Friday 11 August: The Tories should listen to voters and take Britain out of the ECHR

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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571 thoughts on “Friday 11 August: The Tories should listen to voters and take Britain out of the ECHR”

        1. Last night I had a delicious curry and a couple of glasses of wine – I slept like a baby.

          2. Actually, it is a damn silly expression.
            As any bleary eyed, sleep deprived fog-brained parent could tell you.

  5. Good morning, chums. After four busy weeks, today I am having a rest day and catching up with my reading. Enjoy your day.

  6. Morning Geoff and all,

    I’ve uncovered quite a few issues whilst trying to use AI to help me cook an egg in a microwave.

    The last issue arose from asking BingAI if I could boil an egg at 80 degC which on the face of it was a stupid question
    But it turned out to be a sensible question if you were at Everest Base Camp:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/07b24843f4cf4058caa827bc936fa7d5432c9636cf8ce967e9b0ab1efca844c4.jpg

    Here the boiling point of water is 80 degC

      1. I working on how to deal with cooking without fossil fuels and a reduced 3kW eco power supply – a problem you would encounter in Tasmania and probably at Everest Base Camp but you would probably still have access to the internet.

        2. But fossil fuels will be used to generate electricity that powers your micowave. I dont hold with whats going on. Its all about control.

          1. So when EONNext https://www.eonnext.com/electricity-and-gas says Get switched on to 100% renewable electricity at no extra cost and energy solutions discounts. do you think that this is as. big a scam as diesel manufacturers claiming their cars can meet Government emission standards?

            Do you this is case for a class action lawsuit for deceiving electricity customers?

          2. They get around it by pretending that the electricity comes from green fuel being used, Angie, like the pellets from forests in N America and shipped across the Atlantic to Drax.

          4. They cannot seperate what kind of generation comes down the line to you can they. Its just done to make you feel better. Its all a con. just get the best price you can and ignore all the marketing. Ask them how they ensure you have only green energy. When the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine and thery have to start gas, coal and oil powerd power stations.

    2. But, Angie, isn’t is a bit of a chore heaving your microwave up Mount Everest. And are there many electric sockets at the top – there don’t seem to be enough at a lower level for all these electric cars! Lol.

    3. How high is Everest Base Camp – about 2-3 metres, the height of a pointed tent.

  7. Morning Geoff and all,

    I’ve uncovered quite a few issues whilst trying to use AI to help me cook an egg in a microwave.

    The last issue arose from asking BingAI if I could boil an egg at 80 degC which on the face of it was a stupid question
    But it turned out to be a sensible question if you were at Everest Base Camp:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/07b24843f4cf4058caa827bc936fa7d5432c9636cf8ce967e9b0ab1efca844c4.jpg

    Here the boiling point of water is 80 degC

  9. Morning, all Y’all.
    Cloudy – but slightly warm. Effects of flooding from the storm are everywhere. Roads, railways, dams, bridges washed away or impassable. People’s houses crushed by mudslides, or floating down the rivers (very incongruously, with terrace still attached – like some kind of houseboat). Crops destroyed by being washed away or just having a lake parked on top of them. Lordy, what a mess.

      1. Yup.
        Had a good river running past it, runoff from the road and hill, but seems not to have caused any damage.

    2. I hear that a dam partially collapsed in Norway. Nothing to do with that was it?

  10. ‘Morning, Peeps. Currently 19°C here, max 21°. And it is stickier than a sticky bun on a bad day at the sticky bun factory.

    More problems with heat pumps…

    SIR – My wife and I moved into our 18th-century house six years ago. The previous owners had installed a ground-source heat pump (Letters, August 10), which we found to work – temperamentally. The room heating (not hot water) was backed up by a small non-condensing oil boiler. When the heat pump reached the age of about 10 years it failed.

    Finding a competent person to assess the problem and give an estimate for repairs was not easy. The company that had installed the system had long since gone out of business and the nearest engineer was over 100 miles away. The verdict was that the pump would have cost between £4,000 and £7,000 to repair, and that we would have to wait several months – without a hot-water supply – before work could be undertaken.

    Instead, we asked an engineer to bypass the heat pump and install a new, bigger condensing oil boiler in place of the old one. This got us up and running again in only six weeks. It reduced our heating energy costs by about 36 per cent, and our carbon footprint – a result of the higher efficiency of the new condensing boiler compared with the old model, and that the heat pump’s coefficient of performance had been considerably less than that often quoted.

    Professor Gareth Rees
    Cowlinge, Suffolk

    Sensible solution, Prof Rees. All the time that ignorant politicians ignore the bleedin’ obvious these expensive problems will cost householders a fortune. Perhaps the only thing that will finally make them sit up and take notice will be the cost in votes if they don’t get their act together pdq.

    1. Too much “everybody kno” and not enough actual fact, science, engineering and reality in all of this crap.

    2. My father had a major heart attack in 1988. Luckily, he was only half a mile from the Royal Free in Hampstead and they managed to save him, but the doctors advised him he was unlikely to survive another British winter.

      I have a brother in Adelaide, South Australia, so he managed to secure a home for my father to live, and my parents flew out there in October and returned to the UK in April. His last seventeen years were a life of eternal summers. In Australia, he joined a walking club and once won a prize in a local country fair for his mead. I went out there to visit him a few times, the first being in 1991.

      It was during this trip that my wife had invited in a lover to spend the weekend while I was away, and I returned to find an ultimatum. Three weeks later, she was carrying his child, and after taking advice from her women’s group told me “if you don’t do everything I want, I will slam in the divorce and screw you for everything. I know what I want and I know how to get it”. She did petition me for divorce on the grounds of my unreasonable behaviour (apparently I was quite unhappy about the situation and this sort of attitude on my part was unacceptable and evidence of an unstable mental state and male chauvinism), and my own solicitor advised me to conciliate, since I was on a hiding to nothing under the Law in England. I was also totally estranged from my daughter and my son, who are now in their thirties and refuse to maintain any relationship with me. The courts gave up on reasonable contact in 2002 after years of legal fighting. It seemed that me going to court was alienating them, and eventually they had enough and wanted no more of it. I digress.

      My father’s home had an air source heat pump installed, which he proudly showed me in 1991. There was also a solar heating system on the roof for hot water, which worked well while I was there. In winter, however, the house was cold, and anyone staying there had to keep the underfloor heating on and to light a fire in the living room. By 2003, he was too frail to return to the UK in April, and so had to stay in Adelaide over winter. However, Australian winters are not as cold as British ones, so he survived. He died there in June 2005, which would have been in the middle of winter.

      [edit for clarity]

      1. Interesting story JM we lived in Adelaide for around three years. Mid to late 70s
        Morphett Vale and Christie’s Beach.
        Where are/were your relies ?
        Sometimes in the foot hills there was frost on winter nights.

    4. Morning all.

      The politicians must know that Net Zero is unachievable if we are to have the same lifestyle as now, the same food, our own transport etc. . But this is not their objective, is it. TPTB want us under their complete control by way of LTNs, 15 minute cities, CBDC, digital ID, no air travel, under WHO health control, eating less meat and dairy …

  11. 375370+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Friday 11 August: The Tories should listen to voters and take Britain out of the ECHR

    If in power Tories might, but this current band of miscreant,treacherous,treasonable, traitors are hell bent on doing NOTHING beneficial for the United Kingdom, far from it.

    This has been the case for the last forty years so their current
    supporters are well in tune with the parties actions.

    The tory (ino) party at this moment in time is busy trying to re-enter the eu, whilst in regards to the British Isles running an ashes to ashes, dust to dust, successful destructive campaign
    via the lab/lib/con paedophile umbrella/ mass illegal immigrant entry/ bump off cull, coalition.

    2016 48% showed out as wanna be traitors, lest we forget.

  12. SIR – For years I have collected corks (Letters, August 8) with amazing projects in mind. This year the large cupboard was emptied and the corks used at the base of plant pots, for reuse next year. New stock can accumulate in the shed.

    Jacky Staff
    Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh

    …but only if your liver holds up!

      2. Quite so! Some people thrive when living on the edge. This one is obviously on a thrill-seeking roller coaster…

        ‘Moaning, Annie.

      1. Somehow, a senior politician doing something so mundane and domestic as owning a campervan comes across as totally pathetic.

        4. Actually, that’s a motorhome. A campervan is smaller, rather like the VW with the roof that lifts up.

  14. An excellent BTL comment about yet another politician who adheres closely to well-established political doctrine of ‘Do as I say, not as I do’:

    Roger Blank
    6 HRS AGO
    ‘Former environment secretary failed to declare shares in Shell worth more than £70,000’
    Well you would, wouldn’t you, even though you govern over the proles and should know better.
    Another Consocialist snout caught with her trotter in the till.

  15. Oxford Street’s demise fuelling surge in crime, says Marks & Spencer. 11 August 2023.

    Crime rates on London’s Oxford Street have surged as the former flagship shopping destination falls into disrepair, a Marks & Spencer executive has said.

    In a letter to The Telegraph, Sacha Berendji, operations director at M&S, said the district had once been “the jewel in London’s shopping crown” but now consisted of “empty shops, littered streets and fewer visitors”.

    All shopping areas are now effectively under siege if not by organised groups then individuals who know that their chances of being caught are effectively nil. The “authorities”; for want of a better term, have abandoned the owners of these places to their fate. At the moment this is mostly copycat behaviour from the United States where it is even worse. We will soon catch up as this freedom from consequence becomes more widely known. It hardly needs to be pointed out that this is just the leading edge of a general collapse.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/08/10/oxford-street-demise-fuelling-surge-in-crime-marks-spencer/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

    1. The situation will worsen until a large distribution centre (eg an Amazon warehouse) is robbed.

  16. ‘Morning All

    Me…..

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/59b0944e08e5d9a21e99c02290bda91e9a48b78454f994fef1f33f3687cccda2.jpg

    Rest of the medley

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c5f3114f82e27642ca2915400d0cb21722788a599d8b3b376b693565a2d12cf5.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9e5fc7e4323ef861cac0b683cd51241e6ca80ec242cb4f224e5e2495daa60f23.png?w=800&h=253

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/47bd45fd02bf22a3c9b81f3613a5e53c54e25bb9f0db7faf06d7c75b68be98f5.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dd28ca0d77e0e6374194b40e17ba115cd27b282efb6aae46c88666a69655a352.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/94602465fd994a35ef4f7f2e37c76d74d2915b5e7171f6be6f5177429bc2633a.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3afa605b5b562e5b2ef3d773a1924f902c1bf194a73e1a7a3138c2077de91622.jpg

      2. I tried to do a search on a cartoon I saw years ago, but got nowhere. It was a similar rite of passage that went something like

        Sex Sex Sex
        Sex Sex Money
        Sex Money Money
        Money Money Money
        Money Money Toilet
        Money Toilet Toilet
        Toilet Toilet Toilet

      4. Having never driven a powered vehicle (with wheels) I’ve bypassed most of them, but with my knees on the way out will soon be sitting on the last one.

    3. Scott Adams hit so many nails on the head. Hence, ‘Dilbert’ was cancelled in the #ScumMedia. He does a daily podcast these days.

    4. I got to the penultimate stage when I would normally have bought a mobile scooter to get to the local pharmacy and surgery.
      An electric car however fitted my needs better because although I could use the 50 mph dual carriageway in a scooter I didn’t want to obstruct the highway. My 64 kWh Hyundai however is capable of outpacing almost all cars on the road with a 0 to 60 mph of 6 seconds.and can still achieve 4 miles per kWh at a cruising speed of 70 mph. It can do a ton if necessary.

    2. Apparently “Carpet Muncher” is verboten on Tw@ter so I’ve begun using “Masticator of Axminster”.

    3. For those who haven’t come across him before that Morgoth fellow is interesting. He started commenting in the DT years ago, moved to You Tube and Twitter, Odysee, other platforms and Substack. He’s a remarkable fellow. Working class from the North-East with a good ‘Geordie’ accent but a limited formal education, he’s become an auto-didact and I suppose you’d describe him as right-wing nationalist with a deep interest in the future of his own people and their culture. He’s deeply read in political matters and likes Oswald Spengler and Julius Evola. He’s done many a good podcast including an ongoing series ‘shit-reading the Guardian’ and his usual format is a15-20 minute monologue although he does some longer livestreams with others which are usually critiques of films.

  18. Good morning all.
    A bright start with hazy cloud and a warm 14°C outside.

    DT had another restless night and thus kept waking me up.
    I had been planning to do a trip in the van this weekend, but I’m too bloody knackered.

  20. The Fake Climate Consensus
    An interesting article about a climate researcher who rechecked her work and changed her attitude.

    Then the Climategate scandal taught her that other climate researchers weren’t so open-minded. Alarmist scientists’ aggressive attempts to hide data suggesting climate change is not a crisis were revealed in leaked emails.
    “Ugly things,” says Curry. “Avoiding Freedom of Information Act requests. Trying to get journal editors fired.”
    It made Curry realize that there is a “climate change industry” set up to reward alarmism.

    “What kind of message does that give?” adds Curry. Then she answers her own question: “Promote the alarming papers! Don’t even send the other ones out for review. If you wanted to advance in your career, like be at a prestigious university and get a big salary, have big laboratory space, get lots of grant funding, be director of an institute, there was clearly one path to go.”
    That’s what we’ve got now: a massive government-funded climate alarmism complex.

    https://www.takimag.com/article/the-fake-climate-consensus/

      1. Been going on since the Club of Rome was started by David Rockefeller whose stooge Henry Kissinger schooled his own stooge Klaus Schwab.

        1. I’m not normally vindictive, but he’s one man I’d like to see die trapped in a car and screaming as the fire consumes his body.

          1. Possibly an inappropriate comment as that was happening in the fires in Hawaii a couple of days ago.

  21. Morning all 🙂😊
    Warm, slight breeze, thin cloud but quite bright.
    The Tories are not interested in anything the public say. But They might suddenly become more interested when the next election is getting closer.
    A land mark of more than 100,000 invaders to deal with and they still don’t have a clue what the overall public opinion of this pathetic government is. How can it be possible that they can’t act in favour of public opinion ?

    1. These are just the people coming in off the dinghies. The total figure since we elected to leave the EU is closer to 4 million. Who knows what it was before 2016, but I believe many of the Poles have gone home to seek a better life.

      1. The sad truth is that Britain is finished and is completely beyond redemption.

        The best lack all conviction, as WB Yeats wrote, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.

        I wonder how long my two sons will want to remain in the UK. They deserve a better future than is currently on offer.

    2. I think they have resigned themselves to being eliminated. Those who could have done something have probably been bought off and I wonder what extremely lucrative jobs are already being arranged for the likes of Sunak and Hunt.

      Look at David Miliband and Nick Clegg – both immediately given unbelievably lucrative sinecures when their political stars had fallen.

        1. It was notable that the only shop completely untouched during the Tottenham riots was… Waterstones. Why? Because they’re stupid, gormless scum who can’t read and live on welfare.

  23. Good morning all,

    Cloudy at the McPhee’s, some sunny periods in prospect, chance of a shower early afternoon. Wind Sou’-West, 16℃ going up to 22℃ so reaching the long-term (1990-2022) average.

    Off to get some fishing in today, my first foray to the riverbank for nearly a fortnight.

    This must have been a bit of a surprise to a few drivers:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/10/plane-makes-miraculous-emergency-landing-dual-carriageway/

    Shortly after the incident, Gloucestershire Airport director, Jason Ivey, told the BBC that the plane was flying to Staverton, where it is normally based.

    He said: “We are aware that a pilot has had to perform an emergency landing on the public highway due to a suspected engine failure.

    No-one hurt. Result! I love the way the way Mr Jason Ivey described the incident as a ‘suspected’ engine failure. The fact that the prop was stationary would be fairly conclusive. It’s also fortunate that the prop stopped in a horizontal position. It was a fine feat of airmanship nonetheless. Well done to the pilot who was possibly unable to pick a suitable level field into wind either because he/she was low so had few options and there were power lines/trees/combined harvesters in the way.

  24. Good morning all,

    Cloudy at the McPhee’s, some sunny periods in prospect, chance of a shower early afternoon. Wind Sou’-West, 16℃ going up to 22℃ so reaching the long-term (1990-2022) average.

    Off to get some fishing in today, my first foray to the riverbank for nearly a fortnight.

    This must have been a bit of a surprise to a few drivers:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/10/plane-makes-miraculous-emergency-landing-dual-carriageway/

    Shortly after the incident, Gloucestershire Airport director, Jason Ivey, told the BBC that the plane was flying to Staverton, where it is normally based.

    He said: “We are aware that a pilot has had to perform an emergency landing on the public highway due to a suspected engine failure.

    No-one hurt. Result! I love the way the way Mr Jason Ivey described the incident as a ‘suspected’ engine failure. The fact that the prop was stationary would be fairly conclusive. It’s also fortunate that the prop stopped in a horizontal position. It was a fine feat of airmanship nonetheless. Well done to the pilot who was possibly unable to pick a suitable level field into wind either because he/she was low so had few options and there were power lines/trees/combined harvesters in the way.

  25. When is Woke Country going to address the elephant in the room .

    We know that lawless blacks are causing havoc EVERYWHERE.

    The City of London will soon be a no go area , lost to hoodlems and drug addicts and thieves like in every major city in the world , except the Far East where bad behaviour isn’t tolerated .

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12396279/Oxford-Streets-demise-fuelling-rising-crime-M-S-boss-warns.html?login#readerCommentsCommand-message-field

    Marks & Spencer boss slams the demise of Oxford Street as the decline of city centres fuels rise of crime including US-style flashmob looting… as TikTok-inspired chaos moves to Southend
    Nine people arrested and 34 dispersal orders issued on Oxford St on Wednesday
    Fears of violence spread to Southend after people are urged to ‘get lit’ on beach

    2. It seems that the law has no problems in tracing an individual that makes a ‘hateful’ comment so it should not be beyond them to catch the instigators of this looting. If it is not stamped on early, this type of robbery will become endemic if it hasn’t already. Discussion is stifled, of course, as calling a spade a spade would see the full force of the law against your front door.

      1. American sweet shops, Turkish barbers – all fronts for drug running. They know it, plod know it, but they’ll do nothing about it.

          3. Debenhams and Wilko can’t afford business rates, but Tarik’s empty barber’s shop can.
            Something does not compute.

          3. Touching wood – crossing fingers and toes – very slightly less painful. I could actually get out of bed and stand.

            Thanks for asking. It takes about ten days to get back to what passes for normal. Maddening, because there are some jobs that need doing – ladderwork – which are just impossible when my back is like this. Grrr.

    3. London is an open sewer full of excrement forced here by Left wing governments solely to ‘rub the right’s nose in diversity’. Well, the capital is now a hell hole full of criminal foreigners.

      1. It might be argued by some that one of whom is the mayor and not far behind is something that pertains to PM.

    4. Comments in the DT are saying the same thing.
      When I last looked, they were allowed to remain.
      Is there a change creeping over the media?

  26. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8f663126a00da275eedb7878a7f0c262973c703c09fc62526811d095b3750714.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/savings/barclays-bank-spending-curbs-customers-overdraft/

    A BTL Exchange

    Robert Getgood

    Arrogant, what rhymes with bankers. Barclays and several other banks have lost the plot. Disgusting abuse of the clients who they profuse to serve.

    Reply to Robert Getwood by Percival Wrattstrangler

    I think you mean profess rather than profuse but even though it does not rhyme with bankers onanists could be the word you are looking for.

    And talking of rhyming slang wasn’t The Berkeley Hunt, a foxhound pack in the west of England, the original of the rhyming slang for the word for something that is now applied to the chancellor.

    1. I wonder how much is forcing people to better manage their money and how much is automated ‘you only use it for this much, we’ll reduce it to that much +X% rounded up?’

      1. That’s a Spoonerism!

        ‘Berk’ is the ‘polite’ way of using a word that rhymes with Hunt.

    3. I think I have an overdraft limit of £1,000. I’ve never needed it or used it, so I don’t usually look to see if it’s changed.

      1. I’ve never used mine either – I was brought up that if I couldn’t pay for something I didn’t get it. The only exception being a mortgage which I paid off as soon as I could. I do use a credit card occasionally out of convenience but that is paid off automatically each month

        2. Same here. Never get into debt! I use the credit card occasionally but I always pay it off the next month. We overpaid our mortgage and cleared it in just over 10 years.

          1. I too kept the payments of when the interest rate was 15%, it was a bit of a stretch but the mortgage was paid off in 5 years rather than 25

          2. I was the same. The sooner I paid it off the better as far as I was concerned. I didn’t like being in debt.

    4. It’s an automated “Fleshlight” (look it up). It seems that one in the video also has a setting for the ‘vinegar strokes’. 🤣

    5. Looks like a sex aid, gentlemen, for the use of. Other proclivities may be optional.

  28. Another day – another dressing. Apptmt next Friday.

    Cat news. We were up very early. Normally, both cats in porch or very near. Gus came in. No sign of Pickles. An hour and a half went by. I went round the garden – down the road – both ways. Not a sign. We were beginning to have that feeling of dread that all cat people will recognise. Gus was acting oddly, too.

    A final patrol – nothing. Came back into the house. Pickles was sitting in the kitchen, looking at his watch……

    Cats, eh!!

      1. Of course, Picks would say that he hadn’t been away – merely doing his daily rounds…..

    2. Spartie does the same thing.
      A couple of weeks back I returned from a bank and shopping trip to find four people milling round the house in a state of barely controlled panic.
      Spartie couldn’t be found and it was suspected the side gate had been left open.
      MB and our cleaner searched; our cleaner phoned elder son who arrived with his son – they had also been shopping in town.
      As all hull erupted, grandson checked our bedroom. The door had closed , and, despite all the calling and general kerfuffle, Spartie had lounged silently on the bed and let them get on with it.
      The atmosphere was … er …. not relaxed.
      I didn’t feel it was the moment for a hot and bothered me – who had schlepped back from town with a couple of laden bags – to ask for a cup of tea.

      1. I mislaid Kadi this morning; I’d been into the sitting room to fetch something and he’d sneaked in behind me so I’d shut him in.

    3. Hello Bill,

      Loved your CZ article and photos . Very interesting read .

      My new Avatar shows my 10 year old working cocker who nearly gave me a heart attack last week when he scooted off whilst older son was out for a walk with him in a country spot .. We all carry a whistle with us because he responds , returning , usually .

      Frantic mobile call from son, the dog has cleared off in a straight line following a scent , and vanished ..

      Moh established son’s whereabouts , and motored off to find him .. half an hour later , I had a phone call.. ” Hello , do you own a foxy coloured spaniel ” my heart flipped , and I said yes , the caller then said ” I have him here , and have put him on my lab’s lead”

      The kind gentleman met up with son and Moh and handed Pip over.

      Pip has started humping legs etc recently and will follow trails of bitches on heat and gets very excited , this is a very recent phenomena , it is I suppose a mid life crisis .

      My vet said that the dog is too old for a de bollocking , and an anaesthetic at his age isn’t a good idea , anyway for a brilliant little spaniel who locates fox poo at least 4 times a week, and seeks out rabbits and finds hundreds of balls a year , there is nothing wrong with his nose!

      Years ago, dog owners were more considerate about walking their bitches if they were on heat , but as with lots of things , everything is different , and there are so many more dog owners than there used to be .

      1. Glad you got him back safe and sound, Belle. Poppy, our 10-month old Lab pup (at the time) wanted to make friends with a German Shepherd at least 100 yds away in the park, only to find that he had other ideas. This was in stark contrast to her well-controlled walk alongside us. Following a yelp during his advances she took off in the direction of the car park, and if a kindly dog owner hadn’t grabbed her she would have continued out into the road. She has been trained to the whistle and normally returns without question, but not this time. Thank goodness her guardian angel was on the ball!

        Incidentally, your point about walking bitches in season is well made…we always resorted to an early morning or late evening stroll with her, never off the lead of course, during the three weeks of her first season (at eight months of age). As it happened she was well below par for about three weeks, during which time she would apply the brakes and turn towards home when she’s had enough. All other dogs were avoided like the plague, but they were rare.

    4. Cats have masters…

      Mrs HJ couldn’t find her phone yesterday evening so, as usual, I rang it. Nothing, followed by another search…including car, garage etc. Tried ringing it again…and found it where she had left it, on the shelf alongside her chair, having been driven to terminal boredom while I finished another episode of Bangers and Cash. All my fault, of course.

    5. Our younger son’s handsome black cat sloped off for ten weeks last summer, arriving back home on the second coolish night (about 10pm) of the autumn. They had of course given up all hope, so they could scarcely contain themselves when he popped back through the cat flap.

  29. Off to the tip shortly….. then Morrisons

    – exciting life, avoiding the roadwords everywhere. We’ve found a longer route to the tip.

  30. Only a firm of lawyers (along with Tony Blair’s wife, no doubt) could defend the ECHR out of which they enrich themselves.

    By the way, a man was window shopping in a seaside town. He noticed a brass rat in a window and asked how much it was. The shopkeeper said: “Let me tell you the story about it”.

    The man said: “No. Here’s the money, just give me the brass rat”.

    He walked down the street with his new purchase and noticed that there were a couple of rats following him. Then more rats came and suddenly there were thousands of them. He walked down to the beach and all the rats went into the sea and drowned.

    The man went back to the shop and the shopkeeper said: “Ah! You’ve come to find out the story about the brass rat”. The man said “No, I’ve come to find out if you have any brass lawyers”!

  31. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1a69c948dccabf870a1dec73b6de0648bbd9c324f5337900a80c9be76699ef23.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/11/public-sector-pensions-are-pushing-britain-into-bankruptcy/

    BTL Percival Wrattstrangler

    Just as Brown raided the private pension funds when he came into the chancellorship so all politicians since then have paid over generous pensions to themselves and the civil service and ignored those dependent on their OAPs and ravaged private pensions.

    We have been cursed with completely incompetent chancellors ever since Nigel Lawson left the office.

    1. My public sector pension was not increased by the rate of inflation this year. The explanation for that was apparently the increase has been applied to my state pension. They are now almost the same amount. I don’t think I am bankrupting the country – I paid into the system for both my pensions so that I would not be forced onto means tested benefits.

      2. That is just so disingenous, unbelievably so – I have a university pension, I received the full rate of inflation, I think it was 12 percent. My university pension is now almost the same as my state pension also! Poppiesdad got something like two and half percent on his private pension. It all goes into the same household pot (joint bank account).

      3. My UK state pension did not increase this year, there again it never does. I could move about fifty miles south into the US and then I would receive pension increased.

        I assume thar there are no votes in seniors that have retired to commonwealth countries.

      4. I would be surprised if that is correct. I am lucky enough to have a public sector pension and that went up by the inflation figure.

        1. This is what the annual letter says: ” Not all members are eligible for the full 10.1% increase – if you reached state pension age before 6th April 2016 and you were working in the Civil Service prior to 6th April 1997, part of your pensions increase is paid within your state pension. Therefore, if you didn’t receive the full 10.1% in your occupational pension, you will have received an increase in your state pension to compensate.”

          Not sure how much compensation that was – pre 97 additional state pension, less contracted out deduction amounted to £3.24. Post 97 additional state pension – £4.56.

        2. This is what the annual letter says: ” Not all members are eligible for the full 10.1% increase – if you reached state pension age before 6th April 2016 and you were working in the Civil Service prior to 6th April 1997, part of your pensions increase is paid within your state pension. Therefore, if you didn’t receive the full 10.1% in your occupational pension, you will have received an increase in your state pension to compensate.”

          Not sure how much compensation that was – pre 97 additional state pension, less contracted out deduction amounted to £3.24. Post 97 additional state pension – £4.56.

      5. Public sector pensions are still way better than very many private occupational pension schemes, though.

          1. Most if not nearly all, of the damage that was done to pensions was done to the private sector schemes by idiot politicians. Nothing was gained by what they did – nothing at all.

  32. DT letters, where is Grizzly, he is a pork pie expert .

    I wonder whether he knows this?

    Huguenot pork pies
    SIR – Patricia Follett’s description of her pies (Letters, August 10) made me long for a traditional Midlands version.

    After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, French protestant Huguenots were persecuted and many came to Britain, settling in various areas, including the Midlands. They established a tradition of charcuterie and pork pies.
    Excellent versions are available in supermarkets and have a following of discerning fans.

    Sheila Williams
    Ascot, Berkshire

    1. Hello, Sweetie.😘

      I’m not surprised that the first pork pies came from French charcuterie, it makes perfect sense. The best pork sandwich that I’ve ever tasted came from one of a chain of shops in Sheffield that was started by a Hungarian refugee from 1956. Sandor Béres is now a legend in Sheffield and his pork products are sensationally delicious. https://beresporkshop.co.uk

      Many well-loved ‘British’ food products have a foreign ancestry. Pea soup, for instance, came with the Viking invaders from Norway.

  33. “Where the Welsh go, there go we”

    The SNP has declared war on the countryside

    Egged on by its Green Party allies, the party is trying to regulate shooting estates out of existence

    ALAN COCHRANE • 10th August 2023 • 6:00am

    Is Saturday still “The Glorious Twelfth”? Does the start of the grouse-shooting season on August 12 continue to merit that description – assuming it ever did? Frankly, the answer must be a resounding “No”; a more appropriate phrase might well be “The Last Chance” because this season is the last before its opponents hope to sound the death knell for shooting estates.

    That’s what may be on the cards in Scotland, where an ever-escalating class war targeting the country’s lairds is being waged by the SNP, egged on by the Scottish Greens. That, plus new rules for country life drawn up by the “desk-top ecologists” in Edinburgh’s coalition government, is doing its best to kill off country sports.

    The success of estates depends entirely on the number of birds shot. Advance estimates are difficult to gauge, but this year they vary from “grim” to “not brilliant … but not too bad”. The outcome is heavily dependent on the weather and a veritable plague of ticks has hammered the birds on some estates.

    However, it’s the legislation due next summer that may bring about massive change. It will mean that estates must apply for a licence from the SNP government before they’re allowed to exist. And if they break any rules set out in new “guidance” from Scottish ministers, such licences can be suspended or revoked.

    These rules include restrictions on lead shot, on vermin traps and even on the amount of medicated “grit” used to improve the health of grouse. Certain pesticides shouldn’t be used to control bracken and there will be restrictions on where and how much heather can be burned by keepers, even if experienced firefighters insist that controlled burning helps restrict wildfires.

    And if a buzzard is found dead on a moor, the immediate assumption would be that it had been killed there – whether or not there’s evidence to that effect. Worst of all, as far as land managers are concerned, is that such suspensions could be based on accusations alone. [Bicycling buzzards, perhaps?]

    There is no doubt that the onslaught against country sports has stepped up several gears thanks to several factors; the first is that the SNP has become an urban entity. Whereas, it grew to prominence by winning rural seats and had an understanding of rural life, it has now “captured” Scotland’s Central Belt, with the majority of its seats now in the cities and their hinterlands.

    City dwellers often have little experience of country life and, added to that, there is a long-standing antipathy among many Scots towards lairds, fuelled as often as not by grisly tales of the Highland clearances. The result is a much greater animus towards landowners than that which exists in England.

    And, while England has had an almost continuous supply of Conservative governments, often with a significant rural base, Scotland has traditionally voted overwhelmingly for Labour and, since 2007, for the SNP.

    However, this bid to take on the owners of vast tracts of Scotland has been reinforced to a remarkable extent by the SNP’s coalition with the Scottish Greens, agreed by Nicola Sturgeon when she was first minister. Although it has only seven MSPs to the SNP’s 64, under the Bute House Agreement of 2021, the Greens’ votes gave Sturgeon a majority at Holyrood and that tiny party still plays a controlling influence in the governance of Scotland. It’s not so much the tail wagging the dog; there is only the tail.

    The Greens are seen as the driving force behind the coalition government’s determination to end North Sea oil and gas production, as well as to delay vital improvements on major arteries such as the A9 and A96. They are also opposed to fish farming, which is one of the UK’s biggest food exports, and played a key role in Sturgeon’s plan to allow people to change their gender more easily.

    But we don’t need a crystal ball to visualise the future this coalition has for the countryside. It concerns trees – lots and lots of them.

    Late last year the Scottish government’s forestry division paid an estimated £25 million for the 8,000-acre Glen Prosen estate in Angus. It was reported that the Sturgeon administration had also been the under-bidder in several other estate auctions.

    It was stated that the purpose of the Prosen purchase was to create more woodland and for “community engagement”. But I know that part of the world very well and there is no community – the people who used to live there lost their jobs and have gone.

    Land managers fear that many more shooting estates will be sold and turned into extensive woodland. The reasoning is simple. Woodland can be used to offset the production of carbon – a lucrative business. And if governments such as that led by the SNP impose ever more restrictions on grouse shooting, who could blame landowners for selling up?

    So what would an upland Scottish landscape look like without grouse moors? Imagine the hills covered in trees, possibly quick growing conifers, but devoid of people – the nearly 3,000 jobs that the grouse sector supports would be gone forever.

    That appears to be the vision that the SNP and their Green allies have for us.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/10/the-snp-has-declared-war-on-the-countryside

    1. These rules include restrictions on lead shot – lead is not permitted in Norway. There are alternatives that work just as well – bismuth, for example (I have a box of Bismuth / heavishot for goose). We have hunting start on 12th as well, and the dates for the various species are regulated in law.
      Leaving the bracken untended will result in a desert, and some interesting fires. Closing shooting estates will put all the workers out of their jobs, as well as other support staff. But I guess nobody cares about the collateral damage.

      1. The Plonks (People of little or no knowledge) don’t know the damage they cause.

        …..perhaps they do.

    2. I can’t help feeling that the replacement of grouse moors by woodland is a good thing – at least there won’t be raising of birds with the sole intent of shooting them (at £1000 a day) and calling it a sport, furthermore there won’t be the need by the estates to illegally slaughter raptors

      1. “… raising of birds with the sole intent of shooting them…”

        Red grouse are not raised in captivity. Many pheasants are, although some pheasant shoots drive wild birds.

        The RSPB has rowed back a bit on its hostility to grouse shooting, probably because of its embarrassment over the Langholm Moor experiment:
        https://www.rspb.org.uk/our-work/policy-insight/england-westminster/farming-and-land-use/driven-grouse-shooting/

        Here’s the view of the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust:
        https://www.gwct.org.uk/policy/briefings/driven-grouse-shooting/conservation-on-grouse-moors/

        There are some worthwhile experiments in reforestation in Scotland but they are on quite a small scale and involve smaller native species such as juniper, rowan, holly and birch and generally on higher land. If the Scottish administration is involved in large scale planting schemes, you can be sure it won’t turn out well ecologically. Some people will simply make money of out it while driving locals off the land and out of work.

      2. “… raising of birds with the sole intent of shooting them…”

        Red grouse are not raised in captivity. Many pheasants are, although some pheasant shoots drive wild birds.

        The RSPB has rowed back a bit on its hostility to grouse shooting, probably because of its embarrassment over the Langholm Moor experiment:
        https://www.rspb.org.uk/our-work/policy-insight/england-westminster/farming-and-land-use/driven-grouse-shooting/

        Here’s the view of the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust:
        https://www.gwct.org.uk/policy/briefings/driven-grouse-shooting/conservation-on-grouse-moors/

        There are some worthwhile experiments in reforestation in Scotland but they are on quite a small scale and involve smaller native species such as juniper, rowan, holly and birch and generally on higher land. If the Scottish administration is involved in large scale planting schemes, you can be sure it won’t turn out well ecologically. Some people will simply make money of out it while driving locals off the land and out of work.

    1. I know they mean well – and each to their own, and all that – but I really dislike “re-enactors”.

      1. They preserve history and that always a good thing as we can learn much from the past.
        You will not be joining The Sealed Knot then.?

        1. There is a group based in Nice – French people – who dress up as Yanks and drive about the coast in Jeeps and things. They infuriate the actual anciens combattants and maquisards….

          History can be preserved without dressing up.

          But – as I said at first – each to their own.

      2. Everyone has to have a hobby. I was at Salisbury where there was a re-enactment around the fort. I got to see inside a German officers tent from WW2 with all the contents lovingly kept in good condition. Gives you an idea of how it was.

        2. My elder son’s a member of the Sealed Knot and has been since he was a teenager. They do Civil War reenactments.

          2. We are having a reenactment of the Siege of Colchester in the Castle Park next weekend.
            Will your son be amongst them?

          3. I don’t know – they mainly seem to do things fairly local to Wales. I’ll have to ask him.

        3. I often wonder why there are no re-enacment groups for padres. “These tough, uncompromising men of the Roayl Army Chaplains’ Department, running from trench to trench to deliver communon and the last rites”.
          Or the Pay Corps or the Pioneer corps etc.
          Probably a dull weekend.

      3. Why, Bill? OK, in this case they’ve blocked off a road but if there was, say a medieval re-enactment at a castle as part of the tour, would that bother you?

        1. Me too; first time I have heard ‘The Weight’ and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks, Grizz.

  36. More than 100,000 migrants have crossed the English Channel since 2018 with some 755 detected in small boats yesterday – the highest daily figure this year so far
    Official Home Office figures show 100,715 people have crossed the Channel
    Around 755 people made the crossing on Thursday, the highest figure in 2023
    READ MORE: MPs want Border Force staff on jet-skis deployed in the Channel

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12396851/More-100-000-migrants-crossed-English-Channel-2018-755-detected-small-boats-yesterday-highest-daily-figure-year-far.html?ito=push-notification&ci=ri0vMSE8TZ&cri=hE7dt_2bek&si=p3DSQ2YwOLik&ai=12396851

    1. This appears irrational TB.

      It doesn’t matter how many Border Force staff are on jet-skis, if you welcome them with free

      accommodation, free food, free sim cards, free medical and dental, and free clothing on

      arrival they will continue to arrive.

      No other European country does this, so the comment by MPs that the ECHR force us to do this is complete twaddle.

      2. There is not the will to stop the invasion and suggesting BF have jet skis might involve, er, spending more money that we don’t have. It’s just talk and they’re talking out of their arrises.

    2. This appears irrational TB.

      It doesn’t matter how many Border Force staff are on jet-skis, if you welcome them with free accommodation, free food,

      free sim cards, free medical and dental, and free clothing on arrival they will continue to arrive.

      No other European country does this, so the comment by MPs that the ECHR force us to do this is complete twaddle.

      1. Ron Moore MP
        @RonMooreMoreRon
        SPOTTED ON THE TORY BENCHES IN THE HoC: Mobile phones, Apple watches, designer suits, subsidised meals and alcohol & not a care in the world.

        And all paid for by the taxpayer.

        We’re being mugged off!
        10:53 PM · Aug 10, 2023
        ·
        212
        Views

      1. A masticator of the Axminster and someone who’d be better employed protecting a polder somewhere in Holland.

    1. No one seems to link soaring crime, an unproductive economy, massive welfare demand, high unemployment, massive housing demand with the systematic race replacement carried out by the state machine.

      The UK should never have been damaged to this extent. The malice of the Left is heinous.

    1. The same force that not only ignored, but covered up and protected the mechanised rape of children by pakistani muslim paedophiles.

      The state is utterly deranged.

    3. The second one reminds me of one of the Pink Panther films.

      Inspector Clousseau asks the concierge :
      “Does you dog bite?”
      “No,” replies the concierge.
      Clousseau then strokes the dog in the hall which is sitting by the concierge’s desk and it immediately bites him viciously.
      “You told me that your dog does not bite!” says the wounded inspector shaking his blooded hand.
      “That’s not my dog,” says the concierge.

  41. Britain’s surging deer population is causing an ecological disaster. I have a solution: wolves. 11 August 2023.

    What’s missing from this picture? I mean the picture of rural Britain many of us hold in our heads, whether it be a thatched and mullioned idyll, or the bare hills fetishised by naive nature writers? Well, quite a lot. Trees in the uplands; soft boundaries between habitats (ecotones) that are crucial for thriving food webs; dead wood, of which there’s a dearth in this country; scrub (a vital but derided habitat); undrained wetlands; and wild, healthy rivers. But there’s something else, something whose absence is less visible but just as important. Wolves.

    Personally I wouldn’t be averse to a few cave bears and woolly mammoths but they would play havoc on the school run.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/11/britain-deer-population-ecological-disaster-wolves-humans-predators

          2. But they would not be cannibalistic as Islam does not allow its adherents to eat pork.

      2. People that live there understand the dangers and are likely to be armed. The same cannot be said for the UK.

      3. The crater of a volcano. Good place for the IPCC to meet especially in we could cause it to erupt.

    4. Stalking and hunting deal with the deer population. Much more reliable and less dangerous than introducing wolf packs.

  42. I asked my wife to remind me when her birthday was!
    She said March 1st!
    So I walked round the room and asked again!

  43. OT – apropos my visit to Nurse this morning.

    I now have an inkling of how animals must feel when taken to the vet. My wound is in the middle of my back. I can’t see it and I do not know what Nurse (and the MR) are doing to it. I am also at least 50% deaf – so can’t hear most of what they mutter behind my back….

    Unlike cats and dogs, however, I did NOT get a treat for being a good boy!!

      1. That’s what they should have used in the first place. It would have been clean within a week.

        1. Flies coming off the chicken ranch could be carrying nasties but they could breed them in clean conditions.
          Wriggle wriggle…..

      3. My cousin John Church is an orthopaedic surgeon who has taken a pioneering interest in using maggots in surgery. But he understands that some people are less enthusiastic than others about it. From a report in the Los Angeles Times:

        “But Church acknowledged that the procedure faces certain public relations obstacles. “We call it the ‘yuck factor,’ ” Church said, “by which we mean that people regard this with some degree of apprehension, or indeed frank horror, when first introduced to the idea.”

        I think the yuck factor is something many of us feel toward politicians as well as toward medical procedures.

    4. There’s a hole in my back dear MR dear MR
      There’s a hole in my back MR a hole

      Then mend it dear Billy dear Billy dear Billy then mend it dear Billy dear Billy mend it!

      With what shall I mend it dear MR dear MR with what shall I mend it dear MR with what?

      Answers on a postcard c/o NotTL

    5. Ah, but presumably you don’t have to be drugged up to the eyeballs and muzzled for a visit, unlike Oscar.

    6. Mr T, it would be a good idea to take a couple of digital photos of the ulcerated wound each time that the dressing is changed. You could then have a look on a computer screen, and see how the wound is healing. An ulcer can take a year to heal, or never, so it is worth looking at so-called ‘alternative’ medicine. As an example, there is a hyperbaric oxygen therapy centre in the Norwich area. https://www.oxygentherapynorfolk.org.uk/

    7. Mr T, it would be a good idea to take a couple of digital photos of the ulcerated wound each time that the dressing is changed. You could then have a look on a computer screen, and see how the wound is healing. An ulcer can take a year to heal, or never, so it is worth looking at so-called ‘alternative’ medicine. As an example, there is a hyperbaric oxygen therapy centre in the Norwich area. https://www.oxygentherapynorfolk.org.uk/

  44. Marvelous,just bloody marvelous three days trying to order my repeat prescriptions on line no form available now a notice saying bear with us as we transition to our new website giving a phone number
    Oh wait “we don’t accept presciption requests by phone”
    GRHHH now off to the surgery in person
    Their rating of “Needs Improvement” is well deserved!!

    1. Same with mine. Go through the website for reception and enquiries and each request i have made has got the answer ‘we don’t deal with that’.

    2. Have you tried Pharmacy2U for repeat prescriptions? Order on there and they are usually despatched within 24/48 hrs once your surgery has authorised. (The only hurdle then is getting Royal Fail to deliver on time.)

      1. I just email Shropshire POD and they sort it in a couple of days. Then I collect the meds from my pharmacy.

  45. You have got to laugh, or just cry. From the DT “Migrants removed from Bibby Stockholm barge after bacteria found”. Wonder if it had been lost for very long or just come over with its hosts.

      1. On everyone, shirley? I once had meningococcal septicaemia and no-one explained to me that there are meningococcal bacteria in the human throat all the time, it’s just not normally a problem.

        1. I guess it’s like the Staph A bacteria which normally live on the skin. Only when the host is weakened do they become a problem.

    3. I don’t think the bbc mentioned that on the lunchtime news.
      They all need to go into quarantine.
      On Ascesion island.

        1. I’m sure South Georgia is nice in the spring. Maggie T was very glad to get it back in 1982.

          1. At least penguins have a pecking order and if the lazy gimmegrants get totally pecked to bits, so be it.

    4. When I worked at Norwich Airport, the carpet in the passenger screening area had to be de-fleaed three times a year. All staff were required to have Hepatitis jabs too.

    5. Why is this a problem? They get ill. They’ve been living outside in tents. Get on with it.

    6. Ah – the PTB want to ensure that whatever plague these illegals are carrying is spread among the general population quickly.

    7. After all the safety tests they didn’t test the water supply or air conditioning units? Or have they just said they found legionella…

    8. Not only did I stay on the Stockholm while on the Shetland Project, I also stayed on the MV Gemini, and old cruise liner. The water in the cabins was not potable so there were pallet loads of bottled water in reception so we helped ourselves. We just got on with it.

      1. So that when the final push comes and we have been officially conquered, we will scarcely notice the difference.

        1. I used to be part of a four part harmony group of singers drawn from the church choir.

    4. That fits with the old Bar rhyme
      Inner for the rich
      Middle for the bores
      Lincolns for the blacks, and
      Gray’s for the whores…

      Needless to say I learnt the rhyme in the Gray’s bar.

    3. You would think they’d have tested the water before they moved people in? And made sure the temperature was high enough to kill Legionella?

  49. LittleBoats 🇬🇧NI🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿En
    @LittleBoats2020
    ·
    50m
    “Breaking”

    We’ve just heard from our Crew in the know the barge had a full service of all its water systems as part of its multi million refit & indeed was tested last week for Legionella disease & cleared

    This is ether Woke sabotage or a ruse to get the illegals into a hotel
    Quote Tweet
    TalkTV
    @TalkTV
    ·
    1h
    BREAKING: Asylum seekers evacuated from the Bibby Stockholm barge in Dorset after Legionella bacteria was found in the water.

    Mike Graham: “The only place I have ever heard of Legionella disease is in a hospital, that’s normally where they get it.”

    @iromg

  50. The public still isn’t being told the full, horrifying truth about the net zero permanent revolution

    A restrictive architecture of carbon budgets and climate committees is killing democratic choice

    ALLISTER HEATH • 9th August 2023 • 7:32pm

    What is it with bureaucrats and their five-year plans? The Soviets went through 12 of them, devised by Moscow’s infamous Gosplan; the Chinese are currently on their fourteenth, firmly focused on achieving geopolitical supremacy. Unbeknown to most voters, the central planners have also been unleashed on Britain – not to maximise the production of widgets, but to make sure we reach net zero.

    A green nomenklatura now yields immense power. Tories, Labour, Lib Dems: all have signed up to legally binding five-year plans, known as “carbon budgets”, which stipulate a detailed programme to re-engineer society to cut emissions by a specific amount. Scandalously, what the electorate thinks of these grossly under-scrutinised plans matters little.

    Did you know, dear reader, that we are now on our fourth such carbon budget, valid from 2023 to 2027? Did you realise that the next two – up until 2037 – have already been enshrined in law, making a mockery of the next two or even three general elections? Were you aware that all of the consumer-facing changes – in 18 months, no newly built home will be fitted with a gas boiler, in seven years’ time, it will be illegal to buy new petrol cars, in 12 years, you will no longer be allowed to replace your existing boiler like-for-like – have been accounted for in the plans, gravely limiting room for political manoeuvre? Did you realise that any significant deviation from these carbon budgets could trigger legal action from pressure groups?

    As energy secretary, Ed Miliband pushed through the Climate Change Act in 2008, committing to cut emissions by 80 per cent on 1990 levels by 2050, with the support of all but five MPs. It was the equivalent of another Maastricht Treaty, a huge shift that will, in time, trigger a furious reaction from the electorate when it realises that it is no longer in control. It was apposite that, in 2019, Theresa May, fresh from sabotaging Brexit, amended the Climate Change Act by statutory instrument, increasing the target to a 100 per cent cut in emissions by 2050.

    That distant date has lulled many into a false sense of flexibility. Why can’t we delay the ban on combustion engines to 2035 or even later, naive souls ask, and still meet net zero on time? The reality is that it could well be unlawful because cuts to emissions must be phased in according to a strict timetable.

    The Government is obliged to set binding, five-year carbon budgets that cap the maximum amount of emissions allowed during each period; each budget is much tougher than the previous one. Meeting them is no joke: they need to be legislated 12 years in advance and be accompanied by credible policies to deliver them in full. Miliband’s Act created the Climate Change Committee (CCC), a ridiculously influential quango which advises the Government on the level of each budget and how much of a contribution each sector should make.

    Through a combination of a recession, continued deindustrialisation, insufficient house and infrastructure building and the shift towards renewable energy, the UK met its first (2008- 2012), second (2013-2017) and third (2018-2022) carbon budgets without needing to try too hard. We are now into our fourth budget, requiring a 52 per cent fall in emissions compared with 1990; this, too, could be manageable, partly because of stronger than expected sales of electric cars. But the pain is starting, and the backlash – from landlords, from motorists – is beginning.

    Real, Brexit-intensity political warfare will undoubtedly break out ahead of the fifth budget (2028-2032) and especially sixth (2033-37), which will include aviation and shipping, coincide with the ban on new petrol cars and all new gas boilers, a massive, hugely costly insulation drive and require a cumulative 77 per cent cut in emissions.

    The Government has very little leeway if it wishes to continue to accept the strictures of the Climate Change Act. This is like membership of the EU, albeit entirely self-imposed. As we saw with Ulez, the public is greatly supportive of decarbonisation†, but only if their pocket isn’t visibly picked and only if their quality of life doesn’t decline. Voters will furiously oppose many of the looming changes, and will demand to take back control when they are told that MPs are powerless to do anything about them.

    For all of Rishi Sunak’s recent messaging, anti-car policies that go beyond the ban on the combustion engine are already baked into the carbon budgets. One policy requires “increasing average road vehicle occupancy” (even with electric cars) and another “high annual investment in cycling and walking infrastructure” (Low-Traffic Neighbourhoods are one way of doing this).

    So much for democracy: it may be possible to delay the ban on petrol cars to 2032, the last year of the fifth budget, a proposal which the head of the CCC has already approved, but it is hard to see how the deadline could slip further. Any extra emissions in one area must be met by an equivalent reduction in another. It’s a zero sum game.

    Crucially, the CCC doesn’t believe that technology alone will get us to net zero. Electric cars aren’t enough; we will still have to drive less. We will need to fly less, even with sustainable fuels. We will need to eat 20-35 per cent less dairy and meat.

    The CCC remains little-known, but it is an extremely powerful agency, probably second only to the Bank of England, hence why at least 60 candidates have applied to be its next chairman. Mr Sunak is set to announce his pick in November. It will be a key moment: will the PM appoint an evangelist for tech solutions who supports the consumer society and freedom, or will he plump for another identikit member of the Blobocracy keen to stick to command and control?

    Yet hiring a sensible chairman isn’t enough. Net zero is on autopilot, and the deadline too tight to avoid crippling restrictions, a huge increase in the national debt and rolling blackouts. We need a shadow CCC with alternative models. Ultimately, however, given that Britain accounts for only 1 per cent of global emissions, the only real solution is to amend or scrap the Climate Change Act, and inject more flexibility into the decarbonisation timetable. It may be that we cannot ever reach net zero, or that it will take longer; what is clear is that the current course is dangerously lacking in democratic legitimacy.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/09/the-public-still-isnt-being-told-the-truth-about-net-zero

    † Is it? Really? Perhaps they’ll wake up to the reality of it soon.

    1. I don’t think the majority of the public have any idea what the implications are on their lifestyles. They may say they agree that climate change is a threat, that ‘carbon’ must be reduced, but they have no idea of the magnitude of this self-harming scam.
      People have been brainwashed, as they were by the covid scam. That gave the crooked politicians carte blanche to impose these restrictions without being straight with the public.

    2. and the rest of the world just takes advantage of our reduced emissions and increases their own. What are these morons on?

    3. The CCC is hardly independent as its chairman is Lord Deben (John Selwyn Gummer former conservative MP) who is a director of Sancroft International that advises on Environmental matters. Jobs for the boys. Bet he’ll have whatever type of car he wants, gas central heating and a private jet. It wouldn’t surprise me.

      3. This horrible little man gave away the prizes at Christo’s last Speech Day at Gresham’s in 2011.

        I can honestly say that he delivered the worst Speech Day speech I have ever heard and – as public school master – I had heard quite a few very bad speeches in my time.

        Gummer, or Gumboil as I call him, delivered pure propaganda in favour of the EU and global warming. He had no desire to speak impartially or objectively – he was just trying to corrupt a captive audience of young minds.

        Christo had run as the UKIP candidate when Gresham’s had run a mock general election the previous year so he approached Gumboil at the garden tea party after the speeches and said: “As you are so keen on the EU I shall speak to you in French about the fact that Britain must leave the EU.” Christo is bilingual and so he continued in French but Gumboil in spite of being manically pro EU did not understand a word so Christo reverted into English having ascertained that Gumboil speaks no Spanish either.

        When Christo moved on to saying what he thought of the global warming con Gumboil took to his heels and fled – pursued by Christo haranguing him. It was indeed heart-warming to see this specious and midget little politician who is about 5′ 2″ being browbeaten by my articulate schoolboy son of 6’3″.

        1. That’s a wonderful story Richard. What a pity you couldn’t have recorded it.
          Well done Christo.

  51. I have spent the last couple of days unexpectedly painting a Designers’-Guild-type ‘wallpaper’ to avoid the cost of the real thing. Why not?

    My brother has just requested a hidden squirrel! 🤣 Here goes…

    Life is never boring. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8912ec540d76ac9f4bf298426c9e503001deca6649426ee6ebda0476a2dec572.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a2488d93ef9096019a8a0ee4eb24fd1c673c549fbf372dc14784918670856d39.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8965994cf30edd1c241c3dd84387dfe8eac42bba0363ac84131e3465b1c2b904.jpg

          1. Thank you!

            I do indeed travel – but aiming to do so out of the country before too long…

  52. I have just been told of a woman who is served in a local shop talking to the assistant about her husband who has late stage dementia. He is currently in care as his wife is old and very frail and he on occasion due to his illness is violent. She has now spent their savings so he will have to go back home, where there is no doubt he will clout her one.
    Why is it that we can pay to house third world savages and parasites in 4 and 5 star luxury but cannot pay to keep a couple in their dotage safe from harm? Especially two people who have spent 50 years, half a fucking century, paying into a system designed to help in the very situation they both find themselves in.
    That vicious piece of baggage May signing us up to the insidious Migrant Pact in a fit of pique because the British people told her to do one.

    1. If all their savings have gone on the care home fees, he should now be eligible for his fees to be paid by the state. How is is this frail old woman supposed to look after him?

      1. I’m not sure of the details, as Mrs. Q. past this on, but I would hope someone would give them this information.

      2. I’m not convinced about that, Spikey! I know of one lady who is in the same situation.

        1. As I understand it no claim can be made on your property whilst a member of the family reside in it and the council have to fund your stay in the home (NHS or private) once you have less than £14000 although they take your pension less £26/week for your spends – this was certainly the case when B was in the home . She was paying around £4k a month until she reached the lower figure yet others in the same home who’d never contributed to the UK pot got their care paid for. The personal care part was free although it isn’t in England

          1. I’m not in a position to argue, but I expect this lady and her family have not been made aware of that clause. There was a time it would have been made clear.

      3. You don’t have as many – ahem – other “important and needy” people coming in from overseas to jump all the queues for everything that needs funding.

          3. The trouble is also that places like London have a kind of gravitational pull – illegal immigrants might start off in Scotland but a lot of them seem to turn southwards, to where they already have family/know people etc.

          5. Thanks – what about us? We don’t want them. It’s all very well Scottish politicians saying they are happy to have incomers, if those incomers then buGGer off down to us! :o)

          6. Ordinary people don’t want them – just the politicians as immigrants increase their voter base

    3. I have been saying for some time that May is evil. Indeed she is on a par with Blair in this respect.

      Her relationship with her father, a vicar, was very strange and some deemed that his death in a car accident may not have been entirely accidental because of his links to fellow priests who were involved in paedophilia.

    4. It’s dreadful how so many elderly people who have worked on a daily basis since they left school and retired before 2016 have been left to try and live on the basic useless stinking pension of below the poverty level. And are seemingly shunned by the NHS when they need urgent treatment. But not if your an immigrant. If they are told to get in the queue they instruct free human rights lawyers and claim compensation.
      While as you point out and we know about. These do nothing invaders, are being encouraged by our useless effing government to come to
      this country and live off British taxpayers.
      Even by admission the more recent invaders are costing more than 6 million pounds every day to pander to them.
      There have been thousands of previously arrived who have never earned a penny or of course not paid tax.
      This country stinks now it’s been wrecked.

    6. A friends husband has dementia and the disease has been progressing steadily for some time. They hit a new low this week where hubby did not recognize his wife.

      Some challenging times ahead where all we can do is offer her a few moments of peace and somewhere to let of steam. Needless to say, the health system cannot offer support.

      1. It is a disease that is simply evil, evil in the full Biblical definition of the word.

      2. They have my sympathy – been there and got the T shirt. Hard times ahead, I hope they get the support I had from Alzheimers Scotland

    7. We all need to forget any idea that the government is going to look after us from cradle to grave, and young people need to get saving.

  54. Well, after two disturbed nights, I went back to bed for a couple of hours and then went into Wirksworth to tank the van up and do a bit of shopping.
    Now got the dinner on, Aldi Frikadellen with boiled new tatties and steamed veggies.

  57. It is that time of the year , the combine harvester is busy in the field 200yds from us , the whir clinking and groan of the accompanying tractor and trailer is so seasonal, sadly we know another Autumn is not far off.

    They were working in other fields during the previous dry nights , contractors move in and get busy , with in a week or so all will be done and then the maize will be brought in and the sweet smell of the crushed maize is delicious , sweeter than newly mown grass

    When I came home from giving Pip a run ( car trip and a visit to the farm shop nr Broadmayne ) I came home via the Winfrith/ Durdle Door/ Lulworth road , and can you believe from blue sky I entered a sea fret , the countryside around that area had sea fog rolling in that my headlights came on. Came in over the cliffs , banks of dense swirling salty air .

    It looked as if the tourists were abandoning the area quickly judging by the amount of traffic on the narrow road .

    1. One of the Escape to the Country programmes had a couple who moved into your Village Belle.

      1. Hello RE.

        There are so many who have retired here . We have all the things that make life easy , Post office , butcher baker and hardware store and a Spar , v expensive and another store .

        Moh wasn’t retired when we moved here , he was still flying with the MCA down at Portland before it was removed and he retired in 2004.

          1. I am happy to have retired to the largest inland non-metropolitan county in England 🙂 I can travel 50 miles south and still be in the same shire.

        2. We have often considered moving to a costal area for our retirement. But our grandchildren and their parents two of our sons and wives are anchored in two villages in the middle of Hertfordshire. Wheathampstead and Kimpton. Both lovely villages.
          Dorset is a lovely county between us we’ve been there many times.
          I’ve even spent a week playing golf there. I particularly liked Purbeck golf course.
          Next time we’ll pop in. Get the kettle on 😉🍵🍵😊

    1. It’s been going on for so long now I’m surprised there are any white farmers left in South Africa.

      1. What I find extremely annoying is that white South Africans are not able to flee to the UK, whereas a black fleeing probably would be.

        1. Better to flee to Russia if they can cope with the language. They’re given land there. Russia wants farmers.

        2. Better to flee to Russia if they can cope with the language. They’re given land there. Russia wants farmers.

    2. I’m wondering how long my niece and her daughters are likely to stay there.
      It’s a beautiful country but some of the people are a massive problem.
      And not all original south Africans.

    4. Lower down the thread it is apparent this horrible killing occured in 2009. Doesn’t make it any better of course.

    5. I can’t bring myself to say diversity strength. The damned state is forcing those scum on us when really they should be chained, flogged and beaten. They’ve been told for too long that they’re equals when they’re really animals. If they won’t behave like civilised people then they deserve to be collared and chained.

  61. Zelenskyy fires military recruitment chiefs. 11 August 2023.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has announced that the heads of all of Ukraine’s regional military recruitment centres are to be dismissed from their jobs amid concerns about corruption.

    There are some very funny stories going the rounds about the Ukie recruitment people. Cash payments to avold conscription and sexual blackmail to keep husbands out of the Front Line. It will probably all come out after the war. I have a suspicion, and I can’t prove it but this lot are as corrupt as the South Vietnamese fifty years ago!

    https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/8/11/russia-ukraine-war-live-two-ukrainian-drones-downed-near-russias-kursk

        1. And if you remember Antony and Cleopatra that odious pimple, Octavius Caesar, put those who had deserted their former master, Antony, in the front line of battle so that Antony’s forces would expend their energies on themselves.

    3. My memory may be a bit hazy, but didn’t an Austrian corporal behave like this from roughly the summer of 1944?

    1. 375370+up ticks,

      Afternoon SM,

      It has been given away piecemeal via the polling stations
      with full consent of the majority of voters.

      1. But that’s not true, is it ogga. No one was given the choice over net zero, it was just up yours’. No one wants the criminal welfare shoppers here, they were forced on us.

        The belief that people vote for this is unfair. It is also to believe – wrongly – that the UK is a democracy. It is not.

        1. 374370+ up ticks,

          Evening W,
          Never been a porkie teller,

          every time after being lied , misled and deceived the first ,second and third time even the dumbest voter really should have realised the truth but they continued returning the same odious type politico / parties to power in a party before Country fashion.

          Post Thatcher it was so easy to read the aims / actions of
          political scammers, but the party name, even though with ersatz content HAD to be supported.

        2. 374370+ up ticks,

          Evening W,
          Never been a porkie teller,

          every time after being lied , misled and deceived the first ,second and third time even the dumbest voter really should have realised the truth but they continued returning the same odious type politico / parties to power in a party before Country fashion.

          Post Thatcher it was so easy to read the aims / actions of
          political scammers, but the party name, even though with ersatz content HAD to be supported.

      2. When did they tell us of the destruction of our country and its native people? When did they warn us that our lives would be utterly changed by the net zero scam? We didn’t vote for this.

  63. Now there are going to be rail worker (non worker) strikes on September 2nd – just when we’ve booked to travel by train to Hexham. Fed up with all this disruption everywhere.

    1. The state is trying to destroy personal mobility and the Lefty socialists are trying to destroy the alternatives.

  64. International manhunt launched for three wanted over murder of 10-year-old girl – as police reveal they fled Britain HOURS before her body was found in Woking house
    By NICK PISA and RORY TINGLE, HOME AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT FOR MAILONLINE

    PUBLISHED: 16:12, 11 August 2023 | UPDATED: 16:45, 11 August 2023

    Inspector Sandra Carlier, Borough Commander for Woking, said: ‘I know that the community are shocked and saddened by yesterday’s events, and we stand with them in their grief. Officers will remain in the area carrying out patrols, and enquiries as part of the investigation, over the weekend.

    ‘I would like to reiterate that we do not believe there to be any risk to the wider public at this time. We will continue to provide updates as and when we are able to.’

    There was a heavy police presence at the semi-detached property on Hammond Road on Friday as people laid flowers on the pavement.

    Neighbours said that a Pakistani family with six ‘very young’ children moved into the house in April.

    One mother, who wished not to be named, said she was ‘traumatised’ by the news, adding that her children were ‘terrified’.

    She said: ‘It’s just a shock. My 16-year-old daughter was very upset thinking about that little girl.’

    Several local people said that they were in a state of shock after hearing the news. In a statement on Thursday evening, Surrey Police said officers were called to the address at around 2.50am that morning following ‘concern’ for the girl’s safety.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12397785/International-manhunt-launched-three-wanted-murder-10-year-old-girl-police-reveal-fled-Britain-HOURS-body-Woking-house.html

      1. Even my sick imagination doesn’t want to think about it, but the scum wwill get away with it. The muslim pakistani paedophiles always do. They should be flogged, flayed, every bone broken, castrated and thrown into the sewer with an adrenaline pack to keep them alive throughout.

    3. Bets on Muslim, Pakistani and paedophile. Double down on known to the police and security service, prior convictions – for child rape.

      Double double down on welfare dependent.

      I despair. They must be removed. Permanently.

      1. “Heavy perlice presence” AFTER the bastards have been allowed to leave the country.

    4. 10 years old.
      Presumably old enough to be “promised” to a cousin – preferably in Pakistan so all the family can join the happy couple.
      At what age are girls old enough to enjoy an honour killing?

    6. ”I would like to reiterate that we do not believe there to be any risk to the wider public at this time”.

      Wrong !

    7. They don’t need to mount an international manhunt. The fuckers have scuttled back to Pakistan ! Where they will be protected.

  65. Another Birdy Three today.

    Wordle 783 3/6
    🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜
    🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Well done. Par four for me.

      Wordle 783 4/6

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

    2. Par here.
      Wordle 783 4/6

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

  66. Barge being emptied now, I wouldn’t be surprised if the bacteria hadn’t been deliberately planted.
    Another major eff up by the useless government. Everything they come into contact with !

    2. I don’t see the problem. Leave them on there. They’ve lived in tents in the open for months. Why should we pander to them? Surround some waste ground with chain link fencing and put them in there, in the open. As for food, lob seeds in every week. If they can’t grow their own food, tough.

      1. It’s not the sort of bacteria that spreads from person to person.
        It only effects the consumer.

    1. Two people I know well have tested positive in the last week or so. I can’t think why people are still testing for a bug which is now as endemic as any otherr common cold bug.

      1. There is a couple in the village who test for the plague every time they sneeze (or even think about sneezing)….

    2. They’d do better to stock up on Lemsip than testing kits. Madness. I suppose nobody ever had summer colds before the covid scam.

    3. There was a lady on the local phone in this morn who said she was recovering from a bad case of covid. She also caught it last March. Wyn Evans, him off Gocompare, breathlessly cut in to ask whether she had been jabbed…. Yes, she had all FIVE! There is no hope.

        1. Six is about how many we have been invited to take. It is worth saying that you have had the lurgy, just to avoid the constant reminders

          Don’t forget that a new super duper variation on the theme has been circulating since May (really? I hadn’t noticed).

          In the local hospital at the moment for her majesties physio. Masks are mandatory except in corridors.

          1. I think we probably both had it in January 2020, before testing came in. It left us with a dry cough for several weeks.

            Jabbed people seem to have no immunity, and seem to get it quite frequently.

            Masks appear to be over here – there are still notices up in the hospitals and a lot of the staff are wearing them, but the last time I was told to wear one (Ididn’t) was last autumn in our local hospital. Both larger hospitals where OH was treated seemed to leave it as optional.

        2. A lady further down the green joyfully announced a few weeks ago that she couldn’t stop to talk because she was just on her way to get her sixth jab. We saw her a few days ago and she didn’t seem as well as she has done in the past, she seemed ‘waffley’ and not quite with it, her speech seemed slightly slurred. I have noticed this in other jabbed elderly, and after the first jab I thought her eyes were somewhat bloodshot. Although she is in her mid eighties with a couple of dogs she has always, until now, seemed quite fit. I fear her death is being hastened.

          2. Why anyone would want to keep being jabbed with this stuff I really can’t understand. Even if they only get their ‘news’ from the Beeb or the newspapers, it’s quite clear the stuff doesn’t work, let alone the terrible side effects that include “died suddenly”.

    4. They enjoy the drama, the thrill of the fear and the solidarity of being part of the club.

    5. I saw a cyclist wearing a mask today and a woman in a shop. You can’t do anything about stupid.

  68. Most of the “global boiling wild fires” have been started by arsonists. And the greater the press coverage, the more they go out and about with their fire-lighting kit.

    1. Yet people seem to think it’s all spontaneous combustion caused by ‘climate change’. People are so gullible.

      2. The stupidest thing about people is the way they routinely permit arsonists, murderers, rapists, robbers, burglars, criminal-damagers, grievous-bodily-harmers, gangsters, invaders, kiddy-fiddlers, the corrupt, and all other manner of scum and detritus to get away without punishment.

        The stupidest thing about people is the way that the above-mentioned scum are not shot where they stand!

  71. I am off for the day. Though I don’t listen or watch any media news, politics, current affairs etc – the dear old MR does and I pick up odd snippets.

    It is all so bloody depressing. There are times when I wish I was a cat. Then I could sleep for 16 hours a day…

    So I’ll wish you a bright, cheerful evening and hope to be around tomorrow. But who knows?

  72. I am off for the day. Though I don’t listen or watch any media news, politics, current affairs etc – the dear old MR does and I pick up odd snippets.

    It is all so bloody depressing. There are times when I wish I was a cat. Then I could sleep for 16 hours a day…

    So I’ll wish you a bright, cheerful evening and hope to be around tomorrow. But who knows?

  73. Utterly off topic

    I wish Harry Kane well in his transfer to Bayern Munich.
    He has been an outstanding footballer for Tottenham Dogs’breath and deserves far more trophies than he has in his cabinet.

    And even better, it should mean St Totteringham’s Day is earlier next year.

    1. My late son (Spurs fan since 1973) spotted ‘Arry when he was a young ‘un and always said he’d go far.

      1. Your son was correct. (apart from being a Spurs fan)
        Kane actually deserved a better club, he was probably too loyal and I hope he gets a few winner’s medals with Bayern.

        1. In one of our very last conversations – (Jim died in July 2016 – believe it or not) – he assured me that “Next Season – you’ll see…”!! It was that madcap hope that kept him loyal!

          1. The only reason I’m a Gunner is because they were the first team in the newspaper and I was constantly being asked “who do you support?”
            Toronto Maple Leaf’s wasn’t an acceptable answer.

          2. The only reason I’m a Gunner is because they were the first team in the newspaper and I was constantly being asked “who do you support?”
            Toronto Maple Leaf’s wasn’t an acceptable answer.

  74. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/02d0369a91c5c7943eeab0402a719e3389be75024a2ba46c5069cb978d402441.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/01a07935365311edf7e899f5f944285b289fe9681c3faa3e9a4f1b623a996667.png

    I don’t think my old friend Ratty is impressed.

    BTL : Percival Wrattstrangler

    The way the new King behaved when poor Lady Susan Hussey was set up by that absurd and nasty pretend African woman Marlene Headley (who pretended to be an African woman in strange fake clothes called Ngozi Fulanus) showed that he has very little judgement.

    He and Prince William both jumped to the immediate conclusion without looking for any evidence that The Queen’s oldest friend was wrong because she is white and Ngozi is right because she is black.

    Frankly King Charles is not up to the job.

    2. King Charles’ rearrangement of honorary military titles for family members has been vicious – for brother Andrew and son Harry in particular.

      Andrew and Harry have contributed significant military service in wartime; Charles has never done so.

    3. King Charles’ rearrangement of honorary military titles for family members has been vicious – for brother Andrew and son Harry in particular.

      Andrew and Harry have contributed significant military service in wartime; Charles has never done so.

    5. Like the government he does not give a dam for ordinary working people. He supports

      Covid boosters
      Electric Vehicles
      Heat pumps
      Smart meters
      All electric houses
      HS2
      Wind farms
      Net zero
      Imigration.
      Climate change
      ETC.

  75. LAST POST (possibly ever …) Dead 10 year old girl.

    Were I a cynic (Heaven forfend) I’d say that there was a conspiracy to let the three slammer murderers leave the UK before the plod were “notified”…. And, were I etc etc – it would not surprise me to find that some of the conspirators were slammer “perlicemen”…..

    Allegedly.

    5. Seems to be easy to get in and out of the country for some people. Probably because they are all called Mo.

        1. Not true.

          And, given the players around him, with the honourable exception of Son Heung-Min, he’s carried that side for many years.
          Beast of burden, maybe, but cart horse, no.

  77. Off topic

    Funny how Covid doesn’t appear to affect gimmegrants, let alone kill them…

  78. Shamoon Hafez for BBC Sport reporting on Burnley V Manchester City football match:

    ‘It’s been a tremendous atmosphere in the build-up to the game, especially when the players entered the pitch, but it’s a shame there was some boos ringing round when the two starting line-ups took the knee before kick-off.’

    Think the ‘shame’ is that they are still grovelling to Marxism.

    1. What they are saying is that it is OK for black gangs to riot and strip shops of their goods.

      1. It’s our old friend “Cultural Norm”.
        How very dare nasty whitey criticise their time-honoured societal practices.

  79. I’ll be shutting down soon I can’t stop yawning. I had urgent blood tests earlier today because of the possibility of a liver infection. The medication I am taking has some dire on going effects. But I’m down from three, to two, to one a day. Result Tuesday.
    If I make it. 🤔😉
    Night all 😴

  80. On 5STAR TV this evening:

    A deadly virus sweeps across the globe, and an international team of scientists struggles to both find a vaccine and prevent the disease spreading further. The husband of one of the first victims tries to cope with the impact on his family, while an online conspiracy theorist claims to have developed a cure. Thriller, with Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law and Laurence Fishburne

    err, art mimicking life?

  81. Today has been a restful one for me, tomorrow will be a little hectic and stressful. So I shall not make an appearance here for another 36 hours or so. Good night, chums, and sleep well. Play nicely whilst I am away.

      1. By which I reckon you are saying “Give ’em hell, Elsie!” Now where did I leave my hat and my whip? Lol.

  82. Completely and utterly off topic.
    When HG stands on the bottom step to the first floor of Chateau sosraboc she and I are very nearly the same height, eye to eye and lips to lips.

    She has a new command:
    “Go to the naughty step.”

    I’m allowed to say such things now, we’ve managed our “golden” this year.

        1. Nah. It’s a converted cow shed, that has also been a forge and a cobbler’s shop in its history.

    2. I am a few inches shorter than my boss, we don’t have a naughty step.

      While waiting for the boss to finish her physiotherapy session this afternoon, I was chatting to one of the assistants (who is shorter than me) at the hospital. SWMBO arrived and the three of us were chatting about everything and nothing.
      As we went to leave, my wife was told to take me home and pat me on the head like a good boy.

      Honestly, I was on my best behaviour.

  83. Off to bed.
    Will be off on my travels tomorrow, dropping down to Chatham over a couple of days, to visit the RE Museum, possibly stopping off at Thaxted Sunday evening, then work my way across to Basingstoke to see eldest daughter and home for Friday or Saturday.

  84. Evening, all. The Tories should listen to voters full stop. They are going against what people want on so many issues.

      1. I don’t think they’ve ever cared; they’ll say one thing and as soon as they’re elected they’ll do the opposite.

  85. 375370+ up ticks,

    Pillow ponder,

    breitbart,2

    One in Three Britons Do Not Know ‘Transgender Women’ are Biological Males

    3/3 of the majority voters don’t know their arse from their elbow when casting a vote.

    1. Depends how the question was phrased. They may have thought it was about women who want to be men.

  86. We watched the Prom this evening -Rachmaninov with the wonderful Yuja Wang. And then the mighty Belshazzar’s Feast.

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