Thursday 24 October: If Streeting wants to improve the NHS, he should look to Australia first

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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667 thoughts on “Thursday 24 October: If Streeting wants to improve the NHS, he should look to Australia first”

  1. For once an empty nttl! Yeah yea I am cheating, it is still Wednesday evening here.

    supposedly Trudeaus office has told his ministers that there must be no announcements today because there is something special coming from the top dog.

    No hope that it us a resignation, the betting is on parliament being prorogued.

    thanks again Geoff, another days idle chatter set up for us.

      1. Getting the opposition off trudezus back

        parliament is frozen at the moment, the PMs office is refusing to release documents that parliament has requested and every day is no more than points of order around that issue.

    2. Good morning,
      It sounds more and more that Turdeau is going rogue.
      At least Canada's next election is much closer than ours.

    3. Good morning,
      It sounds more and more that Turdeau is going rogue.
      At least Canada's next election is much closer than ours.

  2. Early but, who cares? Good morrow one and all, especially Geoff and thanks for his wonderful work on this site.

    1. i think I will join you Eddy. (Not literally, of course! I just plan to return to my own bed in my own house. Lol.) And, good morning, btw.

    1. I’m afraid it’s not. This country has now reached its final destination. We are officially in Hell.

    1. Anyone in Parliament mentioned Peter Lloyd?

      Or do we put black gangsters above white grandads now?

      (That was rhetorical- we all know the answer)

  7. Just been listening to podcast #1028 of the Lotus Eaters. They touched on Peter Lloyd and then said: ““Ricky Jones has been let out on bail before his trial in January, because he pleaded guilty.””*

    Now, we were told that the protestors who were arrested after Southport had been told if they didn’t plead guilty they would be held in remand in prison and not given bail AND when they were found guilty they would face longer prison sentences. Which is why they all pleaded guilty and had the judge-only Kangaroo court. (I find it hard to believe a jury would have convicted Peter Lloyd or Lucy Connolly).

    Yet this man is out on bail. And we all know he won’t be jailed. Or the people around him, clapping him and cheering.

    Riddle me this: which is worse: Lucy Connolly’s “for all I care” tweet or RickyJones’s speech to a crowd (mob) which was broadcast in which he said “slit their throats”? Before we even talk about his racism.

    On the plus side, when he gets off (which we know he will), things WILL kick off again.

    I cannot tell you how angry I am (again) at this disgusting disgraceful Labour administration. I know I am preaching to the choir. But what will it take for everyone who voted for this shower to DoSomething? Or are we just going to keep taking it on the chin (although it is more like being permanently whopped around the head).

    *From The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters: The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1028, 23 Oct 2024
    https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-podcast-of-the-lotus-eaters/id1544753433?i=1000674165219
    This material may be protected by copyright.

    1. I don't know MIR. I think it's gone beyond being able to do anything until after the reset. I think all we can do is try to look after our own families and connect with local communities of like-minded people.
      The time when we could have influenced anything from the top down is long in the past now. Our only hope is to influence things from the bottom up. So back to the ground rules; food, water, shelter, barterability, security, wealth preservation and last but not least, community.

    2. Now, we were told that the protestors who were arrested after Southport had been told if they didn’t plead guilty they would be held in remand in prison and not given bail AND when they were found guilty they would face longer prison sentences. Which is why they all pleaded guilty and had the judge-only Kangaroo court.

      This is straight out of the Police State Handbook. It had nothing to do with Justice and everything to do with Politics. These were Show Trials intended to intimidate.

    3. As I've remarked on numerous occasions: why do you think Blair disarmed the British people?
      n.b. British people means the law abiding majority, not vicious thugs intimidating the poorer parts of our big cities.

  9. Good morning, chums, I hope you all slept well. And thanks, Geoff, for today's NoTTLe site. Today I have an action-packed To Do list. However, it's gloriously sunny, so I shall have to delay all of those to do my laundry first. Slayders.

    Wordle 1,223 4/6

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

    PS – I managed to do all my washing and lots of other jobs, including getting ready for a trip to the Council Tip tomorrow morning.

  10. Morning All – is Geoff waking earlier each day?
    Today's Tale
    A good looking, husky young man walked into the barber shop and asked, “How many before me?”
    “Three haircuts and a shave,” replied the barber.
    The young man left, but returned the next day and asked, “How many before me today?”
    “Two haircuts and three shaves,” replied the barber.
    This happened five days in a row. Eventually the barber sent his apprentice to follow the young man to see what he did. When the apprentice returned, he said, “I dunno, boss, he just goes ’round to your house.”

    1. is Geoff waking earlier each day?

      Don't know, but I do know I'm tending to wake later!

  11. UN double standards leave a bad taste. 24 October 2024.

    The Secretary General has further damaged the already weakened standing of the UN, showing it to have double standards when it comes to denouncing the deaths of civilians. Moreover, if he was so keen on engineering a rapprochement between Russia and Ukraine why did he refuse to attend a peace conference in Switzerland a few months ago?

    This is just sour Grapes. Mr Gutteres is not representing the views of the United States so he’s a villain. The United Nations is in essence a talking shop. He represents the majority view of its members. Even if they were to get rid of him there is no guarantee that his replacement would be any more acceptable. If anyone really objects to the UN they can withdraw at any time. There is no queue.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2024/10/24/un-double-standards-antonio-guterrres-russia-israel/

  12. Elon Musk declares ‘war’ on Labour-linked online campaign group. 23 October 2024.

    Elon Musk has declared “war” on a Labour-linked online campaign group founded by Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff.

    The billionaire owner of X, formerly Twitter, accused the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) of violating rules “against foreign interference in elections”. Mr Musk wrote on the social media network: “We are going after CCDH and their donors.”

    Good. It is these Globalist fringe groups that have done so much damage to the West. They have undermined its institutions and traditional values.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/10/23/elon-musk-war-labour-linked-ccdh-online-campaign/

  15. If Streeting wants to improve the NHS, he should look to Australia first

    Yes, stop the small boats crossing the channel and cart them off somewhere else.

    1. The last thing Labour want is a functioning health service. Such would deprive them of a huge voting base, a massive entrenched union base and whipping stick against the public.

  16. Good morning, all. Daybreak and it's clear and calm here with sunshine forecast throughout the day.

    Early voting in the USA election, a strange phenomenon, is revealing that old habits from 2020 have not been eradicated. Voters in a number of states are reporting a range of anomalies appearing either before they vote e.g. machines are OOS and the voter is being requested to place their ballot in a box to be processed later; when attempting to vote the voter being told that he/she has already voted and most flagrantly, the declaration from some "swing states" that counting will not be completed immediately and in fact may take many days to complete.

    "Too big to rig" may be the clarion call of the Trump camp but the Democrats are fighting tooth and nail, also dirty, to stop him becoming POTUS again. The Republicans will have to be up to the mark when overseeing the voting process.

    https://x.com/DavidSo38149834/status/1849279291453853792

    1. It seems to me that both the only viable candidates in this race are highly undesirable and to be avoided at all costs. Before Biden pulled out, there was a choice between someone who should be in a home and someone who should be in jail. Now, the former has been replaced by a woman with big teeth, a rasping voice and the intelligence of a donkey with special needs.

      This leaves the voter with a problem – just how does one prevent either taking office whilst still ending up with a president-elect, as the constitution demands?

        1. I think making off with classified documents and stashing them in the spare room at home might qualify.

          Also, whilst he did not take part himself in the absurd fancy dress raid on the Capitol, he was filmed making a speech saying what a great idea it was, while he was still President. He may argue that an attempted coup d’etat, even in jest, was justified, but some might think that treasonable.

          This business with a hooker, using party funds to buy her off, reminds me of Prince Andrew getting his mum to bail him out of trouble. Hookers and Americans are like cheese and wine though – their traditional entertainers in the Wild West were mistresses of the oldest profession, and Hollywood was built on the casting couch and ambitious actresses with attributes. No, I don’t think he should go to jail for that.

          For me, doublecrossing the Kurds just after they cleared the Euphrates of some of the nastiest folk ever to crawl upon the Earth was unforgiveable, but not a jailable offence.

          Also, having a gaggle of horrible friends, notably Bolsonaro, Netanyahu, Erdogan and Kim Jong Un puts him in a select group of prospective world wreckers, but again that is not a jailable offence.

          1. I don't fully understand why Presidents are able to take classified documents and store them. Clinton (both of them) did, Biden has, Trump did. Why? Future blackmail?

          2. Wrong, wibbling. Trump, as President in 2016, had the right to keep classified documents at home. Whereas Biden, who took his classified documents home in 2012 when he was only Vice President, was acting illegally.

          3. Kim Jong Un , a horrible friend? Are you serious? Trump got him to the negotiating table, more than ant president has done. It hardly makes him a friend.

          4. You make a good point over Kim “Rocket Man”. A precedent was set by Richard Nixon, who defused poor relations between the USA and the People’s Republic of China, and Ronald Reagan, who did likewise with the Kremlin. Margaret Thatcher also pulled off a covert diplomatic coup with the IRA, which once attempted to assasinate her.

            It seems that remarkably often, a loose cannon of ill repute can achieve things that are impossible to the straight guy. None come straighter and more decent and honourable than Jimmy Carter, and yet he spoke of a “limited nuclear war in Europe” back in 1980, which scared the wits out of many. Neville Chamberlain was also a good and decent man, whose high principles were dashed by those less honourable than him. Whatever may be said about the heroism of Churchill, he was widely regarded as unreliable, and was not averse to a bit of chicanery when it suited the national interest.

          5. Presidents are allowed to retain documents. Trump did so and asked FBI advice on their secure storage. Biden took documents which he was not entitled to do as VP, and kept them in a garage on one of his properties.

          6. Sorry, John, I've only just read your post. And you have put it much more succinctly.

          8. Sorry, John, I've only just read your post. And you have put it much more succinctly.

      1. "Climate change" is the excuse being used to allow 'eminent domain law' (UK compulsory purchase) to be exercised.

        Overview. Eminent domain refers to the power of the government to take private property and convert it into public use, referred to as a taking. The Fifth Amendment provides that the government may only exercise this power if they provide just compensation to the property owners.

        How wide 'public use' is interpreted will be interesting bearing in mind the stories of the mineral deposits reported to exist in that area.

        1. Notable that when government compulsory purchases land it uses every trick going to reduce the value – especially if it's private land.

      2. Apparently there are lithium mines in the area, and some locals didn't want to sell their land.
        This is not an area liable to flooding.
        The hurricane got stronger over land, whereas normal hurricane behaviour is to get weaker. Hurricane control is patented, but we're being asked to believe that nobody ever uses the patents they went to the trouble of researching and registering.
        There was a sophisticated media campaign to direct attention away from Helene, not report the damage it caused, and to focus on the next storm that caused far less damage than had been hyped up in the media.
        There are many credible stories from North Carolina of relief efforts organised by locals being sabotaged by the government agency (eg confiscating supplies and preventing flights), who then provided little relief themselves.

        It is analogous to Lahaina, where the media story about brush fires was contradicted by locals and by at least one brush fire expert; the authorities stopped people from leaving the town, and many died as a direct result; locals were kept out of their own property for months; no aid was given, people weren't allowed to re-build and the authorities announced they were buying up the place; the media didn't report the casualty number estimated by survivors. Also there was a history of locals not wanting to sell desirable property.

      3. Apparently there are lithium mines in the area, and some locals didn't want to sell their land.
        This is not an area liable to flooding.
        The hurricane got stronger over land, whereas normal hurricane behaviour is to get weaker. Hurricane control is patented, but we're being asked to believe that nobody ever uses the patents they went to the trouble of researching and registering.
        There was a sophisticated media campaign to direct attention away from Helene, not report the damage it caused, and to focus on the next storm that caused far less damage than had been hyped up in the media.
        There are many credible stories from North Carolina of relief efforts organised by locals being sabotaged by the government agency (eg confiscating supplies and preventing flights), who then provided little relief themselves.

        It is analogous to Lahaina, where the media story about brush fires was contradicted by locals and by at least one brush fire expert; the authorities stopped people from leaving the town, and many died as a direct result; locals were kept out of their own property for months; no aid was given, people weren't allowed to re-build and the authorities announced they were buying up the place; the media didn't report the casualty number estimated by survivors. Also there was a history of locals not wanting to sell desirable property.

  18. I couldn't get away from the two pronged climate change mainstream media brainwashing this morning on the radio despite changing stations.
    The Pacific islanders at the commonwealth heads of government meeting do not want reparations for slavery, they want it for climate change they say that the sea level is rising.
    As we produce 1% of the worlds CO2 then shouldn't they be asking China and India for reparations, was my first thought.
    Then to top it all climate change is causing polar bears to get more illnesses and viruses, say experts.
    Keep paying the that huge price for energy folks while they cover our country with pylons and wind turbines, all made in China I expect.
    I wonder who is making £ billions out of it all?
    It must be worth millions of Taylor Swift concert tickets.

      1. It is weird how the words climate change are one of those key words that gets posts automatically rejected on facebook groups.

        2. If discussion is permitted people might start thinking. Then they might start questioning. If they question, then they are dangerous. The state does not want you to think. If you question, you start saying no.

    2. Until the 1990s there were no forest fires in the Amazon. It was a rainforest, and far too wet to allow a fire to take hold.

      Look at any picture of what is now a developing agricultural and mining zone, and it looks like a desert. Fires are rife, as is organised crime, and there is now a drought there. All down to aggressive settlers.

      This is the real manifestation of climate change.

        1. Just like European forests were cleared by people in the sixteenth century and the land turned over to agricultural use!

          1. Maybe human nature hasn't changed much since then.

            The world's human population in the sixteenth century was less than 600 million. It is now fourteen times that.

          3. I'm not sure about that. For some people it has. We are dependent upon systems now, systems we take for granted. Systems that are failing due to 'the diversity' and moronic government.

          4. And therefore more land is being cleared for agricultural use. Except in Britain of course, there we currently have more woodland than at any time since the eighteenth century.
            All very well and good until there’s a food shortage.
            There’s been a thorough media campaign to make Europeans believe that forest -> agriculture spells immediate doom for da plannett. There is no reason to believe that this hysteria is justified if agriculture is done thoughtfully and with care.

          5. Note ours in the UK and much of the West (and other rich countries such as Japan and Singapore) was declining.

            Then the demented Left insisted on importing 30 million foreigners.

          6. A lot of the trees were felled when iron ore, lead copper tin etc was discovered. Obviously used for smelting.
            In the North Pennines lead was mined. And recently the locals have been planting thousands of saplings. Even I have contributed, one of my nephew and family live there. And I gave him some saplings from our garden, oak, walnut, and some conifers. He sends me photos of them every so often.

          7. What could be cleared using that era of tooling is negligible compared to what modern machinery can do. What would take hand tools a months to clear can be done in hours by mechanisation. Thus there is no need to be careful. What sickens most is that we could grow those same crops here. We choose not to because it's too expensive – made so by 'climate change'. The ecology and environment is destroyed there to please Left wing 'progressive' 'liberal' fascists here.

        2. Climate change is a symptom of too many people acting aggressively against all other species, as well as the benign of their own species, in their pursuit of wealth. The world's human population in 1990 was just over 5 billion.

          Never mind about travelling to Mars – the way we are going, humanity will turn the Earth to Mars before they fly there.

          1. This is why our birthrate was declining. Our technology had allowed us to live longer and have children later.

            Infuriatingly, the backward nations, who breed like rabbits and have a high infant mortality were kept going by that same technology, but without the inellectual, economic, social or moral backing for the use and purpose of that technology.

            When we leapt in as white saviours we also hindered the backward nations' development – especially the education, moral and social development they so need.

            We're the cause of their survival and their subsequent devolution. Now those same backward savages are coming here, with access to our technology, wealth and power without having or being forced to adopt – our morality.

            We are literally giving chimps rocket launchers. It's interesting that in Star Trek the prime directive stipulates never giving technology to less developed species. That's good advice. What folk forget is it must also apply first and foremost at home.

        3. Didn't we see a couple of blokes trying to start a fire in Sydney the other day? 🤔🤗

      2. Sadly to grow crops for the West – crops we could grow but choose not to because it's too expensive because, yes, you guessed it, 'climate change'.

        1. What is the average age for a farmer in the UK. Around 60 if I recall. There has not been a sensible agricultural policy here since we joined the EEC, and there is not one now.

          I am the first to support schemes to reverse the immense damage done to our natural environment in the last fifty years, but this can and should be done in a way that also allows the land to be used to grow food. It can be done, and they are not mutually exclusive.

          The most idiotic policy of all was selling off the county farms, which did provide an apprenticeship and a way in for the next generation of farmers. Overburdening the councils with rules and directives coming from Whitehall meant that these were the first to be cut in order to pay for statutory services and cuts in the grant from the Exchequer in order to cut Income Tax.

    3. Sea level isn't rising at the moment.
      We're being asked to believe that rising sea levels are overwhelming Pacific nations, yet the rest of the world is not seeing any rise.
      How can people believe this nonsense? Don't they realise that water spreads and any sea level rises will affect the whole world?

      1. How long has London got before they have to upgrade the Thames Barrier? Who's going to pay for it?

          1. They discovered the problem with that idea in the 19th century. The Thames is tidal as far as Teddington Lock, which means that with each tide, that sewage is returned back to London to pile up on its banks.

            The point of the Thames Barrier was to prevent it being flushed down into the London Underground whenever there was a big storm.

        2. When was the Thames Barrier last used in an emergency? It’s regularly raised at high tide as an exercise to check that it works. That doesn’t count. Al Gore predicted that London would submerged under water by 2016. Conveniently forgotten.

          2. I don’t believe so. There’s always been some flooding at high tide and apparently the barrier can be used to reduce the effects of that but it doesn’t constitute emergency use. When All Saints Fulham (which sits on the north bank of the Thames just by Putney Bridge) was largely rebuilt in 1880-81, it was because the nave always flooded at high tide. The floor was raised by three feet to keep the body of the church above the water level.

        3. Last I heard, London was tilting over due to extraction of groundwater, not that the sea is rising. Relative movement means higher water levels, though.

          1. I heard it was down to people moving there from the North West, meaning that the Hebrides are going up in the air as London sinks.

            The scary thing about fracking Lancashire was that it might have snapped the see-saw. Volcanos in Buxton might have ensued.

            Imagination is a wonderful thing.

    4. More likely to get cash for climate change than the other lie.

      Not even 1%. Closer to 0.4 and that's an extreme level. Have a read of Eigen Values by David Turver: https://davidturver.substack.com/archive

      There are countless non-jobs, troughs, quangocrats, fake charities, the IPCC itself, most of whom sit on the boards of windmill companies and benefit from forcing the hoax. It's just a gravy train at tax payers expense. Worse, note the language: combat climate change, we can 'fight' this as if Milioaf is out there with a machine gun – it'd be an AK47 as he's a communist – and bayonet stabbing at fog.

      It's just another way to force people how to think, as if it's an enemy that can be defeated, to encourage a camaraderie spirit, as if we're all in it – or worse, those not with them are the enemy. It's just Orwellian 'We are at war with Eastasia!' because if you keep people scared, if you point them at an enemy – especially an invented enemy – you can control them.

  19. 395265+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Firstly, WHY would this streeting chap WANT to improve the NHS, surely that is going against the grain of the whole WEF / NWO / RESET
    political / pharmaceutical anti Brit.agenda.

    Thursday 24 October: If Streeting wants to improve the NHS, he should look to Australia first

    Secondly, if this chap was a meanwell true Brit, (highly unlikely under the kneeling tools leadership) he would
    check out the Aussies after he had severed the daily supply tap root of potential priority patients waiting at calais for entry at Dover.

    How come once upon a time, the time before we began seriously abusing the polling stations with continual anti Brit input,in the final years of
    decency. integrity and common sense we could call out a doctor 24/7 guaranteeing they would turn up, in the latter weeks of an illness we could be sent to a convalescent home to finalise treatment,what happened ?

    In the main it was kicked into touch by the likes of the political rodent blair and the majority of the electorate
    not once or twice but unbelievably thrice.

    If the dairy herd ( tax payers ) anti English, anti Brit.
    treacherous mandatory, manipulative,politico's were serious there would have been protective coast defence patrol boats in the English Channel three plus decades ago, instead we are receiving what the electorate have been voting for, in spades.

    2. Why mention improving NHS? Trying to grab the glory.

      Because that chap Farage told the live audience that he wouldn't be giving the NHS a cent because the model was broken. Meanwhile across the board the UniParty chanted.. "More funding, more migrants."
      Farage suggested looking at the French model.. Audience gasped.

      French health care system vs. Envy of the world NHS.
      238,000 beds vs. NHS 103,277.
      167.7 doctors, nursing personnel, midwives, dentists, pharmacists / 10,000. —- NHS 105.58/10 000.
      Specialist waiting time 10 days. GP 6 days —- NHS 18 weeks. GP 19-10 days.
      NHS has 800 diversity and inclusion officers.
      Oh and one healthcare system is modern, state of the art & pristine.. the other is more like 1960s Morrisons.

      I reckon that the performance of Penny Mordaunt on that show sealed her fate.

      1. HarmtoMan blithered on that the French spent more on their health system than we did, but ignores the vastly superior outcomes. She also deliberately ignored that most of the money comes from patient, not the state, putting the power with the patient for an outcome, not the state.

    3. Why mention improving NHS? Trying to grab the glory.

      Because that chap Farage told the live audience that he wouldn't be giving the NHS a cent because the model was broken. Meanwhile across the board the UniParty chanted.. "More funding, more migrants."
      Farage suggested looking at the French model.. Audience gasped.

      French health care system vs. Envy of the world NHS.
      238,000 beds vs. NHS 103,277.
      167.7 doctors, nursing personnel, midwives, dentists, pharmacists / 10,000. —- NHS 105.58/10 000.
      Specialist waiting time 10 days. GP 6 days —- NHS 18 weeks. GP 19-10 days.
      NHS has 800 diversity and inclusion officers.
      Oh and one healthcare system is modern, state of the art & pristine.. the other is more like 1960s Morrisons.

      I reckon that the performance of Penny Mordaunt on that show sealed her fate.

    4. Improve the NHS?

      For a start, a complete cull of all the non-medical hangers-on e.g. diversity, climate etc. personnel would reduce the wage bill, office costs, time-wasting seminars and directives and the inertia that unproductive but nevertheless self-important groups create.

      1. Korky, those roles exist specifically to ensure the NHS is made less efficient. They're the padding and waste that big government loves. They're desperately unionised (because they're useless) and as such as ideal Labour foot soldiers.

  20. Just a reminder that today is the anniversary of Quisling's death.

    A man much admired by some MPs.

  21. Good morning all.
    Don't know whether it's the time of year or what, but I'm finding it harder to get out of bed in the mornings!
    However, is a VERY autumnal dull and grey day. Not raining, little wind and 6½°C on the Yard Thermometer.

    After dropping off the traction motor at t'Lads, we loaded a large tool cabinet into the van. At about 5' x 3½' square and, being built in the 1930s, bloody heavy, we had surprisingly little trouble as a couple of item's I've bought for him over the years came into use.
    First we got it out to the van with his pallet truck then, after leaning it over at the back of the van, a small hydraulic crane I picked up from Corby earlier this year allowed us lift the bottom end up and slide it in.
    I've now got to drive up to Steeple Grange Light Railway to drop the thing off this morning.
    That should prove to be fun!

    The cabinet was earmarked for scrap by Royces, where t'Lad works, but they have a policy of allowing staff to claim scrap or surplus items for personal use and are more than happy to see the Preservation Movement benefit from them.
    I don't know where in the works the cabinet was used, but rather strange to think that it may have held tools that played a part in building the Merlin engine!

    2. Sorry Bob – Preservation movement? What's that (apart from what it sounds like, I mean)?

    3. 'Royces'? You can tell he's a Derby lad; all employees of Rolls-Royce in Derby routinely refer to the company as Royces.

  22. Morning all 🙂😊
    Not a cloud to be seen and Brilliant sunshine here.
    Oh dear the NHS has already been wrecked by the tories. How are people with no personal income at all going to support the NHS ? The government needs to look at the outstanding undeniable facts. There are far too many people who have access to the service and have never paid a single penny into the system for the use of.
    Oh hang on……these Wastemonster idiots are seemingly trying to get people who are over 70 off our roads now. At least the hospital car parks of not A&E will have more room.
    But this will of course further the present pressure on our GP practices.
    Oh dear, more things our politicians to eff up.

    1. Not just the NHS, the entire edifice of state. It's ironic really, that the half paying for everything don't use it or want it and the half using it pay nothing toward it. The non payers commit all the crime, demand all the welfare yet are the group the state most protects. I suppose it's inevitable that big government would protect it's customers first and foremost.

      1. It just emphasis how stupid our politicians all are.
        In reality they couldn’t even run a bath between them all.

        1. They have a low cunning though While the state can simply take whatever it wants to pay for it's client class the client demand will just keep growing.

          The point must be to stop it, not encourage it.

    2. Labour wrecked the NHS by refussing all changes to medernise it.
      It needs braking up into managable pieces.

  24. There are quite a number of items in Westminster that would fit into your cabinet Bob. A strong lock is required.

    1. If we cut them up first they'd be easier to store although not sure why you'd want to keep the junk – Miliband's head, for example. Nothing of use in there.

      1. Our forebears used to stick the heads on London Bridge. The birdies could peck at them and the rest rotted and fell into the Thames.

        1. Bit unfair on London Bridge, but I agree with the sentiment.

          Maybe school children could be encouraged to use the heads as footballs as a reminder to the next generation of gormless socialists.

    1. Joseph, just think of the advantages:

      Another large Government department who will all vote Labour for evermore to retain their jobs.

      Great respect for senior Labour politicians once it is seen that senior departmental positions are

      within their gift.

      Politicians and senior civil servants obviously will be using Government cars to get around various

      football venues. Plus of course a Government credit card for various forms of real or imagined

      expenses incurred [Ms Reeves will advise on use of credit cards].

      I think that it is a great idea !

      2. Not unrelated: Somehow I doubt that the budget will make any big changes that affect the civil servants who will be writing it.

  26. Now the spotlight begins to fall on inner city schooling.. after a couple of YT uploads tell stories of foreign teachers describing UK kidz as out of control entitled disruptive illiterate violent animals.

    Of course the puppeticians are the last to recognise just how low the bar has dropped in the last five to eight years.
    It's a seriously dangerous vocation.. made x100 worse by Ofsted and their pupil rights-based approach.

    1. When the most patient, kinnd hearted and decent person I know described her class as 'Gremlins' I'm not surprised. It all comes down to the demographic. You can see the changes from data: as decent people with jobs and families in the 80s and 90s were replaced with the single parent welfare class in the noughties and then just sat there and bred the outcome was obvious – feral chav scum kids.

    3. "The last five to eight years"????
      Last 5 to 6 DECADES more like!
      Granted it may have accelerated in more recent years, but the rot set in a long time ago, beginning with ILEA in the '70s, as the Cultural Marxists infiltrated their way into the Teacher Training Colleges.

  27. Morning everyone.

    Free Speech has three new pieces today, from Xandra H on Starmer's many failings and a large but unreported step at the UN towards Global Government , a humourous and witty satire about a jihadist plot by Paul Sutton involving exploding donor kebabs, and my review of Melanie Phillips 2006 book Londonistan , that also catches up with her views on the current situation (it got worse).

    As always, please do read and leave a comment of more, as that's how we learn – and it helps boost my ego, fragile this morning.

  28. And on this lovely sunny day it's our eldest grandson's birthday. Nine years old, happy 😊 birthday Harry.
    We were fast asleep at 2am in Perth Oz, when Steve knocked on our bedroom door and told us our eldest had rang and that his wife had gone into labour. By the time we had woken up and made contact she was sitting up in her hospital bed with the little fella.

    1. ‘Morning Eddy! It’s also our middle grandsons birthday today! He’s 4 and a little blond dynamo! 😘

        1. Oh yes! He broke his finger in a barn door a fortnight ago, which slowed him down a bit, but he’s off again now!

          1. Wonderful at that age. Our are still wonderful but beyond the cuddling age as they’re 20, 21 and 22.

          3. The 21 year old grandson always gives us a hug when we see him but the 2 girls were never as cuddly.

  29. Allister Heath
    We’re on the brink of World War Three – and only one country can stop it
    Iran now presents an intolerable threat to Israel and global stability. Its regime must be crushed

    Allister Heath 02 October 2024 6:59pm BST

    If you crave peace, a war against Iran will be necessary first. If you want to avert a nuclear apocalypse, Iran’s atomic programme must be obliterated. If you long for a better, saner world, Iran’s repugnant theocrats need to be extirpated.

    Israel must be allowed to attack Iran’s evil regime, and the West must support it. The regime is the original Islamist extremist state; it is the fount of almost all trouble in the Middle East, the foremost exporter of terrorism, an ally of Russia, a friend of China, a cancer eating away at humanity’s common destiny.

    The regime has oppressed its wonderful, peace-loving people for 45 years, often in the most savage ways, pitilessly persecuting women and minorities. The West, wracked by self-doubt, ignorance, selfishness and cowardice, has been willfully blind to their pleas for deliverance. We have instead attempted to appease the Mullahs, to relativise or normalise their genocidal machinations, to sign deals with them, to protect the oil market, to endlessly buy time.

    It hasn’t worked, and Judgement Day beckons. It is time for Israel to save the West from itself, to conduct the dirty, dangerous work that far larger, richer and more powerful countries are too debilitated to pursue themselves.

    This wouldn’t be the first time: Israel did the world a historic favour when it bombed Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981 and destroyed the Al-Kibar planned nuclear plant in Syria in 2007; a similar move targeting Iran’s many such facilities is no longer beyond the realm of the possible.

    If Israel doesn’t have the equipment to do so itself, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris must send in their own bunker-busting bombs. I’m not calling for any kind of land invasion, or even for the UK to get directly involved. But we need to be honest: regime change in Iran should be a top foreign policy priority for every democracy in the world. Why has Britain still not proscribed the IRGC?

    Tuesday’s strike was a disastrous gamble by Iran. It failed to kill any Israelis or to meaningfully damage civilian or military infrastructure. Iran has already used up a tenth of its 3,000 ballistic missile stockpile (as estimated by a US general last year) for nothing: it has exposed its fundamental military and technological inadequacy, it didn’t establish deterrence, it forced a drastic hardening of America’s position, it stopped Europe’s useful idiots from calling for a ceasefire in Lebanon and, for the first time, created a critical opening for Israel to deliver an overwhelming military blow.

    Had Iran done nothing, it would have been publicly humiliated as a result of the assassination of so many of its allies, but avoided placing itself directly in the line of fire. By acting so impetuously, so egregiously and yet so uselessly, it has fatally weakened its own position. It has exposed itself as a nasty, fanatical bully, albeit one fragile enough to be taken down. It, for once, misread America. It misjudged Israel’s appetite for risk and pain. No government in Jerusalem can tolerate repeated, escalatory missile attacks from a millenarian state explicitly dedicated to its destruction; and even the most delusional of State Department apparatchiks can now see that a nuclear Iran would lead us into World War III.

    All the Western sucking up to Iran, starting with the nuclear deal of 2015, backed by David Cameron, has backfired appallingly. Joe Biden gifted the Mullahs some $6 billion last year to release five American hostages, allowing them to access previously frozen funds. He signed another 120-day sanctions waiver in July that allows Iran to sell electricity to Iraq. The US has also permitted Iran to greatly increase its output of crude oil, with its August production the highest in six years, and to sell much of it to China. The sanctions imposed by Donald Trump are now a largely meaningless joke.

    The obsessive military appeasement has been equally perverse. Biden told Israel to “take the win” in April, when Iran unleashed 170 drones, some 30 cruise missiles, and over 120 ballistic missiles in its first direct attack against the Jewish state. There were no casualties or meaningful injuries, and many missiles and drones were shot down by an international coalition, which is what Biden referred to as a win. Israel’s counter-offensive was largely symbolic, hitting a radar system at an Iranian nuclear plant.

    The Americans were wrong: the regime, which only understands brute strength, drew the wrong lesson. It was emboldened, assuming that the old red lines no longer existed, that the US would always restrain the Israelis, and that the regime could now engage in blatant acts of war with quasi-impunity, paving the way for this week’s larger, more sophisticated attack.

    But the Mullahs grievously miscalculated this time, partly because the empire they spent so long constructing is disintegrating and they are no longer thinking rationally.

    Yes, they have scored a massive propaganda victory against Israel since the atrocities of October 7, falsely portraying terrorists as victims, lying relentlessly, rehashing Soviet era blood libels, spreading conspiracy theories on social media and helping to foment anti-Jewish hate in Britain, Europe and America. But when it comes to the reality on the ground, as opposed to that in the mind of the Western chattering classes, Iran’s axis of evil has suffered a series of calamitous reversals.

    Hamas is a shadow of its former self, almost unable to launch rockets into Israel, and reeling from the death of 17-18,000 of its terrorist fighters. Hezbollah has lost Hassan Nasrallah, its psychopathic leader, its entire management structure and myriad second and third tier commanders; a large chunk of its 150,000-strong missile stash has been destroyed.

    It is still able to inflict losses on the heroic Israeli troops now in Lebanon, but it can no longer serve as Iran’s all-powerful shield. The danger is that Tehran’s increasingly panicked regime will compound its errors by seeking to rush to full nuclear status. This cannot be allowed to happen.

    Israel, whose very purpose is to ensure its own survival, and that of the Jewish people, has not just the right but a duty to strike back in devastating fashion against the Iranian regime. It deserves the West’s full, unstinting support.

    1. We need to start a world war in order to have peace. Mmm, yes, that makes total sense.

      Albert Pike, anyone?

      1. There won't be a World War if Iran was attacked. The people of Iran will not fight for the regime, if they were issued guns they would turn them on the Ayatollahs. In Iran the people refer to the government as the 'Islamic occupying government'. What they want is the Shahs son to return and form a government of unity. If Trump wins, I think that will happen pretty quickly.

        1. Who knows what people will fight for, if whipped up to believe a certain pack of lies?
          Look at how even people who regard themselves as awake are falling for the nonsense that Iran is the seat of all evil and must be attacked to have peace in the world.

          1. Believe me, the Iranian people don’t need to be ‘whipped up’. They are all to eager to get rid of the Ayatollahs. Why do you think the massive demonstrations over the years?

          2. it wouldn’t be the first country to have massive demonstrations in support of ‘democracy’ over the last half century or so

          3. Well yes, that’s the point. They want democracy not the Ayatollahs and for that they don’t need to be ‘whipped up’.

          5. The Americans are not helping the opposition in Iran. In fact they have propped up the present regime by giving them large sums of money without which the regime would collapse. They do, of course, for appearances sake, pretend to oppose the Ayatollahs.

        2. I agree with you, johnathan.

          In Tehran, it has become a popular pastime for Iranian ladies to knock off Ayatollah-style headwear as a form of protest!

          1. Seen that There are several videos on you tube of that activity. I’ll try and find one and post it.

        3. That wouldn't necessarily stop the fanatics from nuking a country (making sure that the elite fly out of the place while the attack is going on). They don't care about their own people, so as long as they personally escape so what if there is retaliation? A bit like the Germans in Denmark, in WWII who on learning that Germany had surrendered apparently fired machine gunfire into the civilian Danes in Copenhagen Main Square. Just as a last nasty act.

          1. I got ythis message on FSB from Audrey and Me:
            "Hertslass at NoTTl has asked whether you could please go to Nottl to hopefully exchange information- Peta J 's email ( assuming that's okay ) JD really wants to speak to Peta personally, he's very upset about the sad news, he doesn't use disqus anymore either . Geoff said ages ago that Hertslass is the go – between for Nottlers who want to have a private conversation, many are on the list of emails which can by anonymous .
            Hertslass could get them in touch with each other. If you'd please kindly find Hertslass, she's posting at Nottl today, if you were to kindly scroll down today's page which will still be open tomorrow ."

            I'm sorry to say that I have no further info on Peta. After our last exchange I left it a while and then emailed to ask how she was. I got no reply.

            If you want to contact me please email me on freespeechbacklash@gmail.com

          2. I’m not sure it’s quite accurate to say that I asked you to contact me here on NoTTL. I do have a dedicated email address for NoTTLers who want to contact each other off-site, so to speak to write to me, and I can set up two people to be able to contact each other if I have both of their emails on the NoTTL list AND they both agree in advance – the list goes back a long way, and was originally set up for people who wanted to continue conversations (but not bore everyone else), or to send each other stuff like seeds, or generally be able to contact other NoTTLers to meet up etc. It has been used quite a lot through the years. Once someone writes to the given list email address from their own chosen email I then write back if they seem genuine, giving my own email address and everything is taken off the list email. The list of people who have joined the facility is not on that email address and is usually not available, as I have to get each individual’s consent first, and the list is now around 50 people.

            Audrey and Me had been trying to contact Peta J and says that “I’m sure JD would want to speak to Peta J . The problem is only Tom Armstrong has her email and I’m not sure he mentioned the Nottl list gmail to Peta or that there might be those there who’d want to speak with her, assuming it’s okay with her “.
            I guess if you have Peta’s email and she would be prepared for someone specific to have it (or alternatively with that person’s consent to be given their email and leave it to her to initiate contact), that is one thing that I could set up, but I don’t have Peta’s mail or consent. Alternatively, you may have other former Speccie posters’ details and could liaise between them without the need for our NoTTL facility. I suggested tto udrey hat if she wanted to ask you anything offsite, that you could always contact me – in common with many other people, I get a copy of anything anyone writes to me into an inbox on my private email (which is not the same as the email that is used to initiate initial any request on the list.

            Audrey and Me tried to write to my given email address, but she seems to have slightly misspelt the address I gave, which might be why she didn’t get through. Anyway, after she wrote to me on NoTTL saying she hadn’t been able to get through I suggested that she write to you, as you seem to be the person who is involved with Speccie people. If you think that an offline contact facility might be useful, either for the current position that Audrey and Me is writing about, or just generally, my dedicate email address is Hertslist@gmail.com.

            Now that you know (hopefully) what this is all about, if you think it would be useful to discuss the matter offsite, then please do contact me on the address I gave above, but it was just a suggestion to Audrey etc. and not something I would post online. I will post to you on freespeechbacklash just to say that I have replied to your post here.

          3. Which is why they must be prevented from acquiring a bomb. The fact that the USA keeps giving them money doesn’t help.

      2. "What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal", perhaps BB2?

  30. Most people will disagree with me (but I care not).

    The only reason that there are gangs and their associated 'gangsters' — like the ultra-scum Chris Kaba, who was rcorrectly excised from the face of the earth — is because the human species are far too stupid to do anything about it.

    On an intelligent planet such behaviour would not be tolerated for one second. All known gang members would be hunted down and shot where they stood with no questions asked; no trials; no wasted money.

    Next?

    These scum do not believe in human rights as they behave in any manner they deem fit; shooting, killing and maiming at whim. As a direct consequence I do not believe in gangster rights and the sooner they are removed from the face of the earth, the better.

    Will this upset the bleeding-heart liberals (and the legal profession missing out on huge paydays)? I sincerely hope it does.

      1. Chief Constable Captain Sir Percy Sillitoe KBE, a century ago, smashed the razor gangs in Sheffield and Glasgow using uncompromising methods that were not questioned by the powers-that-be.

        If it could happen then, why not now?

          1. Oh yes. TPTB, these days, are of infinitely lesser quality then they used to be, when men still had backbone.

          2. A couple of days ago I was watching a programme about Andrew Tate who is idolized by young men. He is roundly condemned as a misogynist, bully, thug etc. You name it he's guilty. As I watched it struck me that his behaviour and attitudes are those of a man when I was young, I'm 75 now. His problem is that he simply lacks the finesse that we naturally acquired from the grown men of our era. Now, male role models are soy boys or what we would have called 'drips', soft men who's sexuality we would have questioned. So. poor Andrew Tate is simply a man, a rare creature that is offensive in todays world. So that opens him up to vilification and outrage for daring to act like a real man.

          3. Good morning JR.

            I think i read recently that they handed back all his property and cars. Looks like the charges aren't sticking.

          4. Hallo Pip. Yes, I believe he was already acquitted in a trial in the USA so, I assume, the Rumanian authorities decided that their attempts would not stick either. Of the two, I prefer his brother, Tristan, much more introspective and a Christian. Andrew is stupid enough to have converted to Islam which is not very helpful.

          5. The current ones have never fought in a war, Grizz. That shows you the correctness of clear direction and focus on the target, not fannying around being nice.

      2. 395265+ up ticks,

        Morning JN,
        I totally agree with the stupidity bit, they still have the
        collective people power to do plenty in righting our odious
        multiple wrongs.

    2. It doesn't take a more intelligent species – merely the feeling of belonging to a community, which would lead to the will to do something about it.
      This is the true poison of multiculturalism and diversity.

    3. Farmer, 52, hogties 'trespassers' to his quad bike 'like rabbits' then drives them to the police station – before HE is arrested.

      A farmer who allegedly caught two men trespassing on his land then hogtied them to his quad bike and sped them to the police station has been hailed a hero online – despite being arrested.

      The man, 52, had strapped two lads, aged 17 and 20, across the front and back of his vehicle before driving them four miles to the cops.

      But instead of quizzing the pair on the alleged trespass, they marched him in for questioning and later arrested him for false imprisonment and assault.

      Today, one of the lads revealed the details behind the terrifying incident that saw them tied to the quad bike and raced from the farm in Lancashire, to a nearby police station on Sunday.

      Leland Hornby, 17, told The Sun that his pal had been riding his electric bike across the farmer's field on Saturday night but when he went to leave, found the farmer had locked the gates.

      His mate then decided to leave his bike on the property overnight where he would pick it up in the morning.

      But upon the lad's return to the farm – the bike seemed to have vanished.

      'As we walked back the farmer came up behind us, jumped off his quad bike and tackled us to the ground,' Hornby told the newspaper.

      The pair attempted to outrun the furious farmer but he managed to capture both of them while pulling their hoods over their heads before tying them to his quad bike by their hands and feet.

      'We couldn't move. I was on the back of the quad bike and my friend at the front,' Hornby said, revealing he he was 'scared' of what the farmer might do.

      The teen said he and his friend were flung over the vehicle, but not securely strapped down, leaving them almost falling off a couple of times throughout the journey to the police station.

      Shocking CCTV images captured the moment the quad bike raced through the winding streets before arriving at the police station.

      But upon their bizarre arrival – the farmer was arrested by police.

      Speaking to the newspaper, Hornby's mum said: 'They were frightened to death. Absolutely terrified. The pair of them have nearly fallen off the quad bike'.

      She said the events had left her upset, and baffled as to why the farmer had reacted in such an extreme way instead of just calling the police.

      A spokeswoman for Lancashire Police said they were called to a property on Sunday by a man who said he had detained two males.

      But as police made their way to the farm, the farmer called a second time to announce he had arrived at a local police station with the pair.

      'When officers went to meet the man, they found a teenager and a man in his 20s on a quad bike with their hands and feet tied,' she said.

      'They were not secured to the quad bike'.

      Following the incident and arrest however, several internet users took to social media to hail the farmer a hero for his actions.

      Under a post showing the two males tied on the back and front of the quad bike, one Facebook user said: 'Brilliant! And I hope to see more of this in the future!'

      Another added: 'Vigilante justice!'

      One more commented: 'Excellent! Shame we can’t see the faces!'

      The farmer was later arrested on suspicion of false imprisonment and assault but has since been released on bail pending further enquiries.

      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13993399/Farmer-52-hogties-trespassers-quad-bike-like-rabbits-drives-police-station-arrested.html

      1. I haven't investigated any further, so I'm wondering why one of the miscreants didn't either run off or tackle the farmer while he was attempting to hogtie the other. It's not something you can accomplish on two people at the same time.

      2. Leland? Hardly yer John or Robert.
        Has it supplanted Winston and Leroy? Or was there some smackhead pop star with that name c. 2000?

      3. Trespass on farm land is a civil, not a criminal offence. The police, quite rightly arrested the farmer for false imprisonment. If I had been one of those lads, I would sue the farmer.

        1. The as yet unidentified 20 year old man had been using some form of wheeled vehicle on the farmer's land the previous night. Unlikely to have been a battery assisted bicycle because he was reportedly unable to lift said machine over the gate.
          Some commenters suspect that it was a recce to see what items he could steal, or what livestock he could poach. My suspicion is that the farmer appeared and so the youth fled on foot without his bike.
          Google AI:
          "The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 (PCSCA) introduced aggravated trespass as a criminal offense."
          2nd edit: the 17 yr old lived about 6 miles away. A long walk, did they get a lift?

          1. That Act may well have introduced an offence of ‘aggravated trespass’; however, I wager no court would accept a charge as such against someone simply riding their bike on farmland. I doubt that the definition of ‘aggravated trespass’, in the Act, would cater for such a situation.
            ‘Some commenters’ say whatever they like, but have little or no proof of anyone’s intentions.

          2. Not difficult to ask someone’s permission to ride across their land, if there are no crops or vulnerable livestock.

        2. The as yet unidentified 20 year old man had been using some form of wheeled vehicle on the farmer's land the previous night. Unlikely to have been a battery assisted bicycle because he was reportedly unable to lift said machine over the gate.
          Some commenters suspect that it was a recce to see what items he could steal, or what livestock he could poach. My suspicion is that the farmer appeared and so the youth fled on foot without his bike.
          Google AI:
          "The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 (PCSCA) introduced aggravated trespass as a criminal offense."
          2nd edit: the 17 yr old lived about 6 miles away. A long walk, did they get a lift?

        3. The as yet unidentified 20 year old man had been using some form of wheeled vehicle on the farmer's land the previous night. Unlikely to have been a battery assisted bicycle because he was reportedly unable to lift said machine over the gate.
          Some commenters suspect that it was a recce to see what items he could steal, or what livestock he could poach. My suspicion is that the farmer appeared and so the youth fled on foot without his bike.
          Google AI:
          "The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 (PCSCA) introduced aggravated trespass as a criminal offense."
          2nd edit: the 17 yr old lived about 6 miles away. A long walk, did they get a lift?

    6. The trouble is that many of them are children. Young children. Lost, fatherless for the most part, looking for some sort of structure in their lives, and the gangs are the only option they can see.

      Agreed, they grow into morally reprehensible adults, but we can't go shooting children.

      There's no easy answer, in a society that has lost its moral bearings, I know.

      2. Like any cancer, you have to nip it in the bud, Katy. It is the elder members of these gangs who organise and run matters; these are the ones who should be targeted. When you remove the leaders, there is no one left for the gullible youngsters to look up to.
        Juveniles do not have the same organisational abilities that adults have, so they can easily be taken into care and given sage advice as to what will happen to them if they carry on regardless.
        Children or not, if the choice comes down to either being ultra ruthless and draconian with them, or leaving them to run amok and maybe kill your family, I know which route most people would choose.

  31. 395265+ up ticks,

    Seeing as the United Kingdom is a mear pimple on
    the globes arse,and global warming has such an iffy
    pedigree even if it was 100% true fact there is nout we could do without firstly taking down China.

    So best thing to do for a spell of peace & tranquility is to make pushing the global warming agenda an act of terrorism in regards to weak minded peoples, but first a force of patriotic, decent like minded peoples, must be formed.

    https://x.com/wideawake_media/status/1849339919539249245

    1. The cheeky beggars – so that is how they will try to blame the coming ice age on humans.
      They really are pagan high priests, extracting obedience from people out of guilt.

      Valentina Zharkova (astrophysicist and mathematician) has a far simpler explanation – the earth wobbles a bit further from the sun on regular cycles, and we're doing that at the moment. Mini ice age coming up in the next few years.

      1. Earthquakes , bad ones can also cause earth wobble , so I have read .

        When I was a child at school , a geography teacher muttered something about a new ice age , but that was the reasoning behind ban the bomb and those who had fought in WW2( my teacher , had served in the Far East)

        1. Caroline's father was a trained geologist who shared the opinion of many geologists that global warming was complete nonsense and that a new ice age was on its way.

        2. The huge earthquake that hit Japan in 2011 slowed the earths rotation by 1.8 microseconds. So you are right Belle.

      2. Is this the ice age delayed from the 70s?

        ETA: Sorry, manners. Moaning all. Lovely and bright and sunny.

        1. Maybe. I think the people behind the climate scam know perfectly well that we’re going into a mini ice age.

      3. Is this the ice age delayed from the 70s?

        ETA: Sorry, manners. Moaning all. Lovely and bright and sunny.

      6. But that theory doesn’t justify authoritarian governmental cation and an opportunity to increase taxes, so don’t expect the Science to support it.

    2. This has been predicted for a while now. I remember the Gulf Stream splitting in two, with one fork heading for North Africa. The theory is that as the Russian permafrost melts and the great Siberian rivers flow into the Arctic Ocean, this would dilute the salt water around Greenland, disrupting the "conveyor belt" that carries warm water from the Caribbean to Europe on the surface, and back again on the sea bed.

      This would affect climate in Europe considerably, but is hardly an "ice age", and plenty of people live in similar latitudes around the world.

      There was also a theory in the 1970s that the natural cycle of solar activity would bring on a real ice age within the next century or so, and that human industrial activity may be mitigating this progression somewhat, and putting off the day when we would need extra woollies. All this is moot.

      What I do know is that the destruction of all the tropical rainforests, just to finance short-term human material aspiration, is utter madness and is probably a far bigger contributor to global climate disruption and the consequent mass migrations of people, than filling your car up with petrol.

    1. It appears from this that the chief priest in Ireland is just as bad as the Archpillock Welby.

      Ireland is disintegrating just as quickly as the UK.

  36. Demands for reparation would cause “endless” rows with Britain, Sir Keir Starmer has warned Commonwealth leaders ahead of a summit showdown.

    The Prime Minister said he was not willing to consider calls from some nations for the UK to make multi-trillion pound payouts over slavery and climate change.

    Speaking on his way to a six-day heads of Commonwealth meeting in Samoa, Sir Keir said that he wanted to “roll up my sleeves” and focus on the future.

    He will arrive at the summit on Thursday to demands from member states who have managed to force the issue of reparations onto the agenda.

    The Bahamas and Barbados are among the Caribbean nations pushing for trillions of pounds in “compensation” for Britain’s role in slavery and climate change. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/10/23/keir-starmer-commonwealth-summit-reparations/

    Of course they are all screaming for money , they are dropping babies like rabbits ..
    As is now visible in the UK .. and as many are unwilling to be educated and knuckle down to be sound citizens , and because they are almost DNA'd to be gangland thugs , Britain is on the way down , rapidly on the way down .

    America has a black problem , Africa and India are corrupt ruined overbred .. Ditch the idea of the commonwealth ..

    2. The darker parts of the world seem keener on getting free stuff rather than for working for a living. I note that the BBC gave a prime platform for the Bermudan to mouth off his demands. He was probably correct in saying that our Lilly livered government will roll over in due course.

    3. Have those who clamour for recompense for the part the UK has played in emitting greenhouse gases given any thought to what the world would look like now had the UK not sparked the industrial revolution? Sure, a great deal less coal, oil and gas would have been burned, but the consequence of that would be a largely agrarian world without all the comforts and pleasures that industrial progress has brought us. One thing's for sure, there would be no heads of Commonwealth meetings either in Samoa or anywhere else.

      2. Likewise for the descendants of slaves, living in airconditioned apartments, benefits of food, medical treatment, transport, TV,education, richly paid jobs… if their ancestors had remained in Africa, they would, at best, be living in Biafran jungle with an arse full of jiggers, chewing on a root..

    4. I think many would support that, Belle, but KC unlikely to, even though some in those countries don't care for him.

        1. They are having a cuddle in their basket. Harry has had a hair cut. He looks like a little rat.

  40. 395265+ up ticks,

    Yet another name change on the cards seemingly in the shape of a re-birth as in tory MK 2.

    Dt,

    Farage asks every Tory councillor to defect to Reform
    Clacton MP emails all 1,352 Conservative council members up for re-election in May 2025 explaining the ‘risk they face’ against his party

          2. A lot of people are turning against him for his silence. Not just rank and file, but more prominent people. See the videos I just posted by Paul Thorpe.

      2. Sadly the deceased was inside for violent disorder, and at his age and in poor health he should have known better. The sentence might have been OTT, but he was found guilty.

        1. But did he really commit violent disorder? There seems to be some doubt on that point. All he is proven to have done is shout near police officers and call the police scum? That was in the context of a protest, which is usually pretty loud.
          "Violent disorder" suggests more violence than that.

          1. Video evidence also suggests that he was violently pushed by a woman police officer who, by the tone of the voice, was close to panicking.

        2. He was blackmailed into saying he was guilty as he was told if he didn’t he would be locked up on remand. But they lied, as Ricky Jones (“slit their throats”) is out on bail. The man was provoked by Plod. No jury would have found him guilty. I am horrified at how the State has treated him. Just because you are found guilty, doesn’t mean you are.

          3. I didn’t see it in the news. I suppose the ex royal Marine who was remanded until February next year for a You Tube post is still being held.

        3. Sorry Tim, but that is MY downvote.
          Peter Lynch was NOT "found guilty" as you say he was, but PLED guilty to a charge that, had it gone before a Jury, would, most likely have been rejected.
          The important question in this case is "Why did he plead Guilty?" What pressures were placed on him to do so? What representation did he have and if he did have representation, WTF was his Brief playing at?

        4. He pled guilty because he was told, as were many of the other victims, that if they pled not guilty they would be held on remand, possibly for months, so he pled under the impression he would get a light sentence, if any. He was mislead. He did not commit violent disorder, his crime was to shout at the police and swear at them. If you go onto You Tube you will see the whole incident. Many of these people were railroaded and the whole thing is a stain on the legal system of this county because it has been politicised and used as a weapon by the government.

  41. Pinnochio speaks:

    "Sir Keir Starmer has insisted there is “no reason” for entrepreneurs to flee Britain over fears he will launch a tax raid on wealth creators at the Budget.

    The Prime Minister said investors “have confidence” in what he is doing amid widespread expectation that he will increase levies on companies.

    Downing Street also stressed that “investors shouldn’t be worried about this budget” because the Government was “unashamedly pro-business”.

    Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, is poised to increase employers’ National Insurance contributions and capital gains tax on the sale of shares.

    She is also expected to increase the levels of tax that entrepreneurs have to pay when they sell their business or pass it onto their children.

    Asked whether he was worried the wealthy would flee Britain to avoid being hit with ever larger tax demands, Sir Keir said: “There is no reason for them to.” "

        1. Her Aunt, who, from her Earliest Youth,
          Had kept a Strict Regard for Truth,
          Attempted to Believe Matilda:
          The effort very nearly killed her,

          Starmer needs to take some lessons from Matilda's aunt.

    2. Interesting that Starmer says he won't. Of course he won't. Reeves will.

      This budget will be awful. Labour, having never done anything, never run a business, having existed solely where money is no object – because it is someone else's – having never seen a P&L sheet, having never been of any functional use whatsoever to the economy has no interest in the only rational way to improve things: cutting taxes.

      They just take, like the greedy, incompetent parasites they are.

      Notable that they don't consider continuing the freeze on tax bands – despite inflation running at over 7-8% – as increasing taxes. It's the mindset of the Left: not increasing a tax is a tax cut or a subsidy. Cutting taxes is an act of generosity. Not increasing them as much as they want is a good thing.

    3. Reminds me of when a Zimbabwean government minister came to Britain and gave a talk to expat Zimbabweans in which he told them that they should go home because everything was rosy now. Apparently people expressed their disbelief openly.

  42. Good morning all.

    My BP keeps bouncing around. 105 0ver 65 the other day. 115 over 85 this morning.

    What happens if both figures become the same?

    1. Do you feel alright? Yesterday morning I was having a lot of hot flushes so took my temperature and it was 35.3c which in theory means hypothermia. Except I was hot. Took it again later in the day and it had risen to 36.9c. By last night it had returned to 36.2c, which is in my normal range. I don’t think any of it means very much.

          1. "My salad days when I was green in judgement, cold in blood!"

            I've always been rather cold-blooded!

      2. I feel a bit sluggish but after having RSV i am a lot better than i was.

        What do you think of the Lanesborough? Not only do they allow doggies they also have a smoking room !

        It is rumoured they spent £100 million on the refurbishment. It looks glorious. As does the afternoon tea.

        1. I remember when it first opened and there was a lot of publicity about how exclusive and luxurious it was. Madonna (Ciccone) was on one of the regular chat shows of the time and boasted that she was staying there. It does look very nice.

          1. Monica Galetti did a show there. Beyond the Lobby. I find shows like that interesting. I like the behind the scenes stuff.

            Let's visit some when in February or March. That's if you want to. You won't hurt my feelings if you say 'No, bugger off. Once was enough !'

    2. When Mine was over 212/90, I went to A&E. It was so crowded hardly a pair of seats, to be seen. It took 14 hours before they put me in bed on a ward.
      I ended up with even more medication. It was never properly monitored.
      I was virtually just left to get on with it..
      Sometimes it will go up Phizz I won't worry too much. Take you BP three time at 4 minute intervals it sometimes changes a lot.
      Does your GP practice have a BP check. If you are worried go in take you BP three times print off the results and hand them to the reception.

      1. The GP's don't seem to do follow ups and monitoring any more.

        They do but i have my own machine.

        Strangely when it is high i feel fine but when it is low i feel a bit weird, uncomfortable and forgetful.

          1. Even when you do get an appointment i have seen empty waiting rooms and still been left waiting up to 40 minutes after the appointed time.

          2. Same as, and more non British people in the waiting areas each time I go.
            When you live in a small village it’s quite noticeable.

        2. I'm the same Phizz i don't bother to take it much any more but after you comment i took mine three times it ended up coming down to 136 60 pulse 64.

    5. Perfectly normal. Your BP constantly changes throughout the day. Particularly if you're often on the plonk!

    2. Please tell me that this is a spoof!

      Will Ed be putting balls and bangles in her stocking?

      2. I believe it is a spoof.
        Did a websearch on the headline and came up with no mention of it.

      3. Passed to me by Sonny Boy snr.
        The awful thing is that given the joyless, pursy lipped fun sponges currently ru(i)nning the country, it sounds plausible.

  45. But riding a vehicle across private land without permission is, I believe, a criminal trespass and whilst the farmer may have been extreme in his actions, his arrest of the two youths does have more than a tad of modicum in justification.

    1. "… his arrest of the two youths does have more than a tad of modicum in justification."

      Under what statute?

    1. At first I thought they’d made a mistake and repeated the same word from yesterday.

      Wordle 1,223 4/6

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

    2. Well done, me too.

      Wordle 1,223 3/6

      ⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜
      ⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. Ah well I trail behind again.

      Wordle 1,223 4/6

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

  48. Much ob Sue. I've no idea about these odd temperatures. I run very hot, so the Doc said yes, 38.6 is normal for you.

  49. I have three pansy dogs. Opened the windows to let the bedrooms breathe and all three dogs, previously sprawled about moved into the back room where my officey thing is and dug themselves under the blankets.

      1. I think it’s wibspeak for three Newfoundland dogs who don’t quite get that they’re supposed to be hardy cold enduring heroes not pampered pooches!

        1. Thanks, mir…Sue enlightened me, have owned a dozen or so dogs none of them pansies…especially not the two terriers I have now 🙄

  50. Completely diff topic – does anyone watch Grand Designs? The latest series seems to be far more about the people than the buildings. I sort of understand the human interest angle type thing, but I'd rather know a bit more about the building techniques and concerns.

    1. Yes it has changed from the original Wibbles. I recorded one a few weeks ago because I was interested in the design premise. The couple, and their relatives, were Pakistani.

      1. I don't mind that. If someone is working here and paying their way – fine. Don't care where they came from. Law abiding, decent, contributing folk are no bother.

        I saw the Henley episode and yes it is important to discuss the 'builders' and their approaches but there was a pond in the atrium. What happens during Summer? That mechanical ventilation – how does it work? How well was the house insulated? Did those boards, having been soaked in the rain dry out and did they warp?

      1. Thanks, Katy. The young lady radiologist got far too personal with me, but what could I say?

  52. Austria’s far right is shut out of power, again. 24 October 2024.

    Austria’s mainstream politicians are combining to ensure that the winners of last month’s general elections, the far right Freedom party (FPO) are kept firmly out of power.

    The Alpine republic’s president, Alexander Van Den Bellen – aligned with the Green party – has invited the current chancellor, Karl Nehammer, whose centre right People’s party (OVP) came second in the elections, to form a coalition explicitly excluding the FPO, which topped the polls with 29 per cent, running on an anti-immigration, pro-Putin platform.

    The only way to get rid of these people is revolution and the guillotine.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/austrias-far-right-is-shut-out-of-power-again/

    1. Brexit, the Truss budget, Trump, Musk (attacking all his companies rather than just Twitter – which they wanted to stop him buying) – the Left do not like democracy. They hate losing. They set about destroying their enemies to ensure they get their way, regardless. Odd that the Austrians refuse to see that Hitler – the archetype of the Left – did exactly what they are doing.

      They are simply bitter, evil fascists.

      1. Did the term even exist before WWII? It was invented to allow the communists to distance themselves and regroup. The cover theory is that nationalism is right wing and warmongering. In practice it’s empire building that causes wars not nationalism and socialism leads to empire building just as much as any other tyranny.

        1. We must remember what we were taught at school: that patriotism and nationalism are completely different things!

      2. What the hell is “far-Right”?

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

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

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

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

        In a nutshell, you are NORMAL.

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

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

        ©Grizzly 2023.

    3. History repeating again.
      1928 German federal election saw that little chap with the moustache gain about 10% of the vote.

        1. We know some of them as the Pilot kept a Log of his passengers.

          Obviously Ghislaine Maxwell knows to keep her mouth shut or she would end up just like Epstein. Dead.

          1. Why aren’t names being named in that case, Phiz – a gag order or similar? Are they genuine? Who are they? GM said she has a ledger or similar somewhere but won’t say where or who with. It’s all very murky.

          2. And if there was quite a number of young women, who are they, have they been bought off? I understand Guiffre quite wealthy now, bought a farm NZ – married and with children.

        2. Prince Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell are the only names you will get from the corrupt MSM and PTB.

      2. When the police first went to Epstein's house it is alleged that there was a large number of recordings all labelled with well known names. When they returned for a full search they had gone. Always remember that Trump was an acquaintance and if they're not leaking his involvement then they're protecting many of his adversaries.

          1. No more evidence than all the other people reported to be involved. I didn't actually take part in the police search. Trump was a well known acquaintance of Epstein – there was a picture of the two of them together on here yesterday. My point was that if the others weren't involved (Clintons etc) then the anti-Trump media would have been bending over backwards to imply his involvement was deeper than mere acquaintance.

  54. Just back from dropping off the cabinet, much easier than expected, only took three people to get it out of the van, plus I've been to Cromford Station and picked up my tickets for the Tommy Robinson Event on Saturday.
    During that ticket collection I had a delightful conversation with the resident of the old Station Master's house who described him as a Racist Bastard and got more and more annoyed as I argued against him.
    I will admit though, he has a beautiful golden Labrador!

    1. Is Robinson racist? I don't know. His personal opinions I don't know about. I do know he raises concerns about massive uncontrolled gimmigration and the unbelievable abuse of children by pakistani paedophile muslims.

      I think people are told he's racist by the Left wing media, a group itself prejudiced but against the locals.

      1. I don’t think he is. He grew up in Luton and has friends who are etc etc. His cousin (I think) was sexually abused however by one of our strength and diversity friends, which is why he does what he does.

    2. I’ll be there too. There’s safety in numbers. The attacks usually happen on the fringes and as the crowds are dispersing. TR may not be there of course as he’s been ordered to turn himself in to the police tomorrow.

      1. Please report back, Sue? (and look out for yourself, be there in spirit..Kate x) All crossed for TR appearance.

      2. Heyup!
        I'll be into St.P. at 10:40 and going for a Wetherspoons breakfast.
        Feel free to join me and I might even treat you to a breakfast too!

    1. One of those 'watershed' moments.
      I can almost hear it now.. "Take down X.. disinformation spreading hate.. now."

      My take is..
      until the Normies wake up & come onboard..
      until Tommy R gets organised, and by that I mean split into two like Sinn Féin did in 1970.
      until.. well a list of stuff that would be flagged.

      Nothing will change.

  56. Dear Commonwealth Heads of Government.

    Britain has now examined your claims and the figures, and we agree that compensation is due.

    We estimate that after all reparations for slavery have been taken into account that you owe us 50 trillion for ensuring that the slave trade was stopped (apart from that still undertaken in African, ME and Far E countries) for laws, education, technological and health care advances etc etc and particularly for the Islands and countries that you now own and occupy.

    Being of a noble race and culture we'll shut up about that if you do too, and call it quits.

  57. "King honoured as high chief and gifted a pig in Samoan welcome ceremony
    First full day of state visit included mat making and a display of traditional Samoan tattoos."

    I suggest that the Idiot King gives this generous gift of a pig to Sadiq Khan as a sign of respect and solidarity.

    1. The South Sea islanders used to eat visitors, didn’t they? Now they teach their children the Bible and give gifts. See the damage colonialism does?

    2. Given the culinary habits of the Samoans, it might be better if he was to make a gift of Sadiq Khan to them.

      1. Me in the floral shirt. Going left around the table…Harry Kobeans. Mrs Harry Kobeans. Sue Edison. Citroen and Steve.

        1. Mrs Kobeans can ambush him tomorrow morning and whack him with her walking stick. St Pancras 10.40 am.

          1. First of all, Mrs Kobeans is many years off needing a walking stick and secondly, she will not rise to ageist insults from random males who have never met her.

          2. You are on the list. Sinister or what !
            I will post a banner the month before but i don’t believe these places take large groups unless you hire a room. Argghhh !
            As you are the first to reply you get a seat at table.

      1. I didn't think the food was up to much but Citroen told us some outrageous stories. I was guffawing with laughter.

          1. Sorry about that. It is just half a dozen posts down the thread if looking at newest. Here you are old chum…Me in the floral shirt. Going left around the table…Harry Kobeans. Mrs Harry Kobeans. Sue Edison. Citroen and Steve.

            3
            •
            Edit
            Reply
            Share ›

      1. Sue? I offered to buy her lunch but the lady politely declined. An independent woman.

        I'm glad she said no. You should see the prices !

      1. Me in the floral shirt. Going left around the table is Harry Kobeans. Mrs Harry Kobeans. Sue Edison. Citroen and Steve.

          1. Oooh !

            Seriously.

            Plans are being formed for afternoon tea at the Lanesborough.

            I know for some it’s a long trek.
            Others recently doubled up with other things to do…like museum visits and other boring nonsense….(Museums don’t serve cocktails !)

            As the date approaches in the New Year i will ask a Mod to post it as a banner.

            I really enjoy meeting Nottlers. Complete basket cases for the most part… :@)

  59. Stores report two thefts a minute amid shoplifting epidemic. 24 October 2024.

    Stores across the country are reporting two thefts a minute to police amid a growing shoplifting epidemic, official figures show.

    Shoplifting hit a record high in the year to June with 469,788 offences reported to police, up nearly 29 per cent on the previous year’s total of 365,173 and double the rate in 2020 during the pandemic, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

    That equates to more than 9,000 offences a week, or 1,290 a day and more than two a minute based on average UK store opening times of around 10 hours a day.

    As in the United States (California) whole retail areas will soon shut down unable to either combat or finance this epidemic. The real fear of course is that it will mutate and become general. If you are sensible you will not go out after dark, or if you are female, on your own at any time. We must never forget that the coming calamity has been visited on us by the Political Elites.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/24/shops-report-two-thefts-a-minute-ons-shoplifting-epidemic/

    1. 395265+ up ticks,

      O2O,
      Bear in mind there are a great many lab/lib/con member / voters who do not like Tommy because of his historic links to the EDL, rich A.

      1. I think that what is more to the point is that the establishment fears him. No one else can summon a huge crowd of committed people as quickly as he can, not even Farage. And the people that he can summon are intensely loyal to him. He has real power and it is more than political, it is visceral power and that is far more powerful. It's what I said a while ago. He openly admits he is afraid but that he must continue because it is right to do so, it is a form of self sacrifice, the behaviour of genuine hero's and people recognize it.
        I am listening to Paul Thorpe at the moment and he is complaining about Farage's attitude to Tommy and to Lynch and he is saying that to the people he is talking to, his name is mud.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7U5x3cUZ2Zs&t=126s

        1. If Farage does not come to terms with the fact that many of those who want real reform understand that Tommy Robinson has been abominably treated by the police and the PTB and if he cannot accept that Robinson deserves his support then he, Farage, will be lost. After all on many political issues they are not far apart.

          I always thought it a bit rich when ex-public schoolboy, Farage, criticised Cameron and Johnson for being Old Etonians! I dislike both Cameron and Johnson but my dislike has nothing to do with where they went to school – I despise them not because of whence they came but for what they are.

          Farage is behaving like both an inverted snob and snob at the same time – he despises Cameron for being an Etonian and he despises Robinson for being rough and yobbish.

          People are beginning to notice that Robinson has more sincerity and credibility than Farage. To paraphrase Martin Luther King: 'A person should be judged by the quality of his character and not whether he went to Dulwich, Eton or the Luton Sink Sec Mod.

          1. I quite agree with your post Rastus. What is particularly stupid about Farage’s fence sitting is that it really doesn’t matter what he does in terms of declaring support for Robinson or anyone else, he is always going to be vilified by the opposition in any way that they can dream up. I think that, to be charitable here, he believes himself to be a classical Conservative that craves to be in the club smoking a cigar with his cronies, brandy in hand, giving forth as the elder statesman. He is delusional if that is the case and all his present action are serving to do, is alienate his friends and allies. My fear is that he will throw a fit as he did with UKIP and destroy Reform.

        2. Robinson shares characteristics in common with Churchill. Conviction. A refusal to be ground down by opposing forces which is more than toughness. A hothead, madcap impulsive youth – in Churchill's case this was legitimised by his time in the military. In Robinson's case it was a stick to beat him with. Leadership qualities. The establishment recognised this quite early on and set out to demolish him. It did not want a working class hero to emerge, revolutions starting, as they do, from the ground up. The main difference, of course, is one of monied class.

          1. I completely agree with you Poppie. But then. I think you know that goes without saying.

          2. Yes, I realise that you know already. It was reading about Churchill's truly madcap youth that the penny dropped. I thought oh, there is another out there once again. If Robinson had the oratory of Farage, he would be truly a phenomenon. I rather think he is anyway.

          3. I think there is something very special about Robinson. As I have pointed out before, his bravery is the sort of thing you get from a Christian martyr. That is he is determined on the truth and will not back down from that even if he ends up dead because of it. I hope God protects him and that he remains well because he must be the most persecuted man in England.

            You might appreciate this
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqG_7MaJMRw

          4. Yes, I agree. He has been chosen as a conduit or an instrument to do God’s work. There is nothing he can do about it, it has to be, he is the channel, the lightening conductor. Thank you for the reference, I will take a look this evening.

  61. The BBC has spent several hours today discussing the coming Caribbean Summit and in promoting reparation for slavery to be paid for by the British, – but not taxing the current immigrants and descendants of immigrants currently living in the UK (about six million by my calculations). Who would they give it to? The solution is simple, repatriate all the descendants and their relatives back to their native lands and return them to the descendants of the Arab and African warmongers who captured, enslaved and sold them in the first place. The cost to the British who stopped the slave trade in the 19th century could be reclaimed by taxing French, Dutch, Spanish and Americans who did their utmost to stop the Brits.

    We demand reparation for ending slavery!

    1. She must be very good at something which her (male) associates like – I wonder what that could be.

  63. Peter Lynch
    https://x.com/i/status/1849021289379271164 It is difficult to know what crime was committed by this man, in truth. We know he was given legal advice by the Duty Solicitor to plead "guilty" to the charge of Violent Disorder but if you read the text of that law this is not what this man did.

    Public Order Act 1986, section 2, Violent Disorder

    2 Violent disorder.
    (1) Where 3 or more persons who are present together use or threaten unlawful violence and the conduct of them (taken together) is such as would cause a person of reasonable firmness present at the scene to fear for his personal safety, each of the persons using or threatening unlawful violence is guilty of violent disorder.

    (2) It is immaterial whether or not the 3 or more use or threaten unlawful violence simultaneously.

    (3)No person of reasonable firmness need actually be, or be likely to be, present at the scene.

    (4) Violent disorder may be committed in private as well as in public places.

    (5) A person guilty of violent disorder is liable on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 5 years or a fine or both, or on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or both.

      2. Why is it important that he say something about this particular case? Numerous cases are perceived to be unjust. Should he express an opinion about them all or has this case an exceptional characteristic which elevates it above all others? Were he to say something, it might not be to the satisfaction of those yearning for his cogitations. Then what?

        1. Well, yes it is a bit different, because it is a blatant example of two tier justice when compared to other protests, and a new low for the justice system.

  64. The Left-Wingers’ Book of English History.

    The Ancient Britons tried (but failed) to prevent the invasion of their country, successively, by the Celts, Romans, Jutes, Angles, Saxons, Vikings and Normans because they were RACIST!
    Hadrian built his wall because he was RACIST!
    Offa built his dẏke along the Welsh border because he was RACIST!
    Richard I crusaded in Palestine because he was RACIST!
    Edward II took on the Scots at Bannockburn because he was RACIST!
    The English lost against Owain Glyndŵr because they were RACIST!
    England fought the French during the Hundred Years War because they were RACIST!
    The Yorkists battled with the Lancastrians in the Wars of the Roses because they were both RACIST!
    Elizabeth I and Sir Francis Drake defeated the invading Spanish Armada because they were a pair of RACISTS!
    The Royalist Cavaliers were defeated by the Parliamentarian Roundheads for being RACIST!
    Jenkins lost his ear for being RACIST!
    George II and The Duke of Cumberland defeated the Scots at Culloden because they were a couple of RACISTS!
    Robert Clive defeated the Nawab of Bengal because he was RACIST!
    James Wolfe captured Quebec and Montréal because he was RACIST!
    George III fought the American War of Independence because he was RACIST!
    Lord Nelson and The Duke of Wellington defeated Napoleon because they were twin RACISTS!
    Lords Raglan and Cardigan fought the Crimean War because they were twin RACISTS!
    Florence Nightingale interfered in that war because she was RACIST!
    David Livingstone thought he knew best in Africa because he was a RACIST!
    Robert Baden-Powell fought in the Boer War because he was RACIST!
    George V, Herbert Asquith, and Lord Kitchener fought the First World War (against the Germans) because they were RACIST!
    The RACIST Winston Churchill defeated Adolf Hitler for no other reason!
    Anthony Eden got involved with The Suez Crisis because he was RACIST!
    Margaret Thatcher defeated the Argentinians in the Falklands and the NUM in the coal fields because she was a RACIST!

    Footnote: It must be noted that the Right Honourable Sir Tony Blair was NOT a racist when he invaded Iraq. He was a Freedom Fighter in the best tradition of his comrades.

  66. Just thinking about all the reparation debates going on at the Commonwealth heads of state gathering.
    Not sure why people around the world are allowed to complain so much about being colonised, when it is happening here in the UK now, with boats arriving in ever larger numbers every year, but the natives just get called racist and jailed for complaining.
    Another example of two tier left wing ideology.

      1. I like the design of that, Sue…much much better than the paper and plastic ones which are likely chucked away after use.

        1. I keep mine in a drawer after use. I only replace if it is damaged. I still chuck £2 in the collection though. Not doing it to be green. Just lazy.

          2. I just catch them at the supermarkets. They don't appear to tin rattle. I like that they have gone to the trouble of dressing up and displaying medals. I tell chuggers to eff off.

          3. Very sensible, Phiz. Post-vaccine, I stopped going out to shops, have had a supermarket delivery ever since. Frees up time, which I like, but I know many do like physical shopping. Far as I remember tin rattlers used to be either just outside or just inside supermarket, catch you on the in or on the out…:-)

          4. I have heard people say they prefer to be eyes on on the produce they buy but you can always refuse items at point of delivery.

            Of course i know that for some it can be an opportunity to chat and socialise and i think that is great.

            It's why if someone is chatting to the cashier i just smile and let them get on with it without doing the 'tuts'.

            Don't know or want to know what your budget is but this is now available…among others… https://coteathome.co.uk/

            Certainly good for a special occasion.

          5. Never had anything to return, other than a bag of salad leaves underneath heavier item – one time. No complaints otherwise – I use Morrisons, which is where I used to shop, some of them remember me. I don’t care for Sainsburys staff 😀 and Tesco – no thanks. Yes, checkout can be a bit lengthy – I used to go at opening time, staff and I had a lot of chat/backchat/laughs – smell of baking bread was good although no longer made from scratch. Cotes look fab have kept that one, thanks Phiz:-)!

          6. These posher type places also started home delivery. You might need to google because i have a mind like a sieve but there is a site that has all of them.

          7. Some years ago (not checked recently) was surprised M&S didn’t do home food delivery – although I wouldn’t use it, too expensive for no better quality (imo):-)

          8. I think Ocado is now linked with M&S. Good quality but expensive. I find Sainsbury’s are a lot cheaper and Aldi even more cheaper. Cheapest of all is Farm Foods. You can buy a one person lunch meal like cottage pie or a curry for 85pence. Not that i would.

          9. I used to frequent Farm Foods. Its local store was closed to allow for a shopping precinct redevelopment project. Farm Foods didn't return.

          10. I like their huge prawns and also their large scallops. £20 a kilo but great if you know how to cook them and what to serve with them. You only need 2 or 3 pieces for a filling lunch. Any leftovers………….make chowder.

            8 cloves of garlic. Lots of butter and whatever spices you want.

          11. Thanks – yes they have a warehouse fairly near but still don’t deliver to me. They’re in town centre, not going there with amount of traffic. Aldi are very good, and Lidl too but not as much as Aldi. I’ve shopped at both, no home delivery, although both have good online sites for home goods, all sorts. Morrisons do quite a bit of veg and some fruit price match with Aldi, it’s on their website (have to put it in search bar.) Not tried Farm Foods, would probably check ingredients that price 😄

          12. You are quite right. But those on benefits say they can’t afford to feed their children annoy me. Okay…you are poor…why would you expect to eat lobster?

            £9.99 at farm foods by the way. :@)

            I took a closer look. Quite a lot is Halal. Then you have the over processed muck. But i have found them useful in other areas.

          13. I probably wouldn’t eat lobster if I hadn’t emptied the pot myself:-) Reasonable price tho £9.99! I’ve been told all school meals are Halal, as is all supermarket meat. Unless you shop at a Jewish butcher, presumably. I try to not buy processed food, but I don’t want to go back to spending hours in kitchen, just try to buy judiciously.

          14. Likely schools and hospitals are Halal. Also the majority of abattiors are too.
            Local meat. Local butcher.

          15. They are…am told both school meals and hospital meals are really poor. We used to have two local abbatoirs, both now closed. Both had local butchers next door, both now closed. People’s taste buds have changed too – meat is more bland now, one reason why some chefs use a lot of spices.

          16. They are Maine lobsters. Though Cornish are the best in the world they are 10 times the price.
            Kosher butchers have similar slaughter to muslims.

          17. Yes – have bought them fresh on the quay I think Bryer, much less expensive. Have seen footage of halal killing but not haram, basically no stunning either case, throats cut and allowed to bleed out to die.

          19. Commander K. Kristiansen was at the party. Her Number one who was also in attendance is now also in charge for the region. Maggie their friend on the IOW was honoured at the Palace recently. Couple of years ago i think…

            I just wish we had more time to connect. A couple of hours just rushes by.

            I went to some Mess functions with them. Their Mess was on HMS Victory until the bean counters and H&S put a stop to it.

            So we decanted (har har) to the Lightship in Portsmouth harbour.

        1. Does anyone remember Take It From Here on the wireless?

          June Whitfield played Eth, the fiancée of Ron – the halfwit played by Dick Bentley. Jimmy Edwards played his father, Mr Glum.

          At Christmas time they were opening presents and Mr Glum – who was almost completely bald – opened his present from his son. To his disgust he found it was it was a comb and he expostulated loudly. Eth, trying to calm the irate father of her fiancé said:

          "But it's the thought that counts!"

          To which Mr Glum replied:

          "In which case I'd better keep mine to myself.

          1. "Muvvah!!!!"
            Apparently the unseen, unintelligible but vocal Mrs. Glum was played by Alma Cogan.

          2. To the end of her days, she never did a tango with an Eskimo. That's what happens when you don't call them Inuits.

      4. Same here, Sue. I saw Jim Davidson's YT channel where he, a staunch veterans' supporter, laid into the Legion for sitting on millions yet doing little for veterans. I will wear the same poppy as I've worn for many years as it is symbolic, but I won't buy any more.

    3. I used to subscribe to RSPB, thinking they'd buy wetlands etc..one issue showed swanky new offices with parked cars. Cancelled same day, never gone back.

        1. Friend of mine worked at a rescue centre some years ago (she knew I would always take another dog). Even then, many were euthanised because of the numbers (another friend, a vet, made weekly visits). Now, the rescue place has very few dogs, and instead of taking donations you are asked to pay so much per dog so much per cat. And yes, RSPCA too.

    5. "This National Inclusion Week, we’re celebrating the voices that shine a spotlight on inclusion and diversity at the Royal British Legion, and work tirelessly to create an inclusive community in our workplace.
      Meet Jennifer Dyer, Head of Diversity and Inclusion at RBL.
      What do you do at the Legion and in what circumstances would people come to you for something?
      I’m the Head of Diversity and Inclusion so my role is to drive change to become a more diverse and inclusive organisation. You would come to me if you want to chat or get advice on how to reach out to different and diverse audiences or make your services more accessible or generally find out more about equality issues.
      What does your team do?
      I’m part of the People and Organisational Development Directorate and work with some of the most amazing colleagues who do so much more than what you might call “HR”. We are here to support the heartbeat of our organisation – all of our staff.
      How long have you worked at RBL?
      I’ve been here since March 2021 so just over two years.
      What are you working on at the moment?
      Lots of things but some of my big projects are helping to support our wonderful Diversity & Inclusion Staff Networks, making sure our D&I data is as accurate as possible so we can track our progress better and legislation changes in the next year around flexible working and carers’ leave. "
      from LinkyDin

  69. Just listened Mark Steyn’s Clubland Q&A. He refers to Muslims in Britain as the Labour Party’s house pets but points out that they won’t continue to be obedient. A Muslim mayor in Michigan has declared his support for Donald Trump. Muslims will do what they see as being in their own interests.

    1. He's always good. Couldn't believe he had four heart attacks quick succession, after leaving GBN and talks with Rotherham girl/s. Or got his hockey stick case chucked out. Really dodgy.

      1. I was very disappointed that neither Mark Dolan nor Dan Wootton were prepared to stand by Mark Steyn when he was so disgracefully treated by GB News.

        1. Dan Wootton left, Rastus – I think when accused of sexual assault? He had his own slot for a while, but not seen him lately. Mark Dolan still on GBN but I don’t watch him he’s a bit silly…:-D I like Chopper, Chrystys, and a few others incl Farage, think Tice tonight talking about the numbers of councillors moved over to Reform recently. Yes, I agree – disappointed:-(

  70. This poem was written by the woman who started the 'Remembrance Poppy'. I had never heard of her, now I will never forget her:

    "We Shall Keep the Faith" is a poem penned by Moina Michael in November 1918. She received inspiration from the poem "In Flanders Fields" by Canadian physician Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae.

    Oh! you who sleep in Flanders Fields,
    Sleep sweet – to rise anew!
    We caught the torch you threw
    And holding high, we keep the Faith
    With All who died.

    We cherish, too, the Poppy red
    That grows on fields where valor led;
    It seems to signal to the skies
    That blood of heroes never dies,
    But lends a lustre to the red
    Of the flower that blooms above the dead
    In Flanders Fields.

    And now the Torch and Poppy Red
    We wear in honor of our dead.
    Fear not that ye have died for naught;
    We'll teach the lesson that ye wrought
    In Flanders Fields.

    1. For those who don't know it, In 'Flanders Fields' was inspired when McCrae. having buried a friend who had been killed in battle 1915, and noticed that poppies were growing around the graves of earlier burials. He died of pneumonia while still serving in 1918. He was initially trained as an artilleryman – Once a Gunner, always a Gunner.

      In Flanders Fields
      In Flanders fields, the poppies blow
      Between the crosses, row on row,
      That mark our place; and in the sky
      The larks, still bravely singing, fly
      Scarce heard amid the guns below.

      We are the Dead. Short days ago
      We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
      Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
      In Flanders fields.

      Take up our quarrel with the foe:
      To you from failing hands we throw
      The torch; be yours to hold it high.
      If ye break faith with us who die
      We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
      In Flanders fields.

  71. This poem was written by the woman who started the 'Remembrance Poppy'. I had never heard of her, now I will never forget her:

    "We Shall Keep the Faith" is a poem penned by Moina Michael in November 1918. She received inspiration from the poem "In Flanders Fields" by Canadian physician Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae.

    Oh! you who sleep in Flanders Fields,
    Sleep sweet – to rise anew!
    We caught the torch you threw
    And holding high, we keep the Faith
    With All who died.

    We cherish, too, the Poppy red
    That grows on fields where valor led;
    It seems to signal to the skies
    That blood of heroes never dies,
    But lends a lustre to the red
    Of the flower that blooms above the dead
    In Flanders Fields.

    And now the Torch and Poppy Red
    We wear in honor of our dead.
    Fear not that ye have died for naught;
    We'll teach the lesson that ye wrought
    In Flanders Fields.

    1. Here are some ways to clean costume jewelry:

      Mild soap and water
      Mix warm water with a few drops of gentle soap, like dish soap or baby shampoo. Use a soft toothbrush or cotton swab to gently clean the jewelry. Rinse thoroughly and dry with a lint-free cloth.

      White vinegar
      Mix vinegar and water, then mist or dip the jewelry in the solution. Pat dry, or leave the jewelry in the mixture for a couple of minutes if it still smells.
      Jewelry polishing cloth
      A jewelry polishing cloth can be used to clean costume jewelry.
      Boiling water
      Boiling water can be used to clean hard metal jewelry. The heat loosens dirt, which can then be wiped away. Do not use boiling water for pearls or gemstones.
      Microfiber cloth
      A damp microfiber cloth can remove smudges and grime without scratching. A dry microfiber cloth can be used to dry and polish.

      Avoid using harsh chemicals, like ammonia, or household cleaners, as they can damage the jewelry. Toothpaste is also not recommended, as it can damage diamonds, gemstones, gold, and silver.
      After cleaning, make sure to dry the jewelry thoroughly before putting it away.

  74. A pushy Par Four!

    Wordle 1,223 4/6
    ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
    ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. I began to think they’d made a mistake and repeated yesterday’s answer.

      Wordle 1,223 4/6

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

      1. Know what you mean, Sue, I thought that as well at one point – but I thought I was doing yesterday's puzzle!

    2. Posted earlier, but a birdie today.

      Wordle 1,223 3/6

      ⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜
      ⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      3. Well done! Me, oooh could have been, should have been. But wasn't

        Wordle 1,223 4/6

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

      4. Well done! Me, oooh could have been, should have been. But wasn't

        Wordle 1,223 4/6

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

    3. A Bogey here. I had a sense of Deja vu at line three and mis-guessed line 4 so a Birdie missed by lack of care.

      Wordle 1,223 5/6

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

    4. You're slipping Rene, giving the rest of us a chance…. Alas, same as for me!

      Wordle 1,223 4/6

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

    1. I'm no fan of Trump the man, but I hope he wins so the rampaging nutjob Left go into meltdown and Starmer is forced to grovel.

      If I were Trump I'd confront his election fiddling directly and make him kneel before me in apology.

  76. 395265+ up ticks,

    We have a first, we have a first,

    Dt,

    Catherine Pepinster
    No country holds their elderly in greater contempt

    2. I haven't been on here much today, I accidently drank a bottle of invisible ink and I've been hours in A&E waiting to be seen.

      I'll get me bandages…

      1. My mum used to have a jar of 'vanishing cream' in her make-up bag. I used to dream of rubbing it all over my awful dad in the hope that he'd vanish!

    3. Bugger, Spikey.

      I hope not. I would be very distressed if mine shrank!

      As a black woman acquaintance once told me: "You ain't had it right, till you've had it WHITE!"

          1. Hahaha!

            There once was a fellow from Kent
            Whose knob was exceedingly bent
            To avoid all the trouble
            He put it in double
            But instead of him coming, he went!

  79. oops.

    I posted back to you to make it easier to see my post. Sorry. Don't want to waste your time. I often don't watch the videos for the same reason.

          2. But the difference between us is that I have wisdom teeth, we'd all be shocked if you had any wisdom…

          4. I did. It’s a pity it seems to have gone down hill.
            I am a great fan of a local pub but hesitate to recommend it for fear of a bad review from you, but if you are ever in Tunbridge Wells you might enjoy the
            Mount Edgcumbe.
            The staff are very attentive, it’s a dog and child friendly venue, and we find the food and drink choices to be excellent.
            In summer there are pleasant outside areas.

            https://www.themountedgcumbe.com/

          5. Thanks. I don’t give everywhere a poor review but if you can’t get steak right in Covent Garden then there is no hope.

  81. Reeves: Britain cannot afford to pay Commonwealth reparations demands
    Chancellor appears to rule out any engagement with countries’ leaders on the issue
     https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/10/24/rachel-reeves-commonwealth-reparations/

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6ba01b5d6d7e3fa0528b3b877a855ae00a7692dd5c5b81ba4e38d2da4d3229e2.jpg

    I can't afford to pay my electricity bill is NOT the same as saying that I do not admit that I owe it in the first place.

    No – Reeves is leaving the door open saying she can't afford it now – but who knows maybe she will pay it at some time in the future.

    I would not believe a word this deplorable woman says.

    1. Reeves: Britain cannot afford to pay Commonwealth reparations demands

      Wrong response. It should be "If we were the wealthiest nation in the world we still wouldn't pay. Bugger off."

    2. The Mustelidae are far too nice a family to be compared to Lammy, shame they have a bad reputation.

        1. His name was Mammy originally, but he got fed up with people doing Al Jolson impressions towards him, so he changed it by deed poll to Lammy – he thought that sounded better than Nammy…….

    3. We Cannot afford to pay reparations so we will borrow what is being asked for!

      Only a few billion? Trudeau has promised over 40 billion to first nations for children's education. An offer the first nations rejected.

  82. The Borrowers
    Just heard Rachel Reeves saying that she will alter the Fiscal Rules to allow her to borrow an additional £50billion (just like that!). But of course she will institute a very careful system of auditing so that these large Capital projects, paid for by the Taxpayers will return good value for the money. What a novel and unusual idea.

    I thought about CCS (Carbon [Dioxide] Capture and Storage) at a planned £22bn and wondered HOW to determine if it was value for money. It will certainly be value for the winning big firms who will be handing in wet-finger quotes for a project that has never been done before in the UK.

    We are already borrowing billions to hand out to countries like India which CAN (or at least DOES) carry on a Space Programme. Madness!

    1. Only the Labour mind can think that a company spending 100bn and expecting 300bn in return from taxes is investment.

  83. Lammy is supporting slave reparations for some countries in the CommonWealth. Stadtler, a commenter in the Spectator, posted the following:

    Somewhere I was invited to share this, so here you are

    What was life like for 99% of ordinary people in Britain at the time of slavery and after its abolition?

    Progressive identity politics makes an explicitly generalised critique of the collective racial guilt of white people (‘whiteness’) and British institutions that need to ‘decolonise’ to atone for historical sins. How accurate is this theory of collective racial responsibility and white privilege?

    Did people have the vote in the time of slavery?

    First, it should be noted that universal suffrage did not exist in Britain until 1928. The Representation of the People Act of 1918 extended suffrage by abolishing men's property qualifications and enfranchising women over 30 who met minimum property qualifications. Regardless of property qualifications, all women were given the right to vote in 1928. In early-19th-century Britain, practically nobody had the right to vote. A survey conducted in 1780 showed that the electorate in England and Wales consisted of 214,000 people, less than 3% of the total population of approximately 8 million at the time.

    In Scotland, 4,500 men (out of a population of more than 2.6 million) were entitled to vote in parliamentary elections. As such, and reflecting on what we explored above, Britain was not a democracy.

    The British population did not ‘vote’ for the Empire or transatlantic slavery—they had no say whatsoever. Indeed, even on a much smaller level, many of the sailors within the Royal Navy were effectively violently kidnapped into it with the practice known as Impressment by what became known colloquially as the Press Gang. Press gangs used physical force and violence to kidnap men to serve on the Navy’s ships and were so widespread that in its declaration of war against the British in 1812, the US government cited, in part, the Navy’s use of impressment as a cause of the war when it kidnapped over 15,000 US sailors to bolster their numbers during their Napoleonic Wars with France.

    What was life like for the vast majority of people in Great Britain at the time of Slavery?

    Second, the conditions for most of the British population in the 1800s and beyond were often nasty, brutish, and short. In 1841, the average man's life expectancy was a mere 40 years old.

    Child Labour

    Child labour was common. In 1838, following thunderstorms, a stream overflowed into a ventilation shaft of the Huskar mining Colliery in Silkstone. 11 girls aged from 8 to 16 and 15 boys between 9 and 12 years of age died. Following media coverage in London, an enquiry was held by Lord Ashley. His findings contain harrowing details. Eight-year-old Sarah Gooder was a trapper, a job that often went to the youngest in mine families and whose job would be to sit in total darkness, often for up to 12 hours, and to open wooden trap doors to allow fresh air into the deep mines. Bravely, she states that the job “does not tire me, but I have to trap without a light, and I'm scared. I go at four and sometimes half past three in the morning and come out at five and half past (in the afternoon)”.

    Often women would also work deep in the mines. Betty Wardle, who had worked in the mines since the age of six, told the enquiry that “"I had a child born in the pits, and I brought it up the pit shaft in my skirt." The last chimney sweep, ‘climbing boy’ died in 1875. George Brewster was only 11 years old when he became trapped in a former Victorian asylum in Fulbourn, Cambridgeshire. Brewster’s mother died when he was very young, and in what was a common practise for thousands of children in Victorian England, was sold by his impoverished family into an ‘apprenticeship’.

    The Workhouses

    In the East End slums of Victorian London (where my own family come from), disease and poverty were rampant. The workhouses and poorhouses contained ‘surplus’ populations and those too impoverished to support themselves. Designed to be a place of last resort for people unable to support themselves, the conditions in the workhouses were often harsh and bleak. In what were often little more than prisons, inmates were fed gruel (a watery porridge) and sometimes spent up to 16 hours a day on stone breaking or picking apart old rope. Modelled on Victorian prisons, workhouse inmates unrolled individual strands of rope to produce oakum used to caulk ships. It has been estimated that about 6.5% of the British population may have been contained in workhouses at any given time.

    In short, the vast majority of the population in Britain at the time of Transatlantic slavery and after its ending were desperately poor and lived in conditions where disease, hunger and poverty were rampant. The vast majority were dead at 40 years old. Britain was not a democracy, and nobody voted for slavery or the empire. It was a choice made by the ruling classes of Great Britain. As we have examined above, the maintenance of that Empire came a great cost to the largely impoverished population of the UK, including the compensation paid to the slave owners. Slavery, colonisation, and imperial domination do not belong to any state, civilisation or race of people, and its manifestation has been the norm throughout human history.

    Slavery was ended by the efforts of ordinary Brits.

    The abolitionist movement in Britain, which sought to end the transatlantic slave trade and slavery in the British Empire, was supported by a diverse group of people from various social classes, most notably ordinary people, including factory workers and artisans, who saw slavery as an injustice and were motivated to speak out against it. One of the key ways in which working-class people supported the abolitionist movement was by participating in boycotts of slave-produced goods, such as sugar and tobacco. These boycotts were organised by groups like the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade and the Association for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery. They were designed to put economic pressure on slave-holding countries and industries. Working-class people also participated in protests and petition campaigns and contributed money to support the cause.

    This puts the reparations movement and the broader progressive culture warriors into perspective. The invocation of whiteness and its associated concepts, such as white privilege, is factually inaccurate and morally repugnant. It blames all white people, the vast majority of whom are descendants of those who lived desperately poor lives, for the actions and choices of a tiny aristocracy and ruling class, many of whom continue to enjoy astonishing privileges today. Indeed, our most elite institutions often take the privately educated children of these same elites, who often champion the decolonial critique that conveniently elides their socio-economic privileges with an undifferentiated white ‘other’. When called to do so and motivated by the moral repugnance of slavery, those same ordinary people, whose descendants are now castigated today, acted to help end slavery as part of a wider abolition movement.

    Many aspects of the progressive culture war are part of a larger class war. The fact that these ideas now enjoy such comprehensive purchase amongst those who now run British institutions is shameful. How did identity politics and broader wokery become so prevalent? Where did it come from to enjoy such cultural and political power today?

    I would like to add to Stadtler's comment that according to the Global Slavery Index, 1 in 150 people in the modern world are slaves today. Perhaps eradicating this should be the aim, for all countries.

    1. They never stop moaning.
      If they are or were so unhappy they could easily have moved back to be amongst their ancestors.
      But really can't be bothered.

      1. They are addicted to our benefits. I suspect the vast majority of the vocal, antagonistic and violent criminal ones have never worked.

    2. This is a repeat post vut it's worth posting again:

      All slave descendants from the West Indies have what I call slave privilege. If their enslaved ancestors had been dragged across the Sahara, they wouldn't be here, as the men were all castrated. If their ancestors had never been enslaved, they would have been born in some third-world dump in Africa.
      As their ancestors were taken across the Atlantic, their immediate forbears were able to settle in the UK, thus offering them the opportunity to prosper as they would never have done in the West Indies.
      That is their Slave Privilege! Bear that in mind, Mr Lammy.

    3. Again, it's not the chancers' fault.. it's the progressive liberals promoting this nonsense.

      Elon Musk asks school kids what they know about Thomas Jefferson Founding Father & author of the Declaration of Independence.. all they can tell him is "he owned slaves.. lots of them."

      It doesn't matter that the slavery issue was resolved & reconciled in UK 150 years ago.
      It doesn't matter that every civilisation used slavery for ooomph until the Brits invented the steam engine.
      It doesn't matter that Great Britain spent an astronomical fortune in ending the global slave trade after hundreds of petitions to Parliament led by William Wilberforce and his allies.. & because the RN ruled the waves.
      It doesn't matter that China still indulges.
      It doesn't matter that reparations claims are spurious and non-sensical.

      Capitalism and western civilisation has to be brought down by a thousand cuts.. and trans-clown world looks like succeeding.
      Don't forget looney progressive liberals only have to be successful once.

      1. It will fail. Socialism always does. The Left keep forcing poverty on people and keep assuming they'll be the ones in charge, yet fail to learn any lessons from their own incompetent history. Market capital economics is inevitable. It simply cannot be stopped.

        Put it this way – when the lights properly go out it'll be Lefties cowering in the dark not understand what's happening. They're too thick.

    4. If anybody can identify the author I would be grateful for the information. I knew the above but it has been articulated very eloquently here.

    2. Judging by the comments not many. Although there's always a few troughers and ignorant doom mongers not wanting their gravy train to end.

  85. Reeves faces backlash over move to spare public sector workers from pensions raid
    Chancellor’s ‘outrageous’ move could cost private sector extra £5bn
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/pensions/private-pensions/rachel-reeves-spare-public-sector-workers-pensions-raid/

    A BTL which is not actually practical but the philosophy behind it is sound enough

    PENSION APARTHEID IS THEFT.

    (All people should have access to the same pension schemes. If that is not possible then those working in the private sector should be paid substantially more than those working in the public sector to compensate for the fact that their pensions are so much worse)

    1. Her husband is a civil servant. Age 54, so presumably would like to keep the current arrangement for a few more years.
      Doesn't this make her rulings a conflict of interest?

        1. If there were, budgets would be far more carefully written and mostly favour tax cuts. After all, if it can be refused infinitely there's little value in writing one that impoverishes those who can kick it in your face – which we should be able to do.

    2. It's all conjecture, it could just be Tory badmouthing of the new progressive government – of course that is until the budget is released and this is just one of the hits on private industry.

    3. My government pension scheme of 8 years will return twice as much as my private pension over 20.

      I don't begrudge the civil service a decent pension. However the deal was that salaries were lower and the pension a reward for service. Now we have activists, wasters and nation ruiners who do nothing in a bloated, irrelevant, expensive bureaucracy. Salaries are higher that public sector ones.

      Even during my tenure the heads of department thought themselves grand viziers, equivalent to multinational companies, measurig their worth by budget and department status. In reality they were useless, skill free, incompetent pen pushers who said the right things to equally incompetent, skiill free pen pushers.

      Now we've a perverse situation where a grossly overtaxed private sector has it's earnings confiscated by an obese state to pay for inflated salaries and pension.

      The civil service is, in my experience of it, two organisations. A bloated, lazy, time serving bunch comprise two thirds and these are carried by the remaining third who know everything and do all the work. Disgustingly, because the lazy 2/3s spend all their time bum licking (when they're not window licking) they get the promotions.

      1. My father was in the foreign office and even though his contemporaries in the private sector had far greater incomes his pension was far better.

        When he died my mother continued to receive half his pension and this was enough to pay for her nursing home fees without having to touch her capital.

        1. When Mrs VVOF and I went to try to arrange a mortgage on our very first house, it was only the fact I was in the GPO as it was then and their pension scheme that swung it in my favour.
          I can remember the building society and it’s chief financial official’s words to this day, “I view of the fact of who you are employed with and are in their pension scheme, I think we can see our way to approve your application”.

        2. When Mrs VVOF and I went to try to arrange a mortgage on our very first house, it was only the fact I was in the GPO as it was then and their pension scheme that swung it in my favour.
          I can remember the building society and it’s chief financial official’s words to this day, “I view of the fact of who you are employed with and are in their pension scheme, I think we can see our way to approve your application”.

    1. Even the BBC could only come up with a list of non entities when they published their black history month rogues gallery.

      1. Yeah, on Channel 4. It was fiction. Same as pretending there were foreigners here prior to about the 70's.

    4. There aren't any. Why's that? Because Britain is a sodding white country, you spiteful, stupid wasters!

    5. Don't forget Hilaire Belloc's colourful peer:

      Lord Uncle Tom

      Lord Uncle Tom was different
      From what other Nobles are
      For they are yellow and pink, I think,
      But he was black as tar.

      He had his father's debonair
      And rather easy pride;
      But his complexion and his hair
      Were from his mothers side.

      He often mingled in debate
      And latterly displayed
      Experience of peculiar weight
      Upon the cocoa trade.

      But now he speaks no more. The Bill
      Which he could not abide,
      It preyed upon his mind until
      He sickened, paled and died.

  87. Éamon Ó Cuív, Grandson of Éamon de Valera (1916 veteran and crafter of the 1937 Constitution) voted “multiple genders” into law on night of shame in Dáil Éireann.

    Making a Law out of a delusion.

    2. Nahh. Sorry. There might be some discussion over the polling but the 'retarded' bit is invented.

    1. I'm not surprised. The bigotry and intolerance of the Left is staggering. They simply won't ever stop attacking those who oppose them. The Left have always sought to destroy those they hate.

  90. BBC at breaking point.. says Tim Davie.
    BBC to Cut 500 Jobs as Financial Deficit Grows..
    BBC News job losses aim to save £24m..

    And then.. drumroll..
    The BBC has announced it is to invest £80 million annually in creative diversity projects and raise representation targets in production teams from 20% to 25%.

    2. Then it can keep wasting money on dross and see costs rise and quality fall. I don't care.

      The only danger is if the BBC's repugnant funding moves from the appalling licence fee on to either general taxation or network connections.

    3. If they put out worthwhile programmes that people wanted to watch, they'd pay the licence fee. As the beeb doesn't, people like me have got rid of their TVs.

    1. He won't do jail time at all. He'll get away with it, as the muslim sewage always does. The state is just waiting for a time when they can safely squash the whole affair and let him off.

  92. "Trump is Hitler" seems to be the headline of the day

    Man, there are a lot of seriously mentally ill people out there.

  93. "Trump is Hitler" seems to be the headline of the day

    Man, there are a lot of seriously mentally ill people out there.

    2. They're frightened. They see their entire mindset being challenged by reality and cannot cope with it. They cannot cope with the reality that his policies are a positive for ce for the country. Worse, they cannot control him through the usual statist methods.

    3. There is a lot of seriously mentally ill people here in the UK as well, they keep voting in the Uniparty!

        1. Seems as if I too, am suffering with it. RAFA have advised me to contact my GP for help. Fat chance!

    3. In the UK those beautiful sculptures would be sprayed with graffitii and ruined almost the next day.

      1. They'd definitely turn green with algae too, and then possibly hosed just to damage the finish – result!

  95. BBC spent too much time covering death of ‘faded boy band singer’ Liam Payne, says Michael Buerk
    Veteran broadcaster claims the prominent coverage shows there is less of an ‘appetite for seriousness’ in journalism

    The BBC spent too much time covering the death of “faded boy band singer” Liam Payne, Michael Buerk has said.

    The veteran broadcaster, 78, suggested that prominent coverage of the One Direction singer’s death showed there is less of an “appetite for seriousness” in journalism at the corporation.

    Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme on the 40th anniversary of his iconic report on the Ethiopian famine, Buerk was asked how reporting had changed since the 1980s.

    “There was more of an appetite for seriousness,” he said.

    “It was only last week that I think this programme decided that the most important thing that had happened in the world was that a drugged up, faded boy band singer had fallen off a balcony.

    “Even the Ten O’Clock News, which is normally good on these things, thought it was the second most important thing that happened in the world.”

    Payne, 31, fell to his death from a third floor balcony in the CasaSur Palermo Hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina, last week.

    Tributes have flooded in for the singer since the news of his death, including from his former One Direction bandmates, his girlfriend of two years Kate Cassidy, and the music mogul Simon Cowell.

    Michael Buerk says the 24-hour news cycle has changed the way journalists find and produce stories Credit: Christopher Pledger
    Buerk, who hosts The Moral Maze on Radio 4, also said that modern television journalists spend more time “opinionising rather than finding out what the story is”.

    “I think it’s really different,” he said. “I’m looking at television in particular, you know, I mean, in those days, the Nine O’Clock News had an 11 million audience.

    “The Six O’Clock News had even more. So it was a shared experience. You knew that everybody in the country would have seen it.

    “We didn’t have the 24 hour news cycle, which means reporters spend a lot more of their time on hotel rooftops, opinionising rather than finding out what the story is.”

    He added: “I think there was a wider agenda or a wider appetite.

    “If you look at the news these days, they seem to be hammering away at the same half dozen stories, while whole continents go unmentioned for month after month.”

    Buerk has been at the BBC for 55 years and is the former presenter of the Nine O’Clock News.

    He told The Telegraph this week that the BBC did not “pay enough attention to its diversity in terms of opinion and class” and employed too many “middle-class arts graduates”.

    “It’s all very well that there are X per cent of Afro-Caribbeans or Pakistanis or Indian-ethnicity people or trans people or gay people or disabled people,” he said.

    “But, when you look at it closely, they’re all young, middle-class, arts graduates from Russell Group universities.”

    GC

    Gilbert Carswell
    3 min ago
    To be honest I had not heard of him til his passing. Of course very sad for those close to him. However, I was astounded at the volume of air time devoted to his demise. Completely over the top and again our national broadcaster led the charge.

    Comment by Richard Dastardly.

    RD

    Richard Dastardly
    7 min ago
    God the news was boring then.

    Comment by Green Fly.

    GF

    Green Fly
    13 min ago
    Not just the BBC, Michael.

    P.S. Why aren't you the BBC Director-General?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/24/bbc-covered-faded-boy-band-singer-liam-payne-michael-buerk/

    1. What does this analysis say about the Daily Mail then because they are still going on about this has been wannabe.

    2. When I first heard the news I said 'Liam who?' Then for days afterwards it was the top of the BBC News items. Ridiculous.

    3. Possibly a vain attempt to catch the 'yoof' attention. Wouldn't work, they get all their 'news' online.

    5. I've lost interest in serious news. It's largely dishonest. I'd rather hear about Liam Payne, despite my lack of interest in him. I don't want to hear about the US election. I don't want to hear about conflict in the Ukraine and Middle East. I don't want to hear about British politics. I don't particularly want to hear about celebrities, but rather that than the alternative. Better still, I'd rather just switch off news broadcasts once others have left the room and watch US sitcoms.

  96. So how is what Rachel Reeves is doing with her great reset of the fiscal rules any different from what Liz Truss did?

    1. It's different when they do it.

      Pretty much the mantra for the Left. The bit I find comical is the fervent belief that borrowing more money will reduce the debt.

        3. Brown kept saying that. It was bollox. He kept trying to insist government invested money, the public merely spent theirs.

          He made up a lot of tosh.

      2. 'Being of Sound Mind' has never been a necessary requirement for MPs, Cabinet Ministers nor Chancellors of the Exchequer.

          1. Sound Money invariably suffers in an environment of politicians and civil servants who are hard of hearing . . .

    2. Well, one was a set of bizarre and destructive moves from an economically illiterate individual – the other was a statement from Liz Truss…..

    3. Not much, except Truss had hardly any backing so fairly easy to get rid of. Reeves has Starmer/Gov't behind her, for now at least. More pressing…where's Lady Vic got to…..

    5. Bob3, the much maligned Liz Truss' economic plans with the help of her original Chancellor were to encourage inward investment. Those of Rachel Reeves are encouraging money to flee OUT of the country.

        1. It's the seventies brain drain all over again. In return ("net" immigration) we get a lot of worthless dross.

          1. But the "worthless dross" will vote Labour.

            ……………..and that's the important part in this policy.

  97. Starmer and the Pope are on stage at Wembley Stadium, in front of a huge crowd.
    The Pope leans towards Starmer and says,
    “Do you know that with one wave of my right hand, I can make every one here go wild with joy. This joy will not be a single momentary display, but will go deep into their hearts and they'll forever speak of this day and rejoice.”
    Starmer replied, “I seriously doubt that! What, with just one wave of your hand? Ok go on then, show me.”
    So the Pope, clenched his fist and gave him a right hook and knocked him off stage.
    The crowd cheered and there was happiness throughout the Land!

  98. I'm a bit late tonight, lots of things happening this afternoon. Now had three glasses of very nice red wine. And a lovely chat with our neighbour who has just lost her 85 years old father. It's all so sad.
    Off to bed in 15 minutes. Off to 5 days with the family in the Cotswolds tomorrow. Even a three ball game of golf Monday morning. Buggy for daddy of course.
    Good night all.

  99. From Coffee House, the Spectator

    Why the young are fleeing to Portugal
    Rory Sutherland00:00
    Rory Sutherland has narrated this article for you to listen to.
    The legendary music producer Rick Rubin once asked me why I had never moved to the United States. The answer, I think, comes down to an important trade-off: quantity of earnings vs quality of consumption.
    Historically, once you had a job, there was a limit to the lifestyle choices you could make
    Whereas the United States is certainly a better place to earn and accumulate money, Europe is, on balance, still a better place to spend it. (Which may explain why Rick asked me that question at his summer home in Italy.)
    This imbalance partly arises from a fundamental asymmetry in the transmission of ideas. Whenever anything good or interesting arises in the New World – freedom of religion, Breaking Bad, drive-through KFCs, nachos, Amazon, stem-cell therapy or cupholders – these things rapidly make their way eastwards across the Atlantic.
    Yet the same process does not happen in reverse. If you want great Indian restaurants, medieval cathedrals, M&S food, free healthcare, border castles, sausage rolls, country pubs, four weeks’ holiday, tea made with boiling water and drinking outdoors, then you’re stuck living here. Standard economics does not understand this distinction at all, since it assumes that quantity of money translates directly into quality of life.
    Most popular
    David Butterfield
    Decline and fall: how university education became infantilised
    
    Until recently, freshman economics students were sometimes asked whether they would prefer to earn $60,000 a year in a world where everyone else averages $40,000, or to earn $80,000 a year in a world where everyone else averages $120,000. When a sizeable majority picked the former, they were told they were ‘wrong’ to do so. This kind of nonsensical assertion suggests that modern economics should be considered as little more than a mathematicised religion, rather than a serious attempt to model human reality.
    People are now increasingly discovering that, beyond a certain threshold, you can improve your life far more easily by optimising your consumption than by maximising your earnings. The reason this is a recent discovery is that, historically, once you had a job, there was a limit to the lifestyle changes you could make. Not least because you couldn’t move anywhere else. If you earned money in London you lived in London, spent money in London and paid tax in the UK. (If you were under 40, the worst part was probably not the tax but the ruinous cost of accommodation.)
    Government has always pandered to the super-wealthy because it was accepted that such people could leave the country in pursuit of lower taxes and sunshine. The rest of us, it was assumed, couldn’t move anywhere else. But that is no longer true of the talented young, for whom the opportunity to work from anywhere may soon be the single most important factor in their career decisions.
    A banking salary in London is inarguably better than a publishing salary in London. But what happens when the choice is between £120,000 in London and £80,000 in Portugal? Not quite so easy now, is it? After all, whose social media feed do you really envy? The talented coder hanging out with tanned kite-surfers, or the person in a suit in a Canary Wharf All Bar One drinking with the Fixed-Income Trading Desk before heading home to Muswell Hill in the dark?
    There have always been cities which have cunningly exploited the super-rich and their mobility. The Riviera and now Dubai are purpose-built for this. But what the Portuguese are doing is ingenious. They are trying to attract the talented and mobile young. Not only with visas, but with proposals to dramatically cut tax rates for people under 35. It is inevitable that a few other countries will follow this route. We need to consider the risk that Britain will soon face a new kind of migration crisis – this time in the opposite direction.

  100. from Coffee House, the Spectator

    Farage: ‘Ludicrous’ for Labour to damage Trump relationship
    Steerpike24 October 2024, 10:41am
    Sir Keir Starmer’s lot have hardly had an easy start in government, what with the cronyism rows, freebie fiasco and frockgate. Now the Prime Minister is dealing with a backlash from one of the presidential candidates, after Labour activists flew stateside to canvas for Kamala Harris. This week, Donald Trump’s campaign even complained about the matter to the Federal Election Commission – alleging that the volunteering by Labour party members, alongside the reported contact between senior party figures and the Harris campaign, was ‘illegal foreign campaign contributions and interference’. Crikey.

    Trump ally Nigel Farage hasn’t been shy on the matter, insisting last week that ‘this is direct interference by the governing Labour party’. And this morning on Times Radio, the Reform leader was pulling no punches, fuming that seeing the Labour lot campaign for Kamala was ‘not good politics’ or ‘grown up’. Farage added scathingly:

    Trump actually is a very forgiving person – but it takes a little bit of time. It makes no sense for a British government to get involved openly backing a candidate with less than a fortnight to go before the American elections, especially if Trump wins. It is not good diplomacy, it is not good politics, it is not grown up.

    Don’t hold back Nige! And quizzed on whether Trump would forgive Sir Keir’s crowd if he were to win the election, the Clacton MP replied: ‘Ultimately, but maybe not for a bit. And why get the relationship off to a bad start? It is ludicrous.’

    The PM insisted on Wednesday that his relationship with Trump has not been ruined, stating that he had in fact ‘established a good relationship’ with the presidential candidate. Good heavens. If this is what a good relationship looks like, Mr S would hate to see what happens when Starmer thinks he’s fallen out with someone…

    Listen to more on Americano:

    2. I assume all the visitors paid their own way then, for the flights, hotels, food etc, etc. As 2TFG Starmer says they went of their own free will? So none of them will be claiming expenses for however long they were out there?

  101. – If Trump wins the election will he be able to extradite Labour politicians under Blairs deal to face trial for trying to interfere in their sovereign elections?

    3. I wish they'd stop smoking just outside an exterior door. The smoke just blows back indoors.

  103. Well, chums, 10 pm approaches, and with it a trip up the stairs to Bedfordshire. So Good Night all, sleep well, and I hope to see you all tomorrow.

  105. I have just been to see Geoff Hurst interviewed by Brian Moore. Hurst has a book out. He is on air tomorrow with Good Morning Britain, apparently. I really enjoyed the interview. The past is a different country; people just got on with it.

  106. Lisa Nandy, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sports, wants “to put (football) clubs up and down the country on a sound financial footing.” Yes, you read that right, wants to help “to put clubs up and down the country on a sound financial footing.”

    What an absolute joke! HMG can’t put anything on a sound financial footing. Why can’t the bloody government keep its nose out of things. All it means is another quango, Football Regulator, interfering while at the same time paying salaries to more bloody snivel serpents with guaranteed super pensions and, no doubt, free tickets to matches. God help us all.

    1. Labour's regulator will destroy English football

      Starmer's Government has taken a bad Tory proposal and turbocharged it. The fans will pay the price

      David Frost – 24 October 2024 – 6:14pm

      Another week, another new regulator. Last week it was the Fair Work quango created by Angela Rayner's plans to clog up our labour market. This week, we discover the new souped-up football regulator, a bad Tory idea made worse in Labour's new Football Governance Bill that landed in Parliament today.

      I know, dear reader, you may think football should stay on the sports pages. But bear with me. It's a parable for our times. "The government is the solution to every problem."

      The calls for government regulation began with the financial collapse of Bury FC in 2019. But the idea was turbo-charged by half a dozen of England's leading clubs attempting to set up a new European Super League in 2021. That project collapsed too, but not before Boris Johnson had asked a Conservative MP, Tracey Crouch, to conduct a "fan-led review" of English football.

      This whole saga gets not a word in Boris's memoirs, which shows you how much he really cared about it. But the train was now in motion. Under the leadership of Ms Crouch – a self-declared "compassionate conservative" whose principal achievement seems to have been resigning in protest against inadequate controls on gambling – it was always clear what the destination would be: more state regulation and control. And so it proved. Her proposals for a new football regulator finally reached Parliament in the dying days of Rishi Sunak's government – and expired with it.

      They've now been resurrected. Under the new Bill, the regulator gets the power to intervene on proposals to move stadiums, on the distribution of funds between leagues and clubs, on ticket prices, and – as this is a Labour Bill – on diversity and inclusion. All this will bring further cost, complexity, bureaucracy, and intrusion. This mission creep shows how dangerous it is for Conservatives to constantly drift Left and concede ground to Labour. The train the Tories started running has gone well beyond its planned destination; it would have been better not to put it on the tracks at all.

      Why do so many people want a football regulator? It is clearly based on something many fans feel, which is that their club is special, rooted in the community, yet perpetually vulnerable. As Lisa Nandy puts it, "financial instability has meant loyal fans and whole communities have risked losing their cherished clubs as a result of mismanagement and reckless spending". She wants to put "fans back at the heart of the game", and help "to put clubs up and down the country on a sound financial footing."

      I'm not persuaded. You'd think from Lisa Nandy that English football clubs were crashing and burning as fast as Iranian drones over Israel. In fact, most English football clubs have been around a very long time, often well over a century, and few ever go bust permanently. This makes football very unusual as an industry, but not in the way Nandy suggests.

      Moreover, a regulator was not needed to sort out the original problems that caused the fan-led review. Bury FC was bought out and resurrected, if now in the league's nether regions. The club I follow, Derby County, had its own near-death experience but survived and is prospering. The European Super League never happened. All these things occurred in the normal way, under normal rules, with governments exerting reasonable leverage, but without a quango stepping in.

      The problem with a permanent regulator is that over time it substitutes its own judgment for that of those running the actual industry. We've seen this in other areas, most notably finance. Keeping the regulator happy becomes a top priority, and firms become reluctant to cross it because it has so many different ways of making their life difficult. The same will happen to football clubs.

      There will also be more mission creep. It's hard, in practice, for ministers to distance themselves from a so-called independent regulator – after all, they set it up, and they can always change its rules. So the government becomes responsible for everything that goes wrong, and expects to have the powers to deal with these things. And gradually everyone starts to focus on lobbying the regulator rather than running the industry. I predict now that, over time, this will weaken the English game, particularly the Premier League.

      Satisfying government officials will become more important than making money or keeping supporters happy. I know many supporters will say this doesn't happen now. Maybe so. But be careful what you wish for. When officials have the final say, it tends to be their preferences that prevail. And if you think football clubs are inflexible and secretive, wait till you've spent a bit of time dealing with government.

      It's all so unnecessary. The Premier League is a genuine British national asset and a source of real soft power. It won't be the same when it's under the thumb of the Football Directorate of DCMS.

      Yes, football clubs get things wrong. So do governments, and it's a lot harder to correct them when they do. English football – clubs, players, fans –

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/24/labours-regulator-destroy-english-football-premier-league

      Bury's resurrection is a story in itself, involving a breakaway club and a big row over the ownership of the ground and who the 'real' supporters were. And they're not in the lower reaches of the league. To most people that is the Football League but 'new' Bury are five promotions away in the North-West Counties League, playing the likes of West Didsbury & Chorlton, Litherland REMYCA, Charnock Richard and FC Isle of Man.

  109. Evening, all. Very late on parade because I had yet another meeting and the journey there and back was a bit of a nightmare. For a start, the new satnav (spit!) send me miles out of the way and then I couldn't find the place in the dark (I'd never been before). On the way back the road I'd come along was closed so I had to detour for miles, following the diversion signs. What should have been a relatively simple journey took me ages, going through dark, narrow, country lanes with no road markings and no signposts, facing huge tractors coming in the opposite direction with lights glaring.

    3. If you have a mobile phone try Waze. Tends to have updated roadworks/accidents etc and will reroute you automatically.

        1. You can always rest it on the seat next to you and turn the volume up. Just a thought.

          1. I am slightly hard of hearing, so if there’s any background noise I find it difficult. Plus I like to see the map.

  110. IvI've just watched QT -it's the first episode I've ever seen with a right wing audience,

  111. Goodnight, all. Didn't get much sleep last night (and had to be up early this morning) so before I fall asleep at the keyboard, I'm signing off.

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