Friday 11 December: For the UK, a slap in the face with a fish supper should have ended the negotiations

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its comments facility (now reinstated, but not as good as ours),
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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/12/11/lettersfor-uk-slap-face-fish-supper-should-have-ended-negotiations/

716 thoughts on “Friday 11 December: For the UK, a slap in the face with a fish supper should have ended the negotiations”

    1. As opposed to Mild and Bitter?
      Good morning, Peddy, btw. Today I received my £200 winter allowance – you too?

      1. Yes, my £200 arrived today, & my £10 Christmas bonus & a very low Visa bill for the last month.

  4. Morning all.
    Just got to work, they’ve installed a thought-controlled air freshener in the loos.
    Not a bad idea really – it makes scents when you think about it.

      1. Olfactory Intelligence, or AI if you live in Oxfordshire?

        The intelligence is in short supply…

  5. Test and Trace callers worked just 1pc of time as £22bn was ‘thrown at’ efforts to stop second lockdown. 11 December 2020.

    Call handlers for NHS Test and Trace spent just one per cent of their time working as £22 billion was “thrown at” efforts to “avert a lockdown,” a damning report warns.

    The National Audit Office (NAO) said billions of pounds have been spent on outsourced providers without proper scrutiny to prevent conflicts of interest and waste.

    Its report found that after 18,000 call handlers were employed in May, their “utilisation rates” were just one per cent. It comes after workers spoke of how they were effectively being paid to “watch Netflix” with one describing receiving £4,500 without receiving a single call.

    This whole thing has been a fiasco from the beginning and not just Test and Trace. The Lockdowns and the Tiers just the same and with this form the Moonshot (even more expensive) and the vaccines will almost certainly turn out to be a catastrophe!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/12/11/test-trace-callers-worked-just-1pc-time-22bn-thrown-efforts/

    1. There are a couple of paid masked prats walking around Bath wearing tabards bearing the legend ‘COVID PATROL’ – as if the virus can read!

  6. I think a Nottlr got there first yesterday:

    SIR – Bythesea Road in Trowbridge (Letters, December 10) is named, not after the sea, but after the owner of the land on which it was built in 1895, Samuel Bythesea of Freshford in Somerset, whose family had lived in Wiltshire’s county town.

    Bruce Chalmers
    Goring-by-Sea, West Sussex

    1. Modesty prevents me from saying anything other than let Mr Chalmers has his moment of fame. We Nottlrs are magnanimous folk. 😉

      1. ‘Morning, Oldie. Credit where credit is due. I could not recall who it was without going back through several hundred posts!

        1. Morning HJ, I was not the only Nottlr to give the answer. One thing I have learnt reading this forum, there are lots of really smart folk with a wide range of knowledge posting on here.

  7. This makes a refreshing change:

    SIR – On new developments in Tenterden, known as Three Fields and Church View, the roads are named after local families who lost relatives in the First and Second World Wars. Each name board has the poppy on it.

    Caroline Salmon
    Tenterden, Kent

    2. UK as a whole is already does something similar

      Nelson Mandela Towers

      Idi Amin Way (Ethnic Cleansing)

      Mugabe Drive (s a Mercedes bought with Foreign Aid)

          1. Darker than the inside of a cabinet minister. Snow awaited with baited breath! Due for delivery today, but may be held up in customs!

        3. ‘Morning, Paul.

          No need for an apostrophe in wabenzi. ‘Wa’ is simply a plural prefix.

  8. Today’s DT Leader…surely even the most ardent Remainiacs can now see the EU for what it is, as it seeks to punish Britain to deter others who may think freedom is a good idea…

    Last night the PM warned that there is now a “strong possibility” that no trade deal will be struck between the UK and EU by the New Year. In that event, Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has offered a contingency package of short-term mini-deals. One section goes to the heart of why talks have been so difficult. The EU advises individual members not to deal with Britain separately, which is paranoid to say the least, and notes they will have far more “bargaining power” if they act together. That power “must be used to ensure a level playing field between the EU and the United Kingdom”. This, for the EU, is what our talks are really about.

    Some of the contingency measures are common sense, particularly on freight and passenger transport – but unrestricted travel within the bloc automatically ends on January 1 and, because of Covid, we are threatened with restrictions on all but essential travel. Also slipped in is the suggestion that EU members can continue to fish in our waters as they did before, even though this is one of the three big sticking points in negotiations. Likewise, the EU requests that Britain remains aligned to “high and comparable” standards. It all begs the question, what is the point of hammering out a deal if Brussels thinks it can get precisely what it wants without one?

    One almost has to admire its single-minded commitment to keeping us trapped within its orbit of regulatory influence and its willingness to wear us down by dragging things out. While Britain has been zipping around the world signing free trade agreements, the EU takes years to negotiate anything. This is not just due to institutional lethargy or dysfunction, though both exist in spades. It is also a strategy, almost an instinct. The EU is in no hurry to strike a deal because it would be the prime beneficiary of any extension to the transition period, just as it is trying to ensure that it wins if these talks fail.

    A deal remains possible and desirable, and the PM has been trying his best to get one. But the EU’s pettiness, dogmatism and paranoia are not helping, and have been a constant reminder of why the UK voted to leave in 2016.

  11. Breaking News – Boris upsets chef and the EU when he asked of No Dill with his Dover sole fish supper.

  13. Good morning, all. A damp start to the day – enlivened by the optimistic greeting from G & P.

    I see the EUSSR hasn’t changed.

      1. Yo Mr Grizzle
        He is sitting foeward a bit, so you cannot see the chip on his shoulder

        He does not come from Orstralia, there would be a chip on both …..

        1. Yo, Mr Effort.

          How do you know that a planeload of Aussies has landed at Kingston-Smith airport?

          The aircraft’s engines are cut but you can still hear the whining.

          3. Yes, Maggie. As I mentioned the other day; ivy is only detrimental to those buildings that people purposely grow it against. It has far more benefits than minus points.

            Interestingly, how many bees are abroad in winter to eat from any plant?

          4. I have a very beautiful Mahonia, what variety have no idea , it is 21 years old, I prune it everso often, it is in flower at the moment and even in cold weather , bumble bees love it , they seem to shelter yet enjoy the nectar . Parts of the shrub have reddish orange spikey leaves, and retains a very welcome burst of colour for this dullest time of the year .

          5. We have an Amaryllis, lives in a pot on the windowsill in the living room.
            It gets watered on Sunday morning, whether it needs it or not.
            Every year, it sprouts powerful and beautifukl leaves, and normally two huge flower stalks, with deep red flowers x 2 on each.
            We bought it for 5p, because it was going to be thrown away – from Woolworths (!) in Newport Pagnell, in 1986.
            Very fond of it, so we are.

      1. Surely, arguing with strangers on the interweb is similar to shouting at pigeons down the playground?

  17. Time magazine has apparently nominated the President (elect) of the FSA (sic) and his Deputy as their People of the year…..

    1. A touch premature? Or is it an attempt to curry favour before the new administration goes belly up??

      ‘Morning, Stephen.

  19. Good morning everyone .

    Mild but murky and damp morning , no lift or breeze.

    We are horrified to observe that this is the year that Britain turned black, everything we hear and see is black, we are hearing so much whining about unfairness… who on earth do we owe what to , and why.

    Why are our fingers ready on the remote control, switching channels, no matter what we select it is all there in our face , it is casting misery and darknessas well as confusion . I don’t want my culture altered or adjusted to satisfy the edgy requirements of another.

    We are being diluted very quickly.

    If there are going to be food shortages , it blinking well won’t be chicken or yams will it .

    1. Watch The Sweeney on Sky channel 120, then switch to Great Railway Journeys on 155. Disgustingly white.

        1. Top up wine glass, visit loo, have another crack at that last crossword clue. Morning, Sue!

        2. Good morning Sue .

          So true , the ads are increasing and are aimed at another global audience which is increasing before our eyes.

          I saw the news the other day where they were talking about schools , there were class fulls of pupils one of whom who had just one whiteish face .

        1. I was a huge fan of The Rolling Stones in the Brian Jones/Mick Taylor era.

          I lost interest when they recruited that useless Faces cast-off, Wood. Their inventiveness ceased at that moment and their output since has deteriorated.

    1. Had love affairs with the Krays and married a convicted gangster. She also took Kenneth Williams with her on her honeymoon.

      One in a million.

      R.I.P. Babs.

  23. Dame Barbara Windsor has died .

    I will remember her as a bawdy loud womanwho added the cheeky bit of fluff stuff to many corny comedy films .

    I am sure she was a good woman.

    We avoided East Enders like the plague , I found it coarse and I really hated the shouty frightening quarrelsome nasty story lines we saw on the adverts.

    Her death has however kept the terribleness of Dementia in the limelight . I fear this cruel disease has no cure , and why it is so common nowadays , God only knows.

    We knew people in our childhood who went doolally , but that was regarded as old age .

    Friends complain about mind fog and forgetting things , slowing down, losing crispness.

    Perhaps we have too much to remember .

    One of the cruellest tricks the government has played is the removal of car tax disc reminders . Many people rue the day that was stopped .

    We all need little nudges and reminders , don’t we.

    1. Good morning Belle – I really identify with your fourth sentence, how I detested that programme. All part of breaking up our culture. That is why they used to have a really miserable special edition on Christmas Day. I never watched it apart from an occasional five minutes or so, here and there throughout the years, or when the bbc sprung a trailer upon us when watching something else. We scarcely watch tv at all now, and certainly not the ‘news’.

    2. ‘One of the cruellest tricks the government has played is the removal of car tax disc reminders’

      I received a letter from the DVLA this week reminding me that my tax was due at the end of the month.

      2. As everything is supposedly about safety, why do we get Car Tax reminders (which is only for money ) but DON’T get MoT reminders?

        1. My garage used to remind me that my campervan MoT was due (but I never got one for my car – different garage).

    3. Morning, Belle. I suspect it’s more common nowadays because more of us live long enough to develop it.
      Average UK life expectancy in 1950 (a date I chose as it’s well after WWII and within the lifetime of many on NOTTL):
      Women – 72.
      Men – 66.

      Nowadays, as we know only too well from the covid statistics, the average in the UK is 81.
      I haven’t gone into DoB/age in 2020 etc… as this is only intended to be a snapshot.

      1. I sometimes find this statistic hard to believe as I have lost so many of my friends who died in their 50’s and 60’s.

        1. These are UK figures.
          MB and I have now outlived both of his parents and my mother. Only my father lived into his 80s – which, given his medical history was rather ironic.

      2. Morning Anne,

        I think the same applies to the medical profession and the menopause. It’s only in the west and in the modern era that a significant number of women have lived long enough to experience it rather than dying young after giving birth for the umpteenth time.

        Some 15 years ago I was told that the symptoms would last around 5 years maximum then stop but they haven’t and I now read that it’s not impossible it might continue until I die, at whatever age that happens to be. This is a learning as we go along process.

        1. About 18 months ago, MB and I are sure we caught measles. It was all too similar to what we went through in our youth.
          When we were young, a bout of measles was supposed to give lifetime immunity. But a lifetime when that observation was made was a darn sight shorter than it is now.
          We suspect we just lived too long and the immunity faded away.

    4. I remember Barbara Windsor as a talent-free and gobby woman (whose “physical attributes” were grossly overrated) and who routinely consorted with gangsters and murderers, even marrying one.

      Good morning, Maggie.

      1. I don’t think she ever expected people to take her seriously or even to consider her to be sexually attractive.

        I always thought her to be an affable but vulgar little woman – but she seems to have had a certain warmth and my deplorable latent snobbishness did not stop me having a certain affection for her even if I would never have bothered to seek to watch any of her film appearances.

      3. Not a Good Moaning for you then, Grizz?
        She certainly has given people happier memories and more laughs than many ‘approved’ thespians.

        1. Maybe she did, Nursey; however, the appreciation of humour is different for all of us: no two people possess exactly the same sense of humour.

          How do you account for the curious fact that many people find Alexei Sayle funny?

          3. However a lot of so-called comedy in the past was not funny. I remember remonstrating with both Arthur Askey and Ronnie Corbett. I told them both: “you are not big, you are not funny and you are not clever”.

      4. Barbara Windsor first came to my notice in the sixties. My late eldest sister, Beryl, hung around with Teddy Boys. She would stand in front of the fire adjusting her bouffant in the mirror over the mantelpiece and using a foul smelling hairspray.

        The hairspray canister had a picture of Barbara Windsor and the motto: ‘glamorous star of stage and screen’.

    5. Dementia is more common now for the very simple reason that people live longer.

      Vehicle excise no longer provides a “tax disc” but reminders still arrive, in the post, every year… for every vehicle.

  25. From the News, 13 December 2020

    “1. UK agrees to allow EU access to UK fisheries for one year on current CFP terms/quotas.
    (UK fish exporters will face a tariff of 15% on all exports to EU.)

    2. UK government aid to UK businesses, either directly or via local authorities, trade organisations, and statutory bodies will require to be scrutinised and approved by a new EU regulatory committee to ensure that the notion of a “level playing field” is maintained.

    3. All trade and commercial transactions within the UK and between the UK and third parties (EU and all others) will be subject to laws and regulations determined by the EU. All transgressions, disputes and conflicts will be adjudicated by an EU tribunal. Note that the UK will have no say in the formulation of the laws/regulations and no membership of the tribunal.”

    That covers it mostly.

  26. From the Telegraph –

    “Adoption UK, who support families seeking to adopt, told the Telegraph that social services often struggled to place children with families of a different ethnicity. Of the 3,570 children who were adopted in England up to March this year only 60 were Black or Black British.
    Adoption UK’s chief executive, Sue Armstrong Brown, said that social services should not refuse to put a black child with a white family
    “No child should be waiting in care longer because of the color of their skin”.

    Perhaps the answer is to house them with families of the same ethnicity –

      1. There are always plenty of fathers but not enough husbands to follow up the survival and care service.

          1. Not quite sure what you mean……but it’s pretty obvious when seen footage of people in Africa queueing for help with food and provisions supplied by western cultures the queues are always hundreds of single women most with at the very least one child. Not only are they supposed to carry any goods handed to them back to where ever they have come from they might be not only pregnant and have babies in arms but also with toddlers along side them. And never a man in sight.

          3. Oh right,……..😉 but there haven’t been any men around in Africa for many years apart bloody murders and for sexual performance reasons.

    3. Way back in the 60’s there was just one black kid in my secondary school and he’d been adopted by an already large white family. He was a happy, well balanced and popular child.

    5. Surely there are plenty of BAME families simply longing to add a bereft child to their household.
      (It’s Advent and I like to think nice thoughts.)

      2. I read that as ‘benefit child’ – probably a Freudian slip.
        I’ve got one of those advent calendars from Jehovas Witnesses – behind every door is a notice which says F**k Off

  28. BBC garners 100 complaints for Vicar of Dibley Black Lives Matter episode before it even airs. 11 December 2020.

    ”She is a much-loved and well-established comic character and will be seen processing the year’s events in her familiar outspoken and high-spirited way.”

    In the episode, Geraldine tells viewers: “I’ve been thinking about this Black Lives Matter thing and the horror-show that was the murder of George Floyd… I’m aware that all lives matter, obviously, but until all lives matter the same we’re doing something very wrong, so I think we need to focus on justice for a huge chunk of our countrymen and women who seem to have a very bad weird deal from the day they’re born.”

    The character is then seen pinning a Black Lives Matter poster on the parish noticeboard before taking the knee.

    Morning everyone. So it’s been leaked? Presumably to defer the flak. It’s still propaganda. The death of Floyd; a criminal caught in the act and not a murder, and probably not even manslaughter happened in the United States not the UK. As for “a huge chunk of our countrymen and women”. Who are these unfortunates? The thousands of girls who were raped by ethnic incomers to the accompanying silence of the likes of French? The millions who have been displaced from their traditional homes to make way for the same? No it’s those who stay here even though there is nothing to prevent them leaving, the ones who cross the Channel every day or who plead to stay in the courts when they are threatened with removal. The Great Oppressed! Lol!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/12/10/bbc-garners-100-complaints-vicar-dibley-blm-episode-even-airs/

    1. Morning Minty et al.
      I’ve been off-line for most of the past few weeks. Has the official verdict on the death of Mr Floyd been published? Has the Policeman charged over his death appeared in court yet to face the charges?

      1. Morning Stephen. The defendants have been charged with aiding and abetting both second degree murder and manslaughter. A jury will decide if it’s true. There is of course not the remotest possibility of a fair trial no matter how long it is delayed!

      2. I think any post mortem that doesn’t support the woke narrative will be ignored, cancelled or discounted.

    3. It is clear that very few people who support BLM have any idea just what it actually is.

      A Nottlepost from yesterday:

      When Ms French ‘takes the knee’ the BBC must superimpose clearly on the screen a notice saying

      The BLM is a Communist Political Organisation which wants to promote anarchy by abolishing the Police.
      The BBC admits that Ms French’s actions are a piece if political propaganda which has nothing to do with promoting racial harmony and tolerance.

      1. President Bill Clinton commuted the long prison sentence of Susan Rosenberg, a convicted terrorist, who was sentenced for carrying out bombings in the early 80’s.
        She now sits on the board of Black Lives Matter.

        https://twitter.com/KatTheHammer1/status/1281774459897155584?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1281774459897155584%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwelovetrump.com%2F2020%2F07%2F12%2Fconvicted-domestic-terrorist-susan-rosenberg-allegedly-on-fundraising-board-for-blm-tucker-carlson-reports%2F

      2. Yes, but it should also do much the same for almost all it’s guests, such as this one for Mandelson:

        Mandelson is a corrupt crook who knowingly took bribes to bring Greece into the EU despite it obviously failing every economic test. He did this by being conflicted in sitting on the board of the bank and being the commissar responsible – who gave the work to his bank – at the time. For this fraud, corruption and theft which the tax payer has been funding ever since he was paid £8 million pounds.

        He was paid by the music industry to force through legislation that protected that industry without oversight or scrutiny… etc etc, ad nauseum infinitum.

        Same for Blair.

        Brown, delightfully could start with ‘Gordon Brown caused the collapse of the UK economy after wasting 250 years of tax revenue buying votes and stocking th epublic sector. He ignored repeated warnings from the bank of England over his financial regulation policy and his policy eventually, obviously and foreseeable caused the collapse of the UK banking sector from his wanting to milk it dry.

        Frankly, the list of fruad, corruption and theft carried out by those fools and the deliberate machination the BBC goes to to present the as ‘good’ is laughable.

    4. It is clear that very few people who support BLM have any idea just what it actually is.

      A Nottlepost from yesterday:

      When Ms French ‘takes the knee’ the BBC must superimpose clearly on the screen a notice saying

      The BLM is a Communist Political Organisation which wants to promote anarchy by abolishing the Police.
      The BBC admits that Ms French’s actions are a piece if political propaganda which has nothing to do with promoting racial harmony and tolerance.

    5. It feels to me that the powers that be wanted to create racial tensions and even civic unrest to accompany the Great reset new normal for some reason, like it was part of some grand strategy.
      They deliberate play down the rape gang outrages, bury it, coverage of the trial and sentences get one day where they are just read out with no scrutiny or mention on daytime MSM radio and tv chat shows, they say this is because too much reportage may stir up racial tension.
      With the George Floyd case it got coverage for weeks, maximum airtime with comments and outrage from the great and the good usual suspects for weeks and is still going on.
      So one can only conclude that they know exactly what they are doing and stirring up racial tension towards white people is perfectly okay.

  30. Morning all.
    What on earth is going on in this once fully functional and proud nation ?

    JAN MOIR: Daily Mail What HAVE we become when the NHS is sending out death squads to our elders?

    1. Afternoon, Eddy.

      That’s an easy one. We have become a suicidal, self-imploding species. Kill off all those with brains and experience and leave behind the clueless, unknowledgeable and unskilled. I wonder how they will survive once we have all left. I think the planet will rejoice.

      2. G’day Grizz, I envy you living abroad, but i have recently been in touch with our long absent next door neighbours, who were locked down in France. The lady had a serious accident and can hardly walk, so they are stuck there until she can travel. To stay in France they are having to almost claim asylum, simply because of the new regulations, piles of paperwork to fill in and less than helpful administrators.

        1. It’s swings and roundabouts here in Sweden, Eddy; it has plusses and minuses that balance each other out. The only ramification that I’ve had, so far, is being told by Amazon that I will be responsible for import charges and taxes on any goods I order from them after Jan 1, 2021.

  31. It’s Friday ain’t it??

    A car has mounted the pavement and ploughed into pedestrians in East London, amid fears several are seriously injured.

    Emergency services including ambulance and fire crews are at the scene in the Stamford Hill area of Hackney.

    Paramedics are treating people along a stretch of main road, where on the busy pavement a grey car has crashed into a tree.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9042873/Car-ploughs-pedestrians-Hackney-leaving-people-with.html

    1. Careless driver – mistook accelerator for brake – easily done.. Very contrite. Only too anxious to assist constabulary with enquiries….

        1. Yep, one of the areas that due to ‘administration errors’ didn’t get the mayoral election papers delivered in time.

      2. They have to make the point just in case you were adding two and two but not getting the approved answer of three.

          1. I can agree with not jumping to conclusions but nowadays it seems that it is not if there is a terror related incident, just a question of where.

            There again we have a trial going on in Toronto at the moment of some nutter who went on a murderous rampage in his minivan. The culprit was not of that faith, he was just a loser who wanted revenge on women.

          2. It’s called INCEL . Celibate men who conspire to murder women because they are unable to find a partner for consensual sex.

    3. The police were slow to react, as they had to get Rainbowed up.

      Instead of arriving by patrol car, the police ‘formation danced’ to the scene.

    4. Comment about the driver:
      “I’ve seen him around, he’s a very responsible man – he’s always got his mask on – he’s always very sensible.”
      Glasses steamed up?

    1. Is Khan aware that the Vehicle Excise Duty is not a hypothecated tax (i.e. it is not collected or spent on a specific purpose)? Why should he expect such tax collected from Londoners to be spent on London’s roads whilst it is not elsewhere in the country?

      1. not much of a socialist is he. Surely he understands the concept of taking from some to give to others.

      2. No problems, just charge them a ‘toll’ every time that they venture outside the Sad Dick Khant Wall aka the M25, with daily charges until they return to their idyllic locations inside it

    2. I’ve no issue with hypothecated taxes, but the government likes not having to bother mentioning the pots our cash goes into. After all, it wouldn’t do to expose that road tax floods straight into trougher salaries, would it?

  33. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Plenty of Brexit letters today (I wonder why?) both pro and anti a ‘no deal’:

    SIR – It is clear that the EU does not want a deal. Serving a fish supper to the Prime Minister can be taken only as the diplomatic equivalent of a V-sign.

    Let’s stop these pointless negotiations and play the EU and its members states at their own intransigent game. Let’s offer a large financial package to the car industry and subsidies to encourage them to on-shore their supply chains. Let’s reduce our rate of corporation tax and deliver free ports, to encourage international investment.

    We should ensure the naval support is in place to assist UK fishing fleets in their own waters. As a starting point that should give the Germans, French and Irish food for thought.

    Roger Gentry
    Sutton-at-Hone, Kent

    SIR – What on earth is the point of continuing the farce of the supposed negotiations for a Brexit trade deal?

    The situation is clear: we’ve got our country back from the clutches of European bureaucrats and we mean to keep it. They, apparently, won’t accept our temerity in choosing to leave.

    If Boris Johnson and the President of the European Commission couldn’t reach a decision over a three-hour dinner, then why persevere with the charade of yet more talks?

    We’ve left. Get used to it, EU. No deal.

    Clive Green
    Bristol

    SIR – Our Prime Minister has failed to secure a deal with Europe. Now we, his people, do not feel safe and are not reassured about our future in these difficult times.

    Penelope Whaley
    Lowestoft, Suffolk

    SIR – I am certainly not the only one to applaud Boris Johnson’s refusal to capitulate to the demands made by Michel Barnier, the EU negotiator. It was inevitable that the issues still being argued about now were those anticipated four and a half years ago.

    These are the fundamental reasons that I and others voted for Brexit.

    It only takes one of the remaining members of the EEC to scupper any deal. Unfortunately, Mr Johnson has to go through this charade to satisfy the Remainers that he did everything possible to come to an agreement.

    President Emmanuel Macron is merely emulating his predecessor de Gaulle. I only wish the French had persisted in their “non” with Edward Heath.

    Neville Dickinson
    Morpeth, Northumberland

    SIR – Mr Macron is the only head of state among the 27 EU members to criticise the UK continually and interfere in negotiations. The most intransigent member has nominated himself as the dominant representative.

    Boris Johnson wanted to speak to him directly. This was met with a “non”. He was told that Michel Barnier is the only representative of EU members – a fact largely respected by the rest of the bloc. It’s hard to expect any progress unless we can see the whites of the eyes of the true protagonist.

    Cameron Morice
    Reading, Berkshire

    SIR – The Prime Minister would have gained in stature and in support from the UK population if, on Wednesday night, he had ended the talks with the EU, closed the negotiations and returned to London.

    The conventional three-hour meal to agree further talks made the UK the supplicant not the decider.

    The decision has already been made. Leave and leave now.

    M H Sobey
    Dartmouth, Devon

    SIR – EU negotiators have stupidly acted in the worst interests of Europe.

    Nobody needs the restrictions they have attempted to impose on the United Kingdom. Free trade between our countries has worked well over the past 45 years and can continue without the useless EU negotiators’ attempts to disrupt it.

    Derek Godfrey
    Holt, Norfolk

    SIR – Despite his rousing rhetoric, the Prime Minister will know it is impossible both to get a deal and to retain total sovereignty. Now is the time for him to deploy his skill as a statesman to concede the minimum sovereignty to achieve a famous deal.

    Brian Whittingham
    Dorchester

    SIR – If we come to agree with the EU on a level playing field, will the EU then raise its standards to ours in areas such as maternity leave, minimum wage and animal welfare?

    J D Morgan
    Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire

    SIR – I wish the Prime Minister would stop using the phrase “our friends in the EU”. Clearly they are not.

    Tony Gammon
    Sturry, Kent

    SIR – The boss of Tesco’s should desist from his Brexit fear-mongering about the cost of brie. Somerset brie is just as good, and has a much lower carbon footprint than imported cheese.

    John Barratt
    Long Ashton, Somerset

    Edit: A couple of BTL comments caught my eye:

    Tom Archer
    11 Dec 2020 1:39AM
    The Brexit process is finally ending up the way many us predicted it would – over four years ago now.

    And now, as we reach the end game, one imperative stands out above all others. The traitors within must not prosper.

    The likes of Mandelson and Kinnock not only keep their bloated pensions under the WA, but are also exempted from tax for life. That is not a remotely tolerable situation, going forward.

    The British public has suffered a lot of needless grief over the past four years – now it’s payback time. All those who sucked at the EU’s teat must feel the heat..

    P Lamb
    11 Dec 2020 2:26AM
    @Tom Archer

    There is one remainer for whom we leavers ought to be grateful: Gina Miller. Without her interference T May and O Robbins might have got away with their BRINO. Law of Unintended Consequences at work here!

    1. I am perpetually surprised by these arguments for or against no-deal. I do love France, and have family over there and a house, but I know the mentality of the EU because I have one foot stuck in it. I can assure you that there was never going to ever be any deal that we could prefer to membership otherwise every member nation would want to renegotiate their membership. It is as simple as that.
      The EU cannot offer a decent deal or they will unravel. They have to show everyone that leaving is painful and worse than staying and that was obvious from well before we voted to leave. They were quite clear.
      These past years have been a sorry waste of time.

      1. Agreed, LiM. It’s been clear for much longer than the brexit vote how this would go – the EU even said it themselves, frequently. Like everybody is surprised when the EU is “revealed” to be a political process leading to “Ever closer union” – they are clear about that and even wrote it in one of the founding treaties, FFS! What’s not to understand? You only have to listen to them to see what they intend. They are clear enough about it.

      2. Yet there are still people (like Brian Whittingham) expressing the view that we should give up sovereignty in order to keep our own fish*.
        The MSM, the BBC, the CBI and others continue to assist the EU by pleading the case for remaining, conceding everything, giving everything away, so stridently, so vociferously and so one-sidedly that if we were at war they would all be locked up for offering help and comfort to the enemy.

        * Remind me, what access do UK farmers have to French vineyards?

    2. “… to encourage them to on-shore their supply chains. Let’s reduce our rate of corporation tax and deliver free ports, to encourage international investment.”

      Roger Gentry
      Kent

      Now I realise why my letters are no longer published in the DT. The letters’ editor rejects those written in English and only selects those scrawled in gobbledegook!

      Whatever Roger Gentry is smoking, I don’t want any. He needs locking up for his own safety.

    4. Hugh mng and thanks. The tones, structure and phraseology used in “letters” looks like 77 Bde collective homework was handed in, unsurprisingly, on time.

    5. Ah, Penny. Penny Penny Penny.

      You forget to mention that your husband – Mr Bob Whaley – makes a lot of money from the EU in translations and speech writing.

      Bless your bias, but next time, be honest.

  34. Emmanuel Macron insists he is not asking ‘to have my cake and eat it’ in Brexit negotiations – just my fair share.’

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/12/11/brexit-latest-boris-johnson-no-deal-plans-eu-single-market/

    Talk about an arrogant false sense of entitlement

    Macron says he will not surrender his share of the fish in British waters!

    Surely this share is what France had before Britain joined the EU and before Heath’s craven betrayal of the British fishing industry’

    A couple of Conservative remainer MPs are all in favour of Britain surrendering. Why weren’t the Conservative MPs who want to capitulte to the EU deselected before the last general election?

    And why did Nigel Farage ‘chicken out’ and not stand Brexit Party candidates in the general election in all constituencies where the Conservative candidate was a known remainer?

          4. no prob. Ksh always wobbles this time of year, and I guess with less tourists coming in for New Year, predominantly down the coast hasn’t helped. Most of 2020 rates have been generally £1=135/140 & 1US$=107/108

        2. in the early 1960’s, when one hardly ever saw them in the UK, my father used to bring some back from Kenyan business trips. They were the biggest and best I’ve ever eaten.

          1. Don’t doubt that for a second. Luckily here, I liaise with a lad who’s part of large haulier bring fruits up from Coast / Taita Taveta to the main supermarket chains in Nbo. At least I know they’re fresh, ripe and v good quality. One of the mini benefits being here

          2. Used to bring oranges back from Nigeria for my granddad. Problem was, they wre green/yellow, never turned orange… so he never ate them, despite me telling him they were ripe already.

  36. Today’s DT Leader…surely even the most ardent Remainiacs can now see the EU for what it is, as it seeks to punish Britain to deter others who may think freedom is a good idea…

    Last night the PM warned that there is now a “strong possibility” that no trade deal will be struck between the UK and EU by the New Year. In that event, Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has offered a contingency package of short-term mini-deals. One section goes to the heart of why talks have been so difficult. The EU advises individual members not to deal with Britain separately, which is paranoid to say the least, and notes they will have far more “bargaining power” if they act together. That power “must be used to ensure a level playing field between the EU and the United Kingdom”. This, for the EU, is what our talks are really about.

    Some of the contingency measures are common sense, particularly on freight and passenger transport – but unrestricted travel within the bloc automatically ends on January 1 and, because of Covid, we are threatened with restrictions on all but essential travel. Also slipped in is the suggestion that EU members can continue to fish in our waters as they did before, even though this is one of the three big sticking points in negotiations. Likewise, the EU requests that Britain remains aligned to “high and comparable” standards. It all begs the question, what is the point of hammering out a deal if Brussels thinks it can get precisely what it wants without one?

    One almost has to admire its single-minded commitment to keeping us trapped within its orbit of regulatory influence and its willingness to wear us down by dragging things out. While Britain has been zipping around the world signing free trade agreements, the EU takes years to negotiate anything. This is not just due to institutional lethargy or dysfunction, though both exist in spades. It is also a strategy, almost an instinct. The EU is in no hurry to strike a deal because it would be the prime beneficiary of any extension to the transition period, just as it is trying to ensure that it wins if these talks fail.

    A deal remains possible and desirable, and the PM has been trying his best to get one. But the EU’s pettiness, dogmatism and paranoia are not helping, and have been a constant reminder of why the UK voted to leave in 2016.

    1. 327397+ up ticks,
      Morning HJ,
      For genuine talks you need genuine opposing sides
      surely, & we are most certainly lacking in that department as the last four & a half years point out.

    2. I agree with almost everything in the DT Leader and we must be prepared to walk away. But this, “while Britain has been zipping around the world signing free trade agreements…” is delusional. The UK has been signing continuation agreements which roll forward deals we already had as part of the EU. Regarding this as a success is nonsense, it’s the absolute baseline that can be acceptable come 1st January.

      1. Good morning Cochrane

        Had you been in my English “A” level class I would have suggested that you studied the works of John Milton and considered the following two quotations:

        Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven

        [Paradise Lost Book 2]

        “But what more oft in Nations grown corrupt,
        And by their vices brought to servitude,
        Than to love Bondage more than Liberty,
        Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty.”

        [Samson Agonistes]

      2. Good morning Cochrane

        Had you been in my English “A” level class I would have suggested that you studied the works of John Milton and considered the following two quotations:

        Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven

        [Paradise Lost Book 2]

        “But what more oft in Nations grown corrupt,
        And by their vices brought to servitude,
        Than to love Bondage more than Liberty,
        Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty.”

        [Samson Agonistes]

    3. Anything led by the French and Germans must be a nightmare and now we can see it is. We should have gone 4 years ago. Will Boris hold firm.????

      1. ‘Morning, JN. It will be a nail-biting wait between now and Sunday – unless it drags on to the 31st December.

        2. 327397+ up ricks,
          Morning HJ,
          If it drags on does that mean that the same party’s, in the same political trio alternating circus, will continue unabated ?

      3. Clarke, Grieve and co who did their best to delay Brexit have made matters very considerably worse for Britain for over four years since the referendum.

        How about locking them both up in the Tower of London for high treason so as to set an example to other traitors!

  37. Mark Drakeford, the great bungler. Spiked. 11 december 2020.

    More than 100 Welsh pubs have barred Mark Drakeford as a result of his latest measures, which is symbolic of the lack of respect with which he is increasingly held among the wider population. For many in Wales, elections scheduled for next May (but which could yet be postponed by Drakeford) can’t come around quickly enough.

    You can tell this guy is a drip just by looking at him! Nevertheless the solution suggested in the paragraph has possibilities. We could sanction the whole political class!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/12/10/mark-drakeford-the-great-bungler/

    2. I just hope that Welsh voters will remember th destruction this tosser has wrought when (if) there is another election for their pretendy assembly.

      1. Good Morning Bill

        We must not forget that the referendum setting up the Welsh assembly occurred very soon after the death of the Princess of Wails when people were emotionally fragile. Added to which, with only a 50% turnout and a 50% vote in favour of having an assembly the actual expressed desire at the ballot box for a Welsh assembly amongst Welsh people was little more than 25%

        But this is what Blair, under instructions from the EU, wanted so that is what the Welsh got. The EU wanted Britain divided into regions and so Prescott tried to play a similar trick in making the NE an EU region – but the voters kicked the idea out.

    3. 327397+ up ticks,
      Morning AS,
      Sanction ALL, General Election next Thursday.
      As far as people power are concerned we are OUT of the e spew about three times removed.

      There is NO genuine opposition to brussels from these reigning overseers as with the last,going back three decades.

      We as a nation got through most of Thailand’s rubber export stamping brussels orders in complete obedience.

      AS in a previous comment we are suffering greatly from political testicles trying to attach a re-entry latch lifting tentacle for future use.

      Total severance is the only way to go.

  38. 327397+ up ticks,
    If things in the near future seem a tad depressing consequences of the
    lab/lib/con coalition mass uncontrolled immigration / paedophile umbrella party, tune into “Yesterday” Mon / Fri 6pm to see the prototype eu in action and the final solution, not that one, but Nuremberg.

    In that a blockade is on the menu incarcerate the 650 governing politico’s
    for their own protection or give them the option to leave for brussels.

    Remind brussels that all this type sh!te has been run past us before and it did not end well for the instigators.

    3. Ive been unable to look at my profile or notifications, nor open Disqus since yesterday! It’s doin’ my bleedin’ ‘ed in, innit!

        1. Depressingly, that didn’t work! Have also smacked the side of the iPad a la my Dad, and that failed to fettle it!

          2. Switched off, switched on, thumped it, nae joy, but thank you all for your encouragement! I’m sure it’ll all be well in the morning!!

  41. An item on the BBC Radio 4 today was about a dramatic increase in the numbers of dogs coming into the UK via the Channel Tunnel in their hundreds. They come in in lorries as well as cars. Some may be in several tiered lorries. The Veterinary Officials have expressed worry about the situation but I suspect not to the MP responsible for Dover. The programme also revealed that there is a charity which collects stray dogs from cities in the EU and brings them back for refuge in the UK. The Tunnel manager thought that might explain the high numbers in some vehicles. I am astonished and worried that this trade is going on unchecked.
    I know that rabies is officially rare in the EU but such activities are a welfare issue which must be addressed ASAP.

    1. It could be that these charities are bringing them now as dog traffic will cease from 1st January. Don’t they all have to have pet passports? Does nobody check these?

      1. Afternoon ndovu -As far as I understood it the importers had to get permission to bring dogs in to the UK but no apparent health checks were made and pet passports weren’t required or not inspected. The tunnel manager also suspected more dogs than applied for were being brought over. The name of the Charity bringing in the dogs was, as far as I am aware, not mentioned in the programme. I think Boris has already promised to allow free movement from the EU for a few months in 2021.

        1. Not until the Government overturns the judicial ruing that BI sellers are ‘self employed’ and hence entitled to welfare.

          1. Of course benefits tourism (which is what this this about) was never allowed under EU FOM rules, so the UK would have been well within its rights to expel these people.

          2. As they should also have made it illegal to claim Child Benefit for children resident in Poland or elsewhere.

          3. Reciprocal child benefit was claimable in all countries – I knew a guy who drove a truck for one of the big Dutch haulage companies and claimed Dutch benefits for his kids in the UK; because he was paying his NI (or equivalent) in the Netherlands. The mistake was not to keep the payments to “local equivalent” rates.

      3. When I brought Missy into the UK in 2005, there were thorough checks. In fact I had to wait 1/2 hour because the German vet had forgotten to enter her chip number on the parasite-free certificate & it took a series of phone calls to sort it out – not at my expense. Good job it was a week day.

    2. How this country has slid into such rapid and serious decline is so terrible. This government is useless.

        1. What ever the election result more people vote against the incoming party than for it. All we ever get is an elected dictatorship.

          1. 327408+ up ticks,
            Morning RE,
            The end result can expect nothing else, when ALL three form a coalition, political sh!te is guaranteed.

            UKIP proved people power when winning the eu elections.
            UKIP designed & triggered the referendum via people power.

            Really when peoples support / vote for party’s of a destructive / treacherous/ dangerous nature
            ie, as the lab/lib/con coalition for the last three decades, have they got cause to complain ?

          2. The best PM we have had since Churchill was removed by the seedy bastards within the system. The whole of the current political system needs scrapping and something more viable should be put in place. Quite often i think we’d be better off with Vlad in charge.

      2. The decline started accelerating with Tony Blair. All the problems that we are suffering today are the result of incompetent governments and encouragement of uncontrolled immigration. Once we have more control of our politicians we can maybe improve matters.

        1. Sadly, now that the politicians have learned that they can control the public (to control a virus) then the only control we have over them is once in five years.

        2. Personally i believe there are far too many people in (the 650 should be culled to around 300) parliament, the civil (seemingly an awful lot of people dedicated to be as awkward as they can) service run the country, we certainly don’t need a house of old lords. And the opposition should be only allowed half their salaries, most of them would not bother to turn up which is good.

      4. It’s an on going process and, frankly it started with uncontrolled massive immigration of criminals, foreigners and wasters solely so the Labour party got their voting block.

        We didn’t want them, didn’t need them and all the tsunami of immigrants did this country untold damage.

        1. It’s been a re-enactment of Troy and the trojan horse. The people of this country have been duped by the political classes.

    3. We adopted a rescued dog a few years ago and when we were looking, it was noticeable how many charities there are offering eastern European dogs. Having been to several eastern European countries, I can understand why, but we took the decision to adopt from a charity that only deals with UK rescues.

    5. When the Chunnel was first mooted, I thought it would let rabies into the country. There is a lot of puppy smuggling, apparently, due to high demand for pups owing to lockdown.

    6. When the Chunnel was first mooted, I thought it would let rabies into the country. There is a lot of puppy smuggling, apparently, due to high demand for pups owing to lockdown.

  43. Called the government about Attendants Allowance for my Mother.
    IThey suggest that, due to COVID, I call afterwards! Whenever that might be. Doesn’t the government have a way of directing telephone calls to work-at-home PCs, who also have interweb access to the databases? Gee…

    1. HMG is using the Plague to hide its normal gross inefficiencies. Try ringing the Inland Revenue……

      1. It’s HMRC now, Bill, has been for some time. If you are trying to call Whitehall 1212 you’ll probably have a long wait…

          1. I think Whitehall 1212 was Scotland Yard. I seem to remember, as a kid, just before 2 Way Family Favourites came on the Home Service at 1 pm on Sunday, there was a slot after the News when the Police issued appeals for information, and the public were asked to phone Whitehall 1212…
            It didn’t seem to have occurred to them that most of us didn’t have access to a phone.

          4. There are still a few boxes around… but none of them have telephones in them.

            One local one was being used to grow tomatoes this summer.

    3. I’ve been talking to DEFRA and HMRC at home without too much difficulty – except for prolonged waiting times listening to the muzak and some difficulties in transferring calls.

      Don’t know why you can’t get through to the DWP but they may just be busy. Try again later in the day… lines are sometimes less busy around 3 o’clock (UK time).

      1. I hung on and got through. Eventually. But surely a government organisation can manage to transfer calls out of their office?

        1. DEFRA, back in April/May were having real problems with call transfers and the home operators only had access to certain bits of the website (because it is enormous, clunky and badly designed).

          The VAT office was able to transfer my call from one home operator to another, then to a third, a week or so ago although each transfer meant another 40 minutes or so of muzak. Took me the better part of the day; and I don’t know yet whether I’ve managed to solve the problem because that was my fifth go at it.

          When the chancellor did things to the VAT rules in the spring he didn’t take into account the chaos it was going to cause!

      1. Good afternoon, J.

        I have just approved your comment,
        it was held for approval!!!
        Apparently … ‘I just paid’ is a restricted word!
        :-))
        Discus certainly works in weird and wonderful ways!

    5. Sorry to depress you Obers, but I have spent 3 months trying to get some money from DWP as I am unable to work and have had no income since February! Have now involved Citizens Advice as the working-from-home idiots on the phone, couldn’t give a monkeys! 40/50 minutes to get through to a person and then they are hopeless. One of them spent 5 minutes yawning until I asked her if I was keeping her awake!

        1. I must admit I had difficulty keeping my temper in check, as she was a very difficult woman to deal with because of her attitude and (hate to say it) accent!

      2. Hi Sue,when I found it impossible to contact the DWP ref Winter Fuel Payment I took Bill’s advice and contacted my MP,got a swift and helpful response and they promised to intercede on my behalf
        Blow me yesterday I got a letter from the DWP confirming my details were updated and all outstanding monies had been paid without their usual kerfuffle of bank statements utility bills etc
        Also email from MP’s office with copy of grovelling letter from DWP complaints dept.
        Worked far better than I ever dreamed possible………..
        Give it a try

          1. Well, you will have a selection of MSPs, directly elected and list. I suspect that list MSPs would be grateful for being contacted about anything.

      3. You should have said “Do you mind if I record this conversation for training and legal purposes?”

        1. When you get through to them, put them on hold and say ‘I’m sorry, I am experiencing high call volumes and your call is important to me but because you’ve wasted my time by not hiring and training enough people for the whole decade you’ve wasted my time keeping me on hold I’m going to do the same to you.’

      4. I’m sorry that you’re crook, Sue. That’s not good. What’s the prognosis?
        Edit: Man, I’m rude. Sorry.

  44. Just when you think that the powerful cannot become any more stupid, along comes Trudeau.

    News is just breaking that the government invited China to send troops to Canada for joint winter training exercises. The army cancelled the program after China arrested two Canadians on trumped up spying charges but the government have objected to the cancelation.

    You may as well just invite Putin to send troops to the next NATO exercise.

    https://spencerfernando.com/2020/12/09/in-a-sane-world-trudeau-wanting-communist-chinas-troops-on-canadian-soil-would-be-the-end-of-his-political-career/

    1. The Russians are more trustworthy than the Chinese and more stable than the EU. ( Why, oh why, are we in bed with the crazy Turks? If they start a war, we are in it with them.)

      1. NATO will not back Turkey in an aggressive war. Article 5 deals with mutual defence, whereby if one NATO member is attacked. the others will respond as if it were an attack on all.

        It would take an attack on the Turkish homeland to trigger a NATO response. The neo-Ottoman Caliph in Ankara has already tried several times to invoke Article 5 to gain NATO support for his illegal invasion of Syria, but he was unsuccessful in his attempts.

        If Greece and Turkey – both NATO members – go to war, it will be triggered by the aggressive moves the Turks are making in the Aegean and the repeated violations of Greek airspace by Turkish warplanes, and I suspect that NATO would have to side with Greece – the EU certainly would be obliged to.

        1. I suspect that the EU would just let them get on with it. They would try to encourage the UN rather than NATO to step in.

          Whether the rest of NATO would concur is moot, but given the huge Turkish diaspora throughout Europe, particularly in Germany, I suspect that they would not want to get involved unless forced to.

          1. Greece is a member of the EU, so I can’t see Brussels standing by if “EU territory” were to be invaded and possibly occupied. It would weaken EU credibility enormously and France, especially under Macron, couldn’t be doing with that.

          2. Greece is a member of the EU, so I can’t see Brussels standing by if “EU territory” were to be invaded and possibly occupied. It would weaken EU credibility enormously and France, especially under Macron, couldn’t be doing with that.

          3. I hope you’re right, but I think Erdogan is crazy enough to try to take islands in the Aegean and the disingenuous bastards of the EU would regard them as being, to all intents and purposes, in Turkish waters.

            The EU gets involved militarily and Erdogan smashes open the migrant floodgates to Europe. What’s a few Greek Islands as far as Western Europe is concerned, to prevent that happening?

        2. William Keegan
          Sun 15 Dec 2002 02.17 GMT

          Weary teachers used to provide a rhyme to assist British schoolchildren who were confused by the geography of parts of Europe that the English Channel didn’t reach.

          It went: ‘Austria was Hungary, Very Very Hungary, Ate a bit of Turkey, Dipped in Greece. Long-legged Italy, kicked poor Sicily, Into the Mediterranean Sea.’

          I have to confess that the double joke in ‘Austria was Hungary’ did not quite get through to me at the age of seven, when knowledge of the Austro-Hungarian empire was in short supply. But the ‘little bit of Turkey’ seems to have relevance to the heated debate over whether or when Turkey should be admitted to the EU. If it does, the rhyme will have to be adapted to take in a bigger bit of Turkey.

          https://www.theguardian.com/business/2002/dec/15/theeuro.europeanunion

        3. So, what you are saying is that if the Turks attack Greece the EU will support Greece and as most of the EU countries are members of NATO, NATO will become embroiled?
          Or are you saying that if Greece attacks Turkey the EU will support Greece as will then NATO?

          Or, to refer back to my initial comment, why are we in bed with the Turks? We should leave NATO for we are in little danger except by being dragged into something by one of the other members.

          I don’t mean to be rudely argumentative so I apologise if it comes over that way. It is very complex and there are endless possibilites for bad things to happen.

          1. Nothing to apologise for, HP!

            I agree, I think we’ve nothing to gain from our membership of NATO, which is outdated and probably will soon be superseded by an EU army, if the Franco-German Axis has its way.

            If war comes between Greece and Turkey, I can’t believe Greece would start it. Unlike Turkey, it has no expansionist ambitions so it would have nothing to gain and everything to lose.

      1. Even if it is the Second Going I suspect that things will still fall apart and that the centre will not be able to hold.

  46. Supreme Court will not allow judicial review of Government actions over Covid.

    Update on Join the Legal Challenge to the UK Govt Lockdown

    This week the Supreme Court has decided to refuse to hear our appeal relating to a Judicial Review into lockdown.

    The Supreme Court decision to refuse to hear an appeal relating to a Judicial Review into lockdown, means that unelected Judges have set a precedent which now makes it impossible to challenge the Government’s use of the Public Health Act 1984 to trample over Civil Liberties and to emasculate Parliament in the process.

    By not allowing the Appeal to go ahead, this puts a protective shield around Ministers and gives them a free run to lock up people in their homes using the Act, without having to worry any more that their actions in using the Act like this are illegal. This is a chilling development which should not be underestimated.

    The Government’s ruthless use of the 1984 Act is an effective destruction of democratic process on behalf of the public around the lockdowns we have suffered and any that may happen again in the future. Although lately there has been some pushback from MPs, the decision of the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal gives the Government more power than it should rightfully have.

    It threatens even to rip up the rights protected by the Magna Carta – the basic premise of you being free unless it is specifically unlawful has now effectively been changed, meaning that you now have to have the Govt’s permission to do literally anything. This goes against 800+ years of legal principle.

    “By criticising us for having a ‘Rolling Judicial Review’ case, it means that when a Government in future uses these emergency powers, provided that they change the regulations every time they are challenged, they can keep avoiding the very mechanism – Judicial Review – that is there to provide a vital check and balance under the UK’s unwritten constitution. It is ironic that in July of this year, the Government launched a wide ranging review into the scope of judicial review chaired by Lord Faulks QC which has yet to publish its recommendations.

    Equally disturbing is how the lockdown Judicial Review cases have found a lack of willingness from the Courts to challenge Government; Judges have said all along “It isn’t the place of the Court to get involved in politics”. They didn’t make that claim when the Brexit case was going.

    From the first directions order made in the Judicial Review claim, it was clear that our unelected judges were entirely dismissive of the notion that we should be able to protect rights in the midst of a Pandemic, or that the Government’s actions could in any way be disproportionate or illegal in terms of the real situation being faced.

    No one is disputing the impact on public health as a result of the novel Coronavirus, but far more so the Government’s handling of it, however, I do not feel the judges engaged at all with the key points or the 1,200 pages of evidence that was submitted as part of the case. The judgments and judicial comments made throughout are strongly suggestive of an unwillingness to look at the evidence and to depart from a high level “media” view of the pandemic. This suggests the Courts have not taken the opportunity to scrutinise key statistics and facts around the case, effectively waving away vital points around misleading data being used to justify lockdowns and impose further restrictions.

    While scrutinising this type of data was seen as almost being unholy in March, April and May of 2020, this case, the Dodgy Dossier and the recently and very quietly amended ONS stats used to impose Lockdown 2 on the nation, has shown that, as a seemingly democratic society, it is vital that we do scrutinise what we are being told and that we continue to do so. The Government has used data to terrify the nation into compliance over a virus from which, in the words of the Government’s own medical officers, the vast majority people recover from and many do not even show symptoms of having.

    I also feel strongly that our case has been treated with a far different approach to the Brexit case brought by Gina Miller, who twice defeated the Government in the Supreme Court, once over the right of MPs in triggering Article 50 and then again over the Prorogation of Parliament – arguably far less significant to the nation than the greatest economic contraction in peacetime history and the unprecedented restriction of rights, including access to healthcare – that we have seen as a result of Government measures.

    The Supreme Court route is one we took as we fully believed in the case. It returned its decision in rapid time in an email of just a few lines long. This is a kick in the face for the thousands of people who have supported this case.

    It must be accepted that the path to the Supreme Court is notoriously difficult. Of the many applications for permission to the Supreme Court each year, very few are granted. From July to September of this year, there were 21 applications. Five applications granted but three of them were for cases arising from 1971 shootings in N Ireland. Among them, and one of the most recent cases to be given permission to appeal, were the Government’s own appeal against the appeal court’s decision to let ISIS bride Shamina Begum back into the country pending her appeal. The massive health, civil liberties, parliamentary and economic implications of the use of the 1984 Act, was not, however, deemed worthy of consideration by the Court.

    While the Supreme Court decision is a bitter blow, we have scored many victories and helped give a platform to tens of thousands of people who felt their voices were unheard. We forced SAGE to produce its minutes, got the Government to concede it had not lawfully shut schools, and lit the fire on scrutinizing data and information.

    What started for me as a personal crusade against this Government and their shocking ineptitude quickly turned into a campaign for everyone whose lives have been wrecked by lockdown polices which were implemented in haste and without proper consideration.

    We started Keep Britain Free to protect the basic freedoms of everyone living in the UK and it has become one of the fastest growing pressure groups in the UK, with thousands of you joining together to fight creeping totalitarianism. Our legal challenge has become one of the biggest crowdfunded legal cases in British history. We have raised over £416,000 from 14,000 pledges – people from all different walks of life from every corner of the UK. This shows the strength of feeling out there for this ongoing battle.

    Whilst the Supreme Court decision is far from the outcome we were fighting for, our campaign has been vital in giving individuals up and down the country hope during an unprecedented time and in challenging a Government that was simply ruling by decree without any scrutiny. We also believe our findings and evidence, while not considered properly by the judges, will be of use in the inevitable public inquires which will follow and will help history judge the PM, Matt Hancock and their advisers in the light that they deserve.

    Our fight continues and as ever, I will keep you posted on developments!

    1. From a commenter on another site: Apt and correct:-

      jeremy.darroch@bskyb.com

      Anyone dissatisfied with Burley, Rigby & co. can write a courteous e-mail to Sky’s UK boss to let him know.

      I did.

      Good Evening Mr. Darroch,

      Please excuse the unsolicited e-mail.

      I have learnt that the Sky reporters who gathered to celebrate at Kay Burley’s recent party have been variously suspended for 3-6 months –
      whether on full, partial or no pay we were not told – and have also seen their trite and phoney ’sorry guys’ apologies.

      Whilst I am not a Sky customer, if you don’t mind, I would like to comment.

      It is apparent to me that one of the principle reasons that the British government has taken the decisions it has over C-19 is that it has been
      highly conscious of the power, and willingness, of the MSM – principally the BBC and Sky – to criticise it. Sadly, our prime minister did not have the gumption to watch and wait, assess the progress of the epidemic, and develop an alternative strategy to what we have endured.

      One only has to look at the numbers of people wearing masks whilst travelling in their cars to realise the scale of the influence that news outlets have exercised in determining the national mood. It follows therefore that your editorial policy – communicated by reporters like Kay Burley and Beth Rigby – has played a huge role in leveraging the path the government has chosen.

      Unequivocally, the MSM owns a significant proportion of the social and economic chaos that has been caused by the response to the C-19 virus.

      As for Kay Burley and her friends, having been played strident roles in creating and sustaining the national atmosphere of fear in the country, last weekend, they proceeded to demonstrate that they themselves were very much unafraid. In doing so, they exposed their mammoth personal arrogance and shameless sanctimony; and also confirmed what the more robust of us know, i.e. that – since late spring anyway – the government has duped the populace, they initially scrambled around to avoid blame, and is now milking the situation in order to be anointed saviours.

      The government that I voted for a year ago has ruined the nation, and will ruin me personally if regulation goes on for much longer. I will express my displeasure at the ballot-box. Before then, I request that you acknowledge the part that Sky has played in generating fear and anxiety, and take steps to put the ‘genie back in the bottle’. I think that part of this process should involve the dismissal of your errant and humbug reporters.

      Sincerely

      Name withheld of commenter but either way, well said

      1. Great comment! I see the Supreme Court have joined the ranks of the hypocrites – “It isn’t the place of the Court to get involved in politics”. They didn’t make that claim when the Brexit case was going.

      2. “I will express my displeasure at the ballot-box.”

        Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms/ Name Withheld

        I hope you will be able to do this. Unless and until NOTA (None Of The Above) is a counting voting option how would you register this displeasure?

        I have no vote, but if I did have one I would certainly not vote for any of the main parties.

    2. All the atrocities committed by the Nazis, and all the actions they took to facilitate their deathly grip on Germany, were legal. Hitler even took over by not naming a new Chancellor, and called himself Führer, so that was legal, too.
      See how that ended up.
      Those who refuse to learn the lesssons of history are condemned to repeat them.

      2. I said this to an ardent Europhile Lefty chum. He said ‘why do you think that? It’s silly.”

        I told him it’s inevitable. They can’t help themselves. This is how it starts and where it always ends. He won’t see it. No matter the demonstrations, the examples, the factual evidence he simply can’t accept the horror that’s coming.

    1. Those facts are undoubtedly possible, but much depends on the willingness of big state to allow the UK to become such a free and prosperous country. If the state decides to keep taxes as high as they are and do nothing about government waste while pursuing idiotic ideology we’re going to remain crushed by regulation and pointless costs.

      1. 327397+ up ticks,
        Afternoon W,
        Any future change must have consolidated people
        power behind it, this has worked via the polling booth to bring this Country to it’s knee, then make it work for the benefit of the nation.

        It has clearly shown it can destroy, we are witnessing that daily.

  48. Wasted Time – four years of it. This Eagles’ song makes one think about the farce of trying to negotiate with a completely tyrannical, vindictive and nasty EU. However the song’s conclusion is finally optimistic and we shall find it was well worth it when we are free.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOczPFACX74

  50. Good morning all! I posted last night about not being able to open my profile and notifications and wondered if anyone else had the same problem? I have also tried to look at solutions on Disqus but their site will not open for me either! Any thoughts or have I been no-platformed?

    1. Good morning, Sue…. ! I don’t think you have been no-platformed, it is simply one of disqus’s endearing little quirks. Frequently I cannot uptick, and/or see a new reply and/or reply myself. Sometimes the whole thing freezes with a little circle wheely thing going round in the middle of the page. Then I have to refresh the whole thing or shut it down and start again. Fortunately I don’t have to go through the whole captcha thingy rigmarole as some seem to have to do. A slight blessing in the grand scheme of things. Gotta go now, I have a Zoom Pilates session at 10.,

      2. It has certainly been rather jumpy. I also had problems with the Spekkie, one of which was the comments section was up the Swanee. The Spekkie uses Disqus. Now sorted by some form of magic that didn’t involve me tussling with half understood instructions.

  52. Here is a BTL comment under Jeremy Warner’s article in today’s DT:

    Everything about the EU’s current behaviour confirms that any country with any self-respect has no place in it.
    It is time for people like Grieve and Clarke to admit that the EU is a thoroughly nasty, vindictive, punitive and sadistic organisation.
    Or is it because such people are like this themselves that they cannot do so?

    and here is the article:

    Can’t we do this amicably in a way that is least damaging to both of us, our bank accounts, and the children? How many times have divorce lawyers heard this plea, only for the supposedly injured party to say no, I’m taking this all the way, and if it ends up bankrupting us, you know who to blame?

    Divorce is rarely entirely cordial, and at the very least, it is almost always costly. Often, it is vindictive. As a metaphor for Britain’s departure from the European Union, it has perhaps already been stretched to the point of virtual destruction. Yet as we approach Brexit’s final denouement, now very probably just days or even hours away, it is very hard to see things in any other light.

    The unstoppable force of Brexit has met the immovable object of the European Union, and a nasty economic pile up is now in prospect. That this is going to be damaging to both parties – certainly in the short run, and arguably longer term too – shouldn’t by now be in any doubt. All trade is economically beneficial, even when it results in a deficit. Anything that puts barriers in the way, as the EU now seems intent on doing in some shape or form, is by definition bound to be bad for both parties.

    That it will be worse for us than it is for them is a matter of widely held belief on the Continent. Yet it is also another example of false comfort being drawn from aggregate thinking.

    If the EU is viewed as a single country, then it is entirely true that it is not as dependent on us for its output as we are on them. But for certain country-specific and politically influential sectors, the end of tariff and quota free trade with the UK threatens to be extremely painful, piling the agony on an already Covid poleaxed economy.

    Volkswagen and BMW are not going to thank Angela Merkel for putting principled defence of the “integrity of Europe’s single market” ahead of ease of doing business with their largest export market. On the whole, Germans do admittedly continue to have a high degree of commitment to the machinery of the EU; they have after all done very well out of it. But there is only so long you can subvert the national interest to that of the EU bureaucracy, only so long that you can keep saying “ask not what Brussels can do for you, only what you can do for Brussels”.

    A prosperous Britain is as important to the future prosperity of Europe as it is to the UK itself. That Brussels should seek to undermine it in punishment for Brexit damages its own self interest as much as that of Britain.

    To any rational, thinking person, it is completely ludicrous that free trade talks should founder on a principle as fungible and open to interpretation as maintenance of “level playing field” arrangements.

    Europe has almost never operated a level playing field. The closest it ever came to it was when the bloc was just a handful of countries of broadly similar income and social security arrangements, and even back then, things were about as level as the Scottish highlands.

    “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” backroom deals and trade-offs have always offered a high degree of protection and competitive advantage for particular national interests.

    In any case, any pretence at free and fair competition between comparable economies disappeared the moment the EU opened its doors to Europe’s outer reaches. Where were the level playing field constraints on German car manufacturers shifting production to low cost Eastern Europe, or indeed cheap Eastern European labour overwhelming the more prosperous European north? Levelling down, rather than up, became the unintended consequence of the day.

    As it is, the UK has some of the most taxing environmental, animal welfare and labour market standards in Europe, with one of the highest minimum wages and now by far the most ambitious target for reducing greenhouse gases.

    Perhaps Brussels is right to fear the creation of a low cost, low tax sweatshop on its own doorstep, but if that’s the view, it is almost wholly unsupported by the evidence. There is no majority political constituency in Britain for that kind of future. If it ever came to pass, it would ironically be made more likely by a no-deal outcome, with Europe’s supposed tariff protections arbitraged away by UK currency adjustment and tax breaks to attract international investment. If there was ever a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face, the EU is it.

    As in all divorces, there is admittedly an element of six of one, half a dozen of the other in all this. On the EU’s current negotiating stance, Britain is faced with either the certainty of Europe’s external tariffs on day one of leaving the single market, or the prospect of them at some stage in the future if it materially diverges. For the life of me, I struggle to see why the latter course is so objectionable.

    1. 327395+ up ticks,
      Morning R,
      Why are the politicos making such a big deal for getting a deal with such an odious setup ?
      The truth of the matter is if say we had listened to the Gerard Batten route to the exit two years BEFORE the referendum result we would have saved ourselves 4 1/2 years of peoples anguish & been a success story in the making.

      We would most certainly have NOT incurred the dept mountain now facing the Nation.

      Putting trust again & again in the same political twisted tw@ts / party’s via the polling booth has cost these Isles dearly, financially / culturally and will be felt for many a year.

      1. God morning Ogga

        Many of us agree with you that we need a change: the current lot have killed democracy. The trouble is we do not all agree on quite what this change should bring.

        1. 327397+ up ticks,
          R,
          STOP feeding the lab/lib/con coalition candidates
          via the polling booth just because your granddad did, if these same politico’s were around in his day
          there would have been a background wall , a blindfold & maybe a last ciggy.
          The example of what can be done was shown by Batten UKIPs leader in a year he made the party financially sound and membership rising on a daily basis this was clearly seen by the toxic trio & “nige” & could not be allowed to continue hence treachery was triggered.

          It can be done, it has been shown it can be done, who showed it could be done, UKIP.

          The eu elections, designing & triggering the referendum two major points.

          Whilst all the time the lab/lib/con mass uncontrolled immigration / paedophile umbrella coalition party were bent on knocking the @rse out of the nation, with a great deal of help.

          1. I haven’t voted for a Lib/Lab/Con candidate for over 30 years – but the fact that I live in France and Blair robbed me of my vote may have influenced me.

          2. 327397+ up ticks,
            R,
            IMO one should NOT vote on the strength of gripping ones nasal passages or the best of the worst, that is what has done the damage & denied
            politico’s with integrity a shout.

            The contents of my reply to you was not on the personal level.

            Ps If things get sticky become a blockade runner
            in regards to food parcels.

          3. I haven’t voted for a Lib/Lab/Con candidate for over 30 years – but the fact that I live in France and Blair robbed me of my vote may have influenced me.

    3. That pay gap – is it in every job? Do those doing the jobs have exactly the same skills, experience and ability?

      What about those men walking out of their jobs because women earn more than them? This nonsense is stupid. It’s time they grew up and accepted that it isn’t because they’re women, it’s because they’re doing a different job.

  54. From today’s batch of Sports’ Letters to the Daily Telegraph (no necessity to append a grovelling ‘SIR’ prefix at the head of the letter when writing to the Sports’ section).

    Breakdancing an Olympic Sport, never in a million years, whatever next: tiddlywinks, knitting, welly and dwarf-throwing? The list is endless but never to include breakdancing.

    Allan J Eyre,
    Brookfield, Middlesbrough

    Mr Eyre correctly identifies what is wrong with the controlling forces in today’s sad excuse for a world. The cretins at the IOC have emulated the pussies at the BBC in concentrating on attracting a “youth” audience at the expense of the more mature and discerning viewer.

    The problem with this policy (which is doomed to failure) is that the vast majority of young people, these days, have had all the intelligence bred out of them by increasingly and incrementally more stupid parents. Most of today’s vacuous youth are interested in nothing more than staring unblinkingly at the screens of their mobile phones.

    Why should the older generation have their interests curtailed (and expunged) in a headlong quest to “attract” those who don’t possess sufficient brain cells to understand complex sports or answer searching questions on erudite quiz programmes?

    Cue: the spluttering whines of, “My children are intelligent!”, from those who can’t (or won’t) understand the gist of this comment due to the layers of rose-tinted wool over their eyes!

    1. Well, Formula 1 racing is classed as a sport, at least with Breakdancing, it is down to the person, not the car.
      Note BLM Hamilton does not lend his car to anyone

    2. “… BBC in concentrating on attracting a BLACK “youth” audience…”

      There, Grizz, sorted.

      1. I seem to recall that, in the dim and distant past of the early Olympics, there were artistic events run in parallel with the sports.

          5. There’s always WHITE pudding, Ireland and REID pudding (Red) Scotland as alternatives, Walter

          7. And in Devon, where it’s sometimes called “hog’s pudding”.

            Afternoon, Spikey. Still sunny up in Wester Ross?

        1. That is a plainly silly suggestion.

          Everybody knows that mowing was grouped with flower-arranging and turning the muck-heap.

        2. That is a plainly silly suggestion.

          Everybody knows that mowing was grouped with flower-arranging and turning the muck-heap.

  55. History 1944 Radio Message BLM successful
    in 2020 or Post Woke 1

    Damnbuster Raid Leader to Base! Come in Please

    Damnbuster Raid Leader to Base! Come in Please

    Base here, what is your status

    repeat Base here, what is your status

    Damnbuster Raid Leader to Base! We have to abort mission

    Repeat We have to abort mission

    Base here Why must you abort, repeat Why must you abort,

    Damnbuster
    Raid Leader. When we drop the next bomb and breach the Dam, we will
    send the Success Codeword, then the team and my dog will be
    castigated forever. Better the Germans win and the French live under
    their rule. At least we will be free. Can EU hear me

    Base

    1. The French obviously took the word ‘Chastise’ to heart, and ever since have done their best to put it into practice.

      ‘Morning, Tryers.

    2. “Dis is Dublin tower to Aer Lingus floight tree tree tree, come in.”

      “Aer Lingus floight tree tree tree here, pass your message.”

      “What is your height and position, to be sure?”

      “I’m six foot tree and oi’m sitting in the front seat.”

      1. Allegedly, a Pan Am 727 flight waiting for start clearance in Munich overheard the following:
        Lufthansa (in German): “Ground, what is our start clearance time?”
        Ground (in English): “If you want an answer you must speak in English.”
        Lufthansa (in English): “I am a German, flying a German airplane, in Germany. Why must I speak English?”
        Unknown voice from another plane (in a beautiful British accent): “Because you lost the bloody war.”

        1. I read once that whatever nationality of the pilot, whatever country they are landing in, ALL the conversation from tower to plane and vice versa HAS to be in English. True ?? I don’t know.

          3. A Master Navigator told me, George, that on approach to Italian airfields it was OK to speak English – but in an Italian accent if you wanted a response.

          5. Supposed to be. There was an incident a few years ago where two aircraft collided because ATC and one aircraft were speaking their own language rather than English (could have been Turkish). The other aircraft had no idea what was going on.

        2. When we leave the EU could we demand they stop using English?

          That’d be hliarious as they fought over which of the languages spoken in no other country were used.

      2. Mr Grizzle
        You are my great, great, great great Grandad and told me that when you were young, heheheheh

      3. I actually had this conversation on amateur radio: “How high are you and do you suffer from wind?” (in other words, what’s your altitude and are you in an exposed location that might damage your antenna?). Me “Five foot four and only when I eat beans” 🙂

  56. “Lockdown has resulted in a reduction in CO2 levels”

    So, wrecking the economy has produced a miniscule reduction in CO2 levels –

    We can see what would happen if the Global Warming Warriors got their way!

    2. It might be relevant, but for the fact that CO2 levels are of no consequence…

      ‘Morning, Stu.

        1. A BBC article from 2016, quite interesting. These 4 paragraphs caught my eye.
          Another important element in the story is the impact of a hiatus in global temperature increases on the behaviour of plants. Between 1998 and 2012 temperatures went up by less than in previous decades. This has impacted the respiration of vegetation.

          “The soils and ecosystem are respiring so as temperatures increase they respire more, releasing more CO2 into the atmosphere,” said Dr Keenan.

          “In the past decade or so there hasn’t been much of an increase in global temperatures, so that meant there wasn’t much of an increase in respiration and carbon release so that was fundamentally different in the past decade or so compared to previous periods.”

          One consequence of a warming world that has been expected to increase was the number of droughts around the world. However, this new study suggests that, on a global scale, there has been little or no change in the prevalence of drought over recent decades.
          https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-37909361

          1. There has been an increase in temperature but of no consequence and not to do with our contribution to carbon dioxide. What have we done to ourselves that we are now grimly bound to an idea that has mesmerised the vulnerable and been stolen by the powerful ? Millions believe that carbon dioxide will damage us and even more disturbing, that reducing our emissions will affect our fate. A mass delusion of such force that stories will be told of how it took hold.

          2. Similar to the mass delusion that masks stop a virus transmitting, and that lockdowns are worth killing the economy and damaging peoples’ health.

  59. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0e9f17fe3b7c8a8a95c71f8c62527fe6902272a284e50b80b451db8ff68ebade.png Curious, don’t you think how times, mores, and attitudes change.

    I wonder how these chappies would be treated if they had attempted such a similar stunt in the days when Sir Francis Drake or Sir Winston Churchill had been around?

    Defence of the Realm was of paramount importance in the days of yore. I wonder why it no longer is?

    Caveat: I am aware, without being reminded, that there were no lorries (nor Chunnel) in the days of Drake or Churchill!

        1. They should swap the cars those two drive, see how the greatest driver ever manages in the also ran Williams.

  61. My mother has just told me that the reason it’s gone so quiet over HS2 is that they’ve issued blanket Non Disclosure Orders against anyone on the payroll, and that all investigative reporting by the media is to be suppressed by D Notices from the Government, which does not want malpractice to be exposed or held to account.

    They call this “taking back control”.

  63. Well, knock me down with a feather!! I left messages for several tree men about a sumac which I suspected had given up the ghost, asking for a check of my suspicions and a quote for its removal if they proved correct.

    One got back to me this morning, arranged to come at one, confirmed the diagnosis (really sad – it was a beautiful tree) and said he had a space if I wanted and would be back with chainsaws etc after lunch.

    Not only did he actually come back (I’ve had a bit of a rash of disappearing workmen since even before Mother died), he cheerfully and efficiently did the job, shredded the smaller branches and as I said I didn’t want the shreddings, took them to sop up the mud on local forest paths, chopped the bigger stuff into logs for my brother (lucky bugger has an open fire), loaded those into my car, and cleared up after himself. All for £25 an hour! I can’t believe my luck, and shall be singing his praises online once I remember which site I want (pretty sure it’s not TripAdvisor . . .).

    He also didn’t mind me lurking around admiring his tools and being nosy. Turns out he has a doctorate in chemistry and an MBA, and a previous career in BP, and part of our conversation slipped into French.

    Talk about hens’ teeth! Thought I’d post as an antidote to our usual cynicism.

      1. I offered (of course; Mother would haunt me otherwise), but he said no thanks and just got on with things.

      1. Stagshorn. Rhus Tryphina, according to Mother’s label (she was a slightly unreliable speller, though). A gorgeous tree; in the autumn, the leaves in their bunches would be red, yellow and green, and the seeds are great in middle-eastern cuisine.

        1. Rhus typhina is the staghorn sumac, so your mother’s label is not far off. So named for the “velvet” covered young shoots – and it is a very pretty tree, even though it is a thug.

    4. Also known as the ‘thug tree’, as it overwhelms other plants. We had two in the garden and I’m still digging up roots…

      1. Yes indeed! It sent suckers all over the lawn this summer; I was bloody annoyed at the time but now see it as a last-ditch attempt at having children 🙂

        1. Did your obliging tree-man remove the stump? If not, you may well get more suckers next year.

          2. That’s good. One of my neighbours cut one down a few years ago (it was simply too big for a small garden) and he had suckers for several years before the stump died completely.

  64. HAPPY HOUR – Banking on it.

    £300,000 Bristol house where Banksy’s ‘Aachoo!’ mural appeared overnight ‘could now be worth £5MILLION’ Aileen Makin, 57, owns the £300,000 property which could now see its value skyrocket because of the artwork. She was due to exchange contracts next week, but decided against the move after the street artist confirmed the work painted on the side of her home was his.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0906cfb6c07d2ae0ebb31872e0daab2d80a19a9a4852f22bf56b25247d4fe9ad.jpg
    ailymail.co.uk/news/article-9042871/Woman-house-Banksys-new-Aachoo-mural-appeared-overnight-pull-sale.html

    2. What I’d love to know is, how can “Banksy” confirm that it is his work if no one knows who “Banksy” is?

  65. Emmanuel Macron insists he is not asking ‘to have my cake and eat it’ in Brexit negotiations – just my fair share.’

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/12/11/brexit-latest-boris-johnson-no-deal-plans-eu-single-market/

    Talk about an arrogant false sense of entitlement

    Macron says he will not surrender his share of the fish in British waters!

    Surely this share is what France had before Britain joined the EU and before Heath’s craven betrayal of the British fishing industry’

    A couple of Conservative remainer MPs are all in favour of Britain surrendering. Why weren’t the Conservative MPs who want to capitulte to the EU deselected before the last general election?

    And why did Nigel Farage ‘chicken out’ and not stand Brexit Party candidates in the general election in all constituencies where the Conservative candidate was a known remainer?

    1. Afternoon Richard.
      It seems the Brussels mafiosi have turned the idea of us escaping the grips of the EU on its head.
      It looks as if it’s the English who will have an abundance of cake to eat soon. But not many fish, or Spanish fruit and vegetables.
      After his very welcome and initial display of good rallying common sense, it seems that Nigel has turned into a wet blanket. And after his near aircraft crash and wheel nuts being found loose on his Volvo, he might well have ‘been got at’ as in ‘someone has had a word’. After all we do seem to be dealing with the mafia.

        1. Oh yes, some one has ‘had a word’ with him, but still milking his past but unspecific ‘glories’.

          1. 327397+ up ticks,
            RE,
            The bolton cretin was his conduit into UKIP I was at Birmingham when we voted bolton out and Batten took the leadership, good day, good bloke.
            Consequently the “nige” split the vote, taking over the brexit party from Blaiklock then ensuring
            johnson an 80 seat win after standing down a good % of Brexit group candidates.

            You can change the name of the party but you cannot change the character of the leader

  66. Son no 1 who lives with us has a cough .. he has had a cough for a few months now , and it keeps him awake , it is a dry cough . I call it an industrial cough , by virtue of the dusty atmosphere he works in , he is an electrician , working in heavy hard industrial conditions . He wears all the safety kit etc

    He finished the contract he has been working on Wednesday . He has an appointmnt with the dentist next week and needs some work doing on a troublesome rear molar . He was worried that his coughing would ruin his appointment , because getting a dental appointment is rather difficult these days and would the dentist believe him when he tells her he doesn’t have Covid 19 because he has a cough ?

    I rang the GP surgery for him at lunctime today , just to get an appointment to see the doctor and hopefully an xray no luck untill late next week .

    The receptionist suggested he rang 119 .. NHS .. This he did , and they suggested he had a Covid test, a get out of trouble card to show the dentist.

    Within the hour he had an appointment at the test centre .. He went off rather nervously this afternoon for his test .. he said the throat one was gaggingly horrible , and the nasal one was not quite what he expected , he commented how efficient they were though and he would recieve his results by tomorrow or later , but before next week!

    The way I see things are that if one tests negative one week, the very next week could be a different story .. depends who one comes into contact with .. such is the way of viruses .

    2. T-B I don’t think he should go to the dentist because a bad cough would be very difficult to contain in a dentist Chair with all the gadgets in the mouth.

  67. That’s me done for the day. Another grey, dank, damp day – and more promised for tomorrow and Sunday. Having to have the light on all day is SO depressing.

    I hope to join you tomorrow. Who knows?

    A demain.

    1. Bless you and MR! Of course it will be better than you think! “Present fears are less than horrible imaginings” Macbeth

          2. Hang on, hang on!!! Didn’t you tell me off last year for saying exactly that. As I recall, you said something like “You’re wrong, all days are exactly 24 hours long.”

    1. It’s quite simple.

      A vaccine doesn’t stop you getting the virus. It won’t even stop you getting ill. What it will do is trigger your immune response with pre-created antibodies reducing it’s effects and how long you’re affected by.

      Of course, the vaccine is pointless if you never come into contact with the virus because your body will never respond to it and thus the antibodies will never be triggered. Then, when the virus mutates your vaccinated body will have no idea what to do.

      Comically, a vaccine is only useful when you’re out and about in our polluted, scruffy fluffy virus laden air.

  70. A white detective chief inspector has been fired for calling a black colleague a ‘choc ice’ after they asked to work from home during the coronavirus pandemic.

    Stewart Miller stormed out of the misconduct hearing in Goole, East Yorkshire, as the judgment was handed down, followed by his wife who was in tears.

    On June 8 the officer, who is trained in counterterrorism and kidnap, was asked if a lower ranking colleague could work from home due to concerns his ethnicity was more susceptible to the virus.

    DCI Miller said: ‘He isn’t fat or diabetic and has a good job so doesn’t fit in to the category. In fact, he is as close to white as he can be. In fact, he’s a choc ice.

    ‘He is probably more white and middle class than I am’.

    The comment was made next to the Major Incident Room at Birchin Way Police Station in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, when DCI Miller was in charge of masterminding the police response to the pandemic.

    The black officer’s wife had raised fears about whether her husband should be shielding as a vulnerable member of the BAME community.

    She was concerned about him and the risk of the virus being passed on to their sons.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9043769/White-detective-chief-inspector-FIRED-calling-black-colleague-choc-ice.html

    When a colleague approached his superior for guidance, he replied with the racist outburst.

    The more junior officer later decided to report what had happened and DCI Miller was interviewed by professional standards.

    The hearing was told he ‘was horrified’ to learn what his ‘off the cuff remark’ meant.

    He said he only realised when he went onto Google that a Choc Ice is a term used by one black person to another to refer to someone who has betrayed their heritage.

    DCI Miller claimed he was ‘shocked’ when he was confronted about his remarks. He said it was ‘an error of judgement because of a lack of knowledge’ about what the words meant.

    1. Probably 90%+ of posters on Nottle would have had their careers destroyed because of what they have posted at one time or another on here.

    2. Yet it’s OK for BAME people to call other BAMEs ‘coconuts’. Waycism is a wone-way strweet, apparently.

      2. Don’t you think that is a terrible punishment for a bit of ribaldry. If he had told the chap to man up, would that have been an offence as well?

        1. The world has gone tits (and bollocks) up, Maggie. Ever since Common Sense was replaced by Common Purpose.

      3. I think the “junior” officer who reported the remark will have a difficult time in the force. A rap on the knuckles with a warning would have been more than sufficient.

    4. I’d have been sacked every day. What is the world coming to? Why are we no longer allowed to say what we are thinking?

      It looks like they’ve won. I think I might move to Hungary.

    5. An extreme outcome, but, “DCI Miller was in charge of masterminding the police response to the pandemic.”
      Perhaps early retirement would be a good thing, for us.

    6. He deserves it for being some stupid as to think that type of language is acceptable (rightly or wrongly) in 2020. He also claimed he wasn’t aware of the racial context of the term ‘choc ice’ before he Googled it – almost certain a lie.

      1. Sacking seems pretty draconian but he certainly should have known better… and even if he was ignorant, ignorance has never been a defence.

        I don’t think something can be classed as “ribaldry” when it is applied to a junior who would, by definition, be guilty of insubordination if he replied in kind.

        1. Hi Jennifer! The story is from the Daily Mail. I’m not convinced they print the actual words uttered! However, I think the DCI has been a very useful whipping boy, not perhaps awfully smart but probably a good man.

          1. It doesn’t matter whether the words are exact or not – you don’t insult or make racial slurs about your juniors in that sort of way… because they can’t answer back.

            And I don’t think he was “being careful of a colleague’s potential safety” by ignoring the fact of his colour either when it had become very clear that, for whatever reason (and they are now looking very closely at genetic connections to how seriously this damn thing affects people) black people were clearly more likely to be badly affected.

            Seems to me that he was a pretty careless senior officer in more ways than one. All he had to do was say “no” if he didn’t think that it was appropriate – and there wouldn’t have been any comeback. I still think that sacking was excessive, but he has behaved like a complete clown.

          2. That’s what I meant when I said he was concerned for his black colleague who may have been more susceptible to the virus. His words have been used against him by those who are determined to take offence at any perceived slight.

          3. He wasn’t “concerned for him”.. he didn’t give him leave to work at home because he didn’t think he had a “black” lifestyle so wasn’t at risk; he simply insulted him. His words couldn’t have been “used against him” if he hadn’t been fool enough to say them.

            This is a more detailed, and measured, local report which also includes the information that Miller had been censured for disreputable conduct in the recent past… something which almost certainly counted towards his dismissal.

            https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/news/hull-east-yorkshire-news/humberside-police-stewart-miller-racist-4789419

          4. BS – you hear/read what you want to hear/read. Appreciate that others see it differently.

            See what I didn’t do there.

      2. I was unaware of the pejorative nature of the term “Slope” until Jeremy Clarkson was lambasted for using it. That was after over two decades of Army service and another 15 years in Gas and Oil worldwide.

        1. Same here, however, why on earth would he have described a black man as a choc ice if he had no idea of the meaning?

          1. Maybe he thought it reflected the fact that the offendee had light coloured skin, unaware that it was a pejorative.

          6. You clearly view racial slurs as acceptable. ‘Just banter’ I expect. Well they’re not and your slightly odd attempt to demand ‘evidence’ just suggests that you’re part of the problem. No wonder you gave that lying cnut WS an upvote.

          8. Yep, irritating when people deliberately do that, isn’t it? Welcome to the standard of ‘debate’ enjoyed by us of a more liberal persuasion on this forum.

      3. No he doesn’t “deserve” to be fired for saying something that he thought was being careful of a colleagues potential safety. It pretty well sums up the permanently offended brigade. Calling hm a liar really is the pits.

    7. When and where was the last case, if there has ever been one, when a BAME was charged, indicted, prosecuted, investigated etc for making racial comments about an white ethnic Brit?

    8. Call me odd, but I’ve never felt the need to comment on someone’s skin colour. Or their ethnicity.

      It isn’t just this idiot year, the frothing stupidity of the Left wokers, it’s just dim. It’s like someone calling me lofty for being tall. It doesn’t reflect who I am.

      1. When I served on 85 Squadron, Royal Air Force at West Raynham (1962-1964) we had two black airman on the squadron, one darker than the other. They were quickly nicknamed “Midnight” and “23:59”. They both relished the fact that we saw them as colleagues worthy of nicknames.

        There was certainly no malice aforethought.

        1. Yeah, the adverts are tailored to our personal viewing and searches. Not that I’ve bought vodka for 40 years. It was the inflatable doll I’m worried about, someone must have borrowed my laptop.

  75. Wow, Bbc health correspondent on the lunchtime news has just claimed that the chances of dying from COVID in the UK are 1/1000, and then claimed that some deaths of people who suffer from side-effects of the vaccine may actually be caused by unrelated conditions. Spot the logical inconsistency.

    1. Blimey it is lunch time……….i’m off to the workshop to finish my three reclaimed log reindeer, smaller this year due to covid.
      The BBC eh,………….. Tell us something we don’t already know. I guess eventually the truth will out.

    4. COVID has completely erradicated the ‘annual’ flu.

      No-one has had it, there fore no-one has died from it. The same with cancers really

          1. Our immune systems need the common cold now and then to keep it primed against more serious bugs. I do believe that modern children suffer far more allergies and problems than we did, because modern homes are too clean. We really don’t need to keep our homes sterile. Children need to develop resistance to bugs.

          2. Agree absolutely, Ndovu! A peck of dirt and all that! I remember my Mum saying that as soon as the babies were crawling you might as well stop sterilising things! Personally I think it’s when the dogs check them out!

          3. I never gave my children dummies, as I preferred to let them use their thumbs, but I remember other mothers picking up the dummy off the floor, giving it a lick or a wipe and shoving it back in their baby’s mouth! Some would stick it in their own mouth to clean the dust off……….

          4. Since you give baby a certain amount of resistance to disease from your own immune system then the chances are the bugs in your mouth are not going to do her/him much harm, especially if you are breast-feeding.

            When I wore contact lenses my optician told me that in the absence of sterile saline solution then my own saliva was the best way to clean a lens. I can remember standing in the middle of a very muddy wood, having got an eyeful of mud from a spaniel having a good shake after climbing out of the ditch, and removing, “cleaning” and replacing my lens without the aid of a mirror… my companion (the owner of the spaniel) stood looking on in horror. But I had no resulting problems and I used that method on several outdoor occasions.

            Allergies do happen to dirty babies too, but I agree that some (by no means all) modern mothers are over-sensitive about dirt.

          5. I used to clean my lenses that way too, if I got some grit in my eye.

            My point about the dummies was that they are pretty disgusting things anyway, but babies need to develop their immune systems.

          6. “But you oughta thank me before I die
            For the gravel in your gut
            And the spit in your eye”

          9. Dummies are not the nicest things, but some babies do settle more easily with one. My niece only ever allowed the dummy when the baby was put down for a nap – but without it I don’t think there would have been any naps with her elder one.

            I’m in full agreement about developing immune systems but the allergy thing is complicated. A tendency to allergies seems to be another of the things that you can avoid if you choose the right parents… there is more heredity in it than was originally thought.

          11. I don’t know how true this is, but I was told that the increase in peanut allergies is due to peanut oil being used in baby oils.
            I also suspect that peanuts being more widely eaten than in my youth may have highlighted an existing problem.

          12. It’s too much of a generalisation although there is no doubt that poor diets contribute to many problems. One of my great-nephews has quite bad eczema (which is now recognised as an autoimmune problem) and you would go a long way to find a child with a better or more carefully managed diet – but his mother (who also grew up with an excellent diet) is allergic to tree nuts (not peanuts) and suffers from coeliac disease. Her sister is also a sufferer. Hyperactive immune systems do, very definitely, appear to run in families and there is beginning to be some work which demonstrates this.

          14. Babies are all different. That one was colicky and a big “sleep-resistor” into the bargain. Her little brother showed no interest in a dummy at all whilst their mother was unpacifiable if the blanket with the satin ribbon edging went missing. The middle great-nephew liked his cuddly comforter though his father was a thumb baby and I don’t think his wee sister has any particular preferences.

            As an aunt (to five, though my brother’s children were mostly abroad) and great-aunt (to five more – and fingers crossed for a sixth in January) I never make judgements about such things, just make sure I have what is needed if I’m baby-minding.

          16. I never gave mine dummies either .

            Mine sucked their thumbs untill they went to school, and forgot about their cuddly comforters , which were usually my old silky bra’s or scarves.. in fact seeing as though it is nearly Christmas , I was a secret thumb sucker untill I was thirty years old. Moh never knew , because he was always away , and I also twiddled my ear , I still stroke my ear lobe when I am feeling stressed out!

            Make of that what you will, but as I have also owned the dogs of my choice for nearly fifty years , spaniels , they are part of our family , I am used to gentle untidiness.

          17. My younger son used his old cot blanket as a comforter, along with the thumb, untill it fell to bits.
            This house is certainly not over-clean. Life’s too short to be obsessive about housework.

          18. Neither of mine had a dummy, but the younger one found her thumb! All 4 grandchildren(no dummies) have thumbs or other fingers! The twins suck each other’s fingers.

          19. That is a very reassuring post, Ndovu. If ever Annie or Korky pop round for a cuppa and a chat in the future when that is allowed, I shall be able to blame all of my dusty and dirty house on you!

            :-))

          20. Another thing is the increase in the incidence of asthma. I put this down to central heating, double glazing and the elimination of draughts.

    5. I suffered from what I put down to a serious delayed allergic reaction to a commonly used drug for first treatment of blood pressure – it became apparent when I unilaterally stopped treatment and the symptoms disappeared within a few days. My GP claimed it was not possible for that to happen and said that was the end of our GP/patient relationship.

      I reported the adverse reaction with an AR report to the MHRA but my GP refused to enter any dialogue with them.

      1. I hope you have found a better GP Angie. The flaws in the MHRA have come to light just lately with the Phizer vaccine.

        1. I am now under the direct care of a Cardiac Consultant and was able to get this year’s ECG checkup and confirmation of my current set of prescription drugs despite COVID.
          My latest GP, whom aI have not met, only signs off my latest monthly drug request.

  76. Feb 17, 2020. Bought airline tickets from Ryanair to travel to Stansted in early June and then return from Edinburgh in late June.
    May 27 2020. Flights cancelled by Ryanair due to “Covid”.
    Jun, 2020. Remained in Sweden.
    Sep 27, 2020. Contacted Ryanair and asked them to expedite refund.
    Dec 11, 2020. Contacted by Ryanair informing me that refund will be paid “within seven working days”.

    If I ever find myself in close contact with Moichael O’Leary, I shall be having a quick word in his shell-like.

      1. Friends booked flights to Australia in January – planning to be away mid-September to mid-October (I don’t know which airline) confirmation of cancellation arrived in August… swiftly followed by refund.

        Same with my niece’s flights to the USA (again booked early in the year for an October holiday), there was a long delay before they were actually told that they couldn’t go… but the money reappeared swiftly thereafter.

        1. It varies a lot. We received refunds for cancelled trips to Cyprus and Israel very quickly, even from hotels (in Israel) which quite frankly could have kept our money without us having any real prospect of forcing a refund.

          1. I don’t think that there were any hotel bookings involved in either case. My friends were going to visit their daughter and her family and my niece and her crew were going to meet up with her husband’s brother and his family; so he had done the bookings at the Florida end of their journey as they were shelling out to cross the pond.

            It is obviously variable and I suppose that it must have been a very difficult year for airlines – I think I heard on the news at some point this week that flights from Heathrow in November were down by 88% year on year and they have no plans to re-open terminal 4.

      2. I can beat that. We’re still waiting for compo from KLM for being stuck in Singapore in 2010 as a result of the Ash Cloud!

        3. Just be glad that it wasn’t whatever shower runs trains from King’s Lynn to Lunnon – they have still not refunded the £60 that the MR paid them in February…..

          1. That’s an unacceptable delay in refunding the MR’s money, Bill. She might be well advised to consult a lawyer.

    1. It will never happen, but I would laugh for hours if every supreme court judge who was smeared by the Democrats said:

      “Hell, from personal experience we know the Democrats are liars so Trump must be right…”

    4. It’s surprising not to see him surrounded by his minders.

      Notable that Boris didn’t seem to have them yet Khan doesn’t go anywhere without henchmen.

    5. Shrivelling git has to have a power assisted cycle or e-cycle.

      How on earth did this piece of excrement get elected to Mayor of London. Is London lost?

      1. Because London is wall-to-wall Guardianistas who are completely out of touch with the rest of England.

          1. More like ask Mr Rashid, who organised most postal ballots and lost all the Jewish ballots – well it’s a theory as good as any I’ve heard.

  79. It is sometimes said that “The past is a foreign country”. Of late I’m beginning to think the present is a foreign country……

    3. My country is a foreign country, for which I will never forgive Blair. Hanging is too good for him.

      2. 327397+ up ticks,
        Evening BB2,
        The wretch cameron when pledging to reduce the intake promptly raised it.

        1. Actually ogga, I wasn’t only thinking about mass migration. Blair’s constitution-wrecking law changes were even more destructive if anything.
          Postal voting, abolishing the House of Lords and replacing it with a House of Cronies, regional Parliaments, Supreme Court.
          We had a stable country before Blair – we don’t have that now, and the Blue Labour party thinks we’re too stupid to have noticed it.

          I haven’t voted LibLabCon since 2002, and am not tempted to start again.

          1. 327408+up ticks,
            Morning BB2,
            Nothing but agreement from me, I see them as a willing coalition and as such sharing the
            blame for ALL these destructive actions dating back to the blair era.

            In my book we had a stabler Country in 39/45 in so far as our enemies were easily defined.

    4. It’s odd, but I can’t find a clip or short video of Lenny Henry’s “Katanga my friends!”.

        1. I found that one but it’s more than 20 years after the fact. Here’s an article (Grauniad) from 2014 where he has a little guilty confession.
          Instead he recounts a story of his own insensitivity. “I once did a Zimbabwean comedian [character] with a grass skirt and tribal markings. A man from Nigeria who was working at LWT said to me, ‘Len, are you from Africa? Do you know what Katanga means? Do you know where Katanga is? Then why are you playing a Zimbabwean character?’
          “If he had been on my production team, then I wouldn’t have done that character,” Henry points out. “But if you have a monoculture you will get these things happening all the time.
          https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/jun/20/lenny-henry-interview-diversity-tv-industry

          1. We are a monoculture now

            Only Black Lives matter now, they have even dumped the Asians from their vision, as for whitey… well

          2. I remember well that Katanga, a former province of the old Belgian Congo, was frequently in the news in the 1960s during the Congo crisis.

  81. Thanks to Tony B., we have an accelerating, ‘disuniting Kingdom’;

    Thanks to Cherie B., we have an unacceptable Supreme Court in place of the Law Lords – who have served us well …

    1. The Supreme Court is a Freemasonic cabal. The arrangement of the furniture viewed from above depicts the Eye motif.

      I recognised it immediately having worked on the Norwich Union Fire Assurance offices and Marble Hall in Surrey Street in Norwich. Lapis lazuli plaques abound and its origins, the symbol of the ‘Clasped Hands Assurance Society’ are prominently displayed over the entrance doors.

      1. OT had a long chat with David T earlier this evening. He’s on good form although having undergone surgery earlier in the year.

        1. I attracted the downvote from the usual. (I had not had her down as a Mason). I am guessing because Zi am unable to view downvotes on my iPhone.

          Perhaps she just sits at her keyboard lying in wait for me to enter the fray and downvote my comment on any subject as a matter of habit? We will never know because the coward remains silent on the issue at hand.

          Conway, a good man, is a Mason and freely admits to it and evidently does good charitable works but as with all exclusive ‘societies’ many join for nefarious purposes to promote themselves and their interests.

          Braintree District Council demonstrated to me their collusion in giving their members planning permission for unwanted snd unwarranted developments.

          There is no defence to the ways in which Freemasonry has been corrupted to serve its members’ interests for a couple of centuries at least.

          I lost several years of my life contesting the local Masons and their colleague, a District Councillor, my neighbour, who wished to build several large houses on his field behind my house, both outwith the village development boundary (which they had contrived to move) and the boundary of the Conservation Area.

          Mediaeval villages are precious reminders of our past and should be preserved at all costs from predatory developers.

      2. ‘Evening, Cori, I see the witch disagrees with you. However, the gist om comment is that I remember Surrey Street in Norwich as well; not so much for the Norwich Union – as a building it was there – but more for the Eastern Counties Omnibus Station, from where I would catch the No. 11 or 11B bus back home to Bungay. Late 50s early 60s.

        1. The Norwich Union Assurance Offices had to be seen to be believed. They had acquired the marble from the proposed cladding for the interior of Westminster Cathedral.

          The Catholic Church had run short of funds and the wall cladding envisaged and procured by the Architect, John Francis Bentley, who died young, was flogged off at auction. Incidentally the domes were intended to be covered in mosaic too.

          I have traced the marble to several sites but suffice to say a greater proportion of it found its way to Norwich Union Fire Assurance where it adorned the walls of their Marble Hall on Surrey Street.

        2. I did work at the Surrey Street premises in around 1996. This included reordering the basement and ensuring proper fire precaution measures.

          I was struck by the neglect of historic hand written ledgers and the general grubbiness of the Archive.

          These companies hold valuable historic material.

          Ps. Bloody Disqus makes posting on here very difficult.

  83. Evening (just about) everybody. We should have walked away when the EU first started applying their bullyboy tactics. Unfortunately, we had EU apparatchiks in charge.

    1. I’m just off to bed now!
      I think Boris wanted to show that they’d tried to be reasonable right down to the last minute. But we’ll see, We can buy stuff elewhere, and they will have tariffs applied on the things they sell here.

      1. That is my view, too. To show that he had leaned over backwards to get a deal, otherwise the questions would go on and on and on from the Remainers. He has to demonstrate how intransigent is the eu, and throw the spotlight on it in the process. On the other hand, this may be all theatre for the Brexiteers…. a deal at the wire, the ‘oven ready’ one…… we shall see.

        1. I think the ‘oven ready’ deal was the very flawed Withdrawal Agreement, which meant we left on 31st January. At least it got us out.
          We’ll just have to see how difficult they make things for us over the next few months. They might not like it so much when we all stop buying German white goods and cars.

          1. We have had no satisfactory answer to the question of why, if Boris Johnson’s WA was so brilliant, did he not tell us what was in it and why he refused to be interviewed about it on live TV by Andrew Neil. It is this fundamental dishonesty and evasiveness that has completely destroyed my trust in him.

            Another thing I would like clarified is that if there is no deal what will actually happen as far as the Northern Ireland border is concerned? If we were heading for No Deal – what did Gove surrender unnecessarily?

          2. I fear the end result will be an enormous boost for the IRA as they will be controlling organised crime across an EU external border. We can probably expect a revival of the Troubles.

  84. Good afternoon, all! The EU is by no means the only tyrannical, vindictive and nasty organ of government. How about China, which seems to be making a lot of money from its virus and its duplicity in relation to that virus:

    Chinese Military Bases in The Caribbean? by Lawrence A. Franklin

    December 10, 2020 at 5:00 am

    China also seems to have a military agenda in the Caribbean region… Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe already is on record expressing China’s willingness to deepen military cooperation with Caribbean countries.

    Of more concern to US security interests is the ongoing seaport expansion project in the already commercially important port at Kingston, Jamaica, as well as the port at Freeport, Bahamas, China’s possible new base of operations 90 miles off the US coast.

    China is clearly not a government that honors its agreements…. The US can ill afford any Chinese drive to place under threat any Western Hemisphere country, much less the United States.

    For the whole article:

    https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16813/china-military-caribbean

    2. China signs Carribean nations up to Belt and Road.
      Barbados removes the Queen as Head of State.
      China moves in….

  85. Why don’t developers look at tithe maps, which show ancient field
    names, and would at least allow for some originality in naming sense when designing streets?

    Places to be wary of, when buying a house

    Brook Street etc
    River Street etc
    Mill Street
    Water Street
    The Floodings
    Pool Meadow
    The Ponds
    etc

    1. I was born and raised on the Carr Estate in Acomb, York. Carr means bog, basically. There was a pumping station just around the corner from where we lived.

      3. How funny! My grandmother once had a flat in Carr View Hall! I always thought it sounded so posh!

      4. Wow, Sue, there’s a blast from the past. When I was serving at RAF Linton-on-Ouse, I was eventually allocated a ‘hiring’ at 12b Manor Drive, Acomb, a maisonette owned by Sawdon and Simpson. We lived there from 1965 to 1967 and my eldest daughter was born in Fulford Hospital.

        Although she can play for Yorkshire, it’s not likely to happen, as she now farms in Tasmania. Happy days, I was posted from there to RAF Laarbruch in Germany – now Weeze Flughafen.

        Hey-ho, just put it down to an old man’s memories of happier days.

    2. Mill Street can be later developments and refer to windmills, which are placed on high ground.
      Both Mill Street and Mill Road in our area are on hilltops. Admittedly now obscured by further building, but they are definitely not in valleys.

    4. SIR — When I bought one of the eight Lake View Cottages at Carburton, adjacent Clumber Park in Nottinghamshire, it took me weeks to discover
      that if I stood in the most north-westerly corner of the property holding a telescope, I was the only resident of that entire close who could actually see a small corner of the mile-and-a-half distant lake on the adjoining Welbeck Estate.

      A Grizzly B.

    2. I am reminded of Arthur Sacargill’s response when he asked Sir Alec Douglas Home how he came to possess thousands of acres in the borders.

      Home responded that ‘his ancestors had fought for it’ to which Scargill replied ‘take off your jacket and I will fight you for it’.

      1. To which Sir Alec should have (and might have) replied, “That battle has already been fought and won. I have no intention of making it ‘Best of 3’, you go and fight your own battles Arthur, and I hope you get a good kicking.”

        It took time but our Precious Margaret finally administered the good kicking.

          1. Whereas these days, soldiers who have “hauled canons across fields” in defence of their country get a court case, rather than a position at court. 🙁

          2. Plus the soldiers end up homeless sleeping rough, while the people they were fighting abroad arrive in rubber dinghies then get put in hotels and waited on hand and foot.

          3. Maybe, Cori, but those were the days when ‘Might was Right’, a fact modern ‘woke’ historians choose to forget, as it doesn’t fit their agenda – nor that of the socialist scum like Scargill, who wanted to take everything under the nationalist wing and destroy it while feathering their own nests.

    1. It’s because they’re unnatural. In the West we don’t cover our faces. I’ve often wondered if this is a big push to normalise such behaviour and force us to adapt to Islam customs.

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