Tuesday 10 March: Don’t expect the Army to run hospitals, as these would have to rely on the NHS for medical staffing

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/03/10/lettersdont-expect-army-run-hospitals-would-have-rely-nhs-medical/

540 thoughts on “Tuesday 10 March: Don’t expect the Army to run hospitals, as these would have to rely on the NHS for medical staffing”

    3. Good morning, Tony, and all NoTTLers. The news is that Matteo Salvini, whilst no longer in government and with a ruling elite who tried to overturn his “no more so-called refugees” policies, is paradoxically even more successful than before. In Italy, the government has now put the entire country in lock-down. This has stopped “refugees” entering the country completely, and even girls and young women are safer from being told to stay home and self-isolate. As they say, every cloud has a silver lining.

  2. The first letter bemoans the fact that military hospitals were phased out. This was for good reason – the military population is generally made up of fit young people. Clinicians only ever dealt with minor trauma and so became gradually deskilled through the lack, of opportunity to practise in wider medicine.

    A huge proportion of specialists are drawn from civilian medine to serve in the Army Reserve (Not the Reserve Army (sic) of the letter) as they simply aren’t needed to serve in a full time capacity (which would also be very expensive)

    1. Not so. The Hospitals filled with local civilians and retired military patients. The RAF had one of the first kidney machines in the UK.

        1. You beat me to it, BSK. I had one long before the RAF and used it to produce steak and kidney pies.

    2. Your first paragraph makes a good point about a limited demographic, however, I was in Catterick Military Hospital (DKMH) twice and there were lots of civilians being treated. One doctor told me that they could take many more but there was a reluctance to accept places by some civilians who believed that military hospitals were run on strict military lines, so they preferred to go to civvy hospitals instead. Plus it was difficult to get to on public transport for visitors.

  3. SIR – My 91-year-old mother has mild dementia and lives at home alone. She is supported by daily visits from my brother, weekly visits from me, twice-weekly visits from her cleaner, and a daily check by council carers.

    Without this input she will be unable to function. If we are all required to self-isolate, she will have no food, no money, no clean clothes, no clean dishes, and be unable to watch television, as she often presses the wrong buttons and disables the set until someone sorts it out for her.

    According to official information, should the situation worsen she is exactly the sort of vulnerable person we should not visit, in order to protect her from coronavirus.

    I consider she is far more at risk from removal of her support network than she is from any virus, and I do not plan to make any change to the arrangements. There must be thousands of families in this situation.

    Dr Hilary Aitken
    Kilmacolm, Renfrewshire

     

    SIR – We are told that the elderly will soon be advised to isolate themselves at home. But thousands of the elderly have working offspring living with them. Huge numbers of young parents also rely on grandparents to look after their children while they are at work.

    What are they all supposed to do?

    David Cockerham
    Bearsted, Kent

     

    SIR – The Government advises us to wash our hands. This is almost impossible on trains, even the most modern, as water often cannot be obtained from the tap in the lavatories.

    David Muir
    Bristol

    1. FFS people. Use some common sense.
      NO advice can possibly be apposite for every single individual’s circumstances. Listen to the advice, consider its intention and decide how best you can adapt your actions to keep yourself and others safe.

      Jeez.

      Edit – As this has been pushed down by later comments I would like to reassure that my “FFS people” comment was aimed at the letter writers, not Nottlers 😚

      2. 317023+ up ticks,
        Morning Bsk,
        If only it were used within the polling booth our problems would be more than halved.

    2. Dr Hilary describes exactly my Mother’s situation, except Mum has no telephone, courtesy of Openreach, so no fall alarm…

      1. Exactly the same as my M-i-L in her 90s – TV was broken. She kept searching and accessed “adult movies” on Virgin which ballooned her monthly bill (that I paid) – we then applied the child lock.
        Mind you it was at least 5 x per week we needed drive 3 miles to fix the broken TV.

        It would have been easier to use Freeview but the signal was not the best & she enjoyed Sky Sports football!

  4. SIR – I went into our local hosiery shop looking to buy some socks and was told there was a shortage as people had been stockpiling.
    Roger Coombs

    I think he means ‘sockpiling’.

  5. Best Quote of All Time

    “The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed, lest Rome will become bankrupt. People must again learn to work instead of living on public assistance.”

    Cicero, 55 BC.

    So, evidently, we’ve learnt bugger all over the past 2,075 years!

    On a current note and apropos … the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled… Priti Patel would do well to take note of,”Oderint dum metuant” variously attributed to Caligula and Lucius Accius, roughly meaning ‘Let them hate, so long as they fear.’

  6. Office chairs should be switched for squatting or kneeling to stay healthy, study of hunter-gatherer tribe suggests

    The heads of smug colleagues bobbing above their adjustable standing desks may have become a popular sight across UK offices.
    Yet anthropologists claim that those keen to stave off chronic diseases should consider going one step further – by replacing desks with squatting or kneeling postures to combat inactivity.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8f73d18e6d3849b3df4b3af4d52bea105279aaeae95d07ce592f7dd5f8c27530.jpg

    We are not allowed comfort, meat, nor motor cars, except electric toys, nor aeroplane flights, unless you are an XR missionary; instead we should go out, hunter/gathering for pasta, tofu and cous cous (and the odd, very odd, fat XR berk if we really must have meat).

    Just how daft are these people – they call themselves anthropologists – I call them apologists for the state of their minds. Bonkers.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/09/office-chairs-should-switched-squatting-kneeling-stay-healthy/

    1. Try that in the UK and you’ll be prosecuted by the RSPB and more than likely receive a letter from the local authority pointing out that you live in a smoke and nuclear free zone….

  7. Good night and good morning, Gentlefolk, I’m off to my bed, as it’s 02:39 and I must calm Best Beloved’s nerves – she get fractious if she finds herself alone in the bed.

        1. 317023+up ticks,
          Morning A,
          Yet another onion layer ie virus, global warming, dinky cars, all deflection to cover the already signed deal of treacherous deals regarding the eu.

          1. It’s interesting that Mr Hammond has called for a delay in negotiating Brexit until Coronavirus is finished.

            I should have thought that controlling our borders would have more effect than keeping borders open to anyone who wishes to enter Britain to enjoy free medical care.

          2. It’s interesting that Mr Hammond has called for a delay in negotiating Brexit until Coronavirus is finished.

            I should have thought that controlling our borders would have more effect on containing infectious diseases than keeping borders open to anyone who wishes to enter Britain to enjoy free medical care.

          3. 317023+ up ticks,
            Morning J,
            Not when the governance parties are in the process of erasing a nation of the decent indigenous element methinks, and by their actions over the last two decades especially I cannot bring myself to think otherwise.
            But then again being a real UKIP member ( not to be confused with the current ersatz UKIP Nec) I would say that wouldn’t I ?

          4. Hammond is despicable; anything to delay the inevitable. Thank goodness he is no longer calling the shots.

      4. It’s over the 100k now:

        https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/300239

        I’d be pleasantly surprised (amazed in fact) if they do schedule it for a debate. I think we all know what will be contained in the report, we’ve known for years that it’s not just ‘Asians’ committing these horrific assaults but a specific group. What is needed is not another report, but some hard, tangible action against the perpetrators and their families. I’m not holding my breath.

        1. The idea that the government will openly discuss this issue is laughable.

          The debate will be silenced in national security grounds, under race relations or A N Other excuse.

          If the Commons does debate it the response will be that there’s nothing to say that is of public interest.

          The idea that Parliament will discuss the findings and say that the findings suggest minor failings of public sector departments that will begin an internal inquiry (which will never report and certainly never find any wrong doing) and that the police will ‘learn lessons’.

          If the hope is that the report says that Muslims think it’s ok to rape women and for parliament to openly state this and to condemn it, you’re deluded. Sorry for the strong language, but it just won’t happen. Close ranks, slam the doors, bolt them, man the barricades. Fortress state will never, ever let its cash cow be interfered with by the truth.

    2. A marked north-south divide, i.e. the people Scotland are clearly not bothered about the petition, or the grooming gangs scandal. Maybe they’re not affected by them as England are.

        1. And often the same areas that have a high response – I wondered if there was a strong network within certain groups in these areas communicating via the internet or are just the areas most pissed off with living with the outcome of government policy.

      2. Politicians and Police Scotland are not in the least bothered. Look up “Operation Cerrar” from 2016. A report that was buried and never seems to have been referred to by any politician. The horror of gang rape of little white girls by muslims is not unique to England. Nor is the cover up.

        1. I looked up Op Cerrar, and nearly choked in disbelief when I saw the words “Victim Centred” in their little diagram a few pages in. Anything but, I would have thought.

          1. It’s a government document. It’s worthless! They don’t believe any of it. Why else are they patrolling twitter!?

      3. Perhaps the Scottish Police and SNP have been successful in covering up most of the abuse happening there?
        After all, there was little coverage of the recent Rape Gang case until it suddenly burst onto the MEEJAH after the trial.

    3. Now over 102K. I expect Parliament will be taking quite a long time in the consideration for debate. There has still been no ‘response’ since passing the 10K mark 5 days ago.

    4. Now over 102K. I expect Parliament will be taking quite a long time in the consideration for debate. There has still been no ‘response’ since passing the 10K mark 5 days ago.

  9. Good Morning Folks,

    Grey windy start,
    On my way to golf, course probably still flooded.

  10. Good morning all. It appears that the Government has no real interest in containing Covid-19, as apparently flights are still being allowed to land from Italy:

    https://www.newsweek.com/coronavirus-epidemic-economy-united-kingdom-nigel-farage-boris-johnson-1491302?fbclid=IwAR3nd_OIzdonmr-FSLEG1Xg4Ut7WitvIl2obXnBivGN02tsD4lVaGAlCFoc

    Having the advantage of being an island, there must have been a window when we could have simply banned all flights from infected areas. But no, the planes continue to land. One can only assume that the government wants us to A – Panic, B – stop travelling (think of the CO2 savings!) and C – stay at home all alone and await instructions from the government.

    1. Those with flu or cold could be asked to self-isolate, UK government says. 10 March 2020.

      People with symptoms as minor as coughs and colds could be asked to self-isolate within the next two weeks, the government warned on Monday, as Boris Johnson defended the government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis.

      Why! Why not now while the rate of infection is quite slow and the numbers comparatively minor? This is waiting for it to worsen before actually doing anything!

      https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/mar/09/matt-hancock-under-fire-from-mps-over-uk-coronavirus-response

      1. It would be most convenient for a number of elderly people to die:

        Reduced state pension pay outs.
        More housing available.
        Less call on the NHS.
        Less voters demanding that Britain leaves the EU.

        Whilst I’m sure that most of the civil service would not subscribe to these thoughts, I’m sure that some of the high ups do.

      2. Drastic action is being held until the problem escalates. The risk is still quite low at the moment and so the response needs to be proportionate. Bring in bans and other restrictions too soon and the public will be weary of them by the time such measures actually are needed.

      3. I have been waking up with a morning cough, and a slight blocked-up feeling in the nose.

        Am I:
        1. Seriously ill, and need to plan my funeral, self-isolate under the kitchen table with identity tag for when I am found, so I can be reverently disposed of when the care workers arrive? They may be some time.

        2. Suffering a leftover from a lurg that has been going on since the start of December, when I had, and largely got over, most of the symptoms described about this virus?
        3. As well as can be expected living alone in this grim, loveless world and should either do the decent thing and hang myself, or just look after myself better?
        4. None of the above?

        1. Morning Jeremy. I have had some sort of head infection for the last three weeks but it is nameless! It has however left me sympathetic to Bob3’s assertion that Coronavirus has been with us long before the panic. Hanging is never decent and at your age is pointless. Soon the Grim Reaper will arrive indifferent to your wishes. You should KBO until then!

          1. The Grim Reaper is a bit like that Indian call centre that keeps ringing me up from random UK numbers. If I leave it on answering machine long enough, perhaps both will lose interest and go and pick on someone else.

      4. The governments & NHS approach is a disaster. I would use an analogy to demonstrate this. In Australia they had bush fires so what you do is to try to contain it to stop it spreading. You then basically leave it to burn out. When it runs out of fuel it will burn out

        With Corona virus the government is not even trying to contain it, in fact it is allowing fuel to be added to the fire ie people coming in from abroad

      5. It would be most convenient for a number of elderly people to die:

        Reduced state pension pay outs.
        More housing available.
        Less call on the NHS.
        Less voters demanding that Britain leaves the EU.

        Whilst I’m sure that most civil service personnel would not subscribe to these thoughts, I’m sure that some of the high ups do.

    2. The obvious thing was to ban all flights to and fro the infected areas or they are comparatively but into quarantine. If we go for the second all International sport and pop concerts and overseas artist etc are not allowed into the UK or have to go into quarantine

      1. Yes would should have done it at the start of the outbreak, or at least instigated some kind of screening measures. But no, planes are landing even as we speak.

        I think we need to work on the assumption that the government just expects us to get the virus, and we have to hope the majority of us survive it. They could have protected us from it in the first place, but it’s too late now.

        1. “planes are landing even as we speak”……………………and the infected cabin staff are scattering to their homes all over Britain.

    3. 317023+ ticks,
      Morning JK,
      And so it came to pass, 1984 CONTROL of the masses,
      in this instance via lab/lib/con.

  11. Good morning all. It appears that the Government has no real interest in containing Covid-19, as apparently flights are still being allowed to land from Italy:

    https://www.newsweek.com/coronavirus-epidemic-economy-united-kingdom-nigel-farage-boris-johnson-1491302?fbclid=IwAR3nd_OIzdonmr-FSLEG1Xg4Ut7WitvIl2obXnBivGN02tsD4lVaGAlCFoc

    Having the advantage of being an island, there must have been a window when we could have simply banned all flights from infected areas. But no, the planes continue to land. One can only assume that the government wants us to A – Panic, B – stop travelling (think of the CO2 savings!) and C – stay at home all alone and await instructions from the government.

  13. SIR – I see that the World Health Organisation has suggested that Britain should use the Army to build field hospitals to ease the strain on the NHS (report, March 9).

    Regular Army field hospitals are staffed at cadre levels and would have to call in staff from other units. Almost all their doctors, nursing and technical staff work at NHS facilities. To remove them would increase the workload of the NHS staff there.

    Reserve Army (once known as the TA) hospitals are manned almost entirely by volunteers who work in the NHS. Their use would, for the same reasons, deplete the NHS of staff.

    So the Armed Services could equip medical isolation facilities, but with very limited medical (doctors), nursing and technical staffing.

    Until a few years ago, unoccupied military camps could have been used as medical or isolation facilities. But these have either been completely run down, sold off to the private sector or demolished. Or they are now occupied by units that have relocated out of Germany. So much for the leaner, meaner, slimline military.

    Roger T Simpson

    Northampton

    1. Morning all

      SIR – My 91-year-old mother has mild dementia and lives at home alone. She is supported by daily visits from my brother, weekly visits from me, twice-weekly visits from her cleaner, and a daily check by council carers.

      Without this input she will be unable to function. If we are all required to self-isolate, she will have no food, no money, no clean clothes, no clean dishes, and be unable to watch television, as she often presses the wrong buttons and disables the set until someone sorts it out for her.

      According to official information, should the situation worsen she is exactly the sort of vulnerable person we should not visit, in order to protect her from coronavirus.

      I consider she is far more at risk from removal of her support network than she is from any virus, and I do not plan to make any change to the arrangements. There must be thousands of families in this situation.

      Dr Hilary Aitken

      Kilmacolm, Renfrewshire

      1. These 90-something elderly people have children who are in their sixties or seventies who may themselves be in decline and at risk from the virus. Their children are millennials and proud of their independence, and really do not wish to be infected by old people and were taught from childhood that self comes before others (all were born after the Thatcher reforms of social values).

    2. What could be done is emergency legislation be bought in to enable some budget hotels to be taken over . As best as I can tell most of those tested positive just need monitoring whilst in quarantine and some basic care. Any developing severe symptoms could be transferred to a hospital

    3. Look on the bright side though – those who made these decision are doing very nicely for themselves now they have offloaded the problem consequences on to their successors.

  14. Morning again

    SIR – I run a small pastoral support group, through our church. We look after the elderly, who living alone, with little family support and , who do not drive. We visit regularly, help with picking up prescriptions, offer to shop for those who have recently returned from hospital, and I am sure we would do so for anyone self-quarantining.

    By the way, I am 80.

    Wendy Tanqueray

    Esher, Surrey

    SIR – We are told that the elderly will soon be advised to isolate themselves at home. But thousands of the elderly have working offspring living with them. Huge numbers of young parents also rely on grandparents to look after their children while they are at work.

    What are they all supposed to do?

    David Cockerham

    Bearsted, Kent

    SIR – The Government advises us to wash our hands. This is almost impossible on trains, even the most modern, as water often cannot be obtained from the tap in the lavatories.

    David Muir

    Bristol

    1. I’m beginning to worry**, fellow NoTTLers. If I end up having to self-immolate isolate, how will I survive when my supply of home-made rhubarb crumble is exhausted and Korky the Kat hasn’t yet arrived with new supplies of rhubarb?

      ** (Fear not, I’m not totally worried yet. As I understand it the UK has some 70,000,025 inhabitants at present and only 5 have died from the Corona Virus. However, once the population falls below 70 million I fear I might reach panic mode.)

  16. SIR – A local butcher is advertising: “Panic buyers welcome here.”

    Roger Wardle

    East Horsley, Surrey

      2. Untrimmed fatty panic £2 a lb
        Gristle free tizzy £2.50 a lb
        Trimmed and filleted consternation, a fiver.

    2. Would stepping up production of “The Special” be counted in the figures for virus victims?

    3. My local Chinese restaurant has a sign up saying “All of our toilets are equipped with an abundant supply of toilet rolls”.

  17. SIR – No-platforming (Letters, March 9) is just another form of censorship and intolerance, like book burning.

    No institution that tolerates or encourages it deserves to call itself a university, with all that word implies.

    Elizabeth Spooner

    Wokingham, Berkshire

    3. Why aren’t the students involved sent down? How did they get there in the first place?

      1. There are no figures available E but from what I have seen the majority are either foreigners or from ethnic minorities!

      2. Filthy Lucre – ” This term comes from the Bible (Titus 1:11), where it refers to those who teach wrongly for the sake of money.”

      3. ie countries that are pretty much run by dictatorship and they are carrying on that tradition

    5. Trying to explain to immature Lefties that they are the very enemy they so desperately want to destroy is just met with screaming arrogance – usually followed by a squealing of ‘fascist’.

      It’s sad, as the Left were not like this some time ago.

    1. Ellie is 21 and Belgian. Her German partner, Nele, is 24. Both took testosterone to become more masculine, and they had their breasts removed in double mastectomy surgery. Now they have detransitioned, and live again as female – the gender they were assigned at birth.

      The question I would really like answering is who paid for this Odyssey through idiocy?

      1. Let’s hope it was the Belgian taxpayer, but possibly some of the squillions we’ve given the EU in the past 40+ years may have trickled down to them.
        Morning, Minty.

      2. No one is “assigned gender at birth.” Another example of Orwell-speak. Sex is assigned at conception, and cannot be changed.

      3. My fear is that, when this de-transitioning becomes more common, the legal writs against the NHS will start flying think and fast.

      4. Most Trans-men are just woman who have bound their breast or had them removed and have taken some hormones so are genetically fully functional females hence the silly in my view claims by some of a transman giving birth

      5. I think they have both paid a terrible price. But those who facilitated the idiocy will get off scot free.

    2. Ellie is 21 and Belgian. Her German partner, Nele, is 24. Both took testosterone to become more masculine, and they had their breasts removed in double mastectomy surgery. Now they have detransitioned, and live again as female – the gender they were assigned at birth.

      The question I would really like answering is who paid for this Odyssey through idiocy?

    3. Ellie is 21 and Belgian. Her German partner, Nele, is 24. Both took testosterone to become more masculine, and they had their breasts removed in double mastectomy surgery. Now they have detransitioned, and live again as female – the gender they were assigned at birth.

      The question I would really like answering is who paid for this Odyssey through idiocy?

    4. Excellent article, sadly not available on line yet, in the Spring edition of the Salisbury Review.

    5. The photo of Nele (with a ring through it’s nose) clearly shows that (s)he is now transitioning to a bull.

      1. Hard to keep up but it appear it would currently be a cow but who know what for tomorrow

        1. I take your point, Bill, but it is only bulls who need rings; cows are much more placid.

  19. The moderators on the DT letters are quick on the delete button this morning re slightly innocous comments about the dragon that was dressed in green who was was flashing her newly polished dentistry whilst her solemn sad husband reflected on the prospect of the shallow artificial Hollywood lifestyle that will greet him in the next few days .

    Good morning all

        1. Not really, Maggie. I am just a little jaded over Megxit and Corona Virus “news” and could do without it. So I am reverting back to a mixture of sarcasm and black humour today.

          1. Ahaaa.. Elsie

            We could do with some humour and a few happy films . Something cheerful , even some more of yesterday morning .. bright sunshine untill midday was lovely.. I managed to dry some bath towels on the line!

          3. So what you are saying, Maggie, (© Cathy Newman) is that you have used up all your hand towels with all this hand-washing that you are now reduced to using bath towels?

          4. Huh ,

            I had a method to my madness.. Bath towels laundered the night before , so put them out on the line early.. and had about four very grubby dog towels which needed doing , washed them, got distracted by cleaning up , washing kitchen floor , usual domestic tasks … I forgot to put the dog towels on the line to dry.. by 2pm it was raining !

    1. Good morning Anne,
      At ASDA no liquid handcleaner, not many eggs, no loo paper.
      Enormous piles of bogroll at Lidl, but pasta in short supply. Plenty of bars of delicious chocolate, so if I had been in Berlin in late 1945 I might have got lucky, in a transactional sort of way. (I didn’t check for nylons)

        1. Anne – antibiotics don’t work on viral infections, however a doctor friend of ours say that the Chinese claim that large doses of Vitamin C administered intravenously have had beneficial results.

          2. Agreed about antibiotics, but how often is an already weakened sufferer of a viral illness actually carried off by a bacterial side infection?

          3. Yes Bob, I fully agree with your comment.

            However Coronavirus is reported to give weakened sufferers pneumonia, and any sensible elderly person would have had their free pneumonia jab many years ago.

          4. In days gone by pneumonia used to be referred to as “the old persons friend”.

          5. I was wondering about the effectiveness of the pneumonia jab only this morning…mine was probably 7-8 years ago, administered at the same time as the annual ‘flu jab. I would like to think that it continues to work…

      2. BBC Headline later today: “Armed police storm ASDA colchester, after reports of masked Mental Nurse planned armed hold up”

    4. Make sure you go to the loo first as you may fin the toilet papers all gone and pinched from the stores toilet as well

    5. Lidl, at about 600 yards for me. Yesterday saw my first stockpiling episode as a woman filled one of the large carts with loo rolls. She obviously took her decision after listening to the MSM’s incessant reporting.

      1. We saw a woman buying 2 packs of 9 rolls loo paper in Morrisons yesterday.
        Morning all btw.

      2. With this virus spreading, It has been mentioned that the psychology behind stock piling loo rolls is, people are crapping themselves.

      4. It was fine the other day.
        If I mention that Allan Towers is adequately stocked, I’ll have to take my tiara out of the safe and secrete a pack of loo rolls instead.

        1. Except for the example mentioned all the other shoppers were going about their business as one would expect.

      1. ‘Morning, Belle.

        What a difference a day makes…

        My kippers from yes’day have stopped repeating.

  22. Britons warned against all but essential travel to Italy amid nationwide coronavirus lockdown

    Meanwhile airlines are still flying people to and from Italy and the government is doing nothing about it and the airline dont even mention this government advice on their website otr hide it away in the small print when it should be on the home page

    British nationals have been warned against all but essential travel to Italy in fresh advice issued over the coronavirus outbreak.

    The UK government’s updated statement comes after the Italian Prime Minister extended the country’s lockdown measures to cover the entire country.

    All public gatherings are being banned and movement restricted across every region of Italy under the nationwide actions that will affect 60 million people from Tuesday.

    The UK’s Foreign Office issued a statement late on Monday night, warning against all but essential travel to the country. It also said anyone returning from the country should self-isolate for 14 days.

    The statement said: “We have amended our travel advice to recommend against all but essential travel to Italy. The safety of British nationals is always our number one priority.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7abcd62a39355fd7656a79465f6e7e8668d2da473abba558e1914d168c3d5b21.jpg

    1. Modern aircraft have been carefully designed to facilitate the transmission of infectious diseases.

      1. I nearly always catch something when we fly. But not so much on long haul.
        We have no plans to travel at the moment.

  23. Travel to Italy

    As the government have now updated their advice on travel to Italy you can now claim full refund if you no longer wish to travel. . They can offer an equivalent holiday to another country but you do not have to accept it

      1. And you won’t need to bother with Health Insurance or a Funeral Plan apparently…..

        1. Apparently and according to the on line Express, our caring government has found a use for all the ‘stockpiled’ body bags.
          But think of gas bills and the rise in carbon emissions.
          Baby Greta and her silly little friends won’t like that.

          1. If the Government had been serious about transmission of Coronavirus they would have banned Doom Greta assembling 20,000 teenagers in Bristol to hold hands at a public meeting.

      2. China is also on the dont travel list mind you the airlines stay quiet about it. No sign of them giving publicity to the Italy No travel advice. I guess they are hoping people will travel because they think they will loose their money if they dont

    1. Morning all.
      Indeed our police have lost all public respect. Dick brained might be the expression.
      What I think is happening and is going on behind the scenes is a war of attrition.
      I would stick my neck out to say our governments of past and present have made such a mess with immigration. If they even attempted to put things back into its correct perspective. They would have terrible riots on their hands. But it’s so much easier to blame everyone else for the dreadful mistakes they have made and continue to make.

      2. More likely it’s essential to keep Soros’ now admitted “legislation and policy leveraging” secret for as long as possible.

      3. Yes they have imported a tiger and must keep him quiet. It’s much easier to keep the prey in order!

        1. Yep. The goat is tied to a stake with a bit of rope. It waits to be devoured. If the tiger appears, well and good. If not then the goat can be tied up another day. The tiger is safe.

  26. To all those who want the Government to do something in the current ‘crisis’ can I remind you all of the most terrifying phrase in the English language.

    “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you.”

        1. The bodge it and see button isn’t there either.
          Mind you it’s probably already been pressed,……….. under the desk.

          1. It’s always the optimum solution to any problem. But I also can’t see a ‘wait until tomorrow, it might have fixed itself’ button.

  27. “I mourn the loss of the Rule of Law in the West. I despair at the perversion of investigative journalism by State-sponsored bollocks. And I become angry at the ease with which the Unelected States seem able to sell zero return on capital, zero hours contracts and zero State pensions to the electorate.

    We have, finally, arrived at the Greco-Roman demos so feared by the ancient scholars: clueless, unthinking, and concerned mainly with pizzas and soccer. Slightly better than bread and circuses….but not much to show for 3000 years of “progress”. John Ward

    1. Since I first read about the Romans in school I’ve been fascinated by their history and the downfall of the Empire. How I used to wonder could this highly organised and technically accomplished state with its wonderful army have collapsed? It seemed to defy logic. Now living as I do in similar times a great many of my questions have been answered. The rot is from within! The mores and beliefs that create great Civilisations fade and die with the passage of time and the ruling elites become not leaders but parasites. The sexual decadence and moral perversion that one sees in the present are not the cause of our present decline but a symptom of it!

      1. I know I’ve posted this before, but it can’t be said/written often enough:

        “A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.”

        ― Marcus Tullius Cicero

        1. O perilous fyr, that in the bedstraw bredeth!
          O famulier foo, that his servyce bedeth!
          O servant traytour, false hoomly hewe,
          Lyk to the naddre in bosom sly untrewe,
          God shilde us alle from youre aqueyntaunce!

          (The Merchant’s Tale: Chaucer)

      2. I know I’ve posted this before, but it can’t be said/written often enough:

        “A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.”

        ― Marcus Tullius Cicero

      3. I suppose Lloyd George fancied himself as a fornicator and a seducer of women but it was hushed up at the time. However such things no longer need to be hushed up as the expected sexual morality in our political leaders has altered very dramatically in recent years.

        So it does not matter that our prime minister is a serial sexual predator who has betrayed his former wives, frequently committed adultery, produced at least one illegitimate child and has had an abortion arranged for one of his mistresses.

        In one of the boarding schools in which I taught some years ago a young master was sacked for immoral behaviour for having his fiancée to stay for a night in his flat during the school holidays when the pupils were not even at school. Bachelor masters were expected to be celibate at all times.

        (Remember old Brabantio – Desdemona’s father – who warned Othello that his daughter had betrayed her father and might also betray him. This planted a suspicion and the odious seed of jealousy in the Moor’s heart which destroyed him. Look at the steadfast and loyal Norman Tebbit who has stood so devotedly beside his wife: would you rather trust him or Boris Johnson who is renowned for betraying those closest to him and might betray people he does not even know personally all the more easily?)

        1. I lived in the US for the years 2001 – 2006 and I was amazed at the number of people who scorned George W Bush as President and longed for the days of Clinton. When I gently pointed out the disgraceful sexual behaviour of Clinton and said that, for all his flaws, GW Bush seemed to have a very different moral standard, the response was that Clinton was nevertheless a superb President and superb individual etc etc. We now have a Prime Minister who is more Clintonesque than Bushy yet people still worship him. The difference is that, in the US, it was leftwingers who raved about Clinton whilst here it is rightwingers who rave about Boris. I agree with your comments about Tebbit and Johnson – they have very different standards of honour and loyalty.

  28. Virgin Atlantic flying ‘almost empty’ planes as coronavirus hits demand

    Virgin Atlantic has admitted flying planes that are “almost empty” in order to keep take-off and landing slots despite demand plummeting due to the coronavirus.

    Chief executive Shai Weiss said the airline is being “forced” to continue with flights because rules about slot allocation have not been relaxed.

    Slots at capacity-constrained airports such as Heathrow can be worth millions of pounds.

    The European Union operates a so-called “use it or lose it” rule which means airlines must use 80% of their slots or risk them being taken away in the following year.

    The regulation has been removed for routes serving mainland China and Hong Kong due to the outbreak of Covid-19, but remains for other destinations.

    1. Their Middle Eastern airline, 72 Virgin (the one with the vertical take-off planes) has suspended further flights until the next atrocity.

      1. The UN policy is an environmental disaster:-

        UN Carbon Regime Would Devastate Humanity And The Environment
        https://climatism.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/haiti-dominican-republic-border-climatism3.jpg?w=1024
        DISASTER divided : Two countries, one island, life-and-death differences

        https://climatism.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/border-between-haiti-and-dominican-republic-climatism.jpg
        BORDER between Haiti and the Dominican Republic: Guess which country contains eco-criminals that can afford to use fossil fuels, and which country contains nature-lovers who are dependent on natural renewable organic biomass for energy?

        https://climatism.blog/2018/11/05/un-carbon-regime-would-devastate-humanity-and-the-environment/

      2. One can understand them not wanting airlines that have slots and dont use them but surely the CAA could have powers to way the 80% in exceptional circumstances

  29. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Another determined effort to bring on a no-deal:

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/03/09/eu-chief-if-uk-wants-access-to-single-market-it-must-play-rules/

    I liked this comment:

    “The EU only knows how to crush sovereignty and restrict democracy. Treating it like an enemy is the best strategy going forward with trade until the beast can be made to submit.”

    Since Maastricht I have always regarded the EUSSR as precisely that. Fortunately their day of reckoning fast approaches, where we hold most of the aces.

    1. 317023+ up ticks,
      Morning HJ,
      Walk & wait is the right way to go & should have been applied on the 24/6/2016.

  30. Travelling to Italy

    What is not really being mentioned is that if anyone now travels to Italy it will invalidate any insurance cover they have. It should only affect the health cover element though but that can be the most costly if things go wrong. It is invalidated because you would be travelling against government advise

  31. Jet 2 has cancelled all flights to Italy, They are fling out planes empty to fetch people back from Italy. Most other operator though appear to be currently doing nothing

    1. …..and after the flights their cabin staff will gently spread the infection amongst their home communities.

      Jet 2 hasn’t really thought this through.

    1. It is with great sadness I have to remind you that Jess Philip is still an MP. A woman that once threatened to stab Corbyn pontificating about violence

      1. She was speaking idiomatically, not threatening to use violence.

        Asked, in an interview with Guardian columnist Owen Jones, if she would want to change the leader of the Labour party, Phillips said: “I would do anything that I felt was going to make the Labour party win the general election because if I don’t have that attitude then all I’m doing is colluding with the Tories.

        “If that means making Jeremy better, I’ll roll my sleeves up. If that’s not going to happen – and I’ve said [this] to him and to his staff to their faces: ‘The day that … you are hurting us more than you are helping us, I won’t knife you in the back, I’ll knife you in the front.’”

        https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/dec/14/labour-mp-jess-phillips-knife-corbyn-vote-loser-general-election

    2. If I didn’t work I wouldn’t get paid so why are those MPs still being paid when they can’t even bother to show up?

      1. 317023+ up ticks,
        Morning R,
        Because the electorate time & again & again give them carte blanche to do so, the politico’s represent the party and for a multitude of fools the party takes precedence over the Country.

  34. Grooming Gang Report petition has passed the 100,000 mark

    I suspect our cowardly politicians will still not publish it though

    1. Are there any politicians who will have the testicular strength to stand up in Parliament and argue the case for the publication of the report and are there any members of the government who would back such people and fight for publication in full?

      If so who do you think they are?

        1. I agree with you.

          Who are the Conservative Muslim MPs? Would a fatwa be issued against them if they dared to speak up in defence of white raped children?

          You can take it as read that nobody in the Labour Party gives a damn about white girls who, they think, should accept that being raped is a lifestyle choice and they should keep quiet in the interests of diversity. And look at how Trevor Philips has been ‘unpersoned’ by the Labour Party.

  35. Wuhoo!
    From the DT:

    “British Steel has officially come under Chinese ownership, with Jingye taking control of the Scunthorpe-based business and sketching out a £1.2bn turnaround plan for it.

    Jingye is paying £50m for the steelmaker’s UK and Netherlands operations in a deal which will protect 3,200 jobs, while about 500 staff will be laid off.

    Li Huiming, chief executive of Jingye, said investment plans included building an electric arc furnace at Teesside, a new, more efficient power station at Scunthorpe and upgrading steel processing facilities.

    Investment will begin “immediately” in the UK and European sites, Mr Li said, speaking through an interpreter.

  36. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vKLQcYLyyiA

    Tucker Carlson Tonight show from last night. Watch it before they delete it.
    Includes corona virus update, loony left lunacy, Piers Morgan on the collapse of California and the Democrat governor who promised much but is delivering little, and big tech censoring Trump ads.

        2. So you’re saying that the Chinese have not made such an announcement? That it’s untrue?

          https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&u=http://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/2020-03/04/c_1125660473.htm&prev=search
          Righteous, the world should thank China
          2020-03-04 10:45:32 Source: Huang Sheng looks at the financial WeChat account
          “If China retaliates against the United States at this time, in addition to announcing a travel ban on the United States, it will also announce strategic control over medical products and ban exports to the United States. Then the United States will be caught in the ocean of new crown viruses (Google translator translates “Corona” as “crown”).
          According to the US CDC officials, most masks in the United States are made in China and imported from China. If China bans the export of masks to the United States, the United States will fall into the mask shortage, and the most basic measures to prevent the new crown virus are Can’t do it.
          Also according to the US CDC officials, most of the drugs in the United States are imported, and some drugs are imported from Europe. However, Europe also places the production base of these drugs in China, so more than 90% of the US imports Related to China. The implication is that at this time, as long as China announces that its drugs are as domestic as possible and banned exports, the United States will fall into the hell of the new crown pneumonia epidemic.”

          It took me less than a minute to find.
          Tucker was not lying, and the point he was making was the over-reliance of the West, including America, upon Chinese manufacturing, which right now includes antibiotics, plastic gloves, and surgical masks. Manufacturers have been all too eager to offshore production of so many of our goods because it’s cheaper for them, but the old phrase that includes eggs and baskets very much come to mind.

      2. Usually someone edits it down to 2 seconds.
        Not that anyone is trying to silence Republicans or anything….

  37. Trevor Phillips doesn’t understand Islamophobia. Sayeeda Warsi. Mon 9 Mar 2020.

    I’m astonished that, after decades of research and policies that improved our understanding on race, anyone still believes racism is only about the shade of one’s skin. It is not. Antisemitism is a form of racism – directed at Jews who come in many shades, black, brown and white. Racism is a demonisation and negative stereotyping of a group or perceived group, irrespective of the colour of their face.

    The same is true for Muslims or those perceived to be Muslim. It’s why the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims, after wide consultation and evidence gathering, defined Islamophobia in 2018 as a “form of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness”.

    Morning everyone. This woman is hopelessly confused, whether by intent or ignorance it is impossible to say. Racism is not any of the things she, or the Parliamentary Group on British Muslims says here; it is the expression of prejudice, in whatever form, against someone because of their race. Race being defined here as belonging to a sub-group of humans with particular physical characteristics. Islam is not a race, it is in fact indifferent to race as can be illustrated by its members. It is a religion and those who follow it are Muslims.. If Islamophobia exists it is the fear of the acts and beliefs of Muslims. In this it bears some resemblance to antisemitism and indeed every religion, not excepting the early Christians, since the beginnings of human history.

    All this of course is to some considerable extent irrelevant, it’s just juggling words and their meanings. What we are actually seeing is Muslims doing what everyone else does in seeking the moral high ground and thus immunity from criticism and sanction. It was ever thus.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/09/trevor-phillips-islamophobia-muslims

    2. Warsi is not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
      She never managed to win a seat, so Dave shoved her into the HoL as a treble token; female, brown and Muslim.
      And topped the tokenism by making her Co-Chairman of the Conservative Party

    3. What is wrong with being a racist? If it means preferring to be with those who share your social mores, your behavioural standards, your moral code, who subscribe to your traditional laws and are comfortable with your religious outlook and the practice thereof, and tends to exclude those who deviate from these, surely that is a society which should be encouraged?

    1. Jet2 have canceled all flights to Ital as have Easyjet, The situation with Rynair is confused but a lot of flights have been cancelled

      1. Ryanair will continue to fly passengers for Rome, Milan, Venice and Florence to Krakow.

  39. Anyone finding Disqus slow to load pages?

    It may be my settings on new laptop windows 10…..any help appreciated.

        1. I like may others Percy Veered with Mr Gates ‘Creation’ for a couple of decades. When I stopped using Windows it felt as if i had stopped banging my head against my desk! Clearly PT you are more resolute than me – so I wish you the best of luck….

  40. One new coronavirus case confirmed in the East of England

    Guess where that person had recently visited. Yes you have guessed it. Italy

  41. Greek Government: Only Four Per Cent of ‘Refugees’ Breaching Border Are Syrian

    Countries of origin of the 252 migrants and refugees detained in Greece so far, per Greek govt:

    Afghanistan: 64%
    Pakistan: 19%
    Turkey: 5%
    Syria: 4%
    Somalia: 2.6%
    Iraq, Iran, Ethiopia, Morocco, Bangladesh, Egypt: 5.4%

  42. De-radicalisation approach needs ‘fundamental review’ – Prison Officers’ Association

    What do we do with them. We know that radicalizing them is unreliable and keeping them in jail is very expensive. I guess where possible we can deport them but with our porous boarders they could easily return. I may be the only option is the death sentence unless anyone can come up with a better solution

    1. 317023+ up ticks,
      BJ,
      First construct a party that is answerable to the peoples
      first & foremost and 100% pro UK.
      Build terrorist only prison out of overseas aid funds.
      deport on day of release along with family & close friends.
      Stop supporting / voting for lab/lib/con coalition the political body lice of a nation.
      Form granddads army for homeland border protection.
      If unwilling to follow these simple common sense needs
      then suffer.

  44. SIR – Trevor Phillips (report, March 9) should consider it a badge of honour to be suspended from the Labour Party as it is at present.

    James Reeves

    Bradfield, Berkshire

    1. Mr Reeves, looking at Trevor Phillips’ situation, surely it could be seen as a badge of dishonour to have remained a member of such an awful organisation for so long.

    2. It shows just how far left the Labour Party has gone. It is now a Marxist communist party and no one can defy the parties view of things

      That is not the Labour party most Labour voters want. Unfortunately I do not see it changing anytime soon. All the leadership contenders want to keep ythe party on its current course

      2. Oh dear. How sad. Never mind.
        (And yes, I do realise we need an effective opposition.)

      3. Morning Bill,

        The poor old Labour party , beloved of many, has now metamorphosed into something similar to a South Korean loonie moonie cult!

          1. What will they do with there gender equality counting for those that claim to be gender fluid ?

          2. I’m beginning to experience the same feeling I had when the maths teacher explained trigonometry.

    3. My sympathy is limited.
      He was complicit in the mugger’s buddle we now find ourselves.
      He must feel like Robespierre on the scaffold.

          1. Daleks cannot turn their sink plungers in on themselves any more than they can climb stairs.

        1. Er… I hope that isn’t Swahili for “You are a Silly Sausage”, Peddy, my friend!

          2. So that’s what “Rafiki” means, Peddy. I thought it was a French film about a jewel heist.

  48. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/10/pc-andrew-harper-dragged-along-country-road-mile-death-court/

    ”

    A police officer died in “truly shocking circumstances” when he was
    dragged along the road surface for more than a mile by three teenage
    thieves after his ankles became caught in a tow rope they were using to
    steal a quad bike, a court heard today.

    PC Andrew Harper, 28,
    died totally naked apart from his socks and his boots when his police
    uniform was “ripped and stripped” from his body as the thieves drove at
    speed swinging him from side to side “like a pendulum” in an effort to
    dislodge him, the Old Bailey was told.
    ”

    What a horrific crime, they should all be put away for a true life sentence. And while they’re at it, since there is no such thing as a respectable ‘traveller’, all their sites should be closed down.

  49. 317023+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    We cannot expect the army to assist the NHS regarding staffing as the NHS will always be a nurse / doctor short of necessity owing to mass uncontrolled immigration.
    The governance parties still find regular support / votes for their policies,
    ie open borders ( then some) via the beaches, and the peoples inability to
    recognise us being on a war footing as a nation.
    How is it that prior to the BIG SCAM taking hold in mid 70s these Isles were not perfect BUT they worked with a very strong strain of decency
    running through society, then lab/lib/con with regular support went rogue.

    1. Forces trained doctors and nurses have always been miles better than NHS trained staff.
      They had a discipline and knowledge that has always shown up the inadequacies of civilian trained staff.
      In the days when Colchester had a military hospital, expectant mothers would choose to give birth there rather than in the local maternity home.

      1. I think animals are treated better than humans in some instances, certainly seen to quicker!

      2. Morning Anne – Catterick had a much respected Military Hospital open to civilians but sadly missed.

        2. I was in there twice in the early 90s. There were lots of civilians being treated alongside military patients.

      3. 317023+ up ticks,
        Morning Anne,
        I do agree, but in this instance enough is NEVER going to be enough in staffing whatever the quality the quantity ( patients) will overwhelm.

        1. Well at present on the scant information available most of those tested positive dont really need hospital care. The few that do can be counted on 1 hand at present. Not likely to be a serious problem for the NHS

      5. We have a ‘semi adopted’ 2nd daughter who is an army sergeant nurse. About to go with the Gurkha regiment to Brunei this coming summer. She doesn’t take prisoners I have to confess.

  50. 317023+ up ticks,
    At what panic level induced in the main by MsM / political input, WILL the governance parties deem it necessary to call brussels for assistance.

      1. 317023+ up ticks,
        Afternoon R,
        The governance parties of the UK have give their types entry permission, and via the ballot booth consent of the electorate is also given, why ?

    2. Not only is it a despicable act, to deprive his daughters of a father. The chances are he will also kill and maim other fathers, possibly mothers and children. I am at a loss to understand why our politicians claim Islam is the Religion of Peace.

      1. 317023+ up ticks,
        Afternoon S,
        Fear, they prefer the submissive, PC/Appeasement route as do many of their followers / voters.

    3. Put up on Ar$ebook in an attempt to shew the world what fun-loving family values these morons possess.

  53. 373 Positive test to date and another death a man of 80 no other info at present

      1. Apparently, there’s been a run on ammunition in the USA. Guess they have a different priority in their panic buying from the UK.

        2. That will be all the NRA nutters who believe its all a left wing plot. Still, when their revered leader Tweets that Coronavirus press reports are “fake news”, why wouldn’t they?

          1. I recall the day after 9/11 – just about every gun shop in the US had sold out.

      2. A doctor’s surgery in Wareham has been shut for a while due to contact with this virus .

        We are all frightened to bits by this plague from a heathen rhino horn grinding , dog on the menu , rat on a kebab primitive country .. The virus has been engineered in some ghastly laboratory.. and hell broke loose.. Their superb brains do not sit side by side with their medieval cultural mores.

        1. It could still have originated from Italy when they served up a Pizza Coronaviana in the Wuhan Pizza Hut.

        2. ‘Evening, Mags, you could almost be talking about Mohammedanism except for the ‘superb brains’ bit.

  55. Picked up from Going Postal:-

    Out walking last night decided to take short cut through the cemetery. Three young girls came towards me and said they were petrified walking through the grave yard and asked if they could walk along side me so I said, “Yes. Of course.”
    As we were walking I said, “Don’t worry, I understand. I used to be petrified walking through here when I was alive.”
    Never ever seen anybody run as fast as those three girls.

    1. 317023+ up ticks,
      Afternoon Rik,
      If only it was an informed choice made by the parents
      in place of a deformed choice again & again in the polling booth, a great many of these odious issues would not be firmly established in society today.

  58. Thought I’d do the NHS a favour as one of the oldies by eliminating one prescription round and visit to the probably infected Tesco pharmacy to get my monthly couple of prescriptions. Wrote a note in the space provided in the online form to this effect, why not issue 2 months instead of one. Ignored of course…

    1. It’s a money-saving policy. They don’t want you popping off in a month and wasting a month’s supply of drugs. I have the same problem with my cancer drug, which I have to trot off to the hospital every month to get – the same hospital that has already seen one Covid-19 death.

      1. Because normally I shop there every week. But if I selfdiagnose Covid19, I shall want to skip a week or two…

  59. Wuhoo!
    From the DT:

    “British Steel has officially come under Chinese ownership, with Jingye taking control of the Scunthorpe-based business and sketching out a £1.2bn turnaround plan for it.

    Jingye is paying £50m for the steelmaker’s UK and Netherlands operations in a deal which will protect 3,200 jobs, while about 500 staff will be laid off.

    Li Huiming, chief executive of Jingye, said investment plans included building an electric arc furnace at Teesside, a new, more efficient power station at Scunthorpe and upgrading steel processing facilities.

    Investment will begin “immediately” in the UK and European sites, Mr Li said, speaking through an interpreter.

    1. Is it me? Another strategic asset in foreign hands, to do with as they please. Note that the deal does not include the French plant as it was deemed a national asset by the French Government who blocked the sale.

      1. Do they expect to make a profit out of it, or is it just a plan like the Qataris to buy up the whole country bit by bit ?

        1. I don’t know and find it hard to guess. We do buy Chinese steel for building bridges and aircraft carriers, so a plant closer to the market makes some sense. Unlike some previous foreign purchases I doubt whether there is any equipment or specialist knowledge worth relocating to China. It may be a step towards setting up some vertically integrated businesses.

          1. That’s right, they’ve slowly but surely undermined the autonomy of many countries.

    1. 317023+ up ticks,
      Afternoon HP,
      Old Winnie Spenc, Churchill gave his take on it ( if you quote him you will be nicked) same as Gerard Batten
      rhetorically & in book form in 2005, not to be heeded by many.

      1. How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die: but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.

        2. 317023+ up ticks,
          Afternoon Anne,
          Precisely, as common sense, no nonsense chaps as
          Winnie & Gerard try to get across to the peoples all to no avail
          seemingly ………….. Yet.

          By the by have you made arrangements for the next 3 months at least on account of your being Tommy Robinsoned ?

    2. Beware all you of Perfidy
      It is the green- dressed monsta who doth mock
      The crown it craps on.

      (With apologies to Iago)

  63. The premise of this painfully badly written article is correct: it is a very bad idea for the government to suggest legislating to guarantee freedom of speech on university campuses. The inevitable consequence will be a quango, possibly with a dangerously controlling instinct.

    What is most instructive is the accompanying photo and especially the nearest poster. No prejudging there, eh boys? If you are boys, that is…

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/09/governments-solution-no-platforming-higher-education-dangerous

  64. Racing from Cheltenham .. looks as if thousands of people are attending , and having a brilliant day out.

    Just watching Rachel Blackmore with her cool winner.. brave girl.. a real English rose .

  65. Campaigner loses Court of Appeal challenge over gender-neutral passports

    A campaigner has lost a Court of Appeal challenge over gender-neutral passports.

    Leading judges delivered their ruling in the latest round of a legal battle over “X”(for unspecified) passports.

    The challenge was brought by Christie Elan-Cane, a campaigner who has fought for legal and social recognition for non-gendered identity for over 25 years, and who believes the UK’s passport application process, which requires individuals to indicate whether they are male or female, is “inherently discriminatory”.

    It has been argued that the policy breaches the right to respect private life, and the right not to be discriminated against on the basis of gender or sex, under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

    At the December hearing, Kate Gallafent QC, for Elan-Cane, told the judges: “This is an important case in the anxious context of the proper understanding and respect for the intimate, human rights of the affected class – persons whose gender identity is neither, or neither exclusively, male nor female.”

    1. I dont personally mind the passport being as below

      Gender: Female, now identifies as Male

          7. Gender has foxtrot all to do with genetics.
            The word is SEX, Male Sex or Female Sex.

          8. gender

            NOUN

            either of the two sexes (male and female), especially when considered with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones. The term is also used more broadly to denote a range of identities that do not correspond to established ideas of male and female.

            (in languages such as Latin, French, and German) each of the classes (typically masculine, feminine, common, neuter) of nouns and pronouns distinguished by the different inflections which they have and which they require in words syntactically associated with them. Grammatical gender is only very loosely associated with natural distinctions of sex.

          9. …each of the classes (typically masculine, feminine, common, neuter) of nouns…

            The word common is out of place in that list. The distinction between common & proper nouns is a completely separate issue & has nothing to do with gender. You really do not know what you are talking about..

          10. The use of Gender to refer to sex dates back to a New Zealand born American doctor who specialised in early sex change treatments in the 1960s and who began misusing the word to obfuscate what he was doing.

          11. Is that the ‘Dictionary of Convenient Definitions’.

            If you want to gain ANY credence, you need to supply links, otherwise it becomes sloppy and fallacious argument.

    3. Hmmmm. Interesting. Over the last couple of months judges seem to be somewhat more cautious with their verdicts. A pattern seems to be emerging. What is going on?

      1. Practicing their back pedalling after seeing what happened to Mr Putnam?

    4. Two sexes, male or female, get over it and for God’s sake recognise that ‘Gender’ is a grammatical construct and has nothing to do with genitals.

  66. Revolutions eat their own:

    The first time I heard the word “Islamophobic” was when it was attached to my name in a public document. The date was 1997 – the main year in our history (Tony Blair Year 1) when political correctness appeared to be carrying all before it.

    The document was a pamphlet sponsored by the Runnymede Trust, the vehicle of the elite Left in public policy. The then chairman of the trust was Trevor Phillips, a towering figure in the race relations “industry”. Now his suspension from the Labour Party has just been announced. His alleged crime is that he is “Islamophobic”.

    Mr Phillips’s story could be seen as a classic example of how the revolution eats its own, but this is not really true in his case. Even in the era when he was slandering me (I’m afraid that, nearly a quarter of a century later, I forget my precise alleged offence), I noticed in him, whenever we met, disturbing evidence of being a real, humorous and independent-minded individual. Even when he was talking New Labour rot, I always liked him. I felt he was in the wrong place, and I guessed that he sort of knew it.

    In the intervening years, Mr Phillips has become an increasingly outspoken critic of the very concept of “Islamophobia”. While militantly opposed to anti-Muslim hatred, he rejects the idea that criticism of current aspects of Islam is racist.

    It is insulting to any great proselytising religion – the two greatest being Islam and Christianity – to suggest that it belongs to any race. They are global belief systems, not genetic inheritances.

    He also understands that to proclaim Islam as different from surrounding Western society – which Labour says is his crime – is to state an observable fact.

    It is also, at least in some respects, to compliment it. Again like Christianity, Islam takes pride in not automatically accepting the secular world at its own valuation. If Muslims were not, in this sense, different, why do many of their self-proclaimed leaders lobby so constantly for differences – dietary and dress rules, for example – to be recognised and respected?

    As is well set out in Policy Exchange’s new paper about the Phillips case, the current attempt to define Islamophobia in law and turn it into an offence is profoundly against freedom. It is a backdoor effort to impose the blasphemy laws which crush freedom in the more extreme Muslim countries. It is wholly unacceptable in a free society.

    The fact that the Labour Party has chosen this moment to, in George Orwell’s phrase, “unperson” Trevor Phillips is evidence that it has learnt nothing from its recent defeat.

    The party’s problem is not only its anti-Semitism. It is also the related fact that it is far too close to the more sectarian and extreme Muslim leaders who promote the definition of Islamophobia in law.

    Sir Keir Starmer is the favourite for the Labour leadership. Only if he takes this opportunity to back his old comrade-in-arms Mr Phillips against the Corbynista zealots trying to expel him will we know that things might really change.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/10/unpersoning-trevor-phillips-proves-labour-has-learnt-nothing/

    Verdict – far more dangerous than Covid-19

    1. Hoist by his own petard springs to mind. The word Islamophobe originated with him. Now Trevor finds that it is used against him

      Now perhaps he has just a small idea of what it has been like for the rest of us.

  67. American Tourist Complains To Scottish Hotel After Mistakenly Using Fudge As Soap

    A Scottish guest house has gone viral after an American tourist mistook their complimentary fudge for a bar of soap.

    The holidaymaker was staying at The Pink House in Portree on the Isle of Skye and seemed to have had a lovely time – he even gave the hotel a 9/10 rating.

    He wasn’t as impressed with his shower experience though as he took what he believed to be the bar of soap with him in a bid to have a good ol’ scrub.

    The reviewer, known only as ‘Thomas’, wrote: “Location and view were superb. Very clean and had everything we needed.

    “You have got to do something with that brown tablet bar of soap you put on each of our beds.

    “Not only was it gritty and left an oily residue but disintegrated before the shower was done! I have had much better exfoliating bar scrubs.

    https://www.ladbible.com/community/viral-us-tourist-blasts-scottish-hotel-after-mistaking-sweet-treat-for-soap-20200310

    The link is worth a read!

    1. Good afternoon/evening Belle. My cousin sent me this the other day. How dumb could the person be? You’d have thought the smell might have been a giveaway.

      1. “A Scottish guest house has gone viral…”
        Dammit, he should have stayed at home. I hope the Loch Ness Monster is O.K.

      2. About as dumb as the person who (allegedly – but could have ) said.

        “Windsor Castle is wonderful – but why did they build it so close to the airport”.

  69. Phew, that’s better.
    Took battery chainsaw up the road and did a decent hour’s worth of cutting on the fallen ash I’m clearing off one of the paths.
    Cut 9 or so logs ready for chopping ranging from 8 to 14 inches.

    Sweating my cobblers off when I got home, so after getting the fire lit, I made a cup of tea, stripped off, shoving my kit into the washing machine, then took the mug of tea to the bathroom to enjoy it whilst having a nice soak!!

    I probably smell a darned sight better now too!

    2. Cyprus has just announced a couple of cases, and Northern Cyprus one also. Seems to be mainly tourists spreading it around.
      But closing down worldwide traffic is impossible. If the Government do not think it necessary to test all arrivals, it sounds strange, but there must be a sensible reason for it. We trust our government, don’t we ?

      1. It’s only badly affected destinations that need limiting. You trust the government?

  71. Dyson straighteners’ cost will make your hair curl

    Dont fall of your chair when you see the price

    1. Dyson hairdryers are wonderful. Yes, expensive, but they save time by drying more efficiently.

    1. “Against men’s stupidity the Gods themselves contend in vain.” (Schiller)

    4. It makes me feel sick.
      Given right to survive those creatures were far more important than the brainless scum that killed them.

  73. Bad weather and coronavirus fears hurt high street sales

    THe real problem is we have to many shops for modern needs. How you solve that problem who knows. Some of the smaller high streets need to go but there is no real way of doing that so we end up with rundown high streets with lots of empty shops

  74. “…whereas [toilets] haven’t changed a jot here in the last decade, in Japan they have gone through several cycles of development, evolving as fast as mobile phones.” – Alex James

    https://www.washloo.co.uk/pages/japanese-toilet-guide

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/37f68e4fd0a0006db4093cf20f1c02e9b5d3028a68520903f7619a01549bf943.jpg

    Japan’s COVID-19 infection rate is far lower than almost all other countries.

    Given that toilet rolls appear to be a petri dish breeding ground for the virus and that modern Japanese toilets have no need for bog rolls, is this the reason for the slower virus infection rate in Japan?

    1. As I said in a post yesterday we have a bidet in the upstairs bathroom and another in the downstairs loo.

      1. & I’m still waiting patiently for your answer regarding the drying of your nether parts.

    2. Touch buttons, a wonderful breeding ground for viruses, especially on controls adjacent to a loo… Possibly Alexa could help: something useful at last!

      1. Actually toilet rolls are very safe it is the same with paper towels. They are far netter than the hot air dryers which leave your hands as a breeding ground for germs

        2. I detest having to use blowers to dry my hands. I’d sooner tear a wodge of paper off the roll and dry them on that.

          1. I always use paper tissues from my bag.
            My sons may be ‘mature’ but once a mother of rug rats, always a mother of rug rats. Carrying tissues becomes a life long habit.

  75. Budget 2020 predictions: How pension tax relief and state pensions might be affected by the statement

    What is pension tax relief?

    Savers can earn tax relief on their pension. This means that some of the money that an individual would have paid in tax on their income is instead funnelled towards their pension.

    The level of tax relief on pension contributions is the same as the rate of income tax the individual pays. So a basic-rate taxpayer will get 20 per cent pension tax relief, a higher-rate taxpayer 40 per cent and 45 per cent for additional-rate taxpayers.

    However, a taper system can penalise high earners whose adjusted annual income exceeds £150,000 and whose threshold income exceeds £110,000. The system reduces the annual allowance for pension contributions by £1 for every £2 of adjusted income above £150,000. The allowance stands at £40,00

    What is expected to be announced?

    It is thought Mr Sunak could introduce a flat pension tax relief rate of 20 per cent. This could lead to huge losses for some of the more than 4.2 million people who pay income tax at the 40 or 45 per cent rates. or he may settle on a comprise 30%

    1. The only way to do it without upsetting the doctors would be to increase the £150,000 cap to say £300,000.
      Not a good time to abolish the relief, although if removing relief for mortgage interest, which badly penalised rthe poor, was O.K. on the grounds that it was a personal choice, the same rationale could apply to pensions.

  76. In Italy 10,000 confirmed Corvid-19 cases and over 600 deaths – I make that at least 6% death rate (far higher than ‘benign’ influenza….)

  77. Italians barred from Austria to stop spread

    Austria has announced a ban on people entering the country from Italy unless they carry a medical certificate, in an attempt to stop coronavirus spreading.

    Speaking after the Italian government imposed travel restrictions across the country, Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said Austrians returning from Italy would have to self-isolate for two weeks.

    Austria has seen 158 cases of coronavirus so far.

    Mr Kurz said the number was still very low but the disease was deadly.

    Austria and Italy share a border north of Italy’s South Tyrol region. On Tuesday, South Tyrol, in common with the rest of Italy, closed all cultural centres and restricted access to bars and cafes to daytime hours.

    2. So South Tyroleans are saying (© Cathy Newman) that, as long as you leave the pub and get home before dusk, you’ll be alright?

    1. An interesting point though. Could a pregnant woman pass it on to her unborn child. I suspect the answer is we don’t know

      1. With everyone stuck at home you will find the answer in nine months time, when there is a soaring birthrate to contend with.

        1. What nickname will they suffer? We’re the so-called ‘Boomers’, then there’s the ‘Millennials’, what about the Covidkids.

  81. Student at One Sixth Form College self-isolates after showing coronavirus symptoms

    You’ve guessed it he had just got back fro a trip to Italy . Lets hope he has not spread it to half the college

  82. I’m wondering if someone has had corona virus say in the last six months and gotten over it with only mild effects how long after if tested would that person show up as positive for corona virus if tested.

    1. No records for Denmark, Portugal or Eastern Europe – handy, keeps the total panic down and we’ll save that for later.

      Blow, your nose, use a hanky or a tissue – no, George, don’t cuff it.

    2. Not really, Tony. The biggest numbers in Europe seem to be Italy (where Matteo Salvini’s attempts to stop “refugees” were reversed), Spain and France who seem to have accepted “refugees”. The puzzle is Germany – perhaps once they reach Spain and France they rush Northwest to the UK instead of Northeast to Germany.

  84. Germany – ”
    up to 58 million of her countrymen could contract the fast-spreading coronavirus” (Merkel)
    “up to ” ” could “

  85. BREAKING CORONAVIRUS NEWS

    Italian virologists have made a significant break-through and found Covid-19 to be a nocturnal virus which only infects people at night, during the hours of darkness, when the powers of evil are exalted.

    Very sensibly, the Italian government has ordered the closure of all cultural centres and restricted access to bars and cafes to daytime hours, when the virus is sleeping.

    Panic over! ……. that should nip it in the bud.

    1. You know,once upon a time I thought I was a sarcastic sod,then I joined NoTTL and realised I was a rank amateur {:^))

      1. I know – great, isn’t it! I love the cynicism here, it’s refreshing from.the woke stuff elsewhere.

    2. So you can all see they are not quite blowing their trumpet over this…..but just one cornetto 🎺

    1. Crumbs. I thought life in AfGaff was tough, but he looks double his age.
      (I also believe in the Tooth Fairy.)

      1. Thanks heavens you’re back, Annie. For one minute I thought your trip to Asda might be the very last we ever saw of you.

        PS: Did you get the lorry filled to the brim with toilet rolls?

    4. He would have been able to get away with it if he’d worn a skirt. 👗👠👜

      2. I don’t think legally the IOM would be allowed to do that.
        They’d need to go through the courts.

  88. Unilever plans to shut Warrington washing powder plant

    Due to consumer switching to liquids and Gels

  89. Am I mistaken or a few minutes ago was there a post from twitter showing the civil service members possibly involved in the absence of the paperwork Ms Patel is interested in ?

      2. I saw it and it they were extremely diverse in their ethnic makeup. Out of 12 or 13 members there were at least 3 horribly white people.

        1. Ah that would be the problem. Not enough diversity.
          It happens every where now. I sat down with a cuppa and watched some of the racing from Cheltenham.
          Hideously white.
          And men riding fillies and mares.

  91. Good night all.

    Early to bed ‘cos I’m starting a novel in English for a change.

    1. When do you hope to get it published, Peddy? I am up for buying a copy, as I am sure many other NoTTLers will be.

      :-))

        1. I am not sarcastic towards Peddy, OLT, I have his kind of (strange?) sense of humour and I am sure he enjoys all my jokes.

        2. As was observed a year or so ago on this site, men are very simple creatures the only maintenance required is empty balls and a full stomach….

      1. When she was 9, Doctor daughter was doing occasional spots for a local music group with her guitar.
        I saw a rather nice little black dress in crimplene in a charity shop for a couple of quid and bought it on the off chance it might fit her.
        It did and, being crimplene, it fitted her as she grew and she was still rearing it when she went to Uni 9 years later, all be it with a somewhat higher hemline!

  94. Ww went out a little while ago; roads were very quiet, and on the horizon an enormous circular moon with the male inhabitant peering down on us through a clear sky. Not seen that for a long time. Puts you in perspective. You country people probably see these things all the time.

    1. The man-in-the-moon revealed his face to me only three or four years ago. Previously all I could see were dark splodges, then one evening there it was, the dark splodges were making the pattern of a smiling face. And once seen, you can never not see it again.

  95. Sky’s Cardiff Call Centre Closed until Thursday

    A staff member has got COVID-19 and the building is currently under going a deep clean

    4. “Coronavirus: Health minister Nadine Dorries tests positive”
      Seriously, what are the odds?

  97. All this news about the virus has started to get me down so I watched a film tonight, World War Z, cheered me up no end!

  98. No 10 has admitted the NHS 111 online service has been giving out the
    wrong advice on coronavirus to travellers returning from Italy, as the
    number of confirmed cases in the UK rose to 373 and a sixth death was
    announced.

    Returning travellers from the European centre of the outbreak in
    Italy were still being told all day on Tuesday there was no need to
    self-isolate if they had no symptoms.

    This is despite advice from Public Health
    England released on Monday night advising all people coming from Italy,
    which is in lockdown, to stay at home for 14 days regardless of whether
    they feel unwell.

    Confused travellers expressed their concerns about the conflicting
    advice on social media but NHS 111 still had not updated the portal at
    5pm on Tuesday – hours after it was first informed of the problem.

    3. How many more times do the experts in the NHS have to told that people with CV doesn’t always show symptoms for over a week? Talk about closing the stable door…

  99. Operation Stack in place

    Operation Stack has been put in place at the Port of Felixstowe as strong winds batter the Suffolk coastline. The operation means that lorries cannot enter or exit the port while the winds persist, because of the danger of using cranes.

    Lorries heading towards the port are asked to leave the A14 at the Seven Hills junction, and park along the old A45 at Levington, to relieve traffic on the A14.

    It is understood that the measures have been put in place due to high winds which have hit the county along with a spell of warmer weather.

    There are also flood warnings in place over night for the Suffolk and Essex coast from Felixstowe to Clacton, including Orwell and Stour estuaries.

    There is also a warning in place for the tidal Deben estuary.

    2. High winds brought by French fishermen? Must be eating all that garlic…

    1. Depends on who you talk to. Democrats are decrying his total lack of empathy, Republicans still think that he is wonderful.

      The ongoing pissin’ match between Trump and Democrat governors doesn’t look good. People want leadership, not a squabbling brat .

        1. Doing a Corbyn. They may as well resurrect Clinton for all the good these old relics can do.

  101. So, let us have perspective about all this coronavirus crap

    The unwashed, unwanted, uncaring, unproductive, (mis)understood old bustards on here (most who are mostly Pro Brexit )seemingly will be the first to die

    It is Ironic, as we have lived through WWII, MAD (mutually Assured Destruction with the USSR inc: you fire a missile we wil fire Two etc), the EUSSR, Wokeismj just to be killed off by recaltricant bats

    The way of the world has been changed, by social media, how quickly ‘news’ can be spread, what WE can be made to believe etc

    SARs deaths over the last Ten years worldwide are less the 1500,:

    Remove the ‘clinical problems of the present dead’ : how many have really been killed by Corona etc

    Hands up those who remember Chicken Pox parties, to ensure immunity, if your friend got it

    2. Having read about the progress of the disease, I don’t fancy playing chicken with this new beastie

  102. Oh dear…..

    Plank Harry pranked…………

    ”Prince Harry reveals his agony about Megxit in phone call with FAKE Greta Thunberg as he tells Russian hoaxers ‘we are completely separate from the majority of my family’ and slams ‘sick’ world leaders over climate change
    Prince Harry spoke with a pair of Russian YouTube stars from his Canada home
    He was convinced he was speaking to Greta Thunberg and her father Svante
    Instead he was talking to Russians Alexei Stolyarov and Vladimir Kuznetsov ”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8098027/Prince-Harry-falls-victim-hoaxers-reveals-thoughts-Megxit.html#comments

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