Tuesday 27 May: Who will have the courage to overhaul Britain’s Byzantine tax system?

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its commenting facility (now reinstated, but we prefer 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 banned.

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here.

594 thoughts on “Tuesday 27 May: Who will have the courage to overhaul Britain’s Byzantine tax system?”

  5. Good morning, chums. And thanks, Geoff, for today's new NoTTLe site.

    Wordle 1,438 4/6

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    1. That could be the answer.
      In northern India I believe the Ganges delta when the brits were in charge the river was regularly dredged and de-silted to stop flooding. But it seems that neither of the locals can be bother now. So people die in the floods.

    2. Matches what I saw of England last time I was over. Effing filthy place – country road verges filled with discarded crisp packets and empty drinks cans, bottles, mysterious bits of metal, you name it. Like a backstreet in Bangladesh, so it was. And that's only what I saw when driving by.

      1. For monitoring of pipeline corrosion systems, we had to access standard test post with cable connections to the pipeline. These are found mostly where the pipeline crosses roads. Sometimes, the post has become overgrown with foliage and it is sometimes necessary to search for them. The amount of litter, discarded beer cans and bags of rubbish on the verges disgusted me. To think that the whole length of some roads is littered in this way. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/989042fa458cd2c37cd98b9d3f38f8de74938dce1274082f5db391e2a86d79f3.jpg

      1. Not so much imposed I believe, but interpreted by the British Civil Service when they Gold Plated the relevant the EU Regulations.

      2. I am sure it was. Thats why Cockermouth flooded nd Sumersey levels, to name but two.

    4. Some of the worst tipping I ever saw was alongside (and in) small wooded streams in south Wales just north of Swansea – Industrial scale.
      Spoiled a good walk with the locals, who often carry sacks to collect rubbish when they go on country rambles. It would have needed an arny unit with bulldozers.

  8. Morning all! Been waiting for today's page and missed being first while I was reading today's TCW. Been awake for hours for some reason. Couldn't sleep. I expect I'll pay for that later.

    1. Good morning J .

      I have also been awake for hours , hardly slept, usual pain in tum , but also the weather was stormy and I felt concerned for the osprey nest.

      I believe only 3 eggs hatched and the fourth discarded.

      Saw an article in DT that upset me https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05/26/lucy-connolly-prison-appeal-free-speech/ , and a link which we should all read https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/law/the-weekly-constitutional/69986/understanding-the-sentence-of-lucy-connolly

      1. I didn't realise there were four eggs but three chicks good anyway. It did look as though there was a complete egg still in the nest.

      2. Sorry you're still in so much pain. I've got a very itchy bite in my arm but that's nothing but it did keep me awake.

      3. I disagree with Sumption on that point. She doesn't deserve to be in jail and her child needs her at home.

        1. I don’t think she had any intentions of stirring up violence. She was just expressing her horror at the atrocity and felt that there should be retribution.

      4. "a person who publishes or distributes written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting is guilty of an offence if they intend thereby to stir up racial hatred, or having regard to all the circumstances racial hatred is likely to be stirred up thereby".

        "This is a serious offence."

        But ten thousand persons(sic) who march through city centres carrying banners and shouting 'Kill the infidel' are merely exercising 'free speech' and it is the police's duty to protect them.

        Oh yes! I see now! How stupid of me not to know that.

    2. Sorry to hear that, Ndovu. Can you get an hour's snooze later today?

  12. Good morning all. A bright and sunny morning with scattered cloud and a still cool 12°C on the thermometer.

    News report on BBC R3:-

    "53yo man was arrested, he's believed to be the car driver."

    1. All very vague as usual, the reports coming out never appears to fit the footage on line

  14. Jolyon never rests. This might be his first success in years.

    GB News’s ‘anti-woke’ comedy show faces axe after thousands of complaints

    Channel could cancel late night programme ‘within a fortnight’, presenter suggests

    Headliners is a late night panel show putting a comic spin on traditional newspaper review shows

    Matthew Field
    Senior Technology Reporter
    26 May 2025 5:52pm BST

    GB News is considering cancelling its “anti-woke” comedy show Headliners amid a barrage of complaints.

    Presenters of the Right-wing, late night panel show appeared to suggest on Saturday that it could be taken off air within a fortnight.

    Lewis Schaffer, one of the show’s panellists, posted on X: “I’m heading into the studio! I’ve been told by management that the show will be on air for another two weeks while they decide what to do!”

    At the start of Saturday’s show, Mr Schaffer said: “We’re not allowed to talk about it.” Leo Kearse, the Headliner’s host, replied: “Thank you for not talking about it.”

    GB News declined to comment on the show’s future.
    https://twitter.com/LewisSchaffer/status/1926330807989203195?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1926330807989203195%7Ctwgr%5E98c1d9ffb735bb527311361a0132db877971bdd1%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fbusiness%2F2025%2F05%2F26%2Fgb-news-anti-woke-comedy-show-faces-axe%2F
    The uncertainty comes after Headliners, a comic spin on traditional newspaper review shows, was hit with tens of thousands of complaints after one of its hosts appeared to suggest the LGBTQ+ community included paedophiles.

    The remarks, by the comedian Josh Howie, are now the subject of an Ofcom investigation. In a segment discussing a sermon by a US bishop, which urged Donald Trump to “have mercy” on gay, lesbian and transgender children, Mr Howie quoted a statement from the bishop’s church calling for the full inclusion of LGBTQ+ people. He said: “I just want to say, that includes paedos, if you’re doing the full inclusion.”

    The Headliners segment triggered more than 1,200 complaints by viewers, as well as a petition signed by more than 70,000 people from campaign group the Good Law Project that has been handed to the regulator.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/business/2025/05/26/TELEMMGLPICT000416777069_17482779844030_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqNJjoeBT78QIaYdkJdEY4CnGTJFJS74MYhNY6w3GNbO8.jpeg?imwidth=680
    Josh Howie, one of Headliners’ presenters, appeared to suggest the LGBTQ+ community included paedophiles

    Angelos Frangopoulos, the chief executive of GB News, said the channel had been “subjected to a coordinated political campaign by far-Left pressure groups”.

    Mr Howie has said his remarks were intended as a joke, adding: “It’s a comedy show. Where three comedians make jokes as we review the next day’s newspapers.” GB News has said the comedian has been “misrepresented”.

    Headliners has been on air since 2021 in the 11pm slot and is one of GB News’s longest-running programmes. The show typically features mostly Right-leaning comedians. Mr Kearse’s YouTube channel describes him as “one of the UK’s few openly Right-wing comedians” and one of his stand-up shows as “about comedy triggering the wrath of woke mobs”.

    GB News has grappled with a series of disputes with Ofcom, the media regulator, over the content of its programming as it attempts to import Right-leaning, US-style panel shows and current affairs to Britain.

    In February, GB News won a crucial major High Court battle against the watchdog after a judge quashed the regulator’s ruling that the channel breached impartiality rules by airing programmes presented by Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, a then-Tory MP.

    The channel is separately challenging a £100,000 penalty handed down by Ofcom over claims it broke impartiality rules with a 2024 programme featuring Rishi Sunak, then the prime minister, alleging he had been given an “uncontested platform to promote the policies and performance of his government”.

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

    No comments.

    To my taste, Lewis Shaffer is the most unfunny New York Jewish comedian I have ever listened to. Spoilt child.

    Josh Howie doesn't come across as a comedian at all.

    The rest of the crew are OK.

    1. More free speech being closed down , or rather discussions that sometimes need to be discussed and aired , because many viewers feel one should not bite ones tongue or feel scared for raising an issue ?

      What has happened to Sticks and stones etc , we all learnt that at school , and the other one was Tell tale tit because the classroom snitch was NOT appreciated ..

      1. "Tell tale tit
        Your tongue will split
        All the birdies in the street
        Will have a little bit"

    2. How many words does it need to say that there is no case to answer? Josh Howie raises a perfectly valid and serious point, and any malice directed against him for this is malign and very troubling.

      The Alphabet inclusion of very conceivable sexual and gender preference variation on the grounds of diversity is bound to wander into taboos. Homosexuality, in my lifetime, was once "the sin that dare not speak its name" and the fellow now on the £50 note committed suicide after being chemically castrated in the 1950s.

      Paedophilia may be taboo right now, but it was once at least tolerated as recently as the 1970s. John Peel's favourite song was 'Teenage Kicks'; at least one high circulation newspaper carried evocative images of unclothed young teenagers on a notorious inside page. Many a modelling career was launched with it. Let us not forget the known preferences of an extremely famous disc jockey who presented 'Top of the Pops' and went on to host a wish show for children, was a patron of a children's hospital and a close friend of the Prime Minister and the Prince of Wales.

      I go further – many a jocular remark is made in my part of England about the Welsh and their wooly friends. The Welsh themselves take it in good heart – my Welsh grandfather used to use the word 'tup' as a mild insult. I think there is also a passage in the Koran (perhaps Clive Matelas can dig it out) that makes it quite acceptable to enjoy a goat when there are no human slaves available. Bestiality is still taboo, but could that too be included in the Alphabet?

      3. The Leftards will win. They have the numbers and the viciousness. They have captivated Ofcom. It will end in actual war, one day, but it will take a lot more years yet.

      4. A tup (common dialect in Derbyshire) is an alternative name for a ram. When a ram has 'serviced' a ewe, she is said to have been 'tupped'.

        The Derby Tup is a common folk dance in parts of Derbyshire. My local, when I lived in Chesterfield, was a wonderful free-house selling a variety of 12, well-kept, cask-conditioned ales. I still miss a pint-or-three at the Derby Tup.

    3. OFCOM – Chairman: Michael Ian Grade, Baron Grade of YarBigmouth. Ex Chairman of the Board of Governors of the BBC. Created a life peer by Davis Cameron for services to David Cameron.

    4. "Angelos Frangopoulos, the chief executive of GB News, said the channel had been “subjected to a coordinated political campaign by far-Left pressure groups”
      No surprise there. Our government and media takes far too much notice of these groups.

  15. Brigitte Macron is being described in far less reverential terms.

    Legacy media just cannot bring themselves to call her/him/it a transman Jean-Michel Trogneux.

      1. Twins? Looks like a bit of photoshopping (unless of course there is only one pullover?)

      2. In these days of digital tweaking, it's hard to say; but the dentition looks very similar.

  16. Lucy Connolly is in prison where she belongs. 27 May 2025.

    I have been a vocal supporter of freedom of speech and a critic of the many ways in which it is currently under attack. But I shall not waste any sympathy on Mrs Connolly. What she did was a serious offence. After learning that three children had been murdered in a knife attack at a holiday club at Southport, and believing (wrongly) that the murderer was an immigrant, she wrote: “Mass deportation now. Set fire to all the f-ing hotels full of the bastards for all I care.”

    I usually agree with Mr Sumption, but not here. I hold to the belief that there is nothing; no matter how vile, depraved or offensive that cannot be said or written and remain legally sacrosanct. The idea that such utterances may provoke real world consequences seems to me to be doubtful in the extreme. Did Connolly’s tweet really set off the riots? Sumption seems to think so. I would like to see his proof of this though there can of course, by its nature, no such verification. How can there be? We are dealing with opinion and belief and Sumption has no more idea of the individual motivations of the rioters than I do.

    As burglars are best dealt with for burgling and killers for killing, rioters are best dealt with for rioting. Their motivations should be irrelevant. If someone should act on words written or spoken by someone else then it is they, not the purported source, that should suffer the real world consequences.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05/26/lucy-connolly-prison-appeal-free-speech/#comment

    1. The thing that disturbs me about the Lucy Connolly case (and many other 'Southport rioters' cases) is that the accused were apparently railroaded into pleading guilty with the threat that they would be remanded in custody, possibly for months, before their trials. Whether or not they were promised shorter sentences if they pleaded guilty I have no way of knowing, but some of these sentences (including Lucy's) seem to be inordinately long for what is really no more than a social media post.

      1. And in real down to earth terms how many people were actually effected or annoyed at what she said or really bothered.
        I was really effected by the recent and terrible house fire at Stonebridge Park. That as we now frequently see could happen anywhere. But the perpetrator was detained under the mental health act !!!! ????

        1. Stonebridge is the most populated ward in Brent with a population over 17,000 with the majority of Afro-Caribbean heritage. In 2015 it had the highest recorded gun crime of any ward in London.

          Police figures for 2016–2017 included 768 incidents of violence and sexual offences and 868 incidents of antisocial behaviour; in this period police abandoned more than 41 percent of cases because no culprit was identified.

          Neighbouring Harlesden witnessed a huge increase in shootings from around 1999, becoming the highest murder rated district nationwide by 2001. This contributed to Stonebridge's reputation as one of the most dangerous places in the UK, as most perpetrators were associated or lived in the Stonebridge estate.

          Highest crime rate? I wonder why that is? Someone must know.

          1. My Father and his 5 brothers were born and brought up in Willesden. I can only remember going to the house once a child. It was three story and had bells for servant’s. Although reasonably wealthy, I don’t think they had servant’s.
            After an ablation in Hammersmith Hospital about 9 years ago, one of our sons picked me up and I asked him to drive through Willesden. We couldn’t get out quickly enough. And early 60s one of my Fathers brothers was the Mayor of Wembley and surrounds. He’d be turning in his grave at what has been allowed to happen there now.

      2. And let's remember that a number of paedophiles, including one case where the police said the child porn on the accused's computer was some of the most disgusting they had ever seen, were spared prison! Apparently there is no two tier "justice" though?

        1. Yes, he was initially remanded in custody after his first hearing after pleading not guilty, but later released on bail. HIs trial, due to begin in January 2025, has now been delayed until August.

          1. And then till February ….. and then until the following July …..
            Dribbling and long grass come to mind.

          2. Strange how the two brothers who assaulted the police officers at Manchester Airport on July 23rd 2024 have still not had their case heard.

      1. Thanks for the link. That's the first well-informed article that I've read on the subject.

    3. It should have gone to jury trial as a test case.

      In summing up, a competent and conscientious judge, should ask the jury these questions before they can decide on a verdict:

      1. Is incitement to commit a serious offence a crime?

      2. Did Lucy Connolly's extreme and impassioned tweet actually influence anyone?

      3. What was the extent of this influence?

      Question 1 is a matter for Statute.
      Question 2 affects the verdict.
      Queston 3 affects the sentence.

      If I can say that, and my legal training extends to one week on a Trade Union officer's course and ten years fighting a horrible case in the family courts against the mother of my children, then surely a properly qualified judge can?

    4. Did Labour councillor Ricky Jones actually encourage others to act violently towards far-right protestors? By using a microphone addressing a crowd at an anti-fascist protest and screaming ‘disgusting Nazi fascists’.. ‘we need to cut their throats and get rid of them’.

      2. What about all the Muslim placards promoting death to everyone else – action was there none

        1. I remember a few years ago the police escorting a march on the Israeli embassy in London.
          Perpetrators carrying placards saying behead those who don't support Islam.
          No action taken.

        2. Reason being, there are too many of them. Only one Lucy Connolly. Much easier to deal with.

        4. Normal cultural practice.
          How very dare white, Christian colonialists question such behaviour.

    5. BB barrister did a very enlightening vid on the sentence and appeal. In brief and from memory, the crime she was charged with, and pleaded guilty to, carries a sentence of 3-7 years. She was given 31 months with a discount for the guilty plea. So with what the judge was presented with, the sentence is correct and at the lower end of the scale. Now, I dont agree with her being in jail but those are the facts. Whether she should have pleaded guilty and the threat of being remanded prior to trial is another matter.

      1. Yes, she was badly advised and sold the 'lesser sentence' without knowing the consequences. I imagine this is because she did feel guilty because, like a decent right wing person she has a measure of shame.

        Lefties don't have this so game the system for their own benefit.

    6. The rioting could have been calmed immediately if Starmer had a wit of humanity about him, alas, he's a robot waiting to be told what works with his focus groups.

      1. Thanks for the clarification of Noddygate, BoB. For a minute I began to think that Noddy and Big Ears were covert homosexuals! Lol.

  19. Morning all 🙂😊
    High cloud still windy some rain overnight but no puddles.
    The major problems with our political classes is that no matter what they say or indicate they might belive in, because it's an easy life regular pay and 'expenses' and the only job they have. They all toe the party line. And that's why nothing that the public so desperately want or deserves, it never gets. And it's obviously why our country is in such a bloody mess.

  20. Morning all 🙂😊
    High cloud still windy some rain overnight but no puddles.
    The major problems with our political classes is that no matter what they say or indicate they might belive in, because it's an easy life regular pay and 'expenses' and the only job they have. They all toe the party line. And that's why nothing that the public so desperately want or deserves, it never gets. And it's obviously why our country is in such a bloody mess.

  21. Morning all 🙂😊
    High cloud still windy some rain overnight but no puddles.
    The major problems with our political classes is that no matter what they say or indicate they might belive in, because it's an easy life regular pay and 'expenses' and the only job they have. They all toe the party line. And that's why nothing that the public so desperately want or deserves, it never gets. And it's obviously why our country is in such a bloody mess.

  22. Here you go, BoB…From The Grauniad

    'It's all my fault'
    This article is more than 17 years old
    Alan Yentob, the BBC's creative director, takes the lid off the BBC's 'Noddygate' and explains why he did not feel able to speak out about it sooner
    Steve Hewlett
    Mon 8 Oct 2007 07.04 BST

    Alan Yentob has spent weeks as the object of increasingly serious criticism, up to and including calls for his head. The charge was grave: producers had made it look as if the BBC's creative director and presenter of the flagship arts show Imagine was present at interviews he did not conduct. Calls for Yentob to quit were raised again over the weekend as the BBC1 controller Peter Fincham resigned over a separate, but related, issue of trust in TV.

    It turns out that, as Will Wyatt was working on his investigation into "Crowngate", staff on Yentob's arts programme Imagine were conducting a trawl into "Noddygate". The results, we can reveal today, are stark. In all of the shows, in the four years since Imagine began, fake "noddies" were inserted into precisely none of them. Not one.

    So how did it happen then that such a damaging allegation was allowed to gain so much traction? "It's all my own fault . . . it was foolish of me to respond in that fashion. I did not want to say no to something that might have been yes."

    So when the media asked whether he had allowed noddies to be used to make it look as if he had been where he hadn't, he said possibly, probably and even suggested it was quite likely because he couldn't remember and didn't want to be caught fibbing? Well, baldly, the answer to that question is yes. So shouldn't he have checked? "Yes . . . I do think I should have checked." So why on earth didn't he?

    Original passion

    And it's here that the story becomes altogether much more interesting. I should say at this point that I have known Yentob for some 25 years and have worked with him quite closely – when he was controller of BBC1 in particular. Yentob started his BBC career as a general trainee but swiftly found his place in film-making. That and the arts were always his passions, and, in truth, they still are.

    And in spite of having made his whole career at the BBC and risen over time to almost the very top of the corporate management pole, it is his undisputed talents as a programme-maker that have underpinned his achievements and which – when other things haven't quite worked out – he's been able to fall back on. Even his current position as creative director for the whole of the BBC appeared fashioned to keep him and his formidable, some would say totemic, creative reputation inside the BBC, at the same time as taking most of his direct management responsibilities away. So as our discussion of "Noddygate" progresses I begin to realise that, although he has the title of a very high ranking corporate executive, the person I'm really talking to is Alan Yentob the film-maker – ego attached – whose original passion has been reawakened by the opportunity to produce and present his own BBC1 arts strand Imagine. And it's that realisation that begins to make sense of what otherwise looks like a spectacular PR own goal. So again, why did he say he might have done noddies as alleged?

    "Because I make arts programmes and we're always using cutaways or something. I knew I wouldn't have done it routinely and I assumed people would understand – particularly because the films I've done have been quite narrative, quite playful . . . programmes are constructed and made and I didn't think anyone would challenge me about that," he says.

    In other words Alan Yentob, programme-maker, doesn't imagine for a second that anyone could seriously be suggesting that he might have acted unethically. In a nutshell he couldn't be sure it hadn't happened but was certain he could explain it if it had. He goes further, seeing himself as "defending the principle that making programmes is not the same as real life – why do we cut out the questions? Edit together the best bits?" All techniques he passionately believes are basic to film-making and effective storytelling and not in any meaningful sense deceptive.

    But in seeing this in such a personal way – he was filming with Damien Hirst in New York at the time the story broke – he now acknowledges that in corporate and political terms he's really put his foot in it. "I didn't take on board that in this debate – where I think there are serious issues – I would be misunderstood. It stresses me to think that people might imagine I'd taken liberties with the truth – which is absolutely not true."

    So what does he have to say to the thousands of BBC staff who he now recognises have also been labouring with the consequences of his original misjudgment – at what is, by any standards, a very difficult time for the whole organisation? "I'm sorry – I hope you understand why I did it. I wanted to be open and undefensive – it turned out that was not the way it was interpreted. It led some people licence to think the worst of me, and it led others to think that perhaps it was a licence to do whatever you like. I apologise but I'd like to pick up that debate."

    Trust and honesty

    And there's no doubt that he has genuine fears for the future of TV as a creative medium, and that in the current environment of such heightened sensitivity great damage might be done. "They're very precious these things – the ability to tell stories and to find ways to do that which engage our audiences but don't mislead them; where sometimes we use techniques of artifice to enhance those shows but not to deceive."

    He says there needs to be an open debate both within the BBC and beyond – one, importantly, fully open to audiences too – about where lines should be drawn and under what circumstances they might properly be crossed. This is all the more necessary, he says, after "10 years of genre bending and 'reality' TV" which have led to what he describes as "a laziness, a routineness about how you make programmes – you want to make them more exciting so you add a bit"; but without that context public service delights like Jamie's School Dinners simply wouldn't have happened. The debate so far, he says, has "suggested that you can't trust anyone – as if programme makers were estate agents, and that's not true. There are no more motivated people than those who work in broadcasting . . . and ultimately it is about trust and honesty."

    So this week in the aftermath of "Crowngate", "Socksgate" and the rest and with "Noddygate" looking rather more noddyish than anything else, maybe now a line can be drawn and Yentob's much needed debate can actually get under way.

      1. They did, didn't they? I think they bottled it after a while. Starmer, being an evil moron doesn't give a stuff. The more globalist control the better as far as he's concerned.

    2. What happens when the WHO declares excess population to be a public health threat? OK I am extrapolating a bit, but not that much – similar noises have come out of organisations funded by the same people.

      1. 406378+ up ticks,

        Morning BB2,

        Good question,
        Following the peoples actions to date
        a cull WILL take place, after the herd maneuver to get center of the pack.

  24. Dare I ask , what does child poverty mean these days ?

    What is child poverty ?

    Can you remember this very early Cilla Black song, yes , real poverty in those post war years.

    Lyrics
    Oh you are a mucky kid,
    Dirty as a dustbin lid,
    When he finds out the things you did,
    You’ll get a belt from your dad!
    Oh you have your father’s nose,
    So crimson, in the dark it glows,
    If you’re not asleep when the boozers close,
    You’ll get a belt from your dad!

    You look so scruffy lying there,
    Strawberry-jam tats in your hair,
    Though in the world you haven’t a care
    And I have got so many.
    It’s quite a struggle every day
    Living on your father’s pay,
    The bugger drinks it all away
    And leaves me without any.

    Although we have no silver spoon,
    Better days are coming soon
    Now Nelly’s working at the lune
    And she gets paid on Friday.
    Perhaps one day we’ll have a splash,
    When Littlewoods provides the cash,
    We’ll get a house in Knotty Ash
    And buy your dad a brewery.

    Oh you are mucky kid,
    Dirty as a dustbin lid,
    When he finds out the things you did
    You’ll get a belt from your dad!
    Oh you have your fathers face,
    You’re growing up a real hard case.
    But there’s no one else can take your place
    Go fast asleep for Mammy.

    1. A Derbyshire Lullaby.

      Rock-a-bye babby
      Be still for thee daddy
      Thee mammy has gone t'mill.

      But when she gets back
      She'll gi' thee some pap.
      Rock-a-bye babby, be still.

    3. I didn't know that the Littlewoods Football Pool started life back in 1923. Although it wasn't immediately synonymous with making fortunes in its early years, it had become so by the time the song was written.

      https://www.thepools.com/about-us

    4. I didn't know that the Littlewoods Football Pool started life back in 1923. Although it wasn't immediately synonymous with making fortunes in its early years, it had become so by the time the song was written.

      https://www.thepools.com/about-us

  25. The Profane Language

    Daily Telegraph editorial, May 27, 2025.

    The phrase “choice Anglo-Saxon” is often a euphemism for swearing so perhaps it is no surprise that the most profane nations on earth are English-speaking. Moreover, an analysis of 20 countries puts Britain in second place behind only the USA in a propensity to curse.

    But the University of Queensland study was immediately suspect since it found that Australians came third, when anecdotally most people would have put them top of the pile.

    Researchers only looked at online sources and did not include live conversations peppered with vulgarities. “Australians are more conservative when they write online but not so much when they are face to face,” said one academic.

    When it comes to it, what about the Irish? Is “fecking” really not a swear word?

    Feck knows?

    1. Morning, Grizz!
      Wonder what is defined as a "swear word"? And why restrict it to English – yer Norwegians swear (på norsk), and I believe Russian has a varied range of swearings… and swearing doesn't necessarily involve the deity, genitalia, and bodily excretions.

    2. Writers of sitcoms often have to invent swear words that pass the anti–profanity rules, yet remain authentic to how featured scallies actually speak.

      One example is the word 'smeg' – did that exist before Red Dwarf?

      Another is the use of words that are unintelligible to the censors. At least half the words used in 'Rab C Nesbitt' come under this category – how many of them are swear words? Then there was the gratuitious swearing committed by Oliver Postgate's Clangers, but unfortunately for him, someone upstairs correctly translated the swannee-whistle utterance and summoned him to the office.

      Although the notorious names of Captain Pugwash's shipmates were rigorously denied, I have childhood memories of them. Perhaps they never made it to the screen, but there was a cartoon strip in 'Radio Times' at the time, and I may have seen it there.

      2. "Smeg" or rather "Smeg-head" did exist in the '70s Forces. Short for Smegma, aka "foreskin cheese".

      4. The suspect names for Pugwash characters were actually coined by comedian Jasper Carrot!

    3. Originally a shorter version of permission for a joint sexual act.
      Fornication under the concent of the king.

  26. Good morning, all. A damp morning so far. Fortunately we both remembered that it is our 30th anniversary!

    1. Congratulations to the both of you, Bill.
      So, the MR is not so recent… 😉

      1. Well done Bill and Carolyn!

        But when we first met Bill he had not yet married his MR!

    4. I'll bet she always wins when playing Patience.

      Many congratulations to you both.

    8. Congratulations! Are you doing anything special? I’ll bet G&P just came in and demanded their breakfast as usual?

      1. Thank you. Just a normal day. Gus was knocking at the door. Pickles had to be called. Both have pushed off out!

    9. Now and forever is a long long time Bill.

      Congratulations to both of you for being interlocked with mutual tastes and interests x

  27. Morning, all Y'all.
    Weather somewhere between blinding sunshine and thunderous torrential rain.
    Wish it would make up it's mind…

    1. Yes, I noticed.
      As the Police have not specifically stated he WAS the driver, of course people are going to speculate and, unfortunately, far too many will add 2 & 2 together and get 6.

      1. Obviously too scared or even dishonest to tell us the truth.
        It could lead to further trouble.

        1. But the hands are clearly white.
          The picture is deceptive, they look very small for a man's hands, I wonder whether he's hitting the horn as the hand positioning on the wheel isn't usual.

          2. I wondered whether a passenger might have been trying intervene; it might explain the swerves.

  29. When the next attack occurs, as it will, can we assume that if the police do not immediately reveal the ethnicity of the culprit then the culprit is not white?

    1. Being British covers all who have crept in / settled in Britain , but being English is a different matter as is being Welsh, Irish and a Scot.

      So , white and British, I am amazed the religion wasn't mentioned either?

  30. Good Morning!

    Today we have in Free Speech Is Extremely Dangerous , what I hope is the first of many articles from Catherine Blaiklock, former UKIP economics spokesman and founder of the Brexit Party, who writes about the true nature of free speech. Please read and leave a comment.

    The interview, The Real Covid Catastrophe , with the well known covid hero John O'Looney, the Undertaker who exposed the Government's lies on covid to expose the sinister plan behind the mRNA vaccines, a plan still in progress today is terrifying and stimulating at the same time. Don't forget to leave a comment.

    Energy Watch: Over the last 24 hours: Britain's electric power was sourced from Gas, 9.9%; Solar, 6.6%: Wind 58.2%; Imports, 3.8%; Biomass, 3.1% and Nuclear, 16.5%.

    freespeechbacklash.com

    1. Despite windy days, wind is still barely at 60%. How utterly useless.

      Of course, it's also not 60% all the time, it's usually less than 20.

  31. 406378+ up ticks,

    Try the party that STOPS THE DAILY INVASION, that issue is surely the biggest to maintain TAX SUCKING element suffered by the nations tax payers.

    Proven in past time it is NOT going to be the lab/lib/con anti Brit coalition party.

    Reform has roots maturing in the HOC, beneficial Common sense says express build another party to run parallel to reform to, lets be honest, avert any treacherous moves.

    Alternative,

    I believe Amazon do a pack deal of kneeling pads & prayer mats also a soothing good manacle anti chaffing ointment .

    Tuesday 27 May: Who will have the courage to overhaul Britain’s Byzantine tax system?

      1. Something similar was said I think when this research on mRNA lettuces was in the news a couple of years ago, but who said it, I'm not sure.

      2. It's probably not genuine but Bill Gates has got himself such a bad reputation that people will believe anything these days.

        2. He hasn't "got himself" that reputation. He was set up as a whipping boy by some of the anti vax MAGA crowd here, stirred up by the Orange One and his acolytes. All Gates has actually done has been to use his money to fund health care initiatives in various 3rd world countries.

          Surprising they did not also go after Dolly Parton, who helped to fund the Covid vaccine research at Vanderbilt University in Nashville that led to the Moderna m-RNA vaccine. But, hey ho, it's always hard to predict which way a mob will turn.

      3. It's probably not genuine but Bill Gates has got himself such a bad reputation that people will believe anything these days.

      4. Billy Goats need to be tethered to a post so that he can be shagged by a thousand mullahs.

    2. Anyone who puts drugs into food or drinks without consent needs to be SHOT.

      Let's stop pissing about and sort these scum out.

      1. 406378+ up ticks,

        Morning G,

        Deserved I agree but used as guinne pigs via vaccines & jabs would result in the peoples getting some beneficial returns.

  33. From the Telegraph

    GB News’s ‘anti-woke’ comedy show faces axe after thousands of complaints
    Channel could cancel late night programme ‘within a fortnight’, presenter suggests
    Matthew Field26 May 2025 5:52pm BST
    GB News is considering cancelling its “anti-woke” comedy show Headliners amid a barrage of complaints.

    Presenters of the Right-wing, late night panel show appeared to suggest on Saturday that it could be taken off air within a fortnight.

    Lewis Schaffer, one of the show’s panellists, posted on X: “I’m heading into the studio! I’ve been told by management that the show will be on air for another two weeks while they decide what to do!”

    At the start of Saturday’s show, Mr Schaffer said: “We’re not allowed to talk about it.” Leo Kearse, the Headliner’s host, replied: “Thank you for not talking about it.”

    GB News declined to comment on the show’s future.

    The uncertainty comes after Headliners, a comic spin on traditional newspaper review shows, was hit with tens of thousands of complaints after one of its hosts appeared to suggest the LGBTQ+ community included paedophiles.

    The remarks, by the comedian Josh Howie, are now the subject of an Ofcom investigation. In a segment discussing a sermon by a US bishop, which urged Donald Trump to “have mercy” on gay, lesbian and transgender children, Mr Howie quoted a statement from the bishop’s church calling for the full inclusion of LGBTQ+ people. He said: “I just want to say, that includes paedos, if you’re doing the full inclusion.”

    The Headliners segment triggered more than 1,200 complaints by viewers, as well as a petition signed by more than 70,000 people from campaign group the Good Law Project that has been handed to the regulator.

    Josh Howie
    Josh Howie, one of Headliners’ presenters, appeared to suggest the LGBTQ+ community included paedophiles
    Angelos Frangopoulos, the chief executive of GB News, said the channel had been “subjected to a coordinated political campaign by far-Left pressure groups”.

    Mr Howie has said his remarks were intended as a joke, adding: “It’s a comedy show. Where three comedians make jokes as we review the next day’s newspapers.” GB News has said the comedian has been “misrepresented”.

    Headliners has been on air since 2021 in the 11pm slot and is one of GB News’s longest-running programmes. The show typically features mostly Right-leaning comedians. Mr Kearse’s YouTube channel describes him as “one of the UK’s few openly Right-wing comedians” and one of his stand-up shows as “about comedy triggering the wrath of woke mobs”.

    GB News has grappled with a series of disputes with Ofcom, the media regulator, over the content of its programming as it attempts to import Right-leaning, US-style panel shows and current affairs to Britain.

    In February, GB News won a crucial major High Court battle against the watchdog after a judge quashed the regulator’s ruling that the channel breached impartiality rules by airing programmes presented by Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, a then-Tory MP.

    The channel is separately challenging a £100,000 penalty handed down by Ofcom over claims it broke impartiality rules with a 2024 programme featuring Rishi Sunak, then the prime minister, alleging he had been given an “uncontested platform to promote the policies and performance of his government”.

    1. So, now what a blooming shame .. why? I enjoy their late evening humour ..so does Moh.

      The BBC HIGNFY prog has so much nonsense and nit picketty humour , which I hate !

      1. Hislop is a far more corrupt and insidious influencer than any of the GB News comedians.

    2. Free speech, eh? Lefties gonna Left. A bunch of bitter, spiteful, nasty self righteous bigots so full of hatred and bile they just want to destroy everything their intolerant little minds hate.

    1. Politicians don't know anything about farming. They don't know anything about anything.

      The civil service, so equally know nothing about farming just pour endless taxes, debt and waste on the economy because it suits them to do so. Mostly from the EU which knows absolutely nothing about anything because it's a communist dictatorship.

  35. Lord Mayor Safiya Saeed has said her triumph from humble beginnings was encouraged by the community she ‘has always fought to represent’.

    Proud family members from Somaliland in the Horn of Africa were among those seated in the chamber during the ceremony, to watch the single mother of five be named the 128th Lord Mayor of Sheffield. In an exclusive interview with YorkshireLive, Safiya opened up about her journey to becoming Lord Mayor for the city she has ‘always called home.’

    Safiya is officially the first black woman wearing a hijab to be elected as Lord Mayor. Yet, she explained that she never had ambitions to work in local government. Initially, she was just trying to find ways to subsidise her benefit payments.

    Safiya recalled how she worked in a ‘box-sized’ office In Dorking Street in 2013, which she rented to run her own business. “The only things in the room were a table, chair, printer, a lamp and a computer," she said. "Everything was second hand. I remember finding the desk chair in a skip, and I wheeled it all the way home.

    “I used to bring the kids to the office with me. I was determined to learn and achieve more in my life, so I decided to become more involved in local schools, by offering advocacy and translating."

    Despite speaking no English until later in life, Safiya was able to use the office as a ‘clinic’ where she would help people interpret financial and council documents.

    Balancing parenthood was no easy feat, but the single mother of five explained that she had always centred her work around her family. She said: “Everything involves my children, even from when they were very small. When I would volunteer, I would always tell the kids ‘Mummy is doing this, lets do it together’. My children are always part of the process.”

    Ten years later, after becoming chair of a local secondary school and founding community organisation 'Reach Up Youth' to empower young people, Safiya attempted to run for the position of Lord Mayor. Safiya said: "Initially, I was rejected. I applied two years ago and I didn't get the role, which in retrospect I understand because I don't think I was emotionally ready anyway.”

    Yet, she refused to stop trying, and persevered with the application process. Safiya said: “I thought about it in my heart and I just put it all into the application this time round. It's an incredible position to receive.”

    Now Safiya wants to spend her time as Lord Mayor ensuring that she helps create the Sheffield that she ‘knows exists’, outside of bigoted comments she has received online after her selection. Safiya said: “I'm not polite because I need to be polite. I'm polite because it is my choice.

    I feel like people understand better when you don't shout. I always think about how I carry myself, but I do not pretend that I am here to educate bigots either. I'm here to represent my community – that's the point. I'm only strong enough to do so, because my community, and other communities are behind me.”

    Wrapping up, Safiya spoke hopefully of the future and her love for Sheffield. She said: “This is my city. No one can take that away from me. This is my home.

    https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/local-news/i-started-desk-chair-pulled-31702886?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwY2xjawKiUvlleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETByRGNuMldZTHVxRTN6TXFtAR4xlFrjrG-PKD2hGQGWJ1rXNN-XBjbbVdMuwvVaDVWXvxGI7xm9_lueVoHvaw_aem_COT3_Rdnzn1GXaplY94KoA#Echobox=1747970530

    1. Single mother of five. It's not your home. You're a parasite. A freeloading parasite.

  36. Lord Mayor Safiya Saeed has said her triumph from humble beginnings was encouraged by the community she ‘has always fought to represent’.

    Proud family members from Somaliland in the Horn of Africa were among those seated in the chamber during the ceremony, to watch the single mother of five be named the 128th Lord Mayor of Sheffield. In an exclusive interview with YorkshireLive, Safiya opened up about her journey to becoming Lord Mayor for the city she has ‘always called home.’

    Safiya is officially the first black woman wearing a hijab to be elected as Lord Mayor. Yet, she explained that she never had ambitions to work in local government. Initially, she was just trying to find ways to subsidise her benefit payments.

    Safiya recalled how she worked in a ‘box-sized’ office In Dorking Street in 2013, which she rented to run her own business. “The only things in the room were a table, chair, printer, a lamp and a computer," she said. "Everything was second hand. I remember finding the desk chair in a skip, and I wheeled it all the way home.

    “I used to bring the kids to the office with me. I was determined to learn and achieve more in my life, so I decided to become more involved in local schools, by offering advocacy and translating."

    Despite speaking no English until later in life, Safiya was able to use the office as a ‘clinic’ where she would help people interpret financial and council documents.

    Balancing parenthood was no easy feat, but the single mother of five explained that she had always centred her work around her family. She said: “Everything involves my children, even from when they were very small. When I would volunteer, I would always tell the kids ‘Mummy is doing this, lets do it together’. My children are always part of the process.”

    Ten years later, after becoming chair of a local secondary school and founding community organisation 'Reach Up Youth' to empower young people, Safiya attempted to run for the position of Lord Mayor. Safiya said: "Initially, I was rejected. I applied two years ago and I didn't get the role, which in retrospect I understand because I don't think I was emotionally ready anyway.”

    Yet, she refused to stop trying, and persevered with the application process. Safiya said: “I thought about it in my heart and I just put it all into the application this time round. It's an incredible position to receive.”

    Now Safiya wants to spend her time as Lord Mayor ensuring that she helps create the Sheffield that she ‘knows exists’, outside of bigoted comments she has received online after her selection. Safiya said: “I'm not polite because I need to be polite. I'm polite because it is my choice.

    I feel like people understand better when you don't shout. I always think about how I carry myself, but I do not pretend that I am here to educate bigots either. I'm here to represent my community – that's the point. I'm only strong enough to do so, because my community, and other communities are behind me.”

    Wrapping up, Safiya spoke hopefully of the future and her love for Sheffield. She said: “This is my city. No one can take that away from me. This is my home.

    https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/local-news/i-started-desk-chair-pulled-31702886?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwY2xjawKiUvlleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETByRGNuMldZTHVxRTN6TXFtAR4xlFrjrG-PKD2hGQGWJ1rXNN-XBjbbVdMuwvVaDVWXvxGI7xm9_lueVoHvaw_aem_COT3_Rdnzn1GXaplY94KoA#Echobox=1747970530

  37. Item 1, The Headline Four seriously injured after Liverpool crash

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05/27/liverpool-parade-car-ramming-latest-news/

    Comments

    Item 1

    Liverpool did not crash, they won the footbal match. The car did not crash it seems it was driven into the crowd, who were in Liverpool City Centre

    Item 2 : Four people are “very ill in hospital” after a car ploughed into a crowd of Liverpool fans on Monday evening.

    The people are not 'very ill": they are very injured

    Item 3 Police are investigating the ramming that occurred while supporters were celebrating their team’s Premier League victory in Liverpool city centre.
    Liverpool did not have a victory in Liverpool city centre, where there is no football stadium

    Item 4. Steve Rotheram, the Liverpool Mayor, told BBC Radio 5 Live: “The actual incident in Water Street will live with those people for all the wrong reasons.

    “There are still four people who are very, very ill in hospital and we are hoping of course that they pull through very, very quickly.”

    See Item 1: The people are injured, not ill.

    The reporting standards of the DT are getting worse.

    They did highlight that the vehicle was driven by a 53-year-old white British man, from the Liverpool area, who was arrested at the scene

    1. You did not get that execrable standard of 'journalism' back in the days of Conrad Black or Max Hastings.

      2. Their circulation was about double what it is today – and is that any wonder? The internet did for papers as multiple sources of news, citizen journalism all appeared and was often better written and researched (see Eigen Values by David Turver, Low Status Opinions by, err…Mr Low Status Opinions).

        Now, today, we have the state actively lying to us and a complicit media all cheerfully following the line parcelled out by big fat state and it's enforcement.

  38. Item 1, The Headline Four seriously injured after Liverpool crash

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05/27/liverpool-parade-car-ramming-latest-news/

    Comments

    Item 1

    Liverpool did not crash, they won the footbal match. The car did not crash it seems it was driven into the crowd, who were in Liverpool City Centre

    Item 2 : Four people are “very ill in hospital” after a car ploughed into a crowd of Liverpool fans on Monday evening.

    The people are not 'very ill": they are very injured

    Item 3 Police are investigating the ramming that occurred while supporters were celebrating their team’s Premier League victory in Liverpool city centre.
    Liverpool did not have a victory in Liverpool city centre, where there is no football stadium

    Item 4. Steve Rotheram, the Liverpool Mayor, told BBC Radio 5 Live: “The actual incident in Water Street will live with those people for all the wrong reasons.

    “There are still four people who are very, very ill in hospital and we are hoping of course that they pull through very, very quickly.”

    See Item 1: The people are injured, not ill.

    The reporting standards of the DT are getting worse.

    They did highlight that the vehicle was driven by a 53-year-old white British man, from the Liverpool area, who was arrested at the scene

    1. Sadly children are not taught to think any more, just regurgitate nonsense.

  42. Lucy Connolly is in prison where she belongs. But free speech truly is under attack elsewhere
    Her offence was serious. We would do better to focus on the many other genuine cases of repression.
    Jonathan Sumption : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05/26/lucy-connolly-prison-appeal-free-speech/

    The BTL comments suggest that the high esteem in which Sumption was held is beginning to fall off a precipice.

    If Sumption cannot be trusted to speak out strongly against lawfare and the government's opportunistic weaponising of events then is there anyone who is still highly esteemed can and will do?

    1. Deserves to be in prison for a hyperbolic comment made in the heat of the moment and deleted almost as quickly, at a time when she and many others, were feeling intense anger and frustration at the Southport murders and the way were being handled by the Police and Government?
      Jonathan Sumption is talking out of his bloody arse.

      2. We know the state lied. We know the said it was terrorism, it was. They said it wasn't muslim. It was. They said it wasn't an immigrant, he was.

        The state lied. It locked up Ms Connolly because they wanted to punish someone for not complying with their lie. All recent (last 30 years) terrorism has been carried out by muslim gimmigrants. All of it. The state lies habitually each time to force a narrative that Ms Connolly was angry at. The rioters were lied to, they responded to the murder of children and Starmer, being the useless plank he is hadn't the empathy or human awareness – probably because his spin doctors are desperate to push the same failed narrative – couldn't engage with them.

        It's a game to the politicians. They don't care about the problems. They've no plan. They're just waster placemen desperate for the next trough.

      3. Not many news items reduce me to tears, but that event did.
        Tears of rage, frustration and sheer desolation.
        I don't hate this country, but I do hate our political establishment.

      4. Yo B o B

        Jonathan Sumption is talking out of his bloody arse.

        He just adds to the piles of crap quoted about the incident

    2. No, Lucy Connolly should have been told she had said something horrible (although I don't see a problem with it) and given a 50 fine and told to think more in future.

      1. He should get the hell out of the country by any means possible. Ask JDV for help. The Americans could fly him out. Claim asylum in the US.

  44. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/52e20c3d93d66f5e84bc6ad3f4a7b44d339bbeed8f9f1083089874756d58d85e.png Claimed by the sea.

    A ship carrying hazardous cargo starts sinking off the coast of Kerala. All 24 crew members of the MSC Elsa 3 were rescued after the vessel sprang a leak on its way from Vizhinjam to Kochi in southern India.

    The Liberian-flagged ship was about 40 miles from shore when it issued a distress signal. Fishermen have been urged to avoid the area as the ship had 640 containers on board, including 13 carrying an unspecified “hazardous cargo”.

    Isn't it beyond time that this idiotic "flag of convenience" bollocks was outlawed under international maritime law? It might be "convenient" for many countries and shipping lines but it is beyond inconvenient for the health of most living things, including idiotic humans.

    1. I'll confess I had to read about what a flag of convenience was, and yes, it is.

      However as with anything the more onerous and expensive shipping is made the more people will avoid the costs. A chum in logistics reckons if every EU rule were adhered to and all taxes paid goods in Europe would be 80-200% higher than they are, destroying our economy.

      Safety should always come first, but government's are greedy, infantile, petulant things.

      1. The problem is more to do with shipping insurance. Lloyds of London no longer commands the bulk of the shipping insurance market as a result principally of sanctions on countries such as Russia.

        Accordingly countries are obliged to shop around for insurance from other nations with the financial means to underwrite any potential losses.

        It would be interesting to know which country has insured this Liberian flagged vessel.

    2. I'll confess I had to read about what a flag of convenience was, and yes, it is.

      However as with anything the more onerous and expensive shipping is made the more people will avoid the costs. A chum in logistics reckons if every EU rule were adhered to and all taxes paid goods in Europe would be 80-200% higher than they are, destroying our economy.

      Safety should always come first, but government's are greedy, infantile, petulant things.

  45. I have a small list of unused words on Wordle: First random word nothing. Second; one letter in correct place Third word – Full house..
    Wordle 1,438 3/6

    ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜🟨⬜⬜🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Crikey, Patrick's got to be careful there. Plod will go for him to control the narrative.

    1. Remember, police are NOT considering it terror related.

      (See day 2 of playbook).

      1. The guy, in my opinion, has made a wrong turn to go through the crowd, the crowd has reacted violently to his presence and attacked his car, he has panicked and drove to get away from them unfortunately into the crowd.

      3. Still plenty of time for them to discover irrefutable evidence that he was a secret admirer of Adolf Hitler.

    2. Someone on another forum cynically pointed out the red mark on the pavement where Plod’s displacement activity was to be performed. The problem is, by treating us like children in the past, they have ended up in a situation where we have no trust in them.

      1. Agreed. I just look at the aftermath scene with the rubbish and the abandoned scooter and think "not another set up." Maybe I am wrong – who knows?

  50. Masses and asses of articles on Liverpool but all with comments shut down. Free speech my backside abscess.

  51. Call me an old stick-in-the-mud but I don't think this forum should be posting video stuff about Liverpool

      1. Just remember that "Lord" Sumption says that Mrs Connolly deserves to be in prison for tweeting something…..

        The same misguided approach could be used on anyone posting anything, these days.

    2. The DT had a rolling video on its front page.
      Why they allowed cars through the crowd but there many of them and it looked as though fans were attacking them.

      1. He won't have been allowed razors, or anything with a cable electric or otherwise.

      2. 406378+ up ticks,

        Afternoon S,

        If that were the case then islam & allah would have a massive internal problem.

  55. LIVE: Nigel Farage Hosts Reform UK Press Conference In London

    Why the fuss.. anybody would think he is HM Opposition.. and HM Government is copying all their policies in a desperate bid to appear populist.

    1. Surprise guest.. Tommy Robinson.
      Welcomes back into the fold Rupert Lowe.

    2. Yet most of Farage's policies are wrong headed, reactive, not proactive. They're giveaways to get elected, not 'reform' to restore the country.

      Thus proving that 'Reform' are another status quo faux Left group who want office, but not the work.

    1. It's pouring down here and set in for the day according to the forecast.

  57. 406378+ up icks,

    Dt,
    Live Farage to promise tax breaks for married couples – watch speech live

    Anything on the daily invasion ? are we, the indigenous peoples still a majority within the remnants of olde England ?

    1. I get it, he's drubbing for votes from everyone possible, but there comes a point where someone says 'How will you pay for it?'

      On the really big things there's nothing:

      Immigration – how will he fight the endless quangos and fake charities?

      Climate change – ditto, and the lawfare from removing subsidy is laughable given the massive amount of money the Left pour into it. He's got to cut off the snake's food supply first and doesn't seem to know this.

      On the economy – the tax code is 17,000 pages. Where's the talk of a simpler, more straightforward, far lower tax one? We could borrow Switzerland's. Their economy is similar to ours. Their tax code is 250 odd pages.

      Where's the deregulation? Does Farage know that means dealing with the EU?

      How will he repatriate Northern Ireland?

    2. Stop the boats.
      Stop Net Zero.
      Get us out of EU entanglements.

      Everything else is fluff in comparison.

    2. Not that guy again.. if you had deported him the first time round this wouldn't have happened.

      Simranjit Kajla, aged 25, of Lydford Avenue, Slough, has been sentenced to prison following a police drugs investigation where Kajla was linked to drug supply in the town.

      1. I think that was the 2nd series when North Oxford council stopped him him operating his shop because too many people turned up. They obviously don’t like successful businesses.
        He appealed, I think that was 3rd series, the planning decision and won his case but he could sell things that were produced within a certain radius of his shop.

      1. Not integrated into Britain, no speaky Englise.

        What a nice kind easy philanthropic country the UK is ..

        Funded by Guardian readers and their pink haired social worker types .

        1. I wish they were the only ones paying the bills. I am fed up with funding people who have no intention of paying their way.

      1. Did you spot the DT's use of "meters" in its page one graphic today? Next stop drivers' licenses.

    3. It wouldn’t matter if she did have a headache, she would still have to perform.

  66. HeadInSand
    2h
    The warning was on the doorway pre-GE that this government utterly relies on thinktanks and policy bureaus to come up with practically everything it does. It has inserted chums, uni graduates and young Commies into place to inform it and then wonders why everything goes to hell in a handcart in a matter of days.
    Like policing, three years at a London uni + a gap year travelling in Brazil + being friends with the North London HR set – does not mean you're worldy-wise enough to run a country. You need business people and plenty of older, cooler heads to run it as a business. Which is what it is.

    Sea_Warrior
    HeadInSand
    1h
    I agree, and would suggest that the next non-Labour government refrains from appointing anyone under 30 to a SpAd position. The twenty-something politics grads can keep themselves busy either as councillors or answering letters to MPs complaining about dogs fouling the footpaths.

        1. Thankfully, not personally….heard the rumours tho 😒🤣….including the ones Meghan on cusp of giving up on Harry…

    3. And there is a tv programme about the crime called 'Honour'. Just to rub our noses in it.

    4. The family of murderers only got about 20 years imprisonment each. They will be out in ten years time and free to rape and torcher at will.
      Such evil and disgusting crimes deserve the death penalty – nothing less.

    1. Hard water? When I lived in North Yorkshire, I had to descale my kettle and shower head every few weeks.

      1. It is West Yorkshire that is known for its soft water. It's the Pennine Millstone Grit that makes the difference.

        1. I’m not sure where the water in N. Yorks came from. Here in Birmingham, ours comes from the Elan valley in mid-Wales, so thank you, Wales!

    2. My paternal side of our family were from Scarborough Yorkshire.
      The last time I told and old chap that at our local Men's shed, he turned out to be a grandson of my grand fathers eldest sister.

          1. ‘n al tell thi bak lad…..😘….my dad would say ‘Ah wouldna gu theer wi’ ar yungun if ah wa thee’….

          2. Thy dad’s a lad after me own ‘eart, bonny lass!

            I’m tellin’ thee! 😘

          3. I was around 7 years old (age of reason?) when I started not exactly arguing but standing up to his orders (he’d been in the army and used to both following orders and giving them)…I’m really not the argumentative type…honest….more questioning..:-D

      2. Na then, Eddy, lad. Tha's got good Yorkshire blood in thee veins. By gum, tha's one o' us!👍🏻😉😊

    3. Water in this area is naturally very hard, so I have a water softener. Fully automatic, just keep salt in the tank for the "cleansing" cycle. Result? Soft water, and I never have to descale anything.

      1. We have one as well. First one about 40 years ago and we always have a hard water tap for drinking, tea and coffee making.

    4. I was brought up in an area of fairly soft water. Lovely bubble baths and no calcium scum.

      Having said that, the hard water of Burton-on-Trent (with its high levels of gypsum) is necessary for making the best English bitter ales. Soft water makes crap beer.

      The dude is correct about pies, though . My own pork pies are from a Yorkshire recipe that knocks the substandard (and vastly overrated) Melton Mowbray crap into a cocked hat!

      1. And that hard water is not from the River Trent, but aquifers rather a long way down in the ground!

  71. Afternoon, all. Anyone want any rain? We have buckets of it wall to wall. All the things I need to do in the garden have been put on hold. A pity I felt too shattered to do them yesterday. I need a holiday to recover from my holiday!
    It doesn’t need courage to reform the tax system; just the will to slash and burn. Take a look at Singapore for a start.

    1. It's blowing a gale here, but the rain is not much more than drizzle. Cold too.

    2. Where's Lee Kwan Yew when you need him…no jaywalking for a start, put the toilet seat down every time for another……

          1. One can only surmise what this country would be like if it had had a Prime Minister with the intellect, charisma, oratory and sheer leadership skills as Lee.

          2. Yes indeed, Mick. Thatcher the nearest, in my lifetime, for me. She had Whitelaw, Tebbit..’Chingford Skinhead’, and the oily Clarke to say nothing of the dead sheep Howe…

  72. You remember how DOGE revealed Leftie Activists spaffing US tax dollars like a dunken sailor on harbour leave. Well..

    About 8,800 villagers around Chikwawa in Malawi are receiving the equivalent of £433 each – and the Foreign Office insists the best way to send the money is directly to each of them. They even give each recipient a mobile phone to facilitate the online transfer.

    The hope is they will use the windfall to ‘reduce the impact of climate extremes’ through stronger homes, better farming practices and improved communications. Officials claim financial and business training will help ‘beneficiaries make informed choices on what is likely to be the largest amount of cash they have ever seen’.

      1. 'Hope' so.. failing that..

        In the village of Mwanaakula, Henry Maliko, 26, said he was buying iron sheets for his small mud hut as part of the scheme. But he has also found ‘a creative way of investing the rest of the money by becoming a money lender’.

      2. A politician visited a remote little rural village and asked the inhabitants what the government could do for them.
        “We have two big needs,” said the village headman. “First, we have a hospital but no doctor.”

        The politician whipped out his mobile phone, spoke for a while and then said: “I have sorted it out. A doctor will arrive here tomorrow. What is your other need?”

        “We have no mobile phone reception at all in our village.”

    3. Kidding…mobile phones, likely online as much as possible …who's paying the bills?

  74. Our lot favour big SUV's with huge chrome wheels and "rubber band" tyres. Apparently, in the 'hood, there are wheel rental places. Bling of the week?

    1. Where they can both distract the masses with how many angels can dance on a pinhead, whilst ignoring the WHO pandemic treaty and Net Zero wickedness.

      1. True, but I think at this stage the WHO pandemic is less on people’s minds. Farage does say Reform will scrap Net Zero. I am not a Reform member but I thought this might be quite useful to post – I think there is lot wrong with Farage and Reform, but also that at the moment it is our only chance, short of revolution.

        1. 406378+ up ticks,

          Afternoon HL,

          I believe revolution would prove to be more long lasting cleansing.

          2. 406378+ up ticks,

            Evening HL,

            In my book Tis the endgame, the rank treacherous stupidity shown via the polling stations these past thirty plus years demands
            pay back.

            The country ongoing in current mode leaves only two options fight or flight.

            In my book we are only drawing out the inevitable the longer this persecution continues.

        2. I agree with you, HL, and I also think the bubbling up of never-to-be-relevant smaller parties is supported by the Uniparty, or the Deep State, or however us tin foil people are supposed to frame what is actually happening to destroy our way of life. I am not a Farage fan (nor am I a fan of any kind of personality cult, including Tommy) BUT Reform is the only party that stands any chance at all of challenging the truly anti-us status quo

    2. Vote Reform.. and you will get reform.

      Until we hear the pledge.. I will undo Blair, Brown, Cameron & May.. you remain The Conformists.

        1. Trump or Millei would do it with one stroke. We have lying pygmies in government here in the UK. Greedy grifters who have each and severally sold their souls (and our Country) for a mess of pottage.

    3. I would quite like to se a one-on-one debate with Nigel Farage and Rupert Lowe.

      (Both could be backed up by seconds with Pakistani origins – respectively Zia Yusuf and Ben Habib)

    4. I'd watch it…correction…I'd probably start to watch it…correction…I might watch it if I had nothing better to do.

      1. Fair enough. I listened to it while doing stuff around the house. I thought it quite useful to know just what Farage is saying at the moment. Nobody is forcing you to watch it.

        1. I’m already a supporter, guess I’m a tad tired of hearing similar things day in day out. Did he have anything new to say?

          1. I put it on as an indicator of what he was saying to the general public. I have conversations with people who aren’t supporters and I found it was quite useful to send to them, especially his comments about encouraging marriage, his own failings etc. all in one place. Not everyone has the depth of knowledge that people posting here do, and sometimes I have found that something quite simple can be quite useful to send to others.

          2. Thanks, my bad, feeling bit low generally…my dog old and sick, but no excuse 🙂

          3. No problem, it happens to us all. I hope you feel better soon – what is happening to our poor old country is enough to make anyone depressed… x

  78. BUNKUM

    Plan to Force All Barristers to ‘Advance Diversity and Inclusion’ Dropped After Backlash
    Latest in the ‘drip drip’ death of woke nonsense today as the Bar Standards Board cancels its proposal to force a core duty on barristers to “act in a way that advances equality, diversity and inclusion.” Plans for which were announced last September…

    The BSB’s handbook already says the profession “must not discriminate unlawfully.” The diversity duty has been scrapped after feedback allowed it to “reflect on our objectives and how best to achieve them in the most proportionate manner.” Sounds like actual barristers had their say…

    May 27 2025 @ 14:05
    ***********************

    Basket of Deplorables
    2m
    Usual comment – until the source legislation that creates this nonsense – the Equalities Act 2010 – is struck off, we will never stamp this stuff out…

      1. I dindu nuffin'.

        Just mentioned the BTL's because quite clearly everyone thinks she is a nasty rug muncher.

        I on the other hand think she is a total bitch.

        1. I would imagine that there are a lot of people in Oz who won't be concerned.

          1. And the U.S. She was out there and got invited to a dinner and dance. When she realised they were mostly Republicans she put on a fake American accent and was very rude to her hosts. Talk about appalling bad manners !

    3. She hasn't had "major heart surgery". She had a non-invasive aortic valve replacement. A tissue valve from a cow (no sniggering at the back).

      "Back in 2023, the beloved actress underwent a procedure to replace her aortic valve, and has opened up about her struggle with spinal stenosis, arthritis, and rheumatism. Speaking on the Table Manners podcast, Miriam explained: "I've got a cow's heart now. Well, not the whole heart. I've had an aortic valve replaced by a cow's aortic valve.
      "I don't know how common it is. I'd never heard of that operation. But it saves you from having open heart surgery, which would be infinitely more invasive."
      She added to Closer magazine: "I can't walk very well, and I'm registered disabled. I use all kinds of assistance. I've got two sticks and a walker, and they're such a bore, but I've just got a mobility scooter, which is a lot of fun. I'm often in pain… bodily conditions make life difficult, so it's unlikely I will do it again," she shared with http://Metro.co.uk ."

      3. But does it make her fart?
        That appears to be her main obsession.
        Well, apart from diarrhoea and any other chance for her to mention her bowels.

    2. Something else that's been up the sleeves of the 'They' for sometime.
      They cant handle the truth and wont allow the British public to make judgements against their ongoing devious commitments.

  82. Very impressive perlice press statement…

    They appear convinced that the "53 year old man" is the perp.

    Time will tell whether or not it was a Welsh choirboy…

    2. Something a bit ‘orf’ about the whole charade, a cynic might say….

  83. Fun fact: The current head of Counter Terrorism Policing in the UK is Assistant Commissioner Matt Jukes.

    Question: Who was the Police chief who led Rotherham police during the child sex scandal 2006-2010?
    Question: Why does Matt Jukes want Tommy Robinson jailed for life?

  84. Fun fact: The current head of Counter Terrorism Policing in the UK is Assistant Commissioner Matt Jukes.

    Question: Who was the Police chief who led Rotherham police during the child sex scandal 2006-2010?
    Question: Why does Matt Jukes want Tommy Robinson jailed for life?

  85. I'm Not sure but it seems Facebook has problems at the moment. I wonder if it's got anything to do with TR being released and it's because it's been overloaded.

    1. Could be. Looked/sounded pretty chipper when I saw him…long hair and beard notwithstanding, Eddy…some think he may have converted, safety reasons.

  87. Blimey, poor old KC is reading from a school book, in French and English ..

    He will be exhausted .. he has been reading stuff for over half an hour, and he looks fed up !

    1. The King has said Canada is “strong and free” following a row with Donald Trump over the country’s sovereignty.
      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2025/05/27/king-charles-open-canadian-parliament/
      On the second day of his tour of the country, King Charles was welcomed by a Canadian honour guard and a rendition of “God Save the King” in the country’s capital, Ottawa.

      Speaking in front of Canadian MPs and new Prime Minister Mark Carney, the King said: “Canadians coming together in a renewed sense of national pride, unity, and hope.”

    2. Damn, did I miss his nibs spouting Carneys bs?

      Major faux pas by our dei hire Governor General Mary Simon. After she spoke to Charles she issued a press release These ongoing conversations deepen the meaningful bond between our nation's,
      Obviously the woman does not realise that Charles is there as King of Canada and she is merely his mouthpiece. That's what you get when Trudeau appointing some unknown inuk drifter into a role with no knowledge of our European culture.

  91. Wordle No. 1,438 3/6

    ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜🟨⬜🟨🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    Wordle 27 May 2025

    Game for Birdie Three?

    1. Well done, me too.

      Wordle 1,438 3/6

      ⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜
      🟨🟨⬜🟩🟨
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. I cant believe I went for the guess 3 that I did – bonkers! Cost me a birdie…..

      Wordle 1,438 4/6

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

          1. If you go to leader boards, top 100 and then show all and then close it, it will show you the "global leader board"
            I was in the top 10 %.
            I suspect you might be in the top 1%

          2. Not quite sure I’m doing this right but on the Global Leaderboard I was at 6951 – so no idea where I was in relation the top 10%?

          3. approximately in the top 1 12 %

            6951 means that roughly, in the total number of groups of 50, you would have ranked first place in two thirds of them.
            It also means you were in a group where they have either attached a “solver bot” or have found a way of cheating.

            Today I’m currently 5th. ALL those above me have inverted podium positions, ie more firsts than thirds.
            Top dog ranks 24th overall on 4.42 it must be a bot.

          4. I’ve no idea how you know all this stuff but I cant be arsed to work it out – I’ll just ask you in future……. 😉

            Anything below about 20 minutes on this one must have been a bot!

          5. 20??? 30 more like.

            I think they must have a very fast internet connection for ending sequences.

          6. Oh I dont know – if I’d not struggled on level 16 (at 9.11) I could have saved about 8 minutes which would have meant my overall time (37.45)could have been sub 30 mins – a number of levels I completed in under a minute (I think 40 seconds was my best) so low 20s would appear to have been pretty achievable.

          7. My best ever result was in the very low thousands and it was one where I didn’t make a single error.

            Oddly enough I didn’t win my group.

            I’ve noticed that the number of daily players has been dropping steadily and I wonder if it’s because people like podium finishes and they realise that with the bots that those become less likely and they stop playing regularly.

            Gawd I waste a lot of my life on Solitaire!!!

          8. Yes, I agree, but it remains something fun to do on a piss-wet Bank Holiday!!

    3. Par today.

      Wordle 1,438 4/6

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

    4. I'm up for that with an eagle

      Wordle 1,438 2/6

      🟩⬜🟩🟩⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      Unfortunately it wasn't me that eagled our second hole yesterday, but at least I got a free drink out of it.

    6. Landed short of an Eagle.
      Wordle 1,438 3/6

      ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
      🟩⬜🟩🟩🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      2. Too many possibilities.
        Wordle 1,438 4/6

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

  93. From Coffee House the Spectator

    24 May 2025
    Coffee House
    James Lewisohn
    Danes are baffled by Britain’s hatred of second-home owners
    26 May 2025, 5:35am

    Spring has arrived on the North Coast of Zealand, and my fellow Danes are busily scrubbing down their summerhouses for the season. Villages which were nearly deserted during the winter – Danes can generally only occupy their summerhouses for 180 days a year – are gradually filling up.

    Sadiq Khan said London’s second homeowners ought to pay “much, much more” than a 100 per cent council tax premium

    Yet I rather doubt Sir Sadiq Khan, who earlier this month said London’s second homeowners ought to pay “much, much more” than a 100 per cent council tax premium, will be on anyone’s prospective guest list. The current war of expropriation on British second homeowners is incomprehensible to Danes: there are 225,000 Danish summerhouses, often shared among extended families; enough that half the population of six million is said to have access to one. That would be an awful lot of voters to punish.

    Denmark’s summerhouses – emblematic of the mentally and physically healthy contemporary Danish lifestyle – took their time to get going. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, cities, with ramparts and soldiers as protection, were seen as the safe and desirable places to live; only a few aristocrats had both city and country homes. But Denmark’s deadly 1853 cholera epidemic persuaded many that country air was healthier. In 1886, the State sold off a strip of forest land alongside the gorgeous white sands of Hornbæk, a fishing village thirty miles north of Copenhagen, and the first Danish summerhouses appeared – substantial Italianate villas created by Copenhagen’s merchant elite.

    Democratisation soon followed. In 1912, the Danish liberal newspaper Politiken launched a competition for ‘good, cheap and practical’ summerhouse design, ‘in every way suitable for being built in Danish nature’. It noted: ‘the need for one’s own summerhouse in the country is one of the most striking phenomena for anyone who observes modern city life. Everything that reminds people of the country…is getting worse in the midst of the city’s stone masses’. Danes, meanwhile, were gaining enough time to enjoy summerhouses: from 1891, workers had Sundays off, and by the 1920s most white-collar workers had a formalised eight-hour workday plus weekends. Summer villages started to spring up within cycling distance of major cities.

    But the most significant driver of the growth of Danish summerhouses was legislation – or more precisely, the lack of it. Denmark’s 1938 Town Planning Act had ignored country villages (only parishes of at least 1,000 people were subject to town layout plans) and its 1937 Nature Conservation Act protected only a narrow strip beside the sea. Local councils also had meagre resources to enforce the limited legislation. Little stood in the way of farmers, who could profit handsomely from parcelling off their coastal fields for sale to city-dwellers, who would build basic wooden summerhouses, with wells for water and septic tanks for sewage.

    Even so, by the late 1940s there were fewer than 10,000 summerhouses in Denmark. Explosive growth had to wait for the post-WW2 economic boom, and the associated rise in car ownership, which saw around 100,000 summerhouses built by 1966, and 150,000 by 1974. Companies were founded to factory-build modern wooden summerhouses, which could be set upon trailers and trucked fully-formed onto sites. Always, the lack of planning regulation was key: Danish landscape architect Jørgen Primdahl has described this as a period where it was in practice “impossible to say no to development without it triggering compensation for the owner”.

    Unfortunately for Brits, while Denmark was enjoying a nearly unregulated second home building boom, the UK’s 1947 Town & Country Planning Act gave birth to the current lethargic planning permission regime, from which UK housebuilding has never fully recovered, and which has contributed to the current deficit of 4.3 million UK homes, according to the Centre for Cities. Not enough homes of any kind were built in the UK in the postwar era – let alone second homes. The UK’s second homeowners never became a group large enough to be worth defending by politicians.

    Denmark, meanwhile, eventually reined in its postwar summerhouse boom. Conservation legislation in the 1960s limited the growth of summerhouse areas, forcing existing plots to be subdivided to create additional homes. And since the 1970s, construction of summerhouses has only been allowed in ‘recreational’ zones, where councils are not required to build full-year facilities such as schools and hospitals. But few Danes would agree with the Guardian’s George Monbiot, who has called second homes ‘a luxury that deprives other people of a necessity…a gross injustice’.

    By this point, you might be thinking that Danish summerhouses sound idyllic and imagining buying one as an alternative to suffering financial exhaustion as one of the UK’s second homeowners. Tough luck, I’m afraid: not only is the market undersupplied – Danish summer homes typically stay within families far longer than primary residences – but also, upon entering the EU Denmark negotiated an opt-out preventing foreigners from buying second homes in Denmark. This restriction also encourages a healthy summerhouse rental market, which helps Danes pay their second home bills.

    Denmark consistently ranks among the world’s happiest countries, and it doesn’t seem unreasonable to posit the causal link that Danes’ access to summerhouses is a good reason for them to be happy. Nothing, of course, prevents the UK from re-zoning its mostly empty coastal areas for part-time use as second homes; nothing except rampant nimbysim and the politics of envy. If any UK politician is brave enough to challenge the consensus of the postwar period, I look forward to cheering them on – remotely, from the comfort of my family’s Danish summerhouse.

    Written by
    James Lewisohn
    James Lewisohn is a former investment banker. He is now a financial advisor and writer
    what Greenland should do about Donald Trump

    1. Why on earth would a strange little pug nosed individual who probably has paddled in the River Indus and knows nothing about bathing huts, second homes , happiness and holidays by the seaside , with flippers and buckets and spades and a dish of cockles , understand us British/ Little Englanders/ Scots/ Welsh / Channel Islands / Manx, nah he know nothing .

  95. Off topic – I recently finished Lucy Hughes-Hallett's tome "Scapegoat" about the life of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. Very good book, well written and extremely interesting.

    Thinking of Cur Ikea Slammer's outstanding success in his defeat of the EUSSR last week – I thought you be amused to read that "negotiations" with yer French were as unforthcoming 400 years ago as they were last week…!

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/80ab3f3ad757fcbe662cecaff68bf248aed49accb68168806af367b673ee7d18.jpg

      2. When making a visit to Wastemonster a few years ago we were told by our guide that when De Gaul made a visit he refused to walk through the gallery between the Lords and the Commons because of the two enormous paintings of Trafalgar and Waterloo on the wall. They had planned to cover then for his convenience. Hooks still in the wall. But took him through a 'trades man's' entrance.

        2. Churchill insisted that his Coffin should be transported to Blenheim via Waterloo Station. (Principally for the benefit of the ungrateful frog). He even had details of the route by rail….!

  96. In the heart-warmingly impressive statement to the press by the Liver Birds, I was amazed that they did not congratulate themselves on the traffic management yesterday….

    1. Having lived there during my youthful years, I knew a lot of Liver Birds, but the only ones I remember were Beryl and Sandra.

  97. That's me gone for this momentous day. Thirty years of wedded bliss. The MR had an Arts Society Committee meeting this afternoon and will shortly have a PCC meeting (such joy) – but has, of course, planned a dinner to replicate the lunch we had 30 years ago! I am incredibly fortunate.

    It has rained most of the day and G & P are both convinced that it is OUR fault and ostentatiously sulk. Tomorrow is said to be drier. Hmmm.

    Have a jolly evening

    A demain – prolly.

  99. A comment inspired by a response to one of my earlier posts by Wibbling:-

    We know the State lied.
    They told us the perpetrator was Welsh. They lied.
    They said it was not terrorism. It was.
    They said the attacker wasn't muslim. He was. They said he wasn't an immigrant. A half truth at best.

    The State lied and people got angry and frustrated not only because of the murders and the way the State had, yet again, failed to protect the British People, but also because the State was, yet again, lying to us.

    Lucy Connolly, like many others, became frustrated by this and made an extreme and unwise comment which she very quickly removed.

    The State, rather than recognising that this was a statement of hyperbole made in the heat of the moment, a comment which I doubt anyone took seriously, then locked up Mrs Connolly not just because of what she said, but because because they wanted to deter others from not complying with their lies.

    All recent (last 30 years) terrorism has been inspired by Islam and carried out by Muslim immigrants or the offspring of Muslim immigrants.

    The state lied habitually each time to force a narrative that Mrs Connolly and many others were angry at.

    The rioters rioted because they were lied to, they responded to the murder of children and Starmer didn't have the empathy or human awareness – probably because his spin doctors were desperate to push the same failed narrative – to be able to engage with them.

    It's a game to the politicians. They don't care about the problems. They've no plan.
    They're just waster placemen desperate for the next trough.

    2. "They said the attacker wasn't muslim. He was."

      Questionable but his possession of Al-Qaeda material certainly spooked the police and Max.

  100. Have you seen the recent news….apparently our wonderful ontop of it all authorities Border Force are now going to force air passengers to had over their phones for inspection to make sure that they have no child pyrography on their phones.
    You couldn't make it up could you. STOP THE EFFING BOATS.

    1. Unfortunately boat rider ones can't be checked, Eddy – all cobbed overboard, together with passports, other documents. My father/grandfather spinning in their graves.

    2. One possible scenario is that corrupt officials could surreptitiously transfer some images via bluetooth from their own devices, and then blackmail passengers.

  102. Sometimes you have to support the BBC.

    Adams seeking at least €200k in damages against BBC
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3v55qwvglvo

    Five questions the Gerry Adams libel case jury must answer to find a verdict
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czx0w7v7w07o

    Radio 4's 6pm news reporting on this says Adams is upset by being described as an IRA leader. He's always denied he was a member. His lawyers say he's merely regarded as a 'peacemaker'.

    2. The exact opposite of what he is and was. He is a war maker and a bully boy.. Now in power in NI, through terrorism, appeased by the likes of little (consequently) rich-boy Blair.

        1. Quite. he is a war criminal but beyond justice. As I see our present government to be.

          1. Not alone in that either. They possibly both know the various stunts to pull in order for jury detail never to happen. I was once recommended to be a magistrate…family very amused…

      2. Chief of the Belfast Brigade of the provos. Well documented at the time.

      1. The case is being held in Dublin. I expect Adams's crew already know who the jurors are…

          1. I rarely swear.Bill, although on here I seem to let rip. My thoughts and feelings re the murderous IRA bastards that have been cataputled into government by the quisling that is "TonyBlair" would not even be acceptable on here.

          1. In Ireland, with a man who definitely never belonged to the IRA? They will definitely give the right answer if they have knees!

      2. No chance, there is no profit for the lawyers in a ten minute case. There will be lots of legal points argued at many guineas per minute.

    4. oh I don't know…Gerry Adams…the BBC…decisions, decisions….they're both so loveable.

  103. Even the French think Macron is becoming a laughing stock
    With approval ratings languishing in the mid-twenties, the last thing the French leader needed was another blow to his image
     https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05/27/macron-has-become-a-laughing-stock/

    "In matters of great importance, style, not sincerity is the vital thing.” This maxim from Oscar Wilde in The Importance of Being Earnest is one that the French use as a guide for living their lives!

    BTL

    When François Hollande was president he was caught travelling to see his mistress on the back of his minder's moped.

    The French public were outraged – not by the fact that the president had a mistress (having one is an obligatory part of the job) but by the fact that it was very undignified to go to an amorous tryst not just on a moped but riding pillion behind his minion.

  104. Special Kaye
    5h
    The blind panic behind the scenes in Labour is now clear to see. Belated half hearted attempts to reverse unpopular policies are unlikely to help them, as all the leading indicators for the UK economy are down. The economy is crumbling. Labour activists are apparently horrified by the stories about what Starmer was paying those boys to do, and the media has been gagged. It has taken only months for this Labour gov to start collapsing. I think we will need an election next year, the chaos will be too much otherwise.

    BannyFatter
    5h
    Right oh…
    The government is running a 15%+ deficit in revenue.
    Government spending is increasing at 5% per year, whilst the economy has grown on average at 0.5% in the last 20 years.
    Bond yields are now far above those seen during Liz Truss' tenure as PM, which the media led everyone to believe was a portent of economic armageddon, and something the entire Labour Front Bench still level at The Conservatives every time an economic question is put to the government in The House.
    There appears to be no sign of the government slowing spending with the back benches screeching at any mention of such, and tax revenues are far past the point of diminishing returns, with Ms. Rayner and Ms. Thieves squabbling over taxes that will raise nothing in order to close an enormous deficit, whilst Two Tier jets around the globe signing away money to over seas governments and climate change agreements that are even more ruinous than the wildest of Millibrain's nut zero delusions.
    I'm sure it will all be fine.

      1. We might need an election next year but Labour MPs are going to cling onto their seats and pay like grim death. They don't care about the country.

    2. "Labour activists are apparently horrified by the stories about what Starmer was paying those boys to do …."
      Well, that's distracted me from my needlework.

    3. I am very bad at recognising people but Macron just doesn't look like the same person as he did when he first came to office. Stress and fake hair, I guess?

  108. Oxo cubes. For making beef stock. Shirley you remember them, you are a Yorkie after all, Paul

    1. Indeed, just don't understand the connection.
      Stock clown?
      Bit slow tonight 🙁

    1. Weeds as you refer to them allowed mankind to progress.
      If they had stuck to your hunter gatherer existence they would still be living like Africans.
      Possibly a good thing for the planet, but at least you wouldn't be boring us to death because the Internet would not have existed.

      1. There is more than adequate empirical proof that eating vegetation increases human stupidity.

        I rest my case.

        Most people would rather continue to express their ingrained inadequacies and reluctance to educate their feeble minds that learn how to eat properly and stop acquiring most acute and chronic diseases and illnesses. More fool them.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzYUK_zwz3g&list=WL&index=60 I'll keep posting common sense videos on here, but most of them are ignored by people who continue to believe the mainstream narrative and blame their morbid ill-health on anything but their idiotic diet.

        C'est la vie! C'est la mort!

        1. Fine.

          Now tell me how mankind would have had the time to create the great civilisations.

          No don't bother, you're having to go out hunting.

          All that butter meat and fats you espouse are only available because man went agricultural.

          Show me a single modern hunter gatherer society that isn't still primitive.

          1. "Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience."
            Mark Twain.

          4. Thank you, but anybody can.

            It's their choice.

            Freedom of speech and opinion

        2. Was wondering, Grizzly..how we came to eat greens..I think it must have been when trying to fish near the the shoreline, not be successful but maybe catch a crab or two and make up for it with shoreline kale. Perhaps when we started settling in one place, rather than follow herds for miles, men in a group trying to catch and kill. I guess settlements/grain growing would follow. I may not be explaining this as well as I could, sorry – bit of a tiring day x

          1. My biggest wonder Kate is when man saw something drop from a hens arse and thought "I'll eat that" :o) G'night x

          2. There was a dinosaur laid eggs, which were devoured by other dinos. Can’t recall it’s name. Possibly the small creature known as ‘man’ saw that, nicked a couple when it hadn’t been able to catch/kill anything else…got out the frying pan and there you have it, couple slices bread and bingo! fried egg sandwich…..

          5. A fried egg sandwich is called an " banjo" in British military slang because the act of eating it and cleaning up the runny yolk can resemble playing a banjo. When the yolk breaks and drips down the front, people often hold the sandwich out to the side with one hand while wiping the yolk away with the other, creating a motion that looks like playing an air banjo.

          6. Brilliant! And accurate! Thanks for the morning lift Phiz appreciate it 💖👍

    3. I think it's very noble of you Grizz to take on board copious amounts of meats and fats to demonstrate long term the benefits to health. Many of us here are watching with interest how it will all work out in the end…..! Cheers ( I think I may have passed the Chief Medical Officer's recommendation over the past couple of days!!)

  111. BESS – Battery Electrical Storage System and Thermal Runaway

    The residents of a small village near Diss have been reported by the BBC tonight as objecting on safety grounds to the use of Lithium Ion (LiIon) storage batteries near their village.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gk8zxg20yo

    The BESS intallation is part of the Government's strategy to implement Net Zero by storing renewal energy in LiIon batteries which are likely to be imported but may have to comply with fire safety requirements as detailed in:

    https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7621/#:~:text=Battery%20energy%20storage%20systems%20(BESSs,fossil%20fuels%20with%20renewable%20energy%E2%80%9D.

    It is the difficuly of extinguishing thermal runaway LiIon fires by the local fire service that particularly concerns the locals.

    1. The thing that worries me most is the runaway splurging of eye-watering amounts of taxes and borrowings on the UK's Net Zero fantasy….

    2. We have a Tesla battery (Tesla guys came to check it out, silent black Tesla car, no sound) plus a Zoe car. Have had no problems for several years since installation. Biggest danger for car is running it aground and damaging battery (which contains numerous smaller batteries, if one damaged can set others off). I guess woodburning stove also a risk, in a similar fashion, especially in woodworking workshop.

    4. "Toxic Gases:
      Lithium-ion battery fires produce a mix of toxic gases, including hydrogen fluoride (HF), hydrogen cyanide (HCN), and carbon monoxide (CO), according to multiple sources (…)
      Carcinogenic Substances:
      While not all of the combustion byproducts are definitively carcinogenic, some are known or suspected carcinogens, such as heavy metals like nickel, manganese, and cobalt, which are components of lithium-ion batteries according to multiple sources (…)
      Particulate Matter:
      Fires also produce particulate matter, including volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds like polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which can also be carcinogenic. "
      Thank you Google AI.

      1. Looks as though grid standby would be better handled with diesel engine generators which are now cleaner than cow farts.

  112. This is Allison's reply to Lord Sumption's disgraceful piece.

    Some ideas are so stupid only intellectuals believe them. Substitute “judges” for “intellectuals” and George Orwell’s marvellous aphorism applies perfectly to an article by Jonathan Sumption first published on The Telegraph website on Monday.

    I wasn’t going to write about Lucy Connolly this week, but so incensed was I by Lord Sumption’s awful opinions that I cannot stay silent. It was good to see that a huge number of readers – more than 9,000 comments at the time of writing (a record, I think) – had the same furious reaction to Sumption’s unforgivably callous, “I shall not waste any sympathy on Mrs Connolly”.

    Why does Lord Sumption think sympathy for Lucy is wasted? She is mother to a 12-year-old girl who has been without her mummy for 10 months and may yet sustain long-term psychological harm. A woman of previous good character who lost a child in horrifying circumstances and lashed out in rage and sorrow last summer when six parents suffered the anguish of their little girls being slaughtered in a massacre that bore the bloody hallmark of an imported crime. A 42-year-old childminder, tender carer to the infants of immigrants, who shares the majority British view that hordes of undocumented males from backward cultures, put up at vast expense in “asylum” hotels, pose a threat to our society in general, and our children in particular. Lucy acted in haste, posted something she called “disgusting” and repented quickly. A model prisoner, she could have been released on tag last November but instead has been kept inside while fellow inmates, who are openly planning the robberies they will commit to fund their drug addiction, are let out.

    Any decent judge or magistrate would be looking for a reason to avoid giving such a person a custodial term when community service would suffice. Sarah Pochin, Reform UK’s first woman MP and a magistrate for 20 years, yesterday described Lucy’s sentence as “draconian”, saying she should never have gone to prison in the first place and it would not happen under a Farage government. Yet Mrs Connolly, who was given a notably harsh jail term for a post on social media when thousands of violent men and paedophiles get off with a lower, even a suspended, sentence (more of this warped judicial behaviour anon) is apparently unworthy of compassion or mercy from his lordship. Really?

    I have been a fan of Lord Sumption. The former Justice of the Supreme Court is undoubtedly one of the most brilliant legal minds of his generation. During Covid, those of us who thought lockdown was an appalling mistake were grateful and reassured to have this pillar of the establishment on our side. He warned that British society was becoming “totalitarian” and the government was deliberately stoking up fear and “acting with a cavalier disregard for the limits of their legal powers”. “The British public has not even begun to understand the seriousness of what is happening to our country,” Sumption said, and his words carried huge weight.

    Why that same, deeply clever man cannot see how Lucy Connolly’s case represents exactly the kind of authoritarian overreach we saw during lockdown (with fear as its instrument) is a puzzle. Or maybe not if the idea is to buttress Sumption’s colleagues in the Court of Appeal, who have attracted considerable criticism since Lord Justice Holroyde declared last week that there was “no arguable basis” that Lucy Connolly’s (manifestly excessive) original sentence was “manifestly excessive”.
    Lord Jonathan Sumption QC
    Lord Sumption, a former Justice of the Supreme Court, expressed his feelings on Lucy Connolly’s case in an article on this website earlier this week Credit: Richard Williams/Mirrorpix

    Lord Sumption concedes: “English law has generally been on the side of freedom of expression… it has always drawn the line at threatening language which is likely to provoke a breach of the peace… If a rabble-rouser stood on a soap-box in front of a howling mob and urged them to head for the nearest immigration hostel and burn it down, this point would be obvious. Doing it on social media is worse because the reach of social media posts is much greater. Its algorithms thrust words like Mrs Connolly’s under the noses of people who are already likely to agree. The internet can whip up a howling mob in minutes.”

    But there is zero evidence that Lucy’s words, posted on the evening of the Southport murders, incited violence. Riots did not break out “in minutes”. They started days later following Sir Keir Starmer’s infamous and insulting 19-second laying of a wreath in Southport before a jeering crowd. And after the authorities had done their sly best to conceal from a distraught public key information about the killer, Axel Rudakubana – compare the alacrity (and sigh of relief) with which they announced that the alleged Liverpool car attacker was a white, middle-aged male. Funny what can be disclosed when an alleged offender doesn’t belong to a protected minority, eh?

    No normal person agrees with Lord Sumption that fleeting tweets are worse than, to take just one example, what suspended Labour councillor Ricky Jones is alleged to have done in person at the time Lucy was arrested. Jones was filmed at an anti-fascism demonstration apparently urging a crowd to attack rioters: “They are disgusting Nazi fascists and we need to cut all their throats and get rid of them all.”

    For reasons which I’d quite like the Ministry of Justice to explain, Jones was granted bail while Lucy Connolly had her bail application rejected twice. Jones has been a free man since January (no pressure to plead guilty for him, no kangaroo hearing within days) and his much-postponed trial will finally take place in August (unless the judge has a pressing lunch engagement or pigs are seen flying over the Old Bailey). By which time, Lucy will have served a whole year behind bars.

    It is this apparent two-tier justice which Lord Sumption did not address in a piece where he loftily dismissed the claim that Lucy is a free-speech martyr or “even a political prisoner”. I am no student of jurisprudence (a lucky escape as I got into Cambridge to read law) but to me, and to millions of others, it is perfectly obvious that a political prisoner is exactly what Lucy Connolly is.

    Prison authorities at Drake Hall in Staffordshire have just punished their exemplary prisoner for “press engagement” – that’s communicating her predicament via her husband, Ray, to yours truly. “Auntie Judith”, AKA your columnist, has sadly been struck off the list of people Lucy is allowed to phone.

    She has also repeatedly been denied release on temporary licence (ROTL) with her child and sick husband. “You’ve offended a lot of people, Lucy,” one official chided. Probation officers and prison guards alike have expressed astonishment that Lucy is still not free. After the Court of Appeal’s heartbreaking decision last Tuesday, her cell was full of officers coming to commiserate: they all assumed she was going home, and other prisoners had already distributed Lucy’s stuff among themselves.

    After months of unfair treatment, when Lucy dared to complain to someone outside the prison that she wasn’t being allowed the leave on licence to which she was entitled, the prison authorities said she would, yet again, not be allowed that leave, because of, yes, complaining to someone outside the prison. What does that sound like to you? Joseph Heller called it Catch-22.

    I am told that prison authorities have been “rattled” by The Telegraph’s coverage of Lucy’s case. Good. So they bloody well should be. The free press – are we still allowed one of those, Prime Minister? – will not stay silent when we perceive a carriage of misjustice.

    I could easily fill this column with examples of heinous cases where an offender was afforded more lenient treatment than Lucy Connolly. One that leaps out concerns the Court of Appeal, which just dashed Lucy’s hopes. In March 2023, the court cut the jail term given to former Labour peer Lord Ahmed of Rotherham for sexually abusing two children in the 1970s. Ahmed was convicted of trying to rape an underage girl on two occasions and seriously sexually assaulting a boy under the age of 11. He was jailed for five years and six months at Sheffield Crown Court in February 2022. The judge told Lord Ahmed: “Your actions have had profound and lifelong effects on the girl and the boy, who have lived with what you did to them for between 46 and 53 years. They express more eloquently than I ever could how your actions have affected and continue to affect their lives in so many different and damaging ways.”

    However, in their infinite wisdom, three Appeal Court judges, including Lord Justice Holroyde who decided that Lucy Connolly’s 31-month sentence was “not manifestly excessive”, reduced the jail term of the sexual abuser and Labour Muslim peer to two years and six months because his age at the time of the offences was not given sufficient weight.

    Let us pause for a moment, lords, ladies and gentlemen, and marvel at the very clever stupid men who think that a mother who put something hateful for four hours on social media deserves a longer prison sentence than a man who tried to rape and molest children, and got away with that dreadful crime for half a century.

    “I shall not waste any sympathy on Mrs Connolly,” quoth the finest legal mind of his generation. “What she did was a serious offence.” She didn’t try to rape a child though, did she, Lord Sumption? She didn’t sexually assault a little boy and claim that two traumatised children told malicious falsehoods about her. She didn’t use power and influence to put herself above the law. She didn’t get her outrageous sentence reduced by privileged men who seem to have a problem relating to white women from ordinary families with sensible views about immigration.

    Honestly, the way the judiciary extends leniency to sex offenders is repellent to the point of warped. At least 177 paedophiles have walked free since Lucy Connolly was sentenced on October 17 2024. A devoted mum jailed for two years and seven months while depraved men in possession of the worst category of images of children being violated don’t lose a single day of their liberty. (Huw Edwards being just one notorious example: a six-month suspended sentence for the BBC boy-groomer!)

    By now, it should be amply clear to the British people that our justice system is broken and politicised. Here is a retired judge who emailed the Planet Normal podcast: “For 40 years, I felt proud and privileged to be a member of what I perceived as a noble and learned profession. Alas! No longer it seems. The way the judiciary has treated poor Lucy Connolly and her family is nothing short of an outrage and scandal that should offend all decent people, while those who bring terror and mayhem to the shores of this nation are admonished (if they are even caught) with little more than a slap on the wrist. I am actually surprised that a senior member of the judiciary has not resigned in the most public of ways to distance himself from the heartlessness of his brothers. Lucy Connolly’s treatment has a political motive behind it. Of that there can be no doubt, despite the Separation of Powers being one of the cornerstones of our unwritten constitution. Keep up the good fight, Allison, for all our sakes.”

    And here is a Telegraph reader who styles himself DC Anonymous: “I’m a serving police officer of 25 years. I’ve been a detective on specialist crime units, so I know my way around the justice system. The grossly disproportionate sentence and treatment of Lucy is an embarrassment to the justice system. Her tweet was vile and nasty. However, a community sentence would have been more appropriate. My colleagues and I often work long hours to get convictions over the line and often see paltry sentences dished out to some of the most dangerous offenders with all mitigations taken into consideration. Only for a lady who poses no threat to society to be given two years, seven months. It sickens me to my stomach. Most of us joined the job to arrest real criminals, not see innocent members of the public criminalised for hurty words. My colleagues and I are sick to death of woke management, judges and politicians making our difficult jobs even tougher. No wonder the public has lost respect for us.”

    I am close to tears when I read emails like those, and as I watch Lucy’s crowdfunder appeal edge towards £150,000. Thank God there are still good people who are appalled that “hurty words” – Orwellian thought crimes no less – receive swingeing sentences while villains go free.

    It’s not hard to foresee that this institutional madness could end up in the serious civil unrest that making a scapegoat of Lucy was meant to forestall. On Tuesday, Tommy Robinson, the far-Right activist, was released from prison after his 18-month sentence was reduced by four months at the High Court last week. Looking like an Old Testament prophet, eyes blazing with religious fervour, a heavily-bearded Robinson (who endured weeks of solitary confinement) said that a war was being waged “against free speech in Britain”. Citing Lucy Connolly, Robinson said she was “not a violent criminal” and demanded to know why she had been jailed for so long.

    While Sir Keir claimed not to have heard of Lucy (does the dreadful man expect us to believe a word he says?), Boris Johnson said that “Starmer’s Britain is losing its reputation for free speech and turning into a police state”. Too right.

    On Tuesday, Nigel Farage became the latest heavyweight to champion Starmer’s political prisoner, saying: “I want to make it absolutely clear that Lucy Connolly should not be in prison… Although she should not have said what she said, there were millions of mothers at that moment in time after the Southport [massacre] feeling exactly the same way.” Beautifully put.

    Compare and contrast with Lord Sumption’s cold, contemptible, “Lucy Connolly is in prison where she belongs”. This is what happens when judges have minds so brilliant they cannot be polluted with common sense – or mercy.

    I just spoke to Ray Connolly, who is at home in Northampton. Ray said that he had read The Telegraph article and Sumption seemed to be a “stupid git” (possibly the first time the law lord has been described in that way!) and that Sir Keir must be “regretting the day he tried to make an example of Lucy Connolly”.

    So, where do we go from here? Drake Hall prison authorities told Lucy that a previous ROTL had been denied because she had expressed “extreme views” in her phone conversations (possibly with “Auntie Judith”). But that had now been downgraded to “strong opinions”.

    “Are they saying that Lucy’s ROTL is now good to go?” asks Ray, who is desperate for his wife to be able to come home and hug and reassure their daughter even for one day and a night. What further ridiculous excuses and delaying tactics can the justice system come up with for denying Mrs Connolly the temporary leave to which she is entitled?

    “The British public has not even begun to understand the seriousness of what is happening to our country,” Lord Sumption said when free speech was brutally suppressed during Covid lockdown.

    Well, dear Lord Sumption, I think they’re starting to understand it all too well, thanks to Lucy Connolly.

    2. "Starmer’s Britain is losing its reputation for free speech and turning into a police state”. – my Norwegian colleagues regularly ask me WTF is going on in the UK – a land renowned for free speech, and now more like Stalinist Russia.

  113. From Coffee House the Spectator

    24 May 2025
    Coffee House
    Jonathan MillerJonathan Miller
    Brigitte and Emmanuel – an anatomy of a slap
    27 May 2025, 11:17am

    Some are scandalised that Brigitte Macron was seen to slap her husband in the face as they prepared to disembark from the presidential Airbus, Cotam Unité, in Hanoi this week. Unité? Not so much. The Elysée is asking us to ignore the evidence and pretend it didn’t happen. Still others may say, someone had to.

    The slap was seen around the world or was it a shove, a roundhouse punch or just horsing around, disinformation spread by crazy people, as the president himself claims? The detail hardly matters.

    Denial notwithstanding, we saw what we saw and lovie-dovey it wasn’t. So what does it tell us about the relationship between the president and his wife, his former drama teacher, who is old enough to be his mother? Cherchez la femme is a rule of thumb in examining the lives of famous men.

    One should never advocate an act of violence against anyone but there are many in France who think that Macron had it coming, as his presidency sputters into its final chapters. The country is on the verge of a nervous breakdown with a chimera of a government thanks to Macron’s petulant dissolution of the National Assembly and the subsequent election of a discordant rabble.

    Brigitte can be excused for being disappointed in her star pupil, who has received little but failing grades from French voters

    Brigitte can be excused for being disappointed in her star pupil, who has received little but failing grades from French voters. So she administered what is called in the racing world a ‘reminder.’ Although corporal punishment was abolished in 2019, Brigitte is a teacher of the old school. But one must doubt that she chastised her husband for being ‘too full o’th’ milk of human kindness.’

    She is hardly the first wife of a politician to have become exasperated. In June 2019, before Boris Johnson became UK Prime Minister, police were called to the London flat he shared with Carrie Symonds (then his girlfriend, later his wife) after neighbours heard, according to the Guardian, shouting, banging, and Carrie yelling, ‘Get off me’ and ‘Get out of my flat.’ The incident was subsequently described as a squabble.

    Passive aggression short of physicality is not unprecedented. In 2012, Valérie Trierweiler, Hollande’s partner, known for her fiery personality, tweeted support for a political opponent of Ségolène Royal, Hollande’s former partner, during a parliamentary election. This was seen as Valérie ‘bossing’ him politically, not physically. Hollande subsequently dumped her for an actress. Melania Trump has repeatedly refused to hold her husband’s hand in public. Even Clementine Churchill admonished her husband for excessive drinking and spending, although never in public.

    The romance between Brigitte and Emmanuel is thoroughly documented and by any criteria raises questions. Emmanuel met Brigitte Trogneux in 1993 or 1994 at the Jesuit high school Lycée La Providence. The exact date has been carefully obscured, because if it was 1993, Emmanuel would have been 15, and the relationship would have been illegal as well as unconventional.

    My friends in Paris have defended the Macron marriage as a true partnership. But it seems an unconventional one.

    In a 2017 interview with Paris Match, Brigitte recalled their bond forming over shared literary interests, stating, ‘We spent hours discussing literature and theatre.’ Emmanuel later said in his 2016 book Révolution that he was captivated by her intelligence and charisma, not initially romantically but intellectually.

    By 1994–1995, their relationship had evolved though it remained platonic, supposedly. Nevertheless Emmanuel’s parents, Jean-Michel and Françoise Macron, became concerned about the closeness and sent him to Paris in 1994 to attend the elite Lycée Henri-IV for his final school year, hoping to distance him from Brigitte.

    Emmanuel maintained contact though, declaring at 17 that he would marry her one day, according to Anne Fulda’s 2017 book Emmanuel Macron: A Perfect Young Man. Brigitte, initially hesitant due to her marriage and social norms, described this period as challenging in a 2020 Elle interview, saying, ‘I resisted for a long time, but love is stronger than conventions.’

    In 2006, Brigitte divorced André-Louis Auzière and after Emmanuel completed his education at Sciences Po and the École Nationale d’Administration, they reconnected, openly living together. They married in October 2007, Emmanuel (age 29) and Brigitte (age 54) in a civil ceremony at Le Touquet, a coastal town where the Trogneux family owned a vacation home. The wedding was small, attended by family and close friends.

    Emmanuel’s speech, later publicised, acknowledged the unconventional nature of their bond, saying, ‘We are not a normal couple, but we are a couple.’ Their marriage is often described as one of mutual respect and intellectual partnership. Emmanuel called her his ‘closest adviser’ in Révolution.

    Emmanuel Macron meanwhile continues his world tour. He has visited or will visit at least eight countries in 2025 (Portugal, United States, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore, Madagascar, and the United Kingdom). The French media takes these trips very seriously, perhaps because the elite French journalists get to go along with him. The Elysée press even has its own chef.

    Voters, however, will likely be more cynical than ever. What happened in Hanoi won’t stay in Hanoi. Ribaldry aside, the question is posed. Is Brigitte Macron’s wife, or his stern mother?

    Jonathan Miller
    Written by
    Jonathan Miller
    Jonathan Miller, who lives near Montpellier, is the author of Shock of the News: Confessions of a Troublemaker, Gibson Square. He is on X @lefoudubaron.

      1. And we've reached only Tuesday. It's an exchange usually associated with Saturday evenings after the corkscrews and bottle openers have been deployed.

      2. And we've reached only Tuesday. It's an exchange usually associated with Saturday evenings after the corkscrews and bottle openers have been deployed.

    2. Each to his or her beliefs. I try to eat a balanced diet, just reducing the overall quantity if my weight goes up. I do not believe in fad diets, of which there are many out there to keep the gullible enthralled.

  115. Reminds me of a daft Rugby Song we used to sing;

    All around my hat I will wear the green willow
    And all around my hat for a twelve-month and a day
    And if anyone should ask me the reason why I'm wearing it
    It's my f*cking business, it's my f*cking hat

    All around my f*ck I will wear the green willow
    And all around my f*ck for a twelve-month and a day
    And if anyone should ask me the reason why I'm wearing it
    It's my hatting business, it's my hatting f*ck

    1. Yes. Saw the “before” and “after” photo today. Explains the hair, and the (lack of) hips.

  117. Yodel finally delivered my wine case and the new vacuum cleaner this evening – after numerous complaints being logged onto their online chat system and several apparently aborted deliveries because they couldn't find our house (or be bothered to look) when they have been here many times before. I'll have to get cleaning tomorrow!

    1. I've just been wrangling with Talk Talk again (I shall be so glad to be out of contract in August and move) because, not being able to pay online via their crap website not working properly, I paid via my bank at the ATM. They, predictably, have lost it and are now threatening to cut me off for being in arrears. I've spent hours with their "agents" (two foreigners) who assured me in broken English that all was well and I wouldn't be cut off. Watch this space. I hate Talk Talk with a vengeance. I did not choose to go with them, they took over the last company to take over from the Post Office, which was my choice.

      1. I fnally escaped from them in February (you might remember my tract on a five-week internet outage). The bastards wrongly charged me £75 for an engineer visit and still haven't coughed up.

      2. We were with Talk Talk for about six years – they were so bad that we were glad to go back to BT.

          1. I found myself subject to Talk Talk without consultation when Nine Telecom, an excellent telephone provider, was sold out.

            Talk Talk were amateur and their statements cheap photocopies and their charges not broken down, as were Nine Telecom’s, as we had three landlines at the time.

            I found them reluctant to allow me to go to BT, my decision based mostly on desperation. I recall the diminutive racehorse riding Tory woman ran Talk Talk. From Oxford associations and presumably a friend of Clown Boris, Dido Harding, was subsequently found to have presided over the leak of customer details. Fear not she continued to attract the largesse of Boris and his clown world.

          1. Not so.

            alkTalk Telecom Group Limited (formerly New TalkTalk plc from 2009–2010 and TalkTalk Telecom Group plc from 2010–2021;[1] commonly known as TalkTalk Group, trading as TalkTalk) is a British telecommunications company that provides pay television and Internet access services to businesses and consumers in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 2003 as a subsidiary of Carphone Warehouse and was demerged as a standalone company in March 2010.[3] Its headquarters are in Salford.[4]

            Originally, just a provider of fixed line telephone services to consumers, TalkTalk now offers fixed and mobile telephone and broadband services to consumers under the TalkTalk brand, and telephone and broadband services to business customers under the TalkTalk Business brand. Like some other UK broadband providers, TalkTalk has invested in its own exchange infrastructure, known as local-loop-unbundling (LLU), with 92% of its customer base unbundled as of December 2012. TalkTalk is now one of the "big four" internet service providers, the others being BT (EE), Sky and Virgin Media.[5] The company was listed on the London Stock Exchange until it was acquired by Toscafund Asset Management in March 2021.[6]

  118. And, as the Mahler Lied von der Erde has just finished, I'm off to bed.
    Goodnight all.

  119. Even the French think Macron is becoming a laughing stock
    With approval ratings languishing in the mid-twenties, the last thing the French leader needed was another blow to his image
     https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05/27/macron-has-become-a-laughing-stock/

    "In matters of great importance, style, not sincerity is the vital thing.” This maxim from Oscar Wilde in

    BTL

    When François Hollande was president he was caught travelling to see his mistress on the back of his minder's moped.

    The French public were outraged – not by the fact that the president had a mistress (having one is an obligatory part of the job) but by the fact that it was very undignified to go to an amorous tryst not just on a moped but riding pillion behind his minion.

    2. I laughed at the description of Starmer’s estranged wife as Victoria Sponger. I almost burst a blood vessel at the description of Brigitte as Macron’s Slapper.

  120. Wahoo! Just won the pub quiz with the neighbours, four of us won by 12 clear points. £60 of beer vouchers between us, cheap drinking for a while.

  122. Well, chums, it's well past my bedtime. So I'll wish you all a Good Night; sleep well and see you all tomorrow morning.

  124. It must be wonderful to be as virtuous as our Pete. We must imprison everyone immediately who advocate any form of violence. Or even practice it. Except, those on the left, seem to get let off. “Sarah Jane” Parker, anyone? Jo Brand? Ricky Jones? The woman who threw a milkshake on Farage?

    “Sir – – Once again, Jonathan Sumption is the voice of reason (“The case of Lucy Connolly shouldn’t distract the defenders of free speech”, Comment, May 27).

    I find it impossible to have any sympathy for a person who, like Lucy Connolly, advocates violence – no matter the circumstances.

    Her supporters have a just cause but the wrong martyr.

    Peter Little
    Herne Bay, Kent”

Comments are closed.