Thursday 7 August: A long-term plan is needed to get the country out of its financial hole

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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566 thoughts on “Thursday 7 August: A long-term plan is needed to get the country out of its financial hole”

    1. You forget Bob of Bonsall's Bonfire Season, Johnny: almost every day of the year! Lol. (Good morning, btw.)

  6. A long-term plan is needed to get the country out of its financial hole

    Our establishment has no intention of making our country financially secure and sustainable

      2. If this means stinking rivers and beaches with our own effluent, simply in order to spite the greenies, then I have to disagree, and will not support such a regime in any way.

        1. I thought that kind of thing was just civilised behaviour, Jeremy, not spreading shit everywhere (refuse, too, as currently found on verges and in hedgerows). I think Johnny is referring to windmills, coating the countryside in solar cells rather than trees, wildness and crops, use oil & gas as before for fuels.

        2. The green deal is not green . rivers need to be dredged. not left to silt up slow down and stink.

          1. I think you are being disingenuous.

            I was referring to the wilful discharge of raw sewage in order to maintain healthy remuneration for executives and to defraud the public, who have no choice but to pay for an essential public service.

            As for the dredging of areas prone to flooding, there are other considerations, but undredged rivers do not tend to stink unless they have been contaminated.

            A lot of agriculture, particularly in low-lying arable areas, such as Lincolnshire, rely on regular drainage in order to maintain viability and yield. Other areas, inhabited in recent times following drainage of marshland, such as the Somerset Levels, rely on dredging to avoid substantial economic loss, although I have misgivings about the recent practice of building housing estates on flood plains – land which is intentionally allowed to flood in order to prevent worse damage elsewhere. Often it is flood plains that maintain water table levels which otherwise might be depleted in times of dry weather. Some 98% of Britain’s wetland habitat that existed in 1970 has been lost, and this has major national heritage implications.

            Recent moves to slow down the passage of water in certain areas, notably floodplains, conservation wetland areas and upland river sources, are not to be dismissed so lightly as “Green Crap” so blustered by those with whom I might agree on social conservatism, but oppose with equal vigour when it comes to conservation of natural resources. When it comes to protecting nature, many of us take solace in England’s “green and pleasant land” when the alternative is an unpleasant and, dare I say it, stinking city hell-hole inhabited by migrants with little loyalty to the land I love. There are also practical considerations, not least the protection of our water supplies at times when drought has shown itself to be a serious problem, threatening harvests nationally, as well as floods as rainstorms burst river banks and threaten populated areas before running to sea, when it would be better if such excess water were stored and distributed more evenly.

    2. If we don't get this mob of absolute morons out soon, our country will soon be the latest version of the third world.

      1. They had this "economist" on this morning, explaining to the nation that the reason Britain is failing is down to savers, hoarding what money they have left rather than spending it, thereby boosting "growth". We need to borrow more, and this borrowng should be subsidised by the Government. She is suggesting that the Bank Rate be dropped to 3% and not be too concerned at inflation going back up beyond 10%, so long as wages for those whose lives matter go up even more.

        How does spending more on bling and imported goods and services boost growth?

  8. An EAGLE for Wordle today – yippee!!! (Manners, Elsie, don't forget to wish everyone a Good Morning, and thank Geoff for his new NoTTLe page.)

    Wordle 1,510 2/6

    🟨⬜⬜⬜🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      1. Thanks, Phizzee, a young(-ish) girl like me could easily fall for a Romeo like you. Any chance of a box of chocolates too?

    2. Good morning Elsie and all
      Impressive!

      Wordle 1,510 4/6

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

      1. Snap.
        Wordle 1,510 4/6

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

    1. Maybe that's why they sexually engage in congress with young white girls on this earth; to practise for the afterlife (sarcasm). Or maybe this is a scam and it is just an actor dressed up as a Muzzie – who knows?

      1. 410947+ up ticks,

        Morning EB,

        Could very well be, but I believe we have enough evidence to assess the truth.

    2. Strange that the rewards in heaven – sex (with unmarried Muslim girls) and booze – are forbidden on earth. And no mention of what rewards Muslim females are to be given.

      1. The women seem to have a miserable life on Earth, and it's likely to be the same when they reach "paradise" (for men, not them).

        1. If fresh new virgins are provided for the men then what will happen to the Muslim mothers in Paradise – they will not be virgins and they will be scorned by their husbands and sons.

          I cannot understand why any intelligent Muslim woman is prepared to put up with this nonsense.

          Muslim women need a Feminist Champion.

      1. 410947+ up ticks,

        Morning N,
        Old king Arthur had it about right
        once a knight …..

        Not as a pakistani paedophile breaking and entering act.

    6. Bad enough in this life, judging by the tales f their raping young girls.
      Mohammed was priapic, it seems.

    9. And to think gullible muslims fall for this nonsense. Where are the leftie feminists on this one? (R)

  10. Good morning all.
    A dull & damp start but not currently raining with a tad under 15°C on the thermometer.

    I did a stupid thing last Friday, had the van booked in for an MOT last Friday and forgot to mark in on the calender.
    Luckily the garage has a slot next Wednesday as it'd due to run out next Thursday!

    1. Good morning, BoB. I am booked in for my MOT tomorrow. I have to drop the car off at 8 am, then wander around Colchester until my mobile phone rings to tell me it is ready and the cost – hopefully not too expensive. The basic cost is always a fairly large expense and I don't mind paying for new windscreen wiper blades but I always fear the cost of, for example, four new tyres! Still, they are always fair and reliable and were recommended to me some years ago by Annie Allan.

        1. Firstborn is the chief mechanic for an independent chain here in Norway.
          They have to deliver good service, quality repairs, cheaply, as they cannot rely on dealership funding nor people blinging their vehicle back to the dealer for service & repairs, but have to fly on their own. Or, go bust. So, they put a lot of effort into delivering a good job at a reasonable price.

          1. Herein lies the key to future prosperity, put succinctly.

            If we can do this rather than constantly relying on blag and "tricks of the trade", which customers eventually see for what they are, then Britain can recover its reputation and we are all better off.

            Can this be legislated, or are there other ways to gain better habits?

          2. Isn't that how Japan became a powerful economy after the second world war? Cheap, good and reliable. NOw with loads of features.

  12. 410947+ up ticks,

    Mamma bloody Mia it's for the ME'I' yer daft sod.

    Dt,
    Rayner orders China to explain secret basement under London ‘mega-embassy’
    Deputy PM asked Beijing for answers on why submitted drawings were marked as ‘redacted for security reasons’ amid spy dungeon fears

    2. Just like the Starmer government, making everything secret and deleted.
      Pot, kettle, black…

    3. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce932995ny2o
      A quote I liked (ironically speaking)

      "Pro-democracy campaigners from Hong Kong also fear Beijing could use the huge embassy to harass political opponents and even detain them. Last month, the UK condemned cash offers from Hong Kong authorities for people who help in the arrest of pro-democracy activists living in Britain.

      1. 410947+ up ticks,

        Pip,

        She should have known that, being well adept in concerning, whine & whining.

  13. Pakistani millionaire recruitment boss (with TWO WIVES) who threatened to 'gang rape and set alight' Virgin air stewardess..

    Funny how most drunk & violent passengers onboard airplanes are cuffed and dragged off to the cells.
    I guess when politicians legislate that they are special, and allow them to gang-rape the locals.. it goes to your head.

    1. His 'belief' appears to be selective.
      He has two wives (rationing himself), but neither appears to be religious (as in shrouded in black out curtains).

  15. Morning, all Y'all.
    It was sunny, now clouded over. Outdoors temperature just crept over 15C. Another coffee, then out towards the paintbrushes…

      1. Presumably neither of his wives is a Conservative councillor.
        (I thought you were at the market)

  18. Morning all 🙂😊
    High cloud breezy is that a nip in the air……not quite.
    Another useless government we can't seem to get rid of before it's too late. Same old story with our political classes couldn't run a bath between them and wreck everything they come into contact with.

  20. Good morning all,

    Mild , cloudy 15c.
    Slight breeze and no rain again , Moh watered the garden last night.. we take it in turns each day.

    Well, another examination over and done with , the dreaded MRI i have been waiting a year for , I braved the tunnel yesterday afternoon .. yes I felt claustrophobic for about 15minutes .. and the clattering noise was quite scary , but modern technology is a marvel , amazing , and who invents machines like that?

    1. Good on you, Belle!
      :-D)
      When I go into one of those, I keep my eyes closed and once fell asleep as a result of the stress. It's easier that way – and, as a young man, I used to go caving in small tunnels (what the Yanks call "spelunking", although to me tthat looks like a weird pervy sexual practice), so should be able to cope… but I absolutely HATE it!

    2. Good on you, Belle!
      :-D)
      When I go into one of those, I keep my eyes closed and once fell asleep as a result of the stress. It's easier that way – and, as a young man, I used to go caving in small tunnels (what the Yanks call "spelunking", although to me tthat looks like a weird pervy sexual practice), so should be able to cope… but I absolutely HATE it!

      1. It will be ages .. so I have been told ..

        My lower back and hip , climbing the stairs is painful . Front of my shins burn so standing still for any length of time is painful ..

        2. It shouldn’t be ages……. just needs somebody to look at it and let you know. What about your insides which were also giving you trouble?

  21. Some interesting headlines: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1ejgwevvy0o
    The most worrying:
    1 in 5 NHS doctors want to leave the UK. NHS can't cope already, without a 20% drop in medics.
    Starmers pledge on tax thrown into chaos – likely tax and VAT rises.
    Wealthier areas face big rise in council tax – that will be everywhere not blighted by illegals, then.
    Company directors exodus gathering pace – the money is leaving already.
    HMRC had class on how to feel guilt at "being British". A class I would not have attended, whatever the instructions from management.

    1. We already pay £3,600+ council tax annually ..

      No, we don't live in a castle or a multi million property , just a modest home in a village .

      We are just about coping , no luxuries , nothing , make do and mend , and the old leather sofa has tape over the tears , we need several repairs done to the house .. and I wish we had moved years ago .

      1. I really sympathise, Belle. What politicians seem not to understand is that most people have a limited amount of funding, so if they take more in taxes, folk save elsewhere by spending less, so shop takings go down, for example. And so the sops employ fewer people, and pay less tax… so the government get less money from that source and their costs rise due to unemployment benefit etc. How they don't understand, I don't know, it's pretty straightforward. Alternatively, for "da wich", they bugger off and live in Switzerland. SAme effect, less spent in the UK economy.
        On repairs, we're just finishing off bathroom "bare walls" renovation, plus stairs to both floors, kitchen ceiling & floor, and small living-room floor. At Norwegian rates, this has cost the same as a mid-sized car… but the way I look at it, cash transferred from one account to the house isn't "spent" but "invested". At least, that's what I keep telling myself…
        STill, my previously healthy account has tumbleweed blowing through it… that God I'm not yet retired and can make some repairs to the finances before I do so.

        1. We keep our students' house scrupulously clean and we get a firm of cleaners in to clean it in between each of our courses.

          Our own house is clean in parts – but we no longer have dust in some rooms – we have sub-soil.

          2. As I pointed out to a house proud acquaintance, I have two dogs, solid fuel heating and open fires.

        2. My younger son buggered off to live in Switzerland in 1999 – he's recently moved from a flat where he lived all those years to a house which he's bought.

      2. I pay nearly two grand a year. Here in the sticks. Amenities? What’s that? I get a street light and my bins (recycling and rubbish only) once a fortnight. Hardly value for money.

  22. Yesterday, VJ day .

    My father didn't come home until later on in 1945..

    He was based on air stations in Southern India and Ceylon and also one of 2 strange aircraft carriers .. not sure whether it was the HMS Raj or HMS Shah..

    I have several wonderful Fleet Air Arm news magazines which were printed on the Fleet Air Arm bases out there during the war , what do I do with them .

    Dad was an artificer , engines and airframes , and like many of his type, got the Burma Star .. He had an uncomfortable hot sticky frightening war , lost many friends , and those who survived , had problems later.

    Dad didn't , but he refused to discuss anything with us when we asked him. He just showed us photos of flight decks and smashed aircraft .

    https://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono-05CVE-Shah.htm

    1. My grandad didn’t get back from that neck of the woods until 1947. My dad was born in 1939 and had no memory of him. Different times. My great uncle was a navigator out in Burma and wouldn’t have anything Japanese in his house until the day he died.

      I am taking my mum and dad on a trip round Ireland in September and we are coming back via the Fleet Air Arm archives to look what records there are of his brother’s time in the Fleet Air Arm (he was killed aged 20 up in Lossiemouth in an accident).

      1. You are not on my birthday list but you must be one of our younger Nottlers.

        Delboy is the father of the house and was born in 1936; the youngest on the list is ourmaninmunich, born in 1967 who will be 58 on 10th August, this coming Sunday.

        My father was born in 1898 and my mother was born in 1904.

    2. It would have been even later if the atom bombs hadn't been dropped. My father would have been posted to the Far East with his Landing Craft Assault flotilla to take part in landings and was very relieved that he didn't have to go (as was my mother, who married him in June 1945).

      1. The atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a one-off, relying on the fact that only one power at the time had them. The moment there was competition for this sort of quick victory, the moment they became too dangerous for them ever to be used again.

        1. Mutually Assured Destruction. That worked when it was only the Super-powers who had them. Trouble is that smaller unstable states now have them or have the potential to develop them e.g. Iran, North Korea.

          1. Indeed. What was so unsettling about the Japanese foe was their tradition of Hari-Kiri, noble suicide. The same principle exists within Islam, with the promise of paradise and virgins for dying for the cause. This undermines MAD.

            The one thing that redeems the Russians (and the Americans for that matter) is that they are not suicidal and would rather not die for their country, given a choice.

            I am less concerned about Iran. Their version of Shia Islam does not have the suicide ethic of the extreme Sunni sects, and would prefer to keep their institutions intact. I see it rather as their version of MAD, since they are as worried about a pre-emptive strike coming out of Israel (which is nuclear-armed and never signed any non-proliferation treaty) as the Russians were about being attacked by America, or vice-versa. If Israel renounced its nuclear capacity, I am sure Iran would reciprocate, unless their other great foe, the Arabs, developed theirs.

            As for North Korea, I have no more idea about second-guessing Kim Jong Un as I have second-guessing Donald J Trump.

          2. Nuclear weapons cannot be uninvented, so the call for disarmament is unrealistic. Unilateral disarmament is madness.

          3. My opinion of Thatcher's Defence Procurement Minister Michael Mates rose a lot when he attended a CND rally in Haslemere (next door to his old constituency). He was up on the platform, making this very point to a hostile audience, and he must have loved every moment.

          4. Strategy of Kim Jong Un is to protect his country from his neighbours, particularly China.
            Sadly for him, he has a sister who looks capable of anything.
            As for the Iranians, not much difference between destructive and self-destructive, except for the victims.

          5. When I was looking around for a nice oriental mail order bride, I thought about her. How long do think I would have lived?

          7. If Israel renounced its nuclear capacity, I am sure Iran would reciprocate.

            Yeah, right….

    3. Morning, Maggie. My father went to war when I was three. I didn't see him again until I was nine and I didn't know who he was.

    4. I think that it is generally the case that those who do not want to talk about what they suffered and what they did in War are better than the braggarts who do.

    1. Human nature. I'm sure the same is done by Hamas's counterparts in Israel.

      How does this help the victims of war?

      1. Good morning Jeremy.
        Please could you provide a clue as to whom might be their "counterparts in Israel"?

        1. Likud's coalition partners for a start, along with settler gangs in the West Bank.

  24. 410947+ up ticks,

    We want a second patriot party in the running as a fall back if / and when things go crook in regards to Reform UK.

    What better than those supplying the bread of life as a foundation stone surely mass support would be a foregone conclusion.

    The farmers ARE CURRENTLY fighting a justified war in daily actions NOT, fighting a rhetorical good fight
    as seen via parliament.

    https://x.com/NoFarmsNoFoods/status/1953160177684812039

  25. Good Morning!

    Psychologist Xandra H is back with Gaslighting: A Game For All Humanity , on the western Establishment's game to distort reality so much that they create a new one, more amenable to woke globalism in your mind. Please read it, and learn how to avoid being gaslit.

    In The House That Jack Built Graham Cunninhgham looks at whether the West has become excessively ‘feminised’, to the point of dystopia, and in Secrecy and Power: The Constitutional Dangers of Super-Injunctions , we discuss the dangers, obvious and hidden, of these potentially tyrannical legal instruments now being used by government.

    Energy Watch: Over the last 24 hours: Britain's electric power was sourced from Gas, 15.9%; Solar, 10.6%: Wind 31.3%; Imports, 20.7%; Biomass, 6.2%; Nuclear 12.5% and Miscellaneous, 2.9%.

    1. Apparently, he has been remanded in custody awaiting a hearing for sentencing, the date for which has not yet been arranged.

      1. I wonder if the government, the police, the MSM and the courts are aware that if this monster is not given an appropriate sentence then people will take to the streets and this could lead to mass riots?

        1. I think the reason this case has dragged on so long is that the authorities have engineered it this way, hoping that everyone will forget about it, thus reducing the possibility of demonstrations which could turn violent.

          1. The sooner a septic boil is lanced the better. The longer you leave it the more explosive it will be when it finally does burst.

      2. Speaking of which, we have Rocky “slit their throats” up next week! Should be fun a farce!

    3. If, and it's a big IF, he gets an appropriately harsh sentence, I would not be at all surprised if the release of the video is used as grounds for appeal.

      1. 3 years, suspended. Out in 1. His vermin brother probably will get off.

        The Left protect their own. In the meantime the entire state machine will destroy the officers the muslim savage assaulted.

      2. 3 years, suspended. Out in 1. His vermin brother probably will get off.

        The Left protect their own. In the meantime the entire state machine will destroy the officers the muslim savage assaulted.

    4. Yes, I think the video's release will be used as prejudicial to the trial.

      Edited to add a 'be'.

      1. But without that video being released, how long would it have taken for the full story to become known, if at all?

          1. It was the head-stamping video that was first leaked and which led to the controversy and immediately put the police on the back foot. The suspicion is that it was leaked by a Muslim officer.

  27. Social media influencers have targeted Orthodox Jews with water pistols in a series of cruel 'pranks'.

    Two men recorded themselves driving around Salford and spraying adults and children wearing orthodox clothing with water guns.

    They can be heard cruelly laughing as they soak the innocent passersby with an unidentified liquid as they go about their daily business.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14978645/Orthodox-Jews-attacked-water-pistols-cowardly-pranks.html

    1. Would squirting a Muslim with a water pistol be classed as islamophobia or would it be described as just a prank?

    3. It is bullying, and those men should rightly be arrested and charged with a Breach of the Peace with Intent and given a few months, suspended on first offence, to think about not doing it again.

      When I visit my sister in Finchley, I often see these Orthodox Jews with their hats, ringlets and pale faces wandering around aimlessly on the Sabbath, and give them a wave. They look terrified. Such a pity – I wave to anyone in my village; it is a sign of friendliness.

      1. Golders Green and Stamford Hill are were most of the orthodox live.
        With most religious beliefs its all more than a bit over the top.
        I'm originally from Mill Hill.

        1. Aren’t you being a tad beardist? Someone came up to me the other day and thought I was a Jew because of my beard. “Oi vey!” I replied rocking back and forward.

          Maybe you forget that there is little that Orthodox Jews are permitted to do on the Sabbath, other than to wander around thinking of the One That Is.

          1. I think you will say anything to justify your position. Your suggestion that anyone came up to you and said anything is clearly a fabrication.

          2. Since it is not a fabrication, but said to me after Mass by my parish priest, how is it “clearly” except by your false assertion?

    1. Wrong cause, I'm afraid. After reading the word 'trendy' I was expecting the article to be about defending the appointment of a lesbian to lead the Church of Wales.

      In hindsight today (and at the time believed by many up north) Scargill was dead right about Thatcher's intentions for the coal industry, and as it turned out for Sheffield-grade Steel too, now that coking coal is no longer produced in the UK and has to be imported. Thatcher, chastened by her predecessor's experience of the miners' strike in the early 1970s, saw the arrival of North Sea gas and oil as her chance finally to strike revenge at the NUM and get rid of their capacity to hold the nation to ransom. Scargill was an idiot tactically though. You don't call a miners' strike in April and hope to succeed. Gormley called his in October.

      As for the morality of using police cavalry to charge an assembly of workers – well it is the job of the Church to figure out morality, and I find no issue with using the Bishop of Sheffield to look into it.

      1. Actually Wilson and Calaghan closed more pits than Thatcher did. Scargill would hardly have reacted against them, his cuddly labour colleagues.
        And not my down vote.

        1. And let us not forget "David James Wilkie (9 July 1949 – 30 November 1984) was a Welsh taxi driver who was killed during the miners' strike in the United Kingdom, when two striking miners dropped a concrete block from a footbridge onto his taxi whilst he was driving a strike-breaking miner to work."

      2. Imagine if they miners had won and were still mining. And yet Liebour is obsessed with green and nut zero. How do you think they would cope!

        1. Labour would have bought their loyalty, but a new generation might not have put up with their working conditions and the industry would eventually wither. Remember British Leyland?

          As for Net Zero under such conditions. Almost certainly energy would have been rationed.

          Starmer’s regime has little to do with Labour principles of old, or even has much principle at all. They make stupidity an art form, and neutralise anyone that suggests otherwise.

    2. He was only 25 when all that happened. What is the point of this silly enquiry over 40 years on ?

  29. 410947+ up ticks,

    I do believe this is what is reluctantly revealed, the political overseers use of deceit as a weapon to combat justifiable actions via the indigenous peoples of decency breaking out Nationwide.

    Dt,
    Revealed: 200 asylum hotel residents charged with crimes this year
    Defendants are accused of violent and sexual offences, including four counts of alleged rape

    Gift this article free
    The Bell Hotel in Epping has become a target for protests after a resident Ethiopian asylum seeker was charged with sexually assaulting a schoolgirl
    The Bell Hotel in Epping has become a target for protests after a resident Ethiopian asylum seeker was charged with sexually assaulting a schoolgirl Credit: Jack Taylor/Getty Images
    Janet Eastham
    Senior News Reporter
    07 August 2025 6:00am BST
    At least 200 people living in asylum seeker hotels have been charged with criminal offences this year, without police revealing their immigration status, The Telegraph can disclose…

    1. That notice seems to suggest that wherever it is will arrange one for you, rather than needing to bring your own with you.

    2. Can't make up my mind, stupidity or cunning from gov't. 2nd thoughts, has to be stupidity, it's the gov't.

    3. Reminds me of Crawley Public Library in the late 1960s. "Can't read? Join our reading classes"……

    1. Ffs. This atrocity passed me by.

      How many? How many more? To what end?

    1. I seem to recall "negotiations" between CamMoron and the EU where the EU made "not one concession"?

      1. The homeless are disenfranchised so it kills two birds with one stone. Kick them out and destroy democracy.

    3. Nothing I notice about increasing the number needing accommodation by hundreds daily. Still, she’s on top of her brief; homelessness is increasing on her watch.

  38. Captain Sensible
    11h
    Our local busker plays ‘Dancing Queen’ on the didgeridoo. That’s abbariginal.

  41. Beebsplaining
    5h
    From 4 to 6 years for being weeded up and still driving a bus?
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgjylxg8vldo.amp
    It is my belief that weed is the root cause of much of the lawlessness blighting this country and yet labour toilets like Khan and his captured plod associates want it legalised😡
    That's before we get to a pitiful "justice" system that gives just 6 years for this but more than a third of that for a hurty tweet 😳😡
    Or the plod festival of brains last month who said the miasma of weed might be linked to crims😡
    Another innocent gone to the lefty narrative 😡 https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a49db385be3324ee8c3560a9db545e2421b1739323435c34c4b735dc147e59d6.png

      1. ‘Illegal’ drugs (‘accidental exposure’ – zero tolerance approach) Threshold limit in microgrammes per litre of blood (µg/L)
        benzoylecgonine 50µg/L
        cocaine 10µg/L
        delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (cannabis) 2µg/L
        ketamine 20µg/L
        lysergic acid diethylamide 1µg/L
        methylamphetamine 10µg/L
        Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) 10µg/L
        6-monoacetylmorphine (heroin) 5µg/L

    1. The American list also applies to Canada – apart from the last one which is getting like the UK. Pat King, the leader of the Freedom Convoy truck protests from convid control times has been jailed for (I think) 10 years.

  44. Morning all. Just thought I would look in before I go to the coffee morning until.

    Best plan for recovery would be to get rid of lefty governments.

    1. I agree with RL, generally do. However, seems we cannot leave the ECHR because it's embedded in the NI Agreement to ensure parity with the Republic (Sunak took VdL to witness the Queen in NI Ireland when she signed the document). Basically, seems we're stuffed. If we renege on a legal deal, why would other countries do any deals with the UK – a massive disincentive if any party can't be trusted. (A Civil Servant told me this, btw.) Generally, around 90% of migrants are legal, and 10% illegal. So…EU 'you'll/we'll never leave'……..(and don't expect Starmer to do anything to help the UK, his loyalty lies with the EU – set up for the EC).

      1. Bunkum. It's not that the UK can't be trusted, it's our ruddy Civil Servants that can't be trusted. viz your weasely CS friend who thinks he/she has outwitted the Leavers. We're coming for them.

        2. CS is our permanent and unelected government. Chris Wormald our PM, again permanent and unelected. And I didn't say the Civil Servant was my friend, weasely or otherwise – I posted a comment online and someone who said they were a CS responded, giving me the information I posted above.

  46. 410947+ up ticks,

    Dt,

    First migrants detained under new deportation deal with France
    Arrivals to Dover to be held in removal centers after detentions on first day of pilot scheme

    I read as "removal centers" cover for compulsory purchase, very long term, " indigenous victims centers"
    ALL in place for when the whistle blows activating the
    foreign standing army.

    Little give away signs,

    WHY LET THEM LAND TO START WITH.

    1. And the "Repeal the Online Safety Act" petition is over half a million – 502, 092 as I write!

  50. Back from market. Funny thing. It was mild and still when I got the car out. In Fakenham there was a stiff, cold breeze. Glad to be home again!

    Needless to say, the Envy let the MR down. On Tuesday, the NNUH prescribed a tablet. She took the letter containing this info to the GP outfit on Tuesday afternoon – saw head dispenser who said tablets would be ready yesterday. Called in this morning. Tablets? What tablets?? The NNUH letter (and prescription" are "awaiting triage…."

    I'd triage the lot of them.

      1. Not a pharmacist as such! A counter of pills etc but what is dispensed must be authorised by a pharmacist!

  51. Just read in the DT that apparently the government is only authorising covid jabs this winter for the over 75s or vulnerables….. I won't be bothering anyway.

    1. I get no end of reminders from my gp practice attempting to get me to have some sort of new jab, I don't even look at them.

        1. I recently had an invite for the pneumococcal jab, and wondered if that would be worth having. At least it is just a single dose and done jab.

          1. I succumbed to having that one in 2020 – it was the only time I've ever had the flu jab. I had them both. Never bothered with the flu jab before or since.

            I've never had a chest infection before then or since so don't know if it works or not.

          2. I shan't bother with the flu jab. The only time I have really suffered with any sort of chest infection was when we were not long married. Middle of summer, and I needed a couple of weeks off work when I went down with Bronchitis.

          4. That’s good to know. I suspect my invite to book an appointment will have expired while we were busy having the bathroom refitted, and me being busy trying to get ready for the ‘visitors’ arriving in a week’s time.

    2. I understand new mothers of young babies aren't getting MMR vaccines, not in the numbers previously. Be interesting to see if RFKJr's views pan out, or not.

        1. Both. Mothers aren’t getting the Covid one, and not allowing their babies to have the MMR one. I think RFKJr is likely correct in his assessment of living accommodation being largely responsible for many childhood illnesses – I had everything going as a preschooler/infant…no vaccines, and when moved to much improved housing had very little until appendicitis in my teens.

          1. I had most of them as a young child – whooping cough, measles, ear aches, appendicitis at 10, chicken pox at 12. Mumps not till 25.

          2. My mum told me that I seemed to catch everything as soon as I started school at 5, and invariably at the start of school holidays. Measles, mumps and chicken pox. I had a burst ear drum with measles, and suffered regular ear infections for years afterwards. Numerous bouts of tonsilitis, that suddenly stopped when I was 10 or 11.
            The regular attacks of tonsilitis were always treated with lots of penicillin – the GP handed them out like smarties. When I had some sort of infection in my 30s or 40s, penicillin didn't touch it; my GP reckoned I had probably developed some 'immunity' to penicillin from childhood over-prescribing.

          3. I had my tonsils out at six. Not usually done these days. I did catch a lot of things after starting school.

          4. The modern version of that 'catch everything going' as soon as a child started school, is now 'catch everything as soon as a child starts nursery.' Our little grandson (nearly 2) is forever bringing something home from nursery, and he is only there 3 days a week. We just hope that will start to ease off in the not too distant future.

          5. I too had my tonsils out when I was 6. I was rarely at school until then with one ear infection after another. I am now slightly hard of hearing.

          7. I had that lot too, definitely think something in what RFKJr says. Also had emergency appendix removal late teens. My children had the MMR ones, but no others. There was an outbreak of whooping cough when they were toddlers, I asked my GP his advice – he said ‘they’re not having it, they have slight indication of eczema’. Decision made for me, phew. Covid vaccine from four years ago still affecting me – I didn’t want it, family now say they ‘regret’ pressuring me. We finally agreed that I would have it provided they never let my grandson have it.

          8. I think I told you my younger son had a reaction to the dtp jab……. he was lucky and had no further trouble with any of the childhood jabs. But there weren’t so many as they have now.

            I was lucky – the two AZ jabs gave me no side effects at all. Not sure about OH – his Pfizer jabs could have caused his heart trouble but we’ll never know.

          9. I think too many jabs now, Ndovu. With Covid, I had two – first was AZ, blood ran back down the tube, second was Pfizer, jabbed straight into arm muscle – when I jumped, the girl administering the jab said ‘sorry, I’m a trainee vet and this is how we’re taught to vaccinate animals’. Any faith I had left in the NHS just disappeared at that moment. Been requested I think ten times to have a booster, all ignored by me. Very sorry to read about OH, wish you both and especially him all the best x

          10. I ignore all the booster requests and invitations for anything else – flu, RSV, any of them. I’m not having any more for travel either, though they are mostly on their expiry dates. i will take anti malarials on my November trip. I’ve had enough jabs to last the rest of my life.

            The two AZ ones I had didn’t have any reaction.

            OH had a triple bypass op at Christmas ’22…. he made a good recovery – always been slim and sporty. He’s now 82.

          11. Me2…ask for a home visit, might as well be asking for Crown Jewels. Nurses (sorry, ‘Nurse Practitioners’) do all the jabbing now. They can jab right off as far as I’m concerned. Good to read OH news, I think the slim and sporty will have helped him make a good recovery? Long may it continue….:-)

          12. We had a home visit – (for OH) from the frailty nurse – Jude – she spent over an hour with us, checking that he’s able to do this and that, reviewing his meds, etc. She sent a report very promptly afterwards. She didn’t feel he needed any extra help atm. She works at our GP surgery – they seem to have a lot of staff, but I’ve no complaints about the service he’s received. When he collected his meds yesterday, he noticed they’d changed, but couldn’t remember which does what.

            Nurses are better at jabbing than doctors are – they’ve had a lot more practice.

          13. Perhaps to some degree it depends on the person. OH has a good Diabetics contact atm, sometimes they’ve been dire. Perhaps you can access OH’s records online, as we can with ours? Sometimes takes ages to get through on the phone…’you are ?? in the queue’…and then when you finally get through the advice is to go to A&E, given to you by receptionist who in turn have been told to do that by GPs. Our first NHS GP brought me into the world, several decades later he wouldn’t recognise the current service. Agree re: jabbing, OH says also better at taking blood sample back of hand etc.

          14. I made an appointment for him by phone a few months ago – they have an online system but I avoided that. Got the same questions but I prefer to speak to a person. Not sure what records we can access – I haven’t tried doing that. He can order his meds online, he’s used to doing that.

          15. It’s quite clunky, takes as much time as it does to phone and hang on listening to the muzak…then be told ‘you are tenth in the queue’ or whatever. I swerve it wherever possible, and I think that’s the idea. Our surgery is now a limited company, with the GPs as Directors (senior GP is MD). They own the Victorian stone building in which the surgery is housed. The MD has an electric jaguar car which he charges at the surgery point, the electric vans which deliver prescriptions have to wait in line.

          19. I didn’t have any childhood illnesses until I went into hospital and came out minus my tonsils, but with whooping cough’.

          20. It is a very nasty illness, and can be quite dangerous. Glad you survived ok 🙂 Whooping cough can be very dangerous for any child/teen/even adult with asthma etc). I went into hospital to have tonsils out, there were three of us..a young girl age around five, me age around 11, and one girl in her late teens. The youngest was fine, I was OK-ish, the older girl in quite a bad way, very depressed and crying – apparently common in older patients with the anaesthetic in use at that time (around 65 years ago!).

  52. English abroad

    SIR – In the late 1960s I went to work in Oslo. Before I went I purchased a book called Snakke Norse: "Speak Norwegian" (Letters, August 6).

    On my first day of work, I said to the tram conductor: "Ein Kroner a Radhusgarten, tak" ("One kroner to Radhusgarten, thank you"). "Ah," she said, "you are English. Let me give you some advice: it is better to speak bad English than good Norwegian."

    I can still count to 20 in Norwegian, but apart from "Jeg elsker deg" ("I love you"), I got no further.

    Patrick White
    London SW20
    ________________________________________

    SIR – I suggested to Polish friends that if they wanted to understand English (not British) people they should watch David Lean's 1945 film Brief Encounter ("There really is such a thing as Englishness – and it can be learnt", Comment, August 5 [reproduced below]).

    Whether the film's Received Pronunciation helps with speaking the language is a different matter. When I watched it with another friend, who speaks English very well, but not as a first language, after about 15 minutes he asked: "What are these people saying?"

    Tim Barnsley
    Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland

    __________________________________________

    Being English is not a matter of your ancestry

    Those who seek to reduce our nationality to a question of race show they just don't understand it

    Robert Tombs
    4th August 2025, 1:36pm BST

    "You can't teach someone to be English", called a heckler at the end of a conference last month on How to Save England. "Of course you can," I replied. "That's how we all learn it." "Rubbish," he replied: for him, Englishness seemed to be (I couldn't quite hear) about "ancestry".

    This brief debate was unfortunately stopped by the chair so that we could go to the pub. But the day's discussion got huge numbers of viewers on YouTube, a longish report in The Spectator, and a rather overwrought follow-up article in The Critic magazine accusing me (along with other "self-identifying conservatives" such as Fraser Nelson and Niall Ferguson) of being a defender of multiculturalism, and by implication of mass migration.

    Frankly, I thought this was laughable, and have been joking with friends about being a Lefty. But in the present fraught climate, the issue needs to be addressed. I should explain that my intellectual sins had been to praise Katharine Birbalsingh (invariably though inadequately described as "Britain's strictest headmistress") and to have commented that to see little girls in headscarves reciting Kipling and singing the national anthem showed that "becoming English was possible", on the condition that it was encouraged, taught, and indeed required.

    Is this "multiculturalism"? I can't see how. Progressives would reject it as "monoculturalism", as it involves inculcating a common English culture: poetry certainly, and also Shakespeare, the classics, history, mathematics, science, and indeed as many as possible of the educational riches that those same progressives reject as "colonialist".

    This is a completely separate issue from mass immigration. Uncontrolled, non-selective and far beyond rational limits, it becomes economically ruinous and socially divisive. It corrupts democracy, affronts sovereignty and law, and pulverises national solidarity. I favour narrow limits and strict enforcement.

    But the question of integration and eventual assimilation is no less urgent. There are now, and in the future will be, many children in England who were born elsewhere, or who are descended from a foreign-born parent. Many will have darker skin than mine. We have a very clear choice. Either we do everything possible to make them and their eventual descendants part of our nation. Or we treat them as perpetual outsiders, "ethnic minorities" in a tribalised England.

    I am speaking of England rather than Britain. Being British is primarily legal and political. Many newcomers are happy to be "British". But we are also English (or Welsh, Scottish or Irish), and that is a deeper kind of belonging. The United Kingdom is technically a "state nation". England is a "culture nation", based on shared history, customs and emotions. Without these, the UK is an empty shell.

    Given England's long existence and global impact, its culture is varied and infused with a multitude of elements from Ancient Rome to modern California. The 18th-century Scottish philosopher David Hume, author of a pioneering History of England, thought that the country was so free and so diverse that it had no identity. I think he mistook uniformity for identity, but he had a point. There is no single or pure variety of Englishness. We have no single religion (since Henry VIII), no national costume, no obvious stereotype – not even "John Bull" any more (and he was invented by a Scot).

    For centuries, Englishness revolved round institutions – the Kingdom, the Church, the Common Law and the inherited rights of "free-born Englishmen". Since the age of Romanticism, many have cherished a rural vision of eternal England, shaped by Wordsworth, Constable, Turner (inspired by Italy), and Elgar (influenced by Wagner). For others, Englishness means their home town, their football team, fish and chips, pints at the pub.

    Everyone reading these lines will have their own list. I am always moved by a letter written by a Wolverhampton soldier to be sent to his family if he was killed: "England's a great little country [but] Mom, my little world is centred around you and including Dad, everyone at home, and my friends… That is worth fighting for [and] worth dying for too." And die for it he did.

    Can you teach people to be English (of whatever flavour) or must it be inherited? I stick to my answer: we learn it. Every baby is born with a blank mind, even if its pedigree predates the Conqueror. English ancestry may mean that children learn Englishness at their mother's knee. Or they may not. Many natives despise their English heritage – what the greatly missed philosopher Roger Scruton lamented as "the repudiation of home".

    My heckler thought that Englishness cannot be taught. But it can certainly be untaught. Schools, universities and cultural institutions across England – from the National Trust via the Museums Association to the Church of England – are busily undermining Englishness by propagating distorted and negative histories, to make the native-born ashamed and the newly arrived resentful.

    And who is in charge of all this? The English elite, the great majority as pink-cheeked and blue-eyed as I am. At the root of many of our most debilitating national problems – including excessive immigration — are decisions deliberately made by thoroughly English (or sometimes Scottish) politicians, officials and lawyers.

    The conference I mentioned at the start of this article was organised by the Roger Scruton Foundation. Scruton saw England as its people's home: no more, no less. He wrote that while mass immigration and multiculturalism "have profoundly unsettled us", we can "address the problem of social integration", which is founded on "national sovereignty and the sense of place". He welcomed "the outsider's desire to belong", and wrote that they could bring to their new home "a sense of gratitude for having found it".

    I see that gratitude in Kemi Badenoch, Suella Braverman, Priti Patel, Claire Coutinho and others. And don't forget Edmund Burke, Benjamin Disraeli and Winston Churchill, child of a foreign parent. Gratitude to the nation is the heart of true conservatism.

    England has long balanced change and continuity. But several times it has changed suddenly and uncontrollably. The Norman Conquest destroyed its society and eclipsed its culture. The Reformation overturned its beliefs. The Industrial Revolution made it a different place. We may be facing comparable transformation today. A future government – led by people with "a sense of gratitude" towards their home country – will need unprecedented means to bring us together. Ancestry is not enough.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/04/there-is-such-a-thing-as-englishness-it-can-be-learnt

  53. English abroad

    SIR – In the late 1960s I went to work in Oslo. Before I went I purchased a book called Snakke Norse: "Speak Norwegian" (Letters, August 6).

    On my first day of work, I said to the tram conductor: "Ein Kroner a Radhusgarten, tak" ("One kroner to Radhusgarten, thank you"). "Ah," she said, "you are English. Let me give you some advice: it is better to speak bad English than good Norwegian."

    I can still count to 20 in Norwegian, but apart from "Jeg elsker deg" ("I love you"), I got no further.

    Patrick White
    London SW20
    ________________________________________

    SIR – I suggested to Polish friends that if they wanted to understand English (not British) people they should watch David Lean's 1945 film Brief Encounter ("There really is such a thing as Englishness – and it can be learnt", Comment, August 5 [reproduced below]).

    Whether the film's Received Pronunciation helps with speaking the language is a different matter. When I watched it with another friend, who speaks English very well, but not as a first language, after about 15 minutes he asked: "What are these people saying?"

    Tim Barnsley
    Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland

    __________________________________________

    Being English is not a matter of your ancestry

    Those who seek to reduce our nationality to a question of race show they just don't understand it

    Robert Tombs
    4th August 2025, 1:36pm BST

    "You can't teach someone to be English", called a heckler at the end of a conference last month on How to Save England. "Of course you can," I replied. "That's how we all learn it." "Rubbish," he replied: for him, Englishness seemed to be (I couldn't quite hear) about "ancestry".

    This brief debate was unfortunately stopped by the chair so that we could go to the pub. But the day's discussion got huge numbers of viewers on YouTube, a longish report in The Spectator, and a rather overwrought follow-up article in The Critic magazine accusing me (along with other "self-identifying conservatives" such as Fraser Nelson and Niall Ferguson) of being a defender of multiculturalism, and by implication of mass migration.

    Frankly, I thought this was laughable, and have been joking with friends about being a Lefty. But in the present fraught climate, the issue needs to be addressed. I should explain that my intellectual sins had been to praise Katharine Birbalsingh (invariably though inadequately described as "Britain's strictest headmistress") and to have commented that to see little girls in headscarves reciting Kipling and singing the national anthem showed that "becoming English was possible", on the condition that it was encouraged, taught, and indeed required.

    Is this "multiculturalism"? I can't see how. Progressives would reject it as "monoculturalism", as it involves inculcating a common English culture: poetry certainly, and also Shakespeare, the classics, history, mathematics, science, and indeed as many as possible of the educational riches that those same progressives reject as "colonialist".

    This is a completely separate issue from mass immigration. Uncontrolled, non-selective and far beyond rational limits, it becomes economically ruinous and socially divisive. It corrupts democracy, affronts sovereignty and law, and pulverises national solidarity. I favour narrow limits and strict enforcement.

    But the question of integration and eventual assimilation is no less urgent. There are now, and in the future will be, many children in England who were born elsewhere, or who are descended from a foreign-born parent. Many will have darker skin than mine. We have a very clear choice. Either we do everything possible to make them and their eventual descendants part of our nation. Or we treat them as perpetual outsiders, "ethnic minorities" in a tribalised England.

    I am speaking of England rather than Britain. Being British is primarily legal and political. Many newcomers are happy to be "British". But we are also English (or Welsh, Scottish or Irish), and that is a deeper kind of belonging. The United Kingdom is technically a "state nation". England is a "culture nation", based on shared history, customs and emotions. Without these, the UK is an empty shell.

    Given England's long existence and global impact, its culture is varied and infused with a multitude of elements from Ancient Rome to modern California. The 18th-century Scottish philosopher David Hume, author of a pioneering History of England, thought that the country was so free and so diverse that it had no identity. I think he mistook uniformity for identity, but he had a point. There is no single or pure variety of Englishness. We have no single religion (since Henry VIII), no national costume, no obvious stereotype – not even "John Bull" any more (and he was invented by a Scot).

    For centuries, Englishness revolved round institutions – the Kingdom, the Church, the Common Law and the inherited rights of "free-born Englishmen". Since the age of Romanticism, many have cherished a rural vision of eternal England, shaped by Wordsworth, Constable, Turner (inspired by Italy), and Elgar (influenced by Wagner). For others, Englishness means their home town, their football team, fish and chips, pints at the pub.

    Everyone reading these lines will have their own list. I am always moved by a letter written by a Wolverhampton soldier to be sent to his family if he was killed: "England's a great little country [but] Mom, my little world is centred around you and including Dad, everyone at home, and my friends… That is worth fighting for [and] worth dying for too." And die for it he did.

    Can you teach people to be English (of whatever flavour) or must it be inherited? I stick to my answer: we learn it. Every baby is born with a blank mind, even if its pedigree predates the Conqueror. English ancestry may mean that children learn Englishness at their mother's knee. Or they may not. Many natives despise their English heritage – what the greatly missed philosopher Roger Scruton lamented as "the repudiation of home".

    My heckler thought that Englishness cannot be taught. But it can certainly be untaught. Schools, universities and cultural institutions across England – from the National Trust via the Museums Association to the Church of England – are busily undermining Englishness by propagating distorted and negative histories, to make the native-born ashamed and the newly arrived resentful.

    And who is in charge of all this? The English elite, the great majority as pink-cheeked and blue-eyed as I am. At the root of many of our most debilitating national problems – including excessive immigration — are decisions deliberately made by thoroughly English (or sometimes Scottish) politicians, officials and lawyers.

    The conference I mentioned at the start of this article was organised by the Roger Scruton Foundation. Scruton saw England as its people's home: no more, no less. He wrote that while mass immigration and multiculturalism "have profoundly unsettled us", we can "address the problem of social integration", which is founded on "national sovereignty and the sense of place". He welcomed "the outsider's desire to belong", and wrote that they could bring to their new home "a sense of gratitude for having found it".

    I see that gratitude in Kemi Badenoch, Suella Braverman, Priti Patel, Claire Coutinho and others. And don't forget Edmund Burke, Benjamin Disraeli and Winston Churchill, child of a foreign parent. Gratitude to the nation is the heart of true conservatism.

    England has long balanced change and continuity. But several times it has changed suddenly and uncontrollably. The Norman Conquest destroyed its society and eclipsed its culture. The Reformation overturned its beliefs. The Industrial Revolution made it a different place. We may be facing comparable transformation today. A future government – led by people with "a sense of gratitude" towards their home country – will need unprecedented means to bring us together. Ancestry is not enough.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/04/there-is-such-a-thing-as-englishness-it-can-be-learnt

    1. The same thing happened to me in The Netherlands. I went to the Post Office with my learnt-by-heart Dutch request for stamps etc the chap dealt with my request and said, in English (natch) "Here's your change".

      1. Many years ago (he died in 1987) my father took us on a day trip from Folkstone and tried to show off his French in a cafe in Le Touquet. The waiter answered in perfect English. Dad chuckled.

        1. On a first trip to France in 1981, I was delegated to speak French in the first cafe we came to after the crossing from Dover. As we left, he said to me "You speak French very well".

      2. When I was about 20 or 21, I went to stay with my brother's exchange family in a small town in Bavaria. Although I hadn't excelled in my German 'O' Level, I made a big effort to refresh my knowledge of the language. Everywhere I went, people I spoke to, including the host family, wanted to practise their English on me. That suited me well.

        1. We found that in parts of Bavaria "proper" German [Hochdeutsch] was the second language with Bayrischer Dialekt often more used. Sadly that dialect can vary from valley to valley, so often English is a good option !!

          1. Our German friends speak Swabisch. Their son Martin who first came to stay with us in 1984 as a teenager, got told off at school as he preferred not to speak Hochdeutsch.

          2. My Mum and her siblings were given the strap in school if they dared to speak in their Doric tongue. As a child visiting family there, I thought I struggled to understand quite a lot of them because they seemed to speak very fast. Nobody explained that.
            When we started taking our own children up there from when they were very young, one of my aunties told me what was going on. My oldest uncle delighted in teaching Doric to the children – the younger one in particular had a wonderful time, and spoke quite fluently to other family. That son turned out to have quite a flair for languages at his grammar school.

          3. We used to holiday with relations in Devon. It took a week for me to attune sufficiently to be able to understand what they were saying!

          4. I think this family spoke the high German; they were very well educated with the father playing in the Munich Symphony Orchestra to-boot.

        2. I was told by my host in Montpellier that after a month i had completely lost my English accent when speaking French. Pleased i was…

          3. I found the biggest realisation of having started to absorb the language was when I found I was dreaming in French after a couple of weeks with my pen friend's family.

            I was deposited there with total strangers by my parents when I was about fourteen.

            St Symphorien sur Coise, just outside Lyon.

      3. Language wise, the Nederlanders are multi lingual. When I was working there, Jill decided to take Dutch lessons. She would then like you mug up the right phrases and go off shopping. I witnessed a hilarious encounter with her speaking Dutch in a shop, with the assistant answering in perfect English. After a while she gave up, on the grounds we were only going to be there a couple of years and she really did not see the point when all around her were people speaking better English than many in Britain.

    2. I consider myself 'English' but my DNA says otherwise, around 47% Brit, the rest French, Russian. Perhaps explains things…….

    4. Our future daughter-in-law is of Indian heritage. One of her parents was born here, the other in India. Both parents spent a large part of their childhoods in Kenya, where there are still family members running businesses.
      The parents, daughter and son all work and are, to all intents and purposes, English.
      Apart from their skin, and the accents of the parents, you wouldn't know they weren't English. Our future DiL speaks with a good Yorkshire accent.

      2. I had a pal in the RAF who was blacker than coal but spoke with a broad Glaswegian accent

        1. Our late friend was born in Uganda to parents from Goa. When Amin kicked all the Asians out, our friend and her sister came to England. She was as English as anybody.

          1. Funnily enough he insisted on being called Sambo – he was a great guy who I spent many an hour drinking with

      3. We'll be having a visit next on Friday week from our nephew, and family – he married a Sikh girl (born in in Birmingham) whose parents came from Uganda in the early 70s when they were chucked out by Idi Amin. They have two lovely boys who both play the piano well.

        1. Our future DiL is also Sikh. But you wouldn't know unless you asked. Lovely family. They observe some Sikh events, but also celebrate Christmas and give Easter eggs.
          So different form other son's wife/controller who makes it very clear that their children are 'my Jewish children!'

          1. Ours had a kind of hybrid wedding (after a legal register office one) where lots of the women wore (borrowed) saris and the ceremony was ‘sort of’ Sikh. She’s an Asian dance teacher so there was lots of dancing.

          2. I expect ours will have something along those lines. The day is, after all, about the bride.
            The other one had a vaguely Jewish wedding; which was just about alright. There were 'Mazel Tov' signs around, they were married by a rabbi 'under the canopy', complete with son smashing the glass. I liked the symbolism in that glass smashing ritual. Then there was the lifting the bride and groom up high on chairs.

      4. I think it does work well unless the people belong to a religion that explicitly tells them not to trust anyone who doesn't belong to their religion.

    5. We don’t have a national costume because we aren’t a peasant nation. We had one religion (Christianity) until the multiculti lunacy was foisted on us. We were (and should be) a homogeneous people in race, language and culture.

  54. Back from Matlock and the shopping sorted.
    Now, what do I do for the rest of the day?

    4. You could pop down to me and get my horrible hedges cut & tamed. That should keep you busy. 🙂
      Tea/coffee and biscuits of your choice.
      A good beer to finish off.

  55. Britain is breaking apart

    Neocommunal politics leads to the collapse of the common good

    This weekend, thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators are preparing to gather in London in what could become one of the most direct challenges to the UK’s anti-terror laws in recent memory. At the heart of this mobilisation is Palestine Action — the activist network recently proscribed as a terrorist organisation under the Terrorism Act 2000.

    Despite the serious legal consequences, including up to 14 years in prison for expressing support for a banned group, organisers and supporters remain undeterred. Since July 5, over 200 individuals have been arrested under the Act. Now, campaigners intend to escalate by openly and collectively defying the ban.

    A briefing document shared by the civil liberties group Defend Our Juries, and obtained by The Telegraph, outlines the plan in striking terms. It concedes the personal risks of participation but argues that the state may be unable — or unwilling — to respond if faced with mass civil disobedience on such a scale.
    …

    When the great Singaporean leader Lee Kuan Yew said that in ethnically mixed societies "all political life devolves to ethnic loyalties," few people appreciate the significance of the word 'all'. Lee did not mean just that but that it becomes the basis for all politics, but that it applies to all ethnicities. Both the hotel riots and the defiance of Palestine Action tap into the same underlying motivation: the mobilisation of a community around shared identity, and the belief that the stakes of the battle transcend national law or order.
    …

    Full article: https://thecritic.co.uk/britain-is-breaking-apart

    1. Cancel all police leave.

      Arrest every single one of them.

      Lock them in the illegal immigrant hotels for a month.

      Then check if they still support the paedo rapist terrorists.

      1. Arresting the leaders and organisers of these protests might be more effective and plod will have their contact details. Send them down for the maximum as was done at Southport. Of course, we would have to find a judge who does not sympathise with the cause..

      2. Those rent-a-mob leftie activists will, of course, be allowed to protest and cause as much disruption and intimidation as they want with no consequences. Plod will probably escort them in order to protect them.

    2. Did he take into account white liberals whose political life devolves to any ethnic loyalty but their own?

    1. I have a recipe from Bill's MR. I might have to use it again this year. They've done very well.

    2. Nice.

      Besides all the usual ways like drying or chutney or making passata you can de-skin and seed them. Chop roughly to make a concasse and freeze in portions to add to pasta and casseroles etc.

      Use the skins and internal flesh and seeds in the stock pot.

    3. Make "tomata" – tomato sauce. Will keep for years. We are starting to harvest this afternoon.

  57. Spain goes straight to number one pop pickers, ousting Ireland at top spot for first to blow.

    The Spanish town Jumilla in the Murcia region becomes the first to ban Muslims from using public facilities to celebrate religious Eid festivals just weeks after a nearby area was rocked by anti-migrant riots.

    Population of around 27,000 – roughly 7.5 per cent of whom come from mostly Muslim countries.

    1. For starters this 'Misinformation' needs to be erased from public consciousness.
      Next the CEOs of the platform that permitted this online child abuse need jailing and their profits confiscated.

  58. Spain goes straight to number one pop pickers, ousting Ireland at top spot for first to blow.

    The Spanish town Jumilla in the Murcia region becomes the first to ban Muslims from using public facilities to celebrate religious Eid festivals just weeks after a nearby area was rocked by anti-migrant riots.

    Population of around 27,000 – roughly 7.5 per cent of whom come from mostly Muslim countries.

  59. The perfect chip. Triple cooked Maris Piper chips. Finished in pork or beef dripping gives a crunch with a fluffy inside.

    Sue Mac took me to task for saying olive oil was not the best way to cook chips. Sue having experienced them that way found them delicious. I agree.

    I cooked some steamed potato in olive oil and they made perfect patatas bravas.

    The point i was trying to make was to get that crunch you would massively shorten the life of the oil as it doesn't perform so well at the temperatures you can get dripping to.

    Am i making sense, Sue?

    1. Boil first from cold. Remove from water.. give a slight shakey then leave for 10 mins under a towel.

      2. The triple way is to simmer them until just soft. Allow to cool and dry then deep fry at 130c until a crust forms but not getting any colour.

        Allow to cool again then deep fry at 180c until crisp and brown.

        Long winded i know but after either the first or second stage you can freeze a batch ready for the final process.

    2. I didn’t really take you to task, pet! I said that when you’re cooking them in Greece, using your own oil, pressed from your own olives and served hot and crispy with whatever you fancy, then there aren’t many better culinary delights!
      I really hope I didn’t offend you! 😳

      1. Not offended in the least. Wrong choice of words perhaps.

        Good olive oil being so expensive i am careful not to let it degrade too quickly.

        1. Olive Oil has recently fallen in price in France. A year ago it was €10 a litre – it now costs €5.95.

          1. Lots adulterated. Olives have been treated with calcium chloride to turn them black.

  60. Well that's a good result. Hospital appointment at 11:15 called in bang on time, doctor lady very happy with my half knee replacement progress keep it going with the physiotherapy.
    And she said I won't want to see you again…..
    I asked was it something I said ???🤔🤗
    All done and dusted in twenty minutes.
    On to the garden centre to buy some weed killer that hopefully works. And some more rat poison they have started turning over the contents of our large compost bin, uncooked kitchen and vegetable waste.
    Erin's been editing our 15 years of photographs on our broken down desktop PC. Ordered a new replacement DT PC Tuesday from John Lewis, arrived yesterday.
    It just needs setting up. Number one son has the magic.

      1. Last week whilst staying in Southwold I did a lot of walking.
        And resting, it helped considerably.
        Now resting.

    2. Good news. Weed killer available to the plebs doesn’t do a proper job thanks to the EU banning effective ingredients,.

      1. I use Roseate or white Vinegar (with salt and Fairy liquid) seems to kill everything except Mares tail but if you burn the surface of them they get killed too.

          2. Lucky you! I have a constant fight against the stuff (what did the Romans ever do for us, eh?) because it keeps creeping under the fence from the properties either side.

  61. Feet up sipping a decaf and have TV on in the background. I had to turn the sound down on Loose Women but heard that Paul Nicholas was going to be on later. Now recording it.
    He was the lead singer in the first live band I saw as a teenager. He came from Edgware close to the Mill Hill Canda Villa Youth Club where myself and I with many friends were members.
    'Jesus arises'.

    1. Edgeware – passed through frequently as a child en-route to visiting Dad's numerous aunts and cousins.
      My dear old dad was from Borehamwood, and used to joke about going on holiday to Radlett. Sadly, he suddenly died in his 50s, and I never did find out what that was about.

      1. One of my BILs was originally from Borehamwood. The other from Friern Barnet. When my wife and I were married she worked for American Overseas Shipping. Based in Borehamwood.
        In 1976 we had most of our furniture shipped to Oz at a huge discount..
        I think the joke was that Radlett was deemed to have been more upper class. A lot of the residents of Borehamwood where those families who were rehoused after the German boming raids wiped out their London homes.

        1. Interesting.
          My Dad’s parents had moved to Borehamwood from Islington in about 1923 (long before it was gentrified & taken over by lefties), where they had been living with Grandad’s parents and their baby & toddler. They moved into a brand new house, one of those built for soldiers from WW1. It was a beautiful house, tree-lined street and huge (about 80′ long) garden. Granddad planted apple trees and built a very large chicken ‘shed/run’, which was the full width of the garden. Those hens were invaluable during WW2 for padding out the family’s rations with eggs and meat.
          As well as my Grandparents and all the children, one of Dad’s aunts & uncles with their own 3 children were registered as living there on the 1939 register! 13 people in a 3 bedroomed house! I suspect the dining room (or maybe the larger sitting room) was used as a bedroom as well.

      2. I lived in Elstree for a while. My neighbours were very careful to differentiate it from Borehamwood. And Radlett was posher still. The joke would, I think, still hold.

        1. I lived in Gillott Road Birmingham. My side of the street had an Edgbaston postcode. The other side of the street was Rotton Park. :@)

        2. You were 'posher' than me, then, ha ha.

          Ah, yes. the 'Elstree' film and television studios which were bang slap in the middle of Borehamwood!
          My grandparents, when going to the shops in Borehamwood, always referred to it as 'going down the village.' When they had moved there in about 1923, Borehamwood was still a village.
          In the early 1960s, my Mum saw the Beetles on Shenley Road (the main shopping street), where they had possibly been recording at nearby ATV studios; I suspect this could have been the occasion:

          The Beatles – 60 Years Ago Today: December 2, 1963
          Studio C, Elstree Studio Centre, Eldon Ave, Borehamwood, Hertfordshire and Ballroom, Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane, London
          The Beatles spent the period from mid-morning to late-afternoon at Associated TeleVision's Elstree Studio Centre.           Certainly not in Elstree, but in the centre of Borehamwood.
          That was a year and 2 days before we moved away.

  62. Ref the MR's tablet "issue" (see below) – half an hour after we returned home they rang to say the tablets were ready to collect….

    1. So that is a trudge back to pick them up again?
      Or is it a case of "Sod it, we'll pick them up another time"?

  63. The Secret Landlord: I’m not surprised a Labour MP kicked out her tenants and raised the rent by £700
    Rushanara Ali has done what any right-minded landlord would do in the face of government reforms
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/property/buy-to-let/not-surprised-labour-mp-kicked-out-tenants-raised-rent/

    " …. technically, she (Rushanara Ali) didn’t actually do anything wrong."

    BTL

    There is a difference between what is illegal and what is immoral.

    When Blair was defending his minister Blunkett over the affair he had with the owner of The Spectator magazine he claimed : "Blunkett, has done nothing wrong." What Blair should have said was: "Blunkett has done nothing illegal." Indeed there is no law against adultery but as a Christian Blair should have known that adultery is wrong.

    There are many things which are illegal but which are not immoral (e.g. parking on a double yellow for a few seconds) and many things which are immoral which are not illegal. It is strange that lawyers such as Blair – and now Starmer – cannot see the difference between what is illegal and what is immoral.

        2. Waited until he resigned as PM before converting. Shows he doesn't have the courage of his convictions.

          1. 410947+ up ticks,

            Afternoon A,

            And he has a conviction as in
            Guilty Bow Street court.

          8. Don't think the Pope had a long enough to live to hear the full confession from Blair..

          11. Don't think the Pope had a long enough to live to hear the full confession from Blair..

          12. What a shame the scene from the rooftop in the Film The Ghost Writer didn't actually happen.

    2. Wasn't there a saying about everything enjoyable was either illegal. immoral or it made you fat

        1. It shows that things that are illegal, immoral or fattening help you live longer. Joy Beverely and Babs Beverley lived to the age of 91 and Teddie Beverley is still alive at 98.

    3. I once read that during his time in office Blair used/issued more 'D' (DSMA) notices than any other person in that position had ever done before. And he fiddled heavily with the state treason laws.
      One in particular, He removed the possibility of the government investigating ministers for treasonous acts.

  64. You know, strictly speaking, the Gospels require that anyone professing the Christian faith should proselytise. We find it distasteful. We've been taught to pride ourselves on being too mealy-mouthed and weak to assert the way, the truth and the life and stand by the consequences. Our laissez-faire attitude is not a virtue and if we don't become militant soon we're going to be tested. Worship the pagan gods or die.

    2. Yep, Sue. But I've been a mealy-mouthed Anglican for at least 50 years. It's complicated by the organist thing, but that will be history by the end of next month.

      I'll need a new place of worship, since I can hardly keep going to my 4 usual churches over the last twenty years, and sing hymns to the backing of "No Organist, No Problem" on CD.

      I had hoped that my tenure might be extended, but any suggestion by the current Rector that this might be the case has faded into the background. No-one seems to know what the future holds, so I've stopped asking. When my local (extremely put-upon) churchwarden pulls up outside my home on the first Sunday in October, I'll decline the lift.

      There's a sound Anglo-Catholic church, a short walk from Guildford station (seven minutes from my local station). It's a bit further "up the candle" than I'm used to, but no matter. Guildford Cathedral is a longer walk, and is on the top of a bloody steep hill. I think I might explore the cathedrals of southern Britaian, perhaps monthly, by train and Travelodge. After being 'chained' to various village church organs for decades, I look forward to experiencing church, done properly. I'll try (your) St Bart's at some stage, not to be confused with my local Saxon version of that ilk, which is in the Domesday Book, has a history of being used as a cow shed, but also a training centre for wartime Special Operations Executive.

      Maybe, once I'm relieved of my duties at the console, I'll turn my priorities to proselytisation.

  66. Ref Angie's request for tomato suggestions. Here is a soup recipe (from the MR):

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/11f178ec2241ae8954859df92d85c827832e3f21daf69d74341340a313eb4a06.png The MR adds in her esoteric way:

    "If you have a mouli legumes it means you will be able to eliminate the skins and pips. If you liquidise the soup then the skin and pips get liquidised too. If you don't think this matters, try taking the skin and pips from some tomatoes and then eating just the skin and pips. They don't taste all that brilliant though you hardly notice them when liquidised, but the soup when put through the mouli is a STONKER."

    1. I roast the tomatoes first to intensify the flavour. A mouli is a good piece of equipment for any kitchen.

      You can also thicken the soup with stale bread. You get a better mouth feel.

          1. Not wishing to set certain persons blood pressure soaring but i ask this of you as you know so much of the liberty bodice with rubber buttons…

            What was the reasoning behind the Bustle?

      1. Depends on whether you have stale bread – I don't. All my bread is frozen as soon as I make it and I can then take slices as required

      2. Depends on whether you have stale bread – I don't. All my bread is frozen as soon as I make it and I can then take slices as required

  70. Still no serious rain in the forecast unless you live in western Scotland. Very dry here in our part of the midlands – only half the average rainfall since January. The landscape isn't bleached white like it was in 1976, 1990 and 2003 because the high temperatures we've had haven't lasted long and there were a couple of decent spells of rain in July but it is beginning to turn rather brown.

    Justin Rowlatt is loving it.

      1. He was on Radio 4 news recently, booming away about a weather story in what was, even for him, a particularly strident tone.

      2. He was on Radio 4 news recently, booming away about a weather story in what was, even for him, a particularly strident tone.

      3. How very restrained of you.
        Several other epithets sprang to mind, but NOTTLers are nicely brung up and I don't like to upset them.

  71. Amongst Moh's prescription pills are Diclofenac tablets for various aches and pains etc .

    He was owed 14 tablets , so i went to the chemist to pick them up this morning .

    Oh dear, there is a countrywide shortage of Diclofenac tablets, a manufacturing issue , and he wont be able to have any until late September at least .

    Have any of you had similar problems with supply?

    2. I can’t find anything in the current or last issue of Pharmacy Online about diclofenac. Sometimes happens with one manufacturer having a problem in production, or it might just be the supplier. .

    3. Maggie, I assume YOH doesn't suffer from high blood pressure?
      Diclofenac, especially when taken regularly, can send it up. How good is your GP at keeping an eye on such things?

      1. It is also contra-indicated if on heart medication.
        I used to use it, as voltarol and voltarene gel because it was very effective; the cardiologist told me to stop immediately

      2. Not at all good , . oh dear .

        Yes he is being treated for high blood pressure , has been since his fifties !

        He has also been on Diclofenac , small dose for years .

        1. Blimey Belle! My old man can’t even use Voltarol ointment! I’d be thinking about another painkiller like paracetamol!

  72. Police warn Palestine Action protesters: We’ll charge you all with terror offences
    More than 500 people plan to gather in central London on Saturday to publicly declare support for group
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/07/police-charge-palestine-action-protesters-ahead-mass-rally

    Lawyer Mark Jones, a partner with Payne Hicks Beach, said just being arrested could have far-reaching implications.

    He said: “An arrest can be disclosed as part of an enhanced DBS check even if there is no further action taken in the case.

    “Also, if you are trying to travel to the United States, you are obliged to declare all arrests as well as cautions and convictions. So it is highly unlikely if you have been arrested on suspicion of a terrorist offence that you will be granted a visa.

    “All of these things need to be thought about carefully because they can have a significant and life-changing impact on your reputation, employment and travel prospects.”

    A conviction will result in a criminal record, which will have to be disclosed when applying for jobs etc. However, Mark Jones makes the point that even an arrest which does not result in a prosecution will have to be declared when applying to travel to the USA, such arrest probably being grounds for refusal of entry.

    1. Kettle them all.
      Arrest them all.
      Then decide which ones to go for.
      As a suggestion, prioritise:
      1 Civil servants/public sector workers
      2 Lawyers/bankers similar professionals
      3 Teachers and university staff.
      4 The unemployed and pensioners
      5 The rest

        1. There are probably swarms of 'Human Rights' lawyers on standby to represent those arrested tomorrow. They will be advised to plead not guilty and will not be remanded in custody for months (as was the threat to the Southport protesters). Resulting court cases will be months or even years down the line, and will result in Not Guilty verdicts.

          1. Even so, at least they will have the fear of conviction and the arrest will still be on their records.

            And if the authorities scatter them about, do you think there are sufficient and available, HR lawyers on a Saturday night?

          3. Mine too, I was expressing a wish-list.
            However, the authorities have been making more than usually aggressive noises over this one. Probably so that fewer turn up and they can then claim their robust approach worked.

          4. They will probably just be escorted away from the protest area with no charge or reprimand.

    2. Lucy Connolly has a criminal record.

      But as they know full well in the United States that her imprisonment was unjust and the result of Starmer's tyrannical detestation of free speech they might offer her a visa if she ever wants to go to the USA.

    3. Presumably the type of people contemplating this kind of action aren’t great fans of the USA

      2. Good one, anne. I remember the one of her answering the door, hair awry, in her dressing gown, to accept delivery of flowers. Had to be a set-up. Just don't mention David Kelly.

          1. 😆 thank you Geoff…been a long day needed that lift 🥰 hope you’re looking after yourself well g’night old friend xxx

          2. All well here, Kste. Eyesight issues are improving steadily and slowly, otherwise I wouldn't be here…

            Trust all well with you and yours?

          3. Good news, Geoff..long may it be so. Yes, I’m always good thx (as dad would say ‘it’s t’other b*ggers’) have a great day x

  74. From the DT:

    Spanish town bans public Muslim celebrations
    Local Vox party: ‘Spain is and will forever be the land of Christian people’

    Mounir Benjelloun Andaloussi Azhari, president of the Spanish federation of Islamic organisations, described the ban as “Islamophobic and discriminatory”.

    “They’re not going after other religions, they’re going after ours,” he told El Pais newspaper.

    “We’re rather surprised by what’s happening in Spain. For the first time in 30 years I feel afraid.”

    Good. Now you know how the Jews feel.

  75. Female gorillas can overpower males despite being HALF their size, study reveals

    They're one of our closest relatives in the animal kingdom.

    Now, a study reveals that in gorilla communities, such as Nottle, girls have the power.

    Scientists analysed four social groups of wild gorillas in Nottland, and found females can overpower males, despite extreme differences in size and strength.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14979337/female-gorilla-overpower-males-half-size.html

    1. Oh no they don't ! You can smash a mirror just by looking at it. Nottler ladies can't do that.

    2. Koko the gorilla was a large but gentle creature. Just as well really, as she liked her men to be human and wasn't much interested in male gorillas.

  76. Warwickshire Police has admitted it withheld the immigration status of two suspects charged in connection with the alleged rape of a 12-year-old girl……………..
    “I confirmed this was accurate and we wouldn’t be releasing immigration status at point of charge as we follow national guidance………………………….

    Shut Up, Mushrooms.

  78. Latest Wednesday Close-Of-Business stats just in..

    211 undocumentated citizens living in fifty (known) asylum seeker hotels have been charged with 425 criminal offences this year.

    Home Secretary Yvette Cooper later issued a meaningless wish-list..
    Police should reveal more information about suspects in response to allegations the authorities have tried to "cover up" alleged offences by asylum seekers.
    Net migration should decline sharply from the unusually high levels in 2024.
    The government should spent less on hotels to house asylum seekers.

    It's a win for Britain.

  79. Wordle No. 1,510 3/6

    ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟨⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    Wordle 7 Aug 2025

    Roseate Birdie Three?

    1. After several failures in the past week

      Wordle 1,510 3/6

      ⬜🟨🟨🟨⬜
      ⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. Well done, par here.

      Wordle 1,510 4/6

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

    3. Curiously I had the same first three letters as yesterday, so a little deja vu! same result as well, par……

      Wordle 1,510 4/6

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

    4. Me too. Relatively easy birdie today.

      Wordle 1,510 3/6

      🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟨⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. "How come you are still working – can't AI do this instead?" OR "I think you've got this bit wrong, and I'm a fully qualified civil engineer, so I should know"

    3. "And if you can just shift the rest of the rubble that became of the economy after I took over…"

    4. "I've created a much bigger hole than that and I didnt even have to use a digger!"

  82. The lies of the land
    Rod Liddle

    You can gauge the fragility of an ideology by the blind fury with which it reacts to questioning. So it is with neo-liberalism. Teacher Simon Pearson, for example, was sacked for suggesting that the jailing of Lucy Connolly – who said very nasty things about asylum seekers – was an example of two-tier justice and that, while her words were indefensible, she should not have been sent to prison.

    One could counter that opinion, but only at the risk of coming into collision with hard facts concerning sentencing – hence the sacking. Best to get shot of your political opponents, especially when he or she is demonstrably correct. Only by doing that can the ideology cling on. The other form of defence, if you are the adherent of an ideology which is palpably on its way out, is to lie to people, or to withhold information from them. Just shrug your shoulders and say: ‘Search me, mate – we don’t have any information on that, I’m afraid.’

    For a good 60 years the British public have been lied to about immigration and had information withheld from them. The reason that information was withheld is because the authorities know full well that possession of it would infuriate the great mass of people. And so, when some deranged jihadi murders somebody, we are not given his ethnicity, or we are told a lie (that he is a Norwegian, say), or a truism – that he is mental. If the police released the ethnicity of the suspect every time a serious crime was committed, the public would be even more averse to continued mass immigration from cultures dissimilar to our own than they are at the moment. I still suspect that Crimewatch was taken off air a decade or so ago because the gallery of criminals displayed each week revealed a remarkable dearth of white folks in it. The programme is back, by the way, with diverse presenters and they don’t do the rogues’ gallery thing any more.

    The lying, or obfuscation, about immigration has included withholding crime figures from us. Until recently we were un-aware that foreign nationals living in the UK were 70 per cent more likely to be convicted of sexual crimes. Meanwhile Algerians were 18 times more likely to be convicted of theft. The proportion of the under-18 prison population which is of black heritage is 30 per cent, compared with 5.5 per cent of under-18s in the general population.

    These figures are all comparatively new to us and they have been released for the simple reason that the dominant paradigm, the guff we’ve been fed for decades – that multiculturalism is terrific and immigrants commit no more crime than do the locals – is increasingly rejected as being not merely untrue, but absurd. The only comeback you will hear from the left on the issue of, say, young black offenders is that if they constitute 30 per cent of the under-18 prison population, then the majority of underage crime must be committed by white youths. This is what I call the Dave Allen argument, and it has been deployed over and over again in the case of the Pakistani rape gangs, despite what we might agree are its obvious flaws.

    So we have been lied to about crime rates among immigrants, or simply not told. But we have also been lied to about how many immigrants are here, how many will continue to flood in and what benefit they will be to society. It is quite common for the left to insist that an influx of 900,000 or so every year will not have any impact upon our crumbling infrastructure – housing, schools, the NHS and so on – despite the epic denial of reality that this involves.

    More recently, however, the truth has begun to leak out. While we are continually told that immigration boosts the economy, a report last year from the Office for Budget Responsibility showed that a low-skilled migrant costs the British taxpayer an average of £150,000 by the time he or she has reached pensionable age, and £500,000 if they make it to 80. This is the first time we have been given such information, and my suggestion is that in future the OBR breaks it down by individual ethnicity.

    Meanwhile, at the beginning of this year it was estimated that by 2063 white British people will be a minority in their own country. For decades anti-immigrant groups and right-wing politicians have warned of this and their claims were laughed off as ludicrous. Nope, not ludicrous: the truth. And of course any time conscientious politicians raised the issue of mass immigration, the liberal authorities wheeled out the great wicker man of Enoch and set it on fire, while denouncing all those who questioned the avidity with which this country yearned for suicide as ‘racist’ and ‘far-right’.

    The slightly better news is that the public no longer buys this rubbish. For a long while, attitudes towards immigration among the general public seemed to soften, the consequence of being kept in the dark, being lied to and not wanting to seem ‘racist’ to the nice researchers. Not any more. The latest YouGov poll shows that a whopping 45 per cent of Brits are in favour of admitting precisely zero new migrants and wish for large numbers to be persuaded somehow to leave the country. That would have been an unthinkable proportion even ten years ago. Meanwhile, only a small minority believe that immigration has been mostly good for the country, and three-quarters oppose greater numbers still coming here.

    The lesson from this is that the centre cannot hold, that the disinformation no longer works – and that people are angry. Here, as in continental Europe, the indigenous populations have roused a little from their enforced slumber. A shame, really, that it’s too late.

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

    Spectator User
    11 hours ago edited
    Take a leaf from Singapore. Admits no refugees, closely vets every single visa application to determine exactly what the benefit of the applicant is to society and economy, and promptly dispatches anyone on a visa who causes trouble or commits any crime.

    Next time you are there, note the clean streets, happy safe women and children and the prevailing sense of order. It was
    modelled on 1950’s Britain.

    An0nymousBosch Spectator User
    8 hours ago
    Britain has taken our cues from John F Kennedy.

    In 1962, Kennedy opened the doors to "refugees" from Cuba.

    Fidel Castro promptly emptied his prisons and sent the inmates to Florida.

    Eastern Europe used the EU to send their Roma gypsies to Leeds (they rioted last year), and many other countries have realised they can send Britain their undesirables.

  83. That's me for today. Good market trip. Swift supermarket. Tesco have Rueda white wine on offer….25% off with club card. Picked a couple of pounds of damsons – they are straining as I type. And six pounds of tomatoes for "tomata".

    Have a spiffing evening avoiding the self-obsessed BBC Toady tosser Rajan slagging off interviewing Mrs Badenough. The MR is a fan of the Nigerian and will be glued to the screen. I shall read a book…

    A demain.

    1. I had an abortive shopping trip today; couldn’t park in Tesco and Lidl didn’t have half of what I wanted (and the plus card wouldn’t work).

        1. I could have got the app to work if I had known my password (yeah, right!). When I came home and looked it up I sorted it eventually, but by then it was too late.

          1. Suggestion: scan the Lidl Plus qr code, print it then laminate it (or find a small clear plastic sleeve) and keep it in your wallet.

          2. Seems like a good idea. It would save having to remember to take the damned phone with me.

  84. Brown Revives Old Gambling Tax Campaign to Destroy Racing and Bingo

    Gordon Brown’s call for a raft of gambling tax hikes today is a rerun of his long-running attempt to kill the industry. This latest wheeze from the ex-PM is no different…

    The tax hike calls come this time from Labour’s house think tank the IPPR which proposes hiking duties:

    On online casinos from 21% to 50%.
    On slots and gaming machines from 20% to 50%.
    Hiking general betting duty on non-racing bets from 15% to 25%.
    The proposals strangely enough echo those proposed by Brown and his wonks at the Social Market Foundation. Its head ex-Brown spinner Theo Bertram is running defence of the IPPR report on X today…

    There is no groundswell of support for gambling taxation – it is a co-ordinated campaign from Brown and his cronies. Aveek Bhattachayra, formerly the SMF’s economist, transferred to the Treasury in March this year as Head of Excise. Coincidentally the Treasury has now run and finished a “consultation” on remote gambling which signals the government’s aims to raise a raft of gambling duties. Goodbye racing and online bingo…

    7 August 2025 @ 17:01

    Beebsplaining
    42m
    Monocular snotgoblin out from under his rock again🙄 as if the current cabinet do not have enough spam mallets 🙄 https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/103ac738acb98469455654b37e00af6324a88c4f94f2347437321e4b1b435a43.png
    Mucus
    43m
    As a man who left record debt, trashed England's pension system and gave away England's gold at knock down prices he would do well to keep his trap shut.

    1. Worse they are planning to equalise taxes on online casino gambling (I e games of chance) with betting on horseracing. The two are nowhere near comparable. It will kill off racing which relies on the Levy. I contacted my LD MP. No answer, not even an acknowledgement with platitudes and lies.

    2. We already have enough destructive creepy crawlies involved in wrecking our country. What had any got to do with him.

    1. I'm sure that people trying to read the text on purple pavement markings will be distracted whilst having their phones snatched.

    3. Not quite. "Mind the Grab". So, should you expose your phone for any reason in public, it's your fault if some scrote on an e-bike snatches it out of your hand. That's OK, then.

  87. A new poll for The Spectator shows that 56 per cent of Brits see border control as the top issue facing Britain.

    "A possible ban of the following words on social media for under-16s in the UK is "on the table",
    spiral.. out-of-control.. about to blow..

      1. There was a prosecution recently where one of the deviant bastards allowed into our country took advantage of a young woman passed out on a bench in the park.

        He forced his penis into her mouth multiple times. All caught on cctv. She died.

        1. Jesus… no words.
          I’ll stop making jokes like that, not funny. What a pity she didn’t bite the fcukers cock off entirely.

    2. Not forgetting the police using facial recognition technology to trawl through our passport photos.

    1. Christine will never get an honest answer. Because 'they' are afraid to tell the truth. 'They' know there will be a major push back and 'they' know they have no way to control it.
      Hence the lies and more lies. The censorship and jail time for people who speak out.

      The kettle is on the boil.

  90. Badenoch got cheating classmate expelled
    Tory leader has no regrets about snitching on fellow student because he was ‘doing the wrong thing’
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/08/07/badenoch-got-cheating-classmate-expelled/

    I have never liked those who are holier than thou.

    I did not like Badenoch much before – now I like her even less.

    BTL

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/eedb1774bd9bdebd2ce16a507ffea9a74fe2c4d5e44c81c7b48992d2e42f9453.jpg

    1. Nor did JC. Let him (or these days, he, she or it) who is without sin cast the first stone,

    2. Perhaps the culture around sneaking is different in Nigeria (where it happened) but if that's so, she clearly doesn't understand how the English see it.

    1. I understand Gordon Brown has said something along the lines of the UK economy being in the worst state for 60 years. Crikey, I guess he would know.

    2. He denies the charge. Even though video and people around him heard him say to slash the throats.

      I wonder if the people of Dartford agree with him.

    4. Wow. Just wow. Are they trying to coincide it with Lucy Connolly’s release perhaps? Just to really rub our noses in it?

    1. The farmers should join with the fisherfolk. Both their industry and livelihood are under attack in the same way.

      1. Unfortunately, fish farming is a disastrous failure for the environment and fishy health.

      2. 410947+ up ticks,

        Evening Pip
        We are ALL under attack via the
        trawlermen and farmers that is why I am trying to push the need for a safety net party.

        When eventually push comes to shove counting on nige and deputy does NOT fill me with confidence.
        The party body OK the party leadership Not so OK,keep in mind Brexit 2019.
        I believe we have one more chance, crap out on that then submission looms.

  94. Jimmy Saville, Rolf Harris, Gary Glitter, Huw Edwards, Philip Scofield, Jay Blades..

    Welcome to the new contestants of Celebrity BBC Masterchef!

    I think the BBC has a hiring problem. Not to mention King Charles who enjoyed his time with most of them.

    What is it with Royalty?

      1. …and too much inbreeding. Just look at the family tree from the Victorian era. At least Diana was not Charlie's cousin. Mind you one of their kids is a bit on the dim side.

      2. Yes, I think so.

        The fact that so many things are now public knowledge suggests to me that they are at the end.

        Most families have fights to some degree but their showing makes people think they are the same. The Majesty has gone.

      1. Great idea. Though i think they should choose as a co-presenter Monica Lewinski.

        For balance.

  95. Since today seems to have been a day of health updates and such like, I got a phone call saying my outpatient appointment to discuss the elective removal of my gall bladder was cancelled due to the consultant being ‘off sick’.

    I suppose I’ll go to the back of the queue, so I estimate late October/early November. Not that I’m fussed about it, I’m not in any hurry.

    3. I was due to have mine removed some years ago, eric…meantime – low fat diet, which actually helped a lot, still on it, still got gall bladder..

      1. I don’t think I have much fat in my diet. Have some questions to ask before I say yes.

        1. Think it's the type of fats (animal)the ones high protein/ flavour..sigh…..vegetable fats, nuts etc ok..

    4. Mike Graham* on Talk radio/TV is convinced that these cancellations are a way to manipulate the backlog. I've experienced a similar issue with the eye clinic. What I understood to be another appointment with the consultant was kicked into the long grass, to be replaced a month later with a new doctor who assured me that there was very little blood, hence no need for surgery, and my problem was down to cataracts.

      It's rather odd then, that – upon waking, and before rising – I can clearly read my smart watch and my phone. Without specs. But I can see a 'blob' of blood, lurking on the periphery of my vision. As soon as I'm upright, I have an interesting pattern, while the blood spreads out, due to gravity, shortly dispersing to create an 'obscured glass' effect, which remains during the day, as I move about…

      Hopefully my appointment towards the end of August will be with a medic who is at least vaguely sentient.

      As I settle down in front of the laptop of an evening, the mists clear. I'm still viewing white text on a black background, but much less magnified than before. So things are improving, measurably. As long as there no further bleeds, I might even be able to read music before I have to retire…

      *Mike is no relation, as far as I am aware. there are three Graham clans: (1) the Montrose, (2) the Monteith, and (3) the ne'er do wells who were Border Reivers. I proudly descend from (3)…

  96. Off tomorrow back to Cornwall. We make another attempt on the Scilly Isles on Saturday. We leave at dawn! (Both days).

    4. I made a dozen visits to St Mary's in the 1990s (a week at a time, usually May and October) and loved every minute of that beautiful, archipelago. St Agnes was a particular favourite too: the view from The Turks Head pub is the best anywhere in the UK.

  97. Oh well another day older and we're deeper in debt. What a mob of shysters in number 10, the last lot where bad enough. Shop chains going into liquidation, dozens of pubs closing. Who would ever have guessed that things could get any worse.
    Good night all Nottlers. Sleep well. 😴

    2. Please try to think happy thoughts. It would help the rest of us. Hope you have a good night. Mine is going to be drug induced.

      2. I am finding it very difficult to think happy and I feel very worried for our grandchildren at the moment Phizz.

      2. Can you imagine the mess they are going to leave behind them Geoff.
        The last lot where bad enough.

  98. That's me for the night.
    A thumping headache and feel totally knackered.
    Goodnight all.

    2. I played the organ for the wedding of Sam Tarry and Julia Fozard. Having popped a couple of sprogs, Tarry dumped the delightful Julia and hooked up with one of the pictured twins. Not sure which.

  100. 410947+ up ticks,

    Pillow Ponder,
    I have a very nasty feeling that, via the usual Gung ho,
    where angels fear to tread leanings in the next
    ( very last IMHO)General Election we are going to be left with our collective arses hanging out to dry due to NO back up party.

    We done it in 2016 with the referendum, with as witnessed, disastrous consequences.
    https://x.com/NoFarmsNoFoods/status/1953466503455539644

  101. Well, chums, it's my bedtime once again. Since I have to be out for the day tomorrow to get my car MoT'd, I may not be around until much later in the day. But I wish you all a Good Night's sleep tonight. And I may be able to join you briefly at 7 a.m.

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