Saturday 8 August: What is the point of Border Force if it cannot turn back migrant vessels?

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/2020/08/07/letters-point-border-force-cannot-turn-back-migrant-vessels/

678 thoughts on “Saturday 8 August: What is the point of Border Force if it cannot turn back migrant vessels?”

  3. Good Morning Folks

    Third

    Warm humid night, spots of rain this morning, back to scorchio later

    1. ‘Morning, B3. Hot, heavy and humid in yer E Sussex. A few tantalising drops of rain just now…and then no more. We are promised a mere 31° today, which is two down on yesterday’s peak. I suppose we should be grateful that it seems to be heading in the right direction.

    2. ‘Morning, B3. Hot, heavy and humid in yer E Sussex. A few tantalising drops of rain just now…and then no more. We are promised a mere 31° today, which is two down on yesterday’s peak. I suppose we should be grateful that it seems to be heading in the right direction.

    1. Now I’m really confused. Shouldn’t the decapitated head be wearing a face mask to prevent the spread of droplets?

      Morning all.

  5. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    SIR – The British Government is living in cloud-cuckoo land if it seriously thinks the French government is trying to stop migrants crossing the Channel. The more migrants leave the French coastline heading for Britain, the less drain on the French. They are well pleased to see them depart.

    Geoff Morton
    March, Cambridgeshire

    Quite so, Geoff Morton. Yer French just wave them through and point towards Dover, knowing that another few millions of British taxpayers’ money will be travelling in the opposite direction. With politicians as thick and useless as ours, who can blame them?

    1. Cheap, lazy journalism? It’s not even journalism, is it? Just sanitized pap for the non-thinking.

      ‘Morning, Rik.

    2. Cheap, lazy journalism? It’s not even journalism, is it? Just sanitized pap for the non-thinking.

      ‘Morning, Rik.

      2. Once the young adults have permission to remain – a given – then they can request family members be allowed to join them pleading on human rights grounds.

        I am told about treaties and undertakings with allies that preclude the U.K. taking unilateral action. Well, break them.

  7. I have been trying to think up a catchy slogan for the Covid jab when it becomes mandatory

    – Just remember, it’s not what the vaccine can do for you,

    It’s what you can do for the vaccine.

    1. “Living in a vacuum? Tired of dyson with Death everyday? Get more out of life. Get a Vax!”

  8. Just noticed that the sparrows are a bit peckish this morning, thought this hot weather would slow them up a bit.

      1. It’s no wonder that having worked out the physics of displacement, Archimedes went on to develop the Screw……..

  10. SIR – Replacing 20 million gas boilers with electrically powered heat pumps (Letters, August 5) looks attractive, as their equivalent heat output is typically three times the electrical power input.

    However, to achieve this with any consistency a ground-source system is needed. This requires fairly major external excavation. The relatively low output temperature of up to around 40 degrees Celsius could be appropriate for under-floor or warm-air heating in new-build properties, but adapting existing properties is unlikely to be cost-effective.

    The alternative – installing larger radiators, to operate at 40C rather the normal 60C – is feasible but still expensive and disruptive.

    Then there is the issue of domestic hot water, which needs to be at least 55C, thus requiring auxiliary electrical heating. On top of this, there would be no running cost advantage over natural gas, based on current energy prices, because electricity is roughly four times the cost of gas per unit. This wholly wipes out the efficiency benefit of heat-pump systems.

    Ron Stubberfield
    Broadway, Worcestershire

    Don’t worry, Ron Stubberfield; the current plan is to make new gas boilers hydrogen-ready. Just how a sufficient quantity of hydrogen will be manufactured at reasonable cost and delivered to millions of homes remains to be seen.

    There again, pigs might fly…

    1. Yo HJ

      The hydrogen will be manufactured in coal fired ‘Power Staions’, which will be declared to be the saviours of the Planet by the Greens

      1. The obvious way to make hydrogen is by using spare renewable sources, such as PV and wind power to electrolyse water.

        One major problem with renewables is that we cannot make the sun shine or the wind blow when we want to hunker down in our nice warm living rooms. Storage of electricity in batteries is expensive, and batteries do not last long, as anyone who drives a car knows all too well. If hydrogen can be stored safely, it is just topped up on a sunny day when we’re at the beach catching virus.

    2. Much less to do with renewables as the fact that we’re running out of gas. Thatcher and Heseltine to blame for that.

    3. Arrant scientifically illiterate nonsense inspired by Woke/Green political wishful thinking
      Fuckwits,fuckwits everywhere who think their magic wands are going to abolish the laws of physics………..

    4. MOH replaced our oil fired boiler with a heat pump some years ago.

      He assures me that there is no cost saving with oil prices at their level in the last three years.

      Don’t be taken in by the advertising.

  13. Morning all

    SIR – You report that the Royal Navy may be asked to stem the flow of migrants. If the Navy does not return them forcibly to the shores of France, but simply assists with their ferrying to England, this seems of little use.

    Given that more than 3,800, mainly young men, have arrived by boat this year, what is needed is a change in the law to reduce and streamline the appeals process, including a repeal of the Human Rights Act, from which flow many of the causes of delays. Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, needs to get a grip.

    Michael Staples

    Seaford, East Sussex

    SIR –Why spend £20,000 a day on a Royal Navy cutter to patrol the Channel on sunny days, when there are hundreds of private vessels to be commandeered, with willing captains, at a fraction of the cost?

    Nick Rose

    Selsey, West Sussex

    SIR – The British Government is living in cloud-cuckoo land if it seriously thinks the French government is trying to stop migrants crossing the Channel. The more migrants leave the French coastline heading for Britain, the less drain on the French. They are well pleased to see them depart.

    Geoff Morton

    March, Cambridgeshire

    SIR – In the never-ending saga of our illegal immigrant problem, many Britons are at best frustrated by the state’s inability to stop people taking advantage of our compassion and adherence to international treaties.

    We have a state for which we pay our taxes and choose people to execute our wishes. Yet in this aspect of its function, the state is failing the British people.

    Membership of the European Union was an issue where the views of the electorate were opposed to that of our representatives. It took direct democracy to resolve.

    Does it need further referendums to make sure the electorate prevails over those who are supposed to serve us?

    Stuart Noyes

    Andover, Hampshire

    1. 322236+ up ticks,
      Morning Epi,
      M staples should pin it down in it’s true light, this priti thing
      is doing a courageous thing as with the governance party
      and that is fighting behind enemy lines.
      You must give credit for audacity them building a fifth column & having the indigenous pay for it.

    2. More people who don’t seem to realise that Thereson May signed the UN Migration Pact and the government is only implementing its official policy.

  14. 322236+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    “what is the point of the border force” I see it as more of a buffer betwixt governance party & peoples to be used in a buck passing manner by the politico’s.

    The current lab/lib/con cannot be seen in a naked truth light that would prove to be just to much surely for the memberships.

    By the same token what is the point of these type parties and the continuation by the peoples to keep giving them substance without even
    trying to bring about serious change.

  15. Morning again

    SIR – I am 72, and like many others my age I am waiting for joint surgery – in my case a full shoulder replacement.

    My operation, scheduled for March 2020, was cancelled a week beforehand due to the pandemic. On hearing that elective surgery was soon to be resumed, I telephoned my surgeon’s secretary to inquire when that might take place. I was shocked to be told that currently they are not offering operations like this to the over-70s, apparently in accordance with government guidelines.

    I contacted the patient liaison office at the hospital, quoting the 2010 Equality Act, as well as the NHS criteria stating that cases should be treated according to clinical need. That office got back to me and said that identical government guidelines had been issued to all hospitals.

    In the meantime hundreds of patients are waiting, unaware that this policy has covertly pushed them further down the list. My own pain has become unbearable and my ability to cope with everyday activities is severely curtailed.

    I can foresee an increased reliance on the already overburdened social care system.

    Jennifer Dean

    Northwich, Cheshire

    SIR – In July last year I underwent cancer surgery, losing an eye in the process. My treatment was nothing short of wonderful, and I have nothing but the highest praise for the NHS.

    I was required to attend regular follow-up appointments. As soon as lockdown was announced, I had no fewer than nine appointments cancelled, and, to date, I have not been seen by any of the departments who were anxious to monitor my progress.

    I am profoundly glad that I was diagnosed pre-Covid.

    Nigel Cole

    Sale, Cheshire

    1. Poor Jennifer Dean, and everyone else who is in the same situation.
      Best advice for NHS patients appears to be, don’t get old, don’t get ill.
      Oh look! The government has the answer to that as well, and was working up to implementing it before the coronavirus struck, and Tom Moore became everyone’s hero. Just keep an eye out for the resumption of the regular articles in the mainstream media about people who are suffering unbelievable burdens of pain, and cannot be released from them because of our inhumane laws forbidding assisted suicide (or “murder” as it is quaintly known in the UK).

  16. SIR – The Government should lead by example and encourage all civil servants to go back to work.

    At a local level, quite the opposite seems to be happening, with various council office workers and agency staff staying away.

    Wendy Darling

    North Curry, Somerset

    2. Of course every single one of those Council workers throughout the land are isolating at home and have never ventured out to the shops especially during the 3 months of non-mandatory face mask wearing……

      1. Apart from dustmen, who despite working amongst crud and rotting detritus, seem to remain healthy.

  17. SIR – Let’s hope the Tate stands firm against the online petition demanding the removal of “racist and harmful” Rex Whistler murals from its dining room (report, August 5).

    The 19th century saw draperies added to “indecent” unclothed human figures, while the 20th century witnessed the burning of books and the destruction of art deemed to be “decadent”. Will this century be remembered for the “cancelling” of pictures, monuments and literature in response to “woke” militants?

    John Mounsey

    Stroud, Gloucestershire

    1. “… the 20th century witnessed the burning of books…”

      Ah, yes, I remember Bradford 1989.

      1. All the repressive regimes in the 20th century did their share of burning “decadent” books, I think.

      1. The Tate does not “stand firm”. It acknowledges the sheer horror of the mural and apologises for it. A quote from Observer:
        ““Tate has been open and transparent about the deeply problematic racist imagery in the Rex Whistler mural,” a spokesperson for the museum said in a statement made to The Guardian. “In the context of the mayor of London’s recently announced public realm review, we welcome further discussion about it. Having been commissioned for the restaurant walls in 1927, the mural was one of the artist’s most significant works and is part of a Grade I-listed historic interior. But it is important to acknowledge the presence of offensive and unacceptable content and its relationship to racist and imperialist attitudes in the 1920s and today.””
        They will put curtains over it very soon.

        From an artistic and objective viewpoint, one might ask are the slaves portrayed in the mural any more real than the unicorns? “Racist and imperialistic attitudes in the 1920s”. Prove it, I say. To accept that this was so is to accept in part the narrative of the nutters that want to wipe out all trace of any aspect of our past that they find unacceptable.
        We should not enter into dialogue, but dismiss them. It is not possible to reason with, or compromise with, fanatical iconoclasts.

      3. The Tate does not “stand firm”. It acknowledges the sheer horror of the mural and apologises for it. A quote from Observer:
        ““Tate has been open and transparent about the deeply problematic racist imagery in the Rex Whistler mural,” a spokesperson for the museum said in a statement made to The Guardian. “In the context of the mayor of London’s recently announced public realm review, we welcome further discussion about it. Having been commissioned for the restaurant walls in 1927, the mural was one of the artist’s most significant works and is part of a Grade I-listed historic interior. But it is important to acknowledge the presence of offensive and unacceptable content and its relationship to racist and imperialist attitudes in the 1920s and today.””
        They will put curtains over it very soon.

        From an artistic and objective viewpoint, one might ask are the slaves portrayed in the mural any more real than the unicorns? “Racist and imperialistic attitudes in the 1920s”. Prove it, I say. To accept that this was so is to accept in part the narrative of the nutters that want to wipe out all trace of any aspect of our past that they find unacceptable.
        We should not enter into dialogue, but dismiss them. It is not possible to reason with, or compromise with, fanatical iconoclasts.

    3. Yes. The “woke” number perhaps 3% of society and are now in charge of our heritage, culture, built environment and social mores.

  21. Good morning all. Back again. Trip to Wivno very successful. ON the way, called into hae lunch with chum who took our cat Mousie (then aged 4) when the MR went to Monaco. Mousie now 15, fairly hale and hearty. Knew us, of course. When she was a kitten I trained her to come when I whistled. Well, she was out in the garden. I whistled and she immediately came to me. Not a dry eye etc etc.

    Only down side was that all three people we saw – aged 47 to 70 – were all 120% in favour of masks, sanitiser, social distancing etc etc. Thought my approach was crazy and anti-social…

    Anyway – a smile for you all.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/12ead9cc552763b796fac0345d989999dd11542c2fcff47232dd55a161b47cba.jpg

      2. So they’re still finding a use for those tractor bonnet clips they used to sell for minicoopers…

    2. Good afternoon Mr T and everyone.
      Serious question: were the mask enthusiasts in favour of Brexit?

  22. Heyup All!
    Dropped down to Overstrand and I’ve had a swim.
    /Now sat in the Clifftop Cafe with a pot of tea and I’ve just eaten the sticky bun!

    Decent night’s sleep for a change and was awake at 05:15 to the sound of almost nothing!
    A few birds on the marshes, some tawny owls to the West and a distant cock crowing.
    20 minutes later the bloody pigeons started up and drowned everything else out!

    Sunrise at Stiffkey this morning
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/90607288865f9b1128b40ed33de48aeb974764ac4dd9724da8b8f9da6ed56eaf.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2f4999d60c8731149cc87677985dadb74a1045bfcdec5423fd33bde9b90899c0.jpg

    Anyone fancy a restoration project?
    A nice little Track-Marshal crawler in need of some TLC.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/24502c27052540ee5f5ac3a7e2f4f1aa67817534ac7386d8ab7192af3aea55f7.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/23cce8f672776ccf1613f0fd72ebd270c00a6daddbdb26cce02a2fc1ef427e75.jpg

    1. We were there a couple of weeks ago, walking the coastal path – that shingle looks familiar – 7Km of the stuff on one section!!

      1. Morning M.T. Earlier there was a thread on the local pronunciation of place names in Norfolk. Is Fulmodeston pronounced Full Modesty by any chance?

        1. Some native born folk say it is “FullmudSTONE”

          Others “FULLmudstun”.

          The great thing is that people living five miles away don’t even know were it is, let alone how to say it…

          1. I came across it by chance when I was looking for Hindolveston, where Roger Lloyd Pack had a summer house.

    3. We’re about 50 mins from there, and it looks a lot more inviting than Cromer. I shall endeavour to persuade MOH to visit there.

        1. When I stayed with my cousin in Norfolk & he had to work, I always made for Cromer. Fish’n’chip lunch in Mary Janes (which has since gone right down hill), then sat on the pier & watched the World go by.

    3. Keep the photo for future reference – you’ll be able to prove that England DID once have green spaces without houses full of immigrants in them

  24. From the Daily Mail –
    “Police record 172 vegan hate crimes in past five years”
    Words Fail me ! !

    2. I hate and detest aubergines, coriander leaf and rocket!

      There, that must get me a life sentence.

      Mitigation: I loathe rabbit, both as an animal and food, therefore I refuse to eat it. Will that get my sentence reduced?

      1. As a sufferer from IBS, I discovered, early on just why rocket is called rocket…. 20 minutes from plate to lav.

          3. That, too. Back (see ladder, passim); actually, I have back pain since I was in my 20s. Apparently something to do with the fusion of the lowest vertebrae… Being male, I never complain, of course…{:¬))

          4. Hhmm. Not good. With me, for the past year I’ve ben acutely aware of arthritis in my thumb joints at the base of each palm. It has made me acutely aware of much use gets made of my thumbs and perhaps worryingly for the future how long they will continue to give a reasonable functioning level of service…..

          7. Not on their own, of course – in soup and when cooking….

            Though I smother my soup and veg with freshly ground black pepper.

          8. Thanks. I did wonder and discovered that the combination can be purchased in tablet form as a health supplement…

          9. Maybe a costly way of buying the two. Turmeric online is cheap as chips; and if you buy (Amazon) a kilo of black peppercorns it works out very inexpensive compared with what is on offer in supermarkets etc.

            My beloved thought I was mad the first time I bought a kilo of pepper. A couple of months and she asked me to get another one…!!

    5. Eating carrots is gingerist. Ginger lives matter, you know, even perhaps in Los Angeles.

    1. Of course it does. Mass immigration is supported by most of the intelligentsia, who despise the native Brits of this country.

  26. SIR – Your report (August 7) that 235 migrants crossed the English Channel on Thursday to enter Britain without permission puts a question mark over the competency and powers of Border Force to stop and turn back vessels.

    An earlier report (August 4) noted that Border Force cannot use force to put regulations into effect: “Only the Navy has the capability to safely remove and return to France migrants intercepted in their boats.”

    Should the cutters and patrol vessels of Border Force therefore be requisitioned by the Royal Navy and Border Force itself be disbanded? Or, are we to presume that deployment of Border Force vessels to the English Channel is nothing to do with border control at all, but serves to duplicate the life-saving mission of those RNLI lifeboats already based in Kent?

    Sqn Ldr James A Cowan (retd)
    Durham

    Indeed, just what is the point of Border Farce, except as some kind of visible deterrent, and a very expensive and inneffective one at that? We desperately need something more than mere window-dressing.

    1. There was some discussion on BBC Radio 4 this morning about this Border Force responsibility. The Border Force representative said that the rule of the sea was that all ships had a duty to save people who were in danger on the sea. He did say that many ships in the channel were reporting the position of these vulnerable boats to the Border Forces and rescue services of the UK and possibly to the French. These ships reporting obviously didn’t consider that the crafts were in danger as they did not go to their rescue. The Border Force rep said that once on board it was the duty of the Border Force to take them back to the UK where they could ask for asylum and most likely get it with very little chance of being returned to France. France is the problem. These immigrants should be kept out of France and if they manage to get into France they should deal with any request for asylum. If refused they should be returned to the previous safe country they passed through, not moved to camps in Northern France. The Dublin agreement requires refugees to ask for asylum in the first safe country they come to.
      The Naval rep on the programme said that the Navy would have an innovative approach such as taking the illegals onto a laid up cruise ship and process them there but I suspect the result would be the same.
      A hard line may be necessary either at sea with the risk of fatalities or a less sympathetic approach to these illegals by cutting back drastically on benefits if allowed to remain in the UK.

  28. I had a survey questionnaire just now from Ipsos/Mori working for the Highways Department of Worcestershire County Council.

    With great satisfaction, I put a line through every page of tickboxes and wrote in the following comment in a bit of space at the bottom of one of the pages:

    “I approve of all where appropriate, and I disapprove of all where inappropriate. Please use discretion and judgement rather than relying on questionnaires asking all the wrong questions!”

    I angrily scribbled through the ethnic questionnaire section with the comment “RACIST!”

    If other nottlers would care to do likewise, and advise friends to do so too, maybe some message could get across to those who use boxticking rather than brains to do things we pay heavily for.

      3. Statistics on whether they can safely ignore painful findings – not diverse enough polling.

      5. Nothing, but if you tick the “white British” box, your responses go straight into the shredder.

  29. By the way, the two part prog on PBSAmerica on “The Gene” – was excellent. Thought-provoking and informative.

    Only downside – no sub-titles and infuriating plink-plonky background music – that often cancelled the commentary.

  30. Charles Moore:

    In judging our Covid-19 performance, we naturally compare it with that of other countries. The most telling comparison is with nations whose predicament is closest to ours. Enormous countries, such as China, Brazil and the US, are not closely comparable. Nor are much poorer countries, or more thinly populated ones.

    The natural comparisons are Western European, and even here, there are important differences. The Scandinavian countries, with their small, well-extended populations, are not so close to the British experience, although we should learn from their medical systems. The nearest comparisons, surely, are quite densely populated neighbours with roughly similar populations and GDP, urban concentrations and large international airports. That means France, Italy, Germany and, perhaps, Spain.

    The eventual Covid-19 post-mortem will no doubt unearth mistakes that are uniquely British, but if you look at the story so far, you will see that neither Britain, France, Italy, or Spain has done markedly better than one another. In deaths per million of the population – a more meaningful comparator than total numbers – we, at 684, are the worst of these four; but the others are bad too (Italy 582, France 462. Plucky little Belgium, by the way, seems to be the world’s worst, at 851). The only one in a different league is Germany, at 110.

    Why might this be? First, Germany had the “luck” to get an early case of the coronavirus. A female business traveller from Shanghai arrived on January 16 and fell ill with the virus. She was treated at the Munich Schwabing Hospital. A consequent cluster of 16 cases was identified. On February 13, at the country’s Science Media Centre, a huge press conference reported the scientific findings in detail. The press release warned that “every day the spread is not controlled, the likelihood that the epidemic will develop into a pandemic increases”.

    But the mere fact of a disease being identified does not mean the authorities know what to do about it. The Germans did. I am no expert on Germany, but here are a few factors.

    Expertise. The Munich hospital has a special unit for highly contagious life-threatening infections. Its chief physician spoke at the press conference. So did the professor who had developed one of the first tests for Covid-19, as did the president of the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin, the government’s public health institute. Lockdown was quicker than in Britain, but less draconian and more targeted.

    Testing (mainly for flu) is a more established part of life in Germany than in Britain. It has gone on apace throughout Covid. Also, where the NHS closed down, the normal German health system kept going. Patients with Covid were not, as they were here, told to stay at home unaided. They were constantly monitored. If their oxygen levels dropped too low, they were admitted to hospital. The needs of care homes were not ignored. No patient was sent to a care home unless it could provide 14 days’ quarantine.

    Media. Far more German journalists are well acquainted with science than are their British counterparts. They give the public clearer facts and fewer scare stories.

    Dispersal. Unlike Britain, Germany is a country of many different centres, with associated airports – Berlin, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt and so on, rather than London, London and more London. So there was less danger of a sudden explosion of the plague.

    A related fact is that the country is federal. Sixteen states, rather than the central government, are responsible for most aspects of health care. This sometimes slows things down, but it also means that, compared with Britain, there is more local “buy-in”, more local players who get going, rather than waiting upon a distant bureaucracy.

    This creates a good spread of service across Germany. There were plenty of labs for testing, for example, in plenty of places. There was no appalling rush. When Britain finally got round to test and trace, the Government commissioned Serco to run it from a single call centre in Scotland. As the former health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, points out, you are more likely to comply with tracing from a knowledgeable employee of your county council than a call from a student hundreds of miles away. In Germany, the “corona-detectors” are a respected body of local experts.

    Good politics. Many in Britain have grown rather fed up with the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, what with her ambiguous speeches and her hostility to Brexit. Her star has gradually waned even at home. Nevertheless, she is a scientist by training and an experienced, steady person. She can command respect in the crisis, precisely because she is not, in any detailed sense, in charge of Covid policy. Rather than having to pretend she has all the answers, she can exercise moral authority.

    Mrs Merkel is in this enviable position because – astonishing to British eyes – she runs a country in which health care is not usually high on the list of political controversies. In Britain, the health secretary – currently Matt Hancock – has to run all hospitals and the fifth largest workforce in the world. At the same time, he has to spend days in the House of Commons being assailed by accusations that he is trying to “sell off” the NHS and similar nonsense. The German health minister (an able man called Jens Spahn) has infinitely less power, but – no offence to Mr Hancock – can do more practical good. His role has not been to try to run a vast, unmanageable empire, but simply to oil the wheels of a system which already works, by putting in more government money – covering the costs of testing, and paying for ICU beds to be kept available.

    Why is Germany free of what Mr Hunt calls “the political poison” of our system? Not because Germans don’t care about health – they actually spend a higher proportion of their GDP on it than we do, and they have better health outcomes. It is because they have never bought the doctrine that a particular health care system is sacred.

    The origins of good health care for ordinary Germans lie in mutual funds in the 19th century, set up to help pay for funerals. These developed into much more sophisticated, competing systems of health insurance, underwritten by the state, but not run by it. Employer and employee both contribute. An unemployed person has his health care paid for in his unemployment insurance. Almost no German citizen falls through the net.

    The providers are also various. Government-run hospitals are outnumbered by privately run ones and others run by charities (many, for instance by the Order of St John). Because the money follows the patient, the providers have good incentives to provide. Indeed, the problem in Germany is too many hospital beds.

    In Britain, the health service is an object of high emotion. Behind the praise often lies a fear that it is precarious. In Germany, there is little emotional commitment to the service – rather as, here, there is little intense feeling for Sainsbury’s or Waitrose. Instead of high emotion, there is a high level of confidence. This may help explain why so many more Germans than British have returned to work, although Covid numbers jump upwards from time to time. Psychologically and medically, the German way is better for the national health than is the thing we call the National Health Service.

    A btl comment:

    “Cyprus Expat
    8 Aug 2020 7:08AM
    Having persuaded the nation to act like performing seals and “clap for the NHS”, its position as the state god is now guaranteed.”

    And there’s the rub. A lot of gullible people have been persuaded that the NHS is now beyond reproach, and therefore untouchable. And now, just watch its shortcomings multiply…

    1. ‘That means France, Italy, Germany and, perhaps, Spain.’

      There can be no such comparison in terms of size. Germany does have a similar sized population to the U.K. but is far larger. Spain is a large country with a much smaller population. Similarly France is a much larger country. The social organisation of these countries is another factor. The south of England is one of the most densely populated spaces on earth.

    2. The virus was probably in Germany a lot earlier even that that Chinese business traveller! It was rampaging through Alpine ski resorts in January. Over 40% of the residents of Ischgl are said to have antibodies now!

  31. Is anyone still looking forward to a free trade deal with the US to help post Brexit (whenever that is)?

    The latest Canada US trade deal came into effect in July, it includes agreements on most industrial goods including metals such as steel and aluminium (or aluminum as they misspell it here). This week Trump has basically ignored the free trade deal and introduced a ten percent import levy on imports of Canadian aluminium, claiming in his inimitable style that Canada very bad, abusing US workers by dumping cheap aluminium in the US.

    So if you are looming forward a free trade deal working for the UK, just forget it, it appears that the US has no intent of honoring treaties.

    Any correlation between speeches in industrial States and election campaigns is naturally purely coincidental!

    1. US-UK trade is already healthy, no need to tie ourselves down in a free-trade deal.

      1. So why the furore at the first Brexit non exit overall US deal being important?

        If Trump can ride rough shod over a deal barely a month old, what chance of common sense trade surviving?

        1. Quite so. A lot of my fellow secessionists are also free-trade nostalgists – they know the theory but need to stick their heads out of the window more often.

      2. In that case just hope that Trump doesn’t decide to shove tariffs on UK produce that you do now export.

        Jam butter factories in the UK will have a tough time if Jam butties are declared a strategic asset that beds to be protected in the US. As would foreign owned car manufacturers that export to the US.

    2. On the plus side Virginia has the death penalty and is, by US standards, fairly quick in carrying it out.

      It’s a great pity that the judge is unlikely to be sacked and serve some time in prison.

    3. Heard about that last night (I watch Tim Pool’s videos).
      The Democrats are hellbent on destroying America, so release criminals, and go after those who try to defend themselves.

  34. You swine! German nudist chases wild boar that stole laptop

    Photographer who captured moment naked bather gave pursuit says he ‘gave it his all’

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/0d6238065b9e91ceaf078d4c3e517442a00669f3/124_50_1575_945/master/1575.jpg?width=620&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=7613318b499d466219e33de0c578c580

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/07/german-nudist-chases-wild-boar-that-stole-laptop-berlin-teufelssee

    I think the boar is going to win that race

      1. We had a plague of the beasts in Brittany last year, (Not Germans but sanglier or wild boar)

  35. Good morning all.

    Sun peeping through. I had to have the oscillating fan on for most of the night.

  36. I tried this Covid 19 Test and it truly works !!!!!!!

    A new and easy test for the horror of Covid 19 is doing the rounds and it’s simple, quick and positive (or negative if you see what I mean).
    Take a glass and pour a decent dram of your favourite whisky into it; then see if you can smell it. If you can, then you are halfway there.
    Then drink it. If you can taste it then it is reasonable to assume you are currently free of the virus because the loss of the sense of smell and taste is a common symptom.
    I tested myself 7 times last night and was virus free every time, thank goodness.
    I will have to test myself again today because I have developed a throbbing headache which can also be one of the symptoms.

    I’ll report my results later.

  37. Morning, Campers.
    This is not a comment on a sad – but seemingly very British case of cultural clash aggravated by ‘our’ NHS not doing its job – but a a prolonged sigh at modern day reportage. It is from the DM, but really could apply to any newspaper.
    “It is thought the Sartains have lived on their neighbouring estate for at least 20 years, with Zoopla estimating it to be worth £575,000.”

  38. Morning everyone. In a world on the fast track to oblivion I can find nothing to comment on!

    1. Good Morning, Minty

      Have you read Simon Raven’s sequence of novels Alms for Oblivion which cover the same period as Antony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time? The central character, Fielding Gray, is charming but completely dissolute and, to my mind, far more attractive than Powell’s Kenneth Widmerpool.

    2. Good Morning, Minty

      Have you read Simon Raven’s sequence of novels Alms for Oblivion which cover the same period as Antony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time? The central character, Fielding Gray, is charming but completely dissolute and, to my mind, far more attractive than Powell’s Kenneth Widmerpool.

    4. Good Morning, Minty

      Have you read Simon Raven’s sequence of novels Alms for Oblivion which cover the same period as Antony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time? The central character, Fielding Gray, is charming but completely dissolute and, to my mind, far more attractive than Powell’s Kenneth Widmerpool.

      1. Good morning Richard. I assume that your enquiry is in response to my use of the word oblivion. I have not read either of these two author’s works having largely abandoned fiction some thirty years ago and reading mostly History and Politics since. I do sense that vast changes are coming and that the West is going to have a moment not unlike that experienced by the Soviet Union when it imploded, but with the bizarre result of being in reverse! They escaped after much suffering the tyranny of a Marxist State. We are going to enter one even worse!

  39. Good morning my friends.

    Looking at today’s DT letters it is clear that at last the public is waking up to the fact that the Border Force serves absolutely no purpose at all other than to help illegal immigrants arrive safely in Britain.

    Here is a post under today’s letters with which I wholeheartedly agree.

    It seems that those who write to the Daily Telegraph are unanimous in wishing that the situation with regard to illegal immigrants is properly and effectively dealt with. It is also clear that the current government has neither the resolve nor the power to do anything about it.

    Nigel Farage has brought this to everyone’s attention and has his finger on the pulse far better than anyone in Parliament and would make an excellent government minister.

    However Farage made one fatal mistake: he capitulated to Johnson when he should have seen to it that every seat held by a Conservative remainer was contested by the Brexit Party.

    But Boris Johnson has made far more mistakes than Nigel Farage and I sincerely hope that a new political party in which Mr Farage is involved comes quickly into being to rid of the the hopeless mainstream parties with which we are we currently lumbered.

    1. Fear not, Richard – Priti Awful is going to speak “urgently” to her French counterpart – certainly before the next General Election….

    2. The current government has the power. It doesn’t have the inclination, so doesn’t use its power.

    1. “Well, it’s something where you kneel down, blow hard and see what comes out”

  41. 322236+up ticks,
    The build,build,build campaign equates to.

    🎵
    Don’t it always seem to go
    That you don’t know what you’ve got til its gone
    They paved paradise
    And put up a parking lot

    They took all the trees
    And put ’em in a tree museum
    And they charged the people
    A dollar and a half to seem ‘

    ALL done with the DOVER daily orchestrated intake in mind, don’t forget
    a lab/lib/ con coalition vote is essential for this to be achieved.

    1. 322236+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      Your hamlet ( small group of dwellings) turned into a town yet og ?
      Not yet, but it is work in progress.

    3. Big Yellow Taxi©️Joni Mitchell. Suffering from that awful complaint where you think there are bugs crawling all over you, poor woman. Mind, maybe there are bugs…

      1. 322236+ up ticks,
        Morning SE,
        I believe it could be a consequence of kissing X la//lib/com candidates ( or equivalent) in the polling booth.

  43. We’ve had some differing explanations for the Bierut blast but it does now appear that bags of fireworks were being stored in the warehouse containing the ammonium nitrate.

    Here are some views of the blast you may not have seen yet:

    https://youtu.be/LNDhIGR-83w

    1. That’s what I saw a couple of days ago on YouTube. The flashes from what I guessed were fireworks were quite clearly visible before the big explosion.

  46. 322236+ up ticks,
    Allied with the tory party political hierarchy the mass uncontrolled immigration team are winning.

    UK Considering Australia-Style ‘Operation Push Back’ Against Channel Migrants.

      1. 322236+ up ticks,
        Afternoon AS,
        Then I must beg to differ slightly they, the invasion force are winning against NO opposition, this current tory party is anything but Conservative their long list of leaders has shown us that.

    1. I do know one person who starred in the pandemic, she was in hospital for about two weeks suffering from something that has been called no worse than a common cold. That was in March, this once strong woman is still suffering after effects of the disease.

      Does that count? Is there a singular form of pandemic?

      1. I’ve seen people describe it as such, and they’re wrong. It can kill some people, and make others very ill.
        But it’s also not as deadly as first thought, or as widespread. For some people it’s not particularly harmful.
        It’s a very strange virus that affects people in very different ways, and I’m pretty convinced it was tweaked in a lab. Virologists should not be playing around with these things – sooner or later one will get out, and we have enough natural viruses to contend with already.

  48. ITV this Thursday (13th August) 9.15pm has ‘Life and Times of Captain Sir Tom Moore’. I shall be watching.

    Be interesting to see if they are inventive enough to work in references to racism and imperialism. Cynical, me?

    1. 322236+up ticks
      Morning Rik,
      On par then with voting lab/lib/con, again,again,& again.

  50. Danish health officials Professor Henning Bundgaard, Tamara van Ark, Anders Tegnell

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e5f91b0ab68076c7445e80a4860ea9ada1bddb9c18efa61d087760d3fc157554.png

    responded by noting there is little conclusive evidence that face masks are an effective way to limit the spread of respiratory viruses.

    “All these countries recommending face masks haven’t made their decisions based on new studies,” said Henning Bundgaard, chief physician at Denmark’s Rigshospitale, according to Bloomberg News.

    Denmark is not alone.

    Despite a global stampede of mask-wearing, data show that 80-90 percent of people in Finland and Holland say they “never” wear masks when they go out, a sharp contrast to the 80-90 percent of people in Spain and Italy who say they “always” wear masks when they go out.

    Dutch public health officials recently explained why they’re not recommending masks.

    “From a medical point of view, there is no evidence of a medical effect of wearing face masks, so we decided not to impose a national obligation,” said Medical Care Minister Tamara van Ark.

    Others, echoing statements similar to the US Surgeon General from early March, said masks could make individuals sicker and exacerbate the spread of the virus.

    “Face masks in public places are not necessary, based on all the current evidence,” said Coen Berends, spokesman for the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment.

    “There is no benefit and there may even be negative impact.”

    In Sweden, where COVID-19 deaths have slowed to a crawl, public health officials say they see “no point” in requiring individuals to wear masks.

    “With numbers diminishing very quickly in Sweden, we see no point in wearing a face mask in Sweden, not even on public transport,” said Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s top infectious disease expert.

  53. I am getting other people’s notifications in my inbox. Conversations i was not party to.

  54. No sign of Cochrane’s return yet! I have to say that I did have the sense this time that he really was departing. That his transfer had finally come through from Head Office. Where has he gone? Well it could be a Gauleiter training course or Gulag Re-education Commandant. Either way there is the not inconsiderable possibility that we may meet him again.

    Perish the thought!

    1. Am I the only correspondent on this forum that doesn’t “get” the significance of the multi-avatared contributor that you regulars refer to as “Cochrane”?

      It would seem that was enjoying an extended period away, hibernating in my workshop, when he first appeared. What’s the story behind him, if you don’t mind me asking, and why does even the mention of his name seem to invariably excite so much opprobrium?

      1. It’s a kind of long story Grizz. He first appeared on NoTTL 5 or 6 years ago by the invitation of another poster. He has a couple of accomplices here but they don’t advertise the links His whole purpose has been to disrupt the Blog and cause as much trouble as possible. His departing words (this time) to Geoff were: “Oh do fuck off you far right piece of shit.” Which gives some idea of his true feelings!

        1. Thanks, Minty.

          The problem with keyboard warriors (trolls, củnts, call them what you will) is that they are, intrinsically, gutless cowards. It’s really a shame that there is no easy way to identify them and discover where they live.

          I’m very experienced at knocking on doors!

          1. This is one of those rare events where I do actually know who Cochrane is in the real world but think it best that we do not proceed beyond!

          2. Just as well, I can’t afford the air fare just to come over and knock on his door (or be arsed with the quarantine). 🤣

          4. I would love to share a pint with you, Geoff (and with a few others on here). Who knows what the future will bring.

            Toots, Elsie and I were all set to travel up to Wester Ross to visit Spikey [Fallick Alec] in June but the virus thingy put paid to that. We hope to go next year, if all things are back to normal!

        2. My refusal to ban him (since that was clearly what he was hoping for) appears to have pushed him* further over the edge.

          *I prolly shouldn’t assume “zis” gender, but at times, “zie” did appearing to be suffering from PMT…

          4. Fairy Nuff. I seem to recall him inviting me to fisticuffs at Ripley, a while ago. Personally, I think “Care in the Community” has been a disaster.

          11. Wonder how that works with nouns that have gender? Another layer of complexity.

          20. Speaking of pore branes, I note that next Thursday marks the 3rd anniversary of the sad demise of Granchester Meadows. Frightening how time flies…

          21. Really three years? Strewth! Ah were nobbut a lad then.
            I wonder about that… was it him just backing out in a rather theatrical manner, or did he really leave for good?
            I remember the Private Eye knight, bent sword, riding off into the sunset – that was a powerful image.

        3. He had a fit of the vapours that Sunday evening ( which was my birthday so I remember the date) but subsequently posted quite politely without any abuse, but then for some reason cleared off and closed his account. I don’t why Lotl has gone as well.

          1. In several cases of unexpected abuse, I believe alcohol was taken – it matches with wine o’clock.

          3. I thought she was happier now she has remarried – but I sensed that she thought our conversations here went round and round with little point or getting anywhere.

          5. Quite right she is, too.
            But, there are also some off-the-wall threads that are worth waiting for!

          6. And I value being able to let off a bit of steam with people who share my thoughts, or even if they don’t.

          7. I think I would be unhappy if I continued to the small hours when, I gather, things can get rough.

          8. I’m not usually here till late these days, but I catch up in the morning, and the abusive episodes are very seldom.

          13. Agreed, N.
            I go to bed by about 10:30 here, so 21:30 in UK, and miss most of it.

    2. Somewhere in Lithuania they run a Stalin era experience where exa Soviet era guards give participants a taste of life under the Soviet jackboot. Could that be the ultimate destination?

      I don’t disagree as much as many do with Andy / Max, there is a whole range of right wing thinkers that do not buy into the Gates under every bed conspiracy.

        1. I liked Cochrane… of course he was difficult, so are we all, but he did have some valid points.

    1. The illegal migration from Turkey into the EU has obviously gone down a lot. Germany no longer seems to be the target destination. More migrants are crossing the English Channel to GB.

      1. Germany was never the intended target. Merkel invited them, but wanted us in the EU, so she could shove them all over here. All the neatly made signs those marchers were carrying as they headed to Germany had exactly that on them – Germany – not Deutschland !!! Wrong language – Bit of an insult to their new hosts?

    2. Illegal migration from Turkey to the EU appears to have declined sharply in the first half of the year. Germany no longer seems to be the main destination. More refugees are coming to Britain via the English Channel.

        1. ‘Flüchtinge’ translates as fugitives or refugees. Not the word I would have chosen.

  57. Overcast and sweltering outside , the roads were so busy earlier on , traffic was madness.

    Why do people travel for hours on a very hot day just come to the coast to sit on a very overcrowded beach.

    The locals , me included feel trapped, the heavy traffic and the speed on our narrow country roads is unbelievable . Our little local shop has had vistors wandering in being abusive and not wearing masks .

    The rubbish discarded into hedgerows and heathland is disgusting , and areas where people have poohed even more so.

    I don’t know how other countries cope , but something is happening in the UK which is not very nice , people feel they can do what they like , and to hell with everyone else.

    Any way , we are pottering around in the garden , and then back to the fan which is cooling the living room.

    1. Our living room is always cool – even on a hot day – due to the thick stone walls. No need for a fan here.

      2. Our windows look southeast. Lines them inside with the film they add to gangsta car windows (lightest shade) for protection of the furniture, and it works well – although the view is slightly greyer, only noticed when a window is partly open.

      3. We face south west , and the house has dormer windows and velux upstairs . lots of light , and the sun when it shines, real blazes in.

        1. …and the sun when it shines, real blazes in.

          Are you sure that’s not due West?

        2. The front of our house faces South-east, the bedroom north and south (a window each side) but the back of the oldest part of the house has no windows, and is underground up to the first floor as it’s built into the hillside. This, combined with the stone walls, means it’s never over-warm inside and can be distinctly chilly in winter.

    2. You can switch the fan off when you are outside; it is not cooling your living room. The ‘cooling effect’ of a fan is its windchill factor.

    1. What I found interesting was the doctor’s statement:

      The reason we test for antibodies is because it is easy and cheap. Antibodies are in fact not the body’s main defence against virus infections. T-cells are. But T-cells are harder to measure than antibodies, so we don’t really do it clinically. It is quite possible to have T-cells that are specific for covid and thereby make you immune to the disease, without having any antibodies.

      It looks as though the Swedes have weathered the COVID storm because everyone else is testing for the COViD nucleic identity as evidence of infection and using antibody tests that may not even have any relevance in immunity.

      The Swedes have just on with life as usual but with due caution – a policy that Michael Gove once advocated when UK herd immunity was in vogue.

    3. What I found interesting was the doctor’s statement:

      The reason we test for antibodies is because it is easy and cheap. Antibodies are in fact not the body’s main defence against virus infections. T-cells are. But T-cells are harder to measure than antibodies, so we don’t really do it clinically. It is quite possible to have T-cells that are specific for covid and thereby make you immune to the disease, without having any antibodies.

      It looks as though the Swedes have weathered the COVID storm because everyone else is testing for the COViD nucleic identity as evidence of infection and using antibody tests that may not even have any relevance in immunity.

      The Swedes have just on with life as usual but with due caution – a policy that Michael Gove once advocated when UK herd immunity was in vogue.

      1. The more young people catch it the better – and they are less likely to be ill. These “outbreaks” seem to be very minor and mostly due to increased testing.

        1. Trump was right about one thing – the more you look fot it the more you will find it.

      2. According to Johns Hopkins data:
        UK – 71 dead per 100.000 population (total effing chaos)
        Sweden – 58,2 dead per 100.000 population (no lockdown)
        Norway – 4,9 dead per 100.000 population (orderly and short lockdown)
        Yes, I know the population densities are wildly different between Scandi and the UK, so I included Norway as a control for Sweden. See also Denmark – 10,8 dead per 100.000 population (orderly lockdown)

        I’m not sure, based on current figures, that Sweden comes out too well for a Scandi country… UK, well….

        EDIT: Things would look better for the UK if all deaths were not recorded as COVID, but the actual cause.

        1. According to the doctpr’s blog 40% of the deaths were of Bame people and most of the rest were in care homes.

          1. We had some disastrous numbers from care homes, too. The one up the road… they employed a temp without checking, and so many residents dies from covid.
            :-((
            Investigation ongoing.

          2. Here it was caused by the general panic to “Save the NHS” and empty the hospitals of old people.

          3. that gave the staff time to make videos of them dancing, and otherwise doing f-all. Meanwhile, the general population is excluded from medical attention and dying like flies from curable problems.
            I hope this is a result of “total effing chaos” and not policy, but it reinforces the decision we made 22+ years ago to leave. Permanently.

          4. Now they are complaining they are on their knees (no, not in that way – they claim to be overworked)!

        2. Remember that many of the so-called UK Covid “deaths” were counted several times; and that all sorts of deaths were recorded as Covid even though the dead person might have had a heart attack, or been run over, or fell off a ladder.

          1. Hence my EDIT comment.
            But yes, it hasn’t done any favours, mixing pretty well all causes of death into the soup. Means that the data can’t be trusted.

          2. Figures cannot be trusted, so Government follows the science. Or, Government does what it thinks will give it most control.

          4. Between January and last week, we didn’t have a single funeral here. Now, within the space of a month, there are three in the diary. Max 30 mourners, no singing, but nevertheless. None of the deaths were related in any way to Covid. Actually, one was in an advanced stage of dying from breast cancer, and I have no way of knowing whether her care was restricted due to the lockdown. Prolly a Covid death, then…

          6. Last week was all recorded music. The next two are recorded, but I may get to play before and after. It remains to be seen whether I get the organist fee. I’m present for the service, but also spend ages finding, downloading/ripping the music to CD. So I’m prolly doing more work for less dosh.

          9. Totally agree, but doubt whether live singing will return this year. Put it this way, I’m not planning any Carol Services.

            If I get a result on the 17th re the retirement bungalow, I may go for the redundancy option. Doesn’t stop me from playing for services on a freelance basis, should they ever return.

  59. I have been watching televised snooker forever,as an absolutely rubbish player I am in awe of the skill and mastery of the game demonstrated on screen
    Snooker is a totally egalitarian game,with top class players making the grade from Canada,Thailand China India etc all enjoying respect for their skill with narrated expert commentary from former champions who understand the nuances of the game………..
    So why am I presented with a mop-haired Dindu who obviously knows nowt about the game and has probably never picked up a cue in anger as the main introducer??
    Diversity you say……………..
    Tokenism I say
    Bollocks

    1. Brilliant comment Rik! My old man almost threw something at the screen yesterday when the mop-head came on!

    4. I used to love watching the snooker from the Crucible on tv, but the constant replay clips with the frustrating yellow hexagon pattern to mark the start and end of every clip makes my blood boil. And yes – -that chap has the same effect on me. AND the annoyingly chirpy woman who does the late night shows as well. Hazel is sorely missed.

      1. You’re right there walter! What happened to Hazel? She at least knew what she was talking about!

          2. I’d only heard him on Radio 2 early on a Sunday with the ghastly opinionated and political vicarette!

          5. Has he managed to politicize snooker yet? The white ball being in charge and striking all of those balls of colour must surely go.

          7. Nìgger snooker has a black ball for the cue ball, and 15 whites (worth a lowly 1 point) which it must hit, pot or smash repeatedly before going for a colour.

    6. I played frequently for the police team in the Chesterfield and District snooker league back in the 1970s. I became friendly with Mike Watterson, the man who started the world championships at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield (after obtaining sponsorship from Embassy cigarettes). Mike ran the world championships for a number of years until he was muscled out by the London mafia. He died last year.

      My maternal grandfather managed a billiards hall in Staveley, Chesterfield, for a number of years in the 1930s and 1940s. Regular clientele were world billiards and snooker champions, Joe and Fred Davis and Walter Donaldson.

      My grandad’s son — my Uncle Joe – was an excellent exponent of both sports; so much so that Joe Davis invited him to accompany him on a tour of South America, all expenses paid, to promote the sport. Unfortunately his mother, my grandmother, refused to permit him to travel since his wage from his job at the coal mine was needed to boost the family’s revenue (as the eldest child still living at home he was expected to help fund the upbringing of his six younger siblings!). Uncle Joe showed me the handwritten invitation letter from Joe Davis a couple of years before he died. He never got over the disappointment of losing that wonderful opportunity.

  61. So let’s take a look at the apparently truly horrible story of California’s OneWest Bank which was established on March 19, 2009, out of the wreckage of IndyMac, by IMB Holdco, a holding company owned by a consortium of private equity investors including George Soros and led by Steven Mnuchin.

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

    In August 2015, OneWest was acquired by CIT Group giving Mnuchin and his co investors $3.4billion profit which, apparently, was thanks to federal bailouts, a low initial sweetheart purchase deal and aggressive foreclosures without which the entire proceedings would likely have been impossible.

    Also, was the low purchase price of IndyMac and the success of this bid facilitated by George Soros’ funding of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign ?

    All protected, apparently, by a very cosy relationship with Californian regulators headed by state attorney general Kamala Harris who allegedly received substantial campaign funds from Soros and Mnuchin for her senate run. Does anything else exist under the radar here ?

    As The Washington Examiner tells us………….

    ”Soros might also be responsible for Harris’ biggest weakness as a candidate. When Harris served as California’s Attorney General, state prosecutors found that OneWest Bank may have violated foreclosure law 1,000 times. Harris declined to prosecute anyone at OneWest Bank, despite compelling evidence. OneWest was partially owned by George Soros at the time. Soros donated to Harris’ “California Criminal Policy Initiative” while she was supposed to be deciding whether or not to prosecute.

    Harris never brought charges against OneWest Bank. Soros and his business partner sold the company the next year, to the tune of $3.4 billion. The year after that, Harris ran for Senate with Soros’ financial backing. OneWest’s CEO at the time was none other than Steve Mnuchin, the current Secretary of the Treasury. After Harris declined to prosecute, he also donated to her.

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/red-alert-politics/sen-kamala-harris-unofficial-2020-presidential-campaign-already-begun

    ”Mnuchin’s biggest coup, and the start of his reign as foreclosure king, came in 2009. In a generous deal with the FDIC, Mnuchin led an investment team that bought the predatory lender IndyMac, saddled with tens of thousands of failing mortgages, for $1.65 billion. The FDIC had a standard deal for buyers of crisis-era banks; they would cover all losses above the first 20 percent on loan defaults.
    Mnuchin, who became CEO and later chairman, treated this as a money-printing machine: his bank, renamed OneWest, could foreclose on homeowners, harvest fees for appraisals and inspections and late payments, and get protected by a federal backstop.

    The FDIC lost at least $13 billion on IndyMac; the bank made $3 billion in profits in the five years after it was purchased by Mnuchin and company, much of that coming directly from the FDIC in loss-sharing costs.”

    https://www.salon.com/2018/12/21/steve-mnuchins-path-of-destruction-leads-from-wall-street-to-trumps-treasury_partner/

    ”Controversial foreclosures on IndyMac loans[edit]
    According to the New York Daily News, OneWest Bank foreclosed on the homes of thousands of people.[7] According to the Wall Street Journal, OneWest Bank started foreclosure proceedings on 137,000 homeowners.[8]

    In enforcing its rights under the loans purchased from IndyMac, OneWest Bank took a much more aggressive approach to foreclosing on properties.”

    The foreclosures were so aggressive that one individual apparently lost their home because of a minor technical error resulting in their payments being short by 27 cents !

    So this consortium, apparently protected by possible bribery of the California state attorney general, included George Soros who had a very cosy relationship with Barack Obama thanks to provision of campaign funds, and who looks to have been deeply involved with successive UK governments since at least 1997… and possibly even 1989 !

    1. It was Mandelson, while on a paid-for holiday in Switzerland with his buddy George Osborne, that announced that he had no problem with the stinking rich. It was about that time that he spent several millions of public money spent on bailing out RBS (which was in 70% public ownership at the time) bankrolling the hostile takeover of the old and solvent British chocolate maker Cadbury by the barely-afloat U.S. giant corporation Kraft, which created Mondelez in its image.

      And they in London call him a “Labour Moderate”.

      RBS have got form in ruining small businesses in the UK by whipping away their cash flow charging them exhorbitant contract-locked rates just when they were most vulnerable, and then making a fortune from the proceeds of bankrupt sales. When investigated by the FCA, all the executives involved got off scot-free because the FCA declared it was not within their remit.

      I’m not surprised the same is happening in America, and voters there must despair at finding anyone to vote for not corrupt who is not a socialist.

          1. 322236+ up ticks,
            Afternoon JM,
            Try looking at it through the eyes of keith vaz as
            minister of finance,bigger daisy chains to start with
            and that would incur heavy duty wonga.

    2. Congratulations!
      You have just created a new record for the number of times you can write Soros in a comment,
      🥂

      1. My point is there are thousands of black youngsters running amok in our great cities , and that video tells a story of an out of control Britain.

        No one can do anything about law and order because BLM.

        1. I see, Mags. I hate feral gangs frightening folk.

          But don’t all kids run about a lot of the time, being a bloody nuisance?

          1. The difference is that a lot of the black kids are involved with drug gangs and carry knives, so they are self – limiting by killing each other.

          2. True, Missus. As I have said here lots of times, so long as they kill each other, I don’t give a tinker’s cuss.

  64. Last week, the MR disovered THREE wasps’ nests in the garden and garage. Chap came out on Tuesday and sorted them all. He was so impressed with the garage one that he took a photo “Never seen one so hooge”, he said.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/17ebeaa5f4b680686eb521a6489191f18f0297b29521db52eb488b55d4f4a8bf.jpg The bricks are 3 inches – so you can imagine the size….

    The MR was very relieved – as she had been stung by one and needed antibiotics pronto

    1. That is huuuuge.

      We have a waspinator hanging up in our garden, theoretically to keep wasps from building a real nest. So far, so good.

    2. The last one we had in the garage was like a skyscraper, with about 20 floors. Clever little beggars, aren’t they?

        1. they eat dozens of garden pests, just get a bit fruity when there are no larvae left.
          New Scientist covered the matter years ago, and the correspondence was published (with other stories) as “Does anything eat wasps?”. Yes, not only other wasps and invertebrates eat them, but also animals such as badgers, bats, weasels, rats and birds, and even some humans.

          3. Please don’t laugh, but I recall some farmer friends who reared an orphan badger cub. One afternoon Melissa* was directed to a small wasp’s nest to see what she would do; she sniffed the hole in the grass and was promptly stung on the nose, which caused her some distress. Poor little creature, running round in circles and alternatively grasping her snout with her front paws.

            *Named from meles meles. Particularly fond of raspberries and cream. IIRC her carers released her when she was fully grown.

    5. It must be Norfolk wasps, Billy.

      I had an enormous, yellowish nest (one like yours) in the roof space of my cottage in Briston. It turned out they were German Wasps Vespula germanica, which are very similar to the Common Wasp V. vulgaris (slightly different facial markings but otherwise impossible to separate).

      Common wasps build a pale grey nest but German wasps make a nest with a distinctive yellowish tint, like yours.

    6. Don’t want to boast, but I had one the size of an alien space ship in my roof a couple of years ago. Followed by some very enthusiastic setting of metal insect-proof mesh by me during that winter.

  65. Don’t laugh too hard . . off BBC News . . . “And, writing in the Daily Telegraph, Immigration Minister Chris Philp said migrants should be fingerprinted.

    However, it is unclear what the proposal will amount to, as the fingerprints of asylum seekers are already stored under the European Union Eurodac system.

    Mr Philp said migrants would know “they face real consequences if they try to cross again”, and added he would “negotiate hard” with French officials about how to deal with the crossings.”

      1. Pitt they had one of those remote thermometers, what is wrong with an anal thermometer?

        1. The problem with anal thermometers (for use on politicians) is that no company makes one big enough.

    4. “Negotiate”. The international protocols, i.e. international laws are quite clear.
      The French are breaking the law to get rid of these immigrants. And laughing their heads off.
      We could round up all those who came here illegally from France and dump them in Guadeloupe.

    1. Afternoon Rik. The aim is to create a fait accompli where the numbers are simply too great to be repatriated. It is the end of us!

    2. Afternoon Rik. The aim is to create a fait accompli where the numbers are simply too great to be repatriated. It is the end of us!

  68. Heyup again!
    In the Oyster in Butley via way of Southwold where I had another swim.
    Totally out of touch with everything and my apologies to Bill for missing him out, but I ran out of time and decided to cut a chunk out of my plans.

    Not staying here long, I want to get to Shingle Street for the night.

    A view of Southwold Pier

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0298d19d8b03300f638c15f79bfef53f44f57c714175e39a952ea6f46faaf4d1.jpg

    And looking up the other way:-
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/16c3d4422542704b4d52c3200b5a11f0df74e6d6c3489f7467ec654dc3ddaf07.jpg

    Called in to Orford:-

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/80cfcf11f6b9315ca0841ed8c4e2b46c176bcab2534404fe8c215b8bae572606.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/44637f325ea7da07e2ee87db8c8463bbe028ddbe77b893e61006e136838683b3.jpg

    2. Only once visited Southwold, back in early 1970s. Sea was nice and warm – power station cooling outflow.

        1. Indeed.
          Someone once called me a “luminous dong” – not sure it was an insult!

    1. She’s worried about the ‘ooman rites act! No worry about our human rights as natives of this overcrowded country.

      1. 322236+ up ticks,
        AS,
        Nonewhatsoever, had no intentions for years the
        wretch cameron even upped the intake.

        1. Well they are going to have to bite the bullet sometime and say, “We are going to open the gates and let anyone in. It is only fair and just! I know the British People will welcome this just as the Government does!”

          1. How will we know the difference? Albanian gangsters are not deported. They have no right to be here at all. They are only here to make money illegally. It seems that they can do this without any interference from the police or immigration officials.

    3. Remember that Blair said that the original ‘ooman rites white paper had

      No more significance than a copy of the Beano

      but this of course was a complete lie as it was just what Blair wanted to make law :

      a) to give his wife some lucrative business;
      b) to make it more difficult to get rid of illegal immigrants

      Boris and Co do not have the testicular strength to get rid of any of the evils that Blair created.

    5. Actually not much of that is true. A country has an absolute right to protect its borders. Not so long ago the Chinese government’s soldiers were shooting those who tried to get into Hong Kong. The Australians got tough with migrants trying get to Australia. The Ozzies ignored the usual barrage of outraged sympathy from the usual crowd, and the SJWs went quiet.

  70. Here’s one for you technical types: Why does a steam locomotive, with two or more cylinders, have one only particularly loud “chuff” , usually followed by three quieter ones, for every revolution of the driving wheels?

    2. That’s not the case for all locos. Some have a very regular beat, some don’t. Three-cylinder engines often have a syncopated beat because of the type of valve gear used. I’ll stop there!

      1. True, didn’t think of that… and me an ex-steam loco driver :-((
        My excuse is that the loco only has two cylinders.

        1. What did you drive?

          Locos can sound off-beat if the valve settings are awry.

          1. 0-4-0 well tank loco, made in Germany, at a museum railway here in Norway.
            Naturally, startred off on the train, then fireman, then driver.
            This cuddly wee industrial loco https://mia.no/lommedalsbanen/lokomotiver
            Film: https://mia.no/lommedalsbanen/film – Norwegian only, I’m afraid.
            Edit: at 5.48, there’s a brief glimpse of me on the left-hand side of the loco just as it stops in the station. And driving a blue diesel in the snow at 7:57 (black shiny peaked cap & earmuffs). :-))

        1. Being a generous sort of chap, I don’t think Priti has a cat in Hell’s chance of achieving anything, since anything she announces has to be enacted by the snivel serpents at the Home Office.

          1. She started off pretty well but then turned around. I think they had her in the office!

          2. Her trouble began on day one – when she said that she’d take immediate action to stop the illegals.

            She didn’t – but keeps saying the same thing over and over again.

            Any credibility she had had long since flown.

          3. She’s only copying Theresa May’s winning formula.
            Tell the electorate what they want to hear, then proceed to do the exact opposite.

          4. 322236+ up ticks,
            Afternoon GG,
            There is no excuse, as the wretch cameron said “we are ALL in it together”
            that means ALL the political frat.

            In the last three decades especially you do NOT get to the top echelons of the party
            without having a strong streak of treachery in your character makeup, she is at the moment “making her bones”

  72. The Army is not big enough for war as troop numbers are a ‘shadow’ of what they were a few decades ago, warns General Sir Mike Jackson. 8 August 2020.

    General Sir Mike Jackson, who was Chief of the General Staff from 2003 to 2006, said the Army’s armoured corps was a ‘shadow’ of what it was a few decades ago.

    He said the 80,000-strong Army would now struggle to fight a battle in the way it did in the past.

    Properly speaking the UK doesn’t have any armed forces in the sense of being able to engage a serious enemy. This doesn’t of course prevent our provoking Russia or threatening China!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8606095/The-Army-not-big-war-warns-General-Sir-Mike-Jackson.html

    2. 322236+ up ticks,
      Afternoon AS, Been on the cards for years, still there, that is reliance on the eu.
      The pro eu political brigade have had silencers fitted to their rubber stampers.

  74. A passenger in the Air India plane which crashed has tested positive for Covid-19. All the survivors are being quarantined and tested along with the dead and the rescuers. BBC Radio 4 News

  75. Just been out to the car. It’s quite cool outside; pleasantly so. Tonight’s supper chilling in the fridge.

  76. Since creekit disappeared from the telly; and TMS deteriorated into mindless drivel, (and the effing kneeling malarkey) I haven’t followed it.

    However, I noticed that there is a test match between England and some Darkie team – where England seemed to be doing very badly. In his DT column, Sir Geoffrey said that, “Time is running out for Jos Buttler as a test player…”

    I see within the last few minutes that the man who is steering England’s batting quite effectively towards a possible result is er, Jos Buttler.

    Funny old world, ain’t it?

        1. There’s a breathless hush in the Close tonight –
          Ten to make and the match to win –
          A bumping pitch and a blinding light,
          An hour to play and the last man in.
          And it’s not for the sake of the ribboned coat,
          Or the selfish hope of a season’s fame,
          But his Captain’s hand on his shoulder smote –
          “Play up! play up! and play the game!”

    2. He certainly owed the team after some shoddy wicket-keeping cost more than 100 runs.

      1. As I say – I only looked in (metaphorically) – about an hour ago.

        The moment yer press starts talking about a great England team (after the series against the Windies) – I expect the worst.

        1. Must have been a pissed pressman. The Windies weren’t good yet England managed to lose the first match. There weren’t many praising them.

      1. 322236+ up ticks,
        AS,
        My belief is many have always known but have always put the party first regardless of consequence and the welfare of the Country.

  79. That’s me for today. Suddenly turned cloudy and distinctly chilly with a strong north-easterly. I have had to put on a shirt.

    I will join you tomorrow, should I make it through the night. We watched half the first part of a Beeboid prog about Cuba last night – fascinating.

    A demain.

          1. Curry is nearly always better after 24 hours. My first wife & I used to throw a lot of Indian dinner parties. Always kept some back for next day.

          5. Mexicans make a huge pot of chilli and reheat what is left over every day A nine-day chilli is reckoned to be the best.

      2. Good old-fashioned mince and tatties, here. Except I can’t be ars.. bothered to wait for the tatties, which are carby anyway. Will freeze half for another day. The mince is Donald Russell minced steak – I need to clear some space in the freezer…

        1. I added the leftover rice to the leftover chickpea curry, plus sone dried chilli, water, then heated it up to kill any bugs. Tasted OK. If I don’t join in tomorrow, you know the slime has got me.
          Neither of us can be arsed to make proper food these days. I even can’t get excited about pasta – and that I never expected to happen. Food is just so dull.

          1. Kräftor (crayfish) night here tonight.

            Just polished off a huge dish of crayfish with some home-baked crusty bread (my first loaf of the year!) and a plate of cheeses. Very yummy, even if it is messy with crayfish juice squirting everywhere!

          2. Sounds good. I will bring the wine. a Nelson Estate (Paarl) sauvignon blanc.

          5. We bought pork chops and sausages from Donald Russell the other day and I’m sure the expense is in the packaging!

  81. UK weather: Homes, businesses and lives at risk as severe thunderstorms set to hit
    Christ on a crutch! How pathetic and panicky can the Telewibble get?

    1. Oh I’m jealous King Stepen! One of my grand-twin-boys is indeed called Stefan! 😄

      1. Having been ‘broached’ it’s unlikely to travel well – besides it’s on the Sunday lunch menu! 😉

        1. OK we are on the way.

          Ooh bramley apples, real apples not the commercial stuff we see in Canada.

  83. Gang Members Who Shot Child Are Victims Too. 7 Aug 2020.

    A Swedish police officer has claimed that the gang members who shot dead a 12-year-old girl caught in their crossfire last weekend are also victims.

    Martin Lazar, a police officer in the municipality of Botkyrka where the deadly shooting took place last weekend, said that he felt the incident was a failure of all parts of Swedish society.

    “Many people now want to focus on the visible part of the iceberg – actions from people who lack empathy and morality. But these individuals are in fact victims,” he claimed in an opinion article for Swedish newspaper Expressen.

    “They lacked the right conditions from day one of life, as violence was closer at hand than anything else. These people usually lack an honest relationship with their parents and have little or no community in their families,” he argued.

    This guy would fit right in here. He has all the cant off pat. Probably practices inverted thinking. There’s no winning against this! He would forgive the Muzzy who was cutting off his testicles!

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/08/07/swedish-police-officer-gang-members-shot-12-year-old-also-victims/

      2. When I was a kid, meatballs were poor food. Call them Swedish Meatballs and suddenly, they’re trendy.

    3. Nothing to do with Swedish society failure, just the individual who thought it a good idea to spray bullets round a gas station.

    4. Oh – boo hoo – “we are all guilty” as Dr Heinz Kiosk used to say – the much lamented Michael Wharton.

  84. Good night all.

    Off to continue reading the Kerry Wilkinson latest thriller.

      1. I’ll reveal that when I’ve finished it, John. I don’t want some idiot on here spoiling it. I’m now about 1/2 way through.

  85. Black Lives Matter group offers rural people ‘insight into prejudice’. 8 August 2020.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/30d78f4ade4a07aa6e1509fb9f09d454898931bf2c8344141d8b22fb2983416b.jpg
    The BLM campaigners in Wivenhoe, Essex.

    Black Lives Matter activists have launched a toolkit designed to help rural communities across the UK to fight racism in their local area.

    “This toolkit is about getting people who are not racist to become anti-racist, especially for people who live in rural areas who might be thinking we don’t have that much racism around here,” said Gurpreet Sidhu, founder of the Wivenhoe Black Lives Matter group and co-organiser of the protest.

    Well we know what Bill was up to now!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/08/black-lives-matter-rural-insight-prejudice-blm-stix

    1. “Winston had disliked her from the very first
      moment of seeing her. He knew the reason. It was because of the
      atmosphere of hockey−fields and cold baths and community hikes and
      general clean−mindedness which she managed to carry about with her. He
      disliked nearly all women, and especially the young and pretty ones. It
      was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most
      bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur
      spies and nosers−out of unorthodoxy”
      Hideously white,hideously female

      2. On the issue of women voting, the young Churchill was profoundly chauvinist, arguing that ‘only the most undesirable class of women are eager for the right,’ and that ‘Those women who discharge their duty to the state viz. marrying and giving birth to children, are adequately represented by their husbands,’ therefore ‘I shall unswervingly oppose this ridiculous movement.’ This was partly because ‘If you give women votes you must ultimately allow women to sit as members of Parliament,’ after which inevitably ‘all power passes to their hands.

        Roberts, Andrew. Churchill (pp. 42-43). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.

        It is amazing that Churchill could see this truth over a hundred years ago. What we have now is a thoroughly feminised society that is wittering to its doom!

      2. Are you suggesting you would’ve blacked up to add a bit of colour to the demo?

    3. Wivna is a well known nest of champagne socialists; has been ever since Essex Uni opened.

      2. I did my best to bring a touch of sanity when I was living there in the seventies (and then again in the eighties when I went back – mad fool! – to do my MA).

  86. And another: Old cars (other man-made items are available) develop a soul somwhere in their life – our old Landy, and Minis, definitely have soul, as does Firstborn’s farm buildings, and need treated with respect. At what point in their life does that sould become apparent?

    1. Pipe organs do this as well. The rather splendid organ at St Alban, Hindhead, would perform faultlessly, 364 days of the year. Come the Carol Service, it would always develop ‘issues’ – half of it wouldn’t work; the other half wouldn’t stop…

          2. In seriousness, we would have the heating on for longer than yer average Sunday, and I suspect that was the cause. Meanwhile, the organ here is suffering from lack of use. Mainly unreliable stop tab contacts, which have likely oxidised during lockdown. If it’s ever needed again, giving it a good workout should sort it. And me.

        3. I’m not suggesting that times are hard, but our Church Mice have just written to the Rector, offering an six-figure interest free loan…

          3. I never thought they put stress detectors in church organs that they routinely put in office printers. I’m sure they all have a good chuckle

            (do organs chuckle audibly?).

          4. I’ve never heard one chuckle, exactly. The organ at St Edmundsbury Cathedral had a particular stop which, when drawn, would make a noise like the bleating of a sheep. A former organist there used to make a point of using it during Evensong, whenever the Psalm mentioned creatures of an ovine nature…

          10. Oh crikey Grizz! I really loved that man…….and then I read his autobiography!

    3. This is my argument against virtual church. A building where many generations have gathered over many centuries is not mere bricks and mortar.

      1. Quite, Our Susan – yet another of the thing that pisses me off about the CoE hierarchy who bleat on that, “The church is the congregation and wider folk – never the building.”

        1. Have to move the pews out a bit more then to accommodate the wider folk and keep them distanced.

          When I was working on narrowboats, we were forever fretting about Americans getting stuck in the cubicles. Usually we could get them free with butter and a stout rope, but if all that failed, we’d have to cut a hole in the roof and lift them out by crane.

  88. Oh dear oh dear.

    All the worries that I expressed about Johnson’s WA have proved to be right.

    Before the election I was deeply concerned by the fact that we did not know what was in the WA.

    Why, I asked, was Johnson so keen that his WA should not be properly scrutinised?

    Why was Johnson so determined not to be interviewed on TV by Andrew Neil?

    How did Johnson’s WA differ from May’s Surrender WA – or was it just the same?.

    I have been proved completely right but how I wish I had been wrong.

    We have been betrayed by an oafish and vain buffoon only interested in himself and not giving a damn about Britain.

    And why the hell did Farage capitulate before the election and not oppose the Conservatives known to be remainers with his Brexit candidates giving Johnson a free pass?

    Cry beloved country, cry.

    Here is the DT article you must read.

    Why some Tory MPs are very worried about the Withdrawal Agreement
    Mounting disquiet among Leave-supporting Members that the agreement still isn’t worth the paper it is written on

    By
    Camilla Tominey,
    ASSOCIATE EDITOR
    8 August 2020 • 7:00pm
    He may have succeeded in ditching the Irish backstop and getting his Withdrawal Agreement through Parliament against all the odds. But as Boris Johnson prepares to redraw the Brexit battlelines with the EU as negotiations resume later this month, he once again faces the prospect of a backbench rebellion over the deal he struck with Brussels last October.

    Although senior Brexiteers endorsed the treaty when faced with a remainer rebellion that threatened to reverse the referendum result, there is mounting disquiet among leave MPs that the agreement still isn’t worth the paper it is written on.

    As with Theresa May’s original deal, Tory members of the European Research Group (ERG) who universally endorsed the Prime Minister’s replacement plan in January are now voicing serious concerns about its similarities to its predecessor.

    Former Conservative party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith, who is leading the charge, insists the creation of a border in the Irish Sea with customs and regulatory checks on goods crossing from Britain to Northern Ireland remains a major bone of contention.

    “This sense of semi-detachment from the EU remains unacceptable to many,” he told The Telegraph.

    There are also concerns over ongoing powers for the European Court of Justice over the UK, special legal privileges for EU citizens living in Britain and the threat that the UK could be forced to participate in ambitious EU defence and security arrangements.

    The EU is also challenging the right of the UK to take back control of its fishing waters after Brexit – not to mention the reported £160 billion cost of the UK apparently remaining on the hook for the bloc’s ongoing liabilities.

    Iain Duncan Smith
    Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith
    A recent report by the Centre for Brexit Policy (CBP) calculated that a combination of liabilities arising from British membership of the European Investment Bank, the European Investment Fund and the EU Budget could produce a demand from Brussels of an extra payment rising to as much as £515 billion.

    The report, endorsed by veteran backbenchers Sir Bill Cash and former minister Owen Paterson, described the “seriously flawed” Withdrawal Agreement as a “poison pill” warning that unless the most controversial provisions are replaced, the Government will fail to deliver on its pledge to “take back control” of the UK’s borders, laws, trade, and money when the country finally breaks with the 27-country bloc at the end of this year.

    “Everyone knew this stuff before,” Sir Iain admitted. “The reason we voted for it is because we needed to be out of the EU in order to negotiate successfully as a sovereign nation after January 31. But the negotiators are going to have to block parts of it off.”

    It isn’t only the Tory old guard who are kicking up a fuss. Newly elected Conservatives in so-called Red Wall seats are also beginning to worry that Mr Johnson – already facing criticism over his handling of the coronavirus crisis – will not be able to fully deliver his election promise of “getting Brexit done”.

    There is little doubt that “red” Tory voters will switch back to Labour at the next general election if they get even so much of a whiff of retaliation. By a margin of 49 per cent to 26 per cent, people in so-called battleground ‘Red Wall’ seats polled by Savanta ComRes for the CBP study agreed with the statement: “Leaving the EU in 2020, rather than later, will mean that Britain recaptures the national independence it had before it joined the Common Market in 1973 sooner.”

    This level of agreement rises to two thirds among “Red Wall” residents who voted Labour in the 2017 general election then switched to the Conservatives in the 2019 election – and nearly three quarter of people who voted Conservative in both elections.

    Tory backbenchers are applying pressure on David Frost, Mr Johnson’s EU sherpa, to secure a “sovereignty complaint” final deal with Brussels which torpedoes demands that Britain’s business and employment laws remain in lockstep with those formed in Brussels. They also want a flat refusal of the EU’s proposed control of “State aid” rules on government support of domestic industries.

    Yet with just 144 days until the end of the transition period on December 31, just how likely is Brussels to cave into such demands?

    “Frosty”, as the UK’s chief negotiator is known in civil service circles, has asserted the UK’s desire to “be a fully independent country at the end of the transition period”, throughout the negotiations in his quest to secure a Canada-style free trade deal. Yet even if we leave without a deal – the Withdrawal Agreement still stands.

    With the EU having just agreed a €750 billion Covid bailout package after days of infighting, there is a school of thought that the UK’s best negotiating position may be to play the Germans off against the French over the services sector. “There’s an argument that we shouldn’t pay them any money at all if we don’t get a deal,” said one Tory. “If we have acted in good faith but the EU has been obstructive. But our biggest lever is that Germany still requires London for cheap capital – and they do not want to see any of our financial services going to Paris.

    “Germany needs a trade deal with Britain for its manufacturing and France needs it for its argi-produce, so the UK is in a very strong position to renegotiate the Withdrawal Agreement.”

    Formal talks between the EU and UK are set to resume in Brussels on 17 August.

      1. 322236+ up ticks,
        Evening JN,
        They said that about major, the wretch cameron,
        mayday, they pay the price alright JN whats going in their offshore accounts for a bit of after dinner patter ?
        ,

      2. What price? A seat in the House of Lords, some very well remunerated directorships and speaking engagements?

    1. Would seven out of eight count?

      Although I must admit that I do think that there might be a weather pattern issue. Times are a changing and so is the weather, carbon free or not. The emergency comes after our time when the woke realise that they need to adapt to natural change but have killed off reliable petro carbon energy.

        1. I have no useful suggestions, I’m afraid, except that I suspect to keep it completely still might well be a mistake. Some light exercise is useful in most cases.

    2. When I took my father to be photo’d for his Blue Bdge he kept grinning inanely into the camera. I had to tell him, “FFS take that smile off your face; you’re supposed to look ill!”

  91. Just been reading about Stanley Kubrik and his favourite Wildean quote. I agree with him. It’s:
    “The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young.”

  92. There is plenty of potential for public spending cuts in higher education.

    The spurious social ‘sciences’ have shown themselves up again

    UCL’s research on Dominic Cummings is hardly an example of rigorous intellectual pursuit

    ROSS CLARK

    I’ve never had a lot of respect for social sciences, or, as much of it seems to me, political activism thinly dressed up in scientific clothes. But one of the latest offerings does seem to be an especially laughable example of the art (and I really do mean art, rather than science). In a paper published in the Lancet, a team from University College London’s Covid-19 Social Study claims that the revelations about Dominic Cummings’s trip to Durham at the height of lockdown damaged public trust in the Government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis and attitudes towards keeping the lockdown.

    It’s not that I challenge the conclusions – which are surely a case of stating the bleedin’ obvious. But the decision to write an entire paper around one government aide does give something of a clue to the authors’ motivations.

    The paper is not exactly subtle, carrying the title: the Cummings Effect: politics, trust and behaviours during the Covid-19 pandemic. It reports the opinions of a sample of 40,000 members of the public, each of whom was asked to rate their confidence in the Government’s handling of the crisis on a scale on one to seven, seven being maximum confidence and one indicating no confidence at all.

    After May 22, when the Cummings story came out, it claims, the average fell from 5.0 to 4.5. It was definitely Cummings wot did it, the authors assert, because they measured no corresponding fall in confidence in the Scottish and Welsh governments.

    I’m not going to defend Cummings’s behaviour, which I am sure did have an influence on how many people viewed the Government’s handling of the crisis and their willingness to adhere to lockdown guidelines. But if you are going to study how public attitudes have changed over time, why fixate on Cummings while overlooking the numerous other public and personal events and issues which have shape people’s opinions on the extraordinary restrictions on freedom imposed on us over the past few months?

    The paper also includes a graph on how well people were adhering to lockdown restrictions. Unsurprisingly, it shows a steady fall from early April as people became fed up with being told to stay indoors. The graph does show a plunge after the Cummings story came to light, yet it shows an even bigger plunge after May 5 – the day that Professor Neil Fergusson was caught with his trousers down, by allowing his lover to visit him at his flat. Curiously, though, the authors don’t even mention that event, still less include Ferguson’s name in the title of the paper.

    Let’s pick another of the many events which might possibly have weakened public adherence to lockdown guidelines: the Black Lives Matter protests from the second weekend of June onwards, when thousands took to the streets in flagrant breach of a ban on public gatherings. How many people watched the footage of activists pulling down the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol and thought: bugger this, if they are allowed to get away with that then I bloody well am going to have the Joneses round for a barbecue?

    Funny enough, the study stops dead on June 11, so doesn’t have to address this. Maybe that is the subject of a follow up study called the BLM effect: how protests affected public attitudes towards lockdown. Or maybe not.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/08/spurious-social-sciences-have-shown/

  93. As noted last week, tourist cars are quite common in the Scottish Borders. As well as the UK cars, identifiable by the roof boxes, we saw some Dutch plates today on our 70m round trip for sausages. The Netherlands Government has the UK on their list of countries to avoid.
    There is every sign that people are moving around as they please, and crossing international borders is not deterring people.

      1. Yes. In the sunshine…and fresh air. We have had at most six sunny days in the last two months. Most days it has rained. We have not had the very warm, even hot days experienced in Southern England. Our normal round trip to the supermarket is around 30 miles.

        1. In Sweden I often made the round trip of 50 miles on a Sunday morning to fetch the Saturday Telegraph & “Stern”.

    2. We still see the occasional US tourist, despite the border being shut since March.

      To be precise, we see cars with New York licence plates in our tourist area.

  94. Boros not doing Brexit looks priced in. There is no ”price for him to pay”. The ”Red Wall” can take a jump. A beautiful multi million dollar non job awaits in Seattle.

    Just like Nick Clegg. A $6,000,000 non job incl bonuses with Facebook doing Soros compliancy…. and a $9,000,000 house in California !

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