Friday 10 January: Labour can’t pretend it wasn’t warned about its plan for the economy

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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714 thoughts on “Friday 10 January: Labour can’t pretend it wasn’t warned about its plan for the economy”

  1. Good morning, chums. And thanks to Geoff. Am I the first today?

    Wordle 1,301 6/6

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    1. Not sure what point is being made here… Trump hasn't been POTUS for quite a while now.

      1. Good morning, Herr Oberst. I suspect that Trump's decision to use fracking to unleash power for the nation is seen as a bad thing because it will "obviously" lead to inflaming the current spread of fire in the Montecito area. This is a constant claim by opponents of fracking.

        1. This reminds me of the cheery Aussie documentaries of 15 year ago where they set fire to tapwater in high fire risk areas around Sydney.

          Just imagine what Hollywood would make of similarly inflammable water fed to fire hydrants in LA.

        2. Leaking of the gas to atmosphere means less gas in the pipes, and so will be prevented by all means possible. Nobody, least of all the drillers, wants loss of containment, as it’s wasteful and dangerous.

    2. I presume this is a reference to the claim that the California fires are due to "Global Warming" and not a decades long failure to properly manage undergrowth and clear detritus from the woodlands in the area, coupled with other local policies.

      1. Strange how it seems more home are burning than the adjacent trees.
        And Can't they use sea water and scoop it ?

  8. Trump ‘searching for disease to justify sealing off US-Mexico border’. 10 January 2025.

    Donald Trump reportedly intends to seal off the US-Mexican border by invoking a public health emergency.

    The president-elect’s advisers have spent months searching for a disease that will allow them to justify closing the border using emergency health powers, The New York Times reports.

    Mr Trump apparently intends to invoke Title 42, which allows the US government to expel migrants on public health grounds without an asylum claim. He previously used the power in March 2020 as the Covid-19 virus spread around the globe.

    This story appears to be a complete fabrication. There is absolutely no concrete proof to it.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/politics/2025/01/10/donald-trump-mexico-border-migrants-disease-title-42/

  9. Anyone think it a bit strange with those found guilty of the Southport riots and those that posted incitement comments on line all got severe sentences, all pleaded guilty, all were paraded on social media.
    Why don't they instead just bring back those cages they used to put people in back in the day and hang them up outside public buildings as a lesson to others to frighten others into silence.

    1. Such structures need planning permission. That can take months. Think of the H&S implications. The pub might be in a conservation area.
      Disgracing and banging up people averse to girls being abused and murdered requires instant action by the government. To silence such dissent, it must be seen to crack down on racists and knuckledraggers.
      It can't wait for the Blankchester Planning Committee meeting next February to send the application back for further consideration because the footprint of the structure is 1.75 centimetres too large and might impinge on the cycle lane.

  10. Popping up in the Commons, Labour’s human zit

    While the Chancellor is China-bound, Darren Jones and his attendant toads prove themselves the smug embodiment of ‘they don’t get it’ Labour

    Madeline Grant
    PARLIAMENTARY SKETCHWRITER
    09 January 2025 6:08pm GMT

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/politics/2025/01/09/TELEMMGLPICT000407527691_17364452488830_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqSV8bkFXlBkI–h-PpPBDsFeU2jE6232LzdoxOwQJTbY.jpeg?imwidth=960 Darren Jones looks like he was born with a clipboard in his hand and smugness oozed out of every pore

    “Where’s Rachel Reeves?” sounds like a greyer, grimmer version of “Where’s Wally?”: the sort of cheery reading material they have stocked in the Dignitas waiting room. Alas, it is not a children’s book but a genuine question.

    As UK gilt charts begin to resemble the north face of the Eiger, our beleaguered financial supremo was nowhere to be seen. On her way, apparently, to China to “kick-start trade links” and doubtless be wiretapped by President Xi. I pity the poor agent of the Chinese Communist Party who has been tasked with trawling through Reeves’s CV: they’ll be in for a shock when the reality arrives.

    It meant that the urgent question tabled by shadow chancellor Mel Stride on the increasingly parlous state of the economy was instead answered by Darren Jones, Reeves’s bag carrier.

    Her other deputy fluffer, Tulip Siddiq, is currently under investigation for financial fraud allegations. It’s all going so well, isn’t it?

    Jones is the next generation of Starmerite MP made flesh. He looks like he was born with a clipboard in his hand. His first words were probably “computer says no”.

    To say he answered the question and its follow-ups would be a misnomer. Jones instead sneered and patronised in a manner that would have been unseemly if the Government was loved, but given how widely it’s hated, looked positively deranged.

    Had this man not been outside since July? Actually, looking at his peaky complexion, he probably hadn’t.

    Asked by rising Tory star Katie Lam about whether our Playmobil-headed overlord had met the Governor of the Bank of England before jetting to the Far East, Jones replied: “The Chancellor meets with the Governor regularly and will continue to do so.”

    Smugness oozed out of every pore; a veritable human zit. He couldn’t even be bothered to answer the cavalcade of bottom crawlers from the backbenches with their usual ribbiting, toady non-questions: “Aren’t the Tories horrid and evil?”, “Doesn’t the Prime Minister look great today?”, “Don’t you agree that Labour will give free puppies and lollipops to all?” That sort of thing.

    Asked by one spineless non-entity whether he agreed that the Tories were guilty of “gutter politics” and no longer fit for government, the Chief Secretary simply said “er, yes” and then plonked himself down again.

    Despite these non-responses, each of the toads sat down, looking smirkingly pleased with themselves.

    Jacob Collier of Uttoxeter congratulated himself on his comments about the Government “restoring stability to the economy” by plonking himself back on the Labour benches with the look of a toddler delighted by the unexpected warmth of a full nappy.

    These people are living embodiments of WS Gilbert’s line: “I always voted at my party’s call and I never thought of thinking for myself at all.”

    At one point, Jones lamented the declining quality of Tory parliamentarian. Not an unreasonable charge, but it loses some weight when several of your own number make Matt Hancock look like Metternich.

    The Chief Secretary and his attendant toads aren’t just Starmerism incarnate, but the embodiment of a deeper issue: Labour really don’t get it.

    There was no acknowledgement of the problems facing the economy, which it is clear they have made worse, no seriousness, no respect.

    Instead, a tone of rampant triumphalism which would have made a Roman emperor blush.

    The problem is always someone else, the answer is always Liz Truss, “Fourteen years!” or “The Tory inheritance”.

    Given the arrogance and incompetence that combined in this performance, you might even find people asking “where’s Rachel Reeves?” in a wistful way. God help us all.

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

    Judy Barratt
    12 hrs ago
    I have the misfortune of having that Human Zit as my MP. I have spent years trying to think of the right words to describe him — and there they are. Never truer. The man is an ill-educated, chippy, self-serving fraud. That he is the Treasury’s Number 2 is utterly terrifying.

    Caroline Forbes
    12 hrs ago
    Reply to Judy Barratt
    Wasn't he an Info Tech or Computer teacher in real life, I'm sure I read that on his early election bumf, so you can see there is a relevant history?

    Steve Wilkinson
    12 hrs ago
    Terrible smug toad.

    Remember the secretly filmed interview pre election, where he said if we tell the electorate what we actually think we will not get elected !!!!

    The worst kind of politician and human being.

    Liar. Cheater,Deceitful Self Important ….. and those are the good bits.

    reply

    Michael Lepps
    7 hrs ago
    Reply to Steve Wilkinson
    Think he “popped up” on Question Time pre Xmas – what an absolute bunt!

    Rose Drakeford
    12 hrs ago
    Such a pre-planned garbled, vacuous, total nonsense response have I never previously heard the like of. Just because you say something with conviction and arrogance does not make it true, nor does it make it happen. This Government have got to stop shutting down the truth.

    Tacit Maioris
    12 hrs ago
    I took an instant dislike to Darren Jones when he first began popping up in interviews around the time of the election. He comes across as smug, patronising and arrogant. And the answer to the "14 years of Tory misrule" mantra is to remind Labour that they had 14 years to formulate policies that work for the good of the country. Why didn't they do it?

    3. When I was a student I coined the phrase odious pimples to describe the people – often leftists – that I did not like!

  13. Morning, all Y'all.
    Dark… very, very dark. Being Friday, almost nobody about, either. Not an energising day, so it isn't.

  14. Spiked

    Academia’s shameful role in minimising the grooming gangs

    The class prejudice of the so-called experts blinded them to the sexual abuse of working-class girls.

    Lisa McKenzie
    8th January 2025

    In 2009, I completed my PhD thesis – an intense, five-year-long piece of research into the experiences and treatment of working-class women. The research was carried out on a council estate in Nottingham, which had also been my home for over 20 years. The women’s story was also my story. I explored how they had been devalued and demeaned from school onwards – by the media, politicians, charities and those on the other side of the desk in housing offices and welfare services.

    On the day of my viva (an oral test in which PhD students defend their thesis), my examiner drew attention to one story they were particularly affected by. It was the women’s account of the constant sexual harassment that they and their children were subjected to by a group of Iraqi asylum seekers. The refugees had been moved on to the estate and then abandoned by the authorities. The women talked not just about the disrespect shown to them by the asylum seekers, but also about the silence and inaction of the state when they expressed their concerns and fears.

    In 2015, this story formed the basis of an article I wrote for the Guardian about working-class fears and concerns over refugees being accommodated in their midst – concerns that had been ignored by those in power. As soon as it was published, the backlash began. My fellow academics accused me of racism and likened me to Enoch Powell. They ridiculed me in private email exchanges and publicly denounced me, including in the Guardian itself. Blogs and academic peer-reviewed articles characterised me as a far-right extremist.

    This is why it does not surprise me that many academics have long refused to acknowledge the horrific reality of the grooming-gangs scandal. They are blinded by their class prejudices.

    Academia has played a key role in downplaying the rape and abuse of young, working-class girls by criminal fraternities of predominantly Pakistani men. These men were able to operate with virtual impunity for many years because their victims were deemed worthless. And those in positions of authority turned a blind eye to it all, on the grounds that protecting ‘racial sensitivities’ was more important than protecting children from sexual abuse.

    Many of the young victims are women now. Others never had the chance to grow up thanks to the toll taken by the abuse. Today, the grooming-gangs scandal remains an open and seeping wound. This is due to the inaction of the authorities, the obfuscation of the justice system and perhaps, above all, the refusal to have the uncomfortable conversations needed about class, race and sex in the UK. Instead, we have had to endure middle-class liberals, telling us over and over that diversity is our strength without ever confronting the real issues.

    Academia has played a central role in delegitimising the experiences and stories of working-class women and girls. Academic research holds a lot of power in legitimising the plight of the powerless. It is cited by policymakers, by public inquiries, and the media and politicians look to it for guidance. Yet if you try to find academic research on ‘grooming gangs’, you will only find articles trying to dismiss the rape and abuse of mostly white working-class children and teenagers by groups of mainly Pakistani men. It is described as a ‘moral panic’, whipped up by right-wing media outlets in bad faith. Some of the academics who have written these peer-reviewed articles identify themselves as ‘experts’ in sexual abuse and child sexual abuse – and yet they have perpetuated the narrative that the perpetrators of heinous and monstrous abuse are somehow also the victims.

    Why does the grooming-gangs scandal refuse to go away? Why is it a constant running sore in public life? Because our political elites have dismissed those who drew attention to the horrors committed in our midst as far-right reactionaries.

    The experts’ attempt to explain away the serious sexual abuse of white, working-class girls, and the class prejudice that underpins this dismissal, goes beyond one or two high-profile academics. It’s the product of an academic system dominated by often private-schooled, middle-class ‘liberals’ who have no connection to the poor, the vulnerable and the working class. It is a system that produces research sanctioned and peer reviewed by the same people with the same worldview.

    Through their self-righteousness and moral squeamishness, these academics and ‘experts’ have done tremendous harm to the thousands of victims of grooming gangs. They’re convinced they’re on ‘the right side of history’. They don’t realise how wrong they are.

    1. Is this a piece to divert attention away from the responsibility of the State's employees to protect these girls?

      1. No, just further proof of how deeply this rot has infected a once good and honorable country.

      2. I do not think so. However, as abhorrent and vile the saga of the rape gangs is, it is just one symptom, along with the numerous acts of terrorism and the growing lawlessness – machete gangs, anyone? – that have engulfed our once great and much calmer and kinder Country.

        The sooner the somnolent population, especially the millions that supported the usual suspects, realises all this was not an accident, nor incompetence but a policy enacted by those entrusted with authority, the better. Those usual suspects, no matter what they say or pledge, are not to be trusted. Leopard and spots…

    2. Is this a piece to divert attention away from the responsibility of the State's employees to protect these girls?

    3. For all of my life, 63 years and counting, I have been proud to be both English and British. People who did the right thing, not necessarily the comfortable, or easy, or expedient thing.
      My parents participated actively in the development of Nigeria: Father was on the management team that established Ahmadu Bello University in Kaduna state, and personally prevented the Army coming on to Campus to shoot rioting students during the civil war. The whole UK went to war many times to fight oppression – the Nazis and the invasion of the Falklands, for example. The country provided refuge for the Kindertransport (I worked with two who were part of that) – that made me proud that the UK did the right thing.
      Now, that pride is destroyed, and I feel sick to my stomach as a result. That the UK authorities disregarded such a cancer in their midst, rejected their own in their hour of need, cannot be forgiven. I am no longer proud to be British.

      1. "My country right or wrong: if right, to keep her right; if wrong, to set her right." (Easy words.)

        1. We have a vast, over-paid, blood and morale sapping Blob that doesn't wish to rock the boat.

          1. Not only an overpaid Blob anne.

            A quote from the Sunday Times:

            civil servants still working from home despite year of mistakes
            Daily average attendance as low as 5pc in some offices, with attendance rates averaging less than 10pc in other buildings

      2. Join the club.
        The problem that is finally being discussed by all – rather than those deemed to be 'racist' or 'Enoch' – has been festering for 30+ years.
        And all our current government can do is hurl insults at those daring to voice their concerns.
        We've had some ropey administrations, but this one and its apparatchiks are lower than a snake's belly.
        I absolutely hate them.

    4. The middle class contempt for the working class is abominable.

      The victims of the rape gangs were not just white – they were working class.

      And who campaigned strongly on this issue having had a family member abused by a Pakistani rape gang?

      Nigel Farage is a middle-class bourgeoise snob. He wants nothing to do with Tommy Robinson – not because of his views on Pakistani rape gangs but because he is a working-class common oik!

    1. They were saying on Times radio this morning ( cannot get GB News )
      That last year the planet was 1.5 degrees warmer than before the industrial era.
      Do you see what they did there?
      Conflate industry with warming.
      They didn't specify how far back the went to before the industrial era.
      I'm thinking they only went back to the little ice age era that ended just before the industrial era.
      Not back since the dawn of time, as they suggest.

        1. GBW is the only recognised climate condition. Although it has no real relationship to reality.

      2. There was a reason for the name "Greenland".
        As the Little Ice Age developed, settlers who had been wearing wool, rather than turn skins, died of cold.
        Those that could escaped back to the ancestral homelands.
        Until then, Greenland had enjoyed temperatures that allowed a Scandinavian temperate life style.

    1. Duly signed, although had to lop-off the 'signatures/thank-you' bit from address given.

    2. Is signing this petition considered a non-crime hate incident?

      Something for Bill Thomas to advise?

  17. Good Moaning.
    Bit parky, but the sky was lovely.
    I have nothing but agreement with RL's article.
    Our politicians have betrayed us and our Royal Family are ciphers. Britain is certainly neither a free nor honourable country.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-14267585/RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN-Donald-Trump-Greenland-Britain.html

    RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Have I got a deal for you, Donald… forget Greenland and buy Britain instead!

    Published: 16:58, 9 January 2025 |

    "Donald Trump says he wants to buy Greenland. Elon Musk wants to buy Liverpool FC, according to his dad. But why stop there, chaps?

    Have I got a deal for you.

    They should club together and buy the United Kingdom instead. Thanks to Rachel From Complaints it should be available at a knock-down price and would save our Government the indignity of having to go cap in hand to the IMF for a bail-out.

    If Elon's set his sights on an English football team, I'd cheerfully let him have Spurs as a sweetener. There shouldn't be any objections, given that 19 Premier League and Championship clubs are already US-owned.

    Trump wants Greenland for strategic defence purposes, as well as its plentiful mineral resources, including cobalt, copper, lithium and nickel, all vital for the manufacture of everything from computers and wind turbines to Musk's electric cars.

    The soon-to-be-second-term President sees the island's location between Iceland and Canada as pivotal in his determination to counter Chinese expansionism in the Arctic region. The US already has a substantial military base there.

    Greenland is currently a self-governing territory of Denmark, but everything has a price. And there's a precedent here. In 1917, the Danes sold the US Virgin Islands to America for 25 million dollars, so there's clearly a deal to be done in principle.

    Under the American flag, the 56,000 residents would continue to enjoy as much autonomy as they do under Danish jurisdiction, like any other US state.

    Denmark, including Greenland, however is a member of the EU and the French, Germans and Brussels bureaucracy are already harrumphing that they will not allow America to take over any 'sovereign European territory'.

    This is the same EU which, after Brexit, has effectively annexed Northern Ireland, an integral part of the UK's sovereign territory.

    Which brings us to the far greater prize, for both the US and Britain, which I originally suggested here five years ago when Trump talked about taking over Greenland.

    Since then, the UK has become a far more attractive proposition. And with the pound plummeting still further against the dollar, better value than ever. We could chuck in the Chagos Islands as an added bonus.

    With a discount for cash, Trump would bite our hand off, especially if we let him turn Scotland into the world's largest and most luxurious golf resort.

    The advantages are even more obvious than they were when I first mooted it back in 2019. Trump would be buying himself the world's sixth-biggest economy and fifth-strongest military.

    Economically, it would be a no-brainer. While British incomes are now below America's poorest states, growth in the U.S. is soaring ahead. But the City of London is still the world's greatest financial centre. Combined with Wall Street, the transatlantic behemoth would be invincible, and any loss of business to Frankfurt and elsewhere would be instantly reversed.

    We'd be exempt from any threatened transatlantic tariffs, and there'd be no need to negotiate a free trade deal with the US, since we'd have automatic, unrestricted access to the world's biggest market, 360 million people on top of our near-70 million.

    Far from trying to mete out another punishment beating, the EU would beat a path to our door, on their hands and knees, begging us to do business with them. And you can bet Trump would drive a hard bargain, enriching us all.

    This time next year, Rodney…

    Our Armed Forces continue to punch above their weight, despite the disgraceful neglect under successive governments. Trump would rebuild our military and ensure that we spend double our current feeble defence budget.

    We could reopen Greenham Common and site a new generation of nuclear missiles there. That would have the added bonus of infuriating the hairy-armpitted harridans of the CND who set up camp outside Greenham in the 1980s.

    If the American Second Fleet relocated to Dover, it would stop the small boats at a stroke and bring an abrupt end to any ideas the EU might have about forcing us to accept French and Spanish trawlers once again plundering our traditional fishing waters.

    Greenland may have mineral wealth, but we're not exactly short of natural resources ourselves. It's simply that our self-obsessed, virtue-signalling political class refuses to exploit them.

    Trump would immediately reverse Ed Miliband's suicidal Net Zero plan. North Sea oil and gas licences would be reissued and fracking would given the go-ahead, creating a jobs bonanza.

    It'd be Local Hero time all over again in the North East of Scotland, and there'd be massive investment in nuclear power, sending the Chinese packing.

    Once more, we'd be self-sufficient in energy, not dependent on foreign imports or unreliable windmills, which have proven utterly useless over the past few days.

    Drill, baby, drill.

    And to keep the clean-air, zero-emissions crowd happy, Musk would open Tesla electric car and giga-battery plants here, creating tens of thousand of well-paid jobs.

    Once Elon's drained the Washington swamp, he could turn his attention to blowing up the Blob in Whitehall, stripping out billions in waste. Sir Humphrey wouldn't know what hit him. Musk's already proving a more effective leader of the Opposition than Kemi Badenoch.

    Euro-fanatics, Starmer included, are gagging for us to rejoin the EU. But since they don't believe in national sovereignty and think we are better run by unelected foreign commissars and judges, how could they possibly object to us teaming up with the world's leading democracy and our closest ally? Critics complain that it would mean us becoming the 51st State of the U.S. True, but why is that any worse than being a vassal state of the EU?

    We certainly wouldn't be the 51st State in terms of influence. We would immediately become the largest state, with the population of California and New York State combined.

    US states have far more independence from Washington than EU members have from Brussels and Strasbourg. Indeed, your average small town mayor in America has more power than most British Cabinet ministers.

    Look at the way free states such as Texas and Florida defied the worldwide, knee-jerk Covid lockdown, which inflicted so much social and economic damage elsewhere, including Britain.

    America's legal system is based on English Common Law, so Trump would soon take us out of the pernicious orbit of the European yuman rites courts, which have done untold damage to our traditional freedoms and ability to control our borders.

    No electoral system is perfect, but were we part of a federal US, at least we wouldn't be governed by a deadwood Prime Minister and a ludicrously unrepresentative majority of MPs elected by just 20 per cent of those eligible to vote.

    Yes, America was born out of a revolution against British rule, and as Peter Hitchens wrote in the Mail this week, it is in many ways a 'foreign' country with whom we share a common language, of sorts.

    But the ties that bind remain strong, particularly culturally. According to 2020 US Census, 46.6 million Americans have English roots (my family and Elon Musk included), with another ten million identifying as having 'British' heritage.

    And since another 36 million identify as Irish-American, it wouldn't be long before Dublin wanted in on the action. Thus solving the artificial 'Irish backstop' problem, too.

    Trump, like Musk, is an Anglophile with a love of the Royal Family. I'm sure he'd let us keep Charles as titular head. With any luck, he'd extradite the ghastly Markles so we could bang them up in the Tower of London.

    Charles and Carmela would be much happier living at Balmoral or Sandringham and, in return, The Donald could turn the Palace into the Trump Buckingham Hotel.

    When I first proposed Trump buying Britain five years ago, it started out in jest. But the more I think about it, the more it makes sense.

    And the Americans would love it, if a waitress who served us while I was visiting my sister in Detroit a few years ago is anything to go by. She was wearing a red baseball cap, with the logo:

    Make America Great Britain Again."

  18. G'day all,

    Light cloud covers the dawn sky at McPhee Towers, wind in the East, -3℃ with 1℃ the 'high' today.

    I used to think quite highly of Tim Stanley as a journalist but he really is coming up with some absolute rubbish these days.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3365c9cc7b341172c81907692a90c679756e2a1c9b151f7f2fe59dc5accefa9c.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/09/when-musk-met-the-afd/

    Weidel did, however, get one thing demonstrably wrong: Hitler “was a communist”, she said, because he nationalised business. Elon agrees with this, too; it’s a popular theory among capitalists. Sick of being compared to Nazis, they’ve turned the slur on its head by suggesting Hitler was a socialist motivated – to quote Alice – by “envy”. Balderdash. The first people locked up were the socialists, and his politics was not defined by the Four Year Plan but his hatred of Jews and Bolshevism.

    Stanley is plain wrong. The Nazis and the Communists embodied by Hitler and Stalin were not polar opposites. They were rivals. The only distinction is that the Nazis were NATIONAL socialists (the clue's in the name) while the communists were INTERNATIONAL socialists.

    He's writing what he's told to write, I think. That can be the only explanation.

    1. The Liberal Democrats are neither liberal nor democratic; the Conservatives have been none too conservative of late; Labour long since stopped putting the labouring class first.

      That said, there are indeed many similarities be between fascism and communism, although the former works better than the latter. Just sayin'!

    2. Tim Stanley s very curate's egg – he is on the way to becoming as erratic in his judgement as Charles Moore has become.

      Why don't the Left admit that Pol Pot and Hitler were both extreme lefties?

    3. BTL Comment:-

      R. Spowart
      18 min ago
      Message Actions
      Tim Stanley needs to read up on the history of Fascism, the cornerstone of Nazi ideology.

      In the late 19th/early 20th Centuries, Italian Socialists became concerned that the newly united Post-Risorgimento Italy could be damaged by Marx's "Class Conflict" ideology so looked to formulate a Socialist system where this was replaced by National Unity across the whole society.

      This, under the leadership of Giovanni Gentile, became codified into the theory behind Fascism and, in the chaos of post Great War Italy, was taken up by Mussolini as well as being exported to the NSDAP.

      The painting of Fascism and Nazism as "Right Wing" is due to the Soviet Agitprop in support of the Spartakusbund, the Bolshevik inspired opponents of the NSDAP.

      I reality, they are the opposite cheeks of the same foul Socialist backside.

      Indeed true "Right Wing" opinion is the very antithesis of both Fascism and Communism.

  19. Good morning, all. Sort of clear skies. Sort of sunrise. Heavy frost – but not too heavy to stop cats being out and about.

    No news again, I see.

  20. Lefties are playing with fire. They were warned.

    Trump to endure embarrassment of criminal sentencing after last-ditch Supreme Court appeal fails.

    To recap Trump's 'misdemeanour crime' the equivalent of jay-walking in a loud fashion was bumped up to a more serious felony charge because the Lefties say he could have easily been on his way to bank job or terrorist attack, easily. Then leftie judge throws out defence claim that there was no evidence of any bank crime because it would confuse the case.

    Starmer & Lammy say No one is above Leftie Law.

    2. If Rachel cut her hair short she could pass as a man.

      Just thought i would hop on your bandwagon

    1. We loved the Orange Man threatening to take over Greenland. I suspect that most Greenlanders would be delighted with that.

      Unimpeded entry to the USA, and for those who wish to remain, plenty of well paid jobs in various American mining enterprises.

      What's not to like?

      I can't see why the EU is getting heated up about it, after all Greenland left the EU in about(?) 1985.

      It's nothing to do with them.

    1. 399940.+ up ticks,

      O2O,
      Physically thrown under a bus OG ? tell us just when did the political S(TOOL) do the peoples such beneficial favours ?

    2. "Then he and other senior members of the cabinet abstained."

      That is so that they can deny any reponsibility when interviewed.

      "I didn't vote against it"

      1. 399940 + up ticks,

        Morning AS,
        The children are still being used as political pawns in a country where the economy and the party, in my book, come before kids and family.

        These umbrella governing party’s
        prove that after surviving initially the JAY report.

  24. Good morning, all. Currently, a clear sky, frost on the shed roof and very calm. Forecast predicts a sunny but very cold day.

    Taking a friend down to the coast today so that she can scatter flowers into the sea in memory of her late husband. His hobby was fishing off of the pier and his ashes were scattered there twenty years ago. I'll treat her to a pie and mash lunch at White's as befits both her and her late husband's East London roots.

    Starmer's 'plan' to stop the invasion is beyond parody. Where does this useless PM think the gangsters hold their cash and assets? The same secret places where the RIBS are stored and made ready for the crossings? If the intelligence(?) services have not been able to find and shut down these storage areas over the years (have they tried, it can't be that difficult) of invasion then finding the cash etc. is going to be well beyond their capabilities. A "World first", give me strength! A strategy designed to fail, more like?

    It's a war and the protection of the ground that is held i.e. the UK, has to be protected first and foremost. Stop the invasion by a naval blockade that turns the boats around; arrest, hold – build some basic and uncomfortable stockades for holding – and quickly deport any who attempt to evade the blockade. The information of the harsh holding facilities filtering back will act as a deterrent to some. Finally, make it clear that the cushy days of plush hotels or re-vamped military bases along with free this and free that are over. Invaders will be treated as just that, invaders, and will be dealt with.

    Then I woke up and realised that we are depending on our political class to 'deal' with this crisis. Gutless human rights apologists will never make a stand on this issue.

    https://x.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1877413771980710139

      2. Don't knock celery – remember in ''Allo 'Allo' how celery was used to distract the attention of the colonel away from the antics of the Resistance.

        Mind you, I had one sitting in the damp patch at the bottom of my fridge which went rotten after a few months in situ. Surely you're not suggesting this of this Government? It was already rotten before taking it out of its wrapper.

  25. Good morning all. Today i have been “riding” Riyad’s brand-new “subway”, so ypu don’t have to. I went 20 minutes up to the King Abdullah Financial District. I’ll try and post some pictures (bear in mind today is “Saturday”).

    There are three classes of carriage: half the train for men; a couple of carriages for “families”; and a couple of carriages for first class. The lifts are reserved for men and disabled people only.

    Edit. Sadly cannot post photos. Will try later.

  26. Grooming gangs commit two sex offences a day, first figures reveal. 10 January 2025.

    The majority of perpetrators – 83 per cent – were white, while some 7 per cent were defined as Asian, 5 per cent as black and 3 per cent as mixed race.

    Richard Fewkes, the director of the Hydrant Programme, said the data suggested the profile of offenders reflected the overall ethnic mix of the UK population.

    There is nothing these people will not stoop to. If I’m not mistaken this is part of a program to show the plebs that it is all in their imagination. There aren’t really any Pakistani Rape gangs.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/10/grooming-gangs-two-offences-every-day/

    1. If that is truly the case, why are the papers not full to the brim with pictures of the perpetrators, after capture and trial?
      Where are the "group block photos" of all these white gang members?
      Both are dreadful offences, but what is being done by the Muslim Pakistani gangs is at an utterly different level of depravity.

      1. It is the same deflection.

        How many people have been killed by Islamic terrorists?

        How many people have been killed by Far Right terrorists?

    4. The tried & tested Leftie tactic.. if there's a concentrated Islamic problem of any kind.. you scope out, and keep scoping out, if necessary to The Shetland Islands.. even to Tristan da Cunha until the numbers seem insignificant. Then if by magic the Islamic problem disappears in a puff of Leftie magic.

    5. The tried & tested Leftie tactic.. if there's a concentrated Islamic problem of any kind.. you scope out, and keep scoping out, if necessary to The Shetland Islands.. even to Tristan da Cunha until the numbers seem insignificant. Then if by magic the Islamic problem disappears in a puff of Leftie magic.

  27. Be very careful taking pictures; you don't want to take something by accident that turns out to be illegal.
    They'll access your devices and then where might that lead to?

  28. Morning all 🙂😊🥶
    Minus 4 here but bright.
    But unlike our nasty vindictive government who are not very bright at all.
    Apparently more than 90 million has been falsly claimed in PIPs. Probably due to
    'insider trading', as in advice from friends and relatives in the right places.

  30. From my daily newsletter.

    I despair.

    BlackRock Quits Climate Alliance
    BlackRock has become the latest US financial services institution to quit the Net Zero Climate Alliance. In a letter to shareholders the firm states that its membership has caused confusion and led to legal inquires. All of the major US banks have also quit the alliance. I make no apologies for getting on my soap box. Climate change is real. As individual human beings we have a moral duty to do the right thing in protecting the planet for our children. Why does a corporate have a lesser moral obligation? Why does Corporate America believe in can play ostrich on this matter? I suspect we all know the answer to this question.

    No doubt there will be those who will argue that if Blackrock and the big banks are leaving, then climate science must be correct, and more power to Miliband & Co.

    I believe the climate is changing. I think the way the Greens et al are approaching mitigation of the problems it is likely to do far more harm than good.

    2. Wonder where all the oil wells and coal mines are that led to the melting of the ice at the end of the ice age? Climate has always changes, and there are many factors that affect it, not just atmospheric CO2.

      1. Ice core observations are suggesting that the timescale in climate change points to a warming now over 100,000 years, not just back to pre-industrial levels. This considerably pre-dates human civilisation, and while the Earth may recover in time, I doubt that civilisation could survive the destruction of a number of cities due to war or natural disaster.

        Having said that, I have long argued (and of course been ignored) that it is waste and profligacy, arrogance and hubris of 8 billion aspirational humans that is threatening civilisation far more than carbon dioxide, which could be mitigated simply by planting more trees in denuded areas and allowing them to grow.

    3. Looking at temperature data 'since records began' and drawing conclusions about a long term trend is like looking at the temperatures in a week of the year and predicting the for the year ahead. Climate changes over thousands of years and variations that we see over shorter time periods are just natural fluctuations. Although this is a personal opinion, I don't believe that we can measure a 'global temperature'. If we could do that today, then what we compare those hi tech measurements to are certainly not the same data sources as those from 150 years ago.

      1. Mankind causes huge damage, particularly deforestation, but in the great scheme of things climate change is a natural phenomenon.
        The climate will continue to change long after humans are far fewer in number, or even extinct.

        1. So they say; however, it's more like reforestation near my house. The local "wicked farmer" who as everyone in government knows is just "in it for profit" has just 'reforested' all the remaining hedgerow spaces adjacent to his fields with what the planters told me was mixed UK species of hawthorn, blackthorn, hazel, etc. At least 5,000 plants went in apparently.

          1. Good for the farmer.
            I wonder what his motivation might be, hopefully it's to support wildlife and potential pollinators for his crops.

          2. There will be a 'green incentive' probably paid for by the taxpayers. Farmers don't waste time on unprofitable edges.

          4. I know him personally. There’s a grant supplies about a third. He just thinks it should be done that’s all.

    2. He always denied being a homosexual but when he died (of AIDS) aged 67 he left behind his current bum-boy his personal assistant who was only 28 years old. He too died of AIDS eight years later.

          1. You'd make a great PM, Bill. All that wisdom and experience – in any case, the MR will tell you what to do, so it'll not be much stress either!

    1. Lefties attempting to buck the market yet again. Raise taxes, clear business off the market place then they're puzzled as to why national income decreased. With tickets they'll start paring prices to the bone to grift some votes no doubt and then wonder why more and more events get cancelled.

      Hmm, come to think of it, perhaps government could create a new quango to do pricing control for all UK prices? What would they call it? Let me think. Ah! I know. They could call it the National Board for Prices and Incomes 🤦

      So bold of Rachel, what with her boldly swimming against the received wisdom of her colleagues, esteemed economists the world over and all that.

  36. 399940+ up ticks,

    O2O,

    "LIMITED" Could cut out major wording like
    pakistani,rape and abuse and bringing the party into disrepute.

  37. OT – when I was younger and the MT was very young – and we hadn't met – we both used to enjoy Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in "Not Only but Also". The other night, BBC4 replayed a series of their shows. We recorded and looked forward to old times. I am afraid that neither of us could raise a smile – let alone a laugh – except for the very last sketch – the one in an art gallery. We did smile.

    Odd, isn't it, that something that seemed hilarious years ago seemed embarrassing and far too long today?

    Were we alone, I wonder……?

    1. Not alone Bill, I have loads of DVDs of past programs which at the time were thought funny – watching them again was short lived, about as funny as the shitz

    3. No, not alone at all. Some are funny, others are awful. One that made me cringe was someone dressed in a loincloth and turban stamping on an Indian flag whilst making a mockery of an Indian accent. Meanwhile audience found it hilarious. Talk about sitting there wanting to become invisible squirming with embarrassment. It was the otherwise wonderful, Eric Sykes.

      1. I rather enjoyed that sketch making fun of a one-legged man. Cook said "Your right leg is a very fine leg. I have nothing against your right leg, but then neither have you".

    4. Second Son doesn't find any of that older humour funny in the slightest, but then, he's only 23, so never saw it when it came out. Mostly, humour doesn't age well.

    1. Personal Independence Payments.

      They refused me. They said i should get a job as a model as i am so good looking.

    2. Personal Independence Payments.
      Top up for other benefits.
      Never heard of thus ? Nor had I until now. But see if you can guess those more likely to be claiming.
      Article seems to have vanished from the early news.

  41. I wish they would. I am sick of finding the price rise heavily the moment I express an interest.

  43. I did laugh at the 'art gallery sketch' first time round. A lot of the rest of their oeuvre was Cook droning and Moore corpsing.

  44. The Left Wing people on GB News, put on to provide 'balance', have lost control of themselves completely. All they can do is deflect and abuse their opponents in debate.

    Matthew Laza is finding it increasingly impossible to defend the sheer incompetence and nastiness of Starmer's government and he is reacting as the left always does – with spite, nastiness, evasion and blaming others,

    Matthew Laza has become a total disgrace.

    https://www.gbnews.com/politics/grooming-gangs-inquiry-clash-watch-moment

      1. Someone mentioned there is a new element on the periodic table. Govermentium. I think i just discovered another, Sanctimonium.

    2. Morning Rastus.

      The lefties are sounding increasingly hysterical yes. GBNews also reporting official figures of an average of two rape gangs assaults per day still going on. Another police chief saying it's sensationalism to report 1000 known rapes. Is it any wonder lefties are getting in a tiz? They famously don't like criticism with their thin skins and of course it's hard work trying to cover up or excuse corruption. There's something very nasty in the woodshed.

  45. Downing Street Officials Make Shortlist for Tulip Siddiq’s Replacement

    The Times is told that senior Downing Street officials prepared a list of candiates for Tulip Siddiq’s replacement over last weekend, before she referred herself to the independent adviser on ministerial interests:

    Alistair Strathern. Vocal chicken-runner and a Reeves PPS…
    Imogen Walker. Another Reeves PPS and the wife of Morgan McSweeney…
    Josh Simons. Justice PPS and former executive director of Starmerite group Labour Together…
    Kanishka Narayan. Steve Reed’s PPS and former government adviser…
    Callum Anderson. Peter Kyle’s PPS…
    Rachel Blake. Cities of London and Westminster MP and former Gordon Brown adviser…
    Lucy Rigby. Recently-appointed solicitor general after serving as Justice PPS…
    Torsten Bell. McFadden’s PPS, creator of the EdStone, fanatical tax-raiser. The city may not take well to his economic prescriptions…
    This is broadly a list of McSweeneyite allies and likely to cause less of a headache. Sources in Dhaka express their incredulity to Guido that Siddiq was ever hired in the first place considering her closeness to aunt Hasina…

    Tulip is on the brink – Guido revealed this week that Bangladesh has demanded City minister Siddiq’s bank accounts and transaction history after the Anti-Corruption Commission initiated an investigation in mid-December. She is off the list for Reeves’ vanity trip to China in order to help with Laurie Magnus’ ‘fact-finding‘ investigation. At least someone’s here to try to calm the bond markets…

    10 January 2025 @ 08:42

    1. Is there no one with the requisite qualifications? Low IQ, dodgy CV, embarrassing relations, taken loads of freebies??

  47. How long will be it before Sunset Boulevard becomes the figment of imagination, a fairy story of legend on which it was built?

      2. And if California slides into the ocean
        Like the mystics and statistics say it will
        I predict this motel will be standin' until I pay my bill

        Apols to Warren Zevon.

      3. Did you know that's why Howard Hughes hid out in Nevada. He brought thousands of acres in the belief that it would become the coast after the great quake and he would thus make a real estate killing.

  49. I must admit I had to turn it off yesterday because the news has simply become a series of insults against those that did not comply with the agenda. It was like listening to Radio Tirana of old.

    I think the topic was whether global warming was a contributor to the ferocity of fires in LA that no longer made them viable to fight.

    I encountered a very real Fight or Flight decision that everyone living in the Adelaide Hills must come to terms with in high summer. This was twenty years ago, when during a bushfire then, someone in good physical and mental health, properly dressed in natural materials, with access to a water reservoir and a working pump, and had the foresight to put a tin roof on their homes and clear the gutters, and had a fireproof shelter with enough air to breathe, could hunker down during blowover, and then spend the next hours dousing down fires and embers using a hose and save their homes.

    It was a knife edge decision then, and already some fires were too severe even for that and evacuation in good time the only realistic option.

    It seems the balance is tilting.

    2. I remember them Jeremy. Highly entertaining for their absurdities. Remember listening to how there was blood in the streets as police dogs had been set on the workers whilst Mr Fuzz was shooting the people down. It turned out that it was the Dagnam Motor Works doing there usual strike!

      1. Do you remember the withering map C4 made of the union rally when the Wapping print workers went on strike?

        If I recall, the works gate was on the right, and to the left was the union platform with Arthur Scargill a guest speaker and everyone insulting Rupert Murdoch. It was noisy and a lot of hurty rude things were being said, but it was good natured. The enemy was on the other side of the gate, and they were all comrades out there.

        Then a fight broke out, starting with a gang of troublemakers who burst onto the platform and started agitating and calling for more violence.

        The police, who were assembled in their vans at the back then moved in on the crowd, attacking and pulling down anyone resisting arrest. The violent group at the front they left alone.

        There was a scene in the film 'The Grapes of Wrath' where a small gang of troublemakers had arranged with the police to start a riot, enabling the police to break up the Government camp housing those actively seeking work from the Oklahoma dust bowl.

        In the film, the camp organisers had got wind of the plan, identified the culprits, and when one of them started a fight, the steward moved in swiftly and immobilised them. The police then marched in to break up a riot, but the camp organiser, pointing to the hoe-down dancing, replied "what riot?", so the police had to go away and wonder why their plan went wrong.

        Perhaps Scargill hadn't seen the film?

        1. No sorry. Don’t remember that one at all. I only stumbled across it because in Libya you could get very little on the Radio. The BBC world service, so you could listen to The Goons on a Sunday, which was the highlight of the week. Everyone would gather around for that. And Radio Luxemburg, which we would listen to primarily for music. Is that still going, I wonder?

  50. Morning all. This is a continuation of what I was trying to explain about the California fires to Jeremy and others that asked. The disaster is a consequence not of incompetence on the part of the fire department but the consequences of Woke. Woke literally kills, 10 dead in LA so far. To my mind the Mayor of LA and Governor Newsome are responsible for these deaths and should be arrested for their policies that have caused this disaster. So two short videos that illustrate the idiocy of the Woke mind virus and what it has done to LA.

    If I recall correctly, the fish that Trump is talking about is a type of stickleback.

    Trump Makes Joe Rogan Go Quiet with Details of How Newsom Botched Fire Prevention
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpnEMtYkuJo&list=TLPQMTAwMTIwMjVkJHtsw2GFfg&index=2
    Resurfaced Clip of Gavin Newsom Boasting About Removing Water Supplies Goes Viral
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuPxwQNEim4&list=TLPQMTAwMTIwMjVkJHtsw2GFfg&index=1

    1. BLM arsonists & antifa are lighting fires in the non-burning urban areas of LA.

      Coastal leftists are so thoroughly brainwashed in Commie-fornia.. as they lie in the gutter burning to death, their last thoughts would be "at least I voted Democrat".

      1. Arsonists are routine in California when a big fire starts. They seem to be attracted to the flames like ghouls after fresh meat. Used to be that in any fire where arsonists were caught and people were killed that the death penalty was invoked. I think that is gone now thanks to the useless and insane Democrats. I look forward to the day that California turns Republican again. A real possibility. I suspect, at the next Presidential election.

        I could not afford to live in Berkeley now. My one bedroom apt. last time I looked at flats in the building was going for $3,345, that's £2,720.51 that had no kitchen just a divide where you sat for meals. Stove, fridge etc, was behind that. So essentially it was the sitting room. My rent was $750.00. California is really Paradise but the devil has taken hold and destroyed it.

      2. Every film clip I've seen has tall leafy trees very near burning homes, trees still standing?

    2. Watching the TV news here in LA my impression is that the culprit is Climate Change
      On Tuesday morning when I was at the Getty Museum in Malibu and the first always were appearing on our mobiles the staff assured us we were safe in the museum as all safeguards were in place. They were proved right. Maybe these same precautions could have been used by municipal authorities.

      1. Nothing to do with climate change. Fires caused by the Santa Ana winds have been going on for centuries. Thev Indians would not live in the LA basin because it was a notorious smoke trap during the fire season. Plus this Climate change mantra is stuff and nonsense. Anyone familiar with California flora is aware that most of it requires fire. Many plant species will not germinate unless they are subjected to fire, that peculiarity took millions of years of evolution. Climate change, my ass!

        1. True, but importing and then planting swathes of non-native blue gum eucalyptus hasn't helped matters.
          The Californicators have brought a lot on themselves.

          1. The Great Fire of London was almost 400 years ago. London was wood built and after that time it became stone & brick.

            The California homes seem to be, in many cases Stick Frames, skinned with brick/stone in places with many areas covered with stucco, wood, plastic etc etc

            A son has a large, by our standards, home in Texas. From the front it is brick with tiled roof and looks substantial 6,000 sq foot home. The sides are mainly wood panels covered with stucco and the back is predominantly aluminium & glass. Yes, there are steel beams, concrete walls within to provide strength for the high ceiling open plan ground floor, stairs, support for AC units in the roof space etc etc.

            A month ago a tornado passed within 5 miles of his home – carnage for similar homes to his.

          3. Yes sos, can't argue about the eucalyptus. I hated the damn things. I would get a reaction from them if it was a hot day. I'm not sure if it would be classed as an allergy but I would break out in a sort of prickly heat sweat anywhere near a bunch of them. I suspect it was the oil, can't even stand the smell.

        2. Australia similar. Captain Cook's crew reported fires on the mainland and many Aussie flora need extreme heat to germinate.

    3. The problem with gaslighting is when the swirl of dislogic catches fire!

      First off we need to define Woke. Now I am the first to have contempt for this swill of gender and race awareness and wilful confusion that has ruined our institutions and threatens civilisation itself, but I have all my life been concerned about the environment and the consequences of human activity in the name of "progress" and refuse to allow this to be lumped in with "Woke" in same lazy manner Americans misrepresent liberalism.

      Secondly, at no time have I expressed anything but admiration for the fire crews attempted to tackle that blaze in horrible circumstances. I certainly do not blame them for anything there. Their prime enemy is the force of the wind, which is blowing burning embers miles over the firebreaks and making it impossible to drop water from the air.

      I agree that local Government in LA has a lot to answer for. They should be building reservoirs everywhere, so that when it does rain (and it did a few months ago), that water can be jealously safeguarded and kept in reserve. They know that LA is a firetrap during a drought, and any fool knows that fuel levels have to be kept down, even if this costs. Why aren't the owners of these grand mansions public spirited enough to know that what protects the environment also protects their homes?

      I cannot say too much about the crassness of the President-elect when consoling those who have lost everything, other than it is far worse than anything Queen Elizabeth II said or did after the death of Diana, but few seem to appreciate this. He is a boorish New Yorker and we all expect that of him.

      Finally we come to the arsonists and looters, exposing a rather unsavoury element of American culture. There is a strong case for detaining them on spec during an emergency. Public spiritedness is not limited to wealthy philanthropists, but every citizen, even those thinking of getting their own back through arson or self-serving through looting, owe it to their nation to be concerned for the environment it maintains at public expense.

      1. Woke is simply Marxism/Communism masquerading as liberalism. At least that's how I see it.

        For your secondly. I did not think otherwise. Did you think I was implying that? If so you are in error.

        I don't understand what you mean by the people in grand mansions. Public spirited how? If you are referring to reservoirs, the money was allocated years ago but Newsome has not turned over a single penny of the millions he got from the Federal Government for that purpose.

        How is Trump "crass"? What he has said on the matter is verifiable fact, ,known by any Californian for over a decade. And, by the way, he's the man that if anyone is, is going to save the USA and us from the social disaster that we seem to be heading for as Starmer threatens our freedoms and imprisons people for, god forbid, tweeting and writing things on Facebook, it's Trump. I hope, by using political leverage against Starmer and co.

        Arsonists and looters have nothing to do with American culture, that is grossly unfair. We have had our own arsonists here and looters. In fact I suspect the latter are more common here than in the USA. I think you have a very distorted and highly prejudiced view of America. It is not how you imagine it at all. It is, without a doubt, a far freer country that the UK or any other country in the Anglosphere. And neither backward, uncultured or crude. I suggest, if you are able, to pay the country a visit. More friendly or hospitable people you are unlikely to meet elsewhere. And, most important of all you can say and write what you like without fear of plod knocking at your door and, if he does, you are free to call him everything and anything you wish, thanks to the first amendment, Freedom of Speech.

    1. The world is full of far nastier pieces of work than Joey. He simply doesn't tolerate idiots or fools.

      A bit like me then.

    1. I do hope and pray that Starmer and co are under surveillance ..

      The government is attempting to clamp down on free speech .

      We need Musk, he is similar to St George , he could be freeing us from the grip of the communist dragon .

      1. It is not the communist dragon I fear, but the authoritarian one purporting, with his 20% mandate, to act for the people.

      2. He's certainly under surveillance by Musk. I wouldn't be surprised if the US government are watching him either. If I were in the American government I would view him with great distrust and suspicion. Especially worried because of our membership of the five eyes.
        Are you aware of the proposal for the new Chinese Embassy in London? That's enough to frighten any believer in democracy. I can't remember exactly but they want to build 300 to 500 hundred houses along with the embassy building itself. It would be twice the size of their outpost in Washington and the largest embassy in Europe. A nest of spy's and hostiles.

  53. Gavin Mortimer
    When will Britain wake up to the Islamist threat?
    10 January 2025, 6:00am

    Apoll this week in France found that 78 per cent of respondents are in favour of proscribing the wearing of Muslim headscarves at universities and also for classroom helpers on school outings.

    The poll was conducted after comments by the Interior Minister, Bruno Retailleau, in a newspaper interview. ‘Helpers [on school trips] don’t have to wear headscarves,’ he said. ‘The headscarf is not just a piece of cloth: it’s a banner for Islamism, and a statement of women’s inferiority in relation to men.’ In the same interview, Retailleau promised to stem immigration into France because it ‘is partly linked to Islamism’.

    Retailleau’s remarks underline the huge gulf that separates the governments of France and Britain in regard to their attitude towards political Islam.

    This divide is not a new phenomenon. In the 1990s and early 2000s, the French intelligence service nicknamed the British capital as ‘Londonistan’ because successive governments allowed Islamic extremists from around the world to set up home and proselytise with impunity. The most notorious was the Egyptian cleric, Abu Hamza, who for years spewed his hatred of the West from the Finsbury Park Mosque until, in 2004, he was extradited across the Pond at the insistence of the Americans.

    Bruno Retailleau’s predecessor at the Interior Ministry was Gerald Darmanin, who in a debate with Marine Le Pen in 2021 accused her being too ‘soft’ on Islamism. Darmanin is the new Minister of Justice in Francois Bayrou’s government, replacing the soft Socialist Didier Migaud who was out of his depth during his short stint in Michel Barnier’s administration.

    In May last year, Darmanin encouraged Emmanuel Macron to initiate a detailed public investigation into the Muslim Brotherhood’s expansion throughout France. Atrocities committed by men swearing allegiance to Isis or Al-Qaeda garner global headlines, but they do more harm than good to those Islamists whose goal is to conquer Europe because they repel their fellow Muslims. More than a third of the 86 people killed by an Islamist in Nice in 2016 were Muslims.

    The Brotherhood’s strategy is one of soft power. Describing the Brotherhood as a ‘vicious organisation’, Darmanin explained how they deployed ‘much gentler methods…[to] gradually bring all sections of society into the Islamic matrix’.

    This warning was reiterated last month by Bertrand Chamoulaud, head of the National Directorate for Territorial Intelligence. He explained that the Brotherhood’s ‘infiltration affects all sectors: sports, health, education, etc,’

    Darmanin and Retailleau are expected to collaborate on a proposal that the latter first raised in an address to France’s prefects last October. It is a law targeting ‘the nature and strategies of political Islam’, which in the opinion of Retailleau, seeks to convert society ‘in small steps: in associations, businesses and even sometimes our local authorities’.

    At the same time that the French government is confronting the enormity of the threat posed by political Islam, the British government is considering whether to push forward with plans to make it harder to critique Islam.

    This could be achieved with an official definition of what constitutes ‘Islamophobia’, a word that the French government rejected as far back as 2013 when the Minister of the Interior Manuel Valls (now the Minister for Overseas) said: ‘Those who use this word are trying to invalidate any criticism at all of Islamist ideology.’

    Last year, Darmanin said the concept of ‘Islamophobia’ was key to the Brotherhood as ‘it covers their primary strategy, that of victimisation’.

    Much of Britain’s political class takes a different view. In 2019 the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims defined Islamophobia as ‘rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.’

    Running the country in 2019 was Theresa May, a Tory leader who said the 2015 Charlie Hebdo massacre was ‘not Islamic and is not in the name of their religion’. This declaration – made a few days after the atrocity – contradicted the gunmen, who were heard to cry as they left the building ‘we have avenged the Prophet Muhammad’.

    Kemi Badenoch hasn’t got the naivety of May, and at Wednesday’s PMQs she asked Keir Starmer to abandon the Labour party’s adoption of the definition of Islamophobia because of ‘its chilling effect’.

    The Prime Minister gave a non-committal response.

    He and his party appear incapable of grasping the most basic of facts: it is unacceptable to discriminate against someone because of their religion; it is acceptable to criticise a religion.

    Last year, the French government warned that ‘Islamist separatism is a theorised politico-religious project…aimed at building a counter-society. The Muslim Brotherhood plays a major role in disseminating such a system of thought.’

    The French academic Florence Bergeaud-Blackler has been investigating the Brotherhood for three decades and the fruits of her labour were published in a 2023 book. She described how the organisation had implanted itself in Britain more successfully than any other European country except for Belgium. ‘Victimisation has become the formidable weapon of the Brotherhood’s soft power for bending democracies by keeping them in a state of permanent and blinding indignation,’ wrote Bergeaud-Blackler; she was on the radio this week, citing Britain as an example of a country that is all to eager to accommodate Islamism.

    Knowing the Prime Minister, he might label such a declaration as ‘far-right’. It’s not, it’s a statement of fact.

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

    Ianess
    4 hours ago
    We the long suffering public, woke up a long time ago to the terminal damage being inflicted on the nation by the importation of uneducated, unskilled, uncultured barbarians who are in thrall to a death cult. They contribute nothing apart from criminality and take all they can get and more.
    Ask our political class why they continue to import them and provide numerous goodies on arrival, while shafting the indigenous population, destroying our high trust, homogeneous society and driving our per capita GDP into the toilet.

    1. Wearing the scarf shows your affiliation, just as wearing a rainbow-striped neck lanyard for your work pass, or a football tee-shirt. Just choosing the one of them to ban isn't logical – perhaps everyone should wear shapeless grey polyester clothing without logos or stripes, and be done with it?

      1. Not quite. The hijab is a political statement, an in your face statement of rejection of the cultural norms of this country. Football shirts (which are banned in some places) are not normally like that. Wearing a rainbow lanyard just shows you're a doofus – or a poof.

    2. There is no "political islam" there is only islam. It's an ideology with no separation between mosque and state.

  56. Question : Has anyone dare ask why we have had 14 years of Tory government?

    What will the answer be , I wonder ?

    Was it the thought of a Corbyn government that kept the Tories in power ?

    Uncomfortable question , how did Labour get into power , how how how,

    Was it the Muslim vote ?

    1. No, I don't think so. I think it may be because enough Scots and West Country folk believed more in self-governing over anything imposed from London, Brussels or Washington to split the Opposition and keep the Tories in office.

      The difference in 2024 is that by then we had left the EU, the SNP had gone down a warren of lunacy over gender correctness, and that West Country folk realised the Lib Dems were never going to resume EU vassaldom and were returning to their pavements and care homes, with the Leader, like Nellie the Elephant, saying hello to the circus with a trump, trump, trump.

      Whilst the Muslim vote might have affected a dozen or so results, I think it will be at the next election that they would be decisive unless we can define the alternative and make it acceptable.

    2. Fear of Corbyn mostly I'd say, whipped up by the Conservative party – the Wolf at the Door. What people have maybe forgotten is that Sir Kneelalot was an ally of his and is being as Corbyn now as Corbyn would himself have been. Add to that the false flags placed over the years in the form of empty Tory promises – look Red Meat and for the hard of thinking some Kittens – and you've got eternal treading of water, or at least a good lazy 14-year run of being a closet soft lefty party.

      1. They would still be in government if they had had truly Conservative leaders. Cameron and May started the destruction of the party, Johnson was a bumbling distraction who failed to get Brexit properly done and since then there has been no one with vision, ability or any sort of charisma.

  57. 'Morning, Peeps and Geoff

    A rather nippy -3 degs when I crawled out of my pit 1.5hrs ago. Still, it's dry, sunny and windless (outside, that is). However, our 11,500 bird-choppers are not, as expected, doing the business. With a total NG demand of 45.8 GW, those expensive but useless contraptions are contributing a lousy 6.87%. Everything else is just about flat out. Like most, I find torture barbaric, but I'm more than happy to make an exception for Minibrain.

    1. Any self respecting engineer would have included reliability of source as a requirement for national power. Wind sourced power is not reliable, therefore is not a suitable candidate for baseline national power generation. The Government is stuffed with "scientific advisors". A total waste of taxpayers funds.

      1. And not a proper scientist or engineer among all those advisors. All signed up to the same cod "science".

  59. So, The Labour government of Britain defeated the motion in Parliament to have a public enquiry into the Rape Gang Cover Up. in so doing it publicly showed itself to be devoid of any shred of responsibiity, any decency, any moral compass.

    It did so by employing the three-line whip. It's good that it did so, for now the utter corruption of the party system of government is plain for all to see. The motion to have an enquiry was defeated by 364 votes to 111.

    But nine members of the government – Starmer, Rayner, Reeves and Lammy among them, abstained. So much for leadership. Order the troops to advance but be nowhere to be seen yourself. Despicable.

    It’s also plain why they have done this thing. Of the fifty or so towns and cities in Britain where Muslim rape gangs are operating, NEARLY ALL have Labour controlled councils and Members of Parliament. The rot started a long time ago, most publicly in 2008 when the then Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Home Secretary Jacqui Smith instructed the police not to investigate the serious allegations which were emerging. That party, its councillors, the various council social services and the corrupted police forces have conspired to cover up the truth ever since.

    Above all, it MUST be remembered that, at the time, from 2008 to 2013, the current Prime Minister (I can barely bring myself to call him that) Kier Starmer, was Director Public Prosecutions and so HE MUST HAVE KNOWN yet he will have instructed his underlings not to prosecute any case.

    We add to this the current cover up by Keir Starmer of the murder last year of three little girls and the serious wounding of ten others in Southport. The accused perpetrator, Axel Rudakabana, is an alleged Islamist. Not to mention the vicious reaction by the politically captured British state to the riots and on-line invective which ensued and the kangeroo courts dealing out summary ‘justice’ to people who were called ‘criminals’ by government ministers, including the Prime Minister himself, before they had been convicted of anything.

    They are scared, this government, as well they might be. This is the worst government, led by the worst Prime Minister in living memory which Britain has had to endure. Its end cannot come soon enough. When it does, when at last these despicable creatures are out of office, then there will be a reckoning.

    What we are witnessing is the beginning of the end of the Labour Party as a major force in British politics. A one hundred year experiment is finally over. It will never again form a government in the United Kingdom and its place as a social democratic party will be taken by the Liberal Democrats or the Social Democratic Party, preferably the latter, which has a fundamentally decent and patriotic leader in Willliam Clouston.

    An inquiry WILL take place because we, the British people, can NEVER forgive, NEVER forget, what has been done to us in the name of the failed policies of mass migration and multi-culturalism which we have consistently voted against. Kier Starmer and his ilk, right down to the petty councils officials and blind-eye-turning police, will be going to prison. And not a moment too soon.

    1. Quite so, FM. We all knew that Labour would be really bad for us, but never THIS bad. Still, look on the bright side – not even the most bonkers anti-voters would be so daft to let them back in again for a very long time.

      2. Don't worry, they'll give full voting rights to 16 year olds as well as any individual living in the UK plus postal votes for family members living abroad.

        Hell, they might even lower the age of consent to 12 and give even younger children the vote.
        That would encourage even more Muslim rapists to arrive and vote for them too.

    2. The rot started long before 2008. Remember, after referring to what we now know to be Pakistani Rape Gangs not only was Anne Cryer silenced by her own party, but Andrew Norfolk, after reporting on her speech, was told, in no uncertain terms by the Times, not to submit articles that the "Far Right" would use to make political capital.

    3. I'd love to think we, the British people, can NEVER forgive, NEVER forget … Unfortunately, come the next election people will be lining up to place their X in the box next to a Labour apparatchik's name. "This time it'll be different …" Yeah, right.

  60. Slow News morning

    14m
    If Lisa Nandy had a sister named Sandra, who had bow legs and a strong libido, and served someone beer mixed with lemonade, it would be a randy bandy Sandy Nandy shandy.

    19m
    The calibre of Labour – this is Carolyn Harris MP for Swansea East (how on earth did she get elected?):
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1c0155fbb75fda483a1ba1822e93f1355c361752566e4f51448953a57c890743.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/df602e05e1cb7b82c6873baf228ee84cc85910ca02548589c7ba8c0b194a6d53.png

  61. Got to leave now to take the MR to the GP for blood tests. Then booze shopping. Back later.

  62. Of course Reeves has to go to China, her colleagues have made damned sure that America won't wish to cooperate with the UK

    1. Ifshe is anything like a Canadian politician she will be going to China to receive new instructions and a top up on her slush fund account.

      Not ones to miss a chance to sow discord, China are claiming that they can be better trading partners than the US and have offered canada some new trade deals

  63. Ally Pally's first transgender player QUITS darts for a period for mental health reasons – after calling female stars who tried to ban her 'toxic b***hes'
    Noa-Lynn van Leuven made her World Championship debut last month
    She has now decided to take a break from darts to focus on her mental health
    The transgender star has faced calls to be banned from women's events

    If there's one thing I am fairly sure about, "she" isn't stopping for a period
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/darts/article-14269769/First-transgender-player-QUITS-darts-period-mental-health-reasons-calling-female-stars-tried-ban-toxic-b-hes.html

    2. Ally Pally's first transgender queer player QUITS darts for a period for mental health reasons – after calling female stars who tried to ban her him 'toxic b***hes'
      Noa-Lynn van Leuven made her his World Championship debut last month
      She it has now decided to take a break from darts to focus on her their mental health
      The transgender star raving woofter has faced calls to be banned from women's events.

      1. If he wants to compete in men’s events, let him.
        Whilst I have some doubt that being a man gives him any advantage in darts, it’s the principle of men competing against women that I object to.

        And I do accept there are sports where women can do as well as or better than men.

          1. I suspect so.
            But how much of that is practice and how much evolution I don't know. One might think that women, tending to be naturally calmer, might be good at the game.

          6. Yes.
            If a woman I knew at university is representative (which I doubt).

            She won the fastest pint and fastest yard of ale contests on the same evening at an event that was notorious for hard drinking.
            First round timed. Second round head to head, final head to head.
            She also completed both the King Street run and the baker’s dozen on the same day.

          7. I beat my son in a “chug-off” at Christmas.

            In my defence, i didn’t realise what he was asking of me. I just thought he was offering me a beer.

            But he had to film it, part of whatever he and his mates get up to.

            He was suitably embarrassed and i gave him some tips.

            I think he thinks i’m just his mother. Not an accomplished beer drinker and hockey player extraordinaire in my own right.

        2. Riding horses and sailing are sports where women can compete on level terms with men.

          Look at Princess Anne and Ellen Macarthur.

          2. My mother could make a boat go far faster than I could!

            My seamanship was, perhaps, better, but she was formidable at the helm and instinctively was able to follow each subtle shift in wind direction.

          3. But was that in single-handed boats and were you an adult at the time?
            My mother could beat me in the swimming pool, until I was 10.

        3. What about lawn bowls? Surely that does not come down to brute strength so I would think that women would have no issues competing with the men.

          Forget curling though, that requires considerable strength for sweeping and up weight takeouts.

          1. I don’t know.
            However, even there they sometimes require power to break up positions.

            I don’t have a particular objection to women choosing to enter men’s events, unless they are events where the women could be badly injured, it’s men entering women’s that I don’t like, particularly those where strength and speed are critical.

          2. In horse sports women and men compete on equal terms (except that in French racing, les femmes (jockeys) get a weight allowance). Mares and fillies competing against colts, horses and geldings also get a weight allowance, as do younger horses competing against older opponents – weight for age.

  64. Not bad: Grey and damp:
    Wordle 1,301 4/6

    ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
    🟨🟨⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜🟩🟩🟨⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  65. LA wildfire damages set to cost record $135bn.

    Joe Biden announced that the federal government will pay for 100% of firefighting needs for the Los Angeles fires for the next 180 days. He said that he told the California governor and local officials to 'spare no expense to do what they need to do'.

    Rachel Reeves pledges £135bn for LA climate crisis fund.. Just a matter of time.
    Shirley you mean $135bn Chancellor? Nah it'll be parity by the time I get back from China.

    2. Interesting that our Canadian lefty media are blaming these fires on climate change with not a word about the lack of planning or even the arsonist.
      I assume that they promised eternally biased reporting when the liberal party bought their souls.

  66. LA wildfire damages set to cost record $135bn.

    Joe Biden announced that the federal government will pay for 100% of firefighting needs for the Los Angeles fires for the next 180 days. He said that he told the California governor and local officials to 'spare no expense to do what they need to do'.

    Rachel Reeves pledges £135bn for LA climate crisis fund.. Just a matter of time.
    Shirley you mean $135bn Chancellor? Nah it'll be parity by the time I get back from China.

  67. LA wildfire damages set to cost record $135bn.

    Joe Biden announced that the federal government will pay for 100% of firefighting needs for the Los Angeles fires for the next 180 days. He said that he told the California governor and local officials to 'spare no expense to do what they need to do'.

    Rachel Reeves pledges £135bn for LA climate crisis fund.. Just a matter of time.
    Shirley you mean $135bn Chancellor? Nah it'll be parity by the time I get back from China.

  68. According to the assessment of the European Copernicus Climate Change Service:

    2024, the hottest year on record and the first to exceed the 1.5°C global warming threshold
    The main cause of overheating is the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, mainly due to the burning of coal, oil and gas. This has led to an increase in heatwaves, floods, droughts and fires.

    Someone should tell them that positioning thermometers next to airport runways, up camels arses and in BBC mixed gender toilets is not the most reliable scientific method of determining the actual temperature. Will they never learn?

    1. Absolute ballcocks! Does that conclusion include the data from the met stations that our Met Office have at last admitted no longer exist?

  69. Ohh! That got a bit chilly!
    Just shifted a load of split logs over the top of the holly bush stack for adding to the stack currently being refilled and have come in for a mug of tea and a finger-warm!

    I see the Abolish Non-Crime Hate Incidents petition is up to over 10,000 now!
    https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/701051

  70. I just realised why they invented the term 'Woke', because they thought that using the correct term 'cultural Marxism', was antisemitic and people wouldn't really like it.

    2. He's a new one.
      Should children take the name of their father or their mother ?
      I'd guess that if the the mother is actually married to the father. Leave things as they are. Dopey Wokies back off.

        1. If you had given birth to twins (one of each sex) the boy's surname would have been Annesson and the daughter's would have been Annesdottir. [Scandys don't do an apostrophe possessive].

          Yes, I know that they would probably have been your husband's 'son' and 'dottir' but this is only to illustrate the scheme.

          1. Correction to the above [after doing some research (i.e. asking someone)]: if the parents are married, the child usually takes the father’s surname. If the parents are unmarried, the child usually takes the mother’s name.

            Lots of things can happen to change this (as in the UK). The child may (when older) choose his own surname via a system similar to deed poll in the UK.
            A 40-year old Swedish friend, recently married, dropped his surname on marriage (as did his wife) and they chose a completely new surname, to share, based upon his own father’s foster parents’ surname! 🙄

          3. Not necessarily. The -son name could have been her mother’s surname. You’ll have to ask her about it to be sure.

  71. Liz Truss was a disaster. If the sell-off continues, this will be worse
    Governments around the world are facing a dramatic rise in borrowing costs
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/01/10/bond-blow-up-warning-britain-must-get-act-together/

    BTL

    Liz Truss may have been a disaster – But she was right.

    Her failure was due to the PTB, the Bank of England, the financial markets and the MSM turning against her.

    She deserved a chance – and had she been given a proper chance we would probably be in a far better place than we are now.

    1. I don't think so. What strikes me most about Starmer's programme for "growth" is how similar it is to Truss's.

      You cannot keep going committing huge amounts to goldplating and jobsworthing, for which the public gets scant return, then "making hard decisions" over what the public does want or need, cutting taxes to cronies, piling them up on those who cannot defend themselves, and then making up the shortfall through quantative easing and borrowing. A sugar hit of economic madness may be "growth", but like cancer it's not the sort of growth that does you good.

      I said all along that until the public finances are brought to order, Income Tax has to be raised for everyone, spreading the load evenly without forcing sales of assets, so that while it is not pleasant, it does not bring ruin. At the same time, goldplating, waste and unnecessary regulation has to be properly tackled.

      If the civil servants will not play, then sack them and recruit those that appreciate frugality and value for money. Make this part of their entrance exam, rather than questions on diversity, equality and "delivering a quality service to stakeholders" whatever that business-speak means.

    1. Freezing cold here, and not a lot of wind – an excellent day for solar though!! /sarc

    2. In the meantime the bbc has been proudly announcing that last year has been the hottest year sofar SINCE records began. Probably a conclusion reached by a quarter of a degree for 30 seconds. Just in order to keep up the continuous BS regarding GBW.

        1. Pretty much, some weather stations centred in very strange places. Some are reported on but don't even exist.

    3. To be fair they also mention last night being the coldest of the year [all 10 days of it?]. I liked this BTL:
      "A bit of snow and everything comes to a standstill.
      Look at the terrible winter of 1740.
      Number of airplanes grounded : zero.
      Number of cars stuck on the motorway : zero.
      Fact."
      Some BBC troll, obviously devoid of humour, has pointed out that planes and cars didn't exist in 1740 – no sh1t Sherlock! He has 1101 downticks!!

    4. To be fair they also mention last night being the coldest of the year [all 10 days of it?]. I liked this BTL:
      "A bit of snow and everything comes to a standstill.
      Look at the terrible winter of 1740.
      Number of airplanes grounded : zero.
      Number of cars stuck on the motorway : zero.
      Fact."
      Some BBC troll, obviously devoid of humour, has pointed out that planes and cars didn't exist in 1740 – no sh1t Sherlock! He has 1101 downticks!!

    5. And still no wind (other than from certain politicians), Rastus. Together with ceasing WFA, could be a very difficult winter season ahead.

  74. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer arrives in China I wonder if she will mention the tragic plight of their oppressed Uyghur population.

    But I expect the Chinese will respond with that they have had seven enquiries into the matter and that they are about to issue new regulations, so we are all good.

    They could equally ask our Chancellor about the tragic plight of the ethnic population in Britain, I suppose, but then she could give them the same response, so we are all good then.

    1. Not forgetting the oppressive Chinese regime in what was British Hong Kong , and why inhabitants of Hong Kong are flooding into Britain because the Chinese are damned well blocking free speech and the rest.
      Hong Kong for loans .. they are filling our markets full of absolute rubbish , and goods that don't last five minutes , they have enslaved their workers , who have no freedom or rights .

      The idiot wicked Chancellor is dancing with a controlling devil. Rather the way the other fool, Teresa May did with Europe !

      1. they are filling our markets full of absolute rubbish..

        Having worked the factory runs since 1985.. I can assure you it was driven by the likes of.. er, every man and his dog. From Walmart to VW to Philip Green. You should be thankful that 95% of the Chinese Mainlanders still cannot design their way out of a wet soggy paper bag. They have a fruitless obsession with price. They will cut corners, down grade, lower the spec, substitute, remove important bits to achieve lowest price.. because lowest price is best? Right?

    2. Maybe the Chinese would trump any mention of the Uyghur Muslims by bringing up the way the UK has turned a blind eye to the treatment of white working class girls by Pakistani Muslim rapists for the last 25 years or more.

      1. Yes, Blighty is on very sticky ground when it comes to inhuman treatment of its citizens.

      1. But who will replace her if she goes?

        She must go but any replacement within the current government will be just as bad – the whole government must go.

        2. I think it doesn’t matter, Rastus. Feel convinced our real government is the permanent Civil Service, tightened their grip during lockdowns.

      1. 'Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the UK must use "our sharpest diplomatic weapons to help restore control" to borders.'
        Says the sharpest tool in the box apart from the Tool in charge.

    2. If you can do all this and more while maintaining a sly, sickly grin … then you are a British Prime Minister, my son.

    1. I'm undecided whether I want Donald Trump, Georgia Meloni or Douglas Murray for World Dictator.

  77. Pictured: Inside alleged Russian spy ring’s Great Yarmouth lair
    Jury shown photos of ‘surveillance equipment, fake IDs and phone tracking device’ at Orlin Roussev’s home in converted hotel

    A Russian spy ring amassed thousands of items of electronic surveillance equipment at its lair in Great Yarmouth, a court has heard.

    Photographs of scanners, listening devices, cameras and fake ID printers seized by police were shown to an Old Bailey jury for the first time today.

    The alleged spy ring – led by Orlin Roussev, a Kremlin agent, from his home in a converted hotel in the seaside town – had gathered more than 3,000 items of surveillance equipment, worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, to use on espionage missions in the UK by the time police arrested them in February 2023, the court was told.

    Roussev, 46, and Bizer Dzhambazov, 43, his second-in-command, have already admitted to conspiracy to spy with a Russian agent using the alias Rupert Ticz, who prosecutors allege is Jan Marsalek, the fugitive boss of the German payments processor Wirecard.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/09/russian-spy-ring-great-yarmouth-lair-kremlin/

          1. According Google Images they are Russian; but similar climate and proximity probably means they travelled.

  78. Wednesday and Thursday were pretty bad days for Labour. Hard though it is to believe, they could have been worse. On Wednesday evening we came unsettlingly close to rolling power cuts. It may yet happen, on the next cold night of the year. Perhaps tonight.

    How did this happen? Simply put, all the many experts who run our electricity and energy industries, all those who say they know how to safely transition to net zero, all those who tell us they can be confident of the global temperature decades out, failed to predict electricity demand on Wednesday evening.

    The National Energy Operator’s Winter Outlook told us in October that peak demand this winter would be 44.4 gigawatts (GW). On Sunday they were predicting peak demand for Wednesday of 43.3 GW. Yet in real life it was 46.8 GW – 2.4 GW more than that maximum.

    As so often when it is a cold night, there was almost no wind and hence no wind power (and self-evidently no solar power) on Wednesday evening.

    Scrabbling around desperately, paying 50 times the normal rate to some suppliers, the Government just managed to cover the gap. Even so, they would have failed if the Viking interconnector to Denmark had not been able to turn back on capacity, which was offline for maintenance – but we still got less than we expected through the interconnectors.

    So if one power station had tripped off, had failed under pressure, we would have seen power cuts. At 8.30pm on Wednesday night two power stations did just that. Fortunately the early evening peak had passed. It was the narrowest of possible margins.

    This won’t be the last cold day this winter. Maybe the complacent energy authorities will be better prepared then. But the situation will only get worse over time. The more renewables we rely on, the more of our capacity won’t deliver on cold dark nights, and the more we will need to find elsewhere. There is no guarantee interconnectors will fill the gap, since cold windless nights don’t stop at the UK border, and every country will look to its own needs first.

    By 2030, for this rickety Heath Robinson arrangement, you will be paying towards £20 billion a year extra in subsidies, in maintaining back-up grid capacity, and more. That, is around £700 per household every year.

    It’s tempting, but somewhat unfair, to blame Ed Miliband entirely for this situation. True, he’s very much responsible for originating the renewables effort in his first run as energy secretary under Gordon Brown. But net zero is a Conservative policy – a Theresa May policy, to be precise – and the previous government showed no sign of questioning it. It is our bad luck as a country to find Miliband doubling down on it just as North America and much of Europe are starting to have serious second thoughts.

    The policy is a dangerous and expensive insanity that will lead the country to disaster if it is allowed to continue. But let’s face it: even now, few in politics, except for Reform, are telling Miliband not to. Tory policy, insofar as one can determine it, is a bit sharper than it was but still Augustinian in nature: deliver net zero, but maybe not quite yet. And everyone else is cheering the project on.

    This seems to be the way we do politics in Britain nowadays: implement massively controversial projects across party lines, marginalise dissent and smear the critics, until the moment at which they are proven to have a point.

    Then the story shifts and suddenly the taboo becomes conventional wisdom. There’s plenty of examples: lockdowns, quantitative easing, vaccine harms, grooming gangs, and more. Perhaps the net zero bubble will collapse in the same way soon – gradually, then suddenly.

    If so, it won’t be through any kind of intellectual revaluation of it by Labour, the party of the establishment Blob par excellence. It will be through the kind of disaster we narrowly avoided on Wednesday night. Ed Miliband will be for the chop, and everyone will be saying “why aren’t we building more gas and nuclear?”

    The Conservatives were regrettably prone to this style of politics, but Labour is the incarnation of it. It loves conventional wisdom and it is unreflective about what public sector grandees and establishment panjandrums tell it. Only real-world crisis will stop it. It’s a pity that’s so, but in the end it may be the only way.

    Arguably it’s starting to happen already. Labour’s espousal of the crazy nostrums of Mariana Mazzucato and mission-led government, aka more tax, more spending, more borrowing, and government knows best what to spend it on, is already leading it to a slow-burn economic crisis. Its teacher-led education policy will destroy excellence in our schools. Its union-led labour market reforms will push up unemployment and kill jobs. And its refusal to control our borders because of its deference to the international lawyer Blob, and its crackdown on free speech to stop so-called “misinformation” and “disinformation”, is driving seething and barely suppressed social discontent.

    I wrote a few months back that surely Labour wouldn’t continue being so bad for ever. I’m no longer quite so sure of this.

    It seems ignorant of why things are starting to go wrong and impervious to reflection about it. Worse, this style comes right from the top. It can get rid of Miliband if it has to. I wouldn’t mind betting that Rachel Reeves won’t be long for this political world either, overwhelmed and out of her depth as she is.

    But Labour’s problem is that it is Starmer himself who incarnates its difficulties. His leadenness and unresponsiveness, his now-characteristic mix of defensiveness to criticism and aggression towards his widely drawn enemies’ list, now symbolise this Labour government.

    This is what has made us all sit through a six-month masterclass in how to destroy the image of the country, crush the economy, and alienate people who might have given him a chance.

    So a crisis of some sort may come quicker than many of us have thought. The Opposition – Tories, Reform, maybe both, but at least one of them – need to be ready to seize the moment if and when it comes. Meanwhile, get your candles and blankets ready.

    MT

    Mrs Trellis of North Wales
    10 min ago
    This bunch of fools presently governing us are hell-bent on the eco lunacy, but China has over ELEVEN HUNDRED coal-fired power stations!

    INSANE.

    Comment by Tim Southgate.

    TS

    Tim Southgate
    15 min ago
    There is no wind so the windmills aren't generating any electricity. So put up more windmills, says Ed. Any kid knows that 2 x zero equals zero but they all went to Oxford so they know better!

    1. Remember Kenneth Graham's comic rogue:

      The clever men at Oxford
      Know all that there is to be knowed
      But not one of them knows one half as much
      As intelligent Mr Toad.

      1. EV owners, aware of the possible grid meltdown between 4pm and 7pm, could have decided to plug their cars in at 8pm for the full 7kW. Might they have been conFUSED?

    2. Yes, the reporter Paul Homewood all over this in his blog (Not a Lot of People Know that). It is likely to recur this coming winter, combined with WFA being withdrawn could be a bad one.

    3. You are looking at the issue incorrectly. A true net zero believer will be celebrating how the UK has just the right level of supply and there was no waste on unnecessary power sources.
      See, it is all in in the rose coloured hue of the beholder.

      Thankfully Ontario has enough nuclear and hydro electric generating capacity that we can effectively ignore the net zero bs emanating from Ottawa.

      1. I recall that when I visited in 1970, I was told that the coloured lights shining on Niagara Falls at night were intended as a distraction from the reduction in water power, it being redirected to serve the hydroelectric power station?

        1. They divert some water into large lakes near Welland at night then use that water to boost power station output during peak daytime periods.

    4. The Tories will not object. It'll take them a while to change course, since they love the Net Zero scam as much as Labour. I should think their current back room consideration is how they can cajole people into believing that if we're prepared to give it time all will come good by the time they return to power, (they mean in four years time obviously and not when Hell freezes over).

    1. Shifting the blame is just public relations. Everything they're doing is intentionally destructive.

      1. What about the Government statement on the BBC that Mr Musk is "being watched" by

        the Home Office. Why?

        1. Perhaps they're preparing for the moment he realises that they are even more at fault than the politicians, and he turns the spotlight on them?

        2. There are an awful lot of dullards out there who believe that Vladimir Putin and not Keir Starmer is a communist authoritarian who locks up his political opponents purely to silence them. They believe it because the people who tell them that claim to speak with authority. Tell them that Elon is the bad guy who needs to be watched and not the Moslems and they'll believe that too?

          1. There's been no Communism in Russia for years. The Russians are basically Imperialists and always have been save for the blip between 1917 and the days of glasnost. The trot Starmer's not only failing to read his own room, if he thinks Communism is flourishing in Russia, he's failing also to read that one too.

        3. I think the Home Office probably hasn't noticed that the US government has somewhat bigger and more piercing eyes than they.

  80. Douglas Murray is home grown – as is Rupert Lowe.

    Jordan Peterson could handle transatlantic affairs.

  81. "British gas levels concerningly (not a real word but hey-ho that's how the papers roll these days) low after cold snap" they say. Problem? Fire up a few more wind turbines, surely? Simples. What is wrong with the world?

      1. He'd no doubt like to think so. A few weeks of 1963 or even 1981-style freeze up should open everyone's eyes.

          2. The balcony of the London house where we lived was filled with snow so presumably about 3 foot deep.

        2. I remember 63 when the 18 bus I was going from Harrow to Edgware on ran straight on at a small roundabout.
          It was stuck in the snow.
          I had to walk home to Mill Hill east.
          It took 3 hours. No phone to tell my parents. But dinner was in the oven, eaten after a hot bath.

          1. My best memory is of opening the front door in the morning and a drift of about 4ft of snow collapsed onto the mat. That and the cold.

          2. 2 hours standing at the top of Wormingford hill waiting for the bus that somehow … eventually … reached the top.
            Out of interest, I had a thermometer with me; – 20 (F)

  82. Successive Libtard governments razed your gas storage facilities and replaced with student accommodation & flats. Oh dear.

    Nutty-Zero ideology before lives every single time for the swivel-eyes zealots, even if it means people freezing and industry closing down.. to them it'll be worth it.

    1. He was planning to do it a year or two ago so I don’t know if the grant was a thing back then. He put off doing it due to some health issues.

  84. Today FSB has a message of HOPE from Frederica ‘ Hope – We Need It Now ’‘. This is, in our opinion, important. The Globalist enemy that is running and ruining the country wants you to give up hope. Without hope there is no fight, and fight we must. We also hope that Trump is not jailed when he appears in court today for sentencing .

    If you missed it yesterday our article ‘ Rape Gangs – Blame the State ’ on the mass rape of underage white girls by mainly Pakistani Muslims, is worth a read. Please vote on where you think the blame lies

    Energy watch 07.50: Demand: 4.819GW. Supply: Hydrocarbons 54.9%; Wind 10.6%; Imports 13.5%, Biomass 6.1% and Nuclear 11.4%

    Once again demand is relatively high, wind low, and we are perilously close to blackouts, prevented only by gas powered stations and imports from Belgium, Denmark, France and Norway. Curiously, power from Northern Ireland is classed as an import.

    1. It'd be great if he were jailed. Then they could hold the inauguration there, swiftly followed by a motorcade of the usual 50-cars that follows the President around on a 24-7 basis. Then they could commandeer the entire prison for security reasons. Then if I were him I'd start setting up the full apparatus of the State inside 'Sing-Sing' or wherever they send him. Make a point. Be awkward. Work to rule would be a great way of demonstrating how ridiculous the whole lefty lawfare farce really is.

    1. They ( USA) built it and paid for it and are not happy that china is involved in Panama. I do not blame them.

    2. Increased shipping costs are said to be because fewer ships can use the canal because of low rain fall due to climate change.

      The canal connects two oceans but they top it up from fresh water lakes which are running low.

      Damn fools.

      1. It’s worse than that – just using the canal as it is reveals an impending ecological disaster for the region apart from the risks to the canal structure of earthquake damage evidenced by movement in tectonic plates.

          1. The Earth is not cracked up to be as stable as we think.
            There could be several chinks in the planet’s surface in the vicinity of the Panama Canal.

          4. I was in stitches earlier when (I think Fallick) replied that there were many more in China, A O'D. Lost it now

      2. The world is rapidly running out of both Pacific and Atlantic.

        There must be a large sinkhole in Atlantis!

    1. "Are you happy with your performance so far sir"?

      Reply "I'm always very happy when 'far right band wagon' people are really suffering".

  88. The US relies on being able to unite its East Coast navies with those in Texas & Louisiana at a moments notice. Something that has plagued the separated Russian Navies since, like ever.
    Trump will resolve this in 2025.. along with the Chagos Islands corruption scandal.

    1. They shouldn't have sold Alaska to the Americans then. Failing to plan is planning to fail, as the old saying goes. Think it was Confucius said that.

  89. Just how did we get to this point?
    Very slowly..
    I forget who said it.. All organisations naturally gravitate towards leftie socialism.

    They are mental. There is no known cure.

    1. All organisations naturally gravitate towards leftie socialism – until they break.
      At which point adults usually need to come along and fix things. The lefties meanwhile crawl into a corner and reflect that it was going so well and would have worked had they been even more Socialist in outlook.

      1. I always refer to Jeremy's son Tommy Corbyn after being mugged (yet again) by moped thief while walking home in Holloway … It is the second time Mr Corbyn has been attacked this year. Last year …

        “I’m sure the guy who did it was more desperate than bad and I’m glad it happened to me not someone who would have been badly affected by it.”

        doh.

        1. Wasn't there an immigrant 'helper' who went to a Calais camp to 'help' and was raped by an illegal immigrant. She did not report it because it would not have been 'help'ful to the immigrant cause to have done so.

          1. I would not be surprised if that has actually happened several times.
            A bit like the case of the Socialist Workers' Party woman who, after getting raped, was ordered not to report it to the Police but to let the SWP deal with it themselves.
            One of the SWP members was so disgusted by this she went to the press herself.

    2. I have a note of a saying, described as John O'Sullivan's Law: "All institutions that are not explicity Right-wing will drift to the Left over time".

      (Sorry, I don't know who John O'Sullivan is/was; and I guess that this saying has been reproduced and modified over time.)

    3. Yes – the processes leading up to change (in this case decades) are infinitesimally slow; that moment of change itself from those processes happens within the blink of an eye.

  90. Starmer Met Awami League Boss Linked to Tulip Siddiq and Dictator Aunt Just Last Month

    This week Guido revealed Starmer’s multiple meetings with Tulip Siddiq’s aunt the ousted dictator Sheikh Hasina. He even went on a trip to Bangladesh with Siddiq when he was a backbencher…

    Guido can now reveal that just last month the Prime Minister met with the general secretary of the Awami League in the UK – former Sylhet City Corporation Mayor Anwaruzzaman Chowdhury. The two were filmed speaking cordially at an event on 5 December. Chowdhury said on his social media they spoke “about the current situation of Bangladesh.” Guido would soon disclose the Bangladesh Anti-Corruption Commission’s investigation into Tulip Siddiq and other members of Hasina’s family in the UK, all of which are under scrutiny for possession of properties gifted by Awami League officials…

    Chowdhury, who fled Bangladesh after the fall of Hasina’s regime, has an extensive history of Bangladeshi press coverage. He has been named in reports about numerous human rights allegations, including in relation to the death of a student. The Bangladeshi press has named him in a murder case relating to the death of seven people and over explosive charges. Reports there also say he has been named in a case relating to vandalism and looting. All relate to protests in the summer against Hasina’s regime. There is no response to these allegations in the Bangladeshi reports…
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1ba5f5db21c4d565c793e234ab686c845f4e8c67d4efb04027dfb35cf14fdb9f.png

    There is no doubt that Chowdhury is a close ally of Sheikh Hasina and has been photographed with her numerous times. After meeting Starmer Chowdhury promoted a UK pro-Hasina rally in December against the interim government of Bangladesh. He is also close to City minister Tulip Siddiq, pictures of whom feature on his social media. He has been photographed along with other Awami League officials campaigning for Siddiq as recently as 2019. At an Awami League rally held shortly after the 2015 election, at which Sheikh Hasina was present, Siddiq said in Bengali to cheering party members: “Had it not been for your help, I would never have been standing as a British MP.” In her 2017 election victory speech, Tulip specifically thanked Chowdhury, referring to him as “Anwar Mama.” The term “mama” means uncle and is used in Bangladesh to refer to family friends on the mother’s side…

    Siddiq is under investigation by the independent adviser on ministerial standards Laurie Magnus – which Downing Street briefs is a “fact-finding exercise to determine if an investigation is needed.” The close nature of Starmer’s relationship with the Awami League puts Starmer’s final judgement on the investigation into question. The adviser gives advice – any sanction or action on Siddiq is his decision alone. Siddiq has issued multiple statements denying any wrongdoing. Starmer’s personal links to Bangladesh are unravelling fast…

    10 January 2025 @ 12:36

  91. Back home. We got to the GP place 20 minutes early for the MR's 11.10 am apptmt to have blood taken for tests. The two "nurses" were in the phlebotomy room – all the time. No other patients came or went. At 11.11, she was called in. It is my belief that these "overwhelmed" idle people deliberately made her wait. They were doing absolutely nothing. Scandal – envy of the world my left foot.

    1. Exactly the same thing happened to me. They weren't very pleased with me when i complained.

      Completely different at my Dentist. You arrive early and if he hasn't got a patient he will see you right away. They also answer the phones.

      1. Dentist get paid for the amount of work they do….they never know if they can get an extra – "Please can you see me today patient…"

        1. Doctors should be paid in a similar fashion rather than just the amount of people on their books.

          1. Traditionally in China long ago you paid the doctor while you were healthy, but stopped paying if you were ill; payments would then re-start after you had been cured.

    2. We have even come across this in France which, to be fair, has a considerably better health care system than the UK's NHS.

      A fifteen or ten minute gap between appointments is an excuse for a coffee, a gossip or a pop outside for a ciggy.

    1. We're not far from there. But I've only ever seen greys.
      We use to have small bat's in our garden and owls. I think far too many garden lights have driven them all away..

  94. “A Communist system can be recognized by the fact that it spares the criminals and criminalizes the political opponent.” Alexander Solschenizyn

  95. 399940+ up ticks,

    May one ask,
    In the coming peoples inquiry, will one ex PM who made telling statements be called to restate his statement along the lines of
    "these girls have made their lifestyle choice"

    Call gordon brown.

    Dt,

    Majority of Britons back new grooming gang inquiry, poll finds
    YouGov survey finds more than three-quarters of the public want a national investigation into the scandal

    1. And if politicians such as Brown were in any way guilty of aggravating the problem by their cynical callousness we need to know.

      It is becoming more and more clear to many people that Islam is not compatible with Western Judeo-Christian ethics, laws and philosophy. It is not Islamophobia to state this obvious truth,

      Indeed, the Islamic calls for Sharia Law show that Muslims themselves are not happy with the way the established societies into which they have moved run things.

  96. One of my eyes feels a bit gluey. I have some eye drops but they don't seem to be clearing it. I looked on Sainbury website and they are selling Optrex eye mist for £13.50 for 10ml. So i bought their own brand instead. Bloody rip off.

        1. Beware. Eyedrops from commercial sources (and from GPs), including Optrex, may contain chemicals which actually make the problem worse.

          1. Agree, I've tried Optrex both dry eye and itchy eye. The Minims ones I mentioned above are better for me.

        2. Colloidal silver is also a good eye bath if you do have some kind of infection. Can save on having to take antibiotics.

    2. Possible you have dry eye as I do, Phizee…using screens doesn't help, we don't blink sufficiently. I use Bausch & Lomb Minims Artificial Tears (recommended by optician), single use. GP surgery should be able to prescribe for you if you fancy trying.

        1. It's not easy to remember, plus some people think it looks bonkers/nervous tik if I do. Hope the drops work if you try them, 20 to a pack, I only need them once a day now, I never use the container more than once, labelled single-dose. Good luck.

          2. The consultant ophthalmic surgeon prescribed HydraMed. Contains no preservatives (which are the things that make the eye problem worse). Available without prescription online.

          4. I have used Thealoz Duo eye drops for smeary crud in my eye caused by a partially-blocked tear duct. They have worked very well but are only available on prescription. Maybe your GP might be persuaded (unless there is relevant history which I – as a newcomer here – am unaware of).

          5. Thank you. I don't think i will bother the GP though. There are websites where if you pay a fee and lie to all their questions they will send you anything you want.

    3. I use Celluvisc for dry eye. Oscar used to have to have Hycosan (available from opticians) for the same purpose.

    1. Judging from the replies a good number of people haven't twigged that it's a parody account!!

  98. Gold has topped £70 a gram. Now at £70.75. It normally goes up during the week and drops on Friday trading. Not today.

    1. The more Elon Musk embarrasses the Labour party the more i like him. If they were working for the people to the best of their ability Musk wouldn't have any ammunition.

      1. I think his fall out with Nigel might not have been as realistic as we might have been led to believe.
        It's allowed him and rightly so, to rip this disgusting thing that calls its self a government to pieces.

    1. Is that al? Canada was sitting at .9% back in 2023 and the buggers have continued hiring into the civil service with 2.9% more last year.
      That's just at the federal level, provincial and municipal add a chunk more hangers on.

  102. I wonder what 'The Thieves Effect' was on UK employment in December.???
    Trump Effect: U.S. Economy Added 256,000 Jobs In December, Unemployment Rate Fell

    John Carney10 Jan 2025 137

    Employers in the United States added 256,000 workers to their payrolls in November, the Department of Labor said Friday, and the unemployment rate declined to 4.1 percent.

    Economists had been expecting 153,000 jobs and an unemployment rate unchanged at 4.2 percent. The prior month’s jobs figure was revised down to 212,000 from 227,000.

    Most of the job creation in December came from the private sector, which added 223,000 workers. Economists had forecast just 130,000 private sector jobs.

    The figures are seasonally adjusted.

    Retail trade added 43,000 jobs, more than reversing the decline of 29,000 in November. Leisure and hospitality also added 43,000 jobs, closer to the 2023 monthly average of 47,000 than the 2024 average of 24,000.

    Health care added 46,000 jobs and social assistance added 23,000. Those two categories are often described as “government-adjacent” because they are heavily dependent on public sector spending and viewed as less exposed to cyclical economic changes.

    Average hourly earnings rose 0.3 percent and are up 3.9 percent compared with a year ago. Economists had forecast year-over-year wage gains of four percent.

    The much stronger-than-expected jobs figures is likely to strengthen expectations that the Federal Reserve will not cut interest rates again when it meets later this month. Perhaps more importantly, the resilience of the labor market suggests that the Fed will remain on hold in the months to come.

    https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2025/01/10/trump-effect-u-s-economy-added-256000-jobs-in-december/

  103. Earlier this week M Tousi interviewd Raja Miah a Muslim Grooming Gang Whistleblower..

    In summary, in the beginning everything was Ok with the Muslims practicising Islam for their personal inner spirituality, then along came the far right Imams. They smelt the money and radicalised & politicised every community centre & mosque. And now with the help of progressive liberals run every town rather like 1920s Chicago as a mob-like mafia.

    And gawd help anyone that gets in the way. With the police & Mayor & politicos in their pocket they are above the law and do as they please. Including the rape, torture and sometimes killing of local little children.

    1. Let us not be deflected from the fact that islam permits (and indeed encourages) sex with under age girls and particularly preying on kuffar females. The whole purpose IS to take over towns (and ultimately the country).

  104. Mirror Humiliated as No. 10 Denies Scoop Claiming Musk Is Under Counter-Extremism Unit Monitoring

    Last night The Mirror were practically frothing with excitement as they boldly declared their “exclusive” that Musk is being watched by the Home Office’s counter-extremism unit with the headline screaming “Musk Hate Probe.” The progressive media fawned over what they called the “ace” scoop slamming Musk’s “vile attacks” on Labour over the rape gangs scandal pointing to “fears over Mr Musk’s interference in UK politics”. Unhinged…

    Cue the absolute egg-on-face moment: Starmer’s spokesman today denied the reports telling hacks to “firmly steer away” from the idea Musk is under counter-extremism unit monitoring. Instead, like most governments they’re just “using open source monitoring to stay informed” about online discussions. Humiliation for The Mirror once again…

    10 January 2025 @ 14:32

      1. Appropriately “verified”, undoubtedly. We don’t want any of this ‘ere mis-and dis-information.

    1. An important point made in that article, which perhaps many are confused about. What's wrong with an inquiry into criminals? Surely nothing to hide there they ask. But –

      "In a case from Bradford a 15-year-old girl was placed as a foster child in the family of her rapist and made to marry her abuser in an Islamic ceremony with her social worker present."

      These are probably just the sort of skeletons that government should like to keep in the cupboard and I suspect Labour in particular given the political complexions of so many of the authorities involved. It's clear enough that our good ex DPP feels some personal pressure; however, it's probably more a case that the whole rotten edifice is the equivalent of a house of cards.

        1. It doesn't matter at all. The big boys will vilify then ignore any attempts to uncover their unhealthy ways.

          All they have to do is batten down the hatches and deflect any demands for justice.

        2. The stakes are so high they’ll dig in as much as they can. A new administration would ordinarily be delighted to air the last lot’s dirty washing in public. Trouble is that it looks as much like their washing as anything. As I keep repeating… there’s something nasty in the woodshed.

  106. Trump has been given an unconditional discharge.
    He's still a felon and can't possess a firearm.

    What a farce the whole thing was/is.

    1. As of 20th January he reassumes the office of Commander in Chief so won't be short of as many firearms as he needs.

          1. 🎵 California burning 🎵

            Most of those millionaire mansions were inhabited by woke Democrats.

    3. Unless he is into hunting, he doesn't need his own firearms because there will always be secret service security people following hime around.

      On second thoughts, they are not exactly doing well with Trump.

  108. With LA insurers unlikely to pay out wild fire, the celebs are putting it out there for those on minimum wage salaries to help rebuild the mansions. Some of them can’t even make it to their vacation homes.

    Fair play.. even the very very very rich people need donations.

    1. You know those times when the situation is so shocking you can't stop yourself from hysterical laughter?

      1. Do you think that they will carry on laughing when the slebs see what the minimum wage is in California?

        Gotta love those democrats making life so affordable.

        1. Unlike ordinary folk most of those slebs will not be homeless. In fact they probably have several other mansions they can go and cry in.

          1. Yes sickening isn’t it. All we hear about are these celebrities losing their mansions but it is the normal working person that will have lost most. With the rich elite just moving to another mansion or into upscale hotels until the insurance pays up, the not so rich will have lost their rental apartment and maybe their jobs.

            Maybe ginger and trash will invite them into their home, it is just up the road.

  109. On Wednesday this week the UK was between a rock and a hard place.

    Electricity demand was so high that just a failure of one power station could have put the whole National Grid at risk.

    https://youtu.be/lBNZKYoKhCk?si=zQV0_gMfwbhPlIGd
    Fortunately that didn't happen but because so many gas fired power generators had to deployed to keep our lights on (as well as powering heat pumps and charging EVs) our nation's gas reserves fell to an alarmimgly low level prompting a warning from Centrica:

    https://youtu.be/dCAf_8yGQzQ?si=b4Nnh5Sg8hp5o_QD

  111. Wordle 1,301 4/6

    ⬜🟨⬜⬜🟨
    ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    Wordle 10 Jan 2025

    A grovelling Par Four?

    1. Same here…..boring par, once I sussed my missing letter, which took a little time!
      Wordle 1,301 4/6

      ⬜🟨⬜⬜🟨
      ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
      🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      1. Wordle 1,301 6/6

        🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
        ⬜⬜🟩🟨⬜
        ⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜
        ⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜
        ⬜🟩🟩🟨⬜
        🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    2. Better than me.

      Wordle 1,301 6/6

      🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
      🟩⬜🟩⬜⬜
      🟩⬜🟩🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    3. Happy with a birdie
      Wordle 1,301 3/6

      ⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜
      ⬜🟨🟩⬜⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    5. Same here.

      Wordle 1,301 4/6

      🟨🟩⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜
      🟨🟩🟩🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  114. It's Hard to believe today it is 37 years ago when our youngest son was born. We had a nice three way chat with him his fiance, both now living in Dubai and his eldest brother in UK. Middle son is working in Central London today not able to join in. Happy birthday CJ.

  115. It's Hard to believe today it is 37 years ago when our youngest son was born. We had a nice three way chat with him his fiance, both now living in Dubai and his eldest brother in UK. Middle son is working in Central London today not able to join in. Happy birthday CJ.

      1. 399940+ up ticks,

        Evening S,
        And have been doing so for donkeys all the more reason their,the supporters vote ,should have been withdrawn many moons ago and NOT continued in the tribal fashion, voting in a party regardless of consequence.

  117. Bradford is the 2025 UK City of Culture.

    It certainly is – and has been for 40 years or more, but the last word is badly spelled.

    3. Many decades ago , one of my elderly aunts used to take me into Bradford , ( when I was a little girl ) and we usually ended our outing in https://wyorksarchivestreasures.weebly.com/brown-muff-and-co-ltd.html in Brown and Muffs , the Harrods of the North ..

      Best behaviour , and my aunt always wore a nice hat , suit and fur stole .. and her jacket had a pheasants foot brooch with jewels on the lapel .

      I had to be clean and tidy , I had a nice coat and polished shoes , with my hair tidy with an Alice band , which I hated !!!!!

      Brown and Muffs had a strange money system , brass tubes which sucked money in tubes up to the top floor , then change would come down the same way. I don't think money was handled on the shop floor .

      My dear aunt had a cousin who was head cashier there, and the cousin was a tall rigid lady with her hair plaited but wound around her head .. and she had an incredibly long neck .. that is what I noticed anyway.

      She would join us for a cup of tea and a piece of cake in the dining room .. very formal and grand , well at least it was for a fidgety creature like me .

      I soon learn't that whichever way you try to consume a vanilla slice , whether with a cake fork or fingers , there is nothing delicate about the splodgy creamy vanilla custard and jam sandwiched between the slices .. sadly squidging out of either side of the confection … I tried hard, yes I did !

      Aunt always liked a curd tart .. and managed that very well ! Aunt's cousin nibbled a piece of ginger parkin , I love that , and I always seemed to choose the messy options .. I was eleven , or thereabouts.

      I can remember little encounters like that , and always wanted to see what a head cashier in a department store did exactly .. and were there loads of explosive tubes containing money , driving the juniors mad? what did they do in the sales when they were extra busy .

      Bradford in those days was rich and smart , similar to Leeds , and Harrogate and all the other smaller market towns which are still wonderful places.

      Poor old Bradford , the wonderful architecture that told a story of great wealth and philanthropic heart , must now be strange .. A City of Culture?

      Culture is such a touristy expression and not very noble sounding .

      1. I remember those money tubes! They used them in some of the shops in Gloucester. We also had a similar system in the office not so long ago. I remember having afternoon tea with my Grandmother in the Bon Marche in Gloucester. She died when I was six so I was quite young then.

        1. Didn't those money tubes make a noise , sounded like an explosion .. and a brilliant idea .. so secure , no money handling , and robberies either..

          Those were the days when afternoon tea meant just that , and we had to have table manners!

          1. We did indeed. In 1959 my Mum took me out of school for two weeks and we went to London to see the sights. My Uncle and Aunt came to meet us there one day and we all had afternoon tea at the Strand Palace hotel.

            I remember those two weeks so well! It's frowned on these days to take children out of school for a holiday – but I'm sure that was a much better experience for me than the last couple of weeks of term would have been. I already had my place at the Girls' Grammar school, so nothing to be gained from being at school.

            Mum spent weeks sewing and making things for us to wear while we were away.

          2. We stayed in a small hotel in Sussex Gardens and I remember the Household Cavalry riding by in the mornings. We went to the Tower – saw the Crown Jewels after a long time queuing, the Zoo, and saw the poor panda; we also went to the theatre, and had a few trips out to meet friends.

          5. Yes, I remember those brass tubes.

            One of our local supermarkets has a rather similar security arrangement:

            Once the cashier gets more than a certain amount of cash she surreptitiously

            slides notes into an inconspicuous slot in a metal upright.

            This means that there is never more than a small amount of cash available

            for robbers in the till.

          6. I still enjoy afternoon tea. The best I've had (better than Sandringham) was at Chatsworth. One of my projects for this year is to have afternoon tea at as many stately homes as I can 🙂

      2. The tubes were known as Lamson Tubes after the manufacturer D D Lamson. A shutttle or pig containing the money was moved by compressed air from sales till to a secure counting room.

        D D Lamson were still operating in the eighties as I invited the company to tender for a similar document distribution system for government offices in Whitehall. That system utilised larger diameter tubes and compressed air.

        1. Thank you so much for that useful info , Corrie .

          Mine were early memories from when I was a child .

          Did the offices in Whitehall use the system eventually?

          1. Yes but a different (cheaper) system manufacturer was commissioned. The tubes were 100mm dia. and plastic.

            I also remember Lamson Tubes from my boyhood. They were employed in the larger department stores Colmers and Jolly’s in Bath and also the menswear shop Foster Brothers.

            Whitehall offices also employ another system involving attaching document cases to a travelling belt mechanism.

      3. The shop where we had to buy my grammar school uniform had one of those. Can't remember the name of the shop now, but it was all dark brown polished wood and items of clothing in glass-fronted drawers. The money and bill were put in the tube and whoosh! up it went into the labyrinth of tubing to reappear later with the change and the receipt.

        1. Colchester Coop used to have the tubes.
          Bolinbrokes in Chelmsford had those wonderful overhead railways where the cash tootled along over our heads. The assistants used to pull on a chain like flushing the loo, and off the canister would trundle to the cash desk.

      4. There was a branch of Brown Muff's in Skipton too, not so imposing as the one in Bradford, but it was too posh for the likes of us. Long gone, I'm afraid.

  118. Well – I've done the shopping!
    A bit embarrassing, as after I'd packed everything in the trolley, the only card I had in my pocket was my bus pass……..
    So I had to park the trolley, and go home and pick up the bank card and the Morrisons card and go back to pay & collect the shopping. The staff were very nice about it and said "Don't worry – it happens all the time!".

      1. No bus here! Yes, I had the car. It's a six mile round trip, so I did it twice. The bus pass was in my pocket because I used it yesterday in Gloucester.

    2. I think if you had phoned hubby they would have accepted a card number. I know once with a delivery from Waitrose my card bounced so when they delivered it she just put the new card number into her hand held device and it went through.

    3. I've done that but it was Asda – I'd forgotten my wallet (changed jackets but didnt transfer), they were quite good also….

    1. Looks like a smarmy so-and-so. Why should children be unsafe inside and outside their own homes? What's caused that? As for free (no such thing!) breakfasts for children – what are child allowances for? It's the parents' responsibility to feed their children. They had them, they're responsible for them.

      1. Can't feed. Don't breed.
        Few are unable to care for their children through sheer bad luck.

  123. I expect so. Trump likes to play golf so a shortage of guns won't bother him.

    Now the Bidens…they like guns…

      1. Yes – it is. I do remember though, that Trump said it was a "horror show" and he was right. It was during his time of office earlier that imports of trophies were limited into the USA. A similar Bill has been tried in the UK several times but each time so far it's been scuppered.

      1. It’s horrible – I went on many demos in London to get it stopped. But I don’t think the Donald himself was in favour of it – he called it a “horror show”.

  127. I'm increasingly of the view is that Starmer is in line to get a massive payout from the Chinese if/when this 'deal' is signed and implemented. He will share it with Lammy and some of the other buffoons.

    Yuan Yi Zhu
    The Chagos Islands deal is uniquely terrible
    10 January 2025, 12:31pm

    Last year, a Mauritian politician raised eyebrows in Britain when he told a political rally that ‘England has agreed to pay us a compensation’ to the tune of ‘many billions of rupees’ as part of the deal to hand over the Chagos islands to Mauritius. Still, a billion Mauritian rupees only converts to around £17 million, so observers were none the wiser about the financial provisions of the still-secret agreement between the two countries.

    Now we know that ‘many billions of rupees’ also means ‘many billions of pounds’. This week, it was reported that the 99-year lease for Diego Garcia, which hosts the world’s most important military base, will cost Britain £9 billion, or almost a fifth of the annual defence budget. Mauritius, faced with a large budget deficit, has torn up the original agreement, concluded under a previous government, in order to ask for more money. Instead of using the opportunity to walk away from the negotiations, the Foreign Office is now offering to front-load the payments.

    The £9 billion figure, it should also be said, does not include a separate aid package to Mauritius, which was announced in conjunction with the Chagos agreement.

    It would be one thing if the £9 billion in Danegeld brought significant advantages to Britain. But there is nothing of the sort. As we make clear in a new report for Policy Exchange, and contrary to the public insinuations of some ministers, Britain is under no legal obligation whatsoever to give the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, whose government happily sold them to Britain in the 1960s. If the deal goes through, Britain will be paying a king’s ransom to give away sovereign territory to a foreign power with no rightful claim to it.

    In fact, even setting aside the money, the deal leaves Britain far worse off. The £9 billion only covers a lease for Diego Garcia, where the US/UK base is located, but not the other islands, which would be immediately handed over to Mauritius. And while 99 years seems like a long time, history is littered with examples of countries reneging on promises solemnly entered into (a Mauritian minister has already said that the lease, which has an option for renewal, is too long). In any case, it is highly likely that the base will remain strategically crucial a century from now, so that the deal kicks the can down the road at best.

    By claiming the Chagos islands, Mauritius is breaking the binding agreement it concluded with the United Kingdom in 1965 to allow the islands to remain British. In recent years, China has been assiduously courting Mauritius: all it takes is one election for a government hostile to Britain’s interests to assume power and tear up the 99-year lease. Then what?

    Whitehall has defended the deal, whose details it still refuses to divulge, by claiming that it has the support of the United States, by far the most important user of the base on Diego Garcia. Setting aside the private reservations reportedly expressed by Biden administration officials, in less than two weeks there will be a new government in town.

    Several of its leading lights, including Marco Rubio, the next Secretary of State, have already come out against the handover deal. Sir Keir Starmer’s government has been recently trying to build links with the Trump administration: but by reportedly trying to rush the deal through right before the presidential inauguration it risks alienating the new president on day one.

    And there are the interests of the Chagossians, whom Britain treated disgracefully by expelling them from their homelands. Chagossians, many of whom are British nationals, are opposed to the deal almost to the last man and woman. Some of them have even braved arrest – denying Mauritius’ ‘sovereignty’ is punishable by ten years’ imprisonment – to protest against the deal. The fact that Foreign Office ministers have consistently refused to meet with Chagossian groups to discuss the deal is evidence that, deep down, they know that what they are trying to do is indefensible.

    Whether you agree with them or not, most major political decisions are defensible in one way or another. The Chagos deal is different: there is no way in which it can be justified, whether it be in terms of national interest or morality. The British government would do well to use Mauritius’ rejection of the financial provisions to walk away from a deal which, if passed, would represent a low point in the history of British foreign policy.

    Written by
    Dr Yuan Yi Zhu is a senior fellow at Policy Exchange and an assistant professor of international relations and international law at Leiden University

    *****************************************
    Richard Marriott
    5 hours ago
    Starmer's best mate, Philippe Sands is the treacherous lawyer who acted on behalf of Mauritius and against the UK at the UN ICJ. The ruling he obtained is only advisory and should be ignored, but Starmer cares more about his standing with the international lawyer blob, that he does about the UK, which he appears to loathe with a vengeance as only a left wing lawyer could!
    The deal stinks and it is an outright betrayal of the UK.

    Mrs Angry Richard Marriott
    3 hours ago
    I think he belonged to Chambers that defended the likes of Abu Hamza, and a myriad of other enemies of this state.

    JohnB
    5 hours ago
    £9bn for a lease on an island we already own! I just can’t get my head round the stupidity of this. It’s utterly bonkers.

    Cunningham Lowe
    5 hours ago
    "The fact that Foreign Office ministers have consistently refused to meet with Chagossian groups to discuss the deal is evidence that, deep down, they know that what they are trying to do is indefensible."

    Does that mean that Lammy was lying when he claimed that the Chagossians had been fully consulted?

      1. You'd almost think they were setting up a situation where Britons would welcome American interference…

  128. That's me for today. Another cold one BUT sunny. Bought some booze to keep the cold out.

    Have a spiffing evening – there are only two more cold days then global boiling is back….

    A demain.

    1. Not much sun here today – unlike yesterday. There was a glimmer though, as it dipped down behind the clouds in the late afternoon. It felt colder than yesterday, but it wasn't.

    1. Jukes is a good choice. He would have more motivation to try and shut Elon up. Good luck with that !

      The Left really don't have a clue do they…………..They are just exposing those responsible for allowing the mass rape of young girls.

    2. Maybe there should be a probe into the policing of the towns and cities where these rape gangs operate.

        1. Have you got binoculars? You may be able to see a hint of the rings if it’s really clear.

  131. Evening, all. Definitely chilly in these parts; it hasn't got above minus one point five C all day.

    Of course it can pretend it wasn't warned – just as it pretends it knew nothing about the muslim rapists. Lying comes as naturally as breathing, after all.

    2. Doesn't the one on the left look like Thieves?

      Does the Labour party clone the disgusting creatures?

    1. It is a subtle threat. Gaslighting.

      I had similar from my sister after a big fall out in the family. She wanted recruits to her cause. When i remained silent she said her husband and his brother were visiting the town where i live and might drop in.

      All sounds nice doesn't it…

        1. No Ndovu. Far far more subtle than that.

          I heard that one of my nephews was in chemo. So i contacted the other sister and and asked about visiting him.

          His mother then mentioned to the other sister that i had. All hell broke loose.

          All that old bile boiled up.

          This is a woman so controlling that she manipulates everyone around her.

          I hadn't had any contact for 15 years. And i wish i had left it alone.

          My own very personal Pandora box.

          2. That is so sad Phizz.

            We are so lucky with our own close family.
            I've never met this person a distant cousin from my family, but she was on tv earlier this week. She lives in Spain.

          3. Sorry to read that, Phizzee. Families, eh? The few people in the world that you'd hope were on your side, but…

    1. ' was knifed to death on the 493 bus in Woolwich'

      Pretty much sums up our metropolitan areas.

      And the mayor gets a knighthood.

      The MSM is very slow in showing the faces and the stories of those young white girls.

      From this we can only assume our national broadcaster the BBC is also complicit.

      Stop paying the BBC license fee now ! No Paki or black pays it.

      1. There was.
        Second paragraph:

        He was a troubled boy. Had he lived, he would have been in court next week charged with carrying a machete.

    3. Yet the Lee Rigby assassination has gone quite , and the black thugs who decapitated him , where are they , were they deported or shoved out at 30,000ft.
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e7a0f17716b24f2b6d944ee785207e7edea065d4f991297a00c841ccf4aa0101.png
      Tribute to Lee Rigby, Manchester Day Parade, 2 June 2013[1]
      Location Woolwich, Royal Borough of Greenwich, London, England
      Coordinates 51°29′17.9″N 0°3′44.3″E
      Date 22 May 2013; 11 years ago
      14:20 BST (UTC+01:00)
      Attack type Vehicle-ramming attack, attempted decapitation, Islamic terrorism
      Weapons Car, cleaver, knife, and revolver
      Injured 2 (the perpetrators)
      Victim Lee Rigby[2]
      Perpetrators Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale
      Motive Retaliation for British military presence in Islamic countries

      The poor lad was just 25years old ..

      1. I dare anyone here to go to Woolwich and feel comfortable. In your own capital city. It's like a foreign country.

  135. Britain is paying a terrible price for Labour’s surrender to public sector greed

    From teachers to the civil service, this Government is giving in to the unions’ demands, but ignoring the plight of the grooming victims

    Camilla Tominey
    Associate Editor
    10 January 2025 5:00pm GMT

    It surely won’t be long before the courts system is overwhelmed by grooming gang cases. Not criminal charges against the child rapists, sadly, but civil cases brought against local authorities by survivors of this appalling national scandal.

    In the absence of a full inquiry, and with the police now chasing their tails on historic cases they failed to investigate properly in the first place, the only remaining recourse for those let down by so-called “safeguarding” agencies will be for them to sue for negligence.

    This week I spoke to Gaia Cooper. She was criminally exploited and repeatedly raped by a Muslim grooming gang when she was 14. She couldn’t face going to court to relive her horrific ordeal. After being treated like a criminal even though she was a vulnerable child in care, she had no confidence in the justice system.

    So she contacted the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman instead, eventually reaching an out of court settlement with the social services department that treated her like “white trash”.

    Multiple agencies and individuals failed in their duty of care – and one of the reasons the Government may be resisting a national inquiry is because they know the impact on its beloved public sector will be devastating.

    Yet still Sir Keir Starmer, his hapless Chancellor Rachel Reeves and out-of-their-depth Cabinet ministers continue to prop up our failing state with ever increasing quantities of taxpayers’ cash.

    It is all very well blaming “14 years of Tory rule” for the mess Britain now finds itself in. Make no mistake, despite austerity the Conservatives did not cut back the size of the state or state spending. This remained the same in 2019–20 as it was under Gordon Brown in 2007–08, on the eve of the financial crisis. That’s pre-pandemic – so forget all this Tory guff about Covid being to blame for their profligacy.

    But the Government’s economically illiterate response to the legacy it has inherited is proving more destructive to the national interest than anything we’ve seen before. Britain now finds itself paying a terrible price for Labour’s surrender to public sector greed.

    Kemi Badenoch is right: Britain is back under union control. Take the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill that passed its first Commons hurdle on Wednesday. It has been described as an act of “educational vandalism” for dragging pay, staffing and curriculum back under Whitehall’s control, in a move that threatens to reduce accountability and stifle innovation.

    The very reason that academies and free schools have been so successful is because of their autonomy. But Lefties hate them because they are much harder for unions to hold to ransom.

    The Bill has unsurprisingly been warmly welcomed by the National Education Union (NEU). But it’s done nothing to abate the ongoing strike threat, with a ballot due to be held on industrial action after the Government recommended a 2.8 per cent pay rise for 2025-26.

    Labour’s curriculum review – which looks set to defund Latin, make English literature less “monocultural”, and remove “middle-class bias” from traditional history teaching – is already looking positively pinko.

    The review’s language is reminiscent of what Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the NEU, told the Socialist Workers Party’s Marxism conference in July 2022. He admitted that the true purpose of industrial action was about “much more [than] about the issue of pay” but about “taking back control of an education system from a brutally racist state that sends refugees to Rwanda”. He went on to say that teachers’ strikes were “about reorganising society, where we are free from racism and free from oppression”, adding that the school curriculum was “alienating” for students of all races while the education system is “fundamentally and institutionally racist”.

    The NEU has been campaigning to scrap SATs tests altogether, arguing they cause “stress” for teachers and pupils. They’ve already been canned under Labour in Wales, despite parents rightly arguing that the move has made schools less accountable. Yet another case of children potentially being failed, so long as the grown-ups are happy. But grown-ups not cushioned by yearly public sector pay rises are not so happy.

    The reaction of the bond markets to Labour’s first catastrophic six months in power is a stark reminder of what happens when governments throw public cash around like confetti, without expecting anything in return. Remember former transport secretary Louise Haigh’s “no strings” 15 per cent pay rise for train drivers?

    One of the reasons that Britain is paying so much more for its debt than it was is because investors seem to be concerned that Labour is borrowing not to boost the economy, or to improve public services, but to keep their union paymasters on side.

    Not only is the Government wasting eye-watering sums on a growing bureaucracy that continues to fail to deliver for the British people: it’s not even stopping the strikes.

    As well as teachers threatening industrial action, we learnt this week that “thousands” of civil servants are set to walk out “indefinitely” from this month following an order to return to the office for three days a week.

    According to the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), it is “Victorian” to ask staff at HM Land Registry, which is responsible for registering the ownership of property in England and Wales, to be at their desks for three days in five. This is despite repeated complaints about delays at HM Land Registry holding up property transactions. Such stories only serve to fuel a prevailing sense that the public sector can’t actually be bothered to fix all the problems facing the country. It’s all about serving their own interests and being paid generously in the process.

    This isn’t just a feeling; the public sentiment is backed up by data. Public sector productivity is still 6.8 per cent lower than its pre-pandemic level. So Labour is spending vast amounts on a state that is becoming less productive and less accountable.

    I’ve written extensively about public sector rewards for failure – but the so-called public “servants” who so badly let down the survivors of the Pakistani rape gangs are a prime example of this perverse pandering to incompetence and inefficiency.

    Shaun Davies, the former leader of Telford council, who said in 2016 that an inquiry into rape gangs in his town “wasn’t necessary” is now the Labour MP for Telford. Shaun Wright, the Rotherham councillor responsible for children’s services from 2005 to 2010, was elected South Yorkshire’s police and crime commissioner in 2012 – again, under Labour colours.

    Meanwhile, Labour MPs who tried to blow the whistle, like Ann Cryer, Simon Danczuk and Sarah Champion were sanctioned for speaking out.

    The truth of the socialist lie is that big governments deliver very small returns for everyone except those paid for their silence on state failure.

    1. “The review’s language is reminiscent of what Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the NEU, told the Socialist Workers Party’s Marxism conference in July 2022. He admitted that the true purpose of industrial action was about “much more [than] about the issue of pay” but about “taking back control of an education system from a brutally racist state that sends refugees to Rwanda”. He went on to say that teachers’ strikes were “about reorganising society, where we are free from racism and free from oppression”, adding that the school curriculum was “alienating” for students of all races while the education system is “fundamentally and institutionally racist”.”

      I bet this moron couldn’t actually define racism and racist if he tried.

  137. I've decided the only way to escape the lunacy that assaults us daily is to invest a modest sum to enter the euro millions draw – that way if I win top prize I can sod off and buy an island somewhere pleasant….Wish me luck.
    PS If you don't hear from me tomorrow I will be too busy scanning Islands for Sale adverts…..

      1. Keep it up sos. The more the EuroMillions Gods see that they'll probably take more pity on me and draw my chosen numbers!

      1. It shows that the Conservatives are simply terrified of the potential vote for Reform replacing them in the next local elections.

        1. They should have thought of that before deciding to act as Liebour Lib-Dum lites. Etween 2015 and 2024.

  142. Reeves' public sector pay profligacy, the increases in minimum wages and the stoking of inflation is going to bite her/Labour very hard in 2026.

    I wonder how long it will be before the penny drops and she removes the "triple lock".

  143. Another day is done and I'm exhausted, AS USUAL So I wish all our NOttlers a GOODNIGHT. Schlafe Gut Bis Morgan Fruh.

        1. I'm not going to listen to either of those now, Obers. because they will make me cry. The colliery band version of the Ave Maria is always a killer – you often post it, so I dread to think just how beautiful and emotional the trumpet version you are posting now. What is it about the lonely trumpet?

          Later, when I can afford the tears, I will listen – thank you!

    4. Nightie night, dear Sir J. Wishing you a refreshing deep sleep and beautiful dreams :-))))

  146. I read earlier that some of the more prominent members of our government have taken up photography. And they are getting all the public in to focus.

  147. Not a bad day's activity.
    After getting a heap of split logs over to where they needed to be stacked, I carried a load of logs down from one end of the house to the sawing area at the other end and got them sawn. Graduate son has also cleared the backlog of those awaiting to be stacked.
    Hopefully, I should be somewhere close to refilling the stack I finished burning last month.

  151. It looks like the two cheeks are cancelling democracy, the chance for people to register their disapproval of the mainstream party's at the local elections.
    But alas all too late.
    They've cancelled them.

    1. The Reform Party's membership ticker is ticking up nicely 250+ new members in the past hour…

        1. Sounds like something Hitler might do. Democracy is cancelled – move along there, nothing to see here.

      2. People at the local are coming up to me and whispering, "I've become a Reform UK member." Very encouraging.

        2. Apparently my friend’s wife (the one in Wales who stood at short notice as Reform MP at the GE) was interviewed on Radio 4’s PM programme last week.

  152. An expert has warned that the new virus currently spreading in China could reach "other parts of the world."

    The human metapneumovirus (HMPV), which has seen a recent surge in cases across China, has prompted the country’s Centers for Disease Control to call for additional measures to curb its spread.

    Will the Chancellor be tested and quarantined when she lands back in the UK.. as she has crashed the economy , she just might crash the health of the nation?

  153. Evening, all – again. Just to warn you my internet connection keeps dropping out, so if I disappear, you'll know why. Wishing you all goodnight, just in case!

      1. It did! I’m hoping the connection will be more stable today. Still below zero here and the surfaces are like a skating rink – and I never was any good on skates thanks to having weak ankles 🙁

    1. Arabs, eh? Keeps the kids occupied at least.

      Next day at the madrassa.

      "What did you do yesterday, Mohammed?"

  155. Starmer made a lot of his desire to see civil servants work with new efficiency after getting out of their “tepid bath of managed decline.” For about 24 hours before he rolled back on that one…

    At least one Cabinet minister is finding creative ways of using the ingenuity of civil servants. Guido hears from multiple Whitehall sources that Deputy PM Angela Rayner moved from her place on Vincent Square in December to a swanky government-owned flat in Admiralty House. Not that she did the move herself…

    Rayner incredibly instructed civil servants in her private office to help with some of the removal – taking furniture here and there, cleaning up. Staff responsible for running the Deputy PM’s office were made to box up items to pack into a van outside. Guido hears they even emptied her fridge…

    There is some disbelief in Whitehall. A Cabinet Office source tells Guido:

    “Didn’t realise ‘removal man’ comes under the job description for Rayner’s civil servants.”

    There is no word on whether the civil servants moved Rayner’s tepid bath as well. Interesting use of the machinery of government there… https://order-order.com/2025/01/10/rayner-caught-using-civil-servants-to-help-move-house/

    1. She's such a chav – probably thinks "civil servants" are her servants, there to wait on her.

        1. Gosh – as I mostly use A4 hopefully it comes out positive. My goodness, what a worry! :o)

      2. Hi Hertslass. We don’t do Instagram either. If you click on the link and then somewhere there should be an ‘x’ you can tap and it will play. Hopefully.

      5. When I started work in 1961 we had foolscap paper and legal which was larger. The A sizes were developed after the war and are used by most countries.

    5. Hello again and Happy New Year to you too!

      I see you around and about sometimes, but it's lovely to have you pop into NOTTL with a message.

      Hope the coming year is a good one for you.

      1. Good evening Hertlass I hope the coming year is good for you and all of us, but I have my doubts.

        1. Yes I have my doubts too, but the wish was for your personal year to be as good as it can be. What happens to us as people of this country, is a different matter… :o(

  160. Well, chums, it's now time for my bed. So I wish you all a Good Night, sleep well, and see you all tomorrow,.

Comments are closed.