Friday 4 September: Nicola Sturgeon must provide hard facts about Scottish independence

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its comments facility (now reinstated, but not as good as ours),
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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/09/03/lettersnicola-sturgeon-must-provide-hard-facts-scottish-independence/

684 thoughts on “Friday 4 September: Nicola Sturgeon must provide hard facts about Scottish independence”

  1. HS2: construction of £106bn high-speed rail line officially starts. Fri 4 Sep 2020 00.01 BST.

    HS2 has announced the formal start of construction of the high-speed rail line between London and the West Midlands, which it claims will create 22,000 jobs.

    The prime minister, Boris Johnson, was expected to attend a ceremonial launch of the first shovels in the ground on Friday for the main civil engineering contracts.

    Morning everyone. By the time this is finished it will probably have cost nearer £500 Billion (£200 Billion of that will be skimmed off the top!) and stand as the Tombstone of the UK economy!

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/sep/04/hs2-construction-of-106bn-high-speed-rail-line-officially-starts

    3. This is not comparing like with like.

      The Government promises 22,000 temporary jobs, along with the loss of 19,000 permanent jobs.

        1. We maintained the green on Firstborns house just recently. Sage green gloss… looks nice.

  4. ‘Morning, Peeps. The scandal that is non-treatment seems to rumble on, with no serious challenges and, so far, no proper explanation of what is going on, nor any urgent steps being taken to address the failure of the NHS to revert to some kind of normality. Just as unaffordable billions are added to the national debt, never to be cleared while costing the country vast sums in borrowing costs, so the NHS waiting lists lengthen at an alarming rate, also never to be cleared – although inevitably some will oblige by conveniently losing their lives.

    SIR – The only positive feature of the lockdown and subsequent Covid-caused perturbations was, and remains, the alacrity and effectiveness with which businesses large and small – needing to carry on trading and maintain income and employment – reacted quickly and creatively to provide as many products and services as possible, while protecting their staff and customers.

    In stark contrast, the NHS and most GP practices clearly did not, and still do not, see any reason to provide services to us, their customers. The reason for this is that staff at all levels see no risk to their jobs or incomes. In the meantime, private hospitals, which were never actually needed by the NHS, remain closed, denying treatment to thousands.

    A key feature of hospitals and medical practitioners in countries such as France, Germany and Italy is that they are either real businesses or charities – directly dependent on income for actual services provided – and are thus motivated to serve.

    Philip M M Collings
    Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire

    SIR – Before the pandemic, I was trusted to decide when I needed to see a doctor. I could ring my surgery and make an appointment.

    Since March, this has not been the case. The surgery now decides if the doctor is to contact me, and the doctor will then decide whether to see me or not.

    This represents a fundamental change in how the NHS interacts with Britain’s population, and needs to be addressed immediately.

    Liz Butler
    Llanbedr-y-Cennin, Conwy

      1. I doubt it, B3. Staffing costs will be the largest part of the NHS budget, and as part of the public sector these will roll on regardless.

    2. There is a Surgery less than a mile from me that makes appointments on the same day. They even have Sat morning appointments + cover their own out of hours calls. For the last 6 months it was almost business as usual but nobody complained about the “work arounds”.

      There are 3 partners in the Surgery – all Vets with extensive experience.

      The difference? A Vet practice needs to treat the cats & dogs and collect the cash to stay in business.

  5. The funny part about having Scottish independence is if they ever achieve it they will still be controlled by world government and rubber stamping all their mad planet reordering initiatives.
    They will be imposed under a far stricter fanatical regime and iron hand against anyone that challenges them if their future leaders are all like Sturgeon.

  6. For many in Britain, the lockdown of domestic abuse isn’t over. But there is help. Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall. 4 September 2020.

    After six months of lockdown, it is clear that Covid-19 is not the only pernicious disease that has been attacking our society. While many aspects of our lives are now slowly returning to some kind of normality, we must also remember there are those for whom the lockdown of fear and abuse remains. It is therefore vital that we continue to do everything we can to help them in whatever way possible for as long as is necessary.

    There will be further articles in this series: Elon Musk on buying a second hand car, Boris Johnson on Happy Marriages, Tony Blair on Patriotism and George Soros on Democracy.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/03/britain-lockdown-domestic-abuse-help-violence-camilla-duchess-of-cornwall

  7. ‘Morning again.

    SIR – Surely Ms Sturgeon, being hell-bent on independence, would never accept charity in the form of aid (Letters, September 3) from England – a country she so despises.

    Barbara Smith
    Stafford

    Well now, Barbara Smith…she already accepts – nay, demands – plenty of financial aid from the English taxpayer, so what’s new? A socialist paradise don’t come cheap!

    1. Scotland is almost wholly dependent on Windmills – the only reliable power stations are Torness Nuclear (it was 2 but Hunterston closed) and 1 x small standby Gas station at Peterhead which is now required due to the demise of Hunterston.

      Asked about alternatives in the event of no wind &/or Torness being out service the SNP is relying on English Gas Generating capacity.
      In winter High Pressure = no wind and the whole of the UK will struggle now that the last coal stations are closing.

      So it could be lights out & hypothermia deaths for Scotland if England does not support us. As we all know gas central heating needs a electric supply.

      1. At a guess many post-war detached houses in Scotland were at least built with chimneys, whereas the current practice in England is to build ticky-tacky boxes with only a single source of energy, which will soon have to be diverted to charge all those electric vehicles at night…

      2. Well, The UK/ England imports energy from France. Cross border transfers are commonplace. However that is not the key point.
        Energy generation is not a devolved area. Energy in all forms is a matter reserved to the UK Parliament in Westminster. The desperately stupid rundown of generating capacity can be laid firmly at the door of Westminster. As regards the rundown Scotland one might think it had been deliberately.

  10. BBC radio 4 news Brexit problem for today – haulage companies and massive hold ups at ports.

    1. The problem lies, as always, with incompetence at the British end. The French have got their side of things running sweetly and ready to go months ago.

      1. The mayor of Dover stated some months ago that the organisation was complete, and there would be NO delays.

        If the government was worried about food shortages they would be encouraging British farming.

        If the government was worried about pharmaceutical shortages they would be encouraging British companies to produce medicines and PPE.

        If the government was short of money they would have cancelled the third runway at Heathrow.

      2. I cannot see why. Logistics is now well understood. The movement of perishables is efficient and quick. It is an area of commerce the politicians have not interfered in. The only hold-up will be a result of political/civil service stupidity or viciousness.

        1. The reason, Horace, will be, as you say, a result of viciousness. Remainers will be keen to ensure maximum problems for post Brexit Britain to show us stupid idiots who want to govern ourselves just how dumb we were and how difficult it’s going to be so we’ll repent our stupidity and be content to remain subservient.

  11. My mother told me about when Tony Blair visited a care home.

    He marched in and asked a resident “do you know who I am?”. She replied “if you find a nurse, I am sure she can tell you”.

    1. Morning Rik. 13 deaths yesterday! Too few to matter so we have to have “cases” hysteria!

    2. I think Minitrue is missing the point. There is no government panic.

      “Exploiting crises has long been the modus operandi and ethos of the many sociopaths that fill governments.
      A crisis lets them do things they otherwise couldn’t do”. – Quote from Casey Research.

      You will notice that the many control mechanisms put into place to deal with the “terrifying epidemic” have no end dates.

      They are permanent.

    1. Which reminds me; today is massive cook-in day.
      I bought a couple of bags of crab apples from a roadside stall, so let’s see how the jelly turns out.
      Plus industrial quantities of choc. Swiss roll for grandson and liver pate for Sunday.

    3. Completely outrageous! My first thought was – well, I’m glad that isn’t happening here – then I saw the two clips of that thug attacking someone who claimed to have a medical exemption from wearing a mask – that’s in Britain and it’s totally unacceptable!

  17. ‘Nuff Said

    Why must we endure such unrelenting and pointless suffering? I will

    tell you why. Because, and let’s be blunt about this, our Prime Minister

    is a weakling who will do just about anything to avoid being accused of

    inaction by Labour and the SNP, not to mention the commentariat.

    For all his grandiose Churchillian posturing, our Prime Minister is

    not interested in being the great leader in a national struggle, which

    is why he long ago abdicated his responsibilities to the Scientific

    Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), a rather dubious outfit that

    includes far-Left crackpots and weirdo behavioural psychologists, with a

    few angry Remoaners and climate-change fanatics thrown in for good

    measure. This is who Johnson and his equally clueless Health Secretary

    Matt Hancock mean when they justify their stupid, cruel policies as

    being ‘guided by the science’.

    If you try to put specific questions to the Department of Health or

    your MP about the wisdom of the coronavirus restrictions, the usual

    response you will get is a reminder that the government bases its

    decisions on the advice from SAGE, as if to say: ‘Don’t worry, pleb,

    there’s this all-knowing infallible team of magic experts who tell the

    government what to do, you’re in safe hands, so let’s not bog ourselves

    down in the specifics, eh?’

    https://conservativewoman.co.uk/the-lefties-pulling-johnsons-strings/
    Well worth a read,a brutal dismembering of the madness

    1. This is the Government that is going to front up against Putin and the Russians. What a joke!

    2. What is even more strange is that the Professor who appears to have all the influence on SAGE is a self professed Marxist who wants the destruction of our economy.

      Yet they obey his wishes!

    3. 323305+ up ticks,
      Morning Rik,
      In truth they are a very dangerous group of ex eu asset
      rubber stampers still with with rubber stamping bounce
      operating, as plainly shown, via Dover & numerous 5 star hotels.
      Also a proven fact is another dangerous group on par with the party political hierarchy especially since major ongoing,is their supporter, member, voters.

  19. Soporific salad

    SIR – My grandfather insisted he slept well after eating lettuce (“What to eat to help you sleep”, Health, August 24), because it contained laudanum.

    It doesn’t, but its milky sap, lactucarium, is said to be a soporific.

    The early Romans served wild lettuce at the end of a meal to induce drowsiness, and its effect is well documented as a mild sedative.

    Diana Wordie
    Harringworth, Northamptonshire

    3. While salad may not be a traditional bedtime snack, it’s a surprisingly effective one. That’s because lettuce, especially romaine lettuce, contains a phytonutrient called lactucarium, which is said to induce sleep, relieve pain and promote relaxation.

    2. One thing she can be relatively confident about is that she is very unlikely to be raped by a gang of lust-crazed Christians.

    1. Why do people, these days, call buns “muffins”?

      A muffin has a coarse bread-like texture, is split (never cut) in two, toasted, buttered and jammed. It’s time those Yanks were told!

  22. 323305+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,

    15/4/1989 still see the picture now in the minds eye,
    Could this happen here ? people power, lest we forget, the man with
    rhetorical cast iron balls on par with the sign of a pawnshop & two shopping bags
    .
    Could this happen here ? well we certainly have the right ingredients and a trigger IMO is not to far away in completion.

    Who Was the Tank Man of Tiananmen Square? – HISTORYwww.history.com › news › who-was-the-tank-man-of-ti…
    1 Jun 2018 – Tank Man, a protester who tried to stop Chinese tanks moving through Tiananmen Square, has never been identified. … The tanks did indeed stop, and Tank Man was seen climbing up the front of the lead tank, and standing …

  23. Big boo-boo on BBC Breakfast this morning. In an item explaining the differences between the four UK countries in quarantine from holidays abroad, the graphic showed the flags of each nation. English, Scottish and Welsh flags were displayed correctly, but when it came to Northern Ireland, the flag displayed was – the tricolour of the Irish Republic.

    Oops. There are going to be quite a few Orangemen upset.

    3. It wasn’t a mistake. The BBC believes Norther Ireland is part of the Irish Republic and has striven for 50 years and more to help Irish Nationalist to achieve their aim – including disseminating IRA propaganda and giving encouragement to bombers and murderers alike. The BBC also gave information to the Argentinian junta which led to the deaths of many British soldiers and sailors in the Falklands conflict. It should be disbanded.

      1. The flag was designed to appeal to all Irish people (Green, White and Orange). But Unionists will never accept it.

        1. If Brother Teague won an Olympic race would he settle for an orange medal as long as it was called “gold”?

  24. Ayup, lad!

    SIR — I wish Amazon’s Alexa luck adapting to regional words and phrases such as “hey up” (report, August 29).

    As anyone from Yorkshire knows, it’s a greeting that has many meanings, depending on intonation and context. Apart from “hello” or “how are you”, it can mean “look out”, “excuse me” and a few others that are unprintable.

    Chris Potter
    Otley, West Yorkshire

    The etymology of the phrase “Ayup!” (“Eyup!”, “Hey up!”) is that it was brought over by Viking invaders (along with pea soup “mushy peas”). Yorkshire was a major part of the Danelaw and adopted many Scandinavian phrases and place names (–thorpe, –by etc).

    It comes as a derivative of “Se upp!” (Look up! Watch out!) which is still prevalent over here. I still use a version to greet Swedes. I return their welcoming “Hej!” with a jovial “Hej, upp!”

  25. Apparently at some stage this week the market valuation of APPLE surpassed the sum of the 100 companies which make up the FTSE100.

  26. Jeremy Warner in the DT.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/09/04/business-discovering-cost-home-working/

    “Business is discovering the cost of home working

    Less a natural evolution than an imposition by the Government, many firms are merely staying afloat

    4 September 2020 • 7:00am

    What is the Government more concerned about – a second wave or the economy? It’s hard to figure out.

    It almost beggars belief that more than six months after the pandemic began, ministers have yet to find ways of better reconciling the two.

    Instead, they pull both ways. From tax and spend to return to work, quarantine and lockdown, mixed messaging and confusion remain the order of the day.

    Go back to the office and help save the economy, the Government urges, but how can this be done while social distancing remains in place and ministers warn that crowding together in confined spaces, such as commuter trains, may spark a renewed outbreak?

    Much office space is condemned to working at no more than half capacity as long as social distancing is required, and some tower blocks, reliant as they are on transporting workers at speed between floors by elevator, a good deal less. What in any case is the point of coming back to the office if social distancing removes many of the team building benefits of physical interaction?

    It is primarily this constraint, not the attractions of home working, that keeps employees away.

    The Government cannot have it both ways; it either thinks the pandemic a still clear and present danger to life and the NHS, or it thinks the risks to the economy of continuing as we are the more potent threat.

    I’m pretty sure I know which, yet ministers run around like headless chickens, apparently terrified of what their scientific advisers might say, or worse still, the opinion polls, if they engage properly with a back to work strategy.

    Instead they act like Wilkins Micawber, vainly hoping that something will turn up to rescue them from a problem largely of their own making. A vaccine would do the trick, they say, or perhaps mass, instant diagnostic testing. That too may save us. Indeed it might, but in the meantime, it is like waiting for Godot. They can’t even get their act together on common-all-garden swab testing; what hope for 20-minute spit tests?

    Let the fit, young and healthy work as normal, and the vulnerable make their own choices as to what risks they should take. This has been the obvious solution from the start, yet we have allowed ourselves to be guided by China’s brutalist example of economically crippling lockdown.

    As it is, there is something faintly distasteful about the growing social divide between the largely middle and upper middle class stay at homers, and the massed ranks of generally lower earning “essential” service, distribution, transport, health and construction workers who have been operating normally throughout the pandemic so that the rest of us don’t starve to death while overdosing on Netflix and Zoom.

    No doubt some people enjoy working remotely, do so perfectly effectively, and are reluctant to go back to the hassle of the commute for all but essential business meetings. The pandemic has opened their eyes, and those of their employers, to the possibilities.

    Yet in truth it is much more government imposition than natural evolution which is driving the switch. First the Government told non-essential workers to stay at home if they could. OK, so that instruction has now been lifted, but much of the social distancing regime that makes office working hard to revive is still in place. This is the primary reason why firms are finding it a challenge. Pre-existing office space can no longer accommodate all employees within prescribed safety measures.

    Again, some firms will no doubt find that it suits them to have part of the workforce permanently work from home, saving on office space, and in the long term enabling them to shift employees onto less costly, freelance contracts.

    But many bosses already complain of the loss of spontaneity, creativity, innovation, trust among colleagues and can-do drive that results from extensive remote working.

    For most companies, the past six months have been about little more than staying afloat. All else has been put on hold. Home working has proved perfectly adequate for this style of operational management. But it is questionable whether it would work quite so well in an expansionary phase.

    The same risk aversion we have seen afflicting the population as a whole has infected business decision making, mortally wounding capital investment and hiring intentions. The animal spirits we so desperately need to get the UK economy going again may not be compatible with the advent of extensive home working.

    In any case, the apparent attractions of working remotely in terms of reduced corporate costs and employee convenience need to be weighed in the balance against the wider economic negatives. What seems good for an individual firm or employee isn’t necessarily good for the economy as a whole if ancillary jobs are widely lost in the process.

    The shift to home working is not the result of some natural evolutionary process which has been turbo-charged by the pandemic, but has been forced on the economy by government instruction. And like much government meddling in the economy, it is very unlikely to serve us well.”

    1. It might mean fewer Costa Coffee outlets and fewer staff who are not indigenous to this country – some may even return home……..

    2. …and Jeremy, don’t forget that “working from home” includes homes in India and the Philippines.

      People who work from home will be paid the same wherever their home is.

      1. Well no one objected when manufacturing jobs went overseas, now it is the turn for office jobs to disappear.

        The UK will be a nation of shopkeepers (mainly Asian), I wonder where the money will come from?

    3. Reminds of the old medical joke: “The operation was a success: unfortunately the patient died”.

      2. My guess is that the photo is of migrants setting out from North Africa, taken on the Mediterranean.

    3. I think we’ve exhausted our MP’s goodwill on this particular topic ogga. However have you given any thought to the birth rate in the UK? I don’t have any figures but, apparently in France, the figures for foreign borns is way off the scale, particularly in Paris. Unfortunately I don’t have the link any more but they have been gleaned by testing the susceptible for sickle cell disease which only people from certain areas have. France doesn’t collect this info on their census.
      Edit. Foreign borns not foreign Boris!

    4. I think we’ve exhausted our MP’s goodwill on this particular topic ogga. However have you given any thought to the birth rate in the UK? I don’t have any figures but, apparently in France, the figures for foreign borns is way off the scale, particularly in Paris. Unfortunately I don’t have the link any more but they have been gleaned by testing the susceptible for sickle cell disease which only people from certain areas have. France doesn’t collect this info on their census.
      Edit. Foreign borns not foreign Boris!

      2. 323305+up ticks,
        Afternoon VW,
        What I was trying to point out in a round about manner was why would anyone after all this length of time have this ” my MP” useless commodity still
        kicking about.
        I do not believe the birth rate will enter the equation so much as, the way Dover is putting troops ashore overseen by the governance party.

        I would tend to ask is the Geneva Convention still applicable for in the near future ?
        Will these troops be in uniform ( at more cost to the tax payer of course) or can they be shot if found in civvies.

    4. I can’t help wondering what the process would have been if that had been a black man.

      I also wonder why the maskless man didn’t immediately provide his proof of medical exemption.

      I am damned sure I would have had the proof to hand, knowing how insane the UK has become.

      1. Apparently, you don’t need “proof”. You simply say that you have a nervous reaction, medical condition etc etc – and that’s that.

        Compare and contrast with the “attestation”…..which, despite its whiff of the Gestapo, seems to me to be a Good Thing.

        1. Had to get milk at Sainsbury’s for an elderly person today; forgot the gasmask in the car, but I had printed one of those ‘I’m a weirdo who can’t breathe/panic/explain’ cards, showed it to the youth at the gate, and he waved me in.

      2. ‘Morning Sos
        One for your collection
        Coonvid-19,a deadly virus that only kills black fellas

  29. Well, after 36 hours of trying – I have managed to get a reply from the GPs. Having asked that they phone to confirm that the meds prescribed by the NNUH will be available at the surgery – they e-mailed me …. to say they will be. I can call in on Monday to collect.

    Wonder if they will be the right ones……

    Anyway, at least I won’t have to spend the rest of the day sitting by the phone.

    1. You’re lucky to be able to collect – we have to travel 12 miles to collect from the pharmacy in another village (incidentally run by the surgery), I don’t know what they do all day in our village surgery that precludes collection from there

      1. For some reason, which I have never understood, as there are two dispensing chemists in Fakenham, the GP practice has had its own dispensary. It was there when I moved here in 1984.

        Apart from the way the staff see you waiting and keep you waiting and then take twenty minutes to take a packet of pills of the shelf – it works quite well, especially with the online repeat ordering.

    2. Afternoon Bill – I got a letter this morning from my GP surgery inviting me for my flu jab. There are 2 strains of vaccine available depending on age, one for those under 65 and the over 65 flu jab. I have to go on to the SystymOnline app and book an appointment in the “Over 65 clinic”.
      I have to attend “wearing a face covering and attend my appointment just a few moments beforehand to ensure the necessary social distancing in the surgery.” If they have written to other members of my household we can all attend the one appointment in our “bubble”.
      Why a different strain of virus for different age groups?

    3. Why have you got to wait until Monday, can’t you go today, or don’t you need the meds right away? Apols if you’ve covered this earlier, just finished the chores!
      Edit. Apologies not spoils!

      1. I had a feeling that there would some some of lack of action by the GP outfit. They received the NNUH discharge letter which listed all the meds on 20 August. Originally, I thought that they would be automatically added to my GP records. Then I realised that that was far too much to expect in this age of instant communication and IT and all that.

        So I phoned; no reply; filled in online request; no reply; filled in ANOTHER online request – which resulted, 36 hours later in my being told that the meds would ready on Mon afternoon.

        Actually, I don’t need them for ten days – but they didn’t know that. Anyway, all meds are now showing on my record with repeat orders available.

        One of the things – a very strong “puffer” – would have to be ordered. It took the NNUH 24 hours to obtain it – so I am not complaining (much!)

        1. Good job you’re not working and have the time to keep on phoning/emailing/online form filling! Still, good result in the end.

        2. Dr Brilliant’s staff aren’t as good as Dr Brilliant. Look after him Bill.
          Pleased it’s all resolved.

  30. Good DT Leader today. The BBC’s ludicrous and hugely expensive aim to dominate the media and much beyond should be stopped in its tracks. Will it?

    THE BBC can have a future, regardless of how it is funded, if it works out what it does well and who its audience really is. A subscription model is therefore worthy of consideration. This is a idea that Tim Davie ruled out yesterday in his maiden speech as director general – yet Mr Davie clearly understands the direction of travel.

    In so many words, he said that he wants the BBC to do a bit less but to do it much better, which is a good ambition. The corporation is currently bloated with pointless management; it has tried to break into markets in which it does not belong, including local news and technology. Earlier this year it announced a voice-assistant to compete with Alexa and Siri, something best left to Silicon Valley. The BBC needs to evolve, but not to sprawl away from its core pledge to “inform, educate and entertain”, the Reithian values that are the best basis for a future business model.

    The modern media market is saturated and fractured. Many outlets, including this newspaper, have learned that the way to flourish is to establish a loyal audience and to repay it with quality. The very last thing the BBC should do is waste money, dumb-down, patronise or insult its viewers and listeners, yet the BBC has allowed its reputation to be frittered away, often by its own employees.

    This, said Mr Davie, ends now: “If you want to be an opinionated columnist or a partisan campaigner on social media, then that is a valid choice, but you should not be working at the BBC.” Many of our readers will be pleased to hear it. Navigating the world of social media was always going to be difficult, but the BBC has let the tail wag the dog, paying far too much attention to what Twitter thinks and permitting its staff to broadcast their political opinions, undermining the balance and objectivity one expects from a national broadcaster.

    Mr Davie also wants to do more with the BBC online and expand the corporation’s commercial basis. Ultimately, however, he cannot dodge the licence fee question. The switch from a TV culture to an internet one renders the model obsolete, while the decision to make most over-75s pay for a licence makes it all the more unjust. Once non-payment is decriminalised, the BBC’s protected status will crumble, and at that point Mr Davie’s ambition to provide value for money becomes, quite simply, a matter of survival.

    1. I actually support the idea of a publically funded broadcaster to cover those activities (Proms etc!) that would never appear on a commercial station but the BBC is incapable of this simple remit. It has always been staffed by left wing ideologues bent on transmitting their beliefs and obsessed with defeating the competition. After much angst I long ago decided that it was better to cut the losses and simply shut it down!

    1. Are those police officers in the background? If so they should be ashamed of their inaction (fat chance).

      ‘Morning, Rik.

    3. Are those police officers in the background? If so they should be ashamed of their inaction (fat chance).

      ‘Morning, Rik.

      1. The contrast between the inaction here and the rabid assault on a non-masker below(check out what happens in the second film) is bloody uncomfortable viewing
        ‘Morning Hugh

        1. It certainly is. Watching the uniformed bully-boy has not made my day. Give them an inch and they will take a mile.

        2. A large picture in Allan Towers was smashed the other day. Maybe the perp was practising for Kristallnacht in Colchester High Street.

  32. Morning all

    SIR – Nicola Sturgeon intends to reopen the case for Scottish independence (report, September 2), an issue that is largely driven by emotion. But it is time we heard some hard facts.

    For instance, would an independent Scotland have its own currency and central bank, and army, air force and navy? What about diplomatic representation?

    Scotland’s economy depends on Edinburgh and Glasgow, with farming and whisky elsewhere. Is the intention to look to the British Government to cover any shortfall? That is hardly independence.

    P B Coffey

    Bakewell, Derbyshire

    SIR – The Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland figures for 2019 and 2020 show a large and increasing gap between expenditure and income. If it became independent, Scotland would have no hope of joining the European Union without catastrophic cuts to public services, including the NHS and education. Even if it did eventually gain membership, it would be one of the poorest countries.

    Advertisement

    Nicola Sturgeon and her finance minister blame this on the British Government and the current constitutional position. Why can the SNP not at least be honest about the financial price of independence and of early re-entry to the EU?

    Dr J R Drummond

    Cellardyke, Fife

    SIR – I am a Caledonophile and staunch Unionist, but I am also a democrat who believes in the fundamental right of self-determination.

    A second Scottish independence referendum seems inevitable and the sooner we accept this, the more likely the Union will prevail. We must not repeat the mistake that successive governments made in relation to EU membership, by attempting to disallow the expression of free will.

    Unionists should concede that a majority for the SNP at next year’s Holyrood election will facilitate a second referendum before the expiry of the Scottish parliament in 2026. Scotland’s future should then be determined by the people who live there.

    Philip Duly

    Haslemere, Surrey

    SIR – The Acts of Union of 1707 were two acts of Parliament, one English and one Scottish. They put into effect the terms of the treaty by which the two countries were “united into one kingdom by the name of Great Britain”.

    Why, then, is the possible destruction of that union to be determined by Scots alone, while the English can’t express their opinion?

    Christopher Wilton

    Petersfield, Hampshire

    SIR – Surely Ms Sturgeon, being hell-bent on independence, would never accept charity in the form of aid (Letters, September 3) from England – a country she so despises.

    Barbara Smith

    Stafford

    1. A year or two ago we had a girl on one of our courses who said she was dying to leave school and be independent as freedom was very important to her. She went on to explain that she was going to live in a plush flat in Chelsea just off the King’s Road and would be free of all the rules she had to endure at her very expensive boarding school.

      “Who will pay the rent on such a place?” asked one student.
      “Daddy will,” she replied.
      “And will you get a job?” asked another.
      “No – of course not.”
      “Then how will you support yourself?”
      “Daddy will be giving me an allowance.”

      I think that Ms Sturgeon’s idea of independence is very similar to that of our student.

    2. Did Christopher Wilton suggest that the rest of the EU should have participated in the 2016 referendum? Mind you, if the rest of the UK were to participate in Scottish indyref2, there might be some surprises.

  33. SIR – Before the pandemic, I was trusted to decide when I needed to see a doctor. I could ring my surgery and make an appointment.

    Since March, this has not been the case. The surgery now decides if the doctor is to contact me, and the doctor will then decide whether to see me or not.

    This represents a fundamental change in how the NHS interacts with Britain’s population, and needs to be addressed immediately.

    Liz Butler

    Llanbedr-y-Cennin, Conwy

    1. If you are the wrong sort of person i.e. not adequately diverse according to official directives, then you deserve to die. Read into your doctor’s response what you will.

    2. Good morning dear Nottlers.

      In reply to Liz Butler , I can only add the reponse from my doctor’s phone call when I thought my kidney was playing up .. Drop the bendroflumethiazide , your B/P will cope!

      I say their attitude is this … listen to part one and part two.. They don’t make them like this any more .. and listen to the words!

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrW9lEDxI74

    3. Has Liz Butler been sleeping since 1997?
      This change happened in the civil service at about the turn of the century. It’s just creeping a little further, that’s all.

  35. I commented on the wasteland that is the Spectator’s high culture section. They try their best with their philistines, but I got no response, so I’ll try here. It was a report about the Southbank Centre in London, which is about to go bust.

    “I am having great difficulty trying to find ways I can love this place.

    Surely there must be some vision that inspires putting in a city centre location within walking distance of Parliament leading venues for theatre, for art and for music in a dusty charmless windtunnel. Surely, we could examine the architect’s intentions as to what the designers were up to?

    I could understand the 1951 Festival of Britain, which has always had a sort of 1950s sci-fi fantasism that furnished my childhood dreams. Yet, apart from sour grapes from Churchill’s party about winning the election, but losing the popular vote, I cannot for the life of me see anything in the Shell Building, and the various concrete structures that replaced it that can inspire the public or inspire a great city.

    Someone please help me out, and put the case for corporate brutalism as an expression of national culture.”

    1. Morning Jeremy. “Corporate brutalism” is not really our bag. We are more “Patriotic Austerity”!

          1. That’s when it gets green and hairy, and I mistake it for the squirrel after the birdseed.

      2. I like the “classical” style, Palladian villas, Greek temples, sandstone tenements and sweeping crescents. Most modern architects, lauded everywhere, have produced junk. I’ve tried to like Foster, Le Corbusier, Nervi, and I cannot. Frank Gehry is fun but I wouldn’t want to live there.

        1. For many years there has been a battle between those architects who value the principles of Palladio and other classicists and the German Austrian invention called Modern architecture. The latter took its impetus from Walter Gropius and his Bauhaus.

          In the UK the architectural establishment, represented by the RIBA and the architectural press have flogged Modern architecture and ridiculed anyone not conforming to its mantras. A few architects resisted this pressure and produced good work.

          I recommend you study the work of Emmanuel Vincent Harris and that of McMorran and Whitby. They showed that it is perfectly possible to produce elegant designs using craftsmen and using proportion (The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa if you will). This was the tradition of Edmund Street, Norman Shaw, Lutyens and other great architects in our history.

          E. Vincent Harris received the Royal Gold Medal in 1951, the year that the Festival of Britain brought Modern architecture centre stage. As Harris scrambled on to the rostrum to address the great and good in British architecture, he said simply: ‘Look, a lot of you people here tonight don’t like what I do and I don’t like what a lot of you do but I am proud to receive the Royal Gold Medal’.

          1. Thanks for that. You have given me an afternoon of research to amuse and educate myself.
            I do like some of the Bauhaus stuff, including the clean lines of the buildings and the lack of fuss in furniture.
            A Bauhaus room also provides a perfect backdrop to a Persian carpet, or an ogee Scotch chest, although that was never the intention, I suppose.
            My preference would be to live in a house by Alexander Thomson.

          3. Hi Anne. The vets have taken another look at his scan and think he has a bleed which might mean a blood clot as opposed to a tumour. If a blood clot then it might disperse. They have controlled his fits. We are going to collect him at 16.30 and will know a bit more after discussion with the clinician.

    2. I always said that if I got my paws on it I’d start with a massive pot of cream paint. I liked the effect when it was lit up, and heard a lot of good stuff in the QEH, but overall the effect is dehumanising.

  37. Well said, Nigel Farage:

    “The British public wanted the words sung,” Mr Farage told James Whale on talkRADIO on Wednesday. “What it meant is that the woke crowd that wants us to live our lives according to their horrible, illiberal codes are nothing more than a vociferous minority.”

    Mr Farage continued: “We’ve reached the moment now where people are saying, ‘Enough. We’ve had enough of being told we should wear sackcloth and ashes, be ashamed of ourselves, want to hide our history. Our history is our history. We can’t change it, but compared to many other countries, we’ve got rather a good history.’”

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/09/03/farage-bbc-proms-woke-crowd-pushing-illiberal-code-are-vociferous-minority/

    2. Not imprisoned for stealing £90,000. Not deported. Says it all. (There’s bloke in prison in Scotland for organising a demonstration in Glasgow. Also in Glasgow are many child rapists who have never been charged.)

  39. Seems Silvio Berlusconi is in hospital with Covid & double pneumonia.
    Since he’s aged, wonder if he will be walking out?

      1. Not waving but drowning?

        Stevie Smith

        Nobody heard him, the dead man,
        But still he lay moaning:
        “I was much further out than you thought
        And not waving but drowning.”

        Poor chap, he always loved larking
        And now he’s dead
        It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
        They said.

        “Oh, no no no, it was too cold always”
        (Still the dead one lay moaning)
        “I was much too far out all my life
        And not waving but drowning.”

        1. My Gt Grandfather drowned in the sea at Ogmore. His body was never found – so no death certificate.

  40. Apparently, the fall in Tesla shares (ridiculous stratospheric valuation IMO) these last couple of days has REDUCED Elon Musk’s personal assets by $xbillion, a sum larger than Rupert Murdoch’s entire wealth (poor chap?).

  41. Act Alf has just been to the chiropractor who told him a very interesting snippet. Apparently there was a demonstration last weekend in London against extension of the Coronavirus Act which should be debated later this month. It was passed/enacted on 25th March for 6 months and could possibly be extended for another 2 years ! Alf and I don’t watch any news if we can help it but did anyone here hear anything about it? The chiropractor reckoned there were about 35000 people there.

        1. They normally only publicise the BLM ones, unless the ‘far right’ get involved and stir up trouble.

    3. I went along for half an hour or so. It was very jolly and genuinely peaceful. Lots of ordinary people with their kids, dogs etc, all smiling, hugging and enjoying the occasion. A very multi-ethnic crowd too. It was the first time I’d ever seen Met Police wearing masks. A crude gesture, because of course no-one else was wearing them. Piers Corbyn was fined £10,000 but had raised £12,000 by Monday so no problem there except of course that XR and BLM break all the same rules with impunity.

      2. I thought it prudent not to send this to your bbc address, Our Susan.

        How is the new DG going down among your woke colleagues?

        1. He published the new line-up for his exec board yesterday. The likes of Charlotte Moore and June Sarpong (black female “Director of Creative Diversity”) are still there. Same old.

          Also bumped into my former boss, who agrees with regards to the daftness of the Rule Britannia saga and is back to basically reinvent the old Artists’ Contracts department, which was scrapped a couple of DG’s back. He agreed that if you stick around long enough these things always come full circle.

          1. Thanks. Perhaps he’ll rule by dividing the board into committees – and omitting the awkward members.

    2. A spokesman for British Transport Police said: “A man has been charged with threatening behaviour and assaulting a police officer on a Merseyrail train to Liverpool Lime Street station. The incident happened at around 3.20pm on Wednesday 2 September.

      “Officers had responded to a report of a man coughing at two passengers.”

      Nobody ever coughed before Covid.

      3. Will the officer be arrested and charged for assaulting a member of the public going about their lawful business?

  48. Two hours that saved Russian opposition leader’s life. 4 September 2020.

    It was 20 August, and Alexei Navalny was taking an S7 airlines flight from Tomsk to Moscow. He didn’t eat or drink anything all morning – apart from a cup of tea he bought at Tomsk Bogashevo airport, according to his press secretary Kira Yarmysh.
    “When he was moaning, the rest of us felt better, in a way because we could tell he was at least still alive. I stress, at that point I didn’t know it was Navalny.”

    Two of Mr Navalny’s assistants were standing nearby; one was his press secretary Kira Yarmysh.

    “She was very nervous,” Mr Nezhenets says. “The medic asked her what had happened to him, and Kira said: ‘I don’t know, he was probably poisoned’.”

    As always with these things the longer they go on the more holes appear. I thought Novichok on door handles was pretty unbelievable but here we have someone who supposedly drank it and survived. This is akin to drinking Prussic Acid with a Cyanide chaser and walking away. It is simply impossible! The clue to what really happened is in Navalny’s behaviour prior to the incident. He administered the “poison” himself and kept his stomach empty so he could be stomach pumped as soon as medical attention became available.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-54012278

    1. Morning Minty

      The things we read about are unbelievable , but there seems to so much sleight of hand and subterfuge, what is it that lives in the Russian pysche that creates so much distrust and unease ?

      1. I am not sure that that is entirely the case. The Press and the MSM, the politicians, especially those of the USA project lots of bad stuff on to the Russians. Of course, Russians have been attacked more often than they have attacked others. Russia has been turned into a bogey man, even when they were on our side both in both WW1 and WW2. That would tend to make them a bit wary. They do also have a lot to live down in respect of the cruelty and incompetence of the Soviet era

  49. Moscow scientists claim ‘Sputnik V’ jab that stunned scientists when Putin gave it world-first approval proved safe and effective in early clinical trials. 4 September 2020.

    Russia’s Covid-19 vaccine might actually protect people from catching the disease, early studies show as the country finally publishes data about the controversial jab.

    The vaccine became the first in the world to be approved for mass use last month, with Vladimir Putin eyeing up nationwide injections in October.

    The move sparked uproar in the scientific community because there was no evidence to prove the vaccine – dubbed Sputnik V – worked or was safe.

    Shock! Horror! Vaccine works!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8697483/Russias-Covid-vaccine-actually-WORK-early-data-suggests.html

    1. This is ridiculous. There has been no time at all for proper clinical trials. It is far too soon to say that the vaccine works.

      1. Results of Russia’s COVID-19 vaccine produced antibody response: The Lancet

        Russia licensed the two-shot jab for domestic use in August, the first country to do so and before any data had been published or a large-scale trial begun.

        “The two 42-day trials – including 38 healthy adults each – did not find any serious adverse effects among participants, and confirmed that the vaccine candidates elicit an antibody response,” The Lancet said.

        “Large, long-term trials including a placebo comparison, and further monitoring are needed to establish the long-term safety and effectiveness of the vaccine for preventing COVID-19 infection,” it said.

        https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-russia-vaccine/results-of-russias-covid-19-vaccine-produced-antibody-response-the-lancet-idUSKBN25V1I2

      2. Oh, I don’t know. What if you have herds of cooperative prisoners hidden in gulags, just itching to help out with an accelerated trial.

  50. Grant Shapps defending HS2 ..

    Better journey times?

    How much time will passengers save from HS2? The Department for Transport says the project will cut Birmingham to London journey times from one hour 21 minutes to 52 minutes

    2. It made me larrf yesterday, it looked as if the BBC reporter was traveling into London to interview him, but it took place in what looked like his back garden in sumptuous Brookmans Park.
      He always seems very dodgy to me. I’m sure as housing minister he ‘encouraged’ more building on the Hatfield road near St Albans and the possibility of building a new estate on the St Albans/Hatfield, Oak Lands agricultural college grounds. I wouldn’t bet against him being involved in the proposal to build more tan 1300 homes on the green belt and wooded area locally known as Symonds Hyde. For Cecil estates. It’s one law for the wealthy and suck it up if you’re not.

        1. Ta….I’ll look later Bill.
          I’ve got to get the brushes out again.
          In many ways he reminds me of someone i use to play golf with. Whom I caught cheating once and refused to sign his card. I often wondered how many times he got away with it. His nickname was Dodgy. Or ‘rffer Daily.
          Mind you the biggest known cheat on the course was a corporate lawyer. He was gently ‘shoved’ on his way eventually.

    4. The thirty minutes saved will probably be absorbed by covid testing that will be mandated before you are allowed to access the train.

    6. Yes, and it’ll take most of that 23 minutes to get into Birmingham City Centre or from there out to the Curzon Street station.

          1. My name is George Nathaniel Curzon,

            I am a most superior person.

            My cheek is pink, my hair is sleek,

            I dine at Blenheim once a week.

          2. He was, however, responsible for the Armistice Day ritual we practise every year. His lasting legacy.

      1. He has betrayed his ancestors, anyway. From wiki: “Lineker is an English surname of Anglo-Saxon origin. It referred to someone who had an area of land (acre) for growing lin (flax).”

      2. 323305+ up ticks,
        Afternoon TB,
        You mean he could have had relatives ?
        I was of the belief he was a creation of nasty/ greedy bits stitched together during a thunder storm in Transylvania by a mad scientist from Sage.

      3. He does have a certain ethnic look about him.

        Edit: This has become more noticeable as he has got older – features seem to revert to type, after the collagen of youth dwindles. I did think the same of Theresa May (esp. with that nose).

    2. He has certainly thrown down the gauntlet, although I think he is too dim to realise that this is what he has done. It could get interesting.

    3. I can’t work out who is the most nauseating: Lineker, or this linguistically- (and historically-) challenged cretin who is bad-mouthing him.

      Yes, Lineker is an execrable excuse for a human, but this wazzock with the gruesome voice needs to research his history of fish and chips before dismissing it so casually. Jewish incomers were the first to fry fish in batter thus popularising the dish in the UK; this is a well-documented fact.

    4. Britain wouldn’t be Britain without the native population being forced to pay me large sums of undeserved cash!

      1. Gave up buying the crisps he promotes some time back in the tiny hope that if enough of us do the same it might make Walkers reconsider using him.

    1. It took me four and a half hours to get to the top! There is actually the remains of an old Weather Research Station. The view is mediocre and the only reason for climbing it is that it is Number One in the Munro Guidebook!

          3. Nope. I did walk up Helaval Tor (I think it was called that). The view was amazing. Rolling grass covered hills falling away into the distance.

            As i came down it began to rain and i made the mistake of stepping on a flat rock. Whoops-a-daisy and over i went. Had to walk 4 miles back to the cottage on a fractured ankle.

          4. The Black Cuillin is the most difficult ridge walk in the UK! I never managed to get there myself though I have done the Aonach Eagach above Glencoe which has some pretty hairy spots!

    2. It devastated me as a teenager to get to the top of Snowdon to discover everyone else had taken the train up and was sitting having a cup of tea and an oggy, LOL.

      1. The best walk we ever did was Helvellyn via Striding Edge. We used take a weeks hoiliday every year in October with our children to walk the Lake District fells. The best holidays I ever had. Not sure the children would agree.

        1. I took my two young nephews camping in the Lake District. We went for a hike and i entertained them by pretending we were Hobbits going on a quest. Conveniently for my story there were several large oak trees on the way so i told them the story of the Ents. We had a great time. It only rained once.

        2. Oh, you might be surprised. I did that particular walk with my father at about thirteen. Visibility very patchy until we hit the summit, then… oh; magic. I can still see it, decades later.

        3. Many years ago a friend asked me if I’d like to do a weekend’s walking with her in the Lake District. We did a fourteen mile or so trek round/up/over Glaramara (so long ago it is the only walk I can remember). We were staying at the Derwentwater Youth Hostel. On the way hone she said, “oh, I think we’ll just go up here” as we were passing Thirlmere. ‘Up here’ turned out to be Helvellyn. And yes, we did.

    3. Friends of our nearly killed their 15 year old daughter. When in the US, they drove for hours to see the Grand Canyon. Daughter was having a teenage mega sulk day; when they finally arrived, she glanced and said “So what? It’s only a hole in the ground.”

      1. Our younger son, aged about 13, when we were on holiday visiting our ancestral homelands, the Yorkshire Dales, lifted his head from his teenage magazine to declare “once you’ve seen scenery, you’ve seen it.” After this profound statement he returned his head to his mag.

        I am somewhat surprised that most children survive to adulthood.

      2. Famous story about the conquistadors discovering it; the commander ordered some men to head down to the stream and return with water. Hours later they got back and explained that it was actually a river, and much much further than it appeared.

    1. For me, the most worrying aspect of this whole affair is that now nobody dare challenge any of the BLM/Covid/Diversity/Immigaration/Climate Change/Green Power/LGBTQP or other woke claims, because the Left has discovered that all one needs to do is stir up a Twitterstorm and anyone’s career can be ruined.

      And that those who question any current orthodoxy are in serious danger of physical harm to them or their families.

      I genuinely fear that there is going to be significant violence and destruction caused by the deliberate polarisation of society.

      1. When I seize power, all forms of soshul meeja – except for NoTTL – will be banned overnight.

          1. Only the usual trouble-makers, that troll from last night, and one who lives in France…{:¬))

      3. Absolutely Sos that’s why the police are never seen to making their presences felt.
        Same thing happened in Rotherham they are frighten of rioting.

    3. Perhaps ogga will tell us whether he is a good guy or a bad guy?

      I found him rather entertaining. He used to be a prominent member of UKIP but he got into trouble calling an unspecified African country Bongo Bongo Land.

  54. Construction commences today on the long awaited HS2 line.

    There are spades on site and as soon as their shovels arrive they will start digging the foundations.

  55. Just having a cup of tea , watching a TV film set in Ceylon with Elisabeth Taylor Peter Finch and Dana Andrews , called Elephant Walk, life on a tea plantation where the monsoon is late and an out break of Cholera causes devestation amongst the workers .

    Quarantine measures cause absolute panic .. the Monsoon is needed to replenish water supplies and water the tea plants . Thunder doesn’t always mean rain.

    All contaminated huts have to be burnt .. The epidemic caused many deaths.

    What provisions are there in Kent when sorting through the asylum seekers re infectious diseases that will probably not be covered by innoculation .

    I read recently that STD’s have reached epidemic proportions , but apart from that , TB and other diseases that these people may have contracted from the European camps they have been living in, typhoid and dysentry and hepatitis springs to mind.

        1. When i had satellite i quite enjoyed watching TCM in the afternoons. None of the films were edgy or taxing.

  56. Now if you were a lawyer looking for a job…
    “Do you want to help make the world a better place with your practical litigation experience involving climate change and human rights?
    We are seeking a Legal Officer based in London, New York or Washington, D.C. to develop and execute strategies of complex climate change or environmental justice litigation with their strong climate change or environmental justice project management skills, research and drafting skills. Justice Initiative’s climate justice work centres human rights and social and economic equity in climate solutions, focusing on the right to a clean and healthy environment and associated rights generally and specifically on anthropogenic impact resulting from deforestation and GHG emissions, among other priorities.
    The Open Society Foundations work to build vibrant and inclusive democracies whose governments are accountable and open to the participation of all people. We are active in more than 120 countries, making us the world’s largest private funder of independent groups working for justice, democratic governance, and human rights.
    The Open Society Justice Initiative (JI) uses strategic litigation and other kinds of legal advocacy to defend and promote the rule of law and to advance human rights. We employ litigation, advocacy, research, and technical assistance across a range of issues.”

    My Highlighting.
    Why is this organisation accorded charitable status? It is just as political as the Communist Party, but more malign.

    https://jobs.thirdsector.co.uk/job/455663/legal-officer-open-society-justice-initiative/?LinkSource=PromotedJob&utm_medium=EMAIL&utm_campaign=promotion&utm_source=20200904&utm_content=Candidate&spMailingID=23755075&spUserID=MjQ2MjEzMDgwMDc5S0&spJobID=1820242069&spReportId=MTgyMDI0MjA2OQS2

    1. I thought to myself, I wonder if they do a degree in climate change and law, and sure enough; “The LLM in Global Environment and Climate Change Law is designed to provide you with specialist knowledge of the legal issues and techniques related to environmental protection and the management of natural resources, with a focus on climate change.” I guess I was just being naïve.
      https://www.law.ed.ac.uk/study/masters-degrees/llm-global-environment-and-climate-change-law

    2. Some weeks ago Mr Soros stated that his Open Society spent US$500 million a year “buying leverage”.

      The fact that Open Society’s office is reported by the MSM to be only a few hundred yards from the Houses of Parliament is, I am sure, a complete coincidence.

      2. No – they’ll fly like everyone else, only they will be “offsetting” so that’s ok then. Bloody hypocrites.

      3. I wonder if it could be a way of weeding out any applicant who has a criminal record? The USA doesn’t encourage that sort of visitor, unlike Priti Patel.

  57. Good afternoon playmates.
    The comedy writing team, that professes to be the U.K. government, has been at it again. Please note this is the Untied Kingdom created that Blair fellow. No not Eric but the one with the extremely ugly wife.

    The Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps, has defended the UK Government’s decision to maintain England’s travel corridors with Portugal and Greece, despite Scotland and Wales reintroducing travel restrictions.

    This week the English, Welsh and Scottish quarantine policies have split. Scotland has imposed a quarantine on Greece, while Wales has placed a number of Greek islands on its ‘red list’. England, however, retains its travel corridor with the country.

    The situation intensified yesterday, when Scotland and Wales moved to impose a quarantine on mainland Portugal, shortly after Grant Shapps announced Portugal would keep its travel corridor with England.

    Mr Shapps admitted that the difference in quarantine policies is “confusing”, as Heathrow’s CEO John Holland-Kaye spoke out to denounce the Government U-turns and disparate policies as a “quarantine roulette”.

    Acknowledging that disparities in the UK’s quarantine policies are baffling holidaymakers, Mr Shapps also stressed there was little he could do for desperate Welsh and Scottish travellers, who have been left with the challenge of getting home before the quarantine rules come into force.

    “You are quite accustomed to seeing, for example, Scotland do one thing and say you can meet with so many people and Wales do another and so on and so forth,” he told Sky News.

    “The travel corridors are similar to that and I do realise that it creates confusion for people not to have a single rule but we do have this devolved approach throughout the UK.

    “I can only be responsible for the English part of that.”

    Critics have spoken out against the quarantine policy debacle. Paul Charles, CEO of travel consultancy PC Agency, said: “The quarantine policy is in tatters and dividing the United Kingdom.

    “Consumers are totally confused by the different approaches and it’s impossible to understand the Government’s own criteria any more, on when to add or remove a country.”

    1. There was an article in my local rag about a Welshman complaining that he had to isolate when his English equivalents didn’t, to which my reply was, “you voted for devolution, boyo, you reap what you sow!”

    2. There was an article in my local rag about a Welshman complaining that he had to isolate when his English equivalents didn’t, to which my reply was, “you voted for devolution, boyo, you reap what you sow!”

      1. Knowing how vindictive they can be they’ll probably close the border with us. Perhaps it’s a good idea.

  58. My recovery continues. Just cycled 3½ miles – the first time I have been on a bike for three years. Rather chuffed – though knees ache..!

  59. Apparently at some stage this week the market valuation of APPLE surpassed the sum of the 100 companies which make up the FTSE100.

    1. How these companies are able to survive US anti-Trust legislation is a mystery to me.
      If Trump manages to get re-elected I hope that he organises teams to set about them all with a felling axe.

      1. Tesla are also up in the mega companies if you use market valuation as the sole criteria but how many manufacturing plants do they have?

        The stock market is completely out of sync with reality which is behind these valuations.

        1. Indeed so, but just because there are Tesla bubbles that does not mean behemoths that control and exercise far too much power and influence and totally stifle real competition should not be split up.

  61. Three weeks ago, the bookies had Donald Trump at 7/4 and Joe Biden was odds on to win.

    Now Trump is even money and Biden is just odd.

  62. ‘Wait until JK Rowling hears about this!’: Shoppers ridicule ‘woke’ Superdrug after it launches sanitary products for ‘people who menstruate’ because the word woman ‘is not inclusive enough’
    Customers slammed the £3.99 Luna brand for saying ‘people who menstruate’
    One Tweeter said online that it would make a great present for her father
    Others criticised Superdrug for ‘playing games’ with gender identity on labels

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8697841/Shoppers-ridicule-woke-Superdrug-launches-sanitary-products-people-menstruate.html

      1. He was antifa – and there is a video with him saying that he’s glad he killed a “guilty” guy.

  67. The paddle steamer Waverly has just undergone a two year refit and the dunces have crashed it into a pier.

    I wanted to go on that the next time it came South. Dammit.

      1. That’s the second time they have pranged it. When approaching a mooring any fool knows to slow down.

          9. It’s a great experience. It feels like sailing straight into the Victorian era. The engine room has a gallery walkway around it and you can see the workings.

            The time i was on it Timothy West and Prunella Scales were hogging the Bar.

          18. “Very flat, Norfolk” – yeah, right. Try getting on a bicycle. There are hills everywhere!

          19. On the odd occasions I use my bike, I discover a slope on our road. Never notice it when in the car or walking.

          21. Happy to concur. The hills aren’t steep, but they’re long. Bloody long.

            I once handed a company car back, following redundancy, in Gt Yarmouth. And cycled home to Thetford.

          24. Do you know, I have had so many years of worry-free motoring with a VW that I bought new, that I had completely forgotten the frantic hunt for laybys when trying to get up long hills in an old car!

          25. I had a VW Golf which I bought while I was in Sweden & brought back to Blighty. One of the best cars I’ve ever had, but now I’ve had 14 years of happy motoring with my C-Max, which is easier for my arthritis.

          26. You brought the Golf (and Missy) back with you and subsequently bought the C-Max – more than 14 years ago. I’m confused: how old is Missy now?

      2. So true. They managed to destroy the Glasgow School of Art with not one but two fires. Had they employed an English architect to advise them following the first fire the building could have been saved and properly restored.

        Regrettably, presumably via the SNP hatred of all things English, the Scots now only employ Scottish architects of which there are very few with any competence. Edinburgh is being slowly destroyed by monstrous developments. Glasgow has lost many fine buildings including the magnificent St Enoch’s railway terminus shed.

        Edit: The Scots will never employ English architects but are happy to employ fancy foreigners. Their Parliament building is repulsive and the new building for the Glasgow School of Art is equally so and ‘designed’ by an American.

    4. My London solicitor, William Blakeney, was one of several instrumental in rescuing Waverly back in the seventies.

      He had a lovely photograph of her in his office.

    1. https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/protesters-gather-tell-britain-first-18869541

      Two sides to the debates in Coventry.

      “The reason why people are being housed in the Coventry Hill Hotel is because it’s a temporary measure due to the Covid crisis, it’s a place where they can be housed as individuals in individual rooms, but they are not that happy about the situation. It’s not something that they have chosen to do to live in luxury.

      “Basically, the situation is they get three meals a day and they get five pounds a week to live on.

      “Five pounds for the men, ten pounds for the women, and they have got to do their laundry, pay their mobile phone top-up, get on the bus and so on.

      “If they were an asylum seeker living in the city [centre] they would be on £36.95 a week and they would be able to buy their own food and choose where to go, visit their places of worship and be amongst their communities. So they are not there of their own choosing and it’s a pretty depressing experience.”

    3. https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/protesters-gather-tell-britain-first-18869541

      Two sides to the debates in Coventry.

      “The reason why people are being housed in the Coventry Hill Hotel is because it’s a temporary measure due to the Covid crisis, it’s a place where they can be housed as individuals in individual rooms, but they are not that happy about the situation. It’s not something that they have chosen to do to live in luxury.

      “Basically, the situation is they get three meals a day and they get five pounds a week to live on.

      “Five pounds for the men, ten pounds for the women, and they have got to do their laundry, pay their mobile phone top-up, get on the bus and so on.

      “If they were an asylum seeker living in the city [centre] they would be on £36.95 a week and they would be able to buy their own food and choose where to go, visit their places of worship and be amongst their communities. So they are not there of their own choosing and it’s a pretty depressing experience.”

      1. Just looked up the hotel rates. £64 per night. 7 x 64 + 10 effectively means they get £458 per week plus the cost of the meals. Even if they’re fed quite cheaply that has to bring it up to at least £500?

        1. I have little doubt that such figures will be used to justify giving them, for sake of argument, £250 to fend for themselves as it’s “cheaper”, ignoring the fact that not having them here at all would be far far cheaper.

        2. Good afternoon, Our Susan.

          I have just received a copy of the late Bill Scott’ sermon to the London Branch of the Prayer Book Society in 2006. Would you like it? Maddeningly, I have lost your bbc email address.. I suspect it ends @bbc.co.uk. Does it start with s.edison?

          1. There was a lawyer on BBC Breakfast this morning alongside his asylum seeker lodger , say that these people are supported by charities in Britain . Isn’t that rather like encouraging cross channel movements and people smuggling?

          2. It is and naturally it’s a magnet for them.

            All those workers in Calais are spreading the word about how to get financial support once you get across.

    4. The Lib/Dems have snitched on Boris and have demanded an investigation into a Covid -19 violation. Boris apparently addressed 50 Conservative MPs in a room which was only, under Covid rules, to hold no more than 30 people.

          1. Earning half a million a year and living in a 10 million house after he sold his soul to Mark Zuckerborg.

            His just reward for being a treacherous liar.

          3. Clegg is in situ bribing eurocrats to get facebook special favours from the EU. On hte upside, at least farcebook aren’t pretending, unlike the EU, which for some absurd reason thinks it is not a cess pit of corruption, back handers, fraud and theft.

        1. ALL Limp Dims should be locked up (sectioned), for their own protection (and for ours).

          I would extend that policy to: ALL Labour supporters; US Democrats; followers of Macron, Merkel, Trudeau and the EU; UKIP; Brexit Party; and any un-conservative Conservative (that will be most of them then!).

          2. “and the rest of the NoTTLers…

            Blimey, you must have far more people blocked than we suspected.

          3. Three, I think. Because they are annoying, repetitive and boring. Come to think of it – you might qualify.

          4. It will mean I’m locked up as a UKIP supporter. Goodbye, folks! Send me a cake with a file in it!

          5. I was a UKIP supporter myself once. I’d better bring the file when I get locked up in the next cell to you!

          6. I was also an activist, campaigner and held office (still do, although we don’t have meetings any more) at branch level. There is no hope for me.

          9. Nah. I’m with the policy of ‘Never kill your enemies. If they’re dead, how will you convince them you were right?’

            I’d much rather a staunch Labour person realised that they’d been fed a pack of lies and looked at the chaos and carnage Labour have created, lament their part in it and beg forgiveness, becoming a strong, Right wing – or, in fact, normal person.

          2. Bill Thomas for Winston Churchill; Annie Allan for Margaret Thatcher; Geoff Graham for Rab Butler; Stig for Norman Tebbitt; Sue Edison for Kate Hoey; Rastus C Tastey for Owen Paterson; Sue Macfarlane for Madam Speaker; Oberstleutnent for David Davis; True Belle for Ann Widdecombe; Garlands for Chief Whip; Grizzly for Enoch Powell; Sosraboc for Serjeant-at-Arms; Fallick Alec for Scottish Secretary; Elsie Bloodaxe for Bessie Braddock; Corimmobile for Black Rod; Phizzee for Head of Refreshments. Duncan for Ambassador to the USA.

          7. Minister without portfolio. That way you can concentrate on your dressage and only pop in when a vote is required.

    11. …and prepare for todays lesson on how to wipe your Rse without getting ‘it’ all over your hands and face – as usual.

        1. It is but not in the prize Trombetti league. (Nemo will appear in the window on the final day!)

        1. Believe me it was the only way to occupy a 4 year old for 3 hours (that and the bribe of the swings and an ice cream later!)

          1. I suggest acquiring a large, docile dog willing to have a dress put on him, wear sun glasses and – and this he did object to – lipstick.

          2. Got to keep them occupied and of course it is a grandparents duty to teach the little tikes about the usefulness of bribery. Just don’t tell mum and dad. 🙂

  72. For one trip only…

    The logic escapes me.

    Encouraging people to go on trains, buses and the tube to see how safe London is???

    I’m sure they will feel really safe, surrounded by zombies in face nappies and knowing that the slightest slppage of the mask could get them attacked by the transport police..

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/free-london-transport-plan-return-office-a4540386.html

    And just who is going to pay for all the free transport?

    1. TfL is already unbelievably in debt -billions in the red – so a few thousand more won’t even show.

    2. If I could see the freaking virus, I could dodge it.
      By the time you find you didn*t, it’s two weeks too late!

      3. Except it this ‘diversity’ hogwash and about 20 years too late.

        The difference is, Star Trek didn’t care about the ethnicity of the agent. It mattered what they did. For the modern wokist it’s the opposite. It’s all identity politics, about using the colour or sex to force a point – about abusing people for their agenda.

        And they think they’re the good guys?

      6. Well Dr Who didn’t suffer by having a woman in the leas role so maybe star trek will survive.

        It was the shyte scripts and woke stories that killed Dr Who, nothing could have saved it.

        1. Didn’t suffer? The audience dropped to 6 figures.

          The constant ramming down the throat of left wing identity politics drove huge numbers of people away from the dross. Oh look – it’s 3 Romans. They’re all gay, one’s black, one’s Asian. For Fecks sake.

          1. 3 Romans?

            ” What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew, or what value is there in circumcision? 2 Much in every way! First of all, the Jews have been entrusted with the very words of God.

            3 What if some were unfaithful? Will their unfaithfulness nullify God’s faithfulness? 4 Not at all! Let God be true, and every human being a liar. As it is written: So that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge.”

            5 But if our unrighteousness brings out God’s righteousness more clearly, what shall we say? That God is unjust in bringing his wrath on us? (I am using a human argument.) 6 Certainly not! If that were so, how could God judge the world? 7 Someone might argue, “If my falsehood enhances God’s truthfulness and so increases his glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner?” 8 Why not say—as some slanderously claim that we say—“Let us do evil that good may result”? Their condemnation is just!”

          2. Read further down the comment.

            It didn’t suffer because he wax a she, it suffered because of the crap woke content.

    2. When the Nazis came for the communists,
      I remained silent;
      I was not a communist.

      When they locked up the social democrats,
      I remained silent;
      I was not a social democrat.

      When they came for the trade unionists,
      I did not speak out;
      I was not a trade unionist.

      When they came for the Jews,
      I remained silent;
      I was not a Jew.

      When they came for me,
      there was no one left to speak out.

      Als die Nazis die Kommunisten holten,
      habe ich geschwiegen;
      ich war ja kein Kommunist.

      Als sie die Sozialdemokraten einsperrten,
      habe ich geschwiegen;
      ich war ja kein Sozialdemokrat.

      Als sie die Gewerkschafter holten,
      habe ich nicht protestiert;
      ich war ja kein Gewerkschafter.

      Als sie die Juden holten,
      habe ich geschwiegen;
      ich war ja kein Jude.

      Als sie mich holten,
      gab es keinen mehr,
      der protestieren konnte.

      Friedrich Gustav Emil Martin Niemöller (14 January 1892 – 6 March 1984) was a Protestant pastor and social activist.

        2. One of the most powerful pieces of poetry, IMHO.
          We all know how it went. Most of us have learned the lesson.

          2. Anyone with an ounce or two of reflection should be capable… OK, OK, I know, I know… :-((

    3. Don’t get it. Is the implication that breaking the law in a good cause is acceptable?

      There’s a world away from protecting a little girl from fascist Lefties hell bent on murder and allowing those same, unchanged – unhinged – fascist Lefties to riot and destroy our society.

  74. OT – for those of you who like foreign films – I recommend, “Once Upon a Time in Anatolia” (2011) Turkish. Mesmerising.

    Also, “The Salesman” – Iranian – on telly last week.

    I expect that aficionados will be able to find them on a stream somewhere.

    3. I watched an Iranian film years ago Kiseye Berendj (Bag Of Rice, 1996) Mohammad Ali Talebi.

      The film was bleak , interesting, warm , but my goodness , the cultural revolution has eaten out the soul of Iranians .

      I was glad I had seen it , but to view a once great nation crippled in sameness and starkness is incredibly sad .

  75. Is Sweden’s coronavirus strategy finally silencing the doubters? 4 September 2020.

    Sweden, whose Covid-19 death rate soared above its locked-down Scandinavian neighbours at the peak of the pandemic, now has a case rate lower than those of Denmark and Norway for the first time since March.

    “Sweden has gone from being one of the countries with the most infection in Europe, to one of those with the least infection in Europe, while many other countries have seen a rather dramatic increase,” Anders Tegnell, the country’s state epidemiologist, said at a press conference earlier this week.

    Well I don’t know about the doubters but it seems to have convinced the sensible. The way to defeat this virus seems to be inform people about it and let them take their own precautions while treating those who are seriously affected and waiting until sufficient people have recovered to have conferred herd immunity on the population as a whole. Much like the Common Cold in fact! If you try mass solutions like lockdowns and mass testing you postpone the gaining of Herd Immunity and create conditions for continuing infections and even second waves!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/09/04/swedens-coronavirus-strategy-finally-silencing-doubters/

    1. What has puzzled Swedish epidemiologists is how the Swedes have managed to achieve what now looks like herd immunity with only a tested antibody population of 6%.

      It shows however that the virus can be survived by humans who can develop COVID-19 immunity through other mechanisms than just antibody presence. Increasing evidence points to T-cells for which activity testing is impractical due complexity and cost.

      It just goes to prove that Test and Trace and the use of masks may now be counterproductive.

  76. 323305+ up ticks,
    They fight among themselves,

    FARAGE CONDEMNS TORIES LOSING CONTROL OF BORDERS AS RECORD-BREAKING 409 ILLEGALS LAND.

  77. Not been about much today.
    Eldest daughter, from 1st marriage, is up for a visit so I took her to see my stepson, her half brother.
    Took him shopping to make sure he has enough food to last the week, then went to t’Lads to pick up some topsoil for use up the garden and ballast for making concrete.
    Got most of the ballast shifted out of the van, hopefully will get the rest finished tomorrow.

    1. If your stepson is your wife’s child, how can your daughter of your first marriage be his half-sister? Have I missed something in the BoB household politics?

      1. It could happen only if Bob married wife #1, had the daughter, then divorced. Wife had the son by a new husband, divorced & then reconciled with Bob, bringing son with her. That would make the 2 children 1/2-siblings.

        Sorry, Bob, nothing personal, but merely hypothetical.

  78. Evening, all. Does the Fish Wife Ms Sturgeon have any hard facts about Scottish independence or is it all wishful thinking?

    1. I’m glad you corrected that. The leader of the current affairs discussion group, a pit of seething leftie vipers, in St Ives U3A wanted to throw me out for constantly referring to the bitch as ‘the fishwife’. It was fun goading the lefties, but in the end I left because it was just too easy.

      1. Ah,but as I am almost never going to come into contact with St Ives’ U3A I can call the woman whatever I like without fear or favour 🙂

    2. Ms Sturgeon doesn’t do facts, Conway; she prefers hate …

      She hates England and the English.
      She hates ‘Tories’ – and Boris in particular.
      She hates ‘nuclear’ in all its forms.
      She hates land owners and country dwellers; she ruins the landscape with windmills.

      She is a potential disaster for Scotland’s future – a busted western province of the European Union at best …

      She’s a dangerous egomaniac.

      1. While all no doubt true, they aren’t related to Sturgeon’s information about Scottish independence.

        However – there’s no doubt that those same elements will be what she bases her independence campaign on.

        1. She doesn’t do facts, wibbles:

          Scottish energy costs / industrial investment ?
          Future of Faslane /Coulport Submarine Base [c10,000 jobs nearby] ?
          Future currency ?
          Loss of Barnet Formula ?
          Relationship with the EU ?
          Border with England ?
          Border with Northern Ireland ?
          She struggles with the English language.
          Etcetera …

          1. If she did facts the idea of Scotland leaving the UK is hilarious. They’re dependent on us.

            Comically, there’s no reason for that as Sturgeon could enact policies that would create wealth and growth, she just refuses to.

      3. The Scots or Scotch as they were called then, wanted the Union because they were broke. If they leave they will just end up back where they started back then. If they join the EU (very big if) they will be bled dry as the EU are now doing it to Ireland now.

  80. Completely off topic.

    We enjoyed the last soirée/marché nocturne of the season for our commune this evening.

    Moules & frites, with a Cuban dance band (WTF!) BUT they had lots of people dancing in the aisles, all maskd up, and it was fun!

    A very good evening out and the people who have run the soirées for the last 10 weeks have done a sterling job. Most of the usual markets have closed entirely.

    I made a point of going around thanking the people who ran it, all through the season, and it was surprising how appreciative they were, for a simple “thank you”

    Yer France, life”s good

    1. I managed to escape for a few hours today to do some much needed catching up which I’d put off for a year or more. On the way back, I called at a site which had lots of barn-like structures which housed an emporium-style shopping centre. No instructions to wear masks, so I didn’t. It was almost like old times (apart from the distancing and hand sanitisers). That followed on from lunch at a carvery – no need to book, a table by the window and a lovely meal with generous portions and no need to mask up.

          1. Console yourself.

            In 20/30 year time, those who know no better will look back to today and say to themselves:

            “those were the good old days”!

          2. Thankfully, I shan’t be here. More and more, I find myself muttering, “I’m glad I’m old and have no children”!

          3. I certainly fear for the world my grandchildren will inherit. I think they are better off in Oz, where I hope they will settle.
            But even there, when I see the glee of the polazi enforcers, I wonder how long they can hold out.

  81. Good night all.
    A sweet little lemon sole a la meunière, with lemon butter & crisped parsley, washed down with a Marlborough SB 2018, followed by fruit couscous.

    1. Good evening Johnny

      I wonder how these figures would compare with the number of real Conservatives still in the Conservative Party?

  84. Cricket T20 was bloody good. Watched it without sound though. Good captaincy if nothing else. Nice to watch England scrape victory from the jaws of defeat as opposed to the opposite.

      3. An oldie for the oldies among us :

        What is the biggest drawback in the jungle?

        An elephant’s foreskin.

  86. The madness is more deeply ingrained in the Civil Service than I imagined. I’m sure if someone looks hard enough they will find that the CSRF can be traced back to Blair.

    The Civil Service has been infiltrated by extreme, politicised ideas about race

    Many in our bureaucratic elite are desperate to abase themselves before a creed that despises them

    CHARLES MOORE

    The Civil Service Code says the “core values” of the Civil Service are “integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality”. It explains the word “impartiality”: you must not “allow your personal political views to determine any advice you give or your actions”. You must not “act in a way that unjustifiably favours or discriminates against particular individuals or interests”.

    The code also justifies whistle-blowing: if you “believe that you are being required to act in a way that conflicts with this code, your department or agency must consider your concern, and make sure that you are not penalised for raising it”.

    But what happens if your department’s leaders are themselves breaching the code and actively encouraging their staff to do the same? Who will then be brave enough to trust the code’s claim that you will not be penalised for blowing the whistle?

    Last week in this space, I gave examples of how some permanent secretaries (the top post in each government department), in tweets and internal messages, approvingly used the hashtag Black Lives Matter (BLM) following the killing of George Floyd in early summer. Sir Stephen Lovegrove at the Ministry of Defence was one. Jonathan Slater at the Department for Education was another. Mr Slater advocated “tackling the whiteness of senior Whitehall”. These messages clearly expressed personal political views. They appeared to discriminate against white people. Imagine the justified outcry if Mr Slater had attacked “blackness” in Whitehall.

    This week, the new Cabinet Secretary, the man in charge of all Whitehall departments, has been announced. He is Simon Case, aged only 41, and endowed with an enormous brain. He will need to apply it fast: his service’s impartiality is seriously in question. As with the BBC, this phenomenon is already well known in relation to Brexit, but today – also as with the BBC – it is even stronger in relation to race.

    The mandarins’ endorsement of BLM was not an idiosyncratic “one-off”. It is – to use race-relations jargon – “systemic”. Behind it lie organisations and ideologies within the Civil Service which advance under friendly words like “inclusion” and “diversity”, but leave simple fairness far behind.

    Take the Civil Service Race Forum (CSRF). Although 100 per cent of its members come under the Civil Service Code, it sees itself as a group within government entitled to lobby for particular policies and interests. Thus it tells the Department of Health to follow its recommendations in relation to Covid-19 disparities between white people and ethnic minorities.

    On June 5, the CSRF declared: “We unequivocally support the global Black Lives Matter movement.” Unless civil servants “recognise their own biases” their conduct “risks complicity in upholding racial inequities”, it warned. A second Civil Service organisation, Project Race, born out of the CSRF, was instigated in 2015 by the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Justice, Richard Heaton, another senior praise-singer for BLM. It promotes “critical race theory”, based on five “tenets”. These include the idea that “colour-blindness” and “meritocracy” are tools of maintaining white power; opposition to the notion that it is a good thing when the interests of white people and non-white people converge; and the claim that “mainstream” school curriculums are white, middle-class conspiracies against ethnic minorities.

    Out of Project Race come a stream of “race ambassadors” within the Civil Service – 50 in the Ministry of Justice alone – who commit to spending two days a month (at taxpayers’ expense) on their task. The ambassadors bustle round the Civil Service disseminating their woke tenets and collecting “intelligence on the ground” about departments and individuals who are not pulling their weight. Project Race makes sure that senior civil servants are taught about “unconscious bias”, “white supremacy” and “micro-aggressions”, etc.

    When he was foreign secretary in 2018, Jeremy Hunt launched a “reverse mentoring” scheme to crown the glories of Black History Month. Senior British diplomats are taught by young ethnic-minority officials how to think properly (“help challenge ingrained views”). Reading lists circulate, recommending books like Why I Am No longer Talking to White People about Race, by Reni Eddo-Lodge. The temptation to take Ms Eddo-Lodge gratefully at her word and not read her book must be irresistible.

    And so it goes on. Somewhere inside all this, the worthwhile idea that people from different backgrounds can enrich this country and give differing perspectives which will be useful to serving the public has vanished.

    The test case is Black Lives Matter itself. What is it? (A question, by the way, that no official has ever sought to answer, even in favourable terms, in their streams of communicated support this summer.)

    If you look at the UK Black Lives Matter fundraising website, you will see both its general aims and its specific policies. The former include the desire to “dismantle imperialism, capitalism, white supremacy and the state structures that disproportionately harm black people in Britain”. In the eyes of BLM, that must include dismantling the Civil Service which pays the wages of all the people being incited by their bosses and race ambassadors to support it. After all, “the oppressive structures we live under” must go.

    As for the specifics, these include “defunding” the police, an end to all border controls and the “decriminalisation of black students in the classroom” (without explaining how they are criminalised at present).

    I expect all these policies are seen by the majority of the population as wrong and dangerous. More relevantly, from the point of view of Civil Service propriety and therefore of public trust, they are clearly personal political views rather than the policy of the Government which civil servants are duty-bound (as their name implies) to serve. So they blatantly fall foul of the Civil Service Code. Yet no one in the system dares object.

    One unmistakable aspect of these doctrines is that they are explicitly anti-white. They identify all the problems of black people as deriving from white people, all the goodwill of white people as bogus or useless, and all the evils from which black people suffer as inherent in white people simply because they are white.

    That sounds quite like racism to me; and not just to me, but probably to any white person – not to mention non-activist black people – in a work environment where these doctrines are preached. BLM followers complain of “micro-aggressions”. This talk is a macro-aggression.

    There are times when the subject of race drives people mad. I fear we are living in one such. In apartheid South Africa, the desire to maintain white Afrikaner power drove the ruling party into a crazy quest to define everyone as white, black or “coloured” and settle their fates accordingly. Now it is a similar madness the other way round.

    This week, Jessica Krug, a black professor of African-American history at George Washington University and an activist (nom de guerre, Jessica La Bombalera), admitted that her romantic tales of descent from Angola and Brazil were utter fiction. She is actually a white, bourgeois Jewish woman from the suburbs of Kansas City. “I have built my life on a violent anti-black lie,” she said. She added that she suffered from “unaddressed mental health demons”.

    Perhaps Prof Krug has unique personal problems, but there are signs of collective madness in the desire of many in our bureaucratic elite to abase themselves before a creed which despises them. They should not be allowed to do so on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/09/04/civil-service-has-infiltrated-extreme-politicised-ideas-race/

    1. Gosh, that is a good article …. But it drives me deeper into gloom re. the “Conservative” Party.

      1. Will the hour produce the man?

        But who would that man be? Will there be a new political party which will attract defections of the real Conservatives who are squirming with embarrassment on the Conservative benches?

    2. I was struck by the sentence in Charle’s Moore’s piece “If you look at the UK Black Lives Matter fundraising website, you will see both its general aims and its specific policies. The former include the desire to “dismantle imperialism, capitalism, white supremacy and the state structures that disproportionately harm black people in Britain”. I thought that I would see for myself what BLM’s aims were but couldn’t find anything in any of the various UK BLM web sites that was consistent with Moore’s statement. In fact, the blacklivesmatteruk.com site states “On the question of capitalism, although many are no doubt sympathetic to an anti-capitalist stance – as were Martin Luther King Jr and Malcom X – we take no position on this”. I hold no brief for BLM but if claims about their aims are shown to be false, it tends to discredit any criticism of BLM. Has anyone managed to find the web site that Moore cites?

      1. I think you’re being a bit too reasonable. There’s nothing reasonable about the movement, however carefully it writes its publicity, though it’s not very careful when it writes about the murder of Jacob Blake – he’s still alive. And here’s another website: https://blacklivesmatter.uk. Two BLMs in the UK?

        The position of the movement is that it is based on division and conflict, derived from a false view that black people (whatever black means) are uniquely and terribly disadvantaged in the UK and its’s my fault and yours for being white. I haven’t heard any BLM UK person (from any of the organisations claiming the title) publicly disclaiming the extreme political stance of the US movement.

        The extremists will silence the moderates and it will probably lead to serious violence and many deaths.

        1. My point was not that the BLM movement isn’t all that you say but that a long article by a well-known columnist must be accurate in all that it states. If any part is unfounded, it discredits the whole of the article. The problem with so much of contention today is that all sides of an argument make claims that cannot be substantiated. You say that you “haven’t heard any BLM UK person (from any of the organisations claiming the title) publicly disclaiming the extreme political stance of the US movement” yet the web site I cited does exactly that in the context of anti-capitalism.

          1. “If any part is unfounded, it discredits the whole of the article.”

            Nonsense.The article is about the Civil Service.

          3. It’s a rather lawyerly point and one that would surprise most observers. Not even the BBC appears to have picked up on it.

        1. Far too much falling and far too many times being lost in ships, airports and cities, Maggie. I’m not sure why people like travelling.
          We had a very mixed days’s fishing on Wednesday. 2 big bass and 1 small bass. I had a 15lb ling and my first ever John Dory. A few pollack (took a small one home for Oscar the dog) , but the most notable fish and highlight of the day, was a very large spurdog, all of 16 or 17 lbs. My ex-offshore work friend caught it and tried to hold it up by the tail for a photo. The skipper said, be careful or it’ll bite your balls (please excuse my language). But sure enough the small shark, for that’s what they are, twisted round and grabbed the smock pouch covering his crutch and ripped it off. There’s a video of it on “Message Facebook”, but I don’t know how to show it. Funniest thing I’ve seen for years. Fishermen do have a strange sense of humour though. Weather was very poor too. All knackered on return, and we weren’t that good to start with.

          1. “Far too much falling and far too many times being lost in ships, airports and cities”.

            I have these dreams too.

            Any idea what they mean?

    3. I hope and trust that it’s a hoax. If it ain’t I will bare my arse on the steps of Bradford Town Hall, whilst eating a pork based hot-dog and drinking a decent beer.

    4. Under Harrogate it says ‘Peace be upon you’
      Under Leeds it says ‘They welcome the crazies’
      Under Keighley it says a rude expression about being swallowed up by a part of the female anatomy!
      Under Airport it says ‘May Allah protect you’

      Under Lane it appears to be Hindi which I don’t understand!

  90. FORMER Bradford City winger, Jermaine Johnson, is recovering in hospital after being shot in Jamaica.

    Johnson, 40, was one of three people injured in the incident which happened yesterday in Kingston.
    According to a report in the Jamaica Observer, Johnson was hit in the abdomen. He is said to be in a serious but stable condition.
    The shooting is said to be linked to an ongoing gang feud in the area.

    The gunman must have been a goalie – he stoppeth three in one.

    https://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/resources/images/273621.jpg?display=1&htype=7&type=responsive-gallery

    2. Why is he in a stable condition? Are the hospital wards full?

      I hope they change his hay regularly.

      1. I spent a long weekend in Kingston. My host drove me through a ‘violent quarter’ at 40 mph with the doors locked. Men came out & shook their fists at us, but that was all. Otherwise K was great, the highlight being an al fresco lunch in Port Royal. I spent most of my visit in Lucea, near Mo’bay.

    4. Just waiting for the riots, BLM you know. Oh hang on, its just a black gang feud, so that’s ok.

  91. As I wrote yesterday, the speech was just words, a con trying to save the BBC.
    Subscription service and if they than then afford Lineker and his mouth, that is up to them.

    BBC tells Gary Lineker and other stars they will not be bound by new social media rules.

    Exclusive: Presenter among those exempt from Tim Davie’s drive to promote impartially.

    Hayley Dixon4 September 2020 • 7:00pm

    The BBC has told Gary Lineker and other outspoken stars they will not be bound by Tim Davie’s new impartiality rules, The Telegraph can disclose.

    Within hours of the new Director General warning of a crackdown on outspoken attacks on social media, the celebrities were given assurances that they would be exempt from new rules.
    The Match of the Day presenter confirmed that he was unfazed by his new bosses’ drive to eliminate bias when he simply replied “nah” in response to suggestions he should be “terrified” of the clampdown.
    It was one of a number of challenges to Mr Davie’s authority within hours of his first speech, in which he warned that if stars wanted to be “opinionated” “or a partisan campaigner on social media” then they “should not be working at the BBC”.
    After Mr Davies vowed that impartiality is “the very essence of who we are”, the BBC aired Frankie Boyle’s New World Order? containing jokes about Donald Trump, Matt Hancock and Boris Johnson dying of coronavirus.
    Springwatch presenter Chris Packham also appeared to ignore the dictat when he took to social media to call on his followers to sign a petition about the importation of shark fins and criticised a stag hunt.
    New rules on the use of Twitter and other social media will be introduced within days and will have a direct impact on BBC journalists following a series of rows over impartiality. But sources at the corporation have confirmed that there has been no such instruction given those who work outside of news and current affairs.
    The Telegraph understands that Mr Lineker is among those to have been assured that would not be governed by the same rules since Mr Davie’s speech. Tim Bonner, Chief Executive of the Countryside Alliance, warned that if some of the highest profile figures at the BBC are exempt then “it will undermine the reform agenda the Tim Davies has laid out before it has even started”.
    “The commitment that the new Director General has given is utterly worthless if it only applies to some presenters and the most high profile stars who the public most recognise are immune from any changes,” Mr Bonner told The Telegraph.
    “If this is about the reputation of the BBC and BBC impartiality it has to cover all of those figures who represent the BBC in public, whatever they are talking about and whether they are employed on a contract or not.” Many of the corporation’s biggest names, including Mr Lineker and Mr Packham, are not members of the BBC staff and work for the corporation on a freelance basis.
    Mr Lineker has previously said he can “tweet what he likes” and has clashed with colleagues and MPs for airing their political views on Brexit and the Government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis.
    The BBC previously said that Springwatch presenter Chris Packham is not bound by strict rules against expressing opinions on social media as he is a freelancer
    The BBC previously said that Chris Packham is not bound by social media rules, as he is a freelancer Credit: Dominic Lipinski/PA
    Earlier this week he fronted a campaign for the International Rescue Committee on the importance of recognising the contribution of refugees with comedian Jo Brand.
    A 2016 complaint by the Countryside Alliance about Mr Packham’s impartiality was dismissed by the BBC Trust as he “was a freelancer and did not count as staff or a regular BBC presenter or reporter, nor was he working in news or current affairs, and thus was not bound by strict rules against expressing opinions on public policy issues”.
    Sources at the BBC told The Telegraph that despite Mr Davie’s apparent hardline the rules have not changed. The old rule, active under his predecessor, Lord Hall, that non-current affairs and news reporters are exempt, will continue. Mr Davie’s words are expected to be clarified at some point.
    Despite being some of the biggest names at the corporation the presenters “sat outside” the rules governing the BBC’s high-profile news reporters such as political editor Laura Kuenssberg, a source confirmed.
    A spokesperson for the corporation said:“The BBC is reviewing how social media works across the entire organisation, but clearly there always has been a higher bar for staff within journalism and that is the particular focus of the Sambrook review. We will set out further steps in due course.”
    The internal communication at the BBC is that Mr Davie’s speech was widely misunderstood, inside and outside the corporation.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/09/04/bbc-tells-gary-lineker-stars-will-not-bound-tim-davies-impartiality/

    1. Lineker should be the very first to fall under the new BBC Director General. He should be followed swiftly by Emily Meritless, John Sopel and almost all of their foreign correspondents. Should the new BBC command fail to perform these basic and obvious cuts then the BBC is toast and will have to be defunded. End of.

        1. Sinbad is back home. He Is disturbingly wobbly on his legs and in search of food and water.

          I am not sure whether our desire to keep him in the hope that he might recover is the best thing. He is clearly disorientated and very unhappy in his present condition.

          I will give it a few weeks and if the poor boy is still suffering I will have him put to sleep. There is only so much that we can do.

          1. Thank you for replying. My apologies if I was intruding on what is obviously a difficult time.
            I don’t envy you your decisions over the coming weeks, but do remember the good bits with Sinbad.

    2. Maybe Gary Lineker will emerge as the hero who put the final nail in the BBC’s coffin?

      After the new director of the BBC has cravenly caved in to the likes of Lineker and others then surely Boris Johnson will have no option but to end the licence fee immediately.

      An own goal for the footballer?

    3. What, you mean the rules only apply to the little people? Well I’m shocked, shocked I tell you.

  94. Mail to a Con MP…..

    Anyway… we never established why your organization, the highly respected “Bruges Group” for which you often lecture, described George Soros as…

    “A real and dangerous influence”.

    What did they mean by that?

    “Bruges Group” said George Soros gave Open Society London approx $60,000,000 in 2018 which he did. I checked out the accounts.

    Do you know where all that money went? Maybe there’s even more?

    Is that why Open Society has “strong relationships with politicians” as boasted in their mission statement. Because of the $60,000,000? Is that what “Bruges Group” mean by “dangerous”?

    After all, that might explain why a politician might want a “strong relationship” with Open Society, mightn’t it?

    Why not tell your readers what your organization, “Bruges Group” discovered?

    Your readers would be really interested in that $60,000,000 I’m sure, and it might go a long way towards answering some of their questions, mightn’t it?

    Polly

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