Tuesday 13 August: The police’s failure to tackle everyday crimes has eroded public trust

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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574 thoughts on “Tuesday 13 August: The police’s failure to tackle everyday crimes has eroded public trust”

  3. Good morning, chums. Thanks, Geoff, for today's NoTTLe page.

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    1. A toughy.
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      1. But we got there in the end
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      1. A couple of raw statistics to answer Richard Braine's retweet:
        2015 – Conservative 36.9% = 330 MPs; UKIP 12.6% = 1 MP
        2024 – Labour 33.75% = 411 MPs; Reform 14.3% = 5 MPs

        1. 391443+ up ticks,

          Morning JM,
          Lest we forget,2016, UKIP a million plus votes, 1 decidedly iffy MP.

  5. I guess you all missed Trump & Musk chat..
    https://x.com/i/spaces/1nAKEpNkLwoxL/peek

    Anyhow, just hours before the biggest blockbuster X event Elon Musk & Donald Trump set to 'break the internet' with a live-stream on X Spaces, EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton throws a temper tantrum.

    Breton issued threat in letter to use the full “toolbox” of measures to protect EU citizens from “serious harm.”

    In response to Breton’s letter, Musk simply posted “Bonjour!”

    1. I haven't noticed any suggestions in the MSM as to who might have organised the Denial of Service attack on Twitter.

  6. I guess you all missed Trump & Musk chat..
    https://x.com/i/spaces/1nAKEpNkLwoxL/peek

    Anyhow, just hours before the biggest blockbuster X event Elon Musk & Donald Trump set to 'break the internet' with a live-stream on X Spaces, EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton throws a temper tantrum.

    Breton issued threat in letter to use the full “toolbox” of measures to protect EU citizens from “serious harm.”

    In response to Breton’s letter, Musk simply posted “Bonjour!”

  7. The whole of the West has a role in deterring Iran. 13 August 2024

    America has sent a guided missile nuclear submarine to the region and also expedited the despatch of a carrier strike group in a bid to deter Iran. Washington said it was committed “to take every possible step to defend” Israel from a potential attack. It is the second such stand-off in recent months.

    So not so much the “whole of the West” but the US. This is of course a thinly disguised attack on Iran. No one likes the Ayatollah’s but experience tells us that the outcomes from these geopolitical adventures in the Middle East have disastrous consequences and not just for those attacked. Even a wounded Iran is dangerous and the possibilities of China and Russia becoming involved are not negligible. The UK is presently morphing into an Islamic State itself. It will probably be the first nuclear armed Muslim Caliphate. If we should escape disaster here; catastrophe awaits down the road.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2024/08/13/whole-of-the-west-has-a-role-in-deterring-iran/

    1. Its a good job Starmer is preoccupied with emptying the prisons of burglars and psychos of protected categories to make space for political critic's. If he mobilised the apostrophe police, you'd be in hot water!

      Israel is committing major war crimes that are going unaddressed by the West. Indeed, it is deemed a hate crime to criticise Netanyahu and his hatchet coalition partners, and he feels he can operate with impunity. When his victims threaten reprisal, we send a warship to harry the victim's allies rather than bring the perpetrator to order.

      Iran would be a much better place without the ayatollahs and their morality police; much of Tehran feels this, but is as helpless at achieving regime change as a nation where an overwhelming mandate can be claimed by a party with a 20% vote. It is not helped when Netanyahu is giving the malign forces in Iran so much political capital.

      Iran and Israel should have common ground against militant Sunni Islam, and it would be great if they could become friends rather than foes. After all, in biblical times, they were allies against Babylon, and King Cyrus rebuilt the Temple.

      Nobody has ever debunked my belief that Netanyahu's Israel and Islamic State were allies cynically destabilising Syria. Turkey too sat on the fence, and were quite content to let ISIS attack Kurds. What then is the US up to?

      1. Morning Jeremy. Anyone who now posts online, for any reason, is at risk of arrest and imprisonment. It is the penalty for living in a Police State.

        1. Indeed, but I suggest that never is it more important when confronting such a threat against our freedom for people of good will to say what must be said and be damned.

          I am an old man, and few will miss me when I'm thrown in the skip. If they want to make a martyr of me, then so be it.

  9. Man charged with attempted murder of 11-year-old girl in Leicester Square. 13 August 2024.

    A man has been charged with the attempted murder of an 11-year-old girl who was stabbed in London’s Leicester Square on Monday.

    Ioan Pintaru, of no fixed address, will appear before Westminster magistrates’ court from custody on Tuesday. He is charged with attempted murder and possession of a blade.

    Ah Those Pintaru’s.

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/aug/13/man-charged-with-attempted-of-11-year-old-girl-in-leicester-square

      1. Guardian: cue article about how the NHS would've completely collapsed without Rumanian doctors, nurses, porters. Besides, GDP would be 0.0001% lower.

    2. and were the victims related to the suspect.. ? that is something you will find out in about 12 months time after;
      hero muslim security guard wins Strictly.
      hero muslim security guard launches new Halal Bake Off range.
      opens tube line named in his honour.

    3. Luckily for us, Abdul stepped in and saved the day. And don’t we just know it. Expecting him to be made a life peer any day now.

  10. Good morning, all. Sunny here with the forecast for a very warm day. I will begin to erect my new shed after making some wild plum – black bullace – jelly first thing.

    Note to Elsie: plenty of bullace if you want some. I'm a bit tied up during the day, today and tomorrow, but after 4:30 I will be available to help pick some if you pop round. Bring your own bucket.😎

    One down, eight to go!

    https://x.com/IdiotsInCamera/status/1822827000626594215

    1. Good evening, Korky. I've only just read your morning's post; I've left a message on your iPhone. I AM interested in having some of your bullace for making some crumble. But I can't understand your Twitter video.

  11. 391443+ up ticks,

    Manchester evening news,

    Manchester stabbing: Urgent plea issued after brutal city centre attack leaves man in hospital
    A suspect has been arrested after a man in his 20s was stabbed in a horror attack on Portland Street

    NO news of this mainline, seemingly just taken as the norm currently.

  12. "We need to have a conversation about this.."

    what this really means under the Starmer regime..

    "When can we start deporting these savages..?"

    1. Now, they are moving in on Douglas Murray and TR.

      Mad leftists try and get Douglas Murray sent to JAIL for telling truth about UK’s immigration crisis.
      Tommy Robinson's Irish passport may be invalid, Dáil members say.

      1. meaning = under the Starmer regime.. one can only use the phrase "We need to have a conversation about this.." because it is not permitted to express opinions or state the obvious.

  14. The police’s failure to tackle everyday crimes has eroded public trust

    Looks like they now just serve as authoritarian government enforcers

  15. Good Day all,

    They're back at it. I greet you from Under Chem-Trailed Skies this morning.

    Looking North

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e5a54c15532468771fc1455e56bede126dc8d08f6d4b53567d210afe37544115.png

    The same bit of sky a few moments later with a genuine contrail well above the chemicals.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/16e1bc124f1bb74e8f4694bb72dfd0cede342d270382958b04d62c756682de5b.png

    See the difference?

    The Southern sky

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ab763f6a5e53054f73b7f4a0efeada60266631418899fe08b08e5dc88e259069.png

    Anyway, apart from that it's a nice morning at McPhee Towers. Cool, 14℃, wind just West of South, 24℃ expected this p.m.

      2. I hope Uncle Bill is feeling a bit chirpier today.
        What a time to be hit by a nasty little orgasm.

  17. Morning all 🙂😊
    Sunny start and cooler.
    Another appointment this morning re the failed cataract operation. No idea what they will try next.
    And yes there seems to be quite a lot of misguided halfwits that have taken charge of public services recently. Dopey Wokies seem to be a suitable phrase.
    But from the top down there doesn't appear to be anything tthat can be done to improve the overall situation. They all seem to have the same hollow mindset problem.

    1. Why on earth are our newspapers reporting American news , more and more articles , yet our own regional news is dismissed as not being newsy enough ?

      2. During the Olympics. I heard 'God Save the King' and 'The Star Spangled Banner' numerous times, but I do not recall any other national anthem being broadcast. Am I wrong?

        1. With the addition of The Marseillaise, few of us would recognise any other national anthems so they probably passed over our heads.

          1. I once learnt to play the Philippines national anthem on my melodeon. A splendidly jolly piece impossible not to dance along to.

            The most intriguing one is the Japanese – a mysterious melody without a recognisable beginning or an ending.

          2. Thinking about it, I do recognise the Russian national anthem.
            The others seem indistinguishable to me.

        2. When I went behind the Iron Curtain in 1979, travelling to and back from Poland by motorcycle, I photographed this splendid Communist bit of roadside art glorifying the workers in Czechoslovakia. It was a 20 foot high model of a workman's tool with a red star in its jaws. Best described as star bangled spanner.

          1. Some anthems are bright and jaunty (Italy's for example) but in the main, I hate, loathe and detest all national anthems. The majority are dreary and the concept is utterly pointless.

    1. Do these people really believe that these garments represent modesty rather than a military uniform?

      1. 391443+ up ticks,

        JM,
        I believe it gives them a very narrow view on life, as such they see a daily beating, a public stoning / whipping /beheading as the norm.

        Eventually continuing our current voting pattern we WILL COME TO ACCEPT THE SAME.

  20. How to get Britain back in he EU, Step 1 ( if we ever truly left).

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bc3e8546f8ff0b3352f9988e3b86c98d405a7a66f24f814afdd457e8ce097841.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/08/12/starmer-meloni-europol-people-smugglers-illegal-migration/

    Kim-Jong-Kier making the migration crisis worse. We'll be taking our share of migrants crossing the Med. Nearly 7,000 landed in Lampedusa on Sunday according to Ben Rubin on UK Column.

      2. Just as with kingpin drug dealers you take one out and another steps in with no loss of service. Smash the network and a new one arises.

        They should be running the country !

        1. All very true, spot on. But of course clearing gangs off the beaches at Calais and throwing some in prison won’t help. This is because they are being run from quite secure places thousands of miles away. Sir Kneelalot can’t be unaware of this, unless he really is as dim as he often sounds. His gang smashing rhetoric is mere pap for journos and supporters.

          The intention is to bring more people in to the UK, not to reject them. Why would smashing gangs be of use?

      1. But but but, can't be true. He's working with partners to smash the gangs. Using his first new army, (not the latest one, which is being used to hunt down examples of free speech on X, I might add).

    1. It's a trick, Maggie, she's a midget!

      Only kidding, fantastic. We had a wonderful fiddler at open mic last night.

      1. Morning MM,

        She was fantastic , children like that are so talented , they start early .

        No1 son , now living here at home , well for the past 15 years( he is 55 and an athlete , yes life fro me can be difficult for me being a food provider )

        One of his previous long term girlfriends was gorgeously Anglo Indian and was a violinist with a well known orchestra , and probably still is ..

        I have wept buckets listening to her playing her violin , her hands were insured for a phenomenal amount of money .. So high was her talent , she wasn’t keen on housework .. and there in was the complication in their relationship !

        1. Does No1 son do anything around the house or is it all that left to you. He may be an athlete but he sounds like a lazy git. I have never heard such a reason for people splitting up. Why didn't they employ a cleaner? I think she had a perfectly legitimate reason not to do the housework.

  22. 391443+ up ticks,

    One must ask oneself among the majority voters, could the party we have just voted for draw such a patriotic gathering ?

    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021

    Aug 10

    On 27th July I was part of Tommy Robinson’s massive rally in Trafalgar Sq attended by tens of thousands of peaceful patriotic people.

    Ordinary decent people of different backgrounds & colours came to show their love of country & their commitment to a positive cultural change.

    Will such a rally ever be permitted again? And if it did its attendees would undoubtedly be called ‘FAR-RIGHT’ by the Scum Media & Labour politicians.

    We live in a world of lies.

  23. Morning, all Y'all.
    Dull.
    Earth fault at central station, trains all effed up. To work by bus – surprisingly quick 'n easy.

      1. No, it’s an infrastructure problem, courtesy of BaneNor (used to be NSB – Norwegian State Railways). Earth fault of location unspecified likely means the signalling was down, so all trains stopped.
        Interestingly, some clown in BaneNor has withdrawn all the access and parking permits from the Telecoms technicians, meaning they cannot get their vehicles close to the work, and are not allowed to park there anyway – on BaneNor land!

          1. Our local station carpark is, except for us. It happened when they started to charge for it – so, fewer people on the train as a result, and lower revenues. Sub-optimising…

        2. Really couldn't make this up, can only hope order restored very soon…..saw a report earlier think from Not a Lot of People Know That, about a 4 billion dollar undersea link to transmit (far as I could make out) Green Energy…hmm….

  25. Uh-oh.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/23a237df4db0da28e9fda4c3bf62e298f49c41692f9494bf408b99b2fe3b98d1.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/08/12/boris-johnson-talks-over-telegraph-bid/

    Boris Johnson has held talks about a role at The Telegraph as part of former Tory chancellor Nadhim Zahawi’s takeover bid.

    The former prime minister had informal discussions with Mr Zahawi, who is assembling a consortium to buy The Telegraph as part of an auction process, about a possible job if he is successful.

    A source close to Mr Johnson downplayed the talks, saying that no substantial discussions had taken place. That is despite speculation that Mr Johnson could be made The Telegraph’s global editor-in-chief.

    It really would be time to cancel the subscription, would it not?

    2. I don't subscribe Tgraph, but I do Spectator. Would definitely cancel sub if he has anything to do with it. Apparently earns 6 figure sum for DM column which was initially free to read but now behind paywall. Its garbage. He wrote one re British sub where 4 men lost their lives, lauding British ingenuity, adding shame about the deaths almost as an afterthought. The current missus no doubt take him to cleaners one day.

  26. Policing the law abiding, keep them unaware, gaslit and silenced while the state manoeuvres against them has been the globalist strategy all along.
    Labour being natural authoritarians are best suited for this job as we saw all around the world during the pandemic crises with more severe restrictions and enforced medical treatment.
    Hence the easy time Sunak and the mainstream media gave Labour when the baton was passed under the cover of a thrown election.
    Where have the opposition parties been these last few weeks?
    The Lib Dems have all been bungee jumping, I expect or trekking through Peru or something.
    Not sure where the Conservatives have been, lying low waiting for world government job offers now that Labour are bringing their old Blairites back, there must be plenty of lucrative openings.
    That only leaves Reform with their few MPs to carry the flag for freedom as it were while they face the full force of fake news opprobrium in the mainstream media and Lefty social media groups.

    1. All law abiding citizens need to do is nothing. Passive resistance. Follow Ghandi's lead. Offer them nothing. Help them with nothing. It will then be perfectly clear to everyone who the real criminals are.

      1. Yes, ultimately that's the way through. It must be dawning on people that the loony left only got in on the votes of ⅕ of the electorate, which means our minority government is pretty isolated already. We have no active power as such, but the government and the so-called authorities need our consent. Just withdraw it.

        Well know it's getting through when Sir Kneelalot and police chiefs start getting on the news channels berating us for failing to do our "duty".

        1. 1 third of the vote makes it pretty clear that you do not have the allegiance of the country.

      2. I think it was the Poles. The Communists banned all demonstrations but it was customary for people to take a walk in the evening. So when the evening news came on the population would all go for an evening stroll. Making it clear that they were not going to listen to the propaganda of the regime.

        I also suggest that people read or listen to the wonderful Vaclav Havel, the writer and a leader of the resistance, the first president of Czechoslovakia after the fall of the Communists.

  27. Good Moaning.
    Of course the Nottingham stabber was not engaging. He's bloody psychotic and has no insight; in short, he is mad and should be in a secure mental facility for the rest of his life.
    Three good people dead and countless others' lives devastated (including his own family) because health apparatchiks refuse to think and prefer to adhere to politically acceptable nostrums.

    "Lost track of him and discharged him
    The final missed opportunity to try to deal with his condition came when the hospital decided to hand his care back to his GP. After losing touch with him and not having an updated address the community team discharged him for “non-engagement”.

    They did this despite evidence “beyond any real doubt” that he would relapse into aggressive and intrusive behaviour and without consulting the GP or police.

    The CQC said staff had failed to inform his GP of the known “risk of him not taking his medicine and the possibility of him having a psychotic relapse as a result”."

    1. Good morning Anne .

      How many newly released prisoners ( on Starmers orders) will have relapses , and carry with them a shocking history of violence .

    1. Last night I noticed that the Moon – waxing half – had a decidedly reddish hue. That phenomenon does happen when the Moon is low in the sky due to its reflected light travelling a greater distance through the atmosphere but last night's appearance, to me, seemed more noticeable. More dust in the atmosphere leads to more reddening?

      Perhaps I forgot to take my tin-foil cap off yesterday?

  29. From DTL comments

    SD

    Sue Donnelly
    1 hr ago
    Is Matt on holiday? It's a long one. Are there no young cartoonists who could brighten our start of day a little while Matt basks on foreign shores (or hikes in the hills, or whatever he does).

    Reply by Stripey The Cat.

    ST

    Stripey The Cat
    1 hr ago
    Let’s have some comment from the DT.

    Reply by Just Another Bloke.

    JA

    Just Another Bloke
    1 hr ago
    He might have done a cartoon that wasn't with the narrative.

    Reply by Fred Simpson.

    FS

    Fred Simpson
    1 hr ago
    Are these cartoons also regurgitated in the print editions?

    Reply by Sue Donnelly.

    SD

    Sue Donnelly
    1 hr ago
    Ah yes, that would explain it.

    Comment by D Taylor.

  30. Education in prisons

    SIR – Regarding Fraser Nelson's article ("The British migrant dream is thriving. It's poor white boys who are in trouble", Comment, August 9), I spent 10 years with the Independent Monitoring Board of HMP The Verne on the Isle of Portland in Dorset.

    It was evident that the ethnic-minority prisoners were much more interested in the education facilities than the white British ones. They saw the practical courses in painting and decorating, for instance, or domestic electrical installation, as offering the best chance of "going straight" when they had completed their sentences.

    There was also some evidence of an "anti-boffin" culture among the white British prisoners. Those enrolled in academic courses (including reading) would be jeered at by their peers. That attitude was, I presume, also prevalent in the schools they had once attended.

    John Neimer
    Stoborough, Dorset

    Sherrelle Jacobs also writes on the same subject today. Sadly, it's true that education is still regarded as a low priority in the country's white underclass, from which are drawn the yobs who cycle on pavements and tell you to **** off if you should object and who, in this fine weather, are out on their illegal motorbikes here in NN8, buzzing noisily and irritatingly around the park and pulling wheelies on the main roads. Of course, these are the boys who are routinely told that they are the inheritors of the British tradition of plundering the world and slaughtering the natives, so perhaps they're just a bit pissed off with it all. "Nuffin' to do wiv me, mate. **** off."

    Nelson writes: "When Rachel Reeves became Chancellor she said it should encourage all girls to shoot for the top. Where, precisely, does she see a lack of young female ambition? Girls are now far more likely to apply to university: it’s the boys she needs to worry about." Exactly but New/Old/Max Labour doesn't give a **** about poor white boys. It abandoned them long ago. Yet somewhere in the pile of virtual newsprint that I ploughed through yesterday was a comment about the white underclass being the province of the Left. Balls. Starmer & Co won't touch them with a disinfected barge pole – except to push them further away.

    It's a big problem yet I can't help thinking there's some victim blaming going on here.

    1. "education is still regarded as a low priority in the country's white underclass, from which are drawn the yobs who cycle on pavements and tell you to **** off"

      Equally though, "education is still regarded as a low high priority in the country's self loathing white elite underclass overclass, from which are drawn the yobs who cycle on pavements occupy green benches and plush sinecures on global power structures and while telling you the rest of us to **** off".

      There's nothing so tawdry to my mind as an astigmatic privileged bigot punching down in virtue signalling fashion while dispensing their unwanted wisdom to the rest of us who simply don't need it. I'm sorry, but while the likes of Reeves, Balls and Starmer get a say I'm with those who stand and jeer.

      1. White yobs are bred and born to yob families .. That is their culture , it is ingrained deeply now in Britain .

        We have a hand job car wash facility , run by you know whats , in the village , polite decent hardworking men from what part of Asia Minor I have no idea .

        My car was filthy with dust/ chalky dust and needed a clean and polish, black Peugeot 2008.

        I sat in the cool area whilst the guys got on the job .. cracking good effort and the car gleamed afterwards .

        Prior to starting on mine , they had just finished polishing a top of the range black Audi ..it was waiting for collection .

        The owner of the Audi turned up just as I was locating some change to pay the chaps , the bloke strode in-between the Car washer bloke and me , no excuse me , no nothing , a loud crass middle aged yob , flash as hell overtalking my conversation , not a local bloke , I gave him my death stare , and for a few seconds I thought he was going to whack me .

        He was still shouting his orders for the next time as he got into his car, he treated the wash guys like muck , no thanks , nothing .

        Was he a gangster , was he on the take , a drug dealer , what and who was he.. because he was so out of place in our area.

        My imagination going wild I guess , perhaps .

        Manspreading , and showing disdain for women , if you see what I mean .

        2. “Manspreading , and showing disdain for women , if you see what I mean”

          I do see that, yes. Hardly a pastime confined to white yob culture though.

          I tend to do my own car wash these days, talking about car washes springing up like weeds on every street. I’ve got a convertible and I’m distinctly wary of the cavalier way these people enthusiastically aim their pressure guns at the seals where the car splits apart. On the wider point we never needed car washes every two miles.

          In the real world yobs of all stripes need taking down a peg or two. But then that’s me. I believe in equal opportunities.

          1. I think the reason there are so many more car washes about the place now is because houses aren't built with driveways any more.
            I used to love washing my car on a warm day, trouble is it's usually parked 100yds away so I can't do that – I have to go to a car wash.

      2. It comes from the fact that not long ago if you failed the 11 plus it was made abundantly clear to you that you were good for nothing but menial work. Shut up and get in the coal mine. This attitude was perpetuated for generations. Even to the point that, infamously, middle class people who had the 'misfortune' to live on a street that merged into a working class district, literally had walls built across the street to keep the hoi polloi out and talked about them as if they were animals. I think you can actually find videos about that on You Tube. Living in a society which regarded you and, at the same time, being treated as if you were worthless, will knock any initiative out of you, it will become a generational wound. I actually had a working class friend who had the opportunity to go to university. When he told his father he was struck about the ears because he was getting above his station, working in the factory was good enough for him because it was good enough for the father, No education for that young upstart. Such people are made to feel worthless. In that lies the problem perpetuated today in the fact that the people who get the least help in society are poor white working class boys. People may not say it to you but it is clear you are 'worthless scum' and not worth spending a single penny on. And, does not the government tell you that by not giving these people a hand up?

        1. I think that there was originally some altruism in the notion of an 11+ among proper meritocratic educationalists at the beginning. And grammar schools did a good job of lifting those without privilege out of the ranks of the throwaways; contrary to the propaganda pumped out by Bliar back in the day when he was poisoning debate with the politics of envy. I'm a good example of that process, although mine is a bit of a unique story it must be said.

          But as you rightly point out, once that sort of thing gets into the hands of the ideologues and worst of all politicians, then the playground bullies get control. It isn't just 11+. It's every standards setting initiative ever since that now finds itself a tool for ignorant political oppression; in modern times it involves SATs, Ofsted, etc.

          Politicians frankly are unfit to run Education in the UK. If I were PM one of the key things I'd be doing is finding ways to get them out of the system altogether. In perpetuity. The latest scam (and it is just that) is that they're saying in order to counter rioting they're going to introduce lessons in how to counter misinformation online for infants in school. That's because they are lefties. Conservatives have equally barmy ideas too, so they aren't exempt from the idiotic game. All that's changed is the tech. In the old days to encourage good citizenship you'd get lined up before class and made to shout in unison daily extracts from a little red book, that's all.

          1. Grammar schools were an instrument for social mobility for bright working class children. Labour hated that.

          3. Indeed, as I can attest. I was the first from my family to go to university (at a time when going to university was reserved for the top 5%).

          4. I was too, in my family. No matter what smart bien pensants tell us about privilege so-called they’re wasting their time, since if you went to a grammar you met lots in the same boat.

          5. It was no sinecure. We were expected to WORK, not mess around. I took my O Levels in 4 years not 5. Fast-tracked doesn’t come close.

    2. And of course Labour is going to further slacken discipline in schools. And of course this will hit the worst schools hardest and what little chance white boys have of succeeding in these schools will be made even less.

      Even Labour is now admitting that the probable exodus of pupils from private schools will lead to the state system being swamped and unable to cope.

      Labour wants it both ways – on the one hand it wants to be able to blame extreme right fascist white yobs for social unrest and at the same time it wants dimmer British children as a stupid population is far more likely to vote Labour.

      1. Labour will ensure that ex-public school pupils are only placed in the worst performing schools.

        1. Small private tutorial colleges which keep their turnover under the VAT threshold could be an answer.

          The VAT threshold in France is considerably lower than in the UK and so we have divided our business into two sections each under the VAT threshold.

          In the UK the threshold is currently £90,000. Say a teacher can form a group of teachers each of whom can keep their turnovers under this level they could offer "A" level tuition in small groups. For example if a French teacher ran 40 weeks of courses a year at £150 per week for three groups of 5 students giving 6 hours tuition a week the money received would be £90,000 and VAT free. If her husband was a Maths teacher and did the same they could bring home a total of £180,000 pa.

          If Caroline and I were 35 years younger and in the UK we would certainly be trying to come up with workable schemes.

      2. If the reason was simple spite to punish private schools then it succeeded – by hitting the pupils. They will now be disadvantaged for a year.

        This was not a tax grab, as there are easier ways of raking in more tax BUT those hit Labour's electorate and Labour voters, being mindless thugs seem to hate success and want everyone dragged down to their failed level so selling it as a tax raid works as all Labour voters think private school kids are like Jacob Rees Mogg.

        It certainly wasn't about education as that be far simpler – school vouchers. That way aspiring parents could see their children going to any school, choosing the best one, cutting out the state entirely.

        No, it was a spiteful, abusive, cruel, audience pandering assault with no thought or consideration behind it.

        My brother went a 'private school'. He had 5 other children in his class, all with significant behavioural difficulties. If he had gone to a mainstream class he wouldn't have got a single GCSE, let alone his A levels, degree and masters.

        Labour just hate effort and achievement.

    3. Those are the welfare classes. You won't see Junior doing wheelies on a motorbike.

      Most of the problems in this country stem from the wrong people having children and the right people not. That's created an underclass where failure is rewarded.

  31. 'Morning All
    I ain't quitting
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3cfd2204ae55d08eeb93e27c047f6571cb86b9adad88507ca01425a4ab98e0b2.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8d7773351c526a877182e469e4c2c67af88b6a2736c6114bd2874cad0189d483.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e1ee5c7219fb23d1cdb3cb4cfe1a1628d341c055e703985871633a16a7c51e3d.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ee55b69976b3b9a82e6ff37c18b8d58027053ce347c90601fce8fc9df2d7f93d.jpg
    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4c6fea809e66b8bc80df7c6701199b15ff3e8edd2b11da3b603f605fb2c24dae.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ab18a0f11d215b8a703b0e64189e3a653ba456664656475dab9576fc83120bc8.jpg
    https://x.com/fuddaily/status/1823011414526628135?s=46&t=hhgqHE2v9cQf9vH3lgsgTg

    1. That last comment [by "Northern variant" (who is not me, BTW).] in full:

      I don't want to hear any of you Tories piling in on Starmer because you all played your part in this. You did fuck all about creeping wokery in the police. You did fuck all to stop an invasion of third world men. You opened the floodgates to mass immigration. You did fuck all to deport low IQ primates who have no business being here. You gutted all the mechanisms by which illegal immigration is detected and removed. You actively funded all the blob organisations that frustrate government policy – for what little you tried.

      You ignored every signal at the ballot box. You cared more about nebulous, meaningless notions of "soft power", "international obligation" and "the world stage" than preventing our prosperous, safe, high trust, gentle society from becoming a violent multicultural dystopian hellscape.

      You made it so that any grasping parasite has equal right to our welfare systems, and made us second class citizens in our own homeland, subject to laws and punishments not extended to foreign invaders who seek to replace us and conquer us.

      You sat idle as London's gutters ran red with blood. You watched with indifference as African primitives hacked people to death with machetes in broad daylight. And not just in London. Not just in our Cities. But in our small towns you allowed to be taken over by gangs of foreign drug dealers. You allowed the money laundering fronts to operate in plain site without intervention.

      You allowed the police to kneel before ignorant black yobs and grovelled before race-grifting chancers. You shrugged your shoulders as Arabs daubed slogans on on our war memorials. You watched primates hanging off the statue of Field Marshal Montgomery. You boarded up the statue of Winston fucking Churchill, and then you firehosed Black Lives Matter groups with OUR money.

      You saw the same footage we did. You saw insane black people stipping naked on the streets and shouting at passers by. You see Indians out of their minds on spice and other psychedelic drugs on the streets of Birmingham and Sheffield – on a rainy Wednesday morning no less. And you people just couldn't give a fuck. The difference between Tories and Labour absolutely escapes me.

      But not only do you not give a fuck, you then have the breathtaking audacity to say the problem is the far right. Do not pretend even for a nanosecond that you wouldn't just as quickly turf rapists out of the prisons so that you could put us in jail. You sat on your arses for for twenty years while Pakistanis raped their way through the entire north of England and it's still going on under your very noses.

      So here's the deal. You are done. Shut the fuck up. Disband your worthless party. We are not interested. We are coming for all of you.

      1. And the same poster from a couple of days ago:

        Gaslighting bullshit. When I was kid you simply didn't hear of the kind of violent crime and disorder we hear now. If there was a machete attack, it was in Soweto, not Southend. Now it's a regular occurrence. Nobody wanted or invited the blacks who were already here, and nobody at all consented to importing more mentally impaired machete weilding lunatics from Somalia. But it was done to us anyway.

        Meanwhile, we already knew that Islam was a menace and that there was no discernible benefit to importing backward sexually incontinent third worlders. But they continued to do it to us.

        In my lifetime we were a cohesive, safe, high trust, functioning country were extreme violence was a rare and shocking event. Now we are a dysfunctional, ungovernable, violent dystopia and we're called racists for noticing what has been done to us.

        This has all been done to us inside thirty years and we've been threatened with ruin and prosecution if we speak out. We are fucking furious about it. It was only a matter of time before public patience ran out. We are entitled to our rage, and it was only a matter of time before something grotesque such as the slaughter in Southport triggered riots.

        Meanwhile there is no end of understanding when blacks take to the street to burn, loot and murder. Academics are lining up to make excuses for them. Local and national government firehose them with money. Same goes for those nebulous "asians". But what do we get? Expedited show trials and lengthy prison sentences – yet we're the ones who have the legitimate grievance. The regime lies to us and tell us immigrants built our country as we watch them tearing it down and turn it into the sort of backward tribal slum they came from.

        Blacks born or admitted to the UK have won the lottery of life, given every imaginable opportunity for self-advancement. Instead, though, they ape American criminal culture and stab each other, and we give them community grants to celebrate "their" degenerate culture, even though it's nothing even approaching culture.

        Meanwhile, we're not supposed to notice mobs of armed separatist Muslims patrolling the streets while the plod scratch their arses and ask politely if they wouldn't mind disarming.

        Immigration has destroyed my country. It may not even be repairable without a civil war. This wasn't fomented by "populism". This was fomented by arrogant politicians who ignored our wishes at every single turn, and insisted that importing low IQ dregs from the shitholes of the world was somehow good for us. DavidOlusoga telling us our reaction is "populism" is the cherry on the Bakewell tart.

        If it can be said that the riots were race riots, it's because the natives have learned from feral imports that rioting works. Voting sure as hell doesn't. We have every reason hate what's been done to our country, and we are not going to look the other way while primitive immigrants turn our homeland into a violent dystopia.

        1. There's a nice piece of nostalgia on TCW today…….. https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-prisoner-of-dot-com/ it got me thinking about my 1950s childhood, when I knew all our neighbours and they looked out for me; when I walked to school and back each day along the A38, when I had complete freedom to go anywhere I wanted in the two hours before my mum came home from work; when life was innocent and uncomplicated.

      5. He's right. Folk are tired of the infighting the 'oh, look how badly they're doing it' to make themselves look good. The entire political class of this country have deliberately insulted us. It's not one side or the other, they're all utterly incompetent. They swan about, collecting their expenses while cheering on the next arson attempt and walking away from the inferno they've ignored with a 'not me guv'.

        These people are damned staff. If they were directly hired they'd have all been sacked for theft, fraud and incompetence.

    2. Starmer probably thinks that the loss at sea of two illegal immigrants is a greater tragedy that the murder of three little white girls.

      How on earth did Britain land itself with a government with priorities so very different from the priorities of most British people?

      2. Yes i am sorry i am not doing the performative “tragic death” of illegal immigrants nonsense. No one forced them on that boat.

  32. It was not Farage, but lack of courage that sank the Tories
    Malcolm Roberts: https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/it-was-not-farage-but-lack-of-courage-that-sank-the-tories/

    BTL

    I blame the stupid idiots who could not see that the Conservative Party was dead as the dodo and voted Conservative rather than Reform.

    Had they voted for what they wanted or what they needed – or indeed if they hadn't copped out and not voted at all – we would now have a decent government – or at least a decent opposition.

    1. It wasn't lack of courage that did the Conservatives in, it was a lack of Conservativism. Certainly had nothing to do with Farage.

      1. But the Party lacked the courage to be Conservative and the voters lacked the courage to abandon the dying corpse of the Party.

        My wife is the parish organist.. Far more people are at funerals than Christenings. I think there is a political analogy to be made there.

        1. They didn't lack the courage to be conservative. The real conservatives were marginalized by those who had no conservativism in the first place. They were far more interested in what the latest focus group, centered on and exclusively looking at London, had to say. Those people didn't give a damn about people other than to con them. Only they went to far and the voting fodder rumbled them and thus ceased to vote for their dishonest machinations.

      1. Yes thanks. I was lucky with the weather too. Sunny with fleecy clouds. The following day was an absolute scorcher.
        Anne went joyriding with Citroen which i think she found a bit hair raising. All home safe and sound.

  34. Good morning all.
    Sat outside The Nook Cafe in Denbigh with a take away mug of tea because the cafe isn't open yet, but the lass working there is letting me use their customer internet.
    Stayed in the carpark beside St. Asaf Cathedral last night.
    A quiet and fairly undisturbed night too.
    Planning to pick up my auction purchase and head home today.

    1. Morning Jonathan. Suffolk due for 28⁰C by midday. Going to the beach later. It's the only sensible thing to do.

      1. Enjoy the beach James Here it is only going to 21c which is tolerable. Last night was sheer torture. 29c at 6:00 pm.

        1. Thanks, yes last night was torture. I didn’t even look at bed until 01:30 hrs, such was the heat.

      2. Enjoy the beach James Here it is only going to 21c which is tolerable. Last night was sheer torture. 29c at 6:00 pm.

    1. It's not that the government doesn't have any more money they just hate the vast majority of English people.
      They all waste billions on foreign aid and other invented circumstances including the invasion of Britain.
      I'm sure what they are doing is a treasonable offence.

  38. a huge can of worms
    Michael Deacon
    Columnist
    13 August 2024 • 7:00am
    Michael Deacon

    Wes Streeting
    Is an apology adequate? Wes Streeting acknowledged he went too far with some comments on social media… 13 years later Credit: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing

    During last week’s riots, so many thugs disguised themselves using masks that the Government is now considering a ban on the wearing of face coverings at protests. According to a report in the Sun, however, exceptions would be made for “people in religious dress”.

    If true, we may end up confronted by an unlikely sight. Mobs of violent Islamophobes, all clad in burkas.

    For the time being, at least, the authorities are focused on dealing with those responsible for the unrest. But punishment isn’t solely reserved for people who committed violent acts. People who stirred up violence through posts on social media are being punished, too.

    It’s hard to have much sympathy. All the same, I fear such an approach risks opening a huge can of worms. Because, if people can be jailed for posting messages that appear to promote violence, where does that leave the Health Secretary?

    In 2009, some years before he became a Labour MP, Wes Streeting responded to a controversial column in the Daily Mail by tweeting, of the woman who wrote it: “There would be nothing natural about Jan Moir’s death if I shoved the bigoted old bag under a train.”

    In 2022, a spokesman for Mr Streeting apologised, acknowledging that his tweet was “in bad taste”. An apology, however, would not have been enough to save those jailed in the past week for their behaviour online.

    While we’re on the subject, I note that another Labour MP has apologised for a historic post in which she complained about “f—ing Estonian retards”. Was that stirring up hatred? And a third Labour MP has deleted a post which shared an unfounded claim that there’d been an acid attack on a Muslim woman in Middlesbrough. Was that spreading fake news?

    To be clear: I’m not saying I think these MPs should be arrested. I’m just saying that, if we’re going to jail everyone who has ever posted something foolish, intemperate or misleading on social media in the heat of the moment, Labour will have to abandon its pledge to build 1.5 million new homes – and build 1.5 million new prisons, instead.
    ‘Community leaders’: the mystery deepens…

    You may have thought that the term “community leaders” was puzzling enough. But now it seems there’s another curious new buzzword for us all to learn. Because the Crown Prosecution Service has announced that, to help “drive our response” to last week’s unrest, it’s “meeting with local panels”.

    "But hang on a moment. What exactly are these mysterious “local panels”? What’s their remit? Who’s on them? And how do you get a place on one?

    Perhaps “local panels” are simply composed of an area’s “community leaders”. Or perhaps they’re put together like juries. Out of the blue, randomly selected members of the public receive a stern-looking official letter, informing them that they are required to sit on their local panel.

    Personally, though, I think that if local panels have the ability to influence the actions of a body as important as the Crown Prosecution Service, membership of them should be elected. We, the great British public, must have the right to decide which of our fellow citizens represent us on these august panels.

    To ensure that my plea reaches the relevant authorities, I intend to go straight to my community leader. Just as soon as I’ve found out who on earth he or she is."
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/13/prison-social-media-posts-riots/
    Retired Black gangsters and local Imams whitey need not apply………….

    1. Labour MPs are going through the usual ritual that's all. Theirs is a far left position ideologically, always devoted to directing violence at people's free speech once they get into power and it is the duty of the apparatchiks who ride on the back of it to position themselves as on the side of the party at times such as these. Failure to do so leads to internal suspicion within the politburo. Dress it up as much as anyone likes; it'll only stay like this for as long as the squashing of free speech is not finally secured.

      The other thing that saying sorry not really sorry does, as Streeting did there, is to create a public narrative that it's now the duty of every prole to curb his or her own enthusiasm for self expression. If the party can set an example then right thinking people must surely agree.

      If some see genuine sorrow in this, they are mistaken. If others see healing where there is societal division, they're wrong. It is tactical, quite simply.

    2. Local panels will be made up of the Doctrine of the Faith. Just not our Faith. And i am expecting it.

      1. Whenever they talk about “community leaders” i inwardly scream “who are my “community leaders” and how am i being represented?”

  39. David Starkey has laid out the ground work for you.

    You need a young, intelligent, charismatic, savvy, articulate, politically aware politico.. to lead you out of this mess.
    Someone aware of Britain's history. Someone aware of the dangers & consequences of European Lenin-Marxist goals.
    A "Great".. As Starkey says.. were called "Great" for a reason. Henry Eighth would do.

    Failing that a team, like Thatcher, Sir Keith Joseph with Friedrich Hayek lurking behind the scenes.

    That man aint; Farage, Tice, Tommy.. not even Matt Goodwin.

        1. Thank you. Listening to Trump talking to Musk at the moment. This will be next. Much admire Starkey.

    3. But they are on the way. Better than what we have had.
      Better to make a step forward than a step backwards. or no step at all.

    4. I think a good going over by Professor Henry Higgins would give Tommy Robinson a good shot. That's why the establishment is so afraid of him. How many other people can muster a hundred thousand people in less than a month? The establishment will not allow that to happen again because the crowd would be twice as large. As it is, I predict jail or assassination for him within a year if he is not really careful. He needs the protection of Elon Musk or someone very powerful.

    1. Amazing. Lettuce spings to mind. At least Truss was ousted by a coup at the top. This is a grass-roots appeal and he has only just been elected by the people.

  41. If you listen to the Musk/Trump interview below. You will find that the MSM remarks about it are outright lies and anti-Trump/Musk propaganda. Which tells you who you should trust.
    The Daily Mail: "Trump tells Elon Musk that Kamala Harris looks like his wife Melania while 'slurring' and talking with a 'lisp' in rambling X interview hit by 'massive' cyber attack."
    Express: "Donald Trump accused of 'slurring' through Elon Musk interview as spokesman hits out."
    The Guardian: "Trump revisits most divisive talking points in rambling interview with Musk."
    Just a sampling.

    1. The news media is not going to give you any pravda or even some decent isvestia for that matter, at times such as this. There's tyranny in the air and it's quaking in its boots frankly.

    1. I saw one in my garden a couple of weeks ago. They are the only reason I'm tempted to tolerate willowherb around the garden – seeing as how much it is a nuisance by prolifically spreading seeds everywhere.

      1. Ours has mostly died out, used to be banks of it sides of roads. Much drier soil now than in the past, a possibility. More likely – Local Authorities busy cutting verges, blocking lanes and access months on end.

    2. I used to get Mullein Hawk Moths. Plant a verbascum or two in the odd corner. You'll have to put up with the plant looking ropey after the caterpillars have finished with it, but they're magnificent. The caterpillars are huge, by the way. Ours used to grow to around 6-inches, all yellow green and red as I recall.

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

    Experimental Drugs
    A man goes to visit his doctor. "Doc, you've gotta help me! My wife just isn't interested in sleeping with me anymore! No passion, nothing! Haven't you got a pill or something I can give her?"

    “Look, I can't prescribe…"

    "Doc, we've been friends for years. Have you ever seen me this upset? I am desperate! I can't think; I can't concentrate; my life is falling apart! You've got to help me man!"

    The doctor opens his desk drawer and removes a small bottle of pills. "Okay. Ordinarily, I wouldn't do this. These are experimental; the tests so far indicate that they're very powerful. Don't give her more than one, understand? Just one in her coffee, Okay?”

    The man goes home, where his wife has dinner waiting. When dinner is finished, she goes to the kitchen to bring dessert. The man quickly takes out the pills, then slips one into his wife's coffee. Then he begins to wonder… The Doc said they were powerful. Out of the blue, he drops a pill into his own coffee, just to see what it's like.

    His wife returns and they enjoy their dessert and coffee. Sure enough, a few minutes after they finish, she shudders, sighs deeply, and a strange look comes over her face. In a guttural tone, she moans, "I… need… a man…"

    When the husband sees this, his eyes well up with tears and his hands begin to tremble. In a passion-choked voice, he exclaims, "So do I!"

    2. Good beer … on draught. … when properly looked after and served at between 12–15ºC (cellar temperature), no warmer: no cooler.

      I don't like bottled beers … and as for that undrinkable stuff in cans, it is not beer.

      1. I much prefere draught beer but at £6 a pint, when I can buy 4 pint bottles for £7 at the super market. My current mix is Old Peculier. Landlord and 1689. plus a guest.

    2. Why is everyone jumping on the same bandwagon and saying "Starmer"?

      The corrert answer is Tony Blair. Not only is he the twat who started this rapid decline; he is still there directing operations. Starmer is just a clueless chump who has Blair's hand up his arse.

  50. As it Says.
    "Old Peculier is a beautiful, yet very simple beer, brewed using a very generous blend of finest pale, crystal, and roasted barley with two bitter hops combined with the majestic and noble Fuggle’ hop to produce a beer of awesome full-bodied flavour with subtle cherry and rich fruit overtones."
    It tasts Malty and Hoppy to me Not fruit & cherry

  52. Yes, it was. On the way home from school I could go and visit friends, or join a little gang sitting in the bushes smoking – I tried one and it was disgusting so I never tried it again.
    In the holidays, two big girls, Anne and Hilary used to look after me – we made skirts of golden rod. I was the youngest child in our road – one day, however, I got picked up by a 'leg and a wing' and dropped into the stinging nettles. That wasn't much fun.
    There was a craze for walking on tins – with strings to hold onto to keep them on. The clanking noise drove my mum mad. When she had free time her nose was always in a book.

    2. During the summer holidays I would go off in the morning with a club biscuit and a Tupperware mug of squash in my bike pannier, usually down to the woods to build a dam or make a rope swing or some such and not come home til diner time. Parents were both at work so had no idea where I was.

      1. My childhood predated Club biscuits and Tupperware and I probably didn’t go very far afield, but my mum, being a widow, was at work when I was at home during the holidays, so I had freedom, and no supervision. She did generally pack me off for a week or two in Weston with my uncle and aunt.

  53. When I brew my own a very passable home grown clone of Old Peculiar is one of my favourite go-to choices. It's one of the best anywhere.

  54. Morning all.

    We've just posted an article on Free Speech looking at the rise and fall of Sunderland, and linking it to the cause of the recent anti-immigration protest turned riot there and eleswhere in similar towns in the north.

    You might not know much or care about Sunderland, but what happened there is a foretaste of what is to be meted out to the whole country, nice middle class areas included.

    freespeechbacklash.com

    Please to pop over and read it. We need you to read and, just possibly, you might need to read it. Please do.

    Thanks
    Tom

    2. From Coffee House, the Spectator

      Is justice turning into vengeance against some of the rioters?
      Comments Share 13 August 2024, 6:22am
      Am I getting soft in my middle age, or are some of the sentences being handed down to the rioters a tad stiff? Justice must be served, of course. Everyone who took part in the riotous violence of recent weeks should feel a copper’s hand on their shoulder. But I’m worried that justice is turning into something like vengeance. That this isn’t just law and order but also a kind of centrist revenge against the lower orders. Am I wrong?

      Stacey Vint has been jailed for 20 months for pushing a wheelie bin at a line of riot police before falling flat on her face. She’s an idiot, clearly.
      As far as I’m concerned, many of the rioters should be banged up for a long time. Those who joined in the bigoted savagery we saw outside mosques and at hotels housing asylum seekers deserve especially harsh punishment. You cannot inflict terror and alarm on innocent people and expect to waltz back to your old life. No, a cell awaits you, and you deserve the privation and humiliation such a fate brings.

      And yet other cases have made me feel not outrage as such – I’ll save my outrage for more deserving individuals – but certainly concern. Like Stacey Vint from Middlesbrough who has been jailed for 20 months for pushing a wheelie bin at a line of riot police before falling flat on her face. She’s an idiot, clearly. She might also be a bad person, I don’t know. But nearly two years in the slammer for a failed bin attack on heavily armed police? Admit it, it’s a bit much.

      Or what about the gay couple, in Hartlepool, whose chief crime, as far as I can tell, was ‘dancing and gesticulating at a line of police officers’. They also struggled as they were arrested. They have both been jailed for 26 months. Let’s not relitigate the ‘two-tier policing’ debate, of which we’ve all had a gutful, but it’s worth reminding ourselves that the knifeman who terrorised staff at a kosher supermarket in Golders Green in January, demanding to know their views on ‘Israel and Palestine’, was given a suspended sentence.

      Most popular
      Fraser Nelson
      In defence of Douglas Murray

      Every day brings fresh news of people being sent down for a long time. Some of the sentences are richly deserved. No one is going to lose sleep over the 29-year-old sentenced to 30 months for trying to set fire to a police van in Liverpool, or the 58-year-old jailed for three years for punching a police officer in Southport.

      But what about the 26-year-old father of three in Northampton who received a harsher sentence than that – three years and two months – for a post on X? What he posted was vile. ‘Set fire to all the f**king hotels’, he said, referring to hotels housing asylum seekers. This is clearly an incitement to violence, though it is unclear whether anyone was incited by it. But are we allowed to ask why horribly dreaming of violence on social media gets a longer jail term than visiting actual violence on a police officer?

      I understand that an individual’s behaviour can take on a different, more menacing meaning during an outburst of violent disorder. Dancing and gesticulating at a line of cops wouldn’t normally be a big deal, but it might be when there’s a riotous assembly right behind you. Pushing a wheelie bin and falling down would be comically embarrassing on a normal day, but it might be seen as giving succour to the mob during a riot. I get that.

      And yet, by the same token, might a little leeway be given in cases where an individual recklessly, and regretfully, found him or herself swept up in the riotous moment? The current sentencing frenzy reminds me of the aftermath of the 2011 riots, when there was a similarly unforgiving judicial response. A student was jailed for six months for nicking bottles of water. A 14-year-old was given a nine-month referral order for stealing chewing gum. Two men aged 20 and 22 were jailed for four years for setting up a Facebook page calling for a riot in Northwich Town, to which precisely no one turned up.

      And before anyone asks, yes I did criticise those tough sentences at the time. I described them as ‘surreally over the top’. Many left-wingers criticised them, too. A writer for the Guardian called it ‘legalised injustice’ and said many of the 2011 looters were ‘opportunists’ who did not deserve ‘out-of-proportion punishments’. Where are those voices now? It seems yesterday’s radical critics of rough law ’n’ order have morphed into fans of the carceral state following the riots of recent weeks.

      More worrying than the sentences themselves is the culture of gloating that surrounds them. The front pages saying ‘NAILED AND JAILED’ alongside mugshots of riotous deviants. The smugness of centrists on social media as yet another violent scruff is put away. Then there are the reports that Keir Starmer ‘leaned really heavily on the justice system’ to enforce swift punishment on the rioters, in order to ‘amplify the political message that rioting would not be tolerated’. So political interference in the justice system is okay now?

      Every decent person agrees that the riots were dreadful and that participants must be punished. But we are surely allowed to be concerned about government meddling in the delivery of justice, the use of the law as an instrument of political messaging, and the thirst for authoritarian solutions to complicated social problems. Don’t lock me up, I’m just asking questions.

      1. NoO it's not vengeance, it is a cold calculated effort to scare people away from. Protesting and questioning the approved message.

        Step out of line and we will do this to you!

      2. NoO it's not vengeance, it is a cold calculated effort to scare people away from. Protesting and questioning the approved message.

        Step out of line and we will do this to you!

      4. I think anyone who screams 'Scum' in a public place should be incarcerated for 5 years minimum.

    3. Both my in-laws were originally from Sunderland But had to leave during WW2. My father in law was Durham Light infantry but captured in Belgium and imprisoned after the long trek, in Poland. In the past my wife and i have been many times to Sunderland and stayed with relatives. But they are few and far between now. Most moved away or have passed on.
      Like too many of our pre industrial towns the whole area was wrecked by closures of industries.

      1. And many think that process is being deliberately accelerated by the Establishment, possibly in the name of the false God Climate Change.

        1. Climate change and ‘experts’ is mentioned in every news bulletin now .
          Now after 400 years we have ‘king beavers in the London area.
          Why ? What are they going to do ?

          3. Tom one of my favourite sayings is “Today’s expert us tomorrow’s fool”
            They don’t seem to stay in touch for long do they.

          4. I don’t know Eddy, they steel wheel out their star modeller Ferguson don’t they? And even the burk with th hockey stick graph is still making a living out of it. And the covid scientists we followed down the road the serfdom all got knighted didn’t they?

          5. One of the funniest things that i came across all those years ago when the greedy fraud Mann started peddling his lucrative calumnies in tandem with hypocrite Gore was an analysis by a nerdy physicist of the calculations upon which their apocalyptic lies were based. Can't find it now, but the flaw he had spotted was that the entire theory of the "Greenhouse E££ect" was based upon projections from a flat surface – ie a "flat earth" model. The spherical nature of the planet and all the variables that that would introduce was not taken into account.

            Just one of the flaws, but one that I did find deeply amusing.

          6. And the hockey stick only worked by omitting the Roman and Medieval Warm periods.

    4. one of the three S's.. remember glued to the Bloomberg Reuters feeds on that day as the results came through for Swansea, Swindon, Sunderland. From there on.. the markets knew the result.

    5. one of the three S's.. remember glued to the Bloomberg Reuters feeds on that day as the results came through for Swansea, Swindon, Sunderland. From there on.. the markets knew the result.

    6. one of the three S's.. remember glued to the Bloomberg Reuters feeds on that day as the results came through for Swansea, Swindon, Sunderland. From there on.. the markets knew the result.

  56. I think we’ll see many excrescences in short order now. This government knows it speaks for very few in the country but wants to strike while it has its majority. I don’t think it can believe its luck. And it very much is luck too.

  59. Heyup!!
    Just enjoying Tea & Toast at Oakell's Garden Centre, just outside Tarvin.
    Made quite good time despite going round the houses on a detour because of a road closure!

  60. My appointment this morning meant sitting for 20 minutes while the eyedrops worked for the further investigations.
    While i sat I thought i would see if i could find out the reason for putting on so much weight recently. after 5 minutes of probing it came up with No Internet.
    Well there is the answer, the cheeky buggers are everywhere taking over our lives.

    2. Romanian migrant who falsely claimed he was chased in riots is jailed

      Father-of-three guilty of attempting to ‘stir up racial hatred’ in Derby

      A migrant who broadcast a TikTok video falsely claiming he was being chased during the riots has been jailed for three months.

      Dimitrie Stoica's livestream was seen by 700 people on Wednesday in what a court heard was a deliberate attempt to "stir up racial hatred". The 35-year-old Romanian told South Derbyshire magistrates' court the video was a "joke" and he had hoped to gain more followers.

      The father-of-three broadcast the clip at 10pm as one person asked him why he was running. Stoica replied: "I am running bro because they are running after me. They're coming. Everyone get back."

      Seema Mistry, prosecuting, said: "The defendant was clearly trying to stir up racial hatred by implying he was being chased. The defendant was later approached by officers on the road. The officers asked if he had been targeted or was being chased. He replied 'no, I'm going home'."

      "He was interviewed in custody. He said he wanted to get extra followers for his social media. He said he meant it as a joke."

      Miss Mistry said the video was made in Normanton, a suburb of Derby, where there were "ethnic minorities". She said there had been no problems in the city the night the clip was broadcast.

      Stoica admitted sending a false communication with intent to cause harm. He was jailed and ordered to pay a £154 surcharge.

      District judge Michelle Jeffreys told him: "I cannot ignore what you did and the effect it would have had on the people listening. Who knows what they could have done as a result of listening to your commentary. We know recent disorder was orchestrated by people using social media."

      Andrew Cash, defending, said Stoica came to the UK in 2016 and his wife had their third child two weeks ago. He is awaiting a decision on his immigration status and is not allowed to work.

      "He did not consider the effect on those who were watching his video who may have been expressing surprise, fear and concern that there was an incident in Normanton which there was not," Mr Cash added.

      Michelle Shooter, the Derbyshire assistant chief constable, said: "We have seen the extraordinary power of social media over the last two weeks. With that power comes even greater responsibility. As a force, we absolutely respect and protect the rights of individuals to legally express their views.

      "However, the right to freedom can be limited, in particular where it is required to prevent crime and disorder. As has been made clear by forces, any criminal actions relating to the disorder, whether they be in person or online, will be dealt with quickly and robustly.

      "Whether it is spreading misinformation or being involved in disorder the message is clear – as a service we are ready to respond and deal with any situation robustly."

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/12/romanian-migrant-falsely-chased-riots-jailed-tiktok/
      ________________________________________

      BTL:
      Douglas McAngus
      Another blatant example of two tier justice imposed on us by Sir Kneel. 3yrs if he was British.

      Jonathan Evans
      So, he hasn't worked or paid taxes during his 8 years in the UK and his wife has just had her 3rd child on the NHS? Presumably the government also provides him and his family with housing and enough money to get by. It also provides him with a solicitor when he gets in trouble.

      The left cry out: "Only a racist could claim that immigration is not benefitting this country." Dear God, please send us a Saviour!

      Unusually, we are obliged to the BBC to give us the missing detail. Who was he trying to provoke?

      "…the 25-year-old told those watching he was being chased by ''extreme right-wing rioters'…"

      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czrg70xgm5zo

      The video was made in Normanton, the part of Derby that was home to the bent JET charity for immigrants that I featured onhere yesterday.

  62. Good morning. The news that BF Johnson is playing in the games for the acquisition of the Telegraph will, I suppose, surprise few, but any prospect of the man in the editorial suite there simply underlines the fact that most of us have known since the accession of the Gates donations to the organ for "health advocacy "and the hysterical lies it has pumped out of the so-called pandemic, (that contagion that made 2020 the 35th in the last 50 years for all-causes mortality! )

    Johnson's reported inclination to talk to Tucker Carlson after the Putin interview, but only for a £500,000 fee, sums the creature up.In a way he is a metaphor for the Filth generally; hyperbole and lies, so grotesque as to have a certain Gilbert and Sullivan ridicule. Over-reach that is always doomed, by reason of its transparent speciousness and evil, to fail.

    He is an individual who with a number of others should be facing charges under the criminal law in connection with the virus hoax. Until he has been given a fair trial and opportunity to explain how the harm done was in no way forseeable or intended and show his innocence the Telegraph should eschew any contact with him, as should the rest of us.

    1. His comments following the demise of four men on the British sub were something…he lauded British ingenuity then added almost as an afterthought a mention of the four deaths. I never want to see/hear/read Johnson again. And my Spectator sub will be cancelled if he returns there in any capacity. Not to mention Covid/lockdowns/vaccines. Best he can do is slink off, as Hancock appears to have done.

    3. And when will the BBC be fined for the effing and blinding on the programmes they transmit?

    5. Yes, the government says that they are declaring war on the far-right, but what they really mean is that they are declaring war on me and you.

      1. Once you view the entirety of it as the-captured, actors, puppets, puppet-actors, and the soon to be puppets/captured, then you waste less time evaluating; less time stating the obvious, that we are indeed be slowly herded and managed as nothing more than nuisance livestock.

    1. Not to worry, Eddy…taxpayers will pay the benefits to pay the rents…doesn't Ms Rayner own a property she rents out..?

    2. Not to worry, Eddy…taxpayers will pay the benefits to pay the rents…doesn't Ms Rayner own a property she rents out..?

    1. 22 million pounds? Who did they hire for that price? The entire USA NFL players?

    2. Looks good 'n clean. My abiding memory of the Underground dates from 1970s when smoking was allowed – the tube insides were deeply nicotine & tar-coloured, and not to be touched! Ugh!

        1. The London Overground trains aren't quite so pristine? Crossrail is still very new of course.

          1. A Crossrail train wasn't very clean recently when it was stranded for four hours by a power failure.

            They have no toilets.

    3. But the cost is irrelevant because the tax payer pays it. If TFL were a private corporation without public funding then it would have to improve, which would inevitably drive down ticket prices because it's simpler than chasing avoidance.

    4. Presumably, though, should there be no fear of ever having a ticket checked then no-one would ever buy one.

    1. It was nice to see you, to see you nice. Thanks for making the effort. Pics posted yesterday and today.

          2. Should have joined us at the Red Lion.
            Then two bottles of Chapel Down fizz could have been emptied.

          3. Oh. Well of course i couldn’t do that because a i am a responsible drinkard.

            No wonder they chucked you out of the breakfast room !!!

  68. Being out today in the car for a journey through country lanes to Hitchin. It was very obvious that local councils have to further interest in maintaining hedge-rows as the amount of growth either side of the roads has reduced the width considerably. by about three to four feet.
    I wonder what the insurance companies are going to say when the claims start to come in.

      1. I did Grizz there are some lovely houses on the road in from St Ippolyts (spl)
        Superb Hertfordshire County side.

    3. Contrary-wise, Eddy…the local council/contractors been strutting their strimmers here for weeks…road signs, single lane traffic…you get the picture..good to know it's part of local taxes…

      1. Our verges are kept decent by a council tractor with a grass trimmer on the side – it goes round the area once a year and cuts all the verges (and leaves most of the cuttings on the road)

        1. Bet the cyclists love that, Alec..:-) it takes them so long here that one season morphs into another..seems almost permanent..

      1. That is the huge difference between Colchester and Sudbury.
        Sudbury's gutters and pavements are clean and orderly.
        Colchester's are a disgrace; I've never seen them look so unkempt. Apparently the councillor in charge of that dept. mucked up the weed control programme.
        Because the blight is now a mixture of old dried weeds and fresh green ones, there is a battle between 'City' and County Council over who is responsible.

      2. The usual idiots are calling it re-wilding. Pot holes and dangerously broken edges come under the same category.

      1. I emailed this charging rhino joke to my old study mate from school who is a farmer from North Devon.

        He sent this by reply:

        Q. What are the similarities between rhinos and solicitors?

        A.Can't see farther than their noses, thick skinned and short sighted but they know how to f***king charge

    2. In the Gainsborough House in Sudbury, there is a portrait of Harriet, Viscountess Tracy and her husband Thomas, Viscount Tracy.
      Are they anything to do with you?

    2. BBC bug: "Hello Kier…oops…Prime Minister. What do you have to say about the, er, 'incident' in Leicester Square?"
      Max: "I'm sure we are all relieved that the poor immigrant doesn't have a death on his conscience."

      1. Max: "I'm sure we are all relieved that the immigrant wasn’t injured during his attack."

    3. Yes, it is a Romanian surname. But as always it’s going to take time to find out who this person really is and what his motives were.

      1. Reminds me of George Formby :

        But no, I'm not a crook, and if you think that's what I look,
        I'll tell you why I'm here and what my motives are.

      2. Oh just the usual, mental problems.

        Incidentally, also strange that members of a particular belief system seem to have such a high proportion of mental problems. Some of it can be put down to in-breeding, on the other hand there are mental problems and mental problems. If you see what I mean.

      3. We'll never find out why he was let in here and if any background checks were made. Move along, nothing to see here.

  71. Four stages of Operation "Active Measure";
    stage 1 Demoralisation. stage 2 Destabilisation 2-5 years. stage 3 Crisis 6 weeks. stage 4 Normalisation, which lasts indefinitely.

    As we veer towards Stage three of the Czech StB agency operation "Active Measure" Initiative activated way back in 1982..
    Rival spy agencies SMERSH & SPECTRE both claim ownership of Agent Beige..
    .
    firstly SMERSH agent.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8f00a998fdb45d70807b1363004c1456e5eaaaaf052e28ee74587fba6b8f6e9b.png
    then SPECTRE agent
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ab1beeb151ae4e51a37f0aa7b64ba202da82070835396c8d201ff743446eb9aa.png

  73. I failed my Religious Education exam at school. I thought Jason Christ !

    Stolen from the Fringe…

  76. Home!
    A decent drive, if slightly extended by road closures.
    Why, oh why can't those putting advance warning signs out for road-works specify WHERE the road is closed, either in miles or location, to assist those less geographically challenged in plotting their own detours?

      1. Official detours have to be capable of taking the type of traffic that normally uses the closed road which, in the case of HGV traffic can take you miles out of your way.

        1. A diversion route here recently took you around in circles. Eventually, inn a fit I stopped, asked a workman and said 'we live there' (pointing) – how do we get in? and he said – and I kid you not… follow the diversion signs.

          1. We had the road blocked between here and Cromford for a couple of months some time ago.
            Because the GUIDELINES advised that diversions for an A road closure had to be via other A roads, the OFFICIAL diversion was nearly 40 miles extra, whilst an unofficial diversion, using unclassified roads that already took HGVs, was only a couple of miles extra.

        2. To reinforce your point the A36 is shut just south of Bath and will continue to be closed until March 2025.
          Look up the recommended diversions, the diversion for cars etc is bad enough but the HGV one is a beauty.

    2. Because that would be convenient for you. Do you have a mble phone, usually a Maps app to download which should give you current road closures, check settings?

      1. In theory.
        However, when MB and Sonny Boy were driving back from Scotland last week, there was an humungous hold up around the A1 / A14 area.
        No info whatsoever. Nothing SB could find on phone and nothing on overhead screens.
        Eventually, back at home, I managed to find a feeble note about a 'police incident' in the area and a rough estimate of when the traffic was likely to get moving.
        I have no idea why it didn't appear on the phone.

        1. Very frustrating, anne. Especially when you see signs saying ‘road blocked’ so you detour, then find it’s been open all along. Volume of traffic today, soon builds up, especially harvest time/tractors.

    3. Thankfully they do up here and there's a FB page dedicated to the roads up here where people can put info on hold ups or accidents etc

  77. Home!
    A decent drive, if slightly extended by road closures.
    Why, oh why can't those putting advance warning signs out for road-works specify WHERE the road is closed, either in miles or location, to assist those less geographically challenged in plotting their own detours?

  78. New stats show nearly 10 million Britons now out of work and not looking for a job.

    However, closer scrutiny reveals.. Some 2.8m people were out of work through long-term sickness. 5.6 million state workers retired early at 55, keeerching.. The rest are awaiting a call, and currently hang out at one of the many many many convenient barber shops.

    1. I think they include students which will be a hefty chunk to make it sound worse than it is.

  79. Pigs will fly before the EU dares fine Macron’s France
    Europe can only bend fiscal rules so far before they snap
     https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/08/13/pigs-will-fly-eu-dares-fine-macrons-france/

    BTL

    Has France yet paid the fine imposed upon it when it continued to ban British beef after the Mad Cow problem even though the EU had lifted the ban?.

    On the other hand you could argue that the EU works for the French because they just ignore EU rules which don't suit them and that the EU never worked for the UK because the UK always obeyed the rules and paid up.

    It is the same with the UK's attitude to the ECHR – the UK is not obliged to follow its rulings but, if Shamima Begum's appeal to the ECHR wins against the UK's Supreme Court, what's the betting she will soon return to the UK with citizenship fully restored?

    1. Starmer will probably make sure that such an appeal is funded by us. He is beyond despicable.

    2. France continued to ban British beef so that the French didn’t discover how superior it is to the dreadful beef they produce locally.

      1. I thought it was a parody but perhaps not. The fawning quality is quite vomitricious. I came across islam in my late teens and I knew then that it was something that we didn’t ever want to set foot in these isles. But we were safe enough, I thought. I couldn’t believe it when I saw my first berka’d one shambling around the Staines/Hounslow sort of area only a very few years later – I knew we were in trouble even back then.

        Thanks so much for your email btw, it didn’t get junked this time! – I will reply later.

        1. Noticed it around 1980, 'mum, got lost on the way to LGI, although saw earlier with my dad when in Bradford, sometime '50s…

        2. No rush – stay cool (as people used to say – maybe I’m feeling hippy today because I’m regressing and wearing a kaftan I’ve had for years!).

      2. I think that Mark Rowley is going to organise an all expenses paid trip for all his senior officers to fly first class to Saud Arabia and Iran in order to visit all the churches and synagogues in these two countries. When they have completed their visits they will be able to enjoy a fortnight's free board and accommodation in the best hotels.

    3. When the copper says "it's such a beautiful peaceful religion" is when he betrays himself as an utter moron.

  81. We're all gonna die part 207, this time it's slothfulness

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13738673/Debilitating-virus-came-sloths-spreads.html

    Experts say the virus comes from the same family of diseases as Zika virus and Dengue, which are both potentially deadly.

    Tell-tale signs of Oropouche include headaches, nausea, vomiting, and muscle and joint pains.
    Dr Danny Altmann, a professor of Immunology at Imperial College London, told The Telegraph: 'We should definitely be worried. Things are changing and may become unstoppable.'

    1. "headaches, nausea, vomiting, and muscle and joint pains."

      I used to have the same symptoms watching BBC news.

    4. I thought the so-called Zika virus (which caused babies to be born with small heads) was actually found to be caused by a *certain vaccine, I can't remember which, injected into pregnant women, which would explain why it dropped out of the news like a lead balloon at the time, but has been resurrected to support project fear (how would anyone ever know it wasn't a virus unless one accidentally comes across these articles?).

      *It might have been the vaccine for the Dengue, thinking about it.

      1. I have a very vague recollection of something like that, but can’t be sure when it happened.

    5. "Potentially deadly" so is unlimited immigration of the wrong sort. They don't seem to be concerned about that.

  82. Musk warned not to ‘amplify harmful content’ after riots. 13 August 2024.

    At the start of the letter, Mr Breton said he was writing to Mr Musk in the context of “recent events in the United Kingdom” and Monday’s interview on X with Donald Trump.

    “As the relevant content is accessible to EU users and being amplified also in our jurisdiction, we cannot exclude potential spillovers in the EU,” Mr Breton wrote.

    “Therefore, we are monitoring the potential risks in the EU associated with the dissemination of content that may incite violence, hate and racism in conjunction with major political – or societal – events around the world, including debates and interviews in the context of election.”

    In response to the letter, Mr Musk replied with a meme saying: “Take a big step back and literally, f— your own face!”

    Well the language leaves something to be desired but I can sympathise with the sentiments.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/13/eu-tech-tsar-warns-musk-amplify-harmful-content-after-riots/

  86. I have a question i'd like the 77th to pass on to 2Tier for me. ' How many more children, Prime Minister?'

    Are any proper checks made of incomers? And are proper records even kept in some of the countries from which they hail?

  87. Not a whinnying Birdie Three?

    Wordle 1,151 3/6
    ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
    🟩⬜⬜🟨⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. I should have delayed my attempt. However, I joined the early puzzlers with a bogey.
      Wordle 1,151 5/6

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

    2. Well done. Par here.

      Wordle 1,151 4/6

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

    3. A balanced tower but 5 attempts.

      Wordle 1,151 5/6

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

    4. You're on fire, man! Dull dull dull from me

      Wordle 1,151 4/6

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

  88. If any Nottlers that came to my party who gave me a bottle of aged marmalade Vodka would you please let me know.

      1. har har… The lady was here in spirit as we all hold her dear. Lucky i didn't have any Lefties. I would have had to fight off Satan.

      2. I know you stocked up the beer and stuff and i thank you for that but was it you who brought the M. Vodka? It got a bit manic as people streamed in and i just said thank you and put the gifts aside. Feel a bit guilty now.
        Though John and Maggie brought Champagne as usual ! Star guests ! Of course i didn't serve it !

          1. Ask anyone. I was the perfect host. Didn't bitch about you and Bill at all………….well maybe a little bit… :@)

        2. Wozn't me with the marmalade vodka. The late Mrs Windsor was quite partial to the occasional vodka martini so she could have brought some 'for emergencies'.

          1. I am planning a lunch at Rules with a very small group. I hear they serve fantastic Vodka Martini Which is what i always order when in town.
            The possibility at the moment is October. Might change. Not a booze up but a fine lunch. Be my guest.

        3. Wozn't me with the marmalade vodka. The late Mrs Windsor was quite partial to the occasional vodka martini so she could have brought some 'for emergencies'.

      1. Heard about that but didn't bother reading the nonsense. The Irish and Scots have been getting blind drunk for hundreds of years then get up out of the ditch they fell in.. More Nannying !

        None of the bottles of spirits were opened. Everyone drank Pimms Punch and Ales. Few specialist lagers. You know…like normal people.

        We are debating where the next DO will be and at the moment You're a Git are favourite.

        Think my grammar needs improving………………or not. :@)

      1. You devil you. You are just trying to get me drunk so you can take advantage of me. Next time i will be ready for you…Fluffs pillows !

    1. “Mpox has now crossed borders, affecting thousands across our continent, families have been torn apart and the pain and suffering have touched every corner of our continent,” he said.

      The CDC warned last week that the viral infection’s rate of spread was alarming.

      It said that over 15,000 mpox cases and 461 deaths were reported on the continent so far this year, representing a 160% increase from the same period last year.

      “This declaration is not merely a formality, it is a clarion call to action. It is a recognition that we can no longer afford to be reactive. We must be proactive and aggressive in our efforts to contain and eliminate this threat,” Kaseya said.

      https://www.france24.com/en/africa/20240813-africa-top-health-body-declares-monkeypox-outbreak-public-health-emergency-mpox

      So that means less than 0.001% of the population of Africa has died of it so far this year.
      I suspect that the total murders in South Africa alone this year far exceeds that figure.

      2. Quite. More Africans die every year of malaria and tuberculosis and even that’s just stuff people there learn to live with. Given that smallpox was eradicated in the industrial world chiefly by the rise in living standards, I don’t suppose it ever really left Africa.

    3. You really should give up your cattle rustling habit. You'll get caught one day and we won't stand bail.

    1. "Coming to a town near you."

      These are the exact wordies. This is the bar.
      Apparently, he would have got an extra 12 months for an [!].

    1. Ha! I thought it was your baronial residence! Impressive! Wasn't Mary Queen of Scots there for a while?

      1. She was born there, and I think she was imprisoned there too! It’s a beautiful palace, but they’ve been restoring it for at least 6 years. I went round with an extremely enthusiastic 10 year old and a quiz sheet! She got a sticker and wouldn’t share it!!

      2. Think of the dusting….!🕸️ Although the wind and rain today was enough tae bla’ yer lugs aff!

  95. It’s not all fake news on Twitter that Musk’s critics would ban. It’s fake news they don’t like
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/13/twitter-x-fake-news-misinformation-elon-musk-regulation-ban/

    BTL

    Veracity is irrlelevant.

    A lot of fake news just happens to be true just as a lot of authorised news happens to be false.

    It is a very grave mistake to trust politicians – who are for the most part liars – to tell the truth when they have a vested interest in a lie being spread as true.

    The very last people to decide what is fake news is a member of government.

    I remember that ghastly prime minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, who told us that the only news to believe was the news that came from the government.

    She has now been snapped up by the WEF because she has the right dental configuration to lie through her teeth.



    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dfe5244f10674e311258136e504ce58c97354806e87a5120df02a015b402c5e9.png

  96. Could Starmer jail you for sarcasm?

    "Blimey, look at this kind, gentle boy. Can't wait for more of his type to join our communities."

    Of course he will..

    1. (Ok, I nicked this from a guy called John Sullivan.. Anyhow you get the gist)

      MARK ADAMS (Keir Starmer's Best Man): "Starmer, you always were a shit at school. Teacher's pet.. you snitched on everyone. You'd shop yer own grandmother.. you would.."

      SIR KEIR STARMER KCB KC: "I had to.. her back light was faulty.."

  98. (Ok, I nicked this from a guy called John Sullivan.. Anyhow you get the gist)

    MARK ADAMS (Keir Starmer's Best Man): "Starmer, you always were a shit at school. Teacher's pet.. you snitched on everyone. You'd shop yer own grandmother.. you would.."

    SIR KEIR STARMER KCB KC: "I had to.. her back light was faulty.."

  99. The BBC are giving it the full works today,
    Climate change in Athens
    13 years old guilty of rioting
    Trump and Musk losing to Kamala.
    Muslim tackles stabber in Leicester Square

    1. It is sad that during daylight hours in a central area of London, local business owners and residents now feel obliged to pay for private security on top of the police precept.

      1. Where have you been? They have been doing that for years. The Police not visible except in cars speeding by or in full riot gear surrounding a young lady exitting the park with her shopping during the covid era.

        Also. There is no precept. Just another way for the crooks to soak you.

        Quote all the relevant laws you like but ordinary law abiding folk are being drained of their savings/resources.

  100. Britain's leaders have blinded themselves to the growing Islamist threat

    MPs are right to condemn the far-Right. They need to find a similar clarity of approach to other threats

    TOM HARRIS • 13 August 2024 • 12:22pm

    Amid the coverage of the far-Right riots across Britain last week, it was easy to miss or even ignore two perhaps rather more important stories. One of them was covered by most of the broadcast media, but only because it featured the world's most famous singer, Taylor Swift. This was the troubling report of how an Islamist plot to cause mayhem at one of Swift's concerts in Vienna had been foiled.

    The second story concerned a north London resident named Zaheed Hossen, who has been convicted on five charges of disseminating terrorist material. He will be sentenced in October.

    This second case, not featuring a glamorous female celebrity, received next to no coverage in the broadcast media. Even the Taylor Swift story was quickly forgotten, lost among the apocalyptic coverage of the riots led by far-Right thugs seeking to subvert democracy and target immigrant communities. In some ways this was understandable and correct: the riots are the worst we've seen since 2011 and the fears of minority groups were real.

    Yet the reports from Vienna and from Westminster Magistrates' Court are likely to prove to be more important in the future. For they are a reminder that there continue to exist a number of individuals and groups who hate western society so much that they are prepared to be incarcerated, or even killed, for their cause. And that cause is Islamism.

    (And, once more, for the uninitiated or uneducated: Islamism is not Islam; it is a vile iteration of the religion, a political ideology that seeks to impose a fascistic form of Sharia law on the world, by force if necessary. And the vast majority of ordinary British Muslims want nothing to do with it). ‡

    The far-Right is a topic our leaders, and many pundits, enjoy talking and writing about because it is an easy subject to approach. Just as apple pie and motherhood (must we say "parenthood" nowadays?) are universally beloved, so fascists are, naturally and rightly, despised. No politician ever lost votes by decrying the far-Right.

    But what if it turned out that the much bigger threat to life and limb in Britain came not from the skin-headed thugs who go on a looting spree every few years, but from Islamists? Statistics and facts, those unpopular and inconvenient irritants in politics, suggest that is indeed the case. Nearly 100 innocent UK residents have been murdered by Islamist terrorists since 2005. And yet the orchestrated and almost universal silence from parliament in response to this clear and present danger has been deafening.

    MPs of all sides will go to great and absurd lengths to avoid talking about Islamism, preferring instead to divert voters' attention to less relevant issues. For example, when, in 2013, two Islamist terrorists brutally murdered Drummer Lee Rigby in broad daylight for the "crime" of serving in the British army, MPs lined up in the Commons to warn, not about the threat of this form of terrorism, but against the evil of Islamophobia.

    Even when one of their own, David Amess, was slaughtered by an Islamist in his own advice surgery, the Commons could unite only in condemnation of people being mean to each other on social media, expecting and hoping that the watching public would be convinced that they had pinpointed the problem with unerring accuracy.

    When a school teacher in Batley was forced to go into hiding after being accused of committing blasphemy against Islam – even though there are no longer any blasphemy laws in this country – scarcely a word was said by our MPs, despite a by-election in the same constituency shortly afterwards. Even today, the unnamed individual's plight is never raised by our fearless tribunes.

    Having lost a significant slice of support and a handful of seats to pro-Gaza candidates, Labour is wary about saying anything that might make the retrieval of that support more difficult. But this is craven and dangerous. Craven, because right is right and wrong is wrong, and now, more than ever, we need politicians who are prepared to say what is right, irrespective of whether it is popular.

    And dangerous because this reluctance to offend one group implies that that group is sympathetic to the extremists rather than intolerant of it. Even if the Islamists and their dreams of a worldwide "caliphate" in which Sharia law prevails and all non-Muslims suffer the degradation of second-class citizenship were more popular among British Muslims, it would still be necessary – in fact more necessary than ever – to call them out, to challenge them and to legislate against them.

    But our representatives don't.

    After the Islamist terror attacks on New York and Washington DC in September 2001, during a debate on the UK government's own anti-terror laws, I warned the Commons that Britain would, inevitably, one day suffer its own attacks by people who adhered to the same ideology that motivates Al-Qaeda, Islamic State and Hamas.

    But on the benches opposite, MPs smirked dismissively.

    Some MPs still smirk today, even after the London transport attacks in 2005, the Westminster and London bridge knife attacks in 2017 and, in the same year, the appalling bomb attack on teenage girls attending the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester – an event with chilling parallels to the foiled attack in Vienna.

    So when the next Islamist terror attack occurs on British soil, how will our leaders respond?

    Will their response to the next attack be any more relevant or effective than it has been in the past? Or will they rush collectively for their traditional position of warning about the threat to "community cohesion"? The threat of Islamism is nothing to do with "cohesion" or "community relations". It is a real and present threat to society and to the lives of every single one of us. Parliament's response must be robust and, if necessary, ruthless. It must put consideration of "multiculturalism" to one side in favour of defending British values and British lives.

    Parliament has failed to live up to the challenge in the past. We can only hope, despite experience, that it will up its game when it needs to. Events in Vienna suggest it may have to do so sooner than any of us would like.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/13/britain-has-blinded-itself-to-the-growing-islamist-threat

    ‡ Ever so politely but bollocks. Islamism IS Islam. We cannot know how many 'ordinary British Muslims want nothing to do with it' because real Muslims are instructed by the Koran to lie about their attitude to the non-Muslim.

    I suppose it's possible that some Muslims aren't really Muslims, that they reject what Harris calls Islamism, but I can't see many being brave enough to take to the streets after the next murderous attack and chant 'Not in my name', especially in a country which has so many Deobandis, amongst the most committed and extreme.

    1. Hear hear.

      Islam is Islam is Islam.

      If it takes over, either one becomes a Muslim or one is a second class citizen at best and TOTALLY subservient to Islam.

      Satan's gift to the world.

      1. I have already bought all of my robes. Under robes and garments. Practiced my squats and got my cleaning slaves in place to clean up my shit. Sounds a bit like women on here who are married to Golfers. Then other menfolk arrive like flies………………

    2. "(And, once more, for the uninitiated or uneducated: Islamism is not Islam; it is a vile iteration of the religion, a political ideology that seeks to impose a fascistic form of Sharia law on the world, by force if necessary. And the vast majority of ordinary British Muslims want nothing to do with it). ‡"

      Do they not? I wonder why they don't say so, loud and clear?

      Is it because the British Police defer to their self-appointed "Community Leaders" of whom these peaceful regular Muslims are scared?

      Is it because they condone the extremists amongst them?

      Does anyone actually know?

      2. We don't know that "the vast majority of ordinary British Muslims want nothing to do with it". Islam isn't a pick and mix ideology and since lying is not just condoned but encouraged to further the cause of islam, we couldn't believe anything they said anyway. There is only islam, said Erdogan and he should know. It does, after all, mean submission.

        1. That was rather the point I was trying to make, Connors 🙂 Although I also think it is terrible to allow these self-appointed “Commuity Leaders” – all men and, I would bet the farm, religious hardliners – to police their own fiefdoms without recourse to the law of the land and according to their own lights. That really does let down the oppressed people (women, as one example, gays another – and, of course, any notional moderate or apostate) who would have hoped to be rescued from such brutal authoritarianism by living in a country such as the UK used to be.

    3. Educated 'middle-class' muslims sometimes refer jokingly to isla mists as 'the fundies' ; you imagine what it must be like for respectable people (professionals, business owners etc) to know how their religion and culture is perceived by others.

      1. I'll go off at a bit of a tangent here: why do we describe a large proportion the UK's post-WW2 immigrant population by the culture of the lands from which they came? Why do we assume that all of them practise or adhere to the beliefs? Apart from Sikhs, we don't do this with any others, do we?

        I hope that some of the younger ones have the same attitude to teatime readings from the Koran as we had to the suffocating Sunday evenings of the 60s and early 70s.

        1. You are born a muslim, indoctrinated, and can not leave the faith. The quran is the direct word of god and not a collection of scriptures, as is the Bible, which Christians adapt to the time they live in. There are undoubtedly muslims born in UK who are not great believers in the faith but it defines their roots and ethnicity and few of them will stray from the script. I think we have all seen the polls on the views of muslims in the uk on world affairs.

          2. They are all committed to making the world submit to islam or they wouldn't be muslims. Islam = submission.

          5. I don't know if anyone noticed, but the beardie policeman described his conversion to Islam as"reverting". It is one of their conceits that every child is born into Islam but subverted into Christianity, Judaism or whatever by evil, misguided parents. Hence the term "revert". Another truly horrible sophistry in my view.

        2. If they do disregard the koran, they will be reminded that the penalty for apostasy is death.

    5. I'd love to see some "far right" people. All I see is ordinary people who have just had enough and want to make a fuss to draw attention to it.

    1. key phrase.. "prosecution unlikely to be in the public interest."

      You mean like the industrial scale grape, torture and occasional murder of under aged girlies above the kebab shops in umpteen major British towns & cities?

    2. key phrase.. "prosecution unlikely to be in the public interest."

      You mean like the industrial scale grape, torture and occasional murder of under aged girlies above the kebab shops in umpteen major British towns & cities?

  103. I warned about the 'mental health' crisis. Labour wouldn't listen

    There is evidence we over-medicalise people when their genuine struggles may be part of the ups and downs of everyday life

    MEL STRIDE • 8 August 2024 • 8:00pm

    Rising numbers of our young people reporting mental health problems poses a profound challenge for our society and our economy. With almost 1 in 4 now saying they are struggling with their mental health, government needs to think deeply about what is going on. Increasing numbers of people who should be in the prime of their life are dropping out of work, with many sadly ending up on long-term benefits. That's a travesty for those individuals, but it's also terrible for our economy and for the public finances.

    Sadly, I have seen no sign at all from this new Labour government that they understand this challenge and the need for urgent and fundamental action. Until recently, as Work and Pensions Secretary in the Conservative government I had thought long and hard about these issues. I spoke out and I set us on a path to addressing some of the perverse aspects of a benefits system which was seeing the welfare bill spiral and millions of people needlessly written off to a life on benefits.

    Of course, mental health issues have been a challenge over many years and there will always be some people in our society who have very serious and debilitating problems. But there is some evidence that we are increasingly over-medicalising and labelling people when the struggles they face, while very real and genuine, may be part of the normal ups and downs of everyday life. There is a natural urge for diagnosis, whether that be anxiety, depression, or even the rising numbers of people (including huge numbers of children) being diagnosed with ADHD. And the benefit system is accommodating this, with rising numbers going onto both disability benefits and out of work incapacity benefits due to mental health issues.

    I think most reasonable people would agree with that view, or would at least think it worthy of thoughtful consideration. But my Labour counterparts opted to howl about it and accused me of using "divisive, derogatory rhetoric". They try to pretend that "fixing the NHS" is the answer to all of these problems. And from what I've seen so far, they have no intention of gripping the issues in our welfare system which are in many ways exacerbating these problems.

    Take the Work Capability Assessment, for example. The current rules mean someone who does not satisfy the requirements of the assessment to be classed as unfit for work can still be passported through if they are deemed to potentially be 'at risk' if required to engage with a work coach, almost always for mental health reasons. When those rules were introduced it was expected they would apply to only a tiny fraction of people in very serious mental health crisis, but now fully 14 per cent of claims are going through under those rules. My reforms would have ended this and reduced the numbers on long-term sickness benefits by 400,000 according to the independent OBR, but the new government has been completely silent on whether they will keep them or scrap them. They simply don't want to talk about it.

    Or take the main disability benefit, Personal Independence Payments (PIP). The ballooning number of claims, with a particular rise in mental health cases, has seen spending on that benefit alone rise by £10 billion over five years, with a further £10 billion rise expected by the end of the decade. That amounts to more than the entire policing budget for England and Wales. PIP is meant to cover the extra costs someone faces because of their disability or health condition, but in many cases today people are receiving thousands of pounds a year for mental health problems where it is not clear what those extra costs actually are. I would much rather be spending money on treatment and targeted support. Again, Labour have said nothing on the reforms we were consulting on and all signs are they will quietly drop them entirely.

    If Labour want to deliver on the promises they have made, then they will have to stop burying their head in the sand on mental health. We should be recognising that work is often part of the answer, not wasting the potential and talent of our young people. Our society and our economy cannot afford it.

    Mel Stride is the Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/08/i-warned-about-the-mental-health-crisis-labour-listen/

    1. "If Labour want to deliver on the promises they have made"

      Did they make any? As I recall they tried to hide any information about their plans and hoped for the Conservatives to implode; which they duly did.

    2. I don't want to spoil my alfresco evening by reading all that, but we have to face the facts the labour party are all absolutely stoopid.

    3. As a grandfather I can speak from experience of the adverse effects some children suffered because of the lockdowns during Covid.

      Your article, still to my mind, does not accept any responsibility for the fear and panic your party inflicted on our youngsters. Schools shut, pupils being encourage to take an experimental vaccine for a virus whilst being part of a demographic least likely to suffer any serious effects.

      I suppose you feel obliged to speak now about mental health, after all, anything that helps you garner support for your party’s leadership election can only be a good thing. At least to your mind.

      1. Lockdown was indeed bad but the mental health 'crisis' pre-dates it by more than 20 years.

        1. I’m sure it does, however typical of those now campaigning for the leadership of his party, he is just a smidgen short of taking any responsibility for what happened to our kids.

    4. Covid restrictions for the young who needed no protection was bad, but is there not also a disposition to brand minor unsatisfactory self-esteem amongst young people as mental illness? I do appreciate that youngsters have also suffered some kind of general mental deterioration over the last 20 or 30 years, especially boys. Too many vaccinations?

      1. Indeed, Stormy.
        Crazed teacher friend's Dad had alzheimers until yesterday, when he croaked. He was a huge load on the family, often assaulting his wife, to the extent he was about to be locked away.
        The hurt in the family is enormous. They are glad he's "beyond suffering", and simultaneously horribly guilty for being pleased… It's very sad, and very hard work for all involved.

    6. When you infantilise a generation and don't build in any resilience to setbacks or failure, this is what you get. Wait until net zero kicks in and they can't get their phones to work!

      1. Do you think that will be the tipping point, despite everything else that is going on, that will get them to wake up and see what is really going on?

        1. They might wake up to it, but I wonder if they’ll run around like headless chickens waiting for someone to tell them what they need to do – or they’ll think it’s somebody else’s responsibility to sort it.

    7. That’s a conclusion most reached years ago when Brown increased ‘benefits’ to make a client state. It took them to the death throes of her government to decide something needed to be done. Beyond belief.

  104. Here's the answer to all our woe.
    I've just spent about an hour plus making a spag bol. Sweating buckets.
    Eaten a small portion each, the rest will go in the freezer for lasagne when our Ozzie mates come to stay in two weeks. I'm sitting out side in the cool with myslerd glalizzss of slvino and it's so relaxing. That's really what life is all about.
    And Friday Jean from Melbourne and her pommie brother Steve are calling in and we are talking them out for a 'catch up ' lunch having not seen them both for around 10 years.
    Jean is exactly the same age as I am.
    I'm really looking forward to seeing her.
    My good ladie's old flat mate from Avenue road Highgate.

    1. If you were resident in Australia today, with a well paid job, but living in rented housing, would you return to the UK?
      If you had school age children, doing well there, would it change your viewpoint?

      2. At least once a month since 1980 is wish we had stayed there. But circumstances changed our lives Sos. And I think you know it's a better place to live than what this shite hole is turning into.

    2. Ten years, eh?
      We had a couple who were the kind of friends that, after a decade of not meeting, you just continued the last conversation, all comfortable and right back into the groove.

      1. Yes true and don’t you just hate it when you say goodbye it could be the last time.
        The people you love but hardly ever see.
        I think my good old mate Brucie in Melbourne is on his last legs. It’s all so sad Obs.

        1. It's hard, Eddy. But it's also great to have that kind of relationshi with folk, that you are so close.

    3. Hope everything is lovely. Said in the voice of Larry Lamb from Come Dine With Me ! Arrgghh!

      3. Baaa Baaa Baaa.
        I could send a photo Ready Eddy to be added to the potential Nottlers exhibition. But I have a poblemo with my elderly PC And my mobile phone they are not compatible.
        It drives me nuts. The only emails I have are Mrs Rastus and Herts Lass.
        How can I do this ?
        I could send the photo on Whats/app.

        1. In email you could send pic as an attachment to someone that does have the tech or i would say ask a grandchild.

    1. Are you saying that you'd family want to leave Oz ?
      There are hundreds of places that I would choose to live in down under rather than in this country it gets worse every day.

    1. It is a steel framed open sided barn for storing bales. It suddenly appeared and is on high ground thus interrupting the tree line.

      We often park in the long stay public car park opposite Waitrose and walk along the riverside path towards Cornard. It is truly magical but then we noticed this recent erection which has enraged many in Sudbury.

      I too have photographed cattle on the Sudbury Common Lands. My photographs resemble Dutch oil paintings. The Valley Walk follows the original railway track bed from Sudbury to Clare Country Park if you walk in the opposite direction from the public car park next to Waitrose.

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

    2. The hair and makeup costs were a total waste of taxpayers money from the look of the results.

  112. They planted a heart monitor on me today. I have to make a 24 hour diary of my actions during this time to see how the old ticker copes. Would 'Drinking copious glasses of dry white wine." be considered a form of exercise?"

  113. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8268075bf11bd1ce64e76c2613a8d30d7e6ae910a921065b60a635a26486d5f6.png
    Phone thief used 50mph electric bike to snatch 24 mobiles in less than an hour

    Sonny Stringer, London’s ‘most notorious phone snatcher’, according to the police

    LONDON’S most notorious phone snatcher, who used an electric bike to steal 24 mobiles in less than an hour, has been jailed for two years.
    Sonny Stringer, 28, targeted victims across the capital, stealing from unsuspecting tourists and commuters. He used his high-powered e-bike to get away as he mounted pavements, narrowly avoided pedestrians and reached speeds of 50mph to escape the police.
    Stringer sped through busy city streets running red lights as he was pursued by a police patrol vehicle.
    He was eventually caught when officers who had tracked his movements using CCTV used an unmarked car to knock him from his bike.
    Stringer and an unknown accomplice embarked on their spree on 26 March, stealing 24 phones from people across the capital in less than an hour.
    City of London Police, who brought him to justice, described him as the capital’s “most notorious phone snatcher”.
    The decision to knock him from his bike – known as a tactical contact – was taken after officers assessed he was about to mount the pavement in the direction of a family pushing a buggy.
    Hurtling along Cheapside in the City towards the Bank of England, Stringer overtook a bus before veering towards the pavement to evade the police. But the unmarked car clipped his back wheel, bringing the pursuit to an end.
    Stringer came off his bike and attempted to run away but was quickly arrested. As officers approached, he threw away a bag containing 22 phones, while another two were found close by.
    Appearing at Isleworth Crown Court, Stringer admitted snatching 24 phones in an hour. He received 20 months in prison for theft with an additional four months for dangerous driving.
    Chief Supt William Duffy said: “Phone snatching has a significant impact on victims and it is right that Stringer received a custodial sentencing for snatching mobiles on London’s streets.”

    The judicious use of snipers would cut most street crime.

    2. One sensible old git with a walking stick would have done the job. Do these electric bikes still have spoked wheels?

    3. He's what my old Dad used to call 'bastard featured'…. and he would have been right.

  116. So, second day of clear up. Some people lead filthy lives. Unfortunately we have had, more than our fair share of this trash ( forgive self pity, but sometimes you despair of humanity).
    So to the outside, an old tin shed filled with rubbish, dustbins full to overflowing as you expect.
    After shed emptied we decide it has to go, so I'm busy with screwdriver, and get to the stage of thinking of if I push this half of the roof over the other side then it will flat pack. So on some steps I'm pushing , but best made plans, it pushed back, I lost balance and this old tin shed flat packed with me inside flat on my back.
    Brother in law asked of I was all right, my witty answer was no I'm half left, then his partner started laughing like a drain, saying my feet protruding from the wreckage reminder her of the witch in the wizard of oz when she met her fate. Sympathy was sadly lacking.
    Still 90% done. And so to bed.

      1. Aches but nothing worse. I was told by my wife that I was very close to eighty, had a new hip and two new knees, signs of arthritis in other parts, so what the devil did you think you were doing.
        Trying to be useful just got a grunt of derision. Sometimes you just can’t win.

  117. Evening, all. Late on parade because I've been to a meeting. I have done more to the new seating area, but it isn't finished. It might have been if it hadn't started to rain 🙁 Then it became torrential, so that was it for the day.

    It isn't just the failure to tackle everyday crimes, it's the priority given to what are basically invented crimes – trawling the Internet for hurty words, "hate" crimes and "racism". Nobody is going to trust a police "service" that doesn't meet the needs of the average citizen to keep him safe, secure and free from real crimes.

  118. Well chums, I'm off to bed now. So Good Night, Sleep Well and I hope to see you all tomorrow morning.

  119. Night all, been told off for enjoying a few glasses of ozzie red.🙄🙃🤠
    Good night all. 😴

    1. Take it like a man, give her a pen and note pad, tell her to write it down and you will read it in the morning. Good luck, emergency A & E s are 24 hours, and please don't tell the missus.

  120. Moh back from Lyme Regis golf competition , no sign of rain . Son back after a 10 mile run and me , had a great veterans lunch .. lovely to see everyone , been hosting the lunches for 20 years or less , every 2 months .

    The Suez debacle is such a long time ago now , but people like to chat over their memories

    Numbers have diminished , that is what old age does .. now in their nineties , and now we have joined up with the Aden vets , a slightly younger group ..

    Next one in October ..

    1. Thank you for that.
      Say downstairs listening to it now after waking up and not being able to get back to sleep.

    3. Beautiful , thank you.

      Born: 1 April 1873, Staraya Russa, Russia
      Died: 28 March 1943 (age 69 years), Beverly Hills, California, United States

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