Friday 13 August: How GCSE assessment went for teachers who were keen to be at school

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/08/12/letters-gcse-assessment-went-teachers-keen-school/

681 thoughts on “Friday 13 August: How GCSE assessment went for teachers who were keen to be at school”

          2. I have no idea what you are on about, Herr Oberst, but I do hope that the moderators manage to delete your last three words – that is a very rude thing to post!

            :-))

  2. Although all involved in the Plymouth shooting are now dead and cannot be inteviewed, police know it’s not terror-related. Right.

    2. Of course. thr police are even now clearing out the perpetrators home. I’m sure they will find the evidence that they need and dispose of the rest.

  3. Everything we know as police confirm six dead in Keyham. 13 August 2021.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/80f038a46fe6bda10df9ad2fd2a48b4ce878878f17b74e01e46e5f1198b69f94.png

    The suspect was named locally on Thursday night as Jake Davison.

    Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, described the incident as “shocking”. “My thoughts are with those affected,” she said.
    “I have spoken to the chief constable and offered my full support. I urge everyone to remain calm, follow police advice and allow our emergency services to get on with their jobs.”

    Johnny Mercer, the Conservative MP for Plymouth Moor View, said: “The incident is not terror related, and neither is the suspect on the run in Plymouth. Remain calm.

    “It is for the police to confirm further details. Do not repost chatter or gossip; work with them. We have the best cops in the land.”

    Or in other words: Look he’s neither a Muslim nor an Immigrant. (Thank God!)

    Morning everyone.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/08/12/plymouth-shooting-everything-know-incident-keyham/

    2. Amazing how quickly they’ve released his photo. Would’ve taken days for any other ethnicity.

      It’s a very formal photo too, prob already known to the rozzers.

      1. Jake Davison. Await for trickle effect release purporting he was a “Moose Limb convert”. If true, am sure his Imam’s pee’d off he didn’t wait until after Friday headbanging the floor

  4. Mng all, the end of week offering:

    SIR – In my subject (English), in the school where I teach, the process of Teacher Assessed Grades for GCSE, has been formal, controlled, long, arduous and stressful.

    Students have completed many pieces of work to assess. We used exam-board criteria. We moderated every piece to within an inch of its life, between teachers, the department (14 teachers) and across schools.

    We used standardised material from previous years. Every student had to sign to say they were happy with the folder of their work submitted. All this was done when the students were still in school, desperate to know what they could do to claw an extra few marks.

    I am confident my students received the correct grades. Not all passed, but some, despite a terrible last year or so, did well. I am, however, troubled that ours had to submit more pieces than those at other schools. Other schools may not have been as scrupulous as us.

    I worry most for my own daughter, about to enter Year 11, knowing the disruption she has had, despite excellent online tuition. Will she do exams? What about college? They’ve had none of the usual preparation.

    Finally, a clearer distinction should be made between teachers and teachers’ unions. The teachers I know wanted to be in school, teaching children whose faces they could see. Yet at times, the unions have seemed intent on keeping us out or disrupted.

    Catherine Williams
    Southampton

    SIR – Expecting teachers to grade how well they have taught pupils is like expecting chefs to grade the dishes they prepare.

    Brian Christley
    Abergele, Conwy

    SIR – Teachers’ career progression is dependent on the number of A and A* students that they produce.

    Professor R G Faulkner
    Loughborough, Leicestershire

    SIR – Since higher grades demonstrate how good teachers are at their job, they are, in assessing grades, marking their own homework.

    David Langfield
    Pyrford, Surrey

    SIR – Over the next three or four years, will the drop-out rates from universities be published?

    Steve Cattell
    Hougham, Lincolnshire

    SIR – Twenty years ago, at a parents’ evening, we informed the science teacher that my daughter hoped to study pharmacy at university. We were told she would need A grades and were left in little doubt that this was unachievable. But with three A grades she followed her ambition at a top university. Thank goodness teacher assessment was not a deciding factor.

    David Wilson
    Cottingham, East Yorkshire

    SIR – Pupils are now students. Is that part of grade inflation?

    Hilary Tasker
    Sully, Glamorgan

    Homegrown medics

    SIR – I was shocked to read in J Meirion Thomas’s article that, in 2019, 60 per cent of Britain’s new doctors were trained abroad.

    Medical manpower planning has always been an uncertain art. In 1944 the Goodenough Committee stated that the country needed 2,100 medical graduates a year to keep hospital and GP services up to strength. In 1959 the Willink Committee suggested cutting this number to 1,760.

    During these years there was a naive belief that the NHS would reduce the need for doctors, as disease would be eradicated. But by the early 1960s, the government started creating new medical schools. Nottingham, Leicester and Southampton were the first since the 19th century. I have lost count of how many have appeared in the past 25 years.

    And yet, even with 8,000 or 9,000 graduates annually, we are still taking doctors from countries that need them more than we do. Why?

    Robert Graham
    Bakewell, Derbyshire

    DVLA delays

    SIR – I am also suffering a delay in the renewal of my driving licence (Letters, August 4), having applied in May.

    We have a motoring holiday through France planned to start on August 19, and it is necessary to have my licence. The DVLA says it will try but cannot guarantee it will be delivered in time.

    Peter Bridgham
    Dereham, Norfolk

    SIR – My son, a fully qualified HGV1 driver, has been waiting months for his driving licence to be renewed.

    First he was told there was a delay because of Covid; now the DVLA is on strike. Not only is he unable to drive an HGV – he can’t even drive his own car. He’s been told he may not get his licence until at least November.

    How many others are in this situation? No wonder things aren’t reaching the shops.

    Mary Wiedman
    Piccotts End, Hertfordshire

    Pitfalls of mediation

    SIR – I am sceptical about the plans to offer divorcing couples vouchers for mediation.

    As a former mediator, I believe this method of resolving disputes to be over-promoted and misunderstood.

    The mediator encourages the parties “to find their own solutions” in order to avoid a contest in court. This gives the more dominant member of the couple an advantage, and there is no one on the side of the weaker party.

    The superior approach is to appoint a trained arbitrator, who will guide the parties, fairly and evenly, towards the settlement which the court would have imposed had they not agreed.

    John Twitchen
    Vilamoura, Faro, Portugal

    Wasps ate our bench

    SIR – For our diamond wedding anniversary last year we were given a beautiful teak bench. The instructions were not to paint or cover it, so that it would gradually weather to a silver colour, which has happened.

    But there is a problem: wasps are chewing strips off the surface of the wood and carrying them away to build their nests. This is ruining the bench.

    The manufacturers do not have an answer. The internet suggests spraying the bench with a soap solution, but the rain washes it off and the wasps return. We are surrounded by other sources of wood (trees, fences, etc). How can we persuade the wasps to go elsewhere?

    G D Copson
    Pershore, Worcestershire

    Shame of Afghanistan

    SIR – Shame on America, Britain and Nato for implementing the withdrawal from Afghanistan (Letters, August 11). How could we spend 20 years fighting al-Qaeda and jihadi Islamism, then do deals with the Taliban?

    This is an appalling defeat of all that the West stands for, to say nothing of the plight of our Afghan allies, who are being forced to flee for their lives.

    Mina Bowater
    Iwerne Minster, Dorset

    Wrong kind of petrol

    SIR – The imminent change in basic green petrol to the specification E10 could affect many professional gardeners, whose petrol-engined tools cannot use it. It may even cause outboard motors to fail, threatening lives at sea.

    Costlier super-grade petrol will still be available, and may be usable in older engines, but some operating manuals advise against this and warranties could be affected.

    Can this policy not be put on hold until the implications have been properly explained?

    Michael Allisstone
    Sidlesham, West Sussex

    The trials of stooking

    SIR – Producing corn stooks (Letters, August 12) was a lengthy process. Road wheels had to be fitted to the reaper-binder to take it to the field, then changed before work could begin. Reaping sails had to be tightened and the binder threaded with twine.

    Then came the careful stooking of sheaves, sometimes even nine to a stook. Sharp cut ends to the stubble and sheaves left a pattern of scratched bare legs and arms.

    Everyone’s nightmare was a high wind blowing down stooks, which could mean beginning again.

    Michael Flinton
    Aslockton, Nottinghamshire

    Pause for applause

    SIR – John Birkett (Letters, August 11) complains about unnecessary encores. I have similar feelings about premature applause.

    My wife and I used to go to hear Messiah at St John’s, Smith Square. The conductor Stephen Layton would hold back applause for seconds after the last note died away, allowing the beauty of this work to be appreciated. We still refer to this as the “Layton pause”.

    Graeme Williams
    West Malling, Kent

    Curry served with optional colonial overtones

    SIR – Chaheti Bansal, a South Asian blogger, says we should no longer use the word “curry” as it smacks of colonial times (Features, August 10).

    It is true that no such dish in India is called a curry. The word is believed to have come from an Anglicisation of the Tamil word kari.

    That said, the staple dish of Sri Lanka is the widely billed “rice and curry”. However, I’ll be cooking for my guests this weekend a thakkali malu along with elolu kiri hodhi – or, if you want to be politically incorrect, a fish curry from Ceylon and an accompanying veg curry.

    Neil Mackwood
    Dallington, East Sussex

    The Church is killing off traditional parishes

    SIR – Stephen Cottrell, the Archbishop of York, is right (“It’s time for courage, compassion and pride in Englishness,” Commentary, August 7). The traditional parish is the heart of community life in England. Although in some cases it may not be beating as strongly as we would wish, it is still supported by our communities and, in turn, supports them.

    The Archbishop says that the Church of England remains “committed” to local parishes. If so, why the trend of almost all the dioceses to group little parishes into huge benefices, which the Church’s own report, From Anecdote to Evidence, tells us will accelerate their decline?

    Here in Wales, the same centralising, asset-stripping approach is being enforced. The parish in which I live is threatened with being subsumed into a larger ministry area, along with 16 others. The parish in which I work is to be subsumed into a ministry area with 12 others. The independence of our parochial church council and parish assets are to be put under central control. We have no voice or choice in the matter.

    Rev E Nansi Davies
    Chepstow, Monmouthshire

    SIR – It reportedly costs the Church of England £120,000 to support a bishop in addition to a stipend of £46,000. What do we get for our money?

    Bishops are told at ordination to be “mindful of the good shepherd”, “to feed God’s people”, and act “as a true shepherd”. In fact, what we have is managers. They surround themselves with people in meaningless posts, such as “growth officer”. What impact do these have on the essential life of the church? Basically, none.

    Bishops only come to parishes to license new clergy or for confirmations, and in dioceses where many parishes are joined, a bishop will not have been seen for years. In their role as pastors to the clergy, most fail or do not even try. When did a bishop last visit clergy just to see how things were, to listen, advise and encourage? In the five dioceses in which I have served, the bishops in the first three were excellent, the fourth was dreadful, mitigated by a suffragan, and the fifth not interested.

    Increasingly, the Church seems to operate as a business – but a badly run one. No wonder people are losing interest.

    Rev Michael M Edge
    Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

    1. Shame on America, Britain and Nato for implementing the withdrawal from Afghanistan (Letters, August 11). How could we spend 20 years fighting al-Qaeda and jihadi Islamism, then do deals with the Taliban?

      Not a problem Mina! Get your boots on and bugger off. No one’s stopping you!

    2. Re driving licences: Early July I received notice that the ‘pandemic holiday’ for the renewal of my over-70 licence would soon be over. I applied online for a new one & received it a few days later, much to my surprise.

        1. ‘Morning both.

          You did well; I sent off my application + medical exam form in early July to renew mine – and I’m still waiting. Fortunately the rules permit continued use of all
          my categories whilst the application is processed, provided the holder has not been told that he/she is medically unfit to drive, so the DVLA’s lethargy hasn’t interrupted my bus driving activities for a local charidee. I do feel sorry for Mary Wiedman’s son if, as she says, he’s off the road until his is renewed…I wonder if he has checked whether, like me, he can continue in the interim?

          2. I kept photocopies of my old licence and dated the paperwork.
            Still waiting for the replacement.

          3. Me too.

            I phoned 3 times today, they are not answering ‘cos they are too busy. Try our webchat, they say. No one dealing with webchat, too busy. Eventually found email form to complete, obviously designed by someone who does not want the DVLA to be contacted. Rounded off these unrewarding attempts with an email to my MP.

            The DVLA continues to hide its laziness behind Covid. Any business operating like this would have gone under by now. Someone needs to kick some life into these snivel serpents.

      2. Mine was up for renewal at the end of April- I did it online and the new one arrived in a couple of days.

    1. Good article, shame about the shoddy headline “While the elites get rich, the working class suffer.”

      Surely either
      “While the elites get rich, the working class suffers” or
      “While the elites get rich, the working classes suffer”
      would have been better.

        1. Morning Obers, No, I’ve just woken up early for once.
          I’m on two weeks’ leave in fact 🙂

    2. I think that the Borg must have chosen Australia to be the first Slave State. They have certainly reduced the general population to abject serfdom!

        1. Morning Oberst. Me neither but I suppose twenty years of propaganda like we have had here could achieve the same results in OZ .

          The use of the Police and the Army suggests something akin to what the Spartans called the Internal War that they waged against the Messenians, their slave population!

        2. Morning Oberst. Me neither but I suppose twenty years of propaganda like we have had here could achieve the same results in OZ .

          The use of the Police and the Army suggests something akin to what the Spartans called the Internal War that they waged against the Messenians, their slave population!

      2. worth noting US population share of whites has declined for the first time in recorded history viz the latest census, despite the left claiming that this would never, ever happen. Then again UK’s on course to be less than 50% by 2066, ironically one thousand years anniversary since the last successful invasion

        1. I suspect that when the latest census is published that that estimate will be reduced.

          2. Yep, we’re being out bred. The country is going down the toilet.

            When the white middle class no longer exist to pay for everything, what will the massive popluation of utterly welfare loafer ethnics do?

    2. 336766+ up ticks,
      Morning AWK,
      Last count there was 30000 rising daily under the UKIP
      Gerard Batten leadership banner with the veterans very pro Batten.

      At a crucial time treachery struck via the party NEc & “nige” in a very pro johnson manner.

      The overseers and covert aides recognised Batten success in the building and acted even to the extent of “nige” seeking another delay adding to the 9 month from treacherous treasa.

      The herd reverted to form post 24/6/2016 and returned to, unbelievably supporting / voting for the very creators of their problems the lab/lib/con pro eu coalition.

      Leaving NO opposition.

      This is NOT an ongoing whinge via Ogga 1 but a warning because it is happening again and with the very same players MINUS the real UKIP.

  9. How do the powers that be manage to shut down all information about these mass killings from coming out, it feels to me like they want time to create a narrative just in case it is something embarrassing.

    1. Fortunately, it wasn’t – so they can go to town. The Wail has a large feature on it…

  10. Another pearler from the House of Saville: CJ Ujah suspended from competition after testing positive for a banned substance.

    He was part of Team GB men’s 4x100m relay team which won silver at Tokyo 2020. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/58193101 excuses am sure on UK news being made. They need better drug dealers and may find it helpful not to enter them for the woke olympics and try prison

    3. Yet on the other side a drug addict was using those drugs to gain an unfair advantage over the other competitors, and not only was that ignored, it was lauded!

      1. Good day, Hatman and Shalom. It always does go the moment I get up – damned thing.

      1. His choice, he suffered the consequences. If more drowned this nonsense would stop. Our mistake was trying to bring them here, err, ‘rescue’ them.

        We’ve got to round up the dross, pack them into a shipping container, haul it over to France and drop it.

          1. Don’t want to kill them off. I do want it made clear that if they try to get here, they’ll be returned. Uncomfortably.

      1. Good day, Hugh. I tried salt at night and my feet started swelling.

        I am going to try tonic water at bedtime.

          4. Just where the minerals are extracted from. Or you could just have fireworks for lunch.

        1. ‘Morning, N. Yes, all is well thanks, and I trust with you?

          We moved house at the end of Feb, following almost 7 months of the torture of stop-go (mostly stop) and plenty to do since then to get the house and garden straight. I’m sure my mental health took a severe beating, but despite that we are still smiling. The principle of KBO, in shedloads, has stood us in good stead…

          4. Funny you should say that – no, and we have just cancelled our deferred Rhine cruise because of the uncertainty.

    6. Aren’t bananas meant to help stave off cramp? Have you tried eating a banana every day?

    2. Good for her. Locking up an entire country to combat a virus. Great stuff.

      And then, in January the 1st, 2022, when the virus is carried back and the population has no immunity from exposure? Does she know what a virus is? How they exist, perpetuate, mutate? Has she any knowledge of ecology?

  17. Briton suspected of spying for Russia ‘kept himself to himself’. 13 August 2021.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b3865e941598da901c29cd8fe8e8ec3d0764e88a849543b64a2030a2298e3f04.jpg

    A security guard at the British embassy in Berlin who has been arrested on suspicion of passing state secrets to Russia lived in a two-room flat on a tidy estate in the city of Potsdam.

    David Smith was arrested at his home on Tuesday and the contents of his apartment are likely to become a focus of the ongoing inquiry into whether he sold documents to “a representative of a Russian intelligence service” in exchange for cash.

    I’m sure he did! Probably because he was never there. I’ve looked at these photographs and there is absolutely no sign of human habitation. No dirt or dirty socks. No fingerprints on the kitchen worktop or fridge. No smears around the door handles or on the walls. No chips on the bottom of the doors or furniture edges. The dust jackets on the books are immaculate . etc. etc.

    So another scam!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/12/briton-accused-spying-russia-kept-himself-to-himself-david-smith

    1. Well, a good spy wouldn’t go around saying, “LOOK AT ME – I am a spy” would he?

    2. Some men can be very tidy and clean. I lived with a man for some time and he was scrupulous. The kitchen shone, a place for everything and everything in its place. Our man in Berlin might have had a cleaner that came in to “do” for him for 5 € an hour. The contents of the cupboards might provide more clues.
      Of course, I do wonder why the Berlin Embassy would have any information of interest to anybody. Also I am baffled as to how a “security guard” would come into possession of anything more interesting than the weekly order for milk deliveries.

    3. I know a few single males who are obsessively tidy, and you won’t find socks or fingerprints littered anywhere!
      As a married male, this kind of lifestyle would indeed be bliss – speaking as one who lives with a woman who just puts stuff down and walks away from it, to where it should be taken (litchen sink, for example, or rubbish bin).
      Edit: The coffee jug hasn’t been washed for a while, but it has been rinsed. I just did ours… :-((

  18. 336766+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    Dangerous nutty news item,

    Dt,
    Scottish four-year-olds can change gender at school without parents’ consent.

    Nationwide they, the overseers, are truly after erasing childhood the question is WILL it interfere / disrupt in any way the regular voting pattern ?

  19. Today’s Ponder, after Guzz Shooting

    Why do the Perlice always manage to have photographs (and publish them ) of the really naughty boys who commit murder, child grooming, drug dealing etc, if the accused is ‘White’

    If a BAME is the suspect, they do not even include that fact in the general description of the suspect…. so we then know

    2. If the shooter is killed or kills himself, the pictures usually appear fairly quickly, bame or white.

      It’s when the perpetrator survives that the authorities are slower and more circumspect regarding bamery/terrorism.

      Bames seem to have a tendency to go on a stabbing/killing spree whether or not terror is the intention, so until it can be established if it was terror related one is left to draw ones own conclusions.

      I know the conclusion I generally jump to…

      1. No physical description almost always means not white which is why is has become counter-productive not to give it straight away because if it is not given everyone will come to the obvious conclusion.

        1. Not quite, if there are witnesses and there is no description then I would tend to agree.

          No witnesses either means witnesses who won’t come forward, in which case I would plump for a bame perpetrator, or genuinely none, in which case who can know?

      2. Janner… A blast from the past

        All we need now is the Torpont Ferry to be re-routed to the Calais Dover Trip

  20. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    SIR – John Birkett (Letters, August 11) complains about unnecessary encores. I have similar feelings about premature applause.

    My wife and I used to go to hear Messiah at St John’s, Smith Square. The conductor Stephen Layton would hold back applause for seconds after the last note died away, allowing the beauty of this work to be appreciated. We still refer to this as the “Layton pause”.

    Graeme Williams
    West Malling, Kent

    Well said, so it is unfortunate that for the recent Prom with the marvellous National Youth Orchestra we had to suffer the voices of over-excited commentators talking over the much-deserved applause. Presumably they are paid by their word count?

    The Dan Maskell approach should be adopted…say as little as possible, and sometimes nothing at all.

    1. Yet another reason why I listen very, very rarely to Radio 3.

      The exaggerated and excessive (and phoney) enthusiasm of the gushing totties shrieking what a wonderful performance etc and telling us stuff we don’t need to know – and interviewing performers, most of whom, quite obviously, just want to get on with their job rather than telling us what they thought that Beethoven had been thinking….(yawns and drops off…)

      The ghastly Derham woman and the one called Georgia and another called Ackers – to say nothing of the ubiquitous Scots bint whose every introduction of a work is a long essay about how clever she is… And as for the unspeakable Tom Service…………………..

      1. I put on Radio Swiss Classic first thing and it gets left on most, if not all, of the day. The only thing apart from the music is a man and a woman’s voice telling you the next piece’s performing musicians and composer.

        1. We do exactly the same. Soothing. I have realised that they have a playlist that is repeated after month or so. It is SO refreshing not to have any time signals, or news bulletins

          3. It’s worth watching an orchestra performing it just to see the instrument changes and additions. I’ve only seen it on video mind.

        2. We have been listening to it for years. Indeed I often go to sleep with the radio on

    2. At the 1994 Proms, the Berlin Phil with Claudio Abbado performed Mahler’s 9th. The delay at the end – and the last movement dies out to nothing – lasted almost 30 seconds. I was listening on the radio and thought the transmission had failed.

      They returned to the UK the following year and repeated the performance at the Royal Festival Hall. I was there and what a privilege it was.

  21. Ref the druggie running chap – I wonder how many other “meddle-winners” will have to send the gong back when their tests results are through….

  22. I got an e-mail yesterday headed “What your Driveway has been waiting for” It was from Hive, a part of Centrica.
    It was an offer to install a 7.4 KW EV charger by a British Gas engineer!
    There is a 3 year warranty and a £350 OZEV government grant.
    British Gas have obviously surrendered to the Government’s disastrous climate policies and if the dictatorial, deluded PM gets charge of the National Grid’s power to distribute electricity we are in for a gloomy future.
    I have no interest in this offer.

      1. That’s where my diesel car is parked Storm.
        I will be 96 in 2035 so I won’t be needing a car then if still alive.

    2. I don’t know. It’d mean a complete revamp of your energy supply. I think you have to be converted to three phase or something clever.

      However when there is not enough energy being produced, what’s the point of the charger?

    3. Might make the house more saleable in the future. And be good for when friends come to visit.

  23. Another, “That’s The Way To Do It”

    A little old couple in their eighties was sitting on the couch watching the Playboy Channel.

    He looked at her and asked, “Do you think we can still do that?”

    “Well, we can sure try!” she answered.

    So they shuffled off to the bedroom. He went into the bathroom to get ready and she took off all her clothes in the bedroom.

    When he came out of the bathroom, he saw her standing on her head in the middle of the bedroom floor.

    “What are you doing, sweetheart?” he asked.

    “Well,” she replied, “I thought if you couldn’t get it up, maybe you could just drop it in!”

  24. Al-Qaeda will ‘probably’ come back as Taliban builds momentum, warns Defence Secretary. 13 August 2021.

    Ben Wallace this morning confirmed that Kandahar and Lashkar Gah “are pretty much in the hands of the Taliban as we speak”.

    He said the Taliban had built “momentum” after agreeing the “rotten deal” with Donald Trump’s White House that paved the way for US troops to withdraw, and with them British soldiers.

    So it had nothing to do with Joe Biden giving the order to pull out?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/08/13/al-qaeda-will-probably-come-back-taliban-builds-momentum-warns/

    1. Dozens of our troops are being sent to Afghanistan to protect UK citizens who have been advised to leave the country. A re-run of the Vietnam retreat?

    2. No nothing at all, remember Orange man bad.
      Now just sit back and wait for Wallace to lead by example and fly over to Afghanistan with our troops and negotiate a better deal than President Trump and his advisers managed, or not as the case may be.

      1. I think I suggested that a few days ago, but just on his own, leaving the troops behind, and just using logic and his powers of persuasion.
        I’ve also suggested that we would have more influence over the Afghans and a more calming influence if we guaranteed to buy the entirety of their annual opium production. It would be cheaper than fighting a war. I’m willing to take my share.

  25. Good morning all.
    With an hour to kill before the Hall & Woodhouse Brewery Shop opens, I’m sat in a Blandford Forum cafe with a cup of tea and using their internet!

    I’m enjoying my break in the Stealth Camper and feeling a darn sight more relaxed & less stressed than when I left home. A bit of a bugger on Tuesday however when, after planning to overnight in one of the New Forest picnic area, I was told not to bother as the Forestry Commission are VERY keen on moving people on in the small hours!
    Apparently it is because a certain “community” would be invading them willy-nilly if allowed.

    Planning to meander up to via Chepstow and up the Wye Valley to get home either tomorrow or Sunday evening.

    Have fun all.

    2. Lucky you – hope you have your mask on…!

      I asked you for the name of the live rail movement website that you revealed a few years back. Can you recall it?

      1. Heyup Bill.
        Real Time Trains was the one I used when I was working, but I can’t remember what the site was that had the map with the live rail movements on it.

      2. I remember that! It was in reply to my question about seeing Deutsche Bahn goods trains go through York station. Probably way back in my old account. Will see if I can find it later.

          1. It actually didn’t take long to scroll through my profile Bill but that’s because there are large chunks missing – so no luck I’m afraid!

    3. I quite often walk Mongo very early. At dawn, just as first light is creeping through. You often get ground fog, those first bars of light so fragile and seeming so solid, the clean smell of sap, mulch, mold, dry leaves. You see squirrels heading home, teenage Hedgehogs (heading home after a night clubbing), even the birds are muted as if they’re enjoying the peace.

      And then it’s shattered by litter, crisps and a fag packet, or a pasty and a fag packet, or an energy drink or beer can. If we could excise the people who consume this stuff the country would be better.

    4. I visited the Hall & Woodhouse brewery a few years ago when I was in my share club, we use to do a lot of that. Weekends at Breweries.

  26. 336766+ up ticks,

    Trans Non-Binary’ Co-Founder of Extinction Rebellion Running for Leader of Green Party

    Weeping nitro Batman.

    1. The mentally ill running from the pointless to the irrelevant.

      People who vote Green are a bit thick.

        1. That is very kind, but the bard is so far beyond my ranting missives as to be on Mars.

  27. The Berlin spy, David Smith in his 60s, was once a junior airman in the Royal Air Force. Daily Telegraph.

  29. 336766= up ticks,
    How about a large contingent of MPs making the trip to show allegiance
    regarding the herd ?

    Didn’t the poof one use to go abroad to encourage / entice more cheap labour to head for GB.
    Dt,
    Hundreds of paratroopers sent on rescue mission to bring Britons home from Afghanistan

  30. Another fine serviceman leaves us, and rather too early:

    Commander John Muxworthy, naval supply officer who helped equip the liner Canberra for the Falklands War and campaigned for the UK’s defence capability – obituary

    Muxworthy believed in British exceptionalism and his views were described as ‘full of energy but rather light on subtlety’

    By
    Telegraph Obituaries
    13 August 2021 • 7:04am

    Commander John Muxworthy, who has died aged 79, was logistics officer of Naval Party 1710 embarked in SS Canberra during the Falklands War and later founded the influential UK National Defence Association.

    His frustration over the underfunding of the Armed Forces, particularly the Royal Navy, led him in 2007 to set up the UK National Defence Association, of which he was the guiding light for nine years: “It would not have happened without him,” said the Conservative MP Colonel Bob Stewart.

    Muxworthy dedicated himself to highlighting the dangers of a steady deterioration of British defence capability; not burdened with years in Whitehall, he formed his views from the heart rather than any sophisticated analysis. He successfully recruited senior officers and politicians of all clothes to support him in a campaign which was initially non-partisan; he published discussion papers and commentaries, hosted press conferences and made a considerable impact. He informed, for example, editorials in The Daily Telegraph, and he contributed to The Guardian.

    His fringe meetings at the Tory and Ukip party conferences drew large attendances and lively discussions. His themes were the risks of not investing in a new generation of aircraft carriers and of “brutal defence cuts that have left Britain dangerously vulnerable”.

    Muxworthy believed in British exceptionalism and his views were described as “full of energy but rather light on subtlety”, but as these became more single-Service and pro-Brexit, this led to the breaking away of two groups, one called Defence Synergia and the other a collection of senior retired officers, who wrote more succinctly.

    Muxworthy’s legacy lives on in the organisation now known as Defence UK, which argues for “a strong and well-resourced Royal Navy, Army and Royal Air Force, to ensure the security of the United Kingdom, her sovereign territories, trade and commerce, and to protect her citizens wherever they may be”.

    John Lionel Muxworthy was born in London on June 2 1942, but brought up in Wakefield, where his father was works manager of the Slazenger factory, and where he won a choral scholarship to Queen Elizabeth Grammar School.

    Young Muxworthy only ever wanted to go to sea, and in 1960 entered the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. Specialising in logistics (“pusser” in naval parlance), he served in HM Ships Venus, Lion, Dundas, Kent, Centaur, Victorious, Sirius, Lincoln, and Apollo.

    He was awarded the Pingat Jasa Malaysia by the Malaysian government for his services during the confrontation with Indonesia in the 1960s, and a Philippine Presidential Unit Citation Badge for disaster relief work in 1972 while serving in the frigate Lincoln. Over the winter of 1973/74 he was the Supply Officer of Apollo during one of the Cod Wars.

    In 1982 Muxworthy was appointed supply officer on Naval Party 1710 which embarked in P&O’s cruise ship Canberra on April 7 at Southampton to help turn her into a troopship. Over the next 13 weeks, assisted by 11 naval cooks, he prepared to feed 2,100 troops for an unspecified length of time and also ensured a constant flow of beer: two cans per man per day.

    By the end of the war Canberra had served 646,847 meals, including 27,848 for 4,144 Argentine PoWs and nearly half a million cans of beer. He compiled The Great White Whale Goes to War (1982), which told the day-by-day story of Canberra’s war, illustrated with a unique set of photographs and charts.

    Muxworthy was a capable artist in watercolour and oil, whose remarkable painting of Canberra in San Carlos Water, called Freedom’s Dawn, was signed by Lady Thatcher and Admiral Fieldhouse. In 2017 he published an autobiography, From Pusser to Painter.

    John Muxworthy married first, in 1964, Jean Donaldson; and secondly, in 1978, Angela Smith, a Wren weapons analyst who rose to become a captain in the Navy. She survives him, with a daughter of the first marriage.

    Commander John Muxworthy, born June 2 1942, died July 23 2021

    1. It would be great if ALL their items were unavailable for, say, twelve months. The hoi polloi might learn how to eat properly.

          1. Strictly speaking hoi translates as “the”, so no need for the “The” before hoi polloi.

            I accept that most people do write it as “the hoi polloi”

  32. As I mentioned yesterday morning, three of us had a scheduled Big Day Out at the Lord’s Test yesterday, mask and Covid free….except that Naggers called in sick. None of us had been to a Test match in a dozen or more years. The ground was looking spectacular. Scoreboards much more informative than years past…BUT irrelevant and unwarranted ‘drinks breaks’ interruptions to allow for the sponsoring advertisers to flog their wears. Nags was flat on her back in Wiltshire with a severe injury and watching proceedings on the telly which didn’t deter our mutual friend from sending her a text *We have eaten your lunch and it and the Pinot Grigio were really good* – good taste prevents me from publishing Naggers’ reply.

    I cannot pretend to be knowledgeable but, as a Captain, Joe Root is a dwarf brained idiot. Before lunch he had Jimmy A bowling into the wind at half pace replaced by Sam Curran who was doing nothing with the ball and spilling 5+ an over. From 200 yards away and 400ft above, it was immediately obvious that Root’s wasted futile LBW referral was going over by miles.

    Nevertheless it was a great day out for us oldies from dawn until dusk and deserving of repetition. The only obnoxious behaviour emanated from ‘whities’, some of them predictable louts but many ‘beered up public school types’ – plenty of India supporters quaffing their pints with jocular good spirits. And everybody BUT EVERYBODY applauding good shots and good fielding

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/methode%2Ftimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2F6f48880a-fb8b-11eb-9159-7b055c2a95bb.jpg?crop=2711%2C1807%2C614%2C207&resize=1027.5

      2. You silly little fusspot.

        How do you expect me to know?

        Had you ever met Naggers or our mutual friend, you would realise that there is only one acceptably fashionable time to arrive which is ‘Late’ in order to make an entrance to adequate effect.

        Hence there is no possible way we might know if anyone kneeled. But I can swear to God that Nags nor our friend never did, nor ever will, kneel – not even to you!

        1. Late? No. One is early.

          My mother is habitually late. It’s the rudest thing imaginable. It’s embarrassing. You’re saying you’re more important than others. The wife hates this approach as we often stand about in a giant ballroom as we’ve arrived at 7pm while everyone else rocks up at 9 or 10.

          She’s taken to fudging the invitations.

          1. Agreed, Wibbles, I’ve always worked on the basis that I’d rather be an hour early than a minute late.

    2. glad you enjoyed the day. Sunak was taking a freebie in GP Morgan seats I think. Root had to bowl first as he simply didn’t trust his own batting line up to fire, and expected with cloud cover to get early wickets, which when failed, as usual no Plan B other than Taliban Ali propping up one end. As you say Root had bowlers on at wrong end [and Curran isn’t test standard, whatever colour of fake hair he has]. LBW referral was down to Iron Gloves Buttler even when Bairstow [3rd slip] disagreed from outset. Anderson and Robinson [lunch-tea session bowled well]. If weather holds expect England to be hammered. The Atherton interview with Harrison was good, nice to see Harrison wobbling in his own “bio secure bubble” feelling uncomfortable. Might be of interest https://beingoutsidecricket.com/2021/08/12/england-vs-india-2nd-test-day-1-i-sit-there-staring-and-theres-nothing-else-to-do/

      1. “…expected with cloud cover to get early wickets…”

        Wrong kind of humidity…

  34. Scotland will let pupils change gender aged FOUR without their parents’ consent – and tells teachers not to question a child’s request to choose a new name or use a different toilet
    The Scottish government says school children aged four can change gender
    Young pupils wishing to switch gender must be supported and listened to

    By MICHAEL BLACKLEY FOR THE DAILY MAIL : https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9888899/Scotland-let-pupils-aged-FOUR-change-gender.html#comments

    Is this a joke or is it true?

    Here is a picture of the Scottish education secretary.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c16eec9d7a90c81366dab1dcc1363de8f875fd0e3e6f09811236d1a331c09d6a.jpg

    2. Children cannot take medication at school without parents’ consent – but they can change sex. Wonderful – thanks Mrs Murrell.

      1. Children can be put on birth control measures and abortions can be arranged without parental knowledge.

      2. Children can be put on birth control measures and abortions can be arranged without parental knowledge.

    3. Scotland has some of the worst academic outcomes in the UK. She has more important things to do than such perversion.

    4. I can see trouble ahead

      Tom is a lad and declares himself Male

      Judy is a girl and declares herself Female

      The system will calll them perverts

    5. I can see trouble ahead

      Tom is a lad and declares himself Male

      Judy is a girl and declares herself Female

      The sysytem will calll them perverts

    6. Maybe. Here the three documents just published. There are no age ranges or limits indicated. Wierdos are to be treated as “normalised” and this message is being pushed to schoolchildren. The top one,”guidance” seems to be a handbook for perverted manipulation of children.

      https://www.gov.scot/publications/supporting-transgender-young-people-schools-guidance-scottish-schools/
      https://www.gov.scot/publications/supporting-transgender-young-people-schools-childrens-rights-wellbeing-impact-assessment/
      https://www.gov.scot/publications/supporting-transgender-young-people-schools-equality-impact-assessment/pages/3/

      1. “This guidance reflects the Equality Act 2010 duties on education providers with advice, based upon the Getting it Right for Every Child approach, on the practical application of those duties in a school setting. I am confident this guidance does so in a way that will help schools meet the needs of all of their pupils including girls and transgender pupils.”

        That sounds odd all on its own.

        https://www.gov.scot/publications/supporting-transgender-young-people-schools-guidance-scottish-schools/

    1. Ah. The docs were thinking of the amount of work they’d have to do to help him – a worse outcome for them. That he died is irrelevant.

    2. 336766+ up ticks,
      Morning KtK,
      Maybe looked at as a missed rhetorical opportunity to draw & quarter him.

    4. Yes, I posted this story last night. Priceless, isn’t it? Turns out he was in very poor health pre-Covid anyway but his daughter says that he would have suffered more if he hadn’t been double jabbed. Insanity.

      1. 336766+ up ticks,
        Morning HP,
        But one was NEVER sought after in the polling booth these last three decades.

    2. Yesterday the LGBT lot were on the radio wanting the football in Qatar sopped next year, because being gay is illegal there. So they want to control the whole world now? As bad as having a Caliphate.

  39. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9890209/I-Terminator-Rambling-videos-fat-ugly-virgin-23-went-rampage-Plymouth.html

    With all the metoo, the lazy rape allegations, the egotistical indulgence of the mentally ill, the continued massive import of illegal immigrants, the state’s revenge over Brexit, the labelling, the arrogance and stupidity of the modern ‘soshul meeja’ folk like this are inevitable.

    A true mentally ill lone wolf. A man driven to breaking point by a society that hates him, but demands he continue in his servitude for those who hate him to thrive.

    When Muslims are excused by the press using that same moniker, it insults every bloke like this one who needed the masculine society to support him. The warqueen pointed me to this and said – ‘that could easily be you’. Worryingly, she’s right. I remember watching Falling Down with Michael Douglas and realising how easily the frustrations and suffering of everyday life – sitting in a traffic jam in 32’c heat, the 16 sets of traffic lights in less than a mile. The mile long traffic jam as people don’t obey the rules of only entering a junction if you can exit *because you CAN’T* as if you do, someone forces their way past you and you never get home regardless.

    I’ve become a bitter, grumpy troll, lectured and hectored by an arrogant state, ignored, derided and insulted by a mob of Left wing hate mongers on twitter, my culture nobbled, the escapism of cartoons, films, comics abused to tell me how to think – they don’t, Mags Visaggio, you nutcase weirdo. As the mob crow at their success poisoning the well they ignore that we’ve all the money and don’t pay for it once they ruin it.

    I’m tired of it. This bloke needed a boxing lesson, or a smelly, sweaty gym, or a pub selling warm beer and to be celebrated as a normal chap trying to make his way in the world. He went nuts because the world is back to front. Everything is back to front.

    As heinous as his crime was, ‘there but for the grace of Mongo (as he’s kept me sane more than any faith) go I.

        1. Ah. I know what you mean. My late hound kept me sort of sanish when I was very badly depressed.

    2. There seems little doubt that mass psychosis is being engendered by the constant fearmongering and propaganda. The wise course is to avoid as much of the MSM as possible.

      1. Yes, but that’s just the publicist. It seems the entirety of society, perhaps culture? is focussed on destroying people – of course, it will inevitably destroy itself.

    1. Of course they’ll come. Think of what they get even for a payment of £5k to the traffickers. Once here, EVERYTHING they get is paid for by us. They don’t even have to pay traffickers to get the rest of their families here.
      Male gets here, ensures he stays by committing a crime that bad he can claim he’ll be persecuted if sent back ( WE pay the lawyer who gets him the “right ” to stay here), then in goes the claim for “Right to family life” – bingo – whole family can legally come with hands out and a massive smile. Once here – ALL on the taxpayer. No work, free cash, free healthcare, free everything. Of course they’ll come – until the rest of the world is empty.
      Then the “woke” who want open borders – may realise the meaning of ” Be careful what you wish for “.

        1. Thinking of? Our extermination. – remember, for each one that gets here there is about another ten of the family waiting to get here by “Right to family life”. – right to THEIR family life – but obviously not ours.

    1. Aided and abetted and weaponised by Pakistan. Using UK Foreign aid money. What goes around come around eh !

    3. I asked my wife, “Where do you want to go for our anniversary?” She said, “Somewhere I have never been!” I told her, “How about the kitchen?”
      With thanks to the late & great Henny Youngman

    4. I am clearly missing something here. I first thought she was happy walking into her new whitey taxpayer funded house. – but the kitchen clearly shows otherwise.

    1. If they really wanted to get rid of the Islamic terrorists they should have carpet bombed Pakistan and Yemen.

      Afghanistan was always been about Oil and Pipelines.

    2. “We can hardly bomb the entire Islamic world! ”

      But it would be fun to try – their Air Forces, subsidised by us, are crap.

  44. The daft bint who promotes the idea that 4 year olds can decide to change sex without parental consent, has TWO CHILDREN.

    Time for social services to take them into care, I’d say.

    6. That is the Common Tailorbird Orthotomus sutorius from tropical Asia, of which there are nine subspecies.

        1. Also the courier is supposed to record a time of “failed delivery” and a lot of houses have video recording. If the courier was clearly NOT there at the time they claim they were, then they have them.
          I had a failed delivery note shoved through the letterbox one day – but my neighbour told me he’d seen the man write the note , jump out, run down the path and drive off. NO attempt to knock on the door at all. I had to drive to collect the item, to which I blew up at the manager who was clearly trying to say his driver did NOT lie. I heard later the process of failed delivery notes escalated once it got to 3pm and the driver wanted to get back home. Stuff the customer.

    2. The Northern Ireland depot is where parcels get sent when they can’t identify the sender or the recipient according to Royal Mail. Everything i have ever ordered comes with a delivery note identifying the sender with a code identifying the purchasing account. So i think RM are just saying their best hopes.

      I have had several delivery companies say a parcel was delivered when it wasn’t. Hermes, Yodel and Royal Mail being the worst.

      This year i sent a parcel as a birthday present by Royal Mail. It didn’t get delivered and tracking showed this. As it wasn’t a cheap item i had taken out insurance. They eventually refunded me the £100. Two weeks later the parcel was delivered by another courier.

      I felt zero compunction to return the money.

    3. ‘Twas all on ‘Rip-Off Britain” last evening amid much oohing and aahing but the BBC failed to take Royal Mail to task about it, or even threaten to have the ‘Royal’ part of their title removed – they’re just a branch of DHL.

  53. Plymouth gunman was 22-year-old virgin D Fail

    There had to be a reason why the BBC was reluctant to reveal his name – he was a woofter… and a failed woofter at that.

    1. Nah, he was a virgin ‘incel’, peed off at the world because he couldn’t get a girlfriend.

      1. I wonder is he ever actually asked a girl out.

        Good afternoon Stormie. Any plans for your time off for good behaviour?

        2. I’m getting lots done around the house – clearing out cupboards etc. I’m also having the back garden turfed today.
          Off to Welsh Wales for three days next week.

    2. He was an ‘Incel’ – ‘involuntary celibate’ and those referring to themselves as such believe their unattractiveness to women is predetermined by his genetics. Even his gay mates didn’t fancy him either.

    4. He might have had better luck wiv da laydees if he had combed his hair and trimmed his beard.

  54. Continuing from yesterday’s jokule,

    I got stopped this morning by a man doing a street survey. He asked me what I know about midgets. “Very little”, I said.

    4. It all started with the MiG-9 in 1946 and they have continued design & production of many different models right up to the MiG-35.

    2. That should be shown all over Calais – – that should put a lot off if we tell them, next year this becomes compulsory.

  56. Will the Taliban take over Afghanistan? 13 August 2021.

    It is a triumph for the Taliban, and a humiliation for the West.

    Over-night on Friday the Afghan islamist group captured Kandahar, the second largest city in Afghanistan, in the latest triumph in a seemingly unstoppable offensive.

    They have now captured more than a dozen provincial capitals in a week, putting them on the verge of reclaiming complete control of Afghanistan by next month’s 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

    It is a self-inflicted humiliation by a Political Class that understands nothing beyond its Cultural Marxist boundaries. Patriotism. Religious belief. Personal Independence. All these are beyond the understanding of Western Leaders.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/08/13/will-taliban-take-afghanistan-know-far/

    1. Are they not conflating the Taliban Warlords with Al Qaeda. They may have joined forces now but i don’t believe they were a ‘thing’ then.

      Good afternoon, Minty.

      1. Afternoon Phizzee. Of course they are. This is much ado about nothing. The Taliban pose no threat to the UK!

  57. And the beeb presenter, on about Climate Change says . .. .Code Red? – – that means its serious doesn’t it !!!!

    1. They have jumped the gun. What about when they wish to report even more serious topics? Code Red+1 ?

      2. My box had a secretary (no, not in that way….) who, when he was away, used to set his in tray in piles of precedence sorted under the colour code of eau de nil, pink, red, crimson, volcanic larva red.

    2. Building the fear for a ‘Climate Lockdown’? Is the steam power driving the “virus” lockdown idea losing pressure? Only so many scariants can be deployed before even the most incontinent bedwetters begin to smell a rat, or is that stench…

      IMHO the two scams are intrinsically linked simply because Johnson’s plans for Net Zero are unworkable without a controlled compliant population in place.

  58. Welcome to the Free Speech Union’s weekly newsletter. This newsletter is a brief round-up of the free speech news of the week.

    The publishing purges

    Kate Clanchy has been forced to rewrite her Orwell Prize-winning book, Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me, on the grounds that it features “racial tropes”, e.g. describing a child of colour as having “almond eyes”. After a social media storm, she apologised and said she was “grateful” to those who’d attacked her for showing her the error of her ways. The publisher has also apologised for “the hurt we have caused” and thanked the book’s critics. The Orwell Foundation has said it acknowledges the “concerns and hurt expressed” about the book, which it lauded just a year ago. Anthony Brett tells the full story of the “ugliest cancellation in recent history” in the Telegraph – and it seems to be metastasizing. Philip Pullman, author of His Dark Materials, has been condemned by the Society of Authors, of which he is President, after he came to Clanchy’s defence and compared her critics to members of the Taliban. The Society has issued a statement telling its members “to be mindful of their privilege”. Our General Secretary, Toby Young, was interviewed about the controversy for talkRADIO.

    Sarah Ditum has written an article for the Times about the battle between ideological purity and literature and concluded that purity is winning. Tom Slater says in the Spectator that what has happened to Clanchy is “faintly Stalinist, with a grovelling apology following the howling denunciation”.

    Meanwhile, Mills & Boon has asked its authors to write novels with more socially progressive heroes, says FSU Advisory Council member Allison Pearson in the Telegraph, while Ben Lawrence makes a plea in the Telegraph to keep the cancel culture mob away from musicals.

    £1 million of taxpayers’ money for Stonewall

    At least £1 million of taxpayers’ money has been given to Stonewall for its “advice” on diversity. Three hundred and twenty-seven public bodies from Homes England to the House of Commons have handed over cash to Stonewall, largely through its Diversity Champions scheme, despite its legal guidance on trans issues being “erroneous” and “incorrect”, according to equalities barrister Akua Reindorf. James Roberts of the TaxPayers’ Alliance describes “firms [falling] over themselves to display their virtue online while hiring expensive consultants to tell their own staff they are bad people” with needless woke training programmes. Why is taxpayers’ money being used in this way, asks trans journalist Debbie Hayton in UnHerd.

    The University of Essex has apologised for the apology it issued after no-platforming two feminist academics, Jo Phoenix and Rosa Freedman. Having initially admitted to making a mistake, the Vice Chancellor has now apologised for a second time, saying that because the University apologised for the original incident during Pride month many of its students had been made to feel “unsafe”. Julie Bindel lambasts the flip-flopping Vice Chancellor in a piece for UnHerd, describing Essex University as an “example of what happens when institutions capitulate to extreme transgender ideology”.

    Michael Biggs has written a piece for the Critic about the case of an LSE Gender Studies student who gave a presentation, apparently well received, in which they fantasised about holding a knife to the throat of women who oppose transgender ideology.

    Culture war

    Patrick West has written in the Spectator about how free speech is now the exclusive preserve of the rich and powerful, but he is not making the usual argument that disadvantaged groups don’t have the same access to the public square. Rather, his point is that the old and wealthy are essentially uncancellable, but ordinary people on low or middle incomes are terrified of being targeted by woke outrage mobs.

    Peter Hitchens makes the same point in his Mail on Sunday column: “Huge areas of opinion are now closed off from discussion, for fear of cancellation, advertising boycotts, and generally being cast into the outer darkness. With gathering speed and completeness, a total revolution in thought and morals is taking hold of Western societies, just at the moment when they should be girding themselves against pressure to become more like China.” Jamie Bartlett has written about the spread of Chinese censorship in the West in UnHerd and the four distinct versions of the Internet that are starting to emerge: libertarian, corporatist, bureaucratic, and the Beijing authoritarian model. Also in UnHerd, Kat Rosenfield argues that the culture war isn’t a war between the Left and the Right, but, for the most part, a civil war on the Left which both sides will eventually lose – the Left will eat itself.

    The Ivy has withdrawn an advert for its new Asian restaurant in London after the video promoting the new brasserie offended social media users. The advert was criticised for featuring stereotypes of Asian peoples and cultures, e.g. men in sumo costumes, not to mention “cultural appropriation”. The word curry is also on borrowed time. According to a Californian food blogger, the term is rooted in colonialism. Our Deputy Research Director Emma Webb said: “If Californian food bloggers want to take on Essex blokes over curry, good luck to them.”

    Scottish police will undergo unconscious bias training, under new plans to improve relations between football fans and the police.

    Vivek Ramaswamy has spoken to Janice Turner in the Times about woke corporations and their huge power to set the terms of debate and silence dissenters.

    Dennis Relojo-Howell has written for the Critic about how being a snowflake is bad for your mental health.

    Trans

    FSU member Rebekah Wershbale has written in the Glinner Update, Graham Linehan’s blog, about being branded a “transphobe” in official training material used by the Labour Party because she wore a t-shirt which said “woman: adult human female”.

    Mridul Wadhwa was born a man and now lives as a trans woman, and has since become the CEO of Edinburgh Rape Crisis. Wadhwa has said that some survivors of sexual violence are “fearful” about a trans-inclusive rape-crisis centre and may arrive with “misinformed” or “bigoted” views if they think transwomen pose a threat to their safety. Speaking on a podcast, Wadhwa argued that women seeking help after sexual assaults should “expect to be challenged on [their] prejudices”. Brendan O’Neill in Spiked is unimpressed: “It ought to go without saying that no woman who arrives at a rape-crisis centre should have her worldview interrogated. It shouldn’t matter if a woman holds cranky religious beliefs or weird conspiratorial political views. She should still absolutely have the right to access assistance following a sexual assault, without fearing that she will be challenged or reprimanded for what she thinks.”

    FSU Advisory Council member Zoe Strimpel has written in the Telegraph about the case of a Californian professor reduced to begging for forgiveness from medical students after he used the term “pregnant women” and explores how medics are no longer being taught about the ways some illnesses affect men and women differently. She cites an example from 2019 of a “transgender man” (born a woman) whose baby died after doctors treated abdominal pain as a medical issue, rather than identifying that the patient was pregnant and in labour. Strimpel writes: “Unlike America, we can still pull back from the brink, but we don’t have long.”

    Critical Race Theory

    Given the spread of Critical Race Theory through the British education system, it is worth reading this article in UnHerd by Joel Kotkin and Edward Heyman on the ideology’s obsession with “whiteness” and rewriting history. The situation in America is so extreme that an Atlanta school has begun segregating pupils by race and is now being sued by angry parents. The US Senate has voted to stop funding the teaching of CRT in American schools.

    Street preachers, Batley, and blasphemy

    We have written to the newly-elected Batley and Spen MP Kim Leadbeater about the Batley Grammar School case, urging her to support the teacher and his family, who are still in hiding. She replied saying the teacher and family were of “great importance to me both personally and as the MP for the area”. Both letters can be read on our blog.

    Ben Sixsmith asks in the Critic why the knife attack on FSU member Hatun Tash at Speakers’ Corner was barely covered in the media. Hatun has given an interview to the Spectator about her ordeal and spoken to Spiked about the “warzone” that is Speakers’ Corner.

    Street preacher Hazel Lewis has won a court case after she was accused of threatening and abusive behaviour. Following an 18-month legal battle, the judge concluded there was no case to answer. Lewis is now suing the Metropolitan Police.

    An eight-year-old Hindu boy in Pakistan has been charged with blasphemy and is reportedly being held in protective custody. Kunwar Khuldune Shahid has written about the case in the Spectator, pointing out that blasphemy laws are being used to target minorities of all kinds in Pakistan, under all sorts of bizarre pretexts: “Sending texts, sharing poetry, giving homework, producing films, making footballs, removing stickers and drinking water are some of the acts that have been deemed blasphemous in Pakistan. Even reading the Quran, performing Islamic rituals or calling yourself Muslim is sacrilegious if you belong to the Ahmadiyya sect, making Pakistan the only country where one can be imprisoned – or even sentenced to death – for practising Islam.”

    Legal updates

    Firefighter Paul Embery has achieved a sensational victory for free speech. He was sacked by the firefighters’ trade union he worked for because he spoke in favour of Brexit and won his case for unfair dismissal at the Employment Tribunal. Read his account of the saga in UnHerd.

    New disciplinary rules by the Bar Tribunal and Adjudication Service, banning racy jokes, among other things, have been criticised by barristers as virtue signalling.

    Sharing the Newsletter

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    Remember, all of our work depends on our members and donors. Sign-up today or encourage a friend to join and help us turn the tide against cancel culture and censorship.

    Best wishes,

    1. “Rather, his point is that the old and wealthy are essentially uncancellable, but ordinary people on low or middle incomes are terrified of being targeted by woke outrage mobs.”

      In other words, they couldn’t care a jot or tittle (read flying fuck) about the outrage of the woke mobs.

    2. “Meanwhile, Mills & Boon has asked its authors to write novels with more socially progressive heroes…”

      Particularly black males, beautifully proportioned, particularly in the genitalia and portrayed as deep thrusting men.

    3. I wish the howling, outraged, woke mobs would have a go at my Kindle edition of Not A Bad Life; it wouldn’t half boost sales!

      1. Thank you for the sequel, a few months ago now – I had wondered how you had arrived in Tasmania, and why. I enjoyed reading it.

          1. Yup. Tas seemed like the back of beyond. I am so pleased you have regained stability in your life.

          2. But, Mum, my daughter is there and it seemed the best option. Yes I do have stability and, at 77, the gallivanting has to be over.

          3. I shall be joining the ’77’ club tomorrow, and my global travels are over. Looking on the bright side, the memories will continue to linger on!!

          5. Oh, I do understand why you went, it was the best option, it is just that, not knowing very much about Tasmania and it never gets much of a mention except in school geography lessons, it does seem a very very long way away.

  59. I was talking to a French friend the other night and I asked him what is the French word for a ford, he replied ‘gay’. I said I know you are but we are talking about a river crossing. He gave me a scornful look and said” It’s gué, you idiot. Don’t you know nothing?

  60. Since Covid started I have had to give up hugging and kissing my friends when we meet. They are not happy about it… the females aren’t too pleased either.

  61. 336766+ up ticks,
    Makes one wonder what her life’s worth on one hand against ALL the run down business’s, bought up at rock bottom prices, ALL the extra franchises / brown envelopes, etc,etc, a great deal of wonga being creamed off.

    As she got on the train and headed to work, she was forced to ask herself the chilling question about the new coronavirus samples: “Could they have come from our lab?”

    Within days, Professor Zhengli became convinced the answer to that question was no – and she has since said she would “bet on her life” that the coronavirus which has caused such devastation globally, Sars-CoV-2, did not escape on her watch.

    Would it be a profitable venture if it was, via evil intentions, released ?

  63. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/cars/news/muslim-cab-driver-loses-legal-case-against-taxi-firm/ar-AANgbUk?ocid=msedgntp
    He wants to wear his culture when he goes to pray – but when he is employed by the taxi firm he still wants to wear what HE wamts – convenience ? – or trying to say HIS own rules come above the employers? We know the answer. Would he be happy with a surgeon operating on him while wearing greasy oily clothes after working on a car engine – and the surgeon just wanted to wear what HE wanted to wear.

      2. They are being encouraged by the UN to start huge movements of people into the West, yet again.

        Of course those moving will still bring Islam with them, pretending it’s sugar-coated and not real Islam.

      3. The UN plan for the UK population to be…..180,000,000 million by 2030…
        and I’ve seen that written on an official document…..

          1. If you know how to find the UN documents section on the computer
            it’s there I assure you….Maybe somebody knows how to find this stuff.
            But I’m useless on these machines…I hope you find it,if you know how
            to post it, give it a go….

          2. I had a search but this the best I can find, if one is prepared to wade through it.

            https://population.un.org/wpp/Publications/Files/WPP2019_Highlights.pdf

            Since India is expected to exceed the population of China sometime before 2050, the only solution for reducing the World Population seems to be a visitation from all four of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, War, Pestilence (disease) or Famine and I cannot find the visitation by the Fourth. Whatever, they need to come soon and start in Asia. Maybe Wuhan.

  65. Europe faces a self-inflicted moral implosion from mass migration disaster says Ayaan Hirsi Ali. 13 August 2021.

    Fear reigns among researchers, politicians and journalists when talking about the rise in sexual violence resulting from the migration crisis in Europe. Women’s rights activist and author Ayaan Hirsi Ali joins Steven Edginton to discuss the failure to integrate migrants into European society and the rise in sexual violence against women in this week’s Off Script podcast. Watch the full video above or listen on your podcast app.

    Too late. Europe is finished. If there is any satisfaction to be gained from it, it is that the Gays and Feminists who have supported it will receive their comeuppance when the Caliphate comes into being!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/europe-faces-self-inflicted-moral-implosion-mass-migration-disaster/

    1. I found it surprising they can’t see it. I wonder if they think that the placard saying ‘migrants welcome’ they posted on Twitter will save them.

      2. Put into your computer……Too Many White Christian Faces in Britain…..D.Cameron……

      3. I wonder if they think that the placard saying ‘migrants welcome’ they posted on Twitter will save them.

        1. Helping them didn’t save Elin Krantz from a horrible death. I have deliberately not posted a link as some the photos shown are of how her body was found. Do not blame me if you look at them. That is their version of gratitude – – he should have been cut – and thrown to sharks – and even that would be too good for the scum.

    2. SOOOOOOOO correct Araminta- – sometimes people have to crash to the bottom before they realise anything, A friends son was going off the rails a few years ago and I could see she was going to end up with a breakdown – so I eventually managed to get her to put herself first – and as he was old enough to be responsible – let him get on with it. She did – and it took him 3 years to eventually realise he was going to end up with a life in prison – or dead.. She now is much calmer, can see things clearer now and he is looking after himself.
      The idiots who want open borders WILL realise – one day – that they have ruined what this country was – and never will be again.

        1. Could? – – way past that sad too say.. I hope those who wanted it to happen have nightmares every time they shut their eyes.

    4. ‘ … to discuss the failure to integrate migrants into European society …’ They don’t want to integrate.

    3. It does make one wonder if those in Police custody should ALL have their heads shaved; not so much because of lice but more to do with recognition – we might even tattoo yellow stars on their heads.

      2. Problem there is that it could become a fashion, in which case they’d be lost in the multitude.

      3. It would be a fitting punishment.

        The way to deal with such people is not a jail sentence, but just flogging. Beat them fifty times a day for a month, then order them to repay the money, forbid them access to any form of welfare. Let them rot.

        1. I would not wish that on her, merely that the climate scientists are proven to be utterly wrong and that she lives to see it.
          She’s correct about pollution in general, but hasn’t thought through how polluting the greening will actually be.

          1. Agreed about the pollution, Sos, but it is mainly population pollution and that little twerp cannot/will not see it.

  68. 3 year old child and serving policeman found dead in house at Cairndhu Drive Kidderminster. Sky News

    1. Well, ok – what’s the link?

      Was the officer illed on the site by other attackers who also killed the child?

  70. Good late afternoon from a Saxon Queen with blooded axe and pursed longbow.

    I thought the sun was about to come out but its changed its mind.

    Shall be having fish and chips tonight for dinner, with lovely beer batter and big chips, mushy peas and lots of salt and vinegar . Not had that for nearly a year and looking forward to it .

    3. Also had Chish and Fips but without the horrendous mushy peas but with a delightful Chablis.

  71. That’s me gone – drinks shortly at soldier neighbour’s. Might even be able to sit outside.

    Exactly one year ago, I was on a trolley in A&E at Norfolk and Norwich UH. The MR did not expect she would see me again. Thanks to an efficient NHS consultant, who diagnosed my problem – I am still here. The fact that I am still waiting after five months for a check up appointment is another matter. Frankly I don’t care whether it happens or not. At the point when it mattered, medical people came up trumps.

    Great excitement tomorrow – Fakenham Parish Church is having the first jigsaw sale for two years. Need to stock up for the winter (and the next three lockdowns… Perhaps there’ll be a cat puzzle…{:¬))

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain

    2. I bet the ever wonderful MR is delighted that you didn’t go turnips, you miserable old Bu88er. It’s people the likes of youse wot keep the rest of us cheerful. Cats are a lot more devious and have a lot more foresight than you can ever imagine, mark my words Mr Thomas, Esquire. They will haunt you in the afterlife, not that you deserve one.

        1. You always find a phrase to lighten the mood,, don’t you Sos. Pembroke always produced miserable old codgers…at least in my time

          1. Education is what you have left when you have forgotten what you learned at school, satisfaction is what you get when you realise that being grumpy is natural and that Pembroke has honed it to perfection.

          3. And to think I resisted the temptation earlier on Araminta’s post:

            “There are none so blind as those that will not see Phizzee!”

            There are none so blind lucky as those that will not see Phizzee!

  72. Happy Friday to all!! I am hoping today will be the last day of this oppressive heat we have had all this week, currently at noon it is 35deg with 60% humidity. Some storms will help clear out later today, for more moderate weather for weekend, and family get together for tomorrow afternoon.

    1. Happy Friday Jill, its currently 31’C & 60% humidity by me in Tel Aviv at 19:35 PM locally, it was 34’C at midday & now that the Sabbath has begun its starting to get dark & hopefully it might drop a few degrees by the early hours of the morning . Its August the hotest month of the year here in Israel & can reach the 40’s here in Tel Aviv & its already over 40’C daily down south in Eilat https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1aefcc3c6e2eab7f18687f34979a5fd7e55a8f7f02b380e3954a6f345f9085c7.gif

  73. Donald Did a Done Deal in Doha:

    Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan
    between the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognized by the United States
    as a state and is known as the Taliban     and the United States of America
    February 29, 2020
    which corresponds to Rajab 5, 1441 on the Hijri Lunar calendar
    and Hoot 10, 1398 on the Hijri Solar calenda

    I think Ben Wallace blamed Trump in the BBC interview this morning for scoring five Ds in his negotiating skills with a party that he didn’t recognise.

    1. Did Benny have anything to say about the Gurkha hunger strikers on Boris’ doorstep? Thought not.

    1. I think the Home Office should sequestrate all property in Sandbanks to give the illegal immigrants a taste of what it is to live like rich people. They will soon learn what a shallow existence it is and run back home as fast as they can.

      Of course the property owners should be compensated. Say….a terraced house in Bradford….shared between 5 families.

    2. Asylum centres? – door in – 10 foot corridor – door out.. Coach to new house on new fully furnished estate. Car waiting on drive for them.

    4. It’s a distributed failed state. There are no records, no histories, just anarchy.

      The place is bonkers. It isn’t the courage of the people, it’s because there’s no government, no infrastructure, no shared bureaucracy. It’s like fighting a mob. You can defeat one bit, but the rest might run away but they’ll come back the next day.

      1. The magic word – infrastructure – when the country doesn’t have one – chaos. Once they get here – yippee – power, water, roads sewage etc etc. Look at the real life police programs – how many times you see young Asian immigrants racing round like loons? Don’t care if they kill any of us – they run off then group up on the police – they can’t even realise THEY will destroy what they enjoy here. Of course that will br OUR fault – because nothing is ever their fault. They hadn’t got the infrastructure back there – so go mad when get here.
        The rest is just as you say. They are a mob , pure and simple.

  78. Off topic;
    For those who remember him, Grantchester Meadows left Nottle for good, 4 years ago today.

    3. Do you know something we don’t? I remember pain and loss but later there was some discussion about the reality of it. No disrespect.

      1. I think he went a little off his head towards the end. He seemed to be living in a fantasy world.

        2. It was strange the way his posts changed over the latter part, as you say, almost as if it was fantasy.

          He collected a troll who seemed determined to undermine everything he posted. (Evilthatmendo?)

          2. I have no recollection of that poster at all.
            Evil was a screaming leftie who almost self-combusted over Brexit

          4. I will admit to trolling a guy called IgonikonJack.

            He was/is a yank who posted instructions every day on the DT opinion pieces, but always days after the opinion had been posted, on how the UK should be run.

            He was possibly one of the most deluded fantasists posting on the DT.

          5. A real weirdo who seemed to think that his badly written pieces were of Telegraph quality.

          7. I remember IgonikonJack!! His was the first name that I saw most, when I started reading the Telegraph letters, before the firewall went up

          11. Igon would chuck out 2000+ word essays that were all bizarre pseudo philosophy and dodgy economics.

          18. I’ve seen that nasty little man about. Spouts pro Labour guardianist drivel that needs hammering into the ground whereever her pops up.

            He doesn’t seem to know when he’s beaten, but hey, giving Lefties a written kicking with facts does the trick.

          19. I take it you are referring to Evil.

            He was a regular here in the run up and aftermath of Brexit

      2. He vanished from all forums and a few posts appeared from someone else regarding his death, the funeral and ash scattering.
        I’ve never noticed any posts similar to his. Another individual died at roughly the same time, Darkseid.

          1. Wow, memory central!
            That’s the one.
            I got the impression that she was genuinely upset.

      3. Indeed, I had a few suspicions some things did not quite ring true. Again, I mean no disrespect and as we both grew up in Birmingham, we had that in common.

      1. He also said he was in the SBS, and that his parents played a big part in the discovery of some secret weapon .. I don’t think it was the Manhatten project, but something similar.. and GM also spoke alot about Richard Feynman?

        He used to say that he used to come down to this area in Dorset diving off wrecks , and he also belonged to a potholing team in N Yorkshire ..

        Sounds as if the poor chap succumbed to cancer of the blood .. but what was fact and what was fiction ?

        1. Either way he was an interesting & friendly poster to all. The years have taken their toll of Nottlers , there are some I don’t miss like ” I’m in charge ” Jennifer the know it all supposed farm manager & others like GM who I do.

          2. Whilst I have several active accounts ( Elf, Sputnik & Ivan – which is semi active ) & several retired ones including Mahatmacoatmabag , as a rule I don’t change the Avatars of my ID’s – this is the one I used back on the Daily Telegraph between February 2013 to late 2015 when the DT stopped using Disqus ( you can see on my profile my Frequented Communities list still has the DT as the 4th most frequented place I’ve used this ID to post with over the years since Feb.2013 )

      1. He’s insulting a Yoruba.
        I’m assuming that he’s referring to a goat from the Igbo tribe.

          1. Are you sure they are not sheep?
            In the ME they are difficult tell apart and hence came the expression sorting the sheep from the goats.

          3. Lacking your first hand experience of living on a farm, I’ll defer to your knowledge of sheep-shagging and goat groping.
            };-O

          13. That’s definitely a goat. It looks just like my former colleague in Sweden. I used to refer to her as den gamla geten (the old goat)

  80. Excellent Prom tonight…

    Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.
    Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite

        1. The music was brilliant but I could have done without all the waffle to start with. That announcer spoke as though the audience were all 10 year olds.

        2. The music was brilliant but I could have done without the tedious preamble aimed at 10 year olds.

    1. The erasure of objective truth – that there are two genders: male and female. That men and women are different. That history must be learned from, not erased.

      This is why the Left are so destructive, so dangerous, so poisonous. They will bring about another war.

      It may ‘depend on me’ but when I resist, the state destroys my life. Thus, we have already lost. The solution is now conflict. The machinery of government – it’s lifeblood, our money; must be stopped, the chains broken. The tens of thousands of administrators, the throttling grip of dictatorial idiots masquerading as democratically elected members of parliament – who then take us to court to prove the document they were elected on junk – must be collared and chained and made to obey.

      1. 336766+ up ticks,
        G,
        The left / right for the last three decades have shown out as political chameleons the more apt tag currently is right / wrong when entering the polling booth.

        This political treachery has been in the construct for decades with the peoples consent.

        The peoples have been fighting a war within a war, vote for one party to keep out another, tactical vote to keep out a third whilst ALL three
        had the same odious agenda.

        ALL the while the electorate have been trying to out manoeuvre each other to win a poisoned chalice of power other forces were building, we are NOW witnessing that,in spades.

    2. Its more like 1939 again with this time a world war of Islamo-Fascist invasion, subversion & conquest by stealth in the West & and open wars of conquest in the Mid-East & regions of Asia.

    1. Am always upset when concurrent sentences are given. Make them serve the full whack.

      1. Particularly in cases like this one. That poor girl will never, ever, forget that bastard, and when he’s out it’s likely that she’ll still be under 30.

    2. He reminds me of someone.
      George Floyd?
      Perhaps protests at his conviction are called for, BLM.

    3. Hanging would be too good for him – give him to the Mothers, they will ensure that he suffers.

    1. If its on our local beeb one it should be a hell. Blatantly biased BS – with some of the worst actors in the galaxy. When tHe jabs started they had “callers” who were ecstatIcally praising how wonderful having the jab was !!! – – 3 couples – one after the other – AT FOUR IN THE MORNING ????

    2. And I bleedin’ need it. Rain hooshing down like the Victoria Falls out there…

    1. The ONLY solution is the amalgamation of ALL the current vote-splitting parties with a UNITED front against the current 2 party system.

      1. But the problem is, who of all the small parties will be the one “in charge”? They can barely agree amongst themselves in the ir own parties – witness a “Leader every five minutes” in UKIP not so long ago. And we all saw how many MPs they got elected.
        If they cannot agree amongst themselves, then how can they expect to get any meaningful votes?

        1. In many ways it would be best for a splinter group from one of the parties to merge with some of these minor parties and at least start out with a few seats in parliament.

          The small parties will never amount to anything nowadays because the established parties will go out of their way to squash them,

          1. That’s a good Idea, Richard. but which?
            Not Liberal
            Not Labour
            Not Conservative
            Not Green

            Who is left? Let me rephrase that – who remains?

        2. I’m not intending that UKIP should be included – they are now such a failure with a very suspect NEC that they can be discounted.

      2. 336766+ up ticks,
        Evening NtN,
        Was tried & denied, the take down of UKIP, yes I know here i am on about it ,again.
        But you see, or maybe not, the same thing is happening again all bases covered, same players.

        Sh!te or bust I am behind Anne Marie Waters, For Britain.

        1. Agreed Ogga but she, and For Britain, are just one among many – now is the time for true fascism – ‘together we are unbreakable‘

          1. 336766+ up ticks,
            NtN,
            In reality we only want one, people power was seen to work via UKIP & the four million votes.

            Then being awarded one MP, shows how the herd took that, they were only to pleased then the peoples eventually returned to the comfort of their own pro eu party, their actions really does put meaning to the Stockholm syndrome.

          2. Complete and utter BS – for all their membership and pontificating, how many seats in Westminster, did UKIP gain – I do believe it was ⅞ of ⅔ of eff all.

          3. 336766+ up ticks,
            NtN,
            Precisely, you still do NOT see the problem, think about it.

            UKIP was never the problem.

      3. 336766+ up ticks,
        NtN
        The current three party coalition is very well entrenched
        operating with the peoples consent the last three decades have shown us that.

        The last major vote splitting was via “nige” and was a pro
        johnson action.

    2. It vanished into legend when the first Black immigrants on the SS Windrush stepped ashore in 1947 and began fulfilling Labours plan for the ” Social Re-engineering ” of the UK into a 3rd world multi-racial quagmire began.

  86. Lockdown was based on faith, not evidence

    The narrow perspectives and experiences of decision-makers had an unprecedented effect on the worst-off

    Paul Dolan and Sunetra Gupta

    It appears that the scientific community is finally acknowledging that any infection-blocking properties of naturally-acquired or vaccine-induced immunity are incomplete and transient, while mercifully offering long-term protection against severe disease and death. This makes a myth of reaching herd immunity through vaccination alone. It also undermines the justification for vaccinating those at lower risk of dying from Covid-19.

    But it does not mean that herd immunity is itself a mirage. The term “herd immunity” has had a rough ride through the pandemic, so let us restore it to its original meaning. Herd immunity means that the level of immunity in the population is such that the virus hovers around R=1. We would, because of seasonality and the loss of immunity over time, continue to experience some waves of infection, as we do with many other pathogens, but with a smaller and acceptable death rate. The excellent vaccines we now have make our journey to this state of herd immunity much smoother as they offer focused protection to those who are most vulnerable, but to maintain this state we will need to rely on repeated natural infection of those not at risk of dying – as we do with several other pathogens.

    The success of vaccines was not guaranteed at the time when policy decisions had to be made about how to respond to the threat of the serious adverse effects of a novel coronavirus sweeping through a population with a significant fraction of elderly individuals and people with comorbidities. To appraise properly any policy decision, it is customary to determine who stands to win and lose, and by how much. The impacts of lockdowns in response to Covid should be no exception. Until last year, lockdowns had never been thought of as a viable response to a pandemic.

    Let us assume, however, that the “unprecedented” nature of Covid justified their implementation. Leaving to one side any attempt to quantify their harms for now, have they worked according to the rules they set for themselves in relation to suppressing virus transmission? The data are not yet available to answer this question definitively.

    As it currently stands, it looks like lockdowns had a small effect but, to some large extent, the path of the virus can be explained by “natural” factors such as the accumulation of herd immunity and seasonal differences in the transmissibility of the virus. Furthermore, while lockdowns may have protected some vulnerable people from exposure to the virus, they may also have placed them at increased risk of future exposure by preventing high levels of herd immunity from establishing broadly across the population.

    The profound costs of lockdown have been borne disproportionately by younger people, those with limited social support, those with mental health problems, and those in low-income groups with job insecurity. Some older people have benefitted from lockdown, but perhaps by not as much as would have been hoped for, and without ever inquiring into whether they preferred to be isolated from close family for so long. The most obvious beneficiaries of lockdown, at least insofar as the economic impacts are concerned, are those who can work from home on full pay – such as members of the government and advisory committees like Sage.

    There are serious ethical questions about these intergenerational transfers and policies that have served to widen economic inequalities. The public inquiry into Covid must be broad enough to consider the narrowness of the perspectives and experiences involved in making decisions that have had such an unprecedented effect on the economic and emotional wellbeing of the youngest and worst-off members of the population.

    The critical question, of course, is whether it would have been possible to reduce the mortality and morbidity risks to the vulnerable population at lower cost than lockdowns? Other options were available, such as focused protection, whereby those most at risk from the virus would have been afforded protection whilst those at low risk would be largely allowed to go about life as normal. But this was dismissed as callous without any evidence to support this claim.

    Decision making quickly became more faith based than evidence based. In response to case numbers in the UK falling, Professor Neil Ferguson recently said, “I’m quite happy to be wrong, if it’s wrong in the right direction.” This betrays a complete lack of insight into the welfare consequences of lockdowns. The mainstream advice has been to reduce transmission through lockdowns and if this is wrong, and if lockdowns cause more harm than good, then he is not only wrong, but wrong in the wrong direction so far as human welfare is concerned.

    The uncertainty surrounding Covid means that many of us will be shown to be wrong about many things. For our part, we’re quite happy to be wrong, if it then leads us in the right direction. Sadly, we suspect that we are going to be proved right that the cure of lockdown has been much more harmful than the disease of Covid.

    Paul Dolan is Professor of Behavioural Science at the LSE. Sunetra Gupta is Professor of Theoretical Epidemiology at Oxford University

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/08/13/lockdown-based-faith-not-evidence/

    1. Lockdowns were to clear the roads, with us under threat of arrest, court fine and life ruining criminal record – so they could bus all the replacements into their hotels overnight. Did you see anyone reporting seeing coachloads of foreigners being moved about? I certainly didn’t.

    1. sTRANGE – I thought it would be someone more culturally diverse – after all the mission is WoW – Wipe out Whitey.

    2. Will she be leaving Parliament & making very profitable career in people smuggling since she has done so much to facilitate it & circumvent the law.

    5. Why? It’s like arranging deck chairs. The problem is the state machine is deliberately hindering the proper prevention and removal of criminal immigrants to this country.

    7. Michael Gove is a very nasty and treacherous man in a a very nasty and treacherous government populated by very nasty and treacherous people.

      It was Gove who arrived in Brussels when it appeared that Fox was holding firm on Northern Ireland and British fishing waters. Two days later Johnson had capitulated giving us a catastrophic surrender trade deal with the EU when No deal and WTO terms was by far the more honourable solution.

  89. Good night all.

    An excellent supper…

    Fried fillet of S Pierre (aka John Dory – one of my fave fish), baby potatoes, asparagus. La Ola Grande 2020 (the Great Wave), an unusually good SB from Chile.
    The first time I had St Pierre was at a supper party hosted by my cousin–in-law in Geneva some 40+ years ago, the last time was 3 years ago on a Danube cruise through Austria; both venues a long way from the sea. Tonight’s fish was swimming in the sea around Cornwall only yesterday.
    Dolcelatte – the wine carried through successfully.
    A custard tart.
    Bitter chocolate with Armagnac Chateau de Tariquet XO.

          4. https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=john+dory&sxsrf=ALeKk02NFpBKTlRecoYhAvM-39L2CaexVw%3A1628629501874&source=hp&ei=_ekSYfaSM_6FhbIP74GC-Ag&iflsig=AINFCbYAAAAAYRL4DXWendO-_s1PgXscvEGP9Bb1oMy3&oq=john+dory&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAMyBAgjECcyBAgjECcyCAguEIAEELEDMgsILhCABBDHARCvATIICAAQgAQQyQMyCwguEIAEEMcBEK8BMgsILhCABBDHARCvATILCAAQgAQQsQMQgwEyBQgAEIAEMgsILhCABBDHARCvAToLCC4QxwEQrwEQkQI6BQguEJECOg4ILhCABBCxAxDHARCjAjoICAAQsQMQgwE6CAguELEDEIMBOgsILhCABBCxAxCDAToFCC4QgAQ6CAgAEIAEELEDUMYaWIw3YK9vaABwAHgAgAGvAYgBpQeSAQM2LjOYAQCgAQE&sclient=gws-wiz&ved=0ahUKEwi2hbbXrafyAhX-QkEAHe-AAI8Q4dUDCAk&uact=5

            https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=gilt+head+bream&sxsrf=ALeKk01Dgo7iFiGDRsxpBe1FI7YkPezfPQ%3A1628897822061&ei=HgIXYfaTA4PC8gKMoLioCw&oq=gilt+head+bream&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAMyCAguEJECEJMCMgUIABCRAjIFCAAQgAQyBQgAEIAEMgUIABCABDIFCAAQgAQyBQgAEIAEMgUIABCABDIFCAAQgAQyBQgAEIAEOgcIABBHELADOgcIABCwAxBDOg0ILhDIAxCwAxBDEJMCOgoILhDIAxCwAxBDOhAILhDHARCvARDIAxCwAxBDOgQIIxAnOgoILhCxAxCDARBDOgQIABBDOgsILhCABBDHARCvAToKCC4QxwEQrwEQQzoICAAQgAQQyQM6CwgAEIAEELEDEIMBOggIABCABBCxAzoLCC4QgAQQsQMQgwE6CAgAELEDEIMBOgQILhBDOhEILhCABBCxAxCDARDHARCjAjoICC4QsQMQgwE6BwgjEOoCECc6BwguEOoCECc6CggAELEDEIMBEEM6BQguEIAEOggILhCABBCxAzoHCC4QsQMQQzoHCAAQsQMQQ0oFCDgSATFKBAhBGABQx_gDWOTTBGCUiQVoAnACeACAAY4BiAGlD5IBBDIyLjKYAQCgAQGwAQrIAQ_AAQE&sclient=gws-wiz&ved=0ahUKEwj2mrygla_yAhUDoVwKHQwQDrUQ4dUDCA4&uact= .

          5. https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=john+dory&sxsrf=ALeKk02NFpBKTlRecoYhAvM-39L2CaexVw%3A1628629501874&source=hp&ei=_ekSYfaSM_6FhbIP74GC-Ag&iflsig=AINFCbYAAAAAYRL4DXWendO-_s1PgXscvEGP9Bb1oMy3&oq=john+dory&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAMyBAgjECcyBAgjECcyCAguEIAEELEDMgsILhCABBDHARCvATIICAAQgAQQyQMyCwguEIAEEMcBEK8BMgsILhCABBDHARCvATILCAAQgAQQsQMQgwEyBQgAEIAEMgsILhCABBDHARCvAToLCC4QxwEQrwEQkQI6BQguEJECOg4ILhCABBCxAxDHARCjAjoICAAQsQMQgwE6CAguELEDEIMBOgsILhCABBCxAxCDAToFCC4QgAQ6CAgAEIAEELEDUMYaWIw3YK9vaABwAHgAgAGvAYgBpQeSAQM2LjOYAQCgAQE&sclient=gws-wiz&ved=0ahUKEwi2hbbXrafyAhX-QkEAHe-AAI8Q4dUDCAk&uact=5

            https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=gilt+head+bream&sxsrf=ALeKk01Dgo7iFiGDRsxpBe1FI7YkPezfPQ%3A1628897822061&ei=HgIXYfaTA4PC8gKMoLioCw&oq=gilt+head+bream&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAMyCAguEJECEJMCMgUIABCRAjIFCAAQgAQyBQgAEIAEMgUIABCABDIFCAAQgAQyBQgAEIAEMgUIABCABDIFCAAQgAQyBQgAEIAEOgcIABBHELADOgcIABCwAxBDOg0ILhDIAxCwAxBDEJMCOgoILhDIAxCwAxBDOhAILhDHARCvARDIAxCwAxBDOgQIIxAnOgoILhCxAxCDARBDOgQIABBDOgsILhCABBDHARCvAToKCC4QxwEQrwEQQzoICAAQgAQQyQM6CwgAEIAEELEDEIMBOggIABCABBCxAzoLCC4QgAQQsQMQgwE6CAgAELEDEIMBOgQILhBDOhEILhCABBCxAxCDARDHARCjAjoICC4QsQMQgwE6BwgjEOoCECc6BwguEOoCECc6CggAELEDEIMBEEM6BQguEIAEOggILhCABBCxAzoHCC4QsQMQQzoHCAAQsQMQQ0oFCDgSATFKBAhBGABQx_gDWOTTBGCUiQVoAnACeACAAY4BiAGlD5IBBDIyLjKYAQCgAQGwAQrIAQ_AAQE&sclient=gws-wiz&ved=0ahUKEwj2mrygla_yAhUDoVwKHQwQDrUQ4dUDCA4&uact=5

    4. When we stayed in Viña del Mar (Chile), we would walk from the apartment along the prom of an evening for 20 minutes to our favourite fish restaurant (Tierra Feugo). Sometimes the sea was rough and whenever a wave crashed over the wall, we would dodge the spray & shriek “Ola Grande!”
      Happy memories.

  90. We need a Back to Normal taskforce to end this chaos

    The vaccines are working, yet still life is curtailed by pernickety rules and bureaucratic leviathans

    CAMILLA TOMINEY, ASSOCIATE EDITOR • 13 August 2021 • 8:00pm

    That there has barely been a Covid splash on the past fortnight’s front pages confirms a growing sense that the pandemic is fast becoming yesterday’s news.

    It is not just because we are in so-called “silly” season, or that the agenda has been taken up with exam results in recent days. As coronavirus modeller Philip Thomas, visiting professor at the University of Bristol, put it: “No matter what happens with policy on reopening, masks or vaccine passports for nightclubs, it seems likely that Covid patients will never again occupy more than five per cent of hospital beds. There is no longer a scenario – from Sage or anyone else – suggesting that hospitals will be overwhelmed.”

    Coming after Imperial’s resident Grim Reaper Professor Neil Ferguson suggested he was “positive” the pandemic will be mainly behind us by “September-October” time, the moment we have been waiting 18 months for appears to have finally arrived.

    On Tuesday, Professor Andrew Pollard, who led the Oxford vaccine team, called for an end to mass testing so that Britain can start to live with the virus. He told the all-party parliamentary group on coronavirus that since the Delta variant can still infect people who have been vaccinated, meaning there is no way of stopping the virus spreading through the entire population, monitoring people with mild symptoms is no longer helpful.

    Paul Hunter, a professor at the University of East Anglia, and an expert in infectious diseases, told the committee: “We need to start moving away from just reporting infections…to actually start reporting the number of people who are ill because of Covid.” Otherwise, he said, “we are going to be frightening ourselves with very high numbers that actually don’t translate into disease burden.”

    Of course, that is exactly what the Zero Covid pinkos want – for us to remain in a perpetual state of lockdown limbo, terrified by the threat of a “winter surge” or “fourth wave”. Which is why we cannot allow them to capitalise on the new pandemic of back-to-normal chaos now gripping Britain.

    As we prepare to return to the life we once had, everything appears to be in a bit of a pickle.

    The very people who are supposed to be digging us out of this mess are either not back in the office, or being tied up in red tape to return.

    We now learn that risk assessments have been ordered before civil servants can go back to their desks because not everyone has been vaccinated, raising the prospect of an ongoing limit on numbers. Thanks to the fuzziness of Government guidance advising employers to “remain responsive to workers’ needs” and “adopt practices that help to reduce the risks to individuals in the workplace,” many companies have no clear idea what to do.

    Meanwhile, the NHS is buckling under the strain of millions of untreated non-Covid patients, with waiting lists set to top 14 million.

    As far as I can tell, there remains no clear plan for schools, with Education Secretary Gavin “I-can’t-remember-what-I-got-in-my-A-Levels” Williamson seemingly unable to decide whether or not there should be exams next year. There also remains massive confusion about whether vaccine passports are simply a threat or about to become a reality, while anyone wanting to go on holiday is still having to pay for the exorbitant cost of tests as well as filling out more forms than Lionel Messi’s accountant.

    There is no plan either for fixing all the institutions that have failed us since March 2020 (if not before) – NHS England, Public Health England, the state schools that didn’t provide adequate online learning, all those agencies like the DVLA that shut up shop during the lockdown, leaving taxpayers high and dry.

    If you really think about it, the only body that proved an unparalleled success during the pandemic was the Vaccine Taskforce, lead by Dame Kate Bingham. This small working party of dedicated outsiders pulled in industry and scientific experts to expedite the search for the vaccines.

    Circumventing the glacial Whitehall pace by reporting directly to the Prime Minister, the taskforce took an enormous gamble on a portfolio of potential jab providers, signed contracts at record speed and made Britain one of the first countries in the world to begin a mass inoculation campaign.

    They bent the rules to get things done – and crucially put competitive rivalry aside to pour hundreds of millions of pounds of public money into domestic vaccine manufacturing capacity as well as committing £500 million to vaccination efforts in low income countries. Couldn’t we do with a bit of that same spirit now?

    While Boris Johnson might thrive on anarchy, apparently telling Dominic Cummings: “I’m quite happy to live with the chaos because then everyone will stick to the king – which is me,” the rest of us don’t.

    The Prime Minister would be wise to appoint a new, Post-Vaccine Normality Taskforce to help the country to return to normality as quickly and smoothly as possible.

    Again the team could be based with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and consist of a mix of civil servants, military, external secondees from industry, and contractors who could access the specialist expertise they need to get the UK back on track.

    It is frankly ludicrous that we are leading much of Europe on vaccines, but still have the most complicated travel rules. It is similarly counter-intuitive for us to now enter into an authoritarian two-tier vaccine passport system, not least when we have just witnessed the havoc it has wreaked in France.

    The last thing we need right now, having endured the biggest national crisis in peacetime – is to end up bogged down by regulatory officialdom, our initiative crushed and our normality curtailed by box-ticking leviathans and pernickety rule makers.

    We need a task force that can truly set us free – and finish the process the vaccination roll out started.

    Just don’t give the job to Dido Harding.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/08/13/need-back-normal-taskforce-end-chaos/

    1. We don’t half half a billion quid to spend on helping the third world. Why can’t it help itself? Why hasn’t it developed its own vaccines?

      On the one hand, these idiots blither about climate change – the biggest issue of which is over population yet here’s our idiots, making our debt ever bigger specifically to encourage overpopulation.

      For goodness sake. Nature was rebalancing. Now our cretins not only make our lives harder, they exacerbate the very problem they’re wasting trillions to pretend to solve!

          1. Not enough, Old Troop – we need about 650 stabbings in Westminster to be effective.

    2. I rather fear that Camilla Tominey et al are just kicking against the pricks and will not achieve a satisfactory outcome.

      Maybe we DO need Rivers of Blood before these pronks come to their senses.

    3. “finish the process the vaccination roll out started”
      Yes, that’s what I am scared of them doing! i.e. removing every last vestige of our liberty.

    1. One would like to know if he needs help in his blackest hour.

      Talk to us, Connors, you have a receptive audience.

      1. I’ve just looked in after a busy day dealing with the undertakers, sorting things out and letting people know what’s happened. I’ve registered the death and applied for the death certificate, after which I can deal with the bank and do the ‘tell us once’ notification. It hasn’t really sunk in yet, I don’t think. It’s no wonder the NHS is always demanding more money; I took back some unopened pills and they went in the bin. Ditto the unused and unopened cards of hearing aid batteries. What a waste.

        1. Good of you to keep us posted, Con. Don’t forget to “buy” extra (original, sic) copies of the death certificate. Hardly surprising that it’s not sunk in yet. Is there anyone around you can lean on at the moment. Wish we could be more help.

          1. Thank you, John. That’s a good tip. I emailed the details to the registrar because they don’t work weekends (quelle surprise!) and I didn’t get the contact details until late-ish on Friday, having been given the run-around by the surgery. I have had lots of offers of help, thank you. I’m taking my time, doing what’s necessary and leaving anything I don’t fancy which isn’t essential for another day. Friends have been ringing up to check I’m okay and I’ve been invited out to a meal tomorrow. I cut the lawns today and expended a lot of energy cursing the damned new Flymo as it kept on falling apart – shoddy, nasty and poor value for money! I’ll have to get my Qualcast push mower repaired – it did a much better job.

          2. Thanks, Con. Good to hear that there are those around you looking out for you. I’ll try not to badger you here!

  92. Boing!, Time for bed, Zebedee notwithstanding. Goodnight and God bless fellow NoTTLers – until Saturday’s morning light.

    1. Happy birthday, jillthelass. And a good night to all from me. I shall not be back here until Sunday morning since tomorrow is a very busy day.

    4. Happy Birthday ! My invitation to the party was obviously lost in the post !!!

      Have a lovely day. :@)

        1. Erm…I did actually get the invite but Dolly ate the postman. Didn’t want to cause a fuss. :@)

          Have some long cool drinks in the shade !

      2. Wishing you a very Happy Birthday, Jill! Have a good one and enjoy every moment! 🎉🍾🎂

    1. It is so lovely that when they want to get away to have a bit of time on a sandy beach they can just come and go as they please.

      Nice rockets. Think i’ll get some myself.

  95. Ave atque vale, amici. I have just popped in and read the notifications. What a wonderful lot of people you are; so supportive and kind. I’ve had a day of sorting out, dealing with bureaucracy, organising the funeral and returning equipment, medicine and what have you. I am sure I will feel more settled once the cremation has taken place and there can be closure. After 42 years it’s strange to be completely on my own (apart from Oscar le dieudonné). I have, after all, been married longer than I have been single.

    1. Our little NoTTL family certainly is full of goodwill, Con. Being alone – hmm;at least you have Oscar, thank God.

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