Wednesday 26 February: The Government must get serious now about coronavirus quarantine

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its comments facility (now reinstated, but not as good as ours),
Intelligent, polite, good-humoured debate is welcome, whether on or off topic. Differing opinions are encouraged, but rudeness or personal attacks on other posters will not be tolerated. Posts which – in the opinion of the moderators – make this a less than cordial environment, are likely to be removed, without prior warning.  Persistent offenders will be blacklisted.

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/02/26/lettersthe-government-must-get-serious-now-coronavirus-quarantine/

650 thoughts on “Wednesday 26 February: The Government must get serious now about coronavirus quarantine”

  1. Good Morning all, awake early today and the very first unbidden thought that crossed my tiny mind was the realisation that I have no recollection of seeing turkey eggs for sale, anywhere, ever.

      1. Wotcha – having had time to investigate this apparent anomaly I find its purely down to economics, the eggs taste good but the lay rate is low and overheads preclude any worthwhile investment, as far as the meat is concerned I find it a reasonable vehicle for Branston Pickle or as protein padding in a curry or suchlike.

    1. Since the article is ‘premium’ I have not read it all.

      How is this mass screening to take place? Home visits? Or will patients be summoned to GPs’ surgeries & Health Centres? I would refuse to participate in the latter.

          1. ‘Morning, Anne, with a bit of luck it was one of the XR breed, demonstrating Darwin’s theory of selective extinction.

        3. Good morning, Minty.

          I read ‘Railway Waggons’ and then misread ‘examination’
          …… as extermination!!
          Word association!

      2. Our GP surgery website starts with a big notice saying don’t come to the surgery, just stay at home & a phone no. for advice for anyone who thinks they may have coronavirus.

  4. Delhi clashes: 20 killed as Hindu and Muslim groups clash

    Rioting has continued in Delhi for the third consecutive night, with reports of Muslim homes and shops being targeted by violent mobs.

    Twenty people have been killed so far in the deadliest violence the Indian capital has seen in decades.

    The clashes first broke out on Sunday between protesters for and against a controversial citizenship law.

    But they have since taken on communal overtones, with reports of people being attacked based on their religion.

    Photographs, videos and accounts on social media paint a chilling image of a city on the edge. There are reports of arson, of groups of men with sticks, iron rods and stones wandering the streets and of Hindus and Muslims facing off.

    1. There are no Racists or Religious Bigots in India! It is a land of Equality and Diversity!

    4. One wonders why there are so many Muslims in India. Wasn’t the whole idea of partition in 1948 to separate potential fighting factions?

      Perhaps they don’t want to face the desolation of Pakistan or Bangladesh.

      1. Expand their territory to India as well?
        And isn’t there a belief among Muslims that any territory that they once held is Islamic forever, e.g. Jerusalem, and Spain, etc?? India was once under Islamic control, so they’d see it as their land in perpetuity.

  6. Johnson promises ‘overhaul’ of post-Brexit foreign policy as he launches review

    he UK is to “overhaul its approach to foreign policy” as part of a government review, Downing Street has announced.

    No 10 says insights from internal and external experts will challenge “traditional Whitehall assumptions”.

    The diplomatic service, tackling organised crime, the use of technology and the procurement of military supplies will all be looked at.

    The review will also seek “innovative ways” to promote UK interests while committing to spending targets.

    2. This is the British Disease! That Politicians and Diplomats are more capable and know better than those who earn their living at whatever!

  7. Flood defences breached in Worcestershire town after days of holding out against rising River Severn

    Flood defences have finally been breached in the Worcestershire town of Bewdley after holding out for days against the rising levels of the River Severn.

    The emporary barriers, which were erected in the wake of Storm Dennis, gave way to the rising waters late on Tuesday night.

    Locals have been warned of the overtopping and emergency workers battled overnight to try and limit the damage.

    1. How exactly do you limit damage when the cause of that damage is many decades of neglect?

      At the moment surely the most obvious approach is to plant trees and build a reservoir nearby which can fill it/take overspill on demand?

  8. Leyton stabbing: Man arrested on suspicion of murder after woman, 35, found dead in east London

    A man has been arrested on suspicion of murder after a woman was found dead in east London with suspected stab wounds.

    Metropolitan Police officers were called to a property in Magnolia Close, Leyton, at around 11.50am on Tuesday to reports of concern for residents’ welfare

    A 35-year-old woman was found at the address with what police believe were stab wounds.

  9. Peckham stabbing: Two men and dog knifed as brawl breaks out in south-east London

    Two men and a dog have been stabbed after fight broke out in south-east London.

    Police and paramedics were scrambled to the scene in Commerical Way, Peckham, to reports of a fight on Tuesday night.

    Two men, believed to be in their twenties, were found suffering knife wounds following the violent scenes which unfolded at about 11pm.

    A dog also received stab injuries in the attack.

    One of the injured men was rushed to hospital. His condition was not immediately known.

    1. Knife wounds. Cripes alive. Isn’t it time the police instituted a curfew around there and arrested anyone who was out? Or would that cause block wars?

  10. Norwich train station: Tragedy as person ‘climbs on train roof and gets electrocuted’

    This coupled with late running engineering works a broken rail and endless train faults means there is not much of service currently on the Greater Anglia lines

    Police and Norfolk Fire Rescue crews rushed to the station at just before 2am. Emergency services remain at the scene in East Anglia and British Transport Police have confirmed someone has died. British Transport Police tweeted: “We remain on scene at #Norwich station following a fatality earlier this morning.

    “The station is currently closed while enquiries into the incident continue.

    “Please check with @greateranglia before you travel. Thank you for your patience.”

    Passengers are being told to expect disruption until 11am.

        1. It’s one of the arguments used in India against electrifying their railways, that so many climb onto the roof.
          Here in Norway, we get about one wazzock a year climbs onto the train roof and grabs the conductor for support.
          Tidies up the gene pool, so it does.

        2. It’s one of the arguments used in India against electrifying their railways, that so many climb onto the roof.
          Here in Norway, we get about one wazzock a year climbs onto the train roof and grabs the conductor for support.
          Tidies up the gene pool, so it does.

      1. There’s a last train from Liverpool Street station at 23:30 that gets into Norwich at 01:40.

        Perhaps someone tried to avoid paying their fare by climbing on the roof…..

  11. Just listening to the official treatment of cases where unjust welfare sanctions (to meet quota targets) have led to the suicide of claimants. In cases where the Government might be embarrassed by the findings of coroners, these reviews should first be denied to any surviving relatives, and then destroyed under GDPR, so that justice is not seen to be done. These “dole scroungers” are untermensch anyway and nobody loves them and normal people are glad to see them dead, so we are led to believe.

    It’s the new way of doing things, I suppose. Saves Government being embarrassed by corporate manslaughter. I expect all unlawful killing cases will soon be dealt with this way, and police can concentrate instead on hate speech such as homophobia, misogyny, islamophobia, antisemitism, and general sexism and racism. And of course making inappropriate comments and looking at inappropriate images online.

    .

  12. Met Office weather warnings EXTENDED: ENTIRE UK under snow and ice warning

    Given it is forecast for today there is a chance they may be right. The temperature has dropped. Probably unlikely to settle during the day at least in the South

      1. More evidence we are still in winter and whilst snow at least in the South is not common it is equally not rare but for the BBC a single flak of snow qwill be confirmation of climate change

    2. It’s been bright & sunny all morning here, or at least since I was woken up by the postman at 7, but I’ve just been interrupted in my wood chopping & stacking by a very cold rainshower.
      I have noted cars coming down the hill with snow on their rooves.

  13. 316661+up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    Looks like old dicko is saying that facial recognition is the way to go.
    Which will suit many in, say the campaign to bring enlightenment, submission, legalise FGM & paedophilia
    etc via the islamic ideology enrichment take over.
    Any crook, potential terrorist worth his salt will don a burka & in a short space of time the burka will become
    compulsory for ALL.
    This of course will make all CC cameras defunct and the
    police as we use to know them being relegated to a local chimney watching force, ( odious smoke clockers).

    An overhead view of these Isles will resemble, and far outnumber the King Penguins of South Georgia.

  14. Morning

    SIR – You report that Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, now advises that, in the interests of containing the spread of Covid-19, “people flying home from any areas quarantined by the Italian government should self-isolate”.

    You also note in your advice that we should avoid public transport. However, in reality very many people arriving by air get straight on the Underground. The Government has to get serious about testing, restricting travel and quarantining people – or just acknowledge that it will give no more than advice on “containment”.

    This in effect means that the virus is likely to be extremely serious or fatal for very large numbers of people. In China, 14 per cent of cases were classed as “severe” and another 5 per cent were “critical”. It hardly needs pointing out that just 1 per cent of our population is over half a million people. The window for decisive action is rapidly closing.

    Professor Greg Philo

    Glasgow University

    1. Nope. It is perfectly clear, Professor, that the window of opportunity for making the UK safe closed several weeks ago.
      As of now, we can only wait and see how bad it gets. The Government will not close our border, conferences and sports gatherings will continue. Planes will fly in and out carrying people from everywhere and anywhere. The “tests” only detect the active virus. The virus is transmittable for a week before the signs become apparent. Very few people will put themselves in quarantine. They will pop out to the shops, or nip into work to finish something urgent.

      1. The “window of opportunity” probably closed before the Chinese admitted they had a problem.

      2. To be fair, one of my friends is a judge for ping pong and the championships in Korea have been cancelled 🙂

      3. To be fair, one of my friends is a judge for ping pong and the championships in Korea have been cancelled 🙂

    2. Professor, don’t worry about Italy. Think illegal immigrants.

      As you can see from the BBC, the Government are willing to give residence without health checks to the many illegal immigrants from Iran.

      Where are the highest number of deaths from Coronavirus outside mainland China? Yes, in Iran.

      https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-50813246

      Your government, by not guarding Britain’s borders, is endangering your life and mine.

      1. Good morning Janet

        Spot on there , one would have assumed that ratcheting up our border security , and closing the Tunnel , halting air traffic , ferries etc.. We are an Island .. we warded off the Germans invading us .. we could have tried harder re this horribile virus.

        1. Politicians are not used to taking action in real time. They are incapable of it. They do not understand words like “urgent” and “exponential”. This is why the door to Covid-19 has been left wide open.

    3. SIR – The World Health Organisation must face the facts of a new viral pandemic. The current “isolate and contain” strategy has spectacularly failed in the context of global air and sea travel.

      No health service in the world can provide the intensity of care needed for isolation and hospital treatment for severe acute respiratory cases that are spreading throughout a population. Indeed, the first casualties will be among front-line staff, with the collapse in this country of the NHS.

      The new strategy must include a ban on all non-essential air and other international travel: tourism must cease. No new respiratory viral (“flu-like”) illnesses should be admitted to hospital. As there is no treatment for these other than bed rest, the greater good demands the protection of front-line staff.

      People most at risk – the elderly and those with chronic health conditions – must self-protect by avoiding all gatherings. If fatalities occur among children, schools may have to close.The crucial factor is the speed of spread. If we can slow it down, we stand a chance. Hence the importance of the above measures.

      Dr Richard Hurren

      Ferndown, Dorset

      1. The Government has listed these concerns for discussion in May…
        However March is Scottish Tourism Month. among the events planned is this:
        “The national tourism conference on 4/5th March 2020 is at Glasgow’s SEC.
        Scotland’s national tourism conference will be held this year on 4th and 5th March at Glasgow’s SEC featuring a host of global tourism experts and thought leaders who will share insights and inspiration on how Scotland will deliver its future tourism strategy vision of being the world leader in 21st-century tourism.
        We have a jam-packed 1.5 day programme, bringing together more international speakers than ever before, from the US, Iceland, The Faroe Islands, Holland, Belgium, and Ireland and of course some of the best homegrown talent to deliver inspiring and informative sessions. We are also delighted to announce that Nicola Sturgeon MSP, First Minister of Scotland will be joining us as we mark the official launch of Scotland’s future tourism strategy and headline actions.”

        Yes indeedy, let’s carry on attracting visitors even as UK children are being sent home from school to “self isolate”.

      2. It’s Cheltenham soon – I can’t see people avoiding that gathering (me included if my horse runs in the Foxhunters).

  15. Morning again

    SIR – I served for 22 years in the Royal Navy, the majority of those years as an operating technician/nurse.

    Along with others, our role could include “taking” the case, having responsibility for the security of swabs, instruments and suture needles and reporting accordingly to the surgeon. This would sometimes be when the surgeon would be going solo for the first time.

    I believe that the new surgeon felt more assured, knowing that they had assistance from someone who had a few of these procedures under their belt – but if things really became problematic, the consultant surgeon would be available.

    Philip C Reeves RN (retd)

    Northampton

    1. SIR – Under new NHS proposals, nurses are to be trained to carry out operations in order to slash waiting times (report, February 22). Between October and December last year, NHS England recorded 23, 503 cancelled operations (up 3,337 on the same period in 2018).

      While the Government’s ambition to deal with surgical waiting times should be welcomed, training nurses to perform operations will not help.

      The current problem has been caused in part by clinicians’ reluctance to undertake extra work because of changes to the taxation of pension contributions. This has been particularly noticeable in anaesthetics, where shortages in consultant staff had been covered by extra duty payments. The reluctance of anaesthetists to undertake extra work has led to the cancellation of routine (and in some cases cancer) operations. This will continue whether a nurse or doctor is performing the operation until the issues relating to the annual allowance are addressed.

      In addition, there has been a failure by the NHS to plan for the recruitment of new theatre staff. This has been compounded by the difficulties in recruiting and retaining nurses.

      Training nurses to undertake surgical procedures will further accentuate the shortage of valuable nursing staff by taking them away from challenging areas such as emergency departments and hospital wards. It will also deny surgical trainees vital opportunities to learn and develop.

      Mark Davies FRCS

      Swansea

        1. Where are these nurses going to be found? It’s obvious the NHS are not trading nurses. Does that mean we are going to scour the world for them.
          Would be a bad idea if we had a Health Minister who knew hat they were doing. I won’t hold my breath on that happening anytime soon.

      2. Clearly it won’t only be waiting times they will be slashing if they are let loose in the operating theatre!

  17. SIR – Now that we are on our way out of the EU, perhaps we can take control of our “daylight saving” dates. It seems illogical that our clocks don’t “spring forward” until March 29, 14 weeks after the shortest day and closer to the summer solstice than the winter solstice.

    Maybe a better date would be the first Sunday in March.

    Anthony Booty

    Angmering, West Sussex

    1. Silly boy, Booty is conned by the Met Office’s decision that Spring commences on March 1st rather than at the equinox on March 21st.

    2. It would only seem illogical to those who do not enjoy the power of rational thought, such as you, Tone.

      To those of us with a full capacity of functioning brain cells it is only logical if we stop pissing about with clocks and retain them showing noon (i.e. midday) all year round, as clocks were first invented to do. There is no beneficial purpose, whatsoever, in putting clocks forward, but that would be beyond you, and your brigade, eh, Tone?

      2. Arguably, this country was at its most productive and confident during the Victorian era; no daylight saving then, but somehow we coped.

      3. Grizz, between you and me and the gatepost, Greta’s people are negotiating her fee for the Beeb doc and their official line is, “Greta has to think of her future”.

        1. Thanks, Sue,

          And “mum’s the word”.

          It really doesn’t surprise me as those handling her and those funding her are all cut from the same Globalist cloth. A sad indictment of our times, alas.

        1. GMT is the UK’s natural time zone and, as @bassetedge says, the ’68 to ’71 experiment was not popular.

          1. I can understand that those in the North hate having to relate to Greenlanders, Icelanders, Faroese, Scandies et al, but they manage to live with it and enjoy glorious, if briefer Summers than us.

        2. No matter how you fiddle with the hands of the clock, there is still only the same amount of daylight in a day.

        3. No matter how you fiddle with the hands of the clock, there is still only the same amount of daylight in a day.

        4. Tried that from 1968 to 1971. It was a nightmare, kids going to school in the dark wearing reflective armbands for the first time. In December it didn’t get light until about 10am really messed up our daily site surveys. And we still came home from work in the dark. It was hated by everyone and not just the mythical ‘Scottish farmers’ that everyone trots out.

          They couldn’t get rid of it quickly enough at the end of the experiment.

    5. Let’s just keep the clocks on nature’s time. The meridian runs through Greenwich so let’s stay on Greenwich Mean Time.

      1. 316661+up ticks,
        Morning Jbf,
        Maybe learn simple safety precautions learnt by rote as with tables would not go amiss, after all ring a ring of roses has stayed the course.

    2. Considering the reaction of the Chinese government, I’m of the opinion that there’s something they’re not telling us.

      1. The WHO has stated that the Chinese have performed well and that is why cases are tailing off there, it’s the rest of the world that is not controlling it as effectively.

      2. MHO is bursting over.
        There’s no doubt in my mind that this is a man made virus.
        Just call me an old septic 😕

    1. https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15514/international-migrants-day

      International Migrants Day by Judith Bergman

      The project of multiculturalism in Europe, including the integration of people from the Middle East and Africa, has fared extremely poorly until now and no amount of denial from the UN or the World Economic Forum, including leveling accusations of “hate speech” and “fake news” at its critics can alter that fact.

      Many migrants have made it clear that they have no wish either to contribute to, or become part of, the European societies into which they have migrated. Parallel societies… have sprung up all over Western Europe.

      In Germany, authorities believe that it will take decades to get rid of the Middle Eastern family crime clans that have spread their criminal activities throughout the country. Sweden also is reeling from the many shootings and explosions that migrant crime gangs are responsible for throughout the country.

      None of these grave issues was even hinted at by the UN’s and the World Economic Forum’s “experts” on migration in their statements on International Migrants Day. Instead, they encouraged states to clamp down on critics in the name of “hate speech”. What are they afraid of?

        1. He’s honed his running skills, either acting as a drug courier or legging it from the knife gangs.

          Sweden, learn to run or die.

      2. Never mind “International Migrants Day”.

        How about an “Indigenous-Europeans-Who-Don’t-Want-To-Be-Raped-Or-Murdered-By-Wogs Day”?

    1. The deep state only allows you near the levers of power if they’ve got something on you. Or so I’ve been told.

          2. In Germany the teapot on the table is placed on a stand in the middle of which there is one of those stunted candles to keep the tea hot for the 2nd cuppa.

    4. A2: Copper Trader / Futures . If the green blob get their way and we go all electric for heating and transport there would be a need to massively upgrade the existing distribution and domestic infrastructure, which I would guess would mean we would probably need as much copper as remains in the Earth and then some.

  22. The sun is shining in the office of Heinrich Kroll and Funeral Monuments. It is April 1923, and business is good. The first quarter has been lively; we have made brilliant sales ….

    Erich Maria Remarque – The Black Obelisk

    1. The things I learn on NOTTL
      If asked, the only book I could have named by that author is “All Quiet On The Western Front”.

    3. Reminds me of the scene I think in the film in Colditz where a German officer, through an interpreter calls for prisoners to volunteer to work for the Germans. After a moment of silence, a Frenchman steps forward and says: “I would rather work for 25 Germans than one Frenchman. The Officer asks what is his profession? “Undertaker” came the reply to uproarious laughter from the POWs…

          1. Well, she wears the headgear, he his very thin on top. And wears red socks. But I understand what you mean AA.

  24. Morning, Campers: links to 3 of today’s TCW articles.

    https://conservativewoman.co.uk/innocence-betrayed-the-evil-of-schools-where-drag-queens-take-over-storytime/?utm_source=TCW+Daily+Email&utm_campaign=8c8552c181-Mailchimp+Daily+Email&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_a63cca1cc5-8c8552c181-559682581

    https://conservativewoman.co.uk/oh-did-i-say-he-was-a-friend-i-meant-fiend/?utm_source=TCW+Daily+Email&utm_campaign=8c8552c181-Mailchimp+Daily+Email&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_a63cca1cc5-8c8552c181-559682581

    https://conservativewoman.co.uk/why-ditherer-charles-must-stand-aside-and-let-william-be-king/?utm_source=TCW+Daily+Email&utm_campaign=8c8552c181-Mailchimp+Daily+Email&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_a63cca1cc5-8c8552c181-559682581

      2. We’re all right for bog rolls as long as the coronavirus doesn’t over-activate the bowels.

    3. Why now? Heck, if we had decent infrastructure none of us would need to travel about anywhere nearly so much. Sadly far too many people think that ‘work’ means being in an office.

        1. SWMBO has her own cubby hole for an office and when junior’s not at school I’d rather be legoing with him than dealing with some of the twits I work with.

    4. I’ve still have 4 bottles of Chapel Down champagne in stock.
      I intend to go out in style: should I play ‘Rule, Britannia’ or ‘Jerusalem’ as I take my last glug?

      1. ♬I’m getting buried in the morning
        Ding dong the bells are going the chime
        Pull out the stopper!
        Let’s have a whopper!
        But get me to the church on time!♬

  26. Good morning all. Something amusing (?) or true to start the day.

    The Building Permit

    Some have asked what I’ve been doing in retirement.
    Well, I applied for a building permit for a new house.
    It was going to be 100 ft. tall and 400 ft. wide, with 12 gun turrets at various heights, and windows all over the place and a loud outside entertainment sound system.
    It would have parking for 200 cars and I was going to paint it green with pink trim.
    Then I was gonna hire some idiot to stand on top of it and SCREAM as loud as he could three or four times a day.
    The City Council told me: Forget it…AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN!
    So, I sent in the application again, but this time I called it a “Mosque”.
    Work starts on Monday. And here is the best part, it’s going to be tax exempt!

    I love this country. It’s the government that scares me.

  27. https://order-order.com/2020/02/26/ifs-predicts-borrowing-55-billion-higher-forecast-four-years-ago/

    Dear life. When you read things like this, especially the terrifying phrase ‘expected to raise’ then you realise how little understanding of economics these idiots have.

    What tax rises mean is unemployment. Nothing else. Increasing taxes on business means higher prices, meaning less is bought, less is made. It’s time to cut taxes. The state cannot continue to borrow. We cannot afford it. The big problems this country has can be traced back to government borrowing. It’s time to cut spending.

  28. Just a thought.

    Given that this is a ‘flu-like virus, has anyone been testing the ‘flu vaccines that we have been offered for many years now against it, on the off-chance that one of them might work?

    It would mean the vaccine coud be put straight into production/inoculation, because all the testing for human use has already been completed, as opposed to the likely delay needed for testing to release a new vaccine.

    1. I wouldn’t be surprised if statins were promoted to be effective against COVID-2019.
      They seem to be prescribed for most other things – it’s called repurposing.

  30. Two Ashford taxi drivers fined for refusing to take partially sighted passenger and support dog

    The person sought a ride from the Ashford International Train Station on the evening of March 21, 2019, but was refused by Jamshed Nasir of Oakland, Ashford.

    The dog-assisted person – whom the council has chosen not to identify – then asked Kemal Yalcin, of the town’s Ploughmans Way, who also declined to take them and left the passenger struggling to get home.

    Yalcin was fined £180, ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £30 and costs of £1,200, while Nasir was fined £270, ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £30 and costs of £1,200.

    Both drivers also had their taxi licences revoked by the council at a prior hearing and neither are appealing the decision.

    1. Nice little earner for the State but no compensation for the victim. The perpetrators are now collecting benefits for themselves, numerous wives and even more numerous children. Deport them all.
      Perpetrators 2 Victim 0.

    2. I know the person concerned in this matter. Whilst the facts are correct my suspicion is that there is more to the story. The chap is parially sighted and has had a Guide Dog for many years. He lives in the area and would not have been a stranger to the Taxi drivers.

  31. Link BBC TV licence to the number off repeats with lets say 20% repeats being acceptable level. Every 1% of repeats above that resulting in a 1% reduction in the licence fee so if 40% repeats in a year the next years licence fee would be reduced by 20% ( Revisited & similar type programs where they repeat the program but at a minute of two of new material on the end would count as repeats),, Repeats of repeats would result in a 1.5% reduction to the licence fee

    1. And a new army of snivel serpents to work it all out. Probably result in the licence fee increasing.
      Any other ideas?

    3. Morning, Bill!

      I hate to tell you this but repeats are not that cheap. Every time Dad’s Army is repeated it costs a fortune in writers and actors royalties but let’s face it, which would you rather watch, Dad’s Army or the present version of Dr Who?

      2. I assume there is hidden cost in the bureaucracy needed to keep track of the repeats airings; across hundreds – possibly – thousands of TV stations worldwide.

      3. I love Dad’s Army , I haven’t seen DR Who for decades , but Sunday’s offering was very hammy but the special effects were clever .. Moh thought I had lost my marbles watching it .. but it was escapism and very comical .. I was very irritated by the “By ‘eck” utterances by the woman DR Who , but on the whole , I could have hid behind the sofa in sheer fright , with delight!

      5. Actors dont get Royalties but what is termed Residuals(Sometimes refered to as a repeat fee) but for Dads Army they would have expired. The decedents off the writer of the program still get Royalties but that’s only about £1,500 per program

  33. Frankie & Benny’s and Chiquito plan to close up to 90 sites by the end of next year in another blow to Britain’s High Street

    The owner of restaurant chain Frankie & Benny’s has said it plans to close up to 90 restaurants by the end of next year.

    The decision by The Restaurant Group, which also owns Mexican chain Chiquito, comes after it closed 18 stores across the two brands in 2019.

    The closure plan comes amid a tough period for casual dining chains, with rivals such as Jamie’s Italian collapsing over the past year and Pizza Express struggling.

    1. Frankie and Benny’s have gone downhill.
      They used to do what they did perfectly adequately; that is no longer the case, plus they fell into the usual trap of opening too many outlets.

      1. Went to one of their restaurants yesterday, first time for years. Was good back then.
        Overpriced and not so good. Not many customers. Jamies and Pizza Express asked for it. The places that
        give good food and good service are always pretty full.

        1. You’re never going to get good food from somewhere that considers pizza as food in the first place.

          Vile things.

          1. From a proper Italian restaurant, non necessarily so.
            Better than greasy burgers in Frankie and Benny’s (soon to be R.I.P.)

          3. Not far removed from that but clever marketing at one time got people to pay £10 plus for one

          4. Not the way i have them…Coppadella, artichoke, boiled egg and wild mushroom, mozzarella and reduced marinara sauce. It’s called ‘cappricciosa’. Which suits my personality. Only eat them on holiday. None of that mass produced muck.

          5. Highly profitable though well except for these chains that just got to greedy. It costs almost nothing to make a pizza and a lot of the business is moving to home delivery and you dont need a fancy and costly high street shop for that

      2. And as for the Mexican chain, Chiquito, the heavy responsibility for its decline must lie squarely with Donald Trump.

        Since he started building his wall, it’s getting increasingly difficult to export tacos and burritos to the world’s gourmets.

      1. Steve Baker, Mark Francois and Jacob Rees-Mogg all sold out by not forcing Boris Johnson to go for a proper Brexit backed up with an electoral pact with the Brexit Party.

        How did Boris Johnson get away with not telling anyone before the election just what was in his ‘brilliant’ WA and how it differed from Mrs May’s capitulation WA? There are still a lot of questions that need to be answered and it is very far from sensible to think that Johnson can be trusted not to betray us once again.

        .

    2. We are not yet “out of the EU”. We’re still in transition (paying tribute and subject to all manner of controls) until 31st December this year.

  35. Singer Duffy ‘drugged, raped and held captive’

    It does seem a little odd that if she was kidnapped it was not reported to the police but who knows what the truth is ?

    3. Very odd way of dealing with a very serious situation. Its almost as if being drugged, kidnapped and raped is what one should expect these days, or is she trying to revive a career. Dunno.

      1. I dont know. I could understand her possibly not wishing to come forward about rape but Kidnap I find more difficult to accept and surely her friends and familiarly and people she worked wih would have reported her missing

        1. If this was-true as told, the press would have been all over it. I suspect abuse and control by someone close might be nearer to the truth.

  36. Metro Bank scales back expansion after heavy loss

    Metro Bank has reported a bruising pre-tax loss of £130.8m for 2019 after an accounting scandal, down from profits of £40.6m the previous year.

    It said it planned to cut costs and more than halve branch openings.

    The struggling High Street bank will slash new branch openings to 24 over the next three years from a planned 71.

    It said there would be no redundancies from the cuts and added that it would offer affected staff the opportunity to relocate to new back-office sites.

    Metro Bank’s new boss, Dan Frumkin, has described 2019 as a “challenging year”,

    1. Dan Frumkin seems to have his finger on the financial pulse, right enough. No wonder they made him “Boss”.

  37. In any normal world David Steele wouldn’t be “resigning and standing down” He would be in a cell awaiting trial for his complicity in protecting child rapists.
    A cynic might think the antic of the “Nick” farrago provide a very useful destruction of any other whisteblowers credibility
    From reporting it is clear that political figures interfered in police ivestigations back in the day to protect abusers,I suppose like Steele we may learn their names in 30 years time,or will it be 100 like Dumblane

    2. It’s amazing to reflect that someone claiming such naivete re. matters of sex had a key role in introducing legal abortion and the legalisation of homosexuality. I may add that his excuses (this was before Cyril became an MP) strike me as lame and rather mendacious.

  38. Meanwhile

    https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b792-20bd8d8fa069.storage.googleapis.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_desktop/public/inline-images/comic-1_0.jpg?itok=HYCB2k1J

    In a statement, the Home Office claimed:

    Disclosure would risk pre-empting decisions still to be made by ministers. In

    addition, the information could be misleading if made public and used

    out of context. We recognize that this topic in general and any insight

    and learning are matters of strong public interest, although it does not necessarily follow that it is in the public interest to disclose any specific information relating to it.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/uk-home-office-covers-huddersfield-child-rapists

      1. You beat me to it TB.
        If I remember correctly that’s what caused the separation/partition in 1947 between India and the Islamic regions.
        And it’s interesting to see how India has progressed since.

    2. We all know what is in the report.

      Ongoing systematic grooming and rape for 40 years by predominately Pakistani muslim men, in at least a dozen or more towns and cities.

      I wonder if any of these civil servants have young daughters and are disgusted with themselves.

      Come on Priti. Wield the axe.

      Good morning, Rik.

      1. Really, this would be a useful switch of workload for all those NHS surgeons at present giving “Trans” operations …. and the required end-gender here is NEUTER.

      2. They look a bit too sharp and rust free to give that really excruciating feel to the cut. Can’t be seen to be going soft.😎

      3. Is this the castration tool for rapists? Probably cuts too quickly. I would advocate a large, rusty hacksaw blade, holding the testicles in a mole grip for stability.

        Phew, makes the eyes water just writing it down but it might stop the rapist doing it again – if he lives.

        1. Especially effective if done in front of the local Town Hall – and a potential great revenue raiser for local councils.

  39. “In the first months of the 1957 Asian flu pandemic, the virus spread throughout China and surrounding regions. … At that time the pandemic was also already widespread in the United Kingdom. By December a total of some 3,550 deaths had been reported in England and Wales.”

    I remember this I was off school for 3 weeks. only 3 children in our class of 33 people did not have it. i have never had any cold or flu any where as bad as this.

      1. I *should* remember it, but I don’t. Possibly it was just yet another of those childhood illnesses. Or possibly I was out cold!

          1. Same here. I can only recall having a couple of weeks off my primary school once my tonsils were removed – and that was as a result of the whooping cough I caught when I went into hospital for the op!

      2. It hit virtually all of us at St Christopher’s, a prep school School in Bath where all the boarders succumbed to it and we all suffered from diarrhoea. We were all given beef tea to drink and to this day I cannot drink anything remotely like Bovril.

        I should imagine that this hot liquid is not now improved by the fact that in 2004 the company making this stuff surrendered to the vegetarian and vegan mafia and Bovril no longer contains any beef.

        1. “In 2004, Unilever removed beef ingredients from the Bovril formula, rendering it vegetarian. This was mainly due to concerns about decreasing sales, particularly from exports due to an export ban on British beef, as a result of the growing popularity of vegetarianism, religious dietary requirements, and public concerns about bovine spongiform encephalopathy.[13] In 2006, Unilever reversed that decision and reintroduced beef ingredients to their Bovril formula once sales increased and the beef export bans were lifted.[14] Unilever now produces Bovril using beef extract and a chicken variety using chicken extract.[15]”

        2. School dinners leave their lifetime mark.

          I cannot eat Semolina or Tapioca Pudding. My sister, who was at boarding school in the late-1940s, cannot eat Rabbit Stew.

          1. I empathise, Lewis, even though, at Primary School, I always ate everyone’s cabbage, I still abhor both those puddings you mention and add Rice Pudding to that horror menu.

          2. No more tadpoles in my tea
            Making googly eyes at me.

            I didn’t mind semolina but tapioca was unfit for human, or even sub-human – prepschoolboy consumption.

        3. In 2006, Unilever reversed that decision and reintroduced beef ingredients to their Bovril formula once the beef export bans were lifted.

  40. Nicked Comment

    You want to know why the Establishment are a bunch of degenerate traitors?

    At

    its peak the KGB was the largest secret-police and foreign-intelligence

    organization in the world. Researchers with access to Communist Party

    archives put the number of KGB personnel at more than 480,000, including 200,000 soldiers in the Border Guards..

    Larger than all our armed forces put together by a large margin.

    That doesn’t include their military intelligence arm the GRU.

    They had whole departments of men and women to honey trap the degenerate and stupid.

    They’ve been at it since the early 20th Century. I wouldn’t trust any politician from the Tories, Labour, or Liberal Democrats.

    Batten’s link to the nonce report is mine

    https://twitter.com/GerardBattenUK/status/1232584693717049344

  41. Ash Wednesday today and in many Anglican churches there will be the imposition of ashes but that ritual doesn’t exist in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. From the pulpits today should be read, “A Commination”. It isn’t necessary to go beyond the first paragraph of this reading to see why it offends the Church of Woke.

    BRETHREN, in the primitive Church there was a godly discipline, that, at the beginning of Lent, such persons as stood convicted of notorious sin were put to open penance, and punished in this world, that their souls might be saved in the day of the Lord; and that others, admonished by their example, might be the more afraid to offend.

    https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/worship-texts-and-resources/book-common-prayer/commination

      1. On Friday the New Chancellor put a Tw@ter post up shewing him making tea for the Lads & Lasses, with a massive pack of Yorkshire Tea in the shot.
        Since then the Left have been going apeshit against Yorkshire Tea!

      1. A source has told the Reuters news agency that the first case of
        conronavirus in Brazil – and Latin America – has been confirmed within the last hour. ( ~ noon UK).

    1. Disgusting people, BoB. Should be forced to keep their vileness to themselves but, then, if you have a tw@t for a PM what else can you expect.

  45. Why You Should Play Golf

    It’s 1923, Who Was:

    1. President of the largest steel company?
    2. President of the largest gas company?
    3. President of the New York stock Exchange?
    4. Greatest wheat speculator?
    5. President of the Bank of International Settlement?
    6. Great Bear of Wall Street?

    These men were considered some of the
    world’s most successful of their days..
    Now, 80 years later, the history book asks us,
    if we know what ultimately became of them..

    The Answers:

    1. The president of the largest steel company.
    Charles Schwab,
    died a pauper.
    2 The president of the largest gas company,
    Edward Hopson, went insane.
    3. The president of the NYSE,
    Richard Whitney,
    was released from prison to die at home.
    4. The greatest wheat speculator,
    Arthur Cooger,
    died abroad, penniless.
    5. The president of
    the Bank of International Settlement,
    shot himself.
    6. The Great Bear of Wall Street,
    Cosabee Livermore,
    also committed suicide
    However,
    in that same year, 1923, the PGA Champion and the winner of the most important golf tournament, the US Open, was Gene Sarazen.

    What became of him?
    He played golf until he was 92, died in 1999 at the age of 95.
    He was financially secure at the time of his death.

    The Moral:
    Forget about work. Play golf.
    Fore……………

    1. She’s young and immature. She simply has no idea how the world works. The annoying thing is that she isn’t being educated with facts but allowed to continue on this bonkers idoelogy of hers.

      1. ‘Afternoon, Wibbles, “…she isn’t being educated with facts but allowed encouraged to continue on this bonkers ideology of hers.”

        1. Or better yet:

          “…she isn’t being educated with facts but allowed encouraged to continue on this bonkers ideology, of hers with which she has been indoctrinated by her abusive parents.”

  47. Germany tightens carnival security following car attack that injured 61. 26 February 2020.

    Germany increased security at some carnival processions on Tuesday after a local man ploughed his car into a parade in the western German town of Volkmarsen, injuring 61 people, including 20 children.

    So they thought there was going to be an outbreak of “local men” knocking over kids in parades?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/02/26/germany-tightens-carnival-security-following-car-attack-injured/

    1. Unable to read whole article, but assume person still hasn’t been named. They were quick enough to publish full details when ‘far right’ person was involved in killings recently, so is plan this time simply to let matter fade from public memory without revealing anything more?

    3. There was an interesting program on our radio this morning. Relatives of Indonesians who were killed when a bomb was exploded outside the Australian embassy had an opportunity to face the convicted murderers.

      The assassins had absolutely no regrets about what they had done, it was justified because Australia sides with the USA. Their only regret was that some muslims had died, that was not right. Several times they explicitly mentioned muslims in a way that basically said that other deaths were quite acceptable.

      Who needs to keep that kind of warped mentality around?

      1. In the koran, only muslims are “innocent” (and then, presumably, only if they are the “right” kind).

  49. Lloyds Banking Group to axe 780 jobs

    Lloyds Banking Group has told its workers that the equivalent of 780 full-time staff will lose their jobs between June and October 2020 in the latest round of job losses at the bank.

  50. Going ‘Woke’ Is a Moral Duty Insists BBC Head of Drama. JAMES DELINGPOLE
    25 Feb 2020.

    ‘Woke’ is not a dirty word but a moral duty, says a senior BBC editor, defending the corporation’s decision to ‘repurpose’ classic novels by giving them more black, female and Asian characters even when this is historically inaccurate.

    The remarks, by the BBC’s head of drama Piers Wenger, will confirm what many viewers have long suspected: that the BBC isn’t interested in making quality programming any more – only in enforcing the politically correct obsessions (equality, diversity, etc) of the narrow, metropolitan liberal elite.

    Morning everyone. This is why the BBC should be shut down! Not because of the licence fee, though even that is morally indefensible, but because it is a hotbed of Politically Correct ideologues who are using a publicly owned corporation to broadcast Marxist propaganda into people’s homes. Wenger’s arrogance as illustrated here is quite staggering; he sees nothing wrong in propagating his personal view of the world on the countless millions who reject it. Even the loss of viewers (yours truly among them) has no effect. This is the mark of the fanatic who knows that whatever is said or done he is right and all others are wrong.

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/02/25/going-woke-is-a-moral-duty-claims-bbc-head-of-drama/

    1. I’m free market, me. Make it subscription only, and then the people who want to watch historically inaccurate bilge can pay their own good money and watch it. Those that don’t, then won’t pay.

      1. I find myself watching less and less of the BBC & C4 come to that as the programs are so bad and are getting worse

        1. Even MB, who comes from a family that had telly in 1950s, is actually turning the thing off of an evening.
          That is serious progress.

          1. We had TV in the fifties (my earliest memory is of watching the Coronation with all the neighbours round and the curtains drawn so you could see the flickering 9″ screen), but I have been turning the Bbc off since the mid-nineties!

    2. Even more reason for the TV licence to go. The BBC in my view is turning out more and more trash. The days when it produced quality programs seems to have long gone

    4. I note that ‘The God of Small Things’ drama has Indian actors for Indian characters – unlike the recent David Copperfield film (well David was Asian) which the BBC’s Iannucci went for “colour-blind casting”.

      1. If they won’t actually adapt the work, then it shouldn’t use the same title.

        What’s comical is there’s plenty of feminist, big state, high tax literature out there. The BBC just doesn’t seem to understand it. A Christmas Carol, for example is about the miserliness of capitalism and they even ruined that!

    7. If they can mess about with classic novels in this way, just imagine what they can do to the news…oh, wait…

      ‘Morning, Minty.

    2. The Ball of Kirriemuir

      Four and twenty virgins came done from Inverness
      When the ball was over, there were four and twenty less
      Singing…

      A well known Force’s Favourite.

        1. 3 Squadron Bar 1 Div Sigs Verden 1976. Eight man Zulu warrior, naked conga through the block followed by streaking round the block. I was that soldier. (Well, one of them).

      2. Some well-known but rather vulgar verses from this song which I do not advise you to look at:

        The vicar’s daughter she was there
        Sitting by the fire
        Knitting contraceptives from a ball of runner wire.

        The village idiot he was there
        He really was a farce
        Pulling his foreskin over his head and vanishing up his arse.

        Wee Nicola Sturgeon she was there
        In a tam o’ shanter hat
        Blowing her bagpipes with her farts and fiddling with her twat

    3. Somebody must have searched really hard to dredge that up from all those years ago. Whatever next!

        1. If it helps, the photographer is an Iranian working for the Frankfurt-based European Pressphoto Agency.

      2. Apart from the zealots, I think Iranian women push the headscarf rules as far as they can. They are, after all, conquered Europeans and not Arabs.

  55. Donald J. Trump

    ✔

    @realDonaldTrump

    ·

    49m

    Low Ratings Fake News MSDNC (Comcast) & @CNN are doing everything possible to make the Caronavirus look as bad as possible, including panicking markets, if possible. Likewise their incompetent Do Nothing Democrat comrades are all talk, no action. USA in great shape! @CDCgov….

    1. The independent Center for Disease Control are the people who put out the warnings. Trump has been triggered by the stock market fall which he sees as detrimental to his re-election prospects.

  56. Good morning dear people

    Haven’t got much to say really except we didn’t have these sort of health scares when holiday makers just visited Torquay , Scarborough , Worthing or the Scottish Highlands, did we ?

    1. 316661+ up ticks,
      Morning TB,
      It is not who is going out & returning they are well regulated, it is who these governance parties are allowing in.
      That is legal ( with the electorates support) & illegal.

    3. Ah, but its the delights of globalism. It used to take months or years for epidemics to sweep across the world. Now a virus is just 24 hours away from anywhere on the globe.

      1. That was the first of the three flu pandemics of the 20th century and by far the worst. It was followed by ‘Asian’ flu (1957) – up to 2 million deaths world wide and ‘Hong Kong’ flu (1968-9) – up to 4 million deaths worldwide.

        For all the scare stories, COVID-19 has got a way to go before it even comes close to those statistics.

        1. Asian flu was brilliant; I ended up as one of only 5 pupils still standing in our class.
          We discovered that our teachers were human beings.
          Superb week.

    5. Morning all.
      Well TB, as a youngster I remember getting a very sunburnt bum (back of the tops of my legs) in Paignton. And stung by a wasp in Gurnard IOW. We had at least one unhealthy ice cream each day. We may have eaten chips as well !
      I don’t suppose that counts.
      But we did travel on a coal burning very toxic train. Or in my old dad’s petrol guzzling Ford Consul. I can hear it now, “are we nearly there yet” ?

      There has never been any doubt in my mind that airports would spreading the virus. It seems that our governments didn’t consider that.
      We have friends who flew in from Milan late Monday night, but have self isolated.
      I reckon we should all get some provisions in now as well.

  57. Syria war: Strikes on Idlib ‘target schools and hospitals’. 9 hours ago.

    The Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations (UOSSM) said 10 schools in total – including two nurseries – and the Idlib Central Hospital were hit by airstrikes and ground attacks.

    The organisation called the strikes “barbaric”.

    Heba Morayef, Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Regional Director, condemned the strikes, saying: “Schools should be safe places for children to learn and play, even in a conflict zone.

    God almighty! How many schools and hospitals do they have? They are knocking them over like there’s no tomorrow and there’s always more!

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-51638381

      1. One of the big problems with COVID-19 in Iran is because they have kept Qom open for pilgrims from all over the world.

        They are trusting that the pilgrims’ “culture” will make them safe to travel.

        Yeah, right.

    2. Why do they need all these schools and hospitals anyway?

      I thought all their doctors, surgeons and teachers (together with their scientists and engineers) migrated to Europe some time ago.

  59. Insurance giant to close Ipswich office axing 300 jobs

    Direct Line is closing its Ipswich office – with the loss of 300 jobs.

    A spokeswoman confirmed the insurance giant is closing its office on Friar Street in 2022, as part of 800 job cuts across the UK. Employees were called into an emergency meeting this morning and told the news. Employees will get 12 months notice of the planned closure date.

    “Like many companies we are having to prepare for changes in the way we operate reflecting changing customer behaviour where people are increasingly opting to interact with us digitally.

  60. Suffolk patient awaits coronavirus test results – but NO positive cases in county so far

    A person is being tested for coronavirus following the closure of a GP surgery in Suffolk.

    The East Anglian Daily Times understands the patient was taken to an isolation pod at hospital after walking into Manor Farm Surgery in Bacton earlier this week.

    The GP surgery has since been closed and a post on its website confirmed a deep clean is being carried out before it can be re-opened.

    The surgery is the third in Suffolk to have been hit by a suspected case of the coronavirus, now known as Covid-19, in the past month.

    It is understood two other patients from the county have already been tested for the virus, but both returned negative results.

  64. Tony Blair is wrong – Labour doesn’t have to ditch its manifesto and start again. Ell Smith. 26 February 2020.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a7738c84b99f98069f91a8e391b41071b17f860f98a509ae6c3f2588dd6f04ee.png

    The obstacles to victory in 2024 are not insurmountable, but party members must get behind whoever becomes leader.

    Obviously a woman of profound political insight and acumen!

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/26/tony-blair-wrong-labour-party-leader-manifesto-2024

    2. These days, journos always report the prison sentences handed down to those convicted of crimes as a total.

      A dozen sentences of two years will be reported as “They were sentenced to a total of twenty-four years”. Reporting the aggregate sentences sounds tougher, but it’s meaningless unless broken-down.

      Who do they think they’re kidding?

          2. He’s deeply engrossed in writing his new book “Tromboncinos in a Cold Climate-How to succeed in the UK”. His editor has demanded a rewrite because it’s too close to Nancy Mitford’s manual of gardening.

  66. Q: Are school dinner ladies (whoops – sexism) keen fans of the Bake Off programme?

    A: Are you trying to be funny …

  67. Spiked

    Things have come to

    such a pass that these people will literally seek to censor you in one

    breath and then express alarm at being called censors in the next

    breath. Hence the Guardian could publish a piece last week

    claiming that the idea that there is a culture of censorship in British

    universities is a ‘right-wing myth’ while simultaneously defending censorship on campus. In an act of extraordinary moral contortionism, Evan Smith mocked

    the ‘idea that there is a free-speech crisis at British universities’

    and then, without missing a beat, he defended the policy of No Platform

    and the creation of safe spaces because ‘the university cannot be a

    place where racism and fascism – as well as sexism, homophobia and

    transphobia – are allowed to be expressed’. The Orwellianism is

    staggering. ‘There is no censorship on campus. Except the censorship I

    approve of. Which is not really censorship.’ That is what is being said

    here. The intellectual dishonesty is almost impressive.

    This Orwellian denialism of the existence of censorship by people who

    actually support and enact censorship cuts to the heart of the

    free-speech crisis in the UK.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/02/26/why-we-must-win-the-fight-for-free-speech/

    1. OMG. I hope that an almighty row breaks out within the EU about contributing more to the budget bearing in mind that the U.K. contributions will cease. Which brings another question – will they?

    2. When the interpreter said “red light” did she actually mean “green light”?

      Or possibly both as I suspect the whores are in charge.

    3. “…civil and military instruments under one command office…unthinkable a short while ago but essential if we want a European flavour to our defence policy…”

      One’s spine shivers…

    4. Will von der Leyen give the supply contracts to her friends and family and land the EU army with planes that don’t fly, ships that aren’t seaworthy and broom handles for guns?

    7. Good afternoon, everyone. I can only assume the remoaners are monoglots and never read the foreign press (where the EU is much more open about its aims and end result).

      2. They were just used for engineering purpose on lines in the open usually at night when the power was off . You would not want to be in a tunnel with a steam engine. They would only fit in the cut and cover lines . Steam locomotives were used on the Kings Crosswidned lines down to Morgate but they had condensing apparatus fit to reduce the smoke emitted

  70. An Arab Sheik was admitted to Hospital for heart surgery. But prior to the surgery, the doctors needed to store his blood in case a need arose as the gentleman had a rare type of blood, and couldn’t be found locally, so the call went out.

    Finally, a Scotsman was located who had a similar blood type. The Scot willingly donated his blood for the Arab.

    After the surgery, the Arab sent the Scotsman as appreciation for giving his blood, a new BMW motor car, diamonds and a substantial sum of money.

    A couple of days later, the Arab had to go through a corrective surgery.
    His doctor telephoned the Scotsman who was more than happy to donate his blood again.

    After the second surgery, the Arab sent the Scotsman a thank-you card and a box of Quality Street chocolates. The Scotsman was shocked that the Arab did not reciprocate his kind gesture as he had anticipated.

    He phoned the Arab and asked him: “I thought you would be generous again, that you would give me another motor car, diamonds & money… but you only gave me a thank-you card & a box of Quality Street chocolates.”

    To this the Arab replied: “Aye laddie but I now have Scottish blood in ma veins”.

  73. Bad Man –

    ” Prime Minister Boris Johnson has still not visited the flooded regions
    that voted him into power 11 days after storms and torrential downpours
    ruined homes and devastated businesses.”

    (The Mail)

    3. His time would be better spent making sure the EA stops slavishly following the EU’s Directives that prevent dredging of rivers.

      1. As you probably know, Shrewsbury is mainly underwater. People are going on about not having seen the river levels so high for – ooh, at least thirty years. When I saw the volume of water (which pushed the “flood barriers” in Ironbridge back ten feet!) my first thought was, when were the channels last dredged? It used to be commonplace to see a dredger. I can’t recall the last time I spotted one.

    4. Boris should get his @rse up their PDQ.
      There is noting he can do but a show of compassion and empathy would not go amiss.

    5. Well Wales asked politicians & celebrities not to visit, so expect other areas feel the same. The Mail clearly needs to check up on the facts on Nottl before going to print.

  75. I was born two generations too early.
    Our schools never closed down.
    Asian flu? Pah!!!
    Polio in Brightlingsea? Just ban B’sea pupils for a fortnight. (Lucky blighters.)

    1. Polio Anne, one of my school (8 years old) friends caught it, he spent 1 year in hospital. Still limps badly today. But has at least 9 grandchildren.
      I’m still in contact with him.

  76. ” Europe
    on red alert for coronavirus: North Macedonia and Greece confirm cases,
    France announces its second death, Italy’s infection toll nears 400
    with 12 dead ”
    The red warning notices appeared today in our doctos’ and dentists surgeries,

          1. No, fortunately (my surgery is notoriously stingy about prescribing them anyway). The cough cleared up of its own accord. I went riding yesterday and didn’t need oxygen, so I reckon I’m okay 🙂

    1. Apparently, those face masks are worn with the intention of stopping the wearer passing on the virus to others, not to prevent the wearer from being infected (according to a doctor on BBC Breakfast this morning).

        1. Come on Sos they’ll be arrested for attempting to avoid automatic street camera recognition.
          That’s bad enough.

          2. I heard Graham Nash and Alan Clark are getting back together again.
            I often use to see Alan C walking his dogs near Hampstead heath.

          4. Agreed. In their later stuff the Hollies always sounded over the top.

            Over-produced.

            I couldn’t stand ‘He ain’t heavy’

          7. Agreed. In their later stuff the Hollies always sounded over the top.

            Over-produced.

            I couldn’t stand ‘He ain’t heavy’

      2. The only kind that will protect the wearer are the ones with proper filters, and which have a method of exhausting exhaled air. In the US they are called N95 medical masks or respirators.

  79. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xMH8ONtbw5A

    Watch this video from 9 mins in, regarding the corruption of the World Health Organisation. It’s jaw-dropping.
    It will probably be removed soon, so I suggest watching it as soon as possible.

    The US CDC is also warning Americans of major disruption to their lives due to corona virus.

      1. Right click on image, select ‘Copy video URL’ and attempt to view in another tab or window.

      3. That’s why we have to watch it early the next day. Someone has been editing or censoring all the Tucker Carlson shows down to a couple of seconds. I don’t know who is doing it, whether it’s Fox News for copyright reasons, although they weren’t worried about it previously. Or whether it’s YouTube, because it’s election year, and Tucker Carlson is very, very effective in his critique of US politics, and the Democrats in particular.

      4. That’s why we have to watch it early the next day. Someone has been editing or censoring all the Tucker Carlson shows down to a couple of seconds. I don’t know who is doing it, whether it’s Fox News for copyright reasons, although they weren’t worried about it previously. Or whether it’s YouTube, because it’s election year, and Tucker Carlson is very, very effective in his critique of US politics, and the Democrats in particular.

      1. No, but along the same lines, i.e., the head of the WHO is the corrupt ex-head of healthcare in Ethiopia, and who wanted Mugabe to become the goodwill ambassador for the WHO.

      2. No, but along the same lines, i.e., the head of the WHO is the corrupt ex-head of healthcare in Ethiopia, and who wanted Mugabe to become the goodwill ambassador for the WHO.

  81. The bbc news are showing a feature on knife crime in London. And quick glance showed at the beginning revealed that there was a huge lack of diversity. Perhaps they’ll try and make certain adjustments.

    1. If it wasn’t for my dodgy hip, I could run amok around our leafy suburb with a fish knife; just to even up the statistics.

    2. If it wasn’t for my dodgy hip, I could run amok around our leafy suburb with a fish knife; just to even up the statistics.

    1. Immigration documents, university degrees, qulifications NHS numbers, fake passports, fake ID, fake driving licence fraud. MOT fraud, doorstep robbery, on line robbery, subletting council property, you name it.
      It’s all gone decidedly pear shape since AH Blair opened the door and invited the crooks of the world to come and live here.

      3. 316661+up ticks,
        Evening RE,
        The b liar was the latch lifter followed in the long run by the wretch cameron who actually upped the intake.
        Once triggered it was given succour via the polling booth the electorate voting in the party first manner, regardless of the three parties being pro eu
        mass uncontrolled immigration parties, vote & whinge.
        Result can be seen if one looks through honest eyes, overall sh!te.

      4. 316661+up ticks,
        Evening RE,
        The b liar was the latch lifter followed in the long run by the wretch cameron who actually upped the intake.
        Once triggered it was given succour via the polling booth the electorate voting in the party first manner, regardless of the three parties being pro eu
        mass uncontrolled immigration parties, vote & whinge.
        Result can be seen if one looks through honest eyes, overall sh!te.

        1. I remember seeing a website advertising UK I D cards and passports on the Internet.
          I’m sure if the truth came out regarding all these frauds it would be astounding.

          1. 316661+up ticks,
            RE,
            The truth is slowly being revealed as we type, the truth was revealed in 2014 via the Jay report, I do not believe it made one iota of difference to the voting pattern.
            Now more & more odious issues are coming to light on a very regular basis, what the peoples must ask themselves is who puts these inept treacherous politico’s in power & who keeps them & their likes there ?
            Then vote accordingly.

        2. It goes back a lot further. The Midlands were awash in Pakistani immigrants long before Blair & Co.

    2. 316661+ up ticks,
      Evening TB,
      Between 39/45 they would have been shot / hanged, currently the establishment will be working on their rewards.
      When sanity does return their crooked actions will receive the standard two move treatment, guilty, deportation,
      mandatory, if born here then the parents place of birth, same day.

      Before leaving these Isle it must be a ruling that each felon MUST take a
      politico from either of the lab/lib/con parties, one on each arm after marrying them in a mosque ceremony
      either man/women/thingy, the politico’s cannot complain they condone many of these odious issues.
      Win,Win result for decency all round.

    3. 316661+ up ticks,
      Evening TB,
      Between 39/45 they would have been shot / hanged, currently the establishment will be working on their rewards.
      When sanity does return their crooked actions will receive the standard two move treatment, guilty, deportation,
      mandatory, if born here then the parents place of birth, same day.

      Before leaving these Isle it must be a ruling that each felon MUST take a
      politico from either of the lab/lib/con parties, one on each arm after marrying them in a mosque ceremony
      either man/women/thingy, the politico’s cannot complain they condone many of these odious issues.
      Win,Win result for decency all round.

  83. Walmart in discussions to sell stake in Asda

    Walmart says it may sell a majority stake in Asda, its UK supermarket, after “inbound interest” in the idea.

    The US retail giant said it was talking to a “small number of interested parties” about a possible investment.

    It comes after UK regulators blocked Walmart’s plan to merge Asda with Sainsbury’s last year on fears it would raise prices for consumers.

    Walmart said it would be likely to retain a stake in Asda if the plan moved forward.

    “No decisions have been made and we will not be commenting further on these discussions,” it said.

    “If or when we decide to pursue this opportunity further, our first priority will be to share more detailed information with our colleagues.”

  84. The balance of power between judges and elected politicians needs to be reassessed

    Sir Stephen Laws

    The row over the deportation of convicted criminals to Jamaica together with the appointment of a new Attorney General who has expressed support for reforming the relationship between politics and the courts has renewed the controversy over judicial review.

    The details of the deportation case are not yet clear enough to determine whether it confirms the need for reform; and government frustration with it would not be enough on its own. But what is clear is that there is a balance to be struck between ministers being politically accountable and their being accountable to the courts – and that at present there are good reasons for thinking the balance is too much in favour of accountability to the courts.

    No one is seriously advocating untrammelled executive power. But figures as senior as Lord Sumption, the former Supreme Court Justice, Suella Braverman, the Attorney General, and Geoffrey Cox, her predecessor, have suggested some rebalancing is needed. This case is, if anything, strengthened by assertions that only the judiciary are entitled to say where the balance should be struck. The proposition that it is an attack on the independence of the judiciary for anyone else even to consider the matter is both worrying and clearly wrong.

    There are three factors that suggest that judicial review can unreasonably inhibit politicians’ decision making and prevent them from delivering on their electoral mandate.

    First, delay is a powerful political weapon. Politicians have only limited time to announce and implement change and have an opportunity to receive credit for it. Delay can be fatal to a policy or project. Judicial review applications, even unsuccessful ones, are an efficient tactic for causing delay. Political opposition to a government proposal is very likely, these days, also to involve some litigation designed principally to hold things up, increasing the pressure for political concessions, and thus using the courts for “politics by other means”.

    Second, there is the uncertainty and unpredictability in the courts’ approach to judicial review. On the legal front, when government is developing policy, it is often difficult or even impossible to know what is needed to avoid an adverse judicial review. The government needs to act within the limits of the law; but the rule of law also requires that ministers, like all other subjects of the law, are given clarity about the likely legal consequences of their actions.

    The Human Rights Act and other rules that impose imprecise, abstract tests of lawfulness for executive action, or even for legislation, have the effect that often the only policy option that scores well on litigation risk is “do nothing”. The government does not lose all its cases, but even the existence of an arguable case can distort policymaking. There is, in practice, a substantial political cost for government from defeats in the courts. So litigation involves political risks that politicians may be reluctant to take. It is argued that the government always has the right to ask Parliament to reverse a decision with legislation; but the judgments of the courts sometimes in practice increase the political cost of that.

    Thirdly, these imprecise tests often require a balance to be struck between the public interest and the interests of an individual litigant. It is the litigant who is before the court and protected by the law while the defendant public authority must defend both its actions in the individual’s case and the wider public interest – including the interests of potential beneficiaries of change. To give the courts exclusive control of balancing individual against public interests is to give them an essentially political task, to the likely detriment of the public interest.

    The courts may have a useful contribution to make in that process, but they lack the information, expertise and democratic legitimacy to have the final say, either in theory or in practice. The government’s proposed Constitution, Democracy and Rights commission should bear in mind that it is not for the courts to second-guess the democratic process.

    Ways need to be found to ensure elected politicians are able to deliver on their mandate from the electorate, and to remain electorally accountable for whether and how they do that.

    Sir Stephen Laws is a Senior Fellow at Policy Exchange and a former First Parliamentary Counsel

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/02/17/balance-power-judges-elected-politicians-needs-reassessed/

  85. When the plague hits Africa, what’s the betting that the vast majority of the aid and support is funnelled that way?

    2. I suspect that most of forgien aid we have appropriated is in Swiss bank accounts.
      Mercedes have done very well out F A .

      1. “I suspect that most of forgien aid we have appropriated is in Swiss bank accounts.”

        Are you saying people send us foreign aid and that our politicians have Swiss Private abnk accounts??

        Who knew?

          1. I wasn’t commenting on the typo.

            When I re-read my post for errors, I only noticed yours after spotting mine, which I then didn’t change, because it acted as a “Muphry counterbalance”.

            My first thought on seeing your reply to my OP was that yours looked like it was our politicians were taking a slice of our foreign aid.

      2. “I suspect that most of forgien aid we have appropriated is in Swiss bank accounts.”

        Are you saying people send us foreign aid and that our politicians have Swiss Private abnk accounts??

        Who knew?

    3. I suspect that most of forgien aid we have appropriated is in Swiss bank accounts.
      Mercedes have done very well out F A .

  86. CHARLES MOORE

    Why become a landlord if you can never evict your tenants?

    Why do people let houses? Because they hope to make money by doing so. In most circumstances, the profits are not large, because the costs are high, but it is worth doing because the house owned is a store of value and a hedge against inflation. What will landlords do if the opportunity for profit disappears? They will stop offering houses for rent if they possibly can. New landlords will not come forward to replace them.

    Yet the Government is toying with the idea of getting rid of Section 21 of the 1988 Housing Property Act. This section allows a landlord to ask a sitting tenant to quit at the end of an agreed period. If it is abolished, so that no notice to quit can ever be issued to a tenant, the incentive to let disappears. The value of the property thus encumbered drops, sometimes halves. Besides, sitting tenancies require rent controls to work, so the landlord will be stuck, not only with the tenant, but with every prospect of lower returns as time passes.

    The effect on small-scale landlords, most of them natural Tories, could be dire. Would their mortgages any longer meet the banks’ loan-to-value criteria? What would happen to them if the banks demanded repayment? Similar damage would be done to the small builders who look after such properties and are just the sort of aspirant, practical people the country needs.

    Poorer people certainly suffer greatly from the housing shortage. If it could be shown that sitting tenancies would increase the number of cheap rented homes, then a price to landlords might be worth paying. But in fact the opposite is the case. An unmovable tenant creates, over time, an unworkable business. Some ministers may see this as “levelling up”. Actually, it is more like closing down.

    A preposterous charge

    The likes of David Dimbleby can be expected to stand up for the BBC, but his views do not necessarily accord with those of the public

    When vested interests defend themselves, they love preposterous exaggeration. More than 30 years ago, the Government introduced a modest reform which would allow solicitors the same “rights of audience” as barristers. The then Lord Chief Justice described the green paper on the reforms as “one of the most sinister documents ever to emanate from government”. I still laugh whenever I remember this.

    The distinguished, recently retired broadcaster David Dimbleby describes the present Government’s idea of decriminalising non-payment of the BBC licence fee as “pernicious”. Again, one can only laugh.

    There are some respectable arguments for the licence fee, but is there any other poll tax bearing most heavily on the poorest and bringing roughly 200,000 people a year before the courts against which Mr Dimbleby thinks it would be “pernicious” to campaign?

    The Dimblebys earned a regular living from the BBC from 1936, when David’s famous father Richard joined, until last year, when David stood down from Question Time and his brother Jonathan from Any Questions? All three were very good at their jobs. To them, it must be axiomatic that the BBC is so virtuous that refusing to pay for it is a criminal offence. For growing millions, however, that logic is elusive.

    Boris owes nothing to the CBI

    The Confederation of British Industry – the CBI – is another vested interest which, like the BBC, seemed to lose its reason, and certainly its fairness, during the Brexit wars. Yesterday, its director-general, Dame Carolyn Fairbairn, reluctantly admitted that she had not been invited to the Prime Minister’s Brexit trade speech at Greenwich on February 3.

    Dame Carolyn is polite these days, trying to get her organisation back in the game. But before the general election she was vehement and highly political, first against Brexit, then against no deal, and also against Boris Johnson, stating that the CBI viewed his premiership (before he had attained it) with “deep concern”.

    The CBI is an important industry body, entitled to its voice; but such bodies cannot expect to be close to government policy if they have pitted themselves against the main aims and personnel of that government.

    Dame Carolyn and her followers are like the trade union barons after Mrs Thatcher came into office in May 1979. The union leaders had tried to run the country before, and they had failed. Mrs Thatcher therefore stopped the custom of giving them “beer and sandwiches at Number Ten”.

    Time to come clean about the cost of going green

    Over the weekend, two groups of very different persuasions have come to similar conclusions about carbon net zero by 2050, to which the Government is committed. The Global Warming Policy Foundation (on whose board I sit) is sceptical about many policy prescriptions to halt climate change. The Green New Deal Group is run by Leftists and Greens who want to “pull the world back from economic and environmental meltdown”. But they are close to agreement on costs. The GWPF’s new study puts the figures at £100 billion per year (on average) between now and 2050. The Green New Deal agrees on the £100 billion per year figure, but projects that cost over only 20 years.

    The sum of £100 billion is more than our entire annual spending on education and is two and a half times our annual defence budget. Yet the advisory Committee on Climate Change calls the cost “manageable” and avoids trying to work it out accurately.

    Whatever your view, isn’t it time the Government admitted the scale of spending and tried to explain why it is needed and how it will be paid for?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/02/25/become-landlord-can-never-evict-tenants/

    “The sum of £100 billion is more than our entire annual spending on education…”

    Come on, CM. It’s peanuts. You can buy a train-set for that.

    1. Security of tenure is the most important thing for quality of life. The ability of landlords to kick a family out on the streets, or raise the rent to a punitive amount, is an evil that many of the older generation will remember. Landlords should be content with the rise in value from inflation over the years, and a rent which is reasonable. The returns are not rubbish, as the comment says, but mostly pretty good.

      1. The 1988 Act to which CM refers was regarded as a good and balanced piece of legislation, protecting both landlord and tenant. The idea that a landlord may not legally terminate a tenancy is absurd. And the market still works, even though you appear to deny it.

        1. If the landlord were not allowed to terminate the tenancy then in all fairness surely the tenant shouldn’t be allowed to teminate it either?

        2. I think the problem is that genuine tenants are suffering from the bad ones wh have been brought up with a sense of entitlement and no sense of responsibility.

      2. It sounds like Harold Wilson’s Prices and Incomes Policy. That didn’t work out well either. Is there any other business that has this sort of State imposed control. Big business wouldn’t accept that sort of policy so let’s pick on the individual. Distasteful interference.

    2. If yuo can’t evict a tenant, you won’t rent the place out. That will affect people moving temporarily abroad or around the country for work – the house will be left empty, and what will they do at their destination for accommodation? Nobody will be renting the house out there, either. Nightmare.

      1. Quite. No landlord is going to price himself out of the market by raising rents to unrealistic levels. If he has a bad tenant, he has the legal means to evict but that doesn’t mean battering rams at 2 a.m.

        After the Rachman business, rights swung too far in favour of tenants to the point at which the rental market shrank badly. And if there’s a shortage of rental property today, perhaps there’s a reason for it. Something beginning with ‘i’…

      2. 40 years ago when my aunt, a doctor in Salisbury, could no longer live in her house which she did not want to sell she rented it out to army officers with their wives and families. There was always demand and the tenants always moved on after a year or two.

        1. With the current state of the armed forces, you wouldn’t get them moving on – at least not in the Air Force. Gone are the days when you moved to a new station every three years or so; Now you move (mainly, it seems, to Shawbury!), buy a house and settle down!

  89. Will Muslims be complaining about Cultural appropriation with all these people covering their faces ?

  90. Will Muslims be complaining about Cultural appropriation with all these people covering their faces ?

    1. Make sure your weapons are maintained and you have enough ammunition stored to repulse the ravenous hordes of less prudent folk who, crazed by hunger, will be roaming the streets looking for somewhere to fill their boots!
      ;¬)

      2. Just bought a thousand rounds of 9mm, 500 38spl and 100 30-06. Don’t mess with us, we can start a war!
        (This ammo for training & competitions over the spring/summer).

    2. Propane tank full, generator self check done. Freezers full, about five or six cases of wine in the basement and firewood stacked.

      That should keep us going for a while or at least until the smug “don’t panic” bureaucrats accept that they should have panicked already.

      No trains, no cross country buses in fact very few buses so there are limited opportunities for townies to invade.

    5. Did a £300 Sainsbogs shop today. Three freezers stuffed full. Two fridges bulging at the sides and both wine fridges filled to capacity. The two larders are also full with tinned goods. Not panic buying. Just normal. Then for the next month just have to pop to the local Co-op for bread and veg.

      Tagliatelle Carbonara tonight using thick sliced Wiltshire ham off the bone. And a few glasses of Phantom River white. :o)

        1. I needed two because one is for fizz and the other for beer, wine and mixers. You would never guess i used to work in a Pub.

          My address is… Alpha Centauri post code AC00 1PXX

          1. Ah. Sadly my budget doesn’t stretch to interstellar travel so you’re just going to have to drink on your own…

          2. Ah. Sadly my budget doesn’t stretch to interstellar travel so you’re just going to have to drink on your own…

        2. I needed two because one is for fizz and the other for beer, wine and mixers. You would never guess i used to work in a Pub.

          My address is… Alpha Centauri post code AC00 1PXX

  92. Boy, 16, accused of murdering woman and moving body in wheelie bin

    I strongly believe that the growing level of crime with young people is down to the total lack of discipline in the homes and schools

    A 16-year-old boy is accused of murdering a teaching assistant before transporting her body to a cemetery in a wheelie bin.

    Lindsay Birbeck, 47, from Accrington, Lancashire, was last seen alive on the afternoon of 12 August as she headed towards an area known locally as The Coppice.

    The mother-of-two was killed there a short time later as she walked through woods behind her home, a court heard.

    Mrs Birbeck’s concerned family raised the alarm when the keep-fit enthusiast did not return home that evening.

    Police launched an investigation and a search operation which initially focused on The Coppice.

    Members of the local community went looking for Mrs Birbeck but she was not discovered until 24 August.

    Her naked body was found in a wooded area at Accrington Cemetery wrapped in two clear plastic bags, Preston Crown Court heard.

    David McLachlan QC, prosecuting, said: “There are two important people in his case – Lindsay Birbeck who sadly is dead and the defendant in the dock who the prosecution say is the killer.

    The young man who went to exceptional lengths to move her body and also did a very good job of hiding her body in a shallow grave in the cemetery.

    “He did such a good job that the police or public, notwithstanding the efforts they went to, did not find her body until 12 days after she had gone missing.”

    Mr McLachlan said the defendant, who cannot be named for legal reasons, pulled a blue wheelie bin along Burnley Road towards The Coppice more than four hours after Mrs Birbeck went missing.

    The teenager, now 17, is accused of using it to conceal her body.

    The youth retrieved the bin from the The Coppice and hauled it back across Burnley Road to the cemetery five days later, the court heard.

    A dog walker rang police on 24 August after he spotted a plastic cover and what appeared to be a leg in woodland at the cemetery, the jury was told.

    Mrs Birbeck was identified through dental records and a post-mortem examination concluded the cause of death was neck injuries.

    Severe compressive force appeared to have been used, according to a Home Office pathologist.

  93. Boy, 16, accused of murdering woman and moving body in wheelie bin

    I strongly believe that the growing level of crime with young people is down to the total lack of discipline in the homes and schools

    A 16-year-old boy is accused of murdering a teaching assistant before transporting her body to a cemetery in a wheelie bin.

    Lindsay Birbeck, 47, from Accrington, Lancashire, was last seen alive on the afternoon of 12 August as she headed towards an area known locally as The Coppice.

    The mother-of-two was killed there a short time later as she walked through woods behind her home, a court heard.

    Mrs Birbeck’s concerned family raised the alarm when the keep-fit enthusiast did not return home that evening.

    Police launched an investigation and a search operation which initially focused on The Coppice.

    Members of the local community went looking for Mrs Birbeck but she was not discovered until 24 August.

    Her naked body was found in a wooded area at Accrington Cemetery wrapped in two clear plastic bags, Preston Crown Court heard.

    David McLachlan QC, prosecuting, said: “There are two important people in his case – Lindsay Birbeck who sadly is dead and the defendant in the dock who the prosecution say is the killer.

    The young man who went to exceptional lengths to move her body and also did a very good job of hiding her body in a shallow grave in the cemetery.

    “He did such a good job that the police or public, notwithstanding the efforts they went to, did not find her body until 12 days after she had gone missing.”

    Mr McLachlan said the defendant, who cannot be named for legal reasons, pulled a blue wheelie bin along Burnley Road towards The Coppice more than four hours after Mrs Birbeck went missing.

    The teenager, now 17, is accused of using it to conceal her body.

    The youth retrieved the bin from the The Coppice and hauled it back across Burnley Road to the cemetery five days later, the court heard.

    A dog walker rang police on 24 August after he spotted a plastic cover and what appeared to be a leg in woodland at the cemetery, the jury was told.

    Mrs Birbeck was identified through dental records and a post-mortem examination concluded the cause of death was neck injuries.

    Severe compressive force appeared to have been used, according to a Home Office pathologist.

    1. In the sequence showing ‘casual’ Harry and ‘casual’ Megsie marching down the street as holy woke mr&mrs, it struck me just how trashy the Megsie really must be – those spindly legs supporting a boxy torso and a posterior deliberately concealed by an untucked long white shirt draped over it. Do you think it is antisocially huuuge like Mrs Obama’s?

    2. Harry is a stupid mug. He is anti royal family like his late mother. We are better off without him.

      1. I sometimes wonder what I would do given the same advantages from birth as Harry. Accordingly, I think Harry is a stupid person, as you say not unlike his mother, but failing totally to realise the advantage he has, by birth, to do good on an enormous scale.

        His American wife seems to me to be equally thick. She might otherwise have become a darling of the Nation whereas now many revile her as an exploitative opportunist.

        He could otherwise easily have supported his father’s Princes Trust and other truly good causes benefiting those less fortunate and both inheriting and carrying on those good causes when his father becomes King.

    3. In the sequence showing ‘casual’ Harry and ‘casual’ Megsie marching down the street as holy woke mr&mrs, it struck me just how trashy the Megsie really must be – those spindly legs supporting a boxy torso and a posterior deliberately concealed by an untucked long white shirt draped over it. Do you think it is antisocially huuuge like Mrs Obama’s?

        1. I am not familiar with Suits, but I am not convinced : it was not called Suits for nothing so I would assume American convention calls for business like skirts or even trousers rather than skin-tight jeans, so that there would be ample room under the fabric to deploy all the tricks of the bottom containment trade.

        2. I am not familiar with Suits, but I am not convinced : it was not called Suits for nothing so I would assume American convention calls for business like skirts or even trousers rather than skin-tight jeans, so that there would be ample room under the fabric to deploy all the tricks of the bottom containment trade.

          1. Most people in the US are not familiar with Suits – they probably never heard of it until Meghan hit the jackpot.

    3. That’s it, snowflakes will now boycott H₂O. More for the rest of the people who drink water. Fortunately, I get my H₂O from its content in alcoholic beverages.

    1. What a bleedin’ coincidence – I bought a pack of YT for hard water (green box) today to try.

        1. We’ve been buying it for ages, since Sainsbury red label tea went weak and insipid. YT is excellent tea, nice and strong.

    2. I get nearly the same effect if I drop off while sitting, same as in rough weather when I worked at sea. The dropping that occurred when the ship pitched would have me sleepless. I’ve read that it is due to when we lived in trees and we fell asleep in an unstable perch.

  101. Meanwhile……………

    “Mr Erdogan has announced his intention to de facto annex part of Syria,

    declaring he will not withdraw ‘a step’ from the area currently

    controlled by his troops in Idlib and that “We would like to remind

    those who try to corner Turkey by forcing their own agenda onto it, that

    we are not guests in this region, but its masters”.

    Later……….

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8e088c084471390081e90739c42185ecaea7df881a088d742b354de6d5c5a0dd.jpg

    1. How I love Putin’s smirk. Dear Vlad, may I come and live in Russia when things get bad here? Love poppiesmum xx

    2. How I love Putin’s smirk. Dear Vlad, may I come and live in Russia when things get bad here? Love poppiesmum xx

  106. OK, question: if this virus has a mortality rate of 2%, why exactly are the various governments, and media going into overdrive panic about it? Is it worse than regular flu?
    What am I missing?

    1. A week or so ago when there were 70,000 reported cases in China. Figures reporting to show patients who had recovered were in the region of 10,000 whereas some 2000 deaths were reported. Putting the latter two figures together implies a death rate of closer to 20%. Which might explain the extraordinary lengths the Chinese have been going to?

    2. The % of deaths – my feeling is that it is much higher than they are letting on otherwise there would not be this bureaucratic panic. Iran – 95 cases. Deaths – 15. Death rate probably plus/minus 15% at least.

  108. I’ve just been watching an engineering programme on TV about the building of the Beipanjjang First Bridge in China.
    Anyone interested in this sort of thing please take a look. It’s almost unbelievable.
    The engineers spoke very good English and one very modestly said “We are quite proud of our achievements”.

    2. There was one on TV here covering the construction of the rail link to Tibet. Similar quiet pride in what they pulled off – and how quickly it was done.

    3. Most of the Chinese engineering expertise was taught them by English engineers. Unfortunately they lack an equivalent to our own Special Steels Division in Scunthorpe, nor our steel manufacturing expertise in Sheffield and Rotherham.

      The Chinese also lack the source educational back up provided by our scientific universities such as those in Sheffield, Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool. London Imperial College and Bristol University have the most excellent materials science research bases.

      1. All these chokka with Chinese students and researchers. Most research papers have Chinese authors. So, they do have the back-up.

      2. Very similar to the Japanese when they took our motorcycles to pieces and reproduced them putting our own people out of business.
        But it’s a wonderful structure have you seen it.

  109. Sacre Merde!

    From the DT:

    “A third of French people don’t wash their hands after going to the toilet and less than half before eating, while a fifth of Frenchmen change their underwear twice a week at best.

    These are some of the unsavoury findings of a new study into personal hygiene in France, which researchers and Gallic doctors say leaves a lot to be desired. The findings stand to reinforce stereotypes that the French take a laisser-faire approach to cleanliness”

    6. French women are often fragrant. The French have the best perfumeries in the world and the attendants are usually very attractive women. It is their menfolk who stink.

      By the by their macho politics also stink. There might be a connection.

      1. Good morning cori
        Perhaps the strong perfume hides the smell. I have always thought strong spices in curries etc was to, originally, hide the fact that the meat was probably rotten.

    8. Having lived there for several years it often struck me how a people that devoted immoderate attention to their appearances have such a primitive relationship with the lavatory. So primitive one would think it wilful.

  110. Bah! Rain –

    “Bahrain has detected seven new cases of coronavirus, taking the number
    33, the country’s minister of health has said. And flights to and from
    Dubai International airport have been suspended for an additional 48
    hours, the country’s Civil Aviation Affairs (CAA) has announced.”

    It’s cropping up all over the place. Stop making jokes. This is serious.
    The financial impications alone must be terrific.
    Anyone here gotta cold ?

    1. No surprise there. The authorities in Bahrain and Dubai don’t take public health issues seriously.

      In contrast, those in Abu Dhabi do.

  111. Our arrogant, overrated Civil Service must now face a political reckoning

    ALLISTER HEATH

    Far from being too radical, Boris Johnson has been too timid

    Who governs this country? It’s no longer Eurocrats in Brussels or judges in Luxembourg, which is a great relief. But who in Britain is taking back control? Will real power lie with the elected politicians, assisted by government employees who work for them and for the manifestos upon which they were elected? Or will it be hoarded by a shameless, self-satisfied Whitehall nomenklatura that has convinced itself that it is the true, permanent government of Britain?

    Will the Treasury still be allowed to “veto” new ideas, the Cabinet Office to block non-Left-wingers from public appointments, the defence establishment to buy overpriced, overspecced and irrelevant kit, and a self-perpetuating Foreign Office oligarchy to instruct Downing Street what to think about Israel or China? And are we happy that it is judges, not politicians, to whom we entrust deciding whether Heathrow expansion should be given the go-ahead?

    Brexit isn’t enough: politicians need to take back control, to renew our democratic culture, reintroduce accountability and improve the quality of the state. They need to be forced to take responsibility even when they don’t want it. They must become their own masters, working on behalf of their electorate, not spokespersons for out-of-control departments. They need to relearn to be managers, moulding the system to their commands. They should hire their own people, not inherit hostile teams.

    If politicians cannot make their minds up on an issue, they ought to call referenda, not abdicate decision-making to mandarins or judges. Our system of government is no longer fit for purpose: the old Yes, Minister civil service and its jobs for life and gongs for failure has run out of time; but so has the more recent technocratic and juristocratic experiment.

    The deep state needs a reality check: it is not as competent as it believes. Civil servants are not an anointed class. They probably notch up more errors than they prevent ministers from making. They, too, must face a pitiless reckoning. The Treasury was right on the euro and austerity; it is correct to worry about excessively large national debts. But it was catastrophically misguided on monetarism (it fought it), on the ERM, on EU membership and on Brexit, on productivity, financial stability, supply-side economics (it doesn’t believe in it), the useless fiscal rules and many other great questions over the past hundred years.

    Philosophically, it is collectivist, viewing tax cuts as “handouts” that are a “cost” to the exchequer. It played an enabling role in the Brownite revolution and then the Remain counter-coup. It does not deserve a special, elevated constitutional position with the right to tell the PM what to do – in fact, its litany of failures suggest that it should be drastically downsized, downgraded and turned into a bog-standard finance ministry.

    As to the Foreign Office, it has been wrong on all the big issues, appallingly so, and the Home Office is a joke. In the private sector, a new boss tasked with turning around a bankrupt conglomerate would fire layers of management, bring in their own teams, merge or shut subsidiaries and restructure massively. Ideally, the government would commission a new Northcote–Trevelyan report and replace the civil service with a completely new organisation. At the very least, major changes are required, with the PM as the government’s CEO.

    Boris Johnson, understandably, is focused on outcomes, not processes; at its core, his project is one of national renewal. But a series of massive failures of delivery are inevitable unless he acts urgently. Far from being too extreme, as his critics are claiming, the PM has been too timid. No senior mandarin has yet been asked to leave.

    Sir Mark Sedwill, the powerful Cabinet Secretary, appears safe for now. Despite an outrageous clash with Priti Patel, Sir Philip Rutnam, the Home Office permanent secretary, is still in his job. Why? What’s the betting that his hopeless Home Office will fail to push through all of the immigration changes smoothly on 1 January? Yes, the Cabinet Office, No 10 and the Treasury are working more closely (though the former was reportedly pitted against Downing Street on the Defence Review), but there has been no genuine structural revolution.

    Reforming the structure of government to make it work better and effectively, whether one believes the state should be larger or smaller, is one of the most hotly debated ideas on the US Right, made all the more pressing by the chaos surrounding coronavirus.

    In an influential blog post, Tyler Cowen, an American economist, recently coined the concept of “state capacity libertarianism”. I don’t agree with all of it, but the core thesis is a brilliant way of looking at Johnsonism. Cowen believes in a strong, efficient state (as well as lower taxes and less regulation) that can extend capitalism and protect markets (including from hostile nations), deal with pandemics, manage immigration and reform state education. State Capacity Libertarians like Cowen believe that the US and UK governments are deeply incompetent but that this can be rectified. They have positive views of infrastructure, science subsidies, nuclear power, space programmes and the various ways South East Asian states have developed their economies.

    But what of the claim that reforming the machinery of government to bolster “state capacity” would be unconservative? This argument is bogus, as Danny Kruger, a new Tory MP, reminds us in a series of brilliant observations on Twitter. Edmund Burke “campaigned to abolish half the offices of state, especially those hoary with antiquity and irrelevance”, backed war against France and US independence. Tories often need to be radicals to preserve conservatism. This is one such moment.

    The reforms first need to centralise, and then decentralise: once the Government is working towards a set of common aims through new structures, contracts and teams, ministers should be given plenty of discretion to deliver. Dominic Cummings has read and absorbed Hayek: he is no central planner. It’s time for Boris to turn to another Austrian economist, Joseph Schumpeter, and unleash a dose of creative destruction on our tragically over-rated civil service.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/02/26/arrogant-overrated-civil-service-must-now-face-political-reckoning/

  114. Britain on the verge of walking away from talks

    At this stage it is all talk but once the real talks start on Monday so at present it is both sides laying out their position

    1. Hello Conners I hope your feeling better now, I popped in to see an old friend yesterday, i didn’t actually cross the threshold he’s been suffering from bronchial problems twice over since Christmas. He’s twice been on antibiotics.
      My best mate has now been diagnosed with emphysema, 75 this year, he spent his whole life working in London.

      1. Yes, I’m feeling almost back to normal (or what passes for normal in this neck of the woods ) now, thanks. Sorry to hear about your friend with emphysema. I really dislike big cities – there’s so much pollution.

    2. P.S. This was the bridge upon which one day, my sister, driving, had verbals with my mother and the car stopped, mother alighted, and my sister drove the 15 miles to her own home. Mother had 12 miles to her home. Those two had many such blow-ups.

      1. When speaking to a chap in Newcastle about the Tyne Bridge he mentioned that it was a venue for suicides.

        He mentioned that the divers recovering the bodies would look for feet because the poor suicidal victims would fall head-first into the soft bed of the Tyne such that their legs and feet were the only obvious detectors.

  123. From the Beeb – Is this fake News?:

    “Joe Biden was not arrested in South Africa while trying to see Nelson Mandela, his campaign has conceded.
    The US presidential contender had repeatedly said he was arrested during a trip there in the 1970s, when South Africa was under apartheid.”

    2. Poor chap – he probably only mis-spoke; just like Hillary landing under sniper fire in Sarajevo

      1. Get off the dog and bone you mutt – there’s a trace on the line and you’ve given them a lead!

Comments are closed.