Tuesday 30 June: When the nation needs the Church to unite it, Justin Welby divides it

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/06/29/letters-nation-needs-church-unite-justin-welby-divides/

797 thoughts on “Tuesday 30 June: When the nation needs the Church to unite it, Justin Welby divides it”

    1. Amusing cartoon, but the reckless wreckers are not the politicians outside but the snivel serpents inside the car. About time they were forced out.

      1. Boris and his pals are not wreckers, Elsie. They are applying what is called “Pimp your ride” to the ‘Rolls Royce’ quality Civil Service.

    1. But what the cartoon fails to note is that the newspapers which print these kind of cartoons are the ones who promote the fear itself – Boris is much more upbeat and encouraging.

  3. https://youtu.be/d4fBx5X6Fvw

    BTL:

    P Sutherland
    30 Jun 2020 2:54AM
    At first I was impressed by the video above showing the conservator working on restoring the statue of Edward Colston. But then she said she was most anxious to preserve the painted graffiti as it is now part of the statue’s “story”. What a sickening disgrace! Clean it all off, restore the statue and put it back on its plinth where it belongs. Anything less is to bow to lawlessness and anarchy.

      1. “We” haven’t.
        For about 50 years, the Left have infiltrated this country, while “we” did our best to be good parents and law abiding citizens.
        The Left are the equivalent of Death Watch Beetle in a church’s timbers. Talking of the church ….

        3. We did though, anne. We voted Conservative, even when they did nothing about the problem.
          I was at university with half the current cabinet! The standard of politicians was so high in the 80s, that I didn’t see the urgency of saving the next generation, and I did my best to be a good parent while this shower of rogues swarmed into politics.
          When Gove and Cameron were running the Cons, Central Office actively blocked good candidates from becoming Conservative MPs. I’ve seen it all happening, and most people didn’t even seem to be aware of what was going on. But yes, I could have maybe done something about it if I’d had more courage, more time, more motivation.

          1. Not all of us, bb2. Some saw the light and voted for alternatives – some of us even campaigned for alternatives.

          2. I was a member of UKIP too. But by then it was already too late. It was already serious when Ray Honeyford was sacked in the 80s for telling the truth. We just couldn’t believe what we were seeing. All my life, we’ve lost one battle after another.

          4. That’s why Cummings and Boris’s apparent determination to keep him in the job are so important. I just hope Boris doesn’t crumble because it’s going to get a lot worse.
            I’m disgusted by how many decisions are being made by government and by companies based on twitter.

          6. Sigh. Both I guess. They are probably not unrelated.
            We will never run out of fools, the supply is endless.

          7. And some off us still are, Conway,
            but it is an increasingly uphill battle!
            It is one thing to attempt to attract
            new members, but quite another
            thing to cope with the NEC and
            the man who knows everything….
            and takes continual delight in letting
            us know how superiorly intelligent
            he is….to the rest of the UK public
            and us…..paying members of UKIP!!

          8. I know. We have the right message, we’re needed. It’s just that the structure gets in the way!

    2. But the mud from the bottom of the harbour is also ‘part of the statue’s “story”.’ So why is that being cleaned off?
      You do wonder sometimes if people actually listen to what’s issuing from their own mouths.

    3. She wouldn’t have to restore it if the police had done their job in the first place.

      As for leaving the graffiti on – dear life woman. Don’t be a pillock. It’s no more part of the statue than vomit on the street.

      1. There was a news snippet yesterday of some US statue that had received the same treatment. One of the protesters was demanding that the graffiti was not removed “It is our art, it is as much a part of history as the statue”.
        Our TV definitely needs a screen to divert flying objects of derision.

        1. If they want to make art, they can do so on their own property. This isn’t art, it’s vandalism.

  5. SIR – As I read of yet more apologies, I can’t help thinking that what we need is a National Apology Day. Everyone could apologise for all offending remarks past and future, and get this boring business out of the way.

    Johannes Gidding
    Prestbury, Cheshire

    2. I’ll apologise when I do something wrong. Until then, I won’t. I refuse to be responsible for the actions of others.

      What I am sorry for is the pig ignorant idiocy of looting vandals for not appreciating just how damned magnificent this country is.

  6. SIR – I am gravely concerned by the Prime Minister’s economic proposals (“Boris Johnson says it’s time for ‘Rooseveltian approach to economy’”, telegraph.co.uk, June 29).

    It is tempting for any government to increase public spending when people and the press shriek that something must be done during an economic downturn. However, it is proven that you cannot spend your way out of a recession.

    Two past Conservative governments made this mistake. The Barber boom of the Seventies and the Lawson boom of the Eighties created inflationary bubbles that burst and caused economic strife.

    The “Rooseveltian” approach, for all the uncritical lionising given it in school textbooks, has been shown to be a failure; President Roosevelt’s New Deal created another American recession in 1937.

    The Prime Minister needs to hold his fiscal nerve. The only thing that will revive the economy is consumer and business confidence.

    Robert Frazer
    Salford, Lancashire

    Unemployment increased during Roosevelt’s New Deal. WWII solved that problem.

    1. Government spending always results in unemployment and debt. It might work in the short term, but long term it is like borrowing from a payday lender. A slippery slope of debt.

  7. SIR – Simon Heffer’s criticism of Arts Council England (Arts, June 27) left me deeply disturbed. This is not because he questions our “Let’s Create” strategy – I am always happy to debate the direction of cultural policy.

    I object to the prejudice he displays by suggesting that disabled, black, Asian, LGBT or female artists would be any less gifted or deserving of financial support than – well, who does that list not include? White men. He has inspired me to think that Britain’s quilters and hip-hop poets, on whom he also pours scorn, should forge an alliance to make beautiful art together.

    Dr Darren Henley
    Chief Executive, Arts Council England
    London WC1

    Hmmm. Surely a candidate for defunding?

    1. BTL:

      j l johnson
      30 Jun 2020 7:04AM

      Darren Henley’s letter is very short, but it manages to say everything that is wrong with the arts in this country.

      Simon Heffer did NOT say what Dr Henley suggests, he simply made the point – a contentious one, unbelievably – that the arts should be created by the most talented people, rather than viewed at all times through the prism of identity politics. Apparently the man in charge of the Arts Council is unable to understand this point, or (more likely) unwilling to implement it.

      White people are the vast majority in this country, Dr Henley. Every argument being made at present on the subject of race can be distilled down to that one simple fact. Blacks are around 3%. Whites are around 85%. Therefore our culture must by definition be the dominant one.

      In cycling, as in everything else.

      1. Every argument being made at present on the subject of race can be distilled down to that one simple fact. Blacks are around 3%. Whites are around 85%. Therefore our culture must by definition be the dominant one.

        Excellent comment.
        I’m copying that for future use!

        1. It’s the wrong way to look at the issue though.

          We are part of a shared culture. A common society. If we divide ourselves by colour then we are, by default racist. This is why I so detest the black lives group.

          If we are not part of that shared culture, or one group rejects it then that group must stand alone and if it feels so radically different, leave – as it is free to do. What they cannot expect is that we will bend to it. Accommodate some elements, but not accept them. that permits the fringe elements to have their own say and traditions – such as Nottinghill, the communists, the green fanatics, even PETA, Islam, Christians – and we adopt some of those values such as legislating against animal cruelty, allowing the call to prayer (although i wish we didn’t) and Christian values but fundamentally they cannot be allowed to stop the flow of the river but only contribute to it.

          Anything else is letting the hair on the tip of the tail of the dog, wag the dog.

      2. Please stop this categorising the British into “White” and “Black” right away. We are not Americans, with one group of settlers set up to wage cultural war with another. We went through our invasion-and-genocide phase a thousand years ago. During the time of Empire, it was something we preferred to keep offshore.

        In the UK, it is a struggle between indigenes and alien settlers, determined to establish their cultural norms in their new homelands. As an indigene, I do not like this alien intrusion, and certainly do not feel their collaborators to represent my country. I welcome foreigners here and enjoy the richness of their diverse food and culture, but they are here as honoured guests, not as settlers and invaders.

        1. Gawd: I do hope you don’t enjoy a curry.
          Or fajitas; or pizza; or even gin, since that’s a Dutch invention.
          No croissants washed down with coffee today as I don’t want BLM interrupting my breakfast.

          1. Umm… honoured guests, not settlers.

            A croissant (as a representation) has not said that we must all eat croissants every day. Nor has it imposed French culture on us. we have adopted it. It has not been imposed on us.

          2. You are making me feel guilty about the chicken soup I’ve got on the go right now. That’s Jewish penicillin, so my brother-in-law tells me.

        2. I think one can say, dangerous as it is to do so, that the non-whites who have arrived in our country in the last 70 year have been largely responsible for bringing it to the edge of cultural, moral, and legal destruction?

          1. Not all of them. Some have greatly enhanced our national life. Where would we be without the little Indian family convenience corner shop? Or the takeaway serving delicious fast food? For every drug-addled knife-wielding street thug, there is a Levi Roots, who brings us music and spicy sauce. My last two girlfriends were from the Philippines, and both had healthy suntans, even though one of them had this strange liking for skin whitener. I had to keep telling her that her best brown dress, the one she was born in, was beautiful just as it is.

            There are also aspects of our own national culture that are not so pleasant, such as football hooliganism, or the horrid puritanism about our bodies, and hateful language that makes an abuse out of every natural instinct that we exported to America.

            I do agree largely with you, and really we need to show a tad more discrimination and better judgement about the good and bad points of every culture, including our own, but especially that of favoured groups, such as BAME.

    2. I wonder if Darren Healey realises that white men are in fact a minority group in England?

    4. Why must people be pigeonholed so? What does it bring us? Why must there be constant labels beyond the necessary for identity?

  8. SIR – Readers who remember the Peter Simple column will realise that Dr Spacely-Trellis, the “go-ahead bishop of Bevindon”, has now been elevated to the See of Canterbury.

    Michael Tyce
    Waterstock, Oxfordshire

    1. SIR – Regarding church memorials, if we wiped from history everyone who has done great things but might have done something politically incorrect in the past, the list would have to include Moses (murder), Jacob (deceit), Rahab, an ancestor of Jesus (prostitution), and King David (adultery and murder).

      Carla Stainke
      Alness, Ross and Cromarty

      1. I thought sex workers were an oppressed minority. It’s so difficult to keep up.

        2. Especially BlackTransSexWorkers they’re reeelly reeelly oppressed
          Had their own march don’t yer know……………………..
          ‘Morning Anne

        1. Do you mean Jonah?

          It ain’t necessarily so, it ain’t necessarily so
          The things that you’r liable
          To read in the Bible
          It ain’t necessarily so.

          Jonah he lived in a whale,
          Now Jonah he lived in a whale
          He made his home in
          A fish’s abdomen
          Yes Jonah he lived ina whale.

          (Yes, I know that a whale is a mammal and not a fish. Actually the Bible describes the creature as a great fish rather than a whale)

    2. SIR – The Archbishop of Canterbury, instead of worrying about the colour of Jesus’s skin, should perhaps be concerned about how Jesus would react to being charged £12 to enter Canterbury Cathedral, the House of God, and having to exit via the shop.

      John Hayter
      Sandwich, Kent

      1. Spot on, Mr Hayter. Bullseye! And if the C of E wants to get more – not fewer – inside our glorious church buildings, they will stop gimmicks like the helter-skelter in Rochester Cathedral, and other similar nonsense.

        ‘Morning, Citroen.

        1. “helter-skelter in Rochester Cathedral” – WHAT?? Is that the new altar?

          1. No, not Rochester, it was Norwich (with thanks to Conway for the correction).

      2. Just say NO! Tell the functionary that you “are there to pray in the house of God, not to goggle as a tourist. Furthermore, it is highly likely that thos involved in asking for money will go to Hell for simony.”

        1. Oi, Citroen! Where did you get that early photo of me in my courting days? Have you been rummaging around in my bottom drawers last week when I kept all windows and doors (front door excepted) wide open last week during the unbearably hot weather?

          :~))

  10. Britain’s woke police forces have lost their way

    In their desperation to be loved and not seen as racist, officers are failing to keep order in response to hooliganism and violence

    DOUGLAS MURRAY – 30 June 2020 • 6:00am

    In the last few weeks, around 140 police officers have been injured in this country; 27 in just one night last week in Brixton. A day later, the force’s LGBT+ network could be found tweeting their support for asexual people. Perhaps the thugs who assaulted their colleagues in Brixton would have been mollified had they known how supportive the constabulary is of the asexuals in their midst? Or perhaps – and I simply put the possibility out there – such efforts by all branches of the British police do not in fact show how much the police have got with the beat, but just makes things harder for the policemen and women on the actual beat?

    When you cast your mind back across recent months what are your most distinctive memories of the British constabulary? Dancing for public likes in TikTok videos? Skateboarding down major London thoroughfares closed down by climate extremists? Officers “taking the knee” before Black Lives Matter activists shortly before some of those same officers had to flee from the protesters who had turned violent?

    All of these sights are indelibly linked in the minds of everybody who has seen them. But in the minds of a portion of the public they meld with another vision of the British police. A vision which numerous commentators and politicians have helped to exaggerate in recent weeks.

    In the wake of the death of George Floyd in Minnesota, politicians and Left-wing pundits in the UK as much as in the US sought to make some grand strategic play off the back of that appalling incident. In the US, various commentators argued that the Minnesota incident was not isolated, but part of a broader problem of US policing and of American society as a whole. There is a debate to be had about certain aspects of US policing, certainly. But inevitably there were those in our own country who tried to make political gains by claiming the same situation exists here. These people – not least the organisers of BLM UK – wish to present the British police and the American police as being the same and the history of American racism synonymous with all British history.

    It is a very dangerous game that such opportunists are playing. Some responsibility at least for the assaults on police officers that have occurred since the first BLM UK protests must be laid at their door. A week before the assault on police in Hackney, the Labour MP Dawn Butler stood in the House of Commons and told the Conservative government that it needed to “get its knee off the neck of the Black, African, Caribbean, Asian and minority ethnic community in this country.” It was a disgraceful intervention, that went off almost without censure.

    Ms Butler and others seem very determined to bring American racial problems to the UK. They use the language of the MacPherson report into the killing of Stephen Lawrence as the sole template through which to interpret the British police. And they ignore all the progress and good that the British police have done since in a sectarian and partisan campaign to advance their remarkably ugly and racialised positions.

    What is a young person to do facing this mixture of views? On the one hand, MPs declare that the British state as a whole has its knee on the neck of all black people in this country. On the other, they see a police service prostrating itself before the public, begging to be loved and doing everything they can not to be feared.

    Possibly, just possibly, there will be people who see through all of this and recognise an unparalleled opportunity to act up and do whatever they like. The truth is that a police force that is presented as racist and violent is very obviously, manifestly afraid of putting a foot wrong. Especially when it comes to BLM. Could anyone expect some not to take advantage of such a position?

    Of course there are problems – as well as advantages – in the British idea of policing by consent. Not least is that the police have a tendency to flip back and forth between being over-enthusiastic and underwhelming. In 2009, an innocent unarmed man – Ian Tomlinson – was hit and killed by a British policeman during the unrest in London caused by anti-capitalists protesting against the G-20 summit. There was justifiable criticism of the police reaction to protestors, and considerable self-criticism within the police force.

    But two years later, when riots erupted in London, the police very visibly held back. Looting and other previously unimaginable rioting then broke out across the country. The public attitude overnight switched from demands for lighter policing to demands for heavier policing. Such is the moment we might be at now.

    At the start of the BLM protests, the police stood back. Now there are demands, from the Home Secretary down, for the police to step up. It is time they did, and that politicians and police leaders argue their case. It should not be difficult. The case is not racial. It is the divide between hooliganism and violence versus law and order. If the police and politicians cannot hold that line, then don’t expect them to hold any other.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/30/britains-woke-police-forces-have-lost-way/

    No comments

    2. The Police have one simple rule that they must follow:

      Go easy on BAME people; go hard on whites.

    3. Thanks for posting, Citroen, but DM failed to include other totally demeaning actions by the police, namely high heels and painting police cars and nails. All such conduct is crass, idiotic and highly divisive. Unless the police can do what they are paid to do and stop joining in, we are all done for. In fact, their stupidity may have already taken us beyond the point of no return. They have severely damaged their reputation, and possibly beyond repair.

    4. Rainbow bl00dy paint jobs on Z cars, stilettos and nail jobs. Superior – hah! – officers with dippy haircuts. They have lost all credibility and respect.

  11. David Butterfield
    Countryfile is wrong about racism and the countryside
    29 June 2020, 4:23pm

    At last, with the partial easing of lockdown, we have the consolation of an escape into the countryside. There, in the unquestioning simplicity of it all, we can leave society’s struggles behind. A sweet idea, but now rather behind the times, as shown by BBC Countryfile’s recent stirring into action. In its programme last night, Dwayne Fields delivered a piece on how the countryside needs to lose its ‘barriers’ and become truly welcoming to all communities. Ethnic minorities, he worried, feel that they ‘don’t belong’ in the countryside. Fields has done a great deal to introduce inner-city communities to the countryside and is unquestionably an admirable man. But his framing of this subject is mistaken.

    Countryfile’s claims drew in part on last year’s Defra-commissioned report into the state of the UK’s national parks. It found that:

    “‘many communities in modern Britain feel that these landscapes hold no relevance for them. The countryside is seen by both black, Asian and minority ethnic groups and white people as very much a “white” environment. If that is true today, then the divide is only going to widen as society changes. Our countryside will end up being irrelevant to the country that actually exists.’

    A study published in 2017 by National England found that 44 per cent of white people had ‘visited the natural environment’ in the previous week, a figure that fell steadily for mixed (39 per cent), Chinese (28 per cent), Black (26 per cent) and Asian (26 per cent) communities.

    These apparently alarming differences, the psychotherapist Beth Collier told Countryfile, stem from a persistent strand of rural racism: previous generations of ethnic minorities in Britain felt intimidated on encountering countryside communities who had never seen non-white faces. Once their children were raised with the belief that it would be unsafe for them to venture into the countryside, a ‘generational disconnect’ severed non-white Britons from rural spaces. This, Collier concludes, has embedded the idea that being in nature ‘is a white thing to do’.

    This is a complex problem, and the simple solution that ‘white people in the countryside’ are racist is naturally causing widespread offence. The implicit claim that outdoor spaces have also somehow adopted racial prejudice is as outrageous as it is absurd.

    Instead, the discussion first needs to be framed in terms of geography and communities rather than the natural world. The most significant issue is demographic: those who live in a rural environment need do little more than leave their door to encounter the countryside, whereas those living in urban areas need time, money and planning to venture to it. It is of great relevance, then, that around 2 per cent of England’s BAME populace live in rural areas. I would hazard that this fact (which has its own complex explanations) has much greater bearing on the figures than the ‘barriers’ presented by cross-ethnic ‘perceptions’ of Mother Nature.

    This same debate cropped up over the past winter in the case of our most popular national park, the Lake District. Richard Leafe, its ‘Chief Executive’, announced that the Lakes needed to change. Nature is not doing enough to be relevant, as Mr Leafe explained:

    “‘We are deficient in terms of young people, we are deficient in terms of black and minority ethnic communities and we are not particularly well-visited by those who are less able in terms of their mobility… We need to be able to sell the national park to everybody in Britain, all society, and it’s important that it doesn’t just become exclusive to one single use group.’

    It is of course true that the Lake District is predominantly white, as are most countryside regions. I grew up in the Eden valley of Cumbria, one of the whitest regions in England (98.9 per cent). Nearby Copeland is 98.5 per cent white and South Lakeland is 98.3 per cent. In other words, 99 of 100 locals here are likely to be white, and only one in a thousand is black.

    But the place is hardly a bastion of little-Englanders: the Lake District is filled with tourists from all regions, whether visiting from Britain or abroad. Not only is there no reason the Lake District should be unappealing to non-white Britons, there is no reason why their level of engagement should steadily decrease in the future. In fact, for all its remoteness, the appeal of the area continues to grow: between 2012 and 2018, tourist visitors to the Lake District rose from 15 to 20 million.

    I worry how this conversation comes about. Studies that divide interviewees by a crude grid of categories often find themselves posing answers in a similarly unnuanced and unhelpful fashion. Defra’s own report was partly based on a survey sent primarily to city-dwellers, many of whom will have not experienced the great outdoors first-hand. More valuable and positive insight would possibly have come from interviewing non-white visitors to the countryside, asking what had drawn them there and how fulfilling (or intimidating) they found that experience. To support the stark claim of countryside racism, direct experience should trump indirect supposition.

    Truth be told, much of the countryside has an access problem, but not of the kind that sells papers. The Lake District, for instance, is the most north-westerly county in the country, and a good five hours from the capital. It needs to be actively sought out, and once found, the results are rugged and remote. It’s a land of mountains and meres, impassable crags and unfarmable fellside, that only hardy Vikings could take to with open arms. Essentially, the countryside is challenging because it’s hard work when you’re there. In the real world, not everyone is drawn to the prospect of getting tired or wet or cold or lost, or to being controlled by weather fronts and daylight hours. Nor, it happens, does everyone agree on what constitutes a beautiful view. And here is the crux of the matter: are these differences necessarily a bad thing, and should there be state coercion to ensure that everybody partakes equally in these activities? Are we to demand that visitor identities match perfectly with the population of England, or of the UK, or of the world?

    It is not rural racism, I would suggest, but a widespread national ignorance of the pleasures of exercising in nature that keeps the countryside in the long grass. Education, broadcasting and public transport should open up these all-important vistas. For as a country we are extremely lucky: a huge portion of our land is countryside, criss-crossed by paths and bridleways. And it is explicitly welcoming: when you’re out and about (at least up north) everyone exchanges a greeting – not because it’s an exclusive country club for a select few, but because there’s a mutual respect of something bigger than the self. Whoever you are and wherever you have come from, the countryside leaves no space for ego. Both our national broadcaster and the chief executives of our national parks should be protecting them for the nation and projecting their appeal far and wide. And, whatever debates wrack our society, please, everyone, leave nature out of politics.

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

    BTL:

    Dragnonwell • 15 hours ago
    “Ethnic minorities, he worried, feel that they ‘don’t belong’ in the countryside.” Well, I don’t feel I “belong” in parts of the city I live in.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/countryfile-countryside

      1. A young black chap traveled down from north London to pick up a keyboard from me which he had successfully won at auction. He asked me what the tree in the garden was. I told him it was an apple tree.

        I kid you not.

        1. SWMBO worked with David Bellamy at an inner-city farm in Hackney many years ago. this was for small-ish children. None of them knew squat about food and where it came from – milk came from Sainsbury’s, as did meat. They also needed straightened out over a church visit – they ran around screeching (because of the echo) until SWMBO explained that this was a holy building, like their temple or mosque. They then became quiet & respectful.
          Father-i-Law criticised a carpentry apprentice recently, as he wanted to buy a new chisel as the old one was blunt. F-i-L showed him how to sharpen a chisel… nobody had done that before, so he didn’t know.
          If nobody teaches people stuff, how are they expected to know?
          My mind boggles over how kids don’t get taught stuff.

        2. Shame you couldn’t have tied some oranges and pears on as well before he arrived – and told him it was a new multi-fruitional GM type.

        3. If there were not apples on it, I wouldn’t mind. Also there are crab apple trees as well.

          I couldn’t name most trees. We go on walks and look them up, but I’d rather just enjoy them than worry about them.

          1. It did have apples on it. Being brought up in the city he probably hadn’t seen fruit on a tree.

        4. SWMBO worked with David Bellamy at an inner-city farm in Hackney many years ago. this was for small-ish children. None of them knew squat about food and where it came from – milk came from Sainsbury’s, as did meat. They also needed straightened out over a church visit – they ran around screeching (because of the echo) until SWMBO explained that this was a holy building, like their temple or mosque. They then became quiet & respectful.
          Father-i-Law criticised a carpentry apprentice recently, as he wanted to buy a new chisel as the old one was blunt. F-i-L showed him how to sharpen a chisel… nobody had done that before, so he didn’t know.
          If nobody teaches people stuff, how are they expected to know?
          My mind boggles over how kids don’t get taught stuff.

    2. If the British countryside is seen by black, asian and minority ethnic groups as a “white” environment, let’s return them to countries where the countryside is predominantly “black”, “Asian” and “minority ethnic”.

      The West Indies, much of Africa, the Indian sub-continent and parts of the Balkans and Middle East will do for the first wave!

      1. And why, after the colonialists left and before the arrival of Mugabe and Mandela, was there mass migration from Northern Africa to Rhodesia and South Africa which were at the time ruled by whites.

    3. My early years growing up were spent in the depths of Somerset in the 1940s. I recall seeing a turbanned Sikh on a bicycle arrive in the village. I have no idea what he was selling as I was fascinated by a black man wearing a funny hat.

    4. Why is there no programme called “Factorywide” where TV presenters freely roam through factories and commercial premises, poking in corners, demonstrating different marques of printers and photocopiers? A programme that talks to office managers and engineering charge-hands discussing ROI on lathes and delivery vans, exchanging views on problems.
      Or, to put it another way, why is there a general push to turn the countryside into a playground for townies?

      1. Because townies have always seen it as a playground rather than as a working environment. MOH, a townie born and bred, once looked out over a landscape consisting of farms, fields, coverts, copses, railways, canals, roads and a cwm and famously remarked, “look at that; it’s all completely natural!” No! It’s all man-made bar the cwm – that was formed by a glacier.

        1. In the field behind our house, there was a lake that persisted for most of every winter. The farmer opened up the ground and laid a drainage system (blue pipes). Now there is only an occasional lake. This is the pattern across the Merse. The area is one big garden. There are drainage pipes and irrigation pipes across the entire area.

    5. “…‘many communities in modern Britain feel that these landscapes hold no relevance for them. The countryside is seen by both black, Asian and minority ethnic groups and white people as very much a “white” environment. If that is true today, then the divide is only going to widen as society changes. Our countryside will end up being irrelevant to the country that actually exists.”

      Better dig up all that ugly grass and trees and replace with sand and rocks then.

    6. Mr Leafe – shut up. If you believe any of what you’re spouting, you’re an idiot.

    7. If effniks don’t feel at home in our countryside, they should go to the countryside where they do feel at home. Africa is very nice at this time of year, I believe.

  12. Boris – “I say Hancock, the plebs are ignoring all the covid guidance, they are going to beaches, having street parties, crowding in parks, being a general nuisance around Westminster, even pranged the Jag the other day avoiding one of the blighters, what are you going to do about it”?

    Hancock – “well Prime Minister, we need to frighten them all a bit, I’ve been thinking, how about we lock down a city for a couple of weeks”?

    Boris – “Spiffing idea Hancock, but which one? nowhere too important, mind”.

    Hancock – “Prime Minister, I have a map of the country here, shall I throw a dart and we choose the nearest town”.

    Boris – “Okay Hancock, make it a good shot”.

    Hancock – “Oops, sorry prime Minister, I missed the damn map altogether, I think I hit Dilyn up the backside”.

    Boris – “Good good well done, Hancock, Leicester it is then”.

  13. RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Sir Humphrey had an undisguised contempt for elected politicians and the democratic process. Dumping him gets Bojo’s mojo back
    PUBLISHED: 01:20, 30 June 2020 | UPDATED: 01:48, 30 June 2020

    Better late than never, Sir Humphrey is on his bike. Why has it taken Boris so long to get rid of him?

    Mark Sedwill should have been given his P45 the day Johnson moved into Downing Street. I said as much in this column more than a year ago, when it became apparent that Mother Theresa was toast.

    Under Mrs May, this unelected civil servant had accumulated an unhealthy, unprecedented amount of power.

    May was so hopelessly reliant on Sedwill that she made him Cabinet Secretary, Head of the Civil Service and National Security Adviser — the first person to hold all three jobs simultaneously.

    Even that wasn’t enough to satisfy Sedwill’s rapacious appetite for power. According to a Whitehall source quoted in a newspaper profile last summer: ‘He can’t cope with the fact that he is not Prime Minister.’

    That didn’t stop him behaving as if he was PM. He regularly treated Cabinet Ministers with disdain, warning Gavin Williamson, then Defence Secretary: ‘Don’t underestimate how vindictive I can be.’

    That threat came after Williamson was accused of leaking details of May’s decision to involve Huawei in building Britain’s 5G mobile phone network, despite uneasy opposition from ministers, the security services and our closest allies.

    Sedwill was the main cheerleader for Huawei, even leading a delegation of 15 senior Whitehall officials on a vainglorious jaunt to Beijing — aimed at bypassing ministers and establishing himself as the main point of contact between the British government and the Chinese.

    A fervent Remainer, with undisguised contempt for elected politicians and the democratic process, Sedwill took it upon himself arbitrarily to order preparations for a No Deal Brexit scrapped.

    One of the architects of Project Fear, he authored a (conveniently leaked) memo warning of food price rises and civil unrest in Northern Ireland unless May’s dismal surrender deal was passed.

    He ruthlessly exploited her weakness to bolster his own position. Talk to anyone who attended meetings at Downing Street and, previously, the Home Office. They will tell you she contributed next to nothing and always deferred to Sedwill.

    Let’s not forget, either, that the parlous state of the Home Office — on everything from policing to the Windrush scandal and the chaotic asylum system — owes much to the Sedwill/May double act.

    When Johnson arrived at Number 10, he clipped Sedwill’s wings but kept him around.

    We can only speculate as to why, but I’m assuming that because Sedwill had spent so much time right at the heart of government he knows where all the bodies are buried.

    That would also explain why Boris has dreamed up a fancy new job title for Sedwill rather than simply giving him the elbow altogether.

    He’ll be gone sooner rather than later, though, complete with his peerage and a few company directorships to soften the blow. Maybe the Chinese are looking for a consultant who knows his way around Whitehall.

    Still, dumping Sedwill is a promising start and a sign that BoJo is getting his mojo back.

    Sir Humphrey represents everything that’s wrong with the British Civil Service, a self-proclaimed Rolls-Royce which functions about as well as a clapped-out Lada.

    In the case of Brexit, the Civil Service attempted to thwart the democratically expressed will of the people.

    So did the Speaker of the Commons and a large number of MPs who had promised to honour the outcome of the referendum. The ghastly Bercow is now history, Boris has an 80-seat majority which will allow him to Get Brexit Done. But the hardest task now lies ahead.

    The Prime Minister needs to begin tearing down the Establishment with the same ruthless determination the Black Lives Matter mob is applying to toppling statues.

    The defenestration of Sedwill has to be more than symbolic. The whole system of civil administration is in dire need of urgent and comprehensive reform.

    Dominic Cummings understands this better than most, which is why Boris clung to him despite his difficulties over breaking lockdown rules he helped to write. If this Government is to succeed, the entire culture and ideology have to be overhauled.

    Here are a few ideas. More mandarins like Sedwill must be shown the door, pour encourager les autres, and replaced by competent Conservative-leaning business leaders from the private sector.

    No branch of government should be spared the ‘hard rain’ of reform. Boris will be accused of ‘politicising’ the system, but what the hell does anyone think has been happening for the past few decades?

    It’s all been in one direction, too. Frankly, it’s incredible that after ten years of a Tory government (admittedly half of it in coalition with the Lib Dems) virtually every single institution remains in the hands of leaders who all subscribe to the self-styled ‘liberal’ agenda.

    Look at the way the police have meekly — and literally — bent the knee to the quasi-Marxist rabble behind Black Lives Matter, however noble the cause of racial equality may be.

    Home Secretary Priti Flamingo should be told to remove any chief constables who refuse to enforce the law impartially and replace them with proper coppers.

    She should scrap the failed system of civilian police commissioners and make all those chief constables who want to play politics stand for election.

    Then the Home Office should be broken up. It hasn’t been ‘fit for purpose’ for years.

    Boris has to withdraw from the pernicious European yuman rites racket, which lets judges interpret the law as they choose, like the Supreme Court did over Brexit.

    If judges want to be politicians, they too can stand for election, as they do in other countries.

    The hideously expensive and utterly superfluous Public Health England must be put out of its misery. While the frontline workers in the health service have performed heroically, the overmanned, overpaid bureaucrats in the back room have been spectacularly dysfunctional, concerned primarily with protecting their own little empires.

    The Treasury should get in a few of the finest minds from banking and hedge funds. That would shake the place to its foundations.

    The Foreign Office should be turned upside down, and handed over to people who see themselves as representatives of Britain abroad, not emissaries of foreign governments in Whitehall.

    That’s enough to be going on with. I’m sure Boris’s blue-eyed son Cummings has a few more ideas. The signs are encouraging. Boris is planning to replace Sedwill with a Brexiteer. Better late than never.

    Let the hard rain fall.

    ********************************************************************************
    When I saw that picture of Boris prostrate on his office floor, I feared for one awful moment that he, too, had capitulated to the Black Lives Matter madness and was taking the knee.

    Turns out he was doing press-ups to convince The Mail on Sunday that he was fully recovered from Covid-19.

    He declared himself as ‘fit as a butcher’s dog’ and said he’d never felt better.

    Mind you, the photo also immediately reminded me of Norman Stanley Fletcher’s reaction, in Porridge, when he returns to his cell to find young Lennie Godber doing press-ups.

    ‘Anyone we know?’

    **************************************************************************************
    Mail reader Ray Norman was rebuffed when he tried to put a comment on the BBC website contrasting the different lifting of the lockdown in England and Scotland.

    Ray was puzzled to find he’d fallen foul of the moderators. ‘We reserve the right to fail comments which . . . are considered likely to disrupt, provoke, attack or offend others . . . Are racist, sexist, homophobic, sexually explicit, abusive or otherwise objectionable . . . Contain swear words or other language likely to offend.’

    Ray was still confused, so he sought further clarification. The BBC wrote back:

    ‘Your comment was removed for referring to Nicola Sturgeon as Wee Burney . . . ’

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

    The Summer of Stupidity has moved on to ‘cultural appropriation’ of curry by white chefs, who are now also damned as RAY-CIST!!! for using non-indigenous recipes.

    Some obscure white actress has apologised for having once worn her hair in cornrows, which are only culturally appropriate on women of African heritage.

    All this began with students being banned from wearing sombreros because it was RAY-CIST!!! towards Mexicans.

    On that basis, Oddjob would have to be cancelled for wearing a bowler hat, the cultural property of English City gents.

    Meanwhile, it has been revealed that the Bronte Parsonage museum contains a pair of Native American moccasins which belonged to Charlotte Bronte.

    That’s her off the reading list. And I give the Bronte statue outside her old home in Yorkshire a couple more days before some lunatic tears it down.

    Charlotte Bronte must fall!

    *********************************************************************************
    If those air bridges ever get up and running, don’t be surprised to find them occupied by Extinction Rebellion and a copper on a skateboard.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8472975/RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN-Dumping-Sir-Humphrey-gets-Bojos-mojo-back.html

    1. 320797+ up ticks,
      Morning C,
      In my book to much “face value” is in place as the order of the day in dealing with political treachery elements.
      I likened the dealings since the 24/6/2016 as a fall back plan ( never going to see the light of day) as a three
      stage, damage limitation rocket with the wretch cameron the first stage, & mayday ( already a 6 year proven faulty political unit) via the leadership farce the second unit.
      On burn out job done leaving the partial re-entry nose cone political unit in place.
      The mayday will receive remuneration via no doubt an
      anti English / GB slush fund as will collateral damaged
      ( good of the cause) sedwill.
      In essence, there is no opposition and never has been since the very unexpected verdict on the 24/6/2016
      The cries still echo ” job done, leave it to the tories”
      The cries will resound through many a long year and the question WILL be asked
      “What party had England / GB six” ?

      1. I really do wish that UKIP had got its act together and presented a viable alternative to the existing political parties, which are, as you rightly say, fraudulent and bad for Britain.

        The trouble most people see in UKIP is the perpetual in-fighting that goes on which stops people believing it could ever act coherently, decisively and unitedly.

        1. 320797+ up ticks,
          Morning R,
          I obviously cannot emphasize it enough it seems,
          Since the cry on the 24/6/16 victory, job done, no need of UKIP now, leave it to the tories” rent the air
          and the fools went straight back to supporting the very parties that kept them in the EU for decades.
          These same fools STILL pass the buck for the sh!te
          we have had to swallow for the past four years.
          The UKIP party designed & triggered the referendum over 27 years it took the lab/lib/con
          pro eu coalition party one day to unravel that victory one day of shouting “job done, leave it to the tories”
          I was calling for UKIP build directly after the 24/6/2016, check back.
          UKIP upset in no uncertain manner, the lab/lib/con
          coalition political applecart without doubt and was not to be tolerated in the future.
          Gerard Batten proved this by his very successful run of a year, a UKIP founder member 27 years unbroken service, a true patriot / leader, the establishment parties & supporting cast of fools
          of the close shop once again put their party
          ( however treacherous) before anything / anyone beneficial to the Country, Batten & co HAD TO GO.
          The current UKIP has fallen foul of the treachery bug via it’s Nec & IMO to be avoided.

          There is NO viable opposition to the lab/lib/con coalition party at this moment in time.

          Please refrain from insulting my intelligence by saying the brexit party under “nige”

    2. An extract from the main article,
      It’s all been in one direction, too. Frankly, it’s incredible that after ten years of a Tory government (admittedly half of it in coalition with the Lib Dems) virtually every single institution remains in the hands of leaders who all subscribe to the self-styled ‘liberal’ agenda.
      He neglected to mention the other half of the ten years was led by a Liberal, his name was Cameron.
      Is it any wonder the country is in the state it is, just think about who has occupied No10 since 1990, nobody worth a damm.
      Still as ogga would say, you gets what you vote for.

  14. Ongoing BBC Breakfast TV interrogation of Matt Hancock revealing that Leicester COVID-19 outbreak is so much worser that than the worsest other most worse cities in the UK and that could be down to the worser way the data is being presented by the Government. This is starting to look bad but only to those in Leicester who can properly understand English – but it could be much worser.

    1. Long ago, one of my cousins recounted her first day at her teaching job in Leicester. Not a white face to be seen in the class.

      1. About par for the course.
        I was interviewed for a job in a Nottingham School and the class for my trial lesson was similar.
        After I was asked a question about how I would use science to promote multiculturalism I was relieved not to get the job!

    2. Maybe they should dig up the nice little earner Richard III and return him to York. That would cut down on all those C19 carrying tourists.

    3. Was it only yesterday (or, maybe, the day before) that a report in the DT/ST suggested that most of the covid virus was being imported (flown in) from the Indian sub-continent?

      Now, remind me, what is the connection with Leicester?

  16. Laurence Fox claims there is a ‘concerted drive’ in the acting world to make him ‘be quiet’ about his controversial views after Question Time rant
    *Laurence Fox said move is motivated by people finding his views controversial
    *The actor claimed ‘cancel culture creates an even more myopic monoculture’
    *It follows the star of ITV’s Lewis appearing on BBC’s Question Time in January
    *He faced backlash after claiming Duchess of Sussex was not a victim of racism

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8471809/Laurence-Fox-claims-concerted-drive-acting-world-make-quiet.html

    1. Isn’t it bloody marvellous that all the wimps baying for LF’s blood say they want diversity but when he is diverse they want him to conform. I presume that as they’re all ‘actors’ they have to get someone else to write their lines.

  17. Get your knitting needles ready…Democrats for the chop

    Protesters set up guillotine in front of Jeff Bezos’ Washington D.C. home to demand Amazon be abolished for helping the police ‘surveil us’ and ‘mistreating workers’
    *Activists set up a guillotine outside of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’s D.C. home
    *Videos posted to Twitter show protesters standing next to a guillotine
    *One of the protester said in the video, ‘When they become threatened, and we have no voice, the knives come out’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8472671/Protesters-set-guillotine-directly-Jeff-Bezos-DC-home-demand-Amazon-abolished.html

  18. Reading knife attack: man appears in court on murder charges. Mon 29 Jun 2020 18.00 BST.

    A man accused of stabbing three people to death while shouting “Allahu Akbar” in a suspected terror attack in Reading has appeared in court.

    Furlong and Ritchie-Bennett were each stabbed once in the neck and Wails was stabbed once in his back. They were each declared dead at the scene.

    I wonder about this man and his co-religionist in Glasgow. Is this really a coincidence? Two multiple stabbings six days apart? I’m not saying that they know each other but the similarities are striking. Both kicked off without any real seeming provocation and used the same weapons. Are there any more of them who haven’t yet acted? The UK has imported large numbers of military age Muslims with only the most cursory of vettings. Are they all just here escaping oppression?

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/29/reading-knife-attack-man-appears-in-court-on-charges

    1. The blanket excuse for practically all this type of stabbing is ‘mental issues’.

        1. Our security service has said 40,000 are on the watch list and 3,000 are an immediate threat.

          If they are considered an immediate threat why don’t they deport them? Do we have to have another 3,000 attacks first?

          By the time those 3,000 have created mayhem and death more will have been brainwashed at the mosque.

          I just hope their appeasers are the ones to suffer worst.

          Good morning.

      2. 320797+ up ticks,
        Morning A,
        Could that be shared equally by the perpetrator
        & the electorate ?
        As in, without the actions of one we would not, in many cases have the odious actions of tother.

          1. 320797+ up ticks,
            Morning Anne,
            Would not surprise me, thin end of the
            wedge, establishments idea of handling the drugs war, power persecute the genuine needy, tread lightly around pushers ( see vaz) and check if india are in need of topping up their space program finance.

    3. 320797+ up ticks,
      Morning AS,
      Small point large odious consequences ” the UK is still
      importing large numbers of potential terrorist / murderers/ rape & abuse units” it is as if a political party is building a military force wing.

    4. Yo Minty

      If only we Brits, who were born and bred here could just escape oppression

      We must go on bended knee to BLM
      Two knees knees for Ali’s Snack Bar
      Lie face down for LBGTWERTYers
      and jump for joy when our servicemen (and Women) are prosecuted for doing their jobs

      1. Illegals who come ashore on semi rigids who claim to be the replacement chemists, doctors, scientists and apricot almond growers, and super breeders the country requires .. will eventually overwhelm the NHS , which in 10 years time could wipe itself out , and there will be no one left to remember the good times .

      2. 320797+up ticks,
        Morning OLT,
        It surely must be the acceptable way to go
        otherwise the ballot booth would dictate change.

    5. He seems well versed in where to stab efficiently. Where did he learn such skills?
      During the war, people had to be trained in such matters, not only to physically strike the blow, but also be mentally prepared to perpetrate such an act.

      1. Morning Anne. We know from the Hutu Genocide that very large numbers of unarmed, unprepared people can be murdered with relatively simple weapons

    7. So the restrictions on free speech have really nothing to do with consideration for ethnic minorities but everything to do with shielding politicians from incisive questions about immigration. Questions about this are ipso facto racist and therefore they must not be asked.

      1. Robert Feynman: “Better the question that cannot be answered than the answer that cannot be questioned”.

    1. One of life’s wonders is how anyone can play a violin at all, let alone so well!

      1. Q – Can you play the violin?
        A – I dont know, I’ve never tried.

        1. Surgeon to patient: “Good news, your hand has successfully been re-attached.”
          Patient: “Great! Will I be able to play the violin?”
          Surgeon: “Yes.”
          Patient: “Terrific! I never could before.”

    2. Very beautiful Plum. Melancholy but beautiful nonetheless.
      Have a good day.

      1. Thanks Alf …..going stir crazy nursing a pulled tendon!

        Equally beautiful 2CELLOS – Theme from Schindler’s List [Live at Sydney Opera House] .Enjoy

        1. My sympathy to you. I am still struggling with both my knees after an arthroscopy on my right knee in January. It was to remove ‘loose foreign bodies’. Also drilled away some stage 2 arthritis. Then a couple of months ago my left leg wouldn’t take any weight and I’ve been paying for video physio. It’s very wearing. Also have peripheral neuropathy in lower legs and feet. Seems to be no end to it. Thankfully I’ve got Vouvray who looks after me. I’m not moaning and can get about OK and go for walks etc but this lockdown cr*p is exceedingly tiresome.

          1. I’m so sorry to hear you are struggling with your legs and feet. ,,,it certainly is wearing.

            I’ve finally found a physio who makes home visits…..thank you God. Can you find a physio in your area?
            Achilles tendons can take a while to heal so I guess my tennis days are over.
            Agree about the lockdown it’s making people nervous and anxious.

            Keep cheerful …there’s always HH to look forward to!!!

  25. Keir Starmer showing that he is a politician – saying something then trying to get out of it:-
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/06/30/keir-starmer-setting-trend-wriggling-show-support-black-lives/
    Keir Starmer is setting a trend in wriggling out of his show of support for Black Lives Matter
    We can but laugh as the Labour leader insists, after taking the knee, that he merely wanted to support the ‘moment’ not the Marxist thugs

    PATRICK O’FLYNN
    30 June 2020 • 10:15am
    It is highly appropriate that a lawyer-turned-politician should have an innovative political defence named after him.

    When Bill Clinton was bang to rights over smoking marijuana while at university he declared “I didn’t inhale” and, improbable as the claim seemed, in the realm of politics the Clinton Defence got him off the hook.

    Now we have the Starmer Defence over taking a knee in support of the Marxist race-baiters of Black Lives Matter: essentially that he supported “the moment” and not “the organisation”.

    Sir Keir Starmer certainly raised eyebrows when he was photographed kneeling in his Westminster office at the height of the BLM demos (yes, those “largely peaceful” events that saw national monuments defaced and scores of police officers injured).
    It was de rigueur at the time, the virtue signal de nos jours – police officers were even joining in after what we might term “strong encouragement” from the large and ebullient groups of BLM supporters surrounding them in Whitehall. This was despite many of us pointing out the extremism of BLM’s demands as set out on its own Go Fund Me page. Indeed, I put up a link to that on Twitter on June 8 that was retweeted more than 600 times.

    While I can only find evidence of one Tory MP – Newbury’s Laura Farris – having adopted this official BLM pose of protest, nonetheless other great sages such as footballers and pop stars were busy uploading photos of the gesture to their Instagram pages. So what was a Labour Party leader supposed to do?

    In Sir Keir’s case, what he did was take a knee alongside his deputy Angela Rayner on June 9 – just a couple of days after the worst weekend of BLM violence and the pulling down of the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol.

    Three weeks on, with the extremism of BLM’s actual demands and its venomous views on issues from law and order to Israel finally being paid some attention by mainstream broadcasters, Starmer finds himself in a tricky spot. Or rather found himself in one, because he escaped it yesterday with all the slippery evasiveness of the proverbial bar of soap in a bath.

    Speaking to BBC Breakfast, Starmer said he had “no truck” with “nonsense” BLM calls to defund the police. “The Black Lives Matter movement, or moment if you like, is about reflecting something completely different – what happened in America, dreadfully, just a few weeks ago,” he claimed. This was just a build up to his most breathtaking rhetorical leap.

    Putting on his most grave and wounded expression, he added:

    “It is a shame it is getting tangled up with these organisational issues, with the organisation Black Lives Matter, but I would never have any truck with what the organisation is saying about defunding the police or anything else. That’s just nonsense.”

    So even though it was the organisation BLM that arranged the unlawful and sometimes violent demonstrations that have occurred and even though taking a knee is its trademark means of displaying support, Starmer is asking us to believe that he is staggered at the very thought that his action could be perceived as signalling his backing for it.

    As a political defence, it shouldn’t work, but it probably will because it offers a host of other virtue-signalling celebrities and organisations alike an escape route for their own misplacing of the plot over BLM.

    Piers Morgan has already gratefully used the Starmer Defence to distance himself from BLM’s militancy, tweeting:

    “I agree with him. I support #BlackLivesMatter protest for racial equality & justice – but the Black Lives Matter political organisation stands for some things I don’t agree with incl defunding the police. They’re different things.”

    In the coming days, as more and more people emerge from the hysteria of their own BLM “moment” expect everyone from the Premier League to Yorkshire Tea and L’Oreal to adopt the Starmer Defence.

    If only Jeremy Corbyn could have deployed it with Sir Keir’s aplomb when being berated for his sympathy for Irish republican extremists it might have cost him fewer votes: “Yes, I may have attended a commemoration for IRA men, but that was about something completely different – bringing peace to Ireland. It is a shame it all got tangled up with these organisational issues, with the organisation the IRA.”

    These days, British politics often puts one in mind of the nonsense world of Lewis Carroll. In this case Humpty Dumpty is our role model: “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”

    The next time a Labour figure accuses Boris Johnson of wishing to have his cake and eat it, let us at least have the wherewithal to emit a hollow laugh.

      1. Especially kimono-wearing fox-killers like Jolyon Maugham. And former public prosecutors like Keir Starmer.

    3. Perhaps it will help if all those ‘taking the knee’ in future could hold up a sign making clear which variant of BLM they are supporting and which they oppose.

    4. Breaking News
      NHS declares emergency,nothing to do with the ‘rona,they are overwhelmed treating the whiplash injuries of virtue signallers,slebs and politicians who were injured making too rapid a U-turn about the racist,anti-semitic BLM

    5. It’s on a par with Corbyn being present at a terrorist funeral, but not taking part.

  26. This is the email we sent to our MP last week

    I have just read that Northumbria Police will “be in attendance to facilitate a planned BLM vigil at Keel Square in Sunderland tonight”.

    They continue: “A Section 14 order is in place forbidding any other public assembly, including counter-protests, to ensure the public’s safety”. What is going on here? This country is supposed to be policed “without fear or favour”. Aren’t the police supposed to be members of the society they “police” and do so with the public”s consent? This movement is not about racial prejudice, the movement proudly proclaim their intention to destroy democracy and capitalism, and demand that the police be abolished. How ironic that they will be having police protection at all their riots.

    Can you appreciate how the rest of the population feel, with BLM activists rioting for the last 3 weekends, destroying statues, desecrating the Cenotaph, and committing countless other crimes against society whilst, in contrast, people flocking to beaches perfectly peaceably are being told “we may close beaches down”?

    Your government is turning the majority population against the police by its inaction, indeed, actively condoning BLM rioters. And the MSM seems to go happily along with the lie that their gatherings are “peaceful”. I cannot believe how far a Conservative government has fallen after winning a general election so emphatically. And you have always claimed your party is one for law and order. It certainly doesn’t look like it from where I’m standing.

    The lockdown should be ended immediately, if only for the government to save face. It has lost control of the situation and daily issues even more farcical rules and regulations. Besides curtailing our liberties as never before it will be at a tremendous economic cost and all for nothing. What about the jobs that will have disappeared, never to come back? What about all the patients whose appointments were cancelled by hospitals so that coronavirus patients could be treated? And the Nightingale hospitals were hardly used. The public were not the ones to cancel the appointments, it was the hospitals.

    The 2 metre “social distancing” rule was utterly stupid but your incessant advertising campaign on TV and elsewhere frightened the public so successfully that apparently now people are reluctant to return to work without a “guarantee” that they will be “safe”. And the fiasco with the schools not being ordered to return to normality until September is beyond belief, it being well known that children are only minimally at risk of the virus. Countless damage will be done to their education and social distancing at school is ridiculous. It is inhuman.

    I will stop now because I feel such rage at this government it is impossible to put all my thoughts down.

    He replied thus

    I completely agree with the thrust of everything you say. I will certainly continue to lobby strongly with Ministers etc. on these matters.

    2. Very well said, Grumps.

      With your permission I will copy-and-paste that into my ever-growing database of governmental madness.

    3. Re: teachers refusing to reopen schools while everyone else is gradually getting back to work…

      It should be noted that teachers are also the only people who cant get to work when it snows.

      1. They’re also on full pay for doing sweet bugger all. If you pay people not to work then they won’t. As I’ve said before a touch of Reaganomics needed. Sack those who won’t work and get them to reapply for their jobs under a new contract.

      2. When I was teaching I only missed one day of work through ice and snow; I slipped on an outside staircase and couldn’t walk.

    4. Excellent email you sent. Puts the position clearly.
      Wonder if the message ever got close to Boris?

    5. Excellent. Hope it was OK for me to use as basis for letter to my MP Andrew Rossindell.

      1. A good night, again. Not sure now that I am upright. I am trying to be positive – very hard…{:¬))

    1. Reminds me of the HHGTTG entry for Earth: “Mostly Harmless”. Presumably that’s why it was demolished to make way for a hyper-galatic expressway.

  29. Good moaning.
    Ooooh ….. I am wicked. I will go to Hull.
    I’ve just a read a DM item about an assassination attempt on Edward VIII and all I can think is “was McMahon taken away in a Black Maria?”
    5 …. 4 …. 3 …. Crunch of boots on gravel …… And ……thah goes the front door to Allan Towers.

      1. The name “Black Maria” as applied to the closed police vans with separate locked cubicles used to convey prisoners to jail is a term of New England origin; the story connected with it being that back in the mid-1800s in Boston, Massachusetts, there lived a black woman named Maria Lee, who kept a lodging house for sailors. It was a waterfront place in the North End, where brawls were frequent. Maria, who was a large and powerful person, won a reputation for her ability to quell fights and bring offenders to jail. So successful was she in handling tough characters that the constables frequently enlisted her aid in bringing malefactors to book, and the story goes that when police wagons came into use in the 1830s, the Boston constables, remembering the great help the black woman had given them, immortalized her name in the term “Black Maria”.

        https://www.spphs.com/history/black_maria.php

      2. Nice horses. They look like Suffolk Punches.
        If I could be arrested in something as stylish as that it would be worth breaking the law.

        1. Cansada, Peddy, after a rather busy day. But I celebrated this evening by cooking myself a Beef Stroganoff which I ate with plain rice, washed down with a glass or two of Chilean Merlot from Aldi.

      2. I was told that you were not allowed to put your elbows on the table until you were an uncle or an aunt. I was the baby of the family and my elder sister, Belinda, married at 20 and gave birth to my first niece , Susannah, when I was 10.

        Like grown ups do – they changed the rules and I still was not allowed to put my elbows on the table,.

        1. You and I were taught good manners and graceful etiquette, Rastus. I still think that elbows on a table looks most inelegant.

  33. Mail to a Conservative MP………..

    Is that the same Rt Hon Michael Gove MP as the Rt Hon Michael Gove MP who said………..

    ”Bright Blue has been the source of radical and exciting ideas that have shaped government” ?

    ”The Daily Telegraph has described the organisation as “the modernizing wing of the Tory party”[4] and the ConservativeHome website has described it as “a deep intellectual gene pool for the Conservative Party’s future”.[5] In 2018, the Evening Standard[6] noted that Bright Blue “has managed to set the party’s agenda on a number of issues”. In 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019, it was shortlisted for both UK Social Policy Think Tank of The Year and UK Environment & Energy Think Tank of The Year in the annual Prospect awards.”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bright_Blue_(organisation)

    Amusing then how ”Conservative Party gene pool” ”Bright Blue” has been ”partnered” in various years by billion dollar green tech investor George Soros’ Open Society, RenewableUK and the Offshore Wind Industry Council.. and recommended the Conservative Party to enact legal ”Net Zero” !

    https://brightblue.org.uk/uk-adopt-leading-net-zero-emissions-target/

    Looks like ”Billionaire Influence” might have been getting in on the act again and not a blush from the Conservative Party about the terrible conflict of interest.

    While on the subject of quotes, a 100% accurate example comes from James Delingpole………

    ”What I also note in Boris’s pronouncements….. is a remoteness from reality at once breathtaking and terrifying”.

    I think the UK’s only hope is to appoint James Delingpole as Prime Minister, and I also think he could be trusted not to do what a series of recent UK Prime Ministers have done. Having, as I believe, the very best interests of the UK at heart, quite unlike the former Prime Ministers.

    What do you think ?

    Polly

    1. 320797+ up ticks,
      Morning PP,
      Read con gene pool = cesspit & bright blue = dark brown then you are a lot nearer the truth.

    2. When Soros was 17 or 18 he worked for the Nazis. He did not declare that he was Jewish and he was involved in the admin of sending Jews to the gas chambers. He said that this was the happiest time of his life.

        1. I thought I had seen him say this in a television interview some years ago – but I my be wrong.

      2. Is there any good reason why Mossad hasn’t attempted to expunge him from history?

        Is he surrounded at all times by an impregnable fortress and his own private army?

  34. Completely off tiopic.

    Has anyone else been compulsorily upgraded to the new improved but actually Gawd awful BT internet email account?

    I can’t download the app to HG’s ipad, because her machine is incompatible apparently (ho not ho). I’m guessing it’s because it’s an old but otherwise perfectly serviceable machine.

    The whole layout on my PC is dire. User-unfriendly doesn’t begin to tell how dreadful it is. I’m not even sure that emails are leaving, even though they appear in the sent folder.

      1. Because I have an easy to remember email address and I’ve been using it for around 20 years +.

        The hassle of notifying everyone I would need to and transfering archives etc is too much trouble and likelihood of loss too great.

          1. Thanks,
            I’ve cracked it, I think. I’ve had stuff go each way and it’s synchronised now.

        2. Well you could do it over a period of time eventually reducing your BT account to lesser importance but keeping it intact with all your old stuff still on it.

          1. That’s a very good idea, Polly. (Makes a change from George Soros anyway.)

    2. Thanks to my pet computer nerd (a jar of homemade lemon curd and a box of chocolate brownies and he’s anybody’s) I use Zen Internet.

      1. We use that as well.

        But, with a relatively common Christian and Surname there is no way that I can get a new account that is merely my name anymore.

          3. Even using all my initials I’ve found people have already got there.
            I was lucky (???) to be a very early user of BT email.

          4. If you were John Montmorency Featherstonehaugh Smith you might get en email address without numbers attached.

      2. Good morning, Grizzly

        We use gmail and have done so for about ten years. Before that we had a French server called club-internet.

        When we switched there was a disaster. The wife of one of my best friends – who is one of Henry’s godfathers and to whom I was ‘best man’ at their wedding – died of cancer. Our friend’s brother found our old e-mail address and sent us the very sad news. But the e-mail was not forwarded to our new email address as it should have been done automatically. This meant that we were not able to give our condolences to our friend and his family and go to his very dear wife’s funeral.

        We were all deeply upset by this.

        1. Good morning, Rastus,

          And modern technology is supposed to be the bee’s knees. There is no substitute for a sheet of vellum and a trusty quill.

      3. Do they still tailor adverts to the content of your email? A friend and I used to write the most far-fetched emails to each other to see what Gmail could attach to the discussions about Fly Fishing in the Yemen and allied subjects.

          2. I do, but I really can’t remember any appearing before I installed it. It must be my age playing tricks.

    4. You can check sending of your emails by sending a (blind?) copy to yourself.

      ‘Morning, Sos.

  35. Two days ago the DT reported that 66 percent of people supported the reintroduction of National Service, with 51 percent of those saying that it should be completed over a two-year period. More than three-quarters of supporters of the scheme believe that it should be compulsory, meaning everyone aged over 18.

    Could this be the first sign of a backlash by the silent majority against the attempted destruction of our heritage, culture and traditions by the far-left, ably assisted by hordes of ignorant, vapid youths at large on our streets, seemingly with the connivance of our emasculated police ‘service’?

    It is always a pleasure to see the arrival of the first swallows of spring. The arrival of such a backlash would be equally welcome!

    1. There are always loopholes. Not that I blame my Iranian friend for having his national service significantly cut short via his family being able to buy him out. He did learn at least one useful skill. I caught him one day very efficiently sewing a button back on his jacket. Apparently the army taught him how to do that.

    2. Aye Right
      Let’s provide aspiring martyrs,feral dindu gang members and militant marxists with military training…………….
      What could possibly go wrong………….
      Edit
      Now the re-introduction of the birch,prison with hard labour and perhaps the odd penal colony for banishment and you’d be cooking on gas

        1. I prefer the Parachute Regiment (parachutes optional depending on behaviour)
          ‘Morning Willum

    3. Morning Sguest. Even if true it was just a reassuring filler. There is no possibility of such a thing!

    4. Wouldn’t a large proportion of our immigrant population refuse to join up on conscientious grounds? And if they did would any politicians have the testicular strength to do anything about it?

      1. I was being facetious but, more seriously, what, if anything, can be done about this scourge?

      2. Morning Rastus – We must train up our indigenous youth in military matters for what may lie ahead of them. Conscientious Objectors could be compelled to do essential public tasks for 2 years at low wages and away from their home area.

        1. Good morning, Maggiebelle

          Talking of smell, I enjoyed your post about stinks last night.

          It seems strange that people who have bad breath are often the sort of people who are hyper-sensitive and would take extreme umbrage if you tried to point it out to them.

          Indeed, a former teaching colleague of mine developed Parkinson’s and the san sister at school mentioned the fact that he had stinking breath and ought to do something about it. He burst into tears saying he was more upset by this news than when he learnt of the Parkinson’s.

          Of course our friend Peddy must have had to endure a great deal of halitosis in his professional capacity. I am lucky that neither Caroline nor I have the problem unless we eat garlic – and if then our breath whiffs we tell can each other without causing offence.

          1. I used to chew garlic as a revenge action against patients with bad breath.

            Also useful for clearing a channel to the bar in busy pubs.

          2. When Firstborn was a baby and eating proper food, he loved garlic in the food (and still does), but it made not only the exhaust reek, but the whole child ponged of garlicky sweat… Eeuw!

          3. I thought the best cure for garlic problems on other people was to eat some yourself.

    5. would the ability to speak English be a requirement, if so, 50% of the pool has gorn

    6. It’s a nice idea but as I posted recently, the training for most military categories would take up the bulk of the two years.

      1. It doesn’t need to be military training.

        Nursing assistant
        Hospital Porter
        Postwoman/ postman
        Road maintenance
        Teaching

        Loadsa things

        2. Indeed! But I think most of those who want to see National Service return are thinking of imposed discipline which leads to self discipline.

    1. Gary Larson: a top class surrealist in the same league as Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll and Salvadore Dalí.

  37. All I alone in thinking that the most Racist people in Britain are the BLM supporters?

    We are losing our Freedoms of Speech and Action, whilst theirs grows exponentionally

    Two wrongs do not make a Right

        1. Indeed they do. Two Lefts make an inelegant about-turn (or U-turn) and as Mrs Thatcher forcefully told us:

          “You turn if you want to; the lady’s NOT for turning.”

          1. When they were rid of her it showed the true heart of the Tory party, wet liberals.

    3. Well, yes. That’s what I’ve been saying from the start. The clue is in the name!

  38. 320797+ up ticks,
    I missed pearls of patter from the johnson chap but caught the doubling down bit & something green so I assumed the doubling down was appertaining to knees and the green a choice colour for a pray mat in
    regards to the near future take over..

  39. COVID antibodies – Why are so many people who have had COVID shown to have no antibodies?

    This guy looks at the latest work published on the internet and explains how two fundamentally different types of body reactions to COVID could explain how two alternative tests can give conflicting antibody results.

    It’s not about accuracy that many interviewers use in the media to try and trip up medical experts – it’s about both sensitivity and selectivity.

    https://youtu.be/AuKAg52mz4s

    2. Highly interesting. I’ve just sent it to 2 family frontline NHS workers who recently tested negative against all the odds.

      1. My daughter, who is an NHS community nurse prescriber on the front line, had all the symtpoms of COVID-19 along with her family in February before the pandemic outbreak was deemed to have occurred in the UK. She recently had an NHS antibody test which came back negative. This video just underlines the uncertainties still prevalent in medical knowledge about this virus despite the increasing number of ‘experts’ who claim their speciality is relevant to the identification and treatment of this pathogen.

    2. One of my favourite mammals, the striped skunk.

      [All my favourite animals are North American].

  41. 320797+ up ticks,
    Seems to me that justin welby seemingly pro English / GB is not the only one in the dividing game regarding church / Country.
    Did not the same type issue take place post 24/6/2016 when seemingly pro English / GB forces took to the political knife.

    30000 plus of us patriots have mutilated jackets as proof.
    Beware of those that shout loudest for democracy / freedom of speech…… then run.

    Let past events be a valued lesson learnt, even just for once.

    2. 320797+ up ticks,
      Morning Rik,
      The very same as the lab/lib/con coalition party & supporters / voters with probably the same odious
      consequences… very nasty, as proven time & again.

    3. There are several species of which only some have a venomous bite, not enough to affect humans seriously.

      1. Trump is our great hope, pity so many on here cannot see it, they believe all the lies about him. When you ask them for proof of what they say he has done they never give any as there is none.

        1. I hope he gets re-elected.

          What I’m not looking forward to is 4 more years of Trump derangement syndrome, followed by 4 years of Democrat rule which will be spent telling us how awful Trump was until the Democrats have completely wrecked the USA and nobody will be telling anybody anything.

    2. And he called Merkel ‘stupid’.

      She encouraged everyone in Africa to move to Europe. Even fascilitating their travel across the Med.

      Stupid doesn’t begin to describe her actions

  45. My letter yesterday to my useless MP:

    I should be grateful if you could let the Health
    Secretary know that his plan – indeed,
    law – that a father cannot walk his daughter down
    the aisle at her wedding – does not match with
    the images of thousands of people in Birmingham
    standing shoulder to shoulder to watch a rap singer.

    I am a Conservative voter. It is as if this
    government, which, I imagine, you support, is
    deliberately intent on bringing about civil unrest.

    His supine reply:

    Thank you for your email.

    First of all, I hope you and your family are keeping fit and well during these difficult times.

    I understand the great frustration families planning weddings must be feeling at this time. Please be assured the Government are keeping these restrictions under regular review and will ease them as soon as it is safe to do so. I have been assured that the Government will continue to work closely with faith leaders and local government over the coming weeks to go through the practicalities of doing so.

    With regards to live music events, at this stage, it is not yet safe for live performances to take place in front of a live audience. This is because of the increased risk of transmission associated with these types of activities or as a result of patrons needing to raise their voices to be heard over background music, and the event you mention in Birmingham should definitely not have gone ahead.

    I understand that the West Midlands Police will be speaking with the event organisers, who had encouraged fans to meet in the city centre despite gatherings of more than six people being banned under the coronavirus lockdown laws. In addition, I understand a number of people were arrested at the event for various offences and police officers will be making further enquiries with the event organisers.

    I think that part of my job is to make sure that the Government is properly aware of the strength of feeling in the country, so I will certainly pass on your concerns and comments to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.

    Yours sincerely,

    3. “…the West Midlands Police will be speaking with the event organisers…”

      I speak with my mouth. Whatever happened to ‘speaking to’?

      2. I get the impression speaking “with” people means initiating a meeting and then listening to what the miscreants have to say rather than telling them what’s what.

    4. Gosh, they will be speaking to them. Better take the Gujarati phrase book along. In other news, a hate crime investigation has begun after someone etched a message into grass.

  46. Help! Vouvray here but disqus will not let me log in under my name it keeps reverting to Alf. Alf has tried several things but no luck. Any suggestions would be gratefully received.

    1. Switch everything off. Wait five minutes. Restart the PC and try again.

      Just an idea.

  47. Is travelling overseas on holiday considered essential travel?

    Should holidaying in places other than Britain be considerd a priority before returning to work ?

    In 1966 Harold Wilson’s labour government imposed a £50 per-adult limit (worth £634 today) on the travel allowance for Brits abroad – and a £15 allowance per child… Poeple who holiday abroad take alot with them , surely in these down turn economic times a spending limit should be imposed again in order to keep currency in the UK ?

    1. I thought you might encourage them, Belle, to stop them destroying Durdle Door.

      1. So true Alf , I suspect they are in lockdown now!

        Heaven forfend they haven’t brought bugs with them to our little village shops.

        1. Just steer clear of nail salons, they are the latest source of buggy catchings over here.

          1. And probably used as money laundering vehicles by the east Europeans. Have seen the size of some of the outlets. Posh fixtures and fittings but rarely see anyone in them.

          5. I tell a lie; I was treated to a pampering session in the Taj Hotel in Bombay. While my head was enveloped in a hot towel, a girl came along, clipped my nails & filed them, then before I knew it she had lacquered them with clear varnish.

          6. Same happened to me in Casablanca. It’s a way of doubling your Bill.

            At least yours didn’t add glitter. 🙁

          8. Must be a Canadian thing. Three salons were closed in Kingston this week, twenty seven CV cases and hundreds advised to get tested and isolate.

            We have been pretty much bug free for weeks then just a couple of weeks after they were allowed to reopen, all of these cases came up.

          9. I raised the question last week: how come hairdressers can open & not nail parlours? Now we know why.

          10. Apparently they were not following the rules by.not wearing facemasks or keeping customers outside talking distance.

            I have also just heard that on the day that they opened, a bus load of women had travelled down from Toronto to get their manicures done in Kingston. Totonto was still supposedly in lockdown at the time.

          12. I have no idea, I have never been to one but I don’t think that it is like a car service where you drop off your auto and take a loaner for the day.

          13. I was being frivolous, Richard. I was recalling a sign from my distant youth: “Ears pierced while you wait”…..

          14. A strange world that I have had no experience visiting.

            I thought that it might be possible to detach the falsies talons and go without while they were being repaired and repainted, who knows?

            So did you wait for your ears? That is still a familiar sign over here.

          15. That’s an industry that shouldn’t exist, along with chewing gum and High St bookies.

          16. A few years ago a nail bar in Sudbury Town centre caught fire causing the destruction of a listed building and part of the former Midland Bank. Immigrants housed by Babergh District Council on the upper floors were extracted by brave firemen.

            Last year a nail bar in Halstead caught fire destroying yet another fine listed building.

            Nail bars are a blight on our high streets along with tattoo parlours and sunbed tanning parlours.

            Edit: My wife employs a young lady with a mobile nail service. The girl is equipped with suitcase style cabinets and performs the nail service at our refectory table.

    2. I drove down to Spain in an old Morris Minor that year and stayed in a tent on camping sites. I took rather less than £50 with me.

      1. I drove a MM down to Korcula along the Adriatic Highway, then home via Mostar, Sarajevo & Vienna. Great adventure; once inland from Mostar I could no longer use German until the Austrian border. it was before the troubles, of course.

      2. I worked my way around the world that year, starting off on a frozen meat freighter Tilbury-Lyttelton (port for Christchurch N.Z.) with £50 in my pocket. Worked on various sheep stations and building sites in S.I. NZ, then a cattle station in Queensland. Saved enough money to buy a half round the world ticket with BOAC and spent almost two months coming back via Singapore, Nepal and India in degrees of luxury varying between 3rd class Indian Railways (1000 miles and unlimited stops for 16/- with my student reduction) and staying in the embassy in Kathmandu, (Took the Crown Prince’s Harley out for a spin). Wonderful adventure.

    3. You don’t need to take money with you if you have a credit card or a debit card. Cash allowances are out of date. We only take enough for tips to staff.

    5. Are you serious? Holiday spending abroad is a drop in the ocean. And how would you police it? What about credit card spending? 1960s socialism is not an option today, TB.

    6. What about the immigrants who send their money back “home”? Much more substantial than a week on the Costa Lotta, I suspect.

  48. Tweet bu Ulrike Franke.

    Which country is the most influential in Europe?

    Germans say
    Germany: 76%
    France: 9%
    UK: 6%

    French
    Germany: 72%
    France: 19%
    UK: 4%

    US
    UK: 52% (!)
    Germany: 27%
    France/Italy: 6%

    1. The French really have a low opinion of themselves.

      Noone put the US or China at the top of the list or is it just European countries having influence?

  49. ‘Morning All

    Daily Betrayal

    “Our MSM’ omit to mention the astounding

    accumulation of power in Sedwill’s hands. He was not just the Cabinet

    Secretary and the National Security Adviser, he was also head of the

    Civil Service. How on earth did he have time to do all those jobs

    properly! The Times in their editorial hints at the underlying problem:

    “It is hardly

    sustainable for any prime minister to view their cabinet secretary as

    another leader of the opposition, still less one seeking reform of

    Whitehall. […] Briefings that Mr Johnson favours a Brexiteer for the

    role, however, are worrying […] his next cabinet secretary should be

    chosen on merit alone, not ideology.” (link, paywalled)

    And finally, since RemainCentral reminds us

    that ‘ideology’ is bad, and since we Leavers know full well about the

    Remain ideology so pervasive in Whitehall, may I respectfully suggest

    that Whitehall better gear up not just for the CV-19 pandemic inquiry

    but also for the inevitable Brexit inquiry. As Tom Harris observes in his opinion piece in the DT:

    “It is up to the

    electorate, not civil servants, to make the judgment as to whether those

    policies are right for the country. As well as the structure of

    government, it is the culture and mindset that needs reforming.” (paywalled link)

    Amen to that! Perhaps more mandarins

    need culling. Meanwhile, let’s hope that no amount of vicious, unfair,

    negative briefings against Frost will prevent the necessary changes.”

    https://independencedaily.co.uk/your-daily-betrayal-tuesday-30th-june-2020-day-99-of-lockdown-britain/

    1. I gather that the useless bleck woman who wrecked OfCom and is now doing the same to John Lewis is in the running.

      1. I was a JLP loyalist for years then they lost the plot about 15/20 years ago and have never been in one since that time.

        1. It is a socialist commune. I have tried not to support it except when there is no other option…

        1. In my detachment in the AR, there were the Serjeant Major and me (both white) and four black soldiers. A fifth joined who was white. His name? Pte Blackman!!

          1. We had three Chalkie Whites in my last unit. One was black. He didn’t object as he saw it as a form of acceptance.

      3. She has no telecoms background. No competencies as an engineer.

        Despite bouncing around the civil service where she was never in post long enough to actually learn anything she is now head of John Lewis.

        This is the sort of idiotic corruption that is the reason this country is stuffed.

    2. Thats the way the EU is run by people you cannot elect or sack. The civil servants like that idea.

    3. “next cabinet secretary should be chosen on merit alone, not ideology.” just as long as the next incumbent keeps his politics to himself.

  50. Off topic but just heard on the radio. With people looking forward to getting a haircut it seems that we will have to fill in one of the track/trace forms with our details and phone numbers – which will be “kept for 21 days” ( means it will be transferred into a computer and stay there forever). Total monitoring and control marches on.
    I had to fill one in when I actually got a chiropodist appt last week as well.

      1. Thank you for your reservation, I trust that this is your good wife Minnie with you today. Now if you could show me some ID to prove you are Mr M Mouse.

        If the fools could come up with yesterdays rules for weddings, who knows how unwise regulations could become.

      2. My pre-lockdown barber is located at the end of my branch of the road, about 40 terraced houses away. But, in the period since then, I have transferred my custom to Mrs Duckworth.

        1. No one appears to be too bothered by less than perfect home hair care nowadays and a quick run around with the sheep shears certainly beats waiting in line to get into the hairdresser.

          2. My pre-lockdown barber is still closed indefinitely (I walked past there today). I doubt he’ll re-open, to be honest. Still, I have a friend whose daughter is a trainee hairdresser and we’ve formed a family “bubble”. She’s made a good job of cutting my hair. Result!

    4. My hairdresser is now freelance and works from home. Margaret has been looking after my hair since the early 80’s when we both worked in Selfridges. She knows my date of birth and my entire life story as well as my home address, phone number and e-mail!

    5. All tonsorial and pedicure requirements are dealt with in-house at this establishment.

      1. You mean, you ease your tonsils regularly – with quality food & beverages…;-))

  51. Afternoon all.

    Review of ” Tiger Nuts ” on Sainsbury website …

    Should not be sold as a food for humans.

    1. Racially aggravated criminal damage. Five years and a fine.
      NB Destruction of statues and defacing of memorials are exempt from prosecution.

    1. Isn’t it supposed to take two weeks for symptoms to show, even though you can spread the infection before then? Leicester may have a problem.

      Naturally anyone in the city will move out to where there are fewer restrictions. Want a pint at the weekend, go to Coventry, Loughborough. Peterborough!

    2. Console yourself with it being those self-same BAMEs and lefties who will be in the majority going down with it and blaming you.

      1. But very few of them will actually die. Anywy, the lockdown will probably be ineffective at saving BAME grandparents, who have already made their (usually large) contribution to the massive transformation of our demography in the UK.

    4. Colonel John Smith*:

      I love it when a plan comes together

      Hanniball of the A team

      1. Ain’t got no tarm fer yer jibber-jabber!

        My younger son was a great Mr T fan when he was about 4 y.o.

  55. I see that François Fillon (the French presidential shoo-in at the last election) has been convicted of financial skullduggery with public funds – and sentenced to 5 years in prison, three suspended; his Welsh wife was also give a suspended sentence.

    They are both going to appeal. He was only doing what lots of French politicians do, but was stitched up at a crucial moment in the election campaign. If he had played his cards differently, he would have been President since 2017. But he immediately denied it all. Had he said, “Yes, of course I did it – everyone does” – he’d prolly have been OK.

    He is the SIXTH French prime minister since the War to be convicted………

    Vive la France!

    1. They are. Look at their blasted title!

      Black lives matter. Judging people by the colour of their skin is the very definition of racism.

    1. Should we give her the sobriquet of Mendacia or Traita?

      Is she a greater liar or is she a bigger traitor than all the others?

      She has some pretty stiff competition from Blair and Heath.

  61. Bye for now – got an appointment at a chiropractor. Lots of noisy joints and pain.

      1. I’ve got a hair appointment! I tried about 10 days ago to navigate their website booking system and ended up going round and round and gave up.
        Yesterday evening I received an email apologising for that and booking me with my long-time hairdresser on the date I had tried to book online!

      2. Apropos, why, I wonder, is chiropodist pronounced ‘cheeropodist’ & a chiropractor pronounced ‘kyropractor’?

        4. ‘Chiro’ has the same root in both words, coming from the Greek χειρὸς, meaning hand. Therefore the ‘Chiro’ should be pronounced the same in both words i.e. the first letter sounding more like a ‘k’ (think ‘Christmas’).

      3. If you want an online video appointment at £45 a pop this is who I use and they send a a list of suggested exercises the is animated. Tap the picture and it demonstrates the exercise.
        https://www.synergyphysio.co.uk/book-physio?utm_term=physio&utm_campaign=Physiotherapy+-+Sunningdale&utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&hsa_acc=7363069865&hsa_cam=6446779635&hsa_grp=79894102747&hsa_ad=428569150559&hsa_src=g&hsa_tgt=kwd-754878108&hsa_kw=physio&hsa_mt=p&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_ver=3&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI_JjR1K-p6gIVhLHtCh28mwDcEAAYASAAEgJAS_D_BwE

  62. What’s happened on Brexit talks?

    I thought June 30th was supposed to be a crunch date.

    1. It is the last date for asking for an extension to the “transition” period where we’re “out” but still subject to all the rules and regs, the ECJ and paying a fortune for it all. After midnight, it should all be settled that we’ll be out on 1st Jan if we can avoid treachery for the next few hours.

  64. Afternoon, everyone. I am reliably informed that the heatwave is coming back next week, but there’s no sign of it today. I did manage to do some shopping and cut the lawns, though. The latter activity brought on Tourette’s; the mower was recalcitrant and once it did start it threw grass into my borders. I cleaned it out, moved the mower and it blew the grass straight back! Add to that performance the fact that the dog would not go and settle out of the way, but had to keep lying exactly where I needed to walk (he’s been like that for several days – pruning the Berberis yesterday was a nightmare as he kept getting among the thorny cuttings) and I can assure you, mowing the lawns was an even more exhausting experience than it usually is. Am contemplating whether to open a bottle of red.

    2. They did from the outset. The police were white. And male.

      Also notably they were black. And some were female.

      What ‘black lives’ are is just a violent mob using force to justify racism.

      1. The initial attacks were on police, I’m now even more worried about Joe White .

  66. A [rhetorical?] question for the globalists.

    Every nation state has a leader. Whether in the form of an absolute monarchy, a democratically-elected government, or a dictatorship; it has leaders who have a wish to retain power and control.

    If a globalist, world government, ever comes about; what will become of those hundreds of now leaders who will find themselves without a remit or, indeed, a country to lead?

    Surely there will be insufficent sinecures within that new power structure to satisfy the power-seeking proclivities of all of them. Many, if not most, will rant and scream at the loss of their empires. No dictator, emperor, king, queen or president will take happily to becoming just a foot soldier.

    We are, as a species, naturally inclined to defend our own kind. Those who seek such a “new world order” cannot really have thought this through since tribalism and natonalism will always fight for life and existence. It is innate in all of us.

    ♬”There may be trouble ahead …”♬

    1. I watched the first part of a documentary on iplayer about the Principality of Monaco. Prince Albert is in effect absolute ruler. The monagasques wouldn’t have it any other way. A benign tyrant.

      1. The next in line may not be so benign.
        When HM The Queen, the smartest political operator there is, hands over to HRH Prince Charles (other princes are available), the goodwill she has built up may well be dissipated by the numpty she hands over to. Then the appreciation of the House of Windsor may change dramatically.

        1. The House of Windsor may well change under the greeniac Prince but i don’t think the Grimaldi’s will. Too savvy.

        2. Methinks HRH’s numptiness comes as a direct result of a combination of his being spoilt by his mother, coupled with an adverse (petulant) reaction to his father’s attempts at strict discipline. It is a chronic case of Shan’t! Shan’t! Shan’t! syndrome.

  67. DT article today

    How Donald Trump ‘bullied and humiliated’ Theresa May, saying she was ‘spineless’ on Brexit

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/30/trump-bullied-humiliated-theresa-may-phone-calls-saying-spineless/

    I think she succeeded in convincing him that she was spineless on Brexit because she did want him to see that the truth was that she was determined to foul up Brexit and deliberately trying to get the very worst result for Britain or even a complete cancellation of Brexit.

    Remember she was under orders from Soros and under the influence of the excrementalists in the Conservative Party to surrender.

    I strongly believe that like Blair she is evil.

      1. 320797+ up ticks,
        Evening C,
        It does makes one wonder where the party finds members / voters they were pre-warned of mays
        political pedigree they had been witnessing a six year trailer prior to the party.giving her the shout,
        Deceit, lies, treachery, & sh!te keep the lab party in with a shout.
        Deceit,lies,treachery & sh!te keep the lookalike tory party in with a shout.
        The electorate find the best of the worst acceptable and the political water is comfortably
        warm but is getting a tad hotter daily the sh!te will really hit the fan when they realise someone has tied down the common sense safety valve & the political water is growing lumps.

        1. She was the last woman standing when all the others had been eliminated. We didn’t choose her.

          1. 320797+, up ticks,
            N,
            The party hierarchy chose her prior to the leadership farce.
            I still see it as a damage limitation pro eu exercise.
            The gove / johnson / leadsome temp.
            equity card holders the mayday was
            a prior placement PM.
            In point of fact a continuation of major,
            the wretch cameron, may, and ……..?
            My personal view.

          3. 320797+ up ticks,
            Evening N,
            To my way of thinking a treacherously pre chosen leader prior to the farce, the so named Conservative party has been a lie especially since M, Thatcher received the order of the knife.
            IMO sad to say it has not run it’s course yet.

    2. She was bullied and humiliated by the EU – remember the picture of her sitting alone at a table with the plants? And the criticisms of the dinner at no 10? And the time she went to shake someone’s hand and was blanked? What about the cherry cakes she was offered? Not to mention being excluded from dinner and having to order in a pizza in the corridor. And yet she still came back there for more.

          1. I still think her objective was to keep us in. All the crap was window dressing.

    3. She was spineless, and mendacious, too. She pretended to be dealing with Brexit, when she was actually doing all in her power to stop it.

      1. She undermined and contradicted her own ministers whose brief was to secure Brexit. This culminated in the disgraceful Chequers debacle where her dissenting ministers were told to sign up to her deal or take a taxi home.

        May is a weak person of no political conviction. She was overly influenced by Robbins and Sedwill and came very close to aborting Brexit. She gave Robbins a knighthood and left Sedwill to Boris as a sort of legacy. Fortunately Boris has now disposed of that poisonous legacy.

        1. The odd thing is, according to wiki, her maiden name was Brasier. Who on earth would call their daughter Theresa Brasier? She must have been very thankful to marry Mr May!

  68. 320797+ up ticks,
    breitbart,
    PATEL: ‘AWFUL’ MASS GATHERINGS WILL LEAD TO A SECOND WAVE OF CORONAVIRUS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM,

    Granted, link that to mass uncontrolled immigration and “awful” becomes
    downright orchestrated frigging anti UK treachery and that
    ain’t pretty,priti.
    Carry on in this vein and surely at the next GE there will be a political requiem type mass on the cards for the continuing tory lookalike treacherous mess.

    1. But people will still vote for the old school parties rather than embracing anything new.

      The existing parties probably have a team watching for ukip VIX and have plans in place to discredit whoever turns up.

      1. 320797+ up ticks
        Afternoon R,
        The UKIP party under Gerard Batten was tailored made for combating our present odious condition.
        The odious, treacherous actions by the ersatz NEc against Batten / Braine prove the case without doubt.
        The opposition saw Batten in action and the success he was drawing that he had to be suppressed, orchestrated treachery struck again.

    2. Forgive me if suggested previously but have you tried a different browser, eg Chrome for Alf and use Firefox or Microsoft Edge for your details.
      This is what I do for different bank accounts with the same bank, Chrome for Mrs VVOF and Firefox for myself. Just a thought.
      If using a PC or laptop, can you download TeamViewer and let someone remotely assist you?

    3. Have you tried the obvious and actually logged off from disqus?
      Don’t blame me if your attempt to login results in endless captcha picture choices of bridges, American crossings and other picture games.

      2. Thank you richard Vouvray2 is now using Firefox. It’s the only way we could separate us but now can’t post.

  71. Brave words from Dick of the Yard. The profile of those who are likely to have a pint on Saturday are probably much more peaceful and law abiding that those who ran riot through the streets of London in BLM protests.
    Yes, I would have to agree, the Met can probably manage some more mature OAP type drinkers. Only if they arrive “tooled up” mind.

    https://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/article-8473939/Met-Police-chief-Cressida-Dick-says-easy-sit-armchair-criticise.html

    2. “ A number of officers were injured while dispersing crowds after the Liver building caught fire during celebrations.”

      Did the Liver building just spontaneously combust?

  72. I think one of the main reasons why the dreadful factions of the Left are currently in the ascendency, whilst the good people of the Right have been left at the starting gate, can be summed up in a quote from the wonderfully prescient William Butler Yeats. He said:

    “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

    How better and more lucidly clearer can the present morass be defined?

    1. The Mears Group have a £1bn contract to supply services in respect of immigrants in Scotland and elsewhere. They are similar to Serco and G4S. The Government is dividing up a very big cake to a few select businesses.
      These companies and others have many “conneggtions” (as Meyer Wolfsheim would say). They are making fortunes from the importation of immigrants, whether legal or illegal, whether the immigrants are employed or unemployed.

      https://corporatewatch.org/mears-group-scandal-hit-housing-profiteer-turns-asylum-landlord/

      Missing link added. No Neanderthals harmed in the making of this comment.

  74. Someone tell me how is it that the despicable, deceitful, treacherous
    ersatz type tory, may the odious, still has a shout in parliament, she
    is / was the burnt out intermediate stage of the semi re-entry rocket.
    All the while good peoples are suppressed.

      1. “She’s still there because her half-baked constituents voted for her.”

        I prefer it that way, Jules. :•)

        1. Given the choice between a LibDem, a Labour and a duff Conservative, what would you do?

          1. Probably down a couple of bottles of Springbank 15 years then jump off the roof.

          3. Don’t be silly, Grizzly[note!]

            You will be needed to head up the restoration of ‘Law and Order.’

          5. ‘Cos you know how it should best be done, Grizz. Experience beats youth!
            Young bull: “Look! The farmer has left the gate open! Lets run down to the next field & shag a couple of they cows!”
            Old bull: “No, let’s walk down there and shag the lot!”

          6. And it’s the only thing that keeps me ahead of the youngsters these days – experience. They know so much more than I did at their age… but I know better how to do the job!

          7. Oh!..come off it!

            They need a man of integrity,
            unfortunately there are not too many about,
            especially in yer UK!!

  75. That’s me for this Tuesday. Just back from watering the greenhouse. Gorgeous, healthy tomato plants there – and out doors – loads of flowers – only fruit on the lower trusses. The worst season I have ever had. And the worry is not knowing what is causing it. The trombetti plants are growing – not fast, but there is movement. The fruit get to six inches – and stop growing. It is all very confusing for us both – with 110 years of gardening between us.

    I’ll go and have a drink.

    A demain.

    1. Possibly just the English climate – when you’ve been used to growing these in France.

      My tomato plants started off well and the first trusses set – but higher up there are still just flowers. I think they need more feed and water than I’m giving them – but last year they caught up and did well.

    2. When did you last change the growing mediums, compost, pots and the like? You may have problems with the soil or pots, funghi, viruses etc love old stuff.

      You might also find that watering the plants rather the greenhouse helps.

      1. Every year new soil; fresh well-rotted manure; no blight; Bordeaux mixture applied; Tomorite according to the label…

          1. Pots? They were sown in pots that had been sterilised before use. And potted on into similar, larger pots – before going to the final position.

          2. In which case, I’m sorry to be the one who breaks this to you, but

            you’ve lost green fingers and developed black thumbs.

            BTM don’tcha kno…

      2. We don’t have a greenhouse; awfully poor soils here – clay on chalk. The trombetti went berserk last year, it was like herding cats and looking after toddlers at the same time. I have to say that they were slow to take off, though.

    3. Take a feather and fertilise the trusses yourself. Gather up pollen from other tomato plants and give the one you’re treating a bit of slap and tickle. Then gently spray them with a mist of water to set them.

      1. Thanks, Conwy – a very helpful suggestion. I have instructed Cook to deal with it first thing tomorrow.

        My only puzzle is that I have never had to do this before in over half a century.

        1. Could be a combination of heat and humidity (or lack of either or the wrong combination at the time). What variety are they?

          1. Various Italian and Greek. All worked perfectly in yer France last year (and for years). And, pretty well in Norfolk last summer.

            I hate the advice columns which say, “Either too little watering OR too much”…!!

    1. Theresa May (a not unattractive woman)

      Be very careful around men in white coats Lewis…

      1. She has the head of a raptor and the body of a wooden string operated puppet. Other creatures are available.

        Mitterrand cleverly described Thatcher as having the eyes of Caligula and the lips of Marilyn Munro.

        Edit: May has no such redeeming features.

    2. She has a personal dresser who loathes her – and puts out terribly unsuitable clothes and tells her she looks gorgeous.

    3. Her dress sense is terrible. Skirts are too short, and such a mish-mash of colours. She has reasonably good legs for a woman in her sixties, but we don’t need to see her knees.

    4. Wearing mini skirts in her fifties and sixties was proof of her bad judgement.

    5. Her dress sense is terrible. Skirts are too short, and such a mish-mash of colours. She has reasonably good legs for a woman in her sixties, but we don’t need to see her knees.

      1. Some of us don’t give our own knees a second glance – unless they’re giving us gip.

        1. 320797+ up ticks,
          Evening LD,
          Knees are playing a more prominent part
          in society of late, one knee currently soon methinks to be joined by tother.
          With all the herd facing in an Easterly direction.

      2. She has what we called “cab horse knees” in Newcastle! Shortened to cabby knees!

          2. Haha! My dad said my “racehorse ankles” came from good breeding from his side of the family! No cankles here, no sirree!

          4. I know, but it made him laugh! My grandfather used to say that he didn’t know how my legs held me up! I think I was about 7!

          5. I know, but it made him laugh! My grandfather used to say that he didn’t know how my legs held me up! I think I was about 7!

          2. I was always told that when I rode out on the roads I should put knee boots on the horse. When I was doing my NVQ2 Horse Care I always did, but since then, I never have. Fortunately, we haven’t come down on the roads. Broken knees are a beggar.

          4. The trouble with broken knees is often proud flesh – the wound doesn’t heal flat, probably because of the constant bending.

          5. Same as our knees and elbows. You never realise how much you bend and flex them until they’re damaged!

    6. Why, then, have so many prime ministers been appointed who have no proven expertise in common sense nor leadership qualities?”

      1. 320797+ up ticks,
        G,
        Those qualities are not required when treachery is the order of the day.

      3. Good evening, Grizz.

        I think your question is rhetorical?
        Surely, we all know the answer!
        The PTB have no desire to have their
        ‘absolute power’ over us to be diluted!!

    7. There’s something not quite canny about May. I think she was probably swopped when she was little for one of those seed pods from The Invasion of the Body Snatchers and then that was left with her parents

  78. Keir Starmer is setting a trend in wriggling out of his show of support for Black Lives Matter

    Egg on Face Club

    (for those who backed BLM before realising it was an extreme left, communist, anti-Jew racist organisation that wants to do away with the police, democracy, history and freedom of expression):

    Sir Keith Starmer (President)
    Justin Welby (Head Nincompoop)
    Gary Lineker
    Lewis Hamilton
    Sad Dick Khan
    Even Sadder Dick Cressida
    The Football Association
    The Equity Union
    Piers Morgan

    etc. etc. etc.

    (Please add some other club members to the list)

    1. Have any of those actually recanted? Keir Starmer used a form of words but said little.

      1. Maybe not – but unless they are even more stupid than we imagined they will have an inkling that they backed the wrong bandwagon, jumped on the wrong horse, and mixed a dodgy metaphor!

          1. Stupid to have jumped on any bandwagon. In this case, where was the “upside”? The “officials” amongst them were either not doing their job impartially, or were not doing their job. Either way they were out on a limb that was barely legal.

        1. Yo Ol

          If you said ‘Last Post’ to most of those in UK, they would check a pillar box

          But, we know different

          Edit: for those unfamiliar with Military Life, (certainly RN), Last Post is sounded at funerals, even with just a lone bugler

          https://youtu.be/PBHZwMz70fQ

          2. I recall a TV recording of the Last Post blown over the Falklands at a memorial service for the guys who died there. That was very atmospheric – a single bugler in the wind and wild.

          3. The repatriation ceremonies at Camp Bastion were terribly moving affairs. I had the misfortune and privilege to attend nine touring my tour.

            Before the coffin was borne into the Hercules, the last post was played. At one ceremony, for a member of the SCOTS, a piper played a lament which was also heart rending.

            After taking off, the Herc would always fly in a wide arc around the airfield and return and fly low over the parade, then as it flew away it would waggle its wings in salute.
            I have a lump in my throat writing this as the memories come back.

      2. Good evening G
        Vouvray has had great problems signing in today as it continues to sign in in my name. We’ve now out Firefox on her iPad and everything was going well. Closed down the iPad opened up again signed in but it keeps on saying nttl wants to verify your email. Press the button to do it and the Disqus page keeps on showing error can’t do it. Tried posting but won’t let her. Do you have any suggestions?

        1. Good evening, Alf…..and Vouvray!

          I wish I could! Unfortunately I am almost totally, computer,
          illiterate. I have had more avatars than hot dinners, well
          nearly!
          These days I tend to turn the thing off and try again tomorrow,
          so far this strategy is working!!

          1. Yo T_B

            As I keep saying. I MUST read morester carefullier

            I fort you post

            I have had more affairs than hot dinners, well nearly!

          2. Yo Tryers.

            Now, did you mean to speak to TB, who is a treasure,
            or to me who is a miserable old misery?
            Your response will qualify my answer!! :-))

  80. For BLM and the Antifa Zoo the Union is the real enemy, not the Rebs. SST 30 June 2020.

    The statues of long dead Johnnies (Rebels) were easy pickings, low hanging fruit for the revolutionary movements now ravaging the land.

    I was in college in Virginia during the Centennial of the US Civil War at a school drenched in the history of that period (VMI). We had all kinds of distinguished historians come to speak to the cadet corps in Jackson Memorial Hall. As an outlander new to the South I watched the reaction of the cadets carefully, curious to see how much the tale would stir them. It did not. They listened with some level of polite interest but that was the limit if their engagement. The fire had gone out even then.

    Today, with the exception of re-enactors and antiquarian eccentrics involved in the literature of that time, few people care. That is why there has been no serious or effective resistance to defacing and removing Confederate Memorials. Few care, certainly not “practical people.”

    But, pilgrims the Confederate caper was merely a warm-up for the big game, the game intended to smash the present social and governmental order in the US and replace it with something other, something better in the collective mind of the revolutionary movements. “White Supremacy” is code for the present forms of government and economy. These movements are deeply Marxist, deeply against private enterprise, deeply anti-democratic except for the Soviet definition of the word. “Government ownership of the means of production and distribution.”

    The insurrectionists are hoping for a collapse of the will to resist, a PTA moment in which the weak willed throw up their hands and surrender. To get to that point a constant barrage of abusive language and childish behavior is part of the program, something like the way badly behaved children take control of weak parents.

    Disbandment of police forces are a necessity long the way.

    Weak politicians who in their hearts are filled with guilt over “White Supremacy” are a convenience.

    I would give the insurrectos high marks for their progress thus far. Pat Lang.

    An American perspective. This is where the real battle is being fought. If the United States goes down to the Marxists then the UK will follow suit.

    https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/

        1. I bet he didn’t realise at that time he only had four years left.

          He’s now been dead for longer than he lived!

          2. Yup! He was alive for 42½ years (Jan 1935–Aug 1977) and he’s now been dead for 43 years.

          3. What made me reflect was that it doesn’t seem all that long ago that he died.

            I suppose fans of the Michafreak will feel the same twenty years on from now.

          4. It’s all due to that unanswerable conundrum as to how the clock whizzes around much faster the older we get.

            My childhood, schooldays, and first jobs took an absolute lifetime to complete. Since then the past 45 years has flown by like 10 minutes!

    2. We have imported every other aspect of American culture. Good or bad. Block gangs, ghettos, Rap music. Rap Idolises drug culture, gun culture, bling and money and treating all women like prostitutes.

      1. Afternoon Phizz. I have always thought that we ignored the good and adopted everything that was bad from the United States

        1. Lowest common denominator i suppose. Easier to import rubbish than high culture.

          Good afternoon Madame Minty. 🙂

  83. Pfui,the whole world’s gone mad…………….

    https://twitter.com/DailyMirror/status/1277571834578419713
    Edit
    A Rakes Progress
    “We only want legal recognition.”
    “We only want to be able to get married.”
    “We only want to be able to adopt children.”
    “We only want to be able to dress up like prostitutes and read stories to children.”
    “We only want to be above scrutiny.”
    “We only want you to pay to give us wombs.”
    “We only want……….”

    It really ought to have stopped at civil partnerships, and no more.

    1. They want it, they pay for it – and the care and any costs related to poor surgery.
      Then I couldn’t give one.

    2. While they still have bollocks, kick them there, very hard.
      Then do it again, roughly in time with a normal woman’s contractions.
      After 72 or more hours of that, ask them whether they enjoyed the pain, because childbirth will be worse than even that, if they are forced to give birth naturaly with no proper pelvic make up.

        1. Swedish blondes are mainly a myth, there are far more brunettes [and far more ugly women than pretty ones!].

    2. I will be more excited when they depict the Prophet Mohammed as Black. Come to think of it I see no images of the Prophet anywhere. Come on Black Lives Matter, time to have your ears nailed to the mast.

    4. Rik.

      Why does it matter?

      Jesus was and is, Jesus…Son of God.

      Excuse my language…… but WTF has
      his skin colour got to do with anything?

      2. I think it matters on one level because the ABC and associated others are manipulating and attempting to change perceptions in accordance with their political narrative of the day without regard for, and riding roughshod over, their parishioners long-held cherished perceptions of a vision in their minds of Christ they have most likely held since childhood.

        On another level no, it matters not at all.

    5. Soon,just being ‘Black’ will not be good enough

      You will have to be the ‘right sort’ of black, ie grew up in comparative luxury n the West, as a decendant of a slave,
      compared with your family in Somalia, who still live in mud huts

      The ‘Right BLMers’ will have grew up NOT in Africa

      1. As we all know, the “right sort” of women have penises. Your career in a British university is over if you suggest otherwise.

  88. Goodness me!

    What a beautiful sun-set!
    Albeit the clouds reflecting the dying Sun’s
    rays look slightly ominous!

    1. That’s when Graham Nash (on the left) was still singing his high register harmonies, before he left to join up with David Crosby and Steve Stills.

      Crosby, Stills and Nash formed when the Hollies, on a tour of the USA, were invited to a party at Joni Mitchell’s house. After a few drinks everyone started singing and the assembled throng were knocked out by the quality of the harmonies being sung by Nash and Crosby. That was when the seeds of CS &N were formed. Neil Young (a fellow member of Buffalo Springfield with Steve Stills) was invited to make the trio into a quartet a few years later.

      1. Mastermind for you next Grizz. never heard of any of them.I just listened to what I liked and nothing more.

        1. I read New Musical Express for years, John, especially during the 1970s and early 1980s. I stopped taking it when it went over completely to Punk.

        1. I have a full head of hair, so did my father at 94 & my grandfather at 84.

          1. Morning Peddy,

            You are a lucky man . My poor old Moh started to lose his when he was in his early thirties, our 2 sons are similarily afflicted.

          2. My sons still have hair; not sure about their father – he was going thin when we parted thirty years ago. John has hardly any – he lost his quite young.

          2. They have twins cousins in Ireland. Gerald Fitzpatrick and Patrick Fitzgerald.

    1. kneel, aim carefully and squeeze that trigger; black concentric circles matter.

    3. kneel, aim carefully and squeeze that trigger; black concentric circles matter.

  93. COVID-19 is recognised as one of the acute respiratory distress (ARDS) causing pathogens. However it is becoming increasingly associated with interference of the blood clotting process following vascular injuries. This is a natural but finely balanced process that repairs arterial and venous wall injury through the creation of thrombotic plugs to seal the injury sites whilst moderating them so that they don’t oversize and occlude the arteries or veins.

    Tonight’s news reported on a case where a COVID-19 patient had suffered two strokes. However this was not necessarily due to lack of structural integrity of the brain but to hyper thrombotic activity caused by the COVID-19 virus.

    This has amazed doctors who now realise that the virus can affect all organs of the body through excessive thrombolytic action especially where there are Angiotensin ii cell receptors like vascular walls.

    This video sums up the situation and recognises the increasing importance of blood thinners (anticoagulants like heparin) in trying to regulate the over creation of thrombi.

    https://youtu.be/twPd0YvY3T0

    1. Thanks, but stale news. The cunning chinese suggested that as their virus was so contagious, it would be too risky to allow any autopsies and that corpses should be cremated asap. Thus it was a while before the medical establishment twigged that clots were helping to kill intubated patients.

      1. The issue I was getting round to was whether COVID-19 is acting as an irritant to the endothelium in the process of blood clot formation particularly as there is a strong expression of Angiotensin ii in the cellular layer of arterial walls.

        https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-020-0343-0

        This would then add to any existing life threatening irritants as illustated by atherosclerosis in the following video. Any views on how this would differ from a diagnosis of DIC?

        https://youtu.be/g3kDdg8r6NY

      1. Apparently next years Australian wines will be something special. The fires have left behind a mass of charcoal that great for the grapes.

      1. It was preceded by an undistinguished bottle of Chardonnay the remains of which ( 60%) have now been allocated to SWMBO’s kitchen alchemy stock.

    7. Is it any good? I try and avoid wines with gimmicky names and labels, particularly if they have a screwcap. You will probably find it was bottled in the U.K., somewhere on the label will be the postcode of the bottling plant.

      2. I find screw cap bottles do not pour cleanly they tend to dribble round the thread where as a cork bottle is easy to pour without a dribble. Never judge a book on its cover or wine in a bottle.

  97. Unsurprisingly the idiot corporations indulging in the Black Lives Matter movement appear to have awakened to its reality. I trust they will now prohibit their employees from taking the knee.

    I would not, as a shareholder, wish to support those companies pretending to sympathy with Antifa or Black Lives Matter. These are renegade organisations intent on the destruction of our way of life.

  98. Goodnight, all. Unless something has happened of which we know nothing, it’s now clear to Brexit at midnight, 31st December. I’ll drink to that.

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