Saturday 12 July: Smart meters are a symbol of energy companies’ contempt for customers

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its commenting facility (now reinstated, but we prefer ours),
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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here.

585 thoughts on “Saturday 12 July: Smart meters are a symbol of energy companies’ contempt for customers”

      1. Are you referring to Calais, and the cartoon above? King Cnut understood well the flood risk posed by the sea.

      3. Any flood plain is a flood risk and how much of a risk depends on circumstances.
        What we saw here were extraordinary circumstances that would have been difficult to predict and, had they been predicted, the warning infrastructure appears to have been lacking.

  4. Good morning all.
    Another boringly bright, sunny and warm start with a tad under 17°C on the thermometer.

    1. Morning all.

      Alf and I were on holiday in California 30-odd years ago where it was sunny every day. I remember saying to Alf, oh no, it’s sunny again! If only it would rain.

    2. What does he/she/it make of Hubert Parry, once the King's favourite composer?

        1. I don’t know what Parry you are referring to, probably someone I’ve never heard of. Hubert Parry (1848-1918) the composer of ‘Jerusalem’ was born in Bournemouth.

    3. How about: Let's keep people who know nothing about the Proms, out of the Proms.

  7. Good morning, chums. And thanks, Geoff, for today's new NoTTLe site. Just made Wordle in 6 (a double Bogey).

    Wordle 1,484 6/6

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    ⬜🟨🟩⬜🟩
    ⬜⬜🟩🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Good morning Elsie and all
      Wordle 1,484 4/6 ⬜⬜🟩🟨⬜ ⬜⬜🟩⬜🟩 ⬜🟨🟩⬜🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. In the past and featured even as late as the ITV drama series ' Doc Martin', a village surgery would have one receptionist to greet the patients, keep their records, organise appointments and make the tea. This was the case in my village when I first moved there – there were three GPs, maintaining a 24/7 rota, and one receptionist.

      Now there are four GPs and a nurse working part-time. When I visited the surgery, I counted an office of a dozen hardworking female administrators, all very busy, an automated clocking-on system, and patients would be seen when there was a moment to spare. This surgery is reckoned to be one of the best run in the country; I dread to think what it is like in the towns.

      It seems that cuts have to be made when "hard decisions" are to be made, but we must rely on our representatives, advised by experts, to decide where the axe must fall. I cannot think of any Health Secretary with any honour since Frank Dobson gave up soon into Bali [I'll keep that in as an example of Disqus's "upgraded" text editor shuffling letters as I type, and then throwing me off when I attempt to backspace correct their interventions] Blair's Government.

  11. From my optician:

    New Research Links GLP-1 Medications to Macular Degeneration Risk
    If you are taking popular weight loss or diabetes medications such as Ozempic, Wegovy or Mounjaro, it may be time to look more closely—at your eye health.

    A new large-scale study from the University of Toronto, published in JAMA Ophthalmology and featured in Optometry Today (June 2025), has identified a significant association between these GLP-1 receptor agonist (RA) medications and the development of wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD)—a leading cause of vision loss in adults over 55.

    The researchers analysed health data from over 139,000 diabetes patients aged 66 or older. Those who had been taking GLP-1 medications for more than six months were 2.2 times more likely to develop wet AMD than those who had never taken them.

    While the full biological link is still being researched, this finding has raised serious concerns among clinicians—especially as these medications are increasingly prescribed for weight loss and pre-diabetes in a wider age group.

    👁 Q&A: Understanding AMD (Age-Related Macular Degeneration)
    Q: What is AMD?
    A: AMD is a common condition where the macula—the part of the retina responsible for central, detailed vision—becomes damaged over time. It can affect your ability to read, drive, recognise faces, or see fine detail.

    Q: What are the symptoms of AMD?
    A: Early AMD may have no noticeable symptoms. As it progresses, you might experience:

    Blurred or distorted central vision
    Straight lines appearing wavy
    Difficulty seeing in low light
    A dark or empty spot in your central vision

    Q: What’s the difference between dry and wet AMD?
    A: Dry AMD is the more common form, progressing slowly with gradual vision changes.
    Wet AMD is less common but more severe, causing sudden vision loss due to abnormal blood vessels under the retina. It requires urgent treatment.

    1. One doesn#t have to be a rocket scientist to suspect that a regular injection designed to give a person a symptom of serious illness (i.e. losing appetite) is not going to be good for the body.

  12. Good Morning!

    Psychologist Xandra H continues FSB's theme of the Globalist Cabal's mass brainwashing campaign for nefarious ends in her ' You Really Do Need a Faraday Cage ' , which she explains is now a necessary defence against the state's continued program of fear and depression.

    And don't forget to read Iain Hunter's expose of the Globalist End Game in his important piece The Curtain Has Been Pulled Back posing that we are being subjects to a rising crescendo of fake bad news designed to scare us all into accepting serfdom and poverty. The Mother of All Project Fears. Please do read it, and watch the films exposing the lies for what they are. Remember, 2030 is less than five years away now.

    Energy Watch: Over the last 24 hours: Britain's electric power was sourced from Gas, 31.7%; Solar, 13.3%: Wind 6.4%; Imports, 21.5%; Biomass, 10.5%; Nuclear 13.7% and Miscellaneous, 3%.

    freespeechbacklash.com

    1. The rising crescendo of fake bad news is really obvious if one looks at the Mail. Most of the "news items" are degrading or depressing in one way or another.

      1. True. I think it is all part of the plan to make us feel like it’s hopeless and just give up.

    2. My defence against the state’s programme of fear and depression is that I don’t watch TV or read the MSM.

    1. Poor Dianne.
      I actually feel sorry for her as she ought to have been allowed to retire years ago.

          1. The basic annual salary of a Member of Parliament (MP) in the House of Commons is £91,346, plus expenses, from April 2024. In addition, MPs are able to claim allowances to cover the costs of running an office and employing staff, and maintaining a constituency residence or a residence in London.

      3. Sorry for her? Miss Abbott is over 70 and has been an MP for 38 years; her basic Parliamentary pension would be approaching the maximum level of circa £47,000, plus increments because she was a Minister. All depends on her chosen accrual rate of course.

    1. Round and round went the bloody great wheel the Engineer constructed before he died and its purpose was to drive a steel object in and out.

  17. Camilla Tominey
    This shameless Labour Government could be gone far sooner than anyone imagines

    After only a year in office, the PM has been painted into a corner by by his disastrous policies and disgruntled back-benchers

    11 July 2025 4:32pm BST
    Camilla Tominey

    A state visit is meant to demonstrate the best of British – and as far as the pomp and pageantry around Emmanuel Macron’s sejour was concerned, that was true.

    But let’s be honest, if Prime Minister Keir Starmer, his deputy Angela Rayner and Chancellor Rachel Reeves – with a side order of Foreign Secretary David Lammy – are supposed to represent the crème de la crème of UK statecraft, then we really are en difficulté.

    So lacking in stature are the current Labour crop that even when the pint-sized president started slagging off Brexit, none of them stepped in to defend the “once in a lifetime” democratic decision taken by this country almost a decade ago.

    “The British people have been sold a lie,” opined Monsieur Napoleon Complex, arguing that we were told leaving the EU would “make it possible to fight more effectively against illegal immigration”.

    Sure, we were told Brexit would allow us to “take back control of our borders” and we haven’t – but the biggest lies of all were told at this week’s Anglo-Francofest, with the pretence that the “17 in, one out” migrant fudge is a “good deal” for the UK.

    The British people have been sold a £500 million pup by the French – who have taken a vast amount of taxpayers’ pounds to do precisely the opposite of stopping the boats. On Thursday, a French navy warship escorted a dinghy crammed with nearly 80 migrants to the Channel’s midpoint for a handover with the UK Border Force – but not before demanding their life jackets back from the asylum seekers to reuse them on the next trip.

    These two wildly unpopular Euro-Lefties can’t even save their own sinking approval ratings, so forget “smashing the gangs”. “Stop the showboating” might be a better slogan for this arrogant pair of smug elitists.

    After a disastrous first year in office, Starmer is now ranked the least popular prime minister of the past four decades, plumbing even greater depths than Gordon Brown. He is such a poor politician that he cannot even keep the party together, despite a stonking majority, with restless backbenchers forcing him into U-turn after U-turn.

    Meanwhile, we’ve got Rayner of “Tory scum” fame single-handedly trying to bankrupt Britain with a workers’ rights bill that seven in 10 business leaders say will stifle growth. She’s reportedly at war with our lachrymose Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, who, despite her Oxford education, is so out of her depth she’s being regularly outfoxed by her chippy Cabinet colleague who left school at 16.

    Reeves has any number of ominous forecasts at her fingertips to tell the ginger whinger to do one – or risk further destabilising our fragile fiscal situation – and yet she is seemingly too busy blubbing over her red box.

    Take the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics, which show the UK economy once again shrank “unexpectedly” in May, contracting for the second month in a row. Confounding analysts who expected to see slight growth, the economy shrivelled by 0.1 per cent, driven by a drop in manufacturing and “very weak” retail sales.

    The only sector to grow overall last month was services – including legal firms recovering from the impact of changes to stamp duty thresholds the previous month. Presumably, they have also been cashing in from defending convicted criminals from deportation, giving away the Chagos Islands and trying to prosecute Northern Ireland veterans under Labour’s watch. Perhaps we can litigate ourselves into prosperity! The unelected Attorney General, Lord Hermer, who was this week revealed by The Telegraph to have handed himself an “effective veto” over government policy, would certainly be in clover.

    When you consider the triumvirate of travesty that is currently in charge of this once great nation, it is little wonder people are seriously starting to question whether Labour can go the distance.

    The Prime Minister is reported to be “pinning his hopes on a summer refresh”, which apparently doesn’t mean a Lord Alli-funded spending spree on linen clothes.

    Instead, he is planning to use the long parliamentary recess, which begins on July 22, to inject more purpose into the Government and could reshuffle ministers as soon as next week. (Expect Reeves to stay put as Starmer’s resident flak shield. Oddly, Lisa Nandy, the Culture Secretary, is set for the chop despite being the only person in his team, bar Rayner, capable of communicating with anyone north of the Emirates Stadium.)

    On Friday, the Cabinet was summoned for an “away day” with the Prime Minister at Chequers, his Buckinghamshire country retreat. On Tour with No Cheer Keir? Let’s hope they had Aperol on tap.

    Few believe a refresh can stem the bleeding, with rumours now circulating that Starmer could call an election as early as next year.

    The idea behind this kamikaze plan would be to completely eviscerate the Tories – who have yet to recover from 14 years of failure – so that Labour are level pegging with Reform. Starmer could then look to form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats, and, God forbid, the Greens, in a bid to present the electorate with a “sensible” alternative to “far Right” Farage.

    The fact that Jeremy Corbyn has re-entered the fray, with 18 per cent said to be considering voting for him according to the latest YouGov polling, won’t put Starmer off. If Sexy Jezza manages to take out Wes Streeting in the process, then so be it: one less leadership rival for the prime minister to worry about – plus, the Health Secretary is about to be embroiled in an almighty row with junior doctors demanding a 29 pay rise on top of the 22 per cent over two years they have already been given.

    I know it sounds completely nuts, but that’s how desperate the people running the country have seemingly become.

    Another theory is that Starmer could be undone by his own increasingly disgruntled MPs. Such was the loveless nature of Labour’s landslide that many backbenchers were voted in on such slim majorities that they have nothing to lose in ousting the Prime Minister if it means getting re-elected. They have already won the rebellion on winter fuel and welfare.

    Next they will be agitating to scrap the two-child benefit cap and if that necessitates threatening to vote down the autumn Budget, then so be it. Admittedly, no Budget has been lost in a vote of the Commons in recent political history but, like Macron, who was this week reported to be considering a snap election, Starmer is a man in office but not in power. The arch Remainer might want to seriously consider seeking asylum in France. I hear Paris is lovely at this time of year.

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

  18. It's a long time since I was up at 7am on a Saturday but then it's a long time since I've slept so badly.

    Today's Right has much to learn from Tebbit, not least how to unite Tory and Reform visions

    The former Conservative chairman embodied the values of upwardly mobile self-reliance with a patriotic belief in economic nationalism

    Charles Moore • 11th July 2025, 5:44pm BST

    Somewhere in the 1990s, after he had left office, I had to introduce Norman Tebbit as the speaker at a formal dinner. "Lord Tebbit," I said, "comes from what is sometimes called a humble background." Up he jumped. "I want you to know," he told the audience, "That there was nothing humble about my background. Poor, yes; humble, never." I was rightly rebuked.

    After Tebbit died this week, aged 94, I picked up his autobiography and re-read the early parts. The book is called Upwardly Mobile. He was fiercely proud of his background. He felt it taught him resilience and patriotism (his was a wartime childhood), but he also wanted to escape from it. This combination of feelings is the source of a powerful sort of conservatism, one that we are in danger of losing.

    Norman made his father, Leonard, famous by telling the 1981 Conservative Party conference that, in the 1930s, he "didn't riot. He got on his bike and looked for work." It was a sincere tribute but, in his memoir, he also says that his father's horizons "seemed narrow and dull" to his teenage son. The young Norman wanted to escape "the dreary limitations of home".

    His story resembled that of Margaret Thatcher, in whose Cabinets he served so prominently. As an ambitious young woman, she was keen to get away from her native Grantham but, as she rose to supreme power, she would always speak in praise of the values she had learnt there, especially those inculcated by her grocer father.

    The dominant political narrative of the immediate post-war period is, rightly, of the socialism of Clement Attlee's Labour governments – nationalisation, planning, the start of the NHS. But there always was a counter-trend. Among the upper reaches of the working class and the lower ones of the middle class, there were a great many people who resented trade union power – especially political strikes and the closed shop – and disliked a rationed, highly-taxed and planned economy. These were men and women who started with little, wanted to get on and felt the growing state was holding them back. The few intellectuals among them were much influenced by Friedrich Hayek's great book, The Road to Serfdom.

    Both Tebbit and Thatcher found part of the liberation they sought in the Conservative Party and, most particularly, in the Young Conservatives. Norman, aged 15, was much influenced and helped by the Young Conservatives branch secretary in Enfield who had won the Distinguished Flying Cross in the war. (Norman later joined the RAF before becoming a commercial pilot.) In the middle of the last century, those grass roots grew and grew.

    The Thatcher-Tebbit generation triumphed after the Attlee legacy crumbled in the Winter of Discontent in 1978-9. The Thatcher experiment began. Although its effects will always be controversial, it did achieve upward mobility for millions of people, a trend which lasted until the premiership of Gordon Brown.

    We have now lived for more than 15 years with little increase in real wages, ever greater tax and government interference. The would-be Tebbits born in modest circumstances in 2000 or after will have been brought up with, on average, a much higher standard of living than that experienced by the boy Norman, but new horizons are not opening up for them. Upward mobility is hampered by housing costs, regulations and the employers' National Insurance rise which crush small business. Public services are overwhelmed by the social and financial costs of mass immigration and family breakdown.

    There is a cultural problem, too. Our indigenous population is being told that the national legacy, in which it traditionally took so much pride, is a rotten one. The great Victorian project of "improvement" is now nullified, even vilified, and replaced with inculcated guilt. If Tebbit could propose his famous cricket test today, he might go to prison: he would certainly be "cancelled".

    With poor economic trends has grown greater dependency. If, God forbid, a government minister today were to sustain the sort of injuries which Norman Tebbit received in the Brighton bombing, he could retire at once on disability benefit rather than stay in the Cabinet to serve his country.

    The consequence of these changes is widespread anger and a politics of negativity. The persistence of what is now called Reform, but has previously had several other names, is commendable. Nigel Farage consistently identifies grievances and picks good moments to air them. Think of his skill in exploiting his own "debanking" by Coutts or his last-minute entry into the 2024 general election campaign.

    Along the way, however, the vital, constructive element of conservatism is being lost. The Tebbit example is instructive here. No one was better than he at the brutal soundbite which knocked his opponents back and made BBC presenters faint on air.

    Yet if one looks at his actions in office, most of his work was to build better ladders up which people could climb. His entire period as Employment Secretary, helped by the fact that he had himself been a trade union official, was occupied with the gradual reform of union practices so that leaders became answerable to their members and employees could do better by working than by striking.

    His time at Trade and Industry was spent trying to reinvigorate businesses, chiefly by privatisation. And, by the way, Tebbit disagreed with Mrs Thatcher over some industrial policy because he was more of an economic nationalist than she was. National, economic and energy security was a subject over which Tebbit quite often clashed with the boss he admired. Such a view is now more in fashion.

    People tend to separate cultural and economic issues too much. It was part of the skill of Thatcher-Tebbit conservatism to see that economic issues are also cultural. They are about what people work for, how they can improve the chances of their children and grandchildren, so that hope can predominate over fear.

    "Every earner an owner!" Mrs Thatcher used to cry. She said this not only because people should keep more of what they earn but also because ownership gives them more power over their lives, including their retirement. Widely disseminated prosperity is an emancipation just as important as was the extension of the franchise.

    So it is welcome that Kemi Badenoch is starting, somewhat belatedly, to return to the central conservative (and Conservative) message that economic freedom and opportunity secure much wider social goods. She is now usefully contrasting the "makers" in society with the "takers". This week, she highlighted the frightening thought that 28 million people are now working to pay the wages and benefits of the other 28 million: "The rider is as big as the horse." She warned that we are becoming "a welfare state with an economy attached".

    She is right to challenge Reform on this. In a bid for "Red Wall" votes and perhaps in mini-Maga style, Nigel Farage has turned Reform into a big spending party, moving it into a crowded political space already occupied by Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens, the SNP and Plaid Cymru. If Reform is also to be about "taking", that could be the remaking of the Conservatives.

    This week, further rumours circulated that Robert Jenrick's team is planning to oust Mrs Badenoch when, as currently predicted, next May's local election results are bad. There is much to be said for Mr Jenrick's talents, but none for yet another coup. It would be yet another displacement activity to prevent the Tories becoming once more the party of economic renewal.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/11/right-can-learn-from-norman-tebbit-unite-tory-reform-uk

    Mrs Thatcher's great fault was to see so much of what was done in the country as separately costed units rather than part of a greater whole. The railways may have lost money but, in urban parts, the SE in particular, they contributed enormously to the economy, even if overall they ran at a loss. Steel likewise was of national importance. I'm assuming this it what Moore and others refer to as Tebbit's 'economic nationalism'.

    1. The last paragraph is quite adroit.

      I was a postman in the 1980s. When I started, both telecommunications and crown and sub offices were a part of the General Post Office, and this was long before this privatised and deregulated national institution embarked on a life of crime, rewarded by our betters, who got their knighthoods out of their treachery.

      My section had a couple of rural delivery rounds out in the villages. Along with the post, we took the parcels as a matter of course. Plenty of room in the van, and since we were passing twice a day every address, it was no bother, and no extra cost. We also delivered newspapers for the village suboffice and emptied the phone boxes, all as part of the job. There was an old lady on the round who would give us a cup of tea, and we'd keep an eye on her to see she was ok. There was also a girls' school, and the girls used to leave money for stamps alongside the letters they wanted sent.

      Then some economic guru decided that such cross-subsidisation was a bad thing, and everything had to be separated into categories: the profitable parts sold off, and the unprofitable ones cut back. No space for Jess the cat with the new order.

      Parcels, deemed "profitable" were given their own organisation "Parcelforce" and no longer delivered with the letters.

      Today, there are all sorts of carriers coming out into the villages at all times with parcels from online shopping, rather than the previous system of them being delivered with the post. Delivery officers, which were once vetted carefully for security, are now mostly Asians of various loyalties.

      Prices, both of letters and parcels have gone through the roof. I argued that today's pound is worth the pre-decimal sixpence. The price of a first class letter in 1970 was 5d. So about a pound today. The actual price of a stamp today is much more than this. How much though if the Royal Mail still delivered parcels with the daily post?

      1. Parcels are delivered with the post up here and the postie picks up parcels too and even brings the label if prepaid.

      2. That part about cross-subsidisation is a good one – splitting each service off results in sub-optimisation as described. It may well be smart to focus on a core service where there is high "service density", such as inner cities, but where everyone is well spread out, isn't the best way of delivering the service.

      3. Since internet shopping started, the amount of litter on our rural roads has exploded.

    1. Yes, it must have been really traumatising for Muslim males to be told what to do by any police officer but especially one who was a young woman.

  21. Dover Sentry
    9h
    R*pe statistics for England and Wales.
    In 2000: There was 7801 reported r*pes.
    In 2024: There was 71.227 reported r*pes.

    That's an increase of over 800% in just 24 years. What happened???

    Lord Farquard
    Dover Sentry
    8h
    We know why.
    More to the point, why isn't this headline news?

    We know why.

    1. Some of the increase is probably down to the police becoming much better at dealing with the crime. The insensivity of many officers to rape complaints in the past has been the subject of much discussion. The creation of SARCs has certainly improved the situation.

      However, I doubt whether this accounts for a nine-fold increase in reports…

    2. Things only change when one of our political idiots families are involved in the horror they have created..

      1. So you could argue that a public-spirited rapist who wants to do good should target a member of a politician's family for his next victim.

        1. That's the very last thing they would do, they know that they would be noticed.
          In 2003 a thirty year plus mother, an MPs daughter was electrocuted in her home kitchen by bodged faulty wiring.
          Soon after that happened regulations were tighten and a watch was place on wiring installations with certification being essential. Sadly such an accident, or circumstances seems the only way to get them to react.

      2. They've been killed, stabbed, shot. The political class do not care. The project must continue.

        Didn't Jess Philips scream that they should be raped in the name of diversity? How about we encourage that and throw the rabid whelp into a slammer pit and let then do what they like to her?

        But then, she's too old as muslim prefers to rape children.

        1. Old and ugly. But then there are quite a lot of uglies hidden behind various items of clothing too.

      3. Once Ophelia or Tristan Leftie-Judge have been raped/maimed/killed, then we will see a crack down. aka, common sense.

  22. My tips to avoid arrest by the Met
    Douglas Murray

    An interesting event occurred in London at the weekend. A young man who goes by the name of Montgomery Toms attended a Pride parade. But he did not attend in order to dress in bondage gear while shouting ‘Love is love’ and ‘Free Palestine’. Instead he went with a sandwich board which had a trans flag on it, followed by an equals sign and then the words ‘mental illness’.

    This is a tactic pioneered by an American man known as ‘Billboard Chris’, because his name is Chris and he wears a billboard. Chris’s schtick is to walk around with a sign saying things like ‘Children cannot consent to puberty blockers’. For making such inflammatory statements, Billboard Chris has been detained in a number of jurisdictions, largely because severely deranged people tend to flock around him when he wears this billboard, screaming abuse and showing that they are in no way mentally deranged. But I digress.

    Montgomery Toms was standing on Piccadilly on Saturday when some Pride attendees took exception to his sign. As a result the police moved in. One of them asked what his purpose was in wearing it. Toms said it was in order to ‘engage in conversations’ and to have ‘a community and society where people like me are entitled to have a different opinion without being marginalised by other groups’. The fact that the whole Pride business began as a way for marginalised groups to make their voices heard appeared to be lost on the policeman, though it wasn’t lost on Toms, who pointed out that the whole ‘Love is love’ crowd didn’t appear to be giving a whole lot of love to him.

    The police asked Toms to remove his sign and he refused. In response, the policeman called his superior and walked Toms away from the parade, whereupon a grand total of 11 officers arrived to arrest him. By his own account, Toms was held in custody at Charing Cross police station for ten hours, before being released on pre-charge bail with conditions that included a ban from entering the City of Westminster for at least three months.

    Had Toms been in touch with me beforehand, I would have offered him some legal advice for free. Foremost among my learned recommendations would have been that he could save himself from arrest by a variety of means. In no particular order, these would include that when first being questioned by a police officer, he should promptly shout ‘Jihad, jihad, jihad’. Next he should whip out a sign saying ‘Slay the infidel’ before rounding it all off with a few cries of ‘Intifada’. To my certain knowledge these are the best ways to avoid arrest in London these days. Had he followed my advice, the first officer would doubtless have said: ‘Very well, sir, please carry on and have a nice day.’ There would have been no 11 policemen, no Charing Cross and certainly no banning from the centre of London.

    It is true that things do not always go as planned in this life. So on the off-chance that the first officer had any unreasonable suspicions about this chap shouting ‘Jihad’, there are other avenues Toms could have gone down. Another way to have avoided police attention would be for him to have stolen a bike, nicked a mobile phone from a passer-by or – best of all – gone breaking and entering into one of the charming private houses that sit off Berkeley Square. If Toms had followed this advice then not only would he still be free to explore the City of Westminster, but he would have a charming pied-à-terre there.

    One other piece of legal advice comes to mind. This is the nuclear option if you really want to avoid the attentions of the law in this country. Toms’s mistake was to express concern for young people who might be taken advantage of by ideologies which have not remotely worked themselves out yet. Much better for him would have been to spend the period after Saturday afternoon joining one of the country’s many grooming gangs. That way police forces across the land might leave him alone and he wouldn’t come to the attention of most politicians for 20 years. That means Jess Phillips and co. wouldn’t express any interest in his case until at least 2045, a pretty tempting lead-time for any criminal enterprise.

    At this point some readers might feel the phrase ‘two-tier policing’ looming in their subconscious. It was something that Toms himself raised as he was being arrested by the Met’s finest. But any thought of this phrase must be suppressed. After all, in April a report by a group of MPs found that there was no evidence of ‘two-tier policing’. Specifically, they found no evidence of any such double standards in the way the police responded to the unrest that broke out after the murder of three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance party in Southport last summer. To put this terrible accusation to bed once and for all, we should also remember that Keir Starmer’s Attorney General, Lord Hermer, only last month told the BBC that accusations that there are any double standards at play in policing, or even talk of ‘two tiers’, is ‘disgusting’. And I think we can all agree that anything that so appals the Attorney General is something we should all unite in opposing.

    Indeed, anyone even thinking about using the ‘two-tier’ canard should probably take a long hard look at themselves. Hermer himself warned us all less than a month ago that anyone using such language should think about the ‘dangers’ they themselves are posing.

    In other news, I was pleased to read this week that the Charity Commission has stepped in and given a formal warning and some guidance to a Nottingham Islamic institution which hosted a sermon in October 2023 that took a positive attitude towards the murder of Jews. The watchdog noted that the phrase concerned came from a hadith (or ‘saying’) of Mohammed. Yet sufficient ‘context’ had apparently not been given.

    No arrests were made, naturally.

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

    Anitawales
    2 days ago
    Excellent as usual Douglas.

    I am baffled as to what the politicians were and are thinking. Not only have they allowed in people of a cultish religion who have no allegiance to Britain, enough to fill a small city each and every year, but in tandem they have not thought to attempt to integrate them. Now we have whole enclaves in our cities that look, sound and feel like foreign countries.

    And while we all battle for GP appointments and school places, while our roads become ever more congested, our governing idiots continue to think you can fill a fixed space infinitely. So still they come.

    Even more absurd is Starmer's religious belief that Macron would help him out with the small boats in return for gifting away our fishing industry. This on the heels of him gifting The Chagos Islands and paying billions for the privilege, resulting in Britons ultimately paying Mauritian workers income tax for them.

    Thank goodness Lord Young has delayed the furtive panel seeking to ensure any criticism of Islam becomes punishable by law via their 'Islamophobia Definition', the brainchild of the famed intellectual Angela Rayner. Although she probably only relented because our jails are full. Full of foreign prisoners that our activist judges fail to deport because of chicken nuggets and so forth.

    It is now imperative that all immigration must be paused for the foreseeable future, because our politicians over the last 30 years have been imbecilic destructive fools, who have failed to foresee a predicament that a child could have seen coming a mile off.The British will not be gaslit by the government any longer and the festering anger with these politicians is palpable. You overhear it in conversations everywhere (though not in London as English is no longer spoken there). If we do not end up with a full civil war we will consider ourselves lucky- a civil war entirely engineered by the tin-eared idiots sitting in our parliament.

    Rachel will cry, Angela will arrest us all for Islamophobia in order to hang onto her seat. And what will Starmer do then?

    Trojan Anitawales
    2 days ago edited
    A thousand upticks. The irony of Starmer swapping illegal immigrants for asylum seekers sitting in France is astonishing. By definition, they are in a non war zone country. And, if it is a relative of someone here already (as claimed), why didn’t they all claim asylum together as soon as they left their native land?
    I imagine that Macron will just empty his gaols and send them here.

    1. Why do people underestimate, even joke about the sinister malevolence of the Progressives.

      As Rupert Lowe says.. If you worry about this.. the least you can do is cough up £20 a year for us the Restore Britain. There should be 17,4 million concerned Brits. If you can't be bothered to even do that.. then I shall give up and go back to drinking some fine red wine by the pool in some sunny foreign land.

      1. Give up, Mr Lowe. There simply are not enough motivated people any more. Too many are ignorant, too many are brainwashed, too many are stupid.

    2. Slammers all around Richmond going to the Park for the evening. It is most unwelcoming. I feel like a second-class citizen in my own Park.

      1. It's against the law. Why are they not being arrested and told to go home for their blithering?

    3. DM is a brilliant writer. He deploys every weapon in a writer's armoury to produce what needs to be said.

  24. 409296+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Paddy takes the lead in the reclaim war, and many want to burn him at the stake for his actions.

    In the past we have been known to employ the real set up in times of war, tar ships / rafts etc among the enemy fleet and domestically witch hunts brought about burning at the stake that hurt and was, on the whole,terminal.

    The Irish peoples took the rhetorical fight back a warning step further with a replica of what could become one of the actions taken when the
    Irish / English "begin to hate"

    I see the distance betwixt the wall and the
    Irish / English backs now as zero,and just a matter of time awaits.

    1. It was in Northern Ireland and they are emphatically British.

  26. Connor Tomlinson received two calls from foreign intel services warning that the 30,000 odd jihadists in UK are busy prepping. Adding numbers daily across the channel, building up arms in Muslims enclaves.
    The Civil Service nod, smile.. and continue business as usual.

    The Jihadist Threat Ignored by the British Government

    2. On the twentieth anniversary of the 7/7 Bombings, I received a call warning about the imminent likelihood of an Islamic terror attack in Britain.

      My contact stressed this information comes from a credible intelligence source.

      They predict a small group will arm themselves with homemade explosive devices, Molotov cocktails, and machetes, and attack critical infrastructure and dense civilian housing. Whole cities could be set ablaze.

      This source also suggested that practice attacks have already happened.

      At least eight electrical substations caught alight between March and May 2025 — including the infamous fire at Heathrow Airport. Professor David Betz thinks these could be vigilante attacks, as a precursor to civil war.

      My contact suggested this could also be why the government plans to test the UK’s Emergency Alert System again on 7 September.

      The source warned that people-smuggling gangs are facilitating the passage of trained Islamic militants across Europe and into Britain.

      Over 170,000 illegal migrants have crossed from France in the decade since, including a record >20,000 so far this year.

      Patrick Christys revealed on GB News that smuggling gangs are marketing themselves with ISIS recruitment videos and execution footage on social media.

      My source warned that smuggling gangs have also trafficked arms across the Channel: “They’ve been floating in arms shipments, basically”.

      On 28 June, the National Crime Agency discovered a shipment of 20 firearms, 320 rounds of ammunition, and drugs valued at £4.9 million inside a lorry at the Port of Dover, crossing from France.

      Where are these militants and their weapons now? My contact explained that foreign intelligence fears, as in the Gaza strip, that they are hidden in the homes, mosques, and madrassas of Britain’s Muslim enclaves.

      One indication of this was during last summer’s riots, when a Staffordshire Police liaison officer was recorded telling members of a Muslim militia that “If there are any weapons or anything like that, then what I would do is discard them at the mosque. … Don’t give anybody any reason to have any interaction with the police, so if there’s any weapons, get rid of them, we are not going to arrest anybody.”

      Britain has only a few thousand trained combatants among its >147,300 Armed Forces personnel, and the lowest number of reservists since the Napoleonic Wars. In 2025, 1,140 more personnel left the forces than joined.

      All of this is to say that Army personnel would be vastly outnumbered by the Jihadists already monitored by foreign intelligence and MI5, plus those awaiting release in British prisons, and emigrating through legal and illegal means.

      The reason this information was shared with me?

      Because the British government has been warned time and again, and refuses to act.

      2. The possibility that a false flag operation is being planned cannot be ignored either.

          1. There just seems to be an awful lot of seeding the idea of a terrorist attack. Why remember 7.7 when they can’t forget Lee Rigby or David Amess fast enough?

      3. I have to admit, that does cross my mind when travelling on the Tube in particular.
        And me from a garrison town where we've had fifty year's experience of subliminally noticing abandoned packages and people just hanging around.

  27. Connor Tomlinson received two calls from foreign intel services warning that the 30,000 odd jihadists in UK are busy prepping. Adding numbers daily across the channel, building up arms in Muslims enclaves.
    The Civil Service nod, smile.. and continue business as usual.

    The Jihadist Threat Ignored by the British Government

  28. In 1985, the population of Ethiopia was approximately 39.8 million. For 2025, the population is estimated to be around 135.5 million. Well done, Mr Geldof!

      1. Exactly.
        Apart from the occasional drought year, Ethiopia was comfortably capable of feeding its self.
        Now it is reliant on aid.

    5. When hot air meets thin ice, cold water often results. Thank you, Stig, for keeping us moderately sensible and factual.

    6. Wishing you a very Happy Birthday, Stig! Hope it’s a good one! 🎂🍺🥂🍾

    1. And just what is saturation point?

      The point when whites are a tiny ethnic minority, the point when Islam is the compulsory national religion, the point that the country is so rundown and disgusting that even the gimmegrants are leaving on small boats for France?

      2. Which branch of I-slam? That of the lefty Shiites or the pure bred Royalist version controlled by noble Sunni aristocrats?
        (edit for sarcasm; the Mughals were Sunni; either way, like most doctrinal faiths, it is all about control of the populace by an elitist group which is willing to use violence)

    2. What does it matter if her mother, sister and daughters are raped? What does it matter if her children are the only children in their class who speak English? What does it matter if her children die because they can not receive medical treatment?

      Didn't we reach saturation point some time ago?

      1. It doesn’t matter to her because these things won’t happen to her and her family.

    3. What is it with these people and their “suicidal empathy”? They do have pathological traits, i just don’t know which; in the past, people like this would have been metaphorically shot down for their opinions. But now we let them dominate.

    5. Looking at her she'd be pretty safe from rape even to a sex starved mussie in the dark

    7. "What does it matter if we have to wait another week for a hospital visit?"

    10. Let's start with her house. Cram it with so many dindus she can't move.

      The country is well beyond saturation point. 30 million is too many.

  31. Morning all 🙂😊
    Sunny Saturday it can't last much longer surely.
    Pulse rate has settled at last it must have been the anesthetic and all the other meds prescribed for the knee op and possibly the trauma of it all.
    It's strange how our previous energy supplier was happy for me to send monthly records on our gas and electricity usage. But the company who took over dont ask for readings, but seem to be blaming us for not having the interest in the ongoing process. I expect they'll be making a demand for a smart meter next.

    1. And words such as cartwright (one who builds carts) and wainwright (one who makes wagons) are themselves common last names, as the woman who voices Bart Simpson (Nancy Cartwright) or the familial singers Loudon, Martha, and Rufus Wainwright can tell you.

  33. Morning, all Y'all. Sunny & warm. Woken at dawn by neighbouring farmers cattle mooing like there was an Eisteddford in mooing. Only just reawoken, made coffee (SWMBOs milk turned into porridge on meeting the hot coffee), now hoping things will have a calmer tempo.
    Hope all's well with all Y'all.

    1. Serious questions: does your First Born live (dwell, reside) on his farm, and, if so, how far is it from the nearest primary school?

      1. Hi
        Yes, it’s his home, about 40 minutes drive from his work.
        There is a primary school reasonably close (a few miles). A secondary boarding school just up the road, that specialises in sport
        Why do you ask?

      1. He must be a jolly good felloe.
        When your father started his service in the Sudan, there were still adult Africans who had never seen a wheel.
        May I recommend a book by George Sturt (1863-1927), 'The Wheelwright's Shop'.

    1. Was it a mistake though Paul, these switches have an indent which has to be overcome in other words whey are not free to move, you have to pull them out then move them and when released the indent locks them in that position.

      3. Interesting – I guess fuel cut-off is sufficiently important that you'd not want it to be possible by accident.
        Wonder why he'd do that?

        1. Panic?

          The Southall(??) crash 30years or so again was a case where one engine failed and the pilot switched off the fuel to the GOOD one.

          1. Donnington. The aircraft hit the side of the M1 cutting less than a mile short of the runway at East Midlands Airport.
            An acquaintance from the short time I lived in Derby 35y ago was walking home down London Road from the old DRI hospital where she worked as a Casualty Nurse was alerted to "something" being up when she was passed by a LOT of ambulances on blues & twos.
            She immediately turned round and went back to work for another 12 hours.

          3. Donnington. The aircraft hit the side of the M1 cutting less than a mile short of the runway at East Midlands Airport.
            An acquaintance from the short time I lived in Derby 35y ago was walking home down London Road from the old DRI hospital where she worked as a Casualty Nurse was alerted to "something" being up when she was passed by a LOT of ambulances on blues & twos.
            She immediately turned round and went back to work for another 12 hours.

          5. What puzzles me about the Air India case is that – if the cut-off switch WAS thrown – the chap only had a few seconds in which to do so.

    3. How is it known it was 'by a mistake', Paul? (honest question, I know nothing about aircraft/engines etc)

      1. I guess it's an assumption, as otherwise who would want to crash a plane? (sarc) – I'm sure suicide was never a thought.

      3. Surely these things are a bit more relaible than that? Namely that multiple steps/failsafes have to be enacted in sequence before the actual fuel can be cut off?

        Heck, if they can make SFP modules unremovable then I honestly can't believe you can cut off the fuel to an aircraft in flight with one switch.

        1. Thanks, wibbling. It put me in mind (I can’t remember the details, help me out?) of the flight a few years ago with many onboard, it took a different flight path – I think the wreckage was finally discovered, deep on the ocean bed, and it was thought the pilot had domestic problems? I hope not similar in this case, the investigation should tell?

        2. Surely there's more than one switch involved?
          Not even warning voice or light before the decision is finally (in all senses of the word) is made?

          1. The warnings (audible and flashing lights) would cut in after it happened. It would be sensory overload at that time.

        5. Modern airliners have a fuel cut-off switch, previously they had HP cocks which was the last valve in the fuel line after the Low Pressure cock (isolating the fuel tank) and the HP fuel pump. The last ground run I did on the Lightning you opened the LP cock which fed fuel to the HP pump. you then opened the HP cock and pressed the starter – from then on it was out of your hands. To stop the engine you closed the HP cock which in the modern airliner is the fuel cut-off switch. These switches cannot be operated accidentally but they can be operated by mistake if you are distracted. Each engine has its own switch so to stop both engines you'd have to operate both switches. Apparently one switch was operated then the other, their configuration means they cannot be operated at the same time unless deliberately and you'd have to use both hands to do that.

      4. Switching off the engines when just taking off is either mistake or deliberate, so “mistake” sounds like 50% likelihood – just now, anyhow.

    4. Good morning Paul and everyone.
      If it was a mistake, the Air India co-pilot (not certain, could be the pilot but less likely as co-pilot only had 1100 hours) could have suffered a magic moment when he believed that that the aeroplane was landing, and that his responsibilty was to switch from RUN to CUTOFF. Otherwise it would have to be 'murdercide'.

      1. You wouldn't switch to cut off during landing – only after you'd parked at the gate

    5. Good morning Paul and everyone.
      If it was a mistake, the Air India co-pilot (not certain, could be the pilot but less likely as co-pilot only had 1100 hours) could have suffered a magic moment when he believed that that the aeroplane was landing, and that his responsibilty was to switch from RUN to CUTOFF. Otherwise it would have to be 'murdercide'.

  37. Good morning ,

    Phew another very hot night , yep said as a 78 year old rather than a 25year old (wink wink ) temp must have been in the 20cs . Despite windows open , curtains open doors open .. having 2 lofts (T shaped ) doesn't help .. and nope , we don't have central heating facility upstairs for a winter chill either .

    The DT letters , heard it all before , but I liked this comment .

    NJ Ratnieks
    33 min ago
    "and amid predictions that our summers are going to get hotter, is it not time we planned for the future…."

    Of course, last year- the dullest for nearly 25 years was horribly wet while planning for the future does not exist in this nation, any more.

    1921 was marked by a severe drought, with London recording only 269 hours of rainfall compared to the average of 437 hours while it was the warmest year in the British temperature series up until 1949. The year experienced a pronounced heat wave in September and October- when you would expect Autumn rain and most ponds and lakes dried up. T S Eliot's poem The Waste Land may well have been inspired by the weather.

    Back then, reservoirs were planned and built but today we seem to have Governments that are committed to running the nation into the ground. What infrastructure that is planned may never be built and in many cases- such as the ruinous HS2 this is a good thing. We have been bedevilled by "political quick fixes" which are destabilising the nation but they continue and we can now read articles in this newspaper about an impending war with Russia.

    It's hard to put into words how so many now feel about life in this crumbling nation which exhibits all the signs of an incipient failing state.

    1. Last year it rained all the time. No doubt this is an 'extreme weather event'.

      It's sodding tiresome. These things happen. It's just weather but the hard Lefft wanted a weapon they could use to soak tax. It is a lie they call 'climate change'.

  41. Trump winning again and this is just the begining.

    The US finished June with a budget surplus.
    June ‘23: -$227.7 Billion
    June ‘24: -$71.5 Billion
    June ‘25: $26 Billion surplus!

  43. Several instances of 'Content unavailable'. What's going on? AFAIK, the only person I've blocked is the parrot.

      1. First post of the day has one:
        Johnny Norfolk
        Good Morning All. 16C Sunny, pleasant breeze.
        Who posted in response to that?

          3. I can't find any clue in my profile: no reply to an 'unavailable' or to Alec.

          5. only until the test matches are over :o) and I'll do the same to anyone else who mentions the cricket score and spoils my watching the highlights – it's nothing personal :o)

          6. Don't know much about cricket, but apparently, a lot of men in white costumes throw balls at each other. And then, at half time they all go indoors for tea and cakes provided, apparently, by their wives. I hope this hasn't spoiled you from watching the highlights, Alec. Lol.

    2. I got that one time when Disqus claimed I’d blocked Anne. I never did but nonetheless, unblocking restored her posts.

      1. What!!!!! Now that's lèse-majesté.
        I blame Brexit, Thatcher, 11+, wartime orange juice …. drone, drone ……

      1. Put us out of our misery, JS. Exactly which one of us is the vile Polly Parrot?

        2. Not a Nottler as far as I am aware but some saddo who posts repetitive stuff on Disqus, not just here.

  44. 409296+ up ticks,

    Does he mean decent folk will be fighting on two fronts ( if they ever start) as in domestic / foreign.

    Five years time if continuing along our present course, we can very well leave it to the imams / mullahs.

    Dt,

    Britain ‘must prepare for war with Russia in next five years’
    General Sir Patrick Sanders urges Government to build bomb shelters as Moscow’s threat to the UK grows.

    And goes without him also adding to protect the allah brigade first & foremost.

    1. How do they get away with such blatant warmongering?
      Russia is not my enemy. The government is a far greater threat to my safety and wellbeing than Russia is.

    2. What good will bomb shelters be in the event of WWIII? If you were to survive the initial nuclear attack, the country would be a radioactive wasteland. I wouldn't want to survive in those conditions.

    3. It is, like all things coming from this government, a pack of lies. Russian hasn't advanced. It doens't care about Ukraine. It cares about Crimea, which is ethnically Russian and has been shelled by Ukraine up to the 'invasion'.

      The lies and deceit propagated by the state are disgusting. The sad thing is, people fall for it.

    1. Not sure she's qualified to even do that – maybe she could lie on her CV to help!

      1. Well she certainly doesn't have a good track record on delivering stuff that people have paid for.

          1. "How many fingers am I holding up, Rachel?"
            "One …….. two ………. lots ……….."

  48. Beebsplaining
    4h
    Simple plan for stopping the boats

    1. Deem all arrivals ill Eagle
    2. Detain all arrivals in camps until they agree to return, remove phones, Internet
    3. Stop all benefits
    4. Cancel charity status of all who help them
    5. Deny all appeals , legal aid or challenges
    6. Tell supreme Court and judiciary their b0llocks will not be tolerated and echr does not apply sack any who don't agree including civil servants
    7. Crim the boat driver 5 years
    8. Permanent block to ever living here
    9.while at it close borders to legal migration, want workers? Train them
    10. Deem it a national emergency to enact powers as per the panicdemic
    11. Any protests against emergency action klink them, see lucy Connolly for encouragement of unrest regardless of who they are
    12. International shrills told to Foxtrot Oscar
    13. Countries that turn down returns get no aid no need to deny visas because there won't be any
    14. Use hotel budget to pay for it

    Of course this will also require similar zero tolerance to normal crims, massive prison building and a plod back to basics, 24 hour courts and ignoring of the media class.

    If there is a will ( Southport unrest) they can do it , that the uniparty won't proves incompetency or they are complicit and not fit (40% of labour voters agree and will vote Reform).
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ba7164843b100787d4b2a5903c40856d381660be036125fa2a2314418c96dd20.png

    1. Just don't let them get here in the first place.

      For the ones here, turf them out of the hotels, slap a metal collar around their neck and chain them to a concrete post. Feed them 1 bacon sandwich a day and have a rainwater butt to drink from.

      1. He's got a face I would love to kick with my steel toe capped hobnail boot

    3. Last time Blighty went all gooey on refugees, we ended up with Ralph Miliband.
      Talk about no good deed goes unpunished.

    4. Simple plan for stopping the boats
      remove all progressive liberals from positions of power, then make them wear pink conical hats.

  49. fred finger
    14h
    OT: It is being suggested that Micron told Stammer, before he became PM. That he had to drop Rwanda before he would talk about migrants.

    If true, incendiary.

    1. No one seems to point out that France is in breach of international laws. It's only us who seem to be kicked by them.

      Therefore, get a gunboat in the channel and tell the frogs we're not taking any more, and here's 50 container loads of the waste. Send it to Israel and let muslim deal with muslim by sinking the laden ship.

    1. Reminds me of the old Irish solution to water shortages. They dilute it.

  51. At last!
    I've found the 25mm flat boring drill bit I need to poke a couple of holes into the water tanks I'm repurposing for rainwater collection!
    Off up the "garden" to actually do something useful.

  54. Just to point out that energy companies didn't want smart meters. The state did. The intent all along was to scare people into how much energy they were using and force them, almost voluntarily; to cut back.

    Since then energy prices have increased significantly thanks to green taxes, further forcing the reduction in domestic energy use. The enforced deindusltrialisation due to energy costs (moving industry to China) has all allowed big fat state to proclaim we will meet net zero.

    It's all and only about political grandstanding. Nothing else.

    1. I loathe people dawdling behind me when I'm walking Spartie.
      I'm not sure sure who works on whom, but we both get edgy.
      In Spartie's case, he's a small dog with ancestral enemies; with me, I just wish they'd Bloody Well WALK!!!!
      Stop being so Fooking English and Sodding Polite! And Dithery! And Slow! And Ancient!!!!
      Being English myself, I bottle it all up, stand politely to one side and smilingly indicate that they can pass us and may we cringingly apologise for holding them up.
      Inside, I'm a seething mass of hatred and want to kill them.
      (I'm a shoo-in for running Fawlty Towers.)

      1. How would you like them to WALK!!! to overtake you, without being impolite.

        Be careful what you wish for – manners, being "Fooking English and Sodding Polite" are something that is disappearing fast – you'll miss it when it has gone.

        1. Good point.
          My restricted walking world is along the ramparts that defended Camuludunum (they failed) and various school playing fields aka rubbish tips.

      2. How would you like them to WALK!!! to overtake you, without being impolite.

        Be careful what you wish for – manners, being "Fooking English and Sodding Polite" are something that is disappearing fast – you'll miss it when it has gone.

      3. In the days when I still visited the Great Wen, it used to infuriate me that nobody actually walked. They sloped along, dithering or crept about at a snail’s pace. It was exhausting.

      4. What annoys me most is people who just stop suddenly in the middle.e of the pavement. I must say it is more often than not elderly gentlemen. Me old dad used to do it.

    1. Interesting, but it is a bit naughty of them to use Thomas Sowell's name and voice.

          2. There was a warning on it that it was AI. I think this kind of thing is being encouraged so that people get so mixed up they don’t know what’s truth any more. The next development will be “celebrities” that don’t exist, they are just AI.

          4. No, genuinely, the person will not exist at all, it will just be an AI generated character.

    1. When I was small that joke was, “Constantinople is a very long word, spell it”. “Eye-tee”.

      1. "I know a man with a wooden leg named Smith."
        "What's his other leg called?"
        (Mary Poppins 1964.)

    1. There is a certain ideology shared by the invaders which has many characteristics in common with National Socialism.

      1. ding ding ding. We think we have a winner! Husband says he has the orange when he opens his wings.

      2. No, no, no! A Tiger Moth is a biplane. If I weren’t on the phone I could upload a photo of the one I flew.

        1. Thank you! It was quite delightful and I haven’t swum in open water for years! We are the Falkirk F@nnies! Christened by an old bloke in a canoe, who paddled off, chortling!

  64. I am off – out to lunch with friends. Will take a pullover – it is quite chilly….what a difference a day makes.

    Play nicely.

  65. Revealed: the full, devastating impact of Labour’s VAT raid on private schools
    Shut schools, displaced children and lost communities are immediate results of a damaging policy
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/tax/devastating-impact-labour-private-school-vat-raid-revealed/

    BTL

    The fact that so many people are in favour of the closure of private schools is an indication of why Britain is finished.

    The government is full of envy and spite and a determination to close private schools regardless of the havoc this is causing in young people's lives. The government loathes aspiration and a desire for success but without these no economy can flourish.

    This poison has affected many members of the general public who also have been infected with envy, spite and dislike of success. Many seem to hate the desire that responsible people have to succeed in life and to do the best for their children.

    What better recipe for total failure than to have a country dedicated to stamp out personal aspiration and success?

    1. The socialists think that middle class families will send their children to comprehensive schools. They won't. They'll increase the pressure on grammars, home educate or emigrate.

      1. Do socialists actually think? When I was a (very young, immature) socialist I questioned a bit, but I'm not sure I got very far in actually thinking.

        1. When I was very young my thinking went along the lines of, I didn’t intend to be naughty, I just saw the situation differently therefore instead of telling me off, mum and dad should try and understand my point of view. If you extend that childish thinking to social policy and the justice system, without any knowledge, without context and without any evaluation of the consequences…?

          1. Me too. I often genuinely couldn't understand why my parents were cross with me.

          2. Now I think back, I was lucky to get past the age of three when I used my mother's rationed lipstick to draw big flowers (think Bambi) on my wheeled horse's stand.

        2. They’ve said in the past that middle class children will go to comprehensives, and middle class parents will somehow magically ensure that the comprehensives become high performing because their children are there. Pie in the sky!

        2. Did they earn extra pocket money by selling larks' tongues, wrens' livers, chaffinch brains, and wolf nipple chips ?

    2. “…“Yeah, I wonder, you know, I read a couple of, there's three now, I think, psychological studies about, for example, about motivation for income redistribution. So imagine that you can generate a set of questions that reliably assess someone's attitude towards the more socialist idea of income redistribution, so that you can place them on a continuum in relationship to their support for that idea. And you can do that relatively carefully, so it's a stable measurement.

      And then you could look at what predicts that belief. And these particular psychologists looked at three factors. They looked at compassion, which would be the factor that you just described, genuine compassion, let's say.

      And that seems to reflect trait agreeableness, which is one of the big five personality traits. And so, and they looked at fairness, like actual moral concern with fairness. And they looked at malicious envy.

      And the biggest predictor was malicious envy. And the second biggest predictor was compassion. And fairness didn't enter the prediction at all.

      And so, one of the things…

      Well, yeah, I was saying that fairness was invented so children and idiots would have something to talk about. Because, you know, there's no “standard for fairness.

      Yeah, well, I suppose the entire political discussion in some ways is about what constitutes fair. But it's interesting that the, you know, the claim is that it's compassion and concern with fairness, let's say, that drives concern with, well, equitable wealth distribution. But if you do a careful analysis, it's malicious envy that's doing a lot of the work….”

      From The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast: 561. Scott Adams and Jordan Peterson, 10 Jul 2025
      https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-jordan-b-peterson-podcast/id1184022695?i=1000716705841
      This material may be protected by copyright.

      1. As Thomas Sowell remarked, what’s fair about taking what I have worked hard for and giving it to someone who won’t work?

  68. Good Moaning.
    Culture observations.
    1. Don't try to lose weight before attending a performance at The Globe. Tudor clothing was more voluminous and provided its own cushion. (Plus, yer average Tudor peasant was lucky to have a stool or a bench in his hovel, so was more hardy than a modern western audience.)
    2. Arthur Miller may have been justifiably annoyed by McCarthyism – we are experiencing a version of it in C21 Blighty – but he also needed a ruthless editor.
    3. Thoroughly recommend the OXO Brasserie. When you get there; the building works along the South Bank are absolute mayhem.
    Sue and I had a lovely day; we rose above all inconveniences in the true spirit of the Blitz. (The very reason why the South Bank is as it is.)

    1. Of course, it was built for the Festival of Britain in 1951. What do we need to celebrate victory? Concrete!

      1. I'm so old I can remember the Skylon.
        Preferred the funfair, if I'm to be quite honest.

    2. You planned a trip with Sue and you didn't tell me !

      I'm planning a lunch at the VSC in September. As guests are not allowed to pay there is such a thing as a free lunch.

      Sue and Citroen are invited too. Let me know if you are interested.

      1. I’m still waiting on a date for my surgery, Phil. The surgeon’s specialist nurse/assistant cum secretary phoned me last week and said she’ll try to get the date fixed before he goes away for three weeks, as he’s not back til August. I asked him already if it’s likely to be August or early September and he said yes but didn’t follow up. Apparently I’m now on his urgent list. Will let you know as soon as I know.

        1. Hope you get your dates sorted out soon.

          Don't worry about me. We can book to suit everyone. No rush.

      2. Would your bum have taken three hours on a wooden bench? Some organised bastards had booked all the benches with backs!
        We had your welfare at heart.
        p.s. roughly when in September?

        1. There are such things as inflatable cushions.

          The best bit being letting the air out slowly. Parp !

        2. Dunno yet. It’s fluid. Could even be October.

          I was reading an article about the uber rich fleeing the country because of the Reever’s policies. Lots of high end dining rooms are empty. Keep a look out for specials and vouchers.

          1. Oh, I am. It's against my religion to pay full – ie.asking – price for anything.
            I stocked up on summer dresses when the suppliers took fright at the end of June.
            They need the money today for winter stock and the room to store it.
            Realistically, one doesn't need summer dresses before July, so it all works a treat.

      3. Would your bum have taken three hours on a wooden bench? Some organised bastards had booked all the benches with backs!
        We had your welfare at heart.
        p.s. roughly when in September?

    3. When Dr. Daughter graduated we, along with her then boyfriend and his parents, had a meal at the OXO.
      Very impressive and the waiters etc all appeared to really enjoy their work!

        1. The less said about me, the OXO tower and absinthe, the better. Probably c. 1998.

    4. When Dr. Daughter graduated we, along with her then boyfriend and his parents, had a meal at the OXO.
      Very impressive and the waiters etc all appeared to really enjoy their work!

  71. Leon
    34m
    Interesting to watch the political tectonic plates moving on GB News this morning . They are at the Durham Miner's Gala where Reform has become the dominant party and Labour highly criticised as an elite group of North Londoners far more concerned about Palestine than the working classes in the North East. Likewise in Brum, the bin men and Unite have been abandoned by Labour and they were getting open support from both GB News and Reform.

    1. The rubbish build up is also down to muslim as well. It's their areas which are accumulating the filth.

  72. That fills me with schadenfreude! The Gala was always a hate-filled gathering, spitting nastiness at anything vaguely right wing!

  73. OK, I give in. What is his other leg called? Why shouldn’t his other leg have a name? After all, many men give a name to their central appendage such as Dick, Thomas (or even John Thomas) or Johnson.

  74. Thanks LIR 🙂 Actually had one in the house only yesterday, and remembered looking it up because I didn’t know. I’ve seen more insects this year than I can remember for a number of years, possibly good conditions in egg laying time or fewer predators, or something else. Enjoying the season for what it is. Understand some folk in Yorkshire on hosepipe ban, we may all be on that during August. Doh.

  75. Wasn't there another one as well, where the co-pilot flew the aeroplane into a mountain?

    1. Possibly even the same one, Hertslass…old memories never clear, except the ones from pre- and junior school.

    1. Relatives/close friends either mourn or celebrate. Me, pretty much in the mourn category. I think it’s at the end of a Pullman story, each has to tell their story at the end of their lives, and doubtless be judged accordingly. No-one knows the truth.

      1. I meant that someone who deliberately flies an aeroplane into a crash isn’t going to care that they take people with them. They are only thinking of themselves.

        1. Yes, if they’re thinking at all. I think everyone covers up, to one degree or another. Young children seem to learn it quite quickly 😀

  77. I often wonder how long the (especially) Spanish and Portuguese people will put up with all the thousands of mainly English people who have moved in to their countries.
    Obviously a certain majority of the immigrants have set up and are running businesses. The English speaking communities are so very obvious it's difficult to understand what the Spanish residents think of it all. They must get a tad fed-up with most of it. But the 'new comers' are contributing to the economic development. Unfortunately the complete opposite to the people who have come to the UK to scrounge.
    On FB yesterday there was a clip of an obvious person of colour and his female companion he walked into a small supermarket with his rucksack stuff it with what he wanted and walked straight out. The staff and two security guards outside did absolutely nothing as both jumped onto probably stolen, good quality bicycles and rode off. The excuse for doing absolutely nothing was he might have been carrying a knife.
    It's no good to keep backing off, If we want our country back, someone has to take charge and accept with responsibility.

    1. It's broken window syndrome. The simplest is to identify the criminals and flog them but the hard Left won't permit justice in this country.

      The solution isn't to deal with one bit, but to remove the poison.

    2. Install football style turnstyle gates in all shops. Scan your bank card to enter, scan items to leave, automatic debit fro your account.

      1. 407296+ up ticks,

        Afternoon Pip,
        Yes the only way to go, the non flying law would seen quackers to me,i’ll take another gander at it.

  79. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/tax/councils-wasting-money-horrendous-vanity-projects/

    Well, yes, councils are hopeless and incompetent and the threshold for rises to tax should be less than half a percent, with any increase above that going to referendum – with the sacking of the chief executive (a nonsense term) and the finance officer and their forbiddance to ever work in the public sector again.

    Instead, we get incompetent fools hopping from council to council, troughing away on telephone number salaries they have not earned, wrecking the local areas and destroying everything they can and are let off their ineptitide by central government that lets them do whatever they like because to do otherwise exposes their own incompetence.

    1. We need a system similar to Switzerland where decisions are properly made by Joe Public as I understand it.

    2. The problem of uncontrolled expenditure by local and district councils is simply that there is nobody keeping the officials in check.

      We once had Town Clerks, usually an experienced local solicitor with authority to question and cause amendments to mad schemes and excessive salaries. The National Audit Office could be relied upon to follow up but nowadays it appears to have given up completely on reining in the overpaid buffoons running our councils.

      As to those buffoons they comprise mostly old farts who have either no business experience or else have failed in the real world and seek refuge and authority in the council offices where they can pretend to be like parliamentarians in government. This is the reason they have created their own departments along with grandiose titles mimicking those of government departments.

      The entire edifice built on Gordon Brown’s ideal society where literally everyone works in a Town Hall is feeding the fantasies of the wretches occupying senior positions in our councils. We could do without the lot of them.

      1. Like we certainly could have done without Blair and Brown. Incompetent b'stards when it came to the good of the country – very competent when it came to wrecking our lovely land.

        1. They were both working for someone else. As have been too many of our political classes.

    3. Ontario has just gone in the other direction and given many mayor's increased powers to act without approval. This increased power was given to out mayor the same week as he survived a vote of non confidence – but only by casting his vote to break a tie.

    4. Bring back Town Clerks.
      In their day, the gutters and pavements were weed free, the bins were collected /emptied, water fountains actually worked, we had watch committees that lived up to their name, rates were manageable and we could see something for our money; something called civic pride. And no, it didn't mean the mayor paraded in a pink tutu and sequinned jock strap throughout June.

      1. "…mayor paraded in a pink tutu and sequinned jock strap"

        Where do you live? Around here, such a person would probably be locked up.

          1. :-). Not our immediate neighbours.
            They make MB and moi seem positively alternative and way out.


  80. 'Content unavailable'

    If Fallick_Alec is blocking me, I think it may be because I've mentioned the Test matches once or twice in the last week!

    2. What's the criteria for assisted suicide? Inability to care for yourself, poor quality of life?

      Well, that's Starmer done for.

        1. Great TV. Both UK and US versions (although I think the US one cut short due to Spacey's pending cases.)

      2. No no you have it the wrong way round.

        BLA is a measure of bowel movement ability, many men can enter the room, perform and exit quickly – hence the multiple bla sinage, timing washrooms on the other hand have low throughput

  85. 409296+ up ticks,

    And so it came to pass that an easy reach compartment was mandatory installed in ALL children's cradles containing "deep heat" as an anti
    cradle ache & rape measure, this safety measure will stay in place all the while the invasion is in daily place.

    Deep heat really is a boon for all ages as in, new born
    till 99 plus

    https://x.com/AgainBraine/status/1943946525173780611

    2. As i have got older, learning a foreign language has become much more difficult. Though i do excel in gibberish.

    3. I went for coffee with the Warqueen's chums once. Never before have so many words conveyed so little useful information.

      They just kept talking and talking and talking without actually saying anything. No decisions were made, no problems conveyed. No useful knowledge. It was the equivalent of a whois broadcast storm.

  88. Done it! Job jobbed.
    2 x water tanks linked in tandem to double the garden's water capacity.
    Now all I need is a couple of days worth of rain to fill the bloody things up!

    Came in from working up the garden to hear what I am advised is Héloïse Werner's M87 on @BBCRadio3 and immediately turned it off.
    What a total heap of FOXTROT shite!

  89. I've just put a bowl of water out for the birds. A sparrow came along and had a long drink, turned round, had a crap in the water and flew off. There's gratitude for you

    2. We have a similar problem with the local wood pigeons. I refer to them as the political classes of the bird world.
      They take everything they can get hold of and crap every where. Especially on the fences where they sit and in the stone bird bath/ water bowl.

      1. Yes I have a couple of those who take the seeds I put out every morning but there's plenty to go round

    1. I do not understand why the savages were imported. We didn't need them, the problems, economic and social were obvious.

      Why did the Left rape this country with the 'diversity'?

      2. They convinced themselves that they were savage because they were poor. It didn’t occur to them that the savagery produced the poverty and not the other way around.

    2. After his speech, it was noted that somewhere between 75 and 80% of British people supported him.

      We had moved away from Brum a year before the speech, but everyone we knew agreed with him. And there were strikes in support. If the then "conservative" party had stood with him and the people, the country would not be in the mess it is today. Instead Heath – that well known "wet" – fired him from the shadow cabinet.

      1. The Immigration Act of 1971 brought matters under control. By the late 90s, net migration was very low. You know what happened next…

    1. No surprise there. Thus the equality and HRA need to be repealed. The diversity scam is the biggest hinderance to getting anything done.

      1. And back inthe '70's/'80's, we had a race relatons industry with similarly employed the otherwise unemployable on high salaries.

          1. 409296+ up ticks,

            Afternoon KJ.

            Listen to old long term now, ex members who left with Gerard Batten after the NEC /farage treachery in 2019.

          2. Thanks ogga, have heard the name, will look him up. …have found him on Wikipedia. I think I’ve heard others mention Habib, Lowe (two that I like). I’ve noticed during PMQs how MPs other parties sit straightfaced when NF speaks, no reaction. Thx again, Kate.

          3. Which gives a pretty good indication of which is the greater threat to the Establishment.

          4. I follow a few younger people on Ig, for example Chris Cork, who support Reform. Likely similar on Fb. KB has done a little better lately, has she found her mettle? Few others I like – Braverman, Jenrick, Matt Goodwin. I can’t figure out why (as yet), but I can’t warm to Farage & Tice, more positive about policies although I think it may be difficult to leave ECHR due to NI Agreement.

        2. 409296+ up ticks,

          Afternoon C,
          What, after their treacherous input via the NEC along with " " NIGE" in bringing down Batten and a highly successfully rising party 2019, Gerard Batten the best leader UKIP ever had.

          My choice now is The Farmers Food and Freedom party inclusive of Ben Habib, Rupert Lowe.

          Support the band that feed you.

          2. 409296+ up ticks,

            Afternoon C,
            Gerard Batten most certainly did have, but in today’s political climate listen quietly and hear the treacherous death knell coming from certain quarters…… again.

      1. Possibly the biggest, Conway. It's the one subject needs a population-wide vote. Second thoughts, perhaps not.

  95. Lammy is just too thick to grasp..

    Jamaica.. from safest country in 1962 to most violent.
    South Africa.. from richest to basket.
    Rhodesia..
    Kenya.. about to go.
    Haiti.. over 200 years of glorious independence.
    The United Nations is urging international support for Haiti, amid crippling gang violence has claimed 4,864 lives between October and June.

    .
     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSCDLHOuPlQ

      1. Trump congratulated their President(?) on his excellent English.

        The official language of Liberia is English.

  96. Afternoon all. Scorchio again here. Took the dogs out early and it was high 20s then. As I commented to my neighbour who was making a similar early start, we have a temperate climate and we aren’t used to extremes.

    I am running my washing machine and my smart meter has gone into orange. What would happen if I put the microwave on as well I dread to think. It would probably have apoplexy. Who are they to indicate that normal household tasks require an amber warning?

    1. All to frighten you into using less. It's all part of the plan to force down energy use.

      Of course, without energy we have no society. When we have blackouts the political class will realise just how important energy is, as plod won't hear them screaming as Miliband's toe are clipped off.

      1. Owing to the eye-watering cost I am already careful in my use of electricity. There are some things, however, that are sheer necessity.

    2. It's like the weather forecast charts.
      It's to frighten the bejabers out of you so you'll acquiesce to windmills and higher power bills.

    3. Thank god I haven't got a smart meter – yesterday I did 3 wash loads and dried the lot with the tumble drier at no cost to me from the solar panels, Today I've made a load of pies and some bread in the oven at a similar cost. If the sun shines tomorrow I'll make some more pies.

      1. I didn’t have a smart meter from choice. My old one stopped working. I cooked my meal in the oven, but as it’s Calor that’s already paid for.

    1. If that tweet is true, More proof as if we need it, that our whole legal system, Whitehall and Wastemonster needs completely clearing out.

    2. But of course dangerous, dangerous people like Lucy Connolly will be left in prison. The politicians, civil service and judiciary should all rot in Hell. I sincerely hope they do.

  98. Back from lunch. It was very chilly at Sheringham – pullover definitely needed. Warmer now at home….

        1. That used to be the problem in Essex during the war; southern fuel allowance but nothing between the land and winds coming from Siberia.

  99. "Drivers with sleeping disorders are able to lease cars under the Motability benefits scheme.

    More than 400 people who list obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) as a primary medical condition accessed a vehicle through the taxpayer-subsidised Motability scheme in 2024, according to official government figures……

    ……. A total of 420 people whose “primary condition” was OSA made claims on the Motability scheme last year, and a further 190 claimants suffered from narcolepsy.

    Narcolepsy is a chronic neurological disorder which leads to excessive daytime sleepiness as well as other symptoms, including hallucinations and poor memory."

    Presumably the taxpayer also stumps up for their higher insurance premiums.
    "What insurance?" I hear you cry.

    1. My cousin has narcolepsy and a free car through Motability. She chose a BMW.
      She hasn't worked for years, decided to enrol on OU degree. Good for her we thought. I offered to buy her a laptop to help. She said thank you. She'd like a Mac please.
      Offer withdrawn.

      2. I thought driving was an absolute no-no with narcolepsy, because of the danger of falling asleep at the wheel.

  100. S.S. Port Hunter.

    Complement 91:
    (88 dead and 3 survivors).
    General cargo, including ammunition and depth charges and a motor launch as deck cargo.

    At 01.47 hours on 12th July 1942 the Port Hunter (Master John Bentham Bradley), dispersed from convoy OS-33 at 11.00 hours on 11th July, was struck on the port side in #2 hold by one of two torpedoes from U-582 (Werner Schulte) about 370 miles west-southwest of Madeira. The ship had been missed by a first spread of two torpedoes at 01.15 hours. The torpedo ignited the cargo of ammunition and the vessel disappeared after several heavy detonations, which were seen as flashes at the horizon by other ships of the dispersed convoy. A lot of debris was blown into the air and rained down on the nearby U-boat, forcing it to dive immediately. In the meantime, the ship listed heavily to port and sank within two minutes. The motor launch HMNZS ML-1090 was lost with the vessel. When the U-boat surfaced again after 20 minutes, only burning fuel oil and wreckage were spotted at the sinking position. At daylight, the Germans examined U-582 and discovered that the net deflector had been torn away when hit by a side plate of the steamer, which was found on deck together with parts of guns and ammunition and an anchor chain hanging over both sides. The falling debris had ruptured the deck at several places and opened leaks in a fuel tank, causing a trail of oil for a while.

    The master, 68 crew members, 14 gunners and five passengers were lost. Three crew members sleeping on deck had been blown into the water and clung to wreckage of the motor launch until they were picked up at about 08.30 hours by HMS Rother (K 224) (Cdr R.V.E. Case, DSC and Bar, RD, RNR) after being spotted by the British steam merchant City of Windsor from the same convoy.

    Type VIIC U-Boat U-582 was sunk on 5th October 1942 in the North Atlantic south-west of Iceland by depth charges from a US Catalina aircraft (VP-73 USN). 46 dead (all hands lost).

    https://uboat.net/media/allies/merchants/br/port_hunter.jpg

  101. S.S. Port Hunter.

    Complement 91:
    (88 dead and 3 survivors).
    General cargo, including ammunition and depth charges and a motor launch as deck cargo.

    At 01.47 hours on 12th July 1942 the Port Hunter (Master John Bentham Bradley), dispersed from convoy OS-33 at 11.00 hours on 11th July, was struck on the port side in #2 hold by one of two torpedoes from U-582 (Werner Schulte) about 370 miles west-southwest of Madeira. The ship had been missed by a first spread of two torpedoes at 01.15 hours. The torpedo ignited the cargo of ammunition and the vessel disappeared after several heavy detonations, which were seen as flashes at the horizon by other ships of the dispersed convoy. A lot of debris was blown into the air and rained down on the nearby U-boat, forcing it to dive immediately. In the meantime, the ship listed heavily to port and sank within two minutes. The motor launch HMNZS ML-1090 was lost with the vessel. When the U-boat surfaced again after 20 minutes, only burning fuel oil and wreckage were spotted at the sinking position. At daylight, the Germans examined U-582 and discovered that the net deflector had been torn away when hit by a side plate of the steamer, which was found on deck together with parts of guns and ammunition and an anchor chain hanging over both sides. The falling debris had ruptured the deck at several places and opened leaks in a fuel tank, causing a trail of oil for a while.

    The master, 68 crew members, 14 gunners and five passengers were lost. Three crew members sleeping on deck had been blown into the water and clung to wreckage of the motor launch until they were picked up at about 08.30 hours by HMS Rother (K 224) (Cdr R.V.E. Case, DSC and Bar, RD, RNR) after being spotted by the British steam merchant City of Windsor from the same convoy.

    Type VIIC U-Boat U-582 was sunk on 5th October 1942 in the North Atlantic south-west of Iceland by depth charges from a US Catalina aircraft (VP-73 USN). 46 dead (all hands lost).

    https://uboat.net/media/allies/merchants/br/port_hunter.jpg

  102. Djokovitch admits he a t compete with Alcarez and Sinner.
    Not to worry, he can extend his Grand Slam titles if he wears a dress next season and eters the women's draws. ?drawers ooer Missus.

  103. Wordle No. 1,484 3/6

    ⬜⬜🟩⬜🟩
    ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    Wordle 12 Jul 2025

    Extradition for Birdie Three?

    1. Well done, par here.

      Wordle 1,484 4/6

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

    2. Not doing so well this week, another bodies. Looks like my golf scorecard.

      Wordle 1,484 5/6

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

    4. Birdie yesterday, bogey today.

      Wordle 1,484 5/6

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

    5. Slightly fluky four…..

      Wordle 1,484 4/6

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

  104. Very warm here .

    Son still has hands in splints but achieved an amazing result at the Poole Park 5k run this morning .. he came 15th out of over 700 runners .

    Moh and I went to the beach at Weymouth at 10.15.. we were there 2 hours , enough, enough. We watched a sailing regatta in the distance in the bay , they were using their spinnakers, so colourful, but we could only see the dots in the distance as they were sailing off Portland .

    We appreciated the sea air and slight breeze , because inland stonkingly warm .

    Son has taken Pip spaniel for a swim in a shallow River Piddle near Bere Regis .

    The River Frome here in the village has steep crumbly banks and is very deep and I don't regard it as safe as the Piddle . But what water is ever safe!

    Here is a link to a rather depressing view of life in one of our once brave strong cities , which has now been overcome and resettled by a different tribe! Bradford .

    Son no 1 showed Moh and I this and there were tears in my eyes! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYybuTW3z5s

    1. The country is utterly polluted by filth who need to dealt with far more harshly than they are.

    2. I watched most of it. Got to the point with the guy in the blue checked shirt explaining how communism is really much misunderstood and it's really quite cuddly.
      I thought the crackies were very good and should get nominated for the BAFTA'S.

    2. Their guilt is obvious. What should have happened is 50 lashes a day, every day for a week followed by hanging. Cutting toes and fingers off would be optional.

      Simple, swift, over in a week. Instead we all know that legalese will get them off and a hard Left judge will find the right outcome.

  109. But in what is believed to be the first case of its kind, the judge said that the surgery was a “need”, not a “whim”, and therefore it was “reasonable” for the cost to be met out of their joint funds.

    If it really is a "need", why isn't it being done on the NHS?
    Not that I believe that such surgery should be paid for by the taxpayer.

    1. I need to get my knees and SIJ sorted, but the NHS doesn’t seem to think it’s important.

  110. Bruce Everiss
    22m
    Μiɡ𝚛аո𝚝ѕ.
    𝚆as оո Εаsterո Αegean іѕlaոd.
    Lосalѕ ѕаү thа𝚝 tհе miցraո𝚝s mа𝚔е fо𝚛 a ᴠе𝚛y small Ԍ𝚛ее𝚔 Iѕlаոԁ jᴜѕt оff tհe Τu𝚛𝚔iѕh ϲоаѕ𝚝 𝚝ha𝚝 оոly հas an a𝚛mү pоѕt оո it.
    𝚆heո 𝚝hеү lаnԁ theү immeԁіatеlү 𝚝а𝗄е а ѕеl𝚏іе аnԁ роs𝚝 іt tо sоᴄiаl meԁiа. То рrоvе 𝚝ha𝚝 thеy a𝚛е іո tհе ЕՍ.
    Оո оur іѕlaոd tհеre ᴡe𝚛е զuіtе a 𝚏eᴡ miց𝚛aո𝚝ѕ. Тհеy causе ᴢе𝚛о ϲrіmе оr ѕоcіal р𝚛оblems. Вeϲause 𝚝heү ԝаnt theіr papеrѕ sо they cаո ᴄ𝚛оѕѕ tհе EU 𝚝о Саlaіs.

  111. Polly On The Shore
    3h
    For a laugh I listened to Any Questions on Radio 4 this afternoon.
    And chuckle I did at the sheer dishonesty and delusion that was being spewed forth.

    But when Fivebellies Thornberry said that she was so proud that the Labour govenment had restored Britain's reputation on the world stage and that we were now an internationally respected country again….I nearly peed my pants!

    1. Well, if considered a failed basket case economy, overrun with foreigners, corrupt and falling in every index going – from education to liberty?

      But she's a Labour trougher. Their all liars.

  112. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/12/reform-welfare-or-failed-state-britain-only-choice/

    The Tories have no interest in cutting welfare. They're as bad as Labour. Same as they've no interest in reforming the tax code itself. They're utterly interlinked: don''t cut taxes and it's not worth working, so welfare demand spikes. Cut welfare and people scream and shout.

    Brown was a menace, but also clever. Now welfare is such a big drain on the economy but it is also putting money back in to the economy. Nowhere near as much as is going out, thanks to state waste and inefficiency but it's now literally an economic marker.

    So many interlocking cogs all created by a bloated, inefficient state seemingly for the specific purpose of making unravelling the useless mess as difficult as possible.

  114. That's me for today. Warmer now than earlier. Just filled the 1000 litre cubi from the well. Everything else watered. Some overnight rain would be nice….. All the other rainwater butts are empty. Hydrangeas dying as one watches (a clue is in the name…)

    Have a jolly evening planning your nuclear bunker…

    A demain – with luck.

  116. Off topic

    Gale force gusts have suddenly arrived, completely out of the blue, after a hot calm sunny day.

    I have spent hours and a lot of money getting the pool "right" and a significant portion of the work has been undone in minutes as all sorts of debris has been blown into the water.

    Damn, damn and double damn.

    1. They do not want the heat to end as it has done today. Much cooler today than forecast.

      1. The wind has brought in thunder clouds and the rumbling as I write, would make a starving Ethiopian celebrating the Live Aid anniversary proud.

        The lightning which will inevitably follow will light up the sky.

        I enjoy watching it, which is just as well as it has the tendency to cut out the satellite signal for the TV.

      1. I console myself that you, as one of Allah’s chosen, will enjoy the Muslim takeover in unexpected ways.

        Not all of them necessarily pleasant.

    3. Perhaps your president knows where you live and had been advised to look at NOTTLERS comments. 🤭🤗

      1. That little prick can’t even control his wife, let alone the whether, or not.

  117. Fallick_Alec look away now

    Well that was a waste of the better part of three days

  121. UK Islamic summer camp ‘risks radicalising children’
    Legal lobby group criticises planned activities as ‘symbolically connecting very young children with nationalist resistance’

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/12/uk-islamic-summer-camp-risks-radicalising-children/

    A summer camp sponsored by an Islamic charity accused of backing Iran could expose children to extremist views, it has been claimed.

    The camp, run by the Ahlulbayt Islamic Mission (AIM) charity, is aimed at children aged nine to 14, with activities including climbing and ­abseiling along with “lectures and discussions”.

    AIM describes Camp Wilayah, which is set to take place in Kings Langley, Hertfordshire, next month, as an “amazing place to enjoy the outdoors, make new friends, learn and build on Islamic values”.

    It promotes the four-day camp as “a unique opportunity to explore your true potential amidst the serenity of nature and an Islamic ambience!”

    Girls who attend are required to wear the hijab and are segregated from the boys, other than for daily prayers, talks and a team photo.

    An image posted by the Ahlulbayt Islamic Mission on its site to promote the camp
    In an indication of the kinds of activities children at Camp Wilayah are likely to take part in, one AIM video posted on Instagram shows a group of young boys and girls drawing and colouring in Palestinian flags and watermelon symbols.

    The children, described as Mahdi’s Little Believers, can also be seen making kites – in an apparent reference to the paragliders used by Hamas on October 7 to attack southern Israel.

    Legal lobby group UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) criticised the activities shown as “symbolically connecting very young children with nationalist resistance. This exploitation of cultural education is a way of embedding ideological allegiance at a formative age”.

    In social media posts AIM, based in Cricklewood, north-west London, repeatedly praises the leader of Iran’s theocratic regime, Ayatollah Khamenei, declaring that his books are “an excellent source of knowledge and a great read”, and refuses to condemn Hamas.

    It also posted material shortly after the October 7 attacks stating that “the Zionists brought this disaster upon themselves”.

    There are now calls for Camp Wilayah to be banned over “urgent safeguarding and counter-extremism concerns” for the children attending.

    UKLFI warned that it “is being hosted by a group that openly promotes the revolutionary Islamist ideology of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei”.

    It has written to Brent council, where AIM is based, and Hertfordshire council, where Camp Wilayah is to be held, warning councillors: “There is compelling reason to believe that the event may be used as a platform to radicalise children, incite hatred or violence, and glorify terrorist ideology.”

    The group goes on to claim that “of particular concern is AIM’s use of social media to disseminate extremist content that is anti-Semitic and conspiratorial”.

    One video, titled “Know Thy Enemy” features a speaker describing Jews as the “harshest”, “squatters”, “settlers” and “violent”, while accusing Israel, the so-called “squatter state”, of having a policy of murdering children. It also calls moderate Muslims who may be tolerant of Israel “filth”.

    “Other posts glorify and encourage martyrdom and justify Hamas’s 7 October 2023 atrocities by reframing them as legitimate acts of resistance, omitting any mention of attacks on civilians, and likening Gaza to Nazi concentration camps. Countless posts accuse Israel of genocide and liken it to apartheid.”

    A poster advertising the summer camp

    A UKLFI spokesman said: “AIM’s deep ideological alignment with the Iranian regime and its record of extremist propaganda presents an unacceptable risk to children. We hope the local authority and other agencies will act decisively to protect vulnerable young people from exposure to harmful and radicalising content.”

    Lord Walney, the government’s former extremism adviser, has raised his concerns over plans to stage Camp Wilayah this summer, saying: “We cannot allow propaganda and influence from this theocratic dictatorship to be spread to children in the UK.”

    He added: “It is deeply alarming that schoolchildren are being taken to these camps. This raises ­further questions about the influence of Iran here in the UK.”

    Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, has said that children should not be allowed to attend camps run by ­supporters of the Iranian regime.

    The concerns over Camp Wilayah come after Parliament’s intelligence and security committee (ISC) warned on Thursday that the threat of physical attacks by Iran on the UK now matched that of Russia.

    The committee found that Iran’s intimidation, including the fear of attacks on British Jews and Iranian dissidents living in the UK, was comparable in scale to the threat posed by Russia.

    AIM has run Camp Wilayah, which costs £180 per child, for a number of years. Pictures of the 2017 camp posted online show Hasan Ali al-Taraiki, a cleric associated with AIM, attending.

    In an interview posted on YouTube a year ago, he said that the persecution of Jews by Germany and European countries had been “justified at the time”.

    Brent council told The Telegraph it had begun its own “analysis” of Camp Wilayah and AIM’s activities and was “making its relevant partners aware”.

    A spokesperson for Hertfordshire county council said: “We are aware of concerns around this planned activity camp, and we are working with partners to understand the situation and whether it raises any safeguarding issues.”

    AIM has been contacted for comment. It has previously defended its role, stating: “The Ahlulbayt Islamic Mission serves communities in Britain. Unlike the roughly 3,000 ­Zionist organisations in the UK, it neither takes orders from nor represents the interest of any foreign power.

    “We are proud of our record in opposing the 140-year Zionist campaign of genocide against the people of the Levant, which has included forced ­displacement, ethnic cleansing and ­indiscriminate aerial bombardment, among many other crimes.”

    Comments..
    WD

    William Dalzell
    6 min ago
    This is unacceptable, at the same time however it should be pointed out that the Scouting movement has been accused of promoting a radical "trans ideology", at their camps. George Orwell in "Animal Farm", covered the issue of the radicalisation of the young, and you only have to look at the "Hitler Youth", and "Khmer Rouge", to see where it can end.

    1. UK Lawyers for Israel rang the office of Prevent but no one was available. A recorded message said "Our officers are attending a summer training workshop."

    3. Kids don't want that political crap on a summer camp – they want swimming and roasting marshmallows round a camp fire.

  122. What kind of congenital bloody idiot raises one tax to lose far more taxes elsewhere?
    Silly question, a left-wing CBI.

    New flight tax rises would put small French airports ‘at risk’

    Plans to increase taxes on air tickets or airlines would jeopardise regional airports in France potentially putting some at risk of closure, experts in the sector warn.

    Smaller airports including those in Carcassonne, Poitiers, and Bergerac are particularly at risk as they rely on flights from low-cost carriers who may cut routes in light of any higher costs.

    The issue is in the news as French prime minister François Bayrou prepares to outline a series of tax increases in several sectors next week as part of plans to reduce France’s deficit.

    Another round of taxes on airline tickets to and from France is expected to be included.

    Several regional airports have been at risk for a number of years due to huge losses, and are only kept afloat by the flights of low-cost operators.

    French airports' body UAF argues that France is already seen as a less-attractive destination due to its current airline taxes – some of the highest in Europe – and any further increases may see carriers cut their least-profitable routes.

    “Further increase in taxation would be fatal… Airlines are starting to turn their backs on us,” said its president Thomas Juin to media outlet FranceInfo.

    “There is a decline in supply for the summer programme. For next autumn-winter and next spring, we are being told that taxes are too high in France.

    “Small regional airports are currently subject to taxes of €35 on a one-way ticket. In Spain, this amount is around €7,” he added.

    A second round of airline taxes in 2025?
    ‘Solidarity’ taxes on airline tickets were included as part of the delayed 2025 budget, in a watered-down version of original plans by former prime minister Michel Barnier.

    These taxes – paid by airlines but passed onto travellers in the form of increased ticket prices – more than tripled for intra-Europe flights (€2.63 to €7.40), and increased to €15 for non-European destinations, although original proposals included even higher rates.

    The fallout from these increased prices included low-cost carrier Ryanair announcing it would reduce the number of flights to France.

    Ryanair previously also threatened to pull out of nearly a dozen regional French airports, but eventually only stopped services to Paris-Vatry (Marne).

    ‘Fatal’ blow to regional airlines
    A report earlier in the year showed that airports in the west of France are struggling as passenger numbers have reduced.

    Many smaller airports rely almost exclusively on flights from budget airlines, sometimes heavily subsidised to boost local tourism and visitor numbers, and if these carriers pull services the airports would have little choice but to close.

    “Given the tax situation in France, foreign operators may favour other destinations. A thousand passengers coming to France means three jobs. So basically, there are jobs that are not being created in France,” said the general delegate of the National Federation of Aviation and Related Professions, Laurent Timsit.

    However, these taxes are not guaranteed to come in and Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot says he is against raising taxes further.

    “I am not in favour of taxing aircraft again, because aircraft have been taxed quite significantly over the last two years,” he said earlier today to FranceInfo.

    Whereas national figures for air traffic are remaining stable – increases in flights to major cities make up for the reduction in regional routes – comparable countries such as Spain and Italy are seeing increases of up to 7%, the minister said, leaving France behind.

    Increasing tourism is another way to raise revenue through business taxes, the minister believes.

        1. My elder son was sick at Amboise, in the tower. In 1982. These things do stick in the mind, don't they.

      2. Magnetoscopes, as the French called video tape recorders, had to be processed through Poitiers. That went well.

    2. I think this has already happened in Sweden (I think), and was a total disaster.

  124. Utterly off topic
    I looked up my Disqus timeline; It says 2013.
    I am sure it predates that.

  125. It's close to 21:00, and I'm ready for bed.
    Sun shining in the window… in my face… sigh

  126. A very hot day at Stroud Show – It was well supported and people had cash to spend, which was just as well as our card machine had a problem so we couldn't use it.
    Quite exhausting though – sticky and sweaty but I feel better now I've had a shower.

  127. Couldn't care less. Would you like me to send you a big sieve for your pool so you have something for supper?

  128. Starmer forgets that France is not our friend

    Relations across the Channel have been cordial at times – but more often our nations have been at loggerheads

    Simon Heffer • 12th July 2025, 6:50pm BST

    Ever since 1066 the relationship between what is now called Britain with what is now called France has been fraught.

    There were long episodes of conflict: for example, the Hundred Years' War and the Napoleonic Wars. But since 1815 the British have come to regard the traditional enemy as a friend. Edward VII curated the entente cordiale; and a decade later the countries were allies in the Great War. Many British veterans returned praising the bravery of French soldiers. Relations had probably never been better.

    The Second World War changed all that. The fall of France was greeted in Britain with shock at the capitulation. Marshal Pétain, the leader of Vichy France, concluded an armistice with the Nazis that seemed to stab Britain in the back.

    After the war, Charles de Gaulle maintained the fiction that France had liberated itself, rather than being freed mainly by British, Commonwealth and American forces. Successive French governments have maintained that fiction. Although he did us a favour, de Gaulle did not intend his 1963 veto over our joining the Common Market to be anything but an insult.

    Last week's visit by President Macron was supposed to revive the friendship between the two countries, exemplified by the so-called "one in, one out" deal over illegal migrants.

    However, the "deal" itself confirmed two themes of European politics; that this Government has no conception of what constitutes British interests, and that the French government resents Britain's leaving the European Union. For President Macron to blame the illegal migrant crisis on Brexit was comical, yet it suited the Prime Minister's Remainer (or, more accurately, Re-joiner) purposes for him to say so.

    Is the French government really friendly to us? Of course not. It has been delighted to be rid of tens of thousands of illegal migrants in recent years, and for them to become our problem. Not only have the French authorities done little to stop boatloads of migrants leaving their shores, they have done little to round up, prosecute and punish the smuggling gangs who facilitate their journeys. Indeed, many French officials would regard those gangs as doing France a service.

    It suited the Prime Minister to paint the "one in, one out" policy as a triumph of diplomacy that reflected well upon him. It was nothing of the sort. If the rate of illegal migration stays the same it might, if Britain is lucky, send back 6 per cent of those coming here illegally. What deterrent is that?

    M Macron was right to hint that Britain makes things too attractive for these people. They benefit from the Government's deference to the European Court of Human Rights that makes deportation so difficult, from generous state support that the Government maintains, and from the failure to police undocumented immigrants working in the black economy, which is perhaps the biggest incentive for them to come here. Sir Keir Starmer knows he has failed abjectly to keep his promise to "stop the boats". The failure continues, for this 'deal' with M Macron is largely vacuous.

    Back in France, M Macron is wildly unpopular, and France is proving increasingly ungovernable. Yet another parliamentary election cannot be ruled out. It is becoming an economic basket case and its people are restive.

    Yet our Government takes seriously, and fawns upon, the leader who has created such a mess. M Macron's main foreign policy aim where Britain is concerned is not to be our friend, but to punish us for our temerity in leaving a corrupt and dysfunctional EU. More fool Sir Keir, in his own political desperation, for falling for it.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/12/starmer-forgets-that-france-is-not-our-friend-macron-eu

    1. We know all this, Mr H.

    2. "France is proving increasingly ungovernable."
    The UK will follow.

    1. " Edward VII curated the entente cordiale…"

      From a Parisian brothel according to legend.

  129. Watching Euro 2025 Ladies Football – yes, I know, but I'm with grandson and he'll watch footy anywhere involving anybody….

    It's Sweden v Germany – lots of Amazonian beauties on display – the German no.6 is called Minge (words fail me)…..

  130. Having done very little today I'm feeling guilty that 'Nanny' has spent most of the day looking after our two elder grand children. Five and nine year old lad.
    Their parents have been at a wedding all afternoon and will get home after dark.
    It was Village day but It would not have been possible for me to walk there and back. So 'Nanny' has been very busy.
    Tomorrow afternoon we have the second birthday of or fourth and youngest granddaughter. Oh well, Tomorrow is another day.
    Back in the morning good night all Nottlers sleep well 😊😴

    2. Grandchildren – Eddy, you are a lucky man!
      We still hope, but so far, in vain.

      1. I apologise for the fact that I keep mentioning it Obs, but they are now a huge part of our lives. Not complaining, seeing them all again this afternoon. I can’t remember us having full on parties for two year olds. But it’s obviously trending now 🤗🤔

        1. You enjoy it while you can, Eddy, they grow up far too quickly. Our three grandchildren are all in their twenties and we miss all those cuddles so much.

        2. How lovely! Mention as much as you like, it’s great to read of people actually caring for each other rather than trying to take advantage.

  131. THE GUARDIAN. just now.

    HSBC becomes first UK bank to quit industry’s net zero alliance

    1. Farage.
      The net zero scam is collapsing before our eyes. Reform have fought for this for a long time.

  133. This is a bit worrying

    From MiriAF's latest article:

    The page on the government's website, 'What do MPs do?", used to read:

    "The UK public elects Members of Parliament (MPs) to represent their interests and concerns in the House of Commons. MPs can consider and propose new laws as well as raising issues that matter to you in the House. This includes asking government ministers questions about current issues including those which affect local constituents."

    Yet by July 2nd this year, this text had been changed to read:

    "MPs work both at the UK Parliament and in their local constituencies. How and where they work is largely up to them to decide. There is no job description or contract of employment for MPs, nor any rules on how they should balance the competing demands of these two roles. However, MPs must abide by standards of conduct, rules and conventions. For more information see Accountability and Standards."

    All reference to MPs representing their constituents had been removed."

    Apparently a reference to "representing local people" has now been put back in, however this is not a description of the role of an MP as we understood it during the twentieth century.

  135. Been watching the men's Test Match and the ladies' T20, both against India. My impression at both games (just an impression), is that those of Indian heritage failed the Tebbit test.

    1. Precisely. More Indians than English at Lords, or so it seemed. Ditto Edgbaston for what it is worth.

      We may have taught these Indians how to play cricket but clearly failed to teach them the basics of sportsmanship.

      Requests for ball changes every few overs, very slow over rates, many players taking long breaks off the pitch with exaggerated injuries and that ghastly collective ‘chirping’ around our batsmen aka intimidation.

      I am surprised and disillusioned that the wickets so far appear to be suited to Indians rather than the English. I suspect betting influences are at play given that the Indian game is a major factor in gambling and the corrupt practices that go with it.

      Pakistan is far worse. May God help and preserve us.

  138. We are watching a really good film on C4 called "A man called Otto" Tom Hanks .. watchable , interesting , great storyline . Tom Hanks at his best .

  141. Well, chums, my bedtime has arrived. So I wish you all a Good Night. Sleep well, and I hope to see you all early tomorrow morning.

    1. Good morning Geoff ,

      I do hope your home is cooler than ours , well we do have an upstairs which is like an oven , even though we have through draughts.. insultation .. bah to all that !

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