Monday 24 August: The Government’s own data refute the case for a second lockdown

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/2020/08/23/letters-governments-data-refute-case-second-lockdown/

756 thoughts on “Monday 24 August: The Government’s own data refute the case for a second lockdown”

    2. There are bouncers and Yorkers but the big one on the right is a ‘woofter’ – a huge bundle of socialist crap delivered with intense left-wing spin. Invented and despatched by Justin (Woofter) Webb, darling of the BBC Propaganda Dispatch Team – 1st Division.

      1. 322967+ up ticks,
        S,
        He can be seen also as a great success depending on what side be is batting for.

        Following in the line of major, cameron, clegg, may, who is really surprised ?

  2. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    A heart-rending letter that requires no additional comment from me:

    SIR – Even for a young person, isolation during lockdown would have been intolerable. For one suffering from dementia and living in a care home, it has been even more distressing.

    Last Friday, an elderly friend was finally allowed to see her husband for 30 minutes. She arrived at the appointed hour, and after a five-minute wait she was dressed in protective gear. She then waited a further five minutes before her husband was ushered into the room, when she was brusquely told to keep her distance. By now, 20 of the 30 minutes had elapsed.

    Her husband had not been told that he was going to see his wife and he promptly burst into tears. They begged for more time and were allowed two extra minutes. This treatment is inexcusable.

    The next morning I received a letter from Scottish Veterans Residences that described the activities they are providing for their pensioner residents, such as gardening and baking. Are former servicemen and women somehow more resilient than elderly civilians? It is surely time to stop this inhumane isolation.

    Rosemary McDougall
    Pathhead, Fife

    2. Couldn’t agree more although I’m able to see and talk to my wife for as long as I want through the bedroom window where she’s confined whenever I want – thankfully it’s on ground level

    3. Possibly ex-services personnel are more resilient than civilians, but that doesn’t excuse that sort of incarceration.

    1. Morning, Bob3. At least it’s dry, so I can continue with the fence painting I started on Saturday (inspired by Annie’s recent fence painting). Tomorrow’s non-stop rain will give me a break, as well as loosening up the soil around the lemon balm plants I put next to some badly painted fence parts to hide the eyesores. This will make it easier pull them out prior to repainting. So not much NoTTLing for me this week. Keep well, keep happy and play nicely.

  5. SIR – I agree that wicker baskets (Letters, August 19) are long-lasting and ideal for shopping, but they do tend to snag one’s hosiery.

    Diana Spencer
    Herne Bay, Kent

    Hallelujah, hallelujah!! She is arisen!

    [Yes, sweetie. Same problem here with my hosiery]

    1. Wicker baskets also provide great breeding grounds for all kinds of small insects. They may be traditional, but they are banned from my house!

  6. Good morning all.

    Sun trying to peep through. There’s a nip in the air, but it isn’t Oriental.

    1. Morning Peddy. Two years ago on the 24th August there was also a notable nip in the air. My journal records:

      “Friday 24th August dawns clear with a fine day in prospect although there has been a considerable drop in temperature. In one of the first physical signs of Autumn, on the river bank just in front of the boat every time the gander honks it exhales a miniature cloud of steamy breath that condenses instantly. As he honks repeatedly you begin to wonder if he is harbouring a steam engine under his black and white duvet?”

      1. ‘Morning, Stephen.

        As I said the other day, I often had to put the CH on in August in Germany, but September always brought a return of warmth.

        1. My grandparents always took their holiday in Cornwall in September because they knew that good weather could be guaranteed.

          3. Just ordered it. I’ve just been reading a couple of books about the upper classes in that era; it should make an interesting contrast.

          6. #MeToo 🙂 I could guarantee that once we’d gone back to school, the weather would take a turn for the better 🙂

    1. Seconded. Watched it yesterday (well actually the early hours of today). Would encourage anyone who hasn’t already done so to watch it.

      1. We would like to add that the British Government banned the export of Chloroquine on 26 February 2020.

        [See the DOHSS publication of Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency].

        Once we saw this we inquired whether we could buy it from any local chemist.

        They had all sold out!

        It would be interesting to discover how many, or how few, civil servants who knew about this have died of Coronavirus.

    1. Writing etiquette evolves as quickly as the media used for that writing.

      I would defend the youngsters here, but limit it to txt spk. Full stops are still needed in prose, or any communication that is more than a one-liner. I was always confused in my youth by ‘STOP’ interrupting the flow of words on telegrams, which should be concise. If the concluding full stop is considered an emphatic close by youngsters, then perhaps we should adopt this new usage?

      Americans often say “period” when they want to be rude, and since the Americans designed and marketed a lot of the technology youngsters use, then it’s logical that they impose their grammar too. Television was invented in Britain, so we watch programmes, but while the computer was developed here, it was America that took it over, so they write programs, except that they are called apps now.

      Examples of changes are the use of full stops when marking
      titles. In my lifetime “B.B.C.” has become “BBC”. I don’t expect any
      of the niceties in text speak, which must be brief.

      What irritates me far more is the presumption on Facebook that their users are not capable of anything more than a one-liner, and will interpret the ‘Enter’ key as an instruction to post. In my train of thought writing something, I often forget which vehicle I am using and post prematurely, forcing an edit.

      Another etiquette in online writing, including here on a comments board, is a much greater use of paragraphs, which make it a lot more readable. Facebook makes this practice far more stressful.

    2. ‘Morning, VVOF.

      I was just about to post this link from the DT on the same subject.

      Another load of nonsense from Generation Z.
      If I receive an email where there is no concluding full stop, I often have to think that the writer pressed ‘send’ before finishing the message.

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/23/generation-z-find-full-stops-intimidating-experts-say/?WT.mc_id=e_DM1279396&WT.tsrc=email&etype=Edi_FAM_New_ES&utmsource=email&utm_medium=Edi_FAM_New_ES20200824&utm_campaign=DM1279396

      1. But, but, but… I thought that today’s younger generation text things such as “Read my lips: STOP. THE. FULL. STOP.” don’t they, Peddy?

        1. I’ve no idea, Elsie (buenos dias). If I get my usual invitation to Christmas lunch, I shall be mixing with some Generation Z & I shall tackle them about it. Assuming they know what punctuation is, of course. That could be a bit of a stretch, but one has just gained a place at Leeds Uni, one is a teacher, another in her 2nd year at Lincoln Uni., & another is a post-grad designer.

          1. Buenos dias, Peddy. How come Lincoln Uni. has a full stop whereas Leeds Uni does not. Is Leeds University more “woke” than Lincoln. And don’t you mean a postgraduate designer? :-))

          2. Leeds Uni didn’t get a . because the boy in question hasn’t started there yet, whereas the girl at Lincoln is already in, nay past, her 2nd year. They are, however, both undergrads. 😉

          3. Isn’t punctuation the art of mending bicycle punctures? Or is it the art of scattering sharp objects over the (bi)cycle pathways?

            :-))

          4. I can tell you what punctuation isn’t. It’s not the art of lying on a Fakir’s bed of nails without getting pierced.

          5. In that case they are likely to find punctuation a foreign country (and not just that surrounding Aya Napa or Magaluf )/

          6. The teacher & the designer, who are a couple, went on a rail adventure last year across Europe. Just bought a pan-Europe ticket & went her, there & everywhere. Quite adventurous, considering they had never been abroad before.

    3. A recent comment:

      Don’t worry. When they learn to tie their laces and wipe their ar.. nose without adult assistance they may be in a better position to learn the basics of the English language. The Mail should continue employing them as it keeps them off the streets and generally out of trouble.

  9. Morning all. What have we done so disastrously to ourselves?

    SIR – According to the Government’s own statistics, on Friday August 19, 812 people tested positive for Covid-19 out of 163,010 processed tests.

    There were 104 hospital admissions; a total of 841 patients in hospital; 16 deaths were recorded.

    The quantity of positive test results needs to be seen in the context of the far greater number of tests taking place (on the last day of April, only 66,793 tests were processed).

    Sir Mark Walport (report, August 23), a ­member of the Government’s Scientific ­Advisory Group for Emergencies, suggests that the statistical evidence supports the case for a possible resumption of a national lockdown. This is absurd and, if acted upon, would be economically disastrous. It is also an indication that we have lost all sense of perspective on Covid-19 and its impact.

    Steve Narancic

    Wantage, Oxfordshire

    SIR – We are told that the number of Covid-19 cases is increasing, but rarely is this put into context. A “case” is defined as an individual who has had at least one lab-confirmed positive test result, with no reference to symptoms.

    Advertisement

    Since July 1 the proportion of positive tests has flatlined, with fewer than 1 per cent (range 0.39 to 0.91 per cent) of the combined total of Pillar 1 and Pillar 2 tests proving positive.

    Phil Alderman FRCS

    Ponthir, Monmouthshire

    SIR – Sir Mark Walport (report, August 23) says that fewer than one in five people in the UK have been infected with Covid-19, and therefore a “draconian” lockdown could be reimposed.

    Surely this shows that lockdown has failed. We need exposure to develop immunity, not just to Covid but to the many other unpleasant and dangerous viruses with which we co-exist.

    It now seems that serious illness 
and death caused by Covid are rare. What was far more damaging than the virus was the irresponsible lockdown and the whipping-up of hysteria and fear. We must learn to live with Covid-19.

    Kate Higson

    Salisbury, Wiltshire

    SIR – In March I closed my thriving beauty salon. During the lockdown I stayed at home to protect the NHS.

    Saturday August 22 marked five months since I was last able to welcome clients. I still can’t open because of local restrictions in Kirklees in West Yorkshire. How long are my colleagues and I expected to put up with this? We are being prevented from earning a living by local people ignoring the guidelines.

    Michelle Tolley

    Huddersfield, West Yorkshire

    SIR – I can’t attend professional outdoor sport such as cricket or horse racing as it’s considered too risky. However, on a wet Wednesday I’m encouraged to squeeze into a pub for a half-price meal. Where’s the logic?

    Andrew Shanks

    Uckfield, Sussex

    1. The people who make the rules do not lose their salaries or jobs in the way that those working in the private sector and those running their own businesses do. These nasty little jobsworths have made themselves immune from the consequences of their actions.

      The greatest insult – which filled most of us with contempt and disgust – was when MPs were given a £10,000 bonus when people in the private sector were going bankrupt. And then lazy teachers – as well as the good ones – were given a pay rise to reward their laziness.

    2. Exactly so, Steve and Phil. I was going to do an analysis for Scotland, but have not yet got round to it.

  10. SIR – I am educated at home and was due to sit my A-levels in June. When the exams were cancelled, I was left with no information or guidance from the Government or the exam board. The timetable for the October exams was not published until a few weeks ago. I worked through the whole summer not knowing if there would even be an exam for me to take in October. My sister’s Latin A-level was cancelled, and she had to wait two months to find out if her reorganised exam would use the same texts that she had prepared for the original.

    No exam board seemed to have any awareness or duty of care towards students outside the main system. Recent events show that this is still the case. We now have no grades to put on our university applications, and the October exam results come out too late for Oxbridge and probably other universities. How can it take so long for the very small number of A-level results to be released, especially as they are so important?

    Next year we will be in the position where many of the places at the universities we apply to will already have been filled by students who have had to defer this year.

    We are just two normal teenagers who have been brought up to believe that education is the most important thing in our lives. For the Government and the exam boards, it seems more like an afterthought.

    Maeloc Rivero

    Barcelona, Spain

    1. The university my Father was Professor at made damn sure that the exams taken in the morning were marked, graded and moderated in the afternoon, and published the next morning. That meant a heavy load on the teaching staff, but it was a matter of pride to get it done. Afternoon exams were marked overnight, moderated the next morning and published at lunchtime.
      But hey, that was Nigeria in the 1960s and 1970s, not a modern western economy whose ability to do anything at all seems in question.

    2. So,it’s not just the UK government, then? Or are you living in Spain and taking UK exams?

  11. Last night, against my better judgment, I sat down to watch the Wendyball European Champions’ League final on BT Sport 1 between Paris St Germain and Bayern Munich.

    I should have known better.

    Despite the hyperbole of this being, potentially, the most ‘exciting’ final between ‘the best two teams on the continent’, all I saw was more — much more — of the same old, same old wrestling match between two sets of players who would have been given the run around by players (and referees) of the past. This was exacerbated by the banal and witless commentary provided by members of the current generation (Gen Z?) of nonentities employed by modern media.

    It was a true yawn-fest.

      1. I watched a recording of Billion Dollar Brain. Ken Russell started off OK, but lost control after about 30minutes…

    2. For the past few years, when watching any televised sport, I have muted the banal bollocks of the commentary and put some music on.
      That way I don’t have to hear how ‘exciting’ the yawn fest on screen is and ‘miss out’ on the girlie screaming anytime one of the ‘stars’ punts a ball in the general direction of the goal/posts.

    3. Wendyball – Two (mainly) African tribes kicking a bag of wind and each other up and down a meadow. The ones who cartwheel and simulate traffic accidents best are generally deemed the winners.

      I watched it in a French bar, along with an unmasked crowd of germ laden peasants. Not happy bunnies at the end.

      1. I hope you weren’t in a Paris bar near to the Parc-des-Princes where the ‘disappointed’ PSG fans ran riot afterwards burning cars and smashing shop windows (as is their wont).

  12. Forgive me if this has been posted previously. It’s regarding a vote in the Commons regarding the continuation of the Covid-19 rules and regs that were initiated 5 months ago. At the end of Sep or beginning of Oct the 6 months allotted to the rules expire. How will our MPs vote? It’s only 8 mins long.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HCE-JXNxus

    1. I was wearing one in a queue outside and torrential rain started. I confessed all to the others in the queue.

    2. Try wearing a mask and a midge hood whilst working as I sometimes have to do when recovering a vehicle

    3. 322967+ up ticks,
      B3,
      Could a mask be viewed as a mini burka and in today’s political climate a “must have or else”

        1. 322967+up ticks,
          Morning PT,
          Your bloody fault, bloody clean t-shirt bloody tea
          stained down the bloody front.

        1. 322967+up ticks,
          Morning M,
          Precisely,
          And so it came to pass, just yet another governance extension.

          While incarcerated why not knit an ALL encapsulating bottom to your face mask surely a must item for all ovid.

  14. Let’s all have a crack at the BBC.

    I have not been following “A Suitable Boy”, although I’ve noticed that it has occupied a slot on a weekend evening since it started a few weeks ago. Now I see that the concluding episode is to be broadcast tonight. If I had been following it, I would be mighty pissed off to find that the final episode – the one that reveals all – is to be transmitted on a weekday evening, if my personal timetable didn’t allow me to see it.
    What moron at the programme timing dept went without sleep to think that clusterfuck up?

    1. Good morning, Peddy

      They only do it to annoy
      Because they know it teases!

      (Apologies to Lewis Carroll)

    2. Is it based on the novel by Vikram Seth? That one has no appeal for me but I read another book of his, “An Equal Music”, about a deaf pianist who gets to play at the Wigmore Hall. It was recommended by the Friends manager at the hall and was a good story, well written.

    3. I assume the audience figures have been so low that they think it is of no importance.

    4. I saw tha last five minutes last night when a young man was stabbed in the stomach as he tried to stop a woman being attacked. Quite glad not to have seen the rest.

      1. I think that was the intention. Or are you saying that that fuse box (read timetable) was put up by a Subcontinental?

        1. Ah – I thought it was yer beeboids making a point!

          The MR quite liked the novel – so we watched the first episode. Then stopped.

  16. 322967+ up ticks,
    Surely in a Country riddled with decency & common sense you could
    settle ten veterans off of the streets, why is this NOT happening, is it foreign political elements in power building & housing these foreign elements ? who votes in these people / party’s knowing them to be of a continuing failing nature from their recent past and surely recognising their intended future.

    https://twitter.com/Boulangedi/status/1297281541660450817

    1. and yet at the weekend I was chatting to an engineer from Romania who has a good job here in the UK and who speaks two foreign languages fluently. Not all Romanians are Roma.

      1. 322967+ up ticks,
        Morning Tim,
        Surely if in Romania would we not be expected to do as Romanians do, as in England, that is queue.

        In my book you first look to the needs of your own peoples Then the needs of others.

        Also in this time of turmoil with the governance party’s obviously at war with the peoples scrap ALL
        overseas aid & only help out in ALL manor of ways,
        disasters.
        Disasters meaning natural disasters and not
        continue funding self harming disasters such as
        the lab/lib/con coalition party.

    2. This story was from 2014, and may have influenced the Brexit Referendum.

      What our idiot politicians failed to do was to work out how to bring in the Romanian fruit pickers and vegetable harvesters, but keep out the pickpockets and the economic opportunists, who are allowed in and must be supported under the same EU-wide treaty legislation. The same rules also allow us to export our white van pensioners and lager drinkers to Spain, rather than to make a mess of our countryside.

      Apart from Brexit, Covid has been closing borders all over Europe. Even the French border is closed to legal traffic, although organised criminals are still put up in hotels at public expense.

      1. 322967+ up ticks,
        Morning JM,
        Potential criminal supplied with masks plus with masks morphing into FULL burkas under the governance submissive / appeasing campaign.

    1. I think that was almost the last time I went to the cinema to see a film. I was glad to find a film without blood & guts and gratuitous violence. I also thought that using a short story as the basis for a film works better than basing it on some long tome (though I haven’t read the original short story so can’t really tell whether it’s been abused in the making of the film).

  18. Mail to a Conservative MP……………….

    Abolishing the largest ”Quango” means abolishing what purports to be the UK government and it’s panoply, including parliament and the civil service, and passing everything to Open Society.

    To a large extent, it has already happened so not much more needs to be done.

    Consequently, move the executive offices of Open Society from Millbank into Downing Street and allow them to spread through your defunct parliament. Thereby allowing George Soros and his descendants to rule your country openly instead of covertly.

    You can’t deny it’s already happened, so go for transparency… the full disclosure solution is the most desirable.

    As project manager, I suggest Tony Blair, who is George Soros’ best friend, and who started this process at the New York Plaza Hotel in 1996.

    Tony and George will fix everything as they always have, with generous bungs all round………

    Polly

  19. Letters to the Editor:

    SIR – This morning I was dismayed to find a dead chough in my garden.

    Could this signal the outbreak of a deadly strain of Corvid-19?

    A. Byrd-Braine
    The Rookery
    Crowland
    Lincs.

    5. If you have a little chough, no matter how small, you must contact your nearest NHS Test and Trace or ring 111. They will tell you where to go – in no uncertain terms!

        2. The pronunciation is quite difficult but you can manage it by answering the following three questions:

          1. What is 1 plus 1 ?
          2. What is 3 minus 1 ?
          3. What is the last name of the author of Huckleberry Finn?

          Now say all the answers in sequence.

  20. BBC can be the nation’s voice after Brexit, says director-general.

    Britain needs the BBC more than ever to promote the country’s “voice and values” after Brexit, Lord Hall will claim on Monday.

    In his final speech as director-general, he will appeal to the government to “unleash the full global potential of the BBC” as the UK forges a new relationship with the world.

    The BBC needs more taxpayers’ money to combat a “second pandemic” of fake news spread by Russia and China, he will claim.

    Morning everyone. There was a time when I used to be surprised by the moronic utterances of the Great and Good but it has long passed due to repeated assault. That said this particular example should be enshrined in the BBC Hall of Fame for its sheer chutzpah. The Beeb is a Cultural Marxist mouthpiece more suited to North Korea than the UK. It has no British voice or values, it hates them both. It is a purveyor of lies and disinformation financed by extortion under penalty of Law. It should be shut down and the Licence Fee abolished.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/23/bbc-can-nations-voice-brexit-says-director-general/

    4. “The Beeb is a Cultural Marxist mouthpiece more suited to North Korea than the UK. It has no British voice or values, it hates them both. It is a purveyor of lies and disinformation financed by extortion under penalty of Law. It should be shut down and the Licence Fee abolished.”

      Morning, Minty.

      Every bit of that is factual. In fact it is an irrebuttable presumption of fact.

      The problem is, however, that the whole of the current British establishment wants to keep the BBC in the way that it has become. The very last thing on their collective mind is shutting it down and abolishing the licence fee, since to do so would stymie its own mouthpiece.

      1. You have a problem, Grizzly, which must be a great disadvantage in the world in which we all live: You have far too much common sense.

    5. Well said, Minty. Setting aside for the moment yet another bulletin of ‘future news’, this useless goon’s ludicrous pleading for even more money shows just how out of touch the Broken Broadcasting Corporation really is. And as for “…fake news spread by Russia and China…” I wonder whether there are any mirrors installed in BBC HQ.

      Keep digging, to the bitter end. Stupidity of this level is usually seen only in government, but at least we can kick them out from time to time.

      1. 322967+ up ticks,
        Morning HJ,
        “But at least we can kick them out from time to time”
        May one ask, has this ever been tried,keeping the benefit of the nation at the forefront instead of
        putting the party first ?

      2. The BBC doesn’t push fake news as much as delete interesting news that doesn’t fit their Marxist mission.

        When have they last mentioned Cabo Delgado( revolt against Marxism), the appalling mess in both South Africa and Zimbabwe (mustn’t criticize blecks), and even the tragic collapse of Lebanon was totally ignored until the unfortunate explosion in Beirut.

    6. 322967+ up ticks,
      Morning AS,
      A unity movement as in stop paying the extortion fee
      en masse which could have a domino effect on other major issues.
      If any disagree then they can make up for the loss of
      revenue.
      At the moment the peoples are financing a vast misleading / misinformation unit

        1. 322967+ up ticks,
          Morning FA,
          Same as that, I have been fighting them for years
          when they accused me of having colour, time after time to which I replied the if two monochrome equal 1 colour then you have me bang to rights.

          Currently with me they have changed the threat
          outer casing as to fool you into opening it instead of just dinging it as fire starter, they burn well.

          1. Just ignore them. Don’t let them in, don’t respond to their letters. Put the letters in the bin.

            If they whinge and whine that you’re under investigation.. have a good laugh as you’re not. They’ve no power to do anything.

            If they turn up with a court warrant, close the door asking to read the warrant. Make a brew and ten minutes later tell the police officer they may come in, but the private citizen may not. Do nothing for them whatsoever.

            Besides, they’ll spend two years threatening. Get a big dog and threaten them for a change. Have a large German Shepherd (who despite being all teeth and claws) wouldn’t hurt a mouse.

          3. My aged terrierist turned savage guard dog (well, by loudly barking anyway) when the painter (who always makes a fuss of him) arrived this morning!

      1. Morning, Annie. Have you finished your fence-painting now? (See my earlier post to Bob3.)

        1. Front is done. Once the side of the front garden has its Autumn clear out, we will remove the tatty trellis and I will paint the fence. I have no idea who installed trellis work and I’ll be glad to see the back of it.

    8. Morning all, there’s a degree of irony here. If he were not bothered and trusted the BBc’s output to stand on it’s own, he wouldn’t be worried by other news outlets. Instead, he wants his voice to be the only one that’s heard – just in case they contradict the glorious BBC.

      Let’s also remember that this same BBC – the ones wanting to promote British values – is the same one trying to silence Land of Hope and Glory at the proms.

      However, as with the BBC it is what they don’t say – the BBC’s concept of British culture is not actually what most people think of as British culture. It’ll be the BBC’s multi culti, super diverse, hard Left, no family, high tax, big state,controlled vision.

  21. Following Charles Moore’s article yesterday about the National Trust:

    SIR – On reading Charles Moore’s column (“Why won’t the people who run the National Trust trust the nation?”, Comment, August 22), I was reminded of how struck I’ve been by the organisation’s Covid measures.

    As members, we regularly visit properties. Undeterred by advance-booking systems, we ventured out and found many properties, cafés, shops and exhibitions closed, and one-way systems enforced in the grounds.

    Outside the National Trust bubble, people walk normally, visit shops, and the Government pays them to eat in cafés and restaurants. Most National Trust houses already had one-way walking routes in place. So why such limited opening? The staff in the commercial areas are paid and often young – not elderly volunteers. And why are there one-way systems in huge areas of parkland?

    The National Trust’s loss of revenue is due to its own risk-averse attitude, which is letting down its members and soon-to-be jobless employees.

    Alexandra J Seear
    Corsham, Wiltshire

    I can vouch for the writer’s view that the NT was – and probably still is – risk averse. From early July onwards we have visited a few NT properties, mostly in the Worcs and Glos areas, but the experience was not particularly rewarding as little attempt had been made to make available even the most basic histories in each case. In most places the properties were still closed and the only “visitor experience” available was a wander around the grounds with little or no guidance provided. It was as if the buildings were in hibernation and the staff (and volunteers) had all gone home. We will not be returning (for the remainder of our membership) until they can get their act together.

    1. SIR – Charles Moore mentions my father, Sir John Smith.

      In 1965, slightly fed up with the National Trust, he and my mother set up the Landmark Trust. Its purpose was to save buildings and then to give them a new life by letting them for holidays. The building was never compromised (“as comfortable as its nature allows”) and he thought that just staying in one of them and learning from it was enough of an experience for the visitor.

      Now the trustees are putting the holidaymakers first, to the gradual detriment of the wonderful buildings, and thus also to the experience of staying in them.

      Barty Smith

      London SW7

      1. I worked with Lady Christian Smith on the two Landmark Trust Apartments at Hampton Court Palace viz. Fish Court and one half of the external Vanbrugh kitchen block which had been converted to Grace and Favour apartments.

        I found the experience enlightening and curators Simon Thurley and Daphne Ford a breath of fresh air.

        Other projects included the Great Kitchen Chimney Restoration, the Privy Garden Restoration for which I was the Architect and the Resurfacing of Base Court which I designed (the latter executed to my designs by others).

        1. Surely she was Lady Smith (I bet she was relieved!) as Sir John was a knight (even if he was a baronet, she’d still be Lady Smith) unless she was already the daughter of a peer?

          1. I think she was the daughter of some historic Scottish nobility. Her elder sister was a Baroness and of considerable political weight.

            I remember being amused by Sir John Smith’s address in London.

            Sir John Smith
            Number One, Smith Square.

            Edit: Lady Smith’s eldest sister was Elizabeth Patricia Carnegy of Lour, Baroness Carnegy of Lour FRSA, DL

          2. Her elder sister being a baroness means nothing if it was a life peerage. Her father would have had to have been better than a baron (if he’d only been a baron, she’d only have been an Honourable).

          3. I am not arguing about the title or correct words of address. Having checked articles about Lady Smith on the internet such as the sale of her Tiara and the contents of their homes in Smith Square and Shottesbrooke, she is referred to as Lady Cristian Smith and that is how we were asked to address her, whether correct according to Debretts or not.

      1. 322967+ up ticks,
        Morning B3,
        What they have done in point of fact is totally
        bollox up a very decent Nation via the lab/lib/con
        coalition & regular supporters,
        God forbid they ever reach mars first they will deep fry it.

    3. We visited Chirk NT property and wanted to take photographs of ourselves in one of the rooms, only to be told it was verboten and we could buy postcards. Were we expected to photoshop ourselves into the picture on the card? We left without buying anything and have never been back.

  22. Wasfi Kani argued that Rule Britannia is not a unifying song….

    BBC Proms has sparked a huge debate on whether Rule, Britannia! and Land of Hope and Glory should be axed from the Last Night of the Proms as one commentator called on other countries to look at their national anthems.
    Any ideas Nottlers….?
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a25f9fa952bfa2fda9a6639b0761403611eb204354aeec9c2c888c1e3d47d3e5.jpg
    https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1326632/Rule-Britannia-ban-bbc-proms-BLM-black-lives-matter-land-of-hope-and-glory-latest

    1. Who cares what other countries sing? We have ours and they have theirs and we should keep our own.

      1. 322967+ up ticks,
        B3,
        On Sunday ring one church bell and have the rest follow en masse.

        Have one sing whatever song beneficial to these Isles the majority WILL follow en masse I have no doubts.

      4. I for one won’t miss SLSC.
        I never liked it, even before the Saesnegs, for some reason, started singing at rugby matches.

        Saucepans’ Lives Matter
        Mae bys Meri-Ann wedi brifo,
        A Dafydd y gwas ddim yn iach.
        Mae’r baban yn y crud yn crio,
        A’r gath wedi sgramo Joni bach.

        Sosban fach yn berwi ar y tân
        Sosban fawr yn berwi ar y llawr,
        A’r gath wedi sgramo Joni bach.

        Dai bach y sowldiwr, Dai bach y sowldiwr, Dai bach y sowldiwr, A gwt ei grys e mas.

        Mae bys Meri-Ann wedi gwella,
        A Dafydd y gwas yn ei fedd;
        Mae’r baban yn y crud wedi tyfu,
        A’r gath wedi huno mewn…

    4. A huge debate? A few daft non-British bints, a coven of culture Marxists complaining on one side -supported by the UK-hating BBC – and 50,000,000 Britons on the other?

    5. It unifies the indigenous of these islands OF OURS like nothing else. That is what they really do not like. And wish to eliminate at all costs.

    8. One lady on BBC Radio 4 suggested “I vow to thee, my country” and the Beetles “All you need is love”
      .

        2. Morning Plum -I am not an expert on pop music and had to look at Bob Marley’s tune list. Not knowing the words the only one I could suggest is his 1973 song “Get Up, Stand Up” but the title could be ambiguous in its intent. I certainly didn’t like the Lady’s alternatives on BBC Radio 4 this morning
          ps I hope your achilles tendon is on the mend.

          1. Morning clydesider
            It’s just fine as it is…..without any meddling from Aunty.

            Achilles tendon is healing….s l o w l y……GRRR.
            Thanks for asking x

      2. I believe she said she was of Indian stock and often gets called a Paki. I can understand the hatred that generates. I wouldn’t like to be mistaken for a Paki either.

        1. My Chinese colleague at Bristol, normally a very placid & charming girl from Hong Kong, had her one & only flare up when somebody asked her if she ever wore a kimono at home. “I AM NOT JAPANESE!” she screeched. She went from zero to 5 miles high in as many seconds. Boy, was she mad!

    9. It’s like all the “taking the knee” rubbish at sports events, they’re messing with the Last Night of the Proms because there won’t be an audience in the hall this year to boo and hiss and sing anyway.

      1. For the BBC every disaster carries the potential for the furtherance of its Marxist message. The thought of old people (Tory voters) dying in droves puts a spring in the step of producers, presenters and the Board of Governors alike.

  25. THE EVER-INCREASING STUPIDITY EPIDEMIC

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1fd20f4dee78a2f2feb29834e61aed2d53eb12a262f25c142107515018407d8b.png Dr Lauren Fonteyn is evidently too STUPID to realise that it is her own STUPIDITY that is, in part, responsible fo the exponential and unstoppable growth in STUPIDITY amongst the population, particularly the young. At the present rate of increase, the STUPIDITY levels of the current and future generations of this country (not to mention the rest of the world) will ensure that humans will be far too STUPID to even think for themselves, let alone speak, write or communicate in a comprehensible manner. They will eventually become too STUPID to feed themselves, and that day cannot come soon enough.

    1. We seem to be heading into a retro-Darwinian era from Homo Sapiens to Homo Stupidiens…….

    2. I raised below the use of ‘STOP’ in telegrams of old. You seem to have revived this practice by substituting the quasi-punctuation ‘STUPID’.

      Will it catch on?

    3. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
      Etc ………………………………………………………….

    6. Curt passive aggression? WTF? They need to get over themselves!
      Try leaving full stops out of anything to do with computers and see what happens… likewise, try spelling “creatively” to a computer.
      Morning, Grizz!

  26. Good morrow, Gentles All. A beautiful, sunny start to the day.

    Nice cartoon in The Grimes – I tried to cut ‘n paste – but it won’t do it. So I’ll leave that for an expert.

  27. What is this “code-shifting” that the BBC seem to be pushing on us?

    It seems to me that brazen black racists demand now to be as abusive as they like to the racially non-conforming and impose their code of tribal hatred onto an indigenous people that has long given this up.

    Is this supposed to be a good thing?

    It makes me think that fat black woman who was hogging the limited space on a rush hour tube train, and stopping others get on board, should have got more from me than a tongue-lashing for her greed, and I should have pushed her off the train. They are making me this way.

    2. The brief clip I heard made it sound like an excuse for blacks keeping some type of ancestral tribal culture and maintaining their differences from the indigenous population. I thought that we were all meant to be the same.

      1. They have to have ‘black privilege’ – after all we have ‘white privilege’.

        The term ‘underprivileged’ makes the word ‘privileged’ redundant as it implies that privilege is the norm.

        1. Sorry for going completely off topic. I am thinking of flotilla sailing in Turkey next year and have looked at a company in Göcek near Dalaman run by a Dutch couple. However, the coastline around there does not look like its the most interesting. As you know the area, do you think it would be better around Marmaris for a week with the family on board. Any recommendations. TY

      2. If they insist on keeping their alien culture within our nation, and making it supreme, then it’s about time us indigenes started asserting our right to do likewise, and as aggressively as necessary, given the hostility coming out of the metropolitans.

        Is this really what they want?

  28. No Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo this year because of the plague; just as well, someone would be bound to want to emasculate it. Will sanity have returned by next summer?

    1. 322967+up ticks,
      Afternoon JBF,
      Unless we have radical change at the next GE, NO chance of it ever changing.
      Currently the peoples are voting in as they see it, a better grade of sh!te, but still sh!te.

  30. Afternoon All

    Late on parade,scrolling down and reading the comments………….

    Sigh it’s not improving much is it

    I fear Thomas Sowell may have it spot on

    “If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism.”

    1. “No country was ever saved by good men, because good men will not go to the lengths that may be necessary.”

      Horace Walpole.

  31. Forgive me if this has been posted previously. It’s regarding a vote in the Commons regarding the continuation of the Covid-19 rules and regs that were initiated 5 months ago. At the end of Sep or beginning of Oct the 6 months allotted to the rules expire. How will our MPs vote? It’s only 8 mins long.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HCE-JXNxus

  32. We are reading numerous reports of the police going to “illegal” street paries and gatherings with more than “a few” people present.
    What we don’t see reported is the fact that these “parties” all seem to be taking place in certain areas [communities?] within northern towns and some larger cities.?
    Is there some hidden agenda linked to these so called “parties?
    Nothing like a bit of deliberate provocation to high-light some “grievenses – after all the BLM movement has proved how succesfull that can be

    1. ‘Morning, Stuart.

      grievenses – after all the BLM movement has proved how succesfull that can be

      “grievenses” – is that a BAME spelling of grievances?

      1. Sorry about the spelling – I knew it was spelled wrong, but for the life in me, I just couldn’t think of the correct way – it was a bit early in the morning for me !
        My school reports usually said “must try harder”!

    2. 32967+ up ticks,
      Morning SA,
      Tis the forerunner of the near future take over the voting pattern so far has assured us of that.
      Look who is getting into positions of power Nationwide
      councils governance etc etc, join the dots, what do you see ?

    1. I have an idea for the BLM Prom. Beat up the orchestra, throw bicycle frames at them, loot their purses then burn down the venue. Voila!

      1. Just so long as it’s not held in the Royal Albert Hall – perhaps they could return to the mult-storey car park that was used a year or two back for a prom.

  34. The weirdest thing. I was coming back from town and a blonde, early
    twenties, offered me sex in return for advertising a brand of bath and
    kitchen cleaner.

    Naturally I declined as I am a man of strong moral fibre and even stronger willpower.

    Every bit as strong as Flash kitchen and bathroom tile cleaner, the best choice for both your home and your family.

    2. She must’ve been the same blonde that I took out on the town once. We caught the ‘bus home and sitting in front of us was a man with terrible dandruff.

      I said to her, “It looks like he could do with some Head & Shoulders.”

      She looked puzzled for a few minutes before replying, “What’s ‘shoulders’?”

    1. 322967+ up ticks,
      Afternoon Rik,
      To be brutally honest for the last three decades, hell via the polling booth.

    2. Absolutely spot on. It is down to the attitude of the people. Unfortunately the young English now are in the “Want it instantly” generation.

          1. I’ve no intention of finding out. However, I suspect on or two here might volunteer…..

    1. What most MDs seem to be unaware of is the requirement for Big Pharma to have their drugs assessed under the Thorough QT (TQT) study.

      https://www.fda.gov/drugs/regulatory-science-action/impact-story-finding-better-test-predicting-risk-drugs-pose-heart

      In my view this requirement has been overlooked because of the high cost of testing new treatments that are introduced to the market. Except of course when it comes to POTUS whose MD made very sure that the that treatment the president was trialling for COVID-19 protection did not prejudice any existing QTc prolongation he may already have had.

    2. 322967+ up ticks,
      Afternoon PM,
      Nice one mum, could we see as we did with the toilet roll issue “are these rolls refundable unused we seem to have purchased to many”.

    4. Thank you pmum. I thought it “interesting” when I read that immunity from prosecution to the producers has been given for the eventual vaccine!

      1. I couldn’t believe that when I read it….. it told one everything one needed to know – do not touch with the proverbial barge pole. I am surprised it was allowed to be published.

    1. They aren’t 1/2 loud. One flew over my garden at low altitude about 3 years ago.

    2. Thanks. Years ago I was at an event where the BBMF all flew over. They hadn’t been booked to but were returning from another place, saw a massive crowd and then headed for us. They dropped to about 200ft to give us the thrill of 6 massive piston engines thundering overhead. Everyone went wild at the sight/noise, cheering madly.

      1. Last year I stayed at a campsite not far from Coningsby and was treated to the practice run for the RAF 100 flypast over the Mall (for which I failed to get a ticket). Fantastic.

  39. Good morning, my friends

    https://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-actu/tensions-sur-les-champs-elysees-et-pres-du-parc-des-princes-20200823

    The Paris football team, P.S.G. lost a football match and the disappointed fans ran riot and set fire to cars, looted shops etc. etc. Of course the triumphant fans would probably have done exactly the same thing had their team won.

    I sometimes wonder how much longer the human race can survive and if it deserves to do so!

    1. ‘Morning, Rastus.

      You are missing a ‘have’, or possibly an ‘of’ (as you’re talking football), in your 2nd paragraph.

      1. Good morning again.

        You should know by now that I tend to edit my posts after posting as I can see the errors more clearly. I don’t want to curb your pedantic zeal which keeps us all on our toes but you can sometimes be a bit too quick on the draw!

        Incidentally, I had to take Caroline to the dentist this morning to have a split tooth extracted – all done in ten minutes by a charming young man who looked about 25. She is now waiting for the anaesthetic to wear off.

    2. They gathered to commemorate their teams potential victory, armed with the usual celebratory accompaniments – flags, scarves, fireworks, bricks, jemmies, crowbars, handcarts and hessian sacks for souvenirs. It is an long established Wendyball custom imported here in France by ex colonials and other liberty seekers.

  40. ‘Morning, all.
    Here’s an article from the ZeroHedge website, which seems to confirm what many folk have long suspected was the plan all along.

    A British academic and advisor to HMG warned Saturday during an interview that the coronavirus might be with us “forever” even if a vaccine is quickly developed.

    “This is not going to be a disease like Smallpox, which could be eradicated by vaccination. This is a virus that is going to be with us forever in some form or another,” said Professor Mark Walport.

    Pressed on whether he agrees with projections from WHO Director General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who said Friday that he hoped the pandemic would be over in under two years, but that the possibility of a more sustained outbreak is something that can’t yet be readily dismissed, Walport claimed that tackling the virus will depend on a successful vaccine, but that mass production of a workable vaccine won’t be the last step toward fighting the virus.

    “I am reasonably optimistic that it will be possible to make such a vaccine – there are a large number in development, including two that are in advanced stages from the UK,” Walport said.

    However, even once a vaccine is in hand, Walport said caution might still be needed since it’s unclear whether a vaccine will offer lasting protection.

    “It almost certainly will require repeated vaccinations so, a bit like flu, people will need re-vaccination at regular intervals,” he said.

    However, nil desperandum, folks! Further research shows that the world-renowned psychopath and expert virologist/epidemiologist, Bill Gates, is on the case and rolling-out updates to save mankind from the inevitable future mutations of Covid-19.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/626707ff69fa92b5aa2f4cc3bf7d2e0f6c07705637d4523365a5d732cb1d0813.jpg

    1. The video by an American doctor posted by Stephanroi late yesterday made some very worrying comments about the vaccines. It’s an hour long video and well worth watching (reinforces many of the comments that have been circulating here over the past few months), but the part dealing with vaccines comes in the final 10-15mins. The two most worrying aspects is that already in Bangladesh vaccination of children implants a ?nanochip (or something like that) which will track them for life and she raised the possibility that the vaccination could cause heart failure and death in certain circumstances (I think relating to reinfection).

        1. The Reuter’s article appears to refer to a different incident with reference to microchips to the one she refers to. I don’t know if there is any support for the assertion in her list of references she shows at the end of her talk as I didn’t pause the video to try and read them.

    2. ” Professor Walport who was the prinicipal of the Common Cold Research Centre, went on to say…”. He wasn’t and didn’t, but you get the idea.

  41. Brendan O’Neil

    British liberals are cheering on the tens of thousands of brave

    Belarusians who have taken to the streets to demand the enactment of

    their democratic vote. Which is odd, to say the least, given that the

    last time British liberals themselves marched in the streets, often in

    their tens of thousands, it was to demand the crushing of a democratic

    vote. It was to call upon the state to refuse to enact the democratic

    wishes of 17.4million people, the largest democratic bloc in the history

    of the UK. The hypocrisy is staggering: the British chattering classes

    celebrate democracy abroad and wage war on it at home.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/08/24/from-brexit-to-belarus-the-ongoing-fight-for-democracy/
    Cracking read,nails the two-faced virtue signalling twats to the wall

    3. I struggle to see any connection with the Third Reich here. He mentioned the war just once, by suggesting that Government is treating the virus as if it were WW2, and they shouldn’t. I don’t think he’s another Mengele, since his patients are already dead when he plays with them.

      He suggests that Covid deaths are overwhelmingly due to other causes, and the best thing we can do is to keep clean and to keep active.

      It is nice to hear some spoken German with subtitles, since I must brush up my German for when I hope to go to Salzburg in December.

      1. Wenn Du Lust hast, können wir uns auf Deutsch auf diesen Seiten austauschen. Ich verspreche nur Hochdeutsch zu schreiben.

        1. What is the difference between ‘Ich können ein wenig Deutsch sprechen’ and ‘Ich kann ein bisschen Deutsch sprechen’?

          1. I can’t speak any of it.

            Though once, having driven from Zeebrugge to Weiden in der Oberpfalz – 500 miles – I arrived to be stopped by a policeman who said that the centre of the town (where I was staying) was closed to traffic because of some sort of carnival. I was tired. I let fly in German. He waved me through. My son then 23 – said, “I thought you didn’t speak German!” “Neither did I,” I replied….

          2. The verb is wrong in the former, it should be ‘ich kann’. The 2nd is correct.

        2. Ich schreibe es gern, aber für die Andere vielleicht nicht so gut verstehen gekannt.

          1. Du nimmst es nicht übel, wenn ich Dich korrigiere?

            aber für das Andere vielleicht nicht so gut verstehen kann.

      2. “I struggle to see any connection with the Third Reich here.” That’s because there isn’t any. Guten Tag, Jezza!

          1. A week or so ago on his south American rail journeys, Chris Tarrant was tod by a local that Herr Hitler was smuggled out of Germany by his faithful sect by Submarine and arrived in Argentina and lived quite happily every after.

          4. You’re having better weather than here. Are those peahens towards the right of the photograph?

          5. Edited

            Indeed they are Guinea fowl.- very stupid birds – wander about the road. Make pheasants seem intelligent.

            It’ll rain tomorrow – so I’ll have to dress up to go for my constitutional.

          6. Edited

            Indeed they are Guinea fowl.- very stupid birds – wander about the road. Make pheasants seem intelligent.

            It’ll rain tomorrow – so I’ll have to dress up to go for my constitutional.

    4. He’s quite right.

      People who were deemed to have died from COVID-19 have died because they had multiple long term conditions and were prematurely committed to hospital. When tested positive for the virus it was be enough to make them think that they were going to die a suffocating death. Well, that’s what happened and everyone expected it.

        1. Yarkshire……..full of wide open spaces……….surrounded with teeth 😏……i’ll get me puddin’

          2. My Paternal Grand father was from Scarborough. Ay ooptoopthoop.
            I once said it to a Yorkie golf opponent who kept on rabbiting during our Sunday morning four ball game.
            We are still friends. 😎

          3. I hope you slapped him with your puddin’, and told him, “Put t’wood in t’hole, lad!”

          4. One of his sayings aimed at naughty boys was ” cum ‘ere lad ill make the bottom like a pepper pot”.
            With six son’s i suspect he’d had plenty of practice.
            There are still lots of us with the family name in Scarborough.

      2. I don’t know who it is in the woods behind the bridge but it appears that the sun shines out of his aRRse. Any suggestions?

      3. I prefer QWERTY myself but my keyboard is AZERT, tie pin and spell in is hell – Bluddy Frogs!

  44. Headline in the DT today: “Why can’t the Government find more conservatives to run public bodies”?

    Opinion in the Guardian: ” A Tory donor in charge of the Royal Opera House? That’s not high culture, it’s farce”

    Given that the ABBC apparently spends 86% of its recruitment budget on the Guardian, it’s hardly surprising that it is so out of touch with reality that its DG thinks that the BBC can “bring the country together” and promote its “voice and values”, such as banning Rule Britannia and Land of Hope and Glory on the last night of the Proms, I presume! The DG hates our voices and values and has been instrumental in driving the country apart.

    (A = Anti)

  45. Syria: Suspected Isis ‘terror’ attack on major gas pipeline knocks out power across country. Indy. 24 August 2020. 15 minutes ago.

    US envoy to Syria says incident ‘almost certainly a strike by Isis’ targeting key state infrastructure.

    The blast struck lines that feed three power stations in the south of Syria and caused massive electricity cuts, the country’s oil minister, Ali Ghanim, told state news agency Sana, adding that it “was the result of a terrorist attack”.

    Yes and Minty envoy to Not the Telegraph Letters says it was almost certainly a strike by Mi6 proxies. The target and the recent assassination of a Russian Major-General are not in the purview of ISIS which is motivated by religious fervour not individual assassination and destabilisation programs! Expect more of the same!

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria-gas-pipeline-attack-explosion-power-supply-blackout-a9685331.html

    1. After last nights BBC Country File that seemed to be full of the usual Hypocrisy, i am going to write to them and Matt Baker personally as he lives in Hertfordshire, regarding the inherent corporate greed of the Cecil family in their entrenched battle with Hatfield council in seeking permission to destroy ancient wood land and green belt in order to build over 1300 new detached homes on land given to the family for some obscure reason, by one of our very late kings of England. When our land was easy to grab and a thousand acres a penny. http://www.save-symondshyde.co.uk/

    3. There are some good comments. I like, “Can you only get in through the back doors”?

        1. They probably did but there isn’t anyone at the D Mail who can spell orgins… orguns… origins… onions… you know what I mean.

  50. I just tried the Stinking Bishop. It was okay but a really good Brie can match it. Charles Martell is charging £30 for 500 gms. I don’t think i will be buying it again but at least i have tried it once.

      1. I like the idea of black truffle with it. I have two little truffles in a jar in the fridge so i’ll try it next time. Not sure about the marscapone though.

          8. Nope.
            Nowhere near enough truffle flavour or scent. They would hardly “dent” a good Brie. If you decide to try it splash out on the black ones.
            As an aside, Harry K is one lucky so-and-so to have the summer ones growing in his garden.

          9. These are black.

            I know Harry has lots of truffles. You would think he would send us some !

          10. The summer ones also have black skins, they are nowhere near as “strong”, not even close.

            HK has given me some, maybe he knows who appreciates generosity and also who can afford to buy his own?!

          11. I offered to buy him a pint of Ale when he came over.

            I don’t mind the milder taste so mine will do. I have one of those very sharp fine graters which turns truffles into the texture of candyfloss.

          12. Good luck.

            You could try to find it for sale in the UK (a farmer’s market or country fair perhaps) before using your summer ones. Or you might be able to order some from the Sorges museum, posted earlier.

          15. Quite scarce this year, Phil. The ones I do find are not very healthy, unlike last year’s haul.

      2. If you want stuffing with black truffles just take a walk through Bradford, Bolton, Barnsley, Oldham or any of the other ‘diverse’ centres of cultural difference with a short skirt or an expensive watch on your wrist.

  52. After ‘golfgate’ the Irish people’s anger at their politicians is palpable. 24 August 2020.

    As the weekend rolled around, members of the Irish government must have been asking themselves if things could get any worse. The answer was yes. The now infamous Clifden golf dinner, a parliament-linked golf society event held last week in apparent breach of public health guidelines, and attended by 80-plus people including current and former politicians, the minister for agriculture, Dara Calleary, the EU trade commissioner and former Fine Gael minister Phil Hogan, and a supreme court judge, has left the Irish public furious at a new coalition government that has lurched from one scandal to the next. At this point, there is a sense that public trust has been broken. The anger is palpable.

    The story was broken by Aoife-Grace Moore, a journalist at the Irish Examiner, and the shock was instant. The pandemic, although typified by awful losses, milestones missed and economic hardship, has also been marked by public solidarity and resilience. Compliance is high. There have been nearly 1.7m downloads of the contact tracing app, for example, 35% of the entire population. To have public efforts undermined in spirit and action by a group of politicians is unforgivable, and exemplifies “one rule for them, another rule for us”.

    Not just the UK then? It looks as though the whole Anglosphere is in the process of Political Disintegration. As though it has passed its sell by date and we now need something new. Something not yet thought of. This would not be Marxism which is an already failed system. The new by definition would be something not seen before and that Society that developed it would also be the future political hegemon.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/24/golfgate-irish-people-government-anger-covid-19-breach

    1. ““one rule for them, another rule for us”

      Well, yer Grauniad would go along with that…..

  53. Just started absolutely tipping it down here on the edge of Salisbury Plain. Forecast fairly accurate, except none of the promised accompaniment of thunder and lightening.

    1. At least the creekit has started again at wherever it is. Whatever happened to the naming of the city in which a mach was being played?

      1. Sarfampton – don’t worry – it’ll be pouring soon if cynarch’s weather reports are coming true.

          1. Call that a deluge? I’ve p!ssed more than that on Salisbury Plain after a good night out in Amesbury!

      2. Sarfampton – don’t worry – it’ll be pouring soon if cynarch’s weather reports are coming true.

    2. Storm Francis to bring heavy rain and wind. 24 August 2020.

      Britain has been told to expect unseasonably wet and windy weather when the newly named Storm Francis reaches the west of England and Wales.

      Forecasters predicted a deep area of low pressure would enter the UK on Monday night into Tuesday, bringing gusts of 60-70mph. Up to 90mm (3.54in) of rain was also expected in places during a 36-hour weather window.

      The chief meteorologist at the Met Office, Andy Page, said: “There will be strong winds and heavy rain, especially in the west of the UK. A number of severe weather warnings have been issued and these can be updated regularly, so please keep up to date with the latest Met Office forecast.

      https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/aug/24/uk-weather-storm-francis-heavy-rain-wind-warnings-britain-august

      1. In these Covid times is the full name of the storm:

        “Storm Francis of A Sneezie”

    1. Perhaps Classic FM should take over producing the event, then Radio 3 could diversify the funding.

    2. It’s a feel good cheerful heart warming uniting song, it’s obvious why the Left do not like it.

      1. 322967+ up ticks,
        Afternoon B3,
        In reality they are so politically intermingled that there is no left as such when right / wrong is much more apt.

      1. That is what they definitely do not want, most of all, that lump. That is what it is all about.

        1. Good aternoon P-T

          Your avatar makes one think of the verse in The Old Red Flag song which goes:

          The working class can kiss my arse
          I’ve got the foreman’s job at last!.

  55. (I vow to thee my country – new version)

    I Row to Thee My New Country

    I heard your country calling, away across the sea,
    Across the waste of waters, she calls and calls to me.
    Our boat is loaded to the gunnel, five thousand pounds a head,
    And around her feet are lying the dying and the dead;
    I hear the noise of stabbing, the thunder of your guns;
    I haste to thee, my brothers, my cousins and their sons.

    1. Hark! Hark!
      The dogs do bark!
      It’s the socialists come to town,
      None in rags and none in tags,
      Swaggering up and down.
      .
      D.H.Lawrence

        1. Not just the ditty, but you sound very upbeat today in other comments, too! I hope you’re now fully recovered from your nasty illness of a few months ago.

    1. Alex: the tedious one-trick pony of newspaper cartoons. Take away the running in-joke about the ingrained greed of bankers and their preposterous bonuses then there is nothing left.

      1. Too subtle for you I take it.

        His observations on all aspects of city life are very accurate.

        1. Not in the least. I’ve read it for decades and I understand and fully comprehend the meaning behind it. In the early days it was a refreshing take on the avarice of those working in the City; however, nothing has changed in the following years and the same theme has long become tedious repetition.

          1. We must agree to disagree on this one.

            I first saw them when it appeared in the Independent and I think that the way the cartoonists have moved with the times and their observations outside the banking sphere are very accurate. As I don’t subscribe to the DT I can only comment on my less frequent versions, but those I have seen are still good.

          3. I am not doubting that they are clever and, at times, funny. It’s just the tedious repetition that grates.

          4. The repetition can be a problem; but I suspect that that is as much down to your having read them for 30 years as to its not being pertinent to the news.

      3. Keep up Grizz, Alex has now been elected an MP so a rich vein of material to mine – just like the MPs. Odd isn’t it in our lifetime we’ve witnessed the demise of the NUM and the redundancy of miners but we now have instead an avaricious bunch of MPs mining expenses for all they are worth…..

          2. Much shorter.

            You’re more likely to be mugged before you get to where you’re going.

        2. Quite the opposite. His ability to see the funny side of any subject is the stuff of legend.

    5. I think she is very good looking but she will need a breast reduction before she hits 50.

        1. Whaddaya mean?

          Only a good cook could catch all 148 asking for a second helping and that’s what does for them.

  60. If Engerland don’t get their act together and start taking weekits (Yorksheer) – the match will slip away.

    Delighted to have moved some of you with my quote from the Ghastly Grimes.

    I really think that white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant native-born English are now finally dooooomed.

    2. Of course if our new found ‘friends’ become too enthusiastic about imposing their religion on the natives then perhaps. just perhaps, a leader will emerge that organises a re-run of 1614?

          1. Funny that – the final expulsion doesn’t feature in Wiki’s list of historic events for that year.

          2. I should have perhaps included the start of the event:

            “The Expulsion of the Moriscos (Spanish: Expulsión de los moriscos, Catalan: Expulsió dels moriscos) was decreed by King Philip III of Spain on April 9, 1609. The Moriscos were descendants of Spain’s Muslim population that had converted to Christianity by coercion or by royal decree in the early 16th century. Since the Spanish were fighting wars in the Americas, feeling threatened by the Turks raiding along the Spanish coast and by two Morisco revolts in the century since Islam was outlawed in Spain, it seems that the expulsions were a reaction to an internal problem of the stretched Spanish Empire.[1] Between 1609 through 1614, the Crown systematically expelled Moriscos through a number of decrees affecting Spain’s various kingdoms, meeting varying levels of success.”

  61. That is me for the day. Another goat walk. An enjoyable day in the albeit chilly sunshine,

    I don’t want to brag – but the Asthma Nurse gave me a little “peak flow meter” which measures your breff. She said if I managed to get to 470 – I would be doing very well indeed. Well, at tea-time, I did 520….. Reet chuffed, I was, heck as like.

    A demain – in the rain.

    5. Tra Laaaaaa.

      That reminds of a line in a book i read in the 70s’
      The rebellion of Yale Marrat something like this ………
      “The Trouble with some women today is they think the thing between their legs is an indescribable treasure”.
      https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6713860-the-rebellion-of-yale-marrat#:~:text=The%20Rebellion%20of%20Yale%20Marratt%20was%20a%20controversial,man%E2%80%99s%20unconventional%20sexual%20life%20into%20a%20national%20controversy.
      I might read it again, i didn’t really understand most of it.
      I love this song i speaks so many true volumes
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCp-ymJpRP4

    11. Good value but my local Morrisons is out of stock.

      I’m off to Hadlows family butcher tomoz to stock up. It got a bit embarrassing when i handed over the list of things i wanted last time. I thought he was going to shake my hand.

      Still. Got to support local business if we can.

  63. It’s got very hot and humid all of a sudden but don’t worry

    “Earlier on today apparently a woman rang the BBC and said she had heard that there was a hurricane on the way. Well if you are watching, don’t worry, there isn’t.”

    1. My son in Texas is waiting for 2 hurricanes to strike. When he called me last night he was getting his petrol generator checked in case the power fails.

      2. Didn’t one of the recent Popes want the borders opened up so the whole of africa and Asia could arrive with their hands out? Not much protection there.

        2. 322967+ upticks
          Afternoon W,
          None of our recent PMs going back decades wanted the borders controlled let alone shut that is inclusive of lab/lib/con
          and that had regular polling booth backing
          Lest we forget.

  64. Oh well back to decorating the kitchen/breakfast room ………..before i get the brush off.

    1. If I was John Danbury I would be delighted. It means he’s really getting under their thin skins.

      1. Have seen John Oliver a couple of times on TV and how he gets away with some of his stuff, I really don’t know!
        Very funny and quite offensive!

    4. “Kehinde Andrews, a black studies professor at Birmingham City University, claimed the line ‘Britons never, never, never shall be slaves’ from Rule Britannia is ‘racist propaganda’ from the days of the British Empire.”

      This chump has featured on here a few times. Benjamin Zephaniah meets David Lammy.

      1. I wanted to smack him in the face when I saw him pontificating about the Last Night on the dm today. And I am a peaceable person.

  70. 322967+ up ticks,
    Lot more marking time to be done yet by the indigenous on the social housing list & bert & daisy will have to limp a lot longer awaiting on their new hips.
    The vets kipping on the street will just have to hope for another war.

    Tell me if this is democracy seen through the eyes of the lab/lib/con coalition hierarchy & the peoples want true democracy, why have the said party’s still got memberships ?

    Report: Two Border Force Ships Sitting Idle as Migrant Boats Surge Across Channel.

  71. Now the British Library has gone woke. Spiked 24 August 2020.

    Another state institution has fallen to the woke blob. This time it’s the British Library.

    Emails seen by the Telegraph show that a ‘policy-guiding staff group’ has said that colour-blindness and the belief in ‘one human family’ are examples of ‘covert white supremacy’.

    Resources in the library encourage donations for Black Lives Matter and support for the Labour MP Diane Abbott. White staff have also been asked to educate themselves about their apparent privilege, and have been given a reading list to that end.

    Has Joseph Conrad’s The Ni55er of the Narcissus been withdrawn from the shelves?

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/08/24/now-the-british-library-has-gone-woke/

    3. So if colour-blindness is an example of “covert white supremacy”, are we all now supposed to notice that the n1ggers is blek as well as uppity and so promote them beyond their abilities on the colour of their skin, rather than thinking that the best person for the job should get it?

    5. Best to burn it to the ground. Think of all the stuff about slavery there is in there….

      (It is a hideous building, anyway).

      1. The British Library above ground level is deliberately ugly, like most of the stuff designed by the Cambridge architectural elite.

        Thankfully most of the accommodation is deep underground. The project manager, David Trench, described progress at the time to me as ‘pouring concrete and gold into the ground in roughly equal proportions’.

          1. Yes. David Trench was the second project manager on the Drummond Gate Phase One development on the Crown Estates Vauxhall site.

            I was project architect for the buildings built along Rampayne Street and over Pimlico Underground Station.

            The company morphed into Trench Farrow. David Trench was the son of Sir Peter Trench, founder of Bovis. Tom Farrow was the son of Sir Stanley Farrow, founder of Farrow Construction.

            David was at one time captain of the rugby club on Upper Richmond Road (name escapes me at present).

            Edit: Rosslyn Park FC.

          2. Wow. He also played rugby for England back in the day. He was particularly proud of the fact that on one of the modern buildings overlooking the (?) South East corner of Trafalgar Square, a stone mason was commissioned to produce a series of gargoyles and David’s head/face was used as a model for one of them!

            Although the British Library was a very expensive project that ran for over 25 years David was appointed Project Manager for the last two years to resolve long running disputes and bring the project to completion. The French completed their National Library in a fraction of the time but because their books were stored in areas of natural daylight I understand it was beginning to have a deleterious effect on the books and collections. Hence the massive underground storage facilities at the British Library.

            Knowing my daughter was an avid reader, a short while prior to the official opening she was given an introduction to one of the staff who arranged an informal visit for her during the day the press officer took a series of photos of her which were used in the publicity for the opening.

          3. I remember the Trafalgar Square debate. My boss Sir William Whitfield was called in to resolve the dispute which revolved around a developer favouring demolition of Grand Buildings and a ‘modern’ replacement.

            My project at Bessborough Street was bedevilled by the appointment of Matthew Hall Mechanical Services before the appointment of the Architect. We won a limited competition and I prepared the competition drawings working with Whitfield in his flat at 36a Queens Gate. That was in 1975.

            In 1977 I was working in the office of Edward D Mills in Soho when I took a call from Whitfield inviting me to return to work on the project and shortly afterwards I was appointed job architect.

            I found that the Architect was obliged to complete a design to full bills of quantities whereas the structural engineer ACE terms meant they needed only to estimate a weight of steel and volume of concrete. The mechanical and electrical services engineers had only to provide schematics.

            The project involved an integrated design with a sophisticated VAV air conditioning system. It took ten years off my lifespan.

          5. Other complications involved having to redesign access to the Pimlico Underground, diverting Services, providing a temporary ticket office during construction and dealing with a stupid and recalcitrant London Transport Executive architect.

            The foundations above the station involved a deep excavation, a four feet thick slab cast in three strips and deep 1000 and 1500 diameter reinforced friction piles with under-reamed feet to control clay heave. In addition the site had to be dewatered, involving a hundred well points.

            The free span of the block along Rampayne Street was achieved using a Freyssinet post-tensioned reinforcement system.

          6. During his project management of the construction of the Millennium Dome at Greenwich he told me that the cube excavations for the adjoining underground station was the same size as the Canary Wharf building…

          7. It is only when you dig a hole in London that you realise just how much stuff is buried underground. At Pimlico our piles straddled the Southbound Victoria Line tunnel and came close to the drain (underground river) from The Serpentine.

            At Richmond House in Whitehall there were all sorts known about except for the mass concrete foundations to an National Opera House development abandoned when the developer went broke late C19. The removal of these foundations which were typically 40 x 40 x 40 feet cubes of concrete involved non-explosive means viz. expanding grout.

            The MP Gwynneth Dunwoody occupied an office in Norman Shaw North and was constantly complaining about the construction noise.

          8. I’m currently reading “Hedge Britannia” and the author, who lives in London, makes reference to his awareness that beneath the streets lie hidden hedgerows and other monuments.

          9. I was once involved in a construction project that required piling to a depth of 25 metres.

          10. From memory our piles on Rampayne Street were about that depth. On one occasion I had to stand in for our Resident Engineer on a District Surveyor inspection.

            I entered a circular cage with the DS and a foreman, attached to a rig and we were lowered to the bottom. The under-reaming formed a conical chamber in the pristine clay, a small room in which you could stand. The foreman was asked to wipe some moisture from the floor of the pile bore.

            Meanwhile a fully assembled reinforcement cage was ready to be lowered after we exited and a half dozen concrete lorries were waiting on Rampayne Street to discharge their loads. The bobs to the reinforcement cages were arranged to connect with the deep slab foundation.

            The engineering theory was that the reinforced piles and slab would resist clay heave but that when the new building was erected the piles would revert from tension piles to compression piles. Pneumatic flat jacks were installed beneath those parts of the frame which had to bear on the Station and Ticket Office roof which was reinforced with 4 feet deep steel girders.

          11. Fascinating. Until David told me I had no idea that for example slab foundations for say a supermarket, depending on ground conditions may have to be anchored down to prevent ? heave.

          12. I regret that David came late on the scene of my Pimlico project by which time the fun bits were superseded by problems with the air conditioning systems and commissioning. The previous project manager was a superannuated quantity surveyor, Bill James of Crosher and James.

            David took over after Bill James died by which time many of the problems and disagreements were deeply entrenched.

          13. David was certainly pragmatic and has a great sense of humour:
            At one meeting which was going on until midnight he said to the assembled group:” Well it’s no good continuously pushing the food around the plate, sooner or later someone has got to stick the knife in!”

          14. David was certainly pragmatic and has a great sense of humour:
            At one meeting which was going on until midnight he said to the assembled group:” Well it’s no good continuously pushing the food around the plate, sooner or later someone has got to stick the knife in!”

  72. Hey ho – I’ve over-indulged in a surfeit of ‘news’ and my poor brain is in need of a detox. My neck vertebrae are wearing out from the constant shaking of my head in disbelief. In short I need a holiday and respite from the insanity that has replaced common sense. But like the General I will no doubt return….au revoir.

  73. Why oh why do we have stupid names for storms when it is simpler to refer to the Beaufort scale which is a scale for measuring wind speeds. ?

      1. A series of storms , storm force 10 say increasing to storm force 12 .. easy, but who on earth remembers the series of storms with idiotic names , we have had a few forgettable blows , and some that didn’t even materialise .

    3. Climate change…. to scare us into believing there are an awful lot of storms. We wouldn’t be able to remember one Beaufort scale from the next. But by heck….. we would all remember Zebedee, and Xanxes….!

  74. Our conservative party has just elected a new leader, someone we should be able to look to as the party goes up against crooked PM Trudeau in the coming months.

    So what happens? They screw up the election count, showing the party as being totally bloody incompetent.

    Voting was all by postal ballot and the big count was yesterday, with the winner to be announced just in time for the evening news. All we got though was embarrassed party grandees trying to explain how their high tech envelope opener had turned a few thousand ballot papers into papier mache. F.F.S didn’t they test it out?

    Hope for the future fading rapidly.

      1. 322967+ up ticks,
        Evening GG,
        Hope can be fickle.
        Certainty = surrender is NOT an option.

  75. Good night all.

    Turned quite chilly his evening, so I opened a tin of comforting cassoulet.

      1. Didn’t have time to mess about making it from scratch. It was one of 15 tins from W/rose which I laid down last Winter.

        1. But they’re disgusting! Greasy and salty. I make cassoulet from scratch using confit’d duck legs, Toulouse sausage, butter beans, tomatoes, thyme and garlic. Wonderful winter fare accompanied by a bottle of Cahors 100% Malbec.

          1. I prefere a Cottage Pie or Hot Pot. or even one of Mrs Ns Steak and Kidney Puddings its historic.

          5. I haven’t had one of these for well over 50 years but I can still remember how disappointing they were as the pastry was soggy and the meat tasteless.

  76. 322967+ up ticks,
    Yet another hour plus of sound common sense courtesy of Gerard Batten
    & Hearts of Oak.
    Many would have missed it intentionally on account of truth avoidance.

    1. Look Ogga

      All very well listening to so called commonsense , actions speak louder than words.

      I hope the Nottinghill Carnival is banned, wiped out as PUNISHMENT for all the destruction and mess the idiots who take part in it have made over the past few months re the BAME and BLM kerfuffle and insults they have directed towards our cultural heroes and our white heritage!

      1. 322967+ up ticks
        Look TB,
        He was shown “in action” and castigated along with the real UKIP members for being an ongoing success.

        The castigators being many that on the 24/6/2016
        were shouting out “we have won,leave it to the TORYS.

      2. 322967+ up ticks,
        TB,
        This has not “just happened” these same party’s of destruction and in many cases the same politico’s have been supported & voted back in decade on decade.

      3. Don’t think for one minute that the Bank Holiday weekend won’t pass without a blackfest of some kind in W London. Probably a number of separate events to keep plod busy.

      4. I agree, Belle – sadly it won’t be cancelled, as it should. It will be visibly supported by all government agencies, to rub our noses in it. As do other government agencies, the Border Farce springs to mind.

    2. Gerard Batten is a boring nonentity; your relentless promotion is sad.

      Nigel Farage is the one and only hero of the ‘Brexit’ cause…

        1. This video keeps getting posted but I don’t see the relevance.

          The biggest problem any party presents (apologies for the aliteration) is the entrenched Left wing media. There are vast numbers of people who think that the BBC = truth. Sadly they don’t want to understand that the BBC lies by omission.

          1. 322967+up ticks.
            W,
            It points out that that farage AKA “nige the knife”
            stabbed 30000 plus decent peoples in the back.
            The very same peoples that trusted, worked for him & gave him a platform.
            He has form.
            Once bitten twice shy applies very much so in this instance.

        2. 322967+ up ticks,
          O2O,
          What is bloody amazing is the fact that after major, cameron,clegg, may, johnson
          the wanna be imbeciles still cling to straws of treachery, will they never learn Og,
          NOPE

      1. 322967+ up ticks,
        TB,
        Maybe not but like many of the same ilk he has his self respect.

        The lab/lib/con coalition party has bite but as many are realising it is rabid.

        1. “The lab/lib/con coalition party”

          Please give us a rest from your daily diarrhoea and incoherent perception of UK politics …

          1. 322967+ up ticks,
            Hi sneaky,
            So soon after having suffered 4 decades of yours
            watching your ilk destroy a nation please confirm
            my reply by return saying “it wasn’t me”

          2. 322967+ up ticks,
            Sneaky,
            Have you really the gall to try telling me that YOU and your ilk have the true perception of UK politics, if so then surely that is the reason we as Country are in such deep sh!te, and that has been
            what I have been trying to point out for years.

            By the by
            Mass uncontrolled immigration & evil consequences confirm lab/lib/con as a coalition
            & Dover points it to be a willing coalition.
            Do you deny that ?

  77. Usain Bolt ‘tests positive for coronavirus’ – days after celebrating his 34th birthday at a party in Jamaica ‘with guests including England star Raheem Sterling’

    and…

    I’m gutted!’ Radio 1’s Nick Grimshaw revealed he has delayed his return to his Live Lounge show as he and his boyfriend Meshach Henry have been forced to quarantine for 14 days. D Fail

    Every cloud…

  78. https://britannianews.co.uk/2020/08/22/andrew-neil-and-nigel-farage-are-set-to-head-up-a-brand-new-news-channel-gb-news-in-the-new-year-to-rival-the-bias-bbc-and-sky-news/

    Andrew Neil and Nigel Farage are set to head up a brand new News Channel “GB News” in the new year to rival the Bias BBC and Sky News.
    BREAKING BREXIT NEWS 22ND AUGUST 2020
    On twitter, Kelvin Mackenzie wrote “Hear that Discovery (alongside a £20million investment from Murdoch) are launching a TV news station in the New Year called GB News. Andrew Neil and Nigel Farage due to sign. Taking on the quite dreadful Sky News. More people see my rear end than watch Kay Burley at breakfast.”

  79. It just gets worse and worse:

    All these woke tossers:

    “Gareth Malone, OBE, the television choirmaster, told The Times he supported removing Rule Britannia in solidarity with black and Irish members of his choirs who had refused to play it in previous years.

    “I’m not sure that it is the perfect expression of everything that is British,” he said. “If people want to go and sing about the subjugation and enslavement of other nations, I don’t think that should be given a platform in 2020. I think taking away that one song doesn’t detract from what an interesting and fantastic nation we are. It’s one song that causing offence, and if it’s causing offence, pluck it out.”

    Mr Malone added that he will “take advice” about dropping his OBE to avoid allegations of hypocrisy but argued that his title does not cause the same degree of offence as the song.

    “Me saying I’m Gareth Malone and I have an honour from the Queen is something I’m proud of. Me singing all ‘all the other nations shall be subjugated’… I find slightly more offensive.”

    His view is shared by Chi Chi Nwanoku, OBE, founder of the Chineke! Foundation, which supports upcoming Bame musicians, who emailed BBC bosses asking them to remove the songs.

    “The lyrics are just so offensive, talking about the ‘haughty tyrants’ – people that we are invading on their land and calling them haughty tyrants – and Britons shall never be slaves, which implies that it’s OK for others to be slaves but not us,” she told The Guardian. “It’s so irrelevant to today’s society. It’s been irrelevant for generations, and we seem to keep perpetuating it.”

    Wasfi Kani, founder of Grange Park Opera, also joined calls for the patriotic tunes to be axed, telling Today on BBC Radio Four: “I’m Indian, my parents came from India, I received a wonderful education in Britain, but I don’t actually feel very British when I hear things like that. I don’t feel very British when I have people say to me ‘go home p***.’”

    However, Norman Lebrecht, classical music expert who joined Ms Kani on the programme this morning, argued that the songs have long been used to bring the country together.

    “It’s not the only way but it does unify people. The slaves in the song is innocuous, it rhymes with waves. Find a better word to rhyme and we will replace it.“

    2. The phrase BBC is offensive. Millions of people are forced to hear this insulting and degrading phrase repeated endlessly on TV, radio and in the mass media – and they have to pay to be insulted too. Don’t just de-fund the Marxist Bame and LGBT propaganda unit. Close it down and exile every one of the traitorous tribe that stains the name of Britain.

        1. I never take particular offence over that, because I believe everyone is a racist.

          It’s hard-wired into us, we can mix quite happily if we choose to do so.

          The real hypocrites are the ones who believe otherwise.

          1. But to the woke tribespeople, only whites are racist, privileged, etc – and blek people and other bames, are pure as the driven snow and all victims. They are stirring up this racist nonsense.

          5. I’m that too, but I don’t believe that you are not immediately conscious of the differences when you see someone of different colour.

          6. If they look shifty, dangerous, drugged up or staggering drunk I don’t care what colour they are or where they come from. I love everyone until my judgement tells me different.

          9. For years I was prepared to live and let live – so long as I didn’t have to live among them.

            In the last couple of years – because of the ENDLESS attacks on white people by the bames, I have become seriously angry – and loathe the whole effing lot of them. And it is THEIR behaviour that has brought about this change.

    3. Thank you Messrs Bame and Baloney,

      Your requests have been noted, your honours are withdrawn, and quite frankly you can FOAD.

      EIIR

    4. I expect Wasfi didn’t feel very British in the first place. Best to eff off back to his homeland where he can feel Indian and not worry about us racist effniks.

      1. He would then just moan about the caste system. At least over there he would be ignored and we wouldn’t hear his whining.

      2. Ah, so it’s a woman (how was I to know with a name like that?). Why am I not surprised?

    5. Oh well – that’s Gareth gone down in my estimation…….. his last series was a bit woke.
      He doesn’t have to sing it if he doesn’t want to.

      So Wasfi says she’s Indian – it’s not her decision, then, is it? Does she sing patriotic Indian songs?

      1. I am afraid I have never been able to stand the arrogant (look at me, look at me) little shyte.

        Quite how he can whinge about his bame and Oirish friends being so disturbed by an English tune – AND hang on to his gong – just shows that I was right all along….

        1. We all choose what we like best and then do it or at least try to. If they find last night of the Proms abhorrent because of perceived elitism they could always go to the Opera.

      1. I don’t even think those waving the EU flag were Promenaders. Just wanted to get on camera with their false narrative.

    7. If they want to be British, they should espouse the history that made it the great country they want to live in.

    8. “Mr Malone added that he will “take advice” about dropping his OBE to avoid allegations of hypocrisy”

      Whoops ….. too late!

    9. Wasfi is indeed not a Paki,ask the Major,the correct appellation is,”Go home Wog”
      Or in my case “Fuck off you bitter ingrate and don’t let the door hit you in the arse on the way out”

      1. I’d like to hear her view on the centuries of conquest and slaughter by Islam in India.

    10. “…[it] implies that it’s OK for others to be slaves but not us…”

      In the ugly world of the time, of dog eat dog, of perpetual invasion and war, if you got on top you tried to stay on top. You might pick up some allies on the way. A strong navy kept Britain safe and more than once much of Europe was grateful for it.

      The silly ***** should go and learn some history.

    11. “If people want to go and sing about the subjugation and enslavement of other nations, I don’t think that should be given a platform in 2020″.
      Gareth Malone must be looking at a different version of Rule Britannia from the one I’m looking at. Nowhere in the lyrics is there anything about subjugating and enslaving others – it’s all about resisting tyranny.

      When Britain first, at Heaven’s command
      Arose from out the azure main;
      This was the charter of the land,
      And guardian angels sang this strain:
      “Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:
      “Britons never will be slaves.”

      The nations, not so blest as thee,
      Must, in their turns, to tyrants fall;
      While thou shalt flourish great and free,
      The dread and envy of them all.
      “Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:
      “Britons never will be slaves.”

      Still more majestic shalt thou rise,
      More dreadful, from each foreign stroke;
      As the loud blast that tears the skies,
      Serves but to root thy native oak.
      “Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:
      “Britons never will be slaves.”

      Thee haughty tyrants ne’er shall tame:
      All their attempts to bend thee down,
      Will but arouse thy generous flame;
      But work their woe, and thy renown.
      “Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:
      “Britons never will be slaves.”

      To thee belongs the rural reign;
      Thy cities shall with commerce shine:
      All thine shall be the subject main,
      And every shore it circles thine.
      “Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:
      “Britons never will be slaves.”

      The Muses, still with freedom found,
      Shall to thy happy coast repair;
      Blest Isle! With matchless beauty crown’d,
      And manly hearts to guard the fair.
      “Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:
      “Britons never will be slaves.”

      1. I can see an objection based on fact that under Covid Regulations we have become slaves to Covidiocy……

    12. I’ve always thought that having to specially create the Chineke orchestra for BAMEs suggests most are just not good enough for professional orchestras.

  80. Creeket latest: Jimmy Anderson takes his 599th Test wicket. England 583 – 8 dec. Pakistan 273 and 88 -2 (I think). Lots of gobbing from commentators, not much info.

    1. 322967+ up ticks,
      W,
      Stop supporting the lab/lib/con mass uncontrolled immigration coalition party would do the trick, if that can’t be done then suffer.

  82. I don’t really understand the attitude and mentality of some people that live in Britain that have come from immigrant stock, why should the country change it’s age old traditions and culture just to accommodate their warped feelings and sentiments.
    To be fair it’s the far Left as well and the globalists using them for their own ends to bring in the Marxists changes they’ve always wanted.

  83. Light rain here, breezy , could be the lull before the storm.

    I do hope my giant sunflowers stay upright if there is a bit of a stiff blow!

  84. DT Headline

    BBC defies Government by announcing that Rule, Britannia will not be sung at Last Night of the Proms

    Stuff the people over the age of 75. Stuff anyone who likes the traditions of the proms.

    This topic has doubtless already been discussed but if a really significant amount of people refused to pay the licence fee what would happen? It would be political suicide for any politicians to try and get them all fined or imprisoned and it might bring about the end of the licence fee.

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    2. The row began after the Finnish conductor Dalia Stasevska, who is conducting the Last Night on Sept 12, and David Pickard, the BBC Proms director, discussed changing the repertoire to reflect the international debates about racism. A BBC source said: ‘Dalia is a big supporter of Black Lives Matter and thinks a ceremony without an audience is the perfect moment to bring change.’

      The BBC insisted the event would still be “patriotic” because it would include a new arrangement by Errollyn Wallen of Jerusalem, as well as the national anthem. It expressed regret over the “unjustified personal attacks” on Ms Stasevska, saying: “As ever, decisions about the Proms are made by the BBC, in consultation with all artists involved.”

      Ms Stasevska should have kept her zonking great neb out of it.

      1. Isn’t employing someone in a key position who is a big supporter of Black Lives Matter, promoting racism, however many jingoistic anthems are banned?

    3. Do we imply that far from “taking back control” that our Prime Minister and his sidekick Dominic Cummings promised us back in 2016, that post-Brexit, the London Establishment, well lobbied by global businesses untrammelled by the EU’s obstructionism and wooed by the attentions of Trump and Xi, have every intention of making Britons slaves? Also that we continue to have more admirals than ships hardly suggests that Britannia rules the waves.

      They couldn’t even sing ‘The Wheels on the Bus’ any longer with any conviction.

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