Friday 26 September: Keir Starmer’s rule has been bad – but Andy Burnham’s would be worse

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

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

534 thoughts on “Friday 26 September: Keir Starmer’s rule has been bad – but Andy Burnham’s would be worse”

    3. Thank you very much; a morning of golf, followed by an afternoon of beer awaits the youngest OAP in town.

  3. Friday letters (already):

    High street mystery

    SIR – E C Fallowfield (Letters, September 25) bemoans the lack of charm of our high streets, and points to the many phone and vape shops in Chichester.

    In West Malling we have no such shops – but we do have five "Turkish" barbers and several nail and beauty parlours.

    Given the small size of our community, I do wonder how they manage to stay in business.

    David Nunn
    West Malling, Kent
    ________________________________________

    SIR – Plenty of shops appear to have unused space from the first-floor level up. Might these provide an opportunity for housing?

    Paul Berry
    Barnstaple, Devon

    And this from letters about Andy Burnham but which applies here:

    SIR – My wife and I lived in Manchester during the late 1990s, just as the city centre was being redeveloped. Without doubt, the investment in Salford Quays, Exchange Square, Deansgate Locks and the previously hideous Arndale Centre resulted in a vibrant and flourishing city.

    However, recent over-development has removed nearly all the lines of sight of the wonderful Victorian architecture. Bland, mid-rise, low-end hotels now litter every road and the one-way traffic system is almost unnavigable.

    If this is Mr Burnham's vision for the whole of Britain then God save us.

    Tim Wright
    Rampisham, Dorset

    1. With 45 minutes to kill at Birmingham New Street, I wandered over to the Bull Ring, only to find three floors of intensive retail experience, all of which offering nothing I would want to buy. I was actually looking for a pair of toenail clippers. It was like an airport terminal. I suppose there are enough influencer-persuaded trendy folk with enough money on their smartphones to pay their business rates.

      The ticket barriers at New Street took umbrage at my affrontery to traverse too many zones in one journey, and I had to get a human to let me through. For how much longer though?

      Edit – Ozzy the mechanical bull is fun though.

  4. Well, chums, it's now time for my beddy-byes. It seems extraordinary to me to be posting this on Friday's site, but Geoff has decided to post Friday's site link at 10.30 pm on Thursday. I am loathe to call you a Silly Sausage, Geoff, so I will take a more generous view of this aberration of yours. I suggest that you take both your alarm clock and your wristwatch to your local jewellers so that they can both be given a thorough check and adjustment. Lol.

  5. Well, chums, I tried to solve today's Wordle, but was stumped by my fifth attempt, so I decided to look for hints to help me solve the problem. Alas, both of the Hints sites for Friday morning which purported to help me actually printed the answer immediately underneath the heading "Hints". What a swizz!

    Wordle 1,560 6/6

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

    1. Good morning Elsie and all
      Lucky guess here
      Wordle 1,560 4/6

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

  6. .Morning All
    Bed time
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cc8ee447cfc130114af8c5c0d1493299bfe6869dfbfff4ced24333fd50c90180.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/76cd4024ee3a67f937bcbeec635083a34b9fce4eed554c8a695fe34dd75799b0.jpg
    https://scontent-lhr8-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/549633612_10162036951459537_6472411632599710327_n.jpg?_nc_cat=108&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=bd9a62&_nc_ohc=UA0N_C3HqOgQ7kNvwFLOI2f&_nc_oc=Adk_v7NS1DOtYtA7jl_K0UpkQKFNaKSK4XW1WdvFnJkmdjpcsINQdF1yB-JRTxX4aQM&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-lhr8-1.xx&_nc_gid=Q31ZCfguNNFLTwvr2NXbHw&oh=00_AfaHV4_E1ToomwEQt5vVNxjdQEFGlp990ne1Msk7EkJ-8A&oe=68DB1DE5
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ea13e2efa46875cb804150cf40082df701f4aa0a7fd4a027a569165faea7b020.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2034cc5bb788d12b73aa8db6f46998c52dc5faae967076c594368c58b3074d3b.jpg

  7. Just askin' ……can anyone imagine a person in Wastemonster who could be even worse than harmer starmer. Many of us probably thought that we'd already reached the bottom of the pit.
    I'd guess he must have had a difficult childhood, surely there are people out there who might be able to assist him with his hate filled mental health issues. How can people who have such single minded aims and unpleasant attitudes be even allowed to be inside of that building.
    Just topping up the meds back to sleep now.
    Shame about our Old Bill….KBO, I thought the O meant On not Off.

      1. It won't need everyone, just a sizeable chunk of the populace. I can't see the plethora of 'Turkish' barbers et al queueing up to be digitally tagged. I'm sure there are other groups in the country with similar regard to government control.

        2. That's why he is picking on the workers first, and not bothering with pensioners until later, when he hopes most of them will be dead.
          He is stupid, but cunning as well

      1. Bavaria 37 rental out of Fethiye Turkey, can sleep 8 but nice with 4/5 as we have had this week. Son busy so home on Weds. 10 yo but in good condition. Furling main and head sails.

      3. Isles of Scilly.

        I've hovered low over the sea there (helicopter) and seen everything to the sea bed. The islands' sewerage system empties into the Atlantic at just one point and that effluent is rapidly carried far away on a strong north-easterly current leaving the seas around the isles crystal clear.

    2. Has this petition been up before? I tried to sign just now, but it seems that I already have.

      2. Yes, Ndovu has posted it several times. I seldom bother friends and rellies with petitions but this one I will spread as widely as possible.

  12. Good morning Nottlers, currently 7°C (forecast to rise to 16°C this afternoon), cloud-free skies, and a light SE wind. A fine morning to release some golf balls back into the wild. I'll have a few beers later, as i 'celebrate' becoming an OAP!

  13. Wasn't it Andy Burnham that introduced PFI for the NHS? This was the deal whereby the likes of Serco could claim 15% a year return on investment for a minimum of thirty years, along with blank cheque maintenance contracts. New hospitals could be axed within five years, but the contracts would still be valid for the full term.

    Good solid old hospitals (either Victorian or post-WW2 utility), needing just a lick of paint, were torn down and their sites given over to executive housing, and in their place airport-style retail opportnuties, with the clinical areas hidden away in airless, windowless, joyless cubbyholes.

      1. Private Finance Initiative.

        An accounting con-trick that keeps Government debt 'off-the-books' but costs the nation/taxpayer zillions more because the civil servants negotiating these contracts were/are incompetent.

      2. Private Finance Initiative – a way of paying for public infrastructure projects without raising taxes.

          1. One could blend Burnham and the entire Labour cabinet into one hobgoblin and it wouldn't be as bad as Blair.
            That said, using a blender on them all might benefit the country.

    1. Aye Andy but what thy gonna do about t'Islam?
      SFA. And that spells the demise of Labour. Good riddance to the uniparty.

  17. Good morning.
    A dry start, mainly overcast but blue patches on horizon and sun shining on opposite side of valley. No wind and a tad under 9½°C on the thermometer.

  18. HASN’T GAZA SUFFERED ENOUGH?

    The Grimes
    Sir Tony Blair ‘offers to lead interim governing body of postwar Gaza’

    Speccie

    Proving that there is life beyond the Labour party, in both career and news terms, the White House has reportedly backed a plan for Tony Blair to lead a temporary government in the Gaza Strip. A self-proclaimed expert in promoting peace in the Middle East, the former prime minister would head up a body called the Gaza International Transitional Authority which would be mandated to rule the territory for up to five years. Gazans should count themselves lucky – we had him for ten.
    The plan is modelled, according to the Times of Israel, on those administrations that oversaw the transitions of Kosovo and Timor-Leste to statehood, and has been cooked up partially by Blair’s eponymous institute. The authority would initially be based in Egypt, near Gaza’s southern border, before entering the territory with a UN-endorsed Arab multinational force. The eventual goal would be the unification of all the Palestinian territories under the Palestinian Authority, which currently governs in the West Bank. Blair is said to have the support of Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, and Steve Witkoff, US special envoy to the Middle East. For perhaps the first time, he also has the Telegraph’s backing, which brands him Gaza’s ‘best hope for peace’.

    https://i5.cmail20.com/ei/j/71/429/72E/csimport/unnamed-3.065016.jpg ‘Truly, for some men nothing is written, unless THEY write it.’

    Even if Gazans don’t end up with Blair of Arabia, the President of the Palestinian Authority yesterday declared he was ready to implement a peace plan mooted by the French earlier this week. Speaking to the United Nations general assembly via videolink, Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of committing ‘one of the most horrific humanitarian tragedies of the 20th and 21st centuries’ in Gaza but ‘rejected’ Hamas’s actions on 7 October, 2023, and demanded the group disarm. Centrism, of a sort.

  19. Great Thunberg’s Gaza flotilla has turned down a proposal to deposit its aid in Cyprus and let the Vatican distribute it. The offer was made by the Italian government after the fleet – comprising around 50 vessels – was attacked by drones suspected to have been sent by Israel. But Rome’s efforts to hand things over to the Pope were rejected in favour of keeping the boats on their current course. His Holiness failed to reckon with Thunberg’s ego.

    1. Greta is probably holding out for canonisation from the Pope. She might find that she undergoes cannonisation from the Israelis instead.

      1. She would have to go through the stage of being a 'Blessed' before becoming a Saint. I have heared lots of people call her 'a blessed xxxx' already.

  20. Police ‘told they’d escape censure in Nottingham attacks inquiry’

    Independent Office for Police Conduct investigators allegedly told officers their disciplinary case was ‘being driven by families of victims’

    1. Quite.
      How very DARE families become upset over the slaughter of their children and parents!
      They should willingly sacrifice themselves and others to achieve that nirvana known as "diverse" Britain.

  23. Nottinghamshire yesterday won this year’s County Championship. They picked up the two points they needed after scoring more than 300 in their first innings at Trent Bridge against Warwickshire for their first title since 2010. Captain Haseeb Hameed (very old Nottinghamshire family) brought up his fourth century of the season, before Warwickshire were reduced to 7-3 by the close of play in the world’s finest sporting competition.

  25. Ross Clark
    Digital IDs are a nightmare of Tony Blair’s making
    25 September 2025, 7:51pm

    Is Tony Blair pulling the strings of Keir Starmer’s government from beyond the political grave? Only two days ago the Tony Blair Institute released a report calling for digital ID cards. Now Starmer is expected to announce that the UK public will indeed have digital IDs forced upon them. The juxtaposition of these two things cannot have been an accident unless you believe firstly that Blair had no prior knowledge of what Starmer was going to announce, and secondly that Starmer decided to go ahead regardless of Blair’s intervention, knowing full well what it would look like.

    Blair has, quite blatantly, finally achieved his cherished policy which, but for his departure from office, would have been enacted nearly two decades ago. The Identity Card Act became law in 2006, but Blair left office little over a year later and his successor, Gordon Brown, never showed the same enthusiasm for ID cards. There was a pilot scheme in Greater Manchester, but the policy then bit the dust when Labour lost the 2010 general election and the coalition abolished the Identity Cards Act.

    But is it really wise for Starmer to allow himself to be sold a policy by a former Labour prime minister whom many in the party still see as toxic? It isn’t just Iraq which hangs over Blair; it is his post-Downing Street career as adviser to dodgy governments such as that of Nursultan Nazarbayev’s regime in Kazakhstan which, leaked documents revealed, was paying Tony Blair’s then outfit, Tony Blair Associates, £5 million a year for consultancy work. An obsession with digital ID cards does not sit well alongside a history of advising a dictator.

    Whilst Blair has long campaigned for ID cards, there is a more recent source of funding for the Tony Blair Institute which is rather interesting. Among the listed donors for the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change is the Larry Ellison Foundation, Ellison being the founder, Chief Technology Officer and Chairman of technology group Oracle – exactly the sort of company that might be needed to assist with a compulsory ID card system that would require the development and maintenance of a comprehensive dataset of all UK citizens and residents. That may have immense commercial value – and no one can assume that our information will never at any point be sold to private interests. That is, after all, exactly what already happens with the electoral roll, at least the public-facing side of it.

    ID cards will also create immense opportunities for fraudsters. Former software engineer Andrew Orlowski revealed this week that a senior civil servant had leaked him details of internal Whitehall documents which express fears of how vulnerable a national ID card system will be to identity theft. If hackers can get into systems run by Marks & Spencer and Jaguar Land Rover, they can get into a national ID card system as well. And once they are in, there will be a wealth of information required to steal anyone’s identity, all in one place.

    Has Starmer really thought through the practical consequences of digital ID cards? He certainly doesn’t seem to have thought through the political consequences. At a time when the Labour left has started promoting a challenger to his position, in the shape of Andy Burnham, Starmer has made himself look like the dupe of Tony Blair and the lobbyists behind him.

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

    LordVader
    12 hours ago
    When did we vote for this?
    What manifesto included this?

    This government seems to act arbitrarily on so many issues. No meaningful debate, no proper answers to parliamentary questions, and a tin ear to the wishes of the public.

    No-one asked for this. We do, however, want a pakistani råpe gang Task Force but there seems to have been very little progress on that. Meanwhile those heinous crimes continue to occur!

    Blindsideflanker
    12 hours ago edited
    Because the British establishment are too useless and incompetent to manage our borders , they want to impose ID cards on us , so we may have to 'show our papers' stepping out of our front door, essentially moving the border from Dover to 30 Acacia Avenue . Apart from the obvious question that if they are too incompetent to manage our borders what chance of them being able to run an ID card scheme? I also object to them in regards to turning our relationship with the state on its head .

    ID Cards make us subordinate to the state, where essentially we need the state's permission to go about our business . I suppose there is no surprise to find this is being driven by the constitutional vandal Blair who brought in the human rights act, making the state the 'benevolent' giver of our rights , rather than it being a birth right of any Englishman to do as they pleased unless it was proscribed as against the law , now he wants to make us subservient to the state.

  27. Patrick West
    Starmer’s ‘reclaim the flag’ mission is doomed
    25 September 2025, 6:00am

    Does Sir Keir Starmer love his country or not? It’s been hard to tell this year. His infamous ‘island of strangers’ speech in May seemed to suggest that he did, only for him to recant the following month after a backlash from the left in his party, saying that he regretted using those words. But now Sir Keir wants us to believe once more that he really is a flag-waving patriot. Literally.

    Later this week the Prime Minister will announce an outline to ‘reclaim the flag’ from ‘far right’ protesters in a speech to tackle the rise of ‘divisive populism’. According to the Daily Telegraph, on Friday he is expected to argue that the St George’s flag and Union flag are for ‘all of us’ and should be symbols of ‘unity’.

    The call to ‘reclaim the flag’ is clearly designed as a counter-cry to the ‘Operation Raise the Colours’ movement that swept the country this summer and still shows no signs of abating. But there the comparison ends. While that grassroots campaign emerged from heartfelt feelings of passion, patriotism and concern for one’s country, Starmer’s new initiative has all the hallmarks of a sterile diktat born out of cynicism and rational necessity.

    At their annual conference this year the Liberal Democrats similarly sought to re-invent themselves as a patriotic party, with those in attendance seen waving miniature Union flags. The result has been likewise unconvincing. There are few things more cringeworthy and implausible than a group of prim middle-class liberals, who support a party that has consistently sought to cede Britain’s sovereignty to the European Union, suddenly professing their love for their country. Such an insincere volte face is almost entirely a response to the surge in support for Reform UK.

    Starmer’s ostensible rekindled passion for his country, which first showed its first tentative signs in that ‘island of strangers’ delivery, is likewise born mostly out of hollow calculation. It’s not merely a response to the rise of Reform, but it comes in the wake of the ‘Unite the Kingdom’ demonstration earlier this month, a rally many attended despite the presence of Tommy Robinson, and many of whom had never felt politically motivated before. They just cared about their country and its future. That turnout was true, sincere passion in action.

    Starmer will have a hard time convincing a conservative-leaning and patriotically-inclined electorate that this latest move comes from the heart, or that it genuinely seeks to unite this country. A Downing Street source discloses that Sir Keir will say there is now a choice between ‘toxic division and national renewal’. But it’s not so much the people who love their country who have been the source of ‘toxic division’ in recent months, as it has been the far left themselves. They’re the ones who at every opportunity have been demonising concerned citizens as ‘fascists’ and of ‘the far right’.

    This smearing also extends to the centre-left, including Starmer himself, who in January accused those of drawing attention to the grooming gangs scandal of jumping on a ‘far-right bandwagon’. This constant and relentless compulsion to slander ordinary British people has done far more to foster resentment, anger and division in this country than any insignificant and actual ‘far right’ contingent has managed to do.

    If Starmer will have a hard time convincing the public he is now enamoured of these national flags, he will have a harder time still convincing his party that waving these symbols is desirable or appropriate in any circumstance. For instance, this morning we also read a report of a Labour council leader in Hertfordshire having referred to St George flag campaigners as ‘extremists’ and ‘nonces’.

    This may be an extreme case, but it represents a longstanding truth that has become more evident as Labour has shifted over the years from being a party of the working class to that of middle-class liberals: the Labour party finds patriotism abhorrent at worst and distasteful at best. Can you imagine a burgher of an affluent part of North London draping the St George Flag from the window of their house? Imagine what the neighbours might say!

    A prissy aversion to these flags has been demonstrated throughout this year with a succession of stories relating how councils have removed them, or neighbours have complained about them, on the grounds that they make residents feel ‘uncomfortable’ or ‘uneasy’. The liberal left today feels far more at ease flying the Palestine flag, that symbol of rootless internationalism and aspirational victimhood.

    The eternal electoral problem with Steir is that no-one believes he has any feelings or even convictions. And the ultimate problem for Sir Keir, when it comes to internal politics, is that people in the Labour party don’t like these flags and they don’t like the unsophisticated patriotic working-class types who fly them.

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

    Trojan
    a day ago
    Too right. Every instinct that Starmer and his bunch of sixth formers running the country is based on destruction of our country, its history and its values. For example
    1. The trumpeting of the sanctity of international law
    2. The Chagos deal
    3. The “reset” with the EU
    4. Net zero
    5. The refusal to consider the grooming gangs as an immigration issue. By the way, how’s the national enquiry going?
    6. The reaction to Epping. These weren’t fascist far right thugs. The offender was an immigrant. He has been convicted.
    7. The reaction of Thornberry to the St George flag. The reaction of Powell to the grooming gangs
    8. The pathetic one in one out. Last week, it was over 1000 in, three out plus three in.
    9. The concept itself of reclaiming the flag, implying that you oiks are using it for horrible patriotic reasons .
    10. The opening up of claims against ex Northern Ireland soldiers.
    11. The coming definition of Islamophobia to prop up his voter base.
    Nothing that Starmer does with flags will ever rescue him. He hates this country, his London mayor hates this country. His MPs hate this country. You can’t change that.

    1. Aw bless em.
      Dontcha just love it when Lefties epically fail at being authentic.. like Ash Sarkar wearinga Lioness shirt. LOL

    2. (Sigh). (V. Big Sigh)
      He hadn't read the speech before he gave it.
      All the fault of his "communications team", natch.

  29. Where's Pretty Polly?

    New York Times says Trump administration is preparing to investigate dark-money-funded NGOs that engage in cultural and Societal damage
    targeting the Open Society Foundations (OSF), bankrolled by radical leftist billionaire Democratic donor George Soros – now his leftist son, Alex, runs operations.
    The others are: The Chinese Progressive Association, Arabella Advisers & Tides Foundation.

    Niall McConnell in Ireland reckons there are a staggering 34,000 NGOs operating in Dublin funded by these billionaires to bring about societal collapse.. pushing the usual stuff.
    https://x.com/NiallMcConnell5/status/1970868847495274679

  30. Let’s just ignore the Church of England
    Rod Liddle

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Rod-Liddle-Morten-Morland.png
    How important do you think it is to know what the Church of England thought about that ‘Unite the Kingdom’ march in London two weeks ago? There is a very good argument for saying it is about as meaningful and relevant as finding out what Bonnie Blue, that young lady touring the country flat on her back and welcoming anyone who fancies a bit of frictionless poking, thinks about the fractious border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia. There are many institutions in this country that are irrelevant to the great mass of citizens, but few more resolutely so than our established Church. That it is antithetical to the beliefs and aspirations of the majority of the population who call themselves Christian is reflected in its attendance figures, which the Church will tell you have risen a little of late, but only because it is still recovering from Covid – when, with the courage and fortitude for which it is so justly regarded, it shut its doors to worshippers entirely.

    The C of E has been rendered even more ineffectual recently by failing to find, in the past ten months, anybody to lead the benighted organisation – presumably because it’s impossible to find someone who hasn’t either abused an altar boy or connived to protect someone who has abused an altar boy. Almost one year has passed since the last sorry excuse for an Archbishop of Canterbury was forced to resign after admitting he ‘could and should have done more’ to protect the victims of the sexual sadist John Smyth. Not many mourned the passing of Justin Welby, whose hand-wringing, wet-lipped, incoherent liberalism was entirely in keeping with the tenor of the modern C of E and, as the lefties say, on the wrong side of history.

    And so, as the Pentecostalists and the evangelicals go from strength to strength by sticking to reading out bits of that most de trop of texts, the Bible, and offering its worshippers vigorous moral guidance, the Church of England has twiddled its thumbs on the sidelines, occasionally making fatuous statements on issues about which it knows nothing and has no jurisdiction. Such as the statement from 22 May this year which demanded, among other things, that the government recognise the state of Palestine without any conditions – a move which an opinion poll this week suggested was opposed by 87 per cent of the British public. That is where the C of E currently resides – pontificating about right-on causes which get up the noses of anyone who is demonstrably sane, in the manner of an eternally superannuated Polly Toynbee or Owen Jones.

    Maybe we should just ignore the C of E altogether, except that it is supposed to have relevance and moral force in our lives, even those of us who have long since jumped ship. And so perhaps we should examine the view it took of the ‘Tommy Robinson march’. Of course, it didn’t like it and took particular exception to the marchers carrying crosses or proclaiming that they were Christian. There were various open letters and statements from the bishops, one of which said: ‘We are deeply concerned about the co-opting of Christian symbols, particularly the cross, during… the “Unite the Kingdom” rally.’ What, it angers you that people who have political views which differ from your own should proclaim their love of Jesus Christ? That’s not very inclusionary, is it?

    Another statement went on: ‘We are deeply concerned that the march will cause fear among minority groups. We wish to reject intolerance and we stand in solidarity with all the people of South London and East Surrey celebrating the rich diversity of our communities as we continue to work for a truly united nation of all faiths and races…’ So the focus of their concern is ‘minority groups’ and, regarding the people of Sarf Lunnun and Surrey, how many are ‘celebrating the diversity’ which has been visited upon them with the blessing of the C of E? About eight, I would reckon. All this gets us to the nub of the problems with their worshipfulnesses: an epic disregard for the people in this country who would call themselves Christian and wish for the United Kingdom to remain a Christian country and a concomitant preference for the belief systems of anybody who actually isn’t Christian.

    What has the Church of England had to say about the unhappiness caused across the country in formerly Christian communities which have been subjected to mass immigration and seen their towns and cities transformed before their eyes? One could summarise it basically as: ‘Suck it up, yo’ bitches.’ One of the signatories of that letter was a former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, whose contribution to that aforementioned great debate was to suggest in 2008 that sharia law should be officially recognised within the UK.

    Welby, meanwhile, has urged upon his flock the need to welcome migrants from abroad and has criticised attempts to reduce the flow, such as the previous government’s Rwanda scheme, as ‘morally unacceptable’. What is morally unacceptable, Justin, is broke taxpayers forking out as much as £200 per night for migrants to stay in hotels and local communities fearing for their safety because some of these incomers have a certain Paleolithic approach to sexual matters, especially where British girls are concerned.

    About those things we hear nothing. Nothing about grooming gangs. Nothing about violent crime. Nothing about Christians becoming a minority in their own country. Just the lazily expressed sentiment that the incomers are ‘Yuman Beans’ whose every whim must be catered for. The C of E, in its stupidity, has helped to create the very crisis to which that Tommy Robinson march was only the latest, heartfelt, objection.

    I was rather touched by the crosses on display. They expressed one of the two inviolable truths that day which no decent Christian could gainsay. That Jesus died for our sins. The other one? I would suggest the massed chant of ‘Keir Starmer is a wanker’.

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

    Hereward the Woke
    a day ago
    Recall Charles 3 saying “I wish to be the defender of all faiths”.
    No!
    Read the job description you wet lettuce and if you can’t do the job then resign.

    Tom Bartlett
    a day ago
    The native white population of London celebrated the rich diversity of the city so much that they relocated elsewhere in their millions.

    pjar
    a day ago
    A couple of years ago, it was all the rage for church leaders to invite Imams into the cathedrals to celebrate Eid…

    I asked a lady reverend chum what she thought of it? “They are our brothers and sisters,” she said.

    Not so much sisters it turns out really, as they weren’t allowed to worship with the men but, when I asked when she was expecting an invitation to be the celebrant in our local mosque for Easter, things got a little uncomfortable.

    There’s none so blind, as they say.

      1. That cohort are overwhelmed with job offers because they score so highly on the DEI index. They never bother to reply.

    2. Good morning. Only one criticism of Rod. We don’t have altar boys in the CofE. Rowan Williams thinks we can cherry pick the good bits in sharia law. Such appalling ignorance.

      1. Everything that is happening within the corridors of power, these days, is designed to bring on The Great Reset as rapidly as possible.

        Every single individual holding some form of power (all parties) is a well-remunerated puppet of the World Economic Forum and, as such, is dedicated to bringing about a cataclysmic change to mankind.

        Aldous Huxley's Brave New World didn't even hint about things-to-come in reality. The horrors of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four are but an hors d'oeuvre for the certainty of the future, post 2030.

    3. Liddle on good form.

      Am I alone in spelling his name Lidl – like the supermarket – in the style of Ivan Lendl – without the final e?

    4. We could email the Pope saying "Sorreeeee". Possibly imply that Bluff King Hal was led by his dick.
      But I think the current Pontiff is a merkin version of Justin Wetby.

      2. Achsherly, I realise the light beam looks too much like snow. I should have used less gauze.
        By the time I'd sewn it down, I thought "sod it" and ploughed on.
        I'd never used fabric paint before and was unsure how much it would show through.
        I suppose "Apprentice Piece" might be good name for the finished item.

    3. That's really rather good, Anne. Most impressed.
      Took a moment to realise that there wasn't a hangmans noose above the dogs.

    4. That is so original and cute , well done Anne .

      You are most fortunate to be able to concentrate on detail and sew finely , my eyes wouldn't cope now , and I can't even apply mascara now .

      Blue eyes like mine don't seem to have the power that brown eyes do.

      1. Yesterday I tried to read my card number to someone and had to move it away from my eyes before it came into focus.

        I am getting old.

      2. Do you remember the propaganda film – "Blue eyes, brown eyes"? It was forced on us several times as a training manual to appreciate diversity when I was at work.

        1. My mother's eyes were blue; my father's eyes were blue; both my sisters eyes were blue; my eyes are blue, Caroline's eyes are blue; our two sons' eyes are blue; my elders sister's four children have blue eyes as does her husband and four children; my other sister's four boys have blue eyes but her two girls' eyes are brown as were their father's.

          1. Mine are hazel – my father’s passport records his as brown, my mother’s were a dark blue/grey. My children both have brown eyes, their father’s hazel.

    5. Lovely stuff, Anne! Thanks for posting.

      I particularly like the snow settling on the base of the lamppost. And have a mental picture of you grinning whilst concentrating hard on embroidering bats. 🤣

  32. Morning all 🙂😊🤗
    Back to normal British weather, grey chilly 9c no outlook, but no howling wind.
    Starmer and his mob are a nightmare, come on (Y)HRH get this damage repair underway, don't go down in history as a bye-stander.
    Move the troops in and arrested them all.

  33. Yo and Good Moaning all from a weatherwise dull C d S

    To cheer us up, we are off to the Costa del Somewhere else tomorrow

    on the subject of Lammy:

    Lammy calls Israel’s actions in Gaza ‘inhumane and indefensible’

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/09/26/david-lammy-israel-gaza-war-inhumane-indefensible-un-speech/

    If he had a big enough brain to be able to read, he might be able to read this

    The war began on 7 October 2023, when Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups launched a surprise attack on Israel, in which 1,195 Israelis and foreign nationals, including 815 civilians, were killed. 251 were taken hostage with the stated goal of forcing Israel to release Palestinian prisoners.

    1. Not to mention all the rockets and drones fired into Israel and the terrorist atrocities since the attack.

    3. Leftards. Never knowingly letting the truth get in the way of their ideological fanaticism

    4. The best use Lammy could be is sitting on an IDF tank, remonstrating with them as they sort of the muslim menace.

    5. The Israelis always respond with shock & awe, and their response for 7/10/2023 is no different. I believe Hamas and their ilk rely on that, as lots of dead Palestinians gather much global sympathy – As you point out, lots of dead Israelis get ignored, I'm sad to write.

  34. Good morning all .

    Fine chilly 10c, Moh playing golf .. Chaps are visiting from the IOW , so I hope the weather stays fine .

    Jumping the gun
    SIR – The only time I’ve been close to a firearm (Letters, September 24) was in 1982 in California, having moved there for work. During our first week, we woke in the night to find a small window open and both my handbag and my husband’s wallet missing. I called the police (“Who? Oh, you mean ‘the cops’”), and gave our address.

    Perhaps suspicious of my accent and the unfamiliar way I pronounced our street, the responding officer hid to one side of our front door and aimed a gun at me when I opened it.

    Val Harbidge
    Cowling, North Yorkshire

    When Moh and I lived in the Port Harcourt decades ago , we were held up by an armed traffic warden holding an old rifle , we were on our way to the airport to pick up no 1 son who was coming out from boarding school in the UK for his school holiday , he was only 10 years old .

    The Nigerian could see we were Europeans , we were in a go slow , always traffic problems , in the stinking humidity .. and pot holed roads , and the armed chap just appeared in front of our old VW bonnet , and stood there , old / ancient army rifle aimed . shouting at us .." European, what do you have for me "

    There were cars and lorries honking impatiently .. but because we were Brits we were targeted .
    He searched our car.. and then demanded dash.. We always carried extra Niara just in case .. There is no argument .. one has to cavil and reason and hand over the money ..

    A rifle carried by a uniformed traffic warden, no not a policeman, is quite terrifying , and especially so when the chap jabbered excitedly and waved his gun around .

    Fortunately we had set out early to meet son , knowing there would be road delays , son no 2 who was nearly five years old was crying his heart out and Moh and felt very jittery .. but hey , we were in Africa , so what else could one expect? ( 1978 +)

    1. My South African chums leave home with their shotgun in the car. They told me when they're held up by blacks they just shoot at them, no questions asked, no engagement. Shoot first.

      The father is considering replacing the rock salt he loads it with with real, live shells. Their pistol is also loaded with real ammunition.

    2. My instructions for going to a job on Bonny Island warned of widespread corruption an a note that "passing a 100 Naira note or a dollar bill discreetly" to any public figure was desirable.

  35. From FSU

    Oxford Union’s “lynch mob against Conservative thought”

    In last week’s newsletter we reported on Lord Young’s debate with former Oxford Union President James Price about whether the new President-elect, George Abaraonye, should be allowed to take up his post. This followed the news that Mr Abaraonye had appeared to rejoice in the death of Charlie Kirk, with such online posts as “Charlie Kirk got shot, let’s f***ing go” and “Charlie Kirk got shot loool”.

    In the debate, Lord Young stuck to his free speech principles, arguing that while Mr Abaraonye’s comments were abhorrent, nobody should be removed from office for posting lawful remarks online, however offensive. Sadly (if perhaps unsurprisingly), the same courtesy hasn’t been shown by Mr Abaraonye’s supporters towards people who objected to his behaviour.

    Group chats for incoming Oxford students, including one for those interested in joining the Union, make pretty grim reading. One group-member who questioned Mr Abaraonye’s conduct was told that he needed to “learn to shut the f*** up because someone will teach you” – and when he put forward the apparently controversial point that people shouldn’t murder their political opponents, he was asked to take his “defences of racism” out of the group.

    Many posts explicitly endorsed political violence. One said: “I can only hope that some of the more cowardly f***ers get scsred [sic].” Another maintained that it’s “sadly optimistic to believe that we will ever achieve our ends through merely kind gesturing and begging nicely”.

    A source inside the chat groups told the Spectator that there seemed to be a “lynch mob against any Conservative thought”, adding that they were now reconsidering their Union membership: “I thought it was a free speech society but apparently only if you think Conservatives should be shot.”

    For more, click here.

    1. Kind and begging nicely? Was world war 2 considered kindness and begging? Clucking bell, Lefties really do think they're the moral high ground. A bunch of self righteous, demented egotists.

      They're evil, evil to the absolute core. They always start a war and we always have to stop them. Then it's our decency, our kindness our tolerance as Lord Young espouses that lets these vipers sink their poison filled fangs into society again.

  36. I don't suppose the idiots pushing for digital ID see the irony.
    The need has arisen precisely because their policies flooded the country with the law-ignoring diverse.
    Stating that it will be voluntary unless applying for a job: what a joke.

    The diverse lawbreakers and illegal gimmegrants won't be looking for legal employment, they'll just carry on as now.

    1. The Marxists/Maoists want digital ID for control purposes. Thay know that the gimmigrants will continue flooding in.

      2. They want the criminal gimmigrant to keep flooding in. This is why they've forced it. Once this wretched fiasco is forced, the state will never, ever let it go.

        This is why the public sector must face it first, but are always somehow exempt. I hate them. I hate them to the point I didn't think I could.

    2. I think we are all savvy enough to realize that is just an excuse to spy on all of us and destroy any remanent of the traditional basic belief of the English that they are a free people.

    3. That's the point! Create the problem, panic enforce an overarching, useless, control system in the pretence it will solve the problem.

      What would solve the problem is shooting the gimmigrant, but the wretched slime won't permit the invasion to stop. He wants this. Gods, I hate them all. Burn the lot down. If any escape, force them back inside.

      Start again, with the political class collared and chained – as the damned diversity should be.

  37. Good morning all. Dull day, just the ticket for discussing digital I.D. and other Socialist wonders. No wonder the government is content with the idea of building the largest Chinese embassy in Europe, Commissar Starmer and his friends obviously want to emulate the CCP and its tyranny over its people. Two videos on the subject

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhJIOEO-GI8&list=TLPQMjYwOTIwMjUHk0fztZ_TKQ&index=3
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8OdNa8eREg&list=TLPQMjYwOTIwMjUHk0fztZ_TKQ&index=2

    1. Not just bank account but eventually they'll tie to to everything you buy, preventing you from living as you wish. They'll want to know how you vote, further restricting your life.

      These creatures are utterly fascist. It is all they know. They must be stopped, permanently.

      1. Actually Tousi goes into that. A credit debit system will be introduced to encourage you compliance.

    2. Starmer's shower are, quite rightly, on the receiving end of many of the thinking people's ire because they are the government of the moment. What mustn't be forgotten is that the fading Tories were importing boat people et al. by the thousands i.e. implementing the WEF/NWO strategy of mass foreign immigration into Western Culture. In addition, said Tories also oversaw the CV-19 plan e.g. lockdowns, erasing of people's rights and the "vaccination" programme etc. Under Starmer we have seen an acceleration in the execution of the strategy, not a change in direction from what went before.

      Reform UK and Advance UK both need to issue strong statements condemning this sinister move and with repeal of any legislation marked as a priority in their manifestos.

  38. Good morning all. Dull day, just the ticket for discussing digital I.D. and other Socialist wonders. No wonder the government is content with the idea of building the largest Chinese embassy in Europe, Commissar Starmer and his friends obviously want to emulate the CCP and its tyranny over its people. Two videos on the subject

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhJIOEO-GI8&list=TLPQMjYwOTIwMjUHk0fztZ_TKQ&index=3
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8OdNa8eREg&list=TLPQMjYwOTIwMjUHk0fztZ_TKQ&index=2

  39. Charlie Kirk was killed by a bigoted, racist, hate filled brainwashed, indulged Leftist brat.

    Right minded people wouldn't conceive of killing baby Hitler, making normal people morally superior.

    However, with Blair, Starmer, Mandelson, Rayno, Reeves, Philipson, Lammy – the whole lot of them and their revolting, destructive, arrogant, utterly demented ideology. I do honestly think the world would be a better place if they were disposed of. These people are obsessed with control, forcing their view on us. They are the epitome of Leftist and must be stopped and removed forever. They are corrupt, malignant, damaging, spiteful, stupid. They should at least be jailed pending trial and sentencing in a deep, dark hole to be forgotten about – like all the fascist Left.

    1. This very short story by Roald Dahl is interesting.

      Genesis and Catastrophe
      by Roald Dahl

      PART 1
      ‘Everything is normal,’ the doctor was saying. ‘Just lie back and relax.’ His voice was miles away in the distance and he seemed to be shouting at her. ‘You have a fine son.’
      ‘What?’
      ‘You have a fine son. You understand that, don’t you? A fine son. Did you hear him crying?’
      ‘Is he all right, Doctor?’
      ‘Of course he is all right.’
      ‘Please let me see him.’
      ‘You’ll see him in a moment.’
      ‘You are certain he is all right?’
      ‘I am quite certain.’
      ‘Is he still crying?’
      ‘Try to rest. There is nothing to worry about.’
      ‘Why has he stopped crying, Doctor? What happened?’
      ‘Don’t excite yourself, please. Everything is normal.’
      ‘I want to see him. Please let me see him.’
      ‘Dear lady,’ the doctor said patting her hand. ‘You have a fine strong healthy child. Don’t you believe me when I tell you that?’
      ‘What is the woman over there doing to him?’
      ‘Your baby is being made to look pretty for you,’ the doctor said. ‘We are giving him a little wash, that is all. You must spare us a moment or two for that.’
      ‘You swear he is all right?’
      ‘I swear it. Now lie back and relax. Close your eyes. Go on, close your eyes. That’s right. That’s better. Good girl.’

      PART 2
      ‘I have prayed and prayed that he will live, Doctor.’
      ‘Of course he will live. What are you talking about?’
      ‘The others didn’t.’
      ‘What?’
      ‘None of my other ones lived, Doctor.’
      The doctor stood beside the bed looking down at the pale exhausted face of the young woman. He had never seen her before today. She and her husband were new people in the town. The innkeeper’s wife, who had come to assist in the delivery, had told him that the husband worked at the local customs-house on the border and that the two of them had arrived quite suddenly at the inn with one trunk and one suitcase about three months ago. The husband was a drunkard, the innkeeper’s wife had said, an arrogant, overbearing bullying little drunkard, but the young woman was gentle and religious. And she was very sad. She never smiled. In the few weeks that she had been here, the innkeeper’s wife had never once seen her smile. Also, there was a rumour that this was the husband’s third marriage, that one wife had died and that the other had divorced him for unsavoury reasons. But that was only a rumour.
      The doctor bent down and pulled the sheet up a little higher over the patient’s chest. ‘You have nothing to worry about,’ he said gently. ‘This is a perfectly normal baby.’
      ‘That’s exactly what they told me about the others. But I lost them all, Doctor. In the last eighteen months I have lost all three of my children, so you mustn’t blame me for being anxious.’
      ‘Three?’
      ‘This is my fourth… in four years.’ It is terrible when they are always ill and there is nothing you can do to help them.’
      ‘I know.’

      PART 3
      ‘My little girl was called Ida. She died a few days before Christmas. That is only four months ago. I just wish you could have seen Ida, Doctor.’
      ‘You have a new one now.’
      ‘But Ida was so beautiful.’
      ‘Yes,’ the doctor said. ‘I know.’
      ‘Ida was two years old, Doctor… and she was so beautiful I was never able to take my eyes off her from the time I dressed her in the morning until she was safe in bed again at night. I used to live in holy terror of something happening to that child. Gustav had gone and my little Otto had also gone and she was all I had left. Sometimes I used to get up in the night and creep over to the cradle and put my ear close to her mouth just to make sure that she was breathing.’ … ‘When she died … I was already pregnant again when that happened, Doctor. This new one was a good four months on its way when Ida died. “I don’t want it!” I shouted after the funeral. “I won’t have it! I have buried enough children!” And my husband… he was strolling among the guests with a big glass of beer in his hand… he turned around quickly and said, “I have good news.” Can you imagine that, Doctor? We have just buried our third child and he stands there with a glass of beer in his hand and tells me that he has good news. “Today I have been posted to Braunau,” he says, “so you can start packing at once. This will be a new start for you, Klara,” he says. “It will be a new place and you can have a new doctor…” ’
      ‘Please don’t talk any more.’
      ‘You are the new doctor, aren’t you, Doctor?’
      ‘That’s right.’
      ‘And here we are in Braunau.’
      ‘Yes.’
      ‘I am frightened, Doctor.’
      ‘Try not to be frightened.’
      ‘What chance can the fourth one have now?’
      ‘You must stop thinking like that.’
      ‘I can’t help it. I am certain there is something inherited that causes my children to die in this way. There must be.’
      ‘That is nonsense.’

      PART 4
      ‘Do you know what my husband said to me when Otto was born, Doctor? He came into the room and he looked into the cradle where Otto was lying and he said, “Why do all my children have to be so small and weak?” ’
      ‘I am sure he didn’t say that.’
      ‘He put his head right into Otto’s cradle as though he were examining a tiny insect and he said, “All I am saying is why can’t they be better specimens? That’s all I’m saying.” And three days after that, Otto was dead. We baptized him quickly on the third day and he died the same evening. And then Gustav died. And then Ida died. All of them died, Doctor… and suddenly the whole house was empty…’
      ‘Don’t think about it now.’

      PART 5
      ‘Is this one so very small?’
      ‘He is a normal child.’
      ‘But small?’
      ‘He is a little small, perhaps. But the small ones are often a lot tougher than the big ones. Just imagine, Frau Hitler, this time next year he will be almost learning how to walk. Isn’t that a lovely thought?’
      She didn’t answer this.
      ‘And two years from now he will probably be talking his head off and driving you crazy with his chatter. Have you settled on a name for him yet?’
      ‘A name?’
      ‘Yes.’
      ‘I don’t know. I’m not sure. I think my husband said that if it was a boy we were going to call him Adolfus.’
      ‘That means he would be called Adolf.’
      ‘Yes. My husband likes Adolf because it has a certain similarity to Alois. My husband is called Alois.’
      ‘Excellent.’

      1. I am sure, at some point there was a rational mind and a happy baby with loving parents.

        That same man still grew up and intended to exterminate an entire people.

        Starmer seeks power, authoritarian, oppressive, unnecessary power – that he will exclude himself from – over others.

        Fascism is the inability for the people to control the state and political classes. It breeds, like mold in an environment that excludes any check or balance to it's power and use of force. This is why Starmer must be stopped – by any means now else he won't, the Left kill because they cannot abide the message. Starmer is in a position where he, like all Lefties before him, continue to exterminate those he hates and cannot control.

  40. "Digital ID will make things easier"

    So would being euthanised, but I don't fancy that just yet either.

  41. A good start but it took a lot of finding:
    Wordle 1,560 3/6

    ⬜⬜🟨⬜🟨
    🟩⬜⬜🟨⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      1. Apart from the different eye colour, I'm amazed how even a crude effort like that looks so fitting.

    4. I've got one somewhere with Angela Merkel's top lip partially daubed. She looks very closely related to the original.

      1. It's rather telling the left deny the roots of fascism is in the left. I suppose it is a matter of not wanting to look in the mirror to closely.

    6. Do you remember John Cleese as Basil Fawlty, goose-stepping around Fawlty Towers. This is what should happen to Starmer – widely mocked. And then some.

  43. A pitch for better public understanding of tea.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1a911ff9963ad74ce2ed410ab873906d0512ce715f520c73698ad9df811a9ea6.png Freshly picked leaves from the Goomtee Tea Estate in West Bengal, India

    SIR – Your Leading Article (September 22) laments the fact that many people in Britain no longer know where tea comes from.
    Perhaps, when pupils learn about the British Empire at school, they should be taught about the trade in the Camellia sinensis (tea) plant over hundreds of years.

    The East India Company’s opiumtrading with China resulted in a cargo of tea plants being taken to India for planting in Assam in the early-19th century. From these arose the huge Indian tea trade. Planting later took place in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) after the failure of its coffee crops in the mid-19th century.

    These two countries dominated world tea exports until the 1960s, when Africa became a key producer. Asian dominance declined as a result of political interference in the trade and the nationalisation of tea estates, with poor management and upkeep of holdings.

    Between the wars, and through to the 1960s, hundreds of British planters lived and worked in tea gardens in the producing countries. An equal number of expats worked in the large tea-trading houses throughout the East.

    Weekly tea auctions were held in London at Plantation House on Mincing Lane. In the capital alone, there were more than 70 companies with their packets on the market when I joined the trade in 1959.

    Tea, then, has a long, proud and fascinating history – more so than coffee, a beverage without the same subtleties. It is an “on the go” drink, unlike tea, which is to be brewed in a pot and drunk from a porcelain cup in convivial company.

    Michael Whitlam
    Crowborough, East Sussex

    That is an excellent potted history of tea, Michael, and it reflects what I was taught at my secondary school between 1962–67. Not only did I learn about the Tea trade (from India and China); I also learnt about Coffee (Brazil and Indonesia); Sugar (West Indies); and Cocoa (West Africa). The lessons on sugar explained all the various processes that raw cane sugar goes through on its journey from raw-strap molasses (and rum), through black treacle, golden syrup, brown and demarara sugars to fully-refined white granulated and caster sugars. I always found those lessons utterly fascinating.

    In a similar vein we were taught about the story of crude oil and its transformation into petroleum spirit, paraffin and plastics. Geography lessons were invariably riveting.

    The only issue I have with your account on tea and coffee, Michael, is that it seems to be a tad anachronistic. Like you, I invariably mash my tea in a teapot (for maximum flavour extraction) and drink from china cups or mugs. As for coffee being an "on the go" drink, I dispute that. Yes, a lot of people like to obtain a vessel of the said beverage (of varying quality) and carry it about with them wherever they go; but a properly prepared espresso-based coffee takes as much time and care to brew as a properly mashed pot of tea; and the wonderful rewards — when being slowly savoured— are similarly delightful.

    1. Agree re tea and coffee, Grizz.
      Proper, full-sized leaf tea, not the factory floor sweepings typically found in tea-bags, is wonderful. You can keep a pot alive for a long time by just topping up with more hot water – as I found in Russia and Azerbaijan; teabag tea goes all bitter very quickly when overmashed.

    2. 'morning Olaf…are today's children taught in History about British Empire? I wasn't. I have a wonderful book of Indian art/artists, published by the wives of British governors. I'll never part with it. As for tea – Indian or Chinese, I like both 🙂

      1. Afternoon, Kate. I’m not sure what youngsters are taught these day in any subject. I know they don’t lear mental arithmetic nor their times tables.
        I favour Assam tea but I also like Oolong, Orange Pekoe, and English breakfast blend (Assam, Ceylon, Kenya).
        Your art books sounds lovely.xx

          1. Hotel waiter (in Mona Lisa): "Shall I bring you some wine?"
            Bob Hoskins' character: "Nah, just a pot o' tea!"
            Waiter: "Earl Grey or Lapsang Souchong?"
            Bob Hoskins: "Nah … TEA!"

        2. I only know, Olaf, what my grandchildren like – one is all outdoor, heading for a Trust apprenticeship, the other all into design. Started drinking Matcha Tea, someone recommended for memory loss following vaccine/s. I think it’s helping, a little – we’ll see. Yes, always scribbling in my little book, have quite a pile of them now :-D…I like W&N paper, and also Seawhite (both British). Going kite watching now (the bird kind) xx

          1. After rooks and jackdaws, red kites are the commonest bird to fly over my garden. I see them all the time.
            I've never tried matcha tea to drink, anly as a colouring in food.

            I have a number of Pages documents on my Mac computers, all called Grizzly's Musings. I use them to copy down all manner of ephemera and crap!

          2. Today, the kites were interacting with the hawks, not seen that before – must be sufficient food for all. I like the matcha, seems to clear my thinking a little. Never take well to travelling, have tried all manner of ‘cures’ but none work. I have a lined notebook, I use for notes for drawings and so on… have a a creature coming through garden fence at night, I suspect badger, camera now up so maybe know tomorrow 🤞

        1. Well past 800k now. It must reach a million soon and as Uncle Bill would be quick to say, it will be ignored by the government.

          1. All signatories will have their digital ID cards marked as troublemakers and unsuitable for public sector employment.

          2. Tell me, how many petition have actually been enacted by parliament? How many times have they ever bothered to do as we instruct them?

          4. Far few people sign petitions than those who don't. I'm sure a spokesperon can spin it that opposition to any petition is much greater than those who support it. Perhaps if the support of 20,000,000+ could be demonstrated it might be taken seriously.

    2. I'd far prefer the criminal invaders were forced to return to France at gunpoint and those here also made to leave.

    3. Shouldn't be allowed off the boats. What use a 21 mile wide moat if the invaders are welcomed?

  47. Starmer speech live on GBN. Every sentence includes “working people”. Definition please. He certainly doesn’t mean people who work for a living. But who? (For what it’s worth, my work ID card IS digital and “right to work” checks are already done for everyone employed there.)

    1. I already have both Debit and Credit Cards, and current Driving Licence card. What do I need an ID card for? When he tells me something I can believe, I'll think about it.

      1. It's an EU policy and he wants it to control how much meat, petrol, energy you use, how much you drink – and what types: who you vote for, where you go, when you go there. He wants to know what you buy on line so he can stop it. He wants to see what that £50 you give a mate is for – or he'll freeze your account and tax you for it.

        1. He’ll doubtless need to employ many more Civil Servants, and also create a lot more energy (green? I don’t think so) to power the massive computing power needed just to keep checking and re-checking how many packs of fags we buy, and the alcohol, and what online comments we leave. Big Brother, in other words.

      2. Well here in Spain everyone has an ID and it's extremely useful. Inexpensive to obtain and valid for ten years although people often take their time renovating. For some time as an EU resident I was given no documentation at all and was forced to using my Driving Licence which caused some inconvenience.
        I was against them for many years but my experience has shown me that they are extremely useful, when buying and selling property, making wills, paperwork when claiming inheritances, voting in elections, the list goes on.
        The important thing here is they are cheap. I think in the UK they have plans to charge a fortune for them. I remember paying over two hundred pounds for a British passport which was supposed to include ID. In Spain the passport at the time cost 24 Euros.

        1. Hundreds of thousands of Armed Forces veterans will have had many years carrying identity cards and I don’t think that the sky fell down. They could be quite useful when stopped by plod for, say, speeding and being asked for your licence. A Service ID card “accidentally” falling from one’s wallet at the same time as a driving licence could often result in a caution rather than anything more serious. Of course, that was in the day when many police officers were veterans themselves.

          1. I carried an RAF ID card – it was plastic, but no chip. It was handy because my driving licence at the time was a paper one. I don't trust the mission creep that will accompany this digital ID rollout.

        2. Lisa Nandy on BBC Breakfast this morning said that Digital IDs would be free. Starmer has form for changing his mind.

        3. They aren't the digital id though. That is a container that holds information about education, bank accounts, health records, criminal record, tax payments and anything else that they want to stick in there. That all-encompassing container is what we don't want or need!

          1. Well they come with a chip.incoported. Certainly you can leave and enter the country with DNI.
            Advantages it is more difficult to steal identity. People don't make passports with birth certificates of dead children. No one has to verify your identity when you want a passport or have to verify identity for legal paperwork. In recent years my wife and I have had to verify identities in the UK and the process is impressively third worldy and Dickensian .

          2. They are making it difficult on purpose in the hope that people will welcome the digital id for that very reason. The need to prove identity is out of control in the UK at the moment – it is ludicrous that you have to prove id to buy a couple of ounces of gold, for example.
            I have lived in countries with id cards, and it was fine carrying one, as you say.
            But the digital id is a completely different thing.
            Nobody can automatically stop you from buying a railway ticket because you haven’t taken a vaccination at the moment, because these bits of information are stored in different databases.
            With the digital id, they will be in one place, making it child’s play for the authorities to control people. For example, if you haven’t had a flu jab, they could make your id invalid for travel outside a certain distance from your home.

        4. A plastic card is one thing – I have a driving licence. No problem with that. But a digital one on a phone is a whole different ballgame.

        5. I've bought and sold property, made wills and LPAs, renewed insurances, etc, etc – all without difficulty and all without the need for an ID card.

          1. I’m sure you’ve done many things in the UK without an ID card because no one has them and people must hobble on without them.
            I’m sure you found someone to countersign your passport, witness your will , maybe get an affidavit to prove your identity, find solicitors to hold funds before you pay for your house, maybe get someone to confirm your identity if you are an executor. The list goes on of irksome tasks in front of you in the UK as my Spanish wife and I have found when facing the complicated Dickensian system whenever having to do trámites in Britain. It’s something to discuss over dinner in Spain as we explain the pitfalls of British bureaucracy, the sloth and dishonesty of functionaries and legal workers. Makes them gasp and stretch their eyes.
            The irony is my siblings used to say this isn’t Spain this is England. Strict moral code. That was ten years ago. They don’t say that anymore.

          2. Actually, I do have an ID card; it's cardboard. It was issued when I was born and we were still recovering from the Second World War. What's so difficult, inconvenient or "irksome" about getting a witness to one's signature?

          3. Oh that’s really defensive.
            I’m applying for a passport and have to find a Briton who fulfills certain characteristics. I live in Albacete for example. Or perhaps Watford and I don’t know a Justice of the Peace or anyone else who fits the category. And I wanted to send off the application in the morning Irksome, and unnecessarily inconvenient. Perhaps understandable when Jane Austen was alive.
            But that’s one example. In the last ten years my wife and I have come across so much Dickensian difficulties in the UK. I can’t even tell you about it because to sort it all out we had to sign a non-disclosure agreement .
            But you must know that I am right here. Without going any further look at the poor buggers who own apartments but someone else is the leaseholder and they have to pay exorbitant fees for services such as cleaning and lift maintenance. Only in Britain Something else to entertain friends over dinner. You couldn’t make it up.

  49. The left can always find a way.

    His defence lawyers argued that the terror charge should be thrown out because the Attorney General, Richard Hermer, did not officially grant formal approval before police charged Mr Ó hAnnaidh with a terrorism-related offence on May 21.

    Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring ruled that the proceedings were 'invalid' and 'unlawful' as the charging decision was made by the CPS before the correct permissions had been sought.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15136469/Kneecap-rapper-sees-terror-charge-against-displaying-pro-Hezbollah-flag-gig-thrown-out.html

  50. Parents told to pay £1,000 for their children’s nursery art

    Australian school accused of ‘emotional blackmail’ after it said money was needed to pay teachers’ wages

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/briefs/2025/09/25/TELEMMGLPICT000441665717_17588067063630_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqZCAs_UO4E1NchwqSOXfgrXGTJFJS74MYhNY6w3GNbO8.jpeg?imwidth=1280

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/briefs/2025/09/25/TELEMMGLPICT000441665870_17588067280170_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqqVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwSX5rhseiWKOo9p9OQ-ymek.jpeg?imwidth=680 Thomas D’Souza, the school’s treasurer, fired a number of teachers during the overhaul

    Could he be autistic?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/09/25/parents-pay-1000-for-childrens-nursery-art

    1. Considering you'll throw them out a year later it's all a bit moot.

      Have children draw at home. Give them a box – or in our case boxes – of bits and pieces to play, draw, craft with. Junior was making things with me as soon as he could work them out. All I do is the hot glue bit, and even then he does that after I've set it up.

      We've 9 'screw draw' containers full of bits and pieces for him to make from, let alone the 3d printers he has.

      1. I still have some of my children's infantile artwork stored in a drawer. I give it to the grandchildren from time to time to illustrate how inept their parents were in years past.

        1. I was shown pictures of the Warqueen as a toddler. The bouncy curled, blue eyed, chocolate smeared face grew into a short, dowdy, sullen milk bottle glasses wearing junior school lass.

          I of course, was improving on the Sistine chapel at the age of 2.

          2. Ever noticed how all the breasts in classical art are small and perky? Not a larger pair with a natural 'hang' anywhere to be seen.

          3. I can think of more recent paintings of voluptuous women, Renoir for example. Michelangelo used beautiful boys for models and ‘converted’ them to women with a little omission and a large addition or two.

            There is a painting in the Courtauld (University of London) by Jacques Blanchard (1600-1638) titled Charity which is of a woman breast feeding a child which is an exception. Then you have to go to paintings depicting The Roman Charity to find large breasted women.

            Even the greatest painters such as Tiepolo baulked at drawing natural breasts.

          5. Well researched. I suppose if you are painting a woman breast feeding her child it would be difficult to falsify the truth.

            The Roman Charity as you may know is an occasion when Roman troops were fed breast milk to stave off their hunger. I too would have to research that because it is merely my memory of reading about the event.

      2. We had a friend who was a printer.
        He gave us the roll from the end of a printing run.
        It was ginormous; sat in the utility room and we cut off 'slices' when the boys felt the need to to be artistic.

  51. Just had a massive panic attack over the energy.

    I'd requested a refund from our credit balance and seen useage numbers of 15K KW/h and 5K kW/h. I send over new numbers from the meter and find it showing some 20k kW/h and 9K kW/h.

    Consequently I have a massive panic attack and wonder where the energy has gone.

    I called Octopus who answered in a couple of minutes and went through things to say it all seemed ok but as our account wasn't yet live there wasn't much they could do.

    After two hours of Scottish Power hanging up on me for being 'too busy' and saying the wait time was 700 minutes I requested a call back which duly rang the second I got in the shower and a minute after I rang off. So not busy at all, just not wanting to take calls. After fighting their miserable IVR I finally did speak to someone who said 'your account use started at 16K when we moved in and has increased in a linear fashion as expected since then. We are in credit. We do not owe any money. We haven't suddenly used thousands of KW/h of electricity.

    When we move to Octopus our account will be debited from the credit in there, and the remainder returned to us as a refund (which we'll slap into Octopus).

    Bloody hell. The worst bit isn't the fear of owing thousands of pounds. It's not getting through to people who can help you. This is why I stay with First Direct who have, admittedly fallen a bit and I am glad I am moving to Octopus who answer the damned phone.

      1. Maybe, but it manages things for us. One of the big reasons to move away from Scot power was the quarterly billing. I want to know that what's in my account is 'current' (no pun intended). I want to know I am paid up to date. If I'm falling behind, I want to know – more likely, if i am ahead, I want to know that too.

      2. I resist all attempts to get me to sign up to DD. I don't want anyone having control over what goes out of my account other than me.

    1. Lord Campbell of Pittenweem, the former leader of the Liberal Democrats, has died at the age of 84.

      Lord Campbell, known as Ming, was the MP for North East Fife from 1987 to 2015 and served as the Lib Dem party leader in 2005 and 2006 before being made a life peer.

      Before entering politics, he captained the Great Britain athletics team and held the British record in the 100-metre sprint for almost a decade.

    2. Oh yes, I remember. He wanted to overturn Brexit and not offer a referendum in its place – just more ties to the hated EU and stuff what the proles want.

        1. I loved watching Raquel Welch in One Million Years BC.

          I was baffled, though, how she had to fight dinosaurs, especially since they had all become extinct 65 million years previously.

  54. Very pissed off – to put if mildly!

    Ryder Cup coverage in Canada is supposed to be on Golf Channel today but it has been blocked (I assume for licencing reasons) and they are playing old golfing documentaries.

    To think that Carnage Carney is living if up at some lefty conference inbthe UK rather than addressing this critical insult to Canadian golfers.

    Now about this 51st state, where do we sign up?

  55. A longish article from a good substack, there are links

    Britain’s Return to Blair Rule
    Is Tony Blair still Prime Minister? Nobody told me.

    The Curtain Drops
    For months, Britain has been battered with enflaming immigration headlines, the “grassroots” hoisting of flags in the streets, and endless noise about borders from all sides. We were told this was the defining crisis of the nation. But it was theatre.
    While the country argued about migrants, the real machinery was being assembled behind the curtain.
    On 24 September 2025, the Tony Blair Institute published a report titled
    “Time for Digital ID: A New Consensus for a State That Works.” Two days later, on 26 September, Keir Starmer announced compulsory Digital ID for workers and renters.
    That is not coincidence. That is choreography.

    So who really runs Britain? Starmer, who reads the lines? Or Blair, who writes the script? Is Tony Blair still Prime Minister? Nobody told me.
    Blair’s First Attempt
    This isn’t Blair’s first run at identity control. In 2006, under New Labour, the Identity Cards Act passed into law. It was supposed to usher in biometric ID cards linked to a national database — fingerprints, scans, personal records all in one place.The public rebelled. Civil liberties campaigners warned of mission creep. Costs spiralled. When the Coalition took office in 2010, the scheme was scrapped. By 2011, the cards were dead.

    Or so we thought.

    Blair had learned an important lesson: don’t push identity head-on. Build the ecosystem first. Lay down the rails. Introduce the technologies that depend on identity without naming it. Then wait for the right moment to reintroduce the capstone.

    The Long Game
    Over the next two decades, Blair’s Institute changed tactics. The goal never changed — to embed technocracy with digital identity at its core — but the method did.Instead of “ID cards,” Blair pushed the infrastructures that would make ID inevitable:
    Digital government platforms — single sign-on systems, data-sharing frameworks.

    AI for governance — algorithms to detect fraud, manage risk, and allocate services, all requiring authenticated data.

    Climate accountability — the April 2025 TBI report“The Climate Paradox: Why We Need to Reset Action on Climate Change”declared that Net Zero was failing and demanded new systems of measurement, traceability, and attribution. Those systems cannot function without identity anchors.

    Notice the pattern.
    Blair didn’t talk about ID. He talked about “smart regulation,” “climate reset,” “digital government.” But every strand depended on knowing exactly who you are, where you live, what you consume. Identity was always the hidden keystone.

    The Reveal
    By September 2025, the waiting was over. TBI’s Time for Digital ID paper said it plainly:
    Digital ID must be treated as core infrastructure.

    Create a Digital ID Delivery Unit under the Prime Minister.

    Integrate OneLogin across government.

    Start with right-to-work and right-to-rent checks.

    Issue verified digital logins to every adult, with fallback QR codes or kiosks.

    Develop a super-app as the citizen’s “front door” to the state.

    And then, two days later, Starmer announced it. Almost word-for-word.
    The choreography could not be clearer. Blair’s Institute writes the plan. Starmer delivers it.

    Two Announcements in One Week

    If anyone doubts that Starmer is just the delivery boy, look at the news cycle.
    On 24 September, Blair’s Institute calls for Digital ID. On 26 September, Starmer unveils it. And in that very same week, Starmer also announced the UK would formally recognise Palestine as a state.
    Within hours, reports surfaced that Blair was being lined up for a leadership role there. (How could Blair lead an unrecognised country? That had to be fixed in advance.) I have no doubt that a Blair run Palestinian state would be a beacon of how technocracy should work.
    Two announcements, one week — both enabling Blair to execute long-term goals. Identity control at home. A new platform abroad.
    Starmer looks like a Prime Minister. But the fingerprints are Blair’s. The choreography is Blair’s. The goals are Blair’s.

    The Playbook

    Blair has been working to this design for 25 years. The steps are always the same:
    First, seed the infrastructure — push AI, digital government, climate traceability.
    Second, amplify a crisis — immigration panic, border chaos, public outrage.
    Third, introduce ID through a narrow gate — “we’re only checking workers and renters.”
    Fourth, normalise and expand — extend to benefits, healthcare, taxation, voting.
    Fifth, embed irreversibly — once systems depend on ID, opting out is impossible.
    Finally, close the system — society becomes dependent on credentials; technocracy complete.
    Blair failed when he tried to jump straight to identity in 2006. So he learned. He spent two decades building dependencies. Now, when Starmer delivers the plan, it feels almost inevitable.

    Starmer the Implementer

    What, then, is Starmer’s role? Not leader, but implementer.
    Even Andy Burnham’s supposed “pressure” looks like theatre — a way to give Starmer cover, as if he were reluctantly pushed into Digital ID. But the policy doesn’t come from him. It comes from Blair.
    And Blair is still above Starmer. Above Brown, too, who is still hawking his “New Britain” proposals like an ex-PM desperate for scraps. They are all clambering for influence. But Blair remains closer to the architects — the unnamed players behind the curtain.

    Free-Flowing Anxiety

    The public knows something is wrong. That’s why yesterday the petition against Digital ID sat at 70,000 signatures, and this morning it has passed 840,000. That is not ordinary politics. That is a nation convulsing with free-flowing anxiety.
    And the feeling is not irrational. People sense what is happening: the ground is being pulled from under them, their continuity is being made conditional on credentials. It is not “mass formation.” It is not delusion. It is a deep instinct — the Continuity Instinct — rebelling against Chronocide, the destruction of the natural chain of being human.

    But anxiety without direction is chaos. It divides. It paralyses. It makes people easier to control. That is why we need a framework to channel it — to unify it.
    That framework is Continuism.
    Continuism gives this moment meaning. It names the disease — Chronocide. It names the instinct — the Continuity Instinct. And it names the cure: attention, understanding, continuity.
    Attention: we must stop being distracted by the theatre of flags and panic.

    Understanding: we must see the long game, the playbook, the choreography.

    Continuity: we must refuse the idea that humanity needs permission to exist and we carry on without the controlling influence of technocrats or whoever else wishes to meddle with us.

    Continuism resolves free-flowing anxiety into a single goal: protect human continuity against that which threatens it.

    Closing

    Blair left office in 2007. Or so we thought. Watch the sequence today: his Institute publishes the report, Starmer announces the policy, and the petition proves the public feels the dread. Add in Palestine recognition, and the choreography is obvious.So let’s stop pretending. Let’s ask the real question: who runs Britain?
    Because if you watched this week unfold, you could be forgiven for thinking Tony Blair (and his own masters) never left Downing Street.
    And unless we unify our anxiety into Continuism, he never will.

    ALWAYS FREE: David Fleming's Substack is always free. However, it is difficult to remove Substack’s own nudges that ask you to upgrade and pay so please ignore any such request and rest assured that I do not ask readers to ever pay for any of my articles.

  56. Got the bast**d Sarge.. door down.. awaiting instructions Sarge. Over..

    North Yorkshire officers 'hate team' confront autistic Pete and his wife for posts on tinternet.
    You know the drill.. thankfully Lord Young has yr back covered.

    'Pete North is a member of the Free Speech Union and we're on the case. The police's behaviour is reminiscent of the Stasi in East Germany.

    1. Meanwhile the Bot farms trade insults in the comments section..

      Still, those demanding people talking ill of Charlie Kirk are sacked will be calling this a free speech overkill.

      You can get applauded for saying it about trump but you can't say it about hamas?

      I wasn't aware that hamas and islam were races…?

  57. Got the washing out but it's clouded over so I'll have to keep an eye on it. Did some digging and planting in the border I weeded yesterday. Hopefully all those will be ok.

  58. It's September.. it's neck and neck for the Channel blue riband record between Boris & Starmer.

    Keir Starmer pushes migration to 775k jump in 1 year..
    3 months to go to beat the Boris Wave record.

    1. Quite clearly the state simply wants the criminal vermin here. When the Home Office officials and border farce are held accountable for breaking the law, and all the political class punished for every rape, stabbing and murder carried out by the criminal gimmigrant then we will have a just and fair society and the invasion will end.

  59. Following technician's visit to sort boiler that would self ignite without a demand for CH he decided to replace the CH Drayton valve and head with a Honeywell valve and head.

    The boiler then failed to fire up to demanded temperature (70 degC) after an ignition sequence for CH and presented a once per four second flash on the user display.

    I recorded a video at this stage of fire up attempt:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a919e277277adc57e4d8e2cef9d5aa8cdfd1e3fa10c02da677fe60757669cf2e.gif
    This was forwarded to the techncian for further attention.

      2. I’m afraid this is a very compressed GIF file to remind me of the user interface lights flashing on a BAXI and the status of flow and return temp status at time of boiler heating failure.

      2. Regarding the technician’s fixing of the original problem with the replaced CH actuator valve it would appear that a full bleeding of the system after a partial draindown may be necessary.

        Unfortunately I have not found the manual lock procedure for the new valve – I am waitingfor the guy finish his solution to the original failure symptoms:

        should actuator valves be manually opened durinh bleeding – Google Search
        https://www.google.com/search?q=should+actuator+valves+be+manually+opened+durinh+bleeding&oq=should+actuator+valves+be+manually+opened+durinh+bleeding&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIJCAEQIRgKGKAB0gEJNTY4ODhqMGo3qAIAsAIA&client=tablet-android-asus-tpin&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#sbfbu=1&pi=should%20actuator%20valves%20be%20manually%20opened%20durinh%20bleeding

  60. I thought I'd already signed the petition – good job I checked! 943,537. Ticking up towards the million mark.

  61. Our Ladies 1s (hockey) got promoted tk the Premier league. We are required to televise their home matches. There is one tomorrow- 13:30 pushback. I have no idea as to their standard but it will be quite good.

    https://m.youtube.com/@barneshc

      2. I think that’s the dodgy site for Bonnie Blue, isn’t it??? I am a bit behind the times!

  62. MiriAF's take on the Digital Ids; (from her substack)

    "Conclusion: when Starmer is finally ousted from power and a snap General Election is called (which will happen in 2026, according to eerily accurate predictive programming vehicle, Years and Years), the promoted, amplified “truthers” will all say:
    “Look, I don’t like him any more than you do, but we have to vote for Farage to keep out digital ID! Nothing else matters, life as we know it will be over for good if this evil scheme comes in, so we must put our differences aside and all unite behind Nigel!”"

    (me)
    Problem is, it's true that life as we know it would be over for good if each one of us is forced to consent to a personalised government digital database containing all our information IN ONE PLACE (the important difference).
    There is an alternative to voting Reform and outsourcing responsibility for fighting the evil parasite class to politicians (which didn't work all too well with Brexit now, did it??) and that is peaceful mass non-compliance.
    But most people will probably crumble when faced with no pension or no child benefit unless they take out the digital id, which is why our overlords want us all dependent on the state of course.

    1. Parliament will debate this on the first of never and under strict time limitations inside a closet at Westminster Hall.

      There will be a free vote to all who support digital IDs, dissenters will be imprisoned under hate speech legislation.

  66. 413588+up ticks,

    Starmer: We face battle against Reform for the soul of the country
    PM says voters will face choice between Labour and Nigel Farage’s party in next election

    Be far to late if left to the next election ie 2029 mullahs /imams don't go a lot on elections.

    This political maniac has got to be unseated long before then, plus people funded ex MTB boats or likes patrolling the ENGLISH CHANNEL protecting indigenous children & elderly from, genuine titled, foreign invaders on rape and murder missions.

    Reform will be the starmer and co. demise for sure, but we will make sure there will be a patriotic second party in readiness for any mishaps with reform because this time there will be NO second chance the end is very,very, BLOODY NIGH.

    Support the Farmers Food and Freedom Party.

  69. The prime minister heads into the Labour conference..
    This'll be delicious.
    The Prime Minister will be tasked with delivering a conference speech that gets his premiership back on track.. LOL

    Happy comrades?
    Labour members and trade unions want ban on Palestine Action lifted.LOL
    Which flags will be issued? Palestinian flags? EU? Union Jack? LOL St George's flag? Bigger LOL.
    Labour won a number of rural seats at the last election. LOL
    SPADS advise against making any climate announcements. LOL
    Simon Stiell, the UN’s climate chief, said: “Cop30 is where UK leader is expected to come and roll up his sleeves, make deals to help their nation’s economy transition faster, creating more jobs, and guide the world on what next steps we take together.”
    Keir Starmer’s Labour party has refused to grant Leftie Declassified access to its annual conference, prompting condemnation from press freedom groups.
    YouGov projecting 311 seats for Reform, 144 for Labour at the next election.

    Double down Sir Keir.. pretty please.. more migrants.. more arrests for hate speech.. more green bollx.. more Islam.. more tax.. less farmland..

    1. A view often expressed here is that YouGov predictions for elections tend to underplay support for non-traditional parties of a more conservative persuasion than the Conservative Party. Can we deduce, therefore, that current support for Reform would more likely produce something rather nearer to 400 MPs?

      2. Usually, General Elections tend to see protest voters returning to the parties for which they voted previously, so I think Reform voters should not allow themselves to be carried away by heady poll predictions.

    2. Oh they'll fly the union Jack, but they'll do so because they hate actual patriots and will despise having to do so.

  72. Ahem
    “The Electoral Commission’s decision not to investigate McSweeney is wrong. The Commission must now publish all of their Morgan McSweeney Files to ensure the public has full transparency. It is clear that Morgan McSweeney deceived the Electoral Commission, but has dodged a criminal offence on a technicality. This loophole won’t wash. This is not over, we will continue to reveal more evidence, and continue to push for a full investigation by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner into Keir Starmer.”
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ad5ed633e5f2a9f00c3b0887bcab1d3de6f5ec7470217d075347724d9848cfcc.jpg

  75. Some good points being made.
    I thought this one particularly pointed:

    He also hit out at Western leaders for recognising Palestine, saying giving them a state 'one mile from Jerusalem after October 7 is like giving al-Qaeda a state one mile from New York after 9/11'.

    You tell 'em, Netanyahu.

    1. Al Qaeda, which is the product of a Saudi black sheep of an oil family close to the Bushes, has never claimed sovereign rights, and so could hardly be given a state. There are plenty of conspiracy theories over the actual instigators of 9/11. However, downing a few skyscrapers and making a hole in the Pentagon constitutes a raid, rather than a serious attempt at invasion, and was not sustained, unlike the Israeli assault on Gaza (which also demolished a few skyscrapers quite openly) or the Russian assault on Ukraine (which did likewise).

      Hamas is not a state either, but is a governing party, and a rogue one at that. Palestine is not Hamas, any more than the United Kingdom is the Labour Party, or Israel is Likud. All could do with better governments.

      There are plenty of countries that must exist a mile from a hostile neighbour. It is what borders are for, and borders have guards that should be doing their job properly. Everyone, Jew or Gentile, has the right to defend themselves. Recognising Palestine is merely asserting this right, although I doubt it would stop the bombing without a serious and sustained counter-attack on Israel [important edit – or a change of regime].

      I cannot watch Netanyahu – he makes my skin crawl.

      1. I find your anti Israel posts make my skin crawl

        You've utterly (deliberately?) missed the point he was making.

        1. I remember a withering comment made by Princess Elizabeth's character in the film 'The King's Speech' when the royals were watching a moustachio'd Austrian corporal wave his arms about. "He speaks rather well". Indeed he did, and there was no doubting he was a committed and passionate patriot, but it was hard for anyone with a conscience to like what he was saying, or even to listen to it unless one was ordered to. There is a difference between Hitler and Netanyahu: one shouted and threw his fists about in a fit of rage, the other sneers and speaks softly and does his fixing sneakily.

          The point he was making was that nobody, whom he has just hit hard, has any right to hit back, especially if they are within arm's reach. They should take their beatings like good little boys. Why is he so surprised he is making enemies of Israel?

          There was a documentary today on TV about the Normans under William the Conquerer, particularly the Domesday Book, which chronicled the change of land ownership in England between 1066 and 1086. The law was assiduously observed as the old Saxon estates were transferred over to cronies of William. Some might say that the Saxons were entitled to recognition of their old nation, before the Normans got at it. Others might argue that history delivered a conquest, and England has to accept what fate delivered. Churchill versus Chamberlain. We can argue here who is right.

          3. And P
            Your friends Hamas and the Muslims would make your mate look like a rank amateur, given half a chance.

            I’m sure you would be delighted, I would not.

      2. Palestine is not a state, it is a loosely defined area, with terrorist groups in charge. If it were a properly functioning entity rather than what it actually is, it could be considered for re-acceptance into the human race.

    2. Al Qaeda, which is the product of a Saudi black sheep of an oil family close to the Bushes, has never claimed sovereign rights, and so could hardly be given a state. There are plenty of conspiracy theories over the actual instigators of 9/11. However, downing a few skyscrapers and making a hole in the Pentagon constitutes a raid, rather than a serious attempt at invasion, and was not sustained, unlike the Israeli assault on Gaza (which also demolished a few skyscrapers quite openly) or the Russian assault on Ukraine (which did likewise).

      Hamas is not a state either, but is a governing party, and a rogue one at that. Palestine is not Hamas, any more than the United Kingdom is the Labour Party, or Israel is Likud. All could do with better governments.

      There are plenty of countries that must exist a mile from a hostile neighbour. It is what borders are for, and borders have guards that should be doing their job properly. Everyone, Jew or Gentile, has the right to defend themselves. Recognising Palestine is merely asserting this right, although I doubt it would stop the bombing without a serious and sustained counter-attack on Israel [important edit – or a change of regime].

      I cannot watch Netanyahu – he makes my skin crawl.

  79. This greasy little twat is wearing the wrong suit it should be a Hugo Boss one you know the sort that came with silver accents the stench of the camps is strong on this one
    https://x.com/InstituteGC/status/1971570438422868468?referrer=grok-com
    Meanwhile Digital ID has proved memetastic
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b9a5a5a40bff12fcbb5a6698cede02c23fa4e73098f269babac9532206a9ea8b.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9504d46f15489b4e64e26dc0fe017e232d431fd23a1cf4b8900512c7487b30fc.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f605f5e6bdc50071cc438fa37ad764b94595eca4c4ff1100d11fc72e85c600be.png

    1. Fairness? What utter tripe. If it were fair they wouldn't be needed at all. As it is, most of us are waiting for an NHS operation. Will knowing who we are magically change that? Of course it won't. Liars.

      Deliver yourself to jail. You're not wanted. Nor is your oppression card. Go play in the road.

      The state is inconvenient. Long past time it were simply shut down.

  83. Sad news from the Nestle factory today. A night shift worker was crushed beneath a case of chocolate that fell 20 feet off the storage racking. He called for help repeatedly but every time he shouted 'The Milky Bars are on me' his colleagues just cheered.

    1. If he'd been a smartie he would have, he could have been able to get out of the milky way and not tried to fudge it.

  84. Is there a doctor in the house ???
    Ours is on holiday dare i say it …..again.
    Talk about banging heads against the
    NHS brick wall.
    What a dreadful experience we've been having and still no sign of a result. All I need is a letter from a medical professional i.e. a doctor which will cost 50 pounds to say that I am fit enough fly. Three days later still nothing. But told to ring the cardiology department and once more try to get them to help. But twenty minutes after being told to get in touch with the secretary we discovered that she goes home at one pm Fridays and is not back until Monday.
    Paper work websites etc etc etc.
    IMHO it's all been designed by the exceedingly pathetic Dopey Wokies to make life as difficult as possible.

    2. I think I've discovered what the problem is….. although my gp practice has been informed of the results of the tests and examinations.
      As i have…
      They are very reluctant to give an official version of agreement and support to the descion they had not taken part in. AKA a cop out. Just in case eh.

      1. No Athens and a cruise around the Greek Islands. With two of our friends from Perth and two from MK.

        1. I thought perhaps it was a very 'long haul' flight they were worried about for you. Blimey, Greece. they might as well stop you catching the train to Birmingham!

          1. I checked out an alternative overland travel route to Athens. At least three days by train buses and ferries. ☺️😆
            We will give that one a swerve.

    1. The Left are all signing it too.

      Somewhere there is guaranteed to be someone saying "I for one welcome our new digital id overlord" though…!

      1. I'm sure there are many. It would be interesting to see the age group who are not thinking it will be a sinister exercise.

  86. Slowly creeping back to normality – so I am putting a toe in NoTTL water!

    The Envy really DID come up trumps this morning. The MR needed a second endoscopy to check that the problem revealed by the first one had resolved itself. Apptmt at 10 am. Arrived 9.45. On our way home at 10.50 She is cured and discharged. Impressive. At the NNUH they have what they claim to be the best Endoscopy Centre in Europe. It has certainly done the biz on two occasions.

    The downside will be the "follow up" by the MR's GP…. Weeks for an apptmt etc etc.

    2. Really good news about the MR, Bill.
      Hope you get a really good and relaxing zedd tonight after that information.

  87. Wordle No. 1,560 3/6

    ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    Wordle 26 Sep 2025

    Frolic for Birdie Three?

    1. Par for me today.

      Wordle 1,560 4/6

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

    3. Very well done! make sure you do the Lottery this weekend!!

      Boring par here – although I might have been lucky, I couldnt be bothered to work it out…..

      Wordle 1,560 4/6

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

    4. Well done. Similar result.

      Wordle 1,560 3/6

      🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  88. I've just been given the Grizz/Olaf treatment and had to verify my email address to sign in. Fortunately, the email was still okay and all I had to do was reset the password via another linked address. Discurse strikes again! Labour, whoever leads it, will destroy the country if they aren't stopped.

    1. I've been planning for years — albeit in a dopey, half-hearted sort of way — to change that defunct email address for a current one.

      The road to good intentions …

      1. I was quite surprised I managed to get this one fired up after so long. It must be more than 10 years since I last used it!

    2. You'd think that the King would see what is happening to our nation and take some responsibility, send in the troops to arrest these horrible people who are hell bent on wrecking everything they come into contact with, its long established culture and social structure now the economy.

    3. You'd think that the King would see what is happening to our nation and take some responsibility, send in the troops to arrest these horrible people who are hell bent on wrecking everything they come into contact with, its long established culture and social structure now the economy.

  89. Carl Benjamin or online pseudonym Sargon of Akkad offers a reason the sh1tLibs at The Guardian, James OBrien, Emily et al have gone into meltdown over Farage's migrants are eating swans comment on LBC..

    Nigel Farage swans around peddling hate on Nick Ferrari’s phone-in
    John Crace

    From immigrants eating the king’s waterfowl to sharia law in London, it’s all there in our Nige’s relativist world
    Royal Parks Refute Farage's Claim About Migrants Eating …

    Anyhow, Carl Benjamin reckons it delivers an existential crisis to the progressives because they are convinced.. nay.. they know.. migrants are just like us, civilised. So it's a false. Doesn't happen. FACT. No siree. You have no evidence. You lose bigots.

  90. Spaffing money like a Lord Hermer..

    Anfield club honours the remaining years of Jota's contract who was understood to have been earning around £140,000 per week and had two years remaining on his contract at a value of around £14million before his tragic death.

    Could be an insurance payout dressed up as a kind generous gesture.

        1. Or our friend kowloonbhoy stirring up false rumours once again. I am always suspicious of what he and his friend Jeffrey Morfey post.

    2. The step ladder might provide a clue!
      In any case, there should be some DNA on the black duct tape, as it's difficult to use when wearing gloves.

  94. Shocker..
    Bomb plot foiled at stadium before Xi Jinping attended celebration of Xinjiang autonomous region's 70th founding anniversary..

  95. So it looks like Starmer is intent on smashing business with more ID red tape rather than taking on the smuggling gangs.
    Will the smuggling gangs have to show ID when they purchase the dinghies and all the kit?

  96. 'Night All
    Nicked from FSB
    "A man and his dog were walking along a road. The man was enjoying the scenery, when it suddenly occurred to him that he was dead.
    He remembered dying, and that the dog walking beside him had been dead for years. He wondered where the road was leading them.
    After a while, they came to a high, white stone wall along one side of the road. It looked like fine marble. At the top of a long hill, it was broken by a tall arch that glowed in the sunlight.
    When he was standing before it he saw a magnificent gate in the arch that looked like mother-of-pearl, and the street that led to the gate looked like pure gold. He and the dog walked toward the gate, and as he got closer, he saw a man at a desk to one side.
    When he was close enough, he called out, 'Excuse me, where are we?'
    'This is Heaven, sir,' the man answered.
    Would you happen to have some water?' the man asked.
    Of course, sir. Come right in, and I'll have some ice water brought right up'.The man gestured, and the gate began to open.
    'Can my friend,' gesturing toward his dog, 'come in, too?' the traveller asked.
    'I'm sorry, sir, but we don't accept pets.'
    The man thought a moment and then turned back toward the road and continued the way he had been going with his dog.
    After another long walk, and at the top of another long hill, he came to a dirt road leading through a farm gate that looked as if it had never been closed. There was no fence. As he approached the gate, he saw a man inside, leaning against a tree and reading a book.
    'Excuse me!' he called to the man. 'Do you have any water?'
    'Yes, there's a pump over there, come on in..'
    'How about my friend here?' the traveller gestured to the dog.
    There should be a bowl by the pump.'
    They went through the gate, and sure enough, there was an old-fashioned hand pump with a bowl beside it. The traveller filled the water bowl and took a long drink himself, then he gave some to the dog.
    When they were full, he and the dog walked back toward the man who was standing by the tree.
    'What do you call this place?' the traveller asked.
    This is Heaven,' he answered.
    'Well, that's confusing,' the traveller said. 'The man down the road said that was Heaven, too.'
    'Oh, you mean the place with the gold street and pearly gates? Nope. That's hell.'
    'Doesn't it make you angry for them to use your name like that?'
    'No, we're just happy that they screen out the folks who would leave their best friends behind.'"

    3. My idea of heaven, Rik…back with all my rescue (and other) dogs…all passed now apart from the one I currently have, and she's 14.

  97. The diligent emperor that lost his country. Blunder after blunder. The harder he worked the faster the empire collapsed.
    Xi Jinping's last few months.

    All the clues & signals are there.

    1. Laughably, High ranking CCP official Li Qiang skips UN, evades CCP security to meet Trump for five hours.
      Rumours suggest he was carrying three message from elders of CCP.
      1/ Xi Jinping has lost power. Elders now in charge. 2/ China to return to global trade, and promise not to copy and plead for access to US market to survive & sharpen sword. 3/ Elders sincerely welcome President Trump to China.

          2. Mine too. That happened in the past. Be gobsmacked if it were to happen again especially current politicos, they could well just disappear if facts are more than rumours.

      2. Bingo..economy been tanking several months, been marches and protests…investors lost money through Evergrande – housing/flats/high rise and hundreds if not thousands 'disappeared'.

  98. 5413385+ up ticks,

    I don't adam & eve it, no way, not labour.

    Ben Riley-Smith
    Political Editor
    26 September 2025 6:20pm BST
    Ben Riley-Smith
    Rachel Reeves’ new business adviser is embroiled in a criminal investigation over alleged vote-rigging.

    Labour later admitted that email addresses, phone numbers and postal addresses had been altered without permission.

      1. It was the intro to a joke, see my response to my own post.
        "They gave him a little plaque"
        In the real world my dentist is genuinely excellent and is in the South East.

    1. It sounds very dodgy indeed. Wording, everything, and how can your nationality be 'white British'?

  103. from the Speccie, on the latest Plod overreach (Pete North) by David Shipley

    “Last night, Pete North, a well-known political campaigner and veteran of the Brexit movement, was arrested by North Yorkshire Police, allegedly for posting on his Twitter account. A video released by Pete shows police arriving at his house around 9:30 p.m. On the video, an officer explained that he had ‘posted something on the internet’ which someone ‘didn’t appreciate’, that their ‘hate crime team’ had reviewed the post and as a result the police were arresting him on suspicion of ‘stirring up racial hatred’ under Section 19 of the Public Order Act.

    Pete told me this morning me that he was shocked, believing that ‘normal practice is to turn up and invite someone in for an interview. They didn’t do that though.’ He feels that ‘the process is the punishment, and this was meant to intimidate’. He said the police ‘locked [him] in a cage’ inside a van and drove him to Harrogate police station, 30 minutes away.

    Once inside the station, officers divulged the reason for his arrest. He says they wanted to discuss a meme he had shared on Twitter which consisted of a Palestine flag with the words ‘Fuck Palestine, Fuck Hamas, Fuck Islam. Want to protest? Fuck off to Muslim country and protest.’

    Pete is autistic and suffers from serious claustrophobia. He said that he was stressed and desperate to get home as quickly as possible. During the interview Pete said he had to ‘explain what Hamas is’, to his ‘shock and disgust’, as the police did not seem to understand that Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation. Meanwhile, he said, the officers asked repeated questions about Tommy Robinson, asking Pete ‘are you aware that he was the first person to post this meme?’

    North Yorkshire Police eventually released Pete around 1:30 a.m., and he made his own way home. Pete is very clear in his conclusions. He says he ‘wholly endorses’ the meme he shared, that ‘Islam is not a race’, and he was not seeking to stir up racial hatred.

    He says that, ‘the process is the punishment, and this was meant to intimidate – they see people like me as ringleaders online and they know my arrest will have a chilling effect.’

    Pete’s treatment stands in clear contrast to that of Charlotte Hayes, a left-wing TikToker who posted a video apparently calling for people to ‘kill them all’ in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder. Hayes said her words had been misconstrued and Kent police decided to take no further action.

    North’s arrest has sparked outrage. Lord Young, Director of the Free Speech Union, told me ‘people are rightly shocked by episodes like this, but the reality is that the police are arresting over 30 people a day for social media posts. We know they’re being over-zealous because only about 5 per cent of those arrests result in prosecutions.’

    Rupert Lowe, the independent MP said ‘Free speech does not exist in Britain – it has been systematically undermined by successive governments, often in the name of safety. Pete North’s ordeal is the latest in a long line of egregious violations of Britain’s free speech tradition by the Labour government, and I suspect things will continue to deteriorate – especially with the introduction of digital ID, which will doubtless make this kind of overreach easier and more frequent.’

    A spokesperson for North Yorkshire Police said: ‘Following receipt of a report, a man was arrested yesterday on suspicion of publishing or distributing written material intended to stir up racial hatred. He has been released on bail while enquiries continue.’l

  104. The UK population has grown by more than three-quarters of a million – the second-largest increase in 75 years.

    Most of the increase was due to international migration, with natural change – the difference between births and deaths – accounting for only a small proportion.

    A record 69.3 million people were estimated to be in the UK in mid-2024, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

    Some 1,235,254 were estimated to have immigrated to the UK in the 12 months to June 2024, while 496,536 were likely to have emigrated – meaning net migration was 738,718.

    The overall increase of 755,254 is the second-largest jump since 1949.

    It is larger than many UK cities. Leeds, for example, has a population of 750,000.

    https://news.sky.com/story/uk-population-grows-by-more-than-three-quarters-of-a-million-13438363

    1. I think there are many, many more swilling around in the black economy which is far and away outperforming the official one – all tax free!

  105. "It will help us spot illegals."
    Yes, and digital IDs will be thrown at immigrants the same way NI numbers are at the moment.
    It will significantly speed up and increase the volume of immigrants being legalised.

    1. ID cards are nothing but an authoritarian control system. They will do absolutely nothing to stop the invasion. Starmer could easily do that. He chooses not to.

      1. Starmer is introducing IDs for two reasons – a) To seem as though he is addressing the illegal immigrant problem. b) Because he is an authoritarian, and is using a) as a smokescreen to introduce ID cards as a means of controlling the population.

        How convenient.

        1. Starmer’s motivations are exclusively directed towards putting the UK back into the EU. The EU are planning digital IDs and Starmer is evidently a servile follower as opposed to a leader.

          The dolt Starmer keeps accusing Russia of aggression whereas Starmer is the most aggressive hawk towards the Russian Federation beating even the French and Germans in the danger stakes.

          Starmer is not just a fool but a very dangerous fool. His silly Party need urgently to wake up, dispose of him and look to their laurels, or what remains of them.

  106. Below are links to two insubstantial articles on railway anniversaries. In the first, it appears that the BBC's Truth Department has put so many people to work on climate change and Palestine that it's abandoned fact-checking elsewhere, as the replica Locomotion No 1, built 50 years ago for the Rail 150 celebrations, has apparently made its first first official journey in 200 years. Sloppy.

    The second reports on an extension to the National Railway Museum at York, which was opened in the same year as Rail 150. Amongst the exhibits are 'photographs depicting Windrush migrants freshly arrived in the UK as they set out on train journeys from Waterloo Station across the country.' I wonder what Britain's post-WW2 immigrants really think about this. Does the insertion of Windrush features into numerous news stories etc. make them feel glad to be recognised or are they patronised, as though they are being patted on the head? Of course, not all of the 500,000 Commonwealth immigrants came from the Caribbean. How should we describe the African and Asian cohorts? [Be nice when answering this!]

    'It's terrific to remind the world it all started here'
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn5q6kn5gkko

    Museum reopens station hall for 50th anniversary
     https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqxzqv21p45o

    1. As we all know, the Windrush immigrants rebuilt Britain from scratch after WWII. Otherwise this country would still be in ruins, with children playing on bomb-sites all over London and other major cities.

      1. The Windrush lot polluted several London districts initially and principally Brixton and straying into Stockwell and Clapham South, Clapham Common and Clapham North. Their offspring proved to be highly aggressive thieves and unwilling to lead normal lives.

        The blighters now have a presence in Lewisham and Croydon, both rife with drug related crime.

        Many of the problems with London Underground, including Kings X, were the result of these buffoons having employment in the London Transport Executive at the expense of normal Britains.

        I suppose on reflection we should accept that millions of our working men were either killed or disabled by WWII. The lesson of this small part of our history is however that flooding the UK with foreign workers has never worked out as planned but has simply imported anti-social heathens.

  107. We were called to a site to tidy up their networking room. New design also tendered for and accepted so we went along to do some prelim work.

    Now, this is a small research group of scientists and admin staff over three floors in a too big building most of which is given over to the labs. No on site IT. One chap who 'knew computers' who when we arrived was harrassed, stressed and embarrassed by the kilometres of cable spewed all over the floor and between two racks, with some computers on wheely chairs, all cooled by a single oscillating fan.

    To break the ice, we all had a good chortle at the carnage and over a large cup of very good coffee made a start on what was what, where it should go. After we sorted the devices doing something from the ones that were simply on, we set about recabling everything.

    While by no means perfect, we packed hundreds of cables in boxes in the corner by length, had various bits in a reasonable stack with new labels on them, redundant devices and cards removed.

    The chap looked like we'd just worked a miracle. We suggested leaving it in place over the weekend to make sure everything worked and we'd be in on Monday to fault find.

      1. It was nice for everyone. Just a bit of cable wrangling. It was also really nice to see this clearly unhappy and over worked chap come out a lot as he saw it was insurmountable, that we weren't going to bash him for it and that yeah, this happens all the time.

  108. Confusing and stressful I'd call today.🤪
    So on that note I'll take my leave.🤔
    Good night all Nottlers sleep well 😴

  110. The UK population has grown by more than three-quarters of a million – the second-largest increase in 75 years.

    Most of the increase was due to international migration, with natural change – the difference between births and deaths – accounting for only a small proportion.

    A record 69.3 million people were estimated to be in the UK in mid-2024, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

    Some 1,235,254 were estimated to have immigrated to the UK in the 12 months to June 2024, while 496,536 were likely to have emigrated – meaning net migration was 738,718.

    The overall increase of 755,254 is the second-largest jump since 1949.

    It is larger than many UK cities. Leeds, for example, has a population of 750,000.

    1. Trouble is, the immigrants are generally the type of people you wouldn't want, while the emigrants are the type of people you would like to keep.

    3. It's something like a city the size of Southampton every year for the last ten years.

      Our population is way, way higher than 67m. It's likely closer to 80. Worse, the incomers are a massive problem: they don't know how to drive – but do, they don't speak English, they don't work except outside of legal routes: the list goes on. They're nothing but a drain and forget that they're visitors who are not welcome. Instead they're arrogant and think they own the place, gabbling in foreign, refusing to fit in.

  111. The Warqueen is sorting the mixed nuts to eat the hard almonds first and the pecans, Macadamias and the other ones she likes last.

    Time for bed. I suggested this but she has a headache.

  112. NHS doctor who 'denied Holocaust' keeps job

    Medic free to practise despite alleged social media posts refusing to condemn Oct 7 attacks and describing Palestinian gunmen as 'martyrs'

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e8060c7af86d93c76bcd967fad0899a31a74df60795ad311af828c75d147be17.png Dr Rahmeh Aladwan after being told by the GMCP that her posts did not amount to 'bullying or harassment' [Credit: Jake Lindley]

    Albert Tait
    26 September 2025 4:12pm BST

    An NHS doctor who allegedly denied the Holocaust and called Israelis "worse than Nazis" has been allowed to continue treating patients. Dr Rahmeh Aladwan, a trauma and orthopaedics doctor, has also allegedly refused to condemn the Oct 7 attacks and described two Palestinian gunmen who carried out a fatal bus shooting as "martyrs".

    The General Medical Council (GMC), the doctors' watchdog, which is carrying out an investigation into Dr Aladwan's social media posts, told a medical tribunal this week that Jewish patients would not feel safe in her care. But the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) ruled on Thursday she would remain free to practise during the investigation after concluding her posts did not amount to "bullying or harassment".

    Dr Aladwan, who has the words Free Palestine tattooed on her left bicep, celebrated with her activist supporters outside the tribunal building in Manchester following the verdict.

    The Campaign Against Antisemitism called the ruling "inexplicable and disgraceful".

    The GMC, which referred the case to the MPTS, had asked the tribunal to impose an interim order of conditions on Dr Aladwan's registration over the next 12 months while it carried out its investigation. Such conditions would likely have involved placing restrictions on a doctor's practice, ensuring they are supervised or requiring them to undergo training.

    Isobel Thomas, the counsel for the GMC, said these conditions were necessary because of the "nature and seriousness of the allegations" raised against Dr Aladwan in multiple complaints about her social media posts.

    She told the hearing that Dr Aladwan's posts "appear to demonise Israelis and Jews" and claimed she had "embraced the label of anti-Semitism" and described the Holocaust "as a fabricated victim narrative".

    The Telegraph has uncovered posts on a Twitter account thought to be operated by Dr Aladwan, which has 35,000 followers. Posts on the account have described anti-Semitism and the Holocaust as "concepts" used by Jewish people to "promote a narrative of victimhood".

    Other posts say: "I will never condemn the 7th of October" , while denying that any rapes took place during the Hamas-led massacre in 2023.

    About 1,200 people were killed in the Oct 7 attacks. Evidence suggests rapes and gang rape also took place at the Nova music festival site, including a UN report which found Hamas attackers raped women's corpses.

    Earlier this month, the social media account described two Palestinian gunmen who stormed a bus in Jerusalem, killing six people and injuring 11, including a pregnant woman, as "Palestinian martyrs". Posts on the account also suggested that Charlie Kirk, the conservative influencer shot at a college event in Utah earlier this month, was assassinated by Mossad, Israel's spy agency.

    Dr Aladwan, who is of British-Palestinian heritage, told the hearing that all the social media posts were "legitimate and can be defended and reasoned". She spoke through tears as she said that more than 50 of her friends had died during the conflict in Gaza which she described as a "genocide" and a "holocaust".

    Her lawyer, Tom Gillie, instructed by Rahman Lowe Solicitors, said it was "astonishing" that the GMC has "the temerity to ask this panel to tell a Palestinian doctor how she should be allowed to talk about the genocide of her own people".

    Mr Gillie, who claimed Dr Aladwan's posts were protected by free speech, said: "People may think it's vulgar, they may be offended, that's fine, but my client has a right to express things that shocks, or disturbs or offends."

    The tribunal ruled there was not sufficient evidence sufficient to establish that Dr Aladwan posed a real risk to patients, and that allowing her to continue practising would not undermine public confidence in the medical profession. Such hearings are usually held in private but Dr Aladwan requested it be held in public.

    Hours before the hearing began, dozens of activists draped in Palestine flags and keffiyehs gathered outside the tribunal building. They were not allowed to bring their flags and signs into the public gallery but still made their presence felt, laughing and applauding throughout the hearing, to the point that Ali Sarwar, the legally qualified chair, reprimanded them for the "inappropriate" behaviour.

    Among the group was Dr Rehiana Ali, a consultant neurologist suspended last year for social media posts calling the architect of the October 7 attack a "legend", whose suspension has since been lifted. As she left the tribunal building following the verdict, Dr Aladwan was cheered by her supporters, who chanted her name, and was handed a bouquet of flowers. In a speech to the crowd, Dr Aladwan said she hoped the ruling would encourage other medical professions to "speak up".

    The Campaign Against Antisemitism, which had submitted several complaints to the GMC about Dr Aladwan's social media posts, said it would consult legal advisors "with regard to the options open to us".

    A spokesman said: "This is an inexplicable and disgraceful decision – one that marks the UK's continued descent into the abyss, as institutions that carry the responsibility for protecting people are seemingly bending over backwards to appease and turn a blind eye to them. The MPTS has failed spectacularly in its duty. We will be closely following the GMC's investigation, which must now proceed apace. In the meantime, we are in discussion with our legal advisors with regard to the options open to us."

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/09/26/nhs-doctor-who-denied-holocaust-keeps-job

    https://x.com/doctor_rahmeh/status/1917193377839460456
    https://x.com/doctor_rahmeh/status/1911019555146629224
    https://x.com/doctor_rahmeh/status/1950483334225682566
    https://x.com/doctor_rahmeh/status/1942549942205382683

      1. Strange that. Her empathy and support for Palestine doesn't extend to taking her valuable skills to Gaza.

    1. Good morning Geoff and thank you.
      Was that an early start or a late night?
      Or somply waking up and being unable to settle?

Comments are closed.