Tuesday 12 August: Shopkeepers left demoralised by the authorities’ soft touch on thieving

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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537 thoughts on “Tuesday 12 August: Shopkeepers left demoralised by the authorities’ soft touch on thieving”

  3. Good morning chums. And thanks, Geoff, for today's NoTTLe site. Today's Wordle was a Par.

    Wordle 1,515 4/6

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    1. Good morning Elsie and all
      Wordle 1,515 3/6

      🟨🟨⬜⬜⬜
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    2. Good morning, Elsie.

      The bullace are ripe if you are still interested and there may be some blackberries as well. I'm in all day Wednesday if you have the time.

      1. Thanks, Korky, I hope to be around mid-morning and I look forward to seeing you again after many moons. (Good morning, btw.)

  4. Good Morning!

    Today, renowned Sunstacker Simplicius shares serious doubts, in Alaska Summit Announced: Is the End Finally Near? that much will be achieved, giving some fascinating detail of the background to the talks in the process.

    The Preston Park Panther pounces with a pullulating piece on what he says is THE BIGGEST TEST OF ALL, COMING YOUR WAY SOON , when AI takes over everything, and Graham Bedford's final part of his Should I Stay Or Should I Go series looks at the tax implications of going, only to find that either way, it's a taxing business.

    Energy Watch: Over the last 24 hours: Britain's electric power was sourced from Gas, 31.2%; Solar, 8.9%: Wind 16.4%; Imports, 21.3%; Biomass, 8.9%; Nuclear 10.1% and Miscellaneous, 3.2%.

    And finally, you might have noticed the animated pictures FSB has had leading the articles for the last few days. Do you like them or loathe them? Please let us know by voting in the poll here .

    1. The animations are fun from time to time, but AI ones are a bit cringey. Actually, I loathe the photo-realistic style of the AI generated pictures. You really need someone who's interested in art to come up with photos or illustrations. I would volunteer myself except that at this moment I am putting together another magazine (completely different subject) and it takes up all my free time.

  6. Morning all! 🌄 Sunny 🌞 with some cloud. Has that late summer feeling 🤔 OH is just getting up to make the tea/coffee. There's a cat on each corner by our feet.

  9. Morning, all Y'all. Brilliant sunshine, has just reached 10C! And they said we would be having a heatwave, but somehow I don't see 10C as being hot…

    1. Have you deleted your phone number?

      The reminder note, attached to your car keys, will be in the fridge…

    2. Good morning, Paul :-)) Cooler, misty here, still very warm. Expecting another belter once the sun burns that off.

    2. Well obviously it's well past time to do something about it……oh hang on a mo…..it's a bit inconvenient the moment.

        1. Sarc Grizz……nothing is less likely to happen, because its not part of the current adgenda. 🤗

    3. Yes. Listening to it now.

      Would also recommend the recent 2 3/4 hour Triggernometry with TR (formerly known as etc). Comments below the line were 100% supportive. Meanwhile Lubna is in hiding – Nick Buckley had her on his “Nick Talks” show over the weekend.

      Also yesterday’s Lotus Eaters at the end exposed the incestuous nature of the Government and pro-migrant NGOs. Don’t watch/listen if you are prone to high blood pressure.

    4. Yes but out of 50,000 odd of them. The individuals aren't the problem. The ethos from on high is.

  11. 411227+ up ticks,

    Morning GG & Each.

    It must be seen for what it is, a big part of the political crime syndicates agenda, demoralisation, that is a major tool in the TOOLS armory.

    Every shop that suffers can be taken as a front line in the fightback, in my book this has to be established NOW.

    These "government" seemingly supported thieving cretins are undermining the family business in many cases thereby openly attacking the backbone of the nation.

    Tuesday 12 August: Shopkeepers left demoralised by the authorities’ soft touch on thieving

  13. Good morning all.
    A warm day ahead with a tad over 18°C on the thermometer.
    A bit of a lie in this morning and a MUCH better sleep than normal, plus my semi-seized right knee appears to have freed off.
    Not a lot planned which is just as well as working up the "garden" will be far too hot later on.

    1. Take it easy….not too much too soon (lecture over)….think weather due to break in a day or so, but then return next week.

      1. Hope we get some decent rain soon. I've a load of brash to get burnt and the surroundings are a little too dry at the moment.

        1. Yikes…no rain of any substance forecast here (Northern UK), for next 10-14 days minimum..good luck, Bob

  14. Good morning. So Biddy Baxter, creator and editor of Blue Peter, has died. I confess I thought she was already long gone.

  15. Good morning all ,

    Phew , wasn't it a very warm night .

    19c .. now .. I blame high temps on solar farms , and the growth of housing estates , rows and rows of caravan estates, new rods, concrete , car parks , aircraft , traffic queues, huge fields of ripening cereal crops , oh and the rest.

    We are an overcrowded little island with crumbling cliffs and and a diminishing water supply .. we will soon have a potato and broccoli shortage .. but never mind , we have now got a population of milllions of rice eaters , and a never ending supply of sacks of rice., and a Prime Minister who eats cheese and fish for his breakfast , and probably a collection of ministers who consume flatbread , mashed banana and dahl .

    Did some one say 50,000 illegal small boat people in 12 months ?

    More than that , they are everywhere .. in every shape and form , and it looks as if the Indian sub continent are here on holiday in Dorset , thanks to Bollywood films … yep , driving like maniacs in their very very expensive top of the range blacked out Mercs, Beemers, Audis , Porsche 4x4s etc .. waving us locals out of the way .. the new rich have it all .

    1. In Japan they'd be instructed to move apart by the police.

      This is why Japan doesn't let the vermin in.

  17. Morning All 🙂😊
    Of course it's sunny again and 30 plus later today.
    The Authorities' ? "Power to give orders, make decisions and enforce obedience".
    Oh dear what a shame our mob in charge don't understand their obligations.
    Good post on Facebook today re starmer saying Vlad is a liar and can't be trusted. Oh what a wonderful solid response against our resident Mr pants on fire.

          1. Long gone friends showed me how to pluck a pheasant!!!
            Just skin it.
            And I never roast, always casserole.

  21. We are on our way back. We set off at 7 from St Mary’s and have just spotted Wolf Rock. I am hoping we will be there by 10:00 (so, about an hour). Then another 5 hours from there!

    2. Did you enjoy a pint in the Bishop & Wolf public house (named for the two lighthouses) when you were on St Mary's?

      1. No! I didn’t even see it! We were heading for the Atlantic but got diverted to a local pub in Old Town where i had a nice pint of Scilly cider. We had some trouble with the motor to our tender in the last day so husband was having to row us to shore so we didn’t stay out as late as we might otherwise have done last night.

    2. As an addendum to that: why is there a universal clamour for "Islamophobia" to be universally proscribed? Especially among those who do not partake in it.

      Why is no other 'belief system' (among the hundreds currently in practice) being given similar status and legal protection?

      1. If people are allowed to criticise muslim then they can detail and explain all of it's horrific atrocities and that puts people off the state forcing them on us.

    4. The Left protect the Left. It's why Stamer called an inquiry into pakistani muslim paedophile rape gangs. He wants to make sure it only finds what he wants it to and then will only actually go for a lowly junior official, not the vast swathes of muslim apologists and Leftists who endorsed and encouraged the rape of children.

  24. Have any Amazon Users come across Rufus on their Page Header line

    It seem AI is invading us there

  25. Have any Amazon Users come across Rufus on their Page Header line

    It seem AI is invading us there

  26. SIR – Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, says it’s a “national disgrace” that white working-class pupils were unable to get the grades needed for university (Commentary, August 11).

    As someone who taught in further education colleges throughout my life, I can assure the Education Secretary that she is talking nonsense.
    How will a degree in English literature help you lay a new patio, build a brick wall or enable you to make your own wedding dress?

    Our students included those who had achieved little or nothing at school as well as post-a-level trainees at John Lewis. The range of courses – both academic and vocational, including evening classes – was enormous and the pass rates exceptional.

    The obsession with schooling until 18, followed by taking a university degree, is totally misguided.

    David N Booth
    Cheadle, Cheshire

    Indeed and well said. Countless youngsters prefer to remain at school (university is a school) because it is a mollycoddled cushy number with no hard graft involved. That is why these gormless creatures prefer it to an apprenticeship, which gives them life skills and a living.

    This is precisely why the British police has plummetted downhill. Its top ranks are filled with clueless twats who got there because of their social service degrees and Common Purpose brainwashing.

    Time to make the young work hard again and learn proper life skills.

    1. Well, no, a degree in English literature won't, but as someone with one and running a million quid plus IT company when I have a problem I don't build the wall myself, I find an expert to do it for me because I've work more suited to my skill set to spend the time earning the money to pay the wall builder.

      White kids don't do well because the diversity are over promoted. They're protected at school and have different grading levels at university. Then they hit the working world and people realise they're thick. We had a black fellow interview here and he couldn't list the OSI layers nor even begin to troubleshoot a simple problem through a logical pattern. Why not? Because he'd been shielded from failure his entire life.

      2. Two questions for you:

        1. How many people running "million quid plus IT companies" do we need?
        2. Who is going to build your wall if all the prospective builders are wasting their time taking English degrees?

      1. At least when Wilson(?) raised the leaving age to 16 he was honest enough to admit that aim.

        1. When I first started teaching my room was in a demountable known as “the ROSLA hut”. Raising Of the School Leaving Age.

  27. Labour Under Pressure to Sack Trade Envoy Who Visited Northern Cyprus

    The UK’s Trade Envoy to Turkey Afzal Khan MP is under pressure today to resign today over his recent trip to Northern Cyprus. The territory is not recognised by the UK…

    Khan turned up for what local newspaper Londra Gazete said were “official engagements.” He is set to get an honorary university doctorate today according to the paper…

    The FCDO claims it wasn’t informed in advance of the trip and that it was done in a “personal capacity“. Doesn’t sound very personal if it’s full of “official engagements”…

    Notional Trust
    20h
    Muslim MP supports islamic occupation of European lands.
    No surprise there then.

    Two Tier Swampy
    20h
    Of course it was official. Starmer's dirty mitts are all over this. Next we will hear that our two overseas territories in Cyprus are considered illegal, according to some Chinese led foreign court, and Starmer will freely hand them over to a Houthi militia in Yemen!

  28. Tube passengers face arrest after tackling man with trousers down
    A man filmed being forced off a District Line train was later detained under the Mental Health Act. Police say he was assaulted and have appealed for witnesses.

    A group of commuters face arrest after kicking and dragging a man off a Tube carriage when he dropped his trousers.

    British Transport Police (BTP) believe that the man, who was later detained under the Mental Health Act, was assaulted on a District Line train in east London last week.

    In video shared online, up to four passengers appeared to lunge at the man after he repeatedly refused to pull up his trousers at about 3.30pm on Thursday.

    The man had reportedly been yelling before placing his belt around his neck during the eastbound journey between Upton Park and East Ham. He then dropped his trousers and underwear, exposing his genitals and buttocks.

    The video showed that, when challenged by a passenger, the man repeatedly swore at him. A fight broke out and the man was held down on the carriage floor before being dragged off the train and on to a platform. He was later arrested by an off-duty police officer after passengers alerted London Underground staff.

    Police have appealed for witnesses and are investigating whether the passengers who confronted and pinned down the man committed any criminal offences. No further arrests have been made so far.

    The BTP said: “The man had been assaulted by a number of other passengers and was initially arrested by an off-duty officer before being detained under the Mental Health Act and taken to hospital. An investigation into the incident is ongoing.”

    Crimes on the London Underground and Docklands Light Railway have surged since the pandemic and have more than doubled since Sir Sadiq Khan entered City Hall in May 2016.

    https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/tube-passengers-arrest-assault-trousers-down-fp32780vr

    1. Detained Under the mental health act, they always come up with a stupid see through pathetic excuse to try and cover up the obvious lack of intelligence, the total dis-regard for British law and straight forward human common sense. And total lack of respect for our long established customs.
      There is no where in the world that anyone would get away with doing what he did.
      Crimes have double since the pandemic???? Any excuse, but Nothing to do with, since the hundreds of thousands of invaders have arrived on our shores, but also since kahnt perminately moved in to the London mayor's office. But….The crimes are happening all over the country.

      1. It's all down to the invasion. The diversity keep getting let off if not outright protected by the state and decent people punished. It's utterly obscene.

        Just more two tier, hypocritical policing.

        1. Pretty much. As she expected. Everyone knows why he won the Mayoral election, nothing to do with his capabilities.

    1. They were vigilant not vigilante.
      They are being branded as vigilantes to create a stronger case against them.
      Had the perpetrator been white British, and the citizens black British, I strongly suspect that they would be branded heroes.

    3. That the diversity committed a crime and the others acted to prevent it and plod of course go after those acting for the law.

      It's utterly absurd and yes, it is because the diversity are being protected by the state and the white decent people suppressed.

    4. As i heard it, the miscreant was about to defecate onto the carriage floor but don't know if that was true sr not. Trouble is these days, what with the authorities deliberately muddying the info waters, one doesn't know what to believe.

  30. Lord Farquard
    16h
    The police have given up arresting and prosecuting for shoplifting and smoking cannabis (up to 3 year sentence available) because these are "Small crimes". Yet having 100% legal sticker phrases on a website such as "they're not here to integrate" got Sam Melia 2 years in prison and Lucy C got 31 months for saying she couldn't care less if…
    Who decided shoplifting and illegal drug taking are almost non crimes while writing legal opinions online are serious offences?
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1ee2a1a3ebeccc6920e7582abf7ba42e90e510c4be3b566a35875178d930027b.png

    2. A second coffee clears the brain.
      I get the impression that Noel is not a fan of Khant.

      1. One has to admire his superlative use of the English language.

        I'm on my second coffee too. Had an extraction and injection in the gob this morning so most of it is going down my shirt.

          1. Dodgy crown and a cracked base. Had to come out. 9.30. I would normally do late morning but i wanted it over with.
            I can still feel the anaesthetic up my nose and into my eyebrow !

    3. If plod ignore such crime but are happy to patrol twitter for thoughtcrime, what's the point of law enforcement? If they just can't be bothered why do the rest of us obey the law if it no longer applies?

    1. Lefties reply.. whimper whimper.. "Terror is not born in a vacuum it often grows in the ruins left by imperialism, dictatorship, and decades of stolen futures."

      2. And most middle eastern countries are dictatorships, Israel being the only democracy, and strangely enough the only non Islamic country, in the region. Now I wonder if there could be some (obviously very tenuous) connection?

      1. The more disrupted, dangerous and unhappy and insecure the country is the more they seem to like it.

      1. Good morning Bill

        I am certain you receive the the quarterly Canal Zoners magazine .. did you read the latest issue , and the article written by the late Emanuel Shinwell commenting that several / many in the Labour party supported Nasser and were anti Israel ..

        Nasser indulged in threats about driving Israel into the sea!

        Article taken from the Daily Sketch, November 3rd 1956

        I will leave it at that for the time being

        I have my lunch meeting to attend now , and my members are diminishing , because of age and the inevitable, it is only us children who knew a few things, eh Bill?

      2. Good morning Bill

        I am certain you receive the the quarterly Canal Zoners magazine .. did you read the latest issue , and the article written by the late Emanuel Shinwell commenting that several / many in the Labour party supported Nasser and were anti Israel ..

        Nasser indulged in threats about driving Israel into the sea!

        Article taken from the Daily Sketch, November 3rd 1956

        I will leave it at that for the time being

        I have my lunch meeting to attend now , and my members are diminishing , because of age and the inevitable, it is only us children who knew a few things, eh Bill?

      1. and more so, beginning with l, kbhoy…and leave the ECHR, embedded in NI Agreement notwithstanding.

    2. I'm told by a CS (although a while ago), illegals are approx 10% of total, 90% are here illegally due to UK being in ECHR system.

    1. Grey-haired granny activists are ruining Britain

      Elderly protestors arrested at Palestine Action demonstrations remind us that age and wisdom do not always go hand-in-hand

      Tom Slater
      11th August 2025, 3:55pm BST

      Who radicalised Nan? If the arrests at the Palestine Action demonstrations on the weekend are anything to go by, the world of crank-Left protest is a hell of a lot older than its youthy reputation would have you believe. According to the Metropolitan Police, half of the 532 activists who were arrested in London on Saturday – mostly for expressing support for Palestine Action, now a proscribed organisation – were aged 60 or over. Ninety-seven of those nicked were in their 70s. Fifteen of them were in their 80s. If Britain's middle-class oldsters keep getting banged up at this rate, Saga Cruises's revenues will never recover.

      Scenes of retired aromatherapists from Totnes being carted off by London's finest underline what an authoritarian, unsustainable mess the proscription of Palestine Action has created. If found guilty, those alleged to have caused £7m of damage at RAF Brize Norton last month are thoroughly deserving of a long stretch inside. As are the scumbags alleged to have attacked a Jewish-owned business in Stamford Hill, over a bogus connection to an Israeli arms manufacturer. Because nothing says "right side of history" like smashing in Jews' windows. But proscribing the organisation, and thus making it a crime under the Terrorism Act even to express solidarity with it, is an outrageous affront to freedom of speech that has only handed these Israelophobic old codgers an opportunity to pose as the heirs to Nelson Mandela.

      Nevertheless, there is something striking about the advanced age of many of today's perma-protesters, and this isn't unique to Palestine Action. When road-blocking irritants Extinction Rebellion staged two mass civil-disobedience campaigns in London in April and October 2019, activists aged 56 and over made up almost a third of those charged with an offence, according to an academic study. (Less surprising was that the participants were "predominantly middle class", with 85 per cent of them holding a degree.)

      Just Stop Oil also made good use of the elderly, enlisting two octogenarians, who looked like they were straight out of a Werther's Original advert, to attack the glass case of Magna Carta at the British Library last year. When I was covering those pathetic People's Vote marches raging against Brexit a few years ago, I was often confronted by well-off older people, fresh from their second home in the south of France, telling me I'd stolen my own future.

      What to make of all this? Leftish protest has long been colonised by the middle-class and time-rich, and it doesn't get more time-rich than being a middle-class retiree. A lot of this is surely seasoned placard-wavers keen to relive the glory days of the Sixties and Seventies, with whatever bats**t cause they have attached themselves to becoming almost secondary. Decades of anti-Israel propaganda seem to have convinced our more credulous pensioners – as it has much of the low-information middle classes – that Israel is committing a long-dreamed-for "genocide" in Gaza, rather than waging war on jihadists who murdered, raped and kidnapped its people on October 7.

      Where environmental activism is concerned, there's also a large dose of generational guilt, fuelled by a simplistic, eco-alarmist discourse that the boomers lived it large, racked up all the carbon emissions, and are now leaving their grand-kids to fight it out in the post-apocalyptic Mad Max-style dystopia that is supposedly just around the corner.

      Older people can often get a bad rap in political debate these days, and often for things that actually reflect well on them – like their support for Brexit or preference for parties who know what a woman is. Those grey-topped Palestine Action or Extinction Rebellion activists are hardly reflective of where most retirees are at politically. Still, they are a useful reminder that age and wisdom do not always go hand-in-hand.

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/11/grey-haired-granny-activists-are-ruining-britain

      Mr Slater makes an important about the naming of 'terrorist' groups. Even if such groups exist as coherent entities with identifiable leaders and an ability to publicise and organise in between their bouts of obstruction and vandalism, is waving one of their flags really an indictable offence? I know some North London residents will be understandably and genuinely frightened by hordes of Ropers and Socialist Worker nutjobs rampaging through the streets with Palestinian [sic] flags but these people are just raddled old 60s and 70s activists who can't retire quietly and do good things for the poor people they once claimed to care about.

      I looked on http://gov.uk for proscribed Islamic groups. This isn't half of them:
      • Abdallah Azzam Brigades
      • Ziyad al-Jarrah Battalions
      • Abu Nidal Organisation
      • Abu Sayyaf Group
      • Ajnad Misr (Soldiers of Egypt)
      • Al-Ashtar Brigades including Saraya al-Ashtar, Wa’ad Allah Brigades, Islamic Allah Brigades, Imam al-Mahdi Brigades and al-Haydariyah Brigades
      • Al-Gama’at al-Islamiya
      • Al Ghurabaa (was Al Muhajiroun)
      • Al Ittihad Al Islamia
      • Al Murabitun
      • Al-Mukhtar Brigades including Saraya al-Mukhtar
      • Al Qa’ida
      • Al Shabaab
      • Ansar Al Islam
      • Ansar al-Sharia-Benghazi (Partisans of Islamic Law)
      • Ansar Al Sharia-Tunisia
      • Ansar Al Sunna
      • Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis
      • Ansaroul Islam (also known as Ansar ul Islam and Ansaroul Islam Lil Irchad Wal Jihad)
      • Ansarul Muslimina Fi Biladis Sudan (Vanguard for the protection of Muslims in Black Africa)
      • Asbat Al-Ansar
      • Groupe Islamique Armée
      Many of them are simply separatists fighting local wars. Our old friends Hizb ut-Tahrir are also down there. One senses the idea of Monty Python's Judean groups, as though there are 100 ways in Arabic to say 'Kill the kuffar and conquer the world'.

      Just for balance, here are a few white supremacist groups.
      Feuerkrieg Division
      Atomwaffen Division (AWD) also known as National Socialist Order (NSO)
      National Action
      Maniacs Murder Cult
      Russian Imperial Movement

      https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/proscribed-terror-groups-or-organisations–2/proscribed-terrorist-groups-or-organisations-accessible-version

          2. I was part of the *MAD world, but the Ban the bombers were the ones who were mad.

            * Mutually Assured Destruction

        3. I remember being confronted by GC women when when I was in the OTC – I was in a lorry delivering assault craft from Oxford back to Fleet. They threw apples at us. One cracked the windscreen.

          1. Very similar to the ones gluing their faces to the road, chucking paint over works of art. Labour voters to their manly haircuts. Glad you weren’t hurt – an apple thrown at someone’s head, at speed, can knock a person out.

  39. ALEX MASSIE
    London’s left indulged the Nicola Sturgeon fantasy
    To the English intelligentsia, the former first minister was the anti-Boris but her relentless tribalism was ruinous for Scotland

      1. And still no prosecutions! Don’t forget why we call her Nikeliar! Another blooming cover-up!

      4. Scotland's education used to be something to look up to. Seems no more. That's really depressing…

  40. Universal Credit Claimants Soar by More Than One Million Under Labour

    Latest Department for Work and Pensions figures reveal the number of Universal Credit claimants has soared by 1.1 million since July last year. As of last month, a whopping 8 million people claimed Universal Credit, up from 6.9 million last July. That’s up by 16% since Starmer took office…

    That is a record high. 46% of those have no work requirements – the highest ever. Of that, 76.5% were from the White ethnic group. The Asian/Asian British group accounted for 10.2%, while Black/African/Caribbean/Black British made up 6.0%. A total of 1,296,000 claimants were foreign nationals. After Starmer caved in to rebels over welfare reforms, don’t expect that number to come down anytime soon…

    12 August 2025 @ 10:07

    3. The welfare system was never intended to be a lifetime benefit. It was introduced after WWII in order to provide assistance to those who needed it on a temporary basis. We lived then in an industrial society with full employment. Those given welfare assistance were expected on recovery to return to work.

      We now have a de-industrialised service economy with market distortions such as our ridiculous inflated property prices. As a result many have no desire to work and become net takers under the assumption that we are a rich country. Welfare has become a mere tool of governments to secure elections by bribing the useless millions to vote for their policies.

      The cringeworthy efforts of the present government to buy Muslim votes is just the latest illustration of the misuse and institutionalisation of welfarism.

    4. Considering where unemployment has been pushed by Labour and Thieves Reeves' taxes it's no wonder.

      The OBR and Treasury never consider that though.

  41. On the one hand, on the other…

    SIR – Brian Gedella (Letters, August 11) suggests that those arrested for supporting Palestine Action are probably "naive fools" let down by inaccurate BBC reporting and a refusal by the Metropolitan Police to stop the hate marches.

    Even if we suppose that these individuals did not understand the numerous warnings that Palestine Action is a proscribed terrorist organisation and that supporting it is a criminal offence, their ignorance cannot be excused or the impact on their prospects empathised with.

    Palestine Action, along with many other hateful organisations, chooses to turn a blind eye towards the terror inflicted on Israel in October 2023. This supposed ignorance is deliberate, epitomised by Greta Thunberg's refusal to watch the harrowing footage of the massacre at the Nova Festival so that she can remain blind to reality.

    All those individuals who were arrested – naive or otherwise – deserve the full consequences of their decisions, which may prompt others to properly weigh their actions and educate themselves.

    Ignorance is no defence.

    Barry Gray
    Bournemouth, Dorset
    ________________________________________

    SIR – How can the Government not realise that by trying to ban peaceful demonstrations for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza (report, August 10), it is just putting a lid on a pressure cooker?

    Many people in this country are horrified by what is happening in Gaza and the only way we can make our feelings known is by demonstrating.

    This country, which was once to be admired, is falling apart, with decent citizens being silenced, ignored and sidelined.

    Gill Broadbent
    Winscombe, Somerset

      1. Gill represents the Lefty mindset, the self righteous virtuosity that they are right, because they are.

        They ignore that the response to their arrogance has been suppressed for decades and is now pushing back.

        But she can't conceive of that.

      2. Is it me, or do the lefties wringing their hands over Israel not being eradicated seem to be mainly women?

    2. I agree with Gill’s last paragraph but it isn’t the people she means who are being silenced. Well said Barry Gray. It’s about time actions and consequences were linked.

  42. Good morning, all. Becoming hot out there.

    What have we done to deserve having this person in authority.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7ab2e09080c1427447ac7be833d76ac15900cff78ff768a5b9759044f1a6407e.png
    Add your own descriptor.

    Here we go again. Who writes this tripe?
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/29aa0c508f952eb2a4f61c08afe4b78d60cdf9d28d9d31e6d361912cf1ffb823.png
    If the above highlighted areas are true – knowing the source that's a bit of a stretch – what is the point of welcoming the masses crossing the Channel? Doesn't make sense to import vast numbers of people and then not employ them. Those GDP and GDP per capita statistics won't improve if this state of affairs continues.

    1. He lies habitually. The only 'change' he's implementing is to change employment into unemployment, work in sackings, salaries in dust and wealth into manure.

      He's using buzzwords he thinks resonate with the public. The simple truth is his monomaniacal idea of change is all negative.

    2. I managed six years not being alive at the same time as him. Best years of my life!

  43. Hung the washing out to dry 40 minutes ago. Now, most things ready to iron… It's yer global boiling, doncha know?

    1. Ours went out at about 7. I imagine it's dry but better out than in (as it's too hot to fold the stuff).

  46. Travelone
    2h
    Labour have done nothing-
    This is what Greece has done – All people on boats arriving in Greece are detained . The asylum process has been removed for all ill Eagle arrivals. – they will never get asylum .

    What was the result –
    -13 boats carrying 843 migrants had made it to Crete between July 11 and July 25.-
    Crete arrivals by boat AFTER this new 'detain-no asylum' law —?
    ZERO.
    Simple isn't it —

    Au Revoir
    Travelone
    2h
    And yet Greece is also a member of the ECHR… remarkable what you can achieve when you ignore the 'uman rights 5th column isn't it

    Dog and Cat
    Travelone
    2h
    They said they would stop at nothing to sort this problem out and they've been true to their word. They've done nothing and stopped there.

    Foulan https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1a8bd102cff9c48df6e1f6a6df0b7d5f831c28f0cfc2d57ea1cfa5c5e4a9cf53.png

      1. Eventually that will be all that is available. Rationed of course. Thank God i'm 60 and not 6.

        1. Surpisingly, the Book Club I attend has chosen a book called BUTTER by a Japanese author called Asako Yuzuki (a lady) for our next September Book Club meeting on the 29th of September.

    3. It's American, so what do you expect? There's not much they cannot make from corn starch, even orange juice and maple syrup, which grows from trees, but their kids prefer the ersatz stuff.

  48. a hundred years ago:

    “A violent hurricane on Monday night did enormous damage to life and property in Holland and Germany. Full details are not yet available, as all telegraphic and telephonic communication with the devastated areas has been cut.
    Travellers coming from Zutphen to Arnhem, telegraphs Reuter’s Amsterdam correspondent, reported that the villages of Borkulo and Neede had been completely destroyed. Several other villages and towns in the Eastern Netherlands had also been swept by thunderstorms and hurricanes.

    Later reports stated that the storm also caused serious damage at Didam, Doetinchem, Oldenzaal, and Hengelo, all in the eastern part of the Province of Gelderland. Four persons were killed and 100 injured at Borkulo, which was struck by a typhoon lasting several minutes, leaving the village a mass of ruins. The towers of both churches were blown down, and not a single house escaped damage. Borkulo appears to have been the centre of the storm. This is a town with 5,000 inhabitants, of whom over 2,000 are now homeless, while the remainder are sheltering in their ruined homes. The Burgomaster, in an interview yesterday, said he saw the Belgian village of Liers during the war after seven German bombardments, but the state of Borkulo was worse. He had asked for Government assistance in the shape of troops and foodstuffs. The Governor of the Province of Gelderland has arrived at Borkulo on foot, all the roads being impassable for vehicles on account of the great number of trees blown down. Queen Wilhelmina has sent her private secretary to Borkulo to inquire into the extent of the disaster, and later it was officially announced that 300 military engineers had left yesterday morning for the wrecked town. Two hundred more have been sent to the little village of Zeeland, near Uden, in the Province of North Brabant, where heavy damage was also done by the cyclone. The damage at Borkulo and neighbourhood is estimated at over 4,000,000 florins.”

      1. Never heard the Sun called 'Glowball' before now!

        I always thought that typhoons happen in the Pacific, and hurricanes in the Atlantic. This breaking news report is from a century ago – the Dutch no longer use florins (aka guilder) as their currency. I imagine they had windy days even then (otherwise why build windmills?), and the Dutch were always vulnerable to inundation from the sea, as much of the country lies below sea level.

        I imagine this is breaking news, since nothing much could have happened in the Netherlands in the last 100 years that is newsworthy.

        1. Meteorology is much stricter today in its definitions of weather 'events'. Back then, any description would do and they'd be used interchangably for dramatic effect.

        3. It’s in the Terriblegraph’s “one hundred years ago today” section. Invariably interesting.

  49. Trump has betrayed Ukraine, making the world immeasurably more dangerous

    No US president has done more to make the West weak again than the current incumbent. It will take decades to repair the damage

    Daniel Hannan
    9th August 2025 3:13pm BST

    This is a straightforward defeat. A defeat, not just for Ukraine, but for the values which the Anglosphere and its allies have upheld since 1941, to the immense benefit of the human race. Aggression is being rewarded. Borders are being changed by force. A brittle dictatorship has defeated a Western alliance with a combined economy forty times larger than its own. The prestige of the democracies is suffering a Suez-level hit.

    As Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin meet in Alaska – a venue surely proposed by the Kremlin, both to demonstrate that Putin is again welcome in the United States and to suggest that there is nothing terribly new about ceding territory – all the momentum is with the Russian leader.

    From the moment he took office, Trump has been wheedling and conciliatory with Putin, aggressive and bullying with Volodymyr Zelensky. Who can say what animates him? Perhaps he can't forgive Zelensky for his cameo role in l'affaire Hunter Biden; perhaps, as conspiracy theorists claim, Putin has kompromat on him; or perhaps it is simply Trump's customary deference towards dictators.

    Frankly, it doesn't much matter. Whatever his motives, Trump has behaved exactly as a Russian asset would, not only vis-à-vis Ukraine, but also by making aggressive territorial claims against Denmark and threatening Canada with annexation. His tariff policies have caused as much disruption to Western economies as his sanctions have to Russia. Putin could not have wished for more.

    We do not know how much has already been settled, and there are still details to be hammered out. But the broad outlines of the proposed ceasefire deal can be glimpsed in leaks to both American and Russian media.

    Putin will hang on to most of what he has seized – not just the territories he occupied in 2014, but many of the lands he has conquered since 2022 and even, according to some briefings, those parts of Donetsk that are currently under Ukrainian control. Sanctions will be eased, and we might even see more economic collaboration between the US and Russia than before 2014. In any event, the US will stop supplying weapons to Ukraine.

    These concessions constitute a colossal Russian victory, regardless of what is decided on Ukraine's Nato aspirations, formal recognition of Russian sovereignty in Crimea or precisely where the lines are frozen.

    To understand the scale of the West's defeat, we need to remember why we were backing Ukraine in the first place. Not because we thought that Zelensky was brave or handsome or even particularly democratic. Not because we believed that Ukrainians were kinder or more amusing than their Russian cousins. Not even because, long before 2022, Russia had been buzzing our airspace and overseeing cyberattacks against our infrastructure and had, on two occasions, committed acts of war against us when it ordered its operatives to carry out lethal attacks on British soil (against Alexander Litvinenko in 2006 and, unsuccessfully, against Sergei Skripal in 2018).

    No, we are backing Ukraine because it is the wronged party. We are sending it weapons because it was attacked without provocation by a neighbour to whom it presented no threat. We are training its soldiers because, when Ukraine agreed to hand over its nuclear arsenal in 1994, it did so in exchange for an explicit promise that its independence would be respected within its existing borders – a promise guaranteed by Britain, the United States and (never forget) Russia.

    The idea that countries should not help themselves to slices of territory is not some ancient and immutable principle. On the contrary, it dates in its current form from exactly 84 years ago, August 1941, when Churchill and Roosevelt met in Newfoundland and agreed to the Atlantic Charter, a set of rules that they wanted to shape the post-war world. Land should not be annexed by force, nor borders altered without the consent of local people. Aggression should not be rewarded. Raw materials should be accessible on world markets and sea-lanes kept open, so that there would be less incentive to invade a neighbour. Democracy and self-determination should be encouraged over autocracy.

    When these ideals were proclaimed, the United States was still neutral. Four months later, after Pearl Harbor, the Atlantic Charter informed the war aims of the Allies. Its principles went on to shape the UN Charter and the Nato alliance. It is true that they were sometimes violated, for we live in an imperfect world. But they at least remained the aspiration. Until now.

    It cannot be sufficiently stressed that our interest in Ukraine was to uphold the international order under which mankind had flourished since 1945. It was never about Zelensky, however gallant his initial response to the invasion.

    Trumpians like to point to corruption and illiberalism in Ukraine as though they invalidate the premise of our assistance. But our 1994 guarantee was never conditional on who was in government, or what kind of government it was.

    There is nothing new here. Poland was hardly a model democracy when Britain guaranteed its sovereignty in March 1939. Józef Piłsudski's 1926 coup had created an autocratic regime which, while it stopped well short of the totalitarianism of Nazi Germany or the USSR, none the less harassed dissidents and censored media.

    In much the same way, Ukraine today, while nowhere near Russian levels of despotism, is far from being a free country. This should not surprise us. As Roger Scruton used to say, the worst sin of communism was to destroy civil associations, making it hard to build the trust on which an open society must rest.

    Over the past three weeks, Zelensky's international credit has fallen almost as low as his domestic ratings. Crowds have been protesting against his decision to move against an anti-corruption body after it pointed to irregularities in some state contracts.

    Few things are worse for a country's morale than the sense that its leaders are enriching themselves, for corruption in wartime means funds that were supposed to go into artillery are disappearing into bank accounts in Cyprus.

    I was unsurprised by the protests. I have watched over three years as Zelensky has weakened local government and purged critical mayors. A case might be made in wartime for cracking down on pro-Russian parties; but he cracked down almost as hard on the pro-Western parties.

    Eighteen months ago, I was supposed to be sharing a platform in the US with the former Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, but he was banned from attending. I wanted to make more of a fuss, but MPs from his party begged me not to, as they did not want to hurt Ukraine's international image.

    None of this should make the slightest difference to our policy. But I fear that it will, because support for Ukraine has been presented as a goodies-and-baddies issue rather than a question of defending territorial integrity and national sovereignty. We somehow seem to find those aims sterile, dull and inadequate.

    Just as Tony Blair once claimed in a party conference speech that we had joined the Second World War to end Nazism (when in fact we joined to defend Poland), so we now imagine that we came to the aid of Ukraine because Zelensky is nicer than Putin.

    It may in fact now be Zelensky who has the greater incentive to keep fighting, since his presidency will not survive peace on anything like the terms proposed. But, to repeat, that does not alter the fundamentals. We were backing and supplying Ukraine because the world order that was born after 1945 lifted our species to unprecedented heights of peace and prosperity.

    When Putin gets to keep the better part of his spoils, and furious Ukrainians eject their regime, every tinpot dictator in the world will get the message. Nato, the most powerful alliance on the planet, would not protect one of its friends. The old order is over. The world of the Atlantic Charter has gone. Something altogether colder and darker is on its way.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/09/trump-betrayed-ukraine-world-immeasurably-more-dangerous/

    Putin will eventually be gone, one way or another. How long that will take and what will follow are moot points but something colder and darker is already here in the West and it can't be blamed on him.

    And the observation about Blair and Poland is a mere debating point, the kind of detail that BBC types are trained in pursuing in order to deflect certain discussions from their real truth.

      1. Not only that. He tells lies. He says Russia attacked without provocation. Much like the anti Israel lot ignore October 7th so Hannan ignores the fact that the Russian language was banned in Ukraine followed by a Nazi battalion slaughtering some 14,000 Russian speakers in the Donbass. Putin acted initially to protect his own countrymen and women.

          1. Ukrain should have been left as a buffer country between Europe and Russia. But no the EU ( Germany) had to push it and so all this started. It is an expasionist eu that has caused all the trouble in the first place.

          5. yes, but what is the EU? Just a catspaw of the Americans. Germany is often cited as running the EU, but Germany is still occupied by the Americans.

          6. Much of the US forces have moved out. Even thrir HQ at Koblenz has gone. Much has gone.

          7. A former German chancellor said how the Americans lean on German leaders and if they don’t do what they’re told, they start blackmailing/threatening them.

          8. The US left Bad Kreuznach. ( where I lived) and gifted them a large barraks but The Germans did not use it for housing as it was not built to German standards so people were left homeless. You cannot trust what Germans tell you. I know .

          9. In my experience they prefer to pull older buildings down and re-build. Also, American standards are not seen as particularly high.

        2. Don't think Ukraine is a NATO country, Delboy? Isn't the idea of NATO on Russian borders why Putin kicked off in the first instance, he thought he had a deal with the 'West' that wouldn't happen?

        3. The irony of banning the Russian language is that Ukrainian is a dialect of Russian. You don't get a new and unique language in a territory that's only existed for 100 years. It's like insisting that everyone in Britain should speak with a regional accent.

    2. For all the ranting and squealing from the Left, Russia hasn't really moved. It's stopped after it moved into Crimea.

      If memory serves, Ukraine was shelling that part of the country prior to the 'invasion'. For Zelensky to give it up – considering Russia isn't shifting and Ukraine can't make them move, with the war dragging on horribly it's long past time to end it – how it was always going to end: with Ukraine's defeat.

      1. The common 'narrative' is:
        – Ukraine signs EU deal
        – Putin 'interferes' and Yanukovych pulls it
        – CIA whips up anger, using 'ultra-nationalists' (i.e. the Azov Brigade)
        – rioting starts in Kiev in which Russians are attacked
        – away in the east, Russian 'paramilitaries' sieze towns
        – Ukraine retaliates, leading to war in which 14,000 die (both sides, military and civilian).

    3. I've lost track of the untruths in that article – at best Hannan is guilty of very poor research!

  50. Well, that's an unexpected pause in my activities.
    Came in to pick up a pair of work-gloves and hear the opening chords of Beethoven's Choral Fantasia beginning, so it was volume up, then sit and relax.

          1. I'm using hand secateurs but still have to pull the stems away and I'll then have to digg the roots up.

    2. Good for you! What is this world if full of care you have no time to sit and (in this case) listen.

  51. Campers treating Dartmoor 'like a festival site'

    Dartmoor National Park Authority said it had seen an increase in "fly camping", including people bringing generators and mini fridges with them, since the Supreme Court upheld the legal right to wild camp on areas of private land in the park in May.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly773d3gwzo

    Cause and effect perhaps, but it would probably have happened anyway in a country where too many have no respect for their surroundings.

    BBC East Midlands has recently been reporting on similar matters, notably the numbers of campervans on the roads around Mam Tor and Castleton. In Somerset, police are spending too much time dealing with traffic problems in the Cheddar Gorge, where the road has become a race track.

    Will new plans solve parking woes in Peak District tourist hotspot?
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyeq15p74jo

    Road closure targets car meets at beauty spot
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gz28v4klno

    1. WWhy Aren't they slashed as soon as they hit the sa d (seeing obviously no-one in northern France has a knife)

      1. They only do that for photo opportunities to make it look like they are doing something to stop it. They aren't.

  53. There's a bizarre video doing the rounds which appears to feature Tucker Carlson interviewing George Stephanopoulos, who is dressed as his sister Mother Agapia Stephanopoulos, an orthodox nun. It's obviously a man. He hasn't even bothered to shave. There is also little evidence that Stephanopoulos has a sister. It's a Jew hate fest wherein they suggest that Christians are safer in Arab countries than in Israel. Sorry, "other Arab countries", since they don't acknowledge that there is a Jewish country. Along with Candace Owens, Tucker seems to have lost his marbles.
    https://x.com/NiohBerg/status/1954999923495334234

        1. In a US court case, lawyers for Murdoch's News Corp, took the position that Fox News was entertainment and thus should not be taken literally when they made slanderous comments and lied a lot. If remember correctly, it was Carlson whose program was at the heart of the complaint.

          What was funny to this elderly cynic, was that the MAGA supporters, who treat Fox News as their official news channel, somehow did not look at those lawyer's statements and realise they were being led by their noses. Fox did get rid of him though – a bit too much like bait for more lawsuits.

        2. He's controlled opposition, everything he says is part of the nudge agenda. Example, he was pushing the aliens psyop until it became clear that nobody was buying it.
          Apparently Robert Malone has talked about aliens too recently. Pity. I liked him. But I know there is a faction of probably genuine people that has always suspected him of being a plant.

    2. One could retort that if Christians are at greater risk in Israel it is because Muslim terrorists don't care who they kill and attack relentlessly.

    2. I give yours 300:1. No, 400:1.

      However, the diversity will be given a suspended sentence, a slight telling off and released on the same day.

      Odds of that: even Stevens.

      1. Do you understand how odds work?
        You'll pay me 400 if I'm correct? She's due out any day now.
        It's expected during August and Hermer probably won't do anything before then.

        edit for s on odds.

    3. I'm just trying to imagine what a white expat flying to Benghazi from Cypress on a Libyan Arab Airlines flight would have received.

    4. It'll likely depend on the judge, sos…possibly even increase it. She shouldn't be there in the first place, imo.

      2. Bees and termites know what to do. Perhaps the humans should flap their arms a bit or something.

        1. Didn't new ruling re distance of window openings come in following accidents/deaths (Eric Clapton's son being one).

          1. I expect so.

            It is only stupid people/druggies/alkies that fall out of windows so no real loss.

          2. He was only a couple of years old, staying with his mother. High-rise flats always remind me of my grandmother – my uncles tried to persuade her to move into one, built specifically for pensioners, her response ‘I’m not going there, it’s full of old people’. Can’t fault the logic. Miss her.

          3. Never had much family myself, so when reminded of a late relative, I get strong feelings of loss – mostly Great-Aunt Hilda (a lovely, small, fat woman) who stood in for my maternal Grandmother, she having died when I was still unable to walk.

          4. I don’t have many, Paul, never did and even fewer now. I loved my (paternal) grandmother and wish I’d known her better and closer (she and my mother fell out before my birth). She’s where I get my Breton genes from, and her husband my grandfather (a dead ringer for Breton fisherman). Possibly also my character….:-D

          5. Breton genes, eh? In the absence of photos to the contrary, I bet that makes you a really good-looking woman, in a fresh and somewhat powerful way. Respect!
            Never knew my Father's parents, they both died before I was born. Mother's family died early, too, except for her Father, whom I got to know whenI was a teenager.

          6. Thank you, Paul…I wish…Grandmother was a very handsome woman, and physically strong with it. Me, some kind of throw back, and a sickly child to boot (grandmother: there’s something wrong with that child, needs feeding up). Wish I’d lived with her, I’d have had a different life. Speaking of how I look, each time I venture abroad, someone speaks to me in French thinking I look as though I am (had my DNA tested some years ago…47% Brittany, some British, rest Russian/Asian…could there have been a sailor in my mother’s past :-DDD ) Good to read you finally got to know your Grandfather…meeting as adults 🙂

          7. Looking French, eh? Exotic!
            What part of the country do you live in? Don't give address, county or region would be OK. We're coming over later this summer, need to visit Mother and In-Laws, could take a day or two out to detour towards you.
            Had a beer or 3 with Kaypea a year or two back, in Penarth. Hope to repeat the experience!

          8. Further North, heading further soon…sorry, Him Outdoors too much of a loner….have a great time with Mum and Outlaws (and Kaypea if you meet up) x

          11. Except for frinds of Putin.

            Though whether defenestration is considered a fall, I leave to the experts.

      1. Given some of the names of the complainants they were probably gifted from the taxpayer.

        Anyone with the money to buy a newbuild flat in that area would know about it or could afford internal air conditioning.

    4. New houses/flats are all built with black windows instead of white presumably as an eco measure. It m akes them terribly ugly.

  56. Entering the Helford river – husband happy (and me too). So, the boat made it to the Scilly Isles and back. Good boat! As we need to bring it up to Southampton next year and then over the Channel in 2027. My retirement income lol.

  57. Just in from 8 hours painting white on the woodwork of Firstborn's barn. I ache…

  58. Just in from 8 hours painting white on he woodwork of Firstborn's barn. I ache…

  59. Ross Kempsell
    The Chagos betrayal proves Labour is lying about public spending

    Handing over the territory is the paradigmatic example of the governing class failing to deliver for the people they are paid to serve

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2025/08/11/TELEMMGLPICT000411790482_17549166816820_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqpVlberWd9EgFPZtcLiMQf0Rf_Wk3V23H2268P_XkPxc.jpeg?imwidth=1280
    Chinatown, Port Louis, Mauritius Credit: Heathcliff O'Malley

    11 August 2025 1:53pm BST

    “Behind every great fortune there lies a great crime”, wrote Honore De Balzac. In Keir Starmer’s world it seems to work the other way around: behind the great crime of the Chagos deal there lies an almost unfathomably colossal fortune.

    Thanks to the dogged reporting of this newspaper we now know that the sordid Chagos deal will, by the Government Actuary Department’s admission, cost British taxpayers no less than £34.7 billion. That is more than ten times the figure originally touted by the Prime Minister. Even by Rachel Reeves’s standards that makes for a staggering rounding error. I’m afraid it really confirms the Government’s prior public statements on the costs of the deal were never anything more than a pack of lies.

    I should know: I’ve tried to obtain these figures since at least 28 October last year, when I tabled a written question on the matter in Parliament: “To ask His Majesty’s Government how much they will pay per annum to lease Diego Garcia; and what is the expected total cost of the financial support that the UK has agreed to give to Mauritius, including any cost of annual payments.”

    A few weeks later a non-answer arrived: “Details of financial arrangements are held in the confidential exchange of letters that accompanies the draft treaty, which we do not plan to make public unless compelled to by parliament in due course”. What other gruesome financial revelations are buried within those letters, masked by endless gobbets of Whitehallese, shamelessly concealed from those of us who must pay the price? Those documents and the complete costs must now be published in full.

    I honestly believe that if such an absurd and costly scandal as the Chagos debacle had been presided over by an administration other than this shameless Labour junta – impregnable with its planet-sized majority in the House of Commons – then the entire UK government would have been at serious risk of collapse. From the moment Starmer came to office, the Chagos subplot has been a mind-boggling story of deranged self-harm and ministerial insouciance at best, malfeasance and deeply suspect political conduct at worst.

    It’s patently obvious to any British taxpayer that £34.7 billion of our money would be much better spent on other things: 10 aircraft carriers for example, reversing the whole burden of recent hikes in business taxation, or increasing the schools budget by 50 per cent. So gargantuan is this quantum of public spending, if properly directed and managed, it could make a significant and lasting difference to daily life for working Brits.

    Instead Labour is inexplicably and voluntarily gifting it to the state of Mauritius – not just now, but for decades to come. Much of the costs of this deal are simply an enormous appropriation of British taxpayer’s money into the exchequer of a third country. It represents a tax cut for ordinary Mauritians of staggering proportions. In June, after Starmer’s deal was signed, Mauritius’s Prime Minister announced that 80 per cent of Mauritians will be taken out of income tax altogether.

    Mauritius’s sovereign debt is now effectively being paid down with the corporation tax and Vat bills of struggling plumbers in Leicestershire and shopkeepers in Cornwall. Labour’s deal massively improved Mauritius’s public sector debt position and will upgrade its sovereign credit rating. They say Keir Starmer isn’t very good at his job, but he is, by some distance, the single most effective finance minister that Mauritius has ever had.

    The Chagos scandal is the paradigmatic example of the governing “lanyard class” failing to deliver for the people they are paid public sector salaries to serve. The UK is faced with spurious legal, territorial and financial claims all the time. It should dismiss them out of hand. The UK is constantly criticised in multilateral fora for an entire constellation of reasons – many of them entirely spurious. The duty of any British minister or official, of whatever political hue, should be to be able to cut through this nonsense and prioritise the UK national interest above all, especially when it comes to defence and security. No doubt an enormous golden statue of Keir Starmer soon to be erected in Port Louis will serve as a constant reminder of this elite failure.

    ********************I*
    This government carries a heavy stench of corruption.

    Mere stupidity is not explanation enough for the unfathonable decisions we have seen.

    The truth will out.edited

    David Harris
    19 hrs ago
    Reply to Paul Smith
    Someone needs to follow the money.
    Given that TTK’s best pal “negotiated” the deal for Mauritius it is difficult not to suspect some traditional socialist nest feathering going on

    Hel Han
    18 hrs ago
    Reply to Paul Smith
    The truth needs to be exposed ASAP.
    Starmer and his corrupt sham of a government have to be swept from power and prosecutions must swiftly follow.

    A View On This
    1 day ago
    The UK govt that wouldn't give a loan guarantee to Harland and Wolff at a critical moment and weeks later supported it's sale to a Spanish State company. UK investors lost everything. Full transparency of UK govt handling of Harland and Wolff and Chagos Islands please.

    Steve Austin
    1 day ago
    It’s easy to make jokes about “Dianne Abbott maths” but it’s clear now that Labour simply go for gross, deliberate lies when it comes to finances.

    1. "Given that TTK’s best pal “negotiated” the deal for Mauritius" – and of course Hermer was also involved! Something stinks here!! Let us also not forget that the inhabitants of the Chagos islands, including those "removed" from Diego Garcia, seem to also be opposed to the deal, and deeply distrustful of Mauritius. Finally there is considerable concern about the ecological fallout from this nasty little deal!

      1. SIR – The ecological cost of the impending Chagos disaster has also been obscured.

        Does the Government accept that this site of outstanding natural value – which should be a World Heritage Site – will soon be just another bit of ocean, as we help other nations exploit the huge no-fishing zone that is currently in place but disputed by Mauritius? The details of wildlife management are sparse indeed.

        Does Britain have plans to benefit from the extraction of minerals in the archipelago that help us meet our growing green energy demands, but which we would never have dared mine when we were responsible for it?

        And are politicians aware that the loss of one of the last coral wildernesses will conveniently obscure the havoc that humans cause at sea, and hide the resilience to climate change that the Chagos archipelago demonstrates?

        Sadly, it's even easier to do creative accounting with ecology than economics.

        Clive Hambler
        Lecturer in biological and human sciences
        Hertford College, University of Oxford

    2. If a proper government comes to power, I hope it will be brave enough to say to Mauritius: "Here's a billion. That's yer lot. Now FO."

    3. No politico seems to be protesting, other than a mumble from Rohypnol Cleverly earlier in the year. Wonder why…..

  60. Afternoon all. I seem to have been very busy, but I can’t say I have a lot to show for it.

    It isn’t only shopkeepers who are demoralised; customers are, too. Theft costs are passed on to them.

      1. I was just thinking that if I went down my local supermarket and helped myself to things, I’d be nicked before you could say “tea leaf”.

    2. It's no choice at all, Alex…24/7. Some Western women think a good choice though, no wolf whistles, no grabbing….

  63. While she looks very good in a bikini, I do want a divorce. I can't be made to keep going outside, topping up her Long Island Ice tea. It's too hot, too bright.

    I got third degree burns the last time.

    The next time there won't be anything left of me but (a large pile) ash.

    All three dogs are flopped out on the tiled /stone floor. Even they're shuffling around with the ceiling fan and icce water bucket(s).

      1. Plenty illegals around to choose. I suppose the risk is, preference may be to kick out the present one…….

      2. There is one! It comes out of the fridge, is carried up the garden, el glass is refilled and then carried back.

        Although last time the liquid evaporated, the glass melted and the carrier melted.

  64. Half a hour's rapid ladder work completed (on the shaded side of the house). The third and last wisteria cut back fiercely (again).

    Feel rather pleased with myself!

        1. Just the sort of person they are looking for at Highgrove. All the other gardeners left so there should be a vacancy.

          5. He's right (for once). They grow like mad. I cut them right back – reducing height by four feet – after flowering in early June. Have had to repeat in the last few days. In less than two months they had grown back with a vengeance….

            You need a long ladder, good secateurs and a patient man…..

  65. Wordle No. 1,515 3/6

    ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
    ⬜🟩🟨⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    Wordle 12 Aug 2025

    A vagrant Birdie Three?

    1. Par for me. I knew my third guess was wrong but I figured it would give me a good clue and it did.

      Wordle 1,515 4/6

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

    2. Well done. Par here, a balls up on 3rd go.

      Wordle 1,515 4/6

      🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
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    3. Well done – boring par here…..

      Wordle 1,515 4/6

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        1. Took me ages to find it sos, but if it's the 'Global Leaderboard' I was 1,944th….. one of my better performances!!

          1. That's very good.
            When I saw your time initially I thought it might even get into the magic 1,000.
            Early in the day.
            Which considering how many bots there are is quite an achievement

          2. Thanks, it was a good one – my name on there is CrimsonBowl8045 (dont ask me why – it was allocated!)

          4. QuotableRogue is a good one, I’d consider it (it would also confuse a number of people for a time) – CrimsonBowl errrr not so much……

          5. I have no idea how they get allocated. But was better than most I see in my travails.

            I wonder if 1,2,3 etc etc exist.

    4. May I join the par set

      Wordle 1,515 4/6

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    5. Eagle today. I am not sure why the answer came into my head so readily.

      Wordle 1,515 2/6

      ⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. I need to pass that onto our neighbours they have just had a week on the south coast and mentioned the 'diversity' on Bournemouth beach.

    3. Are these folk deliberately trying to provoke an extra-judicial reaction? Because that won't go well.
      Poor lass has all my sympathy.

    4. Sadly this abuse of our country – from the gimmigrant and political classes – is not going to end until we force them to end it.

      1. I am beginning to think you're right. It's a sad end to what was once a tolerant country.

      1. To misquote Chariots of Fire, Different mountaintop, Different God. If you don't believe in basic Christian ideals, which have shaped the laws of the Western World, you really don't fit into that world.

      1. What i find strange is anyone working in the vicinity of children has to have all sorts of checks and investigations but someone like him it's all fine?

        2. Exactly, Phiz. Perhaps the church ignored (or was ignorant of) that ruling. Naivety at its finest.

          1. I don't believe they are ignorant of the checks required or naive. They are blinkered by their own ideology.

          2. Not too keen on the softer look seemingly now present…but doesn’t really affect me personally…Christianity and the CofE seem somewhat separated if not divorced. I find God most days, out walking countryside. Musk has his own take ‘there’s definitely ‘something”.

          3. God is not to be found in the institutions, they are for human power and prestige.
            God is in nature, silence, beauty.

        3. He was the supposed victim, supposedly being helped at the event.
          This happened in Germany in 2015. Most women where we lived were assaulted at some point. But anyone who spoke about it was labelled a ****

      3. That's a lot of effort in this weather.

        Put a noose around it's neck – at the back, mind, not the side and haul it over a lamp post.

        Better yet, crucify it.

        1. No idea of what heat you have, but we barely cracked 15C today.
          Been wearing ex-mil woolly pully for days… freezing my ass off (fryser ræva av meg), to be frank. (that's not my name, BTW)

  70. 411228+ up ticks.

    I do believe we have come nearly full circle, that is as in seeing 1939/45 as a current political template, only difference being we cannot expand our borders as hitler did, we are in an uncontrolled high pressure Island, pressure being added to daily, and with the safety valve out of commission via treachery.

    https://x.com/SaiKate108/status/1955163111994036495

    1. The end is nigh for the dolt Starmer and the other incompetents “leading” European nations.

      When Trump does a deal with Putin this coming Friday Starmer and the rest will be left holding the baby or more correctly the costs of sustaining Zelensky and what will be left of Ukraine.

      The Chagos deal, a gift to China, will be small coinage compared with the cost of maintaining Ukraine.

      I have never known a weaker and more incompetent bunch of non-entities as our current European leaders in my lifetime. You could recruit a troupe of colourful clowns from Billy Smart’s Circus and hand the reins of government to them and achieve a better outcome than these fools have managed.

      The fall of Starmer cannot come soon enough.

      1. "The end is nigh"??? You been drinking again? There is plenty more where Cur Ikea and his gang come from. Only the surface has been scratched…..

          1. I have a doll fetish with a square head, greased hair (Brilliantine not Starmer’s Brylcream) and ill fitting glasses into which I regularly stick pins. It has proved very successful in the past.

    2. Has the government issued a D Notice? They may silence the UK media but not thr internet.

  72. Steerpike
    Top five lowlights from Sturgeon’s memoir
    12 August 2025, 1:08pm

    They say good things come to those who wait, but Steerpike will let readers be the judge of that when it comes to Nicola Sturgeon’s memoir Frankly. The 450-page account by Scotland’s former first minister was supposed to be hitting bookshelves on Thursday, but some shops decided to release it ahead of time and Mr S has got his hands on an early copy, reading it so you don’t have to. Here are the top lowlights from Sturgeon’s new tome…

    Trans U-turn

    One of the controversies that, some suggest, prompted her resignation in 2023 was the gender reform bill – and the scandal of double rapist Isla Bryson being housed in a women’s prison. The question of whether Bryson is a man or a woman proved rather difficult for the then-first minister to answer at the time – and Sturgeon still hasn’t managed to square this circle, pointedly calling the rapist ‘they’ in an ITV interview last night.

    At the time, Sturgeon first voted down Tory MSP Russell Findlay’s amendment to ban sex offenders from obtaining a gender recognition certificate and later voted against SNP MSP Michelle Thomson’s amendment to pause applications by those charged with rape or sexual assault. While she dismissed concerns from the bill’s critics then, now Sturgeon admits in her book: ‘The question I ask myself most when I reflect on this period is whether I should have hit the pause button when I realised, sometime in 2022, just how polarised the issue was becoming. With hindsight I wish I had.’ Too little, too late…

    Salmond fallout

    Sturgeon’s infamous fallout with her political mentor and boss Alex Salmond has had books written about it – and so of course the ex-FM had to include at least a nod to it in her own. But she hasn’t held back. She broke down in tears when her colleague Ian Blackford told her Salmond had passed away in October 2024 and confessed she wondered whether she should cut the chapter on him from her book. ‘Would I just be stirring up pain for his wife and family (which I truly don’t want to do)?’ she pondered. Regardless, she went and published it anyway. Charming!

    Sturgeon claimed that the former SNP leader hadn’t read the independence white paper, accused him of undermining John Swinney during the latter’s first attempt at leading the SNP and alleged he had planted questions via opposition MSPs on the committee assessing the Scottish government’s handling of harassment complaints. In short, despite her claims of grief on hearing of her former boss’s passing, the SNP’s Dear Leader decided to pull no punches. ‘I have tried not to rewrite history,’ she begins the chapter, later adding: ‘[Alex] was trying to rewrite history.’ Talk about tit for tat!

    Cross-party politics

    Scotland’s former FM has long been accused of creating a divisive political culture over both independence and the trans debate. Yet in her memoir she claims that her motivation for a deal with the Scottish Greens after falling short of a majority in the 2021 Holyrood election was down to her desire to ‘champion a more constructive style of politics’. Er, right. She goes on:

    At the tail end of the last parliament, embroiled in the Salmond saga and worn down by Covid, I had become weary of the opportunism and perpetual game-playing of opposition parties. It was partly a result of electoral frustration, but they had become impervious to any attempts to build cross-party consensus.

    And this is the woman lauded for her high emotional intelligence?!

    Brexit

    The Queen of the Nats wouldn’t ever exploit a democratic result for her own political gain, would she? Not according to her memoir, anyway, in which she writes that, after Britain voted to leave the EU:

    The established narrative now, though, is that I went hell for leather for a second referendum immediately after the Brexit vote. It isn’t true. On the contrary, I spent the next nine months doing the precise opposite. I tried hard to persuade the UK government to pursue a compromise option… It was in good faith, therefore, that we published ‘Scotland’s Place in Europe’ in December 2016, mapping out what a different outcome for Scotland might look like and how it could be achieved. I was explicit that this was a solution for Scotland within the UK; in other words, an alternative to independence.

    It seems rather odd, then, that in the aftermath of the Brexit vote, Sturgeon told a journalist that the chance of another independence referendum was ‘highly likely’. And since then, the SNP has consistently stood on a platform that advocates for closer ties with the EU – if not rejoining the European Union altogether. How very interesting…

    London

    The SNP’s Dear Leader has spent most of her life calling for Scotland’s independence from the United Kingdom – but in a rather amusing revelation, it doesn’t seem like she wants to practice what she preaches. In her book, she writes: ‘I am determined to see more of the world. I might live outside of Scotland for a period.’ In fact, she has since admitted to both the Sunday Times and the BBC that: ‘I love London.’ Just one of those nationalists who’ll do anything for their country but live in it, eh?

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

    tubby Brewster
    4 hours ago
    Whoever called her book "Mein Kampfervan" is a genius.

    Also the originator of "Krankie goes to Holyrood".

    Anthony Pryer
    4 hours ago
    The thing is Nicola, most of us realise that men are from Mars, women are from Venus and trans activists are from Uranus. Also surgery between the legs doesn’t cure a problem between the ears.

    HappyinHerts
    4 hours ago
    JK Rowling is writing the definitive review of Sturgeon's book. She is scribbling notes in the margins of her copy and intends to auction it with proceeds going to For Women Scotland. Got to love JKR.

    1. "Also surgery between the legs doesn’t cure a problem between the ears."

      Sums it up perfectly.

  73. Reform UK press conference on women's safety with Dame Andrea Jenkyns and Sarah Pochin MP

    "A reform govt will stop this betrayal of our girls. We will deport all illegal immigrants that sets foot on our shores. We will deport all migrants housed in our hotels. We will do everything we can to find those dispersed in the HMO & are found & deported. We will deport all foreign nationals in our prisons. We will stop this madness."

    Yes dears, of course you will.
    Shame you forgot to clear this with Nigel & Yusuf.

    1. Good luck with finding all those who have been dispersed around the country to rub our noses in crime – sorry, diversity. The government hasn't got a clue how many or where they are. Those who know who and where they are are probably illegals themselves so they won't be telling.

    2. I have a sneaking suspicion there may be an extra clause in there….*except for the muslim ones

  74. The Islamification of Reform continues apace.

    According the TR..
    A £25,000 per ticket dinner with Nigel..Top table were all Paki Muslims.
    A WEF Muslim have just donated £1million.

  75. OMG these over zealous arm waving weather people on tv everywhere. In 1976 it reach more that 35c and wadda you know. We just got on with it.

    1. I remember 1976 very well. I fell asleep on Clapham Common nursing a pint of Young’s Special courtesy of The Windmill PH. I acquired a sort of lobster pink skin colour requiring a bottle of Calamine Lotion to ease the pain.

      A few weeks later the (Wilson?) government appointed a chap called Denis Howell as Minister for Rain and, lo and behold, the heavens opened.

      The brown grass of Clapham Common soon returned to its lush green despite predictions.

      1. 🎶Those were the days my friend, we thought they'd never end……🎶
        Young's special a decent pint.
        At the end of the summer of 76 we sailed to Australia. We came back early 80s. What a terrible mistake we have made.

      2. The worse thing about the summers of 75 and 76 was the legacy of houses with cracked and sunken foundations wherever there was clay subsoil. Nice weather, though. We actuslly spent a chunk of that time in the US for the first time. Second time (79) was a winner and we stayed.

        1. Insurance companies found a get out clause.
          Subsidence was covered, "heave" wasn't. More damage was caused by heave than subsidence….
          Allegedly

          1. They covered ours – a full underpinning by civil a engineering company, cost almost what the house was worth at the time. But we had what was called an "all risks policy". Probably can't get that level of coverage any more.

        2. Yes, it was called clay heave.

          My own mediaeval oak framed property is affected. Doors bind and the odd drawer in the kitchen is stiff to open. A bit of rain and the building corrects itself.

          Of course rigid constructions with no ability to move suffer fractures unless the foundations are capable of resisting soil heave.

          The American framers have learnt from and copied Lavenham and mastered timber framed construction. I have books by Jack Sobon and Ted Benson in my library for this reason.

    3. We were younger then ! Of course we coped , because the body was younger and more resilient to heat.

      Heat waves and being older and on medication is not a healthy recipe .

  76. Expanding a post from earlier today. I fluffed up.

    Fatima Khan
    @Fatima_Khatun01
    The Nice Attack was a Muslim
    The Paris Attacks were Muslims
    The Shoe B*mber was a Muslim
    The Orlando attack was a Muslim
    The Beltway Snipers were Muslims
    The Fort Hood Shooter was a Muslim
    The Underwear B*mber was a Muslim
    The Westminster Attack was a Muslim
    The 2005 Bali B*mbings were Muslims
    The M*rderers of Lee Rigby were Muslims
    The U.S.S. Cole B*mbers were Muslims
    The London Bridge Attack were Muslims
    The Madrid Train B*mbers were Muslims
    The Charlie Hebdo Attacks were a Muslims
    The San Bernadino Attacks were Muslims
    The Davao Philippines Attack were Muslims
    The 2018 Surabaya b*mbings were Muslims
    The Minnesota Mall st*bbings was a Muslim
    The London Subway B*mbers were Muslims
    The Moscow Theatre Attackers were Muslims
    The Boston Marathon B*mbers were Muslims
    The Ankara Airport Turkey Attack were Muslims
    The Manchester Arena b*mbing was a Muslim
    The Pan-Am Flight #103 B*mbers were Muslims
    The Iranian Embassy Takeover was by Muslims
    The Air France Entebbe Hijackers were Muslims
    The 2002 Bali Nightclub B*mbers were Muslims
    The Batta Meena Pakistan Attacks were Muslims
    The Beirut U.S. Embassy b*mbers were Muslims
    The Libyan U.S. Embassy Attack was by Muslims
    The Yazidi Sinjar Massacre of 2014 were Muslims
    The Beheading of the French priest were Muslims
    The Buenos Aires Su*cide b*mbers were Muslims
    The Israeli Olympic Team Attackers were Muslims
    The Kenyan U.S Embassy B*mbers were Muslims
    The Saudi, Khobar Towers B*mbers were Muslims
    The Beirut Marine Barracks b*mbers were Muslims
    The Besian Russian School Attackers were Muslims
    The First World Trade Center b*mbers were Muslims
    The Beheading of journalist Daniel Pearl was Muslims
    The Achille Lauro Cruise Ship Hijackers were Muslims
    The Bombay & Mumbai Indian Attackers were Muslims
    The 11th September 2001 Airline Hijackers were Muslims
    The 1915 Armenian Genocide, where nearly 2 million were k*lled in Turkey, was the Ottoman government… were Muslims

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3dfabfd10e91b7566a64a492520c6e0e0b57966afd12a0b377522dc0b738aa1b.png

    1. As I mentioned earlier. And our stupid useless political idiots have never even taken anything like that into account. If they have their joint ignorance is overwhelming.
      And they should be deeply ashamed because of all the info above. Together our clowns in Wastemonster they are not worth a rotten carrot.

  77. Right, that's me for today. Very useful stuff accomplished in t'garden AND I finished "XPD" by Len Deighton (still with us at 96, God bless him).

    Last night, at the MR's request we watched two thirds of the film "The Long and the Short and the Tall". 1960 it was made, and, blimey, it looks it.
    Terribly badly cast; really dreadful fake "jungle" set in some hangar at Pinewood, I expect. The rest tonight – can't imagine how it ends (sarc…)
    Amazingly, I saw the stage play at the Royal Court with an unknown newcomer playing Bamforth called Peter O'Toole. Don't know where he ended up…!!

    Anyway – enjoy your evening. If you can.

    A demain.

    1. I liked O’Toole as Henry II in The Lion in Winter. He and Katharine Hepburn were credible as Henry and Eleanor. I read the other day that there was a Christmas tree with baubles in that film. Ouch! Oh, well. Apart from that, it was a good movie.

    2. Ended up holdimg the record for downing a pint of Guiness in his favourite Dublin bar.

      Acted a bit, too…

      2. Watch out for triffids.
        Because of that blasted book and horrible English teachers insisting that we read all kinds of traumatic stuff as teenagers, I have never been able to enjoy shooting stars.

        1. Day of the Triffids was hardly horrific. Not a patch on the original Quatermass series.

          1. Not to you perhaps, but to a nerdy, sensitive, literal-minded teenager it was very frightening.

    2. We'll be lucky; we've had nothing but cloudy or, at best, milky skies, for at least two months.

        1. I think at present they’re voting for Starmer/Labour – finally dawned on me why elected – no Grooming Gang Enquiry. Presumably when Starmer slopes off, Rayner will move in – she’s already talking to Unions. The Right will lose, yet again, unless Farage accepted as CP leader (month of Sundays). Doomed, sos…doomed.

          1. Farage is a talking machine.
            All wind and piss, and yes, very good at it but I wouldn't trust him an inch.

          2. Hear you, sos…been round this circle afore, with him and Tice. Hopkins, Lowe, Habib…all telling similar if not the same narrative.

  80. Absolutely wrecked today. Dunno why. Away to bed in a mo.
    Good night, gentlefolk. See all Y'all in the morning.

  81. Not a great deal done, but a start made on removing a load of brambles that always grown down into the yard and kept getting ignored after previous trimmings.
    Now going up for a cooling bath.

    2. A young woman who we thought was a future D-i-L did so.
      Horrible for everyone concerned and particularly her family and my son.

      1. Awful for both families, sos. Never know what's really happening in someone else's life, or in their thoughts. Hope your son doing OK.

      2. It's terrible isnt it – apparently suicide is the biggest killer of males under 40 – not surprising, we knew of a young lad who was a big friend of our elder son growing up – hanged himself in a wood in Kendal… just effing shocking……

  84. I've been sitting on a small terrace at the bottom of our garden, very peaceful. Watching the little birds flying in for a drink before they perch for the night.
    I'll be off soon when I get bored with the cricket on tv.
    Good night all Nottlers sleep well 😴

          1. She's been blocked from running, anyway – or so I just read. Perhaps Bardella step up. (btw sos, have you see the stuff about the Macrons, all over t'interweb. Good grief. (Candace Owens, especially.)

          2. The Macron stuff is disgraceful in my view.
            I dislike him intensely, but the speculation is merely disgusting.

      2. Yes, but people vote for a Party and not for an individual. And, since, she has been legally stopped from standing, her deputy (the one she is placing her hand on) is now the leader of the Party. So he will probably stand in the next French General Election. Hopefully the Party will win; I assume that he can – as leader – then appoint her to any position in his cabinet. I say hopefully, because all parties in French elections get together in the run-off – which takes place a week after the first vote – to stymie the Party they hate (i.e. Le Pen's Party).

        1. It might be that the removal of the “Le Pen” name and connection is beneficial on that score.
          Whilst I tend to agree that people vote for the party, a charismatic leader does no harm in attracting people to that party.

  86. Well – that's dinner done and the watering……. we need a new outside tap that turns on and off properly without squirting or dripping. Rainwater butts nearly empty again. It's certainly been warm today.

    1. Remember reading once that a grandfather had so much trouble with an outside tap that the grandchildren thought it was called the 'buggerit'!

      1. Reminds me of the 2 French guys on holiday in Norfolk, they were in a pub watching a darts match. One said to the other "What is this game called?" The other replied "I'm not sure, I think it's either Hard Luck or Fuckit"

  87. 411228+ up ticks,

    If we via the RNLI go out and get them as in returning them to Dover then we surely must be responsibly for their immediate future.

    We want the English Channel RN patrolled no pick-ups, every inch of the channel is monitored, so any
    floundering illegal then launch the RNLI.

        1. Yes, complete with a beaten up shuttle Discovery in the background. But the star of that part of the museum is an SR71 – an ominous looking black thing. On its delivery flight from LA, they let it rip – 1 hr 4 mins for the trip.

          Discovery by the way was the one we saw go up from Florida on its first mission.

  89. We could stop the boats tonight.

    Get permission from the French to deploy British soldiers with licence to puncture the boats, arrest anyone driving a boat, and be allowed to shoot anyone who threatens a soldier with a weapon.

    It will never happen, because if the French were really prepared to stop them they would have done exactly that themselves.

    1. Just put fast patrol boats along the England France demarcation line and force the boats to turn back. Automatic weapon fire across their bows would do it. The "passengers" might be desperate but their "taxi drivers" are not going to risk getting killed. The Americans woiuld probably use the Seals to nail the helmsmen.

        1. That would mean invading France. Don't think there's anybody left who knows how to do that.

      2. The 'taxi drivers', so I've heard, are just one of the illegals given10 minutes instruction and a compass. None of the traffickers accompany them obviously. It ain't difficult to do, weather permitting, but the point is that no current politician would sanction this action.

    2. Do we need permission from the French, sos…can't we just do that in the Channel….English waters and all that…..(wouldn't trust the French anyway)

      1. Deliberately drowning them would not go down well.
        You can guarantee if that was being done that the boats would be full of any available women and children as publicity sacrifices.

        1. Not drowning, towing back to French waters/France. A start would be no benefit claims. Guessing you’ve seen the hotel footage, no families, all young men…breakfast is served…

    3. Why would the French stop the boats – they're getting rid of the scum from their country

  93. That was a very refreshing cold bath!! Feel much better.

    Ashover show tomorrow and, as the Van is going in for MOT, will be using my bus-pass.

    1. I would use my bus pass if we had buses going where I wanted to go when I wanted to go (and more importantly coming back again the same day).

    1. I was teaching EFL (English as a Foreign Language) in Worthing. There are worse places to be in a heat wave than on the coast. I remember riding over the Downs (taking out some students) in glorious weather and sunbathing on the roof of Compton Place (where the language school was based).

  99. I'm off to bed now as well. So I wish you all a Good Night. Sleep well, and I hope to see you all early tomorrow morning.

  100. Goodnight, all. I'm off on my travels tomorrow so I may be without internet, so if I'm AWOL you'll know why.

Comments are closed.