he was not to stay behind bars for long. In 1964, he was swapped for Greville Wynne, a British MI6 agent who had been travelling behind the Iron Curtain, posing as a businessman showing his wares at industrial exhibitions. In reality, Wynne had been working as the link man to Colonel Oleg Penkovsky, a senior KGB officer operating as a double agent, who was the West’s most influential spy in Russia during the Cold War, and betrayed secrets to the West because he detested the dictatorial Soviet system.

      The information given by Penkovsky to Britain and the US during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis played a major part in saving the world from nuclear destruction, but he was viewed as a traitor by Moscow and executed for treason in 1963. Both the story of the Portland spies and the career of Wynn have been portrayed in films, with the Portland story told as Ring of Spies in 1964, and Benedict Cumberbatch giving a powerful performance as Wynn in The Courier in 2020.

      Yesterday’s swap in the Turkish capital comes too late for those like opposition leader Alexei Navalny who died in Russian captivity before he could be exchanged. But the swap, negotiated despite relations between Russia and the West being in the deep freeze over the Ukraine war, proves what high value Putin places on the lives of his spies. (Both Abel and Molody were honoured by being portrayed on Russian postage stamps, along with the notorious British spy and traitor Kim Philby.)

      Vladimir Putin is as tenacious in exacting revenge on traitors to Russia as he is in protecting his own agents. In 2004, Sergei Skripal, like Penkovsky, a Russian Intelligence officer recruited by Britain as a double agent, was arrested in Moscow and sentenced to 13 years in jail. In 2010 he was freed with three other Russians jailed for spying for the West, in exchange for ten Russians jailed for spying in the US. Then the Salisbury attacks happened…

      The Skripals survived, but an innocent woman, Dawn Sturgess, who mistook the Novichok for perfume in a bottle discarded by the Russians, died. The Skripal case caused a major diplomatic incident, with scores of Russian ‘diplomats’ expelled from embassies both in Britain and across Europe. The latest move in what Rudyard Kipling called the ‘Great Game’ of espionage between East and West shows that both sides play for high stakes, and the penalty for those caught up can be fatal.

    5. Many happy returns, molamola! hope you have a lovely day (and forget the insanity for a few hours)

  166. I doubt that Starmer and his motley crew of Blair’s Babes (now more correctly Blair’s Spinsters and Grannies) will survive until the end of the year.

    The defeat of Ukraine by the Russians should stall these socialist Marxists for good. The future is bleak for the UK economy as we continue to throw money at a variety of mad Green schemes, mad and stupidly misguided wars overseas including the US proxy war in Ukraine and puerile adherence to the nut jobs running the European Union.

    Our Police are corrupt and misguided. The Metropolitan Police bave anlways been infested with Freemasons and Devil worship. Our Criminal and Crown Courts are no better and often worse.

    Our politicians are mere grifters who do not represent us in any capacity but as with Sir Kneeler Starmer just despise us and consider our views and opinions an irrelevance.

    1. With that majority, they're dug in for five years. Look at the worst Prime Ministers of the past who have worked for the parasite class to destroy Britain; Heath and Blair. It wasn't the EU that brought Heath down, and Blair got re-elected twice.
      We have to hope Starmer is as inept as the Paedophile PM, but he does have Toothpaste Ad Tony's advice to back him.

    2. If this shower, claiming to be politicians set on improving the lot of the people, carry on as they have started then we can expect more unrest, more biased policing and judgements that set the incomers above the indigenes.

      The early attack on pensioners with more promised in the New Year is not the action of a caring government, add in the threat from the zealous Miliband to force through his Net Zero agenda, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that will literally beggar the UK and we have a government that has lost any sense it may once have had.

    1. Have just browsed The Times. Obviously they are also operating under strict Government control at present. 'D' Notices (a favourite tool of the Blair/Campbell regime) plastered all over the place, probably by Sue Grey

  169. Nothing from Geoff on Friday's page but I will say, "Morning, Geoff and thank you for your efforts on our behalf."

  170. Police tactics against the so-called "Far Right" rioters appear to be:-
    1 Kettle sections of the crowd to cause tension.
    2 Manhandle anyone trying to leave to increase that tension.
    3 Target and snatch members of the crowd to create anger and resentment.
    4 When it kicks off, claim it was all started by Far Right Thugs and thus justify their actions.

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