Friday 10 May: Constituents deserve to have a say when MPs change their allegianceFriday 10 May:

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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523 thoughts on “Friday 10 May: Constituents deserve to have a say when MPs change their allegianceFriday 10 May:”

  1. Good morrow, gentlefolk. Today’s (recycled) List
    CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING:

    If you refine heroin for a living, but you have a moral objection to liquor.
    You may be a Muslim
    If you own a £3,000 machine gun and £5,000 rocket launcher, but you can’t afford shoes. You may be a Muslim
    If you have more wives than teeth. You may be a Muslim
    If you wipe your butt with your bare hand, but consider bacon unclean. You may be a Muslim
    If you think vests come in two styles: Bullet-proof and suicide. You may be a Muslim
    If you can’t think of anyone you haven’t declared Jihad against. You may be a Muslim
    If you consider television dangerous, but routinely carry explosives in your clothing. You may be a Muslim
    If you were amazed to discover that cell phones have uses other than setting off roadside bombs. You may be a Muslim
    If you have nothing against women and think every man should own at least four. You may be a Muslim
    If you find this offensive or racist and don’t forward it. You may be a Muslim.

    2. The fundamental problem with muslim is that whereas Christianity and this country generally went through it’s religious barminess some thousand years ago, muslim hasn’t reached that point of rejecting it’s stupidity and growing up into the bake sale and social club that the Church is. It is still a savage, backwater poplated by the unintelligent uneducated savage from the third world.

      The difference is where we had swords and axes they have access to machine guns and bombs and worse, planes so can move around the world to do far more damage

      1. Nope. The fundamental difference is caused by the complete opposites of the characters and teachings of their respective founders who have antagonistic views of their respective Gods. They cannot be reconciled.

        1. For me, the biggest difference between Christianity and Islam is over the concept of Love.

          In Christianity, Love is considered godly, and a great virtue. Christ commands us to love one another and to love God with all our hearts. Of faith, hope and love, the greatest of these is Love. This quote came from St Paul, a Greek from modern-day Turkey. Greeks have a number of words for Love, each of which covering differing aspects of it, displaying a deep understanding of the concept. Much of the New Testament was written by Greeks.

          Within the Islamic Quran, however, love is sinful – akin to lust in our language, and is to be avoided. It is closer to the Buddhist aversion to desire, which they consider to be the root of all suffering. The love of God towards those who are faithful to His law and submit, is more like favour than the Love understood by Christians, which has no favourites.

      2. Jesus told his followers to love their enemy. Mohammed told his followers to kill their enemy (anyone who would not convert to Islam).

  2. The Elphicke defection seems utterly bizarre but perhaps not when one remembers she inherited her seat from her perverted husband.

    1. That someone can migrate from the Conservative to the Labour Party speaks volumes for the state of politics in the UK!

      1. It’s somewhat staggering. Her letter was full of the usual doublethink but to think Labour are moderate and the Tories not when, clearly and demonstrably they are *all the same* is laughable.

    2. Perehaps it is time for people to actually take notice of WHO they are voting for, rather than the party label?
      It is also time for the local party members to regain control of candidate selection. By all means have candidates suggested by central office/party HQ, but ensure that those who will be working to get them elected have their say.

      1. Doesn’t make any real difference, though, does it? The entre process of elections is pointless. One party are put out of office, but the exact same policies are implemented.

        Taxes continue to rise, legislation and regulation proliferates, state debt soars, unwanted and unwelcome globalism continues to march forward.

        Not once are the public considered – the only time they have been the machinne set about ensuring not a single benefit would be had from it, and in fact forced the decline to ensure as much damage as possible.

        The problem isn’t voting. It’s the entire system. We do not live in a democracy.

  4. Good morning all.
    Not quite 7½°C on the Yard Thermometer, but it is a lovely morning.
    I need an early run to Twigg’s in Matlock, one of the 2 way light switches in the kitchen is throwing a hissy fit and not properly working.

  5. Starmer will use terror laws to tackle migrant crossings. 10 May 2024.

    Sir Keir Starmer will vow on Friday to use terror laws to tackle the small boats crisis, as part of plans to work more closely with Europe to combat people smugglers.

    The Labour leader will announce plans to scrap the Rwanda scheme and use the money to create a border security command with new powers to treat people smugglers like terrorists.

    These are just words. It is necessary to understand when talking about Mass Migration that all the political elites of whatever party are in favour of it.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/05/09/keir-starmer-terror-laws-migrants-eu/

    1. Until they start talking about repealing the laws that prevent us from deporting the scum they’re not taking it seriously. For some reason the state is determined to add more law rather than undo the real problem.

      I suspect that’s because it makes it harder to rechain the country to the hated EU, but hey ho.

        1. It is outrageous migrants get special treatment. If and when granted asylum they should get a job and find somewhere to rent. We have more than enough homeless and people living in substandard accommodation as it is without them being given the keys to new build properties.

          1. There is an organised outcry if migrants aren’t catered for. Our government just thinks they can shove our oppressed around as there is no outcry.

    2. It is necessary to understand when talking about Mass Migration that all the political elites of whatever party are in favour of it.

      The question people ought to ask is ‘Why’?

      The hackneyed ‘the UK needs people to do the work’ should be dead in the water as the reason for driving mass immigration. There is a sufficient number of unemployed people here to do the work if the government would incentivise working as successfully they incentivise loafing about at the taxpayers’ expense.

      In addition, when we see the deadbeats crossing the Channel it is clear these illegal immigrants are not coming here to do useful work. If they had the work ethic they would remain at home and do their damnedest to improve their homeland and their families’ lot.

      Both modes of immigration i.e. ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ are worrying but the Channel hoppers are especially so.

  7. Good morning, chums. Excellent weather today for washing some clothes and sitting out in the garden. And my best ever Wordle result.

    Wordle 1,056 2/6

    🟨⬜🟩🟩⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  8. “Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”

    Now why did that quote, by George Orwell from Animal Farm, come to mind when I heard the news about the Conservative MP, Elphicke, defecting to Labour?

    1. I can’t think why Mr Jellybee! Are you preposterously suggesting that they’re all the same?!

    2. Amazing how Orwell described 21st century Britain so accurately.

      Quite amazing.

      2. It is uncanny. First time I read Animal Farm, it was a novelty. Something that happened ‘over there’. Far too alien a concept for it to apply to England. Roll forward several decades and here we are. It really is unbelievable. And I do do think it is because an out of touch ruling group have been allowed to flourish unchallenged. They, in no way, whatever the party, represent ordinary people. It is as if they are another species. I suppose Orwell would have gone to school with this type. He knew them well. Very prescient even so.

    2. Is it just me?

      If I vote for an MP of a particular party then, win or lose, he/she represents the party of my choice. My mandate has been honoured. If that same MP then defects to a party I would never vote for, then he/she has de facto directly transferred my vote to my enemy.

      Any renegade, self-serving, floor-crossing, treacherous bastard should, in those circumstances, be made to stand down —with immediate effect — and wait for a by-election.

      Either that or they should be shot, post-haste, for treason.

      Is it just me who thinks that way?

      1. No.
        You’re getting soft in your old age, Grizz! Surely they should be boiled in oil before being shot?

        1. Indeed, Paul. Too much Swedeweed (dill) in my diet has softened me up. Torture is a wonderful — time-honoured — treatment for traitors.

    3. Morning Michael & all

      I’m surprised Starmer wasn’t drawn with his left hand up her backside!

      (Starmite – you either loathe him or loathe him)

  10. Good morning, all. Sunny start to the day.

    84 years ago today, Winston Churchill took over as Prime Minister.

    Where, O where, are the Churchills of today?

  11. Good Morning folks, another bright sunny start

    Wordle 1,056 4/6

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

    2. The price to be paid for living in a world class city.
      Live with it ……. um …….

    4. “Mugging”?

      Oh, that would be attempted robbery then. [No offence on the statute book called “mugging”].

  14. GP system failure

    SIR
    – I’ve had a good deal of pain and difficulty in walking for a week
    because of a swollen foot. I thought the problem would resolve itself
    with rest, but it didn’t. On Wednesday at 10am, I went to my GP’s
    website to complete the form to request an appointment, but I couldn’t
    because it said that no further appointment requests were available that
    day. I should add that the system does not let anyone complete a form
    outside practice hours.

    I telephoned the practice and explained my
    problem to the receptionist, and was advised to call NHS 111, which I
    did. The service was very helpful but it took 20 minutes to explain my
    symptoms. I was told that I would receive a callback within six hours.
    Four hours later the call came and I was told that my GP would telephone
    the next day.

    At least five people became involved in this charade – just because I was not allowed to complete a form online.

    James Woods
    Frome, Somerset

    I have the same problem. I need regular acute medication which i am unable to order with my other regular prescriptions as it needs to be signed off by a GP rather than the prescribing team.

    When contacting the practice website it directs me to Patient Access which doesn’t have the medication listed.
    Neither does Boots online Pharmacy which is linked to the Practice. I was informed by the Practice not to order my medications this way but to use my NHS login which wants me to download an App. I don’t have that ability.

    The only other route is direct contact with a doctor through Anima.
    Not only have i run out again i am still waiting a response. It will probably be somewhen next week as no one answers the phones on Fridays, Saturdays or Sundays.

    The system is designed to deter patients for the benefit of the business. They get paid by the Government wether they see/treat you or not. How very Soviet.

    1. Once I had acces to systymonline I found I could make routine repeat prescription requests and ask for other irregular medication as long as it had been previously prescribed.

        2. I used to be able to do that, but then they signed up to the centralised NHS online portal. They “upgraded” it recently, forcing users to download and install an app from Google, Apple or Microsoft that does not support my laptop.

          I then had to resort to telephoning the surgery.

          I wonder how much of the extra NHS budget goes to the surgery, and how much goes to Google, Apple or Microsoft?

    2. Once I had acces to systymonline I found I could make routine repeat prescription requests and ask for other irregular medication as long as it had been previously prescribed.

    3. Not sure what the system is here now but I think there is a new one. OH often finds his medications get out of synch as some run out sooner than others.

      1. I have the same problem, Jules.

        Some are in 28 packs others in 30s hence my use of a dosette box (holding 14 days worth) and a spreadsheet to keep track.

    4. Ping pong public services.

      One way of dealing with this is if you get a twinge, of any kind, book an appointment in case it progresses. You can always cancel if needed. Do this for any kind of public service organisation. Lots of well-paid people have to fill in lots of forms for you to enter the system, you see.

      1. Booking an appointment with the Practice is just as difficult. you are number 30 in the queue, cue 3 minutes of recorded messages, you are number 29 in the queue, 3 minutes of recorded messages, you are number 43 in the queue.
        When you finally get an answer after an hour all appointments for the day are gone. Please try again tomorrow.

  15. BBC fav Bushra Shaikh tells us on X that..
    those who continue to bring up grooming gangs, sharia law, or ‘invasions’ have all been duped into fringe politics. Grow up.

    however, deleted tweet also tells her followers..
    सुनो अंग्रेजों,
    अगर तुम्हें इस्लाम पसंद नहीं है तो ब्रिटेन छोड़कर कहीं और चले जाओ।
    : बुशरा शेख, BBC संवाददाता

    Listen British,
    If you don’t like Islam then leave Britain and go somewhere else.

    So diverse, so progressive.. so fringe politics.

  16. BBC fav Bushra Shaikh tells us on X that..
    those who continue to bring up grooming gangs, sharia law, or ‘invasions’ have all been duped into fringe politics. Grow up.

    however, deleted tweet also tells her followers..
    सुनो अंग्रेजों,
    अगर तुम्हें इस्लाम पसंद नहीं है तो ब्रिटेन छोड़कर कहीं और चले जाओ।
    : बुशरा शेख, BBC संवाददाता

    Listen British,
    If you don’t like Islam then leave Britain and go somewhere else.

    So diverse, so progressive.. so fringe politics.

  17. Good Moaning.

    You really couldn’t make it up. This is the level of security when the Foreign Secretary parades in front of the media.
    I assume Lord Greenswill knew the Chinese already had the date of his dog’s birthday.

    Madeline Grant in the DT.
    “Even more reassuringly, reporters and civil servants arriving for Lord Dave’s first major foreign policy speech to a British audience were told that the security code for the doors was “1234”. “

    1. It’s a well known fact that British reporters and civil servants can’t count as far as 5 or higher.

  18. Good morning, all. Another bright and sunny day in the offing.

    This week’s The Highwire – ”The Fall of Safe and Effective’ – has an excellent opening 40 minutes – that’s as far as I’ve got and the next segment is about power generation. I’ll get to watch that later.

    Following AZ’s announcement re their covid “vaccine” – and it is amazing the number of ‘supporters’ the latter has on social media (Bots?) – there appears to be an ever-so-slow movement towards reporting that the “vaccines” aren’t the panacea the initial hype would have the people believe it was.

    USA Senator, Ron Johnson (R – Wisconsin,) who has led a number of committees investigating the covid jabs and their side-effects is now of the opinion that a ‘crack in dam’ has appeared re reporting what was once taboo, and the work is now to widen that crack and eventually bring down the dam.

    One example is the prestigious, Cleveland Clinic, and here is evidence from this august medical establishment of an admission that all is not quite right with the “vaccines”.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3e98b7e39d292c70679fc2e680d112fc9bd40846ec8bc97de720d592dcfb3b81.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5c5b0c7a3f7ca97b410f576395fd7097924ad8218ce6a101919d969c932c0394.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/394b50386e572a4e3b6c8650a05941f2194102a5abb1b13e39e5d491dd26c1b0.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9ce01069ead5545f9518ed9816bcc913f4637841488a5a0a011a703c88fad3f5.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/20d6cb74c4035b5c7e6419ce706e27286d401f719e4f8d50ca98c05d25983582.png

  19. 387230+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Friday 10 May: Constituents deserve to have a say when MPs change their allegiance:

    A visible fact that these last four decades ALL political top rankers in the three overseeing parties have been interchangeable, ALL from the family chameleon, ALL able to change and blend into today’s treachery, seamlessly.

    ALL / 99% answer to WEF / NWO firstly, with home turf considerations being well down the pecking order as in ” stand aside in ALL departments indigenous, foreign illegal invaders coming through”

    The majority of constituents / voters have certainly done a number these past four decades on decent old blighty, tis now unrecognisable and the complete reverse to what not long ago, was.

    Proof of destruction via the polling stations,

    London has truly fallen, three more Capitals to go.

    po

  20. Well knock me down with a feather:

    “A CIVIL servant has claimed she was warned not to tackle the poor performance of a colleague because they had “too many protected characteristics”.

    The official, who works in the Home Office, told a think-tank event that superiors had warned her there could be “bad publicity” if she disciplined the individual. She made the remarks after John Glen, the Cabinet Office minister responsible for Whitehall, said he would make it easier to sack underperforming mandarins.

    It comes as Downing Street plans to reduce the size of the Civil Service by 70,000, to pre-covid levels, and use the savings to boost military spending.

    The female Home Office official, who did not give her name, told an event held by the Reform think tank of her experience with a poorly performing official.

    She said that when she tried to take formal action she was told “don’t do it, there’s too many protected characteristics involved in terms of bad publicity”.

    Protected characteristics are features such as age, disability, gender, religion and sexual orientation that could be cited in cases of discrimination.

    Mr Glen said in response to the claim that he was “alarmed at anything that encourages reticence to take forward performance management”.

    He added: “It’s just not right. We need to respect all the people who work in the Civil Service, whatever protected characteristics they have.

    “But we can’t make it so onerous … because we’re so sensitive to every single sensitivity that we might get wrong or be challenged on. And so I am very clear we need to put some robust guidelines around because it is important.”

    In a speech at the BT Tower in central London, the Cabinet Office minister outlined plans to roll out performance-related pay for civil servants.

    Under the scheme mandarins who meet pre-agreed targets related to the projects they manage would be financially rewarded.

    At the same time, Mr Glen said he would bring forward reforms to make it easier for Whitehall to sack officials who consistently underperform.

    He said: “Too often, high performance doesn’t get recognised, rewarded or incentivised properly.

    “However, our current pay structure and the absence of recognition for outstanding performance can breed significant issues. It not only drives talented individuals towards the private sector for better compensation, but it can also fuel grade inflation, where promotions are used to circumvent government-wide pay freezes.”

    Mr Glen said performance-related pay will be piloted at senior levels within the Civil Service but could be rolled out on a much wider basis if successful.

    He also warned that disciplinary processes were so difficult many departments simply tried to move poor performers elsewhere in Whitehall.

    “We simply cannot allow poor performers to go on hiding in plain sight, dragging down their hard working colleagues and hindering progress,” he added.“

    1. 40% of the London civil service comprises immigrants (1st or 2nd generation). This is why the civil service thwarts immigration curbs.

    2. 40% of the London civil service comprises immigrants (1st or 2nd generation). This is why the civil service thwarts immigration curbs.

  23. Good morning all.
    The golfer is golfing .

    Blue sky here , birds are tweeting and why on earth can’t we see sky larks as they soar and sing? 12c so far , temp reached 25c yesterday .

    What do you think of Dominic Cummings , he is a sharp eyed weasel , he keeps the rabbits on high alert .

    Dominic Cummings has unveiled plans for a new “Start-Up Party” which he claims could replace the Conservatives.

    Speaking to the i paper in his first interview since leaving Downing Street in 2020, Boris Johnson’s former chief adviser said the new party could capitalise on the expected collapse in the Tory vote at the next general election.

    The Vote Leave mastermind claimed a majority of the electorate would support a party that is “completely different” to Labour and the Tories.

    “The Tories now obviously represent nothing except a continuation of the sh– show; higher taxes, worse violent crime, more debt, anti-entrepreneurs, public services failing, immigration out of control,” said Mr Cummings.

    Advertisement

    “But Labour I think will not alter the ultimate trajectory very much, they’ll be continuity Treasury, continuity David Cameron, George Osborne, Sunak, so everything will keep failing and everyone will be even more miserable by 2026 than they are now.

    “So, to change that you have to have two fundamental things: you have to have an entity which is ruthlessly focused on the voters, not on Westminster and the old media.

    “And you have to have something which is friendly towards all the amazing talent in the country, people who build things in [the] private and public sector.”

    There is no suggestion Mr Cummings’s party would stand candidates in the next general election and he admitted that the ‘first past the post’ electoral system would make it difficult for a new party to break through.

    But he insisted Nigel Farage’s expected return to frontline politics could irrevocably damage the Conservatives at the next election and pave the way for a new party to replace them.

    “If Farage un-retires, the Tories could easily be driven down to double-digit seats and then discussions of a Start-Up Party and replacing them will go from a very fringe idea to being a very mainstream idea,” he said, adding that the former Brexit Party leader would not be welcome in the new party.

    Mr Cummings revealed he hadn’t spoken to Boris Johnson since November 2020, when he left office

    Mr Cummings also said a Keir Starmer-led Labour government would offer no meaningful change from the Tories.

    “They’ve got a duff leader who’s s–t at politics, can’t communicate, doesn’t actually have any picture of how he wants to be different, he just wants him to be in charge of the broken old institutions and then do what the Civil Service tell him to do all day,” he said.

    He added that the quality of Labour MPs was not high and would make it harder for Sir Keir to deliver what voters want.

    In the wide-ranging interview, Mr Cummings also revealed he has not spoken to Mr Johnson since he walked out of No 10 in November 2020.

    He claimed the Tory party has not taken advantage of Brexit opportunities since Britain left the European Union.

    Mr Cummings also took aim at the Government’s support for Ukraine, describing the country as a “corrupt mafia state” and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, as a “pumpkin”.

    “We should have never got into the whole stupid situation,” he said. “This is not a replay of 1940 with the pumpkin Zelensky as the Churchillian underdog.

    “This whole Ukrainian corrupt mafia state has basically conned us all and we’re all going to get f—–d as a consequence. We are getting f—–d now, right?”

    Mr Cummings said the West’s support for Ukraine had pushed Russia closer to China and taught Vladimir Putin “that we’re a bunch of total f—–g jokers”.

    “I mean Putin already knew that before the war,” he said. “But this has emphasised it and broadcast it to the entire world.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/05/09/dominic-cummings-unveils-plans-for-new-party-replace-tories/

    2. Dominic Cummings strikes me as a thoughtful man who has analysed the situation better than most and know instinctively what needs to be done, but sadly has a screw loose.

      Whilst it is right that making the best use of its talents, wisely and with imagination, is how we are going to rebuild the country, setting off a tirade of abuse whenever confronting frustration may not be an ideal way to get folk on side.

      I do not deny that Ukraine is as corrupt as Russia – until the conflict, most in the West regarded them as peas in a pod. I heard tales of women’s groups of Ukrainian professional divorcees being set up in Wales, exploiting injustices of the legal system here to their advantage.

      However, military support for Ukraine is not about Ukraine, but rather the brutal invasion by Russia on 24th February 2022 and its bombardments of civilian infrastructure there ever since has set a lamentable precedent that needs to be nipped in the bud before it proliferates.

    3. I think Reform is a good start up party. How would Cummings’ be any different? Sounds like he wants to start up Reform Mk II. We need some key players to get behind Reform.

    4. “But he insisted Nigel Farage’s expected return to frontline politics could irrevocably damage the Conservatives at the next election and pave the way for a new party to replace them.

      “If Farage un-retires, the Tories could easily be driven down to double-digit seats and then discussions of a Start-Up Party and replacing them will go from a very fringe idea to being a very mainstream idea,” he said, adding that the former Brexit Party leader would not be welcome in the new party.”

      Currently, Nigel Farage is honorary president of the Reform UK party.

  25. SIR – I strongly reject William Sitwell’s comments (“Soft white bread is a con – no matter what the boffins do to it”, telegraph.co.uk, May 3).

    To suggest, without evidence, that white bread causes cancer, diabetes and obesity paints a false impression of one of the nation’s favourite staple foods, enjoyed by millions. All British bread, including “packaged” and “supermarket”, contains a wealth of nutrients that play an important part in a healthy, balanced diet – including fibre, calcium, vitamins and iron. White bread offers a convenient and good-value staple food at a time when consumers’ budgets are stretched.

    Andrew Pyne
    Chief executive, Federation of Bakers
    London WC1

    Well, there’s a shock. Andy Pyne has a vested interest in bread. Whoopie-do!

    It may interest you, Drew, that we humans at only meat and fish for over four-and-a-half million years with nary a bag of Mother’s Pride anywhere to be seen on that primeval plain.

    It was only a mere 10,000 years ago when a gang of Abduls in Babylon, and a cartel of Cleopatras in Egypt, decided to grind up some grasses — just for fun — and see what they could do if they baked the resultant meal … and then ate it. Well, whaddya know, they persuaded the masses to follow suit and similarly experiment with food only meant to be eaten by herbivores and before long, they had also invented: mitochondrial dysfunction, cancer, insulin resistance, diabetes, obesity, hypertension, fatty liver, depression, schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease/dementia, macular degeneration, menstrual irregularities, fibosis, inflammation, lupus, heart disease, arthritis, metabolic syndrome, asthma, postpartem depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Parkinson’s disease, low testosterone, infertility, DNA damage, Crohn’s disease and chronic pain (among many other nasty, life-threatening ailments).

    Funny that. Old Agg, Egg, Igg, Ogg and Ugg might not have lived as long as us, but they were much stronger, relatively disease-free and infinitely more brighter than mobile-phone staring, vegan soy-boy will ever be.

    1. White bread is a processed food with low-quality carbs. Plus, it can contain added sugar. So, eating white bread can cause large blood sugar spikes, which aren’t good for your health.

      Andy Pyne represents the big boys who mass produce this poison. Not the independents who can make quality bread. I bet he doesn’t eat it himself.

      1. My Morphy Richards breadmaker lists a recipe for wholemeal bread with the warning that the machine can only work with that recipe. I am rather stuck with it, since my oven has never worked since I got my cooker from the tip, and I do not have the worktop space in my 6 foot square kitchen to throw dough around. Organic wholemeal bread is no longer obtainable, except at silly prices from designer outlets – even Waitrose stopped doing it a few months ago when they “updated” their stock.

        The recipe insists on a fairly large amount of sugar in the dough. It argues that this sugar provides the yeast with the means to generate the carbon dioxide to rise the bread. As an experiment, I tried it without sugar, and it rose fine and tasted much better.

        Americans like their bread semi-sweet, almost like cake here. I once offended my American relatives by eating corn bread (made with maize flour and is delicious) with ice cream, feeling it to be like Madeira cake, but better. But bread it ain’t.

        1. My ‘breadmaker’ is a combination of: me, my Kenwood Major, and my oven.

          My wholemeal bread is a combination of: good quality wholemeal flour, salt, fresh yeast, water.

          The addition of sugar is completely unnecessary when baking bread. Sufficient natural sugars to feed the yeast exist in the flour.

      1. He probably believes that the Chorleywood ‘Bread’ [sic] Process was a step forward in human evolution.

        It was a retrograde step.

  27. So, Sir Beer wants to set up a new Border Security Command to protect the border. As the Border Force doesn’t seem to be willing to do its job, perhaps he is correct, but a few sunk boats would soon stop the flotilla.

    1. Regrettably all he’s saying is let’s have a rebrand so that it looks like I’m going to do something. Smoke and mirrors, I’d say.

  28. Constituents deserve a say when their MPs change allegiance. Party members deserve a say when their choice of leader is overturned. Come to that voters deserve a say when the entire government changes its allegiance.

  29. The Swiss model of referenda on important issues affecting hoi-polli may be one to follow.

  30. Yes, you are right James.

    However in fact all three of the big parties subscribe to the same high tax, big welfare, unlimited immigration policies

    so in practical terms they all realise there is no need for the voters to get involved. Nothing will change !

    1. It would be handy if any one of the three major British parties could explain exactly what they are trying to achieve with all these illegal invaders flooding in. And who it is that is actually sanctioning this invasion and why its happening.

      1. Eddy, most nations that encourage immigrants have strict rules on educational levels, language ability

        and financial support for the first few months.

        Britain appears to be doing the exact opposite, encouraging poor illiterates who can’t speak English.

        They’ll never be able to get a job, even if they wanted to.

        Incidentally the ONS recently stated that 1.1 million immigrants had stated on their paperwork that they

        had no intention of seeking work.

        1. I know Janet I’ve been an immigrant twice. SA and Oz, And had to prove I could earn a living and was healthy. Also had to have vaccines, proper vaccines that is, vaccine’s that worked.

    2. They have it sewn up. Conveniently they can get away with bypassing democracy for as long as they like. Even after the election I suspect we’ll just be treated to a tawdry drawn out mea culpa by the Conservatives followed by a meaningless resolution or two. It’ll then be case of no change, no change.

  31. Morning all 🙂😊

    Another lovely start, long May it continue.
    of course politicians who change their allegiance should inform their constituents.
    But I think we all know what the political classes are all about. Most of them couldn’t hold a job down in the public sector. And most of them are only in it for what they can get out of it.
    Did the public have a say when the more recent PM was appointed? Did the public have a say when Camoron was shoved into office?
    What’s new ?

    1. Any honest politician (I know, I know) ought to do the decent thing and resign – thus causing a by-election.

      Any other behaviour simply shows how odious and deceitful they are.

      1. Agreed and as I said Bill most of them are only in Parliament for what they can get out of it.
        Take a look at the amounts they claim in expenses. It’s absolutely ludicrous.
        I think three years ago they claimed over 300 million. It might have included the Lords. Who are as bad.

      2. There is something deceitful about an electoral system whereby one is presented with a candidate but votes for a party. Which is it to be?

        In the old Euro elections, they had a party list system, whereby voting for the party then appointed a list in order of people who would then act as delegates. If we were to vote for a candidate on merit and character, there should be no party labels at all, and the one elected should be free to act with his or her own discretion when joining alliances in the Commons. I have long argued that there should be no parties in the Lords, any more than they in the monarchy or a number of key national institutions.

        If the two must be wedded, then any MP crossing the floor needs to retain the party description upon which he or she was elected, until superceded by another election. Losing the whip may mean exclusion from the party, but does not shed the description. Therefore Elphicke may choose to sit behind Starmer on the Opposition benches, but she remains an Independent Conservative for the duration.

      3. If a Labour MP were to join the Conservatives, eg the late Frank Field, would you complain (have complained)? Ms Elphicke is MP for the Arrivals Lounge previously known as Dover, where the forces of law&order have conspired to ignore the 1971 Immigration Act.

      4. Or – change the system so that one votes for the party, and not the individual.

  32. So you would not have voted for Winston?

    On 31 May 1904 as Parliament resumed following its Whitsun recess, he crossed the floor of the House of Commons, defecting from the Conservatives to sit as a member of the Liberal Party.

    1. If I had been around at the time I would have felt the same way as I do now.

      When I vote for an MP, I do so because (a) I want his/her party in power, and (b) I do not want the opposition party in power.
      ‘Crossing the floor’ means my vote has gone to the party I did not vote for. It matters not a jot who that MP is/was.

  33. 387230+ up ticks,

    Just change the party name to protect the guilty, old nige will show you how as in brexit / reform,

    Dominic Cummings unveils plans for new party to replace the Tories
    Former advisor to Boris Johnson says his ‘Start-Up Party’ could capitalise on collapse of the Conservative vote at general election

      1. Cummings = another twerp with monster ego + strong authoritarian tendencies

        1. And who firmly believes in one law for him and quite other laws for the “little people”.

  34. Someone told me recently that alcohol free wine can now be bought. I scratched my head…..does this mean if after drinking it and you happen to have a headache, would that be Sham Pain ?

      1. It wasn’t many years ago when I was asked if I was over 18 when I had some booze on the checkout.

    4. I know your post is a joke but you can buy alcohol free sparkling wine. Freixenet. I’m told it’s quite good. It does mean that someone who doesn’t drink alcohol can join in with the Toast.

    1. More to the point, who is that hiding behind that disgusting black disguise and why ?

    2. Maybe a group of Gays for Palestine ought to go out to “Palestine” and let Hamas put them in the front line. Those that the IDF fail to kill Hamas can finish off themselves.

    3. It is a classic ploy by opponents of the protesters against the war to confuse the message by promoting LGBTQI etc or Letterbox Islam, rather than objecting to the harrying of Palestinian civilians.

      1. You must mean objecting to Hamas using stateless Arabs as human shields.

        1. I note your comment about Untermensch. “Sieg Heil” do I hear?

          They wouldn’t be shields if they weren’t being attacked.

          1. They would still be shields. An estimated 400 miles of tunnels under an area of land 25 miles by 7 miles under the feet of those in the Gaza Strip. Tunnels housing rabid anti-Semites who are happy to put the civilian population in the way, to gloriously martyr them for the cause of destroying Israel and killing more Jews. “We love death more than they love life”.

  36. Rachel Reeves has all the makings of a terrible British chancellor
    Until she stops being so thin on details, we have every reason to fear the worst
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/rachel-reeves-all-makings-terrible-british-chancellor/

    A couple of BTLs

    Heuchter MacTeuchter:

    Out of her depth. Mind you so is ‘unt.

    Reply
    Noted Conspriracy Theorist:

    No, Hunt knows what he is doing. He is following the WEF’s instructions to demolish the nation state and ‘build back better’ for a New World Order. Hunt’s specific brief is to destroy the UK economy and I expect that Schwab, Gates, Soros and their minions are now working on Reeves.

    1. Q: Where was Hunt when he received the call offering him the Chancellorship?

      A: BRUSSELS!

      (if I recall correctly)

    2. She’s not saying anything because the last time she did the Tories nicked her policy.

      Read that again to realise what’s wrong with this country.

  37. Just thinking out loud re the Palestine problem .

    Do any of you remember the PLO/ PLF and their terrifying actions during the 60’s/70’s etc ?

    I don’t think anyone has thought this problem through properly.

    There are 2 Palestinian factions , opposed to each other, fighting for supremacy , or have I got that wrong?

    The 2006 elections polarized Palestine along the lines that continue to remain relevant. Following the elections, Hamas and the PLO started negotiations, which broke down due to several disagreements, including the new government’s stance towards Israel. Whereas, in line with the Oslo Accords, the PLO supported a Palestinian state alongside Israel, Hamas rejected the idea, leading to violence and the ultimate takeover of Gaza from the hapless Palestine Authority by Hamas. This was followed by the 2008 Gaza War between Israel and Hamas, which, after almost three weeks, ended in a ceasefire.

    The PLO’s absence from the current phase of the conflict can thus be attributed to its transformation from an organization seeking liberation through armed resistance in the 1960s and the 1970s to adopting negotiations as the preferred mechanism. In fact, instead of extending even verbal support, the PA tried to undermine – and delegitimize – Hamas when its leader recently said that Hamas doesn’t represent the people of Palestine because of its use of violence. “The president also stressed that the policies, programs, and decisions of the PLO represent the Palestinian people as their sole legitimate representative, and not the policies of any other organization,” says the statement. Of course, the PLO has been joined by states like the UAE and Bahrain – the signatories of the now infamous US-mediated Abraham Accords with Israel – condemning Hamas. Qatar, on the other hand, not only supports Hamas but also holds Israel “solely responsible” for the escalation.

    Qatar and support for Hamas is a minority opinion already within the wider Muslim world, whereas PLO – and its strategy of negotiating for a Palestinian state – enjoys wider currency. For instance, when Arab leaders met in Riyadh in mid-November to “discuss” the Gaza war, they ended up reinforcing the PLO as “the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people” and further called “on the Palestinian factions and forces to unite under its umbrella.” Earlier in October, days after Hamas began its attacks, an emergency meeting of Arab ministers in Egypt reinforced “the importance of resuming the peace process and starting serious negotiations between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel”.

    But this strategy of declaring the PLO the sole representative of the people of Palestine has been – and will once again be – counterproductive. As reports indicate, more than 80 percent of Palestinians consider the PA to be corrupt and unable to govern. A 2023 Arab Barometer survey showed that only 12 percent of Gazans would support Abbas if elections were held tomorrow. Although it doesn’t mean Hamas enjoys absolute popular support, it does show that extending support to extremely unpopular actors could contribute to popular frustration, which could lead to the war spilling over not only internally but also towards the Arab states themselves.

    But, thinking externally, one of the reasons why the PA has been unable to protect the people living in the West Bank and offer any effective governance is that the political settlement with Israel does not force Israel to play its part. Its budgets have become thin due in part to Israel’s decision to withhold millions of dollars in tax revenues collected from Palestinians. This ability to withhold finances goes back to Israeli dominance, sustained by external actors, including the support it has recently found in the Arab world itself. It is contributing to making PA – the main custodian of the idea of a negotiated settlement with Israel – unpopular. 78 percent of Palestinians wanted Abbas to resign, according to a poll published in September by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. Some 58 percent said they supported an “armed struggle” to end the Israeli occupation, compared with 20 percent in favor of a negotiated settlement and 24 percent for “peaceful resistance.”

    Due to this, the nature of resistance – and opposition – within Palestine is itself morphing into armed resistance against Israel in Gaza and political resistance against, and opposition to, the PA in the West Bank. The Arab world and the West both need to pay close attention to what the Palestinians think and are saying. Unless they can impose a total decimation of the Palestinians, a third Gaza war is not too far off.

    https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/hamas-plo-anatomy-anti-israel-resistance

    1. Hamas and the Israeli zealots share a common interest in perpetuating the conflict. It can be no accident that it was the Israelis that bombed out Arafat’s HQ in Gaza and assassinated Yitzhak Rabin, and that there have been theories, only countered by bluster, that the present Israeli coalition was covertly supporting the Hamas raid of the 7th October, but they were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off.

    2. If Israel and Palestine were simply neighbours and muslim stopped trying to kill Israelis and just got on with their own affairs (as they should) then very quickly Palestine would devolve. Israel would continue as it has.

      Humus keep fighting Israel firstly because they’re tribalist, psychotic fanatics but also to distractthe public from how utterly moronic muslim is.

    1. A curtain? They could have put Trash in a binbag. Saved a lot of trouble.

    2. This is the one time Boko Haram will let us down. But I jest, of course.

    3. Meghan says she’s 43 percent Nigerian. Has Nigeria replaced Ireland as the new place for Americans to search for their ancestral village?

      1. Jackpot on the Woke Bingo if your granny was Irish and your grandad Nigerian.

      2. I hope she doesn’t melt in the humid heat , or get bitten by mossies , or upset the Nigerians .

        She will witness the chaos of Nigerian life , the poverty and the terror that locals feel.

        Paul Yarrow
        21 MIN AGO
        Maybe she will meet a prince who needs her help to get his inheritance out of Nigeria.

        Comment by GEOFF MITCHELL.

        GM

        GEOFF MITCHELL
        24 MIN AGO
        Bit part “actress” in mediocre TV Series marries thick idiot from Royal Family and she turns into Mother Theresa.

        Comment by Cassandra Cassandra.

        CC

        Cassandra Cassandra
        26 MIN AGO
        She will get the votes in Alabama and Missisippi when she stands for president

        Comment by M J LANGFORD.

        MJ

        M J LANGFORD
        26 MIN AGO
        A free all expense paid trip to a hot country what’s not to like? Apart from the malaria, all those jabs, the dust, living in a mud hot (not!) those unhygienic, poisonous, and surprisingly lethal animals (death by hippo would seem appropriate) and her being there, the local populace won’t know what hit them when the self-obsessed Sussex circus hits town

        Comment by bonzo dog.

        BD

        bonzo dog
        27 MIN AGO
        Why not do us all a favour and stay there.
        Mrs d

        Comment by Vikki Green.

        VG

        Vikki Green
        28 MIN AGO
        I hope she is getting a fee for all of the ‘work’ she will be doing promoting invictus and championing women

        Reply by Kevin Ollivier.

        KO

        Kevin Ollivier
        18 MIN AGO
        She will be getting something out of it that’s for sure. One thing we do know is that she never does anything for nothing!
        Mrs O

        Comment by Tyler Roberts.

        TR

        Tyler Roberts
        29 MIN AGO
        Another one of those where the comments are far better than the article.

      3. Is it possible for 43% of a person’s DNA to physically manifest only in slightly coarse and kinky hair, as Megan’s was before she began straightening it? 48% of my DNA is Ashkenazi and my fizzog looks Jewish, if not quite as much now as it did when I was young.

  39. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a22ea891562663487694d78a907b68b0bf364d0d4308e2af9054be70c194b79f.png

    Surely the more Conservative MPs defect to Labour the better. It will show the voters that the Conservative Parliamentary Party is full of MPs who were never Conservative in the first place.

    This amply shows the need for The Reform Party to exist and the need for everyone who is conservative to vote for Reform. Ideally the Conservative Party should win no seats at all at the coming election.

    Remember what happened in Canada? In the 1993 election, support for the Progressive Conservative Party collapsed, and the party’s representation in the House of Commons dropped from an absolute majority of seats to only two. Meanwhile, the Reform Party took Western Canada and became the dominant conservative party in Canada.

    1. If true – and I tend not to believe anything Streeting says – it merely emphasises what we have known for years : that very, very few so-called Conservative MPs are actually Conservatives.

      The clown who is MP here is a “Tory” – but, in reality, is a Limp Dumb Greeniac.

      1. Strangely that describes our “Tory” MP as well. Very intelligent, very hard working but quite openly

        well to the left of the Lib Dems.

    2. I think Labour are terrified that they won’t have the experience or the brainpower to ascend the heady journey of leadership in the coming election .

      Their key seats in London and the big cities are full of diverse thicko’s , they are their core vote , not much talent or IQ.

      If more white Tory bods defect to Labour , they will be an asset to Labour forming a reasonable cabinet .

      1. Traitors Gate was bricked up because of the high tides in the mid 18th century.

        It clearly need to be unbricked up and considerably widened to accommodate the number of treacherous politicians we have today. However it should not be raised above high tide level because the filthy water of the Thames is highly appropriate for those who should be admitted.

    3. The tories seem to misunderstand what it means to be conservative. For a start, it means having principles. If they do not believe in loyalty and conservative ideology then they should never have stood as Tories.

      It also explains a huge amount of what’s wrong with this country.

    3. Almost as quick as the MPs vacating the chamber when Andrew Brigden got up to speak…..

  43. Bingo!!! I have placed a bet with Euromillions for tonight. See you in the Ritz tomorrow.
    Wordle 1,056 2/6

    🟩🟩🟩🟨⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  44. many a Merkel makes a muckle….

    “Despite comprising roughly 14.6 per cent of the population, foreign migrants were responsible for 58.5 per cent of all violent crimes.
    Foreigners without a German passport make up 111,517 suspects alleged of violent crimes out of the total 190,605 suspects for the country as a whole.
    The statistics were released by the Federal Criminal Police Office and reported by broadcaster NTV.
    The number of non-Germans suspected of violent crimes rose by 14.5 per cent over the previous year, while foreign migrants also account for 187,000 out of the total 424,000 suspected thieves.
    “Excluding immigration crimes, the number of non-Germans suspected of any crime rose by 17.8 per cent in 2023 to 923,269 suspects, representing nearly half of the 2.25 million total suspected criminals last year,” reports Breitbart.

    NTV tried to justify the criminality of foreign migrants by asserting that they have experienced violence in their homes countries, which “lower(s) the threshold for using violence.”

    Notably, the figures don’t include foreign migrants who later obtained German citizenship or those with a foreign migration background via one of their parents.

    1. That’s interesting. At least 5 years ago, possibly longer, I found crime figures for the USA published online that showed the black population there were 14% of the population and committed 58% of violent crimes. I remember the numbers, partly because I do tend to remember numbers and also because these numbers were so very striking.

    2. I have read (no longer have link) that an AfD politician was prosecuted,fined 6000 Euro and left with a criminal record for releasing GOVERNMENT statistics on gang rape by Afghan and other migrants
      #HateFacts

    3. What did they expect? These are savages from an uncivilised nation where law is poorly enforced. They’re young, single men who have no ties to the nation. Of course they’re going to be the highest criminal demographic.

      It’s notable in the UK that 70% of muslims of working age are on welfare and commit almost 80% of sex crimes. Violent crime – mugging, assault, stabbing,murder – is commited in the majority by blacks.

      It’s almost as if unwanted massive uncontrolled gimmigration was a political stunt to ruin the country.

  45. Dt BTL Comment:

    Anastasias Revenge
    11 HRS AGO
    Mark Boyle – thank you for this wonderful sentence – “We have Conservatives who don’t conserve; Labour for the workshy; liberals wishing to make views outside their self-righteous bubble illegal to express; Greens more interested in alternative lifestyles than ecology; and Reformers who actually want to regress.”

    1. reform
      verb
      1.
      make changes in (something, especially an institution or practice) in order to improve it

      regress
      verb
      1.
      return to a former or less developed state

      I think regressing wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

  46. ‘Morning All

    Tice you say,Reform you say………….

    https://twitter.com/davidkurten/status/1788634361572606055

    Never forget,never forgive see Ukeland for further betrayal

    Rest

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5b1766ab62413e65f64c8837ee197ce5247ed08cd0776eb388781726bae907f4.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5146168eef805405f19ed46f7e331a2a6723b930c6b7797510c695e0c1955adf.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/083897327fd5be3d7455904dcfd5254bf3a27ec54734a722cbf61e7519e33501.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b802c0d25c9dd36acb1492917125dd1242a58e784ec507642ba6d93fecf77817.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b9f00fbbd35f916e9c38b88192ba23bf22d6a1b72de76bef6ddbe174e8597ef3.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3e8b3702af90fc948b754f44fa83a48566bc5b49592bca8efaec4632298d2fc7.jpg

    1. Tice and the Reform Party are flawed. But so are Sunak and the Conservative Party and Starmer and Labour and Davey of the Lib Dems is off the incompetency scale altogether.

      Reform as it is now is not a long term solution but we have to be pragmatic and start somewhere.

      Cameron lied when he said that we should vote for a reformed EU which was in no way reformed and too old and corrupt to change. Reform is still young enough to reform itself.

    2. Tice and the Reform Party are flawed. But so are Sunak and the Conservative Party and Starmer and Labour and Davey of the Lib Dems is off the incompetency scale altogether.

      Reform as it is now is not a long term solution but we have to be pragmatic and start somewhere.

      Cameron lied when he said that we should vote for a reformed EU which was in no way reformed and too old and corrupt to change. Reform is still young enough to reform itself.

  47. Gosh – it is warm outside. Just been working in the greenhouse – putting up the tomato frames. Had to call it a day It is over 30ºC in there!

    1. Just you being in there helps the plant growth. Every time you exhale you increase the CO₂ levels.

        1. We will do it for you if you like. Nothing is too much trouble for you, Uncle Bill.

      2. Wow, the greenhouse effect really works for us – don’t panic keep breathing!

    1. Very interesting read; thanks for posting. I wasn’t aware of the Russian and Chinese activities in destabilising African countries.

  49. An essay from Peter North

    I’m politically homeless. There’s no-one I feel wholly enthusiastic

    about voting for. Later down the line something might emerge, but the

    right has a reinvention process ahead of it. There’s a few right wing

    thinkers around who seem to get it – that the entire system of

    governance needs a reboot, and that national democracy must reassert

    itself over the “international rules based order”.

    I actually

    think the tides of history are carrying us in that direction. I trust my

    instinct on this. One by one, the establishment narratives are

    collapsing and we’re just waiting for politics to catch up.

    Rest here

    https://www.northernvariant.co.uk/p/britain-on-the-brink?r=tpuai&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

    1. Mr North is right, but he’s forgetting one crucial bit. The government is fighting tooth and nail to ensure that their hegemony does not, cannot be changed. Massive debt, impossible to control departments, incredible waste, deliberately spun off quangos, fake charities, legislation to protect itself – they know they’re finished. These are the death rolls of the dying crocodile starved of reason to exist but desperately clinging on, exacerbating it’s own incompteence, failure and pointlessness.

      Until there is democracy – true democracy, where the citizen dictates law to the state rather than the opposite farce we have now – nothing will change.

  50. Sigh

    I see Huw Pill, a senior banker with the Bank of England, after years of
    careful deliberation and analysis has concluded that “soaring
    immigration is fuelling Britain’s housing crisis”.

    Thank goodness
    we have such intellectual giants in the senior policy making ranks to
    identify the problems of today. Where would we be without then?

    1. I don’t know how they do it. I don’t know how they have the nerve to come out with these things that are so completely obvious a five year old could inform one of the result.

    2. Is he the Red Pill or the Blue Pill?

      Me I can never remember which is which, so I’d probably end up back in the Matrix!

    4. I’ve tried pointing out to a lefty that unlimited immigration inevitably drives wages down and property prices up and moreover is intended to do so. I watched the eyes glaze over. D-o-e-s n-o-t c-o-m-p-u-t-e…d-o-e-s n-o-t f-i-t a-g-e-n-d-a d-o-h…

    1. It’s all about causing mayhem and breakdown in society now, any which way they can.

    2. Past experience says they haven’t been supervised for years.
      The police and judges need supervision with some of the heinous things they do.

    1. Aha, Solari is a name I didn’t recognise but it’s Catherine Austin Fitts. I get it now.

    1. An odd man. When Blair and the rest of his cohorts were being interviewed in Television Centre for a ducmentary, Brown refused to leave home. The crew had to travel north because one man wouldn’t travel south. It isn’t impossible that he was genuinely scared of covid but forgive me if I find that unlikely.

        1. “By the way, I am quite partial to a nice piece of cheese…cheddar, preferably”

        2. … and cr*p in the vegetable patch where the soil is nice and well-gardened.

    2. Beautiful! Looks a bit like our Ziggy – does he have a beautiful banded tail like a lemur? What’s that on his collar (not the bell)?

  55. How to throw away taxpayer money. The Trudeau government is giving $1,7 million to groups supporting the lgbtqracket – not in Canada but overseas!

    A sad day over here in Canada. Rex Murphy, a rather outspoken news commentator has died. He had an unwavering hatred for Trudeau and things woke coupled with a strong wit and command of the English language. Needless to say, he has been categorized as a far right extremist by the lefties.

  56. It is putting immense pressure on young Prince George, who by cruel fate is now The Spare, at a time when this 10-year-old is, alongside his equally anxious father, caring for his sick mother and his younger siblings on top of royal expectations.

    The King promised a “slimmed-down monarchy”. Well, he’s certainly got that right now, but sometimes minds are there to be changed when circumstances change. Right now, there is a poverty of talent in our institutions that democracy seems incapable of addressing. Maybe it is time for the creation of a few earldoms from the brightest and the best in order to take some of the pressure off the royals, and allow the Wales family all the time they need to convalesce. Starting with Michael and Carole Middleton.

    I have confidence in the King’s capacity to recognise excellence.

    1. I don’t see why Prince George is the “spare” given that he is in direct line, it is Princess Charlotte followed by Prince Louis who are the spares but equally, will take up Royal duties when the time comes as have all siblings. Yes, they are short-handed at the moment, and there is also a generation gap, but rather that the Middletons, who probably wouldn’t want to do it anyway, the York sisters, the Tindalls and Prince Edward’s children when they have finished their education, could be brought in the fill some gaps.

  57. Poppiesmum, I agree with what you say, but if I blame immigration for rising house prices, I get dirty looks from the lefties and snowflakes who dominate my neighbourhood.

    1. …and you will be condemned as an ultra far-right extreme fascist to boot

    2. Natural England (BBC Radio4 this morning) has purchased a farm in Dorset on which to build homes to alleviate the housing crisis and reduce fertilizer effluent into Pool harbour.

      1. Why not just tell the immigrants to go cr@p in their Muslim homeland rather than Poole Harbour?

      2. Replacing the fertilizer effluent with human effluent whenever it rains hard.

      3. Replacing the fertilizer effluent with human effluent whenever it rains hard.

        1. I’d be a bit septic if natural england used an hiistorical approach to sewage treatment.

    3. Natural England (BBC Radio4 this morning) has purchased a farm in Dorset on which to build homes to alleviate the housing crisis and reduce fertilizer effluent into Pool harbour.

    4. Oh, I see….. I suppose someone has to come out and say it and smack the lefties between the eyes with the simple Truth even though it is perfectly obvious – I cannot understand why people cannot see the simple relationship between supply and demand and finite resources. I suppose they are completely blinded by politics and left wing education, I hadn’t thought about it from that perspective. We live in rural England and don’t rub shoulders with lefties nor snowflakes for this is farming country. Neither do we watch tv, any of it.

  58. Kyiv sends reinforcements to Kharkiv and evacuates civilians as Russian forces advance. 10 May 2024.

    More reports are coming to us on the situation in the Kharkiv region.

    Ukraine defence ministry said on Friday that it has sent military reinforcements to help repel Russian attacks in border areas of the Kharkiv region in the northeast.

    It added that Russian troops tried to break through with armoured vehicles in the early morning but were beaten back, Reuters reported.

    C’mon Vlad!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/may/10/russia-ukraine-war-live-vladimir-putin-mikhail-mishustin-volodymyr-zelenskiy-bodyguard

    1. Armoured vehicles…

      The problem Russia has is you cannot hold a country by force of arms. It simply doesn’t work. You need almost one military officer for every 5 population.

    1. Stupid old gits.
      Their whole 8+ decades have been made better and easier than any generation before them by the use of fossil fuels.

  60. Afternoon Wibbles. I don’t think that Vlad has any intention of holding Ukraine. He seeks a Russian enclave in the East.

    1. Morning Minty. I think he’ll stay in Donbass because, well, they want him to.

      Either way, the confilct needs to end soon and that is going to mean globally accepting there’s fault on both sides.

  61. How to make the Maltese Cross…..

    “They say central bankers can always print money out thin air: in this one case, however, the head of Malta’s central bank could desperately do with a bigger money printer, or at least a much better attorney.
    Malta’s attorney general filed charges of fraud and misappropriation of funds against Central Bank of Malta Governor Edward Scicluna as well sa the country’s Deputy Prime Minister Chris Fearne, Reuters reports citing court documents. At the same time, in what appears to be a sweeping crackdown on regime corruption, more serious corruption charges have also been leveled against former prime minister Joseph Muscat, his chief of staff and a former health minister – all in connection with a hospital privatization scandal dating back to 2015.

    The charges follow a four-year inquiry instigated by the opposition Nationalist Party over a deal which handed management of three state hospitals to a previously unknown group, which had no experience in the medical sector.
    The 30-year deal, which was conservatively valued at 4 billion euros ($4.23 billion), was annulled by Malta’s highest court in February after it found fraud.
    Scicluna was finance minister and Fearne was a junior health minister at the time of the deal. Scicluna, who is a member of the European Central Bank’s Governing Council, has not commented on the accusations, but has previously denied any wrongdoing. Fearne has rejected the charges.
    “I have absolutely no doubt that the court will find nothing other than my complete innocence,” he said in a statement.

    1. Anyone who works with Christine Lagarde must be as straight as a die…

    2. Daphne
      Anne Caruana Galizia (née Vella; 26 August 1964 – 16 October 2017) was a
      Maltese writer, journalist, blogger and anti-corruption activist, who
      reported on political events in Malta and was known internationally for
      her investigation of the Panama Papers, and subsequent assassination by car bomb.

      Two brothers sentenced to 40 years.

      My question is who paid them and who benefited from Daphne’s murder.

  62. No bias whatsoever … but …….
    Yesterday evening, gorgeous grandson was inveighing against his contemporaries who have been so mollycoddled that they cannot cope with the slightest challenge or risk.
    It’s always heartening to see your genes flourishing.

      1. Actually, when he finishes his ‘A’ levels I was thinking of installing him as dictator. He’s looking for a summer job.

  63. Thunderstorms on way as temperatures set to reach 27C. 10 May 2024.

    Thunderstorm and wildfire warnings have been issued for large parts of the UK on Sunday, with temperatures set to reach 27C this weekend.

    The Met Office put out a yellow warning ahead of what it called “thundery breakdowns”.

    I love it! I was in the village this morning basking in it.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/10/thunderstorms-on-way-as-temperatures-set-to-reach-27c/

  64. Tim Oldfield complains about the price of razor blades – I buy a pack of 10 BiC blades for £1.10 from Tescos which lasts me over a year shaving every other day. Obviously he is swayed by TV adverts into thinking there’s no alternative to Gillette

    1. No idea what they are like.

      https://www.temu.com/ul/kuiper/un9.html?subj=coupon-un&_bg_fs=1&_p_jump_id=895&_x_vst_scene=adg&goods_id=601099512504588&sku_id=17592191076388&adg_ctx=a-767f54aa~c-7c0dbb61~f-b2da6d5e&_x_ads_sub_channel=shopping&_p_rfs=1&_x_ns_prz_type=-1&_x_ns_sku_id=17592191076388&mrk_rec=1&_x_ads_channel=google&_x_gmc_account=710731536&_x_login_type=Google&_x_ads_account=6950480996&_x_ads_set=21176691986&_x_ads_id=161751102678&_x_ads_creative_id=696269812531&_x_ns_source=g&_x_ns_gclid=CjwKCAjwi_exBhA8EiwA_kU1MnAOXNBxEgzKMZ8ziPhWMb-r0OTRKR51Hncg5MrzDQdfITU–hysRxoC7FoQAvD_BwE&_x_ns_placement=&_x_ns_match_type=&_x_ns_ad_position=&_x_ns_product_id=710731536-17592191076388&_x_ns_target=&_x_ns_devicemodel=&_x_ns_wbraid=Cj4KCAjw6PGxBhBpEi4AAJ5xAroDeGuaOcEOBwOBzdAg-cIMGCtfsBjlqmSNp3S2fuSgbdP6DyaeBzMjGgKOTQ&_x_ns_gbraid=0AAAAAo4mICFQj0mFoZaX6Nz7FtJkF37xW&_x_ns_targetid=pla-2116572308604&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwi_exBhA8EiwA_kU1MnAOXNBxEgzKMZ8ziPhWMb-r0OTRKR51Hncg5MrzDQdfITU–hysRxoC7FoQAvD_BwE

        1. Actually, I’ve found them very good. The quality was excellent, it’s a dress for a wedding and I was very impressed! It took about 10 days but I was kept informed all the way. It was well packaged and I’m delighted with it!

      1. Wilkinson Sword make wonderful gardening tools, especially their secateurs (pruners). Their razor blades are utterly useless though.

  65. A house is supposed to keep you warm in winter and, arguably, cooler in summer. It is, basically, shelter from the weather whatever it’s type.

    Well, here it’s cold in winter and too hot in summer. Our bedroom is a toasty 23.9 and climbing. Yes, this means the Warqueen is wearing Daisy Dukes and that absurd white top (partly in apology, partly because it’s drool worthy) but when proper summer hits and it’s 30 outside it’ll be 36 inside.

    Whinge, rant, whine, complain….

    1. I thought you recently moved to your dream home? Or has it become a nightmare?

    3. I have curtains and blackout/insulating curtains in the bedroom. They remain closed with the windows in sunny weather and opened up when the temp falls in the evening.

  66. On this day 59 years ago “I ran away to Sea”!

    Having waved goodbye to my tearful Mother (she was still wearing her pinny) on the platform at Rickmansworth station, as I joined the train eventually bound for Plymouth and a life of adventure?

    Oh! What a ride it has been!

    2. “Wearing her pinny”. Gosh. My mum always wore a pinny and I’ve never actually possessed one. Wouldn’t know where to buy one. I just get stuff on my clothes, which is daft really. Mind, mum washed our clothes by hand, which I don’t do either.

      1. My mum wasn’t the pinny type. Nor am I. When things get splashed they go in the wash.

    1. Because she’s a wonderful (false) touchy-feely person? Or she just want to make a show of it?

      1. Yep, wearing my pinnie .. We wore our blue and white during the winter then in April/May time wore tropical whites , because of the heat, yes it was a very hot little country .. All the Royal Navy converted to white uniforms overnight .. I have lots of pics , but can’t put them on here .

        1. Love Malta but not the heat. I go in Spring and Autumn. Still plenty warm and the sea is like a bath.

    4. MOH is off to Malta on Monday …. for a week, alongside 45 other Poles.

        1. There used to be a rule at the Last Night of the Proms that “poles must be no more than two metres”, meaning flag poles of course but among the regular prommers there was a Polish lady and I’m afraid she was teased. She was definitely less then two meteres tall though!

        2. No, the Ottomans have been cleared … although the Maltese do provide Visas for a suitable fee

        3. No, the Ottomans have been cleared … although the Maltese do provide Visas for a suitable fee

  69. Beeb admit that they are institutionally biased and useless…

    BBC Journalists Fear Being Branded Racist for Covering Negatives of Immigration: Report

    A review commissioned by the BBC declared that it is “not racist to be concerned about the impacts of migration” after finding that staff within the publicly-funded broadcaster were discouraged from reporting on the negative impacts of migration for fear of being branded racist or appearing “hostile” towards migrants.

    An independent review conducted by Dr Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory at Oxford University, which spoke to over 100 BBC journalists and top management as well as reviewing over 1,500 online, radio, and television reports produced by the broadcaster, found that the coverage of migration failed to address the concerns from the public on how it impacts local communities and focussed primarily on political jockeying from Westminster politicians.

    “Coverage should pay more attention to how migration affects communities, public services, housing and the labour market,” the report said according to The Telegraph. “All audiences in our research were interested in these questions, but particularly people with concerns about migration. By focusing primarily on political developments, BBC coverage can overlook some of these concerns.”
    *
    *
    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2024/05/10/bbc-journalists-fear-being-branded-racist-for-covering-negatives-of-immigration-r

  70. Anyone else think this ‘royal’ tour of Nigeria is a bit rum? esp the photo on the front of the DM website.
    Rumours on the the internet speculate that we will get King Harry and Queen Meghan one day, just to cement the UK’s downfall. That’s a bit fanciful but all this (positive) recent media coverage is a bit…surprising.

    1. Has anyone said the reason for the ‘royal’ tour. There normally is one other than monetising your own bank account as they are wont to do.

      2. They’re entitled to earn money. Some kind of charidee thing I guess, but why are the Nigerians playing along with it? Would certainly make sense if they were being groomed to return to royal life…

        1. They are apparently there to promote the Invictus Games, having been invited by the Nigerian government who wants his country to host them. It has nothing whatsoever to do with either the RF or the British government. They are earning money out of it and they damn well shouldn’t be, but the pseudo “Royal Tour” is to be included in their Netflix deal.

          1. So these photos and “stories” are actually stills from a Netflix documentary? That would explain it.
            I cannot shake off a feeling that it has something to do with the future of the RF though…I hope I am proved wrong.

  72. Lithuania is a member of NATO:

    La Lituanie défie la Russie et lance des missiles Online French news.

    The latest country to conduct military deterrence exercises against Russia is Lithuania. Supported by the United States, it launched HIMARS missiles into the Baltic Sea, which have already been used by Ukraine during the war against Russian troops. These manoeuvres constitute a clear warning to Moscow of any idea it might have to act against the Baltic country.

    A step nearer Armageddon?

  73. Security Minister Tom Tugendhat has announced a ban on hate preachers and extremists from entering the UK.

    Appearing on GB News, the minister confirmed that those who “start spreading hate” will be “expelled from the country”.

    That’s surprising. They’ve had fourteen years to do this, but didn’t bother until a General Election loomed up.

    2. And what about the many thousands born here and doing likewise? As always, it’s the distraction. The enemy is not without, it is within.

    3. “Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, ‘It might have been. ‘”

      14 years of Conservative rule seems to have ruined the country. Who was the principal effer-upper?

      Most of the blame lies at Cameron’s door but May did her bit too as did Johnson and Sunak.

      1. They need to experience life as it was then. Life before oil refining, without polyethylene derivatives. Knock their glasses off for starters then bang their heads together and refuse them headache pills. Polyethylene glycol is used in medications as a binding agent.

        1. Ironically they make an attack upon one of the very symbols acting as a cornerstone of the freedoms they embraced in order to carry the act itself out.

          Which means they’re probably very muddled people indeed.

          1. Talking of muddled, SWMBO has just been watching a documentary about Baton Rouge, in the US. The blacks said they didn’t want to live close by whites, so Whitey upped and left… taking all their tax dollars with them. That outcome wasn’t what the blacks wanted at all, but somehow didn’t see the connection.

    2. I suppose that gormless old hag of a vicaress thought that by smashing a glass case (someone else’s glass case), she was not breaking any of the ten commandments.

      I wonder what the crone would have done with that original copy of The Great Charter had she been successful.

  75. Dominic Cummings: Zelenskyy’s no Churchill and Ukraine’s corrupt. 10 May 2024.

    “This is not a replay of 1940 with Zelenskyy as the Churchillian underdog,” he said.

    “This whole Ukrainian corrupt mafia state has basically conned us all and we’re all going to get f**ked as a consequence. We are getting f**ked now right?”

    In a follow-up tweet, Cummings later branded Zelenskyy a “potemkin” leader — but denied he’d called him a “pumpkin” as originally quoted in the interview.

    He argued that war would only strengthen the relationship between Russia and China, saying Western nations “pushed [Russia] into an alliance with the world’s biggest manufacturing power.”

    Hmmm. He’s kept that quiet.

    https://www.politico.eu/article/dominic-cummings-volodymyr-zelenskyy-ukraine-war-corruption/

    1. Just watching Marcus Wareing in Provence. He is chatting to a man who grows his own wheat, mills his own flour and makes his own sour dough for his and other bakeries/shops.
      Marcus asked him what his memories of British bread were. He said though Britain has many fine products he had no memories of the bread.

      He also doesn’t make baguettes !

      The Chair of the Federation of Bakers should take note.

      1. I don’t eat much bread these days (I still bake it occasionally). If I could only eat two types of bread, then my bag would contain:

        Bagels.
        Baguettes.

        They are my favourites.

        1. The only time i eat bagels is with cream cheese, smoked salmon, red onion, capers and Dill.

          Is there a baker near you that makes baguettes?

          1. There are a few, but none as good as my own.

            Have you ever eaten genuine Danish smørrebrød? It is wonderfully delicious. There are dozens of varying meaty and fishy toppings. My favourite being: thin slices of rare beef, horseradish cream, beetroot salad, crispy onions, lettuce, sliced tomatoes, tapenade, remoulade sauce. Others have small fillets of battered fried cod; hard-boiled egg and prawns; liver pâté and onions.

            My favourite bagels have scrambled egg, mustard-and-cress, and crisp bacon bits.

          2. The ingredients for the smørrebrød you have described is pretty much the list of ingredients for my canapes for August party. I’m doing pani puri shells, toasted thin slices of baguette and blinis.

            I expect the only smørrebrød i have had was either supermarket stuff or when i had smogasbord at Canary Wharf but i don’t remember because of the non stop schnapps.

          8. A garnish for my chicken liver pate on a mini savoury eclair…fine diced red onion mixed with chopped coriander and drizzled with pomegranate molasses. John Torode said it was incredible.

          9. John Torode, an Aussie Barbie fan, went to Argentina, had beef roasted over a log fire and declared, “I’m been barbecuing wrongly ….All MA Life!”

          10. If you look closer at that episode you will see his shocked face when he realises the majority of Argie beef is reared on concrete platforms. Unless they have cut that bit of course.
            The Pampas roaming stuff goes to rich people. Everyone else eats factory fed style meat. The pollution is horrendous because of a marketing lie.

          11. There are a few, but none as good as my own.

            Have you ever eaten genuine Danish smørrebrød? It is wonderfully delicious. There are dozens of varying meaty and fishy toppings. My favourite being: thin slices of rare beef, horseradish cream, beetroot salad, crispy onions, lettuce, sliced tomatoes, tapenade, remoulade sauce. Others have small fillets of battered fried cod; hard-boiled egg and prawns; liver pâté and onions.

            My favourite bagels have scrambled egg, mustard-and-cress, and crisp bacon bits.

      1. A damp ‘squid’.
        The wrong ‘tact’.
        One ‘foul’ swoop.
        On ‘tenderhooks’.
        Can you be more ‘Pacific’?
        A ‘shoe’ in.

        A damp squib (you’d hope that a squid was damp).
        The wrong tack.
        One fell swoop.
        On tenterhooks.
        Can you be more specific?
        A shoo in.

    3. For what it’s worth I believe I invented : ‘Pouring oil on ruffled feathers…..”

      1. My ex once reduced me to helpless laughter during an argument, by accusing me of not taking the nettle by the horns…

  77. What the shape of your poo says about your health. 10 May 2024.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c5f4518c6401b6b0e2ff80567e775c8f2adf20c25e7041ce45b16462c0a0a2ab.png

    What is normal?

    According to Julie Thompson, a trained dietician who now works as information manager for the charity Guts UK, normal poo should be “smooth, shaped like a sausage and chestnut brown in colour”.

    Sounds in the background of Nottlers galloping to the Khasi.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/diet/gut-health/what-the-colour-and-consistency-of-your-poo-says-health/

    1. In the course of a week I go through all shades of brown and all shapes and sizes with no consistency of texture. However my bowel cancer screening test result came back a few days ago and “no further tests are needed”. Mozart used to sign off his letters to friends and family with “shit well” or whatever the colloquial German equivalent was.

      3. The “no further tests are needed” notification: does it mean for the time being or never again? I ask because those aged 60 to 74 should receive a test kit every two years. Those aged 50 to 59 will be gradually included over a 4 year timespan that began in April 2021. Even the 75 and over cohort are entitled to free test kits on request.

        NHS bowel cancer screening checks if you could have bowel cancer. It’s available to everyone aged 60 to 74 years.

        The programme is expanding to make it available to everyone aged 50 to 59 years. This is happening gradually over 4 years and started in April 2021.

        Everyone aged 60 to 74 years who is registered with a GP and lives in England is automatically sent an NHS bowel cancer screening kit every 2 years.

        The programme is expanding so that everyone aged 50 to 59 years will be eligible for screening. This is happening gradually over 4 years and started in April 2021 with 56 year olds.

        The programme has also started to include 58 year olds, so you may get a test before you’re 60.

        Make sure your GP practice has your correct address so your kit is posted to the right place.

        If you’re 75 or over, you can ask for a kit every 2 years by phoning the free bowel cancer screening helpline on 0800 707 60 60.

        If you’re worried about a family history of bowel cancer or have any symptoms, speak to a GP for advice.

        https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/bowel-cancer-screening/

        1. It means for the time being. No further investigation this time but vigilance still advised and yes, there’ll be a new test kit in due course. My point was only that the chart above could cause unnecessary panic. I don’t fit the stereotype but my tests keep coming back negative. Unusual bleeding would be more concerning than the size and shape of the turd, unless it was black not brown. Gosh, what a subject!

    2. Hmm… Great research. Perhaps present it in a paper to the Frankfurt Faecal Forum?

    3. I take Fybogel every morning. Pooh the size of a kingsize hotdog. Cracks the basin so it does.

      Why are you lowering the tone? That’s my job.

    5. Does Julie recommend using the Daily Telegraph to perform a delailed analysis of your faecal emission profile?
      Turday’s copy of the DT would be most appropriate.

    6. God, don’t let my Brother see this… he’s already obsessed with poos, and in fact is the driving force behind “Pooh predictions” on Tw@tter… where he posts what’s going to happen soon based on today’s fresh turd!

    7. I knew it. I knew it. Lots of folk have been saying for some time: “it’s third world shit whole…..”

    8. I think German lavatory pans have a shelf, because they like to check it out.

      1. My sister-in-law in the Netherlands has a lavatory with an inspection pan for observation before flushing. I don’t like it.

        But I do like my bidet as I like to be as clean as possible in my own nether regions.

        This is an interesting poem by William Butler Yeats:

        Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop

        I met the Bishop on the road
        And much said he and I.
        `Those breasts are flat and fallen now
        Those veins must soon be dry;
        Live in a heavenly mansion,
        Not in some foul sty.’

        `Fair and foul are near of kin,
        And fair needs foul,’ I cried.
        ‘My friends are gone, but that’s a truth
        Nor grave nor bed denied,
        Learned in bodily lowliness
        And in the heart’s pride.

        `A woman can be proud and stiff
        When on love intent;
        But Love has pitched his mansion in
        The place of excrement;
        For nothing can be sole or whole
        That has not been rent.’

        1. A old friend’s father told us a joke when we were on our way to Whitehart Lane mid sixties.
          A couple in Wales had a teenage son who was a bit of a problem socially. Especially no conversation.
          They had been trying to get him involved with any young lady. Their neighbours had a teenage grand daughter staying.
          They suggested that the son should stand by the garden fence and say hello to her as she often waljed passed to used latrine at the end of the garden.
          He saw her leaving the back door and as she walked towards him he smiled and said hello how are you, she smiled back, but he was lost for words……then he lit up and said to her, going for a shit are you ???

      2. They do indeed, otherwise known as a “poo and view loo”. Legend has it that Princess Anne first coined the phrase and refused to use them! Years ago we stayed in Berlin with an Army friend who had been seconded to NATO in a very senior rank. When we arrived we were told we were in the Princess Anne suite so called because she had stayed there a couple of years before and had stipulated that if the loo was a German “poo and view” one it had to be changed before she arrived. It was the only “normal” one in the whole rather large and grand house!

      3. They do indeed, otherwise known as a “poo and view loo”. Legend has it that Princess Anne first coined the phrase and refused to use them! Years ago we stayed in Berlin with an Army friend who had been seconded to NATO in a very senior rank. When we arrived we were told we were in the Princess Anne suite so called because she had stayed there a couple of years before and had stipulated that if the loo was a German “poo and view” one it had to be changed before she arrived. It was the only “normal” one in the whole rather large and grand house!

      4. Apparently to do with the prevalence of uncooked smoked pork in the diet.
        It’s to check for worms.

    9. She’s obviously not a Guinness drinker. Wasn’t there a woman on the TV that studied stools for a living?

    1. Dunt bother me. especially if they are not representing my country. Lets face it, they don’t have much else going for them and everyones gotta eat!

      1. They could take in a lodger in their 15 million mansion if the budget is tight on food.

  79. A loud Birdie Three?

    Wordle 1,056 3/6
    🟨⬜🟨⬜🟨
    🟨⬜🟨🟨⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. I expect tomorrow it’ll either be very obscure or one of those words that shares at least three letters with dozens of other words.

      Wordle 1,056 2/6

      🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

        1. #metoo.

          Wordle 1,056 2/6

          🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜
          🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

          And I rarely use this starter.

    2. Boring par for me – but I know a lot of people use a start word that contains 4 of the letters – so good for them!

      Wordle 1,056 4/6

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

      1. Just to say, I’ve looked it up, worked out how to do it and will join in when I’ve practised a bit more :))

      2. Just to say, I’ve looked it up, worked out how to do it and will join in when I’ve practised a bit more :))

    3. Much easier than yesterday.

      Wordle 1,056 3/6

      🟨⬜🟨⬜🟨
      🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  80. Off out this evening, 10 year local U3A aniversery get together. Music, a bar (cash) , snacks and dancing for those lucky enough not to have arthritic hips and knees. Foot tapping sounds like a good idea.
    Big sisters birthday lunch Sunday, I believe only us invited by BIL, nice local restaurant not sure if his mobility scooter will fit into our small estate car. Perhaps he’ll only bring the walker and blue badge. They’ve been 61 years married in July.
    It’s been another busy day. My turn to mow the front lawn and verges, both ours and neighbours. Quite an achievement. Sweating buckets after.
    I must spray some lawn weed killer soon. Too many dandelions.
    Hopefully back tomorrow morning. Have fun.
    Slayders.

    1. Don’t spray the dandelions, all variety of bees love them , and they are a food source for other creatures .

      No weedkiller please .

      1. All of the 32 houses in our road have grass verges the dandelions spread naturally.
        They soon return.
        Our lovely four years old granddaughter Lily is obsessed with them at the moment. We picked some together a couple of weeks ago while her elder brother played his football game. 🙂

      1. I caught a bit of the UK’s entry on the news this morning. Homoerotic prancing around. The music was crap, too.

    2. People had to be told how to wash their hands. That’s the extent of the damage diversity has done this country.

      1. I think it’s the extent of the damage the nanny state has done to the country. I would never have dreamed that I would live to see a government, any government, issuing instructions on how to wash your hands!

  85. One problem for our Muslims friends is footage and audio clips reveal what they are really like.. and it’s not pleasant.

    This youtube clip perfectly illustrates Golda Meir’s famous quote..
    “We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us”. https://youtu.be/cV5rgRNbT4o?t=137

        1. I consider it to be an ideology. I wouldn’t dignify it by defining it as a ‘religion’.

    2. Here’s the thing with the luxury opinions of mainstream Liberal-Leftists, they just don’t get the idea that many in this world are prepared to be sacrificed for their God and sacrifice those around them. Mahyar Tousi gets it. Mosab Hassan Yousef gets it. Ayaan Hirsi Ali gets it. But the Liberal-Leftist and mad-Leftist knows better.

  86. James Anderson to end 22-year England Test career this summer after Brendon McCullum talks

    Veteran Test bowler, who turns 42 in July, has been told by head coach that team will look to the future in the autumn

    Will Macpherson, CRICKET NEWS CORRESPONDENT
    10 May 2024 • 5:39pm

    James Anderson will retire from Test cricket this summer, ending a legendary 22-year career as England look to the future.

    Anderson, who turns 42 in July, became the first fast bowler and just the third player to reach 700 Test wickets in his most recent Test, at the end of England’s 4-1 defeat by India in March.

    Along with a host of bowling records, he has played more Tests for England than any other player, 187.

    According to the Guardian, the England head coach Brendon McCullum recently made a swift visit to the UK, where he informed Anderson that England would be looking to the future, and that this summer would be his Test swansong.

    England have a number of appetising fixtures if Anderson chooses to bow out at a specific Test this summer.

    Across six Tests, they play twice at Lord’s, where he has more wickets than any other bowler, at Trent Bridge, his favourite venue, and Old Trafford, his home ground.

    The final Test of the summer is at the Kia Oval, where his great partner Stuart Broad retired last summer got a fairy-tale finish to his career at the end of the Ashes.

    More to follow …

    1. A couple of tears came to my eyes at that cadence to Stuart Broad’s England efforts. Well done that chap.

    2. Fred Trueman will be spinning in t’grave.

      I always marvelled (and wished I could have been a fly on the wall) when Fred became related by marriage to Raquel Welch…!!

        1. Fred’s son married Raquel’s daughter. Briefly. This photo you post was the mother of the bride’s wedding outfit. No wonder Fred was bowled over…

        2. You have to wonder why stone age man would bother covering just those areas rather than either nothing or a full coat of furs.

          1. Always the weak link in what was otherwise an excellent film . I’m talking about ‘The Shawshank Redemption’.

    3. Gavaskar
      Boycott (if things go wrong you need a sticker, although with the rest of this team you probably wouldn’t)
      Lara
      Bradman
      Sobers
      Botham
      Gilchrist
      Warne
      Trueman
      Underwood
      Larwood

      It would take a superb side to defeat that lot

        1. Thank you.
          The team was personal bias and ability.
          Perhaps Illingworth as captain to control them? But I don’t know who I’d drop for him.

          1. I’m sure Fred T had a cameo role in a 60s or 70s tv comedy programme. Dad’s Army perhaps? A scary action, speed, line and length that must have frightened many an excellent batsman.

          3. Never saw Two In Clover or THGTTG, but The Dickie Henderson Show I did, but can’t remember F Trueman on it.

          4. Never saw Two In Clover or THGTTG, but The Dickie Henderson Show I did, but can’t remember F Trueman on it.

      2. Good selection!

        Openers agreed – Alastair Cook as first back-up
        Middle order – there can be no argument there, can there?
        Allrounder – Both is great but you could easily work it with Flintoff or Stokes?
        Wicky – Gilchrist absolutely…
        Warne as spinner no problem
        Larwood as the fastest ever…
        I’d go with Jeff Thomson and Glenn McGrath to finish off…

        1. If I was pushed I might go for Marshall as a quick.
          The thing I always liked about Trueman was his consistency.
          I was also looking at batting as well as fielding away from their specialities at the tail and similarly but vice versa in the front order.
          The ability to “mop-up” and the ability to slog also came into the equations.
          It’s certainly a topic open to discussion.

          1. Yes, Marshall being a bit of a shortarse for a quick, added a different dimension with his scudding deliveries….
            Never really saw Trueman so I might be underestimating him.
            As for mopping up the tail, it has to be Thommo or maybe Shoaib Akhtar?
            Nonetheless, I do enjoy these sort of discussions!

          3. Brilliant, thanks for posting those – he really was wicket-to-wicket wasnt he?

          4. I am a huge admirer of the man. If you look through all his test match bowling statistics (ignoring absolute numbers because modern vs old isn’t comparing like with like on test numbers) his figures are almost unbeatable.

            In full flow his bowling action was violent, economical and very accurate. His run in was further than modern equivalents, but he hit the rhythm a couple of paces before delivery, a joy to watch.

  87. So Starmer is going for those people traffickers, those criminal gangsters that appear to be beyond the long arm of the law.
    Considering nobody can make a financial transaction or fart these days without lights flashing on desktops all over the world it shouldn’t be hard to trace them.
    I wonder how those on the small boats are paying ?
    If Starmer was really onto a way of preventing people trafficking and mass immigration, those high up in our supranational global institutions would have him out faster than Truss if he ever became PM

    1. I expect they put in on the credit card that HMG has already given them – before they leave Calais.

    2. This could just as well have been attached to the earlier discussion on turds.

      The Left’s support for open borders is a betrayal of Britain – and its own voters

      Mass migration may be harming the young and poor the most, and Labour doesn’t seem to care

      CAMILLA TOMINEY, ASSOCIATE EDITOR • 10 May 2024 • 5:57pm

      It is astonishing, when you consider recent history, that Sir Keir Starmer thinks he can credibly claim that Labour will bring down immigration – legal or illegal. This is a man who once claimed that a “racist undercurrent … permeates all immigration law”. As a Remainer, he battled to keep free movement. As shadow immigration minister, he fought against changes to Tier 2 visas, including a £35,000 salary cap.

      He also fought against attempts to bring down the number of overseas students and the dependants they were bringing to the UK, and called for an amnesty for illegal workers and those who employ them. “Fairness and common sense dictate that we should not support the criminalisation of employees themselves for illegal working,” he declared in 2015.

      According to an analysis by the Henry Jackson Society, between 2015 and 2022, Starmer voted 14 times against a stricter asylum system and abstained 22 times, never voting in favour of stricter measures. Indeed, he actually tried to modify the law to allow Channel migrants who are “afraid to return” to their home countries to be eligible for asylum, and endeavoured to prevent small boats that reach UK waters from being turned back.

      Perhaps he thinks that everyone has forgotten all this in the fog of the Tories failing to clamp down on the mass immigration that started with the last Labour government. But the figures are stark for the Tony Blair effect on Britain’s borders. As Karl Williams of the Centre for Policy Studies has set out, in the 25 years up until his election in 1997, cumulative net migration totalled just 68,000. Over the next 25 years, 1998 to 2022, it totalled at least 5.9 million – almost a hundredfold increase.

      Against that backdrop, we’ve witnessed the smuggling gangs running rings around the Home Office, as many Left-leaning MPs, and charities, campaigners and lawyers have done everything in their power to keep illegal immigrants in this country, on top of the legal ones. Such is the basketcase that our Border Force has become that we’ve effectively been witnessing an amnesty for those arriving across the Channel by barely inflatable dinghies. Just 155 migrants who crossed the Channel in small boats last year have been removed from the country.

      In pledging to scrap the Rwanda scheme should he become prime minister – even if it works – Starmer has laid bare the truth about Labour. Not only does the Opposition clearly believe, deep down, that there’s a cruelty to controlling immigration but, like the Tories, they also remain convinced that it increases economic growth, despite all the evidence to the contrary. The last quarter of a century was marked by a sclerotic GDP per capita growth rate of just 1.2 per cent. That’s barely half the growth rate of the preceding 50 years.

      Even when factoring in an eye-wateringly high net migration rate of around 350,000 a year for the next five years, the Office for Budget Responsibility predicts that growth will “pick up to around 2 per cent in the middle of the decade as slack in the economy is taken up, before falling back towards its assumed trend rate of around 1⅔ per cent by 2028”. It’s hardly a convincing economic argument for keeping our borders wide open.

      So forget all this guff about migrant returns deals with the EU and Britain’s shores becoming “hostile territory” for smugglers – even if Labour somehow succeeded in “smashing the smuggling gangs”, it wouldn’t make much difference. Because they’d be following in Blair, Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss and Sunak’s footsteps in doing very little about the hundreds and thousands of migrants we let into the UK every year perfectly legally.

      At least the Conservative prime ministers talked about reducing the number down to the “tens of thousands”. Starmer cannot even bring himself to do that. In fact, when the issue of legal immigration is brought up, the Labour leader and his wannabe home secretary Yvette Cooper seem to run for the hills.

      Yet just as the Left has been forced to wake up to the reality that a woman cannot have a penis, in large part thanks to Dr Hilary Cass’s sanity-restoring report, so too must Labour accept that (largely unskilled) mass migration has done many of its own voters more harm than good.

      The Bank of England has now admitted what many had long suspected: that the housing crisis is being made significantly worse because of uncontrolled immigration.

      According to the Bank’s chief economist, Huw Pill, higher interest rates were not responsible for record hikes in rental costs, which jumped by 9.2 per cent in the year to March. Instead, he said, “quite large increases in immigration” were piling extra pressure on to Britain’s housing stock, after net migration hit a record-breaking 745,000 in 2022.

      “The population is growing,” he said. “To some extent, the rents are really a reflection of supply and demand factors [and] reflect things that aren’t to do with monetary policy.” Pointing out that delays in the planning sector have made a bad situation worse, he added: “We don’t really build enough houses in this country.”

      With net migration continuing in the hundreds of thousands, will we ever be able to build enough houses? Since 2001, the UK population has increased by eight million, of which seven million were migrants. As former immigration minister Robert Jenrick pointed out this week, in a video with fellow Tory MP Neil O’Brien to highlight the perils of uncontrolled migration: “One home would have to be built every five minutes, night and day, just to cope with the record levels of immigration to England.”

      Sorry for stating the obvious, but unprecedented population growth in a supply-constrained market causes prices to rise. But the Left has never been willing to join the dots, preferring instead to gaslight anyone suggesting that the unaffordability and unavailability of housing might be linked to mass migration. It’s been easier to brand people bigots and racists than accept the facts.

      Ironically, the people who have lost out most from this state of denial are one of the Left’s most loyal voting groups: the young. Their futures are being trashed because of open borders. Mass migration has been linked to suppressed wages, and the working poor may be losing out most. Immigration has become a get-out clause for not bothering to fix welfare, leaving millions to languish on benefits. And it puts huge pressure on public services, which hurts those who can’t opt out with private healthcare or education the most.

      Having spent his entire working life on the wrong side of this argument, Sir Flip Flop is now insisting that Left-wing activists who call for open-border migration are “wrong”. Really? Since Labour has been betraying its own voters on this issue for years – no one should believe a word Starmer says.

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/10/the-lefts-support-for-open-borders-is-a-betrayal-of-britain/

    3. As long as the boats are brought here and not immediately returned to france the problem will persist.

      If france complains, remind them of their duty under international law. Everyone seems to forget this. The welfare shopper is supposed to stop in the first safe country. They don’t so are not asylum seekers. Same applies for refugees.

      They must go back. At gunpoint if necessary. The sewage pipe pouring into this country must be cut off and the pollution here cleaned up.

  88. Thank you to John Spencer for the excellent insight here. This was consistent with my basic understanding with far more practical detail which made sense. More of those temper tantrum Neo-Marxist narcissists outside Eurovision should take a moment or two with John, but they won’t. Sam Harris on good clear form without the TDS blurring his vision. The sort of thing the BBC should make, but it won’t.

    https://youtu.be/xqxzscalX2E?si=nNwBXm6qrPUBuc9h

  89. ‘Anglo-Saxon’ isn’t racist. It’s a source of English pride

    The term doesn’t refer to a race, but to a magnificent culture with a powerful legacy for these islands

    DAVID ABULAFIA
    10 May 2024 • 6:06pm

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2024/05/10/TELEMMGLPICT000372403551_17153581077740_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqW5LAbqXSQw_G1yEaLnMlB_4Xpit_DMGvdp2n7FDd82k.jpeg?imwidth=680
    A heritage worth celebrating: the Sutton Hoo helmet in the British Museum

    No one who visits the Sutton Hoo gallery at the British Museum ever forgets the magnificent artistry of our Anglo-Saxon predecessors. We may think of the fourth to the 10th centuries as a “Dark Age”, ruled by crude barbarism and economic collapse, but the gold and bejewelled treasures they left behind are utterly spellbinding – in their way as good as anything produced by the Roman conquerors who came before.

    Which is why it is regrettable that a distinguished journal that dominates the study of Anglo-Saxon history – simply and inoffensively entitled Anglo-Saxon England – is to be renamed by its no less reputable publisher, Cambridge University Press, under the bland new title Early Medieval England and its Neighbours.

    Many believe it is due to the hue and cry about the term “Anglo-Saxon” in the US, where white supremacists have mobilised it as a variant of the term “Aryan”.

    If that is the reason for the change, then as a historian I must protest. For a start, the term “Anglo-Saxon” is not a racial label, but a cultural one. Many English people are the product of a fusion between the Angle, Saxon, and Jute settlers, and the native Britons; the invaders coming from a wide arc of coastline stretching from the Netherlands to Jutland. Anglo-Saxon Britain was no apartheid state, but one fundamentally of rapid synthesis.

    Indeed, the language we speak today was one noticeable product: just under half of the words we use remain of Anglo-Saxon origin. The Anglo-Saxon interpretation of Christianity, too, lives with us still: the Sutton Hoo treasures indicate Christianity was making inroads by the early seventh century, not long after the Jutish king of Kent accepted baptism from the first archbishop of Canterbury. Christian art of this period features stunning iconography derived from the pagan religions that came before.

    Thereafter, Anglo-Saxon culture flourished in a myriad of ways: English monasteries produced startlingly beautiful manuscripts and Anglo-Saxon literature flowered, including rich alliterative poetry; the cultural ties extended to the royal courts in France and Germany.

    King Alfred is the only English king to be known as “the Great”, not just for holding his own against Danish invaders but for his patronage of learning. The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms merged, divided and merged again, but out of their rivalries rose a large and wealthy kingdom, rich in wool sent to the looms of Flanders, and therefore highly attractive to waves of Viking raiders, followed in 1066 by William, duke of Normandy, himself of Viking descent.

    The desirability of this kingdom reflects the high standard of artistic production, learning and prosperity that by the 11th century had few rivals in northern Europe. Its legacy has been extremely powerful. For if we dispense with the Anglo-Saxons, what happens to the name of England, the country of the Angles, or Essex and Sussex, territories of the Saxons? Can we talk any longer of the Anglophone countries? It is telling that even today Russian propaganda mockingly refers to us Britons as Anglosaksy, thinking it a term of derision. Such an insult makes one quite proud.

    Any suggestion of broad ethnic or cultural cohesiveness inevitably generates suspicion in an academic world, where the fantasies of Critical Race Theory find racism under every ancient stone. Yet that is to forget that, even at the time, peoples saw each other as distinct cultures, with unique traits and practices.

    Cambridge University Press would do well to acknowledge that its headquarters are in East Anglia. Instead of erasing the term “Anglo-Saxon”, it is far better to accept that our forebears oversaw a flourishing and fascinating period of this island’s history. It deserves a proper name, and it already has one.

    David Abulafia is professor emeritus of Mediterranean history at the University of Cambridge

    1. David Abulafia is a fantastic historian, patriot and all round good chap.

    2. “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” George Orwell, 1984.

      This is but one example of what appears to be a deliberate attempt to eradicate British (in this case more specifically English) history. By erasing this nation’s history and achievements, the result is a group of people who are either ashamed of their past or have no idea who they really are.

  90. That’s me for this very agreeable day. Greenhouse tomato frames constructed. A dozen of our grown-from-seed tomatoes planted out. Also th Oeillets d’Inde – essential companion plants.

    After lunch, I built the outdoor tomato frame – with stations for 18 more tomato plants – to be potted out tomorrow. Just some loose ends to be tied tomorrow – 18, in all.

    The MR now has a new, fully working phone – thanks to experts young people at John Lewis in Narridge.

    A light supper awaits.

    Have a spiffing evening.

    A demain

  91. Border Force (Command?)

    Kier Starmer’s idea of using a Command extension to UK Border Force is superfluous because it is already a command force with specific legal duties which it is unfortunately unable to perform.

    His propsed multiagency command structure is a ploy currently used by police forces across the UK which allows buck passing between agencies who cannot individually be held responsible for ill defined actions for which they are deemed to be responsible.

    Sir Kier’s strategy however includes disrupting the trafficking gangs who organise the immigrant infux to the UK.

    BBC’s Radio 4 this morning interviewed a Belgian court official who explained how their court had found a Kurdish Iraqi guilty in absentia as being the head of a trafficking organisation. It transpired that he ran a diverse group of contacts who worked to satisfy an enduring demand for relocation to European countries but pursuing legal rrecourse to prevent such an activity was frustrated by lack of extradition agreements with countries where the perpretators resided.

    The Conservative’s Rwanda Act 2024 has already shown to be having some impact on immigration because of the TeaShop’s inundation with Alan’s Snackbar customers.

    1. It is idiotic that our security services are not already in contact with border force and whatever happens to be interpol or eyes.

    2. According to the website for the Trilateral Commission, Starmer is still a member. He’ll do their bidding. End of.

  92. Border Force (Command?)

    Kier Starmer’s idea of using a Command extension to UK Border Force is superfluous because it is already a command force with specific legal duties which it is unfortunately unable to perform.

    His propsed multiagency command structure is a ploy currently used by police forces across the UK which allows buck passing between agencies who cannot individually be held responsible for ill defined actions for which they are deemed to be responsible.

    Sir Kier’s strategy however includes disrupting the trafficking gangs who organise the immigrant infux to the UK.

    BBC’s Radio 4 this morning interviewed a Belgian court official who explained how their court had found a Kurdish Iraqi guilty in absentia as being the head of a trafficking organisation. It transpired that he ran a diverse group of contacts who worked to satisfy an enduring demand for relocation to European countries but pursuing legal rrecourse to prevent such an activity was frustrated by lack of extradition agreements with countries where the perpretators resided.

    The Conservative’s Rwanda Act 2024 has already shown to be having some impact on immigration because of the TeaShop’s inundation with Alan’s Snackbar customers.

    2. There’s an easy solution. Find him and hang him. Solve the damned problem and force the diversity to behave, or leave.

      If that doens’t work, keep building gallows.

    1. Shoot at them, and their French escorts. With big Naval guns (there must be a 20mm cannon somewhere…).

    2. What really bothers me is why the welfare offices are not punished for this fraud. They’re the ones who are responsible for the checking. Why are they not doing their job?

  95. Okay, Starmer missed Savile.
    And he missed the nationwide child grooming gang scandals on his watch.
    But anyone can make a mistake.
    I wouldn’t hold that against him, if he became PM.
    I feel certain, if he became PM then he will stop the people traffickers in their bow waves.
    You can be sure of that.
    Now I must go and charge up my car while the sun is shinning
    Keep buying those lottery tickets.
    And taking those boosters
    More tips tomorrow.

  96. Does anyone know what these flowers are called? They grow in profusion on one of the grass areas (hesitate to call them ‘lawns’ because they are mostly moss) and I don’t cut that grass until they’ve seeded and died back because I like them. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4f6bb8c1533a538c3d55212ae298ecc001ff6234053344a42f3da7c19647fca7.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7b0009878118039b28d53818aabaa9a1d99256c8fa43d70b78c5fcc1949815ca.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/44bb29ab748be17536897aa264574a1535e372899e01c84631e92550dc380631.jpg

          1. A friend has told me that they are Saxifrage. I knew they looked familiar, but I stupidly failed to see the similarity with the Saxifrage we have in the garden as a garden plant!

          2. My patch is covered with similar, “my” strawberries looked very similar , hench my first suggestion.
            When I first saw your post I thought wood anemones, but one too many petals.
            By meadows are presently packed out with wild orchids and Marguerites.

          5. I’ve put up some lower definition shots, they don’t do the garden justice.

          6. A few shots https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6f77f7bbc2c0299711eaf9dc62e4fbdced979f8a4ee13b4cc969af31f938b5fd.jpg
            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/03e9f29793adaf86e6e98a44eca0d8778db33f338353d56600c27f19d96b16e5.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2c47a0ed130a3749f50f82adec4f6785b92866c52c2052b5de24f666e7eb3d40.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f8ecaee2a7b0606ae7a851db274b8bb7d1b2ecf80e756ee2b06d33f1d75c4101.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c59a0f996f51ed5f30a9634b60f43322d3ae896d2360ff6a53996f6c85f1cfde.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0aaf75e25889d7a91f9ba4ab9f1a9d2ace4c9a7c1e0aff9fb4bc67a1b9dde0da.jpg

          7. Beautiful! Absolutely beautiful! You are very fortunate indeed. Thank you for posting.

          8. Thank you.
            Those pictures don’t even get close to displaying the beauty.
            I have literally thousands of orchids here and at least 20 different varieties/hybrids.

          9. How wonderful! Goodness, that must be such a treat to spend time with. Lovely.

    3. Hooray! A friend has just informed me that they are Meadow Saxifrage. Whatever they are, I love them and I look forward to them making an appearance at this time every year.

      Thank you to everyone who made suggestions on here.

    2. The idea that electors don’t have any say in government policy is the real travesty.

  100. Another day when I could not be arsed to do much other than change the kitchen light switch and a bit of desultory bramble uprooting.
    I wonder what I’ll fail to accomplish tomorrow?

    1. If i were only half as active as you. Stop beating yourself up. You do a pretty damn good job. You know it. Don’t make me say it!🙂

    2. I think we all need days when we take it easy, BoB. As More info required has said “Stop beating yourself up”.

  101. Babylon Bee crushing it:

    “ MALMO — People around the world sounded a celebratory cry this week, as having completed her quest to solve climate change, Greta Thunberg turned her attention to achieving peace in the Middle East.

    The renowned climatological expert and professional activist rested from her finished work fixing the earth’s climate problems and set her sights on bringing all nations of the Middle East together in lasting peace and harmony.

    “You thought I could only tackle climate change? How dare you!” Thunberg said as she sternly admonished reporters gathered at an anti-Israel protest in Malmo, Sweden. “Nothing can withstand the onslaught of Greta Thunberg. All those who stand in my path will be destroyed. I eradicated climate change in a few short years simply by giving some speeches and sitting in the road to block traffic. I will now focus my full power on bringing about lasting peace in the Middle East. Look upon me, ye mighty, and despair!”

    Upon hearing about Thunberg turning her attention toward resolving the ongoing conflict in Gaza, Israeli leaders scrambled to convene special meetings to discuss their options. “We were not expecting this,” one high-ranking Israeli official said under the condition of anonymity. “We thought we had the situation well in hand, but as soon as we heard the name ‘Greta Thunberg,’ our hearts froze. THE Grerta Thunberg?! The impish creature that solved climate change? We may need to surrender and give Hamas whatever they ask. What other choice do we have?”

    At publishing time, a coalition of Middle East nations was preparing to negotiate a peace agreement on the condition that Thunberg promises never to visit the region.”

  102. I see Sir Judi Dench, the well known actor, is to become a member of the Garrick Club.

    1. I hope all those geezers who wanted it to be all male leave and form a new gentlemans club.

    2. Poor woman went off the rails when her husband , a very decent chap called Michael Williams, died some years ago.

  104. Well, opopanax has just posted two no doubt very interesting posts, but since my bedtime is meant to be 10 pm and it’s now 11.05 pm, reading them both would take me up to 2 am, and so – in the immortal words of BoB “I could not be arsed”. Instead I will wish you all Good Night, a good night’s sleep and I hope you all awaken refreshed and ready to enjoy a sunny weekend. Hasta Mañana!

  105. Well, opopanax has just posted two no doubt very interesting posts, but since my bedtime is meant to be 10 pm and it’s now 11.05 pm, reading them both would take me up to 2 am, and so – in the immortal words of BoB “I could not be arsed”. Instead I will wish you all Good Night, a good night’s sleep and I hope you all awaken refreshed and ready to enjoy a sunny weekend. Hasta Mañana!

    1. They can only say the past 14 years have not been very good but a Labour government will be even.worse. Probably true but unlikely to prevent a comfortable Labour victory.

      1. It’s pretty clear that Sunak wants out. He’s barely bothering to go through the motions.

    2. “Jeremy Hunt tells voters to focus on Tories’ 14-year record”

      At least he has a sense of humour.

    3. Jeremy Hunt tells voters to focus on Tories’ 14-year record

      Jeremy Hunt, once suspected of being a Conservative, becomes cheer-leader for Labour.

    5. I think she was forced somehow to appoint him when the financial markets went berserk over Kwasi Kwarteng’s budget. I’m pretty sure Lia Truss was stitched up by the BoE and others. Funny how articles in the DT are now saying things like she was right in what she wanted to do.

        1. Thanks for that Angus I knew the BoE had announced two strange actions immediately before the budget and this is in black and white. I wonder, was it complete incompetence or was there some other body behind it? Not sure. Suffice it to say Liz Truss was ousted eventually. Thanks again.

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