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.
Good Morning All. 10C Clear sky.
Morning Johnny, clear sky 9C
https://x.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1966924844043243638
Another one who should be rotting in jail. They'll never stop their stupid nonsense unless we put them away to make necessary examples of them.
I always thought Boris was somewhere on one of the difficult spectrums , his mind is in a different sphere , and not quite educationally sub normal , he is incapable of many things, even though many consider he is an eloquent genius .. I don't!
A con man.
But only about 250,000 of them stay each year and they 'earn' more than the average peasant, according to the Guardian. The 'earn' bit may include family and housing allowance, medical care and social grants to help integrate the nurses, doctors, social workers and religious leaders into the local community, but it is worth every penny for the improved diversity, equality and integration. Think yourself lucky, they could be penniless Europeans looking for an easy life at the expense of the British.
Good morning, chums. And thanks, Geoff, for today's new NoTTLe site. Got another Birdie for Wordle today. EDIT:
And also, I'm first.No, I'm not, that honour goes to Johnny Norfolk.Wordle 1,548 3/6
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I haven't forgotten yesterday, Elsie. How could you have sunk so low? 🙂
Good morning, chums. And thanks, Geoff, for today's new NoTTLe site. Got another Birdie for Wordle today. EDIT:
And also, I'm first.No, I'm not, that honour goes to Johnny Norfolk.Wordle 1,548 3/6
⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨
⬜🟩🟩🟩⬜
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https://x.com/johnredwood/status/1967096726852075863
https://x.com/ArchRose90/status/1966945150858653909
Indeed.
Good morning, Johnny.
Hello.
9 arrests just to try and show 'who is in charge'. And with nearly a million plus people who have every right to make a complaint.
Good Morning, all
Clear skies, cool
https://www.thetimes.com/imageserver/image/%2F77b6021e-9590-4bd5-b2ca-292a516afa0c.jpg?crop=3125%2C2083%2C290%2C0&format=webp&quality=9&resize=750
Good morning, Citroen1.
The rakes progress eh.
Good morning, everyone.
Good morning.
Pro-Empire historian Nigel Biggar: Being cancelled has worked out fantastically for me
His defence of colonialism turned him into a hate figure among the Left. Now he is taking on the ‘nonsensical’ campaign for reparations
14 September 2025 6:00am BST
Ed Cumming
“There was a time when I wanted people to like me, and I would not want to risk losing people’s approval,” says Nigel Biggar. “But I figured out that people who dislike me for bad reasons are people whose approval is not worth having. There are plenty of other people whose judgment I value who support me.
“Old age brings a dangerous combination of two things. You finally figure out what you think, and you cease to care what other people think, so you’re more inclined to say what you think.”
Over the past eight years, saying – and writing – what he thinks has made Biggar one of Britain’s most controversial historians. For the best part of a decade he has been waging an often lonely battle for a reappraisal of colonialism, arguing that the British Empire was not as evil as contemporary historians have tended to portray it. His views have provoked opprobrium from other academics, hostile reviews and an aborted publishing deal. They have also brought him international book sales and an unusual level of fame for a Christian ethicist.
As the icing on the cake, last December, Kemi Badenoch ennobled him; it is Lord Biggar of Castle Douglas who greets me in his new digs at the House of Lords. Five months after his appointment, he is still finding his way around, but settling comfortably onto his new perch. “Apart from the gents outside the chamber being in poor condition, I’m really enjoying it,” he says. A neat, trim 70, in a dark suit and wire-framed glasses, Biggar is a friendly, if slightly guarded, host. He gives the impression he has endured the barrage of online criticism because he believes he is correct, rather than because he enjoys the scrap.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2025/09/12/TELEMMGLPICT000439202832_17576847905760_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqpqmlJbe4ZqiM0LBlsbc8bvtDkrf8jiUHGxrFBG-8jZ8.jpeg?imwidth=680
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch nominated Nigel Biggar for a life peerage in the House of Lords in 2024 Credit: PA Wire
As he publishes a new book, Reparations, in which he debunks the case for old imperial powers to pay damages to their former colonies, Biggar says he is happy with how things have turned out.
“Sometimes I have felt unnerved, sometimes I felt depressed, but the truth is it has all worked out fantastically,” he says. “Kemi Badenoch appointed me because she was aware of what I’ve been doing on the anti-decolonising front, and because I’ve supported her on all three of the culture-war issues: gender, race and decolonisation. This issue about colonialism and reparations has really brought my career to its proper focus. If only my enemies knew what good they’d done me.”
The crusade started in 2017, when Biggar, then professor of moral and pastoral theology at Oxford, started a five-year project, Ethics and Empire, with the aim of scrutinising colonial history and presenting a more balanced view of empire in general, not only the British example. For the project and related essays, he was widely denounced. Fellow academics, including close Oxford colleagues, signed petitions against him. Dr Priyamvada Gopal, an Indian-born professor of postcolonial studies at Cambridge, was one of his most eminent critics.
“Shameful,” she wrote on Twitter, describing a collection of Biggar’s essays. “Apart from any politics attached to it, dumbing down of actual historical work to supremacist sh–e. Racist & lightweight, well-done, Oxford.”
Although his university privately supported his project, Biggar endured months of worsening criticism. “When I got into trouble, my name was in the press every day for two or three weeks in December 2017. Although one or two emailed me in support, the vast majority of my colleagues and friends said nothing. Academics may be independent minded when it comes to their niche, but when it comes to political matters they don’t want trouble.” Rather than be dissuaded, Biggar doubled down.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2025/09/12/TELEMMGLPICT000438071758_17576848526880_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqRo0U4xU-30oDveS4pXV-Vv4Xpit_DMGvdp2n7FDd82k.jpeg?imwidth=680
Biggar: ‘Over time I have become even more convinced that the views I have are more or less the right ones’ Credit: Jeff Gilbert
“Good, old friends told me to drop the whole thing because it was too toxic, and I persevered,” he says. “Partly because other people supported me to do it, but mainly because I intuited this was really important for Britain. I feel even more certain about that now. Over time I have become even more convinced that the views I have are more or less the right ones, and it matters.”
In the wake of the initial row, Bloomsbury commissioned Biggar to write a book about colonialism, drawing on his research at Oxford. But by January 2021, in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests, they had cold feet about the idea. They wrote to Biggar to say that “public feeling on the subject does not currently support the publication of the book,” delaying the project indefinitely and offering to pay him out of his advance.
“I was for some days quite depressed,” he says. “I thought ‘Have we really come to a place in Britain where work on an important topic can’t get published because the senior management of a publisher yields to junior staff who can’t deal with offensive material?’”
The poster boy for free speech
HarperCollins stepped in and published Colonialism: A Reckoning in November 2021. A bestseller, it argued that slavery was not the same as colonialism, that Britain was not exceptional in its actions, and that, while there were undoubtedly evil excesses, the agents of empire were also humane and principled, and brought order as well as death and destruction. Biggar became a poster boy for free-speech enthusiasts, and was made chair of Toby Young’s Free Speech Union.
With the success of his book, his arguments about colonialism moved from the fringes of the discussion towards the mainstream. In the paperback edition, he wrote a response to 10 of his most hostile critics.
“Having gone through that, I’m pretty confident I got it more or less right,” Biggar says. “My sense is that the tectonic plates are shifting a bit. In the end my book sold somewhere between 65,000 and 70,000 copies.”
It is a figure that must have the Bloomsbury accountants waking up in cold sweats of regret, but also reflects Biggar’s journey out of the fringes. He expects Reparations to get a less antagonistic reaction than Colonialism did. “ I suspect the pushback will be less hostile than the Colonialism book. There are signs of resistance to the anti-colonial narrative gathering.
“[The change] has been partly because some people, not just me, stood up and said ‘This is nonsense’,” he says. “My perception is that there are a minority of aggressive ideologues who are absolutely certain about colonialism being evil. Then there are a much larger majority of people who don’t know much about colonial history, but know that if you stand up for colonialism you’ll be plastered with accusations of being a racist and a white supremacist.
“But when some individuals feel able to stand up and say, ‘This is nonsense’, more in the intimidated majority realise they are not alone and the dissidence gathers.”
His experience of academia chimes with a broader political observation that, in recent years, many have felt reluctant to speak out on sensitive topics. The grooming gangs are a case in point.
“The refusal to attend to the ethnic dimension of this problem was a fear of being accused of being racist,” he says. “I think the security forces have become skittish about anything that might alienate Muslim communities further. But denying there are cultural reasons for the grooming gangs or a problem with cousin marriage, or Pakistani-Muslim communities in Bradford [isn’t helpful].
‘The case for reparations is nonsense’
On the subject of his new book, he says the case is clear. “It’s also partly because the anti-colonialist position, the case for reparations, is nonsense, once you look at it carefully,” he says. “The emperor has no clothes.”
Subtitled “Slavery and the Tyranny of Imaginary Guilt”, Reparations argues that the case for reparations is murky and impracticable. While Britain had a loathsome slave trade, he argues, slavery is as old as civilisation and existed all over the world, including within Africa. He also argues that Britain’s profits from slavery are impossible to accurately quantify and Britain did more than any other nation to bring about abolition, which also came at great economic cost.
The issue of reparations has gained political salience since Labour won the election, as several prominent Labour figures have expressed their support for it. Biggar’s political purpose is to avoid a false sense of guilt impeding progress in other areas, or being used by political opponents.
“Clive Lewis MP is at the centre of a parliamentary campaign to promote it and David Lammy has shown sympathy for it,” Biggar says. “The issue has gained more political significance. Both the reparations book and the colonialism book are trying to prevent the UK from being manipulated through a false sense of guilt into paying reparations.
“We’re not going to do it because we can’t afford it, but I think this Labour Government would probably agree to something in principle if we could afford it.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2025/09/12/TELEMMGLPICT000099295052_17576840374330_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqpVlberWd9EgFPZtcLiMQf0Rf_Wk3V23H2268P_XkPxc.jpeg?imwidth=680
Labour MP Clive Lewis is one of many prominent Left-wingers to have called for Britain to pay compensation to the Caribbean for the legacy of slavery Credit: Tolga Akmen/LNP
There have been debates around reparations since the abolition movement in the 19th century. And the idea gained momentum in the late 20th century through groups like the African Reparation Movement, founded in 1993 by Bernie Grant MP. In 2014, the Caricom group of Caribbean nations approved a 10-point plan for slavery reparations. Universities and other institutions have launched investigations into their own historic links with slavery.
The clamour for reparations increased after the Windrush scandal in 2017, but was supercharged by the Black Lives Matter protests and the murder of George Floyd in 2020.
In January 2023, the Church of England committed £100m to a fund intended to “address past wrongs” of the slave trade. One estimate has calculated Britain’s colonial debt at an outlandish $24tn (£17tn), a figure that is more than six times current GDP.
“With reparations, people talk as if we could go back 200 years ago, unravel history and return it to where it was,” Biggar says. “The thing about guilt is that there’s no end to being exploited. How on earth can we make up for the slaves who were worked to death?”
Biggar argues that Britain’s enemies see our self-flagellation over our past as a weakness. “I think the surrender of the Chagos islands is partly due to a misplaced sense of colonial guilt,” he says. “There’s no doubt that China has used colonial guilt as a way of brushing off criticism of the Uighur people.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2025/09/12/TELEMMGLPICT000439627337_17576920001050_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqpVlberWd9EgFPZtcLiMQf0Rf_Wk3V23H2268P_XkPxc.jpeg?imwidth=680
Protests calling on Britain to pay reparations, such as this one in London, increased after the Windrush scandal in 2017 Credit: David Rowe
“And I’ve heard from Indians and Africans viewing our breast-beating in this country and saying ‘Why are you doing that?’ A friend who toured Africa reported that their reading of colonial history was far more nuanced than ours. Yes it did bad things, it also did good things. Our elites tend to have gone overboard with the negative. The grandchildren of the real subjects of empire look at us and think ‘Why are you beating yourself up in this way?’”
Biggar’s metamorphosis into one of the country’s most provocative popular historians is all the more surprising when you think that until his 60s the most controversial thing he did was become a Christian. Born in 1955, he grew up in Castle Douglas, Kirkcudbrightshire, near the western edge of the Scottish border with England, “beautiful agricultural country”, from where he has taken his title.
His father worked for a family firm that produced cattle feed and fertiliser, his mother was a schoolteacher during the war, but was “basically a mother.” He had an older brother, Tony, who was killed in a motorcycle accident in Nairobi when he was 33 and Biggar was 27.
“My mother had a daughter who died within six months,” he says. “My poor parents suffered twice.” He wells up when he mentions Tony. “I feel privileged to have lived long enough to get to this point.”
‘I caught religion at a very young age’
After prep school in Ayr, Biggar was sent to boarding school at Monkton Combe near Bath, where his Christianity became more pronounced.
“I had begun to catch religion at a very young age,” he recalls. “Neither of my parents were religious. My mother was a lapsed Methodist, my father was a non-church-going Presbyterian. Telling my parents I was Christian was the first time I had the courage to stand out. My parents were benignly bewildered. My father put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘It’s OK, it’s just a phase.’”
The first in his family to go to university, he read history at Worcester College, Oxford before moving to Chicago for his masters in religious studies. Being an undergraduate between 1973 and 1976 was formative; there has always been a political aspect to his faith.
“The 1970s was a national crisis in a way we’re not facing right now,” he says. “Bloodshed in Northern Ireland was at its worst, the unions were holding the country hostage. I had to prepare for my exams in November 1973 having to read by candlelight, and drink tea with no sugar because the docks were shut down. As a budding Christian, I said to myself ‘What does 2,000 years of Christian tradition have to say to this?’”
After a masters in Christian Studies in Vancouver in 1980, where he met his wife Virginia, 10 years his senior, he returned to England and was ordained as a priest in 1991. Although he was never a parish priest, he was chaplain of Oriel College, Oxford. Chairs in theology in Leeds and Trinity College Dublin followed before he returned to Oxford in 2007, where he was Regius professor until he retired in 2022. In 2013 he published the book In Defence of War, arguing for “just” wars, including Afghanistan and Iraq.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2025/09/12/TELEMMGLPICT000439633935_17576950867900_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bq1F9N6pUIu4QWFka9jlJHP0idrhLnGaHHhR6FJ9N0-H0.jpeg?imwidth=680
Being introduced to the House of Lords, January 2025
His serious interest in colonial history started around the time of the Scottish independence referendum in 2014. “As an Anglo Scot, although I’m a committed unionist, I felt obliged to look at nationalist arguments in case they might be right,” he says. “One of the arguments was that Britain equals Empire equals evil, therefore Scotland needs to purify itself by seceding.
“I knew that wasn’t tenable. But the point was that colonial history was being used for destructive political purposes. It’s the same with British slavery: it’s being used by foreign parties to get leverage or for financial reasons.”
He is not a lifelong Tory. He voted for Tony Blair for 10 years. But, understandably given that she elevated him to the Lords, Biggar remains supportive of Kemi Badenoch’s leadership of the Conservative Party. Part of his aim in fighting the case for reparations is to improve confidence in British institutions and stave off political extremism.
“This indiscriminate trashing of Britain’s past is politically dangerous,” he says. “I think it’s melodramatic to say we’re on the road to civil war, but I don’t think we should discount it entirely. We have been there before. But what I fear is that we have a Labour Government in the process of disillusioning the voters again.
“Nigel Farage is exploiting the justified disillusionment by making extravagant promises he’s not going to be able to keep. If we were to elect a Farage government, I think political disillusion would plummet even more deeply. Then, God help us, we might have a Corbyn government.”
Responding to critics
Biggar’s critics have variously accused him of white-washing Empire, omitting or under-engaging with scholarship that disagrees with him while cherry-picking data and anecdotes that support him. Reviewing Colonialism in the Guardian, Kenan Malik found that, “in seeking to challenge what he regards as cartoonish views of imperial history, Biggar has produced something equally cartoonish: a politicised history that ill serves his aim of defending ‘Western values’.”
Did he get anything wrong? “I think I’ve given an account that includes all the data, the bad stuff and good stuff. It’s possible I underestimated the quantity of racial prejudice among British settlers in East Africa or among British planters in India.
“I think my basic defence would be, ‘Maybe I did, but this book was a response to an environment where the negative features were being overplayed.’”
When he is not fighting his corner, Biggar likes to go on Second World War-themed treks. In 2015 and 2017, he followed the route through Crete taken by Patrick Leigh Fermor and Stanley Moss in 1944, when they smuggled a captured German officer back through enemy lines.
On another trip, Biggar followed the writer Eric Newby’s escape from captivity in Italy. On that trip, Biggar found himself on the same hill where his father had been a stretcher bearer in the Second World War. Most recently, last year he followed the route of Frank Thompson, the younger brother of the historian EP Thompson, who parachuted into Serbia in 1944 to try to raise a revolt against the Bulgarian government.
“It was a disaster,” Biggar says. “He was run to ground and executed, but we followed his route across the mountains and ended up in the spot where he was shot. My friends aren’t so keen on the history, but I need a story.”
If they ever give out decorations for fighting in the culture wars, Biggar will be laden with medals.
Reparations: Slavery and the Tyranny of Imaginary Guilt by Nigel Biggar (Forum Press, £20) is published on September 25
Excellent article, Citroen1. Thank you for posting.
Biggar is worth reading/listening to.
Dr Priyamvada Gopal – a nasty, bigoted racist. Yes, you are, Gopal. You know it, deep down. Hiding behind your nationality. Why are you here if you think Britain is so horrible?
Vile cow who was unforgivably rude and demeaning to the Porters of Kings College, Cambridge.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/70/Priyamvada_Gopal_on_The_Laura_Flanders_Show_2019.jpg/500px-Priyamvada_Gopal_on_The_Laura_Flanders_Show_2019.jpg
Dr Priyamvada Gopal – a nasty, bigoted racist. Yes, you are, Gopal. You know it, deep down. Hiding behind your nationality. Why are you here if you think Britain is so horrible?
Dr Priyamvada Gopal – a nasty, bigoted racist. Yes, you are, Gopal. You know it, deep down. Hiding behind your nationality. Why are you here if you think Britain is so horrible?
Clive Lewis. What a noxious creature he is. He appears to have become Radio 4's go-to rent-a-quote Labour MP when they have one of those light-hearted conversations about a current story. He was on PM a couple of times last week talking about the resignation of the Stockport Slapper and the election arrangements. Somehow Farage got into it: "We won't be taking any lessons on democracy from him!" he laughed, sneeringly.
Some of you might remember Stephen Pound. Today was particularly fond of using him to fill in a gap on a day low in news. He actually sounded like someone with whom you might enjoy a pint or two. You'd throw one in Lewis's face.
But St. George of Fentanyl was NOT murdered. He died from a drug overdose.
Oxford Union president to face ‘disciplinary proceedings’ over Charlie Kirk messages
George Abaraonye faces vote of no confidence after 200 life members of debating society express willingness to support move
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2025/09/13/TELEMMGLPICT000439472678_17577842963950_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqP39tEZ4Vwk35a6oX5MCCIlHwtdpQwyNje2OyIL7x97s.jpeg?imwidth=1280
The incoming Oxford Union president who celebrated the shooting of Charlie Kirk is set to face both disciplinary proceedings and a vote of no confidence when he takes up the post next month.
In a statement issued on Saturday, the world-famous student debating society announced that complaints made against George Abaraonye over his online comments would be treated with “the utmost seriousness” under disciplinary proceedings.
The Oxford Union does not have the power to summarily dismiss a president-elect.
However, under the society’s disciplinary policy, any office holder found to have committed serious misconduct can face penalties up to and including immediate dismissal.
It can also be revealed that 200 life members of the debating society – former Oxford University students who have paid to retain their membership – have expressed their willingness to support a vote of no confidence in Mr Abaraonye’s leadership.
*
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Looking like that what is he attempting to prove ?
https://x.com/PWestoff/status/1966779385777631294
Good.
👍. Great news
The Daily Mail can reveal Abaraonye, a third year Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) student, made it to Oxford without getting the typically required minimum of three A grades at A-level – after being rejected by at least one less highly-regarded university.
What must be the educational level of the students who elected him Chief of the Oxford Union? . . . and why was he accepted by Oxford without the required educational grades in the first place? It merely shows how far the University has fallen in the past 30 or 40 years.
Good morning, all Y'all.
Still raining.
Nice morning here but we'll get wet later.
412863+ up ticks,
Morning Each,
A bloody sure health & safety warning to 100% indigenous peoples ,if there was any doubt, we are at war with the political kapo governing bodies, https://x.com/BROKENBRITAIN0/status/1966917958976106839
Thanks for posting.
Well done Tommy (formerly known as etc etc)
deleted
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/photography/2025/09/10/TELEMMGLPICT000439346888_17575284993825_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqpVlberWd9EgFPZtcLiMQf0Rf_Wk3V23H2268P_XkPxc.jpeg?imwidth=960 A full-spectrum image of the Spaghetti Nebula unveils the faint and elusive nature of this supernova remnant
Morning all! Off shortly to spend the day standing in a field…….. Frampton Country Fair if you want to look it up……
Britain has been colonised by the million over the lst a sixty years {I cannot be botherde any more to correct Disqus's Text editor's relentless shuffingl]. Shouldn't it be us that is plugigng black holes in our finances by demanding reparations from oil-rich colonising nations, su as Nigeriah?
Absolutely yes – Jeremy – we should. But Nigeria's a basket case, as you know.
That's why they're all coming over here.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/photography/2025/09/10/TELEMMGLPICT000439346945_17575284993824_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqpVlberWd9EgFPZtcLiMQf0Rf_Wk3V23H2268P_XkPxc.jpeg?imwidth=960 Aurora Over Mono Lake: the rare occurrence of Northern Lights in California
That looks like a 1970s Roger Dean record album artwork.
Morning all 🙂😊.
Bright start but only 6c and rain after lunch.
Unfortunately someone will have to get the 'lawn moaner' out later this week.
We don't need to pay anyone else any where for anything, they obviously can't be bothered to even try to put their own houses in order. Let them get on with it.
Good morning, all. Clear, bright and very damp after yesterday afternoon's cloudbursts/thunder storms.
Propaganda about as subtle as being hit in the face with with a house-brick. Naturally, woke lefties will lap it up but the more the morons running this crude tactic use it the more ordinary/non-woke people will come to see the reality of two-tier policing being applied to both active patriots and themselves.
London's bosses do not appear to be the sharpest knives in the drawer.
https://x.com/RealDonKeith/status/1966933157963284709
He’s bot wrong.
Love it.
Graham Stringer to stand down to allow Class Warrior It's-Grim-up-north Andy Burnham win Blackley and Middleton South seat in landslide.. then oust the most popular PM in history.
One problemo.. Reform are polling higher than Labour all over Manchester. https://x.com/evolvepolitics/status/1966818886403215604
Graham Stringer was on TV yesterday saying he has no intention of standing down. ?
But they always say that.
Right up to the point where they DO stand down.
He's labour, and we all know they lie with every breath.
Only because the offered brown envelope isn't thick enough yet.
Good morning all.
A dry start with a tad under 10°C. A clear sky overnight with a bright 3rd quarter half moon, but light overcast this morning. No wind.
Are we surprised?
Starmer appointed Mandelson without proper checks
Labour peer appointed on back of flimsy two-page dossier and light questioning
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/09/13/labour-mps-turn-on-mcsweeney/
Sir Keir Starmer appointed Lord Mandelson as ambassador to the United States without fully vetting his links to Jeffrey Epstein.
Downing Street confirmed the Labour grandee’s elevation to the role before formal security checks on him had begun, The Telegraph has established.
At the time of the announcement in December, he had only been subject to light questioning on his relationship with the late financier and convicted paedophile.
Prior to the announcement, the Prime Minister was handed a two-page dossier detailing publicly available information about his links to Epstein by the Cabinet Office’s ethics team.
It is understood that Morgan McSweeney then emailed Lord Mandelson with three questions on behalf of Sir Keir relating to how long his relationship with Epstein went on, why he stayed in his house and his involvement in an Epstein-backed charity.
His answers appeared to satisfy the Prime Minister and Lord Mandelson was then unveiled by Sir Keir as the incoming ambassador to the US last year.
The formal vetting process carried out by the Foreign Office, which included an in-person interview, only began after his appointment was made public.
It was concluded before Lord Mandelson took up his post in Washington in February and is reported to have flagged no points of concern.
However, on Saturday night Downing Street sources told the BBC that Lord Mandelson had been “economical with the truth” in his answers.
Under mounting pressure on Saturday, Whitehall sources also attempted to pin the blame on the Foreign Office, questioning why its in-depth vetting had not uncovered the emails.
One senior figure told the BBC that the “developed vetting” process “ought to have been completely forensic, but they must have used the wrong lens”.
The revelations will raise further questions about the Prime Minister’s judgment amid growing disquiet among MPs about his leadership.
Lord Mandelson was sacked on Thursday morning, hours after a cache of past emails between himself and Epstein had been made public.
In the messages, sent after it emerged Epstein was being investigated for child sex crimes, he urged the disgraced financier to “fight for early release”.
Sir Keir is under pressure over what he knew about the emails and why he chose to defend Lord Mandelson at Wednesday’s Prime Minister’s Questions.
No 10 has begun a fightback, nicknamed “Operation Save Keir” by one party figure, as it looks to limit the contagion from the scandal.
Labour whips were said to be calling around their MPs on Saturday amid concerns over the souring mood within the party.
One former Labour minister said that Sir Keir’s standing among backbenchers was so bad that “he’s in quite a perilous position now”.
Badenoch: PM misled Parliament
Reform and the Tories accused Sir Keir of misleading Parliament when he defended Lord Mandelson at PMQs on Wednesday.
At that session, the Prime Minister told MPs he had confidence in Lord Mandelson and “full due process” had been carried out on his appointment.
But it has since emerged that, by the time he spoke, No 10 had already been alerted to the emails that would bring down the US ambassador.
Bloomberg, which uncovered the cache, had sent a 2,000-word email to Lord Mandelson on Monday, which he had forwarded to the Foreign Office.
Foreign Office mandarins then sent on the message, which included details of what the emails said, to No 10 on Tuesday morning.
But government sources said that Sir Keir himself was not informed about them before he headed to the Commons to defend Lord Mandelson. That was because No 10 was still waiting on a report from Sir Olly Robbins, the Foreign Office’s top civil servant, who had been asked to investigate.
He had emailed Lord Mandelson posing further questions about the emails but did not receive a reply back until after PMQs.
The briefing appeared to be an attempt to shift some of the blame onto Sir Olly, who was branded “hapless” during his time as Baroness May’s chief Brexit negotiator.
ITV was even briefed that he had chased up Lord Mandelson after missing the fact that the US ambassador had already replied to his email.
On Saturday night Dame Priti Patel, the shadow foreign secretary, questioned why national security concerns had not been flagged over Lord Mandelson’s appointment.
She said: “It was clear from the outset that Peter Mandelson was unfit to be Britain’s top diplomat to the US.
“Starmer and his chief of staff Morgan McSweeney have serious questions to answer as they are responsible for disregarding our security services in order to promote their Labour Party friends.”
Government officials insisted that the appropriate procedures had been carried out and that it was standard practice to only vet external hires after an appointment had been made.
But political appointees to ambassadorships are rare and critics questioned why, given his history of controversies, the checks were not brought forward.
On Saturday night, Labour figures turned their ire on Mr McSweeney, Sir Keir’s powerful chief of staff, saying he should go over his role in hiring Lord Mandelson.
One senior MP said the controversy was the latest example of bad judgment by a small group of decision makers at the heart of No 10.
They added: “The ever-decreasing circle around the PM is making more and more factionally driven, damaging decisions that are undermining the good work of this Government.
“They need to remove those elements of the operation who are unable to see beyond the factional end of their nose. While McSweeney is in place, it’s impossible to see how it can change.”
Morgan McSweeney is said to have seen Lord Mandelson as a mentor Credit: Peter Macdiarmid/LNP
Reform will start a bid to drag a Cabinet minister to the Despatch Box on Monday to explain what he knew before his PMQs appearance.
Richard Tice MP, the party’s deputy leader, said: “It’s time for the Prime Minister to come clean. Reform will be asking some very difficult questions of him on Monday. After recent news reports, it is clear that he has misled the House.
“Even his own backbenchers are publicly saying he has lost control and isn’t up to the job. Reform will hold Starmer to account and do everything we can to drag him to the despatch box and give the answers that the public deserve.”
Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative Party leader, claimed the Prime Minister had “spent the week lying to the whole country” about what he knew of Lord Mandelson’s links to Epstein.
She said: “If No 10 had those emails for 48 hours before acting, it means he lied at PMQs and ministers lied again about new additional information.
“These are yet more errors of judgment. The Prime Minister has very serious questions to answer. The only way to clear this up is full transparency about who knew what, and when.”
Downing Street sources disputed those claims and questioned how an expression of confidence in Lord Mandelson could amount to a lie.
They insisted Sir Keir only read the emails when he read a story Bloomberg published on Wednesday night, at which point he took the decision to sack Lord Mandelson.
It comes amid fears in Downing Street that the Labour peer could now look to bring down the Prime Minister with more damaging revelations.
One long-time party figure said Lord Mandelson, who has twice before been forced to resign from top positions, was unlikely to go quietly.
“He’s a fighter, not a quitter, and I wouldn’t want to be on the end of Peter Mandelson as a fighter,” they said.
starmer has plenty of advisors, everything he says has been printed out for him. He's just another left wing one eyed, hard of hearing, highly unreasonable self opinionated pratt. Who is enjoying winding up the British taxpayers and the rest of the British public.
Same ilk as Mandleslime really.
Twice sacked from governmental roles, his relationship with Epstein was already a matter of public record. Yet still they appoint him to a job normally held by a member of the diplomatic service. Starmer really has no sense of judgement.
Good morning, all. Sunny. Chilly. Not so much breeze.
The text of a VERY long X-Tw@ter Post that makes some VERY pertinant points:-
https://x.com/RobertMSterling/status/1966974489553461366
I do hope so over here too.
All those saying we shouldn’t care about Mr Kirk because he was an American and it’s nothing to do with us are the same people who insisted we had to get on our knees for the career criminal who died of a fentanyl overdose.
Thanks for that, Bob
The mid-terms will be very interesting, if the outrage grows.
An impressive 21million+ views in under 24 hours…….
Put your hand up if you are surprised:
“LORD KINNOCK stands to benefit from a trust that reduces inheritance tax despite publicly calling for levies on personal wealth.
The peer and former Labour leader recently called for a wealth tax on anyone with assets of over£10m. However, his family has privately taken steps to pay less in inheritance tax when he dies.
A copy of his late wife’s will seen by The Telegraph reveals that Lord Kinnock is a beneficiary of a trust of up to £325,000 that could save his estate thousands of pounds normally payable under the divisive 40 per cent tax.
Tax experts said the trust could benefit his estate in a range of ways, including protecting investment gains, lowering property values and providing an extra allowance if he remarried – all of which would slash the inheritance tax bill.
Lord Kinnock’s net worth is believed to be substantially above the inheritance tax threshold. His wife also left £1.5m to her immediate family when she died in 2023.
The Tories accused the Labour peer of hypocrisy, pointing to his recent calls for a wealth tax on the rich….”
Evidently, he takes the world as he finds it, not as he might wish it to be. So do I. Do you?
Is that twat famous for falling over on a beach still around ?
Lefty found guilty of rank hypocrisy – hardly news, is it?
Move along. Nothing to see here.
'Morning All
As promised just for Willum
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/179bb6de994f206777276fd6238dc3158150bc0bdfbf6b031c6bef29c0383d03.jpg
Rest
Starmer
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ed00b535b62bcf040d3e783f1c5b669df16b3ef3d8e53bd6752126453e0a85c1.png
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a9bf8bb4fa46a3f1939a333e6fcd7a7402941368666337dcd5bf4c0c7ca867c0.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/158cb2bb3354b3479af1917c879bc25dd0ddedcc7583391e4d3131d655f40f58.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2d6655905d15352dca94ca371b5e8b7bd46c946a7336ea254f6496132919cf7e.png
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e35d6b3b0dd1aa307e791d6e276c067e4ddb1b8feee7d3946c8a356832a642a3.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0f3528f07281508ab1298c98f1a607996115101b3ca0663b55c054f349ee4faf.jpg
That last one is VERY true.
But driving on the left 😆😅
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3c8f489cef80722122848421c28f1cc6c80f15740a944acfb388ba656b6491b0.jpg Best advertising campaign ever!
All good today as usual 🤗
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e64e418e6dbad85cc6eece0877c2af545a716c843ad677bd04a116aabd0b5fb2.png
Easy to tell this is an American cartoon.
Indeed.
Musk "swiped" it and posted it the other day.
It's on the money though, American or not.
Centre or center!
George Orwell was deemed to be left wing when he wrote – is he still regarded as such by the Left?
Are you saying you didn’t understand it because of the spelling?
};-))
Americans carnt spell proper.
Good morning all, dull day , have switched the heating on for a couple of hours , we only have downstairs heating !
Loved the offerings from the Proms , in particular Bill Bailey playing the Typewriter music, by Leroy Anderson .
Here is a U tube reminder … but of course NOT Bill Bailey .
I was shocked , but not surprised to see so many EU flags last night !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2LJ1i7222c
I found the Billy Bailey playing it by googling.
He looks very different in black tie, with short hair and a well-trimmed beard.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/124943fbd3f9f37a452165f850efb5df7693ea5fb53f761934d21e24f226a5e6.png
I found the Billy Bailey playing it by googling.
He looks very different in black tie, with short hair and a well-trimmed beard.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/124943fbd3f9f37a452165f850efb5df7693ea5fb53f761934d21e24f226a5e6.png
On another note, did some shopping , and ahead of me being served and packed by the checkout girl, was a woman who produced a wallet full of notes to pay her food bill , probably £200 in £20 notes .
She laughed and smiled at me and advised me to pay in cash when ever I could because all card transactions are now traceable , and she didn't want to be spied on by AI or any other devious means .. because the Chancellor and her cronies have us all on their radar!
Is that paranoia, or reality ?
There's an article locally that says all chats (sms, tweets, etc) will be monitired by the EU, for child protection. Right… Chat Control
https://www.aftenposten.no/stories/135586?utm_source=share&playlistId=Tstpy7P0VfO3Eu8vNwfLIWf8
Sorry, in yer Weegie. Submitted as evidence I'm not making this up.
What else will they be checking for, I wonder?
Credit/debit card transactions are all certainly monitored, Belle. Who has access to all of that information is another question.
And why would they need to know ?
Control.
Card transactions are monitored – note that the ads on FB etc reflect what you’ve been buying – but not yet in real time. They’re processed after the transaction. Digital currency will monitor in real time though and control what you’re allowed to buy. It’s a slippery slope, so beware.
I've noticed after looking 'on line' for certain items. Soon after adverts for similar products appear on my screen.
Just like Youtube. Watch one Sam's Trains, and that's all it feeds you…
It's the unauthorised selling of huge chunks of data to 3rd parties that is worrisome..
Care to join our raffle, top prize is £100,000 it's free.. I'll scan this receipt then txt us your email.. we'll let you know if you win. LOL
Gotcha; name mobile card details email buying preferences location.. and in Asda Manchester a face scan.
100,000 of that kind of data is worth about 0,08 ETH (ethereum) on the dark web at close of business Friday.
The United Kingdom has Europe’s highest fraud call rate at 9.3%, with people frequently targeted by scammers posing as loved ones, Amazon representatives, and HMRC officials.
Reality. If you pay by card they know where you are and when plus what you bought.
https://x.com/kelvmackenzie/status/1967122636829348196
comment below..
https://x.com/dickie_frances/status/1967135585577177455
Starmer shouts “You’re supposed to protect me from things like this”.
No Starmer; you're supposed to protect the country from being represented 'on the world stage' (your phrase) by people known for their dodgy crooked dealings and association with convicted nonces.
He’s also supposed to protect the country from being invaded.
What a lot of whingeing BS! https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/gen-z-fencesitter-children-parenting-b1246709.html
If I had a nickel for every time one of my friends said, “I’m on the fence about having kids,” well, I’d have a lot of nickels. It’s only befitting that there’s now a Reddit community called Fencesitters that has seventy five thousand people who are undecided about having kids. I get their dilemma. For the longest time, I thought I really badly wanted kids. Until I spent two weeks with my nine and thirteen year old cousins and was exhausted by the sheer amount of attention they needed from me twenty four seven. I wasn’t able to get any work done during those two weeks because I wanted to be emotionally present for them. I wanted them to feel seen, heard and validated — something they don’t usually get from their parents.
After the experience, I wasn’t sure if I have it in me to constantly be attached to a child if I were to ever give birth. I’d definitely need a lot of child care support. But at the same time, I don’t want to create trauma for my kids the same way my parents did by being unavailable constantly. And don’t even get me started on the unattainable costs of raising a child. Across the UK, it is estimated that it costs about £150,000 to cover the minimum cost of a child between birth and the age of 18.
Every now and then I come across cute videos of babies on my social media and wish there was an ‘Add to Cart, Buy Now’ button. Then I remember the two hundred grand at checkout and sigh. I instead scribble in my diary with a pout “My ovaries are on edge today.”
It turns out that I am not the only one debating this as a late-twenties Londoner. Across the pond, Jack Worthy, licensed psychotherapist and faculty with Gestalt Associates in New York says that among his clients, identity questions loom large over whether to have a child. “Have you always seen yourself as a mother? What does it mean for you to be a woman and not become a mother? Am I forever limiting my career if I choose to have a child? What doors would I be forever closing or opening?” These are some of the questions his clients ask. “Even with the most supportive partner and with the most flexible career, the time, money, and energy for parenting will need to come from somewhere. Parenting requires sacrifice and trade-offs,” he says. So when you ask, “Do I want to become a parent,” you’re asking, too, “From which part of my life will I take this time, money, and energy? From work? Leisure? Friends? Travel?”
When I have conversations with my Gen Z or millennial single friends, they are equally as undecided as I am. On one hand we really do love kids and want them but on the other hand, we aren’t interested in making our lives more difficult if we don’t find the right partner or resources to have children. Neither are we willing to sacrifice our sleep, travel plans, and our bodies just to fulfill some societal expectation of what it means to be a woman.
I used to say that I would just adopt a child if I didn't meet the right man by my late thirties or at least freeze my eggs. Now I can see how delusional that was. I actually have no interest in being a single mother after witnessing so many parents struggle even after having each other’s support.
Gen Z consider themselves to be cycle breakers when it comes to generational trauma and I feel quite aligned with that as the oldest Gen Z standing — I am twenty eight. When my parents had me they were financially not equipped to have a child. My mother left me at my grandparents’ house for a year after I was born because she couldn’t get more than three months of maternity leave and my father was earning less than her. I would never even think about having a child if I were in the same circumstances. When I asked my mother why she chose to conceive me at such a difficult time, she said, “That’s just what everyone did and we just followed it.” I think that’s such an irresponsible and selfish thing to do — to raise a child when you’re nowhere equipped to and that too under so much stress. I often struggle to find any happy childhood memories because my parents were always in survival mode. Maybe things would have been different if they were fencesitters.
vernon
19 min ago
Gen Z consider themselves to be cycle breakers when it comes to generational trauma and I feel quite aligned with that as the oldest Gen Z standing'??? Has anyone ever heard so much nonsense.. By global standards they have had the most comfortable upbringings in history yet here we are have to listen to them giving it large as their parents had to struggle a bit.Boo hoo. What do they think live is about ? It's meant to be a struggle. Please do us all a favour and DO NOT have kids.
reply
Me, me, me.
Don't you worry dearie, the gimmegrants will pop out kids nineteen to the dozen and you can pay your taxes to cover their costs.
Of course they won't give a flying one when you're old and need support and the wealth generators have all left.
Best they don’t become elderly and infirm and need the next generation to look after them. They probably think the elderly should be killed of course but won’t necessarily agree when it’s their turn.
Having children can bring you your greatest joy and your greatest sorrow.
If you do your best, and luck is on your side, the joy will outweigh the sorrow.
Indeed, Rastus.
The only thing I can say is, think of many of our parents as children. Families of 7-8- 9 children, some didn't make it others survived, lived, were educated, worked all of their lives, raised their own families and here we all are. Probably not from such large families our selves. But often now as grandparents and even great grandparents.
But the way our disgusting political classes are behaving they need winding in. They are making some of our families lives a misery.
Nicked
"I do hope Burnham doesn't try to get back in after an engineered by election.
Because if he lost, I'd probably die laughing and I want a few more years yet."
I listened to this yesterday. I gave just been reminded of it, reading Matthew Lynne’s rather pathetic article in the Terriblegraph.
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/a-long-time-in-finance/id1595603058?i=1000726471478
Quantitative Easing or Quantitative Tightening? The impact of these hangover expressions from another era is only now becoming apparent. Christopher Mahon of Columbia Threadneedle talks to Jonathan and Neil about how the Bank of England bought government stocks and sold them back at a loss. One example:paying £101 (QE) and later selling it for £28 (QT). The cost of this insane behaviour to the taxpayer? Probably over £115 billion (that's billion).
conclusion at the end:
…“You talked about the lending envelope. I must say, if it was down to me, I think I'd be issuing envelopes with something else in if I was trying to reform the MPC, which seems to me to have lost its way dramatically. And it's very hard to see how they can plausibly explain their conduct on this.
So we need a better MPC and more sensible people in charge. That seems to be the conclusion.
Well, I think we need some people who are prepared to think and use their judgment rather than saying, oh, well, we've got a Treasury guarantee, so let's just carry on. I think it's a disgraceful episode. And I think their tactic clearly is to hope that nobody is noticing.”
From A Long Time In Finance: The Great QE Rip-off, 12 Sep 2025
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/a-long-time-in-finance/id1595603058?i=1000726471478&r=1536
This material may be protected by copyright.
Ah. Tim Wallace has a better piece talking about Disaster Bailey, our Hallowed Leader of the BoE.
https://youtu.be/MDzVnkh_-EY?si=hSNSKzrR17yayhDT
A beautiful example of the finest BBC's in depth reporting on important social issues. Probably got an award for it. It may have taken the biscuit.
That takes the biscuit…or not.
Is it a YoYo biscuit?
I used to eat these biscuits when I was at prep school in the 1950s.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d254a6ea26788568e949233979d526a66fe34fbcbe710f1dcd3127a63d05b84f.png
The Norwegian "Jo", pronounced "Yoo" is the positive answer to a negative question, such as "Is it not raining, then?" and you reply "Yes, it's raining"
The equivalent of the French si, then. Il ne pleut pas? Si, il pleut.
Erased – double posted.
You obviously had more than one!
Lord Kinnock to benefit from trust loophole that reduces inheritance tax
Former Labour leader accused of hypocrisy after publicly calling for a wealth tax
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/tax/inheritance/wealth-tax-kinnock-accused-using-trust-loophole-avoid-tax/
BTL
Lord Kinnock – still known as Lord Pillock, the Welsh windbag – is the personification of the Labour politician who manages to enrich himself and his family at the taxpayers' expense beyond the dreams of avarice.
HA! HA! HA!
breathe
HA! HA! HA!
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood condemned "those who have attacked and injured police officers". "Anyone taking part in criminal activity will face the full force of the law," she added.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwydezxl0xlo
In the same way that attacking white women, shoplifting, and so many more crimes "face the full force of the law", I guess.
And – how come they know excetly how many/few were arrested, but just "dozens" of police officers were injured, the list of injuries being given?
The estimated attendance has moved from 110 to 150 thousand I see.
I think there were local ones, too ..some cancelled for various reasons.
I do not trust the MSM's accounts of the TR rally.
Morning Rastus! You shouldn't. Go on You Tube and judge for yourself. Most people think there was at least, at least one million people there and it was peaceful apart from an attempt at provocation by the Metropolitan police. Which I posted about above.
Morning Rastus.
I do not trust the MSM.
A few more pictures from yesterday.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/31fe360e9d18abd6cfc01f3e0eb4ff09311d5d3adb1e428dab262aaefc8b0aa5.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d81210f80e598bdd70aeed124857cdc2469e2732eec8e90ea57f15af2df1c8f4.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f9e729abfbdaab25c8946a0e4c1ebace4bdac240ba27d500b28ac7a91e1749d4.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/46f863b6f4b0979a1bc4971c7f00e7c066eef2d3963e02312a161f5a47673552.jpg
Love the suit!
Me2 🙂
New Mandelson revelations pile pressure on Starmer
PM was given a two-page warning about the peer’s links to Epstein and still made him ambassador to Washington
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/keir-starmer-terminal-mandelson-epstein-cfr9hzftv
And continues to keep him in place, far as I know Paul.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7523d6b15b229e1e7ecc33dd0846118f470aad45c6f40c3a48a364d7c67f3133.jpg
This is a top read. Stuff here I never knew, until now. Reccommended 100%
https://www.freespeechbacklash.com/article/mandys-third-fall
A taster: "Epstein offered precisely what Mandelson yearned for: access to presidents, princes, and plutocrats. Never mind the sex crimes, look at his contact book! Mandelson sent him birthday cards, called him his “best pal,” and even lobbied Tony Blair to meet him. He worked on business deals with him after his conviction. This wasn’t carelessness. This was the cold-hearted, grovelling of the creep we all know and despise. Mandelson could no more resist Epstein’s orbit than a fly can resist dung."
This is a top read. Stuff here I never knew, until now. Reccommended 100%
https://www.freespeechbacklash.com/article/mandys-third-fall
A taster: "Epstein offered precisely what Mandelson yearned for: access to presidents, princes, and plutocrats. Never mind the sex crimes, look at his contact book! Mandelson sent him birthday cards, called him his “best pal,” and even lobbied Tony Blair to meet him. He worked on business deals with him after his conviction. This wasn’t carelessness. This was the cold-hearted, grovelling of the creep we all know and despise. Mandelson could no more resist Epstein’s orbit than a fly can resist dung."
Ed Sheeran – Rest in Peace, Charlie Kirk | Heartfelt Tribute Song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5HdaD4ImiY&list=TLPQMTQwOTIwMjUVs7fo3fauaA&index=3
Good to see that some people in the entertainment business are prepared to voice opinions that the Left would not dare to voice.
I know he gets a lot of stick from some, but he's quite a decent singer and that song is a beautiful tribute.
Keep your head down, Ed…
Good morning all. I watched hours of the Rally in London yesterday and I have to say the Telegraph report is a pack of appalling lies. There was an incident but there are accusations that the police deliberately misdirected a section of those going to the celebration and took them within yards of the Antifa thugs. The ensuing melee was caused by the marchers pushing through the police line in order to rejoin the main body of the march.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6F-8oe-huU
It didn’t cover itself in glory in “reporting” on the anti-ULEZ protests a few years ago, either.
A propos of that Geoff Buys Cars reported a few days ago that Noel Wilcox (?), the builder who has taken TFL to court for incorrect signage, has won three times but the latest “judge” said he couldn’t win again because having to pay all the money back would bankrupt TFL and on top of that awarded costs against Mr Wilcox (?). I will find video and post.
SWMBO mentioned that.
Glad to have a trustworthy source of info on the march, Johnathan. Thanks for confirming.
Morning folks – finally a day of rest after 3 days of hard labour preparing for, attending (as bar-keep) and then dismantling kit & caboodle for the local village show. Some pictures:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/29ffc9396b1d7fac01d064674d850d5ea910ec2e5c861a45ccaf6ae72a4e1502.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7957a4766542729fac3d4796bcbc0b1fa76e311091aa4862534b407c5a50f23e.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1d809b27f4e23622a0b5f0c5899d33462120d87ea515c84e8e2f863fbef52a2a.jpg
and a few more…
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fbfc0359f47f9b5d9ef5bc828790664d5e3fbdf037d19e636aaaa345defeef70.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/92f71d974b1c09ad1ae98e8454015fbe35e3d678ffc7ce1118da1d926dca13d9.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f6635508b0967ce680299112173e64ebcc865fd0bf1fd9f4555cb70c11598d9a.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cdb6c2160ecb69e2e994ef7afda51bd49a8bb81ee407c89bd66166e794e040bb.jpg
Fortunately there were only a couple of light showers during the afternoon until the Monsoon at around 5:30pm before the village Marquee ( Not the huge hired marquee could put to bed!)
Brilliant.
Well done the organisers and helpers.
All far right attendees presumably.
Good morning, Sos,
Not to mention terribly white…… 🙂
Agreed. Huge amount of effort goes into to coordinating contractors, sponsors, stall holders, voluntary bodies, performers, volunteers for ground preparation, transportation of kit (eg. A Frames and 8×4 boards for the photographic & art competitions held in the nearby village hall.) and the clearing up the field afterwards.
Don't know about their political leanings but 95% Brits and a few British Commonwealth types…
To say nothing of the dreaded "insurance" isshoos
I learned that because the show (which is in its 6th decade) is (somehow) affiliated to the RHS, insurance is arranged through them.
“Court told…”
Well done you !
I know how much work is involved as i have done similar events myself. Normally involving a woman in a white dress and some bloke in a penguin suit.
Where are all the people? Hope it doesn't rain.
Wait for it wait for it! Please see below…..
Ah…!
If it does, they'll want to get undercover pdq…into the tent…:-)
I hope you stopped the Thomas's from winning all the prizes.
This man is always worth an ear…
https://open.substack.com/pub/tarableu/p/elon-musk?r=10qzvs&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
I would love Andy Burnham to stand for election as an MP and to be thoroughly humiliated by Reform.
It would be even better if he had resigned his position so to do.
That might even guarantee Starmer's downfall more than him being elected as well as causing huge splits in the Labour party.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/photography/2025/09/10/TELEMMGLPICT000439346951_17575284993823_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqqwwNAECrD5S6hf9oI2CkB6dxjeaITjWDBr66vCNsS28.jpeg?imwidth=960 Twin glacial rivers with the Milky Way core off to the left of the image. The Southern Cross is in the centre sky.
A bit disappointed when I found this was a combination of photos. Such competitions shoiuld be limited to actual photographs, not edited panoramas.
While composite, folk forget we are a very small planet in a small system on the edge of the galaxy which is a tiny fraction of the universe.
We have got to get out there and give muslim a planet of their own to ruin, then ring it with automated defences to keep them there.
Harrison, McCartney and Starr may have put Lennon in front – but Tommy put the Yaxley before Lennon.
Good morning all,
Pork, bacon, pork sausages, ham, gammon ……….
The 2nd one is rather naughty, but …… https://x.com/i/status/1966879043296629023
The Japanese have the right approach.
Do not kowtow to them.
412863+ up ticks,
Morning S,
Or even Pigtow.
They only go anywhere else but where they belong to stirr up trouble.
I didn't think Japan permitted muslims to live there.
That's what I used to think, but apparently there are quite a few. More fool the Japanese.
A toe in the door, and see what happens!
Forced.
It is 'a few'. Japan has very strong immigration laws simply because it has all sort of other economic problems.
Of coursa, she could just leave. I always thought bacon sandwiches should be a recognized, not to say required, national dish.
We get BLT's here, trouble with that is IMHO, crispy bacon does not make for a good bacon sarnie – and then there is all that other stuff as well. I do make proper ones at home thouhj.
Rather than integrating and disappearing, the muslim keeps complaining as if everyone else is the problem.
Good morning all,
Pork, bacon, pork sausages, ham, gammon ……….
The 2nd one is rather naughty, but …… https://x.com/i/status/1966879043296629023
The Geoff Buys Cars you tube video in the latest “two-tier” justice scandal and the poor man who has won the case against TFL three times but still lost the war.
If you have a VPN, set it to Albania to enjoy ad-free You Tube viewing.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=78b3Cjqg2hE&pp=0gcJCckJAYcqIYzv
Blowing your own trumpet is now a criminal offence in London:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c021dda283bbc46e0c18875ed7d4b591185eedebef3f0c40834a9142a91051ea.png
Superb!
Saw that on the last post last night.
Strange coincidence. I posted this elsewhere five years ago.
I think that was when I nicked it!? Still in my meme collection.
Which includes this one:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bd9ab85e0e099fd334417a6c1c359bb6cbc8c883f0e035c7995339c50e57c9fc.gif
It was the last post last night as I recall it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxfOuFTRPN4
Hamburglers as well.
Only in Downing Street, surely?
Only the burglars, ham as in meat has probably been banned already.
But not so much Ham fisted. Its nearly always been the same.
Bugger!
I read that as 'buggery'. Then thought it was posted on Hampstead Heath.
412863+ up ticks,
No, gettaway, he won't accept it will he? NOT MANY BENNY, to be called a hypocrite is for him an upgrade
when in reality he is a grade one nasty bastard.
Dt,
Lord Kinnock to benefit from trust loophole that reduces inheritance tax
Former Labour leader accused of hypocrisy after publicly calling for a wealth tax
https://youtu.be/yDTraFYfCuc
Gosh – when I was a child, Battle of Britain Sunday was an enormous event.
My father ex RAF use to keep the standard as in Flag, in one of the wardrobes. And use to carry it in the annual parade at Hendon. Wearing his Beret blazer and medals. I've still got his medals and discharge documents.
I am flying the ensign and it will stay up until the 16th.
One would hope that the Brits of today would step up in the same way in a similar situation.
But it's no joy to watch all the stirring shots and listen to martial music. There's too much death & destruction involved.
Excellent – worth watching every minute of it.
Is he just extraordinarily thick, a product of what was once called an ESN school? There's deluded and then there's this utter stupidity.
Still, he could be a case of Darwinism in action.
https://x.com/RadioGenoa/status/1967068640597229656 This is the best reply:
https://x.com/BradBeringer/status/1967073597773558013
People instinctively need something to cling to when they've nothing else.
Perhaps it needs to be ‘unalived.’
It's a mental illness.
Now hooshing with rain again.
Earlier, ambulance visit to next door, no blue lights and crew not in a hurry. Concerning…
Social visit? Found a bottle of whiskey have they?
Might be delivery rather than take away.
I witnessed a rather sorry sight just after midday. A somewhat dishevelled man was slumped at the foot of a concrete wall near to a roundabout underpass. Two paramedics were in attendance alongside, trying to rouse him, get him to his feet and into the back of their flashing-blue ambulance. Two bystanders were nearby, probably those who summoned the emergency services. I guess he was badly intoxicated. He certainly looked in a pitiable condition.
412863+ up ticks,
I do believe Tommy has undoubtedly won the hearts of the indigenous working class, farage portrayed his worth in the double dealings in regards to the 2019
GE, He saw Gerard Batten and Tommy link and realised the strength it had.
Dr Rakib Ehsan
( Bangladeshi English)
Dt,
Yesterday’s rally simply confirmed that Tommy Robinson is a liability for the anti-establishment British Right – which is precisely why Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has always kept his distance from him. National-conservative politics in modern Britain does not need such distractions.
There are a lot of 'none brits' on face book today causing trouble.
But it's what they do everywhere they go.
Bangladeshi British, not English.
RIP Ricky Hatton – a troubled man but a great boxer.
A bit young to go at 46.
Probably drugs.
Sadly, a distinct possibility….
It is a shame when men like him after hitting the big time could have been such positive role models for young men who begin in similar circumstances.
I remember reading the Chicago Tribune account of Hatton’s fight against Mayweather. The boxing correspondent wrote that Hatton was brave but a slugger by comparison with the silky skills of Mayweather.
Whatever but 46 is no age to die. RIP.
I watched that fight cor and, irrespective of the fact that Mayweather is possibly the greatest boxer of all time, Ricky had him in real trouble when Mayweather, firing a desperate shot, caught him flush and dropped him.
As Ricky said after the bout – Lucky bastard!
I relied on US boxing correspondents when covering great fighters simply because our lot so often got it wrong.
Harry Carpenter for example.
I have no doubt that The Hitman gave Mayweather a really tough contest.
My late father was a good judge of boxing. I remember he predicted that Henry Cooper would be cut easily by Cassius Clay on account of the bone structure around his eyes. He also thought Frank Bruno carried too much muscle.
Go ladies go !
Nuns on the run! Three sisters are sprung from hated old people’s home to return to convent they lived in for six decades before being evicted
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15095909/Nuns-run-old-peoples-home-return-convent-six-decades-evicted.html
Brilliant story! Go Nuns!
Be a film next year. Hope they get enough royalties to buy the convent back.
Can anyone recommend a resource to teach foreigners how to banter, English style?
Yes. Watch old British sitcoms.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rKYL0tW-Ek
Yo, Mr Grizz
Jack Speak by Rick Jolly, who was a Naval Surgeon Commander in the Falklands
Give this a few moments of restrained hmmmms!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz5uvXY5yvE
That was a sad video. I used to love IAHHM, and to see how many of the characters are no more…
I served 22+ years in the Royal Artillery and I swear It wasn't a comedy series, every bit of it was true!
My father and grandfather were both Royal Artillery.
Peter Sellars would have been 100 today, one of my childhood favourites.
I can't listen to any of these YouTube videos that have an idiotic AI [Artificial Imbecility] narration, like so many of them do these days!
I remember the latest M in the film fours years ago. No Time to Die, saying "I've dedicated my life to defending this country I belive in defending the principles of it….." Come on M sort it out we have a problem.
Watching Ireland/France girlie rugby – there's a French girl with Feleum written across her chest (albeit on the back) – er….I don't think so!
Exciting game, literally of two halves.
Nearly right – It's Manae Feleu.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ad074f8b2af733685126194f5b63c3da7062f996c476cc7cfec16050b9701239.png
Ah so it was Feleu M = and I might
It is beginning to look like Charlie Kirk was murdered because Tyler Robinson couldn't accept that the 'woman' he was shagging was a bloke.
Oh what a tangled web we weave.. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4330d72ca9a04ba3138b8f159dcde11b3de1cc9eeac51f216b7fee2dce1e76b3.png
Any excuse eh…..
The murder was senseless evil. The crowing by the Left just horrific.
It is sad that a kid set out to kill someone he disagreed with. There's an irony that Charlie Kirk engaged in dialogue rather than anger – Leftists seem incapable of thinking that way.
But it made it clear to most people with breath in their body what the Left are like and what they stand for – if they didn't know already. So, although Kirk is no more, his
deathmurder was not totally useless.With all due respect, rubbish.
If you look at political violence in the US, the Charlie Kirk murder is an anomaly. Most political violence comes from the ultra right, the white supremacists, the neo-nazis et al. That's the group the FBI rates as the greatest risk. The Oklahoma city bombing – 168 dead. A man driving a car at speed into a march in Charlotte, 1 dead, 35 injured, driver a white supremacist, the murders of Democratic Minnesota lawmakers earlier this year, not to mention the organized attack on the US capital building to try to stop Biden taking office. When those perpetrators were identified, they found automatic weapons and pipe bombs in their vehicles. And the ultimate crime? Trump vetoed the use of the National Guard to protect the building.
That might well be the view from the US, but here in Scandinavia & Europe, it looks different. And the blinkers have been lifted a bit.
Typically we are presented with the language game of "gender" substituted for "sex". Subjective feeling vs observable fact. As a result we are asked yet again to try to untangle what the hell so called newspapers are on about.
Effed if I know!
Buggered if you don't!
I always thought that gender pertained to language and a grammatical system of assigning masculine, feminine and neuter to inanimate objects and names of things.
Then about 30 or so years ago the essentially meaningless statement that, “masculine and feminine are culturally constructed fictions” appeared. It links to the erasure of women in Frankfurt School ideology?
Willey will know what this means:
https://scontent-cdg4-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/545602437_1200157942143861_5011212285553003789_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_p552x414_tt6&_nc_cat=105&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=127cfc&_nc_ohc=GpMy92ps8ZQQ7kNvwHejIU5&_nc_oc=Adlh7BvMGg9OSZCYmS4RD9MzhUiu15D0BRhn4NZsfoMvJdkDPATrDU65JKUAKt_heTWiC3U6hc9vNKknKcyPRkqG&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-cdg4-1.xx&_nc_gid=Q3uKDzUUmVC2KhVEtdnpuA&oh=00_Afa8sEt7_Ipnl3jkRvjH9Y6pN3wMt_is98Yae_gNCsIGcg&oe=68CC857D
J'ai compris aussis Hee hong hee hong:)
For those of us who do not parlez Frogee, can someone translate?
Have you seen how much that looks like you ? There’s just the tap that’s a bit bigger.
Thank you.
De rien . You’re welcome.
De rien . You’re welcome.
The Met gets it right….
https://open.substack.com/pub/tarableu/p/take-a-bow-the-met?r=10qzvs&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
My husband has subscribed to the channel that televises “Ted Lasso”. It is funny and we are loving spotting Richmond!
Police hunt man in the middle of Tommy Robinson march calling for Keir Starmer to be assassinated – after footage was seen by millions
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15097021/Police-hunt-man-middle-Tommy-Robinson-march-calling-Keir-Starmer-assassinated-footage-seen-millions.html
I strongly suspect that this will be yet another example of two tier justice.
My money is on him being banged up.
A leftie calling for the same for Farage would get a "heat of the moment" knuckle rap.
Nigel Farage has already challenged the police to arrest those who have made death threats to him. We shall see if anything is done.
But just imagine if people made death threats to Steven Yaxley-Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson) : the police would praise them and reward them.
"These are the kind of people we're dealing with!" will be the cry. "Ban all similar marches!" I expect every decent marcher will be angry about it but that won't register. Our 'aligned' Home Secretary will be on the case…
Yesterday, in the qualifying competition for the 25-26 FA Cup, the match between Sporting Khalsa and Hereford was abandoned midway through the second half because of an accusation of racial abuse of the home goalkeeper by two visiting supporters. Some Hereford supporters are worried that they will be thrown out of the competition or face a stadium closure. I hope they don't. Why should others suffer for the idiocy of two people? Clubs can be charged with 'failing to control spectators during a match', away as well as at home. How is anyone supposed to predict someone misbehaving?
https://x.com/GetAngus/status/1967172912776966195
Possibly, but I doubt it would be done in public.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oV92B4oR6FM
https://x.com/TheBritishIntel/status/1967163139662786622
https://x.com/YourLondonWalks/status/1967130506052727206
I have two flags that I bought as a Prommer for the Last Night. Both eff you gestures. An Israeli flag and a skull and crossbones.
👍🏻🏴😘
I am flying the RAF ensign for BATTLE OF BRITAIN Sunday.
Albert Hall Toilet Roll.
Sam Jackson
Controller, BBC Radio 3 and BBC Proms
BBC Symphony Orchestra Igor Yuzefovich leader
BBC Symphony Chorus Neil Ferris chorus-master
National Youth Choir Neil Ferris chorus-master
BBC Singers Neil Ferris chorus-master
Elim Chan conductor
An interesting point from Nick Freitas, an impressive young American politician:- https://www.youtube.com/shorts/–t7LTNDo-k
Deffo!
Wasn't there a poll last week.. asking mild mannered #BeKind stoooodents whether it was justified to blow out the brains of an evil fa fa fa right divisive fascist if he disagreed with you?
Poll said 45% = Yes absol-fcuking-lutely.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15097031/Shameful-moment-Bob-Vylan-celebrate-Charlie-Kirks-assassination.html
I expect the police are at his door as I type….!🤦🏻♀️
And not prosecuted for Glasto either! Two tier justice, again!
I'm watching les gals' rugby QF.
I wish women's rugby had been a thing when I were twenty
The women's rugby and footie are not as fast as the men's game but the skills are not far off these days.
Both are so much better to watch – whenever the game stops, they just get up and get on with it.
Women's sports tend to be a display of skills, not brutish power. That's what I don't like about men's rugby – somebody gets the ball, massive kick to touch… reform, lineout, repeat, rinse.
The ladies tend to run the ball more, with passing, and that's so much more entertaining.
There was mixed rugby when I was at school. Played purely for fun and I always suspected the scrum was more about tits and ass than the ball. I had to be forced to participate in any ball games.
Keep well clear of Phizzee. {:^))
Hockey was my thing….thwack!
Still my thing! The One True Sport.
🏑🏑🏑..played wing, fairly quick. Never tried ice hockey, only field hockey 🙂 good to read you’re still playing (or are you ref’ing)…
I would have been very respectful when scrummaging your tits and
assarse. 🤞🏻🤭Higher taxes will not raise more money, Arthur Laffer warns Reeves
Leading US economist says fresh Budget raid on workers and businesses will be self-defeating
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/09/13/trump-economist-warns-rachel-reeves-arthur-laffer/
You don't need to be a US economist to know that – hell, it's been broadcast in cleartext on NoTTL so often.
In old economics speak:
Take too many golden eggs and the goose will die.
(The story of the goose and golden eggs dates from the 15th. century long before Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes)
Not to mention the five gold rings.
John Maynard Keynes sorted the finances of Trinity College Cambridge in much the same way as did Matthew Parker for Corpus Christi four hundred years previously. Keynes actually knew something about finance and economics unlike the charlatans in charge at the Bank of England and Treasury.
Keynes’ son lived next door to my wife’s nana in Brunswick Walk adjacent to Butts Green and near Midsummer Common Cambridge.
Keynes thought that spending – to stimulate the economy – solved every problem. It doesn't. It's just welfare. He proposed demand side economics, which is the model the EU, Communist Russia, Argentina before Milei and us lot use. It's a failure as politicians use it to buy votes.
The correct approach is supply side economics: cut taxes, force the market to provide. Let jobs be created naturally, organically. The state shrinks away to nothing.
Reeves has her hand so far up the Goose's booty it's waggling around in thin air through the beak and she still can't understand why her policies fail.
It seems the Treasury and OBR refuse to ever consider the effect of their idiotic policies. They never prepare dynamic response models or if they do, they play down the effects. They also think that government matters, as if it were the centre of the economy. It's a parasite.
Bluntly, if the OBR and Treasury permitted tax cuts into their models for real economic growth rather than simply growth in state waste that is all they'd present – and rightly so.
Not just here, it's demonstrable in the economy! High taxes create unemployment.
Mis-quote Bob Dylan: Anyone with any wealth has already left town……..it's easy to move now.
Wordle No. 1,548 2/6
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Wordle 14 Sep 2025
Sound of an Eagle?
Wow. Birdie for me.
Wordle 1,548 3/6
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Well done, Sue!
Blimey, very well done! Just a par here today…..
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Well done, lacoste, a step at a time for me.
Wordle 1,548 3/6
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Well done, mola!
Very good. I thought I did well.
Wordle 1,548 3/6
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Yes you did, cori!
412863+ up ticks,
This political twisted twat is the prime creator via a multitude of his trouble seeking actions that are making the peace gatherings necessary.
Dr,
He added:) the TOOL) “Britain is a nation proudly built on tolerance, diversity and respect. Our flag represents our diverse country and we will never surrender it to those that use it as a symbol of violence, fear and division.”
Protesters were addressed by Elon Musk via video link. The US tech billionaire was asked by Robinson what his message was to those in Britain who were “scared to exercise their free speech”.
Mr Musk told protesters: “If this continues, that violence is going to come to you, you will have no choice. You’re in a fundamental situation here where, whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you.”
To cheering from the crowd, he added: “You either fight back or you die.”
Via the killer vaccines the English indigenous political opposing side,the governing kapos, have started well ahead of any serious fight back that assuredly is on the get well cards.
Oh, the irony!
The problem we have is so many people are just dimmos who happily do as they're told.
As we saw with the Leftist assault in London plod will not protect decent people. The state machine protects it's own.
I only decided not to attend, early yesterday morning. My experience of trying to file past Her Late Majesty, and failing, settled the matter. Truth be told, like most mass events, I had a better view via Dan Wootton's outside broadcast than I would have had in person.
Despite being "the alternative media", it had over a million views. Same for Twitter / X.
The much – maligned former – member for South West Norfolk speaks much sense.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ty-7V5WB_0
That's the last thing Mr Farage needs.
What a Truss?
A chastity belt.
B,b,b,but she mislaid hers…or lent the key to someone she shouldn't have.
a lower decker flopper stopper
A Truss can be a godsend when you have a dodgy back and are sawing logs by hand.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/72903b21d79424db83a9233bb18a972348fb84cfe53626bb06780dc8a57f8c62.png
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2cff5ca242df40ca3102a644d980ca098115dd5334c1d516f564f64c20c34851.png
Reading her book it was all a bit conceited. An expectation for a hairdresser and cook, for example.
While I sort of get the point over the security arrangements and timings it all seemed a bit silly.
Economically speaking she was right. Her budget was the first time I felt some measure of hope – and despair in knowing the state would ensure her destruction. I should gamble.
Hello Geoff 🙂 Ms Truss was much-maligned, however I think John Redwood supported her Trussonomics, and I generally support him, on that basis alone she's worth listening to as far as I'm concerned. Have you had a musical day? x
Liz was a victim of the WEF 'great reset' brigade who considered her a threat.
It strikes me that Liz Truss is having an awful lot of fun these days!
I read somewhere that King Charles III met her at some function and said “You are still here, what a shame!”
We need rid of King Charles III and Starmer. This should be followed by widespread sackings in the Civil Service, starting from the top, working down the line and then inviting the remainder to reapply for their jobs.
Truss is correct that we should have a Parliament willing to repeal each and every piece of Blairite legislation and to go back to the pre 2005 system.
Well – just spent an hour engaged upon the household chore I loathe most. Hanging pictures. I was a big, brave boy and managed to get the two paintings straight and level and in the right place. Then, with relief I began to clear up. "While you have the drill and other tools out…." said the MR, proffering a framed tapestry. I obliged. I hope now never to have to do it again.
You are heroic and no doubt will get a gong in the New Year's Honours.
Each time they offer I always turn them down!
No space left on your chest?
What with the Garter…
Whose garter?
My lips are sealed – as I hope hers are!
You don't like it? Woah! It's man tool heaven! You get to use a drill, a laser level, a tripod, a stub pencil, those pokey things that go in the wall, the metal pokey things that hold up the picture….
And… best of all… a hammer!
You've done well, Bill!after 30 years!
Richard has been a similar hero recently and our bedroom is now adorned with pictures…
The pictures that used to adorn his walls at Blundell's?
Thank you We really have no space left now. Every room has its share.
Hmm…I don't feel quite so bad about my bare walls after a mere twelve years now!
I have no more wall space left. Even the downstairs cloakroom is a gallery!
Tools out for the ladies?
https://youtu.be/OzIYo2LERQ8
6 hours ago
The depths are being plumbed now.
It is really quite pathetic to see these politicians wheeled out to justify the impossible. Every appointment, every policy, is unravelling at pace. They all look stunned and surprised that their
decisions could have repercussions.
Most Labour M.P.s will be re-writing CVs….
There are only a few T.V. slots left.
Desperate to get the Americans on side for the Chagos scam and hoped Mandelson would be a help, more like!
Is there any way the Chagos fiasco can be averted or is it already too late?
Depair! I can cope with despair! It is the hope which is so completely soul-destroying.
Only if Trump stamps his size 12 on it. So far he's showing no sign – that's a bad sign for the UK.
Mandelson's TALENT?
He has talent in the same way that a rat has talent at crawling up sewage pipes.
Modern day Blackadder…..
Talent on Hampstead Heath doesn't always transfer successfully to Whitehall.
Or the White House.
412863+ up ticks,
Seconded ALL THE WAY.
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1967011046800961777
I've seen at least one video online, AI, of Elon Musk (I'm a fan of his, it was quite realistic, with just a few signs). There will likely be many others, they're improving at pace – soon we'll be unlikely to tell the difference.
https://x.com/Senior453601K/status/1967249621786533925
Chuck III sold out to Waitrose.
In 2009, KCCF and our trading subsidiary, licensed this leading organic brand to Waitrose Limited who have subsequently developed the Waitrose Duchy Organic brand with a range of over 200 products. In 2024 the ownership of the brand was transferred to Waitrose in line with the original 2009 agreement.
Perhaps we could have a clean sweep and get both the Idiot King and Starmer removed at the same time.
I doubt that would make much difference, Rastus. Neither of them have any authority, or even influence. That time is past.
It will be difficult to get rid of the Idiot King, not least because loads of us are Monarchists and see his idiocy as just a blip. The Institution is crucial to our survival as an independent nation. But, boy, is he a bad'un.
Mandelson might just rock the boat sufficiently to displace both.
It would be safe to assume that by his friendship with Epstein Mandelson will have the dirt on all the Royals and most of the wealthy buggers in many countries.
Buggers being te operative word
This is why I don't buy lamb any more. Even organic is not safe.
NZ lamb used to be non-halal, but only available frozen. Don't know about presently.
NZ lamb is all halal slaughtered in boats off the coast. Poor bloody sheep – how terrifying that must be. Prove me wrong.
All the NZ lamb I’ve seen is halal, and I’ve heard that it pretty much all is nowadays.
Thanks BB 2. I wonder how many people realise most meat is now hala, and what they think about that. My guess is initial shock/surprise then just get past it, although perhaps not after this weekend events.
Lamb is the worst affected, I think.
Our local butcher (non organic) buys from farmers with whom he has a lasting business relationship, and FWIW he says that none of the meat in their shop is halal.
I also buy directly from farmers. The chicken farmer slaughters on the farm, so definitely OK. The beef farmer is ultra organic, and I believe their meat is OK too.
I do buy organic pork from the supermarket, but only because there isn’t an organic pig farmer near me. At least I can be sure that that’s not halal!
I think it’s risky now to buy cheap supermarket meat, ready-prepared meat dishes or meat in restaurants eg pub meals or fast food shops. It’s not just that it is likely to be halal – you don’t know where it’s come from, what the animals have been fed or injected with etc.
It should all be labelled – country of origin, halal or non halal, that way we would all know, and have the choice of what to buy. Wouldn’t have thought it all that difficult. Years ago, friend of mine wouldn’t eat beef after discovering the medication including various injections cattle had. Used to look washed out. Interestingly, my other half been following carnivore diet for a while, at first he felt really well but not as much lately. Ominovores – what’s helped us survive as a species, over quite a long time 🙂
My parents used to avoid dairy products from Ireland in the 1970s because they thought the animals were being fed too many antibiotics. Not sure if that was justified or not.
The only jabs that concern me are the new mRNA ones currently being dished out in some US states. Wouldn’t want that ending up in my food unless I have proof that the products are destroyed by cooking or otherwise harmless to me. We know from research papers on the covid vaxx in humans that some people have been producing the spike protein in their bodies for years now since their jab.
Also Bovaer of course, the substance that is too risky for farmers to handle with bare hands.
Not heard the Irish 70s antibiotics, I think nowadays probably just included in the many jabs or even foodstuffs. I had the vax in 2018, still have memory loss problems etc – read about the spike protein, and how it recurs on long timescale, and that fits with my experience (sometimes OK, sometimes not). I have refused the regular invitations my GP sends me for vaccines. Too bad we can’t do the same with what’s in our food, I’ve read organic veg is also sprayed. Started to grown my own salad greens, window box level 🙂 thanks for note on Bovaer, hadn’t known that.
I’ve just bought a daylight lamp and am going to experiment with growing salad greens inside in winter. Apparently you can give them a couple of hours with the lamp per day in the kitchen (probably good for humans too?) and have greens all year round.
I’m envious, have seen them online/Amazon…be really interested to know your progress? Yes, I think SAD lights good for people too – I had one when I moved North, I only used it for a couple of winters but it really seemed to work until I assumed I’d adjusted to lower winter light. Interesting that the Blackbird is the first bird to sing at dawn because it has the largest eye/body ratio, and is aware of light change before other birds. We’re all subject to nature it seems:-)
Are you sure that's halal? It normally shows in arabic that it is.
School meals can now be ordered halal or non-halal. Supermarkets have labelled some meat/meals halal, but not labelled others non-halal…(as far as I can find out, happy to be corrected). It's inevitable, Muslim market is quite large now UK and no supermarket would want to lose the custom, it's already very competitive.
I bet you a pound to a penny they will all be halal, KJ
It really would not surprise me either, opopanax. When we think we’re being lied to more than not, trouble ahead.
https://x.com/Senior453601K/status/1967249621786533925
Click to see the disclaimer lower down the post.
https://youtu.be/VngBSGRvMzA
Trott: Oxford Union’s President-Elect Should Be Removed From Post Over Kirk Death Celebrations
September 14 2025 @ 11:01
M
5 hours ago
“Try really really hard to get into” – ABB, so didn’t try hard. Not only ABB into Oxford but ABB on to their PPE course. DEI at its finest. Mediocre student thinking he's intelligent when obviously not. Does Oxford University realise they embarrass themselves and devalue their reputation when they do this? One can only assume that virtue signalling means more to them than their standing.
A
2 hours ago
a relative of mine had 5 A levels all A star: Maths, Chemistry, Biology, Spanish and English a very bright girl, passed the Oxford college entrance exam and interview, didn’t get a place; probably too blonde
Intriguing
6 hours ago(Edited)
George Abaraonye should have been expelled from the Universiry for being a moron. He was shown as such during the debate with Kirk.
Surely there are actually competent diversity outreach candidates the university can access other than this retard?
A
6 hours ago
he’s as DEI as they come he was accepted with three A levels ABB (AAA is entry level), in what is still a mystery; another unpleasant arrogant freeloader
Rogerborg
5 hours ago
He’s reading PPE – he’s being groomed for the management track.
Allum Bokhari of the online free speech organisation is apparently a Union member and is organising a motion of no confidence to try and get the loutish one removed. GA is claiming racism and that he's the victim really.
I have written to AB to add my name to the list, and will turn up to vote in person if necessary!
They are pathetic, including the current Union president, who put out the most ghastly self-exculpatory statement. Boris or Gove back in the day would have handled it far better (and I loathe them).
“GA is claiming racism and that he's the victim really.”
Sounds about right. Grifters are gonna grift. Cry-bullies are gonna cry-bully
He is a former BLM activist I believe. It’s the only line he knows.
Funnily enough you could get into Oxbridge with three grade Bs when I was at school. The fact that you now have to have at least 3 A* s does not tell you that today's students are more clever – it just tells you how very much easier "A" levels are today.
In the 1970s one of my nieces got into Oxford with ABC grades and ten years later her sister also got into Oxford with AAB – the same grades that Caroline got in the late 70s.
In the mid 1960s I got BCD which was good enough for many perfectly respectable universities at the time.
Caroline writes a new course book each year for our "A" level French courses – the books she wrote when we started our courses in the early 1990s are far too difficult for the students we have with us today – many of whom go on to Oxbridge. Caroline reckons that a C grade in French 1980 is equivalent to an A grade today.
My younger son went for the entrance exam to Keble in 1991 and was accepted on condition of 2 Es at A level. He got Bs in three sciences and read biochemistry.
I've a brother at university…..well he's actually in a bottle
The old ones are the best!
A good friend of mine from school went to Keble, I used to go there to have a beer with him every now and then (I was at Balliol), they had their 'banner' – (the sign under where they're sitting) from University Challenge from when they won it, in the College Bar.
This was a little earlier, I'd say 76/77…..
Some of my pupils in the 80s got Oxbridge offers of 2 Es after interview. This was considered a great compliment because it meant that the university was keen to have the students regardless of their "A" level grades and thought that these were irrelevant as long as they achieved the minimum matriculation requirement – 2 "A" levels. Mind you , most of those who received the 2 Es offer went on to get 3 straight As.
I got in that way.
I got into Sheffield University with an offer of two Es. I got three Bs and a C. This was 1970 and I also had an A in Usage of English a requirement for Oxford and Cambridge in those days.
Being a peasant I did not fancy my chances at a ”Toffs” College.
We’re peasants – son’s father drove a milk tanker. I worked as a waitress and then at a Jobcentre. Toffs we are not.
I always assumed you simply went to your father's college….
They would not have had me so I went to UEA where, as you know, some perfectly acceptable people go!
I managed a D in French in 1966. I learnt German in my 30s and got an A for O level in 1987 and a B for A level in 1989.
50 years ago (ugh) I got in with 2 As and 2 Bs – and one of the As was General Studies!
412863+ up ticks,
A wonderous sight,sinner and the wages of SIN in transit.
https://x.com/helen_spirit1/status/1967137450603803039
That's me for this day which started sunny and deteriated (joke) into a wet afternoon. Still, got the puzzles done AND put up three pictures. The third one (see below) is a piece of tapestry made by my maternal grandmother in the 1940s. She was a masterly needlewoman, a trait passed on to my late mother. My father, too, did very fine needlework. I can't sew on a button….
Have a spiffing evening.
A demain – should I be spared.
"The third one (see below) is a piece of tapestry." "see below", Bill? "see below"?!?!?
https://x.com/JustMeagain24/status/1966973418915721653
All that faarrr right clothing and incitement by singing, she should expect a knock in the early hours..
I prefer the Rugby version…….
Rule Britannia
Marmalade and jam
Five Chinese crackers up your arsehole
Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang!
Well I'm back from a very soggy Frampton Country Fair. The morning was dryish and busy; the afternoon a complete washout but we had to wait till 5pm to bring vehicles onto the field, which by then was a quagmire. We packed up our stuff early in the afternoon and fortunately were able to sit and chat in the campervan.
What a shame, it must have been very disappointing for all.
Yes – and there was a very good turnout for the morning, but people started to drift off home in the early afternoon. The afternoon was a complete washout.
Starmer tells Tommy Robinson he ‘will not surrender’ British flag to violence
Prime Minister criticises far-Right activist over ‘Unite the Kingdom’ march where Elon Musk told protesters to ‘fight back or die’
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/09/14/labour-attacks-musks-fight-or-die-speech
6616 BTL comments since 3:20pm
****************************
Jane Mitchell
6 hrs ago
Ricky Jones wanted to slit our throats and that’s perfectly okay! I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed so much misinformation being spread by the establishment and MSM before in my life edited
16 replies Upticks 1133 Downticks 3
Robinson doesn't want the violence either. That's why he left the EDL.
Shh! That is an inconvenient truth.
There was no violence from the Tommy crowd.
Did you all see the aerial film of the crowd? Absolutely amazing. Even from the Guardian.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0HHZbvvQOE
And they will be ignored, gaslighted and shafted just like the countryside marchers .
Yeah, a few 'undred there, I reckons …
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ba23f123b9acf3c3d63a468cfb810a832c822a5bd2d474ef7d78a3e8093e0ef6.png I have to say, I much preferred Beaker when he had orange hair!
♬"Me me, me me me me me me, me me me me me …
ME ME, ME ME ME ME ME ME ME, ME ME ME ME ME ME ME …"♬
You can tell if it's green energy by holding on to the green phase.
Just got back from a day out in London, I couldn't see one sign of any vandalism or damage anywhere, everything is as normal.
Not bad after half a million people took part in a protest march through there yesterday
No boarded up shops, no paint damaged monuments, no torn down statues.
All very civilised really, nothing like what you see after the Left are out protesting.
From the BBC, who now say 150,000 protesters marched , so use your own judgement on numbers:
"The protest was largely peaceful on Saturday lunchtime but as the afternoon continued, tensions flared.
The Met said some officers had been attacked while trying to keep the two groups apart and dozens of officers were injured, including four who were seriously hurt.
The number of protesters joining the march, organised by Robinson, became too large to fit into Whitehall, police said, and confrontation took place when officers tried to stop them encircling counter-protesters.
Mounted police officers used batons to push back the crowds and officers were kicked and punched, the Met said.
Three of the 24 people arrested were women and the rest were men, while the youngest and oldest people detained at the protest were aged 19 and 58 respectively, the force said on Sunday."
That makes 0.016% of the protesters, but it doesn't even give the affiliation of those arrested.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3vz91x5ynzo
Don’t expect unbiased reporting.
Come on, Conners, I'm a Nottler.
Does that not render it an even more than "mostly" peaceful event? After all the NH Carnival, which involved considerably fewer celebrants, boasted over 500 arrests for violent crimes yet was declared "mosty peaceful".
I mistrust all sources of information about this, so I shall disregard everything I read and hear about it
When the Countryside protesters left there was no litter either.
Evening all. Just back from North Wales. Have lit a fire (blazing nicely) and cooked a meal. Happy Holy Cross day.
The usual race grifters scent an easy target. We don’t owe them anything.
412863+ up ticks,
One to be forever proud of in victory or defeat.
https://x.com/London_W4/status/1967135081421537721
Stop whingeing. Be glad that your photo is being circulated.
412863+ upticks,
Evening BT,
If you've got it,flaunt it.
'Night All
http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/31b772ba9a5a2e627c29d13f62ed8495faa096e4e6db56cbe7d822c87a444a96.png
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srjiQPdO-bY
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5480199c859c8a670e127a399d0a3db2793bcc7567f2869dd335f51911978303.png
That Explains so much……🤗😉
That Explains so much……🤗😉
"Well that's certainly soixante-neuf off the menu tonight!"
After the golf on TV washing up finished.
Proms from Royal Albert Hall. Biggest classical musical festival in the world. Such an encouraging sight to see so many young people taking part.
First son and his family came in to visit this afternoon. He's been away golfing for a couple of days. Brought some slightly belated lovely birthday presents for his old dad.
His birthday is Saturday next and his mother's on Sunday. Us Virgo's like things to be tidy 🤗😉
All coming here for lunch on Sunday.
So I'll bid you all goodnight Nottlers.
sleep well 😴
A bloody foul afternoon today so not a lot done.
I've bought a large and unused surface plate for t'lad from an auctioneers in Lincolnshire and will be picking it up tomorrow, so I'm off to bed now.
Good night all.
When I had my engineering workshop I went to the local gravestone maker and bought a granite offcut – it made a brilliant surface plate, as accurate as a cast and machined one
"Britain will not surrender its flag to those who wish to use it as a symbol of violence, fear and division, Sir Keir Starmer has said."
…and certainly not to patriots.
What a disconnected tosser he really is.
Well, chums, it's my bedtime now. So I wish you all a Good Night, and I hope to see you all early tomorrow morning.
Hard to believe no posts for the last 2 hours except from me and thee.
I am still here!
I'm back!
I have a dreadful cold.
Goodnight, all.
Good morning, all – Monday’s new page is here .
Thank you Geoff and a good morning to you too.