Monday 2 March: Let the old and vulnerable self-isolate and the rest keep things running

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/03/02/letterslet-old-vulnerable-self-isolate-rest-keep-things-running/

673 thoughts on “Monday 2 March: Let the old and vulnerable self-isolate and the rest keep things running”

  1. Turkey steps up Idlib offensive as Greece suspends asylum applications in fear of migrant spike. 1 March 2020 • 8:15pm.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/575ecea36136ca192ecf5071966be902e3585bf8ff022b64f82e4a57e310de69.jpg

    Fighting in the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib has pushed thousands of refugees to Turkey’s southern border, fleeing indiscriminate bombing by the Syrian regime and Russia.

    Morning everyone. Just look at them! Young men, all of military age!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/01/greece-jails-migrants-slipped-turkish-border-un-says-13000-attempting/

    3. If you were an international revolutionary movement out to conquer the world, where would you put your star fighters and cell leaders in order for them to be best placed to be accepted, distributed and supported in target countries?

    4. Ah, “indiscriminate bombing”. I suppose when the flyers return to their airfield their commander will say something like, “I say, you chaps, you seem to have missed all the targets today, jolly poor show, what, what? Maybe try hitting the rebels tomorrow, eh, chaps? Avoid places with red crosses on the roof, eh? Now, it’s about time for a spot of tiffin, don’t you know, what? what?”

    6. I suggest that the Geeks do more than lob tear gas and rubber bullets at them. Send the army up there to repel a military invasion.

      When a couple have been shot (as in the Polish solution) the rest will fade away.

    7. There’s something about the look of them that says ‘guerilla’, ‘civil war’ and ‘resistance’.

  3. SIR – I see that Steve Bruce, the manager of Newcastle United FC, has banned his players from shaking hands due to coronavirus concerns.

    I wonder if he has considered extending this ban to spitting on the pitch – something nearly all footballers seem to do with alarming frequency.

    E C Lea
    Halesowen

    1. For some time now Steve Bruce has banned Newcastle United FC players from striking the ball too hard towards their opponents’ goal (“lads, just tap it softly towards their keeper”) .

    2. We were there a couple years ago and the road along the seafront was closed. We saw a young policeman and ask him why. He said the President of Iran had come Oman to have an argument with the Sultan. He probably wasn’t the official government spokesman. 😀

      1. 316745+ up ticks,
        Morning B3,
        I believe him to have a minor post as a small member holder
        on a pig farm.

  6. Good article from John Redwood – Relations with the Civil Service, re the Home Office bun fight. The last paragraph, below, gives an idea of the job at hand to sort out the EUphile Civil Service.

    Andrew Pierce, Daily Mail Consultant Editor, talking to Nick Ferrari (LBC), believes that more ‘Sir Humphreys’ will leave over the next few months as the government insists on doing things its way. Pierce also confirmed that Rutnam’s sobriquet was ‘Sir Calamity’.

    So we have the Home Office trying to dilute the borders policy to recreate free movement of people. We have the Treasury trying to bake Maastricht debt controls, the austerity policy, back into a domestic version. We have some in the Environment Department trying to perpetuate EU fishing and farming policies. We have some Defence and Foreign office officials wanting to bind the UK into common defence procurement and more common operations with EU forces to make a European army more feasible. We have Trade and FCO officials not wanting a US trade deal for fear of it annoying the EU. There are of course many able and good individual civil servants and some who do like Brexit, but overall the civil service wants to take no risks by the UK doing something the EU may not approve.

    It is this culture of EU best and EU first that some good Ministers are trying to change. Expect more sparks to fly. I know which side I am on.

    1. 316745+ up ticks,
      NtN,
      We came very,very, close to losing a country via the polling booth & the treachery of the governance parties plus their party builders / supporters / voters, especially over the last two decades.

  7. Morning all,

    BBC Breakfast TV

    Liz Truss says we must completely wash our hands – particularly of the EU.

  8. ‘Don’t be alarmed’.
    That is the message from police chiefs if you spot military helicopters flying over Bristol on Monday.
    A spokesperson for Avon and Somerset Police said the force takes part in training with the Royal Air Forces to help officers’ professional development.
    We’ll be working on a training exercise tomorrow alongside @RoyalAirForce @MCA_media & search&rescue.

Please don’t be alarmed if you see military helicopters taking off & landing around the force area. It’s part of ongoing work to keep you safe.

Give us a wave if you see us

    Good Morning ( and a bright and sunny one here in N.Somerset bty ) When the local plod announce joint exercises with the RAF and Coastguard ” to keep you safe” and then tells you not to panic the first thing I do is have a little panic when I try to think what possible threat would require that combination of the services to keep me safe from.

    1. We had some big planes fly over us at night a week ago. I also saw a low flying helicopter, a big one, with bright floodlights. I have been told by the RAF that it is nothing to do with them. I’m now awaiting a reply from the Civil Aviation people. Apparently some parts of our air space are uncontrolled so no one may know that is happening or has happened.

      1. Lifted straight from an A&S tweet, probably composed by the successful applicant for the recently advertised post of Social Media Co-ordinator £26,000 to £35,000pa

  9. EU plans to help Roma and prisoners stay in Britain after Brexit

    Prisoners and members of the Roma community, along with prisoners, will be the focus of a new EU push to help Europeans “outside the mainstream” to remain in the UK after Brexit.

    The new EU ambassador to the UK, João Vale de Almeida, said Brussels and the embassies of the bloc’s 27 member states in London needed to step up efforts to reach those on the fringes of British society.

    A monitoring network of 50 NGOs has been established by the EU embassy in London, which is also looking into the issue, with bimonthly meetings held to map the wider situation.

    1. Well, they would, wouldn’t they. Keeping the trash out of the EU and being paid for by the UK taxpayer is the obvious move for the EU: all done under the guise of supporting human rights, no doubt. What about our human rights in not having to put up with foreign criminals and sponging layabouts? We have enough of our own.

      1. 316745+ up ticks,
        Morning KtK,
        The polling booth dictates that it has worked well enough up until now, does it not ?

    2. Whoa, back, only countries have Embassies and Ambassadors. The last time I looked the EU was a bunch of vassal states dictated to by Brussels. Despite it have a flag and an anthem and all the trappings of a country, a country is NOT what it is.

        1. ‘Morning, Anne, yep, and they hang on every word and suggestion that comes from the UK and implement tout suite!

    4. I’m sure the EU Embassy and its gardens will have room for all of them.
      Morning, Belle.

    5. 316745+ up ticks,
      BJ,
      Are the 27 countries limited to the number of staff they have on board in their embassies?
      ie maids, gardeners etc,etc, ALL immune from the law, as is now in many respects.

  10. UK and EU negotiators prepare to kick-off first round of trade talks

    The UK and European Union are facing their first round of post-Brexit trade talks with the two sides well apart on a final agreement.

    David Frost, the Prime Minister’s Europe adviser, and his team of negotiators will kick-start the nine-month process of vying to secure a new trade arrangement with the EU in Brussels on Monday.

  11. Morning all

    SIR – If this coronavirus is relatively harmless for most people, and if, as predicted, its spread is “inevitable”, why should we oldies and other vulnerable people not self-isolate and let the rest of the population carry on with keeping the economy running?

    It seems reasonable for an island with a good record of containment.

    Jonathan Firth

    Royston, Hertfordshire

    SIR – How should a man with a partner and three children of school age “self-isolate”?

    Does all the family go into purdah for 14 days or does Father lock himself in the shed at the end of the garden?

    How do we advise the Amazon delivery man that he cannot have a signature and to leave the parcel on the doorstep? How do we take in the grocery delivery?

    M H Sobey

    Dartmouth, Devon

    SIR – It is unbelievable that passengers arriving at UK airports are not having their temperatures checked (Letters, February 29). In Johannesburg, three weeks ago, all arriving passengers were checked in an efficient manner.

    Neil Lambert

    Halifax, West Yorkshire

    1. They could take our temperature on arrival at UK airports, but only if we first remove our shoes/boots and belts.

    2. My latest Amazon book came through the letterbox on Saturday without needing a signature.

      1. It depends on the supplier or carrier. Some demand a signature.
        I think post code also comes into the equation. “Leave parcel in porch”, would, I suspect, carry little weight if your address was a council tower block.

        1. ‘Morning, Belle.

          Yes, It’s a German satire about what would Hitler think of the World if he came back today, called “Er ist wieder da” (“He’s back again”). We have chosen it as our reader for next year in my German class.

          5. That is one that I down loaded to my Kindle last September and never got round to reading.
            Now you’ve reminded me, I must charge up the reader ready for …. (cue Jaws theme) …. Friday. 13th.

          8. The Germans are very good at satire. You just have to be familiar with the language & background.

          9. ‘Morning Mags – a little story about my time in Germany with the RAF in the 60s:

            A famous incident occurred while we, the Squadron, were on detachment to Hahn in the furtherance of NATO solidarity, with the 50th Fighter Wing of the USAF. We had a Luftwaffe officer as a liaison and spent some happy nights in the mess.

            On one occasion there was a particularly loud-mouthed American serviceman who was talking – at the top of his voice – about the Germans and… “your much vaunted efficiency; well during the war we came over and whipped the hide off you!”

            At this point, our German liaison turned around to us and, without looking at the Yank said, “In ze var, we both had our disadvantages – we had ze Italians and you had ze Americans.” At this point he turned toward the American, who was quite chubby, poked him in the stomach and said, “Tventy years ago, ve make soap out of you!” The mess collapsed with laughter and the Yank slunk away without a further word. Who says the Germans don’t have a sense of humour?

          10. Apparently the Italians generally, and Mussolini in particular, were an absolute nightmare.
            When you read about their bombastic inefficiency, you almost begin to feel sorry for Aydolph. Almost….

        2. ‘Morning, Belle.

          Yes, It’s a German satire about what would Hitler think of the World if he came back today, called “Er ist wieder da” (“He’s back again”). We have chosen it as our reader for next year in my German class.

      4. ‘Morning, Peddy, mine never need a signature, they are beamed straight to my Kindle which currently holds over 400 books, any or all of which I may read on my phone, wherever I am.

        1. ‘Morning, Tom.

          As it is a book for my German class, I need to be able to write notes in the margins. I have a Kindle whatsit on the laptop but I have never used it.

          1. While reading on Kindle, just put your finger on a word and pause for a moment and you get the facility to write a note. The word you have written a note about then gains a yellow background and you have facility to bookmark that page in order to keep the note in context when referring to it at a later time.

            As some little animal is reputed to say, “Simples.”

          3. I have a Kindle which I only use when I am travelling – I far prefer to read books with paper pages..

          4. ‘Morning, Richard,
            Good for reading in bed as you don’t need external light and Best Beloved can either read hers, or have undisturbed sleep.

          5. Snap. I download 2 or 3 books before my holidays, but I also prefer proper books.

      5. ‘Morning, Peddy, mine never need a signature, they are beamed straight to my Kindle which currently holds over 400 books, any or all of which I may read on my phone, wherever I am.

  12. SIR – Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary, suggests that regional airports be developed to make up for judges blocking Heathrow’s third runway on environmental grounds.

    Regional air traffic would generate as much CO2 as at Heathrow, so how does regional development overcome judicial objections aimed at achieving zero carbon emissions by 2050?

    Bruce Denness

    Niton, Isle of Wight

    1. Heathrow is a hub airport. He totally fails to understand the function of a hub airport. Increasing traffic at other airport even if airlines will go to them still generates CO2 and increases considerable noise and will generate huge amount of car traffic as people would have to travel hundred of miles from London to the airport. It makes no sense at all other than to Grant Shapes who is not the brightest

      1. Why then does the British hub airport have to be in London? If the purpose of a hub is to distribute international air passengers around the country, maybe better to have it somewhere central, like Birmingham?

        1. Because it is an International Hub and London is where all the international traffic wants to go. Having millions of people travelling between London and Birmingham by car would not be sensible

          Building a new 5 runway Hub in the middle of Birmingham would not be sensible neither

          2. Well, they already knocked down Earls Court, and the country’s main exhibition space is now the NEC in Birmingham, right next to the international airport, the M42 and on the route of HS2. London’s over-rated these days, and is more an encampment for migrants and oligarchs, a national lunatic asylum. Actually running a landing strip down Knightsbridge might not be such a bad idea. Very handy for the shops.

            Expanding Birminghan Airport would make quite a mess of Bickenhill, Stonebridge and Little Packington – all very pretty places, but possibly less of a problem than throwing the Prime Minister and the Shadow Chancellor under a bulldozer.

          3. When my father was a Met policeman Earls Court was being built.
            Apparently the young constables on night duty used to sit on the scaffolding and watch the wh0res at work in nearby houses.

    2. Answer? Shapps rarely engages what little brain he has before opening mouth. For him, the headline is everything.

      ‘Morning, Epi.

  13. Morning again

    SIR – Sir Philip Rutnam emphatically denies giving media briefings against the Home Secretary by giving a media briefing against the Home Secretary.

    Paul Higgins

    Shrewsbury

    SIR – I am so relieved that Priti Patel is no Jim Hacker and that she has the guts to get the job done. She should keep going and get policy implemented.

    Dr Steven R Hopkins

    Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire

  14. SIR – All too often the queues at lavatories in public places are distressing for women in need. If as a Lady (in lavatory terminology) I were to use a Gents for its designated purpose, what would happen (apart from immediate welcome relief)? Is it illegal?

    Alyson Persson

    Henfield, West Sussex

    SIR – Amid the gloom from storms and viruses, it was wonderful to read in Saturday’s Telegraph that there is an organisation called the British Toilet Association.

    David Bardell

    Reydon, Suffolk

    1. In reply to Alyson’s question – At the last John Rutter Choral workshop at a church in Sevenoaks, the Ladies toilet was overwhelmed with scores of female choristers waiting to use the facilities. They noted that the gents’ toilet cubicle just inside the gents’ toilet wasn’t in use and promptly commandeered it. This induced a degree of anxiety in the chaps standing at the urinals – no doubt causing quite a few to glance over their shoulders to the detriment of their trouser legs!

      1. That’s easily sorted with motivational bananas issued to these ladies with a temporary gender crisis.

      2. That’s easily sorted with motivational bananas issued to these ladies with a temporary gender crisis.

    2. Of course you may use the Gents, Alyson Persson.

      All that is required is that you, in your deepest voice, declare that you are self-identifying as a man.

    3. Of course you may use the Gents, Alyson Persson.

      All that is required is that you, in your deepest voice, declare that you are self-identifying as a man.

    4. I have seen women at a Motorway Centre [ Gretna,I think] using the Gents when the Ladies was busy. I see no problem with that as long as they don’t use the urinals.

  15. David Beckham gets into a taxi and he sees the driver looking at him in the rear-view mirror.

    After about 5 minutes the driver says “OK give me a clue”

    Beckham says “I had a glittering career at Manchester United, played in America and got over a100 caps for England, is that enough?”

    Driver says “No you thick twat, where do you want to go?”

    1. And England never won a single international football tournament when I was in the team.

  16. John Redwood on the Philip Ratbum saga.

    Relations with the civil service

    By JOHNREDWOOD | Published: MARCH 2, 2020

    “The theory is straightforward. Ministers decide on policies they wish to see implemented, or identify problems that need government solutions. Civil servants advise on the best ways of implementing a policy or solving a problem. Ministers decide between these options and civil servants get on, implement and administer the policy.

    Civil servants can refuse to implement only if the Minister is wanting to do something illegal or contrary to the agreed view of the government. They are not meant to let their own personal preferences and political views get in the way of carrying out a governing party Manifesto or the agreed wishes of the Cabinet or of a Minister with devolved power.

    It is further agreed that only Ministers speak to the public and Parliament to explain and defend the policies and actions of the government, with the exceptions that civil servants may be employed as spokesmen and women to put across the agreed government policy in off the record briefings or occasionally as nominated experts on the record. Ministers do not reveal what advice they were given and civil servants do not brief out their views on the advice and on how the Minister took the decision.

    This system sometimes breaks down. Ministers can let fly about civil servants and civil servants can brief against Ministers. Throughout our period in the EU our membership of the EU has created a substantial tension between Ministers wanting to govern the country and a civil service keen to maximise the constraints the EU imposes on self government.

    The civil service as a whole admires the EU and likes the behind closed doors approach to legislating in the Council. Ministers are often told they cannot carry out their promises or meet the wishes of many UK voters because to do so would violate some EU Directive or regulation or Treaty requirement. When I was a Minister and since then the civil service preferred method of dealing with the EU is to find out what it wants to do next and tell Ministers they should welcome it or go along with it.

    The current rows between Ministers and officials are related to the wish of the majority of the public to “take back control”. The paradox is the civil service does not wish to do this, but has used every opportunity in the last three and half years to try to recreate many features of current EU governance once we have “left”. Instead of preparing us for the opportunities of exit they have run a Remain based Project Fear machine. We have seen the results in some published statements and reviews, and in leaks. Much of it is shoddy and alarmist, unrelated to the reality of what is likely to happen.

    So we have the Home Office trying to dilute the borders policy to recreate free movement of people. We have the Treasury trying to bake Maastricht debt controls, the austerity policy, back into a domestic version. We have some in the Environment Department trying to perpetuate EU fishing and farming policies. We have some Defence and Foreign office officials wanting to bind the UK into common defence procurement and more common operations with EU forces to make a European army more feasible. We have Trade and FCO officials not wanting a US trade deal for fear of it annoying the EU. There are of course many able and good individual civil servants and some who do like Brexit, but overall the civil service wants to take no risks by the UK doing something the EU may not approve.

    It is this culture of EU best and EU first that some good Ministers are trying to change. Expect more sparks to fly. I know which side I am on.”

    1. Fire the whole sorry bunch of them, down to the tea-boy. Then advertise and rehire, the main stipulation that all must have worked in private industry first. Get a few senior types to design a structure where the work is mainly done by computer, and the interference with civilian operations minimal.

      1. It was when Rutnam let slip there were 35,000 people in the Home Office that I balked. That cannot include police officers nor prison officials, or border authority, thus leaving a massive organisation doing… what? That’s something the size of a multinational costing a fortune every month and returning barely any value whatsoever.

        If the civil service high ups refuse to come to heel and do their jobs, then they should be removed. If they continue to throw obstacles in the way in terms of prior legislation, then their sole job is to unravel that legislation and enact the new policy.

        2. I suspect their are far more civil servants in the MOD than service men and women in the forces and few of them who have ever been exposed to the miseries caused by their actions, few of them who have ever been in any military organisation let alone in the front line.

          After the Great war there was a Government promise along the lines of a “land for for heroes” that promised priority in all Government controlled employment for ex-service men and women. (Lytom? Noy the education bloke, an earlier one?)
          Of course, while the Germans made similar promises to their troops and even though they lost seemed to keep them, the British Government did not.
          The CSA was considered by the AESCS (Asociation of Ex-Service Civil Servants) to be communist and to be discriminating against ex-servicemen in favour of conciencious objectors. The AESCS spent the interwar years lobbying for their members and suspended activities for the second war, and then resumed again afterwards.

          That the civil service association was considered communist seems to suggest that they haven’t changed much if they support the cultural marxist world views of the progressive globalists and, of course, the EU.

    2. The BBC have worked hard to destroy Redwood and have failed. pity he is not in the government.

      2. He is not in government, I suspect, because (a) he may not fully agree with the Johnson policies and methods and (b) because Bojo would be afraid of his becoming too popular and thus a likely leadership contender.

        I suspect some of Bojo’s cabinet appointments have more to do with establishing a cadre of grateful subservient ministers than choosing as ministers anyone who deserves the post on merit.

        Now, while I note the position regarding the civil service refusal to do what the government wants of it (and cleverely or honestly? the Philip Thingy resignation letter, published in full, does not speak about this as a disagreement over policy but seeks to portay it as a problem with the Minister’s abusive and overbearing manner…. which is a bit hard to digest considering she has been a minister before with not a whisper of such. Indeed, when the St Helena Airport fiasco blew up (wrong site, wind tests not done etc. so that much of the time wind shear prevents its use) she did her civil servants prud by saying this was it an issue for a witch hunt and blame games but a search for a solution…. she could easily have thrown a raft load of contractors and civil servants under the nearest bus.

        “After the construction of the airport, tests proved the wind shear was indeed dangerous.

        Note “After”. These were tests that were supposed to have been carried out before building the airport. I got some information from some islanders we knew who had hoped that they could avoid the usual ship ride from Ascension Island….. (they were also, incidentally, upset about the new trend of foreign (non-Islanders) dominating the police force and enforcing the strict letter of the law rather than using discretion and common sense as formerly to resolve issues.).

        http://www.saconstructionnews.co.za/construction-industry/16912-basil-read-sure-it-is-blameless-over-st-helena-airport

        https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/sep/21/st-helena-islanders-compensation-285m-airport

        Hence I am inclined to suspect that, while he doesn’t directly accuse Philip Thngy, redwood may well have the right of it.
        But, I would welcome a civil service that did as Redwood defines their role to be, nad are directed by Government but I do not want to see the power shift from them to Cummings…..

    1. I draw the line very firmly against those who despise me and undermine me and even abuse me because I am “binary” – I recognise there being a duality to all sorts of things upon which the universe is based, one of them being human sexuality and with it a linguistic sense of gender. Man penetrates, and woman envelops, and this applies in all sorts of ways from spirituality to plumbing. I resent being branded and even blacklisted a “hate criminal” because of my beliefs, and oppose all those who set themselves up as enemies to me, however well placed they are in the establishment.

      That is my position, and I suspect also that of others here, even though many dare not admit it for fear of persecution by so-called “liberals” (who are anything but liberal or progressive).

      As regards those who are conflicted between how they were made and how they think they are, I am happy to be generous. For as long as this conflict exists, the correct term is ‘confused’. We should recognise their confusion and not think ill of them for it, but rather help them resolve it in whatever way they find best to handle. It does not make them lesser people, just different. We all have our own demons and confusions, why shouldn’t they?

      As a working rule too, I am content to use the definition of sex being that which has served me well ever since I saw my, and my sister’s body, in infancy, regardless of chromosomes (which I only learnt about a lot later in school). Those who have resolved their confusion surgically and are now content with what they consider to be the right body parts I am content to consider as transiting to their adopted sex, and refer to them by that pronoun. They are barren of course, but then lots of us are for various reasons. I am 64 years old and doubt I will ever father a child again. Does that make me an unman?

      1. Whoever you are, Jeremy, please understand that what you are talking about is sex, not gender, which is merely a grammatical construct.

        Another example of the ‘Woke’ mis-using the English language.

      2. How long will it be before plumbing parts and electrical bobbins will require to be desexed by the snowflakes? Surely the use of terms such as “male” and “female” for pipes and plugs is offensive to many?

      3. Whoever you are, Jeremy, please understand that what you are talking about is sex, not gender, which is merely a grammatical construct.

        Another example of the ‘Woke’ mis-using the English language.

        1. It’s really in the English language that we get our knickers in a twist over gender. In French or German, it’s arbritary: you tell me why a table is feminine and a young woman is neuter. In English, most non-human items are neuter, and to be referred to in English as “it” is considered a far graver insult than to be called “he” or “she” inappropriately. Some get round it by using the more neutral “one” and avoiding gender-specific pronouns, or going into the plural “they”. Actually, we already did this in the second person, replacing the familial singular “thou” with “you”.

          I agree with you though when they put the options ‘male’ or ‘female’ after ‘gender’ on official forms. They did this because too many wags were writing “yes please” after ‘sex’. If presented with this nonsensical option, I tick ‘prefer not to say’. I also do that when being asked to self-define my racial ethnicity according to official definitions, which I do not respect.

        2. It’s really in the English language that we get our knickers in a twist over gender. In French or German, it’s arbritary: you tell me why a table is feminine and a young woman is neuter. In English, most non-human items are neuter, and to be referred to in English as “it” is considered a far graver insult than to be called “he” or “she” inappropriately. Some get round it by using the more neutral “one” and avoiding gender-specific pronouns, or going into the plural “they”. Actually, we already did this in the second person, replacing the familial singular “thou” with “you”.

          I agree with you though when they put the options ‘male’ or ‘female’ after ‘gender’ on official forms. They did this because too many wags were writing “yes please” after ‘sex’. If presented with this nonsensical option, I tick ‘prefer not to say’. I also do that when being asked to self-define my racial ethnicity according to official definitions, which I do not respect.

          1. The French one that really amuses me, given that the definite article ‘le’ is male, is le vagin.

      4. “There are 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don’t”.

    1. Find out where it is and give it a coating of Choc mixed with Novi. Could have excellent results.

  21. Strange:

    SIR – Sir Philip Rutnam emphatically denies giving media briefings against the Home Secretary by giving a media briefing against the Home Secretary.

    Paul Higgins
    Shrewsbury

    5. BBC Breakfast talking about Gatekeepers .. they must be civil servants who allow who has access to meetings.. helping the Prime Minister to run the country .. unelected officials … and very powerful..

      Dominic Cummings is rather too visible!

    6. BBC Breakfast talking about Gatekeepers .. they must be civil servants who allow who has access to meetings.. helping the Prime Minister to run the country .. unelected officials … and very powerful..

      Dominic Cummings is rather too visible!

      2. A Gatekeeper who regrets the choice the majority of the people made for Leaving the EU and, no doubt, refrains in her book from any inferences re. how our elites drifted apart from those they were supposed to represent.

      3. A Gatekeeper who regrets the choice the majority of the people made for Leaving the EU and, no doubt, refrains in her book from any inferences re. how our elites drifted apart from those they were supposed to represent.

      5. Cummings or the civil servants?

        Scylla and Charybdis?
        Tough call…….none elected, none accountable.
        I blame Blair, of course, he gave the civil service that added power by politicising them.
        I am still looking for the causal link between Bliar and Cummings. I am sure it is there. Everything bad can be traced back in some way to Bliar.

  22. Smart motorways make traffic jams WORSE after a road crash, newly-released data shows

    Stating the obvious. . The Emergency service would usually use the hard shoulder to get to an incident but there is not one so frequently the opposite carriage way has to be used which means closing it

    Another potential issue is the hard shoulder was never designed as a carriage way and may start to break up after a few years of use

    The Highways England figures – released under freedom of information laws and collated by the RAC – relate to lane closures on two parts of the M25: Junctions 23-28, a smart stretch, and junctions 18-23, a conventional carriageway with a hard shoulder, between July and August last year.

    They reveal that there were 226 live lane closures on the traditional stretch, compared with 2,491 on all-lane running – more than ten times as many.

    Clear-flowing traffic was reported 96 per cent of the time on the conventional motorway, compared to 73 per cent on the smart motorway.

    1. They close part of the motorway for years to reinforce the hard shoulder to motorway standards. The M3 had works for, it seems, 4 or 5 years to turn the motorway from the Bagshot to M25 stretch into a smart motorway. Smart motorways seem to be as useful as smart meters.

      1. ‘Morning, Alf, using smart as an adjective means that whatever it is applied to, it immediately becomes dumb.

        For example look at all the smart, woke, illiberal, undemocratic lefties, most of whom may be found choking to death within the smart M25.

      2. But they do help transfer public borrowing money away from public services and towards the profit margins of select contractors, whose extra wealth generation is good for official economic forecasts, and will trickle down to the public once they have been laundered in Caribbean yachts and cocaine parties.

    2. While I was driving in France a few years ago, two motorcycle police came hairing up the hard shoulder in the wrong direction. A little further on, the road was closed and we all had to turn around and drive back up the motorway in the wrong direction back to the previous junction where we were the sent o a diversion.
      It was a hairy experience; I’ve always wondered if this the French accident SOP.

    3. While I was driving in France a few years ago, two motorcycle police came hairing up the hard shoulder in the wrong direction. A little further on, the road was closed and we all had to turn around and drive back up the motorway in the wrong direction back to the previous junction where we were the sent o a diversion.
      It was a hairy experience; I’ve always wondered if this the French accident SOP.

    1. It looks as though he’s being controlled remotely from some alien spaceship.

      1. Nah, it’s the hand up the jacksey working the mouth that makes expressions like that.

      2. Nah, it’s the hand up the jacksey working the mouth that makes expressions like that.

      3. Looks as if he’s being controlled by his Nan.
        “If the wind changes, you’ll be stuck with that face.”

      4. Looks as if he’s being controlled by his Nan.
        “If the wind changes, you’ll be stuck with that face.”

      5. Aliens from Zeta Reticuli? Polly would, I think, claim the control was being exercised from a bit nearer home.

    3. Now that’s an odd article.

      Especially the ending, that it’s because Patel is ‘Indian’. I doubt that’s related to the issue in any way whatsoever. It’s far more likely that Rutnam was asked to do something, he told Patel it was too difficult/created work/went against the Lefty statist view and Patel threw a very necessary grenade and rather than being a grown up and doing his job as we see it, went on a whinge.

      Hopefully the Lefty statists will start to realise that they are there to do our bidding, not for them to tell us how to do theirs. If this means a culling of all the top posts, all the better.

    2. No one could understand why David Seaman, when England goalkeeper, kept so many clean sheets.

      3. Wasn’t it Barry Davies who, after some great saves when playing for England, said there’ll be Seamen on the lips of most people in the morning. Or words to that effect.

    3. No one could understand why David Seaman, when England goalkeeper, kept so many clean sheets.

  28. An Open Letter to Greta Thunberg:

    You are not a moral leader. But I will tell you what you are.

    Greta Thunberg:

    You have declared yourself a leader and said that your generation will start a revolution.

    You have comported yourself as a credentialed adult and climate change activist who has fearlessly addressed politicians and world leaders.

    You have dropped out of school and declared that there isn’t any reason to attend or any reason for you to study since there will be no future for you to inherit.

    You have, rather than attend your classes, been leading Friday Climate Strikes for all students in your generation across the globe.

    Your attendance at oil pipelines has been striking. There, you unequivocally declare that all oil needs to remain in the ground where it belongs.

    I shall, therefore, against the backdrop of your activism, address you as an adult rather than as a child.

    In September of 2019, you crossed the Atlantic in a “zero-carbon” racing yacht that had no toilet and electric light on board. You made an impassioned plea at the United Nations in which you claimed that “we have stolen your dreams and our childhood with our empty words.”

    You claimed that adults and world leaders come to young people for answers and explained in anger: “How dare you!”

    You claimed that we are failing you and that young people are beginning to understand our betrayal. You further declared that if we continue to fail your generation: “We will never forgive you.”

    You have stated that you want us to panic, and to act as if our homes are on fire. You insist that rich countries must reduce to zero emissions immediately.

    In your speeches, you attack economic growth and have stated that our current climate crisis is caused by “buying and building things.”

    You call for climate justice and equity, without addressing the worst polluter on the planet – China; the country that is economically annexing much of Africa and Latin America.

    You dare not lecture Iran about its uranium projects — because that’s not part of the UN’s agenda, is it?

    You proclaim that we need to live within the planetary boundaries, to focus on equity and “take a few steps back” for the sake of all living species.

    You resent the hierarchical distinctions between humans and animals and entertain no qualitative distinction between a monkey, a malaria-infested mosquito and a snarling hyena.

    You mouth slogans such as: “We have set in motion an irreversible chain reaction beyond control,” and you advocate for universal veganism on the Ellen DeGeneres show.

    You do not buy new clothes, and you don’t want the rest of us to either. You want us all to stop flying in jet planes without giving us an alternative as to how we would re-transform our financial and trading systems—to say nothing of our personal enjoyment of the world—without regression to a primeval era.

    Few can afford to cross the Atlantic in a $6M zero-carbon yacht financed by rich people who made their wealth by the very means you condemn as loathsome.

    There are a few things that we, the rational adults of the world who are not bowing to you like guilt-ridden obsequious Babbitts need to say to you, Greta.

    First, we did not rob you of your childhood or of your dreams.

    You are the legatee of a magnificent technological civilization, which my generation and the one before it and several others preceding it all the way to the Industrial Revolution and the Renaissance, bequeathed to you.

    That growth-driven, capitalist technological civilization has created the conditions for you to harangue us over our betrayal. It is a civilization that eradicated diseases such as smallpox from the word, and that lifted millions out of abject poverty in a universe you think is dying and decaying. It assured you a life expectancy that exceeded that of your ancestors. Most likely by focusing on economic growth which you demonize, and scientific advancement, that civilization will further enhance a robust quality of life and health for your descendants.

    Here is a hard truth to ponder, Greta: if the great producers of this world whom you excoriate were to withdraw their productivity, wealth and talents—in short—their minds from the world today, your generation would simply perish.

    Why?

    Because as children you have done nothing as yet, with your lives besides being born. This is what we expect of children until such time as they can be producers by learning from their elders. You are understandably social and ecological ballast. You are not yet cognitively advanced to replicate the structures of survival of which you are the beneficiaries.

    Children are important installments in the future. We have invested in you. It is you and your smug generation, which thinks they have nothing to learn from the older ones who are failing themselves. Whom do you expect to employ the majority of you if you have neither the job credentials or life competency skills to navigate the world? The future unemployable-skipping- school-on-Friday obstreperous children?

    The truth, as one anonymous blogger aptly put it, is that your generation is unable to work up to forty hours per week without being chronically depressed and anxious.

    Its members cannot even decide if they want to be a boy or a girl, or both, or neither, or a “they.”

    They cannot eat meat without crying.

    I might add that your generation needs “trigger warnings” and “safe spaces” as pre-conditions for learning in school.

    Its members have a pathological need to be coddled and protected from the challenging realities of life.

    Your generation is the biggest demander and consumer of carbon-spewing technological gadgets and devices. An hour without any of them and too many of you succumb to paralyzing lethargy.

    Your generation is the least curious and most insular set of individuals one has ever encountered. Your hubris extends so far that you think you have nothing to learn from your elders.

    Yes, we have betrayed you: by capitulating the world of leadership to bored, attention-deficit children who spout bromides, platitudes and slogans that a rudderless and morally relativistic culture accepts because a significant number of its denizens have become intellectually bankrupt and morally lazy.

    The logical endpoint of your ecological vision would see us living in primeval conditions eking out an existence in jungle swamps in which we would regard poisonous snakes and man-eating tigers as our moral equals.

    We would have to adapt ourselves to nature rather than adapt nature to meet our needs, like all members of civilized civilizations do.

    Your vision would see us foraging for mushrooms and plants without knowing which were inimical to our digestive systems. Under your system we would swelter from heat, die from rampant plagues and starvation because there will be no air-conditioning units, no sophisticated plumbing and irrigations and sewer systems, no anti-bacterial soap made from animal matter, no pesticides and chemicals to sanitize our food and drinking supplies: just one primordial swamp of human putrefaction.

    If civilization is left in the hands of your ecofascist supporters we will be living in grass huts, drinking animal feces infested water, and shrinking in fear from polar bears instead of killing them for food when they attack us.

    Greta, living in complete harmony with nature is the death of creativity. Understand this. All great civilizations were forged in the crucibles of proper exploitation of the earth. Those who lived on the land with oil and did nothing with it never had a right to it in the first place.

    Non-usage of God’s resources is the cardinal sin because it results in the un-development of our human capabilities, and makes us indistinguishable from beasts.

    Your generation needs to be taught the morality of wealth creation, rather than only parasitically benefiting from it. The only revolution you will lead is one into nihilism and civilization regression.

    You need to learn about the moral case for fossil fuel. You owe it to yourself to understand how as, Kathleen Hartnett White has detailed, the harnessing of the vast store of concentrated energy in fossil fuels allowed mankind, for the first time in human history, to escape intractable constraints and energy limits that had left all but the very privileged in total poverty and depravity. Before the Industrial Revolution, all societies were dependent on a very limited flow of solar energy captured in living plants for subsistence needs such as food, fuel and shelter.

    But we, the creative enterprisers, will not go back to the Dark Ages.

    Your philosophy can be summed up as follows:

    What was good for my anthropoid ancestors is good for me. Do not rock the boat, or even build one as that will require cutting down a tree. Do not disrupt nature. Do not dare to see the earth as rightfully belonging to us. We don’t have the right to use our brains in a manner that can transform our needs into a material form. Let’s conveniently forget that production is the application of reason to the problems of survival. Let’s all diminish the grandeur of man and his luminous potential. Crush the Thomas Edisons of this world.

    The apocalyptic world vision you hold has been a strip landing for those who have hated progress throughout history. Your apocalyptic predictions have been made for millennia, and, we’re still here.

    We will still be here long after you’ve grown up and we have forgiven you for skipping classes, thereby lowering the intelligence quotient of an entire generation.

    Jason D. Hill

    Jason D. Hill is professor of philosophy at DePaul University in Chicago and a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. His areas of specialization include ethics, social and political philosophy, American foreign policy and American politics. He is the author of several books.

    1. I just ignore her, Mr Grizzly, Sir. She is a complete and utter waste of space, but she will not be a waste of my time. Reasoning with her – as with most if not all “Remainers” – is futile.

    3. Is there a crowd funding campaign to buy the Doom Goblin a one way ticket to Beijing?
      I’m sure the Chinese government would welcome her with open arms.

    4. He could have added that instead of her flying to the US and back, as so many of the elite do in their private jets (their own or borrowed) but which she could do in a commercial flight, the two crewmen who accompanied her across the ocean (was she sea sick at all?) flew back home to be replaced by two further crew who flew out to the US…. four flights instead of two, that we know of.
      Then there was the picture of the Tesla she was lent (Product placement?) showing, as per normal teenagers, a car full of rubbish, notably plastics of all kinds…..but she is now one of the elite and the rules do not apply to her….

  30. The UK’s first climate change refugees?

    No the place is below sea level and like in many parts of the UK the council no longer wants to maintain the sea defenses

    https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Fairbourne+LL38+2EJ/@52.696651,-4.054346,3a,75y,90t/data=!3m8!1e2!3m6!1sAF1QipPCdJRg79EQ-7GQh4Uu7S6S7NAzKO6ZVDowx4e7!2e10!3e12!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPCdJRg79EQ-7GQh4Uu7S6S7NAzKO6ZVDowx4e7%3Dw152-h86-k-no!7i5376!8i3024!4m5!3m4!1s0x48657f115a9f71b3:0xc1adb6c3a8687ed!8m2!3d52.696651!4d-4.054346

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-51667018/the-uk-s-first-climate-change-refugees

    1. Winston Churchill beat him to it. No doubt you are aware of the following.

      How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries, improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.

      A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement, the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

      Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.

      2. 316745+ up ticks ,
        Morning A t Great,
        The thing that set Gerard Batten apart from governance politico’s long ago, was that he took in and heeded Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill’s take on the issue, and learnt, they
        never did.
        The current warning against the well established use of Submission, Appeasement,PCism,as used by the lab/lib/con
        coalition party maims & kills but the death toll is not high enough to draw attention to yet…… until it is is late.

    2. Good morning ogga

      Have you read Douglas Murray’s The Strange Death of Europe?

      1. 316745+ up ticks,
        Afternoon R,
        Not as of yet, his take on xenophobia being our fear of foreigners
        I question in the islamic ideology followers context, the fear is justified witnessing their actions in many instances.
        Gerard Battens take on the dangers of islamic ideology past as
        witnessed, and future to be witnessed but guaranteed is one I would trust, the farage chap is first and foremost a pacifier, appeaser following the tory, pcism / appeasement path.

    3. Greek tourism, which is probably their biggest economic income, will be taking an even bigger hit than it already has done.
      I imagine Greece will just transport them north and open the gates to Bulgaria, Albania and Macedonia.

    1. What surprises me the most is it’s a Right wing public representative view being allowed to speak uninterrupted for more than 10 seconds, let alone 3 minutes!

      1. Diving into that Twitter page is like swimming in candy floss. There is only so much sugar one can consume without a serious health risk, so I gave up trying to get what it was all about. Something about the Japanese ‘rising sun’ flag and an invasion of Korea in 1919.

    2. She only appeared on one UK TV?

      She’s obviously lacking education in the use of English.

      Apart from that, who gives a rat’s ar$e?

    4. Dear Anne-Marie
      Oh dear how awful………i’m mortified that I wasn’t affected or even slightly hurt by your costume drama.
      But am really so glad I missed that. I doubt if I would have ever recovered.
      And I really do apologise for the fact I have never heard of you.

    1. Poundland, they have meant that I can have a pair of reading spectacles in every room. And their spectacle cases are excellent and they sell the cleaning tissues.

    3. Does she realise that, past a certain age, long hair accentuates the downward trajectory of your facial muscles?

    4. Looking for a pick me up ?

      I t looks as if disqus is slightly out of sequence today

      1. It’s a shame. And ‘gamil.com’…. She was SO proud of her headline she forgot the rest.

      2. I bet Lucy was glad she pulled that one off.
        I bit like I was when I helped my cousin Jack off his horse.

      3. It’s a shame. And ‘gamil.com’…. She was SO proud of her headline she forgot the rest.

    2. Big business is set to kill off the 6N. CVC, a finance company based in Singapore already owns large chunks of English rugby. They want to get all the competitions under their control. The 6N is a money-spinner. Sky may offer up to £300m to get control of the broadcast rights for 6N.
      Either way we can kiss goodbye to rugby on Freeview.

      1. We’ve already lost the cricket but this would end my interest in watching international rugby

        1. There is an ambivalent attitude to “sport”. There is a reluctance to recognise that professional sport is a business, first and foremost. Businesses do what business does: corner the market, maximise profits, expand the brands with related products, change anything that impedes the foregoing.
          I wonder if these events were envisioned when rugby union went professional?
          Corinthian ideals are chucked out. Dylan Hartley has a string of bans totalling well over a year, for a range of horrible infringements, including assault. Still got to be captain of England. Not exactly the Roy of the Rovers role model.

  40. “Greek port authorities announced the death of one child, and
    hospitalization of a second, after a migrant boat carrying 48 people
    overturned this morning as it tried to reach the island of Lesbos”

    Hurray!!!

    A dead child!!!

    What were the chances?

    Look!!! Look what you’ve done, you racist bastards.

    If you’d only flown everybody from the entire world who wants a free house
    and free money into Europe, this child would still be alive.

    You have this child’s death on your conscience.

      1. That sums it up perfectly.
        Also Sitting on top the victims of child rape gangs.

    2. The asylum system in my view as I have said several times is no longer fit for purpose and abuse of it is the norm rather than the exception
      WE should be using the UK to set up safe zones in the broad area and asylum seekers will have to go there. They will not be accepted into Europe. Any who try to enter illegal will be coming a criminal offence and will be deported straight away

      On a practical basis t Europe is quite small and densely populated it simple is no capable of taking vast numbers of people

      1. Not only are they accepted into Europe, they’re welcomed by the EU AND stopping them is hindered.

  41. 2020, another year when Europe faces the consequences of irresponsible and excessive muslim birth rates of the past decades.

      2. He can do it and nobody else will have to feed and clothe his offspring and, furthermore, they’re all likely to be employable – this either does NOT apply to hundreds of millions of these muslim sprogs or applies very weakly.

  42. Why do we keep getting the claim that we need vast numbers of migrants to fill vacancies ?

    If you look at the published data on job vacancies they are quite low and we have more people seeking jobs than vacancies

    Yes we have some skills shortage such as in the NHS but recruiting overseas has largely been a failure and has not solved the NHS’s problems

  46. Cardiff Airport could get extra £6.8m loan from Welsh Government

    Dont you just love the hypocrisy of politicians on the one had the Weslh Government want to make Wales the Greenest country in Europe on the other hand it is subsidizing flying

    They are fling close to the wire with this. It could be seen as state aid. In theory these loans are supposed to be on a commercial basis and have a set repayment period. I suspect though that they will never be repaid

    Welsh ministers are considering loaning Cardiff Airport a further £6.8m, after approving a loan of £21.2m last year.

    he government will carry out “analysis and financial due diligence” before the additional funding is approved.

    Writing to an assembly committee, civil servant Andrew Slade says the initial £21.2m will help the airport invest in buildings and infrastructure, route development, and security..

    A Tory AM said the Welsh Government’s economic strategy made “no sense”.

    The Welsh Government bought the airport in 2013 for £52m.

    Since then passenger numbers have increased significantly but in December the airport posted a pre-tax loss of £18.5m, nearly three times higher than the previous year.

    1. Makes sense now that there won’t be a third runway at Heathrow. Travellers will be delighted to land at Cardiff instead.

      1. NOBODY is ever delighted to land at Cardiff – not even those who are travelling to Cardiff.

        1. I was tongue in cheek, obviously..:-)
          Not ben to the airport, but Cardiff is on my ” least favourite destinations ” list.

          1. You wanna try Woking! On second thoughts don’t even come near it – WW2 couldn’t have done a better job of messing up the town!

          3. Nah. We’re not (a)woke yet and don’t intend to be either! Well, me and Alf, anyway.

          4. Woking’s good if you want an alibi for being suspected of going with an American hooker.

          5. 👏. The bodyguards would have a job getting inside the door. What on earth made him say that?! I’m surprised he’d even heard of Woking.

      2. Just reanimate it London Cardiff airport. I am sure that cut price operators would use it as their London hub .

  47. I know the Greeks are trying to keep the intruders out, but if they do let even just one of those self-styled “refugees” pass through, they can say goodbye to their chances of getting the Elgin Marbles back.

  49. “Stock markets bounced this morning after last week’s sell-off, with
    financial markets betting on a coordinated response by central banks to
    ease the economic blow of the coronavirus outbreak.”
    They think we are going to bail out the RBS again ?

  50. Traditional eating – with relish
    SIR – With regard to the battle against plastic sachets (Letters, February 29), in a restaurant in Calgary, Canada, some years ago I was greeted by a sign: “Food just like your Grandpappy knew it – ketchup in real glass bottles”.
    Professor Stefan Buczacki
    Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire

    Robert Spowart
    2 Mar 2020 12:24PM
    When I stayed in hotels with work, I became so fed up with sachets of sauce that I used to buy and take my own bottles of brown sauce down to breakfast.
    In doing so I realised how acid and vinegary HP sauce was when compared to other brands, especially the much cheaper Tesco’s and Aldi’s own brands!

    1. When I used to have the Full English last year at Cote, every member of staff knew NOT to bring ketchup or brown sauce to the table. The only ‘extra’ I permitted was English mustard.

  54. Pro-EU blurb from the Guardian, asking for donations –

    “…Britain may be leaving the EU, but the Guardian remains committed to
    Europe, doubling down on the ideas and interests that we share. These
    are testing times, and crises are not limited by national boundaries.
    But then neither are we. We will stay with you, delivering quality,
    investigative journalism so we can all make up our minds based on fact,
    not fiction.”

    I larfed and I larfed and I larfed …………………………

    1. I sort of echo their sentiment. We are leaving the EU but we’re not leaving Europe.
      Too much to hope they could understand the distinction.

      1. If they tried to tow Blighty further out into the Atlantic, we’d bump into Ireland.

  55. British troops back on front line against jihadists as war on terror spreads to Africa. 1 March 2020 • 11:30pm

    British troops will return to the front line of the war on terror with a 250-strong unit despatched to “spearhead” the UN’s fight against the world’s fastest-growing Islamist insurgency.

    The light-cavalry unit will be flown into Gao in the north of Mali by the middle of this year and will mount 30-day land operations deep into jihadist territory.

    The deployment is Britain’s first significant return to an active war zone since the end of Operation Herrick in Afghanistan more than five years ago, a mission that claimed 454 British lives.

    The last paragraph tells you pretty much everything you need to know. The UN title is a fig leaf to cover the reality of a French post-colonial problem in that they are losing! This Gallic contingent have been involved in some insubordination incidents that may well cover disenchantment with the way the war against the jihadists is going. The irony of it all is of course that we are going there to fight them in our hundreds and they are coming here in their thousands!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/01/british-troops-back-front-line-against-jihadists-war-terror/

      2. 316745+ up ticks.
        BJ,
        Cannot happen the governance parties are struggling currently to find enough NI numbers.

    2. 316745+ up ticks,
      Morning AS,
      It cuts down on expenditure with no overseas travel, fight them on the home front, the current 650 are quite cunning really on planning & strategy.

    3. How about sending the “light cavalry unit” to the Greece – Turkey border, to support the Greeks in excluding Jihadists from coming to Europe? Bugger Africa, it’s a lost cause already.

  56. Moh has just arrived home from his Monday game of golf..

    My heart is in panic mode.. He said he played with a foursome , one of which has just come back from a FAR EAST holiday .. usual braggart travel tales .. they cannot wait to show off the tan etc and talk about their trips.. / tripe

    I remonstrated with MOH , and told him he shouldn’t have played .. This chap arrived back in the UK , a couple of days ago , after mixing with half the teeming infectious world …

    Why aren’t people more considerate..

    Am I just very tired and over reacting ?

    2. Belle, see my post approx 20 mins after yours – the post but one after yours.

      1. Thankyou PM

        Seen it now … Shall we all despair?

        It sounds very frightening ..

        Is this why India and Africa are still intact.. and immune because of the heat?

        Is this a virus that has been released accidentally/intentionally ?

        1. To dispose of the elderly who voted for Trump and Brexit? The ones who have gained wisdom as they have progressed through life? The ones who question and say ‘hang on a minute…that doesn’t seem right?’ It wouldn’t surprise me at all. My younger self (up to 45-ish) would have said ‘oh, they would never do anything like that!’ Now I think they are capable of anything and everything if they think they have the masses on board, that they can get away with it and best of all, don’t get found out. I thought corrimobile’s post was interesting last night, that Bill Gates and the Clintons are involved in the bio-laboratory at Wuhan. That is not the exact wording, if I find the post I will come back and edit. Don’t despair!

          Edit: from corri’s post yesterday evening: “The laboratory is evidently funded by Bill Gates and his wife and is supported by the Clinton Foundation. There are rumours that the virus can remain dormant and then reactivated via 5G. Huawei anyone?”

          1. “There are rumours that the virus can remain dormant and then reactivated via 5G.”

            Funniest statement today!! So far….

          3. You think that’s funny? It’s not just 5G you have to worry about.

            There are rumours that the virus can be sent, by WiFi, straight into your “smart meter”, from whence it will be dispersed throughout the house, room by room, via the electric sockets.
            :¬(

          4. My cousin always switches off all her plug sockets at night to avoid the electricity dripping out. I have been unable to convince her that this is unlikely.

  57. urgent food recalls over serious allergy fears

    It is simply impossible in a standard production environment to ensure food is allergy free. The endless product recalls clearly demonstrate this.

    Marks & Spencer, has issued an urgent recall on an own-brand product stocked in their stores due to allergy fears. Those who have been shopping in-store or online who may be allergic are being urged to check their fridge and freezers for the affected item.

    TESCO, Asda and Sainsbury’s have issued urgent recall warnings as one food product was found to contain milk not mentioned on the label

    Coca-Cola European Partners has withdrawn Thums Up Cola from shelves – because it contains celery which is not mentioned on the label, according to a statement released on the Food Standards Agency website. This means the product is a possible health risk for anyone with an allergy to celery.

      2. That has been on the allergen list for some years. I think it also includes celeriac.

  58. From the DT:”Extreme rainfall which has left parts of Britain underwater may push up food prices and pile pressure on farmers’ finances as crops are washed out, agriculture experts have warned.

    Prolonged downpours have left land waterlogged and may cause shortages of homegrown produce as farmers are unable to sow. Time is running out for farms to save the harvest with spring planting, says the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB), which represents farmers.

    It called the situation “one of the most challenging for growers in recent times”.

    Rain in the autumn and winter has been at a 30-year high with more than twice the number of continuous rain days compared with a year before. The AHDB is warning even its mid-range forecast for wheat production for the 2020/21 growing season will be 10.7 million tons the lowest in 20 years”

    In China half their swine herd has been culled due to disease. The parallels with the early C14th (during the Wolf minimum) are striking:

    From :

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/411e1ce69ef2e154a217ad4ab359604875bb8f68a3f505ffd3ec2504988cd44f.png
    In areas of Europe where the panzootic and the heavy precipitation of c.1314–17 coincided, and in which the horse had not widely replaced the ox, grain supplies would have suffered tremendously.

    1. Morning Minty – Yes I know “We are doomed”

      Have a nice day everyone….

      1. Good morning, King Stephen. Are you talking to yourself, or are you Minty in disguise?

      1. Are the other deaths within China, or worldwide, if the latter it’s not comparing like with like.

        2. Worldwide I think but it’s making the point that there was such a hoo-ha about 108 deaths amongst a population in billions, while all sorts of nasties were happening on a daily basis without so much as a murmur.

      2. Are the other deaths within China, or worldwide, if the latter it’s not comparing like with like.

      3. Quite.
        And even if COVID-19 goes rogue, those that it kills will almost certainly have gone anyway, in and amongst the daily totals you provided!

        They must be very large mosquitoes.
        };-O

          1. Malaria, dengue, zika, yellow fever; etc etc etc etc.
            They are very, very nasty transmitters of diseases.

          2. Yes, I do remember when heading for Singapore in the early 80s I had to have jabs for all those nasties.

            Nowadays, none required because Singapore eradicated the mosquitoes by making it a criminal offence to allow standing water to pool on your property. Result – nowhere for mozzies to breed.

          3. I was in Malaya in the mid 60s, it was Tiger beer that kept the mossies at bay

    3. There used to be regular Christmastime TV ads (are they still broadcast?) along the lines of “last Christmas there were X deaths on the road every day; let’s reduce the numbers this year by driving more carefully”. The problem with these ads was always that the daily fatalities over the year were always much higher than X, so that the ads were broadcast at the wrong time of the year.

    4. Here’s a simple solution. Let’s all buy a driverless car and then stay at home to ensure we don’t catch the Corona virus. Then everyone’s driverless car can set out to clog up the roads and motorways and no-one at all will die. It’s a win-win situation, and marvellous for scrap metal dealers.

      :-))

    5. About 10 road deaths a day in the UK.
      About 1 road death a day in Norway.
      How many killed by falling downstairs? answer: Many more than by traffic.

        1. The last time I saw someone fall down the stairs I roared with laughter. Spoiler: I was watching PARASITE at the movies.

          1. ‘Morning, Elsie, and that reminds me…

            Some people are like Slinkies, not really good for anything, but you can’t help smiling when you see one tumble down the stairs.

          1. “Things obviously got better since I left…”
            In the voice of that Channel 4 woman;
            “So you’re saying you were responsible for killing 5 Brits a day when driving in the UK.”

          3. During the 1950s/60s, I think the British road deaths were around the 5,000 mark.
            And that was with 1/4 (?) of the cars now on the roads.
            Mind you, you could actually move, so that might have been the problem.

        1. We have a population of about 5.3 million… per capita, it’s carp compared with UK.
          Morning, V.

          1. Gosh I had no idea there were so few of you! We are doing well in the U.K. it was the “1 road death a day” that threw me.

        2. We have a population of about 5.3 million… per capita, it’s carp compared with UK.
          Morning, V.

  60. A YouTube video from this committed EV enthusiast reveals how the unregulated EV charging rates at public charging stations has resulted in running costs that can be as high as his diesel car:

    https://youtu.be/YKWEn1yFIws

    There will soon become a point when the latest advances in Euro6 diesel car designs will make them a more sensible purchase than the Government recommendation to buy a Euro4 diesel car ten years ago.

    1. Captive market, what did the idiots buying electric cars expect! His comments are more sensible than his sweatshirt would suggest.

      1. After watching this vid I feel that the Government is making the same mistake as when it convinced me to save the planet by buying a diesel car in 2009.

        1. I suspect they’ve had to put the price up as they’ve realised that if use builds up, their ultra fast chargers are going to overload the grid. Which is what some of us have been telling them for a long time.

  61. Climate change: Greenpeace stops Barclays from opening branches

    or how long are the police going to allow these criminal activities to continue ?. The police are no a total joke

    Almost 100 branches of Barclays bank were unable to open for business on Monday after Greenpeace obstructed the entrances.

    The campaign targeted branches across the UK to protest against the bank’s funding of oil and gas companies.

    Greenpeace claims among banks, Barclays is the biggest funder of fossil fuels in Europe. It wants the bank to switch its funding into renewable energy.

    Barclays said it is working to get the branches open as quickly as possible.

    In the early hours of Monday morning, 97 Barclays branches were targeted by Greenpeace, which disabled the doors preventing staff from entering.

    3. Having gone to the bank in Whitchurch, the lock had had small pins inserted with a gob of superglue. Apparently there is a demo in the city as well. I dont expect plod to be interested.

      1. That would be Whitchurch, Bristol, I take it, rather than Whitchurch Hampshire, Whitchurch Cardiff, Whitchurch Shropshire …

    1. They shouldn’t have left the safety of Turkey, then. Turkey isn’t a war zone, and is the first safe country after Turkey.
      Perhaps Turkey’s leader shouldn’t be bombing Syria, trying to remove Assad.

  63. Victoria Derbyshire show – trying hard to get the BBC emasculated soon:

    When Lord (Sir Bob) Kerslake appeared on the Victoria Derbyshire programme today to attack the Government over Sir Philip Rutnam, viewers could be forgiven for forgetting that he is an adviser to Jeremy Corbyn. Presumably for the sake of ideological balance he was on the show alongside former Labour Home Secretary Alan Johnson…

    Readers will remember Kerslake as fiercely biased Brexit saboteur ‘Comrade Bob‘. Just another one to add to the list of partisan guests introduced as impartial experts…

    https://order-order.com/2020/03/02/bbc-neglect-introduce-impartial-comrade-bob-labour-adviser/

    1. Yesterday, R4’s ‘World This Weekend’ had an interview with Robin Butler, Cabinet Secretary 1988-1998. Presenter Mark Mardell to Butler: “This sort of row usually happens at the end of governments, not the beginning. Do you think she (Patel) can survive?” Butler was admirably non-committal but throughout this and his earlier interviews, it was quite clear which side Mardell was on.

          1. Maybe, Anne, it’s because they are sh1t scared that she will do the job she’s in post to do.

    2. Hmmm. Is it a good idea to have cummings there? I have seen suggestions that Bojo’s bimbo and he are competing to control his decisions…..I do hope so….. but it does beg the question of whether Cummings has approved this liason going to the next level.

        1. I think I’ve initially gone crazy – who are all these abbreviated people?

  67. ‘Morning All

    Not one but three stories about the deployment of our troops to Mali

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/01/battle-sahel-new-frontline-war-terror/

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/01/british-troops-back-front-line-against-jihadists-war-terror/

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/terror-and-security/key-actors-battling-control-sahel/

    As seems usual these days the DT has this arse about face,our troops are not “joining the war on terror” thats being fought by the French in support of the old Malian regime in the usual no holds barred Froggy way with with just as much massacre,rape and murder as the “Rebels”

    “35.Strongly condemnsthe continued terrorist attacks against MDSF, expresses serious concernsabout repeated allegations of violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by MDSF in the conduct of counterterrorism operations, including in Central Mali, urgesthe Government of Mali to carry out transparent and credible investigations on alleged violations of International Law”

    https://www.un.org/press/en/2019/sc13867.doc.htm

    No our chaps are joining the Blue Helmets,the UN Peacekeepers best known by the name “Targets” as their rules of engagement always insist they must be actually fired on before they can act,this is the pesthole we are throwing them into with no support,no defined mission and no end date

    “Notingthat impunity can encourage a culture of corruption in which trafficking and other criminal interests can thrive, further encouraging instability and insecurity, and callingforthe Malian government to devote appropriate law enforcement resources in this regard and encouraginginternational, regional and sub-regional cooperation and support to the Malian Government in this endeavor,Strongly condemning the activities in Mali and in the Sahel region of terrorist organizations, including the Mouvement pour l’unicité et le jihad en Afrique de l’Ouest(MUJAO), Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Al-Mourabitoun, Ansar Eddine, and associated individuals and groups such as Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims), Islamic State in Greater Sahara and Ansaroul Islam, which continue to operate in Mali and constitute a threat to peace and security in the region and beyond, as well as human rights abuses and violence against civilians, notably women and children, committed in Mali and in the region by terrorist groups”

    https://undocs.org/S/RES/2374(2017)

    For the best description of the bus we have chucked our troops under I commend this essay

    Not if you believe that UN peacekeeping is a distinct and worthy
    instrument for conflict management and resolution. Doing so defeats the
    purpose of UN peacekeeping because counterterrorism undermines the
    impartiality principle of the former. The logic, ethics and purpose of
    counterterrorism are grounded in enmity: it needs to identify an enemy
    to destroy. By definition, UN peacekeepers are not supposed to have or
    identify enemies. Otherwise, they become just like all the other
    soldiers, lose what makes them unique, and might as well just go to war.
    Impartiality is, here, the key principle because it plays a fundamental
    function in drawing the limits to the use of force and its purpose.
    Impartiality does not prohibit peacekeepers from using military force,
    but severs the link between violent coercion and enmity; between the use
    of military force and the identification of an enemy. Instead, it links
    and limits the use of force to a political process and the search for a
    political solution.

    Q. In 2019, how stable is the situation in Mali?
    The situation seems to be going nowhere but downhill.
    https://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/blog/the-french-intervention-in-mali-an-interview-with-bruno-charbonneau

    1. 316745+ up ticks,
      Morning Rik,
      Surely there must be a clause in the health & safety rulings that automatically protects forces personnel
      on their return to the UK, ie be lawyered up, to battle the establishment on the home-front.

      1. Çur Philip Ratbum now has time on his hands.
        I’m sure he can place his ginormous intellect at the service of our returning troops.

        1. 316745+up ticks,
          Anne,
          That does read as more of a threat than protective assistance.

    2. French soldiers are being killed in the Sahel. The list of insurgent/terrorist/ boys with guns out for fun groups indicates that there can never be peace in our time. It is certain that these jihadis will attack UN peacekeepers who are useless. So UK troops will die for nothing, other than the lack of understanding in our politicians, whom one may guess have neither been to Mali, CAR, Burkina Faso, Niger or Chad, nor can they find them on a map.

      1. Africa is no place for British troops anymore ..

        We should not be risking anymore lives in the Godforsaken stench of the Middle East or Africa… for goodness sake there are over 30,000 unstoppable healthy migrants causing havoc tramping their way to Europe … the streets of Paris are infested with rioting blacks and browns , and boatloads of illegals are sailing across the channel..

        Why does Boris believe that sending a few hundred troops to Africa will sort any of these problems out… he is mistaken

        Think again for goodness sake.

        2. If Boris is hoping for gratitude from the French for protecting their investments we think that he is being over optimistic.

    3. Not another ‘liberated’ colony going down hill faster than a mat on a helter skelter?

  68. Two thirds of UK homes ‘fail on energy efficiency targets’

    BBC spin I suspect. The vast majority of homes in the UK would reach the Am, B, or C level. The way that energy efficiency is calculated is the back of a fag packet job in any case

    There wil b e older sold wall homs where it will be difficult to meet it and many of these will be listed making it even harder

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-50573338

    2. When homes are unheated, which is government policy, surely that means 100% energy efficiency ?

  69. A local councillor claimed there was a “dangerous Muslim agenda for
    world domination in the name of Allah”; as well as stating: “Wake up
    Britain or it will be too late we will ALL be Muslim!”
    A former council candidate who stated it would not be a “bad thing” if Muslims left the UK.
    Following
    the election of US President Donald Trump, a councillor posted:
    “Congratulations America!! The wall is coming up! Muslims not allowed in
    and Hispanic and illegal immigrants sent home!”
    A former council candidate who said they were “disturbed by the fecund Islamic population”.
    All reasonable statements to me JHB on the other hand…………………
    https://twitter.com/Sozzinski/status/1234499265914908672

    2. How many times does it need to be said?

      Islam is not a race, it is an ideology/religion.

    3. 316745+ up votes,
      Afternoon Rik,
      The ersatz tory party, a segment of the
      lab/lib/con coalition adhere to the
      submissive, PCism,Appeasement line
      closer than sh!te to a blanket, “nige” will tell you that as he follows it also.

  70. Now for the important stuff.
    Despite having tasted some nice things (oysters, caviar, pheasant, venison, lobster…) my idea* of luxury is tinned red salmon on a slice of white crusty bread. My memory suggests that the tinned salmon of yore was of much higher quality than it is now. The fish seem smaller, with more skin and more bones. Princes salmon is owned by Mitsubishi of Japan, the same company that bombed Perl Harbour. John West salmon is owned by the Thai Union Group of Thailand. The salmon comes, of course, from the NW Pacific notably Alaska. Am I off the mark to suspect that the best salmon is being sent to Japan and Asia?

    *I don’t know why. When I was young we were pretty poor, but always had good food, and fresh wild salmon was not unknown (“connegtions”), but I preferred tinned salmon with the bones, skin, and gooey bits removed, flaked with a little white wine vinegar. I still have it near the top of the list.

    1. M&S sell tinned, boned and skinless Alaskan salmon. I like it with a salad and new potatoes.

      1. We don’t buy from M&S after the Two Sisters incident, so can’t follow that up.

          2. They changed suppliers. And tinned Alaskan salmon is steamed to a high temperature to ensure it’s sterile.

        1. Unacceptable sense of humour is probably just as bad as other politically incorrect hate crimes.

          2. It has always been the case that one man’s humour is another man’s offence.

    3. “Princes salmon is owned by Mitsubishi of Japan,” I would have Zero confidence in them.

        2. Back in the ’90s I owned two Galant 2 litre saloons. Very well built and equipped as well as being extremely reliable, if a tad thirsty.

    4. I can remember the days whenever an OAP was accused of shoplifting, it was always for a tin of salmon.

      1. Free food always tastes sweeter.

        I came across an old cookery prog with Keith Floyd. He was filming in Scotland and visited Veronica, Lady MaClean. A grand Lady. She cooked whole poached salmon. She said when cooking for her and her husband she didn’t bother with the aromatics and just poached it plain. No stuff and nonsense about her.

    6. My eldest brother used to sell tinned food and said the best red salmon was Sockeye. I presume much is down to personal taste, like everything we eat and drink.

    8. On the fish front, I love tinned sardines on toast either in oil of tomato sauce. Apparently they have more nutritional value than fresh sardines. A delicious snack.

      1. I squish them into a rough paste in the tin then spread them on the toast with a bit of pepper and grill ’em.

        1. Anchovies on top of tinned tuna grilled on toast are pretty good. My mother used to do a fantastically good dressed fresh crab.

        2. I couldn’t do that. I have to remove and cast aside the central bit of the gut and the roes before squashing!

          1. I squish ’em without my reading glasses. After a thorough squishing you don’t see anything unsightly.

    9. Give me smoked cod’s liver on toast and I’m a very happy girl. Unfortunately Rastus can’t even stand the smell of the stuff, so I don’t have it very often.

      The other thing I have always loved is the Dutch salted, but raw, herring. Straight from the van in the village street into my mouth or, if I can bear to be patient, on toast back home. Again this is something I can’t have very often as there is a very short season for this treat and we are never in the Netherlands at that time! I’m afraid rollmops doesn’t even come close.

    10. We regularly buy excellent salmon here, “fresh”, frozen, or hot or cold smoked. We get both Pacific and Atlantic subspecies. I can’t imagine having to go back to tinned salmon.

      The Japanese are more into tuna – served very rare or raw.

      1. The flavours are completely different and tinned salmon has a delight all its own.

        1. They are very different – one tastes of salmon and the other does not. Along with tinned pilchards, tinned sardines and Shippam’s pastes, something I have happily moved on from.

    11. 316745+up ticks,
      Afternoon HP,
      Dripping on a doorstop would beat that hands down.

    1. The current hysteria over a virus named after cheap pop suggests that globalisation – i.e. relying on distant countries for your food, clothing and other essentials – has run its course.

    1. And the troops appear to be wearing the M1941 helmet. Why oh why can’t they get these simple details correct?

    1. I lived in Ilford until 2000, when we moved out to Essex. Being threatened with being shot because we’d looked across our road at someone was the final straw.
      It was already turning into a foreign country.

  74. President Trump’s attorney and former Mayor of New York Rudy W. Giuliani tells us…

    @RudyGiuliani

    Today’s episode reveals major criminal charges against close Soros associates for $343 MILLION, which is currently missing in foreign-aid, given during the Obama years. The report was covered up by the Obama administration for 2 years until I dug it out in December of 2019.

      1. I think things are starting to move.. and I think we should expect some surprises 😊

    1. Yep, Ali girgin, we really resent you guys ‘cos you come over to Europe and mistreat white girls. Your low moral culture cannot distinguish between your morals and ours.

    2. Our troops are busy in west Africa right at this moment training the locals to try to thwart the increase of isis terrorists.
      Meanwhile Our police are also busy guarding Islamic institutions in London, Mayfair in particular.

      1. In Senegal to help fight the terrorists in neighbouring Mali. Former French possessions. I think they backed out.
        Why do WE have to do everything and risk our forces’ lives ?
        The explanation given is crap. This is one thing an EU force could deal with.

          1. It was a work in progress, we just didn’t realise it at the time. They omitted to inform us of the complete plan.

          2. Corim, so did we, but the BBC gives the impression that once an illegal immigrant manages to make it to UK the chances of being returned to “the first safe country” are very remote.

            It is also interesting that the British government does not appear to be testing Iranians for Coronavirus, despite Iran having had the largest number of deaths after mainland China.

  76. UK warned it faces ‘big choice’ as it prepares for US trade talks

    I am not the familiar with Food standard but in general with standard you have to follow the standards of the country you are exporting to. We could choose to accept some US standards but not export those products to the EU

    Given the US is the other side of the Atlantic I doubt we will be importing fast amounts of US products. It is more likely processed foods they might export. E already import things like wheat and barley from the US

    Boris Johnson has been warned he faces a “big choice” between following EU or US standards – as the government reveals what it wants from talks with Donald Trump.

    Ministers will on Monday set out what they want – and don’t want – in a US-UK trade deal, with talks between the two sides expected to begin this month.

    Monday will also see the first round of trade talks between the UK and the EU’s negotiating teams in Brussels, following Britain’s exit from the bloc in January and entry into an 11-month Brexit transition period.

    Trade expert David Henig, the UK director of the European Centre for International Political Economy, warned the government would face a difficult decision as it conducts parallel trade negotiations with the US and EU.

    He told Sky News: “Both the EU and US would like us to adopt their food safety rules – we can’t adopt both of them as the EU doesn’t allow certain US food in.

    1. The Government does not follow any food standards, food producers do. I worked on exports to the EU countries and to Switzerland. We did what they required. No problems were encountered. I spent some considerable time in discussions with the FDA regarding exports to the USA. However, as they reserved to right to check goods imported and that could mean six week delay in getting to market that would have been well over our sell-by date for our fresh product. As there was no way round it we did not export to the USA. A single consignment stopped for a check would have lost us £25,000.

      1. The US authorities are very good at minor obstructions. Even with several “required” visas, work visits to the US were always subject to delays at immigration.

        Great for the US interests but an absolute pain for companies exporting to the US.

        1. One of the children got a job with an American cruise ship company. Their ships are American territory so the same stuff applied. She had to be medically checked and fill in all the forms and pay quite a lot of money. Not least because the doctor was in London and we are in Scotland.
          And the questions;
          “Are you now, or have you been at any time, a member of the Communist Party”
          “Have you ever worked as a prostitute?”

      2. The US is hardly a market for fresh products given the distance. They wold also need to be air freighted which is expensive

        Food standards at present still seem to be very much National where as product standards are becoming more international although not quite there yet the standards around the world are very close now. There are some essential differences such as mains voltages and plug types and or course languages

        1. Yes, we sent our products to Switzerland by air. We were good at what we did, and made substantial profits.

          1. Switzerland is a lot nearer than the US and even when you get food to the US it is a huge country to distribute them to so not a good market for short life products

          2. Actually Bill, we were very successful. We supplied Migros – the Swiss Co-op – with fresh product with a shelf life of around 15 days. The various branches of Migros (different cantons) sent their vans to meet the plane at the airport. When our pallets were unloaded they were put on the relevant van to go off to their own area. We supplied quite large volumes. The operation ran like clockwork every week. The only problem that occurred in the space of some years was when Swissair “bumped” us off in Heathrow to make way for the luggage of a rock band.
            The MD of Swissair was told his forebears and his fortune in no uncertain terms.
            Of course as you say the US is different and one sets thing up appropriately. (We also supplied a Casino in Corsica – now that was interesting!)

        2. Much of the “fresh” fruit sold in Canada originates in South Africa or Chile, so distance is not much of an issue.

    2. What they would like and what they get are two different things. It’s just part of their negotiating tactics.

      1. US food standard are pretty good. I dont understand the EU’s stance on chlorinated chicken. It seems to be more to protect the EU from competition. Thy say that there are no issues with washing chicken with chlorine but try to claim this is used instead of having proper hygiene and welfare standard in the slaughter houses. It is clearly wrong as the US has pretty good standard with this

        Washing raw meet in chlorine i very sensible. It is the surface of meat where contamination can occur so chlorine helps prevent this

        It is also the reason you can eat a rare steak as the surface is cooked and any germs etc will be cooked. You should though not eat a raw burger as only the outside will be cooked and and the raw mince inside could be contaminated

          2. I suspect the chef didn’t sit on it long enough to tenderise it properly, in the traditional Tatar fashion.

          5. In Germany raw minced pork (Mett) is considered a delicacy. With chopped onion & black pepper it tastes good. No buffet is complete without it.

          6. We always bring back a dozen little “Mini-Mett”, freeze them – lasts us a while for brekkie treats.

    1. This situation is going to end in bloodshed if Greece is determined to protect its borders

      1. And it’s going to end in far far greater bloodshed if they are all allowed in.

        Better to nip it in the bud as far as I’m concerned.

    2. There ought be a test devised to assess a potential immigrant’s basic humanity which has to be passed before he or she is allowed entry into Europe.

      1. White, Christian, speaks good English, knows how to use a knife and fork, is well washed, polite and loves bacon sandwiches.

    2. Am I missing something here? Why is Patel portrayed as the dummy-chucker rather than the drip who ran away?

      1. To get the answer, recall who the Standard’s editor is.

        Adams is a brilliant cartoonist, but he still needs to keep the editor on-side.

          1. He was the DT’s resident for quite a while and my suspicion is that the ES poached him because of quality.

  79. The BBC is certainly going for Patel. It claims to have dug up a case of ‘bullying’ when she was at the DWP. A young female employee was the victim and, allegedly, later attempted to take her own life.

    Rodent Corbyn also had a go in the HoC today. I wonder if her critics would be so keen to go for a ‘person of colour’ if it were not for the immigration bill.

    1. “The government is to investigate whether Home Secretary Priti Patel has breached the ministerial code,
      amid allegations of bullying.

      Cabinet office minister Michael Gove confirmed the inquiry after an urgent question from Jeremy Corbyn.”
      It really should be Corbyn who should be investigated, and his mates at the BBC. I just heard it from them on the car radio;
      absolutely 100 per cent biased.
      Boris should have told them to take a running jump.I hope this mess doesn’t stop her from sorting out a few more of the bastards.

      1. I think it is the Cabinet Secretary who will conduct the enquiry. The Home Office needs to do its job and send back illegal immigrants. There was a report on BBC Radio 4 this morning that youths out on probation were significantly involved in knife attacks. The Justice system is not fit for purpose. A tough Home Secretary is necessary in these troubled times.

        1. The Cabinet Secretary?
          I wonder who they might favour.

          If they had any honour whatsoever they would immediately recuse themselves.

          1. Wiki may not be the best source but it’ll do:

            “In most cases the true influence of the Cabinet Secretary extends far beyond administrative matters, and reaches to the very heart of the decision making process. For instance, the Cabinet Secretary is responsible for administering the Ministerial Code which governs the conduct of ministers. In this duty the Cabinet Secretary may be asked to investigate leaks within government, and enforce Cabinet discipline. This gives the unelected Cabinet Secretary some authority over elected ministers (a situation satirised in the BBC sitcom Yes, Prime Minister).”

            The CS is, of course, Mark Sedwill, who spoke out against the criticism of Olly Robins in the autumn of 2018.

          3. Well, quite, but it’s an answer to anyone who might be a bit surprised by the appointment of Sedwill.

            Who will blink first?!

          8. Are you suggesting that Sir Mark Sedwill who is the head of the Civil Service and the man responsible for appointing Philip Rutnam might not be entirely impartial?

  80. As the panic spreads to sport.

    Why not play all the games and competitions in empty stadiums?
    (and yes, any pedantic morons, I know that it should be stadia)
    The competitions could still be televised.

    1. With Easter break coming up in April will people be advised to remain in the UK rather than venture abroad. The two cases in Leeds yesterday were in Iran recently . Were they checked at the airport?

      1. No.
        No.

        I am starting to think that we can’t really control it, so let it rip.

        If it’s as lethal as some suggest, so be it. It will wipe out the less “Darwinian” fit, probably me amongst them.
        If it’s a storm in a petri dish we’ll soon see.
        Death by a thousand cuts? No thanks, get it over with.

    2. No money in it, presumably, from all those lovely, juicy attendance/seat fees.

  82. 316745+ up ticks,
    Why not to save a great deal of travel & deaths incurred
    close the borders as tight as a ducks bum stop paying out in-house welfare & rename overseas aid, “Welfare”.
    They get a few bob we get a great deal more
    peace / quite & security which is far from being forthcoming via the current political pelt.

    .

    1. They seem to do all right in the TV industry. Dr Who was like Diversity Bingo last night.

    2. It would appear that hard working Indians, although from Asia, are excluded from BAME because they …………work hard?

  84. I read this morning that as we know the Corona outbreak originated in Wuhan, it is said to be the only lab in China that deals with these sort of bacterial infections. But apparently lab assistants can become quite wealthy after they have finished their experiments, when they sell off the animals to the local population !

  85. Good news! We’re changing our prices, saving you £43.47 per year. These changes will come into effect on 1 April.

    The cost of gas has come down a lot, while the cost of electricity has increased. We’re changing our prices to make sure they reflect the true cost of energy.

    After this, we’ll be £217 cheaper than the government’s price cap for a typical home.

    Gas prices are down

    We’re passing the savings on to you by lowering your gas unit rate from 3.371p to 2.725p per kWh. We’re keeping our gas standing charge the same.

    Electricity costs have increased

    We’re increasing our electricity rate from 13.587p to 14.255p per kWh. And we’re increasing our electricity standing charge from 20.444p to 20.558p per day. These numbers all

    1. Yes, they said they would reduce the gas prices as soon as the winter season ended and they had already cleaned up.

    2. My electricity bill will drop a whole pound a year!

      It really is comical. At the start of winter ‘due to the high price of gas, we’re having to raise prices *gouge*.

      When gas demand drops and electricity remains constant ‘we’re having to raise the price of electricity *gouge*.

      As for this price cap – the cost of energy is made expensive by the state. Perhaps if the taxes on it were cut (no doubt soon to be excluded from the cap nor VAT) then energy would be cheaper all round and we would all be more productive?

    3. Ontario Hydro has several prices that they can juggle, so their price savings go along the line of:

      We are reducing the unit cost of electricity starting in April. Effective immediately, the delivery charge will increase.

  89. Brendan O’Neil I’m afraid Oi Laffed

    The liberal-left and even some on the supposedly

    radical left have a new hero: Sir Philip Rutnam. Yes, they’re now

    worshipping functionaries. They’re now falling at the feet of starched,

    bureaucratic civil servants. Worse, they seem to have completely

    forgotten about the Windrush scandal and the hostile environment policy –

    both of which were overseen by Sir Philip in his role as permanent

    secretary at the Home Office – in the rush to make him the hero of the

    hour. Why? Because Rutnam has crossed swords with Priti Patel, and the

    EU-pining, Boris-hating, populism-fearing left loathes nobody more than

    Priti Patel. Genghis Khan could have a pop at Priti and they’d be

    calling him a legend, such is the depth of their dislike for that ‘nasty

    woman’.

    The speed and obsequiousness with which leftish people canonised

    Rutnam following his resignation on Saturday was alarming. Most of them

    probably hadn’t heard of him prior to his flounce, but suddenly he was a

    cross between Mother Teresa and Winston Churchill, the bestest civil

    servant of our time, the steady, wise, clever counter to the rabid

    ideologism of the Boris mob. A breathless Guardian editorial

    likened Boris Johnson’s government to the Jacobin terror, with its use

    of ‘studied recklessness’ to ‘disrupt [and] demoralise’ representatives

    of ‘the ancien regime’, like Sir Philip, the People’s Civil Servant, the

    Bureaucrat of our Hearts. Steady on, Guardianistas: Rutnam has only

    lost his job, not his head.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/03/02/functionaries-against-the-people/

    1. See if you can say this without stumbling –
      ” The Greek police dismisseth us “”.

  91. From GF, the poster Bob reminds us that, at 73, President Trump is now the youngest candidate for the Presidency of the USA.

  92. 316745+up ticks,
    Dear members,
    Your Interim Leadership Team continues to work tirelessly to right the wrongs of previous failed leaderships and ensure our party has the best possible chance of survival and political relevance. We must ensure our party remains viable and ready to take up the political void once again when Boris begins to slip and when the Labour Party elects a Remainiac as its leader.

    “Previous failed leaders” current NEc speak.

    Reality, one Gerard Batten took on interim leadership
    raised 13000 new members, asked the membership for £100,000 received in reply £300,000.
    Prevented from standing in leadership elections by the NEc.
    Reality. one Richard Braine won the leadership elections outright very convincingly, was stopped by the NEc from making Gerard Batten the deputy leader, was then blocked from making contact with the membership by the NEc.

    These ex leaders are judged by the current NEc to be
    “not of good standing” within the party.

    This is what the decent remaining members of the “real” UKIP are fighting, if this ersatz NEc is allowed to get away with such treachery then no others, outside of the lab/lib/con coalition party will be safe.

    1. Couldn’t agree more.
      No mention from them about holding another leadership election.

      1. 316745+ up ticks,
        Evening Ims2,
        Check out Gerard Battens twitter page he mentions it there,
        3 K a candidate, rigged for no contenders, serious treachery then read up on ben walker current interim chairman, more front than brighton.

          1. 316745+ up ticks,
            Ims2,
            Hence he is AKA ben the bodger.
            Found fit to stand as Interim chairman of the ersatz UKIP party
            by the current NEc.
            Ps,
            He led the anti Batten charge initially.

  93. As it seems this COVID-19 virus is going to do what a virus does, and ‘go viral’ I thought the following might be useful if only because it tells you when you should seek medical intervention.

    IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT – CORONAVIRUS
    Last evening dining out with friends, one of their uncles, who’s graduated with a master’s degree and who worked in Shenzhen Hospital (Guangdong Province, China) sent him the following notes on Coronavirus for guidance:
    1. If you have a runny nose and sputum, you have a common cold
    2. Coronavirus pneumonia is a dry cough with no runny nose.
    3. This new virus is not heat-resistant and will be killed by a temperature of just 26/27 degrees. It hates the Sun.
    4. If someone sneezes with it, it takes about 10 feet before it drops to the ground and is no longer airborne.
    5. If it drops on a metal surface it will live for at least 12 hours – so if you come into contact with any metal surface – wash your hands as soon as you can with a bacterial soap.
    6. On fabric it can survive for 6-12 hours. normal laundry detergent will kill it.
    7. Drinking warm water is effective for all viruses. Try not to drink liquids with ice.
    8. Wash your hands frequently as the virus can only live on your hands for 5-10 minutes, but – a lot can happen during that time – you can rub your eyes, pick your nose unwittingly and so on.
    9. You should also gargle as a prevention. A simple solution of salt in warm water will suffice.
    10. Can’t emphasise enough – drink plenty of water!
    THE SYMPTOMS
    1. It will first infect the throat, so you’ll have a sore throat lasting 3/4 days
    2. The virus then blends into a nasal fluid that enters the trachea and then the lungs, causing pneumonia. This takes about 5/6 days further.
    3. With the pneumonia comes high fever and difficulty in breathing.
    4. The nasal congestion is not like the normal kind. You feel like you’re drowning. It’s imperative you then seek immediate attention.
    SPREAD THE WORD – PLEASE SHARE.

    Edit: ps received by email this morning.

    2. I have been laid up since yesterday with a temperature of 100F and headache. It started with a cough on Saturday, no sore throat, but very sore trachea after coughing all day. The cough has mostly gone, but the headache and raised temperature remain. I’ve taken to the sofa after two days in bed. I’m not short of breath, and it’s not getting worse, although it’s not getting better either.
      Just popped in to say hi to everyone.

        1. Thank you.
          Got up and out of bed this evening. Just as well, as the cat was seriously crossing her legs. MOH has ignored cleaning the cat litter box…or is unaware of its existence.

      2. Hi! – stay positive, lots of fluids, don’t dehydrate. There are many winter viruses with similar symptoms. We had one just after Christmas, it started on 28 December – it swept us off our feet that evening – after the first time ever being away for a hotel stay in the Yorkshire Dales over Christmas (where I think we caught it). We had much fatigue, sore thoat, aching back, feeling freezing all over, stomach upset then three days later the nose started, copious amounts of runny nose which went on for four or five days, far longer than normal with these things. But…. no fever. It felt like ‘flu, but it wasn’t (no burning up) and somehow we knew that because the following day after it started I was able to go food shopping in the morning, but then that really was it. With ‘flu once you are off your feet and laid low that is it, there is no ‘coming to’ until it is finished. And it still keeps coming back for another bite two months later.

        Take care, a hot toddy of lemon, honey, and ginger (good for the immune system) and a dash of whisky might be comforting. Let us know how you get on. Keep warm. Do not hesitate to phone for assistance if you are starting to struggle with your breathing. You would have to be awfully unlucky to have got this covid-19 virus so early on its infecting the British public.

    3. Anti-bacterial anything is ineffective against viruses. Sounds like washing your hands thoroughly in soap and water as hot as you can bear it would be better advice.

      1. True, but it stops secondary infections creeping in whilst the immune system is otherwise occupied dealing with the virus.

    4. Thank you. I have sent that to friends and family.
      There is just so much hysteria and disinformation surrounding this particular bug.

    5. 3. This new virus is not heat-resistant and will be killed by a temperature of just 26/27 degrees. It hates the Sun.

      Wheel out the Friar’s Balsam, kettle of water, bowl and towel…Just like mummy used to make!

      1. I remember that! You just don’t see that now, does anybody do that? Yes, get that hot steam going up those nostrils once again!

        2. I bought some a few years ago, but it was very weak compared to the stuff my mother used to use when I was a child. That was eyewatering.
          PS there’s a seller on Ebay doing it. But they are in Australia…

          1. There are three bottles for sale on Amazon, priced at £34 something…. each!!

  94. Just listened to a prog on R4 about William Shockley, the father of the transistor. As I expected, they finished by accusing him of being a white supremacist. Well, now. I remember seeing him interviewed by David Frost. He was concerned with what he called “welfare moms” – young women who produced large numbers of children who were brought up at the taxpayers’ expense, their fathers being absent. He proposed offering vulnerable young women $1000 (50 years ago!) for every point that their IQ was below 100 to be sterilised.

    So what’s racist about that? True, the vast majority of welfare moms happened to be black, but that was no fault of his.

  95. An interesting comment from Lord Tebbit in his article in today’s DT. Lord Tebbit is renowned for the total, unswerving loyalty and support he has always given his wife and especially after the evil IRA Tory Conference bombing which crippled her:

    “Boris Johnson has not found it easy to settle down to married life in the past, but hopefully this time it will be different.”

    I must say Lord Tebbit does a very good line in ironic euphemism.

  97. A quick plea, if anyone wants to post advice about coronavirus please simply link to NHS advice and not well meaning but probably wrong, viral emails claiming to be what someone heard at a dinner party.

      2. Well I didn’t read that claim, but I did note the person posting one piece of dinner party expertise subsequently stated that she wouldn’t be surprised if the virus was released to kill off the elderly.

        1. Lots of expertise to be found in a bottle or several of wine… suddenly every bugger is an expert.

          1. The longer I live, the less I rely totally on experts; particularly experts with a vested interest.

            Climate change? Tobacco? DDT? Religion?

          2. Jeez, I’ve just spotted a post claiming the virus can become dormant and then be reactivated via 5G.

    2. I agree.
      But does it occur to you that some of the NHS advice might be what suits the NHS, rather than what might be best for the individual?

      1. No, the NHS is stuffed full of experts in disease and public health unlike the average dinner party.

        1. Then I’m guessing you’ve never experienced being sent home by the NHS with: “there’s nothing wrong” and then later being told in A&E that what your family member has is life-threatening. I have.

          The NHS at the expert level will certainly be more knowlegeable, but please don’t tell me that a call centre individual is the only source.

          1. I haven’t said that at all. I’ve been clear that should rely on NHS advice. You can prioritise unattributed internet posts if you like.

          2. As I said, I’ve relied on NHS advice.

            It’s nearly killed some of my family.

            Better NHS advice, after challenge, saved them.

      2. As far as I can tell, the NHS advice is about the same as the CDC advice here.

        In either case, one has to hope that the various medical facilities are fully geared up for the sheer number of people who will need testing for Covid-19.

        One difference is advice re masks. The medics here are saying they are basically worthless in terms of protecting the wearer – you would need a medical quiality respirator to be protected.

  98. BTL:
    Robert Goodman
    2 Mar 2020 2:38PM
    I’ve got self isolation cracked if I need it. The local takeaways take a card payment over the phone and leave my order in the porch. I’m relying on vindaloo to kill off any virus. 🙂

    1. This morning there was a discussion about using alcohol to clean your hands. Bugger that, I’m not wasting good booze on my hands. I’m swallowing it and any virus that gets inside me is DOOMED.😎

    1. I guess there must be wisdom in the madness re wearing a Burkah .. lots of protection..

      I suppose certain hot countries will be immune to this frightening virus?

      2. 316745+up ticks,
        Evening TB,
        I see it as a ginormus poachers
        pocket, move around the burka
        please room for one more rocket launcher.
        The main use is concealing IDs.

      3. By wearing that hideous outfit, those women are self-isolating. Who would want to go anywhere near someone dressed like that?

  101. Tommy’s 8 year old daughter assaulted

    “If there were two lessons to take away from this terrible experience,

    it would be that little girls think by telling the truth, they will get

    their daddy’s arrested and sent to Prison. Secondly, it gives a

    disturbing insight as to how Police deal with child sex offenders, the

    offender being let off, the child victim left with the feeling of not

    being taken seriously or believed, and the dad, the protector, punished

    for doing what a dad should do.

    Now we can see how and why vulnerable girls all across the UK have no

    confidence in the Police. And why the Rape of Britain happened.”

    https://www.tr.news/centre-parcs-child-molesting-nonce-has-tommy-arrested/
    Words Fail Me

      1. 316745+ up ticks,
        Evening Ims2,
        The results of decades of unchecked intake, in many cases covered up for the good name of the party.
        In the main by governance employees as the Jay report revealed.
        Even with ALL the evidence and undeniable proof of
        establishment cover ups there is still an element of doubting Thomases, on this occasion,
        doubting Tommy.

    2. Ask a silly question.

      Did any other child get similarly assaulted?

      If not, perhaps it was a set up.

      If so, why has nobody else come forward?

      And against my own scepticism, what has the world come to when one doubts almost every report…

      1. 316745+ up ticks,
        A pure tripe reply & seemingly
        two supporters, not rotherham council members are you per chance ?

    4. Tommy was gobsmacked, the man admitted to pinching his daughters bum “by mistake”.

      You have to wonder here if the whole thing was a setup!

  109. King Ozymandias of Assyria was running low on cash after years of war with the Hittites. His last great possession was the Star of the Euphrates, the most valuable diamond in the ancient world. Desperate, he went to Croesus, the pawnbroker, to ask for a loan.

    Croesus said, “I’ll give you 100,000 dinars for it.”

    “But I paid a million dinars for it,” the King protested. “Don’t you know who I am? I am the king!”

    Croesus replied:

    “When you wish to pawn a Star,
    it makes no difference who you are.”

  110. From the Guardian now –

    ”
    Pressure mounts on Priti Patel to quit amid fresh bullying claims ”

    A very long article, but I see no pressure. The Guardian is putting a great deal of energy into
    their hate exercise and quoting Corbyn.

    I think it is absolutely essential that she should keep her job.

  111. My birthplace – kids used to play out; obesity weren’t a problem (a town on the way down; white privilege not a phrase ever used) – last one is Wallsend High Street, 1949 – by that time I was a nipper in North Shields https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e6558d0f0a6a264c5d7d0bbcde1e9d70d1a82cea78fce0e4611405811329fae6.jpg :

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/13aaa498fe8624a2ec4711ed4a041d017fd70325d31ae7da28f3d2d053c55410.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/aaa2304bafb8bf09eda11d9514006d8b737ec285b9dc2ec0f6ef61e36c5bca67.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8c894e837346a1f2dea32fbb312f94c81b2a60e0bddd6731921fba52b032e54c.jpg

    2. 316745+ up votes,
      Evening LD,
      I stayed in Clara street for a while Benwall, spent some time in Walker gate hospital in a isolation ward scarlet fever, coming out day they found I had got chicken pox, back in.
      Years later a lad in Africa asked if we had tribes in England him being marked up tribally, I pointed out the cp holes in the forehead and admitted to being in the crib tribe, motto being
      15/2 15/4 & one for his hat.

  112. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/united-kingdom/england/essex/articles/essex-is-most-underrated-county-in-uk/

    Essex girls and buoys.

    Those who have read all twelve of Arthur Ransome’s books in The Swallows and Amazons series will remember with affection the eighth book in the series, ‘Secret Water’ which was set in the Essex marshes. The other adventures such as ‘Missee Lee’, ‘We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea’ and ‘Peter Duck’ also started on the Essex coast. ‘Coot Club’ and ‘The Big Six’ were set on the Norfolk Broads

    1. Missee Lee was the one I loved best. Especially her description of an English breakfast. And the last page, where the junk is moored in St Mawes harbour. I haven’t seen it there on my last few trips though.

        1. I was saddened when the garage underneath stopped being a garage with a pump for the yachts to top up their engine fuel tanks with. But then I would miss the Coop, which is rather more upmarket than others I have seen. They must make a packet, it’s always packed.

          1. We used to live at The Thatched House in Tredenham Road which had a magnificent view looking directly towards Carricknath Point and Pendennis Castle and, on a clear day you could see the coast between Helford and the Manacles.

            I used to get the Harbour Garage to help me put bits which had fallen off my Triumph Roadster back on for me. An old boy called Ben Johns was a wizard mechanic who could fix anything.

      1. A rather sad reflection of our times is that in the new film Titty, the artistically perceptive child in the Walker family, has had her name changed to Tatty ‘to avoid giving offence’. I should imagine she was Christened Laetitia and not Tatiana.

    3. My daughter, now aged 55 has all my 12 books. I remember having rheumatic fever at age 7 and made to sit out on the lawn in the sun and started to work my way through them.

  114. Millions of chickens are being bred to grow at an unnaturally fast rate on factory farms, the RSPCA claims.The charity says the majority of the billion birds reared each year are suffering from shocking cruelty with accelerated growth affecting their internal organs.The accelerated growth causes the heart and lungs struggle to cope, leading to high death rates
    https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1249603/British-chickens-rspca-growth-die-death-killed-factory-farming-study

    Chlorinated chicken anyone….?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/13f229b6e288f50735052715682abbe7af9cf1996971f29936630c474e93879c.jpg

    1. But at least they aren’t chlorine washed, after all we do have our standards to maintain.

  115. ‘Morning all. What a great start to the day. Just had my first-ever big win on the PBs: £500. Feeling quite chuffed!

        1. Would you believe I have PBs from a school essay competition I won from 1959! But in those days they did not have a bond holders card with a number so I have been unable to check if I ever had any winnings.

          1. You can check online. I had £5 worth that I bought umpteen years ago. I won £10 three years in succession. Then it stopped.
            Put them in a box somewhere and forgot about them. Changed address a few times.Checked the numbers 30 years later and received the news that I had not won a penny.

          2. I’m sure you can check with NS&I using the PB numbers, Jill. Who knows, you may be a millionairess!

    2. Nice one!
      I’ve only received a £25 consolation prize this month, that makes it £250 over the past year.

        1. The best I’ve had were 5 x Consolation prizes last March.
          I’ve arranged to have my winnings reinvested to give me a better chance of, if not the Big One, then, hopefully one of the larger ones.

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