Wednesday 28 May: Lucy Connolly’s supporters should be wary of framing her as a martyr

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.

466 thoughts on “Wednesday 28 May: Lucy Connolly’s supporters should be wary of framing her as a martyr”

  3. Good morning, chums. And thanks, Geoff, for this morning's new NoTTLe site.

    Wordle 1,438 4/6

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        1. Good morning DB

          Cloudy and chilly here in South Dorset .

          Moh optimistic , game of golf , and away in a short while , and he is wearing shorts .

    1. Good morning. The Court Jester always wore bright clothing. In Turdeau's case, the only bright thing about him.

      1. They're not laughing now!

        They said that when he grew up he would be a comedian – but lacking Bob Monkhouse's talent he only succeeded in making people laugh at him rather than at anything he said or did.

      2. '…. and the mome raths outgrabe.' or something similar.
        I remember that from 2nd year juniors.
        Then, when we moved to a different area when I was 10, the class were still learning little more than nursery rhymes – I kid you not. These simple rhymes were not being taught in the way the current national curriculum dissects rhymes and pages of books; they were simply being read by the teacher. Goodness, I was bored there 🙂
        My younger brother was soon moved to a private school. Whereas I, the good little girl :)), just put up with it for the year, my 7 year old brother would have been likely to cause disruption and mischief through boredom had he remained there for the whole juniors time.

        1. I loved Lewis Caroll and that’s one poem I’ve never forgotten.
          I was lucky with my primary school – a little village school for six years. I still have one friend from those years.

    4. How did they manage to suppress the scandal of Trudeau's sexual relationship with an under age girl? This was undoubtedly one of the factors which led to his wife deciding she had had enough and wanted a divorce.

  7. Inside Britain’s mission to deny Russia control of the Arctic

    Alliance’s response to Moscow’s sabre-rattling has been to step up military collaboration between the UK and Norway
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/briefs/2025/05/27/TELEMMGLPICT000426386731_17483728631980_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bq-AqOvuPwOIa81Jcz2HtT_TWH7MK909sQZtXYrwCirzg.jpeg?imwidth=1280 Ahoy there, sailor!
    David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, on board Norwegian coastguard ship KV Bergen in Tromso during his visit to Norway Credit: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire

    That's going to scare the Russkies. Please keep him.

          4. Lammynation; the process of bonding several short planks together, to make a really thick one.

    3. Or, at least return him to the sea. The rest of the pod may be missing him.

    4. What part of the job of a forgien secretary is that ?
      Oh yes I remember now……

  8. Morning, all Y'all. Brilliant sunshine, but chilly.
    The moan now is, "How does the sun manage to shine si brightly into my eyes all the time?"

  9. Good morning, all. The Wet Office WAS lying. It rained all night and is raining now.

    1. Good morning.
      Hat's sent you a wedding anniversary restoration.
      1445 gives a nice round number.

        1. Take a look at your upvotes total.
          currently 398579, it was 398555 when I posted.

          1. Good Lord. I had NO idea the had come back. I was “got at” years ago when I had getting on for 200,000 thumbs.

          2. They were restored by a disqus contact of Mahatmacoatmag yesterday, after I mentioned your loss.

            I had been exchanging pleasantries with him, he noted my zero and got it removed. When I saw what he had done I wondered whether he could do the same for you, and there you have it.

            He now posts as Sputnik One, among other aliases, if you wanted to say thanks

            https://disqus.com/by/sputnikone/

          4. I think the plus side is that one doesn’t automatically get refused on other sites as they assume zeros are spambots.

  10. The NHS must stop wasting our money on trans surgery

    Even trans activists should agree – and here’s why

    27 May 2025 6:00am BST
    Michael Deacon

    Following the earth-shattering news from the Supreme Court last month that women are female, not male, trans activists may fear that the tide is turning against them. Still, at least they can always count on the support of our beloved NHS.

    Because, as the Telegraph revealed on Sunday, the health service has spent £20million in three years on giving trans women (i.e., biological males) “feminising genital surgery”. Which, for those not entirely up to speed with trans terminology, means removing their penises – and, in the words of our report, creating a “canal” designed to “imitate the vagina”.

    I have to admit to feeling somewhat puzzled by this news. According to the NHS website, “Cosmetic surgery is not routinely provided on the NHS.” But isn’t an operation to “feminise” one’s genitals a form of cosmetic surgery? After all, it’s undertaken to alter the appearance of a person who is physically healthy. We all expect the NHS to operate if we happen to find an alarming growth. But I’m not sure that category should include the penis.

    An even bigger mystery, however, is as follows. For the past decade and more, trans activists have relentlessly, and very fiercely, informed us that “trans women are women”. But if that’s the case, then why should trans women require this surgery at all?

    The whole point of gender ideology is that you are whatever you say you are, regardless of your physical appearance. So if you say you’re a woman, then you are a woman, and that’s that – even if you have the genitals of a man. In which case, there is surely no need for the NHS to provide a trans woman with a biological woman’s genitals – or at any rate, a rough approximation of them.

    In fact, the more I think about it, the more shocked I am that the impeccably progressive and inclusive NHS even offers such a thing. Because if its bosses truly believe that trans women are women, they should righteously refuse to carry out “feminising genital surgery”. And in explanation, they should say: “These operations insidiously reinforce the hateful, bigoted and outdated notion that people who have penises are men, and people who have vaginas are women. Which, as everyone except JK Rowling and a few fusty old judges now knows, is not true.”

    Or, to put it more simply: trans surgery is transphobic.

    Another insult to private school parents

    Still, taxpayers can hardly be blamed if they’re unsure what services their taxes entitle them to receive. Consider this other story, from Scotland. At the Royal Hospital for Children and Young People in Edinburgh, sick children are given tutoring, provided by the Labour-run city council, so they don’t fall behind with their education. Sounds great. But it seems that there’s a catch.

    Your sick child will receive this tutoring free of charge only if he or she is enrolled at a state school. But if he or she is enrolled at an independent school, you have to pay for it yourself.

    The parents of one young patient couldn’t understand this, so they complained to the city council. And, according to the Mail on Sunday, here’s what the council’s “Head of Education (Inclusion)” said in reply.

    “Unfortunately, as you have chosen to privately educate your son, he cannot be supported by this team,” she said – because “you have effectively opted out of state-funded education”.

    Well, yes. I suppose they have. None the less, I can’t help feeling that there’s a tiny problem with this argument.

    After all, the parents in question haven’t opted out of paying for “state-funded” education, have they?

    The term “state-funded” may seem to imply otherwise, but state education is actually funded by taxpayers. Such as these parents. So, having paid their taxes, these parents should surely be entitled to rely on state education the one time they happen to need it.

    If, however, they’re to be denied it, it doesn’t seem terribly reasonable to keep making them pay for it. In which case, I think it would be only fair to award them a tax rebate – equal to the exact value of the hospital tutoring sessions.

    Of course, if they do get that rebate, then every other private school parent in Edinburgh will want one as well. But the row is unlikely to end there. Because these parents may then start demanding a rebate for the entire cost of the state education that their children haven’t received. They’ve “opted out” of state schools, so they’re “opting out” of funding them.

    Which, in turn, will prompt calls to extend this exciting new approach to other areas of taxation. For example: allow those in paid employment to “opt out” of funding benefits for the unemployed. Allow those who were born in this country to “opt out” of funding hotels for asylum seekers. And allow those who use private healthcare to “opt out” of funding the NHS.

    Then this last group, at least, would no longer be forced to foot the bill for all these trans surgeries.

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

    Michael Deacon
    Telegraph
    19 hrs ago
    pinned
    Thanks very much for all your excellent comments. As it happens, reports consistently suggest that the vast majority of trans women remain intact, and have undergone no such surgery. So presumably they feel it unnecessary. Perhaps the NHS could consider this, the next time it's pondering its supposedly insufficient budget.

    Enjoy the rest of your Tuesday…

    Harry R Jumpjet
    1 day ago
    The NHS should only provide basic care. This means emergency care, cancer, hip and knee joints, heart surgery etc. Gender reassignment, IVF, cosmetic and cosmetic repair from botched foreign operations must be paid for privately.

    Jim Murdoch
    1 day ago
    The terms ‘state funded’ and ‘government funded’ should be banned. Everything paid from taxes is ‘taxpayer funded’.

  11. Good morning all.
    A damp start with overnight rain continuing with a tad over 13°C just now.

    1. That was inevitable.
      I'm vaguely surprised that it took nearly a year to appear.
      Still, the wait has produced an impressive list of – decisions.

    3. Zippy from Rainbow. I knew I recognised Strurmer's voice from somewhere. 😂

  15. Parliament Staffers to Be Trained on Anti-Racism and ‘Imposter Syndrome’

    Not long after MPs and their teams get back from yet another recess holiday on 2 June Parliamentary staffers have been invited to not one but nine “Anti-Racism Online Workshops.” Taxpayer-funded…

    Instead of doing casework it’s an hour and half of inclusivity training then off to lunch:

    “The course is 90 minutes long and aims to increase confidence and the ability to engage in conversations with colleagues about race to foster a more inclusive workplace and, ultimately, contribute to decreasing our ethnicity pay gap. The first date is Tuesday 17 June from 10-11:30am, if the course is full please sign up to the waiting list as eight other dates are planned.”

    At the same time staffers have the opportunity to take classes on “imposter syndrome” with the Commons’ Learning and Development manager:

    “Explore Imposter Syndrome and how to counter it with qualified coach and in-House trainer. Including a group discussion, this one-hour presentation comes in two parts, exploring firstly, Imposter Syndrome, and secondly, Growing Confidence. This session will take place in-person on Social Mobility Day, 12 June, with a session online through Microsoft Teams taking place the following week on 19 June.”

    Should be a laugh on the terrace after those sessions…

    May 27 2025 @ 17:00

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

    Monty
    15h
    Imposters you say…
    Like spotting economists that aren't?

    Lawyers who aren't lawyers?

    Anti corruption ministers mired in corruption?

    British PM working for anyone but Britain?

    Thanks but I will skip the course as I'm already very well trained.

    1. The staffers will have plenty of "patients" to practice on.
      At least 650.

    2. You get this across all public sector. It's as if they've nothing of value or utility to do.

    4. Ernest Nowell
      14h
      I’m not at all up with all these Buzz Words the DEI use, but is Imposter Syndrome calling yourself a Tory when in fact you are a Pro Remain, Pro Immigration, Pro Nut Zero , Ecoloon, LibDem??

      Iain Reid
      Ernest Nowell
      13h
      Yes, and you've described the current incumbents of CCHQ to a tee….

  16. Oscar is home and bright eyed, mobile – despite my inducements to rest. He seems more his old grumpy self, that is to say, wants to be around people but to know he doesn't like them.

    He is, however, on a strict 'mush diet that's like a decent soup.

    Does anyone have any Ikea Pax wardrobes? I'm looking at getting 4 of the narrower ones for our bedroom for storage. Any horror stories or are they as straightforward as the Billy line?

  17. Lucy Connolly is not a martyr, she's just wrongly imprisoned by a state machine that cannot tolerate dissent from it's own fascist line.

      1. The news just gets better and better…

        DAN HODGES: Angela Rayner is angling to be our next Prime Minister. The Labour civil war is underway and this is the truth about her extraordinary power-play – and why she's more than happy to throw Keir Starmer under the bus

        1. Oh dear…..
          But she’s already admitted that she doesn’t want to job.
          I bet there’s a long queue for a spot in the bus lane.

        3. Yes, two man job…Reeves as chancellor. We may yet wish we hadn't been born.

      2. Won't be the final end of him tho' Eddy…EC beckons…waiting on 6 June those lads in Magistrates Court, if their case gets that far.

  19. Tommy's only just got out out, and he's already on the case..
    causing divisiveness, LOL, by;

    highlighting jihadi recruitment in Woodhill..
    six full riot gear policemen to escort him to showers..
    Announces Free Speech festival in London with speakers from all over the world..
    (If I can do eighteen months in solitary.. you should be able to do an afternoon in London).
    Meanwhile CNN: Far Right Activist released from prison for posting fake pictures..

  20. Guido

    Colin Fisher
    11h
    I feel some of the criticism of Reform and Nige comes simply out of conditioning and misunderstanding of the politics we have today. Many have commented on how Nigel and Reforms lack of Governmental experience should somehow preclude them governing. This presuposses that the last few decades have been remotely efficiently and diligently governed. If they had, our nation would not be in the state it is in.
    It also assumes that the Uniparties are any more experienced in governing which frankly they are not, hence their dependancy on the EU.

    Since the EU blossomed from the trading agreement we were falsely told it was, into the beast is has become, it has ruled. Our Civil Service and elected officials have completely abdicated this responsibility and not only have not ruled, but have lost all ability to do so. It was so much easier prancing on the world stage and being paid large amounts of out money to pretend they were relevant and good at what they did. Meanwhile the EU bureaucracy actually governed. When things went well, our Uniparties claimed the credit. When they did not they blamed the EU but said it was a necessary price to pay for our much needed membership.

    How easy it was for them in those days, as long the electorate were kept in their place, given copius misinformtaion about the virtues and needs of EU membership and taxed to whatever levels the EU monolith required life was good. Then came Brexit, and my have the Uniparties and Civil Service complete incompetance and inability to govern been shown up it all its glory. Hence the desperation for Starmer to get in under the protective canopy of "alignment and reset" of rule taking and credit claiming once more with the EU slopey shoulder available as a get out of jail card.

    So although Reform may not have any great experience in governing, I would suggest they have no less than our uniparties, and unlike them they have a desire to take that responsibility and at least try to act for their country not just use it for their ineffective ego boosting jollies

    1. 406458+ up ticks,

      Morning C!,

      I do agree, by all means give the peoples their rein BUT on their past showing history we must
      back Reform with a fall back, anti balls up party,
      I am personally advising , for what it is worth, the Farmers Food and Freedom Party.

    2. Spot on. Brexit also removed the ability to bribe failing CS/MPs with places on the Brussels/Strasbourg gravy train, see Mandelslime and the Kinnochio dynasty for details.

    3. It was where I arrived at when casting my vote in the 2016 Referendum.

      It was a test whether the UK was still up to the job of running a country properly, without resorting to the EU scapegoat. If the British authorities let me down, as they clearly have done in the last nine years, then it leaves me with a dilemma. Do I go for more of the same, which is what Starmer spins as "Change"? Do I hope that a chastened Conservative Party under new brooms Badenoch and Hollinrake would finally do what is needed before being stabbed in the back by the likes of Robert Jenrick? Or do I have a punt on Farage's latest party, knowing full well his capacity to destroy each hope each time someone takes the limelight off him?

      The Lib Dems and the Greens are rising where I live, and seem to be picking up support in the Home Counties. Their problem is that they drift away from their founding principles to distractions such as "social justice", which actually means pandering to favourites. The Lib Dems are still recovering from the debacle of when they got into Government for the first time in a century, but their great vision was the nobbling of the Lords as a revising chamber independent of Commons politics, homosexual marriage, and an obsession with becoming a vassal of a pan-national organisation with scant respect for democracy or respect for local communities.

      Since Angela Rayner has not yet completed her demolition of local democracy, we did have one last go at the recent County elections. I voted for the local Lib Dem, who seemed the best of the bunch, but Reform are now the largest party on the Council, and what they do with this mandate is as good a test as any if they are any good.

      1. I voted for our local green councillor at the recent election – but only because she's active and gets things done. I wouldn't vote for the Greens nationally as they are thinly disguised reds. As for the Lib dims – they are neither liberal nor democratic so they would never get my vote.

  21. 405458+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    The electorate must bare in mind in future, after dropping us in the deep end of the political shite pool at every voting opportunity these past thirty plus years, that we have arrived at the terminating terminus for this nation.

    It is surely a fact that it is imperative we have a BACK UP party to Reform, a safety net, an anti treachery party, call it what you will.

    We have a sample of the "nige" wares with the scrapping the two child benefi,t giving the islamic faction a ticket to ride BIG TIME.

    https://x.com/EssexPR/status/1927354707095236742

    https://x.com/EssexPR/status/1927354707095236742

      1. 406458+up ticks,

        Morning JBF,

        If so tis the very same tribal /tactical voters
        who’s input in the last GE dropped us in the political shite pit.

  22. SIR – In dismissing Lucy Connolly’s case as clear-cut, I believe Lord Sumption is wrong. Judges use nuance and context as tools for passing judgment.

    Furthermore, swearing and strong language are part of the way we communicate. I would suggest that what Mrs Connolly wrote was not intended to be taken literally; rather, she was expressing her anguished state of mind, having previously lost a child of her own, among other possible factors.

    The state has no business in withdrawing her freedom.

    Marcus Lawrence
    Hillingdon, Middlesex

    Poor Lucy .

    Of course we also have a Prime Minister who incited anger and disgust by taking the knee because he believed in the Black Lives matters issues re the known drug criminal whose death incited black people to riot , our historic statues and icons were disfigured and destroyed and Starmers actions confirmed his lack of integrity !!

    1. Morning TB.
      And It's pretty obvious that the government has no objections when crowds of people block our streets waving flags that support active terrorism.

    2. There is a criteria used in law that seems to be being ignored with regard to free speech issues. That is a penalty should pass: "The man on the Clapham omnibus." test. What an ordinary intelligent person would deem reasonable. The thug that convicted Lucy and the thugs that upheld the conviction were not using that criteria but obviously doing the bidding of our degenerate government. As Katie Hopkins says. Lucy is a hostage, a reminder to the rest of us to shut up and toe the government line or be dealt with. Simply put, we are living under a fascist regime.

      1. Yes, you're right, sadly Jonathan. The Left are using Lucy Connolly as a reminder of it's power.

        However, equally important to remember than the law is an ass and justice and common sense have no place being mentioned alongside the term 'law'.

  23. Morning all 🙂😊
    No rain overnight still breezy but high cloud and sunshine. And a warning, be careful of the UV.
    I don't agree with the attitude of our none elected far left 'authorities' selecting and making examples of the British taxpaying public. As they know there are many people who should be arrested for many crimes far worse and seem to be totally ignored.
    Oh hang on a mo……someone's at the front door. 🤔

    2. I imagine the No10 spin machine is desperate digging dirt on the fellow and his family to discredit his factual statement.

      However all I see Reform doing are infighting and lying – ok, let's be generous, grubbing for votes.

      Yes, they can't do anything until they are in office and have to say / not say certain things to do that but surely – isn't this precisely what people are tired of? Maybe they're not? Certainly I hadn't realised how dim some people were and was caught by surprise over covid so perhaps Reform are pitching to the chattering masses?

      With no other way to get headlines maybe they have to do this. Who knows. I find it repellant though.

  25. Good Morning!

    Today FSB has an extremely well written and interesting article by Zhang Yingyue, Chinese Jews and the Politics of Presence , about the thousand year presence of Jews in China and their prospects today. It's a must read folks, and don't forget to leave a comment. You'll probably learn something and, as an added bonus, it'll keep me out of the dog house.

    In Free Speech Is Extremely Dangerous, we have 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, 16.7%; Solar, 4.2%: Wind 39.4%; Imports, 16.2%; Biomass, 4.5% and Nuclear, 16.7%.

    freespeechbacklash.com

    2. I read the piece by ZY and watched the video – it's a fascinating piece of history. I have to say her command of English is superb as well.

      1. It takes a huge effort on her part to get right, as her spoken English is much less polished (though accentless – she complains about mine and sometimes translates for me!)

        1. Well I did A levels in French and German (and Latin – failed) but I am nowhere near fluent. I think you probably have to live somewhere and speak the language every day to really know it.

    1. Why don't they just come out and say 'two tier policing'?

      Odd how hypocritical Labour MPs can never actually admit their own hypocrisy. It's as if they've a blinkered, doublethink obsessed view.

    2. If you look at the footage, the description they've released doesn't fit the driver of the car and no explanation for that has yet been forthcoming. Some of the suckers who hang on their every word are feeble minded dolts but there are also intelligent people desperate to have their favoured ideology confirmed and cling to the comfort of being able to trust the powers that be.

      1. There must have been lots of people taking his picture as he was dragged from the car.

        There is also the mistrust issue that Liverpuddlians have with the police. (Hilsborough lies)

        1. My problem with Hilsborough is that it was solely because of the crowd's inability to behave that the barriers were installed, then rather than follow police instruction to leave that same crowd crushed people against the barriers.

          I get it. A mass hysteria is generated over such events which you're not really aware of but I do not believe that is excuse enough. Liverpudlians have to accept their share of the blame for what happened.

          1. I agree. My problem is the years of lying by plod to cover up their own behaviour.

  27. Good morning all. Sunny day but the temperature is mild here in good old West Sussex.

    I'm posting this story because I suspect there is far more of this than we are aware of due to the employment of Muslims in the Home Office. In fact we almost never hear about Christians fleeing and begging for asylum in the UK. One wonders why when you would think the persecution of Christians in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia are at an all time high.

    Christian woman who fled Islamic persecution overturns asylum decision despite Home Office 'bias'

    A Christian woman who fled Islamic persecution to seek asylum in the UK won the legal right to remain in the country after facing “bias” from the Home Office.

    Maria, not her real name, a Christian from a Muslim-majority country, which cannot be referred to for her safety, faced abduction attempts and a forced conversion to Islam before fleeing to Britain.

    Speaking publicly for the first time, she told GB News how her colleagues had attempted to convert her to Islam.

    Maria said that initially, they attempted to indoctrinate her through Islamic videos, but then their tactics escalated.

    She found herself facing bogus fraud allegations at work, with her Muslim managers telling her that if she converted to Islam, then the issues would disappear.

    Maria eventually gave in to the pressure, signing a conversion certificate, but she said that the demands increased, including expectations that her daughter would wear a hijab and that she would remove her Christian tattoos.

    She told the People’s Channel how her daughter faced an abduction attempt during her return from school, with two men storming her school bus looking for her, only for the driver to force them away.

    At this point, she turned to Britain for asylum, but her claim was rejected. Maria claimed that her assessor, a woman in a hijab, appeared to doubt her testimony.
    The woman, who has been supported by the Christian Legal Centre, is now speaking for the first time since her successful appeal.

    “They believed that my country is amazing, Islam is amazing in my country. And they said to me, your law in your country is amazing. Nothing happened to the Christians,” she told GB News.

    At her appeal trial, her Islamic conversion certificate was received back from the Home Office, but the original had been lost and the Home Office had posted back a laminated photocopy.

    Maria later discovered that this “tampered” document was reviewed by the Home Office, where it was determined to be unreliable.

    An appeal judge later described the process surrounding the laminated document as “curious”.

    Despite all of her testimony, Maria’s claim was rejected.

    The Christian mother said that she and her family were facing the “death penalty” from the Home Office after this rejection.

    But a dramatic legal reversal allowed her and her family to remain safely in the UK.

    Her legal team used evidence from Dr Martin Parsons, an expert in Christian persecution, and assessed the evidence, which challenged the Home Office’s stance.

    Dr Parsons told GB News that Government lawyers had sought to refute the claim of forced conversion to Islam and attempted abduction, but, he said, “there was a very significant background of that in that particular country, as there is in a number of Islamic countries”.

    He added that the “Muslim-named” assessor had “gone out of their way to hide the fact that that was an issue in this particular country, to the extent that they had ignored passages of the Home Office guidance for that country that referred to the issue of abduction of Christian women and girls”.

    Dr Parsons found the assessor had instead referred to other sources, where they had copied and pasted sections “that solely presented a very positive image, pasted them together as though they were one section of continuous prose.

    “But actually they had cut out the intervening negative comments about the persecution of Christians in that country.”

    At the successful appeal, the lawyer said all of her claims were “reasonably likely”.

    Michael Phillips, from the Christian Legal Centre, said: “I always remember the day when I received the judgment on an email, and I had the pleasure to ring her up and say, you never guess what, but you’re going to be staying in this country.

    “You’re here, you’re safe. You’re going to be here forever.”

    Maria told GB News: “My family were overjoyed to receive justice after years of struggle and trauma. We do not want this to happen to anyone else.

    “Life is still hard, but we are safe. We believe it is crucial for other genuine Christians fleeing Islamic persecution to receive the support and protection they need.”

    She added: “We call for an investigation/inquiry into how the Home Office is handling asylum claims for those fleeing Islamic persecution and forced conversion.”

    Maria’s testimony comes after GB News revealed earlier this year that a Home Office Islamic Network was lobbying to “influence policymakers”.

    The network was accused of promoting religious propaganda that could affect asylum decisions.

    A Home Office whistleblower told GB News that the network had produced “pro-Hijab propaganda which it sent to asylum seeker decision makers in the Home Office, and explicitly states it aims to influence policy to support their religious goals”.

    A Home Office spokesman said: “The UK has a proud history of welcoming those who are genuinely fleeing religious persecution and all asylum applications are carefully considered on their individual merits in accordance with the Immigration Rules.”

    It is longstanding Government policy not to comment on individual asylum cases.

    1. The control sector is being quietly re-populated with Bames. Eg the Financial Conduct Authority employs lots of Pakistanis .

    2. I am not surprised. I reckon this is genuinely “credible and true”.

  28. Yo to you All and Good Moaning fro a cool. but sunny C d S.

    Just had Telly Laff Online renewal quote for 25 – 26 £ 269.00

    Quick phone call, now it is £119.00, but you will all do better…

    1. Why do they waste our time with these preposterous renewal quotes? You only have to waste time calling them, having your time wasted hanging on the telephone deliberately kept on hold, hoping you'll go away and just pay them what they're not worth.

      It's just a waste of everyone's time.

  29. Once cloth-eared Farage listens to Cummings & Starkey.. then it's game on.. and game-over for The Blob.

    Dominic Cummings has advised the Reform UK leader on how to go from "one man and an iPhone" to entering Downing Street.

    "If he does what I'm suggesting and actually sets out a path for how Reform is going to change, how Reform is going to bring in people, how it's structurally going to alter, what it's going to build, how it is going to do policy, how it can recruit MPs, etc."

    "Reform is a vehicle for people to say: 'We despise you, Westminster. We hate both the old parties, we hate Whitehall, we hate the old media, we hate the whole f***ing lot of you.'

    Dominic Cummings is a smart guy, from up north and bang on the money 75% of the time.

  30. I think DC a Gove protege? Didn't last long in No.10…so much to do especially with CS (our real government) and too little support from politicians – could that be because many if not most politicians are lazy tykes with a few exceptions?

    1. Cummings was too disruptive at No10, and upset Princess Nut Nut. He'd be good if he was under control though.

      1. Thanks, N…for memory jog…x ……think she’s just had fourth sprog, BJ well bound in the spider web now, can’t help but smile…

        1. He wanted to take on new staff – asked for the "queers and misfits" to get in touch……. i think he meant 'freethinkers' but it put the wind up them.

    2. Even when the estate is built where there is existing infrastructure it overloads the existing one.

      1. Yep but having sewage coming up in your system is not a planning consideration to refuse permission according to our planning officer!

  32. Envy of the World – episode 2,575….

    The MR has a stye on an eyelid. After two weeks, she followed the NHS online advice and contacted her GP.

    "We do not deal with eye problems; none of our "clinicians" is qualified. Please contact the national eye centre in LEEDS".

    A stye is NOT an eye problem. In my day Golden Eye Ointment was prescribed. Apparently no longer exists.

    1. We had to go there with husband eye bleed (ended up being cauterised) he was diabetic before he changed diet (to carnivore). Have you a local optician, maybe they help MR? Good luck 🙂

      1. She has been in touch with Leeds – is sending a photo and “someone will phone you this afternoon”. Or not.

        1. Would you like me to call the MR this afternoon just to ensure that she's not too disappointed?

        2. We finally went privately with the consultant, after sitting and waiting hours in the clinic. He and his junior have now left for America, apparently. They were top class, resolved in no time. (Additionally, grandson just started school, left handed, teachers talking about teaching him to 'write with right' …junior doc was left handed, at end of consultation I asked him if he'd ever been held back by that and why I asked – he laughed and said never, many of his colleagues also lefties. My mum was a leftie, had her hand tied behind her back at school, still a leftie all her life.)

          1. I'm left handed. I once worked with a woman of Central European origin who expressed surprise that I could draw and went to art school. There are still some primitive beliefs even among people who ought to be civilised. What is the nationality of the teachers?

          2. I think the www a great leveller, end of the day we’ll all be creatures of it. Just been talking about the computer HAL in 2000, AI is an early version of it. Not thinking straight right now tho…spoken to vet about dog, euthanasia booked for Friday. Doh, and doh again….

          4. Poor doggie. If the Rainbow Bridge isn't real, the Good Lord and I are going to have a spat.

          7. Thanks, sos, for your kindness. Sleeping most of the time, in his bed after eating a whole tin of salmon – fish being his thing. He was one of a large litter, soon as he clocked me he came over to sit with me…he was six weeks old, 15 years later never a day apart. Always slept on my bed, when he stopped that was the first sign, next sign refusing to eat meat – next sign much worse, bloody urine, tests done – liver failing. He’s a good boy, always was, always will be in my heart.

          9. Always, sos. He’s the same age as my only grandson who I missed so much when he went home with his mum n dad, I had to get a puppy for company 😀

          10. Oh no. I haven't read down to what you posted yet, but am sending you both all the love and peace I can x x

          11. Thanks Kathie…booked for Friday pm. He’s been going downhill a little while, 15 years old (around 90 human years?)…love and peace back to you, as ever xx

          12. Sorry to hear that, but it’s the kindest thing. You have done all you can and he’s had a good life.

          14. Oh dear.
            You know you've done your best …. but that doesn't stop you from feeling guilty.

          15. Thanks, anne 🙂 he's had a great life, and I've had a great time with him for last 15 years plus. He's suffering now, and I need to help him on his way, as I've done with several other dogs over the years. As Peta and I agreed before she passed, we'll meet again.

      2. diabetic before he changed diet (to carnivore)
        Firstborn has defeated his diabetes in the same way, and is no longer diabetic. Yaay! Result! And the flab continues to fall away, he has renewed energy, and with his regular training, he's looking really good!

        1. That's good news.

          Of course no GP would suggest such a thing seeing as they are drug pushers for Big Pharma.

        2. Absolutely, Paul…the way to go…as ever I start to imagine how we hunted in the past, how we became omnivores…must have found hunting/cave life difficult for some reason (predators probably, hence the caves with narrow tunnels and fire in the entrance)…started fishing shoreline, eating seagreens there and gradually settling, eating grass grains, moving onward to farming/settled communities. Anyhow…well done that son!…are you going to try his diet/lifestyle?

    3. Still available, Bill! Ask your local pharmacy for anything with chloramphenicol!

      2. That's the stuff! I'll remind OH that's what he used to use. He is getting forgetful, but he did retire over 20 years ago.

    4. I remember those. But I have completely forgotten what we did to cure them. Anyone remember?

    5. Antibiotics? I got quite a few styes when I was a child, I remember Golden Eye Ointment. The tube lasted for years. Sticky stuff, it came out of the (much mangled and squished) tube as a thin pale-gold squiggle. A stye is usually the result of an infected eye-lash follicle.

  33. That took some finding!
    Wordle 1,439 5/6

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

  35. It’s not Lucy Connolly who should be behind bars
    Gillian Dymond https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/its-not-lucy-connolly-who-should-be-behind-bars/

    An exchange of BTLs under this article in The Conservative Woman

    Brian No.1

    Those granted positions where they can rule over others should always, always temper their decisions with mercy.
    The meaning of mercy in Shakespeare's English means divining the intentions* in any statement.

    To do otherwise is a scurrilous abuse of the position they have been granted and a complete betrayal of those falling within their remit.

    * Shylock got a rough deal in 'The Merchant of Venice' but he knew what he was doing.

    Rastus C. Tastey – reply to Brian No.1 *

    "If you prick us do we not bleed?"

    Shylock was seeking vengeance for the horrible way he had been treated – but Shakespeare gives us a fair account of Shylock's point of view with which we can sympathise.

    The judgement against Shylock was severe – his goods were forfeit to the state and, worse still – he had to renounce his Jewish faith and become a Christian.

    Perhaps those who practise the murder of of innocent children – and those who support them in the name of Allah or Mohammed – should be obliged to renounce their religion of hatred towards the infidel kuffar?

    * The fact that my response to Brian No 1 was taken down from The Conservative Woman – supposedly a supporter of free speech – shows how very dire the issue of Free Speech has become in the UK

    1. It's become very difficult to comment on TCW as Kathy is paranoid about being shut down if anyone steps out of line. Plus they use Disqus' naughty words ( mostly American meanings) facility to do the moderation – with probably a few they've added themselves. I deleted all the naughty words on Nottl years ago so we say what we want here and have (not yet anyway) been shut down.

      1. Have you noticed the ladies are more likely to swear on here than the men?

        That Anne Allan is a right potty mouth !

          1. I'm meeting Annie for lunch June 3rd. She can give me my clip around the ear then.

          2. I was hoping to, Phil, but circumstances have changed. So I think I have to take a rain-check and maybe meet you all in 2026.

          4. I didn’t know that, Phil. Have made a note and will check with my diary and get back to you.

        2. Is she? I haven’t really noticed that but I rarely swear actually. It seems to me to be a sign of poverty of vocabulary.

      2. I read TCW every day and the reasons for moderation have been explained many times by the editor. I've had a few comments moderated ie held up and it's frustrating but I understand the difficulties of running a blog which receives 40,000 comments per week.
        It drives me mad when someone is moderated then makes comments decrying this "censorship". What do they expect from a site which costs them nothing? They can always go elsewhere.

      3. My own ISP, three, will let me access the articles on TCW but not the comments, due to some low-lifes complaining about "far right bias". I have to use a VPN to get full access, so I understand the editor's concerns.

    2. It's very sad but we bought a new Dyson last week to replace our old Dyson and I enjoyed test driving it. We were a week without one and you know how nature abhors a vacuum. This is one of the 'Animal' range and goes like the clappers.

      1. This one’s a Bosch and it plugs in – not like the Vax one with a battery that only lasts 20 minutes – ok for whizzing round the cobwebs but doesn’t do a thorough job.

  41. The Lucy Connolly case is just a psyop to frighten people into silence on social media.
    That is all it is.
    This is the level our ruling elite have descended to, to maintain control.
    There are a lot more levels for them to fall yet

    1. Having worked in the above for decades, I now appreciate the lower….says me, at the keyboard…

    1. Good one, Phiz. I still quite like Oatly 'milk' but it's crap, mostly veg oils…..I was vegan some years ago, after realising how some animals are treated, not all just some. Now, I eat/drink anything (don't stand still……..:-DD)

  44. All of the letters about Lucy Connolly. I hope it's mere chance that they start with two antis.

    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
    ________________________________________

    SIR – In calling Lucy Connolly's punishment for inciting racial hatred "an attack on freedom of thought", D S A Murray (Letters, May 27) has rather missed the point.

    If Mrs Connolly had kept the thought to herself, there would have been no punishment. Her crime was to disseminate it using social media.

    John Pini KC
    Stamford, Lincolnshire
    ________________________________________

    SIR – In dismissing Lucy Connolly's case as clear-cut, I believe Lord Sumption is wrong. Judges use nuance and context as tools for passing judgment.

    Furthermore, swearing and strong language are part of the way we communicate. I would suggest that what Mrs Connolly wrote was not intended to be taken literally; rather, she was expressing her anguished state of mind, having previously lost a child of her own, among other possible factors.

    The state has no business in withdrawing her freedom.

    Marcus Lawrence
    Hillingdon, Middlesex
    ________________________________________

    SIR – The system has not made an example of Lucy Connolly. It has made a martyr of her.

    P J Carroll
    London SW17
    ________________________________________

    SIR – In his attempted justification of the lengthy prison sentence handed to Lucy Connolly as a result of her unwise tweet, Lord Sumption evades the principal point.

    It is not that she is a free-speech martyr. Rather, the problem is the disproportionate length of her sentence, compared with some of those handed to people who have committed actual physical violence.

    Furthermore, the system wishes to keep her locked up when others whose crimes are more serious are released on licence to preserve their family relationships.

    William Tarver
    Wokingham, Berkshire
    ________________________________________

    SIR – Few would disagree with Lord Sumption that Lucy Connolly committed a serious offence, albeit in a fit of anger. Who can doubt that there have been similar intemperate, perhaps naïve, tirades elsewhere, including online?

    It is just that the severity of her sentence seems disproportionate.

    Paul Meredith
    Sevenoaks, Kent

    1. I’m glad Peter has never said anything that causes others “distress and anxiety”. He might not be so sanguine when they are rounding him up for things he’s said.

    2. I'm very sceptical about the Lucy Connelly saga, but – what a sanctimonious tosseur!

  45. Release suspects’ ethnicities early, Met chief says
    Sir Mark Rowley says details should be made public even if it ‘emboldens’ racists
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05/28/met-chief-backs-sharing-suspects-ethnicity/

    BTL

    Most people cottoned on some time ago to the fact that when some crimes were reported the suspect's race was given when he or she was white. However if the suspect's race was not given they knew that he or she was not white!

  46. Bought the Golden Eye ointment – the MR is applying it now.

    I wonder what other perfectly ordinary, normal medical conditions (that all GPs dealt with when I was young) are turned away these days?

    1. You're roughly 106 miles from London and 156 miles from Leeds. Moorfield's and the Western Eye Hospital in Marylebone are closer. Glad you found the Golden Eye ointment. Boots claim to have it.

    3. A lot! My mother was a dispenser and our medicine box contained Gregory’s powder, acriflavine, kaolin and morph, Friars Balsam, chloramphenicol and anthisan! Plus aspirin!

      1. Ah; kaolin and morphine! That takes me back to the first time I was in France and had a dodgy tummy. I tried to buy some from a chemist and his reaction to the word 'morphine' was horrified to the point that I'm pretty certain I nearly got arrested! 🤣🤣

        1. Really? We always found France and Spain would dispense anything over the counter! When my sister moved out to Greece (she’s a pharmacist) she couldn’t believe the amount of antibiotics and painkilling drugs sold over the counter!

          1. Nope – MORPHIAAAA??? I can still hear his voice. 🤣🤣

            Anything else, yes, but I managed to trip over the one thing that was interdit.

      1. Given the mass of legislation designed solely to protect muslims it's absolutely impossible that the 30,000 muslims being watched are a fiction.

        1. When the authorities say “watched” I suspect they mean they are aware of nefarious activities, not that they are being monitored 24/7

      2. Distraction. Keeping people in a constant state of fight of flight so that they don't notice anything amiss with the money system.
        The game will be up the moment the masses figure out that the money's not worth anything.

        It matters not whether you or I think that it's worthwhile to control what the population sees, hears, believes – it matters only that the intelligence services/nudge unit/77th Brigade think it's worthwhile to do that. Various American whistleblowers over the years have testified that they do.

        1. If you really think the Liverpool incident was a false flag you are in dire need of a head examination.

          1. At this point, I don’t know what to think. If you believe every crisis that is reported in the media after all the false narratives that they’ve pushed over the years, then you are in dire need of a head examination.

          2. I don’t believe them all, I remain sceptical of reports, but Liverpool a false flag perpetrated by MI5???

          3. A Danish journalist called Ole Dammegard investigates such things and thinks they’re mostly faked. Richard Hall did a deep dive on the Boston bombing and produced a credible documentary to claim that it was a false flag. Whatever one thinks of Richard Hall (and various things have been alleged), he has produced some interesting work. His documentary on the Jo Cox murder is a must watch. I think there are layers to that, but he certainly peels back a few of them.

            You said perpetrated by MI5; I wouldn’t make specific accusations because I don’t have that information. If the perpetrator turns out to be someone who’s previously been mixed up in the media in some way (in a news event or on some agency’s books as a an actor) then that would perhaps make me inclined to wonder if they had merely been practising their craft. If the perpetrator turns out to be some guy with learning difficulties who has led a blameless life but the police find irrefutable evidence that he was a secret far right extremist, I might also wonder.

          4. I still call bullshit.

            I would not betting that if such “journalists” did a deep dive into almost any Nottlers posts and internet searches they could produce “evidence” that would condemn almost every one of us in the eyes of the gullible.

          5. I think it is unreasonable to call bullshit before you have looked into it.
            Ole Dammegard used to work in the mainstream before his nose for truth led him astray.

          6. I’ve lost count of the number of such articles that I have read over the years and it is that sheer volume that persuades me to think as I do over so very many of these accusations.

          7. Anything with five exclamation marks is not worth reading…
            Watch the Jo Cox film and see what you think of that maybe. I believed it at the time when I read it in the media, and it’s as full of holes as a Swiss cheese.

          8. And it is reported in the Times today that some of the survivors of the Liverpool incident also survived the Manchester arena bombing.
            The population of Greater Manchester is about 2.8 million and of the Liverpool area about 1.5 million.
            Just a coincidence, I’m sure.

  49. The Conservative Party destroyed itself by moving to the left.

    Is Farage too blind to see that moving to the left will destroy the Reform Party or has he woken up to the fact that if the Reform Party wins too many votes he might actually have to do something other than pontificating and this prospect is starting to terrify him?

    This might explain why Farage seems to have lost control of his common sense.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/38877ea6f9bc62cc26eaf19d1db32db03ad3ab8c179332c89e19d31268850b1d.png

    1. That's what he usually seems to do. Gets into a good position and slowly but surely backs off. It's not the first time he's done this.

      1. Rupert Lowe said illegal immigration must be stopped immediately and that all illegals already here should be deported without delay.

        This was too much for Yusuf and Farage who had already started backtracking so they determined to get Lowe out of the party and bring ludicrous charges against him.

  50. A debate on Vine radio 2 on the way home from the hospital this morning.
    About prisoners prison spaces sentences etc etc. But not one of them had even a mention of stopping the overall problem. STOP THE INVASION BY BOATS. Why are they trying to hide push aside the causes of the vast majority of all of our current problems ?

      1. I know Sue, in fact we all know, but why are they are still trying to hide it? And knowingly blame everyone else for the dire effects of every single thing that they come into contact with, that they eff it up and big time.
        How can anyone with even the requirement of British politics, as in one single brain cell. Believe that what they are doing is good for this or another country on the planet.

  52. Just having a rest and a bite to eat after trying out the new vacuum cleaner…….. It's very powerful! Extracted years of embedded cat fluff from the carpet that the useless Vax machine wouldn't touch. Takes a bit of effort but it certainly looks better now.

      1. I find two hours enough. I take a chair with me so as to have a couple of minutes pause de temps en temps.

  54. Jonathan Miller
    Has King Charles gone doolally on his Canada trip?
    28 May 2025, 12:52pm

    I like King Charles. I visited him at Windsor Castle recently as Mrs Miller picked up a gong. The castle has been beautifully restored. It is full of treasures, looted from the Empire. There were no refreshments, only a porcelain water bowl for the guide dog of one of the honourees.

    The King was charming, looking a little the worse for wear, perhaps. He graciously laughed at Mrs M’s joke. He’s a thoughtful guy. A little odd, which is no bad thing. But he seems to have gone completely doolally on his trip to Canada this week, where he opened Parliament with the most modern of empty gestures.

    ‘I would like to acknowledge that we are gathered on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg people. This land acknowledgement is a recognition of shared history as a nation,’ he declared from the throne.

    Undiluted woo-woo. It would have been hard not to accept the new government’s invitation, and he obviously had no choice but to outline the government’s programme, but did he have to prostrate himself like this?

    Charles was wheeled out to provide a photo opportunity for Mark Carney, who is desperately attempting to hold together Canada against the supposed existential threat of Donald Trump annexing it as the fifty-first state.

    The King’s land acknowledgement will have pleased the Canadian blob. But it only reinforces the impression that he’s drunk the woke Kool-Aid. And would he have dared to utter similarly empty words in the Mother of Parliaments, given that his own family directly profited from taxes, tributes, and trade monopolies in colonies?

    Land acknowledgements, now de rigueur in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and of course on American college campuses, are rote recitations that signal moral superiority as a substitute for tangible action. The statement is a feel-good ritual, not a commitment to change.

    They are also ahistorical. New Zealand politicians diligently recite land acknowledgements to the Maori, who were themselves colonisers who exterminated the indigenous population. Acknowledging one group as ‘original’ ignores these dynamics, creating a static, romanticised narrative, freezing history at the moment of colonial contact.

    And if land is ‘stolen,’ as land acknowledgments imply, why do institutions continue to occupy it? Philosopher Anthony Appiah points out the contradiction: acknowledging theft while benefiting from it is like apologising for eating someone’s lunch while still holding the sandwich.

    Returning all land to supposedly indigenous groups is logistically and politically impossible. In Canada, unresolved land claims languish in courts for decades, unaffected by Royal recitations.

    With due respect, let me clue Charles in. He was used by Carney in his salvo against Donald Trump. The notion that Trump is going to annex Canada is deranged. Why would the US President want to take over a country that is already falling apart?

    I was born in Saskatchewan, the Siberia of Canada, bigger than France, with the population of Buffalo, New York, and winter temperatures of -40 degrees.

    When I was in Calgary in next-door Alberta not long ago I had lunch at the elite Ranchman’s Club and the chatter was seditious. The talk was of Wexit – the exit of Western Canada from the bloodsucking east.

    Canada is a nation in name only. It is impossible to overstate the contempt of western Canada for the Liberal party, which believes that taxes on carbon will change the weather and that boys can be girls.

    The uber-woke Liberals got back into power harvesting votes in Quebec and Ontario that they bought with western Canada’s money. And we have a lot of money.

    Saskatchewan has vast cereal production, huge reserves of oil that the green Liberals won’t let us extract, but 40 per cent of the world’s potash, a lot of coal, uranium, some gold and rare earths. Add in Alberta, Canada’s richest province, and you get more oil plus the Rocky Mountains, skiing and bears.

    Woke doesn’t cut it in the west. We like guns and pickup trucks. I was in my hometown of Weyburn a while ago and visited the amazing heritage village documenting the settlement of Saskatchewan. These were tough men and women. The mayor showed me around – a professional courtesy as I was an elected councillor in France at the time. Not very diverse, here, I noted, not much evidence of immigration. ‘We don’t even want to live here,’ he replied.

    Should the Americans arrive to liberate us, internal resistance is likely to be minimal. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police post in Moose Jaw couldn’t defend Saskatchewan against the Salvation Army. Although an American invasion is unlikely to happen. Trump would be insane to think about annexing all of Canada. It’s more likely that he’s joking.

    In the east, Ontario is the number one place America doesn’t want. It’s a lost cause, a province completely captured by pointy-headed progressives. Fourth graders are taken by their teachers to Palestine solidarity demos. Yonge Street in Toronto looks like a portal to hell with zoned-out dopers decorating the sidewalks in a miasma of cannabis fumes. That Ontario’s voters overwhelmingly chose the Liberals once more is perhaps not astonishing because this is the party that legalised marijuana and the consequence is a population of dopers.

    Quebec is nothing but trouble, obsessed with Francophonie, and if admitted as an American state, would demand that hot dogs be renamed chiens chauds. Many of the Quebecois harbour the delusion they are French, though they are incomprehensible to actual French people. So let them join France.

    British Columbia on the west coast is overrun with Chinese money and looks like a cadet version of Hong Kong. Downtown Vancouver is the fentanyl capital of North America and it looks west not south. The second language is Chinese. Mr President, you don’t want them.

    Whether it is annexed, or simply falls apart, Canada is simply not credible as a standalone country. It is utterly fractured, completely incapable of contributing anything material to the defence of North America, its institutions completely captured by a blob grown fat on Tim Horton’s doughnuts. Hence its current obsession with land acknowledgements.

    For a laugh, with a little help from my friends, I have produced a land acknowledgement for my village in France, on land successively occupied by Celts, Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans and, within living memory, the Germans, and now colonised by the Dutch, Swedes, British and Irish. Should his majesty ever visit us here, perhaps to open the reunion of the municipal council, here’s my script.

    We, the enlightened participants in this wine-tasting, solemnly acknowledge that we’re standing (or slouching) on land that’s been through prehistoric menhir-building, Greek grape-stomping and the genocide of the Cathars. We bow to those who roamed here before the Romans showed up. In the spirit of doing absolutely nothing, we pledge to keep sipping local wine, Googling who lived here in 500 BCE, and maybe tweeting about decolonisation, if we get enough likes.

    Written by
    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. What a load of crap. You can't steal stuff from your own empire, sour grapes of losers not withstanding. I know this is supposed to amuse but I lump it in with 'black fatigue' had enough and want to get back to reality. A world where there's winners and losers and everyone agrees that is the way things are. You can shove your Cree totem pole or your Australian didgeridoo up where the sun don't shine.

      1. I find it amusing that these former colonies were viewed as being some Garden Of Eden where the natives all got along in peace and harmony. The reality is that these were brutal times, with tribes attacking, conquering others and enslaving their people if they were lucky to survive the violence.

          1. And gave them horses, the wheel, metal tools and written language. Oh and taught them the Bible and stopped them screwing anything that stayed still long enough. They didn't consider the latter to be a private activity either.

    2. "When I was in Calgary in next-door Alberta not long ago I had lunch at the elite Ranchman’s Club and the chatter was seditious. The talk was of Wexit – the exit of Western Canada from the bloodsucking east."

      Plus ça change. I was in Calgary back in the early 1980's and had that exact same "lecture" from the CEO of the company I was visiting. He and his buddies were all for Western Canada joining the US, so their taxes would be lower, there would be less bureacracy. and they would not have to (in his words) support those idle Quebecois.

    3. He’s right about the Quebecois being incomprehensible to the French. They understood me fine but I didn’t have a clue what they were saying. Even my Canadian friend was baffled. My French, by the way, is very good and I have no problem in France. That, of course, could be a case of famous last words when I go back after a break of several years!

      1. My French is average to survive.
        My French interpreter, a Parisienne, always said that Canadian French was "purer" more akin to French of the 50's before mass communication. Like someone my age going to sleep and waking up years later in a brave new world of language similar but noticeably different .

        1. The language of Quebec is said to be much closer to the French spoken when it was colonized. We have some of the same dynamic on islands in the Chesapeake Bay, and parts of the Carolina Outer Banks, where the lingo has noticeable traces of old West Country accents. Comes of them being isolated for generations even from the local "mainland areas".

    4. Expect Charles to announce that he is standing on the unceded territory of the Anglo-Saxons and Celts next time he opens Parliament…or maybe not.

  55. That's a run to Derby to t'Lad's to drop off a few things for him done and then did some shopping in Belper on the way back.
    The weather has changed, it's bright sunshine now.

  56. The vile life of France’s worst paedophile
    Joel Le Scouarnec, 74, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for crimes against 299 victims after hiding in plain sight for decades
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/05/28/the-vile-life-of-france-worst-paedophile-joel-le-scouarnec/

    BTL

    A foul evil man – disgusting, obscene crimes. He will, quite rightly probably spend the rest of his wretched life in prison.

    But how the MSM likes to be able to report on a white paedophile for a change.

  57. 405458+ up ticks,

    Courtesy of the lab/lib/con paedophile umbrella coalition party
    we can most likely better that, as in having 299 perpetrators with an unknown only estimated number of victims ongoing operating in plain sight and under the indigenous protective umbrella, Councillors, police etc,etc.

    The vile life of France’s worst paedophile
    Joel Le Scouarnec, 74, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for crimes against 299 victims after hiding in plain sight for decades

    1. What is this all about? It tells us of a potential Aberfan in Switzerland, but makes no suggestions for a solution. Either evacuate the villages and towns, or allow more lorries to carry more rockfall on the roads away from the villages and towns, by changing the laws in this emergency situation. And, at the end, the hostess of this report shows that she is only interested in increasing the subscribers to her reports for the price of a coffee, explaining that she will compensate every subscription with a 30 second individual reply in which the subscriber will be able to interact with the hostess "so that we can see each other". What a load of nonsense!

  60. I think I P.O.'d the weather Gods yesterday morning. I made sure all the planters on both the front and rear decks were well watered. As you might expect, it then started to rain – and has not stopped since. Plus the temperatures are well down – it should be quite warm this time of the year, but it is only 11C. Hard to believe I had to run the A/C last week.

    Must be global warming…

  61. I see the jury have acquitted the 2 thug plods who tasered the 92 year old amputee! What is wrong with people?

    1. Notwithstanding all the comments below.
      I watched various videos and read various reports and it looked dreadful.
      My first reaction was that it was a police over-reaction.
      However the more I've thought about it, the more my view has changed.
      From my perspective, one thing that hasn't been adequately discussed is quite why the care home felt it necessary to call in the police.

      If his carers couldn't cope with him and felt in danger presumably they gave the responding officers their reasons.
      The police reacted to what they found.
      Too much so? Possibly.

      But given it only took the jury two hours it suggests that they've been hanged by bodycam.

      It strikes me that as far as the media is concerned that bodycam is great when used against the police but NEVER acceptable when it shows the perpetrators in a bad light: qv Manchester airport

      1. Nah, sorry sos, but it’s not good enough. I spent 14 years in Home Care with the council, and the lack of common sense and compassion on the part of the home, and plod, is inexcusable. The home manager should never have allowed it to get to that stage, and the police shouldn’t have gone in all guns blazing. He was 92, in a wheelchair, with a urine infection and a butter knife!

        1. I would still question why the home called in the police.
          I’ve nothing like your experience, but I worked in a “care home” for the elderly and we had some seriously strange people, we would never have called in the police for such an incident, unless it was genuinely serious.

          1. I don't think much of a care home that didn't spot (or smell) a urine infection.

          2. True.
            But it doesn’t answer the basic question, why did they need to call in the police?

            Off topic, but a true story from the care home:
            I was “walking/escorting” some of our youth residents to the secure unit dormitory after an evening watching a film.
            “Why are you here”
            “Arson”
            “What did you burn?
            “A policeman.”
            “He called him over, I threw the petrol and he lit it.”

            They were very pleasant individuals and when I stumbled they were very quick to stop me falling.

  62. The march of progress

    ‘Confusing’ new roundabout needs three-minute explainer video

    Drivers will have to give priority to pedestrians, then cyclists on new route
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/c10823ea631746f6

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

    Carlo Notarantonio
    3 hrs ago
    Only a matter of time before someone is killed or seriously injured. The people that signed off on this need to be rooted out and never let be near any decision making ever again.

    Michael Bootman
    2 hrs ago
    So, in the CGI realisation, the HGV needs to stop, then power up from a standing start to enter the roundabout in a gap, then immediately stop at the exit because of the cycle lane priority, then power up again to continue. What does that do to reduce pollution???

    Asking for a sensible human.

  63. Afternoon all. Just a quick visit before I take the dogs to check out their holiday stay before I head off to France next week.
    Lucy Connolly is a political prisoner and a sign of the tyrannical times we are subjected to by Starmer and his harmers.

    1. Hope you and dogs all have a jolly holiday, Conway. Friend of mine many years ago, kept cattery and kennels. Left my three dogs with him when I went away, returned to find my most easy going dog having a real go at the dog in the adjoining run. I called his name, instantly dropped to his paws, no more barking, tail wagging madly. Yours will be just as happy to see you:-)

      1. Well, I am sure Winston will be delighted to see me. Unfortunately, he blotted his copybook by instantly taking against the resident dog. It’s unlike him, as usually he’s affable with dogs he meets. He’s got to work round it as everything is set in place for the 13th. It isn’t a boarding kennels as such, it’s a friend who agreed to have them for the weekend. I was really annoyed with Winston for his behaviour. Kadi was his usual affable self and just wanted to play. I keep reminding myself it’s only 4 days.

        1. Sounds out of character, but I think dogs/cats can sense things we mortals can’t. Hope he settles, possibly missing you/your direction. Time soon passes, I think the more so the older I become.

          1. We are going to do the best we can to minimise the time he's away from home. Unfortunately, departure and arrival times are not the most convenient. Still, it is what it is and I hope I still have a good friend at the end of it!

    2. Enjoy Normandy. I never visit but am staggered by the scale of Overlord/Neptune.

      1. I have been to the museum of the Normandy landings (Arromanches). It brought a lump to my throat to think of the sacrifices and courage that were required. It also raised my BP somewhat to think of the betrayal in recent times.

        1. That new museum (or completely refurbished) is a triumph. It is worth, also, going to the new monument at Ver-sur-Mer

          1. I shan't be going to that area this time. I'll be between Dieppe (that, too, was a disaster for the Canadians) and Rouen.

      1. I’m afraid it’s a working weekend, R E. It’s the 50th anniversary of the Twinning, so as I’m Chairman, I am going on an official visit.

    4. Or she's a willing part of a psyop. Lots of other people got locked up similarly unfairly, we never hear anything about them.

  64. Sadiq Khan's plan to decriminalise cannabis is dangerously divisive

    The Mayor of London has called for law reform because he believes that stop-and-search powers disproportionately affect black communities

    Michael Deacon • 28 May 2025, 3:25pm BST

    Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, says he believes the police should stop arresting people for possessing cannabis. Frankly, I'm shocked.

    Mainly because I didn't know the police were arresting people for it in the first place.

    It certainly doesn't smell like it. These days, practically all our towns and cities – including the one run by Mr Khan – stink of weed. Which suggests that a very large number of people now feel able to smoke it with absolutely no fear of getting arrested. Whether this is because the police can no longer be bothered to enforce the law, or they're too busy carrying out dawn raids on the bookshelves of Spectator readers, I don't know. But either way, it hardly seems worth clamouring for decriminalisation, when in effect we've already got it.

    Even so, Mr Khan has backed calls to change the law. And these calls seem to have something to do with race.

    According to an independent commission, set up by the Mayor, the policing of cannabis use is shamefully unjust to people who aren't white. In a new report, the commission says: "The law with respect to cannabis possession is experienced disproportionately by those from ethnic minority (excluding white minority) groups, particularly London's black communities. While more likely to be stopped and searched by police on suspicion of cannabis possession than white people, black Londoners are no more likely to be found carrying the drug."

    If so, that plainly is unfair. But it's not an argument for decriminalisation. It's an argument for stopping and searching greater numbers of white people. Which, of course, would be completely fine. Go right ahead. Even if today's over-anxious police chiefs would probably misunderstand such an edict, and tell their officers: "When investigating crime, we must never treat any community with more suspicion than any other. Which is why, this afternoon, I'm sending you all to a WI jumble sale, to search little old ladies for machetes."

    None the less, the report maintains that the way forward is to decriminalise possession. At the same time, though, it says producing and dealing should remain illegal. Which is odd, because it implies that the blame for the trade lies solely with the people doing the latter. But if it weren't for all the people wishing to possess the drug, no one would produce or deal it. Ultimately, therefore, it's their fault.

    Anyway, if possession does get decriminalised, you can bet there'll soon be calls to loosen the law further. Which would be even more unwise. Just look at what's happened to New York, which in 2021 decided not only that people should be allowed to smoke cannabis, but that shops should be granted licences to sell it. Has this put criminals out of business, while raising lots of lovely extra cash through tax?

    Funnily enough, no. Illegal vendors simply undercut the legal ones. Kathy Hochul, who is New York's governor (and a Democrat, rather than some stereotypically stuffy Republican), has called it "a disaster". Even The New Yorker, proud tribune of liberal America, ran a dismayed article asking: "What happened?"

    All the same, the Mayor of London insists that his commission's report makes a "compelling" case. I don't think it does. And I especially think we could have done without the irrelevant wittering about ethnicity. We've got quite enough "community tensions" in this country as it is. So we certainly don't want people thinking: "What? They want to allow possession of a dangerous drug, just because they think it will improve 'police relations' with 'black communities'? That sounds awfully like special treatment. Mind you, I suppose they need to free up the cells, to make more space for middle-aged women who post problematic opinions on the internet."

    This, in short, is why Mr Khan's plan for cannabis isn't just naive. It's dangerously divisive.

    I note, incidentally, that the Mayor has just proposed a 20 per cent rise in London's congestion charge. But don't worry. I've prepared a report arguing that the charge is unjust, because it's experienced disproportionately by the motoring community, while the cycling and walking communities get off scot-free. So the whole thing should be scrapped.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05/28/sadiq-khans-plan-for-cannabis-is-dangerously-divisive

    Khan is one of the most dangerous men in the country. Almost everything he does appears to be intended to provoke a reaction. Not "How can I help improve as many lives as possible?" but "Which interest of the civilised, law-abiding and productive people of London can I spoil or spite?"

    And there's something about that blank face, neither smiling nor scowling, that raises the hackles…

      1. That's the way it's all going.
        And they've always got 'mental health issues' caused by invented racisim to fall back on.

      2. That seems to be the way they're thinking – but remember! It won't change our way of life!

    2. In the meantime how many murders have been committed by his type of ilk , but the excuse being mental illness, yes, is caused by drugs.

      A second cousin of mine was mugged and robbed by such a creature a few years ago .. last time I saw her was 12 years ago at my dear aunts funeral in North Yorkshire .. my cousin , grand daughter of my grandmothers sister , and daughter of a very well known gentle man , received severe brain injuries when she was mugged as she fell ..and died a few months later .

      The thug was a drug addict , and received a short custodial sentence .. and no doubt will always be a drug addict.

      Cannabis causes psychosis.. no ifs or buts… that is what happens .. it is strong stuff, not just a weed !

      Everywhere you wander now , the stink of hash is evident .. it is disgusting .

    3. Hold on there. Blacks are searched more because they often stink of cannabis. It's not racism, same as searching black yobs for knives is also a good thing – they're most likely to stab each other.

      I appreciate Khunt hates profiling but there's good reason for it. Khunt is just – as usual – vote grubbing from the bottom of the diversity gene pool, and that is very low indeed but also expected for the diversity.

      Do we legalise drugs? Yes, as it makes sense to control the product and tax it, to help those wanting to get off it. This won't stop crime, but it should reduce it. Opioids are addictive but we sell them.

      1. I wouldn't legallise drugs but I would make anyone caught with drugs to take the lot, in fact I'd give them as much as they want, pay the cost of their funeral and rejoice that another twat has left earth

    4. Khant is behaving like a toddler deliberately shouting "bum, poo and willie" in front of visitors.

  65. The gruesome truth behind a 2,000-year-old massacre revealed

    Pillaging Romans exonerated for Dorset gangland executions blamed on their ruthless invasion

    Joe Pinkstone, Science Correspondent • 27 May 2025, 9:19pm BST

    Gangland executions of dozens of people 2,000 years ago were wrongly blamed on Romans, a study has found.

    A mass burial site containing 62 skeletons was found at Maiden Castle in Dorset in 1936 and attributed to a brutal massacre by pillaging Romans.

    But researchers at Bournemouth University used modern dating techniques to study the bones and found the victims suffered violent deaths before the Romans landed on English soil, disproving the longstanding belief that the massacre was part of their ruthless invasion.

    Instead, modern evidence paints a picture of revenge, bloodthirsty executions and tumultuous politics.

    Miles Russell, the current dig director, said: "We can now say quite categorically that these individuals died a long time before the Romans arrived and over a long period of time, not in a single battle for a hill fort. The deaths were a series of gangland-style executions. People were dragged up there and put to death as a way of one group exerting control over another.

    "These were mafia-like families. Game of Thrones-like barons with one dynasty wiping out another to control trade links and protection rackets for power. What we are seeing is the people who lost out being executed."

    The skeletons themselves bore marks of savage ferocity. Most, Mr Russell said, have smashed skulls with no defensive wounds.

    "They were repeatedly struck with a sword to the head with the skulls smashed to oblivion," he added. "You are talking overkill, not a single death blow. These were gangland executions carried out in a very prominent and obvious way as a warning to others."

    The researchers believe the now debunked theory was accepted as truth because it was espoused by Sir Mortimer Wheeler, who led excavations at the site in the 1930s, and resonated with public fear of a potential invasion from the Nazis.

    The majority of this violence was at the start of the first century AD, the scientists found, which they say reveals rising social tensions in the decades preceding the Roman invasion in 43AD.

    "In associating the cemetery with a Roman attack, Sir Mortimer Wheeler missed an intriguing proposition, namely that the individuals derived from different, though no less dramatic, forms of violence enacted in the final years of the pre-Roman Iron Age," the scientists write in their paper.

    "Whether this related to raiding, dispute resolution or dynastic conflict, it is clear that those interred in the east gate died in episodic periods of bloodshed which may have been the result of localised social turmoil. Ironically, perhaps, it would appear that acts of interpersonal Iron Age violence ended within a generation or so following the formal establishment of a Roman province in the mid first century AD."

    The study is published in the Oxford Journal of Archaeology.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05/27/british-responsible-gangland-execution-blamed-romans

    Mr Russell writes as though his audience is the readership of The Sun – 'gangland', 'mafia' – when he should be describing the human species in its pre-civilisation mode – the clan, the tribe. We're not so far from reverting to it.

    1. The name "Durotriges" likely means "hard ground dwellers" or "fort dwellers". It is believed to be a Celtic term, possibly derived from "dubro-" (water) and "trig" (to dwell). Other interpretations suggest "duro" means "hard" or "strong place," and "trig" means "inhabitant," hinting at their association with the hard, chalky soil and hillforts of the Dorset region.

      Many assumed that the old Celtic tribes were whacked hard by the Vikings , who were ferocious!

      https://www.roman-britain.co.uk/tribes/durotriges/

  66. Wordle No. 1,439 3/6

    ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜🟩🟨⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    Wordle 29 May 2025

    Chilly for Birdie Three!

    1. Well done, same here – first birdie for a few days!

      Wordle 1,439 3/6

      ⬜🟨⬜⬜🟩
      🟨🟨⬜⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. Par for me.

      Wordle 1,439 4/6

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

    4. On the golf course again

      Wordle 1,439 3/6

      ⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
      🟩🟨🟨⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    5. Well done, me too.

      Wordle 1,439 3/6

      🟨🟨⬜⬜⬜
      🟨🟩🟨⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  67. Excellent news
    https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c79e72vz70no

    Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says its military has "eliminated" Hamas's Gaza chief Mohammed Sinwar, one of its most wanted men and the brother of the group's late leader Yahya Sinwar.

    Mohammed Sinwar was the target of a massive Israeli strike on the courtyard and surrounding area of the European hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis on 13 May, which the Israeli military said destroyed Hamas's "underground infrastructure" there.

    Gaza's Hamas-run Civil Defence agency said that 28 people were killed. Hamas itself has neither confirmed nor denied Sinwar's death.

  73. Reeves’s NI raid risks tax doom loop, says Moody’s

    Warning comes as civil war brews within Labour over unpopular spending cuts

    Szu Ping Chan
    Rachel Reeves’s National Insurance raid has left Britain descending into a doom loop of higher taxes and lower growth, economists have warned.

    Moody’s said the Chancellor’s £25bn raid on employers last October had already “dented business confidence” in a move that “will weigh on growth in 2025”.

    Analysts at Moody’s also raised doubts over Ms Reeves’s ability to address the UK’s chronically low productivity and get Britons back to work.

    With just £9.9bn of so-called “headroom” to meet her self-imposed tax and spending rules, the credit rating agency warned that even a small deterioration “may necessitate new tax measures in the autumn Budget that risk further subduing growth”, piling even more pressure on the public finances.

    It comes as a civil war brews within Labour over proposed cuts to public services including policing and social housing. Economists said this raised the risk of further tax rises later this year.

    Sir Keir Starmer has already committed to increasing defence spending to 2.5pc of GDP by 2027 and is under pressure from Donald Trump to bring forward an ambition to raise this figure to 3pc in the next decade.

    Ms Reeves’s fiscal rules require her to balance the books on day-to-day spending by the end of the decade.

    While she has also vowed to get debt down excluding some investment spending, Moody’s warned that overall debt was likely to keep rising above 100pc for the rest of the decade.

    In a note published on Wednesday, Moody’s said: “The fiscal headroom remains vulnerable to downward revisions to UK growth forecasts or higher interest rates, which may necessitate new tax measures in the autumn Budget that risk further subduing growth.

    “For example, the Government decision to raise employer National Insurance contributions in the October 2024 budget dented business confidence and will weigh on growth in 2025.

    “Spending pressures have also increased because of geopolitical risks that necessitate higher defence spending.”

    It warned that the agency could downgrade Britain’s credit rating if government debt continues to rise as it noted that the affordability of Britain’s debt pile “remains weaker than both France and Belgium”, although France’s overall debt pile was larger.

    This is partly because of the Bank of England’s ownership of a large share of UK government bonds through so-called quantitative easing (QE). The cost of QE to the UK Treasury is directly impacted by current interest rates.

    In a damning indictment, Moody’s said that a failure to raise growth from anaemic levels “would point to an inability of the UK’s institutional set-up to formulate and implement growth-enhancing economic policies”.

    This could lead to more voters shunning traditional parties, Moody’s added, with Reform continuing to surge in the polls.

    “The domestic political environment continues to remain polarised, with the potential for support for populist parties to grow and influence policy,” it said.

  75. That's me for today. Turned out nice and warm after lunch. A couple of hours staking the climbing beans (variety Cobra) and preparing the next bed for outdoor tomatoes – discovered three had badly wilted in the greenhouse – possibly due to being infested by red ants. Ants are a real nuisance here – under paving, on the "lawn". Apart from moving, there seems little one can do.

    A funeral tomorrow – another one. They seem to come up with the rations these days. Still it should be sunny at the crem.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain – briefly.

    1. Well done Bill,

      Red ants, do you mean the wood ant variety ?

      We have little ants we are always trying to distract and kill off , darned nuisance .

      Now they are creating anthills in Moh's precious lawn .. ready for the flight of the winged creatures .

      Still a lack of insects, where have all the grasshoppers gone?

      1. We have several. They seem to thrive on it. We have dug out the three affected ones and sprinkled the holes with the type you suggest in the home that they trample in it and carry it back to their main lair.

        1. Assuming you don’t want to harm anything nearby, try lots of vinegar over where you think the nest is.

          1. They are formic acid producers, can you buy formic acid vinegar? Or is it just an 'acid test' of strength?

        2. Ants under paving respond well to soaking the area in petrol then tossing a match in – from a safe distance of course, as you may find fumes have spread as will the flames.

    3. This might seem and odd thing to comment on, but I haven't seen a red ant since we moved from SW London to Cornwall, 21 years ago.

    1. Gawd, she looks a very unhappy camper.

      He's spotted another toyboy as the Indonesian President and Mrs Macron concentrate on matters elsewhere.

    4. "My wife's escaping to the East Indies after hitting me in the face"

      "Jakarta?"

      No she's going of her own free will.

        1. Ah, sorry, no reading of earlier posts does me in. My current wife won't be asking for a jaguar for her birthday again.

          1. I like that phrase mola – ‘My current wife’ – it keeps them on their toes!!….

      1. She does look as though she is giving him the cold shoulder, slightly turned from him and a rather large space between them…!

  77. Very pleasant day in Grange-Over-Sands – just south of the Lake District National Park – and a wonderful coastal town renowned for it's balmy climate and very old demographic (think Brighton-in-the-North) – me and 'er indoors at 67 feel positively spritely when we're in Grange.
    They've been doing up the Victoran Lido on the Prom for about two bloody years and we're awaiting it's reopening with increasing impatience.

    Couple of bad jokes about Grange;

    When people die in Grange they dont bury them – they stand them up in bus-stops…

    They said 'Go to Grange – it's good for rheumatism!' – so I did, and I got it…..

      1. I’m actually based in Cartmel, Conners, and there’s a race night on tonight (last race at 8.40 so it’s just finished) – didnt go tonight but it’s a cracking day/evening out.
        Big Fan of the Sticky Toffee Pudding – how can you not be?

        1. Lucky you! Cartmel tend to race only on Bank Holidays. I love sticky toffee pudding, but owing to the expanding waist line, I need to restrict intake.

          1. There were a number of events this weekend and today's was billed as 'Whit Wednesday Evening' (innovative).

            To be honest, Race Days are a pain in the ass – the roads round here are tiny and it can be a nightmare meeting a giant horsebox – or even worse, a lorry dragging a huge fairground attraction – coming the other way (you have to reverse for sometimes 50 metres or more back to the nearest passing place!)

            If you go to the shop in Cartmel, they have Sticky Toffee Pudding in a number of different flavours!! (chocolate, ginger etc)

          2. My nightmare was driving the motorhome through the narrow stone wall lined roads! At least they seemed to have the forethought to make the roads one way on racedays. I was very impressed with Cartmel. It was very dog friendly.

    3. Trump is not the leader of NATO. NATO is headed by the Secretary General, currently Mark Rutte.

    1. Well, TBH, good luck to her. She certainly manipulated the high highfalutin Harvard top brass. Probably deserves a 'real world' professorship.

  81. Well, there's a surprise! The Mexican leader of the Giro d'Italia, who was in all sorts of trouble yesterday, has miraculously recovered his speed and streaked away from everyone else to win the stage after one of the most feared ascents of the race! Must have had a good night's sleep!??

  82. I've been thinking about Canada's problems with Trump.
    If only Canada decided to adopt Starmer's cunning plan for keeping us free from a large bullying neighbour, then that would surely secure Canada's future for ever as well.
    All Carney needs to do is to let the USA take full control all of Canada's fishing waters and control their armed forces, maybe adopt all their red tape regulations and throw in the odd strategic island or two, while of course retaining full sovereignty of their own country.
    Trump will never realise that he has been tricked.
    King Charles will be placated.
    Pure genius if you ask me.

    1. The first problem with your cunning plan is that they are so screwed up with indigenous fishing rights disagreements that no one would have the authority to deed fishing rights to another country.

      The country cannot sort out interprovincial trade barriers, do you think that Carney could adopt US rules?

      As for the forces, senior ranks already has many US personnel embedded within canadian command so that has already happened.

      i suppose that we could throw in St Pierrs and Miquelon as the islands; Macron is busy fighting his mother so he is probably too busy to fight for French property.

  83. I agree, but having passed on the responsibility to the police they should at least have given them all the necessary info! Plod apparently didn’t know he was an amputee, nor that he was suffering a urine infection which can cause dementia-like symptoms. The poor old soul was confused and probably terrified.

    1. Precisely; neither the home nor the police come out of this smelling of …. roses.

      1. Yes, it can be quite a shock to find a normally pleasant little lady swearing and cursing at you! Very distressing for family.

    3. Most of my sympathy is towards the patient.
      But I still can’t help thinking the plodders were scapegoats.

  84. From the Telegraph

    Woke barrister Jolyon will find JK Rowling a far tougher opponent than the fox he beat to death
    The arch Remainer has weighed in on women’s toilets and trans interlopers – and questioned the Harry Potter author’s feminist credentials

    Suzanne Moore28 May 2025 6:08pm BST
    I could almost feel sorry for someone who has such a high opinion of themselves that they liken themselves to Gandhi but find they have feet of clay.

    “I identify with the great protesters in history, people like Gandhi and Martin Luther King,” said Jolyon Maugham KC.

    I say “almost”. But not quite. Because now this man has strayed into the issue of women’s toilets and trans interlopers. And inevitably, he has taken aim at JK Rowling.

    Posting on the social media site Bluesky, Maugham declared that “for JK Rowling ‘sex-based rights’ are not the right to be paid the same as men, to live without sexual violence or coercion, to share the burden of unpaid labour, to escape the motherhood penalty or have domestic abuse taken seriously. They are about the exclusion of trans women. Mind-blowing.”

    In her response on X (formerly Twitter), Rowling countered by saying that “the only people who consider it ‘anti-feminist’ to point out that a woman is a woman by virtue of her biology are those who think female-specific anatomy or bodily functions are inferior in some way, that bearing young is a lowly, worthless occupation, or that misogynist social stereotypes are a worthier measure of who’s a real woman”.

    If you don’t live on X – and no one remotely sensible does – you may not know Jolyon Maugham. He is known chiefly for two things. He was a staunch Remainer who tried to stop Brexit by helping block Boris Johnson’s prorogation of Parliament. And in Scotland and at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg he tried, with other lawyers, to get Article 50 revoked so that we could not withdraw from the EU. This was soon overturned, and Maugham was miffed but still preening.

    Yet there is something else he will be remembered for that is far more ignominious. On December 26 2019, he battered a fox to death. We know this because he tweeted about it. “Already this morning I have killed a fox with a baseball bat. How’s your Boxing Day going?” he posted. He then added that he was wearing his wife’s too-small green kimono at the time. As you do. The RSPCA got involved.

    Like everyone else, I wondered: “Why on earth would you tweet that unless you needed constant attention or possibly a court case?” Maybe he thought it added to the gaiety of the nation.

    Anyway, since Brexit is done, this KC, who made his fortune as a tax lawyer (which means exactly what you think it means: finding loopholes to help the very wealthy avoid tax through special schemes) and whose clients included Gary Barlow and Sir Alex Ferguson, has now become a fully fledged social justice warrior.

    He set up the Good Law Project to crowdfund his various hobby horses and bring cases to court and, to put it politely, he’s had mixed results. Obviously, plebs like you and I think that with court cases, winning or losing are straightforward outcomes by which to judge someone. But Jolyon is very special: “Winning and losing is a silly metric,” he once said. “We could win all our cases if we chose only to pursue easy ones. But that would be to sacrifice impact for vanity.” Righto.

    He will also say things such as: “We didn’t lose. At a deeply technical level we lost. At every substantive level we won. It’s not a good-faith assessment.” By 2022, of the 43 cases that the Good Law Project had funded with £4 million, it had won only eight.

    And just as Stonewall moved into agitating for trans rights when its other objectives had been achieved, so Maugham has moved into activism on that same topic. Some of this may be driven through personal connections. But, increasingly, I would say it is driven by his absolute contempt for any woman who dares to disagree with him.

    In 2023, he tried to stop the LGB Alliance, a group critical of trans activism, from becoming a charity, claiming it was funded by “dark money”.

    And what the hell is this recent fantasy? “You are a predatory cis man and walk into the women’s showers at the gym,” he mused last month on Bluesky. “You are challenged and pretend to be a trans man. You are disbelieved because your penis is erect but you claim to be post-op and ‘biologically female’. What then happens? And how does any of this protect women?”

    What point does this make beyond an assertion of male privilege? He thinks about this stuff more than is healthy and the Supreme Court decision (that biological sex is a person’s sex at birth) has, to use a technical term, made him even more insane in the membrane.

    This thought noodle is so perplexing, I really don’t think Maugham is doing trans people any favours at all either. In fact, I think he is taking their money under false pretences. The Good Law Project is challenging the Supreme Court outcome, but this cannot work.

    In a now-deleted Bluesky post, he defamed Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, saying that nothing he said could be believed.

    As the evidence on the harms of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones piles up, he has, in Rowling, picked on someone who has the cojones to put him in his place. He has the audacity to ask what she has done for women, trying to paint her as a transphobic bigot who cares little for women’s equality. As a KC with a large number of staff, one might have thought someone would have informed him about all her decades of philanthropic work around women, children and domestic abuse survivors. Her private kindnesses and support are also legendary.

    This man, though, calls her “a billionaire cry-baby”. He won’t care what I say. He blocked me a long time ago for being “rude”. In other words, I challenged him. Still, I have had the dubious pleasure of once being at a dinner with him. We got an extra chair for his ego. He was droning on and I went out for a lot of “smoking breaks”. (I don’t smoke.)

    He is now sailing close to the wind. The “civil disobedience” that this social justice warrior is now proposing – urging trans women to ignore the Supreme Court ruling and use women’s toilets – is an actual threat to women and their safety.

    He equates single-sex spaces as being close to fascism. An intervention needs to be made. He needs to lie down in a darkened room for a bit. With an angry fox in it.

    1. Far too pathetic to read all of that. The guy (?) is a loser, not worth reading or listening to, for me at least.

    2. Perhaps he battered the fox to death because he was anti-hunting (a clean, humane death, albeit after a chase.).

    1. The world's current mob of leaders never know when they will have to do a 'runner'!

  86. from the Telegraph

    Bitter is back in vogue – just don’t call it that…
    Brewers across the country are grappling with the legacy of Britain’s most misunderstood pint

    Laura Hadland 28 May 2025 6:22pm BST
    Bitter is back in vogue – just don't call it that…
    Our expert tells you the best bitters to try this season
    Wye Valley Brewery in Herefordshire has taken bitter off the menu – renaming its 3.4 per cent malty ale “Pyoneer” in celebration of its 40th anniversary (combining ‘pioneer’ and Canon Pyon, the village where the business began). The brewery claims that the term “bitter” has a bad reputation and its customers prefer “amber ale” – Pyoneer’s new style description.

    The award-winning brewery is not alone. Some of the biggest names in bitter shied away from the term years ago. Fuller’s London Pride was restyled as an amber ale in 2021. Timothy Taylor’s Best Bitter was rechristened Boltmaker after the landlord of the Boltmaker Arms in Keighley won a naming competition in 2012. In fact, most of the best-selling bitters in the country no longer have the dreaded b-word on their labels.

    Beer style categories are in a constant state of flux and change. There are no formal rules governing how ale is described. Flipping back through historic advertisements, we see that “amber ale” and “bitter” have been used interchangeably to promote these beers since they first rose to prominence in the mid-19th century.

    But while the bigger players eschew the word, many independent craft brewers have been embracing it. Some of the most exciting names in the industry, the likes of Northern Monk and Deya, are proudly crafting this most traditional of styles. And they aren’t afraid to write “bitter” on the can, either.

    Whatever you call it, bitter has been a mainstay of the British pub for nearly 200 years. The style arose from the celebrated pale ales of Burton upon Trent. Hops add bitterness, so the fresh, well-hopped pale ales were colloquially referred to as bitter, while the older, more mellow beers were mild.

    By the 20th century, bitter and mild were ubiquitous, as Keith Bott of Stoke’s Titanic Brewery recalls: “When we took over the brewery in 1988, consumers genuinely weren’t used to having a choice. You used to go into the pub and you could have mild or bitter. And if you didn’t like those two you could mix them,” in which case you’d order a pint of “mixed”.

    Nowadays, bitters are characterised by their deft balance. A light, malty sweetness counterpoints hoppy bitterness and the yeast can contribute an additional fruity note. They are immensely drinkable beers, belying the complexity involved in brewing them well. The one thing they are not is the most bitter beer on the market. An intensely hopped West Coast IPA could contain easily two or three times the bitterness units of a standard bitter.

    Over time, different types of bitter have evolved, distinguished by their strength. Regular or ordinary bitters tend to be under 4.2 per cent abv. Anything higher is known as a best bitter with correspondingly bolder flavours. More intense still is the extra special bitter (ESB) which tends to be over 5.5 per cent abv. Their heavier bitterness is counteracted by malty, fruity and spicy tones that can be reminiscent of Christmas cake.

    Skip to:

    Seven great bitters to try
    Beer style explainer
    Seven great bitters to try

    However it is labelled, it’s clear that the bitter style of beer is thriving. Here are some of our favourites.

    Moor Beer Co Bitter

    3.4%, £11.80 for 4 x 440ml cans, Moor Beer Co

    This can-conditioned contemporary bitter packs a huge flavour punch for such a sessionable beer. It has a deep malt aroma. Enjoy the luxurious mouthfeel and soft carbonation that carry a green and slightly spicy flavour alongside a warming malt backbone.

    Holden’s Black Country Bitter

    3.9%, £2.99 for a 500ml bottle, Cheers the Liquor Shop

    A malty sweet beer that is soft and easy drinking. The light bitterness and short finish make it feel dry and drinkable. Much of the character comes from the fruit flavours – there are raisin and prune notes but also a hint of foamy banana sweets from the yeast.

    Oakham Ales JHB

    4.2%, £2.50 for a 500ml bottle, Waitrose

    Named Champion Beer of Britain in 2001, JHB (which stands for Jeffrey Hudson Bitter, named in honour of Oakham-born Sir Jeffrey Hudson) is pale in colour and heavily aromatic thanks to the use of US Mount Hood hops. It has a pronounced bitterness with flavours of marmalade, Rich Tea biscuits, citrus and an edge of pine. JHB is fresh, delicately sweet and has a long bitter finish.

    Mauldons Suffolk Pride

    4.8%, £27.50 for 12 x 500ml bottles, Mauldons

    Deep caramel in colour, Suffolk Pride has a light body and backnote of digestive biscuits under a faintly sweet caramel flavour with a touch of bitterness at the end. It is light and refreshing with some notes of banana and raisin on the finish.

    Verdant Brewing Co ESB

    5.5%, £4.16 for a 440ml can, Beer Ritz

    A deep amber beer with enticing aromas of dried fruit, raisins and Weetabix. It has a full mouthfeel and a rounded bitterness with a complex flavour offering light toffee sweetness, a hint of molasses and a quiet accompaniment of pine. Extremely well balanced and a pleasure to drink.

    Phoenix Brewery Wobbly Bob

    6.0%, £30 for 12 x 500ml bottles, Phoenix Brewery

    Legendary beer named after a beer-loving three-legged cat, this strong ale delivers flavours of biscuit, fruit and caramel alongside light grassiness and spice. Enjoy the Christmas cake flavoured finish. Wobbly Bob is surprisingly light in body and dangerously drinkable.

    Beer style explainer

    There are whole books dedicated to unpicking the myriad categories and subcategories of beer. The variety comes from different types of yeast, malt and hops being balanced in a chosen proportion to create beers of the desired strength, colour and flavour.

    Here is a quick guide to some of the most common beer styles – note that broadly speaking, most beers fall under the categories of lager and ale.

    Lagers

    The first division is lager versus ale. They are made at differing temperatures according to the yeast selected for fermentation.

    Ale yeast gathers at the top of the liquid, fermenting at just below room temperature to create a complex and often fruity beer. A beer made with lager yeast is cold fermented over a longer period of time – lagered, in fact – to produce a crisp, clean beer.

    There are many different styles of lager, including clean, hoppy Pilsners with a bready aroma and sweeter, malt-led Marzens.

    Ales

    Pale ales are hop-led beers and so tend to be the most bitter in character. India Pale Ales (IPAs) are a stronger ale, usually aggressively hopped to give intense citrus or tropical tones and high levels of bitterness. New England IPAs (NEIPA) are the exception, being hazy, juicy and soft.

    Golden Ales have a deeper colour, as the name suggests, and depending on the hops used could have an earthy, spicy flavour or a more citrus-led taste.

    Light in colour and usually hazy in appearance, wheat beers are brewed with both barley and wheat to give a fuller body and soft mouthfeel. It is usually the yeast that shines through in the flavour – look out for banana or clove flavours and perhaps a soft wisp of citrus.

    Bitter

    Bitters usually have an amber colour, hence the amber ale moniker. They represent the middle ground where neither hops, malt nor yeast dominate. The aim is to achieve a balance between hop characters such as earthy, floral or pine with the sweet malt notes of biscuit and caramel. The yeast can make itself known with a hint of pear drop or banana in the taste.

    Mild

    These tend to be light in colour and body, often with a little malty sweetness. Dark milds are stronger but still usually sweet, with roasted notes of chocolate or coffee.

    Stout and porter

    These are the darkest beers. A stout is usually malt-led but dry, while a porter balances out chocolate and coffee flavours with a little dark or dried fruit. They can be dry and bitter or rounded and sweet. For example, milk sugar is added to make a smooth, sweet milk stout.

    The strongest dark beers are the imperial stouts and Baltic porters. They are deep, complex beers that can often weigh in at over 10 per cent abv.

    Other styles

    And then there are tart sour beers, flavoured beers that can taste of anything from mango to marshmallow and boozy, fruity barley wines – the list goes on. The vast diversity of beers means there truly is something to suit every taste.

    Recommended

    1. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of micro breweries around the country. Some very good beers. It's the pubs I worry about. It's social, as well as beer quality.

    3. Wye Valley Brewery produce Butty Bach bitter, which I drink in the club I visit weekly.

    3. That's why the whole of Wastemonster and shiite Hall needs sorting out before it's too late.

    4. "Her story reflects concerns of the growing Islamic influence at the heart of UK government and institutions and raises serious concerns as to whether the UK is or will be a safe place for Christians to seek asylum."

      Not just practising Christians…

    5. Not surprised one bit, and doubt this a one off case. Civil Service our permanent government. Be interesting to see how Reform frames itself, if it wins next GE.

    6. The Home Office employs 35 times more Muslims than Jews. Probably just representational of the size of the Jewish/Muslim UK population. Maybe because Jews go to better qualified jobs.

      Some interesting statistics in this government site.. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/home-office-workforce-diversity-statistics-2022-to-2023/home-office-workforce-diversity-statistics-2022-to-2023

      Table 18: Proportion of staff reporting religion and beliefs across all of the Home Office

      Religion Percentage
      Buddhist 0.4%
      Christian 42.3%
      Hindu 3.3%
      Jewish 0.2%
      Muslim 7.0%
      Sikh 2.4%
      Other 10.9%
      No religion 33.5%

      Edited fore crap grammar.

  88. Might be a bit of sulking…but a food treat prob help 😀 mine love those beef strips.

          2. Eventually he will realise I will win all of them and then he will become a lovely dog 🙂

          4. Inside this miscreant is a lovely dog waiting to burst out. I have to find the key.

          5. Some dogs seem really stubborn. I found strict kindness the trick. Treats never worked, unless actual beef I’d cooked myself. Neighbour used pebbles in an empty plastic water bottle, rattling it around if dog didn’t obey, that was with a lab. Certainly rattled me….

          6. I think he is better behaved since he first came. I tell him "bad beagle" if he's misbehaved. "Good beagle" if he's good and T touch him. I growl at him is he's misbehaving. He gets lots of rewards. I don't think he's thick as two short planks, just stubborn. But then, he's a beagle and beagles are, well, beagles! I was saying to my friend this afternoon, that I didn't really regret getting him, just getting him at the time when I had things organised where I would disrupt his routine. Still, I''m sure we'll survive, somehow.

          7. He’ll fall in line eventually. Only a wrong’un wouldn’t. I remember the DM strip cartoon Fred was very good. How old is he, Conway?

          8. Two and a half. I keep reminding myself we are going through the Terrible Twos. He won't reach the Terrible Threes until the Feast of the Assumption on 15th August.

  89. They are, of course, under threat as they are places where people can go and express their opinions freely.

    2. Andre Rieu's orchestra does this very well – with a side order of humour.

  91. Time 22:42. Sun has gone down, but it's still bright enough to read without a light. I love the sunlit nights, it doesn't interfere with my sleep, but does mean that the 2am wee doesn't need me to turn a light on to avoid falling downstairs…

  94. Not long to go..weather almost like high summer recently. ‘Night Conway, likely see you the morrow 😊

  95. A new line in fraud. I received a fake invoice by email claiming it relates to a purchase via PayPal that I have definitely not made. $449.06. Odd amount? Barclaycard were useless beyond advising that I delete the Wallet on my phone, which I’ve done. Also deleted my PayPal account. Nothing on my card statement and there was actually nothing on my PayPal account (though I won’t miss it). It was still scary though. I’ve blocked the email sender too but there’ll doubtless be others.

    Good night!

    1. Always check the actual address the email was sent from. I have had a lot of this kind of email, but real businesses do not send emails from gmail or yahoo,

      1. I get a lot of that, from yahoo & the like. Also click here to resolve the problem with delivery.

    2. If you tap the email address then use the down button you can block the address. When that’s done you can forward the email to phishing@gov.uk who will attempt to close it down.

    3. They’re trying to get you to make contact so they can ask for your bank details in order to make a refund.

  97. Well, chums, it's my bedtime again. So Good Night to you all, sleep well, and I hope to see you all again tomorrow morning.

  99. I've Not done much today, but I'm very tired.
    so I'm off to bed now .
    Heart being monitored for 24 hours by a small device, taking it back tomorrow on request.
    Goodnight all Nottlers 😴

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