Sunday 28 June: Months of following the rules – and now a raft of petty new measures

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/06/27/letters-months-following-rules-now-raft-petty-new-measures/

680 thoughts on “Sunday 28 June: Months of following the rules – and now a raft of petty new measures”

    2. I’ve now scanned that cartoon for three-quarters of an hour and I give up.

      I can’t see the gherkin-seller anywhere!

    3. ‘morning Citron – that cartoon will soon have to go:

      It doesn’t show sufficient numbers of minority groups – they should be over represented at all times.

      It unfairly portrays people of colour as being vandals attacking the police/police vehicles (mid right of pic) – this is stereotyping at its worse, disgusting.

  3. Betrayal of WPc Yvonne Fletcher as suspect avoids justice. 28 June 2020.

    The Government has been accused of ensuring the prime suspect in the murder of WPc Yvonne Fletcher will never face justice by secretly barring him from returning to Britain.

    The Sunday Telegraph can disclose that Saleh Ibrahim Mabrouk, a Libyan who has been living in Reading for a decade, was told that he was “excluded” from this country in January 2019 by the Home Office.

    Morning everyone. Strange! I didn’t feel even a smidgen of surprise on learning that Yvonne Fletcher’s alleged murderer was living comfortably in the UK! It’s just par for the course I guess. It is small things like this that tell how far the Elites have declined in moral standards. I would say that they were little better than brute beasts but this would be a calumny on innocent creatures.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/27/betrayal-wpc-yvonne-fletcher-suspect-avoids-justice/

    1. Didn’t Jack Straw announce that the Stansted hijackers had been deported, then they were found years later living in London?

  5. This may have been posted earlier

    The summer we all went mad

    The Black Lives Matter hysteria is this generation’s Diana moment.

    PATRICK WEST – 26th June 2020

    The summer of 2020 will probably be remembered as the season in which everyone went mad. The root cause for this is the lockdown implemented to stem the coronavirus, which has generated feelings of frustration, powerlessness, loneliness and restlessness, feelings that in turn have been transformed into bad-tempered attention-seeking and ostentatious displays of moral purity. The current convulsions of anti-racist boasting have been the most egregious consequence of the virus pandemic.

    From corporations issuing historical apologies for their part in the slave trade to the defacement of statues, from violent weekly Black Lives Matter demonstrations to police and footballers ‘taking the knee’ to demonstrate their solidarity with the anti-racist cause, sanctimonious anti-racism has become this summer’s mania.

    Inevitably, as with Remembrance Day poppies growing larger and being displayed earlier each year, the eagerness to display one’s caring or ‘woke’ credentials has escalated and become ever-more vociferous and competitive. Some anti-racist campaigners have graduated from taking the knee to giving Black Power salutes. Others have declared their new icon to be the awful Louis Farrakhan. While tea manufacturers are implored to declare #solidaritea, Sky News and the BBC are locked in a contest as to who can can out-anti-racist the other. Meanwhile, the foaming and shrieking on Twitter – the intemperate denunciations – become louder and more sulphurous every day.

    The London mayor, Sadiq Khan, has established the Orwellian sounding Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm to review which statutes in the capital should remain. While some police officers decide to take the knee in order to quell volatile crowds, Hertfordshire Police now insist that its officers do so. Every football game not only begins with the taking of the knee, but every player bears on his shirt the legend ‘Black Lives Matter’. We’ve got to the bizarre stage now that a veteran, black anti-racism campaigner – Trevor Phillips – is denounced by white, middle-class wetpants liberals as an ‘Uncle Tom’ for having the temerity to suggest that Britain is the best country in Europe to be black.

    A sure barometer of something becoming a hegemony, which ‘woke’ ideology has undoubtedly become, is the manner in which dissenters or non-conforming voices are treated. So witness the fury and outrage on Monday night when some Burnley supporters hired a plane to fly over Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium, with a banner pronouncing ‘White Lives Matter’. Naturally, within hours the police said they were getting involved. Of course they were. To counter-protest in this febrile atmosphere of white, liberal-left grandstanding and fawning self-hatred that ‘White Lives Matter’ is an appalling and offensive blasphemy. Of course white lives don’t matter. Everything is the fault of white people and their privilege.

    The vehemence of the outrage, and, more to the point, the ostentatious apologies by faux-guilty white people, is telling. Ben Mee, the Burnley captain, said he was ‘ashamed’ and ’embarrassed’ by the incident. Like Greene King, Lloyds of London, Barclays Bank and the Bank of England apologising for the sins of their ancestors, the Burnley captain issued a mea culpa for something he didn’t actually do.

    Apologising for something you haven’t done yourself takes no emotional investment, but it does serve the purpose of drawing attention to yourself and making you appear noble and virtuous. And this is the essence of so much loud anti-racism at the moment – certainly among white liberals: it’s good old-fashioned virtue-signalling, coupled with fear and conformism. What footballer would dare refuse to take the knee? What corporate head would appear on television to pronounce that he had nothing whatsoever to do with slavery and was not for nowt going to say sorry for anything?

    What we are seeing at the moment is akin to what we experience each November (but more sinister), when people compete over who can have the biggest poppy the earliest, and anyone who appears on television without one is subject to suspicion and inquisition. It resembles, too, the reaction to the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997, when a menacing air of emotional correctness pervaded the land.

    Black Lives Matter 2020 is this generation’s Diana moment. This summer we have been implored to say the correct thing, to display the correct emotion, to be conspicuously compassionate. Anyone dissenting or staying silent is morally wanting, or worse: a racist. Such monstrous stupidity.

    Sky Cinema’s war on the past
    Much to the chagrin and irritation of many of its users, but keeping with the spirit of this summer, the Sky Cinema channel has this month started to put trigger warnings next to potentially offensive films. Movies such as Gone with the Wind and Dumbo now carry the caution that they contain ‘outdated attitudes, language and cultural depiction which may cause offence’. A Sky spokesman says: ‘Sky is committed to supporting anti-racism and improving diversity and inclusion.’

    Like statue iconoclasm, Sky’s move represents today’s current hostile and superior view of the past. They did bad things then because they were racist and unenlightened. There is the implicit belief that we in 2020 have reached a plateau of enlightenment from which we can judge all previous times.

    Yet morals always change and always will. History is one era in which we can genuinely talk of moral relativism. The next generation is bound to decry our one because tomorrow’s moralities will be different. Who knows what they will be. To judge by the growing popularity of veganism, my bet is that the people of 2020 will be damned for eating animals. Censorious ‘woke’ cancel culture might also be condemned for the intolerant ideology it is. And just as we deplore the brutalists of the 1960s who destroyed so much Victorian architecture, the vandalisation of statues might also come to be deplored by the more liberal people of tomorrow.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/06/26/the-summer-we-all-went-mad/

  6. We need to drop all these rules and regulations at once and return to normal. We must never do anything like this again. No lives were saved, just the opposite.

  7. Jessi Combs posthumously awarded land speed record for a female. 25 June 2020 • 10:55am.

    Racing car driver Jessi Combs has posthumously been awarded the fastest land speed record for a woman after Guinness World Records announced they would count her speed.

    Combs died after reaching a speed of 522.8mph in a jet-powered car at the age of 39 last year. She was attempting to break the record in Alvord desert in southeast Oregon.

    Combs was a pioneer for women in the automotive industry. She was the first woman to complete the race of gentlemen event, as well as earning the nickname the “fastest woman on four wheels”.

    This oddity in the Telegraph just happened to catch my eye. …the fastest land speed record for a woman… It is of course a refutation of all Feminist assertions about equality. To stand a chance of winning anything, and I do mean anything, women must first fix the parameters of the contest; the main one being that there should be no men in the contest. This is true in every conceivable sphere except child birth and one would not be surprised if a “man” won this title eventually. I make no value judgements here; obviously having children is the single most important human activity there is, since without it there would be no human race. Still one wonders how long this pretence can be maintained before it has serious deleterious social effects.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/25/jessi-combs-posthumously-awarded-land-speed-record-female/

    1. I am baffled. If he hate the non-black colour so much why did he not choose a pale blue shirt?

      :-))

    3. Minister for Justice… a darling of the SNP.

      I’ve posted a picture of him in a cowboy suit previously. He tells lies in his job. I have letter from his office saying the opposite of what he actually does.

    4. The non-white ethnic minorities in Scotland are less than 5% of the population. Why is he surprised that so many senior establishment posts in Scotland are held by WHITE people?

  9. Best breakfast ever… 1/6 fresh paw-paw with lime juice, and fresh, strong coffee!
    Bliss!
    Morning, all!!

    1. Go’morgon, Paul.

      Only 1/6??? I would have expected you to have your revenge for the strawberries.

      1. The rest of the heathens and Sassenachs I live with don’t like paw-paw. Silly them! My advantage!!

    2. ‘Morning, Paul.

      Paw-paw with lime juice is sensationally delicious. Even more so if you also add the finely-grated lime zest and a pinch or two of ground ginger.

      2. Hmm… I’l remember that for the next time, Grizz. It sounds lovely, maybe with finely grated fresh ginger – that lovely citrus flavour adding to the lime…

  10. Good morning, all. Still strong wind from the south. It rained a bit in the night. Fresh out.

    Many stabbed overnight?

  12. Good morning from the Saxon Queen daughter of Alfred of Wessex
    with Longbow and Viking axe .

    A very chilly Sunday morning with the sun peeking through the clouds.

    Listening to Beethoven in the kitchen whilst preparing brunch.
    (It’s either Beethoven, Bach or Talis on a Sunday morning )

    1. I think he is a bit of an odd ball but he is ok. Born and brought up in Uganda the son of a noted doctor. Has a wide view of things.

    3. “Poundshop Putin” – I like it. Who or what on earth persuded him to make such a prat of himself?

      1. Homo-erotic, or what? Yet, he apparently hates gays. I wonder why??
        A bit unsure of our sexuality are we, Vlad?

        1. Is being dogged like the chap with three greyhounds?

          Whippet In, Whippet Out and Wipe It!

      2. Beat me to it.
        Wasn’t the old joke a man doing pressups on the beach being told
        Senor, Senor, the lady she is gone!

        1. Morning Maggie, fit as a butchers dog has been around longer than Boris, in fact longer than me, and that’s saying something!

  16. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    I see from yesterday’s Murdoch Rag (free paper version) that NASA is offering a prize of $35,000 to anyone who can design a bog that will operate in the one-sixth gravity of the moon.

    Thomas Crapper need not apply.

    1. Thomas Crapper only invented the bog, Hugh.

      The bog seat was invented by an Irishman.

      Then an Englishman thought it would be a good idea to put a hole in it!

  17. The college porters at King’s, Cambs were overly courteous in addressing that Gopal creature as ‘Madam’ rather than ‘Doctor’ as she demanded. What a harridan!

    DOUGLAS MURRAY: It feels like Britain is suffering a mental breakdown with all the values that bind us being torn apart

    PUBLISHED: 22:01, 27 June 2020 | UPDATED: 01:16, 28 June 2020

    No wonder former Metropolitan Police commissioner Lord Blair says we need an urgent ‘public conversation’ about the amount of violence being directed towards the men and women who we entrust to keep law and order.

    It’s simply not right that they should fear being badly hurt in their daily working lives.

    Depressingly, what is happening to our police is symbolic of wider social unrest. It is as if Britain is suffering a mental breakdown – with all the values and links that bind us together being torn apart.

    In the first weeks of the coronavirus lockdown, we were a people united. We followed the advice of the Government and respected unprecedented measures to protect the NHS.

    Now, however, as the lockdown has started to lift, we are witnessing a terrifying outbreak of noisy and dangerous disharmony.

    It may be the effect of weeks stuck at home or the exceptional summer heat. But it feels as if we are living in a pressure cooker, with tensions and anxieties threatening to spill out. If things do not calm down, I dread to think where we are heading.

    The violent lawlessness last week followed disturbances across the country as protesters acting under the banner of Black Lives Matter brought the worst and most divisive aspects of American identity politics to the UK.

    They ushered in the disturbing sight of it seeming to be completely acceptable for people to get away scot-free with defacing or destroying any public monument that isn’t to their liking.

    Despite strong words of condemnation, Ministers shamefully stood by and allowed this to happen. Unprotected by the Government, police chiefs felt obliged to hold back – or even in some cases watch as their under-attack officers ran away.

    Is it any wonder that this is what happens when some officers are seen to ‘take the knee’ and back down.

    As former Home Secretary David Blunkett has said, the gesture of kneeling, ‘though prompted by the best instincts, might give the perception of undermining the role of the police in such situations. They are there to ensure a safe demonstration, not to make political statements.’

    If the forces of law and order behave like a kitten rather than a lion, then it is no surprise that those minded to cause trouble feel they have the upper hand.

    At the core of this pressure-cooker atmosphere is, I believe, a shocking failure of nerve by almost everybody in a position of authority –from politicians, the police, our religious leaders and broadcast media.

    While church services – which for many provide a source of great comfort and community – remain prohibited until July 4, the vacuum in moral leadership has been replaced by political virtue-signalling.

    For example, the Archbishop of Canterbury seems obsessed by ‘white supremacy’ and has suggested that some statues in his cathedral ‘will have to come down.’ Many would be forgiven for thinking that, rather than trying to expiate a sense of privileged guilt, such leaders ought to be trying to find more practical ways of mending our society.

    Everywhere I look, there seems to be an attempt to present modern Britain as something that it is not.

    The radical Leftists who run Black Lives Matter (the group’s founders are self-declared Marxists) claim this proud nation is a uniquely racist and unfair society, with historic sins unlike any other.

    They then build on this lie to try to impose a whole new set of values on our country. Like lemmings, major corporations and once-great institutions have paid lip service and more to these demands.

    We are told, too, that we must all be re-educated and reprogrammed to atone for our ‘awful’ past. But there is never any positive or practical proposal for addressing the past – only ever a malevolent insistence that everyone agree with the activists who seem determined to shut down anyone who questions their extreme demands.

    Against this background, a Cambridge academic called Priyamvada Gopal sent a message on Twitter saying, ‘white lives don’t matter’. Previously, this student of colonial and post-colonial literature has been notorious for tweeting incendiary material.

    So how did her university bosses react? They immediately sent out a message supporting her and presenting her as a victim because of the negative reaction that she had received. Next, by Gopal’s own account, the university promoted her to a full professorship.

    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/06/27/21/30130698-8466561-Against_this_background_a_Cambridge_academic_called_Priyamvada_G-m-50_1593290536633.jpg
    Against this background, a Cambridge academic called Priyamvada Gopal sent a message on Twitter saying, ‘white lives don’t matter’. Previously, this student of colonial and post-colonial literature has been notorious for tweeting incendiary material

    When people wonder what is happening to our country and watch in despair as the glue that holds us together becomes unstuck, they ought to realise that what they are witnessing is the result of decades of figures in authority pandering to political activists instead of doing their job.

    And it doesn’t seem to matter how destructive the process becomes, they never learn.

    The more woke the police become, the more they lose control. The more they dance with protesters, take the knee or run away from them, the more that those who want to destroy our way of life believe they are free to do so.

    How ironic that police chiefs are now complaining that they might not be able to cope on July 4 when the British public is allowed to go back into the pubs. It is a case of you reap what you sow.

    The fact is that Britain needs to return to normality as swiftly as possible. And that includes allowing us to regain some semblance of ordinary life again.

    The madness of a lockdown in which half a million people descend on to the Dorset beaches. The stupidity of children being kept out of school. The disgraceful way that some cynical bosses are using the Government’s furlough scheme to keep on employees only to sack them when the Treasury pulls the plug.

    It’s not just the Brixton mob who have gone feral – the country seems to have been poleaxed by a virus other than Covid-19 that has infected our national nervous system.

    Most important of all, we need strong leadership from all society’s institutions. We await Boris Johnson to address the nation – as perhaps only he can – in a spirit of optimism and positivity.

    It’s time to be reminded of all the good things about this country.

    The malcontents, rioters and anarchist activists must be told that Britain will not be changed by violence or intimidation. That we live in an unusually fair country, not a bastion of racism that we have kept being told about in recent weeks.

    After a week in which this country seems to have been losing its head, it’s imperative to restore some sense of sanity.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8466561/DOUGLAS-MURRAY-feels-like-Britain-suffering-mental-breakdown.html

    1. How ironic that the rag in which this appears has given such support in the last few weeks to the very cause that is responsible for what is happening today.
      Just a normal part of the MSM.

        1. It’s funny that these fascist genuinely think they’re on the side of right when really they’re the enemy we fought for so long, at such cost.

    2. Firstly, the black racists should have been crushed at the start.

      The second theey kick off, the police should have kettled and controlled them.

      Then they should have arrested Gopal for hate crimes.

      However, there’s a lot they shouldn’t have done way before that: not patrolled twitter to control opinion. Not danced with the druggies at Notting Hill. Not let the green nutters block the roads. Not painted theirr cars to support weirdos. Stopped stopping and searching. Not let the media set the agenda over muslim terrorism.

    3. Where I’m slightly bothered is it implies that the reason was the lockdown. Most of us have sat at home for 3 months with little release. We haven’t decided to storm Waitrose.

      There’s a tiny sub section of society that just likes to destroy things. That looks for an excuse to cause chaos. That minority are abusive, anti social and pathetic. They’re the ones who need to be dealt with harshly. Sadly they’re also the usual rentamob of the Left. Labour’s children.

  18. These Maoist statue-smashers want to eradicate our sense of nationhood. Daniel Hannan.

    As people are defined by their memories, so nations are defined by their histories. What, after all, is self-awareness if not the recollection of past sensations? John Locke, the seventeenth-century philosopher who has a pretty good claim to have invented modern society, understood that our sense of self was an accumulation of our previous thoughts and actions: “in this alone consists personal identity”.

    Something similar is true of the composite entities we call nations. They are not random aggregations of individuals. They are shaped by what they have done and suffered. Because those experiences are often carved in stone or bronze, a nation’s story takes physical form in its memorials.

    If I say the word “France”, what image comes into your mind? The Arc de Triomphe? The Eiffel Tower? Notre-Dame Cathedral? Whatever it is, the chances are it has been around for a while. We sense that the soul of a nation is immanent in its built patrimony. Tourists visit temples and monuments because they want to get a feel for the country they are in.

    Both sides of the statues debate glimpse this truth. Conservatives, though they might not always articulate it this way, see the nation in essentially Burkeian terms – that is, as a shared inheritance which each successive generation should curate in its turn. To the statue-smashers, such thinking is downright superstitious. They see, not shared stories that connect us to one another, but myths perpetuated by dominant groups to maintain themselves in power.
    You think this argument is really about slavery? Consider the statues targeted in Parliament Square: Abraham Lincoln, the man who freed the slaves; Winston Churchill, the original “antifa”; Robert Peel, whose insistence that British bobbies should be unarmed explains why, where the American police shoot around 1,200 people a year, the figure in this country is less than three. Even the cenotaph was vandalised by Black Lives Matter activists.

    It is worth recalling that, in the two world wars, tens of thousands of young men came from Africa and the Caribbean to fight for this country. Ethnically, our Armed Forces during those two conflicts looked less like the Britain of their own age than the Britain of ours. For conservatives, the cenotaph is a generous and inclusive symbol, honouring all the men who fell for freedom. For iconoclasts, it is another relic of a hated past.

    In the United States, the madness has gone even further. Statues of abolitionist campaigners such as Matthias Baldwin and John Greenleaf Whittier have been defaced. That of Ulysses S Grant, the general who beat the Confederacy, has been pulled down. In Wisconsin, protesters toppled the female figure from the state capitol building – a statue paid for by women and representing the spirit of progress. They tore down the statue of Hans Christian Heg, who had led an anti-slave militia known as “the Wide Awakes”: a man who was, in other words, literally woke.

    They spray-painted the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial in Boston. Who was Robert Gould Shaw? Meh, some white guy in the 1860s, so probably a racist, no? In fact, he was the leader of a black civil war regiment, and the memorial was largely paid for by African-American veterans. In California, a statue of the Spanish novelist Cervantes was desecrated. Cervantes, far from being a slaver, was himself a slave.

    My late mother was in the British Embassy in Beijing during the Cultural Revolution, when the Red Guards (as the student demonstrators called themselves) attacked our legation building and assaulted our ambassador. She used to talk about the demented atmosphere of that time: the way bosses trembled before their employees and teachers before their students, the millenarian certainty of the mobs, convinced that, if they could topple all the old things, a new order would somehow emerge. I could never quite picture it. Until now.

    The Red Guards were as dangerous as they were because they represented the spirit of the age. The Chinese authorities indulged them just as politicians, corporates and public bodies indulge today’s crowds. But the aim is the same: the eradication of reminders of the past. And a nation that loses its past is like a person with severe Alzheimer’s – helpless and lost.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/28/maoist-statue-smashers-want-eradicate-sense-nationhood/

    1. They’re just a bunch of rabble rousing wasters. Where Spartacus (or his compares) fought for a cause this lot just want to destroy because they’ve been given everything on a plate.

      Never having earned anything or been asked to sacrifice anything they just want to destroy what others have. The solution should be the same. Nail these wasters up until they learn that they are not revolutionaries but just vicious, nasty, spoiled thugs. .

  19. I don’t beleive anyone is listening to the petty new measures except for businesses that are worried about being sued if someone falls ill.

    1. And their grasping insurance companies – avid for the slightest deviation, so they can screw their customers.

    2. Hi Bob, some businesses I deal with are going right over the top, you almost need a hazmat suit to talk to them online! We have adopted a more relaxed approach based on common sense and have been keeping the business going all through lockdown with a skeleton staff.

  20. Good Morning Folks,

    Sunny start here, but the wind is playing havoc with my hollyhocks

  21. I received this notification from my parish church. Over the last two years, I have felt uncomfortable about attending mass there, because of their overzealous application of Safeguarding Regulations, imposed by the Home Office. I cannot worship God where the over-riding sentiment is that of suspicion.

    I do not feel I wish to go on any list right now.

    “Dear Parishioners,

    St Joseph’s Parish Census

    When the Imperial Legate (governor) of Roman Syria was assigned to carry out a tax census of Judea, according to Josephus (a Jewish historian writing in the late first century AD), Jews reacted negatively to this census. Most were convinced to comply with it by the high priest but some joined a rebellion led by Judas of Galilee. Our parish census, which we started in June 2019, was instigated in order to update our parish records and give the parish written permission to keep parishioners’ details so that it conforms to current regulations on holding personal data. We were supported by the Archdiocese Legal and IT teams which provided a secure database on which parishioner’s records could be held, and also much support and training.

    We are delighted to say that most of the forms have been returned and input onto a secure database and that the ‘high priest’ has not yet had to encourage people to comply with the request to complete a form. Any parishioners that we know of who have not yet returned a form are being contacted and offered a form to fill in. Here are some facts from the database: 235 people have been entered on the database of whom 40% are over the age of 70 (which explains the high levels of experience and wisdom in our parish community). 36 groups have been set up and linked to people e.g. Altar Servers; Clergy; Liturgy; Children’s Liturgy; Cleaners; Ministers; Music; Parish Office; Readers; Youth Group. The database provides the parish with the ability to access a parishioner’s details easily and is a real help to the parish priest and the office. So thank you to you all for helping us to be up-to-date and compliant. Any old records of parishioners will be destroyed and if you have not returned a signed form to the parish office with your current details we will no longer be able to hold your contact details. If you would like to see what details the parish holds on you, you are welcome to see your details.

    Please do remember that the parish will not know of any future changes to your address, email or telephone number etc. unless you let us know. The census form will now exist in the form of a Parishioner’s Enrolment Form. Thank you, from the past and present parish team on this ongoing project:

    Edyta, Anne and Sam
    Parish Administrators”

    I responded thus:

    “Dear Administrators

    Any old records of parishioners will be destroyed”. Therefore nearly 150 years of history, including 17 years of my life will be cast to oblivion, by order of The Rules (that as you know have already effectively excommunicated me). There are many of my friends I gathered between 2001 and 2018, people whose music still resounds in my memory, who will no longer exist in any form because they have passed on or moved away. Will even the saints on the reredos be thus erased, because they have not signed the correct forms?

    Will there be a funeral? Or, in these socially distanced times, is even that forbidden? We just vanish when we go, unless we give our written legally-verifed consent to be remembered.

    Is there anywhere in The Rules that permits the archiving of historic material on parishioners?

    Best wishes
    Jeremy”

    1. Good point – will all the past registers be burned? Births, Deaths, marriages… how will anyone trace their lineage without these records – or is that the point? Destroy everybody’s history… or do I need to get me a tinfoil hat? I didn’t used to think thia way. :-((

  22. Quench the flame of antisemitism, Starmer, but put out the crazy Trots too
    Rod Liddle – Sunday June 28 2020, 12.01am, The Sunday Times

    You’ve got to admire their tenacity and persistence. An entire world emerging from a pandemic and lockdown to a future of financial chaos and ruination — but Labour’s lefties can still find time to have a go at Jews. The obsession that cannot ever be diminished; the flame that never dies.

    The latest came from the gloriously irritating Corbynista actress Maxine Peake, who managed to link the killing of George Floyd to the state of Israel. The fact that a decade or so ago some police officers from Minnesota, where Floyd was killed, attended an anti-terrorism conference hosted by the Israeli consulate was enough for Peake. Israeli collusion in the murder of a fine upstanding man, was the gist.

    Her maniacal conspiracy-theory observations were retweeted by Rebecca Long Bailey MP, who, for reasons presumably satirical in design, holds Labour’s education portfolio. Well, held, at least. The Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, has sacked her, and the political firmament today shines a little less brightly, now that Rebecca’s shimmering brilliance has been peremptorily dimmed.

    Starmer’s supposed reasons were sound — Labour is trying to “rebuild trust” among a British Jewish community that, until Corbyn and Wrong Daily came along, voted Labour almost unanimously and would now, in similar unison, vote for almost anyone but. The recently dispossessed lefties are furious, of course. Wrong Daily pleaded with her leader to take her back, insisting that, while she had retweeted Peake’s idiocies with the commendation that the TV star was a “diamond” (in that she is overvalued and transparent, possibly), she had never meant to endorse the entirety of her observations. In which case perhaps she should have tweeted “Maxine Peake is a diamond, apart from the anti-Jew stuff”.

    The disagreeable whiff of sulphur you’ve just caught on the wind, meanwhile, was John McDonnell rising from his crypt to announce that he stood “in solidarity” with Long Bailey, most notably on the grounds that a commitment to antisemitism should not preclude criticism of the government and policies of Israel.

    Many on the far left made that very point — and, of course, it is correct. Criticism of the Israeli government is just fine. It is the weird, relentless obsession with Israel, above and beyond all other countries, that is the signifier of undiluted antisemitism.

    It is a mania that leads in the end to the condition that afflicted the former Liberal Democrat MP Jenny (now Baroness) Tonge, when she gave credence to claims that Israeli rescue workers were harvesting organs from victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, calling for an inquiry into the allegations. It is a kind of mental illness, a derangement. But this racism still has purchase in certain sections of our population. A study from Oxford University revealed last month that a scary 19% of British people believed that Jews were in some way responsible for the coronavirus. Those evil bat-eating Jews, then. Are one in five of us really that doolally?

    My suspicion, though, is that Sir Keir found the Peakegate Twitter business extremely expedient. A more honest and noble course of action would have been to sack Long Bailey months ago, because she is utterly, staggeringly, useless. The former leadership contender had her place on the Labour front bench as a sop to the Momentum hordes, who worship the woman. But there should have been no such sop. Such was the distance that Labour had travelled from its voter base under Jeremy Corbyn that Starmer should have been ruthless in purging every last Trot-friendly, victimhood-obsessed ninny from his political front line, including the increasingly berserk David Lammy.

    A split in the party? Sure, fine, bring it on. It would have done him no harm at all, any more than it did Tony Blair. But Sir Keir is still a little too keen to take the knee to whichever faction of the party demands it and, three months after his accession, I still do not have a clue what he believes in or stands for, admirable though he may be each week at prime minister’s questions.

    The latest polling research shows that Labour is now seen, pretty much unequivocally, as the party of the affluent. The poorer you are, the more likely you are to vote Conservative. The polls may have narrowed dramatically — but that is a consequence, I reckon, of an enormous disillusion with the government’s inept handling of the pandemic, rather than a positive vote for Labour. So who should replace Wrong Daily as Labour’s education spokesperson? It needs to be someone with Rebecca’s robust intellectual clout, soaring imagination, forensic attention to detail and remarkable articulacy. Richard Burgon, anyone?

    Music festival fans carry on regardless

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/%2Fmethode%2Fsundaytimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2F0bacc662-b884-11ea-8e2c-ebb19b599bc1.jpg?crop=1500%2C1000%2C0%2C0&resize=1022

    Fly me to the moon (and a bit further)
    In other news, a man in California is suing a pornographic website for £20m because it turned out to be pornographic. Erik Estavillo, a sex addict, insists that the images sent by the site occasioned him to show appreciation so vigorously that he badly injured a certain part of his anatomy.

    Meanwhile in Thailand, the residents of Lopburi have fled the city because since lockdown it has been taken over by 6,000 “sex-crazed” and fast-food eating monkeys who attack anyone who approaches them.

    Finally, scientists have found two “super-Earths” — possibly habitable planets — 11 light years distant. Please — Elon, Richard? — take me there now. This place is done for.

    The archbishop drops a clanger
    Scarcely had I recovered from the grave shock of discovering that the actor Johnny Depp may have taken drugs when the Archbishop of Canterbury ventured the possibility that Jesus Christ might not have been white.

    These blows to our conception of the world come thick and fast. I had always imagined our Saviour to resemble Grant Shapps, except perhaps a little taller and in a better suit. Like a successful insurance loss adjuster from Godalming, suddenly deposited in Judaea but still speaking bloody good English.

    In the light of this I shall have to reconsider my Christian faith. Perhaps Buddhism is the answer, given its progenitor’s admirably tough upbringing in the back streets of Dunfermline.

    Those who can’t resist Netflix, teach
    The greater the truth, the less one is allowed to say it. Pauline Wood, a head teacher in Sunderland, told a radio station that a proportion of her primary school’s staff ”sit at home doing nothing”, have been “acting like petulant kids” and have spent more time watching Netflix than teaching.

    As a description of Britain’s teachers during lockdown, can it be wholly unjustified? There are kids in my daughter’s class who haven’t done a single piece of work since March, having been told they don’t have to do anything if they don’t want to.

    Ms Wood was suspended by governors for “bringing the school into disrepute”. She has handed in her notice at Grange Park primary, which she has hoisted up the league tables largely as a consequence of hard work. Remember that, anyone?

    1. A nice little game for peeps here to play while waiting for restrictions on our freedom to be lifted, and for the likes of us to be loved once more (I hear the flapping of wings on those Glastonbury hippos!), is to take a piece of news at random, any piece, and link it to the Jews.

      So let’s go. I have my BBC news widget fired up. Let’s see what’s top of the list… “Coronavirus – Delhi struggles with Covid-19 surge”. Too easy! We all know these dastardly Jews have polluted the Ganges with chicken soup from hens, cockerels and those identifying as either or both acquired from a Chinese market place under a deal, and made loadsamoney doing so.

    2. “The latest polling research shows that Labour is now seen, pretty much unequivocally, as the party of the affluent. The poorer you are, the more likely you are to vote Conservative.” – what a remarkable transformation for the party of toffs and the party of the working person, to swap places.
      Just goes to show that the state of your bank account is in inverse proportion to the clarity of mind and thought.

        1. As the house repair/redecoration bills flow in, I’m getting smarter by the day!
          Arternoon, Anne!

    3. Thought I’d heard of Pauline Wood before. What a loss to her school, and what a loss to the chiildren. I would have hoped that she could have stood her ground, but likely we didn’t see a sudden drop off in support, as we all have to be woke now.
      Whilst there are conscientious teachers who struggles with e-teaching, there are those who CBA. Who could have thought it? But, clearly, thinking it is the only option allowed now.

    4. “Rebecca Long Bailey MP, who, for reasons presumably satirical in design, holds Labour’s education portfolio“- excellent [© C Montgomery Burns]

          1. Edoocashun does seem to be afterthought on both sides of the house.
            Morning, Willum.
            Did you have a better night?

          2. Good morning, dear heart. The night was fine – I am getting used to sleeping in a sitting position. The trouble re-started on getting up. Had the wind been from the north east instead of the south west – you would have heard my coughing fit. It is SO tiring.

            Still, one lives in hopes….

          3. Getting all technical here: do you feel the cough/chest is loosening?
            I remember MB actually losing weight when he had a bad cough, it was physically wearing.

      3. Long Bailey is a dead ringer for Titania McGrath. Probably not intentional on Andrew Doyle’s part but she is.

    5. When Christianity subverted the Viking religions they continued to paint him as a white, beared fellow.

      When Christianity subverted and abused the native Saxon faith of the Green man and the maiden with Mary and the devil the perpetrators were bright enough not to change him too much for fear of alienating the followers.

      Personally twisting a character of growth, rebirth, fertility and cycles of life with the Devil nonsense was a horrible parallel, but the Church wanted control and to demonise freedom and sexual liberation.

  25. Morning all

    SIR – First we were told that the purpose of the draconian lockdown was to save the NHS from being overwhelmed by coronavirus. The NHS was not overwhelmed.

    Then we were told that the lockdown had to continue in order to flatten the curve. The curve flattened and declined.

    Now, however, are being told that many of the pettifogging restrictions must continue, and we may have to revert to full measures in order to prevent a second spike in cases. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me three times, shame on me.

    David Saunders

    Sidmouth, Devon

    SIR – Was anyone surprised to see large crowds jostling on the beach at Bournemouth and elsewhere? Surely politicians could see this coming.

    With a third of the working population bored on furlough, the teaching unions stopping parents sending children to school and the arrival of the hottest days of the year, people were bound to go to the seaside. Why weren’t preparations made?

    Richard Fothergill

    Windermere, Cumbria

    SIR – I can understand those flocking to enjoy our beaches. When depressed I always head for the sea. There is also the feeling that this is the new normal, so we might as well get on with life.

    However, the current situation is not the new normal: it is a holding position until a vaccine is developed and administered. Hopefully that point is not a long way off.

    If everybody appreciated this, with the help of clear guidance by the Government, they might think twice before behaving so irresponsibly.

    Christopher Lambert

    Tadworth, Surrey

    SIR – I am shielding, and have followed the Government’s advice to the letter.

    My only wish is to be able to spend time with my grandchildren on 
 August 1, to celebrate my grandson’s second birthday. I despair of my chances when I see the selfish behaviour of people on beaches, as well as those throwing parties and flouting social distancing.

    I feel betrayed by my fellow citizens.

    Margaret Gash

    Newmarket, Suffolk

    SIR – It is high time the Government realised that there is a huge difference between indoor pools and lidos.

    Indoor pools may well be hothouses for germs, and changing rooms are often cramped. Lidos pose fewer risks. Swim England has suggested some restrictions to ensure that there are not too many on site or in the water 
at once.

    Swimming is beneficial to physical and mental health, and a good way to take outdoor exercise. Instead of jumping into reservoirs and canals – and overcrowding beaches – people need to be given the option of swimming in Britain’s wonderful lidos.

    Fiona Wild

    Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

    1. “However, the current situation is not the new normal: it is a holding position until a vaccine is developed and administered. Hopefully that point is not a long way off.”
      There will never be a vaccine that works. Get used to it. Live with it, as people have lived with flu and all sorts of infectios diseases, and if that means you want to cower under the bed, then it’s still a slightly free country.

    2. Margaret Gash – My only wish is to be able to spend time with my grandchildren on August 1, to celebrate my grandson’s second birthday.

      Just do it.

      1. a comment from the small hours:

        Robert Spowart
        28 Jun 2020 12:26AM
        Margaret Gash should wake up and go & see her Grandchildren.

        Time is short enough as it is.

        Delete83Like
        Reply

  26. A Church in decline

    SIR – During the pandemic, many people have reconnected with their Christian faith. Others might have turned to Christ for the first time – but the Church of England has turned its back. During lockdown we could visit an off-licence, but church doors were locked, even for private prayer.

    The Church’s leadership has congratulated itself on its use of Zoom to hold services. But it is marking its own homework. Many worshippers don’t attend these, either because they lack decent broadband or the required IT skills, or because they see them as such thin gruel. Most of us are weary of being told by “woke” bishops that we are responsible for the slave trade, are racists, xenophobes, homophobes.

    The Church has created a perfect doom-cycle. Driving worshippers away has led to plunging revenues, fewer priests and fewer services. Closures of rural churches, inevitably the next stage in the cycle, will see numbers decline even faster.

    Kevin Fiske

    Umberleigh, Devon

  27. Russia ‘offered bounties to Afghan militants to kill US and British troops’. 27 June 2020

    The Russian military has been accused of offering bounties to Taliban-linked gunmen to kill British and US soldiers in Afghanistan.
    Bounties were said to have been offered by Unit 29155 of Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency, the same unit blamed for the nerve agent attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury in 2018.

    Here’s another Russophobic fantasy by the New York Times aimed at the mentally retarded. There is, as is common with these accusations, no evidence of any kind. The source itself is anonymous. It even defies common sense. Why pay someone to do something that they would do anyway and how would you know if they did? The practicalities of it defy probability.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/27/russia-offered-bounties-afghan-militants-kill-american-troops/

    1. Yo Minty

      Not much different to: Operation Cyclone then, from 1979-89

      The U.S.-built Stinger antiaircraft missile, supplied to the mujahideen in very large numbers beginning in 1986,
      struck a decisive blow to the Soviet war effort as it allowed the lightly armed Afghans to effectively defend against
      Soviet helicopter landings in strategic areas.

      They still had some left, when the US ‘invaded’ the place

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone

    2. Yep. I posted yesterday that the Russians have no love for the Taliban, or any Afghans. The Russians suffered the loss of around 15,000 men.
      Even realpolitik or the desire to irritate the USA could not overcome that. If Russia really tried it there would be mass demonstrations in the streets by the bereaved families.

    1. Thanks for that, Rik, it’s made my day! (And has also creased the blonde on his right with laughter too.)

    3. The presenter really was gunning for him wasn’t he? Are you sorry – be sorry! Admit your guilt! And Davidson just replies with ‘no, I’m not’, completely undermining the faux outrage.

    5. Richard Bacon made the mistake of thinking that Jim is an inarticulate thicko. He is anything but.

  29. 320736+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    In essence our present odious plight as a nation has surely been brought about by, since the mid 70s, the governance parties far from being in opposition were morphing into becoming a pro eu coalition.
    The greed for money / power plainly obvious MPs expenses, house flipping, money for questions, etc,etc.
    The b liar AKA as capo dei capi the latch lifter overseeing the conversion
    of a decent country into what is proving to be the the badlands of Europe.
    All this treacherous chicanery was given political power via the ballot booth by the electorate voting in a party before Country, keep in/keep out mode, which when considering the parties in question were a pro eu coalition was a guarantee to keep the nation in the sh!te & sinking ever deeper.
    All the while an alien force was building and still building via Dover
    seemingly being met mid English Channel brought to these Isles & given succour by the governance / governance employees.

    The Glasgow hotel is a discharge from the mass uncontrolled immigration
    volcano, many more will erupt ongoing as with the odious paedophilia
    revealings via the JAY report.
    The way I see it is that whoever has the hair shirt franchise is making a mint via the polling booths, as the pattern shows a multitude seems to want to don one.

    1. ‘Morning O

      The b liar AKA as capi dei capi the latch lifter overseeing the conversion

      It’s capo dei capi.

      2. Sou you’re saying (© Cathy Newman), Peddy, that Tony Blair played the title role in THE GODFATHER? I always thought it was Marlon Brando.

        1. Buenos dias, Elsie.

          B. Liar was in the remake. Edge of crowd scene as usual.

  30. This is almost an hour but worth listening to at leisure

    https://youtu.be/Y021WAdUlW8

    BTL:

    Dubstep Classics

    Sowell had all this shit figured out decades ago and we’re still arguing about the exact same issues today. Incredible.

  32. Good moaning.
    I am escaping from a Vodaphone ‘customer survey’ that keeps popping up on the MoS and the S Tellygraff. MB is getting it as well, and he isn’t even with Vodaphone.
    I assume the newspapers’ greed allows these pestiferous ‘surveys’ to keep blotting out what we’re reading. It appears to be impossible to remove without coming completely out of the paper and then returning – for a few minutes. So far, I’ve deleted history and reset cookie preferences. No luck, so I will leave the sites until the blasted things runs out of time (about another couple of hours, apparently).

  35. Apologies if this has been mentioned already, but Brietbart are reporting that petition to fire Priyamvada Gopal, sorry Dr Priyamvada Gopal, has been removed by Change.org after receiving over 20,000 signatures.

    In addition they claim Cambridgeshire Constabulary have indicated that her original ‘White lives don’t matter’ tweet “doesn’t constitute an offence”, but they are “investigating all reports into the racist and threatening abuse that she has suffered”.

    1. They can say what they like, but I am offended by her tweets and have made a police complaint. I will not accept platitudes from PC plod.

    2. Hi VOM, a ‘hate’ crime is described (by the Met) as:

      “ A hate crime is when someone commits a crime against you because of your disability, gender identity, race, sexual orientation, religion, or any other perceived difference.”

      I cannot find the bit that says “unless you are English and White”.

      This anti- others has been stirred up by the Left for years, identity politics that only divides. Why are so many people blind to what is happening, they are the ‘useful idiots’ of the Marxists.

        1. Mucky yellow, me.
          Where do I stand? Apart from belly-up to the bar, of course…

        2. Way back in ‘94, I spent a couple of weeks in Israel and Jordan and came home with a deep tan. A “black” (West Indian I think) colleague laughed and pressed her arm against mine. We were the same colour. Of course a month or so later, I was much paler – but we were still friends.

          1. When I came home from a holiday in California, in 1980, my father failed to recognise me. He thought I was an Indian hawker bloke selling brushes at the door.

    5. Hang on – she’s allowed to be racist but people doing the same to her are not?

      And the police wonder why there’s no public sympathy for them.

    2. It’s an odd one.

      At first sight I thought it was a much bigger swan attacking a smaller one which it had cornered (a cygnet from another brood?). The woman may have tried to intervene and the commentator not realised what was going on.

      No excuse for pushing the man with the pole into the water and the rest was sheer stupidity

    3. Birch? No, skin them, flog them, nice injection of adrenaline then throw them in a line pit.

      1. You would be shooting at a pulp because I would have kicked seven bells out of the twat first.

      2. Waste of metal. Too quick.

        No, these creatures need to burn. Perhaps crucifixion?

          1. Of course, they’ll be screaming and swearing the first few days so I suggest they have their tongues cut out.

  37. ‘Morning, all.

    In the wake of the race riots that have taken place in various UK cities over the past week, the Scottish Parliament has scrambled to join in the virtue-signalling. Here’s a video clip by Carl Benjamin (Sargon of Akkad) showing the most stomach-turning moments of a debate at Holyrood, where MSPs, of all parties, vie with each other to polish their SJW credentials and demonstrate that they’re “on message”.

    The SNP Muslim Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Humza Yousaf, makes a particularly bile-filled anti-white speech about 14:43 into the video.

    https://www.bitchute.com/video/hHTm19XM9Is

    BTW, for those who may not have seen it, a new social forum has been set up to compete with Twitter. Called Parler, it’s free from politically correct censorship and posts can contain more than three times the number of characters that Twitter permits. It can be found at:

    https://parler.com/auth/access

    Many of the usual suspects post on Parler since Twitter has capitulated to the Left and banned/suspended their accounts . There’s Sargon, Katie Hopkins, Paul Joseph Watson – even Tommy Robinson has a slot there – so, I opened an account myself. Well, I thought it worth a try. I may have more luck with Parler than with Twitter, which I quit after two weeks, having been reported to Polis Scotland by the SNP Central Belt “wankerati” for hate-speech!
    ;¬)

    1. 320736+ up ticks,
      Morning DM,
      Good advice, ALL the truthsayers are agathering where there is a negative ( twitter) there is a positive.

    2. Good morning.

      Are Polis Scotland coming round to reprogram you or just audit your thinking?

      1. ‘Morning, Phil. That was a while ago and nothing ever came of it.

        Just as well really. Anybody who comes to check my thinking will very soon be thinking “Whatever was I thinking of?”
        :¬)

    3. I’ve been trying to set up a Parler account for days. I enter my details, type in the captcha letters, etc, then just get the two Ps going round and round. I never get further than that. I just give up after ten minutes.

      1. ‘Morning, Maggie.

        The security on Parler seems very tight – you have to give a mobile phone number each time you log-in, and they send you an SMS containing a code with which to verify your account. Enter that code and Shazzam!” ….. you’re in!

        1. Clarification – you just give them your mobile number when you first open your account. Thereafter, they send a new code to that number every time you log-in.

    7. ‘Morning, Duncan

      Just one question about Parler.

      If all Right-wing (i.e. sensible) people are commenting, freely, among themselves on that platform, are they just doing it among themselves (as you would do at the pub), or are there any Lefties attempting to comment there and finding their witless observations either being ignored or cancelled (as Twitter cancels Right-wing posts)?

      I do sincerely hope Lefties post on there and get some of their own medicine back, otherwise it is just a chatroom for Righties.

      1. This is the danger.

        Instead of learning and seeing a different side, there will become echo chambers. Annoyingly, the only ones who need to learn are the Left as they’re wrong by default.

      2. ‘Morning,Grizz. Too early to say, I only signed up last evening.

        But I certainly share your hope that Lefties will post there. My feeling is that they’ll have to because if they don’t, they’ll be allowing their favourite hate-figures a free platform to spread the word and report the real news, which wouldn’t suit the Left’s agenda at all.

        1. Thanks for the follow Duncan – I haven’t said much there yet! it’s a bit tricky to find my way around.

      3. It’s a Trumpian echo-chamber, though a lot more British people have joined recently.

  38. I don’t use streaming services, one of the reasons being that one is not in control of the media. Anything which does not fit the current fads and fashions can be removed instantly by the provider: permanent erasure so that it did not exist. Continuing along this thought track, I’ve recalled the excellent Jeeves and Wooster TV adaptions by Fry and Laurie feature a number of episodes where members of the Drones club, including the now qualified Doc Martin, blacked up to form what was then known as a niggerminstrel band. I have ordered the DVD set to make sure at least some historic record is kept, since it will probably be declared a series too far…

      1. Another of the many excellent ITV productions, made by Granada without a penny of tax payer’s licence fee involved.

    2. The Fry/Laurie TV series of P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves was not very good just as Timothy Spell’s Lord Emsworth was a disaster.

      It is almost impossible to televise P.G. Wodehouse’s stories because their brilliance is not in the stories but in Plum’s amazing skill with words, similes and metaphors.

      1. Me too – ‘Till death us do part’ ‘It ai’nt alf hot mum and many others – will be banned soon and you will get fined for just having them

        1. DVD players will be removed from the shelves in order to prevent civil disobedience.

          1. Too late- they have all been looted by peaceful demonstrators of color (sic).

  39. Classical music Mysteries

    Who was Beethoven s ” Immortal Beloved ”
    What happened in Sibelius Eight Symphony
    Who really wrote Mozart’s Requiem
    And where are the remains of Thomas Taĺis

    I decided upon a Waltz whilst making brunch ( none of the above, even my beloved Bach )

    An der Schönen Blauen Donau by the wonderful Johann Strauss II

  41. Sun & showers now.

    The last rambler of the season has opened nearly 2 months early: Rosa moschata.

      1. I only listen to the Rolling Stones’ output recorded during this superlative Brian Jones/Mick Taylor era.

        I can’t really be arsed with anything they’ve done since they took on that useless cast-off from the Faces.

  42. SIR – James Crisp’s report about possible compromises in the Brexit negotiations regarding the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) is alarming.

    If the Boris Johnson administration thinks there can be any compromise on matters directly affecting individual liberty, it betrays the very principles it purports to uphold.

    As any lawyer worth his salt will attest, the ECHR affords the British people less protection against false accusation, arbitrary arrest and wrongful imprisonment than our own common law, simply because neither the ECHR nor any of the continental jurisdictions in its membership embodies the fundamental principles implicit in our long-established law of habeas corpus, which itself is directly negated by the EAW.

    It is wrong-headed to prioritise trade negotiations above all else when it is so clearly demonstrated that the greatest stimulant to economic success worldwide is individual freedom.

    Christopher Gill

    Aberdyfi, Merionethshire

    1. Especially as the trade negotiations are not really very important. Trade negotiations are political, so don’t necessarily coincide with the needs of international business.

    2. Indeed, I do not trust any “secure database” officially and centrally approved to hold any more data on me that they would do anyway, and as for those irritating popups that require a full disclosure of my private details before they let me do anything online, forget any hope of anything more from me than my resentful resignation to what they will do with this information.

      I’d sooner trust someone I met in the pub, who at least I can keep an eye on.

  43. https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/3310d03ea0e66f26fd00412d795b9e3948484fb8/0_0_4465_2977/master/4465.jpg?width=1010&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=2197bebb266f5e7ac6ba09e96cd7a8f9
    Prague, Czech Republic
    A student holds a placard with a portrait of Milada Horáková as she commemorates the 70th anniversary of the lawyer’s execution on Charles Bridge in Prague. Horáková, a politician who opposed the single-party Communist system, was the victim of judicial murder during the 1950s show trials. She was convicted on fabricated charges of conspiracy and treason and executed on 27 June 1950

      1. 320736+ up ticks,
        Morning B3,
        It did NOT just pop into being it come via the ballot booth.

    3. Like Hungary and Poland the memories are too raw for them to fall for the nonsense the marxists are trying to impose here
      Edit
      1968 was a wake-up call to this callow ignorant teenager,the time the scales fell from my eyes

      1. I was severn, and living in Nigeria. I’m afraid it all passed me by, but it did trigger my Father buying an enormous great shortwave radio so he could get the news from the BBC first hand – those were the days when the BBC was the gold standard. I fondly remember the signature tune for Radio Newsreel, with plenty hisses and crackles from the reception.

        1. …those were the days when the BBC was the gold standard

          Golden days! When people (me included) used to believe what they said. Now I don’t even watch its “entertainment” output.

          Morning Oberst.

        2. …those were the days when the BBC was the gold standard

          Golden days! When people (me included) used to believe what they said. Now I don’t even watch its “entertainment” output.

          Morning Oberst.

        3. Yo Ol

          I had a mate who grew up in Nigeria and learned BBC English from his radio

          Good pffzz morning ma splluuuter te

          How are zzgttt you

          is a typical greeting

    4. How thoughtless of her. Didn’t she realise that 27th. June is Black Poundland Day? The things people do to gain attention.

      1. Even Mutti ….

        Greta Thunberg hits out at leaders who use her fame to ‘look good’

        Climate change campaigner said after UN summit, Angela Merkel queued up for a selfie

        https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/3a0b89b3d212fbf9b09584f6b6ed61082e34e56f/0_191_4928_2956/master/4928.jpg?width=620&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=92ad9d54a9d1b1cbdf9d54d6c72760e6

        https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/27/greta-thunberg-hits-out-at-leaders-who-use-her-fame-to-look-good

        1. Or, to put it another way ‘I have , because of Covid19, got some PR slots free at present, anyone wishing to meet me should apply through my agents. Normal rates apply. A listers only, no riffraff’.

        3. That picture of greeter the bleaker is the most alive I’ve ever seen of her.

          Morning everyone. Happy Sunday to all.

      2. it was also Global Pride day, also a gargantuan fest of victimhood, celebrating 50 years since the Stonewall riots.

        Every damned day now seems to be a celebration of some sort of victimhood; all they do is complain. I’m sick of them all.

        I learned this because I received an email from Trip Advisor, offering 24 hours of live streaming of LGBTQIA+ shows

        24 hours of streaming diarrhea.

        1. How about a day for crumblies who were booted out of ‘O’ level Maffs? Scarred me for life has that.

  44. ‘If you lose freedom of speech, that’s the end’
    An awkward attempt to back JK Rowling on trans issues led Baroness Nicholson into her own Twitter storm

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/lose-freedom-speech-end/

    This absurdity will only end when more politicians, police, academia, other organisations and all other PTB have the integrity and strength to stand up and say to BLM and all Lefty groups wishing to destroy Britain :

    FREEDOM OF SPEECH TRUMPS YOUR SENSE OF OFFENCE & ENTITLEMENT

    Has Boris Johnson the testicular strength to stand up and say: ‘ Enough is enough – in fact it is already far more than enough.’

    My fear is that the PTB have already surrendered, have no desire to fight back and we are already irredeemably lost.

    1. It’s interesting that yet again we get hypocrisy.

      https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2020/jun/27/twitter-closes-graham-linehan-account-after-trans-comment – he was also given a police warning (and they wonder why they’re not respected) when he called someone by their name – just not the name they wanted. Rowling seems to get a free pass.

      Where it’s interesting is that Twitter hides behind ‘people can say anything, we’re covered by Section 230’ and then actively bans a position they disagree with.

    2. The political class are going to chase any bunch going to win votes and be seen to be ‘cool’.

      However I don’t understand why the media are so enraptured with violent, racist thugs. Are they just afraid of getting their offices smashed in? If they are that will at least show the racist scum for what they are.

      1. Yes, they are scared of them. An employee or two getting attacked and then a message why, can get the bosses landed with a massive financial claim from the employed victims, claiming the bosses brought it on by their stance. Similar to the police who ignore threats ( even those caught on camera and shown on tv) where the officers family members are blatantly threatened by the immigrant. One made a threat to kill the officer himself after being stopped for a motoring offence and the officer just walked away. I would have tasered the chap, letting come round in cuffs in the back of the van to custody and jail. Others ( of the RoP ) have demanded the names and addresses of the officers they are hassling – again nothing done. Threats to harm the officers daughters are very thinly veiled. Again nothing is done.

        1. Then law does not apply if it does not apply equally to all.

          That’s partly why the police are so distrusted.

    3. This absurdity will only end when someone has the balls to stand up to Common Purpose, ban it, make it illegal, and demote every graduate of its accursed conditioning to the status of manual labourer before replacing them all with Common Sense graduates.

  45. I am following Grizzly’s policy of putting a copy of a letter today to the DT here for the Nottlers to see even if the DT does not think it is suitable for the general readership who might be tempted to ask the same question:

    Sir,

    Am I being unduly optimistic in hoping that the Daily Telegraph editorial team will explain why it has cut back so drastically on allowing paid subscribers to the online newspaper to voice their opinions freely on controversial matters which need to be discussed?

    Indeed, will you even be bold enough to publish this letter?

    Richard Tracey

    1. I fear, Rastus, that Christopher Howse, the letters’ editor, has been “got at” by the politically “correct” Common Purpose coterie who now run the show and nowadays he only dances to their tune.

      Of course, if you are one of the “in crowd” and are called: Mick Ferrie, Philip Duly, Lord Lexden, Ted Shorter, Ann Farmer, Jane O’Nions, or any one of a dozen-or-more class swots who never fail to get one of their tame and unthreatening letters published, then you’re in with a shout!

          1. To them you do, Belle. You don’t live in their bubble.

            As to being rude. They already chop letters up.

        3. It’s longer than that since they published one of mine – but to be fair, I haven’t bothered writing to them recently.

    2. Good riddance, but presumably he’ll either be shoved into some backwater dept. to see out his time, or be retired with a golden handshake.
      Either way, he’ll be sucking at the taxpayer teat for the rest of his natural.

      2. There is no doubt he will see a drop in income. In fact it will probably double.

    1. Speaking personally, I’ve deliberately left him with his family.
      At this stage that’s probably all he can cope with.

        1. He at least does know people are close by for when and if he wants to talk. Thanks to Anne and Elsie, Nottlers of this Parish.

          1. I am often surprised about how many kind people there actually are around and about.
            It’s humbling.

          2. You and Grizz are on the fringes. We would have to send a sled pulled by dogs for you !

          3. Firstborns neighbours do the dogsledding bit. So, that’s convenient… :-))

          1. The Two Fat Ladies – Jennifer and Clarissa – made them! Fragomammella I think!

          2. They are indecently delicious.

            I once met Clarissa Theresa Philomena Aileen Mary Josephine Agnes Elsie Trilby Louise Esmerelda Dickson Wright at Norwich airport when I ran the screening section there.

          7. Of course [and chilled so very nippy!] :•)

            They are a Sicilian delicacy know as Minni di virgini (virgin’s tits), which are served on February 5 each year, the Saint’s day of St Agnes, who as a young teenaged girl had her breasts cut off by Moorish invaders in the 5th century AD.

            They are a circular slice of lemon cake atop a disc of pink marzipan, topped with a dollop of cherry jam, chopped pistachios, and crème anglaise, then covered with a hemisphere of pink marzipan and topped with two glacé cherries. Very moreish (if not Moorish!).

      1. It was as with my neighbours. Lucky they are so tolerant of my style of humour !
        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/03db6952a27082c20d2262ddbbb9c9bde4e505e97f5888b6851c8f5c31bece1a.jpg

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/864e4e8f73cc3706af1358e714ca85d02dac4b2067d4c3810aa5aa42de64edbd.jpg

        As it was Armed Forces day and they are ex-military i attempted a Union flag on a round meringue. I hadn’t even had a drinkie at that point !

        So i chucked on a few more strawbs.

        It got colder and colder to the point my Gin was about to freeze so we ended at 9pm and i carried Dolly home as opposed to me being carried home. 🙁

          1. You got me. That was the pre-party girlie Zoom that i crashed.

            The other guys were playing mini golf,……. yawns.

            It was supposed to be Karen’s Hen night. She was chatting with Mags (Isle of Wight), Yolander (Amsterdam), Hils (Bahamas).

            I wish i had taken a screen shot of the photo album that followed. A real boob and bumfest. Not mine i might add.

            I’m going to have to stop going on holiday with them unless i can line up a liver transplant.

    3. Dear Phizzee, I am so sorry , I had to study that meringue and wondered whether you were spoofing a Covd19 spore ..

      Then I read below, and of course your humour is rather risque .. as is my mind..

      You tried very hard..

      I bet it was all delicious , and made them all smile .

  49. 320736+up ticks,
    breitbart,
    France Holds Local Elections Under Strict Anti-Coronavirus Rules,
    My belief is English elections will differ slightly being held under a strict ruling of
    NO KNEE BENDY, NO VOTY.
    No doubt about it this creation of a governance party is a cracker it surpasses ALL others up to date, the electorate certainly have an anti English / GB tiger by the tail.

    1. Hypocrisy, thy name is Left.

      However, no doubt ‘that was different’.

      Why do they always bang on about freeing Palestine? As my Israeli security contractor said – ‘stop firing missiles at us then.’

    2. ‘Moves forward’. An expression guaranteed to set ones teeth on edge. And since when has British Politics been gagged of the right to critique (sic) Zionism?

  53. Awkward……………

    “Two thousand years ago, Roman engineers, masons and no doubt slaves built
    the water irrigation channel running from Uzes to supply their expanding
    garrison at Nimes. The channel crosses the River Gardon at what is now
    known as the Pont du Gard. Over its 50km length the height drop is only
    17 metres, an amazing feat given the technology available at the time.
    It fell into disrepair when the Romans retreated as their empire
    collapsed.

    Two millennia later, little Kwami in Africa can only
    get fresh clean water if the nasty white man promises to send £3.00 a
    month.”

    2. The interesting bit is ‘fell into disrepair’.

      People didn’t know how to maintain it and more, didn’t bother. Why? Why when we turned Roman roads into motorways did other nations not manage to repair brick and mortar?

  54. “Ain’t that the truth files”

    “One thing the left have got right is the need to rig the deck before you play.

    The equality act, foreign aid act, human rights act, global migration
    compact etc, etc are all there to limit the sphere of options for future
    politicians. Almost anything that they might want to do is illegal. Of
    course they could repeal the acts, but that would mean that they would
    be vilified in the media and more importantly shunned at the right
    dinner parties.

    It will take an outsider who is all out of fucks to sort things out.”

    1. If we carry on respecting rules, they have got us tied up in a spiders’ web. We need to lose a good chunk of the law book, especially everything that has to do with identity politics.

  55. Good morning from the Saxon Queen daughter of Alfred of Wessex
    with Longbow and Viking axe .

    A very chilly Sunday morning with the sun peeking through the clouds.

    Listening to Beethoven in the kitchen whilst preparing brunch.
    (It’s either Beethoven, Bach or Talis on a Sunday morning )

    1. The Stones Sticky Fingers for me. Lets get this place rocking now that autumn’s here.

    2. ‘Morning, Ethel.

      Enjoying the silence as I consume my litre of buttermilk.

      1. Good morning Mr Viking, that’s an awful lot of buttermilk ?
        you clearly enjoy it. I like Jersey full cream milk but settle for semi skimmed
        from the local shop. It is nice and peaceful this morning at least .

          5. We never eat cereal, and we drink our tea black. We never have fresh milk in the house we have dried milk for any one that wants milk.We would buy fresh milk for them is we know they are comming.

    3. 320737+ up ticks,
      Morning A,
      Is that the chap who kicks off with WAKEY,WAKEYYYY ?

  56. This evening’s cocktail is a mojito. A MOJITO.
    With real bruised fresh mint.

      2. A lovely pint although some landlords tells me it can be temperamental.
        I don’t know what they mean, I have always had a loving relationship with it. :¬))

      3. If I were within a stone’s throw of you, Harry, I would stand you a pint of that wonderful beverage.

        Sigh!

        2. Double sigh.
          Although, today being Sunday, a couple of pints of ESB at lunchtime would have topped the Pride.
          ps: Pride march in Oslo yesterday. Just saying… I think it has more to do with bum banditry than fine ale, though… :-((

          1. I’d be more than happy to slum it with their wonderful session ale, Chiswick Bitter.

          2. Cheswick 6 days a week, but a winter Sundy lunchtime is made for strong, heavy ale, a gut-busting flavoursome meal, and plenty slumber in the sofa, with skiing on the TV.
            Sigh… – one can but dream…

          3. “Cheswick”? “Sundy”? Methinks you’ve been at the hidden stash of ESB, Paul! 🤣

          4. Keyboard skills lacking, Grizz.
            :-((
            Anyhow, it was Aspalls Organic cider… dry, only 7,5% and quite tasty.

          5. Keyboard skills lacking, Grizz.
            :-((
            Anyhow, it was Aspalls Organic cider… dry, only 7,5% and quite tasty.

  57. Just been round to our neighbours’ garden for their Open Garden day for NGS. It’s much bigger and tidier than ours.

    1. They may be a band of old men these days but, back in the mid-sixties, their definitive album, Pet Sounds was declared the best pop album ever and, over the past five decades, it has topped more “best albums” polls than any other album in the history of rock/pop music.

    2. We’d better hope it’s not all over, or that’s the U.S. done for by the time whoever is the Democrat president is finished.

    4. As far as his impeachment goes – “Can I Get a Witness”.
      You would need a “Fortune Teller” to predict the outcome of the election.
      Trump to any woman “I wanna be your man” and “Let’s spend the night together”.
      If Trump gets elected it will be “The Last Time”.
      If Trump doesn’t get elected “You can’t always get what you want”.
      If he wins “I’m a King Bee”.

  61. OT – just back indoors to shelter from the gale.

    My tomatoes are a great disappointment. I grew them from seed – four varieties. Planted out 24 – some in the greenhouse the rest outside. The plants are growing well – but very few have any fruit. The first truss set some tomatoes – but subsequent trusses – zilch.

    I have done nothing different to what I have done every year for 40 years – when I have had superb crops. I know it has been hot – but,in Laure, where the crops were enormous, it was much hotter.

    Please send your suggestions on the back of a ten pound note.

    1. It will be down to a lack of diversity somewhere along the line. Try the Uncle Tom variety next time.

          1. Nope – brand new seed.

            In fact the only ones that half-way decent -( a tenth-way decent) – are those grown from saved seed from a Greek variety of toms I grew last year from seed sent me by the late, and much lamented, MartynJ (who died on 1st Jan this year – former civil aviation pilot).

      1. Thanks, but no thanks!

        We need about 40 kilos of tomatoes each summer to make “tomata” to keep for years and from which to make sauces.

        This year, I’ll be lucky to get a couple of pounds of toms. Grrrr.

    6. I now use Yougarden.com. The website is horrendously slow because of lots of hits to the site but their quality is high.

      1. Dear boy – you are missing the point. For over 40 years, I have grown tomatoes from seed. Lots of different varieties. Every year I have had splendid results.

        That one can buy plants…..(yawns) yes, I know that. What puzzles me is why, this year, a lifetime of experience has had such a disappointing outcome.

        1. Sabotage? 🙂 you’re not entered into any Shows are you?

          Not to diss the Master but i too have grown from seed and had failure rates and lacklustre results which made me think why bother.

          You may have a problem with your soil.

          I created an entire raised bed and planted strawberry plants and it brought in earwigs from the next county.

          Diatomacious earth put a stop to those buggers.

  62. I thought that I would get away from the present urban problems by Watching Country File. Its full of some black chap telling us its racism that stops Bames going into the country. Much quoting from the National Park report that said they have to make the parks more diverse. Strewth.

    2. Countryfile has run a similar report at least three time in recent years, usually dragging some reluctant ethnics up onto a cold, bleak moor to explain the glories of the English countryside. You could almost be forgiven for thinking it was done to put them off but no, they always had a wonderful time.

      Reporters/presenters will often say BMEs feel lost in the countryside but to a large proportion of urban whites it is just as much a mystery.

      1. Oh God – imagine how the bames will react when they discover that there ARE sheep of color (sic)…..

    4. its racism that stops Bames going into the country.

      Yeah, they don’t like white people.

    5. …make the parks more diverse.

      We are obviously ahead of the curve, as our woods contain both Black Walnut trees and Black Raspberry bushes.

      I would take the knee to them, but then someone would have to help me up…

    6. Countryfile has run a similar report at least three time in recent years, usually dragging some reluctant ethnics up onto a cold, bleak moor to explain the glories of the English countryside. You could almost be forgiven for thinking it was done to put them off but no, they always had a wonderful time.

      Reporters/presenters will often say BMEs feel lost in the countryside but to a large proportion of urban whites it is just as much a mystery.

      1. The sad thing is that Countryfile has probably increased sheep rustling , deer poaching , swans being nicked to be eaten , dogs pinched, bird nets for trapping ( continentals like them as a delicacy, badger baiting or trapping , ( they taste like pork apparently ) Raptor trapping , owls disturbed , wild orchids nicked, wild garlic picked, frogs vanishing, ravens pinched , and thievery and destructive behaviour in the countryside because there aren’t so many police to keep an eye on things.

        The ethnics have been quick to infiltrate small towns and villages by corrupting youngsters and encouraging County Lines and the drug trade.

        And before I say some thing really rude… there are multitudes of them who have found their way to Durdle Door , Weymouth, Poole and Bournemouth beaches!

        1. The expansion of the EU into central and eastern Europe was great for the UK’s export trade. Agricultural machinery ‘sales’ soared!

    7. It’s all those gates and identity checks as you drive out of London that he’s referring to.

  63. Well, I’ve been to church today. Not to a service of course but it’s a start.

    Fulham Parish Church, which I’ve attended for the last 30 years, is still closed except for a few hours during the week when a maximum of 12 people (this is a large Victorian building) may navigate the garish striped tape sealing off most pews and sit only in the middle of a pew, with no access to the sanctuary, Lady Chapel, Vestry loo or bookshelves.

    Sooo, I took the tube, sans mask, over to Barbican and outside the lovely St Bartholomew the Great is a sign proudly announcing that, “The Church is Open”. Tapes there too but very narrow and discreet and far fewer directions and restrictions. I last went there some 40 years ago. The Norman columns are still wonderful.

    Apparently services at St Barts will resume next week and it’s expected that up to 50 people can attend. None of this is on the website so I asked whether there’s a mailing list and whether it will be necessary to give prior notice. The lady on the reception desk didn’t know but she’s taken my name and email. The Eucharist, maybe, or Evensong, perhaps? https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a40b178a4653511e33cdfbcd43909b9892ca3eda39afd7fd1bffb21250c2da96.jpg

    1. Bravely done, Our Susan – risking the Tube.

      If Welmeaning and the Midwife have their way, St Barts will be closed in short order.

    3. Beautiful church Sue! I expect you’ll be looking forward to worshipping in a setting like that!

    5. What a wonderful church. I think Romanesque and Norman architecture are my favourites in churches.

    1. This is the Eu responding to covid 19.

      Only 4 months late and just a press release of something they ‘might’ do.

    2. This is the Eu responding to covid 19.

      Only 4 months late and just a press release of something they ‘might’ do.

        1. They won’t make it compulsory, but they could make our lives very, very difficult when we refuse, e.g. no foreign travel at a minimum.

          2. They make drugs, discover a great side effect, (viagra) and carry on regardless.

            Even thalidomide is making a comeback for a different problem.

    3. The author must be related to the chap who found such a great use for Zyklon B.

    4. There were reports in the UK press about a month ago about the government planning to go for mandatory vaccinations.

      If a vaccine becomes available I will be getting the medicine, I might just wait a while to see if problems show up problems thanks to the lack of testing.

      1. In about 1975 the firm I worked for (Frederick Gibberd & Partners) insisted on its staff having annual flu jabs. I submitted to the jab with no after effects. The chap following me suffered an immediate allergic reaction and started fluttering around like a trapped chicken. He was given an antidote by a nurse and led away to recover.

        There is a lot of financial interest in the business of producing profitable vaccines. People like Bill Gates are never rich enough and now wish to make even more money from flogging vaccines. In addition such ‘masters of the universe’ think of themselves as so much cleverer than us stupid punters who have bought their shit products and remain dependent on them.

        Unfortunately many vaccines produced by the pharmaceutical companies such as Glaxo Smith Kline (GSK) and Astra Zeneca have proven to be positively dangerous and a factual risk to health. Some countries have banned Bill Gates and his vaccination program and these include a continually long suffering India.

        1. I had my only ‘flu jab when I worked as an apprentice for Markham & Co Ltd in Chesterfield. Within minutes I felt dizzy, threw up and nearly passed out.

          I haven’t felt the desire to repeat that since.

        2. Every time I look into the Gates and India connection, the reports are flagged as false, inaccurate and simply plain wrong.

    2. Good. If only that’s how our lot had started. Bunch of pathetic cowards.

      Corrall them so they can’t escape then nuke the swine. Once they’re unconscious chain them together and break a few bones.

    3. What a pleasure to see. Proper policing to stop the fascists and anarchists from taking over their city.

      1. Then use real bullets. They won’t do it again.

        I am intolerant to their intolerance.

        1. I agree. Heck, if they want to remake Assault on Precinct 13 they’re welcome to.

    1. I admit I rather preferred the book.

      The film was very good if you wanted American actionism but a lot of the horror of war, the grinding down of the human spirit, the ease with which soldiers kill was lost.

      1. Apparently it was difficult to teach most soldiers in WW1 and WW2 to actually try to kill the other side. Hence the brutalising training.

  67. PM responds to Mark Sedwill’s resignation
    28 June 2020, 6:29pm

    Boris Johnson has responded to the resignation of Mark Sedwill, the now former Cabinet Secretary. The full text of The Prime Minister’s handwritten note is below

    https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltf04078f3cf7a9c30/blt5dc023d2a7f79abe/5ef8d393bc5b9a33310a97ec/GettyImages-1157647977.jpg?format=jpg&width=1920&height=1080&fit=crop
    Look at the bloke in the corner

    Dear Mark,

    Over the last few years I have had direct experience of the outstanding service that you have given to the government and to the country as a whole. You took over as Cabinet Secretary in tragic circumstances, and then skilfully navigated us politicians through some exceptionally choppy water: a change of premiership, an election, then Brexit, followed by the crisis of Covid-19, where you were instrumental in drawing up the plan the whole country has by now followed effectively to suppress the virus.

    It has been by any standards a massive contribution – but as PM I have particularly appreciated your calm and shrewd advice, as well as the many useful and amusing notes you have scribbled to me in Cabinet.

    You have also spoken with a unique authority – unusual in a Cabinet Secretary – on international affairs and national security; and as National Security Adviser you have done much to keep this country safe. It is therefore great news that you have agreed to continue to serve this country on the international stage, beginning with the UK’s preparations for the G7 summit next year.

    You have done it all in Whitehall: from Afghanistan to the modernisation of the Civil Service; from immigration policy to Brexit and defeating Coronavirus. After serving for decades with great distinction – and unflappable good humour – I believe you have earned the gratitude of the nation.

    With all best wishes to you and your family,

    Yours ever

    Boris

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/pm-responds-to-mark-sedwill-s-resignation
    Now bugger orff and leave Dom and me in peace

    1. Why do they DO this creepy goodbye malarky?

      If he was as good as Johnson’s eulogy suggests, he would NOT BE GOING……..

      Johnson is growing weaker and stupider by the hour.

      1. It’s good news that it’s one remainiac fewer, but will his replacement be as bad?

    2. What he should have written:-
      “Dear Mark,
      Don’t slam the door behind you.
      Yours never,
      Boris”.

      1. Better still:

        I am instructed by the Prime Minister to inform you
        that your cards can be collected from the Haitch R
        department – at a time to suit them.

        pp Secketary

    3. Simply classic misdirection.

      Boris has been found as useless during the pandemic ( if you hadn’t made your mind up that way before he was ever PM) and so he’s scapegoating the cabinet office and the civil service to shift the blame away from him onto the ‘blob’.

      It’ll probably work as the electorate seems to have a three day memory.

  68. That’s me for this tedious day. Gales; gardening disappointing; chest being, er, chesty.

    Should I get through the night that is to come, going forward, I’ll join you tomorrow.

    2. Re tomatoes: just a thought, given you have nothing to lose.

      nip off all the trusses that are in place.
      Allow the side shoots to start up and then nip out the main stem that is failing.
      Work from the best of the side shoots.

  69. Whoppy doos!!

    Two ice cream vans have just rushed round the Close.

    I never before realised what a part of our History,
    ‘everything is.!

    1. I get one ice-cream van a week, here in the second world. It rings its chimes, stops, the driver gets out, opens a door in the side and hands out a frozen wrapped ice-cream product to any customer waiting in return for payment. No single cornets, wafers or ice-lollies. Just boxes of things.

      If you miss it you have to wait seven days for its return!

        1. I don’t know what it is like in Norway, Paul, but I assure you, Swedish glass is nowhere close to the ice-cream I know.

          1. Depending on the brand, Norwegian is is pretty good.My big indicator – does the strawberry taste of strawberry? (most taste of cardboard) they pass with flying colours.

          2. I am sorry you chaps in Scandiland are unable to enjoy the ice cream that the MR makes. Since she started, about 10 years ago, I have never touched bought ice cream again. The secret is the Gaggia machine. Plus her skill, he adds quickly…

          3. SWMBO makes her own, too. Natty little machine, ingredients apart from dairy from Firstborn’s farm, skill from SWMBO. Taste – lovely! Flavours such as raspberry & ginger, blueberry…

          4. I’m not a fan of fruit ice-creams, only sorbets.

            In ice-cream I go for: vanilla, coffee, toffee, pistachio or coconut. I do like raspberry ripple though (raspberry coulis swirled through vanilla ice-cream).

          5. My all-time favourite is sorbetto limone – made with Sicilian lemons. Can’t get better than that.

          6. I agree. that is sensational.

            A close second is the Granny Smith’s apple sorbet once made by my brother (when he was the head chef of Hartwell House at Stone, near Aylesbury).

          16. I was only talking about shop-bought ice-cream. I also make my own.

            [When I don’t, Häagen-Dazs’ vanilla (and their coffee) are unbeatable.]

          17. On holiday in Norway we discovered pistachio ice cream. Yum.
            That was 1994. Still available?

          19. Easy enough to make at home. Just make a crème anglaise (custard with eggs), add some chopped (raw, unsalted) pistachios and churn in machine like Billy’s MR has.

          20. I adore fresh strawberries but I can’t stand anything made with them (jelly, jam, custard, etc). They all taste artificial.

            Raspberries, on the other hand, are divine in all guises.

    2. An ice cream van visits this area with pre orders .. exotic sundaes and that sort of thing , and they charge a fortune .

      No thanks !

    3. I wanted two flakes not one. And you forgot the strawberry sauce and chopped nuts. Go catch that van, woman !

    1. Am I the only person on the planet who hasn’t seen “The Sound of Music” – or wanted to?

      2. No you’re not, Aeneas! I also have that distinction, along with other ‘blockbusters’ including Jaws, Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Matrix, The Godfather and many more.

          1. Saw it at the cinema, Tooting Granada, back in the day,
            Didn’t have much choice in it, I suppose.

      5. I have never had any desire to watch that film even though I am an unreconstructed fan of (sometimes cheesy) 1950s and 1960s film musicals.

        My favourites being: West Side Story, Oklahoma!, Oliver!, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, My Fair Lady, Carousel, Guys And Dolls and South Pacific.

        1. Having heard some of the songs in “The Sound of Music”, I think that, instead of watching it, I would get a similar experience by mixing two pounds of sugar in a pint of water and drinking it in one go.

  71. 320736+ up ticks,
    “months of following the rules and now a raft of petty new measures”.
    Really what is the difference after having years of the same via the hands of the same type pro eu rubber stamper politico’s ? none.

    Is there a covert all party governance department that employs mentally
    impaired politico’s thinking up these new rules / regs. as in a ” fodder for fools ” office squirreled away some where ?
    This is the lab/lib/cons coalition hierarchy’s bread and caviar work, first they create a problem then set about solving it rhetorically, only.

  73. It’s official, Chess is racist

    Apparently it has the same amount of white squares as black squares.

    2. No monochrome on my chess set. The squares (and chessmen) are mid-brown and beige.

      1. My father brought me a tourist chess set back from Kenya.

        The principal pieces are Africans in traditional dress with the exception of the castles, which are straw roofed huts and the knights which are impala (?) The pawns are male Africans with no head dress.

        It’s strange to play a game because the pieces are so unlike the Staunton a chess player is usually used to.

        1. I used to be part-owner of a resin copy of a set based on the Lewis Chessmen.

          It was really weird attempting to play with them!

          1. It must depend on how one was taught.

            My “real” set is a standard Staunton, the King is 4″ high and the rest are in proportion. I inherited it from my grandfather, who taught me to play.

            I also inherited the walnut side table that opens into a chess table. The quality of the marquetry has to be seen to be believed.

            It is one of the most beautiful and sentimental things that I possess. He was international master standard and he used to play socially with C H O’D Alexander on that very board. I doubt he ever won, but he must have been good enough, to rate the friendship.

  75. To date it’s now 5 times this year i have had to change my password to log in to disqus,……… don’t ask why, it’s impossible to fathom it out.
    And despite the change it still wont recognise me on my mobile phone.

    Watching numerous Glastonbury clips spread over many years, one thing has become overwhelmingly obvious, there have been some great moments of popular live music, rain shine mud and other wise, love it or not. But there has also been over the years many great and not so great bands and singers ‘of colour’ on the stage. But the bbc camera crews whose management must have been beside themselves in shock horror and even desperation. Unless i have missed a trick or two. They have not been able to focus or ‘pan in’ (as usually happens) on even one person of colour in the massive crowds watching the festival. I cant make that out, seemingly none had actually turned up at one of the worlds most popular music festivals to make their lives matter. ???

      1. If you are using an iPad it is not possible to stay logged in; as soon as you go on to another site not only are you logged out but thrown out! And ditto when you close the iPad at the end of the evening. However someone here may tell me where I am going wrong….!

          1. Err….!

            I delete cookies and history from time to time, that is all….

        2. I don’t know what you are doing differently from me but I never have to sign in again if I go from Nottlers to Daily Telegraph back to Nottlers.
          If I find out I will let you know.

        4. As someone in Sweden will tell you that Apple surpasses all that was ever invented on ‘tinternet.

          Subscribe, Subscribe, Subscribe, to the wonders of the rotten apple.

        5. Oh…….I’ve never used an iPad – and it sounds a bit tricky. I’ll stick to my old laptop.

          1. iPads do have their advantages, one being that you can v. quickly flick from one web page to another – I do like the speed and ease of access snd simply the ‘portability’. Lap-tops also have their advantages, for example the off-screen keyboard. An iPad would not be good office equipment, but great if you are ‘on the move’ for instant internet access.

      2. I don’t log out, i seem to have been stopped from signing in on my phone, it makes no sense surely i don’t need two different passwords, it says either you have entered the wrong information or the email address is already allocated. Of course, it’s mine ???

        1. No idea – I’ve got a new phone and I’m struggling with it – I can’t find Disqus at all – I did a search on Google and it came up with various options for Disqus, but none included signing in to use it. So I’m sticking to my old laptop. I do like to be able to use Disqus when I’m out or away, but that hasn’t been an option lately.

          2. No – but I’ll give that go! This phone’s defeated me on several counts – I don’t even know why it keeps whistling at me, but I guess it’s some sort of notification.

          3. I think I’ll have to give up trying to get logged in on my phone. I’m absolutely fed up tying to avoid all the addons and intrusive ‘cookies’. It’s not at all what i want from it.

          4. I had a go last night – and found “nttl.blog” so that’s a start, but logging in defeated me so far as there was not enough connectivity in here to do the Capcha. I find my new phone will only pick up our network if I’m downstairs.
            Will see if I can do it today – the phone is so much more complicated than the old one – masses of stuff I never need. I did manage to get Ad-block to work on it though.

          5. I can’t understand any of it. I can read all the comments on my phone, but as soon as i try to log in it tells me I’m not who i am ???
            It’s quite handy as i have one person blocked and i can read the comments on my phone and reply to the people he’s trying to antagonise on my PC 🤣

      1. Only last week I made a Spotify play list for 1961 on my computer and this track has pride of place.

    3. This never gets dated, wonderful music! Jack and I saw them in concert at the Birmingham Town Hall sometime in the sixties.

  77. The Saudis are allowing the Hajj to take place this year. Millions of Muslims worldwide make the pilgrimage to Mecca each year and many sometimes die in the process due to stampedes etc. Will our government allow UK residents to take part in this pilgrimage. The 5 day mingling in Mecca with millions of people seems to be a risk of a COVID- 19 spike or worse when they return to the UK.

    2. I read in The Grimes that they were limiting the attendance to 1,000 – and all those only from Saudi Arabia.

      1. Morning Bill – The above is what I gathered from BBC Radio 4 news this morning. I may have misheard,

        1. Wednesday’s Grimes:

          “Saudi Arabian officials have announced that only about a thousand Muslim pilgrims, all from inside the country, will be permitted to perform the annual pilgrimage to Mecca this year, an unprecedented curtailment due to the coronavirus pandemic.

          Saudi Arabia’s Hajj minister, Mohammed Benten, said that allowing a “small and very limited” number of people to perform the pilgrimage meant that the Hajj would not have to be cancelled, while minimising the danger of a fresh coronavirus outbreak.

          No one over the age of 65 will be allowed on the Hajj, which Muslims are expected to perform in their lifetime, and people taking part will be quarantined before and after the event. Social distancing will be enforced, which takes place in late July. “This is a very sensitive operation.” Mr Benten said.”

          They may have changed their wily oriental minds, of course.

    3. I have no doubt whatsoever that many more will “return” from it than actually go.

    4. Look for the announcement of an air bridge to Saudi.

      It wouldn’t do to have the pilgrims do a fourteen day quarantine.

  78. With England’s forthcoming Test series against the West Indies due to take place in empty stadia, here’s a reminder of when spectators were allowed to watch matches – and when commentators knew how to commentate.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006w4kp/episodes/player

    1984 – Lord’s – Gordon Greenidge’s one-legged double century
    1991 – Headingley – Graham Gooch’s one-man epic against Ambrose, Walsh, Marshall and Patterson
    1995 – Old Trafford – Dominic Cork’s hat-trick, the first by an England bowler in 38 years
    2000 – Lord’s – four innings in a day

    Not long left to watch some of them.

      1. I think it was at Worcester on a breezy day where John Arlott, drinking claret in a lean-to commentary box, likened the sound of the gently swaying trees around the ground to the “sigh of a contented woman”.

          1. Me too Grizz. I recently came across some signed cricket scorecards from the sixties. In those days Bath was a second county ground to Taunton.

            We were given a day off school to see the South Africans and the West Indies. After a day’s play we would wait outside the players’ changing rooms and plead for autographs on our scorecards.

            I have prized autographs of fabulous players like Sonny Ramadhin and Colin Bland.

            The Bath Recreation Ground is now given over exclusively to Bath Rugby. Fred Truman had complained about the pitch after Somerset beat Yorkshire on the track.

          2. Did you get to see two of my three favourite cricketers: Sir Garfield Sobers and Graeme Pollock?

            [The other is Sir Donald Bradman, whom I never saw play (obviously) but whose birthplace in Cootamundra and home in Bowral, both New South Wales, I have visited.]

          3. Unfortunately not.

            When West Indies visited Bath both Wes Hall and Charlie Griffiths went missing from their team against Somerset. I think I have Lance Gibbs in addition to Sonny Ramadhin.

            I was told at that time that both were relaxing in the city centre. I discovered subsequently that both were chasing tail in the centre.

          4. A schoolboys’ cricket club, in a village near to where I grew up, won a competition; the prize was a trip to the West Indies. A woman from the village who was an English teacher, though had no connection with boys, was asked if she would accompany the boys, as a guardian/nurse, on the trip, all expenses paid. Naturally she agreed.

            After they had arrived at Georgetown, Barbados, the boys ran out of the accommodation to play on the beach and left the teacher in the beach hotel to sort everything out. There was a knock on the door and when she answered it, she found two very tall black men standing there and smiling at her. Those two tall black chaps, Sir Garfield Sobers and Courtney Walsh, took her out on a tour of the island. They told her that if she or the boys needed any help, over any matter, just to contact them.

            She told me, on her return, that the hospitality that she and her charges received from everyone was top notch.

    2. were the pigeons on the pitch, like at Canterbury, with John Arlott, now there was a reporter/commontata

      1. There wouldn’t have been pigeons on the pitch at Canterbury, as it isn’t a Test Match ground. A tree, yes.

  80. 320736+ up ticks,
    Could it be that the islamic ideology war has started well ahead of the indigenous taking any action apart from dancing policemen ?

    Who is in charge, seems to me like large exterior payouts are made for services rendered once governance position ceases.

    Why does HOPE play such a major role with the electorate in regards to the ballot booth ?

    1. Please let me know if you discover that Hepple is looking to crowdfund a court case against his former employer.

      1. Unless he broke the company rules, by using their phone or computer to place the order, or took time off, or in some way violated the requirements set out in the Employee hand book then, provided that he has been employed for more than two years he will have a very good case for unfair (indeed, illegal) dismissal.
        Some thought is required as when Ed Balls illegally sacked Shoesmith, he delivered her a shed-load of money. She could have been legally fired within the space of a week, but Balls, erm, made a mess of it.

        1. 320736+ up ticks,
          Evening S,
          Paradigm Precision
          1Bentley wood way,
          Hapton,
          Burnley
          BB11 5TG.
          As far as I can make out.

  84. This woman is dumb as a box of bricks.

    Even faced with the evidence in front of her she continues ranting away, oblivious to the fact that black kids kill other black kids. That they need someone to stand on their necks because some of them can’t be trusted to behave:

    https://twitter.com/i/status/1275837563312488448

    1. “Madam, please may I stab you with this? I’m not convinced it is a knife.”

      1. Why does Black Lives Matter only care about black lives when white people are threatening them?
        The movement presents an inaccurate and infantilising view of society, which strips black people of all agency

        On a muggy night in August 2016, three laughing Dallas police officers pinned 32-year-old Tony Timpa to the ground, pushed his face into the grass, placed a knee on his back and held him there for 14 minutes until he was dead. The parallels with the appalling killing of George Floyd are disturbing and uncanny. Like Floyd, Timpa was unarmed, pleaded for his life, repeatedly called for help and begged policemen to stop.

        But both cases do differ in one significant respect; Tony Timpa was white. The cases and the wildly differing public and political reactions to them expose some disturbing and inconvenient truths for the ascendant Black Lives Matter movement and for society as whole. Timpa’s only crime was calling the police officers (one of whom was black) for help as a result of taking illegal drugs after coming off his medication for depression and schizophrenia.

        Floyd on the other hand had been a criminal who, despite being killed during an extended stretch of apparent probity, had served several long stints in prison for violent crimes including breaking into a pregnant woman’s home in the middle of the night and pressing a loaded gun into her belly. Yet Floyd has been deified by politicians and media outlets across the world while Timpa – whose killers have never faced the justice awaiting Floyd’s – is unknown. Why?

        It would be both foolish and offensive not to acknowledge the horrendous catalogue of suffering and injustice endured by black Americans like Floyd at the hands of US police. But the death of Timpa and the thousands of other Americans of all colours who have died as a result of police brutality exposes the inflammatory Black Lives Matter narrative of a racist police force specifically killing black people as a myth.

        Between 2015 and 2019 black people accounted for 26.4 per cent of all those killed by US police while almost double that figure, 50.3 per cent, were white. Equally, while black Americans account for just 12 per cent of the population they are responsible for 52.5 per cent of all murders, with the vast majority of victims also being black. In London, despite comprising just 13 per cent of the population, almost half of all murder suspects and victims are also black. And of the 163 people killed in British police custody in the past 10 years, just 13 were black.

        Every death inflicted by the police is a tragedy. But does the fact that white people are still 25 per cent more likely to die in British police custody than black people really represent the “pandemic” of black people being killed “every day” that BLM and, on occasion, the BBC and broadcasters, have parroted since Floyd’s death? Why then, if black lives really do matter, is BLM perpetuating a false narrative that black people exist at the mercy of homicidal white persecution, and why are they not exposing the reality that the biggest killer of black people is very often our own community? Where is their outrage at the scores of young black adults killed by other young black adults on the streets of London and Chicago? And why are BLM abetted in their campaign of misinformation and incitement by an irresponsible mainstream media and a supine political class?

        The answer is clear. It is because BLM feeds into the same wretched culture of victimhood and oppression that has been cynically championed by the left for decades. By continually caricaturing black people as perpetual victims of systemic white racism it infantilises them by depicting us as stupid, helpless and impotent cultural punchbags, forever crushed beneath externalised discriminatory forces beyond our control.

        It is a grotesque form of reanimated cultural imperialism that envisages a world in which every black action can only ever be a reaction to white provocation, as if we were little more than flaccid puppet minstrels forever tied to the string of white mastermind omnipotence. In so doing, black people are absolved of our need to take responsibility for our own actions and futures and must instead await salvation by accepting that our own freedom and empowerment are not ours to claim but a white establishment’s to give.

        Oddly, it is a cult enthusiastically energised by successful black personalities, with the likes of John Boyega, Afua Hirsch and Stormzy absurdly claiming that the society in which they gained their own success is somehow systemically inclined to withhold it from all their black peers. And this cult is founded on a toxic crucible: slavery. Martin Luther King talked of freedom far more than he talked of slavery. Yet now the civil rights lexicon has been reversed and slavery is now the historical deadweight from which BLM and its liberal enablers refuse to let black people escape.

        Yes, the Atlantic slave trade was a horrendous evil. But to claim that a 400-year-old event that adapted barbarous Arab and African practices that had already been in place for thousands of years is responsible for unilaterally framing the life choices and experiences of black people today is as preposterous as suggesting that cruise ship bookings are still hampered by the Titanic. It is also a claim that might attain more integrity were it accompanied by even a scintilla of concern for the estimated 40 million people worldwide trapped in slavery today.

        BLM’s twisted narratives have been underscored by a liberal establishment and mainstream media that deploys identity politics to objectify and homogenise black people. In so doing it offensively lumps all black people into a vast cultural tick-box in which, by magical virtue of our pigmentation, we have all been gifted with the telepathic ability to think, eat, act and talk exactly the same way.

        Yet by ignorantly conflating the richness and diversity of the black experience into a single diminished entity, patronising, reductionist terms like the black and dreaded BAME “community” invariably flow and perpetuate an embattled sense of “otherness” that merely succeeds in further separating and marginalising black people from mainstream society.

        And, like all good liberal pogroms, this homogenisation is specifically designed to disenfranchise individuality, sever the links between black people and our brothers and sisters in other racial groups and, most importantly, to achieve the hallowed liberal goal of glorifying difference. And glorifying difference is exactly what BLM and the Marxist junta it seeks to establish is all about.

        True integration – where character matters more than colour and George Floyd could just as easily have become a cardiologist as a criminal – was the utopian vision on which Martin Luther King based his dream, and it should be the goal of all mature Western democracies. But celebrating difference is intolerable to a guilt-ridden liberal elite groggy on the opiate of multiculturalism. Instead it embraced the tyranny of diversity to obscure integration and emphasise what divides us rather than what unites us.

        We now see this tyranny being prosecuted in a McCarthyan culture war that seeks to expunge white post-imperialist liberal guilt and self-loathing by unilaterally imposing its revisionist, puritanical values on society and toppling all ideological dissenters from Gone With the Wind to historical statues. But make no mistake, this naïve identinarian purge could not just incite the odious far right but sow enough resentment and division to set back race relations by years.

        Racism is real and horrific and must be rooted out wherever it is found. But the UK, and England in particular, has offered sanctuary and prosperity to generations of immigrants who in turn have helped to transform it into one of the most welcoming and inclusive societies in the world. Moreover the way to defeat racism is to not through the divisive rhetoric and crass militancy of a movement that seeks to commoditise black suffering to perpetuate the divisive, defeatist myth of white privilege.

        The answer is for black people not to define ourselves by how others may define us but to realise that we and we alone are the key to empowering our lives and claiming the freedom that is everyone’s right. Yes, of course the lives of George Floyd and all black people matter. But so too did the life of Tony Timpa. And the life of the innocent unborn black baby Floyd threatened to execute in its mother’s womb.

        Until black people take responsibility for their role in ending and oppressing the lives of other black people and until the regressive liberal elite realises that sowing division and resentment will lead to genuine systemic inequality, then black lives will only continue to matter on the rare occasions when white people take them.

        https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/28/does-black-lives-matter-care-black-lives-white-people-threatening/

        Ike Ijeh is an architect and criti

        1. Autopsy says Floyd was on a cocktail of drugs, including fentanyl, which coupled with heart disease was more likely to have killed him. My understanding is that the police had already called an ambulance and were restraining him until it arrived. They should have kept a closer eye on his state of consciousness.

        2. This article makes very good points, but misses one vital one.
          BLM isn’t about improving black lives. It’s about the overthrow of our capitalist system, installing socialism/communism, with themselves in positions of power. Think ANC. That’s closer to their role model. And we all know how the Afrikaaners are faring….

        3. “Why does Black Lives Matter only care about black lives when white people are threatening them?”
          Because they want to cause confusion, hatred and conflict, and the easiest way is to set black against white. They don’t give a shit about black lives, or anybody’s lives, they just want revolution.
          Read agon the tirade below, copied from NTTL a few days ago:
          11 things that BLM UK advocates:

          1. BLM wants to ‘dismantle capitalism’
          This objective might come as a shock to many of those who have donated to the BLM cause. It might come as a particular surprise to Premier League footballers like Man City’s Kevin De Bruyne, whose shirt at Monday’s game against Burnley was emblazoned with the organisation’s slogan. De Bruyne is City’s top earner and is paid £350,000 a week. It is unlikely he would fare as well without capitalism.
          2. BLM says climate change is ‘racist’
          BLM’s attempt to blockade Heathrow and London City airports in 2016 was greeted with widespread bemusement. Why was ‘Black Lives Matter’ trying to stop people going on holiday? The answer: ‘Climate crisis is a racist crisis,’ the group said on its Twitter feed. ‘Black people are the first to die, not the first to fly, in this racist climate crisis,’ it added.
          3. BLM wants to abolish prisons
          ‘Prisons and detention centres should be abolished,’ BLM UK has said. It seems likely that Britain’s 80,000 prisoners would approve, but do the thousands who have donated to BLM also back this policy? And what should happen to those convicted of violent crimes like murder if there are no prisons?
          4. BLM wants to get rid of borders
          Britain’s borders are ‘enforced by extreme violence,’ according to BLM UK, which proposes that open borders might be the answer.
          5. BLM says unemployment is ‘violence’
          Not having a job is miserable, but is it really ‘violence’? Yes, according to BLM UK.
          6. BLM condemns stop and search
          Tragically, a quarter of those killed with a knife in Britain last year were black. This is the highest proportion since records began more than twenty years ago. Stop and search is far from perfect but it is a key strategy for police to ensure that more black teenagers don’t have their lives cut short. Yet BLM describes an uptick in what it calls ‘racist’ stop and search as ‘violence’.
          7. BLM wants to get rid of the police
          The group says it seeks to ‘develop’ and ‘deliver…strategies for the abolition of police’
          8. BLM says the government appointment of a Pakistani heritage woman is ‘racist’
          Munira Mirza is something of a great British success story. Mirza, a working-class northerner of Pakistani heritage, was the only pupil in her sixth form to win a place at Oxford. Mirza now heads up the No.10 policy unit. So how did BLM react when she was tasked by the PM with setting up a commission on racial inequality? ‘This appointment is racist,’ BLM UK said.
          9. BLM condemned the suffragettes
          Suffragettes ultimately secured the vote for women in Britain. A progressive step? BLM UK doesn’t appear to be convinced: ‘Despite what you might’ve learned at school, many suffragettes were also working to advance White power,’ the organisation has tweeted.
          10. BLM said Churchill is ‘staunchly racist’
          Without Churchill it seems all but certain that Britain would have lost the war to Nazi Germany. And yet while Churchill was clearly no saint, is it fair to describe him – as BLM does on its Facebook page – as ‘staunchly racist’?
          11. BLM describes big charities as ‘colonisers’
          ‘Big charities are nothing more than colonisers repackaged for the 21st century,’ according to BLM on its official UK Facebook page.
          As a result of some of these policies, aims and statements coming to light, there is growing disquiet among supporters who have stumped up cash only to discover what BLM UK really stands for. BLM UK is also continuing to resist calls to be more transparent about its leadership because of concerns about a possible threat from far-right activists. Instead, in responding to questions about who runs it, BLM UK says: ‘We assure you all organisers involved with BLM UK are Black (not politically black, Black and of the African and Caribbean diaspora) and the funds raised will be diligently used to transform the nature of Black life in the UK.’

        6. Back in 2014, in Missouri, a white police officer shot and killed a black man who was armed and resisting arrest. That same week a black policeman in Utah shot a white man who was armed and resisting arrest. In Utah, there was calm and people waited for the results of the inquiry. In Missouri, there were riots, arson and looting which went on for days. In the end it was found that the officer acted justifiably in the Missouri case, and the rioting started again.

          Meanwhile every year in the US, thousands of black men are killed by other black men, often involving street shootouts with passers by, including children being “collateral damage”. Does any of this evoke any response from the black community? Nope. And as the article says, until that behavior changes, the black community cannot really expect too much sympathy.

          1. It is never going to happen while Democrats follow the lines they have always followed.

            Sow dissent, blame Republicans, rinse and repeat.

            Until both parties point the finger where it belongs and take a united front BL won’t M.

      2. The stupid, ranting b*tch will always believe that yer Plod (including the black plod) planted the knife on the pore innercent boy.

  86. Good evening, all. The Connemara has done some really nice lateral movements yesterday and today – shoulder in and travers. So much so that today we managed a half pass. He’ll never be Valegro, but he does his best 🙂

    3. Gold-plated pension – peerage if he wants it – seats as non-executive director on various boards. Lovely jubbly!

      1. People who for years have tried to frustrate the democratic decision of Brexit should never be forgotten. Their name should be spoken with the contempt it deserves.

        1. 320736+ up ticks,
          Evening VVOF,
          Right enough regarding the 48% en masse but to let an individual know the strength of peoples feelings against him/her/it brings a sense of achievement to decent folk.

  88. Snark’s corner:

    Apparently Yul Brynner, star of The King and I, etc., was a massive Liverpool fan.
    He was also allergic to aftershave.
    That’s why Yul never wore cologne.

  90. Interestingly, it appears that former Prime Minister May was hired for the 8 recent US speaking events, for which she received $1,250,000 plus expenses, by investment banks normally represented at Davos, and by two universities. Apparently the attendees did not have to pay to attend the events although they were free ticketed at the universities. I don’t know the audience sizes at present.

    Looks a very different situation to many unconnected individuals spontaneously buying tickets for a popular event.

    2. Let’s face it – would anyone pay to hear the most boring woman on earth speak?

      1. Exactly, and I don’t think the speeches were the object of this exercise.

          1. Just before.

            Other speeches are on hold so that $1,250,000 plus expenses is going upwards.

        1. Perhaps easing and promoting the future introduction of global government which has just been called for by Antonio Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations ?

          Coincidence, or what ?

  93. Good night, my friends

    Thought of an original post but it will have to wit until tomorrow..

  94. From the BBC website:
    “The family of a man shot dead by police following multiple stabbings in Glasgow say they are shocked and saddened by what happened.
    Suspect Badreddin Abadlla Adam, who was 28 and from Sudan, was named by police following the incident on Friday.
    Almadi, who is a member of Glasgow’s Sudanese community, spoke to the BBC on condition of anonymity.”
    BBC at it’s incoherent best. The knife-wielding person is a suspect! (Almadi is a member of his family. Obviously.)
    Only extreme right wing, hard right, extremists would ask, how is it that there is a Sudanese Community in Glasgow? This is yet more evidence, as if any were required, that diversity and integration are utterly incompatible. We bear the brunt of the breakdown in the social order.

    (PS. The rape of young girls in Glasgow seems to be running at around one a fortnight. But kept quite quiet in the MSM.)

    For the rest “https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-53211998”

    2. Surely, he’s a slightly deranged Norwegian Methodist. Move along, nothing to see here.

    4. Wannabet it isn’t choreographed with the captain standing and an explanation in the program?

        1. You may have guessed, but I’m the go to cynic for cynics.

          She’s the focal point, hand on heart, arm behind.

          I’d like to see her comments, if any.

  98. Good night all.

    Single rib of beef & a simple salad, followed by summer pudding & cream.

    1. Sounds good – we had roast half soulder of lamb with new pots, peas, beans & baby swetcorn. Preceded by smoked salmon but no pudding.

      1. Pot-roasted slow-cooked brisket of beef, done with celery, onion and carrot. Served with mangetouts and green beans from the garden and new potatoes. Peaches (from the garden last year) and ice cream. A bottle of Cahors Malbec.

        1. I like Cahors! We had NZ sauvignon with the salmon, then I finished off a Bordeaux (started the other night) with the lamb.

          3. Good to know, John. So are a lot of things, but I ain’t taking warfarin.

          4. Cahors is about a 30 minute drive from here. We discovered a particular Malbec in London and sought out the vineyard. We now make a day out of it, a nice lunch somewhere, trip to the vineyard to buy a few cases and home again. I recently discovered that a wine we buy there for 8€ a bottle is in Selfridges at £18!

          5. I used to buy Cahors before I discovered the Argentine Malbecs. It’s still the best.

      2. Nearly snap!

        Half a roast shoulder of lamb, freshly dug up spuds, cauliflower, French beans, steamed cabbage, mushy peas, onion gravy and mint sauce.

        No starter but a pudding of fresh strawberries and vanilla ice-cream. To drink: a pint of water.

        1. We had a light fishy meal

          Grilled salmon fillets, Jersey Royals, freshly podded peas , broccoli, carrots and a chunk of lemon.

          Apple crumble and custard.

  101. Nick Timothy tells us……….

    ”Justin Welby is rewriting the principles that hold our societies together. The Archbishop’s belief that we are collectively guilty is a dangerous idea that is not Christian at all”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/06/28/justin-welby-rewriting-principles-hold-societies-together/

    ”Oh, Dave, just one more thing…”

    ”Yes, George, please give me your instructions…. ”

    ”I’d like my friend, Justin, to be Archbishop of Canterbury”.

    ”Yes, my Lord, of course… thy will be done”.

    ”Thank you, Dave, and don’t forget the Marriage Act as we agreed……you may go…. ”.

    1. Who has the authority to sack Welby ?

      In the interests of Britain – and the CoE – it needs doing ASAP …

    2. Did you see my post on Friday night? :

      Follow the trail:

      SATAN > SOROS > CAMERON > WELBY.

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