Tuesday 17 June: There should be no equivocation over Israel’s right to neutralise Iran

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

521 thoughts on “Tuesday 17 June: There should be no equivocation over Israel’s right to neutralise Iran”

  2. Good morning, chums. And thanks, Geoff, for today's new NoTTLe page.

    Wordle 1,459 4/6

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    1. Funny how all the people shouting racist are white. Not a Pakistani muslim among them. Odd, that.

    2. And now, every single one of those finger pointing statists should be feeling very worried.

      The state must be shredded and the rot of diversity burned out.

    1. Good morning. Fresh hand picked dressed Dorset crab arriving today. I'm going to sit in the locked broom cupboard with the light off to eat it.

    3. A very strong admission that the grooming gangs in question are predominantly Muslim.

    4. If this isn't a spoof then these councils' timing is a bit off…

      Re Baroness Casey's report: basic military tenet, "do not reinforce failure".

    5. I still think that although we know that Islamic grooming gangs are being exposed , one must not forget that there are are / have been public figures who have been a total disgrace , who have been exposed as kiddy fiddlers , and that there will be more , probably smirking in the background knowing that the attention of the authorities is pointing in another direction ..

      How do we know .. cynical me would worry about senior police, judiciary , doctors, etc etc could also be villains?

    6. There is some point in that – most of these gangs are not "Asian"! They are from a specific group, who apparently may not be named!

      1. They are not Japanese, Chinese, Malaysian etc….
        They are from an incestuous back water of Pakistan.
        Why unearth, with their total lack of any discernible skills and their long tail of scrounging relatives they were ever allowed into this country ….. is not a mystery.
        A deadly combination of reflexive cringe and naked vote harvesting.

        1. And Turks. Saudis. Albanians. Romanians. Throwing the net suitably wide would prove that massive uncontrolled gimmigration has done nothing but ruin this country.

    7. Considering it's insulting to the vast majority of Asia, let's call them muslim rape gangs then.

      And that's not muslimphobic. It's the truth. Should they proclaim it such then those having done so should be arrested for aiding and abetting child rape inn the morning and in the afternoon flogged and hanged.

      1. "Truth's a dog that must to kennel. He must be whipped out, when Lady Brach may stand by th' fire and stink "
        [King Lear]

        A modern translation could be that:

        "Truth's a hate crime and those who speak it should be locked up while the woke sneer in comfort."

      2. Over twenty years ago, one group of child-molesting men was readily identified by their religious connections in that they were Catholic priests and the church covered it up. There were no howls of outrage at this fact being pointed out.

    8. Not all Asians are Muslims but are all the members of the Pakistani rape gangs Muslims?

  8. So Starmer has been dragged kicking and screaming into signing a trade deal with the USA and agreeing to a grooming gang scandal public inquiry.
    Trump is still winning, I see.
    Thank god.

    1. Well the “deal” he’s done with the EU means we won’t be having smoky bacon crisps anymore. Way to go, Starmfuehrer.

  10. A few home truths from controlled opposition site Vigilant Fox courtesy of parasite class insider Tucker Carlson.

    "the U.S. intelligence community says Iran isn’t building a nuclear weapon. Tulsi Gabbard confirmed that just three months ago"

    The article appears to take for granted that the US is behind Israel's attack on Iran (no surprise there, as their lust to invade Iran has been known for years)
    https://www.vigilantfox.com/p/tucker-carlson-issues-chilling-warning?publication_id=975571&post_id=166109427&isFreemail=true&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoxMzUxNDQ4MTIsInBvc3RfaWQiOjE2NjEwOTQyNywiaWF0IjoxNzUwMTIyODMwLCJleHAiOjE3NTI3MTQ4MzAsImlzcyI6InB1Yi05NzU1NzEiLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.357yBg4q4thkREj9t0RtxDBproNqoyErN9uah2O9LiY&r=28gmek&triedRedirect=true&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

  11. A few home truths from controlled opposition site Vigilant Fox courtesy of parasite class insider Tucker Carlson.

    "the U.S. intelligence community says Iran isn’t building a nuclear weapon. Tulsi Gabbard confirmed that just three months ago"

    The article appears to take for granted that the US is behind Israel's attack on Iran (no surprise there, as their lust to invade Iran has been known for years)
    https://www.vigilantfox.com/p/tucker-carlson-issues-chilling-warning?publication_id=975571&post_id=166109427&isFreemail=true&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoxMzUxNDQ4MTIsInBvc3RfaWQiOjE2NjEwOTQyNywiaWF0IjoxNzUwMTIyODMwLCJleHAiOjE3NTI3MTQ4MzAsImlzcyI6InB1Yi05NzU1NzEiLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.357yBg4q4thkREj9t0RtxDBproNqoyErN9uah2O9LiY&r=28gmek&triedRedirect=true&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

    2. Oats are far better for you than most cereals, though. I'd point out that the compound doesn't prevent, it slows.

    3. Oats are far better for you than most cereals, though. I'd point out that the compound doesn't prevent, it slows.

    4. They can't be that bad.
      M-i-L has porridge for breakfast every day.
      100 next year and still lives independently and apart from Covid jabs!!!! takes no medicines at all.

    5. I have a huge bowl of porridge every morning topped with cinnamon and sultanas

  14. Phytic acid, also known as phytate, is a naturally occurring compound found in plant seeds, including legumes, cereals, and nuts. It acts as the primary storage form of phosphorus in these seeds. While phytic acid has antioxidant and potential health benefits, it can also act as an antinutrient by binding to minerals like iron, zinc, and calcium, reducing their absorption in the human body.

  15. Good morning, Johnny. Does this mean that all men are bounders and reprobates? They always claim that they are keen to get their oats. Lol.

  16. Good morning, all. Blue sky and high broken cloud. Two spraying aircraft have created a perfect X to the south-west. Redcurrant jelly to make: I got the pruning right this year as I am overwhelmed by redcurrants – 10lbs, including stalks from one bush and three more bushes to pick.

    Light hearted silly stuff amongst the gloom.

    https://x.com/Thebestfigen/status/1934591154378383645

      1. Not great, Elsie but you're welcome to the crop when it's ready. I have so much soft red fruit this year i.e. redcurrants, raspberries and loganberries I do not need the bullace. Also, I have two gooseberry bushes to pick and I haven't decided whether to turn the fruit into jelly – very nice – or make crumbles.

        When I've broken the back of jelly production you must come around for lunch and we can tackle the magnum of Malbec.

  18. Ever since the arrival of Windrush and the mass immigration era all kicked off coming up for near on 80 years ago our country has been a world leader in race relations, with pioneering social campaigns to change public opinions, from charities to social media to tv programmes all dedicated to exposing and calling out any form of racism, condemning people that have said anything that could be remotely perceived as racist, books have been edited, history has been rewritten, national heroes of the past have been condemned, once respected people have lost their careers and cancelled.
    Yet I have just this one reservation, how with all these measures in place, how could the grooming gang scandals have gone on for so long and with nobody in authority calling them out as sectarian racist crimes, these crimes are clearly racially motivated, there could not be a more clear and blatant example of racism.
    Even with the announcement in Parliament yesterday, nobody mentioned the racial motivation behind it all.
    Where are all the people that have been part of the anti racism agenda, why are they so quiet?
    If they had just done their job on a one tier basis then we would not be having this issue, it wouldn't have happened.
    Are they to blame too?

  19. 407584+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Agreed DAN,

    BUT, ALL 650 are encapsulated within the houses of parliament which is currently, and has been for some three plus decades, in the hands of the political emema's

    This inquiry MUST have very serious external input
    independent of political and political employees
    ( police, etc,etc)

    If I had the power I would put the inquiry peoples input brief in the hand of a new uncontaminated party as in,
    the Farmers Food and and Freedom Party.

    This party has a very, very serious interest in the future
    of England as a Country far more so that the inmates
    of the governing house of horrors.

    Their interest would also be inclusive of the very young folk ( potential young farmers) one might add their interest would far outweigh the interest shown in parliament since "miranda"unleashed the foreign
    paedophilefess on the innocents.

    The mainstay of England, the very hearts of oak backbone, has always had farmers among the top
    peoples, recent history has taught even the village idiots that a new party is sorely needed, independent
    of the HP sauce factory,

    https://x.com/Kingbingo_/status/1934677537931841811

    1. 407684+ up ticks,

      O2O,

      Independently via people power back
      her findings up with action ongoing,
      or be prepared to live in the biggest
      child brothel on the planet,with left wing day trips for paedophiles from Calais.

    2. Hundreds of thousands. In fact, just start now. Round up the muslim and deport them.

      It's Brexit all over again. Over two thirds of the House were fighting to remain and force another referendum, one third were fighting to Leave and were being hamstrung at every turn by the government refusing to adapt.

    1. The deal fell apart even before it's implemented. Starmer trying to pick up the pieces.

    2. I suspect that was a deliberate move to show up Stoma in front of the cameras; a cringing supplicant.

    3. It's bad optics all round, really. Why put loose paper in a document specifically designed to pin them behind plastic covers precisely for such a situation?

  21. 'Morning All
    Al-Beeb
    "We're saved,thank god WE'RE SAVED
    Finally a White British rape gang convicted now maybe those far-right racist bigots will shut up about the hundreds of Islamic rape gangs"
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c89g293zj2ko
    Is the Casey report actually available to us Hoi-Poloi??
    Can we read it and judge for ourselves??
    A quick reminder not one of the customers who queued on staircases for a ride on a white child has EVER been convicted only a few of the pimps
    Complicit police and local officials?? Nope none of them either
    MSM headlines today where were you bastards over the last 20 years??
    Cowering in fear of being called "racist"
    I have no word for how much I despise you cowards
    Edit
    This………..
    https://x.com/Sozzinski/status/1934720526225723659

    1. When scum see something criminal being ignored they will join in.
      Again some derisory sentences.

  22. Good Morning!

    Today former Guardian journalist Elizabeth Nickson, in Engineered Hate: This is How It Happened to Me , tells of her journey from Left to Right by way of being cancelled when she started to see the light and of how very vicious her former 'friends' on the Left turned out to be. Her story is one of terror – she was stalked and received death threats – but also one of courage. Please read and leave a comment.

    The second part of the series 'No War With Russia ', which examines the long list of broken promises made to Russia, and the myriad provocations it put up with before the West crossed her reddest of red lines in Ukraine, is still open for comments.

    Xandra H, a psychologist, lets us in on the psychological war being waged by the forces of Globalism to control our minds. Read her Applied psychology – demonic influence or angelic saviour? and let us know your opinion.

    Energy Watch: Over the last 24 hours: Britain's electric power was sourced from Gas, 16.6%; Solar, 10.9%: Wind 27.9%; Imports, 17.3%; Biomass, 9.6%; Nuclear 14.8% and Miscellaneous, 3%.

    And please support our Vote Magnus campaign: Click here to Vote .

    1. This part of the "No War" article is so true – " I’ve given up my DT subscription for good because of the lunacy being peddled by its warmongering morons. I just can’t stand it any more. The level of analysis is abysmal, wholly unbalanced and demonstrably untrue half the time".

      1. You are right not to trust the figures, but don’t forget that most wind farms are out at sea, here there usually is enough of a breeze to turn a turbine.

    1. My surprise knows no bounds.
      Chickens coming home to roost, perhaps? Brooms and Augean stables comes to mind.

      1. Followed by a decade (at least) of silence while Stoma's legal chums coin it.

    2. 407684+ up ticks,

      O2O,

      My belief is,
      In a land of deemed so far right RACIST, paedophiles & bent politico's
      do stand out a country mile.

    4. The Left found the result they wanted, to spin the narrative.

      It's all a pack of lies. They knew it, we knew it. They knew we knew it. They also knew there was nothing we could do about it, so they kept lying. The bigger question is why? Why protect the muslim so?

      1. 407684+ up ticks,

        Morning W

        A malleable voting block…….. until the time comes…….

  24. "There should be no equivocation over Israel’s right to neutralise Iran".

    Nor should there be any equivocation over Britain's right to refuse to accept the subsequent refugee flow.

    1. Why do they come here? Oh, ye, of course. Because their muslim neighbours won't take them.

  25. Morning, all Y'all.
    Raining. Windy. Temperature in C hasn't yet met the date… so much for summer! 🙁

    1. I shudder to think how many of those places have more than, or even many more than, a single gang

    2. With Starmer setting out the inquiry we all know it'll be a complete whitewash. The Left will not tolerate dissent.

      When the thing finally reports – some time in 2040 – there'll be no blame, certainly no actions, no arrests, no trial. Someone will say lessons will be learned but the country will be so flooded with brown and black savages by then nothing will happen.

      1. I watched the BBC this morning, on You Tube, interviewing Naftali Bennett, the former PM of Israel. Each time I watch that channel I'm reminded why I refuse to pay for a TV licence. You would have thought that the Iranian thugs were poor innocent victims and that the Israelis, in stopping them, were a bunch of thugs. The female interviewer dripped resentment at the success of Israel in this fight. It was quite revolting.

  28. Sorry chums, but I find all this talk about the Muslim swine gang-raping young white English girls very distressing, so I will now take a break from this site and focus on other things until much later in the day. Perhaps it's time to read a little P G Wodehouse to alter my mood.

    1. Just thank your lucky stars that you aren't a small lad or a young girl living in an area infested by leering groping , mendacious groups of strangers.

    2. I tend to feel the same. Awful as all this is the obsession by the media in covering over everything else happening in the world I find quite depressing and we all must realise that like the covid enquiry it will take years and will conclude nothing.

  29. I wonder whether any of you think there is a developmental issue with the third Royal child Prince Louis.

    To me , things don't look okay, he has weird behaviour , as well as his facial expressions ..

    The boy is seven years old , is he mentally disabled?

    2. Haven'tr noticed Belle. I take it you are referring to Trooping the Colour? If so I didn't watch it, was engrossed in the war.

    3. There’s nothing wrong with him at all, apart from being 7 years old! Leave him alone!

    4. He's a seven year old boy and the 'baby' of the family. His behaviour seems pretty normal, Maggie.

  30. Yo and Good Moaning to you all, from warm and sunny C d S

    Tomorrow I have to go to the dentist, optician and hearing aid people.

    If I could get Specsavers to do the teeth and hair, everything above the neck could be fixed in One Sitting (literally)

  31. Yo and Good Moaning to you all, from warm and sunny C d S

    Tomorrow I have to go to the dentist, optician and hearing aid people.

    If I could get Specsavers to do the teeth and hair, everything above the neck could be fixed in One Sitting (literally)

    3. Watched it on Mahyer Tousi's channel, his reaction was so hilarious that it was a great introduction to the start of my day, Couldn't stop laughing.

  33. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/06/17/rachel-reeves-is-gaslighting-the-public-on-taxes/

    Let's get this straight. The article tells us that, because taxes went up – and people rightly responded by avoiding them – the economy stalled, unemployment soared, inflation went up (as we had to increase our hourly rate to cover the NI hike), welfare demand rose and the thing the hard left wanted to take more than anything else – pride and effort – collapsed.

    Yet, despite tax hikes being the cause of the problem, Reeve's solution is… tax hikes.

    Surely the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result?

    1. The definition of socialism is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

      "It'll work this time."

      1. Same as the definition for insanity!

        I understand their view – take money, hand that money out on things government wants.

        However, that's not wealth creation. It's not growth. It's welfare. It's destroying market forces to allow the state to say it is 'doing' something when nothing need be done except not take our money in the first place.

  34. Morning All 🙂😊
    Sunny and warm….but it's summer.
    I've had a busy start, a phone call before 8am from the hospital, they need another blood sample, I did mention it yesterday to the lady who very expertly took a large tube full.
    But she indicated that there was enough in the tube for two. I'll have to wait until the traffic as receded. Nothing worse that a 15 minute journey taking 45.
    Also whilst the kettle was boiling I had to put a pair of thick gloves on to release the silly squirrel from the rat trap. Second time that's happened you would have thought they might learn a thing or two.
    And the headline…..as Iran through hamas has been attacking Israel for decades, the rest of the none muslim countries should be standing behind Israel. But we seem to have a problem with this. I wonder how that happened……

    1. Actually the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Jordan assisted Israel with the drones and the rockets. But, for obvious reasons, they aren't going to shout about it. Hopefully they will in the future as the Abraham accords are implemented further and it becomes obvious that Israel is the power in the region.

      1. Good to hear that there are some Islamic areas with 21st century intelligence.

      2. I reckon that the other Arab states are quietly delighted that Israel has neutralised the Iranian nuclear threat. They weren't able for political reasons to do anything themselves, but if Iran had attacked Israel with nuclear weapons the (literal) fallout could have caused them serious problems.

      3. I reckon that the other Arab states are quietly delighted that Israel has neutralised the Iranian nuclear threat. They weren't able for political reasons to do anything themselves, but if Iran had attacked Israel with nuclear weapons the (literal) fallout could have caused them serious problems.

      4. I reckon that the other Arab states are quietly delighted that Israel has neutralised the Iranian nuclear threat. They weren't able for political reasons to do anything themselves, but if Iran had attacked Israel with nuclear weapons the (literal) fallout could have caused them serious problems.

  35. Rupert Lowe's inquiry will now be told to be cancelled as prejudicial. It cannot possibly go around talking to the same witnesses, priming them.

    I'd have thought that is a part of the Labour Party's reasoning.

    2. If Nigel Farage were less of an arrogant pillock he would admit that Tommy Robinson has been right all along about the Pakistani rape gangs.

      1. Nigel could not peek out of his ego long enough to acknowledge that truth, Rastus.

  36. Now there is talk of means testing state pension payments.
    Same old story….everything (government) 'they' come into contact with they eff it up and big time. Everything.

    1. What I don't understand is why someone who has spent life time on welfare, never once contributed is then handed a state pension.

      A chum was saying that his wife had spoken to a 'sensible chap' in the DWP to make sure her child benefit guranteed her the ttae pension.

      Why the hell should it? Why are we paying people to bloody breed! Why then are we giving them a fixed income for life when they've contributed bugger all to earn it?

      1. I didn't go out to work when my children were small – I think they are better looked after by their mother than dumped in daycare. Credits for child benefit didn't start till 1978 so i missed out on most of those years.

        When I got my basic state pension in 2008, it was 10% short – but I was later able to make up that shortfall by paying up for three years in the 1970s. It was a no brainer in my case as I not only got the 10% but I also got three years arrears which paid for my outlay. I needed 39 years of NI conts which is more than the 35 years needed now for the "new" state pension which started in 2016.

  37. I understand that, Elsie, but I am more angry that the crime simply needn't have happened at all.

    muslim was forced on us. massive uncontrolled gimmigration was a state plot to ram the alien on us. No one wanted them, we didn't need them. Those responsible for endorsing and encouraging the rape of children must be punished as a warning to the next lot of wasters: we won't tolerate the Left wing state's rape of our country any more.

    Oddly I don't blame the dindu. muslim will muslim, after all. That's why they should never have been allowed into the country in the first place.

  38. How very strange that the viral Covid alarmists closed us all down for nearly 2 years , causing grief and pain amongst vulnerable sections of the population , and attempting to protect us all by experimenting with an untested drug to protect us.. from Covid

    YET..

    Think about this .. I regard the incoming invaders as similar to the Covid scare , their behaviour has had a terrible effect on the indigenous youngsters in the UK , causing psychological damage and grievous health problems to generations of daughters who should have been protected from feral men .

    Every area of the UK has been infested by the thousands of feral men from backward peasant countries , and the rape of very young females is the pillage that those illegal / legal darkies consider their right and religious privilege to possess and then discard.

    Covid damaged the heart of the UK and ruined our financial prosperity, but the foreigners who have been encouraged to settle in every corner of Great Britain have caused more damage than any plague .

    1. 'Twas ever thus. Started in the east …… the rest is history.

      The plague of Justinian or Justinianic plague (AD 541–549) was an epidemic of plague that afflicted the entire Mediterranean Basin, Europe, and the Near East, especially the Sasanian Empire and the Byzantine Empire. The plague is named for the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I (r. 527–565) who, according to his court historian Procopius, contracted the disease and recovered in 542, at the height of the epidemic which killed about a fifth of the population in the imperial capital Constantinople. The contagion arrived in Roman Egypt in 541, spread around the Mediterranean Sea until 544, and persisted in Northern Europe and the Arabian Peninsula until 549. By 543, the plague had spread to every corner of the empire.

      The plague's severity and impact remain debated. Some scholars assert that as the first episode of the first plague pandemic, it had profound economic, social, and political effects across Europe and the Near East and cultural and religious impact on Eastern Roman society. Others reject the cataclysmic view, arguing for a limited impact.

      In 2013, researchers confirmed earlier speculation that the cause of the plague of Justinian was Yersinia pestis, the same bacterium responsible for the Black Death (1346–1353) Ancient and modern Yersinia pestis strains are closely related to the ancestor of the Justinian plague strain that has been found in the Tian Shan, a system of mountain ranges on the borders of Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and China, suggesting that the Justinian plague originated in or near that region. However, there would appear to be no mention of bubonic plague in China until the year 610.

    2. Any virus mutates usually to a weaker version of itself. Immigration seems to be the reverse.

  40. I do enjoy Michael Deacon's articles in the DT.

    He is on top from today on tourism to the Balearic Islands and the teaching of Shakespeare.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/06/17/woke-europeans-british-tourists-refugees-protests/

    Apparently local people in Majorca and Ibiza are carrying placards saying:

    “Tourists go home. Refugees welcome.”

    Michael Deacon's response is that we should offer them this deal:

    From now on, we promise to stay away from their islands, and book our summer holidays elsewhere. But, in return, they have to take in all the gentlemen who keep arriving on our shores in small black dinghies claiming to be refugees.

    And on the subject of woke teaching of Shakespeare Michael Deacon says:

    "My own humble suggestion, therefore, would be to forget all this hand-wringing drivel, and make children focus on the beauty of Shakespeare’s language. And if any of them complain that some small aspect of it is racist, sexist or ableist, teachers should reply: “Well, so what if it is, you snivelling pubescent twerp?

    As an English teacher I would love to have been able to say this to one or two of my pupils but it would inevitably have led to the immediate sack!

    1. Michael Deacon is not only funny, he has developed a sharp edge.
      (Like homemade red currant jelly!)

    2. I and other members of the 6th form set, once had the pleasure of being addressed by an old hand Geography teacher, who said to us:

      You may think I'm a right Cunt, but you have absolutely no idea what I think of you lot….!"

      Fair enough was the general consensus ….

      1. It does. It also makes a nice condiment for some meats e.g. lamb and my favourite, roast chicken.

    3. Nice and sharp, I would imagine. Not the over-sweetened artificially gelled supermarket stuff!
      Do you nurture your berry bushes, or do they benefit from benign neglect?

      1. I prune in winter leaving 4 or 5 older ‘brown’ stems – these produce the fruit – and fertilize with bone meal for root production and fish, blood and bone fertiliser for everything else. Not benign neglect by any standard. However, this year is amazing.

        I’m certain that a couple of years or so ago I mentioned on here that I gave my first bush an ultimatum when I pruned it, fruit this year or you’re gone. It’s behave itself since.🤣

    4. Hello Korky, how do you keep your redcurrant bushes healthy please? Some years ours are good, others not so much. Have three bushes, one replaced each year. (Redcurrant jelly looks fab, btw x)

      1. My bushes’ fruiting ability vary year on year. This year is exceptional.

        I have four bushes, one original and the other three are from cuttings of the original. I haven’t replaced any but currently I am minded to either get rid of the original, which is very large, or give it a severe pruning, leaving perhaps only three ‘brown’ fruiting stems for next year.

      1. We have an apple tree – pretty red fruit but virtually inedible as they are so soggy – but the birds love them. Also a greengage – lots of fruit developing there if the wasps keep away. None at all last year.

        1. I have a President plum whose branches I have had to shore up because there’s such a heavy crop. My pear trees are laden, too, as is my Golden Gage. I have more apples this year than last as well.

          1. Since we’ve been here – 30 years – we’ve lost a plum tree that used to fruit quite well, and an apple tree by the kitchen door that produced large apples, good for cooking or eating. I don’t know what varieties they were as they were old mature trees.

  42. Taken from a daily newsletter

    a quote from the historian Stephen Kotkin:

    We always disagree on what the truth is.
    But now we have a problem with the truth regime.
    The truth regime is how we determine the truth: evidence, argument, proof.
    But that truth regime has been destabilised.
    No one has the truth alone, and we should argue about the truth.
    But we used to have a consensus on how we got to the truth and how we recognised truth.
    Not anymore.

      1. I don't think so.
        It goes deeper than that.
        The article it came from was talking about changing sources of information and how trusted sources have changed so much over the last 10 or so years.

    2. Note that we have 'their truth' now, as if somehow a person's perspective on what happened can be said to have been 'what happened'.

      It's pure doublethink, all to upend normality and reality and replace it with 'opinion' and 'feeling' rather than facts.

    1. At least in Texas muslim was going to pay for itself. Over here they dump every cost on welfare.

  45. Apparently, certainly some unsavoury chancers in government itself, and parliament generally.

  47. Rape gangs are the biggest scandal of our generation. It will sweep away failing leaders

    Liberal authoritarianism, where opinions disliked by the Government are routinely dismissed, must not now stand in the way of the truth

    Nick Timothy • 16th June 2025 4:56pm BST

    The Casey report into the rape gangs yet again proves what we already knew: that the systematic and racially and religiously aggravated rape of thousands of vulnerable white girls is the worst scandal of our lifetimes.

    The response by the Government, however, leaves many important questions unanswered. Labour says it's launching a national inquiry, yet its official document says it will only "coordinate a series of targeted local investigations", with the Home Secretary yet to confirm whether it will cover every affected town and city. And we do not yet know how independent the inquiry chair will be. Yvette Cooper once again refused to instruct the National Crime Agency to investigate police officers, social workers and councillors who were complicit in these appalling crimes.

    The long refusal to accept a national inquiry – and the furious response of some Labour MPs towards scrutiny of the role of their councils in this scandal – is part of a wider showdown between those who govern and the governed. Because liberal authoritarianism remains a huge problem in our politics.

    Opinions and motives disliked by the Government are increasingly dismissed – and delegitimised – as "far-Right". The Prevent programme, established to counter the radicalisation of those who might be drawn to terrorism, says concern about mass immigration is a "terrorist ideology".

    The riots that followed the Southport murders – later said to have been caused partly by the lack of Government transparency – were dismissed by the Prime Minister as "far-Right thuggery". But the idea that the riots were in any way planned or coordinated by far-Right agitators – and not a spontaneous reaction of fury – has been discredited by the police inspectorate, which suggested most offenders were local, often young, and had no connections to extremists.

    But the most notorious example of the far-right smear has been the Government's dismissal of concerns about the rape gangs of mainly Pakistani, Muslim men who systematically abused vulnerable, white working-class girls. When the Conservatives pressed for a national inquiry earlier this year, Starmer accused the Party of "spreading lies and misinformation" and "amplifying what the far-Right is saying." In an attempt to avoid an inquiry, Starmer commissioned Louise Casey to conduct an "audit" of the crimes and their investigation. But Casey concluded an inquiry was necessary and Starmer has folded.

    This demonstrates the limits of the campaign to delegitimise public opinion. For not even a Prime Minister can withstand sustained public pressure of the kind we have seen over the last six months, and Labour MPs were likely to be asked to vote on the need for an inquiry when the Commons considers the Crime and Policing Bill this week.

    But does this mean we are finally going to get to the truth of the rape gangs? Given the deliberate refusal of large parts of the state over so many years to prevent the abuse and prosecute the observers, the refusal by some Labour ministers to even acknowledge that these crimes were racially and religiously aggravated, and the alleged complicity of some Labour councillors in these horrific crimes, we should be wary.

    So we will need clear answers to important questions about the inquiry. Following the death of Dr David Kelly, one of Tony Blair's senior advisers reassured colleagues about the subsequent inquiry, saying, "don't worry, we appointed the right judge". The identity of the person who chairs this inquiry will be vital, and it may need to be a judge from another Commonwealth jurisdiction, to avoid conflicts of interest or social or political beliefs that prejudice the work.

    The inquiry will need to be unsparing about the most sensitive subjects: about ethnicity, religious identity, family structures and social attitudes among members of the Muslim population in Britain. What role did clan identities play? Why did social workers make choices that made them complicit in abuse, instead of confronting it? How many police officers were corrupt or complicit? What role did local councillors play in keeping the scandals a secret? What about other public services, like schools, GP surgeries and hospitals?

    One of the reasons our politics is so crisis-ridden is the gulf in values and expectations between the governed and the government. The campaign to delegitimise public opinion – about the rape gangs and many other things – shows just how authoritarian our liberal leaders are. The reason they are afraid of the public is that they know they will, soon, be smashed. But it is time now for the truth, and time, too, for justice.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/06/16/the-questions-grooming-gangs-inquiry-must-answer

    Max & Co will continue to stall on this one. We can expect to hear "14 years of Tory government but they blame us" and so on as heels are firmly dug in.

    And was it just me or did Pixie Balls make her statement with more than a hint of impatience and irritability, as though it was beyond her to have read out such racist rubbish?

      1. This is the biggest worry. It's not a short term, recent issue. It's been going on for decades, almost as soon as the muslim savage was forced on us.

    2. Yesterday evening I mentioned Anne Cryer MP for Keighley, Starmer being DPP at the time she reported activities in her constituency to him. Similarly to BBC/Hugh Edwards and rumours of paedophile ring. Perhaps this will all be thoroughly investigated one day, not holding my breath.

    3. Pixie is a permanent crosspatch.
      No wonder hubby nips off to do a spot of dancing or pod-casting. Anything to get away from the perpetual frown and impatient voice.

    4. Pixie is a permanent crosspatch.
      No wonder hubby nips off to do a spot of dancing or pod-casting. Anything to get away from the perpetual frown and impatient voice.

  48. Good morning all 😊 Todays forecast in West Sussex is sun, yet more sun and followed by sun. Temperature high using proper as opposed to the foreign muck is going to be 76f.

    I spend early mornings in a state of thrills and spills, at least my version, listening ands gathering information on what is going on in the world. So today I digested 4 hours of what is going on in Iran. According to rumour the reason the American have come in is because of the nuclear facility at Natanz, outside Isfahan. Its buried so deep that the Israelis can't destroy it. So the plane is to drop two MOABs One after another. Because, apparently, the facility is so deep one MOAB is not powerful enough to penetrate it.

    I also mentioned the other day that President Xi of China is finished. I love Chinese politics it is so Byzantine it's bizarre. It turns out that he has had a series of heart attacks and so the sharks quickly gathered and are fighting over who is to be the next President. So posting the below newscast, you only have to listen to the first part for an update of what is happening. But rumour has it that they are interested in having a leader, who might already have been appointed, who is pro-Western. So that, with what is happening in Iran, strikes me as an immense boost for peace in the world.

    Russian Intel Confirms Xi’s Fall as China Tilts Toward the West in Power Shake-Up
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stD_HGnJb74

    1. Thank you.
      All very interesting. I'm not too surprised about Xi; he's looked below par for several years. (Or was he merely being inscrutable?)

      1. More likely Anne it was fear. Apparently he has murdered a lot of his opponents and even allies that he deemed were getting to popular and might overshadow him (sounds familiar about a certain English politician) so the knives have been out for him for years. Almost from the beginning of his reign

  50. A good start:
    Wordle 1,459 3/6

    ⬜🟩⬜🟨⬜
    ⬜🟩🟩⬜🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  51. From: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/06/17/reform-party-wales-keir-starmer/

    "… One passing shopper, who declined to give his name, says he “hasn’t voted for the past three elections, because nothing changes.” This emerges as a theme, as people young and old tell me they haven’t cast a ballot in years as they feel there’s no point. …"

    That sums up the problem in a nutshell. No matter who people vote for, we get the same policies, the same ideology. We get big state, high tax, massive uncontrolled gimmigration. No one wanted these things, they're forced on us. No matter who you vote for, we get he same policies.

    Even now, with reform promising such wee will get the exact same policies.

    1. If you put the Monkey from Hartlepool up as a Welsh Liebore candidate, it would be elected

    2. Exactly. I have family, friends, acqs who have never voted and have no intention of ever doing so.

      1. One of my friends never voted in general elections; he only voted (to leave) in the referendum.

      1. I don't believe you, Annie. Prove it by inviting me round for your next roast chicken meal. I'll bring you and YB a bottle of Malbec to wash it down with! Lol.

      2. I don't believe you, Annie. Prove it by inviting me round for your next roast chicken meal. I'll bring you and YB a bottle of Malbec to wash it down with! Lol.

  53. SIR – I have been following the coverage of the Iranian attacks on Tel Aviv. My mind then turned to Britain. We have no iron dome, no bomb shelters and not enough fighter jets. When will our Government wake up?

    Angela Miller
    Wolverhampton

    But there are bunkers. Just not for use by the plebs.

      1. Yes but people were more sensible then and advised by the government on what to do and where to go and how to behave.

        Can you imagine the same scenario now? Even getting on a London bus in peacetime is a free for all.

        1. Plus likely insufficient tube space. What a time to be alive. No wonder people are leaving if they're able to.

    2. During the Protect and Survive period all we needed was a kitchen table, a fly swat and several body bags.

    1. If they won't pay to get here I wonder what makes people think they will pay for anything when they do get here.
      They'll just help themselves to whatever they want.

  55. Holiday hotspots

    SIR – I do have some sympathy for those permanent residents of popular holiday destinations (“My day with the anti-tourist activists giving Britons like me a soaking”, Dispatch, June 16) who feel that tourism is preventing them from enjoying their own communities.

    For many years I lived in South Devon, and although I was surrounded by the most glorious countryside, I rarely had the chance to appreciate it fully between May and September, as its numerous beauty spots – as well as many roads and streets – were awash with visitors.

    However, during the rest of the year I could enjoy all the advantages of living in a beautiful region with an infrastructure that had largely been set up with tourism in mind. Anyone lucky enough to call a European holiday hotspot their home can also enjoy those benefits in the off-seasons.

    Stuart Harrington
    Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset

    Mr Harrington is comparing apples (Somerset) with oranges (Spain).

    The season can be twice as long in the Med. A lot of what is provided closes in the off season.

    Uncontrolled tourism is as damaging to the locals as uncontrolled immigration is to us.

    1. Drive the tourists away and they'll take their money with them.
      Be careful what you wish for.

  56. ‘Gents’ is an unacceptable term in modern workplace, judge says

    A female employee who sued an insurance company for discrimination still lost her case — as her boss was guilty of incompetence rather than sexism.

    A judge has branded the word “gents” as “old-fashioned”, describing the term as unsuitable for the modern workplace.

    Dawn Shotter said the shortening of “gentlemen” — often used to describe men’s lavatories — was inappropriate in a ruling involving a claim against one of the Britain’s biggest insurance companies.

    A female employee at Royal & Sun Alliance sued for sex discrimination after she was included in group emails from her boss that was addressed to “gents”.

    The department head who sent the messages admitted that his use of the word was “thoughtless” and “lazy”. And while the tribunal criticised his language, it concluded the comment was simply “managerial incompetence” rather than a breach of equality law.

    The employment tribunal in Liverpool was told that Elaine Scott began working for the multinational company in 2015 in its “cash management” department in its Liverpool treasury office. In 2022 Scott and a male colleague were placed at risk of redundancy during a reorganisation that was prompted by the sale of part of the business. Managers were said to have directed Scott to potential vacancies for redeployment, but the tribunal was told that she did not express an interest.

    At the same time as the redundancy process was being conducted, the head of the treasury department, Gareth Quantrill, sent two emails to staff that were both addressed to “gents”. The main recipients of the emails were male managers, but the correspondence was copied to Scott.

    Scott argued at the tribunal that the email salutation was evidence of sex discrimination, which in turn had affected the redundancy selection process.

    Quantrill said in evidence to the hearing that he had only been considering the named male recipients when he headed the email but acknowledged his language had been thoughtless and lazy. And he said that during the redundancy process he did not have Scott’s gender in mind.

    The tribunal said that while “gents” was not an “inclusive” term, it still rejected Scott’s sex discrimination claim.

    “The description gents is an example of old-fashioned language in a corporate environment that is unacceptable today,” Shotter said in her ruling.

    But the tribunal ruled that there had been a genuine redundancy situation at the company at the time and that Scott was not discriminated against.

    Last week it emerged that another employment tribunal had ruled that the use of the word “lads” at work could count as sexual harassment and can be legally construed as “unwanted conduct”. The judge in that hearing, Sarah Jane Davies, said the word amounted to the “casual use of gender-specific language”, which female staff could rightly perceive as patronising.

    • Libby Purves: Take it from one of the lads — the Equality Act is a whinger’s charter

    That case involved an executive who complained about her male boss’s use of the word “lads” when discussing the performance of a female colleague. In that case, the tribunal also ruled that while the comments were “unwanted” and “thoughtless”, they did not violate the woman’s “dignity”.

    Anthony Harrison
    21 hours ago

    "A female employee at Royal & Sun Alliance sued for sex discrimination after she was included in group emails from her boss that was addressed to “gents”."

    Who's the more absurd here – the claimant, or the judge…

    Reply

    Recommend (268)

    D Brittain
    21 hours ago

    Elaine Scott, shame on you. An utterly spurious and ridiculous claim to make. Are you so pathetically ultra sensitive that this email really affected your quality of life? Or were you just annoyed at being at risk of redundancy….I think I know the answer to that one.

    https://media4.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTg5OGZmOWM5ZDVtZHN0djQ3dG9zc3Zyejh5dW5nemRjb3E1cmw2ankwNzdpZTUzMyZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/oAfqlSp7990m4/giphy-downsized-small.mp4

    1. The scents from the Gents
      are no worse than
      The perfume from the Ladies' powder room.

    2. So in a company with royal in its title, perhaps gentlefolk would have been appropriate.

    3. IIt may seem petty if taken in isolation but we gals are regularly expected to not mind being lumped in with yer blokes or not given due emphasis to correct terminology.

      I have mentioned previously the use in the DT and elswhere of phrases such as 'servicemen and women' instead of giving the same honour as in 'servicemen and servicewomen'.

      A bugbear for me and my fellow female soldiers would be when the Company Serjeant Major addressing the Company to talk about e.g the Christmas party or summer mess do would ask how many would be inviting wives or girlfriends I pointed out once that the then Mr Cup was neither and asked whether I should put my hand up.

      In the NHS which is 70% female We are referred to daily in mixed groups as 'guys".

      It's lazy, insulting and condescending and I'm frankly fed up with it.

  57. The boss should have tried the Americanism "guys" which seems to be acceptable for both sexes.

    1. I do have a sneaking respect for someone who left school pregnant at 16, and has now become deputy PM. Did she sleep her way to the top?

    1. Crap bank anyway. Nationwide are far better and have excellent customer service.

      3. It used to be called The Co-operative Permanent Building Society . It was renamed in 1970 so its a Co-op.

        1. Yes. And each year they give me £100 plus for banking with them on top of the interest rate on savings.

  61. Sorry that you probably won’t be able to open this, but the headline will give you an idea of just what a pathetic bunch of cretins the SNP are. I live just outside Falkirk and Alexander’s buses have been in business 130 years. Grangemouth, just down the road, has just seen the massive refinery close. We have no manufacturing and this useless ‘government’ couldn’t run a p*** up in a brewery!
    https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/25243213.alexander-dennis-fm-warned-year-ago-firm-reconsidering/

    1. Can't open it Sue without allowing cookies (which I don't for any page) 😘

      1. Just open it in "private window" mode, then whatever cookies you accept get tossed when you close that window.

    3. What has happened to the Edit function.

      Typo Tastey's keyboard skills are very erratic and he often finds that when he returns to look at his posts there are crass mistakes that he wants to edit out. Without the Edit function his bloomers remain on display for everyone to see and mock!

      I imagine he is not the only Nottler who needs to correct his posts?

    1. He needs a Damascene conversion – then he can become a priest and he would probably be a damned sight better than many of the charlatan priests who pollute the Church of England.

  63. Not-so-fun-fact:
    British Airways a publicly traded Spanish company now show Port Stanley as Puerto Argentina on in-flight map.

    1. They still keep sending me emails but I haven't used BA for years. They should change their name.

      1. And any talk of nationalising the carrier to prevent foreign companies tucking in to their engine contracts.. will be deemed nationalistic, and will place you on the Islamic-Friendly-Govt watchdog Prevent.. as a domestic terrorist.

        (Germany labels AfD party as ‘extremist’, opening door to ban candidates & supporters from any public office).

  64. I hadn't noticed the little edit sign had gone! But it still works if you click on "edit".

  65. I hadn't noticed the little edit sign had gone! But it still works if you click on "edit".

  66. But you can still edit posts after posting as "edit" is still there next to "reply".

  67. Beebsplaining
    2h
    Pitiful pattern developing here with these labour incompetents and their snivelling service enablers 🤔
    🤔Idea formed from marxist ideology with no grounding in reality
    🤔Idea launched and universally panned except by captured quangocracy
    🤔Plough on with idea because obviously they know best
    🤔It all crumbles to dust as they were warned
    🤔Panic out an excuse (Tories, Donald, vlad, ME, faaaar right)
    🤔Implement u turn but too late to.avoid predicted damage
    🤔Move back to the beginning and start again
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2e878da0d81960a88f6d3a50fd34399c7ec567a335b5eaec5599b9bee4aa2223.png

  68. Michel Deacon's article today reminds me of Jake Thackray's song, The Brigadier.

    He describes a very pretty village in the North of England which was visited by tourists. They spent their money and were a bit of a nuisance but at least they went away.

    The problem is those who arrive and then stay.

    In Jake's song it is the Brigadier who retires to the village and self-importantly starts to meddle and interfere with things which were far better run before he arrived. He is there forever. He will never leave.

    The parallel with illegal immigrants is striking – they cause nothing but trouble and are detemined never to go away.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qryuTCMET-U

      1. In the ITV series “The Larkins” (a reboot of “The Darling Buds of May”), the Brigadier was Indian.

    2. Still have multiple Jake Thackray LP's in a box in the basement. Plus some 78's, including Bill Haley's rock Around the Clock.

  69. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/is-this-the-worst-labour-mp-in-parliament/#comments-container

    Is this the worst Labour MP in parliament?

    17 June 2025, 8:05am

    ParliamentTV
    The publication of Louise Casey’s report into rape gangs was a sobering affair. But not, apparently, for Shaun Davies, Labour MP for Telford since July 2024. He previously served as the Shropshire town’s council leader from 2016 to 2024. More than 1,000 children in Telford were sexually exploited over decades, according to the Independent Inquiry for Child Sexual Abuse in 2022.

    Davies decided that yesterday was the perfect time to stand up in the House of Commons and criticise the Conservative government for not themselves investigating grooming gangs. He told the House that: ‘We did a local-based review because the then Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, and the then local government Minister, Rishi Sunak, refused to provide a statutory inquiry into Telford.’

    Yet, as council leader, Davies signed a letter to Rudd in September 2016, asking her not to investigate Telford. The crucial paragraph of the two page-letter is the following: ‘Given the recent findings of Ofsted and the fact that the Government’s own independent inquiry, chaired by Alexis Jay, is already committed to looking at what happened here in Telford, we do not feel at this time that a further inquiry is necessary.’

    As Kemi Badenoch wrote on X after yesterday’s debate:

    This Labour MP will be exposed soon enough. He sat in the chamber trembling, made this outrageous statement and ran off. He was of course the council leader in Telford who actively requested no national investigation and has the cheek to smear Amber Rudd and Rishi Sunak.

    You can read the full incriminating letter here. Over to you Davies…

  70. Starmer out of control stupidity

    Starmer to count rural broadband as defence spending
    A £42bn third runway at Heathrow Airport to be included too under new national security budget

    Joe Barnes Brussels Correspondent.
    Tony Diver Associate Political Editor
    17 June 2025 11:39am BST

    Broadband and Heathrow’s third runway are to be counted as defence spending under Sir Keir Starmer’s plans to redraw the definition of national security.

    The Government’s national security review, due to be published before a Nato summit next week, will expand the definition to include economic stability, food prices, supply chains, crime and the internet.

    It could allow the UK to hit Nato’s new defence spending target of five per cent of GDP without committing any further public money.

    Mark Rutte, Nato’s secretary general, has proposed member states spend 3.5 per cent on core defence activities and a further 1.5 per cent on related infrastructure.

    Ministers are considering meeting the latter target by spending money on roads, strengthening bridges and increasing runway capacity, The Telegraph understands.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/06/17/starmer-rural-broadband-defence-spending/

    Cyber, energy and telecommunications security projects will also be offset against the goal.

    While Nato countries will still be required to hit 3.5 per cent of core defence spending each year – far higher than Sir Keir’s current pledge of three per cent by the next parliament – the additional 1.5 per cent will come from other budgets.

    The plans, first reported by Bloomberg, will include various infrastructure projects that have already been announced as “national security” spending, including a third runway at Heathrow Airport that is estimated to cost at least £42bn.

    Other projects to be allocated to the “defence” budget for Nato’s accounting purposes could include Project Gigabit, a £5bn plan to upgrade rural broadband services, a £1bn pot to upgrade weak bridges and build the Lower Thames Crossing tunnel.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/06/17/starmer-rural-broadband-defence-spending/

    In a move that is likely to draw scepticism from some in the defence sector, the national security review will also include reference to “street crime”, which the Home Office currently tackles with a £17.4bn budget for local policing.

    Future strategies for the manufacturing, science and technology sectors will also be based on national security considerations, while counting the “supply chain” of British energy as a defence issue will allow ministers to include the £300m allocated to offshore wind development.

    Unlike the strategic defence review published by the Ministry of Defence last month, the national security review has been conducted inside Downing Street by Jonathan Powell, Sir Keir’s national security adviser.

    Under plans announced earlier this year, Britain has allocated roughly 2.3 per cent of GDP on defence but promised to hit 2.6 per cent by 2027.

    Sir Keir has pledged to further increase this figure to 3 per cent by the next parliament, which could start as early as 2029.

    That would see Britain spend more on defence than most Nato allies, but fall short of Donald Trump’s demand that European members of the alliance increase their spending to five per cent.

    Mr Rutte has proposed the new system of separate defence and infrastructure budgets as a way of member states meeting that target without drastically reducing spending on other domestic priorities.

    It is likely the UK government will comfortably meet the 1.5 per cent demands for spending on so-called “enablement and resilience”.

    But there are doubts over whether it will be able to hit the 3.5 per cent of GDP targets by the envisaged date of 2032.

    Sources say that Britain would prefer for the final deadline to be extended to 2035 to allow for more time to increase defence spending.

    It comes after The Telegraph revealed that ministers are planning to back a new “defence, security and resilience bank”, which would take some military procurement spending off of Whitehall balance sheets and place it on the books of a new multilateral institution.

    Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, and Sir Keir Starmer have personally discussed the idea with UK officials and foreign allies, including Poland.

    1. Notice this same Mark Rutte who fought Brexit in the EU.

      It's funny how ex EU bureaucrats get shuffled into these top jobs they're utterly unqualified for, isn't it?

      1. I don't understand how Rutte managed to stay in power in Holland for as long as he did. Caroline is Dutch and has Dutch family and friends – none of them can stand Rutte and think he is totally odious.

        1. It stinks there are untouchable politicians at the heart of this world wide coruption.

        2. Coalition governments always throw up "leaders" who are marginally acceptable to all parties concerned.

    2. "a move that is likely to draw scepticism from some everyone n the defence sector" – there, fixed it? And "off of" for heaven's sake!

      1. I can just imagine Trump's reaction to this ridiculous concept.

        Starmer looks more like someone re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic every day.

        1. He's absolutely ridiculous he does not represent any of the traditional values of our country whatsoever, in any way.

    1. Quick ! Put at least one woman and one child in the boat to make it look other than it is. An invading army.

  74. 407684+ up ticks,

    If this be the case, then they surely must be judged guilty until they prove their innocents.

    Do ALL the peoples realise the real importance of this inquiry, if the political rats in residence are allowed to win then the peoples will find their kids will mandatory have to spend time as "invading troops R/R playthings" under the guise of their own families are still in pakistani.

    https://x.com/JamesMelville/status/1934896357430509917

    1. She deliberately says she couldn't hear the question in full. She said this in order to avoid answering the question.

  75. From Coffee House this Spectator

    14 Jun 2025
    Coffee House
    Jenna Stocker
    Minnesota is no longer the ‘state that works’
    15 June 2025, 3:29pm

    Fifty-two years ago, TIME magazine featured Governor Wendell Anderson on its cover, dressed in the state’s unofficial uniform of a flannel shirt and large smile. He was on one of our 10,000 lakes, hoisting his catch of the day up in the air. This was 1973, and the headline read, ‘The Good Life in Minnesota’. The story went on to describe Minnesota as the ‘state that works’. Its people are mild-mannered do-gooders who are content with the reputation of being humble, hard-working, and unglamorous: ‘California is the flashy blonde you like to take out once or twice. Minnesota is the girl you want to marry.’

    Five decades later, the state that worked no longer does.

    Just days after the state’s 2025 legislative session ended, targeted political violence ended the lives of one state lawmaker and her husband and seriously injured two more people – a state senator and his wife. According to local news reports, ‘State Rep. and Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman of Brooklyn Park and her husband, Mark, were killed early Saturday morning in what officials are calling “targeted” attacks by a suspect posing as a law enforcement officer. State Sen. John Hoffman of Champlin and his wife, Yvette, were shot multiple times at their home but are recovering’.

    The suspect, who is still at large at the time of writing, has been identified by the Associated Press as 57-year-old Vance Boelter. It is unclear what the exact reasons are for the targeted attacks, but they are alleged to be politically motivated.

    It is not breaking news that modern politics has permeated much of the culture and forced deep ideological divides and tribes. Everything – from what car a person drives to the shops they buy groceries in and the music they listen to – is politicised. Politics, more than religious affiliation or cultural heritage, is most likely to form one’s identity. And the divide has tested the very fabric of American society, family relations, and friendships. The Spectator World’s editor-at-large Ben Domenech recently highlighted the trend:

    According to Cygnal’s latest national survey of 1,500 likely voters (conducted 6–8 May, with a 3 per cent margin of error), more than half of voters (53 per cent) say “it’s at least somewhat common that their friends and neighbours have ended a friendship because of Donald Trump and the 2024 election”, while “39 per cent say not that common or not at all common.

    Despite the ‘Minnesota nice’ image, a visible, vocal, dangerous ideological fringe has found, if not a home, a sympathetic ear with the political mainstream. Most Minnesotans had front-row seats to the destruction after George Floyd’s death in 2020. Minneapolis and the Twin Cities still have not fully recovered from the psychological shock, nor the persistent unease that has prevented the state from moving forward with civility. When respect, and law and order, are cast aside by our leaders to score political points or to stoke emotional fires, generally, the people follow suit.

    Moreover, the hyperbolic messaging and one-upmanship rhetoric – ‘othering’ people of different political persuasions and labelling them as unredeemable villains in the fight for democracy – is a form of modern-day self-destruction. I have experienced that destruction first-hand: last year, my office in Golden Valley, Minnesota was firebombed. It was a politically motivated attack on our organisation and two others in the same building who work for conservative causes. It’s the place where I brought my (now two-year-old) baby girl to work with me every day. Thankfully, no one was hurt. Yet it was barely a blip on the news.

    Debate, especially political debate, is crucial to sort out the myriad of nuances shaping our nation’s policies and culture. But when unstable, unbearably radicalised people latch onto the unceasing firehose of the most intense and excessive political soliloquies – and when members of the media class take it all as fact – we have a problem.

    Because words aren’t violence, but they do have power. Politicians flippantly use hyperbole and deranged rhetoric to appeal to their base’s worst instincts, insisting that every step that strays towards compromise or compassion is the end of democracy. Those same politicians are often silent in the face of violence, which has a normalising effect. We’ve entered into an era of shoulder-shrugging at outrageous, anti-social behaviour: the kind we saw in LA last weekend, with cars set on fire in the name of social justice. None of this is an inevitability; it’s a choice.

    After years of being on edge – due to rounds of rioting and violent protests at ground zero for the ‘Summer of Love’ – Minnesota is no longer what Governor Anderson described as ‘remarkably civil’. Nor is any part of the country. The assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, the attacks on the US Supreme Court, the murder of two young Israeli embassy staff members, the arson at Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s residence, and assassination attempts on President Trump suggest every corner of the country has lost its way.

    A state that was seen as a representative of the nation’s best qualities now reflects its worst. It remains to be seen if what is broken can ever be fixed.

    This article was originally published in The Spectator’s World edition.

    Written by
    Jenna Stocker

    1. AI Overview
      The name "Minnesota" comes from the Dakota language, specifically from the word "mni sota," which translates to "sky-tinted water" or "cloudy water". This name was originally given to the Minnesota River by the Dakota people. The term reflects the appearance of the river, with some interpretations suggesting it refers to the way the water reflects the sky or appears cloudy.

      1. Too cold for me. Anywhere that they think it's normal to drill holes in the frozen over Mississippi River to fish through in winter, is off my radar.

        1. Even Canadians think Minnesota is a cold place. Our house and garden gave onto beautiful Lake Minnetonka in the summer swimming, waterskiing and boating all summer long. Winter, cars and little fish houses all over the frozen lake were the panorama for several months. Snow and ice from November to April. Yet the inhabitants waxed lyrical about their love of snow.

      2. My father’s family is from Minnesota and I lived there when I was small.
        The land of sktly blue waters they used to call it. 10,000 lakes but I believe it’s really closer to 12,000. My great grandmother told me about the Indian villages there used to be on Lake Minnetonka where I lived before I was six. It’s a beautiful place but the winters are very harsh. Traditionally it was a place where Chicago gangsters could hide out because it was relatively crime free. Never heard cursing until I moved to London.

      2. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
        The ones getting rid of criminals back to their own countries.

    1. Why are we not naming the councils etc and exact and detailing who controlled these councils, who were the local councillors at the time, if it turns out these people were the same culture and some even related to those who committed the crimes then punishments should be even harder.

  80. France could be useful in the conflict between Israel and Iran:
    https://scontent-cdg4-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/505472067_10172668546275377_2856839251207041536_n.jpg?stp=cp6_dst-jpg_s600x600_tt6&_nc_cat=1&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=833d8c&_nc_ohc=8g61KYBZXcwQ7kNvwHAsB7h&_nc_oc=AdnH5klKOIW4T_GXFR_fPRE9xezOEfJnqVA_IYcyUMvzRqMiroWP0QEkKn19lCe4HBrz1BzRgPS8LXrEdsrJduuC&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-cdg4-2.xx&_nc_gid=ypZh_Ce-iAuvWO0-KQVW0w&oh=00_AfPl0XMifp0q-6-Wu50SJb8FcV14UkA8VM5vO3y54iqmWg&oe=68573EFB

          1. It is? thought it was old Yarkshire – hitting every branch on the ugly tree on the way down………

          2. First time I heard it was in the film. Not a well known saying in leafy Surrey when I was younger.

          3. ? Hit every branch on the ugly tree, falling down…sorry, sure I replied to this earlier….

    2. "Of course we knew nothing, if we had known about this, we'd have been willing recipients"

    3. The Glums! They'll "Take It From Here" and do their level best to bury the outcome.

    4. "When shall we five meet again?"
      They are one huge argument against women getting the vote.

  82. Afternoon, all. Still taking it easy and pacing myself. Did a bit of weeding and generally pottered around in the sunshine.

    As far as some people are concerned, Israel will never have the right to do anything, particularly defend herself against people who want to destroy her.

    1. What I don't understand is how Candace Owens has become an anti-Semite. Very disappointed in her.

      1. There's a large group of people nominally on "Our Side" who have it fixed in their small minds that Globalism is a Zionist Plot. They're wilfully blind to the fact that very few of the wealthy globalist cabal are Jewish and those who are (Soros, Nuland etc) are vehemently against the nation state of Israel. Some of the Rothschild clan are globalists and some are not. The only one I've had personal contact with is Nick de Rothschild and I really don't think that Exbury Gardens are part of a Zionist Plot.

        1. The only way, in my experience, that Jews differ from most of us, is that they tend to be, consistently, highly intelligent. I don’t think I have ever known a stupid one.

        2. You only have to look at the 1930s US/Europe and covid to see that the parasite class doesn't really give a xxxx about ordinary Jews.

          1. True but the parasite class are mostly gentiles and the Jews among them are secular. They’re not Zionists.

          2. If whistleblowers are to be believed, the religion they follow is certainly not judaism.

  83. 407684+ up ticks,

    After decades of ignoring them surely we must now give them the courtesy of listening.

    These politico's & guardians of the peace also have plenty to conceal and certainly DO NOT WANT members of the herd digging below the veneer of
    honesty & dedication regarding the Countries children.

    There has to be horrendous videos of what went on these MUST surely be on show to bring to the eyes tight shut brigade the full magnitude of what these children suffered.

    On this occasion the peoples will only settle for what THEY judge to be full and honest answers.

    Dt,

    Starmer’s grooming gang inquiry not enough, say victims

    1. 407684+ up ticks,

      O2O,
      Another thing is, place Israel and such
      on the back burner they are well able to look after themselves.

      OUR INDIGENOUS KIDS ARE NOT.

    2. "What was it your grandmother died of, Stanley?"

      "She died of a Tuesday as I recall, Ollie."

  88. Do not laugh but the likely successor to Xi, is a pro-Western by the name of "Wang Yang". I can see that generating a lot of jokes.

    2. I remember a spoof of the Bruce Lee films (I think it was in the film 'Kentucky Fried Movie') where the protagonists were called ;
      Long Wang, Hung Lo, and Enormous Genitals

    1. Good interview. Mark Steyn is still in contact with the girls mentioned, I think. We'll see the outcome for Labour MPs/councillors next vote counts – candidates yet to be announced, but we can guess. Keep an eye on MPGB candidates.

    1. Patrick Christys went to Calais a few weeks ago, interviewed some of the men (no sign of wives/children far as I remember) waiting to board a boat to the UK. Thousands more waiting to make the journey, July/August/September, claiming benefits as soon as they arrive. Also see Conor MacGregor/Ireland and riots France/Germany. Who will stop it, and when? Why hasn't it been stopped already? No-one answers, no-one seems to know.

      1. It's going to take lethal force: rightly so. These are criminals. The only way to stop them is violence.

        They simply must be stopped. If that means they're killed, tough.

        1. And the MSM /political class is now all over the grooming scandal which they must surely have known for many years – someone as dumb as me has, why not them? This is the next one in the making.

          1. Because it was far easier to ignore it and keep muslim happy.

            All this 'we'd be called racists' is bollox. There's a bigger picture and it isn't racist to point out the mechanised rape of children by paki muslim.

          2. Now, it's a good distraction for what's happening at the left hand… prestidigitation!

    3. I would like to see him put in rented accommodation in Bradford for a month. Without any money and having to claim benefits and get an appointment with a GP that speaks English. Both of which can takes weeks for a GP and often months if you want to claim benefits as a white man.

      1. I would like to see him living rough on the streets like some of our ex-squaddies.

    4. "any deity"
      That, in a nutshell, is why our society is too broken to get rid of the farmer harmer.

  92. 407684+ up ticks,

    The inquiry will take three years ? three bloody hours is a long time for many herd members to hold a memory.

    you can spread a great deal of whitewash in three years, we want honest answers, Tommy Robinson incarceration mode, RAPID.

    I am in fear of whitewashing will trigger the club hammers being unsheathed and blood flowing,open season on those believed to be involved in the
    cover-ups is not the answer BUT, sad to say one of the few remaining options,

  94. Wordle No. 1,459 3/6

    ⬜🟩⬜🟩⬜
    ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    Wordle 17 Jun 2025

    A caper for Birdie Three!

    1. Well done, same here.
      Slightly (?) fortunate as I guessed the right one of three (at least!)….

      Wordle 1,459 3/6

      ⬜🟨⬜⬜🟨
      ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. Yup, another 3 here.

      Wordle 1,459 3/6

      🟨🟩⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜🟩🟩🟩⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    4. No golf today so I might as well have a birdie here

      Wordle 1,459 3/6

      ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
      🟩⬜🟩⬜🟨
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      1. Interesting..

        Over one hundred Israeli warplanes attacking as far as Mashhad using only seven available 707 fuel tankers suggest someone else is helping them.
        Naughty naughty.

        1. These are civilian ships though? Surely a single missile to the fuel tank would do it?

      2. Interesting..

        Over one hundred Israeli warplanes attacking as far as Mashhad using only seven available 707 fuel tankers suggest someone else is helping them.
        Naughty naughty.

    2. On average, each cross has 4 legitimate sons …. (although most of Iran is secular and has reduced fertility rates to 1970s Western European levels).

      1. If natural solar flares can bugger up GPS then I'm sure artificial solar flare effects can be made to measure and directed.

  97. Don't let them rewrite history.

    Keir Starmer. 2025 "And when politicians, and I mean politicians for many years, are casual about honesty decency truth and the rule of law calling for inquiries because they want to jump onto the bandwagon of a far right."

    Jess Philips.. I have never turned a blind eye. 2024

    Owen Jones.. Pakistani rape gangs? It's all a lie. 2023.

    Sadiq Khan.. Pakistani rape gangs? I don't know what you're talking about. 2023

    Emily Maitlis, Jon Sopel and Lewis Goodall 2022. A clear majority of grooming gangs are white.
     https://x.com/TRobinsonNewEra/status/1934955366132908291

    1. It's the desperation the Left have to lie that's staggering. Is it dependence on muslim vote? They bring nothing to this country.

      2. He went to jail for this. I would be angry too if I were him.

        1. I completely agree.
          The man has right on his side.
          But look at the earlier discussion, he does himself and his case harm as far as a neutral observer would see it.

        1. Possibly, but he is telling an awful lot of unwelcome truths to the powers that be, and long may he continue.

  98. Daniel Johnson
    In Calgary, we have just witnessed the total demise of European power
    Ever since the Congress of Vienna, summits of great power leaders were where the world’s business was done. That ended at this G7

    Daniel Johnson
    17 June 2025 1:40pm BST

    Blink and you miss it: the G7 summit at Calgary was effectively over almost as soon as it began. Yet what we have just witnessed is nothing less than the demise of European power.

    Not only did Donald Trump leave early to attend to more important business in Washington, thereby treating the other “world leaders” with unspoken but ill-disguised contempt: he also told them exactly what he thought of their overblown institution.

    “The G7 used to be the G8,” he declared in his inimitably bombastic way. “Barack Obama and a person named Trudeau didn’t want to have Russia in, and I would say that was a mistake, because you wouldn’t have a war right now if you had Russia in.”

    Never mind that Vladimir Putin was only kicked out of the G8 because he had just annexed Crimea. Never mind that allowing the Russian dictator to do so with virtual impunity incentivised him to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine eight years later.

    What Trump was implying is that the only point of a gathering like the G7 is to bring together the world’s potentates, regardless of their moral probity or depravity. A global summit that excludes the likes of Putin or Xi Jinping is not what the Victorians called “the concert of nations”, but a talking shop.

    Like many international institutions that have existed for half a century or more, the G7 has long since lost its raison d’être. It no longer has any meaningful impact on geopolitics or the global economy. Few people bother to read their final communiqués except those who are paid to do so.

    A huge shift of economic, political and military power away from Europe to other continents has left the G7 looking like a convocation of imposters, masquerading as statesmen. Prestige has to be earned, but European politicians have lived for too long in a fantasy world of which these annual summits are the window dressing.

    This atrophy of strategic muscle has been accelerated by the West’s loss of cultural confidence. If the elites of the democracies no longer believe in their own values, why should they expect the peoples of Asia, Africa or Latin America to do so? In place of influence, we now have influencers; our universities no longer teach that Western civilisation is of universal import.

    One can see the G7’s decline in the body language. It has become a ritual in which Europeans and Canadians dance attendance on the President, while he makes it all too obvious that the leaders he prefers to deal with aren’t even in the room. The leaders who seem to manage Trump well without sacrificing their dignity are Giorgia Meloni and Friedrich Merz, while Emmanuel Macron and Sir Keir Starmer fail lamentably. So much for the successors of De Gaulle and Churchill.

    How did the G7 sink to the level of a glorified photo opportunity? Its origins lie some two centuries ago, when the great powers assembled at the Congress of Vienna in 1814-15 to redraw the map of Europe after the Napoleonic Wars.

    The Congress – as much an occasion for balls and other festivities as for diplomacy – was rudely interrupted by Napoleon Bonaparte himself. The Emperor returned from Elba to mount a coup in France and threaten Europe again – only to be stopped by Wellington and Blücher at Waterloo.

    Ever since Vienna, the course of international relations has fluctuated between a paradise of multilateral institutions and a pandemonium of realpolitik and raison d’état.

    During the era of the world wars, the international order that had been created during the globalisation of commerce collapsed. As the empires were replaced by nation states and liberalism by communism and fascism, the League of Nations – erected to put an end to war – was swept away in the maelstrom.

    After 1945, the US and Britain led the way in restoring global order with an unprecedented network of international bureaucracies – the United Nations, Nato, the IMF, the World Bank, GATT (now the World Trade Organisation). Later came what are now the EU and G7.

    For the duration of the Cold War, these institutions worked, more or less. But the fall of the Berlin Wall, which ushered in a “New World Order”, led to the decay of the old order that had functioned tolerably well. Hubris – “the end of history” – was followed inexorably by nemesis: a new authoritarian wave.

    Some of the postwar bureaucracies (such as the EU) fell prey to institutional overreach, leading to a malaise of which Brexit is only the most obvious example. A new elite of international lawyers and judges, empowered by international courts such as the ECHR, unleashed “lawfare” in the name of “human rights” against the very nation states that had created these rights.

    Other institutions fell into decay, most notably the United Nations itself. Its Security Council has now been deadlocked for so long that when a war breaks out, what happens at the UN hardly counts any more.

    Last February President Trump ordered his UN ambassador to vote against a resolution to mark the third anniversary of the war in Ukraine, which left the United States aligned with Russia, Belarus and North Korea against the rest of the democratic world. Yet what would once have been seen as a seismic shift barely raised eyebrows here outside Whitehall.

    Not that the Labour Government has any right to feel morally superior, having refused to side with Israel in its existential battle with Iran – which, incidentally, promises to deprive Putin of a valuable ally against Ukraine.

    At a time of transatlantic tensions occasioned by the Iraq War, the neoconservative Robert Kagan coined the phrase: “Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus.” In his 2003 book Of Paradise and Power, he explained that while Europe aspired to Immanuel Kant’s ideal of “perpetual peace”, the United States still inhabited a world in which life was memorably described by Thomas Hobbes as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”.

    A generation later, the world does indeed increasingly resemble the Hobbesian one, while Europe has only recently begun to wise up to the hollowing out of the postwar order.

    While Trump’s attempts to drag Americans back into isolationism, protectionism and nativism may or may not succeed, we would be foolish to rely on the US to save Europe from its own follies.

    1. But that's the problem for all of them, isn't it? A groupthink where they all want the same thing, all have the same goals, where none of them deviate from the big state, high tax attitude. They all agree on the same miserabilist policies. They all have the same disdain for democracy. They all govern bankrupt, hard Left, unhappy socialist countries.

      There is no difference between them, so nothing changes: which is what they want. Improvement, real growth, genuine change for the better means doing away with the communist groupthink. As that's the last thing these useless wasters want why would they change anything?

    2. Russia didn’t annexe Crimea. Well, Catherine the Great did but Vladimir Putin didn’t. Crimea had a referendum that was open and conducted in full view of international observers.

  99. Steerpike
    Poll: just 3 per cent of women back Stella Creasy’s abortion amendment
    17 June 2025, 1:59pm

    It is a big week for big Commons moments. On Monday, we had the long-awaited announcement of an inquiry into grooming gangs; today it is the battle of the abortion amendments. This afternoon Lindsay Hoyle will choose whether to call Tonia Antoniazzi or Stella Creasy’s amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill. Antoniazzi’s measure would allow abortion for any reason up to birth while maintaining criminal sanctions for doctors performing late-term or sex-selective procedures.

    Creasy, however, has adopted the more hard-line position of full decriminalisation in all circumstances. Now, Mr S has got his hands on some polling – and it is bad news for Stella. More than 2,100 adults were polled by Whitestone Insight between 2nd and 3rd June. When asked ‘What do you think the time limit should be in Britain?’ just 3 per cent of women believe that ‘it should be extended to birth’. That, incidentally, is the same percentage of Labour voters who agree with the Hon. Member for Walthamstow.

    The polling also shows that the public ranked introducing ‘abortion up to birth’ at the bottom of a list of 20 possible priorities they want the the House of Commons to pursue over the next 12 months, with only one in 50 people listing it as a preferred area of focus. When asked the following question:

    In recent years, a few prosecutions have taken place for illegal abortions after the 24-week time limit and as late as eight months into pregnancy. Where do you think the blame should mainly lie for this?

    Only 8 per cent blamed ‘The law which does not permit abortions of healthy babies beyond 24 weeks gestation, on the basis that this is considered to be the point after which most babies are able to survive outside the womb’. So much for the political mainstream…

    Anglosphere
    3 hours ago
    What Creasy is proposing isn't abortion, it's infanticide.

    Captain Detterling Anglosphere
    2 hours ago
    You know, what with their obsession with killing the weak and vulnerable, I'm starting to think that these 'progressives' aren't quite as kind as they're always telling us they are.

    tubby Brewster
    4 hours ago
    She is a monster. That said, I wouldn't put it past the Labour Party to pass something that's supported by <3% of the public.

    Diprotodon tubby Brewster
    2 hours ago
    All committed left wingers are monsters. They are fanatics – they must be to unquestioningly accept things that are self-evidently absurd. Like all fanatics they love to exercise power and what better wayt to do that than culling others' children? She'd be a priestess of Baal in another time and place.
    Abortion, moreover, is something that they've hijacked from its normal context as a question of women's rights or health, and turned it into a kind of leftist rite of passage. Kill a kid – or at least facilitate it if you're a Guardian-reading spinster – and show your loyalty to the cause.

  100. Brendan O’Neil
    The establishment was more afraid of ‘the gammon’ than the groomers
    17 June 2025, 12:26pm

    ‘When history is written as it ought to be written’, said the great Trinidadian Marxist CLR James, ‘it is the moderation and long patience of the masses at which men will wonder, not their ferocity’. On no historical calamity is this truer than the rape-gang scandal. When future scribes look back at this violent tear in the British social fabric, it is the forbearance of the public they will marvel over. It will dazzle them.

    The spectre of public volatility has stalked this scandal from the start. The establishment’s irrational dread of the feral masses shaped its yellow-bellied decision-making. From the local officials who ‘shied away’ from discussing the ethnicity of the rapists to the commentariat that barked ‘far right!’ at any pleb who dared to utter the word ‘Muslim’, the great fear was always that truth might unleash savagery. We mustn’t openly discuss this, they told themselves, because the rabble will rampage.

    Even now, following the publication of Baroness Casey’s stinging report on the failures of officialdom, angst about the throng swirls through polite society. A reporter asked Casey if she was worried that her findings might lead to ‘civil unrest’. Such terror grips the Home Office too. An insider says officials are quaking at the prospect of ‘civil unrest’ following Casey’s finding that foreign nationals make up a ‘significant proportion’ of current rape-gang investigations.

    What a brilliant if bitter-tasting insight into the anti-masses bigotry of the technocrats that rule over us. They hear that undocumented arrivals are potentially involved in some of the sickest crimes imaginable and their first thought is: ‘Oh no, how will the white working classes respond?’ They fear ‘the gammon’ more than the groomers. The imaginary violence of the ‘low-information’ public causes them more sleepless nights than the real violence of the gangs of rapists.

    It’s been like this for years. In political circles, in academia, in the media, far more alarm was expressed over the untamed masses than the gangs themselves. All their pious handwringing over the ‘racialisation’ of child abuse and the stirring up of ‘moral panics’ and the dangers of ‘inflammatory’ coverage was designed to dampen what they see as the rough, unruly passions of the little people. As recently as January this year, Health Secretary Wes Streeting was warning that ‘coarse’ discussion of the rape gangs might incite mass violence.

    Bury the truth to tame the throng – that, for years, was the rallying cry of the establishment. And when the truth could no longer be contained, they called for coolness, restraint, decorous language only. In short, say nothing that might rile up the brutish multitude. We too often overlook this classist bigotry that shaped this outrage and shapes it still. A ruthless lack of care for the poor white girls who were raped and an outsized fear of what poor white men might do upon discovering the truth – these vile prejudices were the fuel of this scandal.

    The irony was dark. They fretted over a ‘moral panic’ while stirring up their own moral panic about the turbulent lower orders. They pontificated about the dangers of bigotry while peddling their own bigoted view of ordinary people as so dim-minded and given to violence that they cannot even be trusted with the truth about what was done to the girls in their communities. They posed as righteous while sacrificing the safety and dignity of the poorest, most vulnerable girls at the altar of ideology.

    It was one of the greatest inversions of truth our nation has ever seen. The calm, concerned masses were defamed as a violent whirlwind of bigoted passion, while the irrational elites falsely depicted themselves as paragons of good sense and virtue. What this horror really reveals is the spite and unreason of some in the ruling class, and the patient yearning for truth of ordinary people. The great prejudice of our age – that the people who rule Britain are experts and the people they rule over are fools – has been shattered on the wheels of this scandal.

    In response to that query about the possibility that her findings will whip up ‘civil unrest’, Baroness Casey said: ‘If good people don’t grip difficult issues, in my experience bad people do.’ Britain has plenty of good people. They’re the ones who have known the truth about these gangs for years and who with great, peaceful sufferance pushed for the truth to come out. This ‘long patience of the masses’, this perseverance for truth in the face of ceaseless insults, is a credit to our nation. The wisdom of the crowd – let’s value it more.

    ******************************
    Old Tyme Bulldog
    5 hours ago
    Reading the Casey report one summary from an investigation concluded that perpetrators came from "a diverse group of Pakistani, Turkish, Somalian, Afghanistani, Iraqi, Iranian, Bangladeshi, Albanian and Indian men".

    Diversity is only present in country of extraction. But, being a pattern-spotter, there is one commonality among them that offers zero diversity.

    Zeeland Old Tyme Bulldog
    5 hours ago
    It’s the elite who have become racist, they now shift blame, but against their own people. They sneer at the working class, the thick gammon, the low-information voter. They fear the people they govern more than the gangs of immigrants in back alleys. They hush up mass rape and shrug off child victims because, in their eyes, the working british families don’t matter. Your daughters are expendable; their reputations are not. This is the ruling elite in its cynicism. A moral rot so deep they’d rather see whole neighbourhoods sacrificed than risk a BBC panel show frowning at them for islamophobia.

  101. Is there any equivocation over Iran's right to neutralise Israel?

    Sauce for the goose…

    2. Your question implies a moral equivalence between a democratic state that protects its citizens and a theocratic dictatorship which murders its own people and, indirectly, those of other countries.

      1. This point is only valid if we are completely sure that our ideas about the relative virtue of different countries is true and not merely propaganda from the sophisticated US propaganda machine. I've believed too many of their lies in the past to accept unquestioningly any more.

      2. If law is to be universal then the nature of murder victims is irrelevant. It is the same if a killer goes for a villain or an innocent, since taking the law into one’s own hands is no defence against a charge of murder.

        Iran is a democracy, and the majority there, based mostly in the provinces, favours an unpleasant interpretation of conservative Shia Islam. We don’t like it here, but it’s what they have voted for. We have no right to alter their election results to suit us or even their disgruntled minority, even in metropolitan Tehran. We don’t even have the right to this if the election if palpably improper as it is in, say, Russia.

        It could also be argued that a nation founded and militarily defended on the principle of a “Homeland” favouring one tribe over all others, and based on religious scripture is itself a theocracy. Judaism may be more benign than Islam, but can also create a theocracy. Even Christianity is not immune, and many may argue that there were theocracies in England during the Reformation and its Catholic reaction under Mary I.

        Israel’s strongest case for its special military operation relies on the menace presented by Iran as it supports proxies that are lobbing rockets into Israel, with the claim that they are defending their friendly peoples from persecution or even righteous extermination.The moment Israel follows their example and starts sending bombs themselves abroad, they are acting no better, and must therefore claim there is no moral equivalence, since those wearing the right hat can do no wrong.

        Israeli targeting of those who are developing a lethal threat against them may well be morally supportable, but then so too would Iranian attacks on the more belligerent elements within the Knesset and the Israeli miitary infrastructure and its proxies, such as the United States. I doubt Iran’s regime has the competence though to do any more than send rockets into enemy territory indiscriminately, and here at last is some moral distinction. If you are going to shoot the enemy, it pays to shoot straight.

        Enlightenment can be found biblically in the story of Jacob and Esau – Jacob won his father’s inheritance through guile and intelligence rather than the caveman barbarism of his brother.The same distinction may be made between Jews and Muslims today.

        1. 390 words which prove my point. You make an equivalence between a tiny state persistently fighting for its existence and one which would happily wipe it out. Israelis don’t hate Muslims but Iran’s leaders hate people and countries which are not Islamic. No amount of pseudo-academic argument by you will change this.

  103. As ever, the BBC (R4 anyway) has been coming down on its preferred side over Iran, trying to make out that there's significant opposition in Israel to the attacks, notably amongst Arabs who are Israeli citizens. Some Iranian missiles have got through Israel's defences and this is apparently making Israelis nervous enough to question the action.

    What will happen if Iran's leaders are over thrown? Iran may be officially a Muslim state – it's claimed that 96 of the population 'believes in Islam' – but two-thirds of the population is Persian. Arabs are a tiny proportion. A religious war is a grim prospect.

    From Wiki:
    According to a 2003 estimate, Persians make up 51% of the population, while Azerbaijanis make up 24%, Gilaks and Mazenderanis 8%, Kurds 7%, Arabs 3%, Lurs 2%, Balochis 2%, Turkmens 2% and other groups (including Armenians, Jews, Assyrians, Qashqai, Shahsevan) make up the remaining 1%.

    The US Library of Congress in 2008 issued slightly different estimates: 65% Persians (also including Gilaks and Mazenderanis), 16% Azerbaijanis, 7% Kurds, 6% Lurs, 2% Arabs, 2% Balochis, 1% Turkic tribal groups (such as Qashqai), and non-Persian, non-Turkic groups (including Armenians, Georgians, and Assyrians) less than 1%.

    1. I am surprised at the number of Azerbaijanis and wonder as to why and when.

  105. The big questions are –
    If they stop the grooming gangs and jail all the offenders will Labour lose their inner city block vote?
    Will dinghy boat migrants still want to come?

  109. Posted without comment!

    A former Conservative MP harassed his wife while he was undergoing gender transition.

    Katie Wallis, 41, known as Jamie before becoming Britain’s first transgender MP in 2022, admitted harassing Rebecca Lovell between February and March this year.

    The former politician sent four unwanted phone messages and a voice note to Ms Lovell after the pair divorced last year.

    Wallis, who served as an MP between 2019 and 2024, arrived late at Cardiff magistrates’ court on Tuesday afternoon.

    Speaking only to confirm personal details and enter a guilty plea, Wallis told the court: “My preferred name is Katie, but my legal name is still Jamie.”

    2. So TR has been persecuted by the state for years, thrown in prison, treated abominably, his name has been dragged through the mire by mainstream media and yet now he has been proven right all along.
      Is he our Nelson Mandela, has our ruling establishment behaved like apartheid South Africa against out native population?

  112. Wonderful pianist. We have a few of his recordings. We were fortunate to go to a concert in Bristol about 20 years ago where he and his son both played.

  113. To the moderators.

    Deleting posts that might offend is your privilege.

    But if you do so, might I suggest that you remove the entire thread?

    In the early days, when GG set the site up, and was looking for Moderators, I said I could not apply as I believe in freedom of speech and would be extremely unlikely to delete anything.

    1. Those are the very people who are next in the queue for denigration, after the rapists themselves.

      1. 407684_ up ticks,

        Evening S,

        You have it in one, they are in my book on par with the paedos.

    2. Those are the very people who are next in the queue for denigration, after the rapists themselves.

  116. Completely and utterly off topic.

    I was conversing on another site and noticed a poster with fewer than 100,000 comments but nearly 2.5 million up votes.
    I wonder if there's an up-vote bot, similar to the downvote one

  120. Watered the garden plants and beds , taken me an hour . It has been a warm day.

    Moh arrived back from his golf game in Sherborne at 8pm, he has had a good day , long drive , little roads, and I have been busy.

    Procedures for me over the next three days , blood test tomorrow , tube down my throat Thursday, and CT scan Friday , well they said urgent , and the good old NhS slotted me in quickly .

    Hope it is just an IBS blip .

    2. Hope it all goes well. I found the tube down throat painful but not everyone does and the pictures were astonishing. My CT was a coronary angiogram and I was warned that, “you’ll feel as if you’re wetting yourself but don’t worry, you’re not”. It was true.

    3. Wow Belle! Hope all goes well, and you find some relief from your pain and discomfort!💐

    4. The tube I had down my throat last month actually went up my nose first. As you will appreciate, it is a thinner tube and causes less gagging as it goes down.

      1. That seems to be how they do it now. It was like that the last time I had it done.

  121. MPs vote to decriminalise abortion at any point up to birth

    A majority of 242 bar stewards apparently..

  122. I notice that MPs have voted, by a large majority 379-137, to decriminalise late term abortions up to and including full term.

    I normally stay away from the abortion issue as I believe it should be resolved by women – but I simply cannot believe that this is anything other than murder by another name.

    The fact that so many of our appalling MPs voted in favour simply underlines the utter moral vacuum inhabited by our revolting ruling class.

    A pox on all their houses…..

    Edit: sorry Stephen, posted at about the same time as yours!

    1. Hear you, Vlad…but I firmly believe men are as much involved as women – they have a right to say if they would like to raise the child they fathered imv.

      1. Men can certainly express an opinion – I just have – but ultimately it is a woman's body and I think only a woman can fully appreciate all the factors involved in an abortion decision.

        2. It's not just the woman's body – there is also a child involved. A late-term abortion involves a possibly viable life – not just a bunch of cells, but a living person.

          A woman knows she is pregnant when the foetus is very immature. At about 17 weeks, movement can be felt. Many premature babies survive after 30 weeks or earlier. It should not take a woman so long to decide she does not want that child. Within two months of full -term, in my opinion, abortion at that stage of development is murder.

  123. There is only one institution that needs aborting now even though it has't yet reached full term!

  124. I wrote to our MP on the subject of abortion.
    Here is the reply I received from him today. Before he became an MP last year, he was a local GP.

    Thank you for your email regarding the amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill.

    Like 90% of the country, I believe in a woman’s right to choose – 1 in 3 women in the UK will have an abortion at some point in their lives and I am aware that as an MP I am representing many constituents who will have made this choice, and who rely on me to ensure that they are able to access abortion care in the future if they need it.

    A woman's right to make decisions about her body is not protected by law. The 1967 Abortion Act only allows people to seek abortion under certain circumstances, but abortion otherwise remains a crime. Women are currently criminalised under abortion law dating to 1861, and a growing number of women have been investigated by the police for suspected illegal abortion.

    There is a great deal of misinformation about the proposed changes. For example, amendment NC1 to the Crime and Policing Bill, would not extend the abortion time limit, nor change how abortion is provided, the need for two doctors’ signatures, or the current guidance around sex-selective abortion. It is rather focused on ensuring that women are treated with care and compassion, rather than threatened with criminalisation when they seek medical help. This change would bring us into line with Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France, Ireland, and Northern Ireland.

    As a GP, I am also mindful that the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Royal College of Nursing, the Royal College of Midwives and the Royal College of General Practitioners (and many other organisations) all support the amendment.

    As a result, like the majority of the country, and the majority of MPs in the previous Parliament, I believe it is time to update this law. I will be supporting cross-party amendment NC1 in Parliament if it comes to a vote.

    With thanks and best wishes –

    2. "… for example, amendment NC1 to the Crime and Policing Bill would not extend the abortion time limit…"

      A much needed clarification – I thought that was the case but some of the reporting (including here) implied an extension of the limit beyond 24 weeks.

      Of course, it doesn't mean there won't be an attempt at a later date…

      1. Yes, but it decriminalises the 1% of abortions that happen beyond 24 weeks – so pretty much the same thing!

    3. So the Royal Colleges of Shroud Weavers and Wavers support the amendment – talk about Hypocritic Oath!

    4. So the Royal Colleges of Shroud Weavers and Wavers support the amendment – talk about Hypocritic Oath!

    5. “Like the majority of the country”. When was the referendum? I missed it. Women exercise their right over their own body when they choose to have unprotected sex. A tiny percentage of abortions are done after rape. A 24 week old foetus is not “a clump of cells”. Even that premature, it can be a viable life. It isn’t her own body she’s mutilating. Horrible to think this man is a doctor.

    7. There are lots and lots of new clinics that are popular for ultrasound examinations .

      I had an ultrasound a month ago, a private one , to get to the root of my tummy problem (IBS?)

      The private clinic I attended was according to the staff , very popular with new parents who require a baby sex reveal.

      The clinic was gorgeous , lots of photos of babies and cuddly toys etc .

      The DARK side though, I was informed was that parents like to choose the sex of their child , and that depends entirely on nationality of the parents , I wasn't allowed to ask any further questions , but I suspect more and more couples are choosing the sex of their baby by elimination?

      1. I don’t know how early (or late) in a pregnancy it is possible to see the sex of the child. Though i presume from a blood test it could be done at an early stage. Certain demographics do prefer to have boys, I think. I’m sure many baby girls are aborted.

    8. The original safeguards were there for a reason. Now the standards have been removed and it’s abortion on demand. The slippery slope at its finest.

  128. Obnox
    1h
    And there we have it, 379 of the odious ones in that odious place have voted to allow late term abortions. It solves the massive problem of 3 women being convicted of illegal abortion in 161 years.
    Cross reference most of the names and you will find they were the ones voting against a GG Inquiry back at the start of this year.

  130. I have just been to the Richmond Theatre (Richmond upon Thames) and seen an excellent play called “The Last Laugh” about Tommy Cooper, Eric Morcambe and Bob Monkhouse. Very good.

  131. Captain Sensible
    5m
    When Yvette went to the mindreader, she was charged half-price.

    1. Of course the one who implicitly defended rape gangs went on to a glittering media career. That's the British media all over.

  135. Well, chums, it's now well past my bedtime. So I'll wish you all a Good Night! Sleep well, and I hope to see you all early tomorrow morning.

  137. C H E E S E A N D O N I O N S
    5h
    A women can now throw her new-born out the window if she feels or if she is told to because she is now free to do whatever she chooses with it. There are obviously cases now where plod has been over-zealous and caused problems but changing the law is going to make some very tragic situations happen. Shame on our parliament to spend only 46 minutes on something so important.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/eedc717a85738c8b3db9c23153ac3f2ce9038e68c9177f47c296e3026289a68f.png

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