Saturday 16 August: Time to overhaul a university system that has ceased to serve the country’s needs

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its commenting facility (now reinstated, but we prefer ours),
Intelligent, polite, good-humoured debate is welcome, whether on or off topic. Differing opinions are encouraged, but rudeness or personal attacks on other posters will not be tolerated. Posts which – in the opinion of the moderators – make this a less than cordial environment, are likely to be removed, without prior warning.  Persistent offenders will be banned.

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

542 thoughts on “Saturday 16 August: Time to overhaul a university system that has ceased to serve the country’s needs”

      1. Morning, Olaf's Relict.
        I couldn't see the point of it.
        Is the DT pandering to its possible buyers?

      3. Morning Elsie. I thought I understood it when I first saw it around 1:00am this morning but now I can't remember why. Age.

        1. Apparently it's because Nige suggested Reform should be able to nominate candidates to become (k)nobles.

  7. Good morning, and Happy Saturday, chums. Thanks for the new site, Geoff, and a Wordle in 5 (a Bogey).

    Wordle 1,519 5/6

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

    1. Lucky 3 today
      Wordle 1,519 3/6

      🟨⬜⬜⬜🟩
      ⬜🟩🟩⬜🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      1. It's not even a proper word!
        Good morning all
        Wordle 1,519 4/6

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

    2. Bogey for me too.

      Wordle 1,519 5/6

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

    3. Bogey for me too.

      Wordle 1,519 5/6

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

  9. MSN & Leftie press not so keen on the success of Trump's peace talks.
    As Putin confirms..
    "Today, when President Trump saying that if he was the president back then there will be no war. And I'm quite sure it would indeed be so. I can confirm that."

  10. 411374+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Saturday 16 August: Time to overhaul a university system that has ceased to serve the country’s needs

    No,No,No,
    Saturday 16 August: Time to overhaul a country, starting with the political infrastructure first that has ceased treacherously to serve the country’s needs.

    THEN trade apprenticeships,full time and not six month wonders, making uni paper tigers extinct, a necessary for the future.

    Full temporary patriotic employment found
    within the department of deportation, wartime rules applied ALL indigenous DOD employee housed,medicated.and vittled to the highest of standards.

    ALL issues to be carried out under
    "Tommy Robinson" type orders as in,

    ALIEN TO PEOPLES RESET,FEET NOT TOUCHING THE BLOODY GROUND ON EXIT.

    1. So the UK Government has CONFIRMED it will be deploying the British Army to Ukraine with one week of a ceasefire being declared.

      The British Army: All of it?

      That will take two mini-buses to get them all there

      2. 411374+up ticks,

        Morning OLT,

        Always check for political covert planning,
        while the domestic cats are away the treacherous in-house rats will play.
        Better to ask, with these Isles in such dire straights WHY is the peoples protective force being sent out of town ?

        A successful takeover would be the jewel in the NWO crown for starmer, and done on starmers treacherous watch.

        Totally unbelievable ten years ago, currently
        sadly, not so much.

    2. They all like to pose in the uniform that they have never earned the right to wear. Sickening.

  12. Good Moaning.
    Thanks to Perigo Minas in the comments under the DT letters, here is the identity of the judge in the Ricky Jones case. I wonder if her summing up will ever see the light of day?

    HHJ Dean was appointed as a Senior Circuit Judge and Resident Judge at Snaresbrook Crown Court, effective 19th September 2022, by the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales at the time, the Right Honourable The Lord Burnett of Maldon.

    Her Honour Judge Rosa Dean is also the Honorary Recorder of Redbridge, a ceremonial role that recognises her position as the senior judge at Snaresbrook Crown Court.

    HHJ Dean is the presiding judge in the case of Ricky Jones, a suspended Labour councillor charged with encouraging violent disorder.

          3. Exactly. Make things bad enough and people will be begging for ID cards, checks in supermarkets, paperwork for the smallest journey.
            Permits for everyday activities like, say, keeping backyards chickens ….. um …….

  15. Flippin eck.. something I never expected to see from a spoilt nepo baby. No mean feat either.

    Jack Ramsay, son of Gordon joined the military after graduating from the University of Exeter in 2000 and passed the demanding entry requirements to join the Royal Marines.

    2. The Ramsay children seem to have their heads screwed on right. Unlike the Beckham brats.

  16. Flippin eck.. something I never expected to see from a spoilt nepo baby. No mean feat either.

    Jack Ramsay, son of Gordon joined the military after graduating from the University of Exeter in 2000 and passed the demanding entry requirements to join the Royal Marines.

    1. At least it's hung the right way roud.
      Shame there's no pointy folding at the bottom; but then Khant's dead common.

  20. Good morning, all. Overcast, breezy and thankfully a bit cooler than yesterday's tormenting temperature.

    Just the one?

    https://x.com/GBNEWS/status/1956360032594850065
    The Intelligence Services must be totally pi$$ed off with the political pygmies who have been running – into the ground – this Country for decades. Must we assume that the briefings count for little? Clearly, political policy beats protecting the people!

    Starmer & Co are just the latest iteration of this phenomenon.

    1. This counts as news? I would be amazed if half the slammers that have been escorted across the Channel were not terrorists of some flavour or other.

      1. Any clear thinking person would have been extremely suspicious of these goings-on from day one. Sadly, politics and ideology both have a bad influence on clear thinking.

      2. Well we have imported the Taliban with the Afghans after doing no checks.

        I don't see why all terrorist groups shouldn't be represented. DEI

  21. Good morning all.
    A pleasant cool breeze when I checked the temperatures though it is still a warm 18½°C outside with heavy cloud that appears to be clearing.
    Off to Stoke to see stepson in a while and plan stopping off en-route back for tonight & tomorrow night.

      1. I'm bloody fuming with British Gas over his account.
        He had a "smart" meter fitted as he is unable to ready the meter himself.
        However, they have still been estimating his readings and making a VERY bad job of doing so, overestimating by ten times by the look of it.
        Add an e-mail address they never respond to and an unworkable helpline that is based in bloody South Africa…

        1. Oh heck. In this age of communication ……..
          Does he have an MP who might kick arse?

          1. I've already been able to get the assistance of his local councillor over Council Tax.
            She sounds a very nice lass despite being Labour!

          2. Good. I too know some nice Labour people.
            If they do the job, politics is very secondary.

  22. SIR – Mint sauce on any meat (Letters, August 15) is an abomination, as it overpowers the taste. It’s much better on peas.

    Chris Porter
    Hutton Rudby, North Yorkshire.

    I don't know where you get your meat or how you make your mint sauce but you are wrong. Any condiment is used to enhance. Not disguise.

        1. I doubt that.

          I had a friends parents over for lunch while they were visiting from Spain.

          I did roast beef and roast lamb because i didn't know what they would prefer. I also made two distinct gravies to go with the meats.

          I needn't have bothered. They just piled it all up and used both gravies. The old man asked for some brown sauce too.

          I jokingly asked if he put it on everything. He said yes.

          I told him i didn't have any.

          They never got another invite. Pigs.

      4. I love mint sauce, with not so much vinegar, on cheddar cheese. Mild horseradish, or Colmans English mustard work well, too.
        The best is Branston pickle – lovely crunch!

      5. White vinegar is not as harsh. You could also leave it out altogether and just have a little sweetened finely chopped mint. Loosen with a drop of water.

    1. I'm glad people are awake to the implications of this.
      All that's standing between us and a bloodbath are the free money payments and the police/army. And I'm genuinely not sure about the police any more.

    2. Kwier has been itching to get involved in another war, here is his chance. Another military adventure to screw up.

        1. Respect. I need a bucket of coffee – several buckets – come up with that one so early in the day!

  25. Good morning Nottlers, 14°C, light winds and clear skies on the Costa Clyde, as we look forward to our fourth 'heatwave' this week!

      1. Rosa Dean.
        The judge who presided over the release of a neuro-diverse Labour councillor who merely demanded patriotic Brits should have their throats cut.

          1. We were made to undergo PE in our regulation school harvest festivals.
            I still harbour no urge to slit anyone's throat.

          2. Lotte Lenya. She sang Mack the Knife.

            "Mack the Knife" was originally written for the 1928 German opera "The Threepenny Opera" by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht. The first English version was sung by Lotte Lenya, and later Louis Armstrong and Bobby Darin popularized it in English.

  28. Police chief: No point in arresting shoplifters.

    Will Bolton, crime correspondent, Daily Telegraph, 16 August, 2025.

    THERE is no point in arresting shoplifters if courts keep setting them free and they are not prevented from carrying out further crimes, a policing chief has said.

    Katy Bourne, the national lead for shoplifting at the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, said it was “madness” how many times thieves had to be arrested before ending up behind bars. Ms Bourne, the Police and Crime Commissioner for Sussex, said prisons were full and offenders were not being sent to jail, so the criminal justice system had to find alternate methods to stop repeat offenders. She told The Telegraph: “If prison is not an option – and I think it should be, but at the moment it clearly isn’t as there are no places – then we’ve got to find credible alternatives.

    “People have got to know that they’re going to get caught, and that there’s a meaningful deterrent when they do. There is no point arresting shoplifters if there is no effective deterrent.” Ms Bourne’s intervention comes after police in North Wales sparked a huge public backlash when a shop owner was spoken to for putting up a sign calling shoplifters “scumbags”. She said she feared that the country had reached a point “where police forces are more worried about upsetting career criminals rather than catching them”.

    She said: “Successive parliaments have contributed to an indigestible legislative layer cake of rights and data protection laws and police guidance that treats the greedy, the ruthless and feckless with kid gloves.” Ms Bourne said offenders needed a “metaphorical punch on the nose” with
    “robust police intervention followed swiftly by meaningful criminal justice measures that deter and prevent them from re-offending”.
    The Government has made tackling the shoplifting epidemic one of its key priorities, but a record high of nearly three thefts were carried out every minute in the year to this March.

    The reality of the situation is feared to be much worse, with many shopkeepers so demoralised that they no longer report every incident to police.
    There is growing pressure on the Government and police to get a grip on the problem and ensure the courts hand out robust sentences and deterrents to the most prolific offenders. Ms Bourne has spearheaded a pioneering scheme in which shoplifters will be subject to GPS tagging and rehabilitation orders issued by courts. They could then be banned from shops from which they have stolen or given curfews to stop their thieving. She added: “Effectively at the moment, if you’re shoplifting, you’re not going to go to prison unless you do it multiple, multiple times.
    “If there’s no space for prolific shoplifters in prison, there should be restricted space for them on our high streets. Tagging will ensure police know where they are.”

    In May, it emerged that around 43,000 criminals were set to avoid prison each year under Government plans to combat jail overcrowding.
    The criminals, including burglars, shoplifters and knife offenders, will instead face community sentences under the plans to scrap most jail terms of under 12 months.

    Ms Bourne said she had repeatedly demanded that the Government roll out a national electronic tagging scheme for offenders, but had been left frustrated and “fed up” with the lack of action. She said: “Sussex will introduce the first electronic tagging scheme for persistent shoplifters. I am fed up waiting for the Government to act.”

    The Home Office has been contacted for comment.

    They have to find "alternate" methods to stop repeat offenders? Does that mean that only every other time they offend they are arrested? Is this risible "crime correspondent" an American, or is he just incapable of understanding standard English?

    Having said that, no matter how much I disagree with the policy of not arresting offenders of any crime; I do have loads of personal experience of the hard work involved in arresting offenders — mainly those caught 'red-handed' — and spending copious amounts of time in preparing prosecution files, only for those offenders to be released without punishment by the idiots sitting on the bench in magistrates' courts. To say it is a complete waste of time, effort and manpower (not to mention utter disappointment), is a huge understatement.

    1. Cut off their hands. That'll stop them picking up stuff that's not theirs.
      Anaesthetic optional.

    2. A lot of them could be sent home to their country of origin. The stocks would humiliate the home grown talent and if all else fails, clearing out the foreigners will free up prison cells.

        2. Some Lefty would let the criminal out.

          The simplest approach with shop lifters is to flog them on the spot. If they persistently reoffend just do so until they stop moving.

    4. When a lot of hard work goes for nothing, it's very demoralising. As I'm sure you know well, Grizz.

    5. As we do with meat, we should use the Halal System

      First Offence, chop off Left Hand at wrist

      Second Offence, chop off Right Hand at wrist

        2. A new recipe for you, Grizz.

          The 1722 Petit Albert describes in detail how to make a Hand of Glory, as cited from him by Émile-Jules Grillot de Givry:

          Take the right or left hand of a felon who is hanging from a gibbet beside a highway; wrap it in part of a funeral pall and so wrapped squeeze it well. Then put it into an earthenware vessel with zimat, nitre, salt and long peppers, the whole well powdered. Leave it in this vessel for a fortnight, then take it out and expose it to full sunlight during the dog-days until it becomes quite dry. If the sun is not strong enough put it in an oven with fern and vervain. Next make a kind of candle from the fat of a gibbeted felon, virgin wax, sesame, and ponie, and use the Hand of Glory as a candlestick to hold this candle when lighted, and then those in every place into which you go with this baneful instrument shall remain motionless

          2. I’d make it but I’m fresh out of zimat, vervain, ponie and (especially) virgin wax.

    6. Problem is the police today see themselve as a do good social service to carry out government woke requirements. They are no longer a Police Force.

      1. From 1829 to 1978 a Constable was a citizen, locally appointed who derived his authority under the Crown.

        From 1978 a Constable became a graduate, from anywhere, who performs his duties at governmental whim and diktat.

      2. Well, they are, but the force they apply is against the native, law abiding innocent. The criminal gets a free ride. After all, it's the fault of 'society' that they are how they are.

        1. There will always be opportunistic people who take unfair advantage. Society should teach them the error of their ways.

          Not wait for social reports etc. Punish the damned crime.

    7. It's the American usage – there is a difference in English between 'alternate' and 'alternative'.

      1. I reminded someone that don't was a contraction and was told off for doing so.

        Apparently being illiterate is now something to praise.

  29. Here's one of several explanations re the controversy generated by the Jones and Connolly verdicts and the outcomes for the individuals. All of those that I've read, neatly, or so they believe, swerve around the advice that the two individuals were given.

    Why did Connolly plead guilty and therefore forego a trial by a jury of her peers and end up receiving a harsh prison sentence but Jones took the other path and was acquitted? That, IMO, is where the "two-tier" justice really comes into play, not the verdict reached on Jones.

    Clearly, people arrested under the prevailing conditions re "free speech" MUST plead not guilty and be tried by a jury of their peers.

    https://x.com/GavinBarwell/status/1956474448019628537

    1. Ah Gavin Barwell – his "bio" on X starts with "Former No 10 Chief of Staff, Housing Minister & Croydon MP" – an impartial observer!!

      1. Lefties can't understand why people don't think like them.

        The inside of a Lefty mind is a mobius strips tied in several knots, full of hypocrisy, misanthropy and doublethink.

    2. Gavm, two crimes, one made publicly, another made on twitter and swiftly removed and you cannot see why their being treated completely differently, despite the exact same criminality is wrong, just because one if muslim diversity and the other a white conservative?

      You're evil.

  30. A heavy read , but please try to absorb , yes it is early .. but .

    Haslar Heritage Group

    ·
    80th Anniversary of VJ Day marking the end of the Second World War.
    With Great respect and In Memory
    Reported Loss of RN Medical Staff.

    Victory in Europe was celebrated on the 8th May 1945, but the war in the Far East continued for another three months until Victory in Japan, or V-J Day was announced when news of Japan's surrender was made. It is associated with the afternoon of August 15th in Japan, but because of differing time zones, it was August 14th when it was announced in the United States and the rest of the Americas and Eastern Pacific Islands. The Official surrender and signing of the document by Japan took place on-board USS Missouri September 2nd 1945 officially ending World War Two.

    August 15th is the official V-J Day for the UK, the official U.S. commemoration is held on September 2nd. The name, V-J Day, had been selected by the Allies after they named V-E Day for the victory in Europe.
    The war with Japan was fought over a vast area covering the Pacific islands and Southeast Asia and began in December 1941 and commenced when Japan attacked Thailand and the British processions of Singapore and Hong Kong and United States military bases at Pearl Harbour Hawaii and the Philippines.

    This part of the war was hard fought by Great Britain, the Commonwealth, and allied troops with many major battles both on land, sea and in the air especially during the battle of Midway in the Pacific. The Royal Navy recorded heavy losses of warships, the most renowned was the loss of HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse on the same day and some 3 days after the attack at Pearl Harbour which brought America into the war.

    There was a great loss of life on all fronts with soldiers, airmen and sailors being taken prisoners of war by the Japanese, also including many civilian prisoners taken in the attack on both Hong Kong and Singapore. As many as one in three were to lose their lives through disease, malnutrition, ill-treatment and execution especially those who were forced into labour by the Japanese on the infamous death railways and factories.

    Lives were also lost through the sinking of British Troopships on route from South Africa to Far East Bases, especially those in Ceylon. One such ship was the SS Khedive Ismail sunk by a Japanese submarine on the 12th of February 1944 when 16 RN Sick Berth and Nursing Staff were killed and there are many records of such attacks on troop ships with loss of life throughout the Indian Ocean.

    There has been limited mention in the history of this part of World War 2 of the ‘Hell ships’, the transport ships used by the Japanese to move great numbers of prisoners of war and the associated loss of life of those prisoners taken and transported after the fall of Singapore, Hong Kong and the many islands invaded by Japanese troops.
    One such story is the sinking of the SS Lisbon Maru whilst transferring some 2,000 multi-national prisoners of war taken at the fall of Hong Kong.

    The reason for highlighting the story of the SS Lisbon Maru is that amongst those taken prisoner were male members of the Royal Naval Sick Berth branch taken from Royal Naval Hospital Hong Kong and the Sickbay of HMS Tamar. Having endured many months of Japanese rule over Hong Kong they were eventually formed into various service groups and crammed into the holds of the ship.

    Members of Army regiments and a number of allied troops were placed in other holds with conditions on board that were intolerable with many suffering from tropical diseases, especially abdominally conditions. The Lisbon Maru finally sailed from Hong Kong for Japan on the 27th September 1942. The POWs horror was only just beginning and the holds with their human cargo were locked down except when the POWs were allowed on deck during the day for exercise.

    On the 1st October 1942 the American submarine the USS Grouper was patrolling the China seas and made visual contact with what appeared to be a Japanese troop transport ship, having noted many soldiers on the upper deck of what turned out to be the Lisbon Maru. Three torpedoes were fired from the Grouper with one hitting the ship. Having been hit the ship started to list slowly, troops immediately took to the boats with many prisoners still trapped in the holds. Listing badly the ship stayed afloat for some 24 hours before the ship began to sink by the stern. During that time many of the prisoners managed to escape from the holds and took to the water only to be attacked and gunned down in the water by the Japanese in ship’s boats.

    The naval medical staff were to be held back on the instruction of Surgeon Lt Charles Anthony Jackson RNVR and took to the water virtually as the ship slipped below the waves. CPOSBA Allison was killed at the time by a wire hawser snapping and some were lost through being sucked down in the ship’s vortex. Records show that 154 naval personnel were lost including 13 Sick Berth staff with many Sick Berth staff surviving.

    Many of the escapees were luckily picked up by Chinese fishermen, landed, fed and clothed. The escapees were well treated but were soon to be recaptured by the Japanese and once again transported by ship to the Japanese mainland, many to the Nagoya POW Camp.

    Once in their first camp Surgeon Lt Jackson with the help of surviving naval medical staff, set up a sick quarter the best that they could and cared for many of the prisoners with little or no medical provisions. It is recorded that Surgeon Lt Jackson operated on a naval rating AB Thomas Eccleston who had gangrene of the leg and amputation was performed using a razor blade and the patient survived.

    On many occasions the hospital was raided by the Japanese and Surgeon Lt Jackson questioned when newspaper cuttings were found showing allied movement within Asia. The POWs were again moved to various places in Japan and in the first instance the Sick berth staff set up simple sick bays to treat the POWs with what limited medical supplies were available.

    In one such camp Surgeon Lt Jackson was assisted by LSBA Wallace Hastings until they were spilt up. By the time of the surrender by Japan many of the Sick berth staff had been divided and spread to other POW Camps. LSBA Hastings was in Hirohata Camp and the only British POW along with an Australian, the rest were American. On surrender day LSBA Hastings raised the Union flag.

    Of the 379 Naval personnel on the SS Lisbon Maru 158 were lost; 70 died and 151 returned home.

    Some Queen Alexandra Royal Naval Nursing (QARNNS) sisters and VADs (Voluntary Aid Detachment) died or were killed on route to the Far East SS Khedive Ismail and other ships, and others died in service.

    Miss Olga Franklin and 3 QARNNS Sisters were imprisoned by the Japanese with Miss Franklin making an embroidery of her experience which was hidden from the Japanese and now in the QARNNS Archive at INM.
    Miss Franklin RRC became the Matron in Chief QARNNS post war from 1947 – 1950.
    Acknowledgements.

    • The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru: Britain's Forgotten Wartime Tragedy: Britain’s Forgotten Wartime Tragedy. Tony Banham Hong Kong University Press 2006
    • ‘Operation Magic Carpet’ the post–World War II operation by the U.S. to repatriate over eight million American military personnel from the European, Pacific, and Asian theatres.
    Eric C Birbeck
    President Haslar Heritage Group
    June 2025

  31. A heavy read , but please try to absorb , yes it is early .. but .

    Haslar Heritage Group

    ·
    80th Anniversary of VJ Day marking the end of the Second World War.
    With Great respect and In Memory
    Reported Loss of RN Medical Staff.

    Victory in Europe was celebrated on the 8th May 1945, but the war in the Far East continued for another three months until Victory in Japan, or V-J Day was announced when news of Japan's surrender was made. It is associated with the afternoon of August 15th in Japan, but because of differing time zones, it was August 14th when it was announced in the United States and the rest of the Americas and Eastern Pacific Islands. The Official surrender and signing of the document by Japan took place on-board USS Missouri September 2nd 1945 officially ending World War Two.

    August 15th is the official V-J Day for the UK, the official U.S. commemoration is held on September 2nd. The name, V-J Day, had been selected by the Allies after they named V-E Day for the victory in Europe.
    The war with Japan was fought over a vast area covering the Pacific islands and Southeast Asia and began in December 1941 and commenced when Japan attacked Thailand and the British processions of Singapore and Hong Kong and United States military bases at Pearl Harbour Hawaii and the Philippines.

    This part of the war was hard fought by Great Britain, the Commonwealth, and allied troops with many major battles both on land, sea and in the air especially during the battle of Midway in the Pacific. The Royal Navy recorded heavy losses of warships, the most renowned was the loss of HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse on the same day and some 3 days after the attack at Pearl Harbour which brought America into the war.

    There was a great loss of life on all fronts with soldiers, airmen and sailors being taken prisoners of war by the Japanese, also including many civilian prisoners taken in the attack on both Hong Kong and Singapore. As many as one in three were to lose their lives through disease, malnutrition, ill-treatment and execution especially those who were forced into labour by the Japanese on the infamous death railways and factories.

    Lives were also lost through the sinking of British Troopships on route from South Africa to Far East Bases, especially those in Ceylon. One such ship was the SS Khedive Ismail sunk by a Japanese submarine on the 12th of February 1944 when 16 RN Sick Berth and Nursing Staff were killed and there are many records of such attacks on troop ships with loss of life throughout the Indian Ocean.

    There has been limited mention in the history of this part of World War 2 of the ‘Hell ships’, the transport ships used by the Japanese to move great numbers of prisoners of war and the associated loss of life of those prisoners taken and transported after the fall of Singapore, Hong Kong and the many islands invaded by Japanese troops.
    One such story is the sinking of the SS Lisbon Maru whilst transferring some 2,000 multi-national prisoners of war taken at the fall of Hong Kong.

    The reason for highlighting the story of the SS Lisbon Maru is that amongst those taken prisoner were male members of the Royal Naval Sick Berth branch taken from Royal Naval Hospital Hong Kong and the Sickbay of HMS Tamar. Having endured many months of Japanese rule over Hong Kong they were eventually formed into various service groups and crammed into the holds of the ship.

    Members of Army regiments and a number of allied troops were placed in other holds with conditions on board that were intolerable with many suffering from tropical diseases, especially abdominally conditions. The Lisbon Maru finally sailed from Hong Kong for Japan on the 27th September 1942. The POWs horror was only just beginning and the holds with their human cargo were locked down except when the POWs were allowed on deck during the day for exercise.

    On the 1st October 1942 the American submarine the USS Grouper was patrolling the China seas and made visual contact with what appeared to be a Japanese troop transport ship, having noted many soldiers on the upper deck of what turned out to be the Lisbon Maru. Three torpedoes were fired from the Grouper with one hitting the ship. Having been hit the ship started to list slowly, troops immediately took to the boats with many prisoners still trapped in the holds. Listing badly the ship stayed afloat for some 24 hours before the ship began to sink by the stern. During that time many of the prisoners managed to escape from the holds and took to the water only to be attacked and gunned down in the water by the Japanese in ship’s boats.

    The naval medical staff were to be held back on the instruction of Surgeon Lt Charles Anthony Jackson RNVR and took to the water virtually as the ship slipped below the waves. CPOSBA Allison was killed at the time by a wire hawser snapping and some were lost through being sucked down in the ship’s vortex. Records show that 154 naval personnel were lost including 13 Sick Berth staff with many Sick Berth staff surviving.

    Many of the escapees were luckily picked up by Chinese fishermen, landed, fed and clothed. The escapees were well treated but were soon to be recaptured by the Japanese and once again transported by ship to the Japanese mainland, many to the Nagoya POW Camp.

    Once in their first camp Surgeon Lt Jackson with the help of surviving naval medical staff, set up a sick quarter the best that they could and cared for many of the prisoners with little or no medical provisions. It is recorded that Surgeon Lt Jackson operated on a naval rating AB Thomas Eccleston who had gangrene of the leg and amputation was performed using a razor blade and the patient survived.

    On many occasions the hospital was raided by the Japanese and Surgeon Lt Jackson questioned when newspaper cuttings were found showing allied movement within Asia. The POWs were again moved to various places in Japan and in the first instance the Sick berth staff set up simple sick bays to treat the POWs with what limited medical supplies were available.

    In one such camp Surgeon Lt Jackson was assisted by LSBA Wallace Hastings until they were spilt up. By the time of the surrender by Japan many of the Sick berth staff had been divided and spread to other POW Camps. LSBA Hastings was in Hirohata Camp and the only British POW along with an Australian, the rest were American. On surrender day LSBA Hastings raised the Union flag.

    Of the 379 Naval personnel on the SS Lisbon Maru 158 were lost; 70 died and 151 returned home.

    Some Queen Alexandra Royal Naval Nursing (QARNNS) sisters and VADs (Voluntary Aid Detachment) died or were killed on route to the Far East SS Khedive Ismail and other ships, and others died in service.

    Miss Olga Franklin and 3 QARNNS Sisters were imprisoned by the Japanese with Miss Franklin making an embroidery of her experience which was hidden from the Japanese and now in the QARNNS Archive at INM.
    Miss Franklin RRC became the Matron in Chief QARNNS post war from 1947 – 1950.
    Acknowledgements.

    • The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru: Britain's Forgotten Wartime Tragedy: Britain’s Forgotten Wartime Tragedy. Tony Banham Hong Kong University Press 2006
    • ‘Operation Magic Carpet’ the post–World War II operation by the U.S. to repatriate over eight million American military personnel from the European, Pacific, and Asian theatres.
    Eric C Birbeck
    President Haslar Heritage Group
    June 2025

  33. Off to a wedding in Kenilworth. Tescos don’t have any jan sugar in stock, so i have had to order pectin instead. Should be interesting tomorrow evening!

    1. I find I need to stock up on jam sugar some weeks in advance of the summer fruit season.

  35. 'Morning All
    Nicked Laff
    In the pub the other day I was telling that old joke about what you do if you see an epileptic having a fit in the bath.
    Answer – you throw in your washing.
    We were having a laugh about this when a big bloke tapped me on the shoulder and said he didn't find that funny at all. His brother had been an epileptic and had died in the bath during a fit.
    I said, "I'm sorry, mate. He drowned then."
    "No. He choked on a sock."

  36. Morning all 🙂😊
    Grey still warm I wish it would pour with rain.
    We had a few spots over night but it just made a mess.
    Cloud seeding not allowed here.

    Todays headline.
    Talking of which I wonder how many ex university students from overseas leave the country with out completing payment on their dues. Our youngest spent around 4 years paying his off.

  37. SIR – Mint sauce on any meat (Letters, August 15) is an abomination, as it overpowers the taste of the meat. It’s much better on peas.

    Chris Porter
    Hutton Rudby, North Yorkshire

    SIR – Apart from horseradish sauce, the best thing to go with beef is plum jam. This year, despite the total lack of rain, our Victoria plum tree is laden with fruit, so my wife has just made some. I can’t wait to get a nice joint of beef, once the weather cools down.

    Andrew Read
    Sandford, Dorset

    I partially agree, Chris. Mint sauce on lamb and peas is perfection, but not with any other meat. But, as we know, everyone has their own preferences.

    In my opinion, the best thing to go with roast beef, Andrew, is Colman's English mustard. Horseradish sauce is a close second.

    The only time I use plum jam is to mix it with sautéed garlic, soy sauce and a pinch of five-spice powder for an accompaniment to sliced roast duck, Chinese-style.

    1. French mustard for me. Don't need the heat of English mustard if you've got a good horseradish sauce.

      1. As I said, we all have our own preference. I do prefer Dijon mustard on a grilled steak though, even if it has to be English with roast beef, roast pork or roast chicken.

        Or Meaux (thank you, Philip).👍🏻

        1. As long as no-one puts American mustard anywhere near the dining table.
          So lacking in 'mustardness' it might as well be called yellow ketchup.

    3. Why do we need any type of sauce on good meat , surely a dash of salt and pepper is sufficient , if any is needed at all .

      Having said that , have you tried a smidgen of anchovy dressing on roast lamb ?

      1. …good meat… not an easy find, unless you have a good butcher, Belle (shout out to Douglas of Newport Pagnell).

          1. Very often don't bother with gravy – unless having roast potatoes. Otherwise just a bit of butter on new spuds.

          2. Following this thread with interest, Ndovu….post-vaccine I have no sense of smell, no sense of taste. Can tell by the texture possibly fresh apple or banana etc, but meat – no idea, possibly chicken if softer texture.

          3. That's a bummer – taste & smell are both very important. They tend to get affected by colds, but only temporarily. I don't often succumb to colds these days – not since I started taking Vit D & C during the winter months.

          4. I haven't had a cold/flu for many years. Post-vaccine have started to take Vitamin B12 tab which is supposed to help with memory….it is better, but now four years post-vaccine, still get blanks – someone suggested possibly spike protein (whatever the devil that is…)

          8. Same here, but early days B12. Someone said earlier that spike protein likely the culprit in vaccine, reading up seems quite likely. Tired of feeling tired, and foggy mind 🙂

          9. Will have another try at D3. Interesting article re spike protein/covid vaccine. Nevertheless I am where I am and four years older to boot. Maths never a strong point, now reduced to struggling with everyday numbers – but some days seem worse than others so fingers crossed 🙂

          10. I've had a couple of minor sniffles but nothing more than that. Apart from a sore throat in summer 2022, which was like razorblades but didn't develop into anything.

          11. I believe the body eventually sheds the spike protein. Possibly the reason why they keep wanting to give follow up injections.

          12. Yes, something like that. Last one almost four years ago…am improving and think almost back to myself (although also four years older). Don’t really trust any medics…husband phoned our GP about me, he was so worried, response was ‘yes I’ve had quite a few calls along those lines, mostly from husbands about their wives’ (read: neurotic women). I know someone works for the Surgery, there are now five receptionists, quite often in tears due to phone abuse (and also from patients actually bothering to call in at the surgery).

          14. That's no fun at all! I didn't have vaccine, but have no sense of taste from the nose – just from the tongue (salt, sweet, sour & bitter). It makes losing weight easy, as eating becomes quite uninteresting. Occasionally get chilli, if I pile it on a bit.

          15. Others tell me that they can tell I have no sense of taste, by the way I dress…

          16. Must try that, perhaps start with a pair of socks, see what they taste of if anything…….(here all day….)

          19. We sound similar, Paul…no sense of taste or smell here, and yes eating a necessity more than anything. Haven't lost any weight tho, still trying to figure that one out…….

          21. Very sensible not to have it. I didn't want it, made a deal with family who were pressuring me to have it – I'll have it if you promise not to let grandchildren have it. That's how it went.

          22. Before the side-effects became known, I refused it on the basis that I'd had one only 'flu vaccination, and was sick as a dog for days. Much worse than 'flu. And, at the time, they were saying Covid is like 'flu. So I declined. Thankfully.

          23. I had two AZ jabs – as just another travel jab. I had a trip (much postponed) booked and when it finally took place in 2022, I had to show my vax cert in Nairobi, also in 2023. No reactions to it but I'm not having any more.

      5. When i roast lamb i make slits in it and poke in tinned anchovies and thin slices of garlic. Deglaze the roasting pan and et voila…there is your sauce. Jus

    4. Horseradish sauce comes first with roast beef for me, Grizzly. (Again, good morning btw.)

        1. Oh I don't know. I have a bit of a soft spot for ol' Charles. He's had to put up with a lot.

          2. I tend to agree with you, Stormy. People keep saying how wonderful Princess Anne would have been as the successor to Her Majesty QE II, but having read of how Anne and her father ridiculed the young Charles, I am not a great fan of Anne. As you say, he's had to put up with a lot, even though he also has many faults himself. All in all, a very dysfunctional family in my view. (Good morning, btw.)

          3. It can't be easy knowing that many of your subjects look at your sister – back to your mother – and back to your sister again ….. and then make comparisons.
            However, he really doesn't help himself. The good stuff like The Prince's Trust are products of his youth. He really doesn't seem to have acquired wisdom with age.

        2. Exactly. Very apt, I thought. The one for his meandering thoughts, and the other to be a monument to his cruel green targets!

  40. I can understand that, but it all seems to have knocked the good sense and backbone out of him.

    1. He's probably let himself be surrounded and over influenced by too many Dopey Wokies.

          2. There was just one hint of scandal, early in their marriage, when they apparently got duped into endorsing some criminal poser. They haven't put many feet wrong since then. Their daughter, Lady Louise, was a favourite granddaughter of the DofE.

  41. Right, and that's me off to Stoke and home Monday with stops at Froghall and Ipstones planned.
    TTFN all.

    2. Well, much as I disagree with their being here, screaming 'evil' and 'paedo' at each of them doesn't help.

      1. So that's what they were shouting. I just couldn't make it out. (Good morning, btw.)

      3. What do you think would help, StormD..leave the ECHR perhaps but that would terminate NI Agreement, and all that that would entail?

        1. Shooting them would help. That’s why we’re not allowed guns? I’m a compassionate soul, honestly. But no one ever fought a successful war against an invading force by worrying about upsetting the enemy?

          1. Well, yes, that's another option. One we're as likely to take as leaving the ECHR (ie. not in a month of Sundays).

          2. The British government has spent 30 years salami slicing Britons right to own a gun.
            I don't remember life being more hazardous in the days before all these extra restrictions.

          3. Si vis pacem, para bellum, perhaps? Or, as Napoleon apparently said "A country that does not respect its own army will one day learn to respect someone else's".

      4. Not in the short term.
        However, it is understandable and for the British to behave like that, things have to be pretty dire.

        1. Depressingly the 'British' have fallen quite some way from the calm, stoic folk remembered not too long ago.

          1. Yes. The St. Diana hysteria was the first inkling.
            I felt like a stranger in a very scary country.

    2. Yesterday buying one first class stamp, I had part change from a tenner from our local post office.
      The fiver in the change has Winston Churchill and Queen Elizabeth 11 on it. It reminds of the good old days.
      Not where our country is now.
      It's been deliberately wrecked.
      With not even a cowardly attempt to explain why they are doing it.

      2. Crikey Eddy…thought fivers had gone out of circulation, are they still slated to be – perhaps frame yours 🙂 Edit:…actually never use cash, always the same card for many years never had a problem yet. Think I may have a couple of notes in wallet if I ever encounter anywhere doesn't take card (not happened yet..)

        1. Inside my bank branch, there;'s an ATM which dispenses £5, £10, £20 and £50 notes to order.

        2. The cash dispensers mainly spew out tenners and twenties.
          If I need fivers, I actually go into the post office where they give me a selection of notes.

      3. Why would the Left explain? All they'd do is read out O'Brien's speech:

        The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing.

      2. They have normalised his giant flappy ears. Why on earth didn't they pin them back when he was only a little shit as opposed to the big one he is now?

    1. She will claim her 150 000 pound reward and disappear into obscurity is my guess. On the other hand, there has been a lot of publicity around her release (people being encourage to write to her in the last few weeks – why now that her sentence is almost over?) so maybe she still has a role to play.

      1. It is rumoured – rumoured – that efforts are being made in the gaol to provoke her, so that she says or does something that gives an excuse to postpone her release date for disciplinary reasons.
        I would imagine she has to control even her voice and her eye movements so as not to transgress some petty rule.

          1. Exactly.
            There was a time when such stories could be dismissed out of hand.
            Not British. Not done here. etc….

          4. How can we all be racist when we love the music and songs produced by people like that?

            Muslims produce nothing but death and shit.

        2. Watch Alex Bellfield and his tales of prison. He appears to be more unhinged than before his stay but I think his main crime was talking against the establishment. He was actually jailed for stalking without fear and anxiety (I thought thats how stalking is defined). He has risen, and now challenging perceived injustices by the authorities in court.

        3. Watch Alex Bellfield and his tales of prison. He appears to be more unhinged than before his stay but I think his main crime was talking against the establishment. He was actually jailed for stalking without fear and anxiety (I thought thats how stalking is defined). He has risen, and now challenging perceived injustices by the authorities in court.

        4. Watch Alex Bellfield and his tales of prison. He appears to be more unhinged than before his stay but I think his main crime was talking against the establishment. He was actually jailed for stalking without fear and anxiety (I thought thats how stalking is defined). He has risen, and now challenging perceived injustices by the authorities in court.

    2. There will almost certainly be a gagging order. She will be warned that if she steps out of line, she will be straight back in prison.

    3. If anyone thought he'd ever be jailed in this appalling injustice system I have a bridge to sell them.

      Connolly was jailed and punished because the state wanted to hurt someone. Innocent white folk are encouraged to plead guilty by the machine, criminal diversity are told to plead not guilty and get away with it. It's putrid.

      The Labour muslim got off because.. muslim Labour.

      The state is the oppressor of the native decent, the worker, the law abiding and the enabler and endorser of the alien rapist, the thief, the murderer.

  45. Very true. Can still feel effect of alcohol..water refreshing, don't drink juice, have tea and coffee but can't really tell diff. Have learnt to live with it, doh…..

  46. Having fun at Warwick service watching a family try and charge their electric VW. The older son has full beard and is wearing a skirt and sandals.

  47. Labour's onslaught could kill off Britain's family farms and our island's food security with it

    Cruel changes to inheritance tax and Whitehall's stupefying ignorance of rural affairs pose a grave risk to the country at large

    Annabel Denham, Columnist and Deputy Comment Editor
    15th August 2025, 6:20pm BST

    There is no delusion in Leftist economics more enduring, nor more seductive, than the idea that taxes don't have consequences. That the wealthy will dutifully stay put, businesses will stoically withstand the burden, farmers will uncomplainingly continue feeding the nation. Insofar as there are losers in this fantasy, it will always be Those With The Broadest Shoulders.

    How puzzling it must be, then, for Labour politicians to witness the very same economists who advanced what amounts to a family farm tax – and boasted that the Government is "genuinely listening" to their ideas – seemingly begin to retreat.

    Farmland has long been subject to Agricultural Property Relief and therefore effectively untaxed on inheritance, but Rachel Reeves was persuaded – with minimal resistance from colleagues, one assumes – to close this "loophole" in October. This may have seemed reasonable to Labour politicians and Whitehall bureaucrats who've never balanced a farm ledger or prayed for rain. Indeed, the civil servant on whose "analysis" the policy was introduced has since been awarded "Expert of the Year" by HMRC.

    Yet the Centre for the Analysis of Taxation (CenTax) has this week published a report expressing concern that working farmers are more likely to be hit by the raid than wealthy landowners. So far, so predictable. CenTax had previously projected it would raise £520m and "only" affect between 480 and 600 agricultural estates.

    "Around 40 per cent of the value of this tax loophole has gone to just 7 per cent of landowners…This isn't fair." So Steve Reed, the Environment Secretary, his £400 wellington boots presumably squeaking sympathetically, intoned last November. Yet the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) has said as many as 70,000 farms could be affected. Record numbers of rural businesses are said to have closed in the wake of Reeves's announcement. This, for a levy only expected to raise £115m a year – less than 0.1 per cent of total public spending.

    Many Labour MPs, propelled by ideological animosity towards anyone who owns land, will no more be moved by this news than they are by non-doms bolting or private schools slamming their gates forever. Farming accounts for a small proportion of GDP, rural constituencies only make up around 10 per cent of Labour's total, and there is no shortage of demand for the land. Farmland in southern England is worth around £10,000 an acre – in part because wealthy people from non-farming backgrounds have been buying it to avoid…inheritance tax.

    Many will also imagine landowners can just sell up and go on a cruise. But that's not how people in rural Britain, who've held the farms in their families for generations, feel. Fact: the vast majority of farmers entered the business by inheriting, as either owner or tenant. Fact: in a survey last year, 92 per cent of farmers were expecting the next generation of their family to take over running their farm.

    My grandfather was a tenant farmer. As a child, my father laid potato seeds by hand and spent winters picking Brussels sprouts. Modern machinery has increased productivity, but it has also created the illusion of prosperity. As one Welsh farmer now tells me, people don't understand that profits are often very small. "What they see is the land, the machinery, the farm house. What they don't see are supermarkets and buyers pushing down prices".

    The industry might produce a great deal of food but, for many, it brings little wealth despite huge upfront costs and long hours. One 2024 poll found the average farmer toils for roughly 60 hours per week, compared to the national average of 36.4 hours. Meanwhile, the PCS union is campaigning for a four-day week at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, on full pay. Since Brexit, incidentally, the Defra headcount has ballooned from 9,500 to over 13,000.

    As Reed has himself recognised, British farming is becoming increasingly fragile. Nearly a third of farms failed to make a net profit in 2023-24, up from 17 per cent the previous year. Just 28 per cent exceeded £50,000 in business income. Yet the state is actively pursuing policies which make farming less viable. One consequence of this is that many in the industry are following the money – and planting solar panels not seeds. A hectare of solar panels can yield returns of up to £1,000 a year or more – often double or triple what the same land could produce under traditional farming. Those in prime sites for solar say they are receiving letters and calls on a near weekly basis from renewable developers offering guaranteed long-term incomes. Has anyone thought any of this through? Is this really what the public want?

    Agriculture is one of the most state-controlled, subsidised and distorted of all our industries – yet there is no single motive behind government intervention. On paper, we want to keep prices affordable for consumers, support farmers' livelihoods, raise food standards, and preserve the countryside. We want to protect the environment – with clean rivers, rich biodiversity, lower carbon emissions – and uphold world-leading standards of animal welfare. We want to limit our vulnerability to external shocks, such as the pandemic or the geopolitical instability of the Ukraine war.

    In reality, we have spent much of the past decade doing our best to prevent farmers from producing as much food as they could. No wonder the industry is on its knees. One of the great Brexit dividends was the freedom to develop biotechnologies that would allow farmers to do this more efficiently. Great advances – very often by British scientists – have been made in gene-editing and in genetically modifying our foodstuffs, to make crops more resistant to diseases, or to boost overall yields, or to make them simpler to harvest, or to stay fresher for longer. The US, Canada, Brazil and many other countries have stormed ahead with these innovations. But we have allowed hysteria over "Frankencrops" to override those opportunities, possibly because the bureaucrats half-believe we will rejoin the EU where such technology continues to be held back by vested interests.

    We should sweep away much of the web of restrictions on agriculture, allowing farmers to decide how they want to use their land, and how they can efficiently maximise their output to serve consumers, not Defra penpushers. We should allow genetic engineers to figure out ways of enhancing yields so that we can grow more food locally and reduce transport costs. We should encourage farmers to seek their own best ways of reacting to climate change and other environmental concerns.

    Farming will always be a risky business, but we can at least give families some assurance that they can plan for years ahead without the threat that inheritance tax will destroy their dreams. Instead, rural Britain is being hollowed out by parties that neither understand it nor feel any real political cost in sacrificing it.

    Once these businesses are gone, they won't easily be brought back.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/15/labours-onslaught-could-kill-off-britains-family-farms

    1. "This is a rich country, we can import all the food we need." (Margaret Becket, when Min. of Ag.)

      1. And did the old hag not care about employment in the sector?

        Our country only has its beautiful countryside because of farming.

  48. Labour's onslaught could kill off Britain's family farms and our island's food security with it

    Cruel changes to inheritance tax and Whitehall's stupefying ignorance of rural affairs pose a grave risk to the country at large

    Annabel Denham, Columnist and Deputy Comment Editor
    15th August 2025, 6:20pm BST

    There is no delusion in Leftist economics more enduring, nor more seductive, than the idea that taxes don't have consequences. That the wealthy will dutifully stay put, businesses will stoically withstand the burden, farmers will uncomplainingly continue feeding the nation. Insofar as there are losers in this fantasy, it will always be Those With The Broadest Shoulders.

    How puzzling it must be, then, for Labour politicians to witness the very same economists who advanced what amounts to a family farm tax – and boasted that the Government is "genuinely listening" to their ideas – seemingly begin to retreat.

    Farmland has long been subject to Agricultural Property Relief and therefore effectively untaxed on inheritance, but Rachel Reeves was persuaded – with minimal resistance from colleagues, one assumes – to close this "loophole" in October. This may have seemed reasonable to Labour politicians and Whitehall bureaucrats who've never balanced a farm ledger or prayed for rain. Indeed, the civil servant on whose "analysis" the policy was introduced has since been awarded "Expert of the Year" by HMRC.

    Yet the Centre for the Analysis of Taxation (CenTax) has this week published a report expressing concern that working farmers are more likely to be hit by the raid than wealthy landowners. So far, so predictable. CenTax had previously projected it would raise £520m and "only" affect between 480 and 600 agricultural estates.

    "Around 40 per cent of the value of this tax loophole has gone to just 7 per cent of landowners…This isn't fair." So Steve Reed, the Environment Secretary, his £400 wellington boots presumably squeaking sympathetically, intoned last November. Yet the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) has said as many as 70,000 farms could be affected. Record numbers of rural businesses are said to have closed in the wake of Reeves's announcement. This, for a levy only expected to raise £115m a year – less than 0.1 per cent of total public spending.

    Many Labour MPs, propelled by ideological animosity towards anyone who owns land, will no more be moved by this news than they are by non-doms bolting or private schools slamming their gates forever. Farming accounts for a small proportion of GDP, rural constituencies only make up around 10 per cent of Labour's total, and there is no shortage of demand for the land. Farmland in southern England is worth around £10,000 an acre – in part because wealthy people from non-farming backgrounds have been buying it to avoid…inheritance tax.

    Many will also imagine landowners can just sell up and go on a cruise. But that's not how people in rural Britain, who've held the farms in their families for generations, feel. Fact: the vast majority of farmers entered the business by inheriting, as either owner or tenant. Fact: in a survey last year, 92 per cent of farmers were expecting the next generation of their family to take over running their farm.

    My grandfather was a tenant farmer. As a child, my father laid potato seeds by hand and spent winters picking Brussels sprouts. Modern machinery has increased productivity, but it has also created the illusion of prosperity. As one Welsh farmer now tells me, people don't understand that profits are often very small. "What they see is the land, the machinery, the farm house. What they don't see are supermarkets and buyers pushing down prices".

    The industry might produce a great deal of food but, for many, it brings little wealth despite huge upfront costs and long hours. One 2024 poll found the average farmer toils for roughly 60 hours per week, compared to the national average of 36.4 hours. Meanwhile, the PCS union is campaigning for a four-day week at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, on full pay. Since Brexit, incidentally, the Defra headcount has ballooned from 9,500 to over 13,000.

    As Reed has himself recognised, British farming is becoming increasingly fragile. Nearly a third of farms failed to make a net profit in 2023-24, up from 17 per cent the previous year. Just 28 per cent exceeded £50,000 in business income. Yet the state is actively pursuing policies which make farming less viable. One consequence of this is that many in the industry are following the money – and planting solar panels not seeds. A hectare of solar panels can yield returns of up to £1,000 a year or more – often double or triple what the same land could produce under traditional farming. Those in prime sites for solar say they are receiving letters and calls on a near weekly basis from renewable developers offering guaranteed long-term incomes. Has anyone thought any of this through? Is this really what the public want?

    Agriculture is one of the most state-controlled, subsidised and distorted of all our industries – yet there is no single motive behind government intervention. On paper, we want to keep prices affordable for consumers, support farmers' livelihoods, raise food standards, and preserve the countryside. We want to protect the environment – with clean rivers, rich biodiversity, lower carbon emissions – and uphold world-leading standards of animal welfare. We want to limit our vulnerability to external shocks, such as the pandemic or the geopolitical instability of the Ukraine war.

    In reality, we have spent much of the past decade doing our best to prevent farmers from producing as much food as they could. No wonder the industry is on its knees. One of the great Brexit dividends was the freedom to develop biotechnologies that would allow farmers to do this more efficiently. Great advances – very often by British scientists – have been made in gene-editing and in genetically modifying our foodstuffs, to make crops more resistant to diseases, or to boost overall yields, or to make them simpler to harvest, or to stay fresher for longer. The US, Canada, Brazil and many other countries have stormed ahead with these innovations. But we have allowed hysteria over "Frankencrops" to override those opportunities, possibly because the bureaucrats half-believe we will rejoin the EU where such technology continues to be held back by vested interests.

    We should sweep away much of the web of restrictions on agriculture, allowing farmers to decide how they want to use their land, and how they can efficiently maximise their output to serve consumers, not Defra penpushers. We should allow genetic engineers to figure out ways of enhancing yields so that we can grow more food locally and reduce transport costs. We should encourage farmers to seek their own best ways of reacting to climate change and other environmental concerns.

    Farming will always be a risky business, but we can at least give families some assurance that they can plan for years ahead without the threat that inheritance tax will destroy their dreams. Instead, rural Britain is being hollowed out by parties that neither understand it nor feel any real political cost in sacrificing it.

    Once these businesses are gone, they won't easily be brought back.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/15/labours-onslaught-could-kill-off-britains-family-farms

  50. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/tax/news/hmrc-sacks-dozens-staff-snooping-taxpayers/

    68,000 administrators? What the hell do they do all day? I rather imagine as I've worked with a fair few of them and they have people just lost in the chasms of sheer inefficiency.

    The tax code is 17,000 pages now. The Swiss one is 250. The Singaporean about 200. If Farage is wanting to make significant 'reform' then that's an obvious place to start. Low, flat taxes raise more money. The stat emust simply cut endless waste.

    1. What do they do? They spend time looking up friends, neighbours and relatives. Fascinating reading. More interesting than answering the telephone

    2. In France if you work in any department for the government and after a shuffle about your post no longer exists you continue to be on full pay until retirement. With no need to even turn up.

    3. I believe a good number CS are still WFH. Was surprised to read the number CSs working in No.10, apparently cavernous cellar space.

    1. Way more politicians too, ogga..starting with lunatic Starmer. Openly welcoming Bill Gates to No.10 indeed.

      1. I read recently about a village church service called "A Celebration of Country Living". I suspect that may be the service that previously would have been called Harvest Festival.
        It is very foolish and dangerous to forget the ties between field, harvest and food, imo.

        1. Especially for children, and younger people generally. Just appears from supermarkets. CofE continues its self-induced decline.

  52. 'Our farms are under siege from criminal gangs'

    "We all heard about the farmer who got nicked. He'd had break-ins at his farm."

    Last October, a 52-year-old farmer in Trawden took the law into his own hands on his land, tying up two people he accused of trespassing. He drove them four miles to Colne police station but was then arrested for false imprisonment and assault. The farmer was released and the case remains under investigation.

    Mr Jackson said: "I think there might be more incidents of people taking the law into their own hands."
    …

    Sgt Kevin Day said: "We have had individual sheep slaughtered and butchered to a very high standard at the side of the road."

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn85520qz2po

    1. Many sheep are stolen at certain times each year and the butchered remains are dumped elsewhere.
      The farmer in question probably could have been charged for racist behaviour

      1. Yes, 'sheep rustling' only needs a decent trained dog to round them up, into back of lorry.

          1. Could be, Eddy. Very useful for rounding up/herding into back of van though, valuable to sell on, or slaughter. One time sheep would just be marked after mating/insemination, now seem to be marked for owner. Always at least one or two try to break away…mind of their own, sheep, being female. Nothing like a good collie, I had one a complete idiot…Kate 🙂

    2. The Left cannot permit people to take the law into their own hands. There's a danger they'll not let the diversity off.

    2. Considering that part of London is utterly polluted with the diversity, it was always obvious they'd let him off.

      If the jury had been white it'd be in prison for 30 years now – as it should be. The Left make sure to stack the deck in their favour.

  55. Weather forecast completly wrong today. Should now be full sun at 25C is in fact heavy cloud 19c and a cold wind.. They like it hot when its not. Climate Change = Weather.

  57. If 2 atomic bombs brought Japan to its senses .. and then as they mended their ways , and decided to become a brilliant high tech organised acceptable country in under 80 years …

    Would similar severe measures create a more cohesive settled society in the part of the Middle East which is causing endth problems to their neighbours .. would any one dare to challenge Allah?

    1. Worth noting that Japanese Neo-Confucianism erroneously convinced them they were totally superior in every way to the uncouth evil foreigners .. until the British sailed into Kagoshima harbour in 1863 and pummelled it into submission inflicting unimaginable humiliation and a timely wake up call.
      That wake up call immediately led to the westernisation of Japan.
      The lesson was learned, and the rest is hist….

      2. So, explain Pearl Harbor? In WWII the "totally superior" attitudes were very much in evidence.

    2. The diversity are being shoved in every institution. This is why nothing works. The diversity in it are if not outright dangerous, they're incompetent.

    1. Radical Lefties shrug indifference and refrain from criticising an ally in the war against capitalism & western culture.
      The Useful idiots of Radical Lefties claim it doesn't happen, and even if it does.. it's nothing compared to the rape carried out by white men.. so it is actually ok.
      The Police & Monarchy choose sides.
      .
      https://www.youtube.com/shorts/I5CjsDQVlvw

    2. We could say 'import the 3rd world, become the 3rd world', Maggie. No need – already here, in plain sight for some time.

  60. Dover Sentry
    1h
    "If you want to live in a country where nobody can afford to heat their house…if you want lots of people to lose their jobs because there’s no energy…then carry on believing that the demand for Net Zero is intelligent and thoughtful."
    ~ Peter Hitchens

    1. He does have a point. I don't see Kemi talking about what she will do and why it needs to be done.

      She can't surf on past glories. There aren't any. She has to step away from this 'aren't we great' narrative pretence and admit they failed and why – then set out what she will do about each of those issues.

      1. She's just going through the motions at this point, as everyone's already decided that she's a loser.
        This is the problem with these shovelled-in protegées – they don't really have any talent or inspiration.

        1. I wish she wouldn't bother, then. All she is doing is adding noise. May as well tell folk to vote Reform.

        2. Actually I quite like her – she seems to have a spine, which makes a pleasant change for leaders of the "conservative" party!

    3. Do go easy on the lass.
      Although conceived by (respectable) Nigerians in Nigeria, then raised in Africa and the USA, Olukemi sees herself as British AND a Conservative.

    1. It was the jury which returned the Not Guilty verdict, not the judge. But after only 30 minutes deliberation, this has got to be questionable.

        1. The judge always gives a summing-up, but I don’t know what she said. Half-an-hour deliberation by the jury? Not even time to sit down and have a cup of tea.

          1. ٹھیک ہے، اب جب کہ آپ نے مجھے فورمین منتخب کر لیا ہے، ہمیں ووٹ پڑے گا۔
            یہاں 12-0۔
            آئیے اسے چند منٹ دیں۔

            Well, now you've elected me foreman we'll have a vote.
            12-0 it is.
            .Let's give it a few minutes

          6. I’m just waiting to see how many black warriors there were in Harold’s Army in the upcoming “King and Conqueror” TV series.

          7. Fair play. No-one wants to be followed home by a gang of paedophile rapist throat slitters just for the the sake of one corrupt verdict.

  65. Afternoon all,

    Daughter and SIL staying this weekend when newly qualified doctor grandaughter starting as F1 in an A&E department phoned them last night in bed. She was inappropriately asked by a registrar to discharge a patient whom she had not been treating and who was complaining about delays in their discharge.
    As a result a complaint was mede by patient's GP to the A&E team which ended up as a shouting match between the A&E consultant and the registrar in Arabic in front of my grandaughter – she was already late off duty.

    This was an example of one of many problems facing the NHS when foreigners are put under pressure in the NHS.

      1. Yo Sue

        They must start teaching patients Arabic, BEFORE they are admitted yo ossypital

    3. Sorry to read of this experience, Angie – it's the first, but likely not the last as grandaughter likely find out, wish her all the best.

      1. Thanks.
        Fortunately granddaughter makes frequent video calls to MOH, a retired State Registered Nurse as they used to be called, and gets suggestions about dealing with situational conundrums that arise in the NHS.

        1. That sounds great, possibly even do it herself for a future student nurse or similar #payitforward…:-)

  66. Flying Officer John Alexander Cruickshank, VC, AE (20th May 1920 – 16th August 2025), No. 210 Squadron, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve.

    Air Ministry, 1st September, 1944.

    The King has been graciously pleased to confer the Victoria Cross on the undermentioned officer in recognition of most conspicuous bravery: —

    Flying Officer John Alexander Cruickshank (126700), Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve. No. 210 Squadron.

    This officer was the captain and pilot of a Catalina flying boat which was recently engaged on an anti-submarine patrol over northern waters. When a U-boat was sighted on the surface, Flying Officer Cruickshank at once turned to the attack. In the face of fierce anti-aircraft fire he manoeuvred into position and ran in to release his depth charges. Unfortunately they failed to drop.

    Flying Officer Cruickshank knew that the failure of this attack had deprived him of the advantage of surprise and that his aircraft offered a good target to the enemy's determined and now heartened gunners.

    Without hesitation, he climbed and turned to come in again. The Catalina was met by intense and accurate fire and was repeatedly hit. The navigator/bomb aimer was killed. The second pilot and two other members of the crew were injured. Flying Officer Cruickshank was struck in seventy-two places, receiving two serious wounds in the lungs and ten penetrating wounds in the lower limbs. His aircraft was badly damaged and filled with the fumes of exploding shells. But he did not falter. He pressed home his attack, and released the depth charges himself, straddling the submarine perfectly. The U-boat was sunk.

    He then collapsed and the second pilot took over the controls. He recovered shortly afterwards and, though bleeding profusely, insisted on resuming command and retaining it until he was satisfied that the damaged aircraft was under control, that a course had been set for base and that all the necessary signals had been sent. Only then would he consent to receive medical aid and have his wounds attended to. He refused morphia in case it might prevent him from carrying on.

    During the next five and a half hours of the return flight he several times lapsed into unconsciousness owing to loss of blood. When he came to his first thought on each occasion was for the safety of his aircraft and crew. The damaged aircraft eventually reached base but it was clear that an immediate landing would be a hazardous task for the wounded and less experienced second pilot. Although able to breathe only with the greatest difficulty, Flying Officer Cruickshank insisted on being carried forward and propped up in the second pilot's seat. For a full hour, in spite of his agony and ever-increasing weakness, he gave orders as necessary, refusing to allow the aircraft to be brought down until the conditions of light and sea made this possible without undue risk.

    With his assistance the aircraft was safely landed on the water. He then directed the taxying and beaching of the aircraft so that it could easily be salvaged. When the medical officer went on board, Flying Officer Cruickshank collapsed and he had to be given a blood transfusion before he could be removed to hospital.

    By pressing home the second attack in his gravely wounded condition and continuing his exertions on the return journey with his strength failing all the time, he seriously prejudiced his chance of survival even if the aircraft safely reached its base. Throughout, he set an example of determination, fortitude and devotion to duty in keeping with the highest traditions of the Service.

    Stand easy Sir, and God bless you.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/obituaries/2025/08/16/TELEMMGLPICT000002670502_17553448881890_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqsuQbn-B0P1TNRutSahYxExEtroiOhfWycmG83R4LsXk.jpeg?imwidth=350

      1. Made of sterner stuff than today. My uncle once told me that his squadron were lined up to bomb a target and he watched the plane in front of him take a hit from flak. He and the crew said their farewells as they lined up to bomb. They were lucky, they made it back in one piece. A bunch of 20 somethings doing their duty.

        1. I once worked with a chap who had been a bomber pilot and completed three full tours. He was the only survivor of the squadron he trained on. Nothing ever fazed him.

    2. Respect.
      Despite the best efforts of the enemy, he lived to an unusually old age. After being shot up like that, I guess nothing ever came close in severity.

      1. Doesn't need to understand us and our truth, wibbling. Has the Muslim vote, the Union vote, the Womens' Lib vote, the youth vote, the Free Palestine vote, the Gay vote etc. However, we may see him beetle off to the EC at some point, and Rayner stepping up – how do you like that idea? (keep it clean…)

  68. Warqueen has taken Junior to Bournemouth to get shoes from the 'you're very tall and thus abnormal' shop which also means Mongo has gone with them. Whether Mongo can go into the shop with them, I don't know. He's not very good at being apart from Junior.

    It does mean that I have the house to myself so Oscar is flopped outside and Lucy is flopped inside.

  70. Wordle No. 1,519 3/6

    ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
    ⬜⬜🟨⬜🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    Wordle 16 Aug 2025

    Dullness for Birdie Three?

    1. Well I found it to be exciting

      Wordle 1,519 4/6

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

    2. Great start with my usual first word but second guess was more of an attempt to place a couple of letters (T,E) – with a view to setting up a birdie. Tada – ended my dreadful recent run with an eagle!

      Wordle 1,519 2/6

      🟨🟩⬜🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

          2. I like it when it’s only 5 sos, just done it now – I think I’m quite quick today – 7.03 (CrimsonBowl8045 remember)……..

          3. That would place you equal 10th in my group!

            I was 7.13 currently placed 11th.
            Oops, just checked before posting, now 12th.

    3. Nasty spelling.

      Wordle 1,519 5/6

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

    5. Bogey today.

      Wordle 1,519 5/6

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

      1. Yes, Quite surprising really with their talk of manly pride. Those men of not tekkin' any nonsense folk.

    2. "Yet the council claimed that the extra weight placed on the lampposts by the flags could 'potentially lead to collapse'…"

      Erm…

      1. They always hide behind health & safety when they have no reason or excuse for their decisions.

        The flags probably weigh 3 or 4 ounces.

        If the lamp post can't manage that where else are we going to string them up?

        Erm…

        1. We shall see. What is the relationship of stupidity to cowardice, and of those bedfellows to bullying?

  73. That's me gone for today. Just been to shut the greenhouse – bluss, it's chilly out.

    Have a sparkling evening.

    A demain.

      1. Glad to have missed that. It was well into the 30s here yesterday. But very humid. Horrible.

        1. To add to the pleasure it's also humid, but at least there is a tiny breeze, unlike yesterday.

    1. At times like this I'm always reminded of Tony Hancock's (Hancock's Half Hour) timeless observation….

      'Does Magna Carta mean nothing to you?? Did she die in vain??' Classic….

    4. Best comment..

      “London est magnifique! Rejoignez-moi pour une balade à cheval.”
      Marie-Antoinette in the tumbrill on her way to execution by guillotine.

      1. Thank you, i enjoyed that greatly. I lived there for a while over 50 years ago. I think it could best be described as "edgy", even back then.

          2. Goldsmiths School of Art (in those days – now apparently a University . or Yoouni – and we know what that means)

    1. That's quite funny until you realise it isn't.
      The woman defending herself would end up being arrested.

        1. Many of the women I used to worke with carried Mace in their handbags, just in case. Only a few carried handguns, usually a pocket sized.32 calibre.

        2. And there was me thinking a handy can of Mr Muscle Oven Cleaner spray might stop a shop thief in his /her tracks…..

  78. Ave atque vale amici. I have no internet and the phone is low on power so I am only logging in then logging out. I have no landline either because the idiots I’m moving to ported it “by mistake “ before the connection had been established. Nothing works.

    1. Typical of our political idiots everything they come into contact with they eff it up.

    2. They do not understand nature, nor agriculture, nor arboriculture, nor the land, nor the sea. Yet they suppress and oppress those that do in favour of the opinions of those who believe that they can legislate against the laws of physics.

      1. What a waste, see them side of the motorway/A roads all the time. Often trying to grow out of stupid tree guard.

  82. We must speak up for old British values before they are destroyed by our elites

    It should not take a man like Trump to tell us that the UK has a big problem when it comes to free speech

    Jake Wallis Simons
    16th August 2025, 7:11pm BST

    Rose Docherty is a woman of few words. You'd never have heard of the 75-year-old if it wasn't for what she didn't say. She's the activist who staged a silent protest outside the abortion clinic in Glasgow last February, holding a sign reading: "Coercion is a crime, here to talk, only if you want". Hers was a simple offer of conversation, made without a sound.

    You know what happened next. The septuagenarian was arrested under Scotland's "buffer zone" laws, which prevent anybody engaging in harassment or intimidation in the vicinity of abortion facilities, or influencing a woman's decision to use them.

    Are there parallel laws protecting women from being pressured into terminating their unborn babies? Surely that would be a more sinister scenario, one that would fall more obviously under the purview of the police. There are not. Scotland's police are on the lookout for anybody offering support to women who may be doubting their decision, not those encouraging them to go ahead with it.

    The message is clear. There is no mistaking where the state, and the culture it grimly cultivates, now stands on the question of ending unborn life. We see it reflected in the legalisation of euthanasia. We see it in the depravity of full-term abortions. Welcome to modern Britain, where convenient death is prized higher than life.

    This past week, however, Scotland's Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service changed tack and decided that the case would be dropped. This was announced quietly and without fanfare, presumably in the hope that the matter would slip conveniently under the rug.

    So much so understandable. After all, the silent woman of Glasgow had drawn Britain's creeping authoritarianism to the attention of the world when her case caught the eye of Donald Trump. That can't have been comfortable for Scotland's Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. In May this year, the president sent a White House delegation to meet Ms Docherty and other pro-life campaigners. Afterwards, she told the press that it was "heartening that others around the world, including the US government, have realised this injustice and voiced their support".

    A few months earlier, in a speech at the Munich Security Conference, vice-president JD Vance lambasted Scotland's buffer zone laws, under which Ms Docherty had been arrested. Without these American interventions, she may still be facing conviction today.

    This episode draws together a number of intertwining concerns. Firstly, there is the question of freedom of speech in a Britain where citizens may be visited by the police on suspicion of a "non-crime hate incident", and 30 arrests are made every day for offensive posts on social media.

    After she was detained, Ms Docherty was apparently told that she could avoid prosecution on condition that she acknowledged her actions were unlawful, accepted a warning and did not repeat them. She declined, insisting that she had not broken the law and that she was protected by her fundamental rights to free speech. "I simply stood there, available to speak with love and compassion," she pointed out.

    So much, surely, should be obvious. The fact that it took Donald "grab 'em by the p—y" Trump, who even to his supporters is hardly the paragon of purity, to bring Scotland's Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service to its senses is an embarrassing sign of how far we have drifted from our morals.

    The second, deeper concern is the disdain for religious faith and traditional values which is so relentlessly advanced by our rulers. Ms Docherty embodied an older Britain that the elites have sought to tamp down for decades. It is the Britain of faith, flag and family; of a belief in borders, a love of tradition, an affection for our history and pride in our armed forces; of hard work, fair play and modest patriotism.

    Ever since the end of the Cold War, those at the top of society have smeared such a sensibility as the root of fascism. Whether voting for Brexit, flying the George cross or demonstrating against migrant hotels, ordinary people who refuse to respect the new taboos are immediately defamed as quasi-Nazis.

    What values have been imposed in their place? Moral relativism; multiculturalism; diversity; secularism; appeasement; sybaritic complacency; Israelophobia. To this we can now add an enthusiasm for death for the elderly and the unborn.

    This suffocating ideology, which Sir Roger Scruton described as the cult of "down with us", seems to be imposed upon every corner of society. In some quarters it is no longer permissible, for instance, to say "merry Christmas" or "happy Easter", but only "happy holidays". No such restrictions are applied to "Ramadan Kareem" or "Eid Mubarak".

    In the United States, so sick had people become of this dogma that they considered the outlandish proposition of Donald Trump – the obnoxiousness, the braggadocio, the allegations of racism and financial irregularities, the misogynistic audio tapes, the claims of Russian collusion, the lack of political experience and total disregard of the norms of professional society – and decided he was worth a go. Anything, they felt, would be better than this.

    Will it really take Trump to save Britain from itself? Maybe. But there is a better source of hope: Rose Doherty, who takes her place alongside Lucy Connolly as a martyr to old Britain, and the thousands like her who comprise the silent majority. We must be silent no longer.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/16/we-must-speak-up-for-the-old-british-values

    No mention of the BBC…

    1. Strange that we are constantly bombarded by the need for more young people in the UK yet the PTB are exterminating in the womb as fast as they can.

      1. Exactly, sos, isn't it strange. I understand the need is for larger population to pay even higher NIC/PAYE to fund future state pensions. Doesn't seem to occur to government the other side of the ledger even higher in terms of benefit payments, cash wages etc. To say nothing of social downsides.

  83. The rot at the heart of the BBC has never been so deep as it is now

    Our national broadcaster is now dangerously out of touch with the public

    Simon Heffer
    16 August 2025, 3:27pm BST

    Last Wednesday a man of whom most had never heard, Dr Krish Kandiah, presented Thought for the Day on the BBC's Today programme. This item once offered theological observations from a range of creeds, linking them to contemporary issues.

    Dr Kandiah chose instead to accuse Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, of "xenophobia", something more in tune with the BBC's evolving role as a Left-wing front organisation.

    Valuing free speech as we should, Dr Kandiah is entitled to his opinion, however wrong it may be. Whether it is the role of the publicly funded broadcaster to allow obloquy against a public figure without an immediate right of reply is another matter: there was no reply on air, either from Mr Jenrick or a supporter.

    The BBC was forced, quite rightly, into an apology, though it stressed it "was apologising for the inclusion of an opinion in a place where it was inappropriate, not passing judgment on the rights or wrongs of the opinion". Dr Kandiah had alluded to a newspaper article in which Mr Jenrick expressed concerns about his children's safety in an area filled with "men from backward countries who broke into Britain illegally and about whom we know next to nothing".

    As the shadow minister protested, he was being attacked for being a good parent. Not long ago, those who took editorial decisions about BBC current affairs included many who, whatever their politics privately, had a strict sense of objectivity and balance.

    They understood the role of a public service broadcaster and, more to the point, they had a grasp of the temper of the British public. That grasp appears now barely to exist. In almost all aspects of the corporation's programming – from Dr Who to the Today programme – the output adheres to and promotes a world view inimical to much of its audience.

    Those in positions of authority at the BBC talk mainly to each other, and in an atmosphere of determined virtue-signalling and a culture of obsessive box-ticking. Their often patronising views about the rights of minorities (almost any minority you could name) inform all their decisions. Our universities, which have increasingly produced cadres of self-hating Britons in the past decade or two, are doubtless to blame, and the BBC recruits like-minded people year in, year out, to staff and run their parallel universe.

    The public increasingly detest being force-fed with wokery. The BBC remains the most popular medium in the country, but now by only a short head from YouTube.

    There, people can choose from a genuinely diverse range of output, and not need to suffer instruction about the glories of transgenderism, the vibrancy of communities filled with illegal immigrants, and the pretence that all this inevitably makes for a happy and successful society.

    Even the Labour Government appears to be running out of patience. The unconcealed wrath of Lisa Nandy, the Culture Secretary, at the broadcasting of extremist political propaganda from the Glastonbury festival in June was not her first assault on the BBC.

    Labour MPs also know that "their" people, who shell out monthly for Sky TV and Netflix because the BBC isn't worth watching, resent paying a licence fee. Thanks to its increasingly narrow cultural base and its detachment from reality, the BBC appears well into a death spiral.

    Its charter is due for renewal in 2027. One must hope Ms Nandy will renew it only on a very different basis that limits its role, reforms its funding model, and enforces cultural change to restore its relevance to the people it purports to serve.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/16/rot-at-the-heart-of-the-bbc-has-never-been-so-deep-as-now

    1. Its charter is due for renewal in 2027. One must hope Ms Nandy will renew it only on a very different basis that limits its role, reforms its funding model, and enforces cultural change to restore its relevance to the people it purports to serve.

      Ha ha ha, ha bluddy ha ha.

      1. Yes, a little naive, I thought. I expect she'll be moved to another post in the next year or so in order to avoid any embarrassment.

        1. I know people laugh at Lisa Nandy, seeing her as fat and thick (so what? Aren't they all), but she actually has a good heart and it is beginning to dawn on her that what she is part of, in terms of this authoritarian regime, is not that to which she believed herself to be signed up. More rejoicing in Heaven, etc..

          2. I agree with you, Johnny. We need cool heads – but also warm hearts. I'm not at all sure that I would equate the mawkish hysteria we are presently subjected to as "heart".

  84. Why does a Buccaneer pilot raise his undercarriage?
    So he can drop to operational height.

      1. Also watched a Battle of Britain flight Spitfire beat up the airfield at Cranfield, when I was a student there – the pilot at one pass flying between the poplar trees that grew between the airfield and the teaching camput, with the wings vertical! That, and the wonderful blaring from the Merlin, was a real experience!

        1. When I was on my last squadron we had an exchange visit with some Germans who were flying the F104. The German pilots were sat on the top of our line hut watching a display by one of our Lightnings. We had arranged a Spitfire to do a flypast (just for old times sake) but it arrived from behind them, between the hangars, and flew over the line hut. Luckily the Germans heard it coming and leapt off the roof – just – if they hadn't the prop would have minced them it was so low. Oh how we larfed!

          2. As a child, I watched Lightning at Leicester East airfield (1960s) really moving fast: went past the crowd in utter silence, very fast, followed by the most God-awful noise some delay later. Impressive, or what? That was a superb aircraft, elegant too.

          3. Yes Paul, still holds the record for the fastest climb rate and used to go supersonic in a climb – I spent over 4 years on them. But a b*stard to work on

          4. I can claim to have sat in the cockpit of an English Electric Lightning which was based at RAF Wattisham around about 1970

          5. Near an airshow back in the late 1970s I saw (and heard) a Vulcan climb vertically.
            Might have been a couple of degrees off.

          6. Fantastic aircraft, I was on them in the late 60’s at Scampton – the take-off howl was something else

    2. Why does a Buccaneer pilot's wife raise her undercarriage?
      So he can drop to operational height.

    4. I remember winning an Airfix kit for a model Blackburn Buccaneer when I was a Lifeboy in the early sixties. A splendid aircraft by all accounts.

  86. BORIS JOHNSON: It's the most vomit-inducing episode in all the tawdry history of international diplomacy

    Johnson seething with anger.. demands the war to continue.. to save the only country he ever really cared about.

    1. "Jaw-jaw is better than war-war."
      Quoted from a bigger man than BoJo the Clown.
      And, hate him or not, at least Trump has actually started the jaw-jaw. More than anyone else has achieved so far.

    2. Imo Johnson is a moron, one of the worst PMs in modern times. Been a Conservative voter ever since Thatcher, stopped when he was elected leader.

        1. He was Editor of the Speccie for a while, he was quite good – gave journalists quite a bit of leeway (the great Mark Steyn, for one). I’ve been a subscriber for decades, what a confession that is….

          1. The reason Johnson was a good editor at the Speccie was because as with his schooldays he wasn't paying any attention. He was probably out to lunch for 5 or 6 hours every day.

          2. Sounds about right. Didn’t think Carrie would last this long, reports of fights when living in DS. Maybe they’re birds of a feather, think they’d worked together previously so she must have known his character.

    3. Massive disappointment (I actually felt optimistic when he was elected – what a fool I was!). What is the matter with him? He's not stupid so it must be something else.

      1. He's for Boris, if he thought acting decently would do it – that's what he'd do. Civil Service knew him. Carrie's a bit of a mystery, not kicked him out as previous wives did, perhaps they're of a like mind.

          1. Thanks jack…there’s me thinking she was more interested in gold wallpaper, and having more babies:-D

          2. Thank you for reminding me of the abominable interior design choices made by the Johnson’s when occupying Downing Street. That wallpaper, upholstery and carpets were vomit inducing. In fact the dog might have vomited on the carpets. They had a dog?

          3. They did ..a terrier I think..didn’t they row over a bottle of red wine one time, Sunak leaked it?

          5. Tee hee – "they had a dog?" one that allegedly humped everything (now who does that remind me of?) and took a dump in the Queen's handbag.

          6. Thank you for reminding me of the abominable interior design choices made by the Johnson’s when occupying Downing Street. That wallpaper, upholstery and carpets were vomit inducing. In fact the dog might have vomited on the carpets. They had a dog?

          1. Spot on, opo. Except for ‘not turned out to be’, many knew him and what he was. Either kept silent, or onboard ‘gizza job’…

        1. Zelensky reportedly one, opopanax, along with his cronies, and also including Biden family. Amounts are eye-watering.

      2. Perhaps by advising Biden government/Biden family – reports they've made a fortune, aluminium etc..

        1. There was a washing machine going with Ukraine using FTX, the company run by dishonest loser kid Sam Bankman-Fraud.
          It was said at the time that the Congress would vote billions to be given to Ukraine. FTX had created its own cryptocurrency tokens out of thin air. A large chunk of the donation to Ukraine would be made in the form of FTX tokens bought using the Congress’s ‘donation’, which were said to have a market value as they were freely traded in crypto markets.
          So the Ukes got worthless crypto tokens plus a cut for themselves, FTX got a lot of the dollars and FTX made political donations to members of the Democrat party and no doubt had other ways to channel money.
          This was under Biden. The only difference with Trump is that Trump doesn’t bother to hide what he is up to.

          1. Hear you re Biden family. Could the kingpin really be Jill? Say what you think/know Trump is up to, please?

          2. He did some deal with the Arabs over Trump hotels, blatant profiteering using his position as President. Also he launched Trumpcoin and Melania coin which soared and then crashed, so basically he harvested millions from gullible followers. Bit trashy.

          4. I think Trump’s compromised up to his eyeballs unfortunately. There is no white knight coming to save us, but the good news is that if enough people hold the line, we can save ourselves.

      3. Johnson will have been paid and promised riches having been tasked with pledging arms and financial support to the regime in Kiev in order to keep the war going for as long as possible.

        The mistake the idiocracy made was to assume that post the USSR the emerging Russian Federation were already beaten. The reality is that Russia has been busy rebuilding its country and ensuring its military capabilities in the face of western aggression. The Russians are a match for America in missile design and capability along with air defence systems as proven time and again over the past three to four years.

        1. It would be different if they were using their own money rather than spending our stolen wealth. Even then, it would stink

        2. According to my ex, who had seen a bit of the Russian military, they were ahead of the Americans throughout the cold war.

      4. Johnson will have been paid and promised riches having been tasked with pledging arms and financial support to the regime in Kiev in order to keep the war going for as long as possible.

        The mistake the idiocracy made was to assume that post the USSR the emerging Russian Federation were already beaten. The reality is that Russia has been busy rebuilding its country and ensuring its military capabilities in the face of western aggression. The Russians are a match for America in missile design and capability along with air defence systems as proven time and again over the past three to four years.

    5. I personally found Joe Biden and his crime family vomit inducing. Hunter Biden and his father were profiting greatly from interests in Ukraine, the son directly through interests in oil and fracking in an area recently taken into safe Russian hands.

      Boris Johnson was and remains a fat clown with the morals of a whore.

      I find it incredible that Boris Johnson and the rest of the brain dead western political establishment now freely admit that they would rather the war continues even if it means the deaths of a few more million Ukrainians and the utter destruction of Ukraine.

      We should follow the money and prosecute crooks like Johnson who stand to profit from the continuance of the war in Ukraine. The list includes the EU Commission and rats such as Starmer and Macron.

  87. BORIS JOHNSON: It's the most vomit-inducing episode in all the tawdry history of international diplomacy

    Johnson seething with anger.. demands the war to continue.. to save the only country he ever really cared about.

  88. "I won't take my coat off, I'm not stopping" (assembling in Buszkowice, Poland …. before the big journey south …. BTW, about a week earlier than most years)

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e647f696353ba13ca8586d281d4016181fe18c8d73eb929d6add69547edad2dd.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/45b15d577afab3a05c80201de01f24166d4ad210b8e6458ae0ae19e3272867ce.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/48bfbc654309418fd2d5116248bd703512011a9c8755da67d3a13ef1aa1eb46b.jpg

    1. Last time I was in Poland they almost blackened the sky as they flew south. It was magnificent.

  90. This is not a spoof. From the website of the Belmond Royal Scotsman, a luxury train reminiscent of the LMSR grand tours of Scotland in the inter-war period:

    Day Three – Aviemore

    The train departs Kyle early in the morning, retracing part of the previous day's route, and heads towards Inverness. You'll disembark in Aviemore, where you can experience a range of country pursuits at the Rothiemurchus Estate, located in the heart of the Cairngorms National Park. The estate is home to Rothiemurchus Forest, one of the largest remaining areas of native Caledonian pine forest that once covered most of Scotland. You can choose from activities such as fishing, clay pigeon shooting, or wild swimming, provided you've pre-booked. Alternatively, opt for a forest bathing experience, which involves a guided sensory walk that allows you to practice mindfulness surrounded by stunning woodland. Afterward, enjoy refreshments at the hunting lodge while learning about the estate's fascinating history.

    If you prefer a more leisurely activity, you can take a casual bike ride from the village to explore the magnificent River Spey or nearby lochs.

    In the early evening, rejoin the train in Boat of Garten as it makes its way to Dundee. Tonight is your last night on board, and it will be celebrated with a splendid dinner. After dinner, you may feel inspired to join in with dancing in the Observation Car – a perfect finale to your tour.

    https://www.luxury-trains.co.uk/belmond-royal-scotsman/essence-of-scotland.htm

    At £6,400 for a twin cabin, I'd expect more than an invitation to stroke a leaf to clear my mind…

    1. I think I read that something similar is on offer from London to Cardiff, based on the Orient Express. Seems a good way to part a fool from his/her money.

    2. As a Stanier, you should understand that when a bloke wants to satisfy his inner fireman with a trip on a proper train, his wife will demand some sort of mishmash of rose petals if she has to accompany him.

  93. The petition is clocking up nicely but still well shy of a million, let alone the 20 million needed.

    Talking of word salads, the Government Response excels itself. It means nothing. Such arrogance and contempt.

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

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