Wednesday 3 June: It’s people wanting to get back to work who are living in the real world

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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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 blacklisted.

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/06/02/lettersits-people-wanting-get-back-work-living-real-world/

891 thoughts on “Wednesday 3 June: It’s people wanting to get back to work who are living in the real world”

  1. Boris Johnson lays out visa offer to nearly 3m Hong Kong citizens. Wed 3 Jun 2020 01.02 BST.

    He said: “Today about 350,000 people hold British Nationals (Overseas) passports and another 2.5 million people would be eligible to apply for them. At present these passports allow for visa free access for up to six months.

    “If China imposes its national security law, the British government will change its immigration rules and allow any holder of these passports from Hong Kong to come to the UK for a renewable period of 12 months and be given further immigration rights including the right to work which would place them on the route to citizenship.”

    He added: “This would amount to one of the biggest changes to our visa system in history. If it proves necessary Britain will take this step and take it willingly.”

    Morning everyone. That looks pretty unequivocal to me. Now tell me where exactly are we going to put these 3 Million people because I can tell you now that the Chinese Government is not going to back down because the British Government has lost its marbles!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/03/britain-could-change-immigration-rules-for-hong-kong-citizens

    1. I wonder how many will be either fully paid up members of the CCP/PLA or forced to work for these organisations?

    2. What would be worse though, living under Chinese communist rule or World government communist rule

      2. I think you have to be a little bit older before a British government deliberately bumps you off.
        World – not so sure.

          1. I have never forgotten Blair’s face when he was told the news; he was on a podium at some international boondoggle.
            He knew, all right.
            Morning, Peddy.

          5. He was arriving in Japan and just getting off the plane. It was live. That clip was never shown again. His face was haunting, he looked awful. And yes, he knew all right. It was unforgettable, and that memory is with me still.

    3. “the British government will change its immigration rules”

      Just like that.

      1. Why is it so quick and easy to change rules in a way that the majority would not support to let even more people in, when it clearly seems to be completely impossible to change the rules in a way the most people would support to keep people out?

  2. ‘Morning, all.
    Sometimes I dream of the erstwhile after-midnight Anglo-American Club…
    Sighs…

  5. Travellers self-isolating for 14 days will help to keep us safe. 2 June 2020 • 9:30pm.

    From Monday, people arriving to the UK will need to self-isolate for 14 days. Travel details and passenger contact information will need to be provided. There will be spot checks and fines.

    Just a couple of questions here.

    Why is this necessary now when the virus is in remission but wasn’t when it was at its peak?

    Who is going to fly to the UK to enjoy 14 days of self-isolation?

    There seems to me to be two possibilities about recent Government measures and this includes the Hong Kong announcements. They have all gone collectively bonkers or something much more sinister is afoot.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/06/02/travellers-self-isolating-14-days-will-help-keep-us-safe/

    2. Don’t dismiss the notion that both “bonkers” and “something sinister” might be the case.

      1. Morning Horace.

        Well the bonkers theory is not completely untenable. Human groupings of like-minded individuals can evolve into Sects where beliefs and decision making become increasingly irrational. Think Scientology or Jim Jones in Guyana.

        Sinister? Well there’s the control of the MSM, the embezzlement of Public Funds, Mass Immigration, Foreign Aid. On balance I think this the better bet!

        1. Me and my chums in Silver Cargo 17 really do not care for the word “cult”.

    2. I have to say that the first arrival of our weekly shop by delivery van felt like the cavalry were galloping to our rescue.

  7. Prof Neil Ferguson still influencing Government’s coronavirus plan despite resigning for breaking lockdown rules. 2 June 2020 • 7:40pm

    A government spokesman said: “Professor Ferguson accepted he made a serious error of judgement and stepped back from his involvement in Sage.

    “Prof Ferguson and his group have directly fed into SPI-M meetings since the beginning of the Covid outbreak.
    “Since then he has not attended any Sage meetings.

    “His research group at Imperial College is one of the leading authorities in the world on epidemics and it is important that we continue to have access to their work and that of other expert groups.”

    You couldn’t make it up! Every forecast he has ever made has been the most unutterable rubbish. He is a fraud of truly epic proportions. On top of this he ignored the Governments own rules on the Lockdown causing a massive publicity deficit. One has to wonder if Government Service is not unlike Hotel California: You can check out anytime you like but you can never leave.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/06/02/prof-neil-ferguson-still-influencing-governments-coronavirus/

    1. Even the comparison of their model using Swedish data, adjusted, to Sweden was bollux. He tried to rubbish that, but it’s clear that it’s the Imperial model that’s wrong.

      1. Maybe Prof. Pantsdown should have stuck to a typewriter.
        (Are they still made?)

    2. Even the comparison of their model using Swedish data, adjusted, to Sweden was bollux. He tried to rubbish that, but it’s clear that it’s the Imperial model that’s wrong.

    3. Whereas our very bestest expert on all this, Prof Pennington has been completely ignored, sidelined and blanked.

    4. There are times when words fail me.
      Well …… words that wouldn’t get me a lifetime ban, to be more precise.
      Morning, Minty.

      2. Try “Neil Ferguson, you are a very, very Silly Sausage and I herewith banish you to the Naughty Step”, Annie. (Good morning and welcome back, btw.) I’ve been insulting people (NoTTLers and others) ever since Geoff started the NoTTL Club and I have managed to get away with it – so far!

          4. You can take the teacher out of the classroom, but alas, you can’t take the classroom out of the teacher 🙁

      1. Light showers only, Peddy, and that could change by tomorrow. (Good morning, btw.)

    2. I now do my gardening first thing in the morning, Bob3, then water the garden just before dusk. Much cooler and much less hassle. If this heat continues, I shall need to plug in my electric fan.

      PS – I suggest that if you decide to follow my example you restrict your evening watering gardening to just your garden; your local golf course would keep you awake all through the night.

      :-))

      1. We are the only country left in Europe that still has a positive credit rating and can still borrow money. Then give it to the school bully.

    2. With the current Lockdown Measures the government and the Chancellor have already beaten the EU to bleeding us white…..

      Morning Hugh

    3. It may be obvious to us, Hugh, but there are literally millions of eejits who reckon the EU is wonderful and want us to stay in. Long may David Davis, Nigel Farage et al continue to preach to the nation.

    4. Mr Barnier stated exactly that in the Sunday Times…not really a surprise, or a secret!

      1. Peddy, having had a similar experience as described by TCW but on a wisdom tooth, I have to say it is NOT pure fiction but a sad indictment of our stupid Government policies backed up by dentists enjoying their paid holidays.

        I found the only respite was putting my dental plate in and the wire loop around the wisdom tooth kept it in lockdown until eventually the tooth gave up and fell out but with only one of the root tangs attached. I presume the other one is still deeply embedded, such as not to cause infection.

        1. I still maintain this particular article is pure fiction. There are too many holes in it. It reads like a novel & is dentally unsound. Wildly exaggerated amounts of pus & blood for a start. No dentist would ask for a photo of a back tooth of a patient who doesn’t possess an intra-oral camera, which are in any case tricky to manipulate, especially for a lay-person.

      2. I have been keeping obbo on the local dentists as MB broke a tooth about a week ago. Fortunately, no pain, but this situation can’t go on forever without repercussions.
        Although it is claimed that dentists will re-open next Monday, so far, I’ve seen no indication from those hereabouts.
        The decision to close down dentists was ridiculous; they are professional people who would have adapted sensibly to this farrago without the government or their representatives interfering. As we well know, infected teeth or gums can lead to serious problems within the rest of the body.

        1. It was a joint GDC/CQC decision to shut dentists down.

          During my time I never hesitated to treat HIV+ patients, in one case I performed an extraction for an AIDS patient (who had been refused Rx by a number of other dentists), in each case taking due precautions, versteht sich.

          1. I thought it was those ‘higher up’. The shortsightedness, plus the insult to well trained people perfectly capable of making their own decisions, would be surprising to anyone who hasn’t watched the west shoot itself in the foot multiple times.

  11. BBC Radio 4 news this morning very anti Brexit / anti Boris . BBC report says Sunderland motor factory will be unsustainable if we cannot get a tariff free agreement with the EU , Keith Starmer saying Boris’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic has been bad and that he must sack Dominic Cummings. I hope Boris is prepared for PMQs today and can fight back sensibly. Project Fear is upping its game as the EU deadlines approach.

    1. I long for the moment when BoJo reminds Mr Ikea about his decision not to prosecute any of the rape gangs when he was DPP, but I fear that pleasure is going to be denied to me…

      ‘Morning, Clyde.

    2. I’m sure Nissan have considered the no-deal scenario – and found deal or no-deal, the situation is good – or they would have said so already.

      1. They will be out of the clutches of the EU. Any price is worth paying for that.

    3. That the same Cur Kier Stammer who said that this pandemic needed a constructive approach and not cheap political point scoring? The same one who didn’t prosecute Saville??

      1. Morning Still – Yes. Boris needs to find a way to deal with Starmer other than bluster.

  13. According to the DT, Boris is to offer 3 million Hong Kongers a path to UK citizenship. The article below then says “We cannot expect oppressed Hong Kongers to leave for anything less than a guaranteed home”
    So, where will all these people live? Who will pay for a million apartments? Does this mean humungous tower blocks, all over the place, all built cheaply – Grenfells waiting to happen? 3 million is something like a 5% increase in population. That’s some rise! Any the UK doesn’t have enough water already… how will they all flush their toilets, or will they pi55 & 5hit in the streets, as seen recently in the sunnier parts of the UK?
    What are these people on?

    1. Morning, OB.
      There’s no doubt that some very smart and industrious people live in Hong Kong, why therefore, would smart people relocate to a country that has set its future path on the road to absolute ruin via the Green/Climate Change confidence trick?
      While Johnson’s stated Green aims are politically, financially and economically disastrous, and cannot be implemented in the time frame, smart people will not run the risk of becoming embroiled in what is looking more and more like a fiasco of biblical proportions.

    2. Would he have the guts to offer an exchange – just one HK person admitted for every three illegals expelled?

      1. Good idea to fill the planes with illegals for the return journeys back to HK. The Chinese will know what to do with them. Apparently they taste like chicken.

    3. Boris is turning out to be a dreamer and not thinking things through like children do.

    4. I think the Chinese prefer working fridge-freezers.
      And they won’t nick Peddy’s shirt – unless looking for family accommodation.
      (Runs away and hides under kitchen table.)

  14. According to the DT, Boris is to offer 3 million Hong Kongers a path to UK citizenship. The article below then says “We cannot expect oppressed Hong Kongers to leave for anything less than a guaranteed home”
    So, where will all these people live? Who will pay for a million apartments? Does this mean humungous tower blocks, all over the place, all built cheaply – Grenfells waiting to happen? 3 million is something like a 5% increase in population. That’s some rise! Any the UK doesn’t have enough water already… how will they all flush their toilets, or will they pi55 & 5hit in the streets, as seen recently in the sunnier parts of the UK?
    What are these people on?

  15. For the sheer pleasure of it, I have been re-reading Allison Pearson’s article: this little snippet on Handycock’s attitude is one to treasure.
    “…..his determination to treat the British people like a remedial basket-weaving class does begin to grate.”

      1. 🙂 On a loaned laptop. My Apple Mac guru succumbed to the lure of home made lemon curd and shortbread.
        Nothing succeeds like bribery.
        Good moaning.

      1. Sadly, a great many Brits appear to go along with this nonsense.
        That is why I love it when Spartie takes his time to sniff every blade of grass, oblivious to the pantywaists cowering in the brambles waiting for us to pass.

    3. ‘Morning, Anne, I also loved her description of the ‘Government Briefing’ as Hancock’s Half-hour – but without the humour.

  16. Morning again

    SIR – Robert Jenrick, the Communities Secretary, is right: millions will find it strange that pubs and restaurants may open in the weeks ahead, but not churches (report, June 1).

    The idea that this coming Friday, 10 of us may attend a funeral service for my wife in a crematorium, but the same 10 may not congregate in a church, is utterly bizarre.

    Hugh Ellwood

    Lytham St Annes, Lancashire

    SIR – If we promise Mr Jenrick not to sing hymns (as this apparently entails risky exhalation), please can we go back to church on a Sunday?

    Phillip Crossland

    Driffield, East Yorkshire

    1. What I think is even odder is that a mere six of us can gather in the garden, but NOT in the house – but several hundred can gather indoors in Tesco*

      (* Other dreary supermarkets are available)

    2. Surely the serving of bread and wine qualifies a church as a restaurant?

      1. Put it in a small bag and hand it to the communicant; a religious take-away.

  17. George Floyd: UK urged to ‘take the knee’ at doorsteps in solidarity with US anti-racism protests. Andy Gregory.3 May 2020.

    Anti-racism campaigners are urging the British public to “take the knee” on their doorsteps in solidarity with those protesting systemic racism in the US and demanding justice for the police killing of George Floyd.

    Stand Up To Racism (SUTR) is calling for the UK – at 6pm on Wednesday – to take the protest stance made famous by American football star Colin Kaepernick to oppose police brutality and now synonymous with the Black Lives Matter movement.

    I don’t clap to order and I’m not bending my knee to anyone especially in the cause of an American career criminal.

    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/george-floyd-uk-urged-to-take-the-knee-at-doorsteps-in-solidarity-with-us-anti-racism-protests/ar-BB14WeYH

    1. How do we know yet that his murder was racist and not just a random attack by a nutter like the murder of Lee Rigby?

      1. Saw an interesting video on YouTube last night. He was saying that the reason why so many are joining the riots is that it’s about protesting control by the authorities & the police – and that it’s the MSM that are stressing the violence to divert attention from the case that it’s about control of the poplulation – and, in support of that, showed a night view of the police marching up a street like a bunch of stormtroopers, and actually shooting at a lady who was taking the video from her porch!
        Interesting point of view.

        1. They wouldn’t need such control by police and authorities if they weren’t going on a violent rampage in so many cities.
          If it was about the extreme lockdown for the CV19, then they should have supported the protesters in Michigan, none of whom went looting and rioting.

      2. When Jo Cox was murdered she was murdered by an extreme right wing Brexiter and not a mentally deranged lunatic. On the other hand when a Muslim blows up people and kills them or beheads a soldier it is nothing to do with Islam – it is because he is a deranged man with mental health issues.

        We have to accept that the right wing white man is always wrong and all honkies are white trash and to blame for everything.

        1. Sadly, he was a lunatic – he enjoyed the tender ministrations of ‘Don’t Care in the Community’.
          How much his N*zi delusions were encouraged is something we will never know, but in someone who was probably dimly aware of his ‘otherness’, it would be a very easy situation to manipulate.

    2. Those whom the Virtue Signallers would destroy they first drive mad. With apologies to various Greeks, Romans and Longfellow.

    3. I had an email from an American literary organisation, they are in full on support of this petty criminal. Supporters seem to be ignoring the savage behaviour of countless blacks looting and rioting in order to earn respect, when they are not actually joining in.

    4. How often do we have to repeat that black lives do not matter to black rulers and black criminals who are happy to kill as many black people as get in their way.

    5. Isn’t all the fuss about because an American copper did get down on his knee to an American career criminal?

    6. Anyone wishing to show their appreciation for Amazon delivery drivers
      are asked to ‘take the knee’ at their homes tomorrow anytime between 9am and 6pm.

  18. Apropos Johnson’s lunatic plan (number 27) to allow (nay, welcome) 3 million HK people – maths is one of the many things I am no good at.

    But perhaps a NoTTLrer expert with a slide rule could tell us what area 3 million people would take up, given that they would have to be six feet apart.

    To the nearest ten square miles…

    1. Of course when they issue Compulsory Eviction Notices for Old White Racists there will be lots of properties available for incomers.

      1. 319894+ up ticks,
        Morning As,
        Have the centre of the resettlement area be parliament green work out from there any over-spill to be put into requisitioned politico’s
        second homes.

    2. Morning Monsieur,

      You don’t have to worry about the quality of the distance – Hong Kongers are used to living mere inches apart. Just think about the quantity of grateful votes for the benevolent Conservative (sic) Party….

      1. Yes, yes, but, but – in the wonderful Disunited Kingdom – “sochul distancing” is enforced by law….

        1. Up here the Kleine Fuhrerin is promising to put a legally enforceable limit on the length of allowable journeys.

          3. Fischweib = fishwife (It’s more demeaning 😉 )

            Führerin = female leader.

          5. Der Führer = the leader.
            Die Führerin = female leader.

            -in usually denotes a female version.

          8. ‘Morning, Peddy, some people cannot make an umlaut without breaking eggs.

      2. Yeah, right. If that’s likely, wait for the screams of protest from Labour.
        Don’t hold your breath…

        1. Labour aren’t interested in the Chinese – particularly HKers; they have an inconvenient habit of working hard and not indulging their inner victim.

          1. Indeed – what I was getting at is that if Labour think that all these Chinese will vote Tory and so keep a “Tory” government for ever, they’ll squeal about importing them. If they don’t squeal, it’s because they reckon that there will be a noticeable vote for Labour.

      3. 300,000 of them are muslims. I expect them to be the first to be settled here.

    3. Assuming they sit in the centre of a square 6 foot by 6 foot, very roughly 4 sq miles

        1. We had this contraption when I was little which gave excellent training for this very scenario. If we leave one square unoccupied, then it should be possible for everyone to get around without breaching social distancing.

    4. I haven’t the time nor the inclination to do the maths but 3 million people will require an urban area with all the necessary facilities slightly larger than Greater Manchester. Has Johnson thought this through? Is the Pope…

        1. He has left his thinking apparatus at home along with his emergency supply of condoms.

    5. An area of 10 392′ by 10 392′. Or, about 2 miles by 2 miles.
      Not so big as I thought – assuming I can do sums, but then, I am an Engineer…

    6. Its unbelievable that it should even be considered. Its seems that colonialism is bad, until the indigenous leaders run the place, then colonial homeland good (despite its racism, xenophobia, brexit … add your own ism here).

  19. I’ve noticed a lot of black squares being posted on Facebook. Apparently this is to show solidarity with Black Lives Matters, so various celebrities and other members of the woke-eratti decided to stay off their social media for a day and say nothing. Can we make every day BLM day?

    1. I’m disappointed that a couple people I quite admired have joined in with this pathetic virtue signalling – pity!

      1. I saw a black square on the profile of the wife of a friend of mine. I had no idea what it meant at the time, but knowing her as I do I guessed it must be something ‘woke.’ Surprise surprise!

        Do these middle-class virtue-signallers really understand what kind of organisation they are supporting? A group which hates white people and promotes looting, rioting and violence as a means of protest. If this American cop used excessive force and killed that man then he should dealt with according to the law. BLM/Antifa will use any excuse to justify smashing the place up.

        1. What happens when the place is wrecked, the local economy trashed, and most people out of work?
          Blacks tend to be at the poorer end of society, and the poorer end of society always gets a kicking when the economy tanks. The rich don’t notice.

          1. I’ve read that a lot of the rioters are white and middle class ‘rentamobs’ who are trashing the small businesses of black people. Never mind, all in the name of The Cause eh?

          2. There was a couple of lawyers arrested for petrolbombing a police car a couple or 3 days ago…

          3. “Jacinta, have you done your physics revision today?”
            “Sorry, Mummy, been out getting my hour of fresh air and exercise.”

      2. I am fairly sure that this has been organised behind the scenes. It is not spontaneous. Once started though, a riot is great fun to join. Add in opportunities to loot shops and this could go on for a while.
        It is seldom that “joining in the excitement” is given as a motive for anything. Regardless that it is clearly a driver in team games and sports, in amateur theatre and clubs. It is a key motivation in joining the armed forces, police and fire brigade.
        A person who worked for me had been a gardener for his uncle in Beirut. He joined a falangist corps. He told me that they had great fun firing their guns while driving in cars towards the opposition. When the opposition woke up, they beat a hasty retreat. It was a frequent diversion.
        He returned to the UK and sold advertising.

        1. Of course it’s pre-organised.
          Plans set up months ago and held until a cause celebre arrives that can be used as a hook to hang it on.

    3. But very amusing is that one daft totty “sleb” who did so was slagged off because she allowed a WHITE border to the black square…!!!

    4. I was watching a programme on Drama Channel TV last night. During each commercial break there was an announcement on a black screen saying how much black people were valued as actors, producers, cleaners, lawyers, accountants, teachers, script writers, condom rubber-patch repairmen etc. etc, – in fact how valued all black people are and how the TV company was totally opposed to racism of any kind – real or imagined.

      I can only imagine that the TV company has been scared sh*tless by the insurrection of black people and is getting in its surrender as quickly as it can showing everybody how craven it is.

      1. I have a magic button on my TV that guarantees a screen that is completely black.

    5. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/01/us/tony-timpa-dallas-police-body-cam.html

      Dallas Officers Pinned Tony Timpa and Joked During Fatal Encounter, Video Shows
      “You’re going to kill me,” Mr. Timpa shouted repeatedly in newly released body-camera video. An autopsy classified his 2016 death as a homicide.

      You’d have probably missed the worldwide protests about the death of this man, but then he was white, so there was no political capital to be made out of it.

      https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2BqN423qeu4
      Tony Heller: Enemies of the People
      A year ago, President Trump said the press was “truly the enemy of the people.” The press has gotten much worse since then.

      1. I have repeatedly reminded people that Sheku Bayo was pinned down by policemen, lots of them, (two vehicles worth) and he died as a result.
        This was in Kirkcaldy in 2015. The Lord Advocate, head of the prosecution service, immediately ruled out the possibility of prosecution.
        There is to be a Public Enquiry. The result is a foregone conclusion. (Orders have already been placed for brushes and whitewash.)

        https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-46591551

        1. ‘Morning, Horace, as slight amendment, ” (Orders have already been placed for brushes and whiteblackwash.)”

        2. Man on drugs becomes violent.
          Police over-react and man ends up dead.
          Police panic & try a coverup.

          Usual story.

  20. SIR – I recall my mother often meeting other parents in the morning to discuss whether it was safe to send us to school. Disappointingly, they always decided that we should go. It was 1941.

    John Calnan

    Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire

    1. Good morning Anne,

      Such decisions by your mother made you the woman you are today!

      1. Luckily, I missed that one.
        But cycling across a freezing Earls Colne airfield to catch the bus may have hardened my soul.

  21. 319894+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    The king rodent b liar made the intake of the Chinese a
    non credible issue with his mass uncontrolled immigration latchlifting.
    This promptly followed by the tory / lib dems ALL submissive, appeasing, pro eu rubber stampers.
    I was in Uganda when big dada kicked out the Asians
    we took them in but that was BEFORE the likes of rodents of the b liar / cameron calibre become active.
    I was jesting in the past with saying compulsory boarders coming into being, now it could become a reality as in evacuation in a wartime setting, and we are at war make no bones about that.
    Politico’s,
    Stop trying to form semi- re-entry bridges with brussels
    TODAY, then go for a win double,
    In multiple tongues and via the same communication channels that has struck fear into grannies / others make it plain NO WELFARE to illegals henceforth.
    The common denominator of the lab/lib/con political party’s, after multiplying ones actions against the other
    equals sh!te, time after time no matter how many times the peoples HOPE for a different result.
    Take Dover for instance the latest treachery……

    1. I don’t think many of the Ugandan Asians were troublemakers. Most of them have integrated and been hardworking business people.

      1. 319894+ up ticks,
        Afternoon N,
        Radio Kent done a program on them years ago virtually none signed on for welfare, they were out & out business people.
        A bloke went into a shop to Kampala to buy a camera and was told to take his pick…. free.
        The hospitals rapidly run down, and in the bush bar I use to frequently visit the juke box malfunctioned and only played one record that an old lady down from the hills interspersed throwing stones at the passing army ( war with Tanzania) demanded a shilling to play Cecelia over & bloody over again.I can still hear it.

        1. My OH’s nephew married a Sikh girl whose parents came from Uganda. They were all business people.

    1. Morning jsc -Same in N Yorks but I think the drought is not over yet. We need a lot more gentle rain before we can relax.

        1. Mrs Swift (I think, though they do take it in turns) is tucked up in the box on her two eggs. She keeps turning them over – they rattle around but the shells must be tougher than we think.

    2. Morning jsc -Same in N Yorks but I think the drought is not over yet. We need a lot more gentle rain before we can relax.

      1. It’s supposed to have rained here, but the washing I hung out late yesterday doesn’t appear to have had a fresh rainwater rinse yet.

        3. It’s up to 13mm now. It’s droppething from heaven nice and gently but continuously.

          2. Huh!. You usually save the sunshine for you South Easterners. It was our turn… Until today…

  24. I rarely read Sarah Vine in the DM, but this did catch my eye:

    “There is a scene in George A. Romero’s 1978 cult zombie classic Dawn Of The Dead, where survivors arrive at a post-apocalyptic shopping mall to discover it teeming with the infected, stumbling around closed shops, blindly riding the escalators in a grimly comedic ballet of gore.

    ‘But what are they all doing?’ asks the heroine.

    ‘Some kind of instinct,’ replies the gruff hero. ‘What they used to do. This was an important place in their lives.’

    I’m afraid this was the first thing that sprang to mind when I saw the scenes at Ikea on Monday.”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8382207/SARAH-VINE-cured-urge-join-shopping-zombies.html

    1. I love that photo of the Queen on her horse – at 94!
      Shopping has never really been my chosen therapy – I’ve been buying books the last few months though. We bought this house 25 years ago – partly because there was room for my mother’s books – but we may have to expand our bookshelves a bit more…….

      1. I have actually sorted out some books to – gasp – give away.
        See, Covid-19 does affect the brain.

        1. I might have to cull the top shelves a bit, if only to make room for the latest aquisitions. Thank goodness for Kindle – they don’t take up so much room.

          1. My Kindle has died on me. I remembered I’d down loaded and forgotten couple of books. It just won’t take the charge, and after car and laptop hassles, at the moment I just can’t be @rsed to deal with anything else – especially if it involves batteries.

          2. I thought mine was beginning to die a few months ago – had awful trouble downloading, but it seems to be ok now.

      2. Books Do Furnish a Room.

        (Title of one of the novels in Antony Powell’s the Dance to the Music of Time series

        Home is where the books are.

        (Richard Burton – a film star who owned many houses and was asked which one he thought of as ‘home.’

    2. Morning Anne

      Nice to see you are back.

      I cannot get a delivery slot for groceries .. so I join the shopping queue.. 2 metres, follow the arrows , do not deviate, do not touch anything you are not going to buy .. (where is the sell by date) I remember a computer game my sons used to play called PAC-Man ..and it really feels as if I have entered a virtual world .. the announcements over the tannoy re buying only what you need and please be patient .. is a new world that I didn’t expect to enter at my age.

      1. Does your local grocer do delivery? My Mother is much better served by Valley View grocers of Dinas Powys, who will take delivery orders by phone, sms, whatever, and payment by bank transfer. The ony thing they don’t have is booze.

      2. Morrisons is almost normal. Lovely staff, hardly any delay and no swerving signallers. Very few masks and plenty of smiles.

        1. Some of the fresh items from Morrisons are far better than you can find in any other supermarket. It may not be as slick in looks as many but far better on produce. morrisons own brand biscuits are just so good.

      3. Only one person in the queue outside Iceland, about three outside Sainsbury’s, this morning. Have they all gone to Ikea?

      4. The only shopping I’ve done has been the weekly trip to Morrisons. Apart from the queue outside (not long at the time I go) it’s pretty normal inside except for the reduced number of checkouts open.

        1. Reduced checkouts? To reduce queuing, our local supermarkets now have all checkouts open most of the time.

          Add to that the traffic cop and trolley sanitisers at the front door and supermarket staff costs have increased significantly.

          1. They have a notice up – that only alternate checkouts are open – it’s a small store and there are three pairs of back to back checkouts. Now only one of each pair is working. They have perspex screens up too. There is a security man at the door and sanitisers but other than that it’s fairly normal.

          2. The local Lidl does that. Only the odds or the evens are open, not all of them at the same time.

      5. The final hour in all the supermarkets I’ve been in is fine with no queuing and few people, if you don’t mind shopping late. I went to Sainsbury’s in Andover shortly after 6pm last week on my way home from work and was surprised to find it very civilised, no queue, not at all crowded and plenty of checkouts.

      6. 🙂 I just go out and shop.
        I hope we will all remember our local businesses when this nonsense is over.
        In addition to all the fun and games, the battery in my car succumbed to 6 weeks stasis and then a handful of little old lady trips to Lidl.
        On Monday, our local garage re-opened. By mid-afternoon, the battery was replaced and once again the wheels on the Noddy car go round and round.
        p.s. The pictures of the rubbish at Durdle Door were not a pretty sight.

  25. If there is white supremacy in this world of ours then it is far left elitist and is anti white through and through

  26. Having failed to get the scalp of Dominic Cummings they so desperately wanted, self declared ‘progressives’ have decided instead to vent their very selective outrage on the killing of a man in a foreign country thousands of miles away in order to stir racial tensions.

    1. He should, but he’s an inveterate virtue signaller.
      When is he going to get back to his proper job and reopen the churches?

    2. “Most Rev Justin Welby shared a tweet posted by Michael Curry, the American bishop who spoke at Prince Harry and Meghan’s wedding, accusing Mr Trump of exploiting the church for political reasons.”

      Of course Welby never exploits the church for political reasons. Pure humbug from a leading hypocrite.

      1. Was that the dingbat who rambled on … and on … and on … about the power of lurve?

    3. How dim can this unGodly man get? I see there is no comment allowed on his mad article!

      1. Morning Sue

        A black man was killed , any death is a tragedy, but what does Welby say about black men killing blackmen with impunity .. especially black Christians who are murdered everyday by their own countrymen. What does he say about white girls being murdered / raped by Muslims

        1. Black Christians being murdered in Nigeria… Blacks being murdered by other blacks in Londonistan?

          1. And white Africans are still being raped tortured and murdered every day on their farms in southern Africa. Where’s the
            justice ?
            No rhyme nor reason fits the entire antifa package.

          2. It is the unalienable and exclusive right of black people to kill other black people if they want to do so without being criticised, censored or criminalised by white trash honky. And if they kill a few honkies then who cares because white lives don’t matter.

        2. Too true Belle.
          Where was he and all the other idiots when the carnage took place in parts of central Africa. All those young school girls were kidnapped and raped by black muslims? What did all of those who are now looting and burning have to say when that lunatic Mugabe was having people murdered because he knew that they wouldn’t vote for him.
          I cared about the poor black people who were being murdered by their black brothers.
          Inocent Black lives didn’t seem to matter to these marauders then. But give them an unjustified bandwagon and the pathetic creeps are all aboard like a rat up a drainpipe.
          Stinking bishop, how cheesy can anyone get.

        3. He is a very seriously nasty and misguided man.

          Of course it must have come as a great shock to him but I think that the discovery that he is literally a bastard has made him determined to behave metaphorically like one as well?

          2. Back to normal, more or less.
            After the past week I would like to see an extension to the Bristol scale.
            Bristol Scale 8:- persistent liquid stool ejected with force to give a “pebble dashed” appearance on the toilet bowl

        5. Hi Belle! I expect he just turned the other cheek …..or in this case, he closed both eyes!

    4. Welby needs to be locked up in a place like Broadmoor – he is criminally insane.

  29. Good morning all from a much relieved and more comfortable BoB.

    A phone chat with the Doctor yesterday and he agreed it’s gastroenteritis and that it sounded like the symptoms were on the wane, though it might take a couple of days to fully abate.

    This morning, i’m glad to say, I’m virtually back to normal.
    I only hope I don’t replace the 6lb I’ve lost during the five day fast.

    I found it interesting that the Dr. pointed out that, as much as he’d liked to have had a sample taken, there was little point as the path labs are all busy with C-19 Wuhan.

    1. No shit tests, Sherlock?

      Glad to hear you are feeling brighter. Keep drinking lots of water. Wash away the toxins.

    1. It’s a mind game now CV.
      I’m still trying to work out who is being blamed for Bame’s allegedly suffering more from the virus than any other members of the population.

        1. Just pick any white person …. go on …. any white person whatsoever …. no, not that one, he’s the leader of the Labour party.

    2. The Border Collie is a hard working intelligent breed of dog. They seem to revel in these competitions.

      1. I’d planned to start Spartie on those exercises; a local farm runs such courses.
        Oh well, see what transpires.

  32. Good morning, all. A cloudy, grey start to the day.

    Just WHERE are we going to put 3 MILLION people from Hong Kong?

    4. Good morning Bill

      They are forgetting we are an Island , with a lawless Millenial Benidorm, Magaluf tatooed holiday generation.

      How many Muslims , how many blacks and how many Indians do we host, what difference will another 3 million from Hong Kong make..

  34. Now that the BAME population here in UK have been identified as being of a higher risk of Covid-19 than the indegenious people as a whole, when can we expect their demands for “Special Treatment” – ?
    e.g. – Priority in medical appointments, furlough compulsory, special isolated seating arrangements on buses and trains – etc etc ?

  35. And just how does Johnson think we can handle all those HK Chinese if China decides to expel the lot of them, to be flown out as soon as planes can be filled?

    1. With 14 days quarantine once they step off the flight at Heathrow, of course.

  36. A retired sailor puts on his old uniform and goes down to the docks once more for old time’s sake.

    He hires a prostitute and takes her up to the room. He’s going at it as best as he can for a guy his age and asks, “How am I doing?”

    The prostitute says, “Well, sailor, you’re doing about three knots.”

    “What’s that?” he asks.

    She says, “You’re knot hard, you’re knot in, and you’re knot getting your money back.”

  37. Isaac Newton proposed curing plague with toad vomit, unseen papers show. Tue 2 Jun 2020.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6b03a8add83c6e908db7db4966d973227685cb24da7821d6553585f926597374.jpg

    It is not as bad as suggesting injections of disinfectant. Isaac Newton’s 17th-century prescription for plague – which blended powdered toad with toad vomit to form “lozenges” to drive away the contagion – has been revealed.

    Apart from the hair there’s a definite resemblance to Ferguson! He was probably on Charles II SAGE team as well!

    https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jun/02/isaac-newton-plague-cure-toad-vomit

      1. Well it is the third of June and “it’s just another dusty delta day”…..

    3. There’s plenty of toad vomit produced by our political classes and the media.

      1. The dangerousness of Covid-19 was overestimated: probably at no point did the danger posed by the new virus go beyond the normal level.

        The danger is obviously no greater than that of many other viruses. There is no evidence that this was more than a false alarm.

        During the Corona crisis the State has proved itself as one of the biggest producers of Fake News.

        This was why we couldn’t get a proper sense of what was going on with this virus early on. Now the data’s in, and it’s mostly bull-pucky.
        It can kill people who are particularly vulnerable, i.e. have a pre-existing condition and are over working age, e.g. our friend who died of it recently who’d had a serious about of bronchitis and lung damage from years of heavy smoking.
        As for Fake News: we could have told them that.

        1. It’s no worse than SARS was.
          My wife myself our 16 year old son and one of my sisters and BIL traveled to and from Australia during the SARS virus. I didn’t even catch my normal ‘flight flu’.
          I cannot understand why most of the world’s political figures seemed to go off at complete tangents.
          There is something they are not telling us.

  38. Morning all

    SIR – To the unnamed MP who rounded on Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Leader of the House, after his call for a return to the House of Commons, and claimed, “Most of us are living in the real world”, I would say that most of us are living in the real world.

    If such MPs were, they’d want to get back to work for the benefit of the country.

    Lawrence Gordon

    Sutton Coldfield

    SIR – Some local councils and teaching unions maintain it is unsafe to open schools. I run a business that supplies supermarkets, and we have continued to manufacture during the lockdown, keeping our colleagues (many with children of their own) safe through sensible hygiene and distancing measures. The same is true of many food manufacturers and retailers.

    Were it not for these people, there would be food shortages in the country. It is an insult to all of these workers that some schools are not reopening for political reasons.

    The safe case for opening schools has already been made by those teaching children of essential workers, as well as by private schools.

    It is a shame that, even in a time of crisis, political point-scoring takes priority for some over working for the common good.

    Gareth Edwards

    Christleton, Cheshire

    SIR – I recall my mother often meeting other parents in the morning to discuss whether it was safe to send us to school. Disappointingly, they always decided that we should go. It was 1941.

    John Calnan

    Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire

    SIR – Which bit of the NHS is supposed to be “open”? No appointments are available with consultants, treatment for cancer has stopped, surgery for cancer or orthopaedics are a distant dream, and visual (let alone physical) examinations by GPs are not on offer.

    John Lovibond

    Bunbury, Cheshire

    Dental nurses in personal protective equipment embrace before starting treatment on a patient at Coed Celyn Hospital in Wrexham

    Dental nurses in personal protective equipment embrace before starting treatment on a patient at Coed Celyn Hospital in Wrexham CREDIT: Christopher Furlong /Getty

    SIR – My daughter has had Covid-19, with mild symptoms, and has thankfully totally recovered. Can I now hug her?

    There’s a distinct lack of advice from scientists and the Government as to how those who have recovered can now go about their normal lives.

    Susan August

    Bedford

    SIR – No doubt, if the infection rate rises, it will all be the Government’s fault for easing lockdown too soon. No fault at all of the millions last weekend at crowded beaches, tourist destinations and the London protest.

    Anne Adams

    London SE22

    SIR – There is a certain irony that, thanks to Covid-19, we are now encouraged to use our cars instead of public transport and plastic bags are once more in vogue. Will humour be allowed back soon?

    Rob Dorrell

    Pennsylvania, Wiltshire

      2. “Darling…fancy putting on a nurses uniform”?

        “Ooh, cheeky boy…you feeling horny”?

        “Nah…we’ve run out of bread”!

    2. In the real world do the self-employed get given a £10,000 bonus paid for by the taxpayers because of the corona virus?

      My contempt for all politicians is growing beyond all bounds!

  39. SIR – While the West is distracted by the Covid-19 pandemic, China has picked the perfect moment to introduce new security laws in Hong Kong.

    This act effectively rips up the 50-year agreement made with Britain in 1997, when Hong Kong was returned to the Chinese. Beijing knows that Britain can do nothing about this, except bang the table in diplomatic frustration.

    The Government must now review its decision to allow the Chinese company Huawei to build part of Britain’s 5G mobile network. Perhaps Boris Johnson and his Cabinet might also accept that Donald Trump is right to want to play hardball with China over its role in the Covid-19 outbreak.

    Kim Potter

    Lambourn, Berkshire

    1. Huawei contract was not based on technology but on Mandelson (scum, corrupt) bribing people in government.

      Backhanders, brown envelopes, under the table ‘meetings’. Corruption, fraud and theft. Of course Mandelson is at the heart of it. The man is poison.

  40. Water Water everywhere nor any drop to drink….

    SIR – Michael Young (Letters, June 1) refers to the “selfish” minority who water their lawns.

    I will be happy to stop doing this when taking a bath is outlawed, the filling and topping up of swimming pools is forbidden and the use of thousands of gallons of water – sucked up from aquifers or taken from rivers – to keep golfers happy is banned.

    Philip Hall

    Petersfield, Hampshire

    SIR – Terry Lloyd (Letters, June 1) is spot on. Tens of thousands of new houses have been planned in and around Stafford, with almost no consideration of the infrastructure.

    Here the water supply now fails in the evenings until past midnight, due to its inability to cope with demand, even though Severn Trent says there is no shortage in the reservoirs. When will meters become mandatory?

    Philip Trow

    Stafford

  41. Looking at the radar, there appears to be rain in the offing in North Norfolk – but the sky suggests otherwise. Perhaps in an hour or so. One lives in hopes.

    1. Morning Bill

      !5 minute patter of rain in South Hants.

      Not enough to wash the dust off.

    2. We had a lot of heavy rain last night. Sky is now clearing a little. I washed the car yesterday and got it back in the garage before the rain came. It was a close run thing.

      1. Seeing this was on the way, I mowed the lawn and painted an outside door…

        1. Ah, you did it the right way round. So no grass clippings sticking to door! (I speak from experience.)

          3. My favourite decoration era. I still have my Terence Conran ‘Housebook’ to browse over…

          4. I’ll raise you a chicken brick.
            (Acksherley one of those Roman pots that you have to soak.)

          5. We get our chicken brick serviced every year, at the same time as the hypocaust.

    3. Hi Anne, good to have you back! To be fair, it’s mostly the teaching unions saying that it isn’t safe. What many parents object to is their children not being able to return and behave normally, without the “distancing” regime.

      1. I have to say, those arrangements are absolutely chilling. I dread to think what the long term psychological effects will be.
        The only good thing is that the children are sitting at desks and Facing the Front; you know, where the teacher is likely to be situated.
        It’s good to be back; I have a loaned laptop that I am probably treating with more respect than my little cyber work horse.

      2. I refused to join a teaching union when I worked as a teacher in independent schools and many of my colleagues did the same.

  44. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d85cdaf7a87f0dc39e156b3d6d2eff22a2aa5dbf77bd2472fbd2a6d80dadadc0.jpg Someone on this forum asked, just the other day, if anyone who was around on June 2, 1953, could remember the coronation and what they remember about it.

    I have a few vague memories of that day when I received a coronation mug, a spoon and a commemorative Crown (5/-). This picture is a painting of me taken from a photograph from that day when I was just 2 years and 3 months old.

    1. I’ve got a photo somewhere of our street party and us kids also in fancy dress ;-))

      1. I’ve got a photo of a street party in Weston where I was staying with my uncle & aunt at the time. I do remember being at the party. I still have my Coronation mug and crown.

    2. Blimey, did you share Prince Charles’ nanny?
      We received a book from Essex County Council. Purple cover with the coat of arms and titled ‘Royalty in Essex’.
      Even we unspeakable little nobs at private schools received one.

      2. Yo had the same coat as me back in ’53, Rusty.

        A Hardy Amies if my memory serves me well! 😂

      1. The colour is artistic licence since everyone knows that the world was in monochrome back in the 50s.

    6. Your parents were comfortably well off then. Not enough shoes to go round was the order of the day for Northerners.

      Nice picture Grizz………What the hell happened ?!!!. 🙂

          3. The ‘c’ in merci does not take a cedilla.

            Does Merci have a cedilla?
            Cédille ¸ (cedilla) is found only on the letter C. Therefore, it changes a hard C sound (like K) into a soft C sound (like S). Also, the cedilla is never placed in front of E or I, because C always sounds like an S in front of those vowels, e.g. merci (Thank you) or parce que (because).

            My First French Words with Ç – French Circles

          4. “You need to be painting on the steps at Montmartre with that look.”

            Is that better?

          5. The steps are painted with wine, beer, blood, broken glass and reefer butts every night. What colour would you paint them?

    2. I worked as Company Accountant for business that was broke. The business was owed money by various customers who had failed to pay up. My job was to get them to pay up. At some point before I arrived a debtor had been taken to court and his means of livelihood, the subject of the debt, had been seized in payment. Within the local community we were reviled for this action. I was told by the owners that my efforts to recover money could not include taking debtors to court, either directly or via (expensive) debt recovery firms.
      So I adopted a policy of sending debtors letters, offering time to pay, instalment payments and so on. If this did not result in a positive response, ie payment I upped my game. I sent a letter in a format I call the Reverse Polish Logic* Legal Letter.
      I wrote to the debtor describing what may happen if we took legal action. A court might decide to award us the payment, costs and interest. This would mean that we might take possession of their house, their boat, their cars, their TV, all their furniture, their fur coats and jewellery. We might also seize their pets and their childrens’ toys. It was wonderfully vicious and scary. In the closing paragraph I suggested very strongly and insistently that they take legal advice.
      This is how it works: they go to a lawyer and show him the letter. He asks if they owe the money. They say “yes”. Their lawyer then tells them that they have to pay and that they should agree a payment plan with us. Mostly they did. We had no legal bills which was an added benefit for us.
      This may help?

      * Endless fun, http://www.alcula.com/calculators/rpn/

    3. She’s very indistinct. Why doesn’t she open her mouth & enunciate properly?

    5. Good afternoon, Issy.

      I am sorry.
      That video must leave a very nasty taste in your mouth.
      I am always uneasy with and suspicious of secular people
      blessing all and sundry, all the time.

    6. If it’s any consolation I added this to all the sickly comments below:

      “I wonder when you’re going to pay back the £8,500 you borrowed and refuse to pay back”

    7. She reminds me of Carol Vorderman! Duly down voted for being vomit inducing and sleazy.

    8. I worked as Company Accountant for business that was broke. The business was owed money by various customers who had failed to pay up. My job was to get them to pay up. At some point before I arrived a debtor had been taken to court and his means of livelihood, the subject of the debt, had been seized in payment. Within the local community we were reviled for this action. I was told by the owners that my efforts to recover money could not include taking debtors to court, either directly or via (expensive) debt recovery firms.
      So I adopted a policy of sending debtors letters, offering time to pay, instalment payments and so on. If this did not result in a positive response, ie payment I upped my game. I sent a letter in a format I call the Reverse Polish Logic* Legal Letter.
      I wrote to the debtor describing what may happen if we took legal action. A court might decide to award us the payment, costs and interest. This would mean that we might take possession of their house, their boat, their cars, their TV, all their furniture, their fur coats and jewellery. We might also seize their pets and their childrens’ toys. It was wonderfully vicious and scary. In the closing paragraph I suggested very strongly and insistently that they take legal advice.
      This is how it works: they go to a lawyer and show him the letter. He asks if they owe the money. They say “yes”. Their lawyer then tells them that they have to pay and that they should agree a payment plan with us. Mostly they did. We had no legal bills which was an added benefit for us.
      This may help?

      * Endless fun, http://www.alcula.com/calculators/rpn/

      1. Thank you Horace … much to chew on there.

        And many thanks to all. This total shonet and hubby [ a probation officer based at the local law courts ] have sponged off many in this area. Time to get down to it here !

        1. Not wanting to be terribly nosy, but why on Earth did you lend them so much (any?) money?

          1. I thought thast they were genuine friends, peddy. They have proved to be liars and cheats.

          4. Through a carer/cleaner helping me. .. big mistake and legal route is now the only way, I guess.

      2. When dealing with debtors, whichever method you use, you must impose & adhere to a strict timetable – don’t give them a single day’s grace before you take the next step.

      3. Your earlier post has prompted me to order a dashcam kit. Particularly with all
        the oldies taking up bike riding and wobbling about because of
        unaccustomed muscle use. I tried it but don’t have the muscular strength any more.

    9. Must be a blessing to have eyes that point in different directions, easy to spot unguarded wallets surreptitiously .

  46. We keep hearing that we have white supremacy, if we did we would be able to complain or protest about the mass rape of white girls by Asian grooming gangs without being called far right racists

    1. How many blacks protested when their grandchildren were stabbing, robbing , acid throwing, , motor scooter muggings, drug dealing , fathers clearing off, no male role models .. What exactly were they doing.. Oh yes, shacking up with white girls , appearing on sofa ads , and other such BaME nonsense !

      1. The black protesters expect the world to change to accommodate their lifestyles but they are unwilling to change themselves

      2. We haven’t heard much about the stabbing rate this year – have they all suddenly stopped killing each other?

          1. We should be so lucky, Paul. And I say that with all due humility and sincerity as per Hughie Green.

        3. No we’ve just lost BillJ who kept us up to date. Without him posting you wouldn’t know it was happening and that’s probably how most of the country sees it (or rather doesn’t).

          1. I rather thought that might be the reason – though occasionally there was the odd mention on the news of the latest stabbing mortality count. I quite miss BJ’s newsfeed. I didn’t realise he was such a sensitive soul.

          2. Yes I do too. Although the stabbings made depressing reading, I did think it really brought home, just how bad the situation was/is. I suspect the majority of the population have no idea how relentlessly bad black on black attacks are. It’s the same with persecution and killings of Christians in Africa and Asia – it is only by visiting those websites that log the attacks day in-day out, that one gets an idea just how bad it is. I wonder if any of them send a daily update to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

      3. Quite a few actually. If you are white then it was all your fault; or mine. It is always someone else’s fault providing they are not black. Should any – and there have been precious few – black personalities point out the problem is a black one, then they are instantly converted to a white inside racist and exiled. But just think: If Doreen Lawrence had been a better parent she would not be in the House of Lords today.

      4. They excuse that by blaming the wealth of others and, of course, years of ‘racism’.

        Yes, it’s racism. It’s evil rich people. It’s not their criminal geed, it’s someone else’s fault.

      5. I hear that not many Fathers Day cards or sunblock were stolen during the looting.

    2. It’s simply an excuse for their own apathy. It isn’t because I didn’t work. It isn’t because I wasn’t clever enough, didn’t put the time in. It’s because I’m black.

      After all, that’s so much easier than considering that actually, no, the other guy *was* the better candidate. But hey. So much more comforting to excuse your failings on other people.

  47. Just had an email from ClickPlan offering me a discount on a coffee machine of up to £600, and now prices from just £29.99.

    Anyone care to guess what the actual savings on offer really are, and what the price being asked actually is? Incidentally, the price to Mr Graham for this nugget of wisdom from me is up to £15,000. Cheque’s in the post, I believe.

    1. 319894+ up ticks,
      o2o,
      This Braine chap was he not also a victim of the Braine / Batten treacherous ersatz Nec of UKIP
      stitch up, and their successful campaign of suppressing a politically decent 100% pro UK party ?

      1. ‘Morning, Ogga, and what are you, Braine, Batten and all dedicated UKIPpers doing, to oust the current NEC and replace it with properly elected and vetted UKIPpers and try to restore some credibility to the party before the next General Election.

        Failure to do this will relegate the party to being a bunch of backwoodsmen and leave you as a voice crying in the wilderness.

        1. 319894+ up ticks,
          Morning Ntn,
          UKIP over the last 28 years have been fighting on not only the
          odious Eu front but also domesticated ones in so far as combating the lab/lib/con pro eu coalition party & worse still these parties supporters / voters.
          Many considering UKIP as a one trick mickey mouse setup not wishing to acknowledge the party winning the Eu elections then designing & activating the referendum only to see it treacherously handled via what passes as the tory party.

          The lab/lib/con party first regardless of consequence supporting membership / voters have a great deal to answer for no doubt of that.

          The UKIP ersatz NEc has had a successful killing democracy campaign, the party for decent self respecting patriotic peoples is over leaving us rhetorically crying in the wilderness.
          The nucleus of the real UKIP is still out there awaiting a platform for real decent leaders of the Batten calibre, his worth has been proved, and that is the reason he had to be suppressed.

          1. I am aware of all that, Ogga but my question asked what are you all doing about restoring credibility to a party I once supported but cannot do so today?

          2. 319894+ up ticks,
            Ntn,
            I do believe I answered your post adequately& as honestly as I see it currently.
            Although still in the party I no longer support any policies put out by the ersatz Nec that would be acting in collusion with them & condoning their actions.
            Instead of building on UKIP success many left and returned to
            supporting / voting lab/lib/con the very parties that got us & kept us in the sh!te for decades.
            A future pro UK platform must be forthcoming for the sake of future generations and to combat fools who can only operate
            politically via party before Country mode.

  49. 319894+ up ticks,
    How about we owe it to millions that were injured with many millions losing their lives in WW2 protecting the home front and democracy,the very two commodities you and your ilk were so willing to give away up until the 24/6/2016 and are still willing to this day to destroy through treachery.

    https://twitter.com/pritipatel/status/1268100024237535233

    2. 319894+ up ticks,
      How are the NI numbers being issued to the Dover alien invasion fleet holding up priti ? are they in the region of the
      nation debt yet ?

  50. As the Left are using the death of George Floyd as a stick to beat Trump with it would be interesting to find a stat about how many black people died in custody when Obama was President .

    2. It would also be interesting to know how many policemen who killed people were themselves of color (sic).

  51. If there is white supremacy in this world of ours then it is far left elitist and is anti white through and through

  53. 319894+ up ticks,
    The sayings that will stick in peoples lifelong minds, poetic justice seen to be done,
    ………………….. john burcow,
    …………………….The noes have it.

      1. Eggs, Joe. If you lay them from a height they will smash when they hit the floor.

    2. Odd that the most vulnerable groups hardly feature at all in the video.

      What a load of bollocks it is.

      1. Agreed, Sos, and Good morning. It’s typical of a China-backed and funded organisation, that they should try and steal the moral high ground where NO morality abounds.

    1. Fear not, the BBC will be giving unlimited coverage to “OAP Lives Matter” /sarc

    2. I thought the whole point of having Government Departments using connected computer systems was that it didn’t require individuals to photocopy documents and fill in forms? It’s a trivial database operation to match recipients of Pension Credit to those who have TV licences at their property. Paper pushers, eh?

      1. The licence database is kept by the BBC contractor, erm…Crapita. I assume privacy law would prevent them passing the information on, even to another contracted database they happen to operate. And so it should do.

      2. The licence database is kept by the BBC contractor, erm…Crapita. I assume privacy law would prevent them passing the information on, even to another contracted database they happen to operate. And so it should do.

        1. It would work the other way around. The DWP would tell Crapita who is eligible for free TV licenses.

          1. ‘Well, adding another field would have to be costed of course, it wasn’t in the original specification’…

        2. The Data Protection Act was a ruse from its inception, hand in hand with the Freedom of Information Act. Most information was freely available. Now you can find out nothing that they do not want you to, They are protected by the DPA and the FOI.
          Try phoning a hospital, ” I’d like to visit my mate Tom. Which ward is he in?” ” I cannot give you that information”.

    3. Neat way of placing a problem in the way of Lord Hall’s game plan though.

  57. Another excellent article from Brendan O’Neill:

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/06/03/i-did-not-kill-george-floyd/

    Isn’t it strange how when Islamic terrorists do what they do, the media is at pains to distance them from the mass of the Islamic community? They are inevitably ‘lone wolves’ who have mental health issues and of course are ‘Nothing To Do With Islam.’ But when a white cop kills a black man in America – why, EVERY SINGLE WHITE PERSON ON THE PLANET bears collective responsibility.

    Essentially, white people should feel guilty for existing and if we could just top ourselves in good order then the world would be a better place.

    No thanks!

    1. My answer as it’s ever been.
      They all read the same book.
      Especially the ‘lone wolves’.

      1. One holds the door open to the rest. There is even less desire to integrate into western democratic society now than there was as recently as the last century. Islamic dress is now a commonplace on many inner city streets.

        1. Everything they do is designed to be insulting to and in defiance of western cultures.

      2. Quite so. As far as I am aware there is no ‘moderate’ version of the Koran.

        Compare the reaction of white people to the murder of Lee Rigby, or the slaughter of 23 little girls at a pop concert. Do we riot, loot and burn? Do we try to hold all moslems responsible for the slaughter? No, we hug our teddies and worry about ‘islamophobia.’ But a white cop kills a black man? America is in flames and we whites are collectively to blame ‘because racism and slavery.’

    2. Black lives don’t matter. Individuals matter, but the skin colour is irrelevant. To suggest they do is racist – the very thing these wasters are supposed ot be protesting about.

      But of course. It’s not a protest. It’s the usual rentamob smash up anti capitalism anti wealth anti social riot.

    1. Well, what a daft reason. It’s all too late, anyway, the excitement is pretty well all over.

      1. I seem to remember when all this Corona virus kicked off it was reported in the Telegraph that she wanted to shut down incoming flights but that Boris would not let her. Can anyone verify this, or was it an MSM plot to suggest that there was discord amongst Boris and his cabinet?

  59. Staff at St Thomas’ have reported Boris Johnson is looking bloated,
    sweaty, generally disheveled and talking incoherently.

    A Spokesperson
    said..
    “It’s encouraging to see him look and sound like his old self again.”

        1. It all depends on whether you are reading the oldest or the newest posts, Bill.

          2. That’s ‘cos the current Tellygraff eejits reckon we all read books from back to front. Peddy likes thrillers and he will tell you that reading the final page (Le valet l’a fait) is a recipe for spoiling all the fun!

            :-))

      2. ‘Afternoon, Elsie, better to say, “Earlier.” Saves an awful lot of jaw, jaw, jaw.

    4. I will send you some, we have Three Much (one muchness more than Two Much)

      Payment COD of course

      Yo Bill

      1. I know – I have been watching it all day coming towards us from the north-west – but it peters out around the Wash – though it did look as though Narridge had a shower.

  61. I think a certain baker of sugary comestibles, who writes poems as a sideline, may be coming into his own:

    “The Saxon is not like us Normans. His manners are not so polite.

    But he never means anything serious till he talks about justice and right.

    When he stands like an ox in the furrow – with his sullen set eyes on your own,

    And grumbles, ‘This isn’t fair dealing,’ my son, leave the Saxon alone.”

        1. Excellent candidates….I fear that Sebastian Flyte might be a step too far.
          Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears?

  62. From the Halifax Courier – 03/06/2020

    West Yorkshire Police officer and 15 Halifax men appear at crown court charged with child sexual exploitation

    A West Yorkshire Police officer and 15 men from Halifax have appeared in
    court today accused of offences relating to alleged historic child
    sexual exploitation in the town.

        1. We have been told by the media that the majority of rape cases in the U.K are by white men.

          I suppose that works when you change the definition of rape to consensual as in the 40,000 cases against young white girls since 1950.

  63. Ahem

    “Lammy should be protesting the white saviour mentality of the BLM
    marchers if he wants to be consistent but you know he will ride the
    outrage bus as it is how he got where he is.”

  64. Have had an email from Heart 106.2 (music radio station) inviting me to support Black Lives Matter through charities, organisations, books and TV. Might just pass on their kind offer.

    1. I hope you responded by asking when they were going to have a “White Lives Matter” Day…

    1. Flanders is more densely populated than England. Flanders is part of Belgium, which is more densely populated that the UK, of which England is part.

      1. 319894+ up ticks,
        Afternoon Jbf,
        I always looked on Belgium as a holding pen for the UK.

      2. Almost one-third of the population lives in England’s southeast, which is predominantly urban and suburban, with about 9,000,000 in the capital city of London, the population density of which is just over 5,200 per square kilometre (13,468 per sq mi)

      3. I disagree that you can’t look at England as a separate country. I am reasonably confident one could find parts of the UK more densely populated than Flanders.

        By your measure one could argue that Belgium is a part of the EU which is much less densely populated than the UK.

        It’s a silly comparison.

  66. Scotland is moving inexorably towards introducing “presumed liability”, that is, you will be presumed guilty unless you can prove otherwise. This is specifically aimed at drivers of motor vehicles who may be in collision with a cyclist. It will be the case that in a collision between a cyclist and a motorist on an empty road with no witnesses, the car driver will have to be able to prove that the collision was not his fault. Simply not possible unless it is all captured on film.
    I suppose in such circumstances the best approach for the motorist is to make sure that the cyclist is killed, so there is no witness.

    1. Yo HP

      They can introduce the law

      I will certainly not spend any money up there if they do

      Sad Dick and his Congestion Charge keeps me out of Lunnon

          1. Haven’t been in Foyles for years.
            Talk about wandering from Dan to Beersheba when trying to find a book.

          2. Presumably not the same since the death of Miss Christina. Last time I was there, in my London days, I found a couple of beautiful books of Chinese flower and bird paintings, the sort with tissue paper between each print. I bought them, the prices were ridiculously low because they’d probably been there for years. I still have them.

          3. Googling around, I have come across this which explains all:
            https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-31814498

            “The man who transformed bookshop chain Foyles
            “The person he appointed as the new chief executive was an accountant-turned-business leader called Sam Husain.
            Despite not having previously worked in the retail sector, let alone sold
            books, Mr Husain was tasked with transforming Foyles’ fortunes.
            ‘Brutal decision’
            With a diverse background working and running London-based businesses in the
            energy and broadcast sectors, where he had a track record of
            successfully turning around companies,
            Mr Husain, whose niece is BBC presenter Mishal Husain, says he was brought in as “a fresh pair of
            eyes’
            Now 67, Mr Husain immediately realised that with Foyles he was going to have “his hands full”….””

          4. Presumably not the same since the death of Miss Christina. Last time I was there, in my London days, I found a couple of beautiful books of Chinese flower and bird paintings, the sort with tissue paper between each print. I bought them, the prices were ridiculously low because they’d probably been there for years. I still have them.

          6. Please, Sir. May I have two books? I promise to wash my hands and sit upright at the table when looking at it.

    3. That violates the fundamental principle of natural justice. If it goes through, expect sales of dash cams to skyrocket.

      1. They will be banned, like a few countries or any evidence only available to the police.

      1. Don’t forget to get a package that includes a rear-view camera as well. I have one.

        Halfords £163.50 plus £50.00 for very neat fitting.

      2. Yes, indeed. Will we get a Government grant? Or is all the money being spent on cycle lanes, and narrowing traffic lanes?

        1. If a cyclist is using the road instead of a cycle lane will they be liable for any accident with a motor vehicle?

          3. Social distancing has caused them to veer off the pavement into the cycle lane, if only temporarily to avoid a pedestrian.

  67. Holidays …

    Robert and Barbara are hedging their bets, with not one, but two trips booked between now and the end of the year.
    The couple are due to fly with EasyJet to Malaga in Spain on 1 July and to the Greek island of Kos on 12 September.
    But Robert says he is poised to cancel the Spanish trip, because “the FCO still hasn’t given the go-ahead and I don’t know if I’ll be insured”.

    “But it’s all up in the air “. NSS … maybe get a train!

    1. Anyone booking a foreign trip this side of Autumn IMHO has a screw loose.

  68. Yes black lives matter to these folks that is why David Patrick Underwood,David Dorn,Italia Marie Kelly,David Mcatee, and Chris Beaty,all black are dead because of these “protests”against the death of a black man.

    These people are violent retarded trash who need returning to their country of origin,if need be all Whites in South Africa etc should be homed in Europe and let the Africans get on with building Wakanda,we do not take in the honest hard working Boer who could use every spare bit of our green areas to grow as much of our own clean food as possible yet we will take in the worlds garbage and destroy our green areas to home trash we do not even want here,if the White trash who support this violence and looting like it so much they can go back with them.

    You could call this the calm before the real storm,around a third of Americans could not/did not pay their rent last month and this coming month the stats could be worse,get ready for serious poverty and civil disorder,their answer is to pile on eye watering debt upon eye watering debt which is the real cause of the financial collapse.

    1. All good points mate.

      There’s talk of bringing three million HK Chinese here. Perhaps they could all go to South Africa & Zimbabwe Rhodesia instead and we can take all the white people from there?

      (Sorry I missed your reply to me last week, the thread is already locked. Dunno if it’s me just being careless or there’s something funny with my notifications)

    2. All good points mate.

      There’s talk of bringing three million HK Chinese here. Perhaps they could all go to South Africa & Zimbabwe Rhodesia instead and we can take all the white people from there?

      (Sorry I missed your reply to me last week, the thread is already locked. Dunno if it’s me just being careless or there’s something funny with my notifications)

    3. All good points mate.

      There’s talk of bringing three million HK Chinese here. Perhaps they could all go to South Africa & Zimbabwe Rhodesia instead and we can take all the white people from there?

      (Sorry I missed your reply to me last week, the thread is already locked. Dunno if it’s me just being careless or there’s something funny with my notifications)

    3. BTL:

      Keith W. Preston
      @KeithWpreston
      ·
      3h
      Replying to
      @johncardillo
      Where can I buy a can of “Karennomore?”

      For those of us who don’t know what a ‘Karen’ is, I recommend this video
      https://youtu.be/Hn555ft-ro4

  71. Awkward:

    “Governments and WHO changed Covid-19 policy based on suspect data from tiny US company
    Surgisphere, whose employees appear to include a sci-fi writer and adult content model, provided database behind Lancet and New England Journal of Medicine hydroxychloroquine studies”
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/03/covid-19-surgisphere-who-world-health-organization-hydroxychloroquine

    “An employee listed as a science editor appears to be a science fiction author and fantasy artist.”

    https://conservativewoman.co.uk/as-trump-backs-tcw-expose-lancet-study-on-malaria-drug-and-covid-19-is-debunked/
    As Trump backs TCW exposé, Lancet study on malaria drug and Covid-19 is ‘debunked’

  72. Had lunch today with the owner of an SME to which I give informal Financial Advice. They have rejigged their modus operandi and I’m confident will emerge from lockdown with colours flying. Alas, their client base is massively woke and they are having to squander countless woman/man hours to make sure that none of their (largely automated) email and soshul meeja output gets up their clientele’s nostrils and conforms to Black Friday ‘protocol’ etc.

    Tom Slater
    Why is Ben & Jerry’s lecturing us about ‘white supremacy’?
    3 June 2020, 4:04pm

    When this chapter in America’s history of its struggle against racism is written, two names will stand out among all the others: Ben and Jerry. Or at least that seems to be what the ice-cream company hopes, given the somewhat bizarre statement that it issued this week.

    In response to the brutal killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis, and the protests and riots that continue to roil the United States, this peddler of sickly sweet desserts proclaimed: ‘We must dismantle white supremacy. Silence is NOT an option.’ It says that nothing will change ‘until white America is willing to collectively acknowledge its privilege, take responsibility for its past and the impact it has on the present’.

    Whether or not you agree with the drift of this, the weirdness of a corporate giant coming out and saying it shouldn’t escape us, even though such interventions have become more and more common of late.

    Ben & Jerry’s has some form here. It was set up by two Vermont hippies and always had a homespun, right-on image. But despite being owned by multinational food giant Unilever since 2000, it has continued to weigh in on various issues. In 2017, it banned the sale of two scoops of the same flavour in its Australian shops as part of a push for gay marriage. And in 2018, it put out a ‘Pecan Resist’ flavour in a not-so-subtle swipe at president Trump.

    Meanwhile, more and more companies have been jumping on political bandwagons. Last year, Gillette put out an advert-come-lecture about the evils of so-called ‘toxic masculinity’, changing its slogan from ‘the best a man can get’ to ‘the best a man can be’, and demanding that men step up and stop being ogling, groping, hetero-normative monsters. Barclays was the headline sponsor of London’s Gay Pride parade for five years running. And for last year’s Pride, Budweiser released a series of beer cups, bearing the flags of various different sexual minorities, including the asexual community.

    But over the past few days, woke capitalism has reached new heights. The iTunes store had a ‘blackout’ yesterday, in ‘solidarity with black communities everywhere’. Amazon put out a statement condemning the ‘inequitable and brutal treatment of black people’. Log in to Spotify right now and one of the first things you’ll see is its Black Lives Matter playlist. It has also put an eight-minute, 46-second ‘track of silence’ in some playlists and podcasts as a reminder of the length of time George Floyd was suffocated by the knee of Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin.

    The jury is out on whether such posturing is good or bad for the bottom line. Gillette razor sales plunged after its controversial ad campaign (owner Procter & Gamble put this down to the rising popularity of beards). But Nike’s equally controversial campaign with Colin Kaepernick, the quarterback drummed out of the NFL for ‘taking a knee’ during the national anthem in protest against police brutality, was chalked up as a big success. I tend to think that whereas these brands seem to think the stance they take as a company is so incredibly important, many consumers couldn’t care less.

    But it is still highly irritating and reflective of a capitalist class increasingly gripped by the conviction that it must lecture as well as serve customers. It’s also hard not to see a lot of this as a thin cover for the kinds of exploitation many of these companies are engaging in, whether it be the conditions of Amazon workers or the fact that Spotify continues to pay many of its artists (black, white and otherwise) a pittance.

    Indeed, that woke politics can so easily be co-opted by big business speaks to how fundamentally unthreatening it is. In response to injustices like that which befell George Floyd, we are not expected to enter into a robust debate about how to improve the lot of those at the bottom rung of society. We are invited to share hashtags, mouth platitudes and signal our virtue. We’ve heard a lot in recent days about historical pain, but precious little about what comes next.

    This virtue-signalling is no threat to the rich and powerful. It costs them nothing. Which is at least part of the reason why they’ve embraced it with such glee.

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

    BTL:

    Curnonsky • 35 minutes ago
    Ben & Jerry’s is bitter that Nancy Pelosi revealed she prefers Jeni’s (at $12 / pint) to their more downmarket offerings. Perhaps they can launch some new flavors, like “Molotov Mango” or “Steal This Pint”?

    1. Sadly I didn’t save the link,that would the Ben and Jerry’s that is no longer the “Hippy Ice Cream” but is owned by Unilever??
      The same Ben and Jerry’s that has been blasted for exploiting cheap illegal migrant labour on Vermont dairy farms??
      Hypocritical cnuts in other words

    2. In response to the brutal killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis, and the protests and riots that continue to roil the United States, this peddler of sickly sweet desserts proclaimed: ‘We must dismantle white supremacy. Silence is NOT an option.’ It says that nothing will change ‘until white America is willing to collectively acknowledge its privilege, take responsibility for its past and the impact it has on the present’.

      I could go into a long explanation about how wrong this is, that in our society we don’t have collective responsibility and punishment for someone else’s wrongdoings, especially those who died over a hundred and more years before I was ever born, but I prefer to just go with “Ben and Jerry, F*** off. Virtue signal all you like, but don’t include me.”

    3. Thanks for the list of woke products to avoid.

      If i were refused two scoops of the same flavour ice cream for political reasons i would never buy anything from them again.

      1. They issued an ice cream called Hubby Hubby in Britain. I’ve boycotted them ever since.

          1. When the marriage-wrecking law was passed by David Cameron, they celebrated by changing its name.

  73. My old man is watching the first televised snooker for ages and a player (pretty well unknown, even to old man) came into the arena to start his match and got down on one knee! I thought he was tying his shoelace but no…he went into full virtue signalling mode…crossing himself and raising his eyes and fingers to the ceiling! The stunned commentator said ” so what on earth happened there?” You may well ask, given the lack of a live audience and an indifferent and sparse TV audience! Absolutely mind-bogglingly stupid!

    1. At least after all this covid nonsense we will know what pathetic idiots to avoid giving any support to.

    2. 319894+ up ticks,
      Afternoon Sm,
      If he finds himself in a position of burying the black ball how will he approach it ?

  74. Boris is really losing his hair, look how thin it is becoming.

    I still believe he isn’t all that well . I think he is really waffly, and PMQs was rather nerve wracking .

    1. Race riots flared up 55 years ago when I was planning to tour the States in my gap year. I went to work in the local Parks Dept instead & earned oodles of mazoumah..

        1. I wouldn’t have gone in the first place. There’s a reason people aren’t flocking to live in those “vibrant” countries but are flocking to leave…

      3. Molenbeek is a key centre of muslim terrorism and was featured in the Bataclan and Charlie Hebdo massacres, if memory serves.

          1. Nor is there an offensive Manneken Pis, to upset the dainty sensibilities of muslims

  77. From the BBC website:
    “UK police: We are ‘appalled’ by George Floyd’s death”
    This is anonymous and unattributed. Otherwise I would respond.

    1. Are they appalled at the deaths of white victims at the hands of police, i.e. those without a long criminal record?

      https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/01/us/tony-timpa-dallas-police-body-cam.html
      Dallas Officers Pinned Tony Timpa and Joked During Fatal Encounter, Video Shows
      “You’re going to kill me,” Mr. Timpa shouted repeatedly in newly released body-camera video. An autopsy classified his 2016 death as a homicide.

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Daniel_Shaver
      On January 18, 2016, Daniel Leetin Shaver of Granbury, Texas was shot dead by police officer Philip Brailsford in the hallway of a La Quinta Inn & Suites hotel in Mesa, Arizona. Police were responding to a report that a rifle had been brandished at the window of Shaver’s hotel room.
      […..the rifle] was determined to be a pellet gun.

      https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/09/us/police-shooting-video-arizona.html
      From 2017: Video Shows Daniel Shaver Pleading for His Life Before Being Shot by Officer

      97%of black Americans are killed by other black Americans. Black lives only matter when it’s convenient and can be used against white people.

    2. You, UK Police, might be appalled but we are not. The only thing that appals us is the bully-boy tactics of the Police Farce to little old ladies and the blind-eye they turn to serious crime.

    3. Heard that on 5Live just before they started on PMQs. Whatever happened to, “the death of a criminal in a far away country, killed by people of whom we know nothing.”
      Apologies to Neville Chamberlain.

  79. So now that they are relaxing the covid social rules a bit are we allowed to take a shower yet or are we still only washing hands?

    1. Do you mean that all the showers I have taken since 21 March were illegal?

  80. Why are remainer politicians crying about being at the back of a long queue to vote in Parliament, they all supported Obama when he threatened to put the UK at the back of the queue for a trade deal if we left the EU

    1. Should have gone to IKEA at the weekend. Then they’d really have something to complain about.

  81. Another thought on Johnson’s mad plan. How many Chinese Communist Party officials will be let in – posing as genuine HK refugees?

        2. Just remind them that bats are a protected species here. As for cricket, I thought they ate them too, a reasonable substitute for pork scratchings.

    2. And smuggling in infected bats while they’re at it, no doubt.

      Which inevitably will be given protected species status.

        2. Yep, and I suspect that their cricket ground is one of the more valuable pieces of real estate on the planet.

          It’s the real reason why the Chinese want them to leave, so they can develop the land…

    3. They are supposed to be only letting in those with BNO passports. Presumably these are issued by the Home Office……….we all know who they are.

      1. ..and all those who are eligible. About 3m apparently, well, we’ve had a spot of rain now, so no problem.

    4. Yo Bill

      They already have a very exstensive spy network in place

      The slopehead nosh shops and take-aways

      There is always (at least) one very close to every military establishments

      or UK 2020 There is one close to our only military remaining establishment

  82. The ‘news’ is so appalling I thought a bit of cheer is in order:

    Giuseppe excitedly tells his mother he’s fallen in love and that he is going to get married.

    He says, “Just for fun, Mama, I’m going to bring over three women and you try and guess which one I’m going to marry.” The mother agrees.

    The next day, he brings three beautiful women into the house, sits them down on the couch and they chat for a while

    He then says, “Okay, Mama, guess which one am I going to marry?”

    Mama says immediately, “The one on the right.”

    “That’s amazing, Mama. You’re right. How did you know?”

    Mama replies: “I don’t like her.”

  83. Police officers ‘take a knee’ in front of angry crowd of 2,000 Black Lives Matter protestors at the gates of Number 10 yelling ‘f*** Boris, f*** Trump’ as plastic bottles are thrown, an officer is punched and at least one demonstrator arrested. 3 June 2020.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/55312a9a354cb715fecd961e8e3a618d71b0b7fc90825f3570bd7e58fac3e7ae.jpg

    A line of Metropolitan Police officers ‘took a knee’ in tribute to George Floyd as thousands of protesters gathered outside Downing Street today.

    At least 15,000 Black Lives Matter protesters including actor John Boyega and singer Liam Payne gathered in London today, ignoring social distancing guidelines, as a show of force against the death of George Floyd in the US.

    This Society is going down the tube and I’m coming to the conclusion that it’s not worth saving anyway!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8383747/Thousands-Black-Lives-Matter-protestors-head-Londons-Hyde-Park.html

      1. But the Metropolitan police commissioner, Cressida Dick, said that with feelings running high over the police brutality case in the US and because of the effects of the coronavirus lockdown, officers feared serious and violent disorder if they stepped in to enforce lockdown rules.

        Speaking to the London assembly, Dick said people should put themselves “in the shoes of a public order commander”, faced with a near spontaneous demonstration, with no chance to negotiate with organisers and a large crowd who would not listen. “Then you have to make some judgments, at the time, in the moment about what is the best thing to do,” she said.

        https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/03/met-feared-serious-disorder-if-lockdown-rules-were-enforced-at-racism-protest

          1. “There looked like there might be trouble so being a wonderful lesbian woke person I decided we should not risk our asses and anyway Mr Floyd was a Noble Black Man who didn’t deserve to be murdered by that White Heterosexual Fascist Cop in Minneapolis.”

          2. “There looked like there might be trouble so being a wonderful lesbian woke person I decided we should not risk our asses and anyway Mr Floyd was a Noble Black Man who didn’t deserve to be murdered by that White Heterosexual Fascist Cop in Minneapolis.”

          5. No he didn’t – and there is only the arrested ex-policeman to blame for that.

            He didn’t deserve this mob violence unleashed all over the world, either.

          6. Quite. However, that doesn’t detract from the fact he was a hoodlum and no stranger to violence and illegality generally. The event and the manner of his death is no reason to deify him and have police officers in London ‘taking the knee’ in memory of a serial criminal.

          9. Now you mention that incident some of what Araminta has quoted above from Dick appears to be an excuse for her failure in that debacle. Now she’s forwarding excuses in case her senior commanders fall short of what the public expects. Dreadful woman and does not have an ounce of leadership in her body.

        2. So, when the going gets tough bend your knee to the perpetrators. Disgusting attitude, ‘people’ haven’t been trained to control mobs and certainly aren’t paid what these commanders receive. If they can’t handle the pressure then get rid of them.

          4. Arresting old ladies for sitting on a bench; looking into shopping bags; being thuggish towards law-abiding folk.

            Ignoring crime.

          5. Of course! Silly of me to think of service or protection or anything useful!

        3. Ah, of course. The Met answer is to run away. Never mind. This will blow over in a couple of weeks and the police of the Met can come out of hiding. They can get back to what they do best; checking out sweary word on the internet, threatening old ladies for jay-walking and duffing up young lads for sunbathing . Ho, yuss!

        4. Send in the TSG you silly bint.

          Oh, i forgot. They are only used to harass white people suspected of voting conservative.

          I hope it blows up in her face.

          1. Sadly, Phizzee, the Country needs a disaster of some magnitude to force the PTB to do their job and get rid of those taking a comfortable ride on the taxpayers’ money. This virus fiasco should see the bosses et al. at PHE and NHS England shown the door without any payoffs. I doubt that will happen, peerages and knighthoods all round will be the order of the day.

    2. These policemen are paying obeisance to the stabby stabby tormentors who have murdered and caused mayhem amongst their own sort .

      I feel disgusted that this virtual signalling is now so common place.

    3. FFS, what a shameful pose to take. How can people have any respect for the police when the force employs officers that take this stance when trouble arises. These officers must be at least disciplined or better, sacked.

      1. What does Grizzly have to say? I bet he was a very decent ‘cop’.

        Is he full of shame for those who have succeeded him?

        I feel so sorry for him.

        1. My impression from what Grizz has written is that he did his job within the parameters but laced with a good supply of common sense where appropriate. I’ve known a few coppers socially and within the family, all of them would be horrified at the scenes from London today.

          1. Good evening, Rastus and Korky,

            I am in contact (via a private FaceBook page) with a good number of my former — now retired — police colleagues. We are all, to a man/woman, beyond appalled at what has become of our once-honourable vocation.

            I started my police career when a policeman was still a citizen, locally-appointed, who derived his authority under the Crown. Unfortunately, since those days, complete political control over all police matters has been instigated. Modern day police officers are now no more than political lackeys, appointed from wherever, and deriving their authority from political whim and diktat.

            I loved being a public servant and serving the community from which I came. The public trusted me because I didn’t let them down (I would be shooting myself in the foot if I had done so). Calming down the fretting mother of an errant son by making her a cup of tea, before I interviewed the lad, and then ended up just giving him a severe bollocking that he never forgot, was how I did my policing. I was welcomed into most people’s houses for a chat and a cuppa, even the homes of some criminals, who knew where they stood with me.

            This was how generation after generation of coppers had worked. Yes, there were the odd bad apples but you get them in any job. In those days, however, decent coppers did not tolerate having a bad apple in their midst and they were soon shunted off elsewhere or dismissed. I was instrumental myself in the dismissal of one young officer who thought it amusing to spend his night-shifts poaching trout from a private lake. I waited for him to start to transfer the stolen fish from the boot of his panda car into the boot of his private vehicle before giving my colleagues the nod to pounce on him. He was asked to resign … or be arrested, locked up, and dismissed. He chose the former.

            Occasionally I (and my colleagues) would have to resort to using the ‘Ways and Means Act’, but not because we were corrupt. It was just a way to deal with matters when the particular event was not covered by any statute. I remember using that ‘Act’ once when a gang of unruly street urchins were using some caravans — that were parked illegally on private land (the owners trashing the land with all manner of effluent) — for target practice with their catapults. I would have dealt with those young ruffians sternly, if only I hadn’t been called away to attend a more pressing matter elsewhere (!).

            There is no way on earth that I could be any part of what is happening today in the British police. I simply couldn’t sign up for this nonsense, and I could not, with hand on heart, swear an oath of allegiance … to what?

          2. Thanks for your reply, Grizz, much appreciated.
            I never expected to see a British booby this is a genuine Freudian slip and on proof reading before posting I decided, in the circumstances, that it was apposite publicly bow down to the memory of a criminal, and a foreign criminal to boot. Where the hell are we headed?

          3. I’ve committed the same typo on numerous occasions, Korky, and I’m convinced, in my case, it has more to do with advanced geriatricism than slipshod proofreading! :•)

        2. He has long since given up on the modern perlice farce – especially its “leaders”.

    5. Bowing before your enemy, generally known as submission. Although, I would have thought that the ethnics would have had enough of policemen pressing down on one knee.

      1. That is one of the most toe-curling pictures I have ever seen! What the hell are these morons thinking?

          1. Were they told to do it or they think it up in their tiny empty heads? I am furious!

    6. When the race war starts, the blacks are not going to differentiate between white supremacists or liberal white apologists, both will be beaten to a pulp with absolute equality.

      1. How long will it take for the whites to stand up for themselves?

        As is always the case Shakespeare saw the truth very clearly and expressed it succinctly:

        That nature that condemns its origin
        Cannot be bordered certain in itself.
        [King Lear]

        If we despise ourselves because we are white and have lost confidence in our history, moral code and beliefs we are lost

        1. I don’t despise myself for being white. I don’t despise black people either. What I do despise is this knee- jerk (literally) reaction by virtue signallers and those who just want a good riot and looting session.

      2. I was a child returning to the UK and b/school from Xmas holidays , parents were based in Nigeria for a couple of years .. Congo riots and massacres.. remember ? Our BOAC school special flight had been diverted to pick up evacuated wounded white Belgian nuns and priests and others and some had their little dogs ..

        All of us, I was 12 years old , and the other school children were asked to keep quiet and be considerate whilst the wounded adults slept . Many of them were still in bloodstained clothes , it was really very frightening .

        I was a bit younger when my parents and sister and I were caught up in the Suez crisis , more riots and nastiness.

        I have also witnessed black mobs rioting , when in the Sudan , and we all had to hide under our beds just in case. The thought of rioting and noise and out of control passions is the most terrifying of all experiences .. To witness just a couple jumping around , but to witness dozens is really bad.

        Edit,

        That is something I have often thought about and always wondered why my parents eventually emigrated to South Africa .. I stayed here in Britain and followed my career then got married .

        1. This mob has been orchestrated by lefty thugs. None of these people knew George Floyd or had even heard of him. This is just mob rule whipped up by anarchists.

          1. The thugs are funded by Soros and organised by Momentum. I would include the Unions but for the fact that their placards are scrawled on pieces of cardboard in contrast to the slick placards mounted on poles as produced by the Unions.

            There is nothing worse than the sight of some pumped up nigger with a Muslim beard orchestrating the recital of their latest slogan. I just watched the same on TV News and I remain sickened that this is allowed to happen in my precious country.

    7. What an embarrassing photo. No chance of disciplinary measures, I suppose.

      3. Just wait for Priti Awful to take vigorous action….. And wait…. and wait

    8. Shirley, a police officer “taking a knee” – in Minneapolis the instrument of murder – is grotesquely inappropriate …

    9. It’s really quite pathetic to see what my country has turned its self into in my relatively short life.
      Better to die standing than to live on your knees. Ernesto “Che” Guevara
      And of course…….
      Big Brother is watching you. George Orwell
      Or sister dickie.

      1. It is worse than pathetic. It is a dereliction of duty. I can remember when most male police officers were men.

    1. Gosh if you were a builder and quick off the mark you could snaffle a lot of free building materials.

      1. Even if you weren’t! Always come in handy for jacking up cars when the wheels are removed. I am told…

    2. It is organised and paid for. Not by the black savages, of course. But by whoever is manipulating this story and provoking violence.

  85. BLM demo kicking off in Hyde Park. Beeb going into full weepies mode. Hope they trash BBC HQ.

      1. “Rapid Response Social Workers”
        Oh my aching arse………….
        I’ll be back when I’ve stopped banging my head against the wall………………….

    2. And of course the Perlice Farce will be out in force – to ensure no white honkies dare complain or disrupt it.

      1. I have full confidence the Police will act in a highly Professional manner. Paying attention to detail.

        So…..That’s one Bucket of fried chicken between two and sides of slaw and fries.

    3. Black lives matter? not to the blacks obviously as they know they are at greater risk and yet they congregate ignoring social distancing

      1. Didn’t see him on camera but it’s just the sort of event that neither he nor Jeremy could bear to miss.

    6. Hyde Park? Then it will quickly turn into a fashion show complete with outrageous posing.

    7. Oxford Street is close by. Lots of stores available to be liberated……

  86. LBC reporting that police officers have come under attack outside Downing Street. Latest report is the situation is, “simmering on the brink.,” as up to 50 officers try to keep control.

      1. I assume that scene is from Hitchcock’s The Birds, in which case the birds were added on by hand.

        1. It wasn’t the birds, but the looped appearance of Miss Hedren.
          EDIT Who I see is still with us, and 90 years old.

      2. I quite enjoyed those films first time round. This scene though is entirely unrealistic. They made it look like school sports day. When running for your life you don’t take jackets and bags with you. No terror on the children’s faces either.

  88. Is anyone else annoyed that the police are kneeling before protestors?

    Their job is to uphold the law. Not endorse illegal gatherings. These people have no business being there. This has stopped being about George Floyd. It’s been hijacked by the Left and lazy as a vehicle to complain that they’re not getting what they want.

    2. They should not be indulging in virtue signalling – it gives the impression they are afraid of the mob.

      2. The truth is that they are afraid of the mob.

        Everyone is trying hard to get his or her surrender in first.

    3. 319894+ Up ticks,
      Evening W,
      Knee joint work-out preparing for the
      new overseers and the five a day prayers that is, not veg.

    5. It made sense for some American police to get involved and show support for the original protestors concern, it could have removed some antagonism and made policing the legal and peaceful protests easier. Now that the mob have taken over, it makes no sense.

      In the UK, it is just more virtue signalling, what relevance does it have to the UK?

    1. Much easier if we just cut out the middlemen (the Traffickers) and simply charged a similar entry fee – after all what’s an extra 1or 2 million against 2 or 3 million extra Hong Kongese?

      1. That would mean the BF bods could be charged with facilitating illegal immigration.

        1. Au contraire, legitimised entry would save an absolute fortune on legal aid fees for the tens of thousands of immigration appeals that are currently dealt with under the existing rules…

    2. The boat name is an error. It should read ‘Welcome to our incomers’. OR HMS Milk and Honey.

      1. The name is redolent of the days when there was a proper Customs cutter of that name, busy catching smugglers!

  94. Having been completely sickened by the sights from London, I am signing off.

    I may join you you tomorrow – depending. We are going to the market – so I may be arrested for standing too close to someone.

    1. Heartbreaking really. The rubbish and detritus wasters chuck around out of idle stupidity. We’re never far from a bin. Not doing so implies a degree of laziness and crass spite that’s colossal.

      1. Whilst walking our dog around our village paths we also pick up litter, discarded crisp packets, bottle tops, plastic water bottles. We are (sort of) happy to do this as we do not wish to live in a litter bin and we have a truly beautiful village. Once you get into the habit of it you no longer want to pass by a discarded tinny. I mentioned the problem of litter in the village to a parish councillor and she said, ‘oh, we simply don’t have a problem with litter in our village!’ I said ‘No! That is be because we pick it all up every day.’ It is not that difficult after all, and provides additional exercise for ageing bodies. We carry bags with us for dog poo, and we use these bags for picking up discarded stuff. No problemo.

  97. Toby Young
    Ofcom shouldn’t be allowed to censor ‘harmful’ opinions
    3 June 2020, 11:55am

    On Sunday, the hosts of Triggernometry, a YouTube show, posted an interview they’d done with Peter Hitchens. They labelled it ‘Lockdown is a catastrophe’, which is an accurate summary of the journalist’s view. Over the next 24 hours, instead of generating tens of thousands of hits, which their interviews normally do, it got very few. Why? The hosts got out their laptops and discovered that when they searched for the video on YouTube or Google, its parent company, it didn’t come up. That wasn’t a technical hitch. On the contrary, it’s a tried-and-tested method that YouTube and Google employ to suppress traffic to material they regard as suspect. It’s a form of censorship known as ‘shadow banning’.

    This isn’t the first time YouTube has tried to silence critics of the official response to the pandemic. A couple of weeks ago, it removed an interview with Dr Knut Wittkowski, former head of epidemiology at Rockefeller University, and it also took down an interview with Professor Karol Sikora, dean of Buckingham University Medical School (later reinstating it). Last week, it removed an interview clip I had posted on my own YouTube channel entitled ‘The case against lockdowns’. The other person in that video was the Stanford professor Michael Levitt, winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. What’s going on?

    Apparently YouTube now has a policy of censoring any talking heads, no matter how distinguished, who dissent from Covid orthodoxy. This was announced by the company’s CEO Susan Wojcicki on CNN on 19 April. In an interview on Reliable Sources, she said YouTube would remove any information about the virus it regarded as ‘problematic’: ‘Anything that would go against World Health Organisation recommendations would be a violation of our policy.’

    For those who care about free speech, this is deeply alarming. One of the WHO’s recommendations in the early stages of the pandemic was that countries indiscriminately quarantine whole populations, as China did. That policy, which has been widely taken up and which may well have caused more deaths than it has prevented, has resulted in the civil rights of more than a billion people being suspended. Is the American social media company really saying we’re not allowed to criticise that? Yes, because that’s exactly what I was doing in the video clip I posted.

    At present, there’s no legal remedy, but that might change if the executive order President Trump issued last week preventing online censorship comes into force. The order would remove the legal immunity which companies like YouTube currently enjoy, whereby they can’t be held to account for their censorious behaviour — and it specifically mentions ‘deceptive blocking’, e.g. ‘shadow banning’. In the meantime, there’s not much we can do.

    But what if public authorities, as opposed to private companies, engage in similar forms of censorship? That’s what Ofcom, the broadcast regulator, has done. On 23 March, the same day Boris placed the entire country under virtual house arrest, the watchdog issued a guidance note warning broadcasters against showing ‘harmful coronavirus-related programming’. What did it mean by ‘harmful’? It didn’t say, but in an adjudication issued on 13 April it reprimanded ITV because This Morning presenter Eamonn Holmes said he thought the theory linking Covid-19 to 5G masts deserved to be debated. He didn’t say he thought the theory was true — on the contrary, he agreed that it’s ‘stupid’— just that it shouldn’t be verboten to discuss it. In its ruling, Ofcom said his statement ‘had the potential to cause harm because it could have undermined people’s trust in the views being expressed by the authorities on the coronavirus’.

    I, too, think the 5G theory is silly, but that’s not a good reason to censor it. As the US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said, the remedy for ‘falsehoods and fallacies’ being disseminated in the public square is ‘more speech not enforced silence’. More importantly, if Ofcom has given itself licence during this crisis to ban from the airwaves anything that might undermine people’s trust in the government, there’s no guarantee it will stop at Eamonn Holmes. Why not prevent the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg asking questions about Dominic Cummings on the same grounds?

    The Free Speech Union, which I helped set up in February, has written to Ofcom, putting it on notice that we will take it to court if this guidance isn’t removed. I will let you know how the regulator responds.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/ofcom-shouldn-t-be-allowed-to-censor-harmful-opinions

    1. It really is essential in any place with pretensions to “democracy” and/or “free speech” that the “views being expressed by the authorities” are forcefully challenged. These challenges need to be robust, intelligent and pertinent.

      Mr B. Franklin: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety”

    3. Richard Feynman: “Better the question that cannot be answered than the answer that cannot be questioned.”

      1. I wonder what he’d have made of the endless nonsense about climate change.

    2. I have finally got around to watching “Our Queen at 90”. Brash (without trash when this was filmed) was on talking about duty – he should watch it, take in what he said and compare it with his subsequent actions.

    3. Only a matter of time before they turn on her. Then she will know what abuse is.

      Everyone she has ever dumped, shat on and was used by, will enjoy the show. Possibly not her dad though.

      1. I awake to the news that she has now commented at a school graduation ceremony

  99. I know it’s early but I’m going to buzz orff, I’ve had enough of all this media crap today, as I imagine most sensible people have.

  100. I thought Johnson was poor today at PMQs. Lots of bluster. No detail.

    He needs to start having a real go at Cur Ikea Slammer. Put him on the back foot.

      1. I would say it is time to bring a real Conservative into the action, trouble is I can’t think of anyone.
        Suggestions on a postage stamp please.

          2. I’m sure you mean the 1st Duke
            https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/83/Sir_Arthur_Wellesley%2C_1st_Duke_of_Wellington.png/439px-Sir_Arthur_Wellesley%2C_1st_Duke_of_Wellington.png
            and not the (current) 9th Duke

            SEBASTIAN SHAKESPEARE: Wellington puts the boot in – 9th Duke quits Tories in House of Lords as misery piles up for Boris Johnson PUBLISHED: 22:11, 9 September 2019 | UPDATED: 00:43, 10 September 2019
            https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2019/09/09/21/18269500-0-image-a-37_1568062290329.jpg
            *
            *
            *
            But Wellington, who is married to Antonia von Preussen — a great-granddaughter of Kaiser Wilhelm II, who led Germany into World War I —has appeared a probable defector for some time.

            He was one of 19 Tory peers who voted against Theresa May in May last year, forcing her to reopen talks with the EU if MPs rejected her proposed deal with Brussels.

            Tory MP and ardent Brexiteer Ian Liddell-Grainger was so angered by the Duke’s anti-Brexit shenanigans that he challenged the him to a duel — with kippers.

            In July, Wellington argued that ‘leaving without a deal is, at best, very high risk and, at worst, would have dire consequences’.
            *
            *
            https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7445317/Wellington-puts-boot-9th-Duke-quits-Tories-misery-piles-Boris-Johnson.html

          4. No 1 Unfortunately age probably would stop him.
            No 2 Let me know what constituency he is representing. LOL

      1. Right-click on the blue dickie-bird and ‘open in new tab’ – it’s still there

    2. Stirring stuff. She deserves a more prominent platform….which the MSM certainly won’t grant her.

          5. I believe so. Can’t have done her any harm, given she made it to well over 100!

  107. By another Rick

    “We are
    supposed to feel a mixture of remorse and moral subservience to any
    black mong self-righteously declaiming that we are evil oppressors.

    Not
    going to. I know that my ancestors did far more for civilisation than
    any jungle or desert layabout who prefers to rob, rape and murder for
    their culture, their heroes and their gods.

    WE built this world.
    All the trappings of modern life. We built it with hard work and
    sacrifice. We worked together to do it. We invented the principles of
    justice and the rights of people to live as they choose. Even putting
    aside deep grudges after terrible wars. We did it for our families and
    countrymen. We did it for generations unborn so that they could know a
    peaceful, prosperous and tolerant world.

    This world was not built
    by cotton-pickers or by Windrush passengers. And certainly not by the
    inbred rabid paedophiles of mohammed who are demanding that we simply
    GIVE them everything we built.

    I’m not kneeling.”
    #MeNeither

    1. 319894+ up ticks,
      Afternoon AR,
      Count me in for not taking up the bike park position, but I am of the belief that
      there are plenty who will.
      ALL the real anti’s have been rhetorically muzzled with too many fools saying “they” are far right racist
      you know.
      So far right is nearer the truth.
      Not long to go now before the Tommy Atkins AKA Tommy Robinson’s are going to be needed once again.

    1. Unfortunately the image doesn’t all link up.
      The last square message in his hands reads
      “Labour Policy”

  109. Evening, all. Depressing day; dull, cool, wet (I admit we need the rain) and very, very stressful.

          1. Thank you. Fingers crossed. I’ve come here to try to forget about it and recover a bit.

  110. As the Spekkie is being delivered several days late, I have just read this article by Dr. John Lee who is a pathologist; it is a long article, so I’m only posting the paragraphs that I feel raise the alarm. The first half the article is an introduction to pathology in general.

    “Looking at the current crisis, the response so far has been very different. We are still struggling to understand coronavirus. I can think of no time in my medical career when it has been more important to have accurate diagnosis of a disease, and understanding of precisely why patients have died of it. Yet very early on in the epidemic, rules surrounding death certification were changed — in ways that make the statistics unreliable. Guidance was issued which tends to reduce, rather than increase, referrals for autopsy.

    Normally, two doctors are needed to certify a death, one of whom has been treating the patient or who knows them and has seen them recently. That has changed. For Covid-19 only, the certification can be made by a single doctor, and there is no requirement for them to have examined, or even met, the patient. A video-link consultation in the four weeks prior to death is now felt to be sufficient for death to be attributed to Covid-19. For deaths in care homes the situation is even more extraordinary. Care home providers, most of whom are not medically trained, may make a statement to the effect that a patient has died of Covid-19. In the words of the Office for National Statistics, this ‘may or may not correspond to a medical diagnosis or test result, or be reflected in the death certification’. From 29 March the numbers of ‘Covid deaths’ have included all cases where Covid-19 was simply mentioned on the death certificate — irrespective of positive testing and whether or not it may have been incidental to, or directly responsible for, death. From 29 April the numbers include the care home cases simply considered likely to be Covid-19.

    So at a time when accurate death statistics are more important than ever, the rules have been changed in ways that make them less reliable than ever. In what proportion of Covid-19 ‘mentions’ was the disease actually present? And in how many cases, if actually present, was Covid-19 responsible for death? Despite what you may have understood from the daily briefings, the shocking truth is that we just don’t know. How many of the excess deaths during the epidemic are due to Covid-19, and how many are due to our societal responses of healthcare reorganisation, lockdown and social distancing? Again, we don’t know. Despite claims that they’re all due to Covid-19, there’s strong evidence that many, perhaps even a majority, are the result of our responses rather than the disease itself.

    It might have been possible to check these proportions by examining the deceased. But at a time when autopsies could have played a major role in helping us understanding this disease, advice was given which made such examinations less likely than might otherwise have been the case. The Chief Coroner issued guidance on 26 March which seemed designed to keep Covid-19 cases out of the coronial system: ‘The aim of the system should be that every death from Covid-19 which does not in law require referral to the coroner should be dealt with via the [death certification] process.’ And even guidance produced by the Royal College of Pathologists in February stated: ‘In general, if a death is believed to be due to confirmed Covid-19 infection, there is unlikely to be any need for a post-mortem examination to be conducted and the Medical Certificate of Cause of Death should be issued.’”

    We need proper information to inform our responses to the virus, both clinical and societal. Instead, we have no idea how many of the deaths attributed to Covid-19 really were due to the disease. And we have no idea how many of the excess deaths were really due to Covid-19 or to the effects of lockdown. Officials should be releasing, as a matter of urgency, detailed information on the surge in deaths, both apparent Covid and non-Covid — particularly in care homes. How many are dying of Covid acquired in hospitals? Data presumably exists on this too, but is not released.

    The first rule in a pandemic should be to ensure transparency of information. Without it, errors can go undiscovered — and lives can be lost. We will never be able to find out for sure what this disease was like, or what it did in the early stages of the crisis.

    One of the unappreciated tragedies of this epidemic so far is the huge lost opportunity to understand Covid-19 better. We like to beat ourselves up for having the worst Covid death toll in Europe — but we will never know, because we decided not to count properly. In a country that has always prided itself on the quality of its facts and figures, the missing Covid-19 data is a national scandal.”

    1. Yes, we know that. We have known it for some months.
      Moreover, we are tending to think that this is not only deliberate, but deliberate with an aim in view that is not anything to do with recording deaths from a virus.

    2. As I have noted before, it’s a jolly good get out cause for putting a pillow over the face of Mr. Awkward Squad, or Great Aunt Winnie Heritance.

        1. You think it won’t have happened at home?

          I’m fairly sure that home deaths, supposedly with CV, have featured in the staistics.

          4. Sure – but the majority were in hospitals and care homes. And if the doctors were signing off the certificates with no test, then who’s to know?

    3. …we decided not to count properly.
      Bearing in mind that lockdown is being eased yet only now are travellers flying in being required to enter quarantine, has anybody done anything properly?

      1. The way in which supposedly ‘expert’ advice from a bunch of long discredited pseudo scientists at Imperial College has been employed by politicians as a shield for government is about the most shocking thing.

        I read somewhere that Ferguson’s code was written in Fortran. I recall that from the Upper Sixth in 1969 where my Technical school had a link with the Bath University mainframe computer. Algol was the other language we studied.

        It is quite clear that there have been more deaths than usual in the period of Covid infection thus far. These deaths could just as readily be ascribed to the thousands of cancelled medical interventions and the clearance of ill people from normally functioning hospitals to release beds for a pandemic which never occurred.

        Heads should roll.

        A notable spin/off from this chaos has been its exploitation by the permanently ‘persecuted’ but otherwise indolent ‘blacks’. We see a repeat of any excuse for a protest and its inevitable descent into violence, mayhem on our streets and the looting and pillaging of private property.

        1. Don’t knock Fortran – I was still writing programs in Fortran in the mid-80s. It was good for lines like “do you want the answer in miles or kilometres – answer Yes or No”.

  111. Is it just me or is Disqus playing up? It won’t go to the bottom of the posts; when I do a Ctrl End to get it there, it jumps back to the top! Add to that, the other weird things that are happening, such as my colour TV will only play videos in black and white and the DTV says “No Signal” although I can watch it through the pvr so there must be a signal there, and I think I’m in the twilight zone. I think I’ll go away and hope that it will all come right eventually.

    1. No Conners it’s this website.
      Once more today I had to change my password to log in.
      And although not able to login, twice trying it told me that my email address was already in use.

      2. Glad it isn’t just me – a misery shared is a misery halved 🙂 I have managed to cure the black and white problem with my TV (if only it were so simple for America, eh?), but the “no signal” problem persists. I just hope it doesn’t interfere with recording the racing on Friday.

    2. Does the Mayor of New York tell us what he thinks of Muslim rape gangs in England?

  115. Goodnight, everyone. Tomorrow is another day. Let’s hope it brings you blessings – rain if you need it, sunshine if that’s what you want.

      1. Thanks, John. I have managed to cope a bit better after a night’s sleep. MOH escaped without my knowledge, went shopping in a supermarket, fell down twice and had to be brought home by a couple of workmen. It was the shock – and the anger because it was a) unnecessary as I would have gone shopping for the item had I been told and b) potentially disastrous because if MOH develops C19, whatever the outcome of that, I shall be stuck in isolation for 14 days – no walking the dog, who needs regular exercise at his age, no shopping, no one to come and clean the house and above all, given that I’ve just restarted, no riding. Saying “I’m sorry and I forgot about the virus” cuts no ice because what’s done is done and in all probability it will be me, as ever, dealing with the consequences. I am somewhat calmer today, although obviously not happy. I just felt so depressed at the prospect of 14 days’ self isolating quarantine when I was just about beginning to see a return to normality, I could barely cope. It was the final straw. Today I am trying to tell myself it may never happen and I should cross that bridge when I come to it.

        1. No wonder you weren’t feeling chipper! As you rightly say: “Jump off that bridge when you get to it!” 🙂

  116. If the blacks and whites and yellows are allowed – with police consent – to ignore the virus rules – why the HELL should not the rest of us just stop obeying them and start getting back to normal life – as from tomorrow morning?

    2. Shhhhh…what do you think has been happening hereabouts for the past several weeks?

        1. The Remainers know that this month is their last stand. They have mustered all the left wing forces, including the fellow travellers at the Mail, Telegraph and the rest of the MSM to try to create disruption and force a delay in brexit.

      2. What I wrote to my MP

        Dear M P,

        I’m sure I’m not the first one to draw your attention to this. If this lot don’t succumb to the Covid 19 virus within the next 10 days, I think you will agree that the government’s incredulous stipulations regarding social distancing et al to prevent contagion will be completely fatuous.

        Yours sincerely,

        Stephen

      4. Oh dear me

        Nightgale hospitals will soon fill up pretty quickly, and they are questioning why their own BAME communities succumb more readily to the virus ?

        1. Don’t bet on that happening.

          Georgia led the US in dropping lock downs, the Georgia State health department web site shows that covid cases have dropped steadily since restrictions were eased,

          Unless some of these magical supercarriers are spreading chaos, nothing will change.

        3. It’ll serve them right. And if none of that mob catches anything we can all forget about social distancing and get back to normal life.

      2. The Flower Pot Men was derived from the BBC children’s show Flower Pot Men, with the obvious psychedelic era puns on flower power and “pot” (cannabis).

        Be wild flower child……

          3. Hi Belle,
            …….never made it to ‘Frisco. I got as far as Woodstock………… Oxfordshire!

            We are stardust…we are golden.

Comments are closed.